In another audio file Jeong tells Park that he "sent" the documents to Choi. When presented with the audio files, Jeong admitted the charges.

The audio file found on Jeong Ho-seong's mobile phone has Park telling him to pass the documents to Choi and find out what she thinks, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Prosecutors have found a recording of a phone call in which President Park Geun-hye orders a presidential secretary to show copies of a speech and other confidential Cheong Wa Dae documents to her friend Choi Soon-sil.

Jeong, a Park aide for nearly two decades, initially claimed that he did not know Choi and denied handing over documents to her. He apparently used the auto-record function on his phone to capture phone conversations with the president and Choi.

Prosecutors believe Jeong relied on the recordings because he often got calls late at night when he was half asleep and had to replay them to remember what had been said.

His job at Cheong Wa Dae was to screen all documents being sent to and from Park. A prosecution official said, "Jeong had so much work that he constantly suffered from a lack of sleep and developed a habit of recording phone calls from the president so that he wouldn't miss anything."

That meticulous habit ended up providing prosecutors with key evidence in linking both Jeong and the president to serious offenses.

Meanwhile, prosecutors on Wednesday raided the homes of two other Park's aides who have been working with her for nearly two decades.

Ahn Bong-geun and Lee Jae-man served as presidential secretaries for public relations and administrative affairs, and prosecutors plan to investigate them over similar allegations.
Over 100,000 people have shared a Facebook post from Michael Moore following Donald Trumps election in less than eight hours.

In it, the documentary filmmaker outlines a Morning After To-Do List. The five-point plan essentially calls for the deconstruction of the Democratic Party as it stands, the Democratic members of Congress to fight as hard against Republicans as they did against President Obama, the public to stop saying theyre shocked by this outcome, and for a dismantling of the Electoral College, the arcane system that meant Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the election.

The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, he wrote. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you dont. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason hes president is because of an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, well continue to have presidents we didnt elect and didnt want. 

Oh  and to fire all pundits, predictors, pollsters and anyone else in the media who refused to let go of the narrative that Trump wasnt a possibility. Fair enough.

Moore was one of the very, very few who predicted Trumps victory. In a blog post shortly after Trump secured the Republican nomination, he wrote:

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, cause youll be saying them for the next four years: PRESIDENT TRUMP.

In the end, Moore was proven right. He predicted that Trump would focus his efforts on the traditionally democratic states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that feel abandoned by Washington, and low-and-behold, three out of those four voted for Trump (Michigan is right now too close to call).

Heres what Moore says about what comes next:

Photo: Getty / Jemal Countess.
Well, here we are. Donald Trump is the president-elect of the United States, and Muslim American women are afraid to wear their hijab in public for fear theyll become the victim of hate crimes.

My mom literally just texted me dont wear the Hijab please and shes the most religious person in our family.  ? (@harryonmen) November 9, 2016

Trumps repeated Islamophobic comments throughout his campaign  including floating, then backing off, then bringing back a plan to halt all Muslim immigration, and then putting the onus on Muslim Americans to report terrorists, thereby peddling his conspiracy theory that they secretly know where the terrorists are  have caused Muslim Americans to feel unsafe within their own country.

In the week following Britains Brexit vote, reports of hate crimes rose by 58%. They eventually levelled out, but still remained at 14% higher than the previous year.

Muslim American women are now taking to Twitter to express their fear of wearing the hijab in public.

If you dont feel safe to wear hijab in your area, please reach out to a friend/have a call-buddy/dont walk alone whenever youre out.  Narjis Naqvi (@narjisfn) November 9, 2016

My mom and my sister are actually having the conversation on whether or not they should continue wearing hijab for their own safety  Sulaiman (@Mcbrownie) November 9, 2016

My Muslim student was sitting in class today with a hoodie over her hijab and when I realized this I had a hard time not crying on the spot  Sam[antha] (@superfluoussam) November 9, 2016

To all my Muslim sisters who wear hijab, regardless of the outcome please be safe. Walk in groups, carry mace/tasers. May Allah protect us.  halima (@halimahello) November 9, 2016

muslim women  if you feel the need to stop wearing your hijab due to fear of violence, then thats okay. allah will understand and forgive.  ? (@wingsmv) November 9, 2016

SIMILARLY  if you choose to continue wearing your hijab even after this mess, i admire THE FUCK out of you. i look up to you.  ? (@wingsmv) November 9, 2016

I used to only get please be safe texts when a national tragedy would strike and muslims were targeted, not when we got a new president.  kat (@whackkat) November 9, 2016

Im scared that today will be the last day I felt somewhat safe wearing my hijab. https://t.co/C29V7GGOXj  Blair Imani (@BlairImani) November 9, 2016

Guys, a trump supporter tried pulling off my hijab This is not a joke anymore, all non-whites have become targets. Stay safe ??  bye (@Palestixian) November 9, 2016

i see the same beautiful kid going to school every morning. today she isnt wearing her usual hijab. can u feel this.  Chynna (Rogers) (@MadeInChynna) November 9, 2016

Today, leaving my home with my hijab on will be the greatest act of bravery I have yet done. What a shame.  Sameena Hameed (@SameenaHameena) November 9, 2016

I am not going to take off my hijab, Im just going to tie it tighter.

Im not going to sacrifice a part of me to adhere to your ignorance.  kat (@whackkat) November 9, 2016

Photo: Getty / Robert Nickelsberg.
Good lord, there is just so much to unpack about yesterdays US Presidential election.

A wildcard candidate like Donald Trump ascending through the political ranks is unprecedented in America, and you better believe shell-shocked media types (read: us) will attempt to reconcile his improbable win with his obvious and damning shortcomings for the duration of his presidency.

Heres one take we feel will take centre stage: the cultural elite may have fundamentally overlooked the overwhelming sense of disenfranchisement many American voters feel  or, at the very least, the Democratic Party utterly failed to adequately address those concerns*. In turn, the voices railing against Trump may have actually worked to push those same voters away.

Its an angle thats definitely worth exploration, and pundit Steve Price brought it up last night on The Project. Its just a shame he managed to do it in a way that served to bolster the divide in public rhetoric about the whole deal.

During a conversation with Labor Party-affiliated commentator and Hillary Clinton supporter Jamila Rizvi, host Carrie Bickmore mentioned the demographic breakdown of Trumps female voters. The fact 53% of white women, 4% of black women, and 26% of Latino women voted Trump caught Prices attention, and before Rizvi could reply, he butted the hell in.



It shows you that people in real America, in small town America, werent buying the bulldust coming out of the elites, Price said.

Rizvi responded by saying can we cut this bullshit about the idea of there being a real America?

If you live in a city or in a small town, youre still an American.

This is why Donald Trump won. Because people like you lecture and heckle people, Price responded.

Cue some deserved tutting from the panel, and we have the issue reduced to a talk-show microcosm: rightly or wrongly (in this case, wrongly), elements of the right-wing feel ignored or demeaned, and overcompensate with some rudeness of their own. Or, as yesterday showed, a Donald Trump presidency.

Watch the segment below:

*Shoutouts to Bernie Sanders. Sorry, bro.

Source and photo: The Project / Twitter.
It has been a brutal 24 hours.

I had every possible live coverage outlet open on my computer. I watched the slow and steady disintegration of the universe as it became clearer that Donald Trump would, indeed, win the US election. I did all one can do to self-preserve.

By that, I mean I wept while listening to Justin Bieber. I drank maaaybe seven glasses of wine. I sang a Kate Bush song to a crowd of strangers. I ate a chicken bacon burger, even though I am a vegetarian.









Real talk: I kept waking up last night every hour or so thinking this was a depressing fever dream/nightmare, and I was confident that I needed to tap out of the media for a bit cause there was no way Id receive any good news.

In the end, I was proven wrong on both counts. This is certainly not a hallucination, and things can get better.

In the midst of all the madness, a few silver linings were revealed. While the presidency was secured firmly by Trump, there was an historic number of women elected across the country as governors, legislators, and Senate members.

What makes it all the more empowering is that many of these women are queer, or people of colour.

A neck and neck race in Nevada  where Republican candidate Joe Heck was expected to secure the seat  saw Catherine Cortez Masto pull ahead by a narrow margin. Cortez Masto is the first ever Latina woman to land a gig in the Senate.

Thank you to Nevada for electing me to represent you. I promise I will not stop fighting for what I think is right for this state & country. Im proud to be Nevadas first female and our nations first Latina senator. Its about time our government mirrors the diversity of our nation. A photo posted by Catherine Cortez Masto (@catherinecortezmastofornv) on Nov 9, 2016 at 5:37pm PST

In Oregon, Governor Kate Brown became the first openly queer person elected to serve by a US state. While Brown is married, she was outed as bisexual in the eighties. Outing someone against their will is obvs the worst thing to do ever, but Brown has come to see it as some manifestation of a blessing.

She said if I can be a role model for one young person that decides that their life is worth living because theres someone like them in the world, its worth it.

Ilhan Omar became the first Somali-American Muslim woman to serve as a legislator, strongly winning a House race in Minnesota. Omar is a refugee and feminist, and proud wearer of the hijab. Her victory will undoubtedly offer some light and strength to women of colour in a world that Trump has already begun to create.

At least @IlhanMN made us proud tonight ???? pic.twitter.com/n8naDKfF1u  Taylor Renae (@tayrayholla) November 9, 2016

In other good news, Governor Pat McRory  the face of HB2, AKA the trans people cannot use bathrooms bill, AKA the worst thing ever  was defeated by his Democratic rival, Roy Cooper. In classic Republican fashion, though, McRory is refusing to concede.

ALSO, recreational marijuana use has been legalised in Nevada, Massachusetts, California and Maine. We dont even need to despair, folks. We can just relocate to one of these states, smoke up, and have a super chill life.

Hows that for a silver lining?

Source: Vox / Time / NPR.

Photo: @IlhanMN / Twitter.
BABY ALERT!

Yup, its finally happened.

So far, weve seen a full six episodes of fighting, screaming, paternity testing and Im Sorry flowers being thrown into pools on their reality show Rob & Chyna:

But today, Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna have officially had their little girl.

If you had bets on what name beginning with K she would be blessed with, then were afraid to inform you that youve lost some money: the reality stars have named their little one Dream.

Her full name is Dream Renee Kardashian (Renee is also Chynas middle name; her real name is Angela Renee White), and she was born at 9:18pm PT.

She weighs 7 lbs 5 oz, and was delivered via C-section. Both Robs mum Kris Jenner, and Chynas mum Tokyo Toni went to the hospital with them.

A source told E! News that that baby Dream is gorgeous and has tons of hair!

Tokyo has published a rather vague and strange post on Instagram since the birth:

But while the couple have publicly charted their pregnancy on Rob & Chyna and heavily on social media, theres no word from the new parents on the birth just yet.

MAKE WITH THE BABY PHOTOS ALREADY PLS.

Source: E! News.

Photo: Instagram / @blacchyna.
The 90s were a simpler time: a time when the Clintons could overcome their political scandals, a time when Trump ran casinos not a nation, and a time when Seinfeld was still on the air.

The past week has shaken two of those factors the hell up, but weve found an outcome everyone can be stoked on: some legends have redressed the horrific lack of Seinfeld in our lives by turning a Melbourne laneway into an unofficial Elaine Way.

Nestled near the corner of Brunswick and Johnston Streets in Fitzroy, Karsten Jurkschat and his mate saw it fit to plaster the alley up in goddamn classy style:

Why now, of all times? We do not know. Nor do we care. In fact, our feelings towards this bit of guerrilla nostalgia can be summed up thusly:

This comes after the arrival of that George Costanza-themed bar, and of course, the announcement of a bona fide stand-up tour from Jerry Seinfeld himself. Note: you wont find this laneway on any legitimate map, but you will find it nestled deep in our Julia Louis-Dreyfus-loving hearts.

Source and photo: Supplied.
Hoo boy, Silicon Valley sure is pissed off about the election results. And rightfully so, its gonna be a grim four years with Trump at the helm, thats for sure.

The innovation capital of America is, in fact, so pissed off, they want the entire state of California to secede from the rest of the country. It sounds fucking crazy, but consider this: California is the largest contributor to the US economy and the 6th largest in the world and in the context of Brexit, whos to say it couldnt happen?

Lets be realistic  it probably wont, but it sure as heck wont stop the internet from giving it a red hot bloody crack. In the spirit of giving everything a stupid abbreviated name in 2016, the secession has been given a few labels, including Calexit, Caleavefornia and Califrexit.

Plenty of high profile tech players, such as Uber investor and Hyperloop co-founder, Shervin Pishevar, have thrown their weight behind the movement.

1/ If Trump wins I am announcing and funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation.  Shervin (@shervin) November 9, 2016

1/ If Trump wins I am announcing and funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation.  Shervin (@shervin) November 9, 2016

Angel investor Jason Calacanis has also jumped on the wagon. The one heading away from the rest of the country.

If Trump can win, & after the #brexit, California succession would be a layup. CA is increasingly more distinct from America. #calexit  jason (@Jason) November 9, 2016

Even a serving Democrat, Evan Low is serious about the call.

In the disastrous case that @realDonaldTrump is elected, I will explore intro of a bill to have CA secede from the union. #kiddingnotkidding pic.twitter.com/gRaIIZiGga  Evan Low (@Evan_Low) November 6, 2016

These murmurs of an independent California arent a direct result of the election, but the horror of a Trump-lead USA has certainly stoked the flame. Started in 2015, the Yes California campaign is hoping to hold a referendum on the issue in 2019.

They said Donald Trump wouldnt happen. They said #Brexit wouldnt happen. Whatre you going to say if they tell you #Calexit wont happen?  Yes California (@YesCalifornia) November 9, 2016

While the west coast of America are certainly more politically progressive than the rest of the country, there are genuine fears that Trump is doing to take a huge, steaming shit over the entire innovation movement. For starters, he has called for Apple to stop making their phones in China, a move that would certainly see the company struggle to survive.

He also criticised Mark Zuckerbergs push for specialist immigration, stating it would decrease opportunities for minorities and women.

In this terrifying new world that even the experts can no longer correctly predict, who knows how this is gonna turn out? Get enough people behind something and chances are itll become a reality.

Source: The Guardian.

Photo: Silicon Valley.
Korea's business community appeared as shocked by the news of Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election as everyone else.

Trump has been threatening to become more protectionist throughout his campaign and specially singled out the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement as a "catastrophe" that needs to be renegotiated.

If the U.S. steps up trade pressure, Korea is expected to take a major hit as its vital export engines sputter. "Of course an export-dependent country like Korea will be impacted by protectionist trade policies," said Cheong In-kyo at Inha University said. "If Trump lives up to his campaign pledges, Korea will suffer a huge blow."

Korea has relied on a strategy of expanding export markets by forging FTAs, but Trump's election win has cast dark clouds over the entire global free-trade regime.

The state-run Korea Development Institute projects that the loss of tariff concessions in renegotiation of the Korea-U.S. FTA could result in US$26.9 billion in lost exports and 240,000 lost jobs by 2021.

Korea's trade surplus with the U.S. rose from $11.6 billion in 2011, before the FTA went into effect, to $25.8 billion last year. Due to the growth slowdown in China, the U.S. now accounts for 13.6 percent of Korea's exports, up from 13.3 percent last year.




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As Alaskas iconic halibut fishery wraps up this week, stakeholders are holding their breath to learn if catches might ratchet up slightly again in 2017. Meanwhile, prices for hard to get shares of the halibut catch are jaw-dropping.

The halibut fishery ends on Nov. 7 for nearly 2,000 longliners who hold IFQs (Individual Fishing Quotas) of halibut. The Alaska fishery will produce a catch of more than 20 million pounds if the limit is reached by the fleet. Last year, the halibut haul was worth nearly $110 million at the Alaska docks.

For the first time in several decades the coastwide Paci...
Letters to the Editor: How could anyone vote for Prop 3?
Pacific E&P vows to change ways after restructuring



Pacific announced a new board and management on Wednesday

BOGOTA

Petroleumworld.com 11 10 2016

After emerging this week from one of the largest-ever energy-industry debt restructurings, Pacific Exploration & Production Corp. has a new ticker on the Toronto stock exchange and a new mantra: discipline.

The oil and gas producer will target profit rather than growing production at all costs, and limit its geographic focus to Colombia and Peru after divesting assets in Brazil and ditching expansion plans in Mexico, according to new Chairman Gabriel de Alba.

We are resetting the business plan, de Alba said in a telephone interview Thursday. We are transforming the focus from a production orientation to one that is focused on sustainability of cash flow. Certainly profitability for the shareholders and discipline on capital allocation. Those are the main drivers.

While the message of prudence over exuberance probably will be cheered by investors, it will be cold comfort to those who already lost everything. Pacific failed to make interest payments on bonds in January and March before agreeing to a restructuring proposal put forward by Canadian private equity firm Catalyst Capital Group Inc. and creditors.

The deal, completed this week, reduced Pacific's debt from $5.4 billion to $250 million, while large shareholders including Mexico's Alfa SAB and Venezuela's O'Hara Administration Co. lost millions and small Colombian investors lost everything. Competing restructuring proposals from Alfa and O'Hara were rejected.

Midstream Assets

Suspended since April, Pacific resumed trading in Toronto on Thursday under the ticker PEN CN, with shares rising to C$58. The company is still undervalued, de Alba said. Compared to similar trading companies, there still is room to go.

To ensure that happens, the driller has become cash-flow positive and will continue cutting costs and improving productivity at Colombian fields, he said. Pacific expects to increase production from 74,100 barrels a day now to an average of 84,000 barrels a day in the second half of next year. That compares with 154,800 at the end of last year, before its contract in the Rubiales field expired in June.

Investments next year of $300 million will be concentrated in Colombia and assume an oil price of about $40 a barrel, de Alba said. The company's clean balance sheet means the urgency to sell midstream assets including stakes in a port, pipelines and electricity transmission cables has now gone, with multiple parties expressing an interest in aggregating similar assets into a joint unit of some kind, he said.

New Era

We can do more with these assets, de Alba said. We can exchange ownership with other parties and build a bigger company that could eventually be floated out.

Pacific announced a new board and management on Wednesday, marking the end of an era for the group of Venezuelans who left Hugo Chavez's Venezuela to found Pacific Rubiales, as the company was formerly known, successfully ramping up production in Colombian fields like Rubiales where other companies had previously failed.

Outgoing Chief Executive Officer Ronald Pantin was head of the services unit at Petroleos de Venezuela SA, where he worked with Pacific's former President Jose Francisco Arata. Pantin and Arata co-founded the company in 2008 along with Miguel de la Campa and Serafino Iacono, only to see it spiral into liquidity problems after takeovers ballooned debt and crude prices plunged.

After making at least 10 acquisitions of companies and oil blocks at the start of this decade, Pacific then agreed to buy Colombia-based Petrominerales Ltd. for C$935 million in 2013 amid a hunt for light crude assets.

Pantin's replacement will be chosen by the end of the year, de Alba said.








Jeh Johnson, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, released the following statement regarding southwest border security:

In October a total of 46,195 individuals were apprehended between ports of entry on our southwest border, compared with 39,501 in September and 37,048 in August. Within these totals, we have seen corresponding increases in the numbers of unaccompanied children and individuals in families apprehended. Weve also seen increases in the numbers of those who present themselves at ports of entry along the southwest border seeking asylum.

I have told our border security and immigration enforcement personnel that we must keep pace with this increase. As a result, there are currently about 41,000 individuals in our immigration detention facilities -- typically, the number in immigration detention fluctuates between 31,000 and 34,000  and I have authorized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to acquire additional detention space for single adults so that those apprehended at the border can be returned to their home countries as soon as possible. We have also engaged with a number of countries to repatriate their citizens more quickly, and they have agreed to do so.

Our borders cannot be open to illegal migration. We must, therefore, enforce the immigration laws consistent with our priorities. Those priorities are public safety and border security. Specifically, we prioritize the deportation of undocumented immigrants who are convicted of serious crimes and those apprehended at the border attempting to enter the country illegally. Recently, I have reiterated to our Enforcement and Removal personnel that they must continue to pursue these enforcement activities.

Those who attempt to enter our country without authorization should know that, consistent with our laws and our values, we must and we will send you back.

Once again, I encourage migrants and their families to pursue the various safe and legal paths available for those in need of humanitarian protection in the United States. Earlier this year, the Government of Costa Rica announced its agreement to enter into a protection transfer arrangement with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration to help address the Central American migration challenge. Weve also established an in-country referral program in countries of origin in Central America. This will enable vulnerable residents in the region to be considered for refugee protection in the United States after being screened and interviewed by DHS officers. We have also announced expansion of the categories of individuals eligible for participation in our Central American Minors program when accompanied by a qualified child. We encourage use of these programs.

For more information, see the Fact Sheet.
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Anti-Trump protests broke out in big cities and college campuses across America and the world on Wednesday in the wake of Tuesdays stunning election results.

From New York City and Chicago to Philadelphia and even London, thousands of protesters turned out to express their disgust over Trumps surprise victory over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

New York City:

Chicago:

One part of tonights anti-Trump protests marches down Michigan Avenue in Chicago. pic.twitter.com/IGo1VBmcax  Dawn Rhodes (@rhodes_dawn) November 10, 2016

Philadelphia:

Post election anti-Trump protest in Center City Philadelphia marching on Broad Street pic.twitter.com/WDxOMLAgkK  Drew Smith (@drewsmithtv) November 10, 2016

London:

Protests against Trumps racist campaign erupt outside US embassy in London as placards compare him to Hitler https://t.co/g7KKG8Jii9 pic.twitter.com/A8BG2LqA8Q  Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) November 9, 2016

These demonstrations are just the first in what is likely to be a long line of protests following Donald Trumps shocking rise to the presidency. They also seem to indicate just how stark the divide is between big cities with young and diverse populations and rural parts of America that turned out in big numbers to propel Trump to victory over Clinton.

If there is a long-term silver lining to last nights stunner, its that the future of America looks a lot more like the people marching against Trump on Wednesday than those who elected him the day before.

Photo: Twitter
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is offering Trump no congratulations and made it clear that progressive Democrats are ready for a fight.

In a statement, Sen. Sanders said:

Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics, and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids  all while the very rich become much richer.

To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.

Some journalists are pointing to the first two sentences of the second paragraph of Sen. Sanders statement as proof of Sanders/Trump overlap. While I am sure that Bernie Sanders would work with nearly anyone to improve the lives of working families in this country, what is missing from his statement is nearly as important as what he said.

Sen. Sanders offered no congratulations to Trump. He didnt vow to work with Trump. He did say that if Trump met progressives on their terms, they would work with them. He also explicitly vowed to oppose what amounts to Trumps agenda.

Sen. Sanders is going to be no friend of Donald Trumps. In fact, Sanders has cleverly shaped the parameters of the fight that is yet to come.
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*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*

While the rest of America was anxiously awaiting the end of the excruciating presidential campaign and election, there was earth shattering news out of conservative Oklahoma on Sunday that should have repercussions around the nation. Many Americans claim they are terrified to visit, much less live in, California due to it being prone to earthquakes, but if they wanted to visit Oklahoma, and its difficult to comprehend why they would, they should pause and consider that the Sooner state is becoming the earthquake capital of America.

It is true that Oklahoma is historically about as likely to suffer the effects of an earthquake as Kansas will be inundated with an ocean surge during an East-coast hurricane, but that was before the oil industry began injecting chemical-laced water at extremely high pressure into rocks to fracture them and release oil and natural gas. That oil extraction method, fracking, has been linked to all manner of adverse health effects, but it is nearly a certainty that there is more than a link to the increasing number, frequency, and strength of earthquakes in and around fracking areas. This is becoming increasingly true in Oklahoma.

The latest earthquake to hit Oklahoma was a magnitude 5.3 shaker on Sunday that was centered around Cushing which has a population of about 7,900 and was just slightly weaker than an Oklahoma record 5.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked Pawnee exactly two months ago. Shortly after Pawnees record quake, geologists speculated on whether the temblor occurred on a previously unknown fault.

It is noteworthy that geologists typically attempt to attribute earthquakes to a specific fault, and not automatically cite fracking as the cause, but there were indications that even state officials know why the state is experiencing what are historically absent earthquakes.

The area where Sundays quake was centered, Cushing, interestingly bills itself as the Pipeline Crossroads of the World. It is also the home of a truly massive oil storage facility that is regularly touted as the worlds largest. An earthquake zone is really not the place to construct the worlds largest oil storage facility or a maze of oil pipelines making the area the pipeline crossroads of the world, but the construction of both the storage facilities and pipelines was before the oil industry began fracturing the Earth and causing heretofore unheard of earthquakes.

Cushing city officials had to close schools and police had to evacuate the downtown area due to reports of gas line leaks and to allow inspectors to make infrastructure checks. Fortunately, city officials reported that the leaks had been contained and averted danger from fire. Buildings in the downtown area were not so fortunate and officials reported fearing the sharp earthquake might have damaged key infrastructure in addition to damaging buildings in the Oklahoma prairie town of Cushing. The Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) said they were busy evaluating the damage after the earthquake that was felt as far away as Iowa, Illinois, and Texas.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commissions spokesman, Matt Skinner, issued a statement saying:

The OCCs Pipeline Safety Department has been in contact with pipeline operators in the Cushing oil storage terminal under state jurisdiction and there have been no immediate reports of any problems. The assessment of the infrastructure continues.

Despite not being known as an earthquake-prone state, Oklahoma has had literally thousands of earthquakes in recent years coinciding with the explosion of fracking. What is known is that according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), nearly all of the thousands of earthquakes can be traced directly to the underground injection of wastewater left over from oil and gas production. The most recent quake, centered about one mile west of Cushing, was only 25 miles south of where a slightly weaker magnitude 4.3 quakes forced several wells to shut down last week; but the oil industry or Oklahoma officials showed no intent or inclination to shut down fracking.

According to USGS data, there have been a stunning 19 earthquakes in Oklahoma in just the past week. Now, to prove that Oklahoma state officials, primarily oil-funded Republican officials, are well aware that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is responsible for the earthquakes, including the most recent, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission immediately directed oil well operators to cease wastewater injections, or at least reduce the volume of water to reduce the threat of more earthquakes. There is no indication or report on why the OCC is reluctant to stop the fracking and completely eliminate the threat of damaging earthquakes even though they know fracking is responsible, but it is reasonable to assume it is because oil-funded Republicans control Oklahoma.

This latest spate of earthquakes was predicted by the USGS and OGS when the earthquake experts issued an advisory two years ago warning there would be an increased likelihood of damaging earthquakes as a result of the unprecedented alarming increase in the number of smaller moderate shocks in central and north-central Oklahoma; a region that is regularly racked by tornadoes, but not earthquakes. Scientists have attempted to explain why Oklahoma is shaking, but with the petroleum industrys power, little will change despite scientists warnings.

Two years ago a team of USGS scientists found a wealth of evidence directly linking an increase in Colorado and New Mexico earthquakes since 2001 to wastewater injection widely used in hydraulic fracturing as well as conventional oil well drilling. According to the USGS study, there are several lines of evidence that the earthquakes in the areas are directly related to the disposal of wastewater deep underground according to a Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA) press release. The research is yet another in a long string of studies showing that wastewater migrates along dormant earthquake fault lines and changes their state of stress and causes them to fail resulting in earthquakes. Only the oil industry is forcing wastewater deep into the Earth where earthquake fault lines reside.

After the record earthquake in September, an Oklahoma geologist, Jeremy Boak, said that regardless if fracking is completely stopped, the earthquakes will go on for a long time. Mr. Boak said that even if fracking ends:

Increasingly, I think well see the earthquake intensity waning, fewer and fewer of the smaller earthquakes weve been seeing and probably stretching out longer and longer intervals between anything thats really large and potentially damaging.

That is not very encouraging news for Oklahoma residents who have not seen, and likely wont see, many reductions in the use of the fracking process currently or anytime in the near term. It is beyond belief that Oklahoma residents are not up in arms, but it is a Republican oil state and it will likely take a major earthquake and resulting fire to shake them out of their stupor and demand an end to fracking now.
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Weve heard this a lot today: Donald Trump won the election, so lets give our incoming president a chance to prove everybody wrong and perhaps even do a half-decent job.

Cant we all just be friends now?

Generally speaking, this is a fair argument to make. Its also the side I normally come down on with respect to newly elected presidents, whether theyre Democrats or Republicans.

But its particularly frustrating hearing it from people who voted for a man like Donald Trump.

Remember that this is the guy who has repeatedly suggested Barack Obama wasnt born in America and isnt a legitimate president  the same Obama who stepped up to a podium today to congratulate Trump on his stunning electoral college victory.

Did Trump ever apologize for his repeated efforts to delegitimize the first African-American president? No, he used it to fuel his political career and convince enough voters to buy into this conspiracy theory, which led him and the country to this dark place.

Now, those same supporters who egged him on want us, the majority of voters who rejected Trump on Tuesday, to roll out the red carpet and show the guy some love.

With all due respect to the not-even-plurality of voters who handed Trump a ticket to the White House, its a little hard to stomach your pleas to give the guy a chance when you spent every waking moment of the last eight years smearing our first African-American president without any regard for the truth.

Yes, I understand and can even appreciate those on the left side of the aisle, including Hillary Clinton in her concession speech and President Obama in his remarks from the White House, who are striking a conciliatory tone today. After an election season filled with divisive and often disgusting rhetoric, calling for unity is the right thing to do and its such a contrast to the Republican backlash that came after the election of Barack Obama.

When they go low, we go high, as Michelle Obama said frequently this year.

But as someone who witnessed the treatment of President Obama by the very people who now demand we bow to President-Elect Trump, Im just not there yet.

I wish no ill on the incoming president. I hope, for the sake of so many Americans now living in fear, that he surprises us by not completely screwing things up.

But respect, my friends, is earned, not given. And Donald Trump certainly hasnt earned any.
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Less than two days after winning the presidential election, Donald Trump is already censoring the press by not allowing them to travel with him to the White House for his meeting with President Obama.

Pete Alexander of NBC News tweeted:

Trump *not allowing press pool to travel w/ him for White House mtg. Details about calls w/ foreign leaders coming via foreign governments.  Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) November 10, 2016

The press gave Donald Trump a big assist towards election victory by pretending that the then Republican nominees real transgressions were equal to the fantasy crimes of Hillary Clinton. The both candidates are terrible narrative gave Trump the political cover that he needed to skate through a campaign that would have destroyed any other candidate of either party.

[graphiq id=cdKHTkprO7P title=Trump vs. Obama On The Issues width=600 height=560 url=https://w.graphiq.com/w/cdKHTkprO7P link=http://presidential-candidates.insidegov.com link_text=InsideGov | Graphiq ]

The corporate press also helped Trump by giving him billions of dollars worth of free media coverage.

The president-elect is showing his gratitude by censoring the press. The press whines about all presidents not giving them more access, but Trump showed his hand early by going dark and not holding a press conference for the entire general election campaign. Trump avoided mainstream journalists and took no questions.

Nothing is going to change now that he has won.

The media helped Donald Trump win the election, and their reward is a president who will treat them like the enemy and be the least transparent commander in chief in history.

[graphiq id=74neAel61rT title=Donald Trump Media Mentions width=600 height=502 url=https://w.graphiq.com/w/74neAel61rT ]

The press is about to reap what it sowed when they made the decision to ignore their journalistic responsibilities for ratings and profits.

Update: Trump might be changing his mind on letting the press travel with him:

Trump Camp may be changing course on a Trump Press Pool https://t.co/spbDq0JMty  Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) November 10, 2016
May and Orban commit to strong bilateral relations

UK Prime Minister Theresa May and her Hungarian counterpart discussed immigration and border control policies during a meeting in Westminster Wednesday, a Downing Street spokesperson said. Viktor Orban said that Hungary seeks to ensure that the rights of Hungarians living in Britain are not curtailed when Britain leaves the EU.

The two leaders agreed to maintain strong bilateral relations as the U.K. prepares to leave the EU, politico.eu reported on Thursday.Officials in Brussels have expressed concerns that May will seek to work closely with Orban - a controversial figure for his hardline stance on refugees - in order to drive a wedge between European leaders ahead of Brexit negotiations, the portal added.May told Orban that, despite the pending Supreme Court appeal over her governments authority to trigger Article 50 without giving MPs a vote, she would begin the formal process of exiting the EU by the end of March as planned.They discussed the rights of EU citizens living in the U.K. and the prime minister reaffirmed that she wants and expects to protect the status of EU nationals, but that British citizens rights in European member states must be protected in return," the spokesperson said.On migration the prime minister laid out her position that we should ensure that refugees are hosted in the first safe country of transit; that we distinguish between refugees and economic migrants; and that all states have the rights and responsibilities to control their borders and accept returned illegal migrants."According to a report by Hungarian news agency MTI, the two leaders had agreed that the issue of workers rights must be settled on the basis of the principle of reciprocity; this means that if there is no curtailment of the rights acquired by British citizens residing in Europe, the position of the British government is that naturally neither can there be curtailment of the rights of EU nationals working in Britain.Orban stated that this was an important outcome of his meeting with the British PM. He added that there are some one hundred and fifty thousand Hungarian citizens earning a living through jobs linked to Britain - either working in Britain, or as the employees of British-owned businesses operating in Hungary.

They have interests which we must protect. So it is in our interest that the trade aspect of British-Hungarian relations should continue to be open and free in the future

, Orban said.With regard to the result of the US presidential election, Orban stated that the world has always benefited whenever it has managed to release itself from the captivity of currently dominant ideological trends.In my view, this is what has happened just now in the United States. This also gives the rest of the Western world the chance to free itself from the captivity of ideologies, of political correctness, and of modes of thought and expression which are remote from reality: the chance to come back down to earth [and] see the world as it really is", the Prime Minister said.
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The possibility that legislators will further restrict abortions in South Carolina this year narrowed to near-impossible one week before Election Day, as a committee trying to work out a compromise considered bans with no chance of becoming law. Read moreSC legislators remain at impasse over abortion ban days before proposal expires
Electric vehicles arent a panacea. They dont reduce traffic congestion or the need to spend billions of dollars repairing and expanding our highways, the way mass transit, ride sharing and more walkable and bicycleable communities can. To the contrary, they make it more difficult to pay for the necessary upgrades, because despite some modest steps, politicians here and elsewhere have been unwilling to change our tax laws to ensure that vehicles using little or no gasoline pay their fair share for those improvements. Read moreEditorial: SC electric vehicle expansion helps state in multiple ways
The University of Minnesota Rochester will host a community conversation next week on the Muslim experience in Rochester.

"An Autumn Conversation with Muslim Neighbors" will be from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, in Room 417 at University Square, and will feature a panel of community members to discuss their experiences and challenges.

Each year, UMR students participate in events that promote global awareness and encourage students to consider study abroad or learning experiences that broaden their global views. UMR history professor James T. Ford and UMR's Global Connections Community have organized the dialogue to help prepare students for the community they'll be caring for one day.

"We expect that UMR students will be serving a far greater diversity of patients than providers did just a few decades ago. One way to help prepare these students is dialogue on the issue," said Ford in a news release. "Our country has a foundation built on immigration and each new immigrant group has faced challenges. But in a post-911 world, with the advent of technology that brings words, images, and differing opinions to us at the touch of a button, gathering as a community is even more crucial so that we can learn, understand, and connect."

The activities are centered around the nationwide International Education Week, coordinated by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education.

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The event is free and open to the public, but UMR asks that people register for the event at: http://z.umn.edu/autumnconversation . Refreshments will be provided by Lazeez Restaurant and Catering of Rochester. A meet and greet will begin at 6 p.m.
WASHINGTON  It all starts with the wall.

Donald Trump's vow to build a wall along the border with Mexico, to make Mexico pay for it and to achieve iron-fisted control over illegal immigration stands as his leading promise, one that rang from the rafters countless times. But he owes his supporters  and now the country  much more than that.

While a lot of his agenda will be a hard sell, he won't have the excuse used by many presidents whose promises have fallen short  a Congress in the hands of the opposing party. Trump will take office with a unified government, both the Senate and House under Republican control.

A look at some of his IOUs:

CHILD CARE

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Trump promises six weeks of leave for new mothers, with the government paying wages equivalent to unemployment benefits. His plan also provides for a new income tax deduction for child care expenses, other tax benefits and a new rebate or tax credit for low-income families.

EDUCATION

Trump promises to spend $20 billion during his first year to help states expand school choice programs. He wants states to divert an additional $110 billion of their own education money to help parents who want their children to go to other schools.

And he owes college students a big, and expensive, leg up. He says he will cap student loan payments at 12.5 percent of a borrower's income, with loan forgiveness if they make payments for 15 years.

ENERGY

Trump vows to cut regulations as part of his effort to "unleash American energy." This means allowing unfettered production of oil, clean coal, natural gas and other sources to push the U.S. toward energy independence and create jobs. In particular, he owes coal miners a revival of their livelihood, even though the industry's decline is in large measure due to the rise of natural gas, which he also supports. He pledges to rescind the Clean Power Plan, a key element of President Barack Obama's strategy to fight climate change.

FOREIGN POLICY

Trump's "America first" ethos means alliances and coalitions will not pass muster with him unless they produce a net benefit to the U.S. He speaks of a less interventionist approach to crises abroad  with the exception of his vow to crush the Islamic State group. Yet he also promises to spend much more to restore what he sees as depleted armed forces.

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HEALTH CARE

He's vowed to repeal Obama's health care law and replace it with something more affordable. With a Republican Congress, the pressure will be on to do so. It remains to be seen how far lawmakers and the president will actually go to untangle a law that has sunk some roots, and Democrats won't be voiceless on this or other issues.

IMMIGRATION

One paradox of the campaign is the lack of clarity about Trump's intentions on an issue that defined him out of the gate. He clearly promises to stop the influx of Syrian refugees into the U.S., and somehow to help them overseas. He vows to deport people convicted of serious crimes who are in the U.S. illegally. And there's that wall, which Mexicans insist they won't pay for. But the fate of millions of people who are in the country illegally is a gray area - he's not promising to deport them but also not saying he would give them legal status. He'd ban immigration of people from areas prone to extremism, but how that would be defined is unclear.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Trump vowed to double rival Hillary Clinton's proposed spending on infrastructure. Taking him literally, that means a staggering $500 billion over five years.

IRAN

Trump promises to renegotiate or withdraw from the multilateral deal that eased sanctions on Iran in return for controls on its nuclear program.

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MINIMUM WAGE

He expressed support for $10 an hour, while saying states should "really call the shots." It's $7.25 now.

SOCIAL SECURITY

Trump has promised not to cut Social Security.

SUPREME COURT

Trump promised to nominate justices who are open to overturning the constitutional right to abortion and who support Second Amendment gun rights.

TAXES

He owes Americans big tax cuts. He says he'll collapse the current seven income tax brackets, which peak at 39.6 percent, into just three tiers with a top rate of 33 percent, slice the corporate income tax and eliminate the estate tax. Although analysts said the wealthy would benefit disproportionately, middle income people are promised a hefty reduction.

TRADE

Trump promises to renegotiate or withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement. He also vows to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and to slap stinging tariffs on countries that the U.S. judges to be trading unfairly. China faces the risk of steep penalties - and U.S. consumers would pay higher prices as a result - if his vow is carried through.

VETERANS

Trump promises to expand programs that allow veterans to choose their doctor - regardless of whether they're affiliated with the VA - and still receive government-paid medical care. He's pledged to fire or discipline VA employees who fail veterans or breach the public trust. He also would increase mental health professionals and create a "White House hotline" dedicated to veterans. If a valid complaint is not addressed, "I will pick up the phone and fix it myself if I have to," Trump pledged.
Dodge County

EDA discusses Main Street building

WEST CONCORD  Members of the West Concord EDA discussed the future of the 207 W. Main St. building at its Nov. 7 meeting.

The EDA chose to table any discussion on moving forward with the sale of the building. The potential buyers of the space will wait until the issue is discussed at next month's EDA meeting, according to members of the body.

Houston County

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Clinic grand opening set for Saturday

CALEDONIA  Gundersen Lutheran will host a grand opening for the new orthopedic clinic Saturday at 8 a.m. It is at 405 S. Highway 44/76.

Fillmore County

Service focuses on 'Beauty of the Earth'

LENORA  The historic Lenora United Methodist Church will hold a Thanksgiving worship service Sunday at 4 p.m.

It will focus on themes in the hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth." Attendees are invited to bring nonperishable food items for the food shelf.

Refreshments will be served at the Lenora Fellowship House after the service.

The church is on Fillmore County Road 24 in Lenora.

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Mower County

Three blood drives planned

AUSTIN  There are three upcoming blood drives in Mower County.

The first is 1 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Southland High School in Adams. The second is 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday at Riverland Community College in Austin. The third is 1 to 7 p.m. Nov. 29 at Mower County Senior Citizens Center in Austin.

To make an appointment to give blood, download the Red Cross App, visit redcrossblood.org or call 800-REDCROSS.

Wabasha County

Black and Orange Gala will be Saturday

LAKE CITYThe Lake City Education Foundation will hold the Black and Orange Gala on Saturday at St. Mary of the Lake.

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There will be hors d'oeuvres, drinks and dessert. Tickets cost $50 and are available at lakecityeducationfoundation.org or by calling 225-993-6706.

Goodhue County

Levee Road construction underway

RED WING  Concrete work on Levee Road from the Jackson Street Roundabout to Broad Street is ongoing this week.

To facilitate the concrete repair work in the roundabout, the Levee Road/Jackson Street Roundabout will be closed until Friday, depending on weather and site conditions.

Levee Road will be open from Broad Street up to the roundabout (including access to boat houses and the parking lot east of the roundabout) during the concrete repair work.

Access to Bay Point Park also will be open using Levee Road and Withers Harbor Road west of the roundabout.

Winona County

Cabin Coffee celebrates anniversary

ST. CHARLES  Cabin Coffee in St. Charles is celebrating its nine-year anniversary Thursday.

Coffee will be 90 cents, fresh-roasted beans will be 20 percent off and all drinks are 20 percent off between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. There also will be door prizes and free samples all day.

Cabin Coffee is on U.S. Highway 14 in St. Charles.
WABASHA  The National Eagle Center will honor veterans on Friday, Veterans Day, with a flag-raising ceremony.

The Wabasha American Legion/VFW color guard will conduct a ceremony beginning at noon. In honor of their service, the NEC will give free admission to all veterans and active military members from Friday through Nov. 18.

"Bald eagles are our nation's national symbol, and we know that these majestic birds hold a very special meaning to those men and women who serve and have served in our armed forces," said executive director Rolf Thompson. "We are proud to be able to honor their service and sacrifice with our eagle ambassadors."

Other Veterans Day events

Red Wing

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There will be a veterans luncheon Friday at American Legion Post 54

 The Red Wing Family YMCA is opening its doors at 434 Main St. on Friday to all veterans and their families for free (with valid ID).

Lanesboro

 Lanesboro High School will host a program at 2:30 p.m. for veterans on Monday. They ask Legion and Auxilary members to meet at the school at 2:15 p.m. and to wear uniforms. Legion uniforms include white shirt, tie and blue service cap.

Altura

The Fall Colors Whitewater's POW Camp-Veterans Day Programwill be 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Whitewater State Park. The park was once home to German prisoners of war. Local POWs requested to be placed at the park because of the scenic beauty and friendly people. Learn more about the POWs who stayed here.

LeRoy

 A supper will be held at the Community Center in LeRoy from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. for veterans and their families.
Voter turnout less high in 2016

Minnesota's estimated voter turnout of 74.19 percent is expected once again to lead, or nearly lead, the nation.

Voter participation also was measurably down this year from past presidential elections.

The state turnout, based on unofficial voting results, was calculated by the Minnesota Secretary of State office using a ballot count divided by the voting eligible population reported by the United States Election Project. The U.S. Election Project has not broken down that population county by county, so more local turnout figures cannot yet be calculated, said Secretary of State spokesman Ryan Furlong.

"I don't really have a good solution for you on that front since I imagine that number is based in part off census/population data," Furlong said in an email.

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An estimated 2,947,194 Minnesotans voted in this year's election. The state voting eligible population is 3,972,330.

Minnesota's voter participation compares favorably with neighboring Wisconsin, which had voter turnout of 66.2 percent, according to the La Crosse Tribune. That turnout rate was Wisconsin's lowest since 1996, the paper said.

Recent past presidential elections generated higher voter turnout in Minnesota than this year's 74 percent. Past year's turnout totals, reported by the Secretary of State office, include:

 2012: 76.11 percent

 2008: 78.07 percent

 2004: 77.32 percent

 2000: 75.25 percent

Another gauge of voter participation  dividing ballots by registered voters  can be calculated from a list online, at tinyurl.com/hy7f469 . That county-by-county listing shows that, in Olmsted County, 88.8 percent of registered voters cast ballots in this year's election. In Winona County, the figure was 91.3 percent, and in Goodhue County it was 91.5 percent.

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Those figures do not fully reflect voter turnout, however, because many eligible voters have not registered to vote.

 Heather Carlson and Jeff Pieters

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Olmsted goes for Clinton  barely

When you look at the voting map of Minnesota, Olmsted sticks out like a blue island in a sea of red.

Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in Olmsted County, but just barely  45.7 percent to 45 percent. The blue Democratic areas all were congregated in Minnesota's densest population areas, in Rochester, the Twin Cities and Duluth  nine of the state's 87 counties. Every other county went for Trump.

But Clinton's margin of victory in Olmsted County was not nearly as big as President Barack Obama's in 2012. Then, Obama beat GOP nominee Mitt Romney by 3.2 percentage points, more than four times the margin by which Clinton beat Trump. Obama beat GOP nominee John McCain by an equal margin  3.28 percent  in 2008.

Another sign of Clinton's weakness in the state: Trump flipped 19 counties to his side that had voted for Obama in 2012. And only one county  Hennepin  increased its support for the Democratic nominee from four years ago.

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Still, Clinton won the state and its 10 electoral votes, 46.8 to 45.4 percent.

 Matt Stolle

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Mr. Wojcik's neighborhoods

Election Night 2016 was a bad night for incumbents and a bad night for liberal-progressives.

Just about every election is bad for candidates who are vastly outspent by their opponents.

So, given those three strikes against him, how did Rochester City Council Ward 2 rep Michael Wojcik survive the night and secure a third term?

Wojcik, who found himself once again in the crosshairs of pro-business interests, nevertheless won by 800 votes and 9 percentage points over a well-funded, business-backed challenger, Scott Hoss. In fact, Wojcik almost made it a clean sweep in Ward 2, winning all but one of its nine precincts.

Wojcik attributed his win to "boots on the ground and a lot of hard work."

But Wojcik has more than his feet and the efforts of his 30 or so volunteers to thank. The councilman's real secret weapon may, in fact, be the organized neighborhood associations in his ward.

Wojcik enjoyed his highest levels of support in Precinct 1 (Kutzky Park, 61.6 percent) and Precinct 2 (Folwell, 58.6 percent). He built more than half (425 votes) of his 813-vote margin of victory there.

As a point of comparison, Sean Allen, in the citywide council president's race, got a similar-sized bump in Kutzky and Folwell. Allen, a progressive similar to Wojcik, faced incumbent Randy Staver, who received outside funding from the same outside groups that supported Hoss.

Though Staver won the race, Allen won Kutzky (58.7 percent) and Folwell (54.8 percent), two of the six city precincts where he either won or tied. (Rochester has 52 precincts in all.)

Rochester has 46 neighborhood associations , some more active and organized than others, and it stands to reason that not every one would give a boost to liberal candidates.

But Tuesday's results do shed a light on these groups and the political potential they hold.

 Jeff Pieters
The tremors were still being felt and processed Wednesday.

At Rochester Community and Technical College, six Somali-American young women sat on benches after class discussing the world's hottest political story: the election of Donald Trump as president.

All said they were shocked and surprised by the outcome. RCTC student Rukiya Haji-Yusuf, 19, said she had gone to bed expecting to wake up the next morning and find that Hillary Clinton had been elected president. Instead, when she went to check her news feeds, she discovered to her disbelief that Trump had won.

"I did not think about Trump winning at all. I had seen the polls," Haji-Yusuf said. "I was really shocked. Then I started thinking: How is this going to work?"

"It still hasn't hit me," she added.

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Some said they were worried  that the election might give license for some to be more hateful and intolerant toward minorities.

Idil Barre, 18, said she didn't believe Trump's election would have any effect on the laws, but she was fearful that attitudes might change, that people might feel more comfortable giving expression to racist views.

She had already observed evidence of that on social media soon after the election. A Facebook friend posted a comment that if people didn't like Trump as president, "they could just take a plane ticket to go anywhere you came from."

Barre said she challenged the person who posted the comment, reminding her that they had been friends in high school.

"I asked, 'Well, what makes you any different now just because Trump is president,'" Barre said. "She just said, 'We're just making America great.' It's kind of aggravating."

During an 11th-hour campaign stop in Minneapolis on Sunday, Trump spoke out against bringing Syrian refugees to the U.S., saying that Minnesota "has suffered enough" by accepting Somali immigrants into the state.

"Here in Minnesota, you have seen firsthand the problems caused with faulty refugee vetting, with large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state, without your knowledge, without your support or approval," Trump said.

The RCTC students said they didn't plan to stop being themselves.

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"It gives me more motivation and strength to even be myself," one woman said.

Fathi Barre, 17, said one positive result she has noticed in the election's immediate aftermath was that "people were coming together." Minorities, people of color and those with disabilities were all expressing a kind of solidarity with one another.

Trump's victory didn't have the effect on minority voters that many Democrats thought it would. Twenty-nine percent of Latinos voted for Trump, a higher percentage than those who voted for GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. Neither did African-Americans turnout to vote against Trump. Trump, in fact, received a higher percentage of African-American votes than Romney did.

Unlike most people, Mohammed Yosef, a recent immigrant from Saudi Arabia and an RCTC student, said he wasn't shocked at the result. The outcome was analogous to the Brexit vote, he said, when British voters elected to pull out of the European Union, a move many see as driven by concerns over rampant immigration and globalization.

"After Britain went out of the European Union, I said, 'OK, now expect anything to happen. When Trump ran for election, I said, 'this man is gong to be president,'" Yosef said.

Yosef is of two minds whether Trump's election is good thing, though. He might be crazy, but Yosef said that Trump would be more inclined than Clinton to improve relations with Russia and act as a more neutral arbiter between Palestinians and Israel.

"His agenda is hidden, but I believe that according to what he says, we want good relations with Russia," Yosef said.

Yet the election made him slightly wary, he admitted. When he opened the door to leave for school this morning, he wondered, almost half-kiddingly, whether there was a "purge outside my door."

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But Yosef wasn't troubled about the impact Trump's election would have on his life. Comparing his life now to that in Saudia Arabia, "I never found myself until now in the United States."
Jamie McKee and Reide Martin of Rochester both were passionate about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests after doing some research about the issue. Then, thoughts arose: "what are the people going to eat?"

So, this weekend from Friday through Sunday, the couple plans to make the eight-hour drive to Oceti Sakowin Camp, which is located on the north side of Cannon Ball River in North Dakota. Although not affiliated with the Sacred Stone Camp, the groups share a common goal in opposing the pipeline project.

There, McKee and Martin both hope to feed as many people as possible with their resources used from the Three Amigos Tacos food truck that Martin owns. Using a GoFundMe page titled "Warm Food for Standing Rock Tribes," the couple plans to use their goal of $1,000 to purchase as much food as possible in order to cater to large crowds. This would be non-perishable food choices as there is no equipment to refrigerate meat.

"Food is the best thing," Martin said. "We're letting them know that they're not alone."

There's been some expressed interest from those wanting to volunteer, but nothing's been set in stone as of yet, according to McKee. Currently, they are looking for another driver and truck to help haul additional supplies to North Dakota, along with other items that could be donated, such as hygiene products and winter clothes.

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Regardless if McKee and Martin raise their needed goal, the two still plan on traveling to North Dakota to assist.

"We're going to do what we can to provide any kind of help," Martin added. "We're there to boost their morale, to sit and talk with them and listen to their experiences."

McKee and Martin plan to serve until the food runs out, however, the two decided that they would spend the entire three days at the camp in order to help support protesters and document their experiences.

"We're of the same earth. You have to wonder if we don't take a stand, what it's going to be like for your kids in 10 years," Martin said.

The Dakota Access Pipeline Project is an approximate 1,172-mile, 30-inch diameter, $3.8 million pipeline that would connect the expanding Bakken and Three Forks production areas in North Dakota to Pakota, Ill. The project would enable crude oil from North Dakota to reach major refining markets, according to the project's website , transporting 470,000 barrels a day.

However, the Standing Rock Sioux, whose tribal lands are a half-mile south of the proposed route, defend that the pipeline would desecrate sacred burial and prayer sites and could potentially leak oil into the Missouri and Cannon Ball rivers, which the tribe relies on for water, according to news reports.

Opposition to the project drew support from around 200 Native American tribes as well as from activists and celebrities. More than 141 people have been arrested in acts of civil disobedience last month, according to reports .

Despite this, majority of the protests were peaceful, and the Sacred Stone Camp notes that no alcohol or weapons are allowed in any of the camp sites. Some travel routes, were blocked by law enforcement.

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"We want everyone to wake up," McKee shared. "A lot of eyes are opening."

There were also reports of security personnel using attack dogs which bit and injured several protesters who had entered the area. Armed soldiers and police officers with riot gear and military equipment cleared an encampment that was directly in the proposed pipeline's path.

President Barack Obama announced on Nov. 1 that his administration was monitoring the movement and has been in contact with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to look into possibly rerouting the pipeline to avoid tribal lands.

With their stance on defending the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, McKee and Martin emphasized that this was not a stance against law enforcement agencies that are sent to defend the pipeline project.

"We're not against the police," McKee said. "They're just protecting the project on someone else's orders. We're not malicious, we jut want to help and have the people's voices be heard."

Despite not knowing what may happen during their three-day experience, both McKee and Martin want to raise awareness for those who may not necessarily know a lot about the Dakota Access Line Project protests.

"The risk is worth the reward," Martin said. "We're passionate and want to contribute something to the world. We want people to be aware. It doesn't matter what you believe or what ethnicity you are, they were here first, and their rights are getting taken away."

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Several special Veterans Day events and packages have been announced for Friday.

 At Treasure Island Resort & Casino near Red Wing, veterans are invited to a free buffet from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Veterans should stop by the Island Passport Club with proof of military service to receive a voucher for the buffet.

Also on Friday, Treasure Island will give veterans and active military personnel a bonus slot point multiplier from noon to 8 p.m., and there will be a Cheap Seats Bingo matinee for veterans. For more details, call 800-222-7077.

 Paragon Theatres , which includes the Chateau 14 in Rochester, will offer free popcorn for veterans and military with valid ID on Friday. No purchase necessary.

 Sumner Elementary School in Austin will honor veterans with a ceremony and celebration from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Friday. All veterans and their guests are invited to the event in the school gym. Coffee and doughnuts will be available following the ceremony. The school is located at 805 Eighth Ave. NW, Austin.

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 Rochester Community & Technical College is initiating Operation Purple Heart and Super Heroes, a program to create reserved parking spots for active military personnel, military veterans, police officers and fire department personnel. RCTC becomes the first school among Minnesota State college and universities to offer such parking. The specially marked parking slots will be unveiled at 12:30 p.m. today in the east parking lot on the main campus.

Special Veterans Day offers also include free meals, entrees, desserts and beverages at several local restaurants.

Eagle Center plans Veterans Day event
"It is my honor to call you a fellow citizen of the United States of America. This is now officially your country, your home to protect, to defend and to serve through active and engaged citizenship."

 President Barack Obama

Twenty-one newly minted American citizens were welcomed into the United States of America during a naturalization ceremony held yesterday at the University of Guam CLASS Lecture Hall.

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In a solemn ceremony presided over by Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, the 21 prospective U.S. citizens read an oath of allegiance pledging themselves to the United States before being formally welcomed by President Barack Obama in a video played before the entire audience.

"It is my honor to call you a fellow citizen of the United States of America," Obama said in the video. "This is now officially your country, your home to protect, to defend and to serve through active and engaged citizenship. Together we are a nation united not by any one culture or ethnicity or ideology, but by the principles of opportunity, equality and liberty that are enshrined in our founding documents.

"You can help write the next great chapter in our American story and together we can keep the beacon that is America burning bright for all the world to see. I am proud to welcome you as a new citizen of this country."

International backgrounds

Of the 21 new citizens welcomed into the U.S., one hailed from American Samoa, one from South Korea and the rest from the Philippines.

Gabriela Easter Satele, originally from American Samoa, was one of the 21 new citizens present during yesterday's ceremony. She is also an active-duty servicewoman in the U.S. Navy. She told the Post that while the entire process to become an American citizen was frustrating at times, she was extremely happy to be one now.

Satele said that with her naturalization, she is now the second member of her family to become a full-fledged citizen of the United States. She explained that the political status of American Samoa is different from that of Guam, and that children born of American citizens in American Samoa are not granted full citizenship. Instead, they must apply and go through official channels.

And that's just what she did. Satele said it took about two-and-a-half years after enlisting with the Navy.

Everything 'feels complete'

She was joined yesterday by 20 other individuals including Cecile Escalona. Originally from the Philippines, Escalona was joined yesterday by her husband, Jun, and her young son. She expressed excitement at finally becoming an American citizen and said it was at the pushing of her husband that she finally undertook the long process of naturalization.

Escalona has been a resident of Guam for more than 10 years already and said she just hadn't been able to get around to the issue of her citizenship until now.

"Everyone else in my family is a U.S. citizen, so now everything just feels complete," she told the Post after the ceremony.

Immediately following the ceremony, the new citizens were able to make use of the Citizenship Outreach Program provided by the District Court. Representatives of both the Guam Passport Office and the Guam Election Commission were present and available to assist new citizens with applying for a United States Passport and in registering to vote so they can participate in their civic responsibility in the next election two years from now.

Tydingco-Gatewood explained the reasoning behind the venue change for the ceremony, which would normally be held at the District Court, as being initiated by UOG Assistant Professor Daniel McKay. McKay, who teaches Introduction to Citizenship, had approached the chief judge to ask if she would speak to his class. She responded by suggesting that the class find a way to sit in during a naturalization ceremony so they could observe firsthand the solemnity that accompanies such an event. Through the efforts of McKay, the District Court and UOG, the naturalization ceremony was held at the UOG Lecture Hall for the first time in Guam's history.

Keynote address

The keynote speaker at yesterday's ceremony, Col. Brent Bien, focused on the importance of diversity and the valuable contributions that new citizens bring to the United States. He encouraged all of the new citizens to hold onto their respective cultures' values and traditions and to share those unique views with other Americans so they can learn and grow together.

In an interview with the Post after the event, Bien added to his message of diversity by explaining how the Marines, too, encapsulate a message of inclusivity.

"The great thing about being a Marine is that [your background] doesn't matter," he said. "We come in and take an oath to the flag and our country  all of America including its protectorates  and something is formed bigger than the individual and that's the Marine Corps."

In addition to the naturalization ceremony held yesterday, the U.S. Marine Corps celebrated its 241st anniversary.
The campus freakouts continue. Here Oglethorpe University President Lawrence Schall bares his deep thoughts on the election of Donald Trump. Message: I am a brave and virtuous man, if I do say so myself  and my views line up with those of newspaper editorial boards around the United States:

From: Schall, Lawrence

Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 10:58 AM

To: Faculty (All); Staff

Subject: FW: Important Meeting Tonight

To our faculty and staff:

I wanted to share this note I sent to our students today. If you are able, Id love to see you join us tonight. Larry

From: Schall, Lawrence

Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 10:56 AM

To: Allstudents

Cc: Presidents Cabinet; Palder, Amy; Pruitt, Shane

Subject: Important Meeting Tonight

To our students:

Dean Hall and I invite each of you to join us this evening (Wednesday, November 9) in the TLCC dining hall at eight p.m. for a conversation about the election last evening. I know that members of our community have differing political and social views. I know some of you cast your vote yesterday for Donald Trump, others voted for Secretary Clinton or another candidate, and there were some of you who chose not to vote at all. I also know there are members of our community who were not able to vote, because of their citizenship status or because of a criminal record. I encourage all of you to come.

As a president of a university, who in some ways represents all constituents, I fully realize that expressing personal or political views will be viewed by some as inappropriate. I encountered this perspective a few years back when I chose to speak out on the issue of gun safety after the massacre at Sandy Hook. I have no regrets at all about that decision. I felt then and I feel now that on certain issues at certain times in our history, the failure to speak out is far more dangerous than keeping silent. Today, for me, is another one of those times. And again, as I did on the gun safety issues, I want to be clear that I express my views first as a citizen of this country.

I still find it difficult this morning to believe that the majority of voters in our country chose to elect a man whose views on civility and inclusivity are so at odds with mine and with the values of our Oglethorpe community. This morning, I can manage to get past his inexperience and lack of public service even though virtually every editorial page in the country, left or right leaning, failed to endorse him because of those traits. What I cannot get past, and I will refuse to overlook, is a future of America that is divided by race, religion, sexual identity, and country of origin.

I look forward to seeing you tonight.

President Schall
From deep inside the sprawling asylum at the University of Minnesota we have received a copy of todays correspondence to the campus community from the Office for Equity and Diversity:

Office for Equity and Diversity

Dear Twin Cities campus community,

Like many of you, I am processing the divisiveness that has characterized the prolonged election season, and am working to understand how it will impact our communities, our university, our nation and our world.

While there is no expiration date for the raw emotion many are feeling, we will continue to work diligently toward a campus climate that supports respect and inclusive excellence as we work across our differences. I say we because none of this work happens in isolation; it requires time and effort from all of us. As famed poet June Jordan said, We are the ones we have been waiting for. We can only transform and enrich our institution by learning from one another, working in partnership, and continuing to find ways to positively contribute to our campus community.

Some members of our community feel vulnerable and marginalized, and are most directly impacted by this contentious election cycle. We are grateful for those who have already shared resources or organized spaces to foster understanding and discussion, including:

 The Gender and Sexuality Center for Queer and Trans Life; the Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence; the office of Multicultural Student Engagement and the Womens Center are currently hosting a post-election space focused on self-care and dialogue from 1:30-3:30 p.m. in room 101 of Walter Library. All faculty, staff and students are welcome to attend.

 La Raza Student Cultural Center is sponsoring a post-election discussion this evening from 6:00-8:00 p.m. in room 211 of Coffman Memorial Union.

 The Humphrey School of Public Affairs is hosting an intergenerational, interactive conversation, A Race Gender Dialogue on the 2016 Election, at 6 p.m.

If your department or group is hosting a post-election event, please post it on the University of Minnesota Events Calendar.

As always, campus resources are available to you. We encourage students to call the counseling services office, and faculty and staff to connect with the Employee Assistance Program.

We know we live in difficult times  not just here, but across our country and world. We want the University of Minnesota to be an environment where bridges are built to respectfully connect our many communities. That begins with each of us and all of us. Please join us in this critical effort.

Sincerely,

Katrice Albert

Vice President for Equity and Diversity
The college craziness continues to mount. At Cornell, students held a cry in following Trumps election: Devastated Cornellians Mourn Election of Donald Trump at Cry In.

Over 50 Cornellians gathered on Ho Plaza this afternoon for a cry in to mourn in the aftermath of Donald Trumps shocking presidential victory. Braving the cold, wind and occasional rain, Cornellians sat in a circle to share stories and console each other, organizers encouraging attendees to gather closer together and include each other. Willard Straight Hall Resource Center employees gave out blankets, tissues and hot chocolate to keep participants warm, while students signed posters with words of encouragement and protest, including Donald Trump is not my president.

Im so confused! Werent we all supposed to accept the results of the election?

This photo is captioned: Attendees signed papers in solidarity with groups they believe may be marginalized during a Trump presidency. Marginalized is a favorite word on the Left. What does it mean? Beats me.

This is a still from a video of the cry in that was on the Cornell Daily Suns Facebook page:

This kind of thing is going on all over. If losing an election is enough to make these kids cry, they should try being Republicans.
In a sidebar to the election of Donald Trump and the Republican takeover of Minnesotas house and senate, Ilhan Omar was elected the first Somali American legislator in the Minneapolis district that includes the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood known as Little Mogadishu. Following Omars defeat of 22-term incumbent Phyllis Kahn in the DFL primary this past summer, I raised the question whether Omar had married her brother for dishonest purposes.

On August 17 Omar issued a brief written statement purporting to clarify her marital history. Obviously written with the help of a professional who had been airlifted into Omars campaign for a day or two, the statement contained three references to Omars faith tradition.

It looked like mystification, but we get it. Omar is Muslim. Enough said. Further questions would be, ah, disrespectful.

After issuing her written statement, Omar declined all interview requests from members of the regular media. KMSP 9s Tom Lyden captured Omar on camera turning him down twice. Omar offered up as her brief written statement as the last word on the matter, and so it has been.

I met off-the-record with a local reporter who had sought interviews with Omar and husband number one (the love of her life, according to her statement, and the father of her children). I chided the reporter for failing to report further on the story or draw inferences from Omars silence and other circumstantial anomalies.

Shes going to have to talk, the reporter assured me.

Before election day? I asked.

Shes going to have to talk, the reporter responded.

She never had to talk.

Alpha News reporter Preya Samsundar has eaten the lunch of the local media. She has tracked down and corresponded with Omars apparent husband  husband number 2, the guy she legally married, not the love of her life. (I say apparent husband because if he is her brother, the marriage would be void under Minnesota law.) Samsundar has concluded that Omars apparent husband is her brother.

Covering Omars election on Tuesday, Star Tribune reporters Faiza Mahamud and J. Patrick Coolican write about this piece of the story as follows:

Omars nascent political career hit an almost immediate snag, however, just days after the primary victory, when questions arose about her marital status. She lives with Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her three children, but is legally married to another man, with whom she says she is in divorce proceedings. Conservative websites have speculated that the legal marriage was to her brother for the purpose of committing immigration fraud. Omar declined interviews during the media maelstrom this summer, instead releasing a statement saying there was no immigration fraud, but a more conventional story about trouble in her relationship with Hirsi, which has since resolved itself. Omar said the district has rallied around her in the face of the scrutiny. She said her family has remained steadfastly with her, and alleged the marriage story was a political con meant to derail the progress of the kinds of people she will represent, including the Somali-American community. I feel like I have answered all of the questions  mostly rumors  in the statements that I have put out, she said.

Coolican covered this story for the Star Tribune after it emerged on Power Line this past August. Having gotten the treatment from Omars spokesman and having failed get an interview with Omar or her husband, Coolican knows first-hand that Omar has not answered all of the questions  mostly rumors  in the statements she has put out.

I summarized the story in the City Journal The curious case of Ilhan Omar. At this point I will just observe that Omars election to public office may be historic in more ways than one. We dont know.
The Democratic Party pulled out all the stops to try to drag Hillary Clinton across the finish line, including more brazen use of their operatives with bylines than ever before. Never again will anyone take seriously the claim that reporters at papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post are objective journalists. (Recall, among many other outrages, Post columnist Dana Milbank calling on the Democratic National Committee to supply anti-Trump research for his column.) Happily, though, the best efforts of the byline brigade fell short. Michael Ramirez draws an apt analogy to a failed campaign of the past. Click to enlarge:

This cartoon harkens back to another one that Ramirez did a day or two ago. If you missed it then, here it is again:
Editors note: This story is taken from Ragan Communications distance-learning portal, Ragan Training. The site contains hundreds of hours of case studies, video presentations and interactive courses.

When 61 percent of your employees dont spend their workday at a desk, you cant rely solely on email for your internal communications.

Consolidated Edison, the New York City-based energy company, has nearly 14,000 employees, but 8,500 of them work away from computers.

Theyre out climbing poles, says company writer and editor Marcia Cummings. Theyre going down manholes. Theyre installing gas pipelines.

Yet as of 2012 Consolidated Edisonknown to its friends as Con Edwas relying mostly on company emails to communicate, sending more than 1,000 a year.

Nowadays, things are different. Cummings and Ann Cameron, director of creative services, reveal how the company made the transition in a new Ragan Training video, Digital Screens: Keeping Everyone at Con Edison Connected.
Colleges Provide Campus Snooze Rooms

The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is the latest school to make headlines for piloting a napping station. In the walk-up to finals, six vinyl cots and disposable pillowcases were placed in the school's undergraduate library, which is open 24/7. First-come, first-serve, with a 30-minute time limit on snoozing, the area was the brainchild ...
A new comprehensive roadmap to be released to Nigerians by December is being worked on by the federal government, an official has said.

The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udoma, described the document as expansive and all-inclusive medium term economic development plan (2017 -2019).

The minister said Nigerias top economists and technical experts were drafted to work with officials from relevant government ministries, departments and agencies to develop the document.

At a two-day national economic retreat, Mr. Udoma said the experts and government officials, including those from the public and private sectors, contributed ideas on the proposed economic road map.

Following consultations with the Economic Management Team and partners from the private sector and the academia, the minister said proposals were made on areas to focus on.

These were along five thematic areas, namely macroeconomic policy, economic diversification and growth, competitiveness, job creation and social inclusion, and governance.

Mr. Udoma urged the experts to work with the government in transforming the countrys economy, by making candid and innovative contributions and ideas to ensure the proposals to be included in the final economic recovery and growth plan stood the test of time.

He said since the release of the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) in May, the economic management team has been working on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) completed in August 2016.

The MTEF/FSP involved extensive consultations with top economists, the organized private sector, civil society as well as state governors, he said. We also developed the Medium Term Sector Strategy (MTSS) for the large spending ministries. These are all inputs in the 2017 budget.

Mr. Udoma said in preparing the 2017 budget, government had organized a ministerial retreat presided by President Muhammadu Buhari, saying the intention was to bring all the work together as part of a comprehensive medium term plan.

He said the current retreat was to enable extensive consultations on all issues to be captured in the new economic agenda.

The ideas that are contributed and adopted by each thematic group will be captured in a draft document to be shared in consultation with various groups, including federal and state governments, private sector and development partners, the minister said.

On suggestions the government did not have an economic agenda, the minister said the administration laid out a clear economic vision and direction in the Presidents 2016 Budget speech as well as in the SIP for the 2016 Budget of Change.

The SIP, he explained, was anchored on four policy fundamentals: investing in critical infrastructure, embracing the private sector, fostering social inclusion and job creation and improving security and tacking corruption.

The execution and monitoring of these fundamental objectives, he said, were prioritized in six thematic areas, namely policy, security and governance; diversification of the economy; power, rail and roads; oil and gas reforms; ease of doing business and social investment.

Besides, about 34 key policy actions in the SIP were selected for immediate implementation, with many of these are already yielding results.

Some of the actions outlined in the SIP included the development of sector road maps in agriculture, solid minerals, water resources and petroleum resources.

He said the SIP, which have since been concluded and launched, would be incorporated in the short-term development, with a more comprehensive medium-term plan involving extensive consultations, to be delivered before the end of the year.
The chairman of Foundation for Development and Environmental Initiative, Akin Mabogunje, has called for immediate steps towards addressing the countrys fast growing population before it poses serious danger.

Nigeria is projected to become the worlds third most populous nation by 2050. The country is currently ranked 8th on the global demographic ladder.

Mr. Mabogunje, a professor of geography, called for increase in the uptake of family planning as one of the ways to manage the countrys population.

He said unless the current demographic issues, especially uncontrolled birth, are addressed, the rise in population may spell doom for Nigeria.

Mr. Mabogunje, who was addressing a gathering of health and population experts at the 4th National Family Planning Conference in Abuja on Wednesday, said the huge demography of the nation could however become a blessing, if its potentials are adequately harnessed for development.

If we continue on our present mindless trajectory of population growth, the way forward is clear. It is the way to deepening poverty for the masses of this country, he said.

A country that is obsessed with just the number of its population can discover that it is simply breeding and breeding into accelerating poverty.

This is why countries that are serious about dramatically raising the level of their development had to intervene policy-wise and practically in determining the acceptable level of the fertility of their women folk, limiting it, as in the case of China until recently, to not more than one child per woman through her child-bearing age.

Speaking at the event, the chairman of the National Population Commission, Eze Duruiheoma, wondered whether Nigeria has the capacity to manage issues related to its large population.

With an annual growth rate of 3.2 per cent, the basic question is whether we have the capacity to manage the population effectively and cope with the negative consequences of rapid population growth.

We are in 2016, and 2050 is some 34 years and Nigeria is expected to be the 3rd largest population in the world, moving from its present 8th position. This movement upward in the global demographic ladder is a very huge challenge, and all hands must be on deck to ensure that we adopt the right attitudes and take bold decisions that will ensure that the quality of lives of Nigerians is not compromised because of this high population growth rate.

Though 2050 is still far, the right time to act is now. Todays actions will have great implications for the future and the welfare of the future generations.

We must ensure that the fertility rate is reduced through expansion of access to reproductive health services and information. We must also work consciously towards improving the maternal and child health situation and ensure that the right of the girl child to live a meaning life is enhanced, Mr. Duruiheoma said.

The Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, assured the gathering that government was committed to exploring the potentials of the nations demographic stature for national growth.

She attributed rampant crimes and other ills in the country to unemployment, illiteracy and other problems facing the nation.

The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, disclosed that the Federal Government was targeting 500 percent use of family planning commodities in the country in the next few years.

Mr. Adewole, a professor, said government plans to increase annual contribution to family planning commodities next year to $4 million from the current $3 million.

He urged stakeholders to prioritize adoption of family planning by couples, as according to him, the programme is capable of substantially reducing high rate of maternal deaths in the country.

He also pledged governments commitment to increasing investments in public health programmes in the country to reduce both poverty and deaths.
Protesters took to the street on Wednesday evening across many U.S. towns to protest the election of president-elect and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump over his campaign pledge.

The correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria reports that there was uneasy calm in Washington, D.C. with police patrolling the streets and blaring sirens.

The protesters blasted Mr. Trump over the way he conducted his campaign, particularly, his statements about immigrants, Africans, Muslims and other minority groups.

Some of Mr. Trumps campaign statements include a promise to build a wall along the border between U.S. and with Mexico to keep out undocumented immigrants, and other policies they deemed racist.

They also blocked the streets and chanted No more hate,  and carried anti-Trump slogans: Not my president, No Trump, No racist, among others.

In New York, thousands of protesters filled the streets in Midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, while hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park.

In downtown Chicago, thousands more gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower while chanting No racist USA.

Chicago police however closed roads in the area, restricting the demonstrators path.

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia and Boston on Wednesday evening, and organisers planned rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and California, while in Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, the police said.

Some 1,500 California students and teachers rallied also on Wednesday in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, a San Francisco Bay Area city before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hundreds of high school and college students also reportedly walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito, California.

A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday morning in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally.

Chanting in Spanish: The people united will never be defeated, the group held signs with slogans such as Not Supporting Racism, Not My President and Immigrants Make America Great.

A few miles away, students at the University of California, Berkeley protested on campus.

There had been uncertainty on Tuesday over whether Mr. Trump or rival Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton would accept the outcome of the presidential election.

However, the tension-soaked atmosphere evaporated after Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Trump to concede the election and congratulated him, saying she believed that he would be the next president of the U.S. after it became apparent that she had lost the Electoral College.

Mr. Trump, while also delivering his maiden speech, in an unusual humble tone, pledged to be president of all Americans as against the violent tones that had pervaded his campaigns.

Now its time for Americans to bind the wounds of division and to get together, he said.

To all Republicans and Democrats and Independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people. Its time.

I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans and this is so important to me.

For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which they were a few people, Im reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great party.

Mr. Trump would be inaugurated on January 20, 2017 as the 45th American President while Vice-President-elect Mike Pence would be inaugurated as the 48th vice president.

(NAN)
President Muhammadu Buhari will at 2 p.m. on Thursday conduct a swearing in ceremony for an acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN.

The new chief justice, whose identity is yet to be officially stated, will replace Justice Mahmud Mohammed whose tenure ended Wednesday, at midnight.

In a conversation with ThisDay newspapers, Mr. Buharis spokesperson, Garba Shehu, said the president will swear in an acting CJN, on Thursday.

An acting CJN will be sworn in by President Muhammadu Buhari at 2.00 pm Thursday, he stated in a text message, adding that he had no information about who would be appointed into the office.

The Attorney-General of the Federation will present the person to the president for swearing-in, he said.

Mr. Shehu said there was no need for confusion, in response to concerns over the delay of Mr. Buhari to endorse the appointment of the next most senior judge in the apex court, Walter Onnoghen.

Although Mr. Shehu did not mention the person to be appointed acting chief justice, Mr. Onnoghen is expected to be so appointed in compliance with Section 230 (4) of the 1999 Constitution as amended.

If the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria is vacant or if the person holding the office is for any reason unable to perform the functions of the office, then until a person has been appointed to and has assumed the functions of that office, or until the person holding the office has resumed those functions, the president shall appoint the most senior justice of the Supreme Court to perform those functions, the section states.

The National Judicial Council, NJC, had about a month ago, nominated Mr. Onnoghen for the approval of the president and subsequent endorsement by the National Assembly in compliance with the constitution which states that the appointment of a person to the office of Chief Justice of Nigeria shall be made by the President on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council subject to confirmation of such appointment by the Senate.

Mr. Buharis delay, some observers say, is connected with the ongoing probe of Supreme Court judges as well as others for corruption. Two Supreme Court judges were among seven judges recently suspended by the NJC over alleged corrupt practices.

Some senior lawyers have already condemned the delay by Mr. Buhari in appointing Mr. Onnoghen as substantive chief justice. Sebastian Hon, a senior advocate, described Mr. Buharis delay as dangerous.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. If you ignore the popular vote that indicated a photo finish, Mr. Trumps victory was decisive  he crossed the 270 electoral votes even before the returns from three of the 50 states were tallied, and was ahead of his rival by more than 70 electoral votes.

Mr. Trumps victory will go down as one of the greatest upsets in political history. No one in the world except perhaps Mr. Trump seriously thought he could do it. Until the polls closed on Tuesday, even the Clinton campaign exuded confidence that she would be elected first female president and cross a barrier that has stood for nearly a century after women in the United States got the right to vote.

Mr. Trumps victory was not just stunning because it was the first time the 70-year-old celebrity businessman was running for office, he pulled it off by running an unconventional campaign, railing throughout against the entire American political establishment, including that of the party whose ticket he seized as an outsider to face the electorate.

While the campaign lasted, Mr. Trump said and did what nobody before him dared. In spite, or perhaps because, of this, he managed to galvanize millions of his compatriots to disclaim the status quo, shove aside a quality alternative and follow the Republican flag bearer on a journey into an insular Utopia and national rediscovery he alone insisted exists.

How did this blustering maverick and political neophyte achieve his historic electoral feat, especially against a final rival parading enviable credentials as former first lady, senator and secretary of state?

Apart from her credentials, Hillary Clintons quest for history as the first female president appeared appealing and within grasp. She was at the cusp of history! But Mr. Trump thwarted it by masterfully rallying voters fed up with the American political system and making them even more distrustful of the rival he caricatured as Crooked Hillary.

Many Americans had come to see President Barack Obama and members of Congress as having failed to deliver on their promises of a better nation. Republican voters lament increasing spending and a ballooning national debt.

Democratic voters lament Mr. Obamas inability to get more laws through Congress. Independent voters (those not aligned with either party) lament the relentless partisan bickering.

As a definitive Washington DC insider and opponent, Hillary Clinton was a natural target for this anger. Under the blitz of Mr. Trumps acerbic tongue, Mrs. Clinton emerged to aggrieved voters even in so-called Democratic party-leaning states as the embodiment of an ineffectual and rigged system, the ultimate insider of an establishment that had failed America.

Trumps core success here has been to usurp the popular anger into his political identity. He became the candidate of the angry disenchanted, while he made Clinton the candidate of the status quo, observed Tom Rogan, writing for the CNN before the poll.

As a once-in-a-generation political outsider, Mr. Trump was able to capitalize on this discontent. The vast majority of his supporters are Republicans. But many others  in swing states like Florida and Ohio  are independents. Some even are Democrats.

So by projecting a vivid picture of a system that needed to be urgently fixed, and his rival as a pillar of that system, Mr. Trump mobilised the angry to cast their votes for him in record number on Tuesday.

His battle cry was to Make America Great Again. This resonated with millions of voters who felt alienated by the forces of globalization and multiculturalism, and frustrated that Washington cannot address their needs.

According to Karren Tumulty of the Washington Post, voters anxious about the economy, convinced that the system was stacked against them, fearful of terrorism and angry about the rising gap between rich and poor, gravitated toward Trump.

In him, they saw a fearless champion who would re-create what they recalled as an America unchallenged in the world, unthreatened at home and unfettered by the elitist forces of political correctness.

Mr. Trumps victory, indeed, reflects the nationalist wave that has swept the developed world and which in June pushed Britain to vote for a break from the European Union. His campaign was an American version of the populist uprisings that have been seen in other Western societies against open borders and globalization.

In fact, Mr. Trump said he smelled an American Brexit in the making at the American election. That vote in Britain caught the elites and the establishment totally by surprise. It was an uprising that went unseen until it struck, severing the UK from her neighbours across the channel.

According to Tumulty, Mr. Trumps victory was powered by an outpouring of voters, overwhelmingly white and many without college degrees, who felt left behind by the economic recovery, ignored by Washington and disdained by the political, cultural and economic elites.

While Mrs. Clinton assembled a diverse coalition that she said reflected the nation, Mr. Trump built a powerful and impassioned movement by also fanning resentments over gender, race and religion.

He characterized Mexicans who immigrated illegally as rapists and murderers. He promised to deport them and then build a wall on the border with Mexico to keep them at bay. He portrayed Muslims as terrorists and to mark or deport them too from America.

With his supporters, Mr. Trump proved resilient against an onslaught of negative advertising from Clintons campaign and her allied super PAC, Priorities USA, which portrayed him as racist, misogynist and unhinged. Nearly a quarter-billion dollars was spent on ads supporting Mrs. Clinton, while just $153 million went into spots backing Mr. Trump.

An important issue in Mr. Trumps favour was identity politics. His proposed ban on Muslims, promise to build a wall on the Mexican border and threats to annihilate ISIS, persuaded his voters that he will protect them.

For Americans focused primarily on paying the bills, Trumps rhetoric against foreigners who either steal jobs or threaten lives strikes a nerve, noted another observer, Dan Balz.

Mr. Trumps rants divided Americans along racial lines. As minority groups campaigned against his candidature, white Americans solidified support behind him to reclaim America. On Tuesday, they made their support count as they reached a record 75 per cent of national voters turnout. According to a breakdown, 70 per cent of White voters without college education voted for Mr. Trump, while 59 per cent of them with degree cast their votes for him.

Mrs. Clinton maintained a lead in the polls for much of the campaign, especially after her partys convention. The lead looked insurmountable after a video appeared of Mr. Trump making inappropriate comments about women. Subsequently, more than a dozen women came forward to accuse the candidate of various incidents of sexual assault, all of which he denied. It set off a national conversation, involving not just women, but their husbands and sons and brothers.

Then came help for him from an unexpected source.

FBI Director, James Comey, shook the campaign 11 days before the election by announcing that a fresh trove of emails had been discovered on the computer of Anthony Weiner, a former New York congressman and estranged husband of Mrs. Clinton aide, Huma Abedin. On Sunday, Mr. Comey said the investigation found no cause for the FBI to reverse its earlier decision against an indictment. But the developments had taken Mrs. Clinton off her stride in the home stretch and contributed to a tightening of the polls.

The email scandal had dogged her throughout the campaigns and was used by the Republicans and Mr. Trump in assaulting her character and projecting her as dishonest and unworthy of public trust. After nearly a quarter-century in the nations consciousness, Clinton had become a walking paradox, a Rorschach test of what defines character and values. Trump nicknamed her Crooked Hillary, said Rogan.

In spite of what the polls suggested throughout, Mrs. Clinton faced an additional burden of running for what would be the third consecutive term for one party in the White House  something that has happened only once since the middle of the 20th century.

She got an early warning of trouble ahead, even before the general election. To win the Democratic nomination that had once been presumed to be a coronation, she had to fend off an unexpectedly potent primary challenge from Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt.), a self-identified democratic socialist who sparred with her until the final primaries in June.

This weakened Mrs. Clinton and distracted some members of the coalition that helped Mr. Obama to two electoral triumphs. Although there is no evidence yet that some of Mr. Sanders voted for Mr. Trump on Tuesday, some key demographic groups in the coalition did not show as much enthusiasm on Tuesday as they had done in 2008 and 2012.

In the final analysis, Mr. Trump successfully projected himself as a champion of Americans, in particular Whites, denied their due by their political system. As much as his election, how he delivers on his promises will remain of interest to people beyond American borders.
Nigerian lawmakers on Thursday threw out a bill seeking to make history a core learning subject in the nations primary and secondary schools.

The proposed legislation was rejected by the House of Representatives after members raised concerns about the implication of a language in it.

The bill, titled A Bill for an Act to Make History a Core School Subject in Nigerias Primary and Secondary Schools and for other Related Matters, was proposed by Ayodeji Oladimeji from Ekiti State.

Mr. Oladimeji said he crafted the bill to address widespread ignorance of Nigerian history  and even major historical events around the world  among Nigerians in primary and secondary schools.

I have a secretary who did not even know anything about former Head of State, Murtala Muhammed, Mr. Oladimeji, an APC member, said. Colleagues, we need to do something about this situation because history is highly essential for nation building.

But Mr. Oladimejis proposal quickly met an opposition, first in the person of Zakari Mohammed and later from other lawmakers.

Mr. Mohammed, an APC lawmaker from Kwara, said the word core in the heading of the bill was problematic and blocked it from passing a second reading.

I know its important for a people to know their history, but the word core in the title of the bill is somehow, Mr. Zakari said.

His position was later echoed by a few other lawmakers who demanded the bill be stepped down even when they spoke highly of its importance.

The opposing lawmakers further stated that the parliament does not need to pass a bill strictly for the purpose of mandating history.

They said other key subjects such as English and mathematics are being taught in schools without special legislative backing.

But Mr. Oladimeji said he proposed the bill because he understood that history used to be in Nigerias early education curriculum but had since been removed.

The Nigerian government reportedly removed history from key subjects in schools in 2009.

Mr. Oladimeji said enacting the adoption of history into law should make it stringent for education administrators to expunge from the curriculum.

Speaker Yakubu Dogara, nonetheless, overruled Mr. Oladimejis prayers and urged him to go and rework the bill.

The defeated proposal came on the heels of relentless calls by academics for history to be restored into the curriculum for pupils.

In August, Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, decried the removal of history which he believed would result in a lack of adequate education for teenagers.

I learnt not so long ago that history has been taken off the curriculum in this country. Can you imagine that? History? Mr. Soyinka, a professor, said. What is wrong with history? Or maybe I should ask, what is wrong with some peoples head?
At least one person was killed in violence that marred a Peoples Democratic Party event.

The Abia Police Command said one person was killed during the violence at Wednesdays chairmanship primaries of the PDP in the state.

The commands spokesman, Ogbonnaya Nta, told the News Agency of Nigeria that the deceased, identified as Onyemaechi, was a member of staff of Isialangwa North Local Government Area venue of the election.

He died in a fire at the chairmans office, the spokesperson said.

The deceased died when the office was allegedly set on fire by aggrieved delegates.

At least three other persons were injured in the fire.

The spokesperson said the police arrested four persons in connection with the mayhem.

A witness said trouble broke out when some delegates who came for the poll at the council headquarters in Okpuala-Ngwa, rejected the list presented by the party officials that came to conduct the exercise.

It was learnt that the group, which threatened to disrupt the exercise, alleged that the list was doctored to favour a particular aspirant.

The agitation was said to have caused confusion and tension at the venue.

The witness said that in the midst of the crisis that ensued, somebody sneaked into the chairmans office with a jerry can of petrol and set the place ablaze.

The intention was to burn the disputed list, the source said, adding that the fire escalated, killing one person on the spot.

Mr. Nta said that three other occupants of the office sustained serious burns and were rushed to hospital for treatment.

He said that the command had commenced investigation into the matter.

The primaries, which were organised to elect the partys flag bearers for the December 17 local government election in the state, was stalemated in most of the 17 council areas due to violence.

There were also allegations of attempts by some powerful politicians to impose their anointed candidates.

The Publicity Secretary of the PDP in Abia, Don Ubani, denied the allegations of violence in a telephone interview, but admitted that there were minor skirmishes during the exercise in some local government areas.

Mr. Ubani said that the partys leadership was still reviewing the reports of the election committees.

(NAN)
Nigeria will team up with other countries to strengthen maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea, President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged.

Receiving the Executive Secretary of the Gulf of Guinea Commission, Florentina Ukonga, at State House, Abuja, Thursday, the President said the Commission is of strategic importance, as most of the crude oil stolen from Nigeria is taken through the Gulf of Guinea.

That region, between Senegal and Angola, affects our financial and physical security as a country. Nigeria will, therefore, meet all its obligations to the Gulf of Guinea Commission, and also encourage other member countries to do the same, the President said.

This administration will do its best to strengthen maritime security. The rejuvenation of the Gulf of Guinea Commission is vital, and Nigeria will participate more effectively because of the security implications, President Buhari added.

Ms. Ukonga disclosed that the Commission was established in 2001, to tackle piracy, unregulated fishing, drugs and human trafficking, environmental pollution, among others.

The Gulf of Guinea Commission, with headquarters in Luanda, Angola, also generates awareness among member states on the need to maintain security in their territorial waters.

We have been giving the bad guys in maritime a run for their money, the Executive Secretary said.

The Commission has eight countries as members from West and Central Africa, with an intention to admit more countries soon.
The global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) has urged implementing African countries to adopt the beneficial ownership disclosures in their reporting and governance processes as part of effort to fight corruption in the management of the extractive industries.

This was part of the resolution at the regional workshop on beneficial ownership hosted by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, in Abuja.

The workshop also resolved to develop responsive road maps on the implementation of Beneficial Ownership on or by January, 2017.

The workshop was attended by EITI implementing countries in nine Anglophone and Lusophone speaking countries in Africa, including Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Sao Tome en Principe and Nigeria.

The Chairman of the NEITI Board, Kayode Fayemi, told delegates the workshop was a forum to share ideas on the development of beneficial ownership disclosures, which aligns with President Muhammadu Buharis three point agenda of fighting corruption, growing the economy and tackling insecurity.

Mr. Fayemi, who is also the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, said it was in Nigerias interest and those of other EITI implementing countries to subscribe to beneficial ownership disclosures.

This, he explained, had a direct connection to reforms in the extractive sector, to remove the dangers associated with anonymous companies and the global attention the issue has attracted.

The minister restated President Buharis commitment to the implementation of the initiative based on his conviction that public register of beneficial owners of extractive companies would limit abuses and myriad of social and economic crimes perpetrated through use of anonymous companies.

At the recent anti-corruption summit in London, the president had said Nigeria would establish a transparent central register of companies bidding for all public contracts and buying property.

The minister assured that NEITI would continue to provide leadership and work with other stakeholders and the global EITI to ensure that Nigerias pronouncements on beneficial ownership disclosures and other obligations under the EITI Standard translated into concrete actions with desired results.

He said this would be realized through the provision of adequate policies and legal frameworks considered at the workshop.

The Head of the Department for International Development (DFID) office in Nigeria and sponsor of the programme, Ben Mellor, underlined the importance of the workshop, saying it was an opportunity for Nigeria to make progress on the governance issues plaguing the country.

The challenge NEITI now faces is a slightly different one than before. With the NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation) now accepting the need to stop the bleeding and shine the light, how does NEITI help Nigeria to follow through on these commitments and to take good governance to the next levels? Mr Mellor asked.

He advised delegates to seize opportunities to take on the big corruption issues that have held countries back, to make change happen in the system.

The Deputy Head of the EITI Secretariat, Eddie Rich, applauded NEITIs role in highlighting transparency and accountability issues as the bane of Nigerias extractive sector.

He said recommendations in the NEITI audit reports these past years have led to reforms in the extractive sector, saving the country millions of dollars which could be channelled to other development programmes.

NEITI Executive Secretary, Waziri Adio, said NEITIs newly introduced policy briefs, quarterly reviews and renewed partnerships with development partners, donors, influencers as well as civil society would enable it remain relevant and shape the discourse on resource governance.

Issues discussed at the workshop included existing challenges in beneficial ownership disclosures in the extractive sector, the draft validation reports of countries under-going validation, and EITI open data and dissemination.

The delegates also looked at NEITIs process of turning its audit reports to policy reforms as a model in the extractive sector.
The Nigerian government on Thursday extended invitation to Russians to take advantage of the countrys arable land to produce and export agricultural products.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo gave the invitation when a Russian delegation led by the Russian Minister of Agriculture, Alexander Tkachev, called on him on Thursday.

The oil prices have gone down tremendously and yet large amount of foreign exchange is used to purchase food abroad and we have large arable land for agric. It wont make sense, if you dont use the land, Mr. Osinbajo said.

We are inviting Russian farmers to invest in Nigeria, produce and import from here. We are just six hours away from Europe by air. Vegetables, flour can be exported to Europe from here. Even our local market here is a lot.

Mr. Osinbajo said the availability of arable land in Nigeria made the case for improved local agricultural production in Nigeria an imperative, rather than continued importation with its significant pressure on dwindling foreign earnings of the country.

Both the vice president and the delegation that included Russian deputy minister of agriculture, Evgeny Gromyko, and officials of Russian firm (Rusal) agreed that the two countries should deepen the existing diplomatic relationship, especially economically.

The vice president assured his visitors, which included the Russian ambassador in Nigeria, Nikolay Udovichenko, there was a lot of money to be made if Russian technology in agriculture was deployed locally.

Earlier, the Russian agriculture minister, who is the Co-Chair of the Nigeria-Russia Joint Commission, expressed his countrys willingness to enhance the existing trade relations with Nigeria.

He noted that the Nigeria-Russia trade volume as at the end of 2015 exceeded $300 million, adding that there were potentials for improvement in the years ahead.

The Russian minister said there were better opportunities for economic cooperation between both countries.
A civic group has expressed concerns that Nigerians stand to have their right to privacy compromised if a telecommunication bill being pushed in the House of Representatives scales through.

The House is currently considering the intrusive bill which experts say could compel wireless operators to pass specific information about Nigerians telephone conversations to law enforcement agencies.

The Caller Information Bill sponsored by Iduma Igariwey from Ebonyi State scaled through the second reading.

Mr. Igariwey, amongst nearly two dozen other provisions, proposes blanket powers for law enforcement to access every information carried through telephone calls.

He also seeks to place operators in charge of the decisions to release or withhold information about activities of the 146 connected telephone lines in the country.

But in a statement to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday, the Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, PIN, a public policy think-tank, took issues with the proposed law.

The group said passing it would give the government the power to legitimise what is already being done illegitimately.

The PIN program manager, Adeboye Adegoke, said Mr. Igariweys proposal is lazy and dangerous.

Empowering telecoms service providers to determine the protocols that will be used in the release of information requested by security agencies absolutely disregarded the constitutionally-guaranteed rights to privacy that citizen must enjoy, Mr. Adegoke said.

The sensitive nature of this bill should have compelled the drafters to prescribe global standards and frameworks for such location disclosure to happen if at all.

But the drafters took the lazy approach and delegated that responsibility to service providers who are primarily business-oriented, Mr. Adegoke said.

The group also said the bills ambiguous provisions will render it susceptible to abuse by the government and even private individuals who wield some powers in the society.

The bill vaguely defines circumstances requiring such disclosure, PINs executive director, Gbenga Sesan, said in the statement. It compromises rights to privacy and will be used by the powerful to connive with security agencies to clampdown on activists, critics and whistle-blowers.

Mr. Sesan said, due to the ambiguities, the bill had failed to address criminality contrary to the claims of its sponsor.

One would have thought the Bill was contemplated to assist in fighting crime, kidnapping and similar criminal activities.

The group, therefore, urged the lawmakers to cease further consideration of the bill, saying it lacks the diligence and severity required of such legislations.

We would like to call on all stakeholders to reject this bill in its entirety and that the Nigeria House of Representatives suspend further deliberation or consideration.

Mr. Igariwey did not respond to PREMIUM TIMES requests for comment.
The Otodogbame community in the Lekki area of Lagos has faulted claims by the police that the Egun-speaking part of the settlement was involved in a violent clash with the Yoruba speaking part.

The Lagos State Police Command had, in a statement on Wednesday, said it intervened to restore calm during a clash between the two communities situated in Ikate, Lekki Phase 1. The police said it rescued a two-day old baby in the process.

Dolapo Badmos, the Public Relations Officer of the State Command of the Nigerian Police, said the police immediately moved into the area to prevent further breakdown of law and order.

There is an Egun community mainly made up of people from Republic of Benin, Ms. Badmos, a superintendent of police, said in the statement.

They actually occupy illegal shanties. We were alerted about the breakdown of law and order in the area and immediately went to check Otodogbami community, Ikate Lekki Phase 1, where there is a fight between the Benin- Yoruba communities fighting over the supremacy of the territory.

Its an illegal settlement area, most of the structures there are shanties and because of a protracted dispute between themselves, they set fire on their different shanties. The Police moved into the area to restore peace and in the process of checking the area, we discovered that there was a woman who was trapped in one of the shanties with a two-day old baby who would have been burnt in the process.

But Solomon Akojenu, a community spokesperson, said the traditional ruler of the area, Saheed Elegushi, colluded with the government to invade their homes with hoodlums.

There is nothing like tribal fighting here, its just an excuse to eject us out of the community, Mr. Akojenu told PREMIUM TIMES.

It was those hoodlums that invaded our place and began setting fire to our homes. We have lived here peacefully for decades, until the king (Mr. Elegushi) gave us quit notice to leave this place. Why would we start fighting ourselves now?

The purported crisis came barely a day after a Lagos court ordered the state government to immediately suspend its planned demolition of shanties along creeks and waterways in the state.

It also came one week after the state House of Assembly appealed to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to reconsider the planned demolitions.

On Wednesday, Ms. Badmos said the state government has taken over the area while the State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development would move in to demolish the remaining shanties and clear the rubbles caused by the inferno.

The Police is alive to its responsibility of ensuring the safety of lives and property of its citizenry and would not hesitate to carry out the necessary action where the need arises, she said.
If Donald Trump can win this US presidential election then #Biafra can also attain her freedom. I love the spirit that never say die.

 Emeka Gift, a Nigerian who is apparently pro-Biafran, said of Donald Trumps victory. (Source: Twitter)

Dear TB Joshua. Who gave you your prophecy? My God is not a man that He would lie neither is He the son of man that He would repent!

 Reno Omokri, clergy and social commentator, takes on renowned Nigerian prophet, T.B. Joshua, for his prediction that Hillary Clinton was going to win the U.S. presidential election. (Source: Twitter)

We are extremely saddened by the missed opportunity on the parts of the people of the United States to join smaller democracies in ending the marginalization of women.

 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the President of Liberia reacting to Hillary Clintons loss in the U.S presidential election. (Source: BBC)

(This was) a rebellion against the elites, a complete reinvention of politics and polls. This was a white-lash against a changing country. It was a white-lash against a black president in part, and thats the part where the pain comes.

 Van Jones, Democratic commentator and former staffer of the Obama administration, commenting on Republican candidate, Donald Trumps campaign and his eventual victory. (Source: Yahoo! news)

This is painful and it will be for a long time. I still believe in America and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.

 Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, says in her concession speech. (Source: The Guardian, UK)

Such a beautiful and important evening! The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We will all come together as never before.

 Donald Trump, the U.S President-elect, said in his victory speech. (Source: Twitter)

We are now all rooting for his (Donald Trumps) success in uniting and leading the country. The peaceful transition of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy. And over the next few months, we are going to show that to the world.

 U.S President Barrack Obama calling on Americans, irrespective of the political divides, to unite and support the President-elect, Donald Trump. (Source: Time magazine)

For those people saying calm down, no I will not. Yesterday, hate won, racism won, and sexism won. He (Donald Trump) is not my president. And I am ashamed.

 Haley Halvorson, an American citizen, rejecting Donald Trumps election as the next American president (Source: Twitter)

#HesNotMyPresident. It doesnt sound right calling him President. After Obama leaves, I have no President.

 Chocolate Princes, an American, rejecting Donald Trumps election. (Source: Twitter)

I do not support the #NotMyPresident movement. We are a constitutional republic of, by, and for the people. #WeThePeople have chosen.

 Austin Petersen, an American citizen, declaring support for Donald Trumps election. (Source: Twitter)
Senior lawyers in Nigeria have lamented the failure of the judiciary to independently address cases of corruption among its officials.

Speaking at a valedictory session in honour of the outgoing Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mahmud Mohammed, a representative of the body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Thompson Okpoko, said the judiciary has remained silent for far too long against complaints of corruption.

We have kept a blind eye to our problems for far too long. We have looked the other way we have allowed rules to be twisted or bent against expected standard, said Mr. Okpoko, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

He called on judicial officers to put behind them what he described as lamentations about the recent developments in the fight against corruption. He asked them to join hands with the National Judicial Council, NJC, to bring about an eradication of corruption in the sector.

Also speaking at the event, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Abubakar Mahmud, said although the arrest of some judges by operatives of the State Security Service goes against the provision of the constitution, there was the need to restore the confidence of Nigerians in the judiciary.

Mr. Mahmud expressed hope that the NJC will rise to the challenge of restoring the confidence of Nigerians in the judiciary.

Both senior advocates spoke weeks after seven judges were arrested in midnight raids by the SSS who accused them of corruption. The mode of arrest of the judges polarised Nigerians with some in support and others condemning the move. The seven judges, including two Supreme Court justices, have since been suspended while charges have been filed against one of them.

However, on Thursday in his valedictory speech delivered at the event, Mr. Mahmud noted the efforts of the judiciary towards ensuring the continuity of Nigeria.

Our nation owes the judiciary a debt of gratitude for standing firm in the face of contrary winds that threatened to blow our nations democracy off course, the outgoing chief justice said.

During the run up to the 2015 elections, our judicial officers withstood image pressure in order to guaranty a level playing field and smooth transition of government.
The former Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Mahmud Mohammed, on Thursday called for a constitutional amendment to reduce appeals to the Supreme Court.

The immediate past CJN made the call in his speech during a valedictory session organised for his exit from the bench.

Mr. Mohammed said the volume of appeals filed in the apex court was overwhelming.

Permit me to re-iterate my comments made during the opening of the 2016-2017 Legal Year when I opined that our Supreme Court is arguably the most overworked in the World.

In the 2014-2015 Legal Year, the Supreme Court heard 1578 matters, consisting of 1000 motions and 569 substantive appeals, delivering 262 judgments.

In 2015-2016 Legal Year, the court heard 1489 matters, consisting of 908 motions and 581 substantive appeals, delivering 268 judgments in that period, he said.

He further said a total of 500 new appeals were filed in the registry of the court in the 2015-2016 legal year.

This figure shows that nearly ten appeals were filed per week, most of which were interlocutory in nature.

Similarly, there were more than 5,000 outstanding appeals some of which have become academic in nature.

The log-jams are the result of a free-for-all appeals process, which has been given the imprimatur of our constitution. It was obvious that urgent action was required, he said.

As an interim measure, the out-gone CJN said the court had taken measure to constitute a second panel to sit on Wednesdays in-addition to the normal sitting in Chamber slated for the same days.

This additional Panel was a first in the history of the court and has certainly had a significant impact on the case disposal rate of the court.

I will not take full credit for this success, as my brother justices rose to the challenge, but I recognise that this was a necessary response to the yearnings of all Nigerians for justice, Mohammed said.

Besides, Mr. Mohammed said, the country owed the judiciary a debt of gratitude for standing firm in the face of contrary winds that threatened to blow Nigerias democracy off course.

During the run up to the 2015 elections, our judicial officers withstood immense pressure in order to guarantee a level playing field and smooth transition of government.

This ensured that we were speared a re-enactment of the June 12 saga. In fact, the courts, thus securing the electoral process, disallowed so many frivolous matters aimed at truncating the electoral process.

I must particularly commend the Supreme Court for refusing to be intimidated or influenced by any candidates or political parties, and I make no apologies for the firm stand that we took in our decisions, he said.

On alleged corruption rocking the Judiciary, Mr. Mohammed said he had tried to use the power bestowed on him as Chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC) to restore the integrity of the judiciary.

As Chairman of the National Judicial Council, I was greatly concerned about the integrity of our judicial Institution.

I was particularly keen to ensure that the judiciary was properly positioned, both institutionally and ethically, to effectively play its role as valuable partner in good governance and the fight against corruption, he said.

The President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Abubakar Mahmoud, said the out-gone CJN would be remembered not just for his judicial pronouncements.

According to him, Mr. Mohammed will also be remembered as CJN who spear-headed some of the most innovative reforms in the Judiciary.

The immediate past CJN was born in Jalingo, Taraba State capital, on November 10, 1946.

He had his early elementary education at Mallam Kasimu Koranic School and Jalingo Primary School between 1950 and 1956.

He completed his primary education at the Senior Primary School, Jalingo, between 1957 and 1959.

He studied Law at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, between 1967 and 1970, and was at the Nigerian Law School between 1970 and 1971.

(NAN)
Justice Joyce Abdulmaleek of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, on Thursday adjourned till December 6 hearing on the plea bargain process between Olunike Afolabi and the EFCC in the ongoing N8 billion currency scam case.

Afolabi, Kolawole Babalola, Adeola Olaniran, Philip Togun and Adewale Ademola along with others had since 2015 been standing trial over multiple charges bordering on conspiracy, forgery, stealing and recirculation of N8 billion, property of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Ms. Abdulmaleek adjourned the case to allow Afolabi and the EFCC conclude all the processes involved in the plea bargain arrangement.

She said the adjournment would also allow the charge sheets to be amended to reflect the current realities.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that at the resumed trial, counsel to Afolabi, Adewole Olajire, had announced that his client had begun a plea bargain process with the EFCC.

Mr. Olajire said that the whole process would be completed within two weeks.

Other defence counsel led by Olayinka Bolanle urged the court to consider the plea bargain application and adjournment in the interest of justice and fair trial.

Adebisi Adeniyi, the prosecuting counsel, who confirmed receipt of the plea bargain application, also urged the court to grant the adjournment .

One of the six accused persons, Oni Ademola, had earlier been convicted through the plea bargain process.

(NAN)
The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Samson Ayokunle, said President-elect of the United States of America, Donald Trump, was positioned by God to fight immorality in the country.

Mr. Ayokunle said this at the 29th General Assembly of the Christian Council of Nigeria (CCN) held at First Baptist Church, Garki, Abuja, on Thursday.

The three-day programme is tagged: God of Life: Lead Nigeria to Justice, Peace and Dignity.

He called on Americans to watch very closely as the new administration would not tolerate the issues of immorality in the country any more.

According to him, God has now positioned Mr. Trump to fight the immoral life in the American society. He said the nation that was once known as Gods own country is vastly becoming Sodom and Gomorrah.

Mr. Ayokunle said that there was an extent to which a nation would emphasise circular and individual liberty to the neglect of Gods absolute reign to the affairs of men.

He also called on Nigerians to be on guard at all times as Boko Haram had not been fully defeated, following the recent killing of Lt. Col. Abu Ali and some soldiers in Maiduguri.

He said it is not over until it is over; the fact that a top army officer was killed is a signal to the fact that we have not defeated them.

It was also an attestation to the commitment of the Federal Government to fight this demon called Boko Haram.

So, everybody should be more committed so that the souls of those who died might not be in vain.

The CAN boss called on Christians to be united and not to make their doctrinal beliefs to overwhelm them because Jesus Christ prayed for the church to be one.

We are diverse because of our doctrinal beliefs but we must be one because Jesus says the church must be one; He prayed for the church.

I think the problem with us is the placing of much emphasis on autonomy where it becomes its petals when we lack respect for one another.

There should be collective recognition of leadership, desire to put up the things of the world and eternity-centred in such a way that occupying position does not matter to anybody, he said.

He said that corruption in the country was endemic and called on the government to keep fighting it so that the country would not be crippled.

According to Ayokunle, corruption appears to be endemic in the Nigerian society and it has got to the fabric of our national lives; there is hardly any sector that can be exempted.

By the result that corruption has given us presently, I think it is high time we all rose and fight the demon; without fighting it, it will cripple us.

If we are not very careful we will end up becoming a crippled giant because we have allowed corruption to enter into our system, he said.

Earlier, President of CCN, Emmanuel Josiah, had called on Nigerians to support the fight against corruption, asking the citizenry to repent and return to God.

According to him, the greatest challenge that we are facing now is sin, and wherever there is sin, we cannot experience any progress and God can never be there.

There is no child of God that will not support the fight against corruption, Mr. Josiah said.

Rufus Ositelu, Primate, The Church of the Lord Prayer Fellowship Worldwide, said that corruption could not be fought totally but could be brought to a minimum so that the country would move forward.

According to him, what is really disturbing the progress of this country is corruption. If corruption is fought to a standstill by next year, we will see progress in the country, he said.

(NAN)
In continuing efforts to rid the north-east of Boko Haram insurgents and bolster security in the region, the Nigerian Police have conducted a five-day basic intelligence gathering programme for 251 members of vigilante groups from Adamawa and Taraba states.

The vigilante groups, made up of local hunters, have been assisting Nigerian troops in the fight against Boko Haram.

During the training programme, Wednesday, at Mobile Police 14 base in Yola, Adamawa, the state commander of the vigilantes, Murtala Aliyu, said the training would boost the capacity of members by providing them with necessary techniques to operate more effectively in supporting the police and other security agencies against the insurgency.

Mr. Aliyu also said that the training would help members conform to standards in their operations.

He lauded the support his members were enjoying from the public in Adamawa, but said the state and local governments were not doing much to support the operation of his members.

Mr. Aliyu said that as people who mix with the public, his members if fully supported would play a more effective role in gathering intelligence that would help reduce crime to the minimum.

While restating the commitment of his members to effectively contribute to national security in view of their presence in all nooks and crannies, Mr. Aliyu said there was plan to recruit more members in Adamawa next year.

Currently, Adamawa has 2,800 members and we hope to increase the number next year, he said.

He explained that though membership is voluntary, the intending recruits must be responsible members of society and have their applications endorsed by their ward, village or district heads and divisional police officers.

On their relationship with other hunters, Mr. Aliyu said that they are different but work together.

Some of our members are also hunters, he said.

On disciplinary measures against erring members in the state, the commander said that about 20 members had been sanctioned within the year.

Some of them were suspended and some dismissed, he said.
Leaders of Igbo community in Kano State have denied planning to protest the release of five suspects accused of killing a female trader, Bridget Agbahime.

Ms. Agbahime, 74, an Imo State indigene, was murdered in Kofar Wambai Market on June 2 for alleged blasphemy.

The police slammed five suspects, Dauda Ahmed, Abdulmumeen Mustafa, Zubairu Abubakar, Abdullahi Abubakar and Musa Abdullahi, with a four-count charge of allegedly inciting disturbance, culpable homicide, joint act and mischief.

The Chief Magistrate handling the case, Muhammad Jibril, last Thursday discharged the five suspects and terminated the case as advised by the attorney-general of Kano State.

After the release of the suspects, rumours were rife in Kano that traders in the market, who are mostly Igbo, were planning to protest the acquittal of the suspects.

They however, denied planning any protest.

Speaking at the Zone One office of the Nigerian Police Force in the state, President of the Igbo Community Association, ICA, Oke Iwoha, said there was never a plan to launch a protest against the courts ruling.

He said that although they were not happy with the judgement, they would not take the law into their hands.

He also said the association has cautioned its members against any protest.

We are not happy with this ruling, but we are peace loving Nigerians. We told our people not to react. We calmed them down. We will follow appropriate channels to ensure that justice is done for us, he said

He also said the officials were at the office of the Assistant Inspector General, AIG, to intimate him on their plans.

We told him that we will take no action that is contrary to the law of the land because we are living peacefully with Kano people of Kano and assured him of our resolve to maintain that harmonious relationship, he said.

On his part, the AIG Zone One, Albania Ibrahim, said he swiftly intervened in the matter on hearing the protest rumour.

He said he quickly summoned the Igbo community leaders to his office to strategize on how to amicably resolve the matter. He also said everyone had agreed to live in peace.
The founder of the Oodua Peoples Congress, Frederick Faseun, on Wednesday restated his friendship with Hamza Al-Mustafa, former Chief Security Officer to the late head of state, Sani Abacha.

Mr. Faseun said Mr. Al-Mustafa stood by him in pursuit of justice and fairness.

Mr. Faseun spoke at the annual lecture in his honour which was organised by Integrity Icons, a youth organisation, at the International Event Centre in Akure.

The lecture was themed The Nigerian Quest for Social Justice and Credible Leadership, with Dare Babarinsa as guest lecturer.

Mr. Al-Mustapha was acquitted in 2013 by an appeal court after spending 14 years in jail on charges of masterminding the death of Kudirat Abiola, the wife of the late Moshood Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993 elections.

On his release from prison in July 2013, Mr. Al-Mustapha was flown into Kano aboard a chartered flight in company of Mr. Faseun.

Both rode through the streets of the ancient city waving to a waiting crowd who lined the streets to welcome their hero.

The OPC chieftain was heavily criticized for his action, as many Nigerians believed he should not be associating with a man whose role in the dark days of the Abacha regime was still viewed with disdain.

On Wednesday, Mr, Faseun said he chose to stand by Mr. Al-Mustapha after listening to two prosecution witnesses in the court during the trial of the former CSO.

According to him, after listening to the witnesses who with tears testified that they were forced to lie against Mr. Al-Mustapha that he killed Kudirat Abiola, he had no choice but to change his mind.

It was sad that the high court judge who stated that the prosecution witnesses were not reliable, went ahead to sentence him to death, Mr. Faseun said.

After what I heard from the prosecution witnesses in an open court that they lied against Mustapha, it will be wrong for anyone to hold it against him that he killed Kudirat Abiola.

He noted that his position had nothing to do with any pecuniary reason, saying he believed in justice and fairness and would continue to uphold these principles despite the odds against him.

Mr. Faseun earlier in his remarks, noted that Nigeria was still groping in the dark in search of democracy even though her leaders were elected.

After watching the U.S. elections, I felt sorry for democracy in the land, he said. We are still hoping for democracy. Democracy is not here yet.

He said leaders had no respect for the rule of law, ruling with impunity and trampling on the rights of the citizens.

On Mr. Al-Mustapha, Governor Olusegun Mimiko said the former CSO to the late head of state owes Nigerians a book that would tell the stories still shrouded in mysteries.

We are waiting for a book. You owe us a book, Mr. Mimiko told Major Mustapha. There is a lot of gaps in our history that you need to fill.

Mr. Mimiko said the retired officer is a part of the nations recent history and should be willing to let the world know those things that would impact on the nations political development.

Mr. Al-Mustapha who did not make any speech, but sat through the sessions, responded to the governors remarks with an applause.
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State on Thursday said that there were abundant opportunities for entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector as Lagos residents consume N3 billion worth of food items daily.

Mr. Ambode disclosed this at the opening of a two-day Lagos Food Security Summit and Exhibition organised by the states ministry of agriculture.

The summit had the theme: Actualising Sustainable Food Security in Lagos State: A New Comprehensive Agenda.

The figure of food items consumed daily indicates that the investment climate in the state is bright, Mr. Ambode said.

Investors are guaranteed a profitable return as the state is the largest consumer of food commodities in the country.

This is, therefore, a call for huge public and private sector investments in the agricultural sector to ensure food security and create employment opportunities for the youths.

According to him, some areas of investment opportunities in the states agricultural sector include modern abattoirs, agro processing for export, storage facilities, dairy farming, and livestock feeds production.

He said his administrations core policy was geared toward achieving food security to maximise the states comparative advantage in agriculture and establish partnerships with other states.

One of the challenges the current economic recession has brought to the fore is the urgent need to develop a sustainable programme that will guarantee food security for our people.

Our country is blessed with very good arable land and climate that supports food production.

We need to review and redirect our energies to food production, rather than spend billions of foreign exchange on importation of food and food items that can be cultivated in our country.

This summit will help proffer solutions to the challenges militating against the achievement of food security and explore various investment opportunities in agriculture and agro-allied business in the state.

These solutions will help stimulate private investment in the sector so that we can feed our nation and our people without resorting to importation, he said.

Also speaking, Sani Dangote, Chairman of the summit, advised the state government to rename the agriculture ministry the ministry of agri-business.

Mr. Dangote said that agriculture was a profitable business and was not only about poverty alleviation, as popularly viewed by Nigerians.

According to him, there cannot be any development where there is no food security in any given nation.

Nigeria can grow its economy and increase its GDP, if agriculture is adequately given the attention it requires.

Im happy that the Lagos State Government recognised the place of agriculture and is already working in that direction, Mr. Dangote said.

A Department for International Development (DFID-Nigeria) official, John Woodruf, said the agricultural sector remained a key sector that should be given adequate attention by the Nigerian government.

Mr. Woodruf is the acting Deputy Director, DFID-Nigeria Development for International Trade.

The UK Government recognises the great potentials of agriculture in Nigeria as a positive contribution to its economy.

I urge you to import less and produce your foods.

The UK government is ready to assist you to take this forward in ensuring food security and sustainability in Lagos and Nigeria as a whole, he said.

In his address, Oluwatoyin Suarau, Commissioner for Agriculture, said the state government was taking proactive steps, as the issue of food security had been attracting global attention.

Mr. Suarau said the government was creating the enabling environment, providing adequate infrastructure and evolving policies to improve food production, food security and alleviate poverty.

In his remarks, Sanni Okanlawon, Special Adviser to Governor Ambode on Food Security, said the summit was to review and discuss ways of ensuring food security in the state.

According to Mr. Okanlawon, the need to have a plan to ensure the fast-growing Lagos population has enough to eat today and in the future is urgent and important.

(NAN)


Pobierz zdjecie Przeczytaj o zasadach pobierania zdjec President's address to Poles (photo by Krzysztof Sitkowski / KPRP) (1)

"Independence Day observances are a symbol of the historical continuity of our nation; we are returning to the past to build a better future, President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday evening, the eve of Poland's Independence Day.

"During the partition years, for over a hundred years of enslavement, several generations of Poles carried the yearning for a free homeland in their hearts," President Duda said in a televised address to Poles.

"When these dreams of free statehood transformed into acts of insurgency, hostile armies bloodily quenched such independence outbursts. Thousands of Poles condemned to death, deportation and persecution never lived to see the day of their desired freedom. And this day came in 1918, when an independent Polish state was reborn from the ashes of a war-ravaged Europe."

"The day of November 11 was instituted as a National Day of Independence, as it was then that the Regency Council conferred the command over the Polish armed forces to Jozef Pilsudski."

"The anniversary of the regaining of independence by Poland was celebrated very solemnly in the period between the two world wars. There were state observances as well as celebrations in the streets and in homes. World War Two, the German occupation and communist enslavement broke this tradition. The aim was to erase the significance of the events of 1918 from social awareness. The aim was to make Poles forget about independence," President Duda said.

"Today, in a free country, we are returning with pride to the pre-war tradition, thus to express our belief that our Poland is the continuation of the country whose construction was begun by the generation of the Second Republic of Poland," the president said.

"Tomorrow's Independence Day observances are an important symbol. A symbol of the historical continuity of our nation. We are returning to the past to build a better future," President Duda said. (PAP)
Voters in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights made their presidential preference heard loud and clear during Tuesdays election  and it didnt agree with the national outcome.

Dearborn voters overwhelmingly cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton with the Democratic candidate earning 24,940 votes compared to President-elect Donald Trumps 12,171 votes.

In Dearborn Heights, voters cast 13,279 votes for Clinton with 9,005 going to Trump.

The early morning voter line was long but the mood was light at DuVall Elementary School in Dearborn. A diverse queue chatted, sipped coffee and snacked on sweets they bought from a student bake sale.

Kelly Jabbusch said she arrived about 10 minutes after the polls opened Tuesday and was voter No. 67, waiting about 40 minutes to cast her ballot. The 38-year-old math professor at The University of Michigan-Dearborn voted for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton because she agrees with her policies.

Amina Abboushi, 34, arrived a little later to join a slightly shorter but still lengthy line. The mortgage company worker says she voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein because Clinton and Republican Donald Trump are embarrassing.

Imad Hamad, executive director of The American Human Rights Council in Dearborn, said he understands the disappointment of segments of American society with the elections outcome, but urges everyone to accept the outcome and focus attention on contributing to solving problems in the United States and abroad.

There are lessons in winning campaigns and lessons in losing campaigns, Hamad said. We hope that we all draw the right lessons. As a human rights organization, we are vigilant in protecting and promoting human rights regardless of the outcome of one electoral cycle or another.

Despite the countrys divergence on crucial political issues, Hamad said everyone needs to work together to tackle the serious challenges facing the nation.

It is time to build bridges and move forward, he said.

Hamad added that the AHRC will remain as vigilant as ever in monitoring and advocating for human rights and human dignity in the United States and around the world.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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New Delhi. Union Minister for Urban Development Housing, Urban Poverty Alleviation, & Parliamentary Affairs, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu on the occasion of Memorandum of Understanding signing ceremony on the second day of Global Rajasthan Agritech Meet 2016 said that he will try his best to come up with a concept of Smart Villages like Smart Cities for the overall development of the country.In the presence of Mr. Naidu, Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Ms. Vasundhara Raje and Rajasthan Agriculture Minister, Mr. Prabhu Lal Saini  38 MoUs with a total value of Rs 4400.89 crore were signed during GRAM 2016 at Jaipur.On behalf of Government of Rajasthan, Principal Secretary, Agriculture, Ms. Neelkamal Darbari and Secretary,Animal Husbandry, Mr. Kunjilal Meena signed the MoUs with the investors.The MoUs were signed in various sections of agriculture and allied sectors like animal husbandry, fisheries and agro tourism.Speaking on the occasion Mr. Venkaiah Naidu said that every state needs to focus on the growth of farmers and agriculture apart from industries also.Only then the country will grow in real sense.Mr Naidu emphasized on the fact that the agriculture sector has not received the importance it should have. He commended that Ms. Rajes initiative of organizing GRAM and her focus on agriculture is appreciable and should be encouraged. As a sector, agriculture is important and increasingly more younger generations should opt for farming. He also congratulated the award winners and said that they should inspire others to take initiatives in agriculture and allied sectors.Chief Minister speaking on the occasion called GRAM a momentous occasion for the government and the farming community. She emphasized that the objective for organizing GRAM is to reduce the gap between cities and villages. She hoped that the urban-rural gap will further reduce with the concerted efforts the State is making. Very soon one will see farmer-entrepreneurs. She stated that within one year the projects for which MoUs have been signed will come on the ground.Mr. Saini in his welcome address said that these MoUs will help in taking the economy of Rajasthan ahead. The state has huge potential in areas like modernizing mandis, cold chains, olive oils, custom hiring etc. among others.MoUs worth Rs 1732.9 crores direct investment and Rs 200 crores indirect investment were signed in the Agricultural Marketing Department. In the Agriculture department, MoUs worth Rs 1654.01 crores direct and Rs 40.4 crores indirect investment were signed. MoUs worth Rs 538.48 crores were signed in the Horticulture sector. In the Animal Husbandry sector, MoUs worth Rs 272.5 crores direct and Rs 302 crores indirect investment were signed.The total MoUs worth Rs 4400.89 crores will provide 19293 direct and 27379 indirect employment in the state.On the occasion, 13 people who performed extraordinarily in the Agriculture and allied sectors were awarded by the dignitaries. The awardees were Kailash Chowdhary, Santosh Chowdhary, Abdul Rehman Khan, Ratan Lal Daga, Omprakash Patidar, Hanuman Singh Singodia, Prem Shankar Galav, Mukund Savani, Jitesh Dave, Bhupendra Singh, Kanha Ram Yadav, Gyan Singh and Ghasi Lal Sharma.Other dignitaries present on the occasion were Minister of state for I&B Mr. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Mr.C.R. Chaudhary, and other senior ministers and MLAs.The three-day global meet is being organised by the Government of Rajasthan in association with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry at Sitapura-based Jaipur Exhibition and Convention Center in Jaipur.
Mount Laurel firm buys Atlantic County IT company

{child_byline}MARTIN DeANGELIS

Staff Writer

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Mount Laurel-based Ancero LLC is buying Ground Swell Inc., a computer-services company that was founded in Ventnor and now has its headquarters in Egg Harbor Township.

Ancero announced the deal this week, saying the goal of the purchase is to grow in Ground Swells historic home base.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Our cultures align very well, and their geographic presence in Cape May, Atlantic and Ocean (counties) fast tracks our expansion plans, said an Ancero partner, Paul Boyer.

But the deal is also a kind of return to its roots for Ancero, which got its start in Northfield in 1999. The founders included another partner, Robert Hogg Jr., a Northfield native who said this week that his company is thrilled to be back to the area where it all started for us. The Jersey Shore footprint has seen a recent boom in business.

Ground Swell was founded in 2001 by longtime friends Justin Tinel and Kurt Kwart, who then lived in Linwood and Atlantic City. In a 2010 interview, Kwart described the two as technical entrepreneurs, and said the companys IT business included an array of services for personal computers, Macs, computer networks and websites. At that point, Ground Swell had four employees.

In a statement, Ground Swells Tinel said his company was attracted to the deal by Anceros proven track record of growth and innovation. We knew we could trust them to nurture our company and turn it into a great success story.

From Mount Laurel, in Burlington County, Ancero serves clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic states and the Northeast Corridor, the company said in a statement.

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Being lost in an unfamiliar place can be scary. Getting lost in a place youre supposed to know well can be confusing and terrifying.

About 67 percent of people with dementias such as Alzheimers disease will wander at some point, according to the Alzheimers Association, and health networks have come up with ways to track lost seniors faster.

The Missing Senior Network, a mobile and web-based service launched by Home Instead Senior Care, is designed to help families build networks of friends and neighbors who would be put on alert if a family member was reported missing.

The key is for people to really understand that even if they seem like they are awake and alert, they could still be wandering, said Fran Fox, owner of Home Instead Senior Care in Somers Point. Its important to know that this happens not just with Alzheimers, but for all dementias.

Nearly 30,000 people in Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties are affected by Alzheimers disease or a related disorder, according to the Alzheimers Association Delaware Valley Chapter.

Foxs mother was among those people in 2012. Foxs father had died that January and her mothers cognitive health started to decline more rapidly. One day in November of that year, Fox said, her mother planned to drive from her home in Voorhees, Camden County, to Atlantic City to spend time in the casinos.

At 2 a.m. the next day, Fox got a phone call from police in Bel Air, Maryland, where officers had found her mother in her banged-up car.

Nobody thought she was gone, because we thought she was at the casino, Fox said. She could answer questions about her name, where she lived and she gave them my phone number, but she could not tell us how she damaged the car or an account of the whole day. Thats what happens with a lot of people.

The Missing Senior Network helps people like Fox and her family create a list of relatives, friends and neighbors who will receive phone alerts if a loved one goes missing. That network can work together by calling and texting and be on the lookout for the missing senior.

Its crucial to be quick in finding seniors, especially ones with dementia or Alzheimers, said Krista McKay, Delaware Valley Chapter director of programs and services. Once the person has been missing for more than 24 hours, his or her chances of survival are cut in half, she said.

That is because a person with dementia or Alzheimers disease may suffer weather-related health risks, such as being outside in the cold without proper clothing or in the sun for too long without hydration.

On top of that, confusion and disorientation may make it harder for the lost person to function at all or make sense of the situation, she said.

The feeling of being lost comes in, and when they dont have the same memory capacity we have, the feeling must be  and we can only surmise  like being dropped off in foreign country without a map, McKay said.

Sgt. Eric Hendrickson, of the Galloway Township Police Department, said some communities have programs with their local law enforcement that help monitor at-risk seniors daily with check-in calls and visits.

Once in a while, officers will get a case of a missing senior that requires them to search public areas, local establishments and familiar places to find someone suffering from dementia or Alzheimers.

One time, we lost a women, and it took helicopters and everything to search for her in the woods, he said. We eventually found her locked in an abandoned house. Its important to find them fast, because oftentimes, they are more frail and susceptible to conditions of extreme heat and cold.

Families can use Missing Senior Network along with the nationwide Alzheimers Association MedicAlert Safe Return service, a 24-hour emergency response service for people with any type of dementia who wander or have some type of medical emergency.

People in Atlantic County may also enroll in Project Lifesaver, a program run by the countys Sheriffs Office that uses wristband transmitters to track wandering adults and children who may have Alzheimers or other disorders.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account.
Deals for Veterans

Golden Nugget  Atlantic City, NJ: Show your military ID for 20% off at the following:

Restaurants: Lillies Asian Cuisine, Grotto, Michael Patricks & The Buffet

Spa & Salon: Any 50 or 80 minute treatment

Retail: Style & Trend, 1946, Tint, Cool Jeans, dOro, The Signature Shoppe & Essentials.

PJ Whelihans  Atlantic City, Cherry Hill, Haddon Township, Maple Shade, Medford Lakes, Washington Township. PJ Whelihans locations will give a free 10-piece order of their famous wings to active duty and veterans.

Red Hot & Blue Restaurants: Cherry Hill - Active Duty, Retirees and Reservists receive a free entree with the purchase of two drinks and a second entree of equal or greater value. Proof of military service required. Dine-in only. Print and present the coupon before ordering. Available for three daysWednesday, November 9; Thursday, November 10; and Friday, November 11, 2016.

World War II Lookout Tower: Veterans are invited to visit the World War II Lookout Tower, also known as Fire Control Tower No. 23, located on Sunset Boulevard, Lower Township, on Veterans Day, Friday, Nov. 11, and will be offered free admission during regular hours from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Dennis Township: VETERANS DAY OPEN HOUSE

11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 11; hosted by the Belleplain VFW Post 6257; meat loaf dinner and day of recognition for those who have served our country in the military; VFW Post 6257, 556 Woodbine Ave., Belleplain. 609-861-2298.

Veterans Day Celebrations

Atlantic City: There will be a ceremony honoring veterans at O'Donnell Park in Atlantic City at 11 a.m. There will be a wreath laying and guest speakers followed by a salute to the flag.

Egg Harbor City: The Egg Harbor City Veterans day Parade will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Philadelphia Avenue.

Galloway: Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. There will be local speakers, music and lunch. More information call 609-652-8657.

Northfield: Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. There will be a dedication ceremony of Veterans Park on Oak Avenue.

Ocean City: Ocean City will host its annual Veterans Day service at the tabernacle. Art only. They will have a program with all the service information, speakers, etc. that they hand out at the beginning of the service.

Stockton University will host a series of events on the Galloway campus on Nov. 11. They will begin at the Campus Center at 11 a.m.
The state has taken over Atlantic City.

Now what?

Many questions remain unanswered about what the state will do with its new authority over the city. The state hasnt announced who will be in charge, what actions it will take and which powers, if any, will remain with city officials.

There are also legal questions about how the state can execute the major decision-making powers it took from the city and gave to Local Government Services Director Timothy Cunningham, said Marc Pfeiffer, assistant director of the Bloustein Local Government Center at Rutgers University.

The Attorney Generals Office, Im sure, will be deeply involved in providing that guidance and advice, Pfeiffer said. How do they authorize purchase orders or enter into contracts? Do they delegate it to city officials with the states ability to approve all of that? All of those things have to be sorted out.

Cunningham, or his designee, can now sell city assets, hire or fire workers and break union contracts, among other powers, for up to five years as the state tries to fix the citys finances.

Cunningham said there are logistical issues the state is still working out, such as whether the supervising state official will be based in Trenton or in Atlantic City. He declined to comment on whether he would run the city himself or appoint a designee but said he would consider looking outside and inside the division.

I do have a very competent staff that has the majority of the municipalities under control while my attention has been on Atlantic City, Cunningham said Wednesday. If a designee was brought on, I dont know if I have the resources in-house.

City officials, who said they are keeping legal options open, dont know what authority they have left. The so-called takeover law includes a long list of powers the state could use, from suing on behalf of the city to buying goods and services.

We have to sit down with the commissioner and see what powers we still have to continue to represent the people who elected us, Council President Marty Small said Wednesday. Cunningham has all the powers to do everything that was in the (takeover law), and were just hoping it isnt as draconian, he said.

Cunningham said theres still a role for the mayor and council. He said hed meet with city officials to discuss the powers granted to him under the takeover law.

I think there are still some authorities and actions that will be retained by the executive and legislative branches, Cunningham said.

The state took over after it rejected the citys five-year fiscal recovery plan this month. But the state hasnt released its own plan to close the citys $100 million budget deficit and pay down the citys $500 million debt.

If there was such a plan for the state, we could say Theyre planning to implement this power, said Michael Darcy, director of the New Jersey League of Municipalities. It creates a lot of questions.

Darcy said the league would wait to see how the state intervenes in Atlantic City and the possible statewide implications before deciding to get involved.

Were not the league of one municipality, were the league of all municipalities, he said. We are going to keep a close look at it.

Pfeiffer said the states actions may trigger a lawsuit. If the state breaks city union contracts, for example, there may be grounds for litigation.

Cunningham, who declined Wednesday to name specific actions the state would take, said unions shouldnt consider their contracts null and void.

We havent had a conversation, Cunningham said. They are part of a group of stakeholders were going to have to meet with.

The citys Municipal Utilities Authority, the prized water works, was at the center of negotiations between the city and state. City Council failed to get majority support five times to dissolve the authority, a major reason why state officials pursued a state takeover.

Clearly thats an area were going to have to look into, Cunningham said of the authority.

Mayor Don Guardian has battled Gov. Chris Christie for months to maintain his citys sovereignty. With the prospect of Christie leaving New Jersey to work in a Donald Trump White House, Guardian was asked if a new governor would help the city with the state takeover.

What do you think? he joked.
The mother of a Middle Township boy missing for 25 years hopes a documentary debuting at the Cape May Film Festival on Saturday will help draw more attention to the case.

Maureen Himebaugh said she still has hope her son Mark is alive, although she knows realistically he could be gone.

Ive been told that if it is made into a movie that there would be a lot more exposure, Himebaugh said. I just want closure.

Nov. 25 is the 25th anniversary of the day 11-year-old Mark was last seen in Del Haven, Middle Township.

The One Percent: The Mark Himebaugh Story is co-produced by Ed Claypoole and Rip Saling, whose uncle is the longtime boyfriend of Maureen Himebaugh.

Himebaugh, 64, who still lives in the same Del Haven house, said she will watch the 15-minute film for the first time Saturday.

There are so many possibilities about what could have happened to Mark, said Saling, 43, of West Chester, Pennsylvania. Our whole goal is to bring answers to his disappearance.

A huge marsh fire diverted traffic off Bayshore Road the day Mark Himebaugh went missing. He got off his school bus and stopped to watch the fire before heading home about 3:30 p.m. along Sun Ray Beach Boulevard.

He saw his mom, who told investigators she let her son know she was going to run an errand and would be back soon.

Investigators at the time said he was last seen by a worker at Cape May County Park South playing with an unidentified girl his age at the playground on Bayshore Road.

Himebaughs disappearance prompted a massive search involving hundreds of volunteers and members of law enforcement. The search party found the boys white L.A. Gear sneaker a half-block from his house, raising fears he had been abducted.

No one ever has been charged in the disappearance, but police identified Pennsylvanian Thomas Butcavage as a person of interest in the case. He is serving a 36-year prison sentence after being convicted of child molestation in 1999.

The documentary will be shown 4 to 5:30 p.m. at West Cape May Borough Hall at 732 Broadway as part of the Cape May Film Festival.

We interviewed family, friends, former cops, detectives, people who had dogs out there that day. (We used) news footage, Saling said.

A daytime festival pass for Saturday costs $15; an evening pass $20; entire weekend $50.

Saling, who runs Rip Roarin Productions video company, said he hopes to expand on The One Percent after the festival.

Our goal is hoping to get this into a full episode  a TV episode  or a full feature film, he said.

The films title is based on a statistic that about 1 percent of children reported missing by a caregiver are never found, according to the trailer.

Maureen Himebaugh said she was approached by Saling and Claypoole two years ago, when they began the project.

I think its good its happening now, Himebaugh, said. Were hoping for an answer. Contact: 609-272-7411 JTomczuk@pressofac.com Twitter @ACPressTomczuk
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.




DUBLIN, November 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Asia-Pacific Diabetic Shoes/Footwear Market Demand & Opportunity Outlook 2021" report to their offering.

On the back of expanding diabetic population across the continent, the demand for ortho shoes has spiked in recent years. Countries like Singapore and Australia has diabetic prevalence >10%. As a result, the demand for diabetic footwear is mounting every year.

Singapore, in-spite of being a small Asian country, is estimated to witness a burgeoned increase in the diabetic footwear and the demand for diabetic shoes is projected to register a healthy CAGR of > 8% during 2015-2021. This growth would be backed up by a high prevalence rate of diabetes in the country, which rose from 11.4% in 2010 to 14.8% in 2014. The situation has made the country worried for its future generation and epidemics caused due to beefed up diabetic prevalence.

In addition to that, Japan is also projected to have a modest demand for the ortho shoes in the country. Japan holds the sixth largest population of diabetic patients in the world and country has witnessed a nominal growth in total diabetic population since 2011-2014. The total number of diabetic patients in the country was 7.1 million in 2012, which slightly rose to 7.21 million in 2014.

Currently, Japan is one of the fastest aging nations of the world with 26% of the country's population aging 65 years or above. Further, there is a huge disparity in the birth and mortality rate in the country. The mortality rate is very high due to aged population and birth rate is comparatively very low. All these factors combined, a great market for diabetic footwear is projected to open new avenues in near future.

Key Answers Captured in Report

- Which geography would have better demand for product/services?

- What are the strategies adopted by big players in the regional market?

- Which country would see the steep rise in CAGR & year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth?

- What is the current & expected market size in next five years?

- What is the market feasibility for long term investment?

- What opportunity the country would offer for existing and new players in the market?

- What is risk involved for suppliers in the geography?

- What factors would drive the demand for the product/service in near future?

- What is the impact analysis of various factors in the market growth?

- What are the recent trends in the regional market and how successful they are?

Key Topics Covered:

1. List of Figures & Tables

2. Executive Summary

3. Market Entry & Winning Strategy

4. Research Methodology

5. Global Diabetic Footwear Market Size and Forecast

6. Market Segmentation

7. Porter's Five Force Model Analysis

8. Industry Growth Drivers

9. Restraints

10. Risk Analysis

11. Competitive Landscape

DARCO International Inc.

Sigvaris

Ortho Asia-Pacific

Duna Srl

Thuasne

Medline Industries

DJO Global Inc

Hong Kong Grace Shoes Development Co Ltd.

Dr. Zen Inc

Supad

Drew Shoe Corporation USA

Podartis Srl

Aetrex Worldwide, Inc.

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/mzzh98/asiapacific

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SOURCE Research and Markets
BRUSSELS, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Operators and Customers to Benefit From Outstanding Voice and Data Services in the Region

BICS, a global wholesale carrier for voice, mobile data and capacity services, has today announced the establishment of a new point-of-presence (PoP) in Nairobi, Kenya, thereby extending the company's reach in the African region.

BICS recognises the uptick in demand and the potential for future growth of connectivity and telecoms infrastructure in Africa. In 2014, BICS deployed a PoP in Johannesburg, which complemented the company's existing PoPs in Djibouti and Mauritius. The subsequent expansion into Kenya both underscores the company's dedication to service provision in the region and also completes BICS' comprehensive and mature infrastructure backbone on the continent.

Previously, voice calls placed in Africa have been rerouted via other international points-of-presence, impacting the quality of services as they are being connected from one African country to another. A call made from Kenya to Tanzania, for example, would normally be routed through London and back to Tanzania, travelling thousands of kilometres in the process.

Thanks to the new PoP in Kenya, voice and roaming data traffic now stays in the region. By keeping traffic in Africa local, customers will now benefit from an increase in the quality of services - both for voice calls and data roaming - no latency and increased Internet speeds. The PoP deployment will also minimise the cost for BICS' operator customers by optimising connectivity within the region, thereby improving the overall customer experience.

BICS is the only communications provider offering the complete suite of regional traffic routing for International Voice, Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and data roaming services in Africa. All BICS' PoP deployments are fully redundant and utilise next-generation technology, allowing the company to evolve its infrastructure as services and technology in the region develop.

"There has never been a greater demand for bandwidth, as more customers across Africa are able to take advantage of 4G. Data-intensive apps and services are being enjoyed by a growing number of mobile users, who expect the jump in technology to correlate with a jump in quality," said Clementine Fournier, Regional Vice President, Africa at BICS.

"With around 70% of traffic currently regional, the Kenya PoP deployment means we are now able to deliver on expectations, providing the local connectivity needed to satisfy customer demand for next-generation services. Our work in Africa has gone from strength to strength, and our latest move demonstrates a commitment to providing quality communications services in the region both now and in the future."

About BICS

BICS is recognized in the wholesale communications market as a top global voice carrier and the leading provider of mobile data services. We aim at bridging the telecom world with the new unconventional communication providers worldwide.

Our innovative suite of solutions for Voice, Messaging, Data & Connectivity, Business Intelligence & Analytics, Fraud & Security, Roaming, MVNE and Asset Monetization are designed to bring value to our customers' businesses.

BICS is headquartered in Brussels with regional offices in Bern, Dubai, Madrid, New York, San Francisco and Singapore. We also have a satellite office in Beijing and local representation in Accra, Cape Town, Miami, Montevideo, Quito, Nairobi and Toronto.

For more information visit http://www.bics.com

SOURCE BICS
DERBY, England, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Strategic Acquisition Expands Bionical' s Clinical Service

Bionical, the integrated outsourced specialist to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and public health industry, announces the strategic acquisition of Emas Pharma (Emas), a global Clinical Research Organisation. Emas, which provides pharmaceutical development and clinical research services to biotech, medical device and specialized pharmaceutical companies worldwide, will join Bionical's existing fast growing clinical services business. Financials were not disclosed.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437506LOGO )



The acquisition is part of Bionical's strategy to provide high quality clinical, commercial and communications services to pharmaceutical, biotech and public health companies in the global healthcare industry.

The acquisition of Emas and the addition of Clinical Research, Pharmacovigilance, Regulatory, Medical Information and Medical Affairs capabilities will support Bionical's mission to deliver improved health outcomes for patients. Bionical's clinical division currently provides the supply of comparator products for clinical trials as well as nurse educator teams and public health services and has a wide base of clients internationally. Emas, which has a significant client base of emerging and specialized biopharma companies, brings an extended global footprint, with offices in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and Ireland.

Graham McIntosh, CEO of Bionical, commented: "Emas Pharma is a fantastic business with great people and an excellent reputation. Emas's services are highly complementary to Bionical's existing clinical trial services and the acquisition creates opportunities for both businesses to bring enhanced services to their clients. We are very pleased Peter Kennerley, Liz McCann and the Emas team are now a part of Bionical and I look forward to working with them to continue the global growth of Emas."

Dr Peter Kennerley, CEO of Emas Pharma, commented: "We are delighted to join the Bionical group, which is a perfect synergy for Emas Pharma. Being part of a wider family of companies means that we will be offering our clients an even broader range of services to complement our current offerings; from nurse specialists to help track patients lost to follow up, to call centres for Medical Information and from Clinical Trial Supply support to healthcare communications. Liz and I are proud of the excellent reputation for high quality, cost effective support that Emas has built up over the years. We know that joining Mac and the Bionical team will help us extend that reputation even further."

Emas will continue to operate as a separate business under the existing leadership of Peter Kennerley and Peter will join the Bionical Board.

Emas is Bionical's third strategic acquisition in little over a year, following the successful acquisitions in 2015 of UK based North 51 and US based McCallan Healthcare. These earlier acquisitions brought public health, digital, educational and further commercial services to the rapidly-strengthening Bionical brand, ahead of the current EMAS acquisition which unifies and completes Bionical's patient-centric service portfolio.

About Bionical:

Bionical provides high quality clinical, commercial and communications services to pharmaceutical, biotech and public health companies in the global healthcare industry.

With a mission to improve health outcomes, Bionical's services accelerate product and treatment development and enhance communication and engagement with healthcare professionals and patients.

Bionical's services span the product lifecycle and include comparator supply for clinical trials, clinical educator services, contract sales solutions, recruitment, digital and educational platforms. In addition, in the UK Bionical provides industry leading public health services such as Quit 51, a stop smoking service that uses the latest research, evidence and licensed medication to support patients to stop smoking. Our team work with leading academics publishing outcomes and ensuring we are delivering cutting edge services that lead the field.

About Emas:

Emas Pharma provides pharmaceutical and device development services worldwide and specializes in partnering with specialist pharma and biotech companies.

Emas has in-depth expertise in complex small early phase and large global pivotal studies and all the regulatory and drug safety implications. Emas works as part of the client team and its expert team will stay on your project. Emas continues to partner right the way through the product lifecycle by providing medical affairs and medical information support, clinical services for post-marketing commitments and continued pharmacovigilance capability.

Emas Pharma provides services globally through its offices in USA, Canada, Ireland, Australia and the UK and can deliver high quality full-service drug development solutions whilst retaining flexibility and delivering value.

SOURCE Bionical and Emas
HYDERABAD, India, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

According to the report "Biopesticide Market", published by Market Data Forecast, the global market is projected to reach USD 6.77 Billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 16.6% from 2016 to 2021.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160913/406914LOGO )



For full report refer to "http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/global-bio-pesticide-market-484/"

Free sample for the report is available at "http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/global-bio-pesticide-market-484/request-sample"

Biopesticides are derived from natural sources which include animals, bacteria, plants, and certain minerals. Bt (Bacillus thruingiensis) containing products are the most common type of biopesticides but the plant-incorporated protectants (PIP) that come from adding genetic material to plants also fall in this category. Biopesticides are safe as they have high cost specificity and are biodegradable in nature, whereas traditional chemical pesticides often affect a broad range of pests as well as mammalian species and birds. They are required in low concentration to control insects.

The environmentally friendly biopesticides are an excellent alternative to conventional chemical pesticides. Growing environmental concerns and the health hazards inherent in the use of chemical pesticides have resulted in the increased adoption of biopesticides. These usually contain less toxic substance than the conventional pesticides which is expected to boost the biopesticides market in future period.

Inquire more about the report here at "http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/global-bio-pesticide-market-484/inquire"

The Biopesticides Market is segmented and analysed as follows:

By Crop Type:

Permanent Crops

Arable Crops

Forage & Turf Grasses

Greenhouse Crops

By Ingredients:

Biochemical Pesticides

Plant Pesticides

Microbial Pesticides

By Microorganism's type:

Bioherbicides

Biofungicides

Bionematicides

Bioinsecticides

By Application:

Seed Treatment

On Farm

Post-Harvest

By Geography:

Major Companies operating in the market are Parry America, Andermatt Biocontrol Ag, Marrone Bio Innovations Inc, Agbitech Pty Limited, Bioworks Inc., Som Phytopharma Limited, Camson Bio Technologies Limited, Hebei Veyong Bio-Chemical Co. Limited, Becker Underwood Inc., Agraquest Inc., Growth Products Limited, Valent Biosciences Corp, Biocare, Natural Industries and Novoenzymes A/S.

To buy the full report visit "https://www.marketdataforecast.com/cart/buy-now/global-bio-pesticide-market-484"

The Biopesticides market study offers the following deliverables:

Global, regional and country-level analysis and forecasts of the study market; providing Insights on the major countries/regions in which this industry is blooming and to also identify the regions that are still untapped

and forecasts of the study market; providing Insights on the major countries/regions in which this industry is blooming and to also identify the regions that are still untapped Segment-level analysis in terms of technology, component, and type along with market size forecasts and estimations to detect key areas of industry growth in detail

in terms of technology, component, and type along with market size forecasts and estimations to detect key areas of industry growth in detail Identification of key drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges (DROC) in the market and their impact on shifting market dynamics

in the market and their impact on shifting market dynamics Study of the effect of exogenous and endogenous factors that affect the global market; which includes broadly demographic, economics, and political, among other macro-environmental factors presented in an extensive PESTLE Analysis

Study the micro environment factors that determine the overall profitability of an Industry, using Porter ' s five forces analysis for analysing the level of competition and business strategy development

for analysing the level of competition and business strategy development A comprehensive list of key market players along with their product portfolio, current strategic interests, key financial information, legal issues, SWOT analysis and analyst overview to study and sustain the market environment

along with their product portfolio, current strategic interests, key financial information, legal issues, SWOT analysis and analyst overview to study and sustain the market environment Competitive landscape analysis listing out the mergers, acquisitions, collaborations in the field along with new product launches, comparative financial studies and recent developments in the market by the major companies

listing out the mergers, acquisitions, collaborations in the field along with new product launches, comparative financial studies and recent developments in the market by the major companies An executive summary , abridging the entire report in such a way that decision-making personnel can rapidly become acquainted with background information, concise analysis and main conclusions

, abridging the entire report in such a way that decision-making personnel can rapidly become acquainted with background information, concise analysis and main conclusions Expertly devised analyst overview along with Investment opportunities to provide both individuals and organizations a strong financial foothold in the market

Checkout other related studies in the Agrochemicals Segment:

Agrochemicals Market:

http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/global-agrochemicals-market-972/

Turf and Ornamental Grass Protection Market:

http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/global-turf-and-ornamental-grass-protection-market-438/

Pyrethroid Market:

http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/global-pyrethroid-market-979/

Crop Protection Pesticides Market:

http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/global-crop-protection-pesticides-market-452/

Organophosphate Pesticides Market:

http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/global-organophosphate-pesticides-market-929/

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SOURCE Market Data Forecast
Industrial, Public Safety, Transportation, and Utilities Applications to Drive Revenue

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ABI Research finds that the critical communications market, comprised of industrial/business, public safety, transportation, and utilities business segments, is poised for solid growth over the next decade. The global market is on track to top $8 billion in 2017. Important market drivers for the new melding of two-way and trunked communications businesses include the threat of terrorism, police and fire radio system integration, as well as the expansion of business and industrial communications and radio networks for transportation and utilities.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151014/276887LOGO

"Integration and interoperability of two-way radio networks is now mandatory due to the world's increasing complexity," says Lance Wilson, Research Director at ABI Research. "This includes present radio protocols like TETRA, DMR, APCO, as well as LTE, which serves as a bridge to the mobile communications markets."

Critical communications has both a historical and modern day perspective and is comprised of companies ranging from Motorola Solutions and Harris to Hytera, Kenwood, and Sepura. Digital communications are becoming an important part of this new market and will continue to grab share as time goes on. Ultimately, the critical communications market will bridge the gap between commercial two-way radio and mobile wireless communication, incorporating complex data services, as well.

These findings are from ABI Research's Critical Communications: Public Safety, Industrial/Business, Transportation, Utilities, and Other Radio Systems and Networks (https://www.abiresearch.com/market-research/product/1026026-critical-communications/) report.

About ABI Research

ABI Research stands at the forefront of technology market research, providing business leaders with comprehensive research and consulting services to help them implement informed, transformative technology decisions. Founded more than 25 years ago, the company's global team of senior and long-tenured analysts delivers deep market data forecasts, analyses, and teardown services. ABI Research is an industry pioneer, proactively uncovering ground-breaking business cycles and publishing research 18 to 36 months in advance of other organizations. For more information, visit www.abiresearch.com.

Contact Info: Mackenzie Gavel

Tel: +1.516.624.2542

pr@abiresearch.com

Related Links

http://www.abiresearch.com



SOURCE ABI Research
SHENZHEN, China, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- China's emerging smartphone manufacturer Cubot recently launched its second version of its Cheetah smartphone series -- Cubot Cheetah 2.

In 2015, the company partnered with Cheetah Mobile, China's leading mobile utility app maker (its products include the popular Clean Master), to release the first Cubot Cheetah Phone, proved to be a hot seller. This year, Cubot unveiled an enhanced version of the sleek smartphone with a range of refined features.

The Android 6.0 powered Cubot Cheetah 2 comes with a more aesthetic exterior design and a FHD LCD 1080P screen of 5.5 inch for better display.

Equipped with a 13 MP Samsung rear camera of 5P element lens and an 8 MP Sony front camera of 4P element lens, a built-in-mid-motor in the rear camera, the new phone also stands out with a faster focusing speed.

The Cubot Cheetah 2 has a front fingerprint sensor embedded in the physical home button, that has faster unlocking speed (0.1s) than other phones, and faster than iPhone (0.7s).

Another highlight of the new phone is its built-in gyroscope, which is usually not included in a smart phone with similar price. This feature allows Cubot Cheetah 2 to have more accurate navigation performance; it also brings users a better experience and effect when they are playing 3D and VR games on the phone.

The USB plug connector of Cubot Cheetah 2 does not have "right" or "wrong" side, meaning it will work in any plug orientation to avoid any likely damages of miss operation.

"Cubot is committed to creating the best user experience with our product range. Simple, fast, safe and with an excellent appearance, that's what we are trying to bring to our customers," said Richard, CEO of Cubot.

To celebrate the Chinese shopping festival on November 11, Cubot offers a special discount for users of Alibaba's AliExpress, the international version of China's most popular online shopping website Taobao. Originally priced at USD 169.99, Cubot Cheetah 2 is now USD 139.99 only on AliExpress.

For a video introduction of Cubot Cheetah 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RITQ6lC4EnQ

About Cubot

Cubot is a smartphone brand developed by Shenzhen Huafurui technology Co., Ltd, an emerging electronic company in China. Its products are available in Europe, Africa and Saudi Arabia.

SOURCE Cubot
LONDON, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

UK workers have pivotal role in encouraging their bosses and colleagues to mitigate the risk of fraud caused by a data breach

Businesses continue to overlook the importance of providing regular information security training to their employees

Employees can help fight against fraud by urging their bosses to provide adequate information security training, the UK's leading data destruction company said. For International Fraud Awareness Week, Shred-it is calling on workers in the UK to take responsibility for helping prevent fraud, which costs businesses 193 million[1] a year, but also has serious personal consequences for individuals.

Regular information security training is a crucial aspect of protecting organisations and their employees against fraud caused by a data breach. Despite this, over a third of small business owners (34%) admit to never training their employees on information security while 58% of C-Suite executives confess to training their staff only once a year or less, according to Shred-it's 2016 Security Tracker survey[2].

While a lack of training puts businesses at significant reputational, legal and financial risk, employees also suffer from data breaches and associated fraud. Fraud can lead to a reduction in bonuses if the organisation's profitability is impacted due to financial repercussions or fines, or even job losses. Employees may also find themselves under intense media scrutiny, or involved in the hugely time and resource consuming task of cleaning up the aftermath, both internally and externally. Because of this, Shred-it is encouraging workers to ask their bosses to equip them with the knowledge and tools necessary to protect the workplace.

Robert Guice, Senior Vice President, EMEAA, Shred-it comments "Information security training still sits low on the list of business priorities for most companies and business leaders. However, it can make the difference between a protected workplace and one recovering from the damage of fraud caused by data breach. Employees have a vital role to play when it comes to the preventing fraud in the workplace. The right training can help workers fully understand their responsibilities and take meaningful actions towards preventing a data breach."

He added, "During International Fraud Awareness Week, we urge all employees to take the initiative and call on their business leaders and colleagues to address any existing information security gaps and to commit to regular training."

As part of International Fraud Awareness Week, Shred-it has launched a Fraud Awareness Quiz which will enable businesses and employees to test themselves on their information security awareness and to identify risk areas within the business that are open to exploitation from fraudsters.

Shred-it has also developed tips for workers to share with their colleagues to help in the fight against fraud:

Encourage your colleagues to adopt a Clean Desk Policy . That means locking away all information when you're away from your desk to hide it from prying eyes!

. That means locking away all information when you're away from your desk to hide it from prying eyes! Educate your co-workers on the most vulnerable areas in the workplace. The printer area for example is a hotbed for sensitive information. Make sure your colleagues get into the habit of collecting their printing immediately!

for example is a hotbed for sensitive information. Make sure your colleagues get into the habit of collecting their printing immediately! Having a wastepaper or recycling bin at your desk is handy but you could accidentally throw away confidential business or personal information. Suggest that your workplace gets a locked and secure bin for all unwanted paper documents.

Flexible and mobile working is great, but remind your team that all information needs to be treated with the same care even from home. Leave non-essential documents in the workplace when you're working remotely!

Does one of your colleagues have responsibility for shredding documents using an office shredder? It's not as secure as they may think. These machines often strip-shred documents meaning they can be easily reconstructed. And documents are often left unsecured whilst waiting for someone to have the time or motivation to shred them. A secure cross-shredding service is more secure.

Think your co-workers are as pressed for time as you are? Why not take away the hassle and security risk of having to decide what is confidential and what is not by suggesting your business implements a Shred-it All Policy so that all information is securely destroyed.

International Fraud Awareness Week, which takes place between 13th- 19th November 2016, is organised every year by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (AFCE), the world's largest anti-fraud organisation. It stands up against fraud to minimise its global impact and promotes anti-fraud awareness and education all around the world.

About Shred-it

Shred-it is a world-leading information security company providing information destruction services that ensure the security and integrity of our clients' private information. A wholly, owned subsidiary of US-based business to business services company Stericycle, Shred-it operates in 170 markets throughout 18 countries worldwide, servicing more than 400,000 global, national and local businesses. For more information, please visit http://www.shredit.co.uk.

[1] IBM Ponemon Institute 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study

[2] Shred-it UK Data Security Tracker 2016

For further information contact:

Louis Fitzherbert

Weber Shandwick

Phone: +44(0)20-7067-0202

Email: lfitzherbert@@webershandwick.com

SOURCE Shred-it
As representative of the energy sector, GCL was invited to share its industrial perspective on the prospect of China's renewable energy.

Zhu Gongshan, Chairman of GCL, shared statistics indicating that renewable energy was leaning towards a more central position in China's energy landscape. "This is the synergy of spreading the concept of sustainability and enhancing photovoltaic efficiency," said Mr. Zhu. "As an industry leader, GCL has the influence to streamline the entire supply chain and achieve synergy, and thus fundamentally uplifting efficiency."

In addition, GCL, along with other photovoltaic manufacturers, has been playing an active role in advocating economical solar power for the Chinese national grid. "Through joint efforts, the cost of polysilicon to make PV modules has been largely reduced," added Zhu. "We hope everyone will enjoy green and affordable power in China in the near future."

Taking place shortly after the Paris Agreement, the forum served as a significant platform for transforming Chinese and even global energy systems in the direction of cleaner, lower-carbon sources. The meetings initiated experience sharing of energy transition worldwide, along with in-depth discussion on the route-map of China's energy transition and development and emphasized that sustainable energy must be cleaner, accessible and affordable for all, which makes renewable energy suppliers a key player in the country's energy transition.

As the forum's co-host, GCL this year built a customized "Future Energy Pavilion" to demonstrate the evolution of energy sources in human history, which also includes an immersive smart energy city experience center. The pavilion was later selected as the forum's permanent venue.

About GCL-SI

GCL System Integration Technology Co., Ltd. (002506 Shenzhen Stock) (GCL-SI), is part of the GOLDEN CONCORD Group (GCL), an international energy company specializing in clean and sustainable power production, founded in 1990. With global assets worth nearly USD16 billion, the combined companies delivered over 2 GW of modules globally in 2015, and currently supply more than 30% of all polysilicon and wafers utilized in the solar industry.

About GCL

GCL is an integrated energy group that specializes in clean, efficient and new energy. Since its foundation, GCL has committed itself to "Bringing Green Power to Life" by providing supreme energy and delivering first-rate services. With a total asset value of almost RMB 200 billion, GCL owns holding shares in five listed companies, including GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd. (3800.HK), GCL New Energy Holdings Ltd. (0451.HK), and GCL System Integration Technology Co., Ltd. (002506.SZ).

SOURCE GCL System
VALLEY COTTAGE, New York, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

According to a new report by Future Market Insights titled "Decorative Paints Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2016-2026", the global decorative paints market is anticipated to reach a market valuation of US$ 42.9 Bn by 2016 end and register a CAGR of 5.3% during the forecast period 2016-2026. In the report, Future Market Insights analyses the global decorative paints market performance and throws light on the key drivers, restraints, and trends likely to impact the market during the assessed 10-year period.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161020/430874LOGO )



According to analysts at Future Market Insights, changing consumer demands and a rapid development of commercial and residential buildings is expected to boost the growth of the global decorative paints market over the forecast period. A growing number of commercial buildings and rocketing construction of skyscrapers is further expected to push the demand for decorative paints in the coming years. Manufacturers are producing paints that can be used on multiple substrates such as cement walls, wood, glass, tiles, composites, etc. with robust physical and chemical properties, providing consumers the freedom to use paints as per their suitability. This is expected to boost the growth of the global decorative paints market over the forecast period. However, the threat of product substitution is expected to be a restraint to the global decorative paints market and use of nanotechnology based powder paints and coatings is expected to pose significant challenges to traditional decorative paints manufacturers globally.

Request a Sample Report with Table of Contents: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-439

"Introduction of intelligent paints for controlling temperature and heat transfer in varied geographical and climatic conditions around the world is emerging as a major trend in the global decorative paints market. Further, the need to decrease the hazardous impact of solvent based paints on the environment across the globe is pushing manufacturers and consumers to go for water based paints that emit lower Volatile Emission Control (VOC) as compared to solvent based paints." --- Analyst - Chemicals and Materials, Future Market Insights

Segmentation highlights

The global decorative paints market is segmented on the basis of product type into water based paints and solvent based paints; on the basis of formulations into emulsions and distemper; on the basis of price into premium range, medium range, and distemper range; on the basis of application into interior and exterior; and on the basis of sales channel into offline store and online store.

On the basis of product type, the water based paints segment is estimated to be pegged at 21,014 KT in terms of volume by the end of 2016

On the basis of formulations, the emulsions segment is expected to create incremental $ opportunity of US$ 24.10 Bn between 2016 and 2026

between 2016 and 2026 On the basis of price, the premium range segment is estimated to account for a market value share of 39.7% by the end of 2016

On the basis of application, the interior segment is estimated to be pegged at 18,612 KT in terms of volume by the end of 2016

On the basis of sales channel, the offline store segment is expected to register a CAGR of 5.4% during the forecast period

Preview Analysis on Global Decorative Paints Market Segmentation By Product Type - Water Based Paints and Solvent Based Paints, By Formulations - Emulsions and Distemper, By Price - Premium Range, Medium Range and Distemper Range, By Application - Interior and Exterior, By Sales Channel - Offline Store and Online Store: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/decorative-paints-market

Regional market projections

The global decorative paints market is segmented into the seven key regions of North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. The APEJ region is expected to dominate the global decorative paints market in terms of revenue, registering a CAGR of 5.9% during the forecast period.

Speak with Analyst for any Report Related Queries: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-439

Vendor insights

The global decorative paints market report profiles some of the leading players operating in the market such as Akzo Nobel N.V, The Sherwin-Williams Company, PPG Industries Inc., Asian Paints, Nipsea Group (Nippon Paints), BASF SE, The Valspar Corporation, Berger Paints India Limited, Kansai Paint Co. Ltd., RPM International Inc., and Jotun. Top market companies are investing heavily in new manufacturing facilities and are collaborating with big international players to increase sales and retain their strategic position in the global decorative paints market.

More From FMI's Cutting-edge Intelligence:

Bromine Derivatives Market Segmentation By Derivatives - Sodium Bromide, Calcium Bromide, Zinc Bromide, TBBPA, DBDPE; By Applications - Flame Retardant, Organic Intermediate, Oil & Gas Drilling, Biocides, PTA Synthesis; By End Use - Chemical, Construction, Oil & Gas, Pharmaceuticals, Electronics, and Others: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/bromine-derivatives-market

Engineering Plastics Market Segmentation By Product Type - Polyamides (PA), Polycarbonates (PC), Polyoxymethylene (POM), Polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and Styrene Acrylonitrile (SAN), High Performance Polymers, and others; By Application - Automotive and transportation, Electrical and electronics, Construction, Medical, Industrial and machinery, Packaging and Others: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/engineering-plastics-market

Graphite Market Segmentation By Product - Natural Graphite and Synthetic Graphite; By Application - Refractories, Lubricants and Crucible, Foundry Facing, Batteries and Others: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/graphite-market

About Us

Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights and an aerial view of the competitive framework and future market trends.

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SOURCE Future Market Insights
DUBLIN, November 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Synthetic Paper Market 2016-2020" report to their offering.

The report forecasts the global synthetic paper market to grow at a CAGR of 6.63% during the period 2016-2020.

The rising internet penetration and the increasing trend of online buying will boost the global synthetic paper market during the forecast period. Over 40% of the global population has internet access, and the percentage is increasing rapidly, giving more people access to online shopping.

According to the report, during the forecast period, the demand from different segments of the beverages industry such as milk, juices, and water will be the key driver of the HDPE synthetic paper packaging market. Vendors use eye-catching labels in beverage packaging to make the products stand out. Beverage labeling solutions with sophisticated decorations in alcoholic beverages and high-end soda bottles stand out on retail shelves.

Further, the report states that the launch of new synthetic paper lines requires massive investment. Synthetic paper lines have different lengths and widths, so new machinery and processes are required for each line. For instance, the total cost of machinery and equipment costs 65% of the total fixed costs. The recurring costs required for the maintenance of these machines also add up to the cost of production of synthetic paper. Vendors in the market need to have large production plants or product lines to meet the increasing demand. Clients partner with vendors that have large production facilities to support their volume requirements. This favors the major players in the market because of their continuous capital investment in the development of production plants. Investing large amounts of capital to purchase or extend existing production facilities and the additional expenditure associated with developing new plants are challenges for small players in the global synthetic paper market.

Key vendors:

DuPont

PPG Industries

Nan Ya Plastics

Yupo

Key Topics Covered:

PART 01: Executive summary

PART 02: Scope of the report

PART 03: Market research methodology

PART 04: Introduction

PART 05: Market landscape

PART 06: Market segmentation by materials

PART 07: Geographical segmentation

PART 08: Market drivers

PART 09: Impact of drivers

PART 10: Market challenges

PART 11: Impact of drivers and challenges

PART 12: Market trends

PART 13: Vendor landscape

PART 14: Key vendor analysis

PART 15: Appendix

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/4p4wdv/global_synthetic

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

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Related Links

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SOURCE Research and Markets
Intastop has been appointed the exclusive distributor of Inpro products in the UK

DONCASTER, England, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Inpro has announced that Intastop will become its exclusive distributor in the United Kingdom (UK) as of 1st February 2017. The companies share a common mission to protect buildings and the people who use them and together will bring a well-rounded product offering to the UK.

Inpro has had representation of its products in the UK since 1997. The new partnership further strengthens the product and service offering to coincide with Inpro's commitment to customer satisfaction. Phil Ziegler, Inpro CEO, says he is looking forward to the future with Intastop, "There is a great synergy between Inpro and Intastop and we share similar philosophies: protecting buildings and the people who use them."

Intastop will carry a wide range of Inpro Door and Wall Protection Products, such as Sanparrel Rigid Sheet, corner guards, wall panels, handrails and other interior protection products. In addition, Intastop offers many proprietary products for the mental health and healthcare markets.

ABOUT INTASTOP

Established in 1992, Intastop has evolved into a leading market supplier and has been leading the way in the specialist fields of anti-ligature products and door and wall protection. This pedigree, combined with the company's commitment to new product development and leading edge innovation, ensures Intastop remains a leading manufacturer and supplier to the healthcare, public and leisure build markets.

ABOUT INPRO

Since 1979, Inpro has been making and servicing products with an obsessive commitment to protecting the appearance of buildings and the health and safety of the people who use them. Based in Wisconsin, USA, Inpro is a global manufacturer of door and wall protection, washroom systems, expansion joint systems, privacy systems, architectural signage and elevator interiors.

Website

www.inprocorp.com

www.intastop.com

Related Links

http://inprocorp.com



SOURCE Inpro
LONDON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Integreon, a leading global provider of outsourced legal, document, business and research support, today announced that the U.S. Department of Commerce has accepted the company's self-certification for compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. Integreon's Privacy Shield certificate is available on the U.S. Department of Commerce's Privacy Shield website.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130423/NY99594LOGO

The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework was designed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and European Commission to provide companies on both sides of the Atlantic with a mechanism to comply with European Union (EU) data protection requirements when transferring personal data from the EU to the United States in support of transatlantic commerce. The EU and U.S. agreed to the Privacy Shield Framework after the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework, which had previously governed transfers of personal data outside of the European Economic Area, was ruled invalid in October 2015 by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Integreon continues to comply with the U.S.-Swiss Safe Harbor Framework which remains valid for "adequate protection" of personal data transferred from Switzerland in accordance with Swiss data protection requirements.

"Integreon's compliance with both the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and U.S.-Swiss Safe Harbor Frameworks demonstrates our commitment to ensuring data security and privacy for our global clientele," said Sanjeev Jain, Chief Information Officer, Integreon. "Additionally we adhere to our clients' requirements for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and also comply with the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 information security management system (ISMS) standard."

In conjunction with Integreon's EU-U.S. Privacy Shield certification, the company has developed a privacy policy that addresses each of the Privacy Shield principles and supplemental principles developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission. The Integreon privacy policy is available at www.integreon.com/PrivacyPolicy.

About Integreon

Integreon is a trusted, global provider of award-winning legal, document, business and research support solutions to leading law firms, corporate legal departments, financial institutions and professional services firms. Around the globe, Integreon's 2,400 Associates support more than 250 clients in areas such as market and competitive intelligence, discovery, legal process outsourcing (LPO), operating model transformation and back office redesign. Integreon also excels in business support services such as IT, document processing, finance and HR. With our unrivalled outsourcing experience and industry-leading onshore and offshore capabilities, clients increasingly rely on Integreon to provide value-added solutions that meet their needs in a demanding business environment. Integreon has won more than 50 industry awards over the past five years and supports its global client base from 14 delivery centres across the US, UK, India, China, the Philippines and South Africa.

For more information about Integreon's extensive range of services, visit www.Integreon.com and follow Integreon on social media at LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Weibo.

Related Links

http://www.integreon.com/



SOURCE Integreon
Volovitch's more than 20 years' experience in health communications includes work with the globe's leading names in medicine and public health including bioMerieux, Bristol Myers-Squibb, Lilly, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi Pasteur, Transgene, the French Cancer Society, the National League Against Cancer (largest French patient group), the ANRS (National Agency for Research on Aids), the Merieux Foundation and IAVI.

"Our European offices are adding more and more health work encompassing biotechnology, patient advocacy and health technology assignments. Mina's dual-role as head of our Paris office and senior member of the global health practice demonstrates how our agency values and growth attract exceptional talent," said Bowman-Boyles.

"Mina is among the great health communicators with knowledge and experience engaging some of the most influential players in medical innovation, patient advocacy and public health across Europe," said Bashe. "Her collaborative approach is already strengthening the service and insight Finn Partners offers health clients around the globe. Just as importantly, she lives the Finn Partners value of making a difference in the world through her professional and volunteer efforts."

Volovitch began her career at Merck working in marketing, eventually becoming director of communications at MSD Paris. Following Merck, Volovitch joined the Merieux Institute (the vaccine innovator that is today Sanofi Pasteur), where she served as director of communications. In 1987, she created Mynecom, a specialist healthcare communications agency. Her professional experience includes running national and global professional- and patient-communications programs; handling issues in pharmaceuticals and health products; and expertise across AIDS, biotech, cardiology, immunology, infectious disease, medical devices, oncology and vaccines. She is also a member of the National League Against Cancer communications working group.

"I am energized and proud to join Finn Partners during this exciting time of growth for its global health practice and Paris office," said Volovitch. "I share the agency's commitment to make a difference in the world, and the icing on the cake is building upon professional relationships with colleagues with whom I've worked in the past. Quite simply, I have deep trust and respect for Finn Partners management team in building one of the world's fastest growing PR and marketing communications agencies," she added.

About Finn Partners, Inc.

Finn Partners was launched in late 2011 to realize Peter Finn's vision to create a leading communications agency dedicated to shaping a bold new future in which innovation and partnership are strong brand drivers. Finn Partners specializes in the full spectrum of marketing and public relations services, including digital and social media. Practice areas include arts, consumer, CSR and social impact, education, financial services, health, technology and travel & lifestyle.

Since its inception four years ago, Finn Partners has received six agency awards that are indicators of client and cultural leadership: "Best Midsize Agency" in 2015, "Best Agency to Work For" in 2013 and "Best New Agency" in 2012 from the Holmes Report and "Midsize PR Firm of the Year" in 2015 and "Top Places to Work in PR" in 2013 from PR News. Headquartered in New York City, the company has approximately 550 employees, with offices in Chicago, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Jerusalem, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Nashville, Paris, Portland, San Francisco and Washington D.C., and offers international capabilities through its own global network and PROI Worldwide. Find us at www.finnpartners.com and follow us on Twitter @finnpartners.

CONTACT:

Finn Partners: Renee Martin

renee.martin@finnpartners.com

212-715-1600

Related Links

https://www.finnpartners.com



SOURCE Finn Partners
CHICAGO, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

According to the new market research report, "Molecular Diagnostics Market, by Products (Instruments & Systems and Reagents & Consumables), Applications (Infectious Diseases, Blood Screening, Histology, Oncology, Prenatal, Coagulation, Tissue Typing, Inherited Diseases, Genetic Testing and Pharmacogenomics), Technologies (DNA Sequencing, PCR Microarray and Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization) - Global Revenue, Trends, Growth, Share, Size and Forecast to 2022", published by Scalar Market Research, the global molecular diagnostics market is expected to grow from USD 5.44 billion in 2014 and become worth USD 11.04 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 9.3% from 2014 to 2022.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161017/429206LOGO )

The global molecular diagnostics market report offers in-depth analysis of the market size (revenue), market share, major market segments, different geographic regions, key players, premium trends and forecast to 2022. It also focuses on the key drivers and opportunities in this market.

Browse Report Summary: https://www.scalarmarketresearch.com/market-reports/molecular-diagnostics-market

Buyers can expect to receive 100% customization on this report.

Key findings of the report :

The rapidly advancing technology and the strong demand for personalized medicine are expected to be some of the major driving factors for the molecular diagnostics market.



Increasing instances of chronic diseases, growing awareness towards prevention and control of these diseases and the growth of the healthcare market across the emerging markets are some of the major driving factors as well.



According to the molecular diagnostics market report, the emerging markets are expected to create strong investment and growth opportunities for the key players in the market.

North America is projected to dominate the molecular diagnostics market

According to the report, the North America region is expected to hold the largest share in the global molecular diagnostics market during the forecast period. The strong awareness towards healthcare and the rising prevalence of the chronic diseases are some of the major contributing factors to the stronghold of the North America region over the global market. The report expects that Asia-Pacific will be the fastest-growing geographic region in the market during the forecast period.

Request Sample: https://www.scalarmarketresearch.com/request-sample.php?id=131

The key players highlighted in the molecular diagnostics market report include:

Abbott Laboratories

Becton, Dickinson and Company

Cepheid, Inc.

Grifols International, S.A.

Hologic, Inc.

QIAGEN, Inc.

F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.

Siemens AG

Browse Related Reports:

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https://www.scalarmarketresearch.com/market-reports/dermatology-devices-market

Prescription Pharmaceuticals Market, by Therapeutic Segments (Cardiovascular Disorders, Inflammatory Conditions, Metabolic Disorders, Oncology, Respiratory Disorders, Others), Formulations (Capsules, Inhalants, Parenterals, Tablets, Topicals) - Global Revenue, Trends, Growth, Share, Size and Forecast to 2020

https://www.scalarmarketresearch.com/market-reports/prescription-pharmaceuticals-market

About Scalar Market Research

Scalar Market Research, Inc. is a Chicago, U.S.-based market research and consulting firm that serves Fortune 1000 companies, leading businesses and upcoming organizations from around the world to help them achieve their business goal of sustainable revenue growth, utilizing Scalar's premium market research reports and consulting services to make critical strategic decisions.

Our real-time industry data tracking, with the help of advanced analytics and machine learning, offers our clients highly accurate 360-degree perspective of key developments in niche markets. Our team of industry experts, with a thorough understanding of global markets and cumulative industry experience spanning 100+ years, work relentlessly to help our clients realize their most important business goals.

Find out more about our services at: www.scalarmarketresearch.com

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Email: sales@scalarmarketresearch.com



Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/scalar-market-research



SOURCE Scalar Market Research
MADRID, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Within the framework of the 21st Annual Meeting of the Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS), that is taking place from the 9th of November until the 12th of November at Lisbon (Portugal), PharmaMar (MCE:PHM) is going to present the clinical data for the treatment of sarcomas obtained from various studies carried out with Yondelis (trabectedin).

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150203/727958-b )



In this sense, it will be published, among others, the data from the Phase II randomized, non-comparative, TAUL study, that assess the activity of Yondelis in patients with metastatic or locally relapsed uterine leiomyosarcoma; the TR1US study that evaluates trabectedin as first line treatment, in advanced soft tissue sarcoma (STS) patients unfit to receive standard anthracycline-based chemotherapy; and the YonLife trial that studies the quality of life reported by the patients with STS who receive Yondelis. All of these studies have received financial support from PharmaMar.

"PharmaMar continues to support the clinical development of trabectedin for the treatment of soft tissue sarcomas and to generate data on the efficacy and safety of Yondelis in almost all subtypes, which are mainly rare and difficult to treat", explains Dr Nadia Badri, VP of Medical Affairs of the Oncology Business Unit at PharmaMar. "The role of trabectedin to treat patients with STS is still increasing as well as preclinical research to better understand the unique mechanism of action of the compound. It is important to note that there will be more than 20 presentations of studies with our drug in the meeting", she adds.

As well as the clinical evidence, PharmaMar will present an abstract on pharmacoeconomics that evaluates, in Spain, the benefit-cost ratio of trabectedin versus pazopanib for the treatment of patients with advanced, metastatic soft tissue sarcoma, after receiving one or two prior lines of chemotherapy.

To finalize, in the symposium entitled Rising options in advanced STS: present and future treatment sequences, the Company will gather a group of oncologists of international prestige to discuss on the necessities of defining the most convenient treatment sequences with the current drugs and for those to come, for patients with advanced STS, with the aim of improving their prognosis and quality of life.

Contact: Paula Fernandez, Media Relations, +34-638-79-62-15 or Investor Relations, +34-914444500

SOURCE PharmaMar
SINGAPORE, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Deal marks 100th terminal added to global storage network

Puma Energy, the globally integrated midstream and downstream energy company, today announced that it has signed a purchase agreement with BP to buy its bulk storage fuel terminal in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The addition takes Puma Energy's global network of bulk storage terminals to 100, culminating in a total storage volume of 7.9 million m3 of storage capacity. This acquisition builds on the purchase of the 1.4 million m3 capacity Milford Haven Terminal in 2015, further supporting Puma Energy's growth within the European Market, and helping to ensure high quality, reliable fuels supply to Northern Ireland.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160830/402490LOGO )



(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161108/437242 )



The Belfast Terminal provides storage for gasoline, distillates and aviation fuels, with road gantry loading facilities and a Jetty Berth capable of handling MR class vessels. The site comprises 20 bulk fuel storage tanks with a working capacity of ca. 143 000 m3. The 53 acre former refinery site is located between George Best Belfast City Airport and Belfast Harbour in NI. The refinery was opened in 1964 and converted to a Terminal in 1982.

Puma Energy has a wealth of experience in the construction, maintenance and operation of terminals and offshore mooring systems to the highest international standards.

Commenting on the acquisition, Puma Energy's CEO Pierre Eladari said, "This deal marks an additional milestone in the growth of our business, further supporting Puma Energy's position as one of the largest independent, integrated midstream and downstream companies operating today."

About Puma Energy

Puma Energy International is a global integrated midstream and downstream oil company active in 47 countries. Formed in 1997 in Central America, Puma Energy has since expanded its activities worldwide, achieving rapid growth, diversification and product line development. The company directly manages over 7,844 employees. Headquartered in Singapore, it has regional hubs in Johannesburg (South Africa), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Brisbane (Australia) and Tallinn (Estonia).

Puma Energy's core activities in the midstream sector include the supply, storage and transportation of petroleum products via a network of over 100 bulk storage terminals. Puma Energy's activities are underpinned by investment in infrastructure which optimises supply chain systems, capturing value as both asset owner and marketer of product. Puma Energy's downstream activities include the distribution, retail sales and wholesale of a wide range of refined products, with additional product offerings in the lubricants, bitumen, LPG and marine bunkering sectors. Puma Energy currently has a global network of over 2,468 retail service stations and supplies 62 airports. Puma Energy also provides a robust platform for independent entrepreneurs to develop their businesses, by providing a viable alternative to traditional market supply sources.

For further information visit: http://www.pumaenergy.com

SOURCE Puma Energy
With a Series of Recent Key Executive Hires, Quantum3D Continues to Strengthen the Foundation for its Growing Simulation and Training Business

MILPITAS, California, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Quantum3D, Inc., a leading provider of training and simulation solutions for government and commercial applications, today announced several recent additions to its executive team. Ron Haskins has been appointed as CFO for Quantum3D Group, the parent company of Quantum3D, Inc., and will oversee financial management and reporting among the companies within Quantum3D Group. Richard Lane has been recruited as the VP of Engineering for Quantum3D, Inc., and will be responsible for the execution of product development in all areas, including visual simulation, augmented reality, and maintenance training. And most recently Brian Overy has joined Quantum3D's management team as its VP of Business Development and Sales. Brian will lead revenue generation activities for Quantum3D Government Systems' Training Solutions as well as Quantum3D's product offerings, including MANTIS image generation software and GeoScapeSE visual databases for virtual-reality-based training.

Prior to joining Quantum3D, Ron Haskins was the VP Workplace and Corporate Services for Logitech. He also served as VP Finance WW Sales & Marketing, VP Finance Products Group and in several other senior finance functions in the US as well as Europe with Logitech. Ron's previous experience includes over 25 years in senior financial management at Dell, NEC, GTE Government Systems and Shell Oil, and is known in the industry as a financial executive who works with the business to implement strategies to deliver maximum positive financial impact.

Brian Overy previously joined Quantum3D in 2001 for nine years, managed several strategic accounts, and was instrumental in shaping the organization's future visual simulation strategy with a proven record of success. Prior to rejoining Quantum3D, Brian held leadership positions at Diamond Visionics, Lockheed Martin and Cubic Defense in the areas of global sales, marketing, business development and capture management for live and virtual applications. Brian currently sits on the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) Emerging Concepts & Innovative Technologies (ECIT) Subcommittee.

Richard Lane has over 10 years of experience in senior engineering leadership positions. Prior to that he worked for 20 years as a design engineer and manager with companies in Europe and the USA, including companies designing aircraft simulation and visual display equipment. He was VP Engineering at Kaleidescape for several years, leading a team that created and developed high-end home theater equipment for the CEDIA channel. Prior to that, at both Micronas and Pinnacle Systems, he combined Engineering and Product Management roles in the development of computer peripherals, consumer electronics and consumer semiconductor devices.

"We are excited to welcome Ron, Richard and Brian to the Quantum3D team," said Pratish Shah, President and CEO of Quantum3D. "The team will bring experience and strength to the company as we expand our product and technical portfolio and further expand into training and simulation markets worldwide."

Quantum3D will be at I/ITSEC in Orlando, Fla. from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2 (OCCC West Concourse, booth #2435), showcasing a dynamic array of training solutions together with industry partners, including a maritime simulator, an augmented-reality training demo, a novel low-cost helicopter trainer, a rapid mission rehearsal capability for urban military operations, as well as the industry's best image generation technology for virtual reality simulations.

About Quantum3D

Quantum3D, Inc. is a leading developer and provider of simulation and training products as well as the technology that drives them. Quantum3D delivers key components for use in a wide range of training markets  flight simulation; land and other vehicle training; synthetic environments and construction tools; sensor simulation; maintenance training, and a variety of augmented-reality applications.

Quantum3D is headquartered in Milpitas, California. Together with its sister company Quantum3D Government Systems, both are members of Quantum3D Group, a Delaware corporation which is in turn wholly owned by HAVELSAN, a major global software and systems provider based in Ankara, Turkey.

Quantum3D, the Quantum3D logo, GeoScapeSE, and MANTIS are registered trademarks of Quantum3D. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Quantum3D Press Contact

pr@quantum3d.com

Related Links

http://quantum3d.com



SOURCE Quantum3D, Inc.
AURORA, Ontario, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Magna International Inc. (TSX: MG, NYSE: MGA) today announced that the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") had accepted its Notice of Intention to Make a Normal Course Issuer Bid (the "Notice"). Pursuant to the Notice, Magna may purchase up to 38,000,000 Magna Common Shares (the "Bid"), representing approximately 10% of its public float. As at November 9, 2016, Magna had 384,409,283 issued and outstanding Common Shares, including a public float of 381,776,401 Common Shares. During the previous 12 months, Magna has purchased 22,792,564 Common Shares pursuant to a normal course issuer bid at a weighted average purchase price of US$40.63 per Common Share.

The primary purposes of the Bid are purchases for cancellation, as well as purchases to fund Magna's stock-based compensation awards or programs and/or Magna's obligations to its deferred profit sharing plans. Magna may purchase its Common Shares, from time to time, if it believes that the market price of its Common Shares is attractive and that the purchase would be an appropriate use of corporate funds and in the best interests of the Corporation.

The Bid will commence on November 15, 2016 and will terminate no later than November 14, 2017. All purchases of Common Shares under the Bid may be made on the TSX, at the market price at the time of purchase in accordance with the rules and policies of the TSX or on the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE") in compliance with Rule 10b-18 under the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Purchases may also be made through alternative trading systems in Canada and/or the United States or by private agreement pursuant to an issuer bid exemption order issued by a securities regulatory authority. Purchases made by way of such private agreements under an issuer bid exemption order will be at a discount to the prevailing market price. The rules and policies of the TSX contain restrictions on the number of shares that can be purchased under the Bid, based on the average daily trading volumes of the Common Shares on the TSX. Similarly, the safe harbor conditions of Rule 10b-18 impose certain limitations on the number of shares that can be purchased on the NYSE per day. As a result of such restrictions, subject to certain exceptions for block purchases, the maximum number of shares which can be purchased per day during the Bid on the TSX is 229,122 based on 25% of the average daily trading volume for the prior six months (being 916,491 Common Shares on the TSX). Subject to certain exceptions for block purchases, the maximum number of shares which can be purchased per day on the NYSE will be 25% of the average daily trading volume for the four calendar weeks preceding the date of purchase. Subject to regulatory requirements, the actual number of Common Shares purchased and the timing of such purchases, if any, will be determined by Magna having regard to future price movements and other factors. All purchases will be subject to Magna's normal trading blackouts. Any purchases made during a blackout period will only be made pursuant to a pre-defined automatic securities purchase plan.

ABOUT MAGNA INTERNATIONAL - We are a leading global automotive supplier with 312[1] manufacturing operations[1] and 98 product development, engineering and sales centres in 29 countries. We have over 155,000 employees[1] focused on delivering superior value to our customers through innovative products and processes, and world class manufacturing. We have complete vehicle engineering and contract manufacturing expertise, as well as product capabilities which include body, chassis, exterior, seating, powertrain, electronic, active driver assistance, vision, closure and roof systems. Our common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange (MG) and the New York Stock Exchange (MGA). For further information about Magna, visit our website at http://www.magna.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release may contain statements that, to the extent that they are not recitations of historical fact, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, including, but not limited to, future purchases of our Common Shares under the Normal Course Issuer Bid or pursuant to private agreements under an issuer bid exemption order issued by the Ontario Securities Commission. Forward-looking statements may include financial and other projections, as well as statements regarding our future plans, objectives or economic performance, or the assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. We use words such as "may", "would", "could", "should" "will", "likely", "expect", "anticipate", "believe", "intend", "plan", "forecast", "outlook", "project", "estimate" and similar expressions suggesting future outcomes or events to identify forward-looking statements. Any such forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to us, and are based on assumptions and analyses made by us in light of our experience and our perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors we believe are appropriate in the circumstances. However, whether actual results and developments will conform to our expectations and predictions is subject to a number of risks, assumptions and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and the effects of which can be difficult to predict. These risks, assumptions and uncertainties include, without limitation, the impact of: the potential for a deterioration of economic conditions or an extended period of economic uncertainty; a decline in consumer confidence which would be expected to result in lower production volume levels; economic or political uncertainty, including as a result of the United Kingdom's potential exit from the European union and/or the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election; legal claims and/or regulatory actions against us, including without limitation any proceeding that may arise out of our global review focused on antitrust risk; fluctuations in relative currency values; changes in laws and governmental regulations; liquidity risks; the unpredictability of and fluctuation in, the trading price of our Common Shares; and other factors set out in our Annual Information Form filed with securities commissions in Canada and our annual report on Form 40-F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and subsequent filings. In evaluating forward-looking statements, we caution readers not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements and readers should specifically consider the various factors which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, we do not intend, nor do we undertake any obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent information, events, results or circumstances or otherwise.

[1] These figures include manufacturing operations, product development, engineering and sales centres and employees in certain equity-accounted operations.

INVESTOR CONTACT, Louis Tonelli, Vice-President, Investor Relations, louis.tonelli@magna.com, +1-905-726-7035; MEDIA CONTACT, Tracy Fuerst, Director of Corporate Communications & PR, tracy.fuerst@magna.com, +1-248-631-5396

SOURCE Magna International Inc.
ALBANY, New York, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

VCSEL stands for vertical cavity surface emitting lasers. There is a current demand for efficient, low-cost, and compact illumination systems, replacing traditional thermal imaging systems. VCSELs are used for infrared illuminations since they offer a host of advantages, including low cost, high reliability, efficiency, narrow emission spectrum, and a low diverging cylindrical beam. Infrared illuminators, in turn, find application in surveillance, imaging, covert operations, and detection in several end-use industries such as the military. This has had a considerable impact on the demand for VCSELs.

The global market for VCSELs was valued at US$775.2 mn in 2015 and is expected to reach US$4,728.8 mn by 2024, growing at an impressive CAGR of 22.3% during the forecast period.

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Gallium Arsenide Most Widely Used Raw Material

On the basis of raw material, the global VCSEL market is led by gallium arsenide, which accounted for a massive 77.02% share in 2015. This can be attributed to the growing usage of microwave frequency ICs, laser diodes, monolithic microwave ICs, infrared LEDs, solar cells, and optical windows in various industries. The segment is anticipated to register an astounding CAGR of 41.1% during the forecast period.

By application, optical fiber data transmission dominated the overall VCSELs market, followed by laser printers and computer mice. Chip sale atomic clocks and absorption spectroscopy, on the other hand, will register strong growth through 2024.

From a geographical standpoint, Europe accounted for the leading share in the VCSELs market, with a share of just under 30.0% in 2015. Asia Pacific will report an impressive CAGR of 23.1% from 2016 to 2024.

Browse Regional PR: http://www.europlat.org/vertical-cavity-surface-emitting-laser-market.htm

Demand for Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) Rises in Low-power Applications

"The growing usage of VCSELs in several high-volume applications, such as gesture recognition, data communications, and illumination in infrared (IR) cameras, has emerged as the leading factor driving the global VCSELs market," the lead analyst states. Companies have been using vertical cavity surface emitting lasers in gesture recognition technology for gaming as well as navigation applications. In IR cameras, VCSELs enable safety, night vision, and security. In the field of data communications, VCSELs offer a host of advantages, including low-energy optical storage, fast switching in servers, and high capacity data centers.

With VCSELs rapidly replacing edge-emitting LEDs in low-power applications, the demand for gallium arsenide (GaAs) has surged significantly, especially in atomic clock technology, datacomm, barcode sensors, and POF-based home networking. This will, in turn, propel the overall VCSELs market.

On the flip side, although long-wavelength InP-based VCSELs show a lot of promise, the lasers are at the early stages of commercialization and can prove to be a challenge as far as design, cost, and manufacturing is concerned.

The global market for vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSELs) is presently fragmented, with Finisar Corp. (U.S.), Broadcom Ltd (Singapore), Lumentum Holdings, Inc., Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. (Japan), and II-VI Laser Enterprise GmbH (Switzerland) accounting for under 47.0% in 2015. Transparency Market Research notes that the dynamics of the market have changed over the years owing to a rise in mergers and acquisitions within the industry.

Apart from this, players have also resorted to product innovation and investment in technological advancements as key growth strategies. "Product innovation is important to sustain in a highly competitive environment and companies have been involved in strong R&D work so as to gain a larger share in the VCSELs market," the author of the report states. For instance, Finisar Corporation has, from time to time, introduced new products in the VCSELs market in order to retain its dominance. In 2016, the company introduced the 64 Gbaud High Bandwidth Integrated Coherent Receiver.

This review is based on the findings of a TMR report titled "Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSELs) Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024."

Global VCSELs Market: By Raw Materials

Gallium Nitride (GaN)

Gallium Arsenide (GaAs)

Indium Phosphide (InP)

Others (InGaAsN, AlGaAs, etc.)

Global VCSELs Market: By Applications

Optical fiber data transmission

Analog broadband signal transmission

Absorption Spectroscopy

Laser printers

Computer mice

Biological tissue analysis

Chip scale atomic clocks

Other applications

Global VCSELs Market: By Geography

North America U.S. Canada Mexico

Europe U.K. Germany France Italy Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific India China Japan Rest of Asia Pacific

Rest of the World (RoW) Middle East Latin America Africa



Related Report by Transparency Market Research:

Adaptive Optics Market:

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/adaptive-optics-technology-market.html

Semiconductor Lasers Market:

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/semiconductor-lasers-market.html

About Us

Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.

Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMR's syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.

US Office Contact

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SOURCE Transparency Market Research
MUNICH and PARIS, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Orange`s mobile wallet app Orange Cash, supported by the German mobile payment expert Wirecard, now supports Apple Pay in France.

Orange Cash offers contactless mobile payments based on a prepaid account with a digital Visa card, issued by Wirecard Card Solutions. The digital card will be provisioned through an app-to-wallet interface directly into Wallet. Customers don't need to scan a plastic card and run through additional verification processes, thus making the on-boarding process very user-friendly while ensuring high security standards.

Security and privacy is at the core of Apple Pay. When using a credit or debit card with Apple Pay, the actual card numbers are not stored on the device, nor on Apple servers. Instead, a unique Device Account Number is assigned, encrypted and securely stored in the Secure Element on your device. Each transaction is authorised with a one-time unique dynamic security code.

Nicolas Levi, Director Payments and Mobile Financial Services at Orange, comments: "With Wirecard on our side, a leading specialist in the field of mobile payment, we found a strong partner. We are driven by our desire to further expand mobile payment coverage on the market. Our innovative spirit helps us to develop the most useful and advanced services for our customers, we believe Apple Pay is just that."

Orange Cash offers one-tap, real-time loyalty and couponing deals from participating retailers through Wirecard's Card-Linked Offers platform.

"By supporting the launch of Orange Cash with Apple Pay in France, for the first time customers with iPhone 6 and later can also benefit from couponing and loyalty deals while using mobile payments. An easy-to-handle one-tap solution for payment and benefits guarantees Orange customers using iPhone 6 and later a smart shopping experience. Together with Orange we are offering the first app-to-wallet provisioning of an Apple Pay solution with Visa in Europe, which makes us proud", says Brigitte Hauser-Axtner, Executive Vice President Sales Digital Goods with Wirecard.

Apple Pay is easy to set up and users will continue to receive all of the rewards and benets offered by credit and debit cards. In France, Apple Pay works with iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and later, iPhone SE and Apple Watch.

For more information on Apple Pay, visit: http://www.apple.com/fr/apple-pay/

Find out more about Orange Cash: http://orangecash.orange.fr/decouvrir

About Wirecard:

Wirecard AG is a global technology group that supports companies in accepting electronic payments from all sales channels. As a leading independent supplier, the Wirecard Group offers outsourcing and white label solutions for electronic payments. A global platform bundles international payment acceptances and methods with supplementary fraud prevention solutions. With regard to issuing own payment instruments in the form of cards or mobile payment solutions, the Wirecard Group provides companies with an end-to-end infrastructure, including the requisite licences for card and account products. Wirecard AG is listed on the Frankfurt Securities Exchange (TecDAX, ISIN DE0007472060, WDI). For further information about Wirecard, please visit http://www.wirecard.com or follow us on Twitter @wirecard.

Wirecard media contact:

Wirecard AG

Jana Tilz

Tel.: +49(0)-89-4424-1363

Email: jana.tilz@wirecard.com



SOURCE Wirecard AG
For decades, Consumers Digest has been evaluating, rating and recommending vehicles. The vehicles that were selected as 2017 Best Buys models are those that deliver the most value for the money in their respective segments. Consumers Digest's automotive experts evaluate vehicles on a continuing basis, both at manufacturers' new-model introductions and under real-world conditions in their own test-drives. Each vehicle is considered among a checklist of performance and design factors along with additional variables including warranty, estimated repair/maintenance costs and annual operating expenses.

"We recognize that car owners look for vehicles with the highest quality, latest technology and safety at a great price, and our development of the 2017 Sonata Hybrid is indicative of that mindset," said Mike O'Brien, vice president, corporate and product planning, Hyundai Motor America. "This acknowledgement from Consumers Digest highlights our commitment to providing better vehicles for our owners with better performance and design features that set us apart."

The 2017 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid comes equipped with a 2.0-liter Nu GDI four-cylinder engine coupled with a six-speed automatic transmission that houses a powerful 38 kW electric motor and clutch where the torque converter would normally be found. The Sonata Hybrid comes standard with seven airbags, including a driver's knee airbag. Electronic Stability Control, Vehicle Stability Management, Traction Control, ABS and a Tire Pressure Monitoring System with individual tire pressure display and a rearview camera are also standard. The 2017 model received a number of audio and multimedia enhancements, including a larger seven-inch color touchscreen with display audio, standard HD radio, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and next-generation Blue Link Connected Care.

CONSUMERS DIGEST

Consumers Digest and ConsumersDigest.com are designed to inform and educate readers, so they can buy with confidence, no matter the product or service. For 55 years, the publication has been committed to providing practical advice, factual evaluations and specific recommendations that lead consumers to exceptional values in today's complex marketplace. The "Consumers Digest Best Buy" designation is a registered certification mark of Consumers Digest Communications LLC, used in this press release with permission. For award information, visit www.ConsumersDigest.com.

HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA

Hyundai Motor America, headquartered in Fountain Valley, Calif., is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Co. of Korea. Hyundai vehicles are distributed throughout the United States by Hyundai Motor America and are sold and serviced through more than 830 dealerships nationwide. All Hyundai vehicles sold in the U.S. are covered by the Hyundai Assurance program, which includes the 5-year/60,000-mile fully transferable new vehicle limited warranty, Hyundai's 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain limited warranty and five years of complimentary Roadside Assistance. Hyundai Blue Link Connected Care provides owners of Hyundai models equipped with the Blue Link telematics system with proactive safety and car care services complimentary for one year with enrollment. These services include Automatic Collision Notification, Enhanced Roadside Assistance, Vehicle Diagnostic Alert, Monthly Vehicle Health Report and In-Vehicle Service Scheduling.

For more details on Hyundai Assurance, please visit www.HyundaiAssurance.com

Please visit our media website at www.hyundainews.com and our blog at www.hyundailikesunday.com

Hyundai Motor America on Twitter | YouTube | Facebook

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161110/437977

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20131002/LA90771LOGO-b

SOURCE Hyundai Motor America

Related Links

http://www.hyundainews.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On November 15, BizBash Live: The Expo will return to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center with a new roster of industry all-stars, ideas, and inspiration for event organizers. The renowned Event Innovation Forum returns as part of the lineup with presentations from some of the top names in events, including Amanda Matuk from Google, Natasha Eno of iHeartMedia, Candace Montgomery from Essence, Michael Blatter from Mirrorball, Zach Overton from Samsung 837, and David Monn.

Amanda Matuk, executive producer of the hugely popular I/O developers conference at Google, will share how her team stays innovative, giving a behind-the-scenes look at how she reconfigured the Google I/O conference. Natasha Eno, vice president of events and venue partnerships at iHeartMedia, will give insights on how to create valuable experiences for event sponsors, ensuring they return year after year. Renowned designer David Monn will discuss the core principals of design, exploring the rites, rituals, and protocols behind events and drawing on his work with the most respected brands and individuals in the world. Jean-Francois Bouchard from Sid Lee will explore the philosophy of how we engage as humans, and how to target the right people at events.

Also at BizBash Live, the Workshop Series will open the day with hands-on learning from industry influencers, covering topics that include social media, career building, and strategy. The Over-the-Top Luncheon will debut with special guests, Donald Albrecht, curator of architecture and design at the Museum of the City of New York, and Michael Cerbelli, C.E.O. and president of Cerbelli Creative. Throughout the day, the BizBash Exhibit Floor will showcase the latest and most inspiring event and meeting trends and technologies from more than 200 companies.

The full list of speakers, topics, and registration information can be found at www.bizbash.com/expony. For media coverage, email [email protected].

BizBash is the largest media source for both event professionals and "hidden planners" with nearly 225,000 monthly users. Events serviced by the BizBash suite of products include: exhibitions, conferences, meetings, training and learning, marketing and PR, fund-raising and galas, celebrations and weddings, incentive, travel, government and ceremonial.

SOURCE BizBash

Related Links

http://www.bizbash.com


DAYTON, Ohio, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ACCO Brands and our portfolio of leading office and consumer brands like Mead, Five Star, and Cambridge, Swingline, AT-A-GLANCE and Quartet have long understood that giving back is more than just good business; it's the right thing to do! We have partnered with The Kids In Need Foundation on this #GivingTuesday; the official start of the end-of-the-year charitable season. On this day, families, businesses and committed individuals come together to celebrate and encourage giving back. Today, ACCO Brands announces its continued commitment to Kids In Need Foundation, supporting this global movement, #GivingTuesday, and ensuring all students have access to quality school supplies.

Today, more than 16 million kids live in poverty, and come to school without the necessary tools to learn and succeed in the classroom. ACCO Brands is proud to be a part of this initiative in partnership with the Kids In Need Foundation. "We hope that by providing essential school supplies to children nationwide, we are energizing youth with the confidence that comes from having the tools needed to succeed," said Tom Tedford, Executive Vice President, President North America Office and Consumer Products ACCO Brands. "Access to quality school supplies is critical to getting students on the right educational paths. ACCO Brands is committed to helping, and #GivingTuesday is a fantastic platform to challenge others to join us."

In addition to working together on #GivingTuesday, ACCO Brands has been a longstanding partner of the Kids In Need Foundation. Since 2011, ACCO Brands has served as the Kids In Need National Notebook Sponsor, having donated more than 600,000 notebooks and folders to needy kids across the country. In the last five years, together ACCO Brands and KINF have gone from helping 1.6 million kids in 2010 to 4.8 million in 2015  tripling the number of kids we helped during that period!

"Nothing is more important to us than ensuring all students have the school supplies they need to succeed," said Dave Smith, Executive Director of the Kids In Need Foundation. "With ACCO Brands' support, students can function in their classrooms and get their work done. Learning opportunities are much more meaningful when students do not have to worry about having pencils, notebooks, folders, and all the other supplies kids use every day. Partners such as ACCO Brands make it possible us to support the learning process."

Both ACCO Brands and the Kids In Need Foundation know that when children have what they need to be engaged students, classroom behavior and grades improve, self-esteem strengthens, and kids develop better attitudes toward learning.

About ACCO Brands

ACCO Brands Corporation is one of the world's largest designers, marketers and manufacturers of branded business, academic and consumer products. Our widely recognized brands include Artline, AT-A-GLANCE, Derwent, Five Star, GBC, Hilroy, Kensington, Mead, Quartet, Rexel, Swingline, Tilibra, Wilson Jones and many others. Our products are sold in more than 100 countries around the world. More information about ACCO Brands can be found at www.accobrands.com.

About the Kids In Need Foundation

The Kids In Need Foundation's mission is to ensure that every child is prepared to learn and succeed by providing free school supplies nationally to students most in need. The Kids In Need Foundation has distributed more than $700 million in school supplies since its founding, directly benefiting 4.2 million students and more than 120,000 teachers annually. We are a national 501(c)(3) charitable organization founded in 1995. For more information, visit kinf.org, and join us at twitter.com/kidsinneed & facebook.com/kidsinneed.

Mary Lester

Kids In Need Foundation

[email protected]

SOURCE The Kids In Need Foundation

Related Links

http://www.kinf.org


WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company (NYSE: RAI) has announced the following: "R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company expands distribution of VUSE VIBE closed-tank system."

Go to RJR Vapor Company's website, RJRVapor.com, or Reynolds American Inc.'s website, www.reynoldsamerican.com, to read the full release.



Web and Social Media Disclosure

RAI's website, www.reynoldsamerican.com, is the primary source of publicly disclosed news, including our quarterly earnings, about RAI and its operating companies. RAI also uses Twitter to publicly disseminate company news via @RAI News. It is possible that the information we post could be deemed to be material information. We encourage investors and others to register at www.reynoldsamerican.com to receive alerts when news about the company has been posted, and to follow RAI on Twitter at @RAI News.

SOURCE R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company

Related Links

http://www.reynoldsamerican.com


WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Federation of Government Employees congratulates Maggie Hassan for winning election to the U.S. Senate representing the state of New Hampshire.

"Maggie Hassan is a dedicated public servant and will make a terrific senator. AFGE looks forward to working with Senator-elect Hassan and the rest of the newly elected members of Congress to build a government and an economy that works for everyone."

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 670,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.

For the latest AFGE news and information, visit the AFGE Media Center. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20131120/MM21150LOGO

SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees

Related Links

http://www.afge.org


COLUMBUS, Ga., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Aflac, the leading provider of voluntary insurance sales at the worksite in the U.S., and 10-time recipient of the Ethisphere World's Most Ethical Companies award, today announced that Aflac Japan will sponsor the first ever Ethisphere Institute Tokyo Ethics Forum, Moving Beyond Compliance to Create an Ethical Corporate Culture, on November 14th. Also sponsoring the event is the Center for Audit Quality (CAQ), a Washington D.C. based, nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy advocacy organization. The summit, which will include panel discussions titled Creating a Fraud Resistant Organization and Sustaining Long-term Growth Through Culture, will be attended by 40-50 senior level executives from well-known companies in Japan.

"This is a great opportunity for Aflac, Ethisphere and CAQ to further deepen dialogue in Japan about the growing importance of creating corporate social value, promoting ethics and governance in our changing world," Aflac President Paul S. Amos II said. "More and more, younger generations are demanding transparency and good governance before they will even consider doing business with a company, and it is imperative that business leaders recognize this trend. We are very excited to sponsor Ethisphere's inaugural event in Japan."

"Tokyo plays a unique role in the world economy," said Ty Francis, Executive Vice President and Group Publisher, Ethisphere. "Our Tokyo Ethics Forum serves as a catalyst for driving thought leadership among major companies and executives to improve company performance, culture and value. It presents a rare opportunity for members of the C-Suite to share best practices, connect and engage in discussions that can help move the needle on ethical issues. Companies are a critical part of the global ecosystem and those that lead with integrity are in a position to influence the economy and change the world."

Aflac is a strong proponent of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's call for elevating the role of women in the workplace in Japan, which has been dubbed, "Womenomics". The Company has recently conducted forums on diversity in Tokyo, inviting women from Aflac U.S. to Japan to discuss their roles in the Company as women in leadership. Aflac Japan is on pace to meet Prime Minister Abe's goal of having 30 percent of leadership positions held by women by 2020.

"In the context of a rapidly aging society, Japan's highly educated women represent significant untapped potential, which is why Aflac is a major proponent of diversity initiatives in Japan," Amos said.

The forum will begin at 1:30 PM Tokyo time. Follow the conversation on Twitter under #TokyoEthicsForum.

About Aflac

When a policyholder gets sick or hurt, Aflac pays cash benefits fast. For six decades, Aflac insurance policies have given policyholders the opportunity to focus on recovery, not financial stress. In the United States, Aflac is the leading provider of voluntary insurance at the worksite. Through its trailblazing One Day PaySM initiative, Aflac U.S. can receive, process, approve and disburse payment for eligible claims in one business day. In Japan, Aflac is the leading provider of medical and cancer insurance and insures 1 in 4 households. Aflac insurance products help provide protection to more than 50 million people worldwide. For 10 consecutive years, Aflac has been recognized by Ethisphere as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies. In 2016, Fortune magazine recognized Aflac as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work for in America for the 18th consecutive year and included Aflac on its list of Most Admired Companies for the 15th time, ranking the company No. 1 in innovation for the insurance, life and health category for the second consecutive year. In 2015, Aflac's contact centers were recognized by J.D. Power by providing "An Outstanding Customer Service Experience" for the Live Phone Channel. Aflac Incorporated is a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AFL. To find out more about Aflac and One Day PaySM, visit aflac.com or espanol.aflac.com.

About the Ethisphere Institute

The Ethisphere Institute is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust and business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help companies enhance corporate character. Ethisphere honors superior achievement through its World's Most Ethical Companies recognition program, provides a community of industry experts with the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) and showcases trends and best practices in ethics with "Ethisphere Magazine". Ethisphere is also the leading provider of independent verification of corporate ethics and compliance programs that include: Ethics Inside Certification and Compliance Leader Verification. More information about Ethisphere can be found at: http://www.ethisphere.com.

Aflac herein means American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus and American Family Life Assurance Company of New York.

Media contacts  Jon Sullivan, 706.763.4813 or [email protected] or Clea Nabozny, 480.397.2658 or [email protected]

Analyst and investor contact  Robin Y. Wilkey, 706.596.3264 or 800.235.2667, FAX: 706.324.6330, or [email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100423/CL92305LOGO

SOURCE Aflac

Related Links

http://www.aflac.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Exactly 110 years ago tomorrow, on November 11, 1906, 31 individuals, including such noted American Jews as Cyrus Adler, Louis Marshall, Jacob Schiff, and Mayer Sulzberger, gathered at the Hotel Savoy in New York, following six previous exploratory meetings earlier that year. They officially formed the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

"The purpose of this Committee," they declared, "is to prevent the infringement of the civil and religious rights of Jews, and to alleviate the consequences of persecution."

Among their first acts were to provide assistance to Jewish institutions in San Francisco damaged by the earthquake that year; to advocatesuccessfullyfor the abrogation of the Russo-American Treaty of Commerce and Navigation because of Russia's mistreatment of Jews; to support the creation of the Joint Distribution Committee in order to help Jews affected by the impact of the massive dislocation of the First World War; to oppose attempts to restrict the entry of immigrants to the United States; and, as noted by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his landmark speech to AJC's Global Forum in 1965, to advocate for the legal rights of African-Americans "when few dared to speak."

Over the span of the last 110 years, AJC has never wavered in its commitment to the two pillars of its mission  defending Jews wherever they may be at risk, and supporting the universal values of human dignity and human rights for all.

What has changed is the organization's structure. Originally intended to be a small committee of successful and influential Jews, largely of German background, AJC evolved into a national and, later, a global institution operating on six continents, which today has 22 offices across the country, ten overseas posts, and 33 international partnerships. Hundreds of thousands of people follow AJC on social media, and tens of thousands are deeply involved in the daily life of the organization as leaders, activists, and supporters.

"I believe our visionary founders would be proud of how AJC has stayed true to its original mission, while growing exponentially in size and reach," said AJC CEO David Harris, who has been in his post since 1990.

"They resolved that Jews should no longer be just students of history or prisoners of history, but rather help chart their own destiny through sophisticated advocacy, focused on key decision-makers and likeminded civic partners. In the ensuing years, the Jewish people have experienced both triumphs, especially the rebirth of Israel, the mainstreaming of American Jewry, and the expansion of democratic values, and tragedies, most notably the Holocaust, as well as persecution behind the Iron Curtain, the enduring resilience of anti-Semitismespecially in the Arab world and Europeand the horrors of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Through it all, AJC persevered, and today is more vibrant and focused than ever."

AJC has been praised for its unique role in global advocacy and its many tangible achievements in diplomacy, public policy, intergroup relations, and human rights. For example, The New York Times described AJC as "the dean of American Jewish organizations." French President Nicolas Sarkozy called AJC "the most effective, influential, and respected of American Jewish organizations." The late Nobel laureate and Israeli President Shimon Peres referred to AJC as "the Foreign Ministry of the Jewish people." The United States Senate, in S. Res. 444, lauded AJC for "its century of leadership." The late John Cardinal O'Connor of New York stated that "No organization in New York, in the United States, or in the world has done more to advance Christian-Jewish relations than AJC." And the current U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said AJC is "the State Department of the Jewish people, a title so apt."

"Both opportunities and challenges abound for world Jewry," Harris added. "AJC's strengths include a well-developed global architecture; hard-earned credibility with American and international leaders; significant strides in strategic communications; a well-calibrated balance of quiet diplomacy and public advocacy; a non-ideological and nonpartisan spirit; a long-term, perseverant approach to mission goals; a world-class staff; and dedicated lay leaders, including an award-winning young leadership program. That's why I feel confident that we will continue to be up to the task of seizing the opportunities and confronting the challenges that lie ahead. Here's to our next 110 years!"

To read a comprehensive essay on "AJC at 110," please click here.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120601/537255 )

Women's Imaging Associates, located in Birmingham, Alabama, offers a full range of imaging interpretations for over twenty hospitals, radiology groups, outpatient facilities and OB/GYN practices. Reading expertise includes 2D and 3D screening mammography, diagnostic mammography, breast MRI, breast ultrasound, as well as OB and pelvic ultrasound.

"A major factor influencing our choice of Sectra PACS is its enhanced efficiency for viewing the entire spectrum of breast imaging studies," according to Caroline Reich M.D., a radiologist and CEO of Women's Imaging Associates. "Also important to our practice is the ability to provide MRI CAD for our centers offering breast MRI services."

Sectra PACS displays ultrasound and MRI images side-by-side with digital mammograms, facilitating comparison of current and prior images according to radiologist preference. "Sectra's ability to provide intelligent auto-routing of images to the proper radiologist reading location is a key differentiator of our enterprise solution," says Mikael Anden, president of Sectra North America.

Sectra Enterprise Imaging will be showcased at RSNA, booth #6113. Read more and book a meeting at http://www.sectra.com/RSNA.

About Sectra

With more than 20 years in the business, Sectra develops and sells IT systems and services for radiology, pathology, women's health and orthopaedics. More than 1,700 hospitals, clinics and imaging centers worldwide use the systems daily, making Sectra one of the world-leading companies for handling digital images.

About Women's Imaging Associates

Women's Imaging Associates is an independent radiology practice offering breast imaging expertise in partnership with physicians providing women's health services. We work with hospitals, radiology groups, outpatient facilities and OB/GYN groups. Our singular focus on, and specialization in, breast imaging affords our clients (and their patients) significant advantages - from diagnostic accuracy to tailored service and support.

http://www.womensimagingassociates.com

Contact: Andrea Sowitch, Vice President of Marketing

Sectra North America

E-mail: [email protected]

Phone: +1-203-925-0899 ext 268



Torbjorn Kronander, President and CEO

Sectra AB

E-mail: [email protected]

Phone: +46-705-23-5227



SOURCE Sectra North America
SmartShield Technology is a patented, ultra-thin protective shield that helps the lens resist lipid deposits and delivers outstanding wettability. 12-15 It also helps the lens resist changes from everyday cosmetic product use. 16 HydraGlyde Moisture Matrix is a wetting agent specifically designed for silicone hydrogel lenses that helps attract lens surface moisture and retain lens surface hydration. 17-18 In an in vitro study, AIR OPTIX plus HydraGlyde contact lenses provided longer-lasting wettability after 16 hours proving its ability to provide lens surface moisture benefits and lens surface hydration. 19-20

"We are excited to add AIR OPTIX plus HydraGlyde to our monthly replacement portfolio of products. Patients' needs, lifestyles, and environments are constantly evolving and many face challenges with their eyes, particularly lens wearers," said Sergio Duplan, Region President for North America at Alcon. "This new monthly replacement contact lens can provide the benefits of excellent deposit resistance and longer-lasting lens surface moisture to patients in a replacement schedule that promotes compliant wear."

This is the latest innovation in the AIR OPTIX family of monthly replacement contact lenses, whose comprehensive portfolio includes monthly replacement clear and color contact lenses, overnight and flexible wear options, toric and multifocal lens correction. AIR OPTIX plus HydraGlyde contact lenses are expected to be available to patients in the U.S. in late February of next year. The contact lenses will be available at launch with a power range of +8.00D to -12.00D, which includes both expanded plus and minus powers.

"At Alcon, we are committed to helping people see, look and feel their best and this includes continuing to expand our innovative product portfolio," said Franck Leveiller, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Research and Development at Alcon. "Adding this exclusive lens surface moisture technology to AIR OPTIX brand contact lenses will provide eye care professionals a new option for their contact lens patients."

For more information about this innovation at AAO, please visit booth 411.

Disclaimer

The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by words such as "introduces," "will," "excited," "can," "launch," "committed," "continuing to expand," or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential additional regulatory submissions and approvals, or launches of, Air Optix plus HydraGlyde monthly replacement contact lenses, or regarding potential future revenues from Air Optix plus HydraGlyde monthly replacement contact lenses. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on the current beliefs and expectations of management regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that Air Optix plus HydraGlyde monthly replacement contact lenses will be launched and available to patients in the United States within the scheduled time frame, or at all. Neither can there be any guarantee that Air Optix plus HydraGlyde monthly replacement contact lenses will be submitted and approved for sale in, or launched in, any additional markets, or at any particular time. Nor can there be any guarantee that Air Optix plus HydraGlyde monthly replacement contact lenses will be commercially successful in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding Air Optix plus HydraGlyde monthly replacement contact lenses could be affected by, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including unexpected regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; unexpected clinical trial results and additional analysis of existing clinical data; the company's ability to obtain or maintain proprietary intellectual property protection; current and future competing contact lens products; general economic and industry conditions; global trends toward health care cost containment, including ongoing pricing pressures; unexpected safety, quality or manufacturing issues, and other risks and factors referred to in Novartis AG's current Form 20-F on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Alcon

Alcon is the global leader in eye care. As a division of Novartis, we offer the broadest portfolio of products to enhance sight and improve people's lives. Our products touch the lives of more than 260 million people each year living with conditions like cataracts, glaucoma, retinal diseases and refractive errors, and there are millions more who are waiting for solutions to meet their eye care needs. Our purpose is reimagining eye care, and we do this through innovative products, partnerships with eye care professionals and programs that enhance access to quality eye care. Learn more at www.alcon.com.

Alcon is on Facebook. Like us at www.facebook.com/AlconEyeCare

About Novartis

Novartis provides innovative healthcare solutions that address the evolving needs of patients and societies. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Novartis offers a diversified portfolio to best meet these needs: innovative medicines, eye care and cost-saving generic pharmaceuticals. Novartis is the only global company with leading positions in these areas. In 2015, the Group achieved net sales of USD 49.4 billion, while R&D throughout the Group amounted to approximately USD 8.9 billion (USD 8.7 billion excluding impairment and amortization charges). Novartis Group companies employ approximately 118,000 full-time-equivalent associates. Novartis products are available in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information, please visit http://www.novartis.com.

Novartis is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Novartis at http://twitter.com/novartis

For Novartis multimedia content, please visit www.novartis.com/news/media-library

For questions about the site or required registration, please contact [email protected]

References

Nash W, Gabriel M, Mowrey-Mckee M. A comparison of various silicone hydrogel lenses; lipid and protein deposition as a result of daily wear. Optom Vis Sci. 2010;87:E-abstract 105110. Nash W & Gabriel M. Ex vivo analysis of cholesterol deposition for commercially available silicone hydrogel contact lenses using a fluorometric enzymatic assay. Eye & Contact Lens. 2014; 40(5): 277-282. In vitro measurement of cholesterol deposition after 7 days of simulated wear; Alcon data on file, 2015. 1. Compared to AIR OPTIX AQUA sphere lenses. Alcon data on file, 2014. In vitro study over 16 hours to measure wetting substantivity; Alcon data on file, 2015. Nash W, Gabriel M, Mowrey-Mckee M. A comparison of various silicone hydrogel lenses; lipid and protein deposition as a result of daily wear. Optom Vis Sci. 2010;87:E-abstract 105110. Nash W & Gabriel M. Ex vivo analysis of cholesterol deposition for commercially available silicone hydrogel contact lenses using a fluorometric enzymatic assay. Eye & Contact Lens. 2014; 40(5): 277-282. Alcon data on file, 2014. In vitro study over 16 hours to measure wetting substantivity; Alcon data on file, 2015. Eiden SB, Davis R, Bergenske P. Prospective study of lotrafilcon B lenses comparing 2 versus 4 weeks of wear for objective and subjective measures of health, comfort, and vision. Eye & Contact Lens. 2013;39(4):290-294. In vivo study measuring comfort during lotrafilcon B wear at hour 6 of days 1 through 30, Alcon data on file, 2016. Nash W, Gabriel M, Mowrey-Mckee M. A comparison of various silicone hydrogel lenses; lipid and protein deposition as a result of daily wear. Optom Vis Sci. 2010;87:E-abstract 105110. Nash W & Gabriel M. Ex vivo analysis of cholesterol deposition for commercially available silicone hydrogel contact lenses using a fluorometric enzymatic assay. Eye & Contact Lens. 2014; 40(5): 277-282. Alcon data on file, 2014. In vitro study over 16 hours to measure wetting substantivity; Alcon data on file, 2015. Luensmann D, Yu M, Yang J, Srinivasan S, Jones L. Impact of cosmetics on the physical dimension and optical performance of silicone hydrogel contact lenses. Eye Contact Lens. 2015;41:218-227. In vitro study over 16 hours to measure wetting substantivity; Alcon data on file, 2015. Alcon data on file, 2014. In vitro study over 16 hours to measure wetting substantivity; Alcon data on file, 2015. Alcon data on file, 2014.

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SOURCE Novartis

Related Links

https://www.novartis.com


CHICAGO, LONDON and PUNE, India, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

ALCOR M&A, a global leader in Cross-border Mergers and Acquisition leader, working in close tandem with the India Prime Minister, Modi - Make in India Campaign, along with the British Government led by PM Teresa May, post BREXIT, structured a M&A deal between the 3500 crore Badve Engineering in India and PVI from UK who is a world leader in resistive ink technology. Interestingly this is one of the first deals post BREXIT between UK and India. The deal will help the 20 million two-wheelers, the 1 million three-wheelers and the 4 million four wheelers in India move onto to the better 'wireless and ink based accelerator technology' which is not only safe but also cost effective. The Joint Venture company will design and manufacture automotive controls sensors, printed circuit boards (PCBs) for accelerator pedals and clutch assemblies for automotive applications. The JV company will be the first company in India to supply sensor-controlled electronic ABC assemblies to four-wheelers, as well as two-wheeler market in India and the Asian subcontinent.

Mr. George Molakal, CEO of ALCOR Fund - Chicago congratulated the team and both the companies for using ALCOR investment strategies, relevant market research, the asset management, and the corporate finance advisory to realize the business potential to enter and capitalize on these huge virgin markets of this kind of revolutionary technology.

ALCOR M&A's global cross-cultural Harvard-educated team worked closely with the management of Badve for planning the equity capital management and also PVI to establish the corporate governance system, business strategy, IP Protection and controls, private equity funding and understand the market potential, build the financial model, create the term sheets, debate the JV agreement points and structure the deal within a couple of months. Thomas Mathew, the South Asia Director of ALCOR M&A, said, "British Technology firms have great potential to globalize their products through Joint Ventures and co-investments. ALCOR M&A, the global cross border Mergers and Acquisitions leader, can have these Joint Ventures with equity and debt investments executed within four to six months across the globe. Mr. Thomas also was surprised at the energy of Mr. Shrikant Badve and also the speed of Mr. Leigh Platts who worked closely to execute the deal in speed."

Raghvendra Adukia and Tushar Nayak who closely worked with Mr. Shrikant Badve's and his team of N Joshi, Sunil LG, Mahesh Chengta, Abhijit Kawalgikar, Raghunath Yemul and Lalit Popale praised the Badve team for a speedy response, which makes it easier to enable the JV to success. Mrs Supria Badve also expressed the Corporate Social Responsibility CSR activities for the Joint Venture and staff.

This JV will help PVI investment strategies and business principles with the Global industry experience to enter and expand in the Indian and South Asian market, which is one of the fastest-growing automobile markets in the world. PVI will bring its exclusive design and sensor printing technology to the JV company by keeping its intellectual property related to its proprietary PCB technology in Swindon, England.

Leigh Platts, the Vice President and COO of PVI stated that "the potential of the latest extreme high rel-low cost sensor technology, which will be introduced through the JV for the Indian market is tremendous. Given the scope of the 20 million two-wheelers and being present as a key domestic OEM technology supplier at the genesis of the fast growing automotive and off-highway Industries is priceless."

Prompted by cutting-edge technology, this hi-tech venture will revolutionize the Indian automobile industry by introducing the complete product range of electronic accelerators, brakes, clutch assemblies et al. The corporate finance, the investment strategies are in full execution for the industry and built by ALCOR M&A. The sensor technologies have a potential to change the face of four-wheeler and two-wheeler industries in the short term and heavy vehicle industry in the long term.

ALCOR M&A prides itself to be have enabled one of the first post BREXIT transactions between UK and India which will enable PVI - Badve to be a 'pioneer' in the industry.

Shrikant Badve, Managing Director, Badve Group stated, "I am pleased that Badve Engineering is working actively with the PM Modi's "Make in India initiative" and by bringing this cutting edge technology into India, Badve group is moving from being one of the largest automotive components suppliers to an automotive technology company."

Dr. Sena Yaddehige the Scientist and Chairman of PVI and a host of 52 companies worldwide, with more than 50,000 employees said "I am pleased to enter and support the Indian Automotive market with advanced Technology and we look forward to introducing many more innovations in India. This strategic entry will help PVI to establish itself as the world leader.

Speaking on occasion, Meenakshi Gore and Lumawant Ghodage, Directors of ALCOR Mergers and Acquisitions- said, "ALCOR has seen India as a great destination to invest and to bring in a range of 'cross-border' deals to address the growth areas for Indian companies, through technology, investments, and new businesses. This JV, besides bringing in foreign earnings for India, will generate revenues for the state and increase employment for local population".

About ALCOR M&A :

ALCOR Fund through its portfolio, ALCOR Mergers and Acquisitions Pvt. Ltd. offers a range of Investment services with an investment range of US$10mn to US$500mn along with an array of investment banking services such as Joint Ventures, Acquisitions, and Mergers. ALCOR augmented with an elite Board of Harvard and Oxford alumni; extends its dynamic leadership for M&A advisory, buy-side & sell-side advisory, JV advisory & execution, strategic alliance, management buyouts & leveraged buyouts, Corporate Finance & Restructuring and Business Growth Consultancy. ALCOR Fund has several portfolio companies in emerging markets.

For further information, please contact:

ALCOR Mergers and Acquisitions Pvt. Ltd.

Name: Tom Jones

Tel : +1-800-507-4489

Email:[email protected]



SOURCE ALCOR Mergers and Acquisitions Pvt Ltd.
BEVERLY, Mass., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Altova (http://www.altova.com) today announced the release of MobileTogether Version 3.0, its cross-platform mobile development framework for building native apps for iOS, Android, Windows, and other devices.

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Version 3.0 ships with an impressive array of new functionality, from developer-requested features such as barcode scanning and automated testing support, to flexibility improvements in the form of multi-level stylesheets and print-to-file functionality, all of which will give MobileTogether developers the edge they need to build sophisticated apps faster than is possible with other solutions.

"MobileTogether delivers the two most important keys to the mobile development kingdom: time and sophistication," said Alexander Falk, CEO and President of Altova. "These new features only add to the platform's ability to help developers build the most sophisticated apps possible while still delivering on MobileTogether's promise of record time-to-market."

New features include:

Support for scanning barcodes  MobileTogether now lets developers build apps that include barcode scanning, with support for the most popular linear and 2D barcode standards. This immediately makes MobileTogether apps even more useful in a variety of vertical industries.

 MobileTogether now lets developers build apps that include barcode scanning, with support for the most popular linear and 2D barcode standards. This immediately makes MobileTogether apps even more useful in a variety of vertical industries. Multi-level style sheets  these make it easy to define global styles that can be applied at the project, page, table and control level of the app design. This provides unmatched flexibility for easily customizing the look and feel of apps across all platforms.

 these make it easy to define global styles that can be applied at the project, page, table and control level of the app design. This provides unmatched flexibility for easily customizing the look and feel of apps across all platforms. Automated testing facility  in addition to the built-in Simulator for testing on all platforms, MobileTogether now also includes a full-blown automated app testing facility. This allows developers to record a sequence of user actions, save the sequence in a file, and replay saved user action sets later when the app is modified. Testing is supported on both the MobileTogether Designer and directly on mobile devices.

 in addition to the built-in Simulator for testing on all platforms, MobileTogether now also includes a full-blown automated app testing facility. This allows developers to record a sequence of user actions, save the sequence in a file, and replay saved user action sets later when the app is modified. Testing is supported on both the MobileTogether Designer and directly on mobile devices. Print to PDF, Word, or RTF from client  generating a document or report based on user data - directly from a mobile app - is now possible in MobileTogether 3.0. This support is enabled through synergy with Altova StyleVision for designing multichannel reports and StyleVision Server for generating them on the fly based on end user data.

 generating a document or report based on user data - directly from a mobile app - is now possible in MobileTogether 3.0. This support is enabled through synergy with Altova StyleVision for designing multichannel reports and StyleVision Server for generating them on the fly based on end user data. Open files on client  developers can give end users the ability to open files such as PDFs, image files, text files etc. that are stored on the client device from within an app.

 developers can give end users the ability to open files such as PDFs, image files, text files etc. that are stored on the client device from within an app. Speed increase on Windows devices  apps being used on Windows Phone and Windows 8 or 10 can now render pages up to five times* faster.

 apps being used on Windows Phone and Windows 8 or 10 can now render pages up to five times* faster. Re-written browser client - in addition to native apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 8/10, MobileTogether generates an HTML5 browser-based client for devices running any other operating system. For Version 3.0, we have completely re-written the MobileTogether browser client to deliver higher performance.

For more details and to download the free MobileTogether Designer, visit: https://www.altova.com/whatsnew_MobileTogether.html

*Based on internal tests. Your results may vary.

About Altova

Altova is a software company specializing in tools that assist developers with data management, software and application development, mobile development, and data integration. The creator of XMLSpy and other award-winning products, Altova is a key player in the software tools industry and the leader in XML solution development tools. The company offers a complete line of desktop developer software for XML, SQL, and UML; high-performance workflow automation server products; and a cross-platform mobile development platform. Altova focuses on its customers' needs by offering a product line that fulfills a broad spectrum of requirements for software development teams. With over 5 million users worldwide, including 91% of Fortune 500 organizations, Altova is honored to serve clients from one-person shops to the world's largest organizations. Altova is committed to delivering standards-based, platform-independent solutions that are powerful, affordable and easy-to-use. Founded in 1992, Altova is headquartered in Beverly, Massachusetts and Vienna, Austria.

Altova, MobileTogether, MissionKit, XMLSpy, MapForce, FlowForce, RaptorXML, StyleVision, UModel, DatabaseSpy, DiffDog, SchemaAgent, and Authentic are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Altova GmbH in the United States and other countries. The names of and references to other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Sales Information:

[email protected]

USA: 978-816-1600

EU: +43 (1) 545 5155 -0

Media Relations Contact:

Cynthia L Neely

PR & Marketing Communications Manager

[email protected]

978-816-1567

SOURCE Altova

Related Links

https://www.altova.com


Mr. Prashant Lamba joins Ankura as Managing Director with more than 14 years of experience in business systems implementation. He helps companies embrace new technologies to keep pace with compliance while increasing efficiency. He has built and led large, cross-functional teams across the globe to define product strategies, build roadmaps and deliver strategies. Mr. Lamba has provided strategic, technical solutions to companies throughout the world in the healthcare, e-commerce, telecommunications, retail, education and other industries. Additionally, he has experience launching technology start-up ventures. Mr. Lamba was most recently with Oracle.

"Our current market demands that companies embrace new technologies to keep pace with disruption while at once modernizing compliance processes and governance frameworks," said Jessica Block, Ankura Senior Managing Director. "We are excited to bring Prashant's expertise to assist Ankura's clients as they face these challenges and opportunities."

About Ankura Consulting Group

Ankura Consulting Group is a business advisory and expert services firm. Its deep understanding of the opportunities and challenges clients face enables its team to provide impactful, senior-level counsel. As an independent firm built on five key principles  Integrity, Quality, Diversity, Collaboration and Longevity  Ankura's relationships extend beyond one engagement or issue. The firm empowers its industry experts to provide a high-touch, unique approach for its clients in critical times. Ankura's offering includes a wide range of services offered within its Data Analytics & Technology Services, Investigations & Accounting Advisory, Litigation & Disputes, Regulatory & Contractual Compliance, Risk, Resilience & Geopolitical, Turnaround & Restructuring groups. For more information: ankuraconsulting.com.

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SOURCE Ankura Consulting Group

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WELLESLEY, Mass., Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Babson Entrepreneurship Forum 2016 will take place November 11, 2016 at the Babson College Wellesley campus.



The Forum, organized annually by students of the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business, is one of the flagship events of the #1 school for Entrepreneurship.



Every year, students, faculty, professionals and entrepreneurs from the Boston community gather for this one-day conference to learn and network. Attendees benefit from the latest in entrepreneurial trends, tools, and thought leadership. The Babson Entrepreneurship Forum 2016 is centered on the theme of "Take Action."



The conference offers three tracks: entrepreneurship track; intrapreneurship track; and workshops.



Speakers include



Stephen Kaufer , president and CEO, TripAdvisor;

, president and CEO, TripAdvisor; Sheila Lirio Marcelo , founder, chairwoman and CEO, Care.com;

, founder, chairwoman and CEO, Care.com; Halla Tomasdottir, founder and lead partner, Sisters Capital;

Amy Cosper , former editor-in-chief, Entrepreneur Media Inc.;

, former editor-in-chief, Entrepreneur Media Inc.; Jordan Fliegel , founder and former CEO, CoachUp.com;

, founder and former CEO, CoachUp.com; Soroush Abbaspour , program director and chief of staff, IBM Watson Health Innovations;

, program director and chief of staff, IBM Watson Health Innovations; Wilson Zhu , CEO and chairman, inQbrands, Inc.;

, CEO and chairman, inQbrands, Inc.; Barbara Minuzzi, founder and CEO, Investhaus;

Daniel C. Hayden , president, Hayden Corporation;

, president, Hayden Corporation; Enrico Palmerino , entrepreneur and investor, Botkeeper;

, entrepreneur and investor, Botkeeper; Jason Jacobs , cofounder and CEO, Runkeeper;

, cofounder and CEO, Runkeeper; Jon Hirschtick , founder and CEO, Onshape Inc.;

, founder and CEO, Onshape Inc.; Mike Salguero , founder, ButcherBox;

, founder, ButcherBox; James Hilton , founding partner, Xavinci;

, founding partner, Xavinci; John Valentine , director of partnerships, MassChallenge Boston

, director of partnerships, MassChallenge Boston Kerry Healey , president, Babson College .

Live to Pitch Event



To make this the most successful BEF event ever, the Forum is organizing several new experiences, including the "Live to Pitch" event which will put entrepreneurs in front of a live audience and judging panel to pitch their business in 3 minutes or less.



Startup City

Local businesses will have the opportunity to showcase their company during the Forum lunch.



Babson College



Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds(r). The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action(r) as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value. Visit www.babson.edu

CONTACT: Michael Chmura, 781-239-4549, [email protected]

This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise(TM). For more information, visit http://www.newswise.com.

SOURCE Babson College

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CORAL GABLES, Fla., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Gordon Lea, Esq., a partner of the preeminent law firm Lubell Rosen, recently obtained a complete defense verdict and final judgment in favor of the defendants, Stephen D. Parks, M.D., Apollo Beach Family Practice, Inc., n/k/a Brandon Area Primary Care, P.A., and Brandon Area Primary Care, P.A. After a seven-day trial, the jury ruled in favor of the defendants after 2 hours of deliberation.

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Lubell Rosen Partner Gordon Lea

The plaintiff was represented by Joseph D. Magri, Esq. of Merkle Magri & Meythaler in Tampa and Peter A. Sartes of the Law Offices of Tragos & Sartes in Clearwater. The case number is 11-CA-011921. The presiding judge was the Honorable Elizabeth G. Rice of the Circuit Court of the 13th Judicial Circuit in and for Hillsborough County, Florida.

Plaintiff Marie Grenchik sought over $600,000 in damages, costs and other such relief, claiming that Dr. Parks failed to follow-up on an X-ray report he received, concerning chest X-rays taken on her husband Phillip Grenchik, on or about Oct. 19, 2007, that indicated a prominence of the descending aorta. The plaintiff alleged that this was a significant finding that justified further diagnostic evaluation, including a CT scan of the chest. The plaintiff further alleged that Mr. Grenchik died from cardiac tamponade, due to intrapericardial hemorrhage secondary to a dissecting aortic arch and descending aorta with extension into the pericardium, left carotid artery, left pulmonary artery, and mediastinal soft tissues, as a direct result of Dr. Parks' negligence in failing to properly follow-up on the X-ray finding.

The deceased was a longtime patient of Dr. Parks, who referred him to a nephrologist, Dr. Cristina Balsera, for treatment of his renal disease. Dr. Balsera eventually referred Mr. Grenchik to a kidney transplant team called Lifelink, which is now part of Tampa General Hospital. In order to be approved for a kidney transplant, certain medical tests had to completed such as an EKG, chest X-rays, colonoscopy, etc. Dr. Parks testified that the deceased asked him to rewrite the prescriptions from Lifelink for these tests, so that they could be covered under his insurance. By writing those prescriptions, the plaintiff argued that Dr. Parks had a duty to follow-up on all of those tests, since he was Mr. Grenchik's primary care physician, even though the results of all of those tests were received by the Lifelink physicians.

Although the plaintiff's counsel brought in medical experts to say that Dr. Parks was the "hub of the wheel" in charge of Mr. Grenchik's care and treatment, and that the nephrologist and members of the Lifelink Transplant Evaluation Committee were just the "spokes of that wheel," Lea was able to convince the jury otherwise. He was able to demonstrate to the jury that it was just beyond common sense that the physicians at Lifelink (a world-class transplant team), would be relying on Dr. Parks to do follow-ups on the tests they ordered, when they themselves didn't order any further testing on the basis of that X-ray report.

"This case exemplifies that it is imperative for doctors to have experienced, knowledgeable attorneys such as Mr. Lea, who have the expertise in medical malpractice cases to understand and explain the facts to a jury," said Mark L. Rosen, Esq., partner at Lubell Rosen.

Lea is a highly-skilled trial lawyer with well over 100 jury trials to verdict. He focuses on medical malpractice defense of doctors, nurse, hospitals, and clinics. For more information about Lea, visit www.lubellrosen.com/attorneys/gordon-lea/.

About Lubell Rosen

Lubell Rosen is a law firm dedicated to providing full service representation as well as defending and protecting entrepreneurs and business owners, physicians, healthcare professionals and businesses in the healthcare industry. The firm has been named a U.S. Top Ranked Law Firm by FORTUNE Money Magazine. Only the finest attorneys are invited to join the practice. Lubell Rosen's headquarters are located at 200 S. Andrews Ave., Suite 900, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301. To reach Lubell Rosen's headquarters, call 954-880-9500. The firm also has offices in Coral Gables, Florida; Syosset, New York; Upper Saddle River, New Jersey; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For more information, visit www.lubellrosen.com.

Contact:

Duree Ross / Duree & Company, Inc.

954-723-9350 T

[email protected]

Ana Maria Colmenares / Duree & Company, Inc.

954-723-9350 T

[email protected]

SOURCE Lubell Rosen

Related Links

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WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Bunge Limited (NYSE: BG) today announced that Bunge Finance Europe B.V., its wholly owned finance subsidiary, has priced a public offering of 200,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 1.850% senior notes due 2023 (the "notes"). The notes will be guaranteed by Bunge Limited.

The notes constitute an additional issuance of, and form a single series with, the outstanding 1.850% senior notes due 2023 (the "existing notes") issued on June 16, 2016 and have the same terms as the existing notes. The notes will have the same ISIN and Common Code number as the existing notes and will trade interchangeably with the existing notes immediately upon settlement. Upon issuance of the notes, the aggregate principal amount outstanding of the 1.850% senior notes due 2023 will be 800,000,000.

The offering is being made pursuant to a registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The transaction is expected to close on November 17, 2016.

Bunge Limited intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including, but not limited to, the repayment of outstanding indebtedness, which may include indebtedness under its revolving credit facilities.

BNP Paribas, Citigroup Global Markets Limited, J.P. Morgan Securities plc, Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch, HSBC Bank plc and ING Bank N.V. are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering.

This offering of senior notes may be made only by means of the prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus related to the offering. Copies of the prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to the offering can be obtained by calling BNP Paribas toll-free at (800) 854-5674, Citigroup Global Markets Limited toll-free at (800) 831-9146 or J.P. Morgan Securities plc collect at +44 (0)207-134-2468.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of, these senior notes in any jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

The prospectus in the registration statement and the prospectus supplement relating to the offering have been prepared on the basis that any offer of notes in any Member State of the European Economic Area (each, a "Member State") will be made pursuant to an exemption under Directive 2003/71/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 4 November 2003 as amended (the "Prospectus Directive") from the requirement to publish a prospectus for offers of notes. Accordingly any person making or intending to make an offer in that Member State of notes which are the subject of the offering contemplated in the prospectus supplement may only do so in circumstances in which no obligation arises for Bunge Limited, Bunge Finance Europe B.V. or any of the underwriters to publish a prospectus pursuant to Article 3 of the Prospectus Directive or supplement a prospectus pursuant to Article 16 of the Prospectus Directive, in each case, in relation to such offer. Neither we nor the joint bookrunners have authorized, nor do they authorize, the making of any offer of notes in circumstances in which an obligation arises for us or the underwriters to publish or supplement a prospectus for such offer.

The prospectus in the registration statement and the prospectus supplement relating to the offering are for distribution only to persons who (i) have professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (as amended, the "Financial Promotion Order"), (ii) are persons falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) ("high net worth companies, unincorporated associations etc.") of the Financial Promotion Order, (iii) are outside the United Kingdom, or (iv) are persons to whom an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity (within the meaning of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000) in connection with the issue or sale of any securities may otherwise lawfully be communicated or caused to be communicated (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). The prospectus in the registration statement and the prospectus supplement relating to the offering are directed only at relevant persons and must not be acted on or relied on by persons who are not relevant persons. Any investment or investment activity to which the such documents relate is available only to relevant persons and will be engaged in only with relevant persons.

Relevant stabilization regulations including FCA / ICMA apply.

About Bunge Limited

Bunge Limited (www.bunge.com, NYSE: BG) is a leading global agribusiness and food company operating in over 40 countries with approximately 35,000 employees. Bunge buys, sells, stores and transports oilseeds and grains to serve customers worldwide; processes oilseeds to make protein meal for animal feed and edible oil products for commercial customers and consumers; produces sugar and ethanol from sugarcane; mills wheat, corn and rice to make ingredients used by food companies; and sells fertilizer in South America. Founded in 1818, the company is headquartered in White Plains, New York.

Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains both historical and forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical fact are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward looking statements are not based on historical facts, but rather reflect our current expectations and projections about our future results, performance, prospects and opportunities, including statements with respect to the completion, timing and anticipated use of proceeds of the offering. We have tried to identify these forward looking statements by using words including "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "anticipate," "believe," "plan," "intend," "estimate," "continue" and similar expressions. These forward looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward looking statements, including those risk factors described in or incorporated by reference in the prospectus supplement for the offering. The following important factors, among others, could affect our business and financial performance: industry conditions, including fluctuations in supply, demand and prices for agricultural commodities and other raw materials and products used in our business; fluctuations in energy and freight costs and competitive developments in our industries; the effects of weather conditions and the outbreak of crop and animal disease on our business; global and regional agricultural, economic, financial and commodities market, political, social and health conditions; the outcome of pending regulatory and legal proceedings; our ability to complete, integrate and benefit from acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and strategic alliances; our ability to achieve the efficiencies, savings and other benefits anticipated from our cost reduction, margin improvement and other business optimization initiatives; changes in government policies, laws and regulations affecting our business, including agricultural and trade policies, tax regulations and biofuels legislation; and other factors affecting our business generally. The forward-looking statements included in this release are made only as of the date of this release, and except as otherwise required by federal securities law, we do not have any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

SOURCE Bunge Limited

Related Links

http://www.bunge.com


HOUSTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Burns & McDonnell has established a permanent, long-term presence in Mexico with the opening of a new office in Mexico City providing a full range of engineering, construction and related technical support services. Noe H. Saenz has been named to lead the business for Burns & McDonnell and will be based in Mexico City.

Burns & McDonnell already has been awarded a major project for a confidential client in addition to its current projects in renewables and other industrial sectors. The company will initially focus on power generation, transmission and fuel transportation projects but will rapidly expand to provide a full range of engineering, construction, environmental and consulting services in all sectors currently supported in the U.S. and Canada.

In his six years with Burns & McDonnell, Saenz has been responsible for international business development as well as growing the petrochemical business of Burns & McDonnell's Process & Industrial division. His main areas of focus have been strategic planning, client relationships, and developing partnerships in the energy and heavy industrial market sectors primarily in Mexico, Canada and Brazil.

"Noe has demonstrated great team-building skills that create the right working environment in cultures that are uniquely different from what we are familiar with in the United States," says Leslie Duke, senior vice president and general manager of Burns & McDonnell regional operations in Houston. "We are excited that he has agreed to lead our expansion into Mexico. We know that our success in Mexico depends on respect and understanding of culture and customs and there is no one better than Noe to build those relationships."

"Burns & McDonnell has a long history of supporting projects in Mexico, but this is the first time we've established a permanent business office there," says Mike Brown, president of International Operations for Burns & McDonnell. "There are tremendous opportunities in Mexico as that country embarks on a major investment program to upgrade its power and energy infrastructure. We're excited to open this new office and believe Noe is the right man to lead this effort."

Saenz has 18 years total experience leading engineering and EPC projects in the energy and manufacturing sectors mainly in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Early in his career, he gained experience leading plant development efforts for General Motors, Ford and Caterpillar both in the U.S. and Mexico.

Saenz has a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the Universidad Autonoma de Coahuila in Saltillo, Mexico, an MBA in Project Management from Jones International University and executive education at Stanford and at the University of Texas. He also holds a PMP certificate from the Project Management Institute.

About Burns & McDonnell

Burns & McDonnell is a company made up of more than 5,400 engineers, architects, construction professionals, scientists, consultants and entrepreneurs with offices across the country and throughout the world. We strive to create amazing success for our clients and amazing careers for our employee-owners. Burns & McDonnell is 100 percent employee-owned and is proud to be No. 16 on Fortune's 2016 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. For more information, visit burnsmcd.com.

For more information: click here

Contact: Roger Dick, Burns & McDonnell

816-822-3339

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160426/360057LOGO

SOURCE Burns & McDonnell

Related Links

http://www.burnsmcd.com


DUBLIN, Nov 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Canadian Market Report for Spinal Bone Graft Substitutes 2016 - MedCore" report to their offering.

The vast majority of allograft materials utilized in spinal surgeries in Canada are supplied by large national tissue bank organizations and to a smaller extent, by provincial local tissue banks. In recent years, consolidation of tissue banks has become a growing trend as larger tissue organizations demonstrated abilities to develop more sophisticated and specialized allografts.

Major allograft tissue banks in Canada include Mount Sinai Allograft Technologies and the Regional Tissue Bank. Local supply is limited to donor materials received at Canadian Tissue Banks such as Mount Sinai Hospital and the Regional Tissue Bank to a large extent.

The majority of the allograft market is supplied domestically as it is simple for a Canadian tissue bank to source bone domestically and cut it up to provide cancellous or corticancellous chips or granules. Therefore, physicians do not feel it necessary to purchase proprietary allograft chips in the Canadian market and instead rely heavily on domestically sourced and distributed allograft. There is however a limited allograft bone graft market for spinal indications that is imported from U.S. sources, mainly from not for profit tissue banks like MTF.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary

Canadian Orthopedic Biomaterials Market

Top Canadian Orthopedic Biomaterials Companies

Market Developments

2. Research Methodology

2.1 9-Step Methodology

2.2 Research Scope

3. Spinal Bone Graft Substitute Market

3.1 Market Overview

3.2 Market Analysis And Forecast

3.2.1 Spinal Allograft Market

3.2.2 Spinal Dbm Market

3.2.3 Spinal Synthetic Market

3.2.4 Growth Factor/Bmp Market

3.3 Procedure Unit Analysis (Including Autografts)

3.4 Spine Versus Total Bone Graft Market

3.5 Stem Cell Therapy

3.6 Drivers And Limiters

3.6.1 Market Drivers

3.6.2 Market Limiters

3.7 Competitive Market Share Analysis

Companies Mentioned

Medtronic

Synthes

Wright Medical

Citagenix

Stryker

Canadian Local Tissue Banks

RTI Surgical

Zimmer Biomet

Sanofi

Bioventus

Anika Therapeutics

Ferring Pharma

Aralez Pharma

Bioventus

DJO

IGEA Medical

Fintek Bio-Electric

BTT Melmak

ITO Company

Orthofix

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/2wdvlj/canadian_market

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]

For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


Guests who visit Florida shoppes on November 17 th can take advantage of the one day only BOGO Free offer on any size, any flavor soft-serve cup or cone. While picking up their soft-serve ice cream of choice, ice-cream lovers will be invited to pay the love forward by making a contribution to The American Red Cross for Hurricane Matthew victims.

"A large part of the Carvel family is located in the Southeast, so it comes as second nature for us to jump at the chance to help the region out in any way we can after something tragic has occurred," said Scott Colwell, president of Carvel. "The American Red Cross has been a partner with us for four years and we know these additional funds will be able to help those in need."

Carvel is proud to have donated more than $120,000 to the American Red Cross. These efforts help support those affected by disasters, which includes disaster preparedness and support for youth throughout the country."

For more information on how to help The American Red Cross, please visit http://www.redcross.org/. For the freshest information on Carvel products and company news, visit www.carvel.com or follow the brand on Twitter and Instagram @CarvelIceCream and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CarvelIceCream.

About Carvel Ice Cream

The United States' first retail ice cream franchise, Carvel Ice Cream has become one of the best-loved and most recognized names in its industry. The company is a leading provider of premium soft ice cream and hand dipped ice cream products, as well as uniquely shaped ice cream cakes, including its signature Fudgie the Whale and Cookie Puss cakes. Atlanta-based Carvel currently operates over 400 franchised and food service locations. Visit www.carvel.com for more information, follow us on Twitter @CarvelIceCream or become a fan at http://facebook.com/CarvelIceCream

Media Contact

Geena Russo

Finn Partners for Carvel

[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437587-INFO

SOURCE Carvel Ice Cream

Related Links

http://www.carvel.com


"Google has impressed us all with its launch of the Pixel and Pixel XL devices, and we know consumers will be looking for reliable 'tech-cessories' that will protect their investment and match their personal style. That's why we've spent the time and energy necessary to design cases we're confident will parallel the new phones' stunning aesthetic and functionality, while also giving consumers the ability to express their individuality," said Andrew Kim, product designer for Caseology. "Nowadays, phones are not just tools to communicate, but they represent who we are as people and can even help us make a statement. The ability to match a phone case to an outfit or trend can be an empowering form of self-expression. We strongly believe our new options for the Google Pixel and Pixel XL will not only effectively protect the new phones, but will also complement the personalities and preferences of our customers."

Caseology's selection of cases for the Google Pixel and Pixel XL feature a patented interior design that incorporates intricate details, refined accents, and quality materials such as thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and polycarbonate (PC). With accessible price points, the three series consist of:

Vault Series ( $21.99 ) the Vault Series cases designed for Google Pixel are slim yet extremely durable, with an elegant build that embodies a minimalist aesthetic. Cases are laser-etched, feature a carbon fiber texture and TPU material to reliably protect against unexpected slips and prevent scratches and fingerprints. Available in Black.

the Vault Series cases designed for Google Pixel are slim yet extremely durable, with an elegant build that embodies a minimalist aesthetic. Cases are laser-etched, feature a carbon fiber texture and TPU material to reliably protect against unexpected slips and prevent scratches and fingerprints. Available in Black. Waterfall Series ( $21.99 ) the extremely minimal Waterfall Series features clean, smooth lines with flexible transparent acrylic material to effectively display the Google Pixel's brilliant design and protect against impact. Available in Clear.

the extremely minimal Waterfall Series features clean, smooth lines with flexible transparent acrylic material to effectively display the Google Pixel's brilliant design and protect against impact. Available in Clear. Parallax Series ($24.99) for those who appreciate modern trends, the Parallax series' dynamic geometric pattern creates a sense of movement and texture for the discerning eye. Featuring flexible TPU sleeves and smooth polycarbonate bumpers, the cases incorporate three-dimensional moldings and soft coatings to provide a comfortable grip. Available in Black, Navy, Pink, and Burgundy colorways.

Caseology's full range of Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL cases are now available for pre-order at www.CaseologyCases.com. Limited colorways are available for immediate purchase, with the full portfolio expected to be available by the week of Nov. 23. For more information on Caseology's full lineup of products, or to make a purchase, please visit CaseologyCases.com.

About Caseology

Founded in 2014, Caseology is a fashion accessory brand designing stylish, best-selling cell phone cases for consumers' busy lifestyles. With more than 350 products in its portfolio, Caseology continues to push the envelope on innovating 'tech-cessories' for iPhone and Android devices, including the recently-released Galaxy Note 7. Focused on innovation and spreading goodness, the company is keenly aware of changing tastes and needs, and translates that into quality, inspired products that combine high-grade materials for protection with unmatched attention to detail. Currently, Caseology is one of Amazon's Top 50 Sellers Worldwide, with products that continuously rank in the top 20 Best Selling Cell Phone Cases on Amazon. For more information, visit www.CaseologyCases.com or follow Caseology on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437627

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160824/400786LOGO

SOURCE Caseology

Related Links

http://www.caseologycases.com


ATLANTA, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

WHO: Angela Lockman, vice president, Product Management for Equifax Workforce Solutions, a leader in human resource compliance, analytics and verification services, and a business unit of Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX)



WHAT: Will join Shari Conaway, director of People at Southwest Airlines, to present "Southwest Airlines Catches an Onboarding Compliance Tailwind" during the Talent Acquisition Tech Conference.



WHEN: The conference will take place Tuesday, November 15  Wednesday, November 16, 2016.





Lockman and Conaway are scheduled to speak on Wednesday, November 16 at 2:15 p.m. CST.



WHERE: Hilton Austin 500 East 4th Street Austin, Texas





DETAILS:

Onboarding new hires in multiple states using paper processes is a veritable nightmare for human resource departments. Between evolving compliance needs, state-specific regulations, and keeping things organized, paper processes are cumbersome, outdated and increasingly risky to maintain. However, recognizing the challenges and complexities of this approach is only the first step. During the Talent Acquisition Tech Conference, Angela Lockman, vice president, Product Management for Equifax Workforce Solutions, will join Shari Conaway, director of People at Southwest Airlines, to discuss the benefits of an updated, automated approach to employee onboarding.

As an organization, Southwest Airlines wanted to reflect a culture of hard work, innovation, respect, reliability and fun for every employee and new hire. Realizing that its paper-based onboarding processes were detracting from this culture, Southwest decided to make a change. Lockman and Conaway will share the steps Southwest took to create an easier, more welcoming experience for new employees and the ways it helped benefit the organization's bottom line. Session attendees will learn how to automate onboarding processes to remove administrative burden, improve compliance and identify tax-credit opportunities, even when the organization has decentralized hiring practices.

Attendees: Talent acquisition, HR and compliance professionals interested in learning how Equifax Workforce Solutions can make onboarding a strategic part of the hiring process are encouraged to attend this session.

For more information about the inaugural Talent Tech Conference, visit: http://www.talenttechconf.com.

About Equifax

Equifax powers the financial future of individuals and organizations around the world. Using the combined strength of unique trusted data, technology and innovative analytics, Equifax has grown from a consumer credit company into a leading provider of insights and knowledge that helps its customers make informed decisions. The company organizes, assimilates and analyzes data on more than 820 million consumers and more than 91 million businesses worldwide, and its databases include employee data contributed from more than 5,000 employers. Equifax Workforce Solutions, an Equifax business unit, is a leading provider of human resource compliance, analytics and verification technology and services.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. It is a member of Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 Index, and its common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX. Equifax employs approximately 9,400 employees worldwide.

Some noteworthy achievements for the company include: Ranked 13 on the American Banker FinTech Forward list (2015); named a Top Technology Provider on the FinTech 100 list (2004-2015); named an InformationWeek Elite 100 Winner (2014-2015); named a Top Workplace by Atlanta Journal Constitution (2013-2015); named one of Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies (2011-2015); named one of Forbes' World's 100 Most Innovative Companies (2015). For more information, visit www.equifax.com.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20060224/CLF037LOGO

SOURCE Equifax Inc.

Related Links

http://www.equifax.com


During the launch event, CCES standing vice president Chu Xiangyin announced the findings that were the results of the research that was conducted to compile the index and determine the rankings of exhibition cities. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu placed at the top of the list, with Chengdu ranking fifth nationwide. Chengdu also led the Midwest China category. The list was produced based on in-depth research and evaluation by over 20 top industry experts, who used four key criteria in determining the rankings: the exhibition city's overall competitiveness, overall environmental competitiveness, competitiveness in management and services, as well as visitors and exhibitors' satisfaction with the city's competitiveness, with a focus on comparing each city's key competitive elements.

The head of the Chengdu Council of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT-Chengdu) explained that over the last few years, Chengdu has put in place a state-of-the-art industrial infrastructure that boosts the collaborative development of the city's advanced manufacturing, modern service and modern urban agriculture industries. The city has also established a large number of modern manufacturing and service industry clusters across a wide range of sectors, among them, industries where competitiveness is key, including the electronic information and automotive sectors, as well as strategic emerging industries, including aerospace, rail transit, biopharmaceuticals and intelligent manufacturing, in addition to several stalwart sectors, among them, software and information services, modern logistics, technology, finance, commerce, trade and tourism. Chengdu is now home to 278 companies that rank among the Fortune Global 500, demonstrating the city's strong industrial foundation and unique position as a major destination of choice for conventions and exhibitions. Chengdu is China's fourth and the inland's first city to announce the 72-hour visa-free policy, following Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Airlines serving Chengdu have launched 89 international and regional routes connecting passengers to 199 cities around the world, with comprehensive coverage extending into major hub cities in North America, Europe, Australia, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The Chengdu-Europe high-speed railway provides the most convenient and fastest land port for goods destined for Europe. Today, Chengdu is among China's tier 2 cities requiring the fewest administrative approval procedures and the only one in the western part of the country to rank among China's Top 10 Best Cities for Service-oriented Government.

Website: www.cbecd.com

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161103/435817

SOURCE China Council For the Promotion of International Trade Chengdu Sub-council

Related Links

http://www.cbecd.com


This makes it the second time that the Chia Poll correctly predicted the winner of the Presidential Election. In the first ever Presidential Chia Poll in 2012, the percentages of the sales of Chia Obama vs. Chia Romney almost exactly matched the results of the Electoral College percentages in that election! So now, with two correct predictions under its Chia hair, will Chia heads become the next go-to standard in election polling?

And now, what will happen with both the losing Chia and the winning Chia?

Will sales of Chia Trump skyrocket now that he is going to become the next President?

Will sales of Chia Clinton skyrocket now that they are going to become a limited edition piece of political memorabilia?

And, will sales of Chia Obama skyrocket during his final months in office?

And, during the Christmas season, will people be buying Chia Trumps and Chia Clintons and giving them to their friends and relatives as consolation gifts or congratulatory gifts?

Chia Trump, Chia Clinton and Chia Obama as well as Chia Bernie Sanders are part of the Joseph Enterprises' "Freedom of Choice Collection" and are available at Kmart and Target stores, Amazon and at www.chia.com.

So (to quote Mike Pence), "The people have spoken." And, as the Chia Poll shows, they also speak by purchasing their favorite "Freedom of Choice" Chia.

For more information, contact Peter Georgii at Joseph Enterprises in San Francisco, California at [email protected] or by phone at 415-397-6992.

Joe Pedott, President and Founder of Joseph Enterprises is also available for video and phone interviews at 415-397-6992.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437651

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437652



SOURCE Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia

Related Links

http://www.chia.com


WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- It is terrific news that the results of the National Health Interview Survey, released today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), show smoking is on the decline among 18- to 24-year olds in the U.S., with a more than 45 percent drop between 2005 and 2015 and a significant year on year decline of 3.7 percentage points; a dramatic 22 percent decline in a single year. These highly encouraging results in part reflect the unprecedented power of having three complementary national public education programs including Truth Initiative's truth, CDC's Tips and FDA's Real Cost in the market at the same time.

However, the data also quite starkly highlight the growing disparity in our population in terms of who are the tobacco industry's best customers. Smoking is increasingly a function of who you are, where you live, your income and your sexual preference. The report underscores that smoking disproportionately affects individuals who live below poverty level, LGBT persons, the uninsured or Medicaid insured, those suffering from a disability or mental illness, and individuals living in areas with weak clean air laws and low taxes  predominantly the Midwest and South. For example, South Carolina has no smoking restrictions and is 45th in the country for its cigarettes tax of 57 cents per pack.

Many of the differences in smoking rates can be attributed to specific targeting by the tobacco industry. For instance, tobacco companies target the LGBT community by sponsoring events, bar promotions, and advertisements. Researchers have also found a higher density of tobacco retailers in low-income neighborhoods.

Public education campaigns targeted to youth and young adults, like truth, are doing their part. But for public education to fulfill its potential to prevent teen tobacco use, we need lawmakers at all levels to act on clean air indoor policies, excise taxes and price minimums, flavored tobacco bans and proposals to raise the minimum age of sale of tobacco products to 21.

About Truth Initiative

Truth Initiative is a national public health organization that is inspiring tobacco-free lives and building a culture where all youth and young adults reject tobacco. The truth about tobacco and the tobacco industry are at the heart of our proven-effective and nationally recognized truth public education campaign, our rigorous and scientific research and policy studies, and our innovative community and youth engagement programs supporting populations at high risk of using tobacco. The Washington, D.C.-based organization, formerly known as Legacy, was established and funded through the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. To learn more about our work speaking, seeking and spreading the truth about tobacco, visit truthinitiative.org.

SOURCE Truth Initiative
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- RSA Conference 2016 Abu Dhabi  Comodo, a global innovator and developer of cybersecurity solutions, today announced that Senior Research Scientist Kenneth Geers will present on the growing and evolving threat of ransomware in the Middle East at RSA Conference 2016 Abu Dhabi, Nov. 15-16.

For the uninitiated, ransomware is a hack attack, designed to deny service, usually to a major institution. The aim is to extort money, typically in Bitcoin form. The black hat cybercriminal who chooses this form of extortion encrypts data, rendering systems useless and forcing institutions to rely on old-school methods, such as faxes, to communicate internally. This threat is not diminishing. Current trends indicate that we will be dealing with it for years to come, particularly as the number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices continues to increase and open up new attack vectors.

Dr. Geers' presentation, "Ransomware in the Middle East," will explore the origin of this malicious attack method and how it has evolved in the region. The session will also highlight types of ransomware and their designas well as propagation, encryption, command and control, targets, payment and, perhaps most importantly, proactive defense and reactive solutions. View a preview of the session here: https://www.rsaconference.com/videos/quick-look-ransomware-in-the-middle-east.

Dr. Geers will join a who's-who list of government representatives, threat researchers and academics in Abu Dhabi as they work together to help attendees secure their organizations and their futures. He will also be a featured speaker at RSA Conference 2017 in San Francisco in February. The RSA Conference is the leading international information security conference and exposition, with its events collectively drawing more than 45,000 attendees per year.

Who: Kenneth Geers (PhD, CISSP) Comodo senior research scientist, NATO CCD COE ambassador, Atlantic Council senior fellow, Digital Society Institute-Berlin Affiliate, TSN University of Kyiv visiting professor. Twitter: @KennethGeers

What: "Ransomware in the Middle East" session, RSA Conference 2016 Abu Dhabi

When: Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016, 2:05  2:55 p.m. UTC+04:00

Where: Level 1, Etihad Ballroom 1, Emirates Palace Hotel, West Corniche Road, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Conference website: https://www.rsaconference.com/events/ad16

Conference handle: @RSAConference

About Comodo

The Comodo organization is a global innovator and developer of cybersecurity solutions, founded on the belief that every single digital transaction deserves and requires a unique layer of trust and security. Building on its deep history in SSL certificates, antivirus and endpoint security leadership and true containment technology, individuals and enterprises rely on Comodo's proven solutions to authenticate, validate and secure their most critical information. With data protection covering endpoint, network and mobile security, plus identity and access management, Comodo's proprietary technologies help solve the malware and cyberattack challenges of today. Securing online transactions for thousands of businesses, and with more than 85 million desktop security software installations, Comodo is Creating Trust Online. With United States headquarters in Clifton, New Jersey, the Comodo organization has offices in Silicon Valley, China, India, the Philippines, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit comodo.com.

Comodo and the Comodo brand are trademarks of the Comodo Group Inc. or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. The current list of Comodo trademarks and patents is available at comodo.com/repository

Keep up to date with the latest Comodo News from the Comodo blog at https://blog.comodo.com/ and on Twitter @ComodoNews.

Connect with Comodo on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/comodo.

Media Contact:

Deb Montner

Montner Tech PR

[email protected]

203-226-9290

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161010/427089LOGO

SOURCE Comodo

Related Links

https://enterprise.comodo.com


Three terrorists of Lashkar-e-Taiba were also arrested during the operation.
NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Europe has a special & deep relationship with Armor with the continent being its traditional birthplace & hotbed of technologies which spearheaded the development, fielding & first utilization of armor for combat in World War I which followed rapid further developments & subsequent extensive utilization in the World War II. Armor's role in providing mobility, troop protection and lethal firepower was further underscored & demonstrated effectively across the Iraq & Afghanistan war theatres during the allied war operations, which were the first major military operations of the 21st century and witnessed a generational change in threat landscape underscored by the extensive utilization of IEDs, RPGs & ATGMs while combating asymmetric warfare tactics with battlefield boundaries being nebulous at best and non-existent at the worst. This evolution of threat landscape with growing & serious threat to armor survivability from a range of threats has questioned the very raison d'etre of previous generation light & medium armor in the current, completely altered threat landscape, thus, rendering many of the existing platforms incapable of operating effectively and obsolete, thus, spurring replacement demand ageing vehicle platforms across most key markets globally. Additionally, strategic changes in, as well as, evolution of the traditional world order & geo-political dynamics marked by the resurgence of Russia with the impressive build-up & showcasing of military capabilities across Ukraine & Syria, continued political instability & regional conflict in the Middle East and the emergence of China as a key regional economic and military power in the Asia-Pacific region have already become key drivers of defense spending across most parts of the world.

The European scenario is no different with the traditional armor stronghold facing a hectic pace of activities with the looming, credulous Russian threat backed by third generation armor as well as related technological advances and increasing Russian activities in Eastern Europe & the Baltics having already driven a significant increase in defense spending across a number of states based in Northern as well as Central Europe, in addition, to the Baltics with a significant focus & emphasis being placed on land forces and armor given the geographic location and proximity of these states to Russia. A number of large, big ticket defense modernization & replacement programs have already been initiated, announced or are in the pipeline stage across a number of European states aimed at replacement of ageing, cold war legacy armor, led by the U.K., France, Poland & a number of other European states. Impending upgrades to traditional heavyweight armor centerpieces, including the Challenger 2 & Leclerc MBTs, too, which had been impending for a long time, are also on the anvil and about to be rolled out now along with a number of new IFV & APC procurement programs being initiated. The numbers are likely to go up further over near to medium term with the NATO's defense spending mandate compliance likely to become a key point of contention.



The European & Global outlook for armored vehicles over medium term, thus, is bright & promising with the presence of a number of long term demand & growth drivers in the form of ageing existing hardware, strong external threat perception amid evolving geo-political dynamics and availability of next generation technologies, most notably the introduction of third generation MBTs, driving manifold increase in capabilities, mobility, protection and firepower. These strategic factors have collectively driven & are likely to continue to drive significant investments towards land systems with the initiation of a number of new, active as well as planned procurement programs for armored vehicle across most traditional & emerging markets. All key European industry OEMs are pursuing upcoming defense programs across most key traditional & growth markets aggressively looking to drive business growth over near to medium term while leveraging existing product platforms & technologies intelligently besides continuing to pursue R&D activity for the development of next generation technologies.



Against this backdrop, the report maps out as to how the key industry OEMs are currently positioned and are likely to fit into as well as emerge over near to medium term amid a rapidly evolving market scenario as the industry gears up for demand resurgence after a long hiatus marked by the initiation of a number of new asset recapitalization & modernization programs across a number of European nations. The scope of analysis includes a Comprehensive & Insightful Comparative SWOT framework Analysis and analysis of the Near to Medium Term Strategy Focus for the Europe's 5 Leading Armored Vehicle manufacturers. The framework analyzes the Strengths & Weaknesses of the OEMs from a standalone as well as relative perspective based on a comprehensive analysis of their Key, Strategic Aspects, which include:

-- Product Portfolio Analysis & its Strategic Positioning across Key Markets & Segments

-- Breadth & Depth of Presence across Key Geographic Markets & Regions

-- Analysis of overall Cost Base, Structure & its Management

--Analysis of Revenue streams, Resource Base & Key Competencies

--Profitability, Key Profit Sources, Growth & Trend Analysis

--Capital & Ownership Structure, Financial Strength

--Key Competitor Analysis across Market Segments & Degree of Competitive Intensity

--Competitive Market Positioning across Key Global Markets & Market Share

--Overall Strategy Orientation & Focus, R&D Strategy, Technological Strength & Capabilities



The framework subsequently analyzes & identifies potentially significant, niche growth opportunities & avenues and imminent as well as emerging threats for each key industry OEM based on their strategic product portfolio & market positioning, core strengths & weaknesses and overall strategy focus & orientation against the backdrop of emerging market dynamics & trends. The report analyzes the overall degree of strategic responsiveness of OEMs to external environmental factors, which include, prevailing industry dynamics & emerging industry trends, issues, challenges & potential risk factors to assess their ability to be able to derive further business growth by capitalizing on potential growth opportunities effectively while negating threats simultaneously over near to medium term.



Relevance & Usefulness: The report will be useful for



-- Inputs for Strategic Planning, Competitive Assessment & Decision-Making Processes

-- Analysis of Core Strengths & Weaknesses for each of the 5 Key European Industry Players

-- Analysis of Near-term Strategy Focus and Insights into Key Strategies & Plans for the industry OEMs

-- Identification of & Insights into Potential Growth Opportunities & Avenues

-- Analysis of Key & Emerging Market & Technology Trends

-- Analysis of Key Issues, Challenges & Potential Risk Factors

-- Identifying & highlighting areas for making potential Strategic Changes, Adjustments & Realignment

-- Contingency planning for current Strategies & Programs

-- Analysis of Forces Driving as well as restraining the Industry & their Overall Dynamics

-- Strategic Perspective on the likely Evolution of the European and Global Armored Vehicle Market over Medium Term

-- Near to Medium Term Market Outlook, Inputs on Market Evolution & Demand Growth Projections



For Whom:



The report is essential & a must have for Government, Military & Senior Industry Personnel and all those with strategic interest & stakes in the European/Global Armored Vehicles Market. The report will be extremely useful for Key Decision-Makers, Program Managers, Global Procurement Managers, Defense Contracting Executives & Departments, Top Management of Industry Players & Other Companies, Industry OEMs, Suppliers, Vendors, MRO Services Providers, Associated Equipment Manufacturers and other Key Players in the Industry Value Chain. The report will also be useful for existing & potential Investors, Industry & Company Analysts, M&A Advisory Firms, Strategy & Management Consulting Firms, PE Firms, Venture Capitalists, Financing & Leasing Companies, Researchers and all those associated with the industry/sector.



Features, Benefits & Reasons to Procure:-



--Provides Macro View and Big Picture Quickly

--Blend of Quantitative & Qualitative Analysis

--Significant Time Savings

--Visual Representation

--Meetings & Presentation Ready Format

--Superior & Enriched User Experience with Incorporation of Relevant Images



Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04061485-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com





__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

http://www.reportlinker.com


LONDON and OSLO, Norway and NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- To celebrate twenty years of innovation in Market Research, Confirmit today announced it has expanded its recognition program to include an award honoring young, innovative Market Researchers, who represent the future of this ever-evolving industry. The Young Market Researcher Awards program will highlight and reward the work of twenty Market Researchers who are in their twenties and already helping to grow and evolve how Market Researchers analyze data and provide valuable insight.

Coming on the heels of the launch of the Insight 2036 survey, a questionnaire aimed at looking into the future of Market Research, the Young Market Researcher Awards program will assist in Confirmit's efforts to drive evolution, promote innovation and generate widespread discussion across the market research community.

"In order to predict what's next for the Voice of the Customer, Voice of the Employee and Market Research, we must listen to those spearheading technology adoption and evolution," said Henning Hansen, President and CEO, Confirmit. "The winners of the Young Market Researcher Awards program will embody the future of the industry and offer insight into where it is headed and who will be leading it. We're pleased to celebrate Confirmit's twenty-year anniversary by honoring the expertise, passions and talents of these young innovators."

Applications for the Young Market Researcher Awards are now being accepted. Entrants must be in their twenties and employed in a Market Research role. Full eligibility criteria are available from Confirmit. Submissions will be evaluated by a judging panel of experts, made up of both Confirmit team members and industry practitioners. Notable members of the panel include Bob Lederer, CEO of RFL Communications, Jon Puleston, Vice President of Innovation at Lightspeed, and Szymon Duniec, Managing Director at Orima Research and former President of AMSRS. Confirmit's MR experts, Wale Omiyale and Leslie Albright will also form part of the judging team with additional judges to be confirmed.

Lightspeed's Puleston said he is eager to recognize the young innovators driving transformation in the sector: "Market Research has evolved dramatically from the industry it was when it first emerged. Trying to forecast the next twenty years starts with tapping the brains of the next generation of leaders, the digital natives, and those at the forefront of consumer trends and motivations. It is there that we will unearth how the industry is truly evolving, and how companies can keep up with the pace. I'm thrilled to be a part of this initiative."

Those eligible can self-nominate or be entered by an associate or colleague, by completing the nomination form before Monday, November 28th. Applicants need not be users or customers of Confirmit's products or solutions to apply.

To learn more about the Young Market Researcher Awards program visit http://www.confirmit.com/Company/MR-Awards/ or email [email protected].

About Confirmit

Confirmit is the world's leading SaaS vendor for multi-channel Voice of the Customer, Voice of the Employee, and Market Research solutions. The company has offices in Oslo (headquarters), Chengdu, Grimstad, London, Moscow, New York, San Francisco, Sydney, Vancouver, and Yaroslavl. Confirmit's software is also distributed through partner resellers in Madrid, Milan, Salvador, and Tokyo.

Confirmit powers Global 5000 companies and Market Research agencies worldwide with a wide range of software products for feedback / data collection, panel management, data processing, analysis, and reporting. Customers include Aurora, British Airways, British Standards Institution, Cross-Tab, Dow Chemical, GfK, GlaxoSmithKline, GMO Research, JTN Research, KeepFactor, Morehead Associates, Nielsen, Research Now, RS Components, Sony Mobile Communications, and Swisscom. Visit www.confirmit.com for more information.

Media Contact:

Emma Walter

Matter Communications

[email protected]

978-518-4820

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437808LOGO

SOURCE Confirmit

Related Links

http://www.confirmit.com


PAPAKURA, Auckland, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Counties Power has selected Electropar and S&C Electric Company to provide a network-class grid scale battery as the core of its supply-side energy management pilot.

The pilot, which will go live in mid-2017, follows an extensive evaluation of options available from leading global suppliers. When operational, the battery will enable Counties Power to evaluate benefits such as reduced transmission demand at peak periods and improved power quality.

The consumer-owned lines company is investing in a 250kW grid-scale battery with 500kWh of storage to pilot and test several core network and value-added services. The pilot will be housed at the company's newest substation in Tuakau, North Waikato.

"As a consumer-owned distribution network, cost-effective, high quality and safe power supply are minimum expectations for our owners," said Counties Power chief executive Sheridan Broadbent. "The pilot will enable us to trial batteries as a core network element, which could help us to avoid or reduce future capital investment. We will be able to assess benefits for our customers such as supply quality enhancement, provision of ancillary network services and peak shaving."

Pukekohe-based Counties Power is working with several parties in its pilot study to assess future partnering opportunities, including a major electricity retailer.

"This kind of multi-party collaboration is quite new to New Zealand and we think it will unearth terrific opportunities for joint innovation that will save consumers money, while removing inefficiency and excess costs. We will also be working with at least one tertiary institution to help us build and test hypotheses for future innovation," said Broadbent.

S&C Electric Company, headquartered in Chicago with regional business units and manufacturing facilities around the globe, provides energy management and grid-scale storage solutions to transmission and distribution network operators. With an office in Melbourne, Australia, S&C is able to provide local, technical and engineering project support. This will be S&C's third grid-scale storage installation in the region and first in New Zealand.

"We are delighted to be selected by Counties Power as their pilot partner, particularly given the range of services the company and its associates wish to explore," said Jason Lander, S&C vice president, Asia Pacific. "With some of the most mature grid-scale technology in the world and an already large installed base, we know we are up for the challenge they've laid out for us."

Counties Power has procured the solution through S&C's local representative of more than 50 years, PLP Electropar, who will be providing local support, service and expertise.

About Counties Power

Counties Power owns and operates the electricity distribution network that services over 40,000 home, farm and business connections in the Franklin area. The company is 100 percent locally owned, with shares held on behalf of Franklin consumers by the Counties Power Consumer Trust. All profits are reinvested in the company or returned to consumers via an annual power account discount.

www.countiespower.com

About PLP Electropar New Zealand

Electropar Ltd is wholly owned by Preformed Line Products Ltd, a global company based in Ohio, USA. Electropar New Zealand has offices in Auckland and Wellington with a significant manufacturing, engineering and warehousing operation based in East Tamaki, Auckland.

Electropar's powerful research and engineering division provides strong design and prototype capability to the region, including a well-equipped internationally accredited laboratory for electrical and mechanical testing. With strong long-term distribution partners, Electropar offers complete market-leading solutions.

www.electropar.co.nz

About S&C Electric Company

S&C, with global headquarters in Chicago, USA, since 1911, is applying its heritage of innovation to address challenges facing the world's power grids and is thus shaping the future of reliable electricity delivery. The mission of employee-owned S&C is to continually develop new solutions for electricity delivery, fostering the improved efficiency and reliability required for the intelligent grid. Additional information about S&C is available at www.sandc.com

MEDIA CONTACT:

Melissa Winn

312-240-2868

[email protected]

For information, please contact: Mark Russell, Counties Power media advisor,

027 297 0178 or [email protected].

SOURCE S&C Electric Company

Related Links

http://www.sandc.com


BOSTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Crayon has raised a $3.35 million seed round to accelerate growth as it seeks to help every marketer on planet earth track, understand and take action on everything happening outside the company's four walls.

Crayon tracks 117 million web pages across 7.4 million domains spanning 2.3 million companies, and uses a variety of machine learning techniques to produce insights that are actionable in sales and marketing. Users have access to an all-in-one dashboard covering over 100 categories, including pricing changes, messaging and positioning changes, new product launches, and online reviews.

The financing was led by Midas List investors Eric Paley at Founder Collective, who is joining Crayon's board, and Steve Anderson, founder at Baseline Ventures. BoxGroup is also a new investor, and previous backer Converge Venture Partners participated in the round. Notable angel investors in the round include Scott Belsky, founder of Behance, Mike Volpe (ex HubSpot CMO), and Yoav Shapira (ex HubSpot VP Engineering) of Operator.vc.

Crayon's founders, Jonah Lopin and John Osborne, are best known for their prior work at HubSpot and AbMob. Jonah was the 6th employee at HubSpot and served as VP Customer Success until 2012, and John was part of the early AdMob product team, which was acquired by Google for $750M.

Crayon believes many teams have a shocking lack of data about what is happening in their market, with competitors, customers and partners. This poor external visibility is in stark contrast to the rich, nuanced data most executives enjoy about their own organizations, often leveraging popular products like Salesforce.com and HubSpot, which transformed the way organizations managed lead flow and campaign performance.

"What HubSpot did to help companies manage their internal processes, Crayon is doing to help them understand and act on their competitor's information," says Paley. "Crayon is executing on a massive opportunity and we're thrilled to partner with them to build a remarkable company."

"Marketers have never had a great way of understanding what's happening in their market - who is running experiments, who is making moves, who are new entrants you should be watching," says Volpe. "Crayon solves that problem for marketing teams in a really innovative way."

Crayon has over 42,000 users, and the company has quadrupled the number of paid customers since July, signing up notable companies like Zendesk and Continuum Managed Services.

"The landscape is changing very quickly in our market, and it's critical that we understand competitor positioning, offers, campaigns and product roadmap changes as they happen," says Sam Boonin, VP Product Strategy at Zendesk. "Crayon is great for us because they consolidate all the tracking & intelligence into a single interface, continuously monitoring the footprints of our competitors."

"Crayon gives us a 360 lens into the competition, saving us time and surfacing competitive insights we never would have found," says Jeanne Hopkins, CMO at Continuum Managed Services. "How can we be differentiated in our content marketing if we don't know what the competition is saying in eBooks, whitepapers, webinars and blog posts? How can we do product marketing without a real-time understanding of our strengths relative to the competition that Crayon surfaces from forum discussions and online reviews? Crayon provides critical context to our marketing team so we can do our best work."

Steve Anderson at Baseline Ventures said, "I've been fortunate to invest in companies like ExactTarget, which have reshaped their markets and created billions of dollars of value, I fully believe that if properly executed Crayon could join them as a pillar company in the B2B market."

Maia Heymann, G.P. at Converge Venture Partners added, "The ability to gather competitive intelligence is a necessity in today's business climate and the market for AI enabled solutions like Crayon is therefore extremely large. The business momentum that Jonah and his team have built in a very short period of time underscores the value that Crayon creates for its clients."

Crayon plans to use the new funding to accelerate its path to world domination, including hiring stars in engineering, product, marketing and sales.

Media Contact:

Crayon

Jonah Lopin

+1 617.953.0381

[email protected]

SOURCE Crayon

Related Links

https://www.crayon.co


"As a company, we believe it is important to find ways to give back to our card members," says Laura Faulkner, vice president of marketing communications, Credit One Bank. "After running this promotion for two consecutive years, we've found our 'Go Paperless and Win' sweepstakes to be a successful way to reward card members while also providing them with the added convenience and security of paperless documents."

On October 27, 2016 Credit One Bank card member, Jenna from North Carolina was awarded the grand prize of $10,000 for choosing paperless statements and documents. A Credit One Bank card member since 2012, Jenna elected to go paperless in 2015 during the first 'Go Paperless and Win' sweepstakes. She was one of 31 total winners from this year's campaign, with 15 first place winners receiving $500 and another 15 second place winners receiving $100. Jenna and her husband purchased a home in September and are looking forward to using the prize money to help with expenses around the house.

Credit One Bank continues to promote paperless statements with an average of 100,000 card members signing up for paperless statements each month. The 2016 'Go Paperless and Win' sweepstakes helped to increase paperless enrollment by 76% percent over the three months of the promotion.

To see a full list of Credit One Bank's 'Go Paperless and Win' Sweepstakes winners, visit http://creditonesweeps.com/.

About Credit One Bank

Credit One Bank, N.A. is a U.S. based national bank that specializes in credit cards. Established more than 30 years ago, Credit One Bank is one of the largest and fastest growing issuers of credit cards in the industry and provides a broad spectrum of credit card products. Credit One Bank offers millions of card members cash back rewards, credit education tools, and free online access to their credit score each month. For more information, please visit https://www.creditonebank.com/.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437611

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160212/332735LOGO

SOURCE Credit One Bank

Related Links

https://www.creditonebank.com


NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Clearwater Senior Living (CSL) announced today the appointment of Danielle Morgan as president. Utilizing over 20 years of experience, Morgan will be instrumental in overseeing operations and expanding the company's footprint throughout the Western United States including independent, assisted living and memory care communities.



According to CSL's Chief Executive Officer Tony Ferrero, Morgan was a clear choice for the role, citing her dedication and shared values in providing high-quality retirement living and exceptional services for seniors and their families.



"I'm looking forward to working side-by-side with Danielle," said Ferrero. "She authentically embraces her leadership responsibilities, the associates she works with, and the residents and families she serves. That in combination with her professional expertise and strategic mindset makes her a valued asset to our team."



Over the course of her career, Morgan has held numerous leadership roles. Most recently she served as chief operations officer for MBK Senior Living. In this role Morgan was responsible for day-to-day operations oversight for all of MBK's communities with an NOI budget totaling $40 million. In addition, she was pivotal in promoting MBK's company culture through strong relationships with customers, employees, and referral sources.



Morgan has served in various roles within senior housing industry associations. She is currently serving as treasurer for the Board of Directors for the California Assisted Living Association (CALA), and recently was named to the American Senior Housing Association (ASHA) board.



Morgan earned a Bachelor's degree in Long Term Health Care from Ohio University, and a MBA from The Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. She also holds a current Nursing Home Administrator license.



The addition of Morgan to CSL comes on the heels of the company's announcement of a formed venture with an affiliate of Berkshire Group. The partnership was formed to develop and acquire senior housing communities with an initial $500 million in gross asset value over the next three to five years.



"With Danielle and our partnership with the Berkshire Group, Clearwater Senior Living has the foundation necessary to create a legacy of stability, high quality, excellence and values in retirement living," said Ferrero.



To learn more about CSL, visit ClearwaterSeniorLiving.com.



Photo(s):

https://www.prlog.org/12600605

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Clearwater Senior Living

Related Links

http://www.clearwaterseniorliving.com


HOUSTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- It has long been debated whether there are angels in the world, active in people's lives. Perhaps there are or perhaps there are not, but it really comes down to who you talk to.

Take the case of 9-year-old Hayden.

Confined to a wheelchair and nonverbal, Hayden had difficulty interacting with the world. Then, his teachers at school introduced him to a communication device called a SMARTboard and they saw great improvement in Hayden. Hayden's parents saw this improvement too and sought to be able to continue his progress through the use of a SMARTboard at their home. But such technology is often cost-prohibitive or otherwise unattainable.

Hayden had been referred to Make-A-Wish after being diagnosed with a life threatening nervous system disorder. It came as no surprise that his, and his family's, wish was to help Hayden continue to be able to connect and communicate with those he loves. With the generosity of Data Projections that wish came true.

Make-A-Wish often relies on the kindness and support of those in the community to help them accomplish their mission. Data Projections is an excellent example of this, and are true champions of the kids Make-A-Wish serves.

Data Projections personnel traveled to Hayden's home in Cibolo, Texas, and installed a SMARTboard 885 with a SMART UX80 projector, along with the necessary hardware, software and applications to provide Hayden with a state-of-the-art system at home.

Following the installation, Data Projections personnel tested all the connections and programs. They also installed a surround system. Following Hayden's discharge from a hospital stay in early 2016, Data Projections hooked up his laptop to the SMARTboard and Hayden experienced his wish for a new level of contact with the world.

Make-A-Wish Central & South Texas is a nonprofit, volunteer organization that is dedicated to granting the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. The chapter grants more than 266 wishes each year to the children in its region.

Founded in 1987, Data Projections has grown into a leader in the audio visual solutions industry. With offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, Data Projections focuses on the businesses and institutions that also call Texas home. Data Projections offers its clients the ability to connect with others, collaborate in innovate ways and simplify even the most technically complex processes. Visit www.dataprojections.com to learn more.

SOURCE Data Projections

Related Links

http://www.dataprojections.com


ATLANTA, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Delta will roll out the red carpet  literally  for 100 peer-nominated employees tonight at its annual Chairman's Club Gala in Atlanta. The event is the culmination of a months-long process to celebrate people who demonstrate the culture Delta says most sets it apart from other airlines.

Chairman's Club honorees

Now in its 20th year, Chairman's Club is Delta's most prestigious peer-to-peer employee recognition program, honoring women and men across the company's worldwide operation who embody reliability, innovation, thoughtfulness and servant leadership and who demonstrate the highest standards of service to customers, coworkers and the communities Delta serves.

"All year long, Delta people worldwide have shown that they'll do whatever it takes to make Delta the best airline it can be," said Ed Bastian, Delta's CEO. "Our Chairman's Club honorees embody that commitment each day. We're grateful for the example they set in caring for our customers and leading us to success."

The gala will begin with a Red Carpet Experience where coworkers, friends and family members will cheer on the honorees as they arrive at the Delta Flight Museum at the airline's General Offices in Atlanta. Once inside, honorees will be treated to a dinner with wine pairings by Master Sommelier Andrea Robinson. The event will also feature individual recognition for the honorees and appearances from top Delta executives, who will express their gratitude and admiration for the new members of the Chairman's Club.

This year, the selection committee received more than 10,000 nominations. The 100 honorees who advanced through the rigorous selection process represent 28 Delta stations in six countries and on average have nearly 22 years of service. Five of the honorees have more than 40 years of service, and the most senior honoree has worked at Delta for 51 years.

Follow along with the excitement on the red carpet on Delta's Facebook page and inside the gala with the hashtag #2016HONOREE across social media platforms.

See the full list of the 2016 honorees below (first name, last name, location):

Deb Adair, Minn. Cassandra Adams, Texas Michel Aletraris, Ga. Beth Anderson, Ga. Vincent Blanckaert, Belgium Dave Bloss, Ohio Johnny Boynton, Ga. Jonathan Brown, Ga. Andrew Brown, Fla. Betsie Campbell, Minn. Charity Cannon, S.C. Dawn Carroll, Mich. Evelyn Chan, Singapore Renae Chitty, Utah Lisa Collins, Ga. Scott Council, Ga. Jim Crawford, Utah Wendy Davison, Ga. Trish DeMasi, Ga. Patti DeVelbiss, Mich. Catherine Dillon, Ga.

Abdul Nagi, Mich. Tim Neville, Mich. Delia Ortega, Peru Jaqi Packa, Minn. Maria Palazzolo, Fla. Karen Perkey, Ga. Bunty Ramakrishna, Ga. Brian Robinson, Nev. Dinah Robinson, Ga. Roger Salz, Ga. Michael Sandbrink, Germany Pete Sansom, Ga. Roger Seale, Fla. David Sewell, Ga. Virginie Durr, Ga. Andy Enright, Ga. Daryl Eygabroad, Wash. Jill Fischer, Ga. Mary Flaugher, Calif. Mike Fritz, Utah David Fuerstenau, Ga. Denise Gibbs, Ga. Marcus Griffin, Ga. Jody Griffiths, Utah Phil Guido, Fla. Ken Gunderson, Utah Cynthia Haggins, Ga. Stephanie Hampton, Minn. Jennifer Hirte, Minn. Tom Holton, Ga. Ryan Hughes, Utah Joe Isley, Ga. Jim Jackson, Ga. Edna Jimenez, Ga. Wendy Johnson, Ga.

Greg Shoemake, Ga. Jeff Smith, Ga. Kris Sooknanan, N.Y. Lucrecia Sotelo Diaz, Mexico Raven Spillman, N.Y. Timothy Stout, Ga. Linda Taylor, Ga. Theresa Thompson, Mich. Bill Thurber, Ga. Ebony Timmons, Ga. Korea Traylor, Ga. Barb Utsumi, Utah Lynda Valdez, N.Y. Bobby Johnson Jr., Mich. Douglas Jury, Ga. Rich Kargel, Minn. Janet Koren, Ill. Angela Kozai, Calif. Susan Kraham, Ga. Paul Kramer, Wash. Jennifer Kupler, Mich. Colleen Lampron, Ga. Dave Lee, Singapore Kevin Lynch, Ga. Dionne Magby, Ga. Penisimani Mahe, Calif. Chetuan Malcolm, Ga. Richard Marr, Ga. Justin Mausolf, Minn. Rekha McGuire, Minn. Jane Mitchell, Ga. Ron Monestier, Fla. Roberto Morales, Mich. Chris Morris, Ga. Victoria Vaughan-Williams, Ghana Dave Vorgias, Mich. Bridget Wade, Wis. Jeffrey Weese, Hawaii Travis Whittaker, Minn. Mike Wilkinson, Utah Kim Williams, Minn. Karen Woodard, Ga. Candice Zachery, Ga. Scott Zuehlke, Minn.







Delta Air Lines serves nearly 180 million customers each year. In 2016, Delta was named to Fortune's top 50 Most Admired Companies in addition to being named the most admired airline for the fifth time in six years. Additionally, Delta has ranked No.1 in the Business Travel News Annual Airline survey for an unprecedented five consecutive years. With an industry-leading global network, Delta and the Delta Connection carriers offer service to 319 destinations in 57 countries on six continents. Headquartered in Atlanta, Delta employs more than 80,000 employees worldwide and operates a mainline fleet of more than 800 aircraft. The airline is a founding member of the SkyTeam global alliance and participates in the industry's leading transatlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia as well as a joint venture with Virgin Atlantic. Including its worldwide alliance partners, Delta offers customers more than 15,000 daily flights, with key hubs and markets including Amsterdam, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York-JFK and LaGuardia, London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Salt Lake City, Seattle and Tokyo-Narita. Delta has invested billions of dollars in airport facilities, global products and services, and technology to enhance the customer experience in the air and on the ground. Additional information is available on the Delta News Hub, as well as delta.com, Twitter @DeltaNewsHub, Google.com/+Delta, and Facebook.com/delta.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437648

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090202/DELTALOGO

SOURCE Delta Air Lines

Related Links

http://www.delta.com


NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Denison Consulting Group, a woman-owned energy management, engineering and information technology consulting firm, announces its continued commitment to making the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) a reality. The company is working closely with industry leaders such as The Reynolds Company, a premier Industrial and Commercial electrical supplier, to deliver the connected enterprise to world class organizations.

The collaboration with The Reynolds Company is one example of how best-in-class companies are trusting Denison Consulting Group to introduce real-time decision making solutions to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and increase profitability by leveraging the Industrial Internet of Things.

"We are able to harness the power of technology to help our customers save money on energy, improve performance, and avoid operational breakages before they occur," says Dianne Denison Atkinson, CEO of Denison Consulting Group. "As a nimble, focused firm, with decades of experience, we are able to help companies realize the benefits of a connected enterprise with greater speed and flexibility."

Denison Consulting Group offers an array of engineered solutions and IT Consulting services. The Reynolds Company is utilizing the firm's ability to monitor and manage machines, equipment, and processes turning raw data into actionable, real-time information. Customers benefit from lower-cost entry points, greater return on investment and a platform capable of managing and monitoring a host of technology provider systems via "open architecture." This promotes greater flexibility, scalability, and the ability to add cost-saving features in the future to improve efficiencies.

"Denison's solutions and market access make Denison Consulting Group a great partner for collaboration," says Dean Bickerton of The Reynolds Company. "Our companies are aligned in our dedication to leveraging technology to improve productivity and efficiency while reducing costs for our customers."

Together, Denison Consulting Group and The Reynolds Company are creating additional benefits to their industrial sector clients in manufacturing, oil and gas, chemical, agriculture, food and beverage and automotive.

The Reynolds Company and Denison Consulting Group will attend Rockwell Automation's Automation Fair 2016 in Atlanta November 9-11 in Atlanta. Connect with Denison Consulting Group at the event, online at www.denisonconsultinggroup.com or (504) 919-4037.

ABOUT DENISON CONSULTING GROUP

Denison Consulting Group is an experienced team of engineering and business professionals that delivers turn-key engineering and consulting solutions for manufacturing, industrial and large commercial customers. The firm has decades of experience spanning across operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) and a proven track record working with some of the world's largest technology companies. Denison Consulting Group is a member of several industry organizations including the National Association of Manufacturers, WE Connect International, and the Industrial Society of Automation.

ABOUT THE REYNOLDS COMPANY

The Reynolds Company is an independently owned and operated wholesale distributor headquartered in Fort Worth, TX, and is one of the largest distributors of Rockwell products. Over the last 30 years, The Reynolds Company remains privately owned and has grown to 18 U.S. locations across Texas and Louisiana, with multiple U.S. and international on-site facilities and export activity all over the world. Our ability to scale and manage large industrial and commercial projects anywhere in the world has been a major contributor to our growth and is our trademark in the industry. Hiring resident experts in the field, we are committed to bringing our customers together with representatives you have grown to trust, supported by a customer-focused company.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437691LOGO

SOURCE Denison Consulting Group

Related Links

http://www.denisonconsultinggroup.com


"We are deeply grateful for the timely and accomplished service of Paul Edwards," said McMullin. "Paul has elevated the stature of the Deseret News not only in Utah but throughout the newspaper industry nationwide, and he will certainly bring the same rigor to his new post in Gov. Herbert's administration. By the same token, we warmly welcome Doug Wilks as the new Editor of the Deseret News and feel confident that he, with his rich background in the news industry, will continue to build and strengthen the voice and reach of this venerable news organization."

In announcing the Wilks appointment to employees, McMullin said the new editor is an "experienced and thoughtful news veteran and a much respected leader who knows how to lead by persuasion and example. We feel confident," said McMullin, "about the future of the Deseret News, and we look forward to Doug's editorial leadership moving forward."

For five years Wilks has served as the News Division Managing Editor, leading a multi-platform newsroom for the Deseret News and KSL TV and Radio, as well as having influence on all of the Deseret Management Corporation's digital news platforms, including deseretnews.com and ksl.com. The innovative and cooperative work of the news team has been a model for others both inside and outside the country.

Wilks' extensive background in the news industry spans more than 30 years. Prior to joining the Deseret News and KSL, he worked in various editing and leadership capacities in the team-structured newsroom of The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California, then part of the New York Times Regional Media Group. He is a past city editor for the Marin Independent Journal, formerly with Gannett, and led the newsroom as managing editor and city editor of the Napa Valley Register, then a Scripps League Newspapers publication.

In announcing this change in Deseret News leadership, McMullin commended Edwards for the intellectual rigor and thoughtful analysis he has brought to the Deseret News as its Editor for almost five years.

"We will miss the insights Paul Edwards brought to bear on some of the compelling issues of our time. He will leave a lasting imprint on the Deseret News," McMullin said.

Established in 1850, the Deseret News is the oldest newspaper in the Mountain West and the oldest continuously operating business in Utah. Its print and digital content are distributed across the nation and beyond, constituting the most widely read news source originating from the state of Utah.

Contact: Barbara Thatcher, 408-701-7528, [email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161110/438046

SOURCE Deseret News
NEW YORK and KINGSPORT, Tenn., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- An unwavering emphasis on safety by Eastman (NYSE: EMN) will help transform the curriculum of undergraduate chemical engineering students around the globe, through a collaboration with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and its Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS).

Eastman's support of AIChE's Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative reinforces its established partnership with AIChE. The initiative, which is being led by CCPS, seeks to ensure that all chemical engineering graduates possess a working knowledge of process safety principles  an area of instruction currently underdeveloped in most university undergraduate chemical engineering curricula.

The Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative is a major global effort and a core priority of the AIChE Foundation's "Doing a World of Good" campaign, which focuses on projects that bring chemical engineering expertise to bear for the good of society.

In announcing the news, AIChE Executive Director June Wispelwey thanked Eastman for its generosity and early leadership commitment to the process safety initiative. "Eastman, with its strong, historical commitment to the safe and responsible practice of engineering, is a natural partner in this effort," said Wispelwey, who added, "Eastman's distinguished, global achievements in environmental, health, safety and security performance, along with the company's recognized corporate culture of safety, are evidence of the company's dedication to process safety."

Wispelwey also acknowledged Eastman  a large employer of chemical engineers  for its long-standing representation among AIChE's and CCPS' leadership and programming activities, including Eastman's role as a founding corporate member of CCPS.

In reflecting on the partnership with AIChE, Mark Cox, senior vice president and chief manufacturing, supply chain and engineering officer for Eastman, said, "At Eastman, safety is a core value. We focus on the safety of our people, processes and products, not because we want to reach certain targets or goals, but because we care about the safety and well-being of our employees and the people that we touch through our products." He added, "We are committed to continual assessment and improvement of our processes, and that involves educating our future workforce. We are pleased to be working with AIChE to advance the Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative, and I look forward to the great outcomes of this collaboration."

In explaining the origins of the Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative, AIChE's Wispelwey noted that, despite the progress companies and engineers have made in process safety, corporate leaders and engineers say that they need young engineers who are better trained in process safety when they enter the workforce. Additionally, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology recently enacted standards that require process safety to be a part of the chemical engineering curriculum. Universities, however, have not yet found a way to develop a standardized curriculum to fulfill the new requirement. "That needed training is why CCPS, its industry member companies and AIChE created this initiative and made it part of our 'Doing a World of Good' campaign," Wispelwey concluded.

About Eastman

Eastman operates sites and offices around the world and produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With a portfolio of specialty businesses, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. Its market-driven approaches take advantage of world-class technology platforms and leading positions in attractive end-markets such as transportation, building and construction, and consumables. Eastman focuses on creating consistent, superior value for all stakeholders. As a globally diverse company, Eastman serves customers in approximately 100 countries and had 2015 revenues of approximately $9.6 billion. The company is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA, and employs approximately 15,000 people around the world. For more information, visit www.eastman.com.

About AIChE

AIChE is a professional society of more than 53,000 chemical engineers in 110 countries. Its members work in corporations, universities and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop safe and useful products for the benefit of society. Through its varied programs, AIChE continues to be a focal point for information exchange on the frontiers of chemical engineering research in such areas as energy, sustainability, biological and environmental engineering, nanotechnology, and chemical plant safety and security. More information about AIChE is available at www.aiche.org.

About CCPS

CCPS is a not-for-profit corporate membership organization within AIChE that identifies and addresses process safety needs in the chemical, pharmaceutical and petroleum industries. CCPS brings together manufacturers, government agencies, consultants, academics and insurers to lead the way in improving process safety. Members, working in project subcommittees, define and develop useful, time-tested guidelines that have practical applications that run the gamut from human factors to qualitative and quantitative risk analysis to security vulnerability to inherently safer design. With more than 100 publications, CCPS is at the forefront of efforts to improve process safety performance. More information about CCPS is available at www.aiche.org/ccps.

Contact: Jeanette Krebs

Phone: (717) 214-2200

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE American Institute of Chemical Engineers

Related Links

http://www.aiche.org


SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Edvenswa Tech LLC (www.edvenswa.com), a Silicon Valley based Technology Incubation company has entered into a Strategic Partnership with OMNI Healthcare Solutions (www.omni.md), an advanced technology service provider in the healthcare domain to develop and commercialize innovative healthcare solutions.

In Aug 2016, OMNI Healthcare Solutions had entered into a Startup Focus Program with SAP to develop innovative solutions for Smart Cities on the SAP HANA platform. OMNI sought help from Edvenswa for this daunting task and successfully developed a Proof of Concept.

"OMNI Healthcare is one such Startup that got into that cohort (SAP SFP's global accelerator program) and it was great to see the solution being built in a record time, in a few weeks itself, " Nitish Kumar Agarwal, Lead - APJ, SAP Startup Focus Program mentioned in an interview in SAP TechEd Conference.

OMNI engaged the very talented and experienced Edvenswa team right from the ideation and formation stage of the solution and decided to develop a "Smart Home for Elder care" as a Proof of Concept to start with. The IoT solution allows Caregivers to address Elder Parenting Issues by Remotely Monitoring the Health and Well Being of their Elders by a Smart Home Mobile App by accessing their "Connected Home" via a Network of Sensors used in Smart Beds, Smart Bathrooms, Smart Kitchens and Smart Doors.

(http://startupfocus.saphana.com/redefining-the-patient-experience-for-the-elderly-and-the-sick-omni-md-for-smart-homes-connected-healthcare/)

"Our challenge was to develop an IoT based predictive healthcare solution that was innovative, socially relevant and technologically advanced to cater to the Smart Cities market. I'm glad we chose Edvenswa as a technology incubator for this monumental task. Their seasoned professionals were able to leverage the Predictive Capabilities of the SAP HANA platform and thus our solution was validated successfully and selected to showcase at the SAP TechEd Conference," said OMNI Healthcare Solutions.

Edvenswa specializes in rapid application development using advanced prototyping techniques, building the proof of concepts, supporting pilots, fund-raising and go to market strategy. It is based in the Bay Area - the world's capital of Startups and has worked with dozens of startup companies in the past 4 years. Edvenswa is also building its own state-of-the-art incubation facility in Hyderabad using USI's Indian subsidiary's premises.

Contact: Arvind Saxena, [email protected]

SOURCE Edvenswa Tech

Related Links

http://www.edvenswa.com


SAN DIEGO, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Elcelyx Therapeutics announced today that its Phase 2b dose-ranging study met the primary endpoint of showing a statistically significant reduction in HbA1c at 16 weeks with Metformin Delayed Release (Metformin DR) compared with placebo in subjects with type 2 diabetes. Metformin DR is an investigational product designed to target metformin delivery to the lower small intestine, where it is minimally absorbed yet elicits robust glucose lowering effects. The study results support the further development of Metformin DR for type 2 diabetes patients with renal impairment in whom metformin use is contraindicated as well as those patients with gastrointestinal intolerance to current metformin formulations.

"Patients with type 2 diabetes whose advanced kidney disease prevents them from effectively clearing metformin from their circulation are at increased risk for potentially toxic metformin-associated lactic acidosis," said Robert Henry, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and chief, endocrinology & metabolism, VA San Diego Healthcare System. "Gut-mediated Metformin DR which has minimal absorption leading to lower systemic exposure with clinically relevant glucose lowering effects is an especially attractive proposition for the treatment of type 2 diabetes patients with renal impairment, as well as for patients unable to take full doses of metformin due to gastrointestinal side effects."

In the study, Metformin DR exhibited clinically significant dose-related reductions versus placebo in HbA1c and fasting plasma glucose. The glycemic effect of Metformin DR was somewhat less than that seen with a maximally effective dose of metformin immediate release (IR), but with significantly and disproportionally lower systemic exposure. The subgroup of subjects who completed the study and adhered to all protocol requirements showed a pattern of glycemic improvement comparable to that seen with the overall study population. Metformin DR was well tolerated and adverse events were consistent with the well-understood safety profile of metformin, with the most common ones being gastrointestinal effects such as diarrhea and nausea. Metformin DR exhibited a favorable gastrointestinal side effect profile that warrants further development.

The multicenter, randomized, Phase 2b study enrolled 571 subjects with type 2 diabetes and evaluated the glycemic effects of Metformin DR at doses of 600, 900, 1200 and 1500 milligrams, once daily. The study included a single-blind comparator arm of subjects receiving 2000 milligrams of metformin IR per day, administered as equally divided doses (1000 milligrams of metformin IR twice daily).

"The study results confirm that glucose-lowering benefits of Metformin DR result from actions in the gut," said Alain Baron, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Elcelyx. "The study also determined doses to be studied in Phase 3. With its robust size and duration, the Phase 2b study provides good support for the design of pivotal studies in type 2 diabetes patients with more advanced renal disease and those with gastrointestinal intolerance to metformin."

The company's research that supports the potential benefits of Metformin DR for diabetes patients with renal impairment will be presented next week at the American Society of Nephrology's Kidney Week 2016. Elcelyx Chief Scientific Officer Mark Fineman, Ph.D. and collaborators will present results of a clinical study showing that an optimal daily dose of Metformin DR may provide an alternative for subjects with moderate and severe kidney disease.

About Metformin DR

Metformin DR has been studied in nine previous clinical trials including an earlier Phase 2 study where various doses of Metformin DR were compared with placebo or Metformin Extended Release (XR) in subjects with type 2 diabetes. In that study, Metformin DR exhibited statistically significant and sustained reductions in fasting plasma glucose over 12 weeks compared with placebo. Metformin DR was well tolerated at all doses tested.

About Elcelyx Therapeutics

Elcelyx Therapeutics is developing pharmaceutical agents designed to modulate the gut neuroendocrine system including the L-cell, which when activated is responsible for release of glucoregulatory hormones. Metformin Delayed Release (Metformin DR), the first product of this type, is designed to deliver metformin to the gut instead of systemically, thereby reducing bioavailability while still achieving efficacy. Metformin DR development arose from Elcelyx's discovery that the site of action for metformin, the most commonly prescribed diabetes drug, is in the gut. Given its targeted delivery and low systemic bioavailability, Metformin DR may provide a treatment option for type 2 diabetes patients who are currently contraindicated due to renal impairment or who cannot tolerate existing metformin formulations. For more information, visit www.elcelyx.com.

Contacts:

Pam Lord, Canale Communications

(619) 849-6003

[email protected]

SOURCE Elcelyx Therapeutics

Related Links

http://www.elcelyx.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Auster highlights artists and brands who do not take their craft lightly. The multi-faceted platform's chief initiative is to reflect culture through live experiences and premium products, grounded in function and guided by an appreciation for aesthetic.

"Auster is a curated marketplace of ideas, brands, and individuals that challenge conventional norms by sharing their narrative, told through experiential events and products rooted in function and aesthetics.

In today's age, people simply expect more of the brands that they consume; relationships have transcended beyond merely product transactions to human interactions. Therefore, it was important to ensure community was central when building out the company. I wanted a brand that celebrates and builds upon the commonalities (music, fashion, arts and flavor) of our users rather than focus on the differences," Ashrant Bhartia, Founder & CEO of Auster.

For the November launch of Auster's in-house line of eliquids, also known as Cypher, the brand teamed up with Australian artist Sam Chirnside known for his ethereal vapor wave art. As part of the event launch, Sam's artwork will feature both motion and sponsored pieces along with additional work from his arsenal.

Each month, Auster's subscription service offers a themed marketplace filled with rich ingredients and surprise accessories; a collector's item for one time users and members. November's partners feature one time flavor offerings in collaboration with CYPHER BY AUSTER, CHARLIE'S CHALK DUST, VAPE KITCHEN and NKTR. From silk custom designed cravats, mint toothpicks for post-puff fix by well-known Daneson, to sleek metal USBs and kitschy branded pins & patches, Auster presents vapor liquids and lifestyle goods.

Each month's box will feature four, 30 ml of e-liquids that contain inviting flavors such as Ginger Brew, Tropic, Apple Cucumber Mint, new accessories are also featured in each box.

To kick-off the official marketplace launch, Auster will unveil their brand video and other initiatives including partnerships with HYPEBEAST at an official launch party. Tonight, the brand will be hosting an invite only multi-sensory experience for press, influencers, and guests at Williamsburg's Villain Studios. Guests will be treated to an experimental journey through music, art, and design exhibits including Sam Chirnside's Art Gallery, a 'Blow Clouds' flavor tasting bar, the A1-Array GIF booth and musical performances by Isaiah Rashad, Point Point, Leikeli47, Harley Viera-Netwon and MEMBA w/ GIIA.

Auster offers a la carte bottles for $21.99, or $18.99 for members, and month-to-month subscription offerings starting at $74.99. Three-month to 12-month memberships are available ranging from $59.99 to $69.99.

Offering a Synthetic Tobacco Free Nicotine product, Auster's Synthetic TFN liquids go through a more stringent manufacturing process than traditional tobacco e-liquids, making them a much healthier alternative to smoking. Since TFN only counts for 2-3% of the current e-liquid market, Auster is positioned to take over the demand for this space.

All pricing details and additional information on Auster's new monthly subscription service can be found at http://auster.com. For vaping news and inspiration, please follow Auster on Instagram at http://instagram.com/austernyc.

ABOUT AUSTER

Founded in 2015, Flavors & More develops and commercially markets and distributes CYPHER, HAWKEYE and IGEN premium eliquids and vaping devices. Auster's emphasis is on experience driven events and discovery commerce subscription. The aim is to reflect culture through live experiences and premium products grounded in function and guided by an appreciation for aesthetic. Auster collaborates with leaders and tastemakers from all industries that provide a unique industry perspective, and also help define the future of this particular one.

PR contact:

Workhouse PR / [email protected]

Sales & Partnership inquiries:

Ashrant Bhartia, CEO & Founder / [email protected]

Omar A. Ventura, Director of Operations / [email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437531

SOURCE Auster

Related Links

http://auster.com


SAO PAULO, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Eternit S.A. (BM&FBOVESPA:ETER3) announced its results for the 3Q16.

The construction materials industry ended the third quarter of 2016 with a weak performance, according to the Brazilian Construction Materials Industry Association (ABRAMAT). During the period, the Company adjusted its operations by reducing its inventory levels to meet market demand, both in chrysotile mining and in the line of finished products, fiber-cement production and concrete roofing tiles.

Chrysotile sales volume in 3Q16 reached 44,300 tons, down 23.3% from 3Q15 due to the contraction of the construction materials sector and the role of chrysotile in the fiber-cement production process for the domestic market. In the foreign market, the main factors were an aggressive pricing policy followed by mining companies in Russia and Kazakhstan and the competitiveness of metal roofing panels in major markets in Asia. In the same period, fiber-cement sales reached 199,600 tons, down 1.3% from 3Q15, whereas concrete roofing tile sales decreased 26.1%, mainly due to industry slowdown, higher unemployment, lower household income and credit restrictions.

Consolidated net revenue amounted to R$204.3 million in 3Q16, down 16.6% from 3Q15, mainly due to the lower sales volume in mining, especially in exports, with a reduction in USD prices to face competition, as well as the depreciation of the USD against the BRL.

Adjusted EBITDA reached R$16.5 million in 3Q16, down 67.4% from 3Q15. This decrease is due to contraction in operating margins due to the decline in sales volume, low utilization of operating capacity, and sale of a mix with lower value added, despite the Company's efforts to reduce operating expenses, thus partially offsetting the contraction in adjusted EBITDA.

Consequently, and despite the improved equity pickup and net financial result in 3Q16, Eternit posted net loss of R$7.3 million.

Capex totaled R$4.0 million in 3Q16, increasing 166.7% from 3Q15, and was allocated to maintaining and modernizing the Group's industrial facilities.

The Company's dividend policy, as determined in the Bylaws, remains unchanged, but fresh distributions will be made once positive results are recorded.

Conference call/Webcast

Date: 11/11/16

Time: 02.00 p.m. Brazilian Local Time  11.00 a.m. New York  04.00 p.m. London

Presentation can be followed on the website link www.ccall.com.br/eternit/3q16.htm or by telephone, dial the following telephone number (1-786) 924-6977 - Password: Eternit

IR Team Contact - +55 (11) 3194-3881 / 3194-3872 [email protected]

SOURCE Eternit S.A.

Related Links

http://www.ccall.com.br/eternit/3q16.htm


At Southeastern Guide Dogs in Palmetto, Florida, qualified veterans are provided with guide dogs, service dogs and other gifted canines at no cost , including facility therapy dogs that offer comfort at military healthcare facilities; emotional support dogs and "Gold Star Family" dogs that lessen the pain for military families that have lost a loved one.

While some national statistics count an average of 22 suicides a day among veterans, those matched with Southeastern Guide Dogs' canines are enjoying a much different outcome. "Our dogs improve the lives of our veterans every day with their unconditional love, acceptance and support," says Kim Hyde, manager of one of the organization's service dog training teams. "Our specially trained dogs are opening doors and creating bridges of communication that allow our veterans to live more fulfilling lives with family and friends and even to return to school or work again. The dogs restore independence and keep veterans grounded, helping to reduce and even eliminate flashbacks and panic attacks as well as the need for medications. Our dogs significantly reduce the risk of suicide."

Taya Kyle, wife of the late Navy SEAL Chris Kyle of "American Sniper" fame, knows firsthand what an emotional support dog can do. After the murder of her husband in 2013, Taya soldiered on, speaking nationally on behalf of military families and raising funds for their support, all while feeling increasingly broken and vulnerable. Taya now relies on Norman, a lovable golden retriever from Southeastern Guide Dogs that has enabled her and her family to cope with their grief and fears.

As Taya Kyle knows, veterans leave home and family to lay it all on the line, all in the line of duty. They often return bearing invisible scars, and that's where remarkable guide, service and companion dogs step in, transforming lives.

If you or a veteran you know might benefit from a guide dog, service dog or therapy dog at no charge, or to support programs for veterans, contact Southeastern Guide Dogs at 800-944-3647. Or apply online at GuideDogs.org.

About Southeastern Guide Dogs

Southeastern Guide Dogs has the distinction of being dually accredited by the two premier, global accreditation bodies: the International Guide Dog Federation (IGDF) and Assistance Dogs International (ADI). Founded in 1982 in Palmetto, Florida, the organization employs the latest in canine development and behavior research to create and nurture partnerships between visually impaired individuals and extraordinary guide dogs. Southeastern Guide Dogs serves more than 450 graduates across the U.S. and continues to place more than 100 dogs each year into careers benefiting people with visual impairments and veterans. The nonprofit provides all of its services free of charge and receives no government funding. www.GuideDogs.org

Contact info:

Ruth Lando

Manager, Media Relations

[email protected]

941-479-6590

Video - https://youtu.be/lS7fZTEU3k0

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161108/437209LOGO

SOURCE Southeastern Guide Dogs
As part of the export and import industry, ExportPortal.com commends Canada and the European Union for setting up CETA as a great example for how countries can solidify international trade. Export Portal believes that free trade agreement, such as CETA, promotes economic growth, creates new jobs, and is beneficial to small businesses who depend on free trade agreements. The US can create similar opportunities to boost the economy by giving incentives within policies that promote bilateral free trade.

Export Portal already is providing a simpler and safer foreign trade through assisting their members with all the export import legal documents, laws, and regulations. CETA also makes it easier for businesses to recognize different rules by updating the rules on how governments' can protect businesses. Whether one needs a distributor, manufacturer, shipper, or freight forwarder, Export Portal will assist Canadian and EU companies with finding reliable partners to work with.

Export Portal holds payments in escrow until products are verified, shipped, and delivered. Export Portal ensures that all the forms and requirements are known and understood by buyers, sellers, shippers, and forwarders. With Export Portal's expertise, companies could avoid unnecessary delays, additional costs, or risk product confiscation by customs.

As an international trading platform, Export Portal seeks to not only work with established global businesses but, also companies looking to expand their business worldwide. CETA will ensure that businesses, big or small, will have the opportunity to expand trade and boost economies by opening their markets to international competition.

For more information, visit ExportPortal.com or call at (800) 289-0015.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437534

SOURCE ExportPortal.com

Related Links

http://www.exportportal.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- As a PR professional, one of your main responsibilities is ensuring your brand is well-represented in the media. So how do you make sure your story doesn't get lost in a game of broken telephone? How do you get the media to re-tell your story the way you intended? "Controlling" the message is one of the things many PR folks struggle with. The reality of media relations is that you can't control everything. Period.

Five Ways to Ensure the Media Doesn't Muddle Your Brand Message

The PR Newswire guide, How to Make Sure the Media Gets Your Story Straight, shares tips on how to make sure the media share your story the way you intended, including:

Build Positive Relationships: Put in the effort to build mutually beneficial relationships with key journalists.

Put in the effort to build mutually beneficial relationships with key journalists. Issue a Press Release: A well-crafted news release is still a surefire way to spread the word, and to make sure your message is reaching the right audiences.

A well-crafted news release is still a surefire way to spread the word, and to make sure your message is reaching the right audiences. Add Multimedia: Giving journalists exactly what they're looking for, in the format they use, will reduce inaccuracies and misinterpretations.

Giving journalists exactly what they're looking for, in the format they use, will reduce inaccuracies and misinterpretations. Host an Online Newsroom: Making company information, fact sheets, earnings information, news releases and multimedia assets available electronically is helpful when journalists are looking for the details.

Making company information, fact sheets, earnings information, news releases and multimedia assets available electronically is helpful when journalists are looking for the details. Keep a Record: Record-keeping will come in handy to help you stay on message and align your team to do the same.

Making sure the media relays the right message doesn't have to be a headache. Access PR Newswire's full guide to earn insights on how to set realistic expectations and get your media relations plan in place.

About PR Newswire

PR Newswire, a Cision company, is the premier global provider of multimedia platforms and distribution that marketers, corporate communicators, sustainability officers, public affairs and investor relations officers leverage to engage key audiences. Having pioneered the commercial news distribution industry over 60 years ago, PR Newswire today provides end-to-end solutions to produce, optimize and target content -- and then distribute and measure results. Combining the world's largest multi-channel, multi-cultural content distribution and optimization network with comprehensive workflow tools and platforms, PR Newswire powers the stories of organizations around the world. PR Newswire serves tens of thousands of clients from offices in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific regions.

Cision is a leading media communication technology and analytics company that enables marketers and communicators to effectively manage their earned media programs in coordination with paid and owned channels to drive business impact.

Contact:

Stacey Miller

Director, Communications

(301) 683-6038

[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437637

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160621/381858LOGO

SOURCE PR Newswire Association LLC

Related Links

http://www.prnewswire.com


TOKYO, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading Japanese hospitality company Fujita Kanko Inc. launched a campaign to promote its hotel loyalty program to international guests. Enrollment can be done online at: http://fgmc.fujita-kanko.com/

Guests can earn and redeem points with the program's membership card at 54 Fujita Kanko properties including: all Washington Hotels and Hotel Gracery properties, Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo, Hotel Fujita, Hakone Hotel Kowaki-en, Hakone Kowaki-en Miyama Furin, B&B Pansion Hakone, Hakone Kowaki-en Yunessun, Hakone Kowaki-en Morinoyu, Ito Kowaki-en, Yufuin Ryokuyu, Towada Hotel, Taiko-en and Camellia Hills Country Club. Guests can also enroll at each of the above hotels' front desk.

Guests earn points for money spent at these properties, and can redeem the points for future hotel stays and services. In addition, members of the program are offered special discounts as well as late check-out (subject to availability).

"Our properties throughout the country are receiving an increasing number of international visitors, and we hope they take advantage of our loyalty program," said Akira Segawa, Fujita Kanko's president. "We want our international guests to discover diverse attractions and experience Japan by visiting different regions and participating in a variety of activities."

Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo, the company's one-of-a-kind five-star flagship, for example, offers unique cultural activities for international guests such as kimono rentals and fittings and traditional Japanese tea ceremonies performed at an authentic tea house. Fujita Kanko is also a pioneer as an onsen (Japanese hot spring) resort developer and operates traditional Japanese-style inns and onsen facilities.

Fujita Kanko is aggressively expanding its network of properties with new hotel openings. The company opened Hotel Gracery Naha and Hotel Gracery Kyoto Sanjo North in 2016. Scheduled openings in 2017 include Hakone Kowaki-en Tenyu, a new upscale Japanese hot spring resort, in April; Hotel Gracery Kyoto Sanjo South in May; and Kisarazu Washington Hotel in December. The company also plans to open hotels in overseas markets: Seoul, Korea in 2018 and Taipei, Taiwan in 2019.

About Fujita Kanko

Fujita Kanko Inc., established in 1955, is a publicly-traded tourism industry corporation headquartered in Tokyo. In addition to its core hospitality business, the company operates wedding and banquet facilities, high-end resorts, leisure facilities and related services. It has 70 properties/facilities, including its five-star flagship, Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo, and 31 mid-priced hotels throughout Japan in the Hotel Gracery and Washington Hotels groups.

Keiko Okano

[email protected]

+1-212-583-1043 (U.S.)

SOURCE Fujita Kanko Inc.

Related Links

http://fujita-kanko.com


As representative of the energy sector, GCL was invited to share its industrial perspective on the prospect of China's renewable energy.

Zhu Gongshan, Chairman of GCL, shared statistics indicating that renewable energy was leaning towards a more central position in China's energy landscape. "This is the synergy of spreading the concept of sustainability and enhancing photovoltaic efficiency," said Mr. Zhu. "As an industry leader, GCL has the influence to streamline the entire supply chain and achieve synergy, and thus fundamentally uplifting efficiency."

In addition, GCL, along with other photovoltaic manufacturers, has been playing an active role in advocating economical solar power for the Chinese national grid. "Through joint efforts, the cost of polysilicon to make PV modules has been largely reduced," added Zhu. "We hope everyone will enjoy green and affordable power in China in the near future."

Taking place shortly after the Paris Agreement, the forum served as a significant platform for transforming Chinese and even global energy systems in the direction of cleaner, lower-carbon sources. The meetings initiated experience sharing of energy transition worldwide, along with in-depth discussion on the route-map of China's energy transition and development and emphasized that sustainable energy must be cleaner, accessible and affordable for all, which makes renewable energy suppliers a key player in the country's energy transition.

As the forum's co-host, GCL this year built a customized "Future Energy Pavilion" to demonstrate the evolution of energy sources in human history, which also includes an immersive smart energy city experience center. The pavilion was later selected as the forum's permanent venue.

About GCL-SI

GCL System Integration Technology Co., Ltd. (002506 Shenzhen Stock) (GCL-SI), is part of the GOLDEN CONCORD Group (GCL), an international energy company specializing in clean and sustainable power production, founded in 1990. With global assets worth nearly USD16 billion, the combined companies delivered over 2 GW of modules globally in 2015, and currently supply more than 30% of all polysilicon and wafers utilized in the solar industry.

About GCL

GCL is an integrated energy group that specializes in clean, efficient and new energy. Since its foundation, GCL has committed itself to "Bringing Green Power to Life" by providing supreme energy and delivering first-rate services. With a total asset value of almost RMB 200 billion, GCL owns holding shares in five listed companies, including GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd. (3800.HK), GCL New Energy Holdings Ltd. (0451.HK), and GCL System Integration Technology Co., Ltd. (002506.SZ).

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437742

SOURCE GCL System
LONDON, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Report Details

Visiongain's new 290 page report assesses that the global glass packaging market will reach $55.71 billion in 2016.



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- Glass Packaging Market Forecast for Food 2016-2026

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- Glass Packaging Market Forecast for Personal Care 2016-2026

- Glass Packaging Market Forecast for Industrial 2016-2026

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- Focused regional forecasts and analysis explore the future opportunities

- US forecast 2016-2026

- Japan forecast 2016-2026

- China forecast 2016-2026

- Germany forecast 2016-2026

- France forecast 2016-2026

- UK forecast 2016-2026

- Russia forecast 2016-2026

- Italy forecast 2016-2026

- India forecast 2016-2026

- South Africa forecast 2016-2026

- Brazil forecast 2016-2026

- Turkey forecast 2016-2026

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- RoW forecast 2016-2026



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- Supply and demand dynamics

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- Rising disposable incomes in emerging economies



- Who are the leading glass packaging companies?

- We reveal the market share, revenues and competitive positioning, capabilities, product portfolios, R&D activity, services, focus, strategies, M&A activity, and future outlook for the following 9 companies

- Anodolu Cam

- Ardagh Group

- Bormioli Rocco Spa

- Gerresheimer

- Owens-Illinois

- Saint-Gobain

- VetroPack

- Vidrala

- Vitro Packaging



And profiles of 3 other significant companies



- Who should read this report?

- Anyone within the glass packaging value chain, including

- Glass packaging companies

- Raw materials companies

- Glass producers

- Glass wholesale and distribution companies

- Packaging suppliers

- Venture capitalists

- Investment analysts

- CEO's

- COO's

- CIO's

- Business development managers

- Marketing managers

- Suppliers

- Technologists

- Investors

- Banks

- Government agencies

- Contractors

- Consultants



Get our report today Glass Packaging Market Report 2016-2026: Forecasts, Analysis & Outlook For Leading Companies in Food, Beverage, Healthcare, Personal Care, Industrial And Other End-Use Sectors. Avoid missing out  order our report now.

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/3767868/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com

For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com


LONDON, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Super absorbent resin (SAP) is the key raw material with which to produce disposable hygiene products like baby diapers, feminine hygiene products, and adult incontinence products. SAP has super water absorbing capacity. At present, the global paper diaper market is experiencing rapid development, with an AAGR of over 15%. In 2015, the global SAP consumption increased by 8.0% year on year to 2.3 million tons. It is expected that in 2016~2020 the consumption would grow at a compound annual rate of some 7.8%, to an estimated 3.48 million tons by 2020.



At the end of 2015, the global SAP capacity reached 3.489 million tons per year, up 12.0% from a year earlier. And China contributed the largest portion of the global capacity, at 30.5% of the total.



China's SAP has developed at an astonishing paceover the past two years, with 2015's consumption rising 21.3% to 382 kilotons. However, with the introduction of Two-child Policy, and particularly driven by the rapid development of disposable hygiene products market, the SAP consumption in China is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 20% in 2016-2020, to 1.02 million tons by 2020.



Competitive Landscape of SAP:

Form the corporate perspective, the global SAP market is monopolized by Japanese and German manufacturers. In 2015, the top five global producersEvonik, Nippon Shokubai, BASF, Sumitomo Seika Chemicals, and SDP Global accounted for an aggregate of 70.1% of the global total capacity.



At present, there are more than 20 SAP producers in China, which are mainly wholly foreign-owned companies or joint ventures. In 2015, Yixing Danson Technology, San-Dia Polymers (Nantong), Formosa Industries (Ningbo), BASF-YPC Company Limited, and Nisshoku Chemical Industry (Zhangjiagang) occupied a combined 63.0% of the total capacity in China.



Prices of SAP:

In 2013-2016, affected by economic slowdown, rapid growth of SAP capacity, and overcapacity of upstream raw materials, the average prices for SAP declined year by year, to RMB15,500/ton at the end of 2013. But the price dropped to RMB9,150/ton through 2015. In 2016, the price fluctuated at around RMB9,000. The quoted prices of major producers stood at about RMB10,000, but the actual prices were still highly flexible.



The prices for overseas SAP products have also showed downward trend. This has been particularly true in the past two years, with the prices for Japanese SAP products falling from RMB16,000/ton in 2014 to RMB12,000/ton in 2016. Nevertheless, the Chinese SAP products have a certain gap in price with foreign products, which is mainly related to the fact that the Chinese SAP products have a certain gap in technology and quality with foreign products.



Global and China Superabsorbent Polymers (SAP) Industry Report, 2016-2020 mainly focuses on the following:

Supply and demand, regional structure, and competitive landscape of the global SAP market;

Supply and demand, regional structure, and competitive landscape of China's SAP market;

Supply and demand and development trend of acrylic acid in China;

Market size, SAP demand, and development trend of China's major SAP downstream sectors including baby diaper pads, adult incontinence products , and feminine hygiene products;

Operation and development in China of 6 global SAP companies;

Operation and development strategy of 12 key Chinese SAP companies;

Prediction of development trend in global and China SAP market, 2016-2020.

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4091844/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com


WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Statement of Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

The United States is tied for last in the world in the size of warning labels required on cigarette packs, according to a new international report issued today by the Canadian Cancer Society.

The report shows that at least 105 countries and territories now require graphic cigarette warnings (also called pictorial warnings), with 95 of them requiring warnings that cover at least 50 percent (on average) of the front and back of the pack. In contrast, the U.S. has text-only warnings that appear on the sides of cigarette packs and haven't been updated since 1985. Studies have found that the U.S. warnings have become stale and unnoticed.

This report shows the U.S. has fallen woefully behind the rest of the world in requiring strong and effective cigarette warnings that reduce smoking and save lives. It provides yet another reason why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should move quickly to comply with a 2009 federal law that requires graphic warnings covering the top half of the front and back of cigarette packs and 20 percent of cigarette advertising. Americans deserve this basic public health protection that 58 percent of the world's population now receives.

Last month, eight public health and medical groups (including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids), and several individual pediatricians, filed suit in federal court in Boston to force the FDA to comply with the law and issue a final rule requiring the graphic warnings on cigarette packs and advertising.

The FDA's initial attempt to require graphic warnings was blocked in 2012 by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which ruled 2-1 that the specific warnings proposed by the FDA violated the First Amendment. However, ruling in a separate case in 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the law's underlying requirement for graphic warnings, finding this provision did not violate the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a tobacco industry appeal of this ruling.

Together, these two court decisions mean the FDA is still legally obligated to requiring graphic health warnings, using different images from those struck down by the D.C. Circuit.

Studies around the world have shown that graphic warnings are most effective at informing consumers about the health risks of smoking, preventing children and other nonsmokers from starting to smoke, and motivating smokers to quit. A 2013 study based on Canada's experience with graphic warnings found that if the U.S. had implemented such warnings in 2012 as planned, the number of adult smokers in the U.S. would have decreased by 5.3-8.6 million in 2013. Another study published this month, modeling the potential impact of graphic warnings in the U.S. based on evidence from other countries, estimated that graphic warnings would reduce the smoking rate by five percent within just a few years and prevent more than 650,000 smoking-related deaths over a 50-year period.

The new report shows graphic cigarette warnings are spreading rapidly around the world. Canada in 2001 became the first country to implement such warnings, and 77 countries required them at the end of 2014. Nepal currently has the world's largest cigarette warnings with graphic warnings covering 90 percent of the package front and back.

Tobacco use is the No. 1 preventable cause of death, killing about half a million Americans and six million people worldwide each year. It's time for the U.S. to join the growing number of countries that require graphic cigarette warnings, and other countries around the world should continue to do so as well.

Related Materials

Canadian Cancer Society press release

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20080918/CFTFKLOGO

SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

Related Links

http://www.tobaccofreekids.org


ASHDOD, Israel, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Integrity Applications, Inc. (OTCQB: IGAP), maker of GlucoTrack, a non-invasive device for measuring glucose levels of people with Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetics, announced that it is presenting today at the 16th Annual Diabetes Technology Meeting in Bethesda, Maryland.

The Company had recently disclosed that it had engaged with a leading clinic in Germany, Pfutzner Science & Health Institute, GmbH, headed by Prof. Dr. Andreas Pfutzner, to conduct additional clinical trials on subjects with Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetics. These trials have been completed with favorable results and the Company will present these results, as well as recent results from trial conducted at Soroka University Medical Center, Beer-Sheva, Israel in its presentation. Most notably, the presentation will include data supporting that the GlucoTrack's accuracy has been improved significantly. Results from the trials show 99.7% of the study data points were within the clinically accepted A and B zones of the Consensus Error Grid (type 2), 99.3% of the study data points were within the clinically accepted A and B zones of the Clarke Error Grid, 17.0% Mean Absolute Relative Difference, and 12.9% Median Absolute Relative Difference.

In addition, the German trial concluded that the data confirms the performance of the GlucoTrack among its intended users, including pre-diabetic patients.

About GlucoTrack

GlucoTrack is a non-invasive device for measuring glucose levels of people with Type 2 diabetes or at risk of developing diabetes that does not require pricking of the fingers to draw blood for daily glucose monitoring. GlucoTrack features a small sensor that clips to the earlobe and measures the wearer's glucose level by taking measurements using three technologies. The measured signals are analyzed using a proprietary algorithm and displayed on a small handheld device the size of a mobile phone. The derived glucose measurement is also announced verbally, facilitating use by elderly and vision-impaired diabetes patients.

The GlucoTrack Model DF-F is expected to begin clinical trials for United States FDA approval in early 2017. The product is currently experimental in the United States and is limited to investigational use only.

GlucoTrack Model DF-F obtained a CE Mark approval in Europe (June 2013) and final CE Mark approval in March 2014 and in December 2015 received approval to market the device also to pre-diabetics.

About Integrity Applications, Inc.

Integrity Applications, Inc. is a medical device company focused on the design, development and commercialization of non-invasive glucose monitoring devices for use by people with diabetes. Integrity Applications has developed the GlucoTrack model DF-F non-invasive glucose monitoring device, which is designed to help people with diabetes obtain glucose level measurements without the pain, inconvenience, incremental cost and difficulty or discomfort of conventional (invasive) spot finger stick devices. Integrity Applications operates primarily through its wholly-owned Israeli subsidiary, A.D. Integrity Applications, Ltd. For more information, please visit www.integrity-app.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as "expect", "plan" and "will" are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that certain important factors may affect Integrity Applications' actual results and could cause such results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements that may be made in this news release. Factors that may affect Integrity Applications' results include, but are not limited to, the ability of Integrity Applications to raise additional capital to finance its operations (whether through public or private equity offerings, debt financings, strategic collaborations or otherwise); risks relating to the receipt (and timing) of regulatory approvals (including FDA approval); risks relating to enrollment of patients in, and the conduct of, clinical trials; risks relating to its current and future distribution agreements; risks relating to its ability to hire and retain qualified personnel, including sales and distribution personnel; and the additional risk factors described in Integrity Applications' filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 as filed with the SEC on March 30, 2016.

Contact:

Eran Hertz, CFO Integrity Applications,

+972 (8) 675-7878 Ext. 400

[email protected]

SOURCE Integrity Applications, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.integrity-app.com


HOUSTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Group 1 Automotive, Inc. (NYSE: GPI), an international, Fortune 500 automotive retailer, today announced the appointment of Charles L. Szews to its Board of Directors, effective immediately. With this addition, the Group 1 Automotive Board now comprises nine directors, of whom seven are independent.

From 1996 through 2015, Mr. Szews held a series of senior management roles at Oshkosh Corporation (formerly Oshkosh Truck Corporation), a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of a broad range of access equipment, commercial, fire & emergency, military and specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies. Mr. Szews joined Oshkosh in 1996 as vice president and chief financial officer. He was named executive vice president in 1997, president and chief operating officer in 2007, chief executive officer (CEO) in 2011, and retired as CEO in December 2015.

Mr. Szews currently serves as a director and audit committee member of Rowan Companies. Mr. Szews also serves as a director and member of the audit and finance committees of Commercial Metals Company. Previously, Mr. Szews served as a director and audit committee member of Gardner Denver, Inc., from 2006 through its sale in 2013, during which he was appointed chair of the audit committee in 2012 and a member of the nominating and corporate governance committee in 2011.

"Charlie brings strong leadership, experience managing global businesses, and expertise in capital allocation and generating shareholder value," said Earl Hesterberg, Group 1's president and chief executive officer. Group 1's chairman, John L. Adams added, "During his tenure at Oshkosh, Charlie led strategy development and deployment, as well as sixteen acquisitions. We look forward to the insight and experience he will add to our talented management team."

ABOUT GROUP 1 AUTOMOTIVE, INC.

Group 1 owns and operates 159 automotive dealerships, 210 franchises, and 38 collision centers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil that offer 31 brands of automobiles. Through its dealerships, the Company sells new and used cars and light trucks; arranges related vehicle financing; sells service contracts; provides automotive maintenance and repair services; and sells vehicle parts.

Investors please visit www.group1corp.com, www.group1auto.com, www.group1collision.com, www.facebook.com/group1auto, and www.twitter.com/group1auto, where Group 1 discloses additional information about the Company, its business, and its results of operations.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are statements related to future, not past, events and are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding our business, the economy and other future conditions. In this context, the forward-looking statements often include statements regarding our goals, plans, projections and guidance regarding our financial position, results of operations, market position, pending and potential future acquisitions and business strategy, and often contain words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "should," "foresee," "may" or "will" and similar expressions. While management believes that these forward-looking statements are reasonable as and when made, there can be no assurance that future developments affecting us will be those that we anticipate. Any such forward-looking statements are not assurances of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, (a) general economic and business conditions, (b) the level of manufacturer incentives, (c) the future regulatory environment, (d) our ability to obtain an inventory of desirable new and used vehicles, (e) our relationship with our automobile manufacturers and the willingness of manufacturers to approve future acquisitions, (f) our cost of financing and the availability of credit for consumers, (g) our ability to complete acquisitions and dispositions and the risks associated therewith, (h) foreign exchange controls and currency fluctuations, and (i) our ability to retain key personnel. For additional information regarding known material factors that could cause our actual results to differ from our projected results, please see our filings with the SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements after the date they are made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Investor contacts:

Sheila Roth

Manager, Investor Relations

Group 1 Automotive, Inc.

713-647-5741 | [email protected]

Media contacts:

Pete DeLongchamps

V.P. Manufacturer Relations, Financial Services and Public Affairs

Group 1 Automotive, Inc.

713-647-5770 | [email protected]

or

Clint Woods

Pierpont Communications, Inc.

713-627-2223 | [email protected]

SOURCE Group 1 Automotive, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.group1auto.com


The flight served as an announcement of Hainan Airlines' formal launch of non-stop service between Xi'an and Melbourne. The airline plans to roll out its Changsha-Melbourne non-stop flight service on November 9th. The two new services complement the airlines' intercontinental network and provide more convenient choices for passengers flying internationally.

In line with China-Australia free trade agreements, Australia has extended the validity of its multiple-entry tourist visas for Chinese visitors from three years to 10, becoming the fourth country to do so following the US, Canada and Singapore. Hainan Airlines' non-stop flight to Melbourne brings more Chinese investors to Australia, and adds an additional transportation choice for business travelers shuttling between China and Australia as well as international students and tourists, while giving them access to the Oriental style of hospitability that the airline is known for. The non-stop service between Xi'an and Melbourne will facilitate cultural exchanges between the two countries. Hainan Airlines is the sole Chinese airline providing non-stop service between the two cities.

Hainan Airlines' Xi'an-Melbourne and Changsha-Melbourne Flight Schedule:

(All departure and arrival times are listed in local time)

Flight Number Service Departure Time Arrival Time Days HU7991 Xi'an-Melbourne 16:30 07:00+1 Tuesday, Friday HU7992 Melbourne-Xi'an 09:00 17:25 Wednesday, Saturday HU483 Changsha-Melbourne 17:45 07:00+1 Wednesday, Sunday HU484 Melbourne-Changsha 09:00 16:20 Monday, Thursday

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437735

SOURCE Hainan Airlines Co., LTD
OAHU, Hawaii, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hawaii Life Real Estate Brokers, is hosting the sixth year of the Worthshop Series on December 9-10 at the beautiful Four Seasons Ko Olina on Oahu. Each December, executives and agents in the real estate world and beyond convene in Hawaii to share wisdom, relax, reflect, and prepare for the coming year. Worthshop has become an annual tradition for real estate's most influential leaders and this year's theme, "relate" honors that tradition of connection.

"We are excited to delve into the true nature of relationship during Worthshop 6," said Matt Beall, co-founder of Hawaii Life. "The culture in Hawaii intensely values relationships and we will be exploring the distinctions between relationship-driven cultures and other value systems. This year's theme is in many ways a progression of what we've learned through our first five years of hosting the conference and promises to deliver even more wisdom and peak experiences."

Noted real estate thinker, leader, and philosopher Matthew Ferrara will serve at the Master of Ceremonies at Worthshop 6 and will open and close the main event.

"I've attended conferences all around the world and Worthshop is truly unique," added Ferrara. "The combination of the setting and the level of thought that goes into planning each detail results in a space where lifeshifting insights and learning occur."

Michela O'Connor Abrams, President of Dwell Media, will present research on the New Face of Affluence gathered by the Dwell Strategy + Research platform. The work focuses on reciprocal branding and the true nature of influence in our modern world.

Additional noted speakers include John Picard, design visionary and pioneer of the green movement, Jordan Harbinger superstar host of the wildly popular Podcast "The Art of Charm" as well as cultural leader and subject of the documentary "Kumu Hina" Hinaleimoana Wong. The conference also includes breakout sessions with luxury brokers and agents, C-suite executives, and top designers from various industries.

The conference will add a touch of "Shark Tank" style competitiveness with "Try Tell" sessions where the industry's finest tech and service providers will present to the audience and a panel of judges who are prepared to ask the tough questions.

After spending the previous three years on Maui, the Worthshop Series is moving back to the island of Oahu, "The Gathering Place". The Four Seasons Ko Olina, a five-star beachfront resort, has received rave reviews since opening its doors. The atmosphere is designed to be an un-conference filled with spontaneous get-togethers, dinners and events such as the annual Friday night "Analog" party with a live band and cocktails.

To book your tickets for Worthshop visit www.worthshops.com

About Worthshop

Once a year, Hawaii Life presents the Worthshop. An exclusive event and inspiring exchange of ideas with entrepreneurs, thought leaders and real estate professionals.

About Hawaii Life

Hawaii Life is a 100% locally created, owned and operated real estate brokerage with 12 offices, over 200 agents, more listings than any other Hawaii brokerage and Hawaii's most trafficked real estate website. Visit www.hawaiilife.com.

SOURCE Hawaii Life

Related Links

http://www.hawaiilife.com


OTTUMWA, Iowa, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Convenience store chain Yesway today announced the grand opening of four Ottumwa, Iowa, stores and one Centerville, Iowa, store. Yesway now offers an enhanced shopping experience, neighborly customer service, and competitively priced gas at its new stores, which feature new and upgraded facilities both inside and out.

PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

A grand opening event will be held in celebration on Friday, November 11th from 4:00 p.m.  6:00 p.m. and on Saturday, November 12th from 11:00 a.m.  1:00 p.m. at Yesway's 2508 North Court Street location in Ottumwa, with local radio stations New Country 104.3 KRKN-FM and TOM-FM 97.7 broadcasting live each day respectively. The event will also mark the kick-off of a month-long fundraiser benefiting Reading Buddies, a new volunteer program from the United Way of Wapello County (UWWC) in partnership with the Ottumwa Community Schools, that focuses on improving reading skills for 2nd and 3rd grade students. Reading Buddy volunteers will meet one-on-one with a student to read together before or after school in order to help develop and improve their literacy skills. Throughout the fundraiser, 5 cents from every cup of coffee purchased at Yesway's Ottumwa and Centerville stores will be donated directly to the organization.

To kick off the celebration, Yesway will hold a ribbon cutting on Friday, November 11th from 2:30 p.m.  3:00 p.m., which is open to the public. Local residents will join Yesway at the ceremony including Ottumwa community members, local dignitaries, representatives from Reading Buddies and the United Way of Wapello County, as well as Yesway team members and executives. Blaire Siems, Executive Director, and Ali Wilson, Volunteer Engagement Director for the UWWC, will also be on-hand for the ceremony as Yesway begins its month-long fundraiser for the organization.

Grand opening attendees will enjoy free coffee and food, Yesway giveaways and freebies, special deals, and have a chance to win exciting prizes. Ottumwa residents are also encouraged to join Yesway's social media community on Facebook and Twitter and share their photos from the event.

Brian Trout, Yesway's Senior Vice President of Operations, said that the grand opening marks an exciting time for Yesway and for the area. "We envision this as the start of a long-standing partnership with the citizens of Ottumwa, and we look forward to delivering terrific customer service to everyone who visits our stores. We promise to serve quality food, good coffee and competitively priced fuel, and to make life easier and each day a bit more pleasant for the people in the community."

Yesway's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Thomas Nicholas Trkla, further explained Yesway's mission: "We pledge to make a difference in the community, and we plan to support local citizens and organizations who do the same," he said. "That goes beyond serving fresh coffee or making sure the stores are clean and well-stocked. We recognize and actively support local charities, civic organizations, first responders and those who serve or have served in the military - those who make a difference in the lives of others, and who go above and beyond while asking nothing in return. That's why we'll be donating 5 cents from every cup of Yesway coffee sold over the next month to the Reading Buddies program in Ottumwa. We value their volunteers' commitment and dedication to supporting Ottumwa's youngest readers."

Editor Note: Media are invited to attend and cover Yesway's Ottumwa grand opening events. To confirm attendance, or to arrange interviews with Yesway executives, please contact Erin Vadala of Warner Communications at [email protected] or 978-468-3076.

High-resolutions images and graphics are available upon request.

About Yesway  BW Gas & Convenience, d/b/a Yesway, is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. Yesway plans to acquire, improve and rebrand 600 convenience stores in selected regions of the United States over the next several years. For more information on Yesway, please visit the company's website at www.yesway.com, and connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Contact: Erin Vadala, Warner Communications; 978-468-3076, [email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161005/415433LOGO

SOURCE Yesway

Related Links

http://www.yesway.com


WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement from Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa about the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States:

"On behalf of the 1.4 million Teamsters, I want to congratulate President-elect Trump on his victory. Americans have voted, and we respect their choice at the ballot box. The Teamsters will work with President-elect Trump on numerous issues essential to the nation's workers in an effort to improve the lives of millions who continue to struggle to make ends meet.

"For more than a year, the Teamsters have been pushing a platform that prioritizes building, maintaining and repairing the nation's faltering infrastructure  a stated priority of President-elect Trump. U.S. roads, rails, energy plants and water systems have been ignored for far too long. This country needs a plan to invest more, and we will work with the Trump Administration to craft a solution.

"Additionally, the President-elect has made promises to the American people on trade and manufacturing that are important to our members. We are ready to work with him to find common ground that will benefit working families.

"Finally, the Teamsters understand that workers who invest in their retirement through pensions, other savings and Social Security deserve to be able to rely on their nest eggs in their golden years. Again, we are ready to work with him to formulate a plan that allows seniors to live with dignity."

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters.

Contact:

Bret Caldwell, (202) 624-6911

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100127/IBTLOGO

SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Related Links

http://www.teamster.org


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The following feature package is a roundup of feature stories dealing with Holiday, Thanksgiving and is appropriate for special sections and for general use.

For each story included in this package, you will find the first paragraph of the feature release below, as well as its headline linked to the full text.

This is the latest in a series of topical feature packages PRN will carry as part of its regular Feature News Service. Coming up in 2016 are features on:



Package Name Slug Distribution Date Holiday Holiday Nov. 17 Health & Wellness (II) Health Nov. 22 Holiday (Last Minute) Holiday Dec. 1 Home & Garden (IV) Home Dec. 8 Pets (II) Pets Dec. 9



Holiday, Thanksgiving Feature Package

1. Friendsgiving Taken to the Ultimate Level on Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas

MIAMI, Nov. 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- November traditionally signals the beginning of the holidays, with people across the country feeling a bit more generous and, well, friendly. A spin-off of America's time-honored Turkey Day, Friendsgiving has emerged as a growing holiday trend that brings friends together as a replacement for, or in addition to, more traditional, family-focused Thanksgiving festivities. This year, November also marks the U.S. arrival of Royal Caribbean's newest and most adventurous ship yet, Harmony of the Seas. To celebrate, Royal Caribbean is bringing together the Ultimate Friendsgiving party onboard  after all, what better way to celebrate friendship than on a ship named Harmony?

If you would like a copy of the complete schedule, or if you would care to comment, please email [email protected]. We welcome suggestions. Copies of previous packages are available for the media. Feature packages and feature photos are also available on the PR Newswire Web site, http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/feature-news-latest-news.

Photos that accompany releases are available via the PRN Multimedia Desk, 800-317-7677, or via the PR Newswire Photo Archive. Select photos are available via AP PhotoExpress and AP Images.

SOURCE PR Newswire Association LLC

Related Links

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/feature-news-latest-news


KANSAS CITY, Mo., Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Wholesale natural gas prices have increased during the past year and this will necessitate a natural gas price adjustment for Missouri Gas Energy (MGE) customers. Approved by the Missouri Public Service Commission today, MGE customers would pay an average of $0.49 per Ccf* for the cost of gas. The change reflects an increase in the prices charged by MGE's wholesale natural gas and pipeline transportation suppliers during the past year. Compared to last winter's rates, this would mean an increase of about $2.24 per month, or 3.7 percent of the overall bill for a typical residential customer. Weather and other factors that affect customer usage may also impact the customer's bill.

"Natural gas remains the most cost-effective heating source for homes. We work hard to manage all of our natural gas supply resources in the most efficient manner possible and pass savings directly on to customers. In fact, this time last year, we were able to lower the rate for customers because we were paying lower prices," said Steve Lindsey, president of MGE.

For customers looking to pay the same amount on their gas bill each month, MGE offers budget billing to all customers. The free service provides customers with consistent bill amounts throughout the year. Customers can enroll today and the payment plan will start on their next billing cycle. To sign up, call 816-756-5252 or toll-free 800-582-1234.

This rate appears on bills as "Cost of Gas" and accounts for more than half of a typical residential customer bill. The remaining portion includes pipeline maintenance and upgrade costs, as well as state and local taxes that MGE incurs to deliver that gas safely and reliably to homes and businesses.

*Ccf is the volume of 100 cubic feet of natural gas.

ABOUT MISSOURI GAS ENERGY

Missouri Gas Energy has provided natural gas service to the residents of the Kansas City metropolitan area and western Missouri for nearly 150 years. Now owned by Laclede Gas Company, a subsidiary of Spire (NYSE:SR), we are part of the largest gas distribution company in Missouri, delivering natural gas to more than 1.1 million customers. Missouri Gas Energy serves residential, commercial and industrial customers in 30 counties. For more information, please visit www.MissouriGasEnergy.com.

Media Contact: Jenny Gobble

855-852-1500 toll-free

[email protected]

SOURCE Missouri Gas Energy

Related Links

http://www.missourigasenergy.com


DALLAS, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- INDEPENDENCE CORPS has been awarded a $10,000 grant from Newman's Own Foundation, the independent foundation created by the late actor and philanthropist, Paul Newman.

Newman's Own Foundation made the award to INDEPENDENCE CORPS as part of a broader commitment to support military personnel, veterans, and their families. This funding will help INDEPENDENCE CORPS continue one of its critical missions, providing high-tech mobility devices to wounded disabled veterans.

Gary Lawson, Chairman & Co-President of the Independence Corps, an all-volunteer nonprofit, said, "We are extremely honored to receive, for a second year in a row, another very generous gift from Newman's Own Foundation. To be one of the very few veteran support organizations chosen by Newman's Own Foundation, out of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of such nonprofits around the country, means one of the most prestigious organizations recognizes our organization, INDEPENDENCE CORPS, for our integrity and fierce determination to make a positive difference in the lives of our nation's veterans and their families. Another of our missions is to help curtail the tragic number of veteran suicides in our nation."

"We are proud to fund INDEPENDENCE CORPS as they work to make a difference for the men and women who have served," said Bob Forrester, President and CEO, Newman's Own Foundation. "It is one of the many organizations empowering military families to transition to civilian life."

Newman's Own Foundation has been supporting military veterans organizations for more than 20 years, with a total of $13.5 million donated since 2010. The Foundation continues Paul Newman's commitment to give all profits and royalties from the sale of Newman's Own food and beverage products to charity. Since 1982, more than $475 million has been donated to thousands of charities around the world.

"INDEPENDENCE CORPS is dedicated to helping restore independence and dignity to the brave men and women of our armed forces who have sacrificed so much for all of us," said Co-President Steve Danyluk, USMCR, Ret.

To learn more about the INDEPENDENCE CORPS and how you too can help our veterans, go to https://www.independencecorps.org.

SOURCE INDEPENDENCE CORPS

Related Links

https://www.independencecorps.org


LONDON, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- India Medical Imaging Information Systems Market Outlook to 2022



Summary



GlobalData's new report, "India Medical Imaging Information Systems Market Outlook to 2022", provides key market data on the India Medical Imaging Information Systems market. The report provides value, in millions of US dollars within market segments - Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), Radiology Information System (RIS) and Cardiology Information Systems.



The report also provides company shares and distribution shares data for the market category, and global corporate-level profiles of the key market participants. Based on the availability of data for the particular category and country, information related to pipeline products, news and deals is available in the report.



The data in the report is derived from dynamic market forecast models. GlobalData uses epidemiology and capital equipment-based models to estimate and forecast the market size. The objective is to provide information that represents the most up-to-date data of the industry possible.



The epidemiology-based forecasting model makes use of epidemiology data gathered from research publications and primary interviews with physicians to establish the target patient population and treatment flow patterns for individual diseases and therapies. Using prevalence and incidence data and diagnosed and treated population, the epidemiology-based forecasting model arrives at the final numbers.



Capital equipment-based forecasting models are done based on the installed base, replacements and new sales of a specific device/equipment in healthcare facilities such as hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centers. Data for average number of units per facility is used to arrive at the installed base of the capital equipment. Sales for a particular year are arrived at by calculating the replacement units and new units (additional and first-time purchases).



Extensive interviews are conducted with key opinion leaders (KOLs), physicians and industry experts to validate the market size, company share and distribution share data and analysis.



Scope



- Market size for Medical Imaging Information Systems market segments - Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), Radiology Information System (RIS) and Cardiology Information Systems.

- Annualized market revenues (USD million) for each of the market categories. Data is provided from 2008 to 2015 and forecast to 2022.

- 2015 company shares and distribution shares data for Medical Imaging Information Systems market.

- Global corporate-level profiles of key companies operating within the India Medical Imaging Information Systems market.

- Key players covered include Agfa-Gevaert N.V., GE Healthcare Limited, Siemens Healthcare GmbH and Others.



Reasons to Buy



- Develop business strategies by identifying the key market segments poised for strong growth in the future.

- Develop market-entry and market expansion strategies.

- Design competition strategies by identifying who-stands-where in the market.

- Develop investment strategies by identifying the key market segments expected to register strong growth in the near future.

- What are the key distribution channels and what's the most preferred mode of product distribution - Identify, understand and capitalize.

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4263225/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com


LONDON, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Synopsis

The report provides a detailed look into the infrastructure sector in Indonesia, including analysis of the state of the current infrastructure, the regulatory and financing landscapes and the major projects in the construction pipeline.



The report covers all key infrastructure sectors: roads, railways, electricity and power, water and sewerage, communication, and airports and ports.



Summary

Strong growth in infrastructure construction is expected in Indonesia over the next five years; a continuation of the trend seen in the early part of this decade. The total value of the infrastructure construction market reached US$157 billion in 2015, according to the Infrastructure Intelligence Center (IIC), and is expected to grow to US$269 billion by 2020 (in nominal value terms).



This growth in spending is based on the assumption that a number of the large-scale infrastructure projects will move ahead as planned, most notably the Indonesia Power Program 35,000MW, the National Capital Integrated Coastal Development, and the Trans-Java and Trans-Sumatra Highways.



Scope

A concise analysis of the administrative, economic and political context for infrastructure in Indonesia.



An in-depth assessment of the current state of infrastructure in Indonesia, including roads, railways, electricity and power, water and sewerage, communications, airports and ports.



A focus on main political and financial institutions involved in the infrastructure market, as well as the competitive and regulatory environment.



For each infrastructure sector, an explanation of the key drivers of growth in new investment and an analysis of the project pipeline, with a detailed look at the prospects for major projects and the companies that have secured contracts.





Reasons To Buy

- Assess the current state of Indonesian infrastructure, and the main drivers of investment, including the key institutions and financing methods.



- Investigate forecasts and gain an understanding of key trends in each of the main infrastructure sectors.



- Analyze the main project participants operating in each sector, to better understand the competitive environment.



- Identify top projects by sector, development stage and start date, to inform expansion strategy.



Key Highlights

Timetric is currently tracking 317 large-scale infrastructure construction projects in Indonesia. These projects have a total investment value of US$431 billion.

Electricity and Power projects account for over 50% of the overall infrastructure project pipeline with a combined value of USD223 billion.



Indonesia's National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) 20152019 and the Master Plan for the Acceleration and Expansion of the Economic Development of Indonesia (MP3EI) 20112025 set out the majority of Indonesia's infrastructure strategies over the medium- and long-term future. The MP3EI has set aside 45% of its budget for infrastructure.



The government is taking measures to encourage private sector participation in projects. While problems persist, particularly around the complexity of Indonesia's regulatory structure, participation is improving, with better coordination between the public and private sectors, and initiatives such as the Indonesia Infrastructure Guarantee Fund contributing to this.





Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4301619/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Integreon, a leading global provider of outsourced legal, document, business and research support, today announced that the U.S. Department of Commerce has accepted the company's self-certification for compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. Integreon's Privacy Shield certificate is available on the U.S. Department of Commerce's Privacy Shield website.

The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework was designed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and European Commission to provide companies on both sides of the Atlantic with a mechanism to comply with European Union (EU) data protection requirements when transferring personal data from the EU to the United States in support of transatlantic commerce. The EU and U.S. agreed to the Privacy Shield Framework after the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework, which had previously governed transfers of personal data outside of the European Economic Area, was ruled invalid in October 2015 by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Integreon continues to comply with the U.S.-Swiss Safe Harbor Framework which remains valid for "adequate protection" of personal data transferred from Switzerland in accordance with Swiss data protection requirements.

"Integreon's compliance with both the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and U.S.-Swiss Safe Harbor Frameworks demonstrates our commitment to ensuring data security and privacy for our global clientele," said Sanjeev Jain, Chief Information Officer, Integreon. "Additionally we adhere to our clients' requirements for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and also comply with the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 information security management system (ISMS) standard."

In conjunction with Integreon's EU-U.S. Privacy Shield certification, the company has developed a privacy policy that addresses each of the Privacy Shield principles and supplemental principles developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission. The Integreon privacy policy is available at www.integreon.com/PrivacyPolicy.

About Integreon

Integreon is a trusted, global provider of award-winning legal, document, business and research support solutions to leading law firms, corporate legal departments, financial institutions and professional services firms. Around the globe, Integreon's 2,400 Associates support more than 250 clients in areas such as market and competitive intelligence, discovery, legal process outsourcing (LPO), operating model transformation and back office redesign. Integreon also excels in business support services such as IT, document processing, finance and HR. With our unrivalled outsourcing experience and industry-leading onshore and offshore capabilities, clients increasingly rely on Integreon to provide value-added solutions that meet their needs in a demanding business environment. Integreon has won more than 50 industry awards over the past five years and supports its global client base from 14 delivery centers across the US, UK, India, China, the Philippines and South Africa.

For more information about Integreon's extensive range of services, visit www.Integreon.com and follow Integreon on social media at LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Weibo.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130423/NY99594LOGO

SOURCE Integreon

Related Links

http://www.integreon.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Deutsche Bank today announced the lineup for its Depositary Receipts Virtual Investor Conference ("dbVIC") on November 16th and 17th, featuring live webcast presentations from international companies with American Depositary Receipt (ADR) programs in the US.

Representatives from participating companies based in Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Africa and the UK will respond to questions during formal presentations, and will also interact with investors via virtual trade booths. The conference is targeted to all types of investors as well as analysts interested in non-US companies.



There is no fee for participants to log in, attend live presentations or ask questions.



To register, please use the following link: www.adr.db.com/dbvic



Pre-registration is suggested to save time.

November 16th Agenda (US Eastern Time):

ET Company Name Country Local Ticker ADR Ticker 08:30 Murray and Roberts Holdings Ltd South Africa MUR OTC Pink: MURZY 09:00 Hutchison China MediTech Ltd Hong Kong HCM NASDAQ: HCM 09:30 First Pacific Company Ltd Hong Kong 142 OTC Pink: FPAFY 10:00 Deutsche Telekom AG Germany DTE OTCQX: DTEGY 10:30 Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd South Africa IMP OTCQX: IMPUY 11:00 Ipsen SA France IPN OTC Pink: IPSEY 11:30 Veolia Environnement SA France VIE OTC Pink: VEOEY 12:00 Smith & Nephew plc UK SN NYSE: SNN 12:30 Continental AG Germany CON OTC Pink: CTTAY

November 17th Agenda (US Eastern Time):

ET Company Name Country Local Ticker ADR Ticker 08:30 Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited Japan 4568 OTC Pink: DSNKY 09:00 Aurizon Holdings Ltd Australia AZJ OTC: AZNNY 09:30 ISS A/S Denmark ISS OTC Pink: ISSDY 10:00 SAP SE Germany SAP NYSE: SAP 10:30 Serco Group plc UK SRP OTC Pink: SCGPY 11:00 BASF SE Germany BAS OTCQX: BASFY 11:30 Legal & General Group plc UK LGEN OTC Pink: LGGNY 12:00 SSE plc UK SSE OTC Pink: SSEZY 12:30 Dixons Carphone plc UK DC OTC: DXCPY

After the Conference, presentations will be available for replay.

Deutsche Bank's Depositary Receipts team is part of the Issuer Services business within Global Securities Services. In addition to specializing in administering cross-border equity structures such as American and Global Depositary Receipts, Issuer Services provides corporates, financial institutions, hedge funds and supranational agencies around the world with trustee, agency, escrow and related services. The Bank offers a broad range of services for diverse products, from complex securitizations and project finance to syndicated loans, debt exchanges and restructurings.

Deutsche Bank is a leading client-centric global universal bank serving 28 million clients worldwide. Deutsche Bank provides commercial and investment banking, retail banking, transaction banking and asset and wealth management products and services to corporations, governments, institutional investors, small and medium-sized businesses, and private individuals. Deutsche Bank is Germany's leading bank, with a strong position in Europe and a significant presence in the Americas and Asia Pacific.

Deutsche Bank is sponsoring the Deutsche Bank Depositary Receipt Investor Conference solely for informational purposes. Deutsche Bank does not prepare, review, approve or edit any presentations, statements, documents or other information or materials, whether in written, electronic or verbal form, provided by any company participating in such conference, and disclaims any responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of any such information or materials. Deutsche Bank is not promoting, endorsing or recommending any company participating in the conference.

The Depositary Receipts have been registered pursuant to the US Securities Act of 1933. Nothing in this communication constitutes an offer or solicitation by Deutsche Bank or any other issuer or entity for the purchase or sale of any securities, nor does it constitute a solicitation to any person in any jurisdiction. No part of this communication may be copied or reproduced in any way without the prior written consent of Deutsche Bank. Depositary receipts services referenced in this communication are provided by Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, and indirect subsidiary of Deutsche Bank AG and a member, FDIC. Copyright November 2016 Deutsche Bank AG. All rights reserved.

SOURCE Deutsche Bank
ATLANTA, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Invesco Ltd. (NYSE: IVZ) today reported preliminary month-end assets under management (AUM) of $807.5 billion, a decrease of 1.5% month over month. The decrease was driven by unfavorable market returns, foreign exchange, and net long-term outflows largely driven by redemptions from a single US subadvised client. The decrease was partially offset by an increase in PowerShares QQQs and money market AUM. FX decreased AUM by $7.6 billion. Preliminary average total AUM for the quarter through October 31st were $813.8 billion, and preliminary average active AUM for the quarter through October 31st were $672.2 billion.

Additionally, the company has entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement effective November 4th, 2016 with Bank of America, N.A. to repurchase $150 million of the company's outstanding common stock (the "ASR"). The total number of shares that the company will repurchase under the ASR will be determined upon final settlement based generally on the volume-weighted average price of the company's common stock during the repurchase period. Final settlement of the ASR is expected to occur no later than year-end 2016.

Total Assets Under Management (in billions) Total Equity Fixed

Income Balanced Money

Market Alternatives October 31, 2016(a) $807.5 $354.7 $205.8 $47.4 $78.8(b) $120.8 September 30, 2016 $820.2 $365.3 $207.0 $48.9 $77.2 $121.8 August 31, 2016 $821.0 $367.0 $205.0 $48.7 $80.2 $120.1 July 31, 2016 $811.8 $366.6 $202.7 $48.3 $75.0 $119.2 Active (c) (in billions) Total Equity Fixed

Income Balanced Money

Market Alternatives October 31, 2016(a) $664.9 $264.0 $163.2 $47.4 $78.7(b) $111.6 September 30, 2016 $676.9 $273.7 $164.6 $48.9 $77.1 $112.6 August 31, 2016 $677.9 $274.6 $163.7 $48.7 $80.1 $110.8 July 31, 2016 $670.6 $274.8 $162.9 $48.3 $74.9 $109.7 Passive (c) (in billions) Total Equity Fixed

Income Balanced Money

Market Alternatives October 31, 2016(a) $142.6 $90.7 $42.6 $0.0 $0.1(b) $9.2 September 30, 2016 $143.3 $91.6 $42.4 $0.0 $0.1 $9.2 August 31, 2016 $143.1 $92.4 $41.3 $0.0 $0.1 $9.3 July 31, 2016 $141.2 $91.8 $39.8 $0.0 $0.1 $9.5

(a) Preliminary  subject to adjustment. (b) Preliminary - ending money market AUM include $70.5 billion in institutional money market AUM and $8.3 billion in retail money market AUM. (c) Passive AUM include ETF's, UIT's, non-fee earning leverage, foreign exchange overlays and other passive mandates. Active AUM are total AUM less passive AUM.

About Invesco Ltd.

Invesco is an independent investment management firm dedicated to delivering an investment experience that helps people get more out of life. NYSE: IVZ; www.invesco.com.

SOURCE Invesco Ltd.

Related Links

http://www.invesco.com


FARMERS BRANCH, Texas, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ironclad Performance Wear Corporation (OTCQB: ICPW), the recognized leader in high-performance task-specific work gloves, reported financial results for the third quarter and year-to-date ended September 30, 2016.

The Company reported increased Net Sales for the quarter of $6.45 million, a 19.1% increase from $5.42 million in the third quarter of 2015, on stronger sales from the industrial, international and retail segments and patent licensing fees.

For the 3rd quarter, the Company's industrial segment recorded a 6% revenue increase. Notwithstanding the segment increase in sales driven by its expanding distributor base, Ironclad offset a 54% decrease in segment sales attributable to sales to ORR Safety.

The Company recorded a 19% increase in revenues for its international segment with the acquisition of new international distributors and stronger order levels for its Australian distributor.

The Company also recorded an 87% increase in revenues for its retail segment, continuing to gain traction with new accounts and expanded placements nation-wide.

The Company's private label business declined as expected due to the discontinuance of the 5.11 tactical program.

Gross Profit dollars increased 18.1% to $2.26 million, or 35.1% of Net Sales, compared to $1.92 million, or 35.4% of Net Sales, in the third quarter of 2015.

Operating Expenses in the third quarter were $2.57 million or 39.9% of Net Sales, as compared to $2.09 million or 38.6% of Net Sales during the same period last year. The increase in Operating Expenses was primarily driven by an increase in bad debt expense resulting from the Company's decision to discontinue its relationship with its Canadian distributor to better serve our expanding customer base of multi-national accounts operating in Canada. This was necessitated by the Canadian distributor's inability to grow and service the Canadian market and to meet their financial obligations for goods sold to them in 2015. To a lesser extent, the increase in Operating Expenses was attributable to investment in personnel required to drive our increased industrial, international and retail sales and our international sourcing operations to position the business for future growth. Partially offsetting this increase in Operating Expenses was a recovery, net of in-quarter legal expenses, attributable to the Confidential Settlement Agreement with ORR Safety.

As a result of the above, Loss from Operations increased by $135,581, to a loss of $310,676, from a loss of $175,095 in the third quarter of 2015. Had the Company not realized the charge to bad debt expense necessitated by the termination of the relationship with the Canadian distributor, the Company would have been profitable for the quarter.

Interest Expense increased $15,299 to $45,992 in the third quarter of 2016 from $30,693 in the same period of 2015. This increase is due to increased borrowings under our bank line of credit agreement.

Net Loss Before Provision for Income Taxes for the third quarter of 2016 was $356,643, as compared to a loss of $205,781 in the same period last year.

Deferred income Tax Expense increased $1,832,000 in the third quarter of 2016 from $0 in the same period in 2015. This increase is due to the establishment of an allowance for the deferred tax assets due to the uncertain realizability of this asset.

Net Loss for the third quarter of 2016 was $2,188,643, or $0.03 per share, as compared to a loss of $205,781, or $0.00 per share, in the same period last year.

Ironclad's Chief Executive Officer, Jeffrey Cordes, commented: "In the midst of an extremely difficult industrial market, we continue to grow our business. As we continue to execute the roll out of our products across the North American Grainger network, we are also rapidly adding domestic and international distributors that are more than offsetting the former ORR Safety revenue. Retail clearly has also found traction with significant increases this quarter and it is exciting to see this business taking hold.

"While the quarter to quarter impact of a very depressed oil and gas market is uncertain, our expansion of segments outside of oil and gas is placing us on a path to solid growth at Ironclad."

Conference Call

Ironclad Performance Wear will hold a conference call to discuss third quarter 2016 financial results on Thursday, November 10th, at 3:30 p.m. Central Time (4:30 p.m. Eastern Time). To participate in the conference call, interested parties should dial:

Date: November 10th, 2016

Time: 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time (3:30 p.m. Central Time)

Domestic Dial-In Number: 1-888-471-3836

International Dial-In Number: 1-719-457-2506

Conference ID Number: 3827804

The conference call will be broadcast simultaneously and available for replay at: http://public.viavid.com/index.php?id=121894 and also via the landing page of the Company's Website at www.ironclad.com.

Please call the conference telephone number 5-10 minutes prior to the start time. An operator will register your name and organization.

Replay Dial-In Numbers:

TOLL-FREE 1-844-512-2921

TOLL/INTERNATIONAL 1-412-317-6671

From: 11/10/16 at 7:30 pm Eastern Time

To: 12/10/16 at 11:59 pm Eastern Time

Replay Pin Number: 3827804

The Company's financial results will be posted online at www.ironcladinvestor.com once they are publicly released.

About Ironclad Performance Wear Corporation

Ironclad Performance Wear is a leader in high-performance task-specific work gloves. It created the performance work glove category in 1998, and continues to leverage its leadership position in the safety, construction and industrial markets through the design, development and distribution of specialized task-specific gloves for industries such as oil & gas extraction; automotive; and police, fire, first-responder and military. Ironclad engineers and manufactures its products with a focus on innovation, design, advanced material science and durability. Ironclad's gloves and apparel are available through industrial suppliers, hardware stores, home centers, lumber yards, and sporting goods retailers nationwide; and through authorized distributors in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia.

For more information on Ironclad, please visit the Company's Website at www.ironclad.com.

Information about Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains "forward-looking statements" that include information relating to future events and future financial and operating performance. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which that performance or those results will be achieved. Forward-looking statements are based on information available at the time they are made and/or management's good faith belief as of that time with respect to future events, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in or suggested by the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to: fluctuations in demand for Ironclad's products, the introduction of new products, Ironclad's ability to maintain customer and strategic business relationships, the impact of competitive products and pricing, growth in targeted markets, the adequacy of Ironclad's liquidity and financial strength to support its growth, and other information that may be detailed from time-to-time in Ironclad's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Examples of such forward looking statements in this release include statements regarding trends in segment sales, our expanding distributor base and improved international sales, and executing on growth initiatives. For a more detailed description of the risk factors and uncertainties affecting Ironclad, please refer to the Company's recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings, which are available at www.sec.gov. Ironclad undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contact

William Aisenberg, CFO

[email protected]

(972) 996-5664

IRONCLAD PERFORMANCE WEAR CORPORATION CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS









September 30,

2016 (Unaudited)

December 31, 2015 ASSETS





Current Assets





Cash and cash equivalents $ 282,368

$ 276,981 Accounts receivable, net of allowance for doubtful accounts of $459,540 and $30,000 7,762,628

8,857,768 Inventory, net of reserve of $247,549 and $547,800 8,422,548

6,681,715 Deposits on inventory 108,597

171,593 Prepaid and other assets 860,999

610,417 Total current assets 17,437,140

16,598,474







Property and Equipment





Computer equipment and software 255,010

622,264 Office equipment and furniture 295,394

308,398 Leasehold improvements 140,718

174,298 Less: accumulated depreciation (310,670)

(767,047) Total property and equipment, net 380,452

337,913







Other Assets





Other assets - non-current 414,762

- Trademarks and patents, net of accumulated amortization of $77,738 and $68,094 179,584

125,895 Deposits 36,820

21,306 Deferred tax asset - long term -

1,832,000 Total other assets 631,166

1,979,201







Total Assets $ 18,448,758

$ 18,915,588







LIABILITIES & STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY





Current Liabilities





Accounts payable and accrued expenses $ 3,394,219

$ 3,358,724 Line of credit 5,457,908

3,224,780 Total current liabilities 8,852,127

6,583,504







Total Liabilities 8,852,127

6,583,504







Stockholders' Equity





Common stock, $0.001 par value, 172,744,750 shares authorized, 84,500,454 and 82,937,309 shares issued and outstanding at September 30, 2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively 84,500

82,937 Additional paid-in capital 21,194,693

20,776,012 Accumulated deficit (11,682,562)

(8,526,865) Total Stockholders' Equity 9,596,631

12,332,084







Total Liabilities & Stockholders' Equity $ 18,448,758

$ 18,915,588

IRONCLAD PERFORMANCE WEAR CORPORATION CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (unaudited)





















Three Months Ended

Nine Months Ended



September 30, 2016

September 30, 2015

September 30, 2016

September 30, 2015



































REVENUES















Net sales $ 6,454,723

$ 5,420,511

$ 16,897,920

$ 15,160,159

















COST OF SALES















Cost of sales 4,190,496

3,504,078

10,863,237

9,700,524

















GROSS PROFIT 2,264,227

1,916,433

6,034,683

5,459,635

















OPERATING EXPENSES















General and administrative 911,347

804,143

2,854,385

2,243,963

Sales and marketing 988,082

807,168

2,568,481

2,239,471

Research and development 158,698

166,368

484,809

479,967

Purchasing, warehousing and distribution 472,104

280,810

1,193,117

805,340

Depreciation and amortization 44,672

33,039

128,636

99,867



















Total operating expenses 2,574,903

2,091,528

7,229,428

5,868,608

















LOSS FROM OPERATIONS (310,676)

(175,095)

(1,194,745)

(408,973)

















OTHER INCOME (EXPENSE)















Interest expense (45,992)

(30,693)

(129,672)

(65,635)

Interest income 25

7

50

21



















Total other income (expense) (45,967)

(30,686)

(129,622)

(65,614)

















NET LOSS BEFORE PROVISION FOR INCOME TAXES (356,643)

(205,781)

(1,324,367)

(474,587)

















Deferred income tax expense (1,832,000)

-

(1,832,000)

- Benefit from income taxes -

-

670

-

















NET LOSS $ (2,188,643)

$ (205,781)

$ (3,155,697)

$ (474,587)

















NET LOSS PER COMMON SHARE















Basic ($0.03)

($0.00)

($0.04)

($0.01)

Diluted ($0.03)

($0.00)

($0.04)

($0.01)

















WEIGHTED AVERAGE COMMON SHARES















OUTSTANDING















Basic 84,245,019

82,292,247

83,571,312

81,443,216

Diluted 84,245,019

82,292,247

83,571,312

81,443,216

SOURCE Ironclad Performance Wear Corporation

Related Links

http://www.ironclad.com


The proposed transaction would build upon the strengths of JFK Health and Hackensack Meridian Health. It would be aligned with JFK Health's not-for profit mission and its goal to keep the community healthy. By affiliating with a quality focused system like Hackensack Meridian Health, JFK Health will be able to strategically make investments in new programs, services and technology to keep pace with the advanced health needs of the community.

"We share a culture and vision for the future of health care that reinforces JFK Health's role in the community," said Raymond Fredericks, president and CEO, JFK Health. "Along with Hackensack Meridian Health, we will enhance our delivery of top-quality, coordinated patient care to our diverse community. We are proud of the more than 20 year relationship we have with Meridian successfully running Home Care and Satellite Rehabilitation facilities."

"We are very excited about this affiliation. JFK Health is an award-winning health system trusted by the residents of its community, and has established a network of providers and services, including its academic programs," said Robert C. Garrett, co-CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health. "JFK and Hackensack Meridian Health share a common mission to provide the best care in a compassionate, patient-focused environment. We look forward to working with JFK Health on integrating its strengths with those of Hackensack Meridian Health."

As charitable, not-for-profit health care providers, JFK and Hackensack Meridian Health share a common mission and commitment to service. "JFK Medical Center has established itself as one of the leading health care providers in central New Jersey," said John K. Lloyd, co-CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health. "JFK shares with us the common goal of providing an expansive continuum of care. With the addition of JFK Medical Center, we can look forward to ultimately enhancing our network and serving more people. We are appreciative of the thoughtful consideration given to this endeavor by President and CEO Raymond Fredericks and the JFK Board led by Michael Kleiman, D.M.D."

About JFK Health

Opened in 1967, JFK is a 498-bed, full service, nonprofit community hospital that offers a complete array of advanced services, such as: general and specialized surgery, behavioral health, orthopedics, cardiology, maternity and pediatric care and emergency medicine. In addition to the services found at most community hospitals, JFK is home to the JFK Neuroscience Institute, a leader in the diagnosis and treatment of brain and spinal disorders and the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute, offering state-of-the-art therapeutic programs for individuals disabled by illness or injury. An affiliate of JFK Health, JFK Medical Center is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.

About Hackensack Meridian Health

Hackensack Meridian Health is a leading not-for-profit health care organization that is the most comprehensive and truly integrated health care network in New Jersey, offering a complete range of medical services, innovative research and life-enhancing care. Hackensack Meridian Health is a distinguished leader in health care philanthropy, committed to the health and well-being of the communities it serves.

The Network's notable distinctions include having one of only five major academic medical centers in the nation to receive Healthgrades America's 50 Best Hospitals Award for five or more consecutive years, the number one hospital in New Jersey as ranked by U.S. News and World Report, consistently achieving Magnet recognition for nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, recipient of the John M. Eisenberg Award for Patient Safety and Quality from The Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum, a six-time recipient of Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For," one of the "20 Best Workplaces in Health Care" in the nation, and the number one "Best Place to Work for Women." Hackensack Meridian Health is a member of AllSpire Health Partners, an interstate consortium of leading health systems, to focus on the sharing of best practices in clinical care and achieving efficiencies.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437603LOGO

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160801/394614LOGO

SOURCE JFK Health; Hackensack Meridian Health
The new 360 marketing campaign, which premiered nationally on November 7th with a :60 TV spot created by Anomaly and directed by Chris Sargent of Anonymous Content, celebrates the cultural progress and diversity that represents the fabric of America today. The lyrics of "This Land Is Your Land," read in both English and Spanish, serve as the campaign's anthem. The meaning behind the lyrics powerfully communicate the core message that America has always been and should always remain an inclusive nation, built on values that celebrate and reward people from all colors and creeds. The film was shot over two weeks and features real storylines of progress from Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Montana, New Orleans, Baltimore, New York and Washington DC.

The message of Keep Walking America is supported by a variety of initiatives on a national and global level, each calling for a united, more open-minded society that can be a catalyst for progress and positive change. The brand recently traveled to Brownsville, Texas, a U.S.-Mexico border town, with celebrated actor, director and activist Wilmer Valderrama, to spotlight the rich community of cross-cultural Americans living in proximity to the border and to hear their personal stories of progress. This initiative mirrors recent global work from Colombia, which shared a message of unification during the ongoing peace treaty negotiations, and the brand's Ode to Lesvos storyline, a deeply moving film series that sheds light on a community in Greece that has shown heroism and humanity during the Syrian refugee crisis.

Stephanie Jacoby, Vice President of Johnnie Walker North America stated, "We are extremely honored to continue taking a pioneering role in culture by championing and celebrating progress. Keep Walking America brings to life stories of cultural progress and diversity, and we hope this campaign inspires people to come together for a better future."

This spirit of possibility and commitment to progress will inform all Johnnie Walker brand activity, including cocktail strategy and how we engage with the bar community and those who enjoy our whisky.Flavors of America, a new cocktail program, highlights the stories and cross-cultural backgrounds of the American bartending community. The program will feature modern cocktail recipes inspired by the holidays, traditions and authentic cultural flavors that have influenced the diverse group of bartenders involved in the program. When celebrating life milestones and achievements, Johnnie Walker reminds you to always drink in moderation and secure a designated driver.

Johnnie Walker is proud to launch this new campaign and will continue to champion powerful stories of personal progress around the world. Please visit www.KeepWalkingAmerica.com to view the new work.

About Johnnie Walker

Johnnie Walker is the world's number-one selling Scotch whisky brand, representing the idea of personal progress for the many people who enjoy it in more than 180 countries worldwide. John Walker pioneered blending when he founded the business in 1820 and never looked back, growing it from a grocer's own Scotch whisky into a stylish, global icon. It's that same forward-looking perspective that drives the brand, and its consumers, today. The U.S. range of award-winning whiskies includes Johnnie Walker Red Label, Johnnie Walker Black Label, Johnnie Walker Double Black, Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve, Johnnie Walker Platinum Label and Johnnie Walker Blue Label.

For more information visit www.johnniewalker.com or follow us on Facebook and Twitter @JohnnieWalkerUS. #KeepWalkingAmerica

About Diageo

Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Bulleit and Buchanan's whiskies, Smirnoff, Ciroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.

Diageo is listed on both the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information about Diageo, our people, our brands, and performance, visit us at www.diageo.com. Visit Diageo's global responsible drinking resource, www.DRINKiQ.com, for information, initiatives, and ways to share best practice.

Follow us on Twitter for news and information about Diageo North America: @Diageo_NA.

Celebrating life, every day, everywhere

SOURCE Diageo

Related Links

http://www.diageo.com


CLEVELAND, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its Veteran's Day observation this year, KeyBank is proud to announce that it has been named to the list of top "Military Friendly Employers" for the second consecutive year. The recognition is awarded by Victory Media, publisher of G.I. Jobs and Military Spouse Magazine and reflects the emphasis Key places on recruiting and training military veterans who are joining or rejoining the workforce.

Now in its 14th year, Military Friendly Employers is the premier resource for transitioning service members and spouses seeking civilian employment. Each year, companies taking the survey are held to a higher standard than the previous year via improved methodology, criteria and weightings developed with the assistance of an advisory board consisting of leaders in the higher education and military recruitment community.

KeyBank is committed to hiring military talent, knowing first-hand that recruiting from the military community is not only the "right thing to do," but it makes good business sense. "Making the transition to the business world is easier when both the employee and their employer are strongly focused, as we are, on serving our communities," said Brian Fishel, KeyCorp Senior Vice President & Chief Talent Officer. "Our commitment to service, volunteerism, and helping others makes KeyBank a good fit for veterans. We value the service of the men and women of the military and their families and welcome them to begin their journey to a new and fulfilling chapter in their lives at KeyBank."

As an inclusive employer and workplace, KeyBank is proud of our strong tradition supporting military employees, families and veterans. Key is a proud partner of numerous organizations dedicated to supporting U.S. servicemen and women including Joining Forces, Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, Veterans on Wall Street, Hiring Our Heroes, Hero 2 Hired, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and Veterans Business Network. Additionally, Key's Military Inclusion employee resource group provides support, resources and networking for active duty and veteran employees, as well as spouses, families and friends. The group also helps onboard new military hires, and leads the company's relationships with organizations such as Fisher House, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the USO, and the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association.

KeyBank will be showcased along with other 2017 Military Friendly Employers in the December issue of G.I. Jobs magazine and the January 2017 issue of Military Spouse Magazine, and on MilitaryFriendly.com.

About KeyBank:

KeyCorp's roots trace back 190 years to Albany, New York. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Key is one of the nation's largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $135.8 billion at September 30, 2016. Key provides deposit, lending, cash management, insurance, and investment services to individuals and businesses in 15 states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of more than 1,200 branches and more than 1,500 ATMs. Key also provides a broad range of sophisticated corporate and investment banking products, such as merger and acquisition advice, public and private debt and equity, syndications and derivatives to middle market companies in selected industries throughout the United States under the KeyBanc Capital Markets trade name. For more information, visit https://www.key.com/. KeyBank is Member FDIC.

About Military Friendly Employers:

The Military Friendly  Employers list is created each year based on extensive research using public data sources for thousands of federal contractors nationwide, input of military employees, and responses to the proprietary, data-driven Military Friendly  Employers survey from participating companies. The survey questions, methodology, criteria and weightings were developed by Victory Media with the assistance of an independent research firm and an advisory council of educators and employers. Data calculations and tabulations were independently evaluated for completeness and accuracy by EY. The survey is administered for free and is open to companies that have hired veterans in the past 12 months. Criteria for consideration can be found at: https://militaryfriendly.com.

SOURCE KeyBank
TOANO, Va., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lumber Liquidators (NYSE: LL), the largest specialty retailer of hardwood flooring in North America, recently donated 388 square feet of vinyl wood plank flooring to Chapter 3 of The Retired Enlisted Association (TREA) in Aurora, Colorado.

The mission of TREA is to represent the rights and interests of enlisted veterans. It assists members both professionally and culturally to promote health, prosperity and fellowship.

"TREA's services and resources are essential to our nation's veterans," said, Fred Willis, President, TREA Chapter #3, Aurora, CO. "With support from local businesses like Lumber Liquidators, our renovated facilities will enhance the experience our vets have with our organization."

The flooring will be installed throughout the Chapter 3 building in the Main Bingo Hall, the Grace Room and a hallway. Vinyl plank flooring blends the warm look of hardwood with the ease of installation only vinyl can offer. It is especially useful in high-moisture areas such as kitchens and bathrooms.

Lumber Liquidators' support of TREA was administered through its philanthropic program, Lay It Forward, which supports organizations that benefit generations to come. This principle also inspires the lasting quality and sustainability of Lumber Liquidators' products.

About Lumber Liquidators

With more than 370 locations, Lumber Liquidators is North America's largest specialty retailer of hardwood flooring. The Company features more than 400 top quality flooring varieties, including solid and engineered hardwood, bamboo, cork, laminate, resilient vinyl and engineered vinyl plank. Additionally, Lumber Liquidators provides a wide selection of flooring enhancements and accessories to complement, install and maintain your new floor. Every location is staffed with flooring experts who can provide advice and installation options for all of Lumber Liquidators' products, much of which is in stock and ready for delivery.

With premier brands including Bellawood and Morning Star Bamboo, Lumber Liquidators' flooring is often featured on popular television shows such as HGTV's Dream Home and This Old House. For more information, please visit www.LumberLiquidators.com or call 1.800.HARDWOOD.

Lumber Liquidators aims to be the industry leader in sustainability. For more information, please visit www.LumberLiquidators.com/Sustainability. Learn more about our corporate giving program at LayItForward.LumberLiquidators.com. You can also follow Lumber Liquidators on Facebook and Twitter.

For further information contact:

John Feld  One Simple Plan

Tel: 612.677.2248

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130529/NY21644LOGO

SOURCE Lumber Liquidators

Related Links

http://www.lumberliquidators.com


During the months of November and December, Martin's is encouraging participants to submit their favorite holiday recipes to help in the creation of their cookbook, Martin's More than a Meal: Holiday Cookbook . The contest is based around the idea that the holidays create unique opportunities for families to reconnect and grow closer together, often in the form of meals. The cookbook will be made available upon its completion and will feature the top selections of the recipes submitted that include Martin's Famous Potato Roll and Bread Products.

"At Martin's, we believe that gathering around the table with your family and friends helps to create cherished memories together," said Julie Martin, social media manager and grand-daughter to the original founders of Martin's Famous Pastry Shoppe. "Nothing adds to the experience more than a deliciously prepared meal. We are excited that our famous Potato Rolls, Potato Bread, and Potatobred Stuffing are a part of many families' special holiday traditions."

Participants of the Holiday Cookbook Contest will not only be eligible to be featured in the new cookbook, but will also have the chance to win the "Ultimate Holiday Host/Hostess Prize Pack"! The prize pack, valued at over $560, consists of an assortment of kitchen appliances including: a Le Creuset Stoneware Rectangular Dish, a Crock-Pot 5-in-1 Multi-Cooker, a Kitchen Aid Artisan Tilt-Head Mixer, a Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven and an Anolon 6 Piece SureGrip Nonstick Utensil Set.

The Martin's Holiday Cookbook Contest, which began on November 1st, will run until January 2, 2017. Each entry will be graded on the basis of its creativity, aesthetic quality, holiday relevance, and integration of Martin's products. See official rules for more details.

To enter the Cookbook Contest and to see the official rules, visit: www.potatorolls.com/holidaycookbookcontest.

Martin's Famous Pastry Shoppe, Inc., is an American family owned and operated company, headquartered in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Since 1955, when Lloyd and Lois Martin converted their garage into a small bakery, the Martin family has focused on baking great-tasting products using high-quality ingredients. Their dedication to excellence, quality, service, and family values is what truly sets them apart from their competitors.

No longer just a "Pennsylvania novelty," Martin's Potato Rolls are the "#1 Branded Burger Bun in America." In addition to their famous burger and hot dog potato rolls (called "Sandwich Potato Rolls" and "Long Potato Rolls," respectively), Martin's also makes sesame-seeded Big Marty's Rolls, Hoagie Rolls, 100% Whole Wheat Potato Bread, and Cinnamon-Raisin Swirl Potato Bread. These and other Martin's products are delivered fresh to Eastern and Mid-Western stores daily and are exported internationally to a growing number of countries. To learn more about Martin's Famous Potato Rolls and Bread, you can visit their website at: www.potatorolls.com.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161110/437908

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161110/437906



SOURCE Martins Famous Pastry Shoppe, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.potatorolls.com


ATLANTA, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- McAlister's Deli, a leading fast casual restaurant chain known for its Famous Sweet Tea and recently ranked as one of consumers' favorite chains by Restaurant Business, today announced it is looking for new partnerships with experienced multi-unit franchise owners as the brand continues its expansion into Michigan.

"The Detroit and Ann Arbor area represent an important part of McAlister's growth strategy, and we're excited about the brand's expansion into the state," said Jeff Sturgis, McAlister's Vice President of Franchise Development. "The McAlister's Deli brand has become a top choice for some of the most successful multi-unit franchise owners in the country, and with our recent successful openings in northern Indiana, we're excited to watch the brand grow in this region."

As the company looks to expand in the Detroit and Ann Arbor market, they are actively seeking qualified franchisees to develop in Washtenaw, Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties. Currently, McAlister's has one location in the state of Michigan, located in Lansing at 2901 Preyde Boulevard.

McAlister's had a successful year of franchise growth in 2015 with $548 million in system-wide sales, the opening of 27 new restaurants  some in new markets, including Chicago, Rochester, and Orlando  and nearly 60 commitments for new restaurants. This growth is fueled by both existing franchisees as well as new partnerships with experienced multi-unit franchise owners with notable portfolios.

The company has attracted a record number of franchise inquiries in recent years due to its quality leadership, healthy sales to investment ratio, and exceptional company performance.

To learn more about franchising opportunities with McAlister's, please contact (888) 855-DELI (3354) or [email protected], or visit www.mcalistersdelifranchise.com.

About McAlister's

Founded in 1989, McAlister's Deli is a fast casual restaurant chain known for its sandwiches, spuds, soups, salads, desserts and McAlister's Famous Sweet Tea. In addition to dine-in and take-out service, McAlister's also offers catering with a selection of sandwich trays, box lunches, desserts, a hot spud bar and more. With numerous industry accolades, the McAlister's brand has more than 361 restaurants in 28 states. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. For more information, visit www.mcalistersdeli.com.

About FOCUS Brands Inc.

Atlanta-based FOCUS Brands Inc., through its affiliate brands, is the franchisor and operator of more than 5,000 ice cream shoppes, bakeries, restaurants, and cafes in the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and 60 foreign countries under the brand names Carvel, Cinnabon, Schlotzsky's, Moe's Southwest Grill, Auntie Anne's and McAlister's Deli, as well as Seattle's Best Coffee on certain military bases and in certain international markets. Please visit www.focusbrands.com to learn more.

Media Contact: Lauren Tweet, Allison+Partners, (214) 975-8784, [email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160705/386062LOGO

SOURCE McAlister's Deli

Related Links

http://www.mcalistersdeli.com


MINNETONKA, Minn., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MedNet Solutions, an innovative SaaS-based eClinical technology company that supports the entire spectrum of clinical research, is pleased to announce that the company will again Sponsor the annual Partnerships in Clinical Trials Europe event, to be held November 16-17 at the Reed Messe Wein Congress Center in Vienna, Austria. Attendees will be able to see demonstrations of iMedNet, MedNet's flagship eClinical solution.

"We're looking forward to another fantastic conference," remarked John M. (Rob) Robertson, President and CEO of MedNet Solutions. "We've already scheduled dozens of meetings with leading pharmaceutical, medical device and CROs from across Europe. Interest in iMedNet has never been stronger2016 promises to be another record-setting year for new iMedNet installations."

Here are the Top 10 reasons why iMedNet stands out from other eClinical systems:

Comprehensive  Provides everything you need to run your study in one system

 Provides everything you need to run your study in one system Unified  A single solution built by MedNet's own development team

 A single solution built by MedNet's own development team Do-It-Yourself Control  Sponsors and CROs can build their own studies with ease

 Sponsors and CROs can build their own studies with ease Fast  Studies can be set up quickly, in just days or weeks

 Studies can be set up quickly, in just days or weeks Flexible  Superior flexibility easily accommodates unique workflows and processes

 Superior flexibility easily accommodates unique workflows and processes Intuitive  Exceptionally easy to navigate for everyone

 Exceptionally easy to navigate for everyone Efficient  Delivers documented cost savings of over 50%

 Delivers documented cost savings of over 50% Affordable  Pay-as-you-go pricing makes it affordable for any research initiative

 Pay-as-you-go pricing makes it affordable for any research initiative Award-Winning  Industry recognition for excellence3 times in 2016 alone

 Industry recognition for excellence3 times in 2016 alone Proven  Successfully deployed worldwide

All conference attendees are encouraged to stop by MedNet's booth (#219) to meet MedNet's representatives, see a live iMedNet demonstration, and discuss how MedNet Solutions can make a real difference in your upcoming studies.

About MedNet Solutions

MedNet Solutions is a leading healthcare technology company specializing in electronic data solutions designed for the global life sciences community. MedNet's proven, flexible and easy-to-use cloud-based eClinical systems dramatically improve the efficiency of clinical studies and registries of all types and sizes. Beyond simply electronic data capture (EDC), MedNet's solutions deliver the tools and dashboards required to expertly manage all aspects of clinical research. Since 2001, pharmaceutical, medical device, biotechnology and Contract Research Organizations (CROs) around the world have trusted MedNet to consistently deliver the technology innovation, experience and reliability they need for success. For more information, please visit www.mednetstudy.com.

Contact Information:

Dirk H. Nelson

Director of Marketing

110 Cheshire Lane, Suite 300

Minnetonka, MN 55305

USA

(763) 258-2735

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160512/366985LOGO

SOURCE MedNet Solutions

Related Links

http://www.mednetstudy.com


LONDON, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Report Details

The latest report from business intelligence provider visiongain offers comprehensive analysis of the global military radar systems market. Visiongain assesses that this market will generate revenues of $9,737m in 2016.



Now: "Pratt & Whitney and BAE Systems PLC announced as being involved as contractors for the B-21 programme" - This is an example of the business critical headline that you need to know about - and more importantly, you need to read visiongain's objective analysis of how this will impact your company and the industry more broadly. How are you and your company reacting to this news? Are you sufficiently informed?

How this report will benefit you

Read on to discover how you can exploit the future business opportunities emerging in this sector. Visiongain's new study tells you and tells you NOW.



In this brand new report you will receive 312 in-depth tables, charts and graphs PLUS 3 EXCLUSIVE interviews  all unavailable elsewhere.



The 329 page report provides clear detailed insight into the global military radar systems market. It reveals the key drivers and challenges affecting the market.



By ordering and reading our brand new report today you will be better informed and ready to act.



Report Scope

- Global military radar systems market forecasts from 2016-2026

- Regional military radar systems market analysis covering Asia-Pacific, South America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Central Asia, and North America;

- Country military radar systems forecasts from 2016-2026 covering Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, The Netherlands, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UK, and the US, as well as the Rest of the World market



- Military radar systems submarket forecasts from 2016-2026 covering Airborne systems, Land-Based Systems, Naval Systems.

- Analysis of the key factors driving growth in the global, regional country level military radar systems markets from 2016-2026

- Detailed tables containing 211 contracts / projects and programmes in the military radar systems market by country



- Profiles of the leading 13 military radar systems companies in 2016 at a global level and for leading countries.

- Three Interviews with key opinion leaders Timothy Burbey, President of Blueshift Materials, Simon Collins, Senior Product Manager ECPS at ADLINK Technology, and Mark Radford, CEO of Blighter Surveillance Systems Ltd. informing and underpinning the analysis



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- This report will keep your military radar systems knowledge base up to speed. Don't get left behind

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Who should read this report?

- Anyone within the Military Radar market value chain.

- Director of research and development

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- Strategic marketing, business intelligence

- Competitive intelligence analyst or consultant

- Marketing manager

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Visiongain's study is intended for anyone requiring commercial analyses for the military radar systems market and leading companies. You will find data, trends and predictions.



Buy our report today Military Radar Systems Market Outlook 2016-2026: Country Forecasts, Contracts & Analysis of Leading Companies Developing Systems for Airborne, Naval & Land-Based Platforms. Avoid missing out by staying informed  order our report now.

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About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com


DENVER, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Molinos de Puerto Rico, the Caribbean arm of Ardent Mills, the premier flour-milling and ingredient company, will host the XXXIV Annual Meeting of the Latin American Industrial Millers Association (ALIM) November 13-16 at the Caribe Hilton Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

"This important conference will bring together industry leaders from across Central and South America as well as the Caribbean to discuss key industry trends, challenges and innovations," said ALIM Executive President Alejandro Daly. "Millers are fundamental to the provision of food and ingredients across the globe."

"We are honored to host this event," said Jon Stuewe, president of Molinos de Puerto Rico. "The conference will feature a variety of panels, technical presentations, and a commercial exhibition along with a number of networking events. It will be a great opportunity to showcase our milling heritage and innovations."

Ardent Mills Chief Operating Officer Bill Stoufer will address attendees on trends affecting U.S. consumption of wheat-related foods on Monday, November 14. "This is a forum to share trends and opportunities that we believe can be helpful to the industry," Stoufer said.

For more information on this industry conference, please visit https://alim2016.com or call (787)781-4874.

About Ardent Mills

Ardent Mills is the premier flour-milling and ingredient company whose vision is to be the trusted partner in nurturing its customers, consumers and communities through innovative and nutritious grain-based solutions. Ardent Mills' operations and services are supported by more than 40 flour mills and bakery-mix facilities along with a specialty bakery and Mobile Innovation Center, all located in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. Deeply rooted in communities throughout North America, Ardent Mills is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, and employs more than 100 certified millers, supporting thousands of local jobs and contributing billions of dollars to local economies. To learn more about Ardent Mills, visit ardentmills.com.

About Molinos de Puerto Rico

Ardent Mills' Puerto Rican operation, Molinos de Puerto Rico is the territory's leading supplier of flour as well as wheat, corn and rice-based food ingredients. Its Amapola brand is the territory's leading retail flour and corn meal brand. Molinos de Puerto Rico's ingredients and retail products are distributed throughout Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and the U.S. mainland. Established in 1958, it employs more than 100 team members and has operations in Guaynabo's Amelia district. In addition to Amapola, Molinos de Puerto Rico brands include Special 50 and Buccaneer flours among others.

SOURCE Ardent Mills

Related Links

http://www.ardentmills.com


TORONTO, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- An international report released today by the Canadian Cancer Society shows that 105 countries and territories have required picture health warnings on cigarette packages. This significant milestone in global public health will reduce smoking and save lives.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437702

The report  Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report  ranks 205 countries and territories on the size of their health warnings on cigarette packages, and lists countries and territories that require graphic picture warnings.

The report also shows a significant global momentum toward plain packaging with 4 countries requiring plain packs and 14 working on it.

"There is a powerful worldwide trend for countries to use graphic pictures on cigarette packages to show the devastating health effects of smoking, and to require plain packaging," says Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst, Canadian Cancer Society.

Examples of graphic picture warnings include a diseased lung or mouth, a patient with lung cancer in a hospital bed and a child being exposed to secondhand smoke. The report also shows that many countries have increased the size of picture warnings on cigarette packages. These larger pictures are known to be more effective.

Cigarette package warnings are a highly cost-effective way to increase awareness of the negative health effects of smoking and to reduce tobacco use. Picture-based warnings convey a more powerful message than a text-only warning, and larger ones increase impact.

Guidelines under the international tobacco treaty  the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)  recommend that warnings should:

be as large as is achievable

include a rotated series of graphic pictures

be at the top of both the front and back of packages.

Picture warnings are especially valuable for low- and middle-income countries where there are higher rates of illiteracy and where governments may have few resources. Health departments determine the content of warnings, and the tobacco industry is responsible for printing the warnings on packages.

Guidelines under the treaty also recommend that countries consider implementing plain packaging. Plain packaging includes health warnings on packages, but prohibits tobacco company branding, such as colours, logos and design elements, and requires the brand portion of each package to be the same colour, such as an unattractive brown. The brand name would still appear in a standard font size, style and location. The package format is standardized. Plain packaging puts an end to packaging being used for product promotion, increases the effectiveness of package warnings, curbs package deception and decreases tobacco use.

Plain packaging has been required in Australia (effective in 2012), the United Kingdom and France (effective May 20, 2016, at the manufacturer level) and Hungary (effective in 2018). The 14 countries working on plain packaging are: New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, Canada, Slovenia, Uruguay, Thailand, Singapore, Belgium, Romania, Turkey, Finland, Chile and South Africa.

"The international momentum for picture warnings and plain packaging is all the more impressive given the strong opposition from the tobacco industry," says Cunningham. "If picture warnings and plain packaging are not effective at reducing smoking, then why is the tobacco industry opposed? The fact that more than 100 countries and territories have implemented picture health warnings and that so many are moving toward plain packaging shows that the worldwide trend is unstoppable."

Other report highlights include:

105 countries and territories have finalized picture warning requirements, an increase from the 77 that had implemented these requirements by the end of 2014. In 2001, Canada was the first country to require picture warnings and to require a 50% size.

was the first country to require picture warnings and to require a 50% size. 58% of the world's population is covered by the 105 countries and territories that have finalized picture warning requirements.

Nepal has the largest warnings in the world with picture warnings covering 90% of the package front and back. Vanuatu will also require 90% picture warnings in 2017. India and Thailand have the next largest warnings at 85% of the front and back.

has the largest warnings in the world with picture warnings covering 90% of the package front and back. will also require 90% picture warnings in 2017. and have the next largest warnings at 85% of the front and back. 94 countries and territories require warnings to cover at least 50% of the package front and back (on average), up from 60 countries in 2014 and 24 in 2008.

The implementation by most European Union (EU) countries of the new EU requirement for 65% picture warnings was an important development contributing to the increase since 2014 in the number of countries requiring picture warnings.

The top countries ranked by warning size as an average of the front and back of the package are:

1. 90% Nepal

1. 90% Vanuatu

3. 85% Thailand

3. 85% India

5. 82.5% Australia (75% front, 90% back)

6. 80% Sri Lanka

6. 80% Uruguay

8. 75% Brunei

8. 75% Canada

8. 75% Laos

8. 75% Myanmar

(In this list, the warning size is the same on the front and back, except in Australia).

The Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report was released today in Delhi, India, at the 7th session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), being held November 712. The report is intended to support implementation of the FCTC. The FCTC has an obligation for parties to require health warnings that "should be 50% or more of the principal display areas but shall be no less than 30% of the display areas" and may be in the form of, or include, picture warnings. There are now 180 countries that are parties to the FCTC.

This is the 5th Canadian Cancer Society international report on cigarette package health warnings. Previous reports were published in 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014.

Cigarette Package Health Warnings report in English

Cigarette Package Health Warnings report in French

About the Canadian Cancer Society

The Canadian Cancer Society is a national, community-based organization of volunteers whose mission is to eradicate cancer and enhance the quality of life of people living with cancer. Thanks to our donors and volunteers, the Society has the most impact, against the most cancers, in the most communities in Canada. For more information, visit cancer.ca or call our toll-free bilingual Cancer Information Service at 1-888-939-3333 (TTY 1-866-786-3934).

Contact: Rob Cunningham, Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian Cancer Society, Phone: +1-613-762-4624 (mobile), Email: [email protected]; Rosie Hales, Communications Specialist, Canadian Cancer Society, Phone: +1-416-934-5338, Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Canadian Cancer Society
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- With advanced malware and cyberattacks rapidly escalating, there is a critical need for network visibility. To assist with greater visibility, Napatech announced today that it has partnered with ntop, the de facto standard for packet capture applications, to create a 100G line-rate traffic monitoring solution for one of ntop's global data center clients. The full case study is available at http://ow.ly/MMT0305YCCG.

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Losing even a single data packet could potentially expose a data center's critical infrastructure and compromise the safety of assets and resources.

Avoid unreliable overviews: ntop's client wanted a traffic monitoring solution that focused on both network performance measurement and security traffic analysis. Its previous solution was based on Random Sampled NetFlow, which only provided the data center a fractional overview, which was an unreliable and insecure approach.

ntop's client wanted a traffic monitoring solution that focused on both network performance measurement and security traffic analysis. Its previous solution was based on Random Sampled NetFlow, which only provided the data center a fractional overview, which was an unreliable and insecure approach. Partnering for packet capture: To develop a 100G capacity solution that would provide the needed 1:1 NetFlow overview, ntop partnered with Napatech, whose 100G accelerators were integrated with ntop's nProbe Cento software to guarantee full packet capture and enable analysis of network data.

To develop a 100G capacity solution that would provide the needed 1:1 NetFlow overview, ntop partnered with Napatech, whose 100G accelerators were integrated with ntop's nProbe Cento software to guarantee full packet capture and enable analysis of network data. Greater security, fewer resources: The combined power of this packet- and flow-centric solution enables the data center to focus on processing any suspicious activity  rather than committing resources to investigate each single packet. This resulted in dramatically stronger network security with a minimum strain on resources.

Henrik Brill Jensen, CEO, Napatech, said: "In the current threat environment, the data center is often the last line of defense. With a portfolio that scales from 1 to 100G, Napatech accelerators provide more efficient data delivery through features like zero packet loss and nanosecond time-stamping for quick access to relevant data in the case of an event, as well as full access to all packets for further forensic analysis."

Luca Deri, Founder, ntop, said: "By combining the Cento software with a Napatech accelerator, we successfully developed a 100G solution that would ensure zero packet loss while also providing a reliable 1:1 overview of the NetFlow. Napatech is a reliable, proven partner, and we look forward to continuing our innovative relationship."

About Napatech

Napatech is the world leader in data delivery solutions for network management and security applications. As data volume and complexity grow, organizations must monitor, compile and analyze all the information flowing through their networks. Our products use patented technology to capture and process data at high speed and high volume with guaranteed performance, enabling real-time visibility. We deliver data faster, more efficiently and on demand for the most advanced enterprise, cloud and government networks. Now and in the future, we enable our customers' applications to be smarter than the networks they need to manage and protect.

About ntop

ntop is an engineering-driven company that provides software for network traffic analysis, capture-to-disk and traffic generation applications optimizing the performance of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware. ntop software is considered the de facto standard for packet capture applications in both commercial and open source communities.

No Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements which are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to, business conditions, trends in the industry and markets, global economic and geopolitical conditions, macro-economic factors, and other risks and uncertainties set forth in Napatech's reports. The matter discussed in this release is based on current expectations and maybe subject to change. Napatech will not necessarily update this information. For details, visit us at www.napatech.com.

Media Investor Relations Kim Dearborn, Nadel Phelan Niels Hobolt +1 831 440 2407 +45 8853 7003 [email protected] [email protected]

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SOURCE Napatech

Related Links

http://www.napatech.com


SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The National AIDS Memorial, through its Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship Program, has awarded ten outstanding undergraduate students $50,000 in financial scholarships to further pursue their educational goals and commitment to active roles of public service and leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Named in honor of AIDS educator, activist and reality television pioneer Pedro Zamora, who passed away on November 11, 1994 from an AIDS-related illness, the scholarship program has helped support the education of young people who today are engaged in a wide variety of HIV-related work both in school as well as within the chosen academic field.

"Pedro knew that the key to changing social misconceptions about HIV/AIDS lay in the hands of the youth of America," said Pedro's Real World roommates Pam Ling, M.D. and Judd Winick, author/illustrator of the award-winning graphic memoir Pedro and Me. "With the support of the Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship, these ten young students will continue making a positive difference in their communities. We're very proud of these recipients and the work National AIDS Memorial is doing continuing his legacy."

The scholarships recipients announced today will each receive a $5,000 scholarship and include Caitlyn Anderson, sophomore, University of Nevada Las Vegas; Tsion Afman, freshman, University of Washington; Albert Appouh, junior, Rutgers University; Benjamin Di'Costa, freshman, Truman College; Patrick Sabillon, freshman, Florida State University; Ruben Molina, junior, University of Florida; Abdon Orrostieta, a second year scholarship recipient, senior, University of Central Florida; Hannah Piecuch, freshman, Agnes Scott College; Nestor Rogel, junior, Cal State University Dominguez Hills; and Manuel Venegas, a second-year scholarship recipient, senior, University of Washington.

"I made a promise to myself and to my mom after she died that I would work to empower and support youth living with HIV/AIDS," said Rogel. "This scholarship from the National AIDS Memorial will help me continue my education and serve as a positive role model helping break the stereotypes about HIV/AIDS."

The National AIDS Memorial started the scholarship program in 2009 and has since expanded its reach to high school seniors and college students from across the country through the support of corporate and individual donors, including major support this year from Gilead and Wells Fargo.

"The grants provided by Wells Fargo and Gilead Sciences are supporting the education of these truly amazing students who are making a difference in their communities and on campus," said John Cunningham, executive director of the National AIDS Memorial. "Without the leadership and commitment from Wells Fargo and Gilead Sciences, this program wouldn't have the tremendous impact it is having, not just on these students' lives, but in helping develop the next generation of leaders to help end HIV/AIDS."

The Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship is open to all current high school seniors, and college freshman, sophomores and juniors (ages 27 and younger) who demonstrate an active commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS and taking on roles of public service and leadership. To learn more about the scholarship program and the National AIDS Memorial, visit www.aidsmemorial.org or call (415) 765-0497.

About the National AIDS Memorial: The National AIDS Memorial, known as "the Grove", is a dedicated space in the national landscape which honors lives touched by AIDS, and articulates the epidemic's enormous societal impact and the community's magnificent response. The Grove was created twenty-five years ago at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a place where those impacted by AIDS could both grieve and begin the process of healing. In 1996, the Grove was elevated as a National Memorial through legislation sponsored by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Today, nearly 25,000 individuals from around the world have contributed over 150,000 volunteer hours to support the National AIDS Memorial Grove and its mission to provide, in perpetuity, a place of remembrance so that the lives of people who died from AIDS are not forgotten and the story is known by future generations.

SOURCE National AIDS Memorial Grove

Related Links

http://www.aidsmemorial.org


SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- San Jose Marriott has teamed up with the region's premier cultural experts and creative partners to offer authentic, extraordinary Indian weddings in the heart of San Jose, home to the largest Sikh temple outside of India.

The San Jose hotel's new Indian Wedding Package features valuable touches such as a complimentary honeymoon suite, mango lassi toast at the reception, cake cutting and valet parking for 10 guests based on a food and beverage minimum requirement. The outside catering wedding package includes:

San Jose Marriott now offers authentic Indian weddings and a special package that includes a complimentary honeymoon suite, mango lassi toast at the reception and valet parking for 10 guests. San Jose, home to the largest Sikh temple outside of India, is quickly becoming a hot destination for Indian weddings thanks to easy access via direct international flights. For information, contact Virginia Santa Ines at [email protected] or 1-408-278-4428. Photo credits: Naveed Ahmed.

Set up of a reception room with votive-decorated round tables accommodating 10 people

China , silverware and glassware

, silverware and glassware Head table, riser and dance floor

Gift, cake and guest book tables

Floor-length white linen; specialty linen is available.

Buffet or plated banquet service

Special sleeping room rate for weekend guests

The talented team at the San Jose hotel has curated a list of preferred Indian wedding vendors and works closely with M Asian Fusion Restaurant, whose fans include former President Bill Clinton and top Bollywood actors such as Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan. The restaurant specializes in traditional Indian fare as well as delicious fusion dishes that will appeal to multicultural groups. Home to celebrity chef Michael Mina's award-winning Arcadia restaurant, the hotel promises to delight guests with its exceptional cuisine.

"We want to provide culturally rich, individually curated wedding experiences for the 175,000 Indians living in the San Francisco Bay Area," said John Southwell, general manager of San Jose Marriott. "With numerous international airline carriers now flying directly to San Jose, we've noticed many couples are selecting San Jose as the site for their destination weddings. To learn more about Southeast Asian wedding traditions, our catering department visited temples and met with Indian wedding specialists  ranging from caterers to henna artists  to find out what matters most to the bride and groom when planning the most sacred event in their lives."

The AAA Four-Diamond hotel offers 22 distinctive function venues including the 9,750-square-foot San Jose Ballroom, which can elegantly accommodate weddings for up to 300 people, as well as ample pre-function space bathed in natural light. The hotel's exterior spaces are perfect for a grand Baraat entrance and procession. For memorable Mehndi celebrations, the bridal party can luxuriate in the hotel's 26th floor Concierge Club Lounge with its chic outdoor patio overlooking Silicon Valley.

For information about Indian weddings at San Jose Marriott, contact Virginia Santa Ines at [email protected] or 1-408-278-4428.

ABOUT SAN JOSE MARRIOTT

Fresh from a multi-million-dollar renovation, San Jose Marriott at 301 S. Market St. in San Jose, CA defines contemporary luxury. The 26-story hotel offers 510 spacious guest rooms and suites, 21,000 square feet of function space, high-speed Wi-Fi, a fitness center, rooftop pool and Concierge Lounge with stunning views of the Silicon Valley. Epicureans will appreciate celebrity chef Michael Mina's acclaimed Arcadia steakhouse and Tanq Bar with its sleek underwater ambiance, handcrafted specialty cocktails, regional wines and bar bites. For information, visit www.SanJoseMarriott.com or call 1-408-280-1300.

CONTACT:

Samara Diapoulos

Samara Public Relations

[email protected]

1-415-385-6507

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161110/437874

SOURCE San Jose Marriott

Related Links

http://www.SanJoseMarriott.com


AMSTERDAM, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- As the adoption and growth of intensive care unit (ICU) telemedicine increases, more research is being conducted to analyze operational factors that affect patient outcomes. Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) offers the eICU telemedicine program that combines technology and clinical processes to improve outcomes. Philips points to a new study in CHEST that reveals the level of intervention by eICU providers was associated with shorter ICU lengths of stay (LOS).

The study examined how eICU and bedside clinical teams at a major health system worked to deliver care. Results of the study show ICUs that were more fully integrated with the remote team were associated with shorter lengths of ICU and hospital stays, suggesting that more teamwork and direct intervention allows for quicker patient intervention to manage evolving instability and prevent complications.

"As health systems seek to better manage their populations to improve outcomes while lowering costs, telemedicine offers a way to continuously monitor patients even as we face a shortage of healthcare providers," said Brian Rosenfeld, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Hospital to Home, Philips. "Studies like this one demonstrate what we have known for years, which is that the value of leveraging a centralized telemedicine care model, based on leading Philips technology and program design, standardizes workflows and delivers the improved LOS outcomes when the on-site and remote teams are working together to support patient care."

The retrospective, comparative study entitled, "ICU Telemedicine Co-Management Methods and Length of Stay," analyzed 14,362 adult patients who were discharged from eight adult medical and surgical ICUs from a single health care system in 2012. Each of the eight participating units were classified into one of three ICU telemedicine co-management groups based on how the remote eICU and bedside teams worked together: 1) direct intervention from the eICU staff with timely communication to the bedside team; 2) monitoring from the remote eICU with notification to the bedside team of the need for intervention; and 3) a mix of both of these methods.

The study found more direct remote eICU physician intervention resulted in significantly shorter ICU lengths of stay. Because the direct intervention model encourages eICU intensivists to deliver care to the patient at the time it is needed, this model had the largest ratio of remote eICU physician orders (11 per patient stay). Meanwhile, the monitor and notify approach averaged less than one eICU physician order per patient stay, as care delivery was primarily assumed by the bedside staff. The direct intervention group had an ICU LOS that was 42% less than predicted by Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE), while the monitor and notify group was only 18% less than predicted by APACHE (p < 0.001). For hospital length of stay, the direct intervention group was 32% less than predicted by APACHE, while the monitor and notify group was 17% less than predicted by APACHE (p < 0.001).

The severity of the patient's condition did not explain these results, as the monitor and notify group had significantly lower levels of acuity (APACHE IV score of 59.27) than the direct intervention group (APACHE IV score of 64.02). Despite this, both the raw and acuity adjusted lengths of stay were significantly shorter for the direct intervention group.

"Telemedicine has the power to improve care, but not all telemedicine is created equally," said Dr. Craig Lilly, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Anesthesiology and Surgery at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Director of the eICU Program at UMass Memorial Medical Center. "Technology alone cannot transform how healthcare works  it's about empowering those who deliver care. This study showed that changing workflows to make the off-site eICU telemedicine team a core part of the treatment team was critical to changing outcomes."

The study was co-authored by Helen Hawkins, Ph.D., Senior Product Owner at Philips Hospital to Home, Craig M. Lilly, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Anesthesiology and Surgery at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Director of the eICU Program at UMass Memorial Medical Center, David A. Kaster, IT BI Integration Senior Consultant at Banner Health, Robert H. Groves, Jr., M.D., Vice President of Health Management at Banner Health and Hargobind Khurana, M.D., Senior Medical Director at Banner Health.

The Philips eICU program is part of a suite of enterprise telemedicine solutions delivered by Philips to help improve outcomes, provide better value and expand access to care. These programs help address multiple cohorts within a population ranging from highest cost patients with intensive ambulatory care and acute needs, to discharge transition and chronic patient management, to prevention and healthy living for the general population. These programs use a proactive care model to clinically transform the delivery of care to address growing clinician shortages while helping to improve patient outcomes.

For more information on the full suite of Philips clinical telemedicine programs, visit www.hospitaltohome.philips.com.

For further information, please contact:

Kathy O'Reilly

Philips Group Communications

(o) 978-659-2638 (m) 978-221-8919

[email protected]

Twitter: @kathyoreilly

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips' health technology portfolio generated 2015 sales of EUR 16.8 billion and employs approximately 70,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter.

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SOURCE Royal Philips

Related Links

http://www.usa.philips.com


CHICAGO, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Insurance agents and brokers now have access to a new umbrella product for their community association clients. Ian H. Graham Insurance (IHG), a division of Aon Affinity, the affinity business of Aon plc (NYSE: AON), has expanded its exclusive suite of products with CNA, to include umbrella insurance for community associations, in addition to directors' and officers' (D&O) liability and crime insurance.

"IHG is proud to introduce our new umbrella product, which complements our industry leading D&O," said Sylvia Tagle, executive vice president, Ian H. Graham. "The addition of this new coverage responds to our broker and client needs by offering a one-stop insurance solution for these specialty products."

IHG will have internal underwriting capability, which permits the program to offer the same service standards and ease of doing business experienced by brokers and clients with other IHG products. Key features of the umbrella product (subject to all terms, conditions and provisions of the Policy) include:

Coverage provided by A-rated carrier, CNA

$1M , $2M , $5M , $10M and higher limits available

, , , and higher limits available Follow form excess over CNA's D&O Liability

Duty to defend policy

And more

Service standards include 24-hour turnaround for new business quotes, automatic renewals (for qualifying accounts) and easy access to product experts who can answer any questions clients may have.

"CNA is pleased to collaborate with IHG and expand our product offering in the community association market," said Michael Kirchgessner, Vice President, Umbrella & Excess, CNA. "This new umbrella product provides a customized and seamless approach to umbrella coverage for our customers needing more than just a primary policy."

Since 1982, IHG has been providing comprehensive insurance solutions to the community association niche through more than 5,000 brokers and agents. It has been a sponsored program of the Community Association Institute (CAI) for over 30 years.

For more information on the new umbrella program, please contact 800.621.2324 or visit www.ihginsurance.com.

About Aon Affinity

Aon Affinity is a trade name for Affinity Insurance Services, Inc. Aon Affinity combines the specialized knowledge of affinity program management with the extensive resources of a global company to help clients achieve their goals. With an innovative approach to program strategy, from the design of products and services to the delivery of the marketing message, Affinity offers full-service capabilities; technical expertise and industry knowledge to deliver value to clients. Visit http://www.aon.com/affinity for more information.

About Aon

Aon plc (NYSE:AON) is a leading global provider of risk management, insurance brokerage and reinsurance brokerage, and human resources solutions and outsourcing services. Through its more than 72,000 colleagues worldwide, Aon unites to empower results for clients in over 120 countries via innovative risk and people solutions. For further information on our capabilities and to learn how we empower results for clients, please visit: http://aon.mediaroom.com.

About CNA

Serving businesses and professionals since 1897, CNA is the country's eighth largest commercial insurance writer and the 14th largest property and casualty company. CNA's insurance products include standard commercial lines, specialty lines, surety, marine and other property and casualty coverages. CNA's services include risk management, information services, underwriting, risk control and claims administration. For more information, please visit CNA at www.cna.com. "CNA" is a service mark registered by CNA Financial Corporation with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Certain CNA Financial Corporation subsidiaries use the "CNA" service mark in connection with insurance underwriting and claims activities.

About IHG

Ian H. Graham Insurance is the brand name for the brokerage and program administration operations of Affinity Insurance Services, Inc.; (TX 13695); (AR 100106022); in CA & MN, AIS Affinity Insurance Agency, Inc. (CA 0795465); in OK, AIS Affinity Insurance Services, Inc.; in CA, Aon Affinity Insurance Services, Inc. (CA 0G94493); Aon Direct Insurance Administrators and Berkely Insurance Agency and in NY, AIS Affinity Insurance Agency. IHG serves more than 5,000 insurance brokers representing over 42,000 community association clients. Brokers and agents have been relying on our quality products, simple processes and experienced service since 1982. For more information, please visit www.ihginsurance.com.

Media Contacts:

Aon Affinity: Caroline Rawson, 217-773-4164

CNA: Brandon Davis, 312-822-5167

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SOURCE CNA; Aon Affinity

Related Links

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RICHMOND, Va., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- VirginiaNavigator, a statewide non-profit that provides free web-based resources for older adults, people with disabilities and their families, announced today the launch of the newest addition to its family of websites: VeteransNavigator.org. The comprehensive website  designed to serve and help Virginia veterans  was made possible thanks in part to a $100,000 grant from Dominion Resources, parent company of Dominion Virginia Power.

"Virginia is home to over 800,000 veterans and the need for veteran's services  and easy connection to those services  is critical," said Gov. Terry McAuliffe. "A top priority of mine, and that of my administration, is to make Virginia the most veteran- and military-friendly state in the nation. As we commemorate Veterans Day later this week, I'm pleased that our veterans and their families now have access to VeteransNavigator to help them secure services they may need."

The website offers a one-stop online resource for Virginia veterans, their families and caregivers, with easy access to targeted support services, educational features and vital public, private and non-profit programs and resources available on the local, state and national level.

"At Dominion, one in five new hires is a veteran," said Thomas F. Farrell II, chairman, president and CEO of Dominion Resources. "We are immensely proud of our veterans and recognize the personal sacrifices they have made to serve our country. It is a privilege and honor to support VeteransNavigator so that veterans and their families have every opportunity to live connected and productive lives."

As the 'Founding Partner' of VeteransNavigator, Dominion Resources provided funding to develop and launch the website through its philanthropic arm, the Dominion Foundation.

Content and features focus on meeting key needs of both pre- and post-9/11 veterans, including job training and employment, veterans and military family benefits, housing and homelessness, behavioral health, long-term care, peer support, family caregiver support, social and recreational opportunities.

In addition, VeteransNavigator offers:

A community calendar where visitors can find events  everything from support groups, to employment fairs, to sports and social clubs;

"Ask an Expert" that provides free, confidential, expert assistance  powered by professionals who volunteer their time and expertise to provide comfort and guidance;

A live chat feature for extra help finding answers; and more.

Because it is online, VeteransNavigator will serve as a comprehensive informational hub 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For those who do not use a computer, the organization is in the process of establishing additional 'Navigator Center' network partnerships at military installments and related organizations across the state, where trained staff can assist veterans in utilizing the website.

"Veterans, as well as their families, proudly serve our country and when the time comes to leave active duty, they often need support during their transition and beyond," said Virginia House of Delegates Majority Leader and long-time veterans advocate, Kirk Cox. "My staff and I plan to share VeteransNavigator with our military and veteran constituents who are looking to locate and connect to the wide array of programs and services available to them."

"Throughout the development of VeteransNavigator, we collaborated with numerous public and private partners and individuals to ensure the site would give veterans and their families access to reliable and valuable resources to help them navigate their post-military journey," said Adrienne M. Johnson, executive director of the VirginiaNavigator Family of Websites.

"As our nation celebrates Family Caregiver Month and prepares to pay special tribute to our heroes and their families on Veterans Day, we launch VeteransNavigator to help those brave men and women who have sacrificed so much for so many," said Johnson.

To locate veteran-related programs/services or educational information, visit www.VeteransNavigator.org

About VirginiaNavigator

VirginiaNavigator is a statewide public/private partnership nonprofit that helps Virginia's seniors, caregivers, people with disabilities, veterans, and their families find vital information and community programs so they can live with independence, dignity and hope. Through its Family of Websites (disAbilityNavigator.org; SeniorNavigator.org; VeteransNavigator.org), visitors are provided with helpful, free health and aging information via an accessible high-tech/high-touch approach.

About Dominion

Dominion (NYSE: D), headquartered in Richmond, is one of the nation's largest producers and transporters of energy. The Dominion Foundation is dedicated to improving the physical, social and economic well-being of the communities served by Dominion companies, including Dominion Virginia Power. Dominion and the Dominion Foundation support nonprofit causes that meet basic human needs, protect the environment, promote education and encourage community vitality. For more information, visit www.dom.com.

SOURCE Dominion

Related Links

http://www.dom.com


A private floor of guest rooms (16 rooms per floor)

Complimentary valet at the hotel for up to 16 vehicles

Caviar plate and sparkling wine delivered to each room

Tickets for a River Walk barge tour

barge tour Private party venue at the hotel with a dance floor

Buffet dinner

Four-hour open bar

Festive party favors

Customized photo backdrop and photographer

Breakfast buffet

Guaranteed checkout time of 2 p.m. on Jan. 1, 2017

"What makes it even more unique is that we consider these celebration options as a starting point," said Dinesh Rao, general manager of Courtyard San Antonio Riverwalk. "Although we feel we've covered all of the bases, we're willing to work with anyone to tailor this package into their vision of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. If you can imagine it, we're open to seeing if we can deliver it."

With multiple event venues on the San Antonio River Walk, the hotel is an ideal location to live it up on one of the most celebrated days of the year. Meeting rooms, aka party venues, boast modern AV equipment and Wi-Fi for showing music videos or streaming dance music. There's plenty of space to mix and mingle while partiers sip on their favorite cocktail or savor a domestic or craft beer from an open bar.

The hotel definitely delivers on comfort when it comes to rooms. Thick king and queen mattresses are topped with crisp linens, custom comforters and plenty of fluffy pillows for a sound night's slumber whether it's right after midnight or well into the morning. Coffee makers with a fresh brew provide the perfect answer to that potential party hangover, while mini-refrigerators can be utilized to keep plenty of water chilled. The hotel's complimentary high-speed Wi-Fi will allow guests to post pictures from their NYE event without tapping into their data plans. Rooms also offer breathtaking views of the city and River Walk so visitors start the new year appreciating their surroundings.

For information on the New Year's Eve Uncorked Package or to make a reservation, contact Traycie Williams, event operations manager, at 1-210-223-8888 or [email protected].

About Courtyard San Antonio Riverwalk

Courtyard San Antonio Riverwalk at 207 N. Saint Marys St. in San Antonio, TX sits directly on the famous San Antonio River and is just minutes from the Alamo, Majestic Theatre, Alamodome and Hemisfair Park. The hotel features 17 floors with 220 rooms, 8 meeting rooms with 9,005 square feet of total event space, a bistro, fitness center, outdoor saltwater pool and whirlpool. High-speed internet access is complimentary. For information, visit www.marriott.com/SATCR or call 1-210-223-8888.

Sign up now for Marriott Rewards and get on the fast track to earn points for free hotel stays, room upgrades, flights, credit card purchases and deals with Marriott partners.

Learn more about Courtyard and Marriott International Inc.

PRESS CONTACT

Dinesh Rao

1-210-223-8888

[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437542

SOURCE Courtyard San Antonio Riverwalk

Related Links

http://www.marriott.com/SATCR


WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, Oleg Novitskiy of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) will launch Thursday, Nov. 17, for a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

Prelaunch activities will air through Nov. 16, and live launch coverage will begin at 2:30 p.m. EST Nov. 17, on NASA Television and the agency's website. The crew of Expedition 50/51 will launch at 3:20 p.m. (2:20 a.m. Nov. 18, Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

After launching, the crew members will travel for two days before docking to the space station's Rassvet module at 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19. NASA TV coverage of the docking will begin at 4:15 p.m. Hatches between the Soyuz and station will open at approximately 7:35 p.m., and the arriving crew will be welcomed by Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko, who have been aboard the complex since October. NASA TV coverage of hatch opening and welcoming ceremonies will begin at 6:45 p.m.

During their stay aboard the orbital complex, Whitson will become the first woman to command the space station twice. Her first tenure as commander was in 2007, when she became the first woman to hold this post. Whitson has an advanced degree in biochemistry, and prior to her selection as an astronaut candidate in 1996, she served in prominent medical science research and supervisory positions at NASA.

The soon-to-be six crew members of Expedition 50 will contribute to hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science aboard humanity's only microgravity laboratory. The crew is scheduled to return to Earth next spring.

Check out the full NASA TV schedule and video streaming information at:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Keep up with the International Space Station, and its research and crews, at:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

Get breaking news, images and features from the station on Instagram and Twitter at:

http://instagram.com/iss

and

http://www.twitter.com/Space_Station

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SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Consumer Watchdog today called on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to enact Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards covering autonomous vehicles, saying that a lack of enforceable performance standards covering the vehicles "threatens the safety of the nation's highways."

In conjunction with Consumer Watchdog's planned NHTSA testimony, the group released a video showing that Tesla promoted its "Autopilot" feature with inflated claims and Elon Musk's wife driving with her hands off the wheel. However, after the deaths of two drivers, one in Florida and one in China, Musk blamed them for not keeping their hands on the wheel.

View Consumer Watchdog's Tesla video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDv9TEXtHzw

NHTSA has recently released its Federal Automated Vehicle Policy, but compliance by manufactures is completely voluntary. The agency held a hearing on the policy today, where Consumer Watchdog's Privacy Project Director, John M. Simpson, planned to outline the public interest group's concerns. He said the policy "merely sets forth a laundry list of policy concerns and aspirations."

"Essentially NHTSA is asking manufacturers to please drop the agency a letter outlining how they have dealt with 15 issues as part of a so-called 'safety assessment'" said Simpson. "Apparently all it takes to deploy a fully automated robot car is a 47 cent postage stamp. Even worse, responding to NHTSA's request is completely voluntary."

Read Simpson's NHTSA testimony here: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/nhtsatestimony111016.pdf

Simpson told NHTSA in his testimony that the 15 issues outlined in the safety assessment are important, which is precisely why NHTSA must enact mandatory Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards in most - if not all - of the 15 areas proposed in the safety assessment. He cited item 11 "ethical issues" as an example.

He said:

"What we are talking about here is - simply put - who a robot driver 'decides' to kill, when confronted with that choice. Does the robot value the safety and lives of the car's occupants over the lives of pedestrians? At a minimum there must be an FMVSS requiring full disclosure of the robot's algorithms that would make such a profound decision.

"The public has a right to know when a robot car is barreling down the street whether it's prioritizing the life of the passenger, the driver or the pedestrian, and what factors it takes into consideration. If these questions are not answered in full light of day, NHTSA need look no further than the Pinto to see that corporations will program these cars to limit their own liability, not to conform with social mores, ethical customs or the rule of law."

Consumer Watchdog has closely monitored the testing of self-driving cars in California and successfully pressed the Department of Motor Vehicles to make public reports of crashes involving the robot cars and annual "disengagement reports" detailing times when the autonomous technology being tested failed. Those reports have shown the self-driving technology was not able to deal adequately with such everyday things as low hanging branches, cyclists, construction zones or reckless behavior by others. For example, in 450,000 miles, Google's test cars disengaged from the technology in favor of a human driver 350 times.

Consumer Watchdog said NHTSA must require disengagement reports similar to California's, including detailed video, lidar and radar records of crashes, be part of automakers submissions to illuminate how they are addressing Human Machine Interface and Crashworthiness concerns. Beyond the disengagement reports, NHTSA should collect and make public technical data and video associated with any incident. "See No Evil, Hear No Evil," should not be NHTSA's motto, Consumer Watchdog said.

In his testimony Simpson made these additional points:

-- Over the years FMVSS covering the performance of such important innovations as seat belts, air bags, electronic stability control and rear view video cameras have greatly improved the safety of autos and their passengers.

-- FMVSS covering HAVs are necessary and must be based on performance. Performance standards have the added benefit of spurring innovation as manufactures strive to develop the most efficient way to meet the standard.

-- Even without FMVSS covering HAVs in effect yet, NHTSA has important enforcement authority through recalls when a defect poses a safety hazard.

Consumer Watchdog believes it was a positive development that NHTSA issued a separate enforcement bulletin with the Autonomous Vehicle Policy reiterating its recall authority. NHTSA should recall Tesla's Autopilot.

"Innovation will thrive hand-in-hand with thoughtful, deliberate regulation," Simpson concluded. "The FMVSS process, when properly implemented and continuously enforced, has served Americans well for the last fifty years. To summarize, the development of the necessary FMVSS covering HAVs must be the agency's immediate priority."

Visit our website at www.consumerwatchdog.org

SOURCE Consumer Watchdog

Related Links

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org


BROOKLYN, N.Y., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- WeDidIt  a pioneering startup that delivers donor insights to help maximize fundraising efforts that is based at NYU Tandon School of Engineering's Digital Future Lab  was selected to join 43North's outstanding Class of 2016 and awarded a $500,000 prize.

The Digital Future Lab is home to prominent New York City media technology and digital early stage companies and has helped spur startup activity in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn and throughout the city. NYU Tandon's Future Labs ecosystem also houses entrepreneurial support for military veterans in DUMBO; the Urban Future Lab in Downtown Brooklyn, which supports clean technology; and the Data Future Lab in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood.

"The genesis of the NYU Tandon Future Labs was to foster technology innovation and economic growth throughout New York City, providing entrepreneurs with an opportunity to beta test their young companies in one of the world's most vibrant urban centers so that they might succeed in any market," said Kurt Becker, vice dean for research, innovation and entrepreneurship. "WeDidIt's selection shows we're successfully encouraging entrepreneurs to start businesses, grow, and expand in New York City and beyond. We congratulate WeDidIt for winning this highly competitive distinction."

WeDidIt helps nonprofits raise more money and reach new donors online. The software service takes the hassle out of online fundraising and makes donor research simple and powerful. WeDidIt's platform aggregates donor data so that nonprofits can automate their prospect research and launch highly targeted fundraising campaigns.

Since launching in 2009, the combined Future Labs have helped companies create more than 1,250 jobs, raise more than $245 million in capital and generate a local economic impact of $352 million. The Tandon incubators have "graduated" 68 companies, including eleven that were acquired for a total exceeding $220M by established public and private companies. The Future Labs support early-stage companies with curated and individualized resources that include introductions to potential customers and top-tier investors, pro-bono service providers, talent, and mentorship from faculty and industry experts. Named one of the Top 10 Idea Labs in the United States by Worth magazine, it is one of the many ways the NYU Tandon School of Engineering uses technology in service to society.

43North was founded in 2014 and is made possible by Governor Andrew Cuomo's Buffalo Billion initiative with support from the New York Power Authority. 43North was designed to fuel the renaissance of Buffalo, New York. Winners of the 43North competition were judged based on factors including team knowledge of market, revenue and financing plans, and an assessment of the companies' opportunities.

"We're honored to be one of the eight companies selected for 43North's outstanding class this year," said Su Sanni, WeDidIt CEO. "Leading nonprofits depend on our platform because we make fundraising easy and effective. Being a member of the Future Labs' two-year Seed-to-Series A program provided the benefits of a rigorous accelerator along with access to NYU and its highly qualified students, faculty engineers in residence with domain expertise, world-class campus facilities and cutting-edge technologies. We look forward to continuing our growth in Buffalo and offering organizations better fundraising capabilities."

Although it takes no equity in startup firms, the Future Labs' incubation program provides startups with many, if not more, of the support services frequently employed by accelerator programs. These include monitoring milestones and one-on-one mentoring. As a result, the Future Labs boast a survival rate of nearly 90 percent for the companies that graduate from its incubators. This stands in sharp contrast to the typical failure rate of 80 to 90 percent for startup companies in general.

43North winners are required to relocate to Buffalo for a minimum of 12 months. In addition to cash prizes, 43North winners receive free incubator space, mentorship from experts related to their fields, and access to other incentive programs.

About WeDidIt

WeDidIt is helping nonprofits raise more money and reach new donors. With our donor intelligence and fundraising platforms, we've helped nonprofits like the Georgia Aquarium, the L.A. Mission, the Los Angeles Zoo, and hundreds of other organizations fund their missions. For more information, visit https://wedid.it.

About the NYU Tandon School of Engineering

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, when the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture as well as the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly) were founded. Their successor institutions merged in January 2014 to create a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within the country's largest private research university and is closely connected to engineering programs in NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates business incubators in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. For more information, visit http://engineering.nyu.edu.

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SOURCE NYU Tandon School of Engineering

Related Links

http://engineering.nyu.edu


According to the text of the measure, 69.5% of the revenue generated through the additional tax was to be allocated to common education (with the remaining 19.25% to higher education, 8% to early childhood education, and 3.25% to career tech). However, 86.33% of the common education spending would have been used to increase teacher salaries by a minimum $5,000 per teacher. According to official arguments in favor of the measure, Oklahoma teachers have not had a pay raise in nearly a decade, and the state ranks 48th in teacher pay.

In an editorial opposing the measure, Sen. Kyle Loveless included concerns about how local government might be constrained (with the change, local and state combined sales tax rates would near or exceed 10% in certain jurisdictions): "By raising the sales tax, we would make it virtually impossible for local governments  especially cities and towns  to increase local taxes for local projects."1

As of November 1, 2016, registered ballot committee "Oklahoma's Children, Our Future, Inc.," supporting the measure, raised $4,277,639.39 and spent $2,472,020.17. "Oklahoma Deserves Better," the ballot committee, opposed the measure.

1 Counterpoint: Sen. Kyle Loveless opposes SQ 779, located at https://nondoc.com/2016/09/20/counterpoint-sen-kyle-loveless-opposes-sq-779/

About Ryan

Ryan is an award-winning global tax services firm, with the largest indirect and property tax practices in North America and the seventh largest corporate tax practice in the United States. With global headquarters in Dallas, Texas, the Firm provides a comprehensive range of state, local, federal, and international tax advisory and consulting services on a multi-jurisdictional basis, including audit defense, tax recovery, credits and incentives, tax process improvement and automation, tax appeals, tax compliance, and strategic planning. Ryan is a five-time recipient of the International Service Excellence Award from the Customer Service Institute of America (CSIA) for its commitment to world-class client service. Empowered by the dynamic myRyan work environment, which is widely recognized as the most innovative in the tax services industry, Ryan's multi-disciplinary team of more than 2,100 professionals and associates serves over 12,000 clients in more than 40 countries, including many of the world's most prominent Global 5000 companies. More information about Ryan can be found at ryan.com.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160125/325377LOGO

TECHNICAL INFORMATION CONTACT:

Jeremiah T. Lynch

Principal

Ryan

212.847.0113

[email protected]

Available Topic Expert: For information on the listed expert, click appropriate link.

Jerry Lynch

http://www.profnetconnect.com/jeremiahlynch

SOURCE Ryan

Related Links

http://www.ryan.com


"Our On The Border family is honored to serve those who have served our country and given us the freedom that we have today," said Ashley Zickefoose, Chief Marketing Officer of On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina  .

Veterans and active military may visit any participating On the Border on Nov. 11 to enjoy a free Combo 2 or 3 plate. You can choose between On the Border classics, such as empanadas or flautas, enchiladas, soup or salad, or tacos. There are more than 150 possible meal combinations available through the Create Your Own Combo offering. Each combo also includes Mexican rice and your choice of beans. Of course, the complimentary endless tortilla chips and house-made salsa will also be served all day.

For more information about On the Border, including menu items and locations, visit www.ontheborder.com.

About On The Border

On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina is the world's largest Mexican casual dining brand, offering an extensive menu of great-tasting, classic and contemporary Mexican food, like sizzling mesquite-grilled fajitas, and Margaritas as big and bold as the border itself. On The Border is owned by Border Holdings, LLC, with 154 restaurants in 32 states, Puerto Rico and Asia. Follow and 'like' On The Border on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnTheBorderMexicanGrillandCantina , and @OnTheBorder on Twitter. For more information, visit www.ontheborder.com .

Contact: Nicole Brandfon

888.869.7899

[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161110/438020

SOURCE On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina
-- Andres A. Gutierrez MD, PhD to Lead Development of Late Stage Clinical Program & Registration Strategy --

CALGARY, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Oncolytics Biotech Inc. ("Oncolytics" or the "Company") (TSX: ONC) (OTCQX: ONCYF) (FRA: ONY) today announced the appointment of Andres A. Gutierrez, MD, PhD to the role of Chief Medical Officer.

"Dr. Gutierrez's significant immuno-oncology experience will be transformative to Oncolytics. His expertise spans a range of indications and drug types that are immediately applicable to his new role and the clinical programs at Oncolytics," said Dr. Matt Coffey, Interim President and CEO of Oncolytics Biotech. "In addition to specific experience with carfilzomib and immuno-checkpoint-inhibitors in the treatment of multiple myeloma and diverse malignancies, respectively, he has extensive experience in the design and implementation of clinical programs, including registration studies, interacting with regulatory bodies globally, and establishing strong relationships with key opinion leaders."

"The addition of Dr. Gutierrez as CMO marks an important step towards establishing a well-articulated clinical plan with a clear registration strategy under Dr. Coffey's leadership," said Wayne Pisano, Chair of the Board of Oncolytics.

"The field of immunotherapy is now at a crossroads, trying to identify the next-generation weapons poised to further enhance the immune system to fight cancer," said Dr. Andres A. Gutierrez, Chief Medical Officer of Oncolytics. "Extending the depth and quality of responses requires better exploiting the interplay and hierarchy of the innate and adaptive immune responses to design more powerful immune therapies. Oncolytics and its collaborators have shown that REOLYSIN has both a tumor-priming effect, which can improve the efficacy of other therapeutic agents, including check point inhibitors, and that it can work within a dose range that has a favorable safety profile even when combined with such other therapeutic agents. This suggests that REOLYSIN has real potential in combination with other immune-modulators and/or targeted therapies to improve not only the current clinical outcomes but the quality of life for a wide array of cancer patients. It is an exciting time to join Oncolytics and I am very eager to share my experience in drug development in its mission to help patients."

Dr. Gutierrez is board certified in internal medicine and completed a fellowship in medical oncology. Most recently he has held progressively senior clinical development positions designing and implementing both early and later-stage oncology clinical studies at a range of U.S. and European companies including Sellas Life Sciences Group, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Sunesis Pharmaceuticals Inc, Biomarin Pharmaceutical Inc, Proteolix, and Oculus Innovative Sciences. Prior to that, he held a series of academic and consulting positions. Over his 32 year career, he has authored and co-authored more than 90 peer-reviewed publications and abstracts and presented at numerous conferences. He received his MD and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Alan Tuchman, MD, MBA, will remain with Oncolytics in his new role of Chief Neuro Oncology Research Officer.

About Oncolytics Biotech Inc.

Oncolytics is a Calgary-based biotechnology company focused on the development of oncolytic viruses as potential cancer therapeutics. Oncolytics' clinical program includes a variety of later-stage, randomized human trials in various indications using REOLYSIN, its proprietary formulation of the human reovirus. For further information about Oncolytics, please visit: www.oncolyticsbiotech.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that Oncolytics expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including the impact on Oncolytics and its clinical program of the change in Chief Medical Officer, and other such matters are forward-looking statements and forward-looking information and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to the statistical sufficiency of patient enrollment numbers in separate patient groups, the availability of funds and resources to pursue research and development projects, the efficacy of REOLYSIN as a cancer treatment, the tolerability of REOLYSIN outside a controlled test, the success and timely completion of clinical studies and trials, the Company's ability to successfully commercialize REOLYSIN, uncertainties related to the research and development of pharmaceuticals and uncertainties related to the regulatory process. Investors should consult the Company's quarterly and annual filings with the Canadian and U.S. securities commissions for additional information on risks and uncertainties relating to the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Investors are cautioned against placing undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update these forward-looking statements and forward-looking information, except as required by applicable laws.

SOURCE Oncolytics Biotech Inc.

Related Links

http://www.oncolyticsbiotech.com


BRASILIA, Brazil, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In this release, PAR Corretora de Seguros registered gross revenues of R$ 115.8 million, an increase of 13.5%, compared to the same period in 2015 - despite fewer business days in the quarter, due to an extended bank strike in September/16. Net income reached R$38.5 million in 2016 third quarter, a growth of 14.4%, compared to the same period in the previous year.

The result for PAR, Caixa Seguradora's exclusive broker inside CAIXA's distribution network, was released today (10th) after the market had closed and tomorrow (11th) there will be the conference call (English and Portuguese) for analysts and investors.

All information about the release is available at the Company's web page.

CONTACT

Marcus Martino

Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer

Guilherme Aguiar

IR Superintendent



Phone: +55 (61) 3426-9524

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: http://ir.parcorretora.com.br/

About PAR Corretora

We are the exclusive insurance brokerage firm for Caixa Seguradora through CAIXA's distribution channels, and we operate as a strategic partner of both institutions.

We currently have approximately 1,600 employees and our major shareholders are CAIXA's Employees Work Federation (FENAE), Caixa Seguradora and GP Investments. On June 5, 2015, we have proudly executed our IPO (Initial Public Offering) and today we disclose our results for the third quarter of 2016.

SOURCE PAR Corretora

Related Links

http://ir.parcorretora.com.br


DALLAS, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine recently ruled that certain telecommunications fees passed through to customers were subject to the Service Provider Tax and did not qualify for an exemption (BCN Telecom, Inc. v. State Tax Assessor, Maine Supreme Judicial Court, No. Ken-15-541, November 8, 2016). A telecommunications carrier operated in Maine providing both local telephone service as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) and long-distance service as an interexchange carrier (IXC).



The carrier paid certain charges known as PICCs, which are fees that allow a local exchange carrier to recover a portion of the interstate local loop cost from an IXC. The carrier also passed these charges through to its customers; however, the charges listed on its customers' bills were significantly higher than the costs it incurred. PICC charges were imposed on business customers with multiple long-distance lines that did not negotiate with BCN to avoid paying the charges to recover its cost and to realize a profit.



Maine imposes a 5% tax on the value of telecommunications services sold in Maine, which is measured by the sale price [36 M.R.S.  2552(1)(E), (36 M.R.S. 2552(2)]. "The sale price means the total amount of consideration, including cash, credit, property, and services, for whichservices are soldwithout any deduction for the cost of materials used, labor or service cost, interest, losses and any other expense of the seller" [36 M.R.S. 2552(15)]. The court ruled that the PICC charges collected by the carrier were included in the "total amount of consideration" and were therefore subject to the service provider tax. Despite the carrier's argument that PICC fees were not consideration for actual telecommunications charges, the court ruled that there was no evidence that distinguished it from a charge for telecommunications services.



The court also addressed the exemption for sales of interstate telecommunications service pursuant to 36 M.R.S.  2557(34). The court ruled that the PICC fees did not qualify for this exemption because the carrier did not meet its burden of proof by providing evidence that the fees were only related to interstate telecommunications services.



About Ryan

Ryan is an award-winning global tax services firm, with the largest indirect and property tax practices in North America and the seventh largest corporate tax practice in the United States. With global headquarters in Dallas, Texas, the Firm provides a comprehensive range of state, local, federal, and international tax advisory and consulting services on a multi-jurisdictional basis, including audit defense, tax recovery, credits and incentives, tax process improvement and automation, tax appeals, tax compliance, and strategic planning. Ryan is a five-time recipient of the International Service Excellence Award from the Customer Service Institute of America (CSIA) for its commitment to world-class client service. Empowered by the dynamic myRyan work environment, which is widely recognized as the most innovative in the tax services industry, Ryan's multi-disciplinary team of more than 2,100 professionals and associates serves over 12,000 clients in more than 40 countries, including many of the world's most prominent Global 5000 companies. More information about Ryan can be found at ryan.com.
SEATTLE, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Point It, a Seattle-based digital marketing agency, is celebrating alongside local insurance icon, PEMCO Insurance, on the heels of winning a Puget Sound American Marketing Association (PSAMA) Pulse Award for Best Integrated Marketing Campaign  General Market B2C. The agency and its client partner were recognized for their collaboration that optimized and grew PEMCO's evergreen marketing efforts across digital marketing channels.

The PSAMA Pulse Awards highlight the region's best marketing strategies, creativity, and results. This award recognizes those marketers who best understood the pulse of their audience, and truly embraced the marketplace and its needs.

"We like what Point It stands for," said Rod Brooks, VP & CMO at PEMCO Insurance. "When you have two local companies who believe deeply in cultivating a reputation for excellence and are committed to building relationships that will help clients grow, it's a great fit. We know that Point It will look out for our interests, and help us to effectively challenge the status quo; it's a true partnership."

These top honors come on the heels of Point It winning Best Large Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Agency and Best Use of Search in the "Retail" category by the US Search Awards as well as a Landy Award for Best B2C Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Initiative in the "Enterprise" category. This is the second year that Point It has been recognized by PSAMA with a Pulse Award.

The PSAMA Pulse Award was given for outstanding results thanks to the work of Point It experts and PEMCO's top notch leadership. The two companies worked closely together to create a marketing strategy that transcended platforms and took a broader view of the market at large. The collaboration resulted in a 248% increase in leads generated year over year.

Sarah Dahlin, Vice President of Client Services at Point It, said "Our goal was to get great results by partnering with PEMCO's Marketing Team to craft a holistic vision that helped achieve PEMCO's ambitious lead generation goals. In the end, we were able to get outstanding results that were recognized by both the client and the industry. The key to this kind of success is transparency, collaborative partnership, and deep expertise in an ever-changing digital marketing landscape."

In addition to its award-winning PPC services, Point It offers clients a wide range of digital marketing solutions. Clients include Amazon, AT&T, DocuSign, Microsoft, and PEMCO.

For further information, contact:

Maureen Jann

Director of Marketing

206.452.1180

[email protected]

ABOUT POINT IT

Point It is a thriving, privately-held digital marketing agency based in Seattle, WA, established in 2002. For each of the past three years, Point It has been recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal as one of Washington's Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies and as one of the Inc. 5000's Fastest Growing Private Companies in America. With an emphasis on digital marketing, we offer quality services in paid search marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), display advertising, and paid social advertising.

ABOUT PEMCO INSURANCE

PEMCO Insurance, established in 1949, is a Seattle-based provider of auto, home, boat, and umbrella insurance to Northwest residents. PEMCO Insurance is sold to consumers by the method they choose  phone, local community agents, or online.

ABOUT THE PSAMA PULSE AWARDS

The Pulse Awards, held each November by the Puget Sound Chapter of the American Marketing Association, honors results-based marketing programs produced by and/or for Northwest companies. In its 6th year, the Pulse Awards recognizes marketing campaigns, companies, and agencies that have turned big ideas into even bigger results.

SOURCE Point It Digital Marketing
HARRISBURG, Pa., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Karen Murphy today announced the department will provide free tetanus/diphtheria/pertussis, or Tdap, vaccines to residents in the Chambersburg/Shippensburg areas of Cumberland and Franklin counties because of a localized rise in cases of pertussis (whooping cough). To date, 29 cases of pertussis have been confirmed in the area.

The Tdap clinic will be held from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, Friday, November 11, at Chambersburg Area Senior High School, 511 S. 6th St., Chambersburg.

"If you haven't received the Tdap vaccine, are over 10 years old, or pregnant, we recommend that you get vaccinated against whooping cough," Secretary Murphy said. "If you are unsure if you have ever received the Tdap vaccine, please check with your medical provider. If you received a previous Tdap vaccine, you do not need another one. Pertussis, which is a preventable disease, is especially dangerous for infants who are not old enough to get vaccinated. The best way to protect them is to get your vaccination."

The pertussis vaccine is recommended for children to enter school. Because immunity from the vaccine fades over time, most adolescents and adults are susceptible to the disease. In addition to the typical childhood series of pertussis immunizations at 2, 4, 6, 15-18 months and a booster at 4-6 years, the department recommends the adolescent-adult pertussis vaccine, tetanus/diphtheria/pertussis, or Tdap, booster for:

Individuals 10-64 years of age who are not fully immunized;

Pregnant women during each pregnancy, preferably between 27 and 36 weeks gestation. Women who have never received Tdap and who do not receive it during pregnancy should receive it immediately postpartum;

People who have contact with pregnant women or infants too young to have received a full series of vaccinations; and

All family members and caregivers of infants.

Pertussis is an infection of the respiratory system and is characterized by severe coughing spells that end in a "whooping" sound when the person breathes in. The first symptoms of whooping cough are similar to those of a common cold including runny nose, sneezing, mild cough, and low-grade fever. After about one to two weeks, the dry, irritating cough evolves into coughing spells that can last for more than one minute and can lead to vomiting.

For more information, visit www.vaccinesforlife.com or call 1-877-PA-HEALTH.

MEDIA CONTACT: April Hutcheson, 717-787-1783

SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Health

Related Links

http://www.state.pa.us


DALLAS, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Perennials Fabrics, a leader in the international design industry and the preeminent provider of luxury performance textiles and accessories, has announced the debut of The Art of Glankoff collection, a new line of Tibetan knot rugs. Translated from the original works of abstract artist, Sam Glankoff, the rugs stand as works of art in their own right. The Art of Glankoff collection reflects the beauty of the artist's innovative designs with all of the benefits of using Perennials' high-quality solution-dyed acrylic yarns.

Inspired by Glankoff's bold brushstrokes, primordial symbols and richly complex surfaces, Perennials has brought the artist's innovations to the forefront with this new line of luxury performance rugs. Perennials carefully translated the artist's contemporary techniques from paper to the loom, capturing subtle blends from Glankoff's color charts, and intricate surface details, such as seam lines from the original paper panels.

In partnership with the Glankoff estate (SGW), Perennials has interpreted four of Glankoff's works into 12 Tibetan knot rug patterns. Rather than craft a rug that simply mimics a Glankoff, Perennials and the SGW carefully isolated three sections within a single artwork and translated them into three unique rugs. From graphic to textural, each rug has its own personality and aesthetic.

"Sam Glankoff's unique, unprecedented approach to abstract expressionism certainly earned him a distinct place in the history of modern art," says Ann Sutherland, president of Perennials and Sutherland, LLC. "We wanted to bring his iconic pieces to our rugs in such a way that it emulated artwork that would hang on a gallery wall, with the craftsmanship, performance and tradition of luxury that Perennials fabrics and rugs are known for. These truly are pieces of art made for modern life."

Each rug in the initial offering comes in a size, shape and colorway approved by the Glankoff Estate. The Art of Glankoff collection is made from Perennials' 100% solution-dyed acrylic yarns and resist stains, UV light and mildew, making them suitable for both indoor and outdoor use. They are luxurious, soft-to-the-touch and are very easy to maintain and clean.

Wendy Snyder, the director and archivist of the Sam Glankoff Estate and creative force behind The Sam Glankoff SGW Collections, worked closely with the artist for years, studying his methods, recording their conversations and curating Glankoff's first solo exhibition. "This collection of hand-knotted luxury performance rugs by Perennials captures Glankoff's bold brushstrokes, richly layered surfaces and life-affirming abstract language," said Snyder. "They bring to life the power, depth and distinctiveness of his works in a way that's profoundly eloquent. His original artwork and designs have been preserved in a new medium. What an incredible tribute."

Perennials The Art of Glankoff luxury performance Tibetan knot rugs are available to interior designers and architects through fine showrooms worldwide. To view the full collection, visit www.perennialsfabrics.com. High-res images are available upon request.

About Sam Glankoff:

Sam Glankoff was born in New York City in 1894. He was invited to exhibit his paintings and woodcuts in the group show at the Whitney Studio Club from 1922 to 1928. For two decades he continued to paint on canvas, yet he found the woodcut medium offered him a greater opportunity to work privately and self-sufficiently. His representational woodcuts of the 1920s and 1930s inspired by German Expressionism, evolved into abstract collage-monotypes and later into large-scale, luminous mono-paintings (1970-1982) in water-soluble ink and casein.

Glankoff dedicated himself to art as an entirely personal means of expression. Throughout his life, he eschewed public exposure and declined to participate in gallery and museum exhibitions so he was not well-known in his lifetime. Today, his substantial and mature body of work speaks to artists, collectors and art lovers, with a powerful, emotional energy and formal elegance that are resonant and timeless.

About Perennials and Sutherland, LLC

The Perennials and Sutherland, LLC companies are icons and acknowledged leaders in the international design industry. CEO David Sutherland and President Ann Sutherland share an ingenious talent for curating the finest interior and exterior collections of luxury furniture, fabrics, rugs and accessories. Based in Dallas, Texas, the company is comprised of Sutherland Furniture, Perennials Luxury Performance Fabrics and David Sutherland Showrooms.

Perennials Fabrics is recognized by interior designers and high-end retail customers as the leader in luxury performance fabrics. Perennials Fabrics and Perennials Luxury Performance Rugs combine the look and feel of high-quality, natural materials with the superior performance properties of their genuine 100% solution-dyed acrylic fiber technology. View the full collections at perennialsfabrics.com.

Sutherland Furniture is a world leader in luxury outdoor furniture for modern lifestyles. The company has created the preeminent furniture brand through partnerships with the world's leading designers, along with utilizing the highest quality materials. View the full collections at sutherlandfurniture.com.

David Sutherland Showrooms are full-service, multi-line showrooms which serve the professional design market in showrooms and studios across the United States. For more information and locations, visit davidsutherlandshowroom.com.

SOURCE Perennials Fabrics

Related Links

http://www.perennialsfabrics.com


LAFAYETTE, La., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- PetroQuest Energy, Inc. (NYSE: PQ) announced today that it has entered into East Texas joint venture agreements to develop the Cotton Valley formation with a group of investors (the "Partners"), whereby the Partners acquired an approximate 20% working interest in the Company's 6,400 gross acre project area. The joint venture does not include existing vertical and horizontal producing wells within the defined project area.

The Partners will pay approximately $12 million in participation fees over the first 12 months of the program (subject to a one-time Partner election to continue participating in the program after the 7th well) to fund a portion of the Company's development costs. In addition, the Partners will pay approximately 24% of the drilling and completion costs relative to their 20% working interest. The Company is evaluating interest from other potential partners that could increase the working interest sold by up to an additional 5% on the same terms as described above.

In addition to the Partners described above, the Company has an existing 5% working interest partner that will have the option to participate in up to the next eight wells drilled in the project area. This partner will pay 7% of the drilling and completion costs relative to its 5% working interest.

The first phase of the joint venture is focused on drilling up to forty-seven horizontal Cotton Valley wells with an expected average lateral length of approximately 5,600 feet. The Company recently executed a rig contract and expects to spud its first joint venture horizontal Cotton Valley well in December of 2016. Based on the existing partner participation described above, the Company expects to pay approximately 69% of the drilling and completion costs for a 75% working interest in the initial joint venture well. The Company expects to drill and complete 8-10 gross wells during 2017 under this joint venture.

Management's Comment

"This Cotton Valley joint venture is an important step in our multi-year development plan for this top-tier North American gas asset," said Charles T. Goodson, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President. "We expect that a continuous Cotton Valley drilling program will create significant value for our stakeholders and joint venture partners as we build upon our previous success in this trend."

About the Company

PetroQuest Energy, Inc. is an independent energy company engaged in the exploration, development, acquisition and production of oil and natural gas reserves in Texas, Louisiana and the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico. PetroQuest's common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PQ.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this news release are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements are based upon assumptions and anticipated results that are subject to numerous uncertainties and risks. Actual results may vary significantly from those anticipated due to many factors, including the volatility of oil and natural gas prices and significantly depressed oil prices since the end of 2014; our indebtedness and the significant amount of cash required to service our indebtedness; our estimate of the sufficiency of our existing capital sources, including availability under our new multi-draw term loan facility; our ability to post additional collateral to satisfy our offshore decommissioning obligations; our ability to initiate and execute our Cotton Valley drilling program as planned; our ability to hedge future production to reduce our exposure to price volatility in the current commodity pricing market; ceiling test write-downs resulting, and that could result in the future, from lower oil and natural gas prices; our ability to raise additional capital to fund cash requirements for future operations; limits on our growth and our ability to finance our operations, fund our capital needs and respond to changing conditions imposed by our multidraw term loan facility and restrictive debt covenants; our ability to find, develop and produce oil and natural gas reserves that are economically recoverable and to replace reserves and sustain and/or increase production; approximately 50% of our production being exposed to the additional risk of severe weather, including hurricanes, tropical storms and flooding, and natural disasters; losses and liabilities from uninsured or underinsured drilling and operating activities; changes in laws and governmental regulations as they relate to our operations; the operating hazards attendant to the oil and gas business; the volatility of our stock price; and our ability to meet the continued listing standards of the New York Stock Exchange with respect to our common stock or to cure any deficiency with respect thereto. In particular, careful consideration should be given to cautionary statements made in the various reports the Company has filed with the SEC. The Company undertakes no duty to update or revise these forward-looking statements.

Click here for more information: http://www.petroquest.com/news.html?=BizID=1690&1=1

SOURCE PetroQuest Energy, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.petroquest.com


"In the third quarter, Pfenex has continued to make steady progress, advancing our broad pipeline of biosimilar therapeutics and government funded anthrax vaccine candidates," stated Bertrand C. Liang, Chief Executive Officer of Pfenex. "This quarter we announced several important updates, including the formation of our Scientific Advisory Board and the hiring of Steven Sandoval as our Chief Manufacturing Officer. The addition of these key resources will support the advancement of our portfolio towards commercialization. We are looking forward to sharing additional product updates and data over future quarters."

Business Review and Update

In October, Pfenex announced the formation of a Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) to provide expert guidance and insight as the Company advances towards product commercialization. Members of the SAB will assist the Company as it navigates process development and moves closer to product commercialization. The elite group of industry experts providing scientific guidance currently includes Greg Blank, PhD, a recognized global leader in bioprocess development with over 23 years at Genentech, Matthew S. Croughan, PhD, an independent consultant serving on the SAB or External Advisory Panel for several firms, including Pfizer, and Dennis Fenton, PhD, an industry pioneer, with over three decades of experience in biotechnology. Dr. Fenton retired after a lengthy and distinguished career with Amgen, where he held a variety of notable roles, including Executive Vice President, Operations.

Additionally, in October, Pfenex announced the hiring of Steven Sandoval as Chief Manufacturing Officer. Steven has over 25 years of commercial biopharmaceutical engineering and operations experience, specializing in commercial operations, facility design and licensure of large scale biopharmaceutical commercial manufacturing facilities. He has extensive knowledge of cGMP biopharmaceutical engineering as well as significant first-hand experience preparing for and interfacing with the FDA and other global regulatory agencies during pre-licensure and biennial inspections of commercial cGMP biopharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. Prior to joining Pfenex, Steven was a member of Amgen's site executive management leadership team responsible for the aggressive growth at the Puerto Rico manufacturing site.

Following the announcement in August of the positive Phase 1 trial data for Pfenex's recombinant anthrax vaccine, discussions with BARDA have been progressing. The Company is looking forward to continuing to advance the development of that program in collaboration with BARDA with the goal of obtaining a government procurement contract, given the potential for a dramatic improvement in the rapid production of large amounts of high value stable recombinant anthrax vaccine for the U.S. Government.

In August, Pfenex regained full rights to PF582, the Company's biosimilar candidate to Lucentis, and announced positive results from the phase 1/2 trial. The Company is continuing to explore the strategic options for PF582 and is engaged in discussions. The timing of the PF582 clinical comparative study is expected to allow for global market access as key patents expire.

Pfenex anticipates initiating the PF708 pivotal clinical program by year end. PF708 is Pfenex's peptide product candidate that the Company is developing as a therapeutic equivalent to Forteo (teriparatide) through the 505(b)(2) regulatory development pathway. The PF708 clinical program is expected to include an immunogenicity/pharmacokinetic study in subjects with osteoporosis.

Pfenex entered into a collaboration with Jazz Pharmaceuticals on multiple hematology/oncology product candidates in July. The collaboration also includes an option for Jazz Pharmaceuticals to negotiate a license for a recombinant pegaspargase product candidate with Pfenex. Pfenex received upfront and option payments totaling $15 million and may be eligible to receive additional payments of up to $166 million based on the achievement of certain development-, regulatory-, and sales-related milestones, including up to $41 million for certain non-sales-related milestones. Pfenex may also be eligible to receive tiered royalties on worldwide sales of any products resulting from the collaboration. Both parties will be contributing to development efforts.

Regulatory feedback for PF529, Pfenex's biosimilar candidate to Neulasta (pegfilgrastim), is expected by the end of 2016 and following that feedback, the development path and potential timeline will be outlined.

Financial Highlights for the Third Quarter

Total Revenue increased by $46.7 million to $48.8 million in the three month period ended September 30, 2016 compared to $2.1 million in same period in 2015. As a result of the termination of the development and license agreement with Pfizer, the estimated performance period for the agreement was adjusted to reflect the August 2016 termination date. This accelerated recognition of $45.8 million of revenue in August that had been previously deferred. Other increases were attributable to license revenue from the Jazz license and option agreement, as well as increased revenue due to the stage of development of our Px563L product candidate under our government contracts. Given the nature of the novel vaccine development process, revenue will fluctuate depending on stage of development.

Cost of revenue increased by approximately $0.6 million to $1.3 million in the three month period ended September 30, 2016, compared to $0.7 million in the same period in 2015. The increase in cost of revenue was due primarily to an increase in costs for our Px563L product candidate under our government contracts. The increase was offset by a decrease in product sales, reflecting our customers' product development and clinical progression. Given the nature of the novel vaccine development process, these costs will fluctuate depending on stage of development.

Research and development expenses increased by approximately $3.0 million to $8.7 million in the three month period ended September 30, 2016 compared to $5.7 million in same period in 2015. The increase in research and development expenses was due to the increase in development activity of our product candidates, including PF708, and the hiring of additional personnel dedicated to our research and development efforts. We expect research and development expenses to increase for the foreseeable future as we advance our lead product candidates and pipeline product candidates.

Selling, general and administrative expenses increased by $1.1 million to $4.4 million in the three month period ended September 30, 2016 compared to $3.3 million in the same period in 2015. The increase in selling, general and administrative expenses was primarily due to an increase in headcount, as well as increases in salaries and other personnel costs. We expect selling, general and administrative costs to continue to increase for activities associated with operating as a publicly-traded company, as well to support our various product and business development efforts, which can vary from period to period.

Cash and cash equivalents as of September 30, 2016 was $93.6 million.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or Pfenex's future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "could," "intends," "target," "projects," "contemplates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential" or "continue" or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern Pfenex's expectations, strategy, plans or intentions. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the future potential of Pfenex's product candidates, including future plans to advance, develop, manufacture and commercialize its product candidates; Pfenex's belief in its potential to rapidly produce and supply large amounts of high value stable recombinant anthrax vaccine and its goal of obtaining a U.S. government procurement contract; Pfenex's expectations regarding its potential to receive future milestone and royalty payments under its collaboration agreements, including its contracts with Jazz; Pfenex's plan to initiate the PF708 clinical program by year end; Pfenex's expectations regarding the timing of the release of additional clinical trial data for its product candidates; Pfenex's expectations regarding the timing of additional clinical trials and the types of future clinical trials for its product candidates, including PF708, and its other product candidates; Pfenex's expectations regarding the expected regulatory pathways for its product candidates, including the development of PF708 pursuant to the 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway; Pfenex's plan to explore strategic opportunities for PF582; Pfenex's anticipation of receiving regulatory feedback for PF529 by the end of 2016; Pfenex's future projections related to fluctuations and changes in revenue; and anticipated increases in expenses. Pfenex's expectations and beliefs regarding these matters may not materialize, and actual results in future periods are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of the uncertainties inherent in the clinical drug development process, including, without limitation, Pfenex's ability to successfully demonstrate the efficacy and safety of its product candidates; the pre-clinical and clinical results for its product candidates, which may not support further development of product candidates or may require Pfenex to conduct additional clinical trials or modify ongoing clinical trials or regulatory pathways; challenges related to commencement, patient enrollment, completion, and analysis of clinical trials; difficulties in achieving and demonstrating biosimilarity in formulations; Pfenex's ability to manage operating expenses; Pfenex's ability to obtain additional funding to support its business activities and establish and maintain strategic business alliances and new business initiatives; Pfenex's dependence on third parties for development, manufacture, marketing, sales and distribution of products; unexpected expenditures; and difficulties in obtaining and maintaining intellectual property protection for its product candidates. Information on these and additional risks, uncertainties, and other information affecting Pfenex's business and operating results is contained in Pfenex's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and in Pfenex's subsequent reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Additional information will also be set forth in Pfenex's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2016 to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to Pfenex as of the date hereof, and Pfenex disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Pfenex investors and others should note that we announce material information to the public about the Company through a variety of means, including our website (http://www.pfenex.com/), our investor relations website (http://pfenex.investorroom.com/), press releases, SEC filings, public conference calls, corporate Twitter account (https://twitter.com/pfenex), Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Pfenex-Inc-105908276167776/timeline/), and LinkedIn page (https://www.linkedin.com/company/pfenex-inc) in order to achieve broad, non-exclusionary distribution of information to the public and to comply with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. We encourage our investors and others to monitor and review the information we make public in these locations as such information could be deemed to be material information. Please note that this list may be updated from time to time.

About Pfenex Inc.

Pfenex Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company engaged in the development of biosimilar therapeutics and high-value and difficult to manufacture proteins. The Company's lead product candidate is PF582, a biosimilar candidate to Lucentis (ranibizumab), for the potential treatment of patients with retinal diseases. Pfenex has leveraged its Pfenex Expression Technology platform to build a pipeline of product candidates and preclinical products under development including other biosimilars, as well as vaccines, therapeutic equivalents to reference listed drug products, and next generation biologics.

Company Contact:

Paul Wagner, Ph.D.

Chief Financial Officer

(858) 352-4333

[email protected]

PFENEX INC.

Consolidated Statements of Operations

(unaudited)











Three Months Ended

September 30, Nine Months Ended

September 30, (in thousands, except per share data) 2016 2015 2016 2015 Revenue $ 48,824 $ 2,057 $ 54,723 $ 6,322 Cost of revenue 1,285 682 4,001 2,911









Gross profit 47,539 1,375 50,722 3,411









Operating expense

Selling, general and administrative 4,405 3,276 12,935 10,855 Research and development 8,690 5,679 21,763 12,098









Total operating expense 13,095 8,955 34,698 22,953









Income (loss) from operations 34,444 (7,580 ) 16,024 (19,542 ) Other income (expense), net 52 (9 ) 98 38









Net income (loss) before income taxes 34,496 (7,589 ) 16,122 (19,504 ) Income tax expense - (1 ) (1) (41 )









Net income (loss) $ 34,496 $ (7,590 ) $ 16,121 $ (19,545 )









Net income (loss) per share:







Basic $ 1.47 $ (0.33 ) $ 0.69 $ (0.89 )









Diluted $ 1.46 $ (0.33 ) $ 0.68 $ (0.89 )









Shares used in calculating net income (loss) per share:







Basic 23,400 23,215 23,378 22,066









Diluted 23,689 23,215 23,674 22,066











PFENEX INC.

Consolidated Balance Sheets







September 30,

2016

(unaudited) December 31,

2015

(in thousands) Assets



Current assets



Cash and cash equivalents $ 93,638 $ 106,162 Restricted cash  3,959 Accounts and unbilled receivables, net 1,317 2,683 Income tax receivable 227 508 Other current assets 2,256 1,718





Total current assets 97,438 115,030 Deferred income taxes 1,955 1,955 Property and equipment, net 5,102 3,179 Other long term assets 80 121 Intangible assets, net 5,434 5,832 Goodwill 5,577 5,577





Total assets $ 115,586 $ 131,694





Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity



Current liabilities



Accounts payable $ 1,886 $ 886 Accrued liabilities 8,137 5,997 Current portion of deferred revenue 7,280 3,870 Line of credit obligation  3,813 Income tax payable 1,644 1,676





Total current liabilities 18,947 16,242 Deferred revenue, less current portion 6,672 44,225 Other long-term liabilities 40 46





Total liabilities 25,659 60,513 Commitments and contingencies



Stockholders' equity



Preferred stock, $0.001 par value, 10,000,000 shares authorized; no shares issued and outstanding   Common stock, $0.001 par value, 200,000,000 shares authorized; 23,417,774 and 23,316,413 shares issued and outstanding at September 30, 2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively 24 24 Additional paid-in capital 215,286 212,661 Accumulated deficit (125,383) (141,504 )





Total stockholders' equity 89,927 71,181





Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 115,586 $ 131,694







Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140715/127348

SOURCE Pfenex Inc.

Related Links

http://www.pfenex.com


The Pom Wow design represents the current popularity of pom-poms. "We decorated the Pom Pom Wow gown with actual product, applying thousands of pom-poms to the clothing, "said Jennifer Strick, director of marketing for Maya Toys. "With pom-poms all the rage within the fashion and crafts industries, we combined a haute couture look with a crafts-like butterfly motif."

The Orbeez ensemble embodies the colorful, bouncy and shimmering nature of the product. "When hydrated for play, Orbeez are shiny and beautiful," added Larry Falcon, Maya Toys' senior vice president sales. "As a result, hundreds of colorful balls grace the Orbeez gown to catch the runway lights and exemplify the product's visual burst of energy."

Video and imagery for Pom Pom Wow and Orbeez gowns are available at http://tiny.cc/MayaPlayCHIC and additional brand materials are accessible at http://tiny.cc/MayaBrands

The PlayCHIC Fashion Show, part of Chicago Toy & Game Week, takes place on November 18 at Navy Pier in Chicago.

Pom Pom Wow

Pom Pom Wow is a lifestyle brand empowering girls to adorn their personal items with pom-pom flourishes. The do-it-yourself crafts kits enable girls to express themselves in a unique, customized fashion.

Orbeez

Orbeez are wet and wacky, soft and squishy, fun and funky, bouncy and beautiful. Orbeez begin as tiny seeds and magically grow to a round form when water is added. The versatile technology is applied to a variety of toys, ranging from pampering products to arts-and-crafts sets.

Maya Toys

Maya Toys is driven by a single purpose: bring to market toys that delight and dazzle boys and girls throughout the world. Best known for its award-winning Orbeez and Pom Pom Wow brands, the company is dedicated to applying unexpected technologies and on-trend themes to time-proven play patterns.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161110/437893

SOURCE Maya Toys
Green Car Journal editors consider all potential commercial vehicles in the U.S. market, weighing environmental attributes alongside traditional touchstones that define what customers seek, such as functionality, versatility, safety, value and style. The winner was selected from a number of finalists by a Green Truck of the Year jury, comprised of automotive experts and Green Car Journal staff.

"The Ram ProMaster City is an exceptional combination of efficiency and capability, and winning Commercial Green Car of the Year is recognition of our efforts," said Mike Manley, Head of Jeep Brand and Ram Brand, FCA - Global. "The ProMaster City is just one of our full line of Ram commercial vehicles from Class 1 vans to Class 5 trucks that deliver durability, capability and a low cost of ownership."

When compared to other vehicles in the segment, Ram ProMaster City's best-in-class fuel economy of 28 mpg highway, cargo capacity of 131.7 cubic feet and 1,883-lb. payload capacity all combine to deliver more work per load with less fuel, making the ProMaster City America's most efficient work van.

The Ram ProMaster City contributes to the expanding, purpose-built van segment with a number of best-in-class, functional elements tied directly to commercial customer demand. The Ram ProMaster City aggressively competes in the compact Class 1 van segment with a focus on commercial customer needs and total cost of ownership.

"The Ram ProMaster City delivers exactly what small businesses, tradesmen and fleets need with its class-leading fuel efficiency, ease of carrying and loading cargo and maneuverability in an urban environment," said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal and GreenCarJournal.com. "Higher efficiency means less fuel use, lower operating costs and lower carbon emissions, important attributes for fleets that wish to operate vehicles with lower environmental impact."

Ram ProMaster City offers best-in-class standard features where they count:

178 horsepower and 174 lb.-ft. of torque

Payload  1,883 pounds

Cargo volume  131.7 cubic feet

21 miles per gallon (mpg) city, best-in-class 28 mpg highway and 24 mpg combined

Powertrain warranty  five-year/60,000 miles

Available in Tradesman cargo or five-passenger Wagon variations, the Ram ProMaster City is based on the successful Fiat Doblo, a two-time International Van of the Year winner with more than 1.3 million units sold. The Class 1 entry incorporates familiar Ram design elements and offers features, systems and powertrains preferred by North American customers. The Ram ProMaster City is the brand's second shared collaboration with Fiat Professional with the Ram ProMaster full-size van as the first.

About Green Car of the Year

The Green Car of the Year award is an important part of Green Car Journal's mission to showcase environmental progress in the auto industry. Since 1992, Green Car Journal has focused on the intersection of automobiles, energy and environment. Today, the magazine is considered the premier source of information on high fuel efficiency, low emission, advanced technology and alternative fuel vehicles. CarsOfChange.com presents 'green car' articles online along with a focus on infotainment and connectivity. Green Car of the Year is a registered trademark of Green Car Journal and RJ Cogan Specialty Publications Group, Inc.

About Ram Truck Brand

Since its launch as a stand-alone division in 2009, the Ram Truck brand has steadily emerged as an industry leader with America's longest-lasting line of pickups.

Creating a distinct identity for Ram trucks has allowed the brand to concentrate on core customers and the features they find valuable. Whether focusing on a family that uses a Ram 1500 day-in and day-out, a hard-working Ram 3500 Heavy Duty owner or a business that depends on its Ram ProMaster commercial van every day for deliveries, Ram has the truck market covered.

In order to be the best, it takes a commitment to innovation, capability, efficiency and durability. Ram Truck invests substantially in its products, infusing them with great looks, refined interiors, durable engines and exclusive features that further enhance their capabilities.

Ram continues to beat the competition in the most sought-after titles:

Longest-lasting line of pickups

Best-in-class ride and handling with exclusive link coil rear and auto-level air suspensions

Best-in-class fuel economy and longest range with exclusive EcoDiesel  29 mpg and 754 miles with Ram 1500

Best-in-class gas towing -- 16,320 pounds with Ram 2500

Highest snow plow rating -- Ram 2500 and 3500

Most interior space with Ram Mega Cab

Most capable fullsize off-road pickup -- Ram Power Wagon

Truck customers, from half-ton to commercial, have a demanding range of needs and require their vehicles to provide high levels of capability. Ram trucks are designed to deliver a total package.

Follow Ram and FCA US news and video on:

FCA Content On Demand (COD): www.fcacod.com

Company blog: http://blog.fcanorthamerica.com

Company website: www.fcanorthamerica.com

Media website: http://media.fcanorthamerica.com

FCA360: www.fca360.com

Ram Trucks brand: www.ramtrucks.com

Ram Zone blog: www.ramzone.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/RamTrucks and https://www.facebook.com/FiatChrysler.NorthAmerica/

Flickr: www.flickr.com/RamTrucks and www.flickr.com/ChryslerGroup

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/ramtrucks and www.pinterest.com/FCAcorporate

Instagram: www.instagram.com/ramtrucks and www.instagram.com/FiatChrysler_NA

Twitter: www.twitter.com/RamTrucks and www.twitter.com/FiatChrysler_NA

YouTube: www.youtube.com/RamTrucks and www.youtube.com/pentastarvideo

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437552

SOURCE FCA US LLC

Related Links

http://www.fcanorthamerica.com


ORLANDO, Fla., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hotel booking platform Reservations.com today announced the top ten destinations consumers are traveling to for Thanksgiving this year. After a long summer season, Reservations.com's data illustrates that a majority of travelers are planning shorter distance trips this holiday season.

With the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York and the McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade in Chicago, both cities are among the most popular destinations for tourists this year. Orlando is also a top Thanksgiving destination due to its famed attractions, such as the annual Main Street Electrical Parade held at family favorite destination, Disney World. Each of these locations host Thanksgiving themed events and activities that cater to people of all ages.

Top 10 Thanksgiving Destinations of 2016

New York, NY

Orlando, FL

Chicago, IL

Las Vegas, NV

Los Angeles, CA

Denver, CO

Boston, MA

Scottsdale, AZ

Washington D.C

Portland, OR

"We have noticed with this particular holiday weekend, people tend to travel in large groups for more family focused trips," said Reservations.com Co-Founder, Yatin Patel. "Due to the fact that Thanksgiving is less than a seven day vacation, most of our customers choose to make accommodations that are domestic and easier to get to whether it be a flight that is less than three hours or a road trip to get the most of their time away from home."

Customers can book their holiday reservations for any of the cities listed directly on Reservations.com. For more information on booking hotel accommodations, please visit Reservations.com.

About Reservations.com

Reservations.com is a leading online hotel booking platform. Headquartered in Central Florida, the website is dedicated to helping travelers make the best decisions possible for their upcoming hotel selections. Reservations.com offers a user-friendly design, with features including descriptions, deals, pricing information, reviews and instant booking confirmation. Founded in 2014 with a mission to help create memorable experiences, the site has seen rapid growth, with more than 150,000 hotel partners worldwide and more than two million room nights booked since inception. Reservations.com plans to continue expanding to offer its customers the opportunity to make reservations for various other experiences across the globe. For more information, visit www.reservations.com

SOURCE Reservations.com

Related Links

http://www.reservations.com


CARLSBAD, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Every year around this time, companies seek additional help to meet the holiday rush. Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for the last three decades, November and December are almost always the two most active hiring months of the year. Expect 2016 to be no exception, says a new CareerCast report on holiday hiring.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437412

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437413

Santa Claus and his elves, carolers and other performers can find part-time work this time of year. The online retail giant Amazon announced plans to add 120,000 new employees for the 2016 holidays

The usual types of employers that get aggressive in hiring this time of year are doing so once more. That means retailers and delivery companies  or both, in the case of Amazon. The online retail giant announced plans to add 120,000 new employees for the 2016 holidays, reflecting both an uptick in consumer confidence in the past year, and the company's increased emphasis on its own delivery services. Macy's, Target, and UPS also anticipate robust additions to their staffing this year.

The most vacancies found for seasonal openings at CareerCast are in Retail (approximately 4,500 nationally). Not far behind are Customer Service jobs with over 3,000 listings, and Hospitality positions, with more than 2,500 openings. The second-most openings by category are jobs in Management. One may not associate a seasonal position with managerial duty, but an influx of new staff requires additional supervisors. These include Sales Manager positions, as well as Lodging Managers to help meet the demand with increased travel. In retail, First-Line Supervisors are needed for new entry-level staff.

"There are some seasonal job openings that you might not associate with this time of year," says Kyle Kensing, Online Content Editor, CareerCast. "As consumers spend more this time of year, the increase in revenue oftentimes requires additional support managing the books. Tax Preparer may not be the job one equates with the holidays, but it is a popular listing in the CareerCast database for employers seeking seasonal help."

The performers at shopping centers and holiday-themed attractions are paid staff. Santa Claus and his elves, carolers and other Performers can find part-time work this time of year.

Below are eight of the most in-demand seasonal jobs of 2016. Salary listings reflect BLS estimates for full-time positions.

Position Median Annual Wage Delivery Truck Driver $27,750 First-Line Supervisor $38,310 Lodging Manager $49,720 Performer $18.80 (hourly) Recreational Worker $23,320 Sales Manager $113,860 Tax Preparer $36,450 Warehouse Worker $24,090

To see the full report, visit CareerCast.

About CareerCast.com

CareerCast.com, created by Adicio, is a job search portal that offers extensive local, niche and national job listings from across North America; job-hunting, career-management and HR-focused editorial content; and videos and blogs; and provides recruiters with the ability to post jobs directly to more than 800 niche career sites. CareerCast.com also compiles the Jobs Rated Report (www.jobsrated.com), where 200 jobs across North America are ranked based on detailed analysis of specific careers factors.

Editor's Note: This material may be published with a link to http://www.careercast.com/career-news/demand-jobs-2016-holidays

Media Contact:

Beth Brody, Brody PR

908-295-0600

[email protected]

SOURCE CareerCast

Related Links

http://www.careercast.com


WASHINGTON, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Rx-360, an international pharmaceutical supply chain consortium, announced the launch of a new website at the Annual Rx-360 Conference held at the Gaylord National Harbor, in Maryland - more than 150 industry colleagues gathered. The website redesign initiative is indicative of the consortium's digital evolution to showcase its industry expertise and support its overall growth.

"The Rx-360 mission is to promote patient safety by sharing information and developing processes related to the integrity of the healthcare supply chain and the quality of materials within the supply chain. To fulfill this mission, we want to leverage technology as much as possible to enable agile information sharing that is timely and relevant," says Mark Paxton, CEO, Rx-360.

The Rx-360 website was first launched in 2009 by Martin Van Triste, Founder and First Chairman of Rx-360, and since then it has served as a vital resource for members, observers, partners, the media and others to understand both Rx-360's impact and ways in which they can interact with the consortium. The redesign enhancements are centered on developing an intuitive user interface, instant updates, faster navigation and improved search.

"The project was championed by the consortium's Communications Team composed of volunteers from Rx-360 Member companies: Cristina Martinho, Digital Marketing Specialist, Hovione; Jayne Turnbull, Product Security Case Manager, AstraZeneca, and Vivian Berni, Senior Advisor Optimization, LifeConEx and Rx-360 Communications Chair, who all have extensive experience working in the health sciences industry. "Our digital strategy behind the project promises to focus on the end user experience with special attention given to make it easier for industry users to find information, learn about upcoming webinars and request audit licensing reports all through a fully website responsive design. We are thrilled to lead the evolution of Rx-360's digital presence and are thrilled to finally launch the new site," says Berni.

The website is the result of collaboration with SCORR Marketing, the leading marketing and communications firm in the health sciences industry. The site is managed and maintained by the Rx-360 Communications Team.

Since 2009, Rx-360 has gone from a handful of members to more than 90 company members and observers globally. To learn more about Rx-360, visit the website at www.Rx-360.org.

About Rx-360:

Rx-360, an international pharmaceutical supply chain consortium, was formed in 2009 to support an industry-wide commitment to ensuring patient safety by enhancing quality and authenticity throughout the supply chain. The organization's mission is to protect patient safety by sharing information and developing processes related to the integrity of the healthcare supply chain and the quality of materials within the supply chain. To fulfill this mission, Rx-360 has work streams related to: conduction and sharing of audits, supply chain security, monitoring and reporting, Asia-focused efforts, supplier-focused efforts, and external relations, communications, and membership. To learn more about Rx-360, please visit http://www.Rx-360.org or email [email protected].

Contact: Vivian Berni | +1-954-626-4198 | [email protected]

SOURCE Rx-360
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In honor of Veterans Day, SCORE, the nation's largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors, has gathered statistics that show veterans are twice as likely to own a business as their civilian counterparts. Veterans, who make up eight percent of the U.S. population, are also 50 percent more likely than civilians to own two or more firms.

As of 2015, America's 21.4 million veterans own 9.2 percent of all U.S. firms:

In honor of Veterans Day, SCORE, the nation's largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors, has gathered statistics that show veterans are twice as likely to own a business as their civilian counterparts.

20 percent of all veteran-owned firms have employees.

Collectively, these firms employ 5.8 million people, and make $1.1 trillion in sales.

in sales. Veterans with 20+ years of service have higher rates of self-employment, and officers are more likely to be self-employed.

Veterans tend to work in technical industries, with the top five being:

Professional, scientific and technical services: 16.9 percent

Construction: 15.5 percent

Repair, maintenance and other services: 9.9 percent

Real estate: 8.9 percent

Retail: 8.1 percent

Most vetpreneurs rely on themselves to fund their businesses:

69.2 percent use personal or family savings and assets.

12.9 percent use credit cards or home equity loans.

9.8 percent use business loans from financial institutions.

1.9 percent use business loans from family or friends.

1.2 percent use government guaranteed/originated loans.

Helpful business resources for veterans include:

SBA Boots to Business

Department of Veteran Affairs

Office of Veterans Business Development

Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC)

Download this infographic for more data on the state of veteran-owned businesses in 2016. Veterans and civilians alike can connect with a SCORE mentor today for personalized help with starting or growing a small business.

About SCORE

Since 1964, SCORE has helped more than 10 million aspiring entrepreneurs. Each year, SCORE's 10,000+ volunteer business experts provide 350,000+ free small business mentoring sessions, workshops and educational services to clients in 300+ chapters nationwide. In 2015, SCORE volunteers provided 2.2+ million hours to help create more than 45,000 jobs and 55,000 small businesses.

For more information about starting or operating a small business, call 1-800-634-0245 for the SCORE chapter nearest you. Visit SCORE at www.score.org. Follow SCOREMentors on Facebook and Twitter.

Contact Information

Betsy Dougert

800-634-0245

[email protected]

Info - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437628-INFO

SOURCE SCORE Association

Related Links

http://www.score.org


NATICK, Massachusetts, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

ScrubaDub, New England's leading car wash company is reaching out to the community to support the troops this Veteran's Day. All Veterans and Active Service Personnel can wash their cars free at any of 15 participating ScrubaDub tunnel carwash locations in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island on Friday, November 11th, 2016.

The Paisner Family owned car wash chain has been promoting support for military personnel over the past decade by running charity fundraising programs with USO New England and giving away free car washes.

ScrubaDub and the Paisner family plan to continue this tradition of showing their appreciation for the special efforts and sacrifices that veterans and service members make for our country by lending a helping hand and donating complimentary car washes.

USO New England provides on-going support to all branches of the military and serves tens of thousands of active military members and their families in New England each year and offers many special programs to families of deployed.

ScrubaDub is committed to making a positive difference in the communities where they do business and actively supporting many causes through their charity and fundraising programs. For more information, visit http://www.ScrubaDub.com

To participate on this Veteran's Day, November 11, 2016, simply drive in to any participating ScrubaDub and show your Military ID to receive your complimentary car wash.

Contact: Peggy Rose Public Relations

[email protected] / +1-617-477-9802

SOURCE ScrubaDub
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Oracle announced today that Shawnee State University is implementing the full Oracle Cloud Suite including Oracle's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and Human Capital Management (HCM Cloud), in addition to Student Cloud CX. The university also anticipates moving to the Student Management Cloud as part of the university's efforts to prepare their students for future success using the latest technology. This adoption comes with a recent Ohio Governor mandate to lower the cost of education, which prompted the university to search for the best technology to modernize and optimize internal operations.

With a student and staff body of 3,800 students and 700 employees, Shawnee State seeks to be a leader in paving the way for universities of all sizes to transition to cloud services. Their previous IT department was too small to handle the level of needs for their constituents. However, through the implementation of Oracle's Cloud solution, the university will be utilizing a single cloud solution that helps manage recruitment processes to seek out best-fit students; this also enables them to focus on serving their constituents in a timelier manner.

While previously using an on-premise service, ensuring that recruiters reached the right students, and that those prospects ultimately chose to attend the university, was a big problem that needed to be solved. Shawnee State was seeking a service that focused on the entire student lifecycle from student success to finances  all while providing a single cloud experience from a global perspective.

"We believe that implementing Oracle's Cloud solutions will help us meet our priority of being a student-focused university, by leveraging the latest technology all under a single unified cloud experience," said Elinda Boyles, vice president for finance and administration at Shawnee State University. "We are fortunate that Shawnee State University President, Rick Kurtz, has forward-thinking vision and commitment to the university's long-term success. This effort will improve operational efficiencies and better align our IT resources," she said.

Because Oracle seeks to ensure their customers have a seamless transition to the cloud, Shawnee State was able to easily integrate the modern technology with legacy systems. Shawnee State is live with Oracle's Student Cloud CX, and are implementing the remainder of the suite now with an expected go live date of June 30, 2017.

"Oracle's commitment to Higher Education and proven expertise in the Cloud provide Shawnee State University with a modern, secure and scalable platform for growth," said Rondy Ng, Oracle's Senior Vice President, Applications Development. "Our next-generation cloud platform for Higher Education incorporates embedded analytics, an intuitive user experience, and built-in collaboration functionality to deliver comprehensive support for the business and student lifecycle with a focus on putting the student first."

Oracle delivers the industry's broadest suite of enterprise-grade Cloud services, including Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Data as a Service (DaaS).

Additional Information

About Oracle

Oracle offers a comprehensive and fully integrated stack of cloud applications and platform services. For more information about Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), visit www.oracle.com.

About Shawnee State University

Shawnee State is a student-focused public university offering a highly personalized, affordable, and accessible education dedicated to the exploration of emerging technologies and emerging ideas. Founded in 1986, and located along the Ohio River in historic Portsmouth, Ohio, the university offers a range of signature programs, including Game Design, which has been nationally ranked for six years in a row.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Oracle

Related Links

http://www.oracle.com


TOKYO, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In a prelude to a visit by Vladimir Putin to Japan in December, Japanese government officials met Russian counterparts in Moscow this week to discuss the two countries economic ties.

The Nikkei business daily reported that the summit between the two leaders next month will continue the economic talks and also attempt to resolve long standing territorial disputes between the nations.

The government representatives are keen to put in place a preliminary plan focused on the Russian city of Voronezh, where pollution levels have reached dangerous levels. Japanese engineers will train Russian workers in a series of government-funded projects in the region. They hope to settle plans by the middle of this month.

A few weeks later, Japanese president Shinzo Abe and Russian premier Vladimir Putin will hold a formal meeting on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific summit in Peru, where they will delve deeper into their new economic ties and hopefully resolve geopolitical issues.

The newspaper article said that the two countries would work together closely on future oil and gas development projects and also cooperate on the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor which was rocked by a tsunami in 2011.

"This is going to be one of the most important meetings between world leaders this year," said Elliot Parker, Head of mergers and acquisitions at Sino Link Japan. "Of course, settling the festering disputes over the islands to the south of Russia is important but arguably the economic agreements that could result from the summit might be even more crucial. The financial world has been waiting for some time for Japanese entry into the Russian market proper."

Putin and Abe will meet on December 15th in Yamaguchi Prefecture, the Japanese leader's home constituency.

Contact:

Yasunari Murakami

+81.345781660

[email protected]

SOURCE Sino Link Japan

Related Links

https://sinolinkglobal.com


WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) risk data security if they use free cloud storage, but nearly 25% still do, despite warnings from industry experts. In addition, new findings reveal that 11% of SMBs are storing banking information and 14% are storing medical records in free cloud storage. The data comes from a new survey by Clutch, a leading B2B ratings and reviews firm.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437670-INFO

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437671-INFO

Storing sensitive data in free cloud storage is an ill-advised and irresponsible business practice since necessary security measures are often lacking, according to cloud experts interviewed for the report. Businesses that store banking or medical information are required to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI) or Health Insurance Accountability and Portability Act (HIPAA).

"If you need to be HIPAA compliant or PCI compliant, you should be using the highest level of security that you can obtain, and usually that's not present on most free cloud storage accounts," said Jeff Alerta, Director of Technology at Inverselogic, Inc, a technology and web solutions company.

SMBs have high faith in the cloud's security, with 87% saying that it is either very or somewhat secure. Despite this, though, security is still the top consideration for SMBs shopping for a cloud storage provider.

Mark Estes, Regional Director of Sales at Qubole, a self-service platform provider for big data analytics, says that this relates back to the behavior of the users themselves: "You have the people [who] agree that the cloud is secure. But they also understand the caveat that it is only secure if you use it in the correct manner There are a lot of things that go into how you secure the cloud."

Overall, experts emphasize that a cloud storage service's security doesn't matter if its users aren't trained properly. The weakest link is typically the user.

"I recently did some penetration testing for a financial company," said Jacob Ackerman, CEO of SkyLink Data and Business Services, a hosting provider. "Our job was to determine weak points. We used a fictitious email address and I was able to get their CFO's password with a spear phishing attempt within 15 minutes. So from that point forward, who cares how good your encryption is?"

For more information, contact Riley Panko at [email protected]. For the complete report, visit: https://clutch.co/cloud/storage#survey

The survey is the 2nd annual iteration of Clutch's Small Business Cloud Storage Survey, and included 293 SMBs who use cloud storage services. All businesses have 2-500 employees.

About Clutch

A B2B ratings and reviews firm in the heart of Washington, DC, Clutch connects you with the agencies and software solutions that can help you enhance your business and meet your goals. Our methodology maps agencies and software solutions based on consumer reviews, the type of services offered, and quality of work.

Contact

Riley Panko

[email protected]

202.899.2779

SOURCE Clutch
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SoftBank Corp. ("SoftBank", President & CEO: Ken Miyauchi) and US-based Zimperium, Inc. ("Zimperium", CEO: Shridhar Mittal) today announced an agreement with SoftBank to offer Zimperium's AI-powered security solution for mobile devices in Japan. Starting on November 15, SoftBank will roll out, "Security Checker powered by Zimperium," an application for mobile iOS devices. SoftBank also plans to propose additional security services to enterprise customers in the future.

SoftBank

With the spread of the mobile Internet thanks to smartphones and other mobile devices, a great variety of services, including electronic payments, online storage and social networking, can be used conveniently by individuals and enterprises. At the same time, unknown malware and cyberattack methods that target personal data and confidential, company information has grown rapidly, making it more difficult to protect data with standard OS features.

In this environment, Zimperium's mobile security solution incorporates an AI-powered threat detection engine that is built to detect both known and unknown threats. The company offers a wide range of products for enterprises and end-users, including security solutions for smartphones, security-conscious software development kits for fintech apps and other categories, and tools for companies to collectively manage the security of multiple devices. Zimperium is also dedicated to finding and helping fix flaws across the entire mobile ecosystem, including both Android and iOS. With its detection of "Stagefright," a bug that impacted the global Android ecosystem in 2015, the company has built a strong track record for cutting-edge research.

Security Checker powered by Zimperium, which SoftBank is offering in Japan, is an application that incorporates Zimperium's AI-powered threat detection engine and notifies customers of threats, such as OS hacking and wiretapping achieved through unauthorized Wi-Fi disguised as safe public Wi-Fi. In addition to SoftBank customers subscribing to the 'iPhone Basic Pack' (monthly charge of 500 yen excluding tax), all customers in Japan with compatible devices can use the stand-alone version of the application for a monthly charge of 350 yen (including tax) by purchasing via the AppStore.

SoftBank and Zimperium will work to provide security solutions for mobile devices so customers can use the mobile Internet with even greater safety and security.

About Zimperium, Inc.

Zimperium is a leading enterprise mobile threat protection provider. Only the Zimperium platform delivers continuous and real-time threat protection to both devices and applications. With Zimperium, businesses protect devices and apps against known and unknown cyberattacks from a single platform to boost mobile productivity, while safeguarding employee, customer and company data. Serving global organizations at enterprise scale, Zimperium's award-winning solution is based on a disruptive, on-device detection engine that uses patented, machine learning technology to protect against the broadest array of mobile attacks. Headquartered in San Francisco, Zimperium is backed by major investors including Warburg Pincus, Samsung, Telstra and Sierra Ventures. Learn more at www.zimperium.com or our official blog at https://blog.zimperium.com.

About SoftBank Corp.

SoftBank Corp., a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp. (TOKYO:9984), provides mobile communication, fixed-line communication and Internet connection services to customers in Japan. Leveraging synergies with other companies in the SoftBank Group, SoftBank Corp. aims to transform lifestyles through IT and expand into other business areas including IoT, robotics and energy. To learn more, please visit www.softbank.jp/en/corp/group/sbm/.

TM and  2016 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch are trademarks of Apple Inc. The iPhone trademark is used under license from Aiphone K.K.

SoftBank, the SoftBank name and logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of SoftBank Group Corp. in Japan and other countries.

Google, Android and Google Play are trademarks of Google Inc.

Media Contacts

SoftBank Corp.

Corporate Communications Office

Tel: +81-3-6889-2301

E-mail: [email protected]

Zimperium, Inc.

Corporate Office

E-mail: [email protected]

Darah Patton

InkHouse PR for Zimperium

E-mail: [email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437689LOGO

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437690LOGO

SOURCE Zimperium, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.zimperium.com


TOKYO and SINGAPORE and LONDON, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Platts, the leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets, confirmed that it will launch new assessments to reflect the value of lorry rack prices for a range of oil products for the Japanese market on December 12, 2016. These new assessments will be for gasoline, kerosene, gasoil, low-sulfur A fuel oil and high-sulfur A fuel oil.

The launch follows the conclusion of a formal consultation with market participants on September 30, 2016 to ensure the rack price assessments meet the specific needs of the Japanese market, and adhere to Japan industrial standard specifications as published by the Japanese Industrial Standard Committee, as well as Platts rigorous governance standards.

Anton Ferkov, Senior Managing Editor, Japan, S&P Global Platts said: "We are pleased to confirm our final methodology for the domestic Japanese rack oil markets and would like to thank all the market participants who provided feedback as part of the consultation process. We listened to this feedback and made a number of changes to the draft methodology, particularly around reducing the minimum tradable cargo size, products portfolio, and loading locations to ensure our final methodology is easily accessible to local Japanese refiners, traders and dealers".

Platts assesses prices on a delivered basis for a wide range of Japan oil products such as naphtha (also known as mean of Platts Japan or MOPJ), gasoline and kerosene. In addition, in April Platts successfully launched domestic Japanese waterborne assessments for gasoline, kerosene, gasoil, high-sulfur fuel oil and low-sulfur fuel oil.

The domestic Japanese waterborne and rack assessments will be modeled on Platts Singapore refined product assessments under which spot market prices are assessed through an independent and transparent price discovery process based on the Platts Market- on-Close (MOC) methodology. The Platts MOC is a structured, highly-transparent price assessment process based on the principle that price is a function of time. The MOC process in oil identifies bids, offers and transactions by company name and results in a time-sensitive, end-of-trading-day daily value. Market participants will be able to contribute to the Platts MOC via the Platts Editorial Window (eWindow) data-entry and communication tool as well as more traditional methods such as telephone, email and instant messaging.

Prices of the five rack Japan oil products will be assessed for delivery at two locations in Tokyo Bay - Chiba and Kanagawa, would reflect product prices before taxes, reflecting a timestamp of 14:00 Tokyo time. The unit of measure will be Yen per Kiloliter (kl) and transactions, bids and offers of a minimum of 50 kiloliters will be considered for assessment, with the maximum parcel size for any one bid or offer of 200 kiloliters. Platts would publish price assessments for oil products loading on trucks from specified refineries and tanks located in Chiba and Kanagawa one to seven days from the day of publication. Commentaries and market information will be published in Japanese on a daily basis.

About S&P Global Platts

At S&P Global Platts, we provide the insights; you make better informed trading and business decisions with confidence. We're the leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets. Customers in over 150 countries look to our expertise in news, pricing and analytics to deliver greater transparency and efficiency to markets. S&P Global Platts coverage includes oil and gas, power, petrochemicals, metals, agriculture and shipping.

SOURCE S&P Global Platts

Related Links

http://www.platts.com


DENVER, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SPYR, INC. (OTCQB: SPYR), a holding company with wholly owned subsidiaries in both the mobile game & app development and publishing industry, and in the restaurant industry, today announced that its flagship Massively Multiplayer Online game Pocket Starships, is receiving favorable response to a dedicated strategic outreach which will cover three of the biggest gaming markets in Europe. In the first week, Pocket Starships has climbed near the top of the charts in the German Apple App Store. Efforts in Russia and France will be reported upon over the next two weeks.

The company, which launched the Hivespawn expansion to Pocket Starships worldwide in September, recently embarked on a mission to introduce their Battle Arena Role Playing Game to the European gaming world. The data in Germany reveals a tremendous interest in the Strategy Space Shooter with real-time combat.

"Reaching the German market is a key part of our strategy for the European gaming universe, which stands at nearly 37 million players," said Mike Turner, SPYR's VP of Strategic Partnerships. "SPYR is a global company, and this European focused campaign in support of Pocket Starships allows us to optimize and improve overall acquisition in these three key gaming markets; and leverage those learnings across Europe."

Ranks achieved for Pocket Starships in the German Apple App Store over the last week include:

Game (adventure): #3

Game (action): #10

Game (overall): #23

Germany ranks fifth in global game revenue estimates and number one in Europe. For 2016, it is projected that gamers in Germany will spend more than $4 billion, according to NewZoo, a leading global market intelligence firm specializing in games, eSports, and mobile.

Germans are proven to be passionate gamers with half of their internet population playing games. Further, 57 percent of the gaming population spends money on gaming, making it an attractive target for Pocket Starships.

Pocket Starships is one of the only true cross-platform, real time games of its kind on the market and is available to gamers that play on any of the different platforms and devices, including iOS, Android, tablets, PCs, Macs, Kindle, Amazon and Facebook. It is played in real-time across all platforms simultaneously and, in the coming months, the company plans to add eSports competition opportunities for its players.

SPYR continues to build its team of internationally seasoned professionals with a track record of launching many successful games on a number of different platforms. This is direct result of SPYR's strategic global marketing campaign push to increase engagement and drive growth.

About SPYR

SPYR, INC. is a holding company that through its wholly owned subsidiary SPYR APPS, LLC, is engaged in mobile application and game publishing and development. SPYR, INC. also owns and operates an "American Diner" theme restaurant located in the Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania called "Eat at Joe's" through its other wholly-owned subsidiary, E.A.J.: PHL Airport Inc. The Company is currently exploring opportunities for additional acquisitions in these and other verticals, including mobile application and game development, in order to expand its holdings, to drive and increase revenue and to generate profits and build value for shareholders.

Safe Harbor Statement:

This release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements and the assumptions upon which they are based are reasonable, we can give no assurance or guarantee that such expectations and assumptions will prove to have been correct. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by the use of words like "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "believe," "intend," or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as these statements are subject to numerous factors and uncertainties, including but not limited to: adverse economic conditions, competition, adverse federal, state and local government regulation, international governmental regulation, inadequate capital, inability to carry out research, development and commercialization plans, loss or retirement of key executives and other specific risks. To the extent that statements in this press release are not strictly historical, including statements as to revenue projections, business strategy, outlook, objectives, future milestones, plans, intentions, goals, future financial conditions, events conditioned on stockholder or other approval, or otherwise as to future events, such statements are forward-looking, and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. Readers are advised to review our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that can be accessed over the Internet at the SEC's website located at http://www.sec.gov, as well as SPYR's website located at http://www.spyr.com, and SPYR's community channel on Twitter located at https://twitter.com/spyrinc.

Investor Relations Contact:

Stanley Wunderlich

Consulting for Strategic Growth 1 Ltd.

Tel: 800-625-2236 ext. 7770

Email: [email protected]

Marlin Molinaro

Marmel Communications, LLC

(828) 669-0616

[email protected]

Public Relations Contact:

Rob Bailey

KCSA Strategic Communications

212.896.1289

[email protected]

SOURCE SPYR, INC.

Related Links

http://www.spyr.com


BOULDER, Colorado, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Surna Inc. (OTCQB: SRNA), a technology company that engineers equipment for controlled environment agriculture (CEA) with special expertise in cannabis cultivation, is excited to welcome eight states to this growing industry.

The results of the ballot measures for medicinal and recreational cannabis represent a massive expansion of the cannabis market, creating the need for cultivation technologies to help the industry run efficiently and responsibly. With each state having its own unique climate, growing environment and regulations, Surna's expertise in cultivation technology will be key for developing tailored solutions that will fit the needs of each state market.

"With the passage of legal cannabis in California, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts for adult recreational use and four other states, Arkansas, Florida, Montana and North Dakota legalizing for medical use, Surna is looking forward to providing these new cultivators with the equipment they'll need for a reliable and sustainable crop yield," said Surna CEO Trent Doucet. "Our experience in providing best-in-class agricultural solutions puts us in a prime position in many of the new markets that are coming above ground."

Once legalization is approved, it is common to see a year and a half to two years before the first licenses are issued while the state implements its rules and regulations. During this transitional phase, Surna will continue augmenting its production and engineering capabilities, while investing in new technologies to further support this rapidly expanding industry. Surna is looking forward to the growth these new states will bring.

About Surna

Surna Inc. (http://www.surna.com) (OTCQB: SRNA) develops innovative technologies and products that monitor, control and address the energy and resource intensive nature of indoor cannabis cultivation. Currently, the company's revenue stream is based on its main product offerings - supplying industrial technology and products to commercial indoor cannabis grow facilities.

Headquartered in Boulder, CO, Surna's diverse engineering team is tasked with creating novel energy and resource efficient solutions, including the company's signature water-cooled climate control platform. Surna's engineers continuously seek to create technology that solve the highly specific demands of the cannabis industry for temperature, humidity, light and process control.

Surna's goal is to provide intelligent solutions to improve the quality, the control and the overall yield and efficiency of controlled environment agriculture (CEA). Though its clients do, the company neither produces nor sells cannabis.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding the Company's future business expectations, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors including Surna's ability to monetize service components, Surna's support of premium prices for existing products, commercialization of research and development efforts and continued expansion of legal cannabis markets. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, the current global economic climate amplifies many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Surna's financial results is included in Surna's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company disclaims any obligation subsequently to revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.

Statement About Cannabis Markets

The use, possession, cultivation, and distribution of cannabis is prohibited by federal law. This includes medical and recreational cannabis. Although certain states have legalized medical and recreational cannabis, companies and individuals involved in the sector are still at risk of being prosecuted by federal authorities. Further, the landscape in the cannabis industry changes rapidly. What was the law last week is not the law today and what is the law today may not be the law next week. This means that at any time the city, county, or state where cannabis is permitted can change the current laws and/or the federal government can supersede those laws and take prosecutorial action. Given the uncertain legal nature of the cannabis industry, it is imperative that investors understand that the cannabis industry is a high-risk investment. A change in the current laws or enforcement policy can negatively affect the status and operation of our business, require additional fees, stricter operational guidelines and unanticipated shut-downs.

Jamie English, Marketing Manager, [email protected] +1-303-993-5271

Kirsten Chapman, LHA Investor Relations, +1-415-433-3777, [email protected]

SOURCE Surna Inc.
ALLENTOWN, Pa., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

2016 Financial Results

(in millions) Three Months Ended

Nine Months Ended

September 30, 2016

September 30, 2016 Net Income (Loss) $ 88



$ 236

Adjusted EBITDA 247



614

Cash from Operations



549

Adjusted Free Cash Flow



523



2016 Guidance Ranges

Adjusted EBITDA projection narrowed to $705-$805 million

Adjusted Free Cash Flow projection increased and narrowed to $500-$600 million

Transaction Update

Stockholders voted overwhelmingly to approve merger with an affiliate of Riverstone Holdings LLC

Merger approvals received from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and New York Public Service Commission

$600 million term loan B facility for merger financing successfully priced

term loan B facility for merger financing successfully priced Transaction on schedule to close by end of 2016, subject to Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions

Talen Energy Corporation (NYSE: TLN) today reported Net Income of $88 million for the three months ended September 30, 2016, compared with a Net Loss of $401 million for the three months ended September 30, 2015, and Adjusted EBITDA of $247 million, compared with $357 million for the three months ended September 30, 2015.

For the nine months ended September 30, 2016, Talen Energy reported Net Income of $236 million, compared with a Net Loss of $279 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2015, and Adjusted EBITDA of $614 million, compared with Adjusted EBITDA of $765 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2015.

The 2015 Net Losses reflected non-cash goodwill and other asset impairment charges detailed at that time.

Based on results through the end of the third quarter, Talen Energy narrowed 2016 guidance for Adjusted EBITDA to $705-$805 million, and increased and narrowed 2016 guidance for Adjusted Free Cash Flow to $500-$600 million.

On June 3, 2016, Talen Energy announced a merger agreement with affiliates of Riverstone Holdings LLC, a private investment firm. Talen Energy stockholders overwhelmingly approved the merger on Oct. 6, 2016. The merger has been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the New York Public Service Commission. The parties also have been granted early termination of the applicable waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2016, subject to approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.

A Talen Energy subsidiary, Talen Energy Supply LLC, has successfully priced a $600 million term loan B facility, the net proceeds of which are expected to be used to fund the payment of fees and expenses in connection with the term loan B issuance and the merger, for working capital needs and for other general corporate purposes of Talen Energy, including repayment of debt under Talen Energy Supply's revolving credit facility. Closing of the term loan B is subject to customary closing conditions and completion of the merger.

Looking at operating highlights, natural gas co-firing capability at the coal-fired Brunner Island plant in York County, Pa. is in commercial operation for Unit 3 and expected to be in commercial operation for Unit 2 by the end of 2016. The company decided to defer completion and commercial operation of co-firing capability for Unit 1 until the spring of 2017, to avoid taking the unit out of service during the winter demand season. Talen Energy also has decided to evaluate further plans it announced in June 2016 to add natural gas co-firing capability at the coal-fired Montour plant in Montour County, Pa., to consider operating experience and results from the Brunner Island Unit 3 project. There is no current timetable for completing the Montour project, and the company has excluded the estimated $70 million capital cost from its forecasted capital expenditures.

Review of Segment Results

Financial information presented in this news release for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 represents nine months of legacy Talen Energy Supply results, consolidated with four months of RJS Power results. Financial information for three and nine months ended September 30, 2015 excludes results from the Athens, Millennium and Harquahala plants because they were acquired in November 2015.

(in millions) Three Months Ended September 30,

Nine Months Ended September 30,

2016

2015

2016

2015 Operating Income (Loss)













East $ 221



$ (345)



$ 765



$ 33

West 16



39



(64)



18

Other (b) (44)



(40)



(149)



(184)

Total $ 193



$ (346)



$ 552



$ (133)

















EBITDA (a)













East $ 327



$ (260)



$ 1,072



$ 288

West 28



49



(28)



32

Other (b) (41)



(39)



(141)



(183)

Total $ 314



$ (250)



$ 903



$ 137

















Adjusted EBITDA (a)













East $ 250



$ 331



$ 691



$ 817

West 21



49



(9)



53

Other (b) (24)



(23)



(68)



(105)

Total $ 247



$ 357



$ 614



$ 765







(a) EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are non-U.S. GAAP financial measures used by management, in addition to Operating Income, to evaluate Talen Energy's business on an ongoing basis. For the definitions of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, a detailed itemization of adjustments, and a reconciliation of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA to Operating Income (Loss), see the tables at the end of this news release. Management does not allocate interest expense and income taxes on a segment level and therefore uses Operating Income (Loss) as the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measure. (b) General and administrative expenses are not allocated to each segment and are included in the "Other" category.

East Segment

The East segment includes operations in PJM, New York ISO and ISO New England.

In the third quarter of 2016, Operating Income increased by $566 million compared with the third quarter of 2015 primarily due to the impact of non-recurring, non-cash goodwill and asset impairment charges in 2015, a coal contract modification charge in 2015, and unrealized gains from hedging activities, partially offset by factors that affected Adjusted EBITDA, which are described in the next paragraph.

In the third quarter of 2016, Adjusted EBITDA decreased by $81 million compared with the third quarter of 2015 primarily due to lower margins, partially offset by lower operation and maintenance costs. The decrease in margins was primarily due to lost energy and capacity revenues from assets sold in 2016, and lower capacity prices, realized energy prices and spark spreads, partially offset by the addition of margins from the Athens and Millennium plants acquired in 2015 and other portfolio margins. The decrease in operation and maintenance costs was primarily due to reduced non-outage costs at the Susquehanna nuclear plant and lower costs associated with assets sold in 2016, partially offset by additional costs associated with assets acquired in 2015.

For the first nine months of 2016, Operating Income increased by $732 million compared with the first nine months of 2015, primarily due to gains on assets sold in 2016, the impact of non-recurring, non-cash goodwill and asset impairment charges in the third quarter of 2015, and a coal contract modification charge in the third quarter of 2015, partially offset by an impairment charge related to the Bell Bend nuclear project in the second quarter of 2016, unrealized losses from hedging activities, higher depreciation driven by assets acquired in 2015, and factors that affected Adjusted EBITDA, which are described in the next paragraph.

For the first nine months of 2016, Adjusted EBITDA decreased by $126 million compared with the first nine months of 2015 primarily due to lower margins and higher operation and maintenance costs. The decrease in margins was primarily due to lost energy and capacity revenues from assets sold in 2016, and lower realized energy prices, nuclear plant availability, spark spreads and capacity prices, partially offset by the addition of margins from assets acquired in 2015 and other portfolio margins. Operation and maintenance costs increased primarily due to additional costs associated with assets acquired in 2015.

West Segment

The West segment includes operations in the ERCOT and WECC markets in Texas, Montana and Arizona.

In the third quarter of 2016, Operating Income decreased by $23 million compared with the third quarter of 2015, primarily due to factors that affected Adjusted EBITDA, which are described in the next paragraph.

In the third quarter of 2016, Adjusted EBITDA decreased by $28 million compared with the third quarter of 2015, primarily due to lower margins and higher operation and maintenance costs. Margins decreased primarily due to lower realized energy prices in Texas and Montana, partially offset by the addition of margins from the Harquahala plant acquired in 2015. Operation and maintenance costs increased primarily due to additional costs associated with assets acquired in 2015.

For the first nine months of 2016, Operating Income decreased by $82 million compared with the first nine months of 2015, primarily due to factors that affected Adjusted EBITDA, which are described in the next paragraph, and higher depreciation driven by assets acquired in 2015, partially offset by a decrease in unrealized losses from hedging activities.

For the first nine months of 2016, Adjusted EBITDA decreased by $62 million compared with the first nine months of 2015, primarily due to lower margins and higher operation and maintenance costs. Margins decreased primarily due to lower realized energy prices in Texas and Montana, and lower availability of the Colstrip plant, partially offset by the addition of margins from the Harquahala plant acquired in 2015. Operation and maintenance costs increased primarily due to additional costs associated with assets acquired in 2015.

Other

The "Other" category includes general and administrative expenses not allocated to a segment.

For the third quarter of 2016, Operating Loss and Adjusted EBITDA were relatively flat compared with the third quarter of 2015.

For the first nine months of 2016, Operating Loss decreased by $35 million and Adjusted EBITDA improved by $37 million compared with the first nine months of 2015, primarily due to lower corporate expenses.

Adjusted Free Cash Flow

(in millions)

Nine Months Ended



September 30, 2016

September 30, 2015 Cash from Operations

$ 549



$ 731

Adjusted Free Cash Flow (a)

523



421







(a) Adjusted Free Cash Flow is a non-U.S. GAAP financial measure used by management in addition to Cash from Operations. For the definition of Adjusted Free Cash Flow, a detailed itemization of adjustments and a reconciliation of Adjusted Free Cash Flow to Cash from Operations, see the tables at the end of this news release.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

(in millions)



September 30, 2016

December 31, 2015 Cash and cash equivalents



$ 1,358



$ 141

Short-term debt (a)



350



608







(a) December 31, 2015 figure includes $108 million, which at September 30, 2016 is classified as "Long-term debt" on the Balance Sheet at September 30, 2016 based on Talen Energy's intent to refinance on a long-term basis.

The decrease in short-term debt was primarily due to the use of proceeds from assets sold in 2016 to repay $600 million of outstanding borrowings under revolving credit facilities, partially offset by a drawdown on revolving credit facilities to repay $350 million in debt that matured in May 2016.

Net cash provided by (used in) operating, investing and financing activities for the nine months ended September 30, and the changes between periods were as follows.

(in millions)

2016

2015

Change - Cash Operating activities

$ 549



$ 731



$ (182)

Investing activities

1,219



(173)



1,392

Financing activities

(551)



(262)



(289)



2016 Financial Outlook

Talen Energy narrowed 2016 guidance for Adjusted EBITDA to $705-$805 million from the previously announced $655-$855 million. The company increased and narrowed guidance for Adjusted Free Cash Flow to $500-$600 million from the previously announced $260-$460 million. The primary drivers of the increase in Adjusted Free Cash Flow guidance include lower expected tax payments, updated working capital assumptions and lower capital expenditures.

For a detailed itemization of adjustments and reconciliations of Adjusted EBITDA to Operating Income (Loss) and Adjusted Free Cash Flow to Cash from Operations, see the tables at the end of the news release.

About Talen Energy

Talen Energy is one of the largest competitive energy and power generation companies in the United States. Our diverse generating fleet operates in well-developed, structured wholesale power markets. To learn more about us, visit www.talenenergy.com.

The Investors & Media section of the website contains a significant amount of information about Talen Energy, including financial and other information for investors. Talen Energy encourages investors to visit its website periodically to view new and updated information. Slides describing third quarter financial performance have been posted on the Events & Presentations page in the Investors & Media section of the website.

Forward-Looking Information

Statements contained in this news release, including statements with respect to future earnings, EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA or Adjusted Free Cash Flow results, cash flows, tax attributes, financing, regulation and closing of the Merger, are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements often include such words as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "estimate," "target," "project," "forecast," "seek," "will," "may," "should," "could," "would" or similar expressions. Although Talen Energy believes that the expectations and assumptions reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in the statements. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements are: failure to complete the Merger as a result of the failure to obtain necessary regulatory approvals or otherwise; the payment by Talen Energy of a termination fee if the Merger Agreement is terminated in certain circumstances; the loss of key customers and suppliers resulting from any uncertainties associated with the Merger; the negative impact on Talen Energy's business and the market price for Talen Energy's common stock should the Merger not be consummated; adverse economic conditions; changes in commodity prices and related costs; the effectiveness of Talen Energy's risk management techniques, including hedging; accounting interpretations and requirements that may impact reported results; operational, price and credit risks in the wholesale and retail electricity markets; Talen Energy's ability to forecast the actual load needed to perform full-requirements sales contracts; weather conditions affecting generation, customer energy use and operating costs and revenues; disruptions in fuel supply; circumstances that may impact the levels of coal inventory that are held; the performance of transmission facilities and any changes in the structure and operation of, or the pricing limitations imposed by, the RTOs and ISOs that operate those facilities; blackouts due to disruptions in neighboring interconnected systems; competition; federal and state legislation and regulation; costs of complying with environmental and related worker health and safety laws and regulations; the impacts of climate change; the availability and cost of emission allowances; changes in legislative and regulatory policy; security and safety risks associated with nuclear generation; Talen Energy's level of indebtedness; the terms and conditions of debt instruments that may restrict Talen Energy's ability to operate its business; the performance of Talen Energy's subsidiaries and affiliates, on which its cash flow and ability to meet its debt obligations largely depend; the risks inherent with variable rate indebtedness; disruption in financial markets; Talen Energy's ability to access capital markets; acquisition or divestiture activities, and Talen Energy's ability to realize expected synergies and other benefits from such business transactions, including in connection with the completed MACH Gen acquisition; changes in technology; any failure of Talen Energy's facilities to operate as planned, including in connection with scheduled and unscheduled outages; Talen Energy's ability to optimize its competitive power generation operations and the costs associated with any capital expenditures, including the Brunner Island dual-fuel project; significant increases in operation and maintenance expenses; the loss of key personnel, the ability to hire and retain qualified employees and the impact of collective labor bargaining negotiations; war, armed conflicts or terrorist attacks, including cyber-based attacks; risks associated with federal and state tax laws and regulations; any determination that the transaction that formed Talen Energy does not qualify as a tax-free distribution under the Internal Revenue Code; Talen Energy's ability to successfully integrate the RJS Power businesses and to achieve anticipated synergies and cost savings as a result of the spinoff transaction and combination with RJS Power; costs of complying with reporting requirements as a newly public company and any related risks of deficiencies in disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting as a standalone entity; and the ability of affiliates of Riverstone to exercise influence over matters requiring Board of Directors and/or stockholder approval. Any such forward-looking statements should be considered in light of such important factors and in conjunction with Talen Energy's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, and other reports on file with the SEC.

Definition of Non-U.S. GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to disclosing financial results in accordance with U.S. GAAP, the accompanying earnings release contains non-U.S. GAAP financial measures EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Free Cash Flow, which we use as measures of our performance.

EBITDA represents net income (loss) before interest expense, income taxes, depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA represents EBITDA further adjusted for certain non-cash and other items that management believes are not indicative of ongoing operations, including, but not limited to, unrealized gains and losses on derivative contracts, stock-based compensation expense, asset retirement obligation accretion (net of gains or losses on retirements), gains and losses on securities in the nuclear decommissioning trust fund, impairments, gains or losses on sales, dispositions or retirements of assets, debt extinguishments, and transition, transaction and restructuring costs.

EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are not intended to represent cash flows from operations or net income (loss) as defined by U.S. GAAP as indicators of operating performance and are not necessarily comparable to similarly-titled measures reported by other companies. We believe EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are useful to investors and other users of our financial statements in evaluating our operating performance because they provide additional tools to compare business performance across companies and across periods. We believe that EBITDA is widely used by investors to measure a company's operating performance without regard to such items as interest expense, income taxes, depreciation and amortization, which can vary substantially from company to company depending upon accounting methods and book value of assets, capital structure and the method by which assets were acquired. Additionally, we believe that investors commonly adjust EBITDA information to eliminate the effect of restructuring and other expenses, which vary widely from company to company and impair comparability. We adjust for these and other items, as our management believes that these items would distort their ability to efficiently view and assess our core operating trends. In summary, our management uses EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA as measures of operating performance to assist in comparing performance from period to period on a consistent basis and to readily view operating trends, as measures for planning and forecasting overall expectations and for evaluating actual results against such expectations, and in communications with our Board of Directors, stockholders, creditors, analysts and investors concerning our financial performance.

Adjusted Free Cash Flow represents Cash from Operations less capital expenditures, excluding growth-related capital expenditures, adjusted for changes in counterparty collateral and further adjusted for after-tax transaction and restructuring costs, and certain other after-tax cash items that management believes are not indicative of ongoing operations. Adjusted Free Cash Flow should not be considered an alternative to Cash from Operations, which is determined in accordance with U.S. GAAP. We believe that Adjusted Free Cash Flow, although a non-U.S. GAAP measure, is an important measure to both management and investors as an indicator of the company's ability to sustain operations without additional outside financing beyond the requirement to fund maturing debt obligations. These measures are not necessarily comparable to similarly-titled measures reported by other companies as they may be calculated differently.

TALEN ENERGY CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL INFORMATION (a) Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (Unaudited) (Unaudited) (Millions of Dollars)







September 30,

December 31,

2016

2015 Assets





Cash and cash equivalents $ 1,358



$ 141

Restricted cash and cash equivalents 46



106

Accounts receivable (less reserve: 2016, $1; 2015, $1) 238



267

Unbilled revenues 125



160

Fuel, materials and supplies 407



508

Prepayments 45



52

Price risk management assets 350



562

Assets held for sale 



954

Other current assets 10



12

Investments 1,028



976

Property, Plant and Equipment 14,741



14,462

Less: accumulated depreciation 6,658



6,411

Property, plant and equipment, net 8,083



8,051

Construction work in progress 398



536

Total Property, Plant and Equipment, net 8,481



8,587

Other intangibles 103



310

Price risk management assets 194



131

Other noncurrent assets 44



43

Total Assets $ 12,429



$ 12,809

















Liabilities and Equity





Short-term debt $ 350



$ 608

Long-term debt due within one year 5



399

Accounts payable 260



291

Liabilities held for sale 



33

Other current liabilities 661



757

Long-term Debt 3,894



3,787

Deferred income taxes and investment tax credits 1,617



1,602

Price risk management liabilities - noncurrent 126



108

Accrued pension obligations 318



340

Asset retirement obligations 506



490

Other deferred credits and noncurrent liabilities 125



91

Common Stock and additional paid-in capital 4,710



4,702

Accumulated deficit (137)



(373)

Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) (6)



(26)

Total Liabilities and Equity $ 12,429



$ 12,809



(a) The Financial Statements in this news release have been condensed and summarized for the purposes of presentation. Please refer to Talen Energy Corporation's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for full Financial Statements, including note disclosures and certain defined terms used herein.

TALEN ENERGY CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES Condensed Consolidated Statements of Income (Unaudited)













(Millions of Dollars, Except Share Data)















Three Months Ended

Nine Months Ended

September 30,

September 30,

2016

2015

2016

2015 Operating Revenues













Wholesale energy $ 893



$ 887



$ 2,082



$ 2,124

Retail energy 202



277



650



831

Energy-related businesses 143



156



376



404

Total Operating Revenues 1,238



1,320



3,108



3,359

Operating Expenses













Operation













Fuel and energy purchases 564



589



1,402



1,486

Operation and maintenance 221



235



780



760

(Gain) loss on sale 







(563)





Impairments 1



588



214



591

Depreciation 112



95



330



259

Taxes, other than income 12



9



34



17

Energy-related businesses 135



150



359



379

Total Operating Expenses 1,045



1,666



2,556



3,492

Operating Income (Loss) 193



(346)



552



(133)

Other Income (Expense) - net 9



1



21



11

Interest Expense 60



55



180



146

Income (Loss) Before Income Taxes 142



(400)



393



(268)

Income Taxes 54



1



157



11

Net Income (Loss) $ 88



$ (401)



$ 236



$ (279)

















Earnings Per Share of Common Stock:













Basic $ 0.69



$ (3.12)



$ 1.84



$ (2.69)

Diluted $ 0.68



$ (3.12)



$ 1.82



$ (2.69)

















Weighted-Average Shares of Common Stock Outstanding (in thousands)













Basic 128,527



128,509



128,527



103,627

Diluted 130,143



128,509



129,702



103,627



CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS Talen Energy Corporation and Subsidiaries (Unaudited)





(Millions of Dollars)







Nine Months Ended

September 30,

2016

2015 Cash Flows from Operating Activities





Net income (loss) $ 236



$ (279)

Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash provided by operating activities





Pre-tax gain from the sale of certain generation facilities (595)





Depreciation 330



259

Amortization 162



159

Defined benefit plans - expense 33



35

Deferred income taxes and investment tax credits (8)



(30)

Impairment of assets 216



595

Unrealized (gains) losses on derivatives, and other hedging activities (3)



(80)

Other 29



51

Change in current assets and current liabilities





Accounts receivable 17



64

Accounts payable (30)



(148)

Unbilled revenues 35



93

Fuel, materials and supplies 94



58

Counterparty collateral (27)



76

Taxes payable 88



(23)

Other 6



(18)

Other operating activities





Defined benefit plans - funding (40)



(74)

Other assets and liabilities 6



(7)

Net cash provided by operating activities 549



731

Cash Flows from Investing Activities





Expenditures for property, plant and equipment (336)



(252)

Proceeds from the sale of certain generation facilities 1,525





Expenditures for intangible assets (44)



(35)

Purchases of nuclear plant decommissioning trust investments (134)



(154)

Proceeds from the sale of nuclear plant decommissioning trust investments 121



143

Net (increase) decrease in restricted cash and cash equivalents 60



110

Other investing activities 27



15

Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities 1,219



(173)

Cash Flows from Financing Activities





Issuance of long-term debt 



600

Retirement of long-term debt (395)



(33)

Contributions from member 



82

Distributions to predecessor member 



(214)

Net increase (decrease) in short-term debt (150)



(667)

Borrowings on long-term revolving credit facility 33





Repayments on long-term revolving credit facility (36)





Other financing activities (3)



(30)

Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities (551)



(262)

Net Increase (Decrease) in Cash and Cash Equivalents 1,217



296

Cash and Cash Equivalents at Beginning of Period 141



352

Cash and Cash Equivalents at End of Period $ 1,358



$ 648



TALEN ENERGY CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES Regulation G Reconciliations Adjusted EBITDA (Unaudited)

(Millions of Dollars)



Three Months Ended September 30,

2016

2015

East

West

Other

Total

East

West

Other

Total Net income (loss)











$ 88















$ (401)

Interest expense











60















55

Income taxes











54















1

Other (income) expense - net











(9)















(1)

Operating income (loss) $ 221



$ 16



$ (44)



$ 193



$ (345)



$ 39



$ (40)



$ (346)

Depreciation 97



12



3



112



84



10



1



95

Other income (expense) - net 9











9



1











1

EBITDA $ 327



$ 28



$ (41)



$ 314



$ (260)



$ 49



$ (39)



$ (250)

Margins:





























Unrealized (gain) loss on derivative contracts (a) (85)



(9)







(94)



(50)











(50)

Coal contract adjustment (d) 















41











41

Other (e) 5











5



5











5

Operation and maintenance:





























Stock-based compensation expense (f) 







2



2











1



1

ARO accretion, net 10



1







11



8











8

Impairments (g) 



1







1



588











588

TSA costs 







8



8











14



14

Separation benefits 







3



3

















Transaction and restructuring costs (i) 







4



4











1



1

Other income (expense):





























(Gain) loss from NDT funds (7)











(7)



(1)











(1)

Adjusted EBITDA $ 250



$ 21



$ (24)



$ 247



$ 331



$ 49



$ (23)



$ 357







Nine Months Ended September 30,

2016

2015

East

West

Other

Total

East

West

Other

Total Net income (loss)











$ 236















$ (279)

Interest expense











180















146

Income taxes











157















11

Other (income) expense - net











(21)















(11)

Operating income (loss) $ 765



$ (64)



$ (149)



$ 552



$ 33



$ 18



$ (184)



$ (133)

Depreciation 289



36



5



330



243



14



2



259

Other income (expense) - net 18







3



21



12







(1)



11

EBITDA $ 1,072



$ (28)



$ (141)



$ 903



$ 288



$ 32



$ (183)



$ 137

Margins:





























Unrealized (gain) loss on derivative contracts (a) (29)



3







(26)



(120)



17







(103)

Terminated derivative contracts (b) 















(13)











(13)

Revenue adjustment (c) 















7











7

Coal contract adjustment (d) 















41











41

Other (e) 10











10



9











9

Operation and maintenance:





























Stock-based compensation expense (f) 







10



10











41



41

ARO accretion, net 25



2







27



25











25

Impairments (g) 204



10







214



591











591

(Gain) loss on dispositions (j) (563)











(563)

















TSA costs 







32



32











19



19

Separation benefits 







12



12











2



2

Corette closure costs (h) 



















4







4

Transaction and restructuring costs (i) 







19



19











16



16

Legal contingency (k) 



4







4

















Other (8)











(8)

















Other income (expense):





























(Gain) loss from NDT funds (20)











(20)



(11)











(11)

Adjusted EBITDA $ 691



$ (9)



$ (68)



$ 614



$ 817



$ 53



$ (105)



$ 765



(a) Represents unrealized gains (losses) on derivatives. Amounts have been adjusted for option premiums of $3 million and $5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, and $8 million and $14 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015. (b) Represents net realized gains on certain derivative contracts that were terminated due to the spinoff transaction. (c) Related to a prior period revenue adjustment for the receipt of revenue under a transmission operating agreement with Talen Energy Supply's former affiliate, PPL Electric Utilities Corporation. (d) To mitigate the risk of oversupply, Talen Energy incurred pre-tax charges for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2015 to reduce its contracted coal deliveries. (e) Includes OCI amortization on non-active derivative positions. (f) For the periods prior to June 2015, represents the portion of PPL's stock-based compensation cost allocable to Talen Energy. (g) 2016 includes charges for the Bell Bend Combined Operating License Application and Harquahala plant impairments. 2015 includes charges for goodwill and certain long lived assets. (h) Operations were suspended and the Corette plant was retired in March 2015. (i) Costs related to the spinoff transaction, including expenses associated with FERC-required mitigation and legal and professional fees. Also includes transaction costs related to the proposed merger with Riverstone affiliates that was announced in June 2016. (j) Relates to Ironwood, Holtwood, Lake Wallenpaupack and C.P. Crane sales. (k) Contingency relates to the termination of a gas supply contract.

TALEN ENERGY CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES Regulation G Reconciliations Adjusted Free Cash Flow (Unaudited)







(Millions of Dollars)











Nine Months Ended September 30,



2016

2015 Cash from Operations

$ 549



$ 731

Capital Expenditures, excluding growth (a)

(303)



(282)

Counterparty collateral paid (received)

27



(76)

Adjusted Free Cash Flow, including other adjustments

273



373

Cash adjustments:







Transition Services Agreement costs

32



19

Coal contract adjustment (b)





41

Legal settlement (c)

3





Separation benefits

12



2

Corette closure costs (d)





4

Transaction and restructuring costs (e)

32



15

Taxes on above adjustments (f)

(32)



(33)

Taxes on mitigated asset sales (g)

203





Adjusted Free Cash Flow

$ 523



$ 421



(a) Includes expenditures related to intangible assets. (b) To mitigate the risk of oversupply, Talen Energy incurred pre-tax charges for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 to reduce its contracted coal deliveries. (c) Contingency relates to the termination of a gas supply contract. (d) Operations were suspended and the Corette plant was retired in March 2015. (e) Costs related to the spinoff transaction, including FERC-required mitigation plan expenses and legal and professional fees. Also includes transaction costs related to the proposed merger with Riverstone affiliates that was announced in June 2016. (f) Assumed a marginal tax rate of 40%. (g) Federal taxes paid on gains associated with mitigated asset sales.

TALEN ENERGY CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES Regulation G Reconciliations Adjusted EBITDA Projections (Unaudited)











(Millions of Dollars)















Low - 2016E

Midpoint - 2016E

High - 2016E Net Income (Loss)

$ 179



$ 209



$ 239

Income Taxes

117



137



157

Interest Expense

240



240



240

Depreciation and Amortization

442



442



442

EBITDA

978



1,028



1,078

Stock-based compensation

12



12



12

Asset retirement obligation, net

37



37



37

Unrealized (gains) losses on derivative contracts (a)

(26)



(26)



(26)

Nuclear decommissioning trust losses (gains)

(23)



(23)



(23)

(Gain) loss on dispositions (b)

(563)



(563)



(563)

Impairments (c)

214



214



214

Transition Services Agreement costs and other adjustments (d)

76



76



76

Adjusted EBITDA

$ 705



$ 755



$ 805



(a) Represents unrealized (gains) losses on derivatives. Amounts have been adjusted for option premiums. (b) Relates to Ironwood, Holtwood, Lake Wallenpaupack and C.P. Crane sales. (c) Relates to Bell Bend Combined Operating License Application costs and Harquahala plant impairments. (d) Other includes: (i) costs related to the spinoff transaction, including FERC-required mitigation plan expenses and legal and professional fees; (ii) separation benefits related to workforce reductions; and (iii) costs related to the proposed merger with Riverstone affiliates that was announced in June 2016.

TALEN ENERGY CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES Regulation G Reconciliations Adjusted Free Cash Flow Projections (Unaudited)











(Millions of Dollars)















Low - 2016E

Midpoint - 2016E

High - 2016E Cash from Operations (a)

$ 582



$ 622



$ 662

Capital Expenditures, excluding growth (b)

(437)



(427)



(417)

Counterparty collateral paid (received)

27



27



27

Transition Services Agreement costs

40



40



40

Legal contingency (c)

3



3



3

Separation benefits

12



12



12

Transaction and restructuring costs (d)

42



42



42

Taxes on above adjustments (e)

(39)



(39)



(39)

Taxes on mitigated asset sales (f)

270



270



270

Adjusted Free Cash Flow

$ 500



$ 550



$ 600



(a) Includes taxes paid on gains generated from the mitigated asset sales. (b) Includes expenditures related to intangible assets. (c) Contingency relates to the termination of a gas supply contract. (d) Costs related to the spinoff transaction, including FERC-required mitigation plan expenses and legal and professional fees. Also includes costs related to the proposed merger with Riverstone affiliates that was announced in June 2016. (e) Assumed a marginal tax rate of 40%. (f) Estimated federal taxes associated with mitigated asset sales included in Cash from Operations.

Contacts:

Media Relations - George Lewis, 610-774-4687

Investor Relations - Andy Ludwig, 610-774-3389

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150601/219745LOGO

SOURCE Talen Energy

Related Links

http://www.talenenergy.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Synopsis

Timetric's 'The Cards and Payments Industry in Morocco: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides detailed analysis of market trends in the Moroccan cards and payments industry. It provides values and volumes for a number of key performance indicators in the industry, including check payments, credit transfers, direct debits and payment cards during the review period (20112015).

The report also analyzes various payment card markets operating in the industry, and provides detailed information on the number of cards in circulation, and transaction values and volumes during the review period and over the forecast period (20162020). It also offers information on the country's competitive landscape, including the market shares of issuers and schemes.



The report brings together Timetric's research, modeling, and analysis expertise to allow banks and card issuers to identify segment dynamics and competitive advantages. The report also covers details of regulatory policy and recent changes in the regulatory structure.



Summary

Timetric's 'The Cards and Payments Industry in Morocco: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into the Moroccan cards and payments industry, including:



- Current and forecast values for each market in the Moroccan cards and payments industry, including debit and credit cards.



- Detailed insights into payment instruments including check payments, credit transfers, direct debits and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.



- E-commerce market analysis



- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing the Moroccan cards and payments industry.



- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit and credit cards.



- Comprehensive analysis of consumer attitudes and buying preferences for cards.



- The competitive landscape in Moroccan cards and payments industry.



Scope

- This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Moroccan cards and payments industry.



- It provides current values for the Moroccan cards and payments industry for 2015, and forecast figures to 2020.



- It details the different demographic, economic, infrastructural and business drivers affecting the Moroccan cards and payments industry.



- It outlines the current regulatory framework in the industry.



- It details marketing strategies used by various banks and other institutions.



Reasons To Buy

- Make strategic business decisions, using top-level historic and forecast market data, related to the Moroccan cards and payments industry and each market within it.



- Understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in the Moroccan cards and payments industry.



- Assess the competitive dynamics in the Moroccan cards and payments industry.



- Gain insights into marketing strategies used for various card types in Morocco.



- Gain insights into key regulations governing the Moroccan cards and payments industry.



Key Highlights

- Contactless cards are expected to gain traction in Morocco. The domestic interbank network switch, the Centre Monetique Interbancaire (CMI) and MasterCard launched contactless payment cards in October 2015. To increase contactless uptake, contactless POS terminals were deployed in Casablanca, and will be gradually expanded to other cities such as Rabat and Marrakech. According to the CMI, 6,000 contactless POS terminals will be installed by the end of 2016, with plans to increase the number to 17,000 by the end of 2017.



- Payment service providers (PSPs) are offering terminals at lower costs to increase uptake of mobile point of sale (mPOS) among small merchants. One of the latest is the introduction of an mPOS solution by the CMI in October 2015, to enable self-employed professionals and micro-merchants to accept card payments by smartphone or tablet. The introduction of low-cost solutions is expected to encourage merchants to accept card-based payments.



- As part of moves to establish a full Islamic finance industry in the country, the Moroccan government approved a new banking law in June 2014. The initiative is expected to allow new entrants to enter the Moroccan banking sector, and introduce Sharia-compliant credit cards on a large scale. The central bank of Morocco is planning to give permission to 10 banks in Morocco to offer Islamic banking products and services by the end of 2016.

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p03275133-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

http://www.reportlinker.com





__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

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LONDON, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Due to the bandwidth limitations of their traditional voice-centric LMR (Land Mobile Radio) networks, public safety agencies are keen to leverage commercial cellular network technology to support their growing broadband application needs. Considering its thriving ecosystem, spectrum flexibility and performance metrics, LTE has emerged as the leading candidate for public safety mobile broadband networks. In addition, with the recent approval of the MCPTT (Mission Critical Push to Talk) voice standard as part of 3GPP Release 13, LTE has also become an attractive substitute for providing LMR-like voice services.



The Qatar Ministry of Interior made headlines when it deployed a private 800 MHz LTE network in 2012. Since then, numerous public safety LTE networks have sprung up across the globe, including the UAE, China, Laos, Turkey and Kenya. Several early adopter LTE deployments are also operational in the United States, as part of the planned FirstNet nationwide public safety broadband network. While most initial public safety LTE investments are limited to small-scale networks, nationwide rollouts in the United States and South Korea are expected to trigger significant large-scale investments throughout the globe.



The European market is largely dominated by MVNO arrangements, such as the UK Home Office's ESN (Emergency Services Network) program that will use EE's commercial LTE network to deliver prioritized mission critical voice and data services for the UK's public safety agencies. As part of the program, EE is enhancing its existing network with additional sites, satellite backhaul and a dedicated mobile core for first responders, among other investments.



Driven by the thriving ecosystem, SNS Research estimates that annual investments on public safety LTE infrastructure will reach $600 Million by the end of 2016. The market, which includes base stations (eNBs), mobile core and transport networking gear, is further expected to grow at a CAGR of 33% over the next four years. By 2020, these infrastructure investments will be complemented by over 4.4 Million LTE device shipments, including smartphones, rugged handheld terminals and vehicular routers.



The "Public Safety LTE & Mobile Broadband Market: 2016  2030  Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts" report presents an in-depth assessment of the global public safety LTE market, besides touching upon the wider LMR and mobile broadband industries. In addition to covering the business case, challenges, technology, spectrum allocation, industry roadmap, value chain, deployment case studies, vendor products, strategies, standardization initiatives and applications ecosystem for public safety LTE, the report also presents comprehensive forecasts for mobile broadband, LMR and public safety LTE subscriptions from 2016 till 2030. Also covered are public safety LTE service revenues, over both private and commercial networks. In addition, the report presents revenue forecasts for public safety LTE infrastructure, devices, integration services and management solutions.



The report comes with an associated Excel datasheet suite covering quantitative data from all numeric forecasts presented in the report, as well as a list and associated details of over 90 global public safety LTE network commitments (as of Q2'2016).



Topics Covered

The report covers the following topics:

- Business case for public safety LTE and mobile broadband services, including key benefits and challenges

- Technology, economics, trends, commercial commitments and deployment case studies

- List of public safety LTE engagements worldwide

- Public safety LTE infrastructure, devices and applications

- Industry roadmap, value chain and standardization initiatives

- Spectrum allocation, deployment models and funding strategies

- Profiles and strategies of over 260 ecosystem players including public safety system integrators and LTE infrastructure/device OEMs

- TCO analysis of private and commercial public safety LTE deployments

- Military and tactical LTE deployments

- Public safety LTE base station (eNB) form factor analysis

- Exclusive interview transcripts from 5 key ecosystem players: Ericsson, Airbus Defence and Space, Sepura, Aricent and Parallel Wireless

- Strategic recommendations for vendors, system integrators, public safety agencies and mobile operators

- Market analysis and forecasts from 2016 till 2030





Forecast Segmentation

Market forecasts are provided for each of the following submarkets and their subcategories:



Public Safety LTE Infrastructure

Submarkets

- RAN (Radio Access Network)

- EPC (Evolved Packet Core) and Policy

- Mobile Backhaul and Transport

RAN Base Station (eNB) Mobility Categories

- Fixed Base Stations

- Transportable Base Stations

RAN Base Station (eNB) Cell Size Categories

- Macrocells

- Small Cells

Transportable RAN Base Station (eNB) Form Factor Categories

- NIB (Network-in-a-Box)

- VNS (Vehicle Network System)

- SOW (System-on-Wheels)

- Airborne Platforms



Public Safety LTE Management & Integration Solutions

Submarkets

- Network Integration & Testing

- Device Management & User Services

- Managed Services, Operations & Maintenance

- Cybersecurity



Public Safety LTE Devices

Submarkets

- Private LTE

- Commercial LTE

Form Factor Categories

- Smartphones & Handportable Terminals

- Vehicle Mount Routers & Terminals

- Tablets & Notebook PCs

- USB Dongles & Others



Public Safety LTE Subscriptions & Service Revenue

Submarkets

- Private LTE

- Commercial LTE



Public Safety User Subscriptions over Private Mobile Broadband

Submarkets

- Private LTE

- Private WiMAX



Public Safety User Subscriptions over Commercial Mobile Broadband

Submarkets

- 3G

- WiMAX

- LTE

- 5G & Beyond



LMR Subscriptions

Submarkets

- Analog

- DMR

- dPMR, NXDN & PDT

- P25

- TETRA

- Tetrapol

- Others



LMR Data Subscriptions

Submarkets

- P25 - Phase 1

- P25 - Phase 2

- TETRA

- TEDS

- Tetrapol

- Others



Public Safety LTE Applications

Submarkets

- Video Applications

- GIS, AVLS and Mapping

- Mobile VPN Access & Security

- CAD (Computer Aided Dispatching)

- Remote Database Access

- Telemetry and Remote Diagnostics

- Bulk Multimedia/Data Transfers

- PTT & Voice over LTE

- Situational Awareness Applications



Regional Segmentation

- Asia Pacific

- Eastern Europe

- Latin & Central America

- Middle East & Africa

- North America

- Western Europe



Key Questions Answered

The report provides answers to the following key questions:

- How big is the public safety LTE opportunity?

- What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth?

- How is the ecosystem evolving by segment and region?

- What will the market size be in 2020 and at what rate will it grow?

- Which regions and submarkets will see the highest percentage of growth?

- How does standardization impact the adoption of LTE for public safety applications?

- When will MCPTT and proximity services see large scale proliferation?

- What is the status of private LTE rollouts and public safety MVNO offerings across the globe?

- What opportunities exist for commercial mobile operators and MVNOs in the public safety LTE market?

- Is there a market for 400 MHz LTE networks?

- What are the prospects of tactical, vehicle-mounted and airborne LTE eNB platforms?

- How can public safety agencies leverage unused spectrum resources to fund private LTE networks?

- What strategies should system integrators and vendors adopt to remain competitive?



Key Findings

The report has the following key findings:

- SNS Research estimates that annual investments on public safety LTE infrastructure will reach $600 Million by the end of 2016. The market, which includes base stations (eNBs), mobile core and transport networking gear, is further expected to grow at a CAGR of 33% over the next four years.

- By 2020, these infrastructure investments will be complemented by over 4.4 Million LTE device shipments, including smartphones, rugged handheld terminals and vehicular routers.

- Following the Qatar Ministry of Interior's private 800 MHz LTE network deployment in 2012, multiple private LTE rollouts are underway by security forces throughout the oil rich GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region, including the Abu Dhabi and Dubai police forces.

- Driven by nationwide public safety LTE network rollouts in the United States and South Korea, the North America and Asia Pacific regions will account for nearly 70% of all public safety LTE investments over the next four years.

- Almost all major LMR industry players are leveraging partnerships with established LTE infrastructure OEMs such as Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and Samsung, to offer end-to-end LTE solutions.

- Consolidation efforts are continuing to take place throughout the industry, particularly among the largest LTE infrastructure OEMs and public safety system integrators.

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/3047360/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla., Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- TopBuild Corp. (NYSE: BLD), the leading purchaser, installer and distributor of insulation products to the United States construction industry, reported financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2016.

Jerry Volas, Chief Executive Officer of TopBuild stated, "We continue to successfully leverage our existing platform to generate sales growth, outpacing the increase in lagged housing starts. We believe the trajectory of housing starts will continue to be positive, as there is a limited supply of new construction, and increasing household formations are driving demand. This is an excellent external environment for TopBuild to drive market share and sales growth.

"Our operational improvement initiatives are also generating positive results. The 8.7% adjusted operating margin for the third quarter is an increase of 140 basis points year-over-year and 230 basis points sequentially. Year-to-date, our adjusted operating profit margin has expanded 200 basis points. In summary, we remain focused on balancing top line growth with margin performance."

Third Quarter Financial Highlights

(unless otherwise indicated, comparisons are to the quarter ended September 30, 2015)

Net sales increased 5.9% to $453.1 million , primarily driven by sales volume growth in both operating segments.

, primarily driven by sales volume growth in both operating segments. Gross margin was up 190 basis points year-over-year and 170 basis points on an adjusted basis.

Selling, general and administrative ("SG&A") expenses as a percentage of sales were 15.2%, compared to 14.9%.

Operating profit was $39.1 million compared to $30.2 million . On an adjusted basis, operating profit was $39.6 million compared to $31.2 million , a 26.7% improvement.

compared to . On an adjusted basis, operating profit was compared to , a 26.7% improvement. Operating margins improved 150 basis points to 8.6%. On an adjusted basis, operating margins were 8.7%, up 140 basis points.

Net income from continuing operations was $24.6 million , or $0.65 per diluted share, compared to $16.6 million or $0.44 per diluted share. On an adjusted basis, net income from continuing operations was $23.8 million , or $0.63 per diluted share compared to $19.0 million or $0.50 per diluted share.

, or per diluted share, compared to or per diluted share. On an adjusted basis, net income from continuing operations was , or per diluted share compared to or per diluted share. At quarter end, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of $104.5 million and availability under its revolving credit facility of $75.9 million for total liquidity of $180.4 million .

Operating Segment Highlights

(all comparisons are to the quarter ended September 30, 2015)

TruTeam SM (Installation) Net sales increased 7.2% driven primarily by increased volume. Operating margin was 10.7%, a 330 basis point improvement. On an adjusted basis, operating margin was 10.8%, a 300 basis point improvement.

Service Partners  (Distribution) Net sales rose 1.9%, negatively impacted by a decrease in selling prices. Operating margin was 8.9% compared to 9.9%, with the margin decline primarily attributable to lower selling prices.



Additional Information

A presentation that will be referenced on today's conference call is available on the "Investors" section of the Company's website at www.topbuild.com.

Conference Call Details

A conference call to discuss the Company's third quarter financial results for 2016 is scheduled for today, Wednesday, November 9, 2016, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The call may be accessed by dialing (800) 624-0538. The conference call will be webcast simultaneously on the "Investors" section of the Company's website at www.topbuild.com.

A replay of the call will be available on TopBuild's website or it may be accessed by phone by dialing (800) 633-8284. The replay passcode is 21817553.

About TopBuild

TopBuild Corp., headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida, is the leading purchaser, installer and distributor of insulation products to the U.S. construction industry. We provide insulation services nationwide through TruTeamSM, which has over 170 branches and our Service Partners business distributes insulation from over 70 branches. We leverage our national footprint to gain economies of scale while capitalizing on our local market presence to forge strong relationships with our customers. To learn more about TopBuild please visit our website at www.topbuild.com.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

The "adjusted" financial measures presented above are not calculated in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"). The Company believes that these non-GAAP financial measures, which are used in managing the business, may provide users of this financial information with additional meaningful comparisons between current results and results in prior periods. Such non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled to their closest GAAP financial measures in tables contained in this news release. Non-GAAP financial measures should be viewed in addition to, and not as an alternative for, the Company's reported results under GAAP. Additional information may be found in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission which are available on TopBuild's website under "Investors" at www.topbuild.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements may address, among other things, our expected financial and operational results and the related assumptions underlying our expected results. These forward-looking statements are distinguished by use of words such as "will," "would," "anticipate," "expect," "believe," "plan" or "intend," the negative of these terms, and similar references to future periods. These views involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict and, accordingly, our actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in our forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this press release. Factors or events that we cannot predict, including those described in the risk factors contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, may cause our actual results to differ from those expressed in forward-looking statements. Although TopBuild believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, the Company can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved and it undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

Investor Relations and Media Contact

Tabitha Zane

[email protected]

386-763-8801

(tables follow)

TopBuild Corp.























Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations (Unaudited)



















(in thousands, except common share amounts)





















































Three Months Ended

September 30,

Nine Months Ended

September 30,



2016

2015

2016

2015 Net sales

$ 453,102

$ 427,888

$ 1,298,715

$ 1,190,109 Cost of sales



344,963



333,886



1,003,433



936,601 Gross profit



108,139



94,002



295,282



253,508

























Selling, general, and administrative expense



69,038



63,811



209,623



212,974 Operating profit



39,101



30,191



85,659



40,534

























Other income (expense), net:























Interest expense



(1,271)



(1,576)



(4,315)



(7,893) Other, net



65



10



201



14 Other expense, net



(1,206)



(1,566)



(4,114)



(7,879) Income from continuing operations before income taxes



37,895



28,625



81,545



32,655

























Income tax expense from continuing operations



(13,329)



(12,001)



(30,246)



(13,201) Income from continuing operations



24,566



16,624



51,299



19,454

























Loss from discontinued operations, net















(234) Net income

$ 24,566

$ 16,624

$ 51,299

$ 19,220

























Income (loss) per common share:























Basic:























Income from continuing operations

$ 0.65

$ 0.44

$ 1.36

$ 0.52 Loss from discontinued operations, net















(0.01) Net income

$ 0.65

$ 0.44

$ 1.36

$ 0.51

























Diluted:























Income from continuing operations

$ 0.65

$ 0.44

$ 1.35

$ 0.52 Loss from discontinued operations, net















(0.01) Net income

$ 0.65

$ 0.44

$ 1.35

$ 0.51

TopBuild Corp Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets and Other Financial Data (Unaudited) (dollars in thousands)



As of





September 30,

December 31,





2016

2015

ASSETS













Current assets:













Cash and cash equivalents

$ 104,497

$ 112,848

Receivables, net of an allowance for doubtful accounts of $3,607 and $3,399 at September 30,

2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively



265,655



235,549

Inventories, net



105,829



118,701

Prepaid expenses and other current assets



16,425



13,263

Total current assets



492,406



480,361

















Property and equipment, net



91,992



93,066

Goodwill



1,045,058



1,044,041

Other intangible assets, net



2,838



1,987

Deferred tax assets, net



20,549



20,549

Other assets



3,620



2,245

Total assets

$ 1,656,463

$ 1,642,249

















LIABILITIES













Current liabilities:













Accounts payable

$ 217,931

$ 253,311

Current portion of long-term debt



20,000



15,000

Accrued liabilities



73,524



58,369

Total current liabilities



311,455



326,680

















Long-term debt



163,714



178,457

Deferred tax liabilities, net



181,730



181,254

Long-term portion of insurance reserves



39,555



39,655

Other liabilities



436



474

Total liabilities



696,890



726,520

















EQUITY



959,573



915,729

Total liabilities and equity

$ 1,656,463

$ 1,642,249





















As of





September 30,

September 30,





2016

2015

Other Financial Data













Working Capital Days













Receivable days



45



46

Inventory days



29



30

Accounts payable days



76



86

Working capital

$ 153,553

$ 111,782

Working capital as a percent of sales (LTM)



8.9 %

7.0 %

TopBuild Corp. Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows (Unaudited) (in thousands)



Nine Months Ended

September 30,

2016

2015 Net Cash Provided by (Used in) Operating Activities:









Net income $ 51,299

$ 19,220 Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities:









Depreciation and amortization

8,923



9,070 Share-based compensation

5,743



3,151 Loss on sale or abandonment of property and equipment

2,399



2,265 Amortization of debt issuance costs

257



86 Provision for bad debt expense

2,696



2,658 Loss from inventory obsolescence

970



1,194 Deferred income taxes, net

476



5,401 Changes in certain assets and liabilities:









Receivables, net

(32,294)



(29,729) Inventories, net

12,103



2,378 Prepaid expenses and other current assets

(3,162)



(2,908) Accounts payable

(35,023)



10,146 Long-term portion of insurance reserves

(1,599)



1,211 Accrued liabilities

15,159



18,983 Other, net

(13)



20 Net cash provided by operating activities

27,934



43,146











Cash Flows Provided by (Used in) Investing Activities:









Purchases of property and equipment

(10,083)



(10,589) Acquisition of a business

(3,476)



 Proceeds from sale of property and equipment

379



771 Other, net

93



500 Net cash used in investing activities

(13,087)



(9,318)











Cash Flows Provided by (Used in) Financing Activities:









Net transfer (to) from Former Parent

(153)



75,935 Cash distribution paid to Former Parent





(200,000) Proceeds from issuance of long-term debt





200,000 Repayment of long-term debt

(10,000)



(2,500) Payment of debt issuance costs





(1,715) Taxes withheld and paid on employees' equity awards

(1,668)



(171) Repurchase of shares of common stock

(11,377)



 Net cash (used in) provided by financing activities

(23,198)



71,549











Cash and Cash Equivalents









(Decrease) increase for the period

(8,351)



105,377 Beginning of year

112,848



2,965 End of period $ 104,497

$ 108,342











Supplemental disclosure of noncash investing activities:









Accruals for property and equipment $ 110

$ 

TopBuild Corp Segment Data (Unaudited) (dollars in thousands)

Three Months Ended

September 30,





Nine Months Ended

September 30,







2016



2015

Change





2016



2015

Change

Installation





































Sales $ 300,005

$ 279,809



7.2 %

$ 860,924

$ 778,469



10.6 %







































Operating profit, as reported $ 32,196

$ 20,678









$ 68,499

$ 26,713







Operating margin, as reported

10.7 %

7.4 %









8.0 %

3.4 %













































Rationalization charges

115



23











1,009



3,853







Legal adjustments, net





1,030















2,400







Fixed asset disposal (truck mounted devices)





















1,690







Employee benefit policy change





























Operating profit, as adjusted $ 32,311

$ 21,731









$ 69,508

$ 34,656







Operating margin, as adjusted

10.8 %

7.8 %









8.1 %

4.5 %













































Distribution





































Sales $ 174,123

$ 170,881



1.9 %

$ 499,268

$ 476,333



4.8 %







































Operating profit, as reported $ 15,536

$ 16,909









$ 43,416

$ 40,183







Operating margin, as reported

8.9 %

9.9 %









8.7 %

8.4 %













































Rationalization charges

















83



512







Operating profit, as adjusted $ 15,536

$ 16,909









$ 43,499

$ 40,695







Operating margin, as adjusted

8.9 %

9.9 %









8.7 %

8.5 %













































Total





































Sales before eliminations $ 474,128

$ 450,690









$ 1,360,192

$ 1,254,802







Intercompany eliminations

(21,026)



(22,802)











(61,477)



(64,693)







Net sales after eliminations $ 453,102

$ 427,888



5.9 %

$ 1,298,715

$ 1,190,109



9.1 %







































Operating profit, as reported - segment $ 47,732

$ 37,587









$ 111,915

$ 66,896







General corporate expense, net

(4,966)



(4,395)











(15,716)



(18,022)







Intercompany eliminations and other adjustments

(3,665)



(3,001)











(10,540)



(8,340)







Operating profit, as reported $ 39,101

$ 30,191









$ 85,659

$ 40,534







Operating margin, as reported

8.6 %

7.1 %









6.6 %

3.4 %













































Rationalization charges

435



23











2,090



4,365







Legal adjustments, net





1,030















2,400







Acqusition costs

55















55











Fixed asset disposal (truck mounted devices)





















1,690







Masco general corporate expense, net





















13,627







Masco direct corporate expense





















5,604







Expected standalone corporate expense





















(11,000)







Operating profit, as adjusted $ 39,591

$ 31,244









$ 87,804

$ 57,220







Operating margin, as adjusted

8.7 %

7.3 %









6.8 %

4.8 %













































Share-based compensation

2,037



1,485











5,743



3,151







Depreciation and amortization

3,015



2,930











8,923



9,156







EBITDA, as adjusted $ 44,643

$ 35,659









$ 102,470

$ 69,527















































Sales change period over period

25,214

















108,606













EBITDA, as adjusted change period over period

8,984

















32,943













EBITDA, as adjusted as percentage of sales change

35.6 %















30.3 %



















































 2015 Rationalization charges included spin-off charges  2016 Rationalization charges include corporate level adjustments as well as segment operating adjustments

TopBuild Corp. Non-GAAP Reconciliations (Unaudited) (in thousands, except common share amounts)



Three Months Ended

September 30,

Nine Months Ended

September 30,



2016

2015

2016

2015

Gross Profit and Operating Profit Reconciliations

















































Net sales $ 453,102

$ 427,888

$ 1,298,715

$ 1,190,109



























Gross profit, as reported $ 108,139

$ 94,002

$ 295,282

$ 253,508



























Insurance adjustment





1,000







1,000

Gross profit, as adjusted $ 108,139

$ 95,002

$ 295,282

$ 254,508



























Gross margin, as reported

23.9 %

22.0 %

22.7 %

21.3 % Gross margin, as adjusted

23.9 %

22.2 %

22.7 %

21.4 %

























Operating profit, as reported $ 39,101

$ 30,191

$ 85,659

$ 40,534



























Rationalization charges

435



23



2,090



4,365

Acqusition costs

55







55





Legal adjustments, net





1,030







2,400

Fixed asset disposal (truck mounted device)













1,690

Masco general corporate expense, net













13,627

Masco direct corporate expense













5,604

Expected standalone corporate expense













(11,000)

Operating profit, as adjusted $ 39,591

$ 31,244

$ 87,804

$ 57,220



























Operating margin, as reported

8.6 %

7.1 %

6.6 %

3.4 % Operating margin, as adjusted

8.7 %

7.3 %

6.8 %

4.8 %

























Income Per Common Share Reconciliation

















































Income from continuing operations before income taxes, as

reported $ 37,895

$ 28,625

$ 81,545

$ 32,655



























Rationalization charges

435



23



2,090



4,365

Acquisition costs

55







55





Legal adjustments, net





1,030







2,400

Fixed asset disposal (truck mounted device)













1,690

Masco general corporate expense, net













13,627

Masco direct corporate expense













5,604

Expected standalone corporate expense













(11,000)

Income from continuing operations before income taxes, as

adjusted

38,385



29,678



83,690



49,341



























Tax rate at 38% and 36% for 2016 and 2015, respectively

(14,586)



(10,684)



(31,802)



(17,763)

Income from continuing operations, as adjusted $ 23,799

$ 18,994

$ 51,888

$ 31,578



























Income per common share, as adjusted $ 0.63

$ 0.50

$ 1.37

$ 0.84



























Average diluted common shares outstanding

37,952,333



37,907,784



37,942,540



37,748,756



























 2015 Rationalization charges included spin-off charges.

























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SOURCE TopBuild Corp.

Related Links

http://www.topbuild.com


SUGAR LAND, Texas, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Trecora Resources (NYSE: TREC), a leading provider of high purity specialty hydrocarbons and waxes, is presenting at the Southwest IDEAS Conference on Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at the InterContinental Hotel in Dallas.

Trecora's Chief Executive Officer, Simon Upfill-Brown, will present at 9:20 a.m. Central Time and also participate with Director, Gary Adams, in one-on-one meetings with investors throughout the day.

There will be an audio-only live webcast, with a replay available for 90 days. The slides that accompany the webcast will be available on the Company's website  www.trecora.com. To listen to the webcast please click on the link below:

http://wsw.com/webcast/threepa21/trec

About Trecora Resources (TREC)

TREC owns and operates a facility located in southeast Texas, just north of Beaumont, which specializes in high purity hydrocarbons and other petrochemical manufacturing. TREC also owns and operates a leading manufacturer of specialty polyethylene waxes and provider of custom processing services located in the heart of the Petrochemical complex in Pasadena, Texas. In addition, the Company is the original developer and a 33.4% owner of Al Masane Al Kobra Mining Co., a Saudi Arabian joint stock company.

Investor Relations Contact:

Matt Steinberg

The Piacente Group

212-481-2050

[email protected]

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SOURCE Trecora Resources

Related Links

http://www.trecora.com


PHOENIX, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Troxell, a national leader in educational technology solutions for more than 60 years, is proud to announce that it has been awarded the AV Contract under the national cooperative purchasing organization, National IPA/TCPN. As one of 16 respondents and only one of 3 vendors awarded the contract, Troxell was granted the highest evaluation score. The criteria included scoring on products/pricing, performance capability, qualification and experience, and value.

Contract Number R160903, awarded by Region 4 Education Service Center, Houston, TX, is effective from October 1, 2016 through September 30, 2019. On the contract, Troxell represents 138 manufacturers for both products and services, offering a wide range of discounts.

"We are pleased to be awarded the AV Contract through National IPA," said Mark Barber, Senior Vice President of Sales. "We have been on the previous contract offered through TCPN since 2011. With the merger of National IPA and TCPN, the cooperative has more knowledge and purchasing power than ever before, now providing a more robust contract portfolio to education institutions."

Through National IPA, Troxell participated in a comprehensive Request for Proposal (RFP) competitive solicitation. National IPA employs industry best practices, processes and procedures ensuring the quality of the vendor and contracts in their portfolio.

Troxell continues to participate in multiple national, regional, state and local contracts, helping educational institutions pay less for products and reduce administrative costs in order to overcome the challenges of tight and diminishing budgets.

For more information, visit www.etroxell.com or call Mark Barber at 800-352-7912 x1003.

About Troxell

Headquartered in Phoenix, AZ, Troxell has more than 60 years' experience as the nation's leading end-to-end solution provider for education technology and collaboration in K-12, higher ed, government and corporate. With 65 offices nationwide, we combine large-scale purchasing power with the high-touch, consultative approach of a local specialist.

Since 1990, Summit Integration Systems, a Troxell company servicing Texas and Louisiana, has had the knowledge, products and experience necessary to successfully initiate, manage and complete audio visual integration projects of any size and scope in the most demanding environments, on time and within budget.

About National IPA

National Intergovernmental Purchasing Alliance (National IPA) is a cooperative purchasing organization dedicated to serving public agencies and educational institutions nationwide. All cooperative agreements available through the National IPA program have been competitively solicited and publicly awarded by a public agency/governmental entity (e.g. state, city, county, public university or school district), utilizing the best public procurement practices, processes and procedures. The lead agencies are independent of the cooperative allowing the agency to be focused on the best value for the agency. The lead-agency not only prepares the solicitation, but awards, administers and utilizes the agreement for its own needs thereby limiting the award to the supplier that provides the best value to the agency and agencies nationwide.

For Press Inquiries Contact: Raigan Irwin-McCabe, VP of Marketing

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SOURCE Troxell

Related Links

http://www.etroxell.com


DENVER, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Unexpected Prisoner by Robert Wideman will be available where fine books are sold on Veterans Day. November 11, 2016.

When Unexpected Prisoner opens, it's May 6, 1967 and 23-year-old Lieutenant Robert Wideman is flying a Navy A-4 Skyhawk over Vietnam. At 23, Wideman had already served three and a half years in the Navyand was only 27 combat days away from heading home to America. But on that cloudless day in May, on a routine bombing run, Wideman's plane crashed and he fell into enemy hands. Captured and held for six years as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam, Wideman endured the kind of pain that makes people question humanity. Physical torture, however, was not the biggest challenge he was forced to withstand. In his candid memoir, Unexpected Prisoner, Wideman details the raw, unvarnished tale of how he came to understand the truth behind Jean-Paul Sartre's words: "Hell is other people."

A gripping, first-person account that chronicles the six-year period Wideman spent in captivity as a POW, Unexpected Prisoner plunges readers deep into the heart of one of the most protracted, deadliest conflicts in American history: the Vietnam War. Wideman, along with acclaimed memoirist Cara Lopez Lee, has crafted a story that is exquisitely engaging, richly detailed, and wholly captivating. Unexpectedly candid and vibrantly vivid, this moving memoir chronicles a POW's struggle with enemies and comrades, Vietnamese interrogators and American commanders, lost dreams, and ultimately, himself.

With its eye-opening look at a soldier's life before, during and after captivity, Unexpected Prisoner presents a uniquely human perspective on war and on conflicts both external and internal.An exceptional story exceptionally well-told, Unexpected Prisoner is a powerful, poignant, often provocative tale about struggle, survival, hope, and redemption.

Unexpected Prisoner has garnered high advance praise:

"(A) remarkable book"  W.R. (Bill) Cobb, author of Target Tactics, and 1st Army Vietnam Veteran

"An eye-opener. Unexpected Prisoner is a must-read." Billy Thornton, PhD., Vietnam War Veteran

"Unless you were there, you will never truly understand what it was like being a POW in Vietnam. Robert Wideman and his remarkable book do an incredible job of putting you there." Brad Hoopes, Author of Reflections of Our Gentle Warriors

Robert Wideman was born in Montreal, grew up in East Aurora, New York, and has dual U.S./Canadian citizenship. During the Vietnam War, he flew 134 missions for the U.S. Navy and spent six years as a prisoner of war. Wideman earned a master's degree in finance from the Naval Postgraduate School. After retiring from the Navy, he graduated from the University of Florida College of Law, practiced law in Florida and Mississippi, and became a flight instructor. Robert Wideman holds a commercial pilot's license with an instrument rating, belongs to Veterans Plaza of Northern Colorado, and lives in Ft. Collins near his two sons and six grandchildren.

Unexpected Prisoner is published in trade paper (ISBN: 978-0997364606, 374 pages, $15.95) and eBook editions ($4.95)

http://www.robertwideman.com

Photos:

https://www.prlog.org/12600600

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Robert Wideman, author

Related Links

http://www.robertwideman.com


ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Undergraduate marketing students at the University of New Mexico (UNM) Anderson School of Management today unveiled a new advertising campaign for the 2017 Acura ILX titled "Live Life in High Gear." The campaign is part of the Acura ILX Marketing Challenge, an industry-education partnership program sponsored by Acura and managed by EdVenture Partners.

The launch is supported by an integrated marketing campaign featuring branded events, digital signage, online video content and social media. The campaign was developed by the student-run advertising agency at UNM's Johnson Marketing Lab using a $2,000 budget provided by Acura.

"This program is a unique and exciting opportunity for our students," said Professor John Benavidez. "It enables them to apply concepts learned in the classroom to real world marketing challenges. We are honored that Acura, an automotive industry leader, has elected to partner with our university."

"Live Life in High Gear" showcases Acura's performance technologies and celebrates how millennials are living life to the fullest by pursuing their personal and professional passions. The objectives of the campaign are to educate consumers on the features and benefits of the 2017 Acura ILX, increase purchase consideration of the sport sedan among the millennial target market, and increase perception of Acura as an innovative, youthful brand.

The campaign kicks off with the "Live Life in High Gear Event," where attendees will be able to preview the 2017 ILX, test their skills on a ninja obstacle course, and participate in an interactive photo experience. The event will take place on November 14 and 15 at Smith Plaza on the UNM main campus from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

The ILX is Acura's most affordable sport sedan and serves as the gateway to the Acura lineup. The 2017 ILX features a 201 horsepower 2.4-liter direct-injected DOHC i-VTEC engine paired with an 8-speed dual clutch transmission with paddle-controlled Sequential Sport Shift, Jewel Eye LED headlights, 17-inch alloy wheels, and signature Acura technologies such as the available AcuraWatch suite of safety and driver-assistive technologies.

The top three participating schools in the Acura ILX Marketing Challenge will be invited to Torrance, California to present their campaigns to Acura executives and leadership. The top team will receive a scholarship prize of $5,000, followed by $3,000 for second place, and $1,000 for third.

Consumer information about the Acura ILX is available at acura.com/ilx. Connect with the student campaign on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #LiveInHighGear.

About Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico

The Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico is dedicated to excellence in professional management education. At the Anderson School, faculty, staff, and students are committed to shaping the intellect and character of the next generation of business leaders, advancing the knowledge and practice of management, promoting economic development, and building a vibrant intellectual community that serves the highest and best interests of all our stakeholders.

Founded in 1947 and named for New Mexico oil man and longtime ARCO/Atlantic Richfield CEO Robert O. Anderson in 1974, the Anderson School offers more than a dozen concentrations at the BBA and MBA levels and is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business in the top 20% of business schools in the nation. The School is funded by the State of New Mexico and further support is generated by the Anderson School of Management Foundation. For more information, the public can visit mgt.unm.edu, email [email protected], or call (505) 277-6471.

About Acura

Acura is a leading automotive luxury nameplate that delivers Precision Crafted Performance, an original approach to technology and design that creates a new driving experience. On March 27, 2016, Acura celebrated the 30th anniversary of its launch as the first luxury nameplate from a Japanese automaker. Nearly 98 percent of the products Acura sold in America in 2015 were built in America, using domestic and globally sourced parts.

The Acura lineup features five distinctive models  the RLX luxury flagship sedan, the TLX performance luxury sedan, the ILX sport sedan, the 5-passenger RDX luxury crossover SUV, and the seven-passenger Acura MDX, America's all-time best-selling three-row luxury SUV. This spring, Acura launched its next-generation, electrified NSX supercar as a new and pinnacle expression of Acura Precision Crafted Performance. For more information, visit acuranews.com.

About EdVenture Partners

EdVenture Partners is an organization dedicated to developing innovative industry-education partnership programs. These experiential learning opportunities provide hands-on, real-world experience to students in tandem with providing marketing, recruiting and social impact solutions at colleges, universities and high schools to clients. EdVenture Partners has designed and managed programs at over 800 schools in North America and internationally. For more information, visit edventurepartners.com, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

SOURCE UNM Anderson School of Management

Related Links

https://www.mgt.unm.edu/


BOSTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Front-line nurses with the Visiting Nurses Association of Boston (VNAB) plan to protest contract changes proposed by VNAB that nurses believe would negatively impact patient care. The nurses, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), will leaflet the public and guests of an annual fundraiser on Saturday, Nov. 12.

What: 11th Annual Heroes in Health Care Gala, hosted by the Visiting Nurses Association of Boston, also marking 130 years of the VNAB serving Boston-area residents

When: Saturday, Nov. 12 at 6 p.m. (nurse leafletting to happen between 5:15 p.m. and 6 p.m.)

Where: Mandarin Oriental, 776 Boylston St., Boston MA.

During ongoing contract negotiations, the VNAB has proposed severe restrictions on how visiting nurses are able to manage patient care. These changes would result in patients having significantly less time with nurses and jeopardize safe patient care. Nurses have responded with contract language that would ensure nurses can provide a safe level of care, but the VNAB has refused to budge from its harmful proposal.

"Nurses are, in many cases, already struggling to find adequate time to care for our existing patients because of our unrealistic caseloads, and now the association wants to make it even more difficult to provide safe and effective patient care," said Fran Kenney, Chair of the MNA VNAB Bargaining Committee. "By severely cutting down on how long nurses are given for tasks like admissions and re-visits, the association would jeopardize the care of vulnerable patients that visiting nurses serve throughout the Greater Boston area."

The VNAB also wants to slash nurses' retirement benefits, cutting a nine percent pension contribution to three percent. This would cost most nurses between $3,000 and $7,000 every year for the rest of their careers at VNAB.

"Management's proposals are unsustainable for patients and nurses," Kenney said. "Our 130-year tradition of excellence in patient care is under attack and nurses will not stand for it."

Established in 1886, VNA of Boston is the oldest organized VNA in the country. The MNA nurses of VNAB have been negotiating a new contract since December 2015. There have been 16 negotiating sessions, including the last five with a federal mediator.

The MNA represents 65 registered nurses at the VNAB. These nurses serve thousands of patients in the Boston area and in all city neighborhoods. VNAB MNA nurses provide all types of complex nursing care to all types of patients. Their patients suffer from a wide range of medical conditions and are often recovering from serious surgical procedures.

VNAB MNA nurses administer chemotherapy and other complex medications for those suffering from cancer, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDs and other conditions. Nurses provide wound care for patients who have undergone surgery and teach patients with chronic conditions how to manage their illness.

"Having enough time with our patients is the most crucial part of our nursing care," Kenney said. "Nurses need adequate time to both provide treatment and teach patients and their families how to manage their conditions."

MassNurses.org  Facebook.com/MassNurses  Twitter.com/MassNurses

Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

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SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association

Related Links

http://www.massnurses.org


FAIRMONT, W.Va., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mon Power, a FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) utility, has inspected nearly 23,000 wooden utility poles this year for signs of wear, insect infestation or damage from motor vehicle accidents as part of the company's annual inspection program. The company expects to replace or repair about 320 wooden utility poles this year, which would stretch nearly 2.5 miles if laid end to end.

A standard 40-foot wooden distribution pole typically is expected to last more than 50 years. The most common utility pole is made from a Southern Yellow Pine tree and costs about $400. Mon Power will spend about $1.4 million to inspect, replace and repair utility poles in 2016.

"Mon Power's pole inspection and replacement program is designed to help enhance service reliability for our customers," said Holly Kauffman, president of FirstEnergy's West Virginia operations. "While certainly durable, these poles are subject to damage from severe weather, falling trees, and traffic accidents. Mon Power's utility poles are vital to the delivery of electricity to homes and businesses in our service area. Over time, some poles need to be replaced or repaired to help ensure reliable operations."

Typically, specialized contractors perform the pole inspections. As part of the process, a visual inspection is completed, along with checking the pole to determine if the interior is sound. Poles also can be reinforced rather than replaced. One of the most common reinforcement techniques is to snug a C-shaped steel beam against the pole, jackhammer the beam into the ground, and secure it to the pole with tight, metal bands.

All wood poles throughout the 34-county Mon Power service territory are inspected on a 12-year cycle. Inspections began in January and continued through the summer, with pole replacements and repairs scheduled to be completed during the fall.

Year-to-date, Mon Power has inspected nearly 23,000 wooden poles in and around the following communities:

Clarksburg 2,339

2,339 Elkins  2,006

 2,006 Fairlea  2,923

 2,923 Hinton  2,496

 2,496 Morgantown  3,299

 3,299 Sistersville  4,526

 4,526 Weirton  1,255

 1,255 White Hall  3,884

Mon Power serves about 385,000 customers in 34 West Virginia counties. Follow Mon Power on Twitter @MonPowerWV. Visit FirstEnergy on the web at www.firstenergycorp.com.

FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. The company's transmission subsidiaries operate more than 24,000 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Follow FirstEnergy on Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp or online at www.firstenergycorp.com.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.

Related Links

http://www.firstenergycorp.com


WILLIAMSPORT, Md., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Potomac Edison, a FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) utility, has inspected more than 21,000 wooden utility poles this year for signs of wear, insect infestation or damage from motor vehicle accidents as part of the company's annual inspection program. As a result of the inspections, the company expects to replace or repair about 520 wooden utility poles this year, which would stretch about four miles if laid end to end.

A standard 40-foot wooden distribution pole typically is expected to last more than 50 years. The most common utility pole is made from a Southern Yellow Pine tree and costs about $400. Potomac Edison will spend about $2 million to inspect, replace and repair utility poles in 2016.

"Potomac Edison's pole inspection and replacement program is designed to help enhance service reliability for our customers," said James A. Sears, Jr., vice president of Potomac Edison. "While certainly durable, these poles are subject to damage from severe weather, falling trees, and traffic accidents. Potomac Edison's utility poles are vital to the delivery of electricity to homes and businesses in our service area. Over time, some poles need to be replaced or repaired to help ensure reliable operations."

Typically, specialized contractors perform the pole inspections. As part of the process, a visual inspection is completed, along with checking the pole to determine if the interior is sound. Poles also can be reinforced rather than replaced. One of the most common reinforcement techniques is to snug a C-shaped steel beam against the pole, jackhammer the beam into the ground, and secure it to the pole with tight, metal bands.

All wood poles in Potomac Edison's service territory are inspected on a 10-year cycle in Maryland, and on a 12-year cycle in West Virginia. Inspections began in January and continued through the summer, with pole replacements and repairs scheduled to be completed during the fall.

Year-to-date, Potomac Edison has inspected more than 21,000 wooden poles in and around the following communities:

Augusta  1,191

Berkeley Springs  1,066

Cumberland  1,494

 1,494 Frederick  2,826

Fort Ashby  1,192

Martinsburg  6,294

Mt. Airy  2,005

 2,005 Petersburg  1,921

Thurmont  173

 173 Williamsport  2,951

Potomac Edison serves about 257,000 customers in seven Maryland counties and 137,000 customers in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. Follow Potomac Edison on Twitter @PotomacEdison.

FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. The company's transmission subsidiaries operate more than 24,000 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Visit FirstEnergy online at www.firstenergycorp.com and follow on Twitter at @FirstEnergyCorp.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.

Related Links

http://www.firstenergycorp.com


GREENSBURG, Pa., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- West Penn Power, a FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) utility, will inspect about 30,400 wooden utility poles this year for signs of wear, insect infestation or damage from motor vehicle accidents as part of the company's annual inspection program. As a result of the inspections, the company expects to replace or repair 370 wooden utility poles this year, which would stretch about three miles if laid end to end.

A standard 40-foot wooden distribution pole typically is expected to last more than 50 years. The most common utility pole is made from a Southern Yellow Pine tree and costs about $400. West Penn Power will spend more than $1.6 million to inspect, replace and repair utility poles in 2016.

"West Penn Power's pole inspection and replacement program is designed to help enhance service reliability for our customers," said David W. McDonald, president of West Penn Power. "While certainly durable, these poles are subject to damage from severe weather, falling trees, and traffic accidents. West Penn Power's utility poles are vital to the delivery of electricity to homes and businesses in our service area. Over time, some poles need to be replaced or repaired to help ensure reliable operations."

Typically, specialized contractors perform the pole inspections. As part of the process, a visual inspection is completed, along with checking the pole to determine if the interior is sound. Poles also can be reinforced rather than replaced. One of the most common reinforcement techniques is to snug a C-shaped steel beam against the pole, jackhammer the beam into the ground, and secure it to the pole with tight, metal bands.

All wood poles throughout the 24-county West Penn Power service territory are inspected on a 12-year cycle. Inspections began in January and continued through the summer, with pole replacements and repairs scheduled to be completed during the fall.

West Penn Power has inspected about 30,425 wooden poles in and around the following communities:

Arnold - 752

Boyce - 937

Butler  3,968

Charleroi  2,609

 2,609 Clarion - 49

Jeannette  2,606

Jefferson  1,524

Kittanning  2,630

 2,630 Latrobe  1,967

 1,967 McConnellsburg 766

766 McDonald- 1,126

Pleasant Valley  1,459

 1,459 St. Marys  1,850

 1,850 State College  3,599

 3,599 Uniontown  1,838

 1,838 Washington  2,532

 2,532 Waynesboro - 213

West Penn Power serves about 720,000 customers in 24 Pennsylvania counties. Connect with West Penn Power on Twitter @W_Penn_Power and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/WestPennPower.

FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. The company's transmission subsidiaries operate more than 24,000 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Follow FirstEnergy on Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp or online at www.firstenergycorp.com.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.

Related Links

http://www.firstenergycorp.com


SANTA ROSA, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ygrene Energy Fund, the leading national provider of residential, commercial and multifamily property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing announced today it has secured a $30 million financing facility from the New Energy Capital Infrastructure Credit Fund and related funds which are managed and advised by New Energy Capital Partners, a leading investor in clean infrastructure real assets. This capital will be instrumental in achieving 2017 growth projections and brings the company's PACE asset financing capacity to $280 million.

"This financing will support the growth of Ygrene's PACE programs nationally," said Ian Marcus, Principal at New Energy Capital Partners. "We are very happy to be working with Ygrene on this financing and are pleased to begin what we see as a long-term relationship."

"It's great to be working with such a thoughtful and experienced partner like New Energy Capital, which has deep expertise in the renewable asset class," said Michael Chan, Ygrene CFO. "As we look to meet and exceed our growth targets over the next 12 months, we look forward to expanding and deepening our relationship with the New Energy Capital team."

To date, Ygrene has been approved by 319 cities and counties across California, Florida, Georgia, and Missouri, and completed projects across multiple states for over $612 million in property upgrades, representing an estimated $1.5 billion in economic stimulus and 9,186 new jobs created and sustained for local communities.

"With the support of New Energy Capital, we've created an ideal vehicle, combined with our syndicated warehouse facility, for scaling our origination of PACE projects," said Stacey Lawson, Ygrene CEO. "This financing is a critical component of our growth strategy as we expand into additional markets this coming year."

Patrick Fox, Partner at New Energy Capital Partners said, "We are thrilled to be working with Ygrene, they have an outstanding management team with an extensive track record of success. We're pleased to have the opportunity to support them."

About New Energy Capital Partners

New Energy Capital Partners is a private equity firm that invests in projects and companies in the renewable power, alternative fuels, energy efficiency and renewable resource markets, focusing on the deployment of proven technologies in highly structured transactions. NECP manages the New Energy Capital Cleantech Infrastructure Fund and the New Energy Capital Infrastructure Credit Fund. NECP is based in Hanover, New Hampshire and has offices in Boston, Massachusetts and Denver, Colorado.

Contact:

New Energy Capital Partners, LLC

Tel: 603-643-8885

Email: [email protected]

About Ygrene Energy Fund

Ygrene Energy Fund is the nation's leading provider of residential, multifamily and commercial property assessed clean energy financing. The award-winning, privately funded YgreneWorks program provides immediately accessible financing with no upfront payments for energy efficiency, renewables, water conservation, and, in certain areas, hurricane protection, electric vehicle charging stations and seismic upgrades. Ygrene is committed to making it easy for property owners to invest in their future and a healthier environment. Over the next five years, YgreneWorks is expected to create tens of thousands of jobs and invest billions of dollars into local economies. Learn more at ygreneworks.com.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20111109/LA03200LOGO

SOURCE Ygrene Energy Fund

Related Links

http://www.ygreneworks.com


ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Yoga for Men (YfM), a downtown St. Petersburg, Florida company, is collaborating with the University of South Florida (USF) College of Public Health to conduct a clinical research study. This study will evaluate and report on the effects of yoga and mindfulness on PTS (Posttraumatic Stress), TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and other conditions that veterans and active duty military personnel struggle with in their daily lives.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437687

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437688

YfM has developed a unique on-line program that has the potential to provide proven benefits to veterans and active duty military personnel at a cost that is substantially lower than other available options. The modalities employed in the YfM program have already been proven to be effective in a wide range of studies, and similar on-line methods of delivery have also shown promise in their ability to produce more positive results than traditional methods. Our goal is to offer free access for veterans to yoga, meditation, and mindfulness classes through Yoga for Men's Prospective Cohort Study of Yoga and Mindfulness for Psychological and Physical Wellness, which is being conducted in conjunction with the University of South Florida College of Public Health. Note that this program is open to men and women from all branches of service and is not limited by nationality or country of service.

Positive Impact

The purpose of the clinical study is to analyze the extent to which veterans and active duty military personnel who participate in the Yoga for Men (YfM) online yoga and meditation classes report changes in symptoms of psychological trauma, depression, anxiety, stress, sleep quality, and pain.

Study participants are encouraged to take two yoga classes and two mindfulness sessions per week through YfM's online platform and are given access to a large library of classes for all ability and experience levels. Study participants communicate with USF researchers through the use of the encrypted, HIPAA-compliant ReadyOp system, developed by YfM partner Collabria LLC.

More than 2.3 million US veterans have returned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 20 percent of these veterans are suffering from some level of Posttraumatic Stress (PTS) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and a published report by the Department of Veteran Affairs says that at least 20 US veterans take their own lives every single day.

While psychotherapy and prescription medications have been the common treatment protocol for our veterans, new approaches are gaining acceptance and momentum, (i.e. yoga and mindfulness practices). A growing number of studies report these practices tend to address and alleviate many of the psychological, physiological, and behavioral symptoms of PTS and TBI.

"Our company started with the intention of helping men get over the barriers that have kept them off the yoga mat. Our mission quickly expanded to one of making yoga and mindfulness accessible to everyone who might benefit, male or female, young or old, and at any level of mobility. We offer classes from adaptive chair yoga all the way through advanced power yoga. The point is to match the practice to the practitioner. And there is a practice for everyone."

-Mike Fecht, Co-President, Yoga for Men LLC

Seeking Sponsorship for Veterans

Over 1,300 Veterans responded to a single advertisement that initially announced the study, and YfM anticipates the interest of thousands more once news of the study begins to spread. There is no limit as to how many veterans may take part. Sending one veteran or active duty service member through the study costs $200, or approximately $1 per class.

YfM has covered all of the costs to develop the online video platform, film and produce the initial bank of materials, and launch the study. The company is currently looking for partners, sponsors, and donors to cover the cost of additional participants.

Organizations or individuals interested in financially supporting participants or learning more about the YfM Yoga for Veterans program may contact Mike Fecht, Co-President of Yoga for Men. Funds will be used to sponsor participants, as well as to support the University of South Florida College of Public Health in the conduct of the study.

Yoga for Men, LLC (YfM) was formed in 2011 to promote the many known health and wellness benefits of yoga practices. YfM produces therapeutic yoga classes for general health and well-being, as well as condition-specific classes. YfM also produces meditation, mindfulness, fitness, and other related content and runs an on-line yoga retail marketplace selling various brands of yoga gear and clothing, including its own brand of high-performance yoga clothing, Bhujang Style.

Sign-up: http://vets.yoga

About: http://yogaformen.com/vets

Donate: http://yogaformen.com/outreach

Watch: https://vimeo.com/yogaformen/vets

SOURCE Yoga for Men, LLC

Related Links

https://yogaformen.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, Nov 5 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday alleged a "conspiracy" was on by the BJP-led Centre to increase power tariff in the national capital, and assured that he would not let the tariffs rise.

"We have not increased power tariff in last two years. BJP is trying to increase the electricity prices in Delhi, but I won't let this happen," he said.

Addressing a press conference, Kejriwal said the DERC Chairperson's appointment was scrapped by Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung with a view to undo his efforts to regularise electricity bills.

Krishna Saini's appointment as the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) chairperson was scrapped by Jung in September on grounds that his approval was not taken.

"DERC chief had issued many orders in past eight months that fixes the accountability of power companies. Power companies want the DERC chief to be removed.

"After eight months (of appointment) LG wakes up and is saying his approval was not taken for DERC's chief appointment," said Kejriwal.

Kejriwal said he had opposed the decision of the LG to scrap Saini's appointment as DERC chief and asked Jung to send the related file to the President, but the LG had refused.

"Just when we (Delhi government) were examining the file, the Power Secretary received call from LG office to issue the order (of removing the DERC chief)," said Kejriwal.

Former Chief Income Tax Commissioner Krishna Saini was appointed DERC chairman in March by the Delhi government. In September the LG scrapped his appointment and asked the Kejriwal government to start the selection process afresh as per law.

On August 4, the Delhi High Court had held that the LG was the administrative head of the Delhi government and has the final word in the governance of the national capital of Delhi.
New Delhi : Title: It's Your World - Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going!; Author: Chelsea Clinton; Publisher: Penguin Random House; Pages: 416; Price: Rs 550 Her parents may soon become the only couple to both become the President of the United States, but also have long stints and achievements in public service which seemed to have inspired Chelsea Clinton to make her contribution to bring change - through a book initially.

While her father and former President Bill Clinton's "Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World" (2007) came well after his stint and was his third book, she follows her mother (and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee) Hillary Clinton, who dwelt on her ideas for US children and the role of society besides the family in raising them, in her first book "It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us" (1996).

But Chelsea Clinton, in her literary debut, addresses a far younger constituency, and also tries to talk to them, than at them. Seeking to inform teenagers about major social and economic challenges people face across the world, including in the US, she not only suggests what can be done but also, what they can do themselves.

Assembling a large amount of complex data on economic and social issues, she however presents it most lucidly, and engagingly, weaving in not only her own experiences while growing up, especially her visit to South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka) with her mother in 1995, but also the stories of many enterprising, inspirational common people.

Her key thrust is learning - by taking some effort - to become informed participants. Chelsea notes the first thing she remembered reading on her own was the "local newspaper, the old-fashioned kind that left ink stains on my hand", but was what "enabled me to be a part of my parent's conversations about what was happening in our hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, and the broader world".

"Knowing what was in the newspaper meant I didn't have to wait for my parents to explain everything to me. I could ask questions to start conversations about the world too," she says, but also revealing that the "newspaper helped hide how much honey I poured on top of my Cheerios" as "my mom wouldn't let me have sugary cereal.."

The quality of the newspaper would definitely matter - and she does raise the point ahead.

She also notes that when young, she didn't realise how much the issues she read, thought, debated or tried to combat "arguably had even more of an impact on kids my age that on grown-ups", a fact that holds true today too. And her book is "about some of the big issues our world and particularly kids face".

Divided in four parts - "It's Your Economy", on poverty, including in the US, and its related problems; "It's Your Right", on education and gender rights, "It's Your Body" on health; and "It's Your Environment" on climate change and species loss. While each chapter ends with steps that can be taken, they also include "some of the solutions young people (and a few adults) have created and supported to help make their families, neighbourhoods, cities, and world healthier, safer and more equal".

This include a woman making handmade paper that the Clintons met at Sabarmati Ashram, the then 10-year Matti of St Joseph Missouri, who in 2013, organised her a 3.7-mile-long 'Walk for Water' fundraiser, after learning that was the average distance that women in Asia and Africa had to traverse for water, and Bunker Roy, his Barefoot College and its Solar Mamas.

There is South Carolina's Katie who helps children grow vegetables to donate, compulsive afforesters like Kenya's Wangari Maathai and the nine-year-old (in 2007) German boy she inspired - Felix and his friends set out to plant a million trees, reached their goal by 2010 and now want to reach one billion by 2020 - and many more.

Chelsea stresses her book is not exhaustive in respect to either detailing the issues or their solutions, but is meant to bring them into consciousness, especially their connections, and inspire thinking to tackle them. Thus, it is as valid for adults as teenagers, and people across the globe as Americans.

(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
Islamabad, Nov 8 : Pakistan authorities on Tuesday declared three Indian High Commission officials, accused of spying, as persona non grata. The officials have left for home, media reported.

Four other officials will leave for India via the Wagah Border on Tuesday, Geo News reported.

Pakistan had ordered the expulsion of seven Indian High Commission officials on charges of spying, Geo reported.

According to sources, the three officials, First Secretary commercial Anurag Singh, Vijay Kumar Varma and Mandhawan Nanda Kumar, left Islamabad Airport at 9 a.m.

Diplomatic sources confirmed to Geo that initially they were expected to leave on Sunday, but due to incomplete documents their travel plans were delayed.

Rajesh Kumar Agnihotri, Balbir Singh, Amardeep Singh Bhatti, Jiya Balin and Dharmendra Sodhi will leave by road, the daily said.

Pakistan accused the Indian officials of working for Indian intelligence agency RAW and Intelligence Bureau.

Pakistan has earlier alleged that Indian diplomatic official Surjeet Singh who was recently expelled was also part of Balbir Singh's network, the report said.
New Delhi, Nov 9 : Terming his government's decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes as a "historic step to fight corruption", Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called upon people to work together for a corruption-free India.

"A historic step to fight corruption, black money and terrorism," Modi said on Twitter a day after announcing the decision to axe Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

With megastar Rajinikanth joining a host of actors to laud the Prime Minister for the move, Modi took the opportunity to call upon the people to join the fight against corruption and black money.

"Thank you. All of us have to work shoulder to shoulder and create a prosperous, inclusive and corruption-free India," posted Modi in reply to Rajinikanth's tweet, "Hats off Narendra Modiji. New India is born, Jai Hind".

Among the other Bollywood stars to hail the move were Amitabh Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor and Anushka Sharma.
New Delhi, Nov 9 : Israeli President Reuven Rivlin will visit India from November 14 to 21 at the invitation of President Pranab Mukherjee, it was announced on Wednesday.

This follows the visit of Mukherjee to Israel in October last year, the first ever presidential visit from India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold bilateral discussions with Rivlin on November 15 and President Mukherjee will host a banquet in his honour.

Vice President Hamid Ansari and External Affairs Sushma Swaraj will also call on the Israeli leader.

Sushma Swaraj visited Israel in January this year.

According to the External Affairs Ministry, President Rivlin is expected to meet business leaders of both India and Israel during his visit.

He will also visit the Centre of Excellence in Agriculture in Karnal in Haryana and will take part in Agro Tech 2016 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in Chandigarh.

"India and Israel enjoy excellent relations marked by strong ties in the areas of economy and commerce, science and technology, research and innovation, culture and tourism, education etc," the ministry said.

"Rivlin's visit is an important event which signifies the growing and sustainable relations between our two countries," Israeli Ambassador to India Daniel Carmon said.

"It is part of a historical process, and the next chapter is enhancing cooperation on agriculture, water and education; from defence and security to food security," he added.

According to the embassy, Rivlin will head business and academic delegations including 15 heads of Israeli universities as well as companies, some of which are active and successful in India.

"The visit will focus on strengthening the ever growing economic ties between India and Israel in agriculture and water, and promoting academic cooperation pursuing the MoU signed by President Mukherjee in Israel in 2015," it stated.

Rivlin will also visit the Taj Mahal in Agra and the adjacent Israeli water treatment plant "Aqwise".

This will be the first Israeli Presidential visit to India in nearly 20 years since Ezer Weizman came in January 1997.
T20 World Cup: I Am Hopeful That India Will Play Final - Sourav Ganguly Praises Rohit Sharma And Co

WATCH: Virat Kohli Spends Time With KL Rahul in Training Session, Advices Him to Adjust Few Things

IND vs BAN: Dinesh Karthik Pull up Pretty Well in Training Session, Will Take Final Call on Him Tomorrow - Rahul Dravid

T20 World Cup: Jos Butler, Alex Hales Help England Cruise Past New Zealand
Jaipur, Nov 9 : Rajasthan plans to open over 2,600 hiring centres at the panchayat samiti level in the next three years to enable the state's farmers to rent farming equipment, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said on Wednesday.

She was speaking at the inaugural session of the three-day Global Rajasthan Agritech Meet (GRAM) 2016, which kicked off here on Wednesday. It has been jointly organised by the state government and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Raje promised to transform the state's agricultural landscape by actively promoting global best practices and invited the corporates to join hands with farmers to modernise agriculture in the state.

Hundreds of state farmers apart from corporates, experts and stakeholders attended the event.

The Chief Minister said with surplus production of food grain, milk and pulses, the desert state is geared up to adopt multiple innovations such as digital soil mapping, use of drones for effective input management, employing innovative protected cultivation methods, zero budget natural farming or technology enabled traceability systems.

"The end objective of these interventions in farming will be increasing efficiency, reducing costs and ensuring sustainability," she said.

The Chief Minister said within a year of holding the 'Resurgent Rajasthan Summit 2015', projects valued at almost Rs 5,000 crore have been implemented in the state.

"Besides, projects worth Rs 54,000 crore and Rs 49,000 crore are under construction and under various stages of clearance respectively."

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev announced setting up of a mega food park in the state. He sought cooperation from the state government in this direction.

"Patanjali company is entering into milk industry and will be keen to make Rajasthan a part of its journey."

Ramdev said the firm is also keen to work with the state government vis-a-vis agricultural produce like aloe vera, isabgol, bajra and amla.

Chief Guest and Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh said the farmers, industry leaders, scientists and the government will have to join hands to pave the way for doubling the farmers' income by 2022.

Union Minister of State Parshottam Rupala praised Rajasthan for "successfully implementing all central schemes and taking decisions for the welfare of the farmers".

Rajasthan's Agriculture Minister Prabhu Lal Saini welcomed the guests while Israel's Ambassador to India Daniel Carmon also spoke on the occasion.
London, Nov 10 : At least seven people were killed and more than 50 injured after a Croydon Tramlink tram overturned in London, British Transport Police announced on Wednesday.

The 42-year-old tram driver has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and is in police custody. Transport police said they were investigating whether he fell asleep, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) said the tram was travelling at a "significantly higher speed than is permitted".

The train, travelling from New Addington to Wimbledon, derailed at a sharp curve with a 20 kph speed limit as it was approaching a junction.

Deputy Chief Constable Adrian Hanstock said: "This is a tragic incident and our hearts and thoughts go out to all those affected. When officers arrived on scene this morning, they were met with a complex and challenging situation."

British Transport Police officers are continuing to work at the scene of a major incident in Croydon.

Wednesday's accident was the greatest loss of life in a British rail accident since seven people were killed and 76 were injured when a high-speed train from London came off the tracks at Potters Bar station in 2002.
Manila, Nov 10 : Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to stop picking a fight with the United States, saying Donald Trump has been elected as president.

In a speech before the Filipino community in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Duterte said, "I said I don't want to pick fight because Trump is there", Xinhua news agency reported.

"I would like to congratulate President Trump. Long live! We have something in common. We are alike because we both curse easily," Duterte added.

Duterte is in Kuala Lumpur for an overnight official visit.

During the campaign early 2016, Duterte has been likened to Trump and even earned the nickname "Trump of the East" for his style that many say is similar to Trump.

Both managed to win the votes of millions even if they did not have occupied national positions.

Duterte, 71, was a former mayor of a southern Philippine city of Davao while Trump, 70, is a billionaire, real estate developer-turned reality television star with no government experience.

Duterte has hurled expletive-laced remarks against Obama and the US for criticising his campaign against drug users and pushers, which has reportedly left 4,000 suspects dead.
New York, Nov 10 : Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in cities across the US on Wednesday night in a bid to protest against Republican Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election.

In cities from Boston to Los Angeles, the demonstrators chanted anti-Donald Trump slogans, with many yelling "not my president, not today", CNN reported.

As many as 5,000 people were at a protest in New York, the police estimated. Among the issues were immigration and Obamacare.

"I came out here to let go of a lot of fear that was sparked as soon as I saw the results," protester Nick Powers said.

He said he feared the real-estate mogul will support stronger stop-and-frisk policies that would put many people in prison. He was worried that Trump's victory would embolden sexist views.

Many of the protests were in cities with large Democratic bases -- Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, CNN noted.

In Chicago, people walked down a normally busy Lakeshore Drive, carrying signs.

Protesters in Austin, Texas, blocked a highway while students burned a flag on the campus of American University in Washington.

In downtown Los Angeles, high school students crowded the steps of City Hall on Wednesday afternoon.

Protester Brooklyn White was holding a sign that said "Hate won't win". The 18-year-old voted for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and was disappointed.

At Berkeley High School in California, about 1,500 students walked out of classes on Wednesday morning. In des Moines, Iowa, hundreds of high school students who left class to protest of election results.

In Phoenix, about 200 students from Carl Hayden High School marched to the state Capitol in protest.

A candlelight vigil for Clinton supporters in front of the White House on Wednesday evening drew those who wanted to mourn their election loss.

Early Wednesday morning after the votes were counted, one member of the crowd near the White House held an upside-down American flag, alongside the LGBT rainbow flag, in silent protest, CNN added.
Washington, Nov 10 : Fear and shock were expressed by the American Muslims after Republican Donald Trump was confirmed as President of the US after months of anti-Islamic stands.

The Republican made his most controversial remarks about Islam in December last year, sparking anger among the world's 1.5billion followers of Islam when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the US after a mass shooting in California, the Daily Mail reported.

For the editor of the Muslim section of Patheos, a website specialising in spirituality, Dilshad Ali had never felt the fear of Trump until now.

"I woke up today and I finally felt it. It felt personal, like the election was a vote against me," the 40-year-old mother of three told CNN ON Wednesday.

More than seven in ten Muslims had said they would vote for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, according to an October survey by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Just 4 per cent had said they would vote for Trump, and perhaps as few expected him to win.

"Our worst nightmare has materialised... A man that built his platform on bigotry, misogyny, and the vilification of Muslims and minorities won the highest office in the land," said Wardah Khalid, a writer and foreign policy analyst.

Yasir Qadhi, a well-known Muslim scholar in Memphis, Tennessee, said: "Shock. Complete and utter shock".

"All of us are genuinely worried. I fear for the safety of my wife in 'hijab'; of my children in the streets; of minorities everywhere struggling to understand what happened," Qadhi told CNN.

Sahar Aziz, a professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law, said Trump's election represents a regression to a less tolerant and inclusive America.

"The general mood I am seeing among Muslims is concern that a Trump presidency will be open season on them. Some Muslims worry their children may experience bullying at school because Trump's victory validated the mainstreaming of Islamophobia. Some women are afraid to wear their headscarves in public in case this invites physical or verbal assault."

Other Muslims said they feared that Trump will install anti-Muslim activists, whose work he has promoted, in powerful roles at the Justice Department and other agencies.

"We could go back to that post-9/11, witch hunt-type environment," said Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, a scholar and co-founder of Zaytuna College, the country's first accredited Muslim college.

According to a latest survey in 2016, there are 3.3 million Muslims living in the US, about 1 per cent of the total population.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The Supreme Court is likely to hear on November 15 a plea by an Uttar Pradesh based lawyer challenging the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination currency notes by the central government saying it has caused hardship to the common man.

The bench of Justice Anil R. Dave, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar said the plea would be listed on November 15 as lawyer Sangam Lal Pandey told the bench that lakhs of people were unable to avail treatment at private hospitals or buy medicines in the absence of exchangeable currency notes.

However, the bench made it clear that hearing of the plea on November 15 would be subject to the numbering of the petition by the court registry.

Government counsel R. Bala Subramaniam told the bench that they should be served with the copy of the petition as the Centre has filed a caveat.

Seeking the quashing of the decision, the petitioner has described demonetisation as "Tughlaki Farman" as lakhs of people are suffering because private hospitals, medical shops, public and private transport including the Delhi Metro were refusing to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.

A number of people who have withdrawn large sums for the marriage of their sons and daughters are now in a quandary as the money cannot be utilised for the intended purposes.

He said there are now problems for the thousands of marriages slated to take place in a couple of days because of the government's decision.
Jakarta, Nov 10 : Indonesia's Bintan island is scheduled to host the 2016 Spartan Race competition on November 19-20 with more than 4,000 participants from various nations and regions already registered to take part in the event.

"We are proud that the organizer would contest the hardest level of Spartan Beast in the upcoming event. Participants have to run 20.8 kilometers through 37 kinds of hurdles," Bintan Tourism Office chief Luki Zaiman Prawira said in a statement on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported Luki said it would be the first time for Indonesia to host the tourism sport event that highlights physical endurance and adventure, divided into three toughness levels of sprint, super and beast.

Luki added that Bintan Island in the Riau Isles province provides terrain and geographical features needed for the sport event that requires sandy beaches, hills and forests and rivers.

He expected that the tourism sport competition can be conducted in the island annually. The Bintan island is located near the neighbouring country of Singapore.

Spartan Race was initiated in the US, and so far has been conducted in 25 countries across the world.
Colombo, Nov 10 : Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are likely to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) in March 2017, which will boost trade and pave way for a huge cross-border cargo trans-shipment via the Port of Colombo, officials said on Thursday.

Bangladesh's Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, who is in Sri Lanka on an official visit, said that the FTA can become a reality when Sri Lanka's high-level leaders visit Dhaka in March, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Today (Thursday) both sides completed trade discussions successfully," the Bangladesh minister said.

"The Shipping Ministry of Bangladesh is also cooperating in this. We decided to use Colombo port in our future trans-shipments as we feel other regional ports to be expensive," he added.

Through its feeder vessels, Bangladesh has already trans-shipped to the US and Europe via Port Kelang, Singapore and Colombo.

Trans-shipments to Europe, the Middle East and the US via the Colombo Port are considered to bring in great savings for Bangladeshi exporters, saving as many as four shipping days to America alone, the minister said.

Sri Lanka's Minister of Commerce Rishard Bathiudeen, during discussions, invited Bangladeshi companies to invest in state pioneered projects in Sri Lanka, as well as in the country's apparel industry.

Total bilateral trade between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which stood at $48 million in 2010, has grown to $131 million by 2015.

Sri Lanka's exports to Bangladesh have seen a steady increase in the past five years. In 2013, it recorded the highest increase of 45 per cent.
Islamabad, Nov 10 : Two more of the eight Indian High Commission staff members declared "persona non grata" left Pakistan early on Thursday, the Foreign Office said.

Indian High Commission First Secretary Balbir Singh and Staff Officer Jayabalan Senthil, who Islamabad alleged were Indian intelligence agents, left for Dubai, the Foreign Office said in a statement.

On November 8, three of the eight Indian High Commission officials, declared persona non grata, left for home. They included Anurag Singh, Vijay Kumar Varma and Mandhawan Nanda Kumar.

The remaining three officials are expected to leave Pakistan also on Thursday through the Wagah border crossing, the statement said.

The Foreign Office last week alleged that a number of Indian diplomats and staff belonging to Indian intelligence agencies were found involved in coordinating terrorist and subversive activities in Pakistan.
Islamabad, Nov 10 : Pakistan on Thursday said it "welcomed" the US President-elect Donald Trump's offer to mediate between Pakistan and India on the Kashmir dispute.

During a weekly press briefing in Islamabad, while responding to queries about the victory of Republican Donald Trump in the US presidential election, Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said the President-elect had earlier offered mediation between Pakistan and India on Kashmir dispute and "we had welcomed that offer".

Zakaria said Pakistan desires a close relationship with the US, and wishes to further strengthen it.

The US President-elect last month said that if elected, he would be willing to play a mediatory role in addressing the "very, very hot tinderbox" of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

"If it was necessary, I would do that. If we could get India and Pakistan getting along, I would be honoured to do that. That would be a tremendous achievement... I think if they wanted me to, I would love to be the mediator or arbitrator," Trump said in the interview.
Ottawa, Nov 10 : Middle-aged adults suffering from arthritis, heart diseases, diabetes and depression are more likely to experience disability and limited involvement in society, a study has found.

According to the study, physical and mental chronic conditions, alone and in combination, were strongly associated with disability and social participation restrictions.

However, the impact of these combinations of conditions differed by gender and age.

"What this research shows is that depending on your age and sex, the specific chronic diseases most highly associated with disability in the population differ," said Lauren Griffith, Associate Professor, McMaster University in the study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The study found that arthritis was consistently associated with disability for men and women across most age groups. In middle-aged adults (45-54 years), depression and arthritis were most often associated with disability and social participation restrictions, especially in women.

Compared to women, combinations of chronic conditions that included diabetes and heart disease were stronger drivers of disability in men, especially in the younger age group (45-54 years).

To conduct the study, the research team analysed population-based data from more than 15,000 participants aged 45 to 85 years.

While the association between single chronic conditions and disability is well documented, there is little research examining the combination of both physical and mental chronic conditions on disability and social participation.

The researchers concluded that knowing which chronic conditions are associated with greater disability and social participation limitations may help clinicians to target treatment strategies for patients.
Chandigarh, Nov 10 : Punjab Congress President Amarinder Singh on Thursday resigned from the Lok Sabha in protest against the "injustice" to the state by the Supreme Court in its verdict on sharing of water from the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal by states including Punjab and Haryana.

All his party legislators also resigned from their assembly seats.

The Supreme Court on Thursday held as unconstitutional the state's 2004 law intended to deny Haryana its share of the Sutlej-Yamuna water.

Amarinder Singh sent his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker and sought a personal meeting next week, party sources said.

The Congress legislators who resigned would meet the assembly Speaker in Chandigarh on Friday to personally hand over their resignation papers, a senior leader told IANS.

In his resignation, Amarinder Singh, who is heading the party's campaign for the assembly elections early next year, said he had decided to quit as MP from Amritsar "as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of my state of the much-needed Sutlej river water".

Describing the SYL judgment by the apex court as a "major blow to the people of Punjab," he said in a statement that he had always fought for their legitimate right on this issue and continued to stand by them.

Blaming the ruling Akalis for bringing the people to this situation, Amarinder Singh said Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal and his team had failed to defend Punjab's stand in the court.

"The Akalis let down the people of Punjab on this critical issue, selling off their interests to Haryana," he said.

Holding that the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, was not in conformity with the provisions of the Constitution, the Supreme Court's constitution bench of Justice Anil R. Dave, Justice Shiva Kirti Singh, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Amitava Roy answered in the negative all the four questions referred to the top court in a Presidential reference.

While Justice Dave pronounced the opinion for the majority of the judges, Justice Singh, while agreeing with the majority view, gave his own observations.

At the initiative of the then Congress government headed by Amarinder Singh, the Punjab assembly had unanimously passed the law terminating all the agreements with Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Chandigarh and Delhi on the sharing of Sutlej-Yamuna river water.

This act was brought to tide over the January 15, 2002 apex court judgment and decree and subsequent judgment and order of June 4, 2004.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the Andhra Pradesh government will jointly organise two-day Partnership Summit from January 27, 2017, for global and Indian industry to discuss innovative policies and path-breaking strategies, an official statement said on Thursday.

"Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandra Babu Naidu formally announced on Thursday the Partnership Summit to be held from January 27-28, 2017 in Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh," said the Commerce Ministry in a statement.

The DIPP, in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Andhra Pradesh is organising the 23rd edition of its major international flagship event to discuss new-age policies and innovations in the industry, it said.

On the occasion, Sitharaman said there was laudable economic activity in the state by way of logistics hub, corridors, newer seaports and airports.

Naidu said that the state of Andhra Pradesh was not only competing with other states but also globally in ease of doing business rankings.

Apart from the plenaries, the Summit will host a Make in India virtual exhibition, the Time Awards for Business Excellence, business-to-business and business-to-government meetings and sessions with transformational leaders and social icons.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : Alleging selective targeting of its MLAs, the AAP on Thursday said notices of disqualification had been issued to nine of its legislators on the basis of a false complaint.

Aam Aadmi Party leader Dilip Pandey said 27 of its MLAs had been sent notices asking why they could not be disqualified for being members of the Rogi Kalyan Samiti.

Membership of the Samiti did not amount to holding an Office of Profit, he told the media.

More important, he said nine MLAs who had got the notices, the Delhi assembly Speaker included, were not even members of this body, Pandey said and alleged a conspiracy against the AAP.

"Imagine the harassment these MLAs have undergone for no fault of theirs," he said. "Who will take action against the people who have acted in a malafide manner against our MLAs?"

He allegd that even a basic scrunity of the complaint against the MLAs was not done before the notices were issued.

Pandey blamed the Modi government and the Bharatiya Janata Party for the "conspiracy".

The Election Commission on November 2 issued show-cause notices to 27 AAP MLAs on a petition seeking their disqualification for allegedly holding Office of Profit.

"People with an anti-democratic framework of mind are misusing reputed institutions for short term political gains," Pandey said.

Pandey said the Rogi Kalyan Samiti (RKS) chairperson and members were exempt from the Office of Profit under The Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly of Delhi (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997.
Colombo, Nov 10 : Sri Lankan Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said on Thursday that his country will look to have a strong role in China-proposed Belt and Road initiative, media reported.

Karunanayake made the remarks while presenting the 2017 budget in parliament. He said that Sri Lanka will look to focus more on development and strengthen its economy in 2017, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Belt and Road initiative comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st century Maritime Silk Road and aspires to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road routes.

The Finance Minister said that Sri Lanka has already been working on free trade agreements with China and several other countries.
Lucknow, Nov 10 : A woman village chief, her husband and two sons were shot dead in Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh early on Thursday, police said.

Police said more than a dozen persons barged into the house of village head Shakuntala Devi after midnight and shot her, her husband Vishambhar and their sons Sunil and Sushil.

Prima facie, the police said, the murders in Chabda village in Kudh Fatehgadh area were a fallout of an old enmity.

The couple was said to be involved in a feud with some powerful villagers over some electoral issue.

The assailants threatened the villagers of dire consequences if they revealed their identity to the police.

Heavy security arrangements have been made in the village and efforts were on to track down the killers, a police official told IANS.
Jaipur, Nov 10 : Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday appealed to citizens not to panic over scrapping on notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, saying only those with black money will be affected.

Naidu called criticism on the issue by the opposition useless and fact less.

"They (opposition) are making allegations just for sake of making allegations. No farmer or poor person will be impacted. Your Rs 500, Rs 1000 notes will not be invalid if your money is valid. You can exchange them till December 30. Only corrupt, black money holders, money launderers, terrorists and their sympathisers need to worry," said Naidu during the GRAM 2016 event here, On Wednesday, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had targeted the government on the move, saying farmers, small shopkeepers and housewives were thrown in utter chaos.
Jaipur, Nov 10 : The Rajasthan government inked 38 Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) worth Rs 4,400 crore on Thursday -- the second day of "Global Rajasthan Agritech Meet (GRAM) 2016" -- for investments in agriculture and allied segments.

On behalf of the government of Rajasthan, Principal Secretary (Agriculture) Neelkamal Darbari and Secretary (Animal Husbandry) Kunjilal Meena signed the MoUs with the investors.

Union Minister for Urban Development Venkaiah Naidu, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Rajasthan Agriculture Minister Prabhu Lal Saini were present on the occasion, according to an official statement.

The MoUs were signed in various segments of agriculture and allied sectors like animal husbandry, fishery and agro tourism.

As per the statement, MoUs worth Rs 1,732 crore were signed for direct investment and Rs 200 crore for indirect investment by the Department of Agricultural Marketing.

The Agriculture Department inked MoUs worth Rs 1,654 crore for direct and Rs 40 crore for indirect investment.

MoUs worth Rs 538 crore were signed in the horticulture sector.

In the animal husbandry sector, MoUs worth Rs 272 crore for direct investments and Rs 302 crore for indirect investment were signed.

The total MoUs worth Rs 4,400 crore are expected to provide 19,293 direct and 27,379 indirect employment opportunities in the state.

Speaking on the occasion, Naidu said: "Every state needs to focus on the growth of farmers and agriculture, apart from industries. Only then the country will grow in real sense."

The agriculture sector has not received the importance it should have, he said and appreciated the Agritech Meet for drawing investors' attention to the sector.

"As a sector, agriculture is important and more and more younger generation people should opt for farming," Naidu noted. He also emphasised on initiatives in the agriculture and allied sectors.

Raje said that the urban-rural gap will get further reduced with the concerted efforts the state is making.

She asserted that the projects for which MoUs have been signed will come up within a year, and added: "One will see farmer-entrepreneurs soon."

Addressing the gathering, Saini said these MoUs will help in taking the economy of Rajasthan ahead.

"The state has huge scope in areas like modernising mandis, cold chains, olive oil and custom hiring, among others."

The three-day global meet is being organised by the Government of Rajasthan, in association with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Jaipur, Nov 10 : The Rajasthan government has come up with the Smart Village initiative -- on the lines of the central government's Smart Cities Mission.

At the 'Global Rajasthan Agritech Meet (GRAM) 2016' in Jaipur, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Thursday said Dhanora village in Dhaulpur was selected to be developed as Smart Gram on pilot basis.

"We will have to focus on small things to build smart cities. Under the Smart Gram plan, we are planning to provide Wi-Fi, public health care, computers in schools, good internal road connectivity in villages," said Raje.

"We are also looking at connecting primary health centres with the hospitals in the cities to provide facilities such as tele-medicine," the Chief Minister said.

At the same event, she appealed to Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu to look into the subject.

Naidu responded positively, saying: "It will be put before the cabinet for discussion."

Seventy per cent of our population lives in villages and it cannot be ignored to our journey to become smart, the Rajasthan government said.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : A number of agreements spanning various sectors, including agriculture and education, are likely to be signed during Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's official visit to India next week, Israeli Ambassador Daniel Carmon said here on Thursday.

Rivlin will be visiting India from November 14 to 21 and will hold bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 15.

"We are, together with our Indian colleagues, contemplating the final stages of preparation of agreements on water, energy, agriculture, R&D, and education," Carmon said at a media briefing here.

"Not everything is finalised yet, but most of it is," he said.

Carmon said that there will be a "unique academic event" during which chancellors of universities of both India and Israel would meet and sign 15 or more agreements.

"When I talk about universities in Israel, I talk about the top leading universities in Israel which are world renowned, like Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, Technion University, Bersheeva University," he stated.

The Ambassador also flagged cooperation in defence production as another important area of the bilateral relationship.

"India and Israel enjoy a very special and unique relationship in the field of defence," he said.

Stating that it was an industrial type of cooperation, he said that it involved research and development between the two sides.

"It is beyond the buyer and seller prospects, military-to-military and beyond that," he said, adding that it was a "special and deep" relationship.

Apart from New Delhi, President Rivlin, accompanied by a large business delegation, will also visit Agra, Karnal in Haryana, Chandigarh, and Mumbai.

In Agra, besides visiting the Taj Mahal, he will take a look at an adjacent Israeli water treatment plant called "Aqwise".

In Karnal, Rivlin will visit the Centre of Excellence in Agriculture set up with Israeli assistance.

In Chandigarh, he along with President Pranab Mukherjee will jointly inaugurate Agro Tech 2016 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Rivlin will visit Mumbai on the last day of his India tour on his way back to Israel. He will attend a commemorative function in memory of the victims of the 26/11 terror attacks.

He will also meet members of the Jewish community.

This will be the first Israeli Presidential visit to India in nearly 20 years since Ezer Weizman came in January 1997.
Marrakech, Nov 10 : Surprised by India's initiatives in clean energy and coal dependency reduction, the international climate research organisations at COP22 here said that the country is set to "over-achieve" its emission intensity targets.

According to an analysis, the on-ground actions are more effective than what India has reflected in its Paris Agreement commitments in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) -- a country's plan to reduce its emissions.

"We expected that the emissions from coal-fired power would increase but we don't see that. We instead see that there's a huge renewable energy installations and this is growing rapidly. This is very positive and was surprising for us," Professor Niklas Hohne from New Climate Institute said at a media briefing at the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22).

About 60 per cent of India's electricity comes from coal-based power plants. However, India has set a target to increase its clean energy share -- solar and wind -- by 40 per cent by 2022 to 175 Giga Watts and 100 GW solar alone. India's solar mission is one of the fastest growing in the world.

"With those targets (175 GW of clean energy), India is already set to over-achieve its emissions intensity target. The likely continued expansion of renewable energy after 2022, for which no targets have been set, would result in India also overshooting its 2030 non-fossil capacity target," Hohne said.

The information was given by Climate Action Tracker (CAT), a global scientific analysis, produced by three international research organisations.

"With every sign that China is now beginning to reduce its coal and carbon dioxide emissions, development in India are amongst the most important underway globally," the CAT report highlighted.

CAT pointed out that India's NDC, however, does not reflect these developments under the Paris Agreement. Which means India's results are better in field rather than on papers.

As per some UNFCCC experts, the down-toning of India's actions on its NDC could be a clever step, as reflecting its domestic commitments on its NDC might jeopardise the international financial assistance that India, along with other developing countries, would receive.

Commenting on other countries, the CAT report said: "Neither the NDC commitment nor current policies are ambitious enough to limit global warming to below two degree Celsius, let alone the Paris Agreement's stronger 1.5 degrees limit, unless other countries make much deeper reduction and comparably greater effort."

The report also praised China for cutting down coal use for third year in a row and being on track to reduce carbon dioxide reduction. It, however, pointed out the absence of commitments on other greenhouse gases in China, due to which the emissions would continue to increase until at least 2030.

Commenting on the probability that US President-elect Donald Trump might roll back from Paris Climate Change Agreement, Niklas Hohne said, "Global climate leadership is open to China if Trump rolls back."

"This would change the political dynamics significantly," Hohne added.

(Kushagra Dixit is at COP22, Marrakech. He can be reached at kushagra.d@ians.in)
Tokyo, Nov 10 : Soon after his arrival here on Thursday for the annual India-Japan bilateral summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with members of the Indian community in Japan.

"The Indian community extends a very warm welcome to the Prime Minister on his arrival in Tokyo," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

According to the External Affairs Ministry, in recent years, there has been a change in the composition of the Indian community in Japan with the arrival of a large number of professionals.

"These include IT professionals and engineers working for Indian and Japanese firms as well as professionals in management, finance, education, and S&T (science and technology) research who are engaged with multinational as well as Indian and Japanese organisations," a ministry brief on Japan states.

On Friday, Modi will call on Emperor Akihito and attend the bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

On Saturday, the Prime Minister will travel by the Shinkansen high-speed rail to Kobe.

Japan has committed to build a high-speed rail system between Ahmedabad and Mumbai.

This is Modi's second visit to Japan in two years.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the traditional export markets of US, Britain and European Union have become saturated and the trade in merchandise goods need a lot of handholding.

"With the traditional markets saturating, trade in merchandise goods needs lot of helping because demand is falling," Sitharaman said at the Economic Editors' Conference here.

"For want of more demand, we are looking for newer markets. Exporters have reached Latin America, South Africa. We have had success with tying up with countries like Chile, Peru," she added.

The Minister said that the government is trying to encourage exports and give it a boost sectorally by addressing their concerns.

It is the services sector that is still keeping pace, she added.

The government is in discussions for free-trade agreements with Canada and Australia, the Minister said.

Engineering goods, chemicals, drugs and pharmaceuticals, textiles, garments, gem, jewellery, diamonds, leather products, carpets, sea food and electronic goods account for a substantial share of India's exports.

Sitharaman had earlier said that to boost export, the ECGC, the government company which ensures sustained flow of exports, will have to support the exporters.

"We have to look for newer markets which may be in Africa or in Latin America and it is for ECGC to stand by the exporters to assure them that they are not going to face any risk," Sitharaman had said.

"ECGC's (formerly known as Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India) role is very vital in handholding exporters in these trying times because exports have seen a continuous decline over several months," she had added.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) contribute a major chunk of exporters who receive the support from ECGC.

Around 90 per cent of world merchandise trade and services involve credit, guarantee or insurance. More than 90 per cent of India's merchandise exports are made on short term credit i.e. less than 360 days.

Estimates by ADB (Asian Development Bank) Institute indicate that exports from India suffered due to unmet trade finance needs to the order of $300 billion approximately.

IMF estimates suggest that globally bank intermediated trade finance support around 40 per cent of merchandise trade.
Lucknow/New Delhi, Nov 10 : The opposition on Thursday stepped up attack on the Narendra Modi government over demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. The Samajwadi Party dubbed the move as anarchist and hasty while the BSP said the country is facing "financial emergency".

Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal too lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and challenged him to make public the names of the 648 Indians with Swiss bank accounts whose details, he said, were given to New Delhi during the earlier United Progressive Alliance rule.

"The government has spread anarchy in the entire country. The common man is not even able to buy products of daily use," Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh told the media in Lucknow.

"People are facing problem; marriages may have stopped due to the decision," he said and demanded that the government should keep the decision in abeyance for a few days to allow people to make arrangements for their daily needs.

Terming the decision "anti-poor", the SP chief said the government announced it "in haste".

The former Defence Minister alleged the decision was politically motivated. "The Bharatiya Janata Party has taken this decision because of (coming 2017 assembly) elections," added Yadav.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati too minced no words in flaying the central government for the move.

Calling Modi a "past master" in hoodwinking people and deflecting attention from the real problems, Mayawati said the "problems people across the country are facing due to this decision are immense."

"The decision is not in public interest; it is in self-interest," she told the media in Lucknow and reminded the people of the "dark days of the Emergency".

Almost 90 per cent of the population was fed up with the Modi government as most of its policies were "neither clear nor in public interest", she said while asserting that the income tax raids on the rich would have yielded better results.

Insisting that the demonetisation move will not check corruption or black money, Kejriwal asserted that the problem of black money could be tackled if Modi ordered the arrest of 648 Indians alleged to have maintained Swiss bank accounts.

"But you won't arrest them because they are your friends," he said.

The Aam Aadmi Party leader said he had spoken to financial experts and no one had been able to explain how the black money could be fought by axing Rs 1,000 notes and introducing Rs 2,000 notes in their place.

"Do you find black-marketers in the queues? Or rich people? Those in the queues are traders, rickshaw-pullers, autorickshaw drivers, farmers and workers. Are these the people with black money?"

Kejriwal alleged that the BJP's "friends" knew about the development in advance and had managed to send their money abroad or bought land or gold with the demonetised currency before it was declared an illegal tender.

He said the Bharatiya Janata Party had also made "arrangements" in view of the coming Uttar Pradesh elections. "The sufferers are the ordinary people."

"Had the Prime Minister totally abolished Rs 500 and 1,000 notes, we would have supported the step," added Kejriwal.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The government's move to demonetise currency notes of high denominations has, in one deft stroke, ended all kinds of funding for terror and Maoist activities, a top BJP leader said on Thursday.

He also said that the move will clean up electoral politics by ridding it of misuse of money power.

"It has been found that mostly Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes are used to fund nefarious activities. Most fake currency is in these denominations. So, by demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the government has ended all such funding in one stroke," he said during an informal interaction with the media.

Vowing to continue the Bharatiya Janata Party's fight against black money and corruption, the party leader said the decision to demonetise notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 may even hit the party's own vote bank but for it national interests are always supreme.

Denying the opposition charge that the decision was taken with an eye on the coming assembly elections in five states, including Uttar Pradesh, the BJP leader said: "The decisions on the surgical strikes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and demonetisation have been taken in national interest. Such decisions connected to national interest are not taken on electoral considerations."

Denying that the Bahujan Samaj Party was a threat to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, he said his party's main rival will be the ruling Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav.

He said both these parties have been hard hit by the demonetisation.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday lauded the move to demonetise notes of the denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1000, saying that terror funding and black money used in elections have become 'zero' in a stroke.

"This is an excellent step by the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi). All the black money that was used in election, that black money has suddenly become null and void. It will ensure more free and fair election," he said at the sidelines of the launch of book "The New Arthashastra: A Security Strategy for India", edited by Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal (retd.).

"Taking away big notes may cause some problem, common man also uses it but, there is a freedom to deposit it in a bank. There will be some problem...

"There is a substantial (amount of) counterfeit notes, which are used by the enemy for terror funding. As the Defence Minister I am very happy, all these notes in one stroke have become zero," Parrikar said.

"They (terror elements) cannot even put it in a bank, so automatically the major source of terror funding has got blocked. The impact will be seen in coming days because terror funding also requires money, that is now gone from the system. The common man can put it in the bank, those have illegally gotten wealth in big quantity, that money has become paper in a day. Definitely the black money funding of election go neutralised," he said.

Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday evening announced that currency notes of Rs 500, and Rs 1000 will not be a legal tender after midnight of November 8. The government has said it has been done to fight counterfeit currency, black money, and funding to terror.
Kolkata, Nov 10 : The 22nd edition of the week-long Kolkata International Film Festival begins here on Friday under the shadow of demonetisation with organisers roping in the Whos Who of Bollywood and a galaxy of global cine personalities to kick-start the event with the usual punch.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced the presence of megastar Amitabh Bachchan, his wife and actress Jaya, stars Shah Rukh Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Kajol, and Parineeti Chopra at the inaugural ceremony.

China will feature as the focus country in the annual cine extravaganza organised by the state government.

A delegation of at least eight persons from the Chinese government and film industry will attend the fest, which will screen as many as seven films from the neighbouring country.

As many as 15 films from 13 countries have been selected for the international competition (Best Film by a Woman Director and Best Woman Director).

Despite the hours inching closer to the opening, a distinct lack of buzz at the venue - the Nandan theatre complex - was conspicuous. In fact, the absence of usual traffic snarls at the site of the theatre cluster in the busy Rabindra Sadan area in south Kolkata was noticeable.

Workers were occupied in putting final touches to the decor.

Asked on the low-key atmosphere, one replied it was due to the rush in banks to exchange and deposit the withdrawn Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations.

"People are in banks. The focus has shifted to money and that is the common man's main worry and not tickets to watch films," a worker told IANS while framing up the banners.

Banerjee has also been vocal against the rushed nature of the move going to the extent of dubbing it an "all-India unannounced strike".

However, she remains firm on her resolve to ensure people get to celebrate the best of cinema.

"It's truly cinema for all, all for cinemaa," she posted on Facebook.

The regional focus is on Marathi films.

The fest will pay tribute to late American screen icon Gregory Peck and Kanan Devi, dubbed as the first superstar of Indian cinema, with the ongoing year marking her centenary.

Six films of Japanese film director and screenwriter Kenji Mizoguchi will be showcased in the 'Great Master' segment.

Homage will be paid to Australian filmmaker Paul Cox and Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami (who passed away this year) and others.

The festival will also remember the 450th death anniversary of William Shakespeare by screening some of the major film adaptations of the bard's works.

Among additions, debuting this year is the international competition in innovation in moving images with nine films from seven countries.

A segment on biopic documentary has been introduced in the 22nd edition.
Kolkata, Nov 11 : There was commotion in a city private hospital on Thursday after its management refused to release a patient, whose relatives had paid the entire bill amount of Rs 40,000 in coins - in view of demonetisation of higher currency notes.

Sukanta Chauli, a resident of West Bengal's Howrah district, was admitted to B.P. Poddar Hospital and Medical Research Ltd at New Alipore in south Kolkata four days back after being detected with dengue.

The hospital authority, on Thursday, informed Chauli's family that he was fit for discharge and asked them to clear the dues.

According to the patient party, the hospital refused to accept denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

"The hospital told us to first clear all dues amounting to Rs 40,000 in denominations other than Rs 500 and Rs 1000, as those are now useless," said a relative of the patient.

In a desperate attempt to release Chauli, his relatives turned to their piggy banks and arranged the entire bill amount of Rs 40,000 in coins; which the hospital authority refused to accept.

"We have arranged for the due amount in coins but the hospital won't accept them now as they say it is logistically impossible to count so many coins," a member of Chauli's family complained.

"They came up with bags of coins and piggy banks to complete the payment. We refused to accept that initially as it is impossible to count so many coins," a hospital employee said.

The situation got out of hand as the hospital staff and the patient party engaged in a war of words over the payment. A television journalist was reportedly beaten up by the hospital security guards and sustained a head injury.

"The television journalist was badly beaten up when he enquired about the issue," an eye witness said.

But after matters turned ugly, the hospital buckled and agreed to release the patient by accepting the coins.

The hospital management said the turn of events would be probed.

"We have accepted the coins and the patient has been discharged today. We can not comment on the altercation with the TV reporter before probing who beat up whom," Sumit Khan, the hospital vice president, told IANS.
Mumbai, Nov 11 : Actress Neha Dhupia, who is busy promoting her film "Moh Maya Money", is all excited at its coming release as it depicts the current situation of the country, though its story was written one year ago.

"It is very relevant in current time. But when we make films, we don't make them keeping current trends in mind. We always think ahead, especially when it comes to writing the story, at least a year ahead, what's going to happen then. But this time little did we knew that our director would turn out to such a know-it-all, who could predict the smog and currency issue," said Neha in a media interaction on Thursday.

Delhi spent days under a shroud of smog and Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes to fight corruption, just played perfectly well for the movie.

"Based on a middle-class couple and corruption, it's a story of Delhi-based husband and wife and how they can be corrupted in different ways as corruption is quite a broad term. Not just limited to material and money, it can also be about values. I think it is quite relevant film in current times," said co-star Ranvir Shorey.

Written & directed by Munish Bhardwaj, the movie is slated to release on November 25.
New Delhi, Nov 11 : Women on Wings (WoW) organised a silent auction here on Thursday to bring together corporate leaders and development sector experts to bid their time and talent for the advancement of rural women in India.

The event was hosted by Alphonsus Stoelinga, Ambassador of the Netherlands in India, and was aimed to exhort the experts to devote their expertise, in whatever manner possible, to the rural women working in several enterprises that work with WoW.

WoW is a social enterprise headquartered in Netherlands which specializes in lending consultancy marketing solutions to small scale working houses to gain economy of scale. Their aim is to help at least one million rural Indian women get jobs and economic independence.

"Women are an engine of progress and we must harness their calibre for an overall development of society," Stoelinga said at the event.

Artisans from around rural India had also put up their stalls to showcase their work, which they were able to expand with the help of WoW.

"I used to sell my work to exporters in Barmer, not knowing that they were sold at a premium price in the cities. I then got in touch with Women on wings which guided me and helped me get the right prices," Ruma Devi, an applique patchwork artisan, told IANS.

Also present at the event were Maria van der Heijden, the Dutch co-founder of Women on Wings, Ronald van het Hof and Shilpa Mital Singh, the India Managing Directors of Women on Wings.

"Empowering women in rural India can transform India's future and dismantle the social, economic and cultural barriers that are holding women back in rural India," van der Heijden said "At Women on Wings, it is our core belief that if you invest in a woman, you invest in a whole family and in the economy," she added.

She was complemented by van het Hof and Singh who emphasized the role of women in shaping the society, and importance of economic independence, which in turn leads to education.

S.K. Misra, former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India, and representatives of many corporate firms attended the event.
The new version of the DataParser will bring improvements to many features and expansion of existing proxy functions...

17a-4, a compliance software and services company, is announcing the next version of the DataParser for release in Q1 2017. The DataParser is a leading on premise middleware solution to collect and format data for an archive. Clients required to archive messaging and other communications use the DataParser to stay in compliance with SEC, FINRA and CFTC rules and regulations. The new version of the DataParser will bring improvements to many features and expansion of existing proxy functions across all supported data source modules.

The DataParsers modular architecture provides an efficient and cost effective platform to collect and control many sources of data for unified retention and supervision policies and procedures. The DataParser supports Cisco Jabber, Bloomberg, Skype for Business Online, Skype for Business Server, SharePoint, Thomson Reuters Eikon Messenger, HipChat, FactSet and more. The new features 17a-4 is adding to the DataParser will enrich the user experience with improved load times for the interface and start times for service. Enhancements to reporting and logging will be included such as the option to report run metadata to 17a-4 automatically and to suppress logging of web service events to the Event log. In addition, auto update and web service capabilities will be extended for future releases, including the ability to define proxy settings with which to connect to 17a-4's web service URLs.

The design of the DataParser allows for easy integration with existing infrastructures. Active Directory support and the ability to run multiple configurations allows user groups to be filtered for collection and output. Once configured, DataParser runs automatically only collecting new data that has accumulated since its last run. The processed messages can be delivered to a mailbox, an email archive or a file location for pickup. It supports all major archiving technologies for in-house resources to be leveraged and compliance costs minimized. If using Office 365 as a compliance archive, the DataParser can deliver to the third-party data mailbox which allows for Microsofts Security & Compliance features to be applied.

17a-4 is continually enhancing DataParser features and available options for all supported platforms. Clients can request specific features be added to the roadmap.

For more information about the DataParser visit 17a-4.com or call (212) 949-1724.

About 17a-4 llc:

17a-4 is a compliance services and software company with a focus on e-messaging and software solutions to meet regulatory and e-discovery needs of institutional clients. Clients that are required to adhere to SEC (Rule 17a-4), FINRA and CFTC (Rule 1.31) regulations leverage 17a-4s expertise to ensure their information infrastructure is in compliance. 17a-4s architecture provides for a single-point in which all e-messaging content may be managed for retention, legal and regulatory holds and e-discovery productions. 17a-4 has also developed the SEC-FINRA DeskTop which is a hosted, SEC-compliant SharePoint platform for many types of regulated documents and workflows. 17a-4 is based in New York City but operates remote offices nationwide.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.
After attending the 12th annual Vegas Cosmetic Surgery & Aesthetic Dermatology meeting, Dr. Richard and Marina Buckley reveal lessons learned and the exciting new additions in store for MilfordMD. We attend meetings, like the Vegas Cosmetic Surgery & Aesthetic Dermatology meeting, to exchange ideas and experiences with the best cosmetic surgeons in the world today and it never disappoints. Stay tuned for some exciting new additions at MilfordMD!

Cosmetic surgeons from around the world gather annually at the Vegas Cosmetic Surgery & Aesthetic Dermatology meeting to share the latest in cosmetic surgery research, new technology and new approaches to some of todays most in-demand aesthetic procedures, says cosmetic surgeon and MilfordMD Medical Director, Dr. Richard Buckley.

Dr. Marina Buckley and I attended and came back to MilfordMD armed with knowledge and new plans for the practice, he says. Were especially excited about two technologies: CoolSculpting and ThermiVa.

Dr. Buckley says there was strong evidence presented at the 12th annual Vegas Cosmetic Surgery & Aesthetic Dermatology meeting on Zeltiqs CoolSculpting technology for nonsurgical fat reduction: Weve had brisk demand for CoolSculpting at MilfordMD Cosmetic Dermatology Surgery & Laser Center, in Milford, Pennsylvania and found our colleagues are also embracing this relatively new option in fat removal.

Cryolipolysis, which is the term trademarked to describe a process of freezing fat cells, is making big news at aesthetic conferences worldwide. The FDA-cleared CoolSculpting technology works on the premise that fat cells are more sensitive to cold than nearby skin and tissues. The controlled cooling technology platform selectively diminishes fat bulges without surgery by, in essence, freezing localized fat cells. The body then naturally eliminates the dead cells, for long-lasting fat removal.

CoolSculpting is todays number one non-invasive fat reduction procedure, Dr. Buckley says. CoolSculpting is available in 70 countries and has earned a 97 percent favorable online brand sentiment rating. Its important for us to know that patients worldwide are happy with the procedure.

Another important take-home message from the cosmetic surgery meeting had to do with the rising demand among women for vaginal rejuvenation.

Based on what we heard in Vegas, weve decided to offer one of todays top radiofrequency technologies for vaginal rejuvenation, the ThermiVa, Dr. Marina Buckley says.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Jennifer L. Walden, of Austin, Texas, presented at the meeting on Controversies in female genital rejuvenation.

This is a movement, I believe, that is overwhelmingly female-centric and not generated by men. Women want to look great down there as they do up here, and there's nothing wrong with that! she says in an article in Cosmetic Surgery Times. The noninvasive radiofrequency procedure, ThermiVa (Thermi Aesthetics), also helps with functional female issues, like mild urinary leakage with coughing or jumping and vaginal dryness due to menopause.

As laser hair removal and Brazilian bikini waxes are becoming more common, women are looking to labiaplasty to reduce the size of their inner lips, Walden reports.

We go to these meetings to exchange ideas and experiences with the best cosmetic surgeons in the world today, Dr. Richard Buckley says. The Vegas meeting never disappoints. Stay tuned for more about CoolSculpting and ThermiVa, from MilfordMD.

About MilfordMD Cosmetic Dermatology Surgery & Laser Center:

The MilfordMD Cosmetic Dermatology Surgery & Laser Center offers state-of-the-art highly specialized procedures in laser and cosmetic surgery and aesthetic skin care. In addition to its extensive laser surgery capabilities, MilfordMD offers physician designed skin care products for home use. Milford Pennsylvanias MilfordMD Cosmetic Dermatology Surgery & Laser Center is sought out by patients from around the world for expertise and innovation in cosmetic treatments performed by Richard E. Buckley, M.D. and Marina Buckley, M.D.

MilfordMD Cosmetic Dermatology Surgery & Laser Center is located at 303 W. Harford Street, Milford, PA 18337. Tel: (800) 664-1528. For real patient video testimonials, visit our MilfordMD YouTube channel.
Im proud that our focus on the customers experience is disrupting the competition in our industry on a national level and is truly the jet fuel to our average 45% growth every year," say Dillard.

Oregonian Travis Dillard, president of privately held Inflow Communications Inc., of Portland, is fast-tracking plans for national growth. Last month the acquisition of Total Technologies of Houston, also a ShoreTel partner, expanded Inflows book of business in Texas. Along with the acquisition came Total Technologies ShoreTel Premise customers. The recent acquisition for Inflow has widely expanded their customer base, as Houston boasts the 4th largest market in the United States. As high sales performance seamlessly integrated into exceptional customer service have positioned Inflow for multiple national expansions this year, President and CEO Travis Dillard looks forward to the addition of highly experienced senior voice engineers to the Inflow team.

We are able to have an aggressive growth strategy because every staff member has 100 percent dedication to the success of our customer service program, says Dillard.

We only hire employees whom are absolutely fanatical about the customer experience. We feel strongy that customer service in this country as a whole, let alone the tech industry, is complacent, unempathetic to customers, mediocore, and most often borderline criminally horrible. Im proud that our focus on the customers experience is disrupting the competition in our industry on a national level and is truly the jet fuel to our average 45% growth every year.

The company maintains a transparent approach to demonstrate these standards. Inflows home page, http://www.inflowcommunications.com has real-time metrics published unfiltered and live from help desk and business office statistics on customer response and resolution times and customer satisfaction for all customer daily interactions with Inflow. Inflow outpaces competitors by breaking the cycle of mediocrity so often encountered in Information Technology and communications industry.

Inflow backs this promise up with the following service attributes:



A guaranteed response time and providing service and technical solutions eight times faster than the industry average as measured by national Zendesk Helpdesk statistics.

Employing a high concentration of advanced ShoreTel-certified and contact center engineers that are continuously trained and immediately available to customers 24x7x365.

Proactive and value-added services, such as system proactive monitoring, advanced system reporting, database back up, free training, white paper, tech articles and other educational resources including over 100 You Tube tutorials.

Up to 10% of all Inflow employees, including techcial and administrative employees, compensation is tied to response times, resolution times, and customer satisfaction.

If the customers needs are not met eight times faster than the industry standard; or if a customer feels that Inflow fell short of world-class service, all Inflow employees are empowered to give customers $100 Amazon gift cards.

Meeting customers needs and providing an extraordinarily positive customer experiences at every interaction is an Inflow core value.

BusinessInsider.com reports that the quality of customer service can significantly impact a retailer's bottom line. In fact, 66 percent of US consumers are willing to spend more money with a company that provides them with excellent customer service. According to Microsoft more than 60 percent of consumers say they have not completed an intended purchase due to a poor customer service experience.

Last December, Inflow Communications Inc. was named the third top partner on the ShoreTel Circle of Excellence list in the U.S. Solutions category. Worldwide there are more than 1,000 partners in theShoreTel Champion Partner Program. The same month, Inflow also achieved the Platinum level, the highest level within the ShoreTel Champion Partner Program. These awards and distinctions recognize the Portland company for exceptional achievement in:

Net billings and billings growth,

The highest levels of customer satisfaction,

Technical certification,

Demonstration of capability.

Information about Inflow Communications multiple communication capabilities, are available at http://www.inflowcommunications.com or call Portland headquarters office at (503) 575-7530 week days and during regular office hours; emergency support is available 24/7 via phone or email.
Solar dryers improve aeration Were hoping that the availability of better drying and processing facilities will encourage farmers to separate their crop into micro lots of better quality that command a higher price  rewarding the farmers with a greater return on their hard work. Past News Releases RSS Crimson Cup Welcomes The Office...

Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea...

Barista Magazine Names Crimson...

Columbus, Ohio coffee roaster Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea is contributing $5,000 to kick off a proposed $500,000 project to build solar dryers for Peruvian coffee farmers in the Junin region. By supporting better aeration, the raised beds will help improve the quality of washed coffees by mitigating the risk of negative fermentation.

The project is a joint venture of NARSA (NEGOCIACIONES AGROINDUSTRIAL AREVALO S. A.), a private co-op founded by Don Julio Abel Arevalo Tello, and its affiliated COOPERU organization, which promotes better farming practices among small-plot coffee farmers. COOPERU includes an extensive network of approximately 3,000 coffee and cacao farmers. The raised beds are being built on top of NARSA buildings in La Merced.

Were excited to partner with incredible organizations that have been instrumental in coffee development in the Junin region, said Greg Ubert, Crimson Cup founder and president. "With a culture based on the principles of integrity, eco-efficiency and transparency, they are focused on improving the lives of indigenous families in the Central Forest of Peru.

Coffee Sourcing and Education Manager Brandon Bir said the project will help Crimson Cup source better coffees through its Friend2Farmer direct trade program.

Peru is known for its Fair Trade Organics and coffees that score in the mid 80s, he said. Were hoping that the availability of better drying and processing facilities will encourage farmers to separate their crop into micro lots of better quality that command a higher price  rewarding the farmers with a greater return on their hard work.

Since 2013, the Crimson Cup coffee-buying team has visited Peru at least annually to establish relationships with co-ops and coffee farmers. They have made several trips into the Junin Highlands to meet with NARSA and local coffee farmers.

In April 2016, Don Arevalo visited the Crimson Cup Innovation Lab and Columbus-area coffee houses as part of the roasters Meet the Farmer series. He offered samples of Crimson Cups 2016 Peru La Merced Mundo Pache coffee, which was grown by farmer Pedro Cahuana Cconocc and purchased through NARSA as part of Crimson Cups Friend2Farmer program.

Crimson Cup developed its Friend2Farmer direct trade program to ensure that farmers receive a fairer share of proceeds from coffee sales. The company pays a premium to farmers, who can then invest in agricultural and community improvements. Crimson Cup coffee experts also collaborate with farmers on ways to improve the quality of the coffee and quality of life for farmers, workers and their communities. In addition, the roaster invests in projects such as solar dryers to help improve coffee quality.

About Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea

Columbus, Ohio, coffee roaster Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea is Roast magazines 2016 Macro Roaster of the Year. Since 1991, Crimson Cup has roasted sustainably sourced specialty and craft coffee in small batches. The company also teaches entrepreneurs to run successful coffee houses through its coffee franchise alternative program, which includes a coffee shop business plan. Crimson Cup coffee is available through a community of more than 350 independent coffee houses, grocers, college and universities, restaurants and food service operations across 29 states, Guam and Bangladesh, as well as the companys own Crimson Cup Coffee Houses. To learn more, visit crimsoncup.com.
Specialty Technical Consultants

Specialty Technical Publishers (STP) and Specialty Technical Consultants (STC) announce the availability of the newly updated International Audit Protocol Consortium (IAPC) EHS audit protocol for China. Leading companies around the world use IAPC EHS audit protocols to understand the scope of their EHS regulatory obligations and rapidly collect, share, archive, and export audit findings in a cost effective manner. IAPC EHS audit protocols are now prepared by STC in partnership with STP and continue to focus on those national (plus, in some cases, regional or provincial) EHS requirements that have site-specific application for manufacturing operations. As a leading EHS management consulting firm with a global network of experienced EHS teaming partners, STC has indepth knowledge and technical expertise of local/regional EHS requirements.

STP and STC maintain leading-edge EHS audit protocols for more than 30 jurisdictions. The protocol documents are written in English and are available in MS Word, Adobe Acrobat and Excel formats, as well as through STPs web-based portal or can be integrated into an existing company platform. Using the protocols custom templates and advanced functionality features, auditors can easily track audit findings and manage data over time to improve compliance, risk management and safety performance. In addition, STPs formatting is compatible with leading risk management and sustainability platform providers.

Highlights of selected legislation covered in the newly updated protocol include:



Cleaner Production Audit Measures and Specifications for Industrial Cleaner Production Audits were issued to classify cleaner production audits into voluntary audits and compulsory audits, define the enterprises subject to compulsory audits, and to specify the auditing requirements.

Additional measures relating to energy conservation were issued, including Administrative Measures for Industrial Energy Conservation and Measures for Energy Conservation Supervision.

New air quality standards have been issued, including Emission Standards for Air Pollutants from Boilers (GB 13271-2014) and Trial Measures for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) Discharging Fee, which requires certain industries to pay VOC discharge fee (as a pilot program, the industries covered include petrochemical, packaging, and printing).

The new "Interim Measures for the Administration of Carbon Emission Right Trading" establish a basic institutional framework for the development of a national carbon trading market, which is to be followed by the issuance of relevant rules in the near future.

A revised "National Catalogue of Hazardous Wastes" was issued to replace the 2008 version. In addition, a new "Catalogue of Disposal of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products" was issued to replace the 2010 version.

"Measures for the Administration of Permits for Urban Wastewater Discharge into Drainage Network" were issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development to improve the management of wastewater discharge permits.

The "Code for Fire Protection Design of Buildings (GB 50016-2014)" has replaced previous version of this code, and has also been combined with the former "Code for Fire Protection Design of Tall Buildings (GB 50045-95)" into a single code.

New code and provisions relating to the management of tanks were issued, including:

o "Ten Provisions on Fire and Explosion Protection in Oil and Gas Tank Farms;"

o "Steel Spherical Tanks (GB 12337-2014);" and

o "Design Code for Fire-Dikes in Storage Tank Farms (GB 50351-2014)."



New legislative instruments as well as mandatory standard and code revisions in the area of health and safety were issued, including:

o "Administrative Provisions on the Occupational Hazard Notifications and Warning Signs;"

o "Six Provisions on Hazard Communication of Production Safety Risks;"

o "Interim Provisions on the Administration of the Black List of Production Entities with Bad Work Safety Records;"

o "Catalogue of Specialized Installations;"

o "Five Rules of Safety Operation at Confined Spaces and the related Reference Catalogue of Confined Spaces at Industry and Commerce Enterprises;"

o "Fire Safety: Five Rules of Combustible Dust Explosion Prevention;"

o "Administrative Standards on Regular Monitoring of Occupational Hazards by Employers;"

o "Eight Regulations on Employers Occupational Hazards Prevention and Control;"

o "Measures for Occupational Health Examination Management;"

o "Management Specifications on Personal Protective Equipment for Employers;" and

o "Periodic Inspection of Lifting Machinery."



China has also cancelled requirements for administrative approvals relating to certain types of safety assessments through the issuance of the "Work Plan for Reducing Examination and Approval Items for Enterprise Investment Projects and the Notice on Strengthening Supervision and Management of Three Simultaneities Related to Occupational Hygiene of Construction Projects."

Safety requirements for boilers and pressure vessels have also changed due to the issuance of the "Boiler Periodical Inspection Regulation and the Supervision Regulation on Safety Technology for Stationary Pressure Vessel (TSG 21  2016) and Boiler Service Administration Regulations (TSG G5004-2014)."

New provisions relating to the transport of dangerous goods include the "Provisions on the Technical Administration of Vehicles for Road Transport," which govern road transport vehicles in respect to maintenance, repair and integrated performance testing, and "Provisions on Supervision and Administration of Safety Transportation of Dangerous Goods by Railway."

A new edition of the "Catalogue of Dangerous Chemicals" was issued and became effective on May 1, 2015.

The "Safety Code for Special Work in Chemical Manufacturing" became effective on June 1, 2015. This "Safety Code" specifies requirements for hot work, line breaking, working at height, lifting, temporary electricity use, excavation work, and road work in chemical production facilities.

Requirements for applying for a permit for construction work are detailed in the new "Management Measures on Construction Permitting for Construction Engineering."

For more information on all International EHS audit protocols offered by STP and STC click here.

About Specialty Technical Publishers

Specialty Technical Publishers (STP) produces technical resource guides covering environmental, health & safety, transportation, accounting, business practices, standards and law, offering comprehensive guidance on key compliance and regulatory issues. STP is a division of Glacier Media Inc., a Canadian information communications company that provides primary and essential information in print, electronic and online media. Glaciers Business and Professional Information Group publishes directories, technical manuals, research and development materials, medical education, electronic databases, investment information and specialty websites.

About Specialty Technical Consultants

Specialty Technical Consultants, Inc. (STC) is a specialized management consulting firm working to enhance environmental health and safety (EHS) performance. Through its consulting services, STC partners with clients to strengthen management systems' design and implementation, and identifies needs and implements solutions to meet business objectives. Services provided include: EHS compliance support; risk assessment; EHS auditing; corporate responsibility and sustainability; EHS management systems development and implementation; EHS regulatory information tools; and EHS training.

STC is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) by the Womens Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and the Supplier Clearinghouse for the California Public Utilities Commission, and as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program.
Due to Ineos immense growth over the last few years, Ineo was recognized and received an award in the Software industry vertical at the 2016 Marcum Tech Top 40 event.

David Santora, Ineos CEO, states, We are both honored and humbled to have been selected to receive this award alongside some of the most innovative and creative technology companies in the State of Connecticut.

Marcum LLP and The Connecticut Technology Councils 2016 Marcum Tech Top 40 event took place in Wallingford, Connecticut at the Toyota Oakdale Theatre, where it celebrated its 9th year recognizing technology companies with at least $3 million in annual revenue and a four-year record of growth. Each Marcum Tech Top 40 company is categorized under one of six industry verticals, Advanced Manufacturing, Energy/Environmental Technologies, Life Sciences, New Media/Internet/Telecom Technologies, IT Services, or Software. This event is meant to honor and support technology companies who are in a state of growth.

About Ineo

Ineo is the premier provider of global mobility assignment management software, expense management, mobility tax and consulting services. With Ineos extensive experience developing mobility solutions, we provide our clients the confidence that their programs will be compliant and cost effective.

For more information on Ineo, LLC please visit http://www.ineotech.com or contact Mary B. Reilly, SVP Global Business Development, at mreilly(at)ineotech(dot)com or at (303)219-7291.
Management consultancy cg42 today announced the promotion of Andres Suster from Director to Partner. Over six years at cg42, Susters understanding of the financial services, telecommunications, and technology industries, as well as his deep analytics expertise, have helped him develop solutions to complex challenges faced by business leaders from around the world. As a partner at the firm, Suster will lead cg42s Data and Analytics practice. His responsibilities will include continuing to expand the firms innovative approach to vulnerability measurement and guiding clients to gain deeper insight into what drives customers.

Andres has been a valuable asset to our consulting team from day one, and in the last six years he has shown incredible dedication and skill in finding creative solutions to our clients challenges, said Steve Beck, founder and manager partner, cg42. Andres innate curiosity about the business world has fundamentally influenced the work we do, and I am thrilled to welcome him as a partner at the firm.

Ive grown both personally and professionally at cg42, and Im thankful to have had the opportunity to tackle some of the most interesting challenges businesses face today, said Suster. cg42 is a truly unique, dynamic, and exciting place to work, and Im looking forward to what the future will bring.

Suster graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and earned a Masters in Organizational Psychology from New York University. He joined cg42 in 2010 after six years at FutureBrand, a leading international brand and design consultancy network.

About cg42

Dont Panic

cg42 is the boutique management consulting firm that pioneered the patent-pending approach to quantify frustration and permission. We build competitive strategies that drive greater market share for our clients. We speak the languages of operations, finance, and marketing with equal fluency, giving us a definitive edge in helping the disparate parts of our clients organizations embrace a common strategy for growth. cg42 has helped senior executives at Fortune 100 companies in the technology, telecommunications, financial services, consumer services, and hospitality sectors successfully address their most pressing business, competitive, marketing, and brand strategy challenges. For more information, please visit: http://www.cg42.com.
One out of every 12 Americans have served in the armed forces, according to the US Census Bureau.

Many Americans would like to not just honor  but also support  veterans this Veterans Day by donating their time or money to veteran causes.

But with more 7,000 different charities helping veterans in the U.S., how do you know which ones are the best for you to volunteer or donate to, especially in your community?

GreatNonProfits.com has named 31 Top-Rated Veterans Charities  selected for earning the highest ratings in helping those in need. The list includes charities such as Working Dogs for Vets, which trains and supplies service dogs to veterans, and USA Cares, which assists military families in crisis, as well as many others.



You can find the list of all 31 Top-Rated Veterans Charities from Great Nonprofits here: http://greatnonprofits.org/awards/browse/Campaign:Year2016/Issue:26

Or, you can visit GreatNonProfits.org and search for veterans charities in your state or community. You can find ratings and reviews of each charity along with links for donating your money or time.

Many people would love to support organizations devoted to veteran causes this Veterans Day, but dont know where to start or how to find them, said Perla Ni, CEO of GreatNonprofits. With so many choices, people need to make sure the organizations they are donating to are trusted well-established charities with a track record of providing outstanding service. Our veterans and servicemen and servicewomen deserve no less when we support them.

GreatNonprofits provides a unique, 360-degree view of charities with reviews, stories and videos on the impact of each charity, submitted by those who know their work the best. It also allows people to amplify their support by sharing on social media.

Veterans Day is November 11, 2016 and is the official public holiday honoring persons who have served in the United States Armed Forces.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Perla Ni, CEO of GreatNonprofits is available for interviews on or before Veterans Day to discuss how people can find and choose appropriate veterans charities to donate to.

###

About GreatNonprofits

GreatNonprofits is the leading website for people to find, review and share information about nonprofits. More than 1.2 million different charities, their reviews, ratings and personal stories about their work, are searchable by issue and location.

The GreatNonprofits Top-Rated Awards are the only top ratings determined by those who deal directly with the charities  as donors, volunteers and recipients of aid. The GreatNonprofits seal is rated by Software Advice, a Gartner company, as the second most-trusted rating seal after the Better Business Bureau.

GreatNonprofits also provides tools and services to help nonprofits share and collect reviews and stories about the communities they serve.

For more information, visit greatnonprofits.org
The visual image of the packaging wants to convey one clear message: The vegetables inside the can are natures 3D models with perfect dimensions.

This packaging design already received the Silver Award from Creativity International Awards Packaging Design Category (http://creativityawards.com/?submission=packaging-design-ati-vegetable) and it will certainly capture customer imagination. It was selected silver winner from projects coming from 40 countries, 2 Canadian Provinces and 25 U.S. States.

CREATIVITY International Awards is an international competition that celebrates the best annual Print & Packaging Design. It was founded in 1970 by Don Barron, Editor of Art Direction Magazine (S.U.A) in order to reward the talented, the lifeblood of this profession. (http://creativityawards.com/)

The visual image of the packaging wants to convey one clear message: The vegetables inside the can are natures 3D models with perfect dimensions. The design is capturing that fresh, healthy, tasty character of the products inside, putting it in the spotlight. It is all centered and built around the tomatoes or the beans, letting them have a colorful, magnetic impact on the customer. The front of the label is concentrating on showing and measuring different views of the vegetable, exactly like in a well detailed architectural plan. An innovating characteristic of the design is the way the vegetables are portrayed using a vibrant mix of 3D modeling techniques with illustrations. The labels are using white canvas with one black stripe at the end  leaving the strong, vivid colors to be illustrated by the vegetables. The concept wants to introduce the tomato / bean to the public like a singular entity, making it the unique fresh star of the show. The product is a major elevation of a standard item from the same category and the packaging is designed to communicate that difference on the shelf, bringing a refreshing twist on the vegetable can market.

CreativeByDefinition represents the vision of an independent packaging designer & retail architect whos always looking for an original perspective, helping each brand to stand out from the crowd.

contact(at)creativebydefinition.com

http://www.creativebydefinition.com/
Northeast Laboratory Services, Inc. a Maine based Prepared Culture Media Manufacturer and Full Service Analytical Laboratory is excited to announce the addition of Hannah Roberts to its Manufacturing Division Sales Team. Ms. Roberts will be responsible for driving revenue through customer retention and new customer relations, as well as sales leadership.

Ms. Roberts received her Bachelors of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing at Merrimack College in North Andover, MA and also studied abroad at the American University of Rome in Rome, Italy. Her past positions include Local Marketing Coordinator at TideSmart Global in Falmouth and Assistant Media Planner at Yellin McCarron Media Management in Boston. She also gained valuable experience as Sales and Media Planner Intern at the Portland Seadogs, MLB.

Melissa Higgins, Northeast Laboratory Services, Inc. VP and CFO, states "We are very excited to welcome Hannah to our team at Northeast Laboratory Services. The hiring of Hannah allows us to connect with our customers in person, to enhance our customer relationships, and be the face of NEL for all that come into contact with her."

Northeast Laboratory Services, Inc. has been specializing in the production of prepared culture media for over 40 years, and continues to grow its customer base. NEL offers a wide variety of products in tubes, bottles, culture plates, and vials and specializes in custom formulations to meet their customer's specifications. Northeast Laboratory Services prepared culture media manufacturing facility is located in Winslow, ME. This location also houses two analytical divisions offering environmental chemistry and microbiology testing services. A second location in Portland, Maine offers food testing services as well as analysis of radon and asbestos.
CCRA Travel Commerce Network We're really excited to bring PowerSolutions to Orlando with some big CCRA announcements that will surely leave our members excited about 2017 and beyond! Maggie Fischer, Vice President, Marketing, CCRA

After a string of highly successful travel networking events this year across the country, CCRA is finishing out it's 2016 schedule in Orlando, at the Walt Disney Swan and Dolphin on December 13th from 5:00 PM - 8:30 PM.

The event will kick off with a powerful keynote by Thomas Valley, Director of National Sales for Sea World Orlando, focused on their mission to help travel professionals provide family experiences that matter.

Travel agents will then be free to explore the trade show floor and enjoy complimentary hors d'oeuvres and drinks while connecting with BDMs from CCRA and TRUE, Aer Lingus, Carey, IHG, Starwood, Sky Bird, Allianz, Incredible India, Israel Tourism and Sea World. The night will close with a series of prizes from each supplier, and a grand prize drawing for two $150 gift cards from CCRA.

Central Florida area travel agents will also get to connect with their new CCRA Orlando Chapter Director, Denise Hangsleben, who is a well known travel agency owner who recently took over the chapter after relocating from CCRA's Illinois Chapter. Denise brings a decade of experience selling travel and mentoring successful travel agency owners.

Other CCRA executives planning to attend are Holly Carrig, Director of Membership and Maggie Fischer, Vice President of Marketing who will be on hand to discuss CCRA's GDS-driven products for travel agencies as well as products and services for those operating outside of the GDS environment. "CCRA has long hinted at some major enhancements on the way," says Fischer, adding, "We're really excited to bring PowerSolutions to Orlando with some big CCRA announcements that will surely leave our members excited about 2017 and beyond!"

PowerSolutions Live draws anywhere from 100-250 travel agents from the local area who are interested in learning more about select suppliers, sharing best practices and knowledge with their peers and forging a stronger travel brand in their local community. The events are free for registered agents.

To read more and about PowerSolutions Live in Orlando on December 13th, and to register please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ccra-powersolutions-orlando-fl-tickets-22284148488

To read about future PowerSolutions Live events please visit: https://www.ccra.com/powersolutions/

About CCRA:

Based in Ft. Worth, Texas, CCRA Travel Commerce Network is a global hub for travel technology, marketing, accreditation and education. For over forty years, CCRA has connected travel professionals and suppliers with the products and services they need to drive revenue, relationships and brand recognition in the travel marketplace. From the TRUE accreditation and coding system to hotels, air, call center services and more, CCRA is truly where the travel industry connects. For more information, visit http://www.ccra.com.

###

CCRAs Media Contact:

Maggie Fischer

Vice President, Marketing

Email: Maggie(dot)fischer(at)ccra(dot)com

Direct: 407.965.2735
Elearning! Media Group, publishers of Elearning! Magazine and Government Elearning! Magazine announced the 2017 Learning! 100 Award Call for Applications is now open. The annual award program honors public and private sector organizations for innovation, collaboration and learning culture that drives performance. Applications can be submitted at: http://b2bmediaco.com/learn100/2017/award/form_100.php

The Learning! 100 award winners are an elite team of high performers. From small to large enterprises, this award honors those that push the limits of learning and development, to over achieve by exceeding performance expectations, says Catherine Upton Group Publisher, Elearning! Media Group. Learning is at the core of their success. And, every one continues to inspire us with their innovation, passion and performance.

Previous Learning! 100 honorees include Amazon Web Services, AT&T, American Heart Association, Salesforce, NASCAR, Defense Acquisition University, and Scripps Health to name a few.

Are You a Learning! 100?

In its 7th year, the Learning! 100 Award call for nominations is now open. Elearning! Media Group, host of the Learning! 100 Award invites all organizations, small and large, private or public sector to apply. The process is easy via an online ballot. There is no entry fee for public sector submissions. Corporate enterprises invest only $250 to apply, which includes an award and tickets to the awards event, if selected as a Learning! 100 winner.

Learning! 100 applications are evaluated on three sets of criteria: (1) Learning Culture Index developed by The Darden School, (2) Collaborative Strategies Collaboration TCEP Index and (3) Overall Organizational Performance. The Learning! 100 awards committee reviews all applications which are scored and ranked. The 2017 Learning! 100 applications must be submitted by February 1, 2017 for consideration at: http://b2bmediaco.com/learn100/2017/award/form_100.php

Important Dates

Learning! 100 Call for Applications: October 2016-Feb 1, 2017

Learning! 100 Winner Notifications: March 1, 2017

Learning! 100 Awards Issue Deadline July 1, 2017

Learning! 100 Awards Reception: August 2017

Learning! 100 Winner Articles, Web Seminars & Sessions: Aug 2017-June 2018

Previous Winners

The Learning! 100 winners have much to share with the learning community including:

Im truly honored that ASAE University was recognized for its online programs, said ASAE Vice President of Online Learning Tammy Blosil. We always strive to create courses that will advance members knowledge as well as provide tools and resources they can share and utilize in their organizations.

"Our customers' success is everything to us. Seeing Amazon Web Services, Ingersoll Rand and Publicis.Sapient get recognized for their dedication, hard work and accomplishment - and knowing that our solutions are contributing to their success - is an immensely rewarding experience," says Walter Rogers, CEO of CCI and BCI.

Being ranked in the top 20 is an honor for our organization, and demonstrates that although we are a rather small, privately held organization, we can play with the likes of Salesforce, Facebook, Amazon, and Cisco, stated Anne Yarmark, EVP of HR & Administration.

Elearning! Media Group (EMG) announced their annual Learning! 100 awards, ranking the top 100 learning and development programs in the private and public sectors, reported Tom Cunningham, Vice President, Global Sales On-boarding, Skillsoft. Along with the dozens of Skillsoft customers that made the list, we are very excited to be named the #17 corporate enterprise honoree for the success of our Sales Onboarding Program!

Learning is at the very core of ISTEs mission to empower learners to flourish in a connected world by cultivating a passionate professional learning community, said ISTE CEO Brian Lewis, who accepted the award on the organizations behalf. On behalf of ISTEs board of directors, staff and the more than 100,000 education stakeholders we serve worldwide, its an honor to accept this recognition of the culture of learning that is ISTE.

To learn more about the Learning! 100 Award and prior honorees, visit: http://www.2elearning.com/awards/learning-100-awards

About Elearning! Media Group

Elearning! and Government Elearning! magazines, e-magazines, e-newsletters, Alerts, websites and events are produced by B2B Media Company, LLC. Elearning! Magazine is one in a family of 12 media brands serving the $225 billion enterprise learning market. In combination, these brands reach up to 2 million executives and professionals who plan, evaluate and deploy enterprise-wide learning solutions across their organizations each year. To learn more, visit: http://www.2elearning.com.

To learn more at about Elearning! Media Group, visit: 2elearning.com; on Twitter: 2elearning or #ELSummit or #ELCE16; via Facebook: Elearning!-Magazine or LinkedIn: Elearning! Magazine Network or Elearning! Summit.

About the Learning! 100 Award

The Elearning! Media Groups (EMG) Learning! 100 Award recognizes excellence high performance enterprises that are collaborative, innovative, with an immersive learning culture. The Learning! 100 Award recognizes the top 100 global organizations across the public and private sectors for their best-in-class learning and development programs that drive organizational performance. To learn more visit: http://www.2elearning.com/awards/learning-100-awards
Laura Geritz, CEO This is an ideal scenario for me. Im thrilled to be leading the new firm while being able to work with Robert Gardiner, Blake Walker, and the Grandeur Peak team.

Former Wasatch Advisors partner and portfolio manager Laura Geritz (CFA, MA) and Salt Lake City based Grandeur Peak Global Advisors together announced that they have formed a new investment firm. Ms. Geritz will lead the new firm, Rondure Global Advisors, which will focus on high quality Core equity investing with a long-term view. Rondures initial strategies will include a Developing Countries portfolio and an International portfolio. The new firm intends to manage separately managed accounts and to launch a series of mutual funds in 2017.

Ms. Geritz is a former lead portfolio manager of the Wasatch Emerging Markets Small Cap Fund, the Wasatch International Opportunities Fund, and a founding PM of the Wasatch Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund. She left Wasatch Advisors in July of this year to explore new paths. Ms. Geritz will be the CEO and majority owner of Rondure Global Advisors. Ms. Geritz will have her own research and client team, while Grandeur Peak will provide back-office and trading support. Rondure and Grandeur Peak will office together in Salt Lake City and collaboratively leverage the knowledge and skill of the two research teams.

Ms. Geritz believes the best investments are found within a global context, so Rondure Global will scour the world in search of the most interesting investments. The firms investment philosophy is centered around very high quality companies that it believes can provide sustainable returns. It will seek to invest in great companies at good prices and good companies at great prices.

Ms. Geritz described the opportunity to join forces with Grandeur Peak this way: This is an ideal scenario for me. Im thrilled to be leading the new firm while being able to work with Robert Gardiner, Blake Walker, and the Grandeur Peak team. Tapping into Grandeur Peaks expertise in setting up a firm will allow me to focus on research, building my team, and managing the portfolios.

Of the partnership, Robert Gardiner, CEO of Grandeur Peak, added Laura is an exceptional bottom-up investor whom we have known for over a decade and who shares many of our investment philosophies. Were thrilled to have the chance to sit side-by-side with her, travel together, and tap into Lauras wisdom and experience.

The name Rondure comes from a French word meaning round or spherical. It ties nicely with the global focus of the new firm and has special meaning for Ms. Geritz whose father was a literature professor. Rondure is a unique word used in the writings of such classic writers as William Shakespeare and Walt Whitman.

For more information, please contact Laura Geritz or Eric Huefner.

About Rondure Global Advisors:

Rondure Global Advisor takes a bottom-up approach to equity investing using disciplined global screening, rigorous company due diligence, and close attention to valuation to find what we believe to be the best investment opportunities around the world. Our investment philosophy is centered around very high quality companies that we believe can provide sustainable returns. Rondure Global Advisor, LLC is a woman-owned investment adviser headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.

About Grandeur Peak Global Advisors:

Grandeur Peak Global Advisors is comprised of a highly seasoned and collaborative research team taking a bottom-up approach to investing using disciplined global screening, rigorous company due diligence, and close attention to valuation to find what we believe to be the best investment opportunities around the world. Our bias is towards micro to mid-cap companies because we believe we can find faster growth among these firms, and often at better valuations due to the lack of analyst coverage. Grandeur Peak Global Advisors, LLC is an employee-owned investment adviser headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

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Wasatch Advisors and the Wasatch Funds are not affiliated with Grandeur Peak Global Advisors or Rondure Global Advisors. An investor should consider investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

CFA is a trademark owned by CFA Institute. The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation is issued by the CFA Institute. Candidates must meet one of the following prerequisites: undergraduate degree and 4 years of professional experience involving investment decision-making, or 4 years qualified work experience (full time, but not necessarily investment related). Candidates are then required to undertake extensive self-study programs (250 hours of study for each of the 3 levels) and pass examinations for all 3 levels.
Access Passport removes the paper chase we used to have with procedural consents and makes it easier for us to obtain patient and physician signatures simultaneously at the bedside. As the form goes into MEDITECH, the information is available immediately.

For the past several years, Hilo Medical Center has used Accesss solutions to capture electronic patient signatures on registration packets. This has served Hilo well, but as the hospital got ready to upgrade its HIS to MEDITECHs 6.15 EHR, administrators wanted to find a web-based e-forms platform that would extend the benefits of paperless forms and process automation throughout the facility. They chose Access Passport.

Procedural consents are the first clinical forms that Hilo decided to apply Access Passport to. Previously, a nurse retrieved a consent form and hand wrote in two explanations of the patients upcoming procedure  one in clinical language and another in laymans terms. The patient then signed their name. The physician was also supposed to sign the form simultaneously, but in practice this was difficult to ensure. When this second signature was obtained, the form was sent to the offsite HIM office for scanning into the patients record.

Now, the goal is for the nurse to use Access Passport to complete the procedure descriptions in Access Passport. In the designed workflow, the nurse will then present the e-form to the patient and the surgeon, who both apply their electronic signatures. The form is then sent into the patients chart in MEDITECH.

Kris Wilson, Director of Information Systems & Project Management Office at Hilo explained the benefits of Access Passport transforming the process.

Access Passport removes the paper chase we used to have with procedural consents and makes it easier for us to obtain patient and physician signatures simultaneously at the bedside, which helps with compliance. As the form goes straight into MEDITECH, the information is available immediately instead of us waiting for the form to go to the offsite HIM office for scanning. Instead of having hundreds of variations of paper forms, we just have one electronic one that we can customize as needed.

In addition, Hilo has converted its new hire/employee action form into an electronic version. Previously, an HR staff member filled in a hard copy and signed it. The document then went to department and senior managers for review via interoffice mail before being sent on to the HR Director, CFO and CEO for further approval. It was then sent back to the offsite HR office in another envelope for processing.

With Passport, the originator completes 25 fillable fields and applies their electronic signature. The e-form is electronically routed to the department and senior managers. Once theyve affixed their e-signatures, Passport routes the document to the HR Director, CFO and CEO concurrently. Once theyve electronically signed it, the e-form is routed back to HR for final processing.

Now that were using Access Passport, employee action forms dont get stuck on peoples desks and avoid travelling around in archaic, unreliable manila envelopes, Wilson said. The HR team can see exactly where they are in the process, and its easier for department managers and executives to pull up the e-form in Passport and apply their electronic signature. Weve cut turnaround time from over three weeks to as fast as one or two days.

Hilo is planning to extend Access Passport to other clinical workflows and administrative processes, including travel request and leave of absence forms.

The sky is the limit with Access Passport, Wilson said. We can apply it to any process in the hospital that requires multiple inputs and signatures to make that workflow faster and more efficient. Now that so many people have seen how easy it makes processing the employee action form, they want to use Passport for everything. 

About Access

For more than 15 years, Access has developed electronic forms management solutions that eliminate the unnecessary expense, risk and inefficiency of paper forms. Our 100 percent paperless technology enables organizations in any industry to capture, manage, sign and share forms data without printing or scanning. Learn more at http://www.accessefm.com and help Accesss partner The Last Well bring clean water and the Gospel to Liberia at http://thelastwell.org

About MEDITECH

Today, more than 2,400 institutions worldwide use MEDITECHs clinically-integrated and interoperable EHR to provide healthcare to the communities they serve. Their robust, patient-centered technology spans the healthcare continuum, including unique functional capacity for ambulatory care, acute care, long-term care, rehabilitation services, behavioral health, and home care. For additional information, visit: https://ehr.meditech.com/

About Hilo Medical Center

As the Big Island's leading provider of nationally recognized 4-star care, Hilo Medical Center (HMC) delivers a full range of services and programs. Our 20-acre campus consists of 276 beds located throughout the 137-bed acute hospital, 20-bed behavioral health unit and a 119-bed long-term care facility. We have 1,200 employees and a medical staff comprised of 250 physicians, physician assistants and Advanced Practice Registered Nurses, representing 33 specialties. As a medical center, we have a network of nine outpatient clinics offering primary and specialty care. The hospital is a Level III Trauma Center which includes the second busiest emergency room in the state that provides 24-hour care to nearly 48,000 patients annually.

In 2014, HMC's EMR team, HealthConnect, attained the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) Meaningful Use Stage 2. In addition, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) recognized HMC for achieving Stage 7 on the EMR Adoption ModelSM. HMC was received the HIMSS Nicholas E. Davies Award for Excellence in 2015 for demonstrating EMR utilization to improve quality of care and financial management.

Hilo Medical Center is part of the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, a public entity established in 1996 by the State of Hawaii to fulfill the promise to provide quality, hometown healthcare. For more information, go to: http://www.hilomedicalcenter.org.
The Western Occupational & Environmental Medical Association (WOEMA) has concluded one of its strongest legislative advocacy sessions in California in recent years, helping enact five bills in the state benefiting the practice of occupational and environmental medicine (OEM) there.

WOEMA, which represents physicians who practice in California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Hawaii, took strong positions on ten bills affecting OEM during the California Legislatures 2016 session. Of the six bills it supported actively, five were enacted into law. Of the four bills it actively opposed, none were enacted.

Among the bills enacted, which WOEMA had actively supported, were measures to streamline Utilization Review in workers compensation cases (Senate Bill 1160), a measure to create a Cal/OSHA standard for indoor heat exposure (Assembly Bill 1045), and a bill creating a Physician Wellness program for the stateaimed at providing help for physicians struggling with substance abuse (Senate Bill 1177).

Among the bills WOEMA successfully opposed were measures that would have thwarted expert medical judgment in apportionment matters and weakened evidence-based approaches to the care of low back pain.

WOEMA can be happy about its successful legislative track record this year, said WOEMA President Robert C. Blink MD, MPH, FACOEM. Our Legislative Committee worked hard to deliver results that are good for patients and help ensure safer, healthier workplaces.

Toward the end of the legislative session WOEMA released a white paper entitled: Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement in the California Workers Compensation System: A Focus on Utilization Review and Beyond. The paper focuses squarely on finding ways to prevent delays in treatment by improving the process for providers requesting treatment and agents conducting utilization review. WOEMA lobbyist Don Schinske said its possible some of the papers suggestions could be incorporated during the rule-making process for Senate Bill 1160, which pertains to utilization review and lien filing. "For example, Senate Bill 1160 requires accreditation for utilization review processes by July 1, 2018 and we think there is ample room within the workers compensation system to start adding quality metrics which is where WOEMA is focusing its efforts in the year ahead, Schinske said.

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About WOEMA: The mission of the Western Occupational and Environmental Medical Association (WOEMA is to promote and protect the health of people at work and in their environment through preventive service, clinical care, research, and evaluation. WOEMA provides educational activities that work to enhance the professional capabilities of occupational and environmental medicine health care providers, and promote their life-long learning. WOEMA members are committed to assuring a safe work place, minimizing worker injury and illness, and serving as leaders, educators, collaborators and facilitators in preventing and resolving marketplace health problems. WOEMA is a regional component of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM), and is dedicated to high quality medical care and ethical principles governing the practice of occupational medicine. To learn more, please visit http://www.woema.org.
Praful Saklani and his team have created a disruptive cloud platform that is critical to understanding customer relationships. They are a hot Silicon Valley company to watch.

We are happy to announce Pramata as one of the Top 100 Tech Companies Founded and Managed by Indians in the U.S., said Sagaya Christuraj, Managing Editor of SiliconIndia.

Pramata was a clear standout for the Top 100 Tech Companies list, said Christuraj. Praful Saklani and his team have created a disruptive cloud platform that is critical to understanding customer relationships. They are a hot Silicon Valley company to watch.

Pramata helps Fortune 1000 companies efficiently digitize the foundational information found in complex customer contracts, transform it into meaningful, actionable Customer Relationship Intelligence and place it in the hands of the people who need it most to sell, deliver, operate and retain value throughout the customer lifecycle.

Pramata is making a meaningful impact on our customers, who are seeing a measureable return on their investment in just months. They are benefiting from customer intelligence that is timely, comprehensive and accurate, and that leads to significant revenue and compliance value, said Praful Saklani, co-founder and CEO of Pramata.

Pramata offers configurable solution sets designed to address and strengthen customer interactions across three core business areas, which include Sales Effectiveness, Business Performance and Contract Management.

Weve tapped into a very tangible need for large B2B businesseshow to leverage the immensely valuable data within complex customer contracts to grow and transform those lucrative relationships, said Saklani. As a result, our company also is growing and expanding in our need for talented, innovation-minded team members here in the U.S. and in our Bangalore offices.

About Pramata

Headquartered in the U.S. and with key offices in Bangalore, Pramata helps Fortune 1000 companies transform complex contract information into complete, meaningful digital intelligence about their most valuable customer relationships, driving significant revenue growth potential and stronger compliance efforts. http://www.pramata.com

About SiliconIndia

Published from Fremont, California, SiliconIndia is a print magazine that gives information about business, technology, startups, venture capital firms, and education. A distinguished panel comprising of accomplished CEOs & CIOs including board members of SiliconIndia magazine have finalized the Top 100 Tech Companies Founded and Managed by Indians in the U.S and shortlisted the best vendors and consultants in the mobility arena. For more information visit: http://www.siliconindia.com/
A list of the Best Online Colleges in North Carolina for 2016-2017 has been issued by leading online higher education resource provider AffordableCollegesOnline.org. Nearly 70 colleges and universities across the state were chosen for excellence and affordability in online education, with top marks going to North Carolina Central University, East Carolina University, Fayetteville State University, Western Carolina University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro among four-year schools and Pamlico Community College, Pitt Community College, Southwestern Community College, Stanly Community College and Lenoir Community College among two-year schools.

"8 percent of undergraduate students and 16 percent of graduate students took advantage of online learning programs at North Carolinas colleges and universities in 2012, said Dan Schuessler, CEO and Founder of AffordableCollegesOnline.org. "The schools on our lists are those that are best emphasizing the variety and quality of online education options in North Carolina, all while keeping affordability for their students in mind.

To qualify for a spot on the AffordableCollegesOnline.org Best list, all North Carolina colleges and universities were vetted based on several standard criteria points. Only accredited, public or private not-for-profit institutions were considered for the list. Those schools were additionally required to provide in-state tuition for no more than $5,000 per year at two-year schools and no more than $25,000 per year at four-year schools. Qualifying schools were then scored and ranked against one another based on more than a dozen statistical factors important to students, such as graduation rates and online program availability.

A full list of North Carolinas Best Online Colleges is included below. For specific school ranks and information on the data and methodology used to determine placement, visit:

http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/online-colleges/north-carolina/

North Carolinas Best Two-Year Online Colleges for 2016-2017:

Alamance Community College

Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College

Beaufort County Community College

Bladen Community College

Blue Ridge Community College

Brunswick Community College

Cape Fear Community College

Carteret Community College

Central Carolina Community College

Central Piedmont Community College

Cleveland Community College

Coastal Carolina Community College

College of the Albemarle

Craven Community College

Davidson County Community College

Durham Technical Community College

Edgecombe Community College

Fayetteville Technical Community College

Forsyth Technical Community College

Gaston College

Guilford Technical Community College

Haywood Community College

Lenoir Community College

Mayland Community College

Mitchell Community College

Montgomery Community College

Pamlico Community College

Piedmont Community College

Pitt Community College

Richmond Community College

Roanoke-Chowan Community College

Robeson Community College

Sandhills Community College

Southwestern Community College

Stanly Community College

Surry Community College

Tri-County Community College

Vance-Granville Community College

Wake Technical Community College

Wayne Community College

Western Piedmont Community College

Wilkes Community College

Wilson Community College

North Carolinas Best Four-Year Online Colleges for 2016-2017:

Apex School of Theology

Appalachian State University

Cabarrus College of Health Sciences

Charlotte Christian College and Theological Seminary

East Carolina University

Fayetteville State University

Grace College of Divinity

Heritage Bible College

John Wesley University

Lees-McRae College

Mid-Atlantic Christian University

Montreat College

North Carolina A & T State University

North Carolina Central University

North Carolina State University at Raleigh

Piedmont International University

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

St. Andrews University

University of Mount Olive

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

University of North Carolina at Pembroke

University of North Carolina Wilmington

Western Carolina University

Winston-Salem State University

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AffordableCollegesOnline.org began in 2011 to provide quality data and information about pursuing an affordable higher education. Our free community resource materials and tools span topics such as financial aid and college savings, opportunities for veterans and people with disabilities, and online learning resources. We feature higher education institutions that have developed online learning environments that include highly trained faculty, new technology and resources, and online support services to help students achieve educational and career success. We have been featured by nearly 1,100 postsecondary institutions and nearly 120 government organizations.
The Best Veterinary Technician Schools in the nation are being featured by AccreditedSchoolsOnline.org, the Community for Accredited Online Schools 2016-2017 rankings. Comparing both online and on-campus programs at two- and four-year schools across the U.S., the online higher education resource provider ranked schools providing the best overall value for Veterinary Technician students. Colorado Mountain College, St. Petersburg College, Lincoln Memorial University, Becker College, Medaille College, San Juan College, Athens Technical College, Windward Community College, Chattanooga State Community College and Northshore Technical Community College were among the highest scorers.

Job outlook projections show veterinary technician positions growing much faster than the national average through 2024, said Doug Jones, CEO and Founder of the Community for Accredited Online Schools. Schools on these lists are not only providing quality veterinary technician programs, but are also making an extra effort to help students land a job after graduation.

Schools must meet specific baseline requirements to be considered for a spot on the Best Veterinary Technician Schools ranking. All institutions must hold regional accreditation and be registered as public or private not-for-profit entities. Schools are also required to provide career placement services to their students. Once a schools eligibility is determined, the Community for Accredited Online Schools scores and ranks each based on more than a dozen data points, including graduation rates, student teacher ratios and financial aid availability, to determine the overall Best Schools in the U.S.

An alphabetical listing of the Best Veterinary Technician Schools for 2016-2017 is included below. To learn where each specifically ranks and to find more details on the data and methodology used to determine scores visit:

http://www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/vocational-trade-school/vet-tech/

The 2016-2017 Best Veterinary Technician Programs at Two-Year Schools list:

Alamance Community College

Arkansas State University - Beebe

Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College

Athens Technical College

Bellingham Technical College

Blue Ridge Community College

Cedar Valley College

Central Oregon Community College

Chattanooga State Community College

College of Southern Idaho

Columbus State Community College

Cosumnes River College

Crowder College

Delaware Technical Community College-Owens

Delgado Community College

Eastern Iowa Community College District

Eastern Wyoming College

Front Range Community College

Gaston College

Genesee Community College

Gwinnett Technical College

Harcum College

Hillsborough Community College

Hinds Community College

Iowa Lakes Community College

Jefferson College

Jefferson State Community College

Linn-Benton Community College

Lone Star College

Mesa Community College

Middlesex Community College

Murray State College

Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture

North Shore Community College

Northeast Community College

Northeast Iowa Community College-Calmar

Northshore Technical Community College

Northwest Mississippi Community College

Norwalk Community College

Ogeechee Technical College

Owensboro Community and Technical College

Pierpont Community and Technical College

San Juan College

Southern Regional Technical College

Truckee Meadows Community College

Tulsa Community College

Volunteer State Community College

Weatherford College

Western Iowa Tech Community College

Windward Community College

The 2016-2017 Best Veterinary Technician Programs at Four-Year Schools list:

Baker College of Clinton Township

Baker College of Flint

Baker College of Muskegon

Baker College of Port Huron

Becker College

Brigham Young University-Idaho

Colorado Mountain College

Daytona State College

Eastern Florida State College

Fort Valley State University

Kent State University at Tuscarawas

Lincoln Memorial University

Madison Area Technical College

Medaille College

Miami Dade College

Michigan State University

Mississippi State University

Morehead State University

Murray State University

Navajo Technical University

New England Institute of Technology

North Dakota State University - Main Campus

Northwestern State University of Louisiana

Oklahoma State University - Oklahoma City

Otterbein University

Pensacola State College

Purdue University - Main Campus

Siena Heights University

St. Petersburg College

SUNY College of Technology at Alfred

SUNY College of Technology at Canton

SUNY College of Technology at Delhi

Tuskegee University

University of Alaska Anchorage

University of Alaska Fairbanks

University of Cincinnati - Blue Ash College

University of Maine at Augusta

University of Nebraska - Lincoln

University of New Hampshire - Main Campus

Vermont Technical College

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About Us: The Community for Accredited Online Schools (AccreditedSchoolsOnline.org) was founded in 2011 to provide students and parents with quality data and information about pursuing an affordable education that has been certified by an accrediting agency. Our community resource materials and tools span topics such as college accreditation, financial aid, opportunities available to veterans, people with disabilities, as well as online learning resources. We feature higher education institutions that have developed online learning programs that include highly trained faculty, new technology and resources, and online support services to help students achieve educational success. environments that include highly trained faculty, new technology and resources, and online support services to help students achieve educational and career success.
Anurag Agarwal, MD, FACS recently received the Maintaining Excellence in ABFPRS Certification Award. Presented at the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery national meeting in October, this prestigious award is reserved for surgeons with exemplary scores on their Maintenance of Certification (MOC) examination. Dr. Agarwal earned the highest combined score on both the oral and written portions of the 2016 exam.

Since 2001, board certified surgeons must participate in the MOC process every ten years in order to recertify with the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (ABFPRS). The rigorous ABFPRS exam endorses the four basic principles set forth by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), including an evaluation of professional standing, evidence of lifelong learning, demonstration of cognitive expertise, and an in-depth assessment of practice performance.

The ABFPRS administers its written and oral MOC examination to diplomates every June. This summer, 42 board certified facial plastic surgeons took the MOC examination. Out of the MOC participants, Dr. Agarwal earned the highest combined score, thus earning the ABFPRS meetings 5th annual Maintaining Excellence Award.

The evaluation and recertification process is very important component in maintaining public trust. Dr. Agarwal explains, "The public has very high expectations of surgeons certified by the ABFPRS, both in terms of skill set and integrity. The MOC process helps patients ensure that their ABFPRS certified surgeon has demonstrated the requisite knowledge on a regular basis to meet the rigorous standards set forth by the ABFPRS." He continues, ABFPRS board certification is the credential that gives us our niche in medicine.

Dr. Agarwal has been with the Aesthetic Surgery Center in Naples, Florida since 2005. Today he is the practice owner and medical director. Dr. Agarwal is double-certified by the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and by the American Board of Otolaryngology. Active with community outreach and volunteering, Dr. Agarwal routinely works with organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Domestic Violence Task Force with the Shelter for Abused Women and Children. Dr. Agarwal serves on the ABFPRS Written Examination Review and New Generation Committees.

To find our more information on Dr. Anurag Agarwal or the Aesthetic Surgery Center, contact his office at 239.594.9100. New patient consultations can be made at either the Naples or Marco Island locations. Additional details on the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, or the annual MOC exam, can be found on the ABFPRS website.

Aesthetic Surgery Center

1175 Creekside Parkway, Suite 100

Naples, Florida 34108

239.594.9100

http://www.aestheticsurgerycenter.com
Modiani Kitchens, the Englewood, NJ based kitchen design cabinet company, is set to host an event for YWCA Bergen County on Thursday, November 17 at 6:30 pm. The event will be held in Modianis Englewood showroom.

The event, which is titled WEN is NOW: Start Up Your Own Business, is part of YWCAs womens empowerment network (WEN is Now). The event will focus on transforming an idea into a profitable business and will feature special guest Hipatia Patty Lopez, also known as the Empanada Lady. Lopez will tell the story of her journey.

The event will also feature a preview of YWCA and WEN is Nows new Start Up program. Attendees to the event will be offered an early sign-up opportunity for the Start Up Program.

Refreshments, including mocktails, will be served. Tickets are $20 for WEN is Now members and $30 for non-members. Tickets may be purchased at http://ywca-nov-wen16.eventbrite.com

WEN is Now is a YWCA initiative designed to provide women with ongoing support, inspiration, and opportunities to connect, share, learn, and lead as they travel their personal and professional paths. Modiani Kitchens is a kitchen design company based in Englewood, NJ, specializing in traditional kitchen design as well as modern European kitchen design.

Modiani Kitchens is located at 146 South Dean Street, Englewood, NJ 07631.
ODU, a worldwide leader in designing and manufacturing high performance connectors, is now offering to the US market an extended range of advanced connector solutions for test and measurement applications.

The German-engineered ODU test and measurement connector portfolio was designed for a wide range of applications including network analyzers, data acquisition equipment, fluid/ gas/ pollution/ air analyzers, signal and pulse generators, voltmeters and ohmmeters. ODU connectors offer various technology options including: Push-Pull locking, quick connect and disconnect capability, high mating cycles, high contact density, mixed insert configurations, rugged connectors and cable assembly integrated solutions.

The product portfolio includes: ODU MINI-SNAP - a reliable Push-Pull circular connector with high mating cycles, ODU MEDI-SNAP - a plastic circular connector solution available now in 48 hours, ODU MINI-MED a compact and cost efficient preassembled plastic connector with break-away function and ODUMAC - an advanced modular connector.

ODU-USA is vertically integrated and provides in-house molding and custom connector capabilities, cable assembly integrated solutions, competitive lead time, rapid prototyping and product development, local one-on-one engineering support, factory direct.

For more product information go to: http://www.odu-usa.com/applications/measurement-and-testing.html

ODU Group: global representation with perfect connections

The ODU Group is one of the worlds leading suppliers of connector systems, employing 1,650 people around the world. In addition to its company headquarters in Muhldorf am Inn (Germany), ODU also has an international production and distribution network throughout Europe, North America and Asia. ODU combines all relevant areas of expertise and key technologies including design and development, machine tooling and special machine construction, injection, stamping, turning, surface technology, assembly and cable assembly. The ODU Group sells its products globally through its eight subsidiaries in Denmark, England, France, Italy, Sweden, the US, China and Japan, as well as through numerous international sales partners. ODU connectors ensure a reliable transmission of power, signals, data and media for a variety of demanding applications including medical technology, military and security, eMobility, energy, industrial electronics, and measurement and testing.

For press inquiries, please contact:

Dana Stoica - Head of Marketing, North America

Phone +1 (805) 484-0540 Fax: +1 (805) 484-7458

Email: dana.stoica(at)odu-usa(dot)com
This new location is very encouraging for us and will give us the ability to serve our customers in the area. Al Fartaj, CEO of Reliable Parts.

Appliance Parts Depot, a Reliable Parts company, has announced the opening of another joint Reliable Parts + Appliance Parts Depot branch at 7715 Anderson Road, Tampa, FL 33634, in December.

This new location is very encouraging for us and will give us the ability to serve our customers in the area, said Al Fartaj, CEO of Reliable Parts. Our plans for expansion will continue so we can ensure that we are the easiest, fastest and can provide great service to help them get the job done.

Available at the new Tampa branch will be thousands of appliance parts SKUs from major manufacturer brands like Whirlpool, Electrolux, GE Appliances, Bosch, Samsung, and LG as well as 180 other brands. Available to customers will be a variety of parts for laundry, refrigeration, dishwashers, range/oven, microwaves, HVAC, installation, accessories and much more.

Branch amenities include delivery for local customers, will call pick up, a servicers lounge where customers will have access to free Wi-Fi, comfortable work areas and refreshments.

We will continue to strive to be the partner of choice for our customers and services by being locally present. said Fartaj.

About Reliable Parts and Appliance Parts Depot

As a result of their merge in July 2015, Reliable Parts and Appliance Parts Depot are now one of the largest appliance parts distributors in North America, and soon to be branded solely as Reliable Parts. With the opening of the Tampa, FL branch, they will now have 61 branch locations, 8 distribution centers and 8 call centers. For more information, please visit http://www.reliableparts.com.

Media Contact

Tahirah Wilson

Tahirah.wilson(at)reliableparts(dot)com
Vitenas Cosmetic Surgery founder, Paul Vitenas, MD, FACS, is excited to announce the release of Juvederms newest dermal filler, Volbella. This unique filler will temporarily restore lip volume while creating exceptional results that last up to a year.

Made by aesthetic giant, Allergan, Juvederm Volbella was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2016. Using Juvederms proprietary Vycross technology, their latest injectable is made from naturally occurring Hyaluronic Acid (HA). Unlike traditional fillers, Volbellas low concentration of HA ensures the injectable will not cause the swelling seen with traditional fillers.

Volbella was specifically created to improve the shape and contour of the lips by pulling in added moisture. The injectable can also effectively soften the appearance of fine lip lines, restore lip borders, and emphasize the Cupids Bow along the top lip. The noninvasive treatment can also improve age-related volume loss in the cheeks or perioral rhytids.

Vycross technology is what gives Volbella its smooth gel formula, making it an easy, safe injectable for restoring age-related volume loss. Bill Meury, Chief Commercial Officer at Allergan, explains, The FDA approval of JUVEDERM VOLBELLA demonstrates Allergan's commitment to developing advanced products and technologies that allow healthcare providers to better address evolving patient needs. He goes on to say, This approval brings to market a product unlike anything that is currently available in the United States.

The subtle results from a Juvederm Volbella session can be seen immediately. Volbellas unmatched technologies utilize a wide range of molecular weights, ensuring a longer duration of results. Results from Volbella will last for up to a year before a maintenance treatment is necessary.

At Vitenas Cosmetic Surgery, Dr. Vitenas specializes in restorative procedures for the face and body. The addition of Juvederm Volbella offers a new avenue for restoring a youthful appearance. Dr. Vitenas expands, Understanding facial aging is very important in being able to understand how facial rejuvenation should take place. He continues, If we think about our faces and their component parts, what we have to begin with is the foundation. Volbella can restore volume to the tissues of the lips and cheeks, providing the necessary structural shape to the features.

Dr. Vitenas is a board certified plastic surgeon and alumnus of Tulane University School of Medicine. He completed his Craniofacial and Cosmetic Surgery Fellowship at the prestigious Hospital Necker and Clinic Belvedere in Paris, as well as an Orthognathic Surgery Fellowship at the Louisiana State Medical Center. Dr. Vitenas has been in private practice in the Houston area for almost 30 years.

For additional information on Juvederm Volbella, contact Vitenas Cosmetic Surgery at 281.484.0088. Consultations with Dr. Paul Vitenas are complimentary and can be held in-person, or online for those traveling from outside of the area. Located at 4208 Richmond Avenue, Vitenas Cosmetic Surgery is easily reached from anywhere in the Houston area.
Overseas teaching job opportunities have increased by 150% in 2016-2017 compared to the previous year

Leading international teacher recruitment company, Teach Away, is currently seeking applications from certified US teachers to fill a record high number of teaching jobs at schools around the world. Teach Away reports their highest number of international teacher vacancies to date, as overseas job opportunities for 2016 - 2017 have increased by 150% compared to the previous year. This increase is almost certainly due to the international school market almost doubling in size over the past five years.

As the international recruitment season kicks off for the upcoming school year, American teachers are in especially high demand for career opportunities in the Middle East and Asia. Teachers with a US teaching license, Bachelors degree and two years of post-certification experience, who are open minded and looking for a new adventure, could be in the running for some of the worlds most sought-after teaching jobs. Some of the most exciting current opportunities include the following:

Teaching Opportunities in Abu Dhabi for 2017

Teach Away is hiring hundreds of US-certified teachers to fill a huge range of teaching positions, including English, Math and Science, with the Abu Dhabi Education Council. These roles support the development of Abu Dhabis public school reform program.

Some of the perks teachers can expect include a competitive, tax-free salary (approximately $3,350 - $5,500 USD/month), flights to and from the UAE at the beginning and end of the contract, health insurance, an end-of-contract bonus and more. Find more details on teaching in Abu Dhabi here.

Teach Away will be holding upcoming interview sessions (by invitation only) for US teachers:



December 7, 2016 in Chicago, IL

December 12 - 13, 2016 in Houston, TX

US teachers can view and apply for all teaching jobs in Abu Dhabi here.

International Teacher Job Fair in San Francisco, February 2017

Hundreds of international schools will be hiring at the upcoming Teach Away and International School Services teacher job fair in San Francisco, taking place February 9 - 12, 2017.

School heads from over 100 of the worlds top-tier international schools in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, South America and Africa will be in attendance and ready to hire US-qualified teachers for a wide variety of teaching positions across all subjects and grade levels. American teachers can apply to attend online via the Teach Away website. Admission to the job fair is free, and by invite only. View the list of schools attending the fair and apply to attend here.

About Teach Away

Teach Away is a careers and professional development platform for education professionals around the world. We ensure that students are learning from the best educators worldwide, and we're achieving this through commitment to quality hiring and world-class teacher development. We envision a world where every student experiences the power of a great teacher - allowing them to reach their full potential.
McIntyre Law 7th Annual Day of Kindness

McIntyre Law to distribute 5,000 donated turkeys to Oklahoma families

WHAT: For the seventh year in a row, McIntyre Law will be coordinating distribution of over 25 tons of turkey (or 5,000 turkeys) to families who are struggling with hunger. The 7th Annual Day of Kindness is a partnership of the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Association for Justice, of which Noble McIntyre is a past president.

This group of lawyers  members of the Oklahoma Association For Justice (OAJ) - contributed to Lawyers Fighting Hunger in an effort to raise more than $80,000 this year to provide turkeys to families in need in Oklahoma City, Norman, El Reno, Mustang and Tulsa.

Turkeys will be given out one per family on a first-come, first-served basis until they are gone. There will be free hamburgers, hot dogs, bottled water and soda available to all who attend the giveaway event.

WHY: One in six Oklahomans has insufficient access to food, which makes Oklahoma one of the hungriest states in the nation. That means that wintertime presents an extra set of challenges to many Oklahomans, who often have to choose between food and utilities during the coldest months of the year. 72 percent of the Oklahoma Food Banks clients are in this situation, which is why the team at McIntyre Law feels the urgency and importance of serving a hot, satisfying, nutritious holiday meal to those who can use it most.

WHERE:

Oklahoma City: Nov. 17th, begins at 10 a.m.; McIntyre Law offices, 8601 S. Western Ave.

Norman: Nov. 18th, begins at 11 a.m.  ends at Noon Bernstein Law Office, 104 W. Gray St.

Tulsa: Nov. 19th, begins at 11 a.m.; Iron Gate Ministries, 501 S. Cincinnati Ave. (turkeys and groceries distributed to pre-registered recipients)

El Reno: Nov. 21th, begins at 10 a.m.; El Reno Elks Lodge, 415 S. Rock Island Ave.

Mustang: Nov. 23rd, begins at 10 a.m.; Denton Law Firm, 925 West State Highway 152

Turkeys will be given beginning at the times listed above and will continue until all of the turkeys have been distributed.

McIntyre Law, P.C. is an Oklahoma City law firm that improves the lives of individuals through representation in cases involving serious or catastrophic injuries as a result of negligence. That includes dangerous products, vehicle accidents, dog bites, slip and fall accidents and medical malpractice. We also advocate for our clients in cases involving lawsuits against defective drugs and medical devices. McIntyre Law also has a strong commitment to the community we serve. Giving back is one of our firms most important values, and we are proud and humbled to be participating in the Annual Day of Kindness.
Contact: Cara Cea, Pace University, office: 914-773-3312, cell: 914-906-9680, ccea(at)pace.edu

Pace Universitys Lienhard School of Nursing Hosts One Day Conference Featuring Leaders in Health Care

Pace Universitys Primary Health Care Conference: Striving for a Culture of Health brought together regional and national leaders and an audience of nurses, social workers, public health professionals, and educators on November 4 to address community health issues.

Mary Bassett, MD, MPH, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, spoke about how we cannot have health equity unless we address racial and economic justice. A black baby is three times more likely to die in the first year of life than a white baby here in New York City. She noted that health disparities have more to do with poor and segregated neighborhoods than with lifestyle choices. Nobody picks substandard housing or wants to live somewhere without supermarkets. She spoke of the arc of history and the long legacy of Jim Crow, observing that segregated states resulted in worse outcomes for both black and whites. Segregation hurts all of us  not just in the form of hurt feelings, but hurt that is written on peoples bodies.

Ruben Diaz Jr., Bronx Borough President, spoke of progress that has been made to address health issues in the Bronx, but noted more can be done. Of the 62 counties in New York State, the Bronx is often in last place on health outcomes, despite being home to renowned health care institutions and a large number of health care workers. Diaz talked about the #NOT62 initiative to get healthier together as a borough. He cited small lifestyles changes that can have a big impact like taking the stairs, exercising at your desk, substituting healthier foods such as cauliflower for rice, and holding cooking demonstrations at supermarkets and in schools. Diaz talked about food deserts, neighborhoods where residents have no easy access to nutritious food. He shared efforts to improve access to healthful foods by having salad bars in Bronx high schools and farmers markets that accept SNAP/EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) cards and Farmers Market Nutrition Program coupons. Diaz negotiated to have SNAP/EBT cards also accepted online for Fresh Direct orders and to have Fresh Direct deliver to all neighborhoods in the Bronx.

Michael Myers, Managing Director of The Rockefeller Foundation, spoke of blurring the lines between primary health care, prevention, medical care, public health, and health care. These lines can be an impediment to creating a culture of health. He used the example of a community health worker in Liberia working five miles away from Ebola ground zero who noticed a cough among local children which turned out to be a pertussis outbreak. The community health worker notified the appropriate parties and the outbreak was contained. Myers also spoke of the direct relationship between human health and the health of our environment.

A panel of experts led by LSN alumna Lucia Alfano (who is Co-Chair for Tactical Support & Operations for the RWJ campaign on the Future of Nursing New York State Action Coalition) discussed a culture of health, focusing on education, housing, and the environment. Panelists included Carmen Farina, New York City Schools Chancellor; Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP, Dean for Global Health, Professor of Preventive Medicine, and Professor of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai; and Andrea Mata, Senior Manager for Community Health Initiatives, Office of Public Private Partnerships, New York City Housing Authority.

Carmen Farina spoke of engaging with the community to ensure school attendance. A lack of clean clothes, toothbrushes, and toothpaste, can prevent students from attending school. Toothbrushes and toothpaste are being distributed in schools. Some schools now have laundromats for families to wash their clothes. Food pantries have also been set up in schools to address the issue of hunger. Farina also talked about the importance of mental health initiatives, saying that though the city schools are committed to all aspects of health, one key priority is mental health. She stressed the importance of starting initiatives with parents of children as young as four years old.

Dr. Landrigan talked about factors that cause disease and those that promote health. In the 1970s, lead poisoning was nearly universal. Once scientific evidence showed dangers of lead, partnerships were formed among health professions and other groups and lead was removed from gas and paint. Now the focus is on childhood cancer and asthma from polluted air.

There were four afternoon roundtable discussions, focusing on the following topics: safety and violence against women (led by Dr. Afaf Ibrahim Meleis, Professor of Nursing and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing), community coalitions for maternal/child health (led by Dr. Ruth Watson Lubic, nurse midwife), education (led by Michael Plotkin, Assistant Principal at Pierre Van Cortlandt Middle School), and community coalitions for elder care (led by Dr. Eileen Sullivan-Marx, Dean of the Rory College of Nursing at NYU).

Andrew Revkin, Pace University Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding, provided the call to action, urging participants to apply the lessons of the day to their work moving forward. Revkin spoke of how a top down approach is important but insufficient. Rather than a think outside the box approach, he spoke of a no box approach, citing an example that the Rockefeller Foundations Michael Myers had talked about.

In Liberia, the silos of excellence toppled like dominoes when Ebola struck, Revkin said. Pace University provides an example of how no box learning can be beneficial, so that we are always looking ahead and working between departments. Revkin spoke of a day when medical schools become health schools, when health and wellness are normalized and medicine is the last resort.

I spoke with students who were inspired by the impact the speakers have had on the health of their communities, said College of Health Professions Dean Harriet R. Feldman, PhD, RN, FAAN. By choosing a helping profession and opting to serve others, the students' actions every day will make a difference. By attending the conference, it is my hope that they will work toward building a culture of health in everything they do over the course of their careers.

The conference was a signature event of the 50th anniversary of the Lienhard School of Nursing in the College of Health Professions at Pace.
Our partnership with Cisco has enabled us to deliver cutting edge solutions that meet our customers diverse business needs. - Mark Theoharous, Chairman and CEO, Burwood Group

Burwood Group, a leading consulting firm that bridges business strategy and technology solutions, announced today that it received the award for Outstanding Solutions Partner of the Year at Ciscos partner summit in San Francisco, California. The award was presented to Burwood in recognition of its innovative practices, leadership, and unique blend of business and technology consulting expertise. Mark Theoharous, Chairman and CEO at Burwood Group, accepted the award on behalf of the company.

We are thrilled to be named Outstanding Solutions Partner of the Year by Cisco, said Mark Theoharous, Chairman and CEO at Burwood Group. Our partnership with Cisco has enabled us to deliver cutting edge solutions that meet our customers diverse business needs. We are thankful to Cisco for this recognition and look forward to continue growing our partnership in the years to come.

Cisco Partner Summit Theatre awards reflect the top-performing partners within specific technology markets across the Americas Central Region. All award recipients are selected by a group of Cisco Global Partner Organization and regional and theatre executives.

Cisco Partner Summit is attended by more than 2,100 global attendees from Ciscos eco-system of partners representing more than 1,000 companies worldwide from more than 75 countries.

About Burwood Group

Burwood Group is a systems integrator, helping forward-thinking IT leaders deliver knowledge to the end-user within the organization's unique business context to increase profitability, reduce risk and enhance customer loyalty. We partner with leading technology and service organizations to provide tailored product and industry solutions. We work to ensure an optimal fit for each individual client. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Burwood Group serves local, national, and international clients. We pride ourselves in being trusted business advisors to clients by providing smarter solutions that deliver better outcomes. Visit http://www.burwood.com.
We are excited about partnering with Stop Hunger Now. Not only do these events help feed hungry people around the world, but they are a really fun way for families to serve together. DeDe Jones, Real Hope United

While many shoppers are fighting the crowds on Black Friday, volunteers in the Dallas area will be fighting world hunger. Stop Hunger Now and a local group of volunteers from Real Hope United are teaming up to package more than 15,000 meals for the worlds hungry on Friday, November 25. The event is open to the public and volunteers are encouraged to sign up here with Stop Hunger Now.

The goal of the event is to raise $4,400 to fund over 15,000 meals to help those suffering from hunger around the world. Volunteers will be working from 10 am to 12 pm. Volunteers are invited to donate $20 each or $60 per family to fund the cost of the meals.

Stop Hunger Now meal packaging events are a volunteer-based program that coordinates the streamlined packaging of highly nutritious dehydrated meals comprised of rice, soy, vegetables and 23 essential vitamins and minerals. Since launching its Dallas Fort Worth location in 2013, volunteers in North Texas have packaged more than 8 million meals and made donations of more than $2.3 million.

We are so excited about partnering with Stop Hunger Now in providing this way to serve others on Black Friday, said DeDe Jones, director of Real Hope United, the sponsor of this Black Out Hunger event. Not only do these events help feed hungry people around the world, but they are a really fun way for families to serve together.

Around the world, nearly 795 million people lack adequate food. Stop Hunger Now operates meal packaging locations in 20 cities throughout the U.S. and six international locations in South Africa, Malaysia, the Philippines, Italy, India and Peru. Last year, more than 353,000 volunteers from corporations, churches, schools and civic organizations packaged Stop Hunger Now meals.

For more information contact Jeff Jones, Program Manager Stop Hunger Now Dallas Fort Worth at 214-377-0573 or jjones(at)stophungernow(dot)org. Volunteers must register here.

About Stop About Stop Hunger Now

Stop Hunger Now works to end hunger by providing food and life-changing aid to the worlds most vulnerable people, and by creating a global commitment to mobilize the necessary resources. Based in Raleigh, N.C., Stop Hunger Now operates meal packaging programs in 20 U.S. cities and in South Africa, Malaysia, India, Italy, Peru and the Philippines. For information, visit http://www.stophungernow.org.
Rigaku Corporation is pleased to announce its participation in the 72nd Annual Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society (SWRM) in Galveston, Texas. The event takes place at the Galveston Convention Center, November 10-13, 2016. The theme of this years meeting is Innovations in Energy and Medicine.

The new Rigaku Oxford Diffraction division is presenting its single crystal X-ray diffraction instrumentation at Table 16. A global leader in analytical X-ray technology, Rigaku Oxford Diffraction offers a diverse range of small molecule crystallography systems  combinations of area detector, goniometer, generator, optics, and software  to address a wide variety small molecule crystallographic needs.

The event features presentations, poster sessions, an exposition, receptions and an educators day, including an assortment of symposia topics chosen from analytical, inorganic, organic, physical, and polymer chemistry, and others.

About Rigaku Oxford Diffraction (ROD)

ROD was formed as the global single crystal business unit of Rigaku Corporation after the acquisition of the former Oxford Diffraction organization from Agilent Technologies in 2015. ROD is a leader in single crystal analysis, both in the field of chemical crystallography and in macromolecular crystallography. Formed in 1951, Rigaku Corporation is a leading analytical instrumentation company based out of Tokyo, Japan.

For further information, contact:

Michael Nelson

Rigaku Global Marketing Group

tel: +1. 512-225-1796

michael(dot)nelson(at)rigaku(dot)com
Tony Romas has experienced strong restaurant growth internationally over the past few years, and the brand is poised for continued domestic and international growth with new restaurants and an expanded retail presence

Romacorp, Inc., parent company of Tony Romas, announces the companys first new licensing deal since 2007, and the first ever licensing deal for the Tony Romas brand outside the USA. Working with their new licensee, Country Cooked International, one of the leading meat suppliers in Australia and New Zealand, Tony Romas will introduce their world-famous ribs and BBQ products in the retail channel at top club and grocery stores in Australia and New Zealand. Broad Street Licensing Group, the global licensing agency for the Tony Romas brand, worked with Romacorp to secure this new licensing deal.

We could not be more excited about launching our retail presence outside the USA with a company like Country Cooked International, said Stephen K. Judge, President and CEO of Romacorp, Inc. Tony Romas has experienced strong restaurant growth internationally over the past few years, and the brand is poised for continued domestic and international growth with new restaurants and an expanded retail presence. This new licensing deal reinforces the strength of the Tony Romas brand and the trust consumers around the world have in our world-famous ribs and one-of-a-kind products.

Tony Romas world-famous ribs and BBQ products are planned to initially launch in early 2017 in Costco Australia, the leading membership warehouse club dedicated to bringing members quality brand-name products.

Tony Romas is an iconic brand whose name is synonymous with the worlds best ribs and BBQ meats, said Adrian Bajric, General Manager of Country Cooked International. We are very excited and privileged to work with Tony Romas and Costco to bring the highest quality, best tasting ribs and meats to retail customers in Australia and New Zealand. We thank Romacorp for their professionalism and guidance, and for choosing Country Cooked International as their manufacturing partner of choice.

This is a terrific initial step in expanding Tony Romas global retail presence, said Carole Francesca, President of Broad Street Licensing Group. We are currently in discussions to bring the Tony Romas brand to additional markets in Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and North America. With the iconic nature and global presence of the brand, we are thrilled about the opportunity to expand the presence of Tony Romas signature food and beverages at retail.

About Romacorp, Inc.

Romacorp, Inc., is the parent company of Tony Romas restaurants, the worlds largest casual dining concept specializing in ribs. Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, Romacorp, Inc. has more than 150 restaurant locations in more than 30 countries and is one of the most globally recognizable names in the industry. The first Tony Romas restaurant opened more than 40 years ago in North Miami, Florida. For more information about Romacorp, Inc. and Tony Romas, visit http://www.tonyromas.com.

Please visit http://www.tonyromasfranchise.com or call (866) 981-0586 for information about Tony Romas franchising opportunities.

For information about retail sales licensing opportunities with the Tony Romas brand, contact Bill Cross, SVP, Broad Street Licensing Group at (973) 655-0598.
We are pleased to offer this free CPAP + MOBILITY Health Fair to the residents of Southeastern Wisconsin.

Home Care Medical, Inc. one of Wisconsins largest and most respected providers of home medical equipment, rehab technology and respiratory care is pleased to host a CPAP + MOBILITY Health Fair on Friday, November 11, 2016 at Home Care Medicals Milwaukee Retail Store.

CPAP + MOBILITY HEALTH Fair

 Friday, November 11, 2016

 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

 Home Care Medicals Milwaukee Retail Store, 4818 South 76th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53220

 Call 414.423.8800 for more information

 Free event  open to the public

During the event, attendees will be able to meet with an experienced Respiratory Clinician, have their CPAP machines pressure checked, and see SoClean Sanitizer and Mini Transcend demonstrations. Plus, there will be clearance-priced masks, machines and accessories. CPAP/BiPAP customers are encouraged to call 262.786.9870 ext. 207 to schedule an appointment prior to the event.

Mobility customers can also meet with a Service and Repair Technician to get a 5-point tune-up on wheelchairs, walkers, scooters and power chairs. No appointment is necessary, attendees will be served on a first come, first served basis.

Representatives from Resmed (CPAP masks and machines), Sigvaris (compression stockings), Drive (home safety and walkers), and Golden Technologies (man cave chairs and scooters) will also be on hand to answer any product questions.

Lastly, Home Care Medical is proud to give back to the community by hosting a Food Drive to benefit Feeding America and a Toy Drive to benefit Saint As. Stars and Stripes representatives will also be on hand from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. selling Honor Flight merchandise. Proceeds help fly a veteran to Washington D.C.

We are pleased to offer this free CPAP + MOBILITY Health Fair to the residents of Southeastern Wisconsin, explains Matt Graff, Assistant Manager  Milwaukee Retail Store. Customers will be able to meet with our experts, register for great door prizes and take advantage of special one day only 20% off savings.

About Home Care Medical, Inc.

Serving Southeastern Wisconsin since 1974, Home Care Medical, Inc. provides home infusion, enteral nutrition and hospice care; rehab technology; respiratory care; home medical equipment and supplies; and bracing and compression garments. Accredited by the Joint Commission and an active member of WAMES, the MedGroup and AAHomecare, Home Care Medicals mission is to enhance the lives of those we serve.

Home Care Medical, Inc. Locations:

Corporate Headquarters, 5665 South Westridge Drive, New Berlin, Wisconsin

Milwaukee Retail Store, 4818 South 76th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Sheboygan Retail Store, 2922 South Business Drive, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

West Bend Retail Store, 1709 South 18th Avenue, West Bend, Wisconsin

For more information, please visit: http://www.homecaremedical.com
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is being honored by John F. Kennedy University

John F. Kennedy University is honoring Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former U.S. deputy assistant attorney general and Marylands first woman lieutenant governor, with the Kennedy Laureate Award for her exceptional advocacy of education and community service that embodies the John F. Kennedy University mission. Kennedy Townsend, a Harvard graduate and attorney who has received twelve honorary degrees, is the niece of the 35th President for whom the University was named.

Kennedy Townsend serves on the board of the John F. Kennedy Foundation, and is a research professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, a visiting fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and was named a Paul H. Nitze Senior Fellow at St. Mary's College of Maryland. In addition, she founded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 1984 to honor courageous activists who spoke truth to power. The oldest of 11 children of Robert and Ethel Kennedy, Kennedy Townsend led an effort as founder and director of the Maryland Student Service Alliance to make Maryland the first state instituting community service as a graduation requirement

We are so very honored to have Kathleen Kennedy Townsend join us this evening for this special event and recognition as she embodies so clearly the dedication and community service that we value so highly among our own university community, said JFK University President Debra Bean. Her many contributions through her public service and her actions that demonstrate community before self are representative of the ideals we can all strive to emulate for the betterment of our communities and society at large.

In the same spirit of Kennedy Townsends emphasis of community service and education, JFK University has a Service Learning program that requires students to dedicate at least 30 hours to community projects that are aligned with their academic specialty areas toward community projects.

Kennedy Townsend will receive the Kennedy Laureate Award at a dinner on November 12 at the Blackhawk Auto Museum in Danville, Calif. Consistent with the Universitys themes of lifelong learning and service to the community, the dinner is also a fundraising event directly funding educational scholarships. A generous 1:1 matching grant up to $100,000 has been set up to support the University's Student Success Center, which offers dedicated services and resources to support Hispanic/Latino students and others and from underserved communities. Additional funding designations are available for specific programs and returning military veterans.

Two other honorees will be recognized at the event who have ties to the San Francisco Bay Area, where JFK University is located. The Wente Vineyards Family of Livermore, Calif., and Eric Rudney of Alamo, Calif., will also be awarded the Kennedy Laureate Award that evening. The Wente Vineyards Family includes fourth and fifth generation winemakers in Californias Livermore Valley; Rudney is a philanthropist supporting numerous nonprofits through his leadership and volunteer work in the San Francisco East Bay area.

The awards program will include dinner, silent and live auctions, and comments from the award recipients. Tickets are $300 each for a VIP Reception and dinner or $200 each for dinner and are available by contacting Anne Marie Taylor at 925.969.3491 or amtaylor(at)jfku.edu.

# # #

About John F. Kennedy University

For over 50 years, John F. Kennedy University, a non-profit affiliate of the National University System, has offered undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs that prepare individuals for career success while also engaging the student in personal growth through a commitment to service. Today, the Universitys three Colleges provide innovative higher education opportunities to 1, 200 professionals who, despite a full range of life responsibilities, are determined to advance their education and improve their future. The Continuing Education division provides professional development education to more than 2,500 individuals per year. A pioneer of education that integrates theory and practice, John F. Kennedy University and its students touch the lives of more than 30,000 people in Bay Area communities every year through their support of outreach centers and public programs. For more information, visit http://www.jfku.edu.
Mayor Lovely Warren will welcome more than 300 business, civic and education leaders, including keynote speaker Dr. Walter Kimbrough, president of UNCF-member institution Dillard University. Held at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center on Monday, Nov. 14, at noon, the annual fundraising event supports UNCFs efforts in providing the necessary resources to minority students seeking a quality education. Janet Lomax, Anchor for NBC10 will serve as emcee.

Im so grateful to the UNCF for once again bringing the Empower Me Tour to Rochester, said Mayor Lovely Warren. The Mayors Luncheon is my way of supporting this important endeavor that brings educational opportunities to so many city students. Partnering with UNCF on this annual event helps to achieve our goal of bringing more jobs, safer neighborhoods and better educational opportunities to our citizens.

UNCF is the countrys largest private provider of scholarships to minority students, helping more than 435,000 students graduate from college. Events such as the Rochester Mayors Luncheon are vitally important in keeping academic programming competitive and tuition affordable, while producing the next generation of leaders.

"It is through education one learns about themselves. Great change is accomplished by those who know and are confident in their capabilities, said Maya Smith, UNCF scholarship recipient. Supporters of education, such as UNCF, play a significant role by providing resources to emerging leaders attending colleges and universities. In the academic setting, these leaders gain the power of knowledge and are able to assist in world change."

Mayor Warrens support of the annual UNCF Mayors Luncheon is invaluable, said David Walker, regional development director, UNCF As we celebrate our 3rd year of hosting this event, it is important that we continue to provide resources to the students of Rochester. We charge our leaders to unite the community in the quest for higher education, thus securing a better future for us all.

Presenting sponsors are City of Rochester, NY and Delta Air Lines.

For more information or to stay connected, go to UNCF.org/NewYork or follow us @UNCFNY.

###

About UNCF

UNCF (the United Negro College Fund) is the nations largest and most effective minority education organization. To serve youth, the community and the nation, UNCF supports students education and development through scholarships and other programs, supports and strengthens its 37 member colleges and universities, and advocates for the importance of minority education and college readiness. UNCF institutions and other historically black colleges and universities are highly effective, awarding 21 percent of African American baccalaureate degrees. UNCF administers more than 400 programs, including scholarship, internship and fellowship, mentoring, summer enrichment, and curriculum and faculty development programs. Today, UNCF supports more than 60,000 students at over 1,100 colleges and universities across the country. Its logo features the UNCF torch of leadership in education and its widely recognized motto, A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Learn more at UNCF.org or for continuous updates and news, follow UNCF on Twitter at @UNCF.
Computer System Validation - Reduce Costs and Avoid 483s Computer System Validation - Reduce Costs and Avoid 483s: 2-Day In-Person Seminar

Led by well-known FDA compliance specialist David Nettleton, ComplianceOnlines on-demand seminar on computer system validation (CSV) returns to California and Philadelphia in 2017. The two-day training program will address latest computer system industry standards for data security, data transfer, audit trails, electronic records and signatures, software validation, and computer system validation.

Given the constant updates in the industry, each session in the seminar will cover these industry updates and focus on best practices to avoid 483s and Warning Letters. From learning how to buy COTS software and qualifying vendors to change control methods that allow quick and safe system evolution, this in-person training will assist regulatory affairs personnel, software managers, QA/ QC teams and others within an organization.

The 2016 ComplianceOnline CSV seminar participation from various healthcare and pharma organizations, such as Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Mylan LLC, Vital Therapies, Inc., BioLife Solutions, Asterias BioTherapeutics and others, have made the event an industry platform to reckon with.

Seminar instructor David Nettleton is an industry leader, author, and teacher for 21 CFR Part 11, Annex 11, HIPAA, software validation, and computer system validation. He is involved with the development, purchase, installation, operation and maintenance of computerized systems used in FDA compliant applications. He has completed more than 230 mission critical laboratory, clinical, and manufacturing software implementation projects.

During the seminar, Mr. Nettleton will also review recent FDA inspection trends and discuss how to streamline document authoring, revision, review, and approval, allowing participants to implement his recommendations and successfully completing FDA inspections.

For more information or to register for the seminar, please click here.

Dates: Thursday, February 2, 2017 (8.00 AM- 5.00 PM) and Friday, February 3, 2017 (8.30 AM- 3.30 PM)

Thursday, April 27, 2017 (8.00 AM- 5.00 PM) and Friday, April 28, 2017 (8.30 AM- 3.30 PM)

Thursday, June 15, 2017 (8.00 AM- 5.00 PM) and Friday, June 16, 2017 (8.30 AM- 3.30 PM)

Location 1: San Diego, CA

Location 2: Philadelphia, PA

Location 3: San Diego, CA

Registration Cost: $1,999.00 per registration

Early bird discounts: For discounts on early registrations, please click here.

Register by phone: Please call our customer service specialists at +1-888-717-2436 or email to customercare(at)complianceonline.com

For more information on ComplianceOnline or to browse through our trainings, please visit our website.

About ComplianceOnline

ComplianceOnline is a leading provider of regulatory compliance trainings for companies and professionals in regulated industries. ComplianceOnline has successfully trained over 35,000 professionals from 9,000 companies to comply with the requirements of regulatory agencies. ComplianceOnline is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and can be reached at http://www.complianceonline.com. ComplianceOnline is a MetricStream portal. MetricStream (http://www.metricstream.com) is a market leader in Enterprise-wide Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Quality Management Solutions for global corporations.

For more information please contact:

A Reuben Bernard

Associate Director - ComplianceOnline

2600 E Bayshore Rd

Palo Alto CA USA 94303

Phone - +1-650-238-9656 | +1-888-717-2436

Fax - 650-963-2556

Mail: reuben(at)complianceonline.com

Website: http://www.complianceonline.com
To bring to life its commitment to helping make special memories, and make the most of the holiday season, IKEA has partnered with Uber for a special Friendsgiving promotion in New York City "Friendsgiving is about being together with those that are like family, and the special memories that are made in the kitchen, around the dining table and over food, said Kendra Ferguson, Media Project Manager at IKEA.

IKEA U.S. announced today it has teamed up with Uber and Oh Happy Day to offer a special promotion  as well as tips and inspiration  for friends and loved ones planning a Friendsgiving meal this holiday season. Friendsgiving is a new cultural phenomenon where friends gather for a Thanksgiving meal before the actual holiday. Consumers in New York City will have an opportunity to receive a free IKEA Friendsgiving kit - including IKEA dining products, holiday ingredients and more  by using the Uber app on Saturday, November 19 from 10am-4pm ET. For those not in New York City, Jordan Ferney, expert event planner and founder of Oh Happy Day has tips and savvy tricks to host the perfect Friendsgiving at home.

At IKEA, we understand that sometimes its a challenge to make it home for Thanksgiving. Friendsgiving is about being together with those that are like family, and the special memories that are made in the kitchen, around the dining table and over food, said Kendra Ferguson, Media Project Manager at IKEA. This year, were continuing to celebrate Life In and Around the Kitchen and the many magic moments that happen there, which is why we teamed up with Uber and Oh Happy Day to help make Friendsgiving extra special for those celebrating.

IKEA is partnering with Uber to bring Friendsgiving right to the doorsteps of those in New York City. On Saturday, November 19, New Yorkers will have the opportunity to request and receive delivery of a free IKEA Friendsgiving kit straight to their door by using the Uber app from 10am-4pm ET. A total of 200 lucky people who use the app to flag down the IKEA Friendsgiving Uber will receive an all-inclusive Friendsgiving package, complete with IKEA dining products, holiday ingredients, and custom recipes to feed six friends.

New Yorkers can request the Friendsgiving kit through the Uber app through the following steps:



Uber riders in New York Citys 5 boroughs can open the Uber app and enter promo code IKEAFRIEND starting November 10

Riders will be prompted again on November 19 to find the custom IKEA option in the app to request the IKEA Friendsgiving kit (from 10am-4pm ET)

If the rider is one of the 200 lucky users connected to a car carrying an IKEA Friendsgiving kit for six, it will arrive in minutes

Enjoy Friendsgiving

Thanks to our partnership with IKEA, celebrating Friendsgiving has never been easier, said Josh Mohrer, General Manager, Uber NY. New Yorkers know how easy it is to request a ride through the Uber app, and this Thanksgiving season, people in all five boroughs will have the opportunity to request all the fixings and necessities to host a special holiday meal at the touch of a button.

For more information on the IKEA U.S. / Uber promotion in New York City, visit HERE.

For those not in New York City, IKEA has teamed up with Jordan Ferney, lifestyle blogger and expert event planner and founder of the design and lifestyle site Oh Happy Day, to provide essential tips and savvy tricks to host a memorable Friendsgiving at home. Jordans tips include:

Make It a Potluck. Ain't nobody got time to make a giant dinner with all the sides, so why not make it a potluck? Each of your friends can bring their own favorite dish to share with the group. This way, you can spend more time with your friends and less time cooking.

Placecards. There is something so welcoming about having a personalized placecard at the table. Make your Friendsgiving extra special by preparing little treats or handmade tags to place at each persons plate.

Easy Decor. Try foraging in the yard for some "rustic" looking branches-turned centerpiece. Or take dried leaves and write things you are thankful for at each place setting in a white marker. Give your eyes something to feast on.

Tradition Swap. Your friends may feel like family, but chances are they celebrate a little differently! Take this opportunity to share your favorite Thanksgiving traditions with your friends and ask them to do the same. You might even come away with some new traditions of your own.

Mix it Up. Friendsgiving doesnt have to be your grandmas dinner table! Shake up your typical Thanksgiving itinerary with games, a craft, or even an uncommon surprise (like a turkey pinata!)

Visit the IKEA Design blog here to view these tips  along with IKEA product suggestions  for additional inspiration to host a Friendsgiving dinner at home.

Note: For press, to download videos of the IKEA/Uber Frendsgiving kit, click here. To download IKEA/Uber Friendsgiving kit photos, click here.

About IKEA

Since its 1943 founding in Sweden, IKEA has offered home furnishings of good design and function at low prices so the majority of people can afford them. here are currently more than 385 IKEA stores in 48 countries, including 42 in the U.S. IKEA incorporates sustainability into day-to-day business and supports initiatives that benefit children and the environment. For more information see IKEA-USA.com, @IKEAUSANews, @IKEAUSA or IKEAUSA on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest.
Certiport's Aaron Osmond with Dominican Republic VP Cedeno The Dominican Republic is demonstrating exemplary commitment to technology in education

Certiport (http://www.certiport.com), a Pearson VUE business, the leading test delivery solution provider for the global workforce and academic markets, today announces they have partnered with Microsoft to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to deliver Microsoft Office Specialist certification training to students and teachers in the Dominican Republic. The initiative has unprecedented scope and will help students and teachers compete in a global workforce by validating in-demand digital literacy skills.

The MOU was signed between Dominican Republic Vice President Margarita Cedeno, representatives from Microsoft, Certiport and Certiports partner in the country ETC Iberoamerica.

With this partnership we will validate the digital capacities of our people, said VP Cedeno. We have an unshakable commitment to helping individuals earn technical competency to compete in a global market and we look forward to working with Microsoft and Certiport to build a training platform to reach that goal.

As part of the visit, Certiport awarded Margarita Cedeno with the Global Champion of Digital Literacy award for her efforts in the Dominican Republic.

We look forward to working together with Microsoft and Vice President Cedeno to help all students improve their basic technology skills, said Aaron Osmond, general manager, Certiport, a Pearson VUE business. The Dominican Republic is demonstrating exemplary commitment to technology in education with this initiative and we look forward to seeing how their efforts transform the way teacher and students perform on a global stage.

About Certiport

Certiport, a Pearson VUE business, is the leading provider of certification exam development, delivery and program management services delivered through an expansive network of over 14,000 Certiport Authorized Testing Centers worldwide. Certiport manages a sophisticated portfolio of leading certification programs including: the official Microsoft Office Specialist certification program, the Microsoft Technology Associate certification program, the Microsoft Certified Educator program, the Adobe Certified Associate certification program, the Autodesk Certified User and Autodesk Certified Professional certification programs, the Intuit QuickBooks Certified User certification program, and the IC3 Digital Literacy certification. Certiport reliably delivers over three million tests each year throughout the secondary, post-secondary, workforce, and corporate technology markets in 148 countries and 26 languages worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.certiport.com or follow Certiport on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/certiport.

"Certiport" and "IC3" are registered trademarks of NCS Pearson, Inc. in the United States and other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers I enthusiastically accept the nomination to become the groups fourth president and am proud to lead this distinguished group of lawyers and thought leaders within our industry.

Steven H. (Steve) Garfinkel, Founder & Managing Partner of Garfinkel Immigration Law Firm in Charlotte, NC, was elected president of the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers at that groups meeting on Friday, October 21, 2016 in Memphis, TN. The Alliance, better known as ABIL, is an invitation-only association of 38 global law firms (20 U.S. firms and 18 international firms) which employ over 1000 immigration law professionals. The groups 20 U.S. lawyers are each managing partners of their respective immigration firms/practice groups and are recognized experts in the corporate immigration field. All are listed in two or more of the world's established ranking services for immigration lawyers (Chambers Global and USA, Best Lawyers in America, International Who's Who of Business Immigration Lawyers, Martindale Hubbell AV ratings, and more). Further, a number of ABIL members (including Mr. Garfinkel) have served on the Board of Governors of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), the 11,000+-member bar association of U.S. immigration lawyers. Several ABIL members are also past national AILA presidents, members of federal government agency liaison committees, immigration law professors at prominent law schools and authors of well-known immigration treatises and textbooks. Information about ABIL & ABIL members may be found at http://www.abil.com.

Mr. Garfinkel, who has practiced corporate immigration law in Charlotte, NC for over 30 years, has been an ABIL member since 2007. He enthusiastically accepted the nomination to become the groups fourth president. He agreed to lead the group with gusto and stated that ABIL has done & continues to do an outstanding job of being industry thought leaders. Hes proud of the groups efforts to advocate for reasonable changes to the outdated U.S. immigration laws and regulations and continues to be amazed at the groups ability to elevate the practice of immigration law through thoughtful discussion and implementation of best practices among ABIL member firms.

Mr. Garfinkel looks forward to working with the groups Executive Committee to expand upon the groups mission to apply high ethical standards to promote best practices in client service and law firm management and to provide superior quality and personalized legal services to resolve companies and individuals immigration issues.
The Business of the Year awards program celebrates the regions most dynamic businesses and business leaders who share a commitment to professional excellence, business growth and the community.

Year in and year out I am reminded that Andesas staff is our strongest attribute. Each day I am blessed to come to a place where people collaborate, exemplify a positive can-do attitude and work tirelessly, at times with great personal sacrifice to get the job done, said Ron Scheese, President & CEO, Andesa Services. The Business of the Year finalist recognition exemplifies what I am able to see every day, the efforts and personal sacrifice the team gives to make Andesa a special place to be a part of. I am honored to celebrate this achievement with my staff, and our fellow nominees at the award ceremony in December.

The award ceremony is supported by six categories: Business of the Year (1-35 Employees), Business of the Year (36-100 Employees), Business of the Year (101+ Employees), Emerging Business of the Year, Corporate Citizen of the Year and Executive of the Year.

Finalists and winners are chosen by an independent panel of judges including: Polly Beste, Retired President, Beste Marketing Services; Inc., Dan Crowley, Director, Business Advisory Services, Quadrant Private Wealth; R. Chadwick Paul, President & CEO, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania; and Bernard Story, President & CEO, Lehigh Valley Community Foundation.

This award program is produced by Lehigh Valley Business, the Greater Lehigh Valleys premier business news publication. It is presented by Highmark Blue Shield and sponsored by Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Peerless Business Advisors, ArtsQuest, Equinox and the John Yurconic Agency.

The Business of the Year award finalists will be recognized, and the winner in each category will be announced, during a formal awards dinner on December 6, 2016 at ArtsQuest in Bethlehem, PA.

For more information about the Business the Year awards program or to reserve seats to the event, please visit http://www.lvb.com/events or contact Dayna Edelman at daynae(at)lvb(dot)com or (610) 807-9619.

About Andesa Services

Andesa began as a pioneer in the field of COLI/BOLI policy administration. Today more than 30 years later, Andesa provides comprehensive, integrated policy administration, plan administration and support solutions for life insurance and annuity carriers and producers. Partnered with numerous insurance companies (including 7 of the top 13 life and annuity carriers) along with several top distributors and producers, Andesas integrated approach to insurance and plan administration results in efficiency gains, reduced hardware costs, mitigated compliance risk and improved market response. This comprehensive suite of services is offered in a secure, private cloud environment. The Companys highly-experienced team of U.S.-based professionals offers a true extension to a clients business, providing insurers and producerslarge and smallwith administrative support for complex product and plan offerings.

To learn more about Andesa, visit http://www.andesaservices.com/, or follow the company on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
Whether organizations are transitioning to the cloud, migrating to SharePoint 2016, or managing a hybrid environment, well show how we can help them get the most from their Microsoft Cloud investment by providing the most secure and robust solutions. Past News Releases RSS AvePoint Provides SharePoint...

AvePoint Announces New Integrations...

AvePoint Accelerates Government...

AvePoint, the Microsoft Cloud expert, today announced it is a Platinum Sponsor of European SharePoint Conference (ESPC) 2016, taking place November 14-17, 2016, at The Austria Center in Vienna, Austria. Throughout ESPC, AvePoint will showcase its latest solutions to accelerate the migration, management, and protection of Office 365 and SharePoint data.

Visit AvePoint Booth for New SharePoint and Office 365 Solutions

Throughout ESPC, attendees can visit the AvePoint booth (#22) to receive live demonstrations of AvePoints newest solutions and product previews for Office 365 and SharePoint.

Migration: DocAve Migrators support organizations all stages of their SharePoint migration projects  including assessment, planning, and reporting  to efficiently transition from legacy collaboration systems to Office 365 and the latest versions of on-premises SharePoint with minimal disruption. Organizations can also harness the power of DocAve High Speed Migration for Office 365 to move content from on-premises SharePoint, file shares, and LiveLink directly to SharePoint Online up to 10 times faster than conventional methods.

Management: With DocAve, the enterprise-class SharePoint management platform, and AvePoint Online Services, AvePoints 100 percent Microsoft Azure-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Office 365 management platform, organizations can simplify and centralize all of their management capabilities for on-premises, hybrid, and cloud-based SharePoint environments. New capabilities in AvePoint Online Services automate governance and lifecycle management of Office 365 Groups and users  quickly provisioning and de-provisioning approved services for business users, saving time for administrators, and ensuring organizational policies are met.

Protection: AvePoint Compliance Guardian allows organizations to take a risk-based approach to protecting enterprise IT systems. With Compliance Guardian, organization can mitigate risk from the moment data is created through its entire lifecycle by proactive monitoring and neutralizing privacy and security violations. DocAve Governance Automation provides with access to a single governance system that allows businesses to easily manage the latest SharePoint versions under a centralized platform.

Part of DocAve Administrator, Policy Enforcer helps organizations respond to unauthorized modications to SharePoint congurations and security. By continuously monitoring and taking action on SharePoint environments, Policy Enforcer ensures that all changes fall within an organizations dened governance policies.

AvePoint-led Speaking Sessions at ESPC 2016

AvePoint subject matter experts will lead sessions throughout ESPC, with tips to help the European SharePoint community overcome Office 365 and SharePoint challenges as well as drive success with the platforms, including:



Dux Raymond Sy, Chief Technology Officer, AvePoint Public Sector, Office Servers and Services MVP

Accelerate SharePoint Success: How to Best Plan, Manage, and Control Migration Projects  11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m. CET on Thursday, November 17

"Deliver Cloud Success: Drive Business Value with Winning Data Governance and Compliance Strategies  2-3 p.m. CET on Thursday, November 17

Paul Olenick, Director of Product Strategy, Office Servers and Services MVP

"No Expertise Required: How Kapsch Drives Business Value with SharePoint"  Olenick and Leeroy Chaplin, Head of IT Strategy and Business Engagement, Kapsch Group Beteiligungs GmbH Austria, will present at 3:15-4:15 p.m. CET on Tuesday, November 15

"Understanding Delve and Office Graph  11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m. CET on Wednesday, November 16

Additional AvePoint Activities at ESPC 2016

AvePoint will host a signing by Agnes Molnar, Office Servers and Services MVP, and give away copies of her book, SharePoint 2016 Search Explained, at 1 p.m. CET on Tuesday, November 15 at booth (#22). Additionally, AvePoint will host Nicki Borell, Office Servers and Services MVP, who will sign and give away copies of his book, Das Spiel mit Technologien und Paradigmen, at 1 p.m. CET on Wednesday, November 16 at booth (#22).

ESPC 2016 attendees will also have the chance to enter to win a new Parrot Bebop Drone, courtesy of AvePoint. The final drawing will take place at 1 p.m. CEST on Thursday, November 17 at the AvePoint booth.

As one of the first global ISVs dedicated to SharePoint since the platforms inception, AvePoint is excited to join the European SharePoint community once again at ESPC 2016, said Dux Raymond Sy, Chief Technology Officer, AvePoint Public Sector. Despite rapid, born-in-the-cloud innovation from Microsoft, businesses and agencies are still facing challenges in adopting Office 365 and SharePoint. Whether organizations are transitioning to the cloud, migrating to SharePoint 2016, or managing a hybrid environment, well show how we can help them get the most from their Microsoft Cloud investment by providing the most secure and robust solutions.

For more information on ESPC 2016, please visit the event website.

About AvePoint

AvePoint is the Microsoft Cloud expert. Over 15,000 companies and 5 million cloud users worldwide trust AvePoint to accelerate the migration, management, and protection of their Office 365 and SharePoint data. AvePoints integrated cloud, hybrid, and on-premises software solutions are enhanced by 24/7 support. AvePoint is a Microsoft Global ISV Partner and three-time Microsoft Partner of the Year Award winner. Founded in 2001, AvePoint is privately held and headquartered in Jersey City, NJ.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.
Booyah Veteran Bus Project Don't Just Talk It, Walk It

On November 11th, Shane Johnson, Shawn Moore, Richard Mccuen and Charles Anderson will be completing their historic 21-day, 360+ mile march from Lake Nona, Florida in honor of the very inspiring Ms. Ellen Gilbert, who with very little has given so much to the veteran community. The mission of the Booyah Team march is to bring awareness through aggressive action as a example of the fighting spirit to reach all Military personal in need. The Team will be Live Broadcasting their entry into Panama City on Facebook and linking up with the PC Veterans Day parade on November 11th at 0830CST/0930EST.

Following the Parade, Shane Johnson, founder of the Booyah Veteran Bus Project, will be a keynote speaker at the Rescue Mission in Panama City starting at 1130CST/1230EST, which will also be broadcasted Live on Facebook. He will be speaking to numerous homeless Veterans to inspire and empower them to believe that anything is possible and to change their current situation.

Today at 1400, Shane Johnson will meet with Congresswoman Gwen Graham who represents Florida's Second Congressional District, where she will address issues relating to Veterans. Later in the day, the Marines will celebrate the 241st Marine Corps birthday among fellow Marines, in true time-honored Marine Corps Tradition.

Show support by visiting the website, watching the videos, and liking and sharing the Facebook page to help raise awareness. This project was created to make a difference for the Veterans in our community so "don't just talk it, walk it."
The Northwest River District is a prime area of the Fort Dodge community for redevelopment that includes recreational amenities and projects like the proposed mural, states Carissa Harvey, Senior Planner with the City of Fort Dodge. Past News Releases RSS

Located by the Des Moines River and in a district that is planning for many significant improvements is a 110 silo that previously housed grain harvested by area farmers. Currently owned by Extreme Adventures, LLC and now vacant of the grain that it was designed to hold, it offers an excellent opportunity to be repurposed into a work of art.

The silo is located along Hawkeye Avenue in a highly traveled district that sees approximately 7,300 vehicles pass by every day. It is also visible from several vantage points in the community, including the Des Moines River.

The goal of this project is to establish a mural that highlights or reveals what is unique about the Fort Dodge Community and Northwest River District. Projected completion is scheduled for the fall of 2017.

Request for Qualifications for painting contractors is currently available with submission briefings to be held November 14th, 15th and 21st. Statements of Qualifications (SOQ)'s must be submitted no later than December 12th. Interested contractors are asked to go online to download the RFQ and to attend one of the upcoming briefings.

Artists to create the design for the mural are encouraged to attend the briefings as well and to go to the Request for Proposal to learn how to submit their visions for the mural, also due by December 12th.

The Northwest River District is a prime area of the Fort Dodge community for redevelopment that includes recreational amenities and projects like the proposed mural, states Carissa Harvey, Senior Planner with the City of Fort Dodge. We are a community that was built on the Des Moines River and we would like the mural to reflect this and celebrate our communitys past, present and future.

Additional information is available by contacting Carissa Harvey at the City of Fort Dodge, 819 1st Avenue South, Fort Dodge, IA 50501 or by emailing your request to fdpublicart(at)gmail.com. The City of Fort Dodge is a regional hub located in North Central Iowa. Everyone is encouraged to visit the website at http://www.fortdodgeiowa.org or ask questions by calling (515) 576-8191.
Learn more about MorganFranklin Consulting at www.morganfranklin.com In our first full year as a 100% employee-owned ESOP company, this is a special time for us to receive this award because it is for all of our Employee Owners.

For the second year in a row, MorganFranklin Consulting has been named to Consulting magazines Fastest Growing Firms list celebrating the industrys top movers and shakers across the globe based on revenue growth over a three-year period. With revenue growth of 50% between 2012 and 2015, the strategy and execution-focused business consulting firm and professional advisor is among 61 firms profiled in the November 2016 issue of Consulting magazine.

MorganFranklin is honored to appear on Consulting magazines second annual ranking of the professions Fastest Growing Firms, and we are excited to continue this momentum throughout the remainder of the year and launch 2017 at a rapid pace, said C.E. Andrews, CEO of MorganFranklin. In our first full year as a 100% employee-owned ESOP company, this is a special time for us to receive this award because it is for all of our Employee Owners. Often consultants can be the unsung heroes of projects, and this industry recognition is a direct reflection of the outstanding dedication and drive that our people bring to their clients every day.

Earlier this year, Consulting magazine named MorganFranklin Senior Managers Jeff Henry and Sarah Petit winners of the publication's prestigious Rising Stars of the Profession and Top 25 Consultants Awards, respectively. In August, the firm was named to the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest-growing private companies, marking MorganFranklin's fifth year in a row and sixth appearance overall on the exclusive list.

With off-the-charts growth, theres absolutely no doubt these consulting firms are shaking up the industry from the bottom upthey are the professions Fastest Growing Firms for 2016, said Joseph Kornik, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Consulting magazine. This award is aimed squarely at these up-and-comers that all too often fly below the radar because they typically arent the largest and best known consultancies. We want to bring these fast-growing firms to the forefront. These firms are the future.

# # #

About MorganFranklin Consulting

MorganFranklin is a strategy and execution-focused business consulting firm and professional advisor. The company provides strategic thinking and hands-on support to help public companies, fast-growing private companies, and government clients manage growth and maximize performance. The firm delivers strategy, accounting and transaction services, risk and compliance, and information management and technology solutions. MorganFranklin is headquartered in the Washington, D.C., area and has supported clients in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. http://www.morganfranklin.com

MorganFranklin Consulting is the brand name referring to the global organization of MorganFranklin, Inc. and its subsidiary MorganFranklin Consulting, LLC.
Based on oral traditions, the Navajo people and their culture can be traced back as far as the 1100s. After hundreds of years developing a strong nation with a rich culture, their livelihood and existence fell under attack from the U.S. government and military along with the Spaniards and even other tribes in the area.

Author Sharon Leslie Gearhart spent 12 years as a teacher on the Navajo Indian Reservation, which allowed her the opportunity to absorb the culture firsthand while learning the stories of their past. Her new novel, Seasons of the Enemies: The Long Walk of the Navajo (published by Xlibris), focuses on the pivotal transition period in the 1860s when the Navajo were being attacked on all fronts. The tribe faced extinction and the loss of their land at the hands of the U.S. Army and other enemies, but this remains a story of survival.

The experience of the Navajo people is little known to many Americans, Gearhart said. Oral traditions have been passed down through generations amongst the Navajo, but it is important that such historical stories be preserved in writing and shared across the country and globe.

While helping to expose the trials and tribulations of the Navajo people, Gearhart also provides keen insights with great attention to detail on the tribes spiritual nature, rituals and vibrant lifestyle. Having studied and spent so much time with the Navajo, Gearhart translates their perspective in such great detail all the way down to subtle speech patterns.

In a day where we still seem to be afraid of people from different cultures, I want this book to help illuminate the horrors that can occur when we let that fear consume us, Gearhart said. Unfortunately, history continues to repeat itself even as we speak.

While The Trail of Tears helped Americans across the country better understand the trials of the Cherokee people, Seasons of the Enemies hopes to do the same for the Navajo people.

Seasons of the Enemies

By Sharon Leslie Gearhart

Hardcover | 6 x 9in | 226 pages | ISBN 9781493147748

Softcover | 6 x 9in | 226 pages | ISBN 9781493147731

E-Book | 226 pages | ISBN 9781493147755

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author

Sharon Leslie Gearhart has a bachelors degree in secondary education and a masters in remedial reading. Additionally, she has a certificate in English as a second language. She was born in Southern Illinois as one of 13 children. She spent two years in the U.S. Army and taught for six years in rural Illinois before moving out west to teach at varying levels for 12 years on the Navajo Indian Reservation. She currently resides in Phoenix and continues to share the stories of the Navajo out of her profound respect for their culture and legacy.

Xlibris Publishing, an Author Solutions, LLC imprint, is a self-publishing services provider created in 1997 by authors, for authors. By focusing on the needs of creative writers and artists and adopting the latest print-on-demand publishing technology and strategies, we provide expert publishing services with direct and personal access to quality publication in hardcover, trade paperback, custom leather-bound and full-color formats. To date, Xlibris has helped to publish more than 60,000 titles. For more information, visit xlibris.com or call 1-888-795-4274 to receive a free publishing guide. Follow us @XlibrisPub on Twitter for the latest news.
If you are new to iQ you can schedule a demo and learn more about this opportunity.

PSFK iQ - Where Innovators Turn for Research. Our professional-grade research platform is designed specifically for Retail and CX leaders who want to know whats next. Whether youre staying current on trends or need a real-time research partner to help you get ahead, count on PSFK iQ to deliver the info you need to make your next move.
Seoul issues air raid alert for residents on an island after North Korea fired 3 missiles toward the sea, reports AP.
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On November 1, the Consul General of Finland, Manu Virtamo, hosted YA author Salla Simukka along with Elina Ahlback of the Elina Ahlback Literary Agency, Penguin Random House staffers, as well as invited guests, at Virtamos Manhattan residence. Simukka traveled to the United States from her native Tampere, Finland, both for Crowns forthcoming publication of the first volume of her Snow White trilogy As Red as Blood (January 2017), and also to meet with the team producing a film adaptation of the series in Los Angeles.

The trilogy  a teen Nordic noir  has been published in 52 countries. It was previously published in the U.S. by Amazon, but Phoebe Yeh, v-p and publisher of Crown Books for Young Readers, explained that Amazon had chosen not to complete publishing the series, meaning Ahlback had the U.S. rights to sell once more. Yeh then acquired the series for Crown, both re-editing the manuscript and repackaging the trilogy. With that republication, as well as the film deal with production company Zero Gravity and a forthcoming middle grade fantasy novel entitled Sisterland, Simukka is poised to create a large splash for Finnish literature for young readers in the U.S.

Ahlback, Simukkas agent and a powerful force for bringing the literature of Finland to the international stage, began the evening by introducing Simukka and Yeh. Yeh told the audience that her boss, Barbara Marcus, who once lived in Sweden, had been on the lookout for a Nordic thriller for young readers. Simukkas series fit the bill, with its complicated, lone wolf protagonist and a gritty atmosphere that draws on elements from the Snow White fairy tales. The novels follow 17-year-old Lumikki Andersson as she uncovers a mystery set in Tampere.

Yeh and Simukka then participated in a conversation, with Yeh discussing her work on editing the translation, and her excitement at the novels gripping pacing. Yeh and Simukka shared an interesting point on the novels translation: it presented an unusual challenge, because in Finnish there is no gender, and one characters gender was left ambiguous by Simukka in the first novel of the trilogy intentionally. Yeh chose to keep the characters gender ambiguous with non-specific pronouns until the characters identity is revealed in a later volume.

Simukka then described the origins of the story. There are childrens detective novels and adult crime novels, but nothing in between. I wanted something that wasnt just someone has stolen the principals money.  From there, the image of blood on snow in Snow White inspired a mystery for Simukka that she channeled into the novel.

She also shared her experiences meeting fans abroad, where she has encountered a great deal of enthusiasm from fans, in particular in Japan. Simukka fielded questions from the audience, including one in which she was asked if the novel had many male readers. She stated that she had male teen readers, but adults were often hesitant to offer a girl book to boy readers, to which she responded: Why would we want to read about a character who is like us? Thats the magic of literature. We dont ask, Can a girl read Harry Potter books? 
This years regional bookseller shows, which took place over a six-week period from mid-September through October, benefited from the continued growth of the indie bookstore channel, which brought in more new bookstore owners and younger frontline booksellers. All eight shows were marked by high energy, strong programming, and dozens of authors.



More Authors and Back-to-Basics Programming Energize NEIBA 2016

Children's authors and illustrators along with children's programming were deeply woven into the fabric of the 43rd annual New England Independent Booksellers Association fall conference, held at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence from September 2022. Booksellers and publishers alike gave the show high marks. Ellen Richmond, owner of Children's Book Cellar in Waterville, Maine, said, "There was really good energy, and people are looking forward to the next season."

Children's Bookselling Tips from NEIBA 2016

With so many new booksellers entering the business and new store openings, NEIBA used its day and a half of educational programming to provide panels with information for newbies. The sessions also served as refreshers for long-time general and children's booksellers alike. Below are some of the most helpful ideas culled from sessions on Selling More Nonfiction, What Reps See, and Growing a Children's Bookseller: Demystifying Stages of Reading from Birth to YA.

Showcasing Children's Books at SIBA

The Southern Independent Bookstore Alliance Discovery Show, held September 1618 in Savannah, Ga., featured several notable children's and YA authors. Among the highlights was a Friday afternoon panel discussion featuring a quartet of YA authors, called "What to Read Next." The panel included Maggie Thrash, Leah Konen, Ryan Graudin, and Zoraida Cordova.

Offerings for Young Readers Abound at PNBA

At this year's Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association trade show, held September 29October 2 in Tacoma, Wash., books for younger readers held their own against big-name adult draws. With a blend of realism  high school dramas and coming-of-age stories remain popular  and the more fantastic end of the spectrum, with dragons and other mythical creatures abounding, there was something for everyone.

Heartland Fall Forum 2016: Children's Authors Create Magic

What this year's Heartland Fall Forum, held Oct. 57 in Minneapolis, lacked in terms of bookseller attendance, it made up for in enthusiasm, especially when it came to children's books and authors. The booksellers who attended said that meeting authors is just as important to them as checking out publishers newest offerings  and the childrens book authors at Heartland fully delivered.

MPIBA 2016: Kids' Booksellers, Authors Get Primed for Fall

With 15 new stores signing on as members in 2016, the Mountains and Plains Independent Bookstore Association is booming. In all, some 221 booksellers attended this year's MPIBA Fall Discovery Show, held in Denver from October 68, and the mood was positively giddy. The author programming began on Thursday morning with a breakfast session featuring a trio of top childrens authors.

NAIBA 2016: Children's Authors, Editors, Young Booksellers Make for an Energetic Show

"It was great to see my 'old-timer' friends and yet it was incredibly refreshing to see all the younger people," said Francine Lucidon, owner of The Voracious Reader in Larchmont, N.Y., one of a number of booksellers and publishers alike who were inspired by the number of younger booksellers who attended the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association fall conference in Baltimore.

Children's Bookselling Tips from NAIBA 2016

The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association fall conference may have been short  it opened with a preview supper in a room overlooking the Baltimore waterfront on Saturday. October 15 and ended on Monday afternoon, October 17, following a Moveable Feast  but it was packed with education.

Authors Hail Booksellers at 2016 SCIBA

"You are my people, and I love you," exclaimed Jon Scieszka, emcee of the Children's Awards Breakfast at the 2016 SCIBA Fall Trade Show. The ensuing laughter set the tone for the session and the show, held October 2122 at the Garland Hotel in North Hollywood.
A Portland, Ore., man was placed on 24 months of conditional discharge Wednesday and allowed to live in his home state after entering a negotiated plea in Henry County Circuit Court to cannabis possession.

Mark G. Reilly, 32, was stopped Feb. 27, 2014, for lack of a rear taillight. Illinois State Police Trooper Sean Veryzer smelled cannabis and found 4.1 pounds in a bin behind the driver's seat, according to court documents.

In January 2015, Judge Richard Zimmer denied a motion by Mr. Reilly's attorney to suppress the cannabis discovery, arguing the taillight actually was illuminated. A motion to reconsider that ruling was denied in December. Mr. Reilly has appeared in court three times this year and had issues attending two other dates.

Judge Dana McReynolds accepted the plea agreement. A second count of possession with intent to deliver against Mr. Reilly was dismissed.

Mr. Reilly also was sentenced to 60 days in the Henry County Jail with day-for-day credit and credit for 14 days already served. He also must pay a $2,500 fine, court costs, a $500 drug assessment fee and a $4,000 street value fine.
The events will focus on climate change mitigation and adaptation and will aim to demonstrate that the rail sector is a resilient and emissions-efficient transport mode. It is also hoped to show how developing rail services can help individual countries deliver their nationally-determined contributions.

Among the events is a debate in the Climate train at Marrakech station, a travelling exhibit organised by Moroccan National Railways (ONCF) and French National Railways (SNCF), which visited 12 cities across Morocco from October 20 to November 5 and highlighted various climatic phenomena, Moroccos biological resources, and how this might be preserved.

Other events include a transport CEO roundtable on climate change, a joint UIC/International Association of Public Transport (UITP) event entitled Linking global initiatives to concrete actions on the ground for low carbon, and a joint International Transport Forum (ITF), UIC, UITP event Charting pathways to decarbonise transport.

Events in Morocco follow the signing of the Railway Climate Responsibility Pledge by 70 UIC members representing the majority of the worlds railway activity since COP21 in Paris in December 2015. The document commits the railways to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption and contribute to global targets to limit climate change.
Mr Edward Hamberger, president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads (AAR), says the railway industry, including the freight rail sector, is eager to work with a new administration and Congress, helping advance policies that will spur economic growth, support quality jobs and further cement the United States as a global leader.

As a business leader, Mr Trump understands many of the economic challenges facing this country, Hamberger says. As such, we hope he will move quickly on issues such as comprehensive tax reform that reduces the corporate rate, a review and reform of the broken regulatory system and embrace fair and open trade. These policies, as well as the steady presence of Americas privately-owned freight rail network, are critical to enacting much of Mr Trump's agenda, including public infrastructure investment.

The AAR called on leaders of both parties in Congress, particularly the Senate Commerce Committee, to stop unfounded regulatory efforts at the US Surface Transportation Board.

The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) says the issues of critical importance to its members range from balanced regulation to two stated priorities of the incoming Administration and Congress: infrastructure and tax reform. By making the 45G railroad rehabilitation tax credit permanent, we will promote jobs and invest in a strong and sustainable rail infrastructure reaching rural communities and small town America, says Ms Linda Bauer Darr, ASLRRA President.

President-Elect Trump spoke of the need for increased infrastructure investment during his campaign and APTA is grateful to have had the opportunity to share its perspective and expertise with the transition team in recent months, says the American Public Transportation Association (Apta). Apta members stand ready to build on this work with president-elect Trump and vice-president-elect Pence on revitalising our economy and creating jobs through greater federal investment in infrastructure. Public transportation is critical to a communitys economic prosperity and competitiveness. As nearly 60% of the trips taken on public transportation are for work commutes, we believe that a significant portion of his infrastructure proposal should be dedicated to public transportation.
The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) issued the following statement regarding the 2016 election results:

ASLRRA looks forward to meeting with President-Elect Trumps transition team, ensuring that our issues are well understood and represented in the going forward plans. Our Congress has significant work ahead of them. We will work with them to take up the issues of critical importance to our members from balanced regulation to two stated priorities of the incoming Administration and Congress: infrastructure and tax reform. By making the 45G railroad rehabilitation tax credit permanent, we will promote jobs and invest in a strong and sustainable rail infrastructure reaching rural communities and small town America. Linda Bauer Darr, President, ASLRRA.
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Live streaming and live-to-VOD solutions provider Simplestream has released a tablet extension and offline viewing capability to the mobile betting app for the At The Races dedicated horse racing channel.





At The Races is the UK and Irelands most watched horse racing channel, broadcasting content 24 hours a day to a TV audience of over two million and nearly three million online users each month. The new app is designed to enable At The Races to spread its reach and meet consumer expectation for services to be accessed from any device.The app is built with Simplestreams Media Manager, its API-driven multiple-betting system which allows users to compare odds and bet directly within the app with leading bookmakers such as Bet365, Ladbrokes, Coral and William Hill. The live channel feed on mobile or tablets is supplemented with race card information, together with racing replays made available within a few minutes of each race. The app also includes a searchable archive of over 18,000 races from 51 racecourses in the UK and Ireland, as well as news programmes from daily editions and magazine shows.An offline viewing feature enables consumers to access app content without a network connection and regardless of location, making it even more of a dynamic companion resource for horse racing fans.Were delighted to be extending our partnership with At The Races, commented Simplestream commercial director Dan Finch. Connected devices are fast becoming an integral part of the consumer TV experience. To retain a competitive market edge and preserve customer engagement, content owners need to tailor their content to consumers consistently across connected devices  At The Races is the latest example of such an optimised and customised offering that can be easily integrated into existing systems.The iPad edition means that the At The Races app can now be enjoyed by even more horse racing fans, said Matthew Taylor, director of new media and innovation for At The Races. The new optimised edition for iPads means that we can provide a greater level of detail for tablet users whilst the offline viewing functionality is a great touch provided by Simplestream; it will no doubt prove highly popular with racing fans who want to study the form on the move.
Deputy Culture Minister Pirumov pleads guilty to stealing $1.6 mln of public funds

MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI)  Deputy Culture Minister Grigory Pirumov pleaded guilty to stealing 100 million rubles ($1.5 million) of public funds, investigator said during a hearing in the Moscow City Court on Thursday.

According to investigator, the defendant gave a confession during an additional interrogation conducted on October 19. The copy of questioning record was attached to the case on Thursday.

Pirumov is charged with four episodes of fraud related to restoration of the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow, the Ivanovsky Convent in Moscow, Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics and a theater in Pskov.

Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Pirumov was detained alongside other high-ranking officials, including Boris Mazo, the head of the Ministry Department of property management and investment policies, on suspicion of corruption and embezzling state funds. Oleg Ivanov, the head of a state unitary enterprise for restoration works supervised by the Ministry, Dmitry Sergeyev, the head of BaltStroy, and Nikita Kolesnikov, the head of Savva Corporate Group, were detained as well.

The investigation has presumably started basing on a report by the Auditing Chamber on restoration of the Izborsk Fortress in the Pskov region presented yet in 2013; however, it may also involve such cultural heritage sites as the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow, as well as works carried out at the Ivanovsky Convent in Moscow, and a theater in Pskov.
State Duma Committee supports tougher punishment for unlawful pressure on business

Context Putin proposes toughening punishment for unlawful persecution of businesses

MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI) - The State Duma Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building recommended on Thursday that the lower house of Russias parliament pass in the first reading a bill toughening officials liability for unlawful persecution of businesses, RIA Novosti reported on Thursday.

Amendments are proposed to Russias Criminal and Criminal Procedure codes.

Punishment for knowingly charging an innocent person with a crime is proposed to be increased from five to seven years in prison. Additionally, toughened liability is proposed to be introduced not only for actions related to charging a person with grave crimes but also those actions that cause a large-scale damage (exceeding 1.5 million rubles ($23,500).

It is noted that criminal liability is also in place for unlawfully launching a criminal case based on material or personal interest, which led to cancellation of entrepreneur activity or causing large-scale damage, being punishable by 5-10 years in prison.

Under the bill, inquiry into crimes connected with impeding legal entrepreneurial or other activities would be conducted by Investigative Committees investigators.
The filing of the final campaign stories can only mean one thing  its postmortem time.

In our amped-up news cycle, the mainstream medias performance has already been sliced and diced in real time. The main critiques have drawn wide attention: barely disguised bias against now President-elect Donald Trump; coziness and collusion between the Clinton campaign and the media, as laid bare in hacked emails; and unfair "free air time" granted to the ratings-boosting Trump on the cable networks, especially some Fox News shows.

But the big story this election season was not the coverage  both good and bad  by legacy outfits. Instead, the 2016 election ratified the influence of a relatively new force in the media: nontraditional activist journalists.

I am referring here primarily to the conservative investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch and, last but not least, the enigmatic international transparency group WikiLeaks. Call them the disrupters.

Few would dispute that collectively these three have driven the most consequential coverage of the campaign for well over a year now. Traditional news outlets have often been relegated to the role of mere amplifier of their troubling revelations about Hillary or Bill Clinton or their circle -- revelations that by and large have not been called into question.

It's worth recapping what they did, and reflecting on what that means.

Schweizer is the author of the book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. Among other things, this seminal 2015 bestseller, from the think-tank world no less, prompted a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe of the Clinton Foundation that continues, as we learned late in the campaign.

Judicial Watch is the conservative watchdog group whose relentless freedom of information lawsuits over Hillary Clintons emails forced headline-grabbing disclosures throughout the campaign, picked up by news outlets across the political spectrum. (The New York Times did disclose the existence of her private server, discovered by congressional probers.)

WikiLeaks, for the few Kardashian fans who may not have heard of it by now, is the international nonprofit that publishes secret information. For months it trickled out politically explosive, hacked Democratic emails like water torture, at least to Hillary Clintons campaign, her party and some journalists.

Try as some in the news media might, it is not so easy to consign these three to the fringes of journalism. As he notes in an essay elsewhere on RealClearInvestigations, Schweizer has regularly won validation for his work from mainstream media, some of which collaborated with him.

Judicial Watch is a conservative gadfly, yes, but it is acting more like a newsroom staffed by lawyers  a scary thought, to the government at the very least. With an ample, donor-funded war chest, the nonprofit is taking journalists to school in deploying one of their most valued weapons, the Freedom of Information Act, doing so more effectively than any news organization in recent memory. Mainstream news organizations are happy to take its costly court-won revelations and run with them. So its not surprising that its President, Tom Fitton, nominated Judicial Watch for three Pulitzer Prizes last year (It was disqualified because it was ruled to be an advocacy group, Fitton told the Pulitzer-laden New York Times).

And look at the accolades WikiLeaks claims on its website, including from Time and The Economist. In 2010, journalists from the Guardian, the New York Times and other outlets readily rolled up their sleeves to get in on the ground floor with WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, and publish stolen material that illuminated dark corners of American foreign policy.

Today, as regards hacked Democratic emails concerning possible criminality and corruption by a possible next President of the United States, the mainstream media's relationship with WikiLeaks was -- shall we say -- less ground floor and more arms length. These are Russian-directed hacks of American democracy, we are told; this batch of stolen information is somehow different from earlier ones.

Schweizer, Judicial Watch and WikiLeaks may not be typical reporters but their methods and aims align with some of the best traditions of journalism, in particular investigative journalism. Attacks on their journalistic integrity have far less to do with high-minded principles than protecting turf.

Ultimately all news reports should be judged by two standards. The first is relatively straightforward: are they accurate? There is little doubt that the disrupters discussed here meet that test. But the second standard -- are the news reports fair? -- is becoming increasingly problematic and subjective. What is fair in a fractured media environment that increasingly mirrors our fractured politics? Americans, and their preferred media sources, increasingly see the same set of facts very differently. When fairness is in the eye of the beholder, the judgment of fairness becomes a cudgel removed from an ideal.

Claims of journalistic objectivity are equally problematic. Back in 2013, former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, a onetime boss of mine, debated the convention of objectivity in news reports with another disrupter, the civil liberties journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Greenwald, who helped bring to light American secrets stolen by Edward Snowden, held that "honestly disclosing rather than hiding one's subjective values makes for more honest and trustworthy journalism.

Keller disagreed, saying its better to suspend ones opinions and let "the evidence speak for itself."

Kellers standard is the mainstream standard of objectivity  the one some use to judge journalism disrupters and find them wanting. Or maybe it was the mainstream standard. As the WikiLeaks emails and a lot of election reporting suggest, a good number in the news business pay lip service to objectivity and honor it in the breach.

At the dawn of the Trump era, maybe its time for those journalists to do some soul-searching and, if they cant uphold their professed principles, drop the charade and be proud activists.
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#football Tottenham's Son Heung-min leaves Champions League match early after collision Son Heung-min of Tottenham Hotspur has been forced to leave a UEFA Champions League match early following a collision with an opposing defender. Son was subbed out in the 29th m...
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Close to 100 people gathered at the University of Georgia Arch Friday night for an anti-hate protest, in light of the recent presidential election of Donald Trump.
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By Jon Lewis

Bob Koroluck is about as cranky as an arthritic knee on a rainy day, so asking the well-established actor to take on the role of Sheridan Sherry Whiteside  the abrasive house guest in The Man Who Came to Dinner  is not much of a stretch.

This is really typecasting for him, chuckled Leon Compton, who is co-directing the play with his wife, Kathy. But I dont think anybody else could remember the amount of lines he has. Hes in every act; he is on constantly.

Koroluck is not the only veteran in the cast: Don Tamblyn, a Bay Area transplant, brings a considerable amount of experience to the role of Beverly Carlton, a visiting British actor and playwright. Hes outstanding, Compton said. Hell really make a big impression on people. A very professional actor.

Pam Carney, Elsie Ritchie, Chelsea Bailey, Darryl Alvey, Chris Gomez and Dan Kupsky are some of the other familiar Riverfront stagehands who help populate the 21-member cast. Compton said hes thankful his wife of 40 years is pitching in to keep the production running smoothly. Shes doing a fantastic job, and shes keeping me in line, Compton said.

Directing The Man Who Came to Dinner is a labor of love for Compton, who performed the role of Banjo in the show 41 years ago when he was living in the Los Angeles area. It was just one of those shows that sticks with you, he said.

Written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, the play tells the story of the outlandish Sheridan Whiteside, a New York radio personality, who is invited to dinner at the home of a wealthy factory owner in Ohio.

A slip-and-fall injury sidelines Whiteside for a month, during which time he drives his hosts crazy with his critical tongue, unreasonable demands and a penchant for receiving strange guests.

The Man Who Came to Dinner had its Broadway debut in 1939 and enjoyed a two-year run as well as a number of revivals in New York and London.

Go now 

What: The Man Who Came to Dinner

Where: Riverfront Playhouse, 1620 E. Cypress Ave.

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday and weekends through Dec. 10; 2 p.m. matinees on Nov. 20, Nov. 27 and Dec. 4

Tickets: $15 to $25; call 243-8877 or visit www.cascadetheatre.org
Photo courtesy of Shasta Regional Medical Center



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By Laura Christman

Whether youre in it to win a pie or to feel less guilty about eating pie, Shasta Regional Medical Centers Turkey Trot is a Thanksgiving Day tradition with plenty of options.

Theres something for everyone, says Karen Hoyt, Shasta Regional marketing director.

The Turkey Trot celebrates family, friendship, fitness and fun, drawing participants of many ages and approaches. There are serious runners, leisurely walkers, parents pushing strollers, walking buddies, entire families and usually a few folks in turkey hats. Its become a not-to-be-missed part of the holiday for many in the North State.

What a great way to start Thanksgiving, Hoyt says.

Opening ceremonies for Reddings 31st Turkey Trot are 7:45 a.m. Nov. 24 at Diestelhorst Landing off Benton Drive. More than 4,000 participants are expected, Hoyt says.

The three ways to take part are: The six-mile run (includes a wheelchair race), the two-mile walk/run and the Diestelhorst Dash for children.

Top runners win pies from Marie Callenders, as well as medals. The six-milers compete by age group, with the race usually drawing 1,100-plus runners, according to Hoyt. The two-mile walk/run is the largest event with about 2,800 participants. And the Diestelhorst Dash typically has some 200 children.

New this year is a coloring contest for Diestelhorst Dash participants.

The coloring contest will be by age group, just like the race, and all pictures will be uploaded on Facebook for judging, Hoyt says.

Proceeds from the Turkey Trot go back to the community, benefitting recreational programs and nonprofit groups. Last year $50,000 was donated to Good News Rescue Mission, Hoyt notes.

The Turkey Trot was started in 1985 by Medical Center employees Ron Pryor and Keith Ruggles. Three hundred people participated at the first Turkey Trot. Hooded sweatshirts featuring a jogging turkey have become a signature part of the annual event. Each years sweatshirt design includes a Canadian maple leaf with the initials KER, a tribute to Ruggles, who was from Canada and died in a bicycle accident about two years after the Turkey Trot began.

During the past three decades, the emphasis of the annual event has become more focused on the importance of exercise, fitness and wellness to the community, Hoyt says.

We offer running tips, share information on running groups and trail systems, she says.

Entry fees are $16 for the walk/run and $25 for the six-mile race. Sweatshirts are an additional $20. For registration details, visit shastaregional.com.
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By Jim Schultz of the Redding Record Searchlight

Despite the statewide passage of Proposition 64, which legalizes the recreational use of marijuana, community leaders say they're taking a cautious approach on the issue.

There are a lot of rules still on the books governing the cultivation, distribution and use of marijuana, officials said.

And they may not be changing much.

Although the measure will also allow retail sales of marijuana and impose a 15 percent retail tax, there also may not be any place to legally purchase it for at least more than a year, possibly a lot longer.

Proposition 64, which allows non-medical marijuana to be sold by state licensed businesses, gives the state until Jan. 1, 2018, to begin issuing sales licenses for recreational retailers.

But Shasta County Supervisor Les Baugh, who said Wednesday he was disappointed by the pot measure's passage, opposes any possible effort to establish recreational marijuana dispensaries here.

Baugh says he sees no difference between medical marijuana and recreational marijuana dispensaries.

"It's the same thing," he said. "To me, we have already taken a stand" against pot dispensaries.

And he expects county legal counsel will be asked as soon as next week to begin analyzing the proposition to see how the proposition might affect county's marijuana-related rules and regulations.

Still, he believes little is likely to change.

"It (Prop. 64) leaves a lot of discretion to the county," Baugh said, but adding some county rules may need a "slight" adjustment.

"We need to know how it interacts with county law," he said. "There's some confusion about what it really says."

In Redding, which also bans marijuana dispensaries and regulates outdoor cultivation, City Councilman Brent Weaver said he expects the city's attorney will also be asked to research the issue on the city's behalf.

"We have to make sure we're doing everything correctly," he said.

Redding's city attorney, Barry DeWalt, has said it's way too early to be hitting the panic button about recreational marijuana dispensaries.

"I really don't see it as that great of an issue for city (governments) simply because they have the ability to regulate or ban them," he has said.

But Redding City Councilman-elect Adam McElvain said Wednesday the ballot measure's passage  and the potential establishment of recreational marijuana dispensaries by 2018  could provide a badly-needed revenue-generator for the city, as long as they are strictly regulated and have strong oversight.

"We need to look at this as an opportunity," he said.

McElvain said the taxes generated from marijuana stores could help ease the city's financial woes and provide other benefits, including reducing the pollution of streams and public lands from illegal marijuana grows.

"The funds could be used to help pay for critical services," he said, including law enforcement, adding he welcomes the conversations that will be held on the sure-to-be controversial subject in the coming months.

Dispensaries in Shasta Lake have been fielding calls and even seeing adults interested in recreational marijuana stop by.

In each case, they have to turn them away.

Dispensaries can't legally sell until the state, either via a provisional permit from the state or under a state-issued-license, said Stacy Lidie, director of the dispensary, Leave It To Nature.

About six people had stopped in, with additional calls, and asked about buying recreational marijuana, she said. They told her they take prescription pain pills but want to try cannabis, she said. They fear losing their guns under federal law if they obtain and use a recommendation, she said.

Under Proposition 64, which saw Shasta County voters reject it Tuesday by a 52.6 percent to 47.3 percent margin, those 21 or older can immediately possess an ounce of marijuana and up to six plants in their home legally.

But smoking pot in public, as well as driving under the influence of marijuana and unlicensed sales, remains illegal.

Cities and counties can also have its regulations and bans, and dispensaries can sell to only those with medical recommendations.

In the city of Anderson, which bans medicinal dispensaries, but allows small personal grows in outbuildings with smell-mitigation measures, City Manager Jeff Kizer has said there is some concern about the new law.

"If every apartment unit could have six plants, where and how does someone live if they don't want to be around those plants?" he has asked. "I don't think all the answers are out there yet."

Baugh agrees, saying a lot of research will be required.

Although the state Legislative Analyst's Office has estimated Proposition 64 could bring in up to $1 billion annually in tax revenue to the state, Baugh is skeptical about the revenue figures.

And, he said, the revenues may not be worth the human cost, citing data that impaired driving, as well as fatal accidents, have increased in Colorado and other states where marijuana was legalized.

"I think we will probably pass on the opportunity for the revenue," he said.

Steve Morgan, who was elected Tuesday to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, says he has some concerns about Proposition 64, specifically the 15 percent tax, which he believes is excessive.

But, he says, he has no problem with the creation of marijuana dispensaries, as long as they are properly regulated.

"But they have to do it right," he said, adding that marijuana should be treated as an agricultural product and taxed accordingly.

He also agrees with McElvain that revenues brought in by the marijuana could go a long way to finance county services.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gives the thumbs-up during a campaign rally at the Lackawanna College Student Union in downtown Scranton, Pa., Monday, Nov. 7, 2016. (Butch Comegys/The Times & Tribune via AP)

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By Alayna Shulman of the Redding Record Searchlight

While president-elect Donald Trump's famously outspoken nature alone seemed to sway many voters who found the candor refreshing amid a history of scripted career politicians, local residents said they believe he could actually change the country  not just the status-quo political system.

Now that he's won the presidency, North State voters say they envision an improved America on the horizon based on both Trump's business prowess and hardline stances on immigration and terrorism.

"He is a businessman, and ... our country hasn't been run like a business, and it really should have been because it has economic impacts across the world," said Churn Creek Bottom resident Carl Hawkins. "Not having a businessman in there, to me, has never made sense."

Redding resident Sally Rapoza agreed.

"Businesses have been leaving California in droves," she said. "It would have been doubling-down if Hillary won."

Another hope voters say Trump brings: appointing conservative Supreme Court justices.

"That will affect our country for decades down the road," Rapoza said.

But to some extent, certain Trump voters just saw him as the necessary alternative to Clinton.

"I think he's a good man for progress, I just hope they have enough people to watch him and keep an eye on him so that he doesn't do something disastrous like hit the button," said Redding resident Lola Underwood. "I couldn't vote for (Clinton) ... but I don't like who I voted for."

Still, Underwood said Trump's business experience also impressed her.

"He could do something about creating jobs and putting people back to work if he uses his knowledge that he obviously has to do that," Underwood said.

Others said Trump's conservative nature could help the economy by making it harder for people to abuse government aid.

"I'm hoping the small businesses won't be crushed and I'm hoping that ... the people who are on welfare and stuff will be more motivated to take care of themselves," said Cottonwood resident Mikaila Garretson.

Trump's famously staunch positions on illegal immigration and cracking down on terrorism also has some supporters hopeful for change.

Indeed, Hawkins said his support for Trump isn't about getting a president or Supreme Court justice who pushes for his "pet moral convictions," but is ultimately about safety.

"Obviously I would like a leader that supports some of those views, but that's not really what I think is killing our country as a whole," Hawkins said. "I think the bigger problems are keeping us safe."

Despite comments Trump has made that many viewed as divisive, Hawkins also sees Trump as the candidate who will unite America.

"My greatest hope is that liberals and Democrats and independents will see that, hey, he's helping us, too," Hawkins said. "We need to be a one-people system, if you will, that whoever we put in there, we stop isolating each other and stop fighting each other and we just put America back where it's supposed to be. My greatest hope is really that America kind of becomes America again."
Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight

Bob Kosko, left, sells ammunition to Scott Farmer of Shasta on Wednesday at Olde West Gun & Loan in Redding. Farmer was buying bullets for a Luger his father brought back from World War II. Farmer said his dad was a tail gunner in a B-17 and was shot down three times. He doesn't know how his father got the gun.

SHARE Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Dave Morley, left, looks at pistols from Jacqueline Jones on Wednesday at Jones Fort gun shop in Redding. California's Proposition 63, a gun control measure, passed in Tuesday's voting.

By Damon Arthur of the Redding Record Searchlight

The way Chris Haggerty sees it, Proposition 63's passage Tuesday will make things more complicated for him and his customers.

When a customer walks in to Olde West Gun and Loan to buy a box of ammunition, he pays the clerk and walks out with the ammo. Under Prop. 63, that transaction will require the customer to undergo a background check before the sale is complete.

"It'll definitely be an inconvenience on the consumer and the retailer, with more paperwork," said Haggerty, an employee at Olde West in Redding.

He wasn't very confident all the extra work will do much to prevent crimes committed with a gun.

"If what they want is to make it more of a hassle, then I believe it will be effective. If they want to prevent actual crime, then no, I don't think it will be effective," he said.

The measure received about 62 percent of the vote statewide Tuesday. However, 72.7 percent of Shasta County voters cast ballots against the measure.

Except for a few minor changes, the proposition is the same as SB1235, signed by the governor earlier this year, said Sarah Bastiani, manager of Bastiani Arms in Redding.

In addition to requiring a background check during ammunition sales, Prop. 63 also requires anyone with a high-capacity gun magazine  carrying more than 10 rounds  to turn them over to law enforcement.

Guns with high capacity magazines have not been sold in California since 2000, Haggerty said. Prop 63 would require those who own high-capacity magazines to hand them over to law enforcement or face an infraction fine, he said.

Also under Prop 63, ammunition must be purchased through a licensed dealer, and requires lost or stolen firearms to be reported to law enforcement. Most of the provisions on ammunition sales go into effect Jan. 1, 2018.

The law also changes the penalties for gun theft. Currently, stealing a gun worth $950 or less is a misdemeanor. Prop. 63 would make all gun thefts a felony.

Beginning in July 2019, ammo purchased out of state also cannot be brought into California without first having the ammunition delivered to a licensed dealer.

The ban on bringing ammunition into California will be a hardship on hunters, said Donn Walgamuth of Redding, an avid hunter and president of the board of directors for the California Deer Association.

Many California residents hunt in other states, where they also buy ammunition, he said. But Prop. 63 will prevent them from bringing their ammo  including shotgun shells  back into the state, he said.

Walgamuth said he didn't think the ammunition sales restrictions would prevent gun crimes.

"It's nothing that the criminals have ever paid attention to in the past," he said. "I don't know why they would (pay attention) now."

Prop. 63 supporters, including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, said the measure will keep guns away from criminals and others not authorized to own firearms.

"Proposition 63  the Safety for All Act  will save lives by closing loopholes to prevent dangerous criminals, domestic abusers and the dangerously mentally ill from obtaining and using deadly weapons," the ballot argument says.

Walgamuth said criminals aren't allowed to have guns now, so they wouldn't need ammunition. But if they have a gun illegally, it is likely they also would have ammunition illegally, he said.

"It just puts more constraints on law-abiding citizens," he said.

Patrick Jones, who manages Jones Fort gun shop in Redding, said the new law will be more than an inconvenience.

"It'll be more than a hassle. It'll be a killer," he said.

The law is a further erosion of gun owners' rights in California, and the law will only affect those who follow the law, rather than criminals who flaunt it, he said.

"You cannot pass a law and change criminal behavior," he said.
Shasta High School

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By Alayna Shulman of the Redding Record Searchlight

A Shasta High School student is in trouble for giving out phony deportation notices to several students of different ethnicities, district officials said.

The incident comes amid famously immigration-tough Donald Trumps presidential election win Tuesday, though it couldnt be confirmed whether the incident is related to Trumps victory. Shasta Union High School District Superintendent Jim Cloney said he didnt know whether the presidential race triggered the students stunt, but I guess it would be hard to say it wasnt.

The student posted a video thats since been deleted of himself making the rounds with the fake deportation notices, Cloney said. In a voice message Shasta High School Principal Leo Perez apparently sent to parents, Perez said the students involved are all friends and the act was meant as a joke, but its still not a joking matter.

A reader submitted stills from the video that appears to have been published on Snapchat to the Record Searchlight. The paper is not publishing the pictures so that the students cant be identified.

In the stills, at least four students can be seen holding papers, though its not clear whether one of them is the distributor himself.

One shows a close-up of the Deportation Order being held by an unidentified hand in a classroom full of students with the caption Got him. The document is made to look like a real court order, but a Google search of the 712th Nonjudicial District Court identified at the top reveals that the supposed court is one frequently used in prank forms.

In another caption, a student reading one of the notices is identified by the user as another french one.

The five or six students contacted by the boy appear to be of multiple ethnicities, Cloney said, but he wasnt sure of their backgrounds.

The boy apparently distributed the notices throughout at least one school day, because different stills span a period of four hours or more. But Cloney said he had no indication that any teachers or staff members caught on to what was happening.

Cloney said both his office and Shasta High School found out Thursday through callers who saw posts on social media. It wasnt immediately clear what day the incident happened.

After that, administrators contacted the boy and his family, and Cloney said the student told them it was done to be funny.

It goes without saying, we dont think this sort of behavior is funny nor reflective of the culture at Shasta High and behavior that is racially or culturally insensitive will not be allowed to go on at any of our schools, Cloney said.

Cloney said he couldnt comment on the specifics of the students potential punishment, but his office will apply appropriate consequences depending on the severity of the situation to ensure that the behavior is not repeated.

We take issues around racial and cultural insensitivity very seriously, Cloney reiterated.

A national reporter tracking incidents of racism or xenophobia that have happened since Trump won the election Tuesday said he had been contacted by Latino Shasta High parents about the letters.

Meanwhile, a Shasta County Citizens Advocating Respect member said the incident has triggered talks in the group of a non-discrimination contract for local elected officials so that voters would know whether they support diversity of races, religions and sexual orientations, though such an agreement would be symbolic at best.

That member, Trent Copland, said prejudice existed before the election, but Trumps win has clearly given some people confidence to showcase their hate now.

It has been brought to the forefront by our president-elects boorish behavior, Copland said in an email. He did not create it. It has always been here but he has certainly encouraged it to rear its ugly, ugly head. Is this what we are teaching our kids? To behave like him? Because thats the message Im hearing and this incident springs right from that message.

Its not the first racially charged incident at a Redding high school this year. Nearby University Preparatory School made headlines in early 2016 when some of its students allegedly said ethnic slurs and held up offensive signs directed at a largely Hispanic boys basketball team the school was playing.

U-Prep is also part of the Shasta Union High School District. In that incident, the students involved were suspended.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/GIDEON CARL TURNER A Vietnam veterans monument will be dedicated Friday at the Northern California Veterans Cemetery in Igo.

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By Jim Schultz of the Redding Record Searchlight

In the wake of Tuesday's election, veterans and others will have to make another choice Friday.

That's because the Redding Elks Lodge is hosting its 88th annual Veterans Day cognac toast Friday morning at the same time the Northern California Veterans Cemetery in Igo is holding its yearly Veterans Day ceremony.

The Veterans Day ceremony in Igo, which will feature the dedication of a Vietnam veterans monument, begins at 10:55 a.m., while the ceremony at the Elks Lodge begins at 11 a.m.

It could be a tough decision on which one to attend.

The ceremony at the Elks Lodge, which traditionally attracts about 200 people, began in 1928 by Judge Albert Ross and Loren Ewing to recognize the end of World War I. It is free and open to the public.

Past Exalted Ruler Patrick Carr is the keynote speaker, who will provide a brief history of the toast. An honor guard from the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9650 in Anderson will also fire a rifle salute and a bugler will play "taps." A beef tip and noodle lunch hosted by the Redding Emblem Club follows the observance. The lunch is free for veterans at $7 for the public.

The Northern California Veterans Cemetery in Igo is holding its annual Veterans Day observance, which includes patriotic music, guest speakers, a fly-over and the dedication of the Vietnam veterans monument designed by Vietnam combat veteran Carl Turner.

California Air National Guard Lt. Col. James B. Vogus, the chief physician and surgeon for the Northern California Veterans Home in Redding, is the ceremony's guest speaker,. Its master of ceremonies is retired U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Robert Burroughs, while its military speaker is Vietnam War combat veteran Abu Abu Bakr H. Salahuddin of the Imam Islamic Center of Redding.

The ceremony will also include music by the Mistletoe Elementary School and the Jefferson Pipe Band, as well as a rifle salute by a California state honor guard, as well as a gift presentation to 11-year-old Preston Sharp of Redding. The Columbia Elementary School fourth-grader is being recognized for his work placing flags and plastic flowers at the graves of veterans throughout Shasta County to honor them.
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For a path forward on public safety, Redding and Shasta County leaders should spend more time looking at the reasons Measure E won than agonizing over why Measure D lost.

That's easier said than done, of course. Measure D was the part that provided the money  it would have added a half cent in sales tax to every dollar of taxable sales in Redding for the next 10 years, raising an estimated $110 million over that period. It failed in spectacular fashion, rejected by 63 percent of the city's voters.

Measure E only mattered if D passed  but voters who cast a "no" for D certainly weren't taking any chances. Almost as many cast a vote for E, which gave the current and future councils strict instructions to spend the money on public safety.

The vote on E was the mirror image of D: 65 percent of voters answered in the affirmative.

There are several take-aways, but the most important is straightforward: Voters still demand improvements in public safety. They still want more jail space, mental health services, and better fire protection. They just aren't willing to approve a new tax to get it  or they don't trust city leaders to use the money as promised.

With time and perspective, it will probably be obvious that this was a terrible time to pose the question. Driven by passion over the top of the ticket  Trump versus Clinton  local voters flooded to the polls. Their sheer numbers ensured that the vote could not be carried by those most dedicated and tuned in to politics. And they were not in a trusting mood.

Not only did Shasta County residents break resoundingly for outsider Donald Trump, they swept out incumbents like a gale coming off the mountains. Bill Schappell and Pam Giacomini at the county appear to be out. James Yarbrough in Anderson is out. Even Redding's Gary Cadd, who led the campaign against Measure D, is out.

The combination of fervor and turnout proved too much for what would normally have been a truly formidable coalition. The "Safe Streets Now" campaign enjoyed the kind of support that traditionally has almost guaranteed success. Merchants, a broad array of business interests, top city and county leaders, Sheriff Tom Bosenko, and rank-and-file police officers and firefighters all lined up behind it. This page supported it, as well.

Normally, just the threat of the cops and firefighters getting involved is enough to make something happen. They have enormous political clout  or at least they always have. Are we seeing a change, or is this isolated?

That brings us back to the initial point. We don't know what every voter was thinking, but it's pretty clear from the overwhelming support for Measure E that voters pushed back on the tax and the accountability, not on the need for public safety. Perhaps they agreed with the public safety folks but didn't think this measure would do the job.

The question is now behind us. With a result like that, it will probably be a long time before anyone tries to float a measure like that around here again. The political landscape has changed.

What hasn't changed is a rising crime rate. In fact, Californians also approved Proposition 57 Tuesday, so we can expect to see even more felons released back into our communities from state prison. The proposition calls those eligible for new leniency "nonviolent," but that appears to include rapists whose victims were unconscious and people who attacked a law enforcement officer with a deadly weapon.

What hasn't changed is a mental health system disastrously broken and underfunded, foisting the responsibility for crisis care onto cops and emergency rooms.

What hasn't changed is that a Redding fire crew responding to your house fire can't come inside to save you because there aren't enough firefighters on the engine.

It would have been easier to solve those problems if there was a new source of revenue, but it's not coming. So it's time for local leaders to roll up their sleeves as promised and figure out how to make us safer with what we have. They'll need the cooperation of public safety unions, even though this defeat had to smart. Hopefully it's some consolation that the people appear to have spurned the politicians, not the cops and firefighters.
To invest $1 bn in realty sector, mulls new funds; has done exits worth Rs 8,000 crore, says founder

Following its $450-million joint venture (JV) with Dutch pension fund manager APG Asset Management, global private equity investor Xander Group is looking to float new India-focused funds, both domestic and offshore, to invest in Indian real estate and allied sectors.

It will invest $1.1 billion (Rs 7,260 crore) from its existing entities in the country in the next two years.

Since 2005, Xander has invested

$2.3 billion in Indian real estate, retail and infrastructure sectors. In terms of investment, the company is second only to US-based Blackstone, which has invested $3 billion in Indian real estate.

Besides private equity funds, Xander runs a non-banking financial company, and a mall ownership and management company.

Xander is considering launching its next global India opportunity fund - to be called Xander Master Fund V - early next year, said Sid Yog, managing partner at Xander Group.

He did not reveal the targeted corpus of the new fund.

We are expanding our logistics platform and considering to develop to core office strategy. Whether these take the shape of a permanent platform like Virtuous Retail or Xander Finance, or are in a fund structure or some hybrid, depends on the contours of the opportunity, the risk and investment appetite of partners or investors involved, said Yog. He added Xander might go it alone for one or more of these ideas.

Xanders plans come at a time when global investors such as Blackstone, GIC, KKR and others are pouring billions of dollars into Indian real estate to take advantage of the rising demand for offices and retail spaces, and corresponding jump in rents.

Last week, APG and Virtuous Retail, retail development arm of Xander Group, formed a JV that acquired a portfolio of three shopping malls from a Xander-sponsored fund for about Rs 2,000 crore ($300 million). This is an initial portfolio and the partners intend to acquire more retail assets.

Simultaneously, APG and Xander have committed an additional $150 million as equity capital, giving the new company an investment capacity of $300 million that will be used to expand the portfolio through new acquisitions and new developments.

The JV has set up a 150-strong management and operational team in India, creating a new company called Virtuous Retail South Asia (VRSA).

...VRSA, our new company with APG will separately - apart from 100 per cent acquisitions or developments - look at new JVs, but only where developers will take advantage of the development and/or asset management expertise that Virtuous Retail South Asia offers, in addition to patient, long-term capital, Yog added.

Floating a real estate investment trust for the assets of VRSA could certainly be one potential avenue to be explored, he said, adding that others include a public listing or just additional capital infusion into the company from the existing partners or like-minded investors to continue to grow the portfolio and the operations.

Xander JV Fund I, whose fund life will expire in two years, also invested in other retail assets in JVs with developers. These include those that were successfully exited as well as investments in Pune, West Bengaluru and Kolkata which will be completed over the next 18 months.

These JVs are not part of the deal or our partnership with APG, as they do not fit into the integrated developer, owner, manager strategy, he said.

Further, Yog added Xander was in the early stages of considering a domestic AIF (alternative investment fund) in the country since they have got a lot of requests from family offices and institutional investors in India, who want access to Xanders decade old capabilities.

Domestic investors are now more sophisticated and they understand the difference between mutual fund type vehicles and institutional real estate private equity. Also, they have been hurt by the relative underperformance of the previous limited opportunities available to them, both in public and private real estate markets. An institutional firm like Xander, with its unique model of global reach and local feet, offers a secure investment opportunity that has also now been enabled by change in AIF regulations, he said.

He said Xander has given exits worth Rs 8,000 crore ($1.2 billion) of exits to investors till date.

Thats the part of Xanders decade-long track record in India we are most proud of, as there are no foreign investors in Indian real estate, which have completed successful investment cycles from entry to value addition and exit, generating attractive returns at that scale consistently over a decade.

In the next two years, it has investment programmes for Virtuous Retail South Asia, its JV with APG which will look to invest at least $300 million.

Xander Finance, our credit platform which is currently looking to invest at least $250 million annually in new, senior secured, current coupon debt deals, of which 60 per cent is typically in real estate (the rest is broader corporate lending), Xander JV Fund II, our core plus office platform that has deals in excess of $300 million currently under contract, he added.

Image used for representation purpose.

Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters
Both the new designs, Rs 500 and Rs 2,000, will be very friendly towards the visually-impaired by having features which make it accessible for all sections

The new Rs 500 banknotes, which will be issued by banks from Thursday, have extra security features besides having peculiar colour, theme and size which differentiate the new bills from the earlier series.

The base colour of the Rs 2000 note will be magenta and the size of the note will be 66 mm by 166 mm, it said.

The new design in the Rs 500 denomination will be in a different colour, size, theme, design and location of security features, it said.

The note, measuring 63 mm by 150 mm will be in a new colour - stone grey and the predominant theme will be Delhi's Red Fort, it said.

Both the new designs, Rs 500 and Rs 2,000, will be very friendly towards the visually-impaired by having features which make it accessible for all sections.

Earlier, Governor Urjit Patel said that the central bank has ramped up production of the new series of notes under the newer series.

The RBI has also started a helpline number for the citizens who may face any difficulties, economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das said.

Citizens can reach out to the RBI on 022-22602201, 022-22602944 starting on for any doubts and clarifications, he said.

The government on Tuesday had demonitised the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as part of its efforts to clamp down against the black money, fake currency and terror financing.

Photograph: PTI Photo
The reason for Trents success is rooted in its slow and steady approach to expansion. Unlike others, Trent, led by Noel Tata, ensured that each store was profitable before it went on to the next, says Raghavendra Kamath.



Tata groups retail venture, Trent, was considered a laggard compared to its peers such as Kishore Biyanis Future Group and Mukesh Ambanis Reliance Retail. When others were opening hundreds of stores in a year, Trent was slow on expansion, adding one or two outlets at the most.

But when its rivals started to shut stores later to stem losses, Trent was riding high. Its profits rose 53 per cent in the last five years, the highest for any retailer in the industry.

The reason for Trents success is rooted in its slow and steady approach to expansion. Unlike others, Trent, led by Noel Tata, ensured that each store was profitable before it went on to the next.

They were called slow movers, but when others opened stores aggressively and burned money, Trent opened stores slowly. It saved a lot of capital in a capital-starved nation like India, says an analyst who does not want to be quoted.

A narrow focus has worked in its favour as well. Unlike other new entrants, Trent stuck to a single format, like Fabindia and D Mart, rather than experimenting with different formats, says Arvind Singhal, chairman of business consultancy Technopak.

A quick route to profit

The company pays a lot of attention to every aspect of the business, from merchandise and pricing to location of its stores and logistics. Factors such as popularity of a mall, its accessibility and the visibility of its stores in the mall are important considerations before opening a store, says a former Trent executive who does not want to be named.

Even today, its products are best value in its price segment. It is like buying a Zodiac shirt of Rs 1,800 for Rs 800, he says.

But what has helped the company turn profitable quickly is the franchise-route to expansion. In franchising, you dont spend on capex, operating costs and doing up the store, says the executive.

Other department stores cannot emulate its strategy as they dont have that many private brands, he adds.

Trent earns both from franchisee fee and from selling its own products in those franchised stores. Trents flagship format, Westside, has 25,000 to 30,000 square feet stores and the company is now looking for a franchise for it in West Asia.

About 80 per cent of the merchandise sold at Westside comprises private labels, which carry margins of over 40 per cent in categories such as apparel. In comparison, Shoppers Stop and Lifestyle have about 20 per cent sales coming from private labels.

Trent understood private labels well and developed it properly, says Sanjay Badhe, an independent retail consultant, adding that it started private labels in ladies and kids wear in a small way and expanded it later once the demand picked up.

Trents focus on developing synergies between Westside, its flagship store, and Star Bazaar, its hypermarket, has also helped rationalise costs. Stars apparel division is supported by Westside and Westsides gourmet division is supported by Star, says another executive who too does not want to be named. An email sent to Trent did not elicit any response.

The Tesco edge

The back-end agreement and later a joint venture with UKs Tesco has lent Trent an edge in terms of operational efficiency and capital required to run and scale up the business, the executive quoted above says.

Tesco provides support on supply chain systems, merchandising, sourcing and IT know-how to Star Bazaar, the hypermarket chain operated by Trent. Tesco also provides its proprietary planogram software to Star Bazaar, which helps display products in a manner that it attracts the attention of customers.

For example, according to Tescos planogram, retailers need not stock soaps and shampoos near the entrance as customers will seek out these essential items wherever they are. Instead, it says, retailers should use the vantage point to draw the customers attention to novelty items that command a higher margin.

Tesco has also introduced hundreds of its SKUs (stock keeping units) in Star Bazaar stores, from personal care to packaged foods. While the contribution of private labels to Star Bazaars revenue is still in single digits, Tesco sees 45 per cent of business from private labels.

According to executives in the know, Tesco has played a role in developing Star Bazaars own private labels as well.

Though Trent Hypermarket is yet to become profitable, the Tesco advantage has helped it stem its losses, analysts say. Trent Hypermarkets losses before tax shrunk in FY 2016 to Rs 44.77 crore from Rs 65.37 crore in the previous year. The chief executive of a national retail chain says Tescos best practices might just help Star Bazaar break even fast.

Tesco plays a key role in the supply chain of Star Bazaar. Armed with its advanced demand forecast system, auto-ordering mechanism and warehouse management systems, Tesco has managed over 80 per cent fill-rate (the number of times shelves get filled correctly against the orders placed) at Star Bazaar stores. The industry average in modern retail hovers between 60 and 65 per cent, as against 90-95 per cent in Europe and the US.

Many consultants say Tesco could also bring in its famous supply chain system called Tesco in a Box to Star stores to improve its efficiency further. The custom-built application provides stores with all systems necessary to operate in a new country.

Now, after having got its supply chain and logistics right, Trent is slowly changing tack. After a lull, Star Bazaar has tried another format besides hypermarkets, called Star Daily, in Pune, a neighbourhood convenience store.

Trent is also looking to step up expansion of Westside and Star Bazaar stores. The number of new Westside stores will be increased from 15 to 25 annually and that of Star Bazaar to 30 from eight.

Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/Reuters
Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf arrived at the bank on Thursday morning to withdraw cash, a day after high denomination notes were withdrawn, and encounters a veritable battlefield inside.

Mission: To withdraw money from the bank and to deposit the decommissioned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in my bank account.

Accessories: Water bottle and chocolate to tackle low blood pressure.

Optional aids: Magazine and mobile phone to keep updated.

Comrades in arms: None.

At 9 am this morning, I set out for the bank near my home.

After the prime minister suddenly decided to outlaw Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the banks were reopening after a day's break to prepare for the rush.

I expected a queue of cash-seekers like me, but did not anticipate the queue to be so long that I would keep chanting the four words, which it seemed every other person in the queue muttered too: 'Mera number kab aayega?' ('When will my turn come?')

20 minutes later, hot and perspiring, I counted 20 people ahead of me. I wondered if the wait was worth it or if I should postpone my expedition to the bank for another day?

Fortunately, some 10 minutes later, a bank employee came out to say that those who only wanted to withdraw money could go in with him.

I hastily postponed my decision to deposit the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, and queued up to withdraw some cash as I had no money on me.

After another 10 minute wait I entered the bank. It was like the proverbial fish market inside.

Well-dressed men and women were shouting at the top of their voices.

One man had brought Rs 12 lakhs (Rs 1.2 million) in cash to deposit, but was not being allowed to do so by the bank staff.

His ire was understandable. He had waited a long time to reach the bank counter and deposit the money, and blew a fuse when the teller refused to accept his cash bundle.

The bank's view was understandable. There had been no clear-cut guidelines from the finance ministry on how much cash -- Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, that is -- banks could accept at one go.

Being the first day of the No Panch Sau aur Hazar era, bankers were unwilling to accept more than Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

It was a tense Mexican standoff, till the inevitable Mumbai-style bhaigiri surfaced.

"Jaante ho main kaun koon! (Do you know who I am!)," the customer shouted.

All eyes in the bank swirled towards him. He didn't look like Salman Khan, no, who could he be?

The bank manager was not having any of this. He emerged from his cabin and told the man sternly: "If you make any more noise, we will call the police."

Other customers jumped in to back the bank manager since the delay the man had caused had delayed them too.

Seeing the public mood had turned against him, Mr Do-You-Know-Who-I-Am! quietly logged out of the bank premises.

His outburst opened a faucet of emotions. One customer shouted that Modi was responsible for all the mayhem. "We expected achche din," he said, "but these are not acche din."

Another man piped up": "These whimsical decisions happened under Mohammed bin Tughlaq, I certainly didn't expect this under Modi."

"Modi will suffer for this in the next elections," an elderly gent standing next to the Mumbai chronicler of medieval history, cursed. "He is making people's lives miserable with his whims and fancies."

"Isn't he seeing all the mess that he has caused in our lives?" the senior citizen asked.

Not known ever for being a cheerleader for Modi, I pitched in, "No, he cannot see all this because he has left for Japan to get us a bullet train."

In such a scenario these days, Modi supporters invariably outnumber the Namo dissers, and the bhakts quickly tried to defuse the tension, stating that the ban on banknotes was good for the economy and cashless transactions was the future for India.

One customer couldn't let this go unchallenged, and quipped: "Does it mean the BJP will henceforth accept and make all payments by cheque?"

Even as everyone had a good laugh, one man, sensing opportunity, tried to jump the queue, leading to fresh chaos.

When my turn came, I was told to show photocopies of documents like my Aadhar and PAN cards.

I meekly did so as instructed, but the teller realised there was no need for it. I was only withdrawing cash, and moreover I had been an account-holder at the bank for 15 years.

I asked if I could exchange at least Rs 4,000 of Rs 500 notes, but my request was quickly declined.

There was a separate queue for those wishing to exchange notes, I was told. This queue was only for cash withdrawals.

Shrugging, I asked for Rs 20,000, but was told the limit per withdrawal was Rs 10,000, was that okay?

"Do I have a choice?" I asked the teller.

"No."

Another twist in this tale awaited. The teller said he could only give me Rs 10 and Rs 20 denomination notes.

"Why?" I asked.

The teller said the bank's stock of Rs 100 notes was exhausted, and so I would only get the lower denomination notes.

I had no option, but to shrug again in resignation.

Before I left, the teller had some advice for me.

"Be careful while spending, the banker advised. "You cannot withdraw money for one more week as you have reached your weekly withdrawal limit of Rs 10,000."

As I left with a bundle of small notes, I saw more and more people queuing up at the bank.

India, it appeared, had quickly returned to the pre-1991 era when Indians queued up for even basic necessities.

I remember standing in queues as a child to withdraw money from the bank for my parents.

History, as Marx once noted, was repeating itself. This time as tragi-farce.

IMAGE: Crowds outside a bank in Mumbai to withdraw money. Photograph: Hitesh Harisinghani for Rediff.com
'Which is the line for depositing money?'

'Which is the line for changing money?'

'Which is the line for withdrawing money?'

Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar reports on the woes of bank customers trying to withdraw/deposit their money.

IMAGE: People line up inside a bank to deposit Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes or to withdraw cash. Photograph: Vijay Verma/PTI Photos

Terrible Thursday was a hard day in India, both for customers and bank staffers.

Uncertainty, anger, irritation, despair were in the air as banks waded into the chaotic atmosphere created after Prime Minister Modi's stunning announcement on Tuesday night.

Today, people lined up to change their useless Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes for tender that would be accepted in day-to-day transactions.

The level of noise at the State Bank of India's branch in Thiruvanmiyur, on the outskirts of Chennai where the scenic East Coast Road to Pondicherry begins, made it sound like a fish market. It was so crowded that there was no place to sit.

In a corner, a youngster waited patiently, clutching a bunch of old currency, his bank challan (slip), his passbook and a token numbered 345.

"They are calling token number 340 now," he says with a tired smile. "I have been waiting here for one-and-half-hours, but I hope I will be able to leave in the next five minutes."

An elderly man said it took him two hours to withdraw Rs 2,000, the amount presently permitted by the government. "I have other work but no money, and so I waited."

A few ladies, who had deposited money, queued up at the passbook printing machine. "The bank is very crowded... what if they miss out our money? We are making sure our passbooks are updated," they said.

Exhausted, or maybe bored, with the wait, some people had fallen asleep on the chairs. A male customer told me it was easier if you had an account with the bank; all you needed to do was take a token and wait.

Those who did not have an account had to first fill a form and submit it with a photocopy of their valid identification card. Then began the long wait for their name to be called.

"I just gave my form. I am sure it will take a few hours. I will go home, have lunch and come back for my money," an elderly lady said. "What if her name was called when she was away? It doesn't really matter. They have my form and a photocopy of my identification. I have the money. The only thing I will lose is time."

IMAGE: The crowded State Bank Of India branch. Photograph: A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com

If the SBI branch sounded like a fish market, it was nothing compared to the scene unfolding at the Bank of India branch nearby.

People were walking around with bewildered expressions.

"Which is the line for depositing money? Which is the line for changing money? Which is the line for withdrawing money?" one man mumbled. No one seemed to have an answer.

Finally, a lady constable stationed at the entrance to the bank advised him to ask the staff, but one had to stand in a line for that as well.

"How many lines can I stand in?" asked the man, disheartened.

Today, it was a question that had no answer.

One lady stormed out, angry tears in her eyes, "I wash vessels and clothes in four houses every day. My hard-earned money is useless. I can't even buy a cup of tea. I don't have a bank account and I don't know how to fill that damn form."

A autorickshaw driver said business had been affected since Wednesday. "The petrol bunks are smart; they accept Rs 500 notes, but are not giving change. I think the situation will improve on Monday since the banks are going to remain open on the weekend," he said optimistically.

At the State Bank Of Mysore branch, there was just a short line at the cash counter.

The assistant branch manager looked relieved. There had been a constant stream of customers, he said, but the branch was not as crowded.

A retired gentleman said it took him half an hour to get to the counter and deposit the old currency notes. He had struggled up the stairs -- the branch is located on the first floor -- to transact his business and was exhausted.

Clearly, the process to withdraw or deposit money today was both tiring and time-consuming.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, head of Paytm, says they'd achieve their 500-million user target by 2018, two years before the earlier aim.

The past 24 hours have done for digital wallets what 10 years of existence could not.

The Modi government's blitzkrieg on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes has pumped new life into the slowly unfolding digital money revolution.

Overnight, mobile wallets have started believing they would not only be able to achieve their earlier targets but do so well before the set deadlines. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, boss at India's largest mobile wallet entity, Paytm, said they'd achieve their 500-million user target by 2018, two years before the earlier aim.

"We're targeting a million merchants by the end of this week and four million by March," he told this newspaper. On Wednesday, it saw a 435 per cent traffic increase and of 200 per cent in app download. Also, a 400 per cent rise in offline payment transactions.

MobiKwik saw a 40 per cent increase in app downloads within 18 hours of the official announcement. User traffic and merchant queries went up 200 per cent from its 35-plus million users. The company has revised its business targets.

"With this policy change, we expect a 10-time impact and to easily hit $10 bn in payments volume by 2017. We believe we'd be able to reach 150 mn users by next year itself," said Upasana Taku, co-founder.

Snapdeal-owned Freecharge also saw a surge in average transaction size within hours of the announcement, as well as a 12-fold increase in wallet balance. The company says it is now going to bring an advanced version of 'Paying with Freecharge'. "We are going to double our rate of growth," said Govind Rajan, chief executive.

The excitement of mobile wallets can be gauged from the huge advertisements they'd swiftly issued for Wednesday's newspapers. Paytm and Freecharge both had full-page ads in national dailies, congratulating the PM on the move and asking people to join the digital money revolution.

"We worked at breakneck speed. Within an hour of the announcement, we had designed, conceptualised and spoken to the media houses," said a senior executive at Snapdeal.

Others, too, are getting into the action. Zomato, Ola, Big Bazaar, mobile wallets, restaurants -- all cashed in. Big Bazaar stayed open till 11:50 pm on Tuesday, so that people could buy groceries. Dunkin' Donuts is offering 25 per cent off on payments via credit and debit cards. E-grocer Grofers offered 15 per cent cash back on cashless payments.
Work in mandis across UP and in northern India which till Tuesday, witnessed heavy arrivals of newly harvested paddy, saw a steep decline.

On Tuesday evening, when Kolkatas Sheikh Salims last customer offered him a Rs 500 note, he had little clue it would be of little use the next morning. He had planned to buy some extra stock of fish from wholesalers on Wednesday.

I have not been able to buy even one-tenth of my requirement today (Wednesday), as nobody is accepting the big notes I have, he said.

That was the scene across wholesale markets, from Delhis Chandni Chowk and Sadar Bazaar to Kanpurs Loha Bazaar and Sarafa Bazaar, or Nagpurs Itwari Bazar and Gandhi Putla to Mumbais Byculla and Kalbadevi. An acute shortage of Rs 100 currency notes had brought trading of the most perishable commodity to a halt, as supply chain crashed.

Work in mandis across Uttar Pradesh and other parts of northern India, which, till Tuesday, witnessed heavy arrivals of newly harvested paddy, saw a steep decline, too.

Paddy prices are down by Rs 200-250 a quintal today (Wednesday), which would have far-reaching impact on the farmers. It was selling at Rs 2,400-2,450 a quintal, said Devendra Dhull, general secretary of the Rohtak mandi.

Market watchers said that overnight, many traders have gone bankrupt and might have to shut shop.

According to industry experts, as much as Rs 30,000 crore worth of black money gets circulated among traders in India on a daily basis.

Wholesale markets mostly run on cash. Suddenly, all the money, which probably is black, has become unusable I will not be surprised if wholesalers declare bankruptcy or even commit suicide, said the member of a national trade association.

His views were endorsed by Sanjay Bhargava, general secretary of Delhis Chandni Chowk Sarv Vypar Mandal. There is an absolute blackout in the market. There are no buyers almost anywhere This may continue for at least a week.

Pankaj Arora of Kanpurs Mahanagar Sarafa Association said small traders, who come from nearby areas with cash of Rs 2-5 lakh to make daily purchases, are in a limbo, as no one is ready to take their cash and give them supplies.

According to market experts, the next few weeks would be challenging for the wholesale markets due to an extreme cash crunch.

This move by the prime minister is hurting a lot of traders, who were using unaccounted capital for trade. However, in the long run, this would help in creating a level playing field for trade, said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary-general of Confederation of All India Traders.

The highest damage this move could cause, though temporarily, would be on farmers, who had recently harvested their paddy crop, and were preparing for the next Rabi season.

Most transactions in rural markets are done in cash, which also include payments to be made to labourers. Farmers are worried that, in the absence of new currency notes, they might miss out on the crucial sowing time.

The cash received from the selling of farm produce has become useless because of discontinuation of the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, says Sudhir Panwar, who is also the head of Kisan Jagriti Manch, a farmers forum. It will take another 15-20 days for the new system to stabilise.

Image used for representational purposes only. Photograph: Babu/Reuters
The plan to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 bank notes was 6 months in the making, reports Arup Roychoudhury.

On Tuesday, even before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to the nation was being telecast across television channels, the Reserve Bank of India had already started dispatching the new series of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes to banks across the country.

Banks were told they would be receiving the new banknotes, but none -- not even the powerful heads of the biggest State-owned and private banks -- were aware of the decision to demonetise the older banknotes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations.

Until they heard it on TV, that is.

The landmark decision by the government to put the notes out of circulation was a process six months in the making, and involved a lot of challenges, the biggest being keeping it confidential, sources involved with the exercise told Business Standard.

In fact, only 10 people in the system were aware of the plan in its entirety.

The proposal gained traction in a meeting between officials of the Prime Minister's Office and the finance ministry.

The logistical process was set in motion after Modi gave his go-ahead in early-May. The then RBI governor Raghuram Rajan was also on board.

The central bank then ramped up production of notes of smaller denominations. It also started work on producing the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes.

At the same time, the RBI issued a circular on May 5, asking banks to dispense more Rs 100 notes through the ATMs.

The discussions and decisions in the early days of the proposal are all said to be verbal and unofficial.

"Maintaining secrecy was of paramount importance as any leakage of this information would have rendered this proposal ineffective," said an official.

"For this to work, it was imperative to catch unaccounted cash holders by surprise."

Hence, very few bureaucrats and officials at the PMO, North Block, and Mint Road knew of the plan in its entirety.

These were the senior-most and most trusted, including some secretaries and deputy RBI governors.

For others, it was on a need-to-know-basis.

Images of the Rs 2,000 denomination notes were already leaking online.

It was not a cause of concern, though, as nobody could guess the real plan.

The signs were there already that the RBI was gearing up for the move, as was evident from another circular on November 2 asking banks to dispense more Rs 100 notes through ATMs within the next fortnight.

The notice was carefully worded as the RBI also added that it was issuing this notice after observing that very few banks had taken steps to dispense lower denomination notes after the May 5 circular.

Three days before the announcement, the banks were only told they would be receiving new banknotes.

At the Cabinet meeting before Modi's announcement, ministers were told to keep their mobile phones outside the room and reports suggest that they were not allowed to leave till the PM's decision had been broadcast.

IMAGE: People queue up outside an ATM in Mumbai on Tuesday, November 8, night. Photograph: Vedant Kotian for Rediff.com
'Then why should people like us face this inconvenience?'

Long queues, harried customers, and lots of questions.

Here are some difficulties the aam aadmi is facing as a result of the Modi Sarkar's ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore reports.

IMAGE: A long queue of people outside the ICICI Bank's Malad West branch in north-west Mumbai.

There were two separate queues: One to exchange Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the other for depositors.

All photographs: Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com

Jimit Dadha, his wife and his father took turns on Thursday, November 10, morning to stand outside a bank to exchange as well as deposit Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that ceased being legal tender on the midnight of November 8.

At 10 in the morning, Jimit was standing in front of the ICICI Bank, Malad West branch, northwest Mumbai, to exchange the denominations that have been demonetised.

"My wife stood in the queue from 8 in the morning. She left just now to take my son to school," Jimit, who replaced his wife in the queue, said.

Should his turn not come till noon, his father will substitute him in the queue.

All three family members have the exchange forms filled in their respective names with all the details.

"Whoever gets lucky while standing in the queue will help manage the household expenses for the next few days," Jimit added.

IMAGE: Hitesh Dedhia will lose a day's pay because he had taken leave to exchange the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes he had at home.

Like Jimit, Hitesh Dedhia (at the ICICI Bank, Malad) and Thimmappa at DCB (Malad West) have queued up since 9 am to exchange Rs 4,000 -- the maximum permissible limit the government has allowed till November 24.

"It might take another hour before I get to exchange the Rs 4,000 (8 notes of Rs 500) I have," says Thimmappa, a businessman who trades in iron scrap.

Thimmappa took the help of people around to fill the form issued by banks for exchanging the banknotes.

"Why this hassle? Why stand in a queue for no fault of mine?" he asked.

IMAGE: Thimmappa had no clue how to fill the form available for the exchange of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Hitesh, too, has come to exchange Rs 4,000 (6 notes of Rs 500 and one note of Rs 1,000) that he had at home when Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation at 8 pm, November 7.

"I was shocked that the government was giving so short a notice to people, but then heaved a sigh of relief to hear that we actually had time till December 30," Hitesh, who works for a courier company, said.

The government, he said, should have given people more time to get these banknotes exchanged or should have devised a method to get the deposits and exchange of notes in a hassle free manner.

"I will lose a day's pay," Hitesh, who has taken leave, said.

"While liquid cash will not be a problem after a few days, I am worried how I am going to run my house for the next couple of days. Nobody is willing to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for vegetables and daily groceries."

IMAGE: The queues were longer outside PSU banks as compared to private banks, which were better organised.

Jimit too had taken a day off. He had no choice because the six workers at his plastic factory were on leave.

"They had some banknotes to exchange. Nobody was taking these notes from them as everybody fears long lines in front of the banks to get these notes exchanged."

Jimit, who deposited Rs 200,000 last week, was worried that he may face scrutiny from the tax authorities, and so refused to be photographed for this report.

He still had to deposit another 100,000.

IMAGE: A long queue outside the Bank of Maharashtra branch in Malad West.

"I am not afraid because I have legitimate money. But the problem is," he said, "in India, you face harassment from the tax authorities for no reason."

"Did we create the black money?" he asked, "Then why should people like us face this inconvenience? Those who have stashed ill-gotten wealth should face the music, not us."
It is beyond belief that Obama failed to sense the disconnect that had developed between the ruling elites and the 'masses' in America, something that Trump, albeit a novice in electoral politics, spotted almost instinctively, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.

In the hurly-burly of the November 8 election in the United States, what has been largely overlooked is that in many ways the moral and political responsibility for the crushing defeat of the Democratic Party lies squarely with President Barack Obama.

In America's political history, seldom has America's white working class voters abandoned the Democrats so decidedly as has happened.

Of course, there have been times such as when southern whites marched out with Alabama Governor George Wallace deserting the Democratic Party over the highly emotive issue of segregation, but those were episodic events.

Whereas, what happened on November 8 is something vastly different -- a gravitational shift.

This happened only because the Democrats also abandoned the white working class and have been complicit in rigging the economy in favour of the privileged section at the top of the heap of American society.

In retrospect, Obama followed the footfalls of Bill Clinton in making promises to the working class to make political capital out of it in election time, which eventually turned out to be empty words once they were ensconced in power in the White House.

In the ultimate analysis, both cared much more for the interests of the Wall Street. So, the legacy became a combustible mix -- free trade, shrinking trade unions, Wall Street bailouts, rising corporate market power.

This naturally manifested as a grotesque power shift that runs against the very grain of democratic fabric. For, as a commentator put it, 'You shift political and economic power to the wealthy, you shaft the working class'.

Obama cannot have the alibi that the Congress was unhelpful because the root problem lay somewhere else -- namely, the Faustian deal whereby the ruling elites became financially dependent on the corporate and Wall Street campaign coffers.

Suffice it to say, Obama ended up merely enacting palliatives in a vain attempt to paper over the increasing concentration of wealth and power in America.

The unprecedented frenzy with which Obama, as the incumbent president, and his wife got involved as campaigners in the election of his successor goes to show that this cerebral man carries a guilty conscience.

He understands that he is largely responsible for the disintegration of the grand coalition that has been traditionally the mainstay of Democrats -- a huge coalition of the working class and the poor, of whites, blacks and Latinos.

He goofed up at a historic juncture.

It is simply beyond belief that Obama failed to sense the disconnect that had developed between the ruling elites and the 'masses' in America, something that Trump, albeit a novice in electoral politics, spotted almost instinctively.

Obama should not have interfered with Bernie Sanders' candidacy.

Obama is not a Tony Blair who consciously moulded the New Labour Party. Sanders would have been Obama's natural successor.

As a gifted politician, he should have known that America stood to gain out of a contestation between Trump and Sanders.

Simply put, Obama who knew Hillary Clinton better than most as a teflon-coated politician without convictions, ruthlessly opportunistic to the point of being cynical -- assuming even one-fourth of Mark Landers' political work Alter-Egos is based on facts -- should have had no reason on earth to get so obsessed with her candidacy.

Furthermore, by the incomprehensible act of championing Hillary Clinton, Obama also rubbed salt into the wounds of the dispossessed and the alienated sections of the lowest strata of society for whom she somehow epitomised all that was rotten in the American political establishment.

But then, the paradox lies somewhere else.

The point is, through the past 8-year period, Obama himself changed unrecognisably.

This grass-root politician who began his career doing community work among the poor and the marginalised in Chicago, who stormed the citadel in 2008 as the quintessential outsider with the audacity of hope as his main trump card, himself ended up tragically as a prisoner of big corporations, Wall Street and the wealthy, and representing their interests.

What a fall! And what a legacy in American political history for the country's first African-American president!

Trump drove home the point when he said with great poignancy in his 'victory speech' in New York, 'The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.'

Photograph: Pete Souza/White House Photo
While Trump played on fears about Muslims and immigrants, Hillary played out the fear of Trump, says Sankrant Sanu.

2004. I was in an office in Seattle chatting up the receptionist in the run-up to the presidential elections in which George W Bush and John Kerry were the Republican and Democratic Party candidates.

Bush had had an eventful first term with the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in 2001, followed by, what I considered, a disastrous invasion of Iraq. The Iraq war was a terrible decision, I told the middle-aged woman. She nodded, but my words hadn't really registered.

"They attacked us," she said, quite convinced of that truth. My logic had little effect.

Even in the Blue-leaning state of Washington, I knew she'd be voting for Bush's second term as president.

That event from years ago, gave me an insight into the American mind, and led me to predict the outcome of this presidential election on September 13.

Even though Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 and was possibly the most secular of the Middle-East dictators, the vote for Bush was visceral. It did not work on logic, but on fear.

And fear is the key to understanding this American election as well.

Trump played on visceral fears of radical Islam and 'Mexican immigrants.' He stuck at the nerve of political correctness created by the Left's hypocrisy and apologia for right-wing Islam.

That doesn't mean that Trump was right. His fanning of fear of immigrants and Muslims was demagoguery.

The US has a tiny Muslim population and does not face a major Muslim terror threat.

Since 9/11, there have been more incidents of right-wing (non-Islamic) terror in the US than by Muslims.

Heck, more people die of falling televisions in the US every year than they die in terror attacks.

But televisions do not make great antagonists. But the visuals shown by them play up the rhetoric of fear, of an America under siege from radical Islam.

Hillary too understood the fear factor.

While Trump played on fears about Muslims and immigrants, Hillary played out the fear of Trump.

Trump supporters were 'deplorable.' They were, literally, the barbarians at the gate.

A Trump presidency would lead to a nuclear holocaust, and Trump was too temperamental to be trusted with the nuclear button.

Hillary not only found support in the Democratic party establishment and much of the media, but also chunks of the Republican party, including former presidents who refused to endorse Trump.

Even the Conservative establishment, including newspapers that had never before endorsed a Democrat, ended up batting in Hillary's favour.

While fear is the key, hope plays a part too.

The media and the major establishment backing Hillary meant that another theme played out in this post-Internet age -- the triumph of social media over mainstream media.

Upsets against the establishment, the talking heads, the opinion makers, and what N N Taleb calls the 'intellectual yet idiots', have played out in votes across the globe.

When Modi was rising to power a whole host of 'prominent intellectuals' wrote an open letters advising people not to vote for him.

Such was the case in Brexit as well.

Here, too, in op-eds and letters, from 'eminent economists' to Nobel Laureates, the 'establishment' lined up behind Hillary.

But people had lost trust in the establishment and its crony networks that showed up in the leaked emails of the Democratic National Committee and in the Podesta Files.

A number of supporters of Bernie Sanders, who has voiced their distaste at the establishment politics that Hillary epitomised, were ready to 'hold their nose' and back Trump.

It was an unlikely shift from the radical Left to the alt Right.

Logically it made little sense for someone who supported Bernie's near Socialist ideas and record of civil-rights activism to throw their weight behind a candidate who all but called global warming a hoax and targeted underprivileged groups.

But people do not vote with logic. They often turn up to vote swayed by emotion and by their gut.

As a non-establishment outsider, Trump turned up as an unlikely saviour.

For the conservatives backing her, Hillary was a known evil, someone they could work with. They may not have agreed with everything she espoused, but with her neo-con leanings she represented the interventionist, aggressive end of American policy.

Conversely, for some Bernie supporters, Trump was the radical choice -- an outsider, a non-interventionist, who could disown American trade deals or even the NATO alliance.

Some Indian Americans also backed Trump, who milked this by playing on Modi's popularity with a corny rendition of 'Abki Bar, Trump Sarkar.' However, for the most part, Modi and Trump could not be more different.

Trump was born with a silver spoon, while Modi climbed his way from poverty.

Trump had never held a public position while Modi became PM on the back of successive successful terms as the chief minister of Gujarat.

Trump is an ostentatious philanderer, while Modi is an abstemious brahmachari.

Modi is a yogi immersed in India's pluralistic traditions while Trump was backed by right-wing Christian evangelicals intent on 'one religion, one god' for the world.

Trump's rhetoric was divisive, picking on one group or another, while Modi campaigned on the inclusive slogan of 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas.'

If there is any similarity it is this. Both Trump and Modi were hated by the entrenched media establishments and power centres who ran vicious campaigns against them.

As this charged American election cycle comes to an end, there are notes of caution for everyone involved.

For those Hindu Americans who supported Trump, on the basis of his recognising the threat posed by Islamic expansionism, a note of caution.

Trump may not do much at all but the genie of hate, once unbottled, may equally turn on them.

A section of Trump supporters are too ignorant or charged up to distinguish one brown man from another -- be careful what you wish for.

For the 'liberal' establishment too, there are lessons.

Did their sabotaging Bernie Sander' candidacy for establishment-favoured Hillary cost them the election?

Does the paradox of the Left's support for a right-wing Islam, which often manifests in death to atheists and gays and the burqa-clad imprisonment of women, undermine their 'progressive' claims?

In the end, the Trump story has just begun. Despite the campaign pronouncements no one really knows what a Trump presidency will bring.

Will he please the social conservatives or will he return to the more liberal views on abortion and other social issues he has espoused in the past?

Will he really throw away treaties or will the pragmatic business tycoon override the wily campaigner?

Will he clean up the 'corrupt system' that is beholden to special interests or will he quickly become one of them?

Will he build on the climate of fear or pull back from the interventionist legacy of successive Republican and Democratic governments?

Could he do the unthinkable and actually roll back the interventionist military-industrial complex and invest that money in education and communities that really need them?

In an election season that went beyond all logic, this Bernie supporter can still dream.

IMAGE: Then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump points to supporters at the end of his rally at the SNHU Arena on November 7, 2016, in Manchester, New Hampshire. Photograph: Scott Eisen/Getty Images
After scrapping Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, the government will introduce new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes. Here is the new look of new notes.

Rs 500 note

The new design in the Rs 500 denomination incorporates a different colour, size, theme, design and location of security features,

The note, measuring 63 mm by 150 mm will be in a new colour (stone grey) and the predominant theme will be Delhi's Red Fort.

Rs 2000 note

The Rs 2,000 note, which is a first under the denomination, will be called the 'Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series' and has the motif of the low-cost mission to Mars, the Mangalayan, on the reverse, the RBI said.

The base colour of the note will be magenta and the size of the note will be 66 mm by 166 mm, it said.

Both the new designs, Rs 500 and Rs 2,000, will be very friendly towards the visually-impaired by having features which make it accessible for all sections.

The RBI has also started a helpline number for the citizens who may face any difficulties, economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das said.

Citizens can reach out to the RBI on 022-22602201 022-22602944 starting Wednesday for any doubts and clarifications.
Many prominent Indian-Americans could be part of Donald Trump's administration, a senior Republican leader has said, asserting that the president-elect has a "history of hiring the best talent".

With Trump kicking off the process of building a formidable team to help him run the country beginning January 20 next year, Harmeet Kaur Dhillon, who holds the position of Republican National Committee's National Committeewoman, said the 70-year-old tycoon will look for the best available talent for his administration.

"Trump has a history of hiring the best talent. I fully expect to see many prominent Indian-Americans in the new administration," Dhillon, who is the highest ranking Indian-American in the Republican Party, said on Wednesday.

Ronald Regan was the first United States president to appoint an Indian-American in his administration. Outgoing US President Barack Obama has the distinction of appointing a record number of more than 75 Indian-Americans in his administration.

The Trump transition team headed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has not indicated anything on the selection process, but Trump in his victory speech said that he was looking for the best available talent in the country to work in his administration.

"I will harness the creative talents of our people and we will call upon the best and brightest to leverage their tremendous talent for the benefit of all. It's going to happen," Trump told his supporters in New York.

A recent Pew research report said that Indian-Americans had the highest number of engineers and medical doctors and are responsible for starting the largest number of startups in the Silicon Valley.

Dhillon said Trump's stunning victory last night heralded a new era of opportunity and promise for all Americans, which will also benefit Indian-Americans.

"As a diverse community with energy and a desire to succeed and excel in this great nation we call home, Indian Americans can expect the new President to focus on lowering regulatory burdens, reducing taxes on individuals and corporations, focusing on jobs and growth for the US before other countries, enforce the laws of the US, including its immigration laws and keep our nation safe from harm," she said.

Eminent Indian-American Republican from Texas Ashok Mago said that the victory of Trump was good for India and Indian Americans.

"President-elect Trump is for legal immigration and preferably highly skilled individuals and that approach is good for India," he said, adding that Trump is against radical Islam and so is India.

Under Trump presidency one should expect much more cooperation between the US and India, he said.

"Indian American community should forget the party affiliations and extend their full support to president elect Trump for all of us to make America Great Again," Mago said.

"Trump win is historical in US history. He has changed major political system in USA. He will be a great president and will build greater relations with India," said Raju Chintala, Indiana Chair and Chair for Asian Americans for Trump-Pence Campaign.
India and Japan will ink about 12 pacts and possibly sign a crucial civil nuclear deal on Friday after wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Shinzo Abe aimed at giving a fillip to the bilateral strategic relations.

"Looking forward to fruitful deliberations that will boost economic and cultural ties between India and Japan," tweeted Modi, who arrived in Tokyo after a brief stopover in Thai capital Bangkok to pay respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illnes.

He also tweeted in Japanese along with his arrival picture.

At their annual Summit, Modi and Abe will discuss ways to enhance ties in a broad range of areas, including security, trade and investment, skill development and infrastructure development.

He will address Japanese business leaders during his two days of official programme here and in Kobe.

Ahead of his visit, Modi said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo on November 11.

"I will have detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties," he said.

After the Summit talks, about 12 pacts will be signed by the two sides, sources said, adding these would cover areas like skill development, cultural exchanges and infrastructure.

Amid high expectations about the civil nuclear deal being signed tomorrow, the two sides were in the process of concluding the negotiations, sources said.

The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abe's visit to India last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.

Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week. When specifically asked whether the pact will be signed during Modi's visit, he only said, "I cannot pre-judge outcome of the talks."

Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two sides have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

In Tokyo, Modi will also have an audience with Japanese Emperor Akihito. He will also meet some opposition and other political leaders.

From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway. He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed trains are manufactured.

"Our partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order," Modi had said in his pre-departure statement.
Ruling Shiromani Akali Dal on Thursday called an "emergency meeting" after Punjab suffered a serious setback with the Supreme Court holding as "unconstitutional" the 2004 law passed by it to terminate the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal water sharing agreement with neighbouring states.

The party's alliance partner in Punjab, the Bharatiya Janata Party, also toed the SAD line after the apex court's verdict. The BJP said, "Punjab does not have any surplus water to share with any other state."

"An emergency meeting of the Punjab Cabinet to discuss issues pertaining to the SYL canal (water sharing) verdict has been summoned here this evening," Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said.

"Everything will be decided either in the (SAD) Core Committee or the Cabinet meeting," he told reporters declining to make any further comment on the issue.

Meanwhile, Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh resigning from his Lok Sabha seat while his party MLAs resigned en-masse from the state assembly, "in protest against the injustice meted out to the people of the state".

Amarinder, who is also former Punjab Chief Minister, has sent his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker, copy of which was released to the media in Chandigarah, and has also sought a personal meeting with the Speaker next week.

The party MLAs have also sent their resignations to the Speaker, Punjab Assembly, and will meet him on Friday morning to personally hand over their papers.

Badal dubbed the resignation of Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh as MP and his party's MLAs decision to follow the suit in the wake of the Supreme Court's verdict as "mere drama".

"His resignation and that of others is a drama. Assembly polls are due in two months. Won't they contest the next election. It is just a drama," he alleged.

The Supreme Court's verdict comes at a crucial juncture with Punjab going to polls early next year. The contentious issue is likely to have political ramifications.

Punjab BJP leader Vineet Joshi said, "We are not against giving water to Haryana or any other state of India, but the issue is Punjab does not have the surplus water to share. We cannot give water at the cost of our farmers."

The apex court judgment termed the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 as "unconstitutional" and said Punjab could not have taken a "unilateral" decision to terminate the water sharing agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.

In his resignation letter, Captain Amarinder said he had decided to quit as member of the 16th Lok Sabha from Amritsar constituency in Punjab with immediate effect "as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of my state of the much-needed Sutlej river water."

Describing the SYL judgement by the apex court as a "major blow to the people of Punjab," Amarinder said here he had always fought for their legitimate right on this issue and continues to stand by them at this critical juncture in the states journey.

Blaming the Akalis squarely for bringing the people of Punjab to this pitiable situation, where they faced imminent devastation due to acute water scarcity, Amarinder said Badal and his team had "failed" to defend Punjabs stand in the court, leading to such disastrous consequences for the state.

"The Akalis let down the people of Punjab on this critical issue, selling off their interests to Haryana," said Amarinder, accusing the Badal government of promoting its "vested political interests at the cost of the interests of the state."

Earlier in Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said, "Come what may, we will not allow even a single drop of precious river water of Punjab to go outside the state."

"Only the SAD-BJP government took special care of interests of all sections of the society," he alleged.

"Amarinder Singh had welcomed the then prime minister Indira Gandhi when she came to lay the foundation of the SYL canal at Kapoori," he claimed, adding now, Amarinder is indulging in "theatrics" eyeing next year's assembly polls.

On AAP, Sukhbir said, "How can AAP be trusted. Its convener Arvind Kejriwal spoke in favour of protecting interests of farmers in Punjab on SYL issue but the moment he returned to Delhi he started singing peans in favour of constructing the SYL canal."

The Akali-BJP government, Amarinder Singh, alleged had gone all out to scuttle every move of the Congress to bring relief to the people of Punjab in the SYL matter.

Amarinder claimed that the then Congress government headed by him had tried to "protect Punjabs interests through the Punjab Termination of Agreements Bill, 2004".

"The Badals never had the interests of the people of Punjab at heart, as is evident from the way they have handled the issue all these years. The theatrics they are now indulging in, by demanding royalty for water-sharing and asserting that they would not allow a single drop of water to leave Punjab, are not going to save Punjabs citizens," he said.

"On the contrary, the preposterous idea floated by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to seek royalty from other states using Sutlej water would be even more detrimental to the interests of Punjab, since it was itself using water receiving from neighbouring Himachal Pradesh.

"After helping out Haryana, it seems Badal is now trying to help Himachal Pradesh, by suggesting that it should demand royalty from Punjab," said Amarinder.

Accusing the Akali leader of shamelessly showing dual standards in the matter, the PPCC chief alleged that the Akali government in Punjab was responsible for putting the state on the back foot on the SYL issue.

"Badal had been instrumental in acquiring land for SYL construction in Punjab through a notification dated February 20, 1978, and taking money from Haryana, thus weakening Punjabs position in the prolonged dispute," he said.

Amarinder said "Badal issued the notification for land acquisition for the SYL on February 20, 1978 vide notification nos: 113/5/SYL and 121/5/SYL under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act. With this, the process of land acquisition started."

Subsequently, he said, "Badal wrote to Haryana government vide letters..demanding payment of Rs 3 crore more as he had already taken Rs 2 crore for the purpose. This was in follow up to an agreement between him and Devi Lal, the then Chief Minister of Haryana that Haryana will pay Rs 5 crores to Punjab."

IMAGE: Farmers filling the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal with the help of excavators in Saini Majra village in Punjab. Photograph: PTI Photo.
As India braces for a new world order, congruence on terrorism, current disquiet on immigration, short-term visa tops the wish list.

Archis Mohan, Shivani Shinde Nadhe, Aneesh Phadnis and Ayan Pramanik report.

IMAGE: A Hindu Sena member celebrates Donald Trump's victory. Photograph: Cathal McNaughton/Reuters

India's foreign policy minders in South Block, as also those who manage the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's Diaspora outreach, believe Donald Trump's triumph offers opportunities for New Delhi to reach out to the new administration on points of congruence between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump, particularly on the issue of terrorism that could help India further isolate Pakistan.

Prime Minister Modi was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump.

Modi said he looked forward to working together to enhance ties. During his election campaign, the US President-elect had good things to say about the Indian economy and the Indian PM's leadership.

The election time bonhomie between Trump and Hindu groups among the Indian Diaspora in the US aside, points of concerns in India about the policies of the putative Trump administration are quite a few.

South Block, as well as Indian industry, has apprehensions on several counts.

Trump's positions on climate change, outsourcing and immigration being the foremost.

During his campaign, the US president-elect had also questioned multilateral trade agreements, particularly the Trans-Pacific Partnership between the US and 11 other Pacific Rim countries.

Amid fears that Trump might restructure the H1B visa structure that could make it difficult for US firms to hire Indians IT professionals and also freeze Green Cards, stock prices of IT bellwethers such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, Tech Mahindra were down 4.93 per cent, 2.74 per cent, 1.27 per cent, 2.76 per cent, and 4 per cent, respectively, as the market closed.

There were also some looking at better prospects, especially in the pharmaceutical and real estate sectors.

Trump's proposal to lift entry barriers for drugmakers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper products bodes well for Indian companies, industry experts claimed.

On Trump's views on outsourcing -- he had once even made fun of accents of Indian call centre workers -- experts dismissed it as election time rhetoric, pointing out how US President Barack Obama had also talked about such issues.

On the diplomatic front, that Trump is largely dismissive of climate change is worrisome for India. In recent years, the Modi-Obama meetings had led India to collaborate with the US in the sector to get access to technology.

The only unanimous view among government officials and the BJP's foreign policy watchers is this -- a Trump victory offers India many more opportunities than what might have been in store if Hillary Clinton had won.

If Clinton were to win, the Indian foreign policy establishment even feared a return of hyphenation in the way Washington, DC views India-Pakistan relations.

The Overseas Friends of BJP, the Diaspora arm of the ruling party in New Delhi, was under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans, given Modi's popularity among the Diaspora, to indicate its support to their candidate.

"Our Diaspora has both Republicans and Democrats. There was no question of indicating our preference. This is an internal electoral process of the US. Our members and Diaspora communities made their own choices based on local conditions," OFBJP chief Dr Vijai Chauthaiwale said.

Foreign policy minders are alert to the opportunities that a Trump presidency offers India.

The new Trump administration, to take shape in the days to come, is being keenly watched.

Trump supporters like Shalabh Kumar, president of the Republican Hindu Coalition, and other non-resident Indians among the Republicans, could become points of contact with the Trump administration.

Kumar campaigned for Trump, donated a million dollars to the campaign and also organised a public meeting where Trump lauded the Hindu community for having made 'fantastic contributions to world civilisation and to American culture and we look forward to celebrating our shared values of free enterprise, hard work, family values and a strong American foreign policy.'

The Indians also have good contacts in the Heritage Foundation, a US-based conservative think-tank that has supported Trump's presidential campaign and is all set to play an important role during his presidency.

Trump's views on South Asia are not known. He has only been to India once, a visit to Mumbai where two buildings with his name were coming up.

But in early 2016, Trump said India had become a 'top place' for investment after Modi's election. He also said that Pakistan was 'the most dangerous country in the world today' and that India was the only country that could check Pakistan.

Trump has also identified China as a potential rival of the US, mostly in the context of trade. It is good news for New Delhi that he has come across friendlier towards Vladimir Putin-led Russia.

But New Delhi is unlikely to overinvest in Trump given the overarching assessment here that his tenure since his election has caused divisions in American society, is set to be fractious and unlikely to be more than one term.
Islamic State and Al Qaeda jihadists have hailed Donald Trumps win in presidential polls as the beginning of dark times for the United States with some extremists predicting Americas demise at the hands of the billionaire businessman, according to media reports.

Shortly after Trump was declared the victor, a number of prominent ideologues linked to jihadist outfits in the Middle East took to social media to cheer the prospect of a Trump presidency, The Washington Post reported.

Social-media sites associated with both the Islamic State and Al Qaeda hailed Trumps success as the beginning of dark times for the United States, marked by domestic unrest and new foreign military campaigns that would sap the strength of the American superpower, the report said.

Rejoice... and find glad tidings in the imminent demise of America at the hands of Trump, Islamic State-affiliated Al-Minbar Jihadi Media network was quoted as saying.

The remarks of jihadists signalled their apparent belief that the victory of a candidate like Trump, who has suggested blocks on Muslim immigration and advocated torture, undermines the US moral standing in the world.

Trumps win of the American presidency will bring hostility of Muslims against America as a result of his reckless actions, which show the overt and hidden hatred against them, said an essay, provided by the SITE Intelligence group, a private organisation that monitors jihadists web sites.

Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, on Twitter said, Al-Qaeda & IS supporters on election: Trump exposes US hatred of Muslims, will contribute to America/Wests downfall -- likening to Brexit.

She quoted pro-Al Qaeda accounts on social media as saying, On 9-11, US struck with disaster at the hands of AQ (al-Qaeda). On 11-9, US struck with disaster at the hands of their own voters.

Jihadists warn that Trump will unite the mujahideen; Announce: Bring it on, Donald; The mujahideen are ready! another tweet by Katz said.

A pro-Al Qaeda al-Maqalaat Twitter account predicted that Trump would make the US Enemy No.1 again, in the Muslim Middle East.

Trump will serve as the perfect straw man for the next four years, like Bush did before him, it said.

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a jihadist ideologue linked to Al Qaeda, gloated about Trumps victory, suggesting that it may be the beginning of Americas fragmentation and the era of its breakup, according to the Post.

Just ahead of polls, the Islamic State terror group had called for slaughter of American voters on election day and urged Muslims not to participate in the democratic process.

Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

-- FULL US ELECTION 2016 COVERAGE
After a historic United States presidential race that ended in a shocking victory for Republican candidate Donald Trump -- several people have called for First Lady Michelle Obama to run for president in 2020.

And its not surprising, considering Michelle Obama has become a popular figure in US politics throughout the two-year election campaign and her eight years as First Lady, delivering impassioned speeches about female potential and working tirelessly to fight childhood obesity.

Hundreds of people took to social media to voice their support for the First Lady, using the hashtag #Michelle2020.

Michelle Obama 2020 please, Michelle Obama 2020 please, Michelle Obama 2020 please, wrote Twitter user @CommonWhiteGrls.

Twitter user @dreynaKC made a prediction for 2020. Michelle Obama is the 46th president of the United States.

Another user wrote, Michelle Obama wouldn't even have to have a proper campaign in 2020. Walk on stage, say a couple words then bam shed win.

Dear @MichelleObama, I know you wanted to be done with the White House but were going to need you to run for president in 4 years, wrote @ericbalfour.

Unfortunately for her advocates, US President Barack Obama has previously said his wife would not want to run for president.

She will never run for office, he said during an appearance on a morning radio show.

Photograph: Ralph Freso/Getty Images
United States President Barack Obama on Thursday met for the first time his successor Donald Trump at the White House and vowed his support for him as the two leaders discussed domestic and foreign policy issues to take a step towards transition of power after a bitterly fought election.

The meeting between the two lasted for 90 minutes.

Obama described his meeting with Trump as "excellent" and wide-ranging.

"Most of all, I want to emphasise to you, Mr President elect, that we now are going to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed then the country succeed," he told media persons after the meeting.

"I have been very encouraged by an interest in president-elect Trump's wanting to work with my team around many of the issues that the country faces," Obama said.

"I believe that it is important for all regardless of party and regardless of political preferences to now come together, work together to deal with the many challenges we face.

"We talked about some of organisational issues in setting up the White House. We talked about foreign policy. We talked about domestic policy," he said.



Obama said his number one priority is to ensure smooth transition of power.

"As I sat last night, my number one in the next coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President-elect is successful," he said.

Trump said he looked forward to working with the President.

Trump said he had "respect for the president" and said they talked about some wonderful and difficult things.

Asked if he would seek the advice of the president, Trump said Obama was a "very fine man".

"We had never met.. The meeting was supposed to last 10 minutes... I have great respect... it went on for an hour-and-a-half and as far as I'm concerned it could have gone on longer... we really discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel," Trump said.

"Mr president, was a great honour being with you and I look forward to being with you many many more times in the future," he said.

Trump was accompanied by his wife, Melania, who will have a meeting with First Lady Michelle Obama.





Vice President-elect Mike Pence also accompanied them. The two have had almost no one-on-one contact previously.

Trump, 70, flew from New York on his private jet and landed at Reagan National Airport, just outside the nation's capital. Trump broke from protocol and barred journalists from travelling with him to cover his meeting with Obama.

The Republican president-elect has questioned Obama's US citizenship and vowed to dismantle his legacy.

During the election campaign Obama called Trump "uniquely unqualified".

IMAGES: US President Barack Obama meets President-elect Donald Trump to discuss transition plans in the White House Oval Office in Washington, US, November 10, 2016. PHOTGRAPHS: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Tweet by tweet, profile picture by profile picture, a new online campaign is taking shape to protest Donald Trumps election victory.

People are taking to Twitter to protest peacefully, via a movement called #TwitterBlackout.

They are changing their profile pictures to a blank black square. Some of them are also tweeting hopeful messages of support to the people that feel particularly vulnerable now that Trump, whose campaign was marked by divisive rhetoric, has won the White House.

In particular, a black colour image by one Alexandre Breveglieri was doing the rounds. Written on it were words that read To present that they are opposed to the result of Donald Trump becoming a president, Twitter users are changing their profile layouts to plain black.

Tonight, I stand with-Woman-People of color-The LGBTQ+ community-Muslims-Disabled people, wrote one user.

The LGBTQ+ community, Hispanics, Muslims, immigrants, POC, have always fought, & we will continue fighting, another wrote.

IMAGE: Katy Perry's Twitter feed after she joined the #blackout protest. Photograph: Katy Perry/Twitter

And it didnt take long for the blackout to spread to other platforms as individuals began switching the avatars on their Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr accounts to the solid black square.

On Twitter, Clinton supporters Lady Gaga and Katy Perry helped spread the word.

Earlier, thousands of anti-Trump protesters took to the streets of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, California, Colorado, Seattle and other cities protesting the shocking victory of Donald Trump.

The protesters held a multitude of placards expressing their resentment for Trump through slogans such as No more Hate and Not our President.

Additionally, Twitter also saw the trending of #RIPAmerica with many expressing their anguish over Trumps victory against Hillary Clinton.
IMAGE: Shalabh Kumar helps Donald Trump light a diya at the Republican Hindu Coalition event in Edison, New Jersey, October 15, 2016. Photograph: Reuters

'Foreign aid to Pakistan. Forget it, bye bye...'

'F-16s to Pakistan. Forget it.'

Shalabh Kumar, the desi who knows Donald Trump best, speaks to Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.

"It's a second Diwali!"

That's how Indian-American Republican activist Shalabh 'Shalli' Kumar ecstatically describes Wednesday, obviously the best day of The Donald's life.

"It was a historic moment."

The day, Kumar, founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition, says, when a man, who "loves Hindus," won a hard-fought battle for the White House and won.

This engineer and businessman, who runs AVG Electronics, an electronics manufacturing firm out of Chicago, was at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel along with hundreds of other dizzily elated Trump supporters to the wee hours of the morning.

No, champagne was not flowing. But "there was beer floating around. And a bar. And a lot of excitement," he says in a telephone interview with Rediff.com

"The electorate of the United States is very smart," says Kumar. "They have seen for years and years and years that traditional Democrats are beholden to lobbyists. Rather than (being) beholden to the citizens."

"(America) needed a total outsider, who is not driven by lobbyists, to take over control, because there are too many problems in the country otherwise..."



'You could almost call it Trump Sarkar and Modi Sarkar joining hands!' 'The two largest democracies on the face of this earth will make wonderful partners.''You could almost call it Trump Sarkar and Modi Sarkar joining hands!'

"The American electorate -- and I hope the world electorate -- is intelligent enough not to base decisions of who the next leader of the free world will be, based upon what Donald Trump said in a locker room 11 year old ago," says Kumar, referring to the incident where the president-elect was heard on an Access Hollywood tape making dereogatory references to women.

The win, Kumar declares, is particularly crucial for desis.

"We should be looking forward to a dramatic shift in policy -- US policy and its relation to Indian Americans, Hindu Americans, as well as towards India. Policies are going to significantly improve. Because Mr Trump... (he corrects himself) President Trump loves Hindus and loves India."

"And believes the two largest democracies on the face of this earth -- both very peaceful democracies; they do not like war, but peace through trade -- will make wonderful partners. Particularly under the leadership of two very like-minded leaders -- Donald Trump and (Narendra) Modi. You could almost call it Trump Sarkar and Modi Sarkar joining hands!" he says triumphantly.

That Trump likes Hindus is not something that Trump privately told Kumar. No sir. It is something, Kumar tells you, proudly, that the president-elect declared in public at the New Jersey Expo Center in October in front of 5,000 Indian Americans, in a ceremony "watched by hundreds of millions of people," where Trump even lit a diya.

But could Trump really like Indian immigrants, particularly Indian Hindu immigrants? When he dislikes Muslims, Mexicans, women and many other ethnic groups?

Kumar vigorously disagrees. Trump, he says, values the contributions of Hindu Americans to the American culture. And it is not that he dislikes Mexicans. Or even Muslims.

"Not at all," he declares. "He does not like troublemakers in any community. Mexicans, who are crossing the borders without any documents, as well as carrying a lot of drugs into the United States."

And Muslims coming in as refugees from countries that are waging 'World War III' and are 'enemies of the free world' are the ones Trump does not like.

Indian immigrants are educated, skilled, professionals, who don't do these things, Kumar says adamantly.

IMAGE: Donald Trump at his victory rally in New York, November 9, 2016. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

But what of America's now widespread collective depression post-Trump's unpredicted victory?

Or their anxieties that the man who has dotted the globe, from to Manila and Mumbai to Tampa, with towers named after him, does not have adequate governing experience or the temperament to lead America?

His anger at your question is almost perceptible, even if this is a transatlantic phone line you are speaking to him on.

He splutters irately, "He is any day a thousand times better leader than Hillary (Clinton) could ever be. What has the leadership of 20 years of experience of Hillary led to? What does she have to show for it? IS, Al Qaeda, terror attacks in the United States. That is what is called leadership?!"

"Obamacare? Where normal citizens in the country have to have two jobs to make their ends meet? Is this called leadership! Or the national debt rising from 9 trillion dollars to 19 trillion dollars? Is that called leadership?! Gawd forbid (the last said in a proper Republican twang with no hint of an Indian accent)."

What makes him certain that Trump has what it takes? That the Democratic candidate with '20 years experience' did not. "He is a very, very competent businessman. He is going to set the economy straight. The economy of the United States is stuck at 1. 2 per cent growth rate per year for almost seven years. After a deep recession, normal GDP growth rate is at least 4 to 5 percent."

"What Donald Trump has been able to do in the business world he can certainly do that for the nation. He is eminently more qualified and adequately qualified to run the affairs of the country."

But running a business is different from running a country. Right? Kumar politely requests you to recall what people said of Ronald Reagan when he got onto the road to the American presidency.

Kumar has a special regard for Reagan because an interaction with The Gipper, he says, converted him from the die-hard Democrat he was since he arrived in Chicago in 1969 from Punjab, into a Republican for life, because Reagan made him realise he was actually a conservative.

"When Ronald Reagan came on the scene the same press labeled Ronald Reagan as an incompetent, dumb actor, who would lead the world to the brink of nuclear war."



'F-16s to Pakistan. Forget it.' 'Foreign aid to Pakistan. Forget it, bye bye...''F-16s to Pakistan. Forget it.'

"And what happened? The record you obviously know. In the next seven years the economy grew -- had enough GDP growth -- that it created 45 million new jobs... And got rid of the evil Soviet empire... Such a performance was a (new) precedent in American history."

"I am sure Donald Trump will not only replicate that regime, that golden age in American history in the 1980s, (but put on) an even better performance in the upcoming years."

How does that guarantee a better relationship for India?

Why is he certain that India stands to gain from a Trump White House?

Given that the businessman-turned-president-elect recently said that India had stolen American jobs,

"Every policy which the other side had initiated will be reversed. I will give you all the specifics. Foreign aid to Pakistan. Forget it, bye bye... F-16s to Pakistan. Forget it."

"Immigration policies that affect revenue to India of almost $30 billion a year. And Bill 744 which would have required almost 500,000 Indian IT professionals to have to go back to India those who are on H-1 visas."

"There is a bill going on right now, HR 6069, to declare Pakistan as a terrorist State. Even though Indian Americans collected almost 1 billion signatures in support of HR 6069, the administration found it technically deficient to make it null and void. Those kind of things will not happen under a Trump administration."

"I could go on, bill after bill after... Card check legislation, which will never see the light of day under a Trump Sarkar..."

Kumar's association with Trump goes back five years when they first met at a donor meeting and he has gotten to know him better since.

He describes Trump as: "A great businessman. Acts like a businessman. Not like a politician. Straightforward. To the point. Quick. Very smart. Eager to learn. Obviously very, very friendly. A warm person."

"Quite knowledgeable about India. Loves India. Loves Indian people. Quite familiar with India."
South Sudan will face escalating food crisis in 2017, UN agriculture agency warns

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 7 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, South Sudan will face escalating food crisis in 2017, UN agriculture agency warns, 7 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824751540c.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

7 November 2016 - As the conflict in South Sudan grinds on, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned today that 31 per cent of the country's population, or 3.7 million people, are facing a severe food security risk, despite the end of the lean food season and start of harvests - a major increase from the one million who were in a similar situation at this time last year.

This time of year in South Sudan, people generally are more secure due to higher food stocks and lower market prices, but the FAO warned that the risk of famine is looming, especially for the most vulnerable communities.

"The renewed violence has had severe repercussions on agricultural production and stability needs to be restored to enable farmers to return to their fields," said Serge Tissot, FAO representative.

"We are seeing an unprecedented number of food insecure people at harvest time and many more people at risk of starvation in the months to come as stocks run out. There is a need to act now to prevent a catastrophe," he urged.

Part of the reason for the growing insecurity is due to the violence that has impacted the Equatoria region, which is responsible for over half of South Sudan's net cereal production. About 50 per cent of all harvests have been lost in areas affected by the violence. Many farmers have been unable to plant seeds for the second season due to not only armed conflict, but also displaced persons.

Northern Bahr el Ghazal is one of the most fragile areas of the country. It has seen a protracted economic crisis, market failure, and the loss or depletion of livelihood assets. FAO found that farmers in the region have produced less than they did last year; some areas were hard-hit by flooding and dry spells, and reports found that in Aweil East, sorghum production was reduced by nearly 50 per cent.

Since the start of the fighting in Juba (the capital) and elsewhere in the country, cereal prices have increased by more than 500 per cent in only a year. Rampant insecurity along main roads has crippled trade and trader's abilities to access hard currency for imports. Many have been forced to shut down their businesses.

"With the market collapsing and many families having little to no safety nets to cope, we must empower them with the means to produce their own food. With this we want to structurally strengthen their livelihoods and boost their resilience," explained Mr. Tissot.

In the coming dry season campaign, FAO intends to distribute vegetable and fishing kits as well as training to farmers on modern farming techniques for 1.2 million people. Meanwhile, the organization is gearing up to respond to the country's most dire needs for the main planting season, including providing needed agricultural inputs in order to enable the most vulnerable citizens to continue to produce their own food. FAO will require an additional $28 million by the end of 2016 to accomplish these goals.

South Sudan has faced ongoing challenges since a political face-off between President Salva Kiir and his Vice-President Riek Machar erupted into full blown conflict in December 2013. The crisis has produced one of the world's worst displacement situations with immense suffering for civilians.

Despite the August 2015 peace agreement that formally ended the war, conflict and instability have also spread to previously unaffected areas in the Greater Equatoria and Greater Bahr-El-Ghazal regions of South Sudan.
Colombia: UN Mission, Government and FARC-EP to start joint ceasefire monitoring and verification

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 6 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Colombia: UN Mission, Government and FARC-EP to start joint ceasefire monitoring and verification, 6 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824753c2b.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

6 November 2016 - The tripartite Mechanism coordinated by the UN Mission in Colombia, with Colombia's Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP), will begin to monitor and verify the ceasefire and cessation of hostilities tomorrow, Monday, 7 November.

The joint Monitoring and Verification Mechanism will gradually begin its work based in eight regional offices, as the separation of forces will take place in temporary locations throughout the country.

I wish to highlight that I witness the commitment from the parties every day; this gives us confidence, tranquility and the certainty that this peace process will come to fruition, said General Perez Aquino, head of the UN Mission's international observers, during the first press conference held with the joint Mechanism representatives this past Friday in Bogota.

Barely one month ago, Colombian voters narrowly rejected the historic peace accord between the Government and the FARC-EP meant to end the Western Hemisphere's longest running conflict. The deal was the culmination of four years of talks hosted in Havana, Cuba, between the two sides, and which led to agreements on key issues such as political participation, land rights, illicit drugs and victims' rights and transitional justice.

Both the Government and the FARC-EP reiterated their commitment to maintain the ceasefire.

Admiral Orlando Romero, Government of Colombia representative in the Mechanism, explained that all parts are clear about the commitments to the rules governing the ceasefire and to the population's rights, under the ceasefire's framework.

Further, Marco Leon Calarca, FARC-EP representative in the Mechanism, said it is time to reiterate the commitment of the FARC-EP to the bilateral ceasefire and cessation of hostilities as a foundation for the stable peace that we need to achieve. He also explained that more than 300 of his men and women were trained as members of the tripartite Mechanism.

To enable the ceasefire monitoring and verification the guerrillas are moving to temporary locations, also to ensure the safety of the civilian population and of FARC-EP and Public Force members. During the press conference the parties stressed that any citizen can file complaints or concerns directly to the joint Monitoring and Verification Mechanism, according to the UN Mission.

General Perez Aquino hailed the UN Security Councils  and the international community's  support to the peace process and stressed the importance of reaching a final peace agreement in the near future. He also clarified that the UN Mission has no deadline to stay in the country and will continue to work in Colombia as long as there is a request from the parties.

Finally, Government of Colombia and FARC-EP officials thanked the support from the International Committee of the Red Cross to the process.
New UN survey reveals extensive damage to health system in war-torn Yemen

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 7 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, New UN survey reveals extensive damage to health system in war-torn Yemen, 7 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824755840e.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

7 November 2016 - There are critical shortages in medical doctors in over 40 per cent of all Yemeni districts, with more than half of all health facilities closed or partially functioning as the conflict continues, a new World Health Organization (WHO) survey has revealed.

After examining 16 out of 22 Yemen's governorates, the WHO's Health Resources Availability Mapping System (HeRAMS) found that out of total 3,507 surveyed health facilities, only 1579 (45 per cent) are fully functional and accessible, 1,343 (38 per cent) are partially functional and 504 (17 per cent) are non-functional. Findings also revealed that 274 health facilities were damaged as a result of the ongoing conflict.

The WHO stated that 49 out of 276 districts have no medical doctors, with 42 per cent of surveyed districts having two doctors or less, and only 6.2 beds available for every 10,000 people, which is below the international benchmark.

Less than 40 per cent of health facilities are able to provide a full package of health care services, and only 21 per cent of facilities offer full services for non-communicable diseases and mental health conditions.

Child health and nutrition services are available in 63 per cent of health facilities, while communicable disease management is available in 43 per cent of the surveyed facilities, the WHO reports.

The agency also expressed concerns over the critical shortages in health services, which leads to more people being deprived of access to live-saving interventions, adding that there is a lack of essential antenatal care, skilled birth care and postpartum/postnatal interventions and immunization services for mothers and their new-born babies.

The WHO stressed that the absence of adequate communicable diseases management increases the risk of outbreaks such as cholera, measles, malaria, and other endemic diseases.

More than 21 million people are in need of urgent health services as a result of the ongoing conflict in Yemen, including 2.1 million of internally displaced people. The fighting affected almost all 22 governorates, killing 7070 and injuring 36,818 people, according to health facility-based data.

Yemen has been engulfed in violence for more than 18 months - a confrontation between the country's Houthis (Ansar Allah) and the Government of Yemen in early 2014 led to a Houthi advance on the capital, and an ensuing conflict which has involved support from outside parties. The UN has been heavily involved in efforts to resolve the crisis.
Prospect of solution 'within reach,' Ban says, as Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders open talks

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 7 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Prospect of solution 'within reach,' Ban says, as Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders open talks, 7 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824759e40e.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

7 November 2016 - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon offered his "full support" to the talks between the Greek Cypriot leader and the Turkish Cypriot leader, concentrated on the chapter of territory, as well as other outstanding issues interdependently, kicked off today in Switzerland.

"The two leaders have reached a critical juncture in their talks. I encourage them to make the most of the moment and the momentum," Mr. Ban told the press in Mont Pelerin, where the negotiations are being held.

"I call on all interested parties - especially the guarantor powers Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom - as well as the wider international community, to support the leaders in their efforts to finally overcome the division of their island," he added.

Hailing the significant progress made in the leader-led process over the past 18 months, Mr. Ban highlighted the hope expressed by the two leaders that this meeting will pave the way for the last phase of the talks in line with their shared commitment to do their utmost in order to reach a settlement within 2016.

"At the same time, a number of sensitive and difficult issues still remain. I know the two leaders are here with a strong commitment and determination to work towards solving all these issues," noted the Secretary-General.
Afghanistan: UN Mission probing air strikes that allegedly killed 32 civilians in Kunduz

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 7 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Afghanistan: UN Mission probing air strikes that allegedly killed 32 civilians in Kunduz, 7 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/582475b840c.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

7 November 2016 - The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has said that it is currently investigating allegations that at least 32 civilians were killed and a further 19 injured in airstrikes in Kunduz city, which is in the north of the country, last Thursday.

"The loss of civilian life is unacceptable and undermines efforts toward building peace and stability in Afghanistan," said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), in a news release issued yesterday.

"When conducting aerial operations, international military forces should take all feasible measures to minimize civilian harm, including full analysis of the context for aerial strikes," he added.

In the early hours of 3 November, a series of airstrikes were carried out in Buz-e-Kandahari area of Kunduz city, following ground operations conducted by international and Afghan security forces there, in which pro-Government forces came under attack by anti-Government elements.

In a statement released Saturday, United States Forces-Afghanistan acknowledged it had conducted air-to-ground engagements at that time in that area, with the commander, General John W. Nicholson, expressing his deep regret for the loss of innocent lives.

Preliminary findings indicate that the aerial operation killed at least 32 civilians and injured an additional 19 civilians, the vast majority of whom were women and children. UNAMA also received reports that the air strikes severely damaged at least 22 houses.

In Kunduz, Afghanistan, about 2500 families displaced by conflict, receive humanitarian assistance from various agencies. Photo: OCHA/Mohammad Sadiq Zaheer

UNAMA urged authorities to ensure an independent, impartial and prompt investigation at the earliest opportunity, and for appropriate steps to be taken to ensure accountability, compensation for victims and the prevention of such incidents in the future.

According to the news release, this incident took place in the context of significant countrywide violence, with civilians bearing the brunt.

In the past week, the Mission has documented 46 separate incidents of conflict-related violence, resulting in severe civilian harm, including deaths and injuries from ground engagements, improvised explosive devices, aerial attacks from rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, targeted killings and explosive remnants of war.

Between 30 October and 5 November, the mission documented a preliminary figure of 206 civilian casualties, 95 deaths and 111 injuries.

In accordance with its mandate to support the protection of civilians in armed conflict, UNAMA will continue to investigate credible allegations of harm caused to civilians by all parties to the conflict. Fuller information on this and other serious incidents will be provided in the Mission's 2016 Protection of Civilians Annual Report, slated for release in January 2017.

The UN Mission expressed its sincere condolences to the families of victims and wished a speedy recovery to those injured.

UNAMA is mandated to support the Afghan Government and the people of Afghanistan as a political mission that provides 'good offices'; promotes coherent development support by the international community; supports the process of peace and reconciliation; monitors and promotes human rights and the protection of civilians in armed conflict; promotes good governance; and encourages regional cooperation.

'Good offices' are diplomatic measures UN takes publicly and in private, drawing on its independence, impartiality and integrity, to prevent international disputes from arising, escalating or spreading.
Iraq: As anti-ISIL operation intensifies, civilians increasingly at risk, UN official warns

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 7 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Iraq: As anti-ISIL operation intensifies, civilians increasingly at risk, UN official warns, 7 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/582475e640c.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

7 November 2016 - Amid the intensification of the military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) in northern Iraq and its impact on civilians, a senior United Nations humanitarian official in the country has raised alarm their safety and called on all sides to ensure that they are protected.

"We are deeply disturbed by reports of civilian deaths and injuries from crossfire and improvised mines, forced recruitment of children and the use of families as human shields in areas under control of ISIL," Lise Grande, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq said in a news release issued yesterday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In one such incident, 18 displaced people from Kirkuk's Hawiga district (about 300 kilometres north of Baghdad) were reportedly killed last Friday when roadside bombs destroyed the truck they were being transported in by Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).

Noting ISF efforts to protect the general population, Ms. Grande added: "All the parties to the conflict - all of them - are obliged under international humanitarian law to do everything possible to protect civilians and ensure they have access to the assistance they deserve and need."

According to the UN humanitarian arm, nearly 34,000 people have been displaced following the launch of the military offensive to retake the city of Mosul three weeks ago. An additional 39,000 people have been displaced from Hawiga district since early August.

The majority of displaced families are being sheltered in emergency sites and with host communities.

OCHA further noted that humanitarian agencies are providing life-saving assistance to displaced families and to people in newly retaken areas, and new emergency sites are being constructed and emergency supplies continue to be pre-positioned.
Mali: Ban strongly condemns attack that kills two civilians and one peacekeeper

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 7 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Mali: Ban strongly condemns attack that kills two civilians and one peacekeeper, 7 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824760440c.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

7 November 2016 - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the deadly attack yesterday in northern Mali that claimed the life of two Malian civilians and killing one peacekeeper from Togo while injuring seven others.

The Secretary-General condemns in the strongest terms the deadly complex attack north of Douentza, in the Mopti region, and reiterates that attacks targeting United Nations peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law, said Mr. Ban's spokesperson in a statement issued overnight.

Mr. Ban called for the perpetrators of this attack to be brought to justice, and reaffirmed that attacks against the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) will not weaken the determination of the Mission to fully implement its mandate in support of the Malian Government, the parties to the peace agreement and the people of Mali to achieve lasting peace and stability.

The UN chief underscored that the primary responsibility for peace and security lies with the Malian parties, urging them to continue to work to fully implement the provisions of the peace agreement and to do all they can to prevent such attacks against Malian civilians, signatory parties and international forces.

The Secretary-General extends his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and the Governments and people of Mali and Togo, and wishes a speedy and full recovery to the wounded peacekeepers, said the statement.
Some 3,500 people fleeing South Sudan each day due to ongoing conflict  UN refugee agency

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 4 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Some 3,500 people fleeing South Sudan each day due to ongoing conflict  UN refugee agency, 4 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824762940c.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

4 November 2016 - The ongoing conflict in South Sudan has led to immense suffering and displacement, with an average of 3,500 people fleeing the country each day to neighbouring countries, prompting the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), national authorities, and other humanitarian actors to race to create safe and humane conditions for arrivals - 90 per cent of whom are women and children.

People are fleeing South Sudan to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Sudan, and Uganda, which has seen the greatest number of outflow, with 2,400 arrivals every day since early October and a quarter million new refugees since the re-eruption of violence in Juba that began on 7 July 2016.

UNHCR reports that most refugees are fleeing the Equatoria regions of South Sudan, which borders Uganda and is home to Juba. People leaving the region are reporting harassment by armed groups, killings and torture of people suspected of supporting opposing factions, villages set on fire, sexual assault of women and girls, and forced recruitment of young men and boys.

As armed groups have prevented people from using main roads, refugees in recent weeks are increasingly using informal border crossing points. Many have walked through the bush for days without food or water.

The Bidibidi refugee settlement in Uganda, opened only in August of this year, is now one of the largest refugee-hosting areas in the world and home to 170,000 South Sudanese refugees.

"Providing immediate, life-saving assistance, including food, water and shelter remains UNHCR's key priority," said Cecile Pouilly, UNHCR spokesperson at the regular press briefing in Geneva. "But severe underfunding is hampering our efforts on the ground."

South Sudanese refugee boys holding chickens on arrival in Uganda. Photo: Samuel Okiror/IRIN

She also cited challenges with water supply efforts in Bidibidi, as needs are quickly outpacing resources. UNHCR is working to identify water sources for the camp, as water is currently being provided via trucks from a treatment plant 50 kilometres away - an extremely costly option.

In Ethiopia, Nguenyyiel, a new refugee camp that was opened on 20 October after existing camps became full, has the capacity to host 50,000 people. Shelter, water, and basic sanitation services are in place and 6,200 refugees have already been relocated to the new camp. 36,000 arrivals have been registered since the start of September and some 630 people continue to arrive each day.

Those arriving in Ethiopia are typically from the Upper Nile region of South Sudan, where conflict and fear of renewed fighting have led them to flee their homes. Others from the Jonglei state, which is north of the capital, Juba, cited food shortages as their reason for leaving.

Some 85 per cent of refugees leaving South Sudan are women and 65 per cent are children under the age of 18. More than 1,300 unaccompanied children and 6,200 separated children have been registered in various camps throughout neighbouring countries. Interviewers have found that most unaccompanied children are alone because their parents are dead or because they were either abandoned or separated from their families during the flight.

In Sudan, there are now more than 250,000 refugees from South Sudan, most of whom arrive in the White Nile state at a rate of 2,000 per month. Sporadic flows into South and West Kordofan states and East Darfur have also been recorded. More than 47,000 refugees since mid-June are in East Darfur, but the majority are spread across the country, not living in organized camps or settlements.

Those arriving in Sudan, especially women, children, and the elderly, arrive in poor conditions. They have fled areas that are facing emergency levels of acute malnutrition and they have been weakened by difficult journeys during the rainy season.

In the DRC, some 60,000 people have arrived since July 2016 and have settled along the border with South Sudan, where armed groups remain active in some areas. Teams on the ground report that most refugees are arriving without any belongings from Yei, a city in the Central Equatoria state.

The Ituri Province of the DRC is currently facing the largest influx of refugees. Earlier this week, the UNHCR began to transfer an estimated 40,000 people from remote border areas. For now, refugees will be sent to Biringi, a site near the city of Aru in the northeastern province of Ituri. Two other sites have been identified, although the operation is facing major logistical challenges given the poor condition of roads.

An additional 4,000 refugees who moved on their own from the border to Meri in Haut-Uele Province have been provided with drinking water and basic services, and the World Food Programme began making distributions this week.

The goal for refugees in all sites is to supply them with plots of land, construction materials, household goods, and agricultural tools to help them become self-sufficient.
ISIL moving 'trucks full of abducted civilians' to Mosul as shields against airstrikes  UN warns

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 4 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, ISIL moving 'trucks full of abducted civilians' to Mosul as shields against airstrikes  UN warns, 4 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824767540e.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

4 November 2016 - The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) today warned that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) fighters have taken some 1,600 civilians to Mosul city in an attempt to shield themselves from airstrikes, and that nearly 400 women from Kurdish, Yezidi or Shi'a Muslim communities in Tal Afar are now being held captive.

Further reports stated that 180 people were killed on Wednesday in the town of Kokja in eastern Mosul and potentially an additional 200 in Mosul. OHCHR is working to verify the details.

ISIL has taken "trucks full of abducted civilians" from Hamam al-Alil to Tal Afar city. Some of the families were told that they would be going to Syria.

On Wednesday, 150 families were moved from Hamam al-Alil to Mosul. ISIL used loudspeakers to order residents of the villages of Lazagha and Arij (5 kilometres from the centre of Hamam al-Alil) to either leave their homes or be severely punished.

Since 17 October, ISIL militants have been forcibly recruiting children as young as nine and 10 to fight in Mosul.

Meanwhile, the OHCHR continues to receive reports of mass killings, including a report on Monday that ISIL killed 50 of its own militants in the Ghazlani military base in Mosul for alleged desertion.

IOM distributes non-food items to internally displaced people in Qayyara, near Mosul, Iraq. Photo: IOM

The UN human rights wing raised concerns about air strikes against civilians, which reportedly killed four women and 17 other civilians in the al-Qudus neighbourhood in eastern Mosul on Wednesday evening.

"We remind the Government and its allies that all military operations, as well as security screening of people, must be carried out in full compliance with international humanitarian law, and that they must strictly abide by the principles of humanity, distinction, proportionality, necessity and precautions to minimize loss of civilian life," said OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Iraq Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) today recorded a total of 22,224 individuals displaced by fighting in the Mosul region that began on October 17.

The largest number of these internally displaced people (IDPs) is in Ninewa governorate, where 3,577 families, or 21,462 individuals. have been recorded, (about 97 percent of the total displaced by the current Mosul emergency). Others have been displaced to Anbar and Erbil governorates.

According to the agency, since the beginning of the Mosul operations, the cumulative number of IDPs reached 4,182 families, corresponding to 25,092 individuals (from 17/10-3/11). The 22,224 individuals reported today (04/11) are those still in displacement. An estimated 3,300 recent IDPs returned to their communities between 18 October and 3 November.

On Wednesday, IOM Iraq released its Mosul Crisis Response Revised Funding Gap report, which outlines the revised needs and estimated funding gaps for shelter support, including establishment of emergency sites; provision of non-food relief items; emergency health services; delivery of psychosocial services; emergency livelihoods and social cohesion activities.

"IOM has had to redirect the funding for its humanitarian response to the establishment of emergency sites," explained IOM Iraq Chief Mission Thomas Lothar Weiss. "Redirecting funds, coupled with the increased needs in some sectors, means widening the funding gaps for the provision of humanitarian life-saving assistance to the affected population."
Pregnant women, children among the victims in latest Mediterranean tragedy - UNICEF

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 4 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Pregnant women, children among the victims in latest Mediterranean tragedy - UNICEF, 4 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/582476a80.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

4 November 2016 - A number of children and pregnant women were among the 240 people reported to have drowned off the coast of Libya while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea this week, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said.

In a news release, UNICEF's Helena Rodriguez, a gynaecologist and cultural mediator (an interpreter of cultural needs and practices) working with Italian health workers to assist rescued from the sea spoke of the loss and suffering of the survivors brought to the Italian island of Lampedusa yesterday.

It is an awful situation here, said Ms. Rodriguez.

Speaking, in particular, of the anguish of a young Liberian woman who lost her two-year-old son, 13-year-old daughter and 21-year-old brother  all of whom drowned when their boat capsized, the UNICEF official said:

The tragedy has left this young woman in a state of deep shock after she saw her children and her young brother drown in front of her.

Smugglers shot at them and forced them to go. This is why so many people drowned just 12 km from the Libyan shore

Even though she had paid smugglers $2,400 for her family to make the crossing from Libya to Italy, when she and others saw the completely unseaworthy boat, they refused to get in because they were afraid. But the smugglers shot at them and forced them to go. This is why so many people drowned just 12 km from the Libyan shore, she added.

The Liberian woman, one of 29 survivors brought to the island, is also suffering from acute pneumonia.

According to UNICEF, two other women who were saved by the same Norwegian rescue vessel also lost their children at sea. Most of the victims were from Senegal, Liberia, Guinea, and Nigeria.

Additionally, the UN agency noted that those rescued were in difficult physical and psychological condition upon arrival  with some in a coma and others suffering from severe burns due to exposure to engine fuel.

It added that 2016 is set to be the deadliest year on record for the Mediterranean with more than 4,200 refugees and migrants having died attempting the dangerous journey across the sea. Nearly 160,000 have arrived to Italy by sea so far this year.
South Sudan: UN peacekeeping chief sets up task force after probe into mission's performance

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 3 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, South Sudan: UN peacekeeping chief sets up task force after probe into mission's performance, 3 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/582476ff40e.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

3 November 2016 - After an independent inquiry found that the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) failed to protect civilians as deadly violence broke out in and around its premises in the capital, Juba, in July, the top UN peacekeeping official today announced that he has established a task force to carry out the probe's recommendations, which include ensuring greater accountability of the mission's leadership.

"I have established a task force, with a calendar, to implement all the recommendations that were made. The Secretary-General has approved these recommendations, so we will try to move things forward as quickly as possible," Herve Ladsous, the Under-Secretary-General for UN Peacekeeping Operations, told reporters after closed-door consultations with the Security Council.

Mr. Ladsous' discussions with the Council come after the Secretary-General received yesterday a report (summarized here) from the Independent Special Investigation, which revealed "serious shortcomings" in UNMISS' response to violence that broke out in and around Juba in early July, in which, according to some conservative estimates, at least 73 people were killed, including more than 20 internally displaced persons in the Mission's civilian protection sites.

Recalling other outbreaks of violence in the young country, including this past February in Malakal, Mr. Ladsous, in his informal comments to the press, stressed: "When we think back on the incidents in July, which were extremely bad, one has to also remember that the primary responsibility for what happened there, lies with the government of South Sudan and various South Sudanese political actors [] In the words of the Secretary-General, these political actors [] are betraying their people by allowing these awful situations to happen."

The incidents occurred during a spate of clashes between rival forces - the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) loyal to President Salva Kiir and the SPLA in Opposition backing First Vice-President Riek Machar - that broke out on 7 July, close to the fifth anniversary of the country's independence.

UNMISS Chinese Battalion and UNPOL FPU from Nepal tirelessly continue to provide protection of civilians and maintain security in the UN House base, Jebel area, in Juba. Photo: UNMISS/Eric Kanalstein

UN compounds and UNMISS-managed civilian protection sites were attacked during the fighting and, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, a separate preliminary UN investigation into the violence and its aftermath revealed that Government security forces carried out killings and rapes, and looted and destroyed properties.

The report, commissioned by the Secretary-General found, among others, that "a lack of leadership on the part of key senior Mission personnel culminated in a chaotic and ineffective response to the violence."

Mr. Ladsous stressed today that in all this, there are a number of issues of a systemic nature that need to be addressed, with troop-contributing countries and with the Security Council, "because they are the ones who are giving us these very difficult mandates to handle operations of peace, when there is in fact no peace."

Moreover, he drew attention to the victims, saying that while "any victim is one victim too many, [we] still have 200,000 [internally displaced persons] at bases and camps in South Sudan; and probably most of them owe their lives to us, and that work continues."

Indeed, he described the situation on the ground as "very difficult," with fighting in various parts of the country, as well as a rise in hate speech, "which could fuel ethnic frictions, and possibly worse, so this is something that needs to be watched very closely," and all of this in a context where "the political process is not getting any traction."

Asked about fallout from the Secretary-General's request, in line with eth report's recommendations, for the "immediate replacement" of UNMISS Force Commander, Lt. Gen. Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki, of Kenya, Mr. Ladsous said there is system-wide accountability. We all have a degree of responsibility. In the matter of the Force Commander [] I think the conclusions were irrefutable."

At the same time, he said the UN regretted Kenya's decision to withdraw its troops from UN operations, "because Kenya has been a solid contributor to our police, and troops in peacekeeping operations. It is their sovereign decision, I respect that, but of course I regret it." In any case, the UN is assessing what consequences this will have on the regional protection force that was agreed upon by the Security Council in early September to be deployed as part of UNMISS, "that we are trying to bring into existence as quickly as possible."

South Sudan has faced ongoing challenges since a political face-off between Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar erupted into full blown conflict in December 2013. The crisis has produced one of the world's worst displacement situations with immense suffering for civilians.

Despite the August 2015 peace agreement that formally ended the war, conflict and instability have also spread to previously unaffected areas in the Greater Equatoria and Greater Bahr-El-Ghazal regions of South Sudan.
UN Security Council 'strongly condemns' ceasefire violations in Mali

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 3 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN Security Council 'strongly condemns' ceasefire violations in Mali, 3 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824772c40e.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

3 November 2016 - Strongly condemning repeated violations of the ceasefire arrangements by the Plateforme and Coordination in and around northern Mali's restive Kidal town, the United Nations Security Council today warned that such acts threaten the viability of the peace agreement in the country and called on the armed groups to immediately cease hostilities and return to dialogue.

In a Presidential Statement issued by the Council after consultations, the 15-member body "urged the Government, and the Plateforme and Coordination armed groups to fully and sincerely maintain their commitments under the Agreement [on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali]."

"The Security Council also recalled its readiness to consider targeted sanctions against those who take actions to obstruct the implementation of the Agreement as well as those who resume hostilities and violate the ceasefire, as expressed in its resolution 2295 (2016)," the Statement added.

The Security Council also urged the Government to engage with the UN Secretary-General, through his Special Representative for Mali, to establish "concrete benchmarks and timelines" to assess the progress toward the implementation of the Agreement as well as on members of the Comite de suivi de l'Accord and other relevant international partners to continue their support to the Agreement's implementation.

Expressing concern over the expansion of terrorist and other criminal activities across the country, and, in particular, into central and southern Mali, as well as the intensification of intercommunal violence in the centre of Mali, the Council emphasized that the national authorities have the primary obligation for the provision of stability and security throughout the country's territory.

Additionally, strongly condemning attacks, including terrorist attacks, against the Malian defense and security forces, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) and the French forces that support it, the Council stressed the need to bring the perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of such acts to justice.

Also in the statement, the Security Council further expressed serious concern over the insecurity that hinders humanitarian access, as well as attacks against aid workers, and emphasized the need for all parties to respect the principles of humanitarian assistance.

The Security Council also emphasized the need for all parties to ensure the safety and protection of civilians receiving assistance and the security of humanitarian personnel operating in Mali.

The Malian Government has been seeking to restore stability and rebuild following a series of setbacks since early 2012, including a military coup d'etat, renewed fighting between Government forces and Tuareg rebels, and the seizure of its northern territory by radical extremists. The country has also been wracked by a series of humanitarian crises.
Ban welcomes announcement of adoption of new Constitution in Cote d'Ivoire

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 3 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Ban welcomes announcement of adoption of new Constitution in Cote d'Ivoire, 3 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824778940d.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

3 November 2016 - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed today the announcement of the adoption of the new Constitution in Cote d'Ivoire by the Commission Electorale Independante, which followed the 30 October constitutional referendum.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban noted with satisfaction that the new Constitution addresses of some long-standing causes or tension and divisions in Cote d'Ivoire.

Further to the statement, all Ivorian parties, including political leaders and their supporters, were encouraged to reject violence and refrain from the use of inflammatory language. The Secretary-General stressed the importance of resolving the conflict through constitutional means, through dialogue, leading to fair and open elections in the weeks ahead.

The Secretary-General also assured, through his Special Representative and Head of the UN Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI) that the UN is highly committed to maintaining peace and stability in Cote d'Ivoire.
Displaced amid Mosul offensive, close to 10,000 children in urgent need of aid, says UNICEF

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 3 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Displaced amid Mosul offensive, close to 10,000 children in urgent need of aid, says UNICEF, 3 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/582477a140e.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

3 November 2016 - Some 20,700 people have been displaced since the operation to liberate the Iraqi city of Mosul from terrorists started on 17 October, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said today, estimating that 9,700 of them are children in urgent need of assistance.

"I met mothers and children who were so relieved to have come out alive; it was clear that they had gone through so much," said Pernille Ironside, UNICEF's Chief of Field Operations in Iraq, following a visit to Nargizlia screening site.

The Iraqi Government and its international partners are fighting to retake Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) while the UN agencies and its partners are stepping up humanitarian assistance for the displaced.

Many of the new arrivals come in dusty, exhausted and uncertain about what is going to happen next. Some are even barefoot. UNICEF reaches out to the families, checking on the condition of their children and finding out if any of them are missing.

"As the situation continues to unfold, it is important that we remain nimble and that we adapt our response to best assist children and families who have been through so much over these past years," Ms. Ironside said.

Upon arrival, families receive clean drinking water and snacks that include a nutritional supplement for children. Children 6 months to 15 years old are immediately immunized against polio and measles - many of them for the first time in two years - by a UNICEF-supported local government team.

Families spend up to half a day in screening sites before being transferred to an emergency camp where they are assigned shelter.

There, UNICEF ensures that water, showers and clean latrines are available. Children are screened for malnutrition, and treated accordingly, and UNICEF-supported mobile teams provide psychological care for children.

UNICEF is also preparing temporary learning spaces and recreational activities for children in the camps.

While many people have fled and are staying in camps, others have chosen to remain in their newly retaken villages. UNICEF is adapting its response to reach all populations in need.

In October, UNICEF delivered bottled water and hygiene supplies for more than 1,500 families, and vaccinated children against polio in two newly retaken communities. Conditions for both displaced and local children and families in these communities are very poor, with families in desperate need of clean water and other essential supplies.
African Union-UN mission in Darfur welcomes unilateral six-month truce by two armed groups

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 3 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, African Union-UN mission in Darfur welcomes unilateral six-month truce by two armed groups, 3 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824781340e.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

3 November 2016 - Welcoming a six-month unilateral cessation of hostilities by the Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minnawi and the Justice and Equality Movement-Gibril, the African Union (AU)-United Nations mission in Darfur today called on Abdul Wahid El Nur, the leader of the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid to also make a similar declaration.

"Each other party to the conflict has made gestures to indicate willingness to engage in peace; now is the time for Mr. El Nur to make such a gesture," said Martin Uhomoibhi, the Joint Special Representative for Darfur and the Head of the AU-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) in a news release issued by the Mission.

Also in the news release, the Mission welcomed an earlier announcement by President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan of a unilateral cessation of hostilities till the end of this year.

The announcements by Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minnawi and the Justice and Equality Movement-Gibril entered into effect on 31 October.

While noting existing challenges, UNAMID expressed hoped that gestures, such as the cessation of hostilities, would encourage all parties to the conflict to commit to a negotiated solution, including through the signing of the cessation of hostilities document presented to the parties by the African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) and in line with the Roadmap Agreement.

Further in the statement, Mr. Uhomoibhi underscored that the mission would continue to work to protect civilians in Darfur and creating a conducive environment for sustainable peace in the region.

UNAMID was established by the UN Security Council in July 2007 and it took over from the African Union Mission in Sudan in December that year. The mission's mandate was extended until 30 June 2017 by the Council through its resolution 2296.
Iraq: Fostering reconciliation should complement military victories against ISIL, Security Council told

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 9 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Iraq: Fostering reconciliation should complement military victories against ISIL, Security Council told, 9 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824786240e.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

9 November 2016 - Alongside liberating the country's territory from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh), it is essential that processes are undertaken to "capture the hearts and minds" of all Iraqis from all parts of Iraq for it to be peaceful and united, the United Nations envoy to the country told the Security Council today.

"The rebuilding of infrastructure, restoration of essential services, rule of law, schools and employment are ever more important to restore confidence in the Government," the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Iraq, Jan Kubis, told the Council.

"Returns of IDPs [internally displaced people] holds the key to rebuilding Iraq's solid societal fabric. It is part of the reconciliation and healing," he added, noting that in general, the pace of returns in the previously liberated despite the Government's and international community's efforts is rather slow.

Making special mention of the operation against ISIL in Mosul, Mr. Kubis said that the efforts of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), the Peshmerga, the Popular Mobilization Forces and allied tribal and local volunteers are making steady progress in liberating the city, while trying to avoid excessive risks to the civilian populations.

"This liberation operation marks the beginning of the end of the so-called 'Da'esh caliphate' in Iraq," he underscored.

He also called on local leaders to ensure that the grievances of the past are addressed and a way is found to live together "after ISIL in justice and equality for all."

Jan Kubis, Special Representative the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), briefs the Security Council. UN Photo/JC McIlwaine

"Reconciliation at both community and national level is the way to make military victories against ISIL sustainable, to make Iraq truly peaceful and united," he highlighted.

In his briefing, Mr. Kubis also informed the Council of credible reports of the group forcing tens of thousands of civilians, including women and children to relocate inside the city, effectively using them as human shields, as well as the killing civilians who refuse to comply with their instructions or those who previously belonged to the ISF, including 232 civilians who were reportedly shot dead on 26 October.

He added that as of yesterday, some 35,000 people have been displaced due to the fighting in Mosul, and Iraqi authorities have been providing them transport to emergency sites, where some 20,000 are presently being housed, while many others, he said, have found shelter in host communities.

The UN envoy further reported that humanitarian agencies continue their preparations for mass displacement as well as for the upcoming winter.

Mr. Kubis, also the head of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), noted that the Mission had referred a few sporadic reports, mostly of individuals committing "ad hoc acts of revenge" against captured ISIL fighters to the Iraqi Government for investigation and appropriate action.

"The Government must continue its efforts to prevent such incidents from occurring and to investigate and punish any such incidents should they occur," he reiterated.

Further in his briefing, the UN official also called on the Governments of Iraq and Turkey to "tone down" their rhetoric and accelerate bilateral efforts to find a mutually acceptable resolution to the presence of Turkish troops.

He also informed the Council of the activities of the UN in Iraq, including UNAMI's technical advice to Iraq on a number of laws, including one related to prevention of sexual and gender-based as well as the work of UN Development Programme (UNDP) and other UN entities.

Also, speaking on the issue of missing Kuwaiti and third-country nationals, as well as Kuwaiti property, including the National Archives, he said the Government of Iraq was injecting much-needed energy and momentum into bolstering efforts to find missing persons.
UN agency responding to severe health risks women and girls face amid Mosul military operation

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 9 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN agency responding to severe health risks women and girls face amid Mosul military operation, 9 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824788640e.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

9 November 2016 - The United Nations estimates that 1.2 to 1.5 million people are currently being affected by the military operations underway to retake Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS or Da'esh), some quarter million of which are women who potentially need reproductive health services and care for gender-based violence.

Since 17 October, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has been providing emergency reproductive health care and services for affected women and girls, many of whom have gone without such care since Da'esh has occupied the region.

"Fleeing displaced women are often cut off from reproductive health services. For pregnant women, this risk can become a life-or-death scenario," said Ramanathan Balakrishnan, a UNFPA representative in Iraq.

UNFPA estimates that of the more than 34,000 people who have been displaced during the conflict so far, 8,500 are women of childbearing age, including 1,360 who are pregnant and need health services for a safe delivery. These figures do not include women in liberated villages who are lacking reproductive health services.

For example, in Qayyarah, a newly liberated town some 30 kilometres south of Mosul, women were without health services under Da'esh control. The town lacked medical supplies and staff, and restrictions on women's movement meant that they were denied access to basic care. Da'esh torched the town's only hospital two months ago - part of what has been described as the group's "scorched earth policy."

Since then, UNFPA has provided supplies and personnel for a delivery unit at the Qayarra Primary Health Centre, which is now serving civilians fleeing the operations in Mosul. 25 deliveries have been performed safely at the centre.

A newly born baby in Jhela Primary Health Care unit, Jhela village, Qayyarah District, south of Mosul, Northern Iraq. Photo: UNFPA Iraq

"I am so happy that my son was born after Qayyarah was liberated from Da'esh," said one woman after giving birth to a boy, Najem.

Najem was one of the first babies to be born after the town was liberated. His name means "star," which his mother says "represents a new beginning for what we hope to be a better future."

The gynaecologist also expressed gratitude that the centre had been reopened: "Now we have the capacity to provide safe deliveries to women who otherwise would have been at risk."

At another support centre in Dohuk province, an area north of Mosul on the border of Turkey, medical and psychological support is being offered to the women and girls who were held captive and sexually assaulted by Da'esh.

A gynaecologist working at the centre for the past two years, Dr. Naam Gawzat, said that the trauma these women and girls have suffered is overwhelming.

"Everyone is destroyed," she said. "I have not seen one case that is better than the other. The next one who comes in is sadder than the one before. You see nine-year-olds who have been raped and you see the most humiliating and brutal treatment."

Part of the UNFPA's response to the operations in Mosul includes positioning 25 mobile reproductive health teams and establishing or strengthening 20 maternal health facilities. Clinics provide gynaecological services, family planning care, antenatal care, safe delivery services and post-natal care. More than 4,000 dignity kits, which contain soap, menstrual pads, clothing, and other supplies, are also being distributed.

Meanwhile, the agency has organized 23 mobile teams who will provide psychosocial support, emergency case management and referrals for survivors of gender-based violence in addition to more than 2,000 reproductive health consultations that have been conducted in Qayyarah, Hajj Ali and I'jhala since the start of the military operations.

Training is also being provided to health workers in surrounding provinces so that they can provide reproductive health services as well as to social workers who will offer care to survivors of gender-based violence.

The continuing military operations mean that women are forced to make dangerous journeys in search of safe havens, sometimes sleeping outside, facing risks of gunfire, mines and other explosives.
UN envoy reports on 'constructive' discussions with Burundi to resolve differences

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 9 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN envoy reports on 'constructive' discussions with Burundi to resolve differences, 9 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/582478e432b.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

9 November 2016 - The United Nations envoy on conflict prevention has said that the international community and the Government of Burundi would find a common ground for implementing the Security Council resolution that proposes the deployment of unarmed UN police officers through continued dialogue.

Our discussions were constructive and I'm confident that with continuous engagement and political will, we will find common ground as a basis for moving forward with the implementation of the resolution, said Jamal Benomar, the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General for Conflict Prevention, after he briefed the 15-member Council yesterday on his recent visit to Burundi.

The Council dispatched him to consult with officials in Burundi to find a way forward on all issues related to peace and security and UN activities in the country, after the Government earlier rejected the Council resolution on establishing a police officers' component there and amid reports that it will withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Couil Resolution 2303, adopted on 29 July 2016, authorized up to 228 UN individual police officers for the component, to be deployed in the capital, Bujumbura, and throughout Burundi, for one year.

Also through the resolution adopted by 11 votes in favour to none against with four abstentions (Angola, China, Egypt, Venezuela), the Council expressed its intention to pursue targeted measures against all actors, inside and outside Burundi, who threaten the peace and security of Burundi.

In yesterday's briefing, Mr. Benomar told the Council that he had held the various meetings with the Government and other stakeholders there, as well as with former President Benjamin Mkapa, the facilitator of the East African Community (EAC)-led dialogue, in Dar es Salaam.

I told the Council that I listened carefully to the views and concerns of the Burundian Government in respect to resolution 2303, particularly regarding the proposed deployment of unarmed UN police officers, Mr. Benomar said.

I told the Council that I believe we need a new compact between the Government of Burundi and the international community, with both sides engaging in a constructive effort to promote peace and stability, in full respect of Burundi's sovereignty, he added.

We need a new compact between the Government of Burundi and the international community, with both sides engaging in a constructive effort to promote peace and stability, in full respect of Burundi's sovereignty

Noting that the Burundian people are suffering the economic and humanitarian consequences of this situation, the special adviser said that the UN is seeking to increase its efforts to meet the needs of the population.

But in order to address the many implications of this crisis in the long-term, its root causes must be tackled  a Burundian-led political process and a genuine and inclusive dialogue are urgently needed, he stressed.

I look forward to continued engagement with the Burundian Government and other stakeholders in order to reach consensus on the steps needed to move the country forward, he added.

The United Nations works with Burundi, including through the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), an intergovernmental advisory body that supports peace efforts in countries emerging from conflict.

Burundi was thrown into fresh crisis more than a year ago when President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a controversial third term that he went on to win. To date, it has been reported that hundreds of people have been killed, more than 250,000 have fled the nation, and thousands more have been arrested and possibly subjected to human rights violations.
Positive outlooks mired by divisive rhetoric in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Security Council told

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Positive outlooks mired by divisive rhetoric in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Security Council told, 8 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824791b412.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

8 November 2016 - Briefing the United Nations Security Council, High Representative Valentin Inzko said that though there have been some positive developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, these have been overshadowed by parties focusing exclusively on the ethnic distribution of the population around the country.

In particular, Mr. Inzko noted the commitment of the Bosnia and Herzegovina's leadership to reform, but added that certain political actors have continued and even accelerated their actions and rhetoric aimed at the further division of the country, expressing concern at a referendum held in the Republika Srpska (RS), calling it "a serious and direct challenge to the Dayton-Paris Peace Accords and the rule of law."

"The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is also Annex 4 of the Peace Agreement, states explicitly that decisions of the Constitutional Court are 'final and binding', and that the entities are bound to comply with the decisions of the state authorities," said the High Representative.

"For this reason, I consider the referendum of 25 September to be a grave violation of the Peace Agreement and the rule of law. It was held against decisions of the court, including a direct order suspending the referendum," he added.

Mr. Inzko recalled that in his reports to the Security Council he compiled a clear pattern of statements and actions to this effect, which have included calls for secession and said that in the current reporting period (16 April to 21 October), the RS President and officials from his party described the September referendum as the first in a series, to possibly include referenda against the State institutions, on the status of the RS, and on independence.

Valentin Inzko, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

He further added that a recent move by the RS National Assembly and its speaker to decorate a number of war criminals, including Radovan Karadzic, who was sentenced to 40 years of imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war by a UN tribunal, exacerbated tensions, deeply offending the survivors of ethnic cleansing and many others.

"This act of officially decorating war criminals and architects of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina seems intentionally designed to open the wounds and the divisions of the past," said the High Representative.

Mr. Inzko further informed the Council of recent local elections in the country and noted that though largely peaceful, some irregularities were reported, including a suspension of the vote in the southern town of Stolac and said that the polling there would need to be repeated as soon as possible.

Outlining such challenges, he highlighted that the presence of the European Union (EU) military force, with an executive mandate, is essential to building confidence and strengthening stability.

Moving forward, the High Representative called on the international community to send a strong message to those authorities and leaders in the country who "reject rule of law and seek to reopen the wounds of the past" that they will not lead their constituencies to prosperity or integration with Euroatlantic structures.

"The leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina - with the help and guidance of the International Community - must recommit to make [it] a peaceful, stable, functional, multi-ethnic country, fully and irreversibly integrated into European structures," he said.

The Security Council began its work today by renewing its authorization of the European-led multinational stabilization force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR ALTHEA) for another year through the unanimous adoption of a resolution urging all parties to abide fully by their commitments under the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
DR Congo: Ban condemns attack that kills one civilian and wounds 32 UN peacekeepers

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, DR Congo: Ban condemns attack that kills one civilian and wounds 32 UN peacekeepers, 8 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824792d40d.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

8 November 2016 - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned today's attack against peacekeepers of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), which resulted in the death of one Congolese girl and injuries to 32 'blue helmets.'

According to a statement issued Mr. Ban's spokesperson, an improvised explosive device explosion in Kyeshero, in Goma, North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, resulted in the death of one Congolese girl and the injury of two Congolese civilians as well as 32 peacekeepers, including five who were seriously wounded.

"The Secretary-General extends his sincere condolences to the family of the civilian killed and the Congolese people and wishes a speedy and full recovery to the injured peacekeepers and civilians," said the statement, adding that Mr. Ban also called for swift action to bring the perpetrators of this attack to justice.
ISIL forces civilians towards Mosul airport; UN rights office probes reports of mass graves

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, ISIL forces civilians towards Mosul airport; UN rights office probes reports of mass graves, 8 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824795e412.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

8 November 2016 - Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) fighters have forced 1,500 families towards the airport in Mosul, the United Nations human rights wing said today, adding that it is also looking into reports of mass graves near the city, where military operations are under way to oust the terrorists.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) received reports on 25 October that 50 former Iraqi police officers had been killed in a building outside Mosul city, and "that building was the same agricultural college that has now been cited as the site of those mass graves," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the Office told reporters in Geneva.

"However, OHCHR does not have information about the mass graves," she added.

Ms. Shamdasani said the UN continues to receive information about civilians being forcibly moved by the ISIL, as well as abductions and killings of civilians.

In response to a question, she said that as of 4 November, ISIL had forcibly moved about 1,500 families from Hammam al-Alil towards Mosul airport. OHCHR also has information about dead bodies found, but that has not yet been sufficiently verified.

The spokesperson also said OHCHR has information that between 1 and 4 November, 195 former Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) members had been reportedly abducted by ISIL in several villages in Tal Afar, and on 3 November, another 100 former ISF officers had been abducted from Mawali village about 20 kilometres west of Mosul. The fate of these 295 civilians is unknown.

Oil wells set alight by ISIL are visible from the newly retaken Iraqi town of al-Hud, outside Mosul, where IOM distributed 350 non-food item kits to recently displaced families. Photo: IOM/Jennifer Sparks

On 2 or 3 of November, ISIL allegedly abducted at least 30 sheiks in the Qayrawan sub-district of Sinjar district, who were taken to an unknown location, she added. One report said that 18 of them were killed in Tal Afar district on 14 November, but the information has not yet been verified.

Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO), said that he talked this morning with the WHO team in Erbil Hospital, which is delivering medical supplies for more than 90,000 beneficiaries, including trauma kits and surgical supplies for 300 trauma and surgical interventions.

Erbil Hospital is the main referral hospital in the area, about 1 hour from Mosul, where injured people were being brought.

Since the military offensive began on 17 October, they had received 29 trauma injury cases, 10 of them for bullet injuries, four for mortar shell injuries, two for mine injuries; 11 were women and six were children, he said.

In other areas, WHO is trying to provide health care with mobile clinics. In some cases, those mobile clinics are the first responders to arrive on the scene. Five days after Tlol Nasir village, south of Mosul, became accessible, a WHO mobile health clinic was the first health provider to arrive. The main cause of medical consultation continues to be respiratory tract infections due to smoke inhalation, as some 20 oil wells continue to burn.

WHO had also conducted assessment missions to the two nearest referral hospitals to Mosul, closer to Mosul than Erbil, which were Qayyarah Hospital south of Mosul and Hamdaneya Hospital east of Mosul. Those hospitals are not functional right now, but WHO is working with the health authorities to ensure that emergency and reproductive health departments are rehabilitated in the coming days and weeks, to ensure referral care for trauma and complicated deliveries.

In response to a question, Mr. Jasarevic said that WHO has not received any reports on the use of chemical weapons so far. WHO has trained 90 medical staff on mass casualty management and decontamination of patients.

In response to a question about the situation in Mosul and the possible targeting of bridges to prevent the movement of people, Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that the humanitarian community has not yet reached inside Mosul. He said that as a general note, civilian infrastructure must be spared in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Leonard Doyle, a spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said that 34,860 people have been displaced from Mosul and adjacent districts, up from 7 November. Over the past weekend, IOM Director-General William Lacy Swing has been in the area on a two-day visit to the conflict zone, looking in particular at the emergency camps which have been established.
UNESCO chief deplores killing of television journalist in Afghanistan

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UNESCO chief deplores killing of television journalist in Afghanistan, 8 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5824798540d.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

8 November 2016 - The head of the United Nations agency tasked with defending press freedom today spoke out against the murder of a broadcast journalist in Afghanistan's Helmand province on 4 November.

I deplore the killing of Nematullah Zahir, said Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in a statement. It is essential that the authorities as well as media organizations in Afghanistan do all they can to improve the safety of media workers.

Nematullah Zahir, a reporter for Ariana TV, was killed by a bomb near the city of Lashkar Gah while driving on a reporting assignment.

She said that as part of the drive to save lives and enable the media to continue informing the public, UNESCO and its partners have published a guidebook for journalists in high-risk environments, which she called on all concerned to heed.

The Director-General of UNESCO issues statements on the killing of media workers in line with resolution 29 adopted by UNESCO Member States in 1997, entitled Condemnation of Violence against Journalists.
Myanmar: Lift restrictions immediately on humanitarian aid

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 20 October 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Myanmar: Lift restrictions immediately on humanitarian aid, 20 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58247a3c4.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The Myanmar government must urgently lift restrictions that are preventing access to humanitarian aid in Rakhine and Kachin states, Amnesty International said today.

The intensification of the conflict in Kachin State, and the eruption of violence in northern Rakhine State, where a major security operation has led members of the Rohingya and Rakhine communities to flee their homes, has aggravated what was already a serious humanitarian situation in the country.

"The Myanmar authorities must immediately lift restrictions that are preventing the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies from reaching people in need," said Rafendi Djamin, Amnesty International's Director for South East Asia and the Pacific.

"Both Rakhine and Kachin States already had tens of thousands of people been displaced by violence in recent years. The events of the past few weeks have aggravated that situation, and put more lives at risk."

Kachin State

Fighting in Kachin state earlier this month led to the death of a child and two others being injured. In recent weeks, hostilities have seen the Myanmar military resorting to airstrikes and shelling.

Amnesty International has learned from credible sources that the authorities have not allowed UN and humanitarian agencies to deliver aid to people displaced in non-governmental controlled area since April 2016.

The organization is concerned by reports that the authorities may instead require people displaced to cross conflict lines in order to receive aid.

"All parties to the armed conflict have an obligation to allow and facilitate delivery of impartial humanitarian assistance for civilians in need. Blocking such aid is a violation of international humanitarian law. Civilians cannot be put in a position where they have no other option but to put their lives in harm's way to access much needed aid. The authorities must ensure free and unimpeded access for humanitarian organizations delivering aid and emergency assistance to all civilians who need it", said Rafendi Djamin.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) there are currently approximately 87,000 displaced people in Kachin State, many of them in areas beyond government control.

Fighting resumed there in June 2011 after a 17-year ceasefire between the Myanmar army and the Kachin Independence Army broke down.

Rakhine State

An attack on three police outposts on 9 October triggered fresh concerns about violence and displacement in Rakhine State. Authorities responded by launching a major security operation to capture the perpetrators, tightening the already severe restrictions on movement that existed in the area.

According to local sources, members of both the Rohingya and Rakhine communities have fled their homes in fear. However, the severe isolation of norther Rakhine State and restrictions on independent journalists and monitors makes it extremely difficult to assess the scale of the displacement, or verify reports coming out of the region.

Amnesty International is deeply concerned that UN agencies and other humanitarian organizations have not been given authorization to access the affected populations to assess their needs and provide assistance.

"Local sources are telling us that Rohingya villagers are unable to access medical care. The Myanmar authorities must ensure that the human rights of these communities are respected, including ensuring that they have effective access to health care and other services," said Rafendi Djamin.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Syria: UN must act to end onslaught aimed at purging civilians from eastern Aleppo

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 20 October 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Syria: UN must act to end onslaught aimed at purging civilians from eastern Aleppo, 20 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58247ac34.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

To download AV material click here

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) must step in to fill the void left by the Security Council members' catastrophic failure to end relentless attacks targeting the civilian population in eastern Aleppo city, said Amnesty International ahead of a UNGA meeting later today.

The organization has released new satellite imagery illustrating the scale of destruction, as well as testimony from civilians trapped in the city, providing evidence that Syrian government forces, with Russian support, have callously attacked residential homes, medical facilities, schools, markets and mosques as part of a deliberate military strategy to empty the city of its inhabitants and seize control. In some cases there is evidence that Russian-made cluster munitions were used in attacks.

"The world's inaction in the face of the continuing carnage and blatant violations in Aleppo city must end. The UN General Assembly must show it can act where the Security Council has so catastrophically failed  the credibility of the UN is at stake," said Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Director for Research at Amnesty International's Beirut regional office.

Drone footage of Aleppo Aleppo Media Center

"The scale of the bloodshed and destruction wrought on eastern Aleppo city over the past month is harrowing. Syrian government forces, with the support of Russia, have launched relentless attacks that have flagrantly disregarded fundamental rules of international humanitarian law.

Siham, whose four-year-old daughter was killed in the recent bombardment, described the pain of her loss to Amnesty International. Her husband was detained by government forces in 2012 before their daughter was born.

"I have lived all my life in Aleppo city I lost [my daughter] six days ago. A bomb fell in front of the building where she was playing. I can't remember the last words she told me I lost her just like that for nothingabsolutely nothing. I wish I had died with her."

The diplomatic deadlock has seen the UN Security Council paralysed as the civilian death toll in Aleppo rises by the day.

Russia, with support from China, has repeatedly wielded its veto power to block any action that would see the Syrian government held accountable for grave violations, including war crimes. Less than two weeks ago a French UN draft resolution calling for an end to attacks on civilians in Aleppo failed after a Russian veto.

Seventy countries called for today's plenary meeting sending a clear message that inaction at the Security Council must be addressed. Member states must call for an emergency session on the crisis and support all initiatives at the UNGA to bring an end to the cycle of war crimes in Syria. Imposing targeted sanctions on Syrian officials and a comprehensive arms embargo are two measures that could also help pressure the Syrian government to end violations of international humanitarian law.

Relentless attacks on civilians and civilian objects

The bombing of eastern Aleppo has intensified drastically since the collapse of the latest ceasefire on 19 September. At least 600 aerial attacks were carried out in the space of three weeks in the period up until the 10 October, according to the Syrian Institute for Justice and Accountability, a local monitoring group. Aleppo's Health Directorate estimates around 400 civilians were killed in these attacks.

Satellite imagery analyzed by Amnesty International reveals that in just one week, 90 locations were damaged or destroyed in an area roughly the size of Manhattan, New York City. Overall more than 110 locations were damaged between 18 September and 1 October 2016.

Amnesty International documented a series of attacks over the past three weeks which appear to be aimed at decimating civilian life in Aleppo city.

Researchers from the organization spoke to residents, medical workers and activists who are trapped and who described a drastic deterioration in the humanitarian situation, amidst daily air strikes targeting civilian homes and infrastructure, including medical facilities, a market, a school, electricity and water company. The areas struck were all located away from military targets such as the battle frontline, military checkpoints or vehicles.

"Syrian government forces claim to be attacking non-state armed groups but the real objective is clear: to inflict severe suffering on the civilian population in order to drive them out. The world continues to stand by as this pattern is repeated over and over throughout Syria," said Lynn Maalouf.

According to the Syrian American Medical Society, 14 medical facilities have been hit by air strikes since 21 September, putting many of them out of service. Doctors have been struggling to cope with an influx of large numbers of casualties in need of emergency medical treatment  at one point, 800 wounded patients needing care were recorded in one week.

One eyewitness described to Amnesty International an attack on al-Sakhour hospital on 3 October. A bomb fell at the hospital entrance leaving behind a large crater and partially destroying a nearby field hospital. It was the third attack on the hospital that day, he said:

"I arrived at al-Sakhour hospital three hours after the attack had happened... I saw 10 injured and four killed... The injured included two of the hospital's medical staffThe closest frontline is around 300 meters away."

A doctor in Aleppo city told Amnesty International that supplies, equipment and fuel were fast running out because of the siege.

"In Aleppo city, residents fear living or being in or around a hospital because we have become a target for the regime," he said.

"Deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects are serious violations of international humanitarian law and amount to war crimes. The pattern of attacks targeting the civilian population, buildings and infrastructure of eastern Aleppo provides clear evidence that this is part of a calculated military strategy to make life unbearable for civilians and to empty the city by force," said Lynn Maalouf

Alleged cluster munition attacks

Several residents also told Amnesty International that they had witnessed attacks using internationally banned cluster munitions, bombs that scatter scores of submunitions over a wide area posing a major threat to civilians.

Amnesty International reviewed images showing remnants of cluster bombs and submunitions in civilian areas of eastern Aleppo over the past three weeks and consulted independent weapons experts who identified these as Russian made AO-2.5RT submunitions or the very similar AO-2.5RTM, along with remnants of the RBK-500 cluster bomb from which they are dispensed.

Fadi, was getting into a car at a busy market in Zebdie district with his friend on 25 September when a warplane dropped two cluster bombs. He and his friend were both struck by shrapnel. "All I remember after that was the feeling of agonizing pain in my leg and hip. I kept hearing small explosions... People were lying on the ground. Some crawling and others not moving," he said.

Majed, another survivor was at the same market in Zebdie which is around 500 metres away from the nearest front line when the attack took place. He recalls hearing the sound of small explosions before he woke up on the ground in shock covered in blood and surrounded by wounded people. Two pieces of shrapnel were lodged in his leg.

Osama also witnessed a cluster bomb attack on the same day as he was driving an injured friend from al-Mashhad neighbourhood to the hospital.

"I heard the sound of a warplane and then the [car's] window pane shattered on top of us. I heard a series of small explosions that went on for almost a minute More than 40 people were injured," he said.

"The use of cluster munitions is banned under international law because they are inherently indiscriminate and, due to their high dud-rate, pose a long-lasting threat to civilians. Their apparent use in eastern Aleppo city is just further evidence of how determined Syrian government forces and their

Russian allies are to create a hostile and deadly environment in the city, clearly aimed at driving civilians out at any cost," said Lynn Maalouf.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Malaysia: Drop travel ban on Zunar and other government critics

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 19 October 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Malaysia: Drop travel ban on Zunar and other government critics, 19 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58247b524.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

To download AV material click here

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) must step in to fill the void left by the Security Council members' catastrophic failure to end relentless attacks targeting the civilian population in eastern Aleppo city, said Amnesty International ahead of a UNGA meeting later today.

The organization has released new satellite imagery illustrating the scale of destruction, as well as testimony from civilians trapped in the city, providing evidence that Syrian government forces, with Russian support, have callously attacked residential homes, medical facilities, schools, markets and mosques as part of a deliberate military strategy to empty the city of its inhabitants and seize control. In some cases there is evidence that Russian-made cluster munitions were used in attacks.

"The world's inaction in the face of the continuing carnage and blatant violations in Aleppo city must end. The UN General Assembly must show it can act where the Security Council has so catastrophically failed  the credibility of the UN is at stake," said Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Director for Research at Amnesty International's Beirut regional office.

Drone footage of Aleppo Aleppo Media Center

"The scale of the bloodshed and destruction wrought on eastern Aleppo city over the past month is harrowing. Syrian government forces, with the support of Russia, have launched relentless attacks that have flagrantly disregarded fundamental rules of international humanitarian law.

Siham, whose four-year-old daughter was killed in the recent bombardment, described the pain of her loss to Amnesty International. Her husband was detained by government forces in 2012 before their daughter was born.

"I have lived all my life in Aleppo city I lost [my daughter] six days ago. A bomb fell in front of the building where she was playing. I can't remember the last words she told me I lost her just like that for nothingabsolutely nothing. I wish I had died with her."

The diplomatic deadlock has seen the UN Security Council paralysed as the civilian death toll in Aleppo rises by the day.

Russia, with support from China, has repeatedly wielded its veto power to block any action that would see the Syrian government held accountable for grave violations, including war crimes. Less than two weeks ago a French UN draft resolution calling for an end to attacks on civilians in Aleppo failed after a Russian veto.

Seventy countries called for today's plenary meeting sending a clear message that inaction at the Security Council must be addressed. Member states must call for an emergency session on the crisis and support all initiatives at the UNGA to bring an end to the cycle of war crimes in Syria. Imposing targeted sanctions on Syrian officials and a comprehensive arms embargo are two measures that could also help pressure the Syrian government to end violations of international humanitarian law.

Relentless attacks on civilians and civilian objects

The bombing of eastern Aleppo has intensified drastically since the collapse of the latest ceasefire on 19 September. At least 600 aerial attacks were carried out in the space of three weeks in the period up until the 10 October, according to the Syrian Institute for Justice and Accountability, a local monitoring group. Aleppo's Health Directorate estimates around 400 civilians were killed in these attacks.

Satellite imagery analyzed by Amnesty International reveals that in just one week, 90 locations were damaged or destroyed in an area roughly the size of Manhattan, New York City. Overall more than 110 locations were damaged between 18 September and 1 October 2016.

Amnesty International documented a series of attacks over the past three weeks which appear to be aimed at decimating civilian life in Aleppo city.

Researchers from the organization spoke to residents, medical workers and activists who are trapped and who described a drastic deterioration in the humanitarian situation, amidst daily air strikes targeting civilian homes and infrastructure, including medical facilities, a market, a school, electricity and water company. The areas struck were all located away from military targets such as the battle frontline, military checkpoints or vehicles.

"Syrian government forces claim to be attacking non-state armed groups but the real objective is clear: to inflict severe suffering on the civilian population in order to drive them out. The world continues to stand by as this pattern is repeated over and over throughout Syria," said Lynn Maalouf.

According to the Syrian American Medical Society, 14 medical facilities have been hit by air strikes since 21 September, putting many of them out of service. Doctors have been struggling to cope with an influx of large numbers of casualties in need of emergency medical treatment  at one point, 800 wounded patients needing care were recorded in one week.

One eyewitness described to Amnesty International an attack on al-Sakhour hospital on 3 October. A bomb fell at the hospital entrance leaving behind a large crater and partially destroying a nearby field hospital. It was the third attack on the hospital that day, he said:

"I arrived at al-Sakhour hospital three hours after the attack had happened... I saw 10 injured and four killed... The injured included two of the hospital's medical staffThe closest frontline is around 300 meters away."

A doctor in Aleppo city told Amnesty International that supplies, equipment and fuel were fast running out because of the siege.

"In Aleppo city, residents fear living or being in or around a hospital because we have become a target for the regime," he said.

"Deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects are serious violations of international humanitarian law and amount to war crimes. The pattern of attacks targeting the civilian population, buildings and infrastructure of eastern Aleppo provides clear evidence that this is part of a calculated military strategy to make life unbearable for civilians and to empty the city by force," said Lynn Maalouf

Alleged cluster munition attacks

Several residents also told Amnesty International that they had witnessed attacks using internationally banned cluster munitions, bombs that scatter scores of submunitions over a wide area posing a major threat to civilians.

Amnesty International reviewed images showing remnants of cluster bombs and submunitions in civilian areas of eastern Aleppo over the past three weeks and consulted independent weapons experts who identified these as Russian made AO-2.5RT submunitions or the very similar AO-2.5RTM, along with remnants of the RBK-500 cluster bomb from which they are dispensed.

Fadi, was getting into a car at a busy market in Zebdie district with his friend on 25 September when a warplane dropped two cluster bombs. He and his friend were both struck by shrapnel. "All I remember after that was the feeling of agonizing pain in my leg and hip. I kept hearing small explosions... People were lying on the ground. Some crawling and others not moving," he said.

Majed, another survivor was at the same market in Zebdie which is around 500 metres away from the nearest front line when the attack took place. He recalls hearing the sound of small explosions before he woke up on the ground in shock covered in blood and surrounded by wounded people. Two pieces of shrapnel were lodged in his leg.

Osama also witnessed a cluster bomb attack on the same day as he was driving an injured friend from al-Mashhad neighbourhood to the hospital.

"I heard the sound of a warplane and then the [car's] window pane shattered on top of us. I heard a series of small explosions that went on for almost a minute More than 40 people were injured," he said.

"The use of cluster munitions is banned under international law because they are inherently indiscriminate and, due to their high dud-rate, pose a long-lasting threat to civilians. Their apparent use in eastern Aleppo city is just further evidence of how determined Syrian government forces and their

Russian allies are to create a hostile and deadly environment in the city, clearly aimed at driving civilians out at any cost," said Lynn Maalouf.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Activists' murders turn Honduras into 'no-go zone' for environmental campaigners

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 19 October 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Activists' murders turn Honduras into 'no-go zone' for environmental campaigners, 19 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58247bb34.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The brutal murders of two land rights activists in Honduras last night are the latest tragedies in a seemingly unstoppable wave of deadly attacks turning Honduras into a no-go zone for human rights defenders, said Amnesty International.

Jose Angel Flores, 64, President of the Movimiento Unificado Campesino, was shot dead by a group of unidentified men in the department of Colon, northern Honduras, in the afternoon of 18 October.

Another community leader, Silmer Dionisio George, was also shot in the incident and died at a local hospital hours later.

"Honduras has turned into a 'no-go zone' for anyone daring to campaign for the protection of the environment. How many more activists have to be brutally murdered before the authorities take effective action to protect them, or even be willing to talk about this crisis?" said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International.

Jose Angel Flores had reported threats in relation to his human rights work. In 2014, he had been granted precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights requesting the state to provide him with protection.

Jose Angel and Silmers murders came amid a wave of threats against their community and are the latest in a series of killings of human rights defenders, including that of indigenous leader Berta Caceres, who was shot dead in March this year.

The lack of exhaustive investigations into the attacks and threats against activists, as well as the unwillingness of the authorities to implement effective mechanisms to protect them, are fuelling the increasing violence.

"Authorities in Honduras must take immediate action to effectively protect those who work to promote and defend the basic human rights of all in the country. Anything less will only put more brave human rights defenders in mortal danger," said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

Last week, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez declined a meeting with Amnesty International's Secretary General Salil Shetty to discuss the human rights crisis in the country, including the increasing wave of attacks against human rights activists.

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Zambia: Drop sedition charges against opposition leaders

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 19 October 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Zambia: Drop sedition charges against opposition leaders, 19 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58247c0a4.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Authorities must immediately drop charges of sedition against Zambia's main opposition leader and his deputy, Amnesty International said ahead of their court appearance today.

Hakainde Hichilema, president of the United Party for National Development and his vice-president, Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba, are due to appear at the Luanshya Magistrate court on charges of "seditious practices" and "unlawful assembly".

"The charges against Hakainde Hichilema and GeoffreyBwalya Mwamba are a ploy to intimidate and silence political opponents," said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International's Director for Southern Africa.

"The authorities must drop the charges against them and stop misusing the criminal justice system to harass political opposition."

Hakainde Hichilema and Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba were arrested in Luanshya on 5 October 2016 on their way to visit their supporters in prison.

The "seditious practices" charge was brought against the pair after they publicly stated that they don't recognise President Edgar Lungu as a legitimately elected leader of Zambia. They are challenging his election in court.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years. The "unlawful assembly "charge emanates from the meeting the two opposition leaders had with their supporters on 26 September in Chibombo district along their way to the Copperbelt Province.

After being charged, the pair were held overnight at Luanshya Police Station.

Hakainde Hichilema has alleged that the police denied them food, water, and bedding during their detention.

"The authorities must ensure prompt, impartial and effective investigations of the alleged ill treatment of Hakainde Hichilema and GeoffreyBwalya Mwamba during their detention. Anyone found to have ill-treated them must be held accountable for their actions."

Background

The Zambia Electoral Commission declared the Patriotic Front the winner of the election held on 11 August 2016. However, Hakainde Hichilema's United Party for National Development has challenged the election results in the constitutional court.

The country has since been rocked by post-election violence.

A commission of inquiry has since been established to investigate the post-election violence.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Ethiopia: Draconian measures will escalate the deepening crisis

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 18 October 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Ethiopia: Draconian measures will escalate the deepening crisis, 18 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58247c6c4.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Heavy-handed measures by the Ethiopian government will only escalate a deepening crisis that has claimed the lives of more than 800 protesters since protests began in November 2015, said Amnesty International today after the government issued a directive imposing wide-ranging restrictions as part of a state of emergency.

The directive authorises arrests without warrants, as well as rehabilitation measures. When such measures have been used in the past, they have led to arbitrary detention of protesters at remote military facilities without access to their families and lawyers.

"These emergency measures are extremely severe and so broad that they threaten basic human rights that must not be curtailed even under a state of emergency," said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International's Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.

"These measures will deepen, not mitigate, the underlying causes of the sustained protests we have seen throughout the year, which have been driven by deep-seated human rights grievances. These grievances must be properly addressed by the authorities. Further crackdowns and human rights violations will only make the situation worse."

In a public statement issued today Amnesty International recommends that instead of further curtailing human rights, the government should seize the moment and recommit itself to respecting, protecting and fulfilling them, in line with its regional and international obligations.

"It is the government's failure to constructively engage with the protesters that continues to fuel these protests. It must now change course," said Muthoni Wanyeki.

"The government must ensure an end to excessive and arbitrary use of force by the security forces against demonstrators and release all protesters, opposition leaders and supporters, as well as journalists and bloggers, arrested for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly."

At least 600 protesters have been killed in Oromia and 200 in Amhara since November last year.

Background

Protests began in November 2015 when ethnic Oromos took to the streets fearing possible land seizures under the government's Addis Ababa Masterplan, which aimed to expand the capital's administrative control into Oromia. The protests continued even after the Addis Ababa Masterplan was scrapped, evolving into demands for accountability for human rights violations, ethnic equality and the release of political prisoners.

Protests later spread to Amhara, a region that has long complained of marginalization.

The worst incident involved the death of possibly hundreds of protesters in a stampede on 2 October at Bishoftu, about 45 kilometres southeast of Addis Ababa, during the Irrecha religious festival. Protest groups say the stampede was caused by the security forces' unnecessary and excessive use of force. The government has denied this, instead blaming the deaths on "anti-peace forces."

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Nigeria's Forgotten Children

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 10 November 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Nigeria's Forgotten Children, 10 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/582485394.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Two and a half years since 219 Chibok schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram in Nigeria, sparking a global outcry and the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, there has finally been some good news.

Yesterday, 21 of those girls were reunited with their families in an emotional ceremony in Abuja, embracing the parents they thought they'd never see again.

But it's not a completely happy ending - the girls are traumatized and distressed after 30 months in captivity, and little is known about the fates of the almost 200 others who are still missing.

And even less is known about the other children caught in the web of this conflict, those who are suffering horrific abuses perpetrated not by Boko Haram, but by the Nigerian government.

An Amnesty International investigation in May revealed that more than 120 boys were being held incommunicado in a disease-infested cell at the notorious Giwa barracks detention center in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. Children under five years of age were detained in three women's cells.

The same investigation showed that 12 children, including infants and babies, died in Giwa between January and May, falling prey to malnutrition and disease. (Nearly 150 adults also lost their lives.)

These children are the forgotten victims of Nigeria's fight against Boko Haram.

The government claims that Giwa houses Boko Haram suspects in transit to more established detention centers, but in fact, its detainees are just as likely to be displaced civilians caught in the army's counter-insurgency dragnet.

More than 1,000 people are still believed to be held at Giwa, most of them arrested en masse without being formally charged.

Broken promises

After Amnesty International's report was published May, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari told CNN's Christiane Amanpour there would be a thorough investigation into the detention facility.

Five months on, there have been reports of some releases of "cleared detainees" from Giwa Barracks, but there has still been no investigation into the detention of children, or into the deaths of adults and children at Giwa. Our research shows that the cells at Giwa are still being filled, and adults and children are still dying there.

Since President Buhari's on-air promise to CNN, Amnesty International has confirmed the deaths of 15 more babies and toddlers at Giwa. Babies are also being born in detention: one former detainee who was released earlier this year told us that 15 babies were born in the six months she was detained.

Umar, a young boy who was recently released from Giwa, spoke to Amnesty International about conditions there, describing how more than 200 boys were crammed into his cell, a significant increase from the 120 boys Amnesty recorded in the same cell in May.

Their cell is so cramped that some boys have no choice but to sleep on top of each other, said Umar, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. They are never allowed outside, except to be counted by their captors. Umar said that 50 of the boys in his cell were no older than 6.

Umar was taken to Giwa from a displacement camp in Bama after he and his family fled violence and intimidation by Boko Haram militants. His father was accused of aiding the group, and so Umar was locked up in Giwa without charge.

Until May this year, an adult detainee from Giwa would visit the boys' cell each morning to try to continue their schooling. He taught the boys the English alphabet and numbers by rote, but when he was released, the boys just waited in their cell for the day to pass.

Umar says they had nothing but a few balls provided by the soldiers to roll around the cell. That, and the occasional roll call outdoors, were almost the only things punctuating the boredom of their detention.

It often took two days to get a doctor to see those who were sick. Many of Umar's cellmates had malaria, including a seven-year-old who died of the disease.

"They took him outside. I don't know where to," Umar said. "There was not enough food and water. It was unhygienic."

As with all detainees at the barracks, Umar claims that he and the rest of the children were held incommunicado and denied access to their families and the outside world.

The wider crisis

Beyond the horror of the abducted Chibok girls and the children left to die in Giwa, "free" children in northeastern Nigeria don't necessarily fare much better.

The region is facing one of Africa's largest humanitarian crises. Since 2009, Boko Haram has wreaked havoc in the region, killing thousands of people. Around 2.4 million have been displaced, the majority of whom are children.

Many are living in camps in horrific conditions, at risk of dying from severe malnutrition, dehydration and inadequate medical care, and with little to no assistance from the outside world.

Conditions in Borno State are particularly dire and humanitarian assistance is urgently needed.

Unicef says there are 244,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Borno, and that an estimated 49,000 children will die if they don't receive treatment.

Displaced people at the Bama camp where Umar stayed have given Amnesty International harrowing accounts of life there, describing how children regularly succumb to starvation and disease.

"Most of the women have lost children," one woman told us after leaving Bama. "In our group, there are 15 women from one village -- we lost 20 children."

Medecins Sans Frontieres has counted 1,233 graves near the camp in the past year. Of them, 480 were for children.

What can be done?

We call on President Buhari to keep his word and investigate thoroughly the abuse and deaths at Giwa. It's a death camp that must be closed. The fight against Boko Haram is no excuse to imprison children.

The previous government was astonishingly slow to respond to the Chibok girls' abduction in the first place; President Buhari's administration must now spare no efforts to bring them back, along with all the others who have been abducted.

The wider crisis has been neglected long enough. The response to the humanitarian needs of those affected by the conflict has not only been slow, but also inadequate.

The government and international community must not forget the children who suffer in silence in places like Giwa and the displacement camps in Borno, surrounded by tiny graves that shame us all.

This article was first published by CNN

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Disclaimer

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
Iraq: Fears for safety of civilians during battle for Mosul

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 17 October 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Iraq: Fears for safety of civilians during battle for Mosul, 17 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/582486974.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Every effort must be made to protect civilians from the onslaught of war and potential revenge attacks in Mosul, said Amnesty International today as the operation to recapture the city from the armed group calling itself the Islamic State gets under way.

Tomorrow, 18 October 2016, Amnesty International will launch a major new report 'Punished for Daesh's crimes': Displaced Iraqis abused by militias and government forces which documents serious human rights violations - including war crimes committed by Iraqi militias and government forces against displaced civilians during past military operations. The report warns against a repeat of such violations on an even greater scale in the Mosul offensive.

"Iraqi authorities must take concrete steps to ensure there is no repeat of the gross violations witnessed in Falluja and other parts of Iraq during confrontations between government forces and the Islamic State armed group," said Philip Luther, Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

"Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi's instructions to exercise 'caution and vigilance' to ensure protection of civilians must be more than token words. The Iraqi authorities must exercise effective command and control over militias, and they must ensure that personnel implicated in past violations do not take part in the Mosul operations. All parties to the conflict must take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties during their attack on Mosul."

Iraqi and Kurdish authorities involved in the planning of the military operation must ensure that civilians fleeing the fighting are provided with a safe route.

"The authorities must spare no effort to avoid leaving civilians trapped in the crossfire with no way out," said Philip Luther.

"Civilians fleeing the fighting must also be protected from revenge attacks and provided with shelter and humanitarian assistance. With up to a million people possibly to be displaced from Mosul and the surrounding areas, the situation could rapidly deteriorate into a humanitarian catastrophe. The Islamic State armed group must allow civilians to leave, and not use them as human shields."

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Iran: Writer arrested in violent raid on her house following prison sentence for story about stoning

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 24 October 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Iran: Writer arrested in violent raid on her house following prison sentence for story about stoning, 24 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/582487294.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The Iranian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release writer and human rights activist Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, following her arrest today, Amnesty International urged.

Despite the fact that no official summons has been issued, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee's home was raided this morning by officials, who violently broke through her front door before taking her to Evin Prison in Tehran. It appears that she has been taken to the women's ward to begin serving her six-year sentence. She has been convicted of charges including "insulting Islamic sanctities," for writing an unpublished story about the horrific practice of stoning in Iran. Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee's husband, Arash Sadeghi, a human rights activist and prisoner of conscience, has since started a hunger strike in protest at her imprisonment.

"Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee is the latest young writer and activist to be caught up in Iran's relentless crackdown on artistic expression. Her imprisonment for peacefully voicing her opposition to stoning is a terrible injustice and an outrageous assault on freedom of expression. It is also a shocking and deeply disturbing display of support for the cruel and inhuman punishment of stoning," said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

"The Iranian authorities must break this cycle of injustice and immediately and unconditionally release Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee. We also urge them to ensure that her conviction is quashed."

The unpublished fictional story, for which Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee has been convicted of "insulting Islamic sanctities", describes the emotional reaction of a young woman who watches the film The Stoning of Soraya M - which tells the true story of a young woman stoned to death for adultery - and becomes so enraged that she burns a copy of the Qur'an.

The story was discovered by authorities when Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was arrested together with her husband, Arash Sadeghi, who is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence in Evin Prison on charges including "spreading propaganda against the system", "gathering and colluding against national security" and "insulting the founder of the Islamic Republic", which stem from his peaceful human rights activities.

On 6 September 2014 both were arrested at Arash Sadeghi's workplace in Tehran by men believed to be Revolutionary Guards. The men showed no arrest warrant, but took the couple back to their home, where they proceeded to search through their possessions and found the story which Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee had written.

Arash Sadeghi was subsequently moved to Evin prison while Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was transferred to a secret location. She was detained there for one night before also being transferred to Evin prison, where she was held for 20 days without access to her family, a lawyer or a court. Her first three days were spent in solitary confinement.

During her detention, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was subjected to extended interrogations, where she was blindfolded and warned she could face execution for "insulting Islam". In the next cell she could hear her husband being threatened and verbally abused by his interrogators. Arash Sadeghi has since stated that he was punched in the head, kicked, slapped and choked while in custody.

Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was tried and sentenced to six years imprisonment in two brief sessions by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran. She had no legal representation at the trial. The first lawyer she appointed was put under pressure by intelligence and security officials to withdraw from the case, and the second was barred from reading her court case and representing her. She was not given the chance to speak in her own defence, because the first session was focused on her husband's activism. At the second session she was in hospital recovering from major surgery and could not be present; she provided the court with her medical records, but her request to adjourn the hearing was rejected.

Earlier this month Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee received a phone call from the Centre for the Implementation of Sentences ordering her to present herself to Evin Prison to begin serving her six-year prison sentence, and threatening that if she did not she would be picked up on the street or her house would be raided. However, she was never served with a formal summons.

"Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee is being punished for the peaceful exercise of her human rights. But the crime at the root of this case is Iran's ongoing retention of the horrific practice of stoning, which amounts to torture. Instead of doggedly intimidating and imprisoning critical voices, the authorities should abolish this cruel punishment once and for all," said Magdalena Mughrabi.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Morgan County Election Board reviews financial records

The Morgan County Election Board met Friday to review the campaign finance reports of local candidates running for office.
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Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse

Reviewing our Visit to Portsmouth Lighthouse

Our son moved to New Hampshire this summer, so we made our first trip to visit his family in September. While there we all took a Sunday afternoon drive to the coast and visited the town of Portsmouth Harbor. I love lighthouses and I was anxious to show my two young granddaughters their first lighthouse.





The Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse is just north of the city of Portsmouth on the grounds of Fort Constitution. Fort Constitution is a Revolutionary War fortification. My granddaughters enjoyed walking around the grounds and seeing the old fortress. After looking over the grounds we made our way to the lighthouse. The lighthouse was available for climbing that afternoon so several of us decided to make the climb. We found out the lighthouse is sometimes called Fort Point Light, New Castle Light, and Fort Constitution Light in addition to Portmouth Lighthouse.





The photo below shows my granddaughter Emily climbing the steps to the lighthouse with her Mom.





View from the Top



Here are several photos I took from on top of the 48 foot lighthouse. The first is the lens that can be seen for 12 nautical miles.

Zazzle Products from my Photographs





Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. As an Amazon Associate I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.
Slain activist Kem Leys body lies in the Buddhist temple Watt Bodhiyarame in the Cambodin capital Phnom Penh, on July 10, 2016.

Local Cambodian police officers accused of beating one man to death and critically injuring another in Kandal province ignored calls by the local police commissioner to answer questions about the assaults, RFAs Khmer Service has learned.

Kandal Police Commissioner Iv Chamroeurn told RFA on Nov. 1 that the officers accused of the beating twice failed to report to Judicial Police in the district prompting him to ask the prosecutor to take action.

In Cambodia, the Judicial Police Department is in charge of most forms of criminal law enforcement. They are meant to function under the prosecutor-general's office, but they receive their orders from the national police commander.

On Oct. 21 Chamroeurn Seiha, 26, and his brother-in-law Tith Leap, 22, of Tanung village in Kampong Speu province were stopped and brutally beaten by local police after the two motorbikes he and his friends were riding were stopped by police in Kandal provinces Saang District, witnesses told RFA.

Saang district police officer Chhay Sina overtook Chamroeurn Seihas motorbike and Tith Leap sped up and passed them. Words were exchanged, and thats when the fatal altercation began, Tith Leap told RFA.

He stopped his motorbike to block us, Tith Leap said. Then he pulled his gun and pointed it at me while making a phone call to his colleagues to arrest us.

Chhay Sina accused the men of robbing people. After the other police arrived and the altercation became a physical one, he added.

Villagers who saw the beating attempted to stop the police officers from attacking the men, but they didnt listen, witnesses told RFA.

When they arrived they started to kick and punch us, Tith Leap said. My brother-in-law and I were then handcuffed and brought to the police station where we were further beaten very badly by the police officers.

The police claimed that the two men were beaten by the angry mob because they were suspected of robbing people, but the villagers dispute that account, saying it was the police who beat the two men.

He was beaten so brutally

The villagers told RFA that the mens injuries did not seem that bad at the scene, but after they were detained at the police station their condition became critical, according to the witnesses.

By about 8 p.m. they were released as villagers in Saang vouched for them. They were taken to a hospital in Saang, but the hospital didnt admit them because their injuries were too severe.

The men were then transported to another hospital in Takmao, but Chamroeurn Seiha didnt make it, family members said.

Chamroeurn Seihas wife Khuon Sreymom said she is calling for the authorities to speed up their investigation and the arrest of her husbands killer so that justice is done.

She told RFA that her husband supported the family, and life has become very difficult since his death.

I felt very sadden to see what happened to my husband, she said. He was beaten so brutally that his entire body was covered with bruises. His skull and throat were severed.

Tith Leaps mother Hem Vann said her son has sustained severe injuries also. He might not be able to live a normal life again.

I feel much pity for my son, she said. He has never been beaten that badly. If he is unable to live a normal life, I will be in a very bad situation financially for I am a widow.

Cambodian police often act with impunity, and the violence of the police there is a grave breach of human rights, said Am Sam Ath, an official with the human rights organization LICADHO.

Concrete measures will have to taken by the relevant authorities and the courts to punish the perpetrators and find justice for the victims, he said. Authorities have to make efforts to end the culture of impunity.

The search for justice

While names of Chamroeurn Seiha and Mith Leap are obscure, even to people inside Cambodia, even the famous face obstacles with the police.

Kem Ley is a name that is known throughout Cambodia and to much of the outside world, but the investigation into his murder appears to have languished for months.

Kem Ley, a popular social and political critic, was gunned down in broad daylight on July 10 when he stopped in a Star Mart convenience store beside a Caltex gas station in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.

Although authorities charged former soldier Oeuth Ang with the killing, there has been little official word about the investigation since his arrest.

Many in Cambodia doubt the governments story that Kem Ley was killed by the former soldier over a debt, and Kem Leys family and supporters tell RFA they are planning to deliver a petition to Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Ministry of Justice and foreign embassies to push for a transparent and genuine investigation into his murder.

People who live near the location where Kem Ley was slain are afraid to talk about his death, but they have told RFA they have no faith the Cambodian courts to find justice for the activist.

Reported for RFA's Khmer Service Thai Tha and Sothearin Yeang for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.
Lawmakers in Laos have approved an amendment to the countrys media law that further tightens the governments control of reporters, ensuing that they disseminate the policies of the ruling communist party in a country where press freedom is already nonexistent.

Members of parliament on Nov. 4 debated and approved the draft amendment to the Media Law of 2008 based on a change proposed by the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism.

The media law has been amended to ensure that the media implements their duties and mission to be a sharp voice of the [ruling Lao Peoples Revolutionary] Party and the people in order to propagate the guidelines and directions, and laws and social-economic development plans of the state, said information minister Bosengkham Vongdara at the National Assembly.

In the meantime, it will improve the principles and rules for controlling the media in accordance with the directions and policy of the party and the rule of law in order to ensure the freedom of our media as well as the people, he said.

A Vientiane resident, who declined to be named, told RFAs Lao Service on Thursday that the amendment to the media law will not benefit Lao citizens.

We understand all media are controlled by the government, he said. Even though there are private media, the contents of the news are determined by the government. No matter how the media law is amended, it will not serve the people and society at large.

People know that the local media cannot report the facts completely and cannot properly fulfill their roles, he said. They they do not have any expectations for the mainstream media because of heavy censorship, so they prefer to use social media instead.

A Lao community-education developer who requested anonymity told RFA that he would like the Lao media to present the news with more facts and conduct investigative reports rather than issue stories about what policymakers dictate.

"[But] the amended draft of the law is not open for public comments as to which articles should be amended to comply with international conventions on media and freedom of speech, he said.

Ninety-three of 103 lawmakers approved the amendment with nine rejections and one abstention, according to a report in the Vientiane Times.

Some lawmakers want the drafting subcommittee to further change certain points to more clearly define individuals and legal groups that are authorized to participate in media activities, cap the proportion of funds provided by foreigners to Lao media outlets at 20 percent, and ensure that the media provide information in a more scientific way, the article said.

Absolute control of media

Laos constantly scores among the lowest rungs in the annual press freedom indexes issued by Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based international nongovernmental organization that defends freedom of information and press. The country ranked 173 out of 180 nations in this years report, dropping two places from its position at 171 in 2015.

The Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party (LPRP) exercises absolute control over the media, the report said.

The Lao government issued a decree in September 2014 prohibiting online criticism of itself and the ruling party as well as banning content that encourages terrorism and social disorder, pornography, photos that contradict Lao traditions and culture, and images that violate intellectual property rights. Netizens or internet service providers that violate the law can be fined or face criminal charges.

The adoption in late 2014 of a decree providing for jail sentences for internet users who criticize the government and the Marxist-Leninist LPRP threatens the boom in online news and information platforms, the Reporters Without Borders report said.

Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Myanmar monk Wirathu of the ultranationalist Buddhist group Ma Ba Tha speaks to followers at a monastery on the outskirts of Yangon, June 4, 2016.

Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi sent a letter of congratulations on Wednesday to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, expressing her hope that the two countries maintain and strengthen their ties, while anti-Muslim leaders in the Southeast Asian nation did the same but for different reasons.

Our people are happy with the mutually beneficial and dynamic relations that Myanmar shares with the United States, and I look forward to working closely with Your Excellency to further strengthen the existing friendship, cooperation and partnership between our two countries, she wrote.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who also is Myanmars foreign minister and de facto leader, has enjoyed warm relations with U.S. President Barack Obama, who in early October lifted sanctions that had been in place against the country for almost two decades to isolate a former military junta noted for human rights abuses and corruption.

Obama decided to drop the sanctions because of political reforms that in the Southeast Asia country under the pro-democracy, civilian government that came to power in early April. Aung San Suu Kyi was instrumental in freeing detained students and other political prisoners and holding nationwide peace talks.

Aung San Suu Kyi paid an official visit to the U.S. in September during which she courted the American business community to drum up investment for Myanmar.

Free from jihadism

Ashin Wirathu, an outspoken figure in Myanmars ultranationalist Buddhist monk group Ma Ba Tha, took to on his Facebook page to congratulate Trump who has said he will ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

Wirathu, who has spoken out against the countrys Rohingya Muslims and their defenders, emphasized the need to ensure safety for American citizens and expressed his wish that the U.S. remain free from jihadism.

Founded in 2013, Ma Ba Tha has led frequent demonstrations against the Rohingya, and last year pushed for the passage of legislation known collectively as the Race and Religion Protection Laws, which restrict religious conversions, polygamy, interfaith marriages, and childbirth by Muslims. Rights advocates say the laws discriminate against women and Muslims in the conservative country.

Likewise, Aye Maung, chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Arakan National Party (ANP) based in western Myanmars Rakhine state sent a letter to Trump carrying congratulations from the party and the Rakhine people.

Being engulfed in Islamization and illegal immigration problems, we the Arkanese people look up to you as a new world leader who will change the rigged system being infested with jihadi infiltrators, he wrote.

We wish you two consecutive successful tenures and hope that your leadership will steer the U.S. and the world into a safer place without radical Islamic terrorism, the letter said.

The ethno-centric ANP and Buddhist hardliners have denounced a governments advisory commission on Rakhine state appointed by Aung San Suu Kyi in August, to examine the restive areas religious conflict and human rights situation.

Rakhine is home to more than 1.1 million stateless Rohingya Muslims whom many Burmese call Bengalis because they consider them illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. The Buddhist majority have long subjected the Rohingya to persecution and attacks and denied them basic rights, including citizenship.

Some state and national government leaders have blamed deadly attacks on border guard posts in northern Rakhine last month on a militant Rohingya group that received training and financial support from the Islamist terrorist organization Aqa Mul Mujahidin.

Last month, the ANP asked government ministers to protect ethnic Rakhine villages in Maungdaw township where the attacks and subsequent violence between security forces and armed groups occurred and to provide residents there with food.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Vietnamese in the central coastal province of Ha Tinh protest at a steel factory run by Formosa Plastics demanding the Taiwanese firm pay compensation a massive toxic spill, Oct 2, 2016.

The Vietnamese government is escalating a nationwide crackdown on human rights activists and people critical of the governments handling of the chemical spill that devastated the countrys central coast, according to Amnesty International and other reports.

On Nov. 6, four people were arrested who are connected to a new civil society organization The Alliance of Self-Determined People.

All three have been charged with carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the peoples administration under Article 79 of the penal code, according to a report in Vietnam Right Now.

The draconian law is often used against dissenters and usually comes with a lengthy prison sentence of between 12 years and life, but people sentenced under the law can face the death penalty.

Activist Luu Van Vinh and his friend, Nguyen Van Duc Do, were arrested after police burst into Luu Van Vinhs home in Ho Chi Minh City, according to witnesses.

They held Vinh Luu down, beat him and arrested him right in front of us, Luu Van Vinhs wife Le Thi Thap told RFAs Vietnamese Service.

The police dragged him out without presenting any order, and they took away all the phones that were sitting on the table, she said. They took his friend too.

Le Thi Thap told RFA that after beating the men, the police obtained arrest and search warrants.

Vinh helped injustice victims and was involved in Formosa issue, she said. He is very enthusiastic about helping people and asking others to join in helping people.

In a news release, Amnesty International said two other people with ties to Luu Van Vinh were also arrested. Du Phi Truong and Tuan Doan were also taken into custody, but the organization said that Nguyen Van Duc Do was arrested after his visit with Luu Van Vinh.

At least eight people have been arrested by Vietnamese authorities for dissenting activities in the past few weeks, much of which is connected to the chemical spill and its fallout.

In June, the Formosa Plastics Group acknowledged that it was responsible for the release of toxic chemicals from a steel plant it owns in April that killed an estimated 115 tons of fish and left fishermen and tourism industry workers jobless in Ha Tinh and three other central provinces.

Vietnam's government said in a report to the National Assembly in July that the disaster had harmed the livelihoods of more than 200,000 people, including 41,000 fishermen.

Formosa pledged to pay $500 million to clean it up and compensate people affected by the spill, but Vietnamese living with the countrys largest environmental disaster say that sum isnt enough to compensate for the damage.

Act of defiance are rare in Vietnam, but the spill appears to have hit a chord with the Vietnamese as there have been demonstrations and other actions regarding the environmental and economic disaster.

Amnesty International said the arrests represent an upturn in the use of the criminal justice system in a crackdown against human rights defenders and activists engaged in advocacy relating to the disaster which has included intimidation and harassment, and wide scale surveillance of activists.

The organization called on the Vietnamese government to uphold the rights of freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression that is guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of which Vietnam is a signatory.

Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service.Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.
A Taliban suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with explosives into the German Consulate in northern Afghanistan, killing at least six people and wounding more than 100.

The truck exploded at the entrance of the consulate in the city of Mazar-e Sharif, destroying the gate and wall just before midnight on November 10.

A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said on November 11 that all of its two dozen staff escaped the attack "safe and uninjured" and were evacuated, while Afghan security forces and NATO special forces had "repulsed the heavily armed attackers."

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for U.S. air strikes last week that killed 32 civilians near the northern city of Kunduz.

President Ashraf Ghani called the attack a "crime against humanity and all international laws."

A spokesman for the governor of Balkh Province told RFE/RLs Afghan Service that the suicide bomb blast made a large hole in the compound wall and other Taliban fighters tried to enter the compound through the gap.

But he said security forces at the consulate prevented militants from storming inside the compound.

Local doctor Noor Mohammad Fayez said the city hospitals received six dead bodies, including two killed by bullets.

He added that at least 128 others were wounded, some of them critically and many with shrapnel injuries.

Witnesses said many of the injured were Afghans who were sleeping in their homes nearby and were struck by flying glass when their windows were shattered by the massive explosion.

Many nearby houses and shops were destroyed or damaged in the huge blast.

The heavily protected German Consulate is located in a large building close to the famous Blue Mosque in the center of Mazar-e Sharif, where the Indian Consulate was also attacked by militants earlier this year.

The Taliban statement from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack was in retaliation for November 3 air strikes in the Buz-e-Kandahari area of Kunduz that killed dozens of people, the vast majority of them women and children.

NATO, the United Nations, and the Afghan government are investigating the attack, which prompted angry protests in Kunduz.

In Berlin, officials said a crisis task-force meeting was called at Germany's Foreign Ministry to review events surrounding the attack.

Germany has almost 1,000 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh, of which Mazar-e Sharif is the capital, as part of NATO's Resolute Support mission.

In the past several years, attacks have increased in northern Afghanistan, which for years was relatively peaceful.

Taliban militants have overrun dozens of districts in the region and last year seized Kunduz city, the first major city the group captured since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

With additional reporting by Reuters, AP, dpa, and AFP
A Russian hacker who was convicted for his leading role in one of the largest data thefts in U.S. history has been released from prison after serving most of his 12-year sentence.

Vladimir Drinkman was released from a Pennsylvania jail on October 28, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons told RFE/RL.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not respond to an RFE/RL request for comment on whether Drinkman had been turned over for deportation, a process that can take up to several months. Drinkman's lawyer, Igor Litvak, declined to comment. RFE/RL could not immediately reach Drinkman.

Drinkman was a key member of a criminal hacking group that penetrated major U.S. corporations, including Heartland Payment Systems, which at the time it was breached in 2008 was one of the biggest U.S. payment-processing firms. The Heartland attack -- the largest breach in history at the time -- cost the payment company more than $200 million in losses.

Varonis, a U.S.-based cybersecurity firm, ranks the attack on Heartland among the 10 largest data breaches of all time.

Chuck Brooks, a cybersecurity expert and adjunct professor at Georgetown University, said the Heartland hack was a "wake-up call" for the payments and financial industries to enhance their cyberdefenses.



He said the breach led to stronger security policies, including a better understanding by CEOs and CFOs of the threats to business sustainability and reputation.

"After the breach, many companies added more stringent data and security policies, including encryption, multifactor authentication, and monitoring of systems and networks," Brooks told RFE/RL.

Heartland also later established the Payments Processing Information Sharing Council (PPISC), which serves as a forum for banks and payment processors to share information about breaches and compliance issues, he noted.

In addition to breaking into Heartland, the hacking gang also breached Nasdaq OMX Group, 7-Eleven, JC Penney, JetBlue Airways, and others, according to prosecutors. In total, they stole the data of more than 160 million credit cards, leading to more than $300 million in damages.

Greg Hunter, a Virginia-based lawyer who has represented cybercriminals from the former Soviet Union, said the Heartland case demonstrated the sophisticated evolution of Russian-speaking hackers.

"This was the beginning of specialization," Hunter told RFE/RL. "Rather than an individual hacker spending a lot of time stealing credit card data and then trying to monetize it, you had guys specializing in breaching the security apparatus of a site, others selling the data."

The appearance of hacker forums was critical to the phenomenon of a division of labor, he said.

Hacker sites "allowed these guys to find each other and work together. A guy who breaches banks could just focus on that, knowing he could find others to either help him know what to get and how to use it, or just buy his services outright," Hunter said.

Several of the most commonly used forums where hackers bought and sold stolen credit card data and traded tips included Cardplanet and Direct Connection. A Russian man, Aleksei Burkov, was extradited from Israel to the United States and later pleaded guilty in 2020 to U.S. charges related to his oversight of those forums.

He was deported to Russia last year.

According to U.S. court filings, Drinkman and another co-conspirator, Alexandr Kalinin, specialized in penetrating network security and gaining access to the corporate data systems. Drinkman along with a third man, Roman Kotov, also focused on mining the networks to steal valuable data.

Another Russian man, Dmitry Smilyanets, then sold the stolen credit card information on forums for $10 to $50 each and distributed the proceeds of the scheme to the others, according to prosecutors.

Kalinin and Kotov, both of whom are Russian citizens, are believed to still be in Russia.

Drinkman was arrested in the Netherlands in June 2012 at the request of the United States, along with Smilyanets.

While Smilyanets cooperated with U.S. authorities and arrived in the United States a few months after his arrest, Drinkman fought his extradition for more than a year.

Ultimately, Drinkman pleaded guilty in 2015 and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, including time served since his arrest. It is one of the harshest sentences given to a Russian hacker.

Drinkman served a total of 10 years and four months, or 86 percent of his sentence. U.S. federal prisoners earn credit each year for good behavior and typically serve 85 percent of their sentence.

Smilyanets was sentenced to just time served, or less than six years, and currently resides in the United States, where he works as a cyberthreat intelligence analyst.

He declined to comment when contacted by RFE/RL.
Mohammad Nayeb-Zehi was among the hundreds of worshippers who gathered on September 30 at the Great Mosalla, a religious site in Iran's southeastern city of Zahedan, for Friday Prayers.

Just hours later, the 16-year-old's family learned he was dead.

Nayeb-Zehi was among the scores of people gunned down by security forces in a brutal crackdown following anti-government protests in Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchistan Province, which is home to the country's Baluch minority.

"He was a simple laborer and not political," Nayeb-Zehi's brother, Ahmad, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda in a telephone interview from Zahedan, adding that his sibling had been shot in the heart. "We're in pain, and we cannot accept it."

The crackdown in Zahedan came amid weeks-long nationwide protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who died on September 16, days after she was detained by Iran's morality police.

In Sistan-Baluchistan, public anger at the authorities escalated amid reports that a 15-year-old Baluch girl had been raped by a police official in the province's southern port city of Chabahar.

The violence erupted soon after protesters gathered outside a police station near the central mosque in Zahedan. Members of the crowd chanted anti-government slogans, and some threw rocks. Security forces responded with deadly force by firing on the crowd from the station, according to witnesses.

Security forces also raided the central mosque and the nearby Great Mosalla and opened fire on worshippers using live ammunition, rights groups said, adding that many were shot in the head, heart, neck, or torso, revealing a clear intent to kill or seriously wound.

At least 94 people were killed and 350 wounded on that day, referred to as "Bloody Friday," according to the U.S.-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. At least 13 minors were among those killed, including Nayeb-Zehi.

The victims were overwhelmingly Baluch -- a mostly Sunni ethnic group that has long faced disproportionate discrimination at the hands of the Iranian authorities.

"He was martyred inside the Mosalla while holding his prayer mat," said Ahmad Nayeb-Zehi.

Nayeb-Zehi's family first visited Zahedan's Khatam al-Anbia hospital, hoping he was among the wounded. They later found his body in a seminary at the Great Mosalla.

"We entered a room there and saw about 10 bodies," said Ahmad Nayeb-Zehi. "[Mohammad] was among them."

He said the authorities prevented the family from filming the scene. "I told them this has to be documented, it has to be published by international media," he said, adding that footage later emerged on social media showing the gruesome scene at the seminary.

The family refused to send Nayeb-Zehi's body to the morgue. Instead, his body lay in the living room for around 24 hours before he was buried.

"We said he was martyred and there was no need for an autopsy," said Ahmad Nayeb-Zehi.

The authorities accused Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni militant group, of attacking the police station. The group is recognized as a terrorist organization by both Iran and the United States and has previously claimed deadly attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan targeting Iranian security forces.

But local and independent sources have rejected the authorities' claims.

The authorities have also reported a much lower number of fatalities, announcing that only 19 people, including several members of the security forces, were killed.

Ahmad Nayeb-Zehi said the authorities were "rubbing salt into the wounds of the people" by claiming "terrorists" were involved.

He said he witnessed a military helicopter shooting at civilians near the Great Mosalla. "I haven't even seen such scenes in Hollywood movies," he said. "A helicopter was shooting at people. A lady was shot in front of my eyes."

RFE/RL could not verify his account. But activists have accused security forces of shooting at protestors from helicopters.

"I don't know what the intention of this crime was," he said. "Our only demand from the establishment is for the murderers of our [family members] to be punished."

The killings have led to widespread anger in Sistan-Baluchistan, one of Iran's poorest provinces.

Anti-establishment protests have been reported in Zahedan since the crackdown, including on October 14 and October 21, when protesters took to the streets after Friday Prayers and chanted "Death to the dictator."

During his Friday Prayers sermon on October 21, influential Sunni cleric Molavi Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi said senior officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were "responsible" for the September 30 killings.

"We are surprised by the silence of the high-ranking officials," he said in his sermon, which was posted on his website.

"Scores were killed here without any reason. I don't have the exact number. Some have reported 90, some say less, some say more," Ismaeelzahi added.

He also said people will not be satisfied until "those who killed the people" are brought to justice.

The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center said the events of September 30 amounted to "a massacre of protesters by security forces."

"The government's total denial of responsibility for the massacring of citizens by its security apparatus is consistent with similar past denials and is evidence that internal calls for investigation of such crimes are insufficient," said the rights group, which documents human rights violations in Iran.
Amnesty International says it has gathered evidence suggesting that Iraqi government forces tortured and killed villagers near the northern city of Mosul.

The London-based human rights group said up to six people were killed execution-style in late October in several villages south of Mosul due to suspected links with the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

Iraqi forces, backed by U.S. air strikes and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, have been battling to retake Mosul from the militants.

"Men in federal police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood," said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty's Beirut regional office.

"In some cases the residents were tortured before they were shot dead execution-style," she added.

The rights group has called on the Iraqi government to investigate the deaths.

Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa
As Moldova's presidential election heads for a runoff vote on November 13, pro-EU candidate Maia Sandu has become the target of increasing smear attacks by supporters of rival pro-Moscow candidate, Igor Dodon.

The attacks include a high-ranking leader of the powerful Moldovan Orthodox Church casting doubts on Sandu's morality because the candidate, 44, is neither married nor a mother. The church is part of the Russian Orthodox Church seated in Moscow, which is a strong supporter of the Kremlin.

Bishop Marchel, who heads the Moldovan Orthodox Church in the country's second-largest city of Balti, issued a statement November 4 saying Sandu's "attitude toward Christian morality...seems to diverge from normal principles."

That sparked an angry response from the candidate, who has previously stated her support for family and traditional values.

"I have never thought being a single woman is a shame," she told the weekly Ziarul de Garda. "Maybe it is a sin even to be a woman?"

Some of Sandu's supporters have launched an online petition -- signed so far by nearly 10,000 activists -- hitting back at the church by asking authorities to collect taxes on its lucrative sale of religious items.

The statement by the bishop ramps up what has been clear support for Dodon from key leaders of the Moldovan Orthodox Church but which had not previously turned into personal attacks on Sandu's character.

On October 28, church head Metropolitan Vladimir publicly backed Dodon in a sermon. It marked the first time in years that the church had waded into electoral politics at this level.

Moldovans are overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian, but the Moldovan Orthodox Church competes for influence in the country with the Bessarabian Orthodox Church, which is part of the Romanian Orthodox Church seated in Bucharest. Leaders of the Bessarabian Orthodox Church have not publicly commented on the election.

The bishop's remarks are far from the only personal attacks aimed at Sandu since she finished second in the October 30 election. The former economist and former education minister, who heads the Party for Action and Solidarity (PAS), took 38 percent of the vote. Dodon, head of the Socialist Party, received 48 percent of ballots, falling just short of a majority and sending the election into a second round.

One of the most visible smear attacks has been an anonymous campaign to discredit her through widely distributed leaflets stating that her pro-EU platform includes supporting homosexuality and mass immigration.

The flyers, which have been distributed in many Moldovan cities, declare "Maia Sandu will hand over a devastated country to the refugees, the homosexuals, and those who want to unite it with Romania." The leaflets reportedly have been printed in Romanian (often referred to by Moldovans as "Moldovan"), Russian, and Gagauz.

Dodon told reporters on November 6 that his party has nothing to do with the anonymous leaflet campaign. The leaflets do not bear an obligatory notice that they have been approved as campaign material by the Justice Ministry.

Sandu's party also says it has been targeted by a smear campaign in which a money transfer of "unclear origin" arrived in its accounts following an appeal for funds. The PAS said on November 8 that it returned the money as soon as it learned it had come from Ilan Shor, a Moldovan industrialist on trial for financial fraud.

The presidential contest in Moldova is widely seen as pitting those who support closer integration with the European Union against those who want to expand relations with Russia. Dodon, a former economy minister, has said Moldova must rebuild trade and economic ties with Moscow.

The smear tactics follow months of campaigning in a race that saw nine candidates compete in the election on October 30 but which is now down to just the two strongest contenders -- from the pro-Russia and pro-EU camps. Both have repeatedly launched harsh attacks on their rival's policies, accusing one another of lying, cheating, and political cowardice.

Sandu has questioned Dodon's integrity as he has said he will use his experience as a former trade and economics minister to rapidly lift Russia's crippling economic embargoes on many of Moldova's key exports. She has demanded to know why Dodon did not seek to lift the embargoes when he held the position of economics minister from 2006 to 2009.

The Russian embargoes have intermittently targeted Moldovan wines, vegetables, and fruit since 2006 and are widely viewed as pressure upon Chisinau to cast its lot with Russia and not to join NATO and the EU, as neighboring Romania has done.

The Moldovan presidency is a largely ceremonial position, with executive power in the hands of the prime minister and parliament. But if the new president takes office with a strong popular mandate, he or she could wield considerable influence in setting the course of a former Soviet republic, which remains deeply divided over whether its future lies East or West.

The president is being elected by direct popular vote -- a change from the past 16 years, in which the head of state was elected by parliament.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Moldovan Service
Montenegro's president has named a former head of intelligence as the prime minister-designate who will try to form a new government.

Dusko Markovic 58, is also the deputy leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists and one of the most trusted allies of Milo Djukanovic, the outgoing prime minister and longtime leader of the party.

The party emerged as the single strongest party in Montenegro's 81-seat parliament after elections on October 16, but it lost its majority.

It is now seeking an alliance with the Social Democrats and other parties that represent national minorities, which would give it a majority of only two seats.

The major opposition parties rejected holding any talks with Djukanovic, whom they accuse of corruption and authoritarianism during his 25 years at the helm of government.

In a statement, President Filip Vujanovic indicated that Markovic would follow many of Djukanovic's pro-Western policies.

He "will be devoted to [European] integration and economic prosperity," Vujanovic said. Montenegro hopes to join both NATO and the European Union.

Commenting on Markovic's appointment, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he hoped that Montenegro would pursue a "balanced foreign policy" and maintain ties with Moscow.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters
Iraqi troops continued to battle Islamic State (IS) in and around the northern city of Mosul on November 10 but did not advance their positions, focusing instead on clearing neighborhoods previously occupied by the militants.

The clearing operations by governing forces included removing booby traps and mines in a sliver of eastern Mosul, the Zahra neighborhood.

They were also clearing narrow streets that are choked by the hulks of destroyed cars and armored vehicles.

They have also recaptured about half of the Aden neighborhood where clashes continue.

Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition that is supporting the urban assault with air strikes, said advancing troops and aircraft have also destroyed about 70 tunnels that were being used by IS militants to launch surprise attacks from inside densely populated areas.

Dorrian described the defenses erected in Mosul by IS fighters during their two-year occupation of the city as "elaborate."

The three-week offensive has slowed with government forces holding a line on the northern and southern outskirts of the city, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters to the northeast at the town of Bashiqa, and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia fighters blocking the highway that runs west from Mosul into Syria.


Prison took a heavy toll on Leyla and Arif Yunus, Azerbaijans prominent husband-and-wife team of human rights defenders.

Almost one year after their release from jail, where they suffered what they say was unrelenting humiliation and torture, the couple have resumed their advocacy work from their new home in the Netherlands.

"Physically we are not well, but we have been doing this since Soviet times," says 61-year-old Arif Yunus. "How you feel is not the most important thing. Whats important is whether or not you can continue working."

Their prison ordeal has left deep wounds. They remain frail and say they are struggling to adjust to their new life abroad.

"Its hard to start over at 60," says Leyla Yunus, who marked her 60th birthday weeks after being freed. "When you are forced to leave your homeland, a piece of your soul stays behind. We don't know what will happen to us now, but we will do our best."

The couple were detained in April 2014 and subsequently handed harsh prison terms on charges of fraud, tax evasion, and illegal business activities widely decried as bogus. Their trial sparked an international outcry, with rights groups branding it a travesty of justice and denouncing President Ilham Aliyevs deepening campaign to muzzle dissent in the oil-rich Caucasus nation. The United States singled out the Yunuses by name in a call for Baku to release them and other jailed dissidents, and EU lawmakers urged the freeing of all Azerbaijani political prisoners.

The Yunuses were immediately separated following their detention, with Arif Yunus placed in solitary confinement. They served their sentences in different prisons but were eventually allowed to communicate, although they say they had to use coded language to avoid their letters being censored or confiscated by prison staff.

Arif Yunus was eventually released on November 12, 2015, on grounds of his failing health. Leyla Yunus, who suffers from diabetes, was freed several weeks later. Each was given a suspended sentence and five years' probation.

"We were thrown in jail, beaten, tortured. They stole our health," says Leyla Yunus. "They released us only because we were dying and they got scared."

She and her husband, a respected historian and scholar, have since reunited with their daughter in Amsterdam. But for the couple, who have been combating human rights abuses in Azerbaijan for three decades, the departure has felt like another punishment.

"We never wanted to leave," says Arif Yunus. "We considered ourselves soldiers on the front line."

The Yunuses say they resolved to emigrate after doctors in Baku, fearing retaliation from authorities, refused to give them medical treatment following their release.

"I wanted to have a CT scan, but doctors were scared, even though I was offering to pay," says Arif Yunus. "Even private clinics were scared."

Both sustained permanent damage to their health as a result of the violence they endured in prison, they say.

Leyla Yunus says she was severely beaten, denied proper medical care for her diabetes, threatened with rape, and dragged by her feet into solitary confinement without explanation. She has lost part of her vision in one eye.

WATCH: Leyla Yunus released from prison in early December 2015

Her husband still wears a splint on his left arm.

"They tied my hands behind my back, hung me up by the handcuffs, and beat me on the back and the neck with wet towels," he says. "This causes terrible pain in the wrists and in the back, and it twists the elbow joints."

In June, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered the Azerbaijani state to pay the Yunuses 26,000 euros each ($28,950) in compensation for their treatment and the resulting "prolonged mental and physical suffering" in custody, and an additional 4,000 euros ($4,450) in lawyers fees.

The couple, however, say Azerbaijani authorities have failed to send them any money so far.

WATCH: Arif Yunus released from prison in November 2015

Arif Yunus, who suffers from chronic hypertension and is diagnosed with a heart condition, has had regular fainting episodes since his incarceration. He says his blood pressure soars and he suffers excruciating headaches whenever he recalls his time in prison.

"I can lose consciousness. I can have a stroke any moment, he says. My doctor told me that Im doomed and that I could die any minute. He also told me that drugs wont save me -- work will."

In Azerbaijan, the Yunuses and their unregistered Peace and Democracy Institute defended victims of human rights abuses, from unlawful arrests to forced evictions, and encouraged peace-building between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Those two neighbors fought a still-unresolved war between 1988 and 1994 over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic Armenian region in Azerbaijan.

The couple are still under investigation in Azerbaijan on charges of spying for Armenia.

As they have often in the past, the Yunuses have found solace in their work.

Together, they continue to gather information on politically motivated arrests in Azerbaijan.

While they were behind bars, their daughter registered the Peace and Democracy Institute in Amsterdam. The group had been unable to obtain registration in Baku and the apartment it used as its office was bulldozed by authorities in 2011.

According to their findings, at least 166 people are currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan simply because of their views and a dozen dissidents are tortured to death every year in the days after their arrests.

The Yunuses are preparing to compile a second list naming specific Azerbaijani officials, prison staff, police, and judges responsible for jailing and torturing people on fabricated charges.

They also plan to write a book that Arif describes as "a testimony from witnesses." Sponsored by the European Endowment for Democracy, a joint initiative of EU institutions and member states, the book will look back at their 30-year crusade to document human rights violations in Azerbaijan and describe the abuses they themselves suffered in Azerbaijani prisons.

"What he saw, what we went through, must be told," says Leyla Yunus.

She and her husband say they have refused to apply for welfare benefits in the Netherlands and will only accept money paid for their work, so the book sponsorship is coming at a much-needed time.

In addition to their book project, the couple have actively taken part in pro-democracy events and recently paid a high-profile visit to the European Parliament.

They have also restarted their collaboration with a number of prominent international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the World Organization Against Torture, Front Line Defenders, and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
A missing man whose public complaint about corrupt officials in his tiny village in Chechnya brought him fame across Russia and local condemnation has fled the region after fearing for his life.

Russian rights defender Svetlana Gannushkina wrote on Facebook on November 10 that Ramazan Dzhalaldinov had told her that he had to escape from his village to neighboring Daghestan on November 2-3 after Chechnya's Deputy Interior Minister Apti Alaudinov personally threatened to kill him and his wife unless he stopped his complaints.

According to Gannushkina, Dzhalaldinov told her that police in his village took away his and his son's passports and his mobile phone.

Dzhalaldinov also claimed Alaudinov and local police were doing everything to prevent his meeting with Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, with whom Dzhalaldinov wants to discuss his village's problems.

Dzhalaldinov's relatives reported his disappearance on November 7.

It's the second time Dzhalaldinov has disappeared since his April video complaint alleging corruption among local authorities.

Chechnya's officials, including Kadyrov, denied the complaint, staging a televised public meeting of Dzhalaldinov's fellow villagers to deny the allegations.

Dzhalaldinov and his family fled to Daghestan then and returned a month later. Dzhalaldinov then apologized in a video that was posted to Kadyrov's own Instagram account.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov says Russian diplomats spoke with the teams of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during the U.S. presidential election campaign.

Ryabkov said on November 10 that the talks involved diplomats from the Russian Embassy in the United States and "contacts" with influential people in Trump's circle.

"I don't say that all of them, but a whole array of them, supported contacts with Russian representatives," Ryabkov added, saying talks "were on a sufficient, responsible level" as "part of routine everyday work."

President-elect Trumps spokeswoman Hope Hicks said she was "not aware" of any meetings by Trump's campaign representatives and Russian diplomats.

Trump's relations with Russia became a contentious issue of the election after he praised President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader, and his call for Russian hackers to find and leak Clinton's e-mails.

Trump has said that he would welcome better ties with Russia and wants to cooperate with Putin to defeat Islamic State militants in Syria.

He also said he may consider recognizing the Kremlins illegal annexation of Crimea.

Ryabkov said contact with Clinton's team by Russian diplomats was "sporadic" and "not always productive."

Based on reporting by AP, Interfax, and Bloomberg


Two days after the election of real-estate tycoon Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, independent Russian political analysts are wrestling with what it could mean for bilateral relations.

Despite indications that Trump might be less critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and more willing to make deals with Moscow than his predecessor, he remains an enigma.

RFE/RLs Russian Service asked independent Russian analysts about their sense of the potential opportunities and dangers of this new phase of international relations.

Ilya Yashin, opposition politician

He must prove that he is not Putins candidate.

"Russian propaganda and the American media definitely created [for Trump] a reputation as Putin's agent. Both [Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's] electorate and Putins electorate are absolutely certain that this is Putins victory, that the Kremlin got its president of the United States. And for Trump, this is an enormous problem, because now he must prove that he is not Putins candidate.

"How, exactly, he will prove this, considering the specifics of his character, his temperament, and his unusual political experience, we can only guess.

Vladimir Lukin, former Russian ambassador to the U.S. and a former member of the State Dumas Foreign Affairs Committee

"Regarding Russia, we can only say that the cliche of Russia as a bugbear did not work with the [U.S.] electorate. Voters did not go for this -- this is already a clear signal from which the new administration will proceed.

I would seriously be thinking about offering the new administration the chance to begin from a clean slate...

"If I were in our administration, I would seriously be thinking about offering the new administration the chance to begin from a clean slate or, if you prefer, with a serious, major reset that does not concentrate on past offenses or lapses or who is right and who is to blame -- one that concentrates on the most important priorities, the most important issues of global politics and bilateral relations at the most pragmatic level. If that happens, there is a good chance that we can begin a dialogue. But where it will lead, who knows?"

Viktor Kuvaldin, professor at the Moscow School of Economics

"I also think the best thing for us to do is to try to begin from a clean slate, even though this is impossible. There is Ukraine. There is Syria. There is the main question: Do we accept the role of the United States as the only global superpower or dont we? And does the United States recognize our rightful interests as a regional power with multiregional interests from Northern Europe to East Asia? There is no way to avoid these issues.

We shouldn't build up illusions. America is what it is and it isn't going to change.

"But what we can do in the realm of official policy is to end the propaganda war with its over-the-top anti-Americanism. This hasnt brought anything good to our country and it isn't going to. We shouldn't build up illusions. America is what it is and it isn't going to change. It will conduct policy first of all according to its interests. But our vital interest is in having with America the best possible relations at any given moment. In this sense, Trump's election opens a small window of opportunity."

Stanislav Belkovsky, political analyst and consultant

"The important thing isn't whether there will be a [Trump-Putin] summit, but what would be on the agenda and what might the results be. I agree that Donald Trump might make some specific concessions to Russia on local matters. I also agree with the supposition that Trump, as a businessman, is used to reaching agreements with everyone. He is more likely to be able to reach one with Vladimir Putin than Hillary Clinton, on a whole range of issues.

"But we cannot discount the factor of Trump's unpredictability. Trump does need to shed his unexpected reputation as a Russian agent. He needs to somehow get around it and that could bring Russia some pleasant or unpleasant surprises.

Historically, isolationism -- unfortunately, if you are talking about Europe -- always ended with one thing: world war.

"[On Ukraine] I think that nothing fundamental will change. The sanctions will not be lifted. They might be eased to some extent, and, of course, for Vladimir Putin that will be a huge psychological victory -- for him personally. But it won't help Russias future development because Russian now is strongly turning away from the tried-and-true road of civilization. It is trying to dig itself in to a world that does not exist -- the Yalta-Potsdam world that disappeared in 1989 but which is discussed today by the Russian establishment as if it still exists."

Yury Felshtinsky, Russian-American historian and author

"Most of what Trump has said falls into the category of isolationism. Historically, isolationism -- unfortunately, if you are talking about Europe -- always ended with one thing: world war that sucked America in with large financial and human costs for itself as well as for Europe.

I dont think it can lead to anything good.

"Unfortunately, Trump's ideas are that Europe should look after itself, that East Asia should look after itself, that America will save money and become great and rich -- and this really worries me. I dont think it can lead to anything good.

"I think we are entering a very risky period, because it seems to me that in May 2014 Russia stopped with just two regions of eastern Ukraine and didn't complete its further project of Novorossia as a result of the Kremlin's understanding that further expansion could lead to a full-scale war. Only that, in my opinion, saved Ukraine at that time. If Washington sends another signal, unfortunately, that it is not prepared to defend the countries of Europe, especially Eastern Europe, that America does not intend to live up to its commitments to NATO, this will result in another spiral of Russian territorial expansion with all its consequences."

Selected and translated by RFE/RL correspondent Robert Coalson
Far-right Serbian lawmakers have prevented a top European Union official from presenting an annual report in parliament.

The EU official, Michael Davenport, was scheduled to present a report on Serbia's progress toward EU accession to the parliaments European Integration Committee on November 10.

But members of the Radical Party, led by ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj, obstructed the session by lodging complaints to the committee's chairperson and forcing the event to be postponed.

The lawmakers objected to the report being presented only in the English language. They also said Davenport, a British citizen, neither had the "moral ground nor legitimacy to attend the committee session" because of the United Kingdom's Brexit referendum vote to leave the EU.

The EU delegation in Serbia said it "regrets that conditions were not in place" for Davenport to present the report, and that he "stands ready to return" to the assembly "when conditions for such discussions are in place."

The Radical Party supports closer ties with Russian and opposes Belgrade's bid for Serbia to join the EU.

Based on reporting by N1 and AFP


The U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe says it had obtained information about possible attacks on large public gatherings in Tajikistan and its border crossings with Afghanistan.

The embassy said in a statement on November 10 that "terrorist groups" may carry out attacks, but did not name them. It urged U.S. citizens to avoid large crowds and public transportation.

Tajikistans security forces often report clashes with Afghan drug smugglers along the border.

The warning from the U.S. Embassy comes as the impoverished Central Asian country plans a series of events in parks and other public places to mark a new holiday, President's Day, on November 16.

With reporting by Reuters
ON MY MIND

Hold onto your hats because there are more elections on the horizon and Russia will hardly be on the sidelines.

France will hold a presidential election in April and May 2017 -- but the primary campaign season gets under way later this month. And German voters will elect the Bundestag -- and its next chancellor -- sometime between August and October 2017.

Emboldened by the election of Donald Trump in the United States, it is reasonable to expect Russia to actively try to influence the vote in both countries. In France, the Kremlin has openly supported the right-wing National Front's Marine Le Pen, who opposes both the European Union and NATO. Russia would, however, be more than happy with a victory for former President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In Germany, the goal is simple: Remove -- or at the least make life very miserable -- for Chancellor Angela Merkel.

So more cyberattacks, more e-mail leaks, and more disinformation campaigns are surely on the way -- this time in Europe.

IN THE NEWS

Russia's Federal Security Service says it has apprehended three suspected members of a Ukrainian "saboteur group" in Russian-annexed Crimea.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, has issued a statement denying such a group exists.

Russian warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea drove away a Dutch submarine that Moscow contended was shadowing its squadron in a "dangerous" way.

Ukrainian lawmaker Nadia Savchenko, a former military aviator who spent nearly two years in Russian custody, has urged U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to "strengthen sanctions" against Russia in an open letter in Facebook.

WHAT I'M READING

U.S. Election Fallout In Russia

Wired's cybersecurity correspondent Andy Greenberg writes that Donald Trump's win in the U.S. election "signals open season for Russia's political hackers."

"After a campaign season marred by the influence of hackers, including some widely believed to be on Vladimir Putins payroll, that outcome means more than a mandate for Trump and his coalition. For Russia, it will also be taken as a win for the chaos-injecting tactics of political hacks and leaks that the countrys operatives used to meddle in Americas election -- and an incentive to try them elsewhere," Greenberg writes.

In The Moscow Times, foreign affairs analyst Vladimir Frolov suggests that the Kremlin may not be as thrilled with Trump's victory as many think.

"Trumps impulsiveness and unpredictability, particularly his penchant for going personal, unnerve the Kremlin," Frolov writes.

"Moscow has used unpredictability as one of its key foreign policy tools, but that was predicated on the rationality of the U.S. response to Russias assertiveness. Having an equally unpredictable partner in Washington may actually limit Moscow's freedom of maneuver."

Also in The Moscow Times, columnist Mikhail Fishman argues that Trump's win closes the door to a potential domestic political thaw in Russia.

Meanwhile, in a piece for Rebublic.ru (formerly Slon.ru), journalist Oleg Kashin looks at what Trump's win can teach Russians about the power of populism.

Bloomberg has a reported piece looking at how the Russian elite is really reacting to Trump.

And on his In Moscow's Shadows blog, Mark Galeotti, a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague, looks at seven foreign affairs implications of the Trump victory.

U.S. Election Fallout In Ukraine

In a commentary for ECFR, Andrew Wilson argues that "Kyiv's relationship with Washington could get very bumpy, very quickly."

In Politico, David Stern writes that Trump's victory "leaves Ukraine alone and afraid."

Meet Another Putin Bodyguard

Also on his blog, Galeotti takes a look at Yevgeny Zinichev, the former Putin bodyguard who was recently appointed deputy director of the FSB.

Troubled Friendship

In a piece in DefenseNews, Burak Ege Bekdil notes that Russia's rapprochement with Turkey is not going as smoothly as some in Moscow had hoped.
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Thousands of demonstrators have protested against Donald Trump's unexpected election as president in cities across the United States from Boston to Los Angeles.

The mostly peaceful protesters disrupted traffic, carried anti-Trump signs, and blasted the Republican real estate mogul on November 9 for his vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants as well as statements and actions that have offended Muslims, women, and others.

The demonstrations came despite Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, who conceded defeat by saying the nation should give Trump a "chance to lead."

Clinton, who looks set to win the popular vote, conceded on November 9 that the election showed that "our nation is more deeply divided than we thought."

Trump will visit the White House on November 10 at the invitation of President Barack Obama.

In New York, thousands of protesters filled the streets of midtown Manhattan and made their way to Trump Tower, Trump's home on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted, "Not my president."

In downtown Chicago, an estimated 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist U.S.A."

In Boston, thousands of anti-Trump protesters streamed through downtown, chanting "Trump's a racist" and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump" and "Abolish Electoral College."

In Seattle, police said they were responding to reports of a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of anti-Trump protests. Police said the shooting was unrelated to the demonstrations.

The protests were concentrated in coastal cities that voted overwhelmingly for Clinton, but also occurred in cities in the midwest and south like Richmond, Virginia; Omaha, Nebraska; and Kansas City.

In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said.

Protesters railed against Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally.

Marchers chanted and carried signs in front of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Another group stood outside the White House. They held candles, listened to speeches, and sang songs.

Protesters at American University in Washington burned U.S. flags on campus.

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston, and Portland, Oregon, and organizers said they were planning rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland, California, on November 10.

Trump's campaign did not immediately respond. Trump said in his victory speech on November 9 that he would be president for all Americans. "It is time for us to come together as one united people," he said.

Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that "Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form."

Early on November 9, some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, and marched toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, a San Francisco area haven for liberals.

Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and three other Bay Area cities -- Oakland, Richmond, and El Cerrito.

A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high-school students walked out of classes in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally.

Chanting in Spanish, "The people united will never be defeated," the group held signs with slogans such as "Not supporting racism, not my president" and "Immigrants make America great."

Many of those students were members of the "Dreamers" generation, children whose parents brought them into the United States illegally, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration, school officials said.

The demonstrations followed a night of protests in the San Francisco area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump's victory against Clinton, who was heavily favored.

In the only major violence reported, demonstrators smashed storefront windows and set garbage and tires ablaze late on November 8 in downtown Oakland.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and dpa
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) says it has apprehended three suspected members of a Ukrainian "saboteur group" in Russian-annexed Crimea.

In a statement on November 10, the FSB said it "detained members of a sabotage-terrorist group from the main intelligence directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry" in the city of Sevastopol on November 9.

The FSB said the group "planned to carry out acts of sabotage on objects of military and public infrastructure," and had in their possession "powerful explosive devices, weapons, ammunition" and communication equipment.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry rejected the FSB's claims, calling it "another fabrication of the Russian secret services aimed to justify its own repressive measures against local residents and discredit Ukraine on the international arena."

Earlier in August, Moscow said it thwarted an incursion into the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula by Ukrainian saboteurs and accused Kyiv of plotting "terror" in Crimea.

Kyiv rejected the charges as "cynical" and deployed troops near Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, on high alert.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
Ukrainian lawmaker Nadia Savchenko has urged U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to "strengthen sanctions" against Russia.

In her letter posted on Facebook on November 10, Savchenko urged Trump to provide Ukraine with the "diplomatic, technical, and military support" to fight Russia's aggression.

Savchenko said the current standoff between Kyiv and Moscow over Russias annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its support of pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine was reminiscent of the situation in Europe before World War II.

"I want to add that you have all the possibilities to prevent World War III," Savchenko wrote.

Savchenko, a former military aviator, spent nearly two years in Russian custody before she was released and returned to Ukraine in May. She was elected to parliament in 2014 while being held in Russia.

During his election campaign, Trump said he might look into the possibility of lifting U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia over its actions in Ukraine.
U.S.-led air strikes against the Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria have killed 64 civilians and injured eight in the past year, the U.S. military has said.

The latest totals bring the number of civilians killed in air strikes to 119, with another 37 injured, according to the U.S. Central Command, which insists that in each incident all precautions were taken to avoid civilian deaths.

Independent monitoring groups and activists estimate that air strikes have killed hundreds of civilians, however.

The latest cases occurred from November through September. However, they do not include an air strike in July near Manbij, Syria, that monitoring groups said killed at least 56 civilians, the military said.

Also, the Pentagon said a U.S. brigadier general is still investigating a September air strike near Deir el-Zour, Syria, that may have unintentionally killed dozens of Syrian government forces.

The Pentagon said it has received 257 allegations of air strikes causing civilian casualties, and has concluded that 76 of the reports were valid. To date, it said 65 investigations have been completed.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and dpa
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After fighting with the state for two years, Medarva Healthcare has received approval from the Virginia Department of Health to build its West Creek Surgery Center in Goochland County.

To be built within Medarvas existing medical office building in the West Creek Medical Park, the 25,000-square-foot surgery center will include two operating rooms that will be relocated from the companys existing Stony Point Surgery Center in Richmond.

The decision to relocate the operating rooms came after the Department of Health denied the companys initial Certificate of Public Need application, which would have involved building the surgery center with two new operating rooms but maintaining the same number at Stony Point.

The company received word on Nov. 1 that its latest application had been approved.

President and CEO Bruce Kupper said reducing the number of operating rooms at Stony Point was worthwhile if it meant opening the West Creek Surgery Center.

Well be able to manage the volume in both places, he said.

Stony Point Surgery Center is an outpatient facility through which surgeons can perform procedures on patients without them going to a hospital. The West Creek Surgery Center will function in the same way.

Construction will start on the new surgery center within the next few weeks and wrap up in the spring. The medical office building in which it will be located was constructed in 2015 with Medarva holding a master lease over the entire 65,000-square-foot facility.

Kupper said the overall cost of the surgery center will be around $15 million or $16 million.

The impetus to create the new surgery center came as the activity at Stony Point Surgery Center reached its limit.

We had reached capacity here at Stony Point, and we could not add more operating rooms here due to parking issues and the fact that were up against the medical office building, he said.

Goochland County was ideal for expansion, Kupper said, and West Creek especially because of its proximity to major roads, including state Route 288 and Interstate 64.

According to a press release, Medarva spent more than 1,000 hours of staff time and in excess of $300,000 in legal and other fees during the Certificate of Public Need  or COPN  process. It submitted its first application in January 2015.

Under the COPN system, new medical facilities have to be reviewed and approved by the state before they can move forward, and it has been the subject of debate by health care stakeholders.

I think the way the COPN process is currently constructed and interpreted, its really designed to protect the acute care hospital franchises, Kupper said. It does not acknowledge the changing reimbursement insurance models, where patients are now on the hook for a higher portion of their cost.

I do not think it recognizes the quality that a freestanding ambulatory surgery center can offer in terms of low infection rates, high service, the safety of patients and the safety of staff.

Kupper said that, if the COPN process continues to exist in Virginia, then the regulators should change their mindsets in terms of how they look at the world.

The process was originally designed around the idea that a bed built was a bed filled, he added.

But the fact that so many hospitals have so many empty (operating rooms) tells me that philosophy is no longer true, he said. So controlling capacity is no longer controlling costs.
On Page 263 of Vivian Howards cookbook, Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South, there are three beautiful color photos of her biting into what looks like the best tomato sandwich on the planet. In fact, the recipe is called Elbow-Lick Tomato Sandwich and features ripe Cherokee Purple tomatoes, sliced pickled onions and Howards signature Smoked Corn Mayo, slathered between two slices of homemade Sweet Potato Onion Bread.

The largest photo shows the aftermath of that bite, with that smoky mayo running down Howards chin.

More vain chefs might not want to show such a side, but for Howard, whose North Carolina roots shine throughout the book, that moment is relatable on so many levels to so many people.

Howard is a chef, cookbook author and co-owner of two restaurants in Kinston, N.C., with her husband, Ben Knight. Howards PBS series, A Chefs Life, filmed mostly at Chef & the Farmer restaurant, earned her both a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting and a Daytime Emmy Award.

Shes stopping in Richmond on Nov. 17 to cook with Walter Bundy at Shagbark (sold out) during Richmonds Fire Flour & Fork, but will have an encore book signing and food event later that afternoon at Libbie Mill Library from 4 to 6 p.m. Tickets are limited. As shes signing books, her food truck will be on-site, providing the likes of regional North Carolina cuisine  Bacon-Wrapped Watermelon-Rind Pickles, Warm Banana Pudding, Scarletts Chicken and Rice and more  to anyone with a meal ticket. (Meal tickets include a copy of her book.)

By phone from Winston-Salem, N.C., last week, Howard talked about her cookbook. Each chapter focuses on one specific ingredient, from eggs, watermelon, figs and sweet potatoes to okra, peanuts, rutabagas and muscadine grapes. And each chapter begins with a story, drawn from Howards life  the angst of trying to live up to her mothers chicken and rice dish; the challenges of having a quarter-ton of blueberries dropped at their restaurants doorstep; how her Grandma Hills not-so-candied candied yams, with a little sugar, scant spices and butter, spoke volumes about the womans approach to life.

Ive always wanted to be a storyteller of some kind, Howard said, and the idea of writing a cookbook with just recipes and short head notes  I could do it, but it wouldnt get me all jazzed up.

She said she was surprised by how readers sought out the recipes because of her stories  even the recipes filled with not-so-glamorous ingredients, such as rutabagas or beets.

Where she saw the stories as separate from the recipes, in fact, people love the stories, and they draw them into the recipes.

She added: Writing the book pushed me to really focus on ingredients that arent necessarily the easiest to write about.

She also wanted to break Southern cooking stereotypes.

For too long Southern cooking was just fried chicken and barbecue and biscuits, she said, though she doesnt recall her mother ever frying chicken, and much of their meals consisted of vegetables and grains, with meat used as condiments.

Within Deep Run Roots are recipes for every skill level. But Howard said shes most proud to be able to highlight foods and recipes often considered too mundane or simple to be worth writing down.

Like elbow-licking good tomato sandwiches.
An alleged cocaine trafficker from Panama pleaded not guilty in federal court Thursday in a case that could land him in prison for the rest of his life.

Humberto Beckford, 36, was indicted for conspiracy with the intent to distribute more than 5 kilograms of cocaine and conspiracy to import more than 5 kilograms into the country and was arraigned before U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson.

Earlier Thursday, U.S. magistrate Judge David J. Novak affirmed the appointment of Richmond lawyer Christopher J. Collins to represent Beckford. Hudson set a four-day jury trial beginning Feb. 6.

Also charged in the recently unsealed, Sept. 20 indictment, is Tammie Dechell Diggs, 46, of Concord, N.C., charged with conspiracy with the intent to distribute more than 5 kilograms of cocaine. Diggs is scheduled to appear before Novak on Monday and also faces a possible life term.

The indictment refers to Beckford as a drug courier and logistical coordinator for a Panamanian cocaine trafficking organization that allegedly shipped dozens of kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. on vessels that docked in the port at Charleston, S.C. Diggs was said to be a drug courier.

Named but not charged in the indictment is Javier King-Ariano, another Panamanian, said to be a leader of a Panama-based cocaine trafficking organization. Efforts are underway to have him extradited from Colombia.

The cocaine was allegedly intended for distribution in Virginia and elsewhere.
The Virginia Attorney Generals office is asking the Richmond Circuit Court to set an execution date for Ricky Javon Gray on Jan. 17 or 18 for the capital murders of two young Richmond girls on New Years Day 2006.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a rehearing to Gray.

In a letter to Richmond Circuit Court Judge Beverly W. Snukals on Thursday, the Virginia Attorney Generals office said that under state law she is required to hold a hearing  within 10 days of receiving the letter  to schedule the execution date.

The dates in January were sought so that Gov. Terry McAuliffe would have time to consider any request for clemency. Grays lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

Gray, 39, and Ray Dandridge, 39, murdered seven people in Richmond in 2006, including four members of the Harvey family, slain in their home on New Years Day. Dandridge was sentenced to life and Gray to death, for the capital murders of the Harvey daughters, Ruby, 4, and Stella, 9.

Also murdered were the girls parents, Bryan Harvey, 49, and Kathryn Harvey, 39.

Gray and Dandridge then killed Ashley Baskerville, 21, who had been a lookout when Gray killed the Harveys; Baskervilles mother, Mary Tucker, 47; and stepfather Percyell Tucker, 55, in their Richmond home just days after the Harvey slayings.

The Department of Corrections says it has enough drugs to carry out an execution by injection, should Gray request that method rather than the electric chair.
Police arrested four people in North Carolina on Thursday in the Nov. 1 slaying of a man who was fatally shot on the same property where he was living in a storage shed in Chesterfield County.

In a collaborative effort involving Chesterfield police, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and three North Carolina law enforcement agencies, authorities executed multiple search warrants at the homes of the four suspects in Salisbury, N.C., and took them into custody. Each was charged with first-degree murder and felony use of a firearm.

The suspects were identified as Darrius A. Ellis, 21, of Salisbury; Najee T. Palmer, 18, of no permanent address; and two juveniles who were not identified because of their ages. They are accused in the killing of Jon-Eric Schwartz V, 30, who was fatally shot about 5:30 a.m. in the 2900 block of Galena Avenue, just west of Jefferson Davis Highway.

Police said Schwartz was living with people where the shooting occurred and was staying in a shed that was detached from the residence. Police have not disclosed a motive for the killing.

The suspects are being held without bond at the Rowan County Detention Center in Salisbury. The case remains under investigation. Anyone with information can call Chesterfield police (804) 748-1251 or Crime Solvers at (804)748-0660 or www.crimesolvers.net.
Richmond police are asking the publics help in finding a man accused of a July sexual assault who may be hiding with the help of friends. Defrederick Young Jr., 34, of the 1600 block of North 28th Street, knew the victim, police said.

We believe Young is being sheltered, being helped by others, Major Crimes Lt. Donald Davenport said. They need to know that they can be charged with harboring a fugitive.

Young is a black male who is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs about 160 pounds. He has tattoos on both of his arms and his neck.

Anyone with information on Youngs whereabouts is asked to call Major Crimes Detective Kristie Reed at (804) 646-6870.

Additionally, tips can be reported through contacting Crime Stoppers by calling (804) 780-1000, going online to www.7801000.com or by sending a text message to 274637 and using the keyword iTip followed by the tip.
Richmond police have identified a man who was shot to death Wednesday in Jackson Ward.

Police were called shortly after 2 p.m. to the 300 block of Marshall Street for a report of a person shot. There officers found Tyrell L. Johnson, 22, of the 1400 block of Gavestone Court, with apparent gunshot wounds lying on a sidewalk. Another man suffering from abrasions was found nearby, police said.

Both victims were taken to a local hospital, where Johnson died from his injuries, police said.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call Major Crimes Detective Gary Bailey at (804) 646-6743 or contact Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000 or at www.7801000.com.

Submit tips to GUN250 about persons illegally possessing guns by texting Crime Stoppers at 274637, then using the keyword GUN250 followed by the tip. Rewards up to $250 possible.
The Republican Party of Virginia's headquarters in downtown Richmond was damaged Wednesday night as protesters tried to kick in the office's glass door, painted graffiti and threw a pumpkin, according to party officials.

On Thursday morning, a dirty footprint and the remains of an anarchist symbol were still visible on the glass front of the RPV office on Grace Street. A doorbell outside the office appeared to have been smashed.

In a statement, RPV Chairman John Whitbeck blamed the vandalism on Hillary Clinton and other Democrats criticisms of Trump supporters as "racist, sexist, mentally ill and a 'basket of deplorables.'"

"The hateful rhetoric we have seen these past few months is the cause of this violence," Whitbeck said.

The Democratic Party of Virginia condemned the vandalism.

"This is not the Virginia way, nor is it compatible with our values as Democrats," DPVA Chairman Susan Swecker said in a statement. "While we strongly respect and support the right to protest peacefully, these actions are indefensible."

Democrats also started an online fundraiser to cover the cost of the damage. Whitbeck rebuffed the offer, saying Republicans have "more than enough money to fix our windows" and asking that any funds be donated instead to "a local crisis pregnancy center."
A man suffered a life-threatening injury after being shot Wednesday afternoon in Richmond's Jackson Ward neighborhood.

The shooting happened during an altercation between two groups of men, according to Richmond police spokesman Gene Lepley.

The man who was shot was with another man, and the two were in an altercation with a group of three men when someone pulled out a gun, Lepley said.

A second man was also assaulted during the altercation and suffered non-life-threatening injuries, Lepley said.

It happened in the 300 block of W. Marshall Street and was reported to police at 2:18 p.m., Lepley said.

After the shooting, three men ran east on Marshall Street, according to police.

No suspect information was immediately available.
The body of a tractor-trailer driver has been recovered from the basement of a house after the truck crashed into the house early Thursday morning, police said.

The driver was not immediately identified.

The crash happened at 10664 Moneta Road, near Route 654 (Morgans Church Road), about nine miles south of the town of Bedford. A loud boom was heard upon impact, and the truck and house both immediately caught fire. Multiple fire crews responded.

Virginia State Police Sgt. Richard Garletts said the cab of the truck fell into the basement of the house.

The house is used as an office and for storage for SML Good Neighbors Inc., a nonprofit that provides summer-camp opportunities, food and books for Bedford County and Franklin County students, among other services. Kids in the program might stay at the house over the summer, said Russell Baskett, the group's president and executive director.

Nobody was in the house at the time of the crash, the group said on its Facebook page.

Baskett said the house was completely furnished through donations, and the furniture, about 5,000 books and other items were destroyed in the crash and fire.

Virginia 122 is shut down in the area. VDOT said: "Northbound truck traffic is being diverted off of VA-122 onto VA-24, and onto US-220. Southbound truck traffic is being diverted from US-220, onto VA-24, and back onto VA-122. Northbound car traffic is being diverted off of VA-122 onto Route 655, onto Route 616, onto Route 757, onto Route 608, and back onto VA-122. Southbound car traffic is being diverted onto Route 608, onto Route 757, onto Route 616, onto Route 655 and back onto VA-122."
The glass ceiling did not break Tuesday night, but the Crystal Ball shattered.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, and colleagues Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley issued an apologia on Wednesday titled Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa.

We, what can we say  we blew it, they wrote.

Of course, the oracle of Charlottesville and his colleagues were far from alone. Prognosticators across the country failed to anticipate Republican Donald Trumps stunning victory in the presidential race.

The final Crystal Ball had Democrat Hillary Clinton winning the White House with 322 electoral votes to 216 for Trump.

As of Wednesday evening, Trump had 290 electoral votes to Clintons 228. Trump was leading in Michigan and Clinton in New Hampshire, which had not yet been called by The Associated Press.

The Crystal Ball also projected that the Democrats and Republicans each would have 50 U.S. Senate seats and that U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, as vice president, would have the tie-breaking vote.

As of Wednesday evening, Republicans had 51 seats to Democrats 48. In New Hampshire, Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte conceded to Democrat Maggie Hassan in a tight race. A Senate race in Louisiana is heading to a Dec. 10 runoff.

We heard for months from many of you, saying that we were underestimating the size of a potential hidden Trump vote and his ability to win, the Crystal Ball team wrote.

We didnt believe it and we were wrong. The Crystal Ball shattered.

Well pick up the pieces starting next week as we try to unpack what happened in this election, where there was so much dramatic change from just four years ago.

We have a lot to learn, and we must make sure the Crystal Ball never has another year like this. This team expects more of itself and we apologize to our readers for our errors.
For a while there Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson seemed to be riding high; he approached 15 percent support in some states. For a third-party candidate, thats well nigh astronomical.

The bubble soon burst. By the end of Election Night Johnson had fallen to 3 percent nationwide  although he scored well in some states, such as Michigan  where he picked up 150,000 votes  and his home state of New Mexico, where he reached 9 percent. The Times-Dispatch endorsed Johnson for reasons related to policy and character.

Johnson, a two-time Republican governor, and his running mate Bill Weld  another former Republican governor  struck many as the best hope for the minor party in many years, especially given the utter disgust with which so many voters viewed Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But Johnson hurt himself with his Aleppo gaffe, and Weld hurt the ticket when he all but endorsed Clinton in the final days of the campaign.

More important than either of those factors, though, is the two-party structure of the American political system. Though largely informal, that structure benefits from legal barriers to minor parties and self-dealing on the part of the major parties  in particular, the refusal of the Commission on Presidential Debates to allow anyone but Democats and Republicans on the stage.

This is unfortunate, because for all their differences on policy details, the two major parties are now both advocates for endless government expansion  through taxes, spending, and regulation (by Democrats) or through protectionist trade policy, foreign adventurism and restrictions on individual liberty (by Republicans). The many Americans who favor smaller government now have no place to go with any hope of electoral success.
The hints came early and from an unlikely source. Virginias polls closed at 7:00 p.m. Hillary Clinton was declared the states winner several hours later. She ended up with a comfortable lead but Donald Trump ran ahead of her for much of the evening.

Polls suggested Clinton had wrapped up the Old Dominion. The state may not have rated as a battleground. Trends gave Democrats momentum in Virginia, which Barack Obama carried twice. Tim Kaines addition to the ticket seemed to have put the state out of reach, but it was not to be. The competitive nature of Virginias vote suggested Trump would run well elsewhere. The surprises came. State after state fell into the Trump column.

Every election, The Times-Dispatch pays immediate attention to Chesterfield. The county usually is the first of Virginias populous jurisdictions to report its returns. It also produces reliably Republican numbers. We treat it as a barometer. If the GOP percentage in Chesterfield falls below 54 percent, the state will be in for a long night. If Chesterfield exceeds 55 percent, Republicans can anticipate a strong stateside showing.

Trump carried Chesterfield but with only about 48 percent. When Northern Virginia began cranking out ballots, Trumps lead evaporated. Trumps edge held up in the states rural regions, but Democrats enjoy an advantage in national elections. The Democrats approach to social issues resonates in Virginia. Kaines visibility boosted Virginia Democrats this year. A landslide that appeared possible did not occur. The Clinton-Kaine ticket took Virginia but Trump swept almost every battleground.
NEW YORK

Donald Trumps impressive victory in Tuesdays election offers him a rare opportunity to change the narrative.

Secular progressive policies at home and abroad are not working. The establishment has had its chance  multiple chances, in fact  to fix things, but it has failed, or didnt try, under Republican and Democratic administrations. Voters are taking a big chance with Trump, but things have gotten so bad that the election shows many millions of Americans are willing to try something new.

Trump achieved what most of the experts, the ruling class, the major media (including most pundits and once again the pollsters), Republican leaders and many others thought was impossible. He not only won back the Reagan Democrats, including nearly half of the union members who cast ballots, but he also had coattails, allowing Republicans to maintain control of both houses of Congress.

This was more than a change election. It was a revolution. Now, the question becomes: What will the Republicans do with it? If Trump is smart, he will call on the GOP congressional leadership to write the legislation that will achieve his objectives. These include the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, immigration reform and building the wall, school choice for the poor, rebuilding inner cities and infrastructure, and nominating conservative judges to the Supreme Court and lower courts.

The election vindicates the decision by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell not to hold hearings on President Obamas nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, until the election results were known. Garland will never join the high court.

The courts may be saved from secular progressives for years to come and the Constitution respected again. That is victory by anyones definition.

An added bonus is that Trump can use executive orders to immediately reverse President Obamas executive orders, which he used to bypass Congress. An even bigger bonus is that the Clintons have been swept out of politics. Foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation will likely close their checkbooks now that Hillary wont be able to do anything for them.

The left will demand that Trump reach out and work with Democrats, but that is a trap. Recall what Democrats did when they won the White House, the Senate and House in 2008. They rammed through legislation that reflected their worldview. Trump should do the same, but without triumphalism. He must prove his policies work and can achieve the goals he has set: economic growth, more private-sector jobs, bringing corporations home from overseas with a lower corporate tax rate, and defeating the Islamic State. The only reason to have power is to use power. Democrats understand this. Too often timid Republicans dont. They must now use it, or they will lose it.

Trumps victory is part of a global movement to throw off incompetent leaders, reduce the size and cost of government, and restore countries to the values that have made them uniquely British, German, French and American. It also is a victory of a culture that eschews the coarseness and crudeness of the likes of Jay-Z and Beyonce and the Hollywood elites. Mogul Barry Diller says he will leave the country, for which many will be grateful, especially if he takes with him others who promised to leave if Trump won.

Now comes the hard part. Because Trumps background is neither politics nor government, he must call on those with such experience to help him. Vice President-elect Mike Pence is the perfect starting point. Pences years in Congress and his executive experience as governor of Indiana make him the go-to guy for navigating the labyrinth that is Washington. He may turn out to be the most consequential vice president since Dick Cheney.

All the pieces are now in place to yank America back from the brink. This is an opportunity that comes along once in a century. Success will silence the critics, who wont go quietly and accept defeat. If Trump succeeds in all he has promised, he will have saved the country from disaster. It will be said of him that he really did make America great again.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
NEW YORK  Over the span of a few hours late Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning, Tim Kaine went from the odds-on favorite to be the next vice president of the United States back to his day job.

Once again, he is one of Virginias U.S. senators  and the guy responsible for dry cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping and taking out the trash at his home on Confederate Avenue in Richmond.

Hours before the black SUV of Secret Service agents pulled into the driveway of his home in Richmond to drop him off  and leave his side  for the first time in 106 days, Kaine rose the day after Election Day in his Manhattan hotel suite knowing he would have to do something hed never done before in 22 years in elected politics: deliver a concession speech.

Technically, that speech was Hillary Clintons to give, after the Democratic presidential nominees loss to Republican Donald Trump.

It fell to Kaine, who had never lost an election in eight previous tries, to introduce the former secretary of state at a late-morning appearance before supporters.

Kaine, with his wife, Anne Holton, by his side on stage in the ballroom of the New Yorker hotel in Midtown, first thanked Clinton for inviting him on this wild ride.

Kaine hailed Clintons amazing accomplishment of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major American political party and said he is proud of Hillary because she loves this country.

He delivered his remarks in a subdued tone, but was far from submissive.

Nobody had to wonder about Hillary Clinton  whether she would accept an outcome of an election in our beautiful democracy, he said in a veiled shot at Trump, who had raised the possibility that he would not accept the results of the election if he had lost.

Kaine said he and Clinton know well the wisdom and the words of William Faulkner  he said, They killed us, but they aint whupped us yet. 

Kaine returns to the Senate arguably a more powerful and nationally known political figure ahead of his re-election campaign in 2018.

Kaine has never lost an election, and technically he didnt lose this one  Hillary Clinton did, said Larry Sabato, head of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Turnout will be lower in 2018, which can be good for the GOP, but by 2018, the Trump administration will have accumulated some controversies, and the out-of-power party usually does well, he continued.

Kaine is expected to take a few days off to spend with his family before returning to Washington next week.
LYNCHBURG  Lynchburg will pay homage to its veterans Friday, in part, by honoring one of Virginias first female flight instructors, Lucille Chaffin Kent, with a historic marker. The Lynchburg native instructed about 2,000 future military pilots during World War II.

A dedication ceremony for the marker  which will eventually overlook the former site of the Miller Home orphanage where she taught pilots  will be held at 3:30 p.m. Friday, in the front lobby of E.C. Glass High School in Lynchburg.

The event is open to the public.

She began her ground school flight instruction with all those thousands of pilots when she was only 23, said Jane White, the former director of Old City Cemetery who spearheaded the application for the marker.

In 1939, Kent earned her pilots license and began teaching meteorology, navigation, and civil air regulations at E. C. Glass High School, according to the historical marker. Three years later, she became a flight instructor at Lynchburgs Preston Glenn Airport.

As a ground school director during World War II in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, later named the War Training Service, Kent instructed about 2,000 future military pilots at Lynchburg College, in commandeered facilities at the Miller Home for Girls, and at Preston Glenn Airport, reads the marker.

Kent also qualified as an instructor on the Link Trainer, a flight simulator, which allowed her to instruct pilots how to navigate using instruments.

Kent, who died in 1997 at the age of 89, went on to write a comprehensive aeronautics manual, according to a news release issued by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

Speakers at Fridays ceremony will include Lynchburg Mayor Joan Foster; Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt, director of E. C. Glass High School Air Force Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps; Helen Ford, a former piano student of Lucille Kent, who also had a long career as a piano teacher in Lynchburg; Tara Kent, granddaughter of Lucille Kent; Jane White, who proposed the highway marker; and Jim Hare of the Department of Historic Resources.

The Lucille Chaffin Kent historical marker was approved for manufacture and installation earlier this year by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources, which must authorize all state historical markers. The costs of creating the marker are covered by the markers sponsors Elizabeth Sumpter and Brian Carlton, along with other individuals in Lynchburg in addition to Lynchburg College and American Legion Post 274 in Madison Heights.

Virginias historical highway marker program, which began in 1927 with the installation of the first historical markers along U.S. 1, is considered the oldest such program in the nation.

There are more than 2,400 official state markers, most maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation, as well as by local partners in jurisdictions outside of VDOTs authority such as Lynchburg.
Ten protesters were arrested about midnight Wednesday after they sat in the travel lanes of the Downtown Expressway as part of a series of unruly anti-Donald Trump demonstrations in Richmond by an estimated 1,000 protesters.
A CHARITY group is basking in the glory of being a national organisations first Community of the Month.



The honour has seen the work of the Kimberworth Park Community Partnership (KPCP) highlighted across the UK.



KPCP, based at The Chislett Centre on Kimberworth Park Road, is used by hundreds of people each week via special projects and offering space for local activities.



KPCP community consultant Denise Butterell said the organisation was pleased at being the first group to be given the Community of the Month honour.



Mrs Butterell said: Its done through Locality, a national organisation of which we are a member, and they just invited us to be the first Community of the Month, which highlights the activities and other stuff we do.



They said they thought we were inspirational and that other people would benefit by learning from what we do.



We have had lots of people congratulating us and a message from the leader of Rotherham Borough Council. The staff here are really chuffed.



KPCP, which has 20 staff, offers a range of services and activities to the local community and works with people of all ages on projects such as tackling loneliness.



Mrs Butterell said that more than 1,000 people used its services and projects every week.



She added: We will just continue to do what we are doing. We wont rest on our laurels.



KPCP was featured on Localitys My Community website at http://tinyurl.com/hkkeoza during October as Community of the Month.
WGC: Global gold demand up 28% y-o-y in Q3 The World Gold Councils latest Gold Demand Trends report reveals that gold demand (excluding OTC) in the third quarter of 2022 hit 1,181 tonnes, up 28% year-on-year. Strong demand pushed the year-to-date total to its pre-COVID levels. Gold...

Karo Mining to raise $50m to develop Zim platinum project Tharisa, the platinum group metals (PGMs) and chrome co-producer, says its subsidiary Karo Mining has opened a fixed income note offer to raise $50 million to be listed by way of introduction on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX)...

Newfield recovers 1,180cts from Tongo Newfield Resources produced 1,180 carats from the processing of both underground and surface bulk samples at its Tongo mine in Sierra Leone during the quarter ended 30 September 2022.

Global demand for natural diamond jewellery grows in H1  De Beers Global demand for natural diamond jewellery in the first half of 2022 grew by an estimated high single-digit figure compared with the first half of 2021, according to a report released by De Beers. It said in its Diamond Insight Report 2022 that growth...
DiamondCorp has decided to terminate the "formal sale process" of its Lace mine in South Africa and will continue to examine alternative means of enhancing shareholder value in the normal course of business.

The company had entered into discussions with a number of third parties and received certain indicative proposals and approaches.

However, DiamondCorp said that the approaches it had received from third parties were opportunistic in nature and significantly undervalued the company.

It recently concluded a financing facility with Rasmala for 700,000 to satisfy its immediate funding requirements.

Such approaches included an early stage non-binding indicative cash proposal at a substantial premium to the share price at the time, which remained subject to, inter alia, amendment and due diligence.

It said that the Lace asset, irrespective of startup delays, still contained an estimated 9.39 million carats of diamonds with an in-ground value in excess of $1.5 billion.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Israel Diamond Exchange (IDE) President Yoram Dvash met with Anup Agarwal, President of Japan Auction House (JAH) to mark the opening of a branch of the company in the Israeli bourse, says press release from IDE.JAH, part of Indian-based Rich Diamonds, buys pre-owned polished diamonds in Japan from the local market for sale in auctions, currently in Japan and Hong Kong.IDE President Yoram Dvash said during a reception in honor of Anup Agarwal that he was happy to welcome JAH to the Israel Diamond Exchange. I think that this is the perfect place to hold auctions. We look forward to working with you and hope to see you every month. You will see that Israeli diamantaires are very good customers for your auctions, he said.JAH President Agarwal said, The idea behind the opening of JAH offices in Israel is to build a framework for business cooperation over the long term. We will bring to Israel a new thing from Japan. The prices are definitely cheaper over there. Were sure that this will be a win-win situation for all of us.
The initiatives taken by the Indian diamond industry led by The Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) to prevent undisclosed mixing of natural and synthetic diamonds were widely appreciated by the over 200 participants at the day long US Jewelry Council (USJC) organised 'Jewelry Industry Summit: Undisclosed Lab-Grown Diamonds' held in New York on November 1, says a report in gjepc.org.

The presentation by GJEPC Executive Director Sabyasachi Ray outlined the measures that had been taken under the Natural Diamond Monitoring Committee (NDMC) set up by the GJEPC and other trade bodies in India a few years ago. Ray made reference to the regular awareness campaigns conducted by GJEPC both among manufacturers and retail jewellers; the declarations that have to be made by members of trade bodies to keep the two pipelines separate; the interaction with the government towards creating separate HS Codes for Natural and Synthetic diamonds; the setting up of Diamond Detection and Research Centres set up for cost-effective screening of diamond parcels in both Mumbai and Surat; and the recent development of a low cost Quick Check machine for speedy detection of CVD synthetics.

The presentation also focused on the GJEPCs appeal to all stakeholders in the industry to ensure that all are aligned on communication strategies and courses of action as well as to pool resources to support R&D in segregation technology and deployment of machines at reasonable prices. Ray concluded with an appeal to players all along the value chain to get involved in efforts to stop undisclosed mixing and boost consumer confidence in natural diamonds.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




De Beers said its auction sales business will offer midstream diamond companies the opportunity to sell certain types of polished diamonds to other trade participants on its auction platform.

The new limited scope, business-to-business pilot was an extension of the service for rough diamonds that was launched earlier this year, it said.

Testing new ideas through pilots such as this is an important part of this process and we look forward to seeing how the trade responds to the extension of the third party selling service  once we have some initial feedback we can decide whether there is sufficient demand to continue with it, said De Beers auction sales vice president, Neil Ventura.

An important consideration was whether we could offer the same industry leading level of assurance regarding provenance  and with our provenance checking process, created in consultation with existing customers, we are confident that we are able to do so.

The company said all diamonds offered for sale on the platform must undergo a comprehensive three-level screening process to identify synthetic or treated polished diamonds.

It said the polished diamond service was available for single stones over five carats in weight or of fancy colour.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




They threw a hand grenade outside the embassy building, located opposite Parliament on a major avenue. Circulation was halted in the area after attack. Anti-terrorism forensics experts combed the scene. the attack was apparently carried out by two people on a motorbike, according to footage from security cameras. A bike was found abandoned later in a central Athens neighborhood. It was unclear why the French Embassy was targeted. Next week the President Obama will travel to Greece for a visit and left-wing organizations announced protests. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursdays attack.. Small-scale attacks on businesses, police, politicians and embassies are frequent in Greece. The security measures during Presidents Obama visit will be increased.
Same-sex marriage is however permitted in Mexico City, as well as in several states including Coahuila, Quintana Roo, Jalisco, Nayarit, Chihuahua and Sonora. Pena Nietos measure would have only extended that right nationally. Mexicos Supreme Court said last year that laws restricting marriage to a man and woman were unconstitutional. In Mexico, only civil marriages are recognized by law. A march with thousands participants against same sex marriage was organized in September by the National Front for the Family, in Mexico City. After, even Pope Francis showed his support of Mexicos Catholic bishops in their efforts to derail a push for gay marriage. I join willingly the Bishops of Mexico in supporting the efforts of the Church and civil society in favor of the family and of life, which at this time require special pastoral and cultural attention worldwide, Francis said.
UP/File photo

Union Pacific (UP) will increase train speed Nov. 15 to 60 mph from 40 mph along about four miles of track between River Road and Plaza Parkway in Modesto, Calif.

The railroads upcoming boost in speed is the result of recent track upgrades meeting or exceeding all applicable Federal Railroad Administration standards, representatives say. UP says it invested $11.7 million in Modesto-area track improvements throughout the past 10 years.

UP expects to be able to more efficiently deliver goods daily with the increase in speed.

Representatives say the railroad plans to invest $121.6 million in 2016 to improve Californias transportation infrastructure. UP says the investment will cover a variety of initiatives, including $104 million toward track maintenance in the state.
British biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca plc. (AZN,AZN.L) reported Thursday a decline in third-quarter profit before tax amid weak revenues reflecting the US entry of multiple Crestor generic medicines. Net profit, however, improved from last year.

For fiscal 2016, the company continues to expect total revenue and core earnings per share to decline in low to mid single-digit percentage, on a constant currency basis.

In London, AstraZeneca shares were trading at 4,511 pence, down 1.41 percent.

Pascal Soriot, Chief Executive Officer, said, "The performance in the third quarter was in line with our expectations, reflecting the transitional impact from the first full quarter of generic competition to Crestor in the US. We sharpened significantly our focus on our three therapy areas, by prioritising our portfolio through externalisation and divestments."

For the third quarter, profit before tax declined 27 percent to $676 million from last year's $931 million.

Net profit, however, improved 32 percent to $1.01 billion from $770 million last year. Earnings per share grew to $0.80 from $0.61 last year.

Core pre-tax profit was $1.51 billion, compared to $$1.62 billion last year. Core earnings per share were $1.32, compared to $1.03 a year ago.

Earnings per share, on a reported and core basis, included a non-recurring tax benefit of $0.36, resulting from agreements on transfer pricing arrangements between various tax authorities.

Core operating result was $1.696 billion, compared to $1.728 billion last year.

Total revenue dropped 4 percent to $5.70 billion from $5.95 billion last year. The weak revenues reflected a 14 percent decline in Product Sales to $5.03 billion that was driven by the entry in the US of multiple Crestor generic medicines.

The results also reflected the ongoing impact of Nexium generic medicines in the US. Sales of Crestor and Nexium in the US declined by 82 percent and 50 percent, respectively. Overall US Product Sales declined 35 percent, with Product Sales in Europe declining 1 percent.

The Growth Platforms grew 3 percent. Emerging Markets recorded 6 percent growth supported by China, while Latin America sales declined 11 percent, impacted by the reduction of activities in Venezuela.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
ConocoPhillips (COP) announced a $3 billion share repurchase program and the initiation of a $5 billion to $8 billion divestiture program, which will focus primarily on North American natural gas.

The company said it will hold an Analyst and Investor Meeting today to outline the company's strategy and discuss several planned actions for accelerating the company's value proposition of a strong balance sheet, growing dividend and disciplined growth.

The company will also provide details on its 2017 operating plan, which further reduces capital expenditures and adjusted operating costs compared with 2016, while delivering modest production growth.

Ryan Lance, chairman and chief executive officer said, "The acceleration actions we've announced today will allow us to achieve our value proposition priorities at Brent prices of about $50 per barrel. These priorities include a debt target of $20 billion, a 20 to 30 percent payout of operating cash flows to shareholders, and modest production growth to drive margin and cash flow expansion."

The company's 2017 operating plan includes capital expenditures guidance of $5 billion, a decrease of 4 percent compared with 2016 guidance of $5.2 billion and more than 50 percent lower than 2015 capital expenditures and investments of $10.1 billion. Spending in 2017 will focus primarily on flexible unconventional development programs in the Lower 48, conventional projects in Europe, Asia Pacific and Alaska, and base asset maintenance. Approximately $0.6 billion is included for exploration, which is primarily focused on unconventionals, appraisal of the Barossa discovery, and the closeout of deepwater Gulf of Mexico and Nova Scotia drilling obligations.

Full-year 2017 production is expected to be 1,540 to 1,570 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (MBOED), which results in flat to 2 percent growth compared with expected full-year 2016 production of approximately 1,540 MBOED when adjusted for 2016 expected dispositions. Growth is expected to come primarily from ramp up at APLNG in Australia, Surmont 2 in Canada and Kebabangan in Malaysia, as well as increased activity in the Lower 48 unconventionals, partly offset by normal field decline. The company's production outlook excludes Libya.

The company continues to achieve cost reductions across the . Guidance for 2017 production and operating expenses is approximately $5.2 billion, which results in adjusted operating cost guidance of $6 billion, a 9 percent improvement compared with 2016 adjusted operating cost guidance.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
The State Department has strongly urged U.S. citizens to avoid all travel to North Korea due to the serious risk of arrest and long-term detention.

In a Travel Warning update Wednesday, the State Department said that since the United States does not maintain diplomatic or consular relations with North Korea, the U.S. government has no means to provide normal consular services to U.S. citizens in North Korea.

North Korea's system of law enforcement imposes unduly harsh sentences, including for actions that in the United States would not be considered crimes and which threaten U.S. citizen detainees with being treated in accordance with "wartime law of the DPRK."

At least 14 U.S. citizens have been detained in North Korea in the past ten years. North Korean authorities have detained those who traveled independently and those who were part of organized tours. Being a member of a group tour or using a tour guide will not prevent North Korean authorities from detaining or arresting you. Efforts by private tour operators to prevent or resolve past detentions of U.S. citizens in the DPRK have not been successful.

State Department warned those American citizens who decide to enter North Korea against the advice of this Travel Warning should have no expectation of privacy. All electronic and multimedia devices including USB drives, CDs, DVDs, mobile phones, tablets, laptops, Internet browsing histories, and cookies are subject to search for banned content.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
Calling President-elect Donald Trump's surprise victory a clear indication Americans want the country to change course, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., said it was noteworthy that Republicans managed to maintain control of the Senate.

Speaking to reporters at a news conference on Wednesday, McConnell noted that Republicans held their majority the Senate despite defending significantly more seats than Democrats.

"I think in a day when people were voting for change, they didn't decide they wanted to change the Republican Senate, which I am proud of," McConnell said.

Senate Republicans currently have a 51 to 48 majority, with the Louisiana Senate race due to be decided in a runoff between Republican John Kennedy and Democrat Foster Campbell on December 10th.

McConnell also said he has spoken with presumptive Democratic leader Senator Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., about working across the aisle.

"We want to work together and see what we can accomplish for the American people not only in the lame-duck, but beginning next year," McConnell said.

The Republican leader also reiterated his intention to repeal the healthcare reform law known as Obamacare, calling it the worst piece of legislation among many bad pieces of legislation passed in the first two years of the Obama presidency.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
ATLANTIC SKIES: Stellar asterisms  eye-catching pretenders to the constellation throne and just part of the bigger picture

Most everyone, or at least most amateur astronomers, are familiar with the constellations in the night sky to some degree. Many, however, may not be familiar with the numerous asterisms in the night sky. What is the difference between a constellation ...
By SA Commercial Prop News

Podium at Menlyn office building in Pretoria



JSE-listed Emira Property Fund says it has concluded several leases and notices a pick-up in prospects as a result of certain letting and sales activity across its portfolio.

Emira CEO, James Templeton, notes that one of Emiras prime objectives at this time is to reduce vacancies in its portfolio and the letting that has been concluded, together with the two sales, will go some way towards achieving this.



In terms of leasing activity, Templeton says Emira has concluded several leases with new tenants at the newly-completed Podium at Menlyn office building in Pretoria - including SAFCOL for 2,323m for 5 years, commencing 1 October 2012; Waymark Infotech for 1,700m for 5 years, commencing 1 December 2012; Rennies for 550m for 3 years commencing 1 December 2012 and Zurich Insurance for 220m for 5 years commencing 1 December 2012.



Emira has also received four further signed offers to lease at Podium at Menlyn for 2,650m commencing at various dates in the first quarter of 2013 for a period of 5 years. This means that some 7 443m out of the buildings total lettable area of 9,000m has been already been spoken for.



In addition, Emira has signed leases with five tenants at Menlyn Square Office Park for a total of 2,000m, including Cell C on 1,246m, for 5 years commencing 1 November 2012. At the recently refurbished 267 West office block in Centurion, Emira has concluded 6 leases totalling 5,000m, including a lease for 1,750m2 with ConnectNet.



In addition to the leasing activity, in the last few months Emira has concluded two sales which will also reduce vacancies in the portfolio. It has sold Fleetway House, a well-known landmark on Martin Hammerschlag Way on Cape Towns Foreshore and Montana Value Centre in Zambezi Drive, Montana, Pretoria north, for a combined total of R83m.



The Fleetway House sale is unconditional although there are conditions attached to the successful conclusion of the sale of the Montana Value Centre.

These two buildings, although well located assets, were non-core to Emiras activities.



Emira CEO, James Templeton, says the proceeds from the sales will be used for reinvestment in other Emira capital projects or for the purpose of buying back participatory interest Units (PIs) in the Fund.



Says Emira CEO, James Templeton:



All in all, the transactions concluded recently that are mentioned above will assist in reducing vacancies in the fund by in excess of 23,500m2, which represents 2% of our total GLA. At the end of June 2012 vacancies stood at 10.2%. Although the underlying conditions in the South African commercial property market remain extremely competitive, this is good news for the Fund and its PI holders.
Several local companies successful in Best of the Best awards
Some may prefer the many job opportunities offered when living in urban villages but for others, they would rather have a simple rural village life where money is the least of their worries.

For Liueni Leota, from the village of Manono and Vaitele-Fou, he would rather live in a rural village where there is peace and order.

Aged 35, Liueni works hard to take care of his children and puts them through school.

I think the only downside of living here is that there are no village leaders who can keep order, he told the Village Voice.

The way people live here is up to every individual man. Many issues arise from having no village leaders keeping everyone in line and thats one thing that needs to change here in the urban villages.

In fact, the church is playing a big role in keeping peace in the absence of village leaders. We these days we are seeing a drop in issues because everyone is being taught morals at church and they are beginning to apply it in their everyday lives.

Migrating from Manono to Vaitele, Liueni is put in a perfect position to comment on the two different village types.

My family is actually from Manono before so we know the pros and cons of both living situations, he said.

Living standards in both rural and urban villages are very different and I cant stress that enough. There is so much order in rural village because of the village leaders and I actually prefer that.

Over here, there are no Matais or village leaders so everyone does their own thing. One problem with that is it causes chaos at times.

Furthermore, Liueni says he misses having order and peace in his everyday life and not having to worry about money.

I miss the peace in the rural village, she said.

Another difference between rural and urban villages is the way we see money. In the rural villages you can just stay home and not worry about having money or not.

Thats because we have a lot of land to cultivate and the ocean to fish in. Here in the urban villages is different, we dont have a lot of land but there are more job opportunities to make money.

On the other hand, Liueni says that living in the urban village is good for the children because its close to all the schools.

For me personally though, everything is alright with life and there are no problems we are currently facing, he said.

One of the great things about living in an urban village is that its good for the children. Its not too far from all the different schools and I guess thats the most important thing to us.
Members of Samoas fifth Girls Leading Our World (G.L.O.W.) conference visited the Samoa Observer office yesterday morning.

The G.L.O.W. conference is a five day convention of close to 100 year seven and eight girls from schools in Savaii, Upolu and Manono.

At G.L.O.W., the girls will hear from speakers on issues related to career development, health, nutrition, and domestic violence awareness. The girls will be challenged to think critically about the material, and about their own development as leaders.

The field trip to the Samoa Observer kicked off G.L.O.Ws Career Development Day where the girls met with Samoa Observers Editor, Mataafa Keni Lesa and members of the staff.

After a brief introduction into the works of the different departments of a daily newspaper, the girls were given a tour around the office.

During the tour, the heads of different departments gave a small rundown on how work is done in their area and what is required of them on a daily basis.

The tour generated many great questions by the girls who were eager to know more about a career at Samoa Observer.

The development of G.L.O.W. is made possible through the funding and donations of Let Girls Learn, U.N. Women, U.N.D.P., Siva Afi, and Samoa Shipping Corporation.
HAVANA (AP)  Cubans worried on Wednesday that as U.S. president, Donald Trump will throw the United States' 2-year-old detente with Cuba into reverse, erasing their hopes for a more prosperous future of normal ties with Washington.

The Cuban government, meanwhile, announced the launch of five days of nationwide military exercises to prepare troops to confront what it called "a range of actions by the enemy," using terminology that almost always refers to the U.S.

The government did not link the exercises to Trump, but the announcement of maneuvers and tactical exercises across the country came nearly simultaneously with his victory. It was the seventh time Cuba has held what it calls the Bastion Strategic Exercise, often in response to points of high tension with the United States.

Trump has promised to reverse Barrack Obama's opening to Cuba unless President Raul Castro agrees to more political freedom on the island, a concession considered a virtual impossibility.

On Wednesday, Cuba's president congratulated Trump in what appeared to have been a terse message. In a single-sentence statement, Cuba's foreign ministry said Castro "sent a message of congratulations to Mr. Donald J. Trump for his election as president of the United States."

Many Cubans said they fear they are on the verge of losing the few improvements they have seen in their lives thanks to a post-detente boom in tourism. Along with a surge in visitors, normalization has set off visits by hundreds of executives from the U.S. and dozens of other nations newly interested in doing business on the island.

"The little we've advanced, if he reverses it, it hurts us," taxi driver Oriel Iglesias Garcia said. "You know tourism will go down. If Donald Trump wins and turns everything back it's really bad for us."

The first Bastion Strategic Exercise was launched in 1980 after the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president, according to an official history. The announcement by Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces in red ink across the top of the front page of the country's main newspaper Wednesday said the army, Interior Ministry and other forces would be conducting maneuvers and different types of tactical exercises Nov. 16-20.

It warned citizens that the exercises would include "movements of troops and war materiel, overflights and explosions in the cases where they're required."

Speaking of Cuba's leaders, Communist Party member and noted economist and political scientist Esteban Morales told the Telesur network: "They must be worried because I think this represents a new chapter."

Those worries were felt by many Cubans on the streets of Havana.

"He's not a president for young people, for Latinos or the Cuban people," Daunel Aguilera, a vegetable salesman, said of Trump. "He's going to blockade us more, or at least stop everything in its tracks."

Carlos Alzugaray, a political scientist and retired Cuban diplomat, said Trump's victory could please some hard-liners in the Cuban leadership who worried that Cuba was moving too close to the United States too quickly.

"There's been a lot of rejection of what's been done with Obama," Alzugaray said. "Many Cubans think that a situation of confrontation is better for the revolution."
Dear Editor,

Is it just me or dont the senior police officers that are behind the so called no-confidence vote or petition against Commissioner Fuiavailili understand that they actually have to put their signatures on the petition and take a real and actual vote that includes all sworn and non-sworn (i.e. civilian) members of the senior management team and executive team in order to make their grievance legitimate?

Either they are so dumb and do not know what an authentic petition or vote of no confidence constitutes or this minority group of principal level officers and A.C.E.Os in the Ministry of Police have no real courage or guts to put their names to paper.

I for one would like to know if this group of perhaps 20 or 30 something people at most, that claim to represent all 650 plus members or staff of the Ministry of Police, had actually consulted and received agreement from all staff in the ministry on the concerns they have raised with the Minister and now P.M. and I presume Cabinet?

First of all their outlined concerns by the media appear so petty and one-sided and grossly lacking in facts and evidence that they border on unfounded allegations and lies designed to sway the P.M. particularly and his Cabinet not to reinstate Fuiava Egon Keil as Police Commissioner, even if he is cleared by the Courts, of what seems a frivolous case brought against him by an incompetent and immature National Prosecution Office.

Let us take the issue of salary adjustment or salary increase for all Ministry of Police staff that I understand from a trusted source is now being implemented following the hard work of Commissioner Fuiava and new and civilian staff that joined the ministry after him. For years before Commissioner Fuiava joined the ministry, what were these principal officers (senior managers) and A.C.E.O.s (Assistant Commissioners/Directors) and C.E.Os (Commissioners) before him doing?

I am told that if it wasnt for Fuiavas passion and commitment and support from his corporate and strategic services staff, the approval by Cabinet in July and current rolling out of the salary increase that benefits all staff, including what now appear to be very ungrateful and ungracious senior managers, would never have happened. Ironically I understand it is these very senior managers complaining about the supposed lack of action by Fuiava that will be paid their substantive salary increases first before the rest of the hardworking staff members of the ministry. And how do they thank Fuiava? With an unsigned petition and a made-up no confidence vote that did not involve all the members and staff of the ministry!

In terms of promotions, I understand that these very same whining senior managers had been advised time and time again that the salary adjustment - which benefits all staff, would be done first, and promotions - which would mainly benefit these senior managers, comes second due to budget constraints.

So why are they misrepresenting the truth about why promotions have not been done yet? I understand they had also been advised that salary increases and promotions have to be performance based and good character based, and these have to be established first. Thus they seem to have willingly ignored that and instead are demanding something that they have yet proven they deserve or have earned.

It is no wonder that this small group of senior managers do not want Commissioner Fuiava back. They essentially do not want to be held accountable by any professional standards that the rest of the tax paid public servants in Samoa are meant to abide by. Sadly, I also understand that the present Assistant Commissioners are really no better than these senior managers and have been encouraging the petitioners to make inflammatory statements against the suspended Commissioner. They all oppose the positive changes Fuiava had been trying to introduce to improve Police services.

Interesting too their mention of the Police Ministers relationship with Fuiava as if that helps the Minister in anyway. What that indicates to me is a Minister who does not understand that respect goes both ways and that the senior managers who are being the Ministers mouthpiece are not doing him any favours in using him as yet another excuse to stop a good and effective leader like Fuiava Egon from taking a long standing poor performing and dysfunctional ministry forward and into future, where policing services are proactive and responsive to calls of help from the public and community, are effective and efficient and are free of corrupt individuals and practice.

And what is wrong with borrowing ideas from overseas police jurisdictions like LA, if those ideas are proven best practices that if adapted and applied well to local conditions and problems could help improve Samoa Police systems and processes? Again this shows the ignorance and limited vision of the petitioners and those that are supporting them from behind the scenes. For over half a century Samoa Police have been accepting substantial assistance and advice from New Zealand and Australian Police services and from U.S. Defence, so what is the deal, why single out L.A. all of a sudden now?

From my viewpoint I like that Commissioner Fuiava appears proactive not just in improving the whole police service but also in being at the frontline of drugs and arms raids and campaigns. Every time Fuiava and his T.O.S. team (that I see the petitioners are also whinging about) are successful in a raid and they uncover drugs and guns hidden sometimes in plain sight in this supposedly Christian and safe country of ours, it makes me feel safer and proud of the police actually doing some real crime prevention work, rather than performing the same old tired business as usual stuff of reacting and responding to crime that has already happened i.e. when it is already too late!

This reactive and doing nothing mentality to prevent crime and waiting for crime to happen so the Police have a job to do, is fundamentally what is wrong and what needs to be changed in the Ministry of Police. I am sorry to say but these complaining petitioners or senior managers and their hidden (i.e. gutless) supporters in the Executive are not and will not be the change champions needed to transform and elevate the Samoa Police Service into something better than it is now. What is needed is the return of Commissioner Fuiava to the leadership helm of the ministry in order to finish the positive work that he started.

Hopefully Cabinet and P.M. will make a wise decision and see the petition for what it actually is  a smokescreen put up by a bunch of foolish and rebellious staff in Ministry of Police who do not want to be held to high professional and leadership standards. Why else would they also complain about the P.S.U., which stands for the Professional Standards Unit, other than not wanting an effective and impartial unit in the ministry that would hold them to account!

I feel that if anyone should be pulled out of the Ministry of Police, it should be these complaining senior managers and current assistant commissioners whom I understand are manipulating the staff and organization to meet their personal agendas and private benefits. For instance I have been told that there are two particular assistant commissioners that are preying on the young women in the ministry for their own personal needs and sexual gratification, and they also mostly do not turn up to work at their assigned offices because they are busy running their own private businesses and affairs. And yet they are being paid over $84,000 tala of hard-earned Samoan taxpayer money each year!

Talofa e ia Samoa. I sincerely pray that the P.M. and Cabinet will wake up soon from their present self-induced comatosed state and rid the Ministry of Police of its real enemies within and restore Commissioner Fuiava to his rightful place for the sake of improving our Police services  something that is profoundly desired by our citizens, residents and visitors.

Soifua,

O.L.S.M.O
Taualevao Sagato, from the village of Saleimoa, knows that life isnt easy.

In order to survive you must be willing to work hard both under the hot sun or pouring rain.

Aged 39, through the hard work he does in his plantation, Taualevao is able to provide food and a good source of income for his family.

But it is no walk in the park. Spotted still weeding his plantation in the rain, Taualevao explains how essential hard work is in the village setting.

This is what my life looks like; no matter if theres rain or shine, I still come out here to tend my plantation, he told the Village Voice.

Crops grow whether the sun is hot or if the rain is heavy and thats why we must still work. Even during very hot days, in order to make a living, we have to come out here.

Its not an easy way to live but its necessary in order for your family to be able to live and not go hungry. Its a familys own fault when they cannot provide for themselves because they dont work.

Thats the way life is here in the village; you work hard to live.

Taualevao says that a lot of Samoans understand the importance of hard work, but there are always those who do not.

He says that people who dont work hard are the ones who cause a lot of problems in the villages like crop theft.

As you can see its raining right now and I am grateful to the Lord because it makes my work a little easier, Taualevao said.

If it was hot out today then I would still have to be out here and thats hard. Here in Samoa, many people know that nothing comes easy.

And if you dont struggle to provide for yourself then thats when problems arise. People start jumping over to other peoples plantations and stealing from their hard work.

Being a family provider, Taualevao explains that the plantation isnt the only place he works to earn for his family. When crops are not ready for harvest, he makes his way down to the ocean.

I am the one who provides for the family, he said.

If we dont have anything to eat for the day because we cant harvest our crops then I make my way down to the ocean to get some fish.

If I sit around then we wont have anything. I have a market block down in town where we sell bananas and pawpaw to make some money.

Asked how helpful having a plantation is in the village setting, Taualevao says the bigger the plantation, the bigger the help.

This plantation has supported my family a lot, he said.

I believe that the bigger your plantation, then the more help it will be towards your family. Not only does it provide food for the family, it also provides money through crop sales.

The money then goes to buying something nice for the family to eat as well as taking care of the different obligations we have in the village.
Its the 26th September 1960 and hundreds of Americans are surrounding their television sets to watch the first ever aired presidential debate: the Nixon- Kennedy face off.

Among the hoards of Americans, was a young Swiss man in a little town in New Jersey oozing over the television set.

This young ambitious man grew up to be the first-ever Swiss Honorary Consul in Samoa, Marco Kappenberger.

Samoa Observer caught up with Mr. Kappenberger on Wednesday at the American Embassy election party. Even in his old age, he vividly remembers watching the first ever aired presidential debate and meeting the legendary, John F. Kennedy at the White House.

He fondly recounted his story.

I had a scholarship in an American High School and it just happened to be the year John F. Kennedy was running.

As Swiss and now Samoan citizen, Mr. Kappenberger is unable to participate in the American election.

Still, somehow, I felt that J.F.K. would make a good president but all my town, 90% was voting for Nixon. I naturally could not vote, but then Kennedy won and that was the greatest thing, he said.

We had a very small black and white television at that time. No color-high definition televisions.

But it was the first time, between Nixon and Kennedy, there were debates that never happened before. That was the year, the debates between the candidates took place.

The debate between Nixon and Kennedy forever changed the way presidential elections were ran.

This was the first time in history voters could actually see their candidates face to face.

The debate ultimately didnt work in Nixons favor as he appeared sweaty and drained versus the cool, calm and collected Kennedy.

The Nixon-Kennedy face off- is a historical turning point for American politics.

Thanks to Mr. Kappenbergers study abroad program, he was then able to travel to the White House and personally meet John and Jackie Kennedy.

At the end of our trip, we were invited to the White House. I was a part of the other students and we met John F. Kennedy and Jaquline. I felt that I was right to be in his favor, even though I couldnt vote in America, he said.

Fast forward to today, Mr. Kappenberger, is a self proclaimed independent.

He did not endorse Trump or Clinton and would still chose John F. Kennedy if given the chance.

Im afraid with the quality between these two and JFK, I would still vote for JFK. So Im disappointed about Trumps environmental views but most of them have qualities I like very much, he stated.

Every time I go to any election, I dont think about the about the partys promise but I look at the person and elect the best individual for whatever job.

Now, the retired Swiss Honorary Consul resides in Fasitoo-Uta with his wife.

He is still an active member of the Rotary Club in Samoa and is a fierce environmental activist.

He also promotes study abroad programmes because studying overseas opens your horizon and allows people to become better world citizens.
The President of the Samoa Victim Support Group is back in the country with a renewed hope to continue their work after the organisation received a massive award in London.

President Siliniu Lina Chang and Board member Mulipola Anarosa Molioo arrived from London Tuesday with the With and For Girls Award and US$50,000 of flexible funding and capacity building support for the Group.

During a press conference held at the S.V.S.G in Apia, Mulipola said S.V.S.G was nominated and recommended by W.I.B.D.I.

I think it was how they saw the work of S.V.S.G in Samoa and how we developed the children that are in need and also the victims, she said.

According to Adi Malaga Tafunai there were two N.G.O.s that were recommended one from Fiji and one from Samoa and thank God that these seven donors have appreciated the work of S.V.SG.

The award is called The Weak and the Poor Girls Award Collected and its a group of organisations with a common belief that Girls are agents of change.

There were seven donors that actually contributed to this award and S.V.S.G is the only N.G.O from the South Pacific that was successfully awarded for this award.

According to a release the With and For Girls Awards is a global initiative to identify and support strong local organisations working with and for girls.

The charity  based in Apia, Samoa  is recognised for its work with survivors of violence and sexual abuse in Samoa, providing shelters and support for women and girls, in addition to educating community members on violence prevention.

Around 46 per cent of Samoan women who have been in a relationship say they have experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse by their partner, according to figures published by the United Nations.

In a culture where family reputation is highly valued, women are reluctant to report crimes. As a result, victims of domestic violence find little support within their families, leaving them isolated and trapped in an abusive environment.

S.V.S.G. was set up by a young lawyer frustrated at the lack of support for victims of gender-based violence. She brought together former police officers and legal professionals to provide support and counselling for survivors.

S.V.S.G. helps refer cases to the police and offers counselling to survivors in a private setting. Members of S.V.S.G. will also accompany survivors to court to ensure they have company during this scary and often intimidating process.

The organisation also offers securedtemporary accommodation while it works on rehabilitation, recovery and reintegration. An alternative school system helps children who cannot read to transition into formal schooling.

S.V.S.G. has reached over 25,000 people and is the only organisation of its kind in Samoa.
The XPrize Foundation said Wednesday that its kicking off a $100,000 contest to build mobile apps from the deep pool of data thats already available on the worlds oceans.

The goal of the contest, called the Big Ocean Button Challenge, is to use data from government, academic and research sources to build apps that are useful in the public.

Each day, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collects 20 terabytes of data, said Matt Mulrennan, manager of the Oceans Initiative at XPrize. Tapping it could eventually create an industry similar to whats occurred with distribution of National Weather Service data.

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So much ocean data is being collected, but so little is being used by the public, said Mulrennan in an interview. This is Big Ocean Button Challenge is $100,000 to create mobile apps to turn ocean data into products that we need.

Mulrennan announced the apps challenge at San Diego BlueTech Week, a conference put on by the Maritime Alliance focused on the cluster of marine technology companies in the local region.

Apps must be focused in one or more of five categories  fishing, shipping and trade, ocean acidification, public safety and exploration.

As long as ocean data remains disconnected, we are unable to address the critical challenges that our oceans face, said Mulrennan.

Fishing apps, for example, could tell users about sustainability, species identification or where not to fish in protected marine areas. Shipping apps could provide data about weather or use for empty containers. Public safety apps might center on water quality, jelly fish blooms or red tides. Exploration apps could display maps of the sea floor or species discovery.

We are on the edge of an exciting emergence of a new blue economy, one thats based on information and environmental intelligence, said Rick Spinrad, Chief Scientist at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As with the growth of commercial weather services, the development of value-added information about the ocean is bound to become a fruitful economic sector.

The non-profit XPrize Foundation is running the apps challenge through a spinoff operation called HeroX Challenge Platform. The website is somewhat like Kickstarter but for innovation competitions.

XPrize typically organizes larger contests  challenging inventors to come up with revolutionary new technologies to solve big problems. One of its ongoing competitions is the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize, where teams are trying to create a mobile medical diagnostic device akin to the Star Trek tricorder.

The Big Ocean Button contest has its roots in last years $2 million Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPrize, which aimed to develop sensors to measure the rapid acidification of oceans as they absorb more carbon from the atmosphere. Sunburst Sensors of Montana won the contest with pH sensor technology thats now being deployed across the globe. Wendy Schmidt and her husband, Eric -- former chief executive of Google -- created the Schmidt Ocean Institute in 2009.

The Big Ocean Button Challenge is a smaller endeavor. But Mulrennan thinks the contest will spark interest from app developers who want to help improve ocean health and enjoy working with large, somewhat untapped data sets.

You are not going to break the bank for with this prize, but you may create a platform that is very valuable, said Mulrennan. The goal is to show the app community the value of ocean data.

The mobile apps must be built for Android 4.4 KitKat or higher, or using Apples iOS software development kit. Developers must submit initial proposals by March 31. A winner will be named in each of the five categories in early 2018. Information is available on the HeroX website under the Big Ocean Button Challenge. Existing groups with ocean apps are allowed to compete but they must create new or improved capabilities.

mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

760-529-4973
By all accounts, Oceanside City Treasurer Gary Ernst was a kind and dedicated public servant, who inspired confidence with his financial knowledge rather than a flashy personality. On Tuesday, however, he accomplished something few elected officials achieve or aspire to  he got re-elected several weeks after dying.

The 61-year-old mortgage broker had been in poor health when he was found dead in his home in late September, past the deadline for printing the November ballot.

His mostly posthumous re-election campaign was carried on by Oceanside City Councilman Jerry Kern, who said Ernsts work was so exceptional  and the opposing candidate so unacceptable  that he felt compelled to urge voters to keep Ernst in office until the right person could be found.

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On Wednesday, Kern said the election results were bittersweet.

Gary was a friend, and I wish he could have been here, Kern said. He spent a lot of time and took a lot of pride in the citys finances. But I know he wanted the best for Oceanside and wouldve wanted to pass the post on to someone who was truly qualified.

The other candidate, Oceanside attorney and activist Nadine Scott, filed a complaint last month with the Fair Political Practices Commission over what she said was illegal government campaigning in a city newsletter announcing Ernsts death. The state agency declined to investigate.

With 100 percent of precincts counted Tuesday, Ernst had garnered 53 percent of the citys vote had Scott had 47 percent.

Scott said many of the people who voted for Ernst may not have known that he had died.

I believe thousands of voters were unaware of my opponents untimely death and were inundated with political mailers supporting him at the instigation of Jerry Kern, Scott said. She said the council should appoint her to replace Ernst.

That would be the honest and honorable thing to do and show respect for the people who voted for me, Scott said.

San Diego County Registrar of Voters Michael Vu said Wednesday that electing a deceased candidate is unusual, but not unprecedented.

I do believe its rare, Vu said. Ive been here nine years and .. dont recall having a situation like this.

It happened in Poway in 1982, however, when the citys first mayor, Clyde Rexrode, died 25 hours before voters went to the polls and was posthumously elected to the council. Councilman Carl Kruse was later appointed to fill the seat. According to a 2014 Washington Post article, five people have won election to Congress after they died, including Texas state Sen. Mario Gallegos, who died Oct. 16, 2012, from liver disease.

The Oceanside City Council will talk about replacing Ernst on Dec. 7 and from there has 60 days to pick one of two options: appoint a successor or hold a special election that would cost an estimated $500,000. The appointment route seems like a sure bet.

Councilman Chuck Lowery said he would prefer to appoint a replacement rather than hold a costly election. He said Scott can submit her name and the council can choose among the most qualified applicants.

Kern agreed.

Im looking for another Gary Ernst, he said. He did a tremendous job.

He and others said Ernst was caring and dedicated person who greeted everyone with a smile. He was divorced, with no children, and helped care for his elderly mother who lives in an Oceanside rest home.

He was generous and giving to people, said his brother, Richard Ersnt, a professor of chemistry at the University of Utah.

Oceanside Financial Services Director Jane McPherson said Ernst was always willing to answer questions with a smile and made sure that finance reports going before the City Council were as accurate as possible.

Gary was very dedicated and took his position very seriously, McPherson said.

edward.sifuentes@sduniontribune.com

@EdwardSifuentes
Veterans Day

Social Tap Eatery is offering active-duty military and veterans half-off their food bill on Friday. Guests can choose a Southwestern Burger ($14.50) or the Cajun Shrimp Penne ($19). Drinks and gratuity are not included in the discount. Military ID or proof of service is required. Two San Diego locations: 815 J St., Suite 101 and 4800 Art St. socialtapeatery.com

Notorious Burgers is offering active-duty military and veterans a 1/3-pound beef burger on a brioche bun, with a soda or iced tea for $6 on Friday. Military ID or proof of service is required. 6955 El Camino Real, Suite 107, Carlsbad. (760) 431-2929.

HOPE 46 at The Lafayette Hotel, Swim Club & Bungalows is offering veterans and active service members 25 percent of their food bill on Friday. Favorites include the Shrimp Mole Flatbread ($13) and the California Cioppino ($19). Military ID is required. 2223 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. (619) 296-2101.

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Bistro 39 Restaurant & Lounge is honoring veterans and active service members 25 percent off their food tab on Friday. The Flat Iron Beef Wellington ($30) is served with rosemary red roasted potatoes, slow roasted sweet potatoes and organic green beans, topped with a fall salad served with a pomegranate reduction. Military ID is required. 939 Ocean Bluff Ave., San Diego. (858) 720-9500.

All Luna Grill locations are offering veterans and active service members free appetizer on Friday. Service members can choose from a number of traditional Mediterranean appetizer items ($4.50 maximum value), including hummus, falafel, feta chips, stuffed grape leaves and seasoned or sweet potato fries. Military ID required. lunagrill.com

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Chefs on the move

Paradise Point Resort & Spa has announced that chef Danilo DJ Tangalin (PrepKitchen Little Italy, Whisknladle, JRDN Restaurant) will take the reins of the resorts signature restaurant, Tidal. Tangalin brings years of culinary experience and will offer a new lineup of dishes, including Wild Washington Salmon, Citrus-Poached Baby Beets Salad and Chicken Confit. 1404 Vacation Road, San Diego. (858) 490-6363 or tidalsd.com

Encontro North Park has welcomed chef Jason Hotchkiss as its new executive chef. As the former director of culinary operations for the Patio Group restaurants, Hotchkiss will focus on improving the current menu, with an emphasis on a daily breakfast menu. Before relocating to San Diego, Hotchkiss was the executive chef for Bottega Louie in Los Angeles. He oversaw a kitchen staff of 80. 3001 University Ave., San Diego. (619) 291-1220.

Searsucker Del Mar has welcomed chef Cesar Oceguera as the new executive chef. A native San Diegan, Oceguera grew up in his fathers local catering business before going on to pursue cooking professionally. Since graduating from culinary school he has held positions at a number of restaurants across the country, including Gastroarte (New York City), Raos (Las Vegas) and Searsuckers (Las Vegas). He brings more than 10 years of experience to the Del Mar kitchen. Oceguera will introduce traditional and fresh takes on classic dishes, staying true to the restaurants New American cuisine. Del Mar Highlands town Center, 12995 El Camino Real, Suite 121, Del Mar. (858) 369-5700 or searsucker.com/del-mar

Openings

Restaurant group 3LB (3 Local Brothers, Inc.) has unveiled a new concept in North County with 101 Proof. An ode to the Prohibition era, the Oceanside speakeasy, located within Urge Gastropub and Whiskey Bank, features copper penny floors and copper ceiling with a 35-seat capacity. Open Thursday through Saturday from 6 p.m. to midnight, the bar has its own entrance off of Vista Way. The cocktail lineup uses hand-pressed juices and hand-carved ice. Curated beer and wine lists and small plates will be offered. 2002 S. Coast Highway, Oceanside. 101proofoceanside.com

Pali Wine Company has opened a new tasting room in San Diegos Little Italy. The tasting room features Palis diverse lineup of chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Rhone and Bordeaux wines, along with a rotating selection of eight fresh wines. The kitchen offers a small-plate menu that includes a charcuterie board with rotating cheeses, meats and seasonal fruits; herb and citrus marinated olives; and a savory, creamy whipped cheese with fresh herbs and a baguette. 2130 India St., San Diego. (619) 569-1300.

Good Time Poke and The Grass Skirt, a combination grab-and-go poke shop and hidden tiki lounge, are the newest additions in Pacific Beach. Good Time Poke offers a creative take on the traditional Hawaiian dish  from tako (octopus) to ahi (yellowfin tuna) poke, as well as kombucha on tap. The Grass Skirt pays homage to classic tiki cocktails, like the Carmen Miranda made with white rum, Anejo rum, overproof Jamaican rum, lime, pineapple, coconut, banana and cinnamon and the Oaxacan Dead, a blend of mezcal, The Grass Skirt rum blend, pineapple, lime, passion fruit, pomegranate and absinthe. 910 Grand Ave., San Diego. thegrassskirt.com

Corner Bakery Cafe has opened a new shop in downtown San Diego. The First and Broadway cafe marks the third location in San Diego and is owned and operated by David Beshay of FEAST California Cafe, LLC, which also owns four other Corner Bakery Cafe locations. The cafe serves made-to-order breakfast, lunch and dinner items. The group plans to open a total of nine cafes in Southern California with the next cafe scheduled to open in Encinitas February 2017. 101 Broadway, San Diego. (619) 233-1642.

Ajisen Ramen has opened in Kearny Mesa. Located in the building previously occupied by Cocos Family Restaurant, guests will find up to 40 ramen noodle soup options and a 13-page menu of traditional izakaya appetizers, including gyozas (dumplings), baby octopus, fried oysters, tempura, chicken kaarage (crispy Japanese sesame fried chicken), as well as udon (thick wheat flour noodle) and rice bowls, yakisoba (fried noodles), sushi, salads, ramen burgers and desserts. 7398 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego. (626) 448-0828 or ajisencalifornia.co

Closings

Saltbox Dining & Drinking has closed its doors to undergo a major renovation and concept change this winter. The Incoming restaurant  Curadero, under the hands of executive chef Brad Kraten  will offer guests the bold flavors found throughout Mexico. During the renovation, the rooftop pool deck atop Hotel Palomar will be available, along with a limited menu and bar service. Curadero is scheduled to open in early 2017. 1047 Fifth Ave., San Diego. (619) 515-3003.

Carnitas Snack Shack will close its North County doors on Dec. 31. Partner Sara Stroud, along with chef Hanis Cavin, told Eater San Diego that the Del Mar Highlands Town Center mall location was not the right fit for the concept and that they will concentrate on their two existing locations, not ruling out future expansion in another North County neighborhood. 12873 El Camino Real, Suite M4, San Diego. (858) 350-7675.

East Villages Bake Sale Bakery will close and re-open as a quick-service eatery, Buds Louisiana Express, early next year. According to Eater San Diego, owner Terryl Gavre is keeping some elements of the business  she plans to continue the bakerys wholesale distribution of muffins, cookies and scones to local coffee houses and will continue to offer baking classes. 815 F St., San Diego. (619) 515-2224.

carolina.gusman@sduniontribune.com
Calling the San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival an annual culinary event is like saying Thanksgiving dinner is just a little snack.

The two foodie extravaganzas have a few things in common, actually: theres an overabundance to choose from and youll probably end up eating and drinking too much.

One big difference  and no disrespect to Aunt Mildreds cornbread stuffing  but big-shot chefs Marcus Samuelsson, Rick Moonen, Michelle Bernstein and Rick Bayless arent usually in the kitchen on turkey day.

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Those nationally renowned celebs are among the 22 visiting chefs descending on San Diego starting Monday to join some of the regions top talent for a weeks worth of pairing dinners, gastro excursions, demos, competitions, seminars and tastings.

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San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival

When: Monday through Nov. 20

Where: Various locations

Tickets: $45 to $325, depending on event

Phone: (858) 578-9463

Online: sandiegowineclassic.com

The caliber of the lineup is arguably the highest its been in the 13-year history of the San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival, putting it on a pace to one day rival the mega Food + Wine Classic in Aspen and Miamis South Beach Wine & Food Festival.

The festival is just getting better and better, said Jason McLeod, executive chef at Ironside Fish & Oyster, which is hosting a sold-out collaboration dinner Monday night featuring Stephanie Prida, the executive pastry chef at Manresa, in Los Gatos, which just last month earned a third Michelin star.

Using his restaurant contacts from around the country, McLeod was instrumental in organizing several of the festivals biggest events, including the opening nights Mercy of the Chef dinner series.

Its an opportunity to invite chefs into our city and another chance to showcase what were doing, McLeod said. This is what chefs do in cities with great food cultures; its all about collaboration.

An estimated 10,000 people are expected to participate in the 2016 wine and food festival, which, for the second time, includes the wine-soaked oeno-geek conference SommCon. How to choose from the culinary cornucopia? Here are some top picks.

Big-ticket blowout

Dinner with the Culinary Icons blends the All-Star roster of Bayless, Bernstein, Moonen and Samuelsson with a bevy of local high-end talent  Javier Plascencia (Bracero), Bernard Guillas (The Marine Room), Aron Schwartz (Marina Kitchen) and Andrew Spurgin (Bespoke Event Styling & Menu Design)  in what should be an unfathomably delicious six-course meal. $300. Nov. 17, 6 p.m. Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina, Marriott Grand Ballroom, 333 W. Harbor Drive, downtown San Diego.

Biggest bang for the buck

Moonen, one of Americas leading experts in sustainable seafood, brings his passion and expertise to our shores for an Ocean-to-Table wine lunch, complete with a sea view. Moonen will be joined by Guillas, McLeod, Spurgin, Dean James Max (DJM Restaurants), Rob Ruiz (The Land & Water, Co.), Evan Cruz (Arterra) and others. $95. Wednesday, 11:30 a.m., The Marine Room, 2000 Spindrift Drive, La Jolla.

The great outdoors

Calling all hipsters: Andrew Bachelier, chef at the new Campfire in Carlsbad, welcomes Portlands Jason French for a multicourse, rustic, fire driven feast. Dinner will be served family style, at communal tables, so bring your appetite, social skills and best lumbersexual attire. $125. Monday, 6:30 p.m., 2725 State St., Carlsbad.

The great outdoors, Part 2

Still hungry and thirsty? The festivals showcase event is the giant Grand Tasting, with over 700 wines, scads of national celebrity chefs, 60 of San Diegos own top toques, 30 gourmet food companies and lots of people. $135, (general admission; VIP tickets available). Nov. 19, 12 p.m., Embarcadero Marina Park North, downtown San Diego.

TIP OF THE WEEK

Catch Marcus Samuelsson, New York Citys Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised author and TV luminary, next Thursday in an intimate setting at Macys School of Cooking, where hell pair some of his signature dishes with whiskey from around the world. $75, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., 1555 Camino De La Reina, Mission Valley.

Twitter: @sdeditgirl

michele.parente@sduniontribune.com
More than 4,000 veterans, active military, bands, floats and civic groups will pay tribute to veterans at the 30th annual San Diego Veterans Day Parade on Friday. Themed A Tribute To The Guardians of Freedom, the 1-mile parade steps off at 11 a.m. on North Harbor Drive one block south of Grape Street before proceeding south on Harbor Drive one block east to Pacific Highway ending at G Street. Parking is limited in the parade area. It is recommended that parade-goers take the trolley to the Santa Fe Depot station or the next closest trolley stop. The parade is produced by Veterans Week San Diego, an all-volunteer team of veterans and citizens.

San Diego Veterans Day Parade: 11 a.m. Friday. North Harbor Drive, downtown San Diego. Free. sdvetparade.org

carolina.gusman@sduniontribune.com
Among the more than 200 objects in the exhibit Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture, currently at the San Diego Museum of Art, is one thats easy to miss  not only because of its placement but also because of what it is.

Its a personal calendar, faded and old. It sits inside a glass case, a few feet from the entrance to the exhibit, dwarfed by a monumental wooden model of an uncompleted work by the late architect: City Tower, a building he hoped would be the seat of political power in Philadelphia, his home.

The calendar is opened to the month of October. The year: 1972. There, in Kahns rather ordinary handwriting in black ink or pencil, are daily appointments, some as mundane as lunch meetings. Upon closer inspection, one entry  that for Oct. 2  speaks volumes about the man whose talent and skill forever changed architecture and, in many ways, the world.

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Written in all capital letters: FT. WORTH KIMBELL OPENING NIGHT

It was a trivial entry, but its significance was hardly that. Kimbell was the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, considered one of Kahns most celebrated buildings and hailed by many as one of the most notable works of architecture of the 20th century. Opening night on Oct. 2, 1972, marked the end of a long journey that began in October 1966 when Kahn was chosen to design a building that founding director Richard Fargo Brown mandated be a work of art itself.

Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture

When: Through Jan. 31.

Where: The San Diego Museum of Art, 1450 El Prado, Balboa Park.

Tickets: Free for members and children 17 and under; $8 for college students with full-time I.D.); $10 for military (active and retired with I.D.) and seniors (65 and older with I.D.); $15 for adults.

Phone: (619) 232-7931

Online: sdmart.org

Twenty photographs of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, taken by students at Woodbury University School of Architecture, are displayed at The San Diego Museum of Art as part of the Louis Kahn exhibit.

October 1972 proved to be a momentous month for Kahn. Nineteen days later, on Oct. 21, another entry heralded the completion of yet another important body of work. 11 a.m. Dedication, the entry says. Exeter Library. Exeter Library, in this case, is the Phillips Exeter Academy Library in Exeter, N.H. Today, it is considered one of the most important pieces of work in modern American architecture, highly regarded for its use of natural light.

Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture, on view in 10,000 square feet of floor space at the San Diego Museum of Art through Jan. 31, is a sprawling assemblage of artifacts meant to honor the legacy of Kahn, whose work, as the museum describes it, is regarded as a touchstone of 20th-century modernism. Besides that personal calendar from the fall of 1972, there are models of works completed and uncompleted, pencil sketches, watercolor paintings, pastel drawings, photographs and film interviews of both Kahn himself and those whom he influenced, including Frank Gehry.

This exhibit  erected at the Balboa Park museum in the span of 11 days  has only been mounted at a handful of institutions around the globe. Last at the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington  it was there from January through May of this year  its the most comprehensive retrospective of Kahns work since 1991. It is presented in collaboration with the Vitra Design Museum in Germany (where it was first exhibited), the New Institute in Netherlands and the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania, where many of the objects are from.

A different portrait of Kahn

The exhibit was proposed to us some years ago, said Ariel Plotek, curator of modern and contemporary art at The San Diego Museum of Art. This is about one of the biggest projects that we have ever undertaken. Its not something we do very much here, presenting exhibits about architecture. But there was obviously something about this one that brought it home.

That something is the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla. Designed by Kahn for Jonas Salk, the building was completed in 1965. Considered to be Kahns masterpiece, it was praised  and still is  for his reverential approach to architectural design, showcasing the symbiotic relationship between site and light and space. The Salk, with its orientation toward the breathtaking views of the Pacific, is stunning for its symmetrical design, featuring two sets of similar towers on each side of a plaza. In that plaza is a singular fountain that, twice a year during the autumnal and vernal equinoxes, aligns with the setting sun.

There is in the Salk Institute, Plotek said, this sense of majesty and an austerity. Kahns work, here in La Jolla and elsewhere, harken back to the past with a strong connection to the present. In a sense, they remind you of the pyramids, the great buildings in Rome, but theyre here now for us to experience. I think Kahns architecture was, quite deliberately, backward looking. Thats one of the themes of the show. The influence of antiquity, whether Greek or Roman or Egyptian, even medieval. That kind of monumentality.

The exhibit is an opportunity to see the lesser known parts of Kahns oeuvre and process, Plotek said. Because his story has only been told once, this gives us a chance to present a different portrait of Kahn.

Indeed, each mounting of this retrospective is different from the other. Many artifacts rotate, mainly because of their sensitivity to light. A handful of objects in this San Diego exhibit were not part of previous exhibits.

Its the first show focused on Kahn in a quarter century. He is a figure whose reputation and legacy has only grown in those intervening decades, said Plotek, who first saw the Salk in person many years ago on a field trip when he was a graduate student at New York Universitys Institute of Fine Art.

One thing that people dont realize is that he wasnt as much an architect as he was a philosopher, Plotek said of the architect, who died penniless in 1974 at the age of 73. He had grand ambitions for architecture, but what he achieved with his work and approach is monumental. He combined design with technical innovation. We think of large architectural works being a matter of compromise and expediency, but Kahn belonged to a generation who created their buildings with ideas based on its function. That detailed and rigorous approach is inspirational  the belief that there is a transcendent quality to architecture.

Louis Kahns work: Highlights

Yale University Art Gallery: 1111 Chapel St., New Haven, Conn. (begun in 1951, completed in 1953)

Richards Medical Research Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania: 3700 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia (begun in 1957, completed in 1962)

Salk Institute for Biological Studies: 10010 N. Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla (begun in 1959, completed in 1965)

Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban, the National Assembly Building of Bangladesh: Dhaka, Bangladesh (begun in 1962, completed in 1982)

Phillips Exeter Academy Library: Front Street, Exeter, N.H. (begun in 1965, completed in 1972)

Kimbell Art Museum: 3333 Camp Bowie Blvd., Fort Worth, Texas (begun in 1966, completed in 1972)

Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park: Roosevelt Island, New York City (designed in 1974, completed in 2012)

Special events

Cultures & Cocktails: 6 to 10 p.m. Nov. 17. $25 nonmembers, $5 members; $35 at the door. This is a 21 and up event. IDs will be checked at the door.

Friday Morning Lecture & Tour Series: Words and Works of Louis Kahn: Speaker: Len Zegarski, program chair, undergraduate architecture, NewSchool of Architecture and Design, San Diego. 10 a.m. lecture, 11:30 a.m. tour Nov. 18. $16 nonmembers; $13 members; $8 seniors and military; $5 students.

Architectural Photography Workshops: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 19 and Dec. 10. Museum Boardroom. $40 nonmembers; $30 members; $35 seniors and military. Same program presented both days.

Art of Elan: Defining Place: This concert focuses on place and origins and the links between the architecture and music. 7 p.m. Nov. 22. Gallery 16. $50 nonmembers; $40 members; $45 students, seniors and military.

Film: Cathedrals of Culture: The Salk Institute: Prior to the screening, Dr. Tom Albright of the Salk Institute will speak about the connection between architecture and neuroscience. 8 p.m. Dec. 9. $10 nonmembers; $5 members and students; $7.50 seniors and military.

Film: My Architect: A Sons Journey: Filmmaker and son of Louis Kahn, Nathaniel Kahn, will introduce the film and participate in a Q&A session following the screening. 8 p.m. Jan. 13, 2017. $10 nonmembers; $5 members and students; $7.50 seniors and military.

Twitter: @outdoorlivingsd

michael.rocha@sduniontribune.com
Starting Tuesday night, as Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election started coming into focus, anguished questions flooded social media:

Could Trump overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide?

Could he abolish same-sex marriages?

Could he increase deportations?

How about global warming? Could Trump pull out of U.S. agreements on climate change?

What about Obamacare?

The chief executive has a lot of authority over the government, as President Obama has demonstrated. But as Obama has found, he also faces tremendous constraints from Congress, the courts and existing laws.

Here are some areas in which President Trump could act quickly and where he could not.

Could Trump overturn Roe v. Wade?

Not on his own. The Supreme Court decision in 1973 struck down state laws around the country that banned abortions. Ever since, antiabortion groups have called for reversing the ruling.

The decision could be overturned two ways  by a new Supreme Court decision or by a constitutional amendment. The high court has reaffirmed the Roe decision repeatedly, most recently by a 5-3 vote in June that struck down a Texas law that limited abortions.

After Trump's win, even some in Silicon Valley wonder: Has Facebook grown too influential? 

In theory, if enough vacancies arise on the court, Trump could appoint a sufficient number of justices who would overturn Roe. In practice, the Supreme Court has had a majority of Republican-appointed justices since Roe was handed down, except for the past few months of a 4-4 tie, and thats never happened.

As for a constitutional amendment, the president has no role in that process. Amendments have to pass both houses of Congress by a two-thirds vote and be ratified by three-quarters of the states  a high bar.

What could Trump do about immigration?

A lot. The law gives the president broad authority over immigration policy. Trump could speed up deportations, revoke Obamas program that shielded so-called Dreamers  people who came to the U.S. illegally as children  and curb certain categories of visas for legal immigrants.

But as Obama found, there are limits. Courts struck down his effort to expand the deportation shield to cover millions of adults.

Trump also could not build a wall along the Mexican border without money from Congress, although he might be able to get started on construction by shifting funds already in the federal budget.

Could Trump ban Muslims from coming to the U.S.?

Legal experts have said he probably could: Noncitizens seeking to enter the country generally arent protected by the Constitutions guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

Here is how America feels about Trump's shocking win 

As of Thursday morning, mention of the Muslim ban had disappeared from Trumps campaign website. Later in the day, the proposal reappeared on the website. Trump aides insisted the earlier removal had been a technical glitch.

Trump could limit the entry of refugees from Syria, Iraq and other war-torn Middle Eastern countries. He probably would face pressure from U.S. allies not to do so, but he could disregard that.

Are same-sex marriages at risk?

No. Just as with abortion, the president cant overturn a Supreme Court decision by himself, although he could appoint more conservative justices. Even then, the chance that the high court would reverse itself is very small. Unlike abortion, same-sex marriage has steadily gained in public approval.

Trump could try to reverse some Obama administration rulings that favored same-sex couples on issues such as federal benefits. He hasnt suggested that he would. And if he did, his decisions could be challenged in court.

Could Trump reverse current policies on climate change?

He could and quite probably will.

Trump has promised to withdraw the U.S. from an international agreement made in Paris last year that called on countries to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. And he has said he would scrap Obama administration rules that aim to shift electricity generation away from coal and oil toward cleaner sources.

Since those policies were adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency, using its authority under the Clean Air Act, they could be reversed by the EPA. But environmental groups could  and almost certainly would  go to court to try to block any such reversal. At minimum, the groups could tie up the Trump administration for a long time.

What happens if Trump tries to repeal Obamacare?

Trump has promised to ask Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something else.

The repeal part is easy since the Republicans control both houses of Congress. The replace part is a lot harder, as my colleague Noam N. Levey explained.

Fear of a Trump-triggered recession gives way to hope for short-term economic boost 

Republicans have never been able to agree on a plan to replace the current law, and they would be under tremendous pressure not to simply repeal the law without a backup plan. Doing so would cause some 20 million people to lose healthcare coverage.

So carrying out Trumps pledge may take quite a while, and, in the end, the GOP may have to settle for less dramatic change than the rhetoric might imply.

Could Trump end federal funds for Planned Parenthood?

Congress would have to act to accomplish that goal, which many conservatives have sought because of the groups role in providing abortion services.

Whether a ban would pass both houses, especially the Senate, remains uncertain.

The federal money that goes to support Planned Parenthoods healthcare activities does not involve abortion but rather funds the groups other services, including cancer screening and other preventive care for women. Several Republican senators have supported Planned Parenthood in the past because those services are popular in their states.

During the campaign, Trump threatened to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton. Could he?

The president, acting through the attorney general, has broad authority to appoint prosecutors. But appointing a prosecutor to go after a defeated campaign rival would be unprecedented, and Trumps aides already have started stepping away from that idea.

Could Trump order police to adopt stop-and-frisk policies?

No. During the campaign, Trump defended the use of so-called stop-and-frisk policing tactics. But police departments dont work for the federal government, they work for state and local governments.

In some cities, stop-and-frisk has been limited by court decisions. In other places, it has been dropped by police chiefs who decided it was not reducing crime enough to justify the tension it created in minority communities.

Trump talked about making libel law less protective of the press. Could he?

No. There is no federal libel law. Each state has its own law. A Supreme Court decision handed down more than 40 years ago  New York Times v. Sullivan  provides broad protection for the press in covering public figures.

David.Lauter@latimes.com

For more on Politics and Policy, follow me @DavidLauter

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UPDATES:

Nov. 11, 3:45 p.m.: An earlier version of this article said that Planned Parenthood performs mammograms. It does perform other kinds of cancer screening, but not mammograms.

Nov. 10, 1:55 p.m.: This article was updated to note that the proposal to ban some Muslims from entering the U.S. has reappeared on the Donald Trump campaign website.

The article was originally published Nov. 10 at 1:10 p.m.
It turned out that the ceiling was made not of glass, but reinforced concrete.

At least that is what it felt like to many women who had been getting ready Tuesday to pour champagne in celebration of the first female president of the United States.

It soon became clear that the nations 45th U.S. president would be the 45th man to hold the title, and Hillary Clinton, the woman many had expected to break the biggest gender barrier of them all, would be an also-ran for the nations highest office.

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In the years to come, political scientists will ponder to what extent gender was a factor in the electorates rejection of a candidate with an Ivy League law degree, three decades of public service, a famous surname and the endorsements of a broad swath of newspapers and political leaders.

Rabbi Avis Miller graduated from Wellesley three years before Clinton and faced sexism in her career path. (Laura King / Los Angeles Times )

If she cant do it, what woman can? asked Avis Miller, 71, who graduated from Wellesley College three years before Clinton, and who defied gender expectations herself when she became a rabbi.

In interviews across the country, women said the acrimonious presidential campaign had revived long-suppressed memories: of the unwelcome hand on the knee, the backhanded compliment, the condescension, the impossible competition between family and career  terrain that has become much easier for younger women to navigate, thanks to the work done by women of Clintons generation.

Before Clintons loss to Republican Donald Trump, Miller had planned a celebratory Sabbath dinner with some of her Wellesley classmates, all accomplished women: a professor, an architectural historian, a published novelist.

Theres that level of accomplishment and achievement  but another level we just cant seem to crack, she said.

Jan Greenberg says she felt like misogyny permeated the entire campaign. (Barbara Demick / Los Angeles Times )

A lot of people are very misogynist, said Jan Greenberg, 73, a theater director who was grimacing as she walked past a rack of news headlines in New York on Wednesday morning. They dont admit it  they dont think they are  but it was going to be very hard for a woman, particularly Hillary Clinton.

I cant say exactly where it was, but I felt like misogyny permeated the entire campaign. It was the same as the racism with Obama.

Clintons defeat, following eight years of Barack Obamas breakthrough as the first African American president, suggests to many that gender can be a bigger obstacle than race.

Sheila Talton says she has found sexism to be stronger than racism. (David Townsend / For The Times )

Between sexism and racism, I could say that sexism is definitely the stronger of the two areas of discrimination, said Sheila Talton, the 64-year-old head of Chicago-based Gray Matter Analytics, who as an African American woman has ample experience with both.

Jacinta Camacho Kaplan, a 65-year-old architect who now lives in Santa Monica, was raised with a wild streak. Her grandmother used to roll her own cigars and advised young women they would be old enough to have sex when they knew how to put on a condom.

Kaplans father, on the other hand, insisted she go to cooking school because he doubted a woman could make a living as an architect.

Despite its disappointing end, Clintons candidacy allowed Kaplan to marvel at how much had changed since she was growing up. She was struck by something her 7-year-old granddaughter recently told her.

Jacinata Camacho Kaplan still marvels at how much has changed for women since her youth. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times )

Nana, you dont have to say Im pretty. I know Im pretty. Im also smart and I play chess. And Im good at math, the girl said.

In her concession speech in New York, Clinton struck an encouraging tone about women in politics, addressing her remarks to all the little girls who are watching this.

Never doubt that you are valuable, and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams, she said. I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday someone will, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.

Clintons remarks, however, were scant consolation to women of her own generation. Many of them saw her candidacy as one of their own lifetime achievements  and now are left to wonder whether they will live to see a woman in the White House.

Will there be a woman president before I die? 69-year-old Sylvia Farina of Lakeland, Fla., said after watching Clintons concession speech on television with her 94-year-old father. Both were in tears. Maybe if Michelle Obama runs.

Retired from a job as chief of staff to a county commissioner, Farina had seen Clintons struggles in parallel with her own experiences as a single mother navigating the lower levels of the political arena, where she endured condescending remarks about her looks and was told when she was laid off that, as a woman, her husband could take care of her.

Clintons election was going to change all that, she said. What an opportunity we blew.

But not all women  and not even all feminist women  voted for Clinton. Exit polls published Wednesday by CBS News said that white women voted 53% to 43% for Trump over Clinton.

Some women, especially Trump supporters, rejected the idea that Clintons defeat should be attributed to her gender.

Wendy Shashoua voted for Trump over Clinton based on their beliefs. (Jenny Jarvie / For The Times )

Its too much of an easy, simplistic answer to say, She didnt win because she was a woman. Its an immature reaction, designed to make [people] feel better, rather than face the actual issue  that many people think she is very untrustworthy, said Wendy Shashoua, 70, from Johns Creek, Ga., an affluent suburb of Atlanta.

A conservative Christian by her own description, Shashoua, who runs a framing shop, said she would have liked to vote for a female president. But more important, she said, was that Trump shared her beliefs about immigration and appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court.

Of course, women have always been at a considerable disadvantage in electoral politics.

I hate to say I told you so, but everything I have done as far as my research shows that this is a tough road for a woman to climb, said Farida Jalalzai, a University of Oklahoma political scientist specializing in female leaders. If they are able to break through the glass ceiling, they have to have extraordinary credentials and family ties.

In her book Shattered, Cracked or Firmly Intact, Jalalzai studied 115 women who have held top offices around the world since 1960. Of them, fewer than one-quarter managed reach the top through a popular vote. Many of those rode to power on the name recognition of a powerful male relative  a husband, father or brother.

A total of 16 out of 252 world leaders today studied by Jalalzai are women.

Another study last year by the Pew Research Center reported that 63 out of 142 countries studied had at some point had a female head of state in the last half-century, but they often did not serve out their full term.

Examples include Brazils Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached earlier this year on corruption charges spearheaded by a male opponent who was also under investigation for corruption. South Koreas Park Geun-hye is also facing threats of impeachment in a murky case involving a family friend said to have exercised undue influence.

Assunta Ng says she saw how sexist the U.S. still is during the campaign. (William Yardley / Los Angeles Times )

In regard to the recent election, many women said that what injected gender into the debate was not Clinton being a woman but Donald Trumps behavior  his taunting of Clinton and her supporters, his recorded remarks about groping women, and his debate invitation to women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual impropriety.

This country is just not ready, says Jody Silver. (Barbara Demick / Los Angeles Times )

Through this campaign, I can see this country is still very sexist, said Assunta Ng, who publishes newspapers that target the Seattle areas diverse Asian population, and is in her 60s. America is the most progressive country in the world, but this attack, attack, attack on a female presidential candidate is something very hard for outsiders to understand.

Obviously, this country is just not ready for a woman in leadership, concluded Jody Silver, 61, a New Yorker who runs a mental health network in New Jersey. It is an embarrassment for us.

This story was reported by Jenny Jarvie in Atlanta, Gale Holland in Los Angeles, William Yardley in Seattle, Nigel Duara in Phoenix, Laura King in Washington, D.C., and Barbara Demick in New York.

barbara.demick@latimes.com

Twitter: BarbaraDemick

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California Democrats eagerly awaited election day for the chance to regain something lost two years prior: A supermajority of seats in both houses of the Legislature, the kind of dominance with which they could easily raise taxes, send proposals to the ballot or override the veto of a reluctant governor.

Those hopes havent been fully realized in early returns, though Democrats appear to have crossed the two-thirds barrier in the state Assembly.

I think were expanding the map, said Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) on Wednesday, after unofficial results showed Democrats winning as many as 55 seats, one more than a supermajority, in his chamber. I think people understand everything weve accomplished, and its a rousing endorsement of that.

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In the state Senate, where Democrats needed to pick up only one additional member to hit a supermajority of 27 seats, the effort may have come up short. But because ballots can arrive in elections offices as late as next Monday, the final verdict may remain in doubt for a week or longer.

Because our election laws are voter-friendly, the ballots get counted over an extended period, said Darry Sragow, the publisher of the Target Book, which analyzes legislative and congressional races across the state.

Democrats may ultimately find the close races swinging their way, but it doesnt appear to be the strong wave that some strategists privately suggested as recently as Monday  predictions that the states largest political party would see a net gain of perhaps eight or nine legislative seats over Republicans. Even in a state as reliably blue on the electoral map as California, Democrats might have gone into election day with too much optimism.

Political Road Map: A Democratic supermajority in Sacramento may not change much 

Democrats, in a lot of places, misread things, Sragow said.

In two Southern California races, Republicans looked to have lost to Democrats in rematches of races they won in 2014. Assemblyman David Hadley (R-Manhattan Beach) was defeated by the man who held the seat two years earlier, Al Muratsuchi. And in Orange County, Assemblywoman Young Kim (R-Fullerton) was losing in Tuesday-night returns to her opponent of two years ago, Sharon Quirk-Silva.

Democrats may have also picked up a new Assembly seat in Riverside County, with Sabrina Cervantes leading Assemblyman Eric Linder (R-Corona) by more than four percentage points. Thirty-five percent of voters in the district are Latino, an important dynamic in several contested races across California.

We are substantially a minority-white state, Sragow said. Ethnicity does matter in California politics.

That could have also boosted Eloise Reyes in her defeat of fellow Democrat Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown (D-San Bernardino). Brown, a business-aligned Democrat who is African American, lost to the more liberal Reyes in an Assembly district, where 52% of the voters are Latino and only 5% are African American.

The Reyes-Brown race was perhaps the marquee legislative matchup for interest groups seeking to influence the final outcome, with some $70 million spent by independent political action committees, a 44% increase from the record set just two years earlier.

Democrats have held sizable majorities in the state Capitol for more than two decades, but no party had won a supermajority of seats for some eight decades until Democrats did so in 2012. That was the first presidential election cycle under districts drawn by Californias independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.

In the state Senate, Democrats needed only a single pickup but had to do so in districts that have been historically more friendly to Republicans. The only race still is east of Los Angeles, where Assemblywoman Ling-Ling Chang (R-Diamond Bar) holds a lead of less than 3,900 votes over veterans advocate Josh Newman.

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) warned about making too much of the quest for a Democratic supermajority in Sacramento.

Weve proven that you dont need to be a supermajority to be highly effective. he said. Its still the quality of our work, not the quantity of our head count, that matters the most.

john.myers@latimes.com

Follow @johnmyers on Twitter, sign up for our daily Essential Politics newsletter and listen to the weekly California Politics Podcast

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Political Road Map: A supermajority in the Legislature may not change much

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Updates on California politics
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday began his 2018 bid for governor after a three-year hiatus from the political limelight, joining a heady field of candidates that is expected to grow larger in the months ahead.

The former mayor, who was raised by a single mother in Boyle Heights, said his campaign will focus on rebuilding the middle class and assisting Californians who have been left behind in the new economy, along with improving public schools and repairing the states deteriorating roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

In announcing, Villaraigosa took a shot at President-elect Donald Trump, whom the former mayor has criticized in the past for anti-immigrant rhetoric.

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Im running because I think the answer to the divisiveness we see in the country right now is unity, and the answer to fear is hope, Villaraigosa said in a telephone interview with The Times.

Im going to reach out to unions, to business, to every interest group in every part of the state. Because my candidacy is about the public interest, he said. Ill call them as I see them. Ill be as fair as the day is long.

The Villaraigosa campaign on Thursday blasted out an email asking for Californians support  and the most generous contribution supporters could afford.

The Democrats decision and new website come after months of relatively quiet, subtle moves to drift back into the consciousness of the California electorate, including an extended listening tour through the drought-ravaged Central Valley, where he worked to familiarize himself with the states water crisis and its impact on Californias billion-dollar agricultural industry and the people whose livelihoods depend on it.

Though Villaraigosa remains a familiar political figure in California, he will face tough competition among fellow Democrats.

Longtime political rival Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor, launched his campaign in February 2015 and has been feverishly raising money ever since. State Treasurer John Chiang of Torrance also has jumped into the race, as has Delaine Eastin, who served eight years as Californias top education official. Former state Controller Steve Westly and billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, a San Francisco hedge-fund billionaire, also are considering gubernatorial bids.

I clearly have a lot of ground to make up and Im going to start making it up today. Im the underdog. I think thats pretty clear, Villaraigosa said.

He flirted with a run for governor in 2010, shortly after the beginning of his second term as mayor. But the formidable Jerry Brown appeared to have the Democratic nomination in his grasp early in that race. Villaraigosa ultimately decided he couldnt leave this city in the middle of a crisis as Los Angeles struggled to recover from the economic ravages of the Great Recession. At the time, L.A. was attempting to whittle down a $530-million budget deficit, a 12.5% unemployment rate and a flood of home foreclosures.

However, the allure of the top statewide office never faded. Just days after he left office as mayor, Villaraigosa said he wanted to run for governor. When Sen. Barbara Boxer announced in January 2015 that she would not seek reelection, the former mayor spent weeks considering a possible run for her seat. But, again, the grail of a California governors office once occupied by Earl Warren, Pat Brown and Ronald Reagan beckoned.

For Villaraigosa, whose eight years as L.A. mayor came to a quiet end in 2013, the challenge will be to recapture the political electricity that enveloped him in 2005, when the former Assembly speaker and Los Angeles city councilman made history by becoming L.A.'s first Latino mayor since 1872.

Villaraigosas victory at the time was seen as a harbinger of rising Latino Power, which was the headline on a Newsweek magazine cover adorned with his picture.

He quickly embraced the urban revival underway in downtown and Hollywood, and successfully led the campaign for Measure R, a $35-billion transportation package passed by voters in 2008 that imposed a countywide half-cent sales tax. The measure is credited with reshaping the regions notoriously inefficient transit system. Under his watch, the city also hired hundreds of new police officers and violent crime plummeted.

Election 2016 | California politics news feed | Sign up for the newsletter

But during his tenure, the city also struggled to cope with plummeting revenues amid the nations economic downturn. He wrestled for concessions from public employee unions that were necessary, in part, because of raises he had approved before the recession.

Villaraigosa has said that his biggest failing and disappointment during his time as mayor was personal: the breakup of his marriage, which occurred after he acknowledged having an extramarital affair with a television newscaster. Its unclear if his political image has fully recovered. The same could be said for Newsom, who had a highly publicized affair with his former campaign managers wife while serving as San Francisco mayor.

In August, 63-year-old Villaraigosa remarried, tying the knot with Patricia Govea in a wedding ceremony in Mexico. They now live in a contemporary house in Hollywood Hills, with impressive views of downtown L.A. and the Hollywood sign.

After leaving office, Villaraigosa has worked as an advisor to controversial nutritional products company Herbalife Ltd., which could become a political vulnerability. He also did work for the Banc of California and the global public relations firm Edelman, and has been a part-time professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy.

Over the last six months, Villaraigosa has slowly inserted himself back into the political scene. In June, he formed a political action committee  Building Bridges, Not Walls  to combat anti-immigrant policies trumpeted by Donald Trump, and a month later at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, he ripped Trump for proposing a mass deportation of immigrants in the country illegally.

Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, said Trumps election could become a major asset for Villaraigosa, predicting Latinos and Democrats in California will be highly motivated to go to the polls in 2018.

Running for governor during Donald Trumps midterm election boosts his political stock tremendously, Schnur said. By the time this is all over, Villaraigosa will have put pictures of Donald Trump on his campaign posters.

phil.willon@latimes.com

Twitter: @philwillon

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UPDATES:

3:55 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Schnur.

11:20 a.m.: This article was updated with quotes and details from an interview with Villaraigosa.

This article was originally published at 9:15 a.m.
Goodbye, long waits on hold. To keep up with the health-care industry and respond to patients requests, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs plans to debut online scheduling of medical appointments nationwide in January.

The agencys more than 6 million patients will be able to schedule primary-care appointments through an app on their phones, tablets or computers.

VA officials hope to add mental-health appointments to the list in the future, in addition to optometry and audiology.

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Do I think this is a huge step forward for the VA? Absolutely, said Dr. Neil Evans, chief of the office of connected care for the Veterans Health Administration. I think this is really, really, really important for us to be able to offer.

The move comes after the VA suffered a black eye nationally in 2014 when a whistleblower in Phoenix revealed that VA schedulers were pressured to fake records to make appointment wait times appear shorter. Evidence that the practice was more widespread led to the resignation of then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

One of the tactics used at the time was keeping unofficial lists of patients awaiting care.

The new app software promises to remove the VA scheduler from the equation. Patients will be able to see what appointment slots are available for their physicians and then choose one with the tap of their finger or a click of their computer mouse, VA officials said.

An app will soon allow VA patients to, for the first time, make medical appointments online. Currently, San Diego appointments are now scheduled by people like Joyce McGrath, center. at the San Diego VA call center. (Peggy Peattie/San Diego Union-Tribune )

I think it really increases the transparency of our system, said Kathy Frisbee, executive director for connected health in the VAs office of connected care. I mean, we are exposing our availability to the world.

The idea isnt new to the health-care business. For instance, Sharp HealthCare in San Diego County has offered online appointment-making since 2009. The U.S. Defense Departments medical centers launched online appointments in 2002.

Now the service may be rolled out by the VA just in time.

In the San Diego region, the post-9/11 generation of veterans  likely to be more tech-savvy than their predecessors  recently became the single-largest demographic of local VA patients.

Not everyone is bound to like the innovation.

Even as health systems have introduced scheduling apps, the usage rate is well below 50 percent for making appointments, experts said. At the San Diego Naval Medical Center in Balboa Park, officials said only 7 percent of appointments are made online.

Veterans who dont embrace cyberspace can still arrange appointments the old-fashioned way, via the VAs San Diego call center.

However, a common complaint among San Diego veterans is that they must wait a long time to book a medical appointment via phone. One vet at a March 2015 town hall meeting told San Diego VA leaders that it can be quicker to drive to the clinic in person than hold on the telephone for a scheduler.

Also, the call center is only open during business hours  weekdays from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The longest monthly average wait for the San Diego call center in fiscal year 2015 was more than eight minutes in September of that year, the VA said. The shortest monthly average wait was just under two minutes in June 2015.

One in four San Diego County callers hung up while waiting for their call to be answered in fiscal 2015, according to VA data.

VA officials in San Diego have acknowledged problems in retaining call-center employees. Its a modest-salary job that requires six months of training to master. Schedulers work in a nondescript room packed with cubicles at the VA hospital in La Jolla.

After taking steps to stabilize the work force, officials said the call center is now at full staff with 35 people. However, the workload has jumped as more calls are being routed there, including pharmacy calls and requests for appointments at outlying clinics.

Fewer San Diego vets are giving up, however. The hang-up rate fell to roughly one in 10 in fiscal year 2016.

The VA tested the new app technology with veterans in West Haven, Conn., in July and Boston in October. It got a 91 percent approval rate, Frisbee said.

At first, VA developers thought theyd just offer online requests for appointments  not true scheduling.

But feedback from veterans pushed them to also offer actual do-it-yourself online scheduling. It was the No. 1 request of vets who use the VAs online portal, called MyHealtheVet, Evans said.

The new app has been discussed in congressional hearings. Otherwise, the VA hasnt marketed it to veterans.

The cost to develop the function was $3.2 million. It uses a combination of technology infrastructure from Agilex Technologies, now Accenture Federal Services, and internal development by the VA.

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San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos is relieved.

After the votes were counted, the ballot measure to streamline the decades-long appellate process for death penalty cases passed by a narrow margin in Tuesdays election.

Ramos, who helped lead the campaign for Proposition 66, said Wednesday that its approval  along with the defeat of a competing initiative aimed at repealing the death penalty  shows that most Californians believe the ultimate punishment is warranted in certain cases.

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They still believe in capital punishment for the worst of the worst, he said. Included in that category, Ramos said, were serial killers, child murderers and those who kill police officers in the line of duty.

This is a huge victory for the victims, Ramos said.

Proposition 66, which passed with 51 percent of the vote, promises to speed up the time between when a defendant is sentenced to death and when he or she is executed, which now can take 20 years or longer. It changes some procedures for legal challenges, for example by widening the pool of lawyers available to handle appeals.

Previously, it could take five to six years for an appellate lawyer to be appointed in a death penalty case, Ramos said. With more eligible attorneys, appellate lawyers could be appointed at or close to the time of sentencing.

One of the first steps now will be to find and train lawyers to take the cases, Ramos said. The timeline for hearings on administrative issues, such as ineffective assistance of counsel and improper jury selection, will be scheduled more quickly in both the state and federal courts.

But supporters of Proposition 62, which would have repealed the death penalty, are not convinced.

I dont believe that the vote that happened last night truly reflects what Californians believe about the death penalty, Justin Brooks, director of the California Innocence Project, said Wednesday.

Brooks said he believes voters were confused by the competing ballot measures and that most people in the state would support getting rid of the death penalty if they knew the offenders would never be released from prison. Only 46 percent of California voters supported the repeal.

He also said the measure Ramos backed isnt likely to speed up executions because state law cant control what happens with the federal appeals process.

It was a false promise and its going to prove to be a false promise, he said, adding that the changes imposed by Proposition 66 may increase the possibility of innocent people being put to death.

Ramos disagreed.

We intentionally did not set a time limit on those who have facts or factors that prove that they are innocent, he said.

San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who also supported Proposition 66, said Wednesday that the initiative would help make capital punishment a reality in California, instead of an empty promise.

It will allow the death penalty to move forward without (violating) the due process rights of the defendant, Dumanis said.

Californias death row currently houses 750 inmates, including 21 women, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Thirteen people have been executed in Californias death chamber since 1978, while more than 100 died of other causes, including suicide and drug overdose. More than 70 died of natural causes.

Four years ago, Californians narrowly rejected a ballot measure that sought to repeal the death penalty, making the maximum punishment for murder cases in the state life in prison without possibility of parole.

The same idea was behind this years Proposition 62, which would have converted the sentences of all condemned inmates in California to life without parole, including 39 from San Diego County.

Among them is David Westerfield, a former design engineer from Sabre Springs who was convicted in 2002 of kidnapping and killing his 7-year-old neighbor Danielle van Dam. Westerfields trial, which was broadcast live on television, was one of the highest profile criminal cases in county history.

California began executing inmates in 1851 under jurisdiction of the counties and later under state authority. Executions were halted in 1967 and the moratorium lasted for the next 25 years as legal challenges were filed in the state and federal courts.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the death penalty was unconstitutional. The California Legislature re-enacted the death penalty in 1977 and state voters approved a proposition on the issue the following year.

Robert Alton Harris was the first death row inmate put to death in California after the state resumed executions in 1978. He was convicted of murder and kidnapping charges for abducting two teens at gunpoint in a Mira Mesa parking lot and later killing them.

Harris died in the gas chamber in 1992.

The last execution in California happened in January 2006 when Clarence Ray Allen died by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison.

Executions were halted that year after inmate Michael Angelo Morales claimed in court filings that the states lethal injection protocol would put him at risk of unnecessary pain and violate the Eighth Amendments prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

In 2007, a federal court determined the states implementation of lethal injection is broken, but it can be fixed.

State officials later revamped procedures for capital punishment and spent $853,000 to rebuild the death chamber at San Quentin. They also revised the three-drug lethal injection protocol, coming up with a proposal for a single-drug procedure.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @danalittlefield
In less than three weeks, the class-action lawsuit against Donald Trump and his defunct Trump University is set to go to trial in a downtown San Diego courtroom.

That likely wont change, even with Trumps presidential win on election night, legal experts say. However, it could alter how personally involved Trump will be in the federal trial, in which he must defend accusations he misled and defrauded students who enrolled in his real estate academy.

Attorneys for both sides are scheduled to be in court Thursday afternoon to make final preparations for jury selection on Nov. 28. But the election results and their potential effect on the case will likely dominate the courtroom discussion and draw a large media presence.

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Trumps attorneys did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment Wednesday, and lawyers for the students declined to discuss the case.

As unusual as this situation is, the U.S. Supreme Court has set legal precedent when it comes to lawsuits against presidents, and that precedent is what will likely inform how Trumps case proceeds.

In 1994, former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones sued then-President Bill Clinton on accusations of making sexual advances on her when he was governor.

Clinton fought the sexual harassment lawsuit. The case made it to the Supreme Court, which ruled sitting presidents can still be sued for events that happened before they took office or are unrelated to their presidential duties.

Clinton v. Jones established that a president does not have absolute immunity, attorney Robert S. Bennett, who argued on Clintons behalf to the Supreme Court in 1997, said in an interview Wednesday.

The ruling also said presidents dont have the right to delay such a lawsuit just because they are in the Oval Office.

While the Clinton case only applies to sitting presidents, Bennett doesnt think Trumps status as president-elect will make much of a practical difference in the looming trial, especially given the possibility that the trial will not have concluded by his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Still, legal experts expect Trumps attorneys to ask for the trial to be delayed until he leaves the White House, citing how busy he will be. But such a request would not be expected to succeed.

I think the likelihood of the trial getting delayed is very low. If it is delayed, its delayed for four years presumably, if not longer, said Shaun Martin, a University of San Diego School of Law professor who teaches civil procedure.

If anything is going to happen (with this trial), its going to happen now. The advantage of it happening now is that hes not president yet, Martin said.

That the 6-year-old lawsuit is so close to trial also makes it more likely to proceed as scheduled. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who will be presiding over the trial, has been reluctant to grant any more delays.

Bennett said case management, which was one of the major points made in the Clinton ruling, will be key here.

It will be up to the court to manage the schedule vis-a-vis the new presidents time, Bennett said.

In the lawsuit, filed in 2010, students allege they paid up to $35,000 to attend seminars and learn inside secrets to success in real estate from mentors who were handpicked by Trump. Instead, they claim the program was nothing more than an infomercial trying to squeeze more money out of students, and they did not learn what was promised.

Trump has pointed to a large number of students who gave the program positive reviews and blamed the plaintiffs lack of success on laziness and the downturn in the real estate market.

The trial is set to unfold in two parts. In the liability phase, expected to last four to six weeks, the evidence will mostly revolve around whether Trump University misled students by using the term university and claiming that Trump handpicked the instructors. If he loses, then the damages phase would begin, in which every eligible class member from California, Florida and New York might have to be considered separately as to how much they were damaged and what they are owed.

Trump has said previously he plans to testify in person, but his new presidential status might change that.

Assuming the trial goes on as scheduled, Trumps attorneys could ask the judge to excuse him from having to testify and instead show jurors video from his previous depositions in the case.

If the plaintiffs argue that they didnt get to ask Trump all their questions, then the judge could allow a final deposition before trial, or ask him written questions which he must answer under oath.

Trump could also testify via live video feed.

One thing is clear: Judge Curiel will have a great deal of discretion on how the case proceeds and unfolds in his courtroom.

During the presidential campaign, Trump complained that Curiel had been unfair in rulings against him, saying the judges Mexican heritage made him biased against Trump, who supports tough immigration policies and the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Curiel was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants.

Judge Curiel really can do whatever he wants, law professor Martin said. This is an issue very much within his discretion, which makes it interesting given the vitriol directed his way.

On the one hand, he might bend over backward to prove hes being fair and give Trump a break here, or he might not be inclined to give him a break, Martin said.

Attorneys for both sides are also waiting for Curiel to issue rulings on several motions, most of them having to do with what will and will not be permitted as evidence.

One area that Trumps lawyers do not want in front of a jury are any of the comments the Republican made during his campaign, including anything from public speeches, media interviews, debates or his Twitter account.

Before trial begins in this case, prospective members of the jury will have the opportunity to cast their vote for President, Trump attorney Daniel Petrocelli wrote in an Oct. 20 motion. It is in the ballot box where they are free to judge Mr. Trump based on all this and more. But it is in the jury box where they must judge him and this case only on evidence and argument relevant to the issues at hand.

Trump also could decide to settle the lawsuit before the trial. Although the outspoken tycoon might not seem the settling type, he has settled many past lawsuits brought against him in business dealings.

Martin said there are many reasons for both sides to want to accept a compromise instead of risking an unfavorable jury verdict.

If the parties were both rational and intelligent, this case would probably settle, but not every case is resolved rationally. Each side may overvalue its chances of success. Thats generally how things get to trial, he said.

The makeup of San Diegos population will be an important factor when it comes to picking a jury, experts said. Trump received 38.6 percent of the vote in San Diego County to Democrat Hillary Clintons 56 percent.

He may think hes on a winning streak, but hes got to remember that members of the jury are coming from San Diego, and hes not riding a winning streak in respect to them, Martin said. Im sure his lawyers will advise him not to be too cocky about the (election) results, given the demographics of a San Diego jury dont mirror necessarily the electorate across the nation.

This is not the only lawsuit Trump faces as he heads into office. A second class-action suit has been filed against him regarding Trump University in San Diego, as well as a similar lawsuit in New York.

Dozens of lawsuits related to his other business interests also have been filed. But because he doesnt play a central role in many, the suits will likely be handled by his legal team without involving him too much personally, Martin said.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly listed Texas as being involved in the class-action lawsuit in San Diego federal court. It has been corrected to say New York.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
Rep. Darrell Issa is barely hanging onto his seat in Congress after a challenge from Democrat Doug Applegate, and early results and voter registration trends suggest that his grip could slip as provisional and mail-in ballots are added up.

Unofficial results have the incumbent Republican ahead with 51.1 percent to the Democrats 48.9 percent, a margin of 3,980 votes, as of late Wednesday afternoon. If results hold it will be the closest race of Issas congressional career, and would mark a change of fortune for one of the most prominent members of the House of Representatives whose future was in jeopardy.

But if Applegate finds 3,891 or more votes in the ballots that are still uncounted, hell head to the House after one of the biggest upsets of the 2016 election.

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The district straddles San Diego and Orange Counties, and two tabulation processes are underway. The San Diego portion represents around 75 percent of the districts voters and preliminary results show Applegate leading there with 53 percent of the vote, a 7,689 vote advantage.

Congressional candidate Doug Applegate speaks to members of the media in front of the Carlsbad Fire Station #4 polling place. (Charlie Neuman / San Diego Union-Tribune )

In Orange County, where 25 percent of the districts voters are registered, Issa is well ahead with 60.5 percent and a 11,669 vote advantage.

But there are thousands of ballots left to be counted, and odds are that more of them are in Applegate-friendly San Diego County. Across San Diego County there are 620,000 uncounted provisional and mail-in ballots, but its unknown how many of them are in the 49th Congressional District. In Issa-friendly Orange County there are an estimated 410,480 ballots uncounted across the county. Its also unclear how many of those uncounted ballots are in the district.

San Diego County is not expected to release more results until Thursday, but Orange County was expected to update its totals on Wednesday evening.

SEE LATEST ELECTION RESULTS 

Applegates campaign was not available for comment. But after polls closed on Tuesday, Applegate, a trial lawyer, compared the suspense to waiting for a jury to return with a verdict.

Issa expressed confidence in a statement issued Wednesday night.

The voters of the 49th District have spoken, and I am grateful for their support in our winning campaign, Issa said. I look forward to working on their behalf in Congress next year, and I am eager to join with the new administration to advance the best interests of the American people and restore the focus of Washington where it belongs: Economic prosperity, national security and government accountability.

As the final ballots are counted, we are confident they will affirm the results from election night.

During the race Applegate tried to portray Issa as a lawmaker who used his office to increase his already significant personal wealth, and as a politician who was so loyal to partisan politics that he would stand by Republican nominee Donald Trump even after the candidate was caught on an Access Hollywood tape years ago bragging about sexually assaulting women and several women accused him of unwelcome sexual contact.

While Issas endorsement of Trump could have cost him support, it could pay off on the Hill now that Trump is the president-elect.

I think it helps him to a certain extent, said campaign spokesman Calvin Moore. You have a new administration coming in, and the president-elect last night talked about how he needs to surround himself with people with the right policies to move the country forward, and I am sure some of that will come with people who have supported him and that relationship. And I think the congressman will be well positioned to help shape some those new policies.

Republicans are expected keep their majority in the House with 239 members, while Democrats are expected to have 192, the Associated Press says.
San Diego County Supervisor Dave Roberts has been in a similar situation before.

A razor-thin margin of 2,200 votes is all that separates his future on the county board and a disruption of his career in public office.

Roberts, a Democrat, leads Republican challenger Kristin Gaspar with 50.9 percent of the vote to her 49.1 percent, unofficial results from the county Registrar of Voters show.

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All precincts have been counted, but there are still approximately 620,000 mail and provisional ballots countywide that have not been tallied. Its not known how many of them are in Roberts 3rd District, a jurisdiction that runs up the coast from northern San Diego, and stretches northeast to Escondido.

Roberts has been in this type of situation before, but in Encinitas Mayor Gaspars shoes. In 2012 when he was running to fill an empty seat his opponent Steve Danon did not concede until nine days after the race. Roberts, who was behind at times four years ago, won that contest with 51.04 percent, and a 4,383 vote advantage.

County Supervisor candidate Kristin Gaspar at Golden Hall on Tuesday. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune )

Its different in 2016, said Roberts, who has also served as a Solana Beach mayor and council member.

Ive been in the lead from the beginning this time, so its been an entirely different feeling, he said. This time Ive been in the lead and Ive continued to add to my lead.

With polls closed and mail-in ballots tricking in, Roberts said hes back at work as one of the countys five supervisors and is preparing for next weeks board meeting and visiting his district.

Like Roberts gained ground on Danon in 2016, Gaspars campaign hopes she is able to come from behind in the coming days.

The margin is fluctuating, and its possible that after every last vote is tallied that Gaspar will be ahead, her campaign manager, Jason Roe, said.

Its bouncing around, but for the most part were benefiting from the numbers that havent been counted yet, he said.

He said he doesnt expect the outcome to be clear for a while. For the first time the county used a two-card ballot rather than one, and he said it will take a longer time than usual to count the remaining ballots.

Its too soon to determine who has won, Roe said. Its going to be an agonizing period of time

Around three-fourths of the time uncounted ballots favor Democrats as they are added up, but this might be that elusive one-in-four events, he said.

SEE LATEST ELECTION RESULTS 

I know that this isnt happy talk, and theres not much we can do about it, he said.

Roberts strategist Gary Gartner said they were campaigning vigorously until after dark on Monday, a time period when most operations have transitioned from marketing a candidate to getting supporters to show up at the polls. At around 7:30 p.m.  less than 12 hours before polls opened  Governor Jerry Brown recorded a robocall for Roberts that went to nearly 40,000 Democratic and Independent voters, Gartner said.

I think every bit helps and certainly having the governor make a call on a candidates behalf is a big help, he said.

And in a district that recently switched from a Republican to Democratic plurality, and where party affiliations arent listed on the ballot, having a high-profile Democrat can help voters remember what party a candidate belongs to.

Democrats have a slight registration advantage with 113,768 voters while Republicans have 111,128. There are another 98,728 non-partisan voters.

Twitter: @jptstewart

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1841
Leaders of San Diegos immigrant and Muslim communities  and others targeted during President-elect Donald Trumps campaign  said they were shocked by his election to the White House this week, while local Trump supporters looked forward to increased border security and other proposed Trump immigration policies.

Despite the divide, both sides of the immigration debate found a way to voice hope for unity and understanding.

Trump supporters hope to see fewer border crossings, more jobs for American workers and fewer refugees resettling in their neighborhoods.

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Members of the immigrant rights community said they are waiting to see what happens next and how Trumps campaign promises of mass deportations, a border wall and other tactics would be realized with policies and political appointments. Many were concerned about how the changes might affect their lives as well as the lives of friends and family.

Its kind of like when you find out a close family member has cancer, and you know theyre going to die, and they die. Its still a shock to your system, said Khalid Alexander of Pillars of the Community, a social justice organization based in southeastern San Diego, over the phone. I think thats how a lot of people feel with systemic racism.

Alexander, who teaches English and literature at San Diego City College, said hed seen students crying on campus Wednesday, worried about whether their families would be deported. He said many of his Muslim friends were worried as well.

Many of their parents fled countries and looked at America as a place where they would be able to live their lives in freedom in a just country that isnt biased against you, where you can practice whatever religion you like, Alexander said. Theyre surprised and scared because its all very familiar to them. The rhetoric is familiar to them, and what comes after the rhetoric is familiar to them.

As the election ramped up, he said, he began to wonder about parallels between Trumps campaign and Adolf Hitlers election in Germany.

At what time did Germans realize how screwed they were with the takeover of fascism? At what point and in what ways do you stand up to these kind of very scary concepts that we hear Trump saying all the time? Alexander asked. The historical context, I think, is very important and very scary.

Loud and clear

Jeff Schwilk, founder of San Diegans for Secure Borders and Trump supporter, has a different view of Trumps defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton. He said he looks forward to regaining our sovereign nation and our traditional system of orderly, reasonable, legal immigration under President Trump.

The American people spoke loud and clear, he said via email. Donald Trumps top issue is stopping illegal immigration, securing our border, and returning to the rule of law. Hillary Clinton was for open borders and mass amnesty for foreign lawbreakers. Clearly Americans want secure borders and a safe homeland.

Kelly Burt, a Trump supporter, said his main reasons for voting for Trump were business issues and the certainty of things getting done. He said in terms of immigration, either the laws need to be enforced or they need to change. He said Congress needs to work on a comprehensive immigration bill.

The only one speaking to that was Trump, Burt said. Im really hoping we can see the country come together.

Douglas Allred said he was concerned about the numbers of immigrants wanting to settle in the U.S. when there are American workers struggling to make ends meet.

We have so many people that are fighting hard to make it here, and weve been a country of immigration, and thats fine, but we cant just take millions and millions of new people, and we just cant integrate them into our whole country without some major disruptions, Allred said via phone.

Allred said one of the reasons he voted for Trump is that he was worried about undocumented immigrants taking jobs from American workers.

I think [Trump] has a great understanding of what the working man goes through even though hes a billionaire, Allred said.

John Moore said hes also hoping for strengthened border security under Trumps presidency.

Our southern border is completely porous to illegal invaders from the Mexico, Central and South America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and China, Moore said via email. Many of these trespassers are criminals associated with drug cartels. Others are infiltrators from terrorist organizations. Many are looking for work in the US. Many are looking for welfare, public assistance and public education without consideration for the added tax burden placed on already over taxed and financially stressed Californians.

Moore said he also hopes immigrants who are allowed into the country will learn English and assimilate.

Assimilation has always been the hallmark of American immigration, until recently, Moore said. In the past immigrant citizens wanted to be Americans and that meant giving up allegiance to their former nations and adopting American customs and English. Today assimilation is thwarted by federal programs that attempt to keep certain immigrants dependent and isolated from the rest of American society by encouraging their cultural differences.

Ernie Griffes of Imperial Beach said issues like refugee resettlement may become even more divisive.

San Diego is the hole in the U.S. border where the flood of refugees is breaking the dike, Griffes said via email. This has to be stopped, and the election of Trump sends that message to California from the rest of the country.

California is now essentially a nation of its own with values and beliefs in opposition to to those of the American heartland that makes the country function, Griffes added. It might as well declare separation from the United Stares before the rest of the states start building a wall on the border.

Uncharted territory

David Murphy, executive director of San Diegos International Rescue Committee, an organization that helps refugees, said he does not yet know what a Trump presidency will mean for refugee resettlement.

We are now in uncharted territory, Murphy said via email.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which has helped San Diego businesses support their employees on the path to citizenship, said that everyone is in a waiting game until Trump names two key positions  the head of the Department of Homeland Security and the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Enrique Morones, founder of Border Angels migrant outreach group and a longtime activist in the Latino community, said he is concerned about what will happen to unauthorized young people who came to the United States as children and applied for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created by President Obamas executive action.

The government now has record of them as undocumented residents, and Trump has promised to end the program.

Morones said he is also concerned that between now and when Trump takes office in January, San Diegos border might see a surge of desperate attempts at the dangerous journey through the desert.

Im worried that smugglers are going to take advantage of what has taken place and tell people this is your last chance to get into the United States, he said.

Morones said his organization had more calls Wednesday morning than any other day in its 30-year history. He said mixed status families were terrified of the future with Trump as president.

Morones was already looking ahead to organizing for congressional elections in 2018. Other leaders said they intended to focus organizing efforts at the local level.

Martin Eder, executive director of Activist San Diego, which organized an anti-Trump rally Wednesday evening at Horton Plaza, said he hoped to build a local coalition against what he called the new confederacy.

Alliance San Diego and the Southern Border Communities Coalition also focused their responses on local unity.

Now that the election is over, it is time to put aside the empty rhetoric and promises and begin the serious task of working together for the betterment of the country, said Hiram Soto of Alliance San Diego. The president is not a king, and Alliance San Diego stands ready to work with the three branches of government to create policies that reflect the values of a 21st Century society, where all people are treated with dignity and respect. That change starts in San Diego, where we have the opportunity to bring about meaningful change that affects our daily lives.

Haneen Oriqat, a recent college graduate and San Diego native, said via email that as she watched the election results come in from London, shed been asked if shed be allowed to return to the United States or if she even wanted to. Yes, she told the barista, she would be going back.

Theres talk of leaving the country. Jokes and serious conversations. However, thats not an option, Oriqat wrote. Im unapologetically Muslim American and proud. Im not going anywhere. My family is Muslim American. Were not going anywhere. My Muslim American community isnt going anywhere. We are part of the fabric of this country, in all parts of life. Thats not going to change.

Muslim leaders at a Council on American-Islamic Relations news conference Wednesday shared Oriqats determination.

Hanif Mohebi, executive director of the groups local chapter, encouraged fellow Muslims to reach out to neighbors and stay engaged in their communities.

As good citizens of this nation, we also have to make sure we keep holding the government accountable, Mohebi said. It doesnt matter which president.

Issam Lagrichi of the North County Islamic Foundation said at the news conference that he immigrated from Morocco and stayed for love of the country.

Lets make this country great again like you promised, Lagrichi said, addressing the president-elect directly. Lets break bread with some of these minorities that some of us are perceived to hate, and lets change the narrative of hate into love.

kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate
Welfare in California 34% Of the nations welfare recipients live in California but only  12%  of the U.S. population resides here.

How we compare California is third among states in per-capita spending on welfare: $179 New York leads the nation: $256 Idaho is at the bottom: $17

When Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature overhauled the states welfare program last month, some people learned a jarring fact for the first time: California has one-third of the nations welfare recipients.

That California has a lot of people on welfare was not a secret. In addition to its size, the state has a long history of heavy focus on social services, in part because of years of Democratic dominance in Sacramento.

But the size of Californias welfare rolls is disproportionate when you consider the state has only 12 percent of the nations population. Some of it has to do with the benefits being more generous than in many other states, but experts also point to various economic and social factors.

Theres more to support the notion that this is the welfare state. California:

 Pays out one of the highest maximum monthly cash grants to the average family on welfare, $638.

 Continues aid for children even when the parents lose eligibility.

 Provides benefits even to some who find a job and helps with child care and transportation while attending school or training.

On the flip side, California is not the land of endless Cadillac benefits:

 The actual average cash grant for the typical family of three is $463.

 Welfare payments have been cut twice since 2009 while 18 states have provided nominal increases.

 The high cost of housing eats up more of the aid than in other states with smaller grants.

People in California will start moving off welfare more quickly due to changes made by the governor and lawmakers, even though their primary goal was to save money and help chip away at a huge budget deficit. They imposed a shorter benefit period, but avoided making cuts in grants in the states $6.7 billion welfare-to-work program, called CalWORKS. (Federal taxpayers do pick up $3.7 billion of the tab.)

California by far spends more than any other state on welfare. But broken down on a per-capita basis, the story is a little different.

That overall figure amounts to $179 annually for every man, woman and child in California. That trails New York ($256) and Hawaii ($233). Two large states among the lowest in per capita spending are Texas ($32) and Florida ($44). The national average is $99.

The figures for the states do not include other support, such as food stamps, known as CalFresh in California, or Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California.

The amount California spends and the level of its benefits have been central to the long-running debate over why so many people here are on welfare.

Is California a magnet?

In the 1990s, then-Gov. Pete Wilson, the former San Diego mayor, famously declared that welfare benefits lured poor people to California. Some experts say there wasnt solid evidence to support that notion then  or now.

The magnet argument is often a little exaggerated  People dont move across the country to get welfare, said Michael Tanner, a policy analyst for the libertarian Cato Institute based in Washington, D.C.

National experts like Tanner say other factors play a larger role as the needy look for a new home. Among those: job prospects, family, church, friends, rent and the cost of moving.

But while the benefits may not be a magnet, they can be an anchor in some cases.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Its notable that California proportionately spends more on direct cash aid than noncash assistance than most other states. Nationally, 31 percent of benefits are direct cash while 69 percent are noncash services. California is somewhat the reverse: 56 percent cash, 44 percent noncash. Noncash aid includes such programs as child care, job training and transportation. Noncash aid includes such programs as child care, job training and transportation.

The generosity of your benefits acts as a reason for people to stay on longer, Tanner said. To some degree benefits discourage moving into the work force.

That may change, albeit gradually and modestly.

While holding the line on grants, Brown and lawmakers did impose new cost-saving requirements as part of the 2012-13 budget deal.

Mostly, Californias new welfare rules for some 1.47 million recipients will cut off aid after 24 months of assistance starting Jan. 1, although there are a number of exclusions. The average California recipient had moved off welfare in 34.8 months. The old deadline was 48 months.

Evolutionary, but not a Brave New Word, said Todd Bland, who oversees CalWORKS as deputy director of the Department of Social Services.

Brown estimated the new policies adopted in June will save $469 million this fiscal year and about $400 million annually after that. Thats important given lawmakers at the time were frantically negotiating broad-based cuts to close a projected $15.7 billion budget shortfall over the next 12 months. General fund spending is set at $92 billion.

California, with Democrats in the legislative majority, held fast in shielding recipients from deep cuts for years. But lawmakers reluctantly started to turn to welfare for savings as the state began to sink deeper into the Great Recession and its deficits forced economies in spending on schools, parks and public safety.

Californias family of three in 2008-09 could draw as much as $723 a month in direct cash aid. Today, that same family gets a maximum of $638.

Pressure could mount to slice more if Brown fails to persuade voters to approve his November initiative to raise the sales tax and income tax on higher wage-earners. Brown wants to mostly cut K-12 spending if the $8 billion tax hike is rejected, but lawmakers could have other plans.

How generous is California?

Liz Schott, a senior fellow for the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that focuses on issues affecting low- and moderate-income families, said Californias perceived generosity is overblown, particularly given the cuts of the past few years.

Schott argues Californias larger benefits cannot be directly compared to many other states that stop providing aid more quickly even though the recipients remain poor and unemployed. In other cases, families are simply ineligible because of higher thresholds to qualify for help. As a result, their spending appears frugal when compared to California.

Take Texas for example. For every 100 families below the poverty line there, only six receive assistance, she said. In California, 66 of those below the poverty line are helped.

I dont call that Texas doing better than California. In Texas there are still 94 poor families who need assistance, Schott said.

Overall, when state and federal commitments are combined, Californias $6.67 billion is far and away the most spent by any state. New York is a distant second at $4.95 billion. No other state breaks the $2 billion mark and only six others top $1 billion.

The gulf is just as wide when looking only at cash grants. California paid $3.7 billion; New York, $1.4 billion. The next highest state is Ohio at $440 million, according to federal data.

And its not just cash grants. In the 2011 federal fiscal year, California spent more on child care alone, $151.45 million, than many states did for their entire welfare program. California also allocated $130.6 million for transportation, training and other employment-related services. Again, that was more than many states spent on their entire welfare program.

A commitment to children?

Policy experts say Californias large rolls are the byproduct of numerous factors: sheer size, tough job market and sheer numbers of single-parent households, among them. The state has nearly 30 percent of the nations one-parent welfare families.

One major  and cash consuming  difference is California refuses to push out children even if the parents fail to fulfill requirements.

We will not be party to devastating children and families. Period. Its not why we came here. Its not what we believe in, said Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, when then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, moved to erase all state spending on CalWORKS in May 2010.

Steinberg has echoed those same sentiments when dealing with Brown, a fellow Democrat, who initially wanted lawmakers to pare welfare even more in the current budget.

CalWORKS Bland said historically the state has been committed to a safety net for children of parents who either cannot or will not help themselves.

Caroline Danielson, a policy analyst who tracks welfare issues for the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, said the unconditional support for children is a pretty rare policy in the country as a whole.

According to Schott, with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, most states issue whats called full family sanctions that automatically cut off aid to children if the parents lose eligibility. Other states offer second chances to the parent.

California is sticking with the kids and other states are walking away from them, Schott said.

While few want to toss children out in the street, there are a number of conservative California lawmakers who believe hard choices must be made given the tough fiscal times for taxpayers.

We are teaching generations to become dependent on the government rather than on their own initiative, said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks. We are handing out cash we do not have.

Of the states 1.47 million recipients in 2011, more than 1 million are children. Of those being helped in the state, nearly 600,000 are families. Nationally, about 1.9 million recipients are families, according to data provided by the Urban Institute.

The Urban Institute reports that in the 2011 calendar year, 266,000 children in California received aid even though their parents were ineligible. Nationally, there were 794,322 children being aided in households with no parent qualifying for assistance.

Why welfare on the job?

California recipients can qualify for a partial grant even if they go to work, depending on how much the job pays. For example, an individual with two children who earns $600 monthly can still receive $394 from the state. Thats $244 less than the $638 maximum check for a typical family.

The state explains that policy this way: allowing families to have a small paycheck from a job offers an incentive to re-enter the workforce and move to self-sufficiency quicker.

The state also picks up the tab, if slots and funding are available, for a number of expenses recipients incur while preparing for a job. Those include subsidized day care, training fees, transportation, books and uniforms,

Whether CalWORKS works under the new regiment will be dissected by the Department of Social Services over a five-year period with a report due out in 2018.

What about other states?

Under the program, called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, or TANF, the federal government caps block grants to states instead of open-ended amounts. States are also required to contribute whats called a maintenance of effort based on welfare budgets of 1994-96.

Congress also imposed a five-year time limit for drawing benefits, as part of 1996 reforms to end welfare as we know it, in the words of President Bill Clinton.

Congress also gave states more authority to establish their own spending policies. As a result, some states spend more on services rather than direct grants. For example, Michigan in the past year allocated $1.9 billion to noncash assistance and $300 million direct checks.

Nationally, federal and state taxpayers provide $30.6 billion to cover welfare-to-work expenses and direct cash grants, under the TANF program.

Just $3 out of every $10 in federal welfare dollars goes to direct cash benefits, said Sheila Zedlewski, a welfare policy expert with the Urban Institute.

Benefits vary widely, as do requirements and number of recipients. For example:

Arizona in June reported helping nearly 40,000 recipients. Monthly cash grants range from $175 to $278. It has a 24-month time limit for most recipients, but does keep aiding their children when parents are disqualified.

Texas in fiscal year 2011-12 had about 100,000 recipients on its welfare roll, paying out grants averaging from $69.75 to $165.14. Texas does provide noncash help, such as child care and transportation. The states time limits vary, from 12 to 24 months.

Washington as of June had 120,000 recipients. The average family of three was paid $478. Its time limits are 60 months and it offers subsidized child care, transportation and work clothes.


Two San Diego officers were bitten and a third was hurt during a scuffle with a burglary suspect near Balboa Park Wednesday afternoon, police said.

A manager at WorldMark San Diego, a resort on A Street, called police about 12:45 p.m. after discovering a man had broken into a room on the third floor, police said. There was a hole in the door, which was barricaded from the inside.

The suspect ended up jumping out of a window, and the manager last saw him running west on A Street.

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Nearly an hour later, officers found the man near Fifth Avenue and Elm Street, police said. A struggle broke out when officers tried to take him into custody, and he bit two of them, police said. A third officer suffered a leg injury and a police dogs face was cut.

He was handcuffed several minutes later and taken to a hospital with unspecified injuries. He is expected to be arrested on suspicion of charges related to the crime.

Twitter: @LAWinkley

(619) 293-1546

lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com
The FBI joined with Chula Vista police Thursday at an Otay Valley park to search for evidence in the possible murder of Gabriela Gaby Gonzalez, who vanished 14 years ago.

Gabriela, who was 14 when she went missing, would have turned 29 on Thursday, authorities said.

Police detectives recently received new tips that may help them find the teens body and identify her killer, police Lt. Fritz Reber said.

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The girls mother, brother and aunt came to the search command post at Otay Valley Regional Park to appeal to anyone with information to come forward.

Leticia Gonzalez Fernandez, speaking in Spanish, said she continues to feel sad over not knowing what became of her daughter.

I would like to know if shes alive, Gonzalez Fernandez said. She also said that the day before Gabriela disappeared, the girl told her she believed she would die young.

Her son, Eduardo, 40, wiped away tears as he spoke of the loss of his sister, who was 12 years younger.

Were always going to keep hoping, until theres a body, he said. You mourn all the time.

They have been hurting for 14 years, police Chief David Bejarano said of the family. There is a lot of pain. What they want is justice.

Gonzalez Fernandez, of Otay Mesa, last saw her daughter on April 5, 2002, when she dropped off Gabriela at Montgomery High School. Police said when the mother got home, she found a signed note from Gabriela that said, I love you Mom! and Juan. Gabrielas disappearance was reported to San Diego police.

Investigators later learned that the teen went off to Chula Vista with her 19-year-old boyfriend, Juan Jose Vera, a gang member, police said.

The next year, police had evidence that Gabriela had been murdered and buried in Otay River bed within the Chula Vista city limits. Chula Vista police took on the case and in 2005 made an extensive search in the river bed, but turned up nothing.

Vera was regarded a person of interest in the case, but never charged. He was arrested in 2003 for six bank robberies and was sent to prison, police said.

Police said they are not focusing on any particular person, but want all possible tips or information about Gabriela.

Reber said detectives hope that renewed publicity about the case will trigger memories for any witnesses.

The FBI was brought into the case recently as a result of the new investigative leads, agency spokeswoman Davene Butler said.

On Thursday, nearly 50 police officers, FBI agents, District Attorneys Office investigators and evidence technicians turned out to spend the day carefully searching a large patch of the rough, brushy Otay River bottom, using metal detectors, ground-penetrating radar and other technology.

Teams also fanned out across the neighborhood around Date Street and Date Court, handing out flyers with Gonzalez photo and asking if anyone remembered the case.

Crime Stoppers and the Chula Vista Police Foundation are each offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction.

Anyone with information on the case can call Chula Vista police at (619) 691-5151 non-emergency line or reach detectives at (619) 691-5075.

Anonymous tips may be made to Chula Vista police at (619) 422-TIPS (8477) or San Diego Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477 and https://sdcrimestoppers.org.
A Muslim student at San Diego State University was robbed Wednesday by two men who made comments about President-elect Trump and the Muslim community, according to a police statement.

Her car also was stolen following the incident.

The woman was wearing traditional Muslim clothing, including a hijab, when she was robbed about 2:30 p.m. in a parking structure at the Campanile Drive campus.

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According to campus police, the woman was confronted in the a stairwell where the men grabbed her purse and backpack, took her keys and fled.

The woman left to report the crime to police and when she returned her car was gone. Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime, robbery and vehicle theft. They said on Thursday there was no new information.

In a statement, President Elliot Hirshman denounced the incident.

We condemn this hateful act and urge all members of our community to join us in condemning such hateful acts, Hirshman said. Hate crimes are destructive to the spirit of our campus and we urge all members of our community to stand together in rejecting hate.

San Diego State police are investigating the attack as a hate crime. Anyone with information was asked to call campus police at (619) 594-1991.

Breaking News

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez
Flames that tore through a semi-truck trailer in a loading dock spread to a Home Depot store in the Mountain View neighborhood Wednesday night, a fire offical said.

The store on Marketplace Avenue near Imeperial Avenue was open, but customers and workers got out safely. No one was injured, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Lee Swanson said.

The 18-wheeler trailer was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived about 10:20 p.m. Some propane tanks kept in the loading dock, at the rear of the store, had caused minor explosions, Swanson said.

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The fire spread to the rear of the adjacent building, tearing through Christmas merchandise stacked on racks from the floor to the ceiling, Swanson said.

Fire sprinklers in the store went off and helped contain the flames, Swanson said. About 55 firefighters put out the blaze in about 25 minutes.

Crews were expected to remain at the store until shortly after midnight to ensure hot spots were extinguished.

Investigators had not set a damage estimate or determined the cause of the fire.

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez
Warm winds off the desert compressed en route to the coast on Wednesday, producing record high temperatures, including a reading of 96 at San Diego International Airport.

The winds will blow again onThursday afternoon, pushing coastal temperatures to roughly 90, or almost 20 degrees above normal, the National Weather Service said.

A red flag fire weather warning will be in effect until 1 p.m. Thursday.

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Wednesday was far warmer than originally forecaster.

The high heat began with warm air over the desert that underwent compressional heating as it moved downslope on the way to the coast, said Brandt Maxwell, a weather service forecast.

Wednesdays high of 96 at Lindbergh tied the record for November 9th. The earlier record was set in 1956.

Vista hit 95, breaking the record of 94 set in 1996. Oceanside reached 93, breaking the record of 91, set in 1996. And Chula Vista hit 98, breaking the record of 95, set in 1956.

Sample of peak winds at and near the coast Wednesday: Brown Field, 40 mph; Carlsbad, 34 mph; Imperial Beach, 31 mph; Camp Pendleton, 29 mph; Point Loma, 29 mph, Del Mar, 27 mph, Encinitas, 27 mph; Oceanside Airport, 25 mph.

gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com
One party is celebrating, the other licking its wounds. Neither appreciates how many disaffected members they have, people who believe our country has failed them. Or looking at the large and growing numbers who dont pledge loyalty to either party.

The losing party may be introspective, but both parties must change to survive. The two-party system has succeeded for 200 years. The majority of Americans want pragmatic, accountable solutions to a myriad of problems, not the gridlock that has hurt all of us.

Democrats need to understand that dependence on government is not the path to global competitiveness. Republicans need to demonstrate that they can govern, today more than ever, not just be the party of no. Paul Ryans better.gov is a first step, but 60 votes to repeal Obamacare without presenting a viable alternative is not. Both parties must ignore special interests to work together on the plight of middle-class Americans whose jobs have been displaced by globalization or automation or immigration.

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Restoring a strong two-party system will fall to a Congress with low approval ratings, working with a new president on bipartisan efforts to restore Americans faith in government, especially now that the presidency and both houses are Republican. How?

Do your job

Our Supreme Court is handicapped without a ninth justice. Both parties say they dont want an ideologue but did not consider Merrick Garlands nomination. Regardless of outcome, that was inexcusable to most Americans. When the new president sends a nominee to the Senate, it should act.

Education, key to our global competitiveness, gives young people tools to succeed. Common Core was not a prescriptive dictate but standards in critical areas like reading, writing, mathematics  and accountability for outcomes. Most candidates, Republican and Democrat, could not have explained it in any detail and did not acknowledge that the National Governors Association worked with state education leaders to share best practices and ensure that high school graduates were college- or job-ready.

If Common Core isnt the answer, work together to improve it! Democrats must focus on students, and stand up to teachers unions. Republicans must support some federal role to set a framework for state implementation of high standards.

Both need to prioritize worker retraining. Thats what the public wants.

Most Americans want enforcement of existing gun laws or stricter gun control, especially comprehensive background checks. Loose gun laws make it easier for the bad guys to get guns, a nightmare for law enforcement. Have we lost so much faith in our country that everyone needs to be armed to the teeth wherever they go?

Dallas Police Chief David Brown, after the police massacre last summer, on Texas open-carry laws: Its increasingly challenging when people have AR-15s slung over their shoulder and theyre in a crowd. We dont know who the good guy is versus the bad guy when everyone starts shooting.

Weapons of war werent an issue until 20 years ago. Conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger called the misinterpretation of the Second Amendment a fraud  on the American public. Only in 2008 did the Supreme Court rule in favor of an individuals right to possess a firearm, but said, It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

A bipartisan Congress should ensure funding to enforce current laws, at a minimum. Republicans must stand up to the NRA. Thats what the public wants.

Re-emphasize American history, civics and ethics

K-14 education must educate and inform the next generation of voters. In 2012, under half of young people 18-24 voted. Only 13 percent of high-school seniors had a solid understanding of history. On-the-street interviews show embarrassing ignorance of history, geography and government, even among college students. Our two-party system depends on a knowledgeable, engaged public.

Ensure media fairness

Bring back the Fairness Doctrine to ensure that the media address controversial issues in a balanced way and the equal time rule requiring the media to give equal time to opposing candidates to counter increasingly narrowly tailored news. Donald Trump had $2 billion in free media coverage, unfair and uninformed.

The 24/7 media must draw a bright line between objective journalism and opinion, and fact-check candidates or support nonpartisan organizations that do, prominently covering the results. Repetitive sound bites are not real discussion of issues.

Live like the rest of us

Congress should live under the same laws it passes and commit to clear, single-subject bills. It must enforce higher ethical standards and real transparency. It must work together on the toughest problems that challenge our nation  problems that led to the stressed and distressed voters of this election cycle.

There is much work both parties must do to restore faith in our government. It will require more informed voters, not just angry voters, and a much more involved silent majority. Our country is at stake.

Meier Wright is retired CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. and was California secretary of trade & commerce under Gov. Pete Wilson. Twitter: @HighonSanDiego
In the wake of a national political campaign that has shaken the country to its core and in the continuing consequences of its aftermath, we are observing a Veterans Day this year in many ways unlike any other in recent memory.

This year, a day that began as Armistice Day marking the end of World War I in 1918 is a sorely needed time for Americans to set aside their differences, take a deep breath, unite and pay tribute to all those who have served their country in times of war and peace. This years Veterans Day should unite us together for at least one day to honor those who epitomize the ideals that represent the best of this nation  honor, dedication and sacrifice.

In a year when vitriol has become the primary currency of discussion and distraction has become a national sport, it is even more critical to remember that thousands of Americans who still serve in theaters of war halfway around the world. Remember them? You should. Especially now. For those on active duty, and for all veterans past and present, the principle of service to country is not an idealistic code reserved for academic discussions or patriotic sermons. The fact is all veterans and those currently serving in our armed forces are proof that service to country is a living principle that forms the bedrock of our democracy.

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Millions of Americans have sacrificed much to help protect us and the cause of freedom since 1776. In many cases, these Americans have paid the ultimate price. This is what Veterans Day is about. Its about the human piece of our history. Its about honoring those men and women who walk among us and those who have passed who took a piece of their lives and gave it in service to their nation.

The country has come a long way in the past several decades, vowing to never allow what happened to Vietnam veterans to happen again. The Vietnam generation was not the only generation, however, to be ignored or scorned after a war. Much has changed over the years. It is indeed heartening to see renewed efforts to recognize and honor veterans each year, especially in San Diego.

The Veterans Day Parade here in San Diego is one of the largest in the nation. The Mount Soledad National Veterans Memorial is one of the finest veteran memorials in the country. The special place the military holds in our community and its legacy throughout our communitys history is recognized by all San Diegans. Veterans Day here is, and should be, something special.

Gen. George Washington, in his farewell address to his officers in New York in 1783, said, I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable. For all those veterans who have served honorably over the years, those same wishes apply today. This Veterans Day, all veterans deserve our continued respect and our best wishes. United as a country, it is safe to say we all at least agree on that.

Scanlon is the president of the Mount Soledad Memorial Association. He is the former assistant chief of police for the San Diego Police Department and former Coronado chief of police. He is a Vietnam veteran and former U.S. Navy aviator.
Moments after Donald Trump became president-elect Tuesday night, some Californians began hatching a secession plan on social media for the state, which voted largely for Hillary Clinton.

Thats secession. Not succession.

Many of the remarks were made in jest, but since writing an initial story about whats being called Calexit, an echo of the controversial Brexit that happened when Britain exited the European Union earlier this year, my inbox has been flooded with emails from secession supporters and that story has been one of the most popular on The San Diego Union-Tribunes website.

Union-Tribune editorial: All this secession talk is just a waste of time in California

One person wrote: I would love to be a founder citizen of the bright, powerful, optimistic new country of California.

Another emailer asked me to send him information on how to be an active part of the movement. As if it could really happen.

Could it? Heres what you should know about Calexit.

1. There is already an official effort to secede.

Its called the Yes California Independence Campaign, and it protested Wednesday. It describes itself a nonviolent campaign to establish the country of California using any and all legal and constitutional means to do so, and it offers a 9-point case for independence which includes peace and security, immigration and the environment. It even hopes to hold a referendum vote in 2018 for Independence. (Imagine that signature drive.)

For more on this movement, visit Yes California.

2. This isnt the first such movement, but all others have been (surprise, surprise) ineffective.

As a matter of fact, some Oregonians are feeling the same way right now and have filed the Oregon Secession Act since Trumps election win. Texas is the other notable state with efforts over the years to get secession efforts going. Secession was even considered for this years Texas GOP convention, but a proposal fell two votes short in a lower committee decision before the big show.

3. There is little constitutional guidance on secession.

In 1869, a Supreme Court decision Texas v. White held that individual states could not secede from the Union except through revolution or through consent of the other states. Notably, the largest effort of eleven states attempting to secede in 1860 failed in a loss of the Civil War. West Virginia did essentially secede from Virginia in 1863 though, and President Abraham Lincoln approved that.

4. If you ask the White House to help, the White House will say no.

More than 100,000 people signed a White House petition to allow Texas to secede in 2012. In response, the the Obama administration basically gave a hard no. A spokesman encouraged the discussion but also said as we value a healthy debate, we don't let that debate tear us apart. He also reminded that more than 600,000 Americans died in a long and bloody civil war that vindicated the principle that the Constitution establishes a permanent union between the States.

So the long and the short of it is that it cant happen, or that there isnt any sort of simple, straightforward path for people passionate about secession. (Sorry, secessionists.)

Yes Californias hope would be to achieve a referendum and send a California delegation to Washington to propose a Constitutional Amendment. Or plan B is to call for a convention of the states and ask for independence.

Despite that impossibly tall order, people wont stop talking about secession.

What do you think of all this secession talk? Let us know below or on social media.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin

ALSO

Calexit? Some California voters reject Trump, advocate 'secession'

Vote here: Would you support the Calexit movement?

Texit: Sorry Texas, Brexit is not about you
After a campaign in which he many many of them anxious, world leaders are congratulating Donald Trump on becoming president of the United States. He has already been contacted by leaders from Mexico, Russia and the United Kingdom.

In a tweet, Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto congratulated Trump while adding, I reiterate to @realDonaldTrump the situation to work together in favor of a bilateral relationship.

https://twitter.com/EPN/status/796344103311118337

The tweet was a noteworthy change in tone for the Mexican leader who publicly tussled with Trump on Twitter following their meeting in late August. At the time, Pena Nieto flat out rejected Trumps assertion that Mexico would pay for a border wall to be built between the two countries.

But Pena Nieto wasnt alone in welcoming Trump onto the world stage.

Russian president Vladimir Putin was among the first to congratulate Trump in his victory. In a prepared statement on the Kremlins website, Putin expressed confidence that building a constructive dialogue between Moscow and Washington  is in the interest of our peoples and the world community.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement that he looked forward to working with Trump on issues like trade, investment, and international peace and security.

The relationship between our two countries serves as a model for the world, Trudeau said in a statement. Our shared values, deep cultural ties, and strong integrated economies will continue to provide the basis for advancing our strong and prosperous partnership.

https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/796328521920552961

From the United Kingdom, which recently exited the European Union in a highly divided election, Prime Minister Theresa May and foreign secretary Boris Johnson shared their respective messages to Trump.

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/796296910181167104

NATO allies like Germany and France welcomed Trump as the new president but offered caution for what they see as a less predictable foreign policy under his administration. During one of his campaign speeches in April, Trump called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization obsolete.

In a statement, German chancellor Angela Merkel said there is no closer ally to the country than the United States.

Whoever rules this vast country, with its enormous economic strength, its military potential, its cultural influence, carries a responsibility which is felt all over the world, she said in a statement. Americans have decided that the person to carry this responsibility for the next four years is Donald Trump.

French president Francois Hollande offered a different message, saying that Trumps victory opens up a period of uncertainty that must be faced with lucidity and clarity.

https://twitter.com/FT/status/796357287405322240

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also shared his reaction on Twitter, calling him a true friend of the State of Israel and saying that he looked forward to working with him to advance security, stability and peace in the region.

https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/796311965098508288

Will Trump be embraced as the leader of the free world by more of its leaders? The world is watching, thats for sure. Share your thoughts with us on Twitter at @sdutIdeas or Facebook.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez
The U.S. Marine Corps turns 241 years old Thursday and the nation is honoring its birthday with the two words that are part of the military branchs mythical lore: semper fidelis. Thats a Latin phrase meaning always faithful.

One day ahead of Veterans Day  which is not to be confused with Memorial Day, which falls on the last Monday in May  members of the branch and others shared their pride on social media and elsewhere marking the day in 1775 when the USMC came to be.

One of the best tweets out there Thursday came from the USMCs Twitter account, which put together this video. Heres how others shared their Marine Corps pride nationally.

https://twitter.com/USMC/status/796729146579660801

https://twitter.com/JohnCena/status/796732192886034432

https://twitter.com/usairforce/status/796721585784844288

https://twitter.com/TLCplMax/status/796629187184336897

Others in San Diego, including the Padres and the Police Department, also showed their support for the Marines.

https://twitter.com/Padres/status/796774516835745792

https://twitter.com/SanDiegoPD/status/796764286295085056

https://twitter.com/nathanfletcher/status/796773001429553152

https://twitter.com/OfficialSDMAC/status/796729450130001924

https://twitter.com/10NewsCoronel/status/796742399909249025

How are you honoring the USMCs birthday this year or Veterans Day on Friday? Share your tweets with us at @sdutideas or on Facebook.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez

ALSO

San Diego Veterans Day Parade honors the guardians of freedom

Friday ceremonies will mark Veterans Day

Veterans Day, openings, closings
Looking for an authentic Chicago-style hot dog in San Diego? Try Duffs Doggz at 12047 Carmel Mountain Road, in the Carmel Mountain Ranch Home Center near Home Depot.

Opened four years ago by Glenn Hatch Duffy Jr., this family-owned and operated business is in a 100-square-foot kiosk and offers a wide variety of hot dogs and smoked bratwurst.

Duffy, who is a retired veteran who served in the Navy as a Fleet Marine Force corpsman (serving as a combat medic for the Marine Corps), said that during his last tour in Afghanistan he made himself a promise. If I come back alive, Ill open a hot dog stand, said Duffy.

Duffy runs Duffs Doggz with his father, Skip Duffy, and his brother, Justin, who still lives in Duffys home state of North Carolina and handles the businesss financials. Its definitely a family-run thing, said Duffy.

The most important business partner is his dog Agave, who is the restaurants customer service representative and is the ongoing employee of the month, he said. Agave comes to work with Duffy every day and is a big draw for customers. If you have a problem with your hot dog, shell take care of it, Duffy said.

The hot dogs at Duffs Doggz are made of Vienna Beef, said Duffy, and as many of the ingredients as possible are imported from Chicago to give their best seller, the Chicago dog, its authentic flavor.

(Bringing everything in from Chicago) makes us unique, he said. You cant buy these hot dogs at the grocery store. We try to bring as much stuff from out of state, where you cant go to the store and make it yourself.

The Chicago dog is sold exactly as it is in Chicago, pickles, poppy seed bun and all. Its a favorite for many Chicago transplants and those who have tried a Chicago dog while on a trip to the Windy City, said Duffy. A special steamer, originally meant for shellfish, is used to make the buns taste fresh out of the oven, Duffy said.

Duffy said that the Devil Dog is also a popular hot dog at the stand, named after the Marine Corps. It has jalapeno relish, brought in from North Carolina.

Another Chicago favorite was brought to San Diego for the Frito Pie Dog, which features a Frito pie (Chicago-style chili, cheese and Fritos) on a hot dog.

This summer, Duffy introduced smoked bratwursts, which have become a big hit, he said. They are smoked with apple cider and apple chips by Duffy and served on a special pretzel bun. For this holiday season, he will be introducing smoked bratwursts made from elk meat.

In addition to the stand, Duffs Doggz has a mobile catering cart that can bring its hot dogs to your event, designed to look like a New York hot dog cart.

Duffy said the stands numbers have been really crazy over the last eight months with the addition of the catering cart and participating in Uber Eats, an app where people can request an Uber driver to pick up food and deliver it to their door.

Duffs Doggz is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week. For more information, visit duffsdoggz.com.

Email: news@pomeradonews.com
Poway City Council members will be asked Tuesday night to decide whether a 22-unit townhome development intended for sale to veterans and active-duty military will be constructed on a vacant 2-acre Twin Peaks Road lot.

The Nov. 15 meeting agenda calls for a public hearing and council consideration of the projects environmental assessment, tentative tract map and development review, along with a separate disposition, development and loan agreement with San Diego Habitat for Humanity, the development applicant.

The project drew some support, but also considerable neighborhood opposition during a July public hearing and August council workshop. Opponents claim the for-sale townhomes do not fit into the neighborhoods character and will make an already-frustrating morning and evening traffic congestion situation worse. They have also questioned whether there will be enough on-site parking since that city assumes each attached two-car garage will contain two parked vehicles.

In a report prepared for the meeting, city staff members conclude the two-story townhomes fit into the neighborhood, that there is adequate on-site parking and that the project will add only 1 percent to the daily traffic flow along Twin Peaks Road.

The report also lists the citys anticipated cash contribution to the project at $820,000  an addition of about $300,000 from an earlier figure that reflects the fiscal impact of the project being reduced from 26 to 22 units in July. The money would come from the citys low- and moderate-income housing asset fund and would fund first-time, low-income homebuyer assistance loans in the range of $37,272 and $45,556 per home, according to the staff report. This money would be in addition to the city donating the lot, on the south side of Twin Peaks Road about 300 feet of Espola Road. The property has been valued at a little over $1 million.

The proposal before the council calls for a mix of two-story duplex and triplex buildings containing a pair of two-bedroom units, 18 three-bedroom units and two four-bedroom units. Each unit will have an attached two-car garage and a private rear yard. Four units would be designed to accommodate disabled tenants. Habitat officials have said that the selected pre-qualified homeowners would be required to invest sweat equity into building their home and that community volunteers would also participate in the project under the direction of construction professionals.

Habitat for Humanity first approached the city about the lot in 2014. At that time the non-profit intended to partner with the California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet), although the state agency later withdrew from the project.

Tuesdays council meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in the council chambers on Civic Center Drive.

Email: editor@pomeradonews.com
Veterans Day will be observed locally on 11 a.m. Friday with public ceremonies in Rancho Bernardo and Poway.

The Rancho Bernardo observance will be held at the veterans memorial in Webb Park. The Poway ceremony will be held at Poway Veterans Park on Midland Road, across from Old Poway Park.

The RB program will be preceded by a 10:45 a.m. patriotic musical prelude. Webb Park can be accessed from Avena Place, off Bernardo Center Drive. Attendees are advised to bring lawn chairs since seating is limited.

Among the participants will be members of the Maj. Abraham J. Baum Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7766 and the Gen. J.P. Holland Chapter of the Military Order of World Wars. They will post the service, POW/MIA, MOWW and VFW flags. In addition, the Westview High School JROTC Color Guard will present and retire the colors.

In addition, retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Thomas OLeary will be the master of ceremonies, Lt. Col. Rick Blank of the California Military Reserve Chaplain Corps will deliver the invocation and benediction and retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nick Herbka will lead the pledge of allegiance.

The keynote speaker will be Marine Corps Col. Daren J. Erickson, commanding officer of the recruit training regiment at MCRD San Diego.

The Poway Veterans of Foreign Wars is hosting this years Veterans Day ceremony in Poway. The special guest speaker will be Col. Jason G. Woodworth, the commanding officer for MCAS Miramar. He assumed command in August 2015.

Also speaking will be representatives from the American Legion Post 479, Fleet Reserve Association Branch 70 and the Military Officers Association.

Following the ceremony, the VFW will host a free barbecue lunch at the VFW Post 7907, 12342 Old Pomerado Road. Everyone is welcome.

sdreyer@pomeradonews.com
The mayor and his hat

I recently attended a Poway City Council meeting and was appalled to see Mayor Steve Vaus sitting in his council chair with his cowboy hat on his head. Through the whole meeting, he never uncovered.

I was predominantly raised in the Midwest and my mothers side of the family were all farmers. These folks, mainly all from small towns, wore cowboy attire. Every time anyone came into the house or a place of business, they always uncovered. It was just out of respect and the right thing to do. Kind of like the Marine Corps.

Im not sure where Mr. Vaus was raised, but I assure you it wasnt in the Midwest.

Perhaps the mayor could uncover while attending City Council meetings out of respect to those individuals, including myself, who find it quite disruptive and disrespectful.

Rick Lochead

Poway

(Asked to respond, Mayor Vaus said: The most critical rule of cowboy hat etiquette is never wear one backwards - and I dont. Beyond that, as a gesture of respect for God and country, I remove mine in church or for a prayer, for the Pledge of Allegiance and for the singing of the national anthem.)

Pay attention, guys

Many of you have read about the man in Rhode Island (who is old enough to know better) who made the mistake of writing a letter to the editor asking women over 20 to stop wearing yoga pants because they look ridiculous. (As an aside here, women arent wearing yoga pants in public to look attractive to men. Theyre wearing them because they have a full life and are busier than you can imagine. Going home to change clothes in between a workout and all of her other errands isnt practical.)

The response was immediate - women marched and picketed his home in mostly good-natured protest.

To help San Diego men avoid making a similar mistake, lets review:

1) Never comment on a womans body (even when asked).

2) Dont tell a woman to smile (would you tell a man to smile? I dont think so).

3) Dont tell a woman to calm down. Shes not hysterical, shes aggravated and telling her what to do doesnt help.

4) Cat calling. The men who practice this are trying to impress a male friend, not flirt with the woman. Go have a beer and leave us out of it.

Youre welcome.

Suzanne Schulte

Rancho Bernardo

Roost on point

A standing ovation for Amy Roosts Nov. 3 column, Raised in a family of Trumps. I admire her courage to stand up and voice her experiences of what it means to grow up female in America.

For people who have never been through the experience of harassment or an attack or a rape, what you do not understand is that your innocence never returns. The feeling of being safe and having free independence cannot be wrapped in a box and handed back to you. You view the world through this new prism. Its the boogie man that can jump out anytime, anywhere, for no rhyme or reason and you continue to blame yourself.

So when someone appears suggesting we are placing ourselves in that situation again, if we have broken the cycle of abusive, we will refuse. If remnants of our self-esteem have returned, we will refuse. If we have struggled to process the idea that the attack wasnt our fault, we will refuse.

As women, we have the right not to be attacked. Support has grown to encourage our enlightened powerful feminine voice. A double standard for men and women is not tolerable. We are inspired to stand up against this behavior instead of excusing it.

Dont second guess yourself. It is not acceptable, and it never was.

Karen Dunn

Poway

Thanks to event helpers

The ninth annual Once upon a Halloween in Old Poway Park on Sunday, Oct. 30 was a resounding success, thanks to its many supporters and volunteers from all segments of the region. More than 5,000 guests attended the three-hour event, which featured a haunted house, carnival games, train rides, scary stories, Thriller dancers, great food and a replica of the automobile from the Ghostbusters movie.

A heartfelt thank you to the following for their hours of effort to make it all happen: Ann Mitchell, Barry Leonard, Bianca Moose, Bryan Fear and his automobile, Canyon Crest Academy Key Club, Christina and Joel Cunningham, Del Norte High School Key Club, Fairytale Delight Events, Sharon Gruber, Heather Dugdale, John Wismont, Loretta Gibson (Poway childrens librarian), Lynn Wolsey Designs, Miss Poway and her court, Mt. Carmel High School Key Club, Myphuong Le, Old School Skaters, Poway Arts & Crafts Guild, Poway High School Key Club, Poway Historical & Memorial Society, Poway Kiwanis Club, PowayMidland Rail Road Volunteers, Poway Womans Club, Rancho Bernardo High School Key Club, Richard Salazar, Shadow River Regulators, Studio K Dancers, The Hamburger Factory, Thriller dancers, Torrey Pines High School Key Club, Twin Peaks Middle School Builders Club, Valerie Bailey, Westview High School Key Club, Westview High School NJROTC, City of Poway staff and reserve park rangers. Without their participation this event would not have been possible.

Lynn Wolsey

Event chair

Poway

Assistance appreciated

On Oct. 24 a friend who was visiting for the evening passed out and was unresponsive. I had to call 911 for the first time in my life and I was rather freaked out. The woman who answered was so great. She talked me through everything  checking his breathing, advising us to get him lying down so he could breathe more easily and assuring me that the paramedics were on the way. She stayed on the phone with me until shortly before they arrived.

The paramedics were very supportive and took great care of our friend. Everything happened just as one would hope for in a situation like that. Each persons calm professionalism was so reassuring. Our friend is fine and we are all very grateful for the help he received that night.

Nancy Datte

Poway

Email: editor@pomeradonews.com
The San Diego city school board remains unchanged following Tuesdays election, with trustees keeping their posts with help from unions and support for incumbents.

However, the outcome for a race that could shift the balance of power on the San Diego County Board of Education was too close to call on Wednesday.

Appointed county education trustee Rick Shea was clinging to a 1,240-vote lead over former state legislator Mark Wyland with 620,000 provisional ballots to be counted countywide. Its unknown how many of those are in the northwestern county sub-district.

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Roughly a million dollars in campaign contributions poured into the county race, which pitted charter schools against teachers unions.

Wyland benefited from more than a half-million dollars from the California Charter Schools Association, while Shea was heavily supported with more than $300,000 from the American Federation of Teachers, Guild Local 1931.

Two charter-backed candidates  Mark Powell and Paulette Donnellon  were elected outright to the county education board in June. A third, Guadalupe Gonzalez, was re-elected with support from the AFT chapter, which which represents San Diego and Grossmont Cuyamaca Community College faculty,.

Depending on who wins, Wyland or Shea could hold the swing vote when it comes to the fate of charters and the hiring of a new county superintendent.

The San Diego County Office of Education largely provides professional support and fiscal oversight to the regions 42 districts, but its board also rules on charter petitions rejected by local school boards.

The stakes were considerably lower in the San Diego Unified School District races.

Appointed trustee Sharon Whitehurst-Payne beat legislative aide LaShae Collins in the contest to represent the southeastern swath of the district. A retired educator, Whitehurst-Payne won 56 percent of the vote with help from the San Diego Education Association.

With 69 percent of the vote, incumbent and psychologist John Lee Evans handily beat financial asset manager Stephen Groce in the contest to represent the north-inland neighborhoods of Sub-district A.

Richard Barrera sailed into office unopposed in his bid for re-election to represent the central communities of Sub-district D.

Evans said the election would show voters are satisfied with the district.

The election results confirm that the public believes that San Diego Unified is going in the right direction, he said. We still have a long ways to go to meet all of (our) ambitious goals.

The bottom line is that we have moved forward positively, he said. And the public realizes that things have changed at San Diego Unified and that weakens a challengers call for change.

With a majority of trustees up for re-election, it was the race to succeed disgraced trustee Marne Foster in Sub-district E that generated the most attention and money.

Whitehurst-Payne, who lost a bid for the school board in 2008, was appointed to the board in the wake of Fosters resignation earlier this year. Foster pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the Political Reform Act following an investigation into allegations she abused her office for personal gain.

Collins finished first the June primary, an election open only to voters living in the sub-district. She had the support of the state charter association, an organization that poured millions into local and state races up and down the state this year.

The election results mean San Diego Unified is poised to move forward in the coming years without dissenting voices from within its own ranks.

The school board recently voted to extend Superintendent Cindy Martens contract through June 2020. It was the second time trustees extended Martens contract since she was hired in 2013.

Under a pact announced last month, teachers will receive a 3 percent pay increase retroactive to July 1 and a compounded 1 percent increase at the start of 2017. The pay increases follow last years 5 percent salary increases over two years.

maureen.magee@sduniontribune.com

Twitter:@MaureenMagee
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[MANILA] Policymakers from 29 countries in the Asia-Pacific met in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, this week (7-8 November) to discuss cooperative strategies on childrens health, education and welfare to prepare them for future roles in the regions growth.



Organised by UNICEF (the UN Childrens Fund), the high-level meeting looked into experts data on three specific areas  effective social protection systems, preventing violence against children, promoting universal healthcare  and recommendations for future action. Strengthening South-South cooperation was also on the agenda.

Investments in children, particularly in the earliest years, yield dividends that not only realise human rights but also slay todays giants of inequality, deprivation and economic stagnation. Michael Samson, Economic Policy Research Institute, South Africa

The Asia-Pacific region is home to more than one billion children, comprising nearly half of the worlds population below 18 years old. This represents an incredible pool of human capitalupon whom we are all counting to help shape a better, more sustainable future, notes UNICEF deputy executive director Omar Abdi.



Michael Samson, research director at the non-profit Economic Policy Research Institute based in Cape Town, South Africa and lead author of a research paper calling for investments in the development of childrens cognitive skills which was presented during the opening day, argues that today the most prominent source of economic growth lies in cognitive capital.



Investments in children, particularly in the earliest years, yield dividends that not only realise human rights but also slay todays giants of inequality, deprivation and economic stagnation, Samson says. These investments help pave the way to an economic prosperity characterised by the achievement of human potential.



In the Asia-Pacific region, Samson warns, rising inequality and inadequate investments in child-centred social protection threaten the economic growth that has enabled progress in tackling extreme poverty over the past several decades.



UNICEF regional advisor for economic and social policy Gaspar Fajth, a co-author of the paper on cognitive capital, points out that child-related targets represent some of the most effective interventions to promote the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Indeed several SDGs directly relate to children, starting from the very first goal, Ending Poverty, Fajth tells SciDev.Net.



Pointing to one area where public spending on social protection can benefit wide segments of populations in the Asia-Pacific, Fajth says that many countries in the region have given priority to strengthening the pension system, by introducing social pensions for older people who contribute to economic progress outside formal employment.



Considering that many elderly households, especially in rural areas, support  often also raise  their grandchildren (because the parents move to work in urban centres) having a pension system that works for all is important, Fajth says. It can also be beneficial for the cognitive capital of young generations.

Cognitive capital, Fajth says, is the most important asset nations have because the brain develops primarily in early childhood. If this is true, then it is difficult to see why, for example, a universal cash transfer system for every child up to age five years or later, plus maternity leave benefits, parental leave opportunities for all mothers and fathers is seen at times as a luxury that only high income countries can afford.More family income, better child care support mean less poverty, better nutrition , greater stability, less stress at home, less time-poverty for parents and less adult-attention poverty among children as their brain develops, argues Fajth. Such an investment is a win-win for all and could easily be accompanied by health and nutrition-promotion measures.This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets South-East Asia & Pacific desk
Canada conducted a national survey and found that the country lacks palliative care in its medical benefits. Support for the Canadians during their final days is being asked.

Veteran journalist Don Newman led the panel and called for a better-integrated approach to home care services. It would allow Canadians to get support during their final days. The national survey that involves 1,500 Canadians reached the experts and meet with them for three days. The lay panel has given out Consensus Statement, calling for palliative care to be added to the Canada Health Act. It should be guaranteed to all Canadians.

Palliative Care Matters Consensus Development Conference was led by 13 of Canada's leading national health organizations and Covenant Health Palliative Institute that happened on Nov. 7 to Nov. 9, 2016 in Ottawa. Scientific evidence was heard by 12 Canadian academic expert panels and made various suggestions in their Consensus Statement on how to improve Canada's palliative care, according to Edmonton Journal.

This summer, an Ipsos survey was conducted. It revealed that 90 percent of the correspondents, the Canadians choose to receive care in their home and to eventually die there. Meanwhile, 86 percent of the correspondents said that the public health system should shoulder the costs of palliative care so that everybody can access if they would need it.

Co-Chair, Senior Operating Officer at Covenant Health Karen Macmillan said that "We have been so inspired by the participation of people across the country in this initiative. Through this conference, we have been able to enrich this lived experience with the work of thought leaders to create a shared vision for the future of palliative care. We hope that health providers and policy makers to reflect thoughtfully on the consensus that was reached here."

In addition, Fred Horne, Conference Co-Chair and former Alberta health minister and health policy consultant, added that "Governments across Canada are talking about palliative care as part of the Health Accord. This is a once in a generation opportunity to make a difference in palliative care and the Lay Panel's recommendations should be part of the change Canadians want and deserve," according to CNW.
Scientists have long pondered over what is it that makes "Old Faithful" blow, but without any major breakthrough. But that stagnant status quo could change soon as a new study of Yellowstone's plumbing tries to find out what makes it so explosive.

To solve this old puzzle, a group of researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey has launched a massive effort to map the subterranean systems of hot water and rock that collectively form the plumbing for Yellowstone's famous geysers. Representatives from the University of Wyoming and Aarhus University in Denmark are participating in this extensive geological survey that began this week.

A giant, hoop-like electromagnetic monitor has also been deployed 200 feet above site with the help of helicopters.

"Nobody knows anything about the flow paths of hot water. Does it travel down and back up? Does it travel laterally?" Carol Finn, one of the researchers, told Wyoming Public Media.

"This is really kind of a last frontier if you will, in Yellowstone, of being able to look at a large part that's underground that people have not looked at.....This survey can visualize the geology and the water down to about 500 meters, so 1,500 feet."

The electromagnetic study will allow the researchers to get to the underlying factors that led to the formation of geysers that, in turn, could help explain the huge hydrothermal explosions. Worth noting, one such explosion that occurred approximately 13,000 years ago is believed to have led to the formation of a giant 1.5-mile crater. It is considered the largest crater of its kind on Earth even today.

Together with existing geochemical, geophysical, borehole and geological data, the new sub-surface map of the region is expected to bridge the massive knowledge gap between deeper magmatic system and hydrothermal systems.
Marijuana has been reported by many to be helpful in their daily lives. Now, not only did the U.S. Presidential elections is done but also marijuana has its election and got the biggest win.

On Nov. 8, California, Massachusetts and Nevada voted the legalization of marijuana, while Arkansas, Florida and North Dakota have also voted to approve the medical marijuana legalization. As for Maine and Montana, cannabis legislative measure votes are still coming in.

Californians vote to legalize recreational use of marijuana in the state - Los Angeles Times, AP https://t.co/NcZswOZwp3  Breaking News (@BreakingNews) November 9, 2016

The undeniable win for medical marijuana comes given the fact that many of these states are voting for Republican Donald Trump. The win of marijuana will be a great news for many people, especially the ones who are suffering from conditions such as chronic pain, PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

The executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, Ethan Nadelmann, said that "It's great to see that the power and money of Sheldon Adelson were not sufficient to dissuade Nevadans from doing the right thing." Nadelmann was talking about the casino billionaire and a solid Trump supporter, who in fact has $3 million dollars to stop the drugs from being legalized.

On the other hand, Donald Trump said last October that "In terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state. Marijuana is such a big thing. I think medical should happen right? Don't we agree? I think so. And then I really believe we should leave it up to the states," according to The Independent.

Last May, the Congress submitted a marijuana measure to allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to recommend medical marijuana to veterans in the states where marijuana is legal.

In the marijuana bill in Nevada, 21 years old and older can have one ounce of marijuana. Those who do not live near the retail marijuana store within 25 miles can grow up to six plants at home.

The long battle of legalizing the drugs is slowly coming to an end. A Gallup poll that has been sent out last October revealed that 60 percent of the respondents say that marijuana should be legalized.

Ethan Nadelmann added that "Better late than never. Most states outside the South already have legal medical marijuana, but the overwhelming victory today in Florida is likely to accelerate the momentum for reform throughout the region," according to The Washington Post.
Recently, I met a young mother who reminded me of a saying: There but for the grace of God, go I.

I met Wendy at one of the recent Harvest Hope Disaster Emergency Food Pantry Drops at a local church in Florence. She asked if she could help stuff bags of food to distribute to the more than 300 people who had lined up for help. Wendy said that she was one of the last people to get a number and would be there a while, so she wanted to help. While filling the bags, I asked her if she would share her story about Hurricane Matthew.

Wendy is a single mom living with her 10-year-old daughter in South Florence. Her ex-husband does not provide child support. During the height of the storm, she had to wade through 10 inches of water in her yard to get into her car to go to work at McLeod Hospital.

While on her way to work, she ran over a power line. The power line tore off her bumper and damaged her radiator, but she made it to work. Now she has a $500 insurance deductible to pay for her damaged car.

Like many people in the area, Hurricane Matthew left Wendy without power for four days and she lost all the perishable food in her home. Wendy said that even before the storm she was barely making ends meet, and now the car damage was pushing her to the limit.

Wendy said it was very difficult for her to ask for help. The day I met her was the first time she had used a food bank. I asked what it meant to have Harvest Hope Food Bank provide the Disaster Emergency Food Pantry Drops to local food bank agencies.

She teared up and said, It means my daughter eats tonight.

Harvest Hope Food Bank is helping thousands of families like Wendy who are struggling to get back on their feet after Hurricane Matthew.

Before the storm, the Harvest Hope Food Bank in Florence provided food equal to 900,000 meals per month through agencies that distributed the food through local food pantries and soup kitchens. Since Oct. 5, Harvest Hope has provided food equal to an additional 800,000 meals. Thats a total of 1.7 million meals in the Pee Dee area. How is it doing this?

First, it has been providing five to 10 Disaster Emergency Mobile Food Pantry Drops each week to local community and faith partners around the Pee Dee region. These local food banks help serve individuals and families who might not have transportation to obtain food and supplies needed to clean their storm-damaged homes.

Also, Harvest Hope Food Bank has turned its Florence facility into a makeshift Emergency Food Pantry. During the first food distribution, more than 1,400 cars drove through for water and food. Since Oct. 17, Harvest Hope Food Bank has been serving 300 individuals per day, which means Harvest Hope is feeding more than 1,000 people every week through the Emergency Food Pantry alone. Each person gets food, including water, produce, proteins, canned goods and more for their family.

Harvest Hope has made a commitment to keep the Emergency Food Pantry open through Nov. 18 even though its facility is not designed to be a food pantry. Afterward, Harvest Hope will continue to provide Emergency Mobile Food Pantry Drops and will continue to serve the 190 of local nonprofit agencies, many of which have food pantries and soup kitchens, in the region. But, Harvest Hope cant do it without your help.

Harvest Hope Food Bank has a critical need for monetary donations to purchase truckloads of food and to pay for the Disaster Emergency Food Drops. Ninety-eight cents out of every dollar donated is dedicated to providing food to those in need. Every dollar received is turned into food equal to five meals. Visit harvesthope.org/money to give a contribution.

Food is always needed, and donations are always welcome. Harvest Hope Food Bank is open from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday to receive your food donations at 2513 W. Lucas St. in Florence.

Volunteers also are needed at the Florence facility to help with the Emergency Food Pantry. If your business, church, school, organization or you would like to help, please call Donna Lollis at 843-560-0754.

But for Gods mercy, I did not suffer the misfortune Wendy and many others have faced in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. Thankfully, with dedicated volunteers and staff, Harvest Hope Food Bank continues to provide food each day to the most vulnerable. Now, donations are needed to give Harvest Hope a helping hand so they can provide food to children, like Wendys daughter, so they dont go to bed hungry.

Denise Holland is the CEO of Harvest Hope Food Bank. Harvest Hope serves 20 counties across South Carolina with a mission of providing hunger relief with dignity, compassion and education to people in need. Harvest Hope is a nonprofit organization with food banks in Greenville, Columbia and Florence. For more information visit harvesthope.org.
Space capsules offer cheap HK housing Updated: 2016-11-10 08:02 By Lin Wenjie(China Daily)

A space capsule pod in Hong Kong. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Hong Kong is widely known for its high rents and tiny homes. As a result, a local landlord is bringing "space capsule pods" to the city, which can be stacked together to ease the housing crunch, adding a new accommodation option for university students and young workers.

A local rental website shows that 10 capsule pods in a 90 square meter dormitory are currently available for rent in Sai Ying Punthe northwestern part of Hong Kong Island, near Hong Kong University and the main business district Central.

The rental price for each capsule pod starts at HK$4,500 ($580) per month. In a three-bedroom apartment, four capsules were stacked in the sitting-room and two capsules were installed as bunk beds in each bedroom.

One kitchen and one bathroom will be shared by all the tenants. Each pod, which is 1.9 meters long, 1 meter wide and 1.15 meters high, is slightly larger than a twin bed. In spite of their small size, capsule pods come complete with a bed, ventilation fan, light switches, a computer table and power outlets.

The apartment's landlord said: "The regular price to rent a pod per month is HK$4,500, but I can give you a discount if you decided to rent. The lowest price every month is HK$3,800, plus a HK$1,000 deposit," adding that he bought the capsules pods from Micane Technology, a company based in Guangzhou.

The landlord, Wong, who refused to give his full name, said the capsule pods are very popular, and two had already been taken by young workers.

"We provide all the furniture and cleaning services. You don't need to pay an electricity or water bill, or bother to set up Wi-Fi connection. We do everything for you."

A pre-sales consultant from Micane Technology told China Daily that it mainly sells capsule pods to mainland hotels, with each pod starting from 2,990 yuan ($446).

As it's relatively cheap to invest in a hotel in the mainland, the landlords can generally break even in one year.

The launch of capsule pods has aroused safety concerns from the public.

"The SAR Buildings Department has checked our place to make sure we meet the fire safety standard. We are able to lease the pods to the public now," Wong said.

According to Hong Kong's Home Affairs Department, if a tenant's accommodation period is longer than 28 continuous days, the landlord is not required to apply for a license.

It's not the first time that "space capsule pods" have appeared in Hong Kong. As early as 2012, a capsule hotel was about to open in the same district.

The surging house prices and skyrocketing rents in Hong Kong are pushing people to live in subdivided homes or "cage homes". The average monthly rental of subdivided homes ranges from HK$3,500 to HK$10,000, while cage homes were generally priced at HK$2,000 per month.
No delay expected on talks for treaty on investment Updated: 2016-11-10 08:14 By Zhong Nan(China Daily)

A visitor experiences a high-definition smart movie system on display by China's Royole Corporation at the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. [Photo/Xinhua]

The ongoing negotiations for a bilateral investment treaty between China and the United States will not be obstructed or delayed by Donald Trump's new administration as both sides are under pressure to stimulate their economies, experts said on Wednesday.

Their comments came after Trump gained the keys to the White House in the presidential poll. Their optimism was despite the fact Trump previously pledged to impose tariffs on Chinese products to "level the playing field", even though analysts said this would be contrary to the rules of the World Trade Organization.

He Jingtong, a professor of trade policy at Nankai University in Tianjin, said potential political conflict would not occur after Trump took over the reigns of power, because he needed to fulfill his promise to create jobs in the country's manufacturing sector, at least within the next two years.

"The US economy still relies on big-ticket investment from China to create new market growth points to boost both job and export markets," He said.

"Shutting down the BIT talk channels will not conform to the interests of both new US federal government and local governments, especially those located in the so-called Rust Belt in the country."

Backed by its legal environment, infrastructure facilities and market demand, the US remained China's biggest overseas investment destination in the first three quarters of this year. China's outbound direct investment to the US amounted to $16.24 billion during the nine-month period.

Chinese investment mainly flowed into the country's manufacturing and information, food processing, retail and housing sectors.

BIT is an agreement signed between two countries or regions on cross-border investment. It assures foreign investors of nondiscriminatory treatment and protection against unwarranted expropriation.

"The road ahead is still fairly tough," said Zhang Jianping, director of the International Economic Cooperation Institute at the National Development and Reform Commission.

"The validation of the BIT can help both Chinese and US companies operate businesses in each other's markets independently in the long term, instead of looking for local partners to form joint ventures," Zhang said.

He said this would give investors more flexibility to control their finances and make investment decisions.

China and the US held their 31st round of BIT talks in Washington this week.

China has signed bilateral investment treaties with 130 countries and regions in the world, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
Capital's trading center riding on wave of 'golden era' optimism Updated: 2016-11-10 19:51 (China Daily UK)

The Bank of China says its London trading center, which opened one year ago, has ushered in a "golden era" of its own, thanks to deepening cooperation between China and the United Kingdom and the renminbi's internationalization.

The London trading center has reported that its combined transaction volume has exceeded $70 billion, since it was launched last October, during President Xi Jinping's official visit to the UK.

The new center, which is well-placed for seamless connection between Beijing, Hong Kong and New York, provides quotation and trading services, as well as a range of products - including fixed income, commodities, foreign exchange and other derivatives contracts.

"The establishment of the London trading center makes BOC the first Chinese bank to offer round-the-clock and continuous quotation and trading services," said the company's spokesman."It is an important step in BOC implementing its globalization strategy."

The success came at a time when the UK voted in the June referendum, by 52 percent to 48, to leave the European Union.

"During those periods of elevated market volatility, the London trading center provided continuous quotation, trading and risk-hedging services to clients, and ran the business soundly and orderly," he said.

The London center also leveraged its advantages to deliver timely market insights, the bank added.

The commitment comes as London has become the world's second-largest of shore RMB center, after Hong Kong.

"The London trading center has been playing an active role in marketing RMB products and facilitating of shore renminbi transactions," added the spokesman.

He noted that the Bank of China will look to further cater to the needs of corporate clients and investors across the world with its expertise and resources.
In 2007, Pete Bush became the principal for Coopersville High School near Grand Rapids, which had no online learning opportunities in place. But because he knew Michigan Virtual Schools was offering new foreign language course offerings, he thought he'd seize the opportunity to help students learn in a new way and take a course the small school of just 800 students couldn't offer itself."We found some students who were interested in Mandarin Chinese online, and I served as their mentor because I wanted to learn as much about the process as I could," Bush says.By around 2010, those few students taking a variety of online courses, evolved into about 40 per semester. At that point, Bush designated a staff member to the program."In the first couple of years we almost had to find things for him to do to justify his full-time position," recalls Bush, who is now the superintendent of Coloma Community Schools. "But by the time I left Coopersville in 2014, there were nearly 300 students each semester taking online courses."Out of 800 students, that's a big portion of students. Over the last decade, that growth has happened in schools all over Michigan. According to Michigan Virtual University, between 2010 and 2015, the number of online learners has grown 250 percent, and online course enrollments have increased by nearly 500 percent with 445,932 enrollments during the 2014-2015 school year.The online learning landscape has changed substantially since a decade ago when Michigan became the first state in the nation to require students to have an online learning experience before graduating from high school. Here, we explore how online learning has evolved over the last ten years, from the way classrooms work to what it means to "go" to school."The story of the changing landscape of online education in Michigan can't be divorced from the story of the landscape of education in Michigan from a broad scope," says Jeff Williams, CEO of Public Sector Consultants, a research and program management firm specializing in governance and regulation.That's because ten years ago, everyone from policymakers to teachers were very nervous about any type of learning that didn't look like the traditional format, from online courses to charter schools."Online learning was seen as something to dabble in," Williams says. "But everybody in the know would say, 'Too early, too soon, not ready.'"And it's no small wonder why. Early on in the Coopersville online learning program, Bush fielded concerns from teachers regarding whether online courses were going to eliminate their jobs or lower the quality of education the students were receiving."The educational culture and climate in the building had to change a little bit," Bush says. "Part of that was educating our staff about online learning and the opportunities it presented for students, and the rigor and value of it as well."But as the culture of technology changed, and teachers and administrators acclimated to leveraging virtual learning in their own lives, that reluctance to change began to evolve."Ten years ago we didn't know what YouTube was," says Williams. "But the moment you start to gather information at home in short two- and three-minute segments, you start to think, 'Huh, this is like a mini lesson. I wonder if I could do something like this with my classroom."And into the classroom online learning went, from teachers using virtual tools to complement their own curriculum to schools like Coopersville growing online course programs. As more students engaged with online learning, the more the schools themselves had to change to accommodate the new way of learning. After all, kids taking online courses at their own pace altered traditional school schedules for many students."We tried to create a really sound set of expectations so everybody understood that kids weren't just going to be walking around the building," Bush says. "We were clear that if students were in the building, they were expected to be in the online class or working with their mentor." Or, provided they were on pace with their course, students could sign themselves out of school and leave.For some schools, the opportunity to offer online courses changed the way they marketed their services to students. For Gobles Middle-High School, the number of parents choosing to home-school their kids has long presented a funding challenge, as fewer enrollments means less revenue."We understood that home-school students had to buy curriculum somewhere, so we could offer that curriculum for free to them," says Phil McAndrew, principal of Gobles Middle-High School. "We looked at online learning as a way to add additional ways for students to learn without necessarily adding additional staff."The school experience has changed for students, too."As a smaller high school we were limited in what we could offer in terms of courses," says Bush. After that first Mandarin Chinese course, however, the conversation evolved into allowing kids to take ethics courses, forensic science, Arabic or introduction to veterinary medicine."So they could find out before they go to college if it's what they really want to do," he says.Though the courses are online, most schools still have a dedicated hour of the day in students' schedules for their online class. If they're in school, they are in a computer lab or other designated space with a mentor, who helps them stay on pace and problem solve in the absence of their online instructor when needed  a vastly different setup than the traditional classroom."It has really opened up a world of possibilities for a lot of our students," says McAndrew.The 2006 law requiring high school students wasn't the last piece of legislation to support online learning in Michigan. In 2008, school districts could allow eligible, full-time students to take all of their coursework online while still being enrolled. And in 2013, legislation guaranteed students could enroll in up to two online courses per semester."Basically, a school can't say no," explains Bush. "Fortunately, we already offered these flexible options for kids, but people started coming to us to learn what we'd been doing."For those schools with less advanced or no online learning programs, the policies did allow students to push their administrators into the practice. But by and large, says Williams, many schools were, like Coopersville, ahead of the policy. And that trend continues today."Policy is still playing catch-up," he says. "But at the classroom level, you see teachers doing things in classrooms today that policy doesn't comprehend. The on-the-ground experience is far in front of where the policy is."Some parents and teachers, of course, are still getting used to the idea of online learning, even with a decade of experience behind many Michigan schools. But Williams expects that while online learning will never replace a major portion of the K-12 system, ten years from now, most students will get some of their education online every year. That sounds about right to Bush, as well."I thought we'd hit a mark where the program wasn't going to grow anymore, but quite honestly, that didn't happen," he says. "It kept growing and growing. As kids came up through the system, they were more comfortable with learning in that environment."And over the next decade, students and teachers are likely to be even more comfortable with online learning, growing the demand for the alternate approach to education throughout Michigan.Natalie Burg is a freelance writer based in Michigan.
Gratitude Breakfast



The DSO will hold a Gratitude Breakfast Nov. 17 for the area's first responders, to thank them for keeping Kalamazoo safe during the emergency challenges of 2016, and also to remind the community of the office's mission is to help residents solve challenges with benefits, housing, utilities, homelessness, and other urgent needs. The event is sponsored by the Michigan Nurses Association.

Kalamazoo native Curtis Putman arrived for his honeymoon in Puerto Rico only to discover his wallet had not completed the journey. He credits the 60th District Service Office (DSO) with saving him and his wife from being stranded."She suggested we could sell sunglasses on the beach if we couldn't get home," he says with a laugh. "But the DSO worked with the Secretary of State's office to overnight me what I needed to get back on the plane home. They worked faster than my credit card company.Curtis is one of hundreds of area residents helped this year by the DSO, established in 1973 by the late Howard Wolpe to provide local services so constituents wouldn't have to travel to Lansing for help. Staffed by volunteers and supported almost exclusively through private donations, the office is overseen by Constituent Services Director Edie Trent."We see people every day just trying to figure out the solutions they need," says Trent. "By the time they come ask for help, they really feel they're in over their heads, and frustrated after trying the usual channels without resolution."The office works to connect people with resources and solve their challenges around unemployment, housing, disability benefits, utilities, homelessness, and other urgent situations.Recent successes include helping a paroled father appeal a state lien placed on his bank account due to child support in arrears with the Friend of the Court; assisting a downtown retailer who was getting notices in error from the Michigan Treasury indicating its quarterly sales taxes hadn't been paid on time; and helping a constituent without a bank account get a check written to his insurance company. A frustrated Winchell neighborhood resident was connected with the Kalamazoo Water Department to test his water, which kept getting murky after rainstorms or snowmelts. The city replaced a nearby hydrant and valves to solve the problem.The 60th District Service Office, 315 N. Burdick, was one of the first in Michigan, and remains the oldest continuously operating such office in the state. Mary Brown represented the office after Howard Wolpe was elected to Congress, and served the district for 18 years. She continues to volunteer as a board member, and commends the leadership of current State Representative Jon Hoadley."I'm very proud. The office makes sure that state services actually work for people," she says. "People shouldn't need us to intervene, but they do. We're also the watchdog. Those state offices know we're paying attention."Other emeritus legislators for the district include Ed LaForge, Alexander "Sandy" Lipsey, Robert Jones, and Sean McCann.Among the helpers who staff the DSO are high school and college students, and young professionals who gain real-world leadership training while the office gets valuable staff support, says Hoadley."The office has always invested in the next generation through internships, externships, and paid summer fellowshipswhich are supported by the generosity of the Sally Appleyard Trust," he says. "These young leaders learn how to interact with state offices, legislators, other agency staff, and most importantly how to work with individuals in need seeking help from a real human being."An MSU graduate in criminal justice, Autumn Fields works midnights at her new career in probation and parole services, but still finds time to volunteerand is now considered an "ace community volunteer," according to Trent."Working in my field and volunteering at the DSO has provided me a unique opportunity to gain insight and understanding in both criminal justice and political science," she says.Otsego native and Yale University graduate Matt Chavez says of his experience, "It was great to help serve the community that I've grown up around. While I was at the DSO, I listened to constituents and helped them resolve their problems on a daily basis."Hoadley is proud to follow the lead taken by his predecessors to make the local service office a priority. "Those who represent the district have made the choice for more than 40 years to have a staffer here in Kalamazoo so we can be solving problems hands-on," he says. "We are here for folks from all walks of life who need help, who are trying to do the best they can, looking for a little bit of assistance from a human being to get their problem solved."To learn more about the DSO or support its services call Edie Trent at 269/382-4676, email edie.trent@gmail.com, or stop by the office at 314 S. Burdick, Monday through Friday, 9 am  5 pm or by appointment.The DSO is a non-profit corporate entity providing services at no charge on a non-partisan basis. The Community Services Charity is the DSO's 501(c)(3) partner, organized for the charitable purposes of providing financial and human resources to lessen the burdens of government and to assist the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged.
If youve been to Ford Field for a Detroit Lions game over the years, youve probably smelled the sweet scent of Nancy Niezgockis roasted almonds swirling through the concourse. Now, shes hoping that intoxicating smell will be enticing to consumers half-way around the world."This is our first big venture into the export market," says Niezgocki, who has run Michigan's Beverly Hills-based Old World Style Almonds with her husband, Bruce, since 1984. Their product--almonds kettle roasted with sugar, cinnamon, water and vanilla--is sold at nearly 30 venues throughout the nation and in Canada. "Its a big step for us, but weve done our homework."Old World Almonds is one of seven Michigan businesses--from craft beer brewers to fruit growers--heading to China on a trade mission organized by the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development (MDARD) and led by Director Jamie Clover Adams.The trip, running from Nov. 8 to Nov. 14 in the cities of Shanghai and Shenzhen, is meant to introduce vendors and buyers there to Michigan-based agricultural products and assorted value added goods, while assisting those businesses in developing and deepening their international market reach."China's middle-class is exploding, and with it, their understanding of Western food and culture," says Jamie Zmitko-Somers, international marketing manager with MDARD. "It just makes sense to expose this burgeoning market to the diversity of Michigan-based foods and value-added products."Michigan food and agriculture exports to China grew an incredible 897 percent from 2009 to last year, when the value of exports reached a record $71 million. Top demand products were soybeans, and a host of dried and fresh fruit items, along with spirits such as beer and wine.The safety of Michigan food products is also attractive to Chinese consumers, who are all too familiar with food safety scares in a nation that just recently formed a regulatory framework to monitor food safety, says Zmitko-Somers.Chinese consumers also give foreign-grown produce as a sign that they care. "Gift-giving is a big part of Chinese culture," she says. "Its a sort of status symbol to be able to give a gift that was grown or produced overseas to a friend of loved one."Though there are large growing markets in China for Michigan food and agricultural goods, exports to that country are only a tiny slice of Michigans entire export pie. Almost 60 percent of all food and agricultural export products head to Canada, the states largest export market. Mexico, with its high demand for Michigan black beans and other products, comes in second. China, Japan and South Korea round out the third, fourth and fifth top export nations, respectively, as they are high-demand buyers of soybeans for tofu, soy sauce, and other products.All told, Michigan food and agricultural products were exported to 114 nations in 2015. The diversity of the states food-commodity profile--with 300 raw products that can be produced or refined into a wide-assortment of consumer goods grown or produced here annually, from dairy products to potatoes for potato chips to dried cherries and blueberries and fresh apples--puts the state in a unique position to grow its agricultural export market share, says MDARD Director Jamie Clover Adams."Ninety-five percent of the worlds population lives outside the United States, and we grow a lot of food here. We have to trade," she says. "The diverse types of food and agricultural items grown and produced in Michigan puts the state in a unique position to meet demand for our products around the world."Michigan food growers and producers are not alone if they have a desire to branch out into international markets, Clover Adams says. MDARD hosts seminars and conferences to provide more information to those interested in broadening their products' global reach, as well as offering market research into consumer demand for a variety of Michigan products.Clover Adams also points to the job-creating aspect of increasing exports of Michigan food and agricultural products. "Companies doing more business overseas means more jobs here as demand grows," she says.Niezgocki certainly hopes it is.She currently employs almost 30 workers in various roles of her roasted almond businesss Livonia production facility: five full-time, two are part-time, and 20 contractors from Jewish Vocational Services, which assists veterans, seniors, special-needs and developmentally disabled adults and others with obtaining jobs."If all goes well, and we wind-up seeing more business as a result of this trip, I will absolutely be hiring more people," she says. "Right now we are maxed-out. We dont need to grow, but we want to. I see it as a job creator."If it wasnt for MDARD, and the assistance the office provided to her firm, Niezgocki says she doesnt know if she would have made the leap overseas, she says."They were very helpful with market research and branding ideas. We were the ones who needed to interpret it for ourselves, but they are forthcoming about the potential we have and aggressive in terms of making sure we are well represented there," she says. "This looks like the perfect opportunity for our product, but this is going to be a test."Chris Killian has been a writer and journalist in the Kalamazoo area for over 10 years. His work has been published in multiple local publications, including the Kalamazoo Gazette and WMUK. You can find more about Killian, his work, and projects hes working on by visiting chriskillian.net.This article is one of a series of stories about Michigans agricultural economy. It is made possible with funding from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development . Read more in the series here
Please check out our video on Pfizer here

Working at Pfizer means being in a place where the company is dedicated to programs reaching out to the community.During Manufacturing Day, a recent program designed to attract young people into a career in industry, students were introduced to the economic advantages the company brings to the community and to programs that encourage youngsters to pursue courses of study that will help them succeed in manufacturing.Manufacturing Day events take place nationwide as industries grapple with how to deal with the fact that In the next decade 37.5 Boomers will retire and it is anticipated there will be 21 million emerging workers to replace them.Pfizer pointed to the innovation that goes into the work it does, creating drugs that save peoples lives as passionate employees made the case for a career in the pharmaceutical industryThe group of students who visited Pfizer for the day also learned of a number of outreach programs designed link the pharmaceutical company to the local schools in hopes of encouraging young people to one day consider a career in manufacturing. For students in Kalamazoo, who are eligible to go to college through the Promise scholarship program, working with Pfizer employees helps prepare them for higher education.We want to retain them in Kalamazoo so they can be part of the skilled labor force we need, said Laura Martin, of Pfizer.She went on to explain three programs that are part of this outreach effort. At the elementary level students can be part of a programPlant a Seedthat generates excitement and interest in science and shows how Science, Technology, and Math skills translate into a career, Martin said.The Choose Your Path program helps students make informed choices about careers in science. This can include internships that provide real-world experience, Martin said. A third part of the outreach efforts is Living Your Future.Pfizer employees work with students at Amberly Elementary in the Portage Public Schools with programs in which they strive to be inspirational. There is a group of Pfizer staff who travel to local schools with programs that make science fun. They also serve as positive role models and teach skills such as concentration. Connections with the Communities in Schools program in Kalamazoo helps fill in gaps in the science and math curriculums.Collaborations with Education for Employment through the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency bring about more connections to local schools. And through the recent Career Quest event, 100 percent of 8th and 9th graders5,000 to 6,000 studentshad an opportunity to learn about ways to apply engineering and math in future careers. Skill trades also were part of the program.The pharmaceutical company also has forged links with the Mattawan Schools and offers educational experiences to participating students. Students learn that going to college is not the only option. For some, trade school programs provide a higher value.For college age students, Pfizer offers summer internships that real projects for the company. A recent project undertaken by an intern involved a review of 3,000 regulations and results in an annual savings of $125,000 for Pfizer.Visiting students learned of a need for skilled workers that had Robert Betzig, interim site leader of Kalamazoo Operations for Pfizer Global Supply, seeking out workers from states as far away as Texas to work on two construction projects at the Pfizer campus in Portage.Pfizer is constructing a new Act-O-Vial Work Center where it will expand production of a product unique to Pfizer, a handheld device used by paramedics and others typically in an emergency situation for injections of Solu-Medrol. The work center will have a new manufacturing work center, and an aseptic processing space complete with modern environmental controls integrated automation for paperless batch processing. The new center is expected to cost $106 million, be completed in 2018, and start producing its first commercial batches in 2019.A second project, expected to be finished in November 2017 is a $41 million warehouse expansion at Building 41. The new construction on the north side of the building will include 98,000 square feet of controlled room temperature space and 12,000 pallet spaces for raw materials. Refrigerated space and six new truck docks also are planned.As part of the Manufacturing Day event, the group of mostly college-age students also learned of Pfizers role in driving the local economy. The Pfizer team shared the results of an Economic Impact Analysis conducted James Robey, director, regional planning services for the W.E. Upjohn Institute. Pfizer asked for the analysis in light of the companys investment in Portagethe new Act-O-Vial Work Center and the warehouse expansion for Building 41.The analysis shows the Portage Pfizer campus employs more than 2,200 colleagues and it spends $189 million a year, including overtime, on wages. The study looked at the companys economic impact in southwest Michigan including Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties, as workers commute to Pfizer from across southwest Michigan.Pfizers employment of 2,202 workers leads to the creation of an estimated 5,680 jobs in both the public and private sectors, the Upjohn Institute report says. The essence of this is that an almost 3,500 jobs in the region are due to the economic activity at Pfizer. This creates an estimated multiplier of 2.58, or roughly 1.6 jobs for each Pfizer job at the facility, the analysis says.The company supports 1,600 jobs of those who supply goods and services to Pfizer. Further, there are 431 retail jobs and 182 in food services generated by Pfizer and associated activities. It also supports 412 jobs in the professional scientific services, which tend to be higher paying positions. Supply chain jobs also would be created.Sales, also known as Output, is estimated to be more than $2.2 billion in the region. The value of the labor involved comes to nearly $950 million. Altogether direct jobs at Pfizer, indirect employment (jobs that provide goods and services to the company), and jobs producing goods and services to direct and indirect workers generates nearly $420 million in wages in the two-county region.Salaries paid varies, but the average income per worker is $57,906, more than the $51,167 median household income in the Kalamazoo market area.It was not that long ago that manufacturers were warning that jobs lost were never going to return. Now they are worried about not having enough people to fill their jobs. After the presentation, Betzig said manufacturers are now going directly to young people, encouraging them to consider jobs in industry, when not that long ago industry leaders were talking about jobs that would never come back. He said those kinds of statements were being made as manufacturers were trying to sort out the effect of globalization. Now that the industry is stable again the pitch can be made to students and their parents that manufacturing is a good career choice.Kathy Jennings is the managing editor of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave. She is a freelance writer and editor.
Last night's presidential election by Donald Trump was a bitter blow to environmentalists, since winner Donald Trump has said that he thinks global warming is a ruse created by China and would scrap measures put in place by the Obama administration to cut U.S. greenhouse emissions.

"I think it's clear that he wants no part of environmental progress," Bill McKibben, founder of climate action group 350.org, told the Washington Post.

But on a state level, the election news wasn't totally bleak. Voters in a few states did pass measures that would benefit the environment, protect parks and help animals, though other such measures were rejected.

In California, for example, voters narrowly backed a law already passed by the state legislature, which bars grocery stores and some retail outlets from providing free single-use plastic bags to customers, according to Cw6sandiego.com. Proposition 67 does allow stores to sell recycled paper bags and reusable plastic bags for a price of at least 10 cents apiece. But voters defeated another measure, Proposition 65, which would have earmarked tens of millions of dollars from the sale of bags for a special fund administered by the Wildlife Conservation Board.

RELATED: Climate Diplomats Call Trump a "Disaster"

In Alabama, voters strongly supported an amendment that would protect funding for the state's parks from being used for other purposes by the state government. Alabama officials had transferred $15 million in park funding back into the state's general fund over the last five years. Five state parks were forced to close last year and others had to put off maintenance projects because of finding shortfalls, according to Al.com.

"It's crystal clear that Alabamians feel very strongly about their natural resources and about their state parks," Alabama State Parks System Director Greg Lein told the website.

Missouri voters similarly passed an amendment that extends for another decade a rule that requiring that the state's 0.1 percent sales/use tax be used for soil and water conservation and state parks.

In Oklahoma, voters rejected Question 777, which would have guaranteed the "right to farm" in the state. Opponents had said that the measure would have made it nearly impossible to enact regulations on farms, such as rules regulating agricultural runoff to protect local water quality, according to News9.com.

In Rhode Island, voters approved Measure 6, which authorized $35 million in bonds for environmental and recreational projects.

RELATED: Five Simple Ways to Put the Brakes on Climate Change

Two states also passed new regulations to protect animals. Massachusetts voters passed Question 3, which bans the sale of meat and eggs from farms that confine pigs, lambs and chickens in tight quarters. The law includes farms that ship food products into Massachusetts from other states, according to the Boston Globe. The animal welfare law won't take effect until 2022.

Meanwhile, voters in Oregon passed Measure 100, which prohibits the purchase or sale of products such as elephant ivory, rhino horn and sea turtle shells - a move designed to thwart trafficking in wildlife, according to the Humane Society of the United States. Voters in Washington state and California lawmakers previously have enacted such measures.

HSUS said in a press release that new law will ban the trafficking of 12 types of animals most targeted by wildlife traffickers: whales, sea turtles, elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, sharks, rays and pangolins, The new law also will impose felony-level fines on anyone caught buying or selling the parts or products from those creatures. It does not ban the mere possession of these item.

Oregon voters passed a measure to prevent trafficking in elephant ivory. Credit: Rob Hooft via Wikimedia Commons WATCH: Why the US And Big Oil Are Fighting Over a Chicken
Human beings are, in a sense, living computers built from the cell up. Is it too far-fetched to think we could build computers that way?

A team of scientists in Germany, including Bezu Teschome and Artur Erbe of Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, are working toward that goal. They've found a way to coat DNA-based nanowires in gold and conduct electricity. Their tiny, proof-of-concept wires could lead to DNA circuits and genetic computers that self-assemble from the molecule up.

"The main advantage here is the complexity you can create on the nanoscale with these circuits," Erbe told Seeker.

Such complexity is possible thanks to a technique, called DNA origami, the scientists used to construct the nanowire. Invented in the United States about ten years ago, DNA origami involves combining a single strand of DNA in a solution with multiple shorter strands designed to bind at different sections along the single strand.

Controlling how the shorter strands bind is done by adding certain ions to the solution and adjusting the temperature. Fine-tuning these and other variables can produce two- and three-dimensional objects of virtually any shape.

"In this case, we assembled a nanotube out of DNA," Teschome told Seeker.

WATCH VIDEO: What is 4-Strand DNA and Why Are Scientists so Excited About It?
Antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest public health threats of our time, with more than 700,000 people dying each year from drug-resistant strains of TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS. Without new methods of killing these fast-mutating microbes, an estimated 50 million people a year could die from drug-resistant infections by 2050.

"Without effective antibiotics, we'll be thrust back into the mid-1800s," Robert J. Mitchell, a microbiology professor and researcher at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in Korea, told Seeker. Mitchell is one of a handful of global scientists studying a unique strain of "predatory bacteria" that could hunt down and kill drug-resistant bugs inside a patient's body.

According to a new paper, these so-called "vampire" bacteria - named for their nasty habit of latching on to other microbes and sucking out their innards - have successfully hunted down and killed pneumonia inside the lungs of sick rats. The paper, authored by Daniel Kadouri of the Rutgers Medical School, presents compelling new evidence that vampire bacteria could become a viable weapon against the rising threat of superbugs.

Predatory bacteria were first identified in 1962 as fast-swimming bacteria that attack and eat other bacteria. They're found everywhere in the natural environment, in soils, oceans, rivers, lakes, and are even present in the human gut. The favorite strain of predator bacteria among researchers like Mitchell and Kadouri are called Bdellovibrio-and-like-organisms (BALOS).

WATCH VIDEO: Is the Future of Antibiotics at the Bottom of the Sea?
South Korea's President, Park Geun-hye, is currently entangled in a number of very odd scandals that have many of the country's citizens questioning her ability to govern and demanding she step down from office. The various scandals involve a cult leader, horseback riding lessons and tens of millions of dollars.

Much of the controversy revolves around Park's longtime friend Choi Soon-sil, who is not an appointed member of her cabinet and does not have security clearance, but has still advised Park on a number of issues throughout her presidency. What is going on with Park and Choi, and how will it effect the future of South Korea? Watch today's Seeker Daily video to find out.

Learn More:

The Wall Street Journal: South Korea President Replaces Prime Minister to Tackle Scandal

NPR: Swirling Scandal Involving Shamanistic Cult Threatens S. Korean President

The Guardian: 'Rasputin-like' Friend of South Korean President Returns Amid Protests



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The foundations of true happiness for mammals, including humans, are being revealed by a surprising group: giggling, ticklish rats.

When rats are in a good mood, they enjoy tickling so much that they emit ultrasonic giggles, according to a new study in Science that identifies the neurons in the brain tied to ticklishness and laughter. Stimulating these neurons, located in the somatosensory cortex - near the center of the brain - causes rats to laugh. The finding suggests that future therapies for people suffering from depression might target this brain region.

It's hard to imagine animals as low on the food chain as rats having much in common with happy humans, but co-author Michael Brecht of Humboldt University of Berlin told Seeker that "rat tickling and tickling-evoked positive emotions in rats should be viewed as primitive forms of joy."

RELATED: Macaques Grin in Sleep, Push Back Origin of Smiles

Animals may even have a sense of humor. The notion has been challenging to assess. Rats, after all, aren't yukking it up over our jokes. Brecht said no one has been able to properly investigate humor in animals, yet "there are claims that chimpanzees can gesture in a humorous way."

Tickling has turned out to be a key way to investigate pleasure shared by mammals since many seem to like to this form of touch, but only some of the time. As famed naturalist Charles Darwin once wrote: "the mind must be in a pleasurable condition" for ticklish laughter to occur.

Brecht and co-author Shimpei Ishiyama found this to be the case for rats. When the rodents were stressed out, such as when they were placed on an uncomfortably high platform, their tickling-evoked laughter and corresponding neuron firing were significantly suppressed.

Humans are no different. If a situation or person makes you uncomfortable, you will clearly not welcome their tickling you.

The new findings "suggest a link between tickling and play," Brecht said. He now thinks that "ticklishness is a trick of the brain to make animals or humans interact in a fun way." Rats also appear to laugh during play that doesn't even involve touching.

It has been reported that chimpanzees laugh when they experience welcome tickles. "Also," Brecht said, "ticklishness in dogs is commonly seen and appears to be joyful and linked to play."

Even meerkats laugh when they are tickled:
Bam: Truth about Martial Law must still be taught in schools

Sen. Bam Aquino's push for truthful and objective Martial Law education in schools is one of the ways to move forward after the Supreme Court's decision to allow the burial of former president Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

"It's really disappointing but we will continue to work with DepEd on truthful and accurate Martial Law education. That's how we can move forward," said Sen. Bam, chairman of the Committee on Education.

The senator pointed out that the young people have to be informed about the human rights abuses committed during the Marcos' reign.

Sen. Bam stressed that only way the country can move on from this is if the Marcos family apologizes for their wrongdoings and return the money they have stolen from the country's coffers during the late dictator's rule.

"Moving on is fine pero kung titingnan mo, wala naman silang perang binalik. Wala namang pagpapapatawad na hiningi," said Sen. Bam.

Earlier, Sen. Bam denounced the SC decision, saying it focused only on technicalities and did not give weight on historical facts about what happened during the Martial Law era.

"Technically correct, pero historically wrong ang nangyaring desisyon," the senator said.
Press Release

November 10, 2016 PRELIMINARY STATEMENT FOR THE INQUIRY IN AID OF LEGISLATION ON THE DEATH OF ALBUERA TOWN MAYOR ROLANDO ESPINOSA SR.

at the Senate Session Hall Good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to the joint public hearing of the Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs and the Committee on Justice and Human Rights, with reference to the manifestation and motion made by Sen. Vicente Sotto III last November 7, 2016, tasking your Committee to investigate and inquire, in aid of legislation, into the killing of Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. of Albuera, Leyte. To the members of our country's police force and everyone present, let me remind you of the following: To serve and protect. The responsibility of every police officer is to serve the public and respect life and property. No police operation shall be conducted in order to serve or protect the illegal activity of a particular person, group or criminal syndicate. If that sounds familiar, yes, that is Rule No. 1 in the PNP Manual of Operations. The killing of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. is not a simple case of "nanlaban at napatay" like the ones we wake up on every morning as we watch and listen to the morning news. To set the tone of this inquiry, I need not to beyond the purview of the circumstances surrounding the Espinosa killing and the preceding events that transpired after his surrender last Aug. 2. I refer to the details of several other personalities connected to Roland "Kerwin" Espinosa, also known as Jake Pacana, Kerwin, Boss K, Lege, and of course, the late father Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. Let me identify them one by one and the fate they suffered: EDGAR ALLEN ALVAREZ, allegedly one of Kerwin Espinosa's three major sources of illegal drugs, died last August 11, 2016. Alvarez was shot dead inside a Leyte prison during an ongoing police operation conducted by the CIDG Region 8. ATTY. ROGELIO BATO, lawyer of Mayor Espinosa. He died on August 23, 2016. He was killed due to multiple gunshots fired at him by unidentified men while driving. Also died together with him inside the vehicle was ANGELIKA BONITA, 15 years old, fourth year high school student of Sagkahan National High School. POLICE CHIEF INSPECTOR HESUS SON, 45, assigned at RPHAU, PRO-8, killed by unknown assailants using long firearms and riding in a maroon utility vehicle last Sept. 16, 2016, in Barangay Pilit, Sta. Fe, Leyte, while on his way home driving his Isuzu Crosswind. Reports from PRO-8 indicate that the killings of Bato and PCI Son were related and perpetrated by the same group. ANNALOU LLAGUNO, ex-wife of Kerwin Espinosa. She died October 1, 2016, shot in the head from behind by an unknown attacker. FERNANDO BALAGBIS, alleged member of the Espinosa drug trade. He died last October 29, 2016. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds in an alleged shootout with police operatives who raided his cell pursuant to a search warrant issued based on a suspicion of drug trade inside prison. And then of course, MAYOR ROLANDO ESPINOSA SR., father of alleged top drug lord in Eastern Visayas Kerwin Espinosa. He died last November 5, 2016, together with fellow detainee RAUL YAP, also in an alleged shootout with CIDG operatives serving a search warrant issued based on a suspicion of illegal possession of firearms and drug trade. Our people and probably most of the members of the committees present here today find it difficult to accept or even grasp the PNP CIDU 8's version of the story. The committee therefore requires the PNP to report on the status of the above cases. Foremost in our minds is, why would Mayor Espinosa even attempt to put up a fight while he was trapped inside a prison cell with nowhere to go, not to mention that he had surrendered and was fully cooperating, hoping to become a state witness? Nothing makes sense. With that as our working premise, the following questions beg for answers: 1. What necessitated the application for a search warrant when Mayor Espinosa was already locked in a cell and under the custody of the government? And what are the contents of the search warrant, the deposition of witnesses, etc.? 2. Why was it necessary to serve the search warrant against a detained person at past 3 a.m.? 3. Was there sufficient prior coordination with the jail warden before the warrant was served? The text message was received by the RTOC, the Tactical Operations Center, at 4:26 a.m. of Nov. 5, 2016. 4. Is there truth to the reports saying that the raiding team disarmed the four provincial policemen tasked to secure Mayor Espinosa and even asked them to kneel and face the wall? In addition, why were the inmates except for Raul Yap, the other fatality, told to transfer (away) from Espinosa's cell? 5. What specific cell was the target of the search warrant? Cell No. 1, where Mayor Espinosa was detained? Cell No. 7, where Raul Yap and five others were staying? Or Cell No. 2? 6. Was there proof that Mayor Espinosa and Raul Yap actually fired at the operatives during the service of the warrant? 7. Why is the hard drive of the CCTV missing? Who removed it? Isn't it logical to think that the reasonableness of the force used by the operatives could easily be justified if the CCTV footage is available? 8. Is it true at least one member of the raiding team is listed in the so-called payola or blue book of the Espinosas? If so, why was he made a member of the raiding CIDU 8 team? 9. Why would the raiding party read or serve a search warrant to two dead persons but earlier ignore the plea of the jail warden to be shown the same? Even assuming the two were alive during the reading or formal serving of the warrant, who had control of the jail facility, the prisoners of the warden? The death of Mayor Espinosa obviously affects the probative value of his sworn statement revealing the names of the ones on top of our country's drug trade, particularly their protectors. The imminent deportation of Kerwin Espinosa must be given utmost attention and security concern by this government, if it is really sincere and serious in breaking wide open to identify those in government who benefited from his drug-dealing activities. I'm telling you, there are people who are currently in touch with him as he awaits his repatriation back to the Philippines. These are individuals to whom he has already validated several names in his blue book. The list includes recipients of campaign contributions in the recent 2016 national and local elections. Therefore, unlike his late father, the Albuera mayor, he must live to tell his story. As a former Chief PNP and an incumbent legislator, it worries me to think that the Filipino people might lose faith in the police, our justice system, even the entire government, that police operations, judicial intervention or even plain and simple government transactions will be presumed irregular, tainted with corruption and motivated by personal interest, and that the presumption of regularity in the performance of duties will be reduced to mere concepts found on textbooks. It disgusts me to even think of the glaring possibility that people given the privilege to be of service to the public have molested the integrity of our established institutions. In the words of U.S. social activist F. Jessop: "To those who abuse: the sin is yours, the crime is yours, and the shame is yours. To those who protect the perpetrators: blaming the victims only masks the evil within, making you as guilty as those who abuse. Stand up for the innocent or go down with the rest." Let the Senate be the bully pulpit to ferret out the truth in this investigation. Having said that, let us proceed with this inquiry.
Opening Statement of Senator Loren Legarda Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Agreement of the Asian

Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)

Good morning and welcome to today's hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the Articles of Agreement of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Similar to the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, the AIIB is a multilateral lending institution first proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang during their visits to Southeast Asian countries in October 2013 with the primary objective of fostering economic development through investments in infrastructure development and promoting regional cooperation through closer collaboration with other multilateral and bilateral development institutions.

Citing a study by the Asian Development Bank, the Department of Finance estimates that the Philippines needs US$127.12 billion from 2010 to 2020 for its infrastructure needs.[1] As the Duterte administration aims to increase infrastructure spending of up to 7% of gross domestic product, membership in the AIIB will give the country additional source of financing for major capital investment projects of the government and the private sector.

Other benefits touted for the Philippines include additional employment for Filipinos through projects funded by the AIIB in the country, reduced trade costs, and increased competitiveness and productivity.

On this note, we thank all our resource persons for being present today and we hope for a enlightening discussion on this important treaty.
Press Release

November 10, 2016 ENSURE PROTECTION FOR INMATE WHO WITNESSED ESPINOSA SHOOTING--POE Sen. Grace Poe today urged authorities for additional protection for an inmate who witnessed the predawn operation at the Leyte Sub-Provincial Jail that led to the killing of Albuera town Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. and another inmate on Nov. 5. Poe made the call in the light of reports that an inmate disputed the account of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of the Philippine National Police that the slain mayor, who was detained on illegal drug charges, allegedly resisted and was engaged in a "firefight" with the raiding team. Reports, however, indicated that the Albuera town mayor begged for his life and did not possess a firearm due to the strict security in prison, according to the inmate. "I think that the jail inmate was the one who stated na narinig niya ang mayor na nagmakaawa o nagsabing wala naman siyang baril o kung anuman iyon. Nasaan ngayon, itong inmate kasi kailangan protektahan ito sapagkat ito ay isang saksi na maaaring magpatunay kung anuman ang ating iniimbestigahan dito," Poe said during the Senate inquiry led by the public order and dangerous drugs committee. The senator also called for the possible transfer of the inmate, as she asked the Senate panel to invite the inmate to the next Senate hearing. "Kasi alam naman natin na kapag sa probinsya nangyayari at doon mo rin itatago o doon mo rin ikukulong ay hindi talaga mapoprotektahan ang witness. Dapat national custody iyan," Poe said. Leyte Provincial Jail Warden Homobono Bardillon told Senate probers that the inmate was still imprisoned at the Leyte Sub-Provincial Jail, and they need to secure clearance from the court handling the case of the inmate. In questioning the manner of the police operation, Poe zeroed in on the highly irregular circumstances surrounding the raid, chief of which was the lack of closed circuit television (CCTV) footage even if Bardillon maintained that they have working CCTV recordings before the CIDG swooped into the Baybay jail. "Ang nangyari po doon, merong naglagay in closed parenthesis na under repair [ang CCTV at hard drive]," Bardillon responded, adding that they were not the one who entered the entry in the jail's logbook and the CCTV was fresh from repair. "'Yung CCTV namin po gumagana na. Gumana po iyon noon October 26 at October 27, ini-turn over ng gumawa. I have evidence na gumagana talaga ang CCTV namin... Merong hard drive, pero after ng raid nila [CIDG], wala na doon ," the warden said. ""From 3 a.m. until 11 in the morning, 'yung CIDG po ang may kontrol sa jails namin." Chief Inspector Leo Laraga who led the raiding team, however, said they did not touch the CCTV camera in the jail but confirmed reports that jail personnel and four provincial policemen tasked to secure Espinosa were ordered to kneel and face the wall. "Sinasabi ng jail warden na gumagana ang CCTV, pero sinasabi ninyo na wala kayong kinalaman sa pagkawala nito. So kailangan natin matunton sino may interes para itago iyan. Meron tayong mga witnesses na pumunta doon. 'Yung media witness na kasama, dapat mapatawag din dito para marinig ang kanyang salaysay dahil kung media siya, maaaring meron din siyang footage, malay ninyo kumuha siya dahil makita nga itong mga nakaplantang ito, kung pagdating ninyo ay nandoon na o na-planta lamang doon," said Poe. CIDG Region 8 chief Superintendent Marvin Marcos, in his presentation, said the CIDG Region VIII raiding team "was able to enter the jail premises thru the use of Bolt cutter" to serve search warrants. Chief Inspector Jovie Espenido, police chief of Albuera, Leyte, confirmed that the slain mayor signed an affidavit linking several personalities in the narcotics trade, including some personnel from the CIDG. The slain mayor, father of known big-time drug dealer Kerwin lord in Eastern Visayas, was among those in the "narco-list" publicly released earlier by President Rodrigo Duterte.
Thousands of people took to the streets of San Francisco and Oakland on Wednesday night to protest Donald Trumps election to the presidency, joining Americans in other U.S. cities who vented their frustration with Tuesdays race results at a string of swiftly organized rallies.

A gathering of a few hundred at San Franciscos Powell and Market streets quickly swelled to several thousand as a sea of demonstrators emerged downtown before veering toward the Mission District with signs reading Stop Trump and Impeach. The crowd roared with such slogans as People united will never be divided, in reference to the Republicans divisive comments  often construed as sexist and racist  during the heated campaign.

While Californians cast nearly twice as many votes for Democrat Hillary Clinton as the billionaire developer and reality star, the states 55 electoral votes were not enough to derail Trumps unexpected path to victory.

San Francisco resident Kevin Wiggins, 24, who marched down Market Street, said the prospect of a Trump presidency is especially troubling because of his apparent lack of concern about police brutality.

I dont want to see what hes going to do to the country, especially people of color, said Wiggins, who is black.

As the marchers ventured into the Mission District, a couple of college students and friends zeroed in on the issue of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the national debate over oil and harmful fossil fuel emissions.

With Trump pledging to drop a number of federal environmental protections, such as restrictions on fracking enacted under the Obama administration, Foothill Community College student Aaron Grulich of Redwood City said he is worried about the regulation unraveling.

We dont know whats going to happen, but we anticipate its going to carry forward, and it could get worse. Who knows? he said.

Scores of police officers, many in riot gear, helped divert traffic around the San Francisco march, which, after causing congestion along Market, triggered minor backups in parts of the Mission District. No major problems were immediately reported.

In Oakland, police issued an order for protestors downtown to disperse around 8 p.m. after a rally at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza morphed into a march of several thousand people on Broadway and surrounding streets. There were minor scuffles between officers and protestors, and reports of tear gas being deployed by police. The reports were not confirmed. As the evening wore on, some demonstrators were seen lighting small fires and smashing windows of businesses.

During demonstrations earlier Wednesday, immediately following the election verdict, a 20-year-old woman was struck by an sport utility vehicle and seriously injured as she and a couple hundred people spilled onto Highway 24 near Telegraph Avenue along the Oakland-Berkeley border.

The days protests, which included a smaller event on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, followed calls on social media, often with the hashtag #NotMyPresident, beckoning those averse to Trumps presidential agenda and unhappy with what they see as his record of bigotry. At each of the events, passersby joined in.

I need to feel community and connection and a safe space to express our rage, said Oakland resident Gala King, 39, who brought one of her two sons to the peaceful rally at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza.

Like many, King said that her family was shocked that a candidate with plans to build a wall on the Mexican border and put checks on Muslims was elected to the nations highest office.

My son keeps asking me, Did he really win? How could someone so mean be president? she said. Its really hard to explain how its possible.

Oscar Vivanco, 42, brought his 4-year-old son, Coltrane, who suffers from a rare brain condition and uses a wheelchair, to the Oakland demonstration. He fears his family could lose health benefits that came during the Obama administration as Trump has vowed to eliminate the presidents signature Affordable Care Act.

We dont know what to expect, what will be taken away that weve taken for granted, Vivanco said.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Many at the Oakland protest, which was co-hosted by groups Socialist Alternative and Anti-Police Terror Project, said the Democratic Party deserved some of the blame for the Trump presidency. They said the party failed to offer a candidate outside the status quo who could connect with Americans. Several had supported populist candidate Bernie Sanders in the primary.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf issued a statement earlier in the day encouraging residents to channel their frustrations into volunteer work promoting social justice.

I ask Oaklanders to not just get mad, get involved, she said.

On Wednesday afternoon, students at several Bay Area high schools, including Oaklands Technical and Bishop ODowd and Berkeley High, walked out of class in protest of Trumps win.

Demonstrators angry about the presidential race also marched in several cities across the nation, including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle.

Clinton, in her concession speech early Wednesday, asked her supporters to accept the election results and give Trump a shot.

We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead, she said.

J.K. Dineen contributed to this report.

Kimberly Veklerov, Michael Bodley, Jenna Lyons and Kurtis Alexander are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com, mbodley@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchronicle.com, kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KVeklerov, @michael_bodley @JennaJourno @kurtisalexander
Left-leaning Berkeley City Councilman Jesse Arreguin will become Berkeleys youngest mayor  and first Latino mayor  after clinching a surprise victory in the cutthroat race to replace retiring Mayor Tom Bates.

Arreguin, 32, won with 52 percent of the vote after several instant runoff rounds, compared with 38 percent for Councilman Laurie Capitelli and 11 percent for Councilman Kriss Worthington. The crowded ballot also included a homeless man, a UC Berkeley graduate student and an indigenous elder.

Arreguin was upbeat Tuesday night as the votes rolled in, showing his ever-widening lead over Bates chosen successor, Capitelli. Nine candidates fought for the seat, and many City Hall insiders saw the more moderate Capitelli as the likely winner.

Laurie was Bates anointed candidate, Arreguin said Wednesday. Given the strength of the mayors political influence in Berkeley, everyone thought he was a shoo-in.

ALSO Thousands of Bay Area students walk out following Trump election

To Arreguin, Berkeleys election results sharply contrast with the national Republican rout led by President-elect Donald Trump.

While were moving into dark days for our country, I think Berkeley can be a beacon, he said.

Arreguin takes office Dec. 1.

Elsewhere in the East Bay, Oaklands City Council was unchanged the day after a tumultuous election. All five City Council incumbents kept their seats, and some prevailed by wide margins.

At-large Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan scored 53 percent of the vote, compared with 20 percent for her closest challenger, Peggy Moore. Dan Kalb beat Kevin Corbett 80 to 20 percent. Lynette Gibson McElhaney won with 58 percent of the vote, over 42 percent for her rival, Noni Session. Noel Gallo swept up 57 percent of the vote, compared with 43 percent for challenger Viola Gonzales. And Larry Reid clinched 56 percent of votes in his East Oakland district  far more than Marcie Hodge, who got 25 percent, or Nehanda Imara, who trailed with 19 percent.

Oakland voters also approved Measure LL, the plan to form a citizen-led police commission to oversee the citys battered department. And they passed Measure KK, a $600 million infrastructure bond to fix roadways, sidewalks, libraries and parks, while setting aside $100 million for affordable housing. Both ballot measures got 82 percent of the vote.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan
The scene was the same at election day parties all over San Francisco. At Mayor Ed Lee and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsoms fete, some 150 trendy politicos held their drinks and stared  shocked and slack-jawed  as the televisions played out the Donald Trump victory. They were disconsolate.

The local stuff doesnt even matter, said one top insider. Its irrelevant.

Thats not remotely true, of course. In fact, it will be the local issues that will have a greater effect on your life. Not that there wont be ripples from the Trump win all the way out here on the left coast.

For instance, regardless of what they may say now, there were those in the mayors office who thought it was possible that Lee could get a post in Hillary Clintons Cabinet as secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Who knows how many wacky consequences that might have set off  beginning with picking a new mayor at the Board of Supervisors. No matter. Thats finished now, and its time to look ahead to civic matters. And its an interesting menu.

In general, Lees people were pretty pleased with the way things came out. Theyre happy with the likely win of Scott Wiener  Wieners camp says its cautiously optimistic  over Jane Kim for state Senate on two levels. First, they supported Wiener, a moderate.

But a Kim win would also create a potentially tricky appointment. Kims District Six is a political puzzle. Theres always talk that the up-and-coming Mission Bay will moderate the Tenderloin-dominated district and make it less progressive.

But there hasnt been evidence of that, so if Lee had to replace Kim as supervisor, the political calculus would be whether to appoint a progressive, knowing that person probably wouldnt play nice with the mayors office, or install a moderate, knowing that candidate might not win re-election in two years. Hello, Julie Christensen.

Wieners district, however, is reliably moderate and a middle-of-the-road appointee is a given. Combined with a likely Ahsha Safai win in District 11 the board should swing from progressive majority to (at least) a 6-5 moderate body. Safai, who would replace contentious progressive John Avalos, is likely to be the swing vote on issues, making him a minor power player. (The D1 race, where progressive Sandra Fewer has a lead over moderate Marjan Philhour, is also still in play.)

But shed no tears for Kim. She just ran a competitive, citywide race that upped her visibility. She may think about the 2019 mayoral race or even bigger races, like if Rep. Nancy Pelosi decides to retire at some point.

The mayor was also happy about most of the propositions. Four were attempts to curb the power of the office  either by limiting the ability to make political appointments or creating new City Hall agencies. All appear to have lost.

However, it wouldnt be San Francisco without a classic give-with-one-hand-take-back-with-the-other disconnect. Voters heartily approved a measure to give $50 million a year to homeless issues and $100 million a year for Muni by a 66-35 percent ratio and congratulated themselves for being so compassionate.

But then they turned around and voted against the sales tax that would actually fund the measure, so its dead. Those measures turned out to be sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Meanwhile, Measure Q, Supervisor Mark Farrells tent encampment prohibition, won, although not resoundingly. Did voters listen to those who said that you can legislate against street camping, but unless those people have a place to go, Q was mostly symbolic?

Itll be interesting to watch the school board this year. In an upset, 24-year veteran Jill Wynns lost her re-election bid. Wynns has worked tirelessly on the board, and it isnt because the job is lucrative. Board members make $500 a month. So the city owes Wynns a debt of gratitude.

However, Wynns was left off three key endorsements, the Harvey Milk Club, the Bay Guardian and the League of Pissed Off Voters. In addition, Wynns has consistently fought the idea of making neighborhood schools a priority for school assignment. The current system uses a complicated system called the Census Tract Integration Preference to put students in schools  often far away from their neighborhood.

It seems to be an issue where the board is moving in a different direction. Of the four top vote-getters, at least three of them, Mark Sanchez, Rachel Norton and Matt Haney (who voted against the change last year), support the concept of neighborhood schools.

If the board votes to allow families to attend their neighborhood school, itll bring needed change to the city. Which is why we have elections in the first place.
Opponents of genetically modified crops won big in Sonoma County Tuesday night when voters approved a ban on GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, by a margin of nearly 12 percentage points.

The future and sustainability of Sonoma County agriculture was also an oft-raised issue in the contest between organic farmer Linda Hopkins and former state Sen. Noreen Evans for the District Five Board of Supervisors seat.

Hopkins, who had the financial support of many in the farming and wine industries, won with 54.1 percent of the vote, a margin of about 2,500 votes.

She will be the first woman to represent the Fifth District on the Board of Supervisors, and shell have company  the board will be majority-female for the first time in history.

Its been a bittersweet evening, Hopkins said in an online statement, describing the combination of her victory and that of President-elect Donald Trump.

She will assume the seat formerly held by Efren Carrillo, who gained notoriety when he drunkenly showed up at his neighbors Santa Rosa home in 2013 clad only in underwear and socks. The neighbor has since sued him for $2.5 million.

Sonoma County is the sixth California county to ban GMOs, joining Santa Cruz, Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity and Marin.

Because Sonoma County connects Marin County to Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity, the bans passage creates a 13,734-square-mile zone where genetically engineered plants cannot be grown, the largest such area in the United States.

Whats exciting is, we have a northwest coast GMO-free growing zone thats growing, and Sonoma County is the missing link, ban proponent Karen Hudson said last week.

Its a major victory for a movement that has seen mixed results in local efforts to ban GMO crops in other states. Several counties in Hawaii have passed GMO bans only to see them overturned by federal judges, and a 2014 ban in Josephine County, Ore., was later found to be invalid because it conflicted with state law. A ban in Jackson County, Ore., remains in force because Jackson was exempted from the aforementioned state law.

According to Hudson, farmers who are now growing GMOs will be able to continue growing for the current season as a grace period before the ban kicks in. If a farmer has already purchased seed for the following year, he or she will be allowed to plant that year as well.

Tuesday night did not bring victory for every measure. In Healdsburg, Measure T, a ballot measure to eliminate water fluoridation, secured only 41 percent of the vote, losing by a 775-vote margin.

It was the second time in two years that Healdsburg voters had rejected a fluoride ban. In 2014, 64 percent answered yes to the question of whether Healdsburg should continue to fluoridate its water. Both measures were, in large part, the work of a Rohnert Park resident and dedicated antifluoride activist, Dawna Gallagher-Stroeh, and in both cases, local dentists vigorously advocated for fluoridation.

The water in Healdsburg is fluoridated, but thats not the case in the rest of Sonoma County.

In the weeks leading up to the election, asked what shed do if the measure failed, Gallagher Stroeh replied, I just dont know. Its hard to answer that. Because I really think that were going to win this time.
SACRAMENTO  California Democrats began bracing for an assault on their signature progressive agenda on Wednesday, the day after American voters gave Republicans majority control of Congress and elected Donald Trump president.

At stake are the Golden States hard-won battles to fight against climate change, expand health care services for the poor, provide special assistance to people living in the country without documentation, and support transgender bathroom laws. California legislative leaders said they are consulting lawyers and executive staff on what state laws a conservative Congress could undermine, such as civil liberties for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

In addition, state leaders wondered about how a change in federal priorities could affect much-needed federal funding to Californias planned high-speed rail system and to the tunnels project that would change how the state moves water south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Both projects are lauded by Gov. Jerry Brown.

They have a very powerful weapon called the purse strings, said Democratic strategist Steve Maviglio. There will be some real tension. ... High-speed rail, climate change, air quality, health care  its across the board. The good thing is that Washington rarely moves fast.

State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount (Los Angeles County), said they woke up Wednesday feeling like strangers in a foreign land after Trumps unexpected defeat of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The stakes are real for the well-being and future of California, said de Leon, who spoke twice to Brown on Wednesday about issues that could arise when Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20. De Leon said state leaders are looking at what programs would be vulnerable to federal funding cuts, such as programs at the University of California, whose employees were some of the biggest donors to Clinton.

We want to work in a collaborative, cooperative manner with the President-elect and his new administration, de Leon said. Californians are hoping for the best. But given the rhetoric of the campaign, we also have an obligation to protect our constituents and prepare for any threats that undermine our people or progress.

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Brown did not comment Wednesday on Trumps election. Brown has refrained from lengthy comments about Trump, although he blasted the GOP nominee as a fraud for denying climate-change science. The governor had previously joked about the GOP nominees calls for a wall along the Mexico border.

If Trump were ever elected, wed have to build a wall around California to defend ourselves from the rest of the country, Brown said in March. By the way, that is a joke. We dont like walls; we like bridges.

While Republicans have lined up against Californias high-speed rail project, putting much-needed federal funding in jeopardy, its unclear whether the president-elect will support the project. Trump has praised high-speed rail projects in other countries and said he wants to make major investments in infrastructure projects.

Trump may be friendly to it, said Sierra Club California Director Kathryn Phillips. He will want to create jobs.

Phillips said her concern is whether Trump would help accelerate the high-speed rail system by circumventing environmental reviews, something the Sierra Club does not support. Phillips said she will also be watching for similar issues when it comes to water infrastructure projects, such as building dams that Republicans have long sought.

We are monitoring a number of issues, she said.

Newly re-elected Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-San Ramon, said shes hoping the change in Washington will mean that projects like the high-speed rail and delta tunnels will see new resistance.

I dont know if a Trump presidency helps, but I can only hope it will slow high-speed rail and the delta tunnels and allow us to take a more strategic approach to infrastructure than weve seen with those projects, said Baker, a Republican who did not support Trump.

Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer advocacy group, said many people are concerned about the future of the Affordable Care Act. Trump said he plans to immediately repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, although little is known about what he would replace it with.

Trump has argued that the Affordable Care Act costs too much and is rife with problems, such as steep premium increases and few choices for consumers.

Wright said millions of people rely on the Affordable Care Act for their health insurance and that the law provides a pivotal consumer protection by barring insurance companies from denying someone coverage because of pre-existing conditions. California could continue the state health insurance marketplace created by the federal health law, but without federal subsidies, many people would not be able to afford coverage.

Our recommendation is people continue to sign up for the benefits available to them and take advantage of open enrollment that started a week ago, Wright said. But also be part of the political fight to defend those benefits. Its not over until its over. But this nightmare scenario has become more likely.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez
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James Conrad, disgusted with the whole election thing, dropped by the only place in San Francisco on Wednesday that he figured might help  the Canadian Consulate.

Hed also been thinking about dropping by a bar, but it was 9 a.m. and a little early for that. So Conrad figured he might as well check into the possibility of leaving the United States and never coming back.

Im here because of what happened last night, Conrad told the consulate clerk seated behind the bulletproof window. I dont feel I have any choice.

He expressed surprise that the line wasnt out the door. Actually, Conrad was one of only a few disgruntled souls seeking to take the most drastic action a citizen can take. He stood in the consulate lobby on the 14th floor of a downtown high-rise and helped himself to an immigration form that said he would have to visit the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles, because the San Francisco one doesnt handle people desiring to flee the U.S. in advance of a possible apocalypse.

A freelance writer and musician decked out in a Boston Red Sox hat, Conrad, 34, said he was very mad at the average American voter.

In this case, he said, average means dumb.

Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle

In the light of day, the mood was more circumspect than on election night, when there were so many inquiries about immigration that a Canadian government website appeared to have crashed. The FAQ for fleeing Americans was accessible Wednesday, though anyone trying to call it up was treated to several minutes of the little spinning computer ball.

Conrads mother was born in Montreal, and he figured that little detail might give him a leg up. If it required a trip to Los Angeles to get the immigration thing rolling, he was more than willing to head south in order to head north.

I dont particularly want to go to Los Angeles, he said. I dont particularly like Los Angeles. But its got to be better than four years of Donald Trump.

Conrad departed the consulate for Los Angeles by way of a local tavern, not waiting for the sun to hit the yardarm, because he said it was always 5 p.m. someplace. Though at that moment, nowhere in Canada.

Every four years, right around election time, local consulates see a slight uptick in inquiries from U.S. citizens seeking greener pastures. Twelve and 16 years ago, after George W. Bush won, the consulates of New Zealand fielded lots of calls, New Zealand being the pretty place in the Lord of the Rings movies that came out around then.

Canadian officials say U.S. citizens are welcome to visit Canada for six months, but immigrating there is not particularly easy. Applicants must score 500 points on a 1,200-point scale that considers work, language and social skills, and higher-education levels. Well-heeled applicants can also be admitted if they bring $1.6 million and promise to invest $800,000 in a Canadian enterprise. Conrad said he possessed neither sum at the moment.

At the British Consulate on Sansome Street, head of politics Andrea Koskey said there had been no calls from would-be Brits, perhaps because London handles immigration matters. She said the San Francisco office handles matters related only to emergencies.

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In some opinions, this is an emergency, she acknowledged with a smile, although quickly adding that her boss, British Prime Minister Theresa May, had congratulated President-elect Donald Trump hours earlier (after Mays predecessor, David Cameron, had called Trumps immigration policy divisive, stupid and wrong).

At the Australian Consulate on Market Street, dual citizen Anta Dolence came by to renew her passport and said that, even though she didnt like Trump, she had voted for him because she didnt like Hillary Clinton more. As a dual citizen, she said, she gets to cast ballots for people she doesnt like in two countries.

I dont think anybody likes Trump, Dolence said. But the American people think their country is going in the wrong direction and the American people arent stupid.

Dolence said one difference between voting in the U.S. and voting in Australia is that people who choose not to vote in Australia can be fined. Since marrying an American and moving to the U.S. two decades ago, she said, she has missed about 40 Australian elections. Because each missed election carries a possible $250 fine, she could be in the hole some $10,000 if she uses her new passport to return to her native home and face the music.

Its not as much money as Trump failed to pay in taxes, she said, but its still a lot.

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com
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San Franciscos Getaround, which arranges hourly rentals of peoples personal cars, is adding more than 200 vehicles to its San Francisco stable. Theyre arriving through an agreement with City CarShare, a pioneer of short-term rentals from dispersed locations  an approach called car sharing.

We felt we could help accelerate City CarShares mission of reducing car ownership through car sharing and help them take advantage of the more-modern technology and platform weve built here at Getaround, said Getaround CEO and founder Sam Zaid.

Getaround is paying to take over City CarShares parking spaces and gain access to its members. City CarShare, which started in 2001 as the Bay Areas first car-sharing enterprise, will remain an independent nonprofit that owns its fleet. It will receive rental fees, minus Getarounds commission, when its vehicles are rented out. City CarShare members now will arrange rentals through Getarounds app. The nonprofit has about 50,000 members, about 20,000 of whom are active.

This is an incredibly strong deal for our membership, said Lawrence Mulligan, acting CEO of City CarShare. Members will break the shackles of monthly fees and move to a pay-for-play model, and eradicate the mileage model. They will save significant amounts of money and get access to thousands more cars through Getaround.

For the past year City CarShare has operated in partnership with Carma, a San Francisco software company. Mulligan is Carmas founder and CEO.

City CarShares 200 cars, about three-quarters of which are hybrids, are now being retrofitted with Getaround Connect, an electronic device which allows users to unlock and lock cars with a smartphone, as well as providing GPS tracking and antitheft features. And theyre being rebranded from Carmas orange logo to Getarounds purple.

City CarShare has about 20 employees. Some will continue with the nonprofit, some will move to Getaround and some will be laid off.

For Getaround, which has been renting out 2,000 vehicles in the Bay Area, adding the new ones and their prime parking spots increases its usefulness to customers. It has more 200,000 Bay Area members, with about half of them active.

This is a business which benefits from economies of scale, for everything from insurance costs to operations, Zaid said.

That was a reality that City CarShare ran up against.

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City CarShare was hampered due to lack of funding and inability to compete effectively, Mulligan said. It faced deep-pocketed, venture-backed rivals like Getaround, Zipcar and Turo, which like Getaround, arranges rentals of peoples personal cars. Trying to raise money as a nonprofit is incredibly difficult; its a major turnoff for most investors, he said. We realized the best way was in partnership with someone like Getaround. And we have great admiration for their community-based model.

How people get cars is changing. Car sharing, once the province of crunchy environmentalists, is becoming mainstream. Zipcar, the largest car-sharing company with 1 million members, is now owned by Avis Budget Group. Carmakers are setting up their own car sharing businesses, such as General Motors Maven, which recently started service in the Bay Area.

Many of the major carmakers are also looking to team up with startups to tap into changing mores. GM invested $500 million in Lyft early this year and also has invested in Turo. Toyota last month partnered with Getaround to make it easier for Toyota owners to rent their vehicles through Getaround and apply that revenue to their monthly lease payments.

We see a true long-term shift in how consumers will access transportation in the future, moving away from ownership toward access, Zaid said. We have an opportunity to help shape that future.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com
President-elect Donald Trumps repeated vow to overturn the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, combined with Republican control of Congress means that President Obamas signature health policy legislation is clearly in peril. But what will fill its place remains unclear.

In the hours after the results of the U.S. presidential race became clear, pharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks rose, while hospital and health insurance shares were volatile in the wake of uncertainty and the likelihood that at least parts of the federal health law could unravel.

For an industry that prefers stability to surprises  and one that has worked to adapt to the Affordable Care Act  Trumps repeal and replace agenda may create new uncertainty and opportunity for health care leaders, researchers wrote in a PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis of the implications of the elections for health care published Tuesday.

Even though Trump has been somewhat critical of high drug costs during the campaign, a Trump administration averts what would have probably been a far worse prospect for drugmakers  a Clinton presidency.

Rising prescription drug prices has been an issue that resonated, said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Republicans are much less likely to go after high drug prices than a Clinton administration would have.

Trump has endorsed allowing Medicare to negotiate for drug prices and importing medications from other countries  all positions opposed by the industry  but it remains uncertain whether any of those policies will come to pass.

Drugmaker Merck & Co.s stock rose more than 6 percent Wednesday, and Pfizer Inc. was up more than 7 percent.

We look forward to working with the new administration, as well as members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, to advance pragmatic solutions that enhance the private market, improve patient access to care and foster the development of innovative medicines, said Steve Ubl, chief executive officer of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, in a statement.

The uncertainly is even more stark for hospitals and some insurers. Shares of HCA Holdings, the countrys largest publicly traded hospital chain, fell nearly 11 percent while Tenet Healthcare Corp.s stock plummeted nearly 25 percent. Shares in Molina Healthcare, a Long Beach managed-care company focused on the Medicaid market, dropped more than 15 percent.

For insurers and hospitals, the health care industry has shifted their businesses significantly in response to the Affordable Care Act and their business plans are all of sudden very much in the air, Levitt said.

Despite the withdrawal of a few major insurers from some of the new marketplaces, some private insurers have benefited by gaining new customers because the law required them to have coverage. Hospitals have seen fewer uninsured patients due to the exchanges and the expansion of Medicaid in many states, including California.

The California Association of Health Plans, which represents the states health insurers, issued a brief statement saying the organization is committed to ensuring Californians have access to high quality, affordable health care.

The national trade group, Americas Health Insurance Plans, was equally brief, promising to work across the aisle  with every policymaker and the new administration  to find solutions that deliver affordable coverage and high-quality care for everyone.

California went full tilt into implementing the federal health law after it was signed in 2010, becoming the first state in the country to start setting up its health-coverage marketplace, Covered California.

By almost all accounts, the state has been considered one of the most successful, with some 1.4 million people enrolled in Covered California, and an expanded Medi-Cal program that added more than 3.4 million Californians since January 2014. Total enrollment exceeds 13 million.

Dr. Sandra Hernandez, the president and chief executive officer of the California Health Care Foundation in Oakland, said California needs to focus on what it has accomplished.

We built an entire infrastructure with clinics, hospitals, health plans  all doing tremendous amount of innovation even while providing expanding coverage, she said. We are a center of innovation ... and the innovative spirit of this state will not change from one administration to the next.

Until we know the specifics of those plans, Hernandez said, its really hard to know how that will play out.

Victoria Colliver is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vcolliver@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @vcolliver
On Monday, climate negotiators from around the world gathered in Marrakech, Morocco, to plan their next steps in the fight against global warming.

On Tuesday, American voters elected as president a man who has repeatedly called climate change a hoax.

A third of the people here are walking around like zombies, like the walking dead, not sure what to do, said UC Berkeley Professor Daniel Kammen, speaking from Morocco.

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to back out of last years landmark Paris climate accord  the same agreement the negotiators in Marrakech are trying to implement. He has pledged to scuttle President Obamas Clean Power Plan to cut carbon emissions from power plants, and he has promised to revive Americas flagging coal industry.

Trump has said hes against everything weve been making progress on, from the transition off of coal to being an international leader on climate, Kammen said.

The Republican Trumps surprise win over Democrat Hillary Clinton represents a potential U-turn in Americas climate and energy policies. And climate activists, whose mood Wednesday mixed anger with raw despair, fear that an already uphill fight to avert catastrophic warming has suddenly became far more difficult.

The planet is in danger, said Tom Steyer, the Bay Area billionaire who created a political organization, NextGen Climate, to mobilize young voters around global warming. If they in fact do what theyre talking about  get rid of the Clean Power Plan, withdraw from the Paris agreement, cut the EPA in half  that is absolutely contrary to what is best for the planet.

Some wondered Wednesday whether Trump might be open to persuasion, at least on supporting renewable power. The solar and wind industries, they noted, have been adding jobs in many of the states that backed Trump, such as Iowa and Texas.

What were going to hope is that, over time, this evidence is going to become clear to the incoming administration, said Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, a think tank focusing on economic and environmental issues. And even if you dont believe in climate change, its certainly smart to act on it.

But Trump has already placed on his transition team a noted doubter of climate science  Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute conservative think tank. Ebell will oversee the transition at the Environmental Protection Agency, which Trump has threatened to eliminate.

Trump is said to be considering an oil company CEO  Harold Hamm, of Continental Resources  to become his energy secretary. Hamm was Trumps top adviser on energy issues during the campaign.

The fossil fuel industries signaled Wednesday that they expect Trump to live up to his promises. He has called for making the United States the worlds leading producer of energy, by expanding drilling for oil and natural gas both onshore and off.

We look forward to working with President-elect Trumps administration to roll back many unlawful regulatory orders and to a federal government that is not beholden to the environmental lobby while ignoring the working class, the Western Energy Alliance, which represents oil and gas production companies, said in a press release.

The alliance then listed some of the policies it expects from Trump: reviving the Keystone XL pipeline extension, approving the Dakota Access pipeline and increasing drilling on federal land.

One of Trumps key campaign promises on energy  bringing back coal mining jobs  may not be feasible. While Trump and many Republicans blame Obamas climate policies for coals demise, most analysts say the fuel can no longer compete with natural gas, which costs less.

They can eliminate the Clean Power Plan, and they would still have to subsidize coal to keep those peoples jobs, said Amy Myers Jaffe, a longtime energy market expert at UC Davis.

While most countries remain committed to fighting climate change, the United States is the worlds second-largest producer of greenhouse gases, behind only China.

Climate scientists have already warned that the pledges made in last years climate accord almost certainly wont be able to limit warming in this century to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the goal of negotiators. Should Trump make good on his promise to pull out of the agreement, that goal would be thoroughly out of reach.

Activists and climate experts held out hope Wednesday that some of the progress made under Obama would survive.

Solar and wind power prices have plunged and are continuing to fall, making them competitive with the cost of electricity from fossil fuel plants in many parts of the country. And many large corporations, from Apple to Walmart, have pledged to ramp up their own use of renewable power. Trumps stance on solar and wind tax incentives is unclear.

There are plenty of places where solar is the best resource, or where wind is the best resource, like the Midwest, Jaffe said. There are places that went for Trump where wind is really important.

But activists also vowed to fight Trump should he move to gut climate regulations, even as they acknowledged his party will now control every branch of the federal government. And they urged him to reconsider.

President-elect Trump must choose whether he will be remembered for putting America back on the path to climate disaster, said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF
The Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, at least in its current form, is dead.

The landmark free trade agreement between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries was not only a key part of President Obamas legacy but a crucial tool to boost the U.S. economy and its standing in Asia. But given Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumps victory Tuesday, the prospects of congressional approval are zero.

Trump has vehemently opposed the deal, arguing that it did little to help American workers, a populist stance that ultimately helped him the White House. But he also said he wants to renegotiate the agreement, which lowers or eliminates tariffs between the United States and countries like Vietnam, Australia and Japan. But that will obviously take time.

Trump has made clear how he feels about the deal, said Wendy Cutler, the former acting deputy U.S. Trade Representative who served as a lead negotiator on the agreement. It will be sidelined. I hope over time that Trump will realize its benefits to our economy.

Trumps victory seems to be the latest sign of widespread global rejection of ... well, globalization. Earlier this year, Great Britain voted to leave the European Union. Long sought-after investment and trade treaties between America and China and America and Europe have stalled. Trump has also suggested he wants to ditch the 22-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

Despite Trumps fist-pounding, global trade and economic integration are realities that cant be undone, said Rene Buck, founder and president of Buck Consultants International, which is based in the Netherlands and just opened a San Francisco office.

You cannot switch that off, said Buck, who advises companies on international expansion.

For one thing, whether the United States likes it or not, more and more of the world economy depends on trade. From 1990 to 2014, the percentage of global gross domestic product that comes from international trade jumped from 39 percent to 60 percent, according to the World Bank.

Last year, nearly 30 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, came from trade, compared with just 16 percent in 1974, the World Bank said.

Buck notes that Trump did not say he is against all trade, just that he wants to make it fairer to the United States. Eventually, he says, the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership nations will renegotiate the deal with the Trump administration.

The United States still has the most powerful economy in the world, Buck said. You have to go back to the table.

Nevertheless, Buck does not expect the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership to resurface for at least two years, because Trump needs time to consolidate his authority and mollify supporters.

The real worry, though, is China. Trump has threatened to slap Chinese imports with a 45 percent tariff to punish China for allegedly manipulating its currency to make its goods cheaper than competitors.

While U.S. companies had initially moved to China to exploit its cheap labor, American businesses now see Chinas growing middle class as customers, not workers, according to Buck.

Stealing U.S. jobs is the old story, he said. The new story is that we want to go China because they want our products.

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Should Trump make good on his threat to tax Chinese goods, China will retaliate, straining an already tense relationship between the worlds two largest economies at a time of weak worldwide economic growth.

We should be under no illusion that China wont respond in kind, said Cutler, now managing director of the Asia Society Policy Institutes Washington office. We would start a trade war with the worlds second largest economy.

Cutler hopes that Trump will recognize that reality once he assumes office next year.

Its easy on the campaign trail to criticize the achievements of the previous administration, she said. But once youre in the White House, what seemed to be a black-and-white issue is now very complicated.

In the end, the United States needs international trade to grow the economy, said Cutler, noting that the vast majority of potential customers are outside of the country. Globalization is here to stay, she said. No one can stop it.

That wont stop President Trump from trying.

Thomas Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: tlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ByTomLee
Alan Perry, a retired newspaper truck driver for the old San Francisco Newspaper Agency and an active flea market entrepreneur, was dumpster-diving on Duboce Street about 25 years ago when he found a cache of illustrated letters from the late 1930s and 40s.

They were written by Leo Stillwell, a promising San Francisco artist who had solo shows of his classically minded pictures at the Legion of Honor and other California museums before he died at age 22 in 1948 from a hypertensive crisis. The recipient was his friend Russell Hartley, the longtime San Francisco Ballet dancer and designer who founded what became the San Francisco Performing Arts Library (now called the Museum of Performance + Design). He died in 1983.

Among other things, these effusive and sometimes quotidian letters  their envelopes adorned with cheeky pen-and-ink drawings, some of the pages featuring erotic nude sketches  express the bond between two gay teenage artists at a time when most homosexuals were still in the closet.

I found the art intriguing, says Perry, who kept the letters. He didnt learn until several years ago that the Duboce Triangle dumpster where hed found them stood in front of the house owned by Stillwells late mother, Josephine.

The year before she died in 1988, she gave all his art to San Francisco State University (which her son never attended) and also willed the house to the school  which sold it in 1989 for $250,000  to fund the 500-piece archive and the annual exhibition featuring some of Stillwells graceful paintings, drawings and watercolors.

Earlier this month, Perry and his wife, Francine, a retired teacher and Ballet patron who came to learn about Hartley and Stillwell and appreciate the value of these letters, donated the whole batch of 200 to San Francisco State, where some are on view in the 29th annual Stillwell Student Exhibition, along with various Stillwell satyrs, Degas-like dancers and randy centaurs.

It belongs there, in San Francisco, where Leo lived. They have everything else of his, says Perry, who was contacted by people from the universitys Fine Arts Gallery several years ago after one of the students working on that years Stillwell show found some of the letters online.

Theyd been posted by an artist friend of Perrys, whos gay, and who was taken by the voluminous and long-running correspondence, which Hartley presumably gave to Stillwells mother. The Perrys came to the show and met Mark Johnson, San Francisco State art professor and gallery director, whose students in his exhibition design class chose the letters and the images on view in a corner of the current student exhibition.

These letters give us a more complete picture of the artist, says Johnson, who describes Stillwell as a skilled draftsman, a self-taught realist whod copied Rembrandt paintings, absorbed elements of Cubism and Surrealism and was finding his voice. He produced a handful of extremely promising things, then died young, never having the opportunity to mature.

Taken as a whole, the letters  some of which include coded references and frank comments about matters of the flesh  provide a window into a kind of budding queer culture, if you will, notes Sharon Bliss, the gallerys associate director. They were young and comfortable writing these things to each other.

For more information, go to gallery.sfsu.edu.

Critical prize money

An august panel of classical music critics, among them the New Yorkers Alex Ross and The Chronicles Joshua Kosman , have chosen Lucy Caplan, a Ph.D. candidate at Yale, as the winner of the San Francisco Conservatory of Musics 2016 Stephen and Cynthia Rubin Institute Prize for Music Criticism. She gets $10,000.

Conservatory grad student John Masko, among the audience members the institute invited to critique a San Francisco Symphony performance, nabbed the $1,000 Everyones a Critic Audience Review Prize.

For more information, go to sfcm.edu.

Shoe world

Billed as the first U.S. museum show to focus on sneakers, Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture kicks off at the Oakland Museum on Dec. 22, with shoes from the 19th century to now, including loans from prominent sneaker freaks like hip-hoppers from Run-DMC and DJ, writer and dancer Bobbito Garcia.

The show was organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Bata Shoe Museum, the Toronto footwear institution whose collection includes French chestnut-crushing boots and bear fur samurai shoes.

For more information, go to http://museumca.org.

Jesse Hamlin is a Bay Area journalist and former San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
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For the U.S. Supreme Court, the election of Donald Trump means a return to the status quo of the last 44 years. At least for now.

The seat that a Republican Senate has kept vacant since the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in February will be filled by a nominee who, Trump has promised, will be cut from the same cloth as Scalia. He has released a list of 21 potential justices, screened by the conservative Federalist Society and Heritage Fund, and should have little difficulty winning confirmation from a Senate still controlled by Republicans.

But the only immediate result would be the restoration of a five-justice majority of Republican appointees that prevailed from 1972 until Scalias death. And although Trump said during the last campaign debate that his appointees would automatically overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, five members of the current court  the four Democratic appointees and Justice Anthony Kennedy, the most moderate of the Republicans  have voted in the past to uphold Roe.

The more momentous change would occur with the departure of one or more of the current justices. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who pointedly criticized Trump during the campaign, is 83 and has said shell stay as long as she can. Justice Stephen Breyer, another Democratic appointee, is 78, and Kennedy is 80.

Ginsburg made a gamble not resigning in the summer of 2014, when the Democrats still controlled the Senate and (President) Obama could have had anybody he wanted, said Erwin Chemerinsky, the law school dean at UC Irvine and a veteran Supreme Court litigator. Now its turned out to be a very dangerous gamble for things she most cared about.

One of those is the right to an abortion, which most likely would be repealed nationally and left for the states to decide under a court with two or more Trump appointees.

We need to fight for a Supreme Court that respects the law and its constitutional boundaries and ends its role as the National Abortion Control Board, Clarke Forsythe, president of Americans United for Life, said in a statement Wednesday.

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the nation stands perilously close to a return to the dark days when women were forced to put their own lives at risk to get an abortion.

A new court majority could deliver other victories long sought by conservatives, some on issues that Trump didnt emphasize during his campaign.

Same-sex marriage, legalized in 2015 in a 5-4 ruling written by Kennedy, would be vulnerable. Chemerinsky predicted a newly constituted court would outlaw affirmative action based on race, a step California took by ballot initiative in 1996.

Some of the remaining restrictions on the financing of political campaigns could be struck down as violations of free speech, along the lines of the 2010 Citizens United ruling that allowed unlimited corporate spending on campaign issues. A reconstituted court might be more sympathetic than the current court to challenges to the Affordable Care Act, Obamas signature health care law, which Trump also wants Congress to repeal.

One issue that could be affected sooner is guns. Trump vowed during the campaign to nominate justices favoring broader rights for gun owners, and his first appointee could make a difference when the next round of cases reaches the court.

A 5-4 decision by Scalia in 2008 established a constitutional right to have a handgun in the home for self-defense, but cautioned that the right was not unlimited  it did not apply to dangerous and unusual weapons, for example, or require the government to allow firearms in sensitive places, such as schools and government buildings.

Lower courts have disagreed on the meaning of that ruling, including the critical question of whether the right to bear arms applies outside the home. In June, a divided federal appeals court upheld a California law requiring a permit from a local law enforcement agency, based on a finding of good cause, to carry a handgun in public. Gun groups want the Supreme Court to review the case and may gain an ally in a Trump nominee.

One judge on Trumps list of prospects, Diane Sykes of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, wrote a 2011 ruling barring enforcement of Chicagos ban on firing ranges. Another, Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid, wrote a 2012 decision striking down a ban on carrying guns at the University of Colorado.

Judge William Pryor of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, also on Trumps list, has described Roe vs. Wade as the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law and also referred to the 1966 Miranda ruling, which required police to warn suspects of their right to remain silent, as one of the worst examples of judicial activism.

Overall, said the liberal Chemerinsky, Trumps candidates are highly qualified and very conservative.

The new president will also nominate judges to fill the growing number of vacancies on lower federal courts, a consequence of Senate Republicans unwillingness to confirm Obama nominees. One of those is Lucy Koh, a federal judge in San Jose, whose nomination to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February has not yet received a Senate vote and is unlikely to get one before Obama leaves office.

Impending retirements will leave four vacancies on the 29-judge Ninth Circuit by Jan.1, creating a judicial emergency because of the courts huge backlog, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor.

Most of the pending federal court nominations were recommended by Republican senators, Tobias said. Theres no reason not to move on those (before January) but well see.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
The Cold Wars most prominent symbol came down, piece by piece.

The Chronicles front page from Nov. 10, 1989, covers East Germanys opening of its borders and the crumbling of the Berlin Wall.

East Germany declared the end of restrictions on emigration or travel to the West yesterday, and within hours, thousands of East Germans swarmed across the Berlin Wall in a mass celebration of their newly won freedom, the story read.

Acknowledging a swelling flight along circuitous routes through Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, the East German leadership announced that permission to travel or emigrate henceforth will be granted quickly and without conditions.

For 28 years the wall divided the communist-controlled east with the democratically governed west. Families were separated. Lives were lost. But in the end, Germany was again united.

Berlin  This great and long-divided city held a wild street party this morning, a second story read, and thousands of West Berliners chanted and cheered as friends and relatives crossed the Berlin Wall into the west side for the first time.

Less than a year later, East Germany and West Germany would no longer exist as separate nations.

See more front pages: Go to SFChronicle.com/covers to search a database of hundreds of Chronicle Covers articles that showcase the newspapers history.

Chronicle Covers highlights one classic Chronicle newspaper page from our archive every day for 366 days. Library director Bill Van Niekerken and producers Kimberly Chua, Michelle Devera and Jillian Sullivan contributed to the project. Tim ORourke is the executive producer and editor of SFChronicle.com. Email: torourke@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TimothyORourke

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Now that a Democratic candidate appears to have once again accomplished the bizarre feat of winning the popular vote for president while losing the election, the screams for getting rid of the Electoral College are returning.

Dont hold your breath.

Constitutional scholars and historical precedent say the chances of eliminating the system that actually selects the president  as opposed to voters themselves  are about the same as Donald Trump taking up residence in a double-wide trailer on a dirt lot.

The nations founders set up the Electoral College more than two centuries ago to make sure the tiniest states wouldnt be big-footed in elections by more populous ones, and periodic calls for its elimination have always failed. Calls surged in 2000 when George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore but won the Electoral College, and a 1969 resolution to amend the college passed the House but lost in the Senate.

The biggest stopper is this: Getting rid of the college, which is mandated by Article 2 of the Constitution, would require a constitutional amendment  which needs two-thirds approval from Congress and the support of three-fourths of state legislatures.

And that, scholars point out, is a no-go proposal. Thats particularly true among Republicans right now, considering Bushs victory and now Trumps election triumph, despite a popular vote that as of Wednesday had Hillary Clinton ahead nationwide by about 200,000 votes  47.7 percent to 47.5 percent. Why would the GOP, which controls Congress, want to mess with a winning streak?

Until the Bush-Gore election, no popular-vote loser had ended up president since the late 19th century, when Benjamin Harrison and Rutherford B. Hayes did it. No changes resulted from those wins, either.

The Electoral College was put into place by the founding fathers to be an actual buffer, said Phil Wallach, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C. They were not of the opinion that the general public should be in the position of picking a president. They were worried about a demagogue.

That may seem ironic to those who have accused Trump of being just that throughout this years campaign. But Wallach said the system still does what it was intended to do  it lets little states speak louder than their numbers.

Each state is allowed to select as many electors as it has federal legislators, meaning California gets 55 because it has 53 House representatives and two senators, while Wyoming gets three because it has one representative and two senators.

The electors are the ones who, after being selected by their political parties and then ratified in the general election vote, pick the president in December. And they are not bound to vote for the candidate who wins their state, though 99 percent of the time they have done so, according to the National Archives and Records Administration.

What makes the Electoral College so unfair to some is the math.

In California, for example, 19.4 million registered voters decide the fate of the 55 electoral votes. Thats the equivalent of 2.8 millionths of an electoral vote per voter.

By contrast in Wyoming, 234,000 registered voters decide the fate of three electoral votes. Thats the equivalent of 12.8 millionths of an electoral vote per voter.

In other words, a vote for president cast in Wyoming carries more than four times as much weight as a vote cast in California.

Youll probably see renewed interest by Democrats in reforming the system, but Id say its a safe bet that Republicans wont go for that, Wallach said. Its one of those issues where its almost impossible to step back and approach it without being tangled up in which side would be more advantaged ... and I actually dont think that, in an absolute sense, it gives one party a giant advantage over the other.

Liberals around the nation are already vehemently disagreeing with that. On Wednesday, filmmaker Michael Moore called the Electoral College an arcane, insane, 18th century idea.

Until we change that, well continue to have presidents we didnt elect and didnt want, Moore wrote in an essay posted on Alternet.

Chris Lehane, a political consultant who worked on the Gore campaign in 2000, said having the popular-vote loser in the White House contributes to a degradation of trust within our democracy. And our democracy requires the trust of the people to succeed.

The Electoral College was originally put in place to help guard against the majority imposing their will on the minority  big states over smaller states, Lehane said. But what is now happening is that people in small states have in effect more votes in determining who runs the federal government.

Pulitzer Prize-winning constitutional history Professor Jack Rakove of Stanford University also thinks its time to chuck the system and instead have a simple popular vote for president.

The Electoral College violates the basic principle of one-person, one-vote. ... Its a distorting mechanism, much the way Senate seats are, Rakove said. Its a general civic conscience argument. The whole country should be engaged, and that engagement should be felt equally by citizens all across the country. Thats not really happening right now.

But chances of his wish coming to fruition? Not good. That required constitutional amendment, he said, is a tough hurdle.

Chronicle staff writer Steve Rubenstein contributed to this report.

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com
WASHINGTON  The question absorbing Washington on the day after the most shocking upset in recent presidential election history is what Donald Trump can do as president.

A hallmark of Trumps campaign was a policy agenda that was long on grand, vague promises and short on details. Many of his prescriptions seemed to presume an executive authority unbridled by constitutional constraint, legislative prerogative, judicial rulings or even practical considerations.

A brief sampling includes repealing the Affordable Care Act, reversing carbon dioxide limits on power plants and slapping tariffs on companies that move factories overseas.

Trumps plan to rebuild the nations infrastructure tracks closely with one of former rival Hillary Clintons biggest proposals and was quickly adopted Wednesday by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, as an area of potential cooperation.

As President-elect Trump indicated last night, investing in infrastructure is an important priority of his, Pelosi said in a statement. We can work together to quickly pass a robust infrastructure jobs bill.

Trump will assume the presidency with the awesome power of unitary Republican control of all three branches of the federal government, bolstered by the fact that the GOPs Senate and House majorities are due in part to his stunning redrawing of the electoral map. He had coattails.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who publicly agonized over endorsing Trump during the general election campaign, declared Wednesday that Trump had earned a mandate to implement his agenda.

Not so fast, said Californias four-term Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She noted in a telephone interview that Clinton won the popular vote Tuesday, leaving the country anything but united.

Trumps promises include reversing President Obamas executive actions. That he can do, Feinstein said.

One of these is a policy  known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA  that allows children who entered the country without authorization to remain in the U.S.

Is he going to come in and begin arresting people all over this country who are working in agriculture, who have minor children, or couples where one spouse is an American? Feinstein asked. I dont know.

The question comes, how does he do it? Feinstein said. What kind of changes does he make? Who does he consult? When you get down to the nitty-gritty of making the change, thats the tough part. Its easy to say within the first 100 days I will strike down X and Y and Z. Its another thing as to what happens after that.

An array of liberal interest groups across the policy spectrum vowed Wednesday to wage trench warfare, in the courts and in Congress, if Trump attempts to reverse their gains. Environmental leaders said they would apply opposition tactics honed during the George W. Bush administration and former House Speaker Newt Gingrichs reign. They said they believed Senate Democrats and a few Republicans would use the filibuster as a firewall to block efforts to roll back environmental law.

Here are some of Trumps most prominent proposals:

Repeal Obamacare. Trump is in sync here with congressional Republicans, who have voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act some 60 times since it became law in 2010. But it will be politically difficult to deprive the 20 million people now covered under the law, not to mention eliminating its most popular provisions. Among them are a ban on insurance companies denying policies to people with pre-existing conditions and insurance subsidies for people not covered by employers. Trumps plan to send Medicaid money to the states as a lump sum would end the programs open-ended funding and potentially lead to millions of poor people losing access to health care.

Reverse President Obamas Clean Power Plan rule to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. Trump could have plenty of help from congressional Republicans strongly opposed to both policies and would staff the Environmental Protection Agency, assuming he doesnt try to eliminate the agency, with those who oppose regulating carbon emissions. I think we have a fight on our hands, said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, who strongly backs action against climate change.

Reinstate waterboarding and other forms of torture for suspected terrorists. Feinstein said legislation she co-authored with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a Vietnam veteran who suffered torture, explicitly forbids torture in the Army field manual. I will fight him every step of the way on torture, Feinstein said.

Banning Muslim immigration or immigration from nations that harbor terrorists. The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act allows the president to suspend, indefinitely, immigration by any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States (who) would be detrimental to the interests of the United States. But imposing a religious test on immigrants, as Trump has suggested he would do, would run immediately into constitutional problems. The American Civil Liberties Union said that Trump would have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at every step of this and similar proposals.

Deport the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country without authorization. Trump backed away from this plan late in the campaign, issuing a proposal for mandatory two-year prison terms for those who enter the U.S. illegally after a previous deportation, increasing penalties for those who overstay visas and requiring employers to offer jobs to citizens first. He would have strong backing for such measures from congressional Republicans.

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead
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San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee won a muted victory Tuesday when voters defeated four ballot measures that would have stripped him of some key powers, but that win arguably came at the expense of a sales tax that would have generated millions of dollars for transportation and homeless services.

Lee successfully staved off a challenge to his personal power but now is left to figure out how to fund two of the most important priorities of his administration.

A coalition of progressives, moderates and the mayor spent months cobbling together a deal to get Proposition K, a three-quarter-cent sales tax increase, on the ballot. It would have generated $101.6 million per year for transit improvements and $50 million per year for homeless services. But in the end, the politicians did little campaigning or fundraising to ensure that the tax passed, and the voters rejected it overwhelmingly.

Lee prioritized defeating Propositions D, H, L and M. Progressive supervisors described them as good-government proposals. Lee viewed them as a naked power grab.

Prop. D would have required special elections to fill vacancies on the Board of Supervisors instead of allowing Lee to fill them. Prop. H would have created an office of public advocate. Prop. L would have allowed the supervisors to make three appointments to the Municipal Transportation Agencys seven-member board  Lee now appoints the entire board. Prop. M would have created a housing commission to oversee the Mayors Office of Housing.

With Lees help, the No on D, H, L and M campaign raised and spent more than $2.2 million, about 10 times as much as was spent to support them. While election results arent yet final, all four are trailing.

Jason McDaniel, assistant professor of political science at San Francisco State University, said defeating those measures is a good sign for the mayor, who has for the last year had low approval ratings and been generally viewed as weak.

I think its quite a bit of a comeback for the mayor, McDaniel said. He is not at such a low point as the progressives thought.

But the failure of Prop. K will make it much harder to address the citys stressed transportation system and homeless crisis.

The entire political leadership on both sides takes some blame on this, McDaniel said. If there were fewer measures on the ballot the (politicians) could have concentrated their resources on Prop. K, and there is good reason to think it would have passed.

Like Lee, the other architects of Prop. K  Supervisors John Avalos, Scott Wiener and Mark Farrell  had their energies focused elsewhere.

Avalos priority was Prop. D and Prop. F, to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections. Wiener was busy running for state Senate. Farrell devoted nearly all his efforts to passing Proposition Q, a measure that would give city officials more authority to clear tent encampments, provided there is a place to house them. It was leading 53 to 47 percent.

Farrell helped raise more than $733,000 for Prop. Q and appeared in television ads to support it. While the Board of Supervisors could have voted on the tent-encampment measure legislatively, Farrell said he felt compelled to put it before voters because the progressive supervisors would have rejected it.

Supporters of the sales tax, which required voter approval, raised about $350,000.

Moderates and progressives each blamed the other side for Prop. Ks failure.

Farrell said the measure was doomed from the start because three progressive supervisors opposed the sales tax  they criticized it for being regressive.

The fact of the matter is that the progressive left wing of the Board of Supervisors did not support ... Proposition K, and any blame should be squarely on their feet, he said.

Avalos countered that the moderates were to blame. He said that the mayor was too focused on defeating Props. D, H, L and M, and that moderates spent too much time talking about how to crack down on tent camps instead of helping homeless people.

There was more of an effort by the political establishment to maintain the political status quo than to work for the good of the city, Avalos said. To me it was a case of misplaced priorities.

Tony Winnicker, a senior adviser to Lee who took a leave from the administration to campaign against D, H, L and M, criticized the progressives. Loading up the ballot with political vendettas was more important than working together to fund transportation and homeless priorities, he said.

But Winnicker said moderates and progressives alike asked too much of voters by putting so many measures on the ballot, which contributed to the defeat of the sales tax.

If there is a lesson for the future, its that we need to work together to really focus on what our priorities are.

Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @emilytgreen
Every time I go to Press in St. Helena, I gasp when I see that a 14-ounce rib eye costs $57 and the same-size New York strip is $62. I understand that steak houses almost always push the price envelope, but its a visceral reaction.

That reaction is intensified when the sauces such as chimichurri, horseradish cream or au poivre add $3 or $4 more. Psychologically it feels like gouging, whether justified or not, and launches the experience on a negative. Raising the steak prices a couple of dollars and including the choice of sauces would probably mitigate that feeling.

When Trevor Kunk came aboard in 2014, those initial feelings were quelled by the complex simplicity of the food. While that phrase may seem contradictory, just about all memorable combinations embody that dichotomy, and if something is really good, higher prices seem more justified.

Kunk left this summer and was replaced by Sharon Li, who had been in the Press kitchen for nearly two years. The menu is much the same, and some produce items come from owner Leslie Rudds farm.

The market salad and appetizer menu category is mostly made up of such things as a Bibb lettuce salad with radishes in a shallot-sherry vinaigrette ($15), and chopped salad with bacon, apples and avocado ($17).

I was curious about the Rudd Farms kabocha squash soup ($18) with rings of yogurt and an off-center garnish of chopped wild boar bacon, hazelnuts and sage. The small portion of thick orange broth seemed skimpy, barely covering the bottom of the soup plate. The sweetness of the vegetable was balanced by acid, but the effect wasnt quite good enough to erase the nagging feeling that it was overpriced. The same could be said for the roasted and pickled cauliflower ($19) appetizer, assembled over raisin-caper puree with candied walnuts.

However, the New York strip was as good as it was in my memory, and it really didnt need any sauce. The thick chunk of meat had a blackened exterior infused with smoke from almond and cherry wood, which contrasted with the white flecks of coarsely ground salt. The steak was plated with a small pile of mixed greens that were underdressed and limp.

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Sides, as is typical at most steak houses, are extra. Options include Rudd Farm broccoli ($14), which was simply presented with a dusting of Parmesan cheese and herbs, and a generous bowl of Kennebec fries ($12) served with aioli and ketchup.

While steaks are obviously the focus  whether its a 10-ounce hanger ($44) or an 8-ounce filet mignon ($50)  diners can also choose from seven other main courses, such as a 12-ounce Berkshire pork chop ($35), a vegetarian pasta ($29) and grilled salmon ($42) with maitake mushroom dashi, bok choy and turnips.

The best deal on the menu is the whole organic free-range chicken for two, which is $57. On a previous visit, the waiter announced that he could serve a half portion, but we had no such luck on this visit. Instead, we went for the cassoulet ($39) with a confit chicken thigh, a fat link of beef sausage and an egg with a gelatinous yolk, all nested on a bed of yellow-eye beans. The cassoulet tasted as if it were assembled rather than cooked together, so it was missing that rich amalgamation of flavors typical of this classic dish.

I also had fond memories of the four-layer chocolate cake ($13), which alternated between rich, slightly bitter fondant and moist cake. This time, the crumb was slightly dry. The other dessert options include a lemon curd mousse ($12), chocolate souffle for two with vanilla ice cream ($18), and a bourbon fig cake with a dense pool of cheesecake mousse and pickled walnuts.

Aside from the food, visitors should seek out this restaurant for the wine list, which features more Napa Cabernet Sauvignon bottles than just about any other place in the world. Nearly every table had oversize stem glasses filled with wine, because the beef-heavy menu is a perfect fit for the famed wines of the Napa Valley.

The allure of the restaurant is solidified by excellent service, and one of the most beautiful dining rooms in the area, featuring a refined-barn-like interior with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the St. Helena Highway and mountains. With its massive fireplace and comfortable leather chairs and banquettes, the atmosphere goes a long way to justify the price.

However, the food, while very good, lacks that subtle flair that ensures that prices fade into the background.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Michael Bauer is The San Francisco Chronicles restaurant critic and editor at large. Email: mbauer@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michaelbauer1

  

Press

Food:   

Service:   

Atmosphere:    

Price: $$$$

Noise: Four Bells
The San Francisco Art Institute named Gordon Knox its president in a message to students on Thursday, Nov. 10. Knox, 61, comes to SFAI from Arizona State University, where he has been director of the campus art museum since 2010.

I am a big advocate of the Art Institute. My sister went there, and I have a real recognition of the profound cultural role that the institution has played in the formation of what is San Francisco, Knox said by phone before catching a flight back to Phoenix. It has to do with the creative culture that this city is the profound generator of, and at the heart of that culture is the Art Institute.

Knox will start Jan. 23 and replaces Charles Desmarais, who left SFAI in 2015 to become the art critic for The Chronicle. The search for his replacement took more than a year, by a committee that vetted some 400 potential candidates, according to board chairman Chris Tellis.

Art schools are supposed to be a place of inspiration and joy, Tellis said, and Gordon has the creativity and vision to be able to lead that kind of institution.

Before his job in Arizona, Knox held Bay Area jobs as the director of the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga and director of global initiatives at the Stanford Humanities Lab.

The son of a U.S. diplomat, Knox grew up around the world and across the country, coming to California to attend UC Santa Cruz, where he earned his bachelors in social anthropology in 1977. Since 2002, he has lived in Bernal Heights. His wife and daughter stayed behind while he commuted to Tempe, and the timing is just right for his return, according to Tellis.

We are in the midst of the most interesting year in the history of the Art Institute, said Tellis, who attributes that to the modern art renaissance in San Francisco in general, and the upcoming opening of a new $19 million SFAI graduate school campus in Fort Mason specifically.

When that campus opens next fall, it will return grad students from temporary quarters in Dogpatch to a permanent home nearer to the main campus on Chestnut Street, where Russian Hill slopes down to North Beach.

Founded in 1871, SFAI is one of the oldest academic institutions of higher learning dedicated to the study of contemporary art in the country. It is one of only two institutions that focus solely on fine art. Aspiring commercial artists need not apply.

Enrollment is down this year, from about 700 students to between 500 and 600, after meeting or exceeding goals for seven consecutive years. But that is to be expected in any institution without a leader, said Tellis, who expects it to rebound with the arrival of Knox.

The most significant aspect to me is that Gordon has left every institution better than he found it, Tellis said.

Knox said the biggest challenge ahead of him is to rejuvenate student, faculty and staff culture around the core values of fearless disruptive thinking and sublime communication.

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Instagram: @sfchronicle_art
Thousands of people took to the streets of San Francisco and Oakland on Wednesday night to protest Donald Trumps election to the presidency, joining Americans in other U.S. cities who vented their frustration with Tuesdays race results at a string of swiftly organized rallies.

A gathering of a few hundred at San Franciscos Powell and Market streets quickly swelled to several thousand as a sea of demonstrators emerged downtown before veering toward the Mission District with signs reading Stop Trump and Impeach. The crowd roared with such slogans as People united will never be divided, in reference to the Republicans divisive comments  often construed as sexist and racist  during the heated campaign.

While Californians cast nearly twice as many votes for Democrat Hillary Clinton as the billionaire developer and reality star, the states 55 electoral votes were not enough to derail Trumps unexpected path to victory.

San Francisco resident Kevin Wiggins, 24, who marched down Market Street, said the prospect of a Trump presidency is especially troubling because of his apparent lack of concern about police brutality.

I dont want to see what hes going to do to the country, especially people of color, said Wiggins, who is black.

As the marchers ventured into the Mission District, a couple of college students and friends zeroed in on the issue of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the national debate over oil and harmful fossil fuel emissions.

With Trump pledging to drop a number of federal environmental protections, such as restrictions on fracking enacted under the Obama administration, Foothill Community College student Aaron Grulich of Redwood City said he is worried about the regulation unraveling.

We dont know whats going to happen, but we anticipate its going to carry forward, and it could get worse. Who knows? he said.

Scores of police officers, many in riot gear, helped divert traffic around the San Francisco march, which, after causing congestion along Market, triggered minor backups in parts of the Mission District. No major problems were immediately reported.

In Oakland, police issued an order for protestors downtown to disperse around 8 p.m. after a rally at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza morphed into a march of several thousand people on Broadway and surrounding streets. There were minor scuffles between officers and protestors, and reports of tear gas being deployed by police. The reports were not confirmed. As the evening wore on, some demonstrators were seen lighting small fires and smashing windows of businesses.

During demonstrations earlier Wednesday, immediately following the election verdict, a 20-year-old woman was struck by an sport utility vehicle and seriously injured as she and a couple hundred people spilled onto Highway 24 near Telegraph Avenue along the Oakland-Berkeley border.

The days protests, which included a smaller event on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, followed calls on social media, often with the hashtag #NotMyPresident, beckoning those averse to Trumps presidential agenda and unhappy with what they see as his record of bigotry. At each of the events, passersby joined in.

I need to feel community and connection and a safe space to express our rage, said Oakland resident Gala King, 39, who brought one of her two sons to the peaceful rally at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza.

Like many, King said that her family was shocked that a candidate with plans to build a wall on the Mexican border and put checks on Muslims was elected to the nations highest office.

My son keeps asking me, Did he really win? How could someone so mean be president? she said. Its really hard to explain how its possible.

Oscar Vivanco, 42, brought his 4-year-old son, Coltrane, who suffers from a rare brain condition and uses a wheelchair, to the Oakland demonstration. He fears his family could lose health benefits that came during the Obama administration as Trump has vowed to eliminate the presidents signature Affordable Care Act.

We dont know what to expect, what will be taken away that weve taken for granted, Vivanco said.

Many at the Oakland protest, which was co-hosted by groups Socialist Alternative and Anti-Police Terror Project, said the Democratic Party deserved some of the blame for the Trump presidency. They said the party failed to offer a candidate outside the status quo who could connect with Americans. Several had supported populist candidate Bernie Sanders in the primary.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf issued a statement earlier in the day encouraging residents to channel their frustrations into volunteer work promoting social justice.

I ask Oaklanders to not just get mad, get involved, she said.

On Wednesday afternoon, students at several Bay Area high schools, including Oaklands Technical and Bishop ODowd and Berkeley High, walked out of class in protest of Trumps win.

Demonstrators angry about the presidential race also marched in several cities across the nation, including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle.

Clinton, in her concession speech early Wednesday, asked her supporters to accept the election results and give Trump a shot.

We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead, she said.

J.K. Dineen contributed to this report.

Kimberly Veklerov, Michael Bodley, Jenna Lyons and Kurtis Alexander are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com, mbodley@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchronicle.com, kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KVeklerov, @michael_bodley @JennaJourno @kurtisalexander
The hippie dancing amid billowing clouds of pot smoke was noticeably absent Wednesday despite the landmark decision by California and three other states to legalize adults recreational use of marijuana.

Thats because the cannabis cognoscenti were already confronting the many regulatory hurdles that must be cleared before Proposition 64 becomes reality.

The Adult Use of Marijuana Act was approved 56 to 44 percent Tuesday, vaulting California into a leading role in a national cannabis experiment. It means the state will spend the next year setting up a regulatory system for recreational pot, with a 15 percent excise tax on retail sales.

We have begun the process, (but) legalization is not an act that occurs on election day. It is a process that unfolds, said Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who fought hard for the measure. This is, I think, the beginning of the end of the war on marijuana in the United States, not just in California.

The pot-smoking public wasnt willing to wait. Callers swamped local dispensaries Wednesday with inquiries, only to learn that they still cannot legally buy the herb if they dont require it as medicine. Thats because the regulations, including the excise tax, do not go into effect until Jan. 1, 2018.

Ive gotten several dozen phone calls from people who want to know whether they can come in and buy cannabis, said Steve DeAngelo, executive director of the Harborside Oakland medical dispensary, which designated two workers just to take the calls. Some folks are even showing up, and its kind of heartbreaking to have to turn them away.

Richard Miadich, the lawyer who wrote Prop. 64, said the new state Bureau of Marijuana Control can issue temporary licenses for sales, cultivation and manufacture of recreational weed, but dispensaries must first obtain local approval.

With the measures passage, it is now legal for people 21 and older to carry up to an ounce of pot and grow up to six plants. Smoking in public remains illegal. People who have been convicted of marijuana offenses that are no longer illegal can now go to court and apply to have the crimes removed from their records.

But other than that, little will change until the Legislature takes up the matter.

Our next step is to convince the Legislature to allow medical cannabis dispensaries to serve adult-use clients, DeAngelo said. He has applied for a local permit to sell recreational weed and is confident that state lawmakers will take up the matter in two or three months.

Whats certain is that there is a clear mandate. In 2010, the last time Californians voted on a measure to legalize recreational marijuana, the initiative lost by seven percentage points. Prop. 64s victory was also significant in that voters in the Emerald Triangle growing region  Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino counties  approved it. All three counties rejected the 2010 measure.

Prop. 64 passed in the Bay Area, Sacramento County, the Central Coast and most of Southern California. San Francisco was the most enthusiastic, with 73.7 percent voting in favor.

The enthusiasm for marijuana has apparently spread nationwide, as eight of nine ballot measures related to marijuana passed. Measures legalizing recreational use by adults also were approved in Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada. Arizona was the only state to vote down adult use of pot.

Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia have already legalized recreational use.

What we are seeing is a demographic shift, said Robert MacCoun, a Stanford University law professor, social psychologist and drug policy expert. California is such an enormous state that this will significantly expand the size of the legal marijuana industry. The train has left the station, at least for California, and now other states will have to make their own decisions about what to do.

Marijuana is still illegal on the federal level, and there is a great deal of concern among advocates about what President-elect Donald Trump will do.

Hes been very clear he has the same position as Hillary Clinton: Let the states decide, said Troy Dayton, CEO of the marijuana angel investment network the ArcView Group.

Im cautiously optimistic, said Erich Pearson, head of SparcSF, San Franciscos largest cannabis dispensary, who is closely analyzing the law, researching business software and looking into bank financing in preparation for the transformation into retail.

The Republicans dont like taxes, and I dont see why they would have a problem with us putting money in the bank, Pearson said. Donald Trump wants to be on the side of the people, and public sentiment toward marijuana is sky high.

Dayton said he was a little surprised how quickly the prohibition repeal is spreading. I couldnt have imagined that on one night so many states would pass legalization measures, he said.

Peter Fimrite and David Downs are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, ddowns@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite, @davidrdowns
Anti-Trump demonstrators spilled onto the streets of downtown Oakland on Thursday night, meeting resistance from police who sought to prevent protesters from stopping freeway traffic and vandalizing downtown businesses as theyd done the night before.

Large crowds from a peaceful rally at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza that ended around 8 p.m. tried to make their way down Broadway, where on Wednesday some lit street fires, smashed windows and sprayed graffiti.

Officers in riot gear stood firm across sections of Broadway, trying to limit the crowds access to the citys central strip of businesses. Splinter groups made their way along other downtown streets and managed to emerge on parts of Broadway where minor vandalism was reported.

Many demonstrators headed north up Telegraph Avenue, where several attempted to get on Interstate 580 around 10 p.m. to block cars. But long lines of police appeared to succeed in keeping traffic mostly flowing. At least two demonstrators who cut through a fence and ran onto the freeway, causing a brief hangup, were arrested.

By 11 p.m., the bulk of the protestors had returned to Frank H. Ogawa Plaza where they resumed chants against Trump and the Oakland Police Department. They numbered a few hundred, down from about 1,000 who attended the initial rally.

Several incidents of graffiti, much of promoting violence and offering such plugs as Kill Trump, were reported. Many small street fires were set and a handful of windows were smashed. The crimes, though, did not initially appear to be as widespread as the night before.

At least a half dozen arrests were made.

Police staffing was increased on both sides of the bay after frustration with Tuesdays election outcome prompted thousands to take to the streets in both Oakland and San Francisco on Wednesday.

Before the Oakland rally near City Hall ended and the crowd of about 1,000 spread out, speakers shared their concerns about what they saw as Donald Trumps racism and sexism as well as the broader issue of police brutality while supporters looked on.

I thought about what people around the world must think about what weve done, said Berkeley resident James George, referring to Trumps election. I think if they see protests, theyll know that not all Americans think that way.

While the real estate mogul and reality star soundly defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, many in the Bay Area and across the country remained concerned about the Republicans agenda, notably his campaign pledges to keep out immigrants, do away with the Affordable Care Act and appoint conservative judges to the courts.

The different branches of government are all going to be controlled by the right, said El Sobrante resident Christopher Ray, 31, who also gathered at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. That is scary for passing any sort of liberal legislation.

In San Francisco, where protests on Wednesday similarly drew thousands of people but remained more peaceful, a small rally began at 6 p.m. at the Embarcadero. About 50 protesters marched on the sidewalk along Market Street to Fourth Street, and back again, chanting such slogans as Not my president and Putin and Trump, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

Its sad we have someone so hateful for president, said Jessie Sharp of San Francisco. Ive had a terrible few days. Im not sleeping. Its just been awful.

Many demonstrations, from high school walkouts to student protests at San Francisco City Hall, took place Thursday morning and continued into the afternoon. Traffic backups were reported at various points, following police advisories Wednesday evening for commuters to avoid downtown areas.

Emilia Mckiley, a senior at Mission High School who had been marching in the streets near the school since 9 a.m., said she and others would be out until they were too tired to walk.

People are going to go home and come back, she said.

Police from across the Bay Area have been brought in to assist local agencies during the rallies, especially in Oakland.

The department has increased our staffing and aligned resources to facilitate a peaceful march, said Oakland Police Department spokesman Joe Wolfcale earlier Thursday. We are committed to upholding the constitutional right to free speech and peaceful assembly, while enforcing all laws against violent acts, vandalism, trespassing or other criminal activity.

Oakland officials pleaded with demonstrators to remain peaceful Thursday after the previous nights violence. Three police officers were injured in skirmishes with protesters and a student journalist from UC Berkeley said he was attacked by four masked men as he tried to photograph the looting and vandalism. He was taken to an emergency room with a fractured cheekbone and abrasions.

Thirty people were arrested for the suspected crimes of vandalism, assault on an officer, failure to disperse, unlawful assembly and possession of a firearm, according to police.

In a letter to Oakland business owners, Mayor Libby Schaaf apologized, explaining why it seems our police department cannot stop the anarchists who invade peaceful demonstrations.

When (police) step in to stop an act of vandalism while it is happening, they become the new focal point for the crowds which can lead to an escalation of violence, not a decrease in the vandalism, Schaaf said in the letter.

On Thursday afternoon, residents and business owners, who were still cleaning up after Wednesdays events, were preparing for more destruction Thursday. Many glass doors and windows on storefronts were covered with plywood.

Sameer Arahimi, who owns the franchise for the MetroPCS store at Broadway and Ninth Street not far from Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, remembered the unruly protests two years ago that sprung from the Black Lives Matter movement and feared similar destruction.

I hope that nothing goes wrong, he said, referring to Thursday nights planned activities. Its possible that protesters are mad and they take it out on every business they see.

In recent years, the MetroPCS store has installed security cameras and a metal retractable fence at the entrance to prevent looters from breaking in.

Were just a family-owned operation trying to make a living, Arahimi said.

Chronicle staff writers Evan Sernoffsky and Sarah Ravani contributed to this report.
Hundreds of students from at least ten San Francisco public schools walked out of classes Thursday morning and clogged Market Street to protest the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

Chanting Not my president! the students left schools around the city, including Mission and Washington High Schools, and congregated on the steps of San Francisco City Hall before marching down Market Street to the Ferry Building, blocking traffic in both directions.

"We are protesting because we wanna stand up for our rights and we deserve to be heard, said Pamela Campos, 18, a student at John OConnell High School. Donald Trump is just racist. He's attacking all the immigrants, all the Muslims. I saw all my classmates crying yesterday.

After reaching the Ferry Building around 11 a.m., groups of students splintered off onto nearby streets, some taking the protest up and down the Embarcadero and over to Fishermans Wharf. Just after noon, several hundred students marched on Van Ness Avenue, disrupting traffic, while a small group headed in the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The protest mirrored demonstrations across the Bay Area that included student walkouts Thursday in Napa, Concord and Hayward.

The impromptu protests, hastily arranged on social media, came a day after thousands of high school students in Berkeley, Oakland and at other East Bay schools walked out of classes to express their outrage over Trumps election. Similar protest were held by students across the nation, including Seattle, Pittsburgh and Portland, Ore.

Myong Leigh, the interim superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District, said students from 10 schools were participating in the demonstration.

In our hearts, we are supporting the students, said Leigh said. This is technically not a school district or a school sponsored activity. This is students taking their feelings and emotions and channeling them in a way that feels right to them.

Jeniffer Alberto, 17, a student at Mission High School, said Trump stood for all their wrong things.

"We are protesting because we don't want Donald trump to be president. We hate him, Alberto said. We want all Latinos to stay here. We don't want African Americans, Latino, and Muslims to be out of America. We are not moving out. We are making a change."

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
Nancy Charraga/Casa Bonampak

For many San Francisco voters, the surprising election of Donald Trump has cast a pall (or, alternatively, a "fat, turgid shadow") over the post-election dawn. And by many voters, we mean the 228,211, or roughly 84.3%, who voted for Hillary Clinton. (This is per the Department of Elections' numbers, which are still unofficial as of 2am this morning, with some provisional and mail-in ballots still to be counted.)

But though it's easy to think of traditionally red states and swing state surprises as the source of Trump's victory (they were), it should be noted that not all Trump supporters hail from far-off states. Here in liberal San Francisco, Trump took home 9.78% of the vote, with 26,461 ballots to his name. (The Chron has a report from last night's San Francisco Young Republicans' victory party, if you're so inclined.)
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Bay Area voters ensured Tuesday that, along with $3.5 billion to rebuild its rail system, BART will have three new directors and funding to extend service to downtown San Jose and Santa Clara.

In San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, voters agreed by approving Measure RR to increase their property taxes to pay for the BART overhaul. At the same time, Santa Clara County voters approved a $6.3 billion sales tax measure for various transportation-related projects. Up to $1.6 billion of the Measure B money can be used for the BART extension.

But voter generosity went only so far. Sales tax proposals that included money to buy more new BART cars failed in San Francisco and Contra Costa counties.

The biggest news for BART was the passage of Measure RR. The debate over the issue became unusually contentious with opponents, led by state Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, accusing BART of past fiscal mismanagement, particularly with its labor contracts, and arguing that the agency couldnt be trusted to spend the new money wisely.

Proponents argued that BART, now 44 years old, is suffering from middle age as well as growing pains. Ridership has swelled and everything from rails to train controls to electrical systems needs replacing, they said.

Measure RR, which needed a two-thirds supermajority for passage overall, passed relatively easily with a combined 70.1 percent of voters in the three-county BART district voting in favor.

Support was weakest in Contra Costa, where just 59.5 percent voted in favor. But it was countered by San Francisco, where 81.1 percent of voters cast yes votes, and Alameda County, where 70.9 percent voted in favor.

BART officials said Wednesday that they were heartened by the outcome and were preparing to start work, some of it as early as next year.

We are grateful for all the Bay Area voters who doubled down on their commitment to transit and to BART, approving the $3.5 billion infrastructure bond designed to keep our system safe and reliable, said board President Tom Radulovich.

Radulovich, who has served on the BART board for 20 years, decided not to seek re-election in District Nine, which includes central San Francisco neighborhoods, and will leave the board next month. On Tuesday, voters elected former San Francisco supervisor and homeless czar Bevan Dufty over two other candidates as his replacement.

Dufty will be one of three new directors sworn into office next month. He will be joined by Lateefah Simon, who ousted incumbent Zakhary Mallett in District Seven, which includes parts of Richmond, Berkeley and southeast San Francisco, and Debora Allen, who defeated Gail Murray, a 12-year incumbent, in District One, which represents much of central Contra Costa County.

Two other incumbents fought off challenges and won re-election  Rebecca Saltzman in District Three, which includes parts of Berkeley, Oakland, Albany and El Cerrito, and John McPartland, in District Five, which represents Castro Valley and the Tri-Valley region.

Tuesdays election was the first in recent memory in which a majority of the board faced challengers. But the effect of the results is unclear as none of the candidates ran as part of a slate, and one critic of BARTs labor unions, Mallett, will leave the board while Allen, who campaigned for better fiscal management, will join. Both were supported by Glazer.

In Santa Clara County, Measure B passed with 71 percent of the vote. In addition to the BART extension, money will be dedicated to Caltrain crossing and capacity improvements and road repairs.

Sale tax proposals that would have helped BART expand its rail-car fleet failed in Contra Costa and San Francisco counties. Measure X in Contra Costa received 62.5 percent of the vote, falling short of the 66.7 percent it needed. And in San Francisco, Prop. K, a tax for homeless program and transportation, failed even though it needed only a simple majority. Voters cast 65.1 percent of their ballots against the measure.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@ctuan
Authors across the United States have wasted no time in sharing their views about the stunning election of Donald Trump as the nations 45th president. Like millions of their fellow citizens, countless writers are expressing outrage and despair on social media. Some are trying to remain optimistic, and others are celebrating the moment. And many are viewing it all in the only way they hope will help: with dark humor.
"I hope the same holds for everyone at our company -- that no matter what our political leanings, our race, religion, gender, creed, or country of origin, we treat each other with respect, with compassion, and above all else, we take care of one another," he wrote. "No election should ever change that."

VIDEO: TIM COOK PENNED A LETTER TO APPLE EMPLOYEES AFTER THE ELECTION

After employees responded positively, some reporting the letter made them tearful, Weiner decided to share it publicly on LinkedIn.

In a note, he explained that he understands "political discourse is better served on other platforms," but felt compelled to share "as a company committed to creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce, a constructive dialog is welcome when it involves the intersection of politics, policy and job creation/investment."

Weiner also stated: "This email did not come from a place of political inclination. It came from a place of compassion and common decency."

Below is a copy of Weiner's letter in full.

Team,

I spent much of yesterday talking with employees and leaders throughout LinkedIn about the U.S. election results and what it means to them personally and for us as a company. I wanted to briefly share what I heard and the implications for us going forward.

As might be expected from this long and sometimes brutal election cycle, the emotional responses people expressed ran from shock and sadness to grief and mourning; some telling stories of celebratory outreach from colleagues; and yet others feeling nothing at all. I heard women driven to tears of frustration over the fact a highly qualified woman was passed over once again for a leadership role, and saw men choke up as they recounted their stories; was told of how a highly talented and deserving co-worker, here from another country on an H1-B visa, was filled with dread over whether he and his family will have the opportunity to remain in the U.S.; and saw tears of joy from a mother recounting how her young son stood up in class, boasting how proud he was that his mom had voted.

The last eighteen months sharply divided the country. We saw far too many attacks on people vs. problems, and overzealous passion for candidates displacing compassion for one another. The polarization and open hostility was sustained for so long that people with opposing views became more caricature than actual human beings.

Let's make sure to provide one another the time to process everything that's just transpired. As leaders and achievers, many of us have a natural tendency to solve other people's problems as soon as we hear them. However, we need to be sensitive to the fact that some members of the team don't need or even want immediate resolution. They don't want to hear rationalizations or participate in endless debates about why this unfolded the way that it did. They may just want someone to listen.

Others are ready to engage; to share their fears and anger, their hopes and dreams. It's imperative to the healing process that we create a space where every individual at the company can feel safe when doing so; that everyone feels heard; and above all else, that every single employee of LinkedIn feels as if they truly belong here. This dynamic must transcend race, religion, gender, creed, and country of origin. While we have always aspired to make this the case, it will be more important than ever given the misogynistic, racist, and xenophobic language heard at times throughout this election. That language and behavior has not and never will have a place at LinkedIn and we will continue to do everything within our power to create a safe and productive work environment for all of our employees.

Beyond the healing, all of us should be prepared to channel this energy into action. Though human nature will dictate that we try and find one unifying theory for everything that transpired, the truth is that this outcome was the byproduct of multiple dynamics. Most relevant to the work we do at LinkedIn: The growing sense of disenfranchisement among tens of millions of Americans.

We've said for years that the realization of our vision -- to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce -- has never been more important. That when people no longer have access to opportunity, when they don't feel heard, society is at risk. Whether through the growing skills gap, widening socioeconomic stratification, the increasing displacement of jobs by new technologies, or rising youth based unemployment, there are a growing number of people in the U.S., and around the world, that no longer feel as if they have a chance to make a better life for themselves and their families. It's one thing to talk about this as part of a corporate narrative; its quite another to watch it unfold. That's where LinkedIn can make a meaningful difference. By developing the world's first economic graph, our newly launched learning and development tools, LinkedIn Cities, LinkedIn Placements, and many other similarly themed products, we can increasingly extend the power of our platform to help those middle skill workers beyond the core of our professional membership gain better control over their economic destiny. This work matters more than ever before.

As the election results were coming in, and it became increasingly obvious that Trump was likely to be our next President, my daughter asked what was going to happen next. I told her that no matter who was President of this country, her mom and I would always take care of her, that she would be raised with the same values we've always had, that we are fortunate to live in a country that enables every citizen not only the right to vote but to openly disagree with the views of the candidates, and that despite those disagreements, once we have elected a new President, recognize we're all in this together.

I'm not certain what a Trump administration will mean for the country. If Brexit and this process have taught me anything, it's how unpredictable seemingly predictable outcomes have become. What I am certain about is my value system, both as an individual and member of our team. I will continue to treat others, regardless of who they voted for, in a way that's consistent with those values. I hope the same holds for everyone at our company -- that no matter what our political leanings, our race, religion, gender, creed, or country of origin, we treat each other with respect, with compassion, and above all else, we take care of one another. No election should ever change that.

Jeff
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Snap to it

People lined up Thursday morning near the Venice boardwalk in Los Angeles to be among the first to buy Snap Inc.s new Spectacles. The $130 video-camera sunglasses from the owner of Snapchat are being sold through big yellow vending machines. Tapping a button near the left hinge of the Spectacles activates a camera in the corner of the left lens. The video clips, up to 30 seconds long, can be transferred wirelessly to the Snapchat smartphone app, where they can be shared with friends.

See you in courtski

LinkedIn faces being blocked in Russia after a court ruled it broke a law on data storage. The Moscow city court rejected the professional networking sites appeal against a ruling that it had broken a law that requires personal data on Russian citizens to be stored on servers in Russia. LinkedIn can appeal the ruling, but it could be blocked by next week. The Mountain View company said that it is seeking a meeting with regulators to discuss the issue.

Dicey award

Dungeons & Dragons, the role-playing game first introduced in 1974, was named to the National Toy Hall of Fame after decades of inspiring budding young geeks to make up their own worlds. Dungeons & Dragons mechanics lent themselves to computer applications, and it had a direct impact on hugely successful electronic games like World of Warcraft, curator Nic Ricketts said. Last year, Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast, D&Ds current owner, introduced a virtual reality version.

The Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techbriefing
SolarCity Corp. reported positive net income for the third quarter as the rooftop developers cash sales gained on leases, improving its balance sheet a week before shareholders are expected to vote on its pending acquisition by Tesla Motors.

Net income was $53 million (48 cents per share), compared with a loss of $19.1 million (20 cents) a year earlier, the San Mateo company said Wednesday.

Excluding some items, SolarCity had a loss of $2.27 per share, less than the $2.37 that had been predicted by analysts. Revenue rose 76 percent to $201 million.

SolarCity installed 187 megawatts of panels in the third quarter, beating its 170-megawatt target. The company said Aug. 1 that residential demand has been slower than expected, and it reduced its installation forecast for the year to 900 megawatts to 1 gigawatt, down from as much as 1.1 gigawatts.

Chief Executive Officer Lyndon Rive in August trimmed the 2016 forecast because of the companys strategic shift a year ago to focus on profitability over rapid growth. Its shares have slumped by almost half since then, while debt has swelled to $3.35 billion at the end of the second quarter.

That performance is part of the reason some investors have labeled the proposed acquisition, announced in June, a bailout by sister company Tesla. Billionaire Elon Musk is chairman and the largest shareholder of both, and has sketched out a long-term vision that combines solar-powered homes that use clean energy to recharge electric vehicles.

SolarCity is also facing shifting consumer sentiment over solar power. Homeowners increasingly prefer to purchase the rooftop systems rather than the decades-long leases that make up most of the companys business. Rive said in October that 30 percent of the companys September sales came from cash installs, or loans, instead of leases.

Cash and equivalents rose 78 percent to $259.3 million from the end of the second quarter, and Rive said he expects improved cash generation in the current quarter and next year.

Shareholders from both companies are scheduled to vote on the $2.1 billion stock acquisition on Nov. 17. Musk and Rive recused themselves from voting their shares. Musks Tesla posted an unexpected profit Nov. 1.

SolarCitys earnings report was released without fanfare, and Rive and Musk did not hold a conference call with analysts.

SolarCity shares fell 4 percent to close at $20.01. The stock was little changed in after-hours trading. Tesla slipped 2.5 percent.

SolarCitys earnings report comes amid concerns that an Environmental Protection Agency appointed by Donald Trump will try to overturn the nations Clean Power Plan. But many key policies that favor renewable energy, such as Californias storage mandate, are largely state issues unlikely to be affected by Trumps victory.

Christopher Martin is a Bloomberg writer. Email: cmartin11@bloomberg.net
A woman was sexually assaulted in a portable toilet at San Jose State University early Monday, officials said.

The victim was followed by a man in his 30s or 40s about 4 a.m. in a university parking lot at South Seventh and East Humboldt streets, police said.

As the woman was using the portable toilet, the suspect forced the door open and began to assault her. The victims friends interrupted the attack and the suspect fled on a bicycle, police said.

Both the suspect and victim are not affiliated with the university, said Capt. Alan Cavallo of the San Jose State University Police.

A crime alert was sent to students shortly after the assault occurred, Cavallo added.

University police are investigating the crime.

This latest sexual assault comes after news broke out less than a month ago that a San Jose State water polo player was accused of committing two sexual assaults in early September.

As of Tuesday, the Santa Clara district attorneys office had not decided whether to press charges against the water polo player, whose name was not released.

Many students criticized the school administration for taking over a month to inform students about the attacks.

Mary Papazian, university president, issued a statement about five days after the assaults went public that Student Affairs and the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will look comprehensively at how to improve communication in the wake of reported Title IX incidents.

Police are urging anyone with information about the latest attack to contact them at (408) 924-2222. People can also contact the police anonymously by calling or texting (408) 337-2919.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
Four years ago, after Mitt Romney's loss to Barack Obama, Donald Trump tweeted, "The electoral college is a disaster for democracy."

Today Trump should be thanking his lucky stars that the Electoral College exists. If current vote totals hold, he will become the fifth president elected despite losing the popular vote. The others were George W. Bush (beating Al Gore in 2000), Andrew Jackson, Samuel Tilden and Grover Cleveland.
Robert De Niro's opinion of the president-elect is well-documented: Not a fan.

On ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", Kimmel asked the actor, "Are you still going to punch Donald Trump in the face?"

Kimmel was referring to a video released in October in which De Niro called Trump "an idiot, a national disaster, an embarrassment to this country ... this fool, this bozo," and said he would like to punch the Republican presidential nominee in the face.

On Wednesday, De Niro told Kimmel, "I can't do that now he's president. And I have to respect that position ... I just have to see what he's going to do and how he's going to follow through on certain things. And as we even see now in a lot of cities, there's a lot of people getting very upset and protesting."

De Niro, who has Italian citizenship, joked that "I'll probably have to move there."

.
RUTLAND, Vt.  The first chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America is preparing for the day when there wont be any members left to care for the monument to their service.

The chapter is offering the city of Rutland at least $10,000 to set up a fund that will provide perpetual care for the monument, which includes a sarcophagus-like white marble carving of a soldier lying on his back.

Basically what were looking at is the fact that all of us Vietnam vets are getting older, and eventually the chapter will disband, said Andy Megrath, the president of the local chapter, formed in 1980.

On paper, the chapter has 141 members, some of whom joined just to be a member of Chapter 1, but many of those men are spread across the world. Only six to eight attend the monthly meetings, Megrath said.

They dont know how long they can hang on.

Ive been president of the chapter for 13 years now, Megrath said. Im thinking its time for me to step down and have somebody else take over, but as of right now it doesnt look like anybody is really interested in doing that.

Relative to World War II and Korean War veterans, Vietnam veterans arent that old. Megrath, a combat veteran who served in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970, is 68, the median age of Vietnam vets, according to the national organization.

But Megrath sees Vietnam veterans still struggling with the emotional challenges that he believes stem, at least in part, from the strains of fighting an unpopular war and then not being welcomed home as heroes.

Nationally, the Vietnam Veterans of America is increasing in size, now with a membership of about 81,000. While some local chapters have gone under over the years, new ones are being formed, especially in the Sun Belt, where many are retiring, said Rick Weidman, the organizations executive director of government affairs.

Weidman lived in Vermont in the 1970s and knows many of the vets who formed Chapter 1.

It says to me that particular group of guys are tired, Weidman said of the Rutland chapter. Thats happened at various places over the last 30 years. Depending on how much they had to go through, chapters die.

Chapter 1 is offering the city $10,000 to support the monument in the Main Street Park, although that figure could increase when the chapter eventually dissolves.
1 Executions to resume: Now that Nebraska voters have restored the death penalty, Gov. Pete Ricketts says he plans to meet with the attorney general to discuss how to resume executions. Ricketts said Wednesday that its too early to know exactly how the state will acquire the lethal injection drugs it lacks or whether Nebraska will change its protocol. Nebraska has struggled to obtain all of the necessary drugs, and Ricketts previously said the state would halt its efforts until after Tuesdays statewide vote. Voters overturned the Legislatures decision last year to abolish capital punishment.

2 Treasure hunter: A Ohio judge has told a former deep-sea treasure hunters attorney to review thousands of pages of documents that might hold clues about the whereabouts of gold coins thought to be worth millions. Todd Long is at least the fifth lawyer hired by defendant Tommy Thompson since he was apprehended last year after three years on the run. Thompson has been held in contempt of court since last December, when federal Judge Algenon Marbley in Columbus found he violated a plea deal by refusing to answer questions about the 500 missing coins. Marbley ordered the review Wednesday. The coins were minted from gold taken from the S.S. America, which sank in an 1857 hurricane.
Turns out that not even death could keep an Oceanside man from being re-elected to a city treasurer position.

Gary Ernst's death was announced on Sept. 23 due to complications from diabetes, yet the date of his death made it too late for his name to be removed from the November ballot, NBC 7 in San Diego reported.
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WASHINGTON  Republicans held onto their slim Senate majority, a stinging blow to Democrats in a night full of them. Democrats had been nearly certain of retaking control but saw their hopes fizzle as endangered GOP incumbents won in Missouri, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and even Democrat-friendly Wisconsin.

Republicans also held onto a GOP seat in Indiana. GOP Rep. Todd Young beat Evan Bayh, a former Democratic senator and governor who mounted a much-ballyhooed comeback bid, but wilted under scrutiny. In Florida, GOP Sen. Marco Rubio beat Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy, giving Rubio a platform from which he could mount another bid for president in 2020.

But there was good news for Democrats in New Hampshire on Wednesday when Gov. Maggie Hassan declared victory, defeating first-term Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who conceded the close race and offered her congratulations.

Republicans started the night with a 54-46 majority in the Senate and were on track to end up with at least 52 seats, presuming they win a December runoff in Louisiana, as expected.

Democratic operatives struggled to explain why their optimistic assessments of retaking Senate control were so mistaken. Some blamed unexpected turnout by certain segments of white voters, or FBI Director James Comeys bombshell announcement that he was reviewing a new batch of emails connected with Democrat Hillary Clinton.

In Pennsylvania, GOP Sen. Pat Toomey won a narrow victory for his second term over Democratic challenger Katie McGinty. It was a race Democrats expected to win going into the night  and one that many Republicans felt nearly as sure theyd lose.

The story was the same in Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, written off for months by his own party, won re-election against former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold in a rematch.

In Missouri and North Carolina, where entrenched GOP incumbents Roy Blunt and Richard Burr faced unexpectedly strong challenges from Democrats, both prevailed in the end.

Democrats did grab a Republican-held seat in Illinois, where GOP Sen. Mark Kirk lost to Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a double-amputee Iraq war vet.

Another bright spot for Democrats was in Nevada, where Minority Leader Harry Reids retirement after five terms created a vacancy and the one Democratic-held seat that was closely contested. Reid maneuvered to fill it with Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevadas former attorney general, who spoke of her familys immigrant roots in a state with heavy Latino turnout.

Cortez Masto will become the first Latina U.S. senator. She beat Republican Rep. Joe Heck, who struggled with sharing the ticket with Donald Trump, first endorsing and then unendorsing Trump to the disgust of some GOP voters.

Indeed the Senate races were shadowed every step of the way by the polarizing presidential race between Clinton and Trump. Yet in the end, Trump was not the drag on GOP candidates widely anticipated. Republicans like Johnson who endorsed him and stuck with him won re-election, as did others like Pennsylvanias Toomey who never backed Trump until the very end. And so did a few like GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona who unendorsed Trump after audio emerged of him boasting of groping women.

McCain, at age 80, won his sixth term in quite possibly his final campaign.
San Francisco decision-makers should move quickly to license the citys medical cannabis farms, kitchens and testing labs and add more dispensaries, the citys special Legalization Task Force recommended Wednesday.

And now that recreational marijuana will become legal under Proposition 64, passed by California voters in Tuesdays election, the city should prepare for robust adult-use cannabis tourism as well.

San Franciscos Cannabis Legalization Task Force offered up a Christmas wish list for fans of weed on Wednesday.

The citys cannabis industry and consumers want pot smoking lounges for adults 21 and over and pop-up smoking tents at permitted events, as well as perhaps special licenses for marijuana delivery services not tied to a retail store.

San Francisco should pass a 1 percent excise tax on pot sales, and look into starting a city-operated bank to mitigate the all-cash industrys problems accessing the federal banking system, the task force also recommended.

The 2-year-old task force, which consists of 22 seats drawn from government agencies, the cannabis industry and neighborhood associations, was appointed by the Board of Supervisors and various agencies. It also called for changing the way schools talk to children about marijuana and softening policies that expel or suspend children for pot misdemeanors.

Were saying, This is what we think you need to do first, second and third, and this is how you need to do it, task force Chairman Terrance Alan said.

For example, streamlining the process to obtain a pot shop permit. It now takes two years to get one. That needs to be updated if were going to have any hope of addressing the demand thats going to come, he said.

Alan envisions San Francisco catering to high-profit, small-footprint businesses like research and potency testing labs, as opposed to farms.

Labs require everything we got. App developers, people with college degrees. Access to capital. That belongs here in San Francisco, Alan said.

San Francisco cannabis attorney Joe Rogoway attended Wednesdays meeting where the task force adopted 80 recommendations.

Im really impressed with them actually. I think that if the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopts these recommendations theyll be at or near the top of the list in terms of cities getting a handle on this, Rogoway said. I think theyre taking a very thoughtful approach.

Also on Wednesday, Mayor Ed Lee released a directive calling for a prompt city response to regulating medical and recreational pot.

I want our city to work immediately to pass the best laws and regulations we can, Lee stated. He directed the Department of Public Health to issue a What Now? fact sheet informing the public of the new laws for cannabis.

Lee also ordered an immediate ban on pot growers entering existing industrial buildings until the full impact of this emerging industry is better understood.

City planners and public health officials must draft laws covering land use, local licensing, safety and youth access, the mayor said.

San Francisco is a leader among cities and counties across California that are grappling with local medical licensing and now face recreational licensing questions as well.

In nearby Oakland, an industry expansion is held up by a controversial new Equity Permit Program that moves convicted drug dealers to the front of the line for legal permits and makes the city part owner of any new business. The program has been the subject of multiple hearings and is legally dubious, critics say. Pot businesses have already begun relocating to better business climates, owners say.

San Francisco residents with a past conviction for marijuana crimes, including possession or sales, may get help expunging it from their records. To that end, Lee directed department heads to assist Supervisor Malia Cohen  who is interested in crafting legislation to address the social justice component of decriminalization, Lee stated.

San Francisco has about 30 medical pot shops, which have been well regulated for eight years. However, the city has not licensed other parts of the cannabis supply chain. State medical marijuana regulations call for cities to take the lead in determining what and how much cannabis business activity to allow in their jurisdictions.

More than 80 percent of California localities have enacted bans on various aspects of medical or recreational pot commerce.

Recently, San Jose passed a ban on retail recreational marijuana stores until the city could decide if it wanted to craft licenses for such businesses. Critics noted the ban was unnecessary, because state and local laws already make it a crime to sell marijuana without both state and local licenses.

California legalized medical marijuana in 1996 and began regulating it in 2015. Californians legalized cannabis for adults 21 and over Tuesday night by a wide ratio of 55 to 44 percent.

Surveys show California has about 6 million people who have used marijuana in the past month, and retail sales of pot could total $7.3 billion by 2020, according to new estimates from the Arcview Group, a marijuana angel investment network based in San Francisco.

David Downs is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ddowns@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @davidrdowns
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One unexpected benefit of Donald Trump's election as the next President of the United States could be additional future federal funding for California's high-speed rail system.

"Trump may be friendly to it," Sierra Club California Director Kathryn Phillips told the Chronicle. "He will want to create jobs."

Last March, Trump compared the United States rail system to that of a third world country. He lauded China for quickly building a nationwide high-speed rail system. "[The Chinese] have trains that go 300 miles per hour," said Trump. "We have trains that go chug-chug-chug."

During his election night victory speech, Trump emphasized that one of his top priorities will be funding a massive infrastructure program that could include high-speed rail projects across the nation.

Supporting the California high-speed rail system has been difficult for the state and its leading proponent, Governor Jerry Brown. The rail system is currently expected to cost $68 billion dollars.

In 2008 state voters approved a 9 billion dollar bond to help fund the system. The federal government contributed an additional $3.3 billion in stimulus money from the America Recovery Act of 2009.

More for you State legislators fear fate of progressive agenda under Trump

Since then the Republican-controlled Congress has not provided any additional federal funding. Gov. Brown has attempted to bridge the remaining gap in money with a mixture of state bonds and money from the state's pollution cap and trade funds but has faced resistance from state Republican politicians and farmers in the Central Valley.

California's high-speed rail system avoided another potential death blow election night when voters rejected Proposition 53 which would have forced the state to get voter approval for any financial bond over 2 billion dollars.

Construction on the rail system started in the Central Valley around Fresno in 2015. The initial length of the train system is scheduled to reach San Jose by 2025. The system is the expected to be completed from Los Angeles to San Francisco by 2029.

The high-speed rail authority recently cut the length of trains from 20 cars to 10 to reduce the construction costs of the system's station platforms. Another cost cutting feature will allow trains to travel at 200 mph through tunnels instead of 220 mph which will cut the expense of building tunnels.

If completed, the high-speed rail system will transport passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in as little as 2 hours and 40 minutes.
BAGHDAD  Iraqi troops fired at positions held by the Islamic State in and around the northern city of Mosul on Thursday but did not advance as they regrouped and cleared neighborhoods once occupied by the extremists, military officials said.

Troops are screening residents fleeing from Mosul, searching for any Islamic State militants trying to sneak out among the more than 34,000 civilians fleeing to displacement camps and host communities in nearby provinces.

Amnesty International reported allegations against security forces of arbitrary detention, forced disappearances and ill-treatment of prisoners, including an account that up to six people were extrajudicially executed in late October over suspected ties to Islamic State.

The London-based rights organization said the alleged killings took place near the area of Shura and Qayara outside Mosul, and it urged the government to investigate.

Men in Federal Police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul, said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnestys Beirut office.

In some cases the residents were tortured before they were shot dead execution-style, she said, adding that it was crucial for Iraqi authorities to bring those responsible to justice.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi denied the report, calling it incorrect information, and saying in a statement that Islamic State fighters were the ones responsible for the killing of civilians.

Since the offensive to retake Iraqs second-largest city began Oct. 17, the Shiite-led government has tried to prevent revenge attacks against the mainly Sunni residents of Mosul and surrounding areas. State-sanctioned Shiite militias and Kurdish forces say they wont enter the city, and the government has pledged to investigate any human rights violations and hold people accountable.

In late October, an Iraqi manning a checkpoint south of Mosul with soldiers, Federal Police and local militiamen told the Associated Press that he personally killed two men he said he knew to be Islamic State militants because he saw them commit crimes. The AP could not independently confirm his account.

Iraqi troops are converging from several fronts on Mosul, the second-largest city and the last major Islamic State holdout in Iraq. Kurdish peshmerga forces are holding a line north of the city, while Iraqi army and militarized police units approach from the south, and government-sanctioned Shiite militias are guarding western approaches.
MOSCOW  World leaders struggled Wednesday to come to grips with a new reality  Donald Trump will be the next U.S. president  and an as yet unanswerable question: How many of his campaign pledges will he actually act on?

The remarkable triumph of the politically untested businessman was welcomed in some countries, such as Russia, while in others it was a major shock.

When Trump takes office in January, world leaders will confront a man whose stated views represent a sharp break with U.S. foreign policy orthodoxy. He has cozied up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, warned stunned NATO allies they will have to pay for their own protection, floated a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. and vowed to make the Mexican government finance a multibillion-dollar border wall.

These changes, and others, have the potential to radically remake U.S. policy  a prospect that has given stability-loving partners a cascading case of the jitters.

Trumps victory was hailed in Russia, which has taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward the West in recent months. Putin sent Trump a congratulatory telegram Wednesday and made a televised statement expressing the hope that frayed U.S.-Russian relations could be put back on track.

We are aware that it is a difficult path, in view of the unfortunate degradation of relations between the Russian Federation and the United States, the Russian leader said, adding: It is not our fault that Russian-American relations are in such a state.

Russia became a focal point during the presidential campaign, with government officials and Hillary Clinton supporters suggesting Moscow was involved in hacking her campaigns emails. Trump raised eyebrows when he expressed admiration for Putin and his tough leadership style.

Dmitri Drobnitski, a columnist at the generally pro-Kremlin website LifeNews, asserted Trumps victory will help the world.

I congratulate the American people with their will and with their democracy and with their strength and with their courage, he said.

Trump has suggested slapping a 35 percent tax on automobiles and auto parts made by U.S. companies in Mexico, and financial analysts have predicted a Trump win will threaten billions of dollars in cross-border trade.

Trumps victory is as close to a national emergency as Mexico has faced in many decades, Mexican analyst Alejandro Hope said.
WASHINGTON  The United States has killed 119 civilians in Iraq and Syria since it began military operations against the Islamic State there in 2014, military officials said this week.

In each case, the U.S. military followed the proper procedures and did not violate the laws of armed conflict, officials said.

Significant precautions were taken, despite the unfortunate outcome, said Col. John Thomas, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

In most every case, when we determined there may have been civilian casualties from one of our air strikes, we are choosing to list the largest number of possible civilian casualties, he said. In cases where we just dont have the investigative resources or evidence to determine precisely how many people may have died, we went with the worst-case number to ensure a full accounting.

Human rights activists over the summer accused the United States of killing scores of civilians during operations against the Islamic State in northern Syria. Around the same time, Central Command put in place a new process for examining allegations that its strikes had caused civilian casualties.

The military investigated 257 allegations of civilian casualties and deemed 31 of them credible, according to military officials.

American military commanders have said that as forces move closer to the most populated areas in Iraq and Syria controlled by the Islamic State, there are likely to be more civilian casualties. But Thomas said, We do not want to add to the tragedy of the situation by inflicting additional suffering.
Vital Healthcare Property Trust, the Auckland-based hospital and healthcare property developer and investor which raised $160 million in July to help fund its growth strategy, says it's in a strong position for growth following its $160 million capital raising in July.

At the annual meeting in Auckland this morning, Vital's chief executive David Carr said the company's portfolio was in its "strongest ever position", having expanded into Western Australia and South Australia this year, according to speech notes posted to the NZX.

In August, Vital reported a 21 percent gain in full-year profit to $117 million in the year ended June 30, with net property income up 15 percent to $68 million while the trust recognised a $102 million revaluation gain on investment property following an $84 million gain a year earlier. At the time, it flagged A$83 million of new brownfield development projects across its Australian private hospital portfolio and said it was targeting A$20 million of strategic acquisitions.

Today, Vital said it has A$77.9 million in six current developments across Australia, with five of those in New South Wales and one in South Australia. It's also recently bought residential aged care properties in WA and NSW for A$444 million along with Boulcott Private Hospital in Lower Hutt in Wellington for NZ$30.7 million and a medical office building in Sydney for A$30.7 million.

"Aged care real estate continues to form part of our diversification strategy," Carr said. "The aged care sector remains large and fragmented and is moving into a consolidation and growth phase that will ultimately require significant investment."

The company has a market-leading weighted average lease term to expiry (WALE) ratio in Australasia, Carr said, at 18.4 years as of September, compared to what he said was a 5.5 year sector average.

Chairman Graeme Horsley said since the capital raise and recently announced acquisitions, the company's gearing sat at around 24 percent.

"This provides ample capacity to keep delivering on our brownfield development programme and any potential acquisition opportunities as they arise."

The company today said unitholders will get a first quarter distribution of 2.125 cents per unit with 0.1320 of imputation credits, payable on Dec. 19, with a Dec. 5 record date.

"Vitals Distribution Reinvestment Plan (DRP) will remain available to investors for this distribution, with a 1 percent discount being applied when determining the strike price," the company said.

The units last traded at $2.05 and have climbed 11 percent this year.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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Alliance Group, New Zealand's second-largest meat cooperative, boosted annual earnings 28 percent as plans to overhaul the business reducing debt and automating processing cut costs, more than offsetting weak meat prices and a strong kiwi dollar eroding revenue.

Pre-tax profit rose to $10.1 million in the year ended Sept. 30 from $7.9 million a year earlier, the Invercargill-based company said in a statement. Revenue fell to $1.36 billion from $1.49 billion a year earlier, though plans to improve the operations delivered gains of $56 million, ahead of the budgeted $34 million and debt was slashed to $41 million from $129 million.

"The weakening of market prices and global volatility over the year reduced group revenues, but the value created from our strategy projects meant the cooperative was able to act as a buffer and absorb some of the impact on our farmer shareholders," chief executive David Surveyor said. "We would have liked to have absorbed more and remain committed to finding ways to pay farmers more for their livestock."

New Zealand's meat sector has gone through a major shift this year with the country's biggest processor, Silver Fern Farms, getting approval to pool its assets into a new entity effectively controlled by China's Shanghai Maling Aquarius, while more recently Blue Sky Meats said China's Heilongjiang Binxi Cattle Industry Co was poised to make a takeover offer for the Southland-based firm.

Alliance has changed its capital structure to get its farmer shareholders to share up relative to their supply, and introduced new automated systems to improve its operations, something it says it will keep doing. The company had shareholder funds of $302.5 million, down from $308.9 million.

The cooperative raised its dividend to its 5,000 or so farmer shareholders to $9.8 million, having not paid a distribution last year.

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Hallenstein Glasson chief executive Graeme Popplewell will step down from the day-to-day running of the clothing retailer at the end of the year, after five years at the helm.

Popplewell will retire as CEO at the end of the year, while retaining a seat on the board as a non-executive director, the Auckland-based company said in a statement. Popplewell took over the top job in February 2011 a year after being tapped to head the menswear Hallenstein division, having first joined Hallenstein Bros 45 years ago.

He has been on the board of Hallenstein since 1985, overseeing its merger with Glasson that year and seen a trebling of its store footprint and expansion across the Tasman.

"The past five years have seen an unprecedented change in retail with the explosion of ecommerce and the globalisation of so many brands," Popplewell said. "It's been intense and we've had to reinvent the business to successfully meet the changing market."

Retailers have borne the brunt of changing consumer behaviour as the rise of online shopping undermined traditional 'bricks and mortar' networks, leading to several high-profile failures including Pumpkin Patch and Dick Smith Electronics. Those in the rag trade have felt it acutely, with government figures showing consumer prices for clothing have shrunk 1.4 percent since 2011 when Popplewell took over the reins of Hallenstein Glasson, while the value of annual sales was up 2.8 percent indicating margins have been squeezed through that period.

For Hallenstein Glasson that's seen the shares fall to $3.04 from $3.83 when Popplewell was appointed, having peaked at $5.85 in April 2013.

Popplewell said he anticipates the next five years will see "major technological advances" with changing customer demands.

"We need to be equal to any international retailer to be able to compete," he said. "It's not just about one element - it's everything - product, marketing the stores and finding the right people to lead your brands."

Hallenstein Glasson's ecommerce offering was expanding at an annual 30 percent pace, and "becoming a significant part of the business," he said.

The retailer reported a 21 percent drop in profit to $13.7 million on a 0.9 percent increase in sales for the 2016 financial year, reflecting a loss from its Glassons unit in Australia and weaker earnings from its flagship menswear chain.

The company's board has started an international search for a new chief executive.

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Trade Me Group chief executive Jon Macdonald told investors at the company's annual meeting that the company takes the arrival of Facebook marketplace very seriously, but that he believes the market can be defended.

The social media giant launched its marketplace in October, after trialling it in New Zealand for a year. It is currently only open to individuals, rather than companies.

Responding to a question from Shareholders Association representative Matthew Underwood, Macdonald said, "we would be fools to not take Facebook very very seriously. The thing that they bring that is different from other potential competitors that weve had in our general items marketplace is that Facebook comes with its own network."

"With these businesses, it can be very difficult to get to critical mass, you need to get lots of people visiting you, you need to get inventory, that can be quite tough, Facebook has a bit of a headstart in that regard.

He added that the trial meant they had had time to prepare: "Weve had a lot of time to think about it and improve our offering to defend against them, and I think we can do a great job with that.

Macdonald also pointed out that Trade Me has been successful in holding off rivals in the past, saying "these big global companies do bring a lot of resources, but Facebook and prior to Facebook, Google, have had a good number of attempts at our marketplace and other parts of our business as well. The first Google attempt was back in 2005, so far weve been able to defend our patch."

Around 30 shareholders attended the meeting at Te Papa in Wellington and were told that the business was performing in line with forecasts. However, Macdonald highlighted that we are seeing some weakness in the volumes of real estate listings which we consider to be very much related to the real estate market. The primary driver of revenue in this part of the business is the number of new listings that come to market, not the price they sell at.

Realtors, particularly in Auckland, have reported that the market is much slower than it was a year ago, partly due to new Reserve Bank rules on lending.

Last month, Trade Me rival realestate.co.nz reported that listings were down 12.3 percent compared to a year ago. Macdonald told investors that despite the fall in volume, they had gained market share.

Chairman David Kirk led a round of applause from investors for founder Sam Morgan. Kirk said Morgan's initiative and hard work had "allowed many many NZers to build thriving businesses, and many more NZers to find that quirky thing that they were looking for because of Trade Me.

Morgan was elected as a director for the final time and will step down during the year to focus on early-stage businesses and his charitable foundation. Director Katrina Johnson was also elected to the board.

The shares rose 4.1 percent to $4.55, outpacing the benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index's 1 percent gain.

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me and dad

WASHINGTON, DC  Children who grow up with one or both parents in the military and spend time on or around bases  otherwise known as military brats  get used to things that seem weird to everyone else.

Since I was born at William Beaumont Army Hospital on Fort Bliss, Texas, with years spent there and subsequent deployments to Kaiserslautern, Germany and Osan, South Korea, I've become very familiar with this lifestyle.

In honor of Military Family month, here's 13 tell-tale signs you grew up in the military:

1. You learned the phonetic alphabet along with your ABCs

The phonetic alphabet is a list of specified words used to identify letters in a message transmitted by phone or radio.

For example, the word "Army" would be "Alpha Romeo Mike Yankee" when spelled using the phonetic alphabet.

Just like the military, you also refer to countless things with acronyms. Military slang and acronyms are tossed around in conversations with ease and as a child you learn to pick them up quickly.

For instance, no one ever explained the meaning of "Hooah" (pronounced WhoAh) to you but you knew that it was short for "Heard, Understood, and Acknowledged."

2. Your pantry was always stocked with rations.

amanda dad and i

The self-contained, individual ration called Meal Ready-to-Eat (MRE) is a typical military family household commodity.

MREs contain a main course, side dish, bread, dessert, and a flameless ration heater.

These instant dishes, like "beef ravioli in meat sauce" and "pork chop formed in Jamaican style sauce with noodles," are designed to give service members in the field well-balanced meals.

Sometimes a packed lunch was an MRE shoved into your backpack.

3. Along with a school ID, you had a military ID.

Military ID cards are golden tickets and misplacing one meant perpetually waiting with a sponsor in a small ID card office.

Story continues

The khaki-colored "identification and privilege card" is the key to a military base and all of its goodies  gym, commissary (grocery store), swimming pool, etc.

4. People ask you where you grew up and it takes you five minutes to answer.

amanda italy

Not having one permanent home for more than five years can make for a lengthy response to the question, "Where are you from?" Living in different states and sometimes foreign countries makes, "I'm from all over" the simplest answer.

That is because military families don't have much of a say as to where they go.

Some families luck out and get amazing placements to installations like the Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay, with sailing and surfing classes at the on-base marina and ample views of paradise.

5. At "colors" you drop everything and look for an American flag.

salute amanda

The flag is raised briskly and lowered slowly on American military bases every morning and evening while a patriotic song is played through a loudspeaker, usually "To the Color" or the National Anthem, depending on the base.

This time is referred to as "Colors." Military personnel are required to stop, face the direction of the base flagpole, stand at attention, and render a salute until the music stops.

Moreover, you're used to singing the national anthem everywhere, even in movie theaters after the previews finish.

6. Your church had an American flag inside it.

No different from an American flag hanging inside of a school classroom, America's Stars and Stripes are also recognized inside military installation chapels.

These chapels are designed to be convertible in order to accommodate various religious beliefs of service members.

For example, the chapel may offer a Catholic Mass at 8 a.m. and then a Protestant service at 11 a.m.

Service ended with singing "God Bless America" or "America the Beautiful."

Also, the priest was referred to as chaplain.

7. Calling everyone by last names seems normal.

avenger amanda

It is almost as if this behavior is innate, because remarkably, military brats quickly begin to refer to anyone by their last name.

That is because troops refer to each other by their last name, a practice originating from their training in boot camp.

Calling an adult "ma'am" or "sir" is another natural mannerism.

8. Your doctor wears combat boots.

Service members and their families largely use the hospitals and clinics on base as their primary care providers, and those clinics are staffed with military doctors and medics.

A far cry though from the white lab coat with the cold stethoscope, many of these health care providers have seen the worst of the worst.

9. Your chores were mandatory.

Mom never had to come in and make your bed because every morning before school it was your responsibility.

Failing a parent-conducted room inspection resulted in more chores or pushups.

So you learned how to do things the "right way" quickly.

10. If you aren't 15 minutes early, you're late.

Being "tardy" doesn't exist in the military world. You were early to school, doctor's appointments, ceremonies, and parties  no exceptions.

11. You are a bit of a perfectionist, especially in your appearance.

retirement ceremony

Appearance represents a form of self-discipline, and in the armed forces, it is a requirement that a soldier is neat and well-groomed when in uniform.

Leaders ensure that personnel under their command present a conservative military image.

Similarly, this practice was echoed into your childhood and that meant you didn't get to sport a trendy haircut, loud fingernail polish, and especially an unsightly untucked shirt.

12. You had holiday dinners in a chow hall.

one more dad

Instead of heading over to grandma's house, military families often go to a dining facility for a cafeteria-style Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

This is either because travel is too difficult or expensive, or because the family lives on an installation in a foreign country.

13. You have immediate respect for anyone in uniform.

Respect for individuals serving in the armed forces is strongly encouraged in military family upbringings.

Possibly because you catch a glimpse of your personal experiences as a military brat, and that kind of relation isn't possible with civilians.

I always look twice when a young troop is in an airport terminal  not because of the enormous rucksack, but to figure out if they're heading home, to an overseas deployment, or to a combat zone.





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NEW DELHI: India and China will soon set up two joint working groups to deal with the Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) and a round-the-clock hotline to exchange information related to terror and organised crimes.



The issues were discussed threadbare by a Chinese delegation led by Vice-Minister of Public Security Fu Zhenghua and an Indian delegation led by Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi here.



"Both sides discussed the setting up of two Joint Working Groups to deal with the FICN and the setting up of a 24x7 hotline to exchange information. They also discussed issues relating to e-Visa, telecom fraud and security matters," a Home Ministry statement said.



India and China are also likely to conclude negotiations and ink an agreement on security cooperation by March next year. The proposed pact will ensure cooperation on tackling transnational crimes and cyber crime.



Later, when Meng Jianzhu, Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China, and his delegation met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said terrorism poses the gravest threat to international peace and security.



Modi and Meng, a top aide of Chinese President Xi Jinping, discussed issues of mutual interest, including bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation.



The Prime Minister welcomed increased cooperation between India and China on counter-terrorism related matters, the statement said.



The Prime Minister said the intensive exchange of high level visits between India and Chinaover the last two years was heartening and such visits contribute to building strategic understanding between the two countries.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- To commemorate Veteran's Day, the Progressive Group of Insurance Companies donates vehicles -- cars and/or trucks -- to qualifying United States veterans through its "Keys to Progress" program. The event was held for the first time on Staten Island Thursday morning at the Armory.

The ceremony, staged in the West Brighton veteran's military museum and research center, drew hundreds of veterans, their families and friends, who were all on board to witness the heartwarming presentations.

For the annual program, Progressive works together with local NABC member body shops to recycle, restore, rebuild, refurbish and donate vehicles that have been involved or recovered in a claim to be gifted to members of them military in need.

"It's all about veterans, those who have been effected by war and combat. We are privileged to be able to help these soldiers who help our country for the last four years," said Dale Brooks, a Progressive claims business leader for New York, stated. "And we try to match the vehicle with the recipient. We partner with facilities and body shops, and we're here for the first time on Staten Island today. Michael DiPiazza, the event coordinator, is from Staten Island and I believe he was instrumental in coordinating the event."

DiPiazza, the regional claims manager for and event coordinator for Progressive throughout the five boroughs, explained: "During the process we reached out to the 40 candidates and when all was reviewed two men were selected. Lance Cpl. Moreland and Sgt. 1st Class Yulfo were chosen based on necessity."

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Moreland, 25, who was stationed in Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, N.C., spoke of his deployment to the Middle East:

"My bigger purpose is to not only respect the veteran's community, but also to have the public be made aware of the evil that exists in the world outside of these borders. It's a dark place in Afghanistan. I was there for five months before I was wounded in 2010 during a the worst and deadliest part of the war."

Lance Cpl. Moreland, who was the recipient of a 2014 Nissan Altima, is still under the doctor's care after six years. He suffered multiple injuries during a spontaneous explosion in Afghanistan. His last surgery was three months ago and he's still sadly afflicted with pulmonary issues.

"Right now, I spend my time studying and learning and spending time with my daughter, Anna, 5," Moreland said.

When the topic of the recent election came up, he added: "Change also has to come from individuals as well as from our country."

Sgt. 1st Class E7 Luciano Yulfo, 57, who's served in the military for 36 years, and enlists the help of a military service dog, was on a military maneuver in Afghanistan in 2014 when he was injured. He attended the event with his daughter, Sonia and her nephew, Mason, 3.

Sgt. 1st Class Yolfo was presented with a 2015 Acadia truck.

In addressing the crowd, Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D/Mid-Island) noted:

"This is a great event especially around Veteran's Day when we honor those who served our great country. This event that Progressive put together is another way to show veterans how much we appreciate their dedication to our country and show them they have our back and now we have theirs."

Cusick went on to explain: "It's very important to honor veterans, not only on Veteran's Day, but every day. And if it wasn't for them, we couldn't do the ordinary things we take for granted. Thanks to Progressive and all the businesses that show their appreciation. And no one does it better than Staten Island. It's a great day for recipients and their families. God bless all of you and God Bless America.!"

And Dennis Mahoney of the Mental Health Out Patient Services pointed out: "This is a great way to recognize veterans. We are so happy to be here today."
Screen Shot 2016-11-10 at 11.47.58 AM.png

Iqbal Ali, left, and Kubilay Durantas were indicted on grand larceny charges, authorities said. (Photo courtesy of Intaboro).

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Four people, including two Staten Island men, are accused of stealing more than $700,000 from their black car taxi company, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced.

Iqbal Ali, 60, of Port Richmond, Kubilay Durantas, 55, of Travis, Mitat Beymolla, 62, of Baldwin, N.Y., and former officer manager Lisa Cruz, 49, of Bay Shore, N.Y., allegedly bilked Intaboro Acres, Inc., a Queens-based taxi cooperative, out of $732,000 and used the funds for personal reasons, Brown said in a statement.

The four defendants are each charged in a ten-count indictment with two counts of second-degree grand larceny and two counts of second-degree criminal possession of stolen property, the statement said. If convicted, the defendants each face up to 15 years in prison.

"We are happy they were caught and indicted," said company president Aamir Haq, of Meiers Corners, who helped launch the investigation into the alleged theft in 2013.

Durantas, the company's former vice president, Beymolla, the former treasurer, and Cruz were arraigned Wednesday in Queens and released on their own recognizance, according to the release.

But Ali, the former president, remains at large and a warrant has been issued for his arrest, the D.A. said. It is believed Ali fled to Pakistan, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Between January 2007 and February 2014, the defendants allegedly moved money from the company's business accounts and used the cash to pay for non-business expenses, like personal loans, the statement said.

The defendants, Brown said, also allegedly used the funds to buy cars, pay credit card bills and even build a swimming pool in Durantas' home.

Ali and Durantas resigned from the company in 2014, Haq said.

"The four defendants were trusted by the cooperative shareholders to watch out for the best interests of the cooperative which has been in operation in Queens for more than forty years," the D.A. said in the release. "Instead, the defendants are accused of using the cooperative - both individually and in concert with each other - as their own personal piggy bank before being confronted by the shareholders and resigning their positions."
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Cardinal Timothy Dolan blessed a new adult care center in St. George on Wednesday.

"What we are providing is an alternative to traditional nursing home care that allows seniors to continue to live in their own homes and communities, close to the people they love," Dolan said.

The facility is established by ArchCare, the healthcare system of the Archdiocese of New York, and it provides citizens aged 55 and older with the Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE).

PACE is focused on delivering medical, social and other services, such as trips and arts and crafts work shops.

"When seniors sit alone at home they often become depressed and their health deteriorates," Lauren Abate, one of the center's managers, said. "The main goal is to make them happy."

The center welcomes roughly 50 senior citizens five days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. During their time at the center, members receive breakfast and lunch. Transportation to and from home is provided by the center, as well.

Judith Tompkinson, 57, of Mariners Harbor, said that joining the center five days a week helped her to make new friends.

"Here, I have the opportunity to meet other people," Tompkinson said. "I would be lonely if wouldn't come here."

Ileana Cruz, 73, of Old Town, joins the center on Thursdays, when she can pursue her long-lasting passion for painting.

The new ArchCare facility is the fourth one opened in New York by Scott LaRue, CEO of ArchCare, and the second opened on Staten Island.

The first one opened in 2013 in Dongan Hills. A center opened in Harlem in 2005, and in the Bronx in 2012.

"Our goal is to give the opportunity to be as independent as possible to the vulnerable local community," LaRue said.

The St. George center will be dedicated to Louis Battipaglia, a Staten Island resident who was a participant of the ArchCare before the PACE program was introduced.

"He stayed with us for 17 years," said Lynda Piraino, one of the center's managers. "He had no family. We were his family."
Screen Shot 2016-11-09 at 9.01.03 PM.jpg

Traffic circles similar to this one in Arlington, Virginia were proposed to reduce traffic speeds on Greeley Avenue in Midland Beach. (Google)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Representatives from the City Department of Transportation (DOT), elected officials and community members gathered in Midland Beach Wednesday night to discuss a new proposal to deal with ongoing traffic issues on Greeley Avenue.

The DOT presented residents at a meeting of the Midland Beach Civic Association with the idea of traffic circles designed to reduce the speed of motorists.

"The mornings are brutal," Greeley Avenue resident Jim Welborn said.

He remebered his wife having to act as a crossing guard so his children could get to school safely in the morning from their home between Colony Avenue and Baden Place.

Councilman Steven Matteo described the idea as "out of the box," but seemed hopeful that it would improve the situation.

"The status quo can't remain the same," he said. "Greeley Avenue has become a dangerous thoroughfare."

Matteo and Borough President James Oddo have long supported stop signs for the area, but DOT officials said the traffic and pedestrian numbers in the area don't indicate that need.

The meeting inside the Olympia Activity Center was meant to present residents with suggestions the DOT came to after months of studying the street. Matteo said nothing at the meeting was concrete.

"It was important to hear the concerns of citizens on Greeley," Matteo said.

There were mixed reviews from residents in the area who have long been concerned about people turning onto Greeley off Hylan Boulevard to take advantage of its unimpeded access to Father Capoddano Boulevard.

Several residents seemed concerned that the structures at Oldfield Street, Moreland Avenue, Freeborn Street and Colony Avenue would not significantly slow traffic, would further reduce parking in an already overcrowded area, and would complicate turning maneuvers for local residents.

DOT officials said approximately four spots would be lost at each intersection because of "daylighting" measures taken at all four circles.

Daylighting refers to steps taken, often reducing parking, at crosswalks to improve visibility for pedestrians and motorists.

However, some residents see this as their last hope for a safer street, after suggestions like speed cameras, stop signs, and speed bumps have been rejected by the DOT.

"Ideally what I would like more than anything is to calm traffic in the morning hours," DOT Staten Island Borough Commissioner Thomas Cocola said.

DOT officials said conversations with the NYPD and FDNY indicate that emergency response movements will not be hindered by the circles. They added that they were waiting to hear back from the Department of Sanitation on how the circles would affect plowing.

The traffic circles have been successfully used in various parts of the country including Seattle, Chicago, and Arlington, Va., DOT officials said.

Several accidents have occurred on the street in recent months, including a May incident that sent 10 children to the hospital after a school bus and garbage truck collided.

Rosemary Vasquenz, a memeber of the Midland Beach Civic Association Executive Board, said she knows something needs to be done on the street.

"Greeley Avenue has been a long time issue in need of something, anything," she said. "I think it's a good start."
NWS RUMC emergency drill

(Staten Island Advance Photo)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are searching for a patient who went missing on Thursday morning from Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton, a source with knowledge of the investigation said.

The man was last seen at about 8:30 a.m. in the medical facility at 355 Bard Ave., the source said.

Police radio transmissions indicated that the hospital and surrounding neighborhood were searched for the man described as black, over 6 feet tall, with a beard and who was last seen wearing a hospital gown.

"There was an admitted patient who departed the medical center earlier today under their own power," said hospital spokesman William Smith. "Out of concern for the patient's care, we contacted the NYPD.

"It is important to note that the patient was voluntarily admitted and was not under NYPD guard or any order to remain in the medical center."

Smith said that privacy laws prevented him from providing any information about the patient's identity or care.

A spokesman for the NYPD's Deputy of Public Information was unable to provide any information about the missing man.
With most of the Q3 earnings season behind us, Toyota Motor Corporation TM was the only major auto sector company to post results over the week. Tesla Motors, Inc. TSLA announced an acquisition, while Winnebago Industries, Inc. WGO completed a previously announced buyout.

Further, Ford Motor Co. F and General Motors Co. GM announced record October sales volumes in China. General Motors also announced some investment and production plans.

(Read the previous roundup here: Auto Stock Roundup for Nov 3, 2016)

Recap of the Weeks Most Important Stories

1. Toyota recorded earnings of 128.54 per share ($2.51 per ADR) in second-quarter (ended Sep 30, 2016) fiscal 2017, down from 192.51 per share ($3.16 per ADR) earned in second-quarter (ended Sep 30, 2015) fiscal 2016. Earnings per ADR surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.12. Consolidated revenues decreased 8.6% year over year to 6.48 trillion ($63.32 billion). The figure also missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $64.56 billion.

Net earnings for fiscal 2017 are expected at around 1.55 trillion ($15 billion), up from the prior view of 1.45 trillion ($14.2 billion). The net income guidance reflects expectation of a 33% decrease over fiscal 2016 (read more: Toyota Q2 Earnings Beat, Revenues Lag Estimates).

Toyota carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

2. Tesla announced that it has agreed to buy Grohmann Engineering, a German automated manufacturing specialist. The company will be renamed Tesla Grohmann Automation and should play an integral role in helping Tesla reach its increased production capacity goals. Tesla expects the deal to close by early 2017. Upon approval, its new operations in Germany will bring over 1,000 advanced engineering and skilled technician jobs to the country over the next two years (read more: Here's Why Tesla Just Bought a German Engineering Firm).

Tesla currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

3. General Motors announced that it will invest over $900 million in three U.S. facilities for future vehicle programs. These facilities are the Toledo Transmission Operations in Ohio, Lansing Grand River in Michigan and Bedford Casting Operations in Indiana.

Story continues

The company will also suspend the third shift of production at the Lordstown, OH, and Lansing Grand River, MI assembly plants in the first quarter of 2017. This is being done to align production with demand for cars built at these facilities.

Currently, General Motors has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

4. Winnebago has completed the acquisition of privately held towable recreation vehicles (RVs) producer, Grand Design Recreational Vehicle Company, for roughly $500 million. With this deal, which was announced last month, Winnebago intends to increase its presence in the towables business as well as diversify its portfolio with this merger.

Winnebago currently carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

5. Ford and General Motors reported their respective China sales figures for Oct 2016. General Motors and its joint ventures in China reported a 5.7% year-over-year increase in deliveries to a record 345,733 vehicles. Meanwhile, Fords sales in China increased 14% year over year to 107,618 units during the period, which is an October record for the company.

Performance

The companies in the auto sector recorded mixed performance last week. General Motors and Honda Motor Co., Ltd. HMC lost the most during the week, while Ford was the biggest loser over the last six months.

Meanwhile, Harley-Davidson, Inc. HOG gained the most over both the short and longer terms.

Company Last 1-Week Period Last 6 Months GM -1.6% -1.2% F +1.6% -14.2% TSLA +1.1% -8.9% TM -1.4% +6.7% HMC -1.6% -1.1% HOG +5.0% +26.7% AAP +1.6% -7.9% AZO +0.4% -6.1%

Auto-Tires-Trucks Sector Price Index

Auto-Tires-Trucks Sector Price Index

Whats Next in the Auto Space?

A few auto companies, including Advance Auto Parts and Tata Motors, will release their financial results in the coming week.

Further, some automakers will report their Europe sales for October in the coming days.

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Comedian Aman Ali Comedian Aman Ali

As part of International Education Week, Skidmore welcomes Aman Ali, an award-winning storyteller, comedian, and popular social-media personality in the Muslim community. His free, public talk, titled "Ask Me AnythingI'm Muslim!" begins at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 15, in Gannett Auditorium. Known for his curiosity and openness as well as humor, he will present some basics about Islam and then take questions from the audience. A reception will follow.



International Education Week is a program of the US Department of State. Highlights of Skidmores observance include:

* screening of Ang Lee's Wedding Banquet (about a Taiwanese immigrant and his parents) with Chinese language professor Mao Chen, Monday, Nov. 14, 6:15 p.m. (with refreshments beforehand), Language Resource Center (Palamountain Hall, room 429)

* workshop on leveraging study-abroad experience into a job after college, with Rachel Rice from IES Abroad, Thursday, Nov. 17, noon to 2 p.m., Intercultural Center

* screening of The True Cost (about the global fashion industry and its workers) with environmental studies professor Andrew Schneller and sustainability fellow Jennifer Natyzak, Thursday, Nov. 17, 6:30 p.m., Emerson Auditorium

* community fundraiser for Haiti, featuring activities, performances, and food, Saturday, Nov. 19, 5 to 8 p.m., Case Center

Tuesday's Ali visit is co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Strategic Planning and Institutional Diversity, the Off-Campus Study and Exchanges Office, and two student clubs: Hayat and the International Student Union. The ISU has grown as Skidmore has enrolled more and more non-US studentsfrom 1% less than a decade ago to more than 10% of the student body this year. Read about Skidmores international Davis Scholars, and meet international freshmen Devka Nambiar and NK Mabaso.

Ohio-born, New York City-based Ali has been a multimedia reporter for CNN, ABC News, NPR, and other outlets. He has been a standup comic and storyteller for several years, often discussing his upbringing by parents from India living in Americas Midwest. He and friend Bassam Tariq, a photographer and filmmaker, created the 30 Mosques in 30 Days blog in 2009. Since then, they have continued to report on visits to mosques all over the US and have made short films about various facets of Muslim life.
Nov 10 (Reuters) - Maire Tecnimont SpA :

* Unit in consortium is awarded contract by Petronas in Malaysia for about $328 million

* Consortium consists of unit Tecnimont, with a 65 percent stake, and China HuanQiu Contracting & Engineering Corporation, with a 35 percent stake Source text: www.1info.it Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)
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Nov 10 (Reuters) - Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd

* MAHB System of airports (including istanbul sgia) recorded 9.9 million passengers in october 2016, an 11.0% growth

* In oct 2016 there was an increase of 5.7% and 3.8% respectively for international and domestic aircraft movements in malaysia over oct 2015

* Overall average load factors improved to 71% in oct2016, up 4.5 percentage points compared to the same month last year Source (http://bit.ly/2eN5HzT) Further company coverage:
The Commonwealth Ombudsman has begun investigating police's handling of a sexual assault case in which a prison guard was locked up for four months on false allegations.

The prison officer, who cannot be named, was accused of viciously bashing and raping his ex-partner, a NSW police worker, in 2013 and 2014.

This former prison guard spent months in Goulburn jail after his ex-partner falsely alleged he had bashed and sexually assaulted her.

He was locked up on remand for four months at the notorious Goulburn jail. His status as a prison guard put him at enormous risk behind bars, and he has previously spoken of having to hide his identity and invent back stories to stay safe.
A South Coast indigenous fisherman and surfer has warned locals and visitors to Eurobodalla National Park to keep safe, after he had a close encounter with a white pointer shark, also known as a great white shark, at Potato Point on Wednesday afternoon.

Walbunja man Wayne Carberry had headed down to Potato Point just after lunchtime on Wednesday, to pick up some salmon from a fisherman friend, when out on the rocks, a massive white pointer emerged from the water.

Mr Carberry, quick with his camera phone, was able to capture the moments when the shark rose and thrashed about in the water just metres from his feet near the rocks at the well-known local fishing spot.

While he has been an amateur fisherman and competitive indigenous surfer for many years, he said it was the first time he had ever seen a white pointer in the flesh.
The election of Donald Trump could create delay and uncertainty for Australians doing business in the United States, according to Canberra Business Chamber chairman Glenn Keys.

"I think there's a great deal of uncertainty [about] what it will mean and I think quite honestly we're probably going to have to hold our breath for the next couple of months and see how things go down," Mr Keys said from San Antonio, Texas.

Glenn Keys says the Trump win heralds a time of uncertainty for local business. Credit:Sean Davey

"There are consulting businesses doing work over there, there's IT companies doing work in the US, and if some of those relate to some of the areas that the Trump campaign has said that they're going to review or even cancel, then that would have an effect. There will be a number of state department programs I'm sure that are going to be looked at quite closely, probably USAID-style contracts will be looked at quite closely."

But he said the rhetoric of the campaign would also confront the practicalities of government.
A "visionary" outlook, willingness to collaborate and being "influential" are three of the key attributes the public service is set to look for in its future leaders, one of the APS' senior executives told a conference in Canberra Thursday.

Secretary of the Department of Social services, Finn Pratt, was one of several speakers at the Institute of Public Administration Association ACT's conference on "thinking big" at Hotel Realm on Thursday.

Institute of Public Affairs Australia ACT conference 2016. Finn Pratt, Secretary Department of Social Services. Photo Jay Cronan Credit:Jay Cronan

The long-time executive sits on the Australian Public Service Commission's Talent Council - a key central body that has been scouring some of the private sector's top consulting firms for strategies to attract and develop promising young public servants.

Mr Pratt told the packed conference room that work had led the council to come up with a list of five key attributes it would be looking for in a potential "talent management" strategy that will be shared with a "very senior, very small group of senior executives" over the next six months.
Recently retired Geelong champion Jimmy Bartel is partly relieved that Gary Ablett was not granted his wish of a return to the Cats in last month's trade period.

Make no mistake, Bartel would be excited by the prospect of Ablett linking up with Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood in Geelong's midfield.

Gary Ablett and Jimmy Bartel reunited at the Brownlow this year. Credit:Getty Images

But more than that, Bartel would have loved the opportunity to play with his old mate one more time.

If Ablett somehow managed to end up back at the club where he won two premierships just after Bartel brought down the curtain on his glittering career, it would have been a cruel twist for the 2007 Brownlow medallist.
Everybody was caught with their pants down when it came to Donald Trump's unexpected election victory, including the bookies, which are paying dearly for their collective misjudgement.

Sportsbet reports it has paid out $11 million to 25,000 punters who backed Trump, including one punter who picked up $10,100 from a $100 bet on Trump in 2014.

The company, owned by Irish bookmaker Paddy Power/Betfair, hasn't said how much was bet on a Hillary Clinton victory, but twice as many bets were made on Trump, suggesting the losses across the industry will be substantial.

This is certainly the case for its UK parent, which was so confident of a Democrat victory it paid out 1 million ($1.4 million) to punters three weeks before the election. Like everyone, it believed the polls.
Treasury Wine shares soared on Thursday  and not just because its massive US business is expected to bloom as the Trump-trodden elites drown their sorrows.

Shares were up as much as 9 per cent  breaking above the $11 mark during the day  as CEO Michael Clarke confirmed it will deliver profit margins in the high teens next year and is targeting group profit margins that is "towards" its Asian margins  circa 30 per cent.

Not that investors needed any more reason to cheer after Clarke's chairman, Paul Rayner, let investors in on a perk you would not get at other companies on the ASX  or his previous employer, British American Tobacco.

"Of course, our wonderful wines are at the heart of our company, and at the close of this meeting, we will be serving some of the outstanding wines from our portfolio," said Rayner.
Two former Rio Tinto chief executives are included in the emails at the heart of investigations across three continents into payments the global miner made over access to a mining project in West Africa.

Both Tom Albanese and Sam Walsh received emails relating to $US10.5 million ($13.5 million) in payments to a consultant over the massive Simandou iron ore deposit in Guinea.

The Rio investigation was sparked by a leaked email exchange that took place in 2011 between Rio's then chief executive Tom Albanese, his successor, Sam Walsh (pictured), who was running Rio's iron ore division at the time. Credit:Bloomberg

The emails were sent in 2011 as Rio was finalising access to the deposit but have only now been brought to the attention of the authorities in Britain, the United States and Australia.

At the time, Mr Albanese was the company's chief executive and Mr Walsh the head of the group's iron ore operations. Mr Walsh went on to become the group's chief executive after Mr Albanese was pushed out over a failed investment in an African coal project that cost the group billions of dollars.
A proposed Moonee Ponds apartment tower rising 34 levels  a height which would have made it Melbourne's tallest suburban skyscraper three years ago  is set to be decided by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, after being rejected by the local council.

As part of its second and final stage affecting the former Readings Cinema and Moonee Ponds Market site, local developer Caydon has also applied to build an 18-level building. In total, the request seeks to add 691 flats and 102 serviced apartments to the 1.34-hectare block.

Orion International Group will join housing development along the banks of the Maribyrnong River. Credit:Craig Abraham

Earlier this year and following a VCAT hearing, Caydon won approval to develop the first stage of a $700 million redevelopment, which included four towers (the highest at 23 levels) containing 612 dwellings.

Caydon paid $42 million for the block in April 2015. The vendors, Leighton Properties and Qualitas, paid $23 million for the land in October 2013. Their less-dense proposal for the site contained about 1200 dwellings.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has dismissed the EU's tax findings against Apple. Credit:MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ "While Trump is seeking to promote business activity 'at home' rather than 'abroad', this ironically may give rise to implicit support for measures which assist US firms reduce taxation offshore," he said. Here's a summary of Trump's proposed tax changes: 1. Business tax cuts Trump had said he will cut the company tax rate from 35 per cent to 15 per cent.

He has also proposed a 10 per cent "deemed" repatriation tax on the foreign earnings of US-based companies. He also wants to allow businesses to immediately deduct the cost of asset acquisitions, however, they won't be able to deduct interest expense on any borrowing. The theory is that this reduces dependence on debt, but Wardell-Johnson said it could attract "odd structuring". The Washington-based Tax Foundation says cutting the company tax rate would cost an extra $US1.5 trillion ($1.96 trillion). Given 15 per cent is lower than the average corporate tax rate around the world, there could be benefits. Experts point to Ireland, and more recently Britain, as examples of countries that cut their tax rates and are attracting foreign investment.

However, this is also largely due to more favourable tax incentives that have been offered in Ireland. Apple has been ordered to pay up to 13 billion ($19 billion) in back taxes, plus interest, to Ireland after the European Commission found the software giant had received "illegal state aid". The Tax Foundation says that while it has not modelled the impact lower corporate taxes will have on reducing profit shifting, "an increase in reported income in the US could somewhat mitigate the revenue effects of the corporate rate cut". According to OECD figures, multinational profit shifting is reducing US tax revenue up to $US135 billion annually ($176 billion). Wardell-Johnson said a lower US company tax rate was likely to increase pressure on the Turnbull government to reduce our corporate tax rate. PwC's Australian tax leader Pete Calleja agreed it could push Australia to move. "While the majority of OECD countries including Britain have reduced their corporate tax rates over the last decade Australia is yet to do so," he said.

Here's a summary of Trump's tax agenda: 2. Changes to the tax rate paid by individuals Trump wants to reduce individual income tax rates. At the moment there are seven tax brackets. Trump would reduce them to four, lowering the top marginal tax rate from 39.6 per cent to 25 per cent and creating a large zero bracket. He would also tax long-term capital gains and qualified dividends at a top marginal rate of 20 per cent.

The Tax Foundation predicts under the tax changes those on a middle income would see their after-tax adjusted gross income (AGI) rise 19.7 per cent and those in the top 1 per cent would see an increase in after-tax AGI of 27 per cent. "These changes in the incentives to work and invest would greatly increase the US economy's size in the long run, leading to higher incomes for taxpayers at all income levels," it says. It estimates the plan would increase the federal government's deficit by more than $US10.14 trillion. 3. Elimination of the death taxes Under US law, if a person dies with an estate valued at more than $5.45 million, they pay 40 per cent tax on the excess value.

Trump's proposal would eliminate the estate tax, opening up opportunities for the wealthy to pass expensive estates on to their children virtually tax-free. While assets won't be taxed immediately upon death, the Tax Foundation notes that any appreciation inherent in the assets of an estate valued in excess of $10 million will be taxed if the estate is sold. The foundation predicts the cost of eliminating the estate tax is $238 billion. 4. Pass-though entities to get taxed at 15 per cent The US contains a substantial number of businesses located in "pass-through entities" that will be optionally entitled to the 15 per cent tax rate at the owner level, rather than higher personal tax rates.
Trump has proposed slashing the tax rate on income held overseas to 10 per cent, most notably during a speech at the Economic Club of New York in September.

"This wealth that's parked overseas, nobody knows how much it is, some say it's $US2.5 trillion  I have people that think it's $US5 trillion," Trump said. "We'll bring it back, and it will be taxed only at the rate of 10 per cent instead of 35 per cent. And who would bring it back at 35 per cent? Obviously nobody, because nobody's doing it."

The largest beneficiaries of the move would be the big American technology groups," the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

"Honestly, I believe the legislature and the administration will agree that it's in the best interest of the country and the economy to have tax reform," Tim Cook said in an interview with The Washington Post earlier this year. "And when we bring it back, we will pay 35 per cent federal tax and then a weighted average across the states that we're in, which is about 5 per cent, so think of it as 40 per cent. We've said at 40 per cent, we're not going to bring it back until there's a fair rate."

Moody's says US companies outside the financial sector hold $US1.2 trillion overseas. Apple is the largest hoarder.
At the precise moment that Donald Trump was giving his acceptance speech live, I was in a room packed with a thousand people in Sydney, listening to Maria Tiimon Chi-Fang, a leading activist from the island state of Kiribati.

All day I had been sending emails with the subject line "It's the end of the world". I suddenly felt embarrassed by the privilege of this hyperbole.

Naomi Klein.

If Trump does what he says and rolls back the (insufficient) climate progress won under President Barack Obama, inspiring other nations to do the same, Chi-Fang's nation and culture will almost surely disappear beneath the waves. Literally, the end of her whole world.

Chi-Fang talked about how the Paris climate summit was a rare moment of hope. It's not a perfect text, but island nations waged, and won, a valiant battle to include language reflecting the need to keep warming below 1.5 degrees.
If you are feeling worried about the fate of the world, spare a thought for the kids.

Donald Trump claimed victory in the US presidential election and the headlines and social media exploded with words like "fear", "plunge", "shock", "upset", "uncertainty", "misogyny", "chaos", "revolution", "racism", "unthinkable" and "tragedy".

The first comment I saw on social media from an Australian child was: #RIPworld. Another posted a black and white photo of a nebulous window with rain spattering against it.

Friends overheard seven-year-olds at school this morning saying, "Hillary will probably be in jail by this afternoon" and "I hate Donald Trump". Someone else said their 12-year-old described the new world as "scary and dangerous".
A lot is being said now about the "silent secret Trump supporters."

This is my confession - and explanation: I - a 51-year-old, a Muslim, an immigrant woman "of colour" - am one of those silent voters for Donald Trump. And I'm not a "bigot," "racist," "chauvinist" or "white supremacist," as Trump voters are being called, nor part of some "whitelash."

In the winter of 2008, as a lifelong liberal and proud daughter of West Virginia, a state born on the correct side of history on slavery, I moved to historically conservative Virginia only because the state had helped elect Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States.

But, then, for much of this past year, I have kept my electoral preference secret: I was leaning toward Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Melburnians don't mind a queue. We'll spend serious amounts of time waiting in line to eat artisan gelato or buy the world's best croissants. We'll queue for ages at food truck parks to order philly cheesesteak sandwiches, tacos and blue cheese burgers. Once the food is taken care of, we'll line up to buy beer, and then get back in a queue for dessert.

Weekend waits of 40 minutes for a brunch table at a cafe are a year-round phenomenon  basic training. European blockbuster exhibitions at the NGV provide many of our children with their introductions to queuing. (I marvelled at my son's patience while we waited in line for an hour to get a look at some of those European masters when he was little. As soon as we got inside his patience ran out.)

Melburnians don't mind waiting in a queue, whether it be for food, drink or to check out a new building. Credit:Getty Images

I warmed up on the weekend in a 30-minute queue to order Japanese fried chicken at a mini arts festival at Abbotsford Convent. I then waited a surprisingly brief five minutes for the delivery of the food and spent another quick five minutes eating it while other diners hovered over my table. Total meal time: 40 minutes, most of it spent in the queue.

Things will get really serious when the Night Noodle Market kicks off at Birrarung Marr on November 10. We will form long lines for glazed pork belly skewers, Peking duck fries and krispy chicken wings on pineapple fried rice, then hunt around for a table to eat it at.
There are two ways to look at Donald Trump's ascension to the White House. One: as an endorsement of the man himself, and his controversial views on gender, race and religion. Or two: as a comprehensive rejection of the establishment political structure in Washington. I am an optimist, so am choosing to believe the second one, partly because I desperately want it to be true, but also because I think it likely is. I do not believe half of the US population to be misogynistic, or racist or Islamophobes. Those who do believe that do neither side of politics justice.

Like many Australians on Wednesday my first reaction was one of utter disbelief. How. Could. America. Do. That? But then I would say that. Inner city-living, degree-wielding, mainstream media-working "elitist" that I am. I drink flat whites, not lattes, but otherwise I tick most of the boxes that would earn me the distrust of supporters of Donald Trump, Brexit or Pauline Hanson.

Here I was thinking I was part of a sensible majority when it turns out I am in fact part of an elitist minority. Discombobulating, isn't it? (Let's face it, if you're reading this you probably are too).

So on Wednesday night, after the initial wave of shock, I really tried to think beyond my prejudices. To consider why people around the world are so upset.
Today, thankfully, the public debate is as much about helping the living as it is about honouring the fallen. That's because many have answered the call to do more for veterans and their families, and understand better what veterans can give back.

In the Herald, five years ago, I foreshadowed the emerging problems faced by today's soldiers returning from a decade of war. That article became a book, Anzac's Long Shadow, urging a national conversation on the place of veterans in Australian life.

A Senate inquiry this year highlighted the critical work veterans' charities do on mental health and urged a greater national focus to help recent veterans transition back into our community. The need remains acute: in the last year, one investigation found, more Australian veterans took their own lives than died during combat operations in Afghanistan.

Thousands of volunteers, many in uniform, are on our streets this week calling for donations to the RSL's annual poppy appeal. In its centennial year, the work of the RSL remains fundamentally important to Australia's 160,000 veterans and their families.

NSW Premier Mike Baird and his ministers committed to help more than 200 veterans transition into the public service. Clubs NSW similarly committed to boost veterans among their 62,000 staff and several RSL clubs have opened new veterans' centres. The NSW RSL established a new charitable arm, Defencecare, focused on helping veterans and their families in immediate distress. New federal government employment initiatives connect major companies with veterans' groups. Homes for Heroes is addressing the issue of veteran homelessness while another charity is training veterans to be part of humanitarian disaster recovery teams.

Veterans are no longer desperate and desolate, isolated from the society they have served. They are beginning to thrive. Nothing embodies this new spirit more than Prince Harry's Invictus Games for wounded warriors, bound for Australia (and hopefully Sydney) in 2018.

But though it looms large among the ecosystem of ex-service organisations, the RSL is in crisis. The organisation's NSW board faces multiple investigations into allegations, yet to be proven, of breach of duty. Most concerning are allegations that the last state president, current state treasurer and two other volunteer directors quietly received more than $2 million of vaguely defined "consulting fees" from an RSL-controlled company at the same time they were encouraging rank and file donations to it. This week the national RSL president, Rod White, until recently heading NSW operations, stepped down. Anger at the revelations is white-hot across the 360 community sub-branches of the RSL in NSW, and among the charity's 40,000 volunteer members.

But most concerning is the damage these revelations might cause to public trust in the RSL. It would be tragic if the organisation's recent efforts were to be cruelled by the actions of a few.

Restoring the RSL must begin by acknowledging the culture among the organisation's leaders that has allowed these problems to fester. Greater transparency into leadership decisions and finances will help the RSL be more accountable to its members and the public. That includes greater oversight by the NSW Parliament, by whose hand the RSL was established in 1935.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has assured US President-elect Donald Trump that Queensland will continue to work with America.

In fact, the Premier already owes him one. The US presidential election provided the perfect cover for the Queensland government as it took the extraordinary step of amending its own water legislation to appease Indian coal miner, Adani, in a midnight session of Parliament last night.

Queensland and our priceless water resources have been well and truly "trumped" by a sweetheart deal for Adani.

Queensland and our priceless water resources have been well and truly "trumped" by a sweetheart deal for Adani.

The amendment that was passed will short-circuit public notification rules around groundwater licences for Adani. It creates a special loophole for the Adani Carmichael coal mine, which aims to exempt the project from community objections rights in relation to groundwater licences.
It's the unmitigated disbelief that's telling. Even as the rise of Trumpism broke every barrier that was meant to stop it, no one outside the Fox News bubble genuinely thought it could break the final barrier. Not the pollsters, not the pundits, not even Trump's own aides.

And certainly not casual observers who just assumed you couldn't attract Ku Klux Klan endorsements, boast about sexually assaulting women, and pledge to build a wall to keep out Mexicans who are "criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc", and still become the president of the United States.

Now America's first African-American president will hand over to a man who for years prosecuted the racist lie he was illegitimate because he was born in Kenya. Welcome to history, I guess.

But now glance at the stats currently saturating American television. Trump did better with black voters than Mitt Romney did in 2012. He did better with Latinos, too. In the end, he won the vote of white women handily, despite the parade of them who came out in recent months to accuse him of violating them. And that, right there, is the reason for the disbelief. Trump was so repugnant because he violated our sense of identity politics.
Rose McClintock has visited the redwoods of California, celebrated the Cubs' World Series win on the streets of Chicago, skied in Colorado and watched a Michigan gridiron game.

But now the Australian, who has loved two years of living in the United States, wants out. And she is not alone.

For Ms McClintock, a 25-year-old consultant from Sydney who now lives in Chicago, the shock victory of outsider presidential candidate Donald Trump represents a "punch in the gut" for women and an endorsement of bigotry.

"Last night and today, it just feels devastating here," she told Fairfax Media from New York, where she is on a work trip. "It doesn't feel like a place I want to be in a lot of ways."
Former prime minister Paul Keating says Australia should "cut the tag" with the United States following Donald Trump's shock win in Tuesday's presidential election, and instead assert our own foreign policy in the Asian region.

He said Australia found itself in a "crazy position" where the US alliance had "taken on a reverential, sacramental quality" for both Coalition and Labor politicians, at the expense of pursuing relationships with our closest neighbours.

"The foreign policy of Australia is basically: we have tag along rights to the US. It's time to cut the tag, it's time to get out of it," Mr Keating told the ABC's 7.30 program. "What we have to do is make our way in Asia ourselves, with an independent foreign policy."

The comments come amid a soul-searching following the election of Mr Trump, whose unorthodox pronouncements on foreign affairs and trade have alarmed observers and markets, but pleased American voters who want the US to look after its own backyard.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has described US President-elect Donald Trump as a deal maker and pragmatist, welcoming early discussions on the Asia-Pacific region, trade and the fight against Islamic State.

Mr Turnbull phoned the Republican businessman from Parliament House on Thursday morning, with the 15-minute discussion coming amid calls from a number of world leaders congratulating Mr Trump after his shock victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The two discussed close historic ties between Australia and the US, agreeing to continue to build on the key alliance after Mr Trump takes office on January 20.

An early meeting between the pair is planned.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has congratulated his successor Malcolm Turnbull for shifting his focus after the election to "bread and butter" conservative issues and away from less resonant rhetoric about innovation.

Mr Abbott also said that polls  including those that precipitated him losing the leadership of the Liberal Party  should not be listened to because voters' intentions were not being accurately reflected, as was demonstrated ahead of Donald Trump's shock victory this week.

In an apparent swipe at Mr Turnbull's election campaign slogan, Mr Abbott said "there has been a lot less talk about innovation and agility and the new economy" from the government since the Coalition's underwhelming result.

"A lot more talk about national security and border security," he told ABC radio. "A lot more talk about cost of living and the need to reject Labor's 50 per cent renewable energy target ."
A cloud, however, hangs over the agreement with the Trump election. The Republican candidate and much of his party have vowed to overturn the climate policies of incumbent Barack Obama when the administration changes in January. Hazelwood, Australia's dirtiest power station, will close next March. Credit:Eddie Jim President Obama had made the US commitment to Paris an executive decision, and so is one that his successor could reverse. Under the Paris agreement, any country signing up cannot exit within three years and must then wait another year before formally renouncing it - although a President Trump may find a faster departure route. Australia's ratification will bring some cheer to climate negotiators in Morocco, many of whom were stunned by the US election of a climate-denying president.

One European delegate told Fairfax Media that some had become upset as the results rolled in on Wednesday. "Shock. Terrible. Some were in tears," said the delegate, describing the reaction. "Many - like me - were blocking it out and seeking refuge in sarcasm." Malte Mainshausen, director of Melbourne University's Climate & Energy College, said it may be best for the Paris agreement if the US withdraws given Mr Trump's anti-climate stance. "While likely detrimental to the geopolitical interests of the US itself, that would open the door for the club of the willing to move forward...rather than being held up on that common journey by a destructive voice from within," Professor Mainshausen said. "If Australia plays its cards correctly, it could still manage to grab the opportunity of becoming the energy superpower in a zero carbon world now that the US seems to have temporarily abandoned that contest."

'Important signal' Erwin Jackson, deputy chief executive of The Climate Institute, said Australia's move "sends an important international signal" that nations would stick by their climate pledges. Investors and the wider community in Australia would also take some heart the government was staying its course, he said. "China's not going to stop decarbonising, [billionaire] Elon Musk is not going to stop building his giga-battery factory," Mr Jackson said. Frank Jotzo, deputy director of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, said ratification would give Australia a stronger position in the climate talks in Morocco.

"The Paris Agreement has entered into force, so part of the Marrakech meeting serves as a meeting of the parties to the agreement, Australia can now be part of that," Professor Jotzo said. "The day after Donald Trump's election, it sends a signal that one of the United States' strongest allies remains committed to the UN climate change process," he said. 'Direct threat' Ms Bishop also stressed the importance economic opportunities from carbon curbs. "The global low-emissions economy is estimated to be worth around $6 trillion and is growing at some 4-5 per cent per annum," she said. "We believe, through the use of technology and research and science and innovation, there will be many opportunities for Australian businesses."

"Australia has a strong track record on international emissions reduction targets. We beat our first Kyoto target by 128 million tonnes and are on track to meet and beat our second Kyoto 2020 target by 78 million tonnes." Mark Butler, Labor's climate spokesman, welcomed the ratification but noted Australia's commitment is not yet backed with policies, citing research by the Climate Action Tracker. "The Turnbull Government has no policy for renewable energy investment post 2020, which is also crucial to meet our Paris obligations," Mr Butler said. "As the ACTU has also pointed out, nor does the Government have a plan for a Just Transition to a clean energy economy, as the Paris Agreement calls for." Adam Bandt, the Greens climate change spokesman, also applauded the government's move. "The Trump presidency is a direct threat to the Australian way of life as it makes it harder to stop runaway global warming," Mr Bandt said.

He noted President-elect Trump reportedly plans to appoint Myron Ebell, a prominent climate change denier, to head the US Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has been a key conduit of President Obama's climate policies. "Trump has started a climate war in the United States and if he carries out his threats, there will be a rise in civil disobedience as people start taking direct action to stop new gas and oil developments in particular." 'Vital step' Simon Bradshaw, Oxfam Australia's climate change adviser, said the government now had to introduce policies so the promised targets could be achieved. "While ratification is a vital step and should be celebrated, the government is yet to do the math on what the agreement means for Australia and the scale of action we must take if we're to do our part and help avoid a much more dangerous future," Dr Bradshaw said.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has emerged from his first post-election conversation with Donald Trump to reassure Australians that the rogue Republican's record as an entrepreneur means he will be more interested in closing deals than hardline ideology.

The assertion came as Canberra scrambles to reconfigure for the President-elect's still unknown and unpredictable administration.

After a telephone discussion between Mr Turnbull and Mr Trump on Thursday morning  which covered the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the continued presence of the US in the Asia-Pacific region and the fight against ISIS  Mr Turnbull attempted to brush off the billionaire property tycoon's many extreme pre-election statements on abandoning trade and defence treaty obligations, as campaign hyperbole.

"He is a businessman, a deal maker, and he will, I have no doubt, view the world in a very practical and pragmatic way," he said.
Bernie Sanders says the loss of working class votes to Trump was an embarrassment for the Democrats. The 75-year old isn't ruling out at 2020 tilt. [AP] 2. Russia did have contact with Team Trump Trump repeatedly denied having contact with the Russian government during the campaign amid fears the Kremlin was meddling in the outcome of the US election. But Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that "there were contacts" with the Trump team. [David Filipov, Andrew Roth/The Washington Post] 3. Trump invites May to D.C amid groping warning The call to the British PM came surprisingly low on the list of world leaders called (10th) and after the one made to Australia's PM Turnbull. [Mark Kenny/Fairfax]

Donald Trump told Theresa May the UK is a "very, very special place for me and for our country" and the US-UK relationship would continue to go from "strength to strength." Trump invited May to visit ASAP. [Sky News UK] Nigel Farage with Donald Trump at an election rally in Jackson, Mississippi. Credit:AP Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who campaigned with Trump after his Brexit success, has "joked" that he'll warn his mate not to grope the British PM when she visits. "Come and schmooze Theresa, don't touch her for goodness sake," Farage says! [Steerpike] Some days I really do wish I could put emojis in Double Shot... Highly recommend this piece on the parallels of US-British politics and how Brexit was a dry-run for a Trump presidency. [The Economist] The prospect of a Trump presidency horrified more than half a million Brits who signed a petition, forcing a debate in the Commons in January this year over whether the real estate mogul should be banned from ever visiting the UK. More than a few MPs will be swallowing some of their criticisms of Trump, as our EU correspondent Nick Miller helpfully reminds us. [The Sydney Morning Herald]

But Trump's election could actually be good news for Britain. During the Brexit campaign, Obama visited London and said Britain would be placed at the "back of the queue" if it left the European Union. Trump promised Britain would be placed at the front of the queue under his administration. 4. Obama-Turnbull refugee deal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks as US President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden listen. Credit:AP Australia and the US are poised to announce a deal to resettle the 1,200 asylum seekers languishing on Nauru and Manus Island. With the boats now stopped under the Coalition's policy of turnbacks, this would effectively spell the end of offshore detention which blights Australia's human rights record. [Dennis Shannahan/The Australian] Last month, the prime minister denied that Australia's acceptance of refugees from Costa Rica was part of a people swap deal with the US aimed at clearing Nauru and Manus. [Fergus Hunter, Michael Koziol/Fairfax]

This is exactly how the alliance should work. How to break the deadlock on offshore detention has plagued our policymakers and comes at a time when some MPs are calling for a rethink of the alliance as a result of the ascension of Trump. Notably, former Labor prime minister Paul Keating is urging Australia to "cut the tag" and end the "tag along" approach we have with the Yanks. Former Liberal prime minister John Howard also appeared on 7.30 last night and it's well worth considering both ex-PMs' views here. [Michael Koziol/Fairfax] Interesting from Liberal pollster Mark Textor on why Brexit/Trump is unlikely to happen in Australia. [Sky News] Equally as interesting is Cory Bernardi from New York who predicted Trump's win and believes there are implications for Australia (includes a shot at Textor.) [Sky News] But the final word on this goes to Michelle Grattan who has a great comment piece on it all this Friday. [The Conversation] 5. Canada ready to renegotiate NAFTA

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Photo AP Credit:AP Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is open to renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Donald Trump. [Jesse Winter/Toronto Star] 6. Celebrity endorsements  what are they worth? Hillary Clinton on stage with Beyonce and Jay Z at a concert on Saturday. Credit:AP One of the cringeworthy aspects of the voluntary voting system is the often tacky spectacle of candidates rolling out celebrities for endorsements. (Granted in Australia we go too far the other way and tear into anyone who dares have an opinion about politics  think Carbon Cate.) Clearly campaign teams consider celebrities essential in motivating voters to get out on polling day. But are they really effective?

Katy Perry campaigns with Hillary Clinton. Credit:Daniel Acker Hillary Clinton couldn't have asked for a more star-studded list of endorsements, with Springsteen, Gaga and Bon Jovi rocking her election-eve rally after already receiving endorsements from Katy Perry, Girls creator Lena Dunham and comedian Chelsea Handler. Of course the icing on the cake was R&B's royal couple, Beyonce and Jay-Z. But democratic voter turnout collapsed on election day. [Brett Michael/Uproxx] Could it be, gasp, that voters are able to see through a pop-culture elite telling them how to vote? And could it also be possible that tens of thousands will attend a free concert/political rally simply for the music? This really interesting article in Rolling Stone observes how after Queen Bey's performance at the recent CMA awards with the Dixie Chicks, Trump's victory was there for all to see. [Joseph Hudak]

And another good read on why it's in Brand Tay Tay's interests that Taylor Swift, an outspoken feminist, has stayed silent on an election where gender and treatment of women has dominated. [Vox] And that's it from me for this week  you can follow me on Facebook for more. Have a great weekend. Loading
So, what really happened on Wednesday? No sooner had the shock result of the US presidential election come in, than the blame game began.

As the statistics piled in, distraught liberals and progressives laid the blame on everyone from third party candidates and voters who "took votes away" from Hillary Clinton, to the media that gave Donald Trump endless publicity and downplayed his sexual assault allegations even as it crucified Clinton for her email servers, to the disenfranchisement of the anti-establishment white working class.

Let's deconstruct. First, I want to say I am coming at this from the perspective of someone who was not as emotionally invested in a particular outcome as many others. Despite my antipathy towards Trump, my firm opposition to US interventionism meant that I was never fully #WithHer, although I certainly agree Clinton would have been a far wiser and fairer choice for the majority of Americans. As such, I am not seeking to find fault so much as understand how such a shock outcome came to be and to explore its possible consequences.

With that in mind, to blame third party voters is, frankly, to make a gross mockery of democracy. No candidate or political party is "owed" a vote, and yet, there seems to be a mentality that the Democrats were entitled to the third party votes that went to Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Greens Jill Stein, and, that giving them to these candidates was tantamount to betrayal.
We knew that Clinton's mistakes were made in the course of her career as a public servant, political transactions taking place in a political arena. Trump, on the other hand, hates people who are not like him. Women, blacks, Hispanics, gays and lesbians. And when he dismantles America's fledgling attempt at universal healthcare, he will target the sick, the elderly and those living with a disability. Democrat voters in Melbourne react to the election result. Credit:Getty But right now, Trump's target is women. They are the majority, and they are also deeply divided. For weeks we heard that evangelical and conservative women would vote for Clinton yet the figures tell us that many of those women voted for Trump. Maybe they thought violence and abuse was better than a woman who supported Roe v Wade. Clinton's womanhood has always been considered fair game for public commentary, considered either unwomanly or not a good enough woman. Her steely ambition to reach the top job is in stark contrast to the expectation that women are compliant and accommodating. At the same she has been reviled for being too accommodating, too Stand By Your Man, shamed for not leaving her philandering husband. Clinton shows us that women can never get it right. If women want to succeed we are coldly ambitious. You have trouble warming to us. We aren't authentic. Sometimes, we are shameless sluts and whores, sometimes we asked for it. Sometimes we didn't say no loudly enough, often enough.

And yesterday for men, some men, many men, the defeat of Hillary Clinton was their dream come true, the ever-lasting buck's night, the moment in time when big swinging dicks proudly emerged to celebrate the death of another ambitious woman's dreams. Powerful men are pussy-grabbers yet powerful women pussy-whip their men. This is still the world in which we live. There are different rules and different ways in which women are held accountable. Men have excuses, women are constructed as evil. When Clinton won the nomination  as my women friends told me it would be all right, that I was over thinking things, that times had changed  I did what I always do: I worried. Worried that the US was not ready for a woman to lead; and that entrenched sexism and misogyny would destroy Hillary Clinton in the same way it had destroyed women before her. Hillary parties? I wrote about them but I didn't go to any (was that it? Should I have gone? Please excuse my magical thinking). And now it's done and so is she, the most qualified person ever to have stood for president.
Michael Atkins and Matthew Leveson before Matthew's disappearance in 2007. "We could have walked over him and not even known - that's the hardest part," she said. "It's really mixed emotions for us." Mark Leveson said he and his family had searched extensively along this stretch of road before, especially near Waterfall train station and near the back of Waterfall Public School. An excavator helps in the search for Matthew Leveson's body in the Royal National Park on Friday. Credit:Peter Rae "We've looked along there a lot and Faye's convinced we've been there before.

"We knew the chances of finding Matt were one in a million without a tip, but at least it wasn't zero. Matthew Leveson (in white shorts) seen in a CCTV still outside ARQ nightclub on the night he disappeared. "Hindsight is a great thing but you can't think back and kick yourself." He said he often went into the Royal National Park at night to get ideas and would then come back in daylight. Detectives at the search site in the Royal National Park on Friday. Credit:Peter Rae

"Where or how do I hide a body is what I think to myself." He said the family often took a mattock and searched for areas where the ground "looked diggable". Police gathering evidence at the scene on Friday Credit:Peter Rae On Friday morning, Mr and Mrs Leveson visited the area where police were digging and hugged all the detectives involved in the search. "The goal was to bring Matt home; we made that promise nine years ago and we are going to bring him home," Mrs Leveson said.

Michael Atkins arrives at the Coroner's Court on October 31. Credit:Ben Rushton "We are going to give him somewhere to lay to rest where his brothers can go and talk to him, where we can talk to him, where his friends can say goodbye. "He hadn't been given that opportunity - he [the killer] just dumped him like a piece of rubbish." Police from Sutherland Local Area Command had guarded the section of bushland off McKell Avenue overnight. Detectives attached to Strike Force Bowditch arrived at the possible burial site at 7.45am on Friday, followed shortly by the NSW Police Dog Squad.

Up to a dozen police officers have joined the search with more expected throughout the day. Mr Leveson was last seen leaving the ARQ nightclub in Sydney with Mr Atkins in September 2007. Mr Atkins was acquitted by a jury of the murder and manslaughter of Mr Leveson in 2009 and has long rejected any involvement in his boyfriend's death. But in the early hours of Thursday, and after persistent questioning at an inquest last week, he took police to the Royal National Park. It followed a rare but potentially successful move, in which Mr Atkins was ordered in the Coroner's Court to give evidence under immunity, meaning it could not be used against him in any future criminal proceeding.

However, the immunity granted under the Coroners Act did not apply to any contempt of court or perjury offences that occurred when Mr Atkins gave evidence at the inquest. Mr Atkins has now struck a deal with the office of the NSW Attorney-General Gabrielle Upton granting him a separate immunity from prosecution for contempt or perjury on the condition that he gives information leading to the whereabouts of Mr Leveson's body. Although Mr Atkins did not give the evidence about the location of the body during the inquest, the Coroners Act says an immunity certificate covers "evidence of any information, document or thing obtained as a direct or indirect consequence of the person having given evidence." Last week, he spent five days in the witness stand, answering dozens of questions about his final moments with Mr Leveson. Loading
Just over six months ago, Roy Tabalbag was deemed to be a murderer.

But this month, a second jury found that the frenzied stabbing attack of his partner's lover was manslaughter instead.

Roy Tabalbag with his former girlfriend Geecy Rebucas. Credit:Sydneytoday.com.au

Tabalbag, 31, killed chef Amin Sthapit, 30, after catching him having sex with Tabalbag's long-time partner Geecy Rebucas in the couple's Darling Point unit in Sydney's east in November 2013.

His previous conviction for murder was quashed on appeal earlier this year.
A warrant has been issued for the arrest of serial fraudster Stephen Larkin after he failed to turn up to court to be sentenced over 62 charges of falsely nominating a man suffering dementia as the driver of the car when a string of traffic offences were committed.

Larkin sped through red lights, was caught on speed cameras, drove in bus lanes, roared through school zones and failed to pay tolls.

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Stephen Larkin. Credit:Peter Rae

To avoid paying the multitude of fines, the 76-year-old signed statutory declarations claiming the habitual offender was Michael Geoffrey Oliver.

The court heard that Mr Oliver, 70, a former Kings Cross bouncer, was suffering dementia and did not have a driver's licence.
Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie is urging Australians to see the upsides of a Donald Trump presidency.

Mr Beattie is currently serving as the chairman of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, but in the past has had many official dealings with the United States including as Queensland's Trade Commissioner to the Americas based in Los Angeles.

The economic policies of US President-elect Donald Trump could be an opportunity for Australia, Peter Beattie suggests. Credit:Evan Vucci

He told reporters on the Gold Coast on Thursday that Mr Trump's economic policies could provide significant opportunities for Australian investment.

"What happened in the stock market last night was a lot of the investors moved their money into domestic manufacturing in the United States," Mr Beattie said.
Police have not given up hope of finding a skipper who has been missing at sea off Queensland's Fraser Island for more than 48 hours.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority called off its air search for the 53-year-old Yeppoon man Brett Munn based on medical advice the missing man could not have survived past Wednesday.

The prawn trawler Seabring capsized about eight kilometres off Fraser Island's east coast early on Tuesday morning.

Two fishermen aboard the vessel were saved when they set off flares that caught the attention of a nearby trawler, however their skipper remained missing.
Member for Bundaberg Leanne Donaldson asked that last Dorothy Dixer. She's on the backbench now, swapping seats to sit in the back row after resigning from the cabinet last sitting week.

[11:32]

Question from Member for Mount Ommaney Tarnya Smith:

I refer to the $9 million Advance Queensland Industry Accelerator Program due to start in July, the failure to appoint a Small Business Commissioner and the delays in rolling out Jobs Queensland, and I ask:

Given the Government's so-called commitment to innovation is the Minister concerned that her failure to roll-out this initiative on time will impact on businesses who may be interested in this?

Minister Leeanne Enoch says it's been six months since the shadow minister has been the minister for innovation. And Ms Enoch reckons it's Ms Smith's first question about innovation.

Someone calls out "they've just learnt how to spell it". Aww, that's not very nice.

In relation to the question, Ms Enoch says she doesn't have any concerns about businesses missing out.
The latest product to be unveiled by tech giant Google is not a new smartphone or wearable device or search feature designed to be used by millions of everyday consumers. Rather, it is a $US6000 whiteboard designed to be used in your office conference room.

The release of Jamboard puts the Silicon Valley behemoth into the niche but increasingly competitive market of interactive whiteboards, the high-tech equivalent of those dry-erase boards that employees use to scrawl out diagrams, lead presentations or brainstorm new ideas.

With Jamboard, Google has entered the smart whiteboard race.

Microsoft and Google have both gotten into the interactive whiteboard market this year, creating new competition for the largest and most entrenched player, Smart Technologies, a Canadian firm recently acquired by Foxconn.

"The last piece of equipment in the office and classroom that hasn't made it into the modern age is the whiteboard," said Smart Technologies chief technology officer Warren Barkley. "We, along with Microsoft and Google, see this as an opportunity to move that static, physically isolated content into the wider world."
It was a stroke that robbed Leonie Fitzgerald of her words. Left with a skeleton vocabulary of just four or five words, her ability to communicate and interact became severely limited. Her stroke also saw her diagnosed with dementia. But music has reinstated her ability to express herself - and even learn a thing or two along the way.

Conventional wisdom has it that people with dementia can't learn new things. But results of a Melbourne University pilot program encouraging patients with early and mid-stage dementia to write their own song lyrics suggests otherwise.

Professor Felicity Baker rehearsing with dementia patient Leonie Fitzgerald, 77. Credit:Eddie Jim

Ms Fitzgerald, 77, was among a group of eight dementia patients at the Caladenia Dementia Care Centre in Mooroolbark who took part in weekly songwriting therapy sessions with music therapy researcher Felicity Baker.

Over 10 weeks they wrote seven songs as a group and even recorded them on a CD.
By Alastair Sharp

TORONTO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Sarnia, Ontario, home to dozens of Canada's refineries and chemical plants, is lobbying hard to lure a biotech plant to the city as the local petrochemical-powered economy braces for the impact of a provincial carbon-pricing scheme.

BioAmber Inc - which turns corn syrup into an ingredient used to make plastics, food flavoring and cosmetics that would otherwise come from fossil fuels - has already built its first production plant in the city.

The company is now weighing whether to build a second facility there that is six times bigger than its first, or set up shop in Louisiana, a $500 million decision expected early next year.

Sarnia officials say they are keen to diversify a local economy that is heavily reliant upon the refining and chemical complex dubbed "chemical valley," a major source of carbon emissions.

The industry faces rising costs as the federal and some provincial governments in Canada push for an escalating price on carbon, while pledging to use tax dollars to support green industries.

By contrast, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has called global warming a hoax.

"If they want to make the carbon price and the green economy work, they've got to invest in places like Sarnia," said Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley.

BioAmber says it is looking for a counter-offer to the $360 million loan guarantee it is seeking from the U.S. Department of Energy to build in Louisiana.

"We're still going both ways, because we don't know which side of the border may do a better package," said Mike Hartmann, a BioAmber executive. "The U.S. plan is advantageous because it's a one-stop shop, and Canada and Ontario are a bit more fragmented."

Canada and Ontario government officials declined to specify what they might offer, citing commercial sensitivities.

BioAmber's first plant, partly owned by Mitsui & Co , was built using C$50 million ($37 million) of federal and provincial support, including grants and loans.

Story continues

Canada has promised more than C$1 billion of clean tech support for industry over four years starting in 2017-18, while Ontario has pledged up to C$235 million to help boost its clean tech sector between 2016 and 2020.

Trump's win should be a "wake-up call" that the Canadian industry will need more government support, Bob Masterson, head of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada.

Sarnia may seem an unlikely place for a green reinvention. The city and next-door Corunna are home to plants owned by Nova Chemicals Corp, Imperial Oil Ltd and Suncor Energy Inc.

The area accounted for about 16 percent of Ontario's reported industrial emissions in 2014, according to government data.

But that heavy reliance on fossil fuels in a jurisdiction with toughening emission rules offers a hint of what other parts of the country can expect as the federal government pushes for a national price on carbon.

"Sarnia is going to be one of those places where you will really start to see the industrial transition take shape," said Sarah Petrevan, a policy advisor at climate policy think tank Clean Energy Canada. ($1 = 1.3471 Canadian dollars) (Editing by G Crosse)
Workers appear set to win public holiday pay rates on Christmas Day after all, with the Andrews government on the cusp of caving to intense union pressure.

But the apparent back flip risks infuriating the business community, which had welcomed the government's decision that meant many workers would receive only Sunday rates for working Christmas Day this year.

One person seems happy with the announcement of the review. Credit:Jason South

Small Business Minister Philip Dalidakis on Thursday morning told reporters he would review the decision, which was announced earlier this week.

"Maybe I've got it wrong," Mr Dalidakis said.
Squatters will be forced to leave vacant homes that the state acquired for the defunct East West Link project, after the Andrews government won a legal battle to take them over.

Community lawyer Meghan Fitzgerald, who has represented a number of the residents in long-running negotiations with the state government over the properties, said warrants could be issued in coming days to remove any remaining people from the properties.

Dozens of people, including children and pregnant women, have been living in houses in Bendigo Street, Collingwood, since March, when about 50 homeless people and members of the Homeless Persons Union Victoria moved into Bendigo Street in protest against what they said was a waste of inner-city housing.

According to Ms Fitzgerald, many of the homes have already been vacated.
A couple who grew cannabis in their home to help people treat chronic pain have been fined $1000 and escaped criminal convictions.

Police found about 15-and-a-half kilograms of cannabis at Matthew and Elizabeth Pallett's Carrum Downs home last May. They also found ledgers referring to the people they provided the drug to and drug paraphernalia.

Matthew and Elizabeth Pallett outside the County Court on Thursday. Credit:Adam Cooper

A jury found each guilty on Wednesday of one count of cultivating the drug Cannabis L, which is deemed a narcotic plant under current law.

The couple maintained their innocence, despite admitting to police and the court to growing the drug. They argued they did this to make medicinal products for people suffering conditions such as epilepsy and for those with terminal illnesses like cancer.
Police have resisted suggestions that public drunkenness be decriminalised, despite Victoria's anti-corruption commission saying the government should consider a change to those laws.

The proposal to reconsider public drunkenness laws were made in a report by the Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission on the treatment of a policewoman who was kicked and stood on after she was arrested.

Victoria Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Luke Cornelius said legislation was a matter for the government but public drunkenness laws protected the community and intoxicated people who could not look after themselves.

"We don't want to see a situation where people who are drunk in a public place are left to their own devices, wandering across roads and potentially being run over," he said.
Firefighting resources remain a concern in Western Australia's Great Southern region, where four people died in the Esperance bushfires last year, a parliamentary committee has heard.

Department of Fire and Emergency Services commissioner Wayne Gregson said that a report recommendation to add an extra eight staff to the region, bringing it up to the standard of others, had not been implemented.

Esperance farmer Kym Curnow was killed in the November 2015 fires. Credit:Kristin Macfarlance

"We have not implemented that. We have not had the capacity," Mr Gregson told the hearing on Wednesday.

He said it was "absolutely" a concern but the department had financial constraints and was dealing with a huge geographical area.
Fremantle's long-suffering economic woes are set to get a boost after the Barnett government announced a number of government departments would be moving to the port city.

The city had been holding its breath for years, hoping a department moving to the port city would turn around its flagging economic fortunes, with a number of key retailers, including Myer, packing up and leaving Fremantle.

Now the city will be buoyed with the Barnett flagging the Housing Authority and the Department of Corrective Services and the Department of Transport would be based at Fremantle's King Square.

Fremantle council's $220 million development of Kings Square has been delayed for years, while Sirona Capital - the developer the city will work with on the project - tried to secure an anchor tenant to fill some of the 30,000 square-metres of office space within the city centre.
Residents have rallied to protest as WA's "richest property moguls" launch a plan to transform the Sorrento beachfront with multistorey developments.

The proposed Sorrento Plaza would be a mix of four to six-storey developments, commercial on the ground and apartments above, at the West Coast Drive site home to local icons White Salt and Voyage Kitchen.

As it went out for public comment on Thursday, the Stop Sorrento High Rise group launched a protest website, saying the proposal contravenes local planning policy and would destroy the strip's character and amenity.

But the developers say the building would be in line with community wishes and instead characterised its opponents as "the elite."
Two more boats have been pulled from the water as part of a crackdown on criminal behaviour during WA's annual recreational rock lobster fishing season.

Fisheries said the recreational vessels were seized from Mandurah on Tuesday and Rockingham on Wednesday for alleged interference with fishing gear under Operation Bagana.

One of two vessels seized in November. Credit:Department of Fisheries

The seizures come after a vessel was towed away from the Point Peron ramp in late October with the vessel's owner questioned over allegations of stealing other fishers' rock lobster pots.

Compliance Manager South Metropolitan John Breeden said there are no excuses for stealing gear or lobsters from other fishers.
WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls has clashed with business and mining interests at a breakfast function and defended his right to push for a controversial new $5 a tonne mining tax if he holds the balance of power after the March election.

The event's host, Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA chief executive Deidre Wilmott, sharply criticised her guest speaker's policy as she introduced him, labelling it "blind" and something that would cost jobs and investment in the state.

Not stressed ... WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls. Credit:Stefan Gosatti

Mr Grylls hit back, saying she had "joined the multi-million dollar alarmist campaign" to misrepresent his policy of increasing lease rental paid by BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto from 25 cents to $5 a tonne of iron ore.

Despite opposition from both major parties - the Nationals' government alliance partners the Liberals, as well as Labor - Mr Grylls said he could still have a mandate to impose the charge on the miners.
A new women-only ride sharing service is set to arrive in Perth in early 2017, vowing to make women and young girls feel more comfortable about travelling with strangers.

SheSafe will run similarly to Uber with a smartphone application from which passengers can select their destination, view different fares and choose the time they want to be picked up.

Emma Buchanan started SheSafe after friends expressed concerns about travelling with male drivers.

The difference is, the drivers will be strictly women and the passengers will be women or boys under 12 years of age.

The service's founder, Emma Buchanan, said SheSafe was not at all about being discriminatory, it was about the safety and concern of passengers.
Berlin: Leading allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Thursday that populists would pose a problem for Europe unless mainstream politicians came up with answers after Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election.

Trump's win has encouraged right-wing parties in Austria, France and the Netherlands, among others. A Politbarometer poll for broadcaster ZDF showed 82 per cent of Germans viewed it as bad or very bad, and 65 per cent expected relations with the United States to deteriorate under Trump's presidency.

"Demagogic populism is not only a problem in America," Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Bild daily. "Elsewhere in the West, too, the political debate is in an alarming state."

Merkel is widely expected to stand for a fourth term in an election next September and although her conservatives are roughly 10 points ahead of their nearest rivals, her open-door migrant policy has angered many voters.
Beijing: The view from Beijing on the US presidential election could best have been described as a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

In Hillary Clinton, there was little affection but Beijing knew to expect more or less a continuation of the status quo. Her stint as secretary of state showed a consummately experienced and internationally respected operator, uncompromising in standing up to China on matters of trade, human rights and the South China Sea.

A man takes a selfie near a picture of Chinese President Xi Jinping on display at a museum in Beijing. Credit:AP

But President-elect Donald Trump is an altogether more unpredictable entity, providing economic threats yet also geopolitical opportunity.

Much depends on how much Mr Trump follows through on his rhetoric on the campaign trail, having promised to launch an "America-first" war on globalisation, the very means through which China has experienced its phenomenal economic rise of recent decades.
A man suspected of ambushing two Pennsylvania police officers responding to a domestic dispute, fatally shooting one and wounding the other, has been found dead alongside with a woman.

Officials have not identified the man or woman.

Officers at the scene of the shooting in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Credit:AP

Police say the man died of a self-inflicted injury after shooting at the Canonsburg police officers, killing seven-year veteran Scott Bashioum early on Thursday.

The name of the wounded officer, who is in stable condition after surgery at a Pittsburgh hospital, has not been released.
Madrid: Spain's ruling Popular Party has presented a proposal to the nation's Congress that could result in a ban on the way social network users gain comic revenge on politicians.

The reform aims to curb the "spreading of images that infringe the honour of a person" and says Spain's 1982 law covering this area is outdated due to the internet.

Subject of many memes: Mariano Rajoy, Spain's Prime Minister. Credit:Bloomberg

Campaigners for free speech see the proposal as an attack against the sometimes irreverent humour and political expression in "memes" - images altered digitally - many of which have poked fun at Mariano Rajoy, the Popular Party (PP) leader and conservative prime minister.
Some things Trump can do at the stroke of a pen, by executive orders, like those by Obama that Trump plans to obliterate  say, axe the Paris Agreement on greenhouse-gas emissions; cut funding for research on climate change; order a renegotiation of the terms of the Iran nuclear deal; a ban on Muslims entering the US or a "politically correct" version of this; kick-start the controversial Keystone pipeline; order the Justice Department to investigate particular kinds of crimes, say something that a business enemy might have done; or conduct such as Hillary Clinton's handling of her email server, by which he might achieve his "you're going to jail" objective. It remains unclear how Trump will act on his promise to jail Hillary Clinton. Credit:Bloomberg First 100 days: Congressional approval required Trump's bedrock policies  including the repeal of Obamacare; a "beautiful" wall along 1600km of the US-Mexico border; middle class tax cuts; a plan to block the movement of American jobs overseas; term-limits for members of congress; and his "drain the swamp" corruption crackdown in DC  all have to be dealt with by congress, hence their inclusion in his first-100-days legislative agenda. But on Wednesday, McConnell had this to say on term limits for congress: "It will not be on the agenda in the senate." And the President-elect's ambitious and costly national infrastructure plan was "not a top priority."

Building a 1600 kilometre wall along the US-Mexico border has been one of Trump's bedrock policies. Credit:AP Off-the-top-of-the-head confusion Some of Trump's off-the-top-of-the-head suggestions for challenging terrorism are illegal and likely to face challenge within the bureaucracy, the security services or in the courts. They include: "taking out their families," "closing that internet up in someway;" "frankly unthinkable" tactics that are "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding;" and confiscating Iraq's energy resources to pay for Washington's defence spending in the region. The key moving parts in Trump's policy portfolio are his interlinked promises to bring jobs and factories back from overseas, a crackdown on migrants and a drive to restore law-and-order, because of their appeal to his predominantly white "real" American supporters that black and brown Americans are stealing their jobs or are the cause of their insecurity.

In this regard there is much off-the-top-of-the-head confusion  few expect that there will be a border wall, which could cost as much as $US25 billion; and certainly not as Trump insists, that Mexico will pay for it. And his plan to round up as many as 12 million undocumented migrants reads like a years-long, logistical nightmare that comes with a $US600 billion price tag. By Trump's Art of the Deal ethos, his threats are a negotiation and a deal is the outcome. Richard Nixon called it the madman theory - if he convinced foreign leaders that he was volatile and irrational; they were less likely to provoke him. Trump's "I want to be unpredictable" claim seems to amount to the same kind of thinking. Is it good or bad that he has no experience in government? He postures as Reagan II, but Reagan I often was a more moderate version of his own rhetoric. Trump's policies are more bullet-pointed objectives devoid of ideological roots or even of a detailed explanation of how Trump might get from point A to point B. Contradictions are merely contradictions  he vows to protect Social Security and Medicare, but can't wait to drive a stake through the heart of Obamacare; he praises Planned Parenthood, but is opposed to abortion  which he wasn't always opposed to; and he claims he is a true defender of LBGTQI rights, but opposes same-sex marriage.

Trump vows to protect Social Security and Medicare, but can't wait to drive a stake through the heart of Obamacare. Credit:AP Trump confounded the country and the world by winning the election. Does he confound all sides again  either by not meaning what he said about policy issues; or by meaning what he said about negotiating deals that work for all sides? Does he appreciate that his sense of what he is saying might not be what his target audience hears? Through the campaign he would have Americans believe he was waving a big stick at the Chinese; but in Beijing, his America First mantra is read as what one report describes as the lament of a permissive America that will stop its banging on about human rights and will be less hung up on NATO. And in the case of the Iran nuclear deal, Trump's posturing about renegotiating a "disaster" deal with Tehran, is seen by some in the US as a projection of power. But in Tehran it becomes an opening for hardliners in a theocratic government to simply walk away from a deal that they never liked  because now they can blame Trump for its unravelling. Reporters probe for some middle ground, where Trump the dealmaker senses that the bully has pushed as hard as he might  but Trump's long-term adviser Roger Stone told The New Yorker magazine: "maybe, in the end, the courts don't allow his temporarily ban Muslims [entering the US]. That's fine  he can ban anyone from Egypt, from Syria, from Libya, From Saudi Arabia. He's a Reagan-type pragmatist."

Inexperienced, insulting and offensive Trump campaigned against his own party almost as violently as he campaigned against Clinton and the Democrats  he insulted, he offended, he mocked. He comes to the White House with no experience in government or in the military and much at ease with what he doesn't know  "the day I realised it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience," he writes in Trump: Think Like a Billionaire. And he arrives with super-sized confidence  saying he can't trust the US intelligence service and "I know more about ISIS than the generals do." The day I realised it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience, Trump wrote. Credit:AP

But he also comes with inordinate power. He's accountable to almost no one, because his campaign accepted little outside help  most big GOP donors and many in the Republican establishment turned their backs on him. More, the GOP has retained control of both the House and the Senate; it's well placed to expand its grip on the Senate in the 2018 midterm elections. And, there's more  Trump gets to make an immediate Supreme Court appointment and conceivably another two more in his first term  which would fix it with a conservative 2-7 majority for possibly decades to come. Trump comes to the White House with all the levers of power in GOP hands. And there are confidant predictions by old hands in congress that as president, Trump would be kept in line by institutional checks and balances against excessive use of power  "we have a congress. We have the Supreme Court. We're not Romania," Senator John McCain told The New York Times earlier this year. But academics Jack Goldstone and Thomas Homer-Dixon are not so sure, warning: "[Trump] presents himself as the destroyer of the status quo, righter of wrongs, protector and saviour. His power as president would derive more from maintaining those roles in his followers' eyes than from the institutional authority of the office itself." Trump's protectionist gambit on trade with China is intended to force Beijing to revalue its currency to improve the US terms of trade. Trump is supremely confident that the Chinese can be prodded to act by economic pressure from Washington, but many analysts suspect he'll induce global economic downturn, destroying as many as four million existing jobs and denying the opportunity to create as many as three million more in the US alone. Trump is supremely confident the Chinese can be prodded to act by economic pressure from Washington. Credit:AP

He's equally confident he can achieve a more effective working relationship with Russia, possibly even leaving it to Moscow and its Syria ally Bashir al-Assad to take the fight to the ISIS. Causing most alarm is Trump's view of Washington's defence commitments in Europe and Asia. He has suggested that Japan and South Korea should maybe acquire their own nuclear arsenals, which would end decades of US diplomacy geared at preventing such a development; and his line that Asian and NATO allies pay more for their defence is seen to undermine NATO  the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. If he acts against China, branding it as a currency manipulator on day one, what happens? Experts are warning of a trade war, in which countries like Australia will be caught in the crossfire. But Chinese analysts are more sanguine  "more friction on trade would arise during his administration, but in general, the Republicans have proved they are capable of maintaining a stable relation with China," according to Professor Su Hao, of the China Foreign Affairs University. Trump and his advisers would be deft diplomats.
Whether or not Donald Trump follows through on his campaign pledges to diminish or possibly abandon US commitments to security alliances such as NATO or through Asia, his election victory forces nations around the world to begin preparing for the day they can no longer count on the US-backed order.

This creates a danger that derives less from Trump's words, which are often inconsistent or difficult to parse, than from the inability to predict his actions or how other states might respond to them.

That uncertainty puts pressure on allies and adversaries alike to position themselves, before Trump even takes office, for a world that could be on the verge of losing one of its longest-standing pillars of stability.

"You're going to see a lot of fear among America's allies, and in some cases they may try to do something about it," said James Goldgeier, a political scientist and the dean of American University's School of International Service.
And now for the what might have been: They are saying Bernie Sanders would have done Donald Trump like a dinner.

Six months ago, US opinion polls showed Hillary Clinton's Democratic rival easily beating Mr Trump.

Since Christmas Mr Sanders had been generating a sense of excitement that was almost totally absent from Mrs Clinton's campaign.

And it was reflected in the polls.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The suspects E.R.M (65), D.F. (54), L.M.A.R. (50) and R.L.R. (47) who were previously detained in connection with the Pompei-investigation, have now been taken into custody. The Prosecutor requested the suspects to be remanded. The Judge of Instruction on Wednesday, November 9, ordered the suspects to be taken into the custody for eight (8) more days.

This means that according to the Judge of Instruction there is grave presumption against the suspects regarding human trafficking (exploitation of girls working at the brothels  animeermeisjes), illegal confinement (locking up the girls), illegal employment and human smuggling. These criminal facts were committed between January 2014 and November 2016.

The suspects were arrested on November 1, 2016. Officers of the Kingdom Detective Cooperation Team, RST, assisted by members of the St. Maarten Police Force, KPSM the Dutch Royal Marechaussee and the National Detectives Agency held searches that day at the brothels El Capitan and Petit Chateau and at E.R.M.s house.
POINTE BLANCHE:--- The first new cruise vessel on its inaugural call for the month of November, the Mein Schiff 4, was welcomed on Wednesday by Port Management and stakeholders to destination Sint Maarten. The vessel is the newest member of the fleet of TUI Cruises and is identical to her sister-ship the Mein Schiff 3.

The traditional plaque exchange and words of welcome were exchanged. Captain Jens Troier said he was grateful to be in Sint Maarten, and he thanked the port for its service and warm welcome. He added that Sint Maarten provided a friendly and welcoming atmosphere and concluded with a toast during the ceremony.

Port St. Maarten Acting Human Resources Manager Hector Peters, on behalf of the Government and Port St. Maarten, welcomed the Captain, his guests, and crew to the destination, and wished them an enjoyable stay.

Port St. Maarten had several German speaking persons working at its Information Desk providing essential information about things to do and where to visit the German cruise passengers who went out to explore the island on Wednesday for the day.

TUI Cruises, a German cruise line, is a joint venture of the German tourist firm, TUI AG and Royal Caribbean Cruises.

Port officials and stakeholders walked to the ship with the Dow Steel Pan leading the way as cruise passengers looked on and took pictures of the warm Caribbean welcome. Stakeholders included representatives from the Taxi Association, Accessible Ventures and the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau among others.

The vessel was built by Meyer Turku Shipyard in Turku, Finland. The vessel was floated out on 10 October 2014 and delivered to TUI Cruises on 8 May 2015. A Mein Schiff 5 is to be delivered in 2016, and 6 in 2017. Orders have also been placed for Mein Schiff 7 and 8 with deliveries in 2017 and 2018.

Mein Schiff 4 has a gross tonnage of 99,526; length 962 feet; beam 139 feet, and can carry 2,790 passengers and 1,030 crew.
PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten  The House of Parliament will sit in an urgent plenary public session on Thursday, November 10, 2016. The Minister of General Affairs will be present for this meeting.

The urgent plenary public meeting which was adjourned on Wednesday, November 9, 2016, will be reconvened on Thursday, November 10 at 14.00 hrs in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg.

The agenda point is Discussion on the border issues with the French side in particular at Oyster Pond. Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations. The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg.

The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 120, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the Internet www.pearlfmradio.com and via www.sxmparliament.org.
NEW YORK (AP)  Fresh off one of her biggest album launches of her career, Taylor Swift announced a new U.S. stadium tour starting in 2023, with international dates to follow.
A guide to voter rights in Indiana. What you need to know before you cast a ballot
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The Georgetown County Chamber of Commerce was hosted by the new Peace Sothebys International Realty located at 35 Capers Way in Pawleys Island. The Business After Hours, a members-only event, was attended by more than 60 professionals that enjoyed networking, refreshments, catered food and gift give-aways. Tidelands Company in South Carolina recently acquired local brokerages DeBordieu Colony Real Estate Inc. and Prince George Sothebys International Realty, and the newly combined entity now does business as Peace Sothebys International Realty. The firm is owned and operated by Hampton and Perry Peace.
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Now, another Putin admirer is moving into the White House. The president-elect has praised the Kremlin autocrat several times for the strength of his leadership and has sought to allay suspicions that Putin tried to influence the outcome of US elections -- despite US intelligence agencies' conviction that he did. The fact that Trump has indicated he will demand that European NATO allies pay more for US military protection, and has even called America's own loyalty to the alliance into question , has triggered widespread concern, particularly in Eastern Europe.

Will Trump Reunify Europe?

If European politicians are of a mind to find any kind of silver lining in the election of Donald Trump , then it is the following: Trump could contribute to European unity, even if unwittingly. The problem, after all, isn't just what Trump said during the campaign; at least as concerning is what he didn't say. Thus far, the US president-elect hasn't presented anything that could even remotely be called a coherent foreign policy agenda.
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STAMFORD  Republican Donald Trumps stunning victory over Hillary Clinton on Tuesday caught the world by surprise, but for Clinton supporters in heavily Democratic Stamford, the sense of loss was palpable.

In Stamford, a city that traditionally votes blue, unofficial projections show the Democratic candidate received about 65 percent of the votes against Trumps 31 percent.

Clintons numbers were even better than President Barack Obamas four years ago. Unofficial data indicates Clinton had 15 percent more votes  about 4,500  than Obama did when he won his second term.

President-elect Trump received about 16,200 votes in Stamford, less than half of Clintons 34,100 and about 1,000 fewer than Obamas former Republican challenger Mitt Romney in 2012, according to unofficial results.

Chris McLaughlin, 21, a University of Connecticut Stamford student who cast his first presidential vote on Tuesday for Clinton, was disappointed that Trump beat the former secretary of state.

Im upset with society as a whole, the Greenwich resident said. The candidate we elect is a reflection of what we believe as a whole. To let someone with a rhetoric of that nature achieve the highest office is a telling reflection of what our values are. ... This opens the door to extremist, radical politicians who look at Trump and say, I can do that too. 

Alex Rojas, another UConn-Stamford student and Clinton supporter, was angry with older generations, who he said tipped the scales in Trumps favor while young adults overwhelmingly supported the Democratic candidate. But he said the values shared by his fellow millennials help him remain hopeful for presidential contests to come in 2020 and beyond.

More Information Candidate (percentage of votes) POLLING PRECINCTS Clinton Trump 1 - Our Lady Star of the Sea 67 30 2 - Domus 74 22 3 - K.T. Murphy School 62 34 4 - Stark School 72 25 5 - Stamford High School 69 28 6 - St. Bridget Church Hall 72 24 7 - Agudath Sholom 74 22 8 - Stillmeadow School 72 22 9 - Salvation Army Community Center 78 21 10 - Westover School 84 13 11 - Cloonan Middle School 72 25 12 - Stillmeadow School 64 32 13 - Rippowam Middle School 57 38 14 - Dolan Middle School 59 37 15 - Springdale School 63 33 16 - Turn of River School 54 43 17 - Roxbury School 58 38 18 - Turn of River School 56 40 19 - Davenport School 52 45 20 - Northeast School 60 38 21 - Scofield School 60 36 22 - Long Ridge Church 63 34 TOTAL 65 31 See More Collapse

Maybe this is just a four-year or eight-year blip, said Rojas, 20, of Trumbull. I think slowly but surely, the electorate is shifting to a more progressive mindset. Trump will take us backward, but Im optimistic that my peers will be our countrys voice in the future.

Clintons biggest win in Stamford came from the West Side precincts. At Westover Magnet Elementary School, where residents in District 10 vote, she received 84 percent of the votes.

Unlike Romney, who won two North Stamford precincts in 2012, Trump failed to beat his Democratic challenger in any city district  though it was in the same neighborhoods where he received the biggest turnout. At Davenport Elementary School, where District 19 votes, Trump won 45 percent of the votes.

Districts in North Stamford tend to be Republican-leaning anyways, said Charles Pia, Jr., vice chairman of the Stamford Republican Town Committee, noting that his candidate also fared well in the Turn of River neighborhood.

Those two areas probably helped him, but no more than we expected, Pia said. Turn of River is kind of a mixed district, though, so I think we see that group of voters, Republicans who hadnt voted in years, who were fed up with the system.

Josh Fedeli, chairman of the Democratic City Committee, said high voter turnout was expected because his party focused on getting voters to the polls on Tuesday.

The electorate in Stamford turns out in presidential election years, he said. We want to focus on trying to maintain those numbers in municipal years and even gubernatorial years when the falloff is significant. We need to get those voters engaged.

Fedeli was pleasantly surprised by Clintons commanding leads in the citys strongest Democratic strongholds.

Hillary is popular here, and that was shown by the voting, he said.

Democratic Registrar of Voters Ron Malloy said overall turnout in Stamford was strong, but it did not appear to break the 2008 record of 81.7 percent. Unofficial projections show that about 78 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in the city this week.

Malloy said the number of registered voters this election season topped 67,000.

Thats a huge number, he said.

One registered voter who was confident Clinton was going to win felt some remorse Wednesday after missing her vote.

I just didnt have time, Lucia Oliveri said. I was in classes all day.

The 20-year-old Stamford resident and UConn student wasnt wowed by either candidate and said that apathy kept her for rising bright and early on Tuesday.

It was like picking the lesser of two evils, she said. I felt safe yesterday. I thought Trump didnt really have a chance, but then I woke up this morning and I was like, Are you serious?

Trump voter and UConn Stamford student James Piniella, 19, said he was more enthusiastically opposed to Clinton than he was in favor of the celebrity businessman. He said he leans conservative and libertarian, but didnt see the point in voting for third-party or write-in candidates, which together made up the remaining 4 percent of votes in Stamford.

My vote was a vote against Hillary, not a vote for Trump, the Ridgefield resident said.

Piniella offered his own explanation for Trumps stunning triumph.

This is America giving a big F-you, middle finger to the government and saying, No, we want this guy, he said.

Honestly, I dont know how he pulled it off, Piniella added. If theres anything to take away from this, its that with hard work, anything is possible.

noliveira@hearstmediact.com; nnaughton@scni.com
C hallenger bank Aldermore reckons it will skirt global uncertainty caused by the Trump presidency thanks to being entirely UK focused.

The lender to small and medium-sized businesses says clients are back borrowing and growing, after a period of nervousness in the wake of the EU referendum.

Chief executive Phillip Monks is even talking about paying a dividend to investors  who could do with a boost.

Shares floated at 192p in March last year but have been biffed by banking turmoil since then. Today they gained 10p to 200p  a relief to Monks. He said: We were somewhat uncertain at the half year, but weve seen no changes in customer demand.

He says a move to capital self-sufficiency allows Aldermore, set up by Monks and backed by private equity, to consider a first dividend before long.

Monks told the Standard: The good thing for us is that we are UK focused.

What we are seeing now are grumpy post-Brexit economists upgrading their forecasts.

In the third quarter, loans were up 15% to 7.1 billion. The capital ratio  a measure of solidity  was up to 11.5%.
T aking comfort where he could yesterday, one City bigwig remarked that the upside of Donald Trumps election as US President was that it might mean he was subjected to fewer enquiries from mystified Japanese as to why a collective madness seemed to have afflicted Britain.

He has a point. His interest is fund management, one of the areas of financial services in which the City can fairly claim to excel, but one which for various reasons  and particularly when viewed from Japan or other foreign locations  can look like a slow-motion train crash.

When Lord (Mervyn) King was Governor of the Bank of England, he could be heard privately to remark that fund management was the key to the City of Londons continued success.

People came there from all four corners of the world to access capital  and fund management was about attracting, controlling, managing and allocating that capital.

As long as the City had bigger, more liquid and deeper capital markets than anyone else, it would continue to attract international business  but lose those markets and soon the customers would soon stop coming.

Then much else of the Citys infrastructure would have to leave, too.

Lord King would worry in those days that the progressive takeover of leading fund management firms by the Americans and others could lead to a New York headquarters deciding the money should move offshore, but it never happened.

He also worried the cost of operating in London might make other centres more attractive, but that never happened either.

Finally, he worried that tax and regulation would become so onerous it would make the City a spirit-sapping place to do business, so managements would go elsewhere.

There have been times that scenario has come close to being acted out but, perhaps more by luck than judgment and with a few hedge-fund exceptions, it has also failed to materialise as a threat.

Lord King never mentioned political support as being important, if only because in those days it would never enter anyones heads it would be an issue.

But today that uncertainty lies at the heart of the Japanese question.

Why does the current generation of British politicians seem to set so little store by the City and appear willing to pursue policies that can only do it damage?

Finance is one of the few export industries where we are genuinely globally competitive. As a nation, we have to live by trade. Why do todays politicians not seem to care?

Lobbyists echo this lament that they just dont get it in Downing Street. The Prime Minister is shielded by aides who only really know about the Home Office.

So when her Party conference comments about citizens of nowhere upset Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, a Canadian, they saw nothing wrong in telling him the PMs diary was full and he would have to wait three weeks for a meeting.

That speaks volumes about their naivety. It is not how a prime minister should treat a governor.

Unlike Lord King, who thought he had problems, Carney has to consider the possible impact of Brexit, and it could be a game-changer.

Delegations from Ireland and France are in the City almost every day, offering juicy carrots to tempt firms to move abroad.

These countries promise years of tax-free profits, help with finding subsidised accommodation, light-touch regulation with exemption even from the full demands of Mifid II, which will require fund managers to pay openly for research rather than charging the costs to clients.

They offer help with relocation expenses  and in the French case, they say firms which move to Paris can continue to use English as the working language. And they offer easy access to politicians.

That may not yet tempt the fund-management firms under British control but it has caught the imagination of American owners, who dont understand why they should jump through hoops to stay in Britain when there seems to be an easily accessible alternative.

That feeling is soon likely to be become even more acute when the Financial Conduct Authority publishes its review of the state of competition in the industry.

Its proposals will no doubt include extra layers of transparency, even if they stop short of suggesting a fee cap.

Whether or not the proposals have merit, they come at an unfortunate time because they will add a layer of complexity to an industry that is groaning under the costs of compliance and has already had to absorb a massive amount of change.

Even that might not be the end. Central bankers and those concerned with the risks in the financial system are known to be worried about the lack of liquidity in markets and at the way the fund-management industry is taking on the lending roles that were the preserve of banks.

Bankers made excess profits because they passed on to the public and taxpayers costs they should have borne themselves.

The authorities want to make sure that, as the fund-management industry becomes closer to banking, it does not develop similar perks and privileges.

That is a legitimate aim. But removing some of these perks in the name of financial stability  or adding a layer of capital requirements, as might happen  will plunge a significant number of smaller fund-management groups firmly into loss.

Given that it is one of our most important and successful industries, you can see where the Japanese questioner was coming from.

Most countries seek to nurture the businesses on which their prosperity depends, not pull the rug out from underneath them.
L andlord Derwent London has had its best year for commercial lettings despite the Brexit vote, buoyed by deals with firms such as Sarah Woods Unruly Media.

Chief executive John Burns said the company had let nearly half a million square foot of space  generating 28.3 million in rents  in a letting spree which has already surpassed the whole of last year.

Nearly half of the deals have been done since the referendum. Unruly has been joined by the Government Digital Service in signing up at Derwents White Chapel building, along with boat insurer, the Shipowners Club.

Burns expects the London property market to shrug off Donald Trumps shock election win  which he ranks with the Berlin Wall coming down and putting a man on the moon  but is keeping a more wary eye on Brexit developments next year as the Prime Minister prepares to trigger Article 50.

An average 10% rise in business rates across the board in London will increase pressure on tenants, he says, adding: We will have to see how it goes.

But Derwent has fewer tenants to find next year  likely to be the peak of the uncertainty  with major developments around Fitzroy Square and Paddington not due for completion until 2019. Shares gained 49.5p, or 2%, to 2491.5p.
T he City turned its nose up at sausage-skin maker Devro today after its shares plunged more than 20% on a profit warning.

The firm, headquartered near Glasgow, said that based on current trends sales next year are expected to be around 10% lower than previously thought.

Profit forecasts were also downgraded  although it did not clarify by how much  and the shares dived 46.93p, or 21%, to 179.07p.

Devro, which clung to its profit forecasts for 2016, also revealed the lower sales would mean under-used capacity in some areas.

To combat slowing sales growth, the company said it would start developing new products and make its manufacturing more efficient at a cost of 3 million, which will be taken in the final quarter of the year.

The wider market continued to rally after Donald Trump was elected US President.

The FTSE 100 was up 46.76 points to 6958.60 and threatened to break 7000 in early trading as investors, initially fretting over his victory, bet that the Republican candidate would actually be good for business.

President Trumps acceptance speech soothed many nerves and the hope is that we will see a calmer and more sensible version of Trump, said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets.

Miners surged as metals prices rose on Trumps win, and construction and defence shares were also up in the hope of increased spending on infrastructure and weapons.

Private hospitals group Mediclinic slumped 63p, or 6.9%, to 857p after its earnings per share dropped 26% in the first half because of having to issue shares to buy UAE-based Al Noor  a deal which propelled the group, which has a near-30% stake in the UKs Spire, into the FTSE 100 earlier this year.

The South Africa-based company also warned that Al Noors operating performance had been poor in the first half.

Interim results left National Grid 37.6p cheaper at 967.9p. The company said operating profits improved 1% to 1.85 billion.

Private-equity investor 3i was also in the red after its half-year results. Shares fell 27.5p to 628p despite it having returned more than 1 billion to shareholders in the period, when it revelled in the pounds weakness.

Investors cashed out of William Hill, which fell 4.1p to 287.9p as shareholders counted the cost of Trumps victory, paying out big sums to punters.

Hopes that investors could salvage some value in their once-sacred Gulf Keystone shares were dashed today as bidder DNO said it would now only make an offer at a meaningful discount to the previous $300 million (240 million) bid. Shares in the Iraqi oil firm were up 0.02p at 1.21p.
L ondon property agents are eyeing a boost in demand for office space here from disgruntled Silicon Valley firms seeking a Calexit in the wake of Donald Trumps victory.

The forecast for heightened demand in Kings Cross and Shoreditch, came as a number of investors called for California to secede from the US.

Nick Davies, from agent Stirling Ackroyd, told the Evening Standard: London offers sanctuary. If they have existing hubs in the capital, theyll expand. If not theyll look to open new offices in London.

Gryphon Property Partners Colin Hargreaves added: The London tech market would benefit markedly if current dismay in US hubs caused by Trumps victory becomes more pronounced.

Tech City UK chief Gerard Grech said: "If US tech firms want to relocate to the UK they will find that it is a great place to start a tech business and Tech City UK will do everything it can to encourage them."

Grech added: "We have a highly skilled workforce here, easy access to European countries, dedicated visas for entrepreneurs and people of exceptional talent and exceptional promise in digital innovation and a robust business and policy environment. There are lots of co-working spaces in London and our major cities where startups can launch their businesses or start to scale funded businesses."

US tech bosses have been frustrated with Trumps criticism of firms in the industry and have previously blasted him as a disaster for innovation.

Apples chief executive Tim Cook rallied staff following Trumps win and called on them to move forward together.
T he Duke of Wellington, reviewing his army during the Napoleonic wars, once said he did not know what effect his troops would have on the enemy but they certainly scared the life out of him. You could say much the same of Americas friends trying to come to terms with Donald Trumps victory in the US presidential election. One does not know what effect Trump will have on China, Russia and in the various other parts of the world which have been on the wrong end of his campaign rhetoric, but he has certainly scared his friends.

Nowhere is this more true than in his comments on trade. The great success of the modern era has been the expansion of world commerce. Nations buying and selling from each other is not only the glue that binds countries together and gives them a vested interest in solving disputes by talking rather than fighting but it is the rocket fuel which has driven global growth for the past 50 years.

The doubling and redoubling of global prosperity in that time is not something which has just happened. The worlds ability today to feed a global population that has more than doubled and the lifting in recent years of billions of those people out of poverty is not the result of some unplanned historical accident. It is the dividend of years of hard work by thousands of public servants who painstakingly have built a global trading system which works.

It is the prosperity and efficiency which has come from that trade expansion which underpins our lifestyles and prosperity today. And it is no surprise that the depression in the world since the financial crisis, the squeeze on incomes, the anaemic economic expansions and the feeling that the world has lost its way, coincide with a period where the growth in trade has also tailed off alarmingly. It is a reflection that the rocket fuel is not flowing as freely as it should. It should be taken as a reminder of how fragile the system still is and how vulnerable it is to political shocks.

So we should be grateful for trade  but you would never guess it from the rhetoric because these days it is all about the downside. In Donald Trump the losers have found their voice and their champion. He has positioned himself unequivocally on the side of workers who have lost their jobs to foreign competition, whole communities which have died when factories have moved offshore, children who are unemployed because they have never been taught the skills a modern economy demands. In short, all those people who have been left behind as the world has moved on.

US election 2016: Newspaper front pages react to Donald Trump win 1 /24 US election 2016: Newspaper front pages react to Donald Trump win The Washington Post The Washington Post New York Daily News 'House of horrors,' the New York City paper says. The New York Times The New York Times USA Today President Trump, says USA Today. New York Post Colourful front page with the words President Trump from the New York Post. The Daily Telegraph, Sydney 'W.T.F.' says the Australian Daily Telegraph in Sydney. The Miami Herald The Miami Herald in battleground state Florida, which Trump won. The Baltimore Sun The Baltimore Sun Beaver County Times, Pennysylvania Beaver County Times, Pennysylvania, a key swing state where Trump triumphed. Dallas Morning News The Dallas Morning News South Florida Sun Sentinel The Sun Sentinel paper in Florida, a battleground state where Trump won. El Periodica El Periodica, a morning daily newspaper based in Barcelona, Spain, carries the headline: 'God forgives America'. La Razon, Spain Spanish newspaper La Razon splashes with the headline: The Populist States of America Liberation, France 'Trumpocalypse': France's daily newspaper Liberation has a bleak looking front page for its special election edition. The i The i newspaper's 'disunited states' front. The Metro 'It's Trump,' says the Metro. The Daily Telegraph The UK's Daily Telegraph Evening Standard Trump Triumph shock the world Evening Standard

The forgotten should have been listened to and looked after by earlier generations of politicians as inequality soared and they suffered but by and large they have not been, and now that they have found their champion they want revenge as well as change. And who can blame them for wanting once again those genuine feelings of self-worth which come from doing a worthwhile job to support themselves and their families? Unfortunately, however, that is a promise which is easy to make but hard to deliver.

The danger is that Trumps promised solutions are based on protection and retaliation. He proposes punishing those whom he holds responsible for Americas ills  illegal immigrants, the foreign countries which gain unfair advantage by manipulating their exchange rate of their currencies, and the trade deals which he says open up American markets and hollow out its industries while offering little in return.

There is a huge problem here of babies and bath water. What he has not said is what he will put in its place. He is more likely to destroy what is good in the system than to cure it of its ills.

Forecasters say that even if Trumps policies make some workers better off they will damage and weaken the US as a whole, but in truth this is about far more than economics. It is the geo-political implications which really need to be considered, the effect of his policies on the balance of power across the world. What we really need to consider is not what this will mean for Mexico, which really has nowhere else to go, but how it plays in China and the rest of Asia.

US Election: Thousands protest Trump's victory

After two decades of spectacular growth China has become the worlds second largest economy and is yapping at Americas heels in terms of size, though absolutely not in the far more important metric of income per head. It is also transforming itself from a country where growth comes from exporting to one where the Chinese themselves buy the products so that growth in the future will come from increases in domestic demand.

But coupled with this it is becoming increasingly assertive internationally, clashing with the US in the South China Sea and projecting its soft power across the globe in ways which are making its neighbours increasingly nervous. So it is not a good time. There is enough strain in the US-China relationship as it is without adding the further loss of face Beijing would undoubtedly feel if it were subjected to a trade war or punitive tariffs against its exports.

It would also surely be counterproductive. Currently other Asian countries such as Vietnam use access to the US as a way to keep China at arms length. But a China shorn of access to the US market would inevitably refocus closer to home. It would have to sell its goods somewhere else  and where better than its neighbouring countries. Thus, paradoxically, attempts to weaken China by excluding it from the US market could actually bring about a step change in its power and influence across Asia by forcing these smaller countries into its orbit. It might actually be the catalyst to propel China to the worlds number one spot.

That clearly is not what Trump would intend. And if it happens at all it will happen after he has long gone. But trade is a long-term game. He and his advisers have to understand that casual actions taken today can cast a shadow which passes down generations.
N inety-eight years ago, at 11am on November 11, the First World War ended.

More than 38 million were dead, soldiers and civilians alike. It was not a jubilant victory for Great Britain: the nation was bloodied, tired and exhausted.

A few days earlier, on November 7, King George V called for silence to remember those who had been lost, proclaiming: All locomotion should cease, so that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.

Tradition has held. Below are the some of the tributes across the capital  though our first suggestion is to check in with your local church, or council hall, as many smaller events take place, but aren't heavily publicised.

Silence in the Square

Trafalgar Square, Nov 11, 10am until 11.15am.

Trafalgar Square provides a public gathering space to share the two minutes of silence. In the lead up to 11am, there will be musical performances and readings. Good Morning Britain presenter Ben Shephard will host the morning, featuring soprano Laura Wright, actors Charlie Clements and Sophie Thompson and Britains Got Talent stars Vox Fortis. If you cant make it down, the morning will be streamed live at britishlegion.org.uk.

Imperial War Museums Ceremony of Remembrance

IWM, Lambeth Rd, SE1 6HZ, Nov 11 and 13, 11am, iwm.org.uk

These two services, held in the atrium of the museum, are identical. At 11am, the Last Post will be performed, as usual on a bugle. Following the haunting piece will be the two minutes of silence, followed by a bugle call again, known as a Reveille. This will be followed by a violin recital, Allemande from Bachs Partita for solo violin No2 in D minor, which will be played on a historic violin crafted from sycamore and pine trees from former Western Front battlefields.

Remembrance Sunday 2015 1 /10 Remembrance Sunday 2015 Veteran march during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph memorial in Whitehall Gareth Fuller/PA The Chelsea pensioners march along Whitehall Gareth Fuller/PA Former Prime Minister's Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major during the Remembrance Sunday service in Whitehall Gareth Fuller/PA Samantha Cameron (right) and Cherie Blair (third right) watch the service Gareth Fuller/PA The Queen lays a wreath at the Cenotapj Gareth Fuller/PA The Queen prepares to lay the wreath Gareth Fuller/PA Crowds gathered at the Cenotaph to remember fallen soldiers Gareth Fuller/PA The Queen during the service honouring those who sacrificed their lives Gareth Fuller/PA

RAF Museum's Remembrance Service

Grahame Park Way, NW9 5LL, Nov 11, 10.55am, rafmuseum.org.uk

This simple ceremony will take place by the museums Lancaster Bomber. Its open to the public, will start with the Last Post, followed by the two minutes silence. Then will come a dedication to the fallen, and then the Reveille. Then there is a chance, for those who want to, to explore the museums Lest We Forget exhibition.

The UK's first art remembrance trail for Poppy Day 1 /9 The UK's first art remembrance trail for Poppy Day The UK's first art remembrance trail for Poppy Day The UK's first art remembrance trail for Poppy Day The UK's first art remembrance trail for Poppy Day The UK's first art remembrance trail for Poppy Day The UK's first art remembrance trail for Poppy Day The UK's first art remembrance trail for Poppy Day The UK's first art remembrance trail for Poppy Day

Poppy Trail

Canary Wharf, until November 13

Londoners looking to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the First World War can do more than wear a poppy this year, with the UKs first ever Remembrance Art Trail. The Royal British Legion have collaborated with the artist Mark Humphrey to create a trail of sculptures and art, offering a visual reminder of the sacrifices made by the armed forces in the war. All the information can be found here.

The Cenotaph Service

Whitehall, Nov 11, britishlegion.org.uk

This is, of course, the most famous one, which will be broadcast on BBC One. It will be attended by the Queen, major political figures and military representatives. Crowds can attend, but it will be difficult to get a spot, so head down early.

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P eople always ask me for tips on how to cook a restaurant meal at home, says Skye Gyngell, fresh from the lunch service at Spring, her restaurant in Somerset House. And I always think Why the f*** would you want to? A home meal is something different. Its comforting. You dont want to put fans on your plate or shards of glass and all that. When Im at home I just cook a huge soup with lentils, rice, carrots, bones from a chicken carcass  whatever I have to hand  and it lasts me the whole week.

Thriftiness is in the air. Gyngell is one of the capitals most feted chefs. She grew up in Australia, trained in Paris and then made her name at Petersham Nurseries in Richmond, where her seasonal, vegetable-focused cooking won her a Michelin star in 2011. She opened Spring in November 2014.

But on Tuesday she will join Ollie Dabbous, Francesco Mazzei and Simon Rogan for a Food Waste Cook Off, co-hosted by the Evening Standard and Sainsburys. Using a selection of the most commonly wasted ingredients each chef will prepare the kind of simple dish that any of us could make if only we thought a bit harder about it. Gyngell will be serving cabbage leaves stuffed with seasoned minced pork: superior finger-food that uses ingredients others might throw away.

Waste is such an important subject, she says. As chefs its our duty to do something  we need to stand up and be counted. When you run a kitchen you are always thinking about waste  in part because you have the accounts department on your back! What I always tell my staff is that what appears on the plate is our only chance to make money. With that you need to pay for all the insurance, rent, wages and everything else.

If you waste or spoil ingredients you are taking profit out of the business. We keep a record of everything: if were serving sea bass with borlotti beans, its always three tablespoons of beans. Not two or four. If something has to be discarded we note it down in a book.

My father would make a roast leg of lamb last the whole week, for a family of five

As the Standards Food for London campaign has shown over the past two months, waste occurs at every stage of the food chain. The average family wastes 470 of food every year, while 400,000 Londoners are living in food poverty. At Spring, Gyngell tries to lead by example. Almost all of Springs produce is sourced from Fern Verrow, a 16-acre biodynamic farm in Herefordshire.

Gyngells sense of economy stems in part from her childhood in Australia. My father grew up during the war and when we were kids he would make a leg of lamb last the whole week, for a family of five. Wed start with the Sunday roast, then it would become shepherds pie or soup or lamb sandwiches over the following days. At the restaurant I tell the staff that if someone has gone to the trouble of planting a seed, watering it, watching it grow and harvesting it, the least we can do is be respectful and use everything. Leftover meat and vegetables that dont make it onto the restaurant menu are used in simpler meals for the staff.

Our Food For London Campaign What is it? A 1.3 million-plus initiative that seeks to redistribute surplus food to tackle food poverty. What are we doing? 1. Backing the scale-up of The Felix Project  our flagship charity  which picks up surplus produce from food suppliers and delivers it to a range of charities that provide meals for those in need. 2. Awarding grants to groups through an open grants programme. Who can apply for grants? If you are a charity, community group or social enterprise tackling food waste and/or using fresh food to address food poverty, you can apply for a grant of up to 20,000. Apply by November 11 to The London Community Foundation at: londoncf.org.uk/grants/food-for-london.aspx Who are our backers? We have raised over 1 million for Felix from Citi, Sainsburys, Lush founders Mark and Mo Constantine, the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund, Uber, Standard readers and the Felix Byam Shaw Foundation, which has pledged to match money raised for The Felix Project with up to 750,000. The 320,000 grants programme is funded by Citi, D&D London and the Dispossessed Fund. How you can help The Felix Project is looking for more food suppliers, especially supermarkets, food wholesalers and catering companies. Please email Daisy@TheFelixProject.org

Still, there are limits to what one dining room can do, however well- intentioned. Chefs can show us the way but it is regular shoppers who must change their habits and show supermarkets the way to go. Look at the way we shop in supermarkets compared to how we shopped 50 years ago, says Gyngell, or how some people still shop on the continent, where you buy small amounts of things every day. Now you can go online and buy whatever you want all the time but then I read that we throw away a sixth of our fridge contents every week.

Of course not everyone has the time or money to trail around artisanal producers, or pay 100 for dinner at Spring. Im very aware that I cook for people who can afford to eat. If you buy a free-range chicken and organic sprouting broccoli, thats never going to be cheaper than a 99p hamburger from McDonalds.

But where chefs can show the way is in seasonality. With good seasonal ingredients you barely need to cook them. We can get strawberries all year round but if you compare an English strawberry during their six-week season to those big ones with a huge white centre you get in December, Im not surprised people dont like eating fruit and veg. When you eat a cabbage from Fern Verrow its completely different from the cabbage you find in the supermarket.

Thats the secret to everything. If you want a revolution, it cant be a bad- tasting revolution. It has to be delicious.

Visit standard.co.uk/restaurants for the latest news and reviews from Londons food scene.

@edcumming

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I ts 1995 and Jack Reacher, aged 35, is being given the Legion of Merit for the second time  a reward for taking out a couple of baddies in the Balkans. Meanwhile, in a Germany that is still coming to terms with the fall of the Berlin Wall, an American soldier has gone awol with something for which the mad mullahs are willing to pay $100 million. Something unhinged is on the horizon. Thus begins the military policemans 21st battle to defeat the forces of evil.

The National Security Council is running around with its hair on fire but that doesnt stop Dr Marian Sinclair, who never takes off her pearls, from riding Our Hero cowboy-style three times. Sergeant Frances Neagley, whom we have met before, cannot complain even though she adores Reacher. She has haphephobia  a fear of being touched.

Hamburg is where the deadly deal is to be done. The gateway to the world is finally regenerating after the Allies firebombed it in 1943: Forty thousand dead in one raid. Britain had lost 60,000 in the whole war.

Unfortunately the local neo-Nazis are also keen to get their paws on the prize. Thus begins an epic game of Cherchez lHomme conducted, of course, without the techno-benefits of the worldwide web and mobile phones.

As a prequel, Night School, dripping with irony and oozing dread, is a somewhat subdued adventure  yet utterly gripping, nonetheless. Reachers mantra for dealing with his superiors  short words, no math, and no diagrams  could be Lee Childs own.

More book reviews 1 /24 More book reviews Recovery by Russell Brand Will Russells brand of self-help prove quite so addictive? By Nicholas Lezard. Read review A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman Paxo refuses to answer all the really good questions, says David Sexton. Read review Politics: Between: The Extremes by Nick Clegg The basis of this book makes it impossible not to warm to Clegg, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review Serious Sweet by A L Kennedy Thank heavens for London in this tale of self-obsessed lovers. Read review The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay Born a kings b****** and destined for a traitors death. Read review Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules by Rebecca Asher Getting to the bottom of why boys will be boys. Read review The Course of Love by Alain de Botton A philosophical novel that does run smooth, says Johanna Thomas-Corr. Read review The Tree Climbers Guide: Adventures in the Urban Canopy by Jack Cooke How I gave this book a proper test and ended up with a broken ankle. Read review Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre Brontes classic tale in the imaginations of other writers, says Claire Harman. Read review Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran Caitlin comes clean about politics  the world according to our funniest feminist. By Rosamund Urwin. Read review Spark Joy An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo Theres no messing wih Marie, says Katie Law. Read review Cockfosters Stories by Helen Simpson After 50, a womans life gets better not worse. By Katie Law. Read review Stalins Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie Joker in the spying pack. By Richard Bassett. Read review Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin The darkness that lies at the heart of the novel is offset by a lightness of touch, says Mark Sanderson. Read review Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello Elvis proves not quite so lyrical on the page, says Nick Curtis. Read review The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkins Photographs by Richard Bradford His poetry paints better pictures than any camera, says David Sexton. Read review Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith Morality wins out over macabre murders, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Calling all Flynnies: the con girl whos like gone girl. Read review

If, after sales of more than 70 million, proof of the excellence of his prose is still needed, consider the final paragraph on page 78, where twilight is falling on the city.

Acute observation reveals every detail of the glowing scene. Many so-called literary novels lack such skill.
I was back Up North last weekend, leading my little family on one of our sporadic pilgrimages to The Old Country, forcing my children to play on the swings and slides of my youth and allowing their grandparents and great-grandparents to coo and fuss and quietly spoil them, as is their legal right.

As I drove us up the A1, past that weird stretch of roadside sex shops in Lincolnshire, I started humming Homeward Bound, because nothing incites warm feelings of a return to the nest like a string of former Little Chefs that now sell bondage gear. But then I glanced in my rear-view mirror and realised that everyone sitting in the back  my girlfriend, my toddler son, my baby girl  werent really going home at all. They are proper Londoners, all born in the borough of Camden, in fact, which is why if my kids ever end up running a stall selling novelty bongs to tourists, I will at least understand.

We visit my gran. I may be in my mid-30s, but she still spanks my bottom for walking mud into her lounge. Then the feeding begins. Pork pies, ham sandwiches, cream scones, lemon drizzle cake, chocolate cake, Twiglets, cans of Tetleys in the garage if Id like one, even though its 10am. You look thin! she cries, like she always does. I explain that I live in Hackney, and that if you cant fit into a pair of skinny jeans they make you move.

She asks if I like London  as if I havent lived in the capital for years  and I tell her that, yeah, I do. We have a running joke that the weather Down South is tropical compared with Yorkshire but Im actually starting to think she might be right. Or perhaps Im just getting soft. I dont suppose youll ever come back up to live here, will you? she asks before we go, and I umm and ahhh but we both know it isnt really a question. She gives me a big kiss and a jar of marmalade to take back.

On the drive down to London we trundled along the M11 when the road curved and, suddenly, we could just make out Canary Wharf, The Shard and faint grey haze of the whole city. And as the mad Essex drivers overtook me, I sat in the slow lane, glanced at my family and hummed Homeward Bound.

Follow Ben on Twitter @ben_machell

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I like having a bit of suspense about where my life will go, says Evie Prichard. Since leaving Cambridge, where she read philosophy, the 25-year-old has worked at a festival, done a charity internship in Japan, travelled around the Far East, tried freelance writing and worked as a music journalist. While many of her peers  especially her Oxbridge peers  have been slaving away in the City or clipping on the gilded handcuffs of Magic Circle law firms, she has spent the past three years in a perpetual state of career experimentation. Now, shes tutoring: instructing a Russian toddler in English language skills, giving lessons in philosophy and theology to prospective Oxbridge applicants ahead of their A-levels, and teaching Maths and English to 11+ pupils.

I think Ive had a lot more fun this way, reflects the east Londoner. I havent had the chance to get too bored of anything, and I havent had to feel tied down. I dont want to start a new job thinking to myself: This is my life, brightened only by 20 days insipid holiday a year, until I finally reach retirement and spend the next couple of decades forlornly preparing myself for death.

Her attitude might sound contrary, or unambitious  but its more complicated than that. Prichard is a 20K-something: one of a growing set of intelligent, educated, talented  but ultimately transient  twenty-somethings. They know they have lots to offer, as do the companies that want to hire them, only they arent quite sure what they want from their careers.

Theyre concentrated in London  the capital has plenty of opportunities (not to mention distractions)  and unlike their parents generation, who typically found jobs for life and are just now relaxing into the reassuring cushion of pensions they spent their lives amassing, this set baulk at the idea of being company men  or women. They are restless and commitment-phobic, but its not really a lack of ambition: if anything, its a healthy, slightly dizzy greed to make the most of every possible opportunity.

It makes for a pacy CV, certainly. According to figures by the consultancy firm Deloitte, 71 per cent of millennials estimate that they will have left their current role by 2020, and 44 per cent think that they will leave within two years. It also means that they postpone their career progression, sometimes indefinitely, leaving roles before the job gets too serious and, accordingly, lucrative. They are stuck, perpetually, earning somewhere in the ballpark of 20,000 to 30,000.

At 23, James Green  now 26  was working for an executive headhunting firm in the City, earning almost 30,000. His next pay review would have taken him past that threshold and hed likely never have earned less than that again. Instead, the Islington resident left to do a masters degree. Once Id graduated, I really felt the pressure, seeing people I knew become lawyers and management consultants, to get a good job. But I never wanted headhunting to be my lifelong career  it was always just something I was lucky to have fallen into. I worked for one of the most prestigious organisations in the business with clients all over the world. Doing a masters allowed me to press a reset button on my career. Hes now working for a think-tank, doing social media  and wont rule out further changes. Rosie, a 24-year-old north Londoner, has worked in a gallery, a butchers and a pasta shop, and Im not tied down to the thought of having a career. She says, wryly, that this realisation is the closest shes getting to a long-term plan.

The group is categorically not lacking in talent, but are they wasting it? Ben Rosen, CEO of graduate recruitment agency Inspiring Interns, says that the flightiness of the 20K-somethings frustrates employers. Its difficult for an employer to invest in a new hire if theyre worried theyre going to quit within six months, he points out. Employees who stay long-term gain massive kudos from employers, who see it as an example of their resilience and tenacity. It also means the employees see the fruits of labour. Rosen points to Paula Nickolds, who was appointed Managing Director of John Lewis last month, as an example; Nickolds joined the company as a graduate trainee 22 years ago. But thats not the way this generation thinks. Theyre restless, reluctant to anchor themselves to anything specific and  according to Deloittes 2016 report  they prioritise a work-life balance over pay. Thus the moves are lateral: from one similar role to another at a similar level, for a relatively negligible pay-off  maybe a shorter commute, or somewhere with perks such as dress-down Fridays, or Thursday beers.

It might sound a little petulant  entitled even. It certainly requires a certain privilege of opportunity. However, it must also be considered in its socio-economic context. The world is not as fixed as it was when the previous generation came of age  hence the faint nihilism of the 20K-somethings approach.

Credit: Andrew Joyce

Many of the current generation wont be able buy a house, points out Peter Ruis, CEO of Jigsaw, a company that uses the phrase 20K-something internally to describe precisely this demographic. Their minds arent on the long term. When I went out to work after graduating, I automatically had a better lifestyle: student debt of about 3,000 or 4,000 and I could get a mortgage even though I was on a small salary. That reality made you lock in to your career a little  a desirable life was around the corner. But this generation isnt necessarily living in a better place than they had been before, and theyre fighting all that other economic stuff. Its very difficult to say, Im going to hack it here if theyre a bit dissatisfied. In other words, in a world where a dependable future looks rare, why not live for the present? This, in a nutshell, is the 20K-somethings logic.

And perhaps this is no bad thing. There can be accidental method to the professional acrobatics. Pravina Rudra, 22, graduated from Oxford last year and has been job-hopping since, trying internships at magazines and a few consultancy roles. Shes had positive feedback about her varied resume from employers. I think different jobs prove that youre a true all-rounder and can master different skills fast. Doing things in a sequence or indeed simultaneously means you dont stagnate  you cant afford to be lazy about goals because you feel the pressure to achieve things in the potentially short time you have to do them. I think it also makes you interesting  networking is always important and people remember you because you have a differentiator and have a less generic CV.

They say that knowing what you dont want can be just as valuable as knowing what you do, agrees Rosen, who argues that 20K-somethings perceived flakiness could make them more diligent employees. Most twenty-somethings have been brought up to think they can do and be anything. Consequently, theyre more willing to try new things, take risks and broadcast their ideas. They add the creativity and dynamism which companies need to grow and succeed.

Perhaps the nomadic nature of the 20K-somethings isnt a drawback  perhaps its an asset. Rosen thinks it might be: I predict that this flightiness now is actually going to lead to a much more loyal and hard-working cohort of employees in 10 years because theyll end up somewhere theyre genuinely passionate about.

The best apps for Londoners 1 /16 The best apps for Londoners Zip car Join, reserve, unlock and drive  it really is that simple. The capitals preferred car clubs app gives 24/7 access to cars and vans in your neighbourhood and lets you extend or cancel reservations on the go. Free Uncover Sick of being stuck on waiting lists? You need Uncover, which redistributes cancelled reservations at some of the capitals top restaurants, including The River Cafe and Nobu. Not for planning freaks, though  tables typically become free at 40 minutes notice. Free Uber So popular its become a verb, this private driver service has revolutionised travel in the capital. Its speedy and affordable, making it a welcome alternative to the night bus. Free Santander Cycles Launched this summer, the official app for Boris fifth child can be used to search for nearby docking stations and check bike availability. Theres also a journey planner featuring easy, moderate and fast routes to satisfy all cycling tribes. Free Plume Air Report This new app has been downloaded by 3,000 Londoners. Sensors gathering air pollution data submit updates every hour, resulting in a scale that ranges from fresh to extremely polluted. Free Nightcapp Heres an app that will have booze hounds raising their glasses. NightCapp is a map that pinpoints more than 1,500 London watering holes that stay open past 11.30pm. It also shows users when a bar is about to close by highlighting it in orange. Better get moving. Free Money Dashboard An award-winning budget planner, this helps you keep track of personal spending across multiple accounts, pay off credit cards and even makes suggestions on how to manage your finances better. Free Her Promising to introduce women to a lesbian that hasnt slept with any of your friends, this revamped dating app includes queer-themed news and blogs, upcoming event notices and an improved algorithm-matching system. Free FoodMood This new startup, which reckons its Tinder for food, pledges to narrow down your choice of lunchbreak destinations. Hit yum or yuk on photos of dishes in your area. Juvenile, but strangely addictive. Free Daily Yoga This offers more than 50 yoga sessions, as well as a database of 500 yoga poses. Suitable for all levels, programmes include yoga aimed at specific areas of the body and weight loss. Namaste to that. Free Coffee Meets Bagel Billed as the anti-Tinder, this new kid on the block delivers just a single match to users once a day. Coffee Meets Bagel uses Facebook profile information to recommend suitors based on friends of friends. Neither coffee nor bagels are included. Free. Bristlr Do you have a beard? Perhaps youd like to stroke one on a regular basis? This can be arranged. Unlike other dating apps, Bristlr is unashamedly all about hooking up the hairy with the hairless. Theres even a beard-rating option for aficionados. Free

We have amazing young people in that millennial bracket, agrees Ruis, who emphasises the groups talents, suggesting that companies also have a responsibility to check in regularly with their millennial cohort in order to lure the best out of them. It has to come from both of them.

Whats more the 20K-somethings are changing Londons industry, breaking the Citys monopoly on talented graduates and creating a healthy competition between established firms in blue-chip industries such as consultancy, banking and law, and the smaller, Silicon Roundabout start-ups that are typically better at luring and retaining a young workforce.

Meanwhile, companies such as Deloitte and PwC have scrutinised the twenty-something cohort and designed policies that align with their values: chiefly, social responsibility and transparency, and prioritising learning and training opportunities. Some executives at London law firms and consultancies have reverse mentors: younger employees wholl train them in social media and its kind (which they surely submit to through gritted teeth). Deloitte, sensitive of the keen social conscience characteristic of its millennial cohort, offers charitable initiatives to engage them in workplace extracurriculars; law firms, including Hogan Lovells, offer secondments abroad.

It is also consistent with Londons flexi-economy in which a growing number of freelancers and consultants ply their wares without committing. After all, if the 20K-somethings apply themselves properly to the business of being in plenty of places at once, they could be rather indomitable. In this brave new world, they have the multitasking strength and adaptability to breathe life into old institutions, Rosen concludes. Ignore these qualities at your peril.

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S aturday afternoon in Tottenhams Selby community centre and the autumn sun can just about be glimpsed in the windows of a cramped, ad-hoc recording studio. Amid sound-muffling foam stalactites and drained cans of ginger beer, young music workshop attendees in headphones tap at computer screens, practise piano chords and mumble half-written lyrics. Space, not to mention fresh air, is in short supply and the days mentoring session is running behind schedule. But Skepta, rising from the floor and breaking off momentarily to swipe a Jaffa Cake from a boy standing by the door, wants to talk to the assembled flock of budding musicians about something important. Namely, the blight of British people singing in fake American accents.

I used to think my accent was blocking me and I hated it, says the man formerly known as Joseph Junior Adenuga. Then I went to America and every time someone said, What? Can you say that again? I started liking it. I got addicted to it. Then Id start seeing Americans and theyd go, Yo Skepta, wagwan bredrin! They started talking like me, because Im not going to America or anywhere trying to be anyone else. Im stuck in my settings. Im speaking how I speak. If after awhile they realise you wont compromise, they just go to your world. And being from London right now is the sickest thing.

These words  almost like a semi-improvised Ted talk  could easily be Skeptas personal mission statement. And its easy to see why, right now, hed be delivering them with extra vigour. On 15 September in the Hammersmith Apollo, the 34-year-old north London MC beat the late David Bowie (among others) to the 2016 Mercury Prize with Konnichiwa, his fourth album. It was a hugely significant, not to mention unanimously popular, decision that cemented grimes long-prophesied resurgence. But it was also a moment of personal vindication for a shy, introspective kid from N17 who now sells out shows across the world and signed his bredrin Drake to his independent record label, Boy Better Know. Refusing to compromise has paid off in a big way.

But lets double back. The reason Im here right now is to speak to Skepta about his first major post-Mercury act. Todays workshop is the midpoint of The Levis Music Project, an eight-week initiative that has seen Skepta offer creative guidance to 12 young participants from the local area. It will all culminate in a performance at the V&A (which, all going well, went ahead last weekend) and Skepta, whos still notoriously press-averse, is keen to speak about this, a rare concrete manifestation of all those vague celebrity promises to give something back. Particularly as its happening literally, through the alleyway from where he grew up and a short hop from his current home.

LEVIS customised denim jacket, POA (levi.com). A.P.C. T-shirt, 60, at mrporter.com. POLO RALPH LAUREN cap, 25, at selfridges.com / Eric T. White

This place is a community centre but when we were growing up, we were always being told to just get out and go away, says Skepta once were seated at a bare table in a separate room. Its lunchtime, so hes jabbing hungrily at a plate of Turkish flatbread, salad and hummus, his head bowed. (He has been a vegetarian since March 2013, after a video on YouTube put him off meat.) Its really gratifying to be the guy who brings a studio here for people. And its very nice that theyre allowing us to keep it here after the course is done. Because thats another thing that I remember as a kid. Things would be given to you and then theyd get taken away.

Six feet tall, lean, dripping in tattoo ink and dressed in signature all-black (customised Levis jacket, trainers, tailored joggers, cap with GREATNESS stitched on the side), Skepta is unavoidably imposing at close quarters. That said, despite the unsmiling resting face, the good mood brought on by the award thats in his living room  next to his Xbox  is still radiating.

It honestly hasnt sunk in yet, he says, his voice as gravelly, rapid-fire and thickly Tottenham in person as it is on record. Im still in that night in my head, just remembering that its a moment I should always be happy about. Hes tickled by the fact a celebratory on-stage wiggle turned his mum into something of a meme (Yeah, shes famous now, man, he laughs, shes won a few mother of the year awards), but theres a detectable note of pride when he informs me that his victory party was somewhat nontraditional.

I stayed [at the afterparty] for a little bit then I just went home, sat on the beanbag in my front room and just looked out of the window for, like, five hours, he says. I just stayed there by myself. The thing about awards is that a lot of those moments are about the whole world telling you that you deserve it and rah, rah, rah. Im very appreciative of that but I love experiencing stuff by myself. Because it feels different. You know the truth and you can hear what the voice in your head is saying properly.

AQUASCUTUM X SUPREME jacket, 328, at supremenewyork.com. NASIR MAZHAR trousers, 325, at lyst.co.uk. LEVIS cap, 18 (levi.com) / Eric T. White

This love of solitude, also borne out by his current relationship status (Im still single  theres a lot of pressure on relationships but if I get to the strongest, realest [version of] me, then I can attract the exact person I need), has been a defining factor since Skeptas school days. The firstborn son of Nigerian immigrants Ify and Joseph Sr (a former charity worker and DJ, respectively), Skepta is one of four close siblings who have all gone on to work in music; his sister, Julie, is a radio host on Apples Beats 1, his youngest brother, Jason, is a fledgling producer and his other brother, Jamie, known as JME, is also a lauded grime MC. Growing up, however, he faced playground jibes from some classmates at his secondary, Winchmore School, because of his African heritage. Bullying is bullying, man, he reasons. Even the biggest of the bullies got bullied. And what was happening in school comes from the media, innit? It comes from TV and society. How can a Jamaican cuss someone for being African, when theyre from there? Its just complete confusion and ignorance. I dont blame any Jamaicans, I dont hold any grudges.

Music provided an escape. It was always there, a flame of obsession nurtured by Joseph Srs record-spinning and legendarily raucous all-night parties at the familys Meridian Walk estate home. Soon Skepta, as well as hustling by selling drugs, was making beats and DJing himself. Then, slowly at first, he picked up the mic and earned a reputation as a kind of fearless lyrical prizefighter, demolishing rival grime MCs at battle events. Skeptas first album, Greatest Hits, came out in 2007 and, after a hit 2010 remix featuring P Diddy, he joined the crowd of pirate-radio graduates trying to prosper in the slipstream of Dizzee Rascals commercial success.

However, chart-friendly dance-bangers and N-Dubz collaborations never quite suited him and it wasnt until he made the decision to go against the commercial tide  embodied by 2014 breakthrough hit Thats Not Me, follow-up 2015 anthem Shutdown and, ultimately, Konnichiwa  that he found success on his own terms. One of the striking moments on his Mercury-winning album is Crime Riddim, a funny, forceful riposte to police harassment, particularly interesting from someone who had the late Mark Duggan appear in the background of one of his 2009 videos. When I ask him about police attitudes today he says: I stay away from the police, I dont want to get killed by them. Someone I know has been killed by them and I hope no one else I know gets killed by them.

Whats his take on the Black Lives Matter movement landing in the UK? Ive been to a few protests before and the thing I protested about still happened after, he says. [I know] the intention of protest is to make noise and stand up for something but I dont know if Id actually go to a protest again. I dont want to kill no one, I dont want to hurt anyone, I dont want to bomb anywhere and I dont think my friends want to do that either. I think thats the better solution. If it comes from within then theres nothing to protest about. This is not me in no way, shape or form saying I support any of these things that are happening. I hate them, they shouldnt be happening. Hes even-handed about some of the eyebrows raised over the number of white Black Lives Matter activists involved in the protest at London City Airport. One day people are going to think were crazy for asking why a white person cant protest for black people, he says.

LEVIS customised jacket, and customised jeans, both POA (levi.com). A.P.C. T-shirt, 60, at mrporter.com. POLO RALPH LAUREN cap, 25, at selfridges.com / Eric T. White

I dont watch the news, he continues, because I understand that Im like a science lab. Whatever I take in is how I feel. If I play GTA then jump in my car and drive around and someone tries to cut me up Im like, What the f*** are you doing? I can feel it. But if I listen to some jazz or some nice Fela Kuti before I leave the house and then someones being foolish outside, Im like: Come on, bro. I can see how I deal with them. The reason they show black-on-black crime and police killing black people is so its in my mind  so I hate feds. They want me to not like them. But how about I dont even care about them? I dont believe that they exist? Before, I used to see a police car drive past and Id look at them and think, Are they gonna chase me? It was just in my mind. Now, to me, its just like a bus. Its just another car. Stop looking at it Junior, you havent done anything so stop inviting them into your world. All these things are invited [in our minds] by these people that want us to see it and fear it.

Fame is another thing Skepta is unwilling to invite into his world (If anyone sees me out I just look moody and like someone you dont want to take a photo of) and hes found an unlikely guru to help guide him through his new strata of celebrity.

Adele texts me all the time and keeps me in check, he says, about his fellow Tottenham native. She speaks to me about how things are going. Shes one of the people I know that, from her [example] alone, you can move in a certain way where youre not inviting fame. Shes the biggest artist in the world, bro, and you do not see her in the papers [every day]. So will they collaborate on a song? With those kind of things, I dont really know, he says. With Drake and Adele, Im happy firstly that they respect me as an artist and a man.

Next is a prospective grime film (Its going to be about Boy Better Know but not in [a completely] autobiographical way), consulting on a Drake-funded revival of the gritty crime drama Top Boy and more community-minded projects for his as yet untouched 25,000 Mercury cheque. Hes back in the studio, too, and, having been inspired by the tracks the workshop participants played him earlier, he wants to head there now. Whatever he does next musically, its fair to say those expecting big-budget videos, inorganic pop hook-ups and a general change in approach will be left wanting.

People might get confused now because theyre gonna be like: Okay, wheres the follow-up to Konnichiwa? Why havent you got a song with Katy Perry? he says. Im not putting myself in that chase again. Im done. There isnt another award I want to win, there isnt a place I want to play or an artist that Im dying to collaborate with. His voice is raised  travelling into the corridors that he once got turfed out of  but theres an unmistakable smile on his face. I mean, what the f*** do I want? Ive written my legacy, to the Mercury. Now I just want to help people.

As part of the Levis Music Project, Levis and Skepta have partnered to establish a community youth music project in Tottenham. (levi.com/liveinlevis)
I t was an election fought as much through 3am Twitter attacks as it was at packed rallies. So it makes sense that the only way to follow Tuesday nights cataclysm was digitally. This election was played out on Facebook Live, Twitter and Snapchat Live Stories.

Gemma Joyce, a social data analyst at Brandwatch says livestreaming was the big talking point of the election coverage, reaching a climax with Trumps live Faceboook acceptance speech being viewed 10 million times. She says: Election day saw a real focus on the live  from live blogs, to Twitters video coverage, to Trump.

On the traditional television channels the time before the result was filled with talking heads recounting at length how they predicted Pennsylvania correctly in 2004.

But the networks knew that the television-only game was up, as did Donald Trump, who had a nightly show on Facebook Live as part of his campaign. Fewer people watched election night coverage on television than in 2008, while at the same time Twitter traffic doubled and Facebook use was up 30 per cent - elections are big business. So most of the big names had online operations to counteract losing viewers on TV: NBC, PBS, MTV and Bloomberg all livestreamed on YouTube while Facebook Live hosted ABC News, CNN, The New York Times, Yahoo, the Washington Post and satirical shows Full Frontal With Samantha Bee and The Daily Show.

Ben Smith, Editor in Chief at Buzzfeed, says: We were very focused on being open and transparent, in the spirit of Twitter and our own coverage. We also incorporated viral moments from other media in real time.

BuzzFeed teamed up with Twitter to make a designated livestream promising thoroughly unconventional coverage, including staff knocking back shots. Google integrat ed updating results into its search pages and Facebook added an Election 2016 Hub shortcut to its Favourites menu.

AFP/Getty Images

It was a night for unveiling new gadgets that would reflect the drama at the polls. The New York Times debuted a forecast needle which, apart from being as wobbly as our nerves, reacted as news came in and used algorithms to calculate the percentage likelihood that each candidate would win. Washington Post reporter Philip Bump tweeted a gif of the developing front page as the news came through, with the headline changing from A day of decisions to Too close to call to Trump Triumphs.

New York Magazine produced a map graphic that you certainly wouldnt see on the BBC. It had a livestream of nude models forming a living electoral map, painted red or blue by body artist Trina Merry as states declared.

Donald Trump - In pictures 1 /112 Donald Trump - In pictures President Donald Trump takes the oath of office as his wife Melania Trump holds the bible and his son Barron Trump looks on, on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC Getty Images Acceptance speech Republican president-elect Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to the crowd during his acceptance speech at his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of 9 November 2016 in New York Getty Images Little Trump Donald Trump pictured when he was 4 years old Donald J Trump/Instagram The Trump Princess Donald Trump waves to reporters in 1988 with his first wife Ivana as they board their yacht 'The Trump Princess' in New York AP Donald Trump stands next to one of his three Sikorsky helicopters at New York Port Authority's West 30 Street Heliport in 1988 Out on the town Trump and his first wife Ivana arrive at a social engagement in New York in December 1989 AFP/Getty Images Surviving at the top Trump followed up his successful book The Art of the Deal with Surviving At The Top in 1990 Random House Meeting the King of Pop With Michael Jackson in 1990 FilmMagic Taking a break with Miss Universe contestants Donald Trump meets Miss Universe contestants during a break in rehearsals in the Imperial Ballroom at Atlantis, Paradise Island, Bahamas in 1990 Miss Universe Organization via AP Genie of the lamp Donald Trump stands next to a genie lamp in 1990 as the lights of his Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort mark its grand opening in Atlantic City AP Marla's wedding day Donald and Marla Trump at their wedding in 1993 AP Donald Trump with daughter Ivanka at a Harley Davidson Cafe Event, New York City on 9 October 1993 Rex Features New arival Marla and Donald Trump leave St. Mary's Hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida with their newborn baby girl, Tiffany on 14 October 1993 AP Behind the lens Donald Trump takes a picture of Bridget Marks in 1993 after interviewing her for Playboy magazine's 40th anniversary playmate in New York AFP/Getty Images Top Trump New York real estate giant Donald Trump poses in his Trump Tower office on a giant letter "T" on 08 May 1996 AFP/Getty Images New love interest Donald Trump and Melania arrive for VH1's Divas Live concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City on 13 April 1999 Getty Images Toasting in the New Year Donald Trump and Melania toast the new year during Trump's gala bash in 2000 The Sun-Sentinel/AP Wax work A wax replica of Donald Trump stands ready to be put on display at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, New York City in 2000 Madame Tussaud's/Getty Images Rebuild call Donald Trump talks in 2005 to reporters where he presented a proposal that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center be rebuilt in New York Reuters Cracking prformance Amy Poehler, Tracy Morgan, Donald Trump, Seth Myers, Maya Rudolph perform on Saturday Night Live in 2002 Rex Features 'How To Get Rich' Donald Trump poses with a copy of his new book 'How To Get Rich' during a book signing on 24 March 2004 at Barnes and Noble in Lincoln Center in New York Getty Images Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka (left) and girlfriend Melania Knauss (right) attend the "Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century" Costume Institute benefit gala on April 26, 2004 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City Getty Images Fired up figure Donald Trump poses with the new Donald Trump 12-inch talking doll 29 September 2004 at the Toys "R" Us store in New York City Getty Images Olympic flame Donald Trump carries the Olympic flame during Day 15 of the Athens 2004 Olympic Torch Relay on 19 June 19, 2004 in New York Getty Images Donald Trump on The Celebrity Apprentice (2005) Rex Features Anyone for golf? Donald Trump gestures as he arrives at the Old Course in St Andrews where he was meeting with the media to answer questions regarding Trump International Golf Links on 28 April 2005 in St Andrews, Scotland Getty Images Hollywod star Donald Trump, billionaire developer and producer of NBC's "The Apprentice," with his wife, Melania, and their son, Barron, pose for a photo after he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles in 2007 AP In the Highlands U.S. property mogul Donald Trump gestures during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland on 27 May 2010 Reuters Donald Trump plays a round of golf after the opening of the The Trump International Golf Links Course in Scotland in 2012 Getty Images Family time Donald Trump, Barron Trump and Melania Trump attends Trump Invitational Grand Prix Mar-a-Lago Club at The Mar-a-Largo Club on 04 January 2015 in Palm Beach, Florida Getty Images Officially in the running U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump poses with his family after formally announcing his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York on 16 June 2015 Reuters Love, life and laughter Donald Trump sits with his wife Melania Trump while appearing at an NBC Town Hall at the Today Show on 21 April 2016 in New York City. Getty Images Thumbs up Donald Trump speaks on the last day of the Republican National Convention on 21 July 2016, in Cleveland, AFP/Getty Images Don't cry for me ... Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds babies at a campaign rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado on 29 July 2016 Reuters Donald Trump eating KFC on his private jet in August 2016 Is this really the Oval Office? Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump views a replica of the Oval Office on a tour of the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 30 September 2016 Reuters Women for Trump Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump kisses a "Women for Trump" placard during a rally at the Lakeland Linder Regional Airport in Lakeland, Florida on 12 October 2016 AFP/Getty Images In debate Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speak during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, America on 09 October 2016 AP Love your country The future is orange: Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump hugs a U.S. flag on 24 October 2016 Reuters U.S. President-elect U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks at his election night rally in Manhattan, New York, U.S. on 09 November 2016 Reuters 60 Minutes Donald Trump and wife Melania being interviewed on 13 November 2016 by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes 60 Minutes/CBS At The Whiie House US President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump meet in the Oval Office of the White House on 10 November 2016 EPA Kiss-story Republican president-elect Donald Trump embraces his wife Melania Trump during his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of 09 November 2016 in New York Getty Images Person of the Year U.S. President-elect Donald Trump poses on the cover of Time Magazine after being named its person of the year, in a picture provided by the publication in New York on 7 December 2016 Time Magazine Meeting Kanye U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and musician Kanye West pose for media at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York on 13 December 2016 Reuters First Press Conference President-elect Donald Trump stands with his son Eric Trump (left) daughter Ivanka and son Donald Trump Jr. (right) on 11 January 2017 Reuters US President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington,Virginia 19 on January 2017 AFP/Getty Images Big shoes to fill: US President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania arrive to attend an inauguration concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on 19 January 2017 AFP/Getty Images President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania arrive for a VIP reception and dinner with donors in Washington on 19 January 2017 AP British Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President Donald Trump walk along The Colonnade of the West Wing at The White House on January 27, 2017 in Washington, DC Getty Images Pope Francis walks along with US President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump during a private audience at the Vatican in May 2017 AFP/Getty Images US President Donald Trump inspects border wall prototypes in March 2018 AFP/Getty Images Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President Donald Trump walk to a joint news conference at Chequers in July 2018 Reuters US President Donald Trump takes the hand of Prime Minister Theresa May as they enter Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire in July 2018 PA A six-meter high cartoon baby blimp of US President Donald Trump is set to fly as a protest against his visit July 2018 AP Activists inflate a giant balloon depicting US President Donald Trump as an orange baby during a demonstration against Trump's visit to the UK in Parliament Square, London July 2018 AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump with The Queen in July 2018 AP German Chancellor Angela Merkel deliberates with US president Donald Trump on the sidelines of the official agenda on the second day of the G7 summit on June 9, 2018 in Charlevoix, Canada Getty Images President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island in Singapore on 12 June 2018 Evan Vucci/AP U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland in July 2018 Reuters US President Donald Trump meets with rapper Kanye West in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on 18th October 2018 AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian posed for a photograph together at the White House meeting Donald Trump/Twitter A White House staff member reaches for the microphone held by CNN's Jim Acosta as he questions U.S. President Donald Trump during a news conference in November 2018 Reuters President Donald Trump looks over tables of fast food for the the college football playoff champion Clemson Tigers in the State Dining Room of the White House in January 2019 Reuters US President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un following a meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi on February 27, 2019 AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump (left) with Nigel Farage when they met met face-to-face on 2nd March 2019 PA/White House President Donald Trump smiles at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, after signing a proclamation in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House in Washington, Monday, March 25, 2019 AP US President Donald Trump (L) First Lady Melania Trump (C) and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe' Akie Abe (R) watch a sumo battle during the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo on May 26, 2019 AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump gestures after receiving a prayer at McLean Bible Church on 2nd June 2019 AP US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump make their way to board Air Force One on 2nd June 2019 AFP/Getty Images Donald and Melania Trump arrive at Stansted Airport on 3rd June 2019 AP President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are pictured ahead a meeting in Helsinki on July 16, 2018 AFP/Getty Images Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg watches as Donald Trump enters the United Nations to speak with reporters on September 23, 2019 Reuters Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump during a welcoming ceremony at the NATO leaders summit in Watford on December 4, 2019 Reuters President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Milwauke AP US president Donald Trump delivers a speech at the Congres center during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, on January 21, 2020 AFP via Getty Images US President Donald Trump speaks during the first presidential debate at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio AFP via Getty Images A car with US President Trump drives past supporters in a motorcade outside of Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland AFP via Getty Images U.S. President Donald Trump works in the Presidential Suite while receiving treatment after testing positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland via Reuters U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a phone call with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley October 4, 2020, in his conference room at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Not shown in the photo also in the room on the call is Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Reuters Donald Trump walks out of hospital after receiving treatment for Covid-19 AP Mr Trump boards Marine One to return to the White House after receiving treatment for coronavirus AP Donald Trump stands on the Truman Balcony after returning to the White House from hospital Getty Images U.S. President Donald Trump removes his mask upon return to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 05, 2020 in Washington Getty Images

Joyce says livestreams were crucial for the candidates too. Using social media, particularly live video, candidates have the opportunity to create their own TV networks and to present an exclusive, perhaps more authentic version of themselves. Trumps use of video (sometimes shot on a blurry smartphone) was markedly different to Hillarys more polished, less homemade approach.

Getty Images

During the campaign, much attention was given to the spending gap between the two candidates with Clinton spending more than Trump on traditional TV and radio advertising ($450m to $239m), but there was also a gap with digital. Figures on 1 November showed that Trump had spent $48 million on digital with Clinton at just $6 million.

And then theres always the coverage generated for free; as the website Recode has noted, when youre as good at Twitter as Trump is, you dont need to pay.

US election 2016: Newspaper front pages react to Donald Trump win 1 /24 US election 2016: Newspaper front pages react to Donald Trump win The Washington Post The Washington Post New York Daily News 'House of horrors,' the New York City paper says. The New York Times The New York Times USA Today President Trump, says USA Today. New York Post Colourful front page with the words President Trump from the New York Post. The Daily Telegraph, Sydney 'W.T.F.' says the Australian Daily Telegraph in Sydney. The Miami Herald The Miami Herald in battleground state Florida, which Trump won. The Baltimore Sun The Baltimore Sun Beaver County Times, Pennysylvania Beaver County Times, Pennysylvania, a key swing state where Trump triumphed. Dallas Morning News The Dallas Morning News South Florida Sun Sentinel The Sun Sentinel paper in Florida, a battleground state where Trump won. El Periodica El Periodica, a morning daily newspaper based in Barcelona, Spain, carries the headline: 'God forgives America'. La Razon, Spain Spanish newspaper La Razon splashes with the headline: The Populist States of America Liberation, France 'Trumpocalypse': France's daily newspaper Liberation has a bleak looking front page for its special election edition. The i The i newspaper's 'disunited states' front. The Metro 'It's Trump,' says the Metro. The Daily Telegraph The UK's Daily Telegraph Evening Standard Trump Triumph shock the world Evening Standard

In an attempt to reach younger audiences, Clintons team invested in Snapchat, with an Im With Her overlay and a Hillary hairdo filter. But for Trump, Facebook was the place to make gains. According to a report from Enzyinsights, Trump generated three times as much Facebook engagement as Clinton and dominated when it came to content. In October Trump screened a total number of 33 live videos whereas Clinton posted only 11.

Joyce says: At 1.09 billion users per month, the user base of Facebook dwarfs that of Twitter, with those users checking their feeds on average 13.8 times per day. It makes for a more effective live platform than YouTube. Video content does particularly well on the platform so the Live feature will have been a big draw.

In the wake of the result, Facebook traffic is still up. Its a good place for both celebrating and commiserating. Before the results were in, a message was posted in the secret Facebook group Pantsuit Nation by Jenna Lowenstein, who runs digital for the Clinton campaign. It included a thank you note from Clinton for the support shown in the group, which has more than three million members, is invite-only and has strict rules that no negativity or criticism is levelled. It included the line: For some of you its been difficult to feel like you could wear your support on your sleeve  and thats why this community has been such a special place.

According to Spredfast digital insights, there were more than 150,000 broken-heart emojis posted on Twitter in the 12 hours from 3am our time on Wednesday morning as it became clear that the glass ceiling was remaining firmly intact.

Meanwhile, Trumps following is up. Along with his 13.7 million Twitter followers he will be acquiring the 11.4 million people currently following the @POTUS account, although Obamas tweets will be wiped from the site. For now at least, hes starting with a clean slate.

Follow Rachael Sigee on Twitter: @littlewondering
A burglar who stole a collection of rare watches worth 500,000 from one of Britains most successful businessmen is facing jail.

Alexander Duff, 44, broke into the 3.8 million Regents Park mansion of property magnate Sir John Ritblat after staking out the house.

The collection of 53 watches included Rolex, Patek Philippe and Jaeger-LeCoultre models. Sir John has said that he began collecting rare watches in the Fifties, describing it as a hobby that is a pleasure  its not an investment and its not a business.

Duff and a second man broke into the house in York Terrace East at 9pm on October 23 last year.

Sir John, 81, who is worth an estimated at 180 million, and his wife Jill were not home at the time of the burglary. However, he had installed CCTV cameras which captured Duff entering and leaving the house. He was caught after his photograph was shown on BBC1s Crimewatch.

Duff, of Hornsey, admitted burglary at Southwark crown court in July and was remanded in custody. He will appear in court tomorrow to determine whether he wants legal representation for the sentencing hearing.

A second man, Marvin Baker, 41, of no fixed address, denied burglary and was found not guilty by a jury yesterday after a two-day trial.

Sir John was chairman of British Land for 36 years after buying it for 1 million in 1970 and reportedly received 57 million for his stake in 2006.

He is a member of the advisory board at the Delancey group, which bought the Olympic Village in 2011, and his son Jamie is the firms managing director.
A British trader who triggered a multi-billion-dollar Wall Street flash crash from his bedroom in Hounslow has been allowed home from the US after pleading guilty to fraud charges.

Navinder Singh Sarao, dubbed the 'Hound of Hounslow', made over $12 million by manipulating the financial market from his parents house in west London.

The mathematician's schemes helped to cause a "flash crash" in 2010, causing stocks to plummet and wiping tens of billions of pounds off the value of US shares.

And now he is facing decades in jail after admitting to the crimes in a Chicago court appearance.

Prom night: Navinder Sarao pictured aged 16 at his prom in 1995

However a US judge agreed to release the 37-year-old on a $750,000 bond secured against his parents' Hounslow semi-detached home while he helps investigators.

Sarao was sent to the US in October after losing a High Court challenge against a decision to extradite him.

Prosecutors claimed that he had made $875,000 on the day of the crash in May 2010 and he faced 22 charges carrying sentences totalling a maximum of 380 years.

Sarao appeared in court in Chicago on Wednesday wearing leg shackles.

He admitted one count of wire fraud and one of spoofing, which refers to bidding with the intent of quickly cancelling the bid to manipulate prices, under a plea bargain.

Modest: the registered address of Nav Sarao Futures Ltd, a trading company operated by Navinder Singh Sarao (Picture: AFP)

The judge told the Brit he faces up to 30 years in prison after admitting to the crimes, but if he cooperates with investigators he could have a prison term of less than six-and-a-half years.

According to court documents, he had emailed a broker in the wake of the crash bragging that he had told a Chicago exchange official who questioned his trades "to kiss my" behind.

And he also wrote that he had carried out some trade merely to show a friend how the high frequency trading market worked.

Defence lawyer Roger Burlingame told the court that his socially awkward client had lived in the same room at his parents' house for most his life.

Guilty plea: Navinder Singh Sarao

Prosecutors said his co-operation would be more effective if he was not behind bars, although Sarao was warned he risked "destroying his parents' lives" if he violates the terms of his bond.
A mosque caretaker from west London who made a failed bid to join his younger brother fighting with Islamic State is facing jail today.

Jabed Hussain, 22, flew to Turkey in August last year to try to cross the border into Syria, but was detained and deported to the UK. Undeterred, he changed his name and took to social media to find jihadists who could help him join the terror group.

However, he was snared by an undercover officer posing as an extremist who chatted to Hussain about his plans. He told the undercover officer he was not sure whether he would fight on the frontline or work as a clerical assistant. At the Old Bailey today, Hussain pleaded guilty to two counts of preparation of terrorist acts.

Judge Anuja Dhir QC remanded him in custody until a sentencing hearing on December 16.

Hussain admitted making the failed effort to enter Syria, and confessed that he had plotted to join up with terrorists online before his arrest in April. Messages and pictures on his phone made his terrorist intentions clear, the court heard.

Hussain, of no fixed address, told police he worked as a caretaker for a number of mosques around west London.
A motorcyclist is still fighting for his life after being struck down by a hit-and-run driver in south London three weeks ago.

The 23-year-old was left lying on the ground with life-threatening injuries after the collision on Hither Green Lane, Lewisham, at around 8pm on Wednesday, October 19.

The man, who rode a black Honda motorbike, was rushed to hospital in an ambulance where he remains in a critical but stable condition.

Police found a silver Volkswagen abandoned near the scene with a shattered windscreen and damage to its front.

But anybody who had been inside the vehicle had already made off before officers arrived.

Detectives in Lewisham are now appealing for witnesses and information.

Detective Constable Victoria Yusuf, the investigating officer from Lewishams Major Crime Unit, said: "A young man is in hospital fighting for his life as a result of this serious collision.

"I would appeal to those who were in the Volkswagen that evening to search their conscience and come forward to tell us what happened that night.

"We are also very keen to hear from anyone who witnessed the collision, or thinks they may have seen the silver Volkswagen or the black Honda motorbike earlier that evening."

Any witnesses or anyone with information is asked to call police on 101.
P olice have arrested an attempted murderer who was on the run from Pentonville Prison after allegedly making threats to his enemies on Facebook.

Matthew Baker, 28, was caught at a house in Ilford, east London on Wednesday night three days after his escape, police said.

A 21-year-old woman and a man aged 33, were also arrested and taken to an east London police station for questioning.

Police are still hunting for his accomplice James Whitlock, 31, who also broke out of the Victorian Category B prison in north London.

Scotland Yard launched a manhunt for the men after their escape was discovered shortly before midday on Monday.

Escaped prisoner: James Whitlock is still on the run / Met Police

Baker was found guilty of attempted murder in October after stabbing a man during a dispute and was due to be sentenced on Friday.

Just days after his conviction he used a phone smuggled into prison to post a sinister message to adversaries on Facebook, according to The Sun.

It said: "Let's get one thing straight to anyone who wants to say anythink behind my back.

Police at Pentonville prison / PA

"I know your names n where yous live n believe me we'll meet again one day n i dont forget nothic just remember that yous know who yous are."

He also alluded to a plot to break out of the prison, telling friends: "We can't change the past but we can change the future."

The cellmates' beds are said to have been stuffed with pillows to make them look like they were sleeping.

The pair reportedly used diamond-tipped cutting equipment to cut through bars before scaling a perimeter wall to freedom.

When police revealed the daring escape they warned the public not to approach the men as they could be violent.
A teenager has been rushed to hospital after being stabbed in east London.

Metropolitan Police officers and London Ambulance Service paramedics were called to St Leonards Road, Poplar, to reports of a stabbing.

Dramatic images posted on Twitter showed a police cordon on the busy dual carriageway.

A 17-year-old man was rushed to an east London hospital with a head injury and stab wounds to his legs, Scotland Yard said.

Police later confirmed he was in a stable condition.

The attack took place close to where a man, in his 20s, was stabbed outside a chicken shop in East India Dock Road on Monday.

Second stabbing: Another man was stabbed nearby on Monday / Karim Kerbouche

A Met Police spokeswoman said: Police were called by the London Ambulance Service at 6.33pm, on Thursday, November 10, to reports of a stabbing in St Leonards Road, E14.

No arrests have been made and enquires continue.
Every four years, politicians and pundits like to play a well-known game: Find the Mandate. After the ballots get counted, the debate shifts to whether a new or returning president has received a mandate for his agenda, or whether the circumstances of an election suggest a humbler approach of compromise with the opposition.

This election makes that game more difficult to play than ever, as very little of its dynamics had much to do with policy questions. Both candidates offered ambiguities on their plans and spent almost all of the rest of their time excoriating their opponents personal and professional shortcomings.

Related: Obamacare: The Biggest Casualty of Trumps Stunning Victory Over Clinton

However, one mandate does manage to emerge through the fog of political battle. Americans dislike the Affordable Care Act, have become outraged over its skyrocketing costs, and want it repealed.

That message doesnt just come through the presidential race, but it has been one of the most consistent policy messages from Donald Trump over the course of the campaign. After a couple of initial stumbles on the nuance of government-run marketplaces in the primaries, Trump offered a simple message on Obamacare  repeal and replace it.

That became almost the only policy issue Trump discussed down the stretch as news of massive premium hikes began emerging as the general election kicked off. By the last week of the campaign  when consumers saw the havoc wreaked on their insurance after open enrollment began  Trump kept hammering Obamacare as the central policy argument for rejecting the political establishment in Washington DC.

Dont just take Trumps word for it, though. Democrats were poised to take back control of the Senate, having a historic opportunity with Republicans defending 14 more seats. Combined with the normal turnout dynamics of presidential election cycles, predictions about the post-election landscape focused on how Democrats could leverage their Senate majority with a Hillary Clinton presidency.

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Related: Obamacare Is Being Repealed by Consumers, Providers and Insurers

Instead, Democrats lost almost every pickup opportunity they had  even in two states where they brought back popular former Senators to run for their old seats. In states where the premium hikes have hammered voters hardest, Republican Senate candidates outperformed Trump  states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio, among others.

Two months ago, I predicted that the GOP might stun Democrats over Obamacare, and prices were only one reason. Voters in almost all key battleground states have at least one insurer pulling out of the exchanges, I noted. Polls showed that losers far outstripped winners (43 percent to 8 percent) in the Affordable Care Act.

Republican strategist Ron Bonjean also predicted a backlash in the Senate races as far back as August. It feels like theres a sleeping giant thats about to awaken on the campaign trail, he told The Hills Sarah Ferris. It really does seem like an easy target, an easy layup for Republicans to score points. The Republican triumph in holding Senate control against long odds shows that the sleeping giant did awaken and establishes a mandate for action.

Related: Ryan Declares GOP Has a Mandate to Enact Sweeping Changes

Besides, Republican voters have already revolted over a lack of progress in dismantling Obamacare. Trumps ascendancy in the primaries came as a direct result of overpromising on that task in the 2014 midterms. If Republicans dally any farther with single-party governance, then the 2018 election cycle will make this look like, well  a tea party of a more genteel type. Even James Carville acknowledged the politically obvious, noting on MSNBC that Obamacare is dead.

What would repeal and replace look like? President Obama scoffed at the promise just a few days ago, claiming that neither Trump nor Republicans have an alternative to the collapsing structure Obama and Democrats shoved through Congress more than six years ago. Until recently, that accusation had a core of truth to it; despite unanimous opposition to Obamacare (no Republican ever cast a vote for it), the GOP had not produced a comprehensive approach to replace it.

This summer, Republicans finally came together on a free-market approach to dismantling Obamacare and restructuring the market to solve long-standing concerns. Titled A Better Way, the proposal would end government control of health insurance markets and the individual mandate for comprehensive policies that many Americans neither need nor can afford.

Related: 5 Reasons Why Trump Won the Election

It would also eliminate the employer mandate that has discouraged full-time employment, and end the need to bail out insurers from losses that the individual mandate and community rating requirements have produced. It devolves oversight of insurers back to the states and expands choice by allowing interstate sales of health insurance policies.

Will this proposal find a consensus in Congress? Perhaps not enough for Republicans to attempt a forced vote in a similar manner as to how Obamacare passed in March 2010, but it certainly will form the basis for negotiations  after repealing the existing system. Voters gave Trump and Republicans perhaps only this one clear mandate  and they had better get it accomplished before taking on anything else.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
A hooded robber who pinned a woman to the ground during a brutal attack in a west London alleyway "will strike again", his victim has warned.

Philippa May, 43, suffered severe facial cuts and bruising after she was pushed to the floor as she walked through Uxbridge town centre.

The man, who was wearing a hooded top and gloves, attacked Ms May and stole her rucksack and two mobile phones.

Ms May said she had hit the ground with her face during the horrifying ordeal during which her attacker pinned her to the floor so she was unable to move.

She said the man made sexual threats towards her, before running off with her bag.

Woman suffers horrific head injuries in brutal street robbery in Uxbridge

Mrs May added: "He's so done that to someone before. He knew what he was doing - that's the scary thing. He's going to keep doing this kind of thing and it could get worse.

"I think he was waiting for an opportunity and if it hadn't have been me I think it would have been whoever was next who looked an easy target. He was so confident in what he was doing and it was so quick that I'm positive he'll do it again."

Ms May, said she had been left so shaken by the attack that she has to sleep with the light on at her home in Hampshire, and does not feel safe returning to Uxbridge.

"I can't go out at night at the moment because I'm scared of the dark.

Even if I'm in a public place in the daytime and there's no-one around, suddenly I get really nervous, because I'm on my own, and if someone walks around the corner it really makes me jump.

"I didn't realise how much it would affect me, she added.

The head of primary care engagement at Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust has now warned women to avoid walking alone and believes her attacker was local as he seemed to know the area.

She said: "He might get more confident and want to find someone in a more quiet area and then who knows... I don't want that to happen to anybody else - it's awful."

The suspect is described as a male who was wearing a hooded top and gloves. He is thought to have run back along St John's Road past the General Elliott pub.

Scotland Yard said some of Ms May's belongings were later recovered in nearby Rockingham Park but her bag and phones are still missing.

Investigating Officer Detective Constable Reda Imane, of Hillingdon CID, said: "Philippa has taken the brave step of releasing an image which shows the extent of her injuries and highlights the excessive violence used by her attacker.

"Philippa was lucky she did not suffer more serious injuries but it goes without saying that her ordeal was extremely traumatic and she has yet to return to work.

"I would like to appeal to members of the public that may have been travelling home from work or who live and work in the general area to come forward with any information that could assist this investigation.

"We know that St John's Road would have been busy at that time of night. Rockingham Park has numerous dog walkers and the route number 3 bus uses St John's Road. Somebody may have seen something which could prove an invaluable piece of information to catch the person responsible."

Anyone with information should call DC Reda Imane or DS Andy Dawson at Hillingdon CID on 07500 102 621 or 020 8246 1552, phone the non-emergency line 101, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.


T he Union Jack was flying at half-mast at City Hall in tribute to six men and a woman killed in Britains worst tram crash in a century.

Dane Chinnery, a 19-year-old Crystal Palace fan from New Addington, was among those who died when the tram derailed at speed as it travelled around a tight bend in Croydon.

Several people were left trapped and more than 50 were injured when the two-car tram packed with commuters overturned near the Sandilands stop at 6.10am on Wednesday.

Rail investigators believe it was travelling at a significantly higher speed than the 12mph limit.

Victim: Friends have paid tribute to Dane Chinnery, 19, killed in the crash in Croydon

Witnesses described horrific scenes after passengers were thrown through windows and trapped under the wreckage as the carriages derailed.

The driver  a 42-year-old man from Beckenham  was released on bail this morning, a British Transport Police spokesman said.

In tribute: The Union Jack flies at half mast at City Hall / Mayor of London/Facebook

Officers are investigating whether he fell asleep at the wheel.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan today paid tribute to the emergency services involved in dealing with the smash.

He wrote on Facebook: I want to pay tribute to the tireless work of the emergency services, NHS staff, transport workers and Croydon Council which carries on following yesterdays tram derailment in Croydon.

(Steve Parsons/PA ) / Steve Parsons/PA

Today, the Union flag at City Hall has been flying at half-mast as a mark of respect for all those who lost their lives in the incident.

Concerned: Sadiq Khan visits the scene of a tram crash in Croydon / PA

My team continues to work with Croydon Council to find the best way to provide immediate help and support for those most affected.

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Investigations into what caused this tragic incident continue, and it is vital that we learn the lessons as quickly as possible to prevent anything like this from happening again.

Yesterday Mr Khan warned the death toll following the crash could increase and said: "My thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of those who have lost their lives today and everyone involved in this tragic incident."
A public appeal has been launched to find the owner of an urn full of ashes found among piles of rubbish in London.

The ornate wooden urn, which features a carving of a dragon and intricate engravings, was found on an industrial site in Leyton by waste firm EnviroWaste.

It was spotted among commercial and domestic waste collected by workers who sift rubbish looking for items to refurbish and sell.

They found the urn last Friday, towards the end of the collection cycle, meaning its owner cannot be traced.

James Rubin, owner of EnviroWaste, said: Its sad that someone may be missing a loved ones remains.

I would sleep better at night knowing we [tried] to reunite the urn with its owner.

The urn is beautiful and in good condition so my gut feeling is that it was cherished and not meant to be discarded.

Do you know who the urn belongs to? Contact our news desk on 020 3615 2500 or news@standard.co.uk
S cotland Yard is set to roll out nearly 200 extra Tasers to provide firearms officers with a less lethal option in the face of terror attacks.

In documents seen by the Standard, the force seeks approval to buy the 180 Taser X26 models and says frontline officers face a significant operational risk without them.

It admits their use is contentious but says their availability has potentially saved countless lives by preventing officers from firing guns.

The investment is designed to maintain Taser capabilities amid an uplift of 600 firearms officers announced by Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe in January.

The order, which is expected by Christmas at the latest, will increase the number of Tasers available to the force from 1,660 to 1,840. Scotland Yard currently has 4,197 Taser-trained police and can deploy at least four officers in each of Londons 32 boroughs per shift.

Last December, Sir Bernard told a City Hall committee the force was looking into a further roll-out of Tasers in the wake of an Islamic State-inspired knife attack at Leytonstone Tube station last December which left a commuter seriously injured.

Taser officers dealt with the situation.

Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, welcomed the purchase request. He told the Standard: They have done a strategic review of the terror level since Paris [and other terror attacks] and I think we were short in terms of capability.

We want the ability to restrain someone who could be threatening lives but you dont want to use lethal force.

"I can think of one person recently who has died from [being Tasered], but there are some dangerous people out there. Its not a case of being able to run around with furry handcuffs. Officers need to be properly equipped.

The request is contained in documents submitted to the Mayors Office for Policing and Crime, which has to sign off purchases of a large value. The value of the order is not stated but has been approved.

The documents say: [Tasers are] a worldwide proven less lethal option... compared to conventional firearms.

The unique appearance of the device has assisted officers in bringing violent or out of control subjects into a more compliant state without even the need to fully utilise the device.

A Yard spokesman said: The current level of deployment is deemed to be appropriate to the threat and risk faced by officers balanced against the perception of the communities we serve.

A spokesman for Mayor Sadiq Khan said: One of the great strengths of British policing is that the majority of our officers arent armed, but we need to be ready to respond should the worst happen.

"We are therefore increasing the number of firearms officers, and providing them with Tasers.
G eorge Osborne has sparked a furious outcry on Twitter after asking how many people at a rally protesting Donald Trumps shock election victory had gone out to vote.

The former chancellor posted a picture of the New York demonstration, which was attended by thousands of people, along with the caption: Came across this anti-Trump protest here in New York last night - can't help wondering how many of them voted ....

Critics blasted the Tatton MP, reminding him Democrat Hillary Clinton topped polls in the state by a margin of 58.8 per cent of votes compared to Mr Trump's 37.5 per cent.

Abi Wilkinson branded the politician a smug pillock.

She wrote: Clinton won by a massive margin in New York you smug pillock."

White James Rothwell simply replied: For Clinton, en masse, according to figures.

Others responded to the message more furiously, with one user telling Mr Osborne to go the f*** home.

Tom David added: This is why you are out of a job, George.

How did America vote? A breakdown by race and gender

During the demo, Trump Tower in Manhattan, was surrounded by nearly 8,000 angry campaigners - including pop stars Madonna and Cher - following the tycoon's shock election victory.

They chanted slogans of "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA!" outside the Fifth Avenue skyscraper, home of the Trump Organisation and the penthouse apartment where the President-elect lives.

Campaigners made their way to Trump Tower while hundreds of others gathered at a nearby park and shouted not my president.

Cher, an fervent supporter of beaten Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, told one protester in the crowd they needed to "fight".

Donald Trump President-elect Protest - In pictures 1 /20 Donald Trump President-elect Protest - In pictures Protesters reach Trump Tower as they march against Republican president-elect Donald Trump in the neighborhood of Manhattan in New York Eduardo Munoz/Reuters Thousands of anti-Donald Trump protesters shut down 5th Avenue in front of Trump Tower as New Yorkers react to the election of Trump as president of the United States Spencer Platt/Getty Images A Donald Trump pinata is burned by people protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Mario Anzuoni/Reuters Protesters march along Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower Julie Jacobson/AP Thousands of protesters march down 2nd Avenue in Seattle, Washington Karen Ducey/Getty Images People attend a candlelight vigil after Hillary Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House, in Washington, DC Michael Reynolds/EPA Demostrators protest on top of a bus outside of the Trump Tower John Gress/Getty Images Police make a line to prevent protesters from marching in Oakland, California Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Protesters carry a paper head of President-elect Donald Trump during a protest in front of City Hall in Los Angeles Keith Birmingham/The Pasadena Star-News/SCNG via AP A man tries to remove "Kill Trump" graffiti as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Noah Berger/Reuters Protesters demonstrate on Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower Julie Jacobson/AP Demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California Eugene Garcia/EPA Demonstrators block the street during a protest outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower following President-elect Donald Trump's election victory in Manhattan, New York Andrew Kelly/Reuters People participate in a protest against the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in New York, Alba Vigaray/EPA Students at the University of Texas at Austin lead a protest down to Congress Bridge in Austin, Texas Joshua Guerra//The Daily Texan via AP

In dozens of cities across the US, crowds of people massed outside hotels owned by the billionaire businessman in a night of widespread angry riots.

Police made arrests as tempers flared and protesters clashed with police.
G erman political leaders today warned that Donald Trumps triumph threatens to fuel popular revolts across Europe.

The countrys finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble urged Europes political, business and social elites to learn from the Republicans shock victory and understand better the public concerns that swept him into the White House.

Demagogic populism is not only a problem in America, Mr Schaeuble told the Bild daily.

Elsewhere in the West, too, the political debate is in an alarming state.

How did America vote? A breakdown by race and gender

His words were echoed by Hans-Peter Friedrich, of Bavarias CSU, the sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkels CDU, who said he feared there could be a Trump effect in Germany.

Warning: Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble / Getty

He warned that many people felt they have no control over issues such as immigration and European Central Bank policy.

If there are no answers provided by the main parties in our country, they will turn to populists, he said.

Donald Trump: Arrests in New York as protests break out across America

European Union foreign ministers, including Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, will hold a special meeting on Sunday to discuss the Trump victory and what it means for trans-Atlantic relations, with hopes of a trade deal severely dented.

However, the talks are likely to expose deep divisions, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a Right-wing, anti-immigration hardliner, today hailing the US election outcome as marking the end of two decades of liberal non-democracy.

This is the second day of a historic event, in which western civilisation appears to successfully break free from the confines of an ideology, he told a European Bank for Reconstruction and Development conference in Budapest.

We are living in the days where what we call liberal non-democracy - in which we lived for the past 20 years - ends, and we can return to real democracy.

However, other European leaders fear Mr Trump will adopt isolationist and protectionist policies, undermining the cornerstones of trans-Atlantic cooperation.

US Election: New president Donald Trump in numbers

Anxieties in Brussels over his win were voiced by Guenther Oettinger, EU Commissioner for Digital Economy & Society, who said: Of course were disappointed and surprised by the outcome, but we have to accept this.

The German politician added: Now we have to see if therell be a fresh start and the first remarks by Trump were at least wise.

Ms Merkel is widely expected to stand for a fourth term in Septembers election next year and polls put her Centre-Right party around 10 points ahead of their nearest rivals, the Social Democrats who currently share power with her.

But the Right-wing Alternative for Germany is winning over voters angered by her open door immigration policy.

Founded less than four years ago, it now has seats in more than half of Germanys state assemblies, and is polling at around 13 per cent.

AfD chairman Jorg Meuthen stressed: Trump was rightly rewarded for his courage to rebel against the system and to address uncomfortable truths.

The establishment now has to recognise that one can not rule over the people in the long run.

In France, where presidential elections are also being held next year, foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault stressed Paris would work with the new president but warned We dont want a world where egoism triumphs.

Bookies William Hill have slashed the odds of French National Front leader Marine Le Pen of becoming French president to 2-1, behind Centre-Right frontrunner Alain Juppe, but ahead of Nicolas Sarkozy and president Francois Hollande.

Beppe Grillo, founder of Italys anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, said his party would push for a referendum on the countrys use of the euro.
N igel Farage was embroiled in a racism row after calling President Obama a loathsome creature in a radio interview.

The interim Ukip leader faced a fierce backlash on social media after making the remark while discussing Donald Trumps shock victory in the US Presidential election.

He told a radio station that the president-elect would be far more willing to do a trade deal with the UK than loathsome creature Mr Obama.

Mr Farage also joked about Mr Trump groping Theresa May while trying to schmooze her for trade deals.

President Obama speaks about the US election results at the White House / AP

That Obama creature  a loathsome individual who couldnt stand our country, Mr Farage told Talk Radio.

Outgoing US President Barack Obama promises a smooth transition of power

He said hed be at the back of the queue, didnt he? And Americans dont use the word queue, they use the word line. So it was all a Dave and George stitch-up,

What was interesting was that Trump said wed be at the front of the queue.

How did America vote? A breakdown by race and gender

People took to social media to express their anger at the Ukip politicians remarks with many describing him as racist.

Match of the Day host and former England striker Gary Lineker tweeted: I dont suppose Farage calling President Obama a creature is in any way racist?

Kevin Hague wrote: That Obama creature, loathsome individual" says an emboldened Nigel Farage what is being unleashed here?

Ross McCafferty said: Nigel Farage literally said "that Obama creature" on the radio last night. THAT. OBAMA. CREATURE. Still telling me he isn't racist?

James Miller tweeted: Farage isnt fit to lick Obamas boots

Mr Farage also suggested he could be the responsible adult to supervise Mr Trump when he met Mrs May for trade talks.

Im now going to become a diplomat. Come and schmooze Theresa  dont touch her, for goodness sake, he joked in reference to Mr Trumps admission that he had used his fame to grope women.

Nigel Farage praises 'silverback gorilla' Donald Trump for 'dominating' Hillary Clinton

Mr Farage added: I could be there as the responsible adult to make sure everything is OK."

The Evening Standard has approached Ukip for a comment.
T heresa May will be among the first European leaders to hold talks with Donald Trump in America, it emerged today.

The Prime Minister hopes to visit Washington early next year in a sign that she intends to use his election to increase British influence.

The date of her visit has not yet been revealed but it is likely to be within weeks of Mr Trump being sworn into office on January 20.

Mrs May will seek to hold the new President to his promise that Britain will be first in line with a trade deal after Brexit.

And the Prime Minister is keen to strengthen the Nato alliance after complaints from Mr Trump that some European allies are not pulling their weight.

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Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith praised Mrs May for giving straightforward congratulations [to Mr Trump], instead of carping or nuancing that welcome like some other leaders  a clear swipe at German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who offered close co-operation but on the basis of respect for minorities.

Mr Duncan Smith, who has ties with US Republicans, said that despite British courting of President Barack Obama, the result wasnt very special and not much of a relationship.

After all, for the last eight years President Obama made it abundantly clear that he did not consider the UK as any more important in his international relations than any other country, particularly Germany and the EU itself, said the former work and pensions secretary, writing on Conservative Home.

US President-elect: Donald Trump / REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

The so called special relationship wasnt very special and not much of a relationship.

"The final insult was when he came over here and told us we would be in the back of the queue when it came to a trade deal if we left the EU. Now, all that could be about to change, as Trump heads to the White House.

A tangible reward would be to rescue Nato by persuading other European leaders to increase low levels of military spending that have infuriated both Mr Trump and Mr Obama.

That is where the UK as a close and trusted friend can help re-shape that relationship so that the USA remains committed to Nato while helping get greater commitment from others, he argued.

US Election: Thousands protest Trump's victory

He added that Trumps tax affairs and his views on women were an anathema made worse by the conflicting accounts I received of who Trump was from those who knew him.

Defence experts warned that Mr Trumps victory was a potential threat to the Nato security club, which could strengthen Vladimir Putins Russia.

Former RAF chief Sir Michael Graydon suggested that Mr Trumps victory could be the wake-up call Europe needs to boost Nato spending.

During his campaign, Mr Trump said the US would only aid allies if they fulfil their obligations to us. Former head of the Army General Lord Dannatt called for an increase in UK defence spending.

He said: Weve seen Donald Trump threaten all sorts of things, we should take that threat seriously.

Senior Tories are scrambling to build ties with the fledgling Trump administration.

Those with long-standing contacts include Liam Fox, Mr Duncan Smith, Bernard Jenkin and London MP Mark Field, who chairs the partys International Office.


I ts the most anticipated Christmas advert of the year  and this festive season John Lewis hopes to make viewers laugh, not cry, with a feel good tale starring a boxer dog called Buster.

In a departure from the retailers emotion-laden tearjerkers of its previous Christmas campaigns, the upbeat ad tells the story of the dog enviously watching the neighbourhoods wildlife leap around on a familys brand new trampoline on Christmas Eve.

Fans have been second-guessing the plot of the two-minute advert  considered a marker of the start of the Christmas shopping season - for days after teasers were leaked online.

The highly-anticipated ad begins with a dad carrying out a last-minute assembly of his daughter Bridgets secret showstopper present the night before Christmas as she jumps up and down on the sofa.

Envious: Buster is stuck inside the house / PA

Buster the boxer, who is furious at being stuck inside the house, enviously watches as a couple of foxes, a badger, a squirrel and even a hedgehog who has ventured out of hibernation conduct a midnight test of the trampoline before he finally gets his turn on Christmas morning.

On Christmas Day, Bridget sprints outside the house to use the trampoline for the first time but cheeky Buster has the last laugh as he hops onto the trampoline before her.

John Lewis Christmas advert - Twitter reacts

The retailer said it had aimed for a sense of fun in this year's campaign, after 2016 had proved to be "quite a year", and comes after it acknowledged "a few murmurings" that last year's Man On The Moon was "a bit sad".

The ad is set to a cover of Randy Crawford's 1980 jazz hit One Day I'll Fly Away by London electronic group Vaults, who recorded it at Abbey Road studios with a 70-strong choir and 66-piece orchestra.

Excited: Bridget runs outside to her Christmas present / PA

The Wildlife Trusts are this year's charity partners for the campaign, and they will receive a donation from every 15 soft Buster or 12 soft wild animal toy sold in connection with the ad.

The animals jumping on the trampoline in the advert were created using CGI animation from London-based firm MPC Advertising.

Craig Inglis, customer director at John Lewis, said: "2016 has certainly been quite a year, so we hope our advert will make people smile. It really embraces a sense of fun and magic, reminding everyone what it feels like to give the perfect gift at Christmas.

"Each year we work with a charity which fits our ad, and we hope this year's campaign will encourage more children to discover a love of British wildlife and encourage support of The Wildlife Trusts."

Buster the dog in the advert / PA

The Wildlife Trusts' chief executive Stephanie Hilborne said: "The Wildlife Trusts believe that everyone should have the opportunity to experience the joy of wildlife and wild places in their daily lives.

"So John Lewis putting some of our most beautiful British wild animals at the centre of their Christmas advert and making The Wildlife Trusts their charity of choice this Christmas is great news.

"With this support we will be able to inspire thousands more children about the wonders of the natural world."

The ad, named Buster The Boxer, was created by adam&eveDDB and directed by Dougal Wilson, who also helmed three previous John Lewis Christmas ads including 2011's The Long Wait, 2012's The Journey and 2014's Monty's Christmas.

John Lewis declined to put a price on the ad, saying only that its budget was similar to previous years, when it spent around 1 million on putting each campaign together and another 6 million on television slots.

The ad launches at 8am today on John Lewis's website and social media channels and on Sky, and the full version screens for the first time on terrestrial television at around 9.15pm on ITV1.

Other major retailers set to reveal their Christmas campaigns within the next few days include Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's.
T he Prince of Wales took Camilla into a Bahraini souk today  but didnt spend a penny.

An enthusiastic gold trader showed a smiling Duchess of Cornwall his most expensive trinkets and bangles.

Asked if he would like to buy any, Prince Charles joked We know where you are! as Camilla chuckled.

The couple, on a whistlestop tour of the Middle East, met craft makers and listened to Punjabi drummers and other traditional music acts.

They later toured the Krishna Temple, the oldest Hindu temple in Bahrain, where they learnt about its history and the local Hindu community.

They were welcomed with garlands before a short meeting with priests and then had a reception with members of different faith communities as well as volunteers working for the Migrant Workers Protection Society.

The compound is the focal point for the community, used for religious workshops, gatherings and celebrations of Hindu festivals such as Diwali and Holi.

Later Charles visited Al-Fateh Grand Mosque, the largest in the country. He met six members of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs before taking a short tour of the building.

Bahrain prides itself on being one of the most religiously diverse countries in the Middle East, with freedom of worship guaranteed for all faiths.

Members of different faith communities are well represented in public life with Bahraini Jews, Christians and Muslims working in parliament, the government and the public sector.

The Prince, who turns 68 on Monday, has worked for many years to encourage inter-faith dialogue and a greater understanding of different religions in Britain and abroad and was awarded an honorary doctorate for his efforts. He was the first Western man to receive the honour.

Their visit to the centre of the capital started at the Old Post Office Museum where the Prince and the Duchess viewed an exhibition of historic stamps including the 1948 British Royal Silver Wedding stamp  printed the year Charles was born  and continued with visits to the Sheikh Isa Cultural Centre.

Later the Prince visited HMS Jufair naval base at the Mina Salman port and Camilla went on a separate visit to hear about the work and achievements of the Supreme Council for Women and the status and achievements of women in Bahrain  as well as the challenges they face.
O ne of Hillary Clintons senior allies today expressed bewilderment at why so many women voted for Donald Trump.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright also argued that there had been misogny in some quarters against Mrs Clinton becoming president.

With exit polling showing 47 per cent of women backed Republican Mr Trump, Ms Albright told BBC radio: I do find that striking. For me, its hard to explain.

But I would not vote for a woman that I disagreed with, so presumably the women who did not vote for Hillary had some substantive reason - though I cant say that I understand it.

How did America vote? A breakdown by race and gender

During Mrs Clintons bid to become the first woman president of America, Ms Albright told a rally in February: Theres a special place in hell for women who dont help each other!

On possible reasons for Mrs Clintons failure to woo more voters, she added: People have been talking about the white man backlash - I think that there has been some of that and some misogyny that we certainly heard in a number of quarters.

Mr Trump gained the votes of millions of women despite being plunged into controversy after a recording emerged of him making lewd comments, including talking of women and how he felt he could grab them by the p**y.

Female politicians in Britain also expressed disappointment at Mrs Clintons failure to make it to the White House.

What a loss! @HillaryClinton the best President the USA never had, tweeted Harriet Harman, Labours former deputy leader.

While Jess Phillips MP messaged: So for the first time Im not cross, Im crying. To all the girls, dont ever give up.
A mericans left dismayed with the election outcome have been searching for ways to remove Donald Trump from office.

As it dawned on the world that the billionaire was going to become President of the United States, searches of how to impeach Trump surged on Google.

Google Trends saw a spike in search activity from the early hours of Wednesday morning UK time when the Republican candidate began to take the lead.

The spike comes as the President-elect faces a federal lawsuit over fraud accusations about the Trump University real estate seminars.

The students claim they were misled into paying as much as $35,000 to learn worthless real estate investing secrets.

How did America vote? A breakdown by race and gender

Unsurprisingly, the five top states for impeachment searches are all ones that voted for Hillary Clinton; California, Oregon, Hawaii, Washington and Colorado.

The searches ranged from is it possible to impeach Trump? to we the people impeach Donald trump.

What is impeachment? An impeachment is when an official currently holding office is charged with "Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors". The House of Representatives will decide on if there are grounds to impeach a President and then the Senate will hold a trial, with Senators sworn in as jurors. It does not necessarily mean the official will be removed from office. If they are impeached, a separate trial will be held to decide if they will be removed from office.

And other searches that have been rising in popularity in the United States include how to move to Canada, how did Trump win? and stock market.

There is no definitive law on whether a President can or cannot be impeached for misconduct or crimes committed before he (or she) took office.

In 1873 the House Judiciary Committee ruled that impeachment should only be used for misconduct or crimes committed whilst a President or Vice President was in office.

Only two presidents have been impeached in the United States.

Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for violating the Tenure of Office Act.

He was acquitted and the Act was later deemed to be unconstitutional.

US Election: Thousands protest Trump's victory

And Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

The charges stemmed from a sexual harassment lawsuit, in which he lied about his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.

He was acquitted of all charges.
W hen President Trump redraws US foreign policy the deal to restrict Irans development of nuclear weapons is likely to be top of the agenda.

This hard-fought agreement finally came into being in January and has been the target of hardline Republicans in Congress. Mr Trump called it the worst deal and said he would rip it up. However, he also said he would want to drop sanctions against Tehran so that US contractors could do trade there.

After sending his congratulations to Mr Trump, Irans President Hassan Rouhani said it wouldnt be possible for the US alone to cancel the deal.

It would need the full agreement of the other four permanent members of the Security Council and Germany, and the authority of the overseeing body, the UN.

Mr Rouhani is both right and wrong. Technically the new man in the White House could just cancel the executive order by which President Obama assented to the deal. But in terms of realpolitik would he be prepared to crash the gears and go against principal allies and the UN?

US Election: Thousands protest Trump's victory

It will be an interesting, perhaps crucial, test of how President Trump plans to reshape US foreign, defence, and security policy.

This has been one of his most powerful themes of the election campaign. His criticisms and plans on Nato, China, the North American Free Trade Agreement and climate change agreements have struck a chord with voters.

In particular we in Europe, which includes the UK for these purposes at least, should heed his remarks about the usefulness and sheer expense of the Nato alliance.

The alliance would not function for most military purposes without the US, whose defence spending is more than that of the 27 other allies combined, probably several times over. When Mr Trump says Europe must do more for its defence and security  the generation of hard power  he means it.

It is a view shared by much of the US military, especially those now likely to become senior advisers in the White House. The message to Britain seems pretty clear  though I did not get the impression from Prime Minister Theresa Mays statements of congratulation to the new President that she had taken it fully on board.

If Britain wants to be a special ally, it has got to take more of the security load than it seems prepared to at the moment.

The US has long seen the UK forces as being a sort of reserve US Marine Corps, though nothing like as flexible and agile.

The last decade has witnessed a huge drop in the combat effectiveness of all three services. Now there is a crisis of manpower in the Army, and in the Navy especially  where, according to some reports, gaps in specialist skills have led to the hiring of up to 1,500 US Coastguards, Canadian and other Commonwealth technicians and specialists.

The UK will have to up its defence budget, as well as spend it better, if it is not to find that the special relationship will become even less special in the reign of President Trump.
I raqi government forces killed and tortured civilians suspected of having ties to Islamic State during the operation to liberate Mosul, Amnesty International claimed today.

The human rights group said up to six people, suspected by security forces of links to the terrorists who seized a third of Iraqi territory in 2014, were found dead last month in the Shura and Qayyara districts.

In a report, Amnesty described several incidents on or around October 21 in which groups of men were beaten before being shot dead. In one case, a mans head was cut off, it said.

The group said the alleged abuses risked being repeated in other towns and villages as the Mosul offensive continues.

Men in federal police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul, said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnestys Beirut office.

Human Rights Watch said at least 37 men suspected of being affiliated with IS had been detained by Iraqi and Kurdish forces around Mosul and Hawija, further south.

Relatives said they did not know where most of the men were being held and had not been able to contact them, according to the report. HRW said such conduct significantly increases the risk of other violations.

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The Iraqi interior ministry denied there had been any violations and said Iraqi forces respect human rights and international law.

Iraqs federal police could not be reached for comment. The Kurdish regional government denied the HRW report, saying any delays in informing families were limited and due to scarce resources.

Nobody has been kept in unknown facilities. They are kept in identified facilities, a spokesman said.

The Mosul operation, involving a 100,000-strong alliance of troops, security forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shia militias and backed by US-led air strikes, has entered its fourth week.
I slamic extremist groups have celebrated the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, branding him the "perfect straw man to cause the demise of America".

Shortly after the billionaire businessman was named as 45th President over Hillary Clinton, Twitter accounts and online forums linked to Al-Qaeda and Isis rejoiced at the news.

Social media sites threatened dark times for the US in the wake of Mr Trumps success.

A tweet from Pro Al-Qaeda Twitter account, known as al Maqalaat, said the Republican politician would would make the US enemy number one again in the Middle East.

Threatening posts: Donald Trump pulled off a shock election victory to become the 45th US President / AP Photo

Another post from the account added: Trump will serve as the perfect straw man for the next four years, like Bush did before him.

Meanwhile, a post on Isis-affiliated forum al Minbar Jihadi Media network read: Rejoice with support from Allah, and find glad tidings in the imminent demise of America at the hands of Trump.

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Mr Trump famously called for a ban on Muslims entering the US in the build-up to the election which sparked a furious backlash from faith leaders.

Round-up of Trump's most infamous comments in the run-up to his presidency

And, other posts on the site suggested that jihadi recruiters would use these controversial views to encourage extremism.

A report by SITE Intelligence group, which monitors jihadists websites said: Trumps win of the American presidency will bring hostility of Muslims against America as a result of his reckless actions, which show the overt and hidden hatred against them.
A manhunt was launched after a gunman shot two police officers in an ambush in Pennsylvania.

One officer was killed and another injured in the shooting which happened early on Thursday local time in south-west Pennsylvania, about 25 miles from Pittsburgh.

Police and the towns mayor told residents to stay indoors as they launched a search for the shooter, local media reported.

One witness said on Twitter they saw an officer lying shot on the ground.

The mayor of Canonsburg, Dave Rhome, confirmed on an American radio station that two officers had been shot.

Local media reported Special Weapons and Tactics police arrived on the scene to hunt for the gunman.

One of the officers was flown to hospital in Pittsburgh while the other was taken to a hospital in the town of Canonsburg. Details of their injuries are not known.

Authorities in the US have not yet said what led to the shooting.

State police spokeswoman Melinda Bondarenka told reporters the incident began at 3.14am when the Canonsburg officers responded to a report of a domestic dispute.

The officers were "ambushed upon their arrival" and immediately shot, Ms Bondarenka said.
T he head of the Syrian Civil Defence group known as the White Helmets has called on Britons to lobby politicians in the face of weakness from world leaders to deal with the countrys civil war and its fallout.

Raed al Saleh said a lack of political will internationally had led to more and more crimes being committed against civilians by the Russian-backed regime. He even criticised the United Nations, saying measures designed to ease suffering in besieged areas had made the conflict worse, while aid was always late and inadequate.

The White Helmets, made up of about 3,000 workers and volunteers and nominated for the Nobel peace prize, are credited with pulling more than 60,000 civilians alive from burning and flattened buildings.

In an interview with the Standard, Mr Saleh urged Britons to help those caught in the conflict.

Speaking from neighbouring Turkey, he said: The thing we hope the British people might do is to try to pressure decision makers through campaigning and through lobbying to help make better decisions for Syria and not to let them forget about us.

"With todays technology, nobody is far away. You can always support us, advocate for us. Any advocacy that you make in your country can help ease the suffering of the Syrian people.

His plea came after intense fighting in Aleppo last week. Rebels rejected an offer from Russian and Syrian government forces to put down their weapons and leave during a 10-hour ceasefire.

The late Labour MP Jo Cox, who was stabbed and shot in her constituency, played a key role in raising the profile of the White Helmets after putting them forward for the Nobel prize and publicising their work.

More than 145 of their workers have died and 430 been injured. Mr Saleh said they were very grateful for the support and funds from world governments including the UK, US, Denmark, Germany, France and Japan, but that leaders political weakness has been fatal.

He said: We think that the weakness of the international community and the lack of political will to take actions to enforce the UN resolutions that they have made has led to making the crisis worse.

"It encourages the regime to perpetrate more and more crimes, safe in the knowledge that they wont be held to account.
T housands of angry anti-Donald Trump protesters chanting "not my president" blocked the entrance to his home at Trump Tower before marching through the streets.

The iconic skycraper in New York City was surrounded by nearly 8,000 angry demonstrators - including pop stars Madonna and Cher - following the tycoon's shock election victory.

They chanted slogans of "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA!" outside the Fifth Avenue tower in New York, home of the Trump Organisation and the penthouse apartment where the President-elect lives.

In dozens of cities across the US, crowds of people massed outside hotels owned by the billionaire businessman in a night of widespread angry riots.

Donald Trump: Arrests in New York as protests break out across America

Police made arrests as tempers flared and protesters clashed with police.

New York: Thousands chant 'not my president' outside New York's Trump Tower. / PA

Former reality star Mr Trump left the world reeling when he defied the polls to defeat Hillary Clinton in the fierce race to the White House.

Fifth Avenue: Protesters near Trump Tower. / AFP/Getty Images

In New York, thousands filled the streets as they made their way to Trump Tower while hundreds of others gathered at a nearby park and shouted not my president.

Cher, an fervent supporter of beaten Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, told one protester in the crowd they needed to "fight".

How did America vote? A breakdown by race and gender

Madonna posted footage of crowds chanting 'Not my President!' on her Instagram feed.

"Fight white power" and "Love Trumps Hate" were emblazoned across dozens of placards as people voiced their anger over the previous days stunning election result.

In California  where 2.2 million more people voted for Mrs Clinton over Trump  a march of about 6,000 people blocked traffic in Oakland.

Portland, Oregon: High school students protest with signs. / AP

Protesters threw objects at police in riot gear, set rubbish on fire in the middle of a junction, shot fireworks and smashed store front windows.

Police responded by throwing tear gas at the rioters.

Georgia: An anti-Donald Trump protest in Athens in the south-eastern state. / AP

In Chicago, around 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA."

In Los Angeles, protesters sat on a busy road and blocked traffic.

Pennsylvania: Protesters in the key swing state which went red for Trump for the first time in 28 years. / REUTERS

More than 5,000 people  most whom were college and high school students  protested in LA earlier in the day.

Anti-Trump protest at US embassy in London

Seattle also saw protests and police were called shooting near to the scene of an anti-Trump protest  although officers said it was unrelated.

Elsewhere in Philadelphia, Boston, Portland in Oregon and the Texas capital Austin, hundreds also marched through the streets.

In his victory speech, Trump said he would be president for all Americans and the forgotten man and women will no longer be forgotten.

The former The Apprentice reality star must find a way to unite a deeply divided nation in the aftermath of his victory - or risk it being torn apart, claimed Washington analysts.

In what promises to be a surreal meeting for both men, Mr Trump will visit the White House today to meet President Obama to discuss the transition of power from the two-term Democratic incumbent to the maverick billionaire with zero experience of political office of any kind.

Oakland, California: A rubbish fire burns during protests late at night. / AP

Mr Trumps wife, Melania, will also have a private meeting with First Lady Michelle Obama.

Top of the agenda will be how best Mr Trump - who will be Americas oldest ever president at 70 - can bring the country together after one of the most divisive and bitter presidential campaigns in US history and avoid a potentially crippling escalation of the civil unrest that brought parts of some cities to a standstill.

'Not my president': Cher and Madonna were also in the crowd outside Trump Tower. / EPA

While the jubilant property tycoon pledged in his early hours acceptance speech yesterday to be president for all Americans and said it was time for the US "to come together as one united people," analysts said he will need to move swiftly to heal the wounds left by such a divisive campaign.

"This could tear the country apart," David Gergen, an advisor to four presidents, told CNN. "The divisions of such a long and nasty campaign will not disappear with a few nice speeches."
T he capitals excitement for Christmas just went up a notch as one of its most iconic department stores revealed its festive window display.

John Lewiss Oxford Street flagship has based the theme of the windows on its spanking new Christmas advert, which tells the moving tale of a dog named Buster who wants to enjoy a bouncing session on a little girls new trampoline.

Craig Inglis, customer director at John Lewis, said, "2016 has certainly been quite a year, so we hope our advert will make people smile. It really embraces a sense of fun and magic, reminding everyone what it feels to give the perfect gift at Christmas. "

Complete with plenty of lights and gift ideas from the Department stores Christmas range, the display brings the fun of its touching campaign to the heart of Londons busiest high street.

John Lewis VR installation allows customers to jump with TV advert characters

Passers-by can now enjoy the sight of woodland creatures cosied up in burrows with presents, while Buster can be seen on the snow-swept lawn above them.

To ensure its customers get full enjoyment from the ad, the flagship shop is offering a virtual reality experience of the short using Oculus Rift.

Theres also a 360 video experience available at the store using Google Cardboard, which can be found on the John Lewis website and YouTube.

Robb Bloomer, senior visual merchandising manager at John Lewis, said: "This year our team had great fun designing our Oxford Street windows showing the animals from our ad in their cosy burrows.

The animals are getting ready for Christmas, taking selfies and making mischief whilst Buster watches from above. It was a brilliant project to work on and we hope our customers enjoy the display!"

The best trampolines- in pictures 1 /9 The best trampolines- in pictures Scroll for our pick of the best trampolines PA Plum Space Zone II Trampoline If you want the exact trampoline featured in the advert, this is it. This ten foot toy is suitable for children aged six and up and is made from galvanized steel, meaning it wont start rusting when it rains. 260, John Lewis, Buy it now We R Sports Trampoline If youve got a smaller garden and dont fancy turning the entire thing into a bouncing zone, this is a good option as, at six feet wide, its one of the smaller options available. Despite being compact, it still comes with an enclosure and ladder as well as safety padding on the springs. 90, Amazon, Buy it now Plum Latitude Tramoline Looking more like a spacecraft than a trampoline, this ultra-modern model is 14 feet wide- so if youve got sprawling outside space, this is a good choice for you. The 3G enclosure is inside the springs and the safety pads double up as a protective cover in bad weather. 750, John Lewis, Buy it now Zero Gravity Ultima 4 High Spec Trampoline Zero Gravity has been making trampolines for over ten years and uses weldless steel frames, unlike other companies. This means that the joints are a lot more secure and can take more strain than other models. 105, Amazon, Buy it now Up and About Rectangular Trampoline Being rectangular, this one is more in line with the professional trampolines that you would find in a gym. Its quite large; measuring eight by twelve feet, but shape wise, is a better space saver than most. 295, Tesco,Buy it now Sportspower Trampoline For its size, this ten foot trampoline is offered at a highly competitive price and can be easily assembled by two adults in around two hours. It can also take up to 100 kilos in weight, so even the adults can get involved. 100, Argos, Buy it now

See the display at 300 Oxford Street, Marylebone, W1C 1DX, johnlewis.com

Follow us on Twitter @ESLifeandStyle and on Facebook
B rad Pitt has been cleared of child abuse allegations as the investigation against him has been dropped.

The same day that the A-lister made his first public appearance at the Allied premiere in LA, the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services cleared him of any wrongdoing.

The investigation stemmed from allegations of an incident that occurred on a private plane back in September, involving his 15-year-old son Maddox.

Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from the actor just one day after the alleged incident took place.

Marion Cotillard and Brad Pitt on the red carpet at the Allied premiere / Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

A representative for the actress said: Angelina said from the beginning that she felt she had to take action for the health of the family and is relieved that after their 8-week involvement, the DCFS is now satisfied the safeguards are put in place that will allow the children to heal.

Pitt was on the red carpet in LA on Wednesday night for the premiere of his new film, alongside Marion Cotillard, in which he broke his silence on the split for the first time.

Speaking to E! News he said: It's really sweet, everyone has been really kind out here.

It's really nice to have all the support.

Angelina Jolie files for divorce from Brad Pitt: Twitter reacts

During a Q&A session he chose only to talk about the film, in which he plays a Canadian officer who goes undercover in Morocco during the war and teams up with a French spy  played by Cotillard  to assassinate a Nazi ambassador.

He said: I dont know much about the espionage world and what it took to get behind enemy lines and to plant your characters, so that was really interesting.

Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard at Allied Los Angeles Premiere 1 /14 Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard at Allied Los Angeles Premiere Reunited Marion Cotillard and Brad Pitt attend the fan event for Paramount Pictures' 'Allied' at Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, California Frazer Harrison/Getty Images All smiles Brad Pitt poses for selfies with fans Frazer Harrison/Getty Images Nice to see you Brad Pitt greets Marion Cotillard on the red carpet Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Stunning Marion Cotillard works the cameras Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Catching up Marion Cotillard and Brad Pitt catch up on the red carpet Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Film stars Marion Cotillard and Brad Pitt play lovers in the new film Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Supportive The actors spent time together on the red carpet Kevin Winter/Getty Images Baby on board Marion Cotillard shows off her growing baby bump Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Lone star Brad Pitt arrived alone for the screening Kevin Winter/Getty Images Leading the way Brad Pitt leads his co-star down the red carpet Kevin Winter/Getty Images Doing alright Brad Pitt poses for the cameras Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

His appearance came amid the news that Jolie has been awarded full custody of children Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and eight-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.

They will remain in the sole care of Jolie, while Pitt will be allowed therapeutic visits.

A representative for the actress said in a statement: We can confirm that childcare professionals have encouraged a legal agreement accepted and signed by both sides over a week ago.

In accordance with this agreement, the six children will stay in their mother's custody, and the children will continue therapeutic visits with their father.

This has been determined by childcare professionals to be in the children's best interest.
E ddie Redmayne used to practise his Fantastic Beasts role while riding the London underground.

The Oscar-winning actor, who still uses the tube to get around the capital, admitted that he was aware of being stared at by commuters as he rehearsed his lines.

Speaking ahead of the New York premiere of the film on Thursday night, the British star told Time Out:

Sometimes wed have almost War Horse-style puppets for the rehearsal. But it varied, and sometimes it just involved having little Pickett the Bowtruckle, who is a stick insect, and he would be on my hand.

Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, Katherine Waterston, Eddie Redmayne, Ezra Miller / Derek Storm/Splash News

Id be on the tube in London, imagining talking to this thing, and suddenly realise Im being stared at.

Redmayne, who has been spotted on public transport by fans a number of times, said that he finds it a much more efficient way to get around town.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them - Trailer 3

I take the tube! Whats the other option in London?' he said.

This morning they sent a car and it took an hour to go half a mile to get here. On the tube, it would have taken ten minutes.

Redmayne was joined by co-stars Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller and Katherine Waterston at the Apple Store in New York to promote the eagerly-awaited new film David Yatess film.

They will all walk the red carpet at the first big premiere for the film in New York before its Leicester Sqaure opening in London next week.
E mma Watson decided to cheer up New York commuters by hiding copies of her favourite book on the New York subway.

The Harry Potter actress, who did the same thing on the London Underground last week, was spotted depositing copies of Maya Angelou's autobiography Mom & Me & Mom following the US election.

Watson posted a photo of herself putting one book in the cranny of a pillar at 23rd Street station for someone to find.

She wrote on Twitter: Today I am going to deliver Maya Angelou books to the New York subway. Then I am going to fight even harder for all the things I believe in.

Watson, who was a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton throughout her campaign, is trying to grow the Books on the Underground campaign.

The 26-year-old filmed herself dropping copies of the same book along the escalator rail at the Bakerloo Line station last week.

Emma Watson takes part in book campaign on London Underground

I've been hiding copies of Mom & Me & Mom for Books on the Underground on the tube today! See if you can find one tomorrow! #OurSharedShelf, she wrote on Facebook.

Predictably, some Londoners were rather excited about the A-list sighting, with one person writing on Twitter:

I JUST SAW EMMA WATSON ON THE TUBE. I REPEAT: HERMIONE GRANGER ON THE TUBE.

How did America vote? A breakdown by race and gender

Speaking about the campaign, Cordelia Oxley, Director of Books on the Underground said:

Books on the Underground is simple - we share copies of all sorts of different books around the London tube network.

"Started initially by my friend Hollie, we've now been running for 4 years. I manage a group of amazing Book Fairies, who help to distribute books into every corner of London.
Trump campaign advisor and oilman Harold Hamm said Wednesday the U.S. government has done everything in its power to impede oil and gas production.



President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to boost the nation's oil, natural gas and coal production by rolling back regulations and increasing drilling on federal lands.



"There's so many of these overreaching regulations that's gone on. My goodness. We called it death by a thousand cuts, and that's exactly what it was intended to do," Hamm told CNBC's "Power Lunch."

But while oil producers were supposedly being bled dry, U.S. wells were gushing.

President Barack Obama 's two terms have dovetailed with a revolution in U.S. drilling technology that has pushed the country's production from about 5.3 million barrels a day in his first year in office to 9.4 million barrels a day in 2015.

Hamm's Continental Resources is one of the American independent drillers that proved oil could be squeezed from shale rock. But the subsequent surge in U.S. output from shale resources contributed to a global glut of crude that tanked oil prices two years ago.

Currently, most new U.S. drilling is occurring in parts of Texas and New Mexico, where the cost of producing a barrel of oil is low enough to turn a profit.





Onshore federal and Indian lands





Still, Hamm said the government's reluctance to lease federal land for drilling is holding back exploration and production firms like Continental.



"Permitting is almost nonexistent out there. It takes years sometimes to get permits," he said.

The Bureau of Land Management issued 852 leases for oil and gas drilling on a total of 810,000 acres last year. That's down from a five-year high of 2,188 leases issued in 2011 for more than 2 million acres of federal land.

To be sure, the oil and gas industry began slashing capital spending in 2015 as low crude prices left many drillers operating in the red.

Drilling on federal lands is statutorily prohibited in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, and the Obama administration also blocks leasing in some other areas, including sections of the Outer Continental Shelf.
LINCOLN  Deer hunting is enjoyed by thousands of Nebraskans who want to put meat in their freezer and create memories and carry on traditions with friends and family. While enjoying the hunt, Nebraskans should make safety their top priority.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has the following reminders for the Nov. 12-20 firearm deer season:

 Treat every firearm as if its loaded, keep the firearm muzzle pointed in a safe direction, and keep your finger off of the trigger until youre ready to fire.

 Know your target and what is beyond it, never pull the trigger unless you are sure your target is a deer, and know the potential distance of your shot.

 Use the firearms safety, but dont rely on it, because safeties can fail.

 Dont shoot at flat, hard surfaces or water, as bullets can ricochet.

 Unload firearms when climbing into and out of tree stands and when carrying them in a vehicle.

 Tell someone when and where you are hunting and when you expect to return home. Check in with them when you return. Avoid hunting alone, if possible.

 Have the proper clothing and gear for the weather, and keep an eye on the forecast.

 Check your hunting equipment to make sure everything is in proper working order, including your tree stand.

 Tree stand hunters should wear a fall-arrest system, use a haul line to raise and lower gear into your stand, and always maintain three points of contact when climbing.

 In Nebraska, anyone hunting deer under a firearm permit during a firearm season must display at least 400 square inches of hunter orange on their head, chest and back. This also applies to anyone archery hunting during the November firearm deer season and the January 1-15 deer season.

 Hunter education certification is required for some hunters. To learn more or sign up for a course, go to HuntSafeNebraska.org or contact Hunter Education Coordinator Wendy Horine at wendy.horine@nebraska.gov or 402-471-6134.

Day of fun, educational activities planned for Nov. 12 at Ponca SP

Get outdoors for a fall day of fun, educational activities for all ages Nov. 12 at Ponca State.

Take an introductory archery course from 9-11 a.m. using the parks equipment. Participants must be at least 5 years of age. At 1 p.m., Critter Corner will introduce guests to wildlife found along the Missouri River. A scavenger hunt hike at 3 p.m. will give participants a chance to win prizes by identifying trees, collecting leaves and searching for tracks along a trail.

A park permit is required of each vehicle entering the park. Fees apply to some activities.

For more information, call the park at 402-755-2284, and visit Calendar.OutdoorNebraska.gov to view more detail on Poncas events.

Enjoy live theater at Mahoney State Park

Bring the family for dinner and a play at Eugene T. Mahoney State Park this holiday season.

From Nov. 26 to Dec. 18, the park will be showing an original, family-friendly play, Making Spirits Bright. Visitors will receive 10 percent off of a buffet meal at the Lodge Restaurant with the purchase of a ticket.

The play tells the story of a couple who have all the trappings of a happy life, but have lost the Christmas spirit. Its up to a mysterious new friend to help them find the joy in Christmas again.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for youth ages 12 and younger. Shows are held on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and on Sundays at 2 p.m. For tickets call 402-944-2523 ext. 7122. For more information, call Kat Cover at 402-297-3999.

A park entry permit is required.
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The N.C. Highway Patrol has charged an Ohio man after he sped through Interstate 77 construction in Statesville and led troopers on chase into Mecklenburg County Wednesday.

Speeds reached up to 120 mph in the pursuit, according to reports.

The man, Joshua Michael Lopez, was ultimately apprehended after the approximately 25 mile chase, accord to Sgt. S.P. Fortner. No injuries were reported, though Lopez stuck at least one vehicle in the incident.

Fortner said the chase began when Trooper B. Jolly observed Lopez, driving a black 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee, travelling 88 mph in a 55 zone near mile marker 50 in the southbound lanes of I-77. Lopez was also driving on the shoulder of the road an in the emergency lane, according to reports.

Jolly attempted a traffic stop, but Lopez sped off, Fortner said.

Fortner said Lopezs driving was deemed dangerous enough to warrant a chase to eliminate a threat to public safety.

Stop sticks were laid out in an attempt to end the chase by puncturing Lopezs tires, but they were unsuccessful, Fortner said.

Near Lake Norman, Lopez reportedly struck a BMW passenger car, but no injuries were reported.

Lopez eventually attempted to take exit 25 in Mecklenburg County, Fortner said, when Jolly struck the Jeeps left-rear bumper to cause Lopez to lose control.

Lopez then surrendered without further incident, Fortner said.

Fortner said Lopez had consumed marijuana and was attempting to swallow an amount of the drug while he was caught.

Lopez, of Elyria, Ohio, was on his way to Florida, Fortner said.

Lopez was charged with felony speeding to elude with a motor vehicle, DWI, hit-and-run, speeding in excess of 120 mph, damage to state property and a number of other violations, Fortner said.

He was held under a $30,000 secured bond in the Iredell County Detention Center.
Hyperloop One  a company developing the super-speed transport system thought up by Elon Musk  has signed a letter of intent with the governments of Finland and the Netherlands to look into building networks there.

The futuristic transport system works by propelling pods through a large tube at speeds of 750 mph using magnets.

Josh Giegel, president of engineering at Hyperloop One, told CNBC on Thursday, the agreement with Finland will involve exploring a transport system for the Nordic region. Initially it will be from Helsinki to Stockholm in Sweden. And the two parties will also look at connecting the Aland Islands. Giegel said there was no definitive route being looked at in the Netherlands.

The letter of intent will involve Hyperloop One exploring the viability of the project in each country. If the government and Hyperloop One can prove the feasibility of the project, work can begin on a so-called "proof of operations facility" which is likely to involve building the first part of the track.

Part of the attraction of Finland is the availability of tech-savvy talent from companies like Nokia.

"You have got a lot of skilled workers looking for work and the government see it as a chance for high-skilled jobs to stay in the area. They have moved extremely fast. We first met with them in November last year," Giegel told CNBC in an interview at the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon.

The agreements with Finland and the Netherlands come after Hyperloop One struck a similar deal with Dubai. The idea is to connect Abu Dhabi to Dubai in roughly 12 minutes, a journey that could take over 2 hours in a car.

Giegel outlined his vision of how this would work. An app linked to a ride-hailing service like Uber would allow you to call a car to take you to a Hyerploop One station. Once there, a passenger would go to their gate, get in an autonomous driving pod which will then take them to the main Hyperloop capsule that will launch them to their destination. The driverless pod will dock inside the Hyperloop capsule.

Story continues

In a concept design, Hyperloop showed a circular station that it said would be much smaller and efficient that current train stations.

One concern raised is how travelling at such high speeds will feel. Giegel played down any concern, likening the experience to an airplane.

"Speeds are similar to an airplane, what you feel is sort of like take off on conventional airline. You are designing this so it feels like an elevator - comfortable, very intuitive, very normal," Giegel said.

Hyperloop One's engineering head also said that it would not be priced for the super-rich, though he could not say how much it would cost to build or the price of the ticket.

"That's what this study is meant to get through," Giegel said.

The feasibility study in Dubai will be completed within 12 weeks, but there is no timeline for the other countries.





Hyperloop One has raised around $160 million with the latest funding a $50 million round last month.

The company is currently building a test track in a desert in Nevada and did its first demonstration earlier this year.

In 2017, the company is hoping to show off a full-scale Hyperloop system with the aim of having several operational versions of it within in the next five years.




The owner of the Clayton on the Park apartment tower plans to spend about $1 million to remake the building's landscaping.

Koman Group owns the 24-story building at 8025 Bonhomme Avenue in downtown Clayton. Plans made public Wednesday on the city of Clayton's website describe the proposal.

COTP LLC, the Koman affiliate that owns the building, said the project's intent is to refresh the landscape, hardscape and site lighting. The design includes replacement of the existing drop-off pavement with new colored concrete paving. Also planned are a new sidewalk and seating area from the building's front arcade to the new drop-off.

Additional plans call for removal and replacement of existing landscape and trees. COTP LLC also is asking the city for three parking spaces on Bonhomme converted to 30 Minute tenant parking.

Clayton's Architectural Review Board is scheduled to consider the project at its meeting Nov. 21.
Although the harvest has already come in for the first crop of dicamba-resistant soybeans, on Wednesday the Environmental Protection Agency approved the low-volatility form of the herbicide dicamba intended to be used with genetically-modified soy and cotton.

While dicamba is decades old, Monsantos new dicamba-based XtendiMax herbicide is said to be less prone to vaporizing and drifting off target.

Monsanto spokesperson Kyel Richard said that the company still needs to secure approval from individual states before the product can be marketed to farmers. But he says the company plans to have it available by the start of next growing season.

Well be able to roll out the product for 2017, said Richard, adding that the company projects national sales next year for 15 million acres of dicamba-resistant soybeans and 3 million acres of cotton.

The company released Bollgard II XtendFlex cotton in 2015 and this year introduced Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans. Both crop varieties are genetically engineered to resist dicamba, but without approval for the corresponding form of the herbicide, many farmers are suspected of using illegal, off-label versions of the herbicide.

Any illegal spraying has left resistant fields unharmed but is believed to have caused widespread crop damage throughout southeast Missouri and neighboring states, contributing to financial hardship and even deadly violence as tensions rise between farmers.

With or without approval of the new herbicide, some affected farmers have indicated they will be forced to switch to dicamba-resistant varieties as an insurance policy for future growing seasons. Some also question whether the release of the new, less-volatile variety will put an end to damage from drift, as scofflaw farmers may still be inclined to use off-label varieties if they are a cheaper alternative.

Richard said that Monsanto could not discuss pricing of the new product until it is approved by an initial state.

Others argue that the new dicamba product fails to address the underlying problem of promoting the eventual rise of herbicide-resistant superweeds.
TORONTO, CANADA--(Marketwired - Nov 10, 2016) - Ivanhoe Mines (IVN.TO)(IVPAF) today announced its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2016. All figures are in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

HIGHLIGHTS

On October 12, 2016, Ivanhoe released an independently verified, initial Mineral Resource estimate for the extremely-high-grade Kakula Discovery on the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Kakula's Indicated Resources presently total 192 million tonnes at a grade of 3.45% copper, containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper. Inferred Resources total 101 million tonnes at a grade of 2.74% copper, containing 6.1 billion pounds of copper. Both estimates are at a 1.0% copper cut-off.





The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. Kamoa-Kakula also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres.





With the addition of Kakula's Mineral Resources, Wood Mackenzie - a prominent, international industry research and consulting group - has independently demonstrated that the Kamoa-Kakula Project is the largest copper discovery in Zambia and the DRC, making it the largest copper discovery ever made on the African continent. In addition, Wood Mackenzie's research also shows that Kamoa-Kakula already ranks among the 10 largest copper deposits in the world.





The Kakula Discovery remains open along trend to the northwest and the southeast, while the remainder of the Kakula Exploration Area remains untested. Ivanhoe expects that an updated Mineral Resource estimate for the Kakula Discovery will be issued in Q1 2017.





With the initial Kakula estimate completed, Kamoa Copper has retained OreWin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, to prepare a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the development of the Kakula Deposit. The PEA, which is expected to be completed before the end of 2016, will concentrate on establishing the economic parameters of a potential four-million-tonne-per-year mining operation at Kakula.





Recent bench-scale metallurgical flotation test work at XPS Consulting and Testwork Services laboratories in Falconbridge, Canada, achieved copper recoveries of 87.8% and produced a concentrate with an extremely high grade of 56% copper using the flowsheet developed during the Kamoa pre-feasibility study (PFS). The material tested was a composite of chalcocite-rich Kakula drill core, assaying 8.1% copper.





Underground mine development at Kamoa's planned initial mining area at Kansoko Sud is progressing ahead of plan and within budgeted costs. The twin declines, incorporating both a service and a conveyor tunnel, each have advanced more than 365 metres since the first excavation blast was conducted in May of this year. Development of the underground mine is designed to reach the high-grade copper mineralization at the Kansoko Sud deposit during the first quarter of 2017.





Story continues

On October 25, 2016, Ivanhoe received the third of five scheduled $41.2 million installment payments from a Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. subsidiary as part of a strategic co-development agreement under which Zijin acquired 49.5% of Ivanhoe's majority stake in the Kamoa-Kakula copper discovery. Zijin agreed to pay $412 million for a 49.5% interest in Ivanhoe subsidiary Kamoa Holding Limited that presently owns 95% of the Kamoa-Kakula Project. The remaining $82.4 million is required to be paid in two further equal installments, every 3.5 months; the next installment is due February 8, 2017.





Cordial negotiations are continuing between Ivanhoe, its Kamoa-Kakula joint-venture partner Zijin Mining and senior DRC government officials to complete the transfer to the DRC government of an additional 15% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project, on terms to be negotiated. Ivanhoe expects a mutually beneficial agreement to be achieved in the near future that will provide long-lasting, positive benefits to the DRC government and the Congolese people.





On September 13, 2016, Ivanhoe announced that ongoing upgrading work financed by the company at the Mwadingusha hydropower plant has begun supplying an initial 11 megawatts (MW) of power to the DRC's national grid. The Kamoa-Kakula Project began drawing power from the national grid on October 30, 2016.





Also in the DRC, Ivanhoe is making good progress on a pre-feasibility study for the redevelopment of the Kipushi zinc-copper-germanium-lead-silver mine. The comprehensive study is being prepared by OreWin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, and will refine the company's May 2016 preliminary economic assessment of Kipushi's proposed redevelopment. The upgraded mine is expected to produce an annual average of 530,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate over a 10-year mine life at a total cash cost, including copper by-product credits, of approximately $0.54 per pound of zinc.





At the Platreef platinum-palladium-gold-nickel-copper project in South Africa, sinking of Shaft 1 has reached a depth of more than 120 metres below surface. Shaft 1, which is expected to reach the Flatreef Deposit in late 2017, will provide development access into the deposit and will be utilized to fast-track production during the project's first phase.





The design has been completed for Platreef's Shaft 2, which will have a total hoisting capacity of six million tonnes per annum and an internal diameter of 10 metres; construction is expected to begin in 2017. When completed, Shaft 2 is expected to be the main production shaft at the Platreef Mine.





The feasibility study for the first phase of mine development at Platreef, which is being managed by DRA Global, is expected to be completed in March 2017.





On August 29, 2016, Ivanhoe announced that its board of directors had authorized the company to seek strategic advice at the project and corporate levels to help address unsolicited interest that the company and its projects have received.





On September 12, 2016, Standard and Poor's (S&P) added Ivanhoe Mines to the S&P/TSX Composite Index, which is widely considered to be the leading indicator of broad market activity in Canadian equity markets.





Ivanhoe Mines' three projects achieved a combined 10.4 million work hours free of lost-time injuries (LTIF) by the end of the third quarter of 2016. Ivanhoe had recorded 178,500 LTIF hours at Platreef, 4.67 million hours at Kipushi and 5.59 million hours at Kamoa-Kakula to the end of Q3 2016.





Principal projects and review of activities

1. Platreef Project

64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

South Africa

The Platreef Project is owned by Ivanplats (Pty) Ltd, which is 64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines. A 26% interest is held by Ivanplats' historically-disadvantaged broad-based, black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) partners, which include 20 local host communities with a total of approximately 150,000 people, project employees and local entrepreneurs. Ivanplats reconfirmed its Level 3 status in its second verification assessment on a B-BBEE scorecard. A Japanese consortium of ITOCHU Corporation and its affiliate, ITC Platinum, plus Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation and JGC Corporation, owns a 10% interest in Ivanplats, which it acquired in two tranches for a total investment of $290 million.

The Platreef Project hosts an underground deposit of thick, platinum-group metals, nickel, copper and gold mineralization in the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex, approximately 280 kilometres northeast of Johannesburg and eight kilometres from the town of Mokopane in Limpopo Province. Since 2007, Ivanhoe has focused its exploration activities on defining and advancing the down-dip extension of its original discovery at Platreef, now known as the Flatreef Deposit, which is amenable to highly mechanized, underground mining methods. The Flatreef area lies entirely on the Turfspruit and Macalacaskop properties, which form part of the company's mining right.

Health and safety at Platreef

The Platreef Project reached a total of 6,331,141 million hours in terms of the Mines Health and Safety Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) by the end of September 2016. The project recorded 178,552 work hours free of lost-time injuries (LTIF) up until the end of Q3 2016.

Unfortunately, the project suffered a lost-time injury during the quarter. A rock-drill operator was injured, booked off and returned to work seven days after the incident. The Platreef Project continues to strive toward its workplace objective of an environment that causes zero harm to any employees, contractors, sub-contractors or consultants.

Shaft 1 construction

Shaft 1, with an internal diameter of 7.25 metres, will provide initial access to the ore body and enable the initial underground capital development to take place during the development of Shaft 2, the main production shaft.

Following the successful commissioning and licencing of the stage and kibble winders and ancillary equipment, the permanent sinking phase started in July 2016. The initial sinking phase was completed to 107 metres below surface and the main sinking phase has been initiated.

A sinking rate of 45 metres per month is expected during the main phase, which includes a 300-millimetre concrete shaft lining and inserts. The current level is approximately 130 metres below surface; stations will be developed at the 450-, 750-, 850- and 950-metre levels. The main sinking phase is expected to reach its projected, final depth of 980 metres below surface in 2018.

To view Figure 1. Shaft 1 headgear and other related surface infrastructure, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002fig1.jpg

Project infrastructure

Work is complete on the internal substation, which has a capacity of five million volt-amperes (MVA). Construction is underway on the power transmission lines from Eskom, South Africa's public electricity utility, which are expected to supply the electricity for shaft sinking. Back-up generators have been installed to ensure continued sinking operations during any interruptions in Eskom's supply of electricity. The new transmission lines also are expected to provide power to an adjacent community near the Platreef Project, which will be a major, added community benefit.

To view Figure 2. Eskom's 5MVA line to Platreef Project, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f2.jpg

Other on-site work completed includes the storm-water pond management system, concrete batch plant, workshops, stores and an explosives magazine.

Construction of the intersection on the National Road (N11) highway for improved access to the Platreef mine site was completed in August 2016. The work included adding extra lanes to the existing roadway, exit and entry ramps, storm-water management and resurfacing of the intersection.

Platreef implementing a phased approach to a large, underground, mechanized mine

Ivanhoe plans to develop the Platreef Mine in phases. The initial annual rate of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) is designed to establish an operating platform to support future expansions. This is expected to be followed by a potential doubling of production to 8 Mtpa; and then a third expansion phase to a steady-state 12 Mtpa, which would establish Platreef among the largest platinum-group-metals mines in the world.

Ivanhoe has made good progress on advancing the feasibility study of the first phase, which began in August 2015. The study is being managed by DRA Global - with specialized sub-consultants including Stantec Consulting, Murray & Roberts Cementation, SRK, Golder Associates and Digby Wells Environmental - and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2017. There are expected to be opportunities to refine and modify the timing and capacities of subsequent phases of production to suit market conditions during the development and commissioning of the first phase.

Planned mining methods to incorporate highly productive, mechanized methods

The selected mining areas in the current mine plan occur at depths ranging from approximately 700 metres to 1,200 metres below the surface. The main access to the Flatreef Deposit and ventilation system is expected to be through four vertical shafts. Shaft 2 will host the main personnel transport cage, material and ore-handling systems; Shafts 1, 3 and 4 will provide ventilation to the underground workings. Shaft 1, now under development, also will be used for initial access to the deposit and early underground development.

Planned mining of the Flatreef Deposit is expected to use highly productive, mechanized methods, including long-hole stoping and drift-and-fill mining. Mined-out areas will be backfilled with a paste mixture that utilizes tailings from the process plant and cement. The ore will be hauled from the stopes to a series of ore passes that will connect to a main haulage level at Shaft 2, from where it will be hoisted to surface for processing.

Bulk water and electricity supply

The Olifants River Water Resource Development Project (ORWRDP) is designed to deliver water to the Eastern and Northern limbs of South Africa's Bushveld Complex. The project consists of the new De Hoop Dam, the raised wall of the Flag Boshielo Dam and related pipeline infrastructure that ultimately is expected to deliver water to Pruissen, southeast of the Northern Limb. The Pruissen Pipeline Project is expected to be developed to deliver water onward from Pruissen to the municipalities, communities and mining projects on the Northern Limb. Ivanhoe is a member of the ORWRDP's Joint Water Forum. The Minister of Water & Sanitation has directed that the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority serve as the implementing agent for the outstanding phases of the ORWRDP scheme, which include the Phase 2B pipeline from Flag Boshielo Dam to Mokopane.

The Platreef Project's water requirement for the first phase of development is projected to peak at approximately 10 million litres per day, which is expected to be serviced by the scheme. Ivanhoe also is investigating various alternative sources of bulk water, including an allocation of bulk grey-water from the local municipality.

The Platreef Project's electricity requirement for a four-million-tonne-per-year underground mine, concentrator and associated infrastructure has been estimated at approximately 100 million volt-amperes. An agreement has been reached with Eskom for the supply of phase-one power. Ivanhoe chose a self-build option for permanent power that will enable the company to manage the construction of the distribution lines from Eskom's Burutho sub-station to the Platreef Mine. The formulation of the self-build and electrical supply agreements are in progress.

Development of human resources and job skills

Work is progressing well on the further implementation of Ivanhoe's Social and Labour Plan (SLP), to which the company has pledged a total of R160 million ($11 million) during the first five years, until November 2019. The approved plan includes R67 million ($4 million) for the development of job skills among local residents and R88 million ($6 million) for local economic development projects. Additional internal training is ongoing to provide members of the current workforce with opportunities to expand their skills.

Ivanplats recently concluded a one-year deal with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) for annual wage increases without any labour disruption or work stoppage during negotiations.

2. Kipushi Project

68%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Kipushi copper-zinc-germanium-lead mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is adjacent to the town of Kipushi and approximately 30 kilometres southwest of Lubumbashi. It is located on the Central African Copperbelt, approximately 250 kilometres southeast of the Kamoa-Kakula Project and less than one kilometre from the Zambian border. Ivanhoe acquired its 68% interest in the Kipushi Project in November 2011; the balance of 32% is held by the state-owned mining company, La Generale des Carrieres et des Mines (Gecamines).

Health, safety and community development at Kipushi

The Kipushi Project achieved a total of 4,674,445 work hours free of lost-time injuries, equivalent to 1,512 days, to the end of Q3 2016. Malaria remains the most frequently occurring health concern at Kipushi; in Q3 2016, there was an average of 15 cases each month among employees, which is above the dry-season norm.

In an effort to reduce the incidence of malaria in the Kipushi community, a Water Sanitation and Health (WASH) program has been initiated in cooperation with the Territorial Administrator and the local community. The main emphasis of the program's first phase is cleaning storm drains in the municipality to prevent the accumulation of ponded water, where malarial mosquitos breed.

The Fionet program to combat malaria has distributed 150 Deki electronic readers in addition to the original 37 readers provided to medical-service providers in Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces. The Deki technology provides automated reading of Rapid Diagnostic Tests to remove the human-error factor and prescription of unnecessary medication and uploads data to a cloud server for analysis by the Ministry of Health in planning malaria-control measures. Data gathered up until September 30, 2016, indicate that 18,818 patients have been tested using the Deki reader, with more than half those testing negative for malaria.

Project development and infrastructure

The Kipushi Mine, which had been placed on care and maintenance in 1993, flooded in early 2011 due to a lack of pump maintenance over an extended period. At its peak, water reached 851 metres below the surface. A major milestone was reached in December 2013 when Ivanhoe restored access to the mine's principal haulage level at 1,150 metres below the surface. Since then, crews have been upgrading underground infrastructure to permanently stabilize the water levels.

Since completion of the drilling program, water levels have been lowered to approximately the 1,245-metre-level in Shaft 5. Engineering work has focused on upgrading of Shaft 5 conveyances and infrastructure, cleaning the shaft bottom to facilitate the installation of new hoist ropes, repairs and upgrades to the hoisting infrastructure and cleaning and stripping of the main pump station at the 1,200-metre-level.

To view Figure 3. Connecting discharge pipes to one of five pumps on the 1,200-metre-level, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f3.jpg

Pre-feasibility study underway at Kipushi

A pre-feasibility study (PFS) now underway will further refine the optimal development scenario for the existing underground mine at Kipushi. Orewin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, has been appointed the main contractor and Golder Associates, MDM, SRK, DRA and Grindrod have been engaged to complete various aspects of the PFS.

The PFS will refine the positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the redevelopment of the Kipushi Project that was announced on May 2, 2016. The PEA was prepared in compliance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Highlights of the PEA, prepared by OreWin and the MSA Group (Pty) Ltd, of Johannesburg, South Africa, include:

After-tax net present value at an 8% real discount rate is $533 million.





After-tax real internal rate of return is 30.9%.





After-tax project payback period is 2.2 years.





Leveraging existing surface and underground infrastructure significantly lowers the redevelopment capital compared to a greenfield development project, as well as the time required to reinstate production.





Life-of-mine average planned zinc concentrate production of 530,000 dry tonnes per annum - with a concentrate grade of 53% zinc - is expected to rank Kipushi, once in production, among the world's major zinc mines.





Life-of-mine average cash cost of $0.54/lb. of zinc is expected to rank Kipushi, once in production, in the bottom quartile of the cash-cost curve for zinc producers globally.

3. Kamoa-Kakula Project

47%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project, a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines and Zijin Mining, is the largest copper discovery ever made on the African continent, with adjacent prospective exploration areas within the Central African Copperbelt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, approximately 25 kilometres west of the town of Kolwezi and about 270 kilometres west of Lubumbashi. Ivanhoe sold a 49.5% share interest in Kamoa Holding Limited, the company that presently owns 95% of Kamoa Copper SA, the owner of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, to Zijin Mining in December 2015 for an aggregate consideration of $412 million. In addition, Ivanhoe sold a 1% share interest in Kamoa Holding to privately-owned Crystal River Global Limited for $8.32 million - which Crystal River will pay through a non-interest-bearing, 10-year promissory note.

A 5%, non-dilutable interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project was transferred to the DRC government on September 11, 2012, for no consideration, pursuant to the DRC Mining Code. Ivanhoe also has offered to transfer an additional 15% interest to the DRC government on terms to be negotiated. Constructive and cordial negotiations over the offer are continuing between Ivanhoe Mines, Zijin and senior DRC government officials. Ivanhoe expects a mutually beneficial agreement to be achieved in the near future that will provide long-lasting, positive benefits to the DRC government and the Congolese people.

Subsequent to the sales to Zijin and Crystal River, Ivanhoe owns an effective 47% of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which will decrease to an effective 40% should the additional 15% interest be transferred to the DRC government.

Kamoa-Kakula already ranks among the 10 largest copper deposits in the world. On October 12, 2016, an initial Mineral Resource estimate for the extremely-high-grade Kakula Discovery was issued with an effective date of October 9, 2016. The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. Kamoa-Kakula now also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres.

Kamoa-Kakula studies

The mining portion of the feasibility study for a four-million-tonne-per-annum (4 Mtpa) mine at Kansoko Sud is progressing well; the work is being carried out by a number of specialist consultants, including Stantec for the mine, DRA for the underground engineering, KGHM Cuprum for geotechnical and mining method, SRK for the mine geotechnical and Golder for geohydrology.

With the initial Kakula Mineral Resource estimate completed, Kamoa Copper has retained OreWin, of Adelaide, Australia, to prepare a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the development of the Kakula Deposit. The PEA, which is expected to be completed before the end of 2016, will concentrate on establishing the economic parameters of potential mining operations at Kakula, including capital and operating costs for an underground mine.

The PEA will draw on recommendations from the Kamoa 2016 pre-feasibility study, including the potential to increase production to up to four million tonnes per year from the proposed initial mining area.

Recent bench-scale metallurgical flotation test work carried out at XPS Consulting and Testwork Services laboratories in Falconbridge, Canada, achieved copper recoveries of 87.8% and produced a concentrate with an extremely high grade of 56% copper using the flowsheet developed during the Kamoa pre-feasibility study. The material tested was a composite of recent, chalcocite-rich Kakula drill core, assaying 8.1% copper.

Kakula mineralization is characteristically bottom loaded. The Resource estimate demonstrates that opportunities exist to mine Kakula at much higher lateral and vertical cut-offs than at Kamoa's Kansoko Sud. The clear zonation and grades in the central high-grade core should provide sequencing opportunities to mine at significantly elevated grades.

Health and safety at Kamoa-Kakula

Health and safety remain key priorities for all people working at the Kamoa-Kakula Project, where an excellent safety record has been achieved. As of September 30, 2016, a total of 5,590,040 hours had been worked without a lost-time injury.



Exploration activities lead to a substantial expansion of the Kakula Discovery

On October 12, 2016 the company released the initial Resource estimate for its Kakula Discovery at the Kamoa-Kakula Project. Highlights of the initial Kakula Mineral Resource estimate, prepared by Ivanhoe Mines under the direction of Amec Foster Wheeler E&C Services Inc., of Reno, USA, in accordance with the 2014 CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves are:

Indicated Resources total 192 million tonnes at a grade of 3.45% copper, containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper at a 1% copper cut-off. At a 2% copper cut-off, Indicated Resources total 115 million tonnes at a 4.80% copper grade, containing 12.1 billion pounds of copper. At a higher cut-off of 3% copper, Indicated Resources total 66 million tonnes at a grade of 6.59% copper, containing 9.6 billion pounds of copper.





Inferred Resources total 101 million tonnes at a grade of 2.74% copper, containing 6.1 billion pounds of copper at a 1% copper cut-off. At a 2% copper cut-off, Inferred Resources total 51 million tonnes at a 3.92% copper grade, containing 4.4 billion pounds of copper. At a higher cut-off of 3% copper, Inferred Resources total 27 million tonnes at a grade of 5.26% copper, containing 3.2 billion pounds of copper.





The average true thickness of the selective mineralized zone (SMZ) at a 1% cut-off is 14.27 metres in the Indicated Resources area and 10.33 metres in the Inferred Resources area. At a higher 3% cut-off, the average true thickness of the SMZ is 5.91 metres in the Indicated Resources area and 5.15 metres in the Inferred Resources area.





The Kakula Mineral Resource has been defined by drilling covering a total area of 8.7 square kilometres within the larger 60-square-kilometre Kakula Exploration Area, as shown in Figure 4. The total areal extent of Indicated Resource is 4.6 square kilometres at a 1% cut-off and the areal extent of the Inferred Resource is 3.3 square kilometres at a 1% cut-off. The average dip of the mineralized zone in the Indicated Resource area is 13 degrees, while the average dip is 16 degrees in the Inferred Resource area.

The high-grade copper mineralization remains open for significant expansion along trend to the northwest. The remainder of the Kakula Exploration Area remains untested (see Figure 4). The Mineral Resource estimate is based on the results from approximately 24,000 metres of drilling in 65 holes. An additional 13 holes totalling more than 7,000 metres have been completed and assay results are pending.

Indicated Resources are defined when the drill-hole spacing approximates a 400-metre grid, while Inferred Resources are defined when the drill-hole spacing approximates an 800-metre grid.

To view Figure 4. Kamoa-Kakula Project map showing location of Kakula exploration and initial Kakula Resource outline, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f4.jpg

Updated Kamoa-Kakula Resource

Kakula's estimated Resources are in addition to the Mineral Resources delineated elsewhere on the Kamoa mining licence that were disclosed by Ivanhoe Mines in a news release on February 23, 2016.

The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum true thickness of three metres.

Kamoa-Kakula now also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum true thickness of three metres.

Exploration activities lead to significant expansion of the Kakula Discovery and a substantial increase in the planned scope of exploration activities for 2016 and 2017

During Q3 2016, a total of 19,418 metres of exploration drilling was completed at the new Kakula Discovery. A total of 17,702 metres was completed by the drilling contractor, Titan Drilling SARL, utilizing up to six drill rigs; an additional 1,716 metres was completed using company-owned drill rigs. Included in the drilling program were holes drilled for geotechnical studies as well as PQ drill holes for comminution test work.

In addition to the exploration program, 185 metres were completed for dewatering of the Kansoko Sud declines. A total of 220 metres was completed by Titan Drilling for cover drilling within the declines ahead of the mine development. This program is planned to continue for the duration of the decline development. Drilling for 2016 now totals 33,443 metres.

As a result of the ongoing success of the Kakula drilling program and the extension along trend of the central, high-grade, chalcocite-rich core to the northwest and southeast at relatively shallow depths, the Kakula drilling program was expanded in Q2 by an additional 9,000 metres, to a total of 34,000 metres.

With the completion of the initial Mineral Resource estimate and the significance of the discovery now firmly established, the Kakula exploration program has been significantly expanded by a further 60,000 metres. The expanded program is planned to run through to the end of Q2 2017 and will consist of infill drilling, resource expansion and exploration of the Kakula Discovery area. The expanded drill program will be completed by a combination of contractor drilling and company-owned rigs.

Mine development

Byrnecut Underground Congo SARL progressed well with the decline development at Kansoko during Q3 2016 and is advancing ahead of schedule. The twin declines, incorporating both a service and a conveyor tunnel, each have advanced more than 365 metres.

To view Figure 5. Kansoko box-cut sump being cleaned and equipped, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f5.jpg

Development of the underground mine is designed to reach the high-grade copper mineralization at the Kansoko Sud deposit during the first quarter of 2017. The development is ahead of schedule and within budgeted costs.

During the quarter, the settling and clean-water dams were constructed and equipped, and the first cross-cut between the declines was blasted. The box-cut sump also was cleaned and equipped with permanent pumps and a pump column.

To view Figure 6. Underground loading operation, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f6.jpg

In parallel with the Kamoa 2016 PFS, an alternative mining method - controlled-convergence room-and-pillar mining, developed by Poland-based KGHM - was investigated for potential use on the Kansoko deposits. Given the thick, mineralized widths encountered to date in the Kakula drilling program, controlled-convergence room-and-pillar mining also will be investigated for potential use at Kakula.

To help advance the ongoing exploration and development of the Kakula Deposit, the Kamoa engineering team has identified a possible location for a box cut at Kakula. The design of the box cut is underway and the preparation of tender documents for the excavation, support and civil works is underway.

A 10-kilometre road from the Kamoa mine site to Kakula is under construction to facilitate access for drill rigs and construction equipment during the rainy season.

To view Figure 7. The new Kakula access road under construction, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f6.jpg

Hydroelectric power plant upgrading project

The Mwadingusha Unit 1 repair work was completed in August 2016 and the official inauguration ceremony took place on September 7, 2016, at the Mwadingusha power station. The Mwadingusha G1 unit, supplying 11MW, was synchronized to the national interconnected grid on September 6, 2016.

Selected quarterly financial information

The following table summarizes selected financial information for the prior eight quarters. Ivanhoe had no operating revenue in any financial reporting period and did not declare or pay any dividend or distribution in any financial reporting period.

3 Months ended September 30, June 30, March 31, December 31, 2016 2016 2016 2015 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure * 7,769 8,233 6,917 10,271 General administrative expenditure * 4,213 3,657 3,693 5,833 Share-based payments 1,750 1,312 1,473 2,345 Gain on partial sale of subsidiary - - - (357,671) Re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in joint venture - - - (376,148) Finance income (7,239) (7,367) (8,469) (1,191) Finance costs 454 445 428 1,556 Mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants - - - (429) Loss (gain) from subsidiary held for partial sale - - - 755 Total comprehensive loss (gain) attributable to: Owners of the Company (1,860) 6,568 4,203 (717,213) Non-controlling interest 2,445 3,483 2,897 2,468 Loss (profit) per share (basic and diluted) 0.00 0.01 0.01 (0.92) 3 Months ended September 30, June 30, March 31, December 31, 2015 2015 2015 2014 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure * 8,553 9,009 12,918 21,178 General administrative expenditure * 4,430 1,323 5,859 8,987 Share-based payments 1,655 1,736 1,986 2,245 Finance income (273) (445) (295) (288) Finance costs 36 48 34 382 Mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants (970) (1,334) (4,212) (2,316) Loss from subsidiary held for partial sale (7,958) 2,675 209 4,813 Total comprehensive loss attributable to: Owners of the Company 9,420 11,008 15,511 31,649 Non-controlling interest 3,439 3,564 3,498 5,434 Loss per share (basic and diluted) 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.05

Discussion of results of operations

Review of the three months ended September 30, 2016 vs. September 30, 2015

The company's total comprehensive loss for Q3 2016 of $0.6 million was $12.3 million lower than for the same period in 2015 ($12.9 million). The decrease mainly was due to exchange gains on translation of foreign operations recognized in Q3 2016 of $10.8 million resulting from the strengthening of the South African Rand by 10% from June 30, 2016, to September 30, 2016.

Finance income increased by $7.0 million in Q3 2016 when compared to the same period in 2015 and mainly included interest earned on loans to the Kamoa joint venture that amounted to $4.2 million and deemed income on the purchase price receivable from the partial sale of the Kamoa-Kakula Project that amounted to $2.3 million.

Exploration and project expenditures for the three months ending September 30, 2016, amounted to $7.8 million and were $0.8 million less than for the same period in 2015 ($8.6 million).

With the focus at the Platreef Project on development, and the Kamoa-Kakula Project being accounted for as a joint venture, $7.5 million of the total $7.8 million exploration and project expenditure related to the Kipushi Project. Expenditure at the Kipushi Project decreased by $0.4 million compared to the same period in 2015.

Review of the nine months ended September 30, 2016 vs. September 30, 2015

The company's total comprehensive loss of $17.7 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016, was $28.7 million lower than for the same period in 2015 ($46.4 million). The decrease was due to exchange gains on translation of foreign operations of $10.4 million recognized in the first nine months of 2016 compared to an exchange loss on translation of foreign operations of $11.7 million for the same period in 2015.

The increase in finance income of $22.1 million, together with a $7.6 million decrease in exploration and project expenditure, also contributed to the decreased comprehensive loss for the period, but was partly offset by the company's share of losses from its Kamoa joint venture that amounted to $15.8 million.

Finance income for the nine months ending September 30, 2016, amounted to $23.1 million, which was $22.1 million more than for the same period in 2015 ($1.0 million). The increase mainly was due to interest earned on loans to the Kamoa joint venture that amounted to $11.5 million for the nine months ending September 30, 2016, together with deemed finance income on the purchase price receivable from the partial sale of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which amounted to $9.5 million.

Exploration and project expenditures for the nine months ending September 30, 2016, amounted to $22.9 million and were $7.6 million less than for the same period in 2015 ($30.5 million). The $4.1 million retrenchment costs incurred in 2015 relating to the closure of Ivanhoe's regional exploration company in the DRC was the main reason for the decrease, together with reduced expenditure at the Kipushi Project.

With the focus at the Platreef Project on development and the Kamoa-Kakula Project being accounted for as a joint venture, $22.2 million of the total $22.9 million exploration and project expenditure related to the Kipushi Project. Expenditure at the Kipushi Project decreased by $2.8 million compared to the same period in 2015.

Financial position as at September 30, 2016 vs. December 31, 2015

The company's total assets decreased by $16.4 million, from $1,022.6 million as at December 31, 2015, to $1,006.2 million as at September 30, 2016. This resulted from the company utilizing its cash resources in its operations.

The remaining purchase price receivable due to the company as a result of the sale of 49.5% of Kamoa Holding decreased as the company received $93.1 million from Zijin during the nine months ending September 30, 2016. The present value of the remaining consideration receivable, net of transaction costs, was $113.4 million as at September 30, 2016. Ivanhoe received $41.2 million of the remaining consideration receivable subsequent to September 30, 2016, on October 25, 2016, and the next of the two remaining installments is due on February 8, 2017.

The company's investment in the Kamoa Holding joint venture increased by $43.8 million from $412.0 as at December 31, 2015, to $455.8 million as at September 30, 2016, with the current shareholders funding the operations equivalent to their proportionate shareholding interest. At Kamoa-Kakula, the focus remained on development, together with an exploration program at the Kakula Discovery.

Property, plant and equipment increased by $37.7 million, with a total of $32.4 million being spent on project development and to acquire other property, plant and equipment, $29.7 million of which pertained to development costs of the Platreef Project.

The company utilized $24.8 million of its cash resources in its operations and earned interest income of $2.1 million on cash balances in the nine months ended September 30, 2016; the company's portion of the Kamoa joint venture cash calls amounted to $47.1 million.

The company's total liabilities decreased to $40.9 million as at September 30, 2016, from $43.8 million as at December 31, 2015. This mainly was due to the decrease in trade and other payables of $3.9 million.

Liquidity and capital resources

The company had $275.9 million in cash and cash equivalents as at September 30, 2016. Certain of the company's cash and cash equivalents, having an aggregate value of $29.1 million, are subject to contractual restrictions as to their use and are reserved for the Platreef Project.

As at September 30, 2016, the company had consolidated working capital of approximately $401.9 million, compared to $424.6 million at December 31, 2015. The Platreef Project working capital is restricted and amounted to $28.8 million at September 30, 2016, and $53.2 million at December 31, 2015. Excluding the Platreef Project working capital, the resultant working capital was $373.1 million at September 30, 2016, and $371.4 million at December 31, 2015. The company believes it has sufficient resources to cover its short-term cash requirements. However, the company's access to financing always is uncertain and there can be no assurance that additional funding will be available to the company in the near future.

On December 8, 2015, Zijin completed its investment in Ivanhoe's Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project. Zijin, through a subsidiary company, has acquired a 49.5% interest in Kamoa Holding for a total of $412 million in a series of payments. Ivanhoe received an initial $206 million from Zijin on December 8, 2015 and a further $41.2 million on each of March 23, 2016, July 8, 2016, and October 25, 2016; the remaining $82.4 million is scheduled to be received in two equal installments, payable every 3.5 months from the previous installment. Upon closing of the transaction, each shareholder is required to fund Kamoa Holding in an amount equivalent to its proportionate shareholding interest.

The company's main objectives for 2016 at the Platreef Project remain the continuation of the phase one feasibility study and Shaft 1 construction. At Kipushi, the principal objective is the continued upgrading of mining infrastructure, now that the preliminary economic assessment has been successfully completed. At the Kamoa-Kakula Project, priorities are the continuation of drilling and the construction of the twin declines at Kamoa. The company expects to spend $14 million on further development at the Platreef Project; $8 million at the Kipushi Project; and $5 million on corporate overheads for the remainder of 2016. The company's proportionate funding of the Kamoa-Kakula Project for Q4 2016 already has been advanced in September; however, funding for Q1 2017 is expected to be advanced in December 2016.

This release should be read in conjunction with Ivanhoe Mines' unaudited, condensed, consolidated interim financial statements for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016, and Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) report available at www.ivanhoemines.com and at www.sedar.com.

Qualified Person

Disclosures of a scientific or technical nature in this news release have been reviewed and approved by Stephen Torr, who is considered, by virtue of his education, experience and professional association, a Qualified Person under the terms of NI 43-101. Mr. Torr is not considered independent under NI 43-101 as he is the Vice President, Project Geology and Evaluation. Mr. Torr has verified the technical data disclosed in this release.

Ivanhoe has prepared a current independent, NI 43-101-compliant technical report for each of the Platreef Project, the Kipushi Project and the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which are available under the company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. These technical reports include relevant information regarding the effective dates and the assumptions, parameters and methods of the mineral resource estimates on the Platreef Project, the Kipushi Project and the Kamoa-Kakula Project cited in this release, as well as information regarding data verification, exploration procedures and other matters relevant to the scientific and technical disclosure contained in this release in respect of the Platreef Project, Kipushi Project and Kamoa-Kakula Project.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including without limitation, the timing and results of: (i) statements regarding Shaft 1 providing initial access for early underground development at the Flatreef Deposit; (ii) statements regarding the station development of Shaft 1 at the 450, 750, 850 and 950 metre levels; (iii) statements regarding the sinking of Shaft 1, including that a sinking rate of 45 metres per month is expected; statements regarding Shaft 1 reaching the planned, final depth at 980 metres below surface in 2018; (iv) statements regarding the timing of the commencement of Shaft 2 development, including that construction is to commence in 2017; (v) statements regarding the operational and technical capacity of Shaft 1; (vi) statements regarding the internal diameter and hoisting capacity of Shaft 2; (vii) statements regarding the Company's plans to develop the Platreef Mine in three phases: an initial annual rate of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) to establish an operating platform to support future expansions; followed by a doubling of production to eight Mtpa; and then a third expansion phase to a steady-state 12 Mtpa; (viii) statements regarding the planned underground mining methods of the Platreef Project; (ix) statements regarding peak water use of 10 million litres per day at the Platreef Project and development of the Pruissen Pipeline Project; (x) statements regarding the Platreef Project's electricity requirement of 100 million volt-amperes; (xi) statements regarding the completion of a feasibility study at the Platreef Project in the first half of 2017; (xii) statements regarding the declines having been designed to intersect the high-grade copper mineralization in the Kansoko Sud area during the first quarter of 2017; (xiii) statements regarding the timing, size and objectives of drilling and other exploration programs for 2016 and future periods; (xiv) statements regarding the expectation to have a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) of the Kakula Discovery at the Kamoa-Kakula Project completed before the end of 2016; (xv) statements regarding the implementation of Social and Labour Plan at the Platreef Project; (xvi) statements that the expanded 60,000 metres of drilling at the Kakula Discovery will run through Q2 2017; and (xvii) statements regarding expected further expenditure in 2016 of $14 million on further development at the Platreef Project; $8 million at the Kipushi Project; and $5 million on corporate overheads - as well as its proportionate funding of the Kamoa-Kakula Project for Q1 2017 expected to be advanced in December 2016.

Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements reflect the company's current expectations regarding future events, performance and results and speak only as of the date of this news release.

As well, the results of the pre-feasibility study of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, the pre-feasibility study of the Platreef Project and the preliminary economic assessment of the Kipushi Project constitute forward-looking information, and include future estimates of internal rates of return, net present value, future production, estimates of cash cost, proposed mining plans and methods, mine life estimates, cash flow forecasts, metal recoveries, estimates of capital and operating costs and the size and timing of phased development of the projects. Furthermore, with respect to this specific forward-looking information concerning the development of the Kamoa-Kakula, Platreef and Kipushi Projects, the company has based its assumptions and analysis on certain factors that are inherently uncertain. Uncertainties include: (i) the adequacy of infrastructure; (ii) geological characteristics; (iii) metallurgical characteristics of the mineralization; (iv) the ability to develop adequate processing capacity; (v) the price of copper, nickel, zinc, platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold; (vi) the availability of equipment and facilities necessary to complete development; (vii) the cost of consumables and mining and processing equipment; (viii) unforeseen technological and engineering problems; (ix) accidents or acts of sabotage or terrorism; (x) currency fluctuations; (xi) changes in regulations; (xii) the compliance by joint venture partners with terms of agreements, (xiii) the availability and productivity of skilled labour; (xiv) the regulation of the mining industry by various governmental agencies; and (xiv) political factors.

This news release also contains references to estimates of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The estimation of Mineral Resources is inherently uncertain and involves subjective judgments about many relevant factors. Estimates of Mineral Reserves provide more certainty but still involve similar subjective judgements. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The accuracy of any such estimates is a function of the quantity and quality of available data, and of the assumptions made and judgments used in engineering and geological interpretation (including estimated future production from the company's projects, the anticipated tonnages and grades that will be mined and the estimated level of recovery that will be realized), which may prove to be unreliable and depend, to a certain extent, upon the analysis of drilling results and statistical inferences that ultimately may prove to be inaccurate. Mineral Resource or Mineral Reserve estimates may have to be re-estimated based on: (i) fluctuations in copper, nickel, zinc, platinum group elements (PGE), gold or other mineral prices; (ii) results of drilling; (iii) metallurgical testing and other studies; (iv) proposed mining operations, including dilution; (v) the evaluation of mine plans subsequent to the date of any estimates and/or changes in mine plans; (vi) the possible failure to receive required permits, approvals and licenses; and (vii) changes in law or regulation.

Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indicators of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed below and under "Risk Factors", as well as unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to contracts with the company to perform as agreed; social or labour unrest; changes in commodity prices; and the failure of exploration programs or studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued exploration, studies, development or operations.

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Subject to applicable securities laws, the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this news release.

The company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the factors set forth in the "Risk Factors" section and elsewhere in the company's MD&A.
In the months before Tuesday's election, President Barack Obama barnstormed the country for Hillary Clinton, urging voters to select her to succeed him  and to reject her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, whom he cast as dangerous and unfit.

Those efforts failed. But there is something Obama could have done years before, which might have helped him deny Trump the White House. It was a policy move, not a political one, and it was one Obama's economic team rejected.

At the same time his administration was carrying through with a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street financial firms and passing an $800 billion stimulus package for the free-falling economy through Congress, Obama could have taken more aggressive steps to soothe millions of American homeowners who were struggling to pay their mortgages amid the housing crisis.

Many of those Americans were underwater on their mortgages, meaning they owed more than their houses were worth, and struggling to make payments that consumed large shares of their paychecks. The debt piled onto those households was the driving factor holding back the economy's recovery from the Great Recession, research by the economists Atif Mian and Amir Sufi suggests.

And high levels of mortgage debt, it so happens, appear correlated with high levels of support for Trump.

Obama's team pushed a relatively small program to relieve mortgage debt. If it had pushed a more expansive effort to pay down mortgages with government money, or forced banks to write off big chunks of what the most distressed borrowers owed, the administration could have sped the country's economic healing process, Mian and Sufi contend.

Such efforts would have been controversial  the Tea Party movement traces its origins, for example, to a televised rant by CNBC commentator Rick Santelli against bailing out underwater borrowers. Obama's team, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, declined to pursue them for several reasons, most importantly because the advisers concluded they were unlikely to work effectively.

In an otherwise complimentary review of Mian and Sufi's book in 2014, Larry Summers, who directed Obama's National Economic Council in 2009 and 2010, called the economists "naive on policy." He wrote that the view of Obama and his advisers was that "that there was essentially no chance of it getting the requisite 60 votes in the Senate" to allow bankruptcy judges to force banks to write down mortgage debt. He also said the team worried about chilling future mortgage lending or even bringing down the entire banking system.

Summers conceded he wished the administration had been more aggressive in some ways. "We may well have misjudged some risks or missed important opportunities to carry out effective policy," he wrote.

The White House declined to comment.

Other economists were advocating more aggressive measures, including Glenn Hubbard, the Columbia business school dean and a key adviser to John McCain and Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. If those economists were right, a homeowner bailout would likely have helped the economy recover faster and perhaps begin to deliver income gains to the middle-class in Obama's first term, not his second.

Families in the middle would have had more time to feel the warm breeze of a recovery that was finally delivering for them, and perhaps less anger at Washington for rescuing big banks, but not the homeowners they wrote mortgages for.

They also would have had less mortgage debt, which Gallup researchers Jonathan Rothwell and Pablo Diego-Rosell recently singled out in a sweeping statistical analysis of social and economic factors that appear to drive voters to Trump.

"Trump support rises as mortgage interest payment deductions (an indicator of mortgage debt) increase," the researchers write, and that could indicate that his supporters are more heavily leveraged in their borrowing.

We'll never know if a more aggressive Obama housing policy could have helped those borrowers dig out from their debt piles  or if doing so would have made them less likely to support Trump.

But in an election where Trump's core supporters voiced deep concerns over the economy and their own finances, a more effective policy might have made a difference.
Think autism, and an image of an awkward boy typically emerges. The developmental disorder is at least four times more common in boys, but scientists taking a closer look are finding some gender-based surprises: Many girls with autism have social skills that can mask the condition. And some girls are born without autism despite the same genetic mutations seen in boys with the condition.

The gender effect is a hot topic in autism research and one that could lead to new ways of diagnosing and treating a condition that affects at least 1 in 68 U.S. children.

Better understanding of genders role is key to helping the most people, said Kevin Pelphrey, an autism researcher at George Washington University. Autism may not be the same thing in boys and girls.

WHAT SCIENCE SHOWS

The causes of autism arent known, but various genetic mutations are thought to play a role, and outside factors including older parents and premature birth also have been implicated.

Brain imaging suggests there may be an additional explanation for why many girls with autism have more subtle symptoms, Pelphrey said.

The surprising thing we are finding is that even in girls who clearly have autism, brain regions involved in social behavior that are normally affected are less severely impaired, he said.

Recent studies on autism-linked genes have found another gender difference.

Girls can have the same kinds of genetic mutations seen in boys with autism but need to have twice as many mutations on average to actually manifest with autism, said Joseph Buxbaum, director of an autism center at Mount Sinai medical school in New York City.

Buxbaum is among researchers trying to identify a protective factor that may explain how some girls at genetic risk remain unaffected. That potential factor might be a protein or other biological marker that could be turned into a drug or other therapy to treat or even prevent autism. That possibility is probably a long way off, but Pelphrey said this line of research had prompted excitement among autism scientists.

MAKING A DIAGNOSIS

Theres no autism blood test. Its diagnosed by observing behavior, and some experts say gender-based differences highlight a need to develop different ways to evaluate boys and girls.

Autism screening is recommended for all children at age 18 months and 2 years. But screening tools typically are based on research in autistic boys, said Rachel Loftin, clinical director of an autism center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

One widely used screening questionnaire for parents focuses on social deficits seen more often in autistic boys than affected girls. Questions include, Does your child play make-believe, make eye contact, seek praise, show interest in other children? Girls with autism, especially mild cases, often dont show obvious problems in those categories  theyre more likely than affected boys to play pretend with toys rather than lining them up by size or shape. Loftin said they were also more likely to show concern for another persons feelings.

Government data show that all forms of autism  mild to severe  are more common in boys and that the average age at diagnosis is 4 years in both boys and girls. But Loftin said anecdotal evidence suggested a two-year lag time in diagnosis for girls, especially those with mild cases. And she suspects many cases are missed or misdiagnosed. That means a delay in early intensive behavior therapy that is the main treatment for autism.

Some girls manage to camouflage symptoms until school pressures to fit in become overwhelming, delaying diagnosis until about age 8 or 9, said Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation, a nonprofit educational and research-funding group.

Prominent autism advocate, professor and author Temple Grandin didnt fit that mold. She wasnt fully verbal until age 4. It was obvious something was drastically wrong with me, Grandin said. With 1950s parenting including intense encouragement to develop social skills and other talents, she said, she learned to adapt.

A MOtherS CONCERN

Allison Klein worried about potential autism in her daughter, Jillian, for three years before the little girl was finally diagnosed. Jillian couldnt tolerate loud noises, grew withdrawn around her preschool classmates and lagged behind their academic progress. She was labeled anxious, not autistic.

She didnt meet the stereotypical behaviors of no eye contact, no communication, hand flapping, Klein said. It was always the hands-off approach from teachers and doctors.

Theyd say Lets wait and see. Give her some time, shell grow out of it. Shes just shy,  Klein recalled. People dismiss it in girls.

A few months ago, just before Jillian turned 6, Rush Universitys Loftin confirmed Kleins concerns. Jillian has mild autism. Now the family is playing catch-up in getting her needed services.

SIBLINGS AND AUTISM

Buxbaum, the Mount Sinai researcher, is seeking to enroll hundreds of families with autistic sons but unaffected daughters in a study looking for genetic clues and protective factors. Funded by the Autism Science Foundation, the Autism Sisters Project began last year with the goal of building a big database that other scientists can use. Girls and their families visit the New York lab to give saliva samples for DNA analysis, and efforts are underway to expand DNA collection to other sites.

Evee Bak, 15, hopes her saliva samples will eventually benefit her older brother Tommy. The suburban Philadelphia siblings are just a year apart. They play in a garage band Evee on drums, Tommy on guitar and vocals. Hes a masterful musician but has trouble reading social cues and doing things that come easily to other teens, such as shopping alone or using public transportation.

The thing at the forefront of my mind is mostly just taking care of Tommy and making sure hes happy and healthy, Evee said.

Tommy was diagnosed at age 3, after he stopped using words hed learned months earlier and showed unusual behavior including repetitively lining up toys instead of playing with them.

Hes a wonderful person, and I dont think that wed ever want to change him, said his mother, Erin Lopes. But theyd welcome anything that could help him function as independently as possible because I think thats what he really wants, is to be independent.
American voters widely backed loosening marijuana laws across the country on Tuesday, permitting recreational use on both coasts, and dramatically expanding the number of people who can use pot as medicine or just for fun.

"This is the most important moment in the history of the marijuana legalization movement," said Tom Angell, a spokesman for the pro-legalization Marijuana Majority.

California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada voters approved recreational legalization. Arizona voters appeared to have rejected recreational legalization.

On the medical side, Florida, Arkansas, and North Dakota all voted in favor of medical cannabis, and Montana appeared likely to also approve it.

If those results hold, 29 states will now permit cannabis use for certain medical conditions, including cancer and HIV, and eight will permit recreational use, as does the District of Columbia.

Most voters do not think otherwise law-abiding citizens should be criminalized for using a product that is much safer than alcohol," said Rob Kampia, the executive director of the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project. "There is a general consensus that law enforcement should be fighting serious crimes rather than enforcing failed and deeply unpopular policies.

Legalization skeptics said they were "disappointed" in the results and planned to keep pushing for restrictions aimed at keeping pot out of the hands of kids.

The strong wins across the country on Tuesday will increase pressure on Congress to reconsider how the federal government treats this Schedule 1 illegal drug, including access to banking, legal pot advocates say.
ST. LOUIS  The owner of a popular Irish bar was found dead in an SUV on Interstate 55 Wednesday night.

Patrick McVey, 57, was found slumped behind the steering wheel of his dark gray Ford Explorer just before 6 p.m. Wednesday. Police say he was suffering from gunshot wounds and was dead at the scene.

But police believe he was shot hours earlier. They say he had been shot by an unknown suspect or suspects while driving south on the interstate at about 2:30 p.m. Officers said a witness helped them determine the time, but did not give any other details.

It wasn't immediately clear why it took more than three hours to discover him. An employee of the Missouri Department of Transportation reported the incident after he stopped to check out the vehicle parked on the shoulder of I-55 and saw McVey unconscious inside. The scene is near Carondelet Park.

Police don't have any suspects or released any information about a possible motive in the killing. The death is classified as a homicide.

Family and friends have added to a CrimeStoppers award to offer a total of up to $10,000 for a tip that leads to the arrest of McVey's killer. Authorities asked tipsters to call CrimeStoppers at 1-866-371-8477. Callers can remain anonymous.

Family mourning

"We're just devastated," said McVey's brother, Hugh McVey. "We're just trying to wrap our heads around it. We don't know what happened."

As Hugh McVey spoke to a reporter by telephone Thursday, he said detectives were there at his home in St. Charles talking with the family.

Patrick McVey lived in the 10400 block of Jade Forest Drive in unincorporated south St. Louis County.

He was an owner of Maggie OBriens Restaurant & Irish Pub, just west of Union Station downtown. McVey co-owned the restaurant, open since 1979, with his brother Eddie.

Several people streaming out of the Blues game at nearby Scottrade Center expressed disappointment Wednesday night when they found the restaurant closed.

Someone inside said the business had closed about 9 p.m. It is normally open until 3 a.m. after Blues games.

The bar has seen tragedy before. A bartender was killed in a botched robbery in 2009 that also saw one of the robbers accidentally shot and killed by one of his accomplices.

The surviving robber, a lookout and a bar employee who helped plot the crime were all sentenced to prison time in 2011.

Kim Bell of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
JEFFERSON CITY  Missouris next governor, Republican Eric Greitens, launched his post-election transition with a visit to the Capitol building on Thursday, meeting with Gov. Jay Nixon and Senate GOP leaders.

In a statement, Nixon said he congratulated Greitens during a productive meeting, and that the two shared the same goal of a smooth transition to a new administration.

We had an open, constructive discussion, and I provided him with my perspective as a two-term Governor and as someone who has been in public service to the State for 30 years, Nixon said.

Greitens, a Navy SEAL who has never held elective office, told the Post-Dispatch the meeting was excellent.

I want to thank Gov. Nixon for his service to the state of Missouri, Greitens said. I look forward to his assistance during the transition. The most important thing we can do is to ensure a smooth transition so our government continues to serve the people of Missouri well.

Greitens handily won the gubernatorial election Tuesday as part of a broad GOP sweep across the ticket. He ran as a political outsider, dismissing politics as usual and vowing to clean up corruption in Jefferson City.

Legislative leaders have largely dismissed those comments as campaign trail rhetoric and say it hasnt resulted in bad blood among members of their caucuses.

Im not corrupt so I am not worried about it, Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard said Thursday.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, House Speaker Todd Richardson said he instead expected a strong, productive working relationship with the new chief executive, saying he didnt think House Republicans could count themselves among the career politicians Greitens has criticized.

Theres been nobody in the Missouri House that has served here for more than six years. Each of us ran on a platform of change and taking the state in a new direction, said Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff.

I think Eric has expressed a desire to work with this caucus. I think hes been sincere in that, Richardson added. Hes expressed a desire personally to work with me and I know hes extended that same offer to the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Gina Walsh, D-Bellefontaine Neighbors, said she didnt expect anything said during the election to affect how the Democratic caucus would work with the new administration.

I think a lot of things are said and done on the campaign trail that to me are purely rhetoric, Walsh said.

Richardson said hed been in touch with Greitens but hadnt sat down with him yet. On Thursday, Greitens addressed Senate Republicans for about 10 minutes in a closed-door meeting, then joined leaders for a lunch of Chik-fil-A sandwiches in the Senate leaders office.

After the meeting, Greitens said he was excited to work with Republicans, who hold super majorities in both chambers.
Kirkwood resident David Woytowitz, 48, voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 and again in 2012. Tuesday, he cast his ballot for Donald Trump.

Hes had enough of so-called career politicians and corruption that he said follows, and hes ready for a nonpolitician at the helm of the country.

Missouri voters, who recently have leaned more heavily to the right in presidential elections, made it clear this week that they agree.

Im absolutely delighted that our candidate, the one that weve voted for all along, won, St. Charles resident Chuck MacNab, co-chairman of the conservative group the Missouri Patriot, said Wednesday.

MacNab said his group is hosting its regular meeting this weekend at OFallon Plaza to celebrate the victory, but also to talk about how to bring that national momentum to the local level, particularly when it comes to taxes, he said.

He, like many voters on both sides of the political aisle, was unsure his candidate was going to pull it off. The confidence rolled in Tuesday when states such as Florida went red, he said.

Im not particularly disturbed by the kind of election it was, MacNab said. People have the right to say whats on their mind even if others dont think its appropriate. Thats all part of a vibrant democracy which I hope we still have.

Republican U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Harrisonville, isnt worried about keeping that vibrant democracy. In fact, she is convinced things are about to get good. Actually, great.

I am excited to get started making America great again, she said, referencing Trumps campaign slogan. It will be amazing to work with a president who will actually sign legislation we send him.

Hartzler, who represents a large swath of central and western Missouri, has been a fan of Trump from the start of his campaign. She told the Post-Dispatch that Republicans in the U.S. House had a conference call Wednesday afternoon with leaders who will meet soon with Trump to work on a joint agenda.

Roger Alford, an OFallon, Mo., resident, stayed up late to watch the returns come in, feeling similarly uncertain for part of the night.

Issues surrounding so-called religious liberties, along with Trumps plans on fixing law and order are among the reasons that Alford supported the Republican nominee. His frustration with the establishment helped, too.

As a man, he has some rough edges, but Im not voting for a Sunday school teacher  I want somebody to get the country back on track, Alford said.
Eds: Updates with more from Trump-Obama meeting. With AP Photos.

The Latest: Trump looks forward to dealing with Obama

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on the U.S. presidential transition (all times EST):

12:45 p.m.

President-elect Donald Trump says he "very much looks forward" to dealing with President Barack Obama in the future.

Trump was meeting with Obama Thursday in the Oval Office. He called the meeting a "great honor."

Trump noted that he and Obama haven't met each other before. Their meeting lasted well over an hour.

___

12:40 p.m.

President Barack Obama has met with President-elect Donald Trump at the White House. Obama said that they had an "excellent" and "wide-ranging" conversation.

Obama met with Trump in the Oval Office for more than an hour to discuss the transition of power.

Obama said he was encouraged by Trump's wanting to work with his team on issues facing the country. He said it's important for all "to now come together."

Later, Trump will go to Capitol Hill to talk with congressional leaders about the Republicans' legislative agenda for next year.

__
So my question is, if the department is defunded, and low pay continues, what will happen the next time the police are desperately needed and only a handful of them are available?
ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) will hold an Analyst and Investor Meeting today to outline the companys strategy and discuss several planned actions for accelerating the companys value proposition of a strong balance sheet, growing dividend and disciplined growth. These actions include an initial $3 billion share repurchase program and the initiation of a $5 to $8 billion divestiture program, which will focus primarily on North American natural gas. The company will also provide details on its 2017 operating plan, which further reduces capital expenditures and adjusted operating costs compared with 2016, while delivering modest production growth.

During the past two years, we have significantly transformed ConocoPhillips to succeed in a lower, more volatile price environment. Weve lowered the capital intensity and breakeven price of the company, lowered the cost of supply of our investment portfolio, and created strategic flexibility for future price cycles, said Ryan Lance, chairman and chief executive officer. We believe our plan offers a differentiated strategy within the E&P sector that is focused on free cash flow generation and improving returns to shareholders. We have positioned ConocoPhillips to deliver double-digit shareholder returns across a range of commodity prices through a combination of peer-leading shareholder distributions and high-return investments.

The acceleration actions weve announced today will allow us to achieve our value proposition priorities at Brent prices of about $50 per barrel, added Lance. These priorities include a debt target of $20 billion, a 20 to 30 percent payout of operating cash flows to shareholders, and modest production growth to drive margin and cash flow expansion. In setting out these priorities, our goal is to have strong resilience to low commodity prices with the ability to capture upside during periods of higher prices.

The companys 2017 operating plan includes capital expenditures guidance of $5 billion, a decrease of 4 percent compared with 2016 guidance of $5.2 billion and more than 50 percent lower than 2015 capital expenditures and investments of $10.1 billion. Spending in 2017 will focus primarily on flexible unconventional development programs in the Lower 48, conventional projects in Europe, Asia Pacific and Alaska, and base asset maintenance. Approximately $0.6 billion is included for exploration, which is primarily focused on unconventionals, appraisal of the Barossa discovery, and the closeout of deepwater Gulf of Mexico and Nova Scotia drilling obligations.

Full-year 2017 production is expected to be 1,540 to 1,570 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (MBOED), which results in flat to 2 percent growth compared with expected full-year 2016 production of approximately 1,540 MBOED when adjusted for 2016 expected dispositions. Growth is expected to come primarily from ramp up at APLNG in Australia, Surmont 2 in Canada and Kebabangan in Malaysia, as well as increased activity in the Lower 48 unconventionals, partly offset by normal field decline. The companys production outlook excludes Libya.

The company continues to achieve cost reductions across the business. Guidance for 2017 production and operating expenses is approximately $5.2 billion, which results in adjusted operating cost guidance of $6 billion, a 9 percent improvement compared with 2016 adjusted operating cost guidance.

We believe our company offers one of the most unique value propositions in the E&P sector, said Lance. Weve reset virtually every aspect of the business  our capital program, our cost structure and our portfolio  during the recent industry downturn. Now, were in a differential position to generate free cash flow as prices recover and we implement our clear priorities for allocating available cash. In a future of volatile prices, we can demonstrate that our disciplined, returns-focused approach will deliver strong performance for all our stakeholders.

ConocoPhillips Analyst and Investor Meeting will begin at 9 a.m. EST in New York City. A live webcast of the meeting will be made available on the ConocoPhillips Investor Relations site, www.conocophillips.com/investor.
IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT) today announced a strategic investment in Cornerstone Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a privately-held biotechnology company. IDT and a group of "A list" co-investors invested $10 million for a minority interest in the company, adding to a prior investment by IDT's Chairman, Howard Jonas. Under the investment agreements, IDT has board representation, and IDT and its co-investors have the right to acquire a majority interest in Cornerstone.

"Cornerstone Pharmaceuticals, with its impressive pipeline of oncology drugs, exemplifies the promise of the biotech sector, and we are proud to support the company's ground-breaking work," said Howard Jonas, IDT Chairman. "We view Cornerstone as a wise investment, as its success to date has been nothing short of remarkable. The company's lead compound, CPI-613, has generated encouraging preliminary results in early-stage trials in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and T-cell lymphoma. Those results have helped to attract an unmatched group of personnel, scientific advisors, investors and board members, strengthening Cornerstone's position as the company charts its path forward."

Biotechnology is an extremely well-positioned industry sector for growth and return. Annual global growth in the oncology drug market is expected to be 7.5  10.5 percent through 2020, reaching $150 billion. (IMS Health Data on file) IDT has long viewed the biotechnology sector as an attractive target for strategic investment, particularly in the area of oncology drug development, where numerous research initiatives are investigating agents with the potential to transform anticancer treatment. IDT's co-investors include:

The Abramson Family Foundation : The foundation supports the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute and Abramson Cancer Center, a world leader in cancer research, patient care, and education. The Center's preeminent position is reflected in its exceptional merit rating by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and continuous designation as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the NCI since 1973, one of 41 such Centers in the United States.

: The foundation supports the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute and Abramson Cancer Center, a world leader in cancer research, patient care, and education. The Center's preeminent position is reflected in its exceptional merit rating by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and continuous designation as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the NCI since 1973, one of 41 such Centers in the United States. Chetrit Brothers : The Chetrit brothers are highly disciplined and successful investors, focused primarily on real estate. Their holdings have at various times included buildings such as the Willis Tower and Sony building.

: The Chetrit brothers are highly disciplined and successful investors, focused primarily on real estate. Their holdings have at various times included buildings such as the Willis Tower and Sony building. Michael Steinhardt : Legendary hedge fund manager, financier, investor, newspaper publisher, and philanthropist; founded Steinhardt, Fine, Berkowitz & Co. in 1967.

: Legendary hedge fund manager, financier, investor, newspaper publisher, and philanthropist; founded Steinhardt, Fine, Berkowitz & Co. in 1967. Mortimer Zuckerman: Co-founder, executive chairman and former CEO of Boston Properties, one of the largest real estate investment trusts in the United States. Mr. Zuckerman is also the owner and publisher of the New York Daily News and the U.S. News & World Report, where he serves as editor-in-chief. He formerly owned The Atlantic and Fast Company. He also established the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University which is creating the most comprehensive brain science institute in the world.

"The science driving Cornerstone Pharmaceuticals has always been robustly innovative. Now, it is building the leadership and personnel necessary to deliver new cancer therapies to patients," said Chi Van Dang, MD, PhD, Director of the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, who has agreed to chair Cornerstone's Scientific Advisory Board. "Supported by committed investors, the passion and dedication of Cornerstone's scientists and senior management will surely enhance our understanding of cancer cell metabolism as a therapeutic target for a host of innovative drug compounds, especially CPI-613."
BLYTHE, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- State and local leaders joined executives from NextEra Energy Resources and its partners to commission the Blythe and McCoy Solar Energy Centers, which created hundreds of construction jobs and will help California meet its renewable energy goals.

"These projects represent a more than $1.2 billion investment in California and a tremendous step forward to help the state meet its renewable energy goals," said Armando Pimentel, president and CEO of NextEra Energy Resources, which built and will own and operate the projects. "We are very pleased to bring these solar energy centers online to help serve the state and boost the local economy."

The Blythe and McCoy Solar Energy Centers feature more than 4 million solar panels with trackers that will follow the sun from east to west each day to maximize energy production. Together, they have a generating capacity of 485 megawatts, capable of powering more than 181,000 homes. The energy will serve customers of Southern California Edison and help health care provider Kaiser Permanente become "carbon net positive."

The projects' solar arrays span more than 4,000 acres of land in Riverside County, much of it managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

"The completion of these projects is further proof that America's shift toward clean, renewable energy is underway," said BLM Director Neil Kornze. "In fact, we've seen a threefold increase in wind and a fivefold increase in solar power generation during this Administration. That's a foundation for the future that we should all be proud of."

By using renewable energy from the sun, the projects will avoid approximately 774,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide emissions that would have been produced if the electricity had been generated using fossil fuels.

"California leads the nation in renewable energy and these projects demonstrate that commitment," said California Energy Commissioner Karen Douglas. "They are great examples of renewable energy projects on public lands that are helping us address climate change while respecting the many important values of the desert environment."

The projects have created a significant economic boost for Riverside County and Southern California, creating 1,500 construction jobs since 2014, when the project began. From labor and materials, to housing, health care and construction - a wide variety of local businesses have benefitted from the influx of economic activity.

"California, and Riverside County in particular, is fortunate to have one of the best solar resources in the country," said Riverside County Supervisor John J. Benoit. "These projects are evidence of what we can do when we build strong partnerships to develop renewable energy, protect the environment and create good jobs and long-term benefits for our communities."

NextEra Energy ResourcesNextEra Energy Resources, LLC (together with its affiliated entities, "NextEra Energy Resources"), is a clean energy leader and is one of the largest wholesale generators of electric power in the U.S., with approximately 18,260 megawatts of generating capacity, which includes megawatts associated with noncontrolling interests related to NextEra Energy Partners, LP (NYSE: NEP), primarily in 25 states and Canada as of April 2016. NextEra Energy Resources, together with its affiliated entities, is the world's largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and sun. The business operates clean, emissions-free nuclear power generation facilities in New Hampshire, Iowa and Wisconsin as part of the NextEra Energy nuclear fleet, which is one of the largest in the United States. NextEra Energy Resources, LLC is a subsidiary of Juno Beach, Fla.-based NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE). For more information, visit www.NextEraEnergyResources.com.

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SOURCE NextEra Energy Resources, LLC
NEW YORK and KINGSPORT, Tenn., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- An unwavering emphasis on safety by Eastman (NYSE: EMN) will help transform the curriculum of undergraduate chemical engineering students around the globe, through a collaboration with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and its Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS).

Eastman's support of AIChE's Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative reinforces its established partnership with AIChE. The initiative, which is being led by CCPS, seeks to ensure that all chemical engineering graduates possess a working knowledge of process safety principles  an area of instruction currently underdeveloped in most university undergraduate chemical engineering curricula.

The Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative is a major global effort and a core priority of the AIChE Foundation's "Doing a World of Good" campaign, which focuses on projects that bring chemical engineering expertise to bear for the good of society.

In announcing the news, AIChE Executive Director June Wispelwey thanked Eastman for its generosity and early leadership commitment to the process safety initiative. "Eastman, with its strong, historical commitment to the safe and responsible practice of engineering, is a natural partner in this effort," said Wispelwey, who added, "Eastman's distinguished, global achievements in environmental, health, safety and security performance, along with the company's recognized corporate culture of safety, are evidence of the company's dedication to process safety."

Wispelwey also acknowledged Eastman  a large employer of chemical engineers  for its long-standing representation among AIChE's and CCPS' leadership and programming activities, including Eastman's role as a founding corporate member of CCPS.

In reflecting on the partnership with AIChE, Mark Cox, senior vice president and chief manufacturing, supply chain and engineering officer for Eastman, said, "At Eastman, safety is a core value. We focus on the safety of our people, processes and products, not because we want to reach certain targets or goals, but because we care about the safety and well-being of our employees and the people that we touch through our products." He added, "We are committed to continual assessment and improvement of our processes, and that involves educating our future workforce. We are pleased to be working with AIChE to advance the Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative, and I look forward to the great outcomes of this collaboration."

In explaining the origins of the Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative, AIChE's Wispelwey noted that, despite the progress companies and engineers have made in process safety, corporate leaders and engineers say that they need young engineers who are better trained in process safety when they enter the workforce. Additionally, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology recently enacted standards that require process safety to be a part of the chemical engineering curriculum. Universities, however, have not yet found a way to develop a standardized curriculum to fulfill the new requirement. "That needed training is why CCPS, its industry member companies and AIChE created this initiative and made it part of our 'Doing a World of Good' campaign," Wispelwey concluded.

About EastmanEastman operates sites and offices around the world and produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With a portfolio of specialty businesses, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. Its market-driven approaches take advantage of world-class technology platforms and leading positions in attractive end-markets such as transportation, building and construction, and consumables. Eastman focuses on creating consistent, superior value for all stakeholders. As a globally diverse company, Eastman serves customers in approximately 100 countries and had 2015 revenues of approximately $9.6 billion. The company is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA, and employs approximately 15,000 people around the world. For more information, visit www.eastman.com.

About AIChEAIChE is a professional society of more than 53,000 chemical engineers in 110 countries. Its members work in corporations, universities and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop safe and useful products for the benefit of society. Through its varied programs, AIChE continues to be a focal point for information exchange on the frontiers of chemical engineering research in such areas as energy, sustainability, biological and environmental engineering, nanotechnology, and chemical plant safety and security. More information about AIChE is available at www.aiche.org.

About CCPSCCPS is a not-for-profit corporate membership organization within AIChE that identifies and addresses process safety needs in the chemical, pharmaceutical and petroleum industries. CCPS brings together manufacturers, government agencies, consultants, academics and insurers to lead the way in improving process safety. Members, working in project subcommittees, define and develop useful, time-tested guidelines that have practical applications that run the gamut from human factors to qualitative and quantitative risk analysis to security vulnerability to inherently safer design. With more than 100 publications, CCPS is at the forefront of efforts to improve process safety performance. More information about CCPS is available at www.aiche.org/ccps.

Contact: Jeanette KrebsPhone: (717) 214-2200Email: [email protected]

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SOURCE American Institute of Chemical Engineers
EDINA, Minn., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- With two-thirds of consumers reaching for a mobile device to search for homes, Minnesota-based Edina Realty spent the last 18+ months creating a responsive website that delivers a consistent experience across all devices  smartphone, tablet and desktop. The new website is located at www.edinarealty.com. Edinarealty.com is the most popular real estate brokerage website in the region (Hitwise 2015) with more than 13 million visits in 2015. Combined, the company's website, mobile website and mobile apps attracted more than 32 million visits last year  an increase of 29 percent overall from the previous year.

Consumers can also now search for homes according to school attendance zones and view school ratings, reviews and data powered by SchoolDigger, directly on edinarealty.com. The company's new website runs on Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform and includes community market statistics presented alongside each listing, powered by Onboard Informatics, as well as county property data, sold information and more. The site also features a large interactive map of Minnesota with drawing tool for consumers to easily customize their search parameters.

In addition to a comprehensive home search, edinarealty.com offers a rich library of articles about home buying, selling, owning and more. Topics range from insights about what to do if your tree falls in your neighbor's yard to whether a car lease can affect your ability to get financing for a home. New articles are posted frequently so that topics remain fresh, current and relevant to today's consumers' questions and issues.

While many companies have gravitated to responsive website designs, it's difficult for a real estate company to deliver this experience, due to the sheer number of pages, photos and data integration required. Additionally, many smaller residential real estate brokerages lack the resources necessary to create and maintain a robust website.

Edina Realty did have a mobile website; however, it presented a more limited experience to those seeking to buy or sell their home. The company's new, responsive website presents a more integrated, robust experience, regardless of the device it is viewed on. Edina Realty will continue to offer its mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

Traffic on Edina Realty's mobile site increased by 100 percent in 2015 versus 2014 and visits to its mobile apps also increased 18 percent, while desktop traffic declined slightly. "Minnesota home buyers and sellers want immediate access to customized information about real estate," said Greg Mason, president and CEO of Edina Realty Home Services. "Smartphones have become so ubiquitous, we had to take a serious look at the changing demographics, usage patterns, what consumers want and how they prefer to access information about homes."

The 2016 National Association of REALTORS Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends reports that 71 percent of millennial buyers search for homes through a mobile app or website; in contrast, 64 percent of Gen X; 46 percent of baby boomers; and 26 percent of the silent generation use mobile apps for websites. Despite these trends, 49 percent of consumers said online content was not displayed properly on their smartphones, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center report.

"The modernized edinarealty.com features a search that allows consumers to easily select criteria that is important to them, such as a fireplace, two-car garage or 55-plus living community, right from tiles on the homepage," explained Mason.

To design and develop its new site, Edina Realty worked in partnership with RBA, an award-winning national digital and technology consultancy based in Minneapolis. The teams worked collaboratively to identify key user experience and design objectives to ensure visitors to the site would get the information they need and have an optimized experience on any device. Additionally, by architecting the solution within the cloud, the site is equipped for future growth to allow easy scalability as website traffic fluctuates. "By bringing Edina Realty's website in-house, we can adapt the site to our clients' changing preferences and reduce the time it takes to introduce innovative online tools to the market," said Mason.

The new responsive website features one-touch access to speak with an agent or a local customer care representative.

For more information on Edina Realty's new website, visit www.edinarealty.com or call Edina Realty customer care at 952-928-5563.

Edina Realty is a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate and a wholly-owned subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc. It is one of the nation's largest real estate companies with more than 75 real estate offices and 2,350 REALTORS throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Edina Realty's family of companies includes Edina Realty, Edina Realty Title, Edina Realty Insurance and Edina Realty Mortgage. Edina Realty closed more than 32,000 real estate transactions and more than $8 billion in sales volume for 2015. For more information, visit www.edinarealty.com, m.edinarealty.com, or find us on Facebook: facebook.com/EdinaRealty; and Twitter: Twitter.com/Edina_Realty.

About RBA

RBA is a national digital and technology consultancy headquartered in Minneapolis that combines expertise in strategy, design and technology to close the gap between ideas and results. We are passionate about helping our clients transform their businesses through digital and technology solutions. Visit rbaconsulting.com or follow @rbaconsulting.

About Onboard

Onboard Informatics is a leader in data-driven consumer engagement. Founded in 2002, Onboard has information on all 150 million US properties and the areas surrounding them. Clients use that content to engage their consumers and convert that interest into sales.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/edina-realtys-new-website-allows-minnesota-consumers-to-search-for-homes-by-lifestyle-features-and-school-attendance-zones-from-any-device-300360850.html

SOURCE Edina Realty
RIO DE JANEIRO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Fitch Ratings expects to assign an 'A+(bra)' Long-term National Rating to Sul America S.A.'s (SASA) third issuance of simple, unsecured and non-convertible debentures.

KEY RATING DRIVERS

The expected rating of the fourth debenture issuance is one notch below SASA's Long-term National Rating and equivalent to the existing rating of the first and third debenture issuance. As per Fitch's rating criteria, the one-notch difference reflects the typical notching in a ring-fenced regulatory environment where the baseline recovery is 'below average'. The final rating is contingent upon the receipt of final documents conforming to the information already received.

According to the proposal, the fourth debenture issuance will total a minimum of BRL350 million and a maximum of BRL500 million to be realized in two tranches. The first tranche will expire in three years and the second in five years. Coupons will be paid semi-annually. The principal of the first tranche will be paid at maturity, while the principal of the second tranche will be paid in three equal instalments from the third year onwards. The coupon rates will be determined at the time of the issuance, but will not exceed 114.5% of the interbank deposit rate (CDI) for the first tranche and 116.0% of CDI for the second tranche.

The proceeds will be used to strengthen the company's liquidity levels and general corporate purposes.

In September 2016, financial leverage (debt/equity) and interest coverage ratio (operating income/interest expense on debt) were adequate, at 18.9% and 7.7x, respectively. The extent of the increase in these ratios will depend on the final issuance amount; however, both should decline in the first half of 2017 due to the amortization of the principals of the first (February 2017) and third debenture issuances (May 2017). According the Fitch, the company's forecast that the financial leverage will fall below 25% from February 2017 onwards is plausible, and the interest coverage ratios should stay above 3.0x.

The affirmation of SASA's ratings reflects the resilience of its technical results and other credit metrics to the ongoing economic downturn in Brazil, its strong and stable franchise led by a significant presence in the health and auto segments, adequate liquidity and capitalization, and robust risk management practices.

RATING SENSITIVITIES

In case of an additional downgrade to Brazil's sovereign ratings, SASA's Issuer-Default Ratings (IDRs) would be subject to a review that could result in a range of rating actions from affirmation to a two notch downgrade, based on Fitch's insurance rating criteria, which allows flexibility on how sovereign considerations are factored into insurance rating notching. The ultimate decision would be driven by the rationale for the sovereign rating action and Fitch's view of how this impacts SASA's operating environment, investment risk and overall creditworthiness.

In addition, a sustained and material deterioration in profitability, the deterioration of the liabilities/equity ratio to above 5.0x; an increase in the financial leverage to above 25% for a sustained period; a fall in the interest coverage ratio to below 3.0x; or a significant reduction in the holding's liquidity, could negatively affect the ratings of SASA and its debt issuances.

Fitch currently rates SASA as follows:

--Long-term Foreign and Local Currency IDRs 'BB-'; Outlook Negative;

--Short-Term Foreign and Local Currency IDRs 'B';

--National Long-term Rating 'AA-(bra)'; Outlook Negative;

--National Short-term Rating 'F1+(bra)';

--National Long-term Rating of first and third debenture issuances 'A+(bra)'.

Date of Relevant Rating Committee: November 7, 2016

Additional information is available on www.fitchratings.com

Applicable Criteria

Insurance Rating Methodology (pub. 15 Sep 2016)

https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/887191

National Scale Ratings Criteria (pub. 30 Oct 2013)

https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/720082

Additional Disclosures

Solicitation Status

https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=1014638

Endorsement Policy

https://www.fitchratings.com/regulatory

ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTPS://WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEB SITE AT WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA, AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE, AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE CODE OF CONDUCT SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Fitch Ratings, Inc., Fitch Ratings Ltd. and its subsidiaries. 33 Whitehall Street, NY, NY 10004. Telephone: 1-800-753-4824, (212) 908-0500. Fax: (212) 480-4435. Reproduction or retransmission in whole or in part is prohibited except by permission. All rights reserved. In issuing and maintaining its ratings and in making other reports (including forecast information), Fitch relies on factual information it receives from issuers and underwriters and from other sources Fitch believes to be credible. Fitch conducts a reasonable investigation of the factual information relied upon by it in accordance with its ratings methodology, and obtains reasonable verification of that information from independent sources, to the extent such sources are available for a given security or in a given jurisdiction. The manner of Fitch's factual investigation and the scope of the third-party verification it obtains will vary depending on the nature of the rated security and its issuer, the requirements and practices in the jurisdiction in which the rated security is offered and sold and/or the issuer is located, the availability and nature of relevant public information, access to the management of the issuer and its advisers, the availability of pre-existing third-party verifications such as audit reports, agreed-upon procedures letters, appraisals, actuarial reports, engineering reports, legal opinions and other reports provided by third parties, the availability of independent and competent third- party verification sources with respect to the particular security or in the particular jurisdiction of the issuer, and a variety of other factors. Users of Fitch's ratings and reports should understand that neither an enhanced factual investigation nor any third-party verification can ensure that all of the information Fitch relies on in connection with a rating or a report will be accurate and complete. Ultimately, the issuer and its advisers are responsible for the accuracy of the information they provide to Fitch and to the market in offering documents and other reports. In issuing its ratings and its reports, Fitch must rely on the work of experts, including independent auditors with respect to financial statements and attorneys with respect to legal and tax matters. Further, ratings and forecasts of financial and other information are inherently forward-looking and embody assumptions and predictions about future events that by their nature cannot be verified as facts. As a result, despite any verification of current facts, ratings and forecasts can be affected by future events or conditions that were not anticipated at the time a rating or forecast was issued or affirmed.

The information in this report is provided "as is" without any representation or warranty of any kind, and Fitch does not represent or warrant that the report or any of its contents will meet any of the requirements of a recipient of the report. A Fitch rating is an opinion as to the creditworthiness of a security. This opinion and reports made by Fitch are based on established criteria and methodologies that Fitch is continuously evaluating and updating. Therefore, ratings and reports are the collective work product of Fitch and no individual, or group of individuals, is solely responsible for a rating or a report. The rating does not address the risk of loss due to risks other than credit risk, unless such risk is specifically mentioned. Fitch is not engaged in the offer or sale of any security. All Fitch reports have shared authorship. Individuals identified in a Fitch report were involved in, but are not solely responsible for, the opinions stated therein. The individuals are named for contact purposes only. A report providing a Fitch rating is neither a prospectus nor a substitute for the information assembled, verified and presented to investors by the issuer and its agents in connection with the sale of the securities. Ratings may be changed or withdrawn at any time for any reason in the sole discretion of Fitch. Fitch does not provide investment advice of any sort. Ratings are not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Ratings do not comment on the adequacy of market price, the suitability of any security for a particular investor, or the tax-exempt nature or taxability of payments made in respect to any security. Fitch receives fees from issuers, insurers, guarantors, other obligors, and underwriters for rating securities. Such fees generally vary from US$1,000 to US$750,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent) per issue. In certain cases, Fitch will rate all or a number of issues issued by a particular issuer, or insured or guaranteed by a particular insurer or guarantor, for a single annual fee. Such fees are expected to vary from US$10,000 to US$1,500,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent). The assignment, publication, or dissemination of a rating by Fitch shall not constitute a consent by Fitch to use its name as an expert in connection with any registration statement filed under the United States securities laws, the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 of the United Kingdom, or the securities laws of any particular jurisdiction. Due to the relative efficiency of electronic publishing and distribution, Fitch research may be available to electronic subscribers up to three days earlier than to print subscribers.

For Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea only: Fitch Australia Pty Ltd holds an Australian financial services license (AFS license no. 337123) which authorizes it to provide credit ratings to wholesale clients only. Credit ratings information published by Fitch is not intended to be used by persons who are retail clients within the meaning of the Corporations Act 2001

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006482/en/

Fitch Ratings

Primary Analyst

Esin Celasun

Director

+55-21-4503-2626

Fitch Ratings Brasil Ltda.

Praca XV de Novembro, 20 - 401 B,

Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

or

Secondary Analyst

Rodrigo Salas

Senior Director

+56-2-2499-3309

or

Committee Chairperson

Eduardo Recinos

Senior Director

+ 503 2516-6606

or

Media Relations:

Elizabeth Fogerty, +1-212-908-0526

[email protected]

Source: Fitch Ratings
DALLAS, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In a recently released letter ruling (LR IT-2016-01), the Georgia Department of Revenue ("Department") informed a taxpayer that it cannot use the Quality Jobs Tax Credits (QJTCs) carryforward of an acquired business. The Department explained that unlike other Georgia income tax credits, the QJTC statute, O.C.G.A. section 48-7-40.17, does not contain a provision that allows unused income tax credits to be transferred or continued by a transferee.

The taxpayer had acquired a business that had applied and qualified for the Georgia QJTC and the Georgia Jobs Tax Credits (JTCs). Because all of the taxpayer's payroll-related activates were performed by a sister company, the taxpayer requested a ruling regarding the credits.

Although the QJTCs created by the acquired business did not transfer, the fact that the taxpayer used a related entity for payroll-related activities did not prevent the taxpayer from taking advantage of any newly created QJTCs. Further, the taxpayer was allowed to use the acquired business' JTC carryforward, provided the taxpayer maintained the jobs and met all other applicable requirements in law and regulation.

About RyanRyan is an award-winning global tax services firm, with the largest indirect and property tax practices in North America and the seventh largest corporate tax practice in the United States. With global headquarters in Dallas, Texas, the Firm provides a comprehensive range of state, local, federal, and international tax advisory and consulting services on a multi-jurisdictional basis, including audit defense, tax recovery, credits and incentives, tax process improvement and automation, tax appeals, tax compliance, and strategic planning. Ryan is a five-time recipient of the International Service Excellence Award from the Customer Service Institute of America (CSIA) for its commitment to world-class client service. Empowered by the dynamic myRyan work environment, which is widely recognized as the most innovative in the tax services industry, Ryan's multi-disciplinary team of more than 2,100 professionals and associates serves over 12,000 clients in more than 40 countries, including many of the world's most prominent Global 5000 companies. More information about Ryan can be found at ryan.com.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160125/325377LOGO

TECHNICAL INFORMATION CONTACT:

Allea NewboldPrincipalRyan813.228.7100[email protected]

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/georgias-quality-jobs-income-tax-credits-do-not-transfer-300360243.html

SOURCE Ryan
TORONTO, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- An international report released today by the Canadian Cancer Society shows that 105 countries and territories have required picture health warnings on cigarette packages. This significant milestone in global public health will reduce smoking and save lives.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437702

The report  Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report  ranks 205 countries and territories on the size of their health warnings on cigarette packages, and lists countries and territories that require graphic picture warnings.

The report also shows a significant global momentum toward plain packaging with 4 countries requiring plain packs and 14 working on it.

"There is a powerful worldwide trend for countries to use graphic pictures on cigarette packages to show the devastating health effects of smoking, and to require plain packaging," says Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst, Canadian Cancer Society.

Examples of graphic picture warnings include a diseased lung or mouth, a patient with lung cancer in a hospital bed and a child being exposed to secondhand smoke. The report also shows that many countries have increased the size of picture warnings on cigarette packages. These larger pictures are known to be more effective.

Cigarette package warnings are a highly cost-effective way to increase awareness of the negative health effects of smoking and to reduce tobacco use. Picture-based warnings convey a more powerful message than a text-only warning, and larger ones increase impact.

Guidelines under the international tobacco treaty  the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)  recommend that warnings should:

be as large as is achievable

include a rotated series of graphic pictures

be at the top of both the front and back of packages.

Picture warnings are especially valuable for low- and middle-income countries where there are higher rates of illiteracy and where governments may have few resources. Health departments determine the content of warnings, and the tobacco industry is responsible for printing the warnings on packages.

Guidelines under the treaty also recommend that countries consider implementing plain packaging. Plain packaging includes health warnings on packages, but prohibits tobacco company branding, such as colours, logos and design elements, and requires the brand portion of each package to be the same colour, such as an unattractive brown. The brand name would still appear in a standard font size, style and location. The package format is standardized. Plain packaging puts an end to packaging being used for product promotion, increases the effectiveness of package warnings, curbs package deception and decreases tobacco use.

Plain packaging has been required in Australia (effective in 2012), the United Kingdom and France (effective May 20, 2016, at the manufacturer level) and Hungary (effective in 2018). The 14 countries working on plain packaging are: New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, Canada, Slovenia, Uruguay, Thailand, Singapore, Belgium, Romania, Turkey, Finland, Chile and South Africa.

"The international momentum for picture warnings and plain packaging is all the more impressive given the strong opposition from the tobacco industry," says Cunningham. "If picture warnings and plain packaging are not effective at reducing smoking, then why is the tobacco industry opposed? The fact that more than 100 countries and territories have implemented picture health warnings and that so many are moving toward plain packaging shows that the worldwide trend is unstoppable."

Other report highlights include:

105 countries and territories have finalized picture warning requirements, an increase from the 77 that had implemented these requirements by the end of 2014. In 2001, Canada was the first country to require picture warnings and to require a 50% size.

58% of the world's population is covered by the 105 countries and territories that have finalized picture warning requirements.

Nepal has the largest warnings in the world with picture warnings covering 90% of the package front and back. Vanuatu will also require 90% picture warnings in 2017. India and Thailand have the next largest warnings at 85% of the front and back.

94 countries and territories require warnings to cover at least 50% of the package front and back (on average), up from 60 countries in 2014 and 24 in 2008.

The implementation by most European Union (EU) countries of the new EU requirement for 65% picture warnings was an important development contributing to the increase since 2014 in the number of countries requiring picture warnings.

The top countries ranked by warning size as an average of the front and back of the package are:

1. 90% Nepal1. 90% Vanuatu3. 85% Thailand3. 85% India5. 82.5% Australia (75% front, 90% back)6. 80% Sri Lanka6. 80% Uruguay8. 75% Brunei8. 75% Canada8. 75% Laos8. 75% Myanmar

(In this list, the warning size is the same on the front and back, except in Australia).

The Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report was released today in Delhi, India, at the 7th session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), being held November 712. The report is intended to support implementation of the FCTC. The FCTC has an obligation for parties to require health warnings that "should be 50% or more of the principal display areas but shall be no less than 30% of the display areas" and may be in the form of, or include, picture warnings. There are now 180 countries that are parties to the FCTC.

This is the 5th Canadian Cancer Society international report on cigarette package health warnings. Previous reports were published in 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014.

Cigarette Package Health Warnings report in EnglishCigarette Package Health Warnings report in French

About the Canadian Cancer SocietyThe Canadian Cancer Society is a national, community-based organization of volunteers whose mission is to eradicate cancer and enhance the quality of life of people living with cancer. Thanks to our donors and volunteers, the Society has the most impact, against the most cancers, in the most communities in Canada. For more information, visit cancer.ca or call our toll-free bilingual Cancer Information Service at 1-888-939-3333 (TTY 1-866-786-3934).

Contact: Rob Cunningham, Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian Cancer Society, Phone: +1-613-762-4624 (mobile), Email: [email protected]; Rosie Hales, Communications Specialist, Canadian Cancer Society, Phone: +1-416-934-5338, Email: [email protected]

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/more-than-100-countries-and-territories-require-graphic-picture-warnings-on-cigarette-packages-says-international-report-300360256.html

SOURCE Canadian Cancer Society
ADEN (Reuters) - Arab coalition forces killed six al Qaeda militants and arrested four others during a raid in southern Yemen on Tuesday, residents and a security official said.

The raid took place at a village west of the city of Mukalla on the Arabian Sea, the Yemeni security official told Reuters.

The Arab coalition was formed early in 2015 to fight Yemen's Iran-allied Houthi group after it took control of the capital Sanaa and forced the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee into exile.

Its mostly Gulf Arab members are also now battling Islamist militants in Yemen, including al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Taking advantage of Yemen's 20-month-old conflict, several hundred al Qaeda fighters have seized swathes of territory in rural and tribal areas of the impoverished country.

(Reporting by Mohamed Mukhashaf; Writing by Tom Finn; Editing by Gareth Jones)
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's defense ministry has signed a 21.8-million euro ($23.75 million) contract with Sofia-based company Aviostart for the supply of 10 Russian engines for its aging fleet of Russian MiG-29 jet fighters, it said on Thursday.

The deal includes the supply of four new and six repaired engines. The first two engines will be delivered by the end of next April, the ministry said, adding that the deal will ensure the operations of the Black Sea country's air forces.

"Bulgaria has nine operational aircraft at the moment and the deal, which was signed on Wednesday, would allow this number to rise to 14," the defense ministry spokesman said.

Last year Bulgaria signed an agreement with NATO ally Poland to repair six MiG-29 fighter jets, part of a push by the Balkan country to reduce its reliance on Russia.

The ministry signed the deal with Aviostart after failing to attract any other offers which were qualified to supply it with the Russian-made engines, which must be certified by Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG.

Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said Bulgaria is holding talks with Russia to overhaul the aging MiG-29 fleet at Bulgaria's state-owned military plant Avionams.

The Balkan country is also planning to buy eight new or second-hand fighter jets next year to help to revamp its air force and improve its compliance with NATO standards.

(Reporting by Angel Krasimirov; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
China's President Xi Jinping waves as he arrives at a news conference after the closing of G20 Summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, September 5, 2016. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

By Michael Martina

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will seek support for a Beijing-led Asia-Pacific free trade area at a regional summit in Peru later this month, Chinese officials said on Thursday, after Donald Trump's U.S. election win dashed hopes for a U.S.-led free trade pact.

During his election campaign Trump took a protectionist stance on trade issues and labeled the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) championed by President Barack Obama a "disaster". There is now little chance of it coming up for vote in Washington before his inauguration in January.

Obama had framed TPP, which excluded China, as an effort to write Asia's trade rules before Beijing could, establishing U.S. economic leadership in the region as part of his "pivot to Asia".

Briefing journalists ahead of President Xi Jinping's departure for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru from Nov. 19-20, China's Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong warned of the rise of protectionism and said the region needed a free trade agreement as soon as possible.

"Trade and investment protectionism is rearing its head, and Asia-Pacific faces insufficient momentum for internal growth, and difficulties in advancing reforms," Li said.

"China believes we should set a new and very practical working plan, to positively respond to the expectations of industry, and sustain momentum and establish a free trade area in Asia-Pacific at an early date," Li said.

Aside from Peru, Xi will also make state visits to Chile and Ecuador during a week-long trip to Latin America. Peru and Chile are both party to the now endangered TPP.

China has proposed the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which some observers see as competitors to the TPP.

Li said Xi's attendance showed China's "confidence in promoting the FTAAP process".

"China is always positively advancing work on its own regional free-trade strategy. We, indeed, are continuously and positively advancing RCEP negotiations," China's deputy international trade representative Zhang Xiangchen told the briefing.

RCEP groups the 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations plus China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, but not the United States.

Beijing had feared the United States would use the TPP to either force it to open markets by signing up or else to isolate it from other regional economies.

Some see the demise of the TPP as an opportunity emerging for Beijing from Trump's surprise victory, which also brings greater uncertainty for U.S.-China relations and the regional balance of power.

Ruan Zongze, a former Chinese diplomat now with the China Institute of International Studies, said the TPP would be the "first casualty" of Trump's election.

Since China isn't in that bloc, we don't have anything to lose," Ruan said.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Additional reporting by Sue-Lin Wong; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
elizabeth warren

Sen. Elizabeth Warren extended an olive branch to President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday, offering to work with him on middle-class issues where the real-estate mogul rejected traditional Republican Party orthodoxy.

"When his goal is to increase the economic security of middle-class families, then count me in," Warren said in a speech to the AFL-CIO on Thursday.

She added: "I will push aside our differences, and I will work with him to achieve that goal. I offer to work as hard as I can and to pull in as many people as I can into this effort. If Trump is ready to go on rebuilding American economic security for millions of families, then I am ready."

Warren empathized with many Trump supporters, arguing that millions of voters backed Trump "despite the hate" often on display at campaign rallies, saying that they "voted for him out of frustration and anger  and out of hope that he would make real change in this country."

In her remarks on Thursday, Warren also said Trump does not have the small-government mandate House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell want to push through Congress.

Warren, the populist liberal firebrand, said the Republican Party establishment was "rejected by their own primary voters, rejected during the campaign, and rejected in Tuesday's election." She said Trump won because working families were simply "disgusted by a Washington that works for the rich and powerful and leaves everyone else behind."

Warren also said Trump wooed voters by addressing their fears about economic anxiety, including the high cost of college tuition, the advantages large corporations have in crafting trade deals, and the influence of lobbying in Washington.

"President-elect Trump spoke to these issues," Warren said. "Republican elites hated him for it. But he didn't care."

She added:

"He criticized Wall Street's big money and their dominance in Washington  straight up. He supported a new Glass-Steagall bill. He spoke against the need for reform of our trade deals so they aren't the raw deal for the American people. He said he would not cut Social Security benefits. He talked about the need to address the rising cost of college and about helping working parents with the high cost of child care. He spoke of the urgency of rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and putting people back to work. He spoke to the very real sense that millions of Americans have that their government and their economy has abandoned them. And he promised to rebuild this economy for working people."

Story continues

Throughout the presidential campaign, Trump occasionally broke with hardline fiscal Republican orthodoxy on issues like international trade and Social Security reform, though in the past he called the program a "Ponzi scheme."

Trump

The Massachusetts senator wasn't the first Democrat to offer to work with Trump on issues.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom Trump often praised for his more skeptical views on international trade deals, released a statement on Wednesday pledging to work with the president-elect on improving middle-class financial stability.

Despite her pledge to work with Trump, Warren was still highly critical of Trump on certain areas. She also promised to hold the president-elect accountable for his at-times inflammatory rhetoric, which was often aimed at the Massachusetts senator herself.

Warren said the "ugly" campaign was Trump's responsibility, slamming his "toxic stew of hatred and fear" and "statements that undermined core values of our democracy," including Trump's pledge to deport millions of immigrants living in the US illegally and plan to bar all Muslims from the US.

"Now Latino and Muslim-American children are worried about what will happen to their families. LGBT couples are worried that their marriages could be dissolved by a Trump-Pence Supreme Court. Women are worried that access to desperately needed medical services will disappear," Warren said. "Millions of people in this country are worried. And they are right to be worried."

The populist senator pledged to oppose Trump if he deregulates the financial sector and follows through on campaign promises to repeal Obamacare and deport immigrants.

"We will stand up to bigotry. No compromises ever on this one. Bigotry in all its forms," Warren said. "We will fight back against attacks on Latinos, on African-Americans, on women, on Muslims, on immigrants, on disabled Americans  on everyone. Whether Donald Trump sits in a glass tower or sits in the White House, we will not give an inch on this, not now, not ever."

Watch the speech below:

NOW WATCH: 'America has lost': The Philippines president just announced that he's allying with China, wants to talk to Putin





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A member of Libyan forces loyal to eastern commander Khalifa Haftar holds a weapon as he sits on a car in front of the gate at Zueitina oil terminal in Zueitina, west of Benghazi, Libya September 14, 2016. Picture taken September 14, 2016. REUTERS/Esam Om

By Aidan Lewis

TUNIS (Reuters) - Allies of Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, the dominant figure in the divided country's east, have welcomed Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. election, betting on more support for their anti-Islamist stance.

The result could boost pro-Haftar factions with strong ties to Egypt and increasingly to Russia, while diluting Western support for a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli that Haftar and his allies have opposed, analysts say.

Libya splintered into rival political and armed groupings after the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and remains deeply divided between factions based in the east and west that backed rival governments and parliaments.

The leaders of a U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) arrived in Tripoli in March. But they have failed to fully displace the previous administration in Tripoli or win endorsement from power-brokers in the east, who accuse the GNA of being beholden to Islamist-leaning militias.

Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) have been fighting a two-year military campaign against Islamists and other opponents in Benghazi and elsewhere in the east. Many suspect he seeks national power.

Haftar is aligned with the eastern parliament and government, both of which were quick to congratulate Trump on his win.

"I strongly support Trump because of his and the Republicans' resolute and decisive attitudes," said Tarek al-Jaroushi, a member of the parliament whose father commands Haftar's air force. "The Republican Party, which understands the truth about Daesh (Islamic State) and the positions and the victories of the Libyan army, will support us."

A statement from the parliament to Trump said: "We hope for your support  and we call for the lifting of the arms embargo on the Libyan army which is waging a war against terrorism."

Trump's win is likely to result in a retreat of U.S. support for the struggling GNA's leadership, or Presidential Council, said Claudia Gazzini, a Libya analyst at International Crisis Group.

"Up until now it's the U.S. Democratic administration that has been the major cheerleader of the Presidential Council, and the U.S. position on Libya has really dictated the international alignments, at least among Western countries," she said.

That could benefit Haftar, who in September seized control of key oil terminals from a rival faction aligned with the GNA.

REGIONAL POWERS

Change is unlikely in U.S. counter-terrorism policy in Libya, which has included air strikes against Islamic State in its former stronghold of Sirte, said Frederic Wehrey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but shuttle diplomacy and "the follow-on task of rebuilding Libya's government and especially security" could be reduced.

Any lessening of U.S. involvement in Libya could leave regional powers freer to act. In recent years western factions including Islamists have been close to Qatr and Turkey, whilst their eastern rivals have relied on support from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Haftar's allies have also cultivated ties with Russia, which printed banknotes for an eastern breakaway branch of Libya's central bank.

Trends in eastern Libya of "disengagement from party politics, a tightening of control over civil society, over mosques, over journalism" are a reflection of what is happening in Egypt, and close relations between Trump and Sisi could "strongly affect Libya", said Wehrey.

Egypt said its President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was the first international leader to congratulate Trump by telephone. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is ready to repair ties with the U.S. under Trump.

On Facebook, some Libyan supporters of Haftar expressed hope that a Trump victory would lead to a crackdown on Islamists in the region.

Opponents said they would fight to defend the 2011 revolution regardless. In one widely shared post a woman from the western city of Misrata wrote: "They (the LNA) may be supported by Trump, Russia, Sisi, and Haftar, but we still have God with us."

(This version of the story was refiled to correct the spelling of analyst Frederic Wehrey's name)

(Additional reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli in Benghazi and Ahmed Elumami in Tripoli; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
By David Mardiste

TALLINN (Reuters) - Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas lost a parliamentary vote of no confidence vote on Wednesday after his junior coalition partners deserted him, possibly opening up the path for a traditionally pro-Russian party to gain power.

Roivas' leadership has been increasingly under pressure over administrative reform, economic and social policies and appointments of party members to the board of state-owner companies.

Estonia, with 1.3 million people, has been a stanch NATO member, critical of neighboring Russia's annexation of Crimea and strongly supporting maintaining economic sanctions against the Moscow.

Roivas said after the vote, which he lost 63-28, that recent weeks had shown his coalition partners were negotiating behind the back of his center-right Reform Party.

"They have been negotiating to form a different kind of coalition with different kinds of ideas," he told reporters.

The Social Democrat party has begun talks for a possible new coalition with the traditionally pro-Russia Centre Party, local media has said. The party courts Russian speakers in a country where they make up 25 percent of the population.

The ousting of the Centre Party's long-time chairman Edgar Savisaar, who was openly pro- Moscow, has led to the appointment of Rein Ratas as new party chairman - a more moderate figure who has been critical of Russian foreign policy.

The current government was formed in April 2015 with an uneasy alliance between Roivas' Reform Party, Social Democrats, and the conservative-nationalist Pro-Patria and Res Publica Union holding 59 seats in the 101-seat parliament.

On Monday, the Social Democrats and Pro-Patria and Res Publica Union called on the prime minister to resign, saying there was too little trust between the coalition partners and that they wanted the formation of a new majority government.

The main point of tension within the coalition has been over domestic rather than foreign policy.

Previously, most political parties said they would not form a government with the Centre Party while Savisaar was chairman of the Centre Party.

(Reporting by David Mardiste; writing by Alistair Scrutton; Editing by Niklas Pollard)
People make their way next to the headquarters of Bank of Greece in central Athens, Greece, October 30, 2015. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's bank rescue fund said it might call a special shareholder meeting at National Bank of Greece after voting against the appointment of a new chairman.

The rescue fund, known has HFSF, which holds a 40 percent stake in NBG, said in a statement on Wednesday that it might call an extraordinary shareholders meeting on the issue.

"HFSF... is contemplating calling an extraordinary general meeting taking into account that the smooth cooperation between the board of directors of NBG and the controlling shareholder is essential," the fund said.

Last week, NBG's board had voted against HFSF's proposed candidate Dimitris Tsitsiragos, an executive at International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. On Wednesday, NBG reconstituted its board and appointed former deputy central bank governor Panagiotis Thomopoulos as its new chairman.

Under Greece's third international bailout, Athens must 'de-politicize' links between government and its banks, boost board-level expertise and improve corporate governance.

Thomopoulos, a former deputy central bank governor, would replace Louka Katseli, a former economy minister, who resigned last week.

NBG, the country's second largest bank, said the new board would need the approval of the European Central Bank's Single Supervisory Mechanism.

Greece's central bank has urged all parties to come to a compromise to safeguard financial stability.

"The Bank of Greece has exhausted its good advice to all parties concerned," a senior central bank official told Reuters.

(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos. Editing by Jane Merriman)
A Red Crescent member runs amidst dust after a strike on the rebel held besieged city of Douma, in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

(Reuters) - Russia's military will continue the existing practice of arranging ceasefires, or so-called "humanitarian pauses" in Syria, Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Thursday.

(Writing by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Vladimir Soldatkin)
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia's cabinet on Wednesday approved draft amendments to the criminal code envisaging harsher sentences for people-smuggling, a move aimed at stanching the flow of illegal migrants, Tanjug news agency reported.

West European and Balkan countries have been considering how to respond if a European Union deal with Turkey that has significantly reduced a migrant influx into the EU this year collapses.

In 2015 hundreds of thousands of refugees mainly from the Middle East and Asia swept northward through non-EU Balkan states like Serbia bound for Western Europe, prompting countries along the route to erect border barriers.

But some migrants continue to trickle in from the south and more than 6,500 are now trapped in Serbia.

Under the draft amendments, anyone convicted of organized people-trafficking within Serbia will face jail terms of up to 15 years, up from the previous 12, Tanjug quoted senior Justice Ministry aide Radomir Ilic as saying.

There will also be jail sentences of up to eight years for assisting in illegal crossings of Serbia's borders, up from previous legal maximum of five years.

Parliament is expected to debate and enact the amendments next week.

"It is important not only to catch cross-border people smugglers, but to deter any attempt of local population from taking part," Ilic told Tanjug.

Serbian authorities blame people traffickers for much of the migrant influx. Since the beginning of this year, they have prevented over 5,000 illegal border crossings and charged over 350 suspected people smugglers.

(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
By Warren Strobel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A September U.S. air strike in Somalia killed local militia forces and not al Shabaab militants as the Pentagon had initially believed, the U.S. military acknowledged in a draft statement obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

The Sept. 28 strike in Somalia's Galkayo area killed 10 fighters and wounded three, the statement said. No civilian casualties were caused by the strike, it said.

Somalia's government had asked the United States to explain the strike, which it said had been conducted against forces of the semi-autonomous, northern region of Galmudug.

The errant strike illustrated the perils of Washington's efforts to battle al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-aligned group, by working with armed Somali factions that are often feuding.

Shabaab has been responsible for numerous attacks, including the September 2013 siege of Kenya's Westgate shopping mall that left at least 67 dead.

The day after the Sept. 28 U.S. strike in Somalia, officials in Galmudug accused a rival region, Puntland, of duping the United States into believing members of its security forces were in fact Islamist rebels.

An al Shabaab spokesman told Reuters at the time it did not have any fighters in the area of the strike.

The draft statement by the U.S. military's Africa Command said the air strike was carried out at the request of Puntland Security Forces "and our own assessment of the situation."

A PSF-led patrol had come under attack by a group of armed fighters and in response, "the U.S. conducted a self-defense strike to neutralize the threat, killing 10 armed fighters and wounding three others," the statement said.

A review of the strike, which began Oct. 4, determined that "The armed fighters were initially believed to be al-Shabaab but with further review it was determined they were local militia forces," it said.

"Operating under legal authorities, U.S. forces lawfully utilized self-defense to support the PSF in response to hostile actions conducted by the armed group against a partnered force," the review concluded. "No U.S. forces were killed or injured as a result of this incident."

(Editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)
A United Auto Workers union member wears a shirt with 'UAW United We Stand' on it during a ceremony where members of UAW Local 600 unfurled a banner to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the historic "Battle of the OverPass" in Dearborn, Michigan, U.S. M

By Timothy Aeppel and Daniel Wiessner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Unions in the United States face sweeping changes to labor law and regulations under a new Republican administration that is expected to tilt policy toward employers.

Republicans will take control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress in Tuesdays elections, after unions failed to deliver key industrial states to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Clinton's loss could have wide-ranging consequences for unions. Donald Trump and a Republican-led Senate will likely pick the next justice for the Supreme Court, which often hears labor-related cases.

I think its going to be a very difficult period, said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who said he was surprised by the election outcome despite knocking on doors and talking to members in several states.

Among his concerns, he listed a Supreme Court case this year in which public-sector unions scored a victory related to funding organized labor  but only because the court deadlocked 4-4. The appointment of a new conservative judge by Trump to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia could change that.

Republican nominees will control the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which under Democratic President Barack Obama has sought to make it easier for unions to organize. The NLRB is pursuing litigation to establish that McDonald's Corp is a "joint employer" of workers at its franchised restaurants, a determination that could compel the company to bargain with unions representing employees of its independent franchisees.

Republicans will control federal agencies that govern the formation of unions, overtime rules and more.

For example, in September the Obama administration finalized an executive order requiring federal contractors to provide sick leave to workers, as well as rules expanding the types of data employers are required to provide on pay. A separate Labor Department rule expanding which employees are eligible for overtime pay is scheduled to take effect next month.

Those actions drew criticism from business groups, and all could be reversed under a Trump administration.

We dont have a firewall now, said Tom Buffenbarger, a prior president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers who campaigned for Clinton.

Trump has expressed support for so-called right-to-work legislation, which allows workers to avoid paying union dues. Republican leaders in Congress have consistently sought such a change at the national level. Labor unions say such laws are aimed at undermining collective bargaining and workers rights.

William Gould, chair of the NLRB under Democratic President Bill Clinton and now a professor at Stanford Law School, said on Wednesday that Trump was likely to partner with Congress in dismantling a host of administration labor initiatives from Obama.

Republicans regard unions as first amongst fair game because of their support for Clinton, he said.

Steven Bernstein, a partner at law firm Fisher Phillips, which represents employers, said the Trump administration and Congress may also target recent NLRB rulings that allowed workers to picket on private property, expanded the type of worker activity protected by federal labor law and gave graduate students the right to unionize.

It's also fair to assume that Trump will be inclined to repeal a host of executive orders supporting unions," particularly rules that apply to federal contracts, Bernstein said in a statement.

Organized labor is a key Democratic constituency  contributing everything from volunteers to votes for Democratic candidates. Trump nonetheless carried union-heavy states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and even Michigan, home to the United Auto Workers (UAW).

In Ohio, for example, a Fox exit poll said Trump won 52 percent of union workers. An exit poll from ABC News suggested Clinton got no advantage among union households, even after Obama won those voters by 23 percentage points. (http://abcn.ws/2eUMxpx) (http://fxn.ws/2eULxS8)

David Lephart, a 58-year-old UAW pipefitter at a General Motors Co plant in Marion, Indiana, voted for Trump. He earns about $100,000 a year, with overtime, he says, and has put both of his kids through college.

He said union leaders pressed hard for members to support Clinton, but the union has nOt kept its promises to workers in recent years. I dont have a tendency to believe what you tell me  when you havent fulfilled the promises youve made, he said.

UAW President Dennis Williams in a statement on Wednesday said, "we have high hopes that elected officials heard the American people loud and clear about trade, jobs, education and the inequality in this country."

(Writing by Luciana Lopez in Miami; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Joseph White and Jonathan Oatis)
1. Name and Address of Reporting Person * HALL THOMAS S (Last) (First) (Middle) C/O ADEPTUS HEALTH INC. 2941 LAKE VISTA DRIVE (Street) LEWISVILLE TX 75067 (City) (State) (Zip)

2. Issuer Name and Ticker or Trading Symbol

Adeptus Health Inc. [ ADPT ]
Construction of Toy Story Land has begun at Shanghai Disneyland, the giant theme park and resort that opened in mainland China in June. The land will be the seventh at the park and is set to open in 2018.

The announcement comes at a time when there has been public speculation about the resort missing its visitor targets.

Disney said that building Toy Story Land is part of the accelerated expansion plan for the first phase of the theme park. A previous acceleration meant that the park opened later that first anticipated and above budget  but also larger from day one.

Neither Disney not partner Shanghai Shendi disclosed the investment cost of Toy Story Land. Nor did they publish an up to date visitor tally.

We couldnt be more pleased with Shanghai Disneylands first four months of operation and couldnt be more excited about our future in mainland China, said Bob Chapek, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts in a statement. Were demonstrating our confidence by breaking ground on a new Toy Story Land that will be both authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese.

Since its opening in June this year, Shanghai Disneylands operation has run smoothly and our guests have been very enthusiastic. We have received positive feedback from the entire society  all of which makes us excited about the future, said Fan Xiping, chairman of Shanghai Shendi

Characters and stories from the Toy Story franchise have strongly resonated with Chinese guests, the companies said. The current park already has a Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue attraction, a guest favorite which features the most advanced Buzz Lightyear targeting system at any Disney Park in the world, and it includes the only Toy Story-themed resort hotel in the world.

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Against all odds, in defiance of the pundits, with little help from his own party, with the media stacked against him, and Hillary Clinton casting him as incompetent and worse, Donald Trump has surprised the world by becoming the president-elect in one of the foulest elections in U.S. history.

Trump challenged convention from the start, vanquishing 16 GOP primary rivals with insults and bullying, paying little heed to party niceties or normal campaign dogma, counting on his celebrity and message to stir the country. And stir it he did, even as the Clinton camp threw everything at him and out-raised Trump by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Related: Charting The 2016 Election

Trump had this going for him: an electorate that was angry. Angry about job losses and stagnant incomes, angry about suffocating political correctness and the condescension of the elites who had brought about the policies that many thought had weakened the nation. Trump called out leaders in both parties for their indifference to the struggles of middle-class America, and middle-class America leaned in.

He also had this going for him: Hillary Clinton. Clinton matched Trump as one of the most disliked and distrusted candidates ever to run for president. But to voters, Clinton was something worse  a symbol of the status quo. For the 64 percent of the country who believed the United States was headed in the wrong direction, she had nothing to offer.

Clinton promised four more years of Obamas presidency but rarely does the country want 12 years of anything. Even though Obamas popularity has recovered from the slump that cost Democrats the Senate in 2014 as he heads out the door, his accomplishments are thin on the ground. He would be hard-pressed to argue that electing Hillary was critical to completing an important unfinished agenda.

Though Obama tried. He took to the campaign trail with enthusiasm and with his wife, Michelle, and Vice President Joe Biden and a swirl of celebrities  Cher, Lady Gaga, Bon Jovi, Le Bron, Jay-Z and Beyonce  but nothing could hide the poverty of Hillarys message.

Story continues

Related: Dow Futures Dive 500 Points on Possible Trump Victory

She shifted left to outplay little old Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old Socialist from Vermont who had served decades in the Senate without causing a ripple. It was a sign of Clintons erratic beliefs. She painted herself into a corner, adopting progressive programs like free college that raised eyebrows and would have raised deficits. She also promised to raise taxes on corporations, which even Bernie might question, given that sluggish business investment has been one of the weak links in the economys recovery.

Though Hillary still had pull with billionaire donors and raised over a billion dollars to fund her campaign, she struggled with most other constituencies. She could not excite Sanders soldiers  those idealistic young millennials who supported Obama. They appeared unmoved that they might elect the first woman president when that woman had been feeding at the political trough longer than most had been alive.

She did not connect with blacks to the extent that Obama had, which was not her fault. She did win a high percentage of the Latino vote, but Trump helped with that. At the end, despite the huge machine behind her, Hillary simply came up short. Being subject to an FBI investigation did not help.

Trump nearly lost it, multiple times. Instead of riding some good will and good press after the conventions, he engaged in a negative exchange with the Kahns, parents of a fallen soldier who had launched an ad hominem attack on Trump. He persisted in debating them in the court of public opinion and lost.

Related: Latest Obamacare Headache: Long Stays in Virtual Waiting Rooms

He similarly became mired in a row with a judge of Mexican heritage whom he accused of being biased against him. He also got into a Twitter war with a former beauty queen who slammed him for calling her fat, and worse. And, of course, he was heard on a decade-old tape crudely boasting of sexual exploits that to many sounded like assault.

Throughout, his campaign managers tried to keep their candidate focused on telling supporters what they needed to hear. They wanted him to explain how he was going to Make America Great Again, not create personal vendettas against all comers. It was a herculean task that felled two managers before Kellyanne Conway miraculously appeared, and somehow reined him in.

Now he is the president-elect, and much of the country still wants to know how he will Drain the Swamp and Make America Great Again. His campaign organization is limited, which is a polite description, and he has an enormous amount of work to do. He has to mend fences with Republicans in Congress who did not support him, though he will struggle to shake off the personal rebukes that occurred during the past several months. But, if he wants to succeed, he will do so. He needs to assemble a team and cabinet that will convince the country he is capable of governing.

He has laid out an ambitious program of tasks  like overhauling Obamacare  to be undertaken right away. How magical it would be for the country if he could follow through, and quickly organize Congress to repeal and replace the unpopular Affordable Care Act. An accomplishment of that scale might set the stage for another surprise from this ever-surprising candidate: a successful presidency.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Practical budget, says chamber official By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s):

The business community has said the budget was a very practical one and was pleased that most of their proposals were accepted by Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayaka.National Chamber of Commerce Senior Deputy President and Atlas Logistics Managing Director Sujeeva Samaraweera told a Business Times post budget discussion conducted through skype yesterday that most of the proposals submitted by the chamber were looked into and noted the government efforts to focus on labour development.

Mr. Samaraweera observed that the 5-day work week was a welcome move since it would save extra costs as nothing productive happens during a 6-day work week.The development focus on the Small and Medium Enterprises was an encouraging sign, he noted adding that they did require the necessary support for funding and technical assistance which the government could provide.Moreover, the development of the rural economy he believed would assist the national economy but pointed out that the government needs to address issues pertaining to the establishment of an initiative similar to the 100 garment factories programme in the past.

Going by the work put into the presentation of the budget, he noted that now the business sector should make full use of the facilities made available and work for the economic growth of the country.The air and sea hub operation in Hambantota was noteworthy, he said adding that this should be a cargo operation for Mattala airport and position the ports of Colombo, Hambantota and Galle according to each ones importance and commended the bunkering operations being mooted for the Southern port.Commenting on the taxes, he noted that the VAT being re-instated allowed for breathing ground for the business sector.

owever, Mr. Samaraweera noted that it would take at least one and half years for these proposals to get off the ground and how fast it would be implemented by the state establishments depends on their efficiency.He noted that the bureaucracy within the establishments was such that there should be clarity as to how the measures mooted should be implemented.

Walk the talk

Meanwhile BT reporter Raj Moorthy, who along with BT journalists took part in the discussion quoted Mr. Samaraweera as saying, We dont want the government to stop any of the infrastructure development that were carried out by the previous regime or developments have already started after the new government came into place.

On SME development, he said SME development is our forefront and the SME industries need to be supported a lot.

He also mentioned that in the budget proposals the government has looked into the rubber and coconut development while agriculture was also recognised, which is a positive impact. The budget also addressed issues on the rural economy, he added.

As an initiative of investmen t promotion, building a centre to support Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) was a dire need and the budget included this proposal, he noted. But from an entrepreneur point of view he said that while its very practical to put everything together on a piece of paper, its time to walk the talk now and make use of the facilities available.

The Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport has to be made into a very productive area of doing business than lying as a white elephant. The Hambantota Port could be used as a point of repairing ships and storing goods considering the shipping routes in south Sri Lanka while the Galle Port is turning into a tourism port, he stated.

He also said that the government spent a lot of time on the 100-day programme and the elections while stating that now its the time to start working. He concluded his remarks stating that the 2016 Budget proposals were made with the intent of a long term perspective

.
The inaugural meeting of the new Western Bay of Plenty District Council is being held in Te Puke.

Items on the agenda include the inauguration of the new mayor and councillors.

The meeting will begin with a powhiri, before moving on to the inaugurations. Elected members will then have their legislative obligations explained.

This will be followed by the appointment of the deputy mayor.

Committees will then be established, along with their chairs and deputy chairs. Councillors will also be appointed to community boards.

The meeting is being held at the Te Puke War Memorial Hall at 1.30pm.

SunLive will publish full coverage of the meeting later this afternoon.
The new Western Bay of Plenty District Council has been sworn in this afternoon.

The ceremony and inaugural meeting took place at the Te Puke Memorial Hall.

The meeting began with a traditional powhiri, in which councillors and guests were welcomed in from the hall steps.

Once inside, they were seated: men in the front, women in back, marae-style. Representatives of local hapu then spoke in Te Reo, welcoming the new councillors and community board members into the area.

This was followed by the singing of hymns, in Maori.

The half-hour powhiri ended with a mass hongi between hapu members and incoming councillors, before refreshments were served.

After a short break, council CEO Miriam Taris declared Garry Webber the mayor and placed the ceremonial chains around his neck.

Garry then delivered his inaugural speech, in which he said he believed democracy has delivered a solid team of councillors. He also spoke of taking the Western bay from good to great.

Exemplary community engagement must be, and will be, part of this councils everyday activity, he said, as he spelled out his vision as mayor.

He briefly discussed economic cycles, calling the GFC more like Halloween than grandmas apple pie. This was intended as a warning that, while we are currently in a boom period, financial prudence should be maintained.

We must be nimble and quick-thinking.

The incoming councillors then took their individual declarations, before sitting down to the first meeting.

Item one on the agenda was the appointment of the deputy mayor, which went to Councillor Mike Williams.

Councillors were subsequently appointed to community boards.

The new WBOP council.
Due to the success of The Real Opotiki exhibition at Toi Tu Studio One in Auckland, Opotiki art will continue its tour of the country with an exhibition in Tauranga this month.

The exhibition will be on display to the public for only for a short period in the Goddard Arcade just off Devonport Road and will kick off with a special opening ceremony on Friday evening.

The exhibition is a collection of art created by 21 new and emerging artists with strong connections to the Opotiki district.

Opotiki District Councillor Lyn Riesterer, who has helped bring the exhibition from concept to reality, says the first show on Ponsonby Road was very popular and provided momentum to roll out what is becoming a tour of other New Zealand cities.

Auckland was a fantastic celebration of Opotikis nationally and internationally recognised artists and some incredibly talented emerging artists. We had a great response so we decided to pick up on that momentum and roll the exhibition out to other towns and cities.

It is a two-fold win for us as it showcases the talent of Opotiki and is also a fundraiser for Te Tahuhu o te Rangi, the community space, research centre and library planned for the district.

Artists are sending in their works and preparing to fill the central Tauranga location with artworks from traditional landscapes, sculpture, photography, jewellery, Maori Pihe Pihe and hand-woven kete.

Fellow councillor and organising committee member Shona Browne says shes particularly pleased to see Auckland was just the beginning for The Real Opotiki.

We are starting to consider ourselves a travelling exhibition as we have invitations from other cities around New Zealand.

The Real Opotiki is a great way to showcase our fantastic art and artists up and down the country and raise funds for a valuable community project at the same time.

The artists whose works appears in the exhibition are Te Mete, Sofia Minson, Roka Cameron, Tangimoe Clay, Anna Gedson, Andrew McLeod, Jamie Boynton, Anthonee Fermanis, David Poole, Bev Vellenweth, Dot Wilson, Fiona Kerr Gedson, Gina Matchitt, James Stanbridge, Katrin Kradelke, Jonathon White, Mark Anstis, Yvette van Raders, Horteera Riri, Tom Hume and Marilynn Webb.

The Real Opotiki exhibition will be on display to the public in the Goddard Arcade just off Devonport Road from Saturday, November 12 to Sunday, November 20. For more information visit the Opotiki District Council website at: www.odc.govt.nz
A woman spraying weeds on a farm in the Bay of Plenty is now in hospital after falling down a steep bank.

The Tauranga-based Trustpower TECT Rescue Helicopter was dispatched to a farm near Mamaku yesterday to fly the 68-year-old woman to Rotorua Hospital.

Base manager and pilot Liam Brettkelly says the 68-year-old woman received lower leg injuries as a result of the fall.

She was treated at the scene by St John ambulance medics before being flown to Rotorua hospital for treatment.

The helicopter was used because of difficult access to the patient.
Its been years since theres been a major marina development in Bermuda and this is the largest thats ever taken place, explains Ralph Richardson, CEO of Caroline Bay Marina. This will be the first time there will be a multi-facilty for superyachts, well be able to take about 30 to 40 superyachts at our site and were really excited.

Bermuda is set to step into the global spotlight, but with such a small land space set atop an ancient volcano, the focus is naturally on life by the water.

We are actually putting it on the map, adds Chris Christensen, Principal and Director of Caroline Bay Marina. Were really helping to reposition Bermuda working with the tourism authority with the view of becoming a real high-end destination and thats what were becoming now.

Caroline Bay, our peninsula intersects the Great Sound, and the Great Sound is where the Americas Cup races will take place --- so matter where you are youre in proximity to see it."

The attraction for superyacht owners to Caroline Bay is filled with amenities, facilties and the unparalleled access to Bermuda, however, with perks such as private ringside seats to the Americas Cup in 2017, the excuses to visit keep piling up.

We have charted a vessel, concludes Ralph, a 157 foot spectator vessel, which will have a dedicated space - one of fifty on the race course  there are no other spaces available and all of those coming to our marina will join us on our spectator vessel to enjoy the experience with us.

Watch the full video above to learn more about the lifestyle available in Caroline Bay and the new destination that will attract superyacht owners from across America, and around the world.
By Sonya Dowsett and Sarah White

MADRID, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Political paralysis persists in Spain 10 days into the new minority government's mandate as it has been unable even to convene urgent cross-party talks on a budget for next year.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's People's Party (PP) and opposition newcomer Ciudadanos have yet to set a date on when to start talks on spending plans, even before presenting the draft for approval from a largely hostile parliament.

The laboured process of negotiating an initial draft, which could see the parliamentary vote on the budget delayed until January, shows how sclerotic policy-making has become in Spain's new era of fragmented government.

"What you're seeing with the budget is emblematic of the kinds of difficulties in passing legislation that we expect to see going forward," said Sarah Carlson, Senior Vice President of credit ratings agency Moody's.

"The process of being able to assemble a majority of parliamentarians in order to be able to get pieces of legislation through - even something that happens on a recurrent basis like the budget - is going to be that much more difficult with a minority government."

Usually, the government's annual spending limit is decided in July for the following year and the budget presented to parliament for approval in September. The months of delays could mean a loss of face for Spain, which only just escaped a fine from the European Commission this year for missing its 2015 deficit target, and has overshot it on other occasions.

Spain took 10 months to establish a government after two inconclusive general elections and several unsuccessful attempts to form a coalition in a country where the traditional bi-party system was shattered by new political parties that rose to appeal to a recession-battered electorate.

Rajoy received parliamentary approval for a second term on Oct. 29 thanks to the support of market-friendly Ciudadanos's 32 votes, but has the weakest mandate in Spain's modern history.

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He is seven votes short of an absolute majority in the 350-strong Congress, meaning he must scrabble for approval from other opposition parties to push legislation through parliament. This is a far cry from Rajoy's previous term where he easily passed laws thanks to an absolute majority.

The opposition Socialist PSOE and anti-austerity Podemos parties have said they are likely to vote against the PP-proposed spending plans.

Spain's revised budget plan for 2017 will be a key part of efforts to convince Brussels it is doing enough to shrink the deficit.

The government needs to trim the deficit from a projected 3.6 percent of output next year to the 3.1 percent agreed with the European Commission to avoid fines or a freeze on funds it receives from the European Union.

It has already been granted another two years to bring the gap within the EU's recommended goal of below 3 percent of economic output.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Donald Trump acknowledges supporters during election night. :: AFP Spanish PM congratulates Trump amid left-wing criticism Spains recently installed prime minister, Mariano Rajoy sent a message of congratulations to Donald Trump on Wednesday after the US presidential election result was announced. Rajoy tweeted: My congratulations to Donald Trump on his victory. We will keep working to strengthen our ties with the US, an indispensable partner. The new foreign secretary in Madrid, Alfonso Dastis, said he was surprised by the result but welcomed a new face in Washington to deal with, adding that he felt that Trump would be forced to moderate his position from the electoral campaign once in power. Meanwhile, voices on the left of Spains political spectrum expressed their concern and criticised Rajoys reaction. Leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias said that Trump was a nasty piece of workand blasted Rajoy for his servile message to the US president elect. Susana Diaz, Socialist president of Andalucia said that the victory was a threat to social harmony.

The Costa del Sols American community had to wait until the early hours of Wednesday morning to get the news that Donald Trump had won the US presidential election. With at least a six-hour time difference (depending on the state) it wasnt until the sun was coming up over the Mediterranean that he was confirmed as the 45th President of the United States.

Some, like 87-year-old Marty Margueles, who lives in Nerja, were not surprised. To be honest I was half expecting it since Brexit, says Marty, who is the Artistic Director for the Nerja Players and divides his time between his house in Nerja and family in the US.

Although it would seem that, for most of the around 2,000 Americans living in Malaga province, Trumps victory is not welcome, for some it means a positive change. I am delighted to congratulate Trump on this decisive and historic result, said Rosella Parmiter, president of the Malaga chapter of the American Club of the Costa del Sol and 2016 president of the Costa del Sol clubs.

A common view among US citizens here is that, like Brexit, Trumps victory was a protest vote against the current political climate, concern over Syria and the migrant crisis as well as domestic tensions.

As Noni Schuemer-Lowrance, who has lived in Nerja for 16 years, puts it, This is a win for populism: nativism, racism and isolationism. The populism we see in the Western developed countries is dangerous.

However, David Kylen, president of the Fuengirola, Mijas and Los Boliches chapter of the American Club reflects the views of many: Trump has no experience in government. He dominates and is unprepared for the presidency. As a former politics teacher, Kylen has some insight into politics in his native country.

A surprise for many

Another common reaction is shock at the idea that so many Americans share the views of their new president. Corey Schuster, who has been living and working in Malaga for eight years says: Im shocked to learn that so many citizens share the same ideas as this man, after everything that the country has achieved during the past decades. Meanwhile, Marty Margueles says that this is the first time in my 87 years that I have been ashamed to be American because of all the people that voted for Trump.

Brian Justice, from Florida and a resident in Malaga for around 10 years believes that although in the short term things are going to get a lot worse, he says that in the long term, people will react and this will bring about good change.

Americans now have four years to decide whether Trump is fit to be president or not. Hillary Clinton said in her concession speech: We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.
Thorsten Dirks speaks during the welcome night at the world's biggest computer and software fair CeBit in Hanover, Germany, March 14, 2016. REUTERS/Nigel Treblin

BERLIN (Reuters) - Telefonica Deutschland's O2Dn.DE chief executive called for a debate about data privacy in Germany and said he was looking into ways to monetise customer data.

"We need to have a wide discussion about data in Germany," Thorsten Dirks told journalists late on Tuesday.

Data privacy is a sensitive issue in Germany due to memories of Communist East Germany's Stasi secret police and the Nazi era Gestapo.

As a testament to that the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information ordered Facebook FB.O in September to stop collecting and storing data on German users of its messaging app WhatsApp and to delete all data that had already been forwarded to it. (Full Story)

"People are right to scrutinize any attempt to make money off their data. At the same time they are a handing over data voluntarily to companies such as Google and Facebook," Dirks said, adding that he saw a double standard among consumers.

As Germany's biggest telecoms operator in terms of customers, Telefonica Deutschland is sitting on a trove of data that Dirks said could be used for general purposes.

It could for instance use anonymised data on its 44 million mobile subscribers' movements for crowd and traffic control as well as "many other areas that we at the moment cannot think of", Dirks said.

Telefonica Deutschland has created a start-up company called Telefonica Germany NEXT, which will bundle activities in the area of big data and be a vehicle for new initiatives.

Dirks said Telefonica wants to be a platform for all devices connected to the internet, that processes all sorts of data coming from sensors in cars, electronic devices and household apparel.

Telefonica's flirtation with big data comes as telecoms operators are looking for ways to expand their business beyond their infrastructure to avoid becoming so-called "dumb pipes".

At the same time companies such as Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google and Facebook are making money with user data that is provided to them by user on a voluntarily basis.

Telecoms executives in Europe have repeatedly complained that tech companies are stealing away their business while using the data and telecoms infrastructure in which they invested billions of euros.

(Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Maria Sheahan)
Central New York breast cancer research icon Carol M. Baldwin may have an interesting Thanksgiving later this month if all her famous sons are at the dinner table.

Alec Baldwin lamented Donald Trump's win in the presidential election on Twitter. The 58-year-old actor has had fun mocking the billionaire businessman on "Saturday Night Live," but he wasn't laughing Wednesday morning.

"I was taught in college that Americans choose their President like they choose laundry soap, [with] a knee-jerk brand loyalty devoid of reason," Baldwin tweeted. "One thing that is changed forever in this country is the meaning of the word 'Christian' as it applies to politics."

"He's all yours, America. He's all yours."

His youngest brother Stephen Baldwin, meanwhile, is celebrating after months of supporting the president-elect in his Republican campaign.

"Soon the REAL work begins ... to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain!" the former "Celebrity Apprentice" contestant wrote. "Proud to have been a part of such amazing history !!"

But maybe the next family gathering won't be awkward between the politically-divided brothers. Alec Baldwin is already looking ahead.

"1- I think the thing to focus on now is our families," the Emmy winner wrote. "To love those that were put in our lives to care for. Also our respective health. 2- work and faith. The American political system is broken. Walk away from it for a while. As Coriolanus says, 'There is a world elsewhere.'"

Then he offered a prediction: "Theme for 2020: MAKE THE WHITE HOUSE GREAT AGAIN."

Baldwin and NBC have not said how long he'll continue playing Trump on "SNL," but USA Today reports he's expected to continue the role through inauguration in January.
Court icon.jpg

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A New York City man was sentenced to more than five years in prison today for using fake credit cards at Turning Stone Casino and elsewhere.

U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddaby sentenced Craig Alexander, 31, of Brooklyn, to 64 months in prison for credit card fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Alexander was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2004 on a first-degree manslaughter conviction. He drove from New York City to Binghamton for a contract killing and fatally shot the wrong person, according to court records.

A federal jury convicted Alexander in June of the credit card fraud and identity theft charges. He'd used a driver's license and Social Security card of a man who'd lost his wallet while exercising in a park in Queens, according to a sentencing memorandum from Assistant U.S. Attorney Emmet O'Hanlon.

Alexander used the Queens man's identifying information on 28 counterfeit credit cards, which Alexander had with him when he was arrested at the casino in September 2014, O'Hanlon wrote.

The fake credit cards had bank account numbers of people from federal credit unions, court papers said.

Alexander used the fake credit cards to get cash at Turning Stone and to buy iPads at a WalMart in Utica, defrauding his victims out of a total of $10,647, O'Hanlon wrote.
Trooper Struck Highway

New York State Trooper led Almond Upton, 60, of Melrose, Fla., after his arraignment at Chenango Town Justice Court Thursday May 29, 2014. Upton, was charged with first degree murder in Chenango Town Justice Court. (AP Photo/Press & Sun-Bulletin, Kristopher Radder)

(KRISTOPHER RADDER / Staff Photo)

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. - A Florida man convicted of purposely running over and killing a New York State trooper in 2014 will spend the remainder of his life in prison, several media outlets report.

Almond Upton

Almond Upton, 62, of Melrose, Florida, was convicted of first-degree murder over the summer. He was sentenced today to life in prison without parole, reports FOX 40 of Binghamton.

Authorities said Upton intentionally drove his pickup truck 93 mph straight into an on-duty trooper who was conducting a traffic stop along Interstate 81 in Broome County.

Trooper Christopher G. Skinner, 42, was standing outside his marked patrol vehicle around noon on May 29, 2014 conducting a traffic stop just north of Exit 6 between Castle Creek and Chenango Bridge.

Christopher G. Skinner

Upton had already swiped two other vehicles, crossed multiple lanes to target and strike Skinner, killing him, prosecutors said.

Upton then fled the area on foot into a nearby woods. Police said they found him naked around 1 p.m., but said he did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Authorities later testified that Upton admitted to steering into Skinner, telling responding officers "I killed him" when asked if he knew what he had done.

"I believe this was nothing less than an assassination," Judge Joseph Cawley told the Press & Sun-Bulletin of the case.

Reporter Kira Maddox covers crime and safety for Syracuse.com. She can be reached anytime: Email | Facebook | Twitter
Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) said Wednesday that its Chief Operating Officer Adam Bain is leaving the company to pursue new opportunities.

The stock fell more than 3 percent in extended trading.

The social media company also announced that its CFO Anthony Noto will succeed Bain, who will assist with the transition process.

"Since joining Twitter in 2010, Adam has built an amazing team and a global business from the ground up," said CEO Jack Dorsey . "I'm grateful to Adam for everything he's done for Twitter, and for his leadership and friendship over the years. I can't wait to see what he does next!"

Bain tweeted that he was proud of what he has accomplished with his team in his six years at the company and that he has "nothing but love for this unbelievable company & product."

Noto said in a statement that he is "honored by the trust that Jack has placed in" him by naming him COO.





More From CNBC


A view of the exterior of the JP Morgan Chase & Co. corporate headquarters in New York City May 20, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Segar/Files

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Florida man is the latest individual to face criminal charges in connection with what U.S. prosecutors say was an illegal bitcoin exchange owned by an Israeli accused of being behind hacking attacks on companies including JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Ricardo Hill, 38, was arrested last month in Florida and charged in a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan with conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

A federal magistrate granted Hill's release on Thursday on a $75,000 bond following a court appearance in Manhattan, court records show. A lawyer for Hill declined to comment.

Hill, a resident of Brandon, Florida, is one of nine people to face charges following an investigation connected to a data breach that JPMorgan disclosed in 2014 involving records for more than 83 million accounts.

According to court papers, the charges stemmed from Hill's employment as a finance support manager and business development consultant for an unlicensed bitcoin exchange called Coin.mx.

Prosecutors have said Coin.mx was operated by another Florida man, Anthony Murgio, and owned by Gery Shalon, an Israeli accused of orchestrating a massive hacking scheme involving JPMorgan and other companies.

Prosecutors contend Shalon along with another Israeli, Ziv Orenstein, and an American, Joshua Samuel Aaron, ran a criminal enterprise that hacked into a dozen companies' networks, stealing the personal information of over 100 million customers.

While Hill and Murgio were not accused of roles in the hacking offenses, prosecutors said they committed crimes linked to the operation of Coin.mx, which exchanged millions of dollars of the virtual currency bitcoin for customers.

The complaint against Hill said that he and others profited from numerous bitcoin transactions conducted on behalf of victims of schemes involving ransomware, which locks up computer systems and then demands payments to remove the restriction.

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To date, two individuals have pleaded guilty in connection with the Coin.mx case. Murgio and two other men have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to face trial in February.

Shalon and Orenstein pleaded not guilty following their extradition from Israel in June. Aaron is currently in Russia.

The case is U.S. v. Hill, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 16-mj-6437.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York)
The Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre at The University of Cambridge underwent a makeover last month, making it the only institution to house all of three particularly groundbreaking medical scanners.

This medical centre  funded by the Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK  has now been outfitted with a handful of the worlds most powerful magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scanners. Researchers will now be able to see details in the brain as tiny as grains of sand and monitor real-time metabolic changes in cancers and tissues, providing the foundation for pivotal advancements in cancer research.

Professor Ed Bullmore, Head of the Neuroscience Department at Cambridge University describes these new machines as remarkable. We will be able to address clinical issues such as the detailed progression of Parkinsons disease. At the same time, we will be able to address basic issues about the mind. How does the brain develop? How does the adult brain perform its functions? he added.

The Siemens 7T Terra MRI scanner, for example, has a resolution of around 0.5mm, compared to most current devices, which can only see structures that are 2-3mm in size. Dr James Rowe highlighted the consequences of this incredible technological progress. Often, the early stages of diseases of the brain  such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons  occur in very small structures. The early seeds of dementia for example, which are often sown in middle age, have been hidden to earlier types of MRI  until now.

All patients suffering from a particular cancer do not respond equally to general treatments due to genetic differences in the mutations that cause their tumours. It takes time for each treatment to be tested on the patient, during which the tumour may be allowed to grow and spread. The new hyperpolariser at the Wolfson Centre, coupled with DNA sequencing of the tumour and MRI, will hopefully allow researchers to tell if the drug is working within hours. If its working, you continue, if not, you change the treatment, said Professor Kevin Brindle.

Wolfson Centres new medical scanners provide exciting and significant potential for faster diagnosis of dementia and a new age of cancer therapy, with more reliable individually-targeted treatments.
Samsung Electronics this week revealed plans to unveil its flagship Galaxy S8 mobile phone with a new digital assistant powered by AI. The assistant will be based on technology gained with Samsungs recent acquisition of Viv Labs.

The plans call for Samsung to incorporate the AI into its family of electronics and appliances, ranging from mobile devices to wearable technology and home devices.

Rhee Injong, CTO of Samsungs mobile communications business, was one of several executives who briefed Reuters on the plans.

Samsung may delay the introduction of the new phone past the Mobile World Congress in February, pushing the launch to as late as April, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company may add a button on the side of the S8 to launch the AI capabilities, similar to the buttons for launching Siri on Apple devices.

Samsung is excited to begin integrating initial AI capabilities into its future products and we look forward to sharing further details at a later date, a spokesperson said in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by company rep Ashley Wimberly.

Smart Enough?

In the aftermath of the Galaxy Note7 debacle, there is skepticism that Samsungs revelations concerning plans for a digital assistant amount to much more than face-saving hype.

Personally, Im a little wary about Samsungs ability to compete in this space, said Jitesh Ubrani, a senior research analyst at IDC.

Without search and large amounts of user data, it will be quite difficult for Samsung to differentiate their AI from others, he told TechNewsWorld.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others have years of consumer data to build on artificial intelligence platforms that rely on learned user preferences to work in an optimal way, Ubrani noted. Their existing AI technologies include Amazons Alexa, Googles Assistant and Microsofts Cortana.

The proof will be in the pudding as to whether Samsung truly can assemble a new AI digital assistant that can compete, said industry analyst Jeff Kagan.

There are many different versions of AI, he told TechNewsWorld. Some are really advanced and interesting and real. Others are just there to let a company use the term to gain media attention.

The real question is which is Samsungs AI? Kagan asked.

Although Viv Labs is a startup, it is not a babe in the woods when it comes to AI systems. Its founders are Siri developer Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham. The open AI technology they developed for Viv Labs is designed to allow third-party developers to integrate digital assistants using natural language into their apps.

Viv Labs will coordinate closely with Samsung but continue to operate essentially as an independent company.

Major Flameout

The plans come at a critical time for Samsung, which is working to extract itself from one of the biggest debacles in the history of mobile electronics. The company had to recall millions of Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphones due to safety issues. Many phones overheated and some caught fire in dozens of incidents around the world.

The devices were banned from commercial flights amid reports of some spontaneously catching fire on board aircraft. Samsung last week announced that it had collected 85 percent of the recalled devices and said it would be issuing a software upgrade that would limit the power from the unreturned phones batteries to 60 percent.

Working with the U.S. Product Safety Commission, Samsung launched a recall of the defective phones, found a different supplier of lithium-ion batteries, and offered replacements.

However, some of the replacement devices were vulnerable to the same type of random overheating that had occurred in the original phones. Samsung issued a recall of all Note7s, including the replacement phones, and warned its customers to stop using them immediately.

While the recall of Galaxy Note7 phones was ongoing, the company found it necessary to recall another product: top-loading Samsung washing machines sold between 2011 and 2016.

The CPSC last week ordered the recall of 34 different models of Samsung washers  a total of 2.8 million machines  warning that the top of the machines might unexpectedly detach from the chassis, posing a potential risk to users.

There have been 733 reported episodes of strong vibrations or detachment of the tops of the machines and nine reported injuries, including a broken jaw and an injured shoulder.

The recalls were particularly damaging to Samsung, which had enjoyed a reputation of making high-quality products and being responsive to customers.

Samsungs brand reputation has been hurt by the recalls, but consumers will regain trust in the company over the long term, suggested Tuong Nguyen, principal research analyst at Gartner.

I feel there is a little bit of weariness, he told TechNewsWorld, but I think its a short-term impact.
Kordsa Global, composite reinforcement company and manufacturer of industrial nylon and polyester yarn, tire cord fabric, and single end cord, has bagged the Primaniyarta Export Award in Indonesia. The award is given by the Indonesia Ministry of Commerce to the companies that contribute in economic development through their export and trading volume.Kordsa Global received the award from Indonesia President Joko Widodo.

Kordsa Global, composite reinforcement company and manufacturer of industrial nylon and polyester yarn, tire cord fabric, and single end cord, has bagged the Primaniyarta Export Award in Indonesia. The award is given by the Indonesia Ministry of Commerce to the companies that contribute in economic development through their export and trading volume.#

The Indonesian Ministry made a retrospective assessment on the companies' realised trade volume and on their contribution to export in 2015. The companies with the highest export performance were granted the award. The Reinforcer's $106 million export figure in 2015 brought the award.Kordsa Global also received the Export Star of the Year Award in last May. Export Star of the Year Award is given to encourage exporter companies which are seen as the locomotives of Turkish economy. With two biggest export awards both in Indonesia and in Turkey; The Reinforcer has established its strong and stable position in all geographies that the company operates and invests in.Kordsa Global CEO Cenk Alper said, This award is an indicator of the fact that we correctly analyse the market and the customer demand. In 2015, we had increased our current capacity in Indonesia and put our second tire cord and polyester yarn factory into service with an investment of $100 million to meet our customers' demand. In the past months, this new capacity became fully operational and we decided to make an additional investment. In order to meet the high demand to our tire cord that is made from our polyester yarn, we realised an investment of 6,500 tons of additional polyester yarn capacity. These export awards are results of the value we put in market, region and our customers and investors. (GK)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Google is reportedly rolling out virtual reality support for the Chrome browser in January, and it already appears to be a public release.

The technology that is, for now, being called WebVR will first head to the Chrome's beta channel by December this year. The official WebVR will initially ship in 2017 to the Chrome browser for Android before finally heading to the desktop.

This information was confirmed by a Google executive during the W3C Workshop on Web & Virtual Reality held in San Jose last October.

WebVR Technology

For those curious how WebVR works, it allows VR devices such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Google Daydream View VR to access VR content via internet browsers. It is based on a Javascript API that will work on several browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and even Samsung's dedicated internet browser for the Gear VR.

According to Megan Lindsay, Google's WebVR product manager, the public release of the WebVR for Chrome is compatible with the latest WebVR 1.1 spec. Users can simply pop their VR-compatible devices such as the Google Pixel into a VR headset and they could start viewing and interacting with VR contents within web pages instead of installed apps.

Web developers can add VR support to their websites by simply using modules like the WebVR Polyfill and WebVR Samples. To those interested to delve deeper under the WebVR hood, codes are available for the Chromium and Firefox builds online.

Challenges In Developing VR For The Web

Google's next VR-based Chrome release shines light on the on-going initiative to steer WebVR towards a sustained developmental path that could lead to sets of standards and guidelines that will ensure the quality of VR web platforms and contents. It is important to note that the sheer number of internet browser available today makes it challenging to develop WebVR content that will work for all.

So far, stakeholders such as Google, Mozilla, Samsung, Oculus and Microsoft, among others were able to come up with their respective mechanisms that contribute to the standardization in the WebVR platform. For Google, this entailed the Origin Trials Framework, which maintains a framework for exposing experimental flaws in the browser.

WebVR And Google Ecosystem

Google is also reportedly working to ensure that WebVR is seamlessly integrated into the Daydream mobile ecosystem. The company also promised that WebVR-compatible Chrome will support other VR devices such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

During the W3C Workshop on Web & Virtual Reality, Microsoft revealed that its own WebVR technology is currently under development. Even Oculus claims to be in the process of building its own WebVR browser.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Sony's developers in Sweden, China and Japan have been working feverishly on a program called Concept for Android, which was launched last year. Now, their hard work seems to have paid off based on the latest concept build that Sony launched on Nov. 8.

Android Nougat For Sony Xperia

The latest beta builds were built on Android 7.0 Nougat. The first was released last week for the Xperia X Performance and the latest is headed to the Xperia X.

The latest Concept for Android release offers a glimpse of several features that will ultimately form part of the system that will run future Xperia devices. These include Sony's interpretation of new Android functions like multi-window support, notification improvements, along with other key interface tweaks.

Crowdsourcing Android Development

Sony touts that Concept for Android will provide a fresh take on the mobile operating system. It is widely seen as part of the Japanese company's push to revitalize its range of smartphones. Their first build was based on Android Marshmallow and was rolled out for testers who owned the Z3 series.

Sony is also bundling its inTouch community service, which serves as a way for users to send feedback to its developers. This particular feature underscores the fact that the Concept for Android program is also a crowdsourcing tool to determine consumer preference based on real-time usage and feedbacks.

"We believe the age of user experience and development deference is over," Sony said in a blog post. "If you don't like something; a feature or app isn't serving your needs - we want to hear about it, to either make the experience better or remove it entirely and focus on something else."

Fans should also be interested to know that the new Concept for Android build is currently the only Xperia OS that is based on Nougat. Unfortunately, not everyone will have access to it even if you own a compatible Xperia device. It is only being launched in Europe and Sony has not confirmed whether the release will get a wider coverage.

How To Download Concept For Android App

To get the Concept for Android build on your X or X Performance device, just head to the Google Play store and download the Concept Installer app.

Before installing, users should be warned that some features are still experimental so they are likely to encounter bugs and stability issues.

On a side note, it is not yet clear why those who downloaded Marshmallow-based Concept for Android build for the Z3 range cannot just update their systems and this could indicate that future builds will roll out in the same way.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
If you are thinking of purchasing the Android 7.1 Nougat-powered Google Pixel or Google Pixel XL smartphones then we caution that you hold off a bit longer.

The new Google smartphones are both said to offer support for LTE band 4, which is an AWS frequency that is used frequently in North America and South America.

However, several users of the Google Pixel XL and Google Pixel smartphones from both continents are now complaining that the devices are encountering issues with the LTE band 4's connectivity.

So What Exactly Is The Issue?

LTE band 4 is basically the only signal that is available to subscribers in certain regions on some network carriers. Now users in North and South America are complaining that they cannot connect their Pixel smartphone to LTE band 4.

Users have taken to the Google product forum and are sharing their frustration.

"I am using my Pixel XL on Claro PR network, and I've never seen LTE connection on the signal notification bar. I've checked device compatibility with the network and everything checks out. I've tried Network Reset, verified APN, verified Preferred Network. I've also tried it with a different SIM and same issue. Please advise," shared a user.

"I'm having the same problem in Argentina. We have 3 main carriers here, and I tried all of them. For some reason there is ONLY ONE where LTE works and thats "PERSONAL." I have CLARO and it does not get LTE, also tried MOVISTAR and no luck," noted a Pixel user in South America.

While some users are reporting band 4 issues with their Pixel XL or Pixel smartphone, some are not, according to a report from Android Headlines. In the United States, LTE band 4 is deployed by a carrier such as T-Mobile.

Android Police asked users of T-Mobile on Twitter but no one reported any issues with band 4 connectivity. This suggests that the issue is isolated to specific band 4 networks.

What Is Causing This Issue?

At this juncture, it is not clear what is causing the connectivity problem with the new Pixel smartphones.

Some users speculate that it could be a software issue whereas others opine that a problem with the SIM's MCC code may exist. This issue may potentially be causing the Pixel XL or Pixel to block the radio frequencies, which are legal in one's country.

Does Google Know?

A user who was encountering the connectivity issue spoke to a Google Support rep who acknowledged that the company was aware of the issue.

What Will Google Do To Counter the Issue?

Per the representative, Google would roll out an update soon to resolve the problem.

Is There Any Temporary Solution?

Some users have suggested a workaround in the support forums. One needs to navigate to Settings > Cellular Networks and then toggle on the Preferred Network Type option from LTE to GSM and then back to LTE.

This workaround may get the Pixel or Pixel XL smartphone to connect to LTE band 4. This method has reportedly worked for Nexus 6P users in Brazil.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Evil Captain America sure is a great schemer. Since it was revealed that Captain America is now a Hydra sleeper agent (thanks to the power of a cosmic cube essentially rewriting his past), Steve Rogers has worked nonstop to make Hydra great again, all while attempting to keep his goody-two-shoes superhero status intact.

So far he's proven to be painfully efficient at both being evil and pretending to be good. But while he's still mingling in superhero world events, evil Captain America's real goal is to dethrone Red Skull as leader of Hydra then proceed to take over. That quest takes a dramatic turn this week in the latest issue of Captain America: Steve Rogers, where Steve reveals an essential element of his master plan.

Spoilers for Captain America: Steve Rogers #7 below!

Steve and his confidant Dr. Eric Selvig are hard at work going over their Hydra takeover plans in this issue. Eric continually tells Steve that his plans are too crazy to work, only for Steve to reassure Eric that they will.

What are those plans? It essentially boils down to Steve manipulating events (as he's been doing) to have powerful leaders and opposition groups destroy themselves and make an opening for Hydra. That's pretty par for the course when it comes to Hydra, but Steve and Eric are also trying to eliminate Red Skull and control Hydra themselves.

That part is a little trickier considering Red Skull has Professor X's telepathic abilities now, which means he can read Steve and Eric's minds at any time should they be close enough.

So far the two have been able to avoid Red Skull and thus not have their plans revealed, but Eric is convinced that they need help if their plan is ever going to work. Luckily, Steve has just the answer. It's then that Steve opens a door he told Eric never to open. Inside is none other than the very much alive Baron Zemo. Surprise!

If you'll think back to earlier issues of Captain America: Steve Rogers, it appeared that Zemo had died in a plane crash. The last time he was seen was when Steve, Zemo and fellow costumed hero Jack Flag were battling it out on a plane.

Flag managed to knock Zemo out, only for Steve to then reveal his Hydra loyalties and toss Flag out of the plane. Then Steve and Selvig escaped and crashed the plane into a plane, apparently killing Zemo. Obviously that's not what happened and Steve actually rescued Zemo, and is now ready to use the villain as part of his greater plan.

Honestly, Captain America may be way better at being evil than he is being good. There's no telling how long Steve's Hydra brainwashing will stay intact, but it sure makes for an interesting change of pace for a character that has been seen as the moral center of the Marvel universe for decades.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
FINEST KIND CLINIC AND FISHMARKET.... Discussing medicine, culture, and the joys of cooking Pansit.
In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last Nov. 7, Twitter disclosed that Adam Bain, its Chief Operating Officer, is leaving the company.

Bain's Twitter Departure

The SEC filing did not provide specific reason for the departure and the accompanying press release merely stated that Bain will be exploring opportunities elsewhere. Twitter also announced that he will be replaced by Anthony Noto, who is the company's current Chief Financial Officer.

Bain's departure has made quite a stir in the tech and business worlds because his position is charged with Twitter's revenue-generating organizations. He is also well-liked in the company and has been responsible for building Twitter's multi-billion advertising business.

A source inside the company said that Bain has no new job lined up but he promised that he will not work for competitors like Facebook, according to Recode. After a few more weeks at Twitter to assist the transition of responsibilities, he is reportedly going to take time off.

Bain himself explained his resignation in great detail via Twitter posts. After praising Twitter and citing how he believes in it as a product, he also outlined what he has done and his legacy for the company.

"We took the company from $0 to Billions faster than almost anyone's ever done it," Bain posted. "We diversified the business, took it global."

According to him, he will be trying a new venture, which he is excited to reveal in the near future.

Twitter's Revenue Struggle

It is important to note that Twitter has been struggling to monetize the huge microblogging platform recently. In its Q3 report, it stated that its total revenue hit $616 million and that figure could have been weighed down by the huge spending devoted to product development and marketing. The report also included Twitter's plan to let go of 350 employees.

A potential acquisition deal also fizzled out after Salesforce, its largest potential buyer, withdrew from the negotiating table. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, cited that Twitter is not the right fit for his company. Other rumored buyers such as Microsoft, Disney and Alphabet have also lost interest. Twitter's value in the market took a beating since.

Nevertheless, based on its latest earnings report Twitter still managed to outperform expectations. It has also added 4 million users to the 313 million posted in the second quarter of 2016.

The spotlight is now focused on Noto. While Twitter said that he will only take the reins temporarily, he could be staying as the COO for the long haul as the company is purportedly making the hunt for a new CFO a top priority.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Partially paralyzed monkeys that received special brain implants have learned to walk again, thanks to the help of wireless electric signals, a new study revealed.

Led by a team of Swiss neuroscientists, the research demonstrates the first ever brain implant that can restore walking ability in primates, offering hope for a radical kind of therapy for humans.

Mapping Electric Signals

Study lead researcher Gregoire Courtine, a scientist from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, said the report is based on decades of research in rats. When it was applied to primates, the animals reacted the same way.

Courtine and his colleagues first mapped how electric signals are transmitted from the brain to leg muscles in healthy monkeys that walked along a treadmill. They analyzed the lower spine, where brain signals arrive before being transferred to leg muscles.

Afterward, Courtine and his colleagues recreated the electric signals among monkeys with severed spinal cords, focusing on several points in the lower part of the spine.

Paralyzed Monkeys Regain Movement

Researchers explained how it worked: a series of microelectrodes implanted in the brain of the injured monkeys received and decoded the signals that were associated with leg movement.

The electric signals were sent through a wireless device that generated electric pulses in the lower part of the spine. This process reanimated the legs of the monkeys into motion.

For instance, a rhesus macaque fitted with the brain implant recovered leg movements only six days after it was partially paralyzed in a surgical procedure that severed some of its nerves.

"The gait was not perfect, but it was almost like normal walking," said Courtine. "The foot was not dragging and it was fully weight bearing."

Another animal that received more severe damage to the nerves that controlled its right hind leg regained mobility two weeks after the brain implant was fitted, said Courtine. Both monkeys fully recovered in three months.

Potential Therapy For Patients With Spinal Injuries

Experts wonder whether the brain implant can be helpful in the rehabilitation of spinal injury patients whose spinal cords are not completely severed. Some nerve fibers are still intact in these patients' spinal cords, but it is not enough to move their limbs.

Courtine said doing the same research on humans will be much more complex because the brain decoding process will be more complicated.

But theoretically, if the implant reestablishes a link between the brain and the spinal cord, it could help the remaining nerve fibers to strengthen connections. This could ultimately lead to recovery of locomotive functions.

Meanwhile, Courtine is traveling to China and back to Switzerland for clinical trials, which are being conducted at the CHUV University Hospital of Lausanne. The findings of the study are published in the journal Nature.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
With the recent election of Republican candidate Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States, how is the future holding up for American science, especially for NASA?

Although it is difficult to lay down Trump's plans with certainty, an op-ed recently published in Space News provides insight into how a Trump presidency will tackle current and future scientific issues.

During his campaign, Trump has said little about his stance on space exploration, until the final weeks before the election, when former congressman Robert Walker was introduced as his space policy advisor.

"I think the campaign figured out, at one point there, that they actually did need a space policy," said Walker.

Trump's Stance On Space Exploration And Earth Science

Walker, who co-wrote the Space News op-ed with economist Peter Navarro, explained that the Trump administration will likely focus more on deep-space activities and less on "Earth-centric work" handled by other agencies.

This suggests that NASA might be directed more into the commercialization and development of space technology, as well as on human space travel. On the other hand, it will provide less attention to Earth science and climate change research.

What Is The Future Of America's Earth Science Research?

One of the main points of Trump's proposed space policy is the handover of some of NASA's Earth Science missions to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)

According to Walker, the administration will shift NASA budgets to "deep space achievements" instead of focusing on climate change and Earth science research. With the transfer comes some adjustments in budget, he said.

Walker tells The Verge that research conducted at NASA's Earth Science department is essentially related to weather and "Earth-based needs." He believes NOAA is likely a more "appropriate place" for Earth-centric studies.

This means that the Trump presidency's ambitious space framework could completely rearrange NASA's Earth Science division, which received an increase in funding under President Barack Obama's administration.

But the new presidency's main goal for science, Walker said, is to free up funds for the space agency's manned missions into deep space.

Trump's Goal Of Space Leadership

Some of the Trump administration's proposed space policies include a "commitment to global space leadership" which would produce security, jobs and technology for the U.S., said Walker.

The National Space Council, which will be headed by the Vice President, will be reinstituted to look over government space efforts. This council's last operation was during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.

The administration would like to develop tiny satellite technologies that can support the military, as well as satellite servicing technologies.

But what's most interesting is the government's proposal to hand over access and operations to low-Earth orbit to the commercial sector, which includes access to the International Space Station.

Furthermore, private aerospace and spaceflight companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin will likely play a significant role in space policy in the future.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A recently discovered patent application filed by Samsung shows the company's plans for a foldable smartphone. Is this the rumored Galaxy X, and will it really be launched into the market next year?

Earlier in the year, there were reports that Samsung will be adding another flagship to its lineup of smartphones next year. Joining the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series would be the Galaxy X, which is expected to have a bendable display. The Galaxy X was further described to be a foldable device with a 4K display.

Is This The Galaxy X?

The patent application found in South Korea by Dutch technology website GalaxyClub could be the first look at what the Galaxy X would look like. Named "Project Valley," the foldable smartphone somewhat resembles the popular flip phones of previous generations, with a flexible rear hinge and display that allows users to transform the device from the shape of a regular smartphone into the shape of a flip phone.

The hinge is one of the primary innovations featured in the patent, as it will allow users to bend the rear case of the device. The interesting part is that it appears the hinge can be moved along the back of the smartphone, allowing the device to be folded at different parts.

Applications Of A Bendable Smartphone

One of the applications featured in the patent for a foldable device is that users will be able to set up the smartphone depending on the situation.

When typing on the onscreen keyboard, folding the device to bend between the keyboard and the screen might make it easier on the hands and eyes of the user, as it would look like a small laptop. Folding the smartphone the whole way would then make it easier to carry around, while also protecting the display from any potential scratches or other forms of damage.

Samsung Foldable Smartphone To Launch Soon?

There is no indication that the patent is directly associated with the Galaxy X, nor is there any certainty that the design and technology described in the application will actually be used by Samsung. The patent does seem plausible though, and it is very likely that Samsung will look to race rivals such as Apple, who has also filed a patent for a foldable iPhone, in releasing the technology into the market.

It might be best if Samsung would not rush the development of the rumored Galaxy X too much though, as the last time that the company did that, it was to get the Galaxy Note 7 out into the market before the iPhone 7  and we all know how that turned out.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
On Nov. 5, the landmark Paris climate change accord was effectively set into international law, with 96 countries all over the world formally ratifying the agreement.

But with this global milestone comes a looming uncertainty: now that known climate change denier Donald Trump has been elected as the new President of the United States, what will happen to the goals set by his predecessor?

Donald Trump's Stance On Climate Change

Several green groups that gathered at the United Nations climate talk in Morocco believe that it would be "a disaster" if Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate change accord, which took two decades to negotiate.

"Pulling out of the Paris agreement matters not just in leadership, but also in a direct impact on the climate," said Andrew Jones of think-tank Climate Interactive. The United States is one of the biggest contributors of carbon emissions worldwide, only second to China and followed by India.

It would also be an issue if Trump acts on his word to use public land for oil, coal and gas extraction, the groups said. During his campaign, Trump has vowed to revive the country's coal industry and increase oil and gas drilling, despite numbers revealing that the use of natural gas caused the decline in coal, according to The Guardian.

Trump also plans to disregard former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which was the previous administration's major policy designed to lower carbon emissions in the country. The plan involves cutting down carbon emissions from the power sector by 32 percent from 2005 levels in the next 15 years.

Carbon Emissions Under Trump's Presidency

An analysis from Lux Research estimated that greenhouse gas emissions under Trump's administration would increase by 16 percent by the end of his second term, compared with that under Clinton's presidency.

Experts believe the potential surge in carbon emissions can push the planet toward a perilous climate change, as well as discourage other countries from reaching the necessary reduction in emissions.

David Sandalow, a fellow at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, said if Trump withdraws the country from the climate change agreement, it would potentially create a strategic opportunity for China. He said the East Asian country would gain credibility for sticking with its plans even as the United States backs away.

Meanwhile, environmental groups are urging the president-elect to pay attention to curbing greenhouse gas emissions and aligning with the interests of the world.

May Boeve, head of 350.org, said no political affiliation or belief can change the truth that "every new oil well and pipeline" pushes the world nearer to catastrophe.

"The new president must protect the people he serves from climate chaos," added Boeve.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Why do seabirds fill their bellies with plastic?

A new study in California suggests that it's all because of the smell emitted by marine plastic debris, which has been found to mirror the "appetizing" aroma of typical seabird meals.

Certain seabirds are normally attracted to the sulfurous stench of dying algae, which, for hundreds of years, has helped them detect where their next feast awaits, scientists said.

Seabirds' Exceptional Sense Of Smell

Up until the middle of the 20th century, scientists never thought that birds could smell at all. But it turns out, tube-nosed seabirds such as kiwis, albatross and petrels use their keen sense of smell to hunt for food.

Their exceptional olfactory sense helps them forage over hundreds or thousands of square kilometers. Unfortunately, petrels, kiwis and albatross are also among species most affected by plastic consumption.

Indeed, because of this olfactory cue, seabirds often make the mistake of chowing down on plastic in increasing quantities, the new study explained.

Hunting For Food

Lead author Matthew Savoca, who conducted the research while he was a graduate student at University of California Davis, believes it is important to consider the animals' point of view in order to understand the reason behind their habits.

To find out why seabirds eat plastic and at the same time, determine what marine plastic debris smells like, Savoca and his colleagues put beads made up of the three most common types of plastic trash into the ocean at Bodega Bay and Monterey Bay.

Researchers were careful enough not to add to the marine plastic problem, so they inserted the beads inside sewn mesh bags, tied them to buoy and then collected them after three weeks. The beads were made up of poly-propylene, low-density polyethylene and high-density polyethylene.

With the help of a special chemical analyzer, scientists confirmed that marine plastic trash did reek of dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a sulfur compound that is released by algae, which coats floating plastic.

Savoca said their findings do not refute that plastic might also look like food to other marine animals that eat it, but it does affirm that when plastic looks and smells like food, it becomes more appealing to seabirds.

"The way the plastic appears visually, from the organism's perspective ... is important to consider," added Savoca.

Experts believe the findings of the study can help in finding new strategies to address the marine plastic problem, which affects not only seabirds, but also sea turtles, fish and other marine life. Meanwhile, details of the new report are published in the journal Science Advances.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Silicon Valley investors urge California to secede from the U.S. and form their OWN nation

The U.S. Presidential Elections results yesterday shocked everyone after Donald Trump won against Hillary Clinton in the race to the White House. Soon after the results, Twitter was filled with hate tweets from socialists, democrats and others asking as to what is happening to the U.S. even as it looks to make Donald Trump, the 45th President of the U.S.

Similarly, some Silicon Valley investors are calling for California to secede from the U.S. Venture capitalist and Hyperloop One co-founder Shervin Pishevar took to Twitter posting a series of tweets announcing plans to fund a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation. The potential movement has been dubbed Calexit, Califrexit and Caleavefornia on Twitter.

Pishevar told CNBC that he is serious about the campaign, adding that the proposed independent nation would be called New California.

Its the most patriotic thing I can do, Pishevar said. The country is at a serious crossroads We can re-enter the union after California becomes a nation. As the sixth largest economy in the world, the economic engine of the nation and provider of a large percentage of the federal budget, California carries a lot of weight.

He also added that the U.S. needs to confront the systematic problems that this election has exposed.

Speaking to Fusion, Pishevar said, Everyone is in shock that we have a reality TV star that has said incredibly racist and sexist things as our next president. People say he was legitimately elected, but Hitler was also legitimately elected. This is a very dark and scary time in our country. I dont buy into this idea that just because he was elected we have to fall in line.

According to the International Monetary Fund, California had the sixth largest economy in the world with a gross state product of $2.496 trillion in 2015.

In addition, the state is a key stronghold for Democrats and is more politically advanced than other states in the country.

Other entrepreneurs and investors including Cheezburger founder Ben Huh, Path founder David Morin and Design, Inc. CEO Marc Hemeon also voiced their support for Pishevars proposal as well.

https://twitter.com/davemorin/status/796191496152043520

I support you in this effort let me know what I can do to help  Marc Hemeon (@hemeon) November 9, 2016

https://twitter.com/shervin/status/796234706022842368

The group that is leading the charge is Yes California Independence Campaign. However, the movement has been gathering steam on social media after Tuesdays result. Launched in 2015, its aim is to put a referendum on the 2019 ballot that, if passed, would make California an independent country.

As the sixth largest economy in the world, California is more economically powerful than France and has a population larger than Poland, Yes California said in a statement. Point by point, California compares and competes with countries, not just the 49 other states.

They said Donald Trump wouldn't happen. They said #Brexit wouldn't happen. What're you going to say if they tell you #Calexit won't happen?  #Calexit Campaign (@YesCalifornia) November 9, 2016

Evan Low, a Democrat serving in the California State Assembly, said that he would support the introduction of a bill to start the independence process. The proposal illustrates the technology industrys frustration with Trump over his repeated criticisms of Silicon Valley companies.

In the disastrous case that @realDonaldTrump is elected, I will explore intro of a bill to have CA secede from the union. #kiddingnotkidding pic.twitter.com/gRaIIZiGga  Evan Low (@Evan_Low) November 6, 2016

Soon after Trump won the election, Pishevar submitted his resignation as a member of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board saying he could not serve with a good conscious under President Trump in any capacity.

https://twitter.com/shervin/status/796300025303302148

Over the course of the campaign season, more than 145 business leaders from tech behemoths such as Facebook, Google and Apple had penned an open letter this summer warning how a Trump presidency would be a disaster for innovation. Other founders and tech investors spoke up in recent months against Trumps fiscal policies, immigration proposals and temperament.

While many in Silicon Valley expressed their sadness over the election result, they also said it is time to get back to work.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a public statement on the election results on Wednesday night saying, This work is bigger than any presidency and progress does not move in a straight line.

Holding Max, I thought about all the work ahead of us to create the world we want for our children, Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. We are all blessed to have the opportunity to make the world better, and we have the responsibility to do it. Lets go work even harder.

Source: The Guardian
Simpsons predicted President Donald Trump in 2000 and the mainstream media like The New York Times couldnt in 2016

Exactly sixteen years ago on March 29, 2000, in an episode titled Bart to the Future, that The Simpsons predicted a Donald Trump presidency. The series writers were able to predict that Donald Trump would be President of the United States of the America and yet the homegrown mainstream media like the Washington Post, New York Times etc was caught unawares of the public sentiment and pushed through their pseudo-liberal agenda.

https://youtu.be/lxjM1yCcqTQ

In the episode Bart to the Future, Lisa Simpson is set to become the U.S. president tasked with restoring order and repairing the nation in the wake of what the show presents as a disastrous presidency left by her predecessor, a fictionalized Trump.

https://twitter.com/ExpertosParleys/status/796319093028753408

Simpsons writer Dan Greaney told the Hollywood Reporter back in March that the episode was intended as a warning to America. That just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane, he said.

The Simpsons writers have an eerie ability to predict the future. Six years ago they predicted that Bengt Holmstrom of MIT would win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2016, which he did. They foresaw the tiger attack on Siegfried and Roy, helped design the iPhone, predicted Apple Watches,and foretold that the Rolling Stones would still be touring in 2016.

The mainstream media failed to gauge what Simpsons and its writers did sixteen years ago. Hoping for Hillary Clinton win, the mainstream media like the New York Times, CNN etc took a strong anti-Donald Trump stand. The mainstream media has been known to push its own agenda as thinking of the people world over. But due to the rise of social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Hike etc., the people seem to look through the lies being spread in the name of liberalism in the media. This happened in India in 2014 when Indians chose nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and again in 2016, when Britons voted for Brexit against the build up narrative by the mainstream media.
The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, are meeting in Caracas to address the work agenda established by both governments in the framework... | Read More
Mosquito borne illnesses are a significant problem in the tropics. While you need not be concerned about dengue or malaria in big cities and resort towns, its high risk in rural Thailand.

Travel medical clinics keep current information on malaria zones. To combat malaria, a variety of anti-malarial medications are available. They are typically prescription but a few have bad side effects. Talk to your doctor about the correct one for you.

Anti-malarial medicine is typically started before entering a malaria zone.

Travel medical clinics keep current information on malaria zones. To combat malaria, a variety of anti-malarial medications are available.

They are typically prescription but a few have bad side effects. Talk to your doctor about the correct one for you. Anti-malarial medicine is typically started before entering a malaria zone.

Another must-do is use of a mosquito repellent containing DEET. For travel to malaria-zones, pre-treatment of clothing with Permethrin is often recommended.

Finally, Zika Virus is present in Thailand at the moment. The exact status isnt fully known, but take precautions against being bit with an insect repellent which includes DEET.

Vaccination for Prevention: Travel to Thailand

Its important to ensure youve had your childhood vaccines. If your parents were anti-vaccination, its best you see a medical specialist prior to international travel.

Most Medical Doctors suggest youre current on tetanus, seasonal influenza, and Hepatitis A vaccinations. According to many physicians, Hepatitis B vaccination is likely a good idea as well. However, this is between you and your doctor.

At the moment, a few travel clinics are suggesting Japanese encephalitis vaccination for some travelers. The suggestion is based on your profile and exactly where youll visit. As for Typhoid, its often suggested for travelers who try different foods or are more apt to try street food. Oral Typhoid vaccination lasts roughly 4 years. While vaccination decisions are between you and your doctor, preventative measures go a long ways.
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Just ahead of a key vote, a panel named by Gov. John Bel Edwards endorsed two ways to finance state transportation projects Wednesday, including a new bridge over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge.

One of the resolutions calls for the state to initiate public/private partnerships to help finance costly plans, including one for the bridge, which would cost more than $1 billion.

Such arrangements involve private firms helping finance construction costs in exchange for future revenue through tolls or other sources.

The other option recommended is tolls, which are often discussed but rarely used in Louisiana.

Both measures are supposed to serve as supplements to the key funding source, which is expected to be an increase in the state gasoline tax.

"The tolling option is just part of the package," said Shawn Wilson, secretary for the state Department of Transportation and Development and co-chair of the committee.

The group  called the Governor's Task Force on Transportation Infrastructure Investment  is set to begin debating possible gas tax hikes and other proposals on Dec. 1.

Recommendations are due to Edwards by Jan. 1, and the governor is expected to make transportation a key issue for the 2017 regular legislative session.

The 18-member panel is grappling with twin challenges.

The state has a $13.1 billion backlog of road and bridge needs.

In addition, a new bridge and other mega projects make up a separate, $16 billion list.

Leaders of seven trade groups pleaded with the task force to come up with recommendations that can make a dent in both agendas.

"An increase in the gas tax is the best source of new transportation funding," said Scott Kirkpatrick, executive director of a Baton Rouge-area transportation advocacy group called CRISIS.

Kirkpatrick also said tolls "are certainly something the public and businesses are open to."

Motorists pay 38.4 cents per gallon in Louisiana, including 20 cents in state taxes.

Each penny hike would raise about $30 million per year.

Derrell Cohoon, representing the Associated General Contractors, said AGC would support a legislative push for more transportation dollars.

"It's been great to see a governor in strong support of this issue," Cohoon told the task force.

Pat Dorsey, who is part of a group of residents on the west side of the river who favor a new bridge, told the group that bridge backups cause daily horrors for motorists.

Dorsey, who lives in Iberville Parish, said that after she took a fall recently, the ambulance driver pleaded against taking her to Baton Rouge General Hospital  her choice  in favor of a hospital near Plaquemine, citing bridge traffic.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Kenny Havard, R-St. Francisville, a member of the task force, said it would be a mistake for the panel to put too much emphasis on boosting the gas tax.

"We need to have options other than putting all of our eggs in one basket," he said. "Let's throw everything at the wall and see what sticks."

Havard said he is researching the possibility of a refinery tax to generate dollars for roads and bridges.

Bob Schmidt, who represented the American Council of Engineering Companies, said even the often-cited $600 million annual target figure for new transportation dollars would not be enough.

Schmidt said officials need to devise ways to leverage any new gasoline tax revenue to tackle more projects.
For the rest of the country, the fact that there could soon be another Senator Kennedy is bound to be a curiosity, at least.

But don't expect the contest between state Treasurer John Kennedy and Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell to attract much more interest than the primary did. Even though we're down to two candidates out of an unwieldy 24, and even though other elections are finally, thankfully, over, there's still not much to recommend this election to those without a rooting interest.

Senate elections here tend to be nationalized affairs these days, an opportunity to weigh in on the president or Congress in general rather than a referendum on individual personalities. That makes Louisiana's John Kennedy  no relation to the Massachusetts dynasty that sent three famous Democratic brothers to the Senate  the clear favorite in the Dec. 10 runoff by virtue of the R behind his name.

The race has no real broader implications, now that we already know Republicans will control the Senate no matter what happens. And the transition from President Barack Obama to President-elect Donald Trump is bound to keep overshadowing every other political story, just as the election itself did.

As for outside investment, Kennedy may well get some help from Republicans, if only because they expect him to win and might want to start off on his good side.

Campbell has said he'd welcome help from national Democrats too, which seems far less likely. The party didn't even do much to help incumbent Mary Landrieu fight for her seat two years ago, after control of the chamber flipped and she faced Bill Cassidy in a December runoff. And Campbell spent the primary purposely distancing himself from the top of the ticket, so there's no loyalty there.

Besides, the Democrats really have bigger things to worry about right now.

John Kennedy and Foster Campbell go to Senate runoff Though considered a toss-up for weeks, when the votes were counted Tuesday night, the U.S. S
Eight years ago, Sarah Mamalai trekked the Kokoda Trail while she was undergoing chemo, a task she calls, "the hardest thing I've ever done". This Sunday she'll face another mammoth trek  but this time it's only two kilometres long.

Mamalai was diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumour at age 33.

Walk4BrainCancer ambassador and brain cancer survivor Sarah Mamalai, who will be walking on Sunday. Credit:Amanda Fintan

"I went from being a normal mother of two one day to being on the surgery table five days later having brain surgery," she said.

After surgery, she was told she had, at most, 18 months to live, and it could be as little as three  a devastating prognosis for anyone, let alone with two children under five.
Even as he celebrates the recent birth of his grand-daughter, Charlotte, Ian Cross keeps a special place in his heart for her big brother Lachie.

Beautiful little Lachie was born on June 27, 2011.

Calwell AFP protective services officer Ian Cross lost his grandson, Lachie, to SIDS in 2011. The pain of the loss never leaves him. Credit:Elesa Kurtz

He tragically died just six weeks later as a result of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Ian, 50, was on a deployment overseas at the time and his devastation was immense.
Had they done so, they would have seen that a swipe card opened the cell door three times between 6.15pm and 6.33pm, the inquiry found. Mr Freeman was found seriously injured at 6.30pm. The medical treatment of Mr Freeman left much to be desired. He underwent a range of welfare and health checks when he returned to the AMC on May 7, after the bashing, but was not seen again personally by a justice health services officer after May 20. The inquiry found the follow-up of Mr Freeman's head injury by the jail's health team ceased altogether in September. The AMC did not assess his cognitive functioning after the bashing, despite fears he may have sustained permanent brain injury.

"Discovering whether there was any long term impact of the head injury and trauma Steven Freeman suffered while in custody at the AMC does not appear to have featured prominently in [his] ongoing management," Mr Moss wrote. He was placed on the methadone program, despite his family claiming he was not a heroin user. Another inmate told Mr Moss: "You only have to say you got a drug problem  and you want to get on that [methadone] and they'll chuck you on it." The inquiry also found Mr Freeman complained of a tooth pain so severe he was unable to eat or sleep on January 1.

But the delay in him seeing a dentist was so great that he still had not received treatment by the time of his death in May. Mr Moss also found the mental health care and counselling of Mr Freeman was inadequate. He noted that tensions between ACT Health and ACT Corrective Services, revealed by Fairfax Media in August, still exist in the jail, a finding that conflicts with previous assurances of the ACT government. Mr Moss found Mr Freeman spent 395 days at the prison, all but 52 of which were on remand. No case plan for his rehabilitation was developed during that time. He was bored, had little to occupy him, and lacked a structured day. He spent far less than the recommended 30 hours a week in activities or programs.

Other inmates told Mr Moss the actual time detainees spent in programs was more like one to two hours a week. "The Inquiry notes that the lack of a structured day inevitably leads to boredom, which invites the possibility and added risk of detainees using illegal drugs," Mr Moss wrote. The inquiry has recommended restoring separation between remand and sentenced prisoners, and improving information sharing between health and justice authorities. Mr Moss found there was a need to reform the relationship between justice and health teams operating at the jail, and introduce the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service. He called for a review of CCTV surveillance at the prison, looking at the expansion of cameras and better training for prison officers. Those who bashed Mr Freeman were not captured on CCTV.

Police and prosecutors should adopt a pro-charge and pro-prosecution approach to prison bashings, Mr Moss said, while methadone prescription at the jail should be examined by the Health Services Commissioner. Legal Aid deputy chief executive officer Louise Taylor issued a statement on behalf of Narelle King, Mr Freeman's mother. Ms Taylor said Ms King welcomed the report as "one further step along the road to seeking justice for her son". "The Moss Inquiry Report reveals, at least to Narelle King and her family, that the care afforded to Steven Freeman in custody was deficient," she said. "The Moss Inquiry Report raises a number of crucial questions about the investigation into the assault on Steven Freeman in custody  those questions still need answering."
A student was taken to hospital after an alleged incident involving a knife and several other students at Namadgi School on Wednesday.

An ACT Policing spokeswoman said officers arrived at the school in Kambah at about 1pm and ACT Ambulance Service took a student to The Canberra Hospital.

A Namadgi School student was taken to hospital on Wednesday after an incident involving a knife. Credit:Rohan Thompson

A patient transported from Namadgi School remained in hospital in a stable condition late on Thursday, an ACT Health spokeswoman said. At about 2pm on Friday afternoon, the spokeswoman said the patient had been discharged from hospital.

The ACT Education Directorate said the incident allegedly involved "a small number of students and a knife".
Big banks have investigated thousands of staff for suspected misconduct in the past year, submissions to a parliamentary inquiry reveal.

Figures were released to Parliament this week as part of responses from the banks to questions taken on notice at last month's banking inquiry.

The opposition's financial services spokeswoman Katy Gallagher said the number of internal investigations at CBA was "staggering".

Out of those who disclosed figures, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia was the highest, revealing it had investigated 1400 incidences of suspected staff misconduct over the last year, with 59 cases involving executive managers.

Westpac revealed it had investigated 885 staff for similar breaches, of which 139 cases resulted in termination. None of these included executive managers.
Donald Trump's historic victory represents a huge opportunity for middle America. It is a rejection of liberal internationalism, political correctness and the progressive politics of urban elites in favour of traditional American values  love of country, family and, for many, faith. Like Brexit, it heralds a return to the pre-eminence of the nation state, of national sovereignty and democracy.

Many working-class Americans, who had traditionally put their faith in the Democratic Party to deliver for them, voted Republican for the first time. In contrast, the Democrats, filled with the false confidence of urban progressives, condescended to call the working-class voter base uneducated and deplorable.

So, what did Americans vote for? How will Donald Trump "Make America Great Again"?

Trump's first priority will be to boost the US economy and create jobs. He aims to reshape US tax policy, dramatically cutting income and company taxes, deregulating the economy and cutting government spending. Trump's aim is to boost US GDP growth to 4 per cent and create 25 million new jobs. In a nod to his daughter Ivanka's efforts to support working women, Trump also wants to see greater female labour force participation and will offer tax deductions for child-care expenses for working parents. Obamacare will go, and with it an unaffordable and inflexible system. Trump will replace it with something more workable.
Indeed, Hoover could trace the history of aviation to the dawn of the Space Age by the men he came to know: Orville Wright and Charles Lindbergh, Doolittle and World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, and astronauts Walter Schirra and Neil Armstrong as well as Yeager and Gagarin. Hoover's trademark manoeuvre on the show circuit was a death-defying plunge with both engines cut off; he would use the hurtling momentum to pull the plane up into a loop at the last moment. But his stunts were not foolhardy. Each involved painstaking preparation and rational calculation of risk. "A great many former friends of mine are no longer with us simply because they cut their margins too close," he said. Ron Kaplan, of the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, where Hoover was enshrined in 1988, said of him: "You do not survive the life he lived without discipline and caution." His favourite plane in the 1950s and '60s was Old Yeller, a P-51 Mustang fighter painted bright yellow. Hoover sometimes shunned flight suits to perform in a business suit (less trouble for the undertaker in case of an accident, he once said) and a trademark Panama straw hat.

He once invited a crew from the television program That's Incredible! to film him in action, pouring a glass of iced tea with one hand while he rolled his plane 360 degrees with the other. Robert Anderson Hoover was born in Nashville, Tennessee. His father, Leroy, worked for a paper company while his mother, Bessie, kept house. Bob started to fly as a teenager, "working 16 hours in a grocery store to earn 15 minutes of flight time," as he told an audience of young admirers. He soon taught himself aerobatics, enlisted in the Tennessee National Guard and received orders to Army Pilot Training School. With the onset of World War II, he was sent to England as a flight instructor for the Royal Air Force. The Army Air Forces later assigned him to Casablanca, Morocco, where he tested planes and ferried them to the front. Valued as an operations officer, he was nevertheless hungry to fight and, through persistence, persuaded his commanders to grant him combat duty.

As a pilot with the 52nd Fighter Group, based in Corsica, Hoover flew 58 successful missions before his Spitfire fighter was shot down by the Luftwaffe in February 1944. He spent 16 months in Stalag Luft I, a prisoner of war camp in Germany reserved for Allied pilots. Hoover and a friend escaped from the camp in the chaotic final days of the war, according to his memoir. Commandeering an aircraft from a deserted Nazi base, they flew it to freedom in the newly liberated Netherlands, only to be chased by pitchfork-wielding Dutch farmers enraged by the plane's German markings. He remained in the military after the war as a test pilot based at Wilbur Wright Field in Ohio. With jet-propulsion planes replacing propeller aircraft, he took on the dangerous duty of working out kinks in workhorses such as the F-80 and P-51 fighters. Yeager was also a test pilot there, and they became friends after getting into a spontaneous mock dogfight that ended in a draw. They were soon performing in air shows around the country. Both men were recruited to train together in California to fly the Bell Aircraft X-1, the jet that broke the sound barrier in October 1947 over the Mojave Desert.
Senior minister Christopher Pyne says the Turnbull government has plenty of time to make a deal to transfer immigration detainees held on Manus Island and Nauru to the United States before Donald Trump takes office.

A deal to resettle about 1800 refugees and asylum seekers held in Australia's offshore detention centres is reportedly close, with the US agreeing to take detainees after Australia said it would accept Central American refugees held in US-assisted Costa Rican camps and fleeing violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

In September the government denied a people swap deal would follow, but reports suggest the deal could be announced by the Obama administration as soon as Saturday or Sunday, only days after Mr Trump's shock election win amid a promised crackdown on immigration to the US.

On Friday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull decline to discuss any upcoming announcement.
It is ironic that the anti-global phenomenon of populist-conservatism makes such an easy link between events across the oceans.

Buoyed by the US electoral earthquake, Australian populist-conservatives or "popcons", are suddenly enlivened, preaching a new universal truth with the certainty of someone who's just been tipped off about the second coming.

The promised land is tantalisingly close.

For Cory Bernardi, Eric Abetz, George Christensen, and Pauline Hanson, there are clear antipodean applications from Donald Trump's successful animation of Budweiser-Democrats - or what the conservative intellectual Tom Switzer recently called Trump's blue-collar base of angry-white-males. Similarly unmistakable is the warning for quisling moderates.
For her impassioned speech conceding the presidential election to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton departed from her usual red, white and blue colour palette and wore a striking purple tone on her lapels and blouse.

Like our Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who never wears anything by accident - "You'll notice I'm wearing red, not blue," she said off mic before addressing the media following Trump's victory - Clinton's campaign wardrobe was reportedly the work of fashion advisor, Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

Purple was a new colour for Clinton and her husband Bill, with the former president also wearing the same royal purple colour on his tie.

The colour is significant for its association to the Suffragette movement, something her supporters evoked when encouraging women to wear white to the polling booths this week.
When I boarded the short lunchtime flight from Sydney to Melbourne on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton was forecast to be the next President of the United States. The New York Times had her at an 85 per cent chance of winning, their infographic speedometer pointer poking towards 'likely'. It was a reassuring end to a testing campaign in which Clinton's opponent had managed, it seemed, to egregiously offend everyone bar the predominantly white male demographic that appeared to make up the bulk of his support base.

And although Clinton had been plagued by ridiculous allegations about deleted emails, dishonesty and (in the most bizarre of assertions) claims that she was an actual robot, she appeared set to rise above all that and take the White House. For who, aside from the most virulent of racist, misogynist bigots, would consider voting for someone who had not only openly admitted to the enthusiastic sexual assault of women but who had also been so successful in gleefully fanning the flames of racism that he had been officially endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan?

Three hours later, I sat in a pub and watched, dumbfounded, as Donald Trump's electoral college votes rose higher and higher. My three American companions began crying, and wept on and off for the next six hours. As queer women of colour, this result wasn't just galling for them. It also represented an attack on their humanity and ability to remain safe in a country whose colonialist heartland - made up of men and women from varying economic and educational backgrounds but united in their singular belief in their own white supremacy - had just resoundingly indicated that the time of 'politically correct, leftist tolerance bullshit' was over.

Trump's campaign slogan promised to 'Make America Great Again', and the sentiment has been dutifully adopted by our own Australian Trump-sucks, including renowned racists Cory Bernardi and Pauline Hanson. Because, of course, what he has always meant is, 'Make America White Again' and by proxy return it to the white imperialist rule that has given those of us with white skin legislated dominion over all others and gifted the greatest amount of that power to white men.
Hundreds of public servants have vented their rage over their three-year industrial dispute with the Coalition government as a Senate inquiry into the bargaining debacle prepares to examine witnesses on Friday.

Several hundred Commonwealth employees have written to the Senate's Standing Committee on Education and Employment to express their anger and frustration at the government's hardline approach to bargaining with its 150,000 public servants.

Loophole: The richest 20 per cent of households get $8.3 billion in franking credits while the poorest 20 per cent of households receive just $164 million. Credit:Fairfax

The committee will hear on Friday from academics, right-wing think-tank the IPA, Public Service Commissioner and former IPA employee John Lloyd, CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood as well as members of the union's bargaining teams from various departments.

Senior executives from the departments of Immigration and Human Services and the Tax Office, which have all been major flashpoints in the dispute, will also be questioned by the committee.
When Jeff Mobbs joined his local Scout troop in Sydney's north more than four decades ago he was looking forward to outdoor adventures and making new friends.

Instead, Mr Mobbs says he was betrayed in the worst possible way when an older leader allegedly preyed upon him, sexually assaulting him on multiple occasions in the early 1970s.

Like many people who suffered childhood abuse, Mr Mobbs, now 59, tried to put it behind him and get on with his life.

"I swept it under the carpet for decades but I know I would be a totally different person today if I hadn't been abused," Mr Mobbs said.
After nearly a decade of searching for answers about what happened to their son, Matthew Leveson's parents were faced with a decision.

Did they want to find their son's body, or hold out hope they would one day see the man they believed was his killer convicted of murder?

"This is what the system has forced us to do," Mark Leveson said earlier this year.

The Levesons have long been convinced that Matt, 20, was murdered by his much older then-boyfriend Michael Atkins in 2007.
A Gold Coast investment company former director, who embezzled almost $6 million, has been jailed for four years.

Frederick Leslie Hansen was sentenced in the Southport District Court on Thursday, after pleading guilty last month to two counts of dishonestly using his position as a director of Global Rule Pty Ltd.

An investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission found Hansen transferred a personal debt of $8,423,333 to Global Rule then used investors' funds in an effort to pay it off. ASIC commissioner Greg Tanzer said that decision left several investors in serious financial hardship. Credit:Glenn Hunt

An investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission found between October 2008 and September 2010 Hansen transferred a personal debt of $8,423,333 to Global Rule, and then used $5,721,424 of investors' funds in an effort to pay it off.

ASIC commissioner Greg Tanzer said that decision left several investors in serious financial hardship.
Queensland's politicians were forced to run into Parliament with bare feet, shorts and, in one case, without a shirt during an early morning vote on Thursday.

About 2.30am, LNP member for Callide Jeff Seeney complained about not being able to speak during the adjournment debate, so the LNP called a division.

But with many MPs already in their bedrooms, they had to rush back to their seats in the House when the bells started ringing.

Several LNP MPs were forced to run back to the chamber sans shoes, while other sartorial choices included a Maroons State of Origin jersey, shorts, T-shirts and crocs.
South-east Queensland will have a brief and slight reprieve from the heat on Friday before temperatures ramp up again on the weekend. And there's a possibility of thunderstorms each day too.

Friday and Saturday temperatures are expected to drop to the early 30s before Sunday sees the mercury climb back up to around 35  seven degrees above the November average.

Queensland Health recommends drinking lots of water and keeping your body as cool as possible is the best way to beat the heat. Credit:Tammy Law

There's a good chance of showers, and possibly storms over the weekend. In the north-west of the State, temperatures will continue to reach 40 degrees or above over the coming days with Mount Isa, Cloncurry and Julia Creek all set to swelter.

However, Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Michael Paech said western Queensland would see temperatures drop below average on Sunday thanks to a patch of cooler air.
I recently moved from an office with no natural sunlight  none at all  to one that now has it flooding in like a wave of nourishment from almost all directions. Of course, there are downsides. Daydreaming has ramped up. It also gets awfully hot and glary in the afternoon. And it's a reminder on glorious days of what I'm missing. But, gee, it's made a difference.

When working at home, I've noticed a similar thing. On buying an apartment last year, I was especially excited about its study alcove, which I eagerly renovated into my dream office space. Except I never spend any time there since it has no natural sunlight whatsoever. Most of my work is now done at the dining table where the sun delivers a warm presence, in temperature and solace.

Sunlight can make us all better off at work. Credit:Daniel Pockett

But clearly this isn't just about me. A need for the sun's healing properties is becoming increasingly vital to all employees, many of whom spend much of their workday locked inside a corporate cave where their only respite is a short trip to the food court downstairs, which in itself is often similarly devoid of sunlight.

Scientists explain this human need by suggesting the brain is like a muscle. When it's forced to concentrate for extended periods of time, particularly hours staring at a screen, the brain becomes fatigued in the same way any other muscle becomes exhausted when exercised excessively at the gym. A burst of sunlight represents the brain's opportunity for replenishment.
Mildura man John Torney has walked free from court after being found not guilty of the murder of toddler Nikki Francis-Coslovich.

The Supreme Court jury of eight women and four men delivered its verdict just after 2.15pm on Thursday after retiring on Tuesday afternoon.

It found Mr Torney, 32, not guilty of both murder and the alternative charge of manslaughter.

Mr Torney, who wore a suit and tie throughout the two-week trial, was dressed in a black singlet and pants as he left the Mildura courthouse a free man on Thursday afternoon.
Doctors are the most trusted professionals in Australia but many of their patients want them to face more tests and audits of their work, a survey has found.

International research suggests about 6 per cent of doctors (about 6600 in Australia) are underperforming at any given time, and in Australia there are no mandatory checks of their performance over time.

Doctors are the most trusted professionals in Australia, according to a survey. Credit:AFR

In the past year, more than 5000 complaints were made against doctors in Australia, according the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency's latest annual report.

Despite this, a survey of about 1000 members of the community commissioned by the Medical Board of Australia found doctors topped the list of trusted professionals, with 90 per cent of respondents backing them. They were closely followed by nurses, pharmacists and teachers. Politicians were at the bottom of the list, with just 7 per cent of survey respondents trusting them.
Two women have been sexually assaulted in separate incidents in the centre of Ballarat.

One woman was walking along Sturt Street when a man approached her from behind and sexually assaulted her about 3.40pm on Wednesday.

The man police wish to speak over the Ballarat sexual assaults.

About 10 minutes later, the same man approached another woman in the toilets of Central Square shopping centre.

The man ran from the shopping centre after the incident.
The Agnasi oyster is native to Australia and fetches high export prices. Credit:David Allan-Petale "But now it's all in categories and you either live or die depending on how well you go in the one." The success of oyster farmers in the eastern states exporting to markets in Asia and beyond inspired the pair to create a new venture they hope will navigate a new future for Albany - growing shellfish for both the export and domestic market. Lindsay Michael holds up a fresh catch. Credit:David Allan-Petale "You go in the supermarket and there's not much from Australia on the shelves. It might say part made in Australia but that's just the packaging" Lindsay jokes, reflecting on the changes he's seen come to Australia's fishing industry over his thirty plus year career.

"We're hoping we can get our products to local people as well as send it out. We have plenty to offer down here." Native Agnasi oysters and Akoya pearl oysters, ready to eat... Credit:David Allan-Petale In addition to the always popular mussels, Great Southern Mussels grow Akoya pearl oysters which produce both flesh and pearls, and are pushing to commercially grow native Agnasi oysters. "The flat oysters we get are native to Australia and we pick them up incidentally in the rest of our operations," Rob explains. "They grow all over naturally. But we want a license to grow them commercially. We really think there can be a big market for them. You've got Pacifics which are really popular but they're not allowed to grow over here. And in the east they have trouble with disease with that species so that's an opportunity for us to grow something native."

Great Southern Mussels have applied for a commercial license to grown Agnasi oysters on a commercial scale - and it could be very worth it. Australian native Agnasi oysters can fetch up to double the price of Pacific oysters domestically and there's hope foreign buyers will shell up much more. But for now, Rob and Lindsay are concentrating on growing as may cohorts of mussels and Akoya oysters as they can, enlisting the help of Japanese technicians to insert their nucleuses and help grow the highest quality product possible. "The Akoyas we grow for pearls and also for meat, but that's a very slow process. The water here is perfect for the first flush. Really calm and protected and lots of nutrients so Albany shellfish have very good flavour. We need to build it up so they can be exported overseas and also help us develop a market locally," Rob said. "We've turned down orders because we can't yet guarantee the supply. But it's coming on, slowly and steady."
New York: A second round of protests was planned across the United States on Thursday a day after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of big cities after Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election.

An anti-Trump rally was planned at New York City's Union Square Park for a second straight night and organisers urged demonstrators to join events in Washington DC, Baltimore, the University of Wisconsin and elsewhere.

There were protests in at least 10 cities on Wednesday, including one that filled streets in midtown Manhattan with demonstrators marching to Trump Tower, the president-elect's gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Many chanted "Not my president!" and blasted his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, said the demonstrators were "a bunch of spoiled cry-babies."
San Diego: The US judge overseeing the lawsuit against President-elect Donald Trump and his Trump University has told both sides they would be wise to settle the case "given all else that's involved".

Lawyers for the president-elect are squaring off against students who claim they were they were lured by false promises to pay up to $US35,000 ($A46,000) to learn Trump's real estate investing "secrets" from his "hand-picked" instructors.

Earlier on Thursday, US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel tentatively rejected a bid by Trump to keep a wide range of statements from the presidential campaign out of the fraud trial.

Trump owned 92 per cent of Trump University and had control over all major decisions, the students' court papers say.
The York Theatre Company has released photos from the New York premiere of the musical A Taste of Things to Come, with book, music, and lyrics by Debra Barsha and Hollye Levin. Performances began November 9 for a limited engagement through December 11 at the York Theatre Company at Saint Peter's. Opening night is set for November 17.

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In the musical, four friends in Winnetka, Illinois, gather for a weekly Betty Crocker cooking contest, imagining how the prizes might change their lives. The plot is described as follows: "Usually, it's LIFE Magazine that's read cover to cover in between mixing, sifting, and chopping. However, a different kind of reading material arrives, and shocked (but inspired) by the Kinsey Report, their lives take an interesting set of turns."

The four-member, all-female cast includes Janet Dacal (Wonderland), Paige Faure (Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella), Allison Guinn (On the Town), and Autumn Hurlbert (Legally Blonde).

Waitress choreographer Lorin Latarro makes her directorial debut with A Taste of Things to Come. She will also choreograph the production, which features music direction is by Gillian Berkowitz.

For tickets and more information, click here.
Thoughtful Test Drive Campaign Donation Goal of $100,000

RICHMOND HILL, ON, Nov. 9, 2016; On November 7th, Volvo Car Canada Ltd. launched the Thoughtful Test Drive campaign, in partnership with United Way Centraide. Volvo Canada will make a donation to United Way Centraide on behalf of each test drive taken at Canadian Volvo retailers from November 7th to December 31st. The national program aims to raise $100,000 in donations to support families in need across Canada. "Volvo Cars is a human centric brand that is passionate about building vehicles that keep our drivers and their families comfortable, content and most importantly, safe," said Alexander Lvovich, Managing Director, Volvo Car Canada Ltd. "We at Volvo Canada are thrilled to extend this passion across the country in support of families in need with the Thoughtful Test Drive campaign."

The Thoughtful Test Drive campaign aligns with an integral pillar in the Volvo Car brand's focus: people. People are the driving principle behind all of the brand's technological innovations and world first's safety advancements. This program is an opportunity for Volvo Canada and its retailer network to not only introduce new customers to the Volvo brand, but also to support local communities across the country through United Way Centraide's remarkable work. "Caring about people in need is an important value to both United Way Centraide and Canadians across the country," said Dr. Jacline Nyman, President & CEO of United Way Centraide Canada. "By supporting United Way Centraide this holiday season, Volvo Cars and its customers are demonstrating the true power of improving the lives of families in our local communities." To book a test drive, and to support the Thoughtful Test Drive campaign, please visit: http://www.volvocars.ca/thoughtful-test-drive To learn more about Volvo Cars' award-winning product, please visit: http://www.volvocars.com/ca

About United Way Centraide Canada

Operating locally in over 100 communities across Canada, United Way Centraide works to meet immediate needs and invests in long-term solutions to challenging social issues. Together with the generous support of Canadians, United Way Centraide improves lives locally by moving people from poverty to possibility, helping kids be all they can be, and building strong and healthy communities. Learn more about United Way Centraide's work in communities nationwide at unitedway.ca.

About Volvo Car Canada

Volvo Car Canada Ltd. is part of the Volvo Car Group of Gothenburg, Sweden. The company provides marketing, sales, parts, service, technology and training support to the 36 Volvo automobile retailers across the country. The S60, S80, V60, XC60 & XC90 are among vehicles that have been awarded the prestigious new Top Safety Pick+ by IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety). Volvo Cars is committed to Vision 2020, our goal that no one shall be killed or seriously injured in a Volvo by the year 2020.
Free Car Wash For Veteran's At Any Scrubadub Facility 2016

NATICK, MA - November 10, 2016: ScrubaDub, New England's leading car wash company is reaching out to the community to support the troops this Veteran's Day. All Veterans and Active Service Personnel can wash their cars free at any of 15 participating ScrubaDub tunnel carwash locations in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island on Friday, November 11th, 2016.

The Paisner Family owned car wash chain has been promoting support for military personnel over the past decade by running charity fundraising programs with USO New England and giving away free car washes.

ScrubaDub and the Paisner family plan to continue this tradition of showing their appreciation for the special efforts and sacrifices that veterans and service members make for our country by lending a helping hand and donating complimentary car washes.

USO New England provides on-going support to all branches of the military and serves tens of thousands of active military members and their families in New England each year and offers many special programs to families of deployed.

ScrubaDub is committed to making a positive difference in the communities where they do business and actively supporting many causes through their charity and fundraising programs. For more information, visit http://www.ScrubaDub.com

To participate on this Veteran's Day, November 11, 2016, simply drive in to any participating ScrubaDub and show your Military ID to receive your complimentary car wash.
LEARN MORE: 2016 LA Auto Show Press Pass Coverage

IRVINE, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016 -- The one-millionth Mazda MX-5 Miata has traveled throughout much of the world this year, already reaching fans all over the U.S. and Canada. Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) is proud to announce that it will be making one last tour stop at the Los Angeles Auto Show from November 18-27.

"We have been fortunate to have the one-millionth MX-5 on our shores since August, giving enthusiasts from the U.S. and around the world the opportunity to be a part of both Mazda history and a milestone for the automotive industry," said Robert Davis, senior VP, U.S. Operations, MNAO. "This MX-5 shows just how far we've comefrom a little company with big ideas to a torchbearer for defying convention and keeping the thrill of driving alive for everyone."

Following MX-5 being awarded as the only vehicle ever named World Car of the Year and World Car Design of the Year concurrently, excitement further swelled when Mazda Motor Corporation announced that the one-millionth MX-5 had been produced on April 22, 2016. That car traveled throughout Japan and Europe during the spring and summer and reached the U.S. in August, where it embarked on the "Millionth Miata Celebration Tour."

Its first North American stop was in Monterey, California, at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. It was then shipped to the East Coast, starting in Boston, and headed to the Midwest and through the South and through the Gulf region to end its U.S. tour at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for Miatas at Mazda Raceway.

Following Miatas at Mazda Raceway, the MX-5 traveled to Mazda Canada's headquarters in Richmond Hill, Ontario, where it gathered another 350 signatures from owners, enthusiasts and employees.

In all, more than 4,000 people in North America have autographed the one-millionth MX-5. Mazda executives, engineers and employees have signed in its trunk and underneath its hood. Many engineers have signed parts they helped develop on the fourth-generation roadster, such as suspension arms and on the engine.

For its last hurrah in the U.S., the one-millionth MX-5a 1.5-liter, right-hand-drive, Japanese-spec modelwill be placed in the Ride & Drive area outside the Los Angeles Convention Center, where those who register to test-drive Mazda vehicles on public days will have the opportunity to sign the car. Signing will take place during normal auto show hours until all signature spots are filled but the 1,920 spots allocated for its final tour stops in Australia and New Zealand.

Following its visit to New Zealand next February, the one-millionth MX-5 will stay on permanent exhibit in the Mazda Museum in Hiroshima, Japan.

By the Numbers:

North American tour stops (total) 20 Farthest distance driven by a fan to sign car 1,400 miles (Calgary, AB, to Monterey, CA) Number of spaces on car 13,050 Number of spaces filled in North America Approximately 4,000 to date State with most tour stops California (4) Largest MX-5 markets in the U.S. Greater Los Angeles Greater San Francisco Greater New York City Dallas-Fort Worth Orlando-Daytona Beach Farthest countries traveled from to attend Miatas at Mazda Raceway Netherlands

Japan

Thailand Total North American tour distance traveled (including to L.A. Auto Show) 14,607 miles Earliest known VIN in existence No. 14 (white racecar in MNAO Heritage Collection) Number of smiles produced as a result of driving an MX-5 Too many to count

Mazda North American Operations is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and oversees the sales, marketing, parts and customer service support of Mazda vehicles in the United States and Mexico through nearly 700 dealers. Operations in Mexico are managed by Mazda Motor de Mexico in Mexico City. For more information on Mazda vehicles, including photography and B-roll, please visit the online Mazda media center at www.mazdausamedia.com.

Note: Signees must register for Mazda Ride & Drive or may sign if they are minors accompanied by registrant. Spaces subject to availability. MNAO may limit signature times based on weather conditions and availability. Please see L.A. Auto Show website for show hours. Ride & drive hours may vary from standard auto show hours.
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Queen Silvia of Sweden wears the Russian pink topazes at the 2003 Nobel Prize Banquet

[Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images ]

The topaz, the versatile birthstone of everyone with a November birthday, comes in varied sizes and colors. Today, lets have a look at one of the most gorgeous topaz sets in any royal collection: the demi-parure of Russian pink topazes that belongs to the Swedish royal family.

The necklace from the Russian Pink Topaz Suite

[Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images ]

Im already anticipating your first question: if the set is called the Russian suite, why is it in the royal vaults in Sweden? Even though the set is in Bernadotte hands today, its history begins in early nineteenth-century imperial Russia. In 1804, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, one of the daughters of Tsar Paul I of Russia, married Carl Friedrich, the Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Maria Pavlovna was a granddaughter of Catherine the Great and the sister of various European rulers and consorts, including Tsar Nicholas I, Queen Catherine of Wurttemberg, and Queen Anna of the Netherlands.

The other three pieces from the suite: the pendant/earrings; the large brooch; and two views of the smaller, oval-shaped brooch

[Photos: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images, SVEN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images ]

When Maria Pavlovna gave birth to her daughter, Augusta, her mother gave her the topaz suite to mark the occasion. The large pink topazes are surrounded with glittering diamonds, and the set consists of four pieces: a large, impressive necklace, a small round brooch, and a larger, multi-stone brooch with a floral motif. Two of the pendants from the larger brooch can also be detached and worn as earrings. The set is often called a demi-parure because it lacks a tiara.

Queen Silvia wears the topazes at the 2008 Nobel Prize Ceremony

[Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images ]

Carl Friedrich and Maria Pavlovna had three surviving children: Marie, Augusta, and Karl. Augusta, the middle child, was the one who inherited her mothers pink topazes. She married Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany in 1829. The marriage was not a smashing success, but it did manage to produce two children: Kaiser Friedrich III (who married Princess Vicky, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert) and Louise, who wed Grand Duke Friedrich of Baden in 1856.

Augustas decision to leave the pink topazes to her daughter, Louise, set the gemstones on a direct path to Stockholm. In 1881, Louises daughter, Princess Victoria of Baden, married Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden. She became Swedens queen consort in 1907. Although there are lots of portraits of Victoria wearing items from the Bernadotte collection, Ive never seen a photograph of her in the topazes. But there may be a reason for that. Grand Duchess Louise didnt die until 1923, so Victoria didnt inherit the set until she was sixty. By that time, Victoria had largely withdrawn from court life and was spending much of her time in Italy.

Princess Christina wears the pink topaz suite with the Four Button Tiara at the 1970 Nobel Banquet

[Photo: Central Press/Getty Images ]

But although she did not make significant use of her mothers topazes, Victoria did an important thing that secured their future in Sweden: on her death, she bequeathed them to a jewelry foundation, which means they will stay in Swedish hands. Both queens of Sweden who have followed Victoria  Queen Louise and Queen Silvia  have made major use of the topazes, often wearing them with the enormous Braganza Tiara or the more delicate Connaught Diamond Tiara. Princess Sibylla, mother of the present Swedish king, also wore the topazes, as did the kings sister, Princess Christina.

Queen Silvia wears the topazes at the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria in 2010

[Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images ]

Queen Silvia selected the set for one of her first portraits as queen, pairing them with the Braganza Tiara. Shes even worn the larger brooch from the set as a headpiece. Silvia has chosen the topazes for a number of important occasions since, including the wedding of her eldest daughter, Crown Princess Victoria, in 2010, more than two centuries after they were made.

Note: This is an updated version of an earlier post, with new images.
Its no exaggeration to say that the issue of the Supreme Court gave Donald Trump the presidency. Through scandal after scandal, evangelical votersaround 35 percent of the electorate and over half the Republican partystood by the most sinful presidential candidate in history, because of the Supreme Court.

Now that hes won, what happens now? To put it bluntly, that depends on who dies next.

1. Short Term: Reset

First, obviously, Justice Scalias seat will be filled by an ultra-conservative like William Pryor, who has called Roe v. Wade the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law. Trump has already provided a list of 11 Supreme Court candidateswritten by the right-wing Heritage Foundationand the Republican-led Senate will immediately move to confirm whoever he nominates.

Its possible that Democrats will filibuster, of course. It remains to be seen what strategy Senator Charles Schumer, the new minority leader, will adopt: how much confrontation, how much collaboration. Certainly, after the unprecedented fiasco of the Garland stonewall, Schumer wont be in the mood for compromise.

But in practice, the new justice will basically return the Court to where it was on Feb. 12, 2016. Pryor and others on the list are a bit to the right of ScaliaPryor even called Miranda warnings one of the worst examples of judicial activismbut not so far to the right as to make a big difference. Well have the same 5-4 splits we used to have, with Justice Kennedy in between four conservatives (Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Scalia II) and four liberals (Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor).

In addition, the eight-person Court has thus far avoided taking on any controversial issues this term, eager to avoid further stalemates like last years punt on immigration. The only high-profile case on the docket is the transgender case from Virginia, which will insert the Court into the culture war of transgender students and gender-appropriate bathrooms. Since transgender itself is a blank slate, legally speaking, its hard to predict how the Court will rule.

But in general, the short-term effect of Trump on the Supreme Court will be more of a letdown than a revolution.

2. Long Term: Transformation

The real question is what happens after that, and that, unfortunately, takes us into the unseemly guessing game of Supreme Court deaths or retirements.

The Courts elder liberals are much older than their conservative counterparts: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 83 and Stephen Breyer is 78. By contrast, Clarence Thomas is 68 and Samuel Alito is 66. Justice Kennedy, considered the Courts swing vote, is 80.

That means the next justice on the Court is much more likely to replace Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, or Kennedy. And that is when the massive transformation of the Supreme Court will take place.

Unless Trump goes off-script (always a possibility), that justice will also be cut from the ultra-conservative, new federalist cloth of Justice Thomas. Trump has already used the rights standard language of interpret[ing] the Constitution the way the Founders wanted it interpreted but his picks from the Heritage Foundation list are to the right of the usual originalist figures. In fact, it is Justice Roberts, as a judicial conservative, who will be the swing vote between three or four liberals and three or four ultra-conservatives.

Its important to be clear about what this means. Yes, particular issues will be affected. The federal right to marriage equality will almost certainly be overturned. So will Roe v. Wade. We will return to a country in which many rights are vastly different from state to state. (The exception is gun control, most forms of which will likely be banned nationwide under a broad reading of the Second Amendment.)

But the real impact is far more profound. Justice Thomass judicial philosophy would roll back most of the federal government as we know it today. According to his understanding of federalism, civil rights laws, environmental regulations, labor rulesanything that relies on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution for its basiswould probably be unconstitutional. If the Commerce Clause really means regulate interstate commerce, but only in a narrow sense, all those laws fail.

Take, for example, laws prohibiting racial discrimination. The constitutional basis of those laws is that businesses and other organizations are always involved in interstate commerce, even if theyre local, because thats how capitalism works today. But in Justice Thomass stated opinions, thats not good enough; the Commerce Clause only allows Congress to regulate commerce itself, not business activities related to it. Civil rights laws, therefore, are beyond the federal governments constitutional power.

A similar theory applies to the First Amendment. For Justice Thomas, not only should the First Amendment be read narrowly, so as to permit prayers in school, aid to churches, and religious displays on public property, but he has written that the Establishment Clause only applies to the federal government, not to the states. That would mean that, say, Mississippi could officially become a Protestant Christian state, or a Southern Baptist state, or whatever its legislature chose. (There may, of course, be state constitutional barriers, but they could be amended.)

Justice Thomas has always been an outlier on thiseven Justice Scalia rarely agreed with him, and Justice Alito only occasionally does. But with three or four Justice Thomases, our basic federal system would be transformed.

This is not a secret. Theres a reason the leading conservative legal organization is called The Federalist Society, or that states rights has been a justification for discrimination since before the Civil War. A Trump-packed Supreme Court could well return is to an antebellum notion of the roles of the state and federal governments.

Again, thats not going to happen next year. But if there are multiple vacancies during Trumps term, it is, in fact, quite likely.

3. Wildcard: The Rule of Law

Finally, the great variable in all this is how the judiciary, and the Supreme Court in particular, will act as a check on the Trump administration itself.

Many of Trumps campaign promises, such as instituting a religious test for people wishing to enter the country, are clearly unconstitutional. His promise to resume and increase the use of torture violates international law, and if he bombs the hell out of places where ISIS is located, leading to thousands of civilian deaths, or if he kills the families of terrorists, he will have committed war crimes.

Likewise Trumps overall authoritarianism, which, if translated into action, would threaten the rule of law as we know it. Civil liberties would be restricted as never before, with stop and frisk a national policy, surveillance of Muslim communities, and even, per Newt Gingrichs proposal, a revival of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Will the Supreme Court act as a check to Trump? In the past, the Court has failed to check executive power as often as its succeeded; in the 1944 Korematsu case, for example, the Supreme Court caved to executive power in a time of war, and allowed the federal government to place Japanese Americans in concentration camps. That case seems newly on point today, in light of Trumps plans to deport 11 million people.

But its also possible that Chief Justice Roberts, in particular, could find in a stronger judicial role precisely the rehabilitation of the Supreme Court that he seems to be looking for. If the Chief Justice wants to improve the reputation of the Court, standing up for the rule of law is an excellent place to do so. And he would have the support of the Courts liberal wing.

Its not hard to imagine the Trump administration, or the Giuliani-led Department of Justice, triggering a constitutional crisis. Indeed, its hard not to imagine them doing so. The question is how the Supreme Court will respondand how, in turn, President Trump will respond to them.
BAY RIDGE, New YorkDespite Donald Trumps threats in the days leading up to the election to denounce the system as rigged if he lost, Muslim Americans are choosing to put their faith in the system amid his victory in a campaign marked by divisive rhetoric.

Lets see, lets wait and see, said Ayman Sifan, a Palestinian-American who stayed up till dawn watching the election results roll in. Because even the president, he cant do everything he wants.

Trumps victory in the wee hours Wednesday morning sparked a flurry of online panic. Muslims tweeted fears about wearing the hijab, and whether that outward marker of Islam could make them targets for Trump supporters. Over the course of his campaign, after all, Trump had called for a halt to immigration from Muslim-majority countries, suggested that hes open to a database to track American Muslims, and said that Gold Star mother Ghazala Khan was silenced by her husband rather than her grief. But in Bay Ridge, home to one of New Yorks largest Muslim communities as well as Brooklyns only Republican Trump-supporting state senator, hijabs sparkled and abayas billowed as usual on Wednesday.

Its like every day, said Fatiha Hussen, a 45-year-old mother of three.

Muslim-American Brooklynites told The Daily Beast they were weary but cautiously optimistic, hopeful that the safeguards of American democracy and the gravity of the office itself would protect them in a Trump presidency.

In my heart, I believe there is a system, a law in the United States [that will protect minorities], Sifan, 52, told The Daily Beast. I tell my kids, the CIA and the FBI, since [Trump] becomes the president, they start giving him reports and directions.

Sifan said he is hopeful that the new information from intelligence agencies will restrain Trumps rhetoric and help him focus on the real issues. Because [the campaign was] politics. Now, he is the president.

Yet Hussen, the mother of three, said her kids are anxious. A daughters friends are joking about moving abroad, and her oldest, a 17-year-old boy, says [Trump] is going to kick everyone out, Hussen said.

And on Tuesday, hours before the election results began coming in, Hussen bought tickets to visit her ailing mother, who needs surgery in Morocco. Im worried, now, about the airport, she said.

Many of the Muslims interviewed by The Daily Beast said their support for Hillary Clinton was reluctant, too. The Democratic candidate famously said Muslim Americans are on the front lines of the fight against terrorism, a comment many took as a sign of how she sees the Muslim community.

Shes bad. Hes worse, said Nash Nassan, who immigrated from Syria nearly 25 years ago and didnt vote for either candidate on Tuesday. [Its like] if you know someone, and the other person you dont know at all.

Others headed to the polls as families, misgivings and all.

My dad, he always instilled in us: You have to choose the person whos gonna be the best for everyone, said Sana Esa. The native Brooklynite added that she worries for cousins overseas, in Yemen, under a Trump presidency, as well as those in the U.S. on visas.

Esa, 28, was hopeful about Barack Obamas election eight years ago, but she said he fell short of her expectations. My cousins are telling me about the drones bombing them, she said. The truth is, I didnt really want Hillary, but [Trump] freaks me out.

But Esa is staying calm for the time being, she said, because what is to come cant be worse than what the community has already been through. She told The Daily Beast that she remembers the first days after the 9/11 attacks, when the women in her family stayed indoors. The menwho were less obviously recognizable as Muslimwent out for them.

You felt the hatred everywhere, she said. There was one lady down the block who said, Dont be afraid. She was the only one.

At the nearby Arab American Association of New York, a hub for local Muslim organizing, immigration caseworker Marwa Janini spent the morning dealing with stressed-out clients. Some, who had applied for the Deferred Action status offered by the Obama administration, worried about what would happen with the information they had provided to the federal government to be eligible for the program.

I had two clients that said they had their nieces and nephews crying, because they had friends whose parents were immigrants, Janini told The Daily Beast while ordering a bagel at a nearby cafe. And these are little kids.

Shed stayed up late into the night watching the results come in after voting for Clinton, despite supporting Bernie Sanders in the primary. With Trumps unexpected victory came anxiety, and she saw friends posting on social media about moving to Canada to escape.

Im like, no no no, I was born in Brooklyn. I was raised in Brooklyn. Im an American, this is my country, she said. Im not going anywhere, Trump or not. And thats how I felt about it from the very beginning.

Janini wore a chic black hijab Wednesday. And while she said she was a little more cautious because of the election, being wary of being visibly Muslim is nothing new.

This is what Muslim women tell each other. Stay vigilant, stay aware of your surroundings, Janini said. After I saw the election results, I realized how divided we are as a country. And we dont need more divisive rhetoric. We need more community building.

And Trump even managed to snag a couple of Muslim-American votes in Bay Ridge. Soher Elhawany, 50, moved here from Egypt 10 years ago and cast her vote for Trump on Tuesday.

He want to change America, he want to build a wall so no Spanish come without papers, Elhawany said. Im very happy, and my husband is very happy.
Im so excited to not have to say the words Donald Trump, hopefully, for at least a little while, Samantha Bee told The Daily Beast a week ago. That would give me a great sense of peace.

Get ready for four more years of rage.

After making her last, best case for Hillary Goddamn Brilliant Badass Queen Beyonce Rodham on Monday, Bee had to come to terms with the fact that Donald Trump had actually won.

Wednesday nights special post-election show opened with a celebratory montage in which Bee hugged and high-fived everyone from Fox Newss Shepard Smith and Greg Gutfeld to her former colleagues Larry Wilmore, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert to mark the end of Election 2016. It is a piece that was clearly shot ahead of Tuesday nights results and felt entirely out of placeuntil Bee woke up in a cold sweat.

Wearing her sparkly blue jacket ironically, Bee began her show by asking, How did everyone get this so spectacularly wrong? She began by blaming herself. This was the first presidential election the Canadian-born comedian voted in after becoming a U.S. citizen. And I broke America, she said. I am so sorry.

But ultimately, she said its pretty clear who ruined America: white people. I guess ruining Brooklyn was just a dry run, she joked. The Caucasian nation showed up in droves to vote for Trump, so I dont want to hear a goddamn word about black voter turnout. How many times do we expect black people to build our country for us? To those who would try to distance themselves from the bad apples, Bee said, If Muslims have to take responsibility for every member of their community, so do we.

And Bee reserved special ire for the majority of white women, who, faced with the historic choice between a female president and a vial of weaponized testosterone said, I'll take option B. I just dont like her! Hope you got your stickers, ladies. Way to lean out.

After playing a clip of Hillary Clintons moving concession speech message to young girls across the country, Bee said, And if Ms. Rodham is not in the White House, thats OK. One of those girls is going to be. We still have millions of nasty women who arent going way and as long as women over 25 are allowed on television, Ill be here cheering them on. Then, alluding to Trumps authoritarian stance on satire, she added, Although that may only be until late January.
In early September, comedian Seth Meyers sat down for an interview with The Daily Beast and discussed the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump. Meyers had memorably called Trumps previous Oval Office flirtation a joke while roasting him at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, but he wasnt laughing now.

Obviously what hes doing, hes showing a real political acumen that I completely underestimated, he said. Ive been wrong about him at every turn.

And on Wednesday night, about 13 hours after Trump shocked the world to become the president-elect, Meyers delivered a poignant monologue to his Late Night audience. First, he addressedonce againhow wrong hes been about the rise of Trump.You know, weve been talking about Donald Trump on this show for 18 months, and one of the things Ive tried to make clear over those 18 months is how Ive been wrong about him at every turn. When he first came down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced, I boldly said on this show it was a stunt, and he would never really run. I then said he would never win the GOP nomination, and I certainly didnt think he would be our next president, said Meyers. But the good news is, based on this pattern of me being wrong on every one of my Donald Trump predictions, hes probably going to be a great fucking president! Lets just hope this trajectory holds.

The former Saturday Night Live head writer further shared a humorous anecdote about informing his 8-month-old son that for the first time in our history, our president would be a steak salesman, which seemed to calm the babys nerves.

And then things took a more somber tone, with Meyersat times on the brink of tearsdiscussing how he feels for all the parents with daughters who had to break the news to their kids this morning.

I do really feel for the parents who had to explain this to their kids this morningespecially parents with daughters because a lot of them, like me, probably thought Hillary would be our first woman president. But she wont be, said Meyers. But that does meanthat does meanthat someones daughter is out there right now who will one day have that title. And maybe youre a woman whos currently a senator, maybe youre still in college, hopefully youre not a toddlerbut who knows. With the way things went last night, who knows. The fact is, we dont know who you are, but I imagine this moment today will be a defining one for you. One that will make you work harder, and strive farther, and whoever you are, I hope I live to see your inauguration.Meyers began to get very choked up, adding, And I hope my mom does, too. She was really excited yesterday, and umm I was really sad for her.

Although hes been hard on Trump over the past 18 or so months, Meyers expressed sympathy for Trumps passionate, angry-at-the-system supporters, confessing it would be wrong for me to think my emotions are somehow more authentic than their emotions, and I sincerely hope he addresses your concerns.

But, he continued: As a white man, I also know that any emotions Im feeling are likely a fraction of those being felt by the LGBTQ community, African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Muslim Americans, and any number of the immigrant communities so vital to our country, so hopefully the Trump administration and Trump supporters will be compassionate to thembecause they need your compassion. And in general, I am hopeful for President Trump because hope is always the best possible path to take, and one thing that makes me hopeful is we know from interviews hes given over the years that he has, at any given point, held every position on every issue, said Meyers. Hes been pro-choice, pro-life, for the Iraq War, against the Iraq War. Pretty much his only consistent position has been: anti-Rosie ODonnell. So Im hopeful that hes not actually a racist, and that he just used racist rhetoric to court votersbecause when youre courting someone, youre always willing to pretend youre something youre not.
On Tuesday night, Donald Trump not only beat Hillary Clinton but threw into grave uncertainty the survival of President Obamas legacy of liberal achievements.

Bernie Sanderss diehard supporters and his former presidential campaign staff have some choice words for the Democratic Party and Team Hillary: We told you this would happen, but you wouldnt listen.

Whether the democratic-socialist senator from Vermont would have actually been able to defeat Trump in a general election this year is something we will never know. But it was something Sanders himself said all along, citing data and hypothetical match-ups during the primaries that showed him polling better against the now president-elect than Clinton did.

This is a campaign that has the momentum not only in the Democratic Party primary process but if you want a candidate who is going to defeat Donald Trump, youre looking at him, Sanders said in late February.

A ham sandwich could beat Donald Trump, Melissa Arab, a Michigan delegate for Sanders, told The Daily Beast outside the Democratic National Convention in July. And Hillary cannot beat Donald Trump.

Turns out, they were at least half right. This turned out to be true no matter how many times Katy Perry sang for her, or how enthusiastically LeBron James endorsed her. And this week, Team Bernie is feeling, if not schadenfreude, then certainly absolute vindication.

The establishment didnt listen, [and] wasnt vigilant, and got cocky, a former Sanders campaign senior aide emailed The Daily Beast on Wednesday morning. Also, the party and relationships were really damaged by the WikiLeaks. The electorate did not trust [them], and young folks were not elevated in a meaningful way. [It was a] lack of investment, [and] Clinton folks thought they could replace black voters with Latinos Its just a mess.

Trump is going to be the next president of the United States, another aide said. This is all on Hillary Clinton and her team. Theres nothing more I have to say on this.

When asked about the news of Trumps win, a top advisor to Sanders told CNN reporter Jeff Zeleny on Wednesday morning that we have nothing polite to say right now.

In the closing months of the 2016 race, Sanders hit the campaign trail for Clinton and urged his hardcore followers to come out in droves for Clinton on election day.

Ive got seven grandchildren and I do not want them growing up under a Trump presidency, Sanders said in September. He has made bigotry the cornerstone of his campaign I do not want to see this country recede and go back to where one group is scapegoating another group. That is not where we can go. And Im going to do everything I can to prevent that from happening.

Despite his best efforts, Sanderss endorsement couldnt put Clinton over the top in November. But come January, Sanders loyalists know exactly who to blame.

What the Trump upset shows us is that the electorate was yearning for something different, former Sanders national organizer Corbin Trent told The Daily Beast. American voters demanded radical change and had the party elites been able to see this coming, wed be talking about [a] Sanders victory. I have no doubt that we couldve beaten Trump with Sanders.
Those wondering how actively President-Elect Donald Trump wants to pursue the rolling back of LGBTQ rights and equality received an early disturbing signal on Wednesday afternoon.

The New York Times reported that one of Trumps first priorities, with America and the world still in shock at his presidential victory, was to select a conservative nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy, as he had promised while campaigning.

As The Daily Beasts Jay Michaelson has written, the Supreme Court will become Trumps prime vehicle to advance a socially conservative agenda, including a possible renewed effort to scupper marriage equality.

The grief, anger, and fear of many LGBTQ people on social media after Trumps presidential election victory was immediate, sharp, and keenly felt. Many people writing about their fears invoked other groups that Trump has targeted: Muslims, immigrants, and women.

There were tweets to call friends and loved ones to check in on them; vows to fight whatever attacks on LGBTQ rights will happen under a Trump administration; promises to support one another; and overarching it all, shock and nervousness.

As Michaelson wrote a few weeks ago, an administration led by Trump includes now-Vice President-Elect Mike Pence, one of the most anti-gay governors in the nation, most notorious for his steadfast support for Indianas Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and his backing of conversion therapy for LGBTQ people.

To have an administration with an avowedly anti-equality agenda, acting with the backing of a Republican-controlled House and Senate, may mean a very dark era for LGBTQ equality.

Jay Brown, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), told The Daily Beast: Everybody is a little stunned right now. We know there are several threats coming at us, and we spent many months warning voters about the anti-LGBTQ platform of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Now were confronted by that.

Brown said HRC and the wider LGBTQ movements had faced setbacks and fought long and hard battles before, and would do so again with determination.

Visitors to the HRC website Wednesday were most concerned about the threat to marriage equality, Brown said; Trump said he would strongly consider overturning the law, having shaped the Supreme Court in the way he wanted.

The legal process to do so would be complicated, Brown said.

A case would have to be heard at SCOTUS challenging the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision of 2015, which saw same-sex marriage made legal nationwide.

Another possibility, as sketched by Lucas Grindley in the Advocate: The Republican-controlled Congress will pass a law that under the Obergefell or (Edie) Windsor rulings wouldve been considered unconstitutional. If anyone dares challenge that law, it will be taken up with the Supreme Court, which can then decide to overturn its previous marriage equality ruling.

The HRC was concerned, Brown said, about the cases heading the Supreme Courts way focused on transgender issues.

At the end of last month, SCOTUS announced it would decide whether transgender boy Gavin Grimm could use the boys bathroom in a Virginia high school.

Trump and Pence had also intimated that they would move to make it more difficult for LGBTQ people to serve openly in the military, said Brown.

There was also the composition of a potential Trump Cabinet: Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, and Chris Christie all have anti-LGBTQ records, Brown said. Well be looking to see if there are directives and guidances issued against our community, he said.

That would include the Department of Educations guidance, published in May, to support and protect trans students.

Brown was also concerned about the instances and bills centered around refusing services to LGBTQ people because of the providers religious conscience or belief.

The intended dismantling of Obamacare would also have a significant impact on LGBTQ peoples access to health care.

Of the lack of policy specifics from Trump, Rachel B. Tiven, CEO of Lambda Legal, noted that it was hard to critique something that has no plan. There is no domestic agenda. There is no detail of any kind about anything.

Tiven said her organizationthe nations oldest and largest legal organization working for the civil rights of LGBTQ people, and those with HIV/AIDShad spent its history educating schools, parents, and teachers, how wrong bullying was, only to wake up this morning to find that our fellow Americans had elected a bully for president.

It is particularly bitter. His election stands as a total repudiation of what the LGBTQ rights movement has been fighting for: pride in yourself and others, pride in who you are, being different. This feels like an attack.

Like Brown, Tiven was concerned by Trumps intention to appoint homophobes to influential public office; and also, like Brown, she was hopeful that marriage equality could not be easily torpedoed.

The United States has been through vigorous debate and public hostility towards social change for its entire existence. We have been so blessed and moved by the embrace of LGBTQ people and the response to the marriage equality movement. The Constitution and court system are very durable. Roe v. Wade has been under attack for decades and decades and, though indented, has not been overturned. [Another of Trumps campaign promises was to do that.] We have weathered worse than Trump.

The author and veteran activist Michelangelo Signorile, Sirius XM host and editor-at-large of Huffington Posts Queer Voices section, told The Daily Beast: We should be very worried about LGBT rights. Trump kept it under the radar during the campaign. His foghorn was immigration, and his dog-whistle to Christian conservative groups was LGBT rights.

He promised things quietly to them around religious liberty laws. What he said publicly shouldnt be seen as a reflection of how homophobic his actions might be. He convinced these people to vote for him in massive numbers. Now he has to give them things.

Signorile, author most recently of the book Its Not Over, said he wasnt sure that a newly appointed conservative justice on the Supreme Court could overturn marriage equality, but he was concerned that Trump could pass laws to make gay marriage into second-class marriage.

Trump has already pledged to sign into law the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), which would give employers, businesses, and landlords the right to discriminate against LGBTQ people in accordance with their religious beliefs.

Trumps election also meant, predicted Signorile, that the Equality Act was dead in the water. The act, introduced in 2015 to the House of Representatives and the Senate, establishes explicit, permanent protections against discrimination based on an individuals sexual orientation or gender identity in matters of employment, housing, access to public places, federal funding, credit, education and jury service, says the HRC. In addition, it would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in federal funding and access to public places.

Trumps views on LGBTQ matters, as on so much else, are not clear, said Signorile.

As The Daily Beasts Olivia Nuzzi reported earlier this year, Trump has spoken before of his links to the LGBTQ community; in 2000 he told The Advocate that growing up in New York City meant growing up in a city that breeds tolerance.

In the same interview, he proposed doing what the core of the Equality Act of 2015 proposes. I like the idea of amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation. It would be simple. It would be straightforward.

Much was made of Trumps pro-LGBTQ statements on the campaign trail, but for Signorile the Republicans response to the Orlando LGBTQ club massacre sought to pit LGBTQ people against Muslims.

Hes pro-choice, then he wasnt, and that was probably for the sake of the election too, said Signorile. He didnt want to go publicly anti-gay. Look at Ronald Reagan. He came from Hollywood, Rock Hudson was his and Nancys best friend. They knew gay people. Then as president he left everything by the wayside, and let so many people die [of AIDS].

Whatever Trump feels personally about LGBTQ people, he has made his bed with Christian conservatives. His campaign was full of confusion and mixed messages. Maybe he has gay friends. Maybe he really doesnt care what bathroom a transgender person uses. But for his election he needed the religious right, and he has made a pact with these people.

Signorile said he had seen Trump and Pence court this constituency at the Values Voter Summit, noting that on Tuesday Trump received more evangelical votes than George W. Bush.

If he ultimately throws them overboard, we can be hopeful, but if he wants re-election he will need to give them a few things, Signorile said. At the RNC, Trump said he would protect us from a hateful foreign ideology. What about the hateful domestic ideology that he now seems so happy to help put in place?

For those LGBTQ people concerned or worried, Tiven recommended people visiting Lambda Legal and other organizations websites, and getting in touch and reporting any instances of discrimination they are aware of.

LGBTQ people needed to be aware of their rights, and to fight for their preservation if necessary, she added.

Tiven took some heart that the 2016 presidential election had not mirrored that of 2004. Back then, we were a punching bag. We were the object of vilification by Republicans, who sought to use us in a number of anti-gay ballots. This time were not that punching bag, but we have helped change the culture in a way that half of Americans seem uncomfortable with. They do not like the diverse and beautiful America we helped to create. But we are not the primary object of their discomfort: Muslims, immigrants, and people of color were. LGBT people were not singled out for the viciousness we are accustomed to. At the same time, we have helped generate the more inclusive and loving America that I absolutely believe will triumph in the end. (As evidence, Tiven pointed to the overwhelming majority of millennials who voted for Clinton.)

In a statement, Chad Griffin, HRC president, said: To every LGBTQ person across this nation feeling stunned and disheartened, and questioning if they have a place in our country today, I say this: You do. Dont ever let anybody tell you otherwise. Be bold, be strong, and continue to stand up for the principles that have always made America great.
The flood of text messages and emails of concern from my white liberal friends began late Tuesday night when it was clear Donald Trump was going to win. And the outpouring continued through Wednesday with listeners calling my SiriusXM radio show offering similar sentiments.

Some expressed fears and even said they had shed some tears thinking of what life would be like for those in the Muslim community under a President Trump. Others were more playful in expressing their apprehension, such as one friend who texted, If you need a safe house while waiting for your steamer to Canada, let me know.

The fear many Muslim Americansas well as other communities of colorhave at the prospect of life under a President Trump is very real. I saw an example late Tuesday when I was leaving Clintons victory party at the Javits Center in New York City. There I walked by a young Latina girl who was 10 or 11. She was crying about Trump winning. Her mother then tenderly comforted her with the words, Its going to be okay. We are going to get through this.

She was right. We will get through this. True, its painful that Trump won but Muslims and other minorities have a thick skin given the hate we have been subjected to in recent years such as the recent spike in hate crimes against Muslim Americans by self-professed Trump supporters.

But lets put this in context. We may have lost an election but we are not defeated. We will neither move to other countries nor retreat to the shadows. We will never surrender. In fact we must do the opposite. We have an obligation as not just progressives but as Americans to make it clear that we will not be silent in the face of Trump's sexism, racism and bigotry.

All of us who value pluralism, equal treatment for people of all races and faiths, and believe in respect for women must become more active in politics. We must speak out even more. We must push back even more against any attempts by Trump to turn his hateful rhetoric into laws.

We must also inspire each other in these dark days to realize that our best days are aheadand not because it sounds good, but because its true. How can I make that promise to you? Well the history of our nation tells us so.

For example, when George Wallace the racist pro-segregationist took office as governor of Alabama in 1963, I doubt many wouldve predicted the very next year the Civil Rights Act would be passed. Or that the following year the Voting Rights Act would be signed into law despite other Southern states having elected openly bigoted officials. But the activists back then achieved these feats by tireless grassroots work often marked by bone-crushing setbacks. In fact Dr. Martin Luther Kings words from that time are perfectly fitting for today: We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

Of course, we cant pretend that racism and bigotry did not play a role in Trumps victory. As CNNs Van Jones powerfully and insightfully told us Tuesday night, Trumps win was part of a whitelash. This was a whitelash against a changing country. It was a whitelash against a black president.

But we must not dismiss America as being horribly racist because Trump won. The facts just dont bear that out. First off, Trump did not in any way get a mandate. In fact, with almost all the votes tabulated, Clinton beat him by over 200,000 votes in the popular election. (Imagine how much Trump wouldve whined that the election was rigged if she had won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote by that margin?!)

Plus 52.5 percent of American voters voted against Trump. We should be proud that we are part of the 52.5 percent opposed to Trumps campaign, a campaign openly championed by David Duke and other white supremacists and anti-Semites.

And there are more reasons to be optimistic. In this election the poster child for racism against Latino immigrants, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, lost his bid for reelection in Arizona. We also saw history made in Minnesota where Ilhan Omar, a Muslim and a refugee, became the nations first Somali-American to be elected as a state representative.

But I dont want to sugarcoat this. Life under Trump will be challenging for communities of color. Imagine Trump actually picks Rudy Giuliani, a man who has called Black Lives Matter racist and un-American as he his attorney general as is rumored?! And I fear what Trump would do if God forbid we have another terrorist attack on U.S. soil perpetrated by a Muslim. At the very least he will call for us to have less constitutional rights. But Trump would likely propose for more drastic measures, such as special ID cards or worse.

Yet still I remain optimistic because I believe Trump will be a cautionary tale for progressives. His victory will be invoked to inspire more people to get involved in politics in coming elections to ensure that we elect local and federal officials who embrace American values and reject hate. And hopefully in the 2018 midterm elections we can replicate the success the GOP saw in 2010 when they regained control of the House and took five Senate seats.

So my fellow progressives take it from a Muslim American who has been through a lot, if more good people become active and work together for a common cause, in the end we will prevail. And that is not just good for liberals, its good for the United States of America.
One question will ring painfully throughout Americas coastal bubbles and blue states long after Donald Trumps Tuesday triumph over Hillary Clinton: How did this happen?

Racism. Bigotry. Apathy. Third-party voters. More clues are to be found in Blood on the Mountain, the new documentary about the historic deterioration of the coal industry in the energy battleground of West Virginiawhere President-elect Trump secured a staggering 68.7 percent of the vote en route to sweeping the Rust Belt, and where Hillary never stood a chance against an angry, depressed, and economically desperate portion of the country.

Simpler answers to how the business tycoon turned reality-TV star won over so much of America certainly abound, like the fact that Trump voters were so overwhelmingly white he earned a shining endorsement from the Ku Klux Klan. In a state like West Virginia, as illuminated in the aptly timed Blood on the Mountain, Trump also represented a solution to a perfect storm of issues locals gravitated to with life-or-death urgency, with only one interest presumably in mind: their own.

Directors Jordan Freeman and Mari-Lynn C. Evans piece together a chronological history of Big Coal in the United States in their melancholic alarm-bell documentary, which offers a staggering look at how thoroughly the fuel business has exploited the lives of its own arguably unwitting labor force. In limited release this month, its clear why Freeman and Evans took the film to screen for free earlier this year outside of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland (another pro-Trump swing state). Trump isnt mentioned in the film at all, but the shadow of his campaign promises to Americas coal and oil workers looms over the film like a shroud.

For most of its statehood, West Virginia leaned Democratuntil its citizens helped vote George W. Bush into office. Watching the film as case study its easy to see how coal workers might have been so forcefully driven toward Trumps pro-fossil fuel, anti-immigration platform and into such violent opposition to Clinton, the establishment candidate who drew hostile crowds when she stopped by on the campaign trail this summer.

The blood of the title is the blood of the coal miners who have toiled, struggled, and died for their industry since the fuel boom of the 1880s. The film details one fatal historical accident after another, all spurred on in part by corporate greed and negligence for human lives, including the building of the Hawks Nest Tunnel in 1927 that is thought to have led to the deaths of as many as 1,000 workers from lung poisoning; the deadly Buffalo Creek flood disaster that unleashed 132 million gallons of black wastewater upon a residential valley, wiping out 17 towns and leaving their residents dead, injured, and homeless; and the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion of 2010 that killed 29 workers after owner Massey Energy failed to comply with safety standards.

Human life was never given the priority that it should have been given, says American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) President Richard Trumka, lamenting the coal industrys disregard for the health and safety of its own workers. Corporate responsibility has ignored those tired, hungry and yearning to be free, offers Rev. Ron English. Its not just corporate executives who are guilty of exploiting generations of coal-mining blue-collar laborers: Corruption and collusion between coal companies and the unions that were supposed to protect those workers is just as much to blame for decades of economic exploitation that still threatens their lives, communities, and livelihoods, the film argues.

Coal mining is a dying industry, admits one former miner, who notes that 80-90 percent of the industrys holdings in the state are owned by out-of-state corporations with no connection to West Virginia and its peopleand no obligation to ensure their well-being. A potent romanticism remains connected to the idea of the West Virginian coal miner, a tradition proudly embraced by the state and its denizens. And yet for years, Blood on the Mountain argues, the industry has eliminated jobs and done irreparable damage to surrounding communities by moving from below-ground mining to the practice of mountaintop removalan environmentally damaging means of strip-mining that is devastating the natural ecosystems of West Virginia and exposing more and more residents to health risks reminiscent of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

Corporate mining has so successfully entrenched itself into the local culture, various talking heads argue, that laborers believe that coals best interests are their best interests. Big Coal brings pro-coal curriculum into local schools, teaching children that coal is not only great, but essential for their futures. Instead of blaming natural-gas companies for outcompeting the dying coal business, we see members of the United Mine Workers of America worked into a frenzy by a union boss who rails against globalism and foreign trade: Every developing country has been taking our jobs through these rotten stinking trade deals!

You had a whole system that reinforced obedience, says Peter Galuszka, author of the book Thunder on the Mountain. If youre a coal miner in a Massey mine, it was very much a boss-directed culture. The boss being Don Blankenship.

Blankenship, the former CEO of Massey Energy known for dropping millions to secure the favor of state judges, gets major screen time in Blood in the Mountain. First seen stammering his way through an inquiry into his companys culpability in the Upper Big Branch Mine tragedy, he later shows up yelling about the federal government and environmental extremists wearing garish red, white, and blue at a million-dollar Labor Day PR event in which Ted Nugent and Sean Hannity make paid appearances stumping for the coal company.

Whats clear watching the documentary post-election is how firmly the deck was already stacked against Clinton in West Virginiaand by extension, one easily imagines, its fellow energy states. She certainly hammered the last nail in her own coffin in March when, while boasting about her clean-energy policy, she swore an accidental oath to coal workers that she never recovered from.

Im the only candidate who has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean, renewable energy as the key into coal country, Clinton said during a March 13 CNN town hall, because were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business. She would later make a point to visit coal country to explain herself, to explain that in killing off coal she had a plan to stimulate jobs for laborers in renewable and clean-energy industries. But the damage had already been done.

In May, Hillary took note when Blankenship showed up and joined a pro-Trump protest at her campaign stop in Williamson, West Virginia.

If Donald Trump wants the support of someone like that, Clinton responded the next day, he can have it.

Trump indeed won Blankenships allegiance, which the coal baron commemorated in a November 6th tweet that called for Americans to vote the reality TV star and his wall into the White House. He tweeted the endorsement from behind bars, halfway through serving a one-year sentence for conspiring to violate health and safety standards in the Upper Big Branch tragedy.
As President-elect Donald J. Trump might say, somethings going on in the media-political complex, and weve got to figure out what the hell it is.

Trumps shocking ascendancy as the 45th president of the United States has reduced conventional wisdom and time-honored political norms to smoking rubble, but it is also likely to threaten, if not topple, the previously unchallenged primacy of the mainstream media.

Trump, of course, spent much of his campaign inveighing against the crooked, dishonest, disgusting media scum; vowed to make trouble for media companies, block Time Warners plans to merge with AT&T, and open up our libel laws, so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money; and, according The Washington Post, he refuses to commit to traveling with a protective press pool, as presidents have done for decades.

It looks like our next president isnt bluffing: Thursday morning, he broke with longstanding custom by ditching his transition press pool for his historic trip from Trump Tower to the White House to meet with President Obama.

In the most visible sign of the New World Order, the Trump-loving Breitbart News Networkwhich operated as a propaganda conduit and outrage engine for the reality show billionaires angry-populist juggernautannounced that it was planning to expand its business internationally into Germany and France, where Breitbarts resentful sensibility is apt to receive a warm welcome from white nationalists indignant at the presence of Muslims in their midst and panicked by an influx of Syrian refugees.

Less obvious beneficiaries of the upended dominance of corporate mediawhich regularly exposed Trumps glaring flaws as a candidate but also chased ratings and oxygenated his campaign with thousands of hours of free airtimeinclude: stokers of sinister conspiracy theories like Texas-based radio demagogue Alex Jones and British-born Trumpkin Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars; cultish Irish-Canadian podcaster Stefan Molyneux; alt-right rabble rouser Milo Yiannopoulos (nominally the tech editor of Breitbart, but better known for his personal brand of minority-hating, white-nationalist outrage); rightwing rumor-monger Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit; hoaxer videographer James OKeefe of Veritas; internet troll Charles C. (Chuck) Johnson of Gotnews.com, and self-styled male empowerment guru and alt-right operative Mike Cernovich, who is frequently described as a rape apologist.

Once a rogues gallery of marginal players in the media sphere, they and other denizens of the menacingly zany fringe will have an opportunity to capitalize on their Trump-supporting prescience and some of them will haveas they never did beforea direct line to the White House.

A lot of my friends are going to be in the White House, so its very exciting, to put it mildly, said Chuck Johnson, who confides that he spent much of election night in the Trump victory partys VIP room at the New York Hilton, mingling with billionaires, and boasts access to members of the president-elects family.

We were always connected to the Trump people at the very highest levelsIts pretty crazy that Celebrity Apprentice is the preparation for having the nuke codes, but Ill take it.

At the same victory party, Breitbarts Washington political editor, Matthew Boyle, stood confidently by one of the cash bars wearing a red Make America Great Again hat and holding court with several young women, Politico reported.

There is, needless to say, a possibly dark, dangerous and even anti-democratic consequence to the rise of what Johnson calls The Counter-Media.

Conservative radio host Charlie Sykes, who was a leading voice of Never-Trumpism in his home state of Wisconsin (whose 10 electoral votes the Republican nominee ended up winning), warns that the media complexion in the United States may begin to take on the coloration of the media in authoritarian regimes like Vladmir Putins Russia.

I'd hoped that there would be a reckoning for the Alternative Reality Media after this election, but they have clearly now been empowered by Trump's victory, Sykes emailed. And they will undoubtedly be used to enforce allegiance and stifle dissent. I think one of the under-told stories of this campaign has been the role that these outlets have played in threatening, and intimidating some potential critics into silence.

Sykes continued: Trump has made it clear that he countenances, even celebrates, the smearing of his opponents and criticsincluding members of their families. There is no reason to think that now that he sits in the Oval Office that will change. I fully expect they will be mobilizing their troll legions against [House Speaker] Paul Ryan [a Trump skeptic for much of the campaign] or any other congressional leader who bucks the Maximum Leader.

Sykes added: The irony here is that Rush Limbaugh has talked for years about the State controlled media. We may be about to find out what that really looks like.

Breitbart Newswhose executive chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, took a leave of absence to run the Trump campaign and may yet play a role in the incoming administrationis also beefing up its operations domestically in the aftermath of its wildly successful bet on Trump.

"Theres going to be more hiring that goes on  Im already picturing more tech reporting, more media reporting," Breitbarts U.S. editor in chief, Alex Marlow, told Reuters, noting that Yiannopoulos is in negotiations for his own non-Breitbart television show. "We do a ton of politics reporting now so I dont know that well need to do more but we certainly arent planning on scaling back with anything." (Neither Marlow nor Bannon responded to The Daily Beasts requests for comment; Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson and Stefan Molyneux likewise didnt respond.)

Johnson, for one, argued that the Trump-backing counter-medianotably practitioners like Hoft and OKeefe, whose work was repeatedly linked during the campaign by the traffic-driving Drudge Reporthave successfully professionalized themselves during this election cycle and, benefiting from low overhead and quick reflexes, taken advantage of the financial turmoil troubling the traditional journalism business.

Were breaking stories independent of the corporate media altogether. Its no longer riffing on the media; were talking about ways to replace them, now that the structure of media companies is changing through rounds of layoffs and consolidation, Johnson said. Now its all about creating an alternative media, while in the past it was about bitching about left-wing media bias.

Johnson added that through crowd-sourcing opposition research on social media and other platforms, he and his fellow Trumpkins were able to unearth damaging stories that made their way onto Drudge and into the Britain-based Daily Mail, whose mighty online operation gets 80 million U.S. readers monthly.

Although perhaps a grain of salt is called for, Johnson claimed credit for discovering and tipping off the Mail to such bombshells as the revelation that disgraced ex-congressman Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Hillary Clinton intimate Huma Abedin, was sexting a 15-year-old girl in North Carolinaprompting an FBI investigation and Abedin filing for divorce.

Meanwhile, Cernovich said he ginned up his own anti-Clinton headlinesespecially an item from the Wikileaks release of Clinton campaign chairman John Podestas emails, includling a June 2015 one in which his art-collector brother Tony, a Washington lobbyist, was inviting him to a spirit cooking dinner featuring noted performance artist Marina Abramovic.

The resulting story--which was carried on Infowars, the Gateway pundit and even more mainstream outlets like The Washington Timessuggested that Clintons campaign chief was deeply weird, if not a Satanist who engages in blood rituals and cannibalism.

WIKI WICCAN: PODESTA PRACTICES OCCULT MAGIC, the Drudge Report tweeted to the sites one million followers. CLINTON CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN PRACTICES BIZARRE OCCULT RITUAL, Infowars headline screamed.

It was a big story, driven through social media, and ended up going worldwide, Cernovich told The Daily Beast. If youre from New York, youre going to call it performance art. If youre from the Midwest or the South, youre going to call it cultist or Satanic, or even cannibalistic, ritualistic behavior.

It was Cernovich who came up with the hashtag #MAGA3X for Make America Great Again, exhorting Trumpkins to share three articles daily, persuade three friends to support Trump and take three Trump voters to the polls. Cernovich, who boasts 136 million impressions on his Twitter feed in October, also engineered a couple dozen Trump flash mobs nationwide, he said, using social media to create a sense of real community.

One mans conspiracy theory is another mans groundbreaking expose that comes out of left field but is nonetheless true, Johnson said. The short version is we were like a troll army that existed for Trump online, on Twitter, on Reddit, organized by people like me and Mike Cernovich. In the end, it was sort of like the alternative mediaor really the counter-media more than the alternative mediawas becoming in some measure more powerful than the traditional media.

Johnson added: Its pretty crazy that we memed a president into existence.
DALLASIt took three years in court for Alex and Claudia Golinelli to get back the $1,100  an entire month's wages for the couple  they were owed by an employer who refused to pay them for their labor.

It is a predatory page taken right of the playbook of Donald Trumpwho has made a fortune off the backs of cheap labor that is sometimes made even cheaper because he has refused to pay.

The difference between the Golinellis and the numerous contractors Trump refused to pay is that theyre undocumented workers.

Much more than $1,100 is at stake now that the rip-off artist is the president-elect of the United States. If he gets his way, it wont be wages he takes this time but their way of life and their families by kicking them out of the country.

The Golinellis were among more than a dozen men and women who gathered in a small, nondescript building next to a used furniture store in south Dallas to watch on Univision as election results came in on Tuesday night. The building belongs to the Workers Defense Project, which helps undocumented workers like the Golinellis retrieve lost or stolen wages.

Its really sad to see families separated, said Mario Ontiveros, an undocumented worker, on Tuesday night. Ive seen it over the years, but seeing it happen en masse would be catastrophic.

If Trump gets his way, the catastrophe may be imminent.

Just after 8 p.m., a disappointed murmur came from the room as anchors announced that Trump had just taken Texas.

He will start to spread his hate, Alex said of Trump toward the end of our conversation. He is a really dangerous man.

Claudia, wearing a navy T-shirt with the Pledge of Allegiance written on it, said she could not bear to think of going back to El Salvador with or without her husband. She did most of the talking on Tuesday night. Alex, with long sideburns and a cellphone in each pocket of his khaki work shirt, sat solemnly by, wringing his hands as the discussion turned to Trump.

Slowly, hes going to start making harsher laws, and its going to be like the anti-black laws before the civil rights movement, he said.

One of the couples children was born in the United States; the other came here at a young age.

Its all they know, Claudia said.

Alex and Claudiawho both have engineering degrees from their native El Salvadorwere working as electricians at a grocery store in Reno, Nevada, when their troubles began in 2013. First came the reduced wages, for no discernible reason, then their employer cut off all payments.

Owed the $1,100 monthly salary the couple shared, they were told by their employer to bring tools and materials they had been loaned and they would be paid. When they arrived, the police were there.

We were so scared, Claudia said.

The employer accused the couple of stealing the tools and materials they had returned. When other workers came to their defense, the police decided not to arrest or charge anyoneincluding the employer who had levied the false accusation, the couple said.

The son of an Italian father and a El Salvadoran mother, Alex left the country in 2005. First came a land dispute with a neighbor, then came threats from a mafia group, Alex said. When they threatened his mother with death, she left for Germany. Eventually he came to the U.S. to find work and to find Claudia, who had come here the previous year.

It took three years, but the Golinellis eventually won their court case with the help of the Workers Defense Project. The Department of Labor ruled in their favor in March and is currently monitoring their former employers finances in order to get the couple the $1,100 they are owed.

Undocumented workers have been hurting for years. With few rights, the immigrant men and women who pick our produce, build our apartments, work our mills and factories, and provide the silent and unseen backbone of labor that keeps our economy going are often the victims of predatory business owners who exploit them for work and refuse or delay payment for their services.

Trump is one such proven predator.

Over the years Trump has stiffed the Polish immigrants who built his garish Midtown Manhattan tower and refused to pay hundreds of people and businesses who worked on his properties across the country.

If Trumps excuse is anything like the one he used when asked in a debate why he allegedly hadnt paid taxes for 18 years, our new leader would likely say such decisions to screw over the workers he purports to represent makes him smart.

If Trump does what he has been saying hell do for the last year and a half, a wall will be built to prevent friends and loved ones from going back and forth across the border, and millions will be deported, leaving their American citizen children to fend for themselves in the only country theyve ever known.

Ontiveros, a 55-year-old from Mexico, is one of those immigrants. He, too, fears what will happen to him and his family in a Trump presidency. Ontiveros was remodeling a Lane Bryant store in Texas four years ago when he found out how some in this country treat undocumented workers.

When his two weeks worth of work was done, his employer simply didnt pay him the $1,200 he was owed. Ontiveros was shocked.

Ive always fought against injustice, Ontiveros said. Ive always worked different jobs and tried to help people.

Along with his wife, Lourdes, Ontiveros continues that work with the Workers Defense Project, quietly telling workers at construction sites that the nonprofit can help them.

That they have rights, he said.

The groups two offices in Austin and Dallas have retrieved more than $229,000 in lost or stolen wages so far this year, Garza said. It is funded through grants and donations; college students often volunteer with the organization. When employers dont pay up, members of the group picket, drawing public attention to a predatory business owner who has stiffed workers.

Ontiveros won his case, but by the time a judge ruled in his favor his former employer had disappeared, he said. Thats often the case, according to DJ Garza, a community organizer with the group. Sometimes its easier for U.S. citizens stiffing immigrants to escape justice than it is for the workers to retrieve the money they are owed.

Trump should know something about that. When his businesses fail he simply writes them offas he did in 1995 when he claimed a nearly $900 million loss, resulting in an alleged lack of tax payments for the next 18 years. And when he claims work doesnt meet his golden demands, he simply skates on the bill. When his casinos and other projects fail, he leaves investors and workers clutching at empty pockets, staring helplessly at unpaid bills.

Then he retreats to his tower and tells himself that he is a big man.

He is not alone in this misguided mind-set. There are many like him across the country, and workers like Ontiveros, Alex Golinelli, and millions of others are their victims.

By Wednesday morning, Alexs muted concern over a Trump presidency had turned into outright dismay.

I feel very disappointed and worried for me and the Hispanic immigrant community, he told The Daily Beast through an interpreter.

But we have to organize and fight against this neo-Nazi Trump and the Republican Congress so that they do not comply with what was promised by the Trump campaign.
If, as the poet says, America is not the world, then the world is surely owed an apology for the lack of attention paid to a series of alarming developments throughout Europe and the Middle East. Perhaps appropriately, all have involved or implicated a revanchist authoritarian power for which the incoming commander in chief has repeatedly professed his admiration and which, after having done all it could to facilitate an upset American electoral outcomemaybe we helped a bit with WikiLeaks, as pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov put it Wednesday morningoffers its hearty congratulations on his victory. Meanwhile, Russias alleged wet work and maneuvering outside the United States in the last two weeks has been even more impressive.

Adriatic Assassins

In Montenegro, a tiny and relatively young Balkan nation sandwiched between Bosnia and Albania, a cabal of Russian nationalists has been accused of trying to assassinate the prime minister, Milo Djukanovic, following a campaign of election interference. U.S. officials say the abortive putsch bear all the hallmarks of a Kremlin project of subversion, including the funneling of money to a pro-Moscow opposition party, biased news organizations, and key influencers. A former Serbian special forces commander and Serbian veterans of the Russian-backed separatist movement in east Ukraine were part of the conspiracy.

The plan, as outlined by Montenegrin chief special prosecutor Milivoje Katnic, was as follows. Around 20 Serbian and Montenegrins, dressed as elite police officers, were going to attack a demonstration in front of the national parliament in the capital of Podgorica on Oct. 16, election day. From there, they would storm the legislature and murder the prime minister. The result would be the installation of a Kremlin-friendly government in place of Djukanovics pro-Western Democratic Party of Socialists, itself a liberalized hangover or reinvention of the old Yugoslavian Communist party.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, who was at first incredulous about what sounded like a conspiracy theory, has corroborated the coup attempt, claiming that Serbian nationals involved have been identified and 120,000 and police uniforms had been recovered.

Vacic has cryptically alluded to a third country being behind this foiled scheme at violent regime change in a democracy of just 600,000, and you can probably guess which one he has in mind. Indeed, Serbia has since expelled several Russian nationals from its borders after they were found to have been tracking Djukanovics movements digitally and communicating with one another on encrypted electronic devices. The expulsions also coincided with a visit paid to the capital Belgrade by Nikolai Patrushev, the former head of the Russias Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor organ of the Soviet KGB, and now the chairman of Russias Security Council. This concatenation of circumstances, Balkan watchers have written, suggest the long, dark arm of Moscow.

Serbia was also a target of what appears to have been an assassination attempt or coordinated act of anti-state violence. According to Serbias Interior Ministry, an impressive cache of weaponrygrenades, ammunition, sniper rifles, and a bazookawas later uncovered in the woods close to Vacics family home, outside Belgrade. As Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic put it, It is very disturbing that [the hidden weapons] were located on this turning, where the Prime Ministers vehicle must slow down to minimal speed That is an ideal distance, of only 50 meters, for such weapons to be used. Might the murder of a second head of a European government have been in the offing? And if so, who were the culprits and their sponsors?

Of particular concern is that one alleged participants in the Montenegrin plot is Bratislav Dikic, a former Serbian special forces commander, who was sacked for criminal and terrorist activity. Another conspirator has been identified as Aleksandar Sindjelic, a well-known Serbian fascist who is one of the top 300 terrorists being sought by the Ukrainian government for his participation in Russias dirty war in the regions of Donetsk and Luganska war thetas overseen by Russian intelligence officers, paratroopers and special forces. Sindjelic stands accused by Ukrainian soldiers as leader of a pro-separatist militia known as the Serbian Wolves.

So why overthrow Djukanovic? He has been an ardent advocate and architect of Montenegros NATO membership, which is set to commence next spring, making it the 29th state in the U.S.-led (and now, under a Trump presidency, rather fragile) military alliance, as well as of European Union membership, which seems a more distant prospect owing to the nations runaway corruption and illiberalism. Needless to add, the Putin regime openly opposes both decisions, although it categorically denies it had anything to do with trying to kill Montenegros prime minister. Special prosecutor Milivoje Katnic has also conceded, We dont have any evidence that the state of Russia is involved in any sense.

Djukanovic, the godfather of Montenegros independence, has led the small Balkan country as both president or premier since its formal breakaway from Serbia in 2006. He fought a fiercely contested election that was waged more than anything as a plebiscite on Montenegros further integration into the transatlantic system versus its becoming, in his words, a Russian colony.

Nevertheless, he is considered a godfather of a more dubious kidney. Last year he was named Man of the Year in Organized Crime by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Nobody outside of Putin has run a state that relies so heavily on corruption, organized crime and dirty politics, OCCRP editor Drew Sullivan said in bestowing the award on Djukanovic, who is accused of cigarette smuggling, embezzlement and fraud. It is truly and thoroughly rotten to the core.

Baltic Turmoil

Other European leaders have faced more conventional threats of late. Estonias 36-year-old center-right Prime Minister Taavi Roivas did not survive no-confidence vote yesterday after his coalition government fell apart, owing to differences with his social democratic partners on health care, education, and economic issues.

The chief beneficiary of parliamentary collapse is the Center Party, which draw on a sizable constituency of ethnic Russians and whose recently remove chairman is seen as pro-Kremlin. This, as the country prepares for the most dire contingency of a Ukraine-style Russian invasion by bolstering the Estonian Defense League, a 24,000-strong corps of citizen-soldiers now being trained in partisan warfare tactics in the event that little green mena euphemism for Russian troops in disguisesteal across the border to do in the Baltic state (and NATO member) what their confederates did in Crimea and the Donbass.

The Center Partys current leader, 38-year-old Juri Ratas, the speaker of Estonian parliament, has vowed to continue the Baltic states strong Atlanticist commitment, fearing a popular backlash should he do anything to vitiate national ties to NATO or the EU.

Nevertheless, there may well be intramural pressures (and subtle external ones) to lower the temperature on Estonian deterrence, which, apart from insurgency drilling, also takes the form of annual intelligence reviews that expose agents of Russian influence in the country of 1.3 million. Catching Russians spies is a routine business for Kapo, the state's domestic security service. Added to which, a leading candidate for U.S. secretary of State under a Trump administration is Newt Gingrich, a man who has described Tallinn, the Estonian capital, as a suburb of St. Petersburg in the course of downplaying Americas obligation to defend its treaty-bound allies.

Neo-Nazi Cop Killers

The ascent of the Hungarian far-right has been well documented in recent years, particularly under the leadership of the current prime minister Viktor Orban, a creeping authoritarian who has tried to split the difference between his right-wing Fidesz party and the more plangently anti-democratic (and anti-Semitic) Jobbik.

According to the Hungarian government, one prominent member of Jobbik, Bela Kovacs, himself a member of European parliament, is a Russian spy. Yet for all its counterintelligence rigor, the Orban governmentstill another NATO memberhas tried to cozy up to Moscow in its own way, by inviting Vladimir Putin to Budapest at the height of a European chill over the Russian invasion of Ukraine and by awarding the lions share of contracts for the construction of a planned Hungarian nuclear power plant to Russian state-owned companies. (That move that was declared illegal by the European Commission.)

Now, however, comes proof, courtesy of Orbans special services, that Russian intelligence is also meddling in internal Magyar affairs with lethal effect.

Agents of the GRU, or Russian military intelligenceone of two spy services that hacked the Democratic National Committeehave been accused of underwriting a prominent neo-Nazi organization whose elderly founder, 76-year-old Istvan Gyorkos, last month shot and killed a Hungarian police officer and critically wounded another in the village of Bony.

Gyorkos is a longtime leader in the fascist Hungarian National Front 1989, or MNA, which aims to defend Hungary from Jewish Bolsheviks and other subversive elements by training paramilitaries for war. It has given military instruction to Hungarian and German Hitlerists at Hungarian training camps. (Caveat: Fags, gypsies and Jews cannot participate.)

In 2012, MNA split into two factions, with Gyorkos heading the one that draws inspiration (PDF) from the Eurasianist ideology of Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who has advocated genocide in Ukraine and who, perhaps not irrelevantly, is a strong admirer of the U.S. president-elect.

Gyorkos opened fire after his home was raided for illegal weapons possession. According to the Hungarian press, Russian state diplomats had often participated in paintball and airsoft exercises, which feature rifles with plastic bullets.

Gyorkoss explicit ties to the Kremlin came to light when the Facebook page of a website his movement founded, Hidfo, or Bridgehead, featured supposedly reader submitted content supposedly showing that Budapest had sent T-72 tanks to the Ukrainian military in August 2014, at the height of Russias invasion. The images, as Hungarian intelligence has now established, actually came from the GRU as part of a hyper-caffeinated disinformation campaign to scandalize any and all European support for embattled Kiev. It was, as Hungarys then-foreign minister Tibor Navracsics phrased it, an unfriendly gesture by Moscow.

Aleppos Annihilation

Russias only aircraft carrier, the Soviet-era Admiral Kuznetsov, spent weeks groaning and wheezing its way from Murmansk to the Mediterranean, emitting plumes of black smoke, as it was often towed at sea by a tugboat, along with a flotilla of ancillary vessels. Not exactly the cutting image of a formidable warship, the Kuznetsov is nevertheless preparing to launch a new offensive on the rebel-held district of east Aleppo, Syria, which loyalists to the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad have spent four years trying to retake.

Putin had last week offered a moratorium on the well-documented Russian pulverization of Aleppo and safe passages for rebels to flee the city, although rebels say no such thing was ever evident to them.

That sham deal expired Friday. Now, 24 hours after America elected a man with whom Putin intends to do quick and vigorous business, the armada is set to get to work. A Russian Ministry of Defense source has said, The groups main goal is to carry out missile strikes on terrorists outside of Aleppo that are attempting to get into the citywith terrorists here being the standard placeholder for opposition fighters of all ideological stripe as well as countless civilians, hospitals, schools and residences, which Russias year-long intervention in Syria have turned to dust.

Pro-Assad soldiers and Iranian-trained militiamen, meanwhile, are said to have deployed to frontline positions in what looks to be the start of the final campaign to sack the opposition stronghold.

The Kuznetsov is accompanied by three submarines, two destroyers, a nuclear-powered battle cruiser, and a frigate. The collective arsenal includes Kalibr cruise missiles and S-300 anti-aircraft defense systems and, aboard the Kuznetsov, a small fleet of Su-33s and MiG-29s fighter jets. This will mark the first time in Russian history that carrier-borne aircraft have ever launched sorties.

Still, many analysts contend, the deployment is mainly for show. They havent done anything like this in a long time, and its getting heavily covered by the local and international media, Peter Zwack, a former military attache to Moscow told The Guardian. Its posturing and secondarily adding capability in Syria.

Maybe, but the men, women and children about to be put under the rubble wont see the Kuznetsovs presence off the Syrian coast as mere posturing.
Joe Scarborough, who spent most of the past year warning America not to underestimate Donald Trump, framed himself as the real journalist Thursday morning while those at The New York Times and other elite media outlets were mere cheerleaders for Hillary Clinton.

It was there the entire time, the Morning Joe host said of Trumps path to victory. They didnt want to hear it, they didnt want to see it. He pointed to the bullish predictions for Trump by FiveThirtyEights Nate Silver and comments by his friend Mark Halperin, who was seated at the table, as examples of people who were mocked and ridiculed for even admitting there was a small chance it could happen. (With Halperin, the mocking and ridicule had more to do with his sycophantic interview style .)

I want you to the think about this, he said, pointing a finger at The New York Times and Washington Post, that when anybody even made the suggestion that Donald Trump could be elected president of the United States, it was their journalistic standards that were questioned.

Accusing the Times of ignoring the reality of what made so many voters embrace Trump, he went on to say, You had a complete blind spot, and you wanted to keep it that way. It was much easier for you to stay in Manhattan and say that they are all racists and bigots. And if they still believe that 50 million Americans are racists and bigots, Scarborough said, I have pity on you.

You dont understand whats going on, he lectured his media colleagues. Lets face it: I didnt understand whats going on out there. But you know what Mark and I did that you didnt do? You know what Mika did that you didn't do? We actually talked to people in Middle America. And they told us they were hurting, and they told us why they were voting for Trump.

Scarborough later held up the front page of Thursday mornings New York Times, which read, Democrats, Students and Foreign Allies Face the Reality of a Trump Presidency, and said, This is staggering, it really is.

This is the day after a surprising underdog sweeping victory and their headline is not Disaffected Americans Have a Champion Going to the White House or The Country Votes for Fundamental Change, Halperin said, comparing the paper to The Onion. The headline is about how disappointed the friends of the people who run The New York Times are.

This shows that the editors of The New York TimesI have the greatest respect for themdont get it, he said. This is a Saturday Night Live sketch. You went to a cocktail party the night before and you decided to write this.

Throughout the long presidential campaign, Scarboroughs feelings about Trump seemed to vary with his poll numbers. When Trump was surging in the Republican primary, he was a frequent call-in guest on the show and had an often uncomfortably cozy relationship with Scarborough and his co-host Mika Brzezinski. But in August, when things started going south for Trump, Scarborough called on the GOP to get this political train wreck off the tracks before something terrible happens.

Its no surprise that with Trump about to ascend to the highest office in the land, hes back in Scarboroughs good graces.
Even as in some parts of the Pentagon the shock of Tuesdays election was setting in, there already was talk about how the militarys legal and constitutional duties could serve as a check and balance against some of President-elect Donald Trumps potentially troubling national-security policies.

To become a member of the U.S. military, every troop must take an oath to follow the orders of the president, regardless of that service members political affiliation or personal opinions.

We have to salute and serve for this country, one officer told The Daily Beast. We cant do that if we are seen as political.

On Wednesday at the Pentagon, commanders privately said, if there was ever a reason to be grateful for its apolitical military, it was now. An apolitical military does not swear an oath to a person but an office and a Constitution.

That separation allows commanders advising President Trump to refuse to follow orders that call for committing war crimes, like his proposal to kill the families of suspected terrorists. In March, Trump said he would force the military to commit war crimes.

If President Trump proposes an idea the military uniformly considers legal but dangerous, commanders have a knack for stonewalling to buy time in hopes for crisis to pass, much as the military did in 1970 when President Nixon wanted to launch strikes in the Middle East.

There is just one question: Will they? Will the U.S. military be so bold? Will the generals stand up to their commander in chief? In recent history, like the run-up to the 2003 war in Iraq, the military has been less than forceful about standing up to civilians.

On Wednesday, nobody could say for sure.

Instead, Tuesdays election was something to be discussed only with trusted colleagues. After all, if the military is supposed to be apolitical, election-related talk becomes touchy on the most innocuous of days. And this time, there was a patina of suspicion among troops and civilian employees of the Pentagon, as though colleagues were suddenly unsure of the political leanings of those around them.

There was no way to distract oneself with draft plans based on Trumps military proposals, officials said, since he proposed both sides of most issues throughout the campaign. He said he wanted to add as many as 70,000 troops to the Army but said the U.S. should stop nation-building. He slammed NATO but also said he would work with it. His posture toward Russia seems to counter his promise to put Americas interests first and project a strong, forceful American policy.

Just two days ago, he called those U.S. forces leading the offensive to rid the Iraqi city of Mosul of the self-proclaimed Islamic State a group of losers.

Lets be honest. We have no idea what he is going to do. Maybe he was just saying that stuff for the election, one Army colonel suggested.

To avoid political pitfalls, troops answered election-related questions by repeating the relevant part of their oathwith one newly added caveat.

I will obey the orders of the president of the United States. I will obey the orders of the president of the United States. I will obey the orders of the president of the United Statesunless ordered to do something illegal.

To be sure, much as Washington does not reflect the rest of the country, the Pentagon does not mirror the rest of military. There were Trump supporters at the building, quiety jubilant. They said they trusted Trump more and that they wanted marked change in Washington.

Polls of the U.S. military leading up to Tuesdays election offered a variety of results. A September NBC News/SurveyMonkey Weekly Election poll found Trump led among active-duty service members and veterans by 19 percentage points, 55 to 36 percent. The same survey found that active-duty service members and veterans were more confident in Trump as commander in chief than the general public. They were less confident about Hillary Clinton as the head of the armed forces than non-military surveyed.

There also appeared to be a divide between officers and enlisted troops. A September Military Times poll found that 28 percent of officers favored Clinton, compared to 14 percent of enlisted troops. The numbers were in reverse for Trump. According to the survey, 26 percent of officers supported the eventual 2016 presidential winner compared to 40 percent of enlisted troops.

The Military Times survey of 2,200 troops concluded that Trump beat Clinton easily overall among troops, 38 to 16 percent. Trumps biggest challenger among the military, the poll found, was not Clinton but Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, who earned 37 percent support overall of those surveyed.

The tone of the campaign language hung over the building in the hours after the only survey that ultimately mattered, the one conducted on Election Day. Will the man who referred to grabbing women by the pussy support the militarys effort to integrate women in combat units, now less than a year old?

Will a man who has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin protect U.S. allies that also are Putins foes, like Ukraine?

For months, the Pentagon has been prepping for the election. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has sent no fewer than six messages urging commanders to remain apolitical. But the messages could not predict the nations reaction.

Importantly, as an institution, the American people cannot be looking at us as a special-interest group or a partisan organization, Dunford told reporters in August.
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NEW YORK CITY  Early Wednesday evening in Manhattans Union Square, the chants of hundreds of anti-Trump protesters ricocheted through the parks northern plaza: Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!

Twenty-four hours earlier, many in the crowd associated those words with Trumps hate-filled rallies, where the Republican presidential candidates supporters called for his rival, Hillary Clinton, to be jailed.

By Wednesday evening the chant had been re-appropriated by an angry cadre protesting the election of Donald Trump.

Led by the New York chapter of an organization called Socialist Alternative, the protesters would march 30 blocks north to Trump Tower, joining forces there with three other anti-Trump groups who began their own demonstrations further uptown, including the intersectional feminist #GOPHandsOffMe movement.

Similar protests erupted across the country from Boston to Los Angeles, with many others in predominantly blue cities like Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and Washington D.C.

Police estimated more than 5,000 people turned out in New York City alone, where their main target was Trumps unforeseen victory but also the political establishment. United we stand, fuck the system at hand! went one resounding chant. The protesters were a fiercely progressive, overwhelmingly youthful crew of Bernie Sanders supporters and Occupy Wall Streeters on steroids.

Trump won because of the weakness of the Democratic Party! a Socialist Alternative organizer told the crowd at Union Square, her voice amplified by a megaphone. I refuse to believe that this country is overrun with reactionariesthese are people who dont have what they need in order to thrive and survive!

The crowd erupted in cheers and hoisted their defiant Sue the DNC and Not my president posters, their apocalyptic See you in hell, Trump and AmeriKKKan Nightmare signs, the latter referencing Trumps white-supremacist supporters.

Many expressed fear of how President Trumpwhose campaign rhetoric has consistently been called out as sexist, racist, and xenophobic by the media and his detractorscould endanger marginalized communities.

As a trans woman, Im really scared that I might not be able to have accessible health care to pay for my hormone therapy said Brian Villalobos, 24, who wore a pink backpack and carried a black sign mocking Trumps campaign slogan, with the words America has never been great written in pastel chalk.

I dont believe the country has ever been that great, at least not for people of color and women, Villalobos said as we walked north in the rain on Broadway, where cars were parked in the middle of the street. The city was evidently prepared for the demonstration, which was largely peaceful.

Im also a first-generation kid from Honduras, Villalobos added, so what does that mean for my family?

Near Madison Square Park, a young woman in a camouflage jacket brandished her protest paraphernaliaa used mailers envelope with a Sharpeed cry to End Electoral Votingand explained that the Electoral College was obsolete.

To my understanding, we have electoral voting because our Founding Fathers didnt believe we were smart enough to vote on our own, said Gigi, 24, who declined to reveal her last name. I think that the majority of America is intelligent and educated enough to make our own decisions, and the majority of America voted for Hillary, she said, referring to Clintons popular-vote victory.

Indeed, Clinton would have taken the election had she won the Electoral College, a system designed to ensure that candidates dont overlook small states for big cities, instead seeking support from a cross-section of the electorate. Winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College, as Democrats have now done in two of the past five elections, has prompted calls for reform that would require a constitutional amendmentand everyone hates the system when their candidate loses, even if its not their ideal candidate.

Up ahead, people carrying rainbow LGBTQ flags and orange Socialist Alternative ones snaked over to Sixth Avenue, where traffic had stopped to accommodate the demonstration. City buses honked in unison with shouted slogans, from the feminist (end rape culture) to the profane (fuck your wall), while taxi and Uber drivers exchanged high-fives and fist-bumps with marchers.

New Yorkers hate traffic, but on Wednesday evening they hated Donald Trump more. The rare unsmiling drivers were called out by protesters on more than one occasion. Tax the rich! one yelled at a man sulking behind the wheel of his Range Rover; others cursed and rushed toward a car whose driver had implored them to get a life.

Ten blocks south of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, organizers began panicking that much of the group had fallen behind. There were calls for the front to slow down, the back to keep up, and the onlookerstourists gawping or taking videos on their smartphones while others cheeredto join the march.

Hustling to keep up with the crush of people ahead, a 23-year-old woman in a long flannel shirt and winter hat pulled over her ears struck up a conversation with me, introducing herself only as Kitty.

Trump and Pence should definitely be assassinated, Kitty offered, as if relaying what shed eaten for lunch that day. If no one took them out, she anticipated a huge fucking Holocaust.

Around 8 p.m., Kitty pushed her way through throngs of people as foot traffic halted a block south of Trump Tower, where a chorus of fuck your wall chants echoed through the crowd, some of them aimed at a line of police officers cordoning off the streets from the sidewalk, effectively forming a barrier to Trumps gilded headquarters. Out front, protesters waved a large rainbow flag and taunted the president-elect with a blow-up doll of his likeness dangling from a noose on a wooden poll.

Andrew Heyning, a 19-year-old student at New York University, said he felt morally defeated that half of the country would elect someone who is such an awful candidate and human being. But tonight, this gives me hope!

He gestured to the scene around usthe hanging blow-up doll and gleeful protesters who had pulled the city into their orbit, with many climbing construction sites and street signs to get a better viewbefore breaking into a Fuck Donald Trump chant. He and dozens of others thrust their middle fingers in the air toward several tower residents, who looked down on the braying mob from their balconies.

The most important takeaway from all of this is that Trump duped his anti-establishment supporters into believing he was just like them, said 18-year-old Tom Miritello, a fellow NYU student who had marched with Heyning from Union Square. He stressed that he was not, however, blind to Hillary Clintons troubling relationship with the truth and had read the emails WikiLeaks published.

But as a gay man, Miritello said he feared that a Trump presidency would threaten LGBTQ rights and reverse what he estimated to be nearly 80 years of social progress. Were going back to the 40s, past Cold War fear-mongering, to where a racial divide defines our nation, he told me.

Next to us, two young women hoisted a bloody pair of womens underweara nod to Trumps shuddering revulsion when it comes to womens reproductive functions. To Trump, women who menstruate are interchangeable with monsters (more than a year ago, he suggested that Megyn Kelly had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever).

Protesters cheered again and again each time a helicopter passed overhead, sometimes directly over Trump Tower, as if in solidarity with their pissed-off city. Several speculated aloud what the king in his castle thought of the scene.

You know he loves this, said Cody Davis, a 24-year-old student at the New School who wore a corduroy jacket and a hoop ring through his nasal cartilage. He suggested to a fellow protester that they storm Trump Tower: That seems peaceful enough for today.

By 9:15, people began spilling out onto 57th Street, though most stayed to disturb the peace for several more hours.

If the map of blue millennial voters in the election and strong student turnout at New York's protests were any indication, Americas youths will do everything they can in the next four years to prevent President Trump from being President Trump.

See Images of Protests Around the Country
When Todd Kohlhepp allegedly kidnapped South Carolina couple Kala Brown and Charlie Carver in August, it wasnt his first time targeting a young couple, police say. The latest bodies to be identified on the alleged mass murderers property are those of Meagan and Johnny Coxie, parents to a young child.

On Wednesday, police identified Meagan and Johnny Coxie by their tattoos. The couple, 25 and 29, had likely been buried since they were reported missing in mid-December 2015, police say. Meagan was shot in the head, and Johnny shot in the torso, according to a coroners report. The Coxies had recently welcomed a new baby.

Meagan and Johnny were were troubled but in love, friends told a local NBC affiliate. Meagans Facebook says the couple married in February 2012. They raised puppies together, and took pictures of each other at the beach, at an arcade, holding hands in front of the sunset.

But the young couple also struggled to find their footing, sometimes panhandling for money to get by, police said. Both had multiple arrests, the latest in December when Johnny was arrested for unauthorized solicitation and giving false information to police, and Meagan was arrested for child neglect. Meagans mother bonded her out of jail after her Dec. 18 arrest, police told the Greenville Online. Meagan told her mother she had a job lined up, and needed to be out from behind bars.

But whether Meagan got the job, or if it was related to her disappearance is unclear. She and Johnny were reported missing on Dec. 22, after they stopped returning messages from family.

The new victims bring Kohlhepps alleged killings to seven. Kohlhepp, 45, was arrested Nov. 3 on his Spartanburg County, South Carolina property after a search for Brown and Carver, who disappeared in late August after driving to Kohlhepps property to help him with a cleaning job. Investigators found Brown alive and locked in a shipping container, where she had been kept for over two months. Carver was discovered buried nearby, dead of gunshot wounds.

Like Brown and Carver, the Coxies were a young couple looking for work. Brown and Carver were allegedly kidnapped after Kohlhepp hired them to help clean the properties he managed as a real estate agent. Police are reportedly investigating whether he used his real estate business to lure victims to the property where they were buried.

After police rescued Brown from a storage container on Kohlhepps 95-acre property in rural South Carolina, they led the suspect around the overgrown lot, where investigators were already using backhoes, helicopters, and cadaver dogs to search for buried bodies.

Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, the suspected mass murderer took police on a tour of the property, leading them to the Coxies burial sites. Kohlhepp appeared to know his victims, calling them by name as he pointed to their graves.

The couples families are grieving, and asked a local pastor to release a statement on their behalf.

Cindy and I have known one another for a few years now, Pastor Karyl Gaehring said in a statement. She came about a year ago requesting prayer for her son Johnny and his wife Meagan who were missing. We have been praying for about a year now that they would be found and we would know what happened.

Today they received the news. The family is in shock, grieving, and are not comfortable talking to anyone at this time. They have asked for people to please try and understand and give them time to heal. They appreciate everyones love and concern."

Families of Kohlhepps earlier victims said his arrest revived painful memories, but is helping them reach closure. Melissa Ponder, the widow of Superbike victim Scott Ponder, thanked Kala Brown for her bravery in surviving two months in Kohlhepps captivity. Police discovered Brown before any other victims, after they heard a banging sound from inside the crate where she was confined.

Kala is the real hero here, Ponder told the Herald Journal. Shes the one that endured the two months of hell and stayed vigilant and alive, and its because of that we even get to talk about any of this.

But four of his alleged victims dont fit the pattern. After his arrest, Kohlhepp confessed to the so-call Superbike Killings, a 2003 quadruple homicide of all four employees at a South Carolina motorcycle shop, police say. He confessed to the killings in exchange for a meeting with his mother, and an agreement to send money to an unnamed child for a college education.

All seven killings have left police searching for any motive, and the victims families asking why their loved ones were targeted. When Kohlhepp shot up the Superbike shop, he ignored the stores cash and a signed deposit slip sitting in a nearby briefcase. Reportedly a disgruntled customer, Kohlhepp carried out the killings in under seven minutes and left without a trace. Police only tied him to the crime after they identified him in Brown and Carvers missing persons case.
As if a message from providence on the morning after the election, a hot lightbulb chanced to fall upon a pile of cardboard in a shuttered steel plant in upstate New York.

The result was a huge conflagration that served at once as a reminder why Donald Trump was elected and the reason nobody should have voted for him, as well as a suggestion why Hillary Clinton might have made a good president.

The big Bethlehem Steel plant in Lackawanna, New York, had once been the biggest such facility on earth, employing 20,000 workers during World War II and getting even bigger in the aftermath. It supplied steel for the nations bridges and tunnels and skyscrapers and ships, as well as weapons. The companys CEO, Arthur B. Homer, was the highest paid corporate executive in America, and he saw no reason to innovate new methods such as were being developed in other countries.

We have a nice business as it is, he was quoted saying.

Foreign companies using modern techniques with cheaper labor began producing ever cheaper steel as Bethlehem kept to its old ways while paying ever higher wages, not to mention executive compensation. Bethlehems sales plummeted.

In 1983, the once-booming mill closed. Other facilities closed as American builders continued to seek higher profits by using foreign steel. Donald Trump bought Chinese prestressed steel concrete to build both the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas and the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago.

In the meantime, some 900 workers from the now shuttered Bethlehem Steel plant who had developed cancer had come to suspect their illness was related to uranium rods they had handled unknowingly during the Cold War. They sought aid from the government for decades before they finally were able to prod Congress into action in 2000.

Under the legislation, workers were eligible for up to $150,000 in compensation. The hitch was they had to prove that they had been exposed to radiation and that it likely caused their cancer.

But the workers had not even been informed they were handling uranium, much less issued radiation badges. And no effort had been made to monitor their exposure. They were being rejected one after another when then Sen. Hillary Clinton stepped in to help.

In 2006, she presented the workers case before the Presidential Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. She noted a provision in the statute that allowed the government to establish a special cohort of workers who qualified for the benefits on the presumption they had been exposed

This was a landmark law and it was such in the tradition of our country to acknowledge the wrong that the government had done, and promise timely compensation to workers and their survivors, she said. The statute to my reading is pretty clear. It says that if the government doesnt have the information to reconstruct doses then workers should be given the benefit of the doubt and their claims should be paid.

She added: More precisely it provides for classes of workers to be added to a special exposure cohort if its not feasible to estimate the radiation doses with sufficient accuracy, and there is reasonable likelihood that the radiation dose may have endangered their health. I dont think we could have a clearer case than Bethlehem Steel.

She concluded, So Im appealing to you to help us bring this process to a conclusion. It has been six years since Congress passed the law I think they deserve to be compensated and really given justice for what they did for our country.

Government continued to move at the speed of government, and Clinton enlisted fellow New York Sen. Chuck Schumer to join her in introducing legislation that required authorities to grant special cohort status in such circumstances. That finally came to pass in 2010, after Clinton had gone on to become secretary of State.

In the recent presidential campaign, Trump blasted Clinton for supposedly selling out America with trade deals that favored other countries, most particularly the Chinese. He excused his personal contribution to the problem by insisting it had only been good business for him to have bought Chinese-made steel for his buildings. He offered the same excuse for having bought Chinese-made clothing for his apparel line.

But his supporters shrugged off such contradictions as they fell under his mantra that he would Make America Great Again. He was apparently harking back to a time such as when the steel mill in Lackawanna employed tens of thousands before being made jobless by less expensive foreign steel such as he himself had purchased.

Trump was not as persuasive as he might have wanted to be in Lackawanna County. He garnered only 47 percent of the vote while Clinton got 50 percent.

But he won by a big enough margin in other places that he will now become the next president of the United States. His great appeal was to those whose yearning to recapture times gone by was so strong that they were willing just to take him on his word.

Believe me, he said, and many did.

As many of us were left wondering how a Trump presidency could have come to pass, a hot lightbulb fell onto some cardboard in a shuttered steel mill that was now being used to store cars and boats.

More than 100 firefighters fought the ensuing blaze, and along with the leaping flames and clouds of black smoke roiling high into the sky, our past becoming too much like what many of us fear for the future.
DNA Under Fingernails Nails Suspect in Vicious Vegas Murder

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Paul Nuttall, 64, was arrested for the murder of Sandra DiFelice, who was 25 when she was raped and killed.
'The Eagle Huntress': A real-life heroine proves her mettle

Aisholpan Nurgaiv is a 13-year-old girl living with her nomadic family in Mongolia's Altai mountains, a harsh, unforgiving place of isolation and physical duress. For centuries, her Kazakh family's tribe has hunted for food and fur with the assistance of golden eagles they train from a young age. Although eagle hunting is traditionally a male purview, Aisholpan has always taken to it and, along with her father, has decided it's time for her to adopt and train an eagle of her own.

If Aisholpan's story, told in "The Eagle Huntress," sounds like a heroine's journey worthy of fiction at its most mythic and stirring, it most certainly is. But the tale happens to be true. Making a breathtakingly impressive feature-directing debut, documentarian Otto Bell traveled to the far northwest corner of Mongolia to observe Aisholpan not only as she tamed and enlisted the loyalty of an imposing bird of prey but also as she overcame the ingrained sexism of her elders - all while maintaining the same dazzling, serene smile.

With cinematography that soars, swoops and canters across Mongolia's lunar landscape along with the film's subjects, "The Eagle Huntress" introduces Aisholpan while she's at school, in a town so far from her family's ger, or yurt, that she stays in the dorm all week. Once her father comes to fetch her on his motorcycle, her mind is on mastering the art and cultural practice of eagle hunting, which involves calling to your bird, encouraging it to alight - with its enormous talons - on your gloved arm and training it to seek out rabbits, foxes and other mammals for domestic use. (Eagle hunters keep their birds for seven years, at which point they release them into the wild.)

One of the most jaw-dropping sequences of "The Eagle Huntress" follows Aisholpan and her father as they go out to acquire her eagle - in this case, a young bird that is almost ready to leave the nest. Bell, who worked with a camera crew of two to make the film, climbs down a sheer rock face along with the intrepid young girl, capturing on a GoPro camera an amazing moment when she seems to hypnotize the bird with her hand. A drone and a homemade crane, put together by Bell's director of photography, Simon Niblett, capture equally dazzling scenery as well as the seemingly endless scale of the Mongolian steppe.

"The Eagle Huntress" eventually finds Aisholpan competing at a hitherto men-only eagle hunting competition and, later, taking her eagle out for its first bona fide hunt. The competition scenes are particularly fun to watch: Not only are the feats of precision and fearlessness on display utterly captivating, but Bell also includes a wittily edited montage of men dismissing Aisholpan's skills one minute, only to be forced to eat their words the next.

Some viewers may harbor ambivalence as they watch two humans wrest a small eagle from its nest while its mother circles overhead. A later sequence shows Aisholpan and her father putting their birds and horses through a perilously icy journey in 40-below weather to hunt down a fox - not for food, but to take its fur as a prize. (Eagles, presumably, enjoy any meat not fit for human consumption.)

This invites similar ethical questions about hunting for subsistence vs. the symbolic power of the spoils. But for every misgiving "The Eagle Huntress" invites, it offers inspiration in equal measure, taking the audience on a beautiful, thrilling journey to a part of the world that it still largely inaccessible. And it introduces them to a young woman who gives bravery a bracing, unforgettable face.

---

Three and one-half stars. Rated G. Contains nothing objectionable. In Kazakh with subtitles. 87 minutes.

Ratings Guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time.

Advance fri oct. 28

film-huntress-review-adv11

Washington Post News Service (DC)

11/9/2016 8:05:22 AM Central Standard Time
THINKING OUT LOUD WITH SHELDON MacLEOD: Collecting blankets for seniors

It was a small gesture of kindness for the people in the wing of the nursing home where she was volunteering. And from that first year, Nicole Martelle has been able to grow it from a handful of donated blankets, to more than 600. The Bedford woman ...
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Taipei, Nov. 10 (CNA) A workers group named "2016 Workers Struggle Against the President" said on Thursday that three more people would join a hunger strike the following day to protest the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) plan to ram through the Legislature an amendment to the labor act cutting the number of national holidays from 19 to 12 per year.
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NORWALK  With a public hearing and December deadline looming, attorneys this week advised Norwalk officials to prepare their responses to the states planned replacement of the Walk Bridge.

Mario F. Coppola, head of the citys law department, and Ann M. Catino, an attorney with Halloran & Sage LLP, advised elected and appointed officials to prepare written and oral comments on the Connecticut Department of Transportations impact report for the project.

This was a daunting task for the city to undertake, Coppola said. We received a voluminous document from the (Federal Transit Administration) and DOT to review, to which we were required to respond to by Dec. 5, and also comment at the public hearing, which is on Nov. 17.

About 35 people, including Mayor Harry W. Rilling and members of the Norwalk Common Council, Norwalk Harbor Management Commission, Norwalk Historical Commission and other boards and commissions attended the workshop in the Community Room of City Hall on Wednesday evening.

This is a project that has the potential to have significant impact on the city of Norwalk, Rilling said. We are looking to mitigate that impact as much as possible.

Coordinated response

At issue immediately is stakeholder input on the Environmental Assessment Evaluation/Environmental Impact Evaluation report as released by the DOT on Sept. 6.

The DOT and FTA have given stakeholders until Dec. 5 to comment on the report. A public hearing is set for Thursday, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m., at Norwalk Concert Hall, 125 East Ave.

Coppola asked the boards and commissions to designate a member to deliver a two-minute statement at the hearing.

We feel that the most effective presentation on Nov. 17 is one thats coordinated, Coppola said.

Coppola asked the boards and commissions to deliver written comments to his office by Nov. 28. The law department will review them in advance of submitting a comprehensive response to the DOT by Dec. 5.

The DOT impact report outlines the rebuild alternatives considered by the DOT as well as the potential environmental and other impacts of the project.

Many residents and officials, including Rilling, consider the report lacking in detail despite its length.

The two attorneys advised the boards and commissions to share with the DOT their respective concerns in areas ranging from boating to construction impacts.

Those are the type of issues that we want and we ask you all to look at and provide comments to so we can meet and go through each of the areas that are relevant, so that we can work with the DOT and the FTA to have an appropriate project that certainly meets the citys needs and to address any of concerns that you may have going forward, Catino said.

Catino said the new bridge, once built, will probably be here for a hundred years or longer.

After Dec. 5, the DOT will issue a Finding of No Significant Impact, or take a deeper dive by issuing an Environmental Impact Statement. The latter would trigger a new public comment period and hearing, according to Catino.

Preferred design

In its impact report, the DOT put forward a long-span vertical lift bridge as the preferred replacement for the existing structure. The current bridge was built in 1896 and has failed to properly close on numerous occasions over the last several years. The proposed replacement bridge would cost between $425 million and $460 million to build, according to the DOT.

Reiterating concerns heard in the community, several officials at the workshop questioned whether the DOT had adequately considered other designs.

We definitely intend to raise the issue of the evaluation of saving the current bridge, said David G. Westmoreland, Norwalk Historical Commission chairman. If it has to be changed, thats fine. We understand the importance of the Northeast Corridor for train traffic. But it is not clear that the options of keeping the bridge  whether open or fixed or whatever  were actually evaluated by experts in the field.

Christopher MacDonnell, a Norwalk resident and senior supervising engineer with Parsons Brinckerhoff, the firm engaged by the DOT for the project, said engineers considered a number of options, including a bascule bridge, before determining that a long-span vertical-lift bridge was the best solution.

We can build those (new bridge) towers and maintain the swing bridge in operation longer than we could with any other option and, therefore, have less impact on the marine traffic, MacDonnell said.

MacDonnell declined to speak about the costs of the options  I shouldnt tread too much into the economics.

Earlier, Norwalk Conservation Commissioner William Nightingale questioned the wisdom of spending nearly $500 million to replace the bridge.

Harbor Management Commission Chairman Anthony Mobilia cautioned against going with a fixed bridge and seeking federal approval to declare the upper harbor as unsuitable for navigation. He said city  rather than the federal government  would be left responsible for maintaining and dredging the harbor.

rkoch@hearstmediact.com
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NORWALK  Children had Tuesday off from school so their parents could participate in the democratic process, casting votes in the presidential election.

On Wednesday morning, some of those same parents let their children stay home from school for another day as they woke up to the news of Republican Donald Trump defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton, asking, Will we have to leave the country because of our religion?

Farhan Memon of Norwalk, the Connecticut chairperson for the Council of American Islamic Relations, answered his own children  high school and elementary aged  the best he could, telling them they are safe, to report any incidents of hate or religious-based bullying and to remain hopeful.

Children have heard these things during the presidential campaign, Memon said. Donald Trump has been very clear that he wants a complete and total ban on Muslims entering the country and that he wanted to subject Muslims in this country to extreme vetting. Thats pretty clear and conspicuous language. Our children have picked up on that and its caused them a lot of anxiety ... What I said to my own children was that America is our country. We are safe here. We are not going anywhere, and nothing bad is going to happen to us.

In Norwalk, where a substantial portion of the population is made up of minority and low-income voters, people overwhelmingly hoped for a Clinton presidency. Her ticket earned roughly 63 percent of the citys votes, while now president-elect Trump earned 32 percent. Neighboring towns also voted roughly 2-1 in favor of Clinton.

While Trump supporters expressed shock and happiness at his unexpected win, Clinton backers used words like scared, concerned, disappointed, shocked and numb to describe their mood.

Its very quiet, said Oscar Destruge, the pastor at El Camino United Methodist Church in Norwalk which serves a predominately Latino population.

People didnt want to talk about what happened last evening, he added. It was almost like something bad happened but we dont want to talk about it. The mood is, What are we going to do now? Are we going to get deported? Thats what I hear from many of the Hispanic community. There is fear ... Our community has a lot of undocumented immigrants and they are beginning to feel their time is up.

Brenin White of Norwalk, a Clinton supporter, said he followed the presidential race regularly on the radio  I listen to NPR every night  and was surprised to learn Wednesday morning that Trump had clinched the White House.

I was kind of hoping that people would come to their senses and realize that hes not a politician, White said while leaving the Norwalk Main Library on Wednesday afternoon. Why would you have someone whos not a politician in the most important political position in the world?

White said he now worries Trump will become the voice and the face of the United States to the world. But he added that Congress might provide a check to Trumps ambitions.

Im hoping for the best and Im hoping Congress really keeps him somewhat in check, White said. His ideas, some of them werent awful, but then he opened his mouth more. I think he just gets very defensive and thinks without speaking.

Ana Afloarei of Norwalk said Trumps victory left her depressed and devastated and gives reason for Americans, overall, to feel shameful.

Afloarei said she fears that Roe v. Wade  the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion in 1973  will be overturned and that the environment and climate change will not be taken seriously under Trumps administration.

I just want a better world for my kids, said Aflorarei, leaving the library with her 10-month-old son, Linus, and 4-year-old daughter, Stella, Wednesday afternoon.

Trump supporters elated

Many who supported Trump and the GOP said once the initial shock of winning the election wore off, they were elated by the prospect of a new era in American politics.

Karen Caiati wasnt always a Trump supporter, but calls herself a die-hard Republican. She said she was surprised to wake up to the news of her candidates presidency, but welcomed the unexpected victory as she expects the now GOP-controlled government will address her main concern: immigration.

Not that I am against immigration, she said. My great-grandparents were all immigrants. I just feel that they should do it legally. We need a definite overhaul in that. It needs to be done quicker ... but I think that people that are here illegally need to become legal or be deported.

Caiati, who has a seventh grade son, said even though she supports Trump and his take on immigration, she talks to her children about being respectful regardless of race or gender, hoping they dont emulate Trumps candid  and often derogatory  rhetoric toward minorities.

My son who is like every other seventh-grader on Snapchat and Instagram, he says a lot of his friends are expressing fear and the world is coming to an end now that Donald Trump is president, Caiati said. But I dont think thats going to happen. Change is slow here, and I just dont think thats going to happen. We woke up this morning and the sun still came up.

John Sand, a Redding resident and freshman at Norwalk Community College, described his mood Wednesday as hopeful. He cited his work repairing computers as reason for supporting Trump.

Im being taxed unfairly because I own a business and Im being taxed at almost double the rate everyone else is, Sand said as he left NCC Wednesday afternoon. It hurts me, and this country is very anti-business and it shouldnt be.

Sand said he hopes Trump will forge his own path as president, much the way Sand has as a small businessman.

I dont know that its going to go perfect, Sand said. But I hope that it will and thats all we can do. We can just hope for the best.

Norwalk resident Edward McGovern, another Trump supporter, said he was happy that his candidate won.

Im fine with it. Im happy, actually, McGovern said while sitting at ONeills Pub & Restaurant. I didnt believe Hillary is a truthful person. Ive seen her over the years. Ive been around a while and she never seems to tell the truth.

KKrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt
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WESTPORT  Westport came out to vote on Election Day, exceeding the previous presidential election by a few points.

Out of 18,499 registered voters, 15,890 exercised their right to do so, or 85 percent. The turnout was 83 percent in 2012 and 86 percent in 2008.

The official results are still being generated due to an error in the Secretary of States system.

The reports in the Secretary of States Office are not pulling from the right place so the information that its pulling is not correct so we are on standby until we hear back from Hartford, said Marla Cowden, Democratic Registrar of Voters.

Either the system will correct itself or the town will manually submit official results to the Secretary of States Office.

Election Day was a hectic time for Town Hall employees, It has just been busy, busy, busy, Republican Registrar of Voters Kevin White said.

Deputy Town Clerk Ruth Cavayero said the influx of ballots from overseas, which she said have increased since the last presidential election, add to the already busy time because they must be hand-counted. She said the options are great because they allow more people to vote, but are quite labor intensive.

The process was more complex than it had been in the past in that we had more scenarios, including ex-pats not registered, but entitled to vote for federal elections only, registered voters and military that are registered but out of the country, Cavayero said.

The Westport Public Library, one of the busier polling locations in town, saw constant action from the time polls opened at 6 a.m.

Its a steady flow of people coming through. A few people have said that theyve had a little trouble finding parking. The library is still open so you have people coming to use the library (in addition to voting), Jennifer Johnson, a Representative Town Meeting member, said as she stood outside of the Westport Public Library.

Election Day Registration

2016 marked the first year in Connecticut where voters were able to vote and cast their ballot on the same day for President of the United States. Overall, 172 Westporters took advantage of this option.

Riatan Ufomaduh, 20, voted for the first time in a presidential race using same-day Election Day registration and said the process was seamless.

My experience doing this was pretty quick, pretty fast. It was straightforward, Ufomaduh said. He filled out the registration, handed it in, provided his identification and cast his ballot for Jill Stein.

He decided to vote for the Green Party candidate because he wanted to stay out of the Republican and Democratic hairs this election. He acknowledged that Stein had no chance to win, but maintained that his vote allows Stein to continue speaking her message.

Issues at the Polls

There was a fire shortly after 9 a.m. at the Greens Farms Elementary School polling location on the exterior of the building. The building was evacuated and damage was limited to a plastic fence and the surrounding area.

Voting was halted for around 15 minutes, said White, but continued after the building was reoccupied. White said that the only effect of the fire was a delay for voters.

It may have taken a few minutes longer than they wanted to, White said.

Shortly before the polls opened at Coleytown Middle School, one of the tabulators malfunctioned. Each polling location is equipped with two tabulatorsone for use and a backup. The backup was set up and was ready by 6 a.m.

Voter Reaction

Dennis Wong, who voted at the Westport Public Library, said he normally votes and emphasized the importance of voting.

We have to take more responsibility for what were doing and not necessarily just leave it to other people, Wong said.

Wong, a registered Democrat, pulled the lever for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton because he believes she is better qualified to take the country to the next step and supports Clintons message of bringing people together as opposed to appealing to just one segment or another (of voters).

Karen Sherman, a registered Democrat, immigration lawyer, and self-proclaimed staunch Hillary supporter, said Clintons stance on gun control is one of the most important to her. She said she loathes Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump because he is divisive  a hater, misogynist and racist.

@chrismmarquette; cmarquette@bcnnew.com
With Veterans Day just around the corner, I would encourage everyone to pause and think about our nations commitment to taking care of veterans. For the past 10 months I have been very fortunate to lead the Lincoln VA Regional Benefit Office. Taking care of Nebraska veterans the way they deserve cant be done with a one-size-fits-all solution. It will take working with other federal agencies, local government and the private sector to address all the challenges veterans face. We will also need to come up with new and innovative ways to serve our current veteran population.

One way of accomplishing this mission is by hosting claims clinics throughout the state of Nebraska. Over the past year we have partnered with multiple stakeholders, both public and private, across the state of Nebraska to host five different claims clinics. Clinics allow veterans to file claims for compensation, submit evidence, speak to a claims processor, and see a VA examiner. In some cases the veteran received their rating decision on the same day. During the last year the Lincoln Regional Office saw over 100 veterans at our claims clinics and paid out over $155,000 in retroactive payment to veterans entitled by law.

We have also continued to grow our reach to veterans not located close to the Lincoln Regional Office. We now have benefit counselors working in the Omaha, Lincoln, and Grand Island VA medical centers. These counselors are helping veterans submit claims and check the status of pending claims, signing them up for eBenefits, and answering other benefit questions. This service has grown very popular with our veteran population. We are now partnering with the Grand Island VA Medical Center to pilot a new service called Telebenefits. Telebenefits is a program in which veterans are provided with benefits information and assistance through the use of Video Teleconferencing (VTEL) equipment. Veterans are able to video chat with benefit counselors and get assistance with VA benefits-related questions and services. Veterans are also able to submit claims and supporting documents during the Telebenefits session. Telebenefits is now available to Grand Island area veterans on Thursday afternoon by appointment. The phone number to schedule an appointment is (308)382-3660 ext. 2213.

I am honored to be part of an organization that serves our Nebraska veterans every day, but there is still more work to be done. The employees here at the Lincoln Regional Office look forward to continuing to serve each and every Nebraska veteran with the same compassion, accuracy and timeliness we have for the last many years.

If you are a veteran and have not checked to see what benefits you are entitled to, I strongly encourage you to stop into one of our many offices in the state of Nebraska or visit your local county veterans service officer.

On behalf of the employees at the Lincoln Regional Office, I would like to thank all veterans who have served and continue to serve our great nation.

Happy Veterans Day.
Warminster boy makes Phillies nation proud with viral video from Game 1

Carson Wallace, 5, of Warminster, starred as one of the Phillies most savage fans as his celebration and taunt of an Astros fan went viral.
Canadians are inviting people in the United States Pacific coastal states of California, Oregon and Washington, where United States President-elect Donald Trump lost heavily to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, to secede from the US and join Canada.



Dear California, Oregon, Washington  Im sure we can work something out if you want to join Canada, Chad Harris, a reporter from Kamloops, British Columbia, tweeted.



California, Oregon, Washington, I, for one, will accept you with open arms into the liberal bosom of Canada, Alex Middleton of Calgary, Alberta agreed.



Now is the time for Canada to prepare to add 3 provinces, Washington, Oregon and California, fellow British Columbian Craig Heber from Tofino shared the sentiment. Guaranteed means to grow economy would be adding the sixth largest economy in the world to ours.

Some extended the invitation to Nevada, also won by the Democratic candidate.



To the west coast of the United States, if you want to you can all become Canadian Provinces, since you voted closer to the experiences we have as Canadian, Calgarian Andrew Mercier said in a Facebook post. Therefore WA, OR, NV, and CA you are now provinces, also bring all the goodness that you have to us!!!



Others want Hawaii, another so-called Blue State and outgoing President Barack Obamas birthplace, to become a Canadian province.



Dear USA west coast  Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii  come and join Canada, wed welcome you!, Torry Courte, a musician and songwriter from Vancouver, British Columbia, tweeted.



California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Rick Spence from Toronto, Ontario, tweeted. Dont bother to count the votes. Join Canada. Just try us out for four years.



How do the disgruntled voters in the West Coast states feel about joining?



Douglas Cole of Beaverton, Oregon, summed up the feelings of many shocked West Coasters in a humorous open letter.



These days I love daydreaming about Washington, Oregon, and California all ceding from the US and joining Canada, Scott Dixon of Mercer Island, Washington, posted on Facebook. Besides that this would form a country that had one of the largest economies in the world (California is #6, Canada is #8 by GDP), it certainly seems like the American West coast has more in common with British Columbia then it does Idaho, Utah, and Arizona (In my daydream Nevada also cedes but becomes its own mad-max themed nation-state).



Hey Canada, I have a proposal for you, Dave Lewis, of San Francisco, California posted on Facebook. I say we take Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii, combine them with Canada and make one amazing country. Lots of new coastline. Whos in?



Dear Mr Trump, Ive figured it out, Patrick Heffernan of San Diego, California posted. End the deficit by selling Washington, Oregon, and California to Canada. We dont mind.



A merger with the Pacific states would more than double Canadas population from 35 million to 83 million, while tripling the GDP from US$ 1.5 trillion to US$ 4.5 trillion.





https://thinkpol.ca/2016/11/12/canadians-invite-california-oregon-and-washington-to-join-canada/

Yes and to this I say no effing way, although I am partial to Hawaii becoming part of Canada as opposed to those weed infested Turks and Cacos that nobody else wants.Imagine the steady stream of people sliding up the West coast. How about giving California back to Mexico.........
About a year-and-a-half ago, area resident Rebecca Biethman formed the 60s Chicks, an Edwardsville YMCA Ladies Chorus.

The group, which sings 1960s tunes and has been performing all over the Edwarsdville/Glen Carbon area, was recently invited to be the opening act for the group SIX at the Mickey Gilley Theater in Branson.

Biethman, a former school music teacher, music ministry director and currently a YMCA dance fitness instructor, explained that the idea of the group was born over lunch with a friend, Joann Mefford. I told her I wanted to start a ladies group. She said that she knew of a group that did 40s music, and she said but what if we did a group with '60s music, Biethman recalled.

I just loved the concept, Biethman said. It's such a cool decade for music anyway because you can do everything from the Beatles to folk music. And then it also gives us a fun way to dress. Some wear a dress like Jackie Kennedy, some of them dress like hippies, and I wear go-go boots. Whatever you sort of gravitate to in terms of your vision of the '60s.

Being an employee of the Edwardsville YMCA, Biethman knew Esic YMCA Branch Director Karen Lintz and YMCA Arts & Climbing Director Natasha Howard. Together they worked out the logistics to begin the 60s Chicks. They began having introductory rehearsals in July of 2015.

The 60s Chicks soon started performing in the community and began having some success when Biethman recalled that someone commented in jest, before you know it we'll be singing in Branson.

But having taken a high school group to perform at Disney World when she taught public school music, Biethman knew that Branson might be a possibility.

So I called and sure enough they said, 'If you'll submit a video and submit some pictures, then if we feel like you're good enough, we'll let you be the opening act,' Biethman recalled. So I sent it in and did the follow up interview, and we got invited to come.

The 60s Chicks received an invitation to open for the acapella group SIX on Oct. 8 at the Mickey Gilley Theater in Branson. SIX sings all kinds of acapella music. Everything from current to pop to classical to gospel to oldies. They just do every kind of music, and that was really a good fit for us because their audience is like our audience, Biethman noted.

Receiving the invitation was flattering and exciting, but then Biethman realized they had a task before them in working through the logistics to get the group there.

Neither of the Edwardsville YMCAs, nor any other YMCA across the country for that matter, had ever organized a community chorus and then organized a trip for the group to perform in another state.

There was no blueprint to follow. They (YMCA) weren't sure how to make it happen, but they really worked with me to try to make it affordable and (figure out) how we could do this, Biethman said.

I can't say enough. They have just gone above and beyond to try to not only make it a success but a safe and very positive success. And Gary (Niebur) has just been unbelievably encouraging.

The 60s Chicks raised money to rent a bus and the YMCA staff assisted them with obtaining the right insurance as well as working through the logistics. We had to jump through a whole bunch of hoops and they've just really hung in there with us, Biethman stressed. It really took a huge amount of thinking outside the box.

The 25 members of the 60s Chicks loaded onto a bus the morning of Oct. 6 destined for Branson. Lintz accompanied the group.

She actually paid her own way, and we left on her birthday, Biethman noted. She said, 'I've never had a birthday like this before.' She was a lot of fun.

When the group arrived in Branson, they spent the rest of the day watching shows.

That was such a great learning experience to see all those professional shows. It was kind of like what can we adapt to what we're doing? Biethman said.

Then Saturday, the group saw more Branson shows and did some shopping before sound checks and rehearsals began around 3 p.m. They performed later that night to an audience of over 700 people, and boarded the bus to head home Sunday morning. Our trip was just out of this world. We had more fun than we planned to, Biethman commented.

Since returning home, the 60s Chicks have been busy performing locally.

They are currently in the midst of rehearsals for their holiday show, Sassy Season Celebration, which will take place at 7 p.m. on Nov. 19 at Esic Baptist Church located at 1000 University Dr. in Edwardsville.

Tickets for Sassy Season Celebration are $5 per person and can be purchased at either the Meyer or Esic YMCAs. The biggest thing that will be different about this show is we have lots of energy going on, lots of comedy, and lots of very good harmony - singing - but the whole focus is fun - just having a really good time, Biethman stressed.

The 60s Chicks are also always open to new members. We don't hold auditions, Biethman said. I have to say that's one of the coolest things about working with the Y. They stand for being open and available to everyone. Anyone who wants to participate. And they were really concerned that this chorus be open to all ladies. So we just take everybody who wants to sing music from the '60s.

Biethman pointed out that new members are welcome to join the chorus at the beginning of 2017 after the holiday show.

She suggested those interested might want to come to the Sassy Season Celebration performance to see if they'd like to be a part of this type of chorus. Anyone interested in joining the 60s Chicks are encouraged to contact either YMCA or Biethman at 843-338-6005 or by email at rebeccabiethman1@gmail.com

Follow the 60s Chicks on their Facebook page - 60's Chicks, Edwardsville YMCA's Ladies Chorus.
THE WALL OF SHAME

"The only thing [Trump's] mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's c--k holster."

--STEPHEN COLBERT

"[Ivanka Trump] Your father is a racist birther. Steve Bannon an anti-Semitic opportunist. You and your husband are enabling hatred. F--- your shoes."

--BRADLEY WHITFORD

"Melania [Trump] is a hooker."

--JACOB BERNSTEIN

"And my job is to shut other white people down when they want to interrupt."

"We have to, at the DNC, provide training. We have to teach them how to communicate, how to be sensitive, and how to shut their mouths if they're white."

--SALLY BOYNTON BROWN

"And to our detractors that insist that this march will never add up to anything: F--- you! F---you!

"Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House."

--MADONNA

"Barron Trump looks like a very handsome date-rapist-to-be."

--STEPHEN SPINOLA

"Barron [Trump] will be this country's first homeschool shooter."

--KATIE RICH

"Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts."

--MERYL STREEP

"There's a billion to one chance we're living in base reality."

[That means we're almost positively living in a simulation, like a video game.]

--ELON MUSK

"When I would deny that there was a significant racist component in some of the politics on our side, it was because the people I hung out with were certainly not. When suddenly, this rock is turned over, there is this'Oh shit, did I not see that?'"

----------------------------

"In any other scenario, Hillary Clinton's lying about her emails, and her pay-for-play relationship with the Clinton Foundation would be disqualifying issues. The only reason they're not disqualifying is because Donald Trump is a fundamentally more repellent, dishonest figure."

--CHARLIE SYKES

"I made a mistake in recalling the events of twelve years ago... I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft."

--BRIAN WILLIAMS

"I'm here to tell you if you elect me governor of this state, I will end the civil war."

--TOM BARRETT

"I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done."

--RUTH BADER GINSBURG

"Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now, do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?"

--ROBERT DE NIRO

"The death of Andrew Breitbart disproves the adage that only the good die young."

--JULIAN BOND

"The National Institute of Health has said that it is a danger to women's health and safety of their families that for 30 years to be exposed to the prospects of pregnancy."

--GWEN MOORE

"[Tea Party Republicans] have acted like terrorists."

--JOE BIDEN

"Why did- Couldn't the President have said at that moment, way back in December of last year, 'no game playing. No hostage-taking. No terrorizing this country with the debt ceiling. I'm not going to negotiate with you guys. You can't play it that way.' Could he have done that?"

--CHRIS MATTHEWS

"[T]he tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor."

--WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL

"I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at [Obama's] pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I'm thinking, a) he's going to be president and b) he'll be a very good president."

--DAVID BROOKS

"I feel like calling her back and smackin' her around."

--FRED CLARK, DEMOCRAT

"The picture was of me, and I sent it."

--ANTHONY WEINER

"[I]f you go back to the year 2000, when we had an obvious disaster and - and saw that our voting process needed refinement, and we did that in the America Votes Act and made sure that we could iron out those kinks, now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally - and very transparently - block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. And it's nothing short of that blatant."

--DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

"This is probably one of the worst times we've seen because the numbers of people elected to Congress. I went through this as co-chair of the arts caucus. In '94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now theyre here to kill women."

--LOUISE SLAUGHTER

"The protesters have proven today that theyre not going away. It was a pretty rough night last night. You can imagine if people said, well, we just cant fight the power. Instead, this morning, they came by tens, by hundreds, by thousands. By midday today, it was easily more than 10,000, perhaps as many as 15,000 people on the square here in Madison. Not organized by anyone, just grassroots citizens who came out just like the Minutemen in 1776."

--JOHN NICHOLS

"They're sitting on the money, they're using it for their own -- they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this -- we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it. I think we need to go back to taxing these people at the proper rates."

--MICHAEL MOORE

"Why don't we just raise the taxes and let these folks have their collective bargaining, have their union representation and go back to their jobs? Raise the taxes on the wealthy."

--DAVID LETTERMAN

"In 1933, [Hitler] abolished unions and that's what our Governor [Scott Walker] is doing today."

--LENA TAYLOR, Democrat State Senator

"So I would urge my Republican colleagues, no matter how strongly they feel -- you know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a president. And all three of us are going to have to come together and give some, but it is playing with fire to risk the shutting down of the government."

--CHUCK SCHUMER

"Well, when you start off with the Preamble of the Constitution, you talk about the pursuit of happiness."

--JOHN LEWIS

"I'm Rebecca Kleefisch. I performed fellatio on all the talk show hosts in Milwaukee. And they endorsed me and that's how I became lieutenant governor."

--SLY SYLVESTER

"Do you think this Constitution-loving is getting out of hand? I mean, is it a nod to the Tea Party?"

--JOY BEHAR

"We cant just leave it up to the parents."

"[Military leaders] tell us that childhood obesity isnt just a public health issue; they tell us that it is not just an economic threat -- it is a national security threat as well."

--MICHELLE OBAMA

"Actually, I did not take part in [the assassination of Sarah Palin]. I led it."

--KATHLEEN PARKER

"[The repeal of ObamaCare is] a kind of creeping genocide."

--JESSE JACKSON

"[Obama] has to realize that Mitch McConnell has virtually said so that politically he wants to cut out his heart and throw his liver to the dogs."

--DAN RATHER

"And the instructions are not to improvise a comedy sketch, but to elect a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the '30s, or backward to hanging union organizers, or backward to the trusts and the robber barons.

"Result: the Tea Party. Vote backward, vote Tea Party. And if you are somehow indifferent to what is planned for next Tuesday, it is nothing short of an attempted use of democracy to end this democracy."

--KEITH "Reagan's dead and he was a lousy President" OLBERMANN

"I gotta wonder when people are gonna start wearing uniforms. I mean they've got an army out there in Alaska of militia people. You've got these guys going around acting like street thugs. I mean it isn't far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform."

--CHRIS MATTHEWS

"[Sharron Angle] is a moron on top of being evil... I'd like to see her do this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, bitch. Come to New York and do it. I'm not praying for her. She's going to hell. She's going to hell, this bitch."

--JOY BEHAR

"So people have been hurting and I understand that. And it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we'd be in a worldwide depression."

--HARRY REID

"And to play Dick Cheney, all I had to do was find my Dick Cheney. And you can find all the villainy in the world in your own heart, and that's what an actor's job is. I always say to kids, inside you is Hitler and Jesus. And you got to find the appropriate person and bring them out."

--RICHARD DREYFUSS

"Because I live in the District of Columbia which is so predominantly Democratic, I am a registered Democrat. But I am an avowed neutral. And to put that into practice, I take my young daughter into the voting booth and she votes for me. She's now 14. We've been doing this since she was about age 4. She's now quite informed."

--BOB WOODWARD

"Sarah Palin's an idiot. Come on. This is a remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent and mean woman."

"The Democrats may have moved into the center, but the Republicans have moved into a mental institution."

--AARON SORKIN

"Perhaps the greatest threat of all is the undermining of our Constitution and the systematic attack against the inalienable rights of the citizens of this nation, rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. At the vanguard of this insidious attack is the Tea Party. This band of misguided citizens is moving perilously close to achieving villainous ends."

--HARRY BELAFONTE

"[Christine O'Donnell is] a witch who doesn't masturbate."

--JOY BEHAR

"Ah, the Tea Party, the nativist bed-wetters who somehow control our national dialogue. Yes, I call them the Pee Party, Jay, because they're always peeing in their pants about something. They're just, they're afraid of a mosque being built in New York. They're afraid of guns. You know, they think Obama, who like every other pussy Democrat has never said a single word about gun control, but they are very sure that he and his Negro army are coming after their guns. You know what? If you think that he's coming after your guns, you need to get out of your chat room and have your house tested for lead. He's not coming after your guns or your Bible or your fishing pole or your chewing tobacco."

--BILL MAHER

"That's a trade-off society is making because of very, very high medical costs, and a lack of willingness to say, you know, is spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient, would it be better not to lay off those ten teachers and to make that trade-off in medical costs. But that;s called the 'Death Panel' and you're not supposed to have that discussion."

--BILL GATES

"NOT the 'whiteman's bitch'"

--IESHUH GRIFFIN

"[If Rush Limbaugh suffered a heart attack in my presence, I would] laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out. I never knew I had this much hate in me. But he deserves it."

--SARAH SPITZ

"You want freedom, you going to have to kill some crackers. You going to have to kill some of their babies."

--KING SAMIR SHABAZZ

"If this was Texas, which is the state that, that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this, saying that they had a major issue with, you know, with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would say I would have to look twice at this. "But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border. And, um, it just, it doesn't make sense to me that when you google this subject, if you put in 'Arizona S.B. 1070,' that you see a picture of the governor of Arizona meeting with President Obama in May of 2010. If you have direct linkage to the president, there are already National Guard troops on the border in Arizona."

--PEGGY WEST

"Tell [the Jews] to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German. It's not Poland. [The Jews] can go home. Poland. Germany."

--HELEN THOMAS

"After the last eight years, it's good to have a president that knows what a library is."

--PAUL McCARTNEY

"By the way, I just want to point out I'm wearing my splash shield because I was told I was going to be in the splash zone (during Harry Smith's colonoscopy on live TV)."

--KATIE COURIC

"And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word."

----------------------------

"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk, but not job loss because of a child with asthma or someone in the family is bipolaryou name it, any condition  is job-locking."

--NANCY PELOSI

"Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?"

--TOM HANKS

"The 'White Right' is trying to set Barack up to be assassinated.... Here are Christians praying for God to kill Barack Obama."

--LOUIS FARRAKHAN

"I refuse to accept the notion that the United States of America is not going to lead the world economically throughout the 20th Century."

--JOE BIDEN

"Obama's critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine. Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let 'em know that if they aren't with you, they are against you, and will pay the price."

--ROLAND MARTIN

"Martha Coakley is running to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy's term, and her opponent is a far-right tea-bagger Republican."

--CHUCK SCHUMER

"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts, I'd try to vote ten times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to. Yeah, that's right, I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."

--ED SCHULTZ

"We also see how revved up the tea baggers are at the thought of hijacking health care reform and every chance we have at making progress in Washington."

--JOHN KERRY

"A few years ago, this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee."

--BILL CLINTON

"I didn't realize I had written a column defending Roman Polanski and minimized his crime - are you sure it was me? I mean, I? There is, apparently, more to this crime than it would seem, and it may sound like a hollow defense, but in Hollywood I am not sure a 13-year-old is really a 13-year-old."

--TOM SHALES

"Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"

--MAUREEN DOWD

"One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game... During the 7th inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."

--DAVID LETTERMAN

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasnt lived that life."

--SONIA SOTOMAYOR

"We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature."

--REMBERT WEAKLAND, Archbishop of Milwaukee 1977- 2002

"You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight."

"Rush Limbaugh -- 'I hope the country fails.' I hope his kidneys fail."

----------------------------

"[Obama] told me I did a great job. The first lady said the same thing. I got a 'well done' from the president, I'm on cloud nine."

--WANDA SYKES

"Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."

--COLIN POWELL

"[Tea Party goers are] just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who don't love their country."

--PAUL BEGALA

"I wouldn't want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court."

--BARNEY FRANK

"Going forward, my mind will be open to every solution -- except one. We should not -- we must not -- and I will not -- raise taxes."

--JIM DOYLE, Liar

"He's a terrorist. Rush Limbaugh is a terrorist."

--JOY BEHAR

"You know, I just want to say to her (Sarah Palin), just very quickly...F--- you."

--JON STEWART

"Should I be worried about being a slave and being returned to slavery?"

--WHOOPI GOLDBERG

"I also believe that America is the greatest sin against God."

--FR. MICHAEL PFLEGER

"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation."

--MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD

"We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals."

--TED TURNER

"Look, [Mitt] Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'"

--LAWRENCE O'DONNELL

"Mexico does not end at its borders... Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."

--FELIPE CALDERON

"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant."

--AL GORE

"Don't fear the terrorists. They're mothers and fathers."

--ROSIE O'DONNELL

"Is America ready for a black president? Well, I say we just had a retarded one. When did being black become a bigger deterrent than being retarded?"

--CHRIS ROCK

"Shut the f--- up! Shut up if you can't take a joke [about President Bush]!"

--BARBRA STREISAND

"Right, oh, yeah, Happy 9/11! Celebrate the day, right?"

--JAMES BROLIN, Mr. Barbra Streisand

"I think President Bush very well may have signed an authorization for the 9/11 attacks."

--KEVIN BARRETT, UW-MADISON Lecturer

"I said what I said. I am not guilty."

--SADDAM HUSSEIN

"Terri will not be starved to death. Her nutrition and hydration will be taken away."

--MICHAEL SCHIAVO

"On the eve of the election last month my wife Judith and I were driving home late in the afternoon and turned on the radio for the traffic and weather. What we instantly got was a freak show of political pornography: lies, distortions, and half-truths -- half-truths being perhaps the blackest of all lies. "

--BILL MOYERS

"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."

--HOWARD DEAN

"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."

--MICHAEL MOORE

"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs."

--JOHN KERRY

"F---ing retarded."

"[Republicans] can go f--- themselves!"

--RAHM EMANUEL

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."

--HILLARY CLINTON

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

--BILL CLINTON

"And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."

--MICHELLE OBAMA

"If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor, makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor."

----------------------------

"If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill."

----------------------------

"[F]or most of my lifetime, the United States was such a dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now, because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the United States remains the largest economic and the largest market but theres real competition out there. And that's potentially healthy. It makes -- Michelle was saying earlier I like tough questions because it keeps me on my toes. Well, this will keep America on its toes."

----------------------------

"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna PUNISH OUR ENEMIES and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."

----------------------------

"We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but THEY GOTTA SIT IN BACK."

----------------------------

"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger."

----------------------------

"We're buying shrimp, guys."

----------------------------

"We are the ones we've been waiting for."

----------------------------

"We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick."

----------------------------

"We're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if youre providing a good product or you're providing good service. We don't want people to stop fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow the economy."

----------------------------

"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

----------------------------

"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."

----------------------------

"But I -- I think that the most important thing for the public to understand is, we're not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11."

----------------------------

"One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy CORPSE-MAN Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: 'Where do you come from? What country? After my operation,' she said, 'I will pray for that country.' And in Creole, CORPSE-MAN Brossard responded, 'Etazini.' The United States of America."

----------------------------

"I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you."

----------------------------

"We are God's partners in matters of life and death."

----------------------------

"[T]he Cambridge police acted stupidly."

----------------------------

"I am going to teach [my daughters] first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

----------------------------

"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and INEFFICIENCIES to our health care system."

----------------------------

"Over the last 15 months, weve traveled to every corner of the United States. Ive now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

--BARACK OBAMA
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Linkedin Donny Syofyan (The Jakarta Post) Burwood, Australia  Thu, November 10, 2016

On Nov. 10 we celebrate National Heroes Day to recount the battle between the arekarek (young people) of Surabaya and Dutch soldiers, or the Netherlands Indies civil administration (NICA) being underpinned by the British army in 1945. It was the heaviest fighting of the revolutionary period and has become a national symbol of Indonesian resistance.

The toughest challenge for the recent generation in redefining the very nature of heroism is the loss of ability to contextualize the message and value. This is not simply seen from the strongly ceremonial tendency marked by nearly forgotten national heroes on pamphlets or posters. No less disappointing is that many no longer devote themselves to sharing and giving.

Standing for Eastern culture and society, Indonesia is in dire need of cultural heroes. It is certain that they are not only humanists, writers, poets or artists. The key to understanding the cultural heroes of today is that they do not see culture for culture in itself, or art for art. They are those who take pride in being Indonesian with their language, art or customs  things with which this nation closely identifies.

Renowned poet Taufiq Ismail, for example, is one of the cultural actors who emphasizes the importance of literature as cultural identity to students. He is not just busy writing poems for personal and commercial interests. His movement, along with other writers, to popularize literary works to students through a students ask, litterateurs answer program could be viewed as an attempt to bind the students with their identity through fiction.

Literature teaches learners to get used to thinking of alternatives, love the nations history through the narrative of dialogue and absorb values in ways that are far from brainwashing.

Taufiqs approach to literature is truly rare. While many authors, poets or playwrights believe that writing is very personal, he actually moves beyond shades of the intellectual status quo by transferring abstract ideas to the real intellectual tradition through fiction writing programs at schools.

Culture turns dim when the language that supports it fails to be a source of price for its native speakers. It will fade when Indonesian is no longer an instrument of identity in daily communication. As such, guardians of Indonesian are heroes amid a flood of foreign terms. Anyone can take a small step to train young people to love Indonesian. Businesspeople can take part through the use of Indonesian rather than English in selling products or providing services by, for example, writing es kopi instead of iced coffee on a menu or kedai kopi rather than coffee shop.

Parents play a pivotal role in instilling a love for Indonesian by having their children speak formal Indonesian at home. That will, in turn, reduce the gap between the smeared basic linguistic variety of the language and the formal variety in the school system. Unlike natural sciences, teaching Indonesian seems to have moved to become less progressive. Oral teaching, for instance, has shown no distinct characteristics for the last 20 years. Research on Indonesian rules has hardly developed.

Having foreign language skills for global communication and educational purposes can be understood. Yet speaking a foreign language with friends or locals as part of a lifestyle is very likely to cause cultural inferiority. The national movement to love Indonesian, therefore, could start by making it the language of science at schools and colleges.

Language politics need to develop a collective consciousness and social engineering continuously translated into various policies that involve all components of the nation. In this case, the French public is a remarkable model. From a housekeeper to a university professor, they are proud of speaking French. No wonder a cleaner does not serve or reply to someone who asks a question in English in that country.

It is no surprise that seminar rooms with American or English speakers are not filled with students. Yet French students and professors still catch up with world discourse due to their mighty intellectual tradition and the incredible translation skills in the country.

Businesspeople, parents, students and other members of society would contribute to the nations cultural survival if they used Indonesian as an identity to think, communicate and interact. On the contrary, a lack of confidence to speak correct Indonesian in public areas is likely to make the ethos of nationalism go unnoticed.

Language represents the nation. Reluctance to speak a language in a formal and correct fashion could manifest in a crisis of confidence. WS Rendra, Mochtar Lubis, Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Widji Thukul are great not only because they bore witness to the truth but also because they made language a tool to inspire many people.

We need cultural champions proud of their own identity to reform people through Indonesian as a medium of empowerment.

***

The writer is a lecturer at the School of Cultural Sciences, Andalas University, Padang, who is pursuing a PhD at Deakin University, Australia.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Muhammad Fajar (The Jakarta Post) Evanston, Illinois  Thu, November 10, 2016

What people were afraid of did not come to pass on Nov. 4. Large-scale riots resembling May 1998 failed to materialize. For the most part Jakarta slept soundly that night. Even though there was looting in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, and clashes in front of the State Palace, in general, the state managed to maintain security, preventing a massive riot from brewing in Jakarta.

Although people might feel relieved, they should be alarmed as the protest has taught us a valuable lesson pertaining to our favored understanding of democracy.

Somehow, we tend to believe that all good things come together with democracy. Democracy is a panacea for all evils in this world such as corruption, intolerance and inequality. Academically, such an understanding contains a flaw, representing a gap between peoples hopes and intellectuals investigation.

For instance, Joseph P. Schumpeter, in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, does not believe people can identify what is good for them since they tend to act irrationally. He arrives at a conclusion that one would better understand democracy as competitive struggles for free votes, simplifying the basic constitutive element of democracy into contestation.

In Democracy and the Market, Przeworski says that the strategies of competing political forces decide the outcomes under democracy. Therefore, logically, organized political competition can be the only way to banish corruption, intolerance or inequality.

Unfortunately, we did not see any meaningful and intense contestation opposing the Nov. 4 protest. We did not witness a similar collective action that supported pluralism on the same day. This fact indicates that people were busy condemning the flaw in Indonesian democracy.

They swarmed on to social media to curse organizations such as the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) as the scapegoats of the protest. They also framed religious fundamentalism as an unexpected outcome in Indonesian democracy. Sadly, that is the limit of popular arguments currently being aired.

(Read also: Ahok and hate speech: The (unexpected) outcome of democracy)

Letting the protest go unchallenged could be a bad sign for the project of pluralism. Adopting contestation conveys the organization of opposition against those who rallied on Nov. 4. The expectation is to see a similar scale of protest that, for instance, denounces religious fundamentalism.

The bitter lesson for pro-pluralism activists is that any ideas can triumph in democracy as long as they are solidly rooted in a solid organization. The reactions to the Nov. 4 protest demonstrated that an organized movement could shake authority. On the day, 5,000 soldiers and 18,000 police officers (The Jakarta Post, Nov. 1, 2016) were readied to anticipate the rally.

Moreover, the rally successfully forced a negotiation between the protests leaders and Vice-President Jusuf Kalla. It also effectively pushed President Joko Jokowi Widodo to make a public statement on the night of Nov. 4.

Although the state seemed to have tamed the protest firmly, another reading of the situation might say that the protest accomplished its aim of elevating the issue as a national concern, attracting wider audiences. The protest even dared to challenge the state to resolve the problem in a two-week period.

For those who fear the growing influence of such a protest, they should be more concerned. The protest displayed a high mobilization capacity, a missed element by those who opposed the protest.

During and after the rally we became aware of stories such as the protest participants who flocked from outside Jakarta or the free flow of food and drink that maintained the protesters energy (the Post, Nov. 4, 2016). The protest not only succeeded in calling people to participate but also to preserve its momentum.

This display of the protestors mobilizational power perplexes us with a question: what kind of repertoire has grown around those who proclaim democracy and pluralism?

One possible answer is that online activism does not go hand-in-hand with offline activism. People who are annoyed by the protest often intelligibly discuss complicated democracy-related concepts on social media but fail to back these up with a vigorous movement on the ground.

The same people may also be satisfied with intellectual seminars or television commentaries but are unable to convert sophisticated discussions into a robust movement. In short, they hate the rising fundamentalism sufficiently but are too incompetent to channel this hatred into a systematic counterpoise.

The mass protest strikes us with the fact that the popularly circulating discourses and practices of democracy have not been able to connect between an anxiety about the increasing political influence of fundamentalism and a necessity to counter this with a sturdy movement. The religious fundamentalist movement may exploit this gap by keeping the pressure on the state to accommodate their wishes.

Letting this action go unchallenged means allowing it to encroach on the Indonesian states agenda, transforming it into a more conservative outlook. Not only the state, but also more Indonesians may buy into the movements ideas, reshaping the contour of Indonesian politics in the future gearing toward the domination of an organized fundamentalist minority over an unorganized majority. At the same time, this image demonstrates the fate of pro-pluralism supporters as prophets without organized followers.

People need to ponder uncoupling the notion of democracy that entails all ideal things in the world from the necessity of having a movement to uphold those ideals.

Understanding democracy as a venue of political struggle among different groups allows us to be more aware of what should be done to transform our ideals into state policies.

Decrying the behavior of the Nov. 4 protesters does not help much since they are just capitalizing on a void left by the pro-pluralism supporters. We should expect more of this kind of protest. What will make a difference, however, is whether people are eager to assemble a systematic action against it.

***

The writer is pursuing his PhD degree in political science at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

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Linkedin I. Basis Susilo (The Jakarta Post) Surabaya  Thu, November 10, 2016

The death of British Army officer Brig. Gen. AWS Mallaby on the evening of Oct. 30, 1945, heightened the tension in Surabaya and led to the Battle of Surabaya on Nov. 10 that year. The incident even today excites worldwide interest. Some investigative analyses cannot come to a single conclusion.

There are four scenarios about who was responsible for the generals death, blaming the Indonesians, Dutch, Japanese and British, respectively.

What conditions led to the killing of Mallaby? I have examined Mallabys last five days in Surabaya from various sources and have reached at least two preliminary conclusions.

First, Mallaby was killed as a result of the ignorance of his superiors: Vice Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten (Supreme Allied Commander Southeast Asia), Lt. Gen. Philip Christison (Commander-in-Chief for the Netherlands East Indies) and Maj. Gen. Douglas Hawthron (23rd Indian Division commander).

They lacked advance intelligence briefings on conditions in Surabaya, could not see the real facts on the ground, were influenced by Dutch propaganda that said Indonesian nationalists were very weak and therefore failed to draft a strong and clear-cut policy.

Second, Mallaby was killed as a result of his own character. He was not a general who relied only on force, but a more relaxed general who relied more on dialogue with Indonesian leaders in Surabaya.

Such an approach suited his basic task but because of that, he was perceived by his superiors in Jakarta as weak and was compelled to use force instead.

His more relaxed attitude left him unaware of the potential danger of crowds, so he walked out unarmed and was accompanied only by two officers.

The British policy was not clear in dealing with Surabaya. McMillan (2005) writes that the overall picture that emerges is one of confusion rather than the execution of a clear-cut plan.

Mountbattens plan was that British forces should not be involved in the Netherlands East Indies internal politics. It was only to secure key areas such as Batavia and Surabaya, control local Japanese headquarters, undertake the disarming of the Japanese and recover POWs. On Sept. 28, Mountbatten urged the Dutch to confer with Indonesian leaders.

The plan shared by Christison and Hawthorn was different from Mountbattens. Christison and Hawthorns plan was to show the flag and get involved in the internal politics by restoring law and order before the return of the Dutch.

Mallaby was sure that it was not of his mission to hold Surabaya for the Dutch.

Leaving for Surabaya, he explained his priorities: First, enter Surabaya and negotiate with the locals on the evacuation of all Dutch civilians and get them on board ship to take them back to Holland, second, evacuate all Allied POWs held by the Japanese and finally take the Japanese army prisoner and wait for ships to repatriate them.

His arrival in Surabaya was welcomed by agitating graffiti in Indonesian Merdeka atau Mati, in Urdu Ayadi ya Kunrezi, and in English Freedom or Death.

Realizing that one brigade was not enough to face the strong Indonesians in Surabaya, Mallaby took a peaceful approach: parley with Indonesian leaders.

Thus, in his first three days in Surabaya, Mallaby held many discussions with Indonesian leaders, outlining his tasks and making agreements on burden sharing to execute his basic tasks.

His approach was successful because the mood of the Indonesian leaders was cooperative although suspicious and very insistent that no Dutch came in as they, not British, were their enemy.

But Mallabys approach was over-ridden by Christison and Hawthron, because it did not match with their plan. In the afternoon of Oct. 26, Hawthorn sent a telegram: Do not parley occupy town. Then Hawthorn dropped leaflets over West and Central Java, demanding that all Indonesians surrender their arms within 48 hours or be shot. Ignoring a signal asking for the leaflets not to be dropped over Surabaya, on Oct. 27 the leaflets were dropped over the city.

Mallaby was speechless for about three minutes after reading the leaflet. When asked What are you going to do, sir? Mallaby replied: Obey orders. Mallaby was in a dilemma. He was certain that he was not assigned to disarm Indonesian people, but Hawthorn was his superior and should be obeyed.

The leaflets angered Surabaya people who then canceled the talks. Indonesians fought for three days (Oct. 27-29) and encircled the 49th Brigade in many places.

The brigade was saved by Indonesian president Sukarno, vice president Mohammad Hatta and prime minister Amir Sjarifuddin who came to Surabaya on Oct. 29 asking for a cease-fire.

Hawthorn had also to go to Surabaya to negotiate with Indonesian leaders, unashamedly disavowing his own words and orders.

---------------

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Linkedin Liu Jing and Yao Yao (China Daily/Asia News Network)  Thu, November 10, 2016

With just one day to go until China's phenomenal Singles Day, domestic buyers are busy hunting for cyber bargains, loading their virtual carts and counting down to the minute prices drop. Many foreigners may feel frustrated for missing out on the shopping carnival due to language, cultural and logistic barriers.

But there's good news for international bargain hunters, China's e-commerce platforms are more foreigner-friendly than many would expect. Here is a guide to help buyers of all nationalities get involved.

Shopping agents

A comparatively easy and quick way to buy from Chinese online stores is to use a shopping agent. All you need to do is to select your "prey" from Chinese shopping websites and submit the item link to the agent, which will then give you a quote and buy it for you.

Once the purchase is made, customers will be updated mostly via email on the delivery status and sometimes photos of their package too. Goods can also be returned via the agent.

The agents often charge a service fee of about 10 percent of the goods' price and extra charge for after-sale service.

Buy directly

For those who are more adventurous and want to save the service fee, many shopping websites in China also offer a chance to buy directly.

For example, Taobao, China's biggest online retailer, has launched its overseas market website and official forwarding services for international buyers in countries such as USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and Singapore.

However, although Taobao offers English registration, the main shopping page only supports traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese. Therefore, it's recommended buyers install a webpage translation plug-in to their browser or seek other translation tools.

China's second largest e-commerce platform, JD.com, on the other hand, has a Russian and English-language page for foreign buyers, joybuy.com.

With categories ranging from dominant electronics like cell phones, computers to clothes and automotive, joybuy.com is ready to provide more than 40,000 products with discounts of up to 80 percent.

(Read also: Alibaba to host global shopping festival on Thursday)

Payment

As for payment, most of China's e-commerce websites now accept various options including Alipay, UnionPay and credit cards.

Shipping

For shipping, Taobao offers two options including direct shipping and global consolidation and shipping. The Taobao Global Direct Shipping is a Taobao official forwarding service in Singapore and Malaysia areas. All you need to do is checkout all items in your shopping cart at once, select "Taobao Direct Shipping" and make a one-off payment.

Taobao Global Consolidation and Shipping is available in more countries but more complicated as buyers have to pay for the shipping processes from sellers to China's forwarder's warehouse and from warehouse to buyers separately.

Similar shipping services are offered by JD.com and Dangdang.com. For some products, the shipping is even free.

After-sale service

For most online marketplaces, if the products are not as described, customers can return them and get a full refund or keep the products and get a partial refund agreed with the seller. The detailed refund policy can be found on each website.

This article appeared on the China Daily newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin Irene Tham (The Straits Times) Singapore  Thu, November 10, 2016

Google on Thursday officially opened the doors to its new office at Mapletree Business City II in Pasir Panjang, where it occupies two entire office blocks to house its "fast growing" team of engineers.

The tech giant hopes to attract more Singapore engineers working overseas, especially in Silicon Valley tech firms, to return home. It now has 1,000 employees, including an undisclosed number of engineers, in its new Singapore engineering hub.

The expansion supports its goal of reaching the next billion Internet users. There were an estimated 3.2 billion Internet users worldwide as of last year.

"We are starting to see a lot of Singaporeans coming back," Mr Caesar Sengupta, Google's locally-based vice-president of The Next Billion Users, told The Straits Times in an interview.

Mr Sengupta, who became a Singaporean 10 years ago, said the nation is a good place for "long-term bets" due to its business-friendly policies.

He would not disclose new hiring plans, but said that the engineering team here is "growing very fast".

"The tech industry here is very vibrant now with a lot of start-ups, and it is a very good place to source for talent."

Basing an engineering pool here is also strategic for the company, and for Mr Sengupta, as it wants to be close to Internet users in South-east Asia.

His division works on products to bring Internet content to more people. These include translating content into Asian languages, and enabling Google Maps and YouTube for offline use for places where mobile access is limited or expensive. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) projects will also be done in Singapore.

Google's local engineering hub is the latest addition to a growing list of similar facilities in Hyderabad in India, Sydney in Australia, and Mountain View in the United States, among other locations.

(Read also: Google releases new update for Android Auto)

Google's new office at Mapletree Business City II in Pasir Panjang, where it occupies two entire office blocks to house its fast growing team of engineers.(The Straits Times/Ong Wee Jin)

Google's Singapore office, which is its Asia-Pacific business headquarters, started with only 24 people in 2007 and has primarily been focusing on business development, sales and marketing.

Checks by The Straits Times show that the two office blocks the firm has leased at Mapletree Business City II could accommodate up to 3,000 people depending on office configuration.

Dr Beh Swan Gin, chairman of Singapore's Economic Development Board, said the setting up of Google's engineering team here is a reflection of its confidence in Singapore's tech capabilities.

"In particular, we welcome Google's close collaboration with the Singapore Government to train Singaporeans in digital skills and partner small- and medium-sized enterprises in adopting digital solutions," he said.

Dr Beh added that Google's vision to reach the next billion users is in line with Singapore's plans to become a smart nation and digital capital of Asia.

Speaking at Google's official office opening on Thursday, Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) S. Iswaran said that it is important for Singapore to establish leadership positions in digital segments, such as software, devices and infrastructure.

The digital economy is expected to contribute US$2 trillion in additional output globally by 2020, and Singapore wants a cut of this.

"One important reason for our focus on the digital economy, and the partnership with leading companies like Google, is the new opportunities it will create for local SMEs and Singaporeans," said Mr Iswaran.

In particular, SMEs can enter online and global markets without requiring a huge investment. There will also be new jobs for Singaporeans, he added.

Based on a survey conducted in June 2015 by the Info-communications Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA), it is estimated that 53,000 new jobs in areas such as data analytics, software engineering, cybersecurity and digital marketing will be created by 2018.

This article appeared on The Straits Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Fashion and photography clashed in harmony in the Potret (Photograph) collection, a clever collaboration between local designer Widhi Budimulia and French photographer Jean Michel, which strode down the runway of the Indonesian Designers Association (IPMI)'s annual fashion trend show in Senayan City shopping mall in Central Jakarta, Wednesday.

This ready to wear 2017 resort collection experiments with digital printing on silk, as Widis elegant cocktail dresses, jumpsuits and cropped blouses became the frame and definitive media of Jeans digital photography. Through a mutual friend, these two creative minds only met each other for the first time in 2015 and have been eager to work together ever since.

As stated in a press release, elements in nature and fascinating architecture in all parts of the world taken from Michel's lenses were recaptured through Widhis detailed draping, ruffles and woven silhouette. Each and every motif tells its own story of origin based on Michel's experience in photographing them.

Having already held 20 exhibitions in five different countries, Michel felt the urge to go beyond modern art photography by giving legs to such an art form. I wanted to collaborate with a fashion designer who would be interested in my patterns, who would be interested to play with colors; I dont want to live in black and white, he told The Jakarta Post.

(Read also: IPMI's annual fashion show still going strong after 30 years)

Semarang-born Widhi, who has been in the fashion industry for over 30 years, gives this collection a breath of the 80s, with high-waisted crop pencil pants and palazzos that still manage to look fashion-forward in a relaxed style.

The wearable collection swept through an orderly, glowing spectrum of warm-toned shades, as seen through the delicate color transition between one series of outfits to another: orange and beige came out first, then slowly into sea green, later olive yellows gradually appeared, blues turned up next, and finally, brave shades of purple and red strode in to sum up the show.

The Potret collection was a chromatically-pleasant experience as the course of the show focused on settling in one color at a time, a stopping power that naturally leads viewers to eye and discern the details between outfits of the same shade, as well as speculate what kind of image is being portrayed on the clothes. (mra/kes)
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Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 9 2016

The campaign team of incumbent pair Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama and Djarot Saiful Hidayat has decided to take measures against the recent backlash received by the pair by filing a report with law enforcement and election authorities in an effort to end the campaign disruptions.

The team will submit the report to the Jakarta Police, the Jakarta Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) and the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta), campaign team chief Prasetio Edi Marsudi said on Tuesday.

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Linkedin Tim Sullivan (Associated Press) New Delhi  Thu, November 10, 2016

Throughout his campaign, Asian nations were a regular target of President-elect Donald Trump's speeches: China is a trade manipulator; Japan and Korea don't contribute enough for US forces; the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal forged with 11 Pacific Rim nations, in part to isolate China, should never be ratified.

His anger could be palpable.

"We can't continue to allow China to rape our country." Trump said in a campaign rally, talking about Washington's trade deficit with Beijing.

But he could also shift quickly, noting: "I'm not angry with China ... China's great!"

So across Asia, politicians and analysts are wondering what role the Trump White House will play across the continent. Hard-line trade negotiator? Counter-balance to Beijing? Leader? Isolationist?

Few agree on the answers.

THE CENTRAL QUESTION

"The central question is: Will the US continue to lead and what will be the quality of leadership at this critical juncture of geopolitical and political economic upheaval?" said Eugene Tan at Singapore Management University. "There will certainly be concern whether the US will pivot away from Asia."

"Based on his campaign rhetoric and promises, he is off to a bad start in terms of engendering trust and confidence of US allies and partners in the region."

KOREAS: SOUTH'S WORRY, NORTH'S SILENCE

North Korea, which raced ahead with its nuclear and long-range missile development during the Obama administration, will almost certainly be one of the most challenging security issues the Trump White House faces in Asia.

Despite heavy international sanctions, the North has conducted two nuclear tests and launched dozens of missiles this year. Pyongyang promises more are coming.

In South Korea, many worry a Trump presidency will bring a major shift in economic and diplomatic ties with Washington. Trump has questioned the value of the US-South Korea security alliance, and hinted that he might be willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The US keeps more than 28,000 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea.

On Wednesday, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said South Korea must ensure that sanctions on North Korea continue "under the next US administration."

North Korea did not comment directly on the elections, but a dispatch Wednesday from its Korean Central News Agency again ridiculed international sanctions efforts, pushed by the Obama administration, to press Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.

The sanctions have actually "emboldened Pyongyang to make a leap forward in the spirit of self-reliance," the article said, urging the international community to recognize the North as a de facto nuclear weapons state.

The article did not mention Trump, though the final line may have been directed at him: "It is high time (the US) made up its mind how to deal with the nuclear power in the East."

CHINA: GOODBYE, PIVOT

Trump blasted China repeatedly during his campaign, but Beijing sees him as vastly preferable to Hillary Clinton, who China mistrusts over her guiding of America's diplomatic and military "pivot" to Asia and her willingness to confront authoritarian regimes. Many analysts said Trump's isolationist foreign policy will give China more maneuvering room to pursue its territorial claims in the East and South China seas.

"With Hillary, [the Chinese] know they will be constrained and confronted, whereas Trump may offer them new strategic opportunities," said David Zweig, director of the Center on China's Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

While China could take a serious economic blow if Trump follows through on his protectionist threats, few expect him to live up to all his rhetoric.

"There's no need to take Trump's trade protectionism too seriously," Dong Tao, Asia chief economist at Credit Suisse First Boston, wrote on his personal blog.

"He doesn't understand that the greatest beneficiaries of cheap Chinese products are the very grassroots American voters who lifted him to power," he wrote. "He doesn't understand that America has long stopped producing low-end consumer goods and suppressing Chinese products will not increase American employment."

"Chinese products have always been a target for attacks in elections, but once [the politicians] assume power, officials from the US Treasury and State Department will give them economics classes."

Tao also noted that the Trans-Pacific Partnership has essentially "come to an end."

Without mentioning Trump directly, China's government noted there were long-established methods to deal with trade disputes with the new US administration.

"I believe that as mature, large countries, China and the US are able to handle such issues," Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters Wednesday.

JAPAN: GAUGING INTENTIONS

Trump's election raised deep concerns in Japan over Tokyo's relationship with Washington, its top ally, given his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and his demands that Japan pay more for American troops or risk having them withdrawn.

But his actual intentions, analysts underscored, remain unclear. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to meet Trump in New York next week.

"The key is how Japan can convince Trump of the benefits of maintaining a bilateral security alliance," said Asuka Matsumoto, an expert on US diplomacy and security issues at the Japan Institute of International Affairs. "I don't think Trump's intention is to eliminate overseas US bases. He is more business-minded, with a very short-term vision."

Japan's constitution renounces the use of force in international disputes, with the country relying heavily relying heavily on 50,000 US troops stationed there as a deterrence.

While Abe's government has increased Japan's military role in recent years, he still believes the US troop presence is key to regional stability, given North Korea's threats and China's increasingly assertive maritime activity.

But Sayo Saruta, an expert on Japan-US relations at the Tokyo-based New Diplomacy Initiative, said Trump's presidency could allow Tokyo to shift away from the US and toward more engagement with its neighbors.

"It would be a chance for Japan to develop a new proactive diplomacy," Saruta said.

AN EXTRAORDINARY VICTORY

Malaysia's prime minister, who the US Justice Department has linked to a scandal over the alleged theft of several billion dollars from a state investment fund, welcomed Trump's "extraordinary victory."

Najib Razak, who could benefit from an isolationist US policy, said in a statement that Trump won because he appealed "to Americans who have been left behind, those who want to see their government more focused on their interests and welfare, and less embroiled in foreign interventions that proved to be against US interests."

INDIA: A 'GREAT FRIEND'

India's Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, told Trump in a Twitter message that his countrymen "appreciate the friendship you have articulated toward India."

Trump praised Modi and his economic strategies, and said in an October rally that he appreciated America's "great friend India in the fight against radical Islamic terrorism."

But New Delhi also keeps a wary eye on Beijing, which it worries is growing too powerful.

Trump "will not be able to project power that American regimes, both Republicans and Democrats, traditionally have done," said Sreeram Chaulia of India's O.P. Jindal Global University. "So for us in India it will lead to complications because we expect Americans to do some of the heavy lifting for us regarding China. "

HUN SEN CALLED IT

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has kept a tight grip on power for decades by silencing critics with lawsuits and intimidation, noted that he'd announced his support for Trump days before the US election.

"American voters have shown their choice to elect your excellency," he told Trump in a message on his official Facebook page, adding: "My support for your candidacy is not wrong either."

____

Contributors include: Annabelle Liang in Singapore; Ashok Sharma in New Delhi; Chris Bodeen and Gillian Wong in Beijing; Mari Yamaguchi and Eric Talmadge in Tokyo; Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
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Linkedin (Associated Press) Oakland, Calif.  Thu, November 10, 2016

Demonstrators angry about the election of Donald Trump smashed windows and set garbage bins on fire early Wednesday in downtown Oakland, California, joining protesters elsewhere in the country who swarmed streets in response to the election. Other protests were generally peaceful.

In Oregon, dozens of people blocked traffic in downtown Portland and forced a delay for trains on two light-rail lines. Media reports said the crowd grew to about 300 people, including some who sat in the middle of a road. The crowd of anti-Trump protesters burned American flags and chanted, "That's not my president."

In Seattle, about 100 protesters gathered in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, blocked roads and set a trash bin on fire.

In Pennsylvania, hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students marched through the streets, with some in the crowd calling for unity. Campus protests also erupted at the University of Texas, the University of Connecticut, the University of California, Berkeley and other University of California campuses.

On Twitter, the hashtag "NotMyPresident" had been used nearly half a million times.

The Oakland protest grew to about 250 people by late Tuesday. Police Officer Marco Marquez said protesters damaged five businesses, breaking windows and spraying graffiti. No arrests were made.

A woman was struck by a car and severely injured when protesters got onto a highway, the California Highway Patrol said. Demonstrators vandalized the driver's SUV before officers intervened. The highway was closed for about 20 minutes.

Oakland is a hotbed of violent protest in the San Francisco Bay Area. Two years ago, demonstrators briefly shut down two freeways, vandalized police cars and looted businesses when a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer in the fatal shooting of a black teenager in Ferguson.

Nearly 80 people were arrested after a night in 2010 that saw rioters use metal bats to break store windows, set fires and loot after a white transit police officer was acquitted of murder and convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the slaying of an unarmed black man.

Elsewhere in California, more than 1,000 students at Berkeley High School staged a walk-out and marched to the campus of the University of California.

Students also walked out of two high schools in Oakland, a high school in Boulder, Colorado and a high school in Phoenix, Arizona.
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Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung  Thu, November 10, 2016

Flooding has again hit Bandung after heavy rain poured down on the capital city of West Java on Wednesday evening with two minivans getting swept away by water on Jl. Pagarsih.

The cars parked in the area were carried away by the floodwater. One of the cars moved 25 meters and approached the nearby Citepus River, but it was recovered. The other car is still missing, West Java Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Yusri Yunus said.

A minivan was previously carried away by floodwaters at the same location when many areas were inundated by the overflowing Citepus River at the end of October. The car was found and recovered after a five-hour search.

Besides the two cars, several cars and motorcycles were stalled in the Cibaduyut area because of the depth of the floodwaters.

Bandung Mayor Ridwam Kamil said his administration had asked a developer of an apartment in the Pagarsih area to build an artificial lake to accommodate flooding.

To anticipate floods in the Gedebage area, the eastern part of the city, Ridwan said the administration also planned to build an underground reservoir for Rp 23.6 billion. Now its in the bidding process. (jun)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Antasari Azhar conveyed his hope to receive clemency from President Joko Jokowi Widodo during a press conference after his release on parole from Tangerang prison, Banten, on Thursday.

Antasari said he needed clemency to rehabilitate his reputation.

Im released on parole now, which means Im still required to report to [Tangerang prison] once a month. Im still a convict, he said.

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced Antasari to 18 years in prison in 2010 for masterminding the murder of state-owned pharmaceutical company PT Putra Rajawali Banjaran director Nasrudin Zulkarnaen. He will be fully released in 2022.

The former South Jakarta Prosecutors Office chief served seven-and-a-half years in prison. With his conditional release, Antasari is not only required to report his whereabouts to Tangerang prison every month until 2022 but is only permitted to travel abroad after he gives prior notice to the prison.

"When the clemency is granted, my conditional release status will be revoked, so I will be fully free," Antasari said. (ebf)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Antasari Azhar says he will not pursue efforts to reopen an investigation into the murder of PT. Putra Rajawali Banjaran director Nasrudin Zulkarnaen, for which he was sentenced to18 years in prison.

After I contemplated and read several books in prison, I must say that I have accepted wholeheartedly what has happened to me. I wont try to reveal anything related to my case. I surrender everything to Allah, he said after his release from Tangerang Penitentiary in Banten, on Thursday.

Even if new evidence is uncovered that could potentially prove his innocence, Antasari said he would not fight for justice through the courts anymore. Let the evidence speak for itself. Im tired of losing [in court], he said.

Antasari further said he would seek justice through God to punish the people that had trapped him.

May they receive their punishment in the afterlife, he said. I leave prison with a clean heart," he added.

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced Antasari to 18 years in prison in 2010 for masterminding the murder of state-owned pharmaceutical company Putra Rajawali Banjaran director Nasrudin, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in Tangerang on March 14, 2009. Antasari served a seven-and-a-half year prison sentence in Tangerang Penitentiary. (ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

More than 100 police officers guarded a campaign venue that was to be used by non-active Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama in North Kedoya, West Jakarta, on Thursday.

Riot police armed with rifles lined up for 150 meters to secure the area, kompas.com reported. Each of the officers was equipped with 10 teargas canisters.

Soldiers were behind the riot police. Several policewomen wearing hijab were also deployed.

A barracuda armored police car and a water cannon were parked on an empty plot of land in the area.

Police officers were seen directing traffic in the area as many residents stopped to watch the scene.

The deployment of so many police officers in full riot gear is believed to have been in reaction to some groups rejecting the presence of the governor to campaign for Februarys gubernatorial election in the area.

Ahoks deputy and running mate, Djarot Saiful Hidayat, who was met with rejection by residents during his last campaign event, said he would report the protestors to the Jakarta Elections Supervisory Agency.

Thousands of Muslims staged a rally in front of the State Palace on Friday. Some of the demonstrators shouted: Arrest Ahok, Kill Ahok!

The rally ended in violence and two police cars were set on fire. (jun)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) THAILAND  Thu, November 10 2016

THAILAND: Four Chinese men were jailed Tuesday for more than 30 years each at Ratchadapisek Criminal Court for robbing a Bangkok gun shop using air pistols and knives. Arriving on two rented motorcycles bearing fake plates on March 4, the Chinese gang stormed into the Inter Arms gun shop, brandishing three knives and two BB air guns.

They stabbed shop owner Pakorn Daenglamai and an employee before making off with 15 firearms and a pickup truck.

Police arrived on the scene quickly, however, and shot dead gang member Wu Xing Jun. Three others  Sun Junwei, 27, Li Kunpeng, 26, and Ma Geng, 30  were shot and captured.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Industrial companies in Asia Pacific expect to progressively digitize their business systems over the next five years as the move can spur quantum leaps in their performances, a survey from multinational financial consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) shows.

Over two-fifths of survey respondents, which involved 304 executives of top-level companies, believed their vertical value chains, product development and engineering functions were already benefiting from an advanced level of digitization and integration.

The companies also believed that digitization would give their businesses greater efficiency, lower costs and additional revenues. The benefits of digitization made 69 percent of the respondents expect a high level of digitization in five years.

It is how digitization has changed the business model. The system reduces expenditure because companies can hire less employees to achieve their objectives, PwC South East Asia managing director William Choong told The Jakarta Post.

To reach the objective, 92 percent of the industrial companies plan to introduce and invest in at least one digital solution to generate more revenue over the next five years. The plans include introducing a new digital product portfolio, providing big data analytics services to external customers, as well as the digitization of existing product portfolios, according to the PwC survey.

Despite the digitization present in local companies, the progress of such a system in Indonesia is hampered by regulations from the government, which to date has remained calm in greeting the onset of the digitized era. Bank Central Asia (BCA) chief economist David Sumual said the government needed to boost the utilization of digital systems for a more efficient bureaucracy and to reduce business costs. (adt/evi)
The Honorable District Judge Paul W. Korslund has called a grand jury to investigate the death of Austin M. Baier Sept. 21 in Louisville.

According to a press release from the Nebraska State Court, a grand jury must be called when an individual has died while being apprehended by or while in the custody of a law enforcement officer or detention personnel.

Cass County Sheriff's Office Deputy Tyler Reiff, 25, shot Baier when an altercation started after the deputy stopped him at 7:12 p.m. Sept. 21 near First and Cherry streets in Louisville. Baier was stopped because the vehicle he was driving, a maroon 1992 Buick Century, matched the description of a vehicle reportedly driving reckless earlier that day, according to a Nebraska State Patrol spokesman.

About 20 minutes earlier, a man had called the Sheriff's Office to say a car was spinning around in circles in the front lawn of his home on the east side of Louisville, according to radio transmissions.

Baier stopped when Reiff pulled him over, then drove off and then stopped again, got out of the car and confronted Reiff, a four-year veteran of the Sheriff's Office.

At some point during the altercation that followed, Reiff shot Baier with his service weapon, Cass County Attorney Nathan Cox said. Medical personnel and Reiff tried to revive Baier, but he died at the scene, Cox said.

The shooting took place just north of a pocket of homes in this town of about 1,100 people.

Austin Baier lived behind the dental office near Third and Main streets and had cooked at the Main Street Cafe a year ago, according to Louisville residents who described him as a nice guy who kept to himself.

Baier, who has no criminal record that shows up in state court files, went to Weeping Water High School, where he was on the wrestling team, according to newspaper files.

Reiff has been placed on administrative leave. An investigation has been ongoing and the grand jury will investigate the death to determine if formal charges should be brought against Reiff.

By law, a grand jury conducts its work in secrecy. Grand jurors take an oath which requires they keep the work secret and avoid discussing the case. Grand jurors must not discuss their investigation, deliberations or votes with anyone unless specifically instructed to do so by the judge, the state court release states.

The grand jury must conduct the work secretly so no one may obstruct justice by intimidating witnesses or flee to avoid prosecution; so those who appear as witnesses are protected from intimidation or threats; and so innocent people whose names might come before a grand jury are protected.

A great injustice can occur and irreparable injury can be done to the reputation of a person if it becomes known that they were discussed by a grand jury, but adequate evidence was not present for indictment, the release states. This type of disclosure can cause a stigma to attach to the name and reputation of an individual, which would be difficult, if not impossible, to erase.

Following the grand jurys investigation, its members will decide if charges will be filed in the case in the Cass County Clerks office.
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Linkedin Rod McGuirk (Associated Press) Canberra  Thu, November 10, 2016

Donald Trump agreed on the importance of the US military alliance with Australia and the importance of the US military presence to the security of the Asia-Pacific region, Australia's prime minister said on Thursday after his first telephone conversation with the US President-elect.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Trump "appreciates, honors" and "admires" the 65-year-old bilateral defense pact that requires the security partners to consult if either comes under attack but does not commit them to come to the other's defense.

"We absolutely agreed on the pivotal importance of our strong alliance," Turnbull told reporters, adding that US and Australian troops had fought side by side in every major conflict for the past 98 years.

"We discussed the vital importance of the United States' continued strong presence in our region and we agreed that that presence has been an absolutely essential foundation of the peace and stability that has enabled the remarkable growth and prosperity, the remarkable economic growth we have seen over the last 40 years," Turnbull added.

Australia and the United States last month struck a cost-sharing deal to pay for more than $1.5 billion in infrastructure to accommodate up to 2,500 US Marines at a northern Australian training hub at Darwin.

Turnbull would not say whether Trump planned to continue to increase the US military buildup in Australia during "warm" and "very frank" discussions.

Turnbull, a self-made businessman worth an estimated $150 million, said their shared business backgrounds were discussed and they plan to meet soon.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10 2016

After months of delays, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry has finally taken the first step toward realizing its Indonesia Terang (Bright Indonesia) program, under which it is planning to electrify thousands of remote villages by 2019.

The ministrys new and renewable energy director general, Rida Mulyana, said on Tuesday that the ministry and state-owned electricity company PLN had been working to jointly map out electricity needs in Papua and West Papua provinces in an effort to realize the project.

The mapping, he said, would help both entities set priorities in the procurement of electricity in the easternmost provinces.

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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

The governments plan to share state-run infrastructure concessions with private investors will become an attractive alternative to lure private funding as it will provide the investors with more predictable return and lower risk, a business lobby group has suggested.

Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) deputy chairman for construction and infrastructure Erwin Aksa said not all investors wanted to invest in greenfield infrastructure projectsreferring to fresh projectsand instead preferred to put their money in established companies and brownfield projectsventures that are already operating and generating cash flow.

"Investors from the Middle East, for example, have a lot of money, but they dont want greenfield [projects]. Theyre looking look for companies to take over," he said on Wednesday.

Background  no need to edit

President Joko Jokowi Widodo sent a strong signal earlier the day about providing brownfield infrastructure projects - which refers to projects that are already operating and generating cash flow - for global investors, by urging state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to securitize mature assets to allow private entities to enter.

Securitization is the process through which a variety of financial and non-financial assets are packaged into securities that are then sold to investors. The cash flows generated by the underlying assets are used to pay the principal and interest of the securities.

Projects that are considered brownfield projects should be let go [to investors]. That way they will have more capital to build more, he said during the 2016 Indonesia Infrastructure Week, arguing that investors were usually hesitant to invest in greenfield projects, which refers to fresh projects.

End of background

State-owned infrastructure financing company Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (SMI) president director Emma Sri Martini said there was no law that prohibited private investors from investing in concession-sharing schemes with SOEs.

"SOEs, however, are still reluctant to divest because the concession is related to government assets," Emma said. (hwa)
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Linkedin Rob Gillies (Associated Press) Toronto  Thu, November 10, 2016

Canada's ambassador to Washington said Wednesday that Canada is open to renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement if that's what President-elect Donald Trump wants.

Ambassador David MacNaughton, on a conference call with journalists, said free trade on lumber, long an irritant, would be one of the first things he'd like to see if there's a new agreement. He noted that the US is Canada's largest trading partner and Canada is the largest trading partner for the US

"We're ready to come to the table," he said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to Trump on Wednesday night to congratulate him and to invite him to Canada at the earliest opportunity. Trump also invited Trudeau to visit him.

"The Prime Minister and the President-elect reiterated the importance of the Canada-United States bilateral relationship, and discussed various areas of mutual interest," Trudeau's office said.

The Liberal prime minister has vowed to work "very closely" with Trump and said Canada has no closer ally and partner than the United States. But Trudeau's openness to trade, refugees and the environment stands in stark contrast to Trump. Of particular concern to Canada is Trump's vow to renegotiate NAFTA but MacNaughton said any agreement can be improved. Trump has called NAFTA the "worst deal in history."

MacNaughton said if NAFTA was scrapped, the original Canada-US trade agreement that predated NAFTA would come back into force and he said he doubted the Americans would want to end that.

A positive for Canada could be the eventual approval of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the US Gulf Coast. President Obama nixed it but Trump supports the pipeline though he has said he wants a share of the profits. TransCanada said it remains committed to building the pipeline.

Brad Wall, premier of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, noted Trump's support for Keystone XL.

"And with Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, I am hopeful that this important project will move ahead quickly," Wall said in a statement. "On the other hand, I hope he reconsiders his plan to end the North American Free Trade Agreement."

Canada and the prospect of Americans moving there drew so much interest that the country's immigration website was knocked out Tuesday night.

Immigration spokeswoman Sonia Lesage said more than 200,000 users were accessing the site when it went down at 11 p.m. At that time, American IP addresses accounted for approximately 50 percent of the traffic, about five times higher than normal. The website saw just over 17,000 users at the same time a week earlier.
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Linkedin (Associated Press) London  Thu, November 10, 2016

China's vice-premier is holding talks with Britain's Treasury chief as the two countries try to smooth over a rocky patch in their growing economic relationship.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond is meeting a delegation led by Vice Premier Ma Kai Thursday as Britain seeks more Chinese investment in UK infrastructure.

Ma is also meeting Prime Minister Theresa May and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney.

The UK-China relationship wobbled in July when May unexpectedly delayed approval of a nuclear power plant being built with Chinese investment.

May eventually approved the Hinkley Point power plant in September.

On Thursday she said Britain and China were in a "golden era of relations"  echoing a phrase used by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a state visit to Britain last year.
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Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

The Jakarta administration is auditing the constructions of five low-cost apartments that have been halted before it decides whether to resume or to abort the projects.

"An internal team is auditing the [construction] of the five projects," Jakarta's Housing and Government Buildings Agency head Arifin said on Wednesday.

Arifin said the administration had also asked the help of the Public Work and Public Housing Ministry to conduct another audit on the five construction projects to get a second opinion.

"The acting governor [Sumarsono] has asked for help from the Public Work and Public Housing Ministry to help with testing of the physical condition of the buildings as a secondary opinion," he said.

Inactive Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, who is on obligatory campaign leave, previously instructed to halt the construction of the five apartments after he was made aware that their construction quality was below the administration's standards.

Arifin said the administration had so far aborted the construction of two apartments and would hold a new bidding process to get new contractors to resume these projects.

The administration has planned to construct at least 10,000 units of apartments this year to be used to relocate people living illegally on riverbanks following its plan to widen and embank rivers in the capital to prevent overflooding.

However, Ahok previously expressed pessimism that the city would be able to reach the target following the discovery of the bad-quality construction. (bbn)
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Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post)  Thu, November 10 2016

The Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama-Djarot Saiful Hidayat pair continues to face disruptions on their campaign trail as the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) calls on the citys residents to give access to all contenders.

During his campaign visit to Kembangan Selatan, West Jakarta, Djarot encountered a group of people carrying banners opposing their presence in the area.

This time, the deputy governor, who is currently on leave, decided to confront the protesters even though his security guards and aides had asked him to return to the car.

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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Antasari Azhar enjoyed his freedom on Thursday after serving a seven-and-a-half year prison sentence at Tangerang Penitentiary, Banten, for murder.

Antasari hugged his wife, Ida Laksmiwati, upon his release and held his grandchild.

Alhamdulillah [thank God]. Freedom, freedom, freedom! Antasari shouted on Thursday morning.

Dozens of Islamic boarding school students played tambourines and chanted shalawat badar (Islamic songs in praise of Prophet Muhammad). National University Student Movement (GMNI) members and alumni of Sriwijaya University in Palembang, South Sumatra, also welcomed him by shouting merdeka (freedom) repeatedly.

After giving a brief press conference at the Tangerang prison, Antasari and his family returned to their home in Bumi Serpong Damai, South Tangerang, where they are scheduled to hold a syukuran (a gathering to express thanks to God).

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced Antasari to 18 years in prison in 2010 for masterminding the murder of Nasrudin Zulkarnaen, a director of state-owned pharmaceutical company PT Putra Rajawali Banjaran. Nasrudin was killed in a drive-by shooting in Tangerang on March 14, 2009. (ebf)




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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Fragmented support for Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama in the Golkar Party has threatened the unity of the party, only months after it was able to resolve a year-long split from infighting for party control.

Chairman Setya Novanto raised the matter when lambasting opposition voices to the party's endorsement of Ahok, as well as President Joko Jokowi Widodo, in his speech during the opening ceremony of Kosgoro, a Golkar-affiliated multipurpose organization, on Wednesday evening in Jakarta.

I suggest those who made speeches earlier [questioning Golkars decision] to once in a while talk with the management board, Setya said.

He was referring to calls made by members of the partys honorary council, including chief Aburizal Bakrie, who lost the partys chairmanship race to Setya in May this year, and council member Fahmi Idris, who questioned Golkars support for Ahok, as well as the partys early endorsement for Jokowis second term.

Setyas remarks came only days after Aburizal and Fahmi made separate statements at the partys headquarters in Slipi, West Jakarta, questioning Golkars decision to support Jokowi and Ahok.

Fahmi, an influential figure in the party, particularly warned that Golkar could retract its support from Ahok from the mounting protests against the Jakarta governor for allegedly committing blasphemy.

Golkar is slated to hold a meeting at the headquarters on Thursday, with all its board members expected to attend, including both Aburizal and Fahmi, to discuss the partys different stances on Ahoks case. (bbn)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10 2016

JAKARTA: As many as 53 buildings on Jl. Ciliwung II in Cawang, East Jakarta, are set to be dismantled by the city administration next week in order to make way for the river normalization project.

East Jakarta Mayor Bambang Musyawardana said on Wednesday that the buildings on the 33 plots of land would be destroyed without compensation as the owners did not have land certificates.

We have familiarized the plan to the residents and they will be relocated to the Rawa Bebek low-cost apartments [rusunawa], he said as quoted by beritajakarta.com.

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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10 2016

No one can predict who they will end up marrying or whether that person will be a foreign citizen, but that should not prevent Indonesians from owning property in their own homeland, says Ike Farida about the woes transnational couples face in Indonesia.



Ike, who is married to a Japanese citizen, was denied an apartment that she had paid for in full due to her husbands citizenship.



We dont know with whom we will be married. I think [almost everyone], whether woman or man, who is now with a foreign spouse, probably did not have the goal of marrying a foreign citizen, Ike said on Wednesday.



Referring to her own religion, Ike said according to the Muslim faith nobody knows when they would die, nor could anyone negotiate which parents one is born to. The same went for marriage, she said.



In May 2012, Ike had finalized payments for an apartment in Jakarta. However, the developer refused to give her ownership rights to the property after becoming aware that her husband was a foreign national.



Supported by her background in law, Ike was determined to bring the matter before a district court to claim her rights. Earlier this year, her case was dismissed by the judge on the basis of a government regulation (PP) released in December last year, namely PP No. 103/2015, which regulates property ownership by foreigners who reside in Indonesia.



It was a blow she had not expected, especially since she had bought her property before that regulation was implemented. Furthermore, she noted the peculiarity of the regulation in that it pertains to foreigners yet also impacts Indonesians that are married to foreigners.



The regulation stipulates that Indonesians who marry foreign nationals require a notarized prenuptial agreement in order to buy and own property after they marry.



That stipulation, she said, referred to a now-abolished Article 29 of the Marriage Law to prevent mixture of spouses assets.



Last September, prior to the abolition of Article 29 on Oct. 27 by the Constitutional Court, Ike had filed for a review of PP No. 103/2015 by the Supreme Court.



Following the Constitutional Courts decision to eliminate the requirement for a prenuptial marriage agreement in Article 29 of the 1974 Marriage Law, Ike saw more reason for a review of the 2015 regulation, as it had created confusion through the non-uniformity of rules on property ownership.



As a member of the Indonesian Mixed-Marriage Society (Perca), Ike assisted the organization in filing for another judicial review of the same government regulation Wednesday, this time also pointing to the contradictions with existing laws.



In their petition, Perca specifically cites three laws, the 1960 Agrarian Law, which stipulates that all land ownership should have a social benefit, Law No. 12/2011 on the formation of legislation, and Law

No. 39/1999 on human rights.



How is it possible to discriminate against Indonesian citizens [just because] they are married to foreign spouses? Ike noted on her human rights concerns about the regulation.



The document called on the government to pay attention to confusion caused by the laws, she said, but would leave it up to the authorities whether to revise it, create new regulations or abolish it completely.



Its sad that we are discriminated against, its extremely sad. And its not only us who are discriminated against, but also our children, Ike says.



Perca head Juliani Luthan noted that the review petition on PP No. 103/2015 was important for the organization, as it affected its more than 1,140 members. She urged clarification on the regulation, which she said appeared to be out of sync with existing rules, especially the 1945 Constitution.



The Constitution clearly states that an Indonesian citizen has full rights to property ownership, both right-to-own permits and right-to-build permits, Juliani said.



She called on the government to eliminate PP No. 103/2015 entirely or at least abolish Paragraph 2 in Article 3 of the regulation.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

President Joko Jokowi Widodo said on Thursday that he could deploy the Armys Special Forces (Kopassus) reserve units in an emergency.

Here, there are Sandi Yudha, Satuan Komado and Gultor [Kopassus units]. These are reserves forces that I could deploy in an emergency, Jokowi said after giving a speech on National Heroes Day at Kopassus headquarters in Cijantung, East Jakarta.

Through the TNI [Indonesia Military] chief [the forces] could be deployed, the President said as reported by kompas.com.

Jokowi is facing pressure from Islamic groups to press ahead with legal action against incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama over blasphemy allegations.

(Read also: Political actors take advantage of situation: Jokowi)

Thousands of people a staged a rally in front of State Palace on Friday to protest Ahok, a Christian of Chinese descent. The rally ended in violence, with two police cars set on fire.

Jokowi cancelled his visit to Australia this week to attend to domestic matters.

However, Jokowi denied his visit to Kopassus headquarters had anything to do with the current state of the country, stating that he paid a visit to commemorate National Heroes Day.

No [its not an emergency]. Today is National Heroes Day, isnt it? As I told you, if [there is an emergency], he added. (jun)
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Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Indonesia believes the US will keep up its good relations with Indonesia under the leadership of US president-elect Donald Trump, despite his controversial policy proposals, such as banning Muslims from entering the US.

Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said Thursday that as long as the US remained democratic, including by supporting the values of pluralism, it would make a positive impact on the world, including on Indonesia.

The US is a country adhering to the principles of democracy and pluralism. As long as these principles are still adopted [by the US], there is nothing to be worried about [concerning US-Indonesia relations], Arrmanatha said in a press briefing at the ministrys headquarters in Central Jakarta.

The triumph of Trump in the US election against his rival Hillary Clinton came as a shock to many people in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world. Trumps occasional remarks about banning Muslims from entering the US made him widely viewed as being anti-Islamic.

Arrmanatha said Trumps remarks during the presidential campaign could just have been political rhetoric that might be different from his actual policies.

All the remarks coming out [from Trump] might be just campaign rhetoric, he said. What we will see is his overall policies.

He said for the time being he did not want to speculate about what sort of policies Trump would eventually come up with. (evi)
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Linkedin Nani Afrida (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

After ordering three submarines from South Korea, Indonesia plans to buy three more as part of the countrys minimum essential force (MEF) program.

The Committee for Defense Industry Policy (KKIP) said Indonesia had yet to decide the producer of the submarines.

The first, second and third submarines were developed in South Korea, KKIP corporation and marketing department head Rear Adm (ret) Yussuf Sollichien told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta on Thursday.

He said Indonesia had yet to decide whether it would purchase the three submarines from South Korea.

Indonesia has ordered three types of 209/1400 Chang Bogo- Class diesel attack submarines from Korean defense company Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine engineering (DSME).

The Navy currently operates two German-made submarines, the KRI Cakra ( 401 ) and KRI Nenggala ( 402 ), which were built in the 1980s. The submarines are due to be decommissioned in 2020.

Besides three new submarines, Indonesia also plans to purchase guided missile frigates and fast missile boats.

Indonesia doesnt want to downgrade the operational and technical requirements, so we will buy from foreign countries. However, we need the transfer of technology [TOT] as that is mandated by the law, Yussuf said. (bbn)
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Linkedin Donny Syofyan (The Jakarta Post) Burwood, Australia  Thu, November 10 2016

On Nov. 10 we celebrate National Heroes Day to recount the battle between the arek-arek (young people) of Surabaya and Dutch soldiers, or the Netherlands Indies civil administration (NICA) being underpinned by the British army in 1945. It was the heaviest fighting of the revolutionary period and has become a national symbol of Indonesian resistance.

The toughest challenge for the recent generation in redefining the very nature of heroism is the loss of ability to contextualize the message and value. This is not simply seen from the strongly ceremonial tendency marked by nearly forgotten national heroes on pamphlets or posters. No less disappointing is that many no longer devote themselves to sharing and giving.

Standing for Eastern culture and society, Indonesia is in dire need of cultural heroes. It is certain that they are not only humanists, writers, poets or artists. The key to understanding the cultural heroes of today is that they do not see culture for culture in itself, or art for art. They are those who take pride in being Indonesian with their language, art or customs  things with which this nation closely identifies.

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Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Indonesian citizens living in the US should show respect for the countrys president-elect Donald Trump and his administration that will be formed soon, a Foreign Ministry official has said.

We want all Indonesians [in the US] to honor the new leader and obey the laws where they are living, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said on Thursday.

Throughout his campaign, Trump, a Republican, was less popular in Indonesia than his contender, Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party. His victory in this years US Presidential election on Tuesday shocked many Indonesians, partly due to his discriminatory proposals, including a ban on foreign Muslims entering the US.

(Read also: US pledges to maintain relations with Indonesia)

People in Indonesia, the worlds largest Muslim-majority country, expressed disappointment on social media Wednesday as projections showed Trump leading the vote count.

Most of them were worried that Muslims in the US would face hard times under Trumps leadership.

Arrmanatha said Indonesians living in the US should not be worried about what might happen. We are all waiting what policies he will make. There is no need to be guessing or becoming worried, he said.

The spokesman asked Indonesians in the US to respect all differences and cultures in the country. (ebf)
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Linkedin Ina Parlina and Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10 2016

President Joko Jokowi Widodo congratulated the newly-minted US commander-in-chief Donald Trump late Wednesday, saying the election results reflected the will of the majority of American people.



Jokowi added Indonesia was ready to continue working with the US in a mutually beneficial relationship.



I invite the US president-elect to continue cooperating to build world peace and prosperity, he added during a visit to nearby Tangerang in Banten. The US is among the five largest investors in Indonesia.



International relations expert Dewi Fortuna Anwar said the outcome of this years US election could not have been in greater contrast to Barack Obamas win in 2008.



The election of Obama as the first black president who believed that the US should work in partnership with other countries to deal with global problems produced a worldwide euphoria of a more benign US as a global power, she said.



Now the whole world is stunned and cannot yet reconcile to the idea that Donald Trump has won the presidency, Dewi told The Jakarta Post.



Scenes of such candid stupor were evident during Wednesdays election results countdown event held in the @america complex, home of the sociocultural arm of the US Embassy in Jakarta.



Scores of local and foreign media outlets, as well as Jakarta-based American diplomats and analysts, waited ardently for the final tally to appear live on-screen on CNN, before giving way to a lull when Trump had secured 245 out of the 270 votes needed from the electoral college to win. He finally gained 276 votes.



By midday, most US Embassy staffers had left the event, the big screen was turned off and people were scurrying home with an almost obvious sense of devastation that Trump had all but won the race to the White House.



One Indonesian diplomat at the scene raised the great task ahead in formulating a workable foreign policy stance for the Trump administration, which throughout his campaign had so often irked Indonesias Muslim-majority population.



In the meantime, firebrand legislator Fadli Zon posted a congratulatory tweet alongside a selfie he took with Trump during their meeting in New York early last year, which sparked controversy among civil society groups and watchdogs.



Fadli and former House of Representatives speaker Setya Novanto were reported to the House ethics council for allegedly endorsing Trumps campaign. Both got off with a light warning.



Antara on Wednesday quoted international relations lecturer Teuku Rezasyah as suggesting that the Trump administration would likely be interested in making investments in [Indonesias] infrastructure, including air, land and sea ports, especially investments that have potential to lessen the influence of [China] in Southeast Asia.



The AFP meanwhile quoted Chinas President Xi Jinping as saying, I highly value China-US relations, and look forward to working together with you and holding fast to mutual respect and nonconflict, nonconfrontation.



From Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered heartfelt congratulations: Japan and the United States are unshakable allies connected by common values such as freedom, democracy, basic human rights and rule of law.



Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that Mr. Trumps success shows that politicians should never take voters for granted.



Singapores Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that like Brexit, Trumps victory reflects a deep frustration with the way things are in the West and a strong wish to reassert a sense of identity and somehow to change the status quo.



The spokesman of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Duterte looks forward to working with the incoming administration for enhanced Philippine-US relations anchored on mutual respect, mutual benefit and shared commitment to democratic ideals and the rule of law, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Antasari Azhar said on Thursday that he believed the anti-graft body would handle the investigation into the Bank Century bailout case.

All cases can be uncovered if there is enough evidence. My fellows at the KPK only need to follow up on this case, Antasari said, speaking to journalists at his daughters home in Serpong, South Tangerang, following his release on parole from the Tangerang penitentiary in Banten on Thursday morning.

He noted that a former Bank Indonesia (BI) deputy governor implicated in the case had been imprisoned on corruption charges while several others, who were accused of collectively committing the crime alongside the deputy governor, remained free. Therefore, the KPK needed to follow up on the case, he went on to say.

The law should be equal to everyone. There should be equality before the law regardless of background, said Antasari.

The former Central Jakarta prosecutors office chief further said that he did not plan to go back to the KPK. For the next three weeks, he said he would prioritize taking care of his family.

I will first discuss this with my wife [about working at the KPK again]. She took care of my children and grandchildren when I was in prison, Antasari said.

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced Antasari to 18 years in prison in 2010 for orchestrating the murder of state-owned pharmaceutical company PT Putra Rajawali Banjaran director Nasrudin Zulkarnaen. Antasari was released on parole after seven-and-a-half years in prison. (ebf)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Antasari Azhar, who was released from Tangerang Penitentiary on Thursday morning, has urged the antigraft body to conclude several corruption cases that remained unresolved.

"I think the KPK needs to finish its unsolved tasks so it can give a sense of justice to people," Antasari, who served time following a murder case, said at his daughters house in South Tangerang.

One of the cases involves the Bank Indonesia liquidity support (BLBI) program, for which the central bank channeled Rp 154 trillion (US$11.8 billion) to private banks and Rp 446 trillion to state-owned banks.

State prosecutors had investigated corruption in private banks in regards to the BLBI, but no one had touched the potential misuse of funding assistance at state-owned banks, Antasari said.

"I was just looking forward to investigating it before I was sent to the penitentiary," he said.

Antasari also cited other cases including that surrounding Bank Century and another involving the General Elections Commission (KPU) in relation to IT procurement in 2009. He said he did not understand why the investigation of such cases had stopped after he was imprisoned.

"Now, as an ordinary citizen, I can only give advice [to the KPK], together with you," he said, pointing to journalists. (jun)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is scrutinizing possible involvement of House of Representatives members in an electronic identification cards (e-KTP) graft case, KPKs top official said Thursday.

"We are developing an investigation to discover whether or not bribery has taken place during the budgeting processes [of the House]," KPK chairman Agus Rahardjo said at KPK headquarters.

He said KPK's investigators suspected more people were responsible in the graft case, which had potentially caused Rp 2.3 trillion (US$175.4 million) in state loss.

KPK has named two suspects so far, Home Affairs Ministrys former director general for population and civil registration, Irman, and former population administration information management director for the directorate general, Sugiharto.

"We believe there are other people responsible [for the graft case]. That's why our investigators are intensifying efforts to gather more evidence," Agus said.

Previously, former Democratic Party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin, a key witness in the case, claimed that many high ranking officials were involved in the alleged graft case, including former finance minister Agus Martowardojo, who currently serves as Bank Indonesia governor, and Setya Novanto, chairman of the Golkar party.

Agus said it was slander when the Golkar party challenged Nazaruddin to show proof that Setya was involved.

Agus and Chairuman Harahap, the former chairman of House of Representatives (DPR) Commission II overseeing home affairs, are witnesses who the KPK has summoned for questioning sessions. (fac/evi)
Marine Corps veteran David Manzer has more than a passing interest when working on a Habitat for Humanity house because the home is for his family.

Partially disabled due to some knee conditions, Manzer spends hours a week building his home and other Habitat homes currently under construction around Fremont.

I help out wherever I can, he said. Many of the other owners have helped here, so contributing is all part of the process.

The Omaha North grad followed his father and several other family members in joining the Marines after graduating from Omaha North High School. I first contacted a Marine Corps recruiter when I was in middle school, he said. But the recruiter sort of laughed and asked me to finish high school first. After a short stint at Wayne State College, Manzer volunteered to join up. Funny thing, the recruiter was the same guy I talked to in middle school, he chuckled.

Boot camp took him to San Diego; additional training followed in Mississippi. Subsequent assignments included North Carolina, California and Arizona. My unit was finally deployed as a Heavy Marine Helicopter Squadron on the U.S.S. Teddy Roosevelt for six months. That was a new concept then, to have 600 Marines on a ship, he said. During that time we conducted operations in the Adriatic Sea. Our main purpose was to support our NATO allies as the conditions in Yugoslavia became increasingly unsettled.

Manzer remembers sailing three days off the Eastern coast of Virginia before what has become known in those parts as the storm of the century struck. The storm caught up to us and slapped this mega ship around like a frigate in a water tank, Manzer recalled. I never saw so many green sailors in my life.

Ports of call included Greece and Italy. He scuba dived in the Mediterranean, walked through the Roman ruins. Later Manzer spent time in Puerto Rico and Germany. Yeah, my wife is jealous. I have seen so many places in the world. I feel lucky.

In 1994, Manzer opted to return to service seeking a position with the military police. Stationed in North Carolina after the 9-11 attacks, Manzers family was allowed to join him. Several stints with various MP units followed with Manzer when, after 20 years in the service, he decided to leave in 2011.

While he still envisions a role in law enforcement at some level, his daily focus is his wife and their two teenage children.

And the house. Manzer stated that his father could install dry wall professionally. He learned the tricks of the mud and seams early in life. I like this work, he surveyed the newly sanded downstairs ceilings and walls. You can see what you have accomplished every hour. I spend so much time here because Id really like to move in before Christmas. With a quick measure of a doorway opening, Marine Corp veteran David Manzer returned to the task at hand, sheetrock and sanding.
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Linkedin Muhammad Fajar Evanston, Illinois  Thu, November 10, 2016

What people were afraid of did not come to pass on Nov. 4. Large-scale riots resembling May 1998 failed to materialize. For the most part Jakarta slept soundly that night. Even though there was looting in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, and clashes in front of the State Palace, in general, the state managed to maintain security, preventing a massive riot from brewing in Jakarta.

Although people might feel relieved, they should be alarmed as the protest has taught us a valuable lesson pertaining to our favored understanding of democracy.

Somehow, we tend to believe that all good things come together with democracy. Democracy is a panacea for all evils in this world such as corruption, intolerance and inequality. Academically, such an understanding contains a flaw, representing a gap between peoples hopes and intellectuals investigation.

For instance, Joseph P. Schumpeter, in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, does not believe people can identify what is good for them since they tend to act irrationally. He arrives at a conclusion that one would better understand democracy as competitive struggles for free votes, simplifying the basic constitutive element of democracy into contestation.

In Democracy and the Market, Przeworski says that the strategies of competing political forces decide the outcomes under democracy. Therefore, logically, organized political competition can be the only way to banish corruption, intolerance or inequality.

Unfortunately, we did not see any meaningful and intense contestation opposing the Nov. 4 protest. We did not witness a similar collective action that supported pluralism on the same day. This fact indicates that people were busy condemning the flaw in Indonesian democracy.

They swarmed on to social media to curse organizations such as the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) as the scapegoats of the protest. They also framed religious fundamentalism as an unexpected outcome in Indonesian democracy. Sadly, that is the limit of popular arguments currently being aired.

Letting the protest go unchallenged could be a bad sign for the project of pluralism. Adopting contestation conveys the organization of opposition against those who rallied on Nov. 4. The expectation is to see a similar scale of protest that, for instance, denounces religious fundamentalism.

The bitter lesson for pro-pluralism activists is that any ideas can triumph in democracy as long as they are solidly rooted in a solid organization. The reactions to the Nov. 4 protest demonstrated that an organized movement could shake authority. On the day, 5,000 soldiers and 18,000 police officers (The Jakarta Post, Nov. 1, 2016) were readied to anticipate the rally.

Moreover, the rally successfully forced a negotiation between the protests leaders and Vice-President Jusuf Kalla. It also effectively pushed President Joko Jokowi Widodo to make a public statement on the night of Nov. 4.

Although the state seemed to have tamed the protest firmly, another reading of the situation might say that the protest accomplished its aim of elevating the issue as a national concern, attracting wider audiences. The protest even dared to challenge the state to resolve the problem in a two-week period.

For those who fear the growing influence of such a protest, they should be more concerned. The protest displayed a high mobilization capacity, a missed element by those who opposed the protest.

During and after the rally we became aware of stories such as the protest participants who flocked from outside Jakarta or the free flow of food and drink that maintained the protesters energy (the Post, Nov. 4, 2016). The protest not only succeeded in calling people to participate but also to preserve its momentum.

This display of the protestors mobilizational power perplexes us with a question: what kind of repertoire has grown around those who proclaim democracy and pluralism?

One possible answer is that online activism does not go hand-in-hand with offline activism. People who are annoyed by the protest

often intelligibly discuss complicated democracy-related concepts on social media but fail to back these up with a vigorous movement on the ground.

The same people may also be satisfied with intellectual seminars or television commentaries but are unable to convert sophisticated discussions into a robust movement. In short, they hate the rising fundamentalism sufficiently but are too incompetent to channel this hatred into a systematic counterpoise.

The mass protest strikes us with the fact that the popularly circulating discourses and practices of democracy have not been able to connect between an anxiety about the increasing political influence of fundamentalism and a necessity to counter this with a sturdy movement. The religious fundamentalist movement may exploit this gap by keeping the pressure on the state to accommodate their wishes.

Letting this action go unchallenged means allowing it to encroach on the Indonesian states agenda, transforming it into a more conservative outlook. Not only the state, but also more Indonesians may buy into the movements ideas, reshaping the contour of Indonesian politics in the future gearing toward the domination of an organized fundamentalist minority over an unorganized majority. At the same time, this image demonstrates the fate of pro-pluralism supporters as prophets without organized followers.

People need to ponder uncoupling the notion of democracy that entails all ideal things in the world from the necessity of having a movement to uphold those ideals.

Understanding democracy as a venue of political struggle among different groups allows us to be more aware of what should be done to transform our ideals into state policies.

Decrying the behavior of the Nov. 4 protesters does not help much since they are just capitalizing on a void left by the pro-pluralism supporters. We should expect more of this kind of protest. What will make a difference, however, is whether people are eager to assemble a systematic action against it.

_______________

The writer is pursuing his PhD degree in political science at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
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Linkedin Corry Elyda (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10 2016

Despite mounting criticism and promise of reconsideration, the Education and Culture Ministry decided to go ahead with the full-day school program where students would stay in school for longer hours five days a week.



The ministry would cut Saturday as a school day for elementary and junior high school students, they will still study from Monday to Saturday, but prolong the study hours until 4 p.m. every day, Ministry spokesman Asianto Sinambela said on Wednesday.



Education and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy had previously launched the plan of extending school hours under a full-day school scheme where students would get lessons to help build their characters.



The long hours would not force students to sit tight in classrooms but instead offer them interactive study methods with their teachers.



It will be the combination of activities and simulation, he told The Jakarta Post citing example for elementary school students would have play time in the fields to trigger their creativities supervised by teachers and school principal.



The activities could range from visiting zoos or parks as well as extracurricular activities such as learning music and arts although it would all be considered obligatory subjects for students.



Besides cutting the school days, the ministry would also take out homeworks from students that had spent morning to afternoon at school.



It will be almost no homework, so students will have more quality time with their parents, he said.



In order to make the program takes into effect, the ministry had launched a pilot project in 1,500 elementary and junior high school across the country. There were 542 principals from various schools across the archipelago being trained for the project.



When Muhadjir was first launched the idea in August, critics from parents and education experts amounted saying that the program would give more burden for students. He said he would reconsider the program if public disagreed. However, he gained back up after President Joko Jokowi Widodo expressed his approval to the scheme that would introduce values of ethics, hard works, politeness and optimism to school children.



Secretary-general of the Federation for Indonesian Teachers Associations (FSGI) Retno Listyarti said the association questioned the plan and urged the ministry to reconsider the program on the back Indonesias preparedness.



Citing France as an example, she said the full-day school there was ready in terms of facilities.



They fulfill the rights of children like afternoon nap and having lunch in school funded by the state,

she said.



Are we ready for that? There must be evaluation. If it fails, the government should stop it, she said.



There was a petition posted on online petition change.org in August demanding the ministry to revoke the full-day scheme. Initiated by a member of public and concerned parent named Deddy Mahyarto Kresnoputro, the petition garnered 45,347 supporters.

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Linkedin Don Babwin (Associated Press) Chicago, United States  Thu, November 10, 2016

A largely white Chicago neighborhood that many police officers and firefighters call home took center stage this week in the city's tensions over gun violence, race and policing as protests erupted following the fatal police shooting of a black man.

Some residents used racial slurs, revved motorcycle engines and yelled "go home" Tuesday night as protesters with the Black Lives Matter movement demanded an investigation into the death of 25-year-old Joshua Beal. It was the second confrontation in Mount Greenwood since Beal, who police say was armed, was shot Saturday in what police said was a road rage incident following a funeral.

When the latest protest erupted, as Donald Trump was being elected president, residents of the southwest Chicago neighborhood expressed the same kind of fears  often using racially charged and profanity-laced language  that the country saw voiced among the white working class audiences that clamored to Trump's rallies in recent months.

When protesters tried to conduct a prayer, some residents shouted "CPD, CPD" in support of the Chicago Police Department.

"I think there is a concern about protecting the neighborhood. But the larger concern from some people is protecting the neighborhood from people who don't look like them," said John Lyons, who is white and lives in Mount Greenwood with his wife and two young daughters.

"It is a very ugly side to our neighborhood and our community," Lyons said.

Unlike some of the largely black neighborhoods that have borne the brunt of the city's violence that has left hundreds dead and thousands injured this year, Mount Greenwood has very little crime. A quiet community on the outer edge of Chicago, it's a neighborhood of neat homes and small family businesses.

There have been just 14 robberies and not a single homicide in the last year in the neighborhood, according to statistics compiled by the Chicago Tribune. The police district responsible for Mount Greenwood has seen fewer than half the number of homicides this year than the district to the immediate northeast.

As a result, Mount Greenwood has attracted residents looking for a safe atmosphere to raise their families in the city. Many are firefighters, police officers and other city employees.

That feeling of safety was shattered when an off-duty police officer fatally shot Beal, residents said. Investigators said Beal was armed with a handgun during a melee sparked by a road rage incident involving Beal and others who had just left a funeral in their car.

The incident also led authorities to arrest the dead man's brother on allegations that he attacked a police officer, tried to disarm him and threatened to kill him.

"Who brings a gun to a funeral?" asked an incredulous Peggy Hederman, who has owned a Lindy's Chile & Gertie's Ice Cream franchise in the neighborhood for a quarter century.

When protesters arrived demanding an investigation and the release of any video of the shooting  a common request since the city was forced last year to release video of a white officer fatally shooting black teenager 14 times in 2014  residents confronted them.

"I think they just feel they had to stand up for the policemen that are in the community and serve the community," Hederman said. "You do feel around here a connection to the police (because) they're your neighbors."

Ja'Mal Green, a black activist who also took part in the Tuesday protest, said what unfolded that night reminded him of watching Martin Luther King Jr. marching across his television screen.

"To see them so openly be racist to our faces, to tell us to go back home to the ghetto," he said, "felt like we were back in those '60s videos."

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a white Roman Catholic priest who joined Green and others at the Tuesday night protest, said he had not felt "that kind of hatred" since a protest march decades ago in Chicago in which King was struck in the head with a rock.

"A police officer said, 'We've got to get you out of here, they hate you and I don't think we can protect you,'" Pfleger said.
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Linkedin Danica Kirka and Jill Lawlewss (Associated Press) London  Thu, November 10, 2016

Seven people were killed and more than 50 injured when a tram derailed while rounding a tight curve in a rainstorm in south London Wednesday, police said.

Investigators said the train, which tipped over on its side, apparently was going faster than permitted.

British Transport Police initially said five people had died, with several others seriously injured. The force later raised the death toll to seven.

Police arrested the 42-year-old tram driver on suspicion of manslaughter.

Emergency workers labored for hours to free five people trapped in the wreckage of the two-carriage tram tipped over next to an underpass in the Croydon area.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch said the tram derailed as it was negotiating a sharp curve with a speed limit of 12 miles per hour (20 kph).

"Initial indications suggest that the tram was traveling at a significantly higher speed than is permitted," it said in a statement.

Passenger Martin Bamford, 30, said the train speeded up and "everyone just literally went flying."

"There was a woman that was on top of me ... I don't think she made it at all," Bamford said outside Croydon University Hospital, where he was treated for rib injuries. "She wasn't responsive. There was blood everywhere."

Bamford said the driver told him that "he thinks he blacked out."

Liam Lehane of the London Ambulance Service described many of the people hurt as "walking wounded" but said others suffered serious injuries.

London's fire department said eight fire engines and four specialist rescue units were among the first responders to the Sandilands tram stop after the 6:10 a.m. (0610 GMT, 1:10 a.m. EST) accident.

The rescue units are equipped with heavy lifting and cutting tools, together with longer duration breathing apparatus and floodlighting.

"I heard a massive crash at about 6:15 a.m., then heard shouting, then the emergency services arrived," said resident Hannah Collier, 23. "They started bringing up the casualties, some very seriously injured."

The British capital's only tram network operates in the southern end of the city, serving 27 million passengers in the last year.

Wednesday's derailment is the first tram accident with onboard fatalities since the 1950s, but official figures show that 20 people were injured in 112 tram-related accidents in the year to March, including one derailment and two collisions with other trams. (bbn)
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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

The National Police are planning to involve groups from both inside and outside the force in an open case screening in their blasphemy investigation implicating Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama.

National Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Agus Rianto told journalists on Thursday that besides officials from the polices internal affairs division (Propam) and legal affairs division, members of the National Police Commission (Kompolnas) and the House of Representatives would also participate in the screening.

We are working on the details ahead of the screening, he said on Thursday.

The first-ever open case screening in the history of the National Police is slated to take place next week upon President Joko Jokowi Widodos instruction following a large-scale demonstration by Islamic organizations in Jakarta on Friday.

Participants in the rally demanded transparent legal proceedings over remarks Ahok made in a speech back in September.

Police have been criticized over their plan to hold an open case screening. Several lawmakers from the Houses Commission III, which oversees security and legal affairs, have questioned the legal basis for an open screening in a police investigation. (ebf)
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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

The National Police will hunt down the source of circulating rumors about the dismissal of Indonesia Military (TNI) commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo, which have sparked speculation on Gatots relationship with President Joko Jokowi Widodo.

National Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Agus Rianto said on Thursday that the polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) would soon open an investigation to search for individuals responsible for spreading the rumors, following Jokowis instruction to do so.

Our investigators will work on the instructions, Agus said at Bareskrim headquarters in Central Jakarta.

He stopped short when asked for further details, asking the public to give the police time to work on the matter.

Rumors about Gatots dismissal over a different stance with Jokowi on the Nov. 4 anti-Ahok demonstrations have been circulating since early this week. Some unverified websites published quotes claiming to be from Gatot, criticizing Jokowi for treating protesters like terrorists.

Jokowi has dismissed the rumors of Gatot being replaced. Gatot also quickly denied a role in speaking to the questionable online publications, pledging his loyalty to Jokowi and referring to the rumors as part of a proxy war aimed at attacking the countrys unity. (evi)
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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Investigators of the National Polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) on Thursday will question 10 more people in relation to the religious defamation case against Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama.

The ten persons to be questioned today comprise two witnesses and eight experts of religion and language, National Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Agus Rianto told journalists on the sidelines of the investigation's proceedings.

In last few days, police had questioned 40 people, which included religious experts, linguists, eye-witnesses and members of organizations that reported Ahok to police.

Thursdays questioning began with Buni Yani, who was accused of spreading the footage of Ahoks speech in Thousand Islands regency that contained the alleged blasphemous comments, which consequently sparked mass demonstrations on Oct. 14 and Nov. 4.

Buni was reported by supporters of Ahok for incorrectly editing the footage. He denied the accusation, but admitted that he made an error in transcribing the footage as he did not include the word using in the video's final transcript he eventually uploaded. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Buni Yani, the uploader of video containing footage of a controversial speech by inactive Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama onto his Facebook page, was questioned on Thursday by the National Polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim).

I am ready to be questioned. I want to provide clarification. I also recorded the speech on my phone, said Buni as he arrived at police headquarters on Thursday, as reported by tribunnews.com.

Aldwin Rahadian, Bunis lawyer, said his client would be questioned in his capacity as a witness in a blasphemy case implicating Ahok, not for allegedly editing the video footage taken in the Thousand Islands regency in late September.

Buni was reported to the Jakarta Police on allegations of spreading material that could spark hatred based on ethnic, religious, racial and intergroup (SARA) sentiment.

Budi denied editing the footage, saying that he only cut some of it to highlight Ahoks statement on Surah al-Maidah, Verse 51 of the Quran. He, however, has admitted to making errors in transcribing the speech.

Ahoks full speech was uploaded by the Jakarta administration onto YouTube.

In his speech, Ahok said, In your inner hearts, Bapak/Ibu may not vote for me, because [you have been] lied to by [using] Surah al-Maidah, Verse 51, etc. [] So, if you cannot vote for me because you are afraid of being condemned to hell you do not need to feel uneasy as you are being fooled. It is alright. (bbn)
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Linkedin Ina Parlina and Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10 2016

President Joko Jokowi Widodo tried to reach out to more Muslim groups on Wednesday to seek their support in lessening the anger over the blasphemy allegedly committed by Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama.



The allegation sparked nationwide protests last Friday, forcing the President to postpone a state visit to Sydney and Canberra, Australia.



After visiting Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) on Monday and Muhammadiyah on Tuesday, Jokowi invited 17 other Islamic organizations to the State Palace for a dialogue.



The groups  among others, Al-Washliyah, the Tarbiyah Islamiyah Association (Perti), the Indonesian Islamic Preaching Council (DDII), the Islam Union (Persis), Al-Irsyad Al-Islamiyyah and Syarikat Islam  were established before independence and played a part in the nations history.



Because the President believed there are [Muslims] who still feel the pain and [such a feeling] is normal, we are trying to calm them [as] the President has promised to be fair [in this matter], Yusnar Yusuf of Al-Washliyah said.



[The President] indeed showed seriousness in the meeting, said Yusnar, who revealed that initially he doubted Jokowi would act fairly.



The Wednesday meeting at the palace did not involve the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) or the Muslim Students Association (HMI). The FPI had spearheaded the anti-Ahok rally in Jakarta, which saw more than 100,000 people swarming Jakartas streets, while HMI members have been charged with instigating violence during the rally.



The President has instructed the National Police to conduct a fair and transparent investigation, as rumors were rife that another protest would be held on Nov. 25.



Yusnar said he could not promise there would not be another rally and that the groups have yet to hear information about one. We should see first [if another rally occurs]. What actions could we take? What would be the problem, the demands and the goals [of the rally]? Yusnar asked.



The President said he was hoping the ulema (muslim scholars) could help calm the public over the blasphemy brouhaha.



Currently, we need calming statements from ulema that will cool down [the situation] amid the various issues and statements that are actually sharpening differences among members of the public, Jokowi, who earlier expressed hope that there would be no more such rallies in the near future, said in Wednesdays meeting.



Jokowi has said that he will not tamper with the ongoing police investigation into Ahoks case.



I hope tomorrow, during National Heroes Day, we can maintain unity in all our diversity, remain united in our brotherhood and be an example for the world that we can build a diverse society that lives in harmony, he added.



Separately on Wednesday, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), which has issued a formal statement accusing Ahok of committing blasphemy, gathered 70 leaders of Islamic organizations across the country and 29 Islamic scholars.



The council stands by its contention that Ahok committed blasphemy when he accused people of using a Quranic verse to deceive other people to convince them not to vote for him in the gubernatorial election.



The chairman of the MUI advisory board, Din Syamsuddin, praised Jokowis efforts to initiate political communications to bring him closer to Muslim communities in Indonesia. However, he said in his view the President made his move too late.



Besides, he explained, since Jokowi only invited figures from a small number of Indonesian Islamic groups, out of the hundreds spread across the country, the move seemed unfair, especially after he refused to meet with Muslim protesters from other organizations who were involved in the rally on Friday.



I regret [Jokowis choice] to refuse to meet [the demonstrators]. The move could be viewed as abandonment or neglect. It should not be like that. It is an injustice when there were other groups invited to the State Palace, Din said.

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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan, North Sumatra  Thu, November 10, 2016

Prosecutors have asked the Medan Corruption Court to sentence former North Sumatra governor Gatot Pujo Nugroho to eight years in prison for the alleged misappropriation of more than Rp 4 billion (US$301,148) of social assistance funds (Bansos).

The panel of judges, led by presiding judge Djaniko Girsang, was also asked to order Gatot to return Rp 2.8 billion of state losses or face an additional four months in prison.

Prosecutor Viktor said Gatot had committed corruption by issuing several gubernatorial regulations, one of which involved the budgeting process for grants and Bansos funds via provincial working units.

Viktor said Gatot had invited his subordinates to attend a meeting at his official residence in November 2012. The governor then ordered the officials to list several institutions as beneficiaries of Bansos funds in 2013.

The defendant, then the North Sumatra governor, did not reverify the data during the disbursement of the funds, and 17 institutions were later found to be ineligible beneficiaries, causing Rp 2.8 billion in losses.

Viktor also highlighted the involvement of Gatot in a criminal act committed by his subordinate, Eddi Sofyan, an official with the North Sumatra administrations agency for political, property and citizenship affairs. Eddi has been sentenced to five years in prison for embezzling Rp 1.14 billion of Bansos funds.

Viktor said state losses caused by Gatots fund misappropriation amounted to Rp 4.03 billion. [We ask] the panel of judges to sentence him to eight years in prison, he said Thursday. (ebf)
It was Brock Hegartys first time to vote.

And who could have known the Fremont teen would have cast his first ballot in a Presidential election that resulted in such a stunning upset after pollsters predicted a Clinton victory?

Hegarty, 18, was low key about his first-time voting on Tuesday night.

I just thought I should vote. Every vote counts, Hegarty said, adding, It was what I expected pretty much  just like a test at school.

Older voters might have found the entire election to be a test, of sorts, as the Presidential candidates haggled throughout the months.

During the campaign, pollsters put Clinton, the Democratic candidate, in the lead over Republican Donald Trump, who now will become the 45th President of the United States.

While predictions of a Clinton win werent realized, those about higher voter turnout were correct and Fremont was no exception.

Local election workers noticed the increase.

I think this is the busiest weve ever been, said Barb Busche, an election worker in the Deerfield Apartments clubhouse.

By mid-morning, the 4C precinct (which has 1,113 voters) already was seeing a steady stream of people, who waited briefly in line before casting their ballots.

This time of day we get more retirees, but were having all age groups, Busche said. Every age group has been voting, which is good.

Busche, who has been an election worker for 22 years, said this has been the most contentious Presidential race shes ever experienced.

She also noticed the almost noiseless atmosphere of people coming to vote in this years election.

This is the quietest voters have been in expressing their preference, which is really something, Busche said. I think people want to keep their choice to themselves.

Some people could be persuaded to talk about their vote, however.

The Rev. Earl Underwood of Fremont voted for Trump.

I think the opponent, Hillary Clinton, violated the law and does not deserve a vote, Underwood said.

Jan Grubbs of Fremont cast a vote for Trump as well.

Im a Republican, Grubbs said. I think if they can quiet Trump down, then I think hes got a lot of good ideas and if some of them work then were better off.

Jill Schwaninger supported Clinton for president.

I think its so important to come out and vote today, because even though Im not a fan of either candidate, I believe Trump would be detrimental to the country, Schwaninger said. I wouldnt let my kid say half of the things he says, so I dont believe he should lead our free world.

Some voters may have felt like Tom and Tania Hinders of Fremont, who picked their choices in local races, but didnt vote for either Presidential candidate.

I just couldnt vote for either one, Tom Hinders said. Its easy to say were voting for a platform or a policy and ignore the people, but were voting for a person.

More than one voter talked about participating in the election process itself.

We always vote, said Underwood of himself and his wife, Laura. Its important, because we support our country. People died to allow us to do this and we should do it.

Fremonter Cheryl Larsen shared similar sentiments about voting.

I think its very important as a citizen of the U. S. to be involved in the decisions that are made in this country, Larsen said. Its a privilege. Ive always been an active voter, but I think this year especially, because of the candidates on the ballot and the death penalty, its more important than ever.

Nebraska voters approved a measure to bring back the death penalty.

Whatever the reason, Im glad theyre voting, Busche said Tuesday morning. Its their right and responsibility. There may be a situation where there are people waiting in line at 8 p.m. and as long as they can get in the building, theyre eligible.

As the day wore on, election workers stayed busy.

Weve had them clear outside ever since 3 oclock, said 4C precinct election worker Debbie McFee, about the line of voters in the evening.

Busche said Wednesday the 4C precinct was 10 to 15 votes short of having 70 percent voter turnout  with 665 walk-in voters, seven provisional ballot voters and 87 absentee ballot voters.

But even before the election had ended, one voter expressed a thought probably held by many people.

Our nation is so divided over these candidates, said Priscilla Wilson, fighting tears. Theres so much bad feeling, suspicion and fear that my hope is that when our new president is elected that everyone will accept that person and that people will remember to ask God to guide that person  whoever it is  to lead us in the best way and that we will all accept that president and be open to other peoples point of view and end any bitter feelings we may have had against the other candidate or the people we know were supporting them. We need to come together as Americans.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Amid concerns that Indonesias exports to the United States will be negatively affected following Donald Trumps election victory, Darmin Nasution, the Coordinating Economic Minister, said Thursday that it was too soon to draw any conclusions.

Darmin said Trumps promises to implement aggressive protectionist measures - which could make it harder for Indonesian goods to enter the US - should not be directly translated into certainty about the future.

The campaign was intended to win peoples hearts. He said conflicting statements in his campaign. For example, he said he was a [trade] protectionist, but at the same time [he] also wants to restore the US as the most respected country in the world, he said after a seminar on Indonesias Economic Outlook 2017.

He said the government needed to wait and see how Trumps policies materialized to be able to analyze their implications for Indonesian exports to the US.

On Tuesday, Vice President Jusuf Kalla shared his personal opinion about the US election, saying that he preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump because of the latters protectionist stance.

"If Trump is elected, it may be harder for us, because he is a protectionist," Kalla said at the ASEAN G2B Infrastructure Investment Forum in Jakarta. (win/jun)
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Linkedin Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post) Nusa Dua, Bali  Thu, November 10 2016

The Indonesian Export Financing Agency (LPEI), also known as Indonesia Eximbank, has forged ties with Asian export import (exim) banks in an attempt to boost Indonesias sluggish exports.

It signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with nine members of the Asian Exim Banks Forum (AEBF) during the 22nd AEBF Annual Meeting on Wednesday.

The nine banks hailed from Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Turkey.

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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Antasari Azhar said former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) had never paid him much attention, particularly when he was implicated in a case that saw him jailed.

When I was detained [as a defendant], he never showed any sympathy for me, even though at the time I was still a public official  a KPK leader. He never visited me in prison, Antasari said. He was speaking to journalists at his family home in Serpong, South Tangerang, after his release on parole from the Tangerang, Banten, penitentiary on Thursday.

Unlike Yudhoyono, he further said, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who also served as vice president at that time, had always shown sympathy for him.

Kalla is a real friend to me. He visited me in prison several times. When my daughters got married, he even became a witness at their wedding ceremonies, Antasari said.

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced Antasari to 18 years in prison in 2010 for masterminding the murder of state-owned pharmaceutical company PT Putra Rajawali Banjaran director Nasrudin Zulkarnaen. Nasrudin was killed in a drive-by shooting in Tangerang on March 14, 2009.

As a KPK leader, Antasari recorded several accomplishments in corruption eradication efforts. Under his leadership, the KPK prosecuted former Bank Indonesia deputy governor Aulia Pohan, to whom Yudhoyono was related through marriage. Pohan was convicted in a bribery case related to the Bank Century bailout.

Yudhoyono removed Antasari from his post at the KPK after the latter was convicted of murder. Antasari was released on parole after serving his sentence for seven-and-a-half years. (ebf)
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo are set to inaugurate the Kendal Industrial Park in Central Java, a joint Indonesian-Singaporean project, next Monday.



"President Jokowi and Singapores prime minister will come here to inaugurate the park. The schedule has been set, and the ceremonial preparation is almost complete," Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto said in a press statement released Thursday.



The park is a joint venture between Indonesian property giant PT Jababeka and Singaporean Sembawang Corporation (Sembcorp). While Jababeka is a specialist in industrial parks, Sembcorp has businesses in marine industries, energy and property.



Airlangga said the 2,700-hectare industrial park already had 20 tenants with total investments of Rp 4.3 trillion (US$326.38 million). They will employ around 4,000 workers.



Jababeka director Hyanto Wihadi said the tenants were from Singapore, Japan and Malaysia and engaged in different industries, such as furniture, food and steel. The park is integrated with Kendal port and connected by railway to the bigger Tanjung Mas port in Semarang, the capital of Central Java. (evi)
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Linkedin (Associated Press) Chicago, United States  Thu, November 10, 2016

The raw divisions exposed by the presidential race were on full display across America on Wednesday, as protesters flooded city streets to condemn Donald Trump's election in demonstrations that police said were mostly peaceful.

From New England to heartland cities like Kansas City and along the West Coast, demonstrators carried flags and anti-Trump signs, disrupting traffic and declaring that they refused to accept Trump's triumph.

In Chicago, where thousands had recently poured into the streets to celebrate the Chicago Cubs' first World Series victory in over a century, several thousand people marched through the Loop. They gathered outside Trump Tower, chanting "Not my president!"

Chicago resident Michael Burke said he believes the president-elect will "divide the country and stir up hatred." He added there was a constitutional duty not to accept that outcome.

A similar protest in Manhattan drew about 1,000 people. Outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in midtown, police installed barricades to keep the demonstrators at bay.

Hundreds of protesters gathered near Philadelphia's City Hall despite chilly, wet weather. Participants  who included both supporters of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost to Clinton in the primary  expressed anger at both Republicans and Democrats over the election's outcome.

In Boston, thousands of anti-Trump protesters streamed through downtown, chanting "Trump's a racist" and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump" and "Abolish Electoral College." Clinton appears to be on pace to win the popular vote, despite losing the electoral count that decides the presidential race.

The protesters gathered on Boston Common before marching toward the Massachusetts Statehouse, with beefed-up security including extra police officers.

Protests flared at universities in California and Connecticut, while several hundred people marched in San Francisco and others gathered outside City Hall in Los Angeles. And they spread south to Richmond, Virginia, and to middle American cities like Kansas City and Omaha, Nebraska.

Hundreds of University of Texas students spilled out of classrooms to march through downtown Austin. They marched along streets near the Texas Capitol, then briefly blocked a crowded traffic bridge.

Marchers protesting Trump's election as president chanted and carried signs in front of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Media outlets broadcast video Wednesday night showing a peaceful crowd in front of the new downtown hotel. Many chanted "No racist USA, no Trump, no KKK."

Another group stood outside the White House. They held candles, listened to speeches and sang songs.

Earlier Wednesday, protesters at American University burned US flags on campus.

In Oregon, dozens of people blocked traffic in downtown Portland, burned American flags and forced a delay for trains on two light-rail lines. Earlier, the protest in downtown drew several Trump supporters, who taunted the demonstrators with signs. A lone Trump supporter was chased across Pioneer Courthouse Square and hit in the back with a skateboard before others intervened.

The only major violence was reported in Oakland, California, during a protest that began shortly before midnight and lasted into early Wednesday morning.

Some demonstrators set garbage bins on fire, broke windows and sprayed graffiti at five businesses in the downtown area, police said. No arrests were made.

Another protest began Wednesday evening downtown, with several hundred chanting, sign-waving people gathering in Frank Ogawa Plaza.

In San Francisco, hundreds are marching along Market Avenue, one of the city's main avenues, to join a vigil in the Castro District, a predominantly gay neighborhood.

Hundreds massed in downtown Seattle streets.

Many held anti-Trump and Black Lives Matter signs and chanted slogans, including "Misogyny has to go," and "The people united, will never be defeated."

At Evergreen State College south of Seattle, scores of students walked out of classes Wednesday to gather with anti-Trump signs.

Back in New York, several groups of protesters caused massive gridlock as police mobilized to contain them under a light rain.

They held signs that read "Trump Makes America Hate" and chanted "hey, hey, ho, ho Donald Trump has got to go." and "Impeach Trump."
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Linkedin Radhitya Diva Putra (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Indonesian tobacco farmers are highly anxious in waiting for the results of a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement over Australias plain packaging policy for cigarette packs.

The farmers are worried that Indonesias overall tobacco exports will drop if the WTO rules in favor of Australia, which requires the removal of all company branding on cigarette packaging, permitting manufacturers to print only the brand name in a mandated size, font and color.

The Indonesian Tobacco Farmers Association (APTI) told The Jakarta Post that although Australia was not the main trader of Indonesian tobacco, more countries would apply a similar policy if the land down under managed to reduce the number of its smokers.

The policys provision will decrease our tobacco exports as anti-tobacco movements have emerged in other countries, even before the WTO dispute settlement, APTI head Wisnu Brata said on Wednesday.

In December 2012, Australia became the first country to fully implement the policy that obliged all cigarettes sold in Australia to be wrapped with a drab dark brown color, as the government found that it was the least attractive color, particularly for young people. The policy went into force with a tax increase to realize Australias plan to bring down its adult daily smoking rate from 16.6 percent in 2007 to less than 10 percent by 2018.

A year after the policys enactment, the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that there was a smoking rate decrease to 12.8 percent from 15.1 percent in 2010. (bbn)
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Linkedin Jim Heintz and Matthew Lee (Associated Press) Moscow  Thu, November 10, 2016

In careful phrasing befitting the spy he once was, Vladimir Putin has made it clear he expects a great deal from President-elect Donald Trump. And, the billionaire businessman may expect a transactional relationship with P

Although the Kremlin clearly detested Hillary Clinton, Putin's public statements on Trump's victory steered clear of gloating. Other Russians were less fastidious, suggesting that Putin in private could be delighted  and perhaps harboring unreasonable expectations.

Trump's rise to the White House puts two men into seats of global power who are paradoxically both remarkably similar and wildly different.

Trump's praise of the Russian president as a strong leader, his suggestion that the US could abandon its NATO commitments and his vehement complaints about allegedly biased news media all appear to parallel Putin's view of the world.

Trump has repeatedly called for better relations with Russia, frequently musing about a rosy world in which Russia and the US get along. On Wednesday, Putin did the same, hoping that the "degraded" relations between the two powers would improve once Trump takes over. Putin noted, however, that the tension "is not our fault."

The US government believes Putin might have interfered in the election that resulted in Trump's victory. The intelligence community has concluded that Russia was responsible for hacking into the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and gave them to WikiLeaks, which released them. Some embarrassed and damaged the Clinton campaign.

Russia, it appears, wants Trump to play the overture, and only then decide whether to applaud.

Trump made no specific mention of Russia in his first post-election comments but made clear that he wants good relations with all nations.

"We will get along with all other nations willing to get along with us," Trump said. "I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America's interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone  all people and all other nations. We will seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict."

Putin would be most pleased if the US dropped the sanctions imposed for Russia's annexation of Crimea and its involvement in the continuing war in eastern Ukraine. That could appeal to Trump's sense that he is the master of the deal.

"I believe that Trump is a practical man; he will lift sanctions on Russia that are harmful to US business," Putin aide Sergei Glazyev told the state news agency ITAR Tass.

The US sanctions have been a strong factor in Russia's economic decline over the past two years, along with a plunge in prices for oil, its major export.

"I don't see the US dropping sanctions ahead of the Europeans ... and Europe doesn't seem to be in any mood to drop sanctions any time soon," Chris Weafer, an analyst at the Moscow-based Macro-Advisory, argued in a written commentary. He noted that US presidents, even with a cooperative Congress, have less capacity than the Russian president to unilaterally impose measures.

The outgoing Obama administration signaled on Wednesday that it was not considering any change in sanctions policy to Russia.

Even if there is no short-term tactical gain for Russia, Trump's election appears to be a clear symbolic victory for the Kremlin in its resistance to pressure to establish Western-style democracy. Putin openly blamed Clinton as fomenting massive protests in Russia in 2011-2012 and Russian authorities generally bristled at the Democratic Party's emphasis on human rights and media freedom.

Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, agreed that Trump's pragmatism is more to Putin's taste.

"Trump's approach has a better chance of succeeding, and certainly an approach that is overly loaded with morals and values does not get you anywhere with the Kremlin," Trenin told The Associated Press.

___

Lee reported from Washington. James Ellingworth and Kate de Pury in Moscow contributed to this report.
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

Compared to its regional peers, Indonesia is unlikely to be affected by a possible protectionist movement from Donald Trump's US presidency as trade is no longer a main source of growth, Singaporean based bank UOB has said.

UOB economist Jimmy Koh said a Trump administration was likely to affect US-Asia trade with higher import tariffs and even the cancellation of trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). In ASEAN, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand are the most vulnerable given a high trade dependency on the US.



"The US is the third-largest export market to Indonesia, accounting for 11 percent of Indonesia's exports in 2015. However, with one of the lowest shares of exports of goods and services to [gross domestic product] GDP among Asian countries, Indonesia will be less affected than its peers in the event of trade restriction measures," Koh said on Thursday.



According to the Central Statistics Agencys (BPS) latest data, export shares to GDP are getting lower. In the third quarter, exports were only 19.5 percent of GDP while in the same period of 2015 and 2014 the figures were 21.84 and 23.01 percent, respectively.



Koh said Indonesias efforts to remove bottlenecks in infrastructure investment would help the country escape slow growth in the region. (evi)
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Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

The victory of US president-elect Donald Trump should not affect stability in Asia, more specifically in the ASEAN region, according to the Indonesian Foreign Ministry.

Ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir said Thursday that countries in the world today depended on one another, which was a factor of stability.

Of course, all countries are obliged to maintain stability and peace in the world, because instability brings undesired effects, he said at the ministrys headquarters in Central Jakarta on Thursday.

Armanatha argued that ASEAN was an important region in the world, including for the US. He reiterated that Indonesia would continue to play a role in maintaining peace and promoting democratization in the region.

There is no worry about democratization [in the region] with the victory of Trump, he said.

The victory of Trump, who has proposed policies that are strikingly different from those pursued by current US President Barrack Obama, has come as a shock to people in many Asian countries, including Indonesia.

Trumps campaign rhetoric suggested he may dismantle some of Obamas policies, including a nationwide healthcare program, and caused concern that the president-elect may undo Obamas pivot to Asia strategy.

Many believe a reduction in the US presence in the region, which is considered a counterbalance to Chinas influence, will create instability and slow down democratization processes. (jun)
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Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar  Thu, November 10 2016

Prosecutors have indicted British man David James Taylor, 34, and his Australian girlfriend Sara Connor, 46, on murder charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, as the two stood trial for the first time at Denpasar District Court in Denpasar, Bali, on Wednesday.



The Denpasar prosecutors have charged the two murder defendants with three alternative articles: Article 338 of criminal code on murder, Article 170 on collective fatal assault or Article 351 on fatal assault.



Taylor and Connor have been detained at the Bali Police and Kerobokan detention center for two months after the police charged the two with murdering Bali policeman Adj. Sec. Insp. I Wayan Sudarsa. Wayans body was found with severe injuries at Kuta Beach on Aug. 17, which was quick to be discussed among residents and visitors of the tourist island.



The couple intentionally put an end to another persons life, prosecutor Anak Agung Ngurah Jayalantara told the trial hearing, which was presided over by Judge Made Pasek.



The defendants reacted emotionally to the indictment.



I am innocent. I am innocent. Please, Connor said.



According to the indictment, defendants Connor and Taylor were on Legian Beach in Kuta on the night of Aug. 17. Both of them were sitting on the beach while drinking beer.



Later on, they walked into the water and engaged in romantic behavior for about five minutes until Sara realized she left her bag on the sand where they had been sitting.



Taylor then accused Wayan, who was seen standing near the beach gate, of being the thief who stole Saras bag. As the policeman rejected the accusation, the two gentlemen got into a fight on the beach.



While the two were struggling, Connor grabbed Wayans neck, according to the indictment.



The policeman defended himself by biting Connor on her hand and thigh. He also bit Taylor on his hand.



The scuffle culminated when Taylor allegedly reached for a beer bottle and struck Wayans head.



The policeman then lay unconscious. Taylor reportedly took the victims wallet and mobile phone back to their homestay, roughly 500 meters from the beach. Connor then cut the cards in the wallet before disposing them along with the wallet itself in Uluwatu.



Meanwhile, the mobile phone was destroyed and discarded in a bush in Jimbaran, where they also burned their clothes that were contaminated with blood, the indictment stated.



The autopsy of the victims body indicated that the wounds found on Wayans head were a result of a hard impact with an object, like a beer bottle.



Meanwhile, Taylors lawyer Haposan Sihombing told the court they would not submit an objection against the indictment.



He said after the hearing that an objection was not necessary as his client already admitted what he had done.



Previously, Taylor admitted that he was involved in a fight with the victim. However, he claimed he did not know the victim had died. He said he thought the victim only passed out.



[My client] emphasized that it was only a fight. There was no intention to kill the victim, Haposan said.



In contrast, Connors lawyer, Erwin Siregar, said he would present an objection to the indictment. The indictment is unclear and incomplete, he said.



Taylors trial hearing has been adjourned until next Wednesday when testimonies will be delivered by the victims family members and police officers who received reports when the victims body was found. Connors trial has also been adjourned until next Wednesday when the court will hear her lawyers objection to the indictment.

-----------------

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Linkedin I. Basis Susilo (The Jakarta Post) Yogyakarta  Thu, November 10 2016

The death of British Army officer Brig. Gen. AWS Mallaby on the evening of Oct. 30, 1945, heightened the tension in Surabaya and led to the Battle of Surabaya on Nov. 10 that year. The incident even today excites worldwide interest. Some investigative analyses cannot come to a single conclusion.

There are four scenarios about who was responsible for the generals death, blaming the Indonesians, Dutch, Japanese and British, respectively.

What conditions led to the killing of Mallaby? I have examined Mallabys last five days in Surabaya from various sources and have reached at least two preliminary conclusions.

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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 10, 2016

State-owned construction company Wijaya Karya (Wika) plans to sell shares of its real estate subsidiary Wijaya Karya Realty in the first quarter next year with a goal of Rp 2 trillion (US$152.3 million).

Wika operational director Destiawan Soewardjono said the company would release up to 30 percent of the shares to the market. The funds will be used mainly for strengthening the business by taking over other companies and buying new land.

"We are looking for companies related to real estate, such as cable making and property management. If the price is right, we will buy," Destiawan said during Indonesia Infrastructure Week in Jakarta on Thursday.

He said the company had 254 hectares of land, 215 ha of it has yet to be developed. Most of the land is located outside Jakarta, such as in Bali, Balikpapan, Makassar and Medan.

To prepare Wika Realty for the initial public offering (IPO), he added, Wika will add Rp 1.1 trillion to the subsidiary, raising its equity position to Rp 2.1 trillion.

"When Wika Realty is finished, we will prepare another subsidiary, such as Wika Gedung [building construction subsidiary] for an IPO too," he said. (evi)
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Linkedin Nestor Corrales (Philippine Daily Inquirer) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia  Thu, November 10, 2016

I dont want to quarrel anymore, Trump is already there, President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday before members of the Filipino community in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Duterte seemed to softened his stance against the United States the day Republican candidate and business tycoon Donald Trump won as Americas 45th president.

He congratulated Trump after his win over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, whom President Barack Obama actively campaigned for.

We are both foul-mouthed. We curse even the smallest things, he added.

In his previous speeches, Duterte repeatedly lashed out at the US, threatening to sever the countrys ties with its longtime ally.

In an ambush interview, Duterte said he expects Trump to fulfill his promises to the Americans.

I would like to congratulate President Trump for his victory and I wish he will govern the way he promised the American, people, he said. Mabuhay ka [long live].

On the future of the Philippines-US treaties, Duterte also expressed optimism. I never wanted quarrel with anybody so I wished President Trump that he will honor our obligations and treaties with the US, he said.

Asked if the Philippines relationship with the US under a Trump presidency would be improved, Duterte said, I really dont know because it would depend on the US.

This article appeared on the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin (The Star) Kuala Lumpur  Thu, November 10, 2016

Malaysia has been urged to vote for a UN resolution on human rights violations in North Korea.

Ambassador-at-large for North Korean Human Rights Prof Jung Hon-lee said Malaysia has always voted against the resolution or abstained from voting.

I understand that Malaysia has diplomatic relations with North Korea and you don't want to reproach specific countries at the UN but these are human rights issues.

"It doesn't really damage Malaysia's standing in any way by voting for the resolution, he said Thursday at a forum on human rights in North Korea that was organized by the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia and the Korea Foundation.

The 2015 resolution on North Korea passed by a vote of 119 to 19, with 48 abstentions.

Malaysia was one of the countries that abstained from voting for the resolution that condemned long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights in North Korea.

Lee said it is important for countries that have diplomatic relations with North Korea to tell it about its wrongdoings.

He said human rights and nuclear issues can also be raised during the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).
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Linkedin Mazwin Nik Anis and Joseph Kaos Jr (The Star) Putrajaya, Malaysia  Thu, November 10, 2016

Philippines has given Malaysia the license to enter its waters in pursuit of kidnappers and militants terrorizing Sabah's east coast.

This crucial decision was made during the bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Najib Razak and visiting Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

Najib said the green light by Duterte was vital in stamping out kidnap-for-ransom activities that have plagued both countries.

This year, 10 Malaysians were being kidnapped by militant groups based in southern Philippines, of whom five are still held captive.

"I appreciate President Duterte's practical way in stamping out this menace.

"Defense Ministers of the three countries will meet to sort out the standard operating procedure for this to be implemented soon," said Najib to reporters after the conclusion of his meeting with Duterte.

Duterte is here for a two-day official visit, his first after assuming the presidency in June.
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Linkedin Azusa Sawamoto (The Japan News/Asia News Network) Osaka  Thu, November 10, 2016

Visitors to dams nationwide can receive so-called dam cards from the dams management offices. These trading cards feature photos and specifications of each dam. These cards have now become popular collectible items as they cannot be obtained without visiting dams all the way in the mountains.

On a one-day quest to collect these cards, I first headed for Otaki Dam, a facility located along the Kinokawa river system, in the village of Kawakami, Nara Prefecture. As I drove for 90 minutes from Osaka, I found roads running through the steep lines of the Kii mountains. A huge concrete dam eventually appeared in front of me, having an overwhelming presence as the facility stands 100 meters high.

The central government first planned to build Otaki Dam after the 1959 Isewan Typhoon caused serious flood damage. However, it took half a century to complete, in 2013, mainly because of strong opposition to its construction.

(Read also: What to prepare before traveling to Japan)

After walking on the curbed main part of the dam for about 300 meters, I arrived at the management office run by the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, located on the opposite side of the dam lake.

When I mentioned the purpose of my visit over the intercom, an official came out to give me a card.

The front of the trading card, which is about the size of a business card, bears a photo of the dam with a rainbow, along with letters including F and G. These letters indicate the dams purpose and type, with F referring to flood control and G meaning gravity dam, according to the official.

The back of the card has specifications and random facts or special features on each dam. On the back of the Otaki Dam card is a section that reads, The dams design featuring a row of arches capping its upper part was selected through a survey for locals, the nations first attempt of this kind.

Elderly couples and motorbike riders are the main groups who visit the office to get dam cards, according to the official. When receiving requests, the office tries to have its staff members respond to visitors face-to-face while also asking them questions such as, Where are you coming from?

I think peoples views about dams have changed, as they used to regard them as something that faced public opposition for their construction, but now consider them as something that can protect peoples lives from disasters, the official said. We can feel proud of our job to manage this dam when we see many visitors.

(Read also: Train worker returning phone becomes international news)

Next, I headed for Takihata Dam, a facility along the Yamatogawa river system, in Kawachinagano, Osaka Prefecture. When I drove for about 20 minutes from the city center, I found a tranquil reservoir. Managed by the prefectural government, the dam can store 9.34 million cubic meters of water, the largest capacity in the prefecture.

I was a bit embarrassed when I found the gate closed for Takihata Dams office on the lakeside, but was eventually able to get a card when an official came out to respond to my call on the intercom.

The area near the office also serves as a place of recreation and relaxation for local residents with a camping site and a barbecue facility.

An elderly man from Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, said he often visits the dam for walking and viewing the autumn leaves. Looking curiously at the dam card I had, he said: If you can get a dam card, it motivates you to do research and visit many other places. Im also interested in collecting them.

When I had collected the two cards, I found the sun was already setting. In a time when floods often cause serious damage, I learned that dams play many roles not only in flood control, but also in securing the water supply and generating power.

Dam cards can give collectors a chance to talk face-to-face to officials who maintain the infrastructure, which is apparently one of the best aspects of collecting these items.

Available at 500 locations

(Read also: Popular onsen to visit in Japan)

Management offices for dams used to provide visitors with leaflets, many of which, however, were thrown away immediately. Inspired by trading cards popular among children, the ministry came up with the idea of creating dam cards with the aim of promoting the infrastructure by stimulating peoples interest in collecting items.

Dam cards were launched in 2007 at 111 locations run by the ministry and the Japan Water Agency, an incorporated administrative agency, by following a common design format.

As the items are getting more and more popular, dam cards are available at 500 locations nationwide as of Aug. 1 this year, including those run by local governments.

Dam cards have become popular apparently because they are considered rare as only visitors to a dam can receive one and they are limited to one per person.

Because days and times for distributing the cards can differ depending on dam management offices and cards are sometimes unavailable because alterations are being made, visitors are recommended to call ahead before heading to a dam.

Topics : Japan traveling

This article appeared on The Japan News newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
Over recent years, we have seen BME activism grow in strength and numbers once again. The Black Lives Matter campaign began three years ago in the States, initially as a social media movement, but it quickly grew into a series of real life protests mainly centered around the deaths of black Americans at the hands of the authorities in the USA.

Generation Revolution moves the viewfinder across the pond and into our own capital. This BFI-backed documentary follows two groups of British activists in London - London Black Revolutionaries (London Black Revs as they are known by members in the film) and R Movement.

You may not know the names - I didnt. But whilst watching the documentary I was struck by how many of their protests I had already seen and borne witness too. Remember when Westfield shopping centre was faced with a die-in following the death of Eric Garner in New York? Or more recently when access to Heathrow was blocked by Black Lives Matter protestors on the fifth anniversary of Mark Duggans death? Both protests planned and implemented by the UK groups, with the filmmakers on hand to bring behind the scenes footage to the documentary.

Co-directors Cassie Quarless and Usayd Younis spent two years following LBR and RM in London. They follow the activists as they move from university meeting rooms and into the streets, gaining supporters and losing allies along the way.

Its a fascinating insight into the world of the activists, and the way they see the world. It contrasts massively with the narrative that millennials and young people are apathetic to the politics of the world they live in. They certainly care a lot more than anyone seems to give them credit for - were the dispossessed fighting for others dispossessed one of the activists puts it. Indeed, we see the activists regularly take to the streets and distribute care packages to rough sleepers in London in some touching scenes.

The documentary exposes successfully the widening gulf between the establishment and minorities in the UK. The groups march on Brixton, protesting the gentrification there, and are seen at the beginning of the film engaging in an almost guerilla war with Tesco over the infamous anti-homeless spikes placed outside some of their stores in 2014. During one Westminster protest as a policeman attempts to negotiate with one of the groups leaders; its obvious that mere dialogue between the two sides will not be enough to ease the pain felt by the activists.

Although somewhat biased in its approach - we see only from the perspective of the activist groups and the police arent necessarily portrayed in the most complimentary light - the documentary exposes problems that exist within the activist scene. One of the young women working for LBR, Tej, provides the foil for the hardline activism advocated by Arnie, the founder of LBR. She doesnt believe in an antagonistic approach, expressing discomfort for the groups involvement and practice with their Fuck the Tories protest. She believes in a dialogue that engages everyone, rather than an activism that isolates those it is protesting against. It puts her at odds with Arnie, and as the group is involved in increasingly tense standoffs with the police, the fracturing of LBR raises questions about the nature of activism, and what change can actually and positively be achieved.

Generation Revolution is unapologetic in its approach. Its roughly shot, with shifts in focus and fast camera movement sometimes distracting, but often with great results that manage to capture the tension of protests. Social media plays an important role in the visuals of the film, which manages to mimic how crucial these platforms are for organising and communication of activist issues.

Its a bold and uncompromised look at the lives of young black and brown activists of London, who are desperately trying to make positive change in a world that they do not feel is on their side. Heres hoping viewers will be able to broaden their own horizons and better understand what is driving such a wedge between the lives of BME British people and their white counterparts.
Students up and down the UK were binging on black coffee and Pro Plus as they packed into their university bars to watch a US election they knew would be long, tense and eventful.

And at least those expectations were met, which is more than can be said for the results.

What started out as fun nerdy events filled with people in high spirits (quite literally) quickly turned into places of great upset, anger and utter bewilderment as under-qualified Republican Donald Trump was declared the next president over more than qualified Democrat Hillary Clinton.

(Paco Anselmi/PA)

Alex Milsom, a journalism student at Brunel University in London, found himself struggling to come to terms with something he never expected to get so emotional about  a feeling that seems to have been echoed at events across the UK as students booed and cheered along with the results into the early hours of the morning.

He said: I am absolutely dumbfounded that a developed nation, in this day-and-age, can (elect someone) to a position of power based on a manifesto of division, hatred and poison.

I have cried, as did those at my uni who I watched the final result with. I just cant believe, and am shocked to the core, that Donald Trump could even reach such levels of popularity.

Brunel University students react to a Hillary Clinton projection (Credit: Alex Milsom) pic.twitter.com/ueQOftxUK1  Snappa (@snappa) November 9, 2016



When thats the effect felt by a student from the UK, you can just imagine the impact the vote has had on an American studying over here.

Wendy Toscano, who moved from Texas to Scotland and currently studies marketing at the University of Edinburgh, said she feels betrayed.

She said: I feel as an immigrant living in the United States that I had my own opinions and I respected other peoples opinions and I understood where they were coming from, but, at the end of the day, Donald Trump and what he stands for is hatred and racism and division and it doesnt make sense. Im shocked.

It makes me feel like my peers and the people that I love in America and my friends who have had four generations of grandparents in the US dont see me as their equal. It feels really weird and that I dont belong. Going back home will be weird and a bit of an adaptation as here everyone just seems to get it.

Robin Wilde, a recent graduate of the University of Sheffield who sits somewhere in the middle as a dual US-UK national, tried to emotionally prepare himself for a Trump win but is still trying to process the result.

This was never supposed to happen and I didnt see a way it could happen  and yet here we are, he said.

He reckons when he returns to America next year hell see the great divides in equality and hardship much clearer: The USA has always had those problems, but its also been a great source of learning, art and ideas on liberty which I fear are now going to be stripped away.

Far from being made great again, I feel as though Ill visit a country whose greatest days are now behind it.

Brunel University students react to a Donald Trump projection (Credit: Alex Milsom) pic.twitter.com/1ZTm90Mkd8  Snappa (@snappa) November 9, 2016



Back in the UK, as were all aware, our decision to leave the European Union is still a very sensitive issue.

The US election had been compared to Brexit for a while  even though theyre completely different elections in completely different countries over a completely different things  but now the US has actually gone down a similar route and backed the controversial candidate for change, the similarities between the two ring truer than ever before.

Milsom said: I had, because of the EU referendum, a deep-set fear of the world being quietly racist but I hoped that those of the land of the free would restore my faith in humanity. I was wrong.

I feel terrible generalising an entire country in one brush stroke but its like Brexit, what else can I do?

Because of Brexit I have a rational hatred towards opinions polls  the election results just strengthened that.

Exit polls predicted the UK Election wrong, the Brexit referendum wrong and the US Election wrong.



Going well for the statisticians.  Benjamin Mayo (@bzamayo) November 9, 2016



Students are now left speculating less-than-positively about the future of the US, the UK, and the world  with a focus on which of the issues Trump has disregarded in the past will be hit the hardest now hes the man in charge.

Daniel Green, a University of Sussex journalism student, said: The implications of this will be huge and I feel social progress on LGBT equality and womens rights are under threat now which I didnt think Id see. Thats not to mention his views on climate change.

Wilde said: Whether youre talking short, medium or long term, this will set the USA back a long way. The countrys first black president will be replaced by a man with the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan.

Milson said: I think Donald Trump doesnt have the temperament to actually deal with the issues that are going to affect the US population and, indirectly, the rest of the world. I dread to think of the future, I really do.
Sometimes its hard to believe that in 2016 women are still being paid significantly less than men for the same work.

But the gender pay gap means that full-time female employees effectively stop earning relative to full-time male employees on November 10th, and spend the rest of the year working for free.

According to the Fawcett Society the current gender pay gap is 13.9%, while other groups calculate it as high as 18%.

And to highlight the problem, some businesses are encouraging their female employees to leave 18% early  at 3:34pm thanks to a Stylist Magazine initiative.

Today is #EqualPayDay and we're leaving the office 18% early at 3.34pm. Find out why https://t.co/sjn2WT4rz1 pic.twitter.com/FBKJKR8wCj  Emerald Street (@EmeraldStreet) November 10, 2016



Women in Britain earn 18% less than men, which is totally unacceptable. We're leaving work at 3.34pm today in support of #equalpayday  DAWN London (@dawnnetwork) November 10, 2016



And other women are jumping on board, and out the door.

Happy #EqualPayDay! Today I'm leaving work 3.34pm to raise awareness on the gender pay gap! Encourage all my ladies to do the same  Rikke Koblauch (@Rikkekoblauch) November 10, 2016



At 3.34pm I'll be leaving my desk to support #EqualPayDay because women are now working for free till the end of the year @StylistMagazine  sarahsarahpyper (@sarahsarahpyper) November 10, 2016



Today is #equalpayday and at @cityyearuk we're proud to be leaving work 18% early to highlight the gender pay gap @StylistMagazine  Uman Rai (@UmanRai) November 10, 2016



This is probably true though
Adults don't have nearly enough cartoons of their own, but among the popular, overrated favourites like The Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy, there are some real hidden gems.

Thanks to platforms like Netflix, some of these shows are still going strong and have acquired a cult following. Archer is one such example of a show that became a staple of the adult animation genre, and has led the way for smaller adult animation series to become as popular as The Simpsons.

Full of heart, dry wit and a surreal amount of existential contemplation, there are some adult animations that you really need to watch, that are either airing as we speak or have forever been immortalised as pillars of the genre. In their honour, we list them here.

1. Daria

A spin-off of Beavis and Butt-Head, Daria is the epitome of teen outcasts of the 1990s (and beyond). The show focuses on the life of Daria Morgendoffer, a pessimistic, cynical, sarcastic teen who deals with growing up in an upper-class suburb. Portrayed as an outcast - along with her hip best friend Jane Lane - Daria acts as the saint of sanity in her insane family and equally insane upper middle class suburb.

Daria ran from 1997 to 2002, and became one of MTV's highest rated shows (back when MTV was actually decent), and gave outcasts like Daria a voice and a sense of normalcy in a world of dysfunctional chaos.

2. Rick and Morty

Originating as an animated parody of Back to the Future, Rick and Morty follows the adventures of mad scientist Rick (ala Doc Brown) and his grandson Morty (ala Marty McFly) who split their time between domestic family life and their often disastrous interdimensional adventures.

Often regarded as a cosmic horror due to the situations Rick places his grandson Morty (and more often his granddaughter Summer), the show also retains a sense of hilarity through its black comedy screenwriting.

The series itself is relatively new, debuting in December 2013 to critical acclaim. It has since been renewed by Adult Swim for a 14-episode third season, which is due to premiere at the end of this year. The first two seasons are available on Netflix.

3. King of the Hill





Similar to Daria, King of the Hill is another show that came to be from the success of Beavis and Butt-Head. Creator of Beavis and Butt-Head Mike Judge co-created the show with former Simpsons writer Greg Daniels in 1995.

Based on the Dallas suburb of Richardson in the 50s, King of the Hill centres around the Hill family which compromises of Hank Hill (voiced by Judge), his wife Peggy (voiced by Kathy Najimy) and their only child Bobby (voiced by Pamela Adlon).

The show is renowned for its hilarity and the way in which it presented itself as a more down-to-earth competitor to shows such as The Simpsons. It deals with humanity within a small town, based upon people in which both Judge and Daniels grew up with both Texas and California.

4. Beavis and Butt-Head

As Mike Judge's first success, Beavis and Butt-Head mapped out Judge's career and gave us the opportunity to marvel at his amazing comedic ability to make two incompetent teenage delinquents likeable. And not only that, but to install a new delivery within the animated sitcoms of having the two main characters critique real-life music videos improvised by Judge himself, as he voices both Beavis and Butt-Head.

Much like King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-Head is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico; the same city in which Judge went to high school.



Even though the show itself became immensely popular, it wasn't able to dodge controversy through the personalities and conduct of the two leads. Both Beavis and Butt-Head lead a life without adult supervision, resulting in the duo getting in insane situations; mostly of their own doing. This involved encounters with violence, sex, the macabre and Beavis' early obsession with fire. It became the point of blame for a lot of violent crimes in the 90s, resulting in MTV including the following disclaimer:

"Beavis and Butt-Head are not real. They are stupid cartoon people completely made up by this Texas guy whom we hardly even know. Beavis and Butt-Head are dumb, crude, thoughtless, ugly, sexist, self-destructive fools. But for some reason, the little wienerheads make us laugh."

5. Ren & Stimpy





Originally running alongside Rugrats and Doug as the first three Nicktoons on Nickelodeon in 1991, Ren & Stimpy is known to be more of an adult cartoon than an animated television series for children. And being a child that grew up being absolutely enthralled by this show, I can confidently say that I have no idea how creator John Kricfalusi got away with any of this. Ah, the 90s.

There was even a spin-off for adult audiences in 2003 on Spike titled Ren & Stimpy 'Adult Party Cartoon' which was wholly unneeded. The original show catered to adults and children - however inappropriate it seemed to be.

6. Gravity Falls

Another show intended for children, Gravity Falls seems to have taken hold of the hearts of adults rather than its Disney-orientated audience. Often described as an X-Files/Twin Peaks mash-up for kids, creator Alex Hirsch brings a tourist trap called "The Mystery Shack" to life through 12-year-old twins Dipper and Mabel, and their great-uncle Stan who owns and runs the place.

The shack happens to be in the middle of a Twin Peaks-esque town named Gravity Falls in Oregon; a hotspot for all sorts of supernatural and paranormal goings-on.

Each episode of the show is full of codes, scrambled words, whispers intended to be played backwards and ciphers to fully engage with the conspiracy loving adult audience.

7. BoJack Horseman

Designed by cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt and created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, BoJack Horseman is one of the staple animated sitcoms when it comes to those designed for adults, especially on Netflix.

BoJack Horseman takes place in Los Angeles where anthropomorphic animals and humans live side by side. The show focuses on a particular anthropomorphic horse named BoJack, a washed-up 90s sitcom star. When the show first debuted in 2014, it recieved mixed reviews. But once it found its footing in its second and third seasons, it became renowned as one of the comedic staples of adult animation.

BoJack has been renewed for a fourth season, which is set to premiere in the Summer of 2017.

8. Space Ghost Coast to Coast

Another gem from Adult Swim, Space Ghost Coast to Coast was an animated parody talk show hosted by the 1960s Hanna-Barbera character Space Ghost. Created by Mike Lazzo, Space Ghost was in a sense a reboot of the original 1960s Saturday morning cartoon, but aimed towards adults and recreated into a surreal talk show spoof using the original artwork.

Various celebrities - including Conan O'Brien and Dave Grohl - appeared on the talk show via a television next to Space Ghost's desk and were not animated. In true surrealist fashion, the interviews were often awkward and it was hard to tell whether the guests knew about the nature of the show when being interviewed.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast ran for a total of 10 seasons from 1994 to 2008, and went on to inspire Cartoon Planet, The Brak Show and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

9. Courage the Cowardly Dog

A personal favourite of mine as a kid, Courage the Cowardly Dog again was a show primarily aimed at children. However, similar to Ren & Stimpy, it's hard to imagine how myself and other kids weren't permanently scarred from this show. Ren & Stimpy was risque, but Courage utilized the surreal to the extreme; including graphic violence and genuinely terrifying imagery that plagued the anthropomorphic beagle, Courage.

Courage originally started out as an animated short in 1996, with Cartoon Network eventually giving creator John R. Dilworth the greenlight for a series in 1999. Courage the Cowardly Dog ran up until 2002 for four seasons on Cartoon Network, becoming one of the channel's signature animated series.

10. Bob's Burgers

Even though Bob's Burgers has gained immense popularity and traction within the past couple of years, the show originally started out in a very niche, cult market back in 2011. Bob's Burgers also has ties to King of the Hill, and is generaly viewed as its spirtual successor due to it being a family situated animated comedy on Fox. But instead of focusing more on shock comedy, Bob's Burgers relies on character driven humour.

The show focuses on the Belchers family - comprised of Bob and Linda, and their children Tina, Gene and Louise - who run a hamburger restaurant called 'Bob's Burgers'. Bob's Burgers' first season garnered mixed reviews, but eventually found its footing within its second and third seasons and has become one of the most highly regarded - and hilarious - American animated sitcoms of recent times.

At this point, Bob's Burgers has been running for seven seasons, and has been renewed for an eighth by Fox.
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Celebrate Thanksgiving at a special AMCHAM event

Start From: Thursday 24 November 2016, 12:00PM to Thursday 24 November 2016, 03:30PM Mon. Tue. Wed. Thu. Fri. Sat. Sun.

The Greater Phuket Chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce and Angsana Laguna Phuket will celebrate the special day with a festive informal turkey set lunch. Whether you are an American or not, join us for a special meal with your friends or family.The festivities begin at 12noon poolside at Bodega & Grill, with air-con and open-air seating. THB 1,100++ p.p. for food only. Bookings - fbreservation-lagunaphuket@angsana.com or 076 358 500.
Disabled Phuket man completes 13 day journey to pay respect to the late King

PHUKET: The disabled man from Phuket who set off on Oct 28 on an 842-kilometre journey to Bangkok to pay respect to HM the late King pushing himself along on a makeshift wheelchair, yesterday (Nov 9) reached his destination completing the gruelling journey in 13 days.

deathhealthtransport

By The Phuket News

Thursday 10 November 2016, 05:28PM

Mr Sompong wait in line at the Grand Palace to pay his respect to the late King. Photo: Wanlop Boonjun

Mr Sompong is given help by rescue workers when he arrives in Bangkok. Photo: Wanlop Boonjun/Facebook

The 48-year-old Mr Sompong Juiphat finally made it the Grand Palace yesterday after completing the 842-kilometre journey in 13 days. For the entire journey he was followed closely and supported by his wife and three children.

The Facebook page of Wanlop Boonjun yesterday posted a picture of Mr Sompong arriving at the Grand Palace where he was waiting in line to go to inside to pay respect to the late King.
Frenchman found in Phuket hotel room with throat slashed

PHUKET: Police are currently investigating the death of a Frenchman who was found in a hotel room in Patong yesterday night (Nov 9) with his throat slit.

deathpatongpolice

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Thursday 10 November 2016, 11:31AM

The man was staying in room 127 of the Delicious Residence in Nanai Rd, Patong. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Patong Police Capt Sineenart Cherdchootrakunthong responded to a 191 call at 8:45pm yesterday where it was reported that a foreign man had been found dead inside a room at the Delicious Residence in Nanai Rd, Patong.

Capt Sineenart arrived at the scene with her team and was led to room 127 located on the second floor of the building. Inside the room was the body of a 63-year-old man Frenchman lying face down in the bathroom in a pool of blood.

In the police report it states that pools of blood were found all over the bathroom floor and sink, and next to the body was a 12 inch knife.

Capt Sineenart and Doctor Supawadee Tamluang from Patong Hospital examined the body and confirmed that they found a deep slash wound going from the mans neck to his left ear. There were no other signs of assault on the body and also no signs of a robbery in the room.

According to the police report, the hotel manager (name withheld) told police that the man had checked in to the property alone on Nov 4 and was due to check out on Nov 30.

At 2pm yesterday a friend of the deceased (no name provided) knocked on his room but got no answer. The friend left and returned again at 8:30pm. He knocked on his friends door again, but again he got no reply so asked the husband of the hotel manager, Mr Johan Baest, to check the room.

When they opened the door they discovered the lifeless body of the Frenchman in the bathroom so they called police and rescue workers.

Capt Sineenart said that she was told by the friend that the deceased had got divorced from his wife prior to leaving for Thailand and that this may have caused the man stress leading to him committing suicide.

The body was taken to Patong Hospital for doctors to thoroughly examine the body again. The French Embassy has been notified of the incident. Police will continue with their investigation.
Nine tribes honour HM the late King

BANGKOK: Hilltribe people travelled from their villages in the highlands to the city centre to pay their respects to their father  His Majesty the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

culturedeath

By Bangkok Post

Thursday 10 November 2016, 08:56AM

Hilltribe people wait in line before the Dusit Maha Prasat Throne Hall to pay their respects to the late King yesterday (Nov 9). Photo: Patipat Janthong

A total of 999 hilltribe people from nine tribes in the Northern highland region arrived at Hua Lamphong Railway Station in Bangkok yesterday morning (Nov 9).

The father went to see us at our hometown. Today, we came down to see our father, said Wipa Phaya-ornarong, 47, a Lisu hilltribe woman, speaking on her arrival.

Ms Wipa said the hilltribe people have long appreciated the Kings generosity and kindness.

The trip from Chiang Mai to Bangkok for the ethnic people, and their transport in Bangkok to the Dusit Maha Prasat Throne Hall where the late Kings body is being kept, was arranged by the government.

The nine tribes paying homage were Karen, Hmong, Lahu, Akha, Myan, Lisu, Lua, Khamu and Htin, all part of the 999 hearts to pay respects to the King initiated by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security.

Meanwhile, Myanmars first civilian president Htin Kyaw paid his last respect to the late King yesterday morning. He also signed a book of condolences, citing him as a King of friendliness for having forged many ties with foreign countries during his reign.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, also in Bangkok, went to the Throne Hall and wrote in the condolence book, expressing his sympathies to Thais.

Read original story here.
Phuket ATM destroyed by disgruntled customer

PHUKET: A 34-year-old Thai man was arrested in Patong in the early hours of yesterday morning (Nov 9) for destroying a Krung Thai Bank ATM machine which failed to update his passbook.

crimepatongpoliceviolencetechnology

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Thursday 10 November 2016, 10:43AM

Anucha Jantawong, 34, told police he destroyed the ATM as he was angry that it failed to update his passbook. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

At 2:52am yesterday, Mr Teeranan Mukdee, Branch Manager of the Krung Thai Bank on Rath-U-Thit 200 Pi Rd in Patong went to Patong Police Station to report that a man had been caught on CCTV causing damage to an ATM machine outside the branch. An officer from Patong Police Station who asked not be named said that after making investigations they learned that the man who caused the damage was 34-year-old Anucha Jantawong. Police managed to track down Anucha who said that after depositing money into the machine he tried to update his passbook but the passbook failed to show his transaction. I got very angry so I destroyed the ATM, Anucha said. Police are still investigating the incident to see what, if any, charges will be brought against Anucha.
Samkong Underpass to close for signs, finishing touches

PHUKET: The Samkong Underpass will be closed to traffic tomorrow night (Nov 11) as workers install signs at each end of the tunnel.

constructiontransport

By Tanyaluk Sakoot

Thursday 10 November 2016, 06:08PM

The Samkong Underpass will be closed to traffic tomorrow night (Nov 11) as workers install signs at each end of the tunnel. Photo: Chris Husted

Both the northbound and southbound lanes will be closed to all traffic while workers install the signs, Phuket Highways Chief Patiwetwoottisak Sookkii told The Phuket News today. The signs to be installed, each to be six metres long, are to apply the name Samkong Underpass, Chief Patiwetwoottisak said. While the signs are being installed all four lanes must be closed from 9pm Friday (Nov 11) to 4am Saturday (Nov 12), he said. Please avoid the tunnel by driving through the intersection at ground level, he added. Asked what remains to be done before the long-overdue project is completed, Chief Patiwetwoottisak said, Just some little tasks of Wiwat Construction Co and a final check of the security equipment.
Trump election win sparks protests across US

UNITED STATES: Protesters rallied across the United States yesterday (Nov 9) to express shock over Donald Trumps election victory, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency.

politics

By AFP

Thursday 10 November 2016, 09:39AM

People take part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Chicago, Illinois. Photo: Paul Beaty/AFP

In Washington, several hundred protesters gathered in front of the White House for a candlelight vigil on a damp, chilly evening, criticising what they called Trumps racism, sexism and xenophobia, and carrying signs reading We have a voice! and Education for all!

One of the organisers, Ben Wikler  Washington director of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org  told the crowd that others were coming together in hundreds of communities around the country.

People are justly frightened, he said.

We are here because in these darkest moments we are not alone, he added before leading chants of We are not alone!

Ethan Miller of the workers rights group Jobs with Justice said organisers held the vigil to show that civil society was resilient.

Its a hard time for a lot of Americans, he said. We saw a campaign that was filled with racism and misogyny and whole host of other terrible tactics that ultimately were successful for winning the electoral college.

But were not going to let a Donald Trump presidency stop the progress in this country, he added.

Were going to continue to organise and fight for the rights of all people and to protect the safety of our brothers and sisters.

Supporters attending the rally appeared less optimistic.

Joanne Paradis, 31, who was born in Mexico and works in international communications for a non-profit group in Washington, said she attended the rally to share some solidarity.

I feel pretty down, she said. Asked if the country could weather a Trump presidency, she said, I dont know.

But we have to acknowledge what happened to deal with it, to face it and talk about it and be honest about it.

I just came here to mourn, said Chris Hassan, 28, who works for a civil society group.

Protests were also held in other cities across the country, gathering thousands of people in Chicago, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, Seattle and other cities.

In New York City, protesters gathered in Union Square holding signs saying Love Trumps Hate and Trump Grabbed America by the Pussy! before marching uptown in the thousands to chant in front to Trump Tower.

The electoral college is broken, protester Nicholas Forker said of the US indirect voting system. I think it definitely needs to be reformed... I think its ridiculous.

Some of the protests started out with hundreds of demonstrators but soon swelled to thousands.

In California, high school and college students staged campus demonstrations and walkouts from classes.

In Los Angeles, hundreds of teens and young adults rallied outside City Hall chanting Not my president!

In Oregon, demonstrators blocked traffic in downtown Portland, forcing a delay on two light-rail lines.

The crowd there grew to about 300 people, local reports said, including some who sat in the middle of a road to block traffic. Others burned American flags.

In Pennsylvania, hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students marched through the streets, with some in the crowd calling for unity.

The rallies followed protests overnight on Tuesday (Nov 8) as voting results were being tallied, when at least one person was seriously injured in Oakland, California, where demonstrators broke store windows and set garbage alight.
SD Secretary of State office says Smith remedied campaign finance mistake

Rep. Jamie Smith's campaign originally did not include the mailing addresses of his donors in violation of campaign finance law.
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But the tribe has a long way to go
There was an immediate political fallout of the Supreme Court order scrapping the Punjab law against water sharing with other states and asking it to share water, with PCC President Amarinder Singh and Congress MLAs resigning from the Lok Sabha and the state Assembly, respectively.

Minutes after the Supreme Court announced its verdict on the vexed Sutlej Yamuna Link issue, Amarinder resigned from his Lok Sabha seat in protest. He said he was doing so to protest against the injustice meted out to the people of the state.

Amarinder has sent his resignation to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and has also sought a personal meeting next week. In his resignation, the Punjab PCC chief said he had decided to quit as a member of the 16th Lok Sabha from Amritsar constituency in Punjab with immediate effect as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of my state of the much-needed Sutlej river water.

Have resigned from the Lok Sabha in protest of the SC verdict on SYL. The entire CLP stands with me as we continue our fight for Punjab, he tweeted.

In the letter, he attacked the Modi government at the Centre and the Akali-BJP government in the state, saying both failed to save them from the sorry plight into which they have been plunged by the apex court judgment.

He said it was his moral duty in the present circumstances to extend my solidarity to the people of Punjab and join them in their fight for justice.

Amarinders strong and prompt reaction has to be seen in the backdrop of the fact that the SC verdict has come bang in the middle of campaigning for the upcoming Assembly elections in Punjab. The SYL has been an emotive issue for both Punjab and Haryana, with the two states having fought bitterly over it for years.

Meanwhile, in an evidence of how the issue divides the people of Punjab and Haryana, including the Congressmen from the two states, Randeep Surjewala, who is a prominent Haryana Congress leader and AICC Communications Department in-charge, tweeted cheering the court order. Surjewala said the SC verdict has put a stamp of Haryanas rights on the SYL. The struggle of the farmer has yielded results, he added.
As the banks reopened for the first time on Thursday since the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes on Tuesday night, many rushed to exchange old notes with loose change and to deposit the rest.

"The rush was already there when I reached office. Now we are running at full capacity, and there must be 80 odd people inside the bank now," Mukul, a sales executive at Axis bank in Noida said. He was standing outside to distribute the withdrawal forms to the customers.

"We were told to come early and our shift has also been extended by two hours. We were anticipating such a crowd," he added.

A Kotak Bank nearby also witnessed a long queue outside, as the customers inside were being attended to.

An overnight guard outside the nearby Kotak bank said the people had started gathering in the morning even before the bank opened and that many had been standing there for a long time.

"I'm standing in the queue for the last one hour. I had come around 9, I think should've come early," a customer standing in queue, who had come for exchange and deposit both, said.

Most banks deployed at least two of their employees outside the gate to guide the people with forms and other instructions. However, details of the form aside, almost every customer seemed to know the limited amount for exchange, deposit, and everything else concerning the post-ban procedures.

"You can exchange notes worth Rs 4000, while there's no upper cap to the amount you can deposit," a seemingly well-informed customer told IANS.

Similar scenes were witnessed in Gujarats Ahmedabad city, Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow area, West Bengals Siliguri and Bihars Patna and other places.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made at the banks and post offices as they begin functioning for public transactions.

Asserting that the customers would be given full support to customers, State Bank of India Managing Director Arundhati Bhattacharya has said customers can withdraw Rs 4,000 from ATMs and Rs 10,000 from bank counter and can deposit any amount in their account.

Minister of State for Finance Arjun Meghwal has also asked the people not to panic and assured that the government is take all steps to match the demand with supply.

There is no need to panic; Government is trying to make available all resources as per demands, Meghwal told ANI.
India and Japan will ink about 12 pacts and possibly sign a crucial civil nuclear deal on Friday after wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Shinzo Abe aimed at giving a fillip to the bilateral strategic relations.

"Looking forward to fruitful deliberations that will boost economic and cultural ties between India and Japan," tweeted Modi, who arrived here after a brief stopover in Thai capital Bangkok to pay respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illnes.

He also tweeted in Japanese along with his arrival picture.

At their annual Summit, Modi and Abe will discuss ways to enhance ties in a broad range of areas, including security, trade and investment, skill development and infrastructure development.

He will address Japanese business leaders during his two days of official programme here and in Kobe.

Ahead of his visit, Modi said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo on November 11.

"I will have detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties," he said.

After the Summit talks, about 12 pacts will be signed by the two sides, sources said, adding these would cover areas like skill development, cultural exchanges and infrastructure.

Amid high expectations about the civil nuclear deal being signed on Friday, the two sides were in the process of concluding the negotiations, sources said here Thursday.

The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abe's visit to India last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.

Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week. When specifically asked whether the pact will be signed during Modi's visit, he only said, "I cannot pre-judge outcome of the talks."

Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two sides have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

In Tokyo, Modi will also have an audience with Japanese Emperor Akihito. He will also meet some opposition and other political leaders.

From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway. He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed trains are manufactured.

"Our partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order," Modi had said in his pre-departure statement.
BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj has praised US president-elect Donald Trump for praising Hindus, India and Narendra Modi during his election campaign. Said Maharaj to THE WEEK, Trump is the right man to be in the helm of affairs in the US. As a Hindu and an Indian, I felt really good to know that Trump loves my religion and my prime minister.

Maharaj said that Hinduism is a way of life, and not a religion. Hinduism has made our country and its culture so unique. The world respects us because of Hinduism. I hope more and more leaders around the world would emulate Trump on this and rightfully praise Hindus and Hinduism.

At an event in New Jersey last month, Trump addressed a large number of Indian-Americans and said if he was elected, the Indian and Hindu community would have a big friend in the White House.

Trumps daughter-in-law Lara Yunaska Trump visited a famous Hindu temple in Virginia last month. Said Lara, Hinduism is a beautiful religion. This country [the US] was founded on the freedom of religion and it is so amazing that we have such incredible religions within the US.

The Hindu Sena, a right-wing outfit, celebrated the victory of Trump in Delhi by playing drums and distributing sweets.

They say Trump of America is turning out to be more like Modi of India. Trump has heaped praise on Modi and his policies time and again. Said Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh at an election rally in Uttar Pradesh, During the campaign, Trump said that he would work on policies of Modi. Now he has become the president. Modi has gained popularity globally through his foreign policies. This is the reason why Trump praised Modis image and policies and boosted his prospects in the US elections.

Said Giriraj Singh, Union minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises, to THE WEEK, Right from day one, I knew that Trump would win the US elections. But I was scared to admit it openly. He did everything that Modi did during the 2014 elections. The opposition parties in India should be ashamed. They want Modi to quit, and the biggest ruler in the world wants to follow in Modis footsteps. Giriraj said that Pakistan now would have to pay a heavy price if it continued to support terrorists against India.
An editorial written by Yisrael Friedman appearing in the Tuesday 7 Cheshvan Hebrew Yated Neeman is earning a place in the Israeli media as Friedman explains the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin is analogous with Reform Jewry and its [mis]interpretation of Torah and halacha.

He points out that while convicted Rabin assassin Yigal Amir may or may not be a member of the Reform Movement, his justification for the assassination is based on sources that are synonymous with a Reform hashkafa. He explains that at the end of the day, the Reform Movement is simply the result of the effort to bring Torah down to a level one feels s/he can understand as s/he perceives to be correct in line with ones lifestyle. Hence, Friedman extrapolates that in his mind, Amir may have believed he was correct and this was not so. The Reform he opines are like Amir, believing to be correct while this is not the case, labeling the actions of Amir as Reform-type behavior.

He feels the slippery slope applies in other areas as well, citing it is applicable wherever there is an effort to trample halacha as it has been upheld throughout the generations. Another example is the ongoing machlokes surrounding an egalitarian prayer area at the Kosel. He points out there regarding the Kosel the same holds true, a group is trying to redefine Torah and tradition to meet their lifestyle and despite the fact they are distorting Torah and halacha.

Friedman specifies Reform isnt murder, making sure to clarify that while he draws an analogy, the two are not synonymous and the Reform Movement does not condone murder. He warns that the distorted interpretation of Torah however leads one down a foreign path and one cannot know where this path leads.

He warns that nationalism is not a replacement for Torah and adhering to halacha and when strays chas vsholom, one may interpret Torah to fit ones own needs and this can lead to anything.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

A terrorist was shot in the Chawarah area of the Shomron shortly after 8:00am on Wednesday morning, 8 Cheshvan in another Palestinian stabbing attack.

The attack took place a few hundred meters north of Tapuach Junction.

Bchasdei Hashem security forces acted in time, wounding the terrorist before he could harm any of them. The terrorist did make contact with a soldier, trying to stab him with a screwdriver but it did not penetrate his protective gear.

Officials at Beilinson Hospital on Wednesday afternoon report he terrorist remains in serious condition in a medically induced coma.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photos:   via Media Resource Group)
Rabbi David Stav is angered over the decision that the selection committee appointing the chief rabbi of a city or community will contain additional representatives from the Ministry of Religious Services and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Rav Stav, who heads the Tzohar Rabbinical organization. Stav feels that this will leave the decision-making practice in the hands of chareidi askanim instead of residents having a say in the appointment.

Rabbi Stav explains the decision simply means the residents of a city have nothing to say and the chareidi askanim will decide who a new rabbi will be.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Deputy Defense Minister (Bayit Yehudi) Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan calls on police and other agencies to do more to halt attacks directed at chareidi soldiers.

Ben-Dahan sent a letter to Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich in which he addresses the attacks against so-called chardakim, stating police are not doing enough to protect these soldiers.

Ben-Dahan explains that the committee, which received complaints from chareidi soldiers during the past two years has determined the police response is insufficient.

Ben-Dahan continues Chareidi soldiers are not ducks in a shooting gallery as the incitement against chareidim enlisting into the IDF continues. For the past months police have not acted sufficiently to bring an end to the hostility and has failed to take the initiative to end the attacks despite repeated requests to do so. The incitement has escalated in recent months and there is a genuine fear it may lead to bloodshed against the soldiers.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A mortar shell landed in the Golan Heights on Wednesday morning 8 Cheshvan. Bchasdei Hashem there was no loss of life, injuries or property damage.

The mortar shell is viewed as stray fire attributed to the ongoing civil war in Syria. There was no report of an IDF response to the shell, which landed in an orchard.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Mr. David Friedman, an advisor to President-elect Donald Trump on Jewish & Israeli affairs, spoke to the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, 8 Cheshvan. The J. Post quotes Friedman saying that Mr. Trump will be an ally the likes of which Israel has never seen before, sending a clear message to Jerusalem.

According to Friedman, the special relationship that Israel has enjoyed throughout the years with the White House is going to grow under the Trump administration, reaching unprecedented levels of cooperation.

Friedman is viewed to be leading candidate to become the next US Ambassador to Israel.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A fractured, discontented electorate handed Donald Trump the presidency, allowing him to breach a region that Democrat Hillary Clinton was banking on in her bid for the presidency.

Key battleground states Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin had voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election for a generation. Ohio, Minnesota and Iowa have been part of winning Democratic maps, as well.

Trump outperformed expectations in all of them, moving most into the Republican column after President Barack Obama twice swept the region.

Exit polls and unofficial returns reflected deep racial, gender, economic and cultural divides nationally and across the Midwest and Great Lakes region, helping drive Trumps success. His soaring popularity among white voters without a college degree was essential to his capturing the Rust Belt.

The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer, Trump said in his acceptance speech, alluding to his economic populist message that helped him shift much of the old industrial territory.

Trumps support Tuesday skewed older, more male and overwhelmingly white. His supporters said they were deeply dissatisfied with the federal government and eager for change, according to the exit polls conducted by Edison Research for national media outlets.

Nationally, he won almost 7 out of 10 whites without college degrees.

Trumps surge in working-class regions was evident in places such as Mahoning County, Ohio. Obama won Mahoning, where organized labor still acts as a political force, by a 28-point margin in 2012. On Tuesday, Clinton won it by just 3 percentage points and fell short of Obamas vote total by more than 20,000.

Obama won nearby Belmont County, in the coal country along the Ohio River, in his first election. It shifted to Romney in 2012, and on Tuesday Trump won almost 70 percent of the vote.

Across Ohio, nearly half of all voters said international trade hurts the countrys jobs situation, and two-thirds of them backed Trump. Two-thirds of the states voters said the job situation in Ohio had deteriorated or remained static over the past four years, and three-quarters of them voted for Trump.

It was a pattern that repeated across the region.

Clinton did refashion an alliance similar to Obamas  women, young voters and nonwhites  but it wasnt large enough. Her support was concentrated in large cities, the Northeast and along the West Coast. But even in some key urban areas, Clinton fell short of Obamas benchmark.

The president won 420,000 votes in Cleveland and surrounding Cuyahoga County in 2012; Clinton won just 383,000.

The urban drop-off was a critical blow to Clinton, as Trump ran up resounding margins in small towns and rural areas, while adding victories in many suburbs.

Less clear in the results is just what voters want out of government. The same electorate that was so unhappy with government gave Obama a 53 percent approval rating and returned Republican majorities to Congress.

GOP control of Capitol Hill would, in conventional circumstances, be a luxury for a newly inaugurated Republican president. But Trump has clashed on personality and policy with the partys congressional leaders.

He has pledged to protect Social Security and Medicare. Those programs benefit voters age 65 and older, a cohort that Trump won with a narrow majority, but they are also targets of House Speaker Paul Ryans long-term plans for a leaner federal budget.

Congressional Republicans also have opposed ambitious spending proposals for infrastructure that Trump outlined in his acceptance speech. Similar to what Obama and Clinton have endorsed, Trump promised to put millions of people to work by rebuilding our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals.

The president-elect, meanwhile, did not mention at all his signature immigration proposals that defined much of his campaign: building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and deporting millions of workers in the country illegally. Majorities of voters nationally said they oppose both ideas.

(AP)
By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times

The media will be discussing the election and how the surprising end came to be that Donald Trump was victorious for the next few days. The media are in a state of shock, as Trump upended prediction after prediction. How did it happen that the shoo-in candidate lost? And how did it happen that his win entirely eluded the media and the polls?

On Tuesday morning, virtually every media source was stating that Trump had less than a 25% chance of winning. Twelve hours later, the numbers were reversed. What happened?

Perhaps the answer lies specifically with the media itself. The electorate noticed something strangely off. Never before in an American election was there so much slant and media bias. The electorate, from the simple people on the street to the educated pundits distrustful of the left-leaning media, noticed the favoritism and partiality and decided to do something about it. The more they noticed the unfairness of it all, the more they were motivated to change things.

Staying Away From A False Matter

In Parashas Mishpatim (Shmos 23:7), dayanim (judges) are told, Midvar sheker tirchakstay away from a false matter. The media are supposed to be unbiased and report the news fairly, without slant. The issue of staying away from falsehood and sticking to truth does not just apply to judges, it applies to all people. This would include the media.

It is highly likely that people, the voters, noticed this and rebelled. The mainstream media has tossed aside all pretense of objectivity to beat Donald Trump, wrote former NPR CEO Ken Stern at Vanity Fair.

A recent Gallup poll shows that Americans have noticed the bias and unfairness in reporting. The poll shows that trust and confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly has dropped to its lowest level ever in Gallup polling history. For the first time, only 32% of the public say that they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down 8 percentage points from last year.

Gallup began asking this question about trusting the media in 1972. Its highest point was in 1976, when the numbers were at 72%. This was because of the investigative journalism regarding Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. Throughout the 1990s, it hovered in the low- to mid-50s. It has consistently been below 50% since 2007.

Not Just A False Matter

The implication of the Talmud (Shavuos 30b31a) is that it is not just a false matter that we must stay away from, but even if it is a true matter, but will lead to falsehood in the world, this too must be avoided.

Regarding the matter of falsehood and false presentation and bias, we are commanded in something that does not exist with any other prohibition. The Mesillas Yesharim (chapter 11) notes that this is the only mitzvah in which we are commanded to stay very far away from something. We must run from it. It does not say this in regard to other matters.

The Yad HaKetanah (Hilchos Deyos, chapter 10) writes, Shekerlies. [The sages] have already said that the foundation of the entire world lies with truth . . . But when there is falsehood alonethis is despicable before Hashem. And the lying mouth I do hate. (Mishlei 8:13). And even others [not just judges] must distance themselves from it.

Falsehood Everywhere

And it was not just the medias lies that the public was sick of. It was the governments as well. The IRS, if we recall, was unfairly targeting conservative nonprofit organizations. It targeted those that were supporting Israel as well. According to Rick Moran at PJ Media, it is still happening. He writes, A federal judge in Ohio has had it with the IRS foot-dragging on applications from conservative organizations for exempt status and has ordered the agency to quit stalling. The order, in a filing that was unsealed Friday, states, Three years after being assured by the IRS that they had stopped singling out conservative organizations for special scrutiny, the targeting continues, Moran says.

Bias Is Wrong

Lest the reader think that as long as the media report the facts, it is irrelevant whether these facts are reported with bias, the Sefer Chofetz Chaim disproves this. The Chofetz Chaim writes in the introduction to his sefer (Asin #13) that a mixture of shekereven just a little bit of itis forbidden by the Torah just like the lie itself. The commentaries to this explain that the Chofetz Chaim added this point to state that even if it does not affect the outcome of what the person is saying, it is still forbidden.

Others Noticed The Bias As Well

Representative Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) also noticed the bias, and had sent a letter to the heads of the four major TV networksCBS, NBC, ABC, and Foxthreatening to hold a hearing to explore network media bias in coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign.

According to a USA Today column seven days before the election, there actually was admission by the New York Times and Washington Post newsroom staffers that they have willingly abandoned the concept of neutrality in covering the Trump campaign. According to the Times media columnist and its senior political editor, Trump represents such a threat to democracy that it is incumbent on the Times to call him out on the news pages, a prerogative usually reserved for the editorial section.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank echoed that sentiment more recently, writing that in an ordinary presidential campaign, press neutrality is essential. He then listed numerous examples of how he considered Trumps pronouncements and temperament to be so abnormal as to make it absolutely appropriate to take sides in a contest between democracy and its alternative.

The Maharal writes that the human soul was created with a natural propensity toward the Divine. This includes an aversion to lies and falsehood. In this authors opinion, it is this inclination that created such an upset in the election. Fascinatingly enough, in a turnabout, it was the obfuscation by the media that brought about Trumps electionnot his defeat. 

The author can be reached at [email protected]
Sixty-five people were arrested last night in New York City protests opposing the election of Republican Donald Trump as president.

The majority of arrests were made in front of Trump Tower. Several people climbed light poles and had to be removed, or burned flags.

Most of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct. A few were also charged with resisting arrest.

Fifth Avenue reopened early Thursday morning.

The protesters were called together through Facebook to release a collective, primal scream.

They marched for 40 blocks and arrived at Trump Tower, the home of President-elect Donald Trump.

The crowd appeared to be bigger than any protest during the Black Lives Matter movement in New York City. Donald Trump go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay, protesters shouted.

It wasnt clear if anyone believed something would come of this protest. Most understand Trump was elected fairly in the Electoral College.

He did win the electoral vote that is a fact. I do believe, however, that the majority of Americans do not want this man to be president of the United States, a protester said.

(AP)
A top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump says his boss doesnt think Israeli settlements should be condemned and they dont pose an obstacle to peace.

Jason Greenblatts comments to Israels Army Radio Thursday would mark a stark departure from the long-time American stance that settlement construction makes it more difficult to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Greenblatt is the chief legal officer and executive vice president at the Trump Organization. He has been tapped by Trump as his top adviser on Israel.

Israel and the U.S. are close allies but relations were often tense between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mainly over Israels policies toward the Palestinians. Netanyahu and Trump are friendly and ties are expected to improve.

(AP)
Cubans worried on Wednesday that President Donald Trump would throw the United States 2-year-old detente with Cuba into reverse, erasing their hopes for a more prosperous future of normal ties with Washington.

The Cuban government, meanwhile, announced the launch of five days of nationwide military exercises to prepare troops to confront what it called a range of actions by the enemy, using terminology that almost always refers to the United States.

The government did not link the exercises to Donald Trumps U.S. presidential victory, but the announcement of maneuvers and tactical exercises across the country came nearly simultaneously with Trumps surprise win. It was the seventh time Cuba has held what it calls the Bastion Strategic Exercise, often in response to points of high tension with the United States.

Trump has promised to reverse Obamas opening unless President Raul Castro agrees to more political freedom on the island, a concession considered a virtual impossibility. Many Cubans said they feared they were on the verge of losing the few improvements they had seen in their lives thanks to a post-detente boom in tourism. Along with a surge in visitors, normalization has set off visits by hundreds of executives from the U.S. and dozens of other nations newly interested in doing business on the island.

The little weve advanced, if he reverses it, it hurts us, taxi driver Oriel Iglesias Garcia said. You know tourism will go down. If Donald Trump wins and turns everything back its really bad for us.

The first Bastion Strategic Exercise was launched in 1980 after the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president, according to an official history. The announcement by Cubas Revolutionary Armed Forces in red ink across the top of the front page of the countrys main newspaper Wednesday said the army, Interior Ministry and other forces would be conducting maneuvers and different types of tactical exercises from the 16th to the 20th of November.

It warned citizens that the exercises would include movements of troops and war materiel, overflights and explosions in the cases where theyre required.

Speaking of Cubas leaders, Communist Party member and noted economist and political scientist Esteban Morales told the Telesur network: They must be worried because I think this represents a new chapter.

Carlos Alzugaray, a political scientist and retired Cuban diplomat, said the Trump victory could please some hard-liners in the Cuban leadership who worried that Cuba was moving too close to the United States too quickly.

Theres been a lot of rejection of whats been done with Obama, Alzugaray said. Many Cubans think that a situation of confrontation is better for the revolution.

(AP)
The 10th annual AIFL Israel Day at the New York Stock Exchange, which takes place on Thursday, 9 Cheshvan, organized by the America-Israel Friendship League (AIFL), will mark the countrys unparalleled advancements and expose Israels disproportionate prominence on Wall Street, now ranking as the largest foreign presence outside of just China and Canada.

Well-known Israeli companies like Mobileye, Teva, CaesarStone and Check Point Software over the years have headlined a list of cutting-edge IPOs. Today, there are over 80 Israeli equities currently listed on exchanges around the world in a vast array of industries, with more than 70 on Wall Street alone.

The day, in partnership with SOSA and Israeli Mapped in NY, will consist of a celebratory NYSE Bell Ringing, and two sessions, the first of which will salute leading Israeli women who boast a substantial track record of success and achievements in their field of expertise, and that have significantly contributed to the US  Israel relationship in field of business, economy, science, high-tech and fashion.

The second session, organized by BlueStar Indexes, a financial firm specializing in Israeli capital markets and a partner in the event, will include a prestigious panel active in Israeli investing.

The level of Israeli equities listed on Wall Street is yet another example of Israeli innovation and the strong US  Israel relationship, said Daniella Rilov, Executive Director of the America-Israel Friendship League. Not only are we recognizing these outstanding companies at Israel Day, but the event is also honoring four Israeli women leaders, because Israel, like the United States, celebrates its gender diversity. The day is an example of just a few of the common traits both countries have.

Session 1: Empowering Israeli Women  10:00 AM

In the heat of a Presidential election season that has shown much focus on the empowerment of women, the first session on November 10 will salute four pioneering Israeli women who have flourished in their respective field. Inbal Orpaz of top Israeli business publication, The Marker, will moderate and speak to the women (listed below) on a plethora of their experiences in the professional world and how they have contributed to the US  Israel relationship in doing so.

Panelists: Tzameret Fuerst, Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Circ MedTech, which developed PrePex, an FDA-approved device for HIV protection; Karen Haruvi, SVP Global Generic Business Development and Alliance Management for Teva Pharmaceuticals, Ltd.; Noa Raviv, acclaimed fashion designer and artist; and Liat Mordechay Hertanu, Co-Founder of 24me.

Session 2: Capital Markets & Investment Trends for Israeli Publicly Listed Companies  11:00 AM

CNBC producer Jason Gewirtz will take the esteemed panel through a discussion that will highlight the hot market trends coming out of Israel and how interested parties can support Israel through an investment avenue in Israeli companies, ETFs and funds.

There is a great opportunity now for those who care about and support Israel with their charitable donations and community involvement to add another, equally-powerful track to their pro-Israel activity via their investment portfolio. Investment in Israel is the antidote to BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), said Steven Schoenfeld, CEO of Bluestar Indexes. Investing in Israel is good for your portfolio in terms of returns and diversification; it is good for Israels capital market development and economic growth; and it is good for realigning the relationship between the Diaspora and Israel to a framework which is more appropriate for the second decade of the 21st Century. One should invest in Israel not just to support the Jewish State, but because it is a solid investment that historically has outperformed most other international equity investments over the past three, five, and ten years.

Participants in the panel will include: Steven Schoenfeld, CEO of BlueStar Indexes; Robert Katz, Managing Director of Senvest Management; Alon Ozer, Senior Investment Officer at The Foundation of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation; Nathaniel Ginor, Managing Director of Institutional Sales and Israeli Equity Distribution  Jeffries; and Alexandre Ibrahim, Head of International Capital Markets at the NYSE.

About the America-Israel Friendship League

Founded in 1971, the America-Israel Friendship League (AIFL) is dedicated to strengthening ties between the United States and Israel. Through people-to-people programs, policy statements, advocacy and collaboration with other like-minded organizations, the AIFL is actively engaged in improving perceptions about Israel and developing American support among people of all ages, faiths, ethnic backgrounds and political orientations.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been unsuccessful in persuading Bayit Yehudi Ministers Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked to withdraw their bill, the so- called Normalization Bill, that seeks to legalize Amona and prevent its destruction in line with a High Court of Justice ruling.

A meeting was held in the Prime Ministers Office including Mr. Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and the Bayit Yehudi ministers to discuss the matter. Bennett and Shaked came under significant pressure during the meeting as Mr. Netanyahu wants them to pull their bill, which is scheduled to be addressed by the cabinet at the upcoming weekly meeting on Sunday, 12 Cheshvan.

Bayit Yehudi officials are reporting that despite the pressure, Bennett has yet to be convinced to withdraw the bill based on the reasoning presented to him.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Twenty years after making a private visit to the Kosel, Russian Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev visited the holy site on Wednesday evening 8 Cheshvan. it was during this latest visit that the senior visiting dignitary opted to announce Israel strong and clear connection to the holy site is known to all.

His words are significant after the recent UNESCO resolution denying a Jewish connection to the Kosel, Har Habayis and other mekomos kedoshim.

Mr. Medvedev opened his official visit in Israel at the Kosel, met by Kosel Rav Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz Shlita and escorted by Russias Chief Rabbi HaGaon HaRav Berel Lazar Shlita.

Kosel Heritage Foundation Director Mordechai Eliav was also on hand, using the opportunity to explain the significance of the area to the Jewish People to the visiting VIP, showing him a model of Bayis Sheni.

Rabbi Rabinowitz added to Eliavs words, emphasizing the historical connection Am Yisrael has with the holy site. Rabbi Lazar explained that in Russia and around the world, when Jews daven, they face the Kosel and Har Habayis.

They then accompanied the visiting Prime Minister to the Kosel where he uttered a prayer and was presented with a book on the Kosel Tunnels in Russian.

As he departed Mr. Medvedev thanked his hosts and expressed his delight for having visited the holiest site to the Jewish People, extending his wishes for peace, security and the prosperity of the Jewish People.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Not missing a beat, MK Moshe Gafne in his address to the prestigious CFO kenos opted to speak about the exclusion of women, a topic frequently used to accuse the chareidim in Israel of discriminating against the women in their community. For the secular Israeli community, the fact that there are no women in chareidi parties in Knesset or radio hosts on chareidi radio add to the fact women are discriminated against, as well as the requirement that they are seated in the rear of mehadrin buses.

Gafne pointed out that a woman with thirty years of political experience ran for the presidency in the United Stated against a businessman who is a newcomer to politics and the political arena. He points out Mrs. Clinton served as First Lady during her husbands tenure as US President, as well as serving as Secretary of State. Despite all of this, she was defeated on Election Day.

Gafne feels that voters were not voting against Clinton as much as they were voting against the establishment and the elite.

For Gafne, the lesson of the US elections is that slogans are meaningless and the chareidim are always blamed for discriminating against women. He acknowledges that most voted for Trump for various reasons and that many chareidim did vote for her despite the fact she is a woman.

Speaking to persons in his inner circle, Gafne was pleased with the election of Donald Trump, a move he believes will work against the Reform Movement. He admits he is uncertain of this but believes it to be true since most Reform Jews he believes are aligned with the democratic liberals as opposed to conservative republicans.

He added Those who call themselves Reform rabbis always worked against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu due to his opposition over the Iran deal as well as against Trump for they understand under Trump, their position will be weakened significantly.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) blasted the Palisades traffic court Thursday after it dragged Chaveirim volunteer David Konnhauser to multiple hearings and rescinded a dismissal of a ticket he received for operating an unauthorized service vehicle while helping a member of Hatzolah change a flat tire at a rest stop.

Assemblyman Hikind joined Konnhauser in court to fight the violation Nov. 3 and last evening, in which the police officer didnt make an appearance. While the original unauthorized service vehicle violation was dismissed, the Chaveirim volunteer was fined $50 for parking illegally.

In the state of New York, if an officer doesnt appear in court, the case is dismissed; Period, Assemblyman Hikind said with disgust following last nights hearing. Its bad enough the court decides to penalize someone for being a good Samaritan and helping another in need, but then to drag him out to court multiple times and rescind the prosecutors recommendation to dismiss the ticket is the epitome of disrespect.

Hikind added: The Chaveirim volunteer wasnt even operating out of a service vehicle in the first place. So whether its considered an unauthorized or authorized vehicle is irrelevant. He was helping another good Samaritan change a flat tire.

Konnhauser, who resides in Brooklyn, appeared in the Alpine, N.J. court four times dating back to mid-September, in which he continued to plead not guilty for the violation. The Palisades Interstate Parkway Commission offered Konnhauser a plea deal of $50, but he refused to pay based on principle. A hearing was then scheduled for Nov. 3.

With Assemblyman Hikind appearing at the hearing on Nov. 3, the prosecutor recommended to dismiss the ticket altogether. However prior to the judge approving this recommendation, the police officer informed the court of his desire to go to trial, thereby nullifying this agreement.

Another hearing was slated for last evening, in which Assemblyman Hikind appeared once again with Konnhauser and once again, the police officer failed to appear in court. Rather than schedule another hearing, Judge Marc Raso decided to dismiss the unauthorized service vehicle violation and, instead, issue a ticket for illegally parking.

Hikind, disgusted at the series of events in traffic court, is calling on the Bergen County presiding judge to conduct an immediate investigation into the behavior of the court.

Something is not Kosher on the Palisades Interstate Parkway, Hikind said. This cannot be allowed to continue at the expense of the general public. Good Samaritans should never be victimized for their volunteerism.

Added Hikind: Its unfortunate that members of Hatzolah, who receive frequent dispatch calls, are being told by the Palisades court that they should wait for an authorized service to change a tire rather than save a life.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
CEDAR RAPIDS  He didnt get their first vote, but president-elect Donald Trump will get the final votes of a handful of Iowans who have one more vote to cast.

Nothing theyve seen or heard since the Feb. 1 first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses and nothing they are likely to hear between now and Dec. 19 when Electoral College electors meet will dissuade Iowas six GOP electors from voting for their partys presidential nominee.

I certainly do not want the alternative, says James Whitmer of Waterloo, who describes himself as a rock-ribbed conservative backing GOP nominee Donald Trump.

The passion runs as deeply among Democratic electors who can only watch and consider what might have been.

Absolutely and without reservation, Joan Peck of rural Benton County says about her hope to cast an Electoral College vote for Hillary Clinton.

Whitmer and Peck are polar opposites on the political spectrum, but they watched Tuesdays election results with heightened anticipation as members of their respective parties slates of Electoral College electors. The electors, selected by the parties, will cast the states six Electoral College votes.

For them, the election didnt end Nov. 8, but merely enter another phase. It might not seem possible, but Remsen pork producer Don Kass predicts it could get crazier.

Kass, a member of the Plymouth County Board, was a Republican elector in 2004 and you wouldnt believe the bizarre mail I would get from people asking me to change my vote to John Kerry rather than President George W. Bush.

Kass wouldnt say who he supported in the caucuses, but none of the GOP electors said they backed Trump. Whitmer and Alan Braun, a Norwalk physician, backed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Polly Granzow, a former state representative from Eldora, and Dylan Keller, a University of Northern Iowa student from Donnellson, backed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Retired OBrien County Recorder Kurt Brown of Primghar was a Ben Carson supporter. Dylan Keller did not respond to questions.

Unlike 23 other states, electors in Iowa arent bound to vote for their partys candidates.

Theres little likelihood any one of Iowas electors will cross party lines.

Like everyone else, Im not happy with everything, Granzow said, but I agree with the policies hes presenting.

Keller, who describes himself as a Japanese, Mennonite, Republican from southeastern Iowa, will be faithful to his pledge to vote for the GOP nominee, but my electoral vote is in no way for Trump, the man, but for the Republican Partys nominee that so happens to be Donald Trump.

Democratic electors also said they would cast their Electoral College ballots for their partys nominee, Hillary Clinton, if they had the chance.

Ive supported Clinton since 2007 and I gave my promise to vote for her and I plan to stand by it, said Carrie Tedore of Dubuque, who calls politics her hobby.

Theres no way I could ever cast a vote for him, AFSCME Local 61 President Danny Homan said about Trump.

Tedore, Homan, Peck and elector Randal Black of Mason City backed Clinton in the caucuses.

For the other two Democratic electors, its not a question of voting for Trump, but whether they might vote for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who they backed in the caucuses.

A few Sanders delegates approached me and said, You know, you can vote for whoever you want,  Jack Schuler, a Des Moines high school English teacher, said. He wont because it goes back to representing the person chosen by the people.

Being an elector isnt a high-profile job until Dec. 19 when they cast their ballots.

Most electors say only friends and people who follow the process closely know their role.
Emirates hit Dubais national airline

Emirates saw profit drop 75 per cent to $214million in its first half after it was hit hard by the strong US dollar and a global cutback in business travel.

Taking a dive: Emirates saw profit drop 75 per cent to $214million

Coals end

Coal power generation will end by 2025 and subsidies will fuel 1million homes from renewables, under new measures set out by the Government.

It also confirmed a commitment to spend 730million a year on renewable electricity projects this parliament and announced an auction of subsidy contracts worth 290million a year.

Sarao court

The trader accused of sparking a flash crash which wiped more than 800billion off US markets made his first appearance in a US courtroom yesterday after losing an extradition battle.

Navinder Sarao  dubbed the Hound of Hounslow  appeared in Chicago to face 22 charges of fraud and market manipulation.

Esure soars

Shares in esure ticked 3 per cent higher as strong premiums growth put the insurer on track to hit its full-year financial targets.

The firm, which recently demerged from price comparison website Go Compare, said gross written premiums rose 15.9 per cent to 499million in the nine months to the end of September.

Banking call

Banks should work together to provide small business services in towns where the last branch has shut, according to a report.

The study, by Professor Russel Griggs for the British Bankers Association argues that lenders should team up to collect and drop off cash for companies.

Resort plan Center Parcs is revamping one of its old parks and replacing it with waterslide lodges.

The project, due to start this month, will see the holiday resort group replace an 88-bedroom hotel at its Elveden resort in Suffolk with luxury accommodation.

Lloyds axe

Lloyds will shut 49 branches and scrap 520 jobs early next year as its cost-cutting drive continues.

It will launch eight mobile banking vans in a bid to replace the lost services, but did not reveal where the axe would fall.
Access to funding is still a significant barrier for small businesses looking to expand, according to a wide-ranging report.

Almost half of 1,000 UK SMEs surveyed said they had experienced barriers when they looked for finance, while just 19 per cent said their bank met their needs.

The Close Brothers report also found that one in four SMEs had been turned down for funding when they looked to grow. As the turnover of small businesses equates to almost half of private sector turnover in the UK, the equivalent of 1.8 trillion, this means that is a serious risk for the economy.

Bad timing: The most common time to be refused finance was in the early growth stages

The biggest issue SMEs have with accessing finance is not being able to afford it, closely followed by those lending to them either not understanding the sector, or the individual business's needs.

Of those who had applied for finance and been refused, 18 per cent said they would have used the money to start their business, while 24 per cent said they would have used the money to help their existing business to grow.

Close Brothers said: 'This worrying trend of lenders not putting their faith in early stage SMEs looking to grow, due to a lack of capital or cash flow, may well be stifling growth, having a knock-on effect on the wider economy in the long-term.'

Almost one in four small businesses say they go to high street banks for information and advice, yet of these just 19 per cent said that the advice their bank gives them always meets their needs.

Just 5 per cent had used peer-to-peer loans, 4 per cent had used crowdfunding and 3 per cent had turned to angel investors. Almost three-quarters said they still perceived a bank loans as the suitable way for them to get finance.

Misunderstood? Even though most SMEs turn to a bank for finance, many aren't satisfied

And it seems that SMEs don't always help themselves by taking a short term perspective.

Only 28 per cent of SMEs said they plan their needs for finance more than a year in advance, while two in three only plan for up to 12 months in advance. A worrying 8 per cent of SMEs say they do not engage in any planning at all.

Following the 'leave' result in the referendum, 44 per cent of SMEs say they have sought advice about their business' finances, mainly turning to the banks.

And while Brexit has caused uncertainty in the small business community, it could be an opportunity for positive change.

Many SMEs say they will be looking to the government to cut red tape after Britain leaves the EU, with one in three asking for this as a priority.

This was closely followed by the 29 per cent who would like to see a cut in business rates and the same figure who would like to see the money previously contributed to the EU put to good use.

Question marks: Half of SMEs said it was too soon to know how Brexit would affect them

Close Brothers surveyed more than 1,000 SME owners after the EU referendum for the report, entitled: Banking on growth: Closing the SME funding gap.

It said: 'SMEs play a huge role in the success of the UK economy. It's vital that lenders, and the wider market, understand how best to support them  including properly differentiating SMEs according to their size, growth stage and sector.'

Main reasons SMEs are refused finance:  Cash flow not considered strong enough  27%  Banks not lending to SMEs at the time  23%  The SME doesn't have enough capital  20%  Business plan isn't robust enough  19%

Adrian Sainsbury, chief executive of the Close Brothers commercial division, said: 'When starting a business, a great deal of time and energy is spent on planning and developing strategies to establish and maintain a place in the market.

'However, once up and running, it's very easy to focus on 'business as usual' and this can often adversely impact on opportunities to expand and grow the business. Longer term planning is essential to maximise potential future success.'

He added: 'Positively, SMEs are turning to lenders for advice in the wake of the referendum, which should better prepare them for when the full implications of the UK's Brexit deal are known.'

Tried and tested: The most common form of finance for SMEs is still a bank loan

However, Sainsbury added he was encouraged by the government's recent pledge to create online platforms where SMEs rejected by mainstream banks could be matched with alternative providers.

He said: ''Historically SMEs have not always found it easy to source the appropriate funding required to sustain or grow their businesses, but times have changed.

'The recently announced Government initiative means that in the near future high street banks will be required to offer a referral to any SMEs they turn down for finance, and that's a positive and purposeful step both for businesses and the economy.'

The report found that a relatively small amount of SMEs had dipped their toe into the newer forms of alternative financing.
DES MOINES  Democrats could fend off Republicans in the Iowa Senate no longer.

In striking and decisive fashion, Republicans in Tuesdays election flipped six seats in the Iowa Senate, giving the GOP control of the chamber for the first time since 2004 and full control of state government  the Iowa House, Iowa Senate and governors office  for the first time since 1998.

Democrats held their slim Senate majority through the 2012 and 2014 elections, but on Tuesday lost that tenuous grip in a big way.

We thought maybe we could win five seats  we won six, so it was a great night, and Im really looking forward to working with both the House and the Senate, said Gov. Terry Branstad, who enjoyed all-Republican control in 1997 and 1998, the final two years of his first run as governor.

Republicans parlayed two years of hefty fundraising into heavy spending in a half-dozen Senate districts, all with Democratic incumbents. Needing to win just two of those targeted races to change control of the Senate, Republicans won five. They added a sixth victory in a race that was not targeted with high spending.

In the aftermath, Republicans went from a 23-seat minority to a strong, 29-seat Senate majority.

I can promise Iowans that this Republican Senate Majority will implement policies to help create new career opportunities, reduce the size of state government, and improve the quality of life for all Iowans, said Iowa Sen. Bill Dix, the former senate minority Lleader now in line to become the new senate majority leader.

Democrats were left with just 19 Senators. They will be favored to increase that number to 20 when a Dec. 27 special election is held to fill vacancy created by the recent passing of Sen. Joe Seng, a Democrat from Davenport.

Im not sure what happened (Tuesday) night, but its pretty clear that the citizens of Iowa have spoken, said Sen. Bill Dotzler, a Democrat from Waterloo. But the problems facing the state of Iowa havent changed at all. ... So Im committed to work with the new majority party and try to resolve these issues.

There will be one independent: Sen. David Johnson, of Ocheyedan, who earlier this year rescinded his Republican affiliation in protest of GOP presidential candidate and now President-elect Donald Trump.

I owe that to the hundreds of people in northwest Iowa who have supported my decision and are encouraging me to stand my ground, Johnson said Tuesday.

Republicans also expanded their advantage in the Iowa House, adding two seats there. They now hold a 59-41 advantage in the chamber after defeating one Democratic incumbent and winning an open race in a seat most recently held by a Democrat.

Branstad said he met with Republican legislative leaders on Wednesday and it was agreed that they would work in a productive way. Im hoping well be very focused and can make this a very productive session.

He said he expected education, jobs, water quality, health and public safety would be among the priorities but he noted its too soon to talk about specifics.

On water quality, Branstad a good starting point would be a plan that won bipartisan support in the Iowa House last session that proposed to shift $478 million over 13 years to water quality projects from a water-metering tax and the gambling-funded state infrastructure account.

Sen. David Johnson, an independent from Ocheyedan, said he would not support that approach, favoring instead a three-eighths of a penny increase in the state sales tax that Iowa voters approved in 2010 for natural resources and environmental improvements.

Its no solution whatsoever, Johnson said of the House plan. Theres only one solution and thats to honor the vote of 2010 and lets move on with it. Lets get going, were running out of time. Were continuing to create problems both urban and rural.

I know where the governor stands. He wants to somehow fund these programs without raising taxes and its just not possible, Johnson added.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said she hoped the Legislature could find ways to give schools more flexibility in using state resources but theyve been blocked by the teachers union. She said she didnt know if that would get into collective bargaining areas, but Branstad said Wednesday that eventually could be a topic of conversation.

Were going to review that and determine what makes sense, Branstad said when asked if he had any plans to reopen or revisit Iowas collective bargaining law now that Republicans will control the Statehouse, but at this point in time weve made no decisions on any of those kinds of issues.

Danny Homan, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 61, told reporters after his unions opening meeting with state officials on a new two-year labor agreement that the outlier from Tuesday election was what the governor and majority GOP legislators might do regarding Iowas collective bargaining law.

I hope we dont go and do what was done in Wisconsin, Homan said, where Republicans gutted the public employee collective bargaining law. Theres no need to change the system. What were doing right now works.

Homan said he hoped to have a good working relationship with the Republicans at the Statehouse but noted that after Tuesdays vote its a new world. The world has changed. I dont know how were going to work in that new world.

On another work-related issue, Upmeyer said she expected the Legislature would revisit the minimum wage issue with an eye on pre-empting local standards different from the statewide wage that is creating confusion and problems for employers. She didnt know if changing Iowas current $7.25 hourly minimum would be part of the discussion because it was so early in the process and Senate Republicans are expected to caucus until Friday to elect their leaders and likewise House Republicans will convene their new 59-member majority on Wednesday.

Dotzler, soon to be part of the Senate minority, said there a number of concerns that would go along with setting a statewide minimum wage pre-emption. I would think that would be a mistake (to pre-empt county minimum wage increases already in place), but thats going to be up to them. ... If you want to lose votes, thats a way to do it, when somebody has something in their paycheck and you vote to take that away.
Addressing fire safety Living in San Diego County, the threat of fires is constant, that is why I have made fire safety one...

Supporting animals As a trained Project Wildlife Native Songbird Rehabilitator, my experience raising orphaned and injured songbirds and returning them to the...
MASON CITY  A year ago Phillip Melby was facing a possible prison sentence for violating his probation on felony drug charges.

However, Judge James Drew let him continue his probation on the condition that he participate in the Cerro Gordo County Drug Court program.

Melby, who graduated from the program this week, said he is grateful for the second chance.

Mason City men celebrate sobriety, accomplishments during Cerro Gordo Drug Court graduation MASON CITY  Two Mason City men who have turned their lives around since entering the Cerro 

I wasnt going to mess it up, said Melby, 31, of Mason City. He has now been clean and sober for 515 days and has gotten a job at Applebees.

Cerro Gordo County used to have a community panel-based drug court that was discontinued in 2010 due to judicial budget cuts.

A new, judge-based drug court program began in January 2015. Participants meet with Drew once a week for 12 to 18 months.

The other members of the drug court interdisciplinary team  the county attorney, a probation officer, a substance abuse counselor and a defense attorney  as well as other drug court participants are present during those meetings with the judge.

During Melbys drug court graduation ceremony Tuesday, Drew told him the team had a lot of discussions when he first began the program about if you were going to make it or not.

But then somebody flipped a switch and that someone was you, Drew said.

You are a different person sitting here today than you were when I first met you, he said.

Now that Melby has graduated from drug court, he will be on regular probation.

Mason City man credits drug court for giving him 'a second chance' MASON CITY  Fifteen months ago Tim Rucker had a potential prison sentence for drug dealing 

State Sen. Amanda Ragan of Mason City presented him with a certificate of recognition.

She praised the drug court program, noting she has met many of the participants who volunteer at the Community Kitchen of North Iowa, where she is the executive director.

Probation officer Gretchen Hollander said Melby has progressed through the drug court program with no violations.

She said he has made some wonderful changes in his life.

Melby thanked the drug court team, his fellow drug court participants, his fiancee and his sister.

I love you guys, he said.
CLEAR LAKE  A Clear Lake man who police say intentionally ran over a cyclist in September has been arrested.

Nicholas Horst, 36, was charged Thursday with felony willful injury and serious injury by vehicle.

Horst was high on drugs when he hit cyclist Gary Beach, 47, with a 2016 Hyundai Veloster on Sept. 27 in the 2200 block of Main Avenue, according to a Clear Lake Police Department statement.

Authorities say Beach was dragged more than 150 feet.

Beach was hospitalized for serious injuries. He has since been released.

Police wont say what they believe motivated Horst.

Clear Lake Capt. Mike Colby said investigators did interviews with witnesses and associates that led us to that conclusion.

The Iowa State Patrol assisted the CLPD in the investigation.
MASON CITY  A Mason City man sentenced to up to 25 years in prison last year for setting a Subway restaurant on fire after taking money had his first-degree arson conviction upheld Wednesday.

However, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled that 24-year-old Ethan Millers first-degree burglary conviction should be reversed and sent back to district court for judgment on second-degree burglary instead.

Mason City man sentenced to 25 years in prison Subway arson MASON CITY | A Mason City man was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison Tuesday for setting 

A Cerro Gordo County jury found Miller guilty of first-degree arson, first-degree burglary, second-degree theft and marijuana possession.

Judge James Drew sentenced Miller to up to 25 years in prison each on the first-degree arson and first-degree burglary convictions; up to five years in prison for second-degree theft and 30 days in jail for marijuana possession.

He ordered the sentences to be served concurrently.

Miller was accused of committing arson at the Mason City Subway restaurant at a strip mall in the 400 block of South Illinois Avenue at 3:30 a.m. Dec. 29, 2014, to cover up his theft from the business, where he was an employee at the time.

The restaurant was heavily damaged in the fire and was closed six months for repairs.

The appeals court ruled Millers conduct did not constitute first-degree burglary because there was no evidence of anyone else being inside Subway at the time.

However, the appeals court ruling rejected the defense claim that evidence showing Miller was the person who entered Subway after hours, took $1,700 from the safe and set fire to the restaurant was speculation.

Jury finds Mason City man guilty of arson in Subway fire MASON CITY | A Mason City man was found guilty late Friday afternoon by a Cerro Gordo County

Surveillance video recorded a person entering the back door before turning toward the breaker box. The footage ends a moment later when the power source was lost.

The appeals court ruled that although the video did not clearly show the face of the intruder, the person appeared similar in size to Miller, who is more than 6 feet tall while the other Subway employees who knew the safes code were no taller than 5 feet 8 inches.

The ruling also noted the circumstantial evidence provided overwhelming evidence of Millers guilt.
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By Bill Parry

The Juniper Park Civic Association is threatening to sue the de Blasio administration for slander by one of its spokeswomen, according to its president, Bob Holden. After city Comptroller Scott Stringer was invited to Middle Village last week speak to a town hall meeting addressing concerns with the city housing single men at the Holiday Inn Express, Aja Worthy-Davis released a statement saying, Scott Stringer is courting a group advocating for kicking women and toddlers onto the street, using White Lives Matter as their protest song. He should be ashamed.

The civic group hired attorneys who fired off a letter to City Hall asking for an apology and a retraction before taking the matter to the next level. They have not heard back, Holden said.

Its so slanderous and were going to take action on it because its so irresponsible, he said. Nobody connected with the Juniper Park Civic Association used that term during our rallies, only the mayors office heard it. It has no remote connection to our group. We invited Scott Stinger to speak to us. Its the mayors office that made this political and racial. I dont have words, but it reflects the kind of people this mayor has hired. It is false. It is slanderous.

City Hall received the letter and spokesman Eric Phillips said, The citys lawyers will be responding to Mr. Holden.

Special Counsel to the Mayor Henry Berger added, We are entitled to present facts and to express our opinions. Neither provides a basis for legal action.

The comptroller, who is viewed as a potential primary challenger of de Blasios next year, declined to comment, but his spokesman Tyrone Stevens said, We meet with those whom we agree and those with whom we disagree. Our city is facing record-high homelessness, and its only growing. This is a problem that has to be solved by working with communities across the five boroughs.

State Sen. Joseph Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) attended the town hall meeting, and he was livid when he heard of Worthy-Davis comment.

As made evident by his spokespersons statement, once again Mayor de Blasio has failed to see the real issue at hand when dealing with the citys homeless crisis, Addabbo said.

Instead of looking at the facts and realizing that his shelter policies are failing all throughout the city, our mayor continues to hide behind an imaginary racial battle that has no place in this effort to find a solution to homelessness. The opposition to using hotels as shelters in any community, not just Maspeth, has never been racially motivated. In fact, the only time race has been used as the primary focus is when Mayor de Blasios administration uses it to attack and misrepresent the hardworking, taxpaying people I represent who simply want to improve a failed homeless policy and to assist those individuals in need of adequate, permanent housing.

In late September, the city produced two videos of the Maspeth group protesting outside a Bellerose hotel, and released them to social media. Holden and Addabbo believe the White Lives Matter chants were edited into one of the videos.

Twice now, the mayor has wasted taxpayer dollars to record and produce inappropriate propaganda videos that wrongly make the public believe that those who oppose shelters in their neighborhoods are racist, Addabbo said. His rhetoric is doing nothing but continuing to divide our city and further delay the plausible solutions that homeless New Yorkers are counting on him to provide.
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By Patrick Donachie

Tom Suozzi said he is looking forward to finding common ground between his fellow Democrats and Republicans after he was elected Tuesday to fill the seat of retiring U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (D-Melville). The district covers parts of Long Island and eastern Queens.

Im very excited about our victory, but I recognize there are very serious problems we face in the country, he said during a conference call Wednesday morning, noting Americans should really reflect on how were going to bring people together to solve the problems we face.

Suozzi won about 48.4 percent of the total vote, with all 630 precincts reporting, according to unofficial vote totals from the state Board of Elections, while his Republican opponent, state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola), had about 44 percent.

The BOE reported Suozzi had 156,315 votes out of the 322,608 total vote count. There are 505,342 registered voters in the district. Martins released a statement congratulating Suozzi and acknowledging the defeat.

The results are in and unfortunately weve come up short, he said. While the outcome was not what we hoped and the race is over, it does not mean we will stop fighting for the ideals on which we ran.

Suozzi will represent the 3rd Congressional District, which includes parts of Suffolk and Nassau counties in Long Island, as well as parts of Bay Terrace, Whitestone, Glen Oaks and Floral Park. He pledged to open a district office in Queens, suggesting somewhere on Northern Boulevard near the border between Queens and Nassau County as a possibility.

The former Nassau County executive also promised to listen to suggestions made by Republican representatives and President-elect Donald Trump.

Ill have an open mind to anything, he said about Trump. The only thing I wont put up with is discrimination shenanigans.

He also said he intends to meet with the Federal Aviation Administration in the first month of his tenure to try and solve the issue of excessive airplane noise, which was a oft-relayed concern from northeast Queens residents during the campaign.

In Glen Oaks on Election Night, several voters said they did not know much about either Suozzi or Martins, saying they had personally not seen much outreach from the campaigns to their part of the district.

I have no idea who they are, said one voter who declined to give her name.

Suozzi did open a campaign office in Queens located in the Bay Terrace shopping plaza during the race. Suozzi faced four opponents in a Democratic primary earlier this year. He was also the mayor of Glen Cove from 1993 to 2001 and unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2006.

The future congressman said he was appreciative of the comeback story he was enjoying due to his victory.

Ill tell you right now, he said. Winning is a lot better than losing.
Hillary Clinton walked onto the ballroom stage Wednesday morning to do what many had considered unthinkable: thank her campaign staff after failing in her bid to become the first woman elected U.S. president, instead of the anticipated victory speech under a symbolic glass ceiling.

Hundreds of staffers and supporters gathered at the New Yorker Hotel in midtown Manhattan to hear Clinton speak publicly for the first time after her bruising loss to New York real estate magnate Donald Trump in the early hours of the morning.

Many wore the same clothes as the night before, having stayed up all night after leaving the glass-ceilinged Jacob J. Javits Convention Center, where Clinton\s final rally never materialized.

Campaign Chairman John Podesta told the distraught crowd just after 2 a.m. to go home and expect to ultimately "bring this home." Shortly after, news broke that Clinton had telephoned Trump to concede.

As staffers and supporters filed into the ballroom, there were tears, hugs, and disbelief that Clinton, a former secretary of state, U.S senator and first lady, had again failed to shatter what she called the highest and hardest glass ceiling after her first attempt at the presidency in 2008, when she lost in her bid for the Democratic nomination.

This time, Clinton won the Democratic primary race, becoming the first women to secure a major party\s nomination in her race against U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. But in the final contest for the White House, she lost to Trump, the unorthodox Republican nominee.

We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought, but I still believe in America and I always will, and if you do then we must accept this result and then look to the future, Clinton said, with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, daughter Chelsea Clinton and Chelseas husband, Marc Mezvinsky, at her side.

Also on the stage were Clinton\s vice presidential pick, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, and his wife, Anne Holton.

Clinton wore a black suit with purple lapels  the color created by combining blue and red, the colors that symbolize the two major U.S. political parties  and not the suffragette white that many expected Tuesday night. Bill Clinton wore a matching tie.

Clinton urged her backers to seek unity in the wake of defeat.

Donald Trump is going to be our president, we owe him an open mind and the chance to lead, she said.

Likely facing her last opportunity for a presidential run, Clinton, 69, acknowledged the bitter sting of an election defeat in which initial results show she won the popular vote but came up short in the Electoral College vote that ultimately decides the race.

Clinton had been leading Trump in public opinion polls for months, and in the final week of her campaign, her staff celebrated a drawn-out campaign marked with vitriol at star-studded rallies with performers such as Jon Bon Jovi, Jay Z and Beyonce.

But as election returns came in, Trump pulled off major upsets in key states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida that Clinton\s campaign expected to win. Aides appeared visibly shaken as Tuesday night turned into Wednesday morning.

"Hate trumps love, I guess," a supporter in the ballroom on Wednesday said, flipping the phrase Clinton had used to close her rallies.

Clinton thanked her supporters  women and young people in particular  and urged them to never give up.

Ive had successes, and Ive had setbacks, sometimes really painful ones. Many of you are at the beginning of your professional, public, political careers. You will have successes and setbacks too. This setback hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what is right is worth it, she said.

<iframe width="600" height="390" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tVXIIaO98ys" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

SOURCE: REUTERS
A farmer in southern India committed suicide fearing she would be left penniless after the government\s shock decision to withdraw high denomination notes from circulation, police said Thursday.

Kandukuri Vinoda, 55, had a large amount of cash at her home in 1,000 and 500 rupee ($15, $7.50) notes and panicked that her savings had become worthless when she heard Prime Minister Narendra Modi\s surprise announcement on Tuesday.

"The family told us she panicked after hearing about the note ban and hanged herself at her home," local police officer Raj, who only uses one name, told AFP.

Vinoda from Mahabubabad district, east of Hyderabad city, had sold some land last month and was paid around 5.5 million rupees ($82,500) for it in cash.

She used some of the money to pay for her husband\s medical bills and planned to use the rest to buy a new plot of land, local media reported.

Many Indians living in rural areas keep large amounts of cash at home because of a lack of banks in remote areas and to avoid paying taxes.

The withdrawal of the notes is part of Modi\s campaign against corruption and "black money", and the government has tried to reassure worried citizens that only tax dodgers will suffer under the move.

Police in northern Uttar Pradesh state said they were investigating reports that people were burning off sacks of notes to avoid declaring them and being landed with heavy penalities.

"We have sent the samples for forensic tests and asked bank authorities to authenticate these are currency notes," police chief of Bareilly district Joginder Singh told AFP.

Earlier this year, the government ran a four-month tax amnesty, which saw Indians declare nearly $10 billion in hidden wealth.

But the scheme ended last month and anyone now depositing large amounts of cash could face a bill of up to 200 percent in back taxes.

SOURCE: AFP
Looking for deals at annual Pittsburgh airport auction

More than 800 appeared and about 700 participated in annual event last month.
Donald Trumps unexpected victory means our next president will be an untested non-politician who made a list of campaign promises he cant possibly keep; a foreign policy novice whose vows to scrap trade agreements and renegotiate alliances have alarmed our oldest friends; a crude braggart who derided minorities, women, the disabled and even prisoners of war.

But its in the nations interest to pray for his success  because the failure of an American president, especially one with Trumps shoot-from-the-hip style, would be chaotic and destructive.

Begin with the economy. Trumps first challenge is likely to be a slump in the financial markets; on election night, Dow futures plunged as his victory became clear. Can the New York mogul find the words and actions to persuade investors that hes not the bad news they think he is?

Move on  quickly; hell have no choice  to foreign policy. Vladimir Putin may be celebrating, but thats little comfort. U.S. allies in Europe are worried. Will Trump reaffirm our ties with them, which are vital to combating international terrorism, or allow them to deteriorate? China has warned that Trumps promise to impose sanctions on its economy will prompt swift reprisals; will the president-elect tell Beijing he was only kidding?

Last but not least, consoling the American people. Fewer than half of all voters actually chose Trump; will he reach out to those who fear or loathe him? Minorities, including Latinos and African-Americans, decisively rebuffed his purported outreach in their direction; does he care?

Trump does have some assets as he approaches a job he has done little to prepare for. He will have majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives, giving Republicans control of a one-party government for the first time since 2006. In the hands of a more conventional politician  a Mitt Romney, a Marco Rubio  this would be a golden opportunity to pass legislation to advance conservative goals, including lower taxes and tighter federal budgets.

But Trump is no mainstream Republican. To take just one glaring example: Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Ted Cruz have all argued that the only way to rein in the federal budget is by trimming future growth in Social Security and Medicare spending. Trump disagrees, emphatically.

Trumps fiscal campaign promises simply dont add up. Hes said he will balance the budget and cut taxes but expand Social Security and increase military spending. That cant be done. Hes promised steel workers in the Rust Belt and coal miners in Appalachia that hell bring their old jobs back; thats not likely to happen, either.

Still, some of his agenda can be achieved through legislation. He can repeal Obamacare, President Obamas health insurance program  and leave the details of what should replace it to Congress. He can almost certainly win funding to deport more undocumented immigrants and build a wall on the southern border  the cost of which, he says, will be reimbursed by the Mexican government. (Mexico says it will do no such thing.)

And many of Trumps biggest promises on trade, immigration, national security and foreign policy can be achieved through executive action.

He has said his first order of business, on Day One, will be to reverse many of President Obamas executive orders, beginning with immigration. For example, Trump would immediately end Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that has granted temporary work permits to dreamers  young immigrants who lack legal status.

Trump could suspend immigration by refugees from Syria and impose extreme vetting on immigrants from other countries affected by terrorism.

He could follow through on his campaign promise to renegotiate the NAFTA trade treaty with Mexico and Canada  and, if the talks went poorly, he could carry out his threat to leave the trade pact. Hes also floated the idea of withdrawing from the World Trade Organization, an action which could set off an international trade war and financial panic.

He could attempt to renegotiate U.S. participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, reducing our military commitments in Europe if the allies dont spend more on defense.And, because he says the threat of climate change is a hoax, Trump could keep his pledge to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and undo regulations that reduce U.S. carbon emissions.

The problem with all of those unilateral moves is that they could well cause retaliation by other countries  a factor President Trump wont be able to control. His early months will be a test of his ability as a crisis manager.

An optimist might argue that Trump wont govern the way he campaigned, that hell surround himself with seasoned advisers, embrace more traditional positions and satisfy himself with half-measures.

But Trumps record offers little reassurance on that score. When he won his partys nomination, old-guard Republicans predicted he would pivot toward the political center and look more presidential in order to secure an electoral majority. Trump rejected their advice  and hes likely to take Tuesdays result as evidence that he was right.

In short: Its going to be a very rough ride.
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Rotterdam

A Swiss-based manufacturing company on Thursday unveiled a new production line at its Rotterdam plant, marking the first part of a $24 million expansion project.

Von Roll USA, which sells electrical insulation products and makes Teflon for military and law enforcement helmets, first announced the plan in April. The project is receiving a $900,000 credit from Empire State Development and a grant from the New York Power Authority.

The expansion and a new mica insulation line will help it serve global demands, the company said.

Von Roll "further recognizes that our investments were well-timed during a downturn, and now we will be able to better serve the marketplace as market conditions continue to improve," international CEO Christian Hennerkes said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The company also added 600 solar panels at the plant in a push to become "the most modernized plant in the industry." About 6 percent of the plant's energy will come from solar, a company spokesperson said.

Asked Thursday if there was any worry over the possible economic protectionism floated by President-elect Donald Trump, company officials said they don't expect big changes.

"We believe there is a mutual interest in intensive trade," said Ralph Boehlke, global head of sales.

Trump had repeatedly said he'd re-evaluate America's commitments to a variety of international trade deals and treaties that he believes adversely affect jobs domestically.

Hennerkes said he is not worried about any fallout.

"I think good business is an interest for both sides," he said.

rdownen@timesunion.com  518-454-5018  @robert_downen
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An investigation into whether Brad Pitt was abusive toward his son on a private flight in September says the case has been closed with no finding of abuse by the actor, a source familiar with the inquiry said Wednesday.

The source, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Associated Press that the investigation was closed within the past few days.

Multiples sources have said the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services had been looking into allegations Pitt was abusive toward his 15-year-old son on the flight in mid-September. Pitt's wife, Angelina Jolie Pitt, filed for divorce days after the incident, and her attorney said it was "for the health of the family."

A department spokesman said the agency could not confirm it investigated Pitt.

Custody of the actors' six children has been the primary issue in their divorce. Jolie Pitt is seeking sole custody of the children, while Pitt is seeking joint custody.

Pitt has had visitation with his children under terms agreed upon by the former couple. Jolie Pitt's representatives said Monday that an agreement on custody had been reached, although a final agreement will be part of the couple's divorce judgment when it is entered.

A representative for Jolie said the actress is relieved that the inquiry is over and that the custody arrangements in place will allow the children to heal.

A representative for Pitt declined comment.

 Associated Press

Keaton to play villain in Spider-man film

Michael Keaton returns to his superhero roots, now as a villain, in a Spider-man reboot.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige confirmed in an interview with the Toronto Sun that Keaton will play Vulture in "Spider-man: Homecoming." Keaton played the title character in the 1989 version of "Batman" and its 1992 sequel, "Batman Returns."

"Spider-man: Homecoming" will be the first film in the franchise to be produced by Marvel Studios. It stars Tom Holland as the web slinger and is set for release in July.

 Associated Press

Movie producer held in $26M fraud case

A California movie producer was arrested Wednesday on charges that he and an executive in an investment advisory firm siphoned millions of dollars from investors to fund their lifestyles as part of a $26 million fraud.

David Bergstein, 54, was arrested in Hidden Hills, California, and faced an initial court hearing in Los Angeles. Bergstein produced the 2004 romantic comedy "Laws of Attraction," with Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore His attorneys haven't returned a message seeking comment.

Prosecutors said Bergstein and co-defendant Keith Wellner, 49, of Manhattan, cheated investors at advisory firm Weston Capital Asset Management in 2011 and 2012 by misappropriating investor money and then lying about it.

Wellner, the former chief counsel and chief operating officer of Weston, was arrested Wednesday in Manhattan. His attorney declined to comment.

New York FBI office head William F. Sweeney Jr. said the men used several million dollars in investor money to fund their lifestyles.

Prosecutors said the men repeatedly made false representations to investors, including by giving a false and misleading investor presentation.

 Associated Press

Comedian acquitted of abuse of power

A veteran standup comedian accused of abusing his power as mayor of a small Ohio city has been acquitted of all counts.

A Highland County jury on Wednesday found Hillsboro Mayor Drew Hastings not guilty of a charge of election falsification concerning his residency and of a charge stemming from alleged misuse of city trash bins.

Judge Patricia Ann Cosgrove earlier threw out the two other felony counts he faced.

The Times-Gazette reports a special prosecutor from Ohio's auditor's office told jurors Tuesday that Hastings "thought the laws didn't apply to him."

A defense attorney says Hastings' political enemies were behind an investigation that began soon after the Republican's re-election last November.

 Associated Press
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New York

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday labored through a wrenching concession speech she never expected to deliver, wishing Donald Trump success as president but holding firm to the message and ideals that were central to her historic bid.

Appearing at times on the verge of tears, but never breaking, Clinton told staff members and supporters that while she shared in their anguish, the moment demanded a call for national healing.

"This is painful, and it will be for a long time," she said at a hotel ballroom in Midtown Manhattan, her voice seeming to crack briefly. "But I want you to remember this: Our campaign was never about one person or even one election. It was about the country we love and about building an America that's hopeful, inclusive and big-hearted."

The country, she said, "is more deeply divided than we thought." But she said the result of the election must be accepted. "Donald Trump is going to be our president," she said. "We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. And we don't just respect that, we cherish it."

Yet as friends and aides strained to console one another, wiping away tears, Clinton set off on an implicit repudiation of the kind of caustic, grievance-filled politics that powered Trump's success.

She spoke of lifting up immigrants and people of all races, Americans with disabilities and those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. And she took particular care to address young people, reminding them that her long career had been filled with successes and setbacks in full measure.

"You will have successes and setbacks, too," she said. "This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what's right is worth it."

"It is," Clinton said emphatically, as the cheers built. "It is worth it."

She took stock of her place as a role model for women, saying that "nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion." And she turned specifically to "the little girls who are watching this," after a campaign in which Trump's history of disparaging comments about women  and accusations of sexual assault  assumed center stage.

"Never doubt," she said, "that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams."

Clinton's husband, daughter and running mate stood on stage beside her, clapping throughout. At times, Bill Clinton stared into the distance, expressionless.

The remarks on Wednesday came hours after an early-morning conversation for which Hillary Clinton and her team had been entirely unprepared: a phone call from her to Trump, conceding the presidential race.

Hillary Clinton never made it to her election night party on Tuesday, where she had planned to hail the shattering of a figurative "glass ceiling"  the election of a woman as president  beneath the grand, literal glass ceilings of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Manhattan's West Side.

Just before her concession call, Clinton's campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, had vowed to supporters that the fight would go on, pledging to persist until every vote was counted.

But after weeks in which Trump, facing a steep deficit in many polls, cast doubt on the integrity of the electoral system  refusing to say whether he would accept the results  it fell instead to Clinton to acknowledge her grim fate once the ballots were cast.

Clinton has known crushing defeat before. In 2008, after a bruising Democratic primary contest against Barack Obama, Clinton threw her support behind her rival, while cheering her supporters for working to crack "that highest, hardest glass ceiling."

On Wednesday, the stakes, and the mood, were different. After a race that often felt, to supporters, like a referendum on the progress of American women  pitting an experienced woman against a brash man who has never served in government  the scene seemed almost unbearable for the aides and friends gathered to hear her speak.

Top advisers like Podesta, Robby Mook and Jennifer Palmieri sat quietly before she arrived onstage, as the familiar music from Clinton's campaign rallies discordantly filled the hall. Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York buried his face in his hands, rubbing his forehead.

The team cheered Huma Abedin, one of Clinton's closest aides, as she took her seat in the crowd, and rose when her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, reached the stage to introduce Clinton. He thanked her effusively, hailing her achievement as the first female nominee and telling the crowd she had "won the popular vote of Americans."

Clinton did not raise this point in her own address. But she did return to a favorite metaphor.

"I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling," she said, "but someday, someone will, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now."

As Democrats begin pointing fingers  wondering how her team of operatives, who had all but assured themselves she would win, could have misread the electorate so thoroughly  Clinton appeared keen to insulate members of her staff, praising their efforts and dedication.

"You were the best campaign anybody could have expected or wanted," she said.

As she wrapped up, Clinton borrowed from Scripture ("Let us not grow weary in doing good," she said) and revived her campaign slogan of American harmony.

"I believe we are stronger together, and we will go forward together," she said. "And you should never, ever regret fighting for that."

Moments later, Clinton moved away from the microphone, turning to embrace loved ones.

She reached a small set of stairs and, with a fixed smile, stepped off the stage.
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Washington

Elated congressional Republicans pledged swift action Wednesday on President-elect Donald Trump's agenda as they heralded an extraordinary new era of unified GOP control in Washington.

"He just earned a mandate," House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin declared of Trump. "We are going to hit the ground running."

Said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky: "We would like to see the country go in a different direction and intend to work with him to change the course for America."

Republicans saw their majorities in the House and Senate reduced, but not by much, as Democrats' hopes of retaking Senate control vanished. And though Ryan and McConnell both had well-publicized reservations about Trump, both were quick to declare that the newly elected president deserved the credit.

"Donald Trump pulled off an amazing political feat. He deserves tremendous credit for that," said Ryan, who initially refused to endorse Trump and only last month declared he'd no longer defend him. "It helped us keep our majorities, but it also showed the country that people don't like the direction we were going."

First up would be repealing President Barack Obama's health care law, something Republicans have already shown they can get through Congress with just a narrow Senate majority. What they haven't done is unite around a plan for ensuring that the 20 million who achieved health care coverage under the landmark law don't lose it.

Republicans also celebrated the opportunity to fill the existing Supreme Court vacancy, and potentially more to come, with "constitutional conservatives." McConnell was being widely praised for his strategy, once seen as risky, of refusing to act on Obama's nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last February.

And Republicans pledged to try to unwind any number of executive moves by Obama, including tougher clean air rules on power plants, looser restrictions on travel to Cuba, and tougher rules on sleep for long-haul truckers, among others  "Every single one that's sucking the very life out of our economy," GOP Sen. David Perdue of Georgia said.

That threatened to wipe away key areas of progress highlighted by Democrats under the Obama administration.

Some of Trump's goals could be harder to achieve. A wall on the southern border is estimated to cost $10 billion to $20 billion, money that Congress may be unlikely to provide given that cooperation from Democrats would be necessary.

Indeed the Senate Democratic minority stood as the only legislative barrier to Trump's goals, since 60 votes are required for most consequential moves in the Senate.

Republicans were poised to end up with 52 Senate seats after Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., conceded to Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan in their close race. That assumes the GOP wins a December runoff in Louisiana, as expected. Democrats managed to pick up only one other GOP-held Senate seat, in Illinois, a devastating outcome for a party that went into Election Day with high hopes of holding the White House and winning back Senate control.

In the House, Republicans were on track to lose a maximum of nine seats, an unexpectedly modest reduction to a wide GOP majority that now stands at 247-188, including three vacant seats.
Vienna

The United Nations agency monitoring the nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers said Wednesday that Iran is in violation of the deal meant to curb its ability to make atomic arms by storing marginally more heavy water than the agreement allows.

Heavy water is a concern because it is used to cool reactors that can produce substantial amounts of plutonium. That can be applied to making the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency said in a confidential report obtained by The Associated Press that Iran had exceeded the heavy water allotment of 130 metric tons only slightly  by 220 pounds. The report also noted that Iran had served notice it would resolve the issue by exporting five metric tons.

Wednesday's report said the agency verified the overhang on Tuesday, just days after IAEA chief Yukiya Amano "expressed concerns" to top Iranian officials.

A senior diplomat familiar with the issue said the Iranians had told the IAEA that the shipment would be leaving their country within the next few days. The diplomat requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record about Iran's nuclear program.

Still, with both sides closely watching for violations, the breach was sensitive even beyond the technical uses of heavy water, especially since it was the second such breach since implementation of the deal curbing Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

In February, a month after the deal went into effect, the agency noted for the first time that Iran had exceeded its allotted limit of heavy water.

The amount was greater in that case and some of the excess was exported to the United States under an arrangement criticized by U.S. congressional opponents as facilitating Iranian violations of the deal.
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Washington

The true test now begins for Donald Trump.

The Republican president-elect paid little attention to transition planning leading up to his stunning victory. With 72 days before he takes control of the executive branch, Trump and his senior team on Wednesday immediately began the herculean task of picking a Cabinet and tapping hundreds of appointees to senior roles in key departments  State, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Treasury among them  many requiring multiple security reviews or Senate confirmation.

"They have a long way to go," said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, an outside group that was working with both campaigns on transition planning since the summer. "It's imperative to have the right people brought in fast and they're prepared."

Stier described the transition as "a point of maximum vulnerability" for the nation.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as President Barack Obama  one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies.

Trump's senior team huddled privately to being a more focused period of transition planning. The group included the transition chairman, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and daughter Ivanka Trump's husband, Jared Kushner, among others.

The team is putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts, according to people familiar with the conversations but not authorized to discuss them publicly.

"It's something that's got to be pretty close held until the president-elect is ready to begin to announce appointments," said Bill Hagerty, Trump's director of presidential appointments, who declined to offer any details on a timeline for Trump's first personnel moves. A chief of staff is traditionally appointed in the initial weeks after an election.

A small transition team has been meeting since early August to discuss legislative priorities and plans for taking over agencies. While Christie provided Trump with weekly updates, until now, the campaign and transition operations functioned as relatively distinct entities and in different cities  Trump's campaign in New York and the transition team in Washington.

An organizational chart for the transition team obtained by The Associated Press confirms that some familiar names are playing senior roles in the formation of a Trump administration.

National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Joseph "Keith" Kellogg, a retired Army lieutenant general, was heading defense planning. For domestic issues, the Trump transition team was relying on the leadership of Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump's inner circle is famously small, defined by loyalty to the president-elect and largely devoid of establishment leaders.

Trump offered a roadmap for prospective administration figures while on stage during his victory speech early Wednesday.

The president-elect praised Christie, who joined Trump on stage as he declared victory, despite Christie's abysmal poll numbers at home and continued scrutiny for the so-called Bridgegate scandal.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani emerged as one of Trump's closest advisers and regular traveling partners in the campaign's final stretch. The former federal prosecutor is a possible fit for a post like attorney general or national security adviser.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions was the first major Capitol Hill lawmaker to back Trump. His hard-line immigration views became a centerpiece of the insurgent campaign. Sessions' chief of staff, Rick Dearborn, has also emerged as a key figure in transition planning.

While many Republican national security leaders shunned Trump, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was the Republican nominee's most experienced national security voice. Flynn accompanied Trump when he received his first classified intelligence briefing.

Steven Mnuchin, a Goldman Sachs veteran and CEO of a private investment firm, served as Trump's finance chairman and instantly becomes a contender for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich could emerge as a possible secretary of state.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who was considered for Trump's running mate and chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, may also be in line for a job.

Priebus latched himself to Trump once he became the nominee and became a key voice in Trump's inner circle.
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Things operate by a different code at Allen Street Pub, just around the corner from St. Peters' Hospital in Albany. Guidons  flags used to identify military units  hang on the wall alongside varied photos of soldiers in fatigues and dress uniforms. Chatter uses a jargon based on acronyms that seems like it might require Enigma-style code breaking to decipher.

For the many military personnel who call Allen Street Pub "their bar," these reminders of uniformed life are as natural as the common alphabet. Owned by two National Guard members, Allen Street Pub is part craft-beer dive bar, part off-duty barracks that serves as a cherished third place for military personnel to both congregate and mingle with civilians.

"We always talked about how fun it would be to have a private social club outside of the American Legion or VFW for military folks," says Paul Engel, a captain in the New York Army National Guard. Engel owns the bar with a National Guard colleague. "We had some money left over from deployments in Iraq," says Engel, who spent 13 months in Iraq. When Tom McCaffery was looking to sell his namesake bar, the men jumped at the chance.

Renaming it Allen Street Pub (situated at 332 Allen St.), Engel helps carry on the storied history of the building. During Prohibition, the space was Al's Stationery Shop; a speakeasy occupied the rear of the building. It became a bar in 1933, making it one of the longest continuously operated watering holes in the Capital Region.

The bar soon developed a reputation as a military-friendly space that offered a chance to connect with like-minded others. "They know it's an Army-owned bar," says Engel, and remains a go-to stop for National Guard soldiers during drill and training weekends.

When beloved beer hall Mahar's closed its Madison Avenue doors in 2013, Engel saw it as an opportunity to bring new patrons into the space while engaging his interest in beer culture. The famous "World Tour of Beer" program that Mahar's was known for is now housed at Allen Street Pub, and Engel seeks out an international array of traditional cask-style beers and other esoteric offerings for beer enthusiasts.

"We were always happy with cheap whiskey and PBR, but we've kind of turned into a beer spot," he says.

The bar offers as a low-pressure means for service personnel to connect in a time when post-tour trauma and stress is increasingly on the forefront of national conversation. Numbers from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs indicated that 20 percent of Iraq War veterans and 11 percent of veterans of the war in Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Meanwhile, veterans groups like the American Legion have steadily lost membership. The 1990s saw membership hovering around 3.1 million, but today it is down by nearly 1 million, the Legion says. The atmosphere of VFW and Legion posts is not conducive to the needs of younger veterans, says Engel, and a spot like Allen Street Pub serves as the go-between for transitions of civilian and military lifestyles.

Allen Street Pub offers an open bar for military personnel on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, with the caveat that military members will march in Albany's Veterans Day parade with the local Sheehy-Palmer VFW Post No. 6776.

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"We all head down to the parade around 10 a.m., and some will come back to the bar," says Engel. Last year, he estimates about 30 military members started celebrating at Allen Street Pub, then marched in the parade.

Cheap whiskey can still be had there, but more and more customers come in for hard-to-find beers like Coniston Bluebird Bitter or popular craft brews from Common Roots, Jack's Abby, Perennial Artisan Ales, Grimm and Lawson's Finest Liquids, but the clubby vibe hasn't been buffered out of the decades-old joint.

"It feels more like someone's living room," says Engel. "The uniqueness and neighborhood grittiness has the same appeal for military people as others."

Deanna Fox is a freelance food and agriculture writer. More at www.foxonfood.com or @DeannaNFox.
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For those of you who haven't been to a yoga class before, the concept can be daunting. What if your flexibility is so minimal that you can't touch your toes let alone think about getting into downward facing dog?

Regardless of what level yogi you are  timid first-timer or balanced expert  there's classes floating around the Capital Region that can help, and in this case help means provide you with alcohol.

You're probably wondering what genius thought to combine a centuries-old Indian practice meant to relax the body with a drink we like to think relaxes the mind. A local yoga instructor who offers a class with a side of booze says she got the idea from out west.

"It's a West Coast thing. I traveled a lot and happened to pick it up there," said Robyn Filkins, a private yoga instructor who teaches classes for all levels.

Since last February, Filkins has taught a class called Yoga + Brews, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Whether it's at Brown's in Troy, Nanola in Malta or Parish Public House in Albany, Filkins has been giving people the chance to bring their yoga mats into bars.

Classes cost $14 per person, and that includes the cost of any one beer the bar has on tap. That same beer can be consumed before, during or after the class.

"It's a lot of fun. It gets you outside of the normal realm of yoga," she said. "Some people are intimidated to get into yoga and this makes it a relaxed environment. Your nerves are down, and it's more fun."

While Filkins has held one class per month in the past, November will be a bit different. With classes planned for both the Parish Public House on Saturday and the Savoy Taproom a week later, people will have multiple opportunities to partake in Yoga + Brews.

For more information, or to sign up for a class, visit https://www.facebook.com/RobynsYoga/ or contact Filkins at robyn.filkins@gmail.com. Spots are limited, and the Savoy Taproom class comes with a complimentary yoga mat beer cozy, so don't wait if you're interested.

Not a beer drinker? No problem. The Balance Loft in Troy has your back.

When the Troy-based studio's Saturday morning classes began to sell out, owner Kelly Kendall wasted no time in brainstorming new ideas, and what she came up with is working.

With inspiration from a few TED Talks, and a goal of fostering socialization, Bloody Mary Barre was born. The class will not only help tone your core with a challenging workout, but you get a drink afterward.

"People love it because they bring their friends," Kendall said. "You get the drink here, I make (from-)scratch bloody Marys and serve them after class, so everyone hangs out in the lobby. It's building a community."

But be warned, the class isn't easy, and it's certainly not just for women.

"It's not easy," Kendall said. "The barre class is mostly women, (but) I have a couple guys that come, and they have seen their bodies change. I think guys associate it and think it's a girly workout, but by no means is it."

Workout aside, Kendall likes to think of the Bloody Mary Barre class as a community, and has even considered expanding to a Friday happy hour class because of its popularity.

"The people that come to my classes are really nice, friendly, social people," she said. "The culture of the studio is very supportive, and people help each other, and they introduce each other and love hanging out after the class."

Spots for the class, which is held every Sunday at 11 a.m., can be reserved online at balanceloft.com for $16 a session. The price includes both the class and one drink, and sometimes a 10 percent discount on brunch.

"I worked with a couple restaurants here in town to get people a 10 percent discount after they come to town on their brunch, so I tried to turn it into an event," Kendall said.

But Kendall isn't the only one in the area promoting brunch after a morning workout.

In Albany, people can have yoga and brunch at Lark + Lily Wine Bar and Kitchen. The owner of the wine bar, Silvia Lilly, recently collaborated with JAI Albany instructor Jammella Anderson to create Yoga Brunch, a yoga class that comes with a continental breakfast.

While the breakfast is held at Lark + Lily, the class itself is not. Participants can expect to take the class at a local studio or outside if the weather is nice enough.

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"I wanted to host the event because we are a neighborhood spot, and I wanted to share our space, a healthy activity, and a meal with people who appreciate all of the above," Lilly said.

Although a glass of wine is not included in the $30 fee for the class and meal, that doesn't mean it's off limits.

"We had about a dozen people at our first class," Lilly said. "Some enjoyed a glass of wine with brunch. I don't think we'll include it in the price, but it certainly is available."

The next yoga brunch will be held in the spring when the class can be outdoors, but details will be available on the wine bar's Facebook page if anything changes. You can also email thelarkandlily@gmail.com for more information.

If you still aren't sold on the yoga thing there's another option: Happy Hour Zumba.

Held every Wednesday at the Newberry Music Hall in Saratoga Springs, the class is taught by Lizette Orozco, who has been doing Zumba for six years. Although a drink is not included in the $10 price, there's a cash bar on site.

The happy hour starts at 5:30 p.m. and the class follows a half hour later, but Orozco allows people to continue to consume their drinks during the class.

"When you do Zumba, people tend to have a drink of water and, well, this is a drink of alcohol," she said.

For more information about the class, Orozco can be contacted at justzumba@yahoo.com, or just drop in. But make sure to bring your dancing shoes.

"What we are trying to do is give people a break during the week to do something fun and healthy," Orozco said. "It's just a happy hour class, and you can interpret it as you can drink or you can just be happy dancing  it's up to you."
Many stories and guest columns we have published about key factors in economic development in North Iowa stress the importance of a good transportation system  highway, rail and airport.

Goods produced in our area must be shipped quickly and efficiently. Business people need to reach key destinations quickly. Vacationers love having travel options.

The Mason City Municipal Airport is part of that equation, providing easy, fast access to airline travel. Now were glad to see the interest in serving Mason City by multiple airlines.

Mason City was left hanging when Great Lakes Airlines, which had provided service to Minneapolis, ceased operations here in 2014, claiming it couldnt find pilots.

To the rescue came Air Choice One, a St. Louis-based company that operates small, comfortable jets. It provided service to Chicago and St. Louis, and more recently announced Minneapolis flights.

However, its contract runs out in February and, as part of the federal Essential Air Service program, Mason City service is open to proposals from any company.

Air Choice One has applied to continue service to North Iowa. Joining it in making proposals are Aerodynamics Inc. of Georgia and Boutique Airlines of San Francisco, offering service to Minneapolis.

Aerodynamics would provide a 50-passenger jet for flights to Minneapolis with five options, with some service to Fort Dodge. (Air Choice One recently announced Minneapolis service for Fort Dodge, as well, a move greeted there with great enthusiasm.)

Boutique Airlines offers service with planes similar to Air Choice One.

Now comes the decision-making process. The Mason City Airport Commission will consider all proposals and must make a recommendation to the federal Department of Transportation by Nov. 21. The DOT makes the final decision, approving a two-year contract to the winning airline.

We admit, we were a little concerned when air service to Minneapolis ended with the stopping of operations by Great Lakes Airlines. For years, business people and vacationers alike had grown accustomed to hopping on a plane here and in a matter of a couple of hours being on their way from Minneapolis to points around the country and the world.

Air Choice Ones service to Chicago eased that situation, but it was still a longer flight.

Now, whatever airline is chosen, service to Minneapolis is guaranteed, and we consider that important.

Mason City has a fine airport that serves all of North Iowa with the convenience of quick check-in and free parking. Continuation of quality air service will remain a plus for business, industry and recreational travel  for North Iowans and others realizing the benefits of using a smaller airport.
The fragility and preciousness of the spirit, the odds that are stacked against sensitivity, the distortions that can be inflicted on the soul  these are familiar subjects and sources of passion in literature and film. In "Moonlight," the story of a young man who grows up in a terrible place, they find fresh and renewed expression.

This is the second film from writer-director Barry Jenkins, and it's time to get excited. Jenkins' first film, "Medicine for Melancholy," about a man and a woman in the 24 hours following a one-night stand, showed a rare ability to convey a directorial consciousness through external means. There was a feeling of suppressed romanticism, a sense of life and possibility alive in the world that the characters were missing.

"Moonlight" is in most ways a completely different film. It tells a sprawling story from America's depths, and it deals with a young man who comes to understand that he's gay. The sexuality, like every other aspect of soul or hint of gentleness in his life, is under a rock, suffocated by the environment. There's no hint of hope here except in the filmmaking itself, which is restless and energetic and, in that way, exudes a kind of belief. It's saying, "This is worth it. This is important."

''Moonlight" comes at you in three distinct waves and is very much a full meal. It has a comparatively modest running time of 110 minutes, but the movie feels more as though it were three hours long, and for once that's a good thing. It takes audiences to a new place and renders it in such detail that there's the sense of having traveled somewhere. Jenkins gives you so much to take in that he slows down time.

More Information **** Review "Moonlight" Rated: R Running time: 110 minutes **** Excellent *** Good ** Fair * Poor See More Collapse

In the first installment, we meet Chiron as a child (Alex R. Hibbert). We encounter him first in an empty crack den and have no idea why he's there. Only later, thinking about it, does the answer come. He was probably looking for his mother. Fortunately, Chiron is rescued and befriended by an appealing and powerful man, Juan (Mahershala Ali), who works in the city but has a beautiful home in the suburbs. But like everything else in Chiron's world, Juan is compromised. He's a crack dealer.

Crack is inescapable. Naomie Harris, who plays Chiron's crack-addicted mother, offers us the terrifying spectacle of a small-scale monster, someone worse for not being entirely evil and thus not dismissable. Chiron comes home from school each day to a mother who is domineering, charming, selfish, sometimes maudlin and affectionate, then suddenly brow-beating or enraged. She's altogether too much for a sensitive 9-year-old child to contend with, and he's a captive audience, forced to witness her pathetic drama at every stage.

In one scene, Jenkins films the mother yelling at her son with the words completely submerged under the soundtrack. It's a silent film effect, and the sense it conveys is of something ongoing and mythic, a condition of life more than a specific circumstance. It doesn't matter what she's saying, because everything she says is nonsense. What matters is that she's saying it, that she is daily doing damage over the course of years.

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These little touches, these unexpected and innovative uses of the camera or the soundtrack, never seem intended to impress. Rather they seem instinctive, the result of Jenkins' intuitive understanding of some extra thing each moment can express.

At one point, we see the high school bully in a long shot that follows him, from the waist up, as he quickly walks through the schoolyard and the cafeteria. It's the kind of shot you'd see of a lion in a nature documentary, the exuberant search for prey. And, of course, this brings an unsettling feeling, because "Moonlight" is not the story of the lion. It's the story of the zebra.

The two other waves of "Moonlight" show Chiron as a high school student and as a young adult. The young man's transformations are best discovered in the experience, but one thing is worth noting and looking for in advance. The high school Chiron (Ashton Sanders) and the adult Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) look nothing alike. That might have been a problem in another movie, but here it's a virtue that underscores the extent of the spiritual transformation. It emphasizes how vulnerable children are to outside influence, and it also forces us to look at the adult Chiron through searching eyes. We look for traces of Ashton Sanders in Trevante Rhodes, as though they were the same actor. And then, through a semi-miracle, we end up finding Sanders in Rhodes' eyes.

''Moonlight" is based on a story by Tarell McCraney, based on his own experience of growing up gay in a tough Florida neighborhood. Jenkins adapted the story, injecting some of his own experience of growing up with a drug-addicted mother. The meld is seamless. Every year, we get only a few of these, movies that come out of nowhere, that are different, unexpected and wonderfully right. "Moonlight" is that kind of movie, one of the gems of 2016.
[November 10, 2016] Carnival Corporation CEO Arnold Donald to Make Opening CES Keynote

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) today announced that Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corp., will be the opening keynoter at CES (News - Alert) 2017. Owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association, CES 2017 will run Jan. 5-8, 2017 in Las Vegas, NV. Donald will deliver his keynote at 8:30 AM Thursday, January 5 at the Palazzo Ballroom in The Venetian where he will unveil a new and innovative "Connected Experience" that uses IoT to raise the vacation bar. This first-of-its kind technology will create an entirely new guest experience level based on personalization and simplicity at scale. Nearly eleven million travelers cruise annually with Carnival Corp.'s ten global cruise line brands. "We are thrilled to embark on this voyage with Carnival Corp. as we welcome Arnold Donald to the CES stage," said Gary Shapiro (News - Alert), president and CEO, Consumer Technology Association. "Carnival Corp.'s visibility at CES reflects our focus on groundbreaking innovation and underscores that technology no longer has strict, defined boundaries. It disrupts traditional business sectors and empowers consumers in ways never before imagined. A recent CTA study found that consumers overwhelmingly use technology to enhance their travel experiences. Mr. Donald's address will demonstrate how Carnival Corp. and its cruise line brands, in turn, is using innovative tech to provide a more personalized and enhanced experience for its consumers." Since becoming president and CEO of Carnival Corp. in July 2013, Donald has overseen the company's latest innovation strategies centered on enhancing the guest experience and leveraging the enterprise scale. He also has directed the recent launch of three original content travel-related programs on national TV networks all while running the world's largest cruise company with a portfolio of 10 cruise brands in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. The company's cruise line brands include Carnival Cruise Line, Fathom, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and Seabourn in the U.S., AIDA Cruises in Germany, Costa Cruises in Italy, Cunard Line and P&O Cruises (UK) in England, and P&O Cruises (Australia) in Australia. Together, the company's brands operate 101 ships that visit over 700 ports around the world. Carnival Corp. will have an invitation-only Experience Center at CES Tech East, LVCC, South Hall 3 that will offer an in-depth look into its new technology. For more information and to register for CES 2017, visit CES.tech. Note to Editors: The official name of the global technology event is "CES." Please do not use "Consumer Electronics Show" or "International CES" to refer to the event. About CES: CES is the world's gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. It has served as the proving ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies for 50 years-the global stage where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace. As the largest hands-on event of its kind, CES features all aspects of the industry. Owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)TM, it attracts the world's business leaders and pioneering thinkers. Check out CES video highlights. Follow CES online at CES.tech and on social.



About Consumer Technology Association: Consumer Technology Association (CTA)TM, is the trade association representing the $287 billion U.S. consumer technology industry. More than 2,200 companies - 80 percent are small businesses and startups; others are among the world's best known brands - enjoy the benefits of CTA membership including policy advocacy, market research, technical education, industry promotion, standards development and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. The Consumer Technology Association also owns and produces CES - the world's gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. Profits from CES are reinvested into CTA's industry services.

About Carnival Corporation & plc Carnival Corporation & plc is the largest leisure travel company in the world, with a portfolio of 10 cruise brands in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia comprised of Carnival Cruise Line, Fathom, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Seabourn, AIDA Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cunard, P&O Cruises (Australia) and P&O Cruises (UK). Together, these brands operate 101 ships visiting over 700 ports around the world and totaling 225,000 lower berths with 18 new ships scheduled to be delivered between 2016 and 2022. Carnival Corporation & plc also operates Holland America Princess Alaska Tours, the leading tour companies in Alaska and the Canadian Yukon. Traded on both the New York and London Stock Exchanges, Carnival Corporation & plc is the only group in the world to be included in both the S&P500 and the FTSE 100 indices. Additional information can be found on www.carnival.com, www.hollandamerica.com,www.seabourn.com, www.aida.de, www.costacruise.com,www.cunard.com,www.pocruises.com.au, www.pocruises.com and www.fathom.org. UPCOMING EVENTS CES Unveiled Las Vegas

January 3, Las Vegas, NV CES 2017 - Register

January 5-8, Las Vegas, NV CES Asia 2017

June 7-9, Shanghai, China View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005310/en/

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[November 09, 2016] Evolent Health Partners with Banner Health Network to Enhance Care Delivery in Arizona

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Evolent Health (NYSE: EVH), a company providing an integrated value-based care platform to the nation's leading health systems and physician organizations, announced today its long-term partnership with Banner Health Network (BHN). Under the partnership, Evolent will work with BHN's leadership and physician teams to provide software tools and data resources to help physicians better understand the health and risk of their Medicare Advantage patient panels in an effort to improve health and achieve clinical and financial quality targets. "This partnership will help us provide additional tracking tools and administrative resources to the physicians within Banner Health Network that serve Medicare Advantage populations, supporting the quality of care their patients receive," said Lisa Stevens Anderson, CEO, Banner Health Network. BHN Chief Medical Officer Dr. Robert Groves commented, "We look forward to the opportunity to integrate Evolent's tools into our Medicare Advantage provider practices. They will allow us to recognize and define health risks and drive population health while lowering costs and improving the care experience for patients and providers alike." Evolent and BHN will also implement Identifi?, Evolent's value-based care performance management platform, to enable providers across the state to access and share data for improved care coordination. Identifi is designed to complement electronic medical record (EMR) technology to identify at-risk patients and opportunities for intervention. In partnership with Advisory Board, Evolent will also provide BH with point-of-care workflow integration and support for day-to-day operations including education, coding and filing.



"By collaborating with our partners at Advisory Board, Evolent and Banner Health Network will look to accelerate the pace of change and rate of adoption for value-based care programs and tools in Arizona," said Evolent Health CEO Frank Williams. "We are excited to formalize this partnership with Banner Health with the objective of delivering higher quality, lower cost care for patients across Arizona." Evolent Health West Regional Market President Claire Shoen commented, "We admire Banner Health Network's proactive approach to care innovation and care delivery. The teams at both BHN and Evolent are truly aligned in the mutual goal of emphasizing prevention and minimizing illness whenever possible."

About Evolent Health

Evolent Health partners with leading health systems to drive value-based care transformation. By providing clinical, analytical and financial capabilities, Evolent helps physicians and health systems achieve superior quality and cost results. Evolent's approach breaks down barriers, aligns incentives and powers a new model of care delivery resulting in meaningful alignment between providers, payers, physicians and patients. For more information, visit www.evolenthealth.com. About Banner Health Network

Banner Health Network (BHN) is an accountable care organization that joins Arizona's largest health care provider, Banner Health, and an extensive network of primary care and specialty physicians to provide Arizona's most comprehensive health care solutions. BHN works collaboratively with payers and employers to keep members in optimal health, while reducing costs. Quality health care can be affordable with a design that engages the provider, patient, employer and payer in seeking the best care and health outcomes. BHN is comprised of more than 4,000 Banner Health-affiliated providers, 15 Banner Health hospitals, and a wide variety of other clinical services. To learn more, go to BannerHealthNetwork.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150723/240961LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/evolent-health-partners-with-banner-health-network-to-enhance-care-delivery-in-arizona-300359978.html SOURCE Evolent Health, Inc.

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Mitsubishi Electric Settles IPR Lawsuit with Belgian Hand Dryer Company

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (TOKYO:6503) announced today that it reached a settlement with Go All Sprl on October 27 in the commercial court of Brussels, Belgium. The lawsuit, filed on September 23, claimed infringement of Mitsubishi Electric's (News - Alert) intellectual property right (IPR) by certain Go All hand dryers sold in Europe (Eco Dryer 4 All White, EOLE, etc.), based on EU's Registered Community Design No. 001811746-0001, which protects the appearance of hand dryers.

In the settlement, Go All entirely admits that some of its hand dryers use Mitsubishi Electric's intellectual property, and agrees to destroy the infringing produts and discontinue their sale in Europe.







Mitsubishi Electric has also filed IPR infringement lawsuits in China against Taizhou Dihour Electrical Appliances Co., Ltd., a hand dryer manufacturer, and its sales subsidiary, Shanghai Jiecheng Electrical Appliances Co.,Ltd., demanding that they stop manufacturing and selling their infringing hand dryers.

Mitsubishi Electric became the world's first company to develop and sell a new type of hand dryer that blows jets of air on both sides of the hand, pushing the water off rather than evaporating it when it introduced its Jet Towel model in 1993.

Jet Towel is a registered trademark of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation.

For the full text, please visit: http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news

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Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP Commences Investigation on Behalf of Centene Corp. Investors

Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP ("GPM") announces an investigation on behalf of Centene Corp. ("Centene" or the "Company") (NYSE: CNC) investors concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of federal securities laws.

On November 8, 2016 Centene announced that its Executive Vice President of Markets, K. Rone Baldwin, will be resigning.

On this ews, shares of Centene fell as much as 25% during intra-day trading on November 9, 2016.







If you purchased Centene securities, have information or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Lesley Portnoy, Esquire, of GPM, 1925 Century Park East, Suite 2100, Los Angeles, California 90067 at 310-201-9150, Toll-Free at 888-773-9224, by email to [email protected], or visit our website at http://www.glancylaw.com. If you inquire by email please include your mailing address, telephone number and number of shares purchased.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161109006388/en/
[November 09, 2016]

Experience Infortrend's New Cloud-Integrated Storage Solutions "EonStor GS" at Cloud Expo Europe Frankfurt

BASINGSTOKE, England, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Infortrend Technology, Inc. (TWSE: 2495) today announced it will showcase its new cloud-integrated unified storage solution -- the EonStor GS Family at the upcoming Cloud Expo Europe Frankfurt, taking place from 23rd -24th November, 2016 at Messe Frankfurt. Visitors to Infortrend's booth #575 will be able to get expert advice on how users can benefit from the powerful unified storage and the built-in cloud storage gateway services.

The EonStor GS integrates file, block, object and cloud storage gateway services into a compact and comprehensive unified storage system. It provides users with excellent performance and data services, flexibility with All-Flash or Hybrid Flash configurations, and availability with dual controllers plus intelligent drive recovery (IDR). By integrating with leading third party cloud storage providers including AWSS3, Azure and Google Cloud Platform, the EonStor GS enables capacity expansion, D2D2C/D2C backup and disaster recovery.







"We're pleased to introduce the EonStor GS Family, a cloud-integrated unified storage that packs power, flexibility, simplicity and multiple cloud features in one system," commented Teddy Lin, General Manager of Infortrend Europe.

Register here for a free ticket to the event and click here to schedule an exclusive one-on-one meeting at the show.

About Infortrend

Infortrend (TWSE: 2495) has been developing and manufacturing storage solutions since 1993. With a strong emphasis on in-house design, testing, and manufacturing, Infortrend storage delivers performance and scalability with the latest standards, user friendly data services, personal after-sales support, and unrivaled value. For more Information, please visit www.infortrend.com

Infortrend and EonStor are trademarks or registered trademarks of Infortrend Technology, Inc., other trademarks property of their respective owners.

Media Contact:

Infortrend Europe Ltd.

Agnieszka Wesolowska

Tel: +44-1256-305-220

E-mail: [email protected]








[November 09, 2016] The Public Safety LTE & Mobile Broadband Market: 2016 - 2030 - Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts

LONDON, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Due to the bandwidth limitations of their traditional voice-centric LMR (Land Mobile Radio) networks, public safety agencies are keen to leverage commercial cellular network technology to support their growing broadband application needs. Considering its thriving ecosystem, spectrum flexibility and performance metrics, LTE has emerged as the leading candidate for public safety mobile broadband networks. In addition, with the recent approval of the MCPTT (Mission Critical Push to Talk) voice standard as part of 3GPP Release 13, LTE has also become an attractive substitute for providing LMR-like voice services.



The Qatar Ministry of Interior made headlines when it deployed a private 800 MHz LTE network in 2012. Since then, numerous public safety LTE networks have sprung up across the globe, including the UAE, China, Laos, Turkey and Kenya. Several early adopter LTE deployments are also operational in the United States, as part of the planned FirstNet nationwide public safety broadband network. While most initial public safety LTE investments are limited to small-scale networks, nationwide rollouts in the United States and South Korea are expected to trigger significant large-scale investments throughout the globe.



The European market is largely dominated by MVNO arrangements, such as the UK Home Office's ESN (Emergency Services Network) program that will use EE's commercial LTE network to deliver prioritized mission critical voice and data services for the UK's public safety agencies. As part of the program, EE is enhancing its existing network with additional sites, satellite backhaul and a dedicated mobile core for first responders, among other investments.



Driven by the thriving ecosystem, SNS Research estimates that annual investments on public safety LTE infrastructure will reach $600 Million by the end of 2016. The market, which includes base stations (eNBs), mobile core and transport networking gear, is further expected to grow at a CAGR of 33% over the next four years. By 2020, these infrastructure investments will be complemented by over 4.4 Million LTE device shipments, including smartphones, rugged handheld terminals and vehicular routers.



The "Public Safety LTE & Mobile Broadband Market: 2016  2030  Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts" report presents an in-depth assessment of the global public safety LTE market, besides touching upon the wider LMR and mobile broadband industries. In addition to covering the business case, challenges, technology, spectrum allocation, industry roadmap, value chain, deployment case studies, vendor products, strategies, standardization initiatives and applications ecosystem for public safety LTE, the report also presents comprehensive forecasts for mobile broadband, LMR and public safety LTE subscriptions from 2016 till 2030. Also covered are public safety LTE service revenues, over both private and commercial networks. In addition, the report presents revenue forecasts for public safety LTE infrastructure, devices, integration services and management solutions.



The report comes with an associated Excel datasheet suite covering quantitative data from all numeric forecasts presented in the report, as well as a list and associated details of over 90 global public safety LTE network commitments (as of Q2'2016).



Topics Covered

The report covers the following topics:

- Business case for public safety LTE and mobile broadband services, including key benefits and challenges

- Technology, economics, trends, commercial commitments and deployment ase studies







- Public safety LTE infrastructure, devices and applications

- Industry roadmap, value chain and standardization initiatives

- Spectrum allocation, deployment models and funding strategies

- Profiles and strategies of over 260 ecosystem players including public safety system integrators and LTE infrastructure/device OEMs

- TCO analysis of private and commercial public safety LTE deployments

- Military and tactical LTE deployments

- Public safety LTE base station (eNB) form factor analysis

- Exclusive interview transcripts from 5 key ecosystem players: Ericsson, Airbus Defence and Space, Sepura, Aricent and Parallel Wireless

- Strategic recommendations for vendors, system integrators, public safety agencies and mobile operators

- Market analysis and forecasts from 2016 till 2030





Forecast Segmentation

Market forecasts are provided for each of the following submarkets and their subcategories:





Public Safety LTE Infrastructure

Submarkets

- RAN (Radio Access Network)

- EPC (Evolved Packet Core) and Policy

- Mobile Backhaul and Transport

RAN Base Station (eNB) Mobility Categories

- Fixed Base Stations

- Transportable Base Stations

RAN Base Station (eNB) Cell Size Categories

- Macrocells

- Small Cells

Transportable RAN Base Station (eNB) Form Factor Categories

- NIB (Network-in-a-Box)

- VNS (Vehicle Network System)

- SOW (System-on-Wheels)

- Airborne Platforms



Public Safety LTE Management & Integration Solutions

Submarkets

- Network Integration & Testing

- Device Management & User Services

- Managed Services, Operations & Maintenance

- Cybersecurity



Public Safety LTE Devices

Submarkets

- Private LTE

- Commercial LTE

Form Factor Categories

- Smartphones & Handportable Terminals

- Vehicle Mount Routers & Terminals

- Tablets & Notebook PCs

- USB Dongles & Others



Public Safety LTE Subscriptions & Service Revenue

Submarkets

- Private LTE

- Commercial LTE



Public Safety User Subscriptions over Private Mobile Broadband

Submarkets

- Private LTE

- Private WiMAX



Public Safety User Subscriptions over Commercial Mobile Broadband

Submarkets

- 3G

- WiMAX

- LTE

- 5G & Beyond



LMR Subscriptions

Submarkets

- Analog

- DMR

- dPMR, NXDN & PDT

- P25

- TETRA

- Tetrapol

- Others



LMR Data Subscriptions

Submarkets

- P25 - Phase 1

- P25 - Phase 2

- TETRA

- TEDS

- Tetrapol

- Others



Public Safety LTE Applications

Submarkets

- Video Applications

- GIS, AVLS and Mapping

- Mobile VPN Access & Security

- CAD (Computer Aided Dispatching)

- Remote Database Access

- Telemetry and Remote Diagnostics

- Bulk Multimedia/Data Transfers

- PTT & Voice over LTE

- Situational Awareness Applications



Regional Segmentation

- Asia Pacific

- Eastern Europe

- Latin & Central America

- Middle East & Africa

- North America

- Western Europe



Key Questions Answered

The report provides answers to the following key questions:

- How big is the public safety LTE opportunity?

- What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth?

- How is the ecosystem evolving by segment and region?

- What will the market size be in 2020 and at what rate will it grow?

- Which regions and submarkets will see the highest percentage of growth?

- How does standardization impact the adoption of LTE for public safety applications?

- When will MCPTT and proximity services see large scale proliferation?

- What is the status of private LTE rollouts and public safety MVNO offerings across the globe?

- What opportunities exist for commercial mobile operators and MVNOs in the public safety LTE market?

- Is there a market for 400 MHz LTE networks?

- What are the prospects of tactical, vehicle-mounted and airborne LTE eNB platforms?

- How can public safety agencies leverage unused spectrum resources to fund private LTE networks?

- What strategies should system integrators and vendors adopt to remain competitive?



Key Findings

The report has the following key findings:

- SNS Research estimates that annual investments on public safety LTE infrastructure will reach $600 Million by the end of 2016. The market, which includes base stations (eNBs), mobile core and transport networking gear, is further expected to grow at a CAGR of 33% over the next four years.

- By 2020, these infrastructure investments will be complemented by over 4.4 Million LTE device shipments, including smartphones, rugged handheld terminals and vehicular routers.

- Following the Qatar Ministry of Interior's private 800 MHz LTE network deployment in 2012, multiple private LTE rollouts are underway by security forces throughout the oil rich GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region, including the Abu Dhabi and Dubai police forces.

- Driven by nationwide public safety LTE network rollouts in the United States and South Korea , the North America and Asia Pacific regions will account for nearly 70% of all public safety LTE investments over the next four years.

- Almost all major LMR industry players are leveraging partnerships with established LTE infrastructure OEMs such as Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and Samsung, to offer end-to-end LTE solutions.

- Consolidation efforts are continuing to take place throughout the industry, particularly among the largest LTE infrastructure OEMs and public safety system integrators.

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Website: www.reportbuyer.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-public-safety-lte--mobile-broadband-market-2016--2030--opportunities-challenges-strategies--forecasts-300360344.html SOURCE ReportBuyer

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[November 10, 2016] Evotec AG Reports Results of First Nine Months of 2016

Evotec AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809) today reported financial results and corporate updates for the first nine months of 2016. FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE - PROFITABLE AND STRONG GROWTH - Strong revenue growth in both operating segments: - EVT Execute revenues up 36% to EUR 126.6 m; - EVT Innovate revenues up 26% to EUR 17.9 m - Consolidated Group revenues up 37% to EUR 120.6 m (9M 2015: EUR 88.2 m); base revenues up 30% to EUR 105.0 m - Adjusted Group EBITDA increased to EUR 30.6 m (9M 2015: EUR 3.4 m) - R&D expenses of EUR 12.8 m - Strong liquidity position of EUR 120.0 m despite loan repayments EVT EXECUTE - STRONG OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE - Significant milestone achievements in Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim and Padlock collaborations - Phase I clinical start for the treatment of endometriosis with Bayer - Extensions of ongoing collaboration, e.g. with Genentech and Janssen Pharmaceutica NV - New long-term strategic drug discovery alliances, e.g. with C4X Discovery, Antibiotic Research UK, UCB - New compound management partnerships, e.g. with Pierre Fabre and UCB - New licences enhancing existing drug discovery platform, e.g. with CRISPR/Cas9 and Trianni - Proposed acquisition of ADME-Tox and DMPK specialist company Cyprotex PLC (after period-end) EVT INNOVATE - NEW PATHS OF ACCELERATING FIRST-IN-CLASS DRUG DISCOVERY - New multi-target alliance with Bayer in kidney diseases - First research collaboration under French Academic Bridge with Inserm in oncology - Acceleration of Target (News - Alert)NASH programme with Ellersbrook GmbH & Co. KG - Innovation partnership with ex scientia to develop bispecific small molecule immuno-oncology therapeutics - Formation (News - Alert) of spin-off company Topas Therapeutics GmbH in the field of nanoparticle-based therapeutics to treat immunological disorders - Participation in Series A funding of Carrick Therapeutics - Establishing of EVT BRIDGE LAB282 partnership with Oxford University, OSI and OUI (after period-end) ALL ELEMENTS OF GUIDANCE CONFIRMED - PROFITABILITY GUIDANCE RAISED IN JULY 2016 - Adjusted Group EBITDA (before changes in contingent consideration) expected to more than double compared to 2015 - All other elements of financial guidance as of 22 March 2016 and positive outlook confirmed - Strong initial outlook for 2017 1. FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE PROFITABLE AND STRONG GROWTH Evotec's Group revenues for the first nine months of 2016 grew to EUR 120.6 m, an increase of 37% compared to the same period of the previous year (9M 2015: EUR 88.2 m). This increase is due to growth in the core EVT Execute business, a full nine month contribution of the Sanofi collaboration as well as significant milestone payments. Excluding milestones, upfronts and licences, Evotec's base revenues for the first nine months of 2016 were EUR 105.0 m and increased by 30% over the same period of the previous year (9M 2015: EUR 80.7 m). The gross margin in the first nine months of 2016 was strong at 38.5% and improved over the first nine months of 2015 (9M 2015: 27.2%). The margin increase over 2015 is attributable to the same drivers as the trend in revenue growth as well as capacity utilisation and favourable foreign exchange rate effects. R&D expenses for the first nine months of 2016 decreased by 5% to EUR 12.8 m (9M 2015: EUR 13.5 m) due to successful partnering of EVT Innovate projects in 2015. Total SG&A expenses for the first nine months of 2016 decreased by 7% to EUR 17.8 m (9M 2015: EUR 19.0 m). SG&A expenses in 2015 included one-time M&A and related costs. Adjusted Group EBITDA in the first nine months of 2016 increased significantly to EUR 30.6 m (9M 2015: EUR 3.4 m). Evotec's operating result for the first nine months of 2016 amounted to EUR 20.4 m (9M 2015: EUR 12.3 m). Liquidity, which includes cash and cash equivalents (EUR 62.4 m) and investments (EUR 57.6 m) amounted to EUR 120.0 m at the end of September 2016 (31 December 2015: EUR 133.9 m). In Q2 2016, Evotec initiated the repayment of loans, which was continued in Q3 2016. Revenues from the EVT Execute segment amounted to EUR 126.6 m in the first nine months of 2016, an increase of 36% compared to the prior-year period (9M 2015: EUR 93.4 m). Included in this amount are EUR 23.9 m of intersegment revenues (9M 2015: EUR 19.5 m). The EVT Innovate segment generated revenues in the amount of EUR 17.9 m consisting entirely of third-party revenues (9M 2015: EUR 14.3 m). The increase in revenues resulted from EVT Innovate projects which were partnered in 2015. Gross margin for EVT Execute amounted to 32.9% while EVT Innovate generated a gross margin of 45.6%. R&D expenses for the EVT Innovate segment at EUR 16.3 m in the first nine months of 2016 remained largely unchanged (9M 2015: EUR 16.6 m). Due to growth in the base business, milestone achievements and three full quarters of the Sanofi contribution, the adjusted EBITDA of the EVT Execute segment amounted to EUR 41.3 m in the first nine months of 2016 and increased significantly compared to EUR 16.1 m in the prior-year period. The EVT Innovate segment reported an improved adjusted EBITDA of EUR (10.7) m (9M 2015: EUR (12.7) m). 2. EVT EXECUTE & EVT INNOVATE EVT EXECUTE - STRONG OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE During the first nine months of 2016, EVT Execute demonstrated a strong operational performance, shown also by important milestones achievements in its collaborations with Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim and Padlock. Furthermore, Evotec was able to announce the progression of a first programme from its strategic alliance with Bayer in the field of endometriosis into Phase I clinical development. In addition, the compound management business is gaining momentum, underlined by new alliances with UCB and Pierre Fabre. Various collaborations were extended in the first nine months of 2016, such as the drug discovery alliances with Genentech and Janssen Pharmaceutica NV. Additionally, Evotec was able to enter new drug discovery alliances with C4X Discovery, UCB and Antibiotic Research UK, the latter underlining the recent trend of an increasing number of non-governmental organisations and foundations accessing Evotec's drug discovery platforms. Consistent with the Company's strategy to offer its clients the most advanced technological platforms, Evotec continued to expand its drug discovery platforms, e.g. with a non-exclusive licence to the leading technology on the market for gene editing (CRISPR-Cas9 licence) and Trianni's next-generation transgenic technology. Along these lines, Evotec announced the proposed acquisition of Cyprotex PLC after period-end, which would add world-leading high-quality ADME-Tox services and strengthen Evotec's leadership in drug discovery. This proposed acquisition, which has been unanimously recommended by the board of Cyprotex, is expected to close before year-end 2016. EVT INNOVATE - NEW PATHS OF ACCELERATING FIRST-IN-CLASS DRUG DISCOVERY The EVT Innovate portfolio continued to make very good scientific and commercial progress in the third quarter of 2016, resulting in a very strong performance of the segment. EVT Innovate again demonstrated its ability to partner promising early-stage scientific approaches with Pharma companies with the start of a five-year, multi-target alliance with Bayer in the field of kidney diseases based on assets from its CureNephron portfolio. Furthermore, the Company entered into its first research collaboration under its French Academic Bridge with Inserm in the field of oncology. In addition, EVT Innovate is accelerating its TargetNASH programme together with Ellersbrook GmbH & Co. KG, with both partners committed to investing up to EUR 5 m over an initial three-year period. An innovation partnership with ex scientia (UK) to develop bispecific small molecule immuno-oncology therapeutics was formed. In March 2016, Evotec announced the formation of a spin-off company called Topas Therapeutics GmbH, focused in the field of nanoparticle-based therapeutics to treat autoimmune diseases. The establishment of Topas is the first example of the acceleration of Evotec's business model to take advantage of carving out or investing in promising programmes with additional upside potential. In addition, Evotec announced an investment of up to $ 6 m towards Carrick Therapeutics' latest $ 95 m funding round, thereby deepening its already existing relationship with Carrick. EVT Innovate is also pursuing new approaches in scouting new innovations and accelerating them along the drug discovery value chain. After period-end, Evotec announced a highly innovative strategic partnership called "LAB282" with the University of Oxford, Oxford University Innovation Ltd and Oxford Sciences Innovation aimed at accelerating the translation of basic biomedical research from Oxford into new clinical therapeutics. These efforts, referred to as "EVT BRIDGE", are focused on highly capital efficient translation of academic science into potentially transformative pharmaceutical projects. 3. ALL ELEMENTS OF GUIDANCE CONFIRMED PROFITABILITY GUIDANCE RAISED IN JULY 2016 Evotec's financial guidance was last updated in July 2016 due to an increased margin contribution and a positive outlook for the remainder of the year.







Guidance July 2016 Original Guidance 2016 Actual 2015 Group revenues1)

More than 15% growth

More than 15% growth EUR 115.4 m Adjusted Group EBITDA2)

More than double Positive and significantly improved compared to prior year EUR 8.7 m R&D expenses

Approx. EUR 20 m

Approx. EUR 20 m EUR 18.3 m Liquidity3) Similar level compared

to 2015



Similar level compared to 2015 EUR 134.5 m Capex investments

Up to EUR 10 m

Up to EUR 10 m EUR 11.2 m

1) Excluding milestones, upfronts and licences 2) Before contingent considerations, income from bargain purchase and excluding impairments on goodwill, other intangible and tangible assets as well as the total non-operating result 3) Excluding any potential cash outflow for M&A or similar transactions Webcast/Conference Call The Company is going to hold a conference call to discuss the results as well as to provide an update on its performance. The conference call will be held in English. Conference call details Date: Thursday, 10 November 2016 Time: 02.00 pm CET (01.00 pm GMT/08.00 am EST) From Germany: +49 (0) 69 22 22 29 043 From UK: +44 20 3009 2452 From USA: +1 855 402 7766 From France: +33 170 750 705 Access Code: 37969784# A simultaneous slide presentation for participants dialling in via phone is available at http://www.audio-webcast.com/, password: evotec1116. Webcast details To join the audio webcast and to access the presentation slides you will find a link on our home page www.evotec.com shortly before the event. A replay of the conference call will be available for 24 hours and can be accessed in Europe by dialling +49 (0) 69 22 22 33 985 (Germany) or +44 20 3426 2807 (UK) and in the US by dialling +1 866 535 8030. The access code is 654573#. The on-demand version of the webcast will be available on our website: https://www.evotec.com/article/en/Investors/Financial-Reports-2014-2016/188/6. NOTE Due to two acquisitions in 2015, the interim condensed consolidated financial statements for the first six months of 2015 and 2016 are not fully comparable. The difference stems from the acquisition of Evotec (France) SAS (News - Alert), effective 01 April 2015, and from the 51% acquired shares in Panion Ltd., London, UK, effective 09 December 2015. While the result of Evotec (France) SAS is fully included in the accompanying consolidated income statement for the first nine months of 2016, it was only partially included in the comparable period of the previous year. Panion Ltd. was not included in the comparable period of the previous year. CHANGE IN PRESENTATION The presented financial statements include a change in presentation in the first nine months of 2015 and 2016. From 01 January 2016 onwards, amortisation of intangible assets are no longer presented in a separate line in the consolidated income statement but are allocated to the relating cost lines in the income statement. The prior-year period was changed accordingly resulting in higher costs of revenue (EUR 2.2 m). ABOUT EVOTEC AG Evotec is a drug discovery alliance and development partnership company focused on rapidly progressing innovative product approaches with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academics, patient advocacy groups and venture capitalists. We operate worldwide providing the highest quality stand-alone and integrated drug discovery solutions, covering all activities from target-to-clinic to meet the industry's need for innovation and efficiency in drug discovery (EVT Execute). The Company has established a unique position by assembling top-class scientific experts and integrating state-of-the-art technologies as well as substantial experience and expertise in key therapeutic areas including neuroscience, diabetes and complications of diabetes, pain and inflammation, oncology and infectious diseases. On this basis, Evotec has built a broad and deep pipeline of more than 70 partnered product opportunities at clinical, pre-clinical and discovery stages (EVT Innovate). Evotec has established multiple long-term discovery alliances with partners including Bayer, CHDI, Sanofi or UCB and development partnerships with e.g. Janssen Pharmaceuticals in the field of Alzheimer's disease, with Sanofi in the field of diabetes and with Pfizer in the field of tissue fibrosis. For additional information please go to www.evotec.com. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS Information set forth in this press release contains forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained herein represent the judgement of Evotec as of the date of this press release. Such forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based. Results for the first nine months 2016 Key figures of interim consolidated income statement Evotec AG and subsidiaries In TEUR except share data and per share data January to September Change July to September Change 2016 2015 in % 2016 2015 in % Revenues 120,627 88,198 37 45,173 33,240 35.9 Gross margin in % 38.5 27.2 45.1 29.2 Research and development expenses

(12,798)

(13,501)

(5)

(3,765)

(4,995)

(25) Selling, general and administrative expenses

(17,763)

(19,047)

(7)

(6,006)

(6,661)

(10) Impairment of intangible assets

(1,417)

(69)

-

- Income from bargain purchase

-

18,476

-

- Other operating income (expenses), net

5,961

2,430

1,369

1,325

3 Operating result 20,376 12,285 66 11,987 (637) Adjusted EBITDA* 30,639 3,410 14,806 2,615 Net income (loss) 11,384 10,669 7 8,663 (2,886) Weighted average shares outstanding

132,442,175

131,470,115

132,564,098

131,545,273 Net income (loss) per share (basic and diluted)

0.09

0.08

0.07

(0.02) * EBITDA was adjusted for changes in contingent considerations as well as for one-time effects with regards to the bargain purchase resulting from the acquisition of Evotec (France) SAS in 2015. Segment information: First nine months 2016 In TEUR EVT Execute EVT Innovate Intersegment eliminations Evotec Group Revenues 126,567 17,971 (23,911) 120,627 Gross margin in % 32.9 45.6 14.7 38.5 R&D expenses (53) (16,250) 3,505 (12,798) SG&A expenses (13,855) (3,908) - (17,763) Impairment of intangible assets - (1,417) - (1,417) Other operating income (expenses), net

5,324

637

-

5,961 Operating result 33,112 (12,736) - 20,376 Adjusted EBITDA* 41,300 (10,661) - 30,639 * EBITDA was adjusted for changes in contingent considerations First nine months 2015 In TEUR EVT Execute EVT Innovate Intersegment eliminations Not allocated Evotec Group Revenues 93,384 14,269 (19,455) - 88,198 Gross margin in % 21.3 51.5 16.9 - 27.2 R&D expenses (166) (16,617) 3,282 - (13,501) SG&A expenses (14,322) (4,725) - - (19,047) Impairment of intangible assets

-

(69)

-

-

(69) Income from bargain purchase

-

-

-

18,476

18,476 Other operating income (expenses), net

1,795

635

-

-

2,430 Operating result 7,241 (13,432) - 18,476 12,285 Adjusted EBITDA* 16,129 (12,719) - - 3,410 * Group EBITDA was adjusted for changes in contingent considerations as well as for one-time effects with regards to the bargain purchase resulting from the acquisition Evotec (France) SAS in 2015. Key figures of interim consolidated statement of financial position Evotec AG and subsidiaries In TEUR 30 September 31 Dec Change 2016 2015 in % Cash, cash equivalents and investments 120,043 133,940 (10) Working capital 4,400 (9,187) Current and non-current loan liabilities 14,801 22,943 (35) Total stockholders' equity 193,824 187,094 4 Total assets 276,174 288,538 (4) Language: English Company: Evotec AG Manfred Eigen Campus / Essener Bogen 7 22419 Hamburg Germany Phone (News - Alert): +49 (0)40 560 81-0 Fax: +49 (0)40 560 81-222 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: www.evotec.com ISIN: DE0005664809 WKN: 566480 Indices: TecDAX Listed: Regulated Market in Frankfurt (Prime Standard); Regulated Unofficial Market in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Stuttgart, Tradegate Exchange View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161109006489/en/

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[November 10, 2016] NTT Solmare Releases a New Title from the "Shall we date?" Series! "Shall we date? : Teen Samurai -I'll be back, my love-" (Paid Version) First Collaboration with Opera House

NTT (News - Alert) Solmare Corporation (hereafter referred to as "NTT Solmare") is thrilled to announce that the dating sim game, "Teen Samurai -I'll be back, my love-", will be released worldwide for both iOS and Android (News - Alert) devices today, November 10, 2016. Teen Samurai -I'll be back, my love- is proudly presented as the latest offering from the fan-favorite series of romance games, Shall we date?. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005532/en/ "Shall we date? : Teen Samurai -I'll be back, my love-" (paid version) first collaboration with Opera House. (Graphic: Business Wire) Originally released by Opera House Corporation as "Byakko-tai -Shishiibunki-" (??? ?????), a Japanese-only platform for mobile phones, "Teen Samurai -I'll be back, my love-" has been translated into English for people abroad to enjoy. "Teen Samurai" is a collection of love stories of the heroine and young samurais who lived through the turbulent times at the end of the Edo period. These love stories are now globally accessible to iOS/Android users for $3.99 per character at the NTT Solmare (News - Alert) App Store found here: http://shallwedate.jp/ts "It was great working with Opera House to produce this new title. We are certain that many people will enjoy these sweet yet sorrowful stories of love with young samurais, and that those stories will touch their hearts," said Senior Vice President, Yasuhiro Manabe. Story Introduction It is 1868, the third year of the Keio era and the twilight hours of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

One day, the heroine and her brother Chitose begin serving at Nisshin-kan School. The retainers near Tsuruga-jo Castle in Aizu Domain send their children to Nisshin-kan School to train from the age of ten. Their minds are refined and skills sharpened to serve their lord and land. Although some young men like Mineji, Matahachi, and Gisaburo attend Nisshin-kan School, others such as Kotaro and Narihira live elsewhere in the castle town. For some time the days pass and their friendships deepen. However, when war breaks out in Aizu Domain, Mineji and the others in the Byakko-tai are shipped off to the battlefield. Meanwhile, the heroine is faced with a pressing decision...one that may shape their fates and their lives. Price Each character's story highlights and Prologue: Free

Main story: $3.99 (USD) per character







* Above price is available in the US iTunes App Store and Google (News - Alert) Play Store or equivalent amount in other currencies. * Special sets including story sets that entail multiple stories will be released.

Release Date: November 10, 2016(PDT) Language English Supported OS versions: * Android: 4.0 or later

* iOS: 7.0 or later How to access: Access the URL below from a smartphone or other mobile device.

URL:http://shallwedate.jp/ts Social Networking Sites Shall we date? Official: http://www.nttsolmare.com/shallwedate/

Facebook (News - Alert): https://www.facebook.com/ShallWeDate.NTTSolmare About NTT Solmare Corporation: Game apps created by NTT Solmare have been enjoyed in over 160 countries. "Shall we date?" has gained support from all over the world, having average review score of 4.4/5.0 in iTunes App Store as of November 2016. The number of players has accumulated more than twenty million worldwide and counting. NTT Solmare Corporation will continue providing our customers with a great satisfaction in creating advanced services from the customers' perspective, holding the corporate mission: "We, NTT Solmare, offer new kinds of surprise and plenty of excitement to our customers, contributing to enrichment of our society." (URL:http://www.nttsolmare.com/e/ ) View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005532/en/

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[November 10, 2016] Novartis partners with prominent US health advocacy organizations to launch first social networking platform for heart failure patients and their loved ones

EAST HANOVER, N.J., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation announced today the launch of Together in HF (www.TogetherinHF.com)  a social network for members of the heart failure (HF) community  in partnership with national patient and professional organizations supporting heart health. Together in HF is the first social network for HF patients and caregivers to share their stories, and support and inspire each other. Members can access HF information and other resources from leading patient and caregiver advocacy groups as well as professional medical associations. Experience the interactive Multimedia News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/7968951-novartis-heart-failure-social-networking-platform "Our commitment to patients goes far beyond medicine, and we are proud to help launch this new, innovative social network for heart failure patients and their loved ones," said Fabrice Chouraqui, President of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. "Together in HF is a collective effort that brings together the expertise and resources of many organizations with a special focus on the unique social and emotional needs of people who are living with heart failure." Strong social support is important for the overall well-being of a heart failure patient, according to Mary McGowan, CEO, WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease. "As a founding partner of Together in HF, we strongly believe in helping those living with heart failure manage their emotional and psychosocial health," she said. "It is often these less tangible effects of the condition that are overshadowed by the physical signs. Yet we know that focusing on the whole patient experience greatly contributes to the overall health of the patient." Together in HF is designed to meet these needs by providing a consistent support system that allows patients and caregivers to seek the information and resources valuable to them, when they need it. Support beyond the peer community is also available through access to emotional support platforms staffed by health researchers and clinicians. Information available on the site is meant to enhance patients' dialogue with their healthcare professionals about their condition. "Healthcare professionals play a crucial role in caring for patients  whether by helping them understand heart failure better to cope with the disease or by finding a new treatment regimen  and they face the constant resource challenge of providing enough information to their patients," said Cynthia Bither, President, American Association of Heart Failure Nurses (AAHFN). "Patients and their families benefit from interactions with leading organizations that are there to serve the heart failure community. Together in HF brings these roups together in a way that helps patients and caregivers manage their condition day to day when they are not with their healthcare professionals."



Together in HF will be available as an Android app in the US Google Play store, and the iOS app is expected to be available in the US App store in early 2017. Members can find resources to help them better understand and manage their heart failure, and create personal connections with others who are living with HF. There also is dedicated space to address health and well-being of family caregivers. Together in HF brings together patient organizations such as Mended Hearts, WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease and the National Alliance for Caregiving, as well as medical societies such as the American Association of Heart Failure Nurses, Association of Black Cardiologists and CardioSmart by the American College of Cardiology. These organizations have come together to lend their expertise in providing emotional support and useful information, and help patients and caregivers manage health challenges.

About Heart Failure

Heart failure, which means the heart does not contract with enough force to pump sufficient blood throughout the body, is a debilitating and life-threatening condition, affecting nearly 6 million Americans.1,2 It is the leading cause of hospitalization among Americans over the age of 65.3 Heart failure presents a major and growing health-economic burden that currently exceeds $30 billion in the United States, which accounts for both direct and indirect costs.1,4 Disclaimer

This press release contains expressed or implied forward-looking statements, including statements that can be identified by terminology such as "launch," "ongoing," "commitment," "will," "expected," "can," "growing," or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of the Group regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such statements. These expectations could be affected by, among other things, risks and factors referred to in the Risk Factors section of Novartis AG's current Form 20-F on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update it in the future. About Novartis

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation offers a broad range of medicines for cancer, cardiovascular disease, endocrine disease, inflammatory disease, infectious disease, neurological disease, organ transplantation, psychiatric disease, respiratory disease and skin conditions. Located in East Hanover, NJ Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation is an affiliate of Novartis AG, which provides innovative healthcare solutions that address the evolving needs of patients and societies. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Novartis offers a diversified portfolio to best meet these needs: innovative medicines, eye care and cost-saving generic pharmaceuticals. Novartis is the only global company with leading positions in these areas. In 2015, the Group achieved net sales of USD 49.4 billion, while R&D throughout the Group amounted to approximately USD 8.9 billion (USD 8.7 billion excluding impairment and amortization charges). Novartis Group companies employ approximately 118,000 full-time-equivalent associates. Novartis products are available in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information, please visit http://www.novartis.com. Novartis is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Novartis at http://twitter.com/novartis

For Novartis multimedia content, please visit www.novartis.com/news/media-library

For questions about the site or required registration, please contact [email protected] References Mozaffarian D, Benjamin EJ, Go AS, et al. Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics2016 Update: A report from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2016; 132:000-000. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000000350. Fauci A, Longo D. Disorders of the Heart. Harrison's 'Principles of Internal Medicine. 17th ed. New York, NY ; McGraw-Hill Book Co; 2008;4:1442-55. Wier LM, Pfuntner A, Maeda J, et al. HCUP Facts and Figures: Statistics on Hospital-based Care in the United States , 2009. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 2011; 1-3. Heidenreich PA, Albert NM, Allen LA , et al. Forecasting the impact of heart failure in the United States : a policy statement from the American Heart Association. Circ Heart Fail. 2013;6:606-619.

Gallagher R, Luttik M-L, Jaarsma T. Social Support and Self-care in Heart Failure. J Card Nurs. 2011; Vol. 26, No. 6, pp 439-445. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/novartis-partners-with-prominent-us-health-advocacy-organizations-to-launch-first-social-networking-platform-for-heart-failure-patients-and-their-loved-ones-300360457.html SOURCE Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation

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[November 10, 2016] Expedia.com Serves Up Sweet Post-Thanksgiving Sweepstakes and Incredible Black Friday + Cyber Monday Deals

BELLEVUE, Wash., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Expedia.com kicks off the holiday shopping season sharing details about its two biggest sales of the year: Black Friday, November 25, and Cyber Monday, November 28. Customers can save up to an extra 50% off select hotel bookings and can find even more savings on the Expedia app on top of some already great deals. In addition to incredible savings on hotels, flights, cruises and travel packages, Expedia.com has teamed up with Mastercard to give away a dream island getaway to the Maldives. The Expedia Dream Island Getaway Sweepstakes presented by Mastercard will give one traveler and a guest a wanderlust worthy vacation to the Outrigger Konotta Maldives Resort. The prize includes 2 roundtrip flights to the Maldives, 7 nights at Outrigger Konotta Maldives Resort, Expedia+ gold status for 1 year and $6,000. The winning traveler and guest will also receive a complimentary two hour photo shoot at Outrigger Konotta Maldives, private butler service, a private beach barbeque, private yacht transfers and more. Travelers can enter to win the Dream Island Getaway one of three ways. They can use their Mastercard to purchase a trip on Expedia.com which enters the cardholder 25 times or they can visit Expedia.com each day during the sweepstakes and compete a new entry form to enter themselves up to 25 times, or they can mail their information to the Expedia Dream Island Getaway Sweepstakes. Official sweepstakes rules can be found here.



For those looking to book post-holiday rest and relaxation, or to give the gift of travel this year, Expedia.com will launch two days of incredible coupons and deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year. Top coupon savings include Las Vegas, New York, Punta Cana, Cancun/Riviera Maya, Paris, and more! On Black Friday, Expedia.com will treat travelers to new deals on hotels, flights, cruises, rental cars and packages, beginning at 9 a.m. PST. Cyber Monday sales will kick off at 9a.m. PST and Expedia.com will be offering new hotel coupons hourly until 3 p.m. PST. Deals booked on Black Friday have a travel window of November 25, 2016  March 31, 2017 and Cyber Monday deals have a travel window from November 28, 2016  March 31, 2017. Those who plan to shop via mobile on Black Friday and Cyber Monday are primed to save as discounts on the Expedia App will offer the greatest savings over these days. Travelers will find the same incredible deals as well as coupons that will net you savings of up to 75% on hotel bookings on Black Friday and up to 90% off hotels on Cyber Monday by booking via the app.

"The Dream Island Getaway is the experience of a lifetime, where the winner will be treated to the perfect culmination of beauty, seclusion and extreme relaxation," said John Morrey, vice president and general manager, Expedia.com. "While there will only be one winner for this trip, the deals Expedia.com will offer on Black Friday and Cyber Monday will give all travelers the chance for a magical escape." Travelers can access all of Expedia's Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals by visiting Expedia.com and on the award-winning Expedia app, which is available for download on iOS and Android devices for free in the App Store and Google Play. About Expedia.com

Expedia.com is one of the world's largest full service travel sites, helping millions of travelers per month easily plan and book travel. Expedia.com (https://www.expedia.com/, 1-800-EXPEDIA) aims to provide the latest technology and the widest selection of top vacation destinations, cheap tickets, hotel deals, car rentals, destination weddings, cruise deals and in-destination activities, attractions, services and travel apps. With the Expedia Best Price Guarantee, Expedia.com customers can get the best rates available online for all types of travel. Expedia, Expedia.com, Expedia+, Find Yours, Vacation Deprivation and the Airplane logo are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Expedia, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the property of their respective owners  2016 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. CST # 2029030-50. SOURCE: Expedia.com

Web site: https://www.expedia.com/ Mastercard is a registered trademark of Mastercard International Incorporated. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437708

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110121/SF33870LOGO-b To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/expediacom-serves-up-sweet-post-thanksgiving-sweepstakes-and-incredible-black-friday--cyber-monday-deals-300360375.html SOURCE Expedia.com

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[November 10, 2016] TapInfluence Unveils No. 1 Thing Motivating Social Influencers When Working with Brands, and It's Not Money

TapInfluence, the influencer marketing platform that thoughtfully connects recognizable brands with impactful influencers, recently unveiled that when surveyed, 42 percent of influencers feel that alignment with a brand's core values is the no. 1 most important factor when approached with a brand partnership opportunity. The influencer survey, launched by the TapInfluence Insights team which test trends and gathers data for brand and agency customers from influencers, is an initiative tied to a breakout session that Promise Phelon, CEO of TapInfluence, will be presenting at Hubspot's Inbound conference in Boston on November 10. Phelon's breakout session defines why influencers are today's game changers and how inbound marketing is no longer effective without the right augmentation "influence" into their inbound strategy. "Some brands treat influencers as outsourced marketing which loses the quality and power of what these incredible creators and curators of content can offer," said Phelon. "Our study reinforced what we knew--brands that have strong affinity with consumers, work with influencers that align with their brand values and allow space for the influencer to create great content for their audience tend to be most successful with influencer marketing." A surprisingly low 11 percent of influencers polled stated that payment was the most important factor when establishing brand relationships. More than 87 percent of survey respondents cited that theyve had long-lasting relationships with brands who understand the value of what they can provide. A mistake many brands make while working with influencers is neglecting to SHOW influencers the value they see in the cyclical relationship. Although money may not be the top driver when building relationships, we can't argue that money still talks. 12.8 percent of those we polled say that influencer marketing relationships make up 100 percent of their yearly income and about a quarter of them said that money earned through influencer marketing makes up 5-10 percent of their annual income.



A few additional takeaways from our survey include: 65% of influencers surveyed identified Instagram as the social platform with the biggest opportunity for growth

75% of survey respondents report that photography is the most engaging avenue for activating their audiences with 36% stating their audience prefers video The TapInfluence insights team has polled hundreds of thousands of TapInfluence's influencers which has enabled the Colorado-based company and its customers to remain on the forefront of the industry's movement. Through these relationships and data points, TapInfluence has helped countless fortune 1,000 brands and tier one agencies drive sales through strategic influencer marketing initiatives..

About TapInfluence

TapInfluence's complete SaaS (News - Alert) platform, coupled with an engaged influencer marketplace and strategic services, is the leading solution facilitating real conversations between consumers and brands. The company enables Fortune 1000 brands to tap into the power of digital influencers and their authentic, trusted voices. With its influencer marketing automation platform, TapInfluence customers increase market share and amplify revenue growth through scalable reach and optimized engagement to achieve unprecedented ROI. In a recent independent study, TapInfluence proved that influencer marketing drives 11x the return on investment annually versus any other form of digital media. TapInfluence's Fortune 1000 customers include Kraft, Horizon Organic, Silk, Express, Fossil as well as top agencies such as Golin, RhythmOne and AMP. TapInfluence is privately held, with offices in Boulder, Colo. and Mountain View, Calif. The company is backed by leading venture capital firms Noro-Moseley Partners, Grotech Ventures, Access Venture Partners and Knollwood Investment Advisory. For more information, visit www.tapinfluence.com or follow @TapInfluence on Twitter (News - Alert). View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005789/en/

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[November 10, 2016] Ammu Warrier Honored In SIA Global Power 100 - Women In Staffing

BOCA RATON, Fla., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ammu Warrier, President, Co-founder and Technopreneur of DCR, once again is honored as she claims her place in the Global Power 100  Women in Staffing for the second consecutive year. Comprised of influential women from a number of areas within the staffing sector from policymakers to technology leaders, the list is not a "ranking" but a shout-out to those whose unique vision and contributions take the industry forward, in niche as well as global markets. The final selection is based on the influence and achievements of the women nominated, and their direct impact on the industry. Ammu began her career as a software engineer and consultant to leading engineering firms and high tech companies until co-founding DCR Workforce. Recent principal achievements include winning numerous industry awards such as the Stevie Awards (American Business Awards) for which she was honored with a Silver Award for Executive of the Year  Business Services, a Bronze Award for Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year (Up to 2,500 Employees), a Bronze Award for Minority-Owned Business of the Year and yet another Bronze Award for Woman of the Year, as well as numerous awards for the technology and business overall. "From innovation and performance excellence to driving profitability, the women represented this year have broken barriers for all of us," said Subadhra Srram, Publisher and Editor, SIA in a recent press release. "Although the gender gap may be narrowing, there is still a significant imbalance at the top. Shedding light on the accomplishments of women in the industry and raising awareness is pivotal for the creation of competitive and sustainable organizations that thrive in and enhance the vibrancy of our business communities."



Ammu has forged a strong organization, motivates employees, generates breakthrough results with the Smart Track Vendor Management System, empowers women in STEM industries and maintains a position of well-respected thought leader and often-requested speaker regarding technology. "I'm thrilled to be included in this year's list," said Ammu Warrier, President, Co-founder and Technopreneur of DCR. "It's our mission at DCR to become thought leaders in technology as well as pave the way for women to reach the boardroom. I feel that this award shows that we're doing a great job of attaining that status."

DCR is a leading provider of services procurement technology. Smart Track is a cutting-edge, flexible, configurable Vendor Management System solution. About DCR

DCR is a leading provider of services procurement technology. We offer a unified approach to managing all aspects of non-employee engagement through Smart Track, our award-winning, cloud-based Vendor Management System (VMS). Click to learn more about our innovative, cutting-edge and adaptive technology. About Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA)

Founded in 1989, SIA is the global advisor on staffing and workforce solutions. Their proprietary research covers all categories of employed and non-employed work including temporary staffing, independent contracting and other types of contingent labor. Learn about all the Global Power 100. DCR Workforce Contact:

Neha Goel, 561-376-1545

[email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437633

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140604/94111 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ammu-warrier-honored-in-sia-global-power-100---women-in-staffing-300360234.html SOURCE DCR Workforce

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[November 10, 2016] Record Local Cable Ad Spending Plays Role in Battleground State Senate Elections, Viamedia Finds

NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- A common pattern among victorious Senate candidates in many key "battleground" states was the candidates' use of local cable television advertising. These findings come from a preliminary analysis of cable advertising transaction data by Viamedia, the largest independent cable TV ad management company. The data was culled from political advertising purchased on more than 60 multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) of various sizes in more than 70 markets served by Viamedia throughout the country. Viamedia 2016 political ad sales in certain "battleground" states won by Republican senators show that Ohio Sen. Rob Portman's successful re-election campaign outspent that of his opponent, former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland; 86% of all cable ad dollars spent by Ohio's two Senate candidates was from the Portman campaign. And in Florida, Sen. Rubio's victorious campaign outspent that of his Democratic rival, Rep. Patrick Murphy, 59% to 41%. In Pennsylvania, Sen. Pat Toomey's successful campaign outspent that of his Democratic opponent Katie McGinty 94% to 6% -- a marked change from 2010 when Toomey's campaign spent only a small portion on cable ads. And almost 100% of all cable advertising in North Carolina's U.S. Senate race was spent by Sen. Richard Burr's successful re-eletion effort in Viamedia markets.



In other states, won by Democrat senators, Viamedia's political ad sales indicate that Catherine Cortez Masto outspent Joe Heck on cable TV 72% to 28% in her successful race in Nevada, while Michael Bennet in Colorado, Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut, Brian Schatz in Hawaii and Charles Schumer in New York each accounted for nearly all of the total cable ad spending in their respective victories. "We've seen a dramatic increase in geo-targeted TV ad spending from 'down-ballot' candidates, PACs and issues advertisers," said Mark Lieberman, Viamedia president & CEO. "Successful political advertisers during this unprecedented election cycle have embraced the uniqueness of the data and geo-targeting capability of local cable to reach the right voters effectively."

According to the 2016 ad buys, 47% of all cable TV political ad spending came from issues advertisers -- PACs and other organizations; 38% has come from down-ballot campaigns, primarily for the Senate and House; 9% has come from the presidential campaigns; and 6% reflected spending by PACs on behalf of presidential campaigns. By comparison, in the same Viamedia markets in 2012, 45% of all cable TV political ad spending came from issues advertisers and PACs  including PAC spending on behalf of the presidential campaigns; 44% came from down-ballot campaigns; and 11% was from the presidential campaigns. At only 6% of overall political cable spend, presidential campaign-focused cable-TV PAC expenditures varied by state, with the majority of those dollars in Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina bought by Team Clinton, and the majority of those dollars in Florida and Indiana bought by Team Trump. "While the Clinton presidential campaign and pro-Clinton PACs outspent Trump significantly on local cable advertising by 9-to-1 across the country in our markets, this just wasn't enough to overcome the earned (free) media strategy adopted by the populist Trump campaign," added Lieberman. The 2016 election season proved robust for cable TV advertising overall. In fall 2015 Borrell Associates estimated that political advertising on cable would grow as much as 39% in 2016 compared to 2012; Viamedia's "same-store" political-revenue grew more than 50% for the 2016 election season compared to 2012, and the company exceeded its original 2016 political advertising forecast by 25%. About Viamedia

Headquartered in New York City, Viamedia is the largest independent cable TV ad management company for local, regional and national advertising, programmatic and ad tech solutions, responsible for nearly one million spots per day on behalf of over 12,000 advertisers. The company specializes in selling advertising on behalf of 60 U.S. cable and telecommunications service providers, utility companies and municipalities, and employs approximately 380 people across the country. The company also operates placemedia, a programmatic data-driven TV ad platform, which aggregates ad inventory from Viamedia, major MVPDs and more than 40 national cable networks across 210 DMAs. For more information, please visit www.viamediatv.com and www.placemedia.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101115/CL01765LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/record-local-cable-ad-spending-plays-role-in-battleground-state-senate-elections-viamedia-finds-300360689.html SOURCE Viamedia

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[November 10, 2016] InMoment Takes the Stage to Showcase Client's Success at Forrester's CXEurope 2016

InMoment's VP - Head of Client Services EMEA James Bolle will moderate a discussion with one of the world's largest retailers' journey to customer experience (CX) excellence at Forrester's (News - Alert) 2016 CXEurope conference. The event will be held at The InterContinental - The O2 (News - Alert) in London, 15 - 16 November and will highlight how executive leadership, customer understanding, design management, culture and measurement function in high performing firms. InMoment, together with their client, will highlight how this major retailer is harnessing customer experience best practices and customer feedback in successfully understanding customers, engaging colleagues, and changing mindsets. The retailer have partnered with InMoment for four years to power the company's customer listening programme. The brand leverages InMoment's technology and professional services to capture, nalyse and deliver customer insights across the organisation -- from store managers to executive leadership. The session takes place on Tuesday 15 November at 2:55 p.m.



"We are honoured to work with some of the most innovative, progressive brands in customer experience," said Bolle. "Their willingness to embrace new technologies, evolve internal culture and business practices, and truly listen to and head the authentic voice of their customers is remarkable. At this event, I have the pleasure of inviting one of our flagship clients to share firsthand how their team are harnessing customer experience to improving business outcomes, and deepen relationships with colleagues and customers. Their expertise and wisdom will be a real benefit to other CX leaders looking to elevate their own initiatives." About InMoment

InMoment is a cloud-based customer experience (CX) optimization platform that helps brands leverage customer and employee data to inform better business decisions, and create high-value relationships. Through its Experience Hub, InMoment provides Voice of Customer (VoC), Social Reviews & Advocacy, and Employee Engagement solutions, as well as strategic guidance, support, and services to nearly 400 brands in 95 countries. For more information, visit http://www.inmoment.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005915/en/

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[November 10, 2016] Antares Capital Supports Windjammer Capital Investors' Acquisition of Advanced Instruments

Antares Capital announced today it is serving as administrative agent, joint lead arranger and joint bookrunner of senior secured credit facilities to support the acquisition of Advanced Instruments by Windjammer Capital Investors. Founded in 1955 and headquartered in Norwood, MA, Advanced Instruments is a leader in laboratory instrumentation. "We are pleased to have Antares lead the financing for our investment in Advanced Instruments," said Daniel Lee, Vice President for Windjammer Capital. "They worked quickly and diligently through approvals and made a sizeable commitment to support the transaction." "Advanced Instruments is a long standing market leader and an innovator of high quality laboratory equipment," said Michael Hynes, managing director for Antares. "We are delighted to support Windjammer and Advanced Instruments as they work together to achieve continued growth." About Advanced Instruments Advanced Instruments is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of instrumentation and associated consumables for clinical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, microbiology and dairy laboratories around the world. Quality, reliability, service and support have been the company's guiding principles since its founding in 1955. Their innovative application of technology helps healthcare organizations improve the quality of care and industrial companies enhance quality and productiity. For more information, visit www.aicompanies.com



About Windjammer Capital Investors Windjammer Capital Investors, with offices in Newport Beach, California and Waltham, Massachusetts, is a private investment firm that makes control and non-control investments in leading middle market businesses in partnership with management. Founded in 1990, Windjammer's institutional funds total roughly $2.0 billion of committed capital. Since its formation, Windjammer has invested $1.5 billion in over 50 companies across a broad range of industries. Windjammer is currently investing out of its $726 million Windjammer Senior Equity Fund IV, which closed in March of 2013. For more information, visit www.windjammercapital.com

About Antares Capital Antares Capital is a leading provider of financing solutions for middle-market, private equity-backed transactions with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Norwalk (Connecticut) and Toronto. Antares has facilitated more than $120 billion in financing over the past five years. Antares was named 2015 Dealmakers of the Year and 2014 Lender of the Year by Mergers & Acquisitions. Visit us at www.antares.com or follow Antares Capital on Twitter (News - Alert) at https://www.twitter.com/antarescapital. Antares Capital is a subsidiary of Antares Holdings LP. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005934/en/

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[November 10, 2016] Covea Affinity Selects Mphasis Wyde to Implement Wynsure Solutions

NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2016 /CNW/ -- Wyde, a leading international provider of policy administration solutions, today announced the signing of a long-term contract with Covea Affinity, an affiliate of the Covea Group dedicated to affinity insurance in the automotive world. As part of this strategic agreement, Wyde will provide their end to end policy administration system, Wynsure as a Service solution. Wynsure as a Service, the insurance industry compliant solution, is a hosted multiline policy administration product that focuses on Group Benefits (L&H), Individual Life and Credit Protection Insurance segments. The secure and scalable cloud-based solution offers a complete turnkey solution that includes application hosting and management, consulting and configuration services in addition to 24x7 help desk support. Ramon Estrugo, Director of Operations, Covea Affinity said, "We have set in motion a comprehensive and stringent selection process along with our IT department and the entire business user teams for the solution. More than seeking a software package, primarily we were seeking a partner who is capable of fully supporting us in our ambitious development program related to mechanical warranty. The capacity of Wyde to meet this expectation as well as the features which already exist in Wynsure have been crucial in our selection." In order to meet the new challenges anddemands that carriers are facing in today's digital environment, Wyde has innovated by offering new services and technologies. In order to exceed the demand and expectations, the focus was on digitalization and the ability to provide a complete web based solution. This solution provides the full Wynsure Suite on the cloud while offering carriers with options in security, service levels, implementation and updates.



Rajesh Makhija, Chief Executive Officer, Wyde, points out, "We are honored that Covea Affinity has opted to work with Wyde and has recognized our ability to meet the expectations of their program. During the selection process, Wyde demonstrated the functional and technological power of Wynsure. This agreement reflects our strong commitment to extend Wynsure as a Service solutions as a product strategy." About Wyde (An Mphasis Group Company)

Wyde is a market leader in policy administration software & solutions for Life insurance industry. We are the creator of Wynsure, a proven software platform, at many of the leading insurance carriers in North America and Europe. We are headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota, USA, with offices in Canada, a modern Research & Development Center in Paris, France, and Delivery Centers of Excellence in both Poland and India. Wynsure is a multi-line, multi-language, multi-currency, easily configurable software product that offers end to end business solutions in hosted & cloud environments. More information is available at www.wyde.com.

About Covea Affinity

Covea Affinity is an affiliate of the Covea Group, specialized in affinity insurance which is prevalent in the automotive world. Its turnover in 2015 was 470 million. Partner to manufacturers, automobile professionals, captive financing and financial and leasing companies, Covea Affinity offers customized solutions to meet the requirements of its customers related to financial insurance, mechanical warranty and damage insurance. It is active in major European countries. About Covea

Covea, a mutual insurance group, is a major player in the insurance sector, active in its key markets and leader in damages and liability sectors in France. With its MAAF, MMA and GMF brands, the Group insures more than 11.4 million French people. Its turnover in 2015 exceeds 17.2 billion of which 15% is generated overseas. Covea accounts for 26,000 employees in the world of which more than 21,000 are France based. For further information, please contact:

Deepa Nagraj

Mphasis Wyde Corporate Communications

[email protected]

+1 (347) 268-0661 | +1 (646) 424-5160

+91 9845 256 283 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/covea-affinity-selects-mphasis-wyde-to-implement-wynsure-solutions-300360733.html SOURCE Mphasis Wyde

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Prosafe SE ("Prosafe" or the "Company") has entered into a letter of intent ("LOI") with Axis Offshore Pte. Ltd. ("Axis") for the potential acquisition of all outstanding shares in the two single purpose companies Axis Nova Singapore Pte. Ltd. ("Axis Nova SPV") and Axis Vega Singapore Pte. Ltd. ("Axis Vega SPV") (jointly the "New-Build Companies"), and 25% of the shares in Dan Swift Singapore Pte. Ltd. (the "Dan Swift Shares"). The agreed consideration for the acquisition will be USD 70 million (NOK 579.2 million) settled by Prosafe in kind, through the issuance of 585.8 million ordinary shares priced at NOK 0.30 per share, and a subordinated zero coupon convertible bond of NOK 403.4 million, convertible into 1,344.7 million shares at a conversion price of NOK 0.30 per share.

Industrial context

The offshore accommodation vessels market is currently in a challenging situation with significant growth in supply combined with a recession in the oil and gas industry. Prosafe's strategy is to take a leading role to improve the situation in the market through cost reductions on all levels, fleet renewal, scrapping of older units, conversion of vessels to alternative uses and strategic consolidation.

Having followed the development of the Axis Nova and Axis Vega, which is built next to Prosafe's own rigs at the same yard, Prosafe believes on first-hand knowledge that the contemplated transaction offers an attractive opportunity to acquire the two high specification, harsh environment semi-submersible new-builds at low risk. Prosafe considers the contemplated acquisition to be value enhancing from an industrial and financial point of view, and that it has limited risk since the transaction is further based on Axis Nova and Axis Vega coming with cancellation rights and refund bank guarantees of USD 60 million. The refund guarantee can be claimed in the event that Prosafe chooses to not take delivery of the new-builds due to weak market conditions, or otherwise. This will provide additional liquidity to the Company in a downside scenario.

Contemplated transaction

Axis Nova SPV and Axis Vega SPV each control shipbuilding contracts with Cosco Qidong Shipyard (the "Yard") for the construction and delivery on a fixed price basis of one advanced and modern semi-submersible accommodation rig to be used for harsh environments operations (the "Axis Nova" and the "Axis Vega", jointly the "New-Builds").

As announced by Axis on 29 September 2016 and 31 October 2016 Axis Nova SPV and Axis Vega SPV have due to delays extending the original delivery schedules at the Yard entered into addendums to the respective construction contracts which include lay-up and standstill elements without any cost or payment to the Yard.

As previously announced, Prosafe already has a deferred delivery agreement with the Yard for the Safe Eurus (to Q4 2019, or such earlier time as required by the Company).

Prosafe will following the transaction have three accommodation vessels completed or nearing completion in a preserved, strategic stacking mode with Cosco Quidong Shipyard in China. The intention is to start negotiations with the Yard and other parties to find a solution for the delivery, financing and operations of the units such that Prosafe can take delivery on attractive terms upon a market recovery. Assuming the transaction and this process is completed, Prosafe envisage scrapping additional accommodation vessels in the period ahead, in addition to the three units already scrapped in 2016.

The contemplated transaction also includes that Prosafe will enter into a management contract for Axis' converted monohull Dan Swift (in addition to receiving the Dan Swift Shares). The Dan Swift vessel will thereafter be marketed under the Prosafe banner and operated and managed as part of the Prosafe fleet. Prosafe sees additional upside from the marketing and operation of the Dan Swift on a standalone basis or as a supplement to the Company's semis as the case may be, both from management earnings and the minority interest.

The contemplated transaction values Dan Swift at an enterprise value of USD 119 million, and assume that Dan Swift Singapore Pte. Ltd. upon closing will have balance sheet consisting of total assets of USD 129.0 million, of which USD 10.0 million in cash, a senior bank facility of USD 56.4 million, USD 32.5 million preference share capital with cumulative interest accrual and USD 40.1 million in equity. The senior bank facility is guaranteed by J. Lauritzen A/S, and will have no recourse to Prosafe. Dan Swift is currently in lay up in Denmark and based on the current balance sheet the unit will have an estimated financial runway into Q1 2019.

Axis shareholders include HitecVision Fund VI and LF Investment ApS (a company owned by Lauritzen Fondet), who respectively own approx. 66% and 34% of the shares in Axis.

* * * *

"Following the financial restructuring executed this summer, we announced Prosafe's ambition to adjust the fleet to the market situation and taking the lead in consolidation. The efforts to complete this transaction represent a significant step in renewing its fleet and delivering on our strategic promises. We will continue to work hard to further enhance our fleet, reduce the operating cost and improve the commercial prospects of Prosafe through the ongoing reorganization and streamlining of our organization and operating model as well as engaging actively in initiatives for further growth"

"The addition of the Axis Nova and Axis Vega to our fleet will reinforce our renewal and high grading program. We look forward to further enhancing our relationship with Cosco Qidong and to work with their team to find an optimal solution for the preservation, marketing and eventual delivery and financing of the vessels. Further, a shareholding in and management of the Dan Swift will add flexibility to our offering and upside potential from the minority interest while also being in line with our ambitions of reorganizing our operating model into several strategic segments", says Mr. Stig H. Christiansen, acting CEO for Prosafe SE.

* * * *

In summary the contemplated transaction will represent strategic and financial optionality to Prosafe that supports the Company's defined strategy and ambitions. A presentation providing further details on the transaction is enclosed.

As of today there can be no certainty that a definitive agreement will be reached or that any transaction will ultimately be completed. The transaction, if agreed, is furthermore expected to be conditional inter alia on consent from the Company's majority bank lenders, approval and issuance of consideration shares/bonds by an extraordinary general meeting in Prosafe in compliance with Cyprus law and regulations, approvals of changes to Dan Swift financing, merger clearance pursuant to applicable competition regulations (if any), as well as other customary closing conditions.

Clarksons Platou Securities and Schjdt act as advisors to Prosafe on the transaction. Danske Bank has delivered a fairness opinion on the terms of the transaction to the Board of Prosafe.

Stig H. Christiansen, Acting Chief Executive Officer and Robin Laird, Acting Chief Financial Officer will on 10 November 2016 at 10:00 a.m. CET host a conference call presenting the contemplated transaction.

Global conference call details:

Norway: +47 800 15 463

United Kingdom: +44 (0)808 238 9578

Audience US Toll Free: +1 (888) 771-4371

Audience US Toll: +1 (847) 585-4405

Confirmation number: 43 78 70 39

Conference call playback available from 10 November 2016 at 13:00 CET:

Playback Number: +1 (888) 843-7419

Passcode: 43 78 70 39#



Attachment: Axis Letter of Intent Presentation

Larnaca, 10 November 2016

Georgina Georgiou, General Manager

Prosafe SE



For further information, please contact:

Glen Ole Rdland, Interim Chairman

Prosafe SE

Phone: +47 907 41 662

Stig Harry Christiansen, Acting CEO

Prosafe Management AS

Phone: +47 51 64 25 17 / +47 478 07 813

Robin Laird, Acting CFO

Prosafe Offshore Services Pte Limited

Phone: +65 81 27 21 01

Cecilie Helland Ouff, Senior Manager Finance and Investor Relations, Prosafe AS

Phone: +47 51 64 25 20 / +47 991 09 467

This information is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
[November 10, 2016] Green Power EMC Celebrates 15 Years As Green Energy Provider

ATLANTA, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Green Power EMC, the renewable energy provider to 38 electric cooperatives in Georgia, celebrated its 15th anniversary in a special ceremony at Flint Energies headquarters in Reynolds, Ga. The commemorative service, which included a tour of a nearby solar facility, drew representatives from electric cooperatives around the state. Green Power EMC was formed in 2001 and began providing clean, renewable energy to its member cooperatives in 2003. It was the first green energy utility in Georgia. Jeff Pratt, president of Green Power EMC, praised Georgia's electric cooperatives for having the foresight to enter into the green energy business at a time when many utilities were not ready to do so. "Looking back on the past 15 years, it's clear to me that electric cooperative leaders in our state were ahead of their time in recognizing the need to add renewable energy to their already diverse portfolio of generating resources," Pratt said. Since its formation, Green Power EMC has secured renewable energy from solar, biomass, low-impact hydroelectric and landfill gas facilties totaling 280 megawatts of generating capacity, Pratt said.



Green Power EMC and its member cooperatives have also become leaders in solar development in Georgia. Among the solar resources utilized by Green Power EMC and its member cooperatives are a 20-megawatt (MW) solar project developed last year near Hazlehurst, Ga. by Green Power EMC and its partner, Silicon Ranch. A second phase, which will begin operating late this year, will provide an additional 52 MW of solar generating capacity. Further, Green Power EMC and its members have developed a program known as Cooperative Solar that offers customers of participating electric cooperatives the ability to subscribe to available solar capacity at a competitive price from their co-op's solar energy resources. These resources may include large off-site solar facilities as well as smaller community solar projects. Because rooftop panels are eliminated, system maintenance, roof age and condition, orientation and shade-providing trees are not an issue. Customers should check with their local electric co-op to find out whether Cooperative Solar is available in their area.

"Through the Cooperative Solar program, we now have almost 4,000 customer members from 11 electric co-ops across the state that receive renewable solar energy, and more co-ops are set to launch the program soon," Pratt noted. ABOUT GREEN POWER EMC

Green Power EMC was the first green energy provider in the state. It was created by Georgia's EMCs in 2001 and has been selling renewable energy since 2003. In addition to solar energy, Green Power EMC obtains green power from renewable facilities all over the state, including landfill gas generation, low-impact hydroelectric, and biomass from wood waste. EMCs that own Green Power EMC serve more than 4.2 million Georgia residents. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/green-power-emc-celebrates-15-years-as-green-energy-provider-300360735.html SOURCE Green Power EMC

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[November 10, 2016] Export Portal Celebrates The Recent EU And Canada Signing Of CETA Free Trade Deal

GLENDALE, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- After much delay and objections, the European Union and Canada signed a trade agreement on Sunday, October, 30 2016, that opens both their economies to foreign businesses. Export Portal is delighted that the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, has been green lighted in to action. According Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, CETA will be "good for the middle class and those working hard to join it." Through CETA, Canadian-EU trade will increase by 20%, which will boost both countries' economies. As part of the export and import industry, ExportPortal.com commends Canada and the European Union for setting up CETA as a great example for how countries can solidify international trade. Export Portal believes that free trade agreement, such as CETA, promotes economic growth, creates new jobs, and is beneficial to small businesses who depend on free trade agreements. The US can create similar opportunities to boost the economy by giving incentives within policies that promote bilateral free trade.



Export Portal already is providing a simpler and safer foreign trade through assisting their members with all the export import legal documents, laws, and regulations. CETA also makes it easier for businesses to recognize different rules by updating the rules on how governments' can protect businesses. Whether one needs a distributor, manufacturer, shipper, or freight forwarder, Export Portal will assist Canadian and EU companies with finding reliable partners to work with. Export Portal holds payments in escrow until products are verified, shipped, and delivered. Export Portal ensures that all the forms and requirements are known and understood by buyers, sellers, shippers, and forwarders. With Export Portal's expertise, companies could avoid unnecessary delays, additional costs, or risk product confiscation by customs.

As an international trading platform, Export Portal seeks to not only work with established global businesses but, also companies looking to expand their business worldwide. CETA will ensure that businesses, big or small, will have the opportunity to expand trade and boost economies by opening their markets to international competition. For more information, visit ExportPortal.com or call at (800) 289-0015. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437534 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/export-portal-celebrates-the-recent-eu-and-canada-signing-of-ceta-free-trade-deal-300360145.html SOURCE ExportPortal.com

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[November 10, 2016] Circa Reports Sales and Operating results for the Third Quarter Ended September 30, 2016

CALGARY, Nov. 10, 2016 /CNW/ - Circa Enterprises Inc. (CTO-TSXV) (the "Company" or "Circa"), a manufacturer of equipment for the telecommunication, electrical utility, and construction industries, reports results of operations for the third quarter ended September 30, 2016. Summary of third quarter operating results: Q3 2016 consolidated sales of $5.7 million , representing a 13.1% decrease compared to Q3 2015 sales of $6.6 million

, representing a 13.1% decrease compared to Q3 2015 sales of Profit for the period from continuing operations for Q3 2016 of $189,000 compared to profit from continuing operations of $601,000 for Q3 2015

compared to profit from continuing operations of for Q3 2015 Earnings per share of $0.02 for Q3 2016 compared to earnings per share of $0.06 in Q3 2015

for Q3 2016 compared to earnings per share of in Q3 2015 EBITDA of $317,000 for Q3 2016 compared to EBITDA of $777,000 for Q3 2015 (see below for explanation and calculation of EBITDA)

for Q3 2016 compared to EBITDA of for Q3 2015 (see below for explanation and calculation of EBITDA) Working capital of $8.6 million , including $0.7 million in cash and no outstanding debt at September 30, 2016

, including in cash and no outstanding debt at Declared and paid cash dividend of $0.05 per share in the quarter Summary of year-to date operating results: Consolidated sales of $17.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 , compared to sales of $18.5 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2015

for the nine months ended , compared to sales of for the nine months ended Loss for the period from operations for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 of $4,000 , compared to profit for the period from operations of $772,000 for the same period in 2015

of , compared to profit for the period from operations of for the same period in 2015 EBITDA of $283,000 for the nine month period ended September 30, 2016 , compared to EBITDA of $1,123,000 for the same period in 2015

for the nine month period ended , compared to EBITDA of for the same period in 2015 Adjusted EBITDA of $592,000 for the nine month period ended September 30, 2016 compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $1,123,000 for the nine months ended September 30, 2015

EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and is adjusted for restructuring cost related to the acquisition of ACC. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are a non-IFRS financial measures and do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by International Financial Reporting Standards and, therefore, may not to be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. Management believes that EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are useful supplemental measures, which provides an indication of the results generated by Circa's primary business activities prior to consideration of how those activities are financed, amortized or taxed. Readers are cautioned, however, that EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA should not be construed as an alternative to comprehensive income determined in accordance with IFRS as an indicator of the Company's financial performance. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are calculated by the Company as follows:









(unaudited)

Nine months 30 Sep 2016 (unaudited)

Nine months 30 Sep 2015 (unaudited)

Three months 30 Sep 2016 (unaudited)

Three months 30 Sep 2015

$000's $000's $000's $000's Profit for the period from operations (4) 772 189 601 Income taxes 93 183 67 120 Interest 1 1 1 1 Depreciation and amortization 193 167 60 55 EBITDA 283 1,123 317 777 Restructuring costs 309 - - - Adjusted EBITDA 592 1,123 317 777

Consolidated sales for the third quarter of 2016 were $5.7 million -- a 13.1% decrease over the same period in 2015. U.S. Telecom sales were $1.5 million less than last year's third quarter primarily due to the completion of a project underlying the Telecom OEM products. This decline was partially offset by an improvement in Canadian Telecom sales of $0.4 million as a result of the new cabling and wiring harnesses product line that was added in late 2015. Sales in the Circa Metals segment were up $0.2 million over the third quarter in the prior year. Selling, general and administrative costs were in line with the same quarter in the previous year. The addition of sales and administrative costs assumed with the acquisition of the ACC business in December 2015 have largely been absorbed in the existing business. Management took numerous steps in the first half of 2016 to reduce costs associated with this acquisition by combining the manufacturing and warehousing facilities, reducing redundancy and streamlining operations. The one-time costs associated with these activities were incurred in the first half of the year and are separated in the financial statements as restructuring costs. The Company recorded after tax profit of $189,000 in the quarter, down from $601,000 in the third quarter of 2015 as a result of the Telecom OEM project reaching completion. The Company's gross profit as a percentage of sales declined on US dollar denominated Telecom sales, however margins remained strong on Canadian dollar denominated sales. Total comprehensive income of $186,000 was recorded in Q3 2016, compared to $722,000 in Q3 2015. The decline in Other Comprehensive Income is attributable to currency exchange on the translation of the Company's U.S subsidiary as the U.S. dollar was relatively stable in the quarter compared to the prior year. Grant Reeves, Circa's President and Chief Executive Officer, stated: "Prior year results benefited from a large project which is now complete. Excluding the comparative impact, the business climate for Circa's core products remained steady in the Q3, extending the improvement over last year that began with our strong first half. Our core Telecom sales, excluding the project OEM business, was 10% better than last year for the quarter and 34% better year-to-date, Our Metals segment revenue improved 5% over last year for the quarter and 10% year-to-date. The addition of cable and connectivity products are replacing the telecom project OEM business as intended. The Company's current product mix is expected to result in modest growth and margin improvement going forward. Management is focused on improving working capital effectiveness, cost savings from strategic capital investments and continuing to evaluate acquisition targets." CIRCA ENTERPRISES INC.

Condensed Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive (Loss) Income

Unaudited









Nine months ended 30 Sep 2016 Nine months ended 30 Sep 2015 Three months

ended 30 Sep 2016 Three months ended 30 Sep 2015

$000's $000's $000's $000's









Sales 17,432 18,488 5,748 6,611 Cost of sales (12,987) (14,004) (4,304) (4,716) Gross profit 4,445 4,484 1,444 1,895 Selling, general and administrative expenses (4,050) (3,530) (1,188) (1,175) Restructuring costs (309) - - - Operating profit 86 954 256 720 Other income 4 2 1 2 Finance costs (1) (1) (1) (1) Profit before tax 89 955 256 721 Income tax expense (93) (183) (67) (120) (Loss) profit for the period from operations attributable to shareholders of the Company (4) 772 189 601 Other comprehensive (loss) income:







Exchange differences on translating foreign operations, net of tax (111) 525 (3) 121 Total comprehensive (loss) income for the period attributable to shareholders of the Company (115) 1,297 186 722









(Loss) earnings per share (in $'s)







Basic and diluted (0.00) 0.08 0.02 0.06 Circa Enterprises Inc. is a public company with operations in Alberta, Ontario and Florida. The outstanding common shares of Circa Enterprises Inc. are listed and trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the trading symbol CTO. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The Company's quarterly financial statements and related management's discussion and analysis have been filed with certain securities regulatory authorities in Canada and may be accessed electronically through the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. SOURCE Circa Enterprises Inc.

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[November 10, 2016] Troxell Awarded The AV Contract Under The National IPA Cooperative

PHOENIX, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Troxell, a national leader in educational technology solutions for more than 60 years, is proud to announce that it has been awarded the AV Contract under the national cooperative purchasing organization, National IPA/TCPN. As one of 16 respondents and only one of 3 vendors awarded the contract, Troxell was granted the highest evaluation score. The criteria included scoring on products/pricing, performance capability, qualification and experience, and value. Contract Number R160903, awarded by Region 4 Education Service Center, Houston, TX, is effective from October 1, 2016 through September 30, 2019. On the contract, Troxell represents 138 manufacturers for both products and services, offering a wide range of discounts. "We are pleased to be awarded the AV Contract through National IPA," said Mark Barber, Senior Vice President of Sales. "We have been on the previous contract offered through TCPN since 2011. With the merger of National IPA and TCPN, the cooperative has more knowledge and purchasing power than ever before, now providing a more robust contract portfolio to education institutions."



Troxell continues to participate in multiple national, regional, state and local contracts, helping educational institutions pay less for products and reduce administrative costs in order to overcome the challenges of tight and diminishing budgets.

For more information, visit www.etroxell.com or call Mark Barber at 800-352-7912 x1003. About Troxell

Headquartered in Phoenix, AZ, Troxell has more than 60 years' experience as the nation's leading end-to-end solution provider for education technology and collaboration in K-12, higher ed, government and corporate. With 65 offices nationwide, we combine large-scale purchasing power with the high-touch, consultative approach of a local specialist. Since 1990, Summit Integration Systems, a Troxell company servicing Texas and Louisiana, has had the knowledge, products and experience necessary to successfully initiate, manage and complete audio visual integration projects of any size and scope in the most demanding environments, on time and within budget. About National IPA

National Intergovernmental Purchasing Alliance (National IPA) is a cooperative purchasing organization dedicated to serving public agencies and educational institutions nationwide. All cooperative agreements available through the National IPA program have been competitively solicited and publicly awarded by a public agency/governmental entity (e.g. state, city, county, public university or school district), utilizing the best public procurement practices, processes and procedures. The lead agencies are independent of the cooperative allowing the agency to be focused on the best value for the agency. The lead-agency not only prepares the solicitation, but awards, administers and utilizes the agreement for its own needs thereby limiting the award to the supplier that provides the best value to the agency and agencies nationwide. For Press Inquiries Contact: Raigan Irwin-McCabe, VP of Marketing Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161109/437673LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/troxell-awarded-the-av-contract-under-the-national-ipa-cooperative-300360880.html SOURCE Troxell

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[November 10, 2016] The Joomla! World Conference Brings the Future of Content Marketing to Vancouver

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 10, 2016 /CNW/ -- The 2016 JWC (Joomla! World Conference) returns to North America with a conference at the Sheraton Wall Centre Hotel in downtown Vancouver, BC. The global conference event takes place during November 11-13, 2016, and brings together web developers and marketing professionals from around the world. Here is a quote from TJ Director of the JWC Team: "We are thrilled to hold our event in Vancouver at the Sheraton Wall Centre Hotel, and are looking forward to empowering the local tech and marketing community with how Joomla! can help their businesses thrive." JWC started in 2012 in San Jose, CA, focusing on web development and content management systems and has since expanded into digital technology and marketing. Previous locations have included Boston (2013), Mexico (2014), and Bangalore, India (2015). The 2016 event in Vancouver has a strong keynote lineup, including speakers from Google, Hubspot, the Digital Services Manager Tadhg Healy from the city of Vancouver, and resident local UX expert Steve Fisher. Sessions and workshops range from complex web development to system architecture, digital content mrketing, and digital user experiences. The event sessions target businesses and organizations with speakers sharing knowledge from the leading experts in their respective fields.



A new initiative this year at the JWC is professional certification. It will be possible to sign up to take the Joomla! Administrator Exam and become certified as an official Joomla! Administrator during the event. There is also a series of information and training about Joomla! during the weekend. Jisse Reitsma from Yireo in Holland will host a hands-on development workshop on Saturday where he will be teaching developers with ten different lab exercises, how to increase their productivity by better understanding the architecture and possibilities of the Joomla! Plugins structure.

Reference Materials Download Our Full Press Kit Here: https://conference.joomla.org/about/press About The Company: Open Source Matters Inc., the organization behind the Joomla! CMS is a New York-based Non-profit company that aims to bring modern, user-friendly digital platforms for content authoring and publication on the web and in digital media. With over 76 million downloads, Joomla! is a market leader in the modern digital content publishing industry. Contacts: TJ Baker  Director, Joomla! World Conference [email protected] - 559.827.2967 Mike Demopoulos  Treasurer, Open Source Matters; Sponsorship, JWC [email protected] - 612.807.3601 Sarah Watz  President, Open Source Matters [email protected] Open Source Matters PO Box 4668 #88354 New York, NY 10163-4668 United States Websites: opensourcematters.org - joomla.org https://conference.joomla.org Social Media Profiles: Twitter.com/jworldcon facebook.com/JoomlaWorldConference instagram.com/jworldcon/ List of Main Keynote Speakers:

- Sarah Watz: President of Open Source Matters

- Tadhg Healy: Digital Services Manager from City of Vancouver, BC

- Steve Fisher: Founder of the Republic of Quality

- Eric Kuan: Google

- Marco Dings: Joomla! Production Leadership Team

- Dre Armeda: Sucuri

- Kevinjohn Gallagher

- Luke Summerfield: Hubspot

- Jisse Reitsma: Yireo Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161110/437992 SOURCE Open Source Matters

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[November 10, 2016] Next Level Administrators Opens Satellite Office in Dallas, Texas

Next Level Administrators is pleased to announce the opening of its Dallas, Texas office as of November 1, 2016. The claims management team, led by Andrew Price, will offer a local presence to clients, such as SUNZ Insurance Company, and manage multiple jurisdictions from that location. Mr. Price will be responsible for overseeing the branch operations, directing adjusters in delivering services and claim outcomes that meet clients' expectations, and ensuring all claims meet regulatory compliance. Andrew Olwert, President of Next Level Administrators, said, "Opening an office in Dallas is part of our strategy to help clients significantly improve operational profitability as well as improve claim costs results." Olwert further stated that, "The high caliber of staff who will be located in the Dallas office demonstrates our commitment to clients to provide unparalleled claims administration services." "I was attracted by the company's mission to reduce claim costs for the employer while at the same time not compromising the injured workers' ability to return to work safely," said Andrew Price. "As th Dallas office branch manager, I hope to be instrumental in helping Next Level Administrators achieve its goals of providing clients with cost containment solutions and exploring compassionate approaches to returning injured workers to work."



Andrew T. Price, ARM (News - Alert), AIC - Dallas Branch Manager With more than 28 years of claims adjusting, supervision, management and risk management experience, Mr. Price has obtained vast working knowledge of multiple jurisdictions in the workers' compensation arena. His past employment includes working for the Texas Legislature and the Texas Division of Workers' Compensation, a third party administrator, and as a risk manager for a Professional Employer Organization. He has industry experience in managing claims from construction, hospitals, municipalities, transportation, and PEO/Temporary Staffing entities. Mr. Price has served as both a carrier and employer representative in numerous administrative hearings and in Federal and State court proceedings.

Mr. Price has a degree in Economics from the University of Regis in Denver, Colorado. He has obtained both the Associate of Risk Management (ARM) and Associate of Claims (AIC) designations and has a Texas Workers' Compensation adjusting license. Mr. Price is a certified Texas state trainer and has been a public speaker at several conferences and seminars. About Next Level Administrators Next Level Administrators is a full service workers' compensation claims administration firm that provides integrated insurance services to carriers, program managers, captives and self-insured employers. It helps each unique client create a goal-oriented workers' compensation claims program that returns employees to work quickly and safely, and reduces workers' compensation claim costs. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006297/en/

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[November 10, 2016] One Paper Lane Named One of the "Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America" by Entrepreneur Magazine's 2016 Entrepreneur 360 List

One Paper Lane, a leading digitally-powered SaaS (News - Alert) document automation and workflow platform was recently recognized as one of the "Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America" by Entrepreneur magazine's Entrepreneur 360TM List, the most comprehensive analysis of private companies in America. Entrepreneur recognized One Paper Lane as a well-rounded company that has mastered the balance of impact, innovation, growth and leadership. "We are extremely honored to be recognized as one of Entrepreneur Magazine's best entrepreneurial companies in America, says Gaurav Mirchandani, CEO of One Paper Lane. We have worked hard to build our business and to exceed the expectations of our user base with innovation and value to help companies accelerate their business by going digital in the cloud." "Our annual evaluation offers a 360-degree analysis of the current private business landscape", explains Lisa Murry, Chief Insights Officer of Entrepreneur Media, Inc. "Top performers are determined by how well-rounded they are in these four key operative areas. Entrepreneurship is a complex endeavor - this listing recognizes those who have mastered the challenges and are thriving this year." One Paper Lane brings to life the Future of Work. One Paper Lane is a digital cloud SaaS document automation and workflow platform helping companies automate their business processes all the way through the front, middle, and back office. The platform enables companies to improve operational efficiency and reduce manual data entry and input, using machine learning and AI for various industry vertials.



Honorees were identified based on the results from a comprehensive study of independently-owned companies, using a proprietary algorithm and other advanced analytics. The algorithm was built on a balanced scorecard designed to measure four metrics reflecting major pillars of entrepreneurship-innovation, growth, leadership and impact. To learn more about One Paper Lane, visit www.onepaperlane.com.

For additional details on the Entrepreneur 360 List and the companies recognized, visit: entrepreneur.com/360companies. About One Paper Lane Inc. One Paper Lane brings to life the Future of Work. It empowers companies the ability to harness the power of digital document automation and smart workflow all the way through the front, middle, and back office. We put technology to work where it can accelerate revenue, cost savings, and business efficiency. Using One Paper Lane's cloud platform and in-built machine learning and AI, companies can define measurable outcomes. The SaaS platform has human-like flexibility enabling companies to optimize and digitalize business processes anywhere, anytime. To learn more, visit onepaperlane.com or follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) @onepaperlane. About Entrepreneur Media Inc. For nearly 40 years, Entrepreneur Magazine Inc. has been serving the entrepreneurial community providing comprehensive coverage of business and personal success through original content and events. Entrepreneur magazine, Entrepreneur.com, and publishing imprint Entrepreneur Press provide solutions, information, inspiration, and education read by millions of entrepreneurs and small business owners worldwide. To learn more, visit entrepreneur.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006316/en/

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[November 10, 2016] Operational BI Continues Its Rise in 2016

BARC's annual BI Survey results are launched on the new bi-survey.com website. Major findings this year include the continued surge in the use of business intelligence (BI) in production/operations departments, customer analysis is named as the #1 investment area in new BI projects, and several trends including collaboration and sensor data analysis are now established as critical BI components for many organizations. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006346/en/ Figure 1: Which departments are using BI? Timeline (News - Alert) (n=changing basis) (Photo: Business Wire) Departments using BI Finance, management and sales departments continue to lead the way in the use of BI, but with little variation in usage rates since 2014. Elsewhere, production/operations departments continue a strong upwards trajectory, rising from 20% to 53% usage in the last eight years (see Figure 1). "While BI has always been strong in sales and finance, production and operations departments have traditionally been more cautious about adopting it," said Carsten Bange, CEO of BARC."But with the general trend for using data to support decision-making, this has all changed. Technology for areas such as event processing and real-time data integration and visualization has become more widely available in recent years. Also, the wave of big data from the Internet of Things and the Industrial Internet has increased awareness and demand for analytics, and will likely continue to drive further BI usage in production and operations."



BI trends It is clear that some BI trends that began with a buzz a few years ago now serve as critical BI components for a growing number of companies. Areas such as collaboration and spatial/location analysis are reported as "in use" by more than 20 percent of respondents. At 12 percent, cloud BI is now in double-digits with more companies planning to leverage it over the longer term. Social media analysis is the only listed trend in use by less than 10 percent of Survey respondents this year.

Sensor data analysis is also on the rise. Telecoms, utilities, and transportation companies with thousands or millions of electronic devices and sensors are capable of generating huge volumes of data. Sensor-intensive companies planning to harness these insights to provide smarter and more efficient products and services will need expanded data management, integration and analytics solutions. This year, the transport and telecoms industries lead the way in leveraging sensor data, while the most significant new investments in this area are planned in the manufacturing and utilities industries. Customer analysis a major investment area 40% of companies are now putting their BI budgets into customer behavior analysis, and 32% are investing in developing a unified view of customers. "With areas such as accounting and finance more or less under control, companies are moving to other areas of the enterprise, in particular to gain a better understanding of customer, market and competitive dynamics," said Carsten Bange. About The BI Survey 16 The BI Survey 16 is based on opinion from over 3,000 BI professionals worldwide about their software selection, implementation and usage. Detailed feedback on 37 BI products from 30 vendors is analyzed and compared, including international giants IBM, Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL) and SAP (News - Alert), as well as BI specialists such as Information Builders, MicroStrategy (MSTR), Qlik, SAS Institute and Tableau (DATA). Home: www.bi-survey.com About BARC - Business Application Research Center - a CXP Group Company The Business Application Research Centre (BARC) is an analyst and consulting firm for enterprise software with a focus on Business Intelligence (BI), Data Management (DM), Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). For over twenty years, BARC analysts have combined extensive market, product and implementation knowledge to advise clients. Along with CXP and PAC, BARC forms part of the CXP Group - the leading European IT research and consulting firm with staff in eight countries. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006346/en/

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[November 10, 2016] Data Projections, Make-A-Wish Central & South Texas Team Up to Grant Local Boy's Wish

HOUSTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- It has long been debated whether there are angels in the world, active in people's lives. Perhaps there are or perhaps there are not, but it really comes down to who you talk to. Take the case of 9-year-old Hayden. Confined to a wheelchair and nonverbal, Hayden had difficulty interacting with the world. Then, his teachers at school introduced him to a communication device called a SMARTboard and they saw great improvement in Hayden. Hayden's parents saw this improvement too and sought to be able to continue his progress through the use of a SMARTboard at their home. But such technology is often cost-prohibitive or otherwise unattainable. Hayden had been referred to Make-A-Wish after being diagnosed with a life threatening nervous system disorder. It came as no surprise that his, and his family's, wish was to help Hayden continue to be able to connect and communicate with those he loves. With the generosity of Data Projections that wish came true. Make-A-Wish often relies on the kindness and support of those in the cmmunity to help them accomplish their mission. Data Projections is an excellent example of this, and are true champions of the kids Make-A-Wish serves.



Data Projections personnel traveled to Hayden's home in Cibolo, Texas, and installed a SMARTboard 885 with a SMART UX80 projector, along with the necessary hardware, software and applications to provide Hayden with a state-of-the-art system at home. Following the installation, Data Projections personnel tested all the connections and programs. They also installed a surround system. Following Hayden's discharge from a hospital stay in early 2016, Data Projections hooked up his laptop to the SMARTboard and Hayden experienced his wish for a new level of contact with the world.

Make-A-Wish Central & South Texas is a nonprofit, volunteer organization that is dedicated to granting the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. The chapter grants more than 266 wishes each year to the children in its region. Founded in 1987, Data Projections has grown into a leader in the audio visual solutions industry. With offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, Data Projections focuses on the businesses and institutions that also call Texas home. Data Projections offers its clients the ability to connect with others, collaborate in innovate ways and simplify even the most technically complex processes. Visit www.dataprojections.com to learn more. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/data-projections-make-a-wish-central--south-texas-team-up-to-grant-local-boys-wish-300361030.html SOURCE Data Projections

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[November 10, 2016] Fitch Affirms Temple University Health System's (PA) Revs at 'BB+'; Stable Outlook

Fitch Ratings has affirmed the following series of bonds issued by the Hospital and Higher Education Facilities Authority of Philadelphia on behalf of Temple University Health System (TUHS) at 'BB+': --$302,905,000 series 2012A and B; --$203,985,000 series 2007 A and B. The Rating Outlook has been revised to Stable from Positive. SECURITY The bonds are secured by a pledge of gross revenues of the obligated group, mortgages on certain properties of the obligated group, and a debt service reserve fund. The obligated group represented approximately 95% of the assets and 100% of the revenues of the consolidated system in fiscal 2016 (June 30 year-end). Fitch reports on the performance of the consolidated system. KEY RATING DRIVERS REVISION OF THE OUTLOOK TO STABLE: The revision of the Outlook to Stable from Positive, despite a second year of positive operating results in fiscal 2016, was driven by higher maximum annual debt service (MADS) of $49.5 million, related to inclusion of several equipment loans and capitalized leases, which were not included in the MADS used by Fitch in the prior analysis. The resulting 1.8x MADS coverage is lower than expectations since coverage during Fitch's last review was based on bonded debt only. MAINTAINING POSITIVE OPERATING RESULTS: Temple produced a second year of positive operating results in fiscal 2016, and management is projecting further strengthening of operating performance in the next year. The system ended fiscal 2016 with operating income of $3.6 million for an operating margin of 0.2%, on par with the prior year, despite operating in a very difficult and competitive market, significant investment in EPIC implementation, increased transfers to the School of Medicine (SOM) and decreased support from Temple University (University). Management budgets to end the fiscal 2017 with $15.8 million in operating income. ESSENTIALITY AND HIGH DEPENDENCE ON (News - Alert) SUPPLEMENTAL PAYMENTS: TUHS's flagship facility - Temple University Hospital (TUH) - serves both as a provider of high-end specialty services and as a de facto safety net hospital for North Philadelphia. As such, its continued viability is of critical importance to the greater Philadelphia market, which has been reflected in the significant support the institution has been receiving in the form of supplementary revenues, which in 2016 remained significant and slightly higher than in 2015, though not all of it was received before the end of the fiscal year. While there are uncertainties about the composition and level of the supplemental funding, management anticipates that it will be maintained at close to the historical level in 2017. GOOD VOLUMES AND HIGHER ACUITY: Despite the competitive nature of the market and the general decreasing volume trend in the greater Philadelphia area, TUHS was able to maintain a stable level of discharges in fiscal 2016 and increased its share of the high acuity discharges by 1.8%, which was one of the drivers of the positive operating performance. TUH's overall case mix index increased to 1.77 in fiscal 2016, as compared to 1.59 in fiscal 2013 and the system has increased its share of the high-end cases to 6%, from 4.9% in fiscal 2011. MIXED LEVERAGE: The system's coverage of maximum annual debt service (MADS) by EBITDA was 1.8x in fiscal 2016, but the system's MADS as a percent of revenues is still a moderate 3% of revenues, lower than Fitch's 'BBB' median of 3.6%. Further mitigating the slim coverage, TUHS has an all fixed rate debt structure, no swap exposure and no additional debt plans in the near term. MODEST LIQUIDITY: Liquidity remains light, unrestricted cash and investments were $336.1 million at 2016 year-end, slightly below budget due to delay in the receipt of $22 million of the supplemental funding. Unrestricted cash and investments at 2016 year end translate to 77.6 days cash on hand (DCOH), cushion ratio of 6.9x and cash equal to 64.9% of debt. RATING SENSITIVITIES NEED TO STRENGTHEN OPERATING PERFORMANCE: A return to the investment grade rating category would require Temple University Health System to generate meaningful improvement in operating performance leading to strengthened coverage and balance sheet metrics. CREDIT PROFILE TUHS is a Philadelphia based health care system, whose flagship is TUH, a 722-bed teaching hospital located on the campus of Temple University (University) in North Philadelphia. TUH sits on the University's health science campus, along with the University's School of Medicine and its other research and educational facilities. TUHS also owns and operates Jeanes Hospital (Jeanes), a 146-licensed bed community hospital located in a residential area in Northeast Philadelphia and the adjoining 100-bed American Oncologic Hospital d/b/a Fox Chase Cancer Center (Fox Chase), one of only 41 National Cancer Institute designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the nation. TUHS reported $1.64 billion revenues in fiscal 2016. MAINTAINING POSITIVE OPERATING RESULTS Led by a strong and stable management team, TUHS produced a second year of positive operating results in fiscal 2016, recording operating income of $3.5 million, equal to a slim, but positive 0.2% operating margin and 5% operating EBITDA margin compared to sizeable operating losses of $15.8 million and $24.8 million in 2014 and 2013. Fitch's calculation of TUHS's metrics excludes the non-preferred appropriations ($6.2 million in both 2016 and 2015), for which TUHS only serves as a conduit for Temple University. The improved performance was partially driven by an increase in the high acuity discharges based on continued recruitment and retention of high caliber physicians, as well as improved performance at both the Fox Chase and Jeanes. Constraining profitability was the $19 million increased expense related to the implementation of EPIC at TUH, as well as increased pharmaceutical expense, and increased transfers to the SOM - at $89.3 million, almost twice the level two years ago. At the same time, as planned, the University cut back its support for physician recruitment from $36 million two years ago to $0.5 million. Management budgeted a stronger $15.8 million operating income (0.9% operating margin) for the systm for fiscal 2017, which includes the last year of Epic implementation expense of $20.9 million.



SUPPLEMENTARY PAYMENTS MECHANISM EVOLVING The supplementary payments are essential to supporting the organization's position as a safety net provider to inner city Philadelphia with close to 40% of gross revenues from Medicaid. Management has historically worked closely with the Commonwealth for the critically needed supplemental payments. The 2016 funding was $138.6 million, up from $131 million in 2015, but only $75 million of that amount had been received by the fiscal year end, impacting the liquidity level. The balance of the 2016 funding was remitted in the first quarter of fiscal 2017. There continues to be concern regarding the level and sources of the supplemental funding, but management is fairly optimistic in expecting that the level in fiscal 2017 will be close to prior year levels.

MODEST LIQUIDITY The $336.1 million of unrestricted cash and investments at 2016 year end was a slight decline from $374.3 million in the prior year with the variance including higher amounts owed from the Commonwealth, as well as increased spending on IT and higher volumes resulting in higher net receivables. The supplemental funding expected to be received by June 30, 2016 was $22.6 million less than had been budgeted. Management has budgeted liquidity at $350 million for fiscal 2017 and set a goal of 100 DCOH by 2019. WEAK COVERAGE TUHS had $517.8 million of long-term debt at 2016 fiscal year-end, which is 100% fixed rate and the system has no swaps. Consolidated MADS is $49.5 million and occurs in fiscal 2017. The increase in MADS from $38.9 million (at the time of Fitch's last review in December 2015) is due to the debt service related to several equipment loans and capitalized leases, which were not included in the MADS used by Fitch in the prior analysis. Coverage of MADS based on the TUHS consolidated EBITDA was 1.8x in fiscal 2016. The obligated group reported higher coverage of 2.4x in fiscal 2016 based on the master trust indenture calculation, which is on annual debt service. DISCLOSURE TUHS covenants to provide timely annual quarterly financial and operating data to MSRB's EMMA system. Additional information is available at 'www.fitchratings.com'. Applicable Criteria Revenue-Supported Rating Criteria (pub. 16 Jun 2014) https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/750012 U.S. Nonprofit Hospitals and Health Systems Rating Criteria (pub. 09 Jun 2015) https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/866807 Additional Disclosures Dodd-Frank Rating Information Disclosure Form https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/press_releases/content/ridf_frame.cfm?pr_id=1014645 Solicitation Status https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=1014645 Endorsement Policy https://www.fitchratings.com/regulatory ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTPS://WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEB SITE AT WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA, AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. 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In issuing and maintaining its ratings and in making other reports (including forecast information), Fitch relies on factual information it receives from issuers and underwriters and from other sources Fitch believes to be credible. Fitch conducts a reasonable investigation of the factual information relied upon by it in accordance with its ratings methodology, and obtains reasonable verification of that information from independent sources, to the extent such sources are available for a given security or in a given jurisdiction. 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Fitch is not engaged in the offer or sale of any security. All Fitch reports have shared authorship. Individuals identified in a Fitch report were involved in, but are not solely responsible for, the opinions stated therein. The individuals are named for contact purposes only. A report providing a Fitch rating is neither a prospectus nor a substitute for the information assembled, verified and presented to investors by the issuer and its agents in connection with the sale of the securities. Ratings may be changed or withdrawn at any time for any reason in the sole discretion of Fitch. Fitch does not provide investment advice of any sort. Ratings are not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Ratings do not comment on the adequacy of market price, the suitability of any security for a particular investor, or the tax-exempt nature or taxability of payments made in respect to any security. Fitch receives fees from issuers, insurers, guarantors, other obligors, and underwriters for rating securities. Such fees generally vary from US$1,000 to US$750,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent) per issue. In certain cases, Fitch will rate all or a number of issues issued by a particular issuer, or insured or guaranteed by a particular insurer or guarantor, for a single annual fee. Such fees are expected to vary from US$10,000 to US$1,500,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent). The assignment, publication, or dissemination of a rating by Fitch shall not constitute a consent by Fitch to use its name as an expert in connection with any registration statement filed under the United States securities laws, the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 of the United Kingdom, or the securities laws of any particular jurisdiction. Due to the relative efficiency of electronic publishing and distribution, Fitch research may be available to electronic subscribers up to three days earlier than to print subscribers. For Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea only: Fitch Australia Pty Ltd holds an Australian financial services license (AFS license no. 337123) which authorizes it to provide credit ratings to wholesale clients only. Credit ratings information published by Fitch is not intended to be used by persons who are retail clients within the meaning of the Corporations Act 2001 View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006609/en/

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Probiodrug reports Third Quarter 2016 Business Update

HALLE/SAALE, Germany, 10 November 2016 - Probiodrug AG (Euronext Amsterdam: PBD), a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutic solutions to treat Alzheimer's disease (AD), today announces its third quarter business update for the period ending 30 September 2016, in the form of an interim management report.

The interim management report for the third quarter 2016 is available for download on the company website (http://www.probiodrug.de/investors/reports-and-presentations/).

OPERATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

Probiodrug announced first data of a preclinical combination therapy with the Glutaminyl Cyclase (QC) inhibitor PQ912 and the pGlu-Abeta specific antibody PBD-C06, which showed clear additive effects in reducing pGlu-Abeta as well as overall Abeta in an Alzheimer-mouse model

Promising new findings for the Glutaminyl Cyclase inhibitor PQ912 in an inflammation animal model presented

Changes to the Supervisory Board and Executive Management announced

Expenditures and corresponding cash position in line with management expectations

As of 30 September 2016 (excluding the proceeds of EUR 14.9 million from the capital raise of October), Probiodrug held EUR 11.57 million in cash and cash equivalents

POST PERIOD HIGHLIGHTS

On 6 October 2016, Probiodrug announced the raise of EUR 14.9 million via an accelerated bookbuild at a price of EUR 20 per share

Commenting on the third quarter, Dr Konrad Glund, Chief Executive Officer of Probiodrug, said:

"In the third quarter 2016 we have achieved significant progress, both in the development of our programs as well as of the company. In a combination therapy study with PQ912 and PBD-C06, we showed clear additive effects in reducing pGlu-Abeta as well as total Abeta in an Alzheimer-mouse model. Our results are very exciting as they indicate the potential of a combination therapy by either increasing the effect size on lowering toxic pGlu-Abeta and total Abeta as shown here, or potentially by lowering a single agent's dose.

"Furthermore, we see the successful placement of 10% of the then outstanding shares at the beginning of October as a further validation of the potential of our approach to fight Alzheimer's disease. We are glad to welcome further top tier investors from Europe and the US as shareholders of our company and would like to thank our existing and new investors for their trust and commitment."

OPERATIONAL REVIEW

Pipeline update

Probiodrug's development approach targets pyroglutamate-Abeta (pGlu-Abeta, also called N3pG Abeta) as a therapeutic strategy to fight Alzheimer's disease. This modified Abeta is considered to be linked with disease initiation and progression by seeding the formation of soluble neurotoxic amyloid oligomers. Probiodrug is developing proprietary product candidates to target toxic pGlu-Abeta via two modes of action: by (i) inhibiting the production of pGlu-Abeta; and (ii) clearing existing pGlu-Abeta from the brain.

Probiodrug's innovative approach is based on the development of specific inhibitors for the enzyme Glutaminyl Cyclase (QC), which is instrumental in the creation of pGlu-Abeta. In addition, the company is developing a monoclonal antibody targeting pGlu-Abeta to enhance its clearance.

To date, Probiodrug's pipeline consists of two small molecule inhibitors of the QC-enzyme, PQ912 and PQ1565, and a monoclonal antibody, PBD-C06, targeting pGlu-Abeta.

PQ912

In 2015, Probiodrug initiated a Phase 2a study, the "SAPHIR" study, of its lead product candidate PQ912. In a preceding Phase 1 study with healthy young and elderly volunteers, PQ912 was shown to be safe and well tolerated and revealed high QC-inhibition.

PQ912 has been evaluated in rats and dogs in 4 weeks, 3 months and 6/9 months studies. In the chronic toxicology studies no new findings were observed and the minimal to slight, non-adverse changes seen in both the 4-week and the 13-week studies were without any aggravation by the prolonged treatment. The conclusions from these peer-reviewed results of the long term toxicology studies are viewed as the regulatory prerequisite for longer treatment clinical studies in AD patients.

PQ912 is the first QC-inhibitor being tested in patients. The Phase 2a study is a randomized, double-blind multi-center study which plans to enrol a total of 110 patients with early stage Alzheimer's disease. The study is led by internationally renowned experts in AD in six European countries at about 18 sites, with the Alzheimer Center, VU Medical Center (VUmc), Amsterdam being the lead center. The primary endpoint of the trial is the safety and tolerability of PQ912 compared with placebo over a three-month treatment period. Additionally, a set of exploratory read-outs comprising of cognitive tests, functional assessments by EEG as well as functional MRI and new molecular biomarkers in CSF which will be used to evaluate the compound's effect on the pathology of the disease. Patient enrolment started in March 2015.

SAPHIR is in full swing. To respond to several challenges such as high competition in getting access to treatment naive patients, we have taken various measures, in particular adding more sites in various countries while keeping quality at high level. Additional sites are activated, all are highly motivated and enrolling. The full picture of all results is expected to be available Q1 / Q2 2017.

PBD-C06

PBD-C06 is a monoclonal antibody, currently in preclinical stage. PBD-C06 targets pGlu-Abeta, aiming to selectively clear the brain of pGlu-Abeta while leaving non-toxic forms of Abeta untouched. PBD-C06 has been successfully humanized and also de-immunized to avoid detection by the patient's endogenous immune system. For the first time for an anti-pGlu-Abeta approach, PBD-C06 has not only shown the ability to reduce Abeta/plaques but also to significantly improve cognitive deficits in aged Alzheimer's mice. Moreover, no evidence was found of increased microhemorrhages after treatment with PBD-C06.

PQ1565

PQ1565 is a QC-inhibitor, currently in preclinical stage. The product candidate has shown attractive drug-like properties in preclinical studies. The GMP process for this molecule is being implemented.

The next development steps are in preparation and respective decisions would be made in connection with the readout of the SAPHIR trial.

Operational Update

Combination therapy with Glutaminyl Cyclase (QC) inhibitor PQ912 and pGlu-Abeta specific antibody PBD-C06

A clear additive effect on lowering pGlu-Abeta (pyroglutamate-Amyloid-beta) as well as total Abeta was observed with a double-pronged approach of targeting toxic pGlu-Abeta by combining the Glutaminyl Cyclase-inhibitor PQ912 to block pGlu-Abeta formation and the mouse version of the pGlu-Abeta specific antibody, PBD-C06, to increase clearance in an AD animal model. Data were generated in collaboration with Cynthia Lemere of the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA, and QPS, Graz, Austria.

Promising new findings for the Glutaminyl Cyclase (QC) inhibitor PQ912 in an inflammation animal model

The effect of the QC inhibitor PQ912 was investigated in a mouse model of inflammation (thioglycollate induced peritonitis) with a special focus on its effect on cell infiltration and release of pro-resolving lipid mediators. The effects seen with PQ912 on recruitment of macrophages and eosinophils, and levels of chemokines and lipid mediators, makes QC inhibition attractive for further evaluation as potential anti-inflammatory drug and/or resolution promoting agent. Data were generated in collaboration with Ambiotis SAS (Toulouse, France) and were presented at the Summer Frontiers Symposium 2016 in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and at the 6th European Workshop on Lipid Mediators, in Frankfurt, Germany.

CORPORATE REVIEW

Changes to the Supervisory Board and Executive Management announced

Probiodrug announced changes to the Supervisory Board and Executive Management. Olivier Litzka, partner at Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners (EdRIP) and member of the Supervisory Board since October 2009, stepped down in September 2016 as part of a natural transition. Mark Booth, Chief Business Officer, left the company for personal reasons in August 2016 and his responsibilities have been taken over by Dr Konrad Glund, CEO.

Financials

In third quarter of 2016 the research and development expenses were with TEUR 1,776 below the corresponding numbers of 2015 with TEUR 2,416, reflecting mainly shifts and not real reductions. In line with the business planning the general and administrative expenses further decreased to TEUR 588 vs. TEUR 713 in the third quarter of 2015, reflecting the implementation of the post listing requirements mainly accomplished in 2015. Correspondingly, the resulting comprehensive loss of the reporting period was TEUR 2,383, below the comprehensive loss of the third quarter of 2015 (TEUR 3,148).

The comprehensive loss for the nine month period ending 30 September 2016 was TEUR 8,427, compared to TEUR 9,377 for the corresponding period in 2015. Thereof TEUR 6,487 were research and development expenses in comparison to TEUR 6,927 in the nine month period 2015. TEUR 1,912 were general and administrate expenses in comparison to TEUR 2,585 for the nine months 2015.

All numbers are in line with management expectations.

Excluding the proceeds from the capital raise of October of EUR 14.9 million, Probiodrug held EUR 11.57 million in cash and cash equivalents as of 30 September 2016.

POST PERIOD UPDATE

Placement of new shares

Probiodrug announced a EUR 14.9 million placement of new shares on 6 October 2016 via an accelerated bookbuild. As a result Probiodrug increased its share capital by EUR 744,248, from EUR 7,442,487 to EUR 8,186,735, by issuing 744,248 new shares with a notional par value of EUR 1.00 per share. The order book was well covered based on strong demand from European and US investors. The new shares have been placed with selected qualified institutional investors at a price of EUR 20.00 per share. The issued shares represented approximately 10% of the company's then issued share capital. The net proceeds from the transaction will be used primarily to support preparations of further clinical development of the lead product PQ912 beyond the ongoing Phase 2a (SAPHIR) trial, support further development of PBD-C06 and PQ1565 and exploration of other mechanism-related indications, strengthen the financial position of the Company and support exploration of business opportunities.

Kempen & Co acted as Global Coordinator and together with Bank am Bellevue and RBC Capital Markets as Joint Bookrunners in the offering.

###

For more information please contact:

Probiodrug

Dr Konrad Glund, CEO

Email: contact@probiodrug.de

Hume Brophy

Mary Clark, Supriya Mathur, Eva Haas

Tel: +44 (0) 207 862 6475

Email: probiodrug@humebrophy.com

The Trout Group

Tricia Truehart

Tel: +1 646 378-2953

Email: ttruehart@troutgroup.com

Notes to Editors:

About Probiodrug AG

Headquartered in Halle, Germany, Probiodrug AG (Euronext Amsterdam: PBD) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of new therapeutic products for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

Founded in 1997, the company successfully developed a novel therapeutic concept for diabetes - the DP4 inhibitors - which provided the basis for a novel class of antidiabetics - the gliptins. Its core capabilities are based on its long-standing expertise in the elucidation of the structure and function of enzymes involved in the modification of proteins and peptides, which play a central role in pathological conditions.

Today Probiodrug's aim is to become a leading company in the development of Alzheimer's disease treatments and to thereby provide a better life for Alzheimer's disease patients. It has identified a new therapeutic concept linked to disease initiation and progression. The development approaches are targeting pyroglutamate-Abeta (pGlu-Abeta) as a therapeutic strategy to fight Alzheimer's disease. The Company has medical use and composition of matter patents related to the inhibition of Glutaminyl Cyclase (QC) and anti-pGlu-Abeta- specific monoclonal antibodies, providing it, in the Company's view, with a leading position in this field of research.

Probiodrug's lead product candidate, PQ912, is a highly specific and potent inhibitor of Glutaminyl Cyclase (QC), which has shown therapeutic effects in Alzheimer's animal models. PQ912 is currently in a Phase 2a study, the SAPHIR trial. In a preceding Phase 1 study with healthy young and elderly volunteers, PQ912 has shown to be safe and well tolerated and also revealed high QC-inhibition.

www.probiodrug.de

About Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is a neurological disorder, which is the most common form of dementia, and ultimately leads to death. Because Alzheimer's disease cannot be cured and is degenerative, the affected patients must increasingly rely on others for assistance. Today, 47 million people live with dementia worldwide, and this number is projected to treble to more than 131 million by 2050, as population's age. Dementia also has a huge economic impact. Alzheimer's also has an estimated, global societal cost of US$ 818 billion, and it will become a trillion dollar disease by 2018. (World Alzheimer Report 2016).

Forward Looking Statements

Information set forth in this press release contains forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained herein represent the judgment of Probiodrug AG as of the date of this press release. Such forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
[November 10, 2016] Bristol-Myers Squibb's Opdivo (nivolumab) is the First Immuno-Oncology Treatment to Receive FDA Approval Based on Overall Survival in Head and Neck Cancer

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Opdivo (nivolumab) injection, for intravenous use, for the treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) with disease progression on or after platinum-based therapy.1 Opdivo is the first and only Immuno-Oncology treatment proven in a Phase 3 trial to significantly extend overall survival (OS) for these patients.1 In oncology clinical trials, OS is considered the gold standard primary endpoint to evaluate the outcome of any therapy.3 The approval was based on results from the Phase 3, CheckMate -141 trial in which Opdivo demonstrated statistically significant and clinically meaningful superior OS vs the comparator arm (investigator's choice of methotrexate, docetaxel or cetuximab), with a 30% reduction in the risk of death (HR=0.70 [95% CI: 0.53-0.92; p=0.0101]).1 The median OS was 7.5 months (95% CI: 5.5-9.1) for Opdivo compared to 5.1 months (95% CI: 4.0-6.0) for investigator's choice.1 Opdivo is associated with immune-mediated: pneumonitis, colitis, hepatitis, endocrinopathies, nephritis and renal dysfunction, skin adverse reactions, encephalitis, other adverse reactions; infusion reactions; and embryo-fetal toxicity. Please see the Important Safety Information section below. "With this approval in head and neck cancer, we continue to lead the field in bringing our Immuno-Oncology science and the potential for increasing survival to more people with cancer," said Chris Boerner, Head of U.S. Commercial, Bristol-Myers Squibb. "We take tremendous pride in the unprecedented speed and rigor with which we have brought Opdivo to market to address unmet needs across more tumor types than any other Immuno-Oncology treatment." Squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) accounts for more than 90% of all head and neck cancers, and more than 50% of SCCHN patients present with Stage III or higher disease (locally advanced or metastatic), which has higher potential for progression and recurrence.4,5 The relative five-year survival rate for metastatic head and neck cancers is <38%, and can be as low as 4% for recurrent or metastatic Stage IV disease.6,7 "Squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck that progresses on or after platinum-based therapy is a debilitating and hard-to-treat disease associated with a very poor prognosis," said Maura Gillison, M.D., Ph.D., lead investigator, Jeg Coughlin Chair of Cancer Research, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. "This latest approval for Opdivo reinforces the potential to provide patients with improved overall survival, considered the gold standard in cancer care." Based on a pre-planned interim analysis, CheckMate -141 was stopped early in January 2016 because an assessment conducted by the independent Data Monitoring Committee concluded the study met its primary endpoint of OS. In April 2016, the FDA granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to Opdivo for recurrent or metastatic SCCHN after platinum-based therapy, underscoring the need for new treatment approaches for this disease. In October, the U.S. National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) updated its clinical practice guidelines to recommend treatment with Opdivo as the only category 1 single-agent therapy for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer with disease progression on or after platinum-containing chemotherapy.2 Opdivo has now been approved in five tumor types in under two years.1 CheckMate -141 Confirms Superior OS in SCCHN CheckMate -141 was a global Phase 3, open-label, randomized, trial evaluating Opdivo versus investigator's choice of therapy in patients with recurrent or metastatic SCCHN who had tumor progression during or within six months of receiving platinum-based therapy administered in the adjuvant, neo-adjuvant, primary (unresectable locally advanced) or metastatic setting.1,8 Patients were included regardless of their HPV or PD-L1 status.1 Patients were randomized 2:1 to receive Opdivo 3 mg/kg intravenously over 60 minutes every two weeks (n=240), or investigator's choice (n=121) of: methotrextate 40 to 60 mg/m2 intravenously weekly, docetaxel 30 to 40 mg/m2 intravenously weekly, or cetuximab 400 mg/m2 intravenously once then 250 mg/m2 weekly.1 Therapies chosen for investigator's choice represent the most commonly used therapies in the platinum refractory setting.9,10 The primary endpoint was OS.1 The trial's secondary endpoints included progression-free survival (PFS) and objective response rate (ORR).11 In the trial, Opdivo demonstrated statistically significant superior OS with a 30% reduction in the risk of death (HR=0.70 [95% CI: 0.53-0.92; p=0.0101]), and a median OS of 7.5 months (95% CI: 5.5-9.1) for Opdivo compared to 5.1 months (95% CI: 4.0-6.0) for the investigator's choice arm.1 There were no statistically significant differences between the two arms for PFS (HR=0.89; 95% CI: 0.70, 1.13) or ORR (13.3% [95% CI: 9.3, 18.3] vs 5.8% [95% CI: 2.4, 11.6] for Opdivo and investigator's choice, respectively.1 Data from CheckMate -141 were published in The New England Journal of Medicine in October.8 "We are excited to see the continued benefits of ongoing Immuno-Oncology research from a company with a long-standing commitment to head and neck cancer like Bristol-Myers Squibb," said Brian Hill, oral cancer survivor and founder, The Oral Cancer Foundation. "Today's approval provides hope for the thousands of previously treated SCCHN patients and their loved ones by bringing a new treatment option that has the potential to extend lives." The safety profile of Opdivo in CheckMate -141 was consistent with prior studies in patients with melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer.8 Opdivo was discontinued in 14% of patients and was delayed in 24% of patients for an adverse reaction.1 Serious adverse reactions occurred in 49% of patients receiving Opdivo.1 The most frequent serious adverse reactions reported in at least 2% of patients receiving Opdivo were pneumonia, dyspnea, aspiration pneumonia, respiratory failure, respiratory tract infection, and sepsis.1 Please see the Important Safety Information section below. About Head & Neck Cancer Cancers that are known as head and neck cancers usually begin in the squamous cells that line the moist mucosal surfaces inside the head and neck, such as inside the mouth and the throat.12 In 2016, approximately 64,000 new cases of head and neck cancer are estimated to be diagnosed in the U.S., resulting in more than 13,000 deaths.4,13,14 Head and neck cancers are more than twice as common among men as they are among women.4 Bristol-Myers Squibb & Immuno-Oncology: Advancing Oncology Research At Bristol-Myers Squibb, we have a vision for the future of cancer care that is focused on Immuno-Oncology, now considered a major treatment modality alongside surgery, radiation and chemotherapy for certain types of cancer. We have a comprehensive clinical portfolio of investigational and approved Immuno-Oncology agents, many of which were discovered and developed by our scientists. We pioneered the research leading to the first regulatory approval for the combination of two Immuno-Oncology agents and continue to study the role of combinations in cancer. Our collaboration with academia as well as small and large biotech companies is responsible for researching the potential Immuno-Oncology and non-Immuno-Oncology combinations, with the goal of providing new treatment options in clinical practice. At Bristol-Myers Squibb, we are committed to changing expectations in hard-to-treat cancers and the way patients live with cancer. U.S. FDA APPROVED INDICATIONS FOR OPDIVO OPDIVO (nivolumab) as a single agent is indicated for the treatment of patients with BRAF V600 mutation-positive unresectable or metastatic melanoma. This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on progression-free survival. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in the confirmatory trials OPDIVO (nivolumab) as a single agent is indicated for the treatment of patients with BRAF V600 wild-type unresectable or metastatic melanoma. OPDIVO (nivolumab), in combination with YERVOY (ipilimumab), is indicated for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma. This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on progression-free survival. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in the confirmatory trials. OPDIVO (nivolumab) is indicated for the treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy. Patients with EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations should have disease progression on FDA-approved therapy for these aberrations prior to receiving OPDIVO. OPDIVO (nivolumab) is indicated for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) who have received prior anti-angiogenic therapy. OPDIVO (nivolumab) is indicated for the treatment of patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) that has relapsed or progressed after autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and post-transplantation brentuximab vedotin. This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on overall response rate. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in confirmatory trials. OPDIVO (nivolumab) is indicated for the treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) with disease progression on or after platinum-based therapy. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION WARNING: IMMUNE-MEDIATED ADVERSE REACTIONS YERVOY can result in severe and fatal immune-mediated adverse reactions. These immune-mediated reactions may involve any organ system; however, the most common severe immune-mediated adverse reactions are enterocolitis, hepatitis, dermatitis (including toxic epidermal necrolysis), neuropathy, and endocrinopathy. The majority of these immune-mediated reactions initially manifested during treatment; however, a minority occurred weeks to months after discontinuation of YERVOY. Assess patients for signs and symptoms of enterocolitis, dermatitis, neuropathy, and endocrinopathy and evaluate clinical chemistries including liver function tests (LFTs), adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) level, and thyroid function tests at baseline and before each dose. Permanently discontinue YERVOY and initiate systemic high-dose corticosteroid therapy for severe immune-mediated reactions. Immune-Mediated Pneumonitis OPDIVO can cause immune-mediated pneumonitis. Fatal cases have been reported. Monitor patients for signs with radiographic imaging and for symptoms of pneumonitis. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or more severe pneumonitis. Permanently discontinue for Grade 3 or 4 and withhold until resolution for Grade 2. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, fatal cases of immune-mediated pneumonitis have occurred. Immune-mediated pneumonitis occurred in 3.1% (61/1994) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY, immune-mediated pneumonitis occurred in 6% (25/407) of patients. In Checkmate 205 and 039, pneumonitis, including interstitial lung disease, occurred in 4.9% (13/263) of patients receiving OPDIVO. Immune-mediated pneumonitis occurred in 3.4% (9/263) of patients receiving OPDIVO: Grade 3 (n=1) and Grade 2 (n=8). Immune-Mediated Colitis OPDIVO can cause immune-mediated colitis. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of colitis. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 (of more than 5 days duration), 3, or 4 colitis. Withhold OPDIVO monotherapy for Grade 2 or 3 and permanently discontinue for Grade 4 or recurrent colitis upon re-initiation of OPDIVO. When administered with YERVOY, withhold OPDIVO and YERVOY for Grade 2 and permanently discontinue for Grade 3 or 4 or recurrent colitis. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, immune-mediated colitis occurred in 2.9% (58/1994) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY, immune-mediated colitis occurred in 26% (107/407) of patients including three fatal cases. In a separate Phase 3 study of YERVOY 3 mg/kg, severe, life-threatening, or fatal (diarrhea of =7 stools above baseline, fever, ileus, peritoneal signs; Grade 3-5) immune-mediated enterocolitis occurred in 34 (7%) patients. Across all YERVOY-treated patients in that study (n=511), 5 (1%) developed intestinal perforation, 4 (0.8%) died as a result of complications, and 26 (5%) were hospitalized for severe enterocolitis. Immune-Mediated Hepatitis OPDIVO can cause immune-mediated hepatitis. Monitor patients for abnormal liver tests prior to and periodically during treatment. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater transaminase elevations. Withhold for Grade 2 and permanently discontinue for Grade 3 or 4 immune-mediated hepatitis. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, immune-mediated hepatitis occurred in 1.8% (35/1994) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY, immune-mediated hepatitis occurred in 13% (51/407) of patients. In a separate Phase 3 study of YERVOY 3 mg/kg, severe, life-threatening, or fatal hepatotoxicity (AST or ALT elevations >5x the ULN or total bilirubin elevations >3x the ULN; Grade 3-5) occurred in 8 (2%) patients, with fatal hepatic failure in 0.2% and hospitalization in 0.4%. Immune-Mediated Neuropathies In a separate Phase 3 study of YERVOY 3 mg/kg, 1 case of fatal Guillain-Barre syndrome and 1 case of severe (Grade 3) peripheral motor neuropathy were reported. Immune-Mediated Endocrinopathies OPDIVO can cause immune-mediated hypophysitis, immune-mediated adrenal insufficiency, autoimmune thyroid disorders, and Type 1 diabetes mellitus. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of hypophysitis, signs and symptoms of adrenal insufficiency, thyroid function prior to and periodically during treatment, and hyperglycemia. Administer hormone replacement as clinically indicated and corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater hypophysitis. Withhold for Grade 2 or 3 and permanently discontinue for Grade 4 hypophysitis. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 3 or 4 adrenal insufficiency. Withhold for Grade 2 and permanently discontinue for Grade 3 or 4 adrenal insufficiency. Administer hormone-replacement therapy for hypothyroidism. Initiate medical management for control of hyperthyroidism. Withhold OPDIVO for Grade 3 and permanently discontinue for Grade 4 hyperglycemia. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, hypophysitis occurred in 0.6% (12/1994) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY, hypophysitis occurred in 9% (36/407) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, adrenal insufficiency occurred in 1% (20/1994) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY, adrenal insufficiency occurred in 5% (21/407) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, hypothyroidism or thyroiditis resulting in hypothyroidism occurred in 9% (171/1994) of patients. Hyperthyroidism occurred in 2.7% (54/1994) of patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy. In patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY, hypothyroidism or thyroiditis resulting in hypothyroidism occurred in 22% (89/407) of patients. Hyperthyroidism occurred in 8% (34/407) of patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, diabetes occurred in 0.9% (17/1994) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY, diabetes occurred in 1.5% (6/407) of patients. In a separate Phase 3 study of YERVOY 3 mg/kg, severe to life-threatening immune-mediated endocrinopathies (requiring hospitalization, urgent medical intervention, or interfering with activities of daily living; Grade 3-4) occurred in 9 (1.8%) patients. All 9 patients had hypopituitarism, and some had additional concomitant endocrinopathies such as adrenal insufficiency, hypogonadism, and hypothyroidism. 6 of the 9 patients were hospitalized for severe endocrinopathies. Immune-Mediated Nephritis and Renal Dysfunction OPDIVO can cause immune-mediated nephritis. Monitor patients for elevated serum creatinine prior to and periodically during treatment. Administer corticosteroids for Grades 2-4 increased serum creatinine. Withhold OPDIVO for Grade 2 or 3 and permanently discontinue for Grade 4 increased serum creatinine. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, immune-mediated nephritis and renal dysfunction occurred in 1.2% (23/1994) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY, immune-mediated nephritis and renal dysfunction occurred in 2.2% (9/407) of patients. Immune-Mediated Skin Adverse Reactions and Dermatitis OPDIVO can cause immune-mediated rash, including Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), some cases with fatal outcome. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 3 or 4 rash. Withhold for Grade 3 and permanently discontinue for Grade 4 rash. For symptoms or signs of SJS or TEN, withhold OPDIVO and refer the patient for specialized care for assessment and treatment; if confirmed, permanently discontinue. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, immune-mediated rash occurred in 9% (171/1994) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY, immune-mediated rash occurred in 22.6% (92/407) of patients. In a separate Phase 3 study of YERVOY 3 mg/kg, severe, life-threatening, or fatal immune-mediated dermatitis (eg, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis, or rash complicated by full thickness dermal ulceration, or necrotic, bullous, or hemorrhagic manifestations; Grade 3-5) occurred in 13 (2.5%) patients. 1 (0.2%) patient died as a result of toxic epidermal necrolysis. 1 additional patient required hospitalization for severe dermatitis. Immune-Mediated Encephalitis OPDIVO can cause immune-mediated encephalitis. Evaluation of patients with neurologic symptoms may include, but not be limited to, consultation with a neurologist, brain MRI, and lumbar puncture. Withhold OPDIVO in patients with new-onset moderate to severe neurologic signs or symptoms and evaluate to rule out other causes. If other etiologies are ruled out, administer corticosteroids and permanently discontinue OPDIVO for immune-mediated encephalitis. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, encephalitis occurred in 0.2% (3/1994) of patients. Fatal limbic encephalitis occurred in one patient after 7.2 months of exposure despite discontinuation of OPDIVO and administration of corticosteroids. Encephalitis occurred in one patient receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY (0.2%) after 1.7 months of exposure. Other Immune-Mediated Adverse Reactions Based on the severity of adverse reaction, permanently discontinue or withhold treatment, administer high-dose corticosteroids, and, if appropriate, initiate hormone-replacement therapy. Across clinical trials of OPDIVO the following clinically significant immune-mediated adverse reactions occurred in <1.0% of patients receiving OPDIVO: uveitis, iritis, pancreatitis, facial and abducens nerve paresis, demyelination, polymyalgia rheumatica, autoimmune neuropathy, Guillain-Barre syndrome, hypopituitarism, systemic inflammatory response syndrome, gastritis, duodenitis, sarcoidosis, histiocytic necrotizing lymphadenitis (Kikuchi lymphadenitis), myositis, myocarditis, rhabdomyolysis, motor dysfunction, vasculitis, and myasthenic syndrome. Infusion Reactions OPDIVO can cause severe infusion reactions, which have been reported in <1.0% of patients in clinical trials. Discontinue OPDIVO in patients with Grade 3 or 4 infusion reactions. Interrupt or slow the rate of infusion in patients with Grade 1 or 2. In patients receiving OPDIVO monotherapy, infusion-related reactions occurred in 6.4% (127/1994) of patients. In patients receiving OPDIVO with YERVOY, infusion-related reactions occurred in 2.5% (10/407) of patients. Complications of Allogeneic HSCT after OPDIVO Complications, including fatal events, occurred in patients who received allogeneic HSCT after OPDIVO. Outcomes were evaluated in 17 patients from Checkmate 205 and 039, who underwent allogeneic HSCT after discontinuing OPDIVO (15 with reduced-intensity conditioning, 2 with myeloablative conditioning). Thirty-five percent (6/17) of patients died from complications of allogeneic HSCT after OPDIVO. Five deaths occurred in the setting of severe or refractory GVHD. Grade 3 or higher acute GVHD was reported in 29% (5/17) of patients. Hyperacute GVHD was reported in 20% (n=2) of patients. A steroid-requiring febrile syndrome, without an identified infectious cause, was reported in 35% (n=6) of patients. Two cases of encephalitis were reported: Grade 3 (n=1) lymphocytic encephalitis without an identified infectious cause, and Grade 3 (n=1) suspected viral encephalitis. Hepatic veno-occlusive disease (VOD) occurred in one patient, who received reduced-intensity conditioned allogeneic HSCT and died of GVHD and multi-organ failure. Other cases of hepatic VOD after reduced-intensity conditioned allogeneic HSCT have also been reported in patients with lymphoma who received a PD-1 receptor blocking antibody before transplantation. Cases of fatal hyperacute GVHD have also been reported. These complications may occur despite intervening therapy between PD-1 blockade and allogeneic HSCT. Follow patients closely for early evidence of transplant-related complications such as hyperacute GVHD, severe (Grade 3 to 4) acute GVHD, steroid-requiring febrile syndrome, hepatic VOD, and other immune-mediated adverse reactions, and intervene promptly. Embryo-Fetal Toxicity Based on their mechanisms of action, OPDIVO and YERVOY can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. Advise pregnant women of the potential risk to a fetus. Advise females of reproductive potential to use effective contraception during treatment with an OPDIVO- or YERVOY- containing regimen and for at least 5 months after the last dose of OPDIVO. Lactation It is not known whether OPDIVO or YERVOY is present in human milk. Because many drugs, including antibodies, are excreted in human milk and because of the potential for serious adverse reactions in nursing infants from an OPDIVO-containing regimen, advise women to discontinue breastfeeding during treatment. Advise women to discontinue nursing during treatment with YERVOY and for 3 months following the final dose. Serious Adverse Reactions In Checkmate 037, serious adverse reactions occurred in 41% of patients receiving OPDIVO (n=268). Grade 3 and 4 adverse reactions occurred in 42% of patients receiving OPDIVO . The most frequent Grade 3 and 4 adverse drug reactions reported in 2% to <5% of patients receiving OPDIVO were abdominal pain, hyponatremia, increased aspartate aminotransferase, and increased lipase. In Checkmate 066, serious adverse reactions occurred in 36% of patients receiving OPDIVO (n=206). Grade 3 and 4 adverse reactions occurred in 41% of patients receiving OPDIVO. The most frequent Grade 3 and 4 adverse reactions reported in =2% of patients receiving OPDIVO were gamma-glutamyltransferase increase (3.9%) and diarrhea (3.4%). In Checkmate 067, serious adverse reactions (73% and 37%), adverse reactions leading to permanent discontinuation (43% and 14%) or to dosing delays (55% and 28%), and Grade 3 or 4 adverse reactions (72% and 44%) all occurred more frequently in the OPDIVO plus YERVOY arm (n=313) relative to the OPDIVO arm (n=313). The most frequent (=10%) serious adverse reactions in the OPDIVO plus YERVOY arm and the OPDIVO arm, respectively, were diarrhea (13% and 2.6%), colitis (10% and 1.6%), and pyrexia (10% and 0.6%). In Checkmate 017 and 057, serious adverse reactions occurred in 46% of patients receiving OPDIVO (n=418). The most frequent serious adverse reactions reported in at least 2% of patients receiving OPDIVO were pneumonia, pulmonary embolism, dyspnea, pyrexia, pleural effusion, pneumonitis, and respiratory failure. In Checkmate 025, serious adverse reactions occurred in 47% of patients receiving OPDIVO (n=406). The most frequent serious adverse reactions reported in =2% of patients were acute kidney injury, pleural effusion, pneumonia, diarrhea, and hypercalcemia. In Checkmate 205 and 039, among all patients (safety population [n=263]), adverse reactions leading to discontinuation (4.2%) or to dosing delays (23%) occurred. The most frequent serious adverse reactions reported in =1% of patients were infusion-related reaction, pneumonia, pleural effusion, pyrexia, rash and pneumonitis. Ten patients died from causes other than disease progression, including 6 who died from complications of allogeneic HSCT. Serious adverse reactions occurred in 21% of patients in the safety population (n=263) and 27% of patients in the subset of patients evaluated for efficacy (efficacy population [n=95]). In Checkmate 141, serious adverse reactions occurred in 49% of patients receiving OPDIVO. The most frequent serious adverse reactions reported in at least 2% of patients receiving OPDIVO were pneumonia, dyspnea, respiratory failure, respiratory tract infections, and sepsis. Common Adverse Reactions In Checkmate 037, the most common adverse reaction (=20%) reported with OPDIVO (n=268) was rash (21%). In Checkmate 066, the most common adverse reactions (=20%) reported with OPDIVO (n=206) vs dacarbazine (n=205) were fatigue (49% vs 39%), musculoskeletal pain (32% vs 25%), rash (28% vs 12%), and pruritus (23% vs 12%). In Checkmate 067, the most common (=20%) adverse reactions in the OPDIVO plus YERVOY arm (n=313) were fatigue (59%), rash (53%), diarrhea (52%), nausea (40%), pyrexia (37%), vomiting (28%), and dyspnea (20%). The most common (=20%) adverse reactions in the OPDIVO (n=313) arm were fatigue (53%), rash (40%), diarrhea (31%), and nausea (28%). In Checkmate 017 and 057, the most common adverse reactions (=20%) in patients receiving OPDIVO (n=418) were fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, cough, dyspnea, and decreased appetite. In Checkmate 025, the most common adverse reactions (=20%) reported in patients receiving OPDIVO (n=406) vs everolimus (n=397) were asthenic conditions (56% vs 57%), cough (34% vs 38%), nausea (28% vs 29%), rash (28% vs 36%), dyspnea (27% vs 31%), diarrhea (25% vs 32%), constipation (23% vs 18%), decreased appetite (23% vs 30%), back pain (21% vs 16%), and arthralgia (20% vs 14%). In Checkmate 205 and 039, among all patients (safety population [n=263]) and the subset of patients in the efficacy population (n=95), respectively, the most common adverse reactions (=20%) were fatigue (32% and 43%), upper respiratory tract infection (28% and 48%), pyrexia (24% and 35%), diarrhea (23% and 30%), and cough (22% and 35%). In the subset of patients in the efficacy population (n=95), the most common adverse reactions also included rash (31%), musculoskeletal pain (27%), pruritus (25%), nausea (23%), arthralgia (21%), and peripheral neuropathy (21%). In Checkmate 141, the most common adverse reactions (=10%) in patients receiving OPDIVO were cough and dyspnea at a higher incidence than investigator's choice. In a separate Phase 3 study of YERVOY 3 mg/kg, the most common adverse reactions (=5%) in patients who received YERVOY at 3 mg/kg were fatigue (41%), diarrhea (32%), pruritus (31%), rash (29%), and colitis (8%). Checkmate Trials and Patient Populations Checkmate 067 - advanced melanoma alone or in combination with YERVOY; Checkmate 037 and 066 - advanced melanoma; Checkmate 017 - squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); Checkmate 057 - non-squamous NSCLC; Checkmate 025 - renal cell carcinoma; Checkmate 205/039 - classical Hodgkin lymphoma; Checkmate 141 - squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Please see U.S. Full Prescribing Information for OPDIVO and YERVOY, including Boxed WARNING regarding immune-mediated adverse reactions for YERVOY. About the Opdivo Clinical Development Program Bristol-Myers Squibb has a broad, global development program to study Opdivo in multiple tumor types consisting of more than 50 trials - as monotherapy or in combination with other therapies - in which more than 8,000 patients have been enrolled worldwide. About Bristol-Myers Squibb's Patient Support Programs for Opdivo Bristol-Myers Squibb remains committed to helping patients through treatment with Opdivo. For support and assistance, patients and physicians may call 1-855-OPDIVO-1. This number offers a one-stop access to a range of support services for patients and healthcare professionals alike. About Bristol-Myers Squibb's Access Support Bristol-Myers Squibb is committed to helping patients access Opdivo and offers BMS Access Support to support patients and providers in gaining access. BMS Access Support, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Reimbursement Services program, is designed to support access to BMS medicines and expedite time to therapy through reimbursement support including Benefit Investigations, Prior Authorization Facilitation, Appeals Assistance, and assistance for patient out-of-pocket costs. BMS Access Support assists patients and providers throughout the treatment journey - whether it is at initial diagnosis or in support of transition from a clinical trial. More information about our reimbursement support services can be obtained by calling 1-800-861-0048 or by visiting www.bmsaccesssupport.com. For healthcare providers seeking specific reimbursement information, please visit the BMS Access Support Product section by visiting www.bmsaccesssupportopdivo.com. About the Bristol-Myers Squibb and Ono Pharmaceutical Collaboration In 2011, through a collaboration agreement with Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb expanded its territorial rights to develop and commercialize Opdivo globally except in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, where Ono had retained all rights to the compound at the time. On July 2014, Ono and Bristol-Myers Squibb further expanded the companies' strategic collaboration agreement to jointly develop and commercialize multiple immunotherapies - as single agents and combination regimens - for patients with cancer in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. About Bristol-Myers Squibb Bristol-Myers Squibb is a global biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases. For more information about Bristol-Myers Squibb, visit us at BMS.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Bristol-Myers Squibb Forward-Looking Statement This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding the research, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including factors that could delay, divert or change any of them, and could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from current expectations. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements in this press release should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect Bristol-Myers Squibb's business, particularly those identified in the cautionary factors discussion in Bristol-Myers Squibb's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and our Current Reports on Form 8-K. Bristol-Myers Squibb undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.







References 1. Opdivo Prescribing Information. Opdivo U.S. Product Information. Last updated: November 10, 2016. Princeton, NJ: Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. 2. National Comprehensive Cancer Network Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology. Head and Neck Cancers. October 11, 2016. 3. Driscoll JJ, et al. Overall survival: still the gold standard: why overall survival remains the definitive end point in cancer clinical trials. Cancer J. 2009; 15(5):401-5. 4. American Cancer Society. Oral Cavity and Oropharyngeal Cancer. http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/cid/documents/webcontent/003128-pdf.pdf Updated January 27, 2016. Accessed June 24, 2016. 5. Decision Resources. SCCHN. September 2012. 6. National Cancer Institute. "SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Oral Cavity and Pharynx Cancer." Available at: http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/oralcav.html. 7. Argiris, Athanassios, Arlene Forastiere. American Cancer Society. "Prognostic Factors and Long-Term Survivorship in Patients with Recurrent or Metastatic Carcinoma of the Head and Neck." Updated September 27, 2004. 8. Ferris RL, Blumenschein G, Fayette J, et al. Nivolumab for recurrent squamous-cell carcinoma of the head and neck. N Engl J Med. 2016: DOI:10.1056/NEJMoa1602252. 9. IPSOS Oncology Monitor, MAT May 2016 Projected Annual Treatments 10. IMS Health APLD, MAT June 2016 Projected Annual Treated Patient Counts 11. Clinicaltrials.gov. "Trial of Nivolumab vs Therapy of Investigator's Choice in Recurrent or Metastatic Head and Neck Carcinoma (CheckMate 141)." Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02105636?term=checkmate+141&rank=1 12. National Cancer Institute. "Head and Neck Cancers." http://www.cancer.gov/types/head-and-neck/head-neck-fact-sheet. Accessed on June 24, 2016. 13. American Cancer Society. Laryngeal and Hypopharyngeal Cancers. http://www.cancer.org/cancer/laryngealandhypopharyngealcancer/detailedguide/laryngeal-and-hypopharyngeal-cancer-key-statistics. Updated February 17, 2016. Accessed July 26, 2016. 14. American Cancer Society. Nasal Cavity and Paranasal Sinus Cancers. http://www.cancer.org/cancer/nasalcavityandparanasalsinuscancer/detailedguide/nasal-cavity-and-paranasal-sinuses-cancer-key-statistics. Updated March 2, 2015. Accessed July 26, 2016.

OPDIVO, YERVOY and Access Support are trademarks of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Other brands listed are the trademarks of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006616/en/

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Two candidates seeking NLCS Board District 2 seat

In this year's general election, two candidates are seeking election to the district two seat on the NLCS board: Adam Parsley and Michael Patton.
Norwegian English

Third quarter 2016:

Value of homes sold NOK 1 130 million (2015: NOK 750 million)

277 homes sold (208), construction started on 223 (204) and 129 delivered to the buyer (202)

Average sales price of NOK 4.1 million (NOK 3.6 million)

IFRS: operating revenues NOK 387 million (NOK 778 million), EBITDA adjusted for financial expenses NOK 92 million (NOK 134 million) representing a margin of 23.8 per cent (17.2 per cent)

NGAAP (percentage of completion method): operating revenues NOK 941 million (NOK 826 million), EBITDA NOK 203 million (NOK 122 million) representing a margin of 21.6 per cent (14.8 per cent)

Earnings per share: NOK 0.63 (NOK 0.76)

Selvaag Bolig sold 277 homes for NOK 1 130 million in the third quarter. Rise in house prices led to an improved profit margin.

"House prices in the Oslo area are rising sharply and that's having a direct impact on our results," says CEO Baard Schumann at Selvaag Bolig ASA.

"This reflects our business model, where costs are locked before sales start and homes are sold at market price throughout the construction time of a project. When prices rise, the profitability of our projects improves."

Selvaag Bolig started the construction of 223 homes during the third quarter. At 30 September, it had 1 464 units under construction with an overall sales value of roughly NOK 5.8 billion. Ninety per cent were sold.

At 31 October, Selvaag Bolig had 48 completed homes which remained unsold.

"We have great faith in the future market. In the Oslo area, where we have the bulk of our projects, demand is very high and supply low. The market outlook is also positive in Bergen and Trondheim, and we see clear signs of an improvement in the Stavanger area," says Schumann.

Further information from

Baard Schumann, CEO, Selvaag Bolig ASA

Telephone: +47 940 80 000, e-mail: bs@selvaagbolig.no

Sverre Molvik, CFO, Selvaag Bolig ASA

Telephone: +47 401 00 585, e-mail: smo@selvaagbolig.no

Selvaag Bolig ASA is a residential property developer controlling the entire value chain from acquisition of land to sale of homes. The company has several thousand homes under development at any given time, and focuses on the growth areas in and around Greater Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim. Selvaag Bolig represents a continuation of Selvaag's 60-year history and experience, and offers a broad variety of property types marketed under the brand names Start, Hjem and Pluss. The company is headquartered at Ullern in Oslo.

www.selvaagboligasa.no/en



This information is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.



Attachments:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/11bfde67-d736-43d6-b62c-0c6de38401d3

Attachments:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ee212ba2-a946-4557-8812-5b90cdfae60a
French English

99% Negative Predictive Value could lead to 77% reduction in invasive cystoscopy procedures

IRVINE, CA, and HERSTAL, BELGIUM, November 10, 2016 - MDxHealth SA (Euronext: MDXH), today announced that a second clinical validation study, demonstrating the performance of its urine-based epigenetic test AssureMDx(TM) for Bladder Cancer, has been published in The Journal of Urology.

Prof. Dr. Ellen Zwarthoff, Erasmus MC Cancer Institute stated: "This pan-European multi-center validation study confirms the very high negative predictive value (99%) of the AssureMDx test. The clinical utility of this test lies in its ability to significantly reduce (77%) unnecessary invasive cystoscopy procedures in patients presenting with haematuria."

In the 200 patient study spanning three European countries, voided urine samples were collected from haematuria patients undergoing a cystoscopy procedure (n=97 Bladder Cancer, n=103 non-malignant) to rule out bladder cancer (BC) and analysed them using the AssureMDx biomarkers to determine an association between clinical risk variables. Combining the methylation and mutation markers with age led to an Area Under Curve (AUC) of 0.96 (95% CI 0.92-0.99, sensitivity 93% and specificity 86%). The AUC was higher in high grade tumors (1.00) compared to low grade tumors (0.93). The study demonstrated that AssureMDx can deliver an overall negative predictive value of 99%, based on the 5-10% prevalence of BC in patients with haematuria.

Annually, approximately a million haematuria patients are referred to urology for further clinical evaluation, with a large proportion of patients subjected to an invasive cystoscopy procedure, however less than 10% are diagnosed with BC. The authors believe that in the clinic, utilization of the test could potentially result in a 77% reduction in diagnostic cystoscopies.

"These very positive results further underscore the clinical validity and utility of AssureMDx and publication of these data will support the Q4 beta launch in the US, with a full scale launch of the test nationwide in early 2017," reported Dr. Jan Groen, Chief Executive Officer of MDxHealth. "Cystoscopies lead to high diagnostic costs and patient burden, so the ability of our test to improve patient selection for this invasive and sometimes painful procedure, will undoubtedly reduce costs and over-testing."

The full paper is accessible via the online edition of the Journal of Urology.

About AssureMDx(TM) for Bladder Cancer

Annually it is estimated that over 1 million patients with haematuria (blood in urine) are referred to urologists for fear of bladder cancer however, while 90% of bladder cancer patients present with haematuria, only 5-10% of haematuria patients are diagnosed with bladder cancer. The vast majority of these patients could avoid an invasive cystoscopy procedure. AssureMDx for Bladder Cancer is a non-invasive, urine-based DNA methylation and mutation test designed to improve the identification of patients at increased risk for bladder cancer who will benefit from further clinical evaluation. The test delivers a negative predictive value (NPV) of 99% for bladder cancer, helping to reduce unnecessary invasive cystoscopy procedures by approximately 70%, thereby reducing healthcare costs.

About MDxHealth

MDxHealth is a multinational healthcare company that provides actionable molecular diagnostic information to personalize the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The company's tests are based on proprietary genetic, epigenetic (methylation) and other molecular technologies and assist physicians with the diagnosis of urologic cancers, prognosis of recurrence risk, and prediction of response to a specific therapy. The Company's European headquarters are in Herstal, Belgium, with laboratory operations in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and US headquarters and laboratory operations based in Irvine, California. For more information, visit mdxhealth.com and follow us on Twitter at: twitter.com/mdxhealth.

For more information:







Dr. Jan Groen, CEO

MDxHealth

US: +1 949 812 6979

BE: +32 4 364 20 70

info@mdxhealth.com















Jonathan Birt, Chris Welsh, Hendrik Thys (PR & IR)

Consilium Strategic Communications

UK: +44 20 3709 5701

US: +1 917 322 2571 (Rx Communications Group LLC)

mdxhealth@consilium-comms.com









This press release contains forward-looking statements and estimates with respect to the anticipated future performance of MDxHealth and the market in which it operates. Such statements and estimates are based on assumptions and assessments of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which were deemed reasonable but may not prove to be correct. Actual events are difficult to predict, may depend upon factors that are beyond the company's control, and may turn out to be materially different. MDxHealth expressly disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements in this release to reflect any change in its expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based unless required by law or regulation. This press release does not constitute an offer or invitation for the sale or purchase of securities or assets of MDxHealth in any jurisdiction. No securities of MDxHealth may be offered or sold within the United States without registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or in compliance with an exemption therefrom, and in accordance with any applicable U.S. securities laws.

NOTE: The MDxHealth logo, MDxHealth, ConfirmMDx, SelectMDx, AssureMDx and PredictMDx are trademarks or registered trademarks of MDxHealth SA. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.
Guernsey, 10 November 2016 - Eurocastle Investment Limited (Euronext Amsterdam: ECT) today has released its financial results for the nine months ended 30 September 2016.

Normalised FFO of 11.9 million, or 0.20 per share for the third quarter of 2016. 33.5 million or 0.49 per share for the nine months ended 30 September 2016.





Adjusted Net Asset Value of 463.5 million, or 7.71 per share, an increase of 0.01 per share on the quarter (Q2 2016: 462.7 million, or 7.70 per share) reflecting 0.20 per share of valuation movements before Q3 dividend of 0.125 per share and corporate expenses.

Third Quarter 2016 Dividend of 7.5 million, or 0.125 per share paid in October.



Q3 2016 Q2 2016 YTD Q3 2016 YTD Q3 2015  million  per share  million  per share  million  per share  million  per share Normalised FFO1 11.9 0.20 11.0 0.18 33.5 0.49 9.0 0.16 Legacy Business4 Cash Flow Received 2.1 0.04 0.4 0.01 6.9 0.10 60.6 1.10 Adjusted NAV3 463.5 7.71 462.7 7.70 463.5 7.71 528.3 7.30

BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS SINCE 30 JUNE 2016

doBank - In October, following approval from the Bank of Italy, doBank (50% owned by Eurocastle) successfully completed the acquisition of Italfondiario S.p.A. ("Italfondiario"), the second largest independent non-performing loan servicer in Italy. Together, doBank and Italfondiario will represent the largest independent banking group in Italy, specialising in the credit management and collection of performing and non-performing loans with over 83 billion gross book value ("GBV") of loans under management, and over 4,000 employees and external consultants across 24 offices in Italy. This acquisition is a major milestone in doBank's expansion in the Italian market which significantly strengthens its position as a leading partner to the Italian banking system.



New Italian Investments - Eurocastle acquired a 25% interest in two portfolios of Italian non-performing loans ("NPLs") with an aggregate GBV of approximately 70 million. The first investment of 1.1 million was made on 23 September 2016, while the second acquisition where the Company invested a further 1.0 million closed on 9 November 2016. The two portfolios are predominantly secured by residential real estate.



Italian Investments5 Performance - During the third quarter, Italian Investments reported strong performance generating in aggregate 9.0 million of gross cash flow. Total cash flow generated for the nine months ended 30 September 2016 amounted to 40.3 million6 of which 26.6 million related to doBank's NPL portfolio and servicing business. Since acquisition, Italian Investments have generated 93.7 million, or 7.0 million more than underwriting expectations.

Legacy Business - In line with its strategy to accelerate recoveries from its legacy real estate assets in Germany, the Company agreed to sell Belfry and Truss, the two remaining Retail portfolios. The sale is expected to generate 2.3 million of net proceeds compared to a reported Adjusted NAV of zero. The majority of the assets sold are expected to close by year-end.



ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For additional information that management believes to be useful for investors, please refer to the latest presentation posted on the Investor Relations section of the Company's website, www.eurocastleinv.com. For consolidated investment portfolio information, please refer to the Company's most recent Financial Report, which is available on the Company's website (www.eurocastleinv.com).

EARNINGS CALL INFORMATION

Eurocastle's management will host an earnings conference call at 2:00 P.M. London time (9:00 A.M. New York time) later today. All interested parties are welcome to participate on the live call. You can access the conference call by dialing first +1- 800-215-5243 (from within the U.S.) or +1-330-863-8154 (from outside of the U.S.) ten minutes prior to the scheduled start of the call; please reference "Eurocastle Third Quarter 2016 Earnings Call" or conference ID number "3334554".

A webcast of the conference call will be available to the public on a listen-only basis at www.eurocastleinv.com. Please allow extra time prior to the call to visit the site and download the necessary software required to listen to the internet broadcast. A replay of the webcast will be available for three months following the call.

For those who are not available to listen to the live call, a replay will be available until 11:59 P.M. New York time on Saturday, 10 December 2016 by dialling +1-855-859-2056 (from within the U.S.) or +1-404- 537-3406 (from outside of the U.S.); please reference access code "3334554".

NORMALISED FFO

Normalised FFO is a non-IFRS financial measure that, with respect to the Company's Italian Investments, recognises income on an expected yield basis allowing Eurocastle to report the run rate earnings from these investments in line with their projected annualised returns. On Eurocastle's Legacy Business the measure excludes realised gains and losses, sales related costs (including realised swap losses), impairment losses, foreign exchange movements and any movements on portfolios with a negative NAV other than sales or asset management fees realised.

Eurocastle believes that, given the strategy of seeking to monetise the residual value of the Legacy Business, focusing on the Normalised FFO of the Company's Italian Investments will enhance investor's understanding of current and future earnings given annualised returns achieved and the average net invested capital over the relevant period.

Segmental Normalised FFO for the Nine Months Ended 30 September 2016 Average Net

Invested Capital Yield Italian Investments Legacy Total  Thousands  Thousands  Thousands NPLs 22,462 20% 3,399 - 3,399 RE Fund Units 43,873 34% 11,335 - 11,335 doBank (Servicer & NPL) 246,031 14% 25,630 - 25,630 Italian Investments NFFO before expenses 312,366 17% 40,364 - 40,364 Legacy Portfolios NFFO before expenses - 7,785 7,785 Manager Base & Incentive Fees (8,621) (99) (8,720) Other operating expenses (3,125) (2,849) (5,974) Normalised FFO 28,618 4,837 33,455 Per Share 0.42 0.07 0.49

Segmental Normalised FFO for the Third Quarter 2016 Average Net

Invested Capital Yield Italian Investments Legacy Total  Thousands  Thousands  Thousands NPLs 21,863 19% 1,053 - 1,053 RE Fund Units 47,737 45% 5,412 - 5,412 doBank (Servicer & NPL) 246,031 14% 8,560 - 8,560 Italian Investments NFFO before expenses 315,631 19% 15,025 - 15,025 Legacy Portfolios NFFO before expenses - 1,638 1,638 Manager Base & Incentive Fees (3,080) (30) (3,110) Other operating expenses (1,395) (259) (1,654) Normalised FFO 10,550 1,349 11,899 Per Share 0.18 0.02 0.20

In the first nine months of 2016, Eurocastle generated Normalised FFO of 33.5 million, or 0.49 per share compared to a dividend of 24.1 million, or 0.375 per share. Before corporate costs Italian Investments generated 40.4 million, or 0.59 per share. Given the average net invested capital in the period was approximately 312 million, this equates to a yield of 17%.

In the third quarter of 2016, Eurocastle generated Normalised FFO of 11.9 million, or 0.20 per share. Before corporate costs Italian Investments generated 15.0 million, or 0.25 per share. Given the average net invested capital in the period was approximately 316 million, this equates to a yield of 19%.

Income Statement for the Nine Months Ended 30 September 2016 Italian Investments

 Thousands Legacy

 Thousands Total

 Thousands Operating income Italian Investments Fair value movements on Italian Investments doBank (Servicer & NPL) 24,745 - 24,745 NPLs 4,626 - 4,626 Real estate fund units (Fund Investment I) 1,921 - 1,921 Share of post-tax profits from associate investment in RE fund units (Fund Investments III, IV) 15,993 2,136 18,129 Share of post-tax loss from JV investment in RE fund units (Fund Investment II) (1,813) - (1,813) Interest Income 180 - 180 Legacy Debt Investments Interest income - 1,107 1,107 Losses on foreign currency contracts, translation and swaps - (2,023) (2,023) Impairment losses - (1,565) (1,565) Gain on pay-downs of loans and receivables - 2,604 2,604 Total operating income 45,652 2,259 47,911 Operating expenses Interest expense - 2,192 2,192 Other operating expenses - transaction costs 538 - 538 Other operating expenses - group running costs 11,009 434 11,443 Total operating expenses 11,547 2,626 14,173 Net operating profit / (loss) before taxation 34,105 (367) 33,738 Total tax expense 230 3 233 Net profit / (loss) after taxation from continuing operations 33,875 (370) 33,505 Net loss after taxation from discontinued operations - (72,979) (72,979) Profit / (loss) after taxation for the period 33,875 (73,349) (39,474) Per Share 0.50 (1.08) (0.58) Attributable to: Ordinary equity holders of the Company 33,598 (73,349) (39,751) Non-controlling interest 277 - 277

For the first nine months of 2016, the total net loss after taxation and non-controlling interests as reported under IFRS was 39.8 million. Within the Group's Italian Investments, where the majority of these assets are accounted for at fair value under a discounted cash flow approach, net income after taxation and non-controlling interest for the first nine months of 2016 was 33.6 million, or 0.49 per share.

Italian Investments

 Thousands Legacy

 Thousands Total

 Thousands Net profit / ( loss) attributable to ordinary shareholders after taxation 33,598 (73,349) (39,751) Reversal of Net loss attributed to negative NAV portfolios2 - 71,304 71,304 Adjusted net profit / (loss) 33,598 (2,045) 31,553 Per Share 0.49 (0.03) 0.46

Excluding losses arising within those legacy portfolios that have a negative NAV, the Group generated a net profit after taxation of 31.6 million or 0.46 per share. As at 30 September 2016, the remaining Adjusted NAV of the legacy portfolios was 8.1 million, or 0.14 per share which represents under 2% of the Company's Adjusted NAV.



Balance Sheet and Adjusted NAV Reconciliation as at 30 September 2016 Italian Investments

 Thousands



Corporate

 Thousands Legacy

 Thousands Total

 Thousands Assets Cash and cash equivalents 4,112 119,933 23,440 147,485 Investment properties held for sale - - 222,688 222,688 Italian investments at Fair Value doBank (Servicer) 173,494 - - 173,494 doBank (NPL) 98,910 - - 98,910 NPLs 28,376 - - 28,376 Real estate fund units (Fund Investment I) 14,768 - - 14,768 Associate investment in real estate fund units (Fund Investments III, IV) 30,745 - 2,136 32,881 Joint venture investment in real estate fund units (Fund Investment II) 10,347 - - 10,347 Loans and receivables - - 40,987 40,987 Available-for-sale securities 5,481 - - 5,481 Derivative assets - - 6,144 6,144 Other assets 584 1,925 9,442 11,951 Intangible assets - - 1 1 Total assets 366,817 121,858 304,838 793,513 Total liabilities Trade and other payables 4,065 19,632 67,794 91,491 Current taxation payable 16 8,495 957 9,468 CDO bonds payable - - 63,047 63,047 Bank borrowings - - 314,864 314,864 Finance lease payable - - 12,476 12,476 Total liabilities 4,081 28,127 459,138 491,346 Net Asset Value 362,736 93,731 (154,300) 302,167 Non-controlling interest (1,022) - - (1,022) Net Asset Value after Non-controlling interest 361,714 93,731 (154,300) 301,145 Negative NAV Addbacks - - 162,313 162,313 Committed Investments 1,000 (1,000) - - Adjusted NAV 362,714 92,731 8,013 463,458 Adjusted NAV ( per Share) 6.03 1.54 0.14 7.71

ABOUT EUROCASTLE

Eurocastle Investment Limited is a publicly traded closed-ended investment company that focuses on investing in Italian performing and non-performing loans, Italian NPL servicing platforms and other real estate related assets primarily in Italy. The Company is Euro denominated and is listed on Euronext Amsterdam under the symbol "ECT". Eurocastle is managed by an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC, a leading global investment manager. For more information regarding Eurocastle Investment Limited and to be added to our email distribution list, please visit www.eurocastleinv.com.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS



Normalised FFO ("NFFO") is a non-IFRS measure used to provide additional information regarding the underlying performance of the Company, as outlined in note 24 of the Q3 2016 consolidated financial statements. Throughout this release, amounts per share are calculated on the following basis for the relevant period: Q3 2016 and Q2 2016 - 60.1 million shares. YTD Q3 2016 NFFO and Legacy cash flow - 68.1 million of weighted average shares. YTD Q3 2015 NFFO and Legacy cash flow - 55.2 million of weighted average shares. Q3 2015 Adjusted Net Asset Value ("Adjusted NAV") - 72.4 million ordinary shares in issue. Throughout this release Adjusted Net Asset Value excludes the net asset value ("NAV") of those Legacy portfolios with negative NAV (Belfry, Truss, Drive and CDO V) whose debt is non-recourse to Eurocastle.

4All investments owned by the Group prior to April 2013.

5All investments acquired by the Group since the establishment of its new strategy in April 2013, previously labelled as "New Investments". Total cash flow generated in 2016 includes 22.4 million currently held at the level of the investment. Total cash held at the investment level includes an additional 2.2 million generated in the previous year. Cash flows generated by doBank Servicer represent Eurocastle's 50% share of EBITDA based on unaudited management data. Time weighted average of invested capital (net of any capital returned) over the relevant period. The fair value movements on Italian NPL Investments includes 1.5m from subsidiaries, 2.9m from the share of post-tax profits from associates and 0.2m from the share of post-tax profits from joint venture investments which are disclosed separately in the Company's financial statements. These investments are accounted for under the equity method but the underlying investments are fair valued.

2 Reverses losses arising from portfolios with a negative net asset value net of any cash distributions or fees received by the Company. Represents the investment in the debt of Real Estate Fund Investment IV. Adjusts to exclude those Legacy portfolios with negative NAV (Truss, Belfry, Drive and CDO V) whose debt is non-recourse to Eurocastle.

This release contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements may relate to, among other things, future commitments to sell real estate and achievement of disposal targets, availability of investment and divestment opportunities, timing or certainty of completion of acquisitions and disposals, the operating performance of our investments and financing needs. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "should", "potential", "intend", "expect", "endeavour", "seek", "anticipate", "estimate", "overestimate", "underestimate", "believe", "could", "project", "predict", "project", "continue", "plan", "forecast" or other similar words or expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions, discuss future expectations, describe future plans and strategies, contain projections of results of operations or of financial condition or state other forward-looking information. The Group's ability to predict results or the actual effect of future plans or strategies is limited. Although the Group believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, its actual results and performance may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Group's actual results in future periods to differ materially from forecasted results or stated expectations including the risks regarding Eurocastle's ability to declare dividends, amortise the Group's debts, renegotiate the Group's credit facilities, make new investments, or achieve its targets regarding asset di
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LIKE IT OR NOT, THIS GATHERING OF HUNDREDS OF YOUNG PEOPLE MARCHING THROUGH MIDTOWN STREETS AND STANDING AT THE STEPS OF CITY HALL PROVES KANSAS CITY, MO IS UNITED AGAINST PRESIDENT ELECT-TRUMP!!!

Anti Trump March Day One Kansas City









Our blog communityand we had a pretty good conversation about this effort that represents local dissent that's part of a movement throughout the nation.Now here's the aftermath and some. . . As always,get first word:"It's been a bag of mixed emotions as we watched the Democratic Elections melt down Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning we began to see High Schools walk out in Berkley and Los Angeles, street demonstration began across the nation in DC, New York, Austin, Indianapolis, Albuquerque and Oakland among others."Locally, we heard statements of teachers crying when they saw on their students faces the realization there is no future for them. As the demonstration passed a bar on Main Street a few bar patrons said, "I voted for Hillary and you don't see me protesting" or another said "I voted for Trump and if Hillary had one you wouldn't see Republicans protesting?" A perfect example of the abandonment of America's Youth by those exiled to a bar stool. America has crossed the threshold into an abyss that not only middle school children realize that remaining silence is an alternate reality. We hear broadcasters tonight say "the police are here to make sure the crowd doesn't turn violent" one of those WTF moments you expect to hear from delusional progressives who believe there's something left in this town worth burning. If there is something to burn the police will let us know just like when MLK was killed. Meanwhile, coastal towns are beginning to realize they can no longer get flood insurance on their houses as we begin to see the end of housing as an investment for retirement ie,. the end of Capitalism and the beginning of Class War. There is no violence like climate disruption and a POTUS with his head in the sand."Still, the very best news links are worth a look:You decide . . .
In just a few short weeks, the 44th president will look around the White House for the last time, step outside, and close the door on an entire era. For some of you reading this, Obama will be the only president youve ever been politically aware of. For others, hell just be the latest in a long line that stretches back through the decades. The only thing for certain is that Americas first black president will doubtless leave an enduring legacy.

Its a legacy that some will call great and others terrible. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. In his 8 years as Commander in Chief, Obama has done some good stuff, some not-so-good stuff, and some stuff where no-one can quite figure out if its good or bad. In this article, were gonna be weighing the opinions of historians, pundits and journalists to get a flavor of what goes where. In cases where opinion is split, weve gone with the majority, but hey, feel free to argue it in the comments. So, are you sitting comfortably? Then well get cracking

10. Good: Getting Bin Laden

On May 2, 2011, justice finally caught up with the most-wanted man on the planet. Nearly a decade after hed orchestrated the murders of nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, Osama Bin Laden was shot dead by Navy Seals who stormed his Pakistani compound. Hed evaded the Bush administration and spent nearly 4 years giving the Obama White House the run-around. But he couldnt run forever. And, on April 29, 2011, President Obama gave the order for his compound to be raided.

There were some negative sides to the killing of Bin Laden. US intelligence posed as aid workers to verify the compounds location, something thats ethically dubious as it can lead to real aid workers being murdered. Theres also a good argument that Bin Laden should have been captured and made to stand trial.

But, cmon. This was one of the most-callous mass-murderers to have ever lived. Men, women, and children all died during 9/11. Al-Qaeda killed thousands more in the decades since. ISIS are a direct result of Al-Qaeda, and even-more vicious. All those deaths are on Bin Ladens shoulders. Everyone, no matter if theyre Democrat or Republican or Independent, can probably agree his death was one of Obamas high points.

9. Bad: Letting Libya Implode

Only a few months after Bin Laden caught a bullet, another enemy of America died. Muammar Gaddafi was dragged into the streets and killed by his own people after an American-led NATO intervention toppled his regime. But this time there was no happy ending. Thanks to a lack of forward planning, Libya soon descended into chaos.

There are really no excuses here. Obama was elected partly on a platform of not engaging in any more Bush-style military adventurism. Libya was a slap in the face to that promise. The initial goal of saving civilian lives was noble, but everyone had already seen what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan with no plan for reconstruction. That intervention went ahead in Libya regardless should be to Obamas eternal shame. Even the president himself calls the situation there a sh*t show.

Fast forward four years, and Libya has become as dangerous and as screwed up as Somalia. Millions of refugees flee for Europes shores, with hundreds drowning en-route. ISIS have established a foothold there. American diplomats have been killed in Benghazi. Obama wanted to save lives. Instead, he created one of the most failed states on Earth.

8. Good: Unemployment Below 5%

When Obama first stepped into the White House, the Great Recession was making mincemeat of America. Unemployment stood at over 8%. By the end of the year, itd top 10%. At the start of his second term, it was stubbornly stuck between 7-8%. When Mitt Romney promised to bring unemployment under 5% in the 2012 election, he was derided for wishful thinking.

Well, Obama actually managed it. In January 2016, the unemployment rate fell below 5% for the first time since 2008. Since then its stayed around 4.9%, but thats still one heck of an achievement. That it happened at all is thanks to some sound decisions on Obamas part during the financial crisis, such as expanding George W. Bushs bailout of the auto industry. Couple that with a sustained program targeting unemployment throughout his 8 years in the presidency, and you wind up where we are today: at a level of unemployment not seen since the heady days of pre-crisis 2008.

Thats not to say the economy is perfect. Wage growth is sluggish and some parts of the country are still feeling the effects of the recession. But Obama inherited a catastrophic mess. In the circumstances, putting people back in work while staving off a depression is a win.

7. Bad: The War on Whistleblowers

Every so often, a government or corporation does something so flagrantly unethical that someone on the inside just has to blow the whistle. As a result, abuses are revealed and the public are informed about whats happening in their name. That hasnt been true of the Obama administration. During his 8 years, Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than every single previous president combined.

The most high-profile case has been the unofficial exiling of Edward Snowden to Russia. But there are many others under the radar that are even worse. Ex-CIA agent John Kiriakou was imprisoned for revealing the Obama administration approved the use of torture. FBI agent Sibel Edmonds was forced from her job for revealing security breaches that could have resulted in terror attacks. State Department official Stephen Kim was charged with espionage for sharing his opinions on North Korea with a reporter. This last case is especially egregious, as Kim wasnt even whistleblowing. He was giving his own opinion to someone who asked.

There is an argument to be made that leakers and whistleblowers are undermining government and making us all less-safe. Yet the clear consensus is that even government needs checks to ensure it doesnt abuse its power. Obama tried his best to get rid of those checks, and in doing so violated his own oath to build a transparent government.

6. Jurys Out: Obamacare

Everyone and their dog has an opinion on Obamacare. People on the right will call it the worst thing ever. Those on the left will say its Obamas greatest achievement. So were gonna make everyone mad by placing it firmly in the middle.

First, the good. In 2010, when the Affordable Care Act (to give it its official name) was signed into law, 16 percent of the population had no health insurance whatsoever. In history, the uninsured rate had never fallen below 9 percent. Fast forward to today, and the uninsured rate stands at 8.6 percent. Those newly-insured people are mostly happy with their insurance, and their premiums are about 20 percent lower than if Obamacare had not passed. Thats not something to be sniffed at.

Now the bad. Obamacare forced millions of people off plans they had and already liked, despite Obamas insistence that wouldnt happen. Big insurers are pulling out the systems marketplace. Insurers who stay are barely breaking even. It has patently failed to replicate the universal Swiss or German-style system Obama envisaged.

As we write this, some are predicting Obamacare will collapse in the near future (particularly with Donald Trump set to take office). Others that it will transit into being a kind of improved Medicaid for the poor. Time will tell. As we say, the jurys out.

5. Good: Record-Breaking Conservation Efforts

At the dawn of the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt used his executive powers to preserve vast tracts of American wilderness. In doing so, he earned himself the nickname the conservation president. Fast forward around 100 years, and Obama may have just usurped Teddys title.

The 44th Presidents 2nd term has been a masterclass in how to conserve like Mother Natures personal bodyguard. In 2014, he used his executive powers to create the largest marine national park on Earth, designating some 490,000 square miles of Pacific ocean, protecting coral reefs, ocean trenches, and unique ecosystems. If it were a state, this new national park would be bigger than any except Alaska. Since then, the president has also created the Atlantics first national marine park, not to mention turning Maines North Woods into what may be the last, large new national park the East Coast will ever see.

Overall, Obama has created or expanded 19 national monuments over two terms, more than any other president bar Roosevelt (for comparison, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton combined only managed four). While some still regard this as overreaching by the federal government, its hard to argue that such dedicated conservation efforts are a bad thing. Theyre also lasting. Obamacare may yet disappear into history. Chances are, though, that our great, great-grandkids will still be visiting Obamas new parks over 100 years from now.

4. Bad: The Dead TPP Deal

The Trans-Pacific Partnership deal (TPP) is a zombie that wont die. After every report of thousands protesting in Japan or Malaysia or Washington or New Zealand, another pops up about Obama trying his hardest to push the deal through. And he may yet make it. But dont count on it. Whatever its relative merits, TPP is most-likely dead in the water.

Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton oppose TPP, as do many politicians in the 11 other countries the deal was meant to unite. Bernie Sanders turned it into an article of faith among left wingers to oppose the deal. The right are just as against it. Major magazines such as Time have said it threatens American workers. Never mind that some argue it will boost American incomes, extend American influence and lift developing nations like Vietnam further out of poverty, TPP is today considered politically toxic.

Make no mistake, this is one of Obamas biggest policy failures. Alongside Obamacare and gay marriage, TPP and its European equivalent TTIP were meant to be the 44th presidents lasting contributions to American life. Now it looks like neither will ever pass.

3. Good: Reopening Ties With Cuba

On October 19, 1960, the US imposed an economic embargo on Cuba in response to the Communist Castro dictatorship. Born of the Cold War, the embargo (the Cubans call it a blockade) outlasted the collapse of the Soviet Union, the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and the first decade of the 21st century. For over 50 years, a country nearly within swimming distance of Florida remained almost completely cut-off from the USA.

Until 2015. That was the year Obama unveiled what the New Republic has called his finest foreign policy achievement: the re-establishment of relations with Cuba. For the first time nearly in living memory, a sitting US President visited Cuba, spoke with its leader, and encouraged American businesses to invest there. In its own way, the moment was almost as historic as Nixons 1972 visit to China.

There are some caveats here. Congress still has yet to vote to lift the Cuba embargo, and significant portions of the Cuba-American community are angry at Obama establishing links with what is still a dictatorship. However you cut it, though, Obamas actions here are historic.

2. Bad: Failing to Close Guantanamo Bay

As president, Barack Obama will close the detention facility at Guantanamo.

Those words were plastered across Obamas official 2008 election website. The closing of Gitmo was one of the key pledges of the 44th presidents first administration. People waited expectantly and it didnt happen.

Oh well, its not his fault, was the constant refrain, Republicans were obstructing congress. Next term for sure. Sure enough, in 2012, Obama again promised to close the detention facility. Yet here we are, in the last days of the Obama presidency, and Guantanamo remains stubbornly open, home to nearly 100 people, some of whom have been held there without trial for years. Human rights organizations continue to describe it as a black hole where rights are discarded and abuse remains rife.

To be fair to Obama, he has faced obstructionism from Congress on this issue. Yet at other times, it has appeared to vanish off his radar altogether. Executive powers mean he could choose to transfer the prisoners to normal detention facilities in other countries, should he wish to. Or he couldve pushed the bill through in 2009, when Democrats still controlled Congress. That he didnt shows a stunning lack of leadership.

1. Jurys Out: the Iran Nuclear Deal

There are a couple of signature Obama policies we could have flagged for our last jurys out entry. Theres gay marriage, for one, or Obamas commitment to clean energy and signing climate accords. But perhaps no policy is as deserving of this space as the Iran nuclear deal.

In 2015, the US  along with Britain, France, China and Russia, plus Germany in an observer role  made a deal with the reformist president Hassan Rouhani to limit Irans nuclear ambitions. Was it a historic peacemaking achievement, or handy cover for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions? It depends who you ask.

First, the argument for. Supporters say the deal will stop Iran clandestinely acquiring the bomb, while allowing the Islamic Republic access to nuclear energy. In return, millions of Iranians will be lifted out of devastating poverty, the economy will be liberalized, and Tehran will be handed a financial incentive to not initiate war with its neighbors (particularly Israel). Some also think a US pivot in the Middle East towards Shia Iran makes sense in light of Saudi Arabias funding of Sunni terrorists (allegedly including ISIS).

Now, the argument against. Iran has already violated the spirit of the deal by testing ballistic missiles. Tehran has accepted piles of money from the Whitehouse with little evidence that it has changed its tone. Many believe the deal was just a feint to get breathing space to develop nukes. Look at the mid-90s North Korea nuclear deal. By 2006, the hermit kingdom had exploded its first nuclear bomb. It has since tested four more.

In ten years time, well know for certain how the Iran deal turned out. It could be Obamas greatest mistake, or his biggest achievement. Until then, though, the jury remains out.

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Greece ranked third in the import of oranges to Germany, with a market share of 2.8 pct in the 2013-2015 period

Greece ranked third in the export of oranges to Germany, with a market share of 2.8 pct in the 2013-2015 period, a report by the Greek embassy's economic and trade affairs bureau in Munich said on Thursday.

Spain ranked first with a market share of 81.7 pct of imports, followed by Italy with 5.9 pct. In total, German imports of oranges came from EU countries (90.9 pct), with the remaining 9.1 pct from third countries. 2015 imports grew 25.2 pct from the previous year.

German exports of oranges were distributed to Austria (15.3 pct), followed by Poland (14.4 pct) and France (12.4 pct). German orange exports grew 25.3 pct in 2015. Wholesale prices were 56 euros per 100 kilos for Greek navel, 66 euros for Egyptian valencia late, 79 euros for Moroccan salustiana, 82 euros for Spanish Lane late, 81 euros for Spanish navel, 83 euros for Spanish navelate, 73 euros for Spanish navelina, 83 euros for Spanish salustiana and 88 euros for Turkish washington navel.

Orange grow covers an area of 147.7 thousand hectares in Spain, 84.5 thousand in Italy, 37.1 thousand in Greece and 54 thousand hectares in Turkey.

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"The election of Trump will send a negative message to Europe and Greece, argued Stavros Theodorakis

The head of The River Stavros Theodorakis cited a Native American legend on two wolves, in his comment on the election of Donald Trump.

We have a good and a bad wolf inside of us. The one we feed the most wins, the political leader noted in his Twitter account.

In previous tweets the head of The River expressed his support for Hilary Clinton and warned that Trump represents the conservative and fearful American, while underlining that Clinton has the necessary knowledge.

Mr. Theodorakis also argued that the US elections could influence our life. The election of Trump will send a negative message to Europe and Greece.

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U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Greece on November 15-16 was an event of immense importance for Greece and for Europe, government sources noted on Thursday. The sources criticised what they called a stance of "blind opposition" adopted by New Democracy in seeking to downplay the importance of a visit that gave active support to Greece and had global reach.

The United States and especially Barack Obama have adopted a stance supportive of Greek positions on a series of crucial issues, the sources pointed out, including on debt relief for Greece that was crucial for its transition to a period of growth and prosperity. Regarding the Cyprus issue, also, for the first time in years the groundwork had been laid for the various sides to agree on a substantive, truly just and viable solution, they pointed out, while also highlighting the visit's significance for Greece's foreign policy agenda and its goals to promote peace and stability in the region.

President Obama's keynote speech from the hill overlooking the Acropolis had historic significance, the government sources pointed out, given that the leader of the U.S. "is selecting the place where democracy was born to deliver his last public speech to an international audience before handing the baton to the new president Trump."

"A speech that will underline the legacy of the defence of progressive values on a global scale and will be a universal message in support of the universal human values of democracy, social justice, and respect for human rights. At the same time, it will highlight the principled stance, based on humanism and solidarity, shown by the government and the Greek people toward refugees and migrants," the sources said.

"However much some people might like to downplay, if possible, the significance of the U.S. President's visit, the reality is that this visit gives active support for Greece and is at the same time an event of global reach," they said.

"Unfortunately, the main opposition chooses to adopt such an attitude. It would be pettiness if it were not, in reality, another incidence of blind opposition that invests only in chaos and disaster. ND does not want the failure of the government but of the country. It wants to provoke destabilisation, the derailing of the programme and the failure of the negotiations on the debt. Its strategy is to implement a harsh austerity programme that it wants to blame on the present government. This is the 4th memorandum that it seeks to implement, offering it in exchange for the settlement of Greece's debt," the sources added.

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The US Embassy in Cyprus tweeted their congratulations to President-elect Donald Trump after Wednesdays shock election win over Hillary Clinton

The US Embassy in Cyprus tweeted their congratulations to President-elect Donald Trump after Wednesdays shock election win over Hillary Clinton.

The tweet added that the Nicosia-based Embassy was looking forward to working with the transition team in the coming months.

Before Trump was announced as the winner, US Ambassador to Cyprus Kathleen Doherty told local media: No change is anticipated on Washingtons stance on the Cyprus Problem, which has always enjoyed bipartisan support.

According to a Washington Post report earlier this year, a Greek Cypriot, George Papadopoulos, was among Trumps advisers during his presidential campaign.

DEEPENING STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades tweeted on Wednesday: Congratulations to [Donald Trump] on winning the US presidential election. My wishes for a most successful and productive term in Office.

In a statement added to his tweet, the President added: "Under your leadership, the Republic of Cyprus looks forward to deepening its strategic partnership with the US.

"The Cyprus-led and Cyprus-owned negotiations to reunify Cyprus are taking place in an even more intensified format, added Anastasiades.

As a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council, the US plays a pivotal role is assisting our efforts towards ending Turkeys military occupation and reunifying Cyprus for the benefit of all Cypriots, concluded the President.

CYPROB STANCE WILL NOT CHANGE

Cyprus Government Spokesperson, Nikos Christodoulides, currently in Mont Pelerin, Switzerland for the latest negotiations with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, echoed Dohertys statement, saying: The US stance on the Cyprus Problem is not expected to change after Trumps election.

Christodoulides told state radio that the US Cyprus Problem policy, and its foreign policy, is not largely affected by the presidency.

Cyprus has not witnessed change on US foreign policy dependent on who is President, added the Spokesperson.

UN TALKS

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and illegally occupied the islands northern third.

Anastasiades and Akinci have been engaged in UN-led negotiations since May 2015, aiming to reunite the island under a federal roof.

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European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker said more clarity was needed by US President elect Donald Trump on a number of issues. Commenting on the victory by Donald Trump, during an entrepreneurial event in Germany, and the impact his tenure would have on relations with the EU, Juncker stressed that Trump would have to clarify his positions on matters such as trade, NATO relations and climate change.

We would like to know his intentions in relation to the NATO alliance. We have to know what policies on climate change he wants to pursue. This has to be clarified within the next months, he said. Juncker added that he did not believe a trade agreement would be reached between the US and the EU in the next two years.

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On Wednesday, Turkey and Greece kicked off a new cooperation with the initiation of Sea Guardian, NATOs new maritime security operation

On Wednesday, Turkey and Greece kicked off a new cooperation with the initiation of Sea Guardian, NATOs new maritime security operation.

The security operation took place in the central Mediterranean Sea with the participation of Greek submarines and a Turkish frigates. The operation is aimed towards building counterterrorism via patrolling the seas and is set to join with Operation Sophia, already underway in the region.

Although the seas were calm and cool with this symbolic gesture of cooperation between the two countries, there were more transgressions in the airways as a Turkish Coast Guard helicopter entered Greeces airspace, committing the most recent in a series airspace violations.

The helicopter entered Athens Flight Information Region (FIR) and did a fly-over of the Greek island Panaghia at 1,000 feet altitude. There is no further information at this time about the incident.

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Lithuanian English

Vilnius, Lithuania, 2016-11-10 08:42 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The resolutions of the General Shareholders Meeting of INVL Baltic Real Estate, AB that was held on 10 November 2016:

1. Approval of the new wording of the Articles of Association of special closed-end type real estate investment company INVL Baltic Real Estate.

To approve new wording of the Articles of Association of special closed-end type real estate investment company INVL Baltic Real Estate, by replacing the text of the Articles of Association in full (enclosed).

To authorize Egidijus Damulis or Andrius Dauksas (both with a right to reauthorize) to sign the Articles of Association of special closed-end type real estate investment company INVL Baltic Real Estate.

2. Approval of the Management Agreement of special closed-end type real estate investment company INVL Baltic Real Estate with the management company UAB INVL Asset Management.

To approve the Management Agreement with the management company UAB INVL Asset Management (legal entity code 126263073, address of the registered office: Gyneju str. 14, Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania) (enclosed).

3. Selection of the depository of the special closed-ended type real estate investment company INVL Baltic Real Estate.

To select AB SEB bankas (legal entity code 112021238, address of the registered office: Gedimino av. 12, Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania), as a depository of the special closed-ended type real estate investment company INVL Baltic Real Estate.

4. Approval of the Depository Services Agreement of special closed-ended type real estate investment company INVL Baltic Real Estate.

To approve the Depository Services Agreement of special closed-ended type real estate investment company INVL Baltic Real Estate with SEB bankas (legal entity code 112021238, address of the registered office: Gedimino av. 12, Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania) (enclosed).

5. Approval of the rules for formation and activities of the audit committee of special closed-end type real estate investment company INVL Baltic Real Estate, election of members of the audit committee and setting remuneration for the independent member of the audit committee.

To approve the rules of formation and activities of the audit committee (enclosed).

To elect Danute Kadanaite and Tomas Bubinas (independent member of the audit committee) as members of the audit committee of special closed-end type real estate investment company INVL Baltic Real Estate.

To set remuneration for the independent member of the audit committee for his work in the audit committee at the hourly rate not higher than EUR 145. To instruct the management company UAB INVL Asset Management (legal entity code: 126263073, address of the registered office: Gyneju str. 14, Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania) to determine the procedure of payment of the remuneration to the independent member of the audit committee after the issuance of the license for the closed-end type investment company.
The French ambassador to Greece Christophe Chantepy sent a message of calmness to French citizens living in Greece after the attack against the embassy earlier on Thursday

The French ambassador to Greece Christophe Chantepy sent a message of calmness to French citizens living in Greece after the attack against the embassy earlier on Thursday and stressed the immediate mobilization of the Greek authorities.

In a statement posted on the embassy's website, he said that "two persons riding a motorcycle threw a hand grenade outside the French embassy at Vas. Sofias street," adding that "the Greek authorities reacted rapidly and are conducting an investigation."

"The embassy is in constant contact with the Greek authorities, so as to safeguard security for all," the announcement added.

"We are at your disposal as always," the ambassador said calling on French people to remain calm.

Source: ANA-MPA

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Turkish tourists formed long queues outside a house in Thessaloniki, Macedonia, where the founder of the modern Turkish state, Mustafa Kemal, is believed to have been born. The large tourist groups, mainly from Andrianopolis, Marmara and Constantinople, are visiting the house-shrine commemorating the day of Kemals death on November 10. According to Thessnews.gr most of the visitors are adults and students who traveled to Thessaloniki in organised groups.

Over the past two years 3-4,000 Turkish tourists had arrived during the two-day celebrations of Kemals death. Mayor of Thessaloniki has come under a lot of criticism by many for promoting Mustafa Kemal, who was responsible for the Armenian and Greek genocide in the 20th century.

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Ithmaar Bank, a Bahrain-based Islamic retail bank, has reported a net profit of $16.73 million for the nine-month period ended September 30, compared to $11.39 million net profit reported for the same period last year.



Net profit attributable to equity holders of the bank for the nine-month period was $6.50 million, compared to the $2.11 million for the same period last year, a bank statement said.



Net profit for the three-month period ended September 30 amounted to $4.77 million compared to the net loss of $1.65 million reported for the same period last year. Net profit attributable to equity holders for the three-month period was $2.10 million compared to the $3.55 million net loss reported for the same period last year.



The announcement, by Ithmaar Bank chairman Prince Amr Al Faisal, follows the review and approval, by the Board of Directors, of the banks consolidated financial results for the nine-month period.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, I am pleased to announce that Ithmaar Bank continues to report profits, that the banks core retail business continues to perform well, and that banks net income before overseas taxation continues to increase, said Prince Amr.



Focus on retail

Ithmaar Banks continued focus on growing its core retail banking business is clearly delivering results. The financial results of the nine-month period ended September 2016 show that the Banks net income before overseas taxation grew to $36.98 million, an increase of 5.9 percent compared to the $34.92 million reported for the same period last year. The banks net income before overseas taxation for the three-month period ended 30 September 2016 was $9.42 million, an increase of 187.7 percent compared to $3.27 million reported for the same period last year, he said.



I am also pleased to report that total expenses for the nine-month period September 2016 are under control and amounted to $143.17 million, a marginal increase of 1.8 percent from the total expenses of $140.59 million reported for the same period last year, said Prince Amr. This is despite the continuous expansion of Ithmaar Banks retail banking operations both in Bahrain, where we added a new branch in Galali earlier this year, and in Pakistan, where we added 43 new branches to date, he said.



Ithmaar Bank chief executive officer Ahmed Abdul Rahim said the financial results demonstrate that the banks efforts to grow its core retail banking business were paying off.



I am pleased to report that the balance sheet continues to be stable, and that our core business as well as our customer deposits continue to grow, said Abdul Rahim. This is evident from the equity of unrestricted investment account holders growing to US$2.45 billion as at 30 September 2016, an 11.6 percent increase compared to US$2.19 billion as at 30 September 2015, and an 11.5 percent increase compared to US$2.19 billion as at 31 December 2015, he said.



Customer confidence

This increase reflects customer confidence in the Bank, and is a further evidence that the Banks efforts to grow continuously closer to its customers are paying off, said Abdul Rahim. Current accounts and due to investors, for example, grew to US$3.59 billion as at 30 September 2016, a 7.6 percent increase compared to US$3.34 billion as at 30 September 2015, and a 6.2 percent increase compared to US$3.39 billion as at 31 December 2015. Liquid assets now represent 12.7 percent of total assets compared to 10.6 percent as at 31 December 2015, he said.



Earlier this year, Ithmaar Bank inaugurated its Qalali branch, the Banks fourth full-service branch in Muharraq and its eighteenth in Bahrain. Ithmaar Bank this year also installed two new Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in Hamad Town, in response to customer demands.



In line with its commitment to continuously improve its customer service offerings, Ithmaar Bank also conduced various process-reengineering exercises. In line with this same commitment, Ithmaar Bank also offered its credit card holders the chance to win prizes worth over US$75,000 as part of the Banks unique credit card offer. Ithmaar Bank recently also signed a Memorandum of Understating (MoU) with Eskan Bank to provide government-subsided financing for the Danaat Al Riffa development.



Restructuring plan

Earlier this year, at the banks Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM), shareholders approved plans for a new group structure designed to further develop the growth achieved in the core retail banking business and the strategic focus of the bank.



The plans involve the creation of a new holding company that will be listed on Bahrain Bourse and Boursa Kuwait and licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB). The new holding company will retain 100 percent ownership of all assets presently owned by Ithmaar Bank. These assets will be allocated into two wholly owned subsidiaries, an Islamic retail bank subsidiary, which will hold the core retail banking business, and an asset management subsidiary which will hold the investment assets.



These two subsidiaries will also be licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain. The new group structure will further consolidate Ithmaar Banks position as a strong retail-focussed premier Islamic retail bank under the Ithmaar brand, better allowing the Bank to take advantage of new growth opportunities, and help to generate greater value to its shareholders, the bank said.



The bank is now working with regulators towards finalising necessary legal and other requirements ahead of anticipated implementation later this year. - TradeArabia News Service


Dubai-based global marine terminal operator DP Worlds group chairman and chief executive officer Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem recently met with President of Mozambique Filipe Nyusi and discussed partnerships and economic cooperation with the country.



The senior officials met during the recent Financial Times Mozambique Summit in Maputo, and spoke about Mozambiques growing trade and logistics sector, sharing views on the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead, said a statement from DP World.



The officials also talked about finding solutions to develop and connect Africa's intra-regional trade routes to unlock the continent's huge potential, it said.



Bin Sulayem also delivered a keynote address at the summit on the importance of partnerships, preceding a discussion entitled Accelerating Infrastructure Transformation: Improving Ports, Roads, Airports, Marine Services, Telecommunications and Power Sector, it added.



Bin Sulayem said: I have been to Mozambique many times and on another recent tour of Africa Ive seen first-hand how each country is unique.



Development solutions lie in partnership of governments, trading blocks in Africa and the private sector. Investors want to see policy frameworks, regulations and governance that are promoting trade and development, he said.



Africa has great potential and eight of the worlds top 20 fastest growing economies are still located here. Intra-regional connectivity through multi modal infrastructure, supported by investor friendly policies and regulation, and coupled with innovation are the keys to Africas potential, he added.



Weve always expressed our readiness to support the development of ports and logistics centres in Africa. Weve partnered with local governments in all seven of our ports in six African countries and look forward to developing our trade relations further in future years, Bin Sulayem concluded.



According to the DP World official, major indicators show a promising future for a vast continent filled with opportunities. There has been 6 per cent growth in number of foreign companies investing in Africa and they are thinking long-term  investments into infrastructure related areas like power, construction and ICT have accounted for 44 per cent of total FDI into the region.



He further noted that there is still a need to address the soft infrastructure gap and better internal trade integration is key.



Trade between Dubai and Mozambique was valued at over Dh724 million ($197.1 million) in 2015 and over Dh776.5 million ($211.4 million) in the first six months of 2016, while showing a significant increase in re-export trade in the last six months, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
Saudi tech start-ups will drive the Digital Economy over the next 15 years, and support job creation for technology talents, the Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology announced today at SAPs first Start-up Focus event in the kingdom.



Dr Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al-Suwaiyel said: Government support for tech start-ups is essential for driving the Saudi Vision 2030 goals of national digital transformation and sustainable career paths for Saudi talents.



Public-private partnerships, such as with SAP, combine government vision and private sector expertise to amplify Saudi entrepreneurs ideas and enhance the kingdoms digital economic competitiveness, he added.



As part of SAPs mission to support promising technology start-ups, SAP has seen strong success on the Start-up Focus Programme globally. The programme has helped eligible start-ups, whose product ideas are based on Big Data, predictive or real-time analytics solution, accelerate the development of their solutions, and assist in bringing their solutions to market, said a statement from the company.



Boosting regional innovation and supporting local entrepreneurs, the SAP Training and Development Institute has now launched the initiative in Saudi Arabia with an event in Riyadh. During the two-day event, attendees gained insights from successful start-up founders and thought leaders, and interacted with the start-up ecosystem in the kingdom. Promising entrepreneurs also learned how to grow their innovative business plans with SAP's cutting-edge technology, it said.



Ahmed Al-Faifi, managing director, SAP Saudi Arabia, said: Saudi tech talents and millennials are already among the best-connected in the world, and have the ambition and business acumen to become global start-up leaders.



Our company is dedicated to joining forces with the Saudi government and local partners to support Saudi Vision 2030, digital economic innovation, and talented youth in reaching their dreams, he said.



Selected Saudi start-ups now have the chance to develop their solutions on the SAP Hana real-time analytics platform, receive free support from technical experts to help them productising their ideas and making the best use of the SAP Hana cloud platform. Participating start-ups have access to a community network of entrepreneurs, partners, investors, thought leaders and industry experts.



Once validated, start-ups can pitch to SAPs ecosystem of more than 320,000 customers worldwide. The programme has engaged with more than 3,750 start-ups across 59 countries and 22 industries, bringing hundreds of solutions to market.



Marita Mitschein, senior vice president and managing director, SAP Training and Development Institute, said: Launching the Start-up Focus Programme in the Kingdom concludes with impressive turnout, bringing together the countries start-up scene with successful entrepreneurs to exchange best practices and get inspired for an entrepreneurial career in Saudi Arabia.



SAP is now reviewing submitted business cases to identify the strongest start-ups, eligible for the programme, taking Saudi innovations to a global scale and boosting local innovations, she added.



Demonstrating the economic impact of digital transformation, the Saudi gross domestic product (GDP) could increase by $31 billion by 2020 if the kingdom optimises digital tools, according to a recent Accenture report.  TradeArabia News Service
Mott MacDonald, a multidisciplinary consultancy, has been appointed by Qaiwan Group to provide engineering, procurement and construction management services for the new Xarajyan oil terminal in Iraqi Kurdistan.



The facility will handle petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, aviation turbine fuel, kerosene, fuel oil and liquefied petroleum gas.



Qaiwan Group is a 2,000-strong privately-owned company headquartered in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan. It operates across a broad range of sectors, including downstream oil, power generation, construction and infrastructure, real estate, education, pharmaceuticals and hospitality. The group's Bazian refinery is one of the largest of its kind in Iraqi Kurdistan, with a capacity of 40,000 barrels per day. Its 442 MW power plant is a major contributor to domestic power needs.



Mott MacDonald will design the first phase of the 140,800 cu m storage terminal, auxiliary utilities and infrastructure facilities at Xarajyan. The consultancy will also provide interface and procurement engineering services and will assist with pre-fabrication, construction and assembly engineering. Construction management will be delivered through a separate contract.



Albert Allan, managing director of Mott MacDonald's oil and gas business, said: The new Xarajyan oil terminal will provide much needed storage capacity for petroleum products, help meet local demand and potentially support the transfer of products to Turkey. This is a good commission for Mott MacDonald and were looking forward to working with the Qaiwan Group to help them achieve their business ambitions.



The terminal is scheduled to be completed by the second quarter of 2018. - TradeArabia News Service
Iran has commenced oil production from North Yaran oilfield with an output of 30,000 barrels per day with the 10 wells drilled so far, the project's development manager was quoted as saying in a report.



Iran's priority is to develop jointly-owned oil and gas fields which are being dried out by Iran's neighbours, including Yaran, Azadegan and Yadavaran, Arash Baqerzadeh was quoted in the Iran Daily report, which cited Tasnim News Agency.



Iran has five joint fields with Iraq, which include North Azadegan, South Azadegan, North Yaran, South Yaran and Yadavaran, the report said.



Azadegan is the world's third largest oilfield with in-place reserves of about 33.2 billion barrels and proven reserves of about 6 billion barrels. South Azadegan holds in-situ reserves of over 25 billion barrels, of which 2 billion are recoverable, according to the report.
ALLENTOWN, Pa., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via PRWEB - The Business of the Year awards program celebrates the region's most dynamic businesses and business leaders who share a commitment to professional excellence, business growth and the community.

"Year in and year out I am reminded that Andesa's staff is our strongest attribute. Each day I am blessed to come to a place where people collaborate, exemplify a positive "can-do" attitude and work tirelessly, at times with great personal sacrifice to get the job done," said Ron Scheese, President & CEO, Andesa Services. "The Business of the Year finalist recognition exemplifies what I am able to see every day, the efforts and personal sacrifice the team gives to make Andesa a special place to be a part of. I am honored to celebrate this achievement with my staff, and our fellow nominees at the award ceremony in December."

The award ceremony is supported by six categories: Business of the Year (1-35 Employees), Business of the Year (36-100 Employees), Business of the Year (101+ Employees), Emerging Business of the Year, Corporate Citizen of the Year and Executive of the Year.

Finalists and winners are chosen by an independent panel of judges including: Polly Beste, Retired President, Beste Marketing Services; Inc., Dan Crowley, Director, Business Advisory Services, Quadrant Private Wealth; R. Chadwick Paul, President & CEO, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania; and Bernard Story, President & CEO, Lehigh Valley Community Foundation.

This award program is produced by Lehigh Valley Business, the Greater Lehigh Valley's premier business news publication. It is presented by Highmark Blue Shield and sponsored by Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Peerless Business Advisors, ArtsQuest, Equinox and the John Yurconic Agency.

The Business of the Year award finalists will be recognized, and the winner in each category will be announced, during a formal awards dinner on December 6, 2016 at ArtsQuest in Bethlehem, PA.

For more information about the Business the Year awards program or to reserve seats to the event, please visit http://www.lvb.com/events or contact Dayna Edelman at daynae(at)lvb(dot)com or (610) 807-9619.

About Andesa Services

Andesa began as a pioneer in the field of COLI/BOLI policy administration. Today more than 30 years later, Andesa provides comprehensive, integrated policy administration, plan administration and support solutions for life insurance and annuity carriers and producers. Partnered with numerous insurance companies (including 7 of the top 13 life and annuity carriers) along with several top distributors and producers, Andesa's integrated approach to insurance and plan administration results in efficiency gains, reduced hardware costs, mitigated compliance risk and improved market response. This comprehensive suite of services is offered in a secure, private cloud environment. The Company's highly-experienced team of U.S.-based professionals offers a true extension to a client's business, providing insurers and producers--large and small--with administrative support for complex product and plan offerings.

To learn more about Andesa, visit http://www.andesaservices.com/, or follow the company on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

This article was originally distributed on PRWeb. For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.prweb.com/releases/Andesa_Services/business_of_the_year_2016/prweb13833650.htm
Around $130 billion in investment in the oil industry is required to meet the targets of Irans Sixth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2016-21), the oil minister said.



"We use different methods for financing as it is not possible to attract the entire capital through contracts, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh was quoted as saying in the Iran Daily report, which cited Shana.



"It is very difficult to secure financial sources to achieve the objectives of the Sixth Five-Year Plan, including $130 billion, for the upstream and about $70 billion for the downstream sector," he said.



On the latest status of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery, he said that for the time being, the refinery produces kerosene and diesel but the production of high quality gasoline will start as early as 2017.



Revenues from petrochemicals now stand at $25 billion from $1 billion in 1997, the minister said, adding that plans are underway to raise the value-added of petrochemical products by $5 billion by mid-March to reach more than $30 billion.
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has announced plans to build the biggest hydroelectric power station in the GCC region.



The project, a first-of-its-kind in the Gulf, will make use of the water stored in the mountains next to Al Hattawi dam to produce 250 MW of power with a lifespan of 60-80 years, said the statement from the Dubai utility.

It was launched in the presence of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

Besides the hydroelectric power station in the mountains next to the Al Hattawi dam, the project also involves the development of other infrastructure projects in the region.



The power station will make use of two reservoirs - a lower one which is currently located in Al Hattawi Dam 400 m above sea level with a capacity of 1,716 million gallons and an upper reservoir will be built in the shape of a lake and will be 700 m above sea level.



The horizontal distance between the two reservoirs will be 3 to 4 km with a 300-m difference in height, it stated.



On the new venture, Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, the managing director and chief executive of Dewa, said: "We are pleased to play a role in the development of Hatta. We are inspired by the vision of Sheikh Mohammed, which outlines the roadmap that guides our work, initiatives, and developmental projects to achieve the UAE Vision 2021."



The UAE government wants to ensure sustainable development while preserving the environment, and to achieve a perfect balance between economic and social development, stated Al Tayer.



"This adheres to the directives of our wise leadership, to transform the UAE into one of the best countries in the world by 2021, when we celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Union," he added.



According to him, solar energy, which is the cheapest form of energy, will be used to power water turbines to pump water from the current lower reservoir to the upper reservoir that will be built.



"The speed of waterfall from the upper reservoir will be used to generate electricity and connect it to Dewa's grid. The efficiency of the power station will reach 90 per cent with response to demand for energy within 90 seconds," he explained.



"The project will create jobs, contribute to human and economic development, and enhance tourism through world-class tourist facilities in Hatta that we will develop in cooperation with one of the developers," noted Al Tayer.



Other than energy and irrigation, the project will provide other services including flood control and storing fresh drinking water, he added.



Al Tayer said Dewa will implement other projects and initiatives in Hatta including installation of photovoltaic panels on rooftops of buildings for Emiratis in that region through its Shams Dubai initiative, setting up of smart meters in the buildings and houses using the latest international systems through its Smart Grid and Meters initiative, and establishing the infrastructure for electric vehicle charging stations through the Green Charger initiative.



"Currently, there is a 132 kV substation, and a 900 mm main water pipe in the region that meets the existing and future needs of the people in Hatta," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Turkish company PTA has been selected by Oman Airports Management Company to provide food and beverage services at Muscat International Airport, said a report.



The 10-year agreement was signed by Sheikh Ayman Bin Ahmed Al Hosni on behalf of Oman Airports Management and Sadatin Jasoor of PTA, said a report in Oman Tribune.



According to Al Hosni, the agreement is in line with Oman Airports' 2020 strategy to place the sultanate's airports on par with the international level.


Bahrain's Tourism & Exhibition Authority (BTEA) has concluded its participation at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London, which saw 50,000 delegates attend over the three-day show.



A total of 12 companies were represented at the BTEA show stand, including Gulf Air, destination management companies and a host of Bahrains leading hotels and resorts.



WTM London has been a great success, said Zayed Bin Rashid Alzayani, The Minister of Industry, Commerce & Tourism Its been great to see people excited about the new brand on display, to see them meeting with our partners, and immersing themselves in our story and culture.



Shaikh Khaled Bin Humood Al-Khalifa, CEO of the BTEA, said: All of our stand partners were delighted to be here, establishing trade links with the UK and leading global travel professionals. Many have secured deals and new agreements over the last few days and are leaving more excited than ever about the future.



During the three days, BTEA held 19 meetings with members of the travel trade and media, including meetings with key travel partners such as Expedia, Southall Travel, Thomas Cook, Lastminute.com and Emerald.



Agents visiting the stand were able to try their driving skills on the Bahrain International Circuit Formula 1 simulator, and fuel their wanderlust through the many inspiring images on display throughout the stand  part of the new 'Ours.Yours.Bahrain' brand launched by BTEA at the show.

On the sidelines of the World Travel Market and in line with Gulf Airs longstanding mission and continuous efforts to promote Bahrain to an international audience as a tourist and business destination, Gulf Air and BTEA presented a grand prize to Carl Halvorsen who won an all-inclusive package to visit the kingdom and attend the 2017 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix. The prize included Gulf Air return flights from London, race tickets and hotel accommodation for two persons.

- TradeArabia News Service
Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain.

Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred.

For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here.
HERNDON, Va., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Golinsky Specific Chiropractic is excited to announce that Dr. Kevin Naples joined their chiropractic team over the summer. Dr. Naples is currently taking new patients at their office in Herndon.



We are very happy to welcome Dr. Kevin Naples to our staff, says Dr. Philip Golinsky, chiropractor and founder of Golinsky Specific Chiropractic. He is a valuable addition to our staff, and we can now help more patients in the community reach their specific health goals through personalized chiropractic and wellness plans.

Dr. Kevin Naples joins the Golinsky Specific Chiropractic team after having practiced in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally from the Pittsburgh area, Dr. Naples earned his bachelors degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with honors in 2007. Afterward, he pursued his chiropractic education at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa where he earned his Doctor of Chiropractic in 2012 with honors.

I am really glad to have the opportunity to be part of such a great chiropractic team, says Dr. Kevin Naples. I look forward to working with more new patients in the community to create a tailored chiropractic and wellness program that will help them meet their health goals.

Dr. Naples first became interested in chiropractic after being involved in an automobile accident in 2002. During his recovery, he found that medications were unable to resolve his symptoms. He then turned to chiropractic treatment, and he was able to fully recover through regular chiropractic care and rehabilitative treatments. After this experience, he developed a passion for chiropractic care and decided to pursue a career path that would allow him to help others find relief and recovery through natural methods.

After experiencing an automobile accident myself, I know how hard it can be to find relief from pain and get back to being healthy and doing the things you love, Naples states. Though there are some things that we cant avoid, some health issues can be prevented through the holistic approach to health that chiropractic care offers.

While studying at the Palmer College of Chiropractic, Naples became skilled at a variety of chiropractic treatment techniques to help meet the needs of his patients. In addition to practicing various techniques that are part of the Palmer Package, Naples also gently treats patients using instrument-assisted adjustments, decompression, therapeutic stretching, and rehabilitative exercises. As part of a holistic approach to total health, he also offers nutritional counseling to help patients meet their individual goals.

To make an appointment with Dr. Naples, contact (703) 991-4102. More information is available on their website at http://www.rxwellness.net/.

About Golinsky Specific Chiropractic



Golinsky Specific Chiropractic is a chiropractic care office serving patients in the Herndon, Reston, Sterling, and Chantilly areas. Dr. Philip Golinsky and his team take a holistic approach to health, emphasizing the importance of improving overall health in order to reduce the risk of pain and illness.
Nashville has developed throughout time. Now, many tourists visit Nashville to eat and enjoy wonderful music. Nashville has a lot to offer when it comes to food and music and many people are impressed by them. Because of the modern times, Nashville upgraded their cuisines and ventured into a more healthier area in the food industry. According to Paste Magazine and Nashville Eater, these restaurants located in Nashville will meet your expectation on Nashville's food and keeps you healthy at the same time.

1. The Wild Cow

The Wild Cow serves healthy vegetarian food. Most of the ingredients they use in their dishes are grown locally. The best sellers in this restaurant are black bean tacos, sweet potato, garlicky kale, pumpkin seeds and their house-made jerk sauce. Aside from these dishes, they also offer drinks such as coffee, wine and smoothies.

2. Vui's Kitchen

Vui's Kitchen is a Vietnamese restaurant located in Berry Hill, Nashville. You can order many vegetarian meals and you can even make some of their usual meals into a vegetarian meal. Some of their best sellers are the pho with tofu, mushrooms and vegan broth, lemongrass tofu banh mi.

3. Woodlands

Woodlands offer Indian Vegetarian Cuisines that's composed of both North and South Indian delicacies. It is one of the restaurants that offer vegan foods that everybody likes. They do not sell alcoholic drinks but you can bring your own wine in the store. Some of the recommended dishes of this restaurant are vegetable korma, curries, royal paneer and aloo gobi.

4. Avo

Avo is a restaurant that serves avocado margaritas. However, it doesn't just serve these delicious avocado margaritas, they also have small plate menus that are plant-based. Great for breakfast, lunch and dinner, there surely is a healthy vegan meal for you. Some of the recommended dishes in Avo is their avocado toast and ceviche tacos made with mushrooms.

5. Sunflower Cafe

The Sunflower Cafe is a well known cafe located in Berry Hill. Their food has fresh and organic ingredients and some are even grown locally. With its daily chef specials, vegan burgers and vegan crab cakes, no wonder it has been popular in Berry Hill. The staffs of the cafe are also said to be friendly. If you want to have a Nashville meal and want to stay healthy at the same time, these vegetarian restaurants are known for their delicious and unique dishes. These restaurants doesn't just have a fun atmosphere and good food, on top of that, they serve healthy food.

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Since travelling to Cuba has now been made accessible by the US government, its still important to keep in mind certain regulations.

International relations between the United States and Cuba were prejudicial for a long period of time due to an unsound history. But recently just last July 2015, Incumbent President Barack Obama has reinstated diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Now, travelling to Cuba has been made (sort of) possible to US citizens. Here are 5 things you should know before marking that calendar:

1) Can Americans visit Cuba?



The answer is yes, but not entirely. While general tourism is still illegal in Cuba under US law, there are other regulations which could allow Americans access to the Cuban land.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Department of Treasury has dispensed general licenses with these twelve categories for travel. Americans who meet these conditions do not need to apply for an additional license from OFAC to get to Cuba.

2) How can Americans get visas?



One way is by applying to the Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C. Another way is through working for companies specializing in travel to Cuba, and they will be able to process your application. Visas are at $25 and they usually arrived in 4 weeks via mail. You could also pick them up at the airport from which you are departing from.

Travel agents are also at your disposal to process your visa--CNN recommends agencies Cuba Travel Services and ABC Charters. The same report, however, said if you want to be travel agent-free, use CheapAir.com.

3) How to get to Cuba

Commercial flights to Cuba have recently just commenced. These are still of growing numbers though. But charter flights are still available. Another easy way is by going for a two-leg journey through gateway countries like: Canada, Mexico and Bahamas, with Bahamas being the most preferred.

4) Bringing cash to Cuba



US credit and debit cards do not work in Cuba. so make sure that you bring cash. Convertible currencies are available at the airport, hotels or exchange houses with a 10% charge.

5) Connectivity

Cell phone access is hard to acquire in Cuba with a US provider. US SIM cards will not work in Cuba though you could try contacting your service provider on availability and rates. Internet access is also limited throughout the entire island. But there are hourly WiFi connections at hotels and public WiFi hotspots in several cities.

Things to Remember:



Enroll in STEP (Smart Traveller Enrollment Program) at travel.state.gov. This agency will contact you if there is an emergency where you are.

Stay in guest houses or vacation rentals.

Work with a full-service boutique tour operator (ie. Havana VIP Tours). This agency will not only coordinate your flight but also immerse you in activities such as architecture tours or theatre performances.

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At twenty-seven years old, Cassandra De Pecol is on her way to becoming the fastest documented world traveller in history. Since beginning her globe-trotting journey in July of 2015, she has succeeded in visiting 180 of the UN's 193 countries plus Taiwan, Palestine and Kosovo.

De Pecol has documented her journey through the use of various social media accounts. Her Instagram account, expedition_196, has gained over 47, 000 followers and is continuing to grow. Her photos have gained global popularity due to the inclusion of breath-taking views all over the world.

According to a report by Travel and Leisure, the Connecticut-born jet-setter has spent approximately $198, 000 during the duration of her fifteen-month journey. These figures cover everything from the 254 international plane tickets to her daily expenses.

The same website has also noted that world traveler has received sponsorships from various restaurants and luxury hotels in exchange for promotions via the twenty-seven-year-old's Instagram account.

Though De Pecol has explained to The Daily Mail that world travel has been a long-time dream of hers, she is currently traveling as an acting ambassador for the International Institute of Peace Through Tourism. She has also been actively collecting world water samples for the Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation.

In addition to working for these prominent world organizations, Cassie De Pecol has been filming her journeys in the form of a documentary. She has also documented her journeys and ecological findings via her website, expedition196.com.

Having already filled four passports over the duration of her journey, De Pecol is currently residing in New York City, awaiting the approval of the visas she requires to complete her quest. She is expected to finish visiting the sixteen remaining countries in about six weeks.

According to Teen Vogue, the success of this journey will result in her becoming the first documented person to travel to all Sovereign Nations in less than thirty-nine months. The current record is being held by Graham Hughes, 33 at the time, who succeeded in completing the journey in less than four years.

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On November 11, in observance of Veterans Day, all national parks, state parks and national forests in the United States will offer free admission for everybody. The whole family will be able to enjoy a day of fun activities without shelling out money. That's pretty good news, right? Freedom is on!

The sun is up and inviting a good mood for a one-day vacation. Put on the checkered blanket and open the basket full of fruits, steamed vegetables, hearty sandwiches and delectable desserts. Serve the juice and soda for refreshing afternoon relaxation. Ready the charades and start gathering the whole family; it's a good day for picnic.

Veterans Day is an official public holiday in the United States. It is celebrated to commemorate and honor the military veterans who served the Armed Forces. It also marks the Armistice Day or Remembrance Day that is celebrated not just in U.S but in some other part of the globe like France and Belgium. Incidentally, the World War One ended at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month, back in 1918. Citizens pave respect to those people who were killed on wars, a two-minute silence is observed at 11am.

Free-fee day makes parks enjoyable to more people. The freebies include commercial tour fees, entrance fees and transportation entrance fees. Others such as camping and reservations conducted by third parties are excluded. Some of the participating parks are Denali National Park & Preserve in Alaska; Petrified Forest National Park, Walnut Canyon National Monument and Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Arizona; Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park and Haleakala National Park in Hawii; Pipestone National Monument of Minnesota; Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park and Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area in Montana; Wright Brothers National Memorial in North Carolina; and Dinosaur National Monument, Mesa Verde National Park and Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado. For the complete list and other perks, you may visit National Park Service website.

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Planning a last-minute trip for the holidays, but are budget-conscious? Dont worry, below are destinations that wont hurt your bank accounts.



Cambodia

Based in Southeast Asia, Cambodia is perfect for backpackers and anyone who is willing to explore a country rich in culture and history.

And the best part of it all, it is really cheap here. For an amount of $15-$30/day, you could go around the cities. You could experience 5-star luxury here without the high price tag.

Skyscanner shared a few places and activities in Cambodia that shouldnt be missed:

The Killing Fields just outside of Phnom Penh is a mass grave in Cambodia that earths around one million Cambodians who were executed during the regime of Khmer Rouge. Make sure that you emotionally prepare yourself for this.

Make sure to eat a Kampot Pepper Crab and cruise the Mekong River too.



Quebec City, Canada

Fair warning: trips to Canada might be overbooked these coming holidays because of the US Election results. But still, Quebec City must not be missed. At an estimate of $100-$250/day, you will be able to experience the striking architecture, much like Europe, and walk along the timeless cobble steps of this Francophone City.

Jacques-Cartier National Park is the province wildlife close to the city. So after your visit here, you could stop by Old Quebec. The hotel Chateau Frontenal stands in all its glory here.

The Montmorency Falls must also not be skipped. You could view it from Parc de La Chute-Montmorency or zip line through the cove of the falls.

During winter, the spray freezes at the bottom of the falls to form a sugar loaf.



Budapest, Hungary

If de-stressing is what you want, visit the natural thermal waters in Budapest, Hungary. Known as the City of Spas, other than baths, it also overflows with cakes, liquor and pristine architecture.

Meals are around 2 euros and there are hotels that range from 10 to 40 euros. Bed-Breakfast Hotel Budapest offers a nightly room rate of 29 euros.

As for the bath houses, there are thousands in Budapest. But #1 on our list is the bath houses in Gellert. May it be a romantic date, or a business meeting, it is Hungarian culture to do them here.



Timor-Leste

When what you want is a low-key destination that doesnt really pop up on search engines, this infant Southeast Asian country is perfect. Being only acknowledged as a country last 2002, its tourism industry is still beginning.

With this, Timor-Leste is pretty affordable. Just take note that ATM machines are scarce in the les-urban areas. Don't fret though, because Timor-Leste's currency is in US dollars, so just make sure to bring cash.

There are only a few tourists, and most of the time they are volunteers. But thats the great thing about it, you could genuinely enjoy the sultriness of the island without hurting your pockets.

Do you have other holiday destination ideas? Share them with us in the comments!

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After the announcement of Donald Trump's election as the next president of the United States, citizens all over the world are now baffled by one simple thought: What happens now?

Since the beginning of his presidential campaign in 2015, the new president-elect has made some outrageously insulting comments. His shocking statements, targeted mostly towards women and minorities, have caused global outrage, being tirelessly spread throughout various social media platforms and print media.

Although Trump's acceptance speech wasn't nearly as appalling as it was expected to be, with several world leaders and a majority of the world's population disgruntled by Trump's election, it is predicted that the United States will experience serious implications in terms of its economy, tourism, and international relations.

So then, what should we expect during this, the "Trump age"?

PRICE DROPS

Due to the drop in US dollar value immediately following Trump's election, finance experts began fearing what would be the worst economic crisis ever faced by the United States. However, the continuous direction of this decline is still not guaranteed.

The continuous drop of dollar rates could lead to cheaper oil prices, thus resulting in the lowering of travel rates. However, since the United States has long been an economic world leader, its financial decline could mean global economic instability.

CHEAPER AMERICAN HOLIDAYS

Due to the president-elect's poor choice of words against the female, LGBTQ+, and Muslim populations, tourism in the United States is expected to significantly drop. According to The Independent UK, over one million tourists from the UK have reconsidered choosing the United States as a travel destination since the election of Trump.

Furthermore, an online survey by Travelzoo indicated that a fifth of respondents would "definitely" not want to visit the United States under the Trump administration. The same survey also showed that a ninth of respondents would "probably" not want to travel to the US due to Trump's election.

The decline in tourism, partnered with the drop in travel rates would lead to the lowering of overall travel prices to the United States.

STRICTER IMMIGRATION AND VISA LAWS

With anti-illegal immigrant policies being one of Trump's strongest campaigns, it's easy to see why the world is predicting tighter border protection and stricter entry policies for the United States. While this remains to be a scary possibility, The Telegraph suggests that the passing of such laws by the president-elect could mean more difficulty when obtaining travel documents to the country.

Moreover, Trump has threatened to revoke all visas from any country that refuses to accept deported US illegal-immigrants. This could result in the cancellation of work, study, and tourist visas from countries such as Mexico, China, and The Philippines.





A PASSING FEAR?

Though Donald Trump has made some very heavy-bearing promises to the American people, many speculate that these are all just passing statements. Because of America's complex government system, many (if not most) of these plans will all fall to naught due to the country's executive, administrative, and legislative powers.

Still, it's not hard to see why many Americans are seriously considering just packing up and moving to other countries, such as Canada. In fact, the election of Trump resulted in the crashing of the Canadian immigration website, immediately following his victory.

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London is known for many great things: art, fashion, music and literature. Another thing the London people are known for is having a good time. Every year, this hustling and bustling city has some incredible bars and pubs popping up left and right.

If you're planning a trip to London, you're going to want to check out some of this year's best openings!

THE LAUGHING HEART

This elegant late night wine bar located in East London opened its doors to customers on October 19, 2016. The owner, Charlie Mellor, along with head chef, Tom Anglesea and Sommelier, Cedric Mailard, offer hungry customers with delicate dishes and expertly paired wines until 2:00 a.m.

What sets The Laughing Heart apart from others is the ice-filled trough in the center of the dining room. The trough serves as a display for the pub's extensive wine collection. What makes it even better is that they are an off-license, meaning you're free to purchase bottles and take them home with you.

FLAT IRON SQUARE

If you're looking for a good place in London to get food, drinks, and music all in one place, then all you have to do is go underground. And no, we don't mean you'll have to dig down deep.

Look near London Bridge underground and you'll find Flat Iron Square: a 40, 000 square foot hub surrounded by railways and some of London's most recognizable streets. This unique collection of music spots, bars, and food stalls mimics an urban European market feel, making it an overall unforgettable experience.

7 Tales

If you've ever dreamed of going through a door and being magically transported to another place, then this bar is perfect for you. In the basement of Sosharu, one of London's premier Japanese restaurants, you'll find yourself in a cocktail bar that will make you feel like you're in the heart of Tokyo, Japan.

7 Tales is a hip new cocktail bar that seeks to satisfy all Japanophiles in London. With playful drink offerings such as a Champagne Papi (which comes with a vending machine gimmick), classic favorites, and pre-dinner cocktails, this bar is sure to make your night into something special.

Plus, according to Time Out, you're going to want to check out their heated toilets, just for kicks.

COMPANY BELOW

Everyone is becoming more health-conscious in this day and age, and usually, alcohol does not play well in a person's lifestyle change. However, that doesn't mean that some bars aren't going to try.

Company Below: a redesigned herbal cocktail hideaway under the restaurant Balls & Company is offering its clientele with Asian-influenced, herb-infused spirits and cocktail mixes that pack multitudes of punches. Its unique ingredients make up an entire menu of drinks that you couldn't even imagine.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Abu Dhabi is best known for its world-renowned architecture, stunning beaches, picturesque deserts and fun-filled water parks. But once the sun goes down, this rising tourism capitol comes to life in a completely new and exciting way. Check out the best things to do in Abu Dhabi at night.

HIT UP A THEMED BAR

With the rise of several luxury hotels in the area, Abu Dhabi has become the home to several unique themed bars. Like the restaurants, most of these bars are centered around the themes of the hotels they're located in.

Be sure to check out Telegraph's choice bar, La Cava wine bar in the Rosewood Hotel. This underground bar features more than 15, 000 labels, including some of the most expensive bottles you'll find in the UAE.

You may also want to check out the Polynesian Tiki bar, Trader Vic's, in the Beach Rotana hotel. This tropical-themed watering hole is decorated with wicker furniture and wooden canoes. Don't forget to order their signature Mai Tai to top-off the island vibe.

DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY

What would a good night out be without dancing? Abu Dhabi's premier nightclubs are at par with the world's best. Featuring some of the best DJs in the world, top-notch audio systems, and futuristic club designs, Abu Dhabi's clubs bring you great ways to spend your nights.

Many of the city's top clubs offer special gimmicks to tickle your fancies. Short List Abu Dhabi highly recommends that you check out Legends at the Sheraton Abu Dhabi Hotel & Resort. Monday Open Bar Nights bring both men and women drinks at half the usual price.

PARTY BY THE BEACH

With beaches as beautiful as the ones in Abu Dhabi, it's not hard to see why this would be a top option for party-goers. Several beach-side locations come to life at night with the sound of music, flowing drinks, and sweet ocean air.

Avid partiers will love Al Maya Island on the weekend. This gorgeous island becomes accessible via boats that start at lunch time on Fridays and continuously journey well into the evening. The island features an awesome view, a swim-up bar, a great house DJ, and a volleyball area, making it the ideal beach party location.

More conservative night owls will love lounging around the Saadiyat Beach Club, which becomes less pricey and more accessible during the night. On weekends, cold drinks, delicious bar snacks, relaxing music, and deep seats make this venue perfect for people who want to spend a peaceful night by the sea.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
A known businessman with a chain of hotels globally, incoming United States President Donald Trump is no stranger to the travel industry. With a lot of new rules he plans to put into place, how till these new rules affect travel to and from America?

1. Cheaper to travel to the US

Despite the hesitation of many foreigners to visit during Donald Trump's presidency, the US may see a spike in visitors, due to airlines pushing for lower airfares considering many travelers' current mindsets. In addition, the US dollar's sudden dip could also be a factor in encouraging foreigners to take a trip.

2. Cheaper travel to other countries

According to The Independent, fuel and aircraft leases are economically priced in US dollars, so with the US dollar currently taking a nosedive versus other foreign currencies, these prices are also seen to go down. In addition, some countries such as Dubai, Thailand and Latin America, whose currencies are strongly tied to the performance of the US dollar, could also find their own currencies going down, goading on visitors to travel during the Trump presidency.

3. The future of Trump Hotels

Donald Trump's chain of high-end hotels and casinos has so far suffered during his campaign period, going down by 17-24 percent, according to The Telegraph. This was caused by many artists and celebrities calling for a global boycott of the Trump family's travel businesses. However, Trump has also invested in new hotels to be opened in Dubai, Bali and Baku, Azerbaijan. Although these places are located in Muslim countries, a spike may be expected due to curiosity among travelers.

4. Stricter airport security and immigration controls

Immigration and airport security are already two big downsides for tourists traveling to and around the United States. It is likely that US VISA's will be harder to acquire under the Trump presidency, particularly for Muslims. Donald Trump had, in December 2015, released statements calling for a "complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States".

5. Federal states may suffer due to the lack of tourism

Some states such as Florida, Nevada and California rely heavily on tourism and transportation as a means of keeping the state going. Due to Trump's policies on immigration and security, and the decline of the US Dollar, these US states could be the first to feel the effects of changes in the travel industry during the new Republican state.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Home to the famous Jerusalem, Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, and Haifa, Israel is one country that has an overabundance of beautiful attractions. It is worthy to take time in getting acquainted with the necessary information before heading to this side of the world. Here are the essentials.

Climate

Israel encounters three kinds of climate: summer, overlap, and winter. From June to September, the country experiences dry summer characterized by a warm and humid weather.

From December to March, the weather becomes cooler as the climate approaches to the mild winter. There could be a possibility of rain or snow during this season. In the months of late March, April and May as well as late September, October and November, there is an overlap of climates. It could be pleasantly sunny or with certain amount of rain showers.

Available Flights

There are four airlines available for those who are keen to visit Israel.

Israel Airlines carries passengers from Greece, Germany, Serbia, Romania, Portugal, Italy, Georgia, Cyprus, and Bulgaria to Tel Aviv.

El Al Israel Airlines carries passengers from certain countries in Europe, Middle East, North America, Africa and North Asia to Tel Aviv.

Up carries passengers from Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungaryand Ukraine to Tel Aviv.

Arkia Israeli Airlines carries passengers from certain European countries, Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Tanzania, and Seychelles to Tel Aviv.

Travel Requirements and Costs

For a person intending to stay in Israel for a short time, one must secure a B/2 Visitor's Visa. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs website lists the Visa rule that: "B/2 visa is valid for up to three months from the date of issue and the duration of the stay in Israel will be determined by the Border Police. A visitor who wishes to extend his visit may submit an application at one of the regional population administration offices of the Ministry of the Interior."

Visa applicants must ensure to have the following documents: a valid passport and a photocopy of it, a completed and signed visa application, proof of the applicant's sufficient financial means, round trip airline tickets, two passport pictures (5x5 cm).

Costs are laid out, specifically, on the website of The Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Accommodations

There is a great variety of selection and accommodations are categorized into hotels, hostels, guest houses, bed & breakfasts, camping grounds, and tents.

Attractions

There is a wide variety of selection for different types of tourists. There are beaches such as the Acadia beach and Palmachim Beach, and parks like Arbel National Park and Bar'am National Park. There are also several wineries in different regions as well as monasteries and chapels. Travellers may also go and discove UNESCO World Heritage sites. Tourists may visit and explore Tel Aviv, Eilat, Negev, Masada, Safed and many more.

Familiarizing oneself in these essentials will make it easier and quicker to pack the suitcase and head to the "Land of Creation."

Have you been to Israel? Share you experience in the comments below!

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
CHATSWORTH, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Provision Interactive Technologies, Inc. ("Provision"), a subsidiary of Provision Holding, Inc. (OTCQB:PVHO), announced today that Procter & Gamble (P&G) (NYSE:PG) has begun a national advertising promotional campaign on Provisions 3D Savings Center kiosks for its Pantene brand. The campaign will utilize the unique 3D holographic technology as well as in-store promotional coupons provided by Provisions 3D Saving Center kiosks in retail locations across the U.S.



Pantenes new breakthrough conditioner technology delivers superior conditioning without weight, addressing a significant consumer trial barrier in the category. Pantene shampoo and conditioner systems are consumer blind test winners vs. the best competition in North America, China and Japan.

We think the Pantene brand is a perfect match for our technology and for our national in-store network, said Provisions CEO, Curt Thornton. We look forward to using our unique eye-catching technology to showcase Pantenes classic brand. Pantenes commitment demonstrates its confidence in Provisions 3D in-store digital media platform to generate awareness of Pantenes products at the point-of-sale.

Provisions award-winning, 3D Savings Center Kiosks generate extraordinary, three dimensional, holographic videos and has proven to generate a great deal of attention from retail customers. The 3D holographic display projects videos in front of the screen without the need for any special glasses and without any discomforting eye stress.

Each kiosk also has a 2D interactive touch screen that provides consumers access to promotions, rewards, and coupons. The kiosks are also able to print coupon offers, allowing the retailer and other advertisers to offer customers highly effective sales influencers at the point of purchase.

About Procter & Gamble

P&G serves consumers around the world with one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Always, Ambi Pur, Ariel, Bounty, Charmin, Crest, Dawn, Downy, Fairy, Febreze, Gain, Gillette, Head & Shoulders, Lenor, Olay, Oral-B, Pampers, Pantene, SK-II, Tide, Vicks, and Whisper. The P&G community includes operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide. Please visit http://www.pg.com for the latest news and information about P&G and its brands.

About Provision Interactive Technologies, Inc.

Provision Interactive Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of the publicly traded company Provision Holding, Inc. (OTCQB:PVHO), is the leading purveyor of intelligent interactive 3D holographic display technologies, software, and integrated solutions for both commercial and consumer focused applications.

Provision's 3D holographic display systems represent a revolutionary technology that provides the projection of full color, high-resolution videos into space detached from the screen, without any special glasses. Provision is currently the market leader in true 3D consumer advertising display products being implemented by innovative, consumer-focused companies.

Provision Holding, Inc. (OTCQB:PVHO) trades on the OTCQB venture stage marketplace for early stage and developing U.S. and international companies. Companies are current in their reporting and undergo an annual verification and management certification process. Investors can find Real-Time quotes and market information for the company on www.otcmarkets.com.

For more information, visit www.provision.tv.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains projections of future results and other forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Important factors that may cause actual results and outcomes to differ materially from those contained in the projections and forward-looking statements included in this press release are described in our publicly filed reports. Factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to, the acceptance of our products, lack of revenue growth, failure to realize profitability, inability to raise capital and market conditions that negatively affect the market price of our common stock. The Company disclaims any responsibility to update any forward-looking statements unless legally required.




Vacation Agent Magazine

A version of this article appears in print in the November 2016 issue of Vacation Agent Magazine. Subscribe
ASCOTT CHARTS UNPARALLELED GROWTH IN CHINA AS IT ADDS RECORD NUMBER OF OVER 2,800 UNITS IN ITS LARGEST MARKET IN 2016



(TRAVPR.COM) SINGAPORE - November 10th, 2016 - CapitaLands wholly owned serviced residence business unit, The Ascott Limited (Ascott), has inked contracts to manage eight new serviced residences in Chinas high growth cities of Beijing, Chongqing, Haikou, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Xiamen through its Ascott, Citadines and Tujia Somerset brands. The properties with more than 1,200 apartment units will boost Ascotts leading position in China, as it adds a record number of more than 2,800 apartment units across 16 new properties this year.

Mr Lee Chee Koon, Ascotts Chief Executive Officer, said: Ascott has made tremendous inroads in China this year. We have secured the highest number of units of all time, made our most expansive growth across 12 cities in China and extended our footprint to Haikou and Shaoxing. Besides forming strategic alliances and securing more management contracts, being the first serviced residence company to partner new economy leaders like Tujia and Fliggy (Alitrip), has given us significant first-mover advantage to boost Ascotts presence in the country as the fastest growing international serviced residence company. As we scale new heights, we are closing in on our target of 20,000 apartment units in China and 80,000 units globally by 2020.

Mr Lee added: Through our partnership with Tujia, Chinas largest and fastest growing online apartment sharing platform, we have been able to accelerate our growth by establishing a strong presence online to complement our offline expertise in managing properties. Since the launch of the Tujia Somerset brand in March this year, we have secured 10 properties and we will be stepping up our pace as the middle class travel segment continues to develop. By expanding our network of serviced residences and our suite of brands, we will be able to capture an even larger market share to better cater to varying needs of business and leisure travellers.

Mr Kevin Goh, Ascotts Managing Director for North Asia, remarked: China is Ascotts largest market with the most number of properties and it is also one of the leading international serviced residence owner-operators in the country with more than 16,000 units across 26 cities. This market continues to signify immense potential for Ascott. In 2015, Chinese travellers made four billion trips within the country, twice of the previous year; it also leads the global outbound travel market. Our award-winning properties will not only attract domestic travellers but also become the preferred choice for Chinese travellers abroad.

Of the eight new serviced residences signed, Tujia Somerset Palm Springs Chongqing is already operational and the other seven  Ascott Central Haikou, Citadines Taoyuanju Chongqing, Citadines Xixi Wetland Hangzhou and four more Tujia Somerset properties  are scheduled to open from next year to 2020. This year, Ascott also opened 10 properties in China, adding more than 1,900 units to its network of serviced residences.

Affirming its leading position in the country, Ascott was recently named the Best Serviced Residence Operator in China at the TTG Travel Awards; Serviced Residence Group of the Year at the China Travel & Meetings Industry Awards and Most Popular Serviced Residence Brand at the Golden-Pillow Award of China Hotels. The new Tujia Somerset was also recognised as Chinas Serviced Residence Brand with the Most Potential at the Golden-Pillow Award.

Please refer to the annex for more information on the new serviced residences.

About The Ascott Limited

The Ascott Limited is a Singapore company that has grown to be one of the leading international serviced residence owner-operators. It has over 29,000 operating serviced residence units in key cities of the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, as well as over 19,000 units which are under development, making a total of more than 49,000 units in over 300 properties. The company operates three award-winning brands  Ascott, Citadines and Somerset. Its portfolio spans more than 100 cities across 27 countries.

Ascott, a wholly owned subsidiary of CapitaLand Limited, pioneered Asia Pacific's first international-class serviced residence with the opening of The Ascott Singapore in 1984. Today, the company boasts over 30 years of industry track record and award-winning serviced residence brands that enjoy recognition worldwide.

Ascotts achievements have been recognised internationally. Recent awards include World Travel Awards 2016 for Leading Serviced Apartment Brand in Asia, Europe and the Middle East; Business Traveller Asia-Pacific Awards 2016 for Best Serviced Residence Brand; Business Traveller Middle East Awards 2016 for Best Serviced Apartment Company; Business Traveller UK Awards 2016 for Best Serviced Apartment Company; TTG China Travel Awards 2016 for Best Serviced Residence Operator in China; DestinAsian Readers Choice Awards 2016 for Best Serviced Residence Brand and Business Traveller China Awards 2015 for Best Serviced Residence Brand and Best Serviced Residence. For a full list of awards, please visit http://www.the-ascott.com/ascottlimited/awards.

About CapitaLand Limited

CapitaLand is one of Asias largest real estate companies headquartered and listed in Singapore. The company leverages its significant asset base, design and development capabilities, active capital management strategies, extensive market network and operational capabilities to develop high-quality real estate products and services. Its diversified global real estate portfolio includes integrated developments, shopping malls, serviced residences, offices and homes. Its two core markets are Singapore and China, while Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam have been identified as new growth markets. The company also has one of the largest real estate fund management businesses with assets located in Asia.

CapitaLands listed real estate investment trusts are CapitaLand Mall Trust, CapitaLand Commercial Trust, Ascott Residence Trust, CapitaLand Retail China Trust and CapitaLand Malaysia Mall Trust.

Visit www.capitaland.com for more information.

Issued by: The Ascott Limited

Website: www.the-ascott.com

168 Robinson Road, #30-01 Capital Tower, Singapore 068912

Annex

Ascott Central Haikou (opening in 2020)

Located in the new Central Business District of Hainans capital city, the 173-unit Ascott Central Haikou is part of an integrated development that includes a shopping mall. The serviced residence is also conveniently situated near the newly opened Riyue Plaza which houses the citys largest duty-free shop. Ascott Central Haikou is a 15-minute drive from the new High Speed Railway Station and a 30-minute drive from the international airport. The property provides guests with a range of studios to three-bedroom apartments. Residents can relax in the residents lounge or clubhouse, work out in the gymnasium or swimming pool and those travelling with children can also enjoy the playroom.

Citadines Taoyuanju Chongqing (opening in 2017)

The 178-unit Citadines Taoyuanju Chongqing is close to the industrial park where more than 200 companies are located. The third Singapore and China Government-to-Government project, the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative will draw even more business and leisure travellers to the city, generating demand for the serviced residence. Citadines Taoyuanju Chongqing is a 10-minute walk from the upcoming metro station, scheduled to open in the same year as the serviced residence, and a 10-minute drive from the Jiangbei International Airport. Residents can pick from studio apartments to two-bedroom units and the property will have a gymnasium, breakfast and residents lounge.

Citadines Xixi Wetland Hangzhou (opening in 2020)

Citadines Xixi Wetland Hangzhou will be part of an integrated development in the heart of the citys Future Science City park, home to universities and offices including Alibabas global headquarters. The serviced residence will offer 180 units ranging from studios to two-bedroom apartments and facilities such as a gymnasium, breakfast area, residents lounge and childrens playroom. Citadines Xixi Wetland Hangzhou will be conveniently located near to a train station when metro line 5 opens in 2019 and the opening of the Hangzhou West High Speed Rail in 2022 will further enhance the citys connectivity.

New Tujia Somerset properties

The five Tujia Somerset properties are in Chinas high-growth cities of Beijing, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Xiamen. The 81-unit Tujia Somerset Palm Springs Chongqing is already open for stays while the 75-unit Tujia Somerset ZhongGuanCun Beijing, 192-unit Tujia Somerset Jinsha Lake Hangzhou, 117-unit Tujia Somerset Riverside Shanghai and 279-unit Tujia Somerset Robinsons Xiamen are scheduled to open from next year to 2019. The serviced residences will have 24-hour reception and security, and apartments are equipped with kitchenettes as well as laundry facilities. Guests can choose from studios to three-bedroom units, and facilities include breakfast areas, meeting rooms, gymnasiums and a yoga room. Located in city centres, the Tujia Somerset properties are close to metro stations, attractions, shopping malls as well as industrial districts.

###
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Awilco Drilling PLC's Third Quarter 2016 report will be released prior to market opening on Thursday 17 November 2016. A quarterly presentation will be held on 17 November 2016 at 10:30 CET in Awilhelmsen's offices at Beddingen 8, Aker Brygge, Oslo, Norway. Please send an e-mail to ch@awilcodrilling.com by 15 November if you wish to attend the presentation.



A conference call will be held on 17 November 2016 at 14:00 UK time (15:00 CET / 09:00 EST). The presentation will be available for download on the Investor Relations section (go to "Press Releases") at www.awilcodrilling.com prior to the call. There will be a Q&A session after the presentation.



Click this link to register for the conference call, or copy and paste the following address into your browser:

http://members.meetingzone.com/selfregistration/registration.aspx?booking=TLzQikaH8VMUWNIq55lqrUpeEcdTgL0hoEZphOZeci0=



Once registered, you will receive an email with dial-in numbers and pins.

Aberdeen, 10 November 2016





For further information please contact:



Jon Oliver Bryce, CEO

Phone: +44 1224 737900



Cathrine Haavind, IR Manager

Phone: +47 93 42 84 64





This information is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
TEMPE, Ariz., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VirTra, Inc. (OTC Pink:VTSID), a leading provider of judgmental use of force simulators and firearms training simulators, announced today that it has submitted its application to uplist the Companys common stock on the OTCQX U.S. market. Upon approval and the effective date, VirTra stock will begin trading on the OTCQX under the ticker symbol "VTSI".



To qualify for the OTCQX market, companies must meet high financial standards, follow best practice corporate governance, demonstrate compliance with U.S. securities laws, be current in their disclosure, and be sponsored by a professional third-party advisor.

Bob Ferris, Chairman and CEO of VirTra, commented, The OTCQX market is the next logical step for VirTra to build upon our success by potentially generating greater visibility and credibility throughout the investment community. We are looking forward to joining this outstanding exchange as we continue to pursue our primary goals of generating profitable growth and delivering increased value to our shareholders.

About VirTra

VirTra is a global leading provider of the world's most realistic and effective judgmental use of force simulators. VirTra is the higher standard in firearms training simulators, offering a variety of simulator platforms, powerful gas-powered recoil kits and the patented Threat-Fire simulated hostile return fire system. VirTras products provide the very best simulation training available for personnel that are entrusted with lethal force and critical missions. The Companys common stock is not registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Company does not currently file periodic or other reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

http://www.virtra.com/

Forward-looking Statements

This news release includes certain information that may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by terminology such as could, may, "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," proposed, planned, potential and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including statements about VirTra's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information is necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Although VirTra believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. VirTra cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Accordingly, due to the risks, uncertainties and assumptions inherent in forward-looking information, readers and prospective investors in the Company's securities should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. All forward-looking information contained in this press release is given as of the date hereof, and is based upon the opinions and estimates of management and information available to management as at the date hereof and is subject to change. The Company assumes no obligation to revise or update forward-looking information to reflect new circumstances, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.




HASBROUCK HEIGHTS, N.J., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Demand Gen Report will host its third annual Strategy & Planning Series (#SPS16)  a week-long webinar series presenting expert advice on modern, targeted approaches to demand generation.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2ac7537c-395c-4976-aacf-d390472017f3

#SPS16 will focus on assessing marketing and sales initiatives, identifying successes and failures, and ramping up to generate more demand for 2017. Leading B2B professionals will offer expert tips on implementing and maximizing strategic initiatives such as:

ABM

Predictive Analytics

Metrics-based planning

Video Marketing

Persona Development

Content Mapping

Our annual Strategy & Planning Webinar Series has quickly become a top attraction for marketers, said Carol Krol, Editor-in-Chief at Demand Gen Report. Its optimally timed as marketers review and recap their performance metrics from the current year, and also form their plans, investments and goals for 2017.

Sessions include:

Monday, Nov. 14:

11 AM ET: Top Transformational Trends In 2017 & How To Plan For Them

12 PM ET: Marketing Planning Mastery: 4 Strategies From The Best Marketing Organizations

2 PM ET: Why ABM And Predictive Are B2B Marketings 2017 Power Couple

3 PM ET: Beyond The Hype: How To Create And Measure An ABM Strategy

Tuesday, Nov. 15:

12 PM ET: Personas, Journeys & Content Maps  3 Keys to Filling Your 2017 Pipeline with Quality Leads

2 PM ET: Artificial Intelligence Is Here 4 Stories That Prove The Power Of Predictive

3 PM ET: Maximize Customer Lifetime Value in 2017 by Leveraging Your 2016 Wins

Wednesday, Nov. 16:

12 PM ET: Personalized Prospecting & The Rise Of Outbound SDRs: How ABM And Alignment Will Benefit From Coordinated Plays In 2017

2 PM ET: 2 Million Reasons to Invest in B2B Video Marketing

3 PM ET: The ABM Roadmap For 2017: Five Steps To Activate Your Best Customer Accounts

Thursday, Nov. 17:

2 PM ET: From Napkin To Blueprint: Mapping A Marketing Plan With Your Metrics

3 PM ET: Keys To Engagement-Based Marketing: How To Integrate Webinars And Optimize Content Delivery To Drive Each Stage Of The Buying Cycle

Friday, Nov. 18:

12 PM ET: Ignite The Spark In Buyer Relationships: Best-In-Class Tactics For Adding Context To Your Content

2 PM ET: Key Strategies To Turn Insights Into Action In 2017: How B2B Organizations Can Activate The Marketing Data They Need To Drive Conversions And Conversations

B2B professionals interested in attending any of the 2016 Strategy & Planning Series webinars can register for free by visiting the Demand Gen Report Strategy & Planning Series registration hub.

About Strategy & Planning Series

Hosted by Demand Gen Report, the Strategy & Planning Series is an educational webinar series formulated to help B2B executives gain insights and best practices to build upon the years successes and implement strategies for growth and improvement in the year ahead.

About Demand Gen Report

Demand Gen Report is a targeted online publication that uncovers the strategies and solutions that help companies better align their sales and marketing organizations, and ultimately, drive growth. A key component of the publications editorial coverage focuses on the sales and marketing automation tools that enable companies to better measure and manage their multi-channel demand generation efforts.

The photo is also available at Newscom, www.newscom.com, and via AP PhotoExpress.
Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

Amrinder Singh of Kurali is scheduled to get married on Saturday. However, rather than shopping or preparing for the day, the would-be groom, along with his relatives, queued up outside the RBI office, Sector 17, to exchange old currency with new one.

Anita, a worker at the Municipal Corporation, has the bhog ceremony of her father-in-law in Haridwar on Saturday. However, the anxious woman, along with her husband, was standing in a long queue to exchange money.

Similarly, worried family members of both Amit and Sonia of Sector 30, who are scheduled to get married on November 16, were waiting for their turn outside the RBI office to exchange notes.

They were all part of a manic crowd that gathered outside city banks and the RBI today to either exchange or deposit currency. Their worry was they were getting Rs 4,000 each at one go while they had big amount in old currency to be spent for the scheduled events.

It was the first day after Prime Minister Narender Modis Tuesday announcement of demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes to tackle the triple menace of black money, fake currency and terror financing.

However, anxious people started queuing up outside banks today as early as 7 am. Though banks opened at 9.30 am and some at 10 am, these saw huge rush. Every bank had opened extra counters to manage the crowd. Police officials were also deputed outside the banks to manage the rush.

While waiting for his turn in a queue outside the RBI office, Amrinder Singh, who is scheduled to tie the knot on Saturday, said, Though we were done with major expenditure regarding my marriage, for shagun and other small expenses, we have Rs 50,000 in currency which is now invalid. I am worried how things will work as one person can exchange only Rs 4,000. I have brought relatives along so that they can also help.

Standing in the end in the same queues were two families for the same cause. I had arranged Rs 2.5 lakh for my daughters marriage next week but now I am worried as I cannot withdraw this much amount together. This scheme is good for the nation but not for people like me who have scheduled events, said an emotional Rekha, mother of the would-be bride.

Some happy faces were also seen coming out of the banks flashing the new Rs 2,000 currency. I, along with my two friends, came to the bank as we wanted to be among the first to grab the new note, quipped Raju while taking a selife with the note outside the SBI branch in Sector 17.

On the other hand, due to the rush, several bank branches, including Allahabad Bank, Sector 17, HDFC Bank, IndusInd, Sector 35, State Bank of Patiala and Yes Bank, Sector 46, ran out of cash by afternoon.

We had 10-12 extra counters today to cater to the rush. All our branches had cash and we continued to serve people till 7 pm today. Our staff were continuously working since 10 am, said JM Khurana, Assistant General Manager, SBI, Sector 17.

Bank staff did their best

Heavy rush of customers was witnessed in almost all public sector banks. To ensure that excellent services were provided at all branches of the State Bank of Patiala, senior officers kept visiting the branches. They also

spoke to customers to know if they were facing any difficulty. Bank staff and managers contributed wholeheartedly, said Davinder Kumar, General Manager, State Bank of Patiala, Chandigarh (North region).

Rush to operate lockers too

There were many anxious customers who reached to operate their lockers at different banks. More number of people turned up to operate their lockers on Thursday. We are not allowed to see what they do with it, said an official at the SBI, Sector 17. A customer said, I had put a good amount of cash in the locker and with old big currency notes redundant, I took these out to exchange these.

Traffic jam

Rush of people and vehicles outside Bank Square in Sector 17 led to a traffic jam on the main road near the SBI NRI branch. However, the rush eased as the day passed.

Cops outside banks

Police personnel were deployed outside the banks to keep the situation under control. They ensured that people did not misbehave with the bank staff after getting impatient.
Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

While the Centre announced this evening that old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes would be accepted for the payment of water, electricity and other utility bills, e-Sampark centres in Chandigarh did not accept these notes. The staff were only accepting other currency notes.

Though banks collect cash receipts from the e-Sampark centres in the city, the UT Administration did not facilitate city residents, who had to return from the e-Sampark centres without paying their electricity and water bills as the staff refused to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

The water and electricity bills of former Union Minister Pawan Kumar Bansals house could also not be deposited today because the e-Sampark centres were not accepting the scrapped currency.

Bansal said he had sent his staff to pay the water and electricity bills with old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, but the staff at the e-Sampark centre did not accept the money. He said while the government had announced that it was accepting Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for the payment of utility bills, in Chandigarh the situation was the opposite. The Administration was violating the orders of the Centre, he said.

Echoing similar views, Pardeep Bhardwaj, a resident of Sector 50, said the UT Administration should immediately issued orders to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes at the e-Sampark centres.

Secretary, Information Technology, UT, SB Deepak Kumar said they had not received any such order. As soon as the Administration issues written orders, these will be implemented accordingly, he said.

To facilitate residents, the Administration is already in talks with banks. As soon as things are finalised with the banks for accepting Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the facility will be extended to the residents, he said.

Economic Affairs Secys tweet

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das tweeted on Thursday evening that old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes would be accepted for the payment of fees, charges, taxes and penalties to central and state governments, including municipalities and local bodies till November 11 midnight.

Water bill payment date extended too

A day after the UT Administration extended the date for the payment of electricity bills, the date for the payment of water bills has also been extended to November 15 through cheque and demand draft and November 17 through cash.
S. Subramanian

The August 14, 2014 issue of the The Hindu carried a feature indicating that the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) had submitted to the Finance Ministry, in December 2013, a confidential report on estimates of black money held in India and abroad by Indians. The report apparently suggested that  driven largely by the higher education sector, real estate transactions, and incomes from mining  the size of the black economy could be as large as three-fourths the size of the country's Gross Domestic Product. The then Finance Minister, we are told, did not place the report in Parliament. As far as one can ascertain, neither has the present Finance Minister.

In light of this record, it is hard to stomach the notion that the Prime Minister's dramatic address to the nation on the evening of November 8 is indeed, as he claimed, "a fight against black money (and) corruption...". It is even harder to understand how the measures announced (such as they are) constitute an endorsement of the advertisement that this government is dedicated to the poor. The specific measures, as it happens, are rather short on detail and long on rhetoric. From what one can understand, the scourges of black money, terrorist funding, and the circulation of counterfeit high-denomination currency notes (Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes) are to be effectively countered by abruptly declaring that these currency notes are no longer legal tender. However, these currency notes can be exchanged, within a finite period of time, for newly-minted higher-denomination notes in banks by declaring one's holdings of these notes, after identifying oneself by means of generally accepted documents of identity, such as PAN cards, Aaadhaar cards, ration cards, and so on.

There are a number of difficulties one faces in coming to grips with the objectives of this scheme. First, it is hard to know what to make of the Prime Minister's assurance that "your money will remain yours. You need have no worry on this point." Taken literally and at face value, this suggests that no one runs the risk of actually being questioned about possession of suspiciously large quantities of large-denomination notes. In such an event, we are speaking of "fighting black money" through the declaration of a general amnesty which converts 'black' into "white" by simple fiat, that is, by the exchange of old notes for newly minted ones.

But surely, this cannot be quite right  for then why should anyone hesitate to declare all their high-denomination notes? Apparently, after all, one does need to "worry on this point". Presumably, people with unnaturally large quantities of high-denomination notes ought to be genuinely worried about identifying themselves as being in possession of such quantities, since their identities will, one imagines, be passed on by banks to the income-tax authorities. But then, what is an unnaturally large quantity? Is there a threshold level? Is that level variable across people or the same for all? In either case, how is it to be identified? And if one is found with holdings in excess of the threshold, presumably there will be a penalty levied on the offender. What is the rate of this penalty? By what principles is it to be determined? There is no clarity (nor, as far as one can tell, information) on these questions. If there is, indeed, no cause for "worry", then we are speaking of an amnesty; if there is cause for worry, then worried people will simply not declare their 'excess' holdings of large-denomination notes, which will, effectively, have been just straightforwardly driven into non-existence. There is no question, in such a scheme, of recovering unaccounted money, money owed to the state by defaulting on legitimate taxes.

There is a further complication to reckon with here. Bank account-holders with small or "below-threshold" holdings of high-denomination notes could "safely" exchange their low-denomination notes for "high" notes held by potential offenders, for a premium on their "low" notes. As an honest fellow in possession of high-denomination notes well in deficit of the specified threshold, I am in a position (if I should so choose) to, for example, exchange four 100-rupee notes, one 50-rupee note, one 20-rupee note, and one 10-rupee note (Rs 480 in all) for a 500-rupee note held by a fellow who is desperate to jettison his high-denomination notes. I can keep on doing so till I reach the threshold level. (The rate of exchange would depend on the threshold and the penalty specified by the monetary authorities.) The demonetisation scheme under review could thus lead to the emergence of a nice little market for low-denomination notes.

Is this supposed to be an attack on the black economy? The unaccounted economy is a composite of holdings of under-valued real estate; over-invoicement and under-invoicement of imports and exports respectively; hawala transactions; holdings of gold; possession of consumer durables; and numbered accounts in banks in overseas tax-havens. The drama of "the fight against black money" which we are invited to witness (and digest) is the heroic battle against that proportion of "excessive" high-denomination notes in all currency notes which are held as a proportion of all forms in which unaccounted wealth and income are held in this country!

What of the costs of this demonetisation scheme? Consider the hardship to which honest people are being put in the cause of this drama. Ordinary people having to queue up in banks to declare and exchange their (meagre) high-denomination notes for new ones; poor people without bank accounts in unhappy possession of high-denomination notes (we are speaking of a country with a low banks/population ratio); the stresses and strains of a banking system which is already under duress and now has to cope with the sudden pressure of dealing with the demonetisation scheme; the distinct possibility that low-denomination notes may not be available with banks in sufficient quantities to deal with the demand for them; the requirement that very large numbers of blameless common people have to be inconvenienced, if not harassed, in order to sustain a poorly-thought out scheme of dubious benefit.

What we are dealing with is a supposed implementation of an unfulfilled election promise on combating the problems of the unaccounted economy; and possibly an attempt at curtailing the distribution of money to the electorate by opposition parties in a time of important Assembly elections. It is hard to see this farcical demonetisation drama as anything like a serious and sincerely-intended "fight against black money and corruption", even if we, the people, are invited to feel privileged that we are being asked to make sacrifices in the cause of this splendid and self-denying initiative.

Post-Script: After this piece was written, it has been clarified that the threshold is Rs 10 lakh, beyond which an individual is subject to investigation; if found defaulting on tax, the tax, together with a 200 per cent penalty, will be recovered from the offender.

The writer is an economist.
KC Singh

NOVEMBER 9, written in India as 9/11 and symbolising globally the attack on the US, unleashed twin tsunamis on India. PM Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation of rupee notes of 500/1000 denominations from the preceding midnight. All banks and ATMs were shut for a day with disruption unlikely to settle for weeks. Concomitantly, Donald Trumps march towards White House resumed with growing vigour as one sat in a television studio to analyse US presidential elections. Both need closer examination.

The immediate impact of demonetisation was on the stock market and the Indian rupee. Futures of markets in the US lurked lower, unaware of what Trump presidency meant for existing global trade, security and financial structures that the US led the creation of post World War II. Indian Finance Minister assured television audience that cheques can be used in lieu of cash. This displayed the governments alienation from the tribulations of ordinary citizens. Marie Antoinette, on the eve of French Revolution, had similarly opined that if people did not have bread they could eat cake. To illustrate, returning from television studios in Noida one encountered MCDs minion rejecting a 500 rupee note from my taxi driver, who in turn would not part with his 100 rupees which he needed for lunch. Naturally, neither was willing to settle for a cheque.

First arises the question about the timing of demonetisation. Pakistan has been pumping fake currency into India for years, but its extent has never been huge. It could be tackled by slowly replacing existing notes by those having higher security features. Also doing it mid-week, followed by three banking holidays, precipitated the panic. Worse shall be the dislocation in rural economy, cash-based daily wage informal sector and taxes and tolls being collected under duress for public infrastructure, like the example above.

The whisper in television studios was that this second surgical strike is the result of the benefits of the first dissipating due to the OROP fiasco after the suicide of Subedar Grewal. The looming Uttar Pradesh election gives the government boasting rights about curbing black money, besides at one stroke wrecking the money war chests of opposition parties. It seems the government did not anticipate Donald Trumps win and ensuing market turmoil, perhaps transient, multiplying the normal disruption that demonetisation would cause. The double whammys effects will take some time to play out.

On the US presidential election, a day ago when asked by television anchor to guess the outcome, I hedged saying it was difficult to assess Trumps success or failure as he was creating a new electoral alliance based not on traditional party lines but by dredging the economic fears and racial hatred of the white middle class. In his victory speech he called them the forgotten men and women. Trump has won after an absolutely no-holds barred contest that was more about the personal failures and foibles of the two candidates than their policies. The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, having a Republican background, by his untimely intervention both broke Hillary Clintons momentum and then gave her relief when the focus had shifted away from Trumps sexual indiscretions or even misdemeanours.

What makes Trump appear a threat to existing geo-economic order is the sheer esoteric nature of his economic and foreign policy pronouncements during the campaign. A lot of them do not even square with the traditional policies of the Republican Party. For instance, he condemns all trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has integrated the Mexican and Canadian economies with that of the US. On foreign policy, he has advocated a retreat from US exceptionalism which has been the bedrock of the US world view that it was US mandate as the custodian of liberty and freedom to fix things abroad pursuing those ideals. Trump instead negates that by preaching America first.

Thus the world awaits clarity on what part of his electioneering was noise and which is the core. His incessant praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, hints of diminishing commitments to allies in Asia, like Japan and the Republic of Korea, and threatening to abandon the nuclear deal with Iran are troubling signs of erratic thinking, ill behoving the leader of the most powerful country of the world. In his victory speech he did, in a phrase Americans use, walk back some of the rhetoric. He sought partnership and not confrontation with nations abroad and added that he would engage all nations that are willing to get along with us.

Interestingly, for the first time, a coalition emerged dubbing itself Hindu Americans for Trump. They invited him to a temple in New Jersey to a town largely inhabited by Indians of Gujarati origin. Is it a sign that PM Narendra Modi had unleashed a subtle outreach using the RSS and Gujarati links? If so, it is a welcome move. India will have to watch carefully how Trump spells out his outreach to East Asia, including China; Europe, including Russia; and West Asia, principally Iran. India and Pakistan would come lower on his list of priorities.

On the side of trade and economics, India has to monitor his policy on visas, taxing of companies that outsource and other protectionist steps that may have for India both challenges and opportunities. He may be a new entity, but Trump Incorporated has had real estate links in Mumbai and Pune. He is also at heart a transactional businessman whom India can cut a deal with as he carries little baggage of Cold War links to Pakistan. Crucial will be for PM Modi to quickly engage him to develop a chemistry and craft a shared vision for Asia of the future. President Barack Obama leaves many issues unsettled  Indias membership of the UN Security Council as permanent member, Nuclear Suppliers Group, etc. Trump has to be sold a vision of how the economies of India and US can grow better together than apart. The Made in India will have to be redesigned as made in both.

The writer is a former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs
Ravinder Saini

Tribune News Service

Jhajjar, November 10

Union Minister of State for Urban Development and Planning Rao Inderjit Singh today stated that demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1,000 currency notes would prove instrumental in curbing indiscriminate use of money in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

Rao Inderjit stated this in response to a query on the impact of the governments move on the forthcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh during a press conference here today. The minister was here to address a public meeting to invite people to the Shaheedi Samman Rally to be organised in Rewari on November 16 next.

The demonetisation of currency will severely affect the supply of fake currency by Pakistan to fund terrorism in India. Counterfeit currency in large numbers was being supplied to India via Bangladesh and Nepal, said the minister.

Rao Inderjit said the bold decision taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi would also discourage those who had amassed unaccounted money.

In reply to another question, the union minister said Pakistan was persistently being given befitting reply for promoting terrorism in the Valley and ceasefire violations along the line of control (LoC).
Tribune News Service

Ambala, November 10

The Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee has extended its support to khaps. The khaps have threatened to launch an agitation if the Punjab Government refuses to accept the Supreme Court verdict on the SYL canal.

Committee chief Jagdish Singh Jhinda said: The HSGMC extends its full support to the state government and also to the khaps on the SYL canal issue. The Punjab Chief Minister should accept the Supreme Court verdict and give Haryana its share of water. Political parties in Punjab are just doing politics to gain votes in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

Khap leaders have threatened to disconnect Punjab from New Delhi after two days by blocking road and rail connectivity if Punjab refuses to accept the Supreme Court (SC) decision on the SYL.

The state unit of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) has started making preparations for an agitation and has declared support for khaps.

We will wait for two days to see whether the Centre takes steps for implementation of the SC decision to get our share of water. If the Centre does not take the required steps in two days, we will block all roads and rail tracks from Punjab to New Delhi, said Sube Singh Sumain, Samast Jat Samaj Sangthan spokesman.

Around 20 khap leaders were in Chandigarh to attend a hearing in connection with the Jat reservation case in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

After the SC verdict on the SYL, they held a meeting in the MLA hostel and announced the decision to block road and rail tracks in Haryana after two days.

The announcement of khaps to disconnect Punjab from New Delhi could create problems as these social bodies enjoyed immense influence in Jind, Sonepat, Bhiwani, Mahendragarh, Jhajjar, Panipat, Rohtak, Gurugram, Faridabad, Palwal, Karnal and Kaithal districts.

We never want to go against the law, but the Punjab Government has been openly threatening to go against the SC verdict. We are demanding our legitimate share of water and there is nothing illegal if we block roads for it, said Tek Ram Kandela, Haryana convener of the Sarv Khap Panchayat.

The state BKU announced that it would support khaps in their agitation if the Punjab Government refused to accept the decision.

We have started preparing for an agitation because we believe that the Punjab Government will oppose the decision without any valid reason. We will first see how Haryana and the Centre deal with the issue as both have BJP governments, said Bhura Ram, general secretary of the Haryana BKU.

Leaders of khaps and the BKU alleged that all political parties in Punjab had been indulging in politics over the SYL to garner votes in the forthcoming Assembly elections.

They cautioned Punjab residents against playing into the hands of their political bosses, who only wanted to provoke them for political reasons.

Implement it: Capt Yadav

New Delhi: Former minister Ajay Yadav today welcomed the Supreme Court verdict as historic and said justice had been done to the people of the state who had been waiting patiently for a long time. He said in wake of the decision, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre should make sure that it was implemented since any contrary move by Punjab would amount to contempt of court. Recalling that Karnataka was recently ordered to release waters to Tamil Nadu, he said in any case river waters were a national asset and not of any state alone. He added that India had paid Rs 40 crore to Pakistan while agreeing to share river waters of undivided Punjab after Partition.
Pradeep Sharma & Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

Hailing the Supreme Court verdict on the Presidential Reference in SYL case, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday said the decision has brought a smile on the face of every Haryanavi because now the state would get its legitimate share of the surplus Ravi-Beas waters that is 3.5 Million Acre Feet (MAF).

The people of the state had been eagerly waiting for this decision since long but it kept lingering on because of laxity of the previous governments, Khattar said, adding that this is a gift to the people of Haryana in the golden jubilee year of the state.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Meanwhile, advising the Punjab government to follow the SC verdict Haryana khaps have threatened to block all roads and rail tracks connecting Punjab and New Delhi if the Centre does not take required steps in two days.

In a tweet, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala termed it a historic verdict.

A historic & path breaking verdict by Supreme Court upholds Haryana's claim on SYL. Victory for people, justice for Haryana.Satyamev Jayate!  Randeep S Surjewala (@rssurjewala) November 10, 2016



The Supreme Court, Khattar said, gave its decision in favour of Haryana on all the four points for which Presidential Reference was sought.

He said these points were included: Whether the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, and the provision thereof are in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of India; whether the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act-2004 and the provisions thereof are in accordance with the provisions of Section 14 of Inter-State Water Disputes Act-1956, Section 78 of the Punjab Re-organisation Act-1966 and the notification dated March 24, 1976 issued there under; whether the state of Punjab has validly terminated the agreement dated December 31, 1981 and all other agreements relating to the Ravi-Beas waters and is discharged from its obligation under the said agreements; whether in view of the provisions of the Act, the state of Punjab is discharged from its obligations flowing from the judgement and decree dated January 1,2002 and judgement and order dated June 4,2004 of the Supreme Court.

After the Supreme Court verdict, khap leaders in Haryana advised the neighbouring state to follow the decision on SYL. They threatened to disconnect Punjab from New Delhi by blocking all road and rail connectivity if the Punjab government refused to accept the verdict.

Khap leaders were in the city to attend a hearing in the Jat reservation case in Punjab and Haryana High Court.

We would wait for two days to see whether the Central government takes required steps for the implementation of the SC decision to get our share of water. If within two days, the Centre does not take the required steps, we would block all roads and rail tracks connecting Punjab and New Delhi, said Sube Singh Sumain, spokesman of Samasat Jat Samaj Sanghthan and a senior khap leader.

Other khap leaders alleged that the Punjab government had been trying to make it a poll issue ahead of the state Assembly polls due next year.

Haryana BKU to support agitation against Punjab govt

Bhartiya Kisan Union, Haryana, has also announced to support khaps in their agitation if the Punjab government refuses to accept the decision of the SC verdict over the SYL canal.

We have started preparing for the agitation because we believe that the Punjab government is going to oppose the decision without any valid point. We are in touch with all Haryana leaders of BKU and would take a final decision tomorrow about our agitation, said Bhura Ram, general secretary of BKU, Haryana.

He also alleged that all political parties of Punjab were doing politics over SYL to garner votes in the forthcoming state assembly elections.

Politicians must understand that decision has come from apex court of country and not from any other authority, he said.
Dipender Manta

Tribune News Service

Kullu, November 10

After the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the Kullu-Manali tourism industry has experienced a sharp decline in tourist arrival.

The tourists, who visited here to enjoy their vacation, have cut short their trip and moved back to their places.

Tourists are suffering because taxi drivers and shopkeepers are not accepting their currency, while ATMs are already non-functional.

A couple from Delhi, Puja Mishra and Vivek Mishra, said the government should make the public aware about its move and now everybody was suffering. They said, however, they welcomed the move.

Our trip has become a mess we have left with no choice than to move back, they added. The couple arrived here on November 8 for four days but forced to go back immediately.

Anant Thakur, travel agent at Manali, said there was a 50 per cent decline in hotel room bookings and a number of bookings have been cancelled. He added that a couple from Maharashtra was on their way to Manali. But they informed him from Shimla that they were returning.

The tourism industry is already facing a tough time after National Green Tribunal (NGT) orders over Rohtang Pass.

Kullu-Manali Tourism Development Association president Anup Thakur said the ban would affect the industry. He added that the move was appreciable but it should be done in a phased manner to avoid such chaos.

Hotelier Association president Kullu-Manali Gajender Thakur said the industry was on an edge following currency trouble to tourists. Within two days, there is a 15 per cent decline in the tourist arrival, the number may be increased until the situation becomes normal, he added.

Deputy Commissioner, Kullu, Yunus Khan said, I have directed all Sub Divisional Magistrates to take care of tourists and the district administration would provide every possible help to them.
English Italian

The Bank is waiting for the authorisation from the Supervisory Authority to acquire GE Capital Interbanca

RECLASSIFIED DATA [1]

First nine months of 2016

1 January-30 September

-Net banking income: 237,7 million Euro (-27,6%)

-Net profit from financial activities: 218,2 million Euro (-28,5%)

-Operating costs: 118,7 million Euro (+46,9%)

-Profit for the period: 66,3 million Euro (-55,5%)

-Cost of credit quality for trade receivables: 86 bps

-Bad loans ratio in the trade receivables segment: 1,2%;

-Hiring up: 157 new staff added in the first 9 months of 2016 (+12,1%);

-Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1): 15,8% (15,8% at 31 December 2015) [2] ;

-Total Own Funds Capital Ratio: 15,8% (15,8% at 31 December 2015) [2].

3rd quarter 2016

1 July-30 September

-Net banking income: 86,8 million Euro (+38,4%)

-Net profit from financial activities: 83,0 million Euro (+45,1%)

-Profit for the period: 27,1 million Euro (+50,6%).

Mestre (Venice), 10 November 2016 - The Board of Directors of Banca IFIS met today under the chairmanship of Sebastien Egon Furstenberg and approved the interim financial report for the first nine months of 2016.

"We are very satisfied with the Non-Performing Loans segment - said Giovanni Bossi, Banca IFIS CEO - It is proving to be capable of seizing opportunities in a constantly evolving market. In this sector, it is crucial to swiftly adopt innovative solutions, ensuring the entire process is always efficient. In the trade receivables sector, which is the Bank's core business, we continue the strategy of refocusing on smaller-sized but more profitable market segments. The number of corporate customers is rising sharply. We are waiting - added the CEO - for the authorisation from the Supervisory Authority to complete the acquisition of GE Capital Interbanca. We have made significant progress on the analyses required to achieve a smooth integration: we believe we will be efficient starting from the closing date".

Highlights for the first nine months (reclassified data )

Here below are the main factors that contributed to the result for the nine months of 2016:

-Net banking income3 totalled 237,7 million Euro, -27,6% from 328,1 million Euro in the first nine months of 2015. Excluding the gain made in April 2015 as part of the rebalancing of the government bond portfolio (124,5 million Euro), at 30 September 2016 net banking income was up 16,7%. There was a significant increase in the DRL segment (112,0 million Euro, +262,7%). Also the trade receivables segment was positive (121,3 million Euro, +2,0%), while Tax Receivables (10,9 million Euro, -5,6%) and Governance & Services were down. The latter posted a negative 6,4 million Euro margin, compared to a positive 166,9 million Euro at 30 September 2015. The reason for this decrease is twofold: the Group recognised in 2015 the gain on the sale conducted as part of the rebalancing of the AFS securities portfolio, reducing interest income in the following periods; and funding costs increased as a result of rising volumes as well as the introduction of 2-, 3-, and 5-year maturities starting in September 2015.

-Net value adjustments [3] totalled 19,5 million Euro. They referred for 15,5 million Euro to loans to customers (compared to 14,9 million Euro at 30 September 2015, +4,1%), and for 4,0 million Euro to impairment losses on unlisted equity securities

-Operating costs totalled 118,7 million Euro, up 46,9% from 80,8 million Euro in September 2015; this was largely attributable to the DRL segment-especially as far as pre-collection and collection costs are concerned. As for personnel expenses, amounting to 41,9 million Euro (36,1 million Euro in September 2015, +16,2%), the increase was the result of new hiring in the first nine months of 2016 (157 staff, +12,1%), consistently with the goal to strengthen some areas and services supporting the business, and especially the DRL segment. At 30 September 2016, the Group's employees numbered 823. The cost/income ratio stood at 49,9% at 30 September 2016, compared to 24,6% at 30 September 2015.

Profit for the period totalled 66,3 million Euro, compared to 148,8 million Euro in September 2015 (down 55,5%).

For a better understanding of the result for the period and the relevant comparative data, the following should be noted:

-Interest receivable and similar income: the item included 9,0 million Euro arising from the reclassification to amortised cost of a sizeable portion of the DRL portfolio following the end of the documentary verification process and the ensuing collection of bills of exchange and settlement plans.

-Gain on the sale of receivables: the item largely consisted of 26,8 million euro in gains on the sale of portfolios of DRL receivables (of which 21,0 million Euro made in the third quarter).

-Gain on the sale of available for sale financial assets, totalling 5,5 million Euro in the first nine months of 2016 as a result of the sale of part of the bond portfolio, compared to 124,5 million Euro in the prior-year period arising from the rebalancing of the bond portfolio.

-Other administrative expenses included the 2,1 million Euro contribution for the whole of 2016 to the Resolution Fund.

-Net allocations to provisions for risks and charges included 2,0 million Euro in the estimated annual ex ante contribution for the FITD ("Fondo Interbancario per la Tutela dei Depositi", Interbank Deposit Protection Fund) on the basis of by the Directive 2014/49/UE (Deposit Guarantee Schemes Directive - DGS).

As for the contribution of individual segments to the result for the first nine months of 2016, here below is a description of how the sectors that made a significant or greater-than-expected contribution performed:

-Trade Receivables: the net banking income of the trade receivables segment amounted to 121,3 million Euro (+2,0% compared to 118,9 million Euro in the first nine months of 2015). The segment generated 7,5 billion Euro in turnover (+3,2% from 30 September 2015), with 4.930 financed SMEs (up 14,8% compared to the prior-year period) and 2,6 billion Euro in outstanding loans (-7,0% from December 2015).

As for net value adjustments on receivables, they totalled 15,2 million Euro (14,8 million Euro at 30 September 2015, +3,2%). The ratio of credit risk cost concerning trade receivables to the relevant average loan balance over the last 12 months was down to 86 bps from 79 bps at 30 September 2015 and 90 bps at 31 December 2015.

-DRL (Distressed Retail Loans): net banking income amounted to 112,0 million Euro, compared to 30,9 million Euro in the prior-year period (+262,7%). The results for the first nine months of 2016 were positively influenced by the continuing debt collection operations-through bills of exchange and expressions of willingness-as well as the reclassification to amortised cost of a sizeable portion of the portfolio following the end of the documentary verification process and the ensuing collection of bills of exchange and settlement plans, adding nearly 9,0 million Euro to net banking income. Another boost came from the closing of sales that generated 26,8 million Euro in gains, as well as the acceleration in the activation of the plans collected, ensuring a timelier contribution to net banking income. In the period, the Bank revised the compensation policy for debt collection networks, aligning the payment of the commission with the accounting activation of the relevant plan.

-G&S (Governance and Services): net banking income was down 103,9%, from a positive 166,8 million Euro to a negative 6,4 million Euro. This was largely the result of the rebalancing of the securities portfolio completed in April 2015, reducing interest income in the following periods, as well as of the increase in funding costs because of rising volumes as well as the introduction of 2-, 3-, and 5-year rendimax maturities. This was partly offset by the sale of 2,1 billion Euro worth of government bonds in the first half of 2016, resulting in a 5,5 million Euro gain. As for retail funding, it was slightly above 4,0 billion Euro (3,1 billion Euro at the end of 2015). The relevant cost amounted to 1,42%, compared to 1,22% in September 2015, and is expected to rise marginally as a result of the new rendimax maturities.

Concerning the statement of financial position, here below is the breakdown of net non-performing exposures in the trade receivables segment alone:

-Net bad loans amounted to 31,9 million Euro, +3,2% from the end of 2015; the segment's net bad-loan ratio was 1,2%, compared to 1,1% at 31 December 2015. Net bad loans were unchanged from 31 December 2015, amounting to 5,4% as a proportion of equity. The coverage ratio stood at 88,1% (87,9% at 31 December 2015);

-The balance of net unlikely to pay was 49,6 million Euro, +25,4% from 39,6 at the end of 2015. The increase was largely attributable to a number of individually significant positions previously classified under net non-performing and performing past due exposures. The coverage ratio stood at 32,6% (32,1% at 31 December 2015)

-Net non-performing past due exposures totalled 130,0 million Euro, compared with 58,2 million Euro in December 2015 (+123,4%). The increase was attributable to past due loans due from the Public Administration that were purchased outright, rising from 1,2 million Euro at the end of 2015 to 48,4 million Euro at 30 September 2016 (with 47,5 million Euro referring to the multi-utility segment). The coverage ratio stood at 1,7% (2,6% at 31 December 2015)

At 30 September 2016, consolidated Equity was 586,6 million Euro, compared to 573,5 million Euro at 31 December 2015 (+2,3%). The change was largely attributable to the 66,3 million Euro profit for the period and the 40,3 million Euro dividend payout for 2015.

As for capital adequacy ratios, the Total Own Funds Capital Ratio was 14,5% (14,9% at 31 December 2015) and the Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) 13,5% (14,2% at 31 December 2015).

Consolidated own funds, risk-weighted assets and solvency ratios at 30 September 2016 were determined based on the regulatory principles set out in Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD IV) and Regulation (EU) 575/2013 (CRR) dated 26 September 2013, which were transposed in the Bank of Italy's Circulars no. 285 and 286 of 17 December 2013. Article 19 of the CRR requires to include the unconsolidated holding of the banking group in prudential consolidation. The capital adequacy ratios of the Banca IFIS Group alone, presented exclusively for information purposes, would be as showed in table in the attached press release.

The supervisory authorities have informed the Bank of its new minimum capital requirements, which are the following: Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) 7%; Tier 1 Ratio 8,5%; Own Funds Capital Ratio 10,5%. In light of the Bank's capital adequacy ratios at 30 September 2016, its position is especially robust.

For more details, please refer to the Consolidated Interim Financial Report at 30 September 2016, available under the "Corporate governance" Section of the website www.bancaifis.com

Declaration of the Corporate Accounting Reporting Officer

Pursuant to Article 154 bis, Paragraph 2 of the Consolidated Law on Finance, the Corporate Accounting Reporting Officer, Mariacristina Taormina, declares that the accounting information contained in this press release corresponds to the company's accounting records, books and entries.

[1] Net value adjustments on DRL receivables, totalling 23,6 million Euro at 30 September 2016 compared to 3,0 million Euro at 30 September 2015, were reclassified to Interest receivable and similar income to present more fairly this particular business, for which net value adjustments represent an integral part of the return on the margin.

[2] The reported total Own Funds refers only to the scope of the Banca IFIS Group, thus excluding the effects of the prudential consolidation in the parent company La Scogliera S.p.A. Common Equity Tier 1 capital includes the profit for the period net of estimated dividends. The financial statements attached to this press release show also total Own Funds including said effects.

[3] Net value adjustments on DRL receivables, totalling 23,6 million Euro at 30 September 2016 compared to 3,0 million Euro at 30 September 2015, were reclassified to Interest receivable and similar income to present more fairly this particular business, for which net value adjustments represent an integral part of the return on the investment.



Banca IFIS S.p.A.

Head of Communication

Mara Di Giorgio

Mobile: +39 335 7737417

mara.digiorgio@bancaifis.it

www.bancaifis.it

Press Office and PR

Chiara Bortolato

Mobile: +39 3669270394

chiara.bortolato@bancaifis.it
Tribune News Service

Shimla, November 10

In order to motivate teachers to give overall good results the Cabinet today gave approval to the Mukhya Mantri Shikshak Samman Yojana. Those giving cent per cent results will be given one-year extension in service along with monetary rewards.

The approval was given at the Cabinet at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh here today. The scheme was announced by the Chief Minister in his 2016 budget speech saying a one-year extension would be given to the teachers who will consistently give 100 per cent results in board examinations for a period of five years. The Cabinet also gave nod to the Chief Ministers start-up/innovation projects/new industries scheme with the objective to create self-employment and employment avenues and also to upgrade the skill of entrepreneurs. The scheme also aims at helping and hand-holding entrepreneurs to select viable projects in the potential areas in manufacturing and service sectors and train them to set up start-ups and subsequently manage and run their enterprises professionally.

The Cabinet decided to declare 1,004 Technical Assistants as Daily Wagers under MNREGA who have completed five years of service as on March 31, 2016 and to provide regular wages to 663 Technical Assistant from September 26, 2012.

The Cabinet decided to levy administrative and contingency charges at the rate of 9 per cent for Central Government ministries and various public sector units, including National Highways Authority of India, Railways and the Ministry of Defense for initiating several land acquisition proceedings in the state on the analogy of other states like Haryana, Bihar and Assam.

The nod was given for creation of about 300 posts of various categories in different departments.

The Cabinet approved starting of education as a new subject at under-graduate level in government degree colleges for 2017-18 provided that the strength of students was 4,000 or more. This is being done to provide better foundation for students to qualify entrance test for admission in various examinations.

The Cabinet approved opening of a health sub centre at gram panchayat, Fanoti, in Kullu, primary health centres (PHC) at Basal in Una and Shawad in Kullu. Approval was accorded for up-gradation of PHCes at Koti in Shimla, Thana Kalan in Unaand Majheen in Kangra to Community Health Centre. The Cabinet also approved NOC for running new five private nursing institutes and also for enhancement in the seats of different courses in eight private nursing institutions.

Other Cabinet decisions

The Cabinet also gave a nod to the start-up/innovation projects/new industries scheme to create employment avenues

Administrative and contingency charges to be levied at the rate of 9 per cent for the Central Government ministries and various public sector units

A green signal was given for the creation of about 300 posts of various categories in different departments

Winter session from December 19 to 23
Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, November 10

New currency notes did not reach bank branches in Dharamsala today. Private, cooperative and non-chest banks in Dharamsala were short of currency notes.

Kangra Central Cooperative (KCC) Bank, the biggest cooperative bank of the region, had long queues of customers intending to withdraw money from their bank accounts. The banks had fixed Rs 2,000 withdrawal limit for its customers. Senior manager of the bank, Sunil Parihar, when contacted, said, Since we have not received new currency notes we are giving Rs 100 notes to the customers. Rs 2000 withdrawal limit has been set for withdrawals as the bank has limited supply of Rs 100 currency notes. As and when we would receive supply of new currency notes the withdrawal limit would be increased, he said.

Yes Bank had Rs 500 limit for change of currency. Bank officials said that since the bank had limited supply of Rs 100 notes they had fixed a limit of Rs 500.

The HDFC Bank had long queues of customers who had come for exchange of the defunct Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Here also as new currency notes had not yet arrived and people were being given Rs 100 notes in exchange for Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 notes.

The availability of currency notes in the SBI and the PNB that are chest branches in Dharamsala was better.

Against the expectations the people did not rush to the bank branches in and around Dharamsala. Many people expecting rush postponed their visit to the banks. Most of the salaried people were happy with the move of the Modi government to demonetize the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes while the businessmen were unhappy. Small-time traders and shopkeepers alleged that the move had hit their business hard.

Worst hit were the migrant labourers engaged in construction work in and around Dharamsala. Sobha, a migrant labourer from Rajasthan who had come to exchange her Rs 500 note in a bank, said her family had not been able to eat since yesterday as no shopkeeper was accepting her Rs 500 note.

Sources said from tomorrow onwards the ATMs would become functional but they were not sure about the limit of withdrawal in Dharamsala area as banks were short of lower denomination currency and new currency was yet to arrive.

Meanwhile, lower currency denomination notes that were lying in the donation boxes of temples and hospitals were in great demand today. In many cases almost all the lower currency denomination notes in donation boxes of temples and hospitals were changed with higher denomination invalid notes.
Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 10

A militant was killed in Rampur sector in north Kashmirs Baramulla district as army foiled an infiltration bid during the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.

Army said a group of militants was intercepted in the Rampur Uri sector, who were challenged by the jawans. The militants opened fire triggering a gunfight.

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One terrorist has been killed so far and the combing operation is underway, an army spokesman said.

The infiltration bid was foiled a day after a soldier was killed in ceasefire violation in Machil sector in Kupwara district.
Amit Khajuria

Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 10

The J&K Government has written to the Election Commission of India to defer the Anantnag parliamentary byelection as the situation was not conducive to hold free and fair poll in the prevailing situation in the Valley, particularly south Kashmir.

The election was scheduled to be held by January 4 as Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who represented this constituency in the LoK Sabha, resigned on July 4 following her election to the legislative Assembly.

She had contested and won the Anantnag Assembly constituency, which had fallen vacant after the death of former Chief Minister and her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

It is widely believed that Mehboobas younger brother Tassaduq Mufti is going to be the PDP candidate as the family has taken a decision in consultation with their cousin Sajjad Mufti who is active in party activities in south Kashmir, say sources. On the other hand, the National Conference and the Congress are considering a joint candidate from this prestigious constituency. The two major parties also have the support of CPM, the sources said.

Although the ECI has not yet responded to the government officially but it is in agreement with the state government for it too has had its own feedback about the situation in Kashmir. It is likely to postpone the poll, the sources said.

The sources said the situation in four districts Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama, which comprise Anantnag parliamentary constituency, were the worst affected in the recent disturbances following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on July 8.

The situation is far from suitable for the smooth conduct of the election in the Anantnag parliamentary constituency as per the requirement of the law before January 4, hence it would be appropriate if the polls are deferred, the state government has written in a letter the Election Commission of India.

South Kashmir experienced the worst kind of violence in the past four months. There were waves of protests and violent clashes with security forces, resulting in loss of lives and injuries to thousands of others. Despite the Army having been deployed in many parts of the four districts, the situation is yet to gain a semblance of normalcy, with most of the public transport off road, shops closed and schools locked.

The intensity of the protests has subsided but the protests at a smaller scale are still attracting protesters in villages.
Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 10

The controversial statement of Vice Chancellor of the University of Jammu Prof RD Sharma in which he reportedly opposed the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani has evoked strong reaction from various sections of society.

While student organisations have demanded that the VC be sacked for, what they alleged, insulting security forces, other groups have brought the matter to the notice of Governor NN Vohra.

The state unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) today said that such irresponsible utterances amounted to humiliating the security forces fighting the Pakistan-sponsored proxy war in the Kashmir valley.

ABVP state secretary Varsha Jandial said such statements demoralised the spirit of the forces. She said the Vice Chancellor should not ignore the fact that Burhans fight against the state had motivated a large number of youths, including teenagers, to take up arms.

Varsha said the separatist-sponsored shutdown had affected education as the schools, colleges and other educational institutions continued to remain shut in the Valley.

Vice Chancellorship is an official position and he has no right to raise question marks on the security forces. We urge the Chancellor and the Pro-Chancellor of the university to take action against the VC. He must be removed from his official position, the ABVP maintained.

Vikas Sharma, president, National Secular Forum, called the VCs statement objectionable and against the popular nationalist sentiment of the countrymen.

Sharma, in a statement issued, said the comment by the VC was politically motivated and asserted that his position did not allow him to make such an irresponsible comment.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industries (CCI), Jammu, in a communication addressed to the Governor, a copy of which was also sent to the Prime Ministers Office, has expressed concern over the Vice Chancellors statement.

It is a matter of highest concern for the CCI-J that Prof RD Sharma has said that Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani should have been captured alive to avoid the unrest in the Kashmir Valley.

He also went to the extent of advising the government to resolve the Kashmir problem. We feel by using the words Kashmir problem, he has divided the state of J&K, CCI president Rakesh Gupta said in the communique.

We lodge our strongest protest against such a statement by a public servant who should limit his action to the overall improvement of academics rather than deliberating upon what he termed as Kashmir problem, he said.

Condemning the recent utterance of the Vice Chancellor, the state BJP has said he brought disrepute to his profession and the position that he is holding.

BJP state spokesperson Balbir Ram Rattan said the Vice Chancellor has created doubts about his credentials as such a statement was not expected from an academician of his stature and it looks that he was playing in the hands of separatists and anti-national forces.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has demanded immediate sacking of the Vice Chancellor for pursing an anti-national agenda.

A VHP leader, Leela Karan Sharma, in a press conference, demanded action against the Vice Chancellor for supporting the forces which had launched a war against the country.
Srinagar, November 10

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik was today taken into preventive custody ahead of the separatists call for march to Jamia Masjid this evening.

Malik was taken into custody by a police party from his Maisuma residence this afternoon, a police official said.

Although the official did not cite any reason for Malik's detention, it is believed to be part of the government strategy to foil the separatists march to Jamia Masjid today.

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The separatist leadership -- which includes Malik and chairmen of both factions of Hurriyat Conference -- have asked people to march to Jamia Masjid in old city after 6 PM today.

They have plans of holding a congregation at the historic mosque tomorrow after Friday prayers.

Jamia Masjid has been sealed since killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces on July 8.

No Friday prayers have been offered at the Mosque since then. PTI
Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, November 9

Chaos prevailed at the Head Post Office in the city as residents, who had queued up in the morning to exchange their notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination, were declined by the postal staff, which led to heated arguments.

Rinku Sidhu and Gursewak Singh, who had come from bus stand to exchange their notes, found no one to attend to them. When they confronted the postal staff, they were told that transactions were closed today.

Khajan Singh of Shaheed Karnail Singh Nagar was furious after the staff declined to send his parcel. He said he had come to send some medicine to his son, who lived in South India, but the staff declined to accept the parcel.

Hectic activity was witnessed inside the office of senior post master. head post office (city division), SP Pahwa at Bharat Nagar Chowk. An employee rushed into the office and told Pahwa that she was getting numerous calls from people who wanted to invest heavily in Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana and other savings schemes of the Postal Department. The manager was quick to respond that they were yet to receive any guidelines.

We are yet to receive the orders from the authorities. After receiving the orders, we will visit the bank to collect cash which could be exchanged. We will proceed as per the orders, said Pahwa. Confusion prevailed over the amount of cash that would be given to the Postal Department for the exchange of currency.

In the meantime, Darshan Singh, a resident of Civil Lines, complained that the department staff had declined to accept registry posts.

This is completely insane. I have an important registered post to make and the employee concerned has refused to do the job. What should I do now? said a harried Darshan Singh.

A woman who had come to exchange notes said: We did not realise that we had so much money in the piggy bank of my daughter. A majority of the currency notes were of higher denomination given to her as shagun by elders during her birthday and other auspicious occasions, said Kanika Gupta, a resident of Civil Lines.
Paramjit Pasricha

THE other day I was reading about organs donated by an accident victim who gave the gift of life to many recipients. This noblest gesture by individuals and families of the departed inspires humanity. The late Jyoti Basu and Sant Singh Sekhon, doyens in their respective fields, donated their organs. We all seek to emulate it, but it is soon forgotten in the hustle-bustle of daily life. After death, the body will be rakh or khak, as per an individuals beliefs, but it can give a new lease of life to a living being. My brother who succumbed to cancer had willed his body, being perhaps the first one to do dehdan in my native town of Tarn Taran.

My husband has a large family of 16 brothers and cousins in the age group of 40-75 years. We meet during functions, the so-called sukh-dukh may, but our interaction is mostly in subgroups. The ladies try to arrange family get-togethers to recite Sukhmani Sahib, followed by a meal and a discussion on better things in life. The idea has been getting a lukewarm response from the men and had been put in hibernation for the last three years.

We are so involved in short-term pleasures that the precious gift of life bestowed upon us by the Almighty is taken for granted. Sometime ago, while I was tending to my grandson in the US, there was a chance get-together at my residence back in India where five-six families of our clan enjoyed the hospitality of my husband. They agreed to meet once a month from then on and a few days back, as a follow-up, they gathered at Jalandhar. It was a contributory dinner where 11 Pasricha brothers, their WhatsApp group name, participated and postulated certain easy rules which everyone happily agreed to.

During the course of the evening, one of the cousins who had recently witnessed a heart-rending situation at the PGI suggested that all of us should pledge our organs. For this cause, he volunteered to take responsibility of undertaking the legal formalities for the entire clan. I was overwhelmed with the idea. Belonging to the blood group O Negative, I have been a blood donor in many a critical situation, but was apprehensive of organ donation as my children were offshore. I wasn't sure if my next of kin would even consider organ donation. The tragedy is that you can't get up and tell someone what to do. But now I am at ease, because I know that now my extended family will do the needful, should such a situation arise.

In a lighter vein, our cousins Santa-Banta (rechristened Shugli-Jugli of DD Punjabi) said, Bhabhiji, dont worry, we all will be there to fulfil each other's wish. Befikr ho jao.
Islamabad, November 10

Two more Indian High Commission officials, out of the eight accused by Pakistan of being members of Indian intelligence agencies, left for India on Thursday.

Balbir Singh and Jayabalan Senthil left via Dubai-bound Emirates flight EK 615, sources said.

Both the staffers were named as undercover agents of Indian intelligence agencies. With this the number of Indian High Commission officials leaving Pakistan has reached five.

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Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria last week had alleged that several Indian diplomats and staffers were involved in coordinating terrorist and subversive activities in Pakistan under the garb of diplomatic assignments.

Last month, Pakistan had declared Indian High Commission official Surjeet Singh persona non grata after Indias action against Pakistan High Commission official Mehmood Akhtar following Indian polices busting of an ISI-run spy ring.

On November 2, Pakistan had pulled out six of its officials in the wake of the spy scandal. PTI
Mumbai, November 10

Cash management agencies that move billions of rupees in and out of over 2.2 lakh ATMs across the country have started a major exercise that may see Rs 40,000 crore worth of notes being shifted around and hope to normalise operations for the public in two weeks.

We will put in three times normal efforts to ensure the inconveniences end at the earliest, Rajiv Kaul, managing director and vice-chairman of CMS Info System, which owns over half of the cash management market, told PTI on Thursday.

He said a high-level meeting was held at the Reserve Bank yesterday, which went on till late in the evening, to draw up an action plan of reducing the distress among the public.

A senior official said the meeting was chaired by Deputy Governor R Gandhi and also had representatives from the cash logistics association and confederation of ATM management companies, apart from officials from NPCI and RBI.

The work to be undertaken includes removing all the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, which account for 90 per cent of the currency at ATMs, and replenishing them with Rs 100 notes, carrying out changes at the Switch level to ensure banned notes are not dispensed and reconfiguring the machines to handle the newer Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes.

Asked about the cash that will be handled as part of this exercise, an official from CMS, who was present at the meeting with RBI, estimated that up to Rs 40,000 crore of high-value banknotes will be evacuated while Rs 4,000 crore of Rs 100 denomination bills will be put into the machines.

The public will keep facing troubles as ATMs can hold only a limited number of Rs 100 notes and will have to be reconfigured. In the next 3-4 days, the operations will be normalised by 60 per cent and in the next two weeks, it will be normal, the official said.

Generally, one among the 8,000 vans visits an ATM around 12-15 times a month. These visits will go up to as much as twice daily, the official said, adding that a decision has been taken for using even the unclean Rs 100 notes.

While banning the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes to act against black money, the government said over Rs 16 trillion cash is in the system, of which over 85 per cent are held in high-value denominations.

Announcing the move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had saidCash management agencies hope to normalise ATMs ops in 2 weeks

Mumbai, November 10

Cash management agencies that move billions of rupees in and out of over 2.2 lakh ATMs across the country have started a major exercise that may see Rs 40,000 crore worth of notes being shifted around and hope to normalise operations for the public in two weeks.

We will put in three times normal efforts to ensure the inconveniences end at the earliest, Rajiv Kaul, managing director and vice-chairman of CMS Info System, which owns over half of the cash management market, told PTI on Thursday.

He said a high-level meeting was held at the Reserve Bank yesterday, which went on till late in the evening, to draw up an action plan of reducing the distress among the public.

A senior official said the meeting was chaired by Deputy Governor R Gandhi and also had representatives from the cash logistics association and confederation of ATM management companies, apart from officials from NPCI and RBI.

The work to be undertaken includes removing all the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, which account for 90 per cent of the currency at ATMs, and replenishing them with Rs 100 notes, carrying out changes at the Switch level to ensure banned notes are not dispensed and reconfiguring the machines to handle the newer Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes.

Asked about the cash that will be handled as part of this exercise, an official from CMS, who was present at the meeting with RBI, estimated that up to Rs 40,000 crore of high-value banknotes will be evacuated while Rs 4,000 crore of Rs 100 denomination bills will be put into the machines.

The public will keep facing troubles as ATMs can hold only a limited number of Rs 100 notes and will have to be reconfigured. In the next 3-4 days, the operations will be normalised by 60 per cent and in the next two weeks, it will be normal, the official said.

Generally, one among the 8,000 vans visits an ATM around 12-15 times a month. These visits will go up to as much as twice daily, the official said, adding that a decision has been taken for using even the unclean Rs 100 notes.

While banning the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes to act against black money, the government said over Rs 16 trillion cash is in the system, of which over 85 per cent are held in high-value denominations.

Announcing the move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said there would be difficulties in the short term, but it would deliver good results over the longer term.  PTI
Arlington, VA, Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Its no secret that learning a second language, building on communication skills and absorbing other cultures are important components of success today. In order to best prepare its students to compete in a global world, Missouris Nixa Public Schools (NPS) is implementing a new world language program for all students grades 2-6 this fall. The school district has brought on renowned language learning provider Rosetta Stone (NYSE: RST) for this initiative after successfully completing a pilot program this past spring and summer that showed positive engagement and progress. The program will be implemented as part of the wider CONNECTED initiative and gives all students the opportunity to guide their own learning path by selecting from French, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin Chinese and German.

CONNECTED, introduced last year in NPS, puts digital devices into the hands of every student and focuses on finding innovative ways to instruct. NPS is providing more than 6,200 devices in the fall semester for every K-12 student enrolled in NPSs 11 schools. All students in grades 2-6approximately 2,300will be able to access the Rosetta Stone program on their devices both in school and at home.

This student-centered program will provide rich opportunities to learn about other cultures and build on students overall communications skills, said Dr. Kevin Kopp, Executive Director of Elementary Education at Nixa Public Schools. Learning a second language is great for overall critical thinking and problem solving, which trickles into their other subjects. Were thrilled to be able to offer Rosetta Stone to our kids as it aligns nicely with our overall goal of getting students ready for the real world.

The students will experience the world language program during break-out periods, similar to other elective programs, and will be facilitated by trained media aides. Students have access to the program at any time and will be able to extend their learning beyond the basic requirements as much as theyd like.

Integrating the Rosetta Stone program and activities in Nixa Public Schools overarching digital access initiative demonstrates a seamless integration of learning, said Matt Hall, Vice President, Enterprise & Education, Rosetta Stone. NPS is equipping its students with the tools they need for success in college and careers. As a partner, we support their commitment to preparing their students to compete in the global job market.

# # #

About Nixa Public Schools

Nixa Public Schools was established in 1899 and serves more than 6,200 students at 11 schools in Nixa, MO. Minority students comprise 11 percent of the student body. The district is consistently recognized at the regional, state, and national level for academic excellence. The district has been awarded three Gold Star Schools from the state of Missouri as well as two Blue Ribbon Schools from the U.S. Department of Education.

For more information on Nixa Public Schools, visit www.nixapublicschools.net.

The Nixa Public Schools logo is a registered trademark or trademark of Nixa Public Schools in the United States.

About Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE: RST) is dedicated to changing peoples lives through the power of language and literacy education. The companys innovative, personalized language and reading programs drive positive learning outcomes in thousands of schools, businesses, government organizations and for millions of individual learners around the world.

Founded in 1992, Rosetta Stone pioneered the use of interactive software to accelerate language learning and is widely recognized today as the industry leader in providing effective language programs. The companys cloud-based programs allow users to learn online or on-the-go via tablet or smartphone, whether in a classroom, in a corporate setting, or in a personal learning environment. Rosetta Stone is also a leader in the literacy education space, helping millions of students build fundamental reading skills through its Lexia Learning division. Additionally, the company's Fit Brains business offers personalized brain training programs developed by neuroscientists and award-winning game designers to be fun and help keep your brain sharp.

Rosetta Stone is based in Arlington, VA, and has offices and operations around the world. For more information, visit www.rosettastone.com. Rosetta Stone is a registered trademark or trademark of Rosetta Stone Ltd. in the United States and other countries.




Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, Nov 10

Known to measure his words, veteran Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi on Thursday described governments demonetisation move as a socialist measure calling for it to be welcomed if the stated objectives are achieved.

Dwivedi said in lighter vein about the scheme, It is good that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started remembering his poll time promises. It is also good that India is witnessing socialism even if for a day. Today people with a lot of money and people with no money at all are equal.

The senior Congress leader qualified his statement with a quote by famous Urdu poet Iqbal, Dil khush hua hai masjid-e-virana dekhkar...meri tarah khuda ka bhi khana kharaab hai...

Known for his controversial but foresighted statements in the past including his description of the AAP government in Delhi as the start of anarchist era and remarks on tweaking the reservation policy to benefit the poor, Dwivedi went on to say of demonetisation, If this decision achieves the stated objectives of rooting out black money, improving economy, curbing terrorism and blocking the flow of terror money, then it deserves to be welcomed.

Dwivedi added that the move may hit the use of black money in elections saying electoral corruption was a huge issue and it needs to be addressed to ensure democracy is for the common man and not just for the few powerful elite.

Like former finance minister P Chidambaram, Dwivedi took a measured stand on demonetisation at a time when Congress vice president chose to remain silent on its merits and sufficed to attack PM Modi for taking an anti-ordinary people decision.

Chidambaram yesterday said the objectives of the decision were sound adding that its success would depend on seamless transition and hassle free conversion of old notes with new ones.

Dwivedis previous remarks on quotas had triggered a massive controversy in the Congress and party chief Sonia Gandhi had come out to quickly issue a rebuttal saying the party was against any dilution of current reservation policy though it wanted affirmative action for the economically weak within the OBCs.
Tribune News Service

Ambala, November 10

In the wake of heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha said while the chances of a full scale convention war were very low, terror attacks and sub-conventional warfare would continue to be primary concerns.

Addressing mediapersons, the Air Chief said the armed forces were continuously preparing to meet this challenge. Stating that deterrence was an important aspect of preventing war, he said some gaps in security observed during the terror attack on Pathankot airbase earlier this year were being plugged with advanced surveillance technology, revamped training and induction of modern weapons and equipment. He claimed that airbases were better off now to take on attackers.

Raha said the first Rafale squadron is expected to be operational in three years and the second would be fully functional in five-and-a-half years. One squadron each would be based in the eastern and western theatre.

The Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft, being developed jointly with Russia, is expected to roll out in 7-10 years. It would have advanced features such as stealth, super cruise and advanced radar, avionics and weapons.

On the controversy over the Seventh Pay Commission, he said while some of the issues have been addressed, several anomalies, including those related to allowances, remain.
Tokyo, November 10

India and Japan will ink about 12 pacts and possibly sign a crucial civil nuclear deal tomorrow after wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Shinzo Abe, aimed at giving a fillip to bilateral strategic relations.

"Looking forward to fruitful deliberations that will boost economic and cultural ties between India and Japan," tweeted Modi, who arrived here after a brief stopover in Thai capital Bangkok to pay respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illnes.

He also tweeted in Japanese along with his arrival picture. At their annual Summit, Modi and Abe will discuss ways to enhance ties in a broad range of areas, including security, trade and investment, skill development and infrastructure development.

He will address Japanese business leaders during his two days of official programme here and in Kobe.

Ahead of his visit, Modi said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo on November 11.

I will have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties," he said.

After the Summit talks, 12 pacts will be signed by the two sides, sources said, adding these would cover areas like skill development, cultural exchanges and infrastructure.

Amid high expectations about the civil nuclear deal being signed tomorrow, the two sides were in the process of concluding the negotiations, sources said here today.

The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abe's visit to India last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out. Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week. When specifically asked whether the pact will be signed during Modi's visit, he only said, "I cannot pre-judge outcome of the talks."

Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two sides have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

In Tokyo, Modi will also have an audience with Japanese Emperor Akihito. He will also meet some opposition and other political leaders.  PTI
Girja Shankar Kaura

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 9

A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the country by surprise with the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the decision would not nudge but push India towards a cashless economy.

He made it clear that deposits of now-defunct Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes in bank accounts would not enjoy immunity from tax and that the law of the land would apply on the source of such money. India cannot afford to live with black money any longer. Honesty, integrity and ethical conduct are requirements for Indias development, he said.

He said a number of steps had been taken to curb black money and track benami transactions and that the new-series bank notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 would be available at banks and post offices from tomorrow. These would have micro chips.

Tax collections in the medium term will increase and bank deposits will rise, Jaitley said on withdrawal of higher denomination currency. Terming reports of people profiteering from converting withdrawn currency notes into lower denominations as exaggerated, he asked: Where have these come from?

It should be clear that it is no immunity scheme. This (deposit) does not provide any relief from taxation. The law of the land will apply (on source of fund). If the money is legitimate, previously withdrawn from bank or earned legally, saved and disclosed earlier, there is nothing to worry about, he said.

He said housewives and farmers with genuine savings need not worry about depositing cash. People need not worry about the small amounts  Rs 25,000, Rs 30,000 or Rs 50,000  lying at home. They can go to banks, he said.

He said for the initial one or two weeks replacements could be less, but things would improve thereafter.

He appealed to the people to be patient, promising that the long-term advantages would be very significant.

Rs 2.5 lakh-plus deposits to face tax, penalty

Deposits above Rs 2.5 lakh threshold under the 50-day window could attract tax plus a 200 pc penalty in case of income mismatch

Any mismatch with income declared by the account holder will be treated as a case of tax evasion

The tax department would match this with income returns filed by depositors

Jewellery buyers have to provide PAN

To buy jewellery one has to give PAN; instructions have been issued to jewellers. Action will be taken against violators, Hashmukh Adhia, Revenue Secretary.

No highway toll fee till Nov 11 midnight

To deal with the chaos at toll plazas, the government has suspended fee collection on national highways till the midnight of November 11.

Leaders speak

Chaos everywhere, millions affected

Please save people from this disaster. Roads are closed, markets shut, patients not being admitted to private hospitals, millions affected. Chaos everywhere This is like an all-India unannounced strike.  Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal Chief Minister

Pakistans fake note press shut

The printing press in Karachi and Peshawar will now have to shut down due to demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes The action will curbing terror funding and circulation of fake Indian currency notes.  Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister

Great decision, will curb fiscal crime

This is a great decision and will have far-reaching impact. It will curb economic crime and the resources for Naxalism will be curbed by this. The government should avoid releasing currency notes in 500 and 1,000 denomination in future.  Ramdev, yoga guru

Move welcome, but common man hit

Although it is a welcome announcement, we could only see ordinary people, small traders, auto rickshaw drivers teaming up in the streets as there are no takers for the invalidated Rs 500 notes.  M Karunanidhi, DMK chief
Islamabad, November 10

Pakistan on Thursday summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to the Foreign Office to protest over alleged ceasefire violations and use of artillery by the Indian forces, saying that such weaponry had been used after 13 years.

Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry summoned Bambawale and condemned the "unprovoked ceasefire violations on the LoC and the Working Boundary," said a statement issued by the Foreign Office this evening.

"He deplored the use of artillery by the Indian Forces in Shahkot and Jura sectors on the LoC on November 9, 2016 and highlighted that such weaponry had been used after 13 years, reflecting India's intention to further escalate tensions and undermine regional peace and security," the statement said.

The Foreign Secretary observed that the "indiscriminate firing and shelling from the Indian side deliberately targeting villages and civilian populated areas" has resulted in the death of 26 civilians in the last two months, it said.

It said 107 people were also injured.

The statement said the UN Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has the UN mandated responsibility for maintaining peace and tranquility at the LoC and the Working Boundary.

"While Pakistan is fully cooperating and providing full access to UNMOGIP, we urge India to permit the UNMOGIP to visit and observe the LoC and the Working Boundary," it said.

The Foreign Secretary urged India to investigate the continued incidents of "unprovoked ceasefire violations" on the LoC and the Working Boundary and ensure respect for the 2003 Ceasefire Understanding, in letter and spirit, it added.

Foreign Office had summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh yesterday for the sixth time in over two weeks for alleged ceasefire violations.

On October 27, the Foreign Secretary had summoned Bambawale to foreign ministry and conveyed the decision of the Government of Pakistan to declare an Indian High Commission official as "persona non-grata".  PTI
Islamabad, November 10

Donald Trumps surprise election as US president has Pakistanis wary that he may accelerate what they see as a shift in American policy to favour arch-foe India in the long rivalry between nuclear-armed neighbours, analysts said on Wednesday.

Historical allies in the region, Islamabad and Washington have seen relations sour over US accusations that Pakistan shelters Islamist militants, a charge Pakistan denies.

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They hit new lows in May when a US drone killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban movement on Pakistani territory.

At the same time, Pakistans ties with traditional rival India have also deteriorated this year, with India saying Pakistan-based militants killed 19 of its soldiers in a September attack on an army base in the disputed Kashmir region.

To many Pakistanis, Trumps anti-Muslim rhetoric--he once proposed banning Muslims entering the United States--and business ties to India are signs that his administration could shift further towards New Delhi.

America will not abandon Pakistan, but definitely, Trump will be a tougher president than Hillary Clinton for Pakistan, said Hasan Askari Rizvi, Lahore-based foreign policy analyst.

I think India will have a better and smoother interaction compared to Pakistan.

Trump has yet to lay out a detailed policy for South Asia, although he recently offered to mediate between India and Pakistan in their dispute over the divided territory of Kashmir.

He also told Fox News in May he would favour keeping nearly 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan because its adjacent and right next to Pakistan which has nuclear weapons.



Congratulations, assurances

On Wednesday, a US diplomat in Pakistan sought to assure the country that Trumps election did not signal a drastic policy change.

Our foreign policy is based on national interest and they dont change when the government changes, Grace Shelton, US Consul General in Karachi, told Geo News television.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Trump.

Your election is indeed the triumph of the American people and their enduring faith in the ideals of democracy, freedom, human rights and free enterprise, Sharif said in a statement.

Still, the uncertainty of a Trump presidency has many Pakistanis on edge, even if the country has leaned towards China in recent years for investment and diplomatic support.

Trump is a bit of a wild card, said Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and former ambassador to the United States.

Pakistan obviously cannot rule out engaging with whoever America elects, but his anti-Muslim rhetoric may cast a shadow on relations in times of uncertainty.

India hopeful

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also congratulated Trump on Wednesday. We look forward to working with you closely to take India-US bilateral ties to a new height, Modi said in a tweet.

Trump has partnered with Indian businessmen on a handful of real estate ventures, but apart from courting the Indian-American vote he has not articulated how he would develop the bilateral relationship.

India-US ties have flourished under President Barack Obama and Modi, who came to power in 2014, with the two countries striking key defence agreements this year.

Modis government has also waged a campaign to isolate Pakistan diplomatically.

Shaurya Doval, director of the India Foundation, a think-tank close to Modis government, called Trumps election a very positive development, but added that India and the United States would have continued to grow closer under a Hillary Clinton presidency as well.

My sense is that India-US relations are not dependent on individuals--there are strong institutions and processes there, he said.

One fringe Hindu nationalist group in India held a victory gathering at New Delhis speakers corner on Wednesday. Hes an American nationalist. We are Indian nationalists. Only he can understand us, Rashmi Gupta of the Hindu Sena, or Hindu Army, told Reuters. We expect him to support us when it comes to terrorist attacks on India from Pakistan.

Afghanistan war

Trump will also have to decide whether to maintain the number of US troops in Afghanistan or change the scope of the mission, 15 years after a US-led campaign toppled the hardline Islamist Taliban government.

The United States has spent some $115 billion in aid for Afghanistan since 2002, but the country is still caught in conflict, with a third of the country out of government control and thousands of Afghan civilians, soldiers and police dying every year.

Afghan officials have voiced concern that the conflict is being forgotten in Washington, and warned privately that the West will pay a huge price if that continues.

The people of Afghanistan are tired of war. We want (Trump) to invest heavily in bringing peace to war-torn Afghanistan and stabilise our region, said Umer Daudzai, former Afghan minister of interior.

Obamas original aim of pulling out of Afghanistan entirely has been put on hold in the face of mounting gains by Taliban militants, with US air power and special forces still regularly involved in combat.

As recently as last week, two US Green Berets were killed near the northern city of Kunduz.

Although Afghan security forces have been fighting largely alone since the end of the main NATO-led combat mission in 2014, their performance has been patchy and they continue to rely heavily on US air power.

The Taliban on Wednesday urged Trump to withdraw all US troops.

They should not cause damage to their economy and their military in this failed war, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said of the American government in a statement. Reuters
Bangkok, November 10

En route to Japan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday made a surprise stopover in the Thai capital where he paid respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illness.

Prime Minister Modi laid a wreath and paid tributes to the late King Bhumibol, whose body is lying in state at the Grand Palace complex here.

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"His Majesty will always be remembered for his compassion, foresight and commitment for the welfare of his people," Modi wrote in his condolence message at the Grand Palace.

Describing the late King as "world statesman", the Prime Minister said, "His (the King's) departure from this world is also a loss for the international community" and has left a void.

"On behalf of the government and the people of India, I convey our deepest condolences to the Royal family and the Government and the people of the Kingdom of Thailand," he said.

Earlier, Modi was received at the airport by Thai Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith.

Bhumibol, who was the world's longest ruling monarch, passed away at the age of 88 on October 13. He was adored by many of his subjects and seen as an anchor of stability in a kingdom rocked by turbulent politics.

A one-year mourning period had been announced in Thailand following the monarch's death. He will be cremated next year.

The mortal remains of King Bhumibol, also known as King Rama IX, have been kept here for people to pay their respects.

Thousands of Thais are still streaming into the gates of the Grand Palace to pay their respects to the late King.

Modi is headed to Japan for a three-day visit during which the two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in areas like trade, investment and security. PTI
R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, November 10

In a blow to Punjab, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Punjab was bound to share the Ravi-Beas waters with Haryana and other states and comply with its two judgments for completion of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal.

A five-member Constitution Bench, headed by Justice Anil R Dave, made the clarification while invalidating the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act 2004 by which the state had terminated its pacts with Haryana, Himachal, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi for sharing the waters of the two rivers.

Edit: Water Act terminated

The apex court ruled that the 2004 Act was in violation of the constitutional provisions, the Inter-State Water Disputes Act 1956 and the Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966 and as such did not discharge the state from its obligations under the agreement of December 31, 1981, and other pacts pertaining to sharing of Ravi-Beas waters and under the two SC judgments in 2002 and 2004 on the construction of the SYL canal.

Sent to the apex court by the then Manmohan Singh government through President APJ Abdul Kalam after the Punjab Assembly passed the law on July 12, 2004, the reference contained four questions that required SCs answers.

The President had sought the apex courts opinion on whether the Act was in consonance with constitutional provisions, the reorganisation Act, the inter-state pacts on Ravi-Beas waters and the two SC judgments. All the questions referred to this court are answered in the negative, the SC said. The others on the Bench were Justices PC Ghose, SK Singh, AK Goel and Amitava Roy.

The Punjab Act cannot be considered to be legal and valid and the State of Punjab cannot absolve itself from its duties/liabilities arising from the December 31, 1981, agreement. The state was not justified in enacting the law citing the need to protect the interests of its residents, the Bench said.

It, however, rejected Haryanas oral plea for extending the status quo order passed on March 17, 2016, directing Punjab not to notify the SYL Canal Land (Transfer of Proprietary

Rights) Bill 2016 meant for returning about 4,000 acres of land acquired for construction of part of the SYL canal falling within the state.

Haryana was free to take appropriate steps, including approaching the SC, the Bench told the states senior counsel Shyam Divan. In its opinion on the Presidential reference, the Bench, however, held that the proposed law was in clear violation of the 1981 agreement.

The SC had passed the status quo order on Haryanas application filed to be heard as part of the Presidential reference. Since the reference stood answered, no further order could be passed on the plea for extending the status quo for a few days as pleaded by Haryana, the Bench explained.

1981 pact entitlement

Punjab 4.22 million acre ft (MAF)

Haryana 3.50 MAF

Rajasthan 8.60 MAF

Delhi 0.20 MAF

J&K 0.65 MAF
Shahira Naim

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, November 10

Putting days of speculation to rest, Samajwadi Party national president Mulayam Singh Yadav on Thursday categorically ruled out the possibility of his party entering into an alliance with any other party.

We will contest the polls alone and there will be no alliance with either Lalu (Yadav) or Nitish (Kumar). We may consider if anyone wants to merge their party with the Samajwadi party, the party patriarch said while speaking to reporters.

The declaration comes after series of meetings between the senior Yadav and Congress political strategist Prashant Kishore, JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav and RLD president Ajit Singh in Delhi as well as in Lucknow.

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Mulayams refusal to enter into any pre-poll alliance has brought frustration for those who were expecting the coming together of like-minded parties to keep the BJP at bay.

Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday had expressed confidence of winning 300 seats if an alliance was worked out.

However, senior office-bearers in the Congress had been vehemently denying reports of an alliance with the SP being negotiated.

The Samajwadi Party insiders reveal that the talks broke down due to SP president Mulayams insistence on merger before the elections.

Meanwhile, the SP president has demanded a roll back for a week of the Modi governments decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.

He also sought an extension of the limit of depositing money in banks from Rs 2.5 lakhs to Rs five lakhs.

According to Mulayam, while the SP was all for curbing black money, it was against the arm twisting tactics adopted by the Modi government, which had given rise to huge problems for the common people.

Yadav said the situation was alarming as people across board had panicked creating an environment of mistrust.

The wedding season has just started and gold prices have skyrocketed due to demonetisation. Hospitals and pharmacists are not accepting old currency notes and patients are being put to great hardship and even dying without treatment. One woman is reported to have died of shock. Farmers are in despair as they have just sold their crops. Housewives who save a bit of money from their household budget are equally distraught, said Yadav.

Declaring to take up the issue during the winter session of Parliament, the SP patriarch said the BJP was only concerned about elections and not about the difficulties being faced of the common people.

After failing to fulfill its poll promise of bringing back black money stashed abroad, a desperate BJP in order to divert attention has demonetised currency notes here, alleged Mulayam.
Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

In light of the adverse ruling of the Supreme Court on the Ravi-Beas waters issue, the SAD-BJP government today decided to convene a special one-day session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha on November 16.

Punjab da paani nahin jayega, nahin jayega, nahin jayega! thundered Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal after an emergency meeting of the Cabinet.

With a maha rally planned at Moga on December 8 to mobilise people on the issue, the Council of Ministers said as true custodians of the rights of Punjab, we will fight it out rather than run away like the Congress.

Sources said the government was legally examining if a new Bill can be brought to scrap all water-sharing agreements, including the already flowing share of 6 MAF (including Sutlej) to Haryana, 10.5 MAF to Rajasthan, 0.20 MAF to Delhi and 0.69 MAF to J&K.

The Punjab Termination of Agreements Act 2004 had protected the already flowing river water share to all these states, under section 5.

Advocate General Ashok Aggarwal has been asked to give an opinion on the feasibility of the proposed legislation by Tuesday, when theCabinet meets again a day before the special session.

The strong posturing by the Akalis was matched by the BJP ministers. Since the BJP is in power in Haryana, Industry Minister MM Mittal said the party had given a free hand to the state units to defend the rights of the state they represented.
CHICAGO, Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With the tenth largest veteran population in the country, Illinois is the home to many veterans and military service members. To recognize their contributions, Fertility Centers of Illinois is offering free Fertility Awareness Checkups during the month of November and sharing information on a Military Treatment Program that includes free treatment for service-injured veterans as well as treatment discounts for service members.



Military service commonly comes at a family planning cost to male and female service members who tour during their reproductive prime and sustain injuries during service. According to 2013 figures published by Military Medicine, of the estimated 2.2 million active duty members and ready reserve personnel, 16 percent were women and 40 percent were under age 26.

Approximately one in ten military veterans alive today sustained a serious injury during service, with 75 percent of those injuries occurring during combat. Recent combat injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven more detrimental to fertility due to the widespread use of improvised explosive devices in combat zones. As a result, greater rates of spinal cord and genital injuries have been sustained than in conflicts past.

For more than 24 years, Veterans Affairs banned covering the costs of IVF treatment for veterans. In a victorious triumph for service members everywhere, the passage of the MilCon-VA Appropriations Bill in September now appropriates government funding to cover the costs of reproductive services, IVF, and adoption assistance for veterans who have suffered service-related injuries preventing them from growing a family on their own.

The MilCon-VA Appropriations Bill is a huge victory for our veterans, explains Dr. Chris Sipe, President of Fertility Centers of Illinois. We are indebted to our military service members and grateful for their service. We want to show our gratitude by continuing to offer discounted or free fertility treatment services to those who have served.

Fertility Centers of Illinois Military Treatment Program:

Free treatment, including IVF, for service-injured veterans whose infertility is a result of their injury

25% off already discounted self-pay (cash pay) rates for military service members

Partnership with TRICARE, the health care program for military service members

Partnership with pharmaceutical manufacturers and industry partners to offer special discount programs for reduced-cost or free medication

Member of the Serving Our Veterans Program with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine

Free Fertility Awareness Checkups ($90 value) to all veterans who book appointments during the month of November

"As the spouse of a 21-year Army veteran and someone who has personally undergone IVF and has worked with fertility patients for over 18 years, I know how much it means to be able to have a family as a service member or otherwise," explains Torria Driver, Fertility Navigator with Fertility Centers of Illinois. "Giving back to our vets is important to me, and I am proud to offer fertility treatment help fellow vets in need."



The Fertility Awareness Checkup includes blood tests and an ultrasound for women and a semen analysis for men. A doctor consultation must be booked separately. Veterans can schedule a free Fertility Awareness Checkup by calling 877.324.4483 in November. Veterans must mention they are a service member when making the appointment and provide a valid military I.D. during their scheduled visit.

To learn more about the Military Treatment Program at Fertility Centers of Illinois, please visit https://fcionline.com/military

Fertility Centers of Illinois (FCI) is one of the leading fertility treatment practices in the United States, providing advanced reproductive endocrinology services for over 30 years with more than 35,000 babies born. FCI physicians, embryologists and support staff are stringently chosen based on educational background, medical skills and their ability to collaborate. With a team of nine nationally and internationally recognized physicians who treat thousands of patients each year, the practice has earned a reputation for overcoming hard-to-solve fertility issues. FCI is dedicated to medical and clinical excellence and continues to invest in the latest technologies and research. FCI offers a comprehensive range of fertility treatment options including intrauterine insemination, in vitro fertilization, donor egg, gestational carrier and preimplantation genetic diagnosis, as well as extensive resources to address financial and emotional needs. As the premier fertility practice in the Midwest region, Fertility Centers of Illinois has eight physician offices and two monitoring locations serving patients in the Chicagoland region, northern Indiana, and southern Wisconsin. Learn more by calling 877-324-4483 or visiting www.fcionline.com.
Republican Donald Trump stunned the world by defeating heavily favoured rival Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, ending eight years of Democratic rule and sending the United States on a new, uncertain path.

A wealthy real estate developer and former reality TV host, Trump rode a wave of anger toward Washington insiders to win the White House race against Clinton, the Democratic candidate whose gold-plated establishment resume included stints as a first lady, US senator and secretary of state.

Democratic President Barack Obama, who campaigned hard against Trump, telephoned the Republican to congratulate him and invited him to the White House for a meeting on Thursday.

Worried that a Trump victory could cause economic and global uncertainty, investors were in full flight from risky assets. The US dollar, Mexican peso and world stocks fell on Wednesday but fears of the kind of shock that wiped trillions of dollars off global markets after Britains Brexit vote in June have failed to materialise so far.

Trump collected enough of the 270 state-by-state electoral votes needed to win a four-year term that starts on January 20, taking battleground states where presidential elections are traditionally decided, US television networks projected.

He appeared with his family before cheering supporters in a New York hotel ballroom, saying it was time to heal the divisions caused by the campaign and find common ground after a campaign that exposed deep differences among Americans. He said he had received a call from Clinton to congratulate him on the win and praised her for her service and for a hard-fought campaign. His comments were an abrupt departure from his campaign trail rhetoric in which he repeatedly slammed Clinton as crooked amid supporters chants of lock her up.

Republicans also kept control of the US Congress. Television networks projected the party would retain majorities in both the 100-seat Senate and the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats were up for grabs. The presidency will be Trumps first elected office, and it remains to be seen how he will work with Congress. At 70, Trump will be the oldest first-term US President.  Reuters

Long live Trump, says Trump of East

I would like to congratulate Trump. Long live... Even on trivial matters, we curse. I was supposed to stop because Trump is there. I dont want to quarrel anymore, because hes won.  R. Duterte, Philippine Prez

In a campaign where conventional wisdom was proven wrong time and again, they (pundits) convinced themselves conventional wisdom would prevail in election. Voters saw through it.  Craig Robinson, veteran of republican politics
New Delhi, November 10

The Uphaar fire tragedy was culpable homicide which was reduced to that of mere negligence.

This was how legal veterans revisited the 1997 blaze at the cinema hall which had claimed 59 lives and left over 100 injured during the screening of Bollywood film Border.

Speaking at the launch of a book Trial by Fire written by the parents of two teenagers who were killed in the tragedy, Rajya Sabha MP and senior advocate K T S Tulsi, who has been the counsel for the victims, also stressed the need to have a well-cultivated law of torts on such matters, a view shared by senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, who said the wrongdoer must be heavily penalised.

Such incidents of fire are culpable homicides which have been reduced to mere negligence, Tulsi, who was one of the panelists in the discussion at the book launch event, said, adding that the culprits must be made to pay for it.

Wherever law of torts has developed, it has resulted in awarding massive awards of millions and billions of dollars and they have broken the backs of organisations guilty of culpable homicide. But here we lost the opportunity, Tulsi, who has been the counsel for Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) initiated by victim parents Neelam and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy, said.

A tort, in common law parlance, is a civil wrong that unfairly causes someone else to suffer loss or harm resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the act.

Expressing a similar view, Hegde said When something goes wrong, make the fellow hurt. Hurt where it hurts his pocket the most, adding that a fine of Rs 60 crore was a huge sum but for Ansals it was a petty amount.

Explaining the incident as a case of gross criminal negligence on part of the accused builders, Tulsi said, We asked for Rs 100 crore as compensation, but the court said it cant permit a tragedy to become a windfall.  PTI
Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

Acting on a habeas corpus petition filed by an advocate alleging illegal detention of 46 persons in connection with Sarbat Khalsa, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today ordered Punjab to probe the matter.

Justice Jitendra Chauhan also fixed 24-hour deadline for the State to make a statement before the court after holding the inquiry. The developments took place on the petition filed by Simranjit Singh against the State and other respondents.

His counsel told the court that the petitioner had received a communication on illegal detention of persons from Baljit Singh Daduwal, organiser of the Sarbat Khalsa congregation.

During the course of hearing, a notice of motion issued by Justice Chauhan was accepted by Additional Advocate-General Mehardeep Singh on the respondent-States behalf. The State is directed to inquire into the matter and make a statement before this Court, Justice Chauhan added, before parting with the order.

In his petition, Simranjit Singh alleged that the Punjab Police, at the instance of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal, conducted illegal raids in the houses of the organisers and supporters of the Sarbat Khalsa.

The detainees, he alleged, were arrested from their houses on November 6. The police did not inform them about the reason of arrest. As such, it violated the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in the case of DD Basu versus of State of West Bengal.

Simranjit Singh added the detainees were not even allowed to call their counsel and family. The proceedings against them were conducted in a clandestine manner to settle their political scores.

He added the respondents-authorities were not even ready to accept the bail bonds furnished by the detainees or even produce them before the Magistrate concerned.
Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

Reacting to the Supreme Court decision saying Punjab had no right to terminate water agreements, the state BJP, in a meeting of the core committee this evening, stood with its ally Shiromani Akali Dal and stated, We will not allow a single drop of water to flow outside the state in case farmers need it.

Party president Vijay Sampla said, Our party stands with state farmers on the issue of water. Farmers of Punjab, which is the food bowl of the entire nation, should first get all the share of water they require to nurture their fields before giving it to others.

No water here means killing farmers in a state which is also facing a heavy depletion of its water levels. If a farmer dies here, others cannot dream to live long elsewhere in the country. Our party stands committed to the sons of the soil, he said.

Sampla said, The Parkash Singh Badal government had gone to court after the foundation stone of the controversial canal was laid. It was the Congress government of Darbara Singh that had withdrawn the petition. Congress is the root cause of the SYL canal.

Sampla said, Looks like Arvind Kejriwals spirit has entered PPCC president Capt Amarinder Singh as he has started the drama of tendering mass resignations. He is carrying out a face-saving exercise for his party.

The meeting was attended by former state party presidents Madan Mohan Mittal, Manoranjan Kalia, Ashwani Sharma, Prof Rajinder Bhandari and Kamal Sharma, among others.

Wont let farmers die

No water here means killing farmers in a state which is already facing a heavy depletion of its water levels. If a farmer dies here, others cannot dream to live long elsewhere in the country. Our party stands committed to the sons of the soil. Vijay Sampla, state BJP chief

Wont allow Centre to divert riverwaters: Sukhbir

Adampur: Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal on Thursday said he would not let the Union Government take away riverwaters from Punjab. He said: "We won't let anyone enter Punjab. Let anyone try it, be it the Union Government or the US government or even the Iraqi government. Our decision is simple and straight. We won't let a drop of water to be taken away from Punjab, even if it means going against law. Is it not against law to take away the lifeline of Punjab?" Sukhbir also made it clear that even as PPCC chief Capt Amarinder Singh and his party MLAs had resigned, his government would not take such a decision. "Why should we resign? Why should we run away? We should not give an opportunity to the Union Government to enter without resistance. If we are in the government, we can stop them." Terming the resignation by Congress MLAs a drama, he said: "They know that they will not remain MLAs in the next term. If they are sincere, they should all resign from their party. After all, the SYL issue cropped up because of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi." Sukhbir denied reports that the Chief Minister had sought royalty for sharing the riverwaters. "The CM never said anything about royalty," he maintained.  Deepkamal Kaur
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his deputy Sukhbir Badal today said their decision of not allowing any water to flow out of the state was not a violation of the SC verdict. The most important thing for Punjab is to save its riverwaters. We would fight for the states rights rather than running away. If we were to resign, Governors rule would be imposed and who would defend the rights of Punjab? We will do anything to oppose any attempt at building the SYL canal, said Sukhbir.

After the Vidhan Sabha session, the entire Council of Ministers will go and petition the President not to accept the opinion given by the SC.

Sources said it may not be possible to stop the already flowing waters of Ravi and Beas to the other states. More importantly, the government would like to exercise caution now, especially after The Punjab Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal Land (Transfer of Property Rights) Bill is still pending for the Governors approval. If the legal team were to give an opinion against bringing another Bill and scrapping all existing agreements, the Assembly session  most likely to be held without the Congress MLAs, who are resigning tomorrow  the government could only bring a resolution passed today: Punjab will not allow a single drop of water from its rivers to go out and not a brick would be allowed to be laid.

Depleting riverwaters

The Ravi-Beas water has been depleting over the years. The data shows a rapid decline in the flow series of the riverwaters. In the 1921-81 flow series, which was used as a basis for determining the sharing of river waters between Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Delhi, 17.17 MAF water was shown as flowing in the rivers. The 1981-2103 series shows that the water flow has declined to 13.38 MAF. Punjab needs 25 MAF for its agriculture and other needs.

What is Presidential Reference?

The President can request the Supreme Court to provide its advice on matters of public importance. The procedure is called "Presidential Reference". As the SC's word on it is a verdict and not merely an expression of opinion, it is binding in nature. Punjab may find itself bereft of legal options as the matter has been decided by a Constitutional Bench. Mohan Jain, ex-addl solicitor-general of india

Timeline of inter-state dispute

1966: Haryana carved out of Punjab; demands share from Ravi-Beas waters

1976: During Emergency, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi allocates 3.5 MAF (million acre ft) from Punjabs Ravi-Beas water share (7.2 MAF) to Haryana and 0.2 MAF to Delhi; Haryana insists on implementation of allocation but Punjab says no

1979: Haryana moves Supreme Court; Punjab files civil suit in apex court

1981: The then Punjab Chief Minister Darbara Singh withdraws case against Haryana in SC; states sign agreement

April 8, 1982: Indira Gandhi lays foundation stone of SYL canal at Kapoori village near Rajpura in Patiala district; CPM leader Balwant Singh and the Akalis launch morcha (agitation) against the canal

1986: Digging and construction begin at canal site; work abandoned in late 1980s following the killing of labourers and engineers during the days of terrorism

Jan-March 2002: SC directs Punjab to complete construction of canal within a year; Punjab files application in SC for review of order; plea dismissed

July 12, 2004: Punjab enacts Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, terminating and discharging itself from obligations under its 1981 agreement with Haryana and Rajasthan and other agreements of Ravi-Beas waters

Jul 22, 2004: President APJ Abdul Kalam refers to SC for advisory opinion on Punjab Act

March 2016: Punjab introduces the Satluj Yamuna Link Canal Land (Transfer of Proprietary Rights) Bill, 2016; later, Haryana files application for suspension of Bill; SC orders that status quo be maintained by the parties on land meant for canal

April 4: HP, Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi support Haryanas stand on Presidential Reference

April 8: Punjab says SC not bound to answer reference; seeks setting up of fresh tribunal to resolve matter

May 12: SC reserves verdict

Nov 10: SC holds Punjab law unconstitutional
GS Paul

Tribune New Service

Amritsar, November 10

Amid tension simmering between India and Pakistan, uncertainty prevails over the fate of the jatha which was to leave for Pakistan to celebrate the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak on November 14. The pilgrimage was scheduled from November 12 to 21.

SGPC chief secretary Harcharan Singh said though visas had been granted by the Pakistan authorities, tension between the two nations following surgical strikes had put the programme on hold as of now.

The SGPC is in touch with the Ministries of Home Affairs and External Affairs, through the office of the Chief Minister, to take a final call.

Though the SGPC has got the nod from the Pakistan High Commission, endorsing 1,249 pilgrims to visit Nankana Sahib and other religious spots, the SGPC is still waiting for a green signal from the government.

As per information, a list of 1,355 devotees along with their passports were sent to the Pakistan authorities through the state and centre governments, but only 1,249 got visa to visit Nankana Sahib, Gurdwara Sacha Sauda in Sheikhupur district, Gurdwara Rori Sahib at Eminabad and Gurdwara Kartapur Sahib.

As per the agreement between the two nations, the SGPC sends four jathas to Pakistan in a year for Guru Nanak Devs birth anniversary, Baisakhi, Guru Arjan Dev Shaheedi Day and Maharaja Ranjit Singhs death anniversary.

1,249 get visa

A list of 1,355 devotees along with their passports were sent to the Pakistan authorities through the state and central governments, but only 1,249 got visa to visit Nankana Sahib, Gurdwara Sacha Sauda in Sheikhupur district, Gurdwara Rori Sahib at Eminabad and Gurdwara Kartapur Sahib.
Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 10

Former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh today resigned from his Lok Sabha membership following an adverse Supreme Court verdict in the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal matter.

In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Amarinder described his resignation as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of Punjab of the much-needed Sutlej waters.

The Speakers office, however, is yet to receive the resignation, which will be accepted only if the Speaker is satisfied that the Amritsar MP has resigned voluntarily and not under duress.

Normally the resignation has to be in person to the Speaker so that she is satisfied that the same is voluntary. If the resignation is accepted, the Speaker will make such an announcement in the House without mentioning any grounds even if the resigning MP has mentioned these in his letter, an LS source said.

Amarinder said the Centre and the SAD-BJP-led state government had failed to come to the rescue of Punjabs people in time to save them from the sorry plight into which they have been plunged due to the Supreme Court order.

Other Congress MPs from Punjab (Ravneet Bittu and Santokh Singh Chaudhary in the Lok Sabha; Ambika Soni, Partap Singh Bajwa and SS Dullo in the Rajya Sabha) didnt resign from their respective memberships. Congress Punjab incharge Asha Kumari also said Amarinder had resigned on moral grounds as he was the Chief Minister when the now-nullified Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, was passed by the Punjab Assembly.

QUOTES

Punjab has been suffering because of the Congress. The Centre should ensure that this time the people of the state are not deprived of their right. The resignations by Congress leaders is a mere drama. Daljit Singh Cheema, SAD spokesman

The SAD-BJP has failed in presenting the facts convincingly before the apex court. The Congress will go all out to protect the states interests. Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Congress leader

The Congress and the SAD-BJP used the SYL issue for their political revival. When we tried to bring a Bill seeking royalty for Punjabs waters, we were thrown out of the Vidhan Sabha. Simarjit Singh Bains, Independent MLA

The amount of water flowing in the state's rivers has already reduced. The SAD and the Congress were not sincere. AAP too is demanding more water for Delhi through the SYL canal. Sucha Singh Chhotepur, APP Convener

Things have come to such a pass due to the insincerity of successive governments which compromised the interests of the state. Only AAP can save Punjabs riverwaters. Sanjay Singh, state AAP incharge

The CM should call an all-party meeting and pressure the Centre to form a committee of experts to assess the water situation in Punjab. We do not have spare water. Any confrontation with Haryana should not be avoided. Hardev Singh Arshi, CPI leader

Already nearly 80 per cent of Punjab is facing severe water scarcity. We need to put up a strong resistance to the execution of the SYL canal project. Prof Manjit Singh, Democratic Swaraj Party

The dispute should be resolved on the basis of user principle provided in the Rajiv-Longowal Accord. It guarantees that not a single drop of water should be withdrawn from Punjab. Charan Singh Virdi, CPM state secretary
Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

With the Supreme Court striking down the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, the main political parties are going all out to score brownie points over the SYL canal in the run-up to the Assembly elections. The other poll issues, including the drug menace and farmer suicides, have been pushed into the background.

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has already announced that it would not allow even a single drop of water for the canal, which has been a millstone around Punjabs neck for the past four decades.

PPCC chief Capt Amarinder Singh has been repeatedly blaming the Akali leadership, including Parkash Singh Badal, for the SYL dispute. However, Badal and his aides have been accusing the late Indira Gandhi and other Congress leaders of discriminating against Punjab.

SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal has stated that he and his party are prepared to make any sacrifice. Amritsar MP Amarinder has sent his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker, while state Congress MLAs today handed over their resignation letters to Amarinder to forward the same to the Assembly Speaker. AAP has announced to hold a protest dharna at Kapoori from tomorrow.

Violent history

The origin of the Dharam Yudh Morcha, which later turned violent and was usurped by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers, is linked to the canal. Soon after the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi laid its foundation stone at Kapoori village on April 8, 1982, the Akalis leaders launched a morcha (agitation) there in association with the CPM. The stir later shifted to the Golden Temple and the CPM dissociated itself from it as it took a religious turn. The reorganisation of Punjab led to a lingering dispute over riverwaters. Haryana asked for a share from the Ravi-Beas waters. Before 1966, Punjabs share in the waters was 7.2 MAF (million acre foot). In 1976, Indira Gandhi allocated 3.5 MAF to Haryana and an equal share was given to Punjab. The remaining 0.2 MAF was given to Delhi. To get it implemented, Haryana approached the Supreme Court. Punjab followed suit. Indira Gandhi again intervened in 1981 to broker a settlement between the warring states. But by then the Akali leaders had upped the ante against this arrangement. When the canal was under construction in the 1980s, militants killed several migrant workers hired for the project. A Chief Engineer and a Superintending Engineer were killed in the project office in Chandigarh.
R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi/Chandigarh, November 10

In a blow to Punjab, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Punjab was bound to share Ravi-Beas river waters with Haryana and other states and comply with its two judgments for completion of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal.

A five-member Constitution Bench headed by Justice Anil R Dave made the clarification while invalidating the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act 2004 by which the state had terminated its pacts with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi for sharing the waters of the two rivers.

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The Bench made the ruling while answering the Presidential reference sent to the apex court seeking its opinion if the 2004 Act was in consonance with the legal and Constitutional provisions. The reference contained four questions on the issue.

Our answers are in the negative, Justice Dave said while reading out the operative part of the ruling. The other judges on the Bench were Justices PC Ghose, SK Singh, AK Goel and Amitava Roy.

The Bench, however, rejected Haryanas plea for extending the status quo order passed on March 17, 2016, directing Punjab not to notify the law meant for returning about 4,000 acres of land acquired for the construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link SYL canal.

Haryana was free to take appropriate steps, including approaching the SC, it said.

Under the 1981 pact, the states were entitled to a share of:

Punjab: 4.22 million acre feet (MAF)

Haryana: 3.50 MAF

Rajasthan: 8.60 MAF

Delhi: 0.20 MAF

J&K: 0.65 MAF

The SC Bench had concluded hearing arguments on May 12 on the issue referred to the apex court by the UPA government headed by Manmohan Singh through the President following objections by Haryana and other riparian states to the law enacted by the Punjab Assembly on July 12, 2004 for unilaterally cancelling its commitments.

Unlike in regular cases in which the SC delivers its judgments, the court only answers the issues raised in the Presidential reference made under Article 143(1) of the Constitution.

In its arguments, Punjab pleaded with the Bench to return the reference without giving its opinion as the apex court was not bound to answer all references. Even if the apex court gave its opinion on the validity of the law, it would not be binding on the parties involved, it contended.

The case involves sharing of the Ravi-Beas river waters between Punjab and Haryana, besides Rajasthan, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh.

Haryana pleaded that the 2004 law was aimed at nullifying apex court judgments directing Punjab to complete the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal. Haryana had completed the canal within its territory to draw its share of the Ravi-Beas waters, while Punjab acquired land for the construction of the canal but backed out subsequently by passing the termination law.

Punjab passed another law on March 14 this year for returning to the farmers the land acquired from them for the SYL. Within hours, Haryana moved the SC protesting against the law as part of the hearing on the Presidential reference following which the apex court passed a status quo order on March 17.

Haryana pleaded that Punjab had enacted the 2004 Act to nullify the SC verdicts for the completion of the SYL canal and deny it its share of the Ravi-Beas waters, while the 2016 Act was meant to render the Presidential reference irrelevant.

Punjab, however, pleaded that since the SC verdicts on the SYL were no longer valid in view of the 2004 Act, the 2016 legislation for return of SYL land did not violate any SC order.

During the hearing, the Centre had told the Constitution Bench that it was taking a neutral stand. It, however, maintained that Punjab could not defend its 2004 Act as well as seek a fresh tribunal. Declaring the Act valid would render meaningless the two SC judgments for completion of the SYL canal as well as Punjabs plea for a fresh tribunal.

Punjab clarified that despite the 2004 Act it was honouring and would continue to honour its commitments to upper riparian states of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, besides Chandigarh.

Delhi maintained that it had nothing to do with the dispute and only wanted an assurance that the city would continue to get its share of river water.

Haryana has requested the Bench to keep alive its status quo order on SYL land even after giving its opinion on the Presidential reference. The state has filed another application for this purpose with a plea that this should be taken up immediately after the reference was answered.

Punjab wants constitution of a fresh tribunal to ascertain the present flow of water and decide the entitlement of each state on the basis of the rights of riparian and non-riparian states.

Sukhbir furious even before decision

Earlier, hours before the judgment, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal said he would not let anyone enter the state in the event of an adverse judgment.

Wont let anyone enter Punjab when somebody wants to take our lifeline. Water is life for the people of Punjab. Let any government come, be it that of the US or Iraq to take away waters from us, we wont let them take even a drop from Punjab, he said.

Taking a dig at the Congress, he said, Its a drama created by the Congress. Capt Amarinder started all this. Why are they resigning from the government at a time when their term would be over? And why are they resigning only from the government? They should resign from the party since its the ex-PM of their party who has got this done. Its a drama created by the Congress.

Sukhbir repeated that his government would not resign and keep all control in its hands.

Punjab govt likely to convene special session

Meanwhile, the SAD-BJP government is likely to convene a special one-day session of the Assembly. CM Parkash Singh Badal will lead the government in launching an agitation. A final decision will be taken in an emergency meeting of the cabinet scheduled for 6 pm on Thursday.

Akali Dal general secretary Daljit Singh Cheema said the party stood by its stand that not a drop of water would be given to Haryana. We will not allow any outside agency to come to Punjab and force us to part with our river waters. Capt Amarinder Singhs resignation is a mere drama. Had he been a protector of the states riparian rights he should have resigned when Indira Gandhi laid the foundation stone of the SYL canal, he said.

Amarinder resigns from Lok Sabha

Minutes after the Supreme Court announced its verdict, Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh resigned his Lok Sabha seat, even as all party MLAs quit their Assembly seats, in protest against the injustice meted out to the people of the state.

Amarinder has sent his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker and has sought a personal meeting next week. The party MLAs have sent their resignations to the Speaker, Punjab Assembly, and will meet him on Friday morning to personally hand over their papers.

In his resignation, Amarinder said he had decided to quit as member of the Lok Sabha from Amritsar constituency with immediate effect as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of my state of the much-needed Sutlej river water.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal termed as a political stunt the resignation by Captain Amarinder Singh and Congress MLAs.

Haryana welcomes decision

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal hailed the decision.

The Chief Minister said the Supreme Court had given its decision on this vital issue after 12 years as a result of the persistent efforts made by the present state government. He said the decision had brought smile on the face of every Haryanvi as now the state would get its legitimate share of surplus Ravi-Beas waters that is 3.5 million acre feet (MAF).

Following the decision, Haryana khaps warned the Punjab government and advised it to follow the decision of the apex court. Khap leaders announced here that they would disconnect Punjab from New Delhi by blocking all road and rail connectivity if the Punjab government refused to accept the decision.

Verdict untimely, against state: Punjab BJP

The Punjab BJP has called a special meeting of its Ministers, MLAs, all office-bearers and former MLAs ahead of the Cabinet meeting to discuss the next course of action in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict on the SYL canal.

The party ministers say the verdict is untimely and against Punjab. In the meeting, the ministers are likely to be authorised to give their consent on the joint decision of the Akali-BJP government.

Read:
French English

Dassault Falcon Service Inaugurates

Bordeaux-Merignac Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Facility

November 10, 2016 (Saint-Cloud, France): Dassault Falcon Service (DFS), a subsidiary of Dassault Aviation, today inaugurated its new maintenance facility in Bordeaux-Merignac intended to meet the increase in repair and overhaul services for the Falcon 7X and other new Falcon models.

Eric Trappier, Dassault Aviation Chairman/CEO, and Jean Kayanakis, DFS General Manager, oversaw the ceremony attended by a host of local, regional and national dignitaries, including Alain Juppe, President of the Bordeaux Metropolitan Area, Alain Rousset, President of the Regional Council, Alain Anziani, the Senator-Mayor of Merignac and Marie Recalde, Member of Parliament and member of the Defense Committee. The event was also attended by representatives of government agencies and of the Aquitaine regional economy.

Located at Bordeaux-Merignac Airport, adjacent to the Dassault Aviation assembly plant, the new complex will add 49,000 sq. meters of additional Maintenance Repair & Overhaul (MRO) space, including a 7,200 sq. meter hangar, and will be capable of accommodating up to six Falcon 7X, 8X or 5X aircraft at a time. It will complement DFS's existing installations which have been located at Le Bourget airport near Paris since 1967.

"This additional capacity will permit DFS to keep up with the steady growth in the Falcon fleet, which currently numbers 2,100 aircraft worldwide and is expected to expand significantly with the arrival of the Falcon 8X, which started deliveries last month." said Eric Trappier.

Jean Kayanakis added: "We are extremely proud of this new MRO complex and the speed with which it was built. Building permission was granted in July 2015, followed by groundbreaking in October and delivery of the building in September 2016. The first Falcon arrived on site on October 17 and was returned to its owner on October 28."

The immediate priority of the new facility will be to handle the expected C Checks ramp-up for the Falcon 7X. The 7X fleet leaders are now approaching their first heavy maintenance check, scheduled once an aircraft reaches eight years of service. More than 250 aircraft are now in operation.

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

Minutes after the Supreme Court announced its verdict on the SYL issue, Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday resigned from his Lok Sabha seat, even as all party MLAs quit their Assembly seats, in protest against the injustice meted out to the people of the state.

Amarinder has sent his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker and has also sought a personal meeting next week. The party MLAs have also sent their resignations to the Speaker, Punjab Assembly, and will meet him on Friday morning to personally hand over their papers.

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#WATCH: Captain Amarinder Singh talks about his resignation as MP, and statement of Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal calling it a drama pic.twitter.com/1jr7sywYF5  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

In his resignation, Amarinder said he had decided to quit as member of the 16th Lok Sabha from Amritsar constituency with immediate effect as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of my state of the much-needed Sutlej river water.

Describing the SYL judgment by the apex court as a major blow to the people of Punjab, Amarinder said he had always fought for their legitimate right on this issue and continues to stand by them at this critical juncture in the states journey.

Blaming the Akalis squarely for bringing the people of Punjab to this situation, where they faced imminent devastation due to acute water scarcity, Amarinder said Badal and his team had failed to defend Punjabs stand in the court, leading to such disastrous consequences.

The Akalis let down the people of Punjab on this critical issue, selling off their interests to Haryana, Amarinder said, accusing the Badal government of promoting its vested political interests at the cost of the interests of the state.

Badal has done to Punjab what even its worst enemy could not have done. He has plunged Punjab into a state of total despair, said Amarinder, declaring that the people of the state would not forgive the Akalis for playing with their lives.

He said the Akali government had gone all out to scuttle every move of the Congress to bring relief to the people of Punjab in the SYL matter. Recalling that his government had tried to protect Punjabs interests through the Punjab Termination of Agreements Bill, 2004, Amarinder said the Akalis, on the other hand, had exposed them to unprecedented hardship as a result of their failure to safeguard their interests in the court.

The Badals never had the interests of the people of Punjab at heart, as is evident from the way they have handled the issue all these years. The theatrics they are now indulging in, by demanding royalty for water-sharing and asserting that they would not allow a single drop of water to leave Punjab, are not going to save Punjabs citizens, said Amarinder.

On the contrary, the preposterous idea floated by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to seek royalty from other states using Sutlej water would be even more detrimental to the interests of Punjab, since it was itself using water receiving from neighbouring Himachal Pradesh. After helping out Haryana, it seems Badal is now trying to help Himachal, by suggesting that it should demand royalty from Punjab, said Amarinder.
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, November 10

Chief Minister Harish Rawat has announced a corpus fund of Rs 1 crore to start the Lakhi Shah Banjara scholarship for meritorious students of the state. He added sufficient funds would be provided for improving the social and economic status of residents belonging to the minority communities. He was speaking at a function organised by the Minority Welfare Department to launch welfare schemes for the minority communities here today.

The Chief Minister said Uttarakhand is the first state in the country to sanction funds for the construction of boundary walls of graveyards. The scheme would be intensified soon. Efforts were on to provide benefit to the maximum number of people belonging to the minority community, he added.

He said the government was committed to improving the social and economic status of minority communities. The start-up scheme would be started soon for minority communities. He added more schools and colleges would be opened for girls and more scholarships would be provided to them.

Parliamentary Secretary Rajkumar, State Minority Commission Chairman NS Bindra, Secretary Bhupinder Kaur, Satish John and Iqbal Bharti were present.
WASHINGTON, November 10

President-elect Donald Trump held a 90-minute meeting on Thursday with US President Barack Obama in the White House to discuss the transition of power after his stunning election victory.

Sitting next to the Democratic President in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters: We really discussed a lot of situations, some wonderful, some difficulties.

He said Obama explained some of the great things that have been achieved, but did not elaborate.

Trump, elected on Tuesday to his first public office, said he looked forward to more meetings with Obama. He noted it was the first time the two met face-to-face, and the White House said the meeting occurred with no staff present.

Obama offered to do everything he can to help the New York businessman succeed when he takes office on January 20 and urged the country to unite to face its challenges.

We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed, then the country succeeds, Obama said at the end of the meeting.

The relaxed, cordial demeanour between Obama and Trump in front of the cameras was in stark contrast to the months of harsh rhetoric that came from both during a bitter election campaign.

Trump used Obama as a punching bag during his campaign speeches, repeatedly calling the President's policies  from healthcare to an Iran nuclear deal  a "disaster." For his part, Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attacked Trump as being unfit to hold the office of president. But immediately following Trump's unexpected election victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, the tone changed.

Obama had said despite his major differences with Trump, he would follow the lead of former Republican President George W. Bush in 2008 and ensure a smooth handover to Trump.

In a possible pivot by Trump, controversial campaign proposals, including his call to ban Muslims from entering the US, have been removed from his campaign website.  Reuters
Islamabad, November 10

Donald Trumps surprise election as US President has Pakistanis wary that he may accelerate what they see as a shift in American policy to favour arch-foe India in the long rivalry between nuclear-armed neighbours, analysts said on Wednesday.

Historical allies in the region, Islamabad and Washington have seen relations sour over US accusations that Pakistan shelters Islamist militants, a charge Pakistan denies. They hit new lows in May when a US drone killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban movement on Pakistani territory.

At the same time, Pakistans ties with traditional rival India have also deteriorated this year, with India saying Pakistan-based militants killed 19 of its soldiers in an attack on an Army base in Uri.

To many Pakistanis, Trumps anti-Muslim rhetoric  he once proposed banning Muslims entering the US  and business ties to India are signs that his administration could shift further toward New Delhi.

America will not abandon Pakistan, but definitely Trump will be a tougher President than Hillary Clinton for Pakistan, said Hasan Askari Rizvi, Lahore-based foreign policy analyst.

I think India will have a better and smoother interaction compared to Pakistan. Trump has yet to lay out a policy for South Asia.  Reuters
New York, November 10

Hundreds of thousands of angry Americans took to the streets across the US to protest against Donald Trumps win in presidential polls with demonstrators holding vigils, lighting bonfires and blocking traffic while shouting slogans like Not my President and No Fascists USA.

People from all ages, faiths and nationalities assembled at landmark locations in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, California, Colorado, Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, Atlanta, Austin, Denver, San Francisco and other cities, protesting against Trump, barely a day after the 70-year-old businessman registered a stunning victory in the polls against Hillary Clinton.

The protesters were seen walking on roads and highways between moving traffic, holding a multitude of placards and expressing their resentment for Trump through slogans such as No more Hate and Trump is not our President.

In Washington, protesters gathered outside the White House. A candlelight vigil was also held outside the White House on Wednesday evening.

In New York, protesters walked about 40 streets from 14th Street to Fifth Avenue, where Trumps campaign headquarters The Trump Towers is located. Streets surrounding the towers were completely shut off due to the protests.

Thousands of protesters blocked entry to the Trump Tower in downtown Chicago.

Angry against the election of Trump as the president of the country, they held a protest rally in Chicago downtown.

No Trump, No KKK, No Fascists USA and Not my president! were some of the chants shouted by those participating in the rally.

Im disappointed, shocked, a little panicked for my friends and family--for everything that will be unleashed, the hate that will be unleashed, Marion Hill, 22, who joined thousands who amassed outside the Trump Tower in downtown Chicago, told The Chicago Tribune.

Some Californians also took to the social media and the state Capitol to voice their opinions that California should secede from the United States after Trump's win. #Calexit was trending nationally.

In the polls, Clinton had won California, pocketing 55 electoral college votes.

Hundreds massed in downtown Seattle streets with many holding anti-Trump and Black Lives Matter signs and chanting slogans, including Misogyny has to go and The people united, will never be defeated.

Five people were shot and injured in an area near the protest. However, police said the shootings and the demonstration were unrelated.

In Austin, media reports said protesters blocked a highway, while protesters gathered in downtown Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles, demonstrators held aloft a burning effigy of Trump.

KPIX TV reported that in Oakland and California, protesters lit fires in the street and stood around them chanting.

One member of the crowd near the White House held an upside-down American flag, alongside the LGBT rainbow flag, in silent protest, a media report said.

Kelly Lopez, a young Latino said, she had been upset since morning when it was clear that Trump would be the next US President. She said a person who throughout his campaign had resorted to racism, bigotry, fascism and insulting women and minorities, could not change overnight and say that he would work for all American people.

You have based your entire electoral race on bringing down people, you cannot suddenly change that, she said.

John Jacob, referring to Trumps victory speech, said he did not trust Trump when he said he would bind the wounds of division.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

How does he take back everything he said in his campaign and the debates, Jacob said, adding that Trump did not have the experience or the intelligence of Clinton.

A young African American student Elaz Iben said Trump would be president of the country for the next four years and while I will respect the institution of the presidency, I will also respect my right to protest.

The protests in the city as well as across other parts of the country were organised by a group called Socialist Alternative.

The victory of Donald Trump is being met with shock, fear, and anger. Especially for immigrants, Muslims, people of colour, women, and other oppressed people who Trump has singled out for attack, the question of how to defend themselves against the coming attacks is sharply posed, the group said.

It urged people to come together and demonstrate their mass opposition to Trump.

Build a wall around Trumps bigoted agenda, the group said on its Facebook page.

The group said the protests must be the beginning of coordinated nationwide mobilisations to organise millions into a massive grassroots movement. PTI
WASHINGTON, November 10

President-elect Donald Trump held a 90-minute meeting on Thursday with US President Barack Obama in the White House to discuss the transition of power after his stunning election victory.

Sitting next to the Democratic President in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters: We really discussed a lot of situations, some wonderful, some difficulties.

He said Obama explained some of the great things that have been achieved, but did not elaborate.

Trump, elected on Tuesday to his first public office, said he looked forward to more meetings with Obama. He noted it was the first time the two met face-to-face, and the White House said the meeting occurred with no staff present.

Obama offered to do everything he can to help the New York businessman succeed when he takes office on January 20 and urged the country to unite to face its challenges.

We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed, then the country succeeds, Obama said at the end of the meeting.

The relaxed, cordial demeanour between Obama and Trump in front of the cameras was in stark contrast to the months of harsh rhetoric that came from both during a bitter election campaign.

Trump used Obama as a punching bag during his campaign speeches, repeatedly calling the President's policies  from healthcare to an Iran nuclear deal  a "disaster." For his part, Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attacked Trump as being unfit to hold the office of president. But immediately following Trump's unexpected election victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, the tone changed.

Obama had said despite his major differences with Trump, he would follow the lead of former Republican President George W. Bush in 2008 and ensure a smooth handover to Trump.

In a possible pivot by Trump, controversial campaign proposals, including his call to ban Muslims from entering the US, have been removed from his campaign website.  Reuters

What Team Trump may look like

Donald Trumps early list of potential appointments to top positions appears to reward people who were loyal to him after a campaign in which many Republican Party leaders kept their distance. Here are some of the possible executive appointments:

Secretary of State: Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of House of Representatives/ Tennessee Senator Bob Corker

Attorney General: Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor of New York and prosecutor

Defence Secretary: Jeff Sessions, Alabama senator

Chief of Staff: Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee chief

Press secretary: Sean Spicer, Republican National Committee senior strategist

Senior Adviser: Kellyanne Conway, Trumps campaign manager

CIA director: Mike Rogers, ex-chief of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

US ambassador to UN: Richard Grenell, a former spokesman for US at the UN/Peter King ,New York Republican Representative




The Annual General Meeting in Team Tankers International Ltd. was held today, 10 November 2015, at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club, 76 Pitts Bay Road, HM08, Bermuda.

All resolutions were adopted in accordance with the proposals set out in the notice of the meeting 18 October 2016.

The minutes of the Annual General Meeting is attached hereto.

The Board of Directors

Team Tankers International Ltd.

Hamilton, Bermuda

Questions should be directed to:

Hans Feringa: President and CEO

T: +1 203 221 3420

Kevin Kilcullen: CFO

T: +1 203 221 3433

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
President-elect Donald Trump has grand plans for infrastructure, but how will he and Congress fund them? Image via Twiiter @realDonaldTrump

While roughly half the electorate is still reveling in a historic presidential victory and the rest is reviling it, the brass-tacks business of transitioning from the outgoing Obama to the incoming Trump Administration is already under way.

Once Donald Trump is sworn in on Jan. 21st as the 45th President of the United States, it will be the first time since 2011 that one party has occupied the White House and controlled both the House and Senate.

So, there will be lots of jockeying among key Republicans both those previously for or against Trump-- and non-GOP Trump supporters for power in the roughly 10 weeks left until Inauguration Day.

But since President-elect Trump has never been in lockstep with Republican orthodoxy, let alone with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) who barely endorsed the President-elect, theres no way of telling now how their visions of governing jointly will ultimately turn out.

The handing over of the presidency began when President Obama on Nov. 9 pledged that he and his staff will work as hard as we can to make sure that this is a successful transition for the President-elect. Much earlier that day in his acceptance speech, Trump called for America to bind the wounds of division.

Right after describing the electoral support he had received as a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs, Trump pivoted to a brief rundown on specific policies he will pursue in which he noted infrastructure right off the bat.

We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals, Trump stated. We're going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none, and we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.

The only published specifics on how the next President will accomplish that appear on his campaign website, where a policy plan declares that Trump will rebuild infrastructure via a deficit-neutral plan of infrastructure tax credits. A key albeit nebulous part of that plan aims to refocus government spending on American infrastructure and away from the Obama-Clinton globalization agenda.

Trump also promises to provide maximum flexibility to the states for infrastructure projects. In addition, his plan echoes a core element of Franklin Roosevelts New Deal in that Trump aims to create thousands of new jobs in construction, steel manufacturing, and other sectors to build the transportation, water, telecommunications and energy infrastructure needed to enable new economic development in the U.S., all of which will generate new tax revenues.

On the other hand, he sounds more like the business executive he has been for decades with his call for funding infrastructure by leveraging new revenues and working with financing authorities, public-private partnerships, and other prudent funding opportunities.

Trump also wants to employ incentive-based contracting to ensure projects run on time and on budget and to link increased investments with positive reforms to infrastructure programs that reduce waste and cut costs.

Trucking, if not every industry (and motorist) in the country, cant argue with such a full-throated commitment to infrastructure. That the Trump plans heavy reliance on public funding, a.k.a. user fees and tolls, will be so warmly received by trucking advocates and other major industry lobbies is far less certain.

Certainly, it is highly likely that less regulation will be generated by Executive Branch agencies under Trump. Less certain is whether any rulemakings still in the pipeline, such as the GHG/MPG Phase 2 rules, will be delayed or simply abandoned outright. Given the reaction to Trumps victory by Friends of the Earth, there is real concern among environmental advocates that little to no action on climate change will be taken by the Trump Administration.

Technicalities aside about whether President-elect Trump can remove the U.S. from the Paris [climate change] agreement, its clear that for the next four years, the U.S. government is unlikely to be a partner in global climate action, said Friends of the Earth's U.S. climate and energy director, Benjamin Schreiber.

The U.S. will likely make international climate protection efforts more difficult and that is why the rest of the world can no longer wait for U.S. action," he said. "Friends of the Earth U.S. is calling on the world to use economic and diplomatic pressure to compel U.S. leaders to act.

While some household GOP names like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as Attorney General among other candidates for cabinet posts have been publicly bandied about, there has yet to be any mention of a possible nominee for secretary of transportation. One interesting potential pick being talked up, by the way, is Forrest Lucas, co-founder of Lucas Oil, for Secretary of the Interior.

Regardless of who joins the Trump cabinet, major lobbies, such as the American Trucking Associations, will keep pushing their respective agendas on Capitol Hill. So, for example, any new safety-related rules sought by the trucking industry, such as speed limiters on trucks or hair-testing for driver drug use, legislated into law as Congressional mandates, will have to be enacted by the Trump Administration.

ATA and other trucking advocates could find common ground with President-elect Trump on some issues. ATA President and CEO Chris Spear said the lobby looks forward to working with Trump on a host of issues, including long-term, sustainable infrastructure funding, tax reform, and fair and free trade.

Working with Trump on the latter issue may take some doing as Trump did campaign heavily and harshly against free trade agreements, including the existing NAFTA accord with Canada and Mexico and the yet-to-be-ratified Trans Pacific Partnership.

Speaking about international trade just last month, ATAs Spear said that any attempt to reopen or threaten this longstanding [NAFTA] agreement could have dire repercussions on our industry. And not adopting TPP will undoubtedly will push those potential Asian Rim partners towards a future agreement with China. America relies on free trade and trucking is key.

Trump, of course, also got good news about the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The House remains solidly in GOP hands while the Republicans held onto their Senate majority.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) tamped down expectatons of massive change under single-party rule in remarks he made during a Nov. 9 press conference. "I think overreaching after an election, generally speaking, is a mistake," McConnell said. "Nothing is forever in this country... Weve been given a temporary lease on power, if you will.

The real question going forward is whether Trump and the GOP leaders on Capitol Hill will see eye to eye and for long enough to pass major legislation, including all the nuances of how various measures will actually be funded.

For one big example, will trucking sign off on a highway bill that is largely funded by private sources? And free trade is an arena in which many Democrats lately have been sounding and acting more like Republicans long have and Donald Trump has not at least not when he was in campaign mode.
The Broken Arrow City Council at its special Monday night meeting discussed new utility rates for water, sewer and stormwater services in Broken Arrow.

The council put forward a plan that will be voted on at the Dec. 6 meeting.

Earlier this year, the City of Broken Arrow Administration completed the process of updating its operations and five-year Capital Improvement Plan for the Utilities Department. With regard to infrastructure reinvestment, the Administration identified a need for a total of $140 million worth of improvements to include: $26 million to improve our water system, $102 million to improve our wastewater (sanitary sewer) system, and $12 million to improve our stormwater systems.

"Major capital investments are needed to make our utility systems reliable, efficient and ensure we have the capacity to accommodate future growth anticipated in the next 10 years," said City Manager Michael Spurgeon. "This problem has to be addressed now, because our ability to provide high quality utility services to both current and future customers is vital to continued economic growth in Broken Arrow."

The City will pay for the utility systems improvements through the utility rates charged to customers and a possible General Obligation Bond that voters could consider in late 2017 or early 2018. Last year, the City hired the engineering consultant firm of Black and Veatch, which specializes in helping municipalities analyze costs for services delivered and establish appropriate utility rates. Black and Veatch, working with staff, has determined what Broken Arrow's water, sewer and stormwater fees should be in order to pay for the necessary utility systems improvements and the additional staff needed to maintain the systems.

Under the proposed plan, a typical residential customer using 7,000 gallons of water per month could see their water bill increase between $2.45 to $3.36 per month and their sewer bill increase between $2.31 to $3.57 per month. The stormwater fee will increase by $0.76. The plan calls for a rate increase once a year for five years. The City Council must approve the change before it goes into effect.

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY

The City's utility infrastructure includes a water production plant, two waste-water treatment facilities, six water storage facilities, 33 lift stations, two booster pump stations and approximately 1,400 miles of water and sanitary sewer lines. The City is also responsible for managing stormwater conveyance systems, so that stormwater runoff is transported to natural drainage ways.

A tremendous amount of utility infrastructure growth and expansion occurred in the late 1960s through the mid-1980s. Much of this early expansion is now aging and beginning to show significant signs of deterioration. Additionally, nearly 100,000 people have been added to our community in the last 46 years. In 1970, the population of Broken Arrow was almost 12,000. Today in 2016, it is nearly 110,000. This nine-fold growth has significantly impacted and stressed our utility infrastructure, coupled with the fact that a substantial amount of it is at the end of its useful life.

A stressed system can lead to service interruptions, which are not only costly to address, but also affect day-to-day life within the community. Some recent examples include:

* April 2016 - County Line Sewer Main collapse. Crews had to close the intersection at New Orleans and County Line for nearly three weeks, forcing drivers on a lengthy detour to work and school. It cost the City approximately $160,000 in repairs and fines.

* Fall 2015 - Oneta Road Sanitary Sewer Lift Station discharge. Outdated pumping equipment failed and staffed installed temporary equipment, which malfunctioned and caused raw sewage to be discharged onto the ground. ODEQ fined the City $5,625 for the unauthorized discharge.

WHAT THE RATE INCREASE PAYS FOR

The City's aging infrastructure has not kept up with growth. Capital improvement investments are needed to minimize service disruptions, ensure the system works as intended and comply with state and federal regulatory standards. As a result, rate increases are needed to fund the replacement of old sewer and water lines, upgrade the wastewater treatment plants, as well as pay the loan on the new Verdigris River Water Treatment Plant. The following lists some of the projects in the Capital Improvement Plan:

Water Project Highlights

* Improve supplemental water supply line connection with the Oklahoma Ordnance Water Works Authority (OOWA) in order to increase the supply of available water.

* Install upgraded water distribution lines to improve water delivery throughout the community.

* Construct new 2-3 million gallon water storage tank in south Broken Arrow.

Wastewater Project Highlights

* Construct Haikey Creek Lift Station Force Main improvements to capture peak wet-weather events, facilitate future growth and improve system reliability.

* Install Supervisory Control and Activation System (SCADA) to provide continuous monitoring of the 33 sewer lift stations and 2 water booster pump stations.

* Construct Oneta Road Sewer Lift Station modifications to improve the safety environment for city crews, improve lift station reliability, reduce potential overflows and reduce service interruptions.

* Replace County Line Trunk Sewer.

* Construct new Headworks and Degritter facility at Lynn Lane Waste Water Treatment Plant to improve treatment efficiencies and control odor.

Stormwater Project Highlights

* Construct multiple storm detention facilities throughout the community to improve stormwater conveyance.

* Construct improvements to the Broken Arrow Creek watershed.

* Construct improvements to existing detention facilities.

View the complete Capital Improvement Plan at BrokenArrowOK.gov/UTILITYCIP.

View a video showing some of the problems and Q&A with City Manager Michael Spurgeon: https://youtu.be/9m1u-KCwXg8
Approximately half of all the states earthquakes occur on unidentified faults, according to Oklahoma Geological Survey director Jeremy Boak.

Unless scientists can obtain seismic data from industry sources, experts wont be able to see faults that are causing a lot of the earthquakes, Boak said during a presentation Wednesday. While many faults have been mapped, he said, there are plenty more to find.

Boak spoke to a group of students for nearly an hour Wednesday afternoon at the University of Tulsa.

Its how we end up with fairly large earthquakes occurring in places we didnt necessarily expect them. Thats for sure, Boak said afterward. Whats interesting to me is that despite the fact that these bigger earthquakes are happening around the periphery of the earthquake zone, they havent expanded it. Its not growing, as far as I can see.

A 15,000-square-mile area in central and northwestern Oklahoma is defined as the region of interest that is subject to disposal well restrictions imposed by state regulators in response to induced seismicity.

The U.S. Geological Survey in March released a one-year quake hazards map that forecasts the potential for a damaging temblor.

The map was spot on in encompassing where the state-record magnitude 5.8 quake struck near Pawnee on Sept. 3 and the 5.0 next to Cushing on Sunday. However, the Pawnee quake rumbled on a fault that hadnt really experienced detectable seismicity beforehand, even though it was in an area of higher risk.

Boak said the OGS would like to obtain more sensitive equipment and implement software that would track much smaller earthquakes. By doing so, scientists then could gain a much better picture of where seismicity is occurring, as many microquakes are too small for current equipment to detect and fully catalogue.

Wed like to have a really high quality seismometer in every county  even 60 counties out of 77 would be good, Boak said. But thats about a $3 million purchase. Were trying to figure out if theres a way to get that proposal to industry and other various organizations.
Lithuanian English

AB Klaipedos nafta (hereinafter, the Company) hereby informs that the National Commission for Energy Control and Prices (hereinafter, the NCECP), has completed the planned audit of the Company in order to assess whether during the determination of the natural gas liquefaction price, a substantiated value of the investment of Liquefied Natural Gas (hereinafter - LNG) Terminal was used and it has approved audit results on 10th of November, 2016.

No major issues have been identified during the audit. The NCECP has identified an amount of EUR 132 thousand which had to be financed from the Companys own funds. Also it has identified that the Company has to include an amount of EUR 63 thousand into the LNG Terminal Project investment value which represents the cost of natural gas held as stock in the natural gas pipeline.

The NCECP will evaluate the impact of the said amounts to the natural gas supply security additional supplement to the natural gas transmission price when estimating the price of the Companys natural gas liquefaction (regasification) service for 2017.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called on the EU to make a final decision on Turkeys accession to the union.

Speaking ahead of an annual EU report assessing Turkeys progress on EU membership and visa-free travel due later in the day, Erdogan said: They shamelessly say that Turkeys EU negotiations should be reviewed. You are late. Review it as soon as possible.

But do not just review, make your final decision.

Turkey applied to join the union in 1987 and negotiations began in 2005. As part of a deal agreed last year to stem the tide of refugees to Europe, Turkey was promised a relaxation of travel restrictions for its nationals and an acceleration of its membership application.

However, since the July 15 coup attempt, relations between Ankara and Brussels have fallen to a low as Turkish politicians lament the EUs muted response to the attempted takeover and EU leaders criticize Turkey over widespread arrests and job suspensions in its wake.

Anadolu Agency
Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated the U.S President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday and voiced hope that ties between the two countries would be restored.

In a statement published on the Kremlin's website, Putin said Moscow also hoped to work with the U.S. to find "answers to the global security threats".

Putin also said that building a constructive dialogue between Moscow and Washington based on principles of equality and mutual respect "will be for the benefit of peoples of both countries and the world".

Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has also voiced hope that a more constructive dialogue would be established between Moscow and Washington following Republican Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election.

At a press conference in Moscow, Volodin said the Moscow-Washington ties up to now had not been friendly.

"I want to believe a more constructive dialogue will be possible with the new U.S. president. The Russian parliament will support all efforts in that way," he said.

During the campaign, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had lambasted Trump's seemingly positive statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a debate, she went further saying the Russian leader was supporting Trump because "he'd rather have a puppet as president of the United States."

Anadolu Agency
Move over Commercial TV, Public Broadcasters and Subscription TV -Community TV station Channel 31 is about to unleash its first ever one-hour drama series, Sonnigsburg.

The independently produced supernatural drama, will air for six weeks on C31 Melbourne and C44 Adelaide and on YouTube.

Ann Truong (Hard Target 2, Hunters) stars as a TV location scout who goes to visit her ex-girlfriend, in rural Mount Sunshine. While visiting, she hears stories of Sonnigsburg  a town that no one has visited for decades. But she discovers Mount Sunshine is haunted by the ghosts of its past -and her ex has gone missing.

The series also stars Ian Stenlake (Sea Patrol, Stingers) and veteran character actor Don Bridges (Neighbours, Blue Heelers).

It was developed over three years on a budget of just $30,000 by independent producer Fiona Bulle. The first $10,000 was invested by the Community Broadcast Fund, the second $10,000 raised through crowdfunding by Indiegogo, including a donation from one local Victorian business, Quest Payment Systems. The third $10,000 was self-funded by Bulle herself.

The production was filmed in former Victorian gold-rush town Walhalla. With a population of only 18 permanent residents, it has a reputation for being haunted.

When I started thinking about the show in 2013, supernatural drama wasnt something that Australian television made. Now weve got Glitch and The Kettering Incident, and Sonnigsburg sits alongside those  just with a far smaller budget, Bulle says.

Just before Community TV is forced to shift from Broadcast to Online, Sonnigsburg reminds us of the importance of platforms for emerging talent.

Even though C31 is moving to an online platform, theres something really exciting about premiering the show on television before moving to online streaming. Weve worked on web series before and this feels like a step up, even as the environment evolves around us, says Bulle.

Co-creator Keith Gow adds, Most of the people working on Sonnigsburg have never worked in television before, but have come to the project with varying levels of experience in film and theatre.

Channel 31 has given us the opportunity to learn how to craft a six-part series from the ground up. Its an essential step for us in our careers.

Bulle adds, I want to make television and I love one-hour dramas and I knew it was going to be a lot of work, but Ive co-produced a feature film before, so why not the equivalent of three?

It was harder than I thought it would be but it has been a fantastic learning experience and we have a show that were all proud of.

Melbourne: Channel 31 8:30pm Monday November 14th

Adelaide: Channel 44 10:00pm Monday November 14th

It will also be available on the C31 app and YouTube.
Virginia Trioli will host the special Q&A event to take place at the Screen Forever conference in Melbourne next week.

The event before producers will allow producers to discuss industry issues, with questions from delegates.

Confirmed panelists include: Russel Howcroft, Executive General Manager, Network Ten; Benjamin Law, Writer, The Family Law; Bruna Papandrea, Producer, Make Movies; Tracey Robertson, Chief Executive Officer, Hoodlum; David Taylor, Co-Managing Director and Producer, Playmaker; Jude Troy, EVP Acquisitions and TV Development eOne Films ANZ.

But it will not be available for broadcast.

We are privileged to have one of Australias finest discussion programs opening the conference. The ABCs proven Q&A format will allow us to debate the most important topics affecting our industry. said Matthew Deaner, CEO, Screen Producers Australia.

Whether it be the growing threat to the network business model posed by the internet, the future of Australian TV content regulation, the way forward for Australian feature film, or greater diversity on our screens, the session will set the agenda for a robust conference where we all seek solutions for a more productive future.
Industry conferences Screen Forever and the Australian International Documentary Conference are staying put in Victoria for a further three years, Film Victoria has announced.

Screen Forever conference will remain in Melbourne until 2019, while the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) is secured through to 2020.

Screen Forever 2016 commences next week at Crown, while the AIDC 2017 will be held in March at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

Minister for Creative Industries Martin Foley said, Victoria is a state that fosters talent and champions creativity, and strengthens opportunities for creative practitioners to build their business skills and networks.

Securing these two events demonstrates our national leadership and ensures that the local screen industry will have the opportunity to meet with, and learn from, the best, right in their own backyard.

Film Victoria CEO Jenni Tosi added, Film Victoria is delighted to continue its dynamic relationship with Screen Producers Australia and AIDC. The Screen Forever conference and AIDC are major events for our industry nationwide.

Having these events centred in Melbourne brings a strong focus to Victoria and the fantastic output of our screen businesses and talented practitioners.

Meanwhile the Logie Awards are confirmed until 2017 in Melbourne.
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP alerts investors in Supreme Industries Inc. (NYSE:STS) to the securities class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and January 3, 2017 Lead Plaintiff deadline.



If you purchased or otherwise acquired securities of Supreme Industries between July 22, 2016 and October 21, 2016 and suffered over $50,000 in losses, or have relevant information to the investigation, contact Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. For more information visit:

https://www.hbsslaw.com/cases/STS

or contact Reed Kathrein, who is leading the firms investigation, by calling 510-725-3000 or emailing STS@hbsslaw.com.

On July 22, 2016 Supreme Industries explained that their order backlog for the third quarter of 2016 is going to settle more towards the way it looked Q3 last year.

However, on October 21, 2016, the Company announced the order backlog was $58.1 million, which was down from the $74.4 million in order backlog at the end of last years same quarter. This news drove the price of Supreme Industries shares down by nearly 24% to close at $13.68 per share that day.

The price of Supreme Industries shares fell another 17% on October 24, 2016 in response to Cliffside Researchs report highlighting heavy insider selling leading up to disclosures of the Q3 backlog weakness: Heavy insider selling in STS is a canary in the coalmine that should not be ignored.

STS management knew Q3 2015 backlog was highly unusual and would not be repeated, said Hagens Berman partner Reed Kathrein. Insider trading calls this out.

Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Supreme Industries should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new SEC whistleblower program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 510-725-3000 or email STS@hbsslaw.com.

About Hagens Berman

Hagens Berman is a national investor-rights law firm headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices in 10 cities. The Firm represents investors, whistleblowers, workers and consumers in complex litigation. More about the Firm and its successes can be found at www.hbsslaw.com. Read the Firms Securities Newsletter, and visit the blog. For the latest news visit our newsroom or follow us on Twitter at @classactionlaw.
The Leninsky District Court of Sevastopol chose a pre-trial restriction in the form of arrest to three alleged members of a subversive and terrorist group of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukraines Defence Ministry at a closed hearing on Thursday.

All three men were arrested for two months, Interfax news agency reports, referring to the courts ruling.

November 9, the Russias Federal Security Service (FSB) detained the so-called "members of a subversive and terrorist group of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukraines Defence Ministry" who allegedly planned acts of sabotage at the military infrastructure facilities in Crimea.

According to a source, "the Ukrainians, who were detained in Sevastopol, are staff employees of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukraines Defence Ministry. According to the source, "they have already pleaded guilty and began to give testimony."

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The Ukrainian side in the Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the situation in Donbas insists that all Ukrainian soldiers held captive by Russian-backed terrorists in Donbas be released, Darka Olifer, Press Secretary of Ukraines representative in the Group Leonid Kuchma, wrote on Facebook.

I also heard a report by Toni Frisch, the OSCE envoy and humanitarian subgroup coordinator of the Trilateral Contact in Ukraine, on his visit to separate districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where he became familiar with the conditions of Ukrainian hostages detention. However, we insist on the release of people, not only on the access of international organization representatives to them, she wrote.

In addition, following the results of a political subgroup meeting, Ukraine again defined its position: elections in the uncontrolled areas of Donbas can be held only in line with the Ukrainian legislation, said Olifer.

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One Ukrainian soldier was killed and four servicemen were wounded in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in eastern Ukraine over the last day, Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Spokesperson for ATO issues Colonel Oleksandr Motuzniak stated.

Over the past day as a result of combat actions, unfortunately, one Ukrainian soldier was killed, four servicemen were wounded and two were injured during the tasks , Motuzniak said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Thursday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. iy
MORGANTOWN, W.Va., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Protea Biosciences Group, Inc., (OTCQB:PRGB) announced today that the Company has appointed David Halverson as its President.



We are pleased to announce the selection of David Halverson as President of Protea Biosciences, stated Steve Turner, Proteas Chairman & CEO. He added, David has led the successful development of our proprietary molecular information services business. He is building a strong and growing customer base, which now includes major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies; he is ideally suited to manage our business operations, as we position Protea to meet and lead the global demand for better molecular information, for improved pharmaceutical development.

David Halverson commented, I am honored to be appointed to the position of President, as we continue to grow the company and add amazing new capabilities to our expanding portfolio of proprietary Metabolic, Proteomic, Biopharmaceutical, and Mass Spec Imaging workflows. I have the highest confidence in our Company achieving the leadership position in the new molecular information services industry.

Prior to his appointment as President, Halverson served as Proteas Vice President and Chief Business Officer. Before joining Protea, Halverson was employed by Huntingdon Life Sciences in various capacities, including Head of European and US Sales. He has over 20 years of management experience in the pharmaceutical services industry, including serving as a Director of Sales for PPD Discovery and the Quintiles Preclinical Groups.

About Protea Biosciences

Protea Biosciences Group, Inc. (OTCQB:PRGB) is a leading molecular information company providing proprietary bio-analytical technology to the pharmaceutical and life science industries. "Molecular information" refers to the generation and bioinformatic processing of very large data sets, obtained by applying the Company's proprietary technology to identify and characterize the proteins, metabolites, lipids and other biomolecules which are the byproducts of all living cells and life forms.

Protea is a registered trademark of Protea Biosciences Group, Inc.




The National Agency for Prevention of Corruption (NABU) and representatives of the World Bank on Wednesday held a meeting dedicated to the e-declaration system in Ukraine, the agencys press service reports.

"Today [November 9] at the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption a meeting was held with the World Bank experts  head of the World Bank group David Bernstein and financial sector specialist Laura Pop, who are currently on a special mission in Ukraine. The sides discussed a road map" of cooperation for 2017 to improve the e-declaration system, reads the statement

In particular, the sides discussed the elimination of technical problems and the ways to improve the performance of a single state register of persons authorized to perform functions in the state or local government, in terms of verifying received declarations and developing methodologies of risk analysis

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The Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine suggests introducing the post of agricultural attaches, who will deal with the establishment of trade representations in the regions, which are of major interest for our exporters.

This was reported by the press service of the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine.

"Ukrainian agrarian sector provides today 40% of export earnings of the country. In order to boost the export of Ukrainian agricultural products, it is necessary to systematize the state support for Ukrainian producers. For example, it can be the establishment of trade representations in the regions, which are of major interest for our exporters," Deputy Agrarian Policy and Food Minister of Ukraine on European Integration Olha Trofimtseva said.

According to her, the presence of agricultural attaches within such trade representations is a necessity, given the importance of agricultural trade for Ukraine.

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Representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Ukrainian First Vice Prime Minister - Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv hold a meeting on Wednesday, November 9, the ministrys press service reports.

The IMF experts focused on the importance of further reforms in the sphere of tax department and customs, agricultural sector and energy markets. Also, the IMF representatives noted that the Ukrainian government should continue its work on creating better conditions for doing business in the country.

The sides during the meeting discussed key reforms being carried out in Ukraine and their influence on Ukraines international ratings and Ukraine's cooperation with international partners, in particular the International Monetary Fund, reads the statement.

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The European Union is set to support the program of reforms of various Ukrainian government agencies, including the central bank.

This is reported by the NBU press service following the meeting of NBU governor Valeria Gontareva with the G7 Ambassadors in Ukraine.

"The EU is set to support the program of reforms of various Ukrainian government agencies, including the central bank," Ambassador of the European Union, Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Hugues Mingarelli said.

According to him, the European Union has always sought to promote the harmonization of the legal framework in line with European standards, which is crucial for the continuation of the financial sector reform in Ukraine.

In addition, the G7 Ambassadors in Ukraine noted the real progress made by the National Bank of Ukraine in carrying out reforms related to macroeconomic stability, which is a prerequisite for the macroeconomic growth and the attraction of international investment.

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Mark Feygin, the lawyer of illegally arrested Ukrinform journalist Roman Sushchenko, says he will pay a working visit to Paris to meet with French officials to discuss the case of his client.

"I will travel to Paris on November 29 and will stay there till Saturday, December 3. Together with the wife of Roman Sushchenko, Ill meet there with public officials, Feygin wrote on Twitter.

Earlier, the lawyer informed that during his stay in France he would hold talks and inform the French side about Sushchenko case. In particular that the journalist accredited in France must be released.

As reported, Ukrinform correspondent in France Roman Sushchenko was arrested in Moscow on September 30, where he arrived on a private visit. He was accused of espionage, allegedly being a member of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate denied allegations of the Russian Federal Security Service.

The Russian court ruled at its closed hearing on October 1 to arrest the journalist for two months  until November 30.

On October 7, the Russian Federation officially charged the Ukrainian journalist with spying. Sushchenko denies any guilt.

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On Wednesday, Hungary sent 56 tonnes of humanitarian aid worth over 100,000 euros to Zakarpattia region and other regions in Ukraine, Radio Svoboda reports.

The consignment to Zakarpattia region contains food, school supplies, clothing and kitchenware, Hungerian Human Resources Ministrys State Secretary Miklos Soltesz said, launching the shipment in Budapest.

The aid to the other regions comprises hospital beds, medical equipment and vaccines, Miklos Soltesz said.

The consignment was put together by charitable organizations of Hungary.

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has met with newly elected UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres within the framework of his working visit to the UN Headquarters.

This is reported by the Foreign Ministry press service.

"The parties discussed the issues of further development of cooperation between Ukraine and the United Nations," the statement reads.

Guterres expressed his gratitude for Ukraines support for his candidacy in the UN Security Council and for invitation of the President of Ukraine to pay a visit to the country.

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English Swedish

The Swedish National Debt Office intends to publish its final policy on application of the Minimum Requirement of Eligible Liabilities (MREL) in the first quarter of 2017.

- The purpose of MREL is to ensure that it will be possible to manage a crisis stricken bank in an orderly manner and without any cost for the taxpayers, says Director General Hans Lindblad.

Parallel to the Debt Office's work to finalize its MREL policy there is an ongoing process within the EU to implement the globally agreed TLAC framework. TLAC has more or less the same purpose as MREL and the EU Commission is expected to present a proposal before the end of 2016. It is uncertain what impact this proposal, and the following EU process, will have on the Swedish MREL policy. Therefore, the Debt Office will await the Commission proposal before any further information on the MREL policy is communicated.

The Debt Office expects to communicate its MREL policy in the first quarter of 2017, at the earliest. At that time the Debt Office also intends to provide information about the further process on a subordination requirement.

Once the MREL policy is communicated, the concerned firms will have sufficient information to calculate their requirements and thus make preparations in advance of the individual MREL decisions that the Debt Office will make during 2017.

In April 2016 The Debt Office published a consultation document on the application of the Minimum Requirement of Eligible Liabilities. The consultation included policy proposals on the calibration of the amount of MREL and on how institutions are expected to comply with the requirements. The Debt Office also announced that a subordination requirement will be introduced in due course.

Since February 1, 2016 Sweden has a new crisis management framework which means that that the Debt Office can take control over a crisis stricken bank by means of process known as resolution, if such action is required to preserve financial stability. In a resolution the shareholders and lenders will be exposed to the bank's losses, not taxpayers. The lenders' liabilities will, in simple terms, be written down in the same way as in insolvency, albeit with certain exceptions. Debt write down (also known as "bail-in") will therefore become the central tool for handling bank crises.

In order to execute a resolution, banks must always have a certain amount of own funds and liabilities which can be written down in order to cover losses or reinstate the bank's capital base. The introduction of MREL is a key part of the EU Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive which was implemented in Sweden in the Resolution Act. The Debt Office, as designated Resolution Authority, will make decisions on the specificities of MREL.

Contact

Robert Sennerdal, Press Secretary, +46 8 613 46 94
NEW YORK , Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Alzheimers Foundation of Americas (AFA) Dementia Care Professionals of America (DCPA) division is proud to announce that Heather McKay, M.S., O.T./L., and a dementia care specialist at the Hospice & Palliative Care Center of Alamance-Caswell (AC) in Burlington, N.C., is the 2016 Dementia Care Professional of the Year. The honor is awarded annually to individuals who have demonstrated professional excellence in care, compassionate performance above and beyond expectations, and a dedicated commitment to individuals living with dementia.



It means so much to me to receive this award, said McKay. As I embarked on my career and was working with individuals with dementia, my grandmother was diagnosed with vascular dementia. That really helped shape my experience. I found myself sometimes taking off my professional hat and looking at it from the perspective of a granddaughterhow can I help these families and make caregiving less stressful?'

McKay oversees dementia support services for the Hospice and Palliative Care Center of AC, providing one-on-one consultations to help people in that rural area better understand the illness and its progression, identify resources and get support and counseling. She has worked in hospital, home health and community settings, and also consults on training for professional and family caregivers. She also does consulting and education for professional and family caregivers nationwide for Partnerships for Health in Hillsborough, NC. In this role, she develops and presents over 100 presentations each year.

Currently, there are more than 5 million Americans living with Alzheimers disease and related illnesses, said Charles J. Fuschillo, Jr., AFAs president and chief executive officer. It is critical to have skilled professionals who are specifically-trained in dementia care to help ensure optimal quality of life for these individuals and their families. Heather exemplifies the dedication and devotion to serving individuals living with dementia, their family, staff, and the community, which this distinction represents.

AFA has awarded Dementia Care Professional of the Year annually since 2007. Past winners have included doctors, support group facilitators, and program and executive directors of Alzheimers centers.

For more information, visit www.careprofessionals.org or call 866-232-8484.

About Alzheimers Foundation of America (AFA):

The Alzheimers Foundation of America, based in New York, is a non-profit organization that unites more than 2,600 member organizations nationwide with the goal of providing optimal care and services to individuals living with dementia, and to their caregivers and families. Its services include a national, toll-free helpline (866-232-8484) staffed by licensed social workers, educational conferences and materials, a free quarterly magazine for caregivers, the National Memory Screening Program, and AFA Partners in Care dementia care training for healthcare professionals. For more information about AFA, call 866-232-8484, visit www.alzfdn.org, follow us on Twitter, or connect with us on Facebook or LinkedIn.
ATLANTA, Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UPS (NYSE: UPS) today announced plans to invest in excess of $400 million to build a new regional package sorting hub on the west side of Atlanta. The new hub will be the third largest processing facility in the companys U.S. network.

Construction will begin this month on a 341 acre industrial site in Fulton County with support from Georgia, Atlanta and Fulton County economic development teams. The project is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2018 with 1,250 new employee positions operating on multiple sorting shifts.

UPS has proudly made its global headquarters in Atlanta for more than two decades, said David Abney, UPS chairman and CEO. This strategic capital investment will feature state-of-the-art technology. When combined with the strong transportation connections and talented labor pool that Atlanta provides, UPS is building flexibility to meet the growing needs of our customers and our business in Georgia, and around the world.

The new facility will feature the latest UPS sorting, processing and data capture technology. UPS compiles significant volumes of shipment status data as it moves packages through its transportation network. Using this data, the company provides industry-leading package tracking, the capability to seamlessly change delivery location to meet customer requirements and the flexibility to modify shipment routing in response to weather or other unplanned occurrences.

In the advanced 1.2 million square foot Atlanta facility, more than 100,000 packages per hour will be carried over 15 miles of conveyors using highly automated processing equipment. Six-sided laser label decode tunnels will rapidly capture package information from address labels. High-speed UPS Smart Label applicators will place labels on packages at a rate of 3 per second, providing UPS personnel instructions for proper routing and loading on local delivery vehicles.

In addition to sorting and processing, the hub will include a delivery vehicle center capable of dispatching more than 280 trucks for area delivery and pickup, and a UPS Customer Center for retail service. The facility will also operate onsite compressed natural gas fueling for delivery vehicles and large tractor-trailer rigs to service the local UPS alternative fuel vehicles fleet. The company is working with Majestic Realty Company to develop the Fulton County site to UPS specifications.

The new southeast region hub project is part of a multi-year UPS investment plan to modernize and expand the companys global network, including several new facilities and acquisition of new cargo aircraft.

UPS employs more than 14,000 people across Georgia in package delivery operations, ground freight, aircraft operations, data center management and contract logistics. Product and technology development, global transportation network planning and other corporate staffs are based in metro Atlanta.

About UPS

UPS (NYSE: UPS) is a global leader in logistics, offering a broad range of solutions including transporting packages and freight; facilitating international trade, and deploying advanced technology to more efficiently manage the world of business. Headquartered in Atlanta, UPS serves more than 220 countries and territories worldwide. The company can be found on the web at ups.com and its corporate blog can be found at longitudes.ups.com. To get UPS news direct, visit pressroom.ups.com/RSS.
WESTBOROUGH, Mass., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zensar Technologies, a leading digital solutions and technology services company, was cited in the September 29, 2016 Gartner report Hybrid IT Infrastructure Management and Cloud Migrations: Top Providers' Strengths and Weaknesses [G00313936], authored by analysts Claudio Da Rold and William Maurer.



Gartner recommends that sourcing managers Assess the strengths and weaknesses of providers of both traditional and cloud environments by leveraging the data provided in this research, which is based on reference organizations using these providers' services for assessing, managing, migrating, securing and optimizing hybrid IT.

Zensar received a rating of strong (based on 3 or fewer references) in the areas of AWS Skills, Azure Skills, Assess, Secure and Manage. Providers were rated, based on 303 client references, on a scale with strong being the highest rating an organization can be allocated.

Commenting on this citation, Sandeep Kishore, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Zensar Technologies said, Zensar is pleased to be cited in Gartners Hybrid IT Infrastructure Management and Cloud Migrations report. Kishore continued, Hybrid IT is one of the key tenets of digital transformation and this recognition reflects our expertise in this space. Through Hybrid IT solutions Zensar enables the stability of core systems of enterprises and also helps in their cross over systems and processes helping achieve their business objectives, and obtain Return on DigitalTM.

According to Gartner, "Decreasing prices and digital innovation are both forcing a rapid acceleration in cloud-first strategies in midsize to large organizations. The rapid migration of some of the workload and applications  formerly located in the company data center  to a private or public cloud is causing the rapid rise of hybrid IT infrastructures."

Pinaki Kar, President, IMS & Cloud Solutions, Zensar Technologies stated, Zensar continues to deliver differentiated automation and orchestration capabilities that lends flexibility to enterprises as they operate innovatively and securely within the realm of bi-modal IT. Kar continued, We enhance visibility of IT Operational metrics with a single pane of glass, which removes internal technology silos to ensure that our clients can remain agile and focus on their core business. We have enabled enterprises to visibly reduce their operating costs and improve operational efficiencies.

About Zensar (www.zensar.com)

Zensar is a leading digital solutions and technology services company that specialises in partnering with global organisations across industries on their Digital Transformation journey. A technology partner of choice, backed by strong track-record of innovation; credible investment in Digital solutions; assertion of commitment to clients success, Zensars comprehensive range of digital and technology services and solutions enable its customers to achieve new thresholds of business performance. Zensar, with its experience in delivering excellence and superior client satisfaction through myriad technology solutions, is uniquely positioned to help them surpass challenges around running their existing business most efficiently, helping in their legacy transformation, and planning for business expansion and growth through innovative and digital ways.

About RPG Enterprises (www.rpggroup.com)

Mumbai headquartered RPG Enterprises is one of India's largest industrial conglomerates. With over 15 companies in its fold, the group has a strong presence across core business sectors such as Infrastructure, Tyre, IT and Specialty. Established in 1979, RPG is also one of Indias fastest growing business groups with a turnover in excess of USD 3.2 Billion, 20000+ people and a global presence in over 100 countries.

Follow Zensar via:

Zensar Blog: http://www.zensar.com/blogs

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Zensar

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zensar-technologies

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Zensar

Safe Harbor

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in earnings, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, withdrawal of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, and unauthorised use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company.
Today is Election Day, marking the end of a fierce, long battle between two of the most controversial political figures in the US history, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. While many Americans are busy casting their ballots, tech companies are also on the go, launching digital tool aimed at helping people on how to get their vote.

Many of these high-tech companies, which range from big corporations to startup, are getting creative, launching digital tools to help from everything from guiding them to their polling places to providing a live coverage of the Election Day and poll results.

Tech giants such as Google, Twitter and Facebook have all rolled out services designed to help voters with everything they need to vote, from finding their polling station to following election results.

Even car-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft are also busy, offering promotions and free rentals to riders in some places. Car-rental startup Zipcar is also joining the party, offering its members use cars free-of-charge to help drive to their polling stations and to vote.

Alphabet's Google division has been very active and involved in this election cycle, offering key information like the numbers of seats in the House and Senate and even the exact numbers of electoral votes Clinton or Trump may need to win the election. The search giant is set to display the election results directly in its search engine in over 30 languages, thus providing everyone with the latest information about the election results.

YouTube, the video-sharing division of Google, will show election results, with live-stream news from media partners such as from NBC, MTV, and Telemundo.

Like Google, Social networking powerhouse Facebook is also getting into the Election Day action, offering a feature to help members develop voting plans. Facebook is harnessing its massive user base to come out with a most detailed information on how the candidates stand on the issues. In addition, Facebook also offers recent social media posts and campaign sites for review.

Twitter is also in the Election Day action, reminding voters to participate in the event. Using Twitter, Voters can now direct message @Gov to find their closest polling place and ballot information.

Another tech company that very busy this Election Day is Snapchat. The video and messaging app are offering its users election season coverage, in which the company displays election results, acceptance and concession speeches, and much more.

Tech companies have been very useful in the election cycle, providing different digital platforms for voters to express thoughts and feelings about each candidate, helping them in their voting decision.
In the aftermath of president-elect Trump's victory, let's not forget to give credit to the men and women who worked on the sidelines - the election officers who were there when voters came on election day and remained there until the last person cast his or her vote before closing time.

What was it like sitting on that table and facilitating? Aine Cain shares us her experience working for the 2012 presidential election.

"I signed up."

As a freshman in the College of William and Mary, an apolitical Aine got involved in a campus group that reaches out to students. She later got an email saying there was a need for volunteer election officers.

Ms. Cain signed up because she thought it would be fun and getting a pin is cool.

Aine was assigned to a polling station in Williamsburg,Virginia and here's a brief description of her work.

A 5:00 a.m. call time

While polling stations would open later and may even have varying times, the volunteers we're required to report to work at 5:00 am wearing their appropriate business casual attires.

"I was an absentee voter then."

Since the work would last the whole day on election day, Aine had to vote ahead of election day and submit an absentee ballot. Plus, her polling precinct was on the other side of town from the polling station she was manning.

Paid work and free food

Just like other fair and honest jobs, the volunteers were paid $100 for the work they rendered on election day. There was even a $25 bonus for attending the training session. Plus, there's free food. Chips, sandwiches, cookies and drinks were given away for lunch and dinner.

The work's really not that hard

For the most part, Aine said the job is pretty easy. Volunteers just need to check the voter's photos from their IDs and make sure that the details on their polling match. There will be times the crowd will grow and telling people they were in the wrong voting precinct can be stressful.

Talking politics is not allowed

Poll officers were not allowed to bring political materials or talk politics on election day. Aine thinks it's only natural that they put politics aside and just help people cast their votes.

It's a long work day

From the 5:oo a.m. call time some polling stations would close at 7:00 p.m. just like the one in Williamsburg. However, people who came out and are waiting in line for their turn will be allowed to cast their ballots before polling officers can close up the precinct and start packing up. Officers are not allowed to leave until everything is done. Aine said she wasn't included in the counting process so she got to go home at about 10:00 p.m

But there's the pin

The work isn't exceptionally hard but it was a long day and one awesome thing our young volunteer got from the experience was her pin.
Donald Trump has won the recent United States Presidential election but the stock market and US dollar fell upon hearing the news. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley is nervously waiting for Trump's policy on various technology issues.

Trump To Reverse Trade Imbalance With China?

Marshall School of Business spokesperson Gregory Autry believes that Trump will impose policies that will convince U.S. manufacturers to remove their factories in China and returned them back home. He and his allies will also seek to punish China for alleged "unfair trade practices," according to Techcrunch.

Industry observers predict that the U.S. may resort to protectionism, which may result in a trade war with the Chinese mainland. A lot of American businesses have huge investments in China that may be jeopardized if a trade war between the two countries erupts.

H-1B Visa Program To Be Revoked?

Silicon Valley is known for hiring thousands of foreign tech workers from abroad. Many of them were able to work in the U.S. by virtue of the special visa; however, the H1-B visa program may be removed under a Trump presidency. The removal of the said program may hamper the development of current and future projects, according to some industry observers. Silicon Valley companies would need to find a way on how to fill the vacant positions in case Trump stops the entry of foreign tech workers.

Space and Aerospace Industry To Thrive Under Trump?

Trump has earlier mentioned his desire to deregulate and reduce the taxes of certain industries including space and aerospace. Lesser regulations and lower taxes are positive incentives for any industry. It may also encouraged American capital invested abroad to come bank, according to Reuters.

Conclusion

It's too early to tell the impact of a Trump presidency on Silicon Valley and the rest of the technology sector. Surprisingly, Trump issued a conciliatory Tweet when it was clear that he won the election. The American tech sector and the rest of the country are waiting for Trump's next move.
Several media outlets have already shared their rankings of the top universities and colleges in the United States. However, some question whether a school's quality of education can actually be quantifiable.

It was previously reported that University of California - Berkeley is deemed as the best public national university in the United States. University of California - Los Angeles and the University of Virginia both came in second place on the list.

Stanford University is on a roll this year as it topped Reuters' list of the World's Most Innovative Universities. The school has also recently nabbed the top spot in The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education's college rankings list.

Meanwhile, according to The Washington Post, there should be a better way to assess the quality of a certain college or university. It was noted that every college right now claims to have a "unique" style of education to prepare its students for the real world.

However, the publication added that with more and more people earning their bachelor's degree, employers appear to be losing their trust in it. There are companies who have opted to choose certain campuses where workers can utilize tuition benefits instead of just giving them a blank check that they can use anywhere.

Higher education officials are said to be currently discussing another approach that is expected to help students and parents assess the quality of colleges better. This would be an audit on the assertions that colleges claim about their quality.

Brendan LeBlanc, a partner at Ernst & Young in Boston, said that an organization's claim can be audited as long as it has objective, suitable criteria for measurement. This is similar to non-financial audits such as for cybersecurity and sustainability.

"For an audit to work there has to be trust and confidence that the same rules and standards are being applied so that someone can make a judgment," LeBlanc added. "It's providing some credibility to a process."
Students who are working at the same time may opt for a community college as they juggle both work and education. Community colleges are able to provide more personalized attention as well as become a stepping stone toward a four-year institution.

U.S. News reported that going to a community college may be the right decision for some high school graduates. However, they should also be aware that the environment in this type of school is different from a traditional four-year college because of the following reasons.

Oftentimes, community colleges are commuter schools

Students at community colleges will not be able to experience living inside the campus because majority of these institutions can't provide housing. Some students find this as a challenge to getting involved with the school community.

The student population is more diverse

It was previously reported that community colleges are offering more support for international students with orientations, peer mentors as well as on-campus housing, among others.

Aside from racial diversity, community college students also tend to be older than the usual college students. A lot of students work and some have families as well.

It's more challenging to get involved at a community college

While these institutions have the same extracurricular activities as traditional four-year colleges and universities, many students are unable to join because of their work.

Michael Cunningham, dean of students at the Community College of Rhode Island, revealed that it is a challenge to have busy students meet up for non-classroom activities and programs.

Community colleges are more in tune with its local communities

Cunningham added that the campuses for his community college even have differences.

One campus is smaller and urban. Here, traditional college-aged students spend a lot of time in the campus. On the other hand, students at the two suburban campuses only attend school to do what they need to do and then leave. Another campus, which is focused on rehabilitative health sciences, has slightly older students who come to school at night after working during the day.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The 13th Annual World Aquatic Health Conference (WAHC) saw a surge of attendees throughout the two and a half-day conference held in Nashville, Tennessee. The National Swimming Pool Foundation (NSPF) hosted the successful event at the Sheraton Music City Hotel from October 19-21, 2016.

This year's WAHC had 412 attendees, including 158 first time attendees. "NSPF offered new incentives in order to reach more people to convey the value and benefits of aquatics. It concluded in more than 60 additional registrations," stated NSPF Chief of Marketing and IT Officer, Alex Antoniou, PhD. "The feedback from both attendees and sponsors was resoundingly positive; WAHC 2016 was by far one of the best we've had."

The 13th annual WAHC was the largest on record and the team intends to continue its momentum into the next year for the 14th Annual conference. "The science presented helps us draw conclusions and actions that shape the future," reinforced Thomas Lachocki, PhD, CEO with NSPF. The WAHC is well-attended by representatives from aquatic facilities, service providers, consultant companies, parks & recreation, water parks, manufacturers, academia, associations, builders, community organizations, hotels, government, media, retail, distributors, and NSPF Instructors.

The next step is to reach more professionals from the medical/health fields. The last two WAHCs have included tracks and keynote speakers that focus heavily on the health benefits of water and aquatic life. Best-selling Author, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols gave a riveting opening keynote about his concept of "Blue Life" while providing references through his book Blue Mind. The idea of water improving the lives of others in numerous ways was continued with the second keynote, Professional Waterman, Bruckner Chase.

Conversationally, the Blue Mind lifestyle and how to not only live it, but also promote it, was continued by Nichols and Chase in the unique Health Benefits workshop. Collaborative minds came together to learn more about the health benefits of water. Inspiration gleamed through the eyes of the participants, resulting in the commitment of expanding water life to more people through clubs, facilities, and jobs. Every Blue Mind Workshop was packed with undivided participation, laughter, and joy, which is a perfect summarization of the lifestyle Nichols and Chase try to provide to the public.

Returning attendees, first-time attendees, sponsors, and speakers all learned new information that will help benefit themselves, their careers, and the industry. "I came to the World Aquatic Health Conference when it was held in Atlanta about 10 years ago," stated returning attendee Vonda Wooten, Rec Manager at Aquatics City of Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks. "With it in Nashville this year, I was approved to attend, which is great as I enjoyed it so much in Atlanta. I compiled so much information and I've used that information for the past ten years in my career; I wanted to get new information at this one located in my home state."

"The WAHC is one of the most educational conferences we have, if not the most educational conference that the industry has," expressed Troy McGinty, returning sponsor, Global Product Manager of Hayward Commercial Products. "The people that attend this conference have passion; they care tremendously about what they do. The attendees, speakers, and sponsors all participate so much in the WAHC because the type of people here have so many great topics that they're speaking on, along with the research done behind their presentations. It is a wonderful atmosphere in general."

The 14th Annual World Aquatic Health Conference will be held in NSPF's home state next year, in Denver, Colorado at the Omni Interlockenon October 18-20. Early registration will take place in April 2017. Learn more about the leading educational aquatics conference at thewahc.org.

About the World Aquatic Health Conference

This leading global aquatic research forum is tailored for people involved in all aspects of aquatics, those affiliated with aquatic facilities, pool and spa industry, service providers, consultants, parks & recreation, water parks, manufacturers, academia, associations, builders, community organizations, distributors, hotels, government, health/medical, retail, and media. Watch the video.

About the National Swimming Pool Foundation

We believe everything we do helps people live healthier lives. Whether it's encouraging more aquatic activity, making pools safer, or keeping pools open, we believe we can make a difference. NSPF offers products and programs that are technically sound, convenient, and beautifully designed. In 2012, we launched the Step Into Swim Campaign, a 10 year initiative to create one million more swimmers. In 2016, to further their mission, NSPF combined forces with Genesis, an educational leader for builders of residential pools and spas. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit located in Colorado Springs, CO., proceeds go to fund research and to help create swimmers. The National Swimming Pool Foundation has been keeping pools safe and open since 1965. Visit nspf.org, genesis3.com, or call 719-540-9119 to learn more.

Photos accompanying this release are available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=41857

http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=41858
English French

Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG

Limited Liability Company whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market

Registered office: Parc Industriel de Seneffe 1, 7180 Seneffe, Belgium

Company number: 0457.288.682 (RLE Brussels)

Press release

REGULATED INFORMATION

10 November 2016, 17.40

A - Article 15 of the Transparency Legislation: Evolution of the total number of voting rights

Publication in accordance with Article 15 1, section 1 of the Act of 2 May 2007 on the disclosure of major shareholdings in listed companies (loi relative a la publicite des participations importantes dans des emetteurs dont les actions sont admises a la negociation sur un marche reglemente et portant des dispositions diverses).

Following the reverse stock split of Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG SA shares (decided on 9 June 2016) implemented with a ratio of one new share/beneficiary share (ISIN BE0974300320) for ten existing shares/beneficiary shares (ISIN BE0003689032), the total number of voting rights (corresponding to the denominator) was modified by notarial act on 10 November 2016.

Thus, the new data on Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG SA's capital are the following:

Share capital: EUR 14,439,797.82.

Total number of shares granting voting rights: 2,330,000.

Total number of beneficiary shares granting voting rights: 502,500.

Total number of beneficiary shares granting voting rights, by class: 500,000 beneficiary shares of Class A; 2,500 beneficiary shares of Class B.

Total number of securities granting voting rights: 2,832,500 (new denominator).

Additional practical information in relation to the reverse stock split can be found in the press release of 27 September 2016 available on the website of Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG SA (http://www.bebig.com).

B - Merger by acquisition of the company Brachysolutions SPRL

Further to the acquisition by Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG SA on 26 August 2016 of 100% of the shares of BrachySolutions SPRL, the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders decided on 10 November 2016 to approve the short-form merger by acquisition of BrachySolutions SPRL in accordance with article 676, 1 and article 719 of the Belgian Company Code and as a result of which all assets and liabilities of BrachySolutions SPRL were transferred by virtue of law to Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG SA.

This press release is also available on the company's website.

All questions relating to this press release can be transmitted to: info@bebig.com.
UTSAs Mission

The University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.

UTSAs Vision

To be a premier public research university, providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.

UTSAs Core Values

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The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic Serving Institution situated in a global city that has been a crossroads of peoples and cultures for centuries, values diversity and inclusion in all aspects of university life. As an institution expressly founded to advance the education of Mexican Americans and other underserved communities, our university is committed to ending generations of discrimination and inequity. UTSA, a premier public research university, fosters academic excellence through a community of dialogue, discovery and innovation that embraces the uniqueness of each voice.
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Elis continues its growth strategy in Germany by signing an agreement to acquire Puschendorf

Puteaux, November 10, 2016 - Elis, the leading multi-services group in Europe and Latin America, specializing in the rental and maintenance of professional clothing, textile articles, hygiene and well-being appliances, announces the signature of an agreement to acquire 100% of Puschendorf Textilservice in Germany. The closing of the transaction is subject to standard regulatory conditions and is expected to take place by the end of the year.

Puschendorf is a family business which operates 5 laundries in Germany and will post annual revenue of c. 40 million in 2016. Its current manager, Carsten Puschendorf, will remain in his position and will bring his expertise and knowledge of the German market, especially for Healthcare.

With this transaction, Elis will strengthen its footprint in some German Landers where it had a limited presence, notably in the region between Lower Saxony (Hanover, Wolfsburg), Saxony-Anhalt (Magdeburg) and Saxony (Leipzig). In these regions, Puschendorf is the undisputed leader for the Healthcare market (hospitals and nursing homes) and has notably implemented an innovative tracking system for flat linen.

Elis, which intends to continue its industrial and commercial expansion in Germany, will have a network of 16 laundries in the country.

Commenting on this announcement, Xavier Martire, CEO of Elis, said:

"Elis continues to consolidate its footprint in Germany with a new targeted, value-creating acquisition. The acquisition of Puschendorf will strengthen the Group's network in the country and will reinforce its presence in the Healthcare segment, which is growing strongly in Germany. The rapid integration of Puschendorf and its c. 800 employees, together with the transfer of know-how should contribute to Elis' profitable growth trajectory.

The German market, the leading European market with annual turnover of more than 3 billion in 2015, remains very fragmented. Elis will therefore aim at further increasing its market share there, both through organic growth and acquisitions."

About Elis

Elis is a leading multi-services group in Europe and Latin America, specialized in the rental and maintenance of professional clothing and textile articles, as well as hygiene appliance and well-being services. With more than 21,000 employees spread across 13 countries, Elis consolidated turnover in 2015 was 1,415 million and consolidated EBITDA reached 446 million. Benefiting from more than a century of experience, Elis today services more than 240,000 businesses of all sizes in the hotel, catering, healthcare, industry, retail and services sectors, thanks to its network of more than 300 production and distribution centers and 13 clean rooms, which guarantees it an unrivalled proximity to its clients.

Contact

Investor Relations:

Nicolas Buron, Investor Relations Director - Phone: +33 1 41 25 46 77 - nicolas.buron@elis.com
Church News  October 20, 2022 LIGHT OF THE VALLEY LUTHERAN CHURCH Needing Answers We want God to be like FedEx and deliver overnight. Things dont happen that way, but in...

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Press release

Saint-Denis, November 10, 2016

Q3 2016 Results

Another material revenue improvement in Q3, declining 2.0% YoY excluding regulatory impact (-2.4% YoY including media assets on a pro forma basis)

Return to EBITDA growth

Continued fast FTTH/FTTB (8.9 million homes passed) and 4G/4G+ rollout (73% coverage)

Increase in FTTH/FTTB customer base to 1.97 million customers; ARPU increasing with successful content bundling

B2C mobile base and ARPU stabilizing from content bundling - now launched 7 new channels (including SFR Sport and BFM Paris) and adding new content in other areas

Improving B2B trends

Q3 2016 highlights

In the third quarter of 2016, SFR continued to pursue its strategy of investing in network and content.

Massive network investments

The massive boost in investment that began just over a year ago has delivered. For four quarters running, SFR has been the operator activating the most 4G sites, carrying out the largest deployment ever by a telco in France: 4,549 new 4G sites in twelve months. SFR now covers 73% of the French population with 4G/4G+ (up 13 percentage points in one year).

The FTTB/FTTH rollout continues at an accelerated pace as well, with SFR now totaling 8.936 million connections (delivering speeds between 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps).

Revamped service offerings including the best content

SFR finalized in the third quarter all of its new "content blocks" - SFR Presse, SFR News, SFR Sport, and SFR Play - which has extended our new service offering.

In particular, with the launch of our premium channel SFR Sport 1 in August (including the Premier League), the exclusive TV series "Medici, Masters of Florence" in late October (on SFR Play) and the local channel BFM Paris in early November (SFR News), SFR now offers an outstanding full range of innovative content, which will spearhead our sales push in the Christmas shopping season.

SFR also introduced a disruptive offering in mid-September: a smartphone rental scheme that enables customers to upgrade their devices every year.

Corporate transformation plan already underway

SFR also initiated its "New Deal" transformation plan, following an agreement with the Unions in the summer. This plan will enable the company to carry out a deep transformation to adapt to the realities of the French market and - above all - to simplify its organization and processes for a more effective customer service. The plan involves only voluntary departures.

In addition, Altice's ongoing vertical integrations (announced on September 5) of customer care specialists, Intelcia, and network technical services provider, Parilis, will enhance this simplification. Indeed, the integration of these activities will provide better control over the full customer journey, as well as increase the security of future infrastructure deployments at a time when their pace is increasing.

Proforma[1] financial and operating review

The focus for SFR Group is on improving network quality, customer experience, retention processes and content enriched service bundles (the "Altice Way"), which combined with improving market dynamics is expected to drive further significant improvements in revenue and EBITDA trends:

Revenue declined 2.0% YoY in Q3 2016 pro forma for recent acquisitions of media assets excluding regulatory impacts [2] , or 2.4% decline including these impacts. FY 2016 revenue trend still expected to be better than FY 2015 (-3.5% YoY), with another material improvement in Q3 2016 as revenue ex-media assets [3] declined 2.6% YoY (vs. -6.1% and -4.6% in Q1 and Q2 2016 respectively);

, or 2.4% decline including these impacts. FY 2016 revenue trend still expected to be better than FY 2015 (-3.5% YoY), with another material improvement in Q3 2016 as revenue ex-media assets declined 2.6% YoY (vs. -6.1% and -4.6% in Q1 and Q2 2016 respectively); Return to fixed B2C revenue growth in Q3 2016 (+1.3% YoY), driven by fixed ARPU growth of 4.2% YoY with a full quarter of benefit from the content and bundling initiatives implemented in May 2016 (blended fiber/DSL ARPU increased to 37.3 in Q3 2016 compared to 35.8 in Q3 2015). Continued fiber customer net additions (+44k) in Q3 2016, in line with prior quarter but significant improvement in September with launch of new SFR Sport channels (including Premier League content) and enhanced "back to school" offers. Improving execution on fiber migrations supported by insourcing SFR's main technical services provider, and rolling out new customer premise equipment. We are improving customer experience to reduce churn and adding new content to convergent offers (full benefit expected from 2017). Total fiber and DSL customer losses worsened slightly (-75k vs. -58k in Q2 2016 and -42k in Q3 2015) as competition in the DSL market remains intense. SFR is increasing the competitiveness of its DSL offers to reduce line losses.

B2C mobile customer base stabilizing. Reduced mobile postpaid churn again YoY (B2C net losses of -73k in Q3 2016 vs. -82k in Q3 2015) with ARPU of 26.1 in Q3 up again sequentially (vs. 24.6 and 25.0 in Q1 and Q2 2016 respectively) and stabilizing YoY (-1.4%);

Continue to see benefits of accelerated network upgrades and content initiatives, as SFR is the clear fiber leader with rapidly improving mobile network service.

B2B revenue was down 4.0% YoY in Q3 but B2B mobile customer losses continue to improve as network quality and service improvements are reducing churn: Mobile B2B postpaid losses improved again in Q3 2016 to -21k from -41k in Q3 2015 and -46k in Q2 2016), although ARPU declined 4.6% YoY. There remains delivery backlog in the B2B fixed business and the decline of the legacy fixed voice business is still a drag; The focus for this business segment is still to reduce complexity and harmonize the sales approach, especially given multiple legacy B2B acquisitions which have yet to be fully integrated. SFR also has a new product pipeline in the B2B ICT segment which should remain a positive offset in the near term.

Wholesale revenue declined 3.1% YoY. Other revenue increased 4.8% YoY, driven by continued strong growth at SFR RadioTV.

SFR's Adjusted EBITDA returned to growth in Q3 2016, +0.6% YoY to 1,041 million[4] including recently acquired media assets, with margins expanding by 1.1% pts YoY to 37.1% due to ongoing efficiency programs. With our fiber-led convergence strategy and further planned cost transformation we remain confident in achieving our medium term target of 45% Adjusted EBITDA margin.

Pro forma key financial indicators for SFR are presented in the table below, assuming contributions from the recently acquired media assets for the entire reporting periods.

Key pro forma financial indicators Q3 2016 and Q3 2015 (restated) [5]

Unaudited

 million Q3 2016 Q3 2015

proforma Change Revenue 2 802 2 870 -2.4% B2C 1 880 1 922 -2.2% B2B 495 516 -4.0% Wholesale 324 335 -3.1% Other 102 97 4.8% Adjusted EBITDA 1 041 1 034 0.6%

The Group considers it relevant to present pro forma information to analyze the Q3 financial performance.

See the reconciliation table with the GAAP figures in Annex 1.

Key financial indicators for Q3 2016 and Q3 2015 (restated) [5]

 million Q3 2016 Q3 2015 Change Q2 2016 Revenue 2 802 2 773 1.1% 2 723 B2C 1 880 1 922 -2.2% 1 813 B2B 495 516 -4.0% 509 Wholesale 324 335 -3.1% 333 Other 102 NA 68 Adjusted EBITDA 1 041 1 038 0.2% 993 CAPEX 536 421 27% 572 EBITDA-CAPEX 504 617 -18% 421 Net Debt 15 008 12 474 15 121 Net Debt / EBITDA Ratio 4.0x 2.9x 4.0x

Incorporation of media assets into SFR's financial statements

On 25 May 2016, SFR announced the completion of the acquisition of Altice Media Group France (AMG). The minority voting stake in Next RadioTV (rebranded SFR RadioTV) was transferred from Altice to SFR as of 12 May 2016. The results for Next RadioTV and AMG are incorporated into SFR's Q3 financial statements. The key financial indicators (restated) table shown above reflects the consolidation of both media assets on this basis.

CAPEX

Total CAPEX spent by SFR Group in Q3 amounted to 536 million, an increase of 115 million compared to Q3 2015 reflecting accelerated investments in expanding SFR's 4G/4G+ mobile and fiber networks. The company's aggressive CAPEX plan will enable the company to remain the clear fiber leader in France and to continue to promote customer migrations from DSL to fiber.

Net debt

SFR Group Net Debt amounted to 15.008 billion at the end of Q3 2016, a decrease of 113 million from Q2 2016. The group's Net Debt to Adjusted EBITDA[6] ratio was 4.0x as of the end of September 2016.

On 17 October 2016, Altice N.V. announced it had successfully priced for its SFR Group SA credit pool 2.3bn equivalent of term loans with institutional investors split between: (i) a $1,790 million Term Loan, and; (ii) a 700 million Term Loan. The proceeds will be used to repay the entire amount of the: (i) $550 million term loan due June 2022; (ii) the $1,340 million and 500 million term loans due January 2023, and; (iii) 100 million of the aggregate principal amount outstanding under the RCF. The transaction improves SFR's debt maturity profile (from 7.3 to 7.6 years, pro forma as of September 2016) and reduces the weighted average cost of debt (from 5.3% to 5.2%).

Key performance indicators Q3 2016 and Q3 2015

Customers in thousands

ARPU in  Q3 2015 Q2 2016 Q3 2016 Mobile B2C Number of customers 15 083 14 577 14 489 ARPU 23.2 22.3 23.4 Fixed B2C Number of customers 6 359 6 234 6 159 ARPU 35.8 35.6 37.3

Key financial indicators 9 months 2016 and 9 months 2015 (restated) [5]

 million 9 months 2016 9 months 2015 Change Revenue 8 099 8 295 -2.4% B2C 5 456 5 689 -4.1% B2B 1 521 1 607 -5.4% Wholesale 952 999 -4.7% Other 170 na Adjusted EBITDA 2 884 3 034 -4.9% CAPEX 1 537 1 238 24.2% EBITDA-CAPEX 1 347 1 795 -25.0% Net Debt 15 008 12 313 Net Debt / Adjusted EBITDA Ratio 4.0x 2.9x

Annex 1

Reconciliation pro forma financial indicators Q3 2016 and Q3 2015 (restated) [5]

 million Q3 2016 Q3 2015 Restatement

Q3 2015 Next RadioTV and AMG Q3 2015 proforma Change Revenue 2 802 2 773 2 870 -2.4% B2C 1 880 1 922 1 922 -2.2% B2B 495 516 516 -4.0% Wholesale 324 335 335 -3.1% Other 102 97 97 4.8% Adjusted EBITDA 1 041 1 038 -4 1 034 0.6%

About SFR Group - www.sfr.com

SFR Group is the second largest telecoms operator in France with a turnover of 11 billion euros in 2015 and prime positions in all market segments, from consumer, to Business to Business (B2B), local authorities, and wholesale. Featuring the first fiber optic network (FTTB/FTTH) with 8.9 million eligible connections, SFR Group intends to stay ahead with its rollout plan to reach 22 million homes by 2022. Its leading mobile network covers more than 99% of the population with 3G and 73% with 4G/4G+. With regard to the Consumer segment, the Group operates under the SFR and RED by SFR brands. In the B2B segment, it operates under the SFR Business brand.

SFR Group is also adopting a new and increasingly integrated model around access and content convergence. Its new SFR Media entity consists of SFR Presse, which gathers all the group's media activities in France (Groupe L'Express, Liberation, etc.), SFR RadioTV including the group's audiovisual activities in France (BFM TV, BFM Business, BFM Paris, RMC, RMC Decouverte), and SFR Sport. Listed on NYSE Euronext Paris, SFR Group (SFR) is owned by Altice group (83%).

Follow the Group's latest news on Twitter: @SFR_Groupe

Contact Investor Relations : Nick Brown / +41 79 720 15 03 / nick.brown@altice.net

Contact Presse : Nicolas Chatin / +33 1 85 06 05 50 / presse@sfr.com









[1] Financials shown in these bullet points, unless otherwise stated, are pro forma defined here as results of SFR Group as if all acquisitions had occurred on 1/1/15, including Next RadioTV and Altice Media Group France media assets.

[2] Excluding retail roaming EU tariffs impacts in May 2016.

[3] Excluding acquired content and media assets for comparability (i.e. NextRadioTV and Altice Media Group France).

[4] Excluding media assets, EBITDA increased 0.7% YoY.

[5] 2015 EBITDA restated for Q3, increased by 5 million to reflect purchase price allocations of SFR and Virgin Mobile.

[6] Calculated as Net Debt / EBITDA (Last Twelve Months).





Attachments:

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Albus Dumbledore will be appearing in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them 2. It's worth noting a couple of things before we get to the list. The first is that we're going to assume that whoever plays Dumbledore will be from somewhere in the United Kingdom. That's yet to be confirmed, but we're going to ride with that assumption. Dumbledore is British, so hopefully he'll be played by a British actor.

The next is that Dumbledore would've been in his mid-forties in the 1920s, so (factoring in Hollywood's typically flexible view on actor/character ages) we're assuming they'll cast someone within the range of late thirties to early fifties.

Finally, we don't really know what Dumbledore's personality was like in his younger years. Maybe he was really just a 40-something version of the Dumbledore we came to know and love in the Harry Potter books and movies, but I'm inclined to think life-experienced shaped him into the eventual Hogwarts headmaster. So we can't really pinpoint an actor by personality type.

All of the above in mind, here's a list of (mostly) British actors who could fit the part of Albus Dumbledore.

Damian Lewis

I'm dropping this name first, because he's among my favorite choices for the part. At 45, Damian Lewis is the perfect age to play 1920's Dumbledore. Though he's spent a lot of his career on the small screen (Homeland, Life, Billions), he's no stranger to feature work, and certainly has the talent to take on a role like this. It's not hard to picture Damien Lewis playing the kind and compassionate side of Albus Dumbledore, and then easily shifting gears to be the formidable magical force if and when the time calls for it.

Jude Law

My initial reaction to the thought of Jude Law as Albus Dumbledore is that he'd be distractingly handsome, but that may just be due to my recent viewing of The Holiday. That said, I imagine Dumbledore was an attractive man in his youth, so I don't think looks should disqualify Law entirely. At 43, Jude Law is close enough to the right age. And he does have a certain spark to him that might work nicely for a younger Albus Dumbledore.

Daniel Craig

Can James Bond also be Albus Dumbledore? It's entirely possible that Craig's Bond presence might be too big to be ignored (not to mention his potential commitments to the franchise, whatever they may be), but I don't want to rule him out entirely. If they're aiming for a more serious Dumbledore, Daniel Craig seems like a contender.

Martin Freeman

If playing James Bond doesn't rule Daniel Craig out for the possibility of tackling another iconic role, then the same should apply to Martin Freeman, who boasts two pretty massive literary character credits in Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit) and Dr. John Watson (Sherlock). That said, I adore Martin Freeman, and there's something in his nature that makes me think he could be the perfect Albus Dumbledore.

Ewan McGregor

Ewan McGregor knows a little something about playing the younger version of an iconic white-bearded character, having played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Warsprequels. Assuming his Scottish origins (and accent) don't disqualify him from the role, Ewan McGregor is another great option for this part. We want our Dumbledore to be a bit serious and a bit mischievous, and it's easy to see McGregor filling those shoes.

Simon Pegg

If younger Albus Dumbledore is more playful than he is serious, who better to play him than Simon Pegg? He's age-appropriate for the part, and has a bit of that humor and warmth we've seen in Albus Dumbledore. If this isn't the right role for him, then hopefully he'll pop up in some other part in Fantastic Beasts. Pegg in the Potterverse is long overdue.

Michael Fassbender

I have a few reservations about Fassbender as Dumbledore, including that he's not actually British (he's technically born in Germany and raised in Ireland). For another at 39, he's on the young side for this part. Too young to have been the teacher of a character played by Eddie Redmayne? Eh, that's debatable. Much like Daniel Craig, I see Michael Fassbender as a more serious Dumbledore, and though I'm not sure I can picture it, I don't think it should be ruled out.

Hugh Dancy

Hugh Dancy is another one who may be a bit too young for this role, but just as I don't think that alone should rule Michael Fassbender out, the same applies to Dancy. Though he's currently on Hulu's series The Path, the Hannibal star seems ripe for a major movie role.

Benedict Cumberbatch

He's on the young side for Dumbledore, and he just took on a major Marvel role. And still, I refuse to leave Benedict Cumberbatch off this list. He's serious when he needs to be serious. He's funny when he needs to be funny. And I bet he could throw down in a wizarding duel if it ever came down to it. Plus, well we know he's got magic in him, thanks to Doctor Strange.

Tom Hardy

If there's a truly oddball choice for the role of Dumbledore, I have to believe Tom Hardy is it. Partially because he's a bit young, but mainly because even I couldn't picture it at first. And then I could, and I kind of liked it. Hardy has proven perfectly able to disappear into a role, and a bit of makeup could certainly age him up if necessary. It'd be interesting to see what he'd bring to this part.

There are other well known and talented actors out there. Among our runner-ups were Christian Bale, Dominic West, Tom Hiddleston, Matt Smith, Hugh Laurie and James McAvoy, but due to age and other factors, they didn't quite make the cut on our list. That's not to say we won't see their names floating around when the casting rumors start flying. At this point, it seems like the floor is open and this is a big opportunity, and anything is possible. While we might assume that Fantastic Beastswill cast a big name to match the fame and talent of Johnny Depp, who's reported to play Gellert Grindelwald, it's just as possible that some lesser known talent will snag the role. We'll have to wait and see.

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them arrives in theaters November 18. And J.K. Rowling's screenplay book for the film will be available the same day.


Due to overwhelming demand, the exhibit Les Folies Bergere: Entertaining Las Vegas One Rhinestone at a Time has been extended through Aug. 31, 2017, at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas.

A partnership between the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA)s News Bureau and the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas, the exhibit explores the beauty, artistry and extravagance of the legendary Folies Bergere show. The exhibit, which opened on June 11, 2016, has been moved to a larger exhibition space to accommodate nine additional costumes, a wardrobe cabinet and a larger video screen.

A staple of the Tropicana Las Vegas stage for nearly 50 years, Les Folies Bergere was Las Vegas longest-running Parisian cabaret show. Through its run, the groundbreaking show captivated audiences with its variety of classic music hall performances, including the world-famous cancan dance and the mystical showgirls.

The exhibit interprets the legacy of the production through photographs, costumes and personal narratives of those individuals who brought life to the show. The Las Vegas News Bureau and the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas provided rarely seen photographs and spectacular stage costumes from their respective archives. The exhibit at the Las Vegas Convention Center will continue its run through Jan. 15, 2017.
CLEARWATER, Fla., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On December 7th the Church of Scientology is hosting Charity Coalition Holiday Luncheon in the Fort Harrisons Crystal Ballroom. From a highlighted organization addressing homelessness, to a speaker educating on how to fundraise, guests will see how to turn an unfortunate situation into a prosperous one. Over 100 members of non-profit organizations will come together to listen to the speakers, network and enjoy the company of like-minded groups and individuals.



The Charity Coalition was first established just over two years ago in September 2014. Since then, Tampa Bay organizations have met in the Fort Harrison for this non-profit networking event.

The number of non-profit organizations and charities attending the bi-monthly luncheons are ever increasing, coming to more than 200 participating non-profits, said Dylan Pires, Community Affairs Director for the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization.

At each Charity Coalition Luncheon, there is a highlighted charity and an educational segment. The charity gets the chance to inform guests about what they do and how others can help. The educational segment covers various topics such as marketing, fundraising, promoting your organization and managing volunteers.

At this months luncheon, the featured charity is an organization that addresses homelessness in the Tampa Bay area. They work with the homeless and less fortunate to get jobs, help them recover from addiction, and get food and clothing.

The educational segment will address fundraising, a subject that continues to be requested in surveys of participating non-profits. A fundraising expert with over 30 years of experience and who has successfully fundraised over $4 million will speak on the topic.

The Fort Harrisons doors are open for non-profit organizations and charities to hold their own events.

To RSVP or for more information about the Charity Coalition, please email Dylan Pires at dylanpires@churchofscientology.net or call 727-467-6860.

About the Church of Scientology:

The Scientology religion was founded by humanitarian and philosopher, L. Ron Hubbard. The first Church of Scientology was formed in the United States in 1954 and has expanded to more than 11,000 churches, missions and affiliated groups, with millions of members in 165 nations. Scientologists are optimistic about life and believe there is hope for a saner world and better civilization, and actively do all they can to help achieve this. The Church of Scientology regularly engages in many humanitarian programs, such as anti-drug campaigns, human rights campaigns and global education programs. To learn more, visit www.scientology.org


The worlds only Playboy Club hosted a unique celebration for Playboy Clubs 50th Anniversary tonight (Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com).

Las Vegas photographer Erik Kabik sent over this great shot of Holly Madison dealing blackjack.

UPDATE: More photos added!

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com

Photo:  Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ www.erikkabik.com
The interactive education programme was co-hosted by BASF and the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training for the sixth consecutive year at Vietopia Edutainment Centre, in District 7.

This year, about 500 primary school students from Ho Chi Minh Citys District 7 and the rural districts of Nha Be and Can Gio learned about the critical role of water in their daily lives and discovered how chemistry can help water conservation.

Participants included students from schools in areas where clean water access is a very real issue for local residents, including Tan Quy Primary School in District 7, Duong Van Lich and Le Quang Dinh schools from Nha Be District, and Ly Nhon, Tam Thon Hiep, and An Thoi Dong primary schools from Can Gio district.

Kids had fun as they were guided through two experiments by BASF employees and university student volunteers.

During the water purification experiment, students learned how water is purified and turned into clean drinking water by using activated charcoal. The experiment underscores the value of clean drinking water and the importance of purifying wastewater produced by houses and factories before it flows back into the rivers and lakes.

The water storage experiment teaches students how a chemical compound called superabsorbent polymer can absorb water and offer a wide variety of applications in daily life, including baby diapers.

BASF Kids Lab is designed to help children learn from an early age about how chemistry can improve the quality of life and conserve natural resources.

Originated from BASFs headquarters in Ludwigshafen, Germany, in 1997 as part of the companys commitment to sustainability, BASF Kids Lab has been active in over 30 countries.

By the end of 2016, the programme will have reached out to almost 3,000 Vietnamese students thanks to the support of the Primary Education Division of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training.
Attar is a DJ and producer who dedicates a true passion to music. He has been bringing a festive mood to his sets all around the world and making a name as a remixer for great artists such as Gossip, Chrome Canyons, Giorgio Moroder, Propellers, Du Tonc, Citizens.

His debut E.P "The Fool" has been released in June 2013.

Meanwhile, famous pianist Jef Neve will arrive in Vietnam on November 15.
Multitalented: Versatile violinist Katica Illenyi will perform with the Viet Nam National Symphony Orchestra at the 15th European Music Festival. - photo jpost.com

In this 15th edition of the festival, Vietnamese audiences will once again have the opportunity to enjoy concerts by musicians from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden.

"The music festival is a bridge linking people, across the board," said the European Union Delegation to Viet Nams First Counsellor Delphine Malard at the press conference held in Ha Noi yesterday.

"It contributes to enhancing the reciprocal knowledge and mutual understanding among the people of the EU and Viet Nam".

This year, the renowned Hungarian violinist Katica Illenyi will be on stage opening the festival at Viet Nam National Academy of Musics Great Hall. She will be accompanied by the Viet Nam National Symphony and Orchestra. The festival will be opened by a German and Italian Jazz Trio at the HCM City Conservatory of Music on the same day.

Violinist Illenyi is a multi-talented Hungarian artist who plays the violin and theremin, sings and dances. She introduced the theremin to her audience in 2014, and is the only Hungarian artist currently playing the mysterious instrument in concert. The theremin is known as the untouchable instrument, as it does not need to be touched to produce a sound.

From Belgium, duo Barbara Wiernik and Nicola Andrioli will present the Complicity album. They will also perform the Vietnamese folk song Beo Dat May Troi (Floating Water Lily and Wandering Cloud) with Vietnamese an bau artist Nguyen Quoc Hung.

With a total of 16 concerts in Ha Noi and HCM City audiences will be fascinated by melodious and delicate tunes of different musical genres, such as classical, jazz, indie pop, blues and rock at the festival.

The festival will draw to a close in HCM City on December 1 with a classical concert by virtuoso Polish pianist Maciej Grzybowski, and in Ha Noi on December 3 with driving rock beats by the Grand Blanc band from France.

The annual music festival is jointly organised by the EU to Viet Nam, the Embassies of EU member states and the European Cultural Institutes. Bringing together musical talents from the European Union, the festival aims at reaching a diverse audience with varied repertoires to celebrate the richness and diversity of European culture.

Admission to the concerts is free of charge. Tickets can be reserved and obtained from November 15 at Goethe Institute, 56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street; LEspace, 24 Trang Tien Street in Ha Noi. In HCM City, they are provided at 18 Road, No 1 Cu Xa o Thanh, Ward 4, District 3; and IDECAF, 31 Thai Van Lung Street, District 1, HCM City.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks to supporters during election night at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York on November 9, 2016 after his win. (AFP Photo/Timothy A Clary)

In initial deals, London's benchmark FTSE 100 index shed 1.87 per cent to 6,718.85 points, Frankfurt's DAX 30 dived 2.9 per cent to 10,181.89 points and the Paris CAC 40 index slid 2.8 per cent to 4,350.07 compared with Tuesday's close.

Markets however quickly retraced ground within fifteen minutes of the open, with London standing just 0.50 per cent lower at 0820 GMT.

The Amsterdam AEX stocks index tanked briefly by 3.09 per cent on opening, but rallied to stand at 1.59 per cent lower at 443,02 points.

Republican Trump defeated his Democratic rival to become the 45th president of the United States, sending shockwaves across global stock markets.

"This is another black swan for European stocks - despite Brexit, markets were still not prepared for a Trump win and stocks will bear the biggest brunt of it," City Index analyst Ken Odeluga told AFP. "It is a long-term negative for global growth because of the protectionist instincts of President Donald Trump.

"Global trade will be curbed and the biggest multinationals face challenges to revenue growth as the expansion of globalisation itself comes into question."

Meanwhile, returns on German government bonds - seen as a safe haven during market turbulence - fell sharply as investors rushed to purchase the assets.

The yield, or the return on investment to investors, on 10-year Bunds fell to 0.098 per cent in early trading on the secondary market, compared to 0.188 per pcent at the close on Tuesday.
BETHLEHEM, Pa., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Internet of Things (IoT) is a sort of digital infrastructure. It connects devices, vehicles, buildings, and other items through electronics, software, sensors, and networks. The IoT allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems. The goal is improved efficiency and accuracy, and reduced costs.



Arkados Group, Inc. (OTC:AKDS) is a global provider of scalable and interoperable IoT solutions that focus on commercial buildings, factories, refrigeration units, and other machines for systems management and monitoring. Arkados cutting-edge industrial automation and energy management tools are comprised of software and hardware platforms that are the building blocks that enable the machine-to-machine communication necessary for various Smart Machines, Smart Manufacturing, Smart Building, and Smart City applications. The company works with customers to design and implement the most energy- and cost-efficient solutions in lighting, boiler, and combination heat and power systems.

Arkados has recently expanded to Ben Franklin TechVentures, an award-winning business incubator/post-incubator facility on Lehigh Universitys campus in Bethlehem, PA. Ben Franklin TechVentures is owned and managed by the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Arkados plans to conduct its core research and development activities at TechVentures.

Arkados develops innovative solutions on its Arktic software platform that enables sensing, data gathering and analysis, and machine-to-machine communication for smart building applications. The information gathered is used for measurement and verification, predictive maintenance, air quality, and energy management. Arkados systems help customers increase efficiency and reduce costs.

Ben Franklin TechVentures brings together entrepreneurs, Ben Franklin staff, and Lehigh faculty and students to accelerate the growth of the regions technology economy. The Ben Franklin team supports TechVentures resident companies with management guidance, business planning, strategic planning, and marketing counsel; connections to angel investors and venture capitalists; and assistance in preparing and improving funding presentations. Ben Franklin shares its new Innovation Institute meeting, learning, and conference facilities space with resident companies, local corporate partners, and programs. Ben Franklin TechVentures provides an entrepreneurial culture that fuels innovation, hastens the success of early-stage technology firms, and supports high-value job creation.

About the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania

The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania, an initiative of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and funded by the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority, creates and retains highly paid, sustainable jobs by linking companies with experts, universities, funding, and other resources to help them prosper through innovation. BFTP/NEPs strategy encompasses three key areas:

developing early-stage technology-oriented companies, helping established manufacturers creatively apply new technology and business practices to achieve industry leadership, and promoting an innovative community-wide infrastructure that fosters a favorable business environment for high-growth companies.

Since beginning operation, BFTP/NEP has helped to create 16,986 new jobs for Pennsylvania workers and to retain 23,761 existing jobs, to start 482 new companies, and to develop 1,433 new products and processes. BFTP/NEP clients have generated $1.4243 billion in follow-on funding. The Pennsylvania Ben Franklin Technology Partners network has returned $3.60 to the state treasury for every $1.00 invested in the program.

BFTP/NEP owns, manages, and is headquartered in Ben Franklin TechVentures, an award-winning business incubator/post-incubator facility on Lehigh Universitys campus in Bethlehem, PA. BFTP/NEP also manages the Bloomsburg Regional Technology Center in Bloomsburg.

About Arkados Group, Inc.

Arkados Group, Inc. through its subsidiaries is a global provider of scalable and interoperable Internet of Things (IoT) solutions focused on industrial automation and energy management. The Companys solutions are uniquely designed to drive a wide variety of wireless and powerline communication (PLC)-based products, such as sensors, gateways, video cameras, appliances and other devices. By utilizing the Companys solutions, Arkados customers can bring numerous sophisticated, full-featured products to market faster at a lower overall development cost. Arkados is a registered trademark of Arkados Group, Inc. For more information about Arkados, please visit us at http://www.arkadosgroup.com, and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements that are other than statements of historical facts. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks including, but not limited to, insufficient working capital, product and service demand and acceptance, changes in technology, economic conditions, the impact of competition and pricing, government regulations, and other risks contained in reports filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All such forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, and whether made by or on behalf of the company, are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement and any other cautionary statements which may accompany the forward-looking statements. In addition, the company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.
Photo : nasa.gov

The US space agency had already pushed back the launch by a day to Tuesday.

If technicians are able to finish their repairs as planned, Discovery and its six American astronauts will now launch from Florida's Kennedy Space Center at 3:52 pm (1952 GMT) Wednesday, NASA test director Jeff Spaulding said.

The flight to the orbiting International Space Station is the fourth and final shuttle flight of the year, and the last scheduled for Discovery, the oldest in the three-shuttle fleet that is being retired in 2011.
President-elect Donald Trump smiles as he arrives to speak at an election night rally on Nov 9, 2016, in New York. (Photo source: AP/ Evan Vucci)

The 70-year-old Manhattan real estate mogul, who has never held elected office, has long promised that "change will begin my first day in office".

"We're going to get to work immediately for the American people, and we're going to be doing a job that, hopefully, you will be so proud of," he said in his victory speech in the early hours of Wednesday (Nov 9).

The Republican president-elect has spelled out his plan to "Make America Great Again" during his first 100 days in office in a document titled Contract with the American Voter.

The laundry list of ideas was unveiled on Oct 22 in Trump's own "Gettysburg Address", delivered at the site where Abraham Lincoln tried to unite a divided nation during the US Civil War in 1863.

In his first days Trump promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

He vowed to lift restrictions on producing fossil fuels, relaunch the Keystone XL oil pipeline project put on hold by President Barack Obama and cancel billions of dollars in payments to UN climate change programs.

"DRAIN THE SWAMP"

The billionaire promised to "begin removing the more than two million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won't take them back".

He would also "suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur" and carry out unspecified "extreme vetting" of those seeking to enter the country.

In what became a mantra for his supporters, Trump has vowed to "drain the swamp" of what he sees as systemic corruption in Washington. He said he'd impose term limits on members of Congress, freeze federal hiring and ban lawmakers and White House staff from becoming lobbyists for five years.

He also has promised to "cancel every unconstitutional executive action" undertaken by Obama.

"Our failed political establishment has delivered nothing but poverty, nothing but problems, nothing but losses," he said as he wound up his campaign in North Carolina.

Despite tense ties with his own Republican Party, which maintained its control over both the House of Republicans and the Senate, Trump says he will work with lawmakers to introduce measures that would cut taxes and simplify the tax code, which he claims will result in a 4 per cent annual growth for the US economy and create 25 million jobs in a decade.

BUILD THE WALL

Trump intends to quickly make good on his signature campaign pledge to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, and impose a minimum two-year federal prison sentence on any deported migrant who tries to return.

He also plans to overturn Obama's signature health care reform, known informally as Obamacare.

Trump hopes to spark US$1 trillion in infrastructure investment over the next 10 years via public-private partnerships and private sources, spurred on by the tax breaks.

Beyond trade and the Mexico wall, Trump has few foreign policy proposals for his first 100 days, other than declaring China a "currency manipulator" for keeping what he believes is an artificially strong currency.

Many experts doubt that Trump can deliver on his ambitious promises.

One promise he can deliver: Lawsuits against the dozen or so women who have accused him of unwanted sexual advances, calling them all "liars".
Hotels and restaurants in Quang Binh Provinces Son Trach Commune, which serves tourists who come for caving in local grottos, are flooded. - Photo giadinh.net

It follows the floods in October and earlier this month.

Floodwaters isolated six communes in Ha Tinhs Huong Khe District since yesterday, inundating these localities for the third time in a month since October 15.

Students were forced to stay at home to remain safe. Huong Khe was hit hardest by the repeated floods.

In Quang Binh, roads to the communes of Son Trach, Phuc Trach, Thuong Hoa, Cao Quang and Quang Son were cut off by floodwaters. Water engulfed many homes in Son Trach and Quang Son, also for the third time in a month.

Residents in Son Trach said the flow of water was so swift that they could not save their belongings from getting damaged.

Schools were forced to shut down temporarily as well. Teams of volunteers, who were helping affected families in the earlier floods, were unable to reach those areas.

Downpours in the provinces since Monday and release of water by the Ho Ho power plant, which is located between Ha Tinh and Quang Binh, were blamed for causing the flood.

Repeated floods in October and early November have claimed 21 lives and damaged 12,000 houses in Quang Binh.

The floods meant local students were late by three weeks in comparison with the national academic schedule. The provinces department of education and training early this week announced a subsidy package for students, with entire tuition fee exemption to those living in flood-hit areas and additional expenses, including stationary.

In related news, the Quang Binh Department of Husbandry and Veterinary delivered 10,000 litres of chemicals used for hygienic spray in husbandry to farmers in the flood-hit area, preventing more diseases in the sector following the floods.
A woman browses fish sauce. The survey on quality of fish sauce released by the Viet Nam Standards and Consumers Association last month is incorrect, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said. - VNA/VNS Photo

The statement came after an investigation by the ministry following a national Vinastas survey on fish sauce.

On October 18, the association published on its website a story named Nearly 85 per cent of fish sauce samples of 88 enterprises fail to meet standards. The story revealed misleading information in which 104 fish sauce samples (out of 150 tested) failed to meet arsenic standards.

The survey showed that 95.65 per cent of fish sauce samples had nitrogen level above 40 per cent and contained arsenic higher than permitted level.

The survey defined organic arsenic of Viet Nams standard 8-2:2011/BYT as similar to inorganic arsenic which is considered to be highly toxic.

However, the information was misleading since the survey made no distinction between organic and inorganic arsenic content in fish sauce. The arsenic in traditional fish sauce surveyed was organic arsenic, which is safe for humans.

The MoIT slammed the Vinastas survey, saying that it was incorrect without scientific and legal basis, causing confusion and fear among consumers.

The inaccurate information about the quality of fish sauce indicates Vinastas violated the Food Safety Law, according to the MoIT.

The ministry said that although the survey was conducted on behalf of Vinastas, it was not clearly planned and conducted mainly by the associations president and individuals. Many steps of the process were not approved or monitored by the association.

According to the ministrys investigation, all 150 fish sauce samples were bought without proper receipts as regulated by Finance Ministry. Among that, 89 samples were bought in the market with only retail sale bills, 61 others were purchased independently by individuals.

The survey did not ensure independence as regulated in provision 28 of the Law on Consumers Right Protection because Vinastas said that the survey was done under financial sponsorship of other organisations.

The MoITs investigation also found that Vinastas violated its association regulations from 2011 to 2015.

After concluding the investigation, the MoIT reported to Prime Miniter Nguyen Xuan Phuc, asking the association to publicly correct the information on mass media and clarify who was to blame.

The MoIT also asked that the Ministry of Home Affairs verify and clarify the legal status of Vinastas in regards to consumers rights.

The Health Ministry and MoIT are in charge of imposing punishments on violations of Vinastas in accordance with law.

On October 22, the Health Ministry announced that all 247 fish sauce samples  randomly collected from markets and supermarkets in five provinces and cities - Ha Noi, HCM City, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan  were tested and no inorganic arsenic was detected.
illustration photo

ong told reporters during a meeting at the ministrys headquarters in Ha Noi that the ministry came to the conclusion after considering the impacts such a requirement would have on consumers, businesses and the nation.

The Government has presented a scheme to add automobile manufacturing, assembly and import into a list of investment and business areas with conditions to the National Assembly.

This list is attached to the latest Investment Law, which took effect on July 1, 2015. It concretises Article 7, which says conditions for certain business fields are needed to ensure national defence and security, social order and ethics, and public health.

If adopted by the National Assembly, the areas supplemented to the list will be a basis for the Government to build a decree with detailed terms for automobile business activities, ong said.

For example, bodywork welding and painting is to be subject to regulations that assure living quality near residential areas.

When building the decree, authorities will take every car workshop into account and make sure that it cares about peoples lives and health, and social order, he said.

ong said applying conditions for automobile businesses will protect consumers against poor quality vehicles and promote safety.

While official automakers guarantee customers various parts of a car such as tyres, brakes and airbags, many unauthorised dealers sell cars under cursory contracts that do not provide customers with guarantee services in case their vehicles break down.

It is hard for customers to be protected by law in the latter circumstance, he said.

Healthy competition

Proper regulations will also foster healthy competition, a factor likely to facilitate cost reductions in the automobile market, he added.

ong said there will be conditions to boost the development of automobile manafacturing and assembling enterprises in Viet Nam, and create equality between these firms and car importers.

He said manufacturers and assembling companies have to do many things from developing factories and distribution systems to training workers, while importers only buy cars from abroad and sell them on to earn profits.

We dont think this is equality. If this continues, no one will pour capital into production and assembly anymore, he said.

Over the last few months, some citizens said that future conditions could hinder small businesses from entering the automobile market, as the conditions are difficult to fulfill.

They also argued that the conditions might go against national efforts to create a better business environment, where the Government aims to supervise enterprises in post-licensing phases instead of controlling their establishment.

Regarding these, ong said: Conditions doesnt equal restrictions. Anyone can do business if they meet the conditions. Every country must have business standards and they should be easy to follow with low performance costs and without gaps for mercenary administrative officials.

There are some tycoons who import cars opposing the conditions, and they overlook national interests for their own profits, he said.

We as a State management agency must listen to all, while putting national interests first, he added.

Car industry

As to the impact of automobile business conditions on the economy, ong said an important thing is that they encourage the development of a car industry in Viet Nam.

A ministry statement said the Government plans to have long-term policies to drive manufacturing and assembling companies to invest in the automobile industry as part of a national strategy to develop this area.

The strategy stimulates production establishments, technology transfer and development of part industries to increase domestic contents in future vehicles.

ong said Viet Nam, with about 94 million people and a growing economy, is a very promising market for automobiles. The industry is expected to contribute about 5 per cent, or US$30 billion, to national gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030.

Currently, the area contributes about 2 per cent of GDP and generates jobs for roughly 100,000 workers.

There are 46 companies authorised by global automakers, such as Audi, BMW, Renault, Ford, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Kia and Huyndai, to deal their vehicles in Viet Nam.

Some firms involved in Audi, BMW and Renault focus on imports, while the other businesses prioritise domestic production.

The Viet Nam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA) with 17 members including GM, Suzuki and Vinamotor produced 173,000 car last year, representing more than 70 per cent of the vehicle supply in the local market.

ong said if the domestic automobile industry is developed, it will enrich the State budget, guarantee the national balance of payment, and help the country avoid becoming an industrial waste ground.

He affirmed that business conditions are indispensable premises for the quality development of the industry, although to some extent, they may discourage some small businesses, constrain product diversification, and reduce budget collection from imports.

In its statement sent to the National Assembly, the Government also proposed lawmakers retain car warrantees and maintenance services among areas subject to business conditions.
At the annual general meeting of shareholders in April 2016, VIB shareholders passed the charter capital increase plan and the 16.5 per cent bonus share distribution plan.

In recent years, VIB has been one of the domestic commercial banks gaining interest from shareholders and investors with high dividend rates including 9 per cent cash dividend and 14 per cent bonus share in 2014, 8.5 per cent cash dividend and 16.5 per cent bonus share in 2015.

VIB is now registering and conducting securities depository so that the banks securities can be ready to be traded on UPCOM. Being traded on the stock exchange in the coming time, VIBs stocks are anticipated to attract special attention from many investors.

According to VIBs business report of ten months this year, the bank had total assets of VND93 trillion ($4.16 billion), capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 14.46 per cent, and non-performing loan decreased sharply to 1.49 per cent.

VIB now has more than 4,000 employees serving 1.6 million personal customers and 34,000 corporate customers. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, VIBs strategic shareholder, with a 20 per cent stake at VIB, is one of the worlds 10 largest banks by market capitalisation, with more than 100 years of history.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX-V:ABN) (OTCBB:ABNAF) (Frankfurt:E2L2) (Aben or the Company) is pleased to provide a summary of analytical results from the September 2016 surface sampling program at the Companys 23,000 hectare Forrest Kerr Project, located within B.C.s prolific Golden Triangle region.



B.C.s Golden Triangle map:

http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Golden_Triangle_map.jpg

A total of 362 soil, 35 rock and 11 stream-sediment samples were collected between September 8--19, 2016 and transported to AGAT Labs for multi-element analysis. Samples were sourced from various mineralized zones throughout the Forrest Kerr claim package with a focus on areas that will promote a greater understanding and help define existing mineralization patterns in advance of a planned drill program in 2017.

Rock samples were sourced from both outcrop and talus from various areas across the Forrest Kerr Property and showed a range of values from 0.002 to 48.1 g/t gold (0.00006 to 1.4 oz/ton gold).

Several rock grab samples were collected from two distinct zones located in the northern portion of the claim block. Samples from the Wedge zone returned high base- and precious-metal values over a strike length exceeding 2 kilometers. The results confirmed historically reported values from drilling and surface sampling in this area. At the Boundary Zone, rock samples taken from subcrop in the vicinity of diamond drill hole RG91-16 (73 g/t gold (2.15 oz/ton gold), 14.7g/t silver (0.43 oz/ton silver), 0.32% copper over 3.7m) showed correspondingly strong gold and copper mineralization (Sample 6632019). The prime objective of the rock sampling program was to both confirm previously reported mineralization and to provide further information about the association of base- and precious-metal mineralization with recognised alteration assemblages. The table below shows assay results from select rock samples.





Sample # Easting Northing Area Au (g/ton) Au (oz/ton) Cu (%) Pb (%) Zn (%) 6632018 400035 6310931 Boundary 0.249 0.007 25.200 0.0025 0.024 6632019 400031 6310940 Boundary 9.660 0.282 14.500 0.027 0.036 6632021 399961 6311090 Boundary 0.005 0.00015 0.039 0.011 0.024 6632010 400246 6317737 S.Wedge 41.30 1.205 0.165 0.987 0.842 6632026 399883 6318949 Wedge 48.10 1.403 1.120 0.609 9.570 6632029 399926 6319104 Wedge 11.90 0.347 0.512 0.599 10.300 6632030 399889 6319238 Wedge 1.71 0.050 0.645 1.780 5.700 6632031 399911 6319408 Wedge 2.00 0.058 1.560 0.087 0.657 6632033 399967 6319487 Wedge 18.10 0.528 1.270 0.190 0.021 6632034 399970 6319490 Wedge 1.67 0.049 0.368 0.189 0.124



Soil geochemical surveys were completed on six separate grids located adjacent to known mineralized zones in order to test for potential extensions of existing soil anomalies and assess their continuity across mapped geologic structures. The results successfully show an increase in the areal extent of anomalous levels of gold, copper, lead and zinc in soil while also better delineating the location of controlling structures. The soil data will be added to Abens existing database of more than 18,000 property-wide soil samples and evaluated as a whole going forward. Eleven stream-sediment samples were taken from a drainage on the Beauty 10 claim, which is located 2.5 kilometers east of the main Aben land package in an area considered highly prospective for silver mineralization. The assay results from the 11 silt samples show consistently elevated levels of zinc. Analytical results for silver (Ag) have not yet been received.

The Forrest Kerr Gold Project is located in the heart of the Golden Triangle of British Columbia and is considered to hold significant potential for precious metal mineralization. Numerous mineralized occurrences are documented throughout the project area and sound, systematic fieldwork conducted from the late 1980s to the mid 2000s provide a solid framework for ongoing fieldwork. With little activity in the area during the past decade, the area is ripe for modern exploration techniques. The area has recently seen major infrastructure improvements including roads and hydro-electric facilities. In addition, rapid melting rates of glaciers in parts of the property area are expected to provide new exposures in areas that were inaccessible during previous exploration campaigns.

The Golden Triangle is host to significant mineral deposits including Galore Creek, Copper Canyon, Schaft Creek, Valley of the Kings, Snowfield, KSM, Snip, Granduc, Red-Chris and numerous others.

Abens Forrest Kerr land package is located along the Forrest Kerr Fault, immediately north of the Iskut River and southward of More Creek, with recent hydro-electric power and road access afforded to the northern and southern areas of the property. The claims consist of a 40km-long, north-south belt overlying rocks of the Hazelton and Stuhini Groups, a complex assemblage of volcanic accumulations with intervening sedimentary sequences which are host to numerous significant gold deposits in B.C.s Golden Triangle area.

Forrest Kerr project, B.C., Golden Triangle claims map:

http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Forrest_Kerr_Project_map_small.jpg

Cornell McDowell, P.Geo., V.P. of Exploration of Aben Resources, has reviewed and approved the technical aspects of this news release and is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

Quality Control and Quality Assurance:

All samples were sealed and delivered to AGAT Laboratories preparation facility in Terrace, B.C. by Aben personnel. Multi-element analysis was completed by hydrogen peroxide fusion with an ICP-OES finish, while each sample was fire-assayed for gold with an ICP-OES finish. In addition to the in-house QA/QC performed by AGAT on 10% of the samples, four field blanks and one duplicate sample were inserted into the sample stream by Aben personnel. All QA/QC samples returned values well within acceptable parameters.

About Aben Resources:

Aben Resources is a Canadian gold exploration company developing projects in British Columbia, the Yukon and North West Territories.

For further information on Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX-V:ABN), visit our Companys web site at www.abenresources.com.

Aben Resources has approx. 30 million shares issued and outstanding.

ABEN RESOURCES LTD.

Jim Pettit

____________________________

JAMES G. PETTIT

President

For further information contact myself or:

Don Myers

Aben Resources Ltd.

Corporate Communications

Telephone: 604-687-3376

Toll Free: 800-567-8181

Facsimile: 604-687-3119

Email: info@abenresources.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that management of the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although management believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, include market prices, exploration and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com for further information.






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JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Chiropractors are known for helping patients recover from injuries by treating the body holistically. More than 15 million people in North America alone visit chiropractors to safely and naturally find relief from common pains, like back pain, neck pain, and headaches. Dr. Stephen Alexander at St. Johns Medical Center has been a practicing chiropractor helping his patients find pain relief for more than 19 years, and he is now expanding his clinics services to include both medically supervised weight loss and vitamin B12 injections.



St. Johns Medical Center is the first clinic in the Jacksonville area offering the much desired vitamin B12 shots, which helps patients with a B vitamin deficiency feel more energetic.

Offering these new services seemed like a natural extension of what we try to do in our clinic, said Dr. Alexander. We already strive to treat the whole person. These new services help meet our patients needs.

Dr. Alexanders new medically supervised weight loss program includes help with setting goals as well as menu and exercise planning specific to individual needs.

With our weight loss program, we help our patients make a life change instead of a 90-day plan, said Dr. Alexander. Those 90 day plans fail every single time, but a lifestyle change is permanent.

In addition to its two new services, St. Johns Medical Center also offers myofascial decompression therapy, acupuncture and cupping, and chiropractic care specializing in auto accident injuries. Dr. Alexander has an extensive history as an expert witness in the court of law involving auto cases.

As an expert in the treatment of injuries related to automobile accidents, such as whiplash, Dr. Alexander specializes in helping patients with injuries of the spine, shoulder, elbow, wrist, hand, hips, knees, ankle, feet, neck, and mid and low back. He also helps patients with numbness or tingling of the arms and legs as well as headaches.

About St. John's Medical Center

With 19 years of experience, Chiropractic Physician Dr. Stephen Alexander has dedicated his practice to both the health and education of his patients. Located just off Interstate 295 in Jacksonville, Fla., Dr. Alexanders St. Johns Medical Center treats patients with all kinds of injuries, including those resulting from automobile accidents. For more information or to schedule an appointment, visit www.AlexanderChiropractor.com.




Mindful Eating: Slower Consumption for Better Health

With tight schedules and busy lives, sitting down to a meal free of distraction can be more of a luxury than the norm. Mindful eating gets pushed aside for many reasons. Taking a break to satisfy your hunger may also seem like the perfect opportunity to catch up on social
Cambodian civil society groups have expressed concerns over the future of human rights and democracy in their country following the unexpected victory of Donald Trump in the US election this week.



President elect Trump, a real estate mogul, defeated the Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton in a bitterly fought race for the White House in what has been called the biggest political upset in American history.



Clinton came out of the vote with fewer than 230 electoral college votes, despite winning a larger share of the popular vote. At least 270 electoral college votes are required to secure a place in the Oval Office.



At an election watch party at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, support for Clinton was widespread and the mood turned flat when it became apparent that Trump would win.



Ou Virak, the Cambodian-American president of the public policy think tank, the Future Forum, said he was concerned by the turn of events.



Its a disappointment as Donald Trump is aggressive and discriminating against women and what he said so far was an obvious lie, he said.



If the world loses trust in the U.S, then each country will begin to buy arms to strengthen their respective muscle to defend themselves. But when more and more countries are doing this, its not good for the world.

Moeun Tola, executive director of the Labor and Human Rights Alliance, a union, said he was concerned that a Trump administration would not pay full attention on human rights issues in the world especially in poor countries.

Similarly, Chak Sopheap, director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said she had hoped to see a woman become US president and that Clinton was well-versed in foreign policy.



The result of the U.S. election today has made many American and Cambodian citizen[s] shocked and dismayed especially for those who wanted to see Hillary Clinton selected to be the first female president of the United states, she wrote on Facebook.
The World Health Organization has come out with nearly 50 recommendations for pregnant women; among them is doubling the number of visits with a doctor or midwife. VOA's Carol Pearson reports that the measures are meant to increase the health of both mothers and their babies and reduce the risk of death.
Donald Trumps victory in the U.S. presidential race has sent a chill through the United Nations climate talks taking place this week in Morocco. The summit aims to put policy details on last years landmark Paris Climate Accord  but Trump has pledged to tear up that agreement, to re-open coal mines and push ahead with shale oil and gas projects. Henry Ridgwell looks at the potential impact of a Trump presidency on efforts to combat climate change.
Afghanistan will reportedly take in more than 1.5 million Afghan refugees by the end of the year, challenging the government at a time when Kabul is already struggling against resurgent Taliban militants and an emerging Islamic State group (IS).

Based on figures compiled by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), some 20 percent of Afghanistan's population already are former refugees known as "returnees." Many of them, along with internally displaced Afghans and Afghans living in "refugee like" conditions, are part of a group of people the United Nations calls "people of concern." The U.N. says this group of people has grown by 33 percent in 2015, and numbers more than 1.7 million people who are in desperate need of assistance.

The new arrivals will only add to those numbers.

According to Afghan officials, the refugees now returning are traveling from Iran and Europe but a vast majority are from Pakistan.

This year until November around 800,000 Afghanistan have returned from Pakistan and Iran and we anticipate that the number will rise to a million Afghans by the end of the year, mainly from Pakistan, said Hafizullah Miakhil, spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation.

Our strategy in regards to the returning refugees to Afghanistan has always been about volunteer, dignified, manageable and gradual return of the Afghan refugees from neighboring countries as well as Europe, Miakhil said.

Miakhil confirmed that there will be a substantial increase in the number of Afghan refugees returning to Afghanistan in 2016, but he said putting the number at 1.5 million refugees would be stretching it a bit too far.

Afghan government readiness

Managing the influx of over a million refugees to go along with the Afghan governments conservative statistics will still put the Afghan National Unity government in a difficult position as it tries to strike a balance between security needs and refugee resettlement programs. This at a time when the ongoing war with the Taliban and Islamic State has already displaced tens of thousands of Afghans across the country.

However, Hafizullah Miakhil of the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation told VOA that Afghan government is prepared for the influx to the extent that the process is in line with the governments overall policy and strategy at the ministry level.

As far as our readiness to accommodate these returnees is concerned, Afghans who are returning from Pakistan, Iran and Europe and who are registered with UNHCR will be given around $400 per person along with some other resettlement assistance, Miakhil said. Those who are not registered refugees, IOM will be providing them with help.

Miakhil said the Afghan government has allocated money for those returning to Afghanistan and based on a presidential decree, refugees will be provided with a piece of land as well.

Afghans returning to Afghanistan have been classified by the Afghan government and the United Nations into registered and non-registered refugees where the former category falls under the UNHCRs sphere of responsibility and the latter falls under the International Organization of Migrants (IOM).

IOMs Kabul office public relations officer Nasir Ahmad Haidarzai told VOA that his organization has helped or will help over half a million unregistered returnees from Iran and Pakistan.

So far this year around five hundred and eighty thousand Afghans without refugee documents returned to Afghanistan of which over 200,000 are from Pakistan and the remaining are from Iran, Haidarzai said.

We have regional offices in Kandahar, Nangarhar, Nimruz and Herat provinces where refugees returning to Afghanistan are provided with aid and assistance which comprise of food items provided by the WFP [World Food Program] and medicines provided by UNICEF, Haidarzai said.

Imposters dilemma

Given the $400 aid per person, some are concerned that the financial aid will encourage genuine refugees to fake repatriation temporarily or allow others to impersonate refugees.

Alizai from southern Afghanistans Helmand province who like many Afghans go by one name told VOA that people have already begun to take advantage of the lucrative journey between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

There are people in Waish [border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan] who are making fake refugee cards and taking $350 from UNHCR, Alizai said. I have personally seen this. In fact people I know who are residents of Helmand and have not been refugees at all are claiming the refugee status to get the allocated assistance.

Alizai added that this problem makes it difficult for those who are genuine refugees to get the assistance that they deserve.

The refugees who have returned to Afghanistan are living in difficult conditions.

We are in touch with them, those who left our camp are not happy at all. They have not been resettled in their home provinces in Afghanistan. They are either in Jalalabad or in Kabul and living in rental places, Kashmir Khan, an Afghan refugee living in Haripur refugee camp in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area told VOA.

The money they received from UNHCR has already been spent on rent and food and they are faced with financial difficulties now. It is not only about returning. It is about building a shelter and starting a new life which requires sustained support. Khan added.

400% increase in returnees from Europe

Before the Brussels international conference on Afghanistan last month, Kabul and the EU struck an agreement to return Afghan nationals who do not fulfill the conditions to stay in the European Union. The agreement states that those who choose not to voluntarily return will be forcibly returned once their administrative and judicial appeals have been exhausted.

Some media reports have linked continuing EU financial aid to Afghanistan's ability to accept those Europe returnees. That could number up to an estimated 80,000 Afghans who have immigrated to Europe in the last year or two.

An official at the Afghan presidential palace, speaking to VOA on condition of anonymity, confirmed the negotiations between the Afghan government and the European Union. However, he did not confirm the returnee number published in the media.

Nasir Ahmad Haidarzai, public relations officer at IOM in Kabul told VOA that his organization has recorded an increase of 400% in the number of Afghans returning from Europe.

Since the beginning of the year until now we have processed 6,000 Afghans who returned from Europe voluntarily comparing to 1,400 Afghans who returned from Europe during the same period in 2015, Haidarzai said.

Gulwali Passarlay, a former refugee and author of the Lightless Sky who is a British-based refugee rights advocate told VOA the EU did sign an agreement with the Afghan government.

I was in Brussels during the Brussels conference and we had a small protest as well against the deal where the EU has asked the Afghan government to accept those Afghan refugees whose asylum cases have been rejected by the European Union, Passarlay said. There is even discussion that a new terminal will be built in Kabul airport which will be specifically used to transfer Afghans from Europe to Afghanistan.

Afghans trying to reach European shores not only risk their lives by embarking on the dangerous journey, they also spend thousands of dollars - often times borrowed from others or accumulated through the sale of land and property.

Mohammad Jaan Safi, who works as a mason in Kabul, earning about $6 a day, said the journey is not financially worth it, but some people are forced by circumstance to flee. He also blames the government for not doing more to improve people's circumstances.

"The main problem is the government itself. It has been 15 years and they [government] are yet to tackle corruption which has impact on all other sectors including the security."
President-Elect Donald Trump's victory in Tuesday's elections is being greeted by protests in several major U.S. cities.

Immigrants, people of color, refugees, and members of the LGBT community are among those protesting various positions their next president promoted during his campaign.

The organized protests against a president-elect in the days after the election are largely unprecedented.

In addition to New York City, where people demonstrated against Trump on Wednesday, more protests are planned in cities in blue, red, and swing states.

More than 1,000 people have shown interest on Facebook in a march in Louisville, Kentucky - the first state to be called for Donald Trump on election night.

The march has been organized by people who say they are "against racism, misogyny, transphobia, and xenophobia".

Facebook event



The Facebook event also includes a link to the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, which details civilian rights during protests and demonstrations in the state, largely protected under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment Right to Free Speech.

A smaller protest will take place in Boise, Idaho, a city and state that both voted for Trump on Tuesday. Dozens of residents committed to fighting "against him every day for the next four years" plan to meet outside the state's capitol building.

More than 2,000 people have said they will be attending a protest against Trump in Minneapolis, a blue city in the state of Minnesota, where Hillary Clinton edged out Trump.

The event description for the protest calls for a peaceful protest against climate change denial, building the infamous wall on the border with Mexico, and attempts to "roll back" women's and LGBT rights.

And in the critical swing state of Ohio, which voted for Trump, nearly 600 people have said on Facebook they will be protesting in solidarity with the African-American, LGBT, and Latino/a communities outside the state's capitol.

Anger over discrimination



Though a few protests, including an LGBT march planned in New York City, are being promoted by a specific community or with a specific platform in mind, many of the marches across the country are speaking out more broadly against discrimination, in protection of minority communities they say Trump attacked during his campaign.

Looking out further than this weekend, anti-Trump Americans have begun planning an inauguration day protest in Washington, DC.

On Wednesday, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in New York, Washington, Miami, Philadelphia and Boston to protest Donald Trump's election victory. There were few reports of violence or arrests.

New York protest



A large crowd packed New York City's Fifth Avenue, directly in front of the Trump Tower where the president-elect lives, waving signs reading "Love Trumps Hate."

Another group gathered across from Trump's soon-to-be-home, the White House in Washington. Just down Pennsylvania Avenue, at the newly-opened Trump Hotel, protesters chanted "Say it loud, say it clear: Refugees are welcome here."

WATCH: New Yorkers react to Trump presidency

West Coast, Midwest



Demonstrations were also held in Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Minnesota's Twin Cities, Omaha, Nebraska and Kansas City, Missouri.

Elsewhere on the United States' East Coast, demonstrations were held in Miami, Philadelphia and Boston, where protesters carried signs calling for Trump's impeachment and an end to the Electoral College, the constitutionally-established process that resulted in Trump winning the presidency despite his apparent narrow loss in the overall popular vote.

Even Texas, a solidly Republican state, saw demonstrations in its larger cities, including Dallas and the state capital, Austin.

In Oakland, California, demonstrators burned trash in the streets and some store windows were smashed.

No one from the Trump staff has commented on the protests.

Calls for unity

In his victory speech Tuesday, Trump promised to be a president for all Americans, saying "It is time for us to come together as one united people."

WATCH: Trump on uniting Americans



On Wednesday, Clinton told supporters at a gathering in New York that while the election results will be "painful for a long time," the nation must give Trump a chance to prove himself.

"We owe [Trump] an open mind and a chance to lead," she said.

WATCH: Clinton on supporting Trump



President Obama also called on the nation to put aside partisanship.

"We are not Democrats first. We are not Republicans first. We are Americans first," Obama said.
Within a few weeks of winning the White House, President-elect Donald Trump could face another group of U.S. citizens  a federal jury in California, courtesy of a lawsuit by former students of his now-defunct Trump University who claim they were defrauded by a series of real estate seminars.

A hearing in federal court in San Diego is set for Thursday, and the trial is scheduled to begin November 28, barring any delays or a Trump decision to settle the case.

While presidents enjoy immunity from lawsuits arising from their official duties, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that this shield does not extend to acts alleged to have taken place prior to taking office. The 1997 ruling came in the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against President Bill Clinton by Paula Jones, which was settled before it went to trial.

Lawyers said they could think of no similar situation like the one now involving Trump.

"I'm certain there is nothing comparable to this," said Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School.

Lawyers for both Trump and the plaintiffs declined to comment Wednesday.

Time for possible settlement

Dershowitz said the Supreme Court also held that a case cannot be delayed just because the defendant is president, though judges are still free to grant reasonable delays to any party.

Miami trial consultant Sandy Marks, who is not involved in the case, said he thought Trump might ask the presiding judge, Gonzalo Curiel, to postpone the trial in an effort to settle the case before taking office.

"I think the judge would be foolhardy not to give him a short [delay]," said Marks, "which would give him a chance to resolve the case with all these people and put it behind him."

Trump repeatedly claimed on the campaign trail that he would win the lawsuit, and he accused Curiel of being biased against him because of his campaign promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico. The judge was born in Indiana to Mexican parents.

At the hearing Thursday, lawyers will argue pre-trial motions, including one by Trump to block potential jurors from hearing comments made or publicized during the campaign, such as those about the judge. Lawyers for the students have argued the comments could help jurors assess Trump's credibility as a witness.

Trump is listed as defense witness in the case and could be called to testify by the plaintiffs as well. He was previously deposed by the students' lawyers.

Claims against Trump over the seminars date to 2010, with two class actions filed in federal court in San Diego and another case brought by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on behalf of students who claimed they were misled into paying as much as $35,000 each to learn worthless real estate investing "secrets" from instructors "handpicked" by Trump.

Trump has admitted he did not handpick instructors, but has argued the claim was marketing language not meant to be taken literally. He claims most students were happy with their courses.

'Jury consultant's nightmare'

If the trial goes forward, several legal experts said it would be hard to seat an impartial jury, since so many people already have strong opinions about the president-elect.

Parties often hire specialized jury consultants to pick jurors, but New York lawyer Robert Anello said they were not infallible. "If experienced pollsters can't get it right," he said, "how can a jury consultant who is not spending as much time studying the demographics?"

In an interview a day before the election, Jeffrey Goldman, a lawyer for Trump in the New York case, said the media's "drumbeat of distortion" about Trump University would make it hard to find impartial jurors.

Several experts noted that jurors, who will answer a questionnaire in addition to being questioned by the lawyers and the judge, are generally taken at their word when they say they can be impartial. Boston jury consultant Edward Schwartz said he expected both sides to try to vet jurors by their public social media postings.

Dershowitz noted that San Diego, though located in deep-blue California, is not as politically monolithic as, say, San Francisco. It has an ethnically diverse population and also has a large military presence.

"This is a jury consultant's nightmare, to pick in a case like this," said Dershowitz. "It will be taught in jury consulting school."
China's rich are defying the country's economic slowdown, growing their personal wealth at an astonishing pace and moving money abroad. Capital flight has continued, despite checks and the governments efforts to bring back funds transferred out of China.

An additional 65 business people have entered the Forbes China Rich List this year, highlighting the rise in the number of billionaires in the face of the countrys economic slide. Forbes recently said the wealth of the 400 listed members rose 14 percent, which is more than double the 6.7 percent growth seen in Chinas gross domestic product.



Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman of consulting company Hurun Report, said mainland China has more billionaires than the United States, which has a total of 535. There are 594 billionaires in mainland China, and an additional 94 in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, he said.



Huruns China Rich List of individuals with a net worth exceeding $300 million saw 179 people added this year to the list of 2,056 millionaires.



Despite the overall economic slowdown in China, a lot of industries are prospering. This is particularly true of the IT sector, which has high valuations of 50-60 times their earnings, Thomas Gatley, chief corporate analyst for Gavekal Dragonomics, said in explaining the rising number of billionaires.

Analysts look at stock prices of listed companies and work out potential values of unlisted firms before arriving at the net worth of company owners.



Personal wealth is measured by an individual's paper value, growth in the value of their homes, bonds, or stocks, Scott Kennedy, deputy director of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA. Chinas housing bubble is certainly a source of inflated paper wealth for many Chinese, including real and potential billionaires.

Kennedy said, China has an $11 trillion economy, and it is growing by 7 percent annually. That means in 2016, it will add an additional $770 billion to its economy. Certainly, that is enough new wealth to create a few more billionaires.



Westward moves



The growth of wealth in a few hundred individuals and families has resulted in massive capital flight.



Christopher Balding, an associate professor of finance and economics at Peking University HSBC Business School, estimates $1.6 trillion slipped out of the country in the past four years  a bulk of it by owners of businesses intentionally paying more for their imports than needed. A portion of the money sent out for business-related purchases finds its way back into accounts of business people, he said.



This is evident from the discrepancy between what banks lent for imports, and customs data showing the value of actual imports. Banks lent $700 billion, while actual imports in customs' records were worth $600 billion in May this year, he pointed out.





International air travel by Chinese is up 30 percent. This includes many people who go abroad to open bank accounts, he said, adding, The anti-corruption drive is making people take the money out of the country, and leave.



Official crackdown



Gatley agrees the anti-corruption drive is one reason wealthy Chinese buy property overseas, but not the most important reason. They are driven mainly by the need for diversifying investments to reduce risks and to support foreign education of their children, he said.

Analysts said investment in foreign property and companies are signs some wealthy Chinese are planning to migrate abroad. Many Chinese are known to be buying residence permit and citizenship for their children in certain countries, including in Europe, where it is available against investment of $500,000 to $1 million.



The government has also intensified its efforts to get back what Beijing regards as stolen wealth taken to foreign locations by corrupt officials and businessmen who migrated in the past.

China has achieved some success, with Australia agreeing to consider Chinese requests for repatriation of people and money that have come from China, and the United States allowing repatriation in one recent case.

Kennedy said, "... those seeking to illegally move funds have the benefit of Chinas massive size and assistance from a bevy of bankers, investors, accountants, and lawyers, adding that parts of the global financial system are opaque and difficult for regulators to penetrate.



Property buying



In another survey, Hurun found 60 percent of high net worth individuals, who have assets worth $1.5 million or more, want to invest in property overseas in the coming years. They are particularly attracted to the property market in three U.S. cities: Seattle, Los Angeles and New York.



China currently has 1,340,000 high net worth individuals. That means we are looking at a massive 800,000 individuals who want to buy property overseas over the next three years, Hoogewerf said. Prices in major Chinese cities have risen so fast in the past year that an overseas house seems to offer good bang for your buck.
China will seek support for a Beijing-led Asia-Pacific free trade area at a regional summit in Peru later this month, Chinese officials said Thursday, after Donald Trumps U.S. election win dashed hopes for a U.S.-led free trade pact.

During his election campaign Trump took a protectionist stance on trade issues and labeled the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) championed by President Barack Obama a disaster. There is now little chance of it coming up for vote in Washington before his inauguration in January.

Obama had framed TPP, which excluded China, as an effort to write Asias trade rules before Beijing could, establishing U.S. economic leadership in the region as part of his pivot to Asia.

Briefing journalists ahead of President Xi Jinpings departure for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru, November 19-20, Chinas Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong warned of the rise of protectionism and said the region needed a free trade agreement as soon as possible.

Trade and investment protectionism is rearing its head, and Asia-Pacific faces insufficient momentum for internal growth, and difficulties in advancing reforms, Li said.

China believes we should set a new and very practical working plan, to positively respond to the expectations of industry, and sustain momentum and establish a free trade area in Asia-Pacific at an early date, Li said.

Aside from Peru, Xi will also make state visits to Chile and Ecuador during a weeklong trip to Latin America. Peru and Chile are both party to the now endangered TPP.

Two trade proposals

China has proposed the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which some observers see as competitors to the TPP.

Li said Xis attendance showed Chinas confidence in promoting the FTAAP process.

China is always positively advancing work on its own regional free-trade strategy. We, indeed, are continuously and positively advancing RCEP negotiations, Chinas deputy international trade representative Zhang Xiangchen told the briefing.

RCEP groups the 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations plus China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, but not the United States.

Beijing had feared the United States would use the TPP to either force it to open markets by signing up or else to isolate it from other regional economies.

China has nothing to lose

Some see the demise of the TPP as an opportunity emerging for Beijing from Trumps surprise victory, which also brings greater uncertainty for U.S.-China relations and the regional balance of power.

Ruan Zongze, a former Chinese diplomat now with the China Institute of International Studies, said the TPP would be the first casualty of Trumps election.

Since China isnt in that bloc, we dont have anything to lose, Ruan said.


NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In celebration of Veterans Day, Window World proudly announces the completion of its 100th Veterans Airlift Command (VAC) mission. The VAC provides free air transportation to wounded soldiers and their families through a national network of volunteer aircraft owners such as Window World. The exterior remodeling company transported World War II veteran Army Air Corp Staff Sergeant (SSGT) Karnig Thomasian and his daughter for a visit to Dallas, Texas, where SSGT Thomasian was to be honored at the Wings Over Dallas Air Show along with other WWII veterans.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ee4d94a6-54dd-4b97-93c9-82091c482543

For many wounded warriors with prosthetics or other mobility issues, flying in private aircraft rather than commercial planes is the best way to accommodate their unique needs. The VAC aims to bring families together by partnering with individuals, pilots and companies to give back to the soldiers who sacrificed for our country. Window World has been a partner with the VAC for over seven years.

Showing support for our military is very important to us, stated Steven Kamody, Window World president. We are grateful to honor our service men and women within the Window World team and across the United States through the VAC organization.

SSGT Thomasian was serving as a gunner/electrical specialist on a B-29 Superfortress when it went down in flames over Japan. To escape, he parachuted out of the burning aircraft, landing in a rice paddy where he was immediately captured by the Japanese. Chronicling his military career, Thomasian published a book Then There Were Six, which is a true story of the 1944 Rangoon Disaster. The pages tell the story of Thomasians mission over Japan, during which 18 airmen were killed and 29 were captured by the Japanese.

I have the incredible opportunity to meet some of the dedicated veterans who have served our country, added Alan York, chief pilot for Window World. I was honored to fly with SSGT Thomasian and learn about his life experiences, and I look forward to flying 100 more veterans in the coming years.

Window World and its franchises nationwide are longtime supporters of the military, volunteering, donating and sponsoring events to honor and serve veterans. As a corporate sponsor of the VAC, Window World encourages everyone to express gratitude not only by words, but by actions. "It is a privilege to complete the 100th VAC mission days before Veterans Day," added Kamody. "This flight and all of those before it are a tribute to the American heroes who serve our country every single day."

To learn more about the VAC and how to get involved, visit http://www.veteransairlift.org/.

About Window World

Window World, headquartered in North Wilkesboro, N.C., is Americas largest replacement window and exterior remodeling company, with more than 200 locally-owned offices nationwide. Founded in 1995, the company sells and installs windows, siding, doors and other exterior products, with a total of over 13 million windows sold to date. Window World is an ENERGY STAR partner and its window products have earned the Good Housekeeping Seal for nine consecutive years. In June 2016, Window World earned the ranking of Highest in Customer Satisfaction with Windows and Doors, Three out of Four Times in a Row, by J.D. Power. For more information about Window World, visit www.WindowWorld.com or call 1-800 NEXT WINDOW.

About Veterans Airlift Command

Window World, Inc. supports the Veterans Airlift Command (VAC), a non-profit organization that facilitates free air transportation to wounded warriors, veterans and their families for medical and other compassionate purposes. All flights are made available through a national network of volunteer aircraft owners and pilots. To learn more about the VAC, visit www.veteransairlift.org.

The photo is also available via AP PhotoExpress.
A Chinese senior public security official is the new head of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).



Interpol says delegates at its 85th General Assembly in Bali, Indonesia elected China's Vice Public Security Minister, Meng Hongwei, as president.

We currently face some of the most serious global public security challenges since World War II.  Interpol should continue to adhere to these principles and strategies, while further innovating our work mechanisms, in order to adapt to the changing security situation we see today, Meng said.

Chinas official Xinhua news agency reports that Hongwei is the first Chinese to hold the position. He is taking over from Mireille Ballestrazzi of France for a four-year term.

Human rights groups raised concerns about the Chinese official holding the post.

We have looked at cases in the past where it seems that China has abused Interpols system to target particularly Uighur dissidents who, as far as we know, have committed no crime under international standards, William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, told AFP.

Nee added that Mengs position as head of the organization could potentially boost Chinas campaign to capture alleged economic criminals, including officials living abroad who have been accused of corruption as part of Chinese President Xi Jinpings anti-graft operation.

Since becoming president in 2012, Xi has launched an extensive anti-corruption drive and China filed a list of 100 most-wanted suspects with Interpol in 2014.

We attach high importance to the important role Interpol played in international law enforcement cooperation and would like to promote global law enforcement security [cooperation]. In this field, China is willing to take more responsibilities and make a bigger contribution, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said.

Interpol's constitution says it is strictly forbidden for the organization to undertake any intervention of a political, military, religious or racial character.

Meng is a veteran policeman and the agency said he has made a significant contribution to promoting international police cooperation.

China joined Interpol in 1984.

The next general assembly is scheduled to take place in Beijing in 2017. In 2018 officials will meet in Kampala, Uganda.
For weeks, Iraqi forces backed by U.S. and coalition air power have moved ever closer to the city of Mosul, the heart of the Islamic State terror group's holdings in Iraq.

Yet for all the progress, these forces would appear to be no closer to cutting off the group's head, the elusive cleric Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

"We don't know where he is," Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. John Dorrian told Pentagon reporters via a videoconference from Baghdad last week. "If we knew where he was, he would be killed at once."

In the place of certainty, there is rumor.

In recent weeks, Iraqi military officials have insisted that the 45-year-old Baghdadi was hiding in tunnels and bunkers in Mosul, directing the defense of the city himself.

More recently, reports from Iraq quote various sources as saying Baghdadi is in Mosul preparing for his own death and in the process of selecting a replacement.

Western intelligence officials are highly skeptical. They say that even though IS and its predecessor groups have strongly embraced martyrdom  to the extent that some see it as a sort of death cult  the group's leaders have consistently opted to live to fight another day.

Where is he?

Just last week, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the most recent intelligence on Baghdadi suggests he has "vacated the scene" in Mosul.

And pinpointing his current whereabouts will be a tall order, with some suggesting the IS leader is more skilled at evading detection than even al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden.

"He has an intense OpSec [Operational Security] posture," said Michael Smith, co-founder of Kronos Advisory, a private intelligence firm, who has served as a contributing expert to the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare.

Smith and others say IS has leveraged its own experiences with high-level espionage techniques from Iraqi intelligence officers once loyal to former dictator Saddam Hussein, making the group a potent and sophisticated adversary.

"They keenly understand our tech capabilities," Smith said. "They have a very strong sense of our targeting tactics and how to flout them."

Ready to shoot

U.S. officials say, if and when they pick up Baghdadi's trail, they will not hesitate to take a shot.

"Anytime you can take someone like that out, it always has impact," one official told VOA.

Yet there are some who argue that not killing Baghdadi, at least not yet, may actually help in the efforts to destroy IS.

"The second- and third-order effects of prematurely targeting Baghdadi are too great," according to Nicholas Glavin, a senior researcher at the U.S. Naval War College's Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups. "He would be seen to his supporters as the caliph who was martyred for the sake of the caliphate."

But if Baghdadi is alive to see the remnants of his self-declared caliphate fall to U.S.-backed forces, the impact could be lasting.

"This would be a precision strike at the group's ideology, a feat that has been quite difficult to date for the coalition," Glavin said.
FBI Director James Comey faces a complicated path under a Donald Trump administration. Does he try to serve out the remaining seven years of his term under a president who has publicly questioned the FBI's integrity? Or does he stay on as a safeguard against executive power and a guide for a novice president on complex national security matters?



The term of the FBI director is set at 10 years as an affirmation of the bureau's political independence, and some other chiefs including Robert Mueller, Comey's predecessor, have served presidents of both parties.



But Comey would be in the delicate position of working with a president who lobbed occasional criticisms from the campaign trail against the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Though attention had centered on whether Comey could have co-existed with a Hillary Clinton presidency, given the FBI's investigation into her email practices and his own public statements about the probe, that question applies at least equally to a Trump administration.



As recently as Sunday, Trump complained that Clinton was "protected by a rigged system'' after Comey renewed his decision not to recommend charges for her use of a private email server while secretary of state. Trump repeated his assertion that Clinton was "guilty'' and that the FBI "knows it,'' the bureau's own public statement notwithstanding. Earlier, Trump appeared disrespectful of the Justice Department's independent decision-making power when he said he'd ask his attorney general to name a special prosecutor to take another look at Clinton. That stance went hand-in-hand with "lock her up'' chants from some supporters.



Trump's past rhetoric on the terrorism threat, including warnings that "radical Islam is coming to our shores,'' is out of step with Comey's more measured assessments. And his stated desire to have an improved relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin comes even as federal intelligence officials have publicly accused the Russians of meddling through hacking in the American electoral process.



FBI officials did not respond to a message about Comey's plans, but James McJunkin, a former FBI assistant director, said he doubted Comey was fazed by Trump's campaign trail statements. He said Comey knew when was appointed in 2013 by President Barack Obama that his 10-year term would carry over at least two presidential administrations that might differ sharply.



"I can't imagine he would think this is anything more than politics as usual,'' McJunkin said. "I think politicians say whatever they think they can in order to seize the moment, and I think that once Trump settles into office, he'll realize the value of the independence that Comey displayed.''



In three years as FBI chief Comey has been notable for speaking his mind, breaking with White House talking points on matters of matters of race and policing and speaking more forcefully than others in the administration about his concerns about encryption technology. That independent-minded streak predates his FBI career, famously surfacing in 2004 when, as deputy attorney general in the Bush administration, he had a dramatic standoff with White House officials in the hospital room of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft over the authorization of a government surveillance program.



Though the White House has not always endorsed his positions and Obama last week appeared to frown on Comey's public statements on the Clinton email matter, there have been no overt signs of the personal animus that's sometimes marred the relationships between other presidents and FBI directors.



But one clear point of division in a Trump administration would come if Trump followed through on the appointment of a special prosecutor. Such a decision rests entirely with the attorney general and does not require the cooperation of the FBI or its director. So despite Comey's decision not to seek charges against Clinton over her email practices, a Trump-appointed attorney general could name an outside prosecutor to reopen the matter. It's not clear what his plans are, and Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told ABC's "Good Morning America'' on Wednesday the matter hadn't been discussed.



"Director Comey is a subordinate of the attorney general, and this is not his bailiwick,'' said Robert Bittman, who served as deputy independent counsel under Ken Starr.



It's clear from his public statements that Comey would bristle at such an appointment. He has said the FBI's investigation was thorough and that "no reasonable prosecutor'' would have brought a case.



Such conflicts over major cases, including the 1993 Waco siege and now the Clinton email matter, are ``not new to us,'' said Robert Anderson, a retired FBI executive assistant director.



Comey understood when he took the FBI job "that it wasn't going to be smooth sailing at every minute,'' McJunkin said.
Indonesian authorities are investigating the reported death in Iraq of a prominent Islamic State leader from Indonesia, who was defending the militant stronghold of Mosul during a U.S. backed military effort to dislodge the group.

A police spokesman in Jakarta told reporters on Thursday that Salim Mobarok al-Tamimin, also known as Abu Jandal al-Yemeni al Indonesi, was confirmed dead by his wife in Iraq, and relatives in Pasuruan in East Java. Abu Jandal, as authorities refer to him, was considered a key IS recruiter in Southeast Asia.

We are making efforts to bring his body back, Boy Rafli Amar, an inspector general of police, said in Jakarta.

According to initial information obtained by Indonesian authorities, Abu Jandal was killed in Mosul on Saturday. But the authorities have not determined the circumstances of his death.

A Kurdish military intelligence official in northern Iraq and a Mosul provincial council member declined VOAs request for an interview. Indonesian counterterrorism officials say they have sent authorities to Iraq to gather more information.

We know it is difficult to coordinate these efforts in a battlefield, Amar said. Coordination efforts with the authorities there (in Mosul) is also not that easy.

The Indonesian foreign ministry is also attempting to gather more information in Iraq and Syria, where Abu Jandal reportedly operated under IS since 2014.

None of the foreign missions (including in Indonesias) is operating, said Arrmanatha Nasir, a spokesperson for the Indonesian foreign ministry.

Besides, he never registered his arrival with the Indonesian Embassy in Baghdad or Damascus.Abu Jandal, 39, traveled with his wife and two children to join the Islamic State in Syria in July 2014, with stops in Malaysia and Turkey, according to media reports.

In a YouTube video two years ago, Abu Jandal threatened to attack Indonesias top military commander, the National Police, counter-terrorism police, and Nahdatul Ulama  a traditionalist Sunni Muslim movement in Indonesia.

He appeared in the video, posted by ISs al-Hayat Media Center, wearing a khaki Afghan outfit and encouraging sympathizers to travel to Iraq and Syria to join IS.

To our brothers and sisters in Indonesia, we call on you once again to come here and perform jihad with the Islamic Caliphate, he said.

As many as 384 Indonesians have joined IS, according to Indonesias counterterrorism agency. Most of those traveled to Syria and Iraq.

The Islamic State terror group remains a threat to Indonesia, the worlds largest Muslim country. IS claimed responsibility for carrying out coordinated bomb and gun attacks in Jakarta in January that left seven people dead, including five attackers.

VOAs Rikar Hussein contributed to this report from Washington.
The morning after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States on a campaign to deport illegal immigrants and limit Muslim refugees, New Jersey mom Yasmeen Shehab awoke to the sound of crying.

Her 10-year-old, sobbing, jumped into her arms.

"President Trump is going to ban us and gonna make us leave America," Shehab's daughter wailed, terrified that despite their American birth she and her Muslim family would be deported. "Where are we going to go?"

Trump's angry anti-immigrant rhetoric and the presence of some white nationalists among his supporters have frightened many U.S. immigrants and minority groups.

On Wednesday, some immigrant workers reported taunts and harassment and children begged to be brought home from school amid ethnic or religious bullying, parents and teachers said.

People took to social media to voice their anger and concerns, and rights organizations fielded calls from worried people seeking advice.

Parents and many advocates, meanwhile, worked to calm people down. While Trump could undo some of Democratic President Barack Obama's legacy on immigration through executive orders, many of Republican's promises would require the cooperation of Congress and likely face court challenges. Experts have also cautioned that finding and deporting the country's 11 million illegal immigrants would carry enormous logistic and financial costs.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Crying all night

Among those for whom concern about deportation is the greatest are young people who are in the United States on a program started under an order from Obama that is opposed by many Congressional Republicans.

To request protection from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields young people brought to the United States as children from deportation, applicants must send the government a form with their parents' names and addresses.

Obama enacted the program through executive order after a Republican-controlled Congress blocked the Dream Act.

"The government now has a list of people who are here without documentation  their names, their addresses, how long they've been here, where they work," said California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a Democrat from San Diego who has been fielding calls from constituents all day.

Pakistan-born Sana Altaf, who has protection under the program and lives in New York, said her parents were legal residents and safe, but she worried about her own status.

"I have been crying all night, this morning," she said. "It's like someone telling you you're not welcome here."

Scary but unrealistic?

Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel for the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund in Los Angeles, said his organization has been telling callers to remain calm, stressing the constitutional protections and practical concerns that would render wholesale deportation of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States unlikely.

"Trump's rhetoric was scary," Saenz said. "It was also unrealistic."

But Ignacia Rodriguez, a policy advocate with the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center, said her group was not so certain that the Deferred Action database could not be used for deportations under Trump.

"The honest answer is we don't know what's going to happen," Rodriguez said.

With so much uncertainty, Wednesday was full of worry and unpleasant encounters for many.

Lidia Calvo, an office administrator for a Massachusetts labor union, said she noticed that an immigrant cafeteria worker in her building seemed upset.

"She shared with me that somebody said to her .... 'have you packed your bags already?'" Calvo said.

In San Francisco's heavily Latino Mission District, parents at Everett Middle School nervously asked whether they or their children would be deported, said administrator Tracy Brown Gallardo.

At meetings for students to share their concerns at Aptos Middle School in San Francisco, some children sobbed openly out of concern about what might happen to their undocumented parents and family members, said Jason Hannon, the school's principal.

Shehab, 40, said her older daughter, 13, contacted her during school Wednesday to say that a boy who supports Trump's plan to limit Muslim immigrants was taunting her.

She begged her mother to pick her up, and was crying in the school office when Shehab arrived.

"It's a hard day," Shehab said. "They're scared."
Just two days after his stunning election victory, President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, visited the White House, invited by President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.

No press was allowed to film their arrival Thursday, but the president and the president-elect gave brief statements to reporters in the Oval Office after the meeting.

Despite a long history of animosity between Obama and Trump, both were gracious.

"I just had the opportunity to have an excellent conversation with President-elect Trump, Obama said. It was wide-ranging. We talked about some of the organizational issues in setting up the White House; we talked about foreign policy, we talked about domestic policy, and, as I said last night, my number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that insures our president-elect is successful."

WATCH: Obama, Trump comment on their meeting

Trump told reporters the meeting was supposed to last about ten minutes but lasted 90, and it could have gone on even longer.

"I look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel," he said. "He explained some of the difficulties and the high-flying assets and some of the wonderful things that have been achieved. Mr. President, it was wonderful meeting with you and I look forward to meeting with you many more times in the future."

The White House said Obama officials are making sure that Trump and his yet-to-be-named key officials are "prepared from day one to protect our national security." U.S. intelligence and defense officials are starting to give Trump daily briefings on threats to the country's security and overseas military operations.



In addition, the Obama administration plans to host two exercises involving several government agencies to help familiarize Trump officials with how the government responds to domestic emergencies, whether terrorist attacks or such natural disasters as violent tornadoes and hurricanes.



WATCH: Trump on his meeting with Congressional leaders

'Less awkward' than expected

After the meeting, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked if the meeting was awkward.

"The meeting might have been a little less awkward than some might have expected," he said.

Trump said it was the first time the two men have met personally.

The president campaigned exceptionally hard for his former secretary of state and fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton. Obama often derided Trump, the blunt-spoken real estate mogul who has never held elected office, as unfit to lead the country.

Meanwhile, Trump for years questioned whether Obama was born in the U.S. before recently acknowledging his citizenship. He says he plans to undermine key Obama policies, including the health care reforms, environmental regulations, protection of some immigrants from deportation, and the Iran nuclear deal.

Rooting for success

Despite the bitter campaign, Obama pledged Wednesday to cooperate with Trump's takeover.

"It is no secret that the president-elect and I have some pretty significant differences," Obama said. "But remember, eight years ago, President [George W.] Bush and I had some pretty significant differences. But President Bush's team could not have been more professional or more gracious in making sure we had a smooth transition."

Obama said he is rooting for Trump's success and has ordered the White House team "to work as hard as we can to make sure that this is a successful transition for the president-elect."

Secretary of State John Kerry cited the tradition of peaceful changes in leadership as he congratulated Trump on Thursday and wished him well for the "enormous challenges that he will undertake."

"With a transition like this, the issues that we face don't go away," Kerry said during a visit to New Zealand. "The values with which we face them are the same values the day after the election that they were the day before."

Meeting with Congressional leaders



While in Washington, Trump also met with House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, leaders of the Republican majorities in each chamber, about their legislative plans. Both gave tepid support to Trump during the election, but have vowed to work in concert with him to pass the party's agenda.

The most prominent Republican effort will be to unwind and replace the Affordable Care Act, the outgoing president's health care program, known as Obamacare, that helped 20 million people get health insurance.

First lady, tour and tea

Earnest said first lady Michelle Obama showed future first lady Melania Trump the private quarters, and they had tea. He said they talked about the special challenges of raising children in the White House.

The Obamas have raised their two daughters, Sasha and Malia, in the White House. Donald and Melania Trump have a 10-year-old son, Barron, who will likely grow up in the White House, as well.



WATCH: US presidential transition - what's involved?
Fourteen states had new voting or registration restrictions in place for the 2016 presidential election, raising concerns that minority voters in particular would have a harder time accessing the ballot box.

Voting experts believe the laws had some effect on turnout this year, but said it would be difficult to measure against other factors - such as a lack of enthusiasm for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton and the decision of many people simply not to vote.

They expressed frustration that some states had made it more difficult for voters to participate, even if there is no evidence the changes influenced the outcome of the presidential election.

There were clearly many people who bore the brunt of new voting restrictions or who were otherwise unable to participate, and that is not acceptable in a democracy, said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's School of Law.

She said a few battleground states won by Trump were among the states that had enacted restrictions in recent years, including Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

In some of the states, the margins between Trump and Clinton were simply too great for voting restrictions to have been a deciding factor. But Weiser said the roughly 27,000-vote difference in Wisconsin was concerning, given the turmoil surrounding the state's voter ID law. With lower than expected turnout, Trump was the first Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1984 to win the state.

It's been estimated that as many as 300,000 Wisconsin voters did not have the required photo ID. Molly McGrath, with the national group VoteRiders, spent Tuesday fielding dozens of calls from voters who had questions about the law.

In one case, she picked up a 99-year-old retired university professor named Fred at his polling place and drove him to a DMV office so he could get his photo ID. He had let his license expire, preferring instead to walk or ride his bike.

How many Freds are there? How many Freds decided not to call? McGrath said. There is 100 percent no doubt in my mind that people fell through the cracks and didn't have their votes counted. And when we see the numbers of how close this election was, we should all be unsettled by that.

With black and Hispanic voters, Trump apparently did as well as Republican Mitt Romney when Romney lost to President Barack Obama in 2012, according to exit polls. Trump appeared to have won more than half of white voters, who made up 70 percent of the electorate.

The 2016 election was the first without a key enforcement provision of the Voting Rights Act that had required some states and counties to receive approval before enacting new election laws. The 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling setting aside that requirement opened the way for voter ID and other measures that reduced early voting, straight-ticket voting and same-day registration. Those actions were taken primarily by Republican lawmakers, who said they were targeting voter fraud.

Even though court decisions have rolled back some of the more far-reaching restrictions, civil rights groups were concerned that confusion over the laws could deter voters.

Sandy Fambrough, a deputy poll judge in Denton County, Texas, said she witnessed violations of court-ordered changes to the state's voter ID law.

Texas was forced to soften its voter ID law after a federal appeals court deemed it discriminatory. Under the original law, it was estimated that some 600,000 eligible voters didn't have an acceptable form of ID.

Who knows how many people didn't vote because they were given the wrong information? Fambrough said.

In North Carolina, voter ID requirements and early voting reductions were struck down after a federal appeals court said they target African Americans with almost surgical precision. Republican officials have said discrimination was not their intent.

After some North Carolina counties reduced hours and polling places during the first week of early voting, one researcher found black turnout was down 13 percent compared with the 2012 election. On Tuesday, Trump won the state by about 178,000 votes over Clinton.

Even if those states didn't have those laws, it's not at all clear that the outcome would have been any different, said Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor at UC Irvine's School of Law.

He said he would not be surprised if more states pass restrictive voting laws in the years to come.

It's not hard to imagine that this will give a green light to engage in ever more restrictive voting laws, he said.
Ghana's electoral commission has qualified seven presidential candidates for the national election on December 7.

The successful candidates  six representing political parties and one independent  took part in a drawing late Wednesday in the capital, Accra, to determine their positions on the ballot.

They will be listed by party affiliation in this order on voters' ballots: Convention People's Party (CPP), National Democratic Party (NDP), National Democratic Congress (NDC), Progressive People's Party (PPP), New Patriotic Party (NPP), People's National Convention (PNC) and independent (non-party) candidate Jacob Osei Yeboah.

The electoral commission earlier had disqualified several candidates for failing to comply with all registration requirements for the election, but those rulings were challenged in court by the PPP and NDP, among others. A court ruling ordered the commission to allow disqualified candidates time to correct errors in their nomination documents.

Concerns expressed

The process of error correction is now complete, according to electoral commission spokesman Eric Dzakpasu, and it is unlikely any further candidacies will be approved.

Out of the 10 candidates who resubmitted their nomination papers for reconsideration, three have successfully gone through the process, bringing the total number of candidates for the presidential election to seven. So, just this evening balloting was done, and all the seven candidates now have their positions on the ballot paper for the election," Dzakpasu said. "... I think the door is now shut ... [for] other candidates."

Civil society groups and political parties' supporters have expressed concern that the latest round of legal challenges could have a negative effect on preparations for peaceful, credible and transparent elections next month, when Ghanaians will vote for president, parliament members and local representatives.

Despite some complaints about alleged bias by the electoral commission, Dzakpasu said, "everything has been on course."

Parliamentary ballot

Preparations for the presidential ballot continued during the period when candidates' nominating petitions were being re-examined, he said, and "we are in the final stages of printing the parliamentary ballot."

"All that is left for the commission to do," Dzakpasu said, "is to print the notice of poll for the presidential and then print the ballot papers. And come 7th December we are ready to deliver an election."

Most Ghanaians are focusing on the presidential vote, the spokesman said, but the process of preparing the parliamentary ballot is more complicated.

"We are talking about 275 constituencies, and each constituency has a different permutation of parties and candidates," Dzakpasu said. By contrast only one template is needed for the national ballot for president.

"We've had assurances from the printers that, given the time that is left ... we can have the ballots ready for the election," he added.
Haiti has launched a massive cholera vaccination campaign in parts of the country devastated by Hurricane Matthew.

The campaign, begun Tuesday, is expected to be the world's largest, targeting 820,000 people.

There have been around 3,500 suspected cases of the water-borne illness since the Category 4 storm tore across southwest Haiti last month, killing 546 people. It created ideal conditions for the spread of cholera by destroying water supplies and forcing people who lost homes to squeeze into overcrowded shelters.

"Eradicating cholera is a longterm plan because the eradication of cholera should include the reinforcement of the sanitary infrastructures and the people should have access to safe water. That is to say, it is a very long struggle," Daphnee Benoit Delsoin, Haiti's Minister of Public Health and Population told reporters.

The campaign will mark the first time that so many people will be given only one dose of the cholera vaccine. Normally, the vaccine is given in two doses.

But a previous initiative conducted by Doctors Without Borders in South Sudan found that a single dose of the cholera vaccine proved to be extremely effective at boosting immunity, according to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet in November.

Haiti has battled a cholera outbreak since 2010, when the bacteria was imported into the country by a contingent of United Nations peacekeepers. Since then, the illness has sickened more than 800,000 people and killed about 9,000.
The United Nations atomic watchdog says Iran for a second time this year has exceeded a so-called "soft limit" on sensitive material that was agreed upon under its 2015 nuclear agreement with six world powers.

In a report released Wednesday, a day after Republican candidate Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Tehran had again surpassed the 130-metric-ton threshold for heavy water since the deal was put in place in January.

Heavy water is used to cool reactors, which can produce substantial amounts of plutonium, an element that is used in producing the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

The watchdog said Tehran had stockpiled 130.1 tons of the material, which is used at reactors such as ones at Iran's unfinished facility at Arak.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said during a regular news briefing Wednesday that Iran was taking steps to export the excess heavy water.

"It's important to note that Iran made no effort to hide this, hide what it was doing from the IAEA," Toner said.

Wednesday's report said the agency verified the overage on Tuesday, nearly a week after IAEA chief Yukiya Amano "expressed concerns" to top Iranian officials.

When Iran exceeded the mark in February, with 130.9 metric tons of heavy water, there was no major criticism from the world powers  the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany  that signed the nuclear deal with Tehran. The pact required Iran to curtail its nuclear program for relief from international sanctions.

But there are questions about whether there would be the same reaction from the incoming administration of Trump, who has called the accord a "bad deal" and vowed to renegotiate it.

The IAEA said Iran told the agency it is preparing to transfer five tons of heavy water out of the country in the coming days as provided for in the nuclear agreement.

Wednesday's report did not note to which country or countries the excess heavy water would be sent. In February, some of the excess heavy water was sent to the United States.
MCLEAN, Va., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Community Management Corporation (CMC), an Associa company, congratulates Senior Portfolio Manager Donna Aker on being presented the Rising Star Award at the Washington Metropolitan Chapter Community Associations Institute (WMCCAI) Annual Awards Dinner.



The ceremony took place November 5 at the Ritz Carlton Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia. Rising Star awards are presented to those individuals who have become more active in the chapter, have demonstrated outstanding leadership skills, and have shown an interest in being future leaders.



"Donna is an inspirational team member who leads by example and always delivers first-rate customer service to the communities she manages," said Associa CMC President Nick Mazzarella. "We're proud to know that her dedication to this industry is being recognized and we're excited to see what her future holds within the Associa family."



Aker began as an on-site community manager with Associa in 2008, promoted to portfolio manager four years later, and became a senior portfolio manager earlier this year. As a member of CAI she has earned her Certified Manager of Community Associations (CMCA), Association Management Specialist (AMS) and Professional Community Association Manager (PCAM) designations.



Building and managing successful communities for more than 37 years, Associa is the leader in community management with over 10,000 employees operating more than 180 branch offices in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Based in Dallas, Texas, our industry expertise, financial strength and innovation meet the unique needs of clients across the world with customized services and solutions designed to help communities achieve their vision. To learn more about Associa and its charitable organization, Associa Cares, go to www.associaonline.com or www.associacares.com.



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A photo accompanying this release is available at: http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=41864
A man charged with setting off bombs in New Jersey and New York shuffled slowly into a Manhattan courtroom Thursday to face federal terrorism charges as his lawyer expressed worries that a federal lockup could not adequately care for injuries stemming from his shootout with police.

Ahmad Khan Rahimi, 28, listened as U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn read him his rights and the charges against him during a brief morning appearance after he was transferred into federal custody at 5 a.m. No plea was required because he has yet to be indicted.

The Afghanistan-born U.S. citizen was hospitalized for weeks for treatment of multiple bullet wounds after a police shootout during his Sept. 19 capture outside a bar in Linden, New Jersey.

Rahimi is charged with detonating a pipe bomb along a Marine Corps charity race in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and planting two pressure cooker bombs in New York City.

One of those devices did not explode. The other one detonated in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, injuring 30.

Netburn formally notified him that he faced four federal charges: the use of weapons of mass destruction, the bombing of a public place, the destruction of property through fire or explosion and the use of a destructive device during a crime of violence.

Rahimi, speaking softly, acknowledged that he understood the charges while his attorney, David Patton, waived a public reading of them.

Patton told the judge he was worried that Rahimi cannot be adequately treated for his wounds at the Manhattan Correctional Center, a federal lockup next to federal courthouses in lower Manhattan.

He said Rahimi has already undergone eight to 10 surgeries, many for infections resulting from his bullet wounds. Rahimi also has serious liver damage, injuries to his left hand that prevent him from closing it, an open wound on his right leg and serious back and shoulder injuries, he added.

"We have some real concerns about Mr. Rahimi's medical condition," Patton said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew DeFillippis said federal authorities took his injuries into consideration when they decided he was well enough to be transferred to the Manhattan facility.

Outside court, Patton said Rahimi "certainly plans to enter a plea of not guilty at his arraignment," but he declined to discuss anything further about the case or his client's mental condition.

In addition to the federal charges, Rahimi faces five counts of attempted murder of a police officer and weapons offenses in New Jersey. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Dozens of Latino activists gathered Wednesday near the colonial Mexican pueblo of Los Angeles, the historic downtown center, to chant their defiance of President-elect Donald Trump, whose election Tuesday has cast uncertainty over millions of immigrants who are in the United States illegally, most of them Hispanic.

Trumps aggressive stand on illegal immigration has mobilized many immigrants from Latin America and Asia to campaign and vote, both for and against his candidacy.

Andreyna Baldenegro, an activist with CARACEN, the Central American Resource Center, said she is still in shock over Trumps election and, like most of her friends, she is feeling disappointment, a lot of sadness.

Activists chanted aqui estamos y no nos vamos  we are here and were not leaving  as Pedro Trujillo explained that he and his sister are at risk of deportation when President Trump takes office January 20.

The siblings were born in Mexico and brought to the United States as children, and are now shielded under President Barack Obamas program called DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Trump has said he will reverse the program.

Our status and our way of life in this country are in limbo, Trujillo said.

Blanca Flores, who came to the United States from El Salvador 30 years ago, is a legal immigrant but says many others around her are not.

Im afraid for my family, she said in Spanish. Im afraid for our friends and for my coworkers. Her sister, brother and nephew are undocumented.

Jonathan Paik of the Korean Resource Center shares similar concerns for undocumented South Korean immigrants  a smaller group than Latin Americans without legal status, he says, but still hundreds of thousands of people. He said he will join with other activists to make sure that our communities get what they deserve and press their demands, regardless of who is in the White House.

Chinese immigrant David Wang, a successful investor, is on the other side of the issue.

Wang has knocked on doors in Pennsylvania and Nevada in support of Trump, whose policies Wang believes will help immigrants from Asia and the country as a whole.

We are the silent minority, said Wang, the founder of the group Chinese Americans for Trump, of his ethnic community. We never talk about politics, and this is why politicians usually sacrifice Chinese-Americans for other ethnicities, including blacks and Hispanics.

Wang says he is opposed to educational policies that favor other minorities over Asians in college admissions. He appreciates what he calls Trumps assertive style, charisma and rejection of political correctness, his brashness in saying out loud what others will only think.

For Pedro Trujillo, the fight is personal.

Were here to stay and were not going to go anywhere, he said, as activists behind him chanted Se se puede  Yes, we can  the rallying cry of defiant Latino farmworkers that was later embraced by Democratic Party politicians, including Obama and unsuccessful presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Montenegro's president named a former head of the secret police as the prime minister-designate who will try to form a new government.

Dusko Markovic, 58, is also the deputy leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists and one of the most trusted allies of Milo Djukanovic, the leader of the DPS.

The DPS emerged as the single strongest party in Montenegro's 81-seat parliament after an election on Oct. 16, but it lost its majority. It is now seeking an alliance with a small Social Democrat party (SDCG) and parties that represent national minorities, which would give it a majority of only two seats.

The major opposition parties rejected holding any talks with Djukanovic, whom they accused of corruption and authoritarianism during his 25 years as either president or prime minister. The DPS nominated Markovic to become premier instead.

In a statement, President Filip Vujanovic said he nominated Markovic as a candidate from the strongest party.

"Dusko Markovic should be the prime minister-designate who will be devoted to [Europea] integrations and economic prosperity," Vujanovic said.

Montenegro, a former Yugoslav republic, hopes to join both NATO and European Union.
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Muslim Americans are preparing for life under a new president who has proposed banning foreign Muslims from entering the U.S. As VOA's Kane Farabaugh reports, there is widespread concern and uncertainty among Muslim Americans about what a Donald Trump presidency means.
Muslim Americans are preparing for life under a new president who last December proposed banning foreign Muslims from entering the United States.

President-elect Donald Trump later walked back such a blanket ban, instead saying people from countries flagged as terrorism concerns would be subject to extreme vetting.

Those comments made many Muslim Americans wary of his candidacy. At a watch party at the Arab-American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, many were shocked at his victory and told VOA they are concerned about what his presidency will mean.

Trump has run on racism and bigotry, said Abdullah Hammoud, who won a seat in the Michigan state legislature on Tuesday. He has monetized it, in fact, in exchange for votes, and we see the results of which on TV. And it is a scary thought.

Despite winning his race for the Michigan House of Representatives, election night was filled with mixed emotions for the 26-year-old Democrat.



"It is a strange contrast, right? For the first time in Dearborn's history, they have elected an Arab-American Muslim, first generation," he said, "and at the statewide level, we may be supporting Trump, and at the national level, a Trump presidency.

Splitting a Trump-led ticket



Hammoud knows some people in his district supported him while also voting for Trump on the same ballot. The possible reasons Michigan voters chose Trump over Hillary Clinton trouble him.

It is scary that I was with my family earlier today, and I was celebrating," Hammoud said. "Tomorrow, I may wake up and speak to my mother and my sister, who wear the hijab, and tell them to be careful when they leave outside the front door."

Asha Noor works as an advocacy specialist for the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS). For her, the election was a reminder of the racial and religious divides that continue to exist in America.



It shows, to me, that racism and bigotry have prevailed, she said. It shows me that I have never lived in a post-racial society. And it shows me that certain communities are not wanted in this society.



But rather than be consumed with apprehension and fear, Noor says she is ready to take action and resume her activism.



Get our message out there. Show people who we are. Show them that we are not going anywhere, she said. This is our country as much as it is anyone elses country. We contribute, and we have always contributed to this country.



Arab American News newspaper publisher Osama Siblani says many Muslim Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, but were not enthusiastic about her candidacy.



They are very disgusted with the election. I do not believe that Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans have a favorite candidate," Siblani said. "They probably are voting for Clinton just because they are against Donald Trump, not because they think Hillary Clinton is the best candidate.



It was an historic election for the Arab American News because it marked the first time in its 32-year history that the newspaper did not endorse a presidential candidate. Not only did Siblani withhold an endorsement, he did not vote for a presidential candidate.



I am a Republican myself, or I was a Republican, and I believe the Republican party has really damaged its connection and links to the community and they should work hard to mend fences, he said.



A task that falls to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who will work with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate.
Russian warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea on Wednesday drove away a Dutch submarine shadowing the squadron, the military said.



Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said two Russian navy destroyers spotted the Walrus-class submarine Wednesday while it was 20 kilometers (some 11 nautical miles) away from the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier and its escorting ships.



The destroyers had tracked the submarine for more than an hour, using anti-submarine helicopters, before forcing it to leave the area, Konashenkov said. He didn't elaborate how the warships prompted the submarine to leave.



The spokesman added that such clumsy attempts to maneuver close to the Russian squadron could have resulted in an accident.



Konashenkov said the Russian squadron had previously spotted several NATO submarines, including a U.S. Virginia-class nuclear submarine, while en route to eastern Mediterranean waters.



A NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't allowed to discuss the sensitive issue on the record, said the alliance's navies have been monitoring the Russian fleet in recent weeks in a measured and responsible way, as is customary. He refused to elaborate on how NATO was doing that.



In a tweet, the Dutch Defense Ministry said it does not comment on operations conducted by its submarines.



The Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier is being accompanied by the nuclear-powered Peter the Great missile cruiser and several other ships on a mission to Syria's shores, the Russian navy's largest deployment since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.



NATO has expressed concern, saying the move could presage an increase in the number of Russian air raids in Syria, particularly around the besieged city of Aleppo.
After winning the U.S. presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump has tried to reassure allies in Northeast Asia that are apprehensive at the possibility he may follow through on the radical policy changes he suggested during the campaign.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke to the president-elect to stress the need for close cooperation between their two nations to maintain peace and stability in Asia, according to an official in Tokyo. Abe is also planning to meet with Trump in November before traveling to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru.

During a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday, the U.S. president-elect said, We are with you all the way, and we will not waver, according to a statement from the Seoul presidential office.

Burden sharing

During the presidential campaign, the Republican nominee refused to say if he would unconditionally support the longstanding U.S. extended deterrence policy to defend allies in Asia against a North Korean nuclear attack.

Instead, he voiced sharp criticism of South Korea and Japan for not bearing enough of the financial burden for American forces stationed in their countries. And Trump threatened to pull out troops and allow regional allies to acquire their own nuclear weapons if they could not come to better financial terms.

The South Korean Defense Ministry said Thursday the division of defense costs from their perspective is fair and has been determined by negotiations that included the current U.S. administration, the U.S. forces in Korea and Congress.

Nor is Seoul willing to pay for the U.S. missile defense system THAAD to be deployed in Korea, said Defense Ministry Spokesman Moon Sang-kyun.

We already have expressed many times that we are not willing to purchase it. THAAD has been already decided between the administrations of South Korea and the U.S., and is proceeding normally, so we judge that there will be no such problem, he said.

North Korea

North Korean state media has urged Trump to help unify the Korean peninsula by withdrawing American forces from South Korea. During the campaign, Trump indicated he would consider this option if Washington and Seoul could not agree on a fairer burden-sharing agreement.

An editorial about Trump appeared in the DPRK Today state media outlet. It also called him a wise politician and far-sighted presidential candidate.

The president-elects perceived willingness to consider an unconventional approach to regional security in Asia may create new possibilities for negotiations that have stalled over the Norths repeated nuclear and missile tests, the U.S.-led efforts to increase sanctions against Pyongyang, and Chinas reluctance to impose harsh measures that might cause instability at its border or the collapse of its ally.

But North Korea analyst Van Jackson says it also comes with risk, as the North could read any friction among U.S. allies as a lack of resolve.

They see the lack of certainty about us coming to South Koreas aid, and that could translate into a window of opportunity in their minds, said Jackson, who is an associate professor at the U.S. Defense Departments Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, but his views do not represent the positions of the U.S. government.

Possible negative outcomes of a U.S. withdrawal from the region, Jackson says, would include North Korea staging an attack against the South, China increasing its power in Asia, and the U.S. suffering from reduced influence and trade in the region.

In January, Trump called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a maniac but gave the young leader credit for ruthlessly seizing power. At the same time he emphasized that the U.S. must be tough in dealing with any provocations, saying, This guy doesnt play games. And we cant play games with him.

But on how to deal with the growing North Korean threat, Trump has been vague other than to say he would be willing to meet with the North Korean leader over a hamburger.

While Trump has opened up the possibly for radical change with his comments, some leaders in his party, such as Senator John McCain, have tried to reassure allies in the region that the U.S. would fulfill its security commitment to Asia and maintain the current North Korea policy that focuses on deterrence, containment and increasing pressure on the Kim government to halt its nuclear program.

But on Thursday, the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers Party, reaffirmed Pyongyangs position that it will never give up its nuclear weapons saying, Washingtons hope for North Koreas denuclearization is an outdated illusion.

Human rights

President-elect Trump, who has expressed admiration for some authoritarian leaders, such as Russias Vladimir Putin, has not yet addressed international efforts to hold North Korean leaders accountable for widespread and systematic human rights abuses.

In 2014, a U.N. Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea issued a report documenting a network of political prisons in the country holding 120,000 people and a list of atrocities that include forced labor, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence.

Pyongyangs allies, China and Russia, have reportedly put on hold a U.N. Security Council measure to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch says he is concerned that the president-elect will overlook rights abuses in the North to achieve some concession from Pyongyang on its nuclear program.

We are going to have to work on Donald Trump. We are going to have to push him very hard on human rights issues he said.

Youmi Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.
Pakistan says recent killings of Haqqani Network leaders in Afghanistan show that allegations Islamabad is harboring the terrorist group are misplaced.

Afghan and U.S. officials have long alleged Haqqanis use sanctuaries on Pakistani soil with the help of the neighboring countrys spy agency for plotting deadly cross-border attacks in support of the Taliban insurgency.

Pakistan's government has consistently rejected the charges.

Since July this year, eight leaders and commanders of [the] Haqqani Network alone have been actually killed in Afghanistan by ... U.S. and Afghan forces, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said Thursday.

He cited media reports of the fatalities in U.S. drone strikes and in ground actions performed by Afghan commandos as well as intelligence operatives, particularly in eastern and southeastern Afghan regions bordering Pakistan.

So, I think the number itself, within this short period of time, is reflective of where the leadership of [the] Haqqani Network is at the moment, said Zakaria.

Kabul reaction

In Kabul, authorities denied that the terror group's leadership is located in Afghanistan.

"The killings of Haqqani leaders in Afghanistan doesn't mean that they are based in Afghanistan," Defense Ministry deputy spokesperson Mohammad Radmanesh said Thursday.

Radmanesh added that "everyone knows terrorists are based in Pakistan. The Quetta Shura, the Peshawar Shura are recruiting in Miranshah and Quetta cities and send terrorists to Afghanistan."

Radmanesh said that the Afghan forces killed Haqqani leaders while defending Afghanistan.

Designated terror organization



The U.S. Department of State has designated the Haqqani Network a Foreign Terrorist Organization for carrying out deadly attacks against American and coalition forces and maintaining close ties to al-Qaida.

The State Department also has authorized a reward of millions of dollars for information leading to the location and arrest of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the networks chief.

The only known Haqqani leader killed in Pakistan is Nasiruddin Haqqani, an elder brother of the groups fugitive chief.

The slain leader was allegedly residing near Islamabad and was gunned down three years ago by unknown attackers while he was buying bread in a local market.

The youngest brother among the Haqqanis, Anas Haqqani, is in custody in Afghanistan and has recently been sentenced to death after being convicted on terrorism charges. The conviction is under appeal.
With a stunning presidential victory behind him, Donald Trump now turns his attention to filling Cabinet positions that will be instrumental in shaping America's foreign policy over the next four years.

Among the issues Trump's administration must address are global terrorism, instability in the Middle East, tension in eastern Europe along the Russian border, and China's growing global military and economic influence.

Immigration reform, a centerpiece of Trump's campaign, is expected to be a high priority, as Trump has vowed to build an "impenetrable physical wall" along the border the United States shares with Mexico.

To effectively execute on the foreign policy front, the president-elect will need to surround himself with extremely knowledgeable people who can make reasonable proposals, according to Charles Stevenson at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

"The president-elect appears to have a short attention span," Stevenson said in an interview with VOA. He's not into the ruminative seminar-type situations like President [Barack] Obama and former President [Bill] Clinton were. He wants to be decisive quickly, and that means those presentation skills would be very important."

The pool of experienced candidates from which Trump can draw may be smaller than usual for incoming presidents. In his first major foreign policy address in April, Trump promised to avoid experienced people "who have perfect resumes but very little to brag about except responsibility for a long history of failed policies and continued losses at war."

Council of Foreign Relations Visiting Fellow Elizabeth Saunders told VOA the backlash resulting from Trump's position may force the president-elect to search outside the traditional pools of candidates.

"The problem is many of those people have signed pledges never to work for him  and it's partly because they may find him unacceptable, but it's also because he is really at odds on many issues with the Republican foreign policy establishment," she said.

If potential candidates changed their minds and would be willing to accept an administration position, Sanders questioned whether Trump would accept them.

"If he did have them, would he listen to them?" she asked.

Trump has generally remained mum on who will fill positions that play key roles in foreign policy issues, but here are some names that are being circulated:

Secretary of state

Former House Speaker and close Trump adviser Newt Gingrich is being widely mentioned for the position, one that Stevenson says may not be suited to Gingrich's strengths.

"Gingrich as Speaker of the House was a very skilled political tactician. I'm not really aware of any distinctive foreign policy views that he's expressed over the years," Stevenson said.

Also being mentioned as candidates are Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.

Secretary of defense

Close Trump adviser and U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions could join the new administration in this capacity. Other names mentioned are former Senator Jim Talent and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Homeland Security secretary

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's name is being circulated for this job. The conservative sheriff of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, David Clarke, has also been mentioned as a candidate.

Treasury secretary

Trump has publicly said he wants his campaign finance chairman, Goldman Sachs alumnus Steven Mnuchin, to fill this post.

Commerce secretary

Trump economic adviser and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross could fill this post. Other names being mentioned are former Texas Governor Rick Perry, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and former steelmaker executive and Trump trade adviser Dan DiMicco.

Attorney-General

The name most prominently mentioned for the nation's top law enforcement officer is former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. The former U.S. attorney and assistant attorney general is apparently not shy about expressing his interest in the job.

"I certainly have the energy and nobody knows the Justice Department better than me," Giuliani said Thursday morning on CNN.

Other possibilities include New Jersey Governor Christie and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Women

As to whether Trump will consider women for Cabinet-level or other top positions, Stevenson of Johns Hopkins said, "I don't think Trump would play identity politics the way most Democrats would, where they want to be sure that the people in the Cabinet, the people around them, reflect the diversity of America."
The kids sitting in the battered car fleeing the besieged Iraqi city of Mosul were wide-eyed at the towering armored trucks and the hordes of soldiers from Iraqs Golden Division in their trademark black combat fatigues. Playing up for reporters and photographers at the checkpoint, they described the airstrikes they had endured with even wider-eyes.

Then one youngster  no older than five  pointed at his brother, a pre-teen also, giggled, and announced, Hes Daesh.

His veiled mother shook her head in horror.

A lighthearted moment maybe from one perspective, but finger pointing has already begun in earnest as the territory controlled by the Islamic State terror group in Iraq shrinks.

Risks of intra Sunni bloodbath



Iraq is no stranger to bloody cycles of revenge and the playing out of family, tribal as well as sectarian vendettas. As the Mosul offensive unfolds the danger of Shiite atrocities has been highlighted by rights groups, who have urged the Iraqi government not to allow Shiite militias to enter the city. But there are high risks also of an intra Sunni bloodbath as the Islamic State terror group is driven, albeit painfully slowly, from Iraqs second largest city.

Sunnis who suffered at the hands of the jihadists, who saw relatives butchered by militants or were forced and threatened to give up a daughter for marriage to an extremist, are likely to take out their anger on fellow Sunnis  even neighbors  who collaborated with the terror group, predict analysts.

And those seeking revenge may not be so discriminating in distinguishing between major IS members and supporters, lower-ranking members, sympathizers and those who went along just to survive.

Most of the prominent members and most aggressive militants will be killed in the fighting or will get out and head to Syria, says political psychologist Maha Hassan Bukir, an academic at Salahaddin University in Irbil. In that case, people wont be able to find those militants most responsible for their suffering and they will punish anyone they can find associated in anyway with Daesh, she worries.

Bukir observed the revenge cycle that built up after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

People extracted revenge from Baathists, many of whom fled their homes and tried to hide themselves in other Iraqi cities or left the country and went to Syria, she says. And many of those Baathists later joined IS, bringing to the terror group their military expertise.

In my opinion we will see a similar revenge cycle playing out in Mosul. Most likely it wont happen immediately, but sooner or later we will see it, she says.

Revenge



The scale of the revenge will depend, she reckons, on how quickly the Baghdad government establishes law and order in the city and rebuilds, reducing the general fury and dissipating the pent-up frustration with day-to-day challenges that could feed the urge for revenge.



While in smaller and more homogeneous Iraqi towns, tribal chiefs would have the clout to minimize retaliation and be able to oversee a rough-and-ready system of transitional justice, including blood-money payments, in Mosul their power to do so is much less.

In Ramadi, 430 kilometers to the south of Mosul, following both the defeat of the jihadists there in 2006 and last year, the tribal chiefs were able to tamp down anger within the Sunni community and prevent a retaliation dynamic.

When they tell people to fight, they do so; when they order a stop, people stop, says Bukir. In any case, the tribes in Ramadi en masse supported IS at the start under instructions from the tribal chiefs, and then withdrew support subsequently and switched to backing the central government when told to do so.



Mosul, though, is home to many Sunni tribes and clans as well as a mixture of sectarian and ethnic groups, making it a much more complicated place where a handful of chiefs aren't able to put their heads together and solve problems by consensus.

On top of that, IS militants have upset fragile power balances not only between tribes but within them, disrupting hierarchies by marrying into them and by boosting the authority of a younger generation of leaders.

Money  either through the form of general subsidies to help tribes rebuild or even compensation from the central government for a loss of a family member  could help reduce widespread fury, says Bukir. She and other analysts say the Iraqi government needs to think carefully about transitional justice and how it manages post-IS Mosul, not only to cut down on violence on moral grounds but in order to stop it spinning out of control and sowing the seeds of a jihadist successor to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadis terror group  an IS 3.0.

They should prosecute only the most egregious IS members and collaborators, she argues. A truth-telling commission would also help, allowing grieving victims to vent their anger. That is not likely to happen though.

Kurdish journalist Nzar Zrar Gzali, director of Awene newspaper in Irbil, Iraqi Kurdistans capital, suspects little can prevent retaliation and that it could be even bloodier than what has been seen before. People will want to avenge sexual dishonor and shame, he says, because of the Daesh forced marriages.

Feelings of guilt, he thinks, will drive some who went along with IS to be especially violent, using revenge as a vehicle for catharsis.
NORCROSS, Ga., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Euramax Holdings, Inc. announced today that it will host an investor conference call regarding its third quarter 2016 financial results at 2:00 PM Eastern Time on Monday, November 21, 2016. Existing bond holders, qualified institutional investors and securities analysts can obtain dial-in information upon registration at the Euramax Investor Relations website at http://www.euramax.com/investor-relations.
Russian government officials were in contact with members of Donald Trump's campaign prior to Tuesday's election, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Thursday.

"Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage," Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency. "Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions. I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives."

Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks denied the claim, consistent with Trump's denial throughout the campaign that he had any contact with the Russian government.





Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Bloomberg News that Russian Embassy staff met with members of Trump's campaign, which she called "normal practice." She said that Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign, however, had refused similar requests.

During the election campaign, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanged compliments and expressed interest in improving relations.

On the thorny issues of Russias military actions in Ukraine and Syria, Trump leaned to Moscows positions more than his own Republican Party.

Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory, news of which was met with applause in Russia's parliament Wednesday.
South Africas president, Jacob Zuma, has survived yet another vote of no confidence in parliament.

The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), presented the motion, arguing that indications Zuma allowed the powerful Gupta family to choose Cabinet members shows he is a threat to the countrys stability.

Last week, South Africas state watchdog agency recommended that a judicial commission investigate the relationship that Zuma and some state officials had with the Guptas, a business family of Indian immigrants accused of meddling in the government for financial benefit, according to the Associated Press.

But when it came time to vote, the ANC used its majority to keep Zuma afloat.

The voting summary is as follows; the Yes is 126, No is 214, abstain is one, not voted is 58, said Deputy Speaker Lecheba Tsenoli, announcing the outcome. The motion is therefore not agreed to.

Robust debate

The debate Thursday was frank. From the start, opposition parties raised numerous points of order calling for the vote to be decided through a secret ballot, to protect members of the ruling African National Congress party who might want to vote Zuma out. Some ANC members have urged Zuma to resign.

A vote against this motion is a vote for state capture, it is a vote for corruption, it is a vote for theft, it is a vote for power abuse, said Mmusi Maimane, the DA leader.

Other opposition parties also kept the pressure on. Chief whip of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, Floyd Shivambu, called on the ANC to dispose of Zuma.

We believe that the liberation movement itself should have found it in its conscience to act against Jacob Zuma, Shivambu said, adding that Zuma has abdicated his responsibility as a leader of our country and gave it to a family.

ANC parries

The ANC pushed back against the motion, calling it a waste of time.

Nomvula Mokonyane, an ANC member of parliament, referred to the motion as the opposition partys desperate attempt to find relevance.

Continuously the DA and its allies present before this house motions and issues that seek to undermine our commitment to realize radical economic transformation and the creation of a social order that will benefit the majority of our people, Mokonyane said.

With eight attempts at a no-confidence vote and a string of scandals having failed to force Zuma out of office, opposition parties say they plan to leave the matter to voters in the next national polls, which do not happen until 2019.
The United Nations warns that besieged eastern Aleppo in northern Syria faces mass starvation this winter if U.N. aid agencies are blocked from distributing desperately needed food supplies to 250,000 trapped civilians.



The United Nations says it fears winter will be a killer in too many places throughout Syria. The international body says it has not been able to pre-position food and other relief supplies in besieged areas because of fighting and administrative hurdles.

U.N. special adviser Jan Egeland says there is particular concern about how one quarter of a million people in eastern Aleppo will survive the harsh winter months.

The last time east Aleppo was reached with significant humanitarian supplies was in the beginning of July, in the middle of the summer. The report we have now from within east Aleppo is that the last food rations are being distributed as we speak.

Egeland says the United Nations has presented a new proposal for averting a humanitarian catastrophe this winter. The initiative calls for the Russian-Syrian side and opposition groups to allow food and other urgent relief supplies into eastern Aleppo.

It also calls for the medical evacuation out of Aleppo of some 300 wounded and sick patients with their families, while permitting medical supplies and medical personnel to enter the besieged city.

Bracing for escalation

A pause in Russian-Syrian airstrikes over eastern Aleppo continues, although ground fighting continues unabated; but, Russia has moved heavy weaponry, including cruise missiles, off the coast of Syria and says it plans to use these weapons in the battle for Aleppo.

Egeland tells VOA he is worried about the possibility of a dangerous escalation of the war.

I do indeed fear it could become much, much worse. It is terrible as we speak. It could get much worse.... I am hopeful that we could get our U.N. initiative going again.... I cannot see anyone wishing to see... so many civilians bleed to death in both east and west Aleppo because of indiscriminate war.

Regarding the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, Egeland says he believes U.S.-Russian engagement and cooperation in tackling humanitarian and political issues in Syria will continue. He says progress has always been made in reaching besieged areas with humanitarian aid whenever the United States and Russia have pushed for this together.
Germany said Friday that all of the employees at its consulate in northern Afghanistan were unhurt and accounted for, following an overnight Taliban suicide assault on the diplomatic facility.

The bomb-and-gun attack in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif left at least six civilians dead and wounded around 130 others, mostly civilians, according to hospital officials.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed his condolences to the victims. An official statement quoted him as saying that "all German and Afghan employees of the consulate remained unharmed.

A group of heavily armed Taliban suicide bombers staged the coordinated attack shortly before midnight on Thursday, detonating an explosives-packed vehicle in the vicinity of German Consulate.

The massive blast blew apart a protective barrier around the consulate, shaking buildings and damaging more than 100 homes and shops around the diplomatic mission, said the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) while condemning the violence.

It added that most of the injured suffered minor wounds from broken glass while those with serious injuries remain hospitalized.

"Attacks deliberately targeting the civilian population and violence aimed at spreading terror among civilians may amount to war crimes under customary international humanitarian law," said UNAMA.

Taliban assailants fought their way into the building during an intense gun battle that lasted for hours before Afghan and NATO troops ended the siege and secured the building and evacuated consulate staff.

A spokesman for the Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan instantly claimed responsibility.

The Taliban said their assault was a "revenge attack" to retaliate for an airstrike earlier this month in neighboring Kunduz province. The insurgents said a bombing run by U.S. warplanes killed 32 civilians, including a number of children.



The airstrikes have triggered impassioned demonstrations in nearby Kunduz city, with victims' relatives displaying mutilated bodies of dead children in a parade of trucks through the streets.





U.S. authorities are investigating the circumstances of the airstrike, but they have said it "very likely" was carried out by American warplanes. The air raid came after a Taliban assault that killed two American soldiers and three members of Afghan special forces.



Germany has 983 soldiers serving with NATOs Resolute Support military mission in Afghanistan, most of them stationed in Balkh province, of which Mazar-i-Sharif is the capital.

The foreign coalition in a statement said it rapidly deployed its quick reaction force and assisted in efforts to safely evacuate all 21 staff members of the German consulate.



"This attack by the Taliban once again shows that they use violence indiscriminately and without regard for the safety of civilians, said Lieutenant General Sandy Storrie, Deputy Commander of the NATO mission.
It did not take long for some of the world's most notorious terror groups to start celebrating Donald Trump's win in the U.S. presidential election, trying to leverage it on social media to attract more fighters to their causes.

There is little consensus, however, as to whether the Republican candidate's victory, combined with his campaign rhetoric, will serve to give the likes of al-Qaida and Islamic State anything more than a brief boost.

"#Trump's term may be the beginning of America's fragmentation," Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a well-known and influential Jordanian cleric with ties to al-Qaida, bragged on Twitter hours after Trump claimed victory.

"#Trump exposes the real mentality of Americans, their racism toward Muslims and Arabs and everything," Maqdisi tweeted to his more than 56,000 followers. "He only shows what his predecessors were hiding. His victory exposes America and its sins even more so."

"The gloves are off  the Mujahideen are ready," tweeted another group, using the handle @GreenBirdMedia1.

The reaction from jihadists on other social media platforms, including the Telegram app favored by IS, was much the same.

"It seems to be pretty overwhelmingly positive," said former CIA analyst Aki Peritz, now with George Washington University's Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.

"Nobody's saying this is a terrible thing," he added. "They all support Donald Trump's win in their own way."

Analysts: Clinton win meant fodder, too

Yet while some of Trump's own words from the campaign trail may be giving terror groups extra fodder, Peritz and others in the intelligence community doubt their desire to attack the U.S. would have been any less had Democratic candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emerged as the winner.

"The popular notion that Islamic State propagandists can use Donald Trump's victory to build support, more so than if Hillary Clinton won, is ridiculous," said Michael Smith of Kronos Advisory, a private intelligence group. "The election of a female president would be very quickly used by propagandists in all salafi-jihadist groups."

Smith said there also is ample evidence from jihadist groups themselves that they see little difference between the two candidates.

"The only differences between Trump and Clinton are that Clinton is more skilled in 'political correctness,' " the Islamic State said in a flyer disseminated by the group's al-Hayat Media Center in the days leading up to the U.S. election.

In addition, there is some sense the propaganda currently coming from IS, al-Qaida and other jihadists is bluster, meant to cover up fears that the targets on their backs actually may be growing.

"If anyone thinks that somehow al-Qaida and ISIS and these other groups are happy that Trump is president because he'll be less effective  that's just not true," said Michael Pregent, a former U.S. intelligence officer now with the Hudson Institute. "If I was an ISIS guy or an al-Qaida leader, I'd be more worried about a Trump administration."

ISIS is an acronym for Islamic State.

Trump stance may pay off

In particular, Pregent said, Trump's promise to take a tougher stance with Iran  and even rip up the Iranian nuclear deal  could pay off. He said changing direction with Tehran could make it more difficult for IS and al-Qaida, both Sunni Muslim groups, to use what has been a perceived U.S. tilt toward Iran, a Shi'ite Muslim power, to drive recruitment.

Pregent also feels Trump is likely to loosen restrictions that have hampered intelligence efforts to take down terror cells and key leaders.

"It will simply be accelerated," he said. "It will be done more often. It will be empowered to succeed."

Not everyone is convinced.

Former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P.J. Crowley said terror groups as resilient as al-Qaida and IS may be poised to take advantage of a Trump foreign policy "much more focused on American interests, probably a little less focused on American values."

"We're not necessarily going to worry about the character of our allies," Crowley told VOA's Press Conference USA on Wednesday. "We're going to worry about what they can do to solve a problem."

Al-Qaida in particular "has increasingly pivoted to localism, positioning itself as a partner/protector of oppressed Sunnis," Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, warned on Twitter, calling the prospects "deeply dangerous."

"If a Trump foreign policy prioritizes 'strongmen' allies, al-Qaida will get an unimaginable boost," he cautioned.
The United States under the Obama and Bush administrations called on NATO countries to boost their contributions and not leave the heaviest burden to the United States. Donald Trump, however, is the first to suggest the alliance should not automatically defend members against Russia if they do not pay up.

That stance has caused alarm among NATO leaders, who say they want to sit down with Trump as soon as possible.

The president-elect has not explicitly said he wants the United States to pull out of the world's largest peacetime alliance. But he made remarks during the campaign in which he called the organization "obsolete" and better suited to fighting conventional wars than defeating the modern threat of terrorists.

At a campaign town-hall meeting, he said: "Maybe NATO will dissolve and that's OK, not the worst thing in the world."

His suggestions that America might not come to the aid of Baltic nations in the face of Russian aggression are enough to raise questions about continued U.S. commitment to the alliance and concerns about its very existence.

U.S. accounts for 22 percent of budget

The United States is by far the largest contributor to NATO, accounting for 22 percent of the alliance's budget.

For defense, NATO members are obliged to contribute a minimum of 2 percent of their national budgets. The United States contributes 3.6 percent  more than any other member, while nations including France, Germany and Italy fall below the minimum, contributing well under 2 percent.



If we are not going to be reasonably reimbursed for the tremendous cost of protecting these massive nations with tremendous wealth  then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, 'Congratulations, you will be defending yourself,' Trump told The New York Times in an interview during the campaign.

Latvia and Lithuania, Baltic nations that are under threat of Russian aggression, also contribute less than the minimum.

Treaty is not binding

But whether the United States can unilaterally pull out of its NATO commitments is another question. Defense analysts say the answer is both yes and no.

NATO does not have the power to force the U.S. to defend another country.

Article 5 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty states that: Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all, and that if such an armed attack occurs, each of them  will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

The treaty is not binding under U.S. law.

At the same time, the president's powers on matters of war and peace are limited. While he has the power to negotiate treaties, these are subject to Senate approval.

While this week's elections kept both chambers of the U.S. Congress firmly in Republican control, there is no guarantee that all of Trump's initiatives will have automatic approval.

Most Republicans back NATO

Congress still has to approve funding or the suspension of it when it comes to defense matters, and analysts believe he would meet resistance on some issues.

"Congress in Republican hands, and there are elements of this agenda  the trade wars and the abandonment of NATO  that are definitely at odds with the Republican consensus," said Dana Allin, senior fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Affairs at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

What NATO officials are hoping for as they prepare to deal with Trump and plan for the future of the organization is clarity on his intentions.

If there's one characteristic of a Trump foreign policy which we can define now, I think it will be unpredictability, said Matthew Harries, a transatlantic affairs analyst speaking at a panel held by IISS after the election. We don't necessarily know which of his foreign policy positions were exaggerated boasts in the heat of the campaign and which are points of principle.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says he looks forward to working with the new leader and said he hopes to meet him soon.

Change in Trump's tone

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen took note of Trump's victory speech in which the president-elect said he would deal fairly with every other nation and seek common ground, not hostility.

I feel sure that the campaigner Trump will be different from the President Trump, so I fully support a quick meeting with Trump, he told the British TV network Sky News.

Some of Mr. Trump's statements from his campaign have raised a lot of concerns in Europe, including he raised doubts about the American commitment to the defense of NATO allies, Rasmussen said.

He expressed hope that Trump will work with the organization, not against it.

We need a very firm hand  in terms of Russia and ISIS. I think it is possible to address these issues with a President Trump," he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
For almost 30 years, Pennsylvania's electoral college votes have gone to Democratic presidential candidates. But on election night, this battleground state went for Donald Trump. VOA's Katherine Gypson talked to Trump supporters from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who were still surprised the day after his historic win.
Australias Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has spoken with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, who said the long-standing alliance between the two nations was of great importance to Washington.

"Barking mad" and a revolting slug were just some of the words Australian politicians used to describe Donald Trump in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election.

But now both sides of Australian politics are promising to work with President-elect Trump, and they have chosen to be pragmatic.

Military alliance



At stake is Australias most important military alliance - that with the United States, which dates back to the early 1950s. It provides a security blanket that lies at the core of the Australian psyche.

Turnbull, who strongly criticized Trumps crass comments about women during the campaign, congratulated the American president-elect, reaffirming the importance of a strong bilateral relationship.

"Americans understand they have no stronger ally and no better friend than Australia. And the enduring national interests of our two countries are such that our relationship will continue to be strong. We'll continue to work together as we have done with many presidents in years past to take on the challenges of our time," Turnbull said.





Australias former prime minister, Tony Abbott, also has congratulated Donald Trump, writing on Twitter that the United States has a new leader who appreciates that middle America is sick of being taken for granted.

Pauline Hanson, head of the far right anti-immigration One Nation party, celebrated Trumps victory with champagne on the lawns outside parliament house in Canberra.

She sees the president-elect as a fellow outcast, and has savored his stunning victory.

I am thrilled. I am thrilled with Donald Trump winning the presidency in America and I think they need a change. They are screaming out for change and that is evident in the polls, Hanson said.

Congratulating Trump on his victory, she tweeted that her "door will always be open" for him.

Australian share prices fell by almost four percent as news of Donald Trumps victory emerged, but has since recovered much of that lost ground.

Media commentary in Australia has been mixed. Some opinion columns have warned that a Trump presidency will fuel a trade war with China, Australias most important commercial partner, as well as bigotry and xenophobia.

However, a Sydney tabloid told its readers that the silent majority has roared. The underdog has triumphed. The outsiders have given a black eye to the Establishment.
Britain's vote to leave the European Union was a major shock to the global political system. But in a year of political earthquakes, it has just been trumped.

Like Brexit, Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential election was driven by voters turning against the established order and mainstream politicians. Years of uncertainty after the 2008 global financial crisis left some of those voters economically vulnerable, while others were unsettled by terrorism, global instability and the many people fleeing war and poverty.

It all bred a sense of revolt  that there would be no more of the same old, same old.

Steven Fielding, director of the Center for British Politics at the University of Nottingham, likened the mood to the 1970s film "Network," in which a TV anchor lets out a famous cry of frustration.

"'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore'  it's kind of like that," Fielding said.

The same populist wave could soon roll over Italy, France and beyond.

Trump's win came as a shock to many, but quite a few watching from Britain felt a strong sense of deja vu.

First came the groundswell of support for figures like pro-Brexit British politician Nigel Farage and Trump, and ideas long-considered on the fringe: leaving the EU, or building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. There were pithy anti-establishment slogans: Britons were urged to "Take back control," while U.S. voters were told to "Make America great again."

Details on how to execute such change were often scant. But it didn't matter.

Some resented immigrants or people from different races and backgrounds, and found campaigns that spoke to their anxiety.

In both cases, many commentators refused to believe the challenger could win. Pollsters were fooled. Bookies paid dearly for failing to predict the outcome.

Farage and Trump see themselves as allies on similar missions. The president-elect has likened his campaign to an American Brexit. Farage said Wednesday that 2016 will be "the year of two great political revolutions."

"I thought Brexit was big, but boy, this looks like it's going to be even bigger," he said.

Voters' reasons for embracing Trump, as for Brexit, were complex.

Many parents feared they would leave their children less well-off  unable to buy a house or fund a pension. That was coupled with anxiety about a world changing more quickly than anyone had imagined.

Americans were voting against Washington, just as Britons had voted against the entrenched forces of government in London.

Pollsters and the mainstream media did not hear their voices, said University of Kent political scientist Matthew Goodwin, an expert on the populist right.

"Many commentators in the United States dismissed the Brexit comparison, arguing that Hillary Clinton was in a far stronger position," he said.

But they underestimated the determination "among mainly white, working class and less well-educated Americans who feel under threat from rampant globalization and increasing rates of ethnic and cultural change."

Trump is unlikely to be the last populist to win. Under threat soon is Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, whose government will be shaken if he loses a Dec. 4 referendum on constitutional reform. A loss boosts the anti-EU Five Star movement.

France, Germany and the Netherlands all face elections in 2017. Among the first to congratulate Trump were heads of the nationalist Alternative for Germany, which is expected to take a double-digit share of the vote, and French National Front leader Marine Le Pen. Her far-right party is predicted to do well among voters frustrated with the status quo, economic stagnation and France's shrinking global clout.



Le Pen, a candidate for president, said the U.S. result "buries the old order," as did Brexit.

"What happened overnight in the United States is not the end of the world but the end of a world," Le Pen said.

In the Netherlands, which votes in March, far-right Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders said Trump's win signaled, "Look, it is possible!"

"What the Americans can do, we can, too," he said.

Analysts warn that the hope and anger harnessed by populists are a volatile force, and that outsiders find it far easier to make promises than to deliver on them.

"It's all very well saying no and rejecting something, but to put something in its place is a very complicated process," Fielding said. "We may be entering a period of great anger."
The United States of America appears less united than ever, based on evidence drawn from conversations with voters, showing how deep and surprising divisions between blocs of the American electorate enabled Republican nominee Donald Trumps stunning election upset and earned him the presidency.

Most credible projections had given Democrat Hillary Clinton a clear path to the finish line. Polling expert Nate Silver, for example, predicted on his website that Clinton had a 72 percent chance of victory as Election Day dawned.

That early estimate was based, to a degree, on assumptions that traditional supporters of Democratic candidates, such as African-American and Hispanic voters, would give Clinton a strong boost.

But exit polls conducted by the Pew Research Center the morning after the vote show that Clinton could not match the strong support President Barack Obama won from those two demographic groups.

In 2008, Obama had a 91 percentage point advantage among African-American voters over his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain. This year Clinton had a strong lead over Trump with the same group. But her edge was smaller, at 80 percentage points. And Trump, who launched his presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and vowing to make Mexico pay for a giant border wall, managed to win more Hispanic votes than Mitt Romney did in 2012.

Democratic pollster Geoff Garin told Politico its possible that those reading the polls assumed  wrongly  that steadily growing diversity in the U.S. population would automatically help Clinton.

There was too great a belief that demographics are destiny, and that demographics would lead to a certain outcome, he said.

Where were the women?

That same belief appears to have applied to women, who did not flock to Clinton in the overwhelming numbers that Silvers blog predicted just a month before the vote. In reality, Clinton won 54 percent of the female vote, one point less than Obama in 2012.

Why were the polls so wrong? The only poll that did not predict a Clinton landslide, and which was widely debunked for it  the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll  said perhaps it was a reporting bias.

Women who said they backed Trump were particularly less likely to say they would be comfortable talking to a pollster about their vote, that survey concluded.

The education gap

Trumps main boost, unsurprisingly, came from the group that has vocally supported him all along: non-college-educated white voters. NBCs exit poll found that 65 percent of white non-college-educated voters chose Trump, compared with 29 percent who voted for Clinton. That sort of margin hasnt been seen since Ronald Reagans 1984 victory over Walter Mondale.

Trump himself mentioned this group, which he called the forgotten people in his acceptance speech Wednesday morning.

Or as author and opinion writer J.D. Vance observed in The New York Times, The feeling that so many of Americas opinion leaders see [those] concerns as the product of stupidity at best, or racism at worst, confirms the worst fears of many. [The forgotten people] already worry that the coastal elites dont care about them, and many among those elites seem happy to comply.

Will the divides last?

In the exhausted aftermath of this bruising election, Clinton and Trump seemed to agree on one thing: the need for unity. Trump took a magnanimous tone in his acceptance speech, leaving behind his vitriol against Clinton and calling for togetherness.

Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division; [we] have to get together, he said  I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all of Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, Im reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.
TORONTO, Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- New Jersey American Water has selected Echologics continuous leak detection technology, EchoShore-DX, to reduce water loss, prioritize repairs and help maximize the life of its buried water infrastructure assets.



A subsidiary of American Water, New Jersey American Water is the largest investor-owned water utility in the state, serving approximately 2.6 million people. The utility installed more than 1,000 of Echologics leak detection nodes in six water systems across the state. In the first six months of operation, Echologics DX technology enabled New Jersey American Water to identify and repair more than 50 active leaks, with total recovery of more than 1,000 gpm in water loss.

New Jersey American Waters mission is to provide our customers with high-quality reliable water service, and we are committed to using technology that allows us to increase our efficiencies and the value of the services we provide, said Kevin Kirwan, Vice President of Operations for New Jersey American Water. The large-scale implementation of Echologics technology has enabled us to continuously monitor for leaks in a non-invasive manner.

Echologics pioneered the development of a proprietary, acoustic-based system, which can be used in the field to non-invasively locate leaks with exceptional accuracy without breaking ground or inserting tools in the water system.

Echologics leak detection technology incorporates the latest generation of acoustic sensors. The sensors are built into a standard fire hydrant cap, and are capable of identifying extremely faint acoustical noises emitted by leaks before they become detectable by conventional methods. This early detection capability enables utilities to prioritize repairs based on actual need and the most effective allocation of repair crews.

One of the challenges we face is how to reduce non-revenue water, which is water that has been treated but is lost in the distribution system before reaching its intended destination, said Don Shields, Vice President and Director of Engineering for New Jersey American Water. With Echologics technology, we have been able to reduce the amount of non-revenue water by detecting active leaks and prioritizing repairs before they became significant issues, ensuring that we are able to meet our commitments to our customers.

By integrating technology into water infrastructure and monitoring distribution mains on a continuous basis, New Jersey American Water is leveraging technology and data, which can help them better manage their assets more efficiently and improve customer service, said Marc Bracken, Vice President and General Manager of Echologics.

About Echologics

Echologics, a Mueller Technologies company, is a developer of water infrastructure diagnostic technologies for water loss management, leak detection and pipe condition assessment. Echologics is dedicated to helping water utilities reduce water loss with subsequent benefits in monetary, environmental and health costs to their communities. For more information, visit www.echologics.com.

About Mueller Water Products

Mueller Water Products, Inc. (NYSE:MWA) is a leading manufacturer and marketer of products and services used in the transmission, distribution and measurement of water in North America. Our broad product and service portfolio includes engineered valves, fire hydrants, metering products and systems, leak detection and pipe condition assessment. We help municipalities increase operational efficiencies, improve customer service and prioritize capital spending, demonstrating why Mueller Water Products is Where Intelligence Meets Infrastructure. The piping component systems produced by Anvil help build connections that last in commercial, industrial, mechanical, fire protection and oil & gas applications. Visit us at www.muellerwaterproducts.com.
Thorbjorn Jagland, the head of the Council of Europe, a top European rights monitoring group, met with Turkeys political leaders Thursday to discuss Europes growing concern about the state of the countrys human rights.

On Wednesday, the European Union, at its annual Progress Report on Turkeys bid to join its ranks, used unprecedented language to criticize the countrys rights record. An ongoing crackdown since Julys failed coup has drawn some of the harshest criticism.

Turkeys decade-long EU bid is no stranger to criticism, but analysts claim the scale and language used is something new, There has been difficulties in the relationship in the past, notes Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar for Carnegie Europe. But both the level of negativity of the rather euphemistically called Progress Report and the accompanying calls from different members of European institutions to suspend the negotiations, in that sense this is a quite a toxic environment," he said.

Ankara has dismissed European countries' concerns, accusing them of double standards and failing to understand the threat to democracy it is facing. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even mocked the threat to Turkeys EU bid.

They shamelessly say that Turkeys EU negotiations should be reviewed. You are late. Review it as soon as possible. But do not just review, make your final decision, Erdogan said Wednesday.

Ankaras bid started back in 1963, when it applied to join the EUs forerunner, the EEC. There is widespread belief its bid is blocked in part because of the countrys Muslim identity, The EU needs to be fairer. It needs to think about itself more declares Ayse Sozen Usluer, President Erdogans chief of international of relations. Up until now Turkey has been blocked by political concerns of some countries, not because of technical problems in the negotiation process, she said.

There still remain powerful forces on both sides that prevent a total collapse of the talks, argues analyst Ulgen.

One reason is the ongoing challenge of managing refugee flows where Turkey plays an invaluable role. Secondly there is also the prospect after many years of a settlement in Cyprus with the ongoing talks on the island. The Turkish government also understands that despite this heavy rhetoric, Turkey does not need anymore bad news given that the domestic situation is quite challenging, but so is the economic situation.

Refugee agreement at risk



But Ankara is upping the stakes, warning that by the end of the year it could end an agreement with Brussels to control refugees seeking to enter the European Union.

Erdogan is also pushing for the re-introduction of the death penalty. That would automatically lead to a suspension of membership talks.

Brexit, the United Kingdoms decision to leave the European Union, could become a powerful impetus to Ankara ending its membership talks. Brexit is going to be an interesting model for Turkey, says advisor Usluer. If they [the UK] are able to make a trade agreement between [the] EU, Turkey may choose this model and continue its relationship with the EU in the limits of this model.

Such a move would likely cause further alarm among critics of the government and supporters of the secular state who view the European Union membership bid as an important anchor for fundamental rights and the countrys Western orientation. But analysts suggest any move away from Europe would probably lead to a closer alignment with Washington.

One way or another Turks realize they need a relationship with the West and they have used America and Europe against each other in the past, observes Semih Idiz, political columnist for Turkeys Hurriyet Daily News and al-Monitor website. So deterioration in relations with Europe will provide a window of opportunity for improving ties with America, he said.

Trump's election



While Ankara has its differences too with Washington, in particular over Syria, the election of Donald Trump is already being seen as an opportunity to reset relations.

Erdogan was among the first to phone Trump to congratulate him on his election victory. A statement issued by the Turkish presidency said both men,expressed their commitment to further strengthening bilateral relations, [and] continue their close cooperation on regional and international issues, including the fight against terrorism.
Turkeys prospects of joining the European Union seem remote after the bloc this week criticized Ankaras crackdown following the attempted coup in July. Turkey's actions are also impacting the talks continuing in Switzerland over the reunification of Cyprus, which has been divided since Turkey invaded in 1974, in response to a Greek military coup aimed at uniting Cyprus with Greece. There are growing concerns that Turkey may fully annex the north of the island.

In the arid, sun-baked hills outside Nicosia, Soteris Antoniou and Kutret Balci carefully remove the top layers of their hives to check the progress of their latest project.



The two men are from opposite sides of a divided island. But they are trying to solve a common problem. The Caucasian queen bee  widely used in honey production  cant cope with Cypruss scorching summers. So they're trying to breed a new, more hardy queen, as Greek Cypriot Soteris Antoniou explains.

I cooperate with my friend, Turkish Cypriot Kutret Balci, exchange ideas and we try to make the best bees, said Antoniou.



Antoniou and Balci hope their cross-border collaboration will be mirrored in the islands politics.





The United Nations has described the Switzerland summit between the leaders of the two communities as the last chance for a generation to achieve a peace deal to end decades of division on the island. Cyprus expert James Ker-Lindsay of the London School of Economics says the stakes are even higher.

In fact Id go even further, Id say this is probably the last chance ever," said Ker-Lindsay.



Hundreds of thousands of Greek Cypriots fled their homes when Turkey invaded the north in 1974. They  and their descendants  want to return home.



So its a question of how do you give back enough territory as possible to get people there but also allow the Turkish Cypriots to have their own viable state if you like within a federation," said Ker-Lindsay.



The Turkish Cypriot leader has warned that Ankara may annex the north if the current talks fail. Ker-Lindsay says Turkey may take lessons from Russia.



The price its paid effectively for annexing Crimea has been relatively low, all things considered," said Ker-Lindsay. "And I think that there is every opportunity that Turkey would look at that and say, Well why dont we just do the same?



Turkeys ambitions to join the European Union had been seen as an incentive for Ankara to compromise on Cyprus. But this week the bloc strongly criticized Turkeys crackdown following Julys attempted coup, raising the stakes for the reunification talks even higher.
Turkeys prospects of joining the European Union seem remote after the bloc this week criticized Ankaras crackdown following the attempted coup in July. Turkey's actions are also impacting the talks continuing in Switzerland over the reunification of Cyprus. As Henry Ridgwell reports, there are growing concerns that Turkey may fully annex the north of the island.
Two Marine fighter jets on a training mission collided Wednesday over the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, with one pilot landing nearby and the other ejecting safely, military officials said.

The pilots, each in a single-seat F/A-18 Hornet, were taken to nearby medical facilities and were in stable condition, Marine Corps officials said.

The pilot who ejected landed in the ocean and was rescued by the USS Carl Vinson. The second pilot landed at the Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego.

The cause of the collision is under investigation.

The jets belonged to the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing stationed at the Marine Corps' air station at Miramar in San Diego.

This incident follows the crash of another F/A-18 Hornet in the California desert late last month. The pilot in the October 25 crash ejected safely near the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, located east of Los Angeles.
Meryem Bencheikhs daughter turns 6 today. Every day since she started school, shes had one thing to say.

She tells me, Wednesday Hillary is going to be president, Bencheikh says. The Muslim woman who grew up in Morocco couldnt bear to tell her child that Hillary Clinton lost.

Whats a mother to say?

Its a dilemma many moms face after Tuesdays U.S. election. Just a day prior, mothers held the hands of their daughters as they led them into a voting booth.

Its life changing, says one Tribeca woman who voted at a New York City precinct, her 5- and 6-year-old daughters beaming as they walked out from behind the voting machine. My girls will always know a girl can be president so nobody needs to tell them that they cant do anything.

Hillary Clinton acknowledged the symbol she had become for many women, from those elementary school children to college co-eds and beyond. She addressed them in her concession speech.

Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams, Clinton said.

The electorate did give women a different kind of historic first. Voters insured that 21 women  the largest number ever  will serve in the U.S. Senate. But the presidential race was another story.

White women for Trump

Exit polls suggest more white women chose Republican Donald Trump over Clinton by 10 percent, white men preferred Trump by 12 percent. Some political science analysts, including Hamline Universitys David Schultz, suggest women candidates face gender discrimination from voters who will not admit their choice to pollsters.

There is, I think, still a large percentage of our population that wont vote for a woman for president of the United States, Schultz said. He said he believes that is why polls, especially in the recent election, incorrectly predicted Clinton would win.

It would be easy to blame those so-called shadow votes on male voters. But, Linda Crozier, a Trump voter from Pennsylvania, says women dont have any right to be president.

Crozier blames it on emotions: I dont want anybody with their finger on the red button, she could be having a bad day, like we do, she said.

Looking ahead

That was far from the sentiment at the Clinton watch party Tuesday night at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

Thousands who voted for a woman president looked stunned, some sobbing, as they filed out of the building.

Coline Jenkins meandered around the huge hall, drawing attention because of the notebook-sized black-and-white photo of her great-grandmother she carried next to her face.

Womens Suffrage leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton was her great-grandmother. Its symbolic because Stanton fought to get women the right to vote. After her death, the 19th amendment passed in 1919, prohibiting voting discrimination by gender.

Jenkins knows her ancestors history well and says she stayed optimistic despite many obstacles. When faced with the latest loss for feminism, Jenkins predicts Stanton would look to the future.

She would ask, Whats the next step? Jenkins said.

Motivation from loss

It is a dreary rainy morning in New York City when hundreds of Clinton supporters line the side doors of The Wyndham New Yorker Hotel. Hillary Clinton is inside, delivering a delayed concession speech. The crowd is mainly women, here to see the woman who won their vote.

Other women are motivated after standing in the crowd for an hour to see Clinton walk outside and into her car. Patricia Meonopiciade could barely see over the dense crowd. She said she came to take action.

Its time to get out and be active again. In politics, she said.
U.S. President Barack Obama says he had an "excellent" and "wide-ranging" conversation with Donald Trump during the president-elect's first visit to the White House.

"We talked about some of the organizational issues in setting up the White House. We talked about foreign policy. We talked about domestic policy," Obama said at the Oval Office. He stressed that his number one priority is to facilitate a smooth transition of power.

Trump said the two discussed a lot of different situations, "some wonderful and some difficulties." "I very much look forward to dealing with the President in the future," he said.



WATCH: Obama, Trump comment on their meeting

"The peaceful transfer of power is a bedrock principle of our democracy," the White House said ahead of their meeting in the Oval Office. First lady Michelle Obama met privately with Trump's wife Melania about life in the private quarters of the executive mansion.

The White House said that long before the Republican Trump's stunning upset Tuesday over Democrat Hillary Clinton became apparent, Obama directed officials last year "to make a smooth transition between administrations a top priority" of his last year in office.

It said Obama officials are making sure that Trump and his yet-to-be-named key officials are "prepared from day one to protect our national security." U.S. intelligence and defense officials are starting to give Trump daily briefings on threats to the country's security and overseas military operations.



In addition, the Obama administration plans to host two exercises involving several government agencies to help familiarize Trump officials with how the government responds to domestic emergencies, whether terrorist attacks or such natural disasters as violent tornadoes and hurricanes.

Meeting with Congressional leaders



While in Washington, Trump also met with House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, leaders of the Republican majorities in each chamber, about their legislative plans. Both gave tepid support to Trump during the election but have vowed to work in concert with him to pass the party's agenda. The most prominent Republican effort will be to unwind and replace the Affordable Care Act, the outgoing president's health care program, known as Obamacare, that helped 20 million people get health insurance.



WATCH: Trump on his meeting with Congressional leaders



The Trump-Obama White House meeting could have been awkward.

Obama often derided Trump, the blunt-spoken real estate mogul who has never held elected office, as unfit to lead the country and campaigned hard for Clinton. Meanwhile, Trump for years questioned whether Obama was born in the U.S. before recently acknowledging his citizenship and says he plans to undermine key Obama policies, including the health care reforms, environmental regulations and protection of some immigrants from deportation.

After the meeting, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked if the meeting was awkward.He said: The meeting might have been a little less awkward than some might have expected.Trump said it was the first time the two men have met personally.

Despite the bitter campaign, Obama pledged Wednesday to cooperate with Trump's takeover.

"It is no secret that the president-elect and I have some pretty significant differences," Obama said. "But remember, eight years ago, President (George W.) Bush and I had some pretty significant differences. But President Bushs team could not have been more professional or more gracious in making sure we had a smooth transition."

Rooting for success



Obama said he is rooting for Trump's success and has ordered the White House team "to work as hard as we can to make sure that this is a successful transition for the president-elect."

Secretary of State John Kerry cited the tradition of peaceful changes in leadership as he congratulated Trump on Thursday and wished him well for the "enormous challenges that he will undertake."

"With a transition like this the issues that we face don't go away," Kerry said during a visit to New Zealand. "The values with which we face them are the same values the day after the election that they were the day before."



WATCH: US presidential transition - what's involved?
Thousands of Americans are staging a mass protest in New York over the election of real estate mogul Donald Trump they claim is unfit to be the next United States president.

The protesters, who converged at Union Square before marching to the Trump Tower in the city Wednesday night, carried placards expressing their dismay over the election of the businessman, who defeated former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton in the Tuesday presidential poll.

Some people were already in the streets Wednesday afternoon vowing to crush the Trump presidency claiming that he insulted millions of Americans when he staged an anti-establishment campaign that is said to have undermined the status of women, people living with disabilities and others.

One of protesters, who only wanted to be identified as Stephanie, said she can't stand the president elect and like most of her colleagues called for the arrest and prosecution of the Republican over allegations of abusing women over the years.

Several others echoed the same sentiments noting that they dislike Mr. Trump.

Some people that were milling around Trump Tower on 6th Street appealed for unity among defeated Democrats and Republicans noting that the process of democracy should be respected by all Americans.

Local resident, Donald Nelson (84), said the country would plunge into a political crisis if the transition of power from President Barack Obama to Trump is not handled properly.

Several women have openly claimed that Mr. Trump abused them.

In her presidential election concession speech, Clinton appealed to her supporters to respect the outcome of the poll.

Some protests have been reported in states like Chicago and Carlifornia.
Chesterfield Township voters ousted incumbent Supervisor Michael Lovelock at the polls Tuesday. His Republican challenger, former state representative Daniel Acciavatti, prevailed with more than 62 percent of the vote.

Lovelock, a Democrat, had served as township supervisor for eight years before being unseated in the general election. Results from the Macomb County Clerks Office show he earned 7,746 votes, or about 38 percent, while his opponent received 12,879 votes.

I would like to say thank you to every business, to every homeowner, to every resident that ever supported me, Lovelock said Wednesday. I wish Mr. Acciavatti all the best.

Acciavatti will officially begin his four-year term as supervisor at the next Chesterfield Township Board of Trustees meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. Nov. 21 at the township municipal offices on Sugarbush Road. The supervisor position pays $89,500 annually.

I am honored and humbled by the awesome responsibility that the voters of Chesterfield Township have placed in me and I look forward to getting to work for them, Acciavatti said Wednesday.

The former District 32 state rep has lived in the township for nearly 20 years with his wife Michelle and children Dino, 8, and Katelyn, 6. He currently works as a consultant and serves on the Michigan Board of Licensed Engineers and the Macomb County Arts Authority Board.

During his campaign, he cited long-term planning and following best practice procedures as two areas he would like to improve while in office. After being elected to the post, he expanded on his plans and offered three specific areas he hopes to concentrate on first.

1) The 2017 budget and budget process: The township starts a new fiscal year beginning Jan. 1, Acciavatti said. A detailed, realistic budget along with a clear process is necessary to determine the financial standing our community and investments we are able to make.

2) Clean up the township: I spent much of Election Day riding over 30 miles throughout our township on my bicycle and have come to the conclusion that the infrastructure and condition of our community is not compatible with our values, he added. Our sidewalks and non-motorized paths are dangerous and sporadic and many of our roadways are littered with trash and debris. I would like to set the tone that trash along our roadways and throughout our community is unacceptable. The dynamic and complicated issue of improving our non-motorized paths will take some time but will also be a priority.

3) Process and procedures: I also need to understand, in detail, the current process and procedures for asset management and procurement and place best practice systems in place, if necessary, he said.

While his political career may have come to a close, Lovelock said he is proud of the work he did while in office and plans to continue supporting the community.

Thank you so much for letting me serve as your supervisor for the last eight years, he said. I love my community. Its a great place to live, work and play  and my motto will live on, I hope.

Voter turnout in the township for the Nov. 8 general election was nearly 70 percent, a slight increase from the 2012 presidential election, records provided by the clerks office show. Roughly 22,500 total votes were counted, with about 6,450 cast by absentee ballot and about 16,000 votes cast at the polls.

Katelyn Larese is the associate editor of The Voice. She can be contacted at 586-273-6196 or katelyn.larese@voicenews.com.
RENO, Nev., Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Building on more than 30 years of air quality research in some of the most polluted urban environments on Earth, a team of atmospheric scientists at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) has turned their attention toward the growing e-cigarette industry and the unidentified effects of vaping on human health.

New research published this week in Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T), a journal of the American Chemical Society, reports that the aerosols (commonly called vapors) produced by flavored e-cigarettes liquids contain dangerous levels of hazardous chemicals known to cause cancer in humans.

The study "Flavoring compounds dominate toxic aldehyde production during e-cigarette vaping" confirms that these toxic aldehydes, such as formaldehyde, are formed not by evaporation, but rather during the chemical breakdown of the flavored e-liquid caused by the rapid heating process (pyrolysis) that occurs inside e-cigarettes or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS).

"How these flavoring compounds in e-cigarette liquids affect the chemical composition and toxicity of the vapor that e-cigarettes produce is practically unknown," explained Andrey Khlystov, Ph.D., an associate research professor of atmospheric sciences at DRI. "Our results show that production of toxic aldehydes is exponentially dependent on the concentration of flavoring compounds."

E-cigarette liquids have been marketed in nearly 8,000 different flavors, according to a 2014 report from the World Health Organization. Recent reports have shown that many flavors, such as Gummy Bear, Tutti Fruitty, Bubble Gum, etc., were found to be especially appealing to adolescents and young adults.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that 16-percent of high school and 5.3-percent of middle school students were current users of e-cigarettes in 2015, making e-cigarettes the most commonly used tobacco product among youth for the second consecutive year. In 2014, 12.6-percent of U.S. adults had ever tried an e-cigarette, and about 3.7-percent of adults used e-cigarettes daily or some days.

Khlystov and his colleagues measured concentrations of 12 aldehydes in aerosols produced by three common e-cigarette devices. To determine whether the flavoring additives affected aldehyde production during vaping, five flavored e-liquids were tested in each device. In addition, two unflavored e-liquids were also tested.

"To determine the specific role of the flavoring compounds we fixed all important parameters that could affect aldehyde production and varied only the type and concentration of flavors," explained Vera Samburova, Ph.D., an assistant research professor of chemistry at DRI.

Samburova added that the devices used in the study represented three of the most common types of e-cigarettes  bottom and top coil clearomizers, and a cartomizer.

The study avoided any variation in puff topography (e.g., puff volume, puff velocity, interval between puffs) by utilizing a controlled sampling system that simulated the most common vaping conditions. E-cigarette vapor was produced from each device by a four-second, 40-ml controlled puff, with 30-second resting periods between puffs. The e-cigarette devices were manually operated to replicate real-life conditions and all samples were collected in triplicate to verify and confirm results. Specific care was taken to avoid "dry puff" conditions.

To provide further proof that the flavoring compounds, not the carrier e-liquid solvents (most commonly propylene glycol and/or vegetable glycerin) dominated production of aldehydes during vaping, the authors performed a series of experiments in which a test flavored e-liquid was diluted with different amounts of the unflavored e-liquid. Liquids with higher flavor content produced larger amounts of aldehydes due to pyrolysis of the flavoring compounds.

In all experiments, the amount of aldehydes produced by the flavored e-cigarette liquids exceeded the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) for hazardous chemical exposure.

"One puff of any of the flavored e-liquids that we tested exposes the smoker to unacceptably dangerous levels of these aldehydes, most of which originates from thermal decomposition of the flavoring compounds," said Khlystov. "These results demonstrate the need for further, thorough investigations of the effects of flavoring additives on the formation of aldehydes and other toxic compounds in e-cigarette vapors."

This research was independently funded by the Desert Research Institute and conducted in DRI's Organic Analytical Laboratory located in Reno, Nevada.

Additional photos and video available upon request.

Additional Details:

"Flavoring Compounds Dominate Toxic Aldehyde Production During E-cigarette Vaping"

Environmental Science & Technology - DOI # - 10.1021/acs.est.6b05145

###

The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a world leader in environmental sciences through the application of knowledge and technologies to improve people's lives throughout Nevada and the world. Learn more at www.dri.edu

Photos accompanying this release are available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=41865

http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=41866
Its a weird thing to say about American Horror Story, but I just dont think there is enough plot this year. Usually, the show stuffs so much in that its seeping out at the seams, like when you try to put on your college jeans after skipping the gym for six months. This season is quite the opposite. Since episode three, it has felt like everything is simply vamping to fill up time until episode ten. Now, Roanoke is just sagging like the seat on a three-year-old pair of drawers.

That is why, in episode nine, we got The Millennials. We know they are supposed to be annoying as soon as Sophie (Taissa Farmiga, back for yet another stint) gets mad when her buddy Milo calls his wiener a Johnson. She asks, Why do guys insist on naming their privates? Um, Johnson is not a name for a guys pecker. Its a slang term and if she doesnt know this, she needs to spend a bit more time falling into Urban Dictionary black holes in the middle of the night. God, is it true what they say? That the Snapchat generation has absolutely no sense of humor at all?

Sophie, Milo, and their friend Todd show up because theyre huge fans of My Roanoke Nightmare. (They keep referring to it as season one, which is super annoying because they dont even have a premiere date yet for season two, so calling it season one is like calling it A New Hope even though Empire Strikes Back hasnt even finished filming yet.) Theyre trying to find the original house so that they can post about it on social media and go viral, which means that an old person wrote this script because no actual millennial would ever talk like that.

Speaking of the millennials being annoying, there is nothing worse than when this show makes the subtext text, as if the audience is too dumb to understand what is going on. Its an interracial story in post-racial America, which doesnt exist by the way, Sophie tells her friends. Its about the colonization of America. It becomes a matriarchy in a patriarchal system. Yeah, we got all that. Thanks for millennial-splaining it.

Armed with their GoPros and selfie sticks, these three try to find the house, but only find the body of the dead assistant producer who ran herself off the road when she tried to quit back in episode six. They go to the cops, but the police dont find a body and just think its another prank that fans of the show are playing on them. Intent on convincing their Instagram audience that there really was a ghost, the kids go back to the house. That is when things go horribly wrong.

In an episode full of stupid behavior, this is one of the dumbest things around. These kids have seen My Roanoke Nightmare; they know what the Butcher and the other monsters are capable of. Theyve already seen one ghost  though why they see a ghost of that dead producer and not Sid, his PA, or Shelby, Matt, or anyone else who has died in the past two days is beyond me. Why the hell would they go to the house when there are going to be even more? Todd deserves getting his head sliced off by Lee and Sophie and Milo deserve to be impaled on poles and then set on fire in front of the house just like those giant kebabs that they shave meat off of at the halal carts.

Speaking of stupid moves, Dylan (Wes Bentley) dressed as the Pig Man because Sidney told him to be there at that time dressed in the costume. (Shout-out to the sexy Uber driver and the funniest cutaway of the entire season.) It was not a grand conspiracy. There is nothing interesting about why he showed up. Lee and Aubrey pull him into their plot to rescue Monet from the Polks, find the videotape with footage of Lees confession and Aubrey killing Mama Polk, and then get to safety.

Unfortunately, they launch the most idiotic plan of all time. Dylan (who is an Iraq War vet, apparently) will hot-wire the truck while they go investigating, knowing full well that when the car starts the Polks will be alerted and their plan will go awry. Why not wait until they get the tape and free Monet before starting the truck? How dumb are these people?

Turns out theyre dumber than a box of hair trying to solve geometry proofs with a shed full of blunt tools. (Actually, we should have called this season American Horror Story: Shed of Blunt Tools.) After Dylan gets killed for starting the truck (duh) and Lee gets left behind, Aubrey and Monet decide to go back to the house that is full of monsters and windows that look like Art Deco drawings of penis heads because the guy who built the house was gay but Art Deco hadnt been invented yet. Seriously, are these the dumbest people on the planet? The Polks house is already halfway to town. Why go back to the house instead of escaping to a place where the monsters that are trying to kill them dont have any power?

And why, oh why, are they still fucking filming? Seriously, this found footage trope is just for the birds. Yes, Aubrey explains that Lee wanted to film everything to prove that they were innocent and were driven to kill everyone. Okay, fine. But why would she be filming herself and Aubrey talking about destroying the evidence of their crimes? Once they deleted the tape, wouldnt whomever they showed this footage to be like, Um, so what was on the tape you are talking about deleting here?

While I watched this episode, I spent more time figuring out how they might have acquired each shot than I did actually being scared by anything that occurred. Earlier this season, when there were plot holes or jumps in logic, I was at least intrigued enough by the mystery that I didnt stop to think about these things. With so little left to keep our attention, I cant help but try to tease out these plot points and find that nothing binds them together.

The one really interesting thing that happens  whatever bargain Lee made with the Lady Gaga Spirit of the Wood  barely gets much attention at all. We see Lee go back to the house, kill Aubrey and Monet, string up and flambe the millennials, and then wake up seemingly forgetting her homicidal rampage of the night before. But the bargain is never fully explained, and neither is how the Lady Gaga Spirit healed all of Lees wounds for the night, only to have them come back in the morning. (Obviously and conveniently, the answer is magic.) I guess were going to have to wait until the finale to find out Lees full story when we see the full Lana Winters interview next week. Sorry, but we already saw this in the Asylum finale. It turns out this season had so little substance that all of its best moments were just cannibalizing (pun intended) from previous installments.
Photo: Taylor Hill/Getty Images,

While Canadas immigration website kept crashing during Election Night and in the immediate aftermath, at least one liberal comedian plans on staying in America. During his performance at the Natural Resources Defense Councils Night of Comedy, John Oliver told the crowd, Im not going to move to Canada because of this. I say that with misplaced confidence as someone with a green card. Ive been talking shit about [Donald Trump] for two years, I might be getting moved to Canada against my will.



Since leaving The Daily Show, Oliver has made a name for himself as a comedic crusader of the left on his HBO show Last Week Tonight. Regardless of any future deportations of British comedians President-elect Trump might have up his sleeve, however, Oliver has solid plans for welcoming the United States new commander-in-chief. Im going to stay here and Ill tell you why, Oliver said.Because Im going to attend Trumps inauguration on the Mall in Washington like the string quartet on the Titanic. Im going to turn to the person on my left and to my right and say, Gentlemen, it has been an honor playing with you. What a classy way to go down with this sinking ship of a country, John.
On election night, both Stephen Colbert and The Daily Show team had a harder time than usual telling jokes. On the day after the election, when the late-show enterprise officially reopened for business, shooting for levity was maybe a little easier.

Jimmy Fallon, in his usual keep it light and unobjectionable spirit, kicked off his Tonight Show monologue with a Steve Urkel joke. Jimmy Kimmel, among other things, did a bit on whats next for the cast of the 2016 election. James Corden encouraged people to put an arm around someone they disagree with politically and, also, to carpool karaoke with any friend or relative who voted third party. (Okay, he didnt say that last part.) Meanwhile, Stephen Colbert and Conan OBrien, clearly aware that their audiences may be divided about the election results, emphasized the greatness of American democracy in their opening monologues. Of the two, Colbert was far more disgusted and outwardly anti-Trump, noting that he still cant describe Trump as our president without throwing up in my mouth a little bit.

But some still couldnt and wouldnt mask their emotions about the election of Donald Trump, an event that once used to be a joke on The Simpsons and in Back to Future Part II and is now actually happening. These are the late-night shows that, on the day after a divisive election, reminded us that our joke-tellers can do more than make a well-timed reference to Family Matters. They can also be meaningful, sobering, and inspiring.

Late Night With Seth Meyers

Meyers has been bullish on Trump for a while, and he started out by going right for the anti-Donald jokes. (Well, that was a real grab in the pussy, he said.) But then he turned his from-behind-the-desk monologue about the Trump victory and defeat of Hillary Clinton into something more personal. He talked about what was happening with his wife and child on election night, then he choked up when he spoke about how much his mother  named Hilary  wanted to see Clinton get elected. It was funny at times, moving at others, and another reminder that Meyers is the closest thing we have right now to a David Letterman.

Full Frontal With Samantha Bee

Meyers was a little weepy, but Bee was breathing fire. For those who werent ready to be conciliatory  and judging from the protests around the country last night, there were a lot of them  her show was the best place to go on Wednesday night for a full-on rage fest. In addition to blaming white people for paving the way to a Trump administration, she also made sure to dispel the notion that late-night hosts like herself were secretly jazzed for a Trump presidency because the jokes will write themselves. No, no, no, shut up, she said. Jokes dont write themselves. Jews write jokes  and they are scared shitless.

The Daily Show With Trevor Noah

The Daily Show has taken it on the chin a lot over the last year with Jon Stewart gone and Noah trying and only sometimes succeeding to fully fill his shoes. But they did something really wonderful last night by, like Meyers, making things more personal. Correspondents Michelle Wolf and Hasan Minhaj, who is Muslim-American, both discussed the election from their perspectives, keeping it funny but also telling stories that should sadden all of us. Minhaj spoke about his mother, who is visiting his grandmother outside of the U.S., and already worried she wont be able to get back into the country. And at the end of her segment, following a clip of Clintons acceptance speech in which she reminded young girls that they are valuable and deserving of opportunity, Wolf clearly got choked up: The saddest thing I heard all day is that we have to be reminded of that.

Chelsea

With her talk show episodes streaming sporadically, Wednesdays through Fridays, and on Netflix, a platform most dont associate with late night TV, Handler is rarely a part of the talk show conversation. But her interview with Senator Barbara Boxer, which will appear in an episode of Chelsea released later today, is worth watching. Boxer, who did not seek reelection, is not only one of the Year of the Woman Senators, shes also personally connected to Clinton; her daughter Nicole used to be married to Clintons brother, Tony Rodham. To hear Boxer talk about her experiences handling defeat as a woman, in her own life and through what just happened, is sobering and inspiring all at once.

*An earlier version of this post stated that Chelsea airs Wednesdays and Thursdays. In fact, it airs every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
On this weeks episode of the Vulture TV Podcast, we take stock of how TV covered the election leading up to Tuesday night (note: this episode was recorded before president-elect Trump was a reality), and Matt Zoller Seitz explains how FXs Better Things and Atlanta took the Louie formula and made it even better. Plus, Pamela Adlon joins us in-studio to talk about the first season of her show, Better Things, and how much of the shows depiction of assholes in Hollywood comes from her own experience:

All of it. [Laughs.] Pretty much everything. You know very old friends of mine, Grant Heslov and George Clooney, did a show called Unscripted with Steven Soderbergh for HBO. They brought me and one other lady actress. And they sat us in a room and they said, We need you guys to tell us about your experience with being female in the business and men being disgusting. So we basically talked about it  and its shocking. And this was what, like, 18 years ago. We had gone through the 80s and the 90s of that. So it never ends and everybodys got those stories, you know? And you know people just being inappropriate  talking right into your mouth, grabbing the side of your tit, making you read a certain scene or do a certain gross this. This was really said to me in real life by somebody I was working with: Youre my kind of woman. Slap a pair of tits on you and youre just my type. So, you know, we put it in the show. Garbage into gold.

Tune in to the Vulture TV Podcast, produced by the Slate Groups Panoply, every Tuesday, on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please send us your burning TV questions! Tweet us @Vulture, email tvquestions@vulture.com, or leave us a voice-mail at 646-504-7673.
Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

While the nation begins to recover in the aftermath of Donald Trumps shocking win over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, many people have chosen to express their political opinions and reactions on various social-media platforms throughout the day. Mike Schur  the creator of the popular network comedies Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine  chose to cope with the news by posting an extensive string of tweets that insightfully sheds light on Trumps rise to power. The short version? Were all complicit, although the media and politicians are particularly to blame:



Been planning a post-election twitter break for a while. Think its probably a good idea, now. But first: America, in its collective wisdom, has elected a vain, violent, ignorant, sexist bully as our President. Not everyone who voted for Trump is a racist, or a misogynist. But they did vote *for* a racist and a misogynist. They voted for a man who was happily, enthusiastically endorsed by the actual KKK. And who wouldnt even denounce that endorsement. His voters saw him say he liked to grab women by the pussy, then watched as a dozen women accused him of assault, and they voted for him. They saw him present zero real ideas, change his mind constantly, and present no vision except to Make America Great Again. They saw him invent his own reality, repeat lies as if they were truths, and utterly dispense with basic civility. There will be an endless post-mortem on how this happened. There is plenty of blame to go around. Start with the for-profit news business, who happily covered his rallies and hired his henchmen as talking heads. The media who equated Clintons emails with Trumps litany of absurd personal, professional, political, and ethical failings. The federal law enforcement agents who intervened, banana republic junta-style, into a democratic election with a made-up scandal. The Republicans and Democrats alike who treated him like a joke instead of flatly stating that he was a dangerous and unserious person. And the (predominantly white) people who looked at the toxic cocktail he had to offer and thought, Sure. Sounds good. This was not a working class revolt, as was first reported. The data shows it clearly. This was a white revolt, and a male revolt.

Schur also wrote about how hell grapple with showing empathy in the future, as well as how hell talk to his children about Trumps win:

I am being now asked to have empathy for the Trump voters who feel left behind in the midst of changes to our world. Why are those voters not being asked to have empathy for the women who are victims of the kind of misogyny Trump put on display? Where is their empathy for African-Americans and Muslim citizens and Hispanic citizens who are routinely victims of prejudice? Where is the empathy for non-white people who havent been left behind because theyve never been able to catch up in the first place? For eight years, my sons entire life, I have been able to point to the President of the United States and say: Be like him: thoughtful, intelligent, steady, nuanced, kind, a good husband and father. For the next four years, I fear I will have to say: Do *not* be like him: rude, vindictive, callous, self-obsessed, and aggressive. For six years, my daughters entire life, I have been telling her she can be anything she wants to be. For the next four (the next 50?), I will keep telling her that, until the cancer of misogyny is cut out of this country forever.

Still, he remains optimistic:

America has always survived its (many) disastrous political decisions. This feels like the most disastrous. I believe we can survive it. The problem is: this isnt just a political decision. Its a clarion call to forces of white nationalism, anti-semitism, and fascism. I thought the country had progressed enough to shout down a man whose campaign was fueled only by fear and hate. It has not. Progress comes from empathy and inclusiveness. I will try to find empathy for the people who voted for Trump. But Trump voters have to find empathy for the people who, with very good reason, fear his Presidency. That is the only way forward.

Take it one day at a time.
RICHARDSON, Texas, Nov. 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Intrusion Inc. (OTCQB:INTZ), (Intrusion) will announce third quarter 2016 financial results on Monday, November 14, 2016. The press release will be published over the wire services after the market closes. The release will also be available on the companys web site at www.intrusion.com. Intrusion management will review the Companys financial and operational progress for the third quarter 2016 during a conference call later that day at 4:00 P.M., CST.



Interested investors can access the call at 1-877-258-4925 (outside the United States, please dial 1-973-500-2152) at 4:00 P.M., CST. For those unable to participate in the live conference call, a replay will be accessible beginning November 14, 2016 at approximately 7:00 P.M., CST until November 21, 2016 by calling 1-855-859-2056 (if outside the United States, 1-404-537-3406). At the replay prompt, enter conference identification number 18411485. In addition, a live and archived audio webcast of the conference call will be available at www.intrusion.com.

About Intrusion Inc.

Intrusion Inc. is a global provider of entity identification, high speed data mining, cybercrime and advanced persistent threat detection products. Intrusions product families include TraceCop for identity discovery and disclosure, Savant for network data mining and advanced persistent threat detection. Intrusions products help protect critical information assets by quickly detecting, protecting, analyzing and reporting attacks or misuse of classified, private and regulated information for government and enterprise networks. For more information, please visit www.intrusion.com. We develop, market and support a family of entity identification, high speed data mining, cybercrime and advanced persistent threat detection products.
Tonight for the first time, a classical guitar ensemble is playing a concert as the guest artist with the Waco Symphony Orchestra. Im anticipating that the performance will be a fine example of how well the world of classical music blends with other musical styles even when we dont immediately intuit a connection.

Despite the complexity of an orchestra and its repertoire, such blending is often sought after by those whose backgrounds are in fields far removed from what we generally think of as the classical music world.

Ive been reading this past week about a talented musician named Mike Mills who is in pursuit of just such a fusion. Mills was the bass player for the band R.E.M., which during its heyday was a pioneering group in developing the alternative or indie genre.

The band broke up in 2011 after a 30-plus-year run and now Mills is touring with a childhood friend named Robert McDuffie, an internationally acclaimed violinist and distinguished professor of music at Mercer University. Theyre performing a piece Mills wrote called Concerto for Violin, Rock Band and String Orchestra, which they premiered last June with the Toronto Symphony. Earlier this week they wrapped up a short tour of the east Coast and the upper Midwest.

Mills recently explained to Rolling Stone magazine that he was hoping to break down the walls between classical and rock & roll, to show that there are elements within each that translate into the other. He believes theres a much greater connection between these styles than most people assume, a connection he himself experienced in R.E.M. as some of the piano parts he wrote for the group have really small, tiny, little classical elements in them that sort of seep in from all my listening to it as a kid.

Mills is hardly the first successful pop musician to cross the frontier into classical territory. Paul McCartney is the most prominent of those who have attempted to do so and hes been writing orchestral works since 1991. That was the year he recorded his Liverpool Oratorio, a work commissioned to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. It premiered in the United States at Carnegie Hall in November of that year and was well received by the public, reaching the top of the classical charts in several countries.

On a smaller scale, back in 2001, pop piano player Billy Joel composed an entire album worth of solo piano pieces in the style of Chopin titled Fantasies and Delusions. When it came out, a critic for Slate noted that like McCartney, Billy Joel is a superb melodist. But unlike McCartney, he is also a trained and literate musician.

Since that albums release, several of the pieces have been arranged into a piano concerto with orchestra, and just last month, a music school in Melville, New York announced it was holding a piano competition in which the participants would all play excerpts from Fantasies and Delusions, the winner getting $1,000 and a performance next summer at Carnegie Hall.

What can we learn from all this? For one thing, there are natural connections between all kinds of music even though we tend to compartmentalize to the point of not seeing the similarities. More importantly, composers such as Mike Mills, Paul McCartney and Billy Joel show us through their actions that what we often call classical music has a great appeal to those who have spent their careers working in other forms; to them its not alien, its aspirational. It can be that for everyone as well.
Dunkin Donuts

1200 N. Valley Mills Drive / 254-732-0629 / dunkindonuts.com

Hours: 5:30 a.m.- 10 p.m. daily.

Price: $ (see guide)

Takeout: Yes

On the menu: Doughnuts, muffins, bagels, bakery and breakfast sandwiches, cookies, coffee.

Good to know: Extensive coffee offerings including espresso, cappuchino and latte; blended coffee drinks and cold brew.

Restaurant origin: Dunkin Donuts Waco location opened Oct. 11.

The Mad Hasher

University Parks Drive at Franklin Avenue / 254-299-7971 / madhasherwaco.com / On Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

Hours: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 10 a.m.-midnight Thursdays-Saturdays.

Price: $ (see guide)

Takeout: Yes

Alcohol: No

On the menu: Breakfast hashes (basics of fried potatoes, meat and cheese, topped with fried eggs) with multiple optional toppings; and sandwiches (Cuban, two with breakfast sausage/ground sirloin patties, two jalapeno waffle sandwiches).

Good to know: Vegetarian The Green Thumb hash is locally sourced. Candied bacon featured on some sandwiches. Waffle sandwiches have fillings of fried chicken and maple syrup or brisket with barbecue sauce.

Restaurant origin: Owned by Jonya Williams of Rio Brazos Catering Company and opened by Williams and general manager Dean Covic in early September.

Moroso Wood Fired Pizzeria

4700 Bosque Blvd. / 254-235-6000 / morosopizzeria.com / On Facebook, Instagram

Hours: 11 a.m.- 2 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 5-9 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 5-10 p.m. Thursdays and Saturdays, 5-11 p.m. Fridays.

Price: $-$$

Takeout: Yes

Alcohol: Yes

On the menu: 13 types of Neapolitan pizza (dough from 00 flour, fresh yeast, sea salt and purified water; San Marzano tomatoes; cooked at very high temperature); appetizers including aranchini (fried ravioli balls), made-from-scratch meatballs, charcuterie board; salads; desserts including cannoli, risotta cheesecake and torta al cioccolato (flourless chocolate cake).

Good to know: Tomatoes and flour are imported from Italy with Italian sausage custom-made in Texas. Pizza oven, dough mixer designed for neapolitan pizza. Many recipes are from owner Dan Morosos family.

Restaurant origin: Dan Moroso trained in restaurant and hotel service before following a career as a television production and writer. He and his wife Robyn, a Baylor University graduate with family in Waco, moved to Waco after 17 years in Miami to set up their own restaurant with an emphasis on hand-crafted food and premium ingredients. Opened Sept. 1.

Silos Baking Co.

601 Webster Ave. / 254-235-6111 / magnoliamarket.com/silos / On Facebook, Instagram

Hours: 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays.

Price: $

Takeout: No

Alcohol: No

On the menu: Eight flavors of cupcakes; cookies (chocolate-chip and chocolate-chip/peanut-butter-chip/walnut); cinnamon rolls (with and without pecans); biscuits (bacon/cheddar and orange/cranberry); almond pastry; and blueberry muffins. Drinks include milk, lemonades and water.

Good to know: Some of the recipes are favorites of Magnolia Market co-owner/founder Joanna Gaines of HGTVs Fixer Upper. Several cupcakes carry Fixer Upper-inspired names, such as the Shiplap (vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream icing), Nuts & Bolts (vanilla cake with pecans and walnuts, cream cheese icing), Silobration (vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream icing) and Cup O Jo (chocolate cake with espresso buttercream icing).

Restaurant origin: Located on the Magnolia Market grounds in the shadow of the twin silos. Opened June 29.

The Provender Store

608 B Austin Ave. / 254-265-4327 / TheProvenderStore.com / On Facebook, Instagram

Hours: 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays.

Price: $-$$

Takeout: Yes. Catering available.

Alcohol: No

On the menu: Organic delicatessen and bakery with locally sourced foods wherever possible. Hand-cured pastrami, corned beef and chicken; homemade bread, pickles, preserves, mustards and sausage; specialty desserts.

Good to know: Menu updated every few months to reflect seasonally available produce and meats.

Restaurant origin: Owner Craig Parker came to the Waco area as a wine-making consultant, but success with his homemade jams at the Downtown Waco Farmers Market persuaded him of a need for a downtown deli. The Provender Store opened in 2013.
Hal Holbrook has played Mark Twain onstage for some 60 of his 91 years and if there are moments in an interview where the line between actor and subject seems blurred  if not wiped out  hed consider that a compliment.

I have not missed a single year of performing it. This is a lifetime. Ive played every state of the United States and the one thing that keeps me going is he tells the truth. Very few people are telling the truth, he said, speaking recently from his home in California. It keeps me going. Im not dying yet. Thank God Mark Twain keeps me alive.

Holbrook brings his acclaimed one-man show Mark Twain Tonight! to Waco on Tuesday night in a performance at Waco Hall.

Twain, the pen name of Samuel Clemens, is considered one of Americas great writers, crafting such works as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Roughing It and The Innocents Abroad, in the years before he died in 1910 at the age of 75. His clear eye for human nature, ear for language and sometimes biting wit has made his work endure and vital to this day.

Thats no surprise for Holbrook, who compiles his one-man show solely from Twains writings, updating it on a regular basis.

Mark Twain has not changed and we have not changed, he said. Im not a big liberal voicing my opinion. My show talks to the people. I cant go out and give them liberal bulls--t. They have to make their own thoughts. I want the people to listen to hear what he had to say and make up (their) own mind.

Holbrooks role as Twain made him famous in the years after he debuted it as a solo act in 1954, winning him a Tony Award in 1966, and he went on to build an impressive career in film and television.

He won Emmys for his performances as Sen. Hays Stowe in 1970s The Bold Ones and as Capt. Lloyd Bucher in 1973s Pueblo. His long list of television credits includes a continuing role on the situation comedy Designing Women, which starred his third wife Dixie Carter as Julia Sugarbaker, plus parts in Evening Shade, the mini-series Lincoln and North and South, The West Wing and Sons of Anarchy.

He famously portrayed the anonymous source Deep Throat in the film adaptation of All of the Presidents Men as well as roles in the Oscar-winning movies Julia and Lincoln, earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination  at the age of 81  for the 2007 film Into The Wild.

Its Holbrook as Twain, however, that has served as a constant thread through his acting career.

Baylor professor of American literature Joe Fulton, a Mark Twain scholar with four books and several articles published on the American author, said it took nearly two years to secure Holbrook and his show due to scheduling and availability. Hes delighted that Waco audiences will get to see Holbrooks performance and points out that it reveals Twain in the role in which he was best known during the late 19th century.

Live performance was the heart of his identity. For Twain, writing was an attempt to capture the sound of the human voice, he said. We dont have any films of Twain performing, but Hal Holbrook is the next best thing.

Twains observations on race, business and religious hypocrisy still ring true, but tempered by an understanding of human nature. Theres something eternally American about the stories that Twain tells, Fulton said.

Comedic medicine

For Holbrook, Twains commentary is a necessary medicine for American society, particularly in this election year. We are in a far more critical time than most anybody understands, he said. (People) dont read much, they dont think much. Thats whats happening today. The Federalist Papers  the core of the philosophy thats the basis of our country  nobody reads that. Everybodys spending their time with those g--dam things in their pockets. What are they called? A nearby assistant answered, then he continued. Cell phones. 

Holbrook often shifts his Twain material to suit the times and admitted he probably targets religious hypocrisy a little more these days.

Before the Civil War, the country was absolutely in the total grip of the pulpit, the Presbyterian pulpit mostly, Holbrook said. The truth was there was a lot of hypocrisy in our use of the pulpit. (Twain) began to uncork that bottle . .. A lot of people think he didnt believe in God. How dumb is that? He knew more about the Bible and God than 99 percent of the people in the United States. He saw the hypocrisy that we use to make ourselves look like good Christians when Jesus Christ never said anything like that.

My wife Dixie was a very religious person and my family is a very religious one. They love me and I love them, he continued. But who Jesus was concerned about was the poor folks. The poor and the sick. Would you like to point out how many Christians in America care about the poor and the sick?

Holbrook went on to talk about Twains masterpiece Huckleberry Finn, the story of an orphan named Huck who rafts down the Mississippi River with an escaped slave named Jim, whos seeking freedom. Twains novel has drawn criticism in recent decades for his use of a then-common racial epithet, a criticism Holbrook says is misplaced and misses the ultimate point of Twains book.

The way we talk now is not that much different, he observed. We have not progressed as much as we think we have. Real progress is not easy. Real progress comes from the heart.

Touring Texas

The actor recalled he and his first wife Ruby had toured Texas early in their career, doing educational theater, part of which evolved into his solo Twain show. He still views the state with a measure of appreciation. I developed a respect for the people in Texas. No matter how much money they had, they made sure they put some of it into the arts, he said.

Baylors Fulton noted Tuesdays audience at Waco Hall will get a double portion from the arts, not only Holbrooks performance as Twain, but Twains still timely legacy of words and observation. Its balm for your soul in troubled times, he said.

-----

Mark Twain Tonight!

With Hal Holbrook

Performance: 8 p.m. Tuesday at Waco Hall.

Tickets: $50 to $10, available online at www.baylor.edu.
Waco stages will vibrate this weekend with dance, song and drama as no fewer than seven productions on local professional, college and high school theaters.

Heres an overview of whats going on.

Fall (And Recover) 2016, 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, McLennan Community Colleges Ball Performing Arts Center. $10, $8 for senior adults and students.

Last year, McLennan Theatre presented its first dance concert in several years, organized by dance instructor Melissa Edwards and featuring both student dancers and choreography.

Audiences and administrators liked what they saw. I knew right away it was going to be repeated, she said.

Returning MCC sophomores expected it and spent the summer emailing Edwards with ideas for dances or music. The result goes onstage this week: about 30 dancers with short pieces that fall largely in contemporary dance, but with some musical theater, hip-hop, jazz/pop, even something that skirts performance art.

This years Fall (And Recover) lacks the ballet and tap seen in last years concert, but with more solo works. Those who enjoyed the variety of the first Fall will see a similar diversity, Edwards said.

A . . .My Name Is Alice, Brazos Theatre Group, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Brazos Theatre, 7524 Bosque Blvd., Suite Q. $30 and $26 dinner theater, $18 general admission. Call 313-8920 or go online at www.brazostheatre.com.

Since its creation in 2013, the Brazos Theatre Group has staged comedy, murder mysteries and improv comedy, but not a musical. That gets rectified this weekend when the BTG puts on the all-female show A . . . My Name Is Alice.

I knew this was the one when I read it, said director and founder Beth Richards, who described the show as the story of every woman - were all Alice.

The musical revue is a series of vignettes acted and sung by a seven-member cast with piano accompaniment by Susan Russell. Some are poignant, some super funny, some over the top and some downright bawdy, Richards said. Its an all-woman show, but were not about to do any man-bashing.

Performing in the musical are Regan Haddock, Melora Roach, Amber Bolden, Kami Yasko, Jori Sutton, Jenni Holley and Richards. Kim Jukes is stage manager with Ian McGuire on sound and lighting.

STARS Of The Silver Screen, 7:30-10 p.m. Saturday, Waco Civic Theatre, 1517 Lake Air Drive. $50 and $100. Go online at wacocivictheatre.org or call 776-1591.

The Waco Civic Theatre turns its attention to Hollywood for its annual STARS fundraiser with actors from the theater singing numbers from Titanic, The Muppet Movie, The Bodyguard, Selena, The Wizard Of Oz, Rocky II and more.

Theres a meal provided by Bestyett Catering and an open bar.

An Experiment With An Air Pump, Baylor Theatre, 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, and 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center; tickets $20, available online at www.baylor.edu/theater or by calling 710-1865.

Baylor Theatre continues its run of Shelagh Stephensons An Experiment With An Air Pump, which looks at science, gender and ethics on the eve of a new century in two time periods, with performances Thursday through Sunday at Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center.

Also...

 Rapunzel  A Musical Adventure, Christian Youth Theater of Waco, 9:15 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Thursday, 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Lee Lockwood Library and Museum, 2801 W. Waco Drive. $12.

 The Little Mermaid, Waco High School theater, 7 p.m. Thursday and Nov. 17-18, 2:30 p.m. Nov. 19, Waco High School, 2020 N. 42nd St. $10.

 The Wiz, Connally High School Theatre, 7 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, Connally High School Auditorium, 901 N. Lacy Drive; $8, $5 students, free to ages 3 and younger.
No Pain No Gain

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I didn't find useful to do the essay because i won't do it on the GMAT since i have concentration problems and i don't want to spend 30 minutes doing something that is not useful for applying (lot of friends who did Gmat did not write anything in the essay).I just do not understand the conclusion of VeritasPrep which says "Your verbal score is noticeably higher than your quantitative score, meaning that you will likely want to spend a little more time bringing up your quantitative ability. But dont forget about the verbal -- a common frustration among test-takers after their GMAT exam is that they performed better on their weaker section, often because they overcorrected and neglected their strong suit to focus exclusively on their weaker section. Consider a 2:1 ratio of Quant : Verbal practice between now and your next practice test." Even if i got 35 in Q and 25 in V.In these days of preparation i spent 80% time on Quantitative and 20% on Verbal but, as a result, i will have to focus more on the Quantitative part, as it suggest.I'm finishing the quantitative section of the , then i have the Quant&Verbal Review to practice on.I corrected all the mistakes i made and the majority of them were, in Q, or silly mistakes or difficult questions which i decide to guess and go on and, in V, I always come up with 2 possible answers so that i have 50% of getting it right, so I pick one and the right one is often the other.Time was not a problem in fact i finished Quant within 65 minutes and Verbal within 68 minutes.Hope to improve a lot during this month in order to reach at least 600 in the next CAT_________________
McLennan County District Clerk Jon Gimble

I think it is pretty obvious that Donald Trump connected with and tapped into the overall frustration with everything coming out of Washington, D.C., for the last 20 years. We have had Democrat and Republican presidents, and George Bush did some great things. But at the end of his presidency we still had more regulation, more things holding back our economy, and I hope Trump takes this mandate and makes improvements in these issues.

Waco NAACP President Peaches Henry

From the first day of his campaign he made comments that were racist, bigoted, misogynistic and sexist. . . . I dont believe he is a role model at any level.

I am deeply disturbed that tens of millions of Americans were willing to overlook the significant personal, intellectual and political shortcomings of Donald Trump. What I believe is that it is a backlash against the progress that has been made in this country in the person of Barack Obama.

Congressman Bill Flores, R-Bryan

The American people have spoken. They will no longer stand for Washingtons weakened national security, expansive bureaucracy and excessive spending. Our nation is ready to turn the page from the last eight years of failed Obama policies. It is time that we restore confidence in our federal government.

Ernesto Fraga, editor of El Tiempo newspaper, Democratic activist

It was a shocker, but I had been telling family and friends ever since Trump announced that he could get elected.

I think a lot of people in the Waco community are going to be going through a range of feelings. From what I know of the Latino community, theyre concerned about the immigration issue. Theres a lot of fear, resignation and anguish.

A lot of younger voices are going to have to emerge and become much more involved. New leadership is going to have to come forward.

19th State District Judge Ralph Strother

I read somewhere online this morning that the media always took Trump literally but never seriously. Trump supporters took him seriously but not literally. I agree with that and I think that is a thumbnail sketch of the astounding political phenomenon that we just witnessed.

Waco attorney Vik Deivanayagam

I think the election results show a deep dissatisfaction with the way our government is being run right now in Washington. I would be curious to find out if people voted for Trump as much as they voted against Hillary because she represented the current state of affairs in Washington.

Waco attorney Kevin Keathley

I think there is a lot of anger and frustration within both parties about the way things are being run and I think that is what contributed to the results. As we are speaking, (Wednesday morning) she is leading in the popular vote. But that doesnt matter. We have the system we have. We have the Electoral College. What I think happened in a lot of these swing states, people were frustrated with the establishment. Frankly, I believe it is against both parties, but it ran to his benefit in this particular election.

Baylor University senior Peter McCoy, 22, from Waco

I was actually blown away. I personally thought Hillary was going to take it, but I always knew that Trump would be nipping at her heels. Personally, I didnt like either candidate, because I think Trump is a little too vocal and doesnt worry about what he says and Hillary, it is too hard to tell with her. I cant tell if she is lying, telling the truth and I cant trust a president like that.

Baylor freshman Ann Kalisuch, 18, from Colusa, California

I went to bed at about 1 a.m., but it seemed like Trump was going to win. I think where it is really going to matter is with Supreme Court justices. . . . I am also wondering how other countries are going to see us and how it will affect the stock market, international trade and a lot of different things about the presidency.

Baylor freshman Mary Beth Burns, 18, from Austin

As of right now, I am more worried about the uproar that is happening with the announcement of his presidency and how the social climate of America will be. I have seen a lot of people who are very unhappy, so I think there will be a lot of civil unrest. That will be the most worrisome part about the election right now.
The public is invited to show support for local military veterans at a party businessman Bill Johnson will host at his ranch in Robinson on Friday, Veterans Day. The event will culminate a day of activities that includes the annual parade in downtown Waco sponsored by the McLennan County Veterans Association.

Johnson said active members of the armed forces, veterans, family members and any other supporters are welcome to the festivities that will last from 3 to 6 p.m. at Johnsons working ranch about six miles south of the Waco traffic circle on U.S. Highway 77.

We will have signs, balloons and ribbons marking the way for those not familiar with the area, Johnson said.

He will serve brisket, hot dogs, desserts and other home-cooked food around a bonfire. Activities will include a hayride, live music and fishing, and guests can enjoy the view of buffalo, horses, longhorn cattle and wildlife.

The event is meant to raise awareness of people who serve in the military, the sacrifices they make and the challenges they face when they return home.

Some of these people do not come back, and those who do sometimes have bad dreams or physical problems of all kinds, Johnson said. We want people to come out and be a friend to those who served, to acknowledge what theyve done and show respect and honor. We want them to know they have a friend.

Operation Building Bridges, an organization Johnson founded, and Heart of Texas Veterans One Stop are taking part in the program.

HOT Veterans One Stop, 2010 LaSalle Ave., serves as a one-stop location for veterans needing assistance finding health care, jobs or a place to socialize with other vets.

Were telling everybody we know about the party at Mr. Johnsons ranch, said DeLisa Russell, who became director of the center in January.

Russell said she is pleased that veterans have the opportunity to enjoy themselves and feel appreciated on Veterans Day, and she thinks Veterans One Stop is making a difference.

At this time last year, we were serving about 1,500 people a quarter, she said. During the last quarter this year, our records show we were involved in providing help to 4,140 veterans and family members. Our services include helping veterans access psychological counseling and turning military resumes into civilian resumes. We have a food pantry and a clothes closet. With help from Lowes, were putting in a kitchen and will be serving breakfast three mornings a week.

Russell said veterans also have access to pool tables and games and likely will get a gymnasium for workouts and exercise classes in the near future.

Every time I drive by the place, there are 50 or 60 cars parked there, Johnson said. They are doing big business for those who served.

Johnson said the organization, which is financially backed by the Heart of Texas MHMR, will have a booth at Johnsons party to provide details about its offerings.

Set a good example

This place is the first of its kind in the nation, so were trying to set a good example, said Russell, adding that besides receiving support from Heart of Texas MHMR, the center receives grants from state and national organizations.

She said veterans like to give back to the community, which is why several clients have volunteered to gather at the center this week to stuff 2,000 bags with chips, condiments, plastic bags and napkins for local students who will take part in Fridays Veterans Day parade.

Local veteran Caleb Duty, who returned to Waco in 2009 after two tours of duty in Iraq, will make hot dogs at his familys restaurant, Poppa Rollos Pizza, and transfer them on hot racks and by food truck to downtowns Heritage Square, where they will be placed in the bags while still warm, Duty said.

The parade starts at 11 a.m. at 13th Street and Austin Avenue and ends at Fourth Street, near Waco City Hall.

Ive got 3,700 people in the parade representing 150 organizations, and probably close to 1,500 of those are students, said Robert Carter, a longtime McLennan County Veterans Association member who has organized the parade for more than a decade.

For 10 or 15 years, one of the local American Legion or VFW posts would provide lunch for the kids, but those with the larger facilities have closed or moved outside Waco.

Upon hearing of the situation, Duty volunteered the use of his food truck called 900 Degrees Wood Fired Pizzeria, which he parks downtown.

-----

Other Veterans Day activities

The McLennan Community College Police Department will conduct a flag-raising ceremony at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in front of Highlander Central. The MCC bagpiper will perform.

A food drive for MCCs food pantry will start after the ceremony, and attendees will fill Police Chief Larry Radkes car with food. Toy soldiers around campus can be picked up and delivered, with a donation, in exchange for a McLennan Veterans lapel pin and a bag of chips or candy. Attendees also can sign Christmas cards that will be delivered to veterans in the William R. Courtney State Veterans Home in Temple.

Baylor University will honor veterans with a ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at the Barfield Drawing Room in the Bill Daniel Student Center, hosted by Veterans of Baylor, Baylors Veteran Education and Transition Services program and Baylors Air Force ROTC. After presentation of the colors and national anthem, retired Col. William Dwiggins, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, will speak.
One-half of our nation is in jubilation, one-half finds itself in something approaching deep grief. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has not only won the election but also transformed the Republican Party. Comments from our Facebook page:

Joycee Davis: My president, Donald Trump.

Dian Robinson: Thank you, Lord.

Stephen Curtis: We the People knew it would be no other way. We have spoken. Now put the criminal liar in jail. It is pathetic so many voted for her! Red in the House and Senate also. The Trump Train has spoken.

Richard Alex Simpson: Put her in jail for what? The Republican FBI director said there was no reason to. Should he be allowed to just arbitrarily lock up a political opponent because he feels like it?

Charles Hess: Its incomprehensible the most lying, corrupt woman in the United States could even be able to run for president.

David du Menil: President Obama got everything he wanted, and still the people on the right were called names constantly. Its time the news media comes out for the American people rather than the Democratic Party.

Ben James Sauceda: So youre saying whatever BS law that Trump wants to pass, everyone should be OK with it? Thats a problem.

Jill Saxon: This probably helps his chances of not going to prison for fraud over Trump U and raping minors.

Iris Lawrence: The rape case was already dropped. For the third time.

Jill Saxon: Because she feared for her life. Receiving death threats tends to make victims of sexual assault retreat. Thanks for setting women back 50 years.

Iris Lawrence: Americans need to unite and stand together, not divided.

A.C. Martinez: Wait till the ICE van pulls up!

Rita De Leon: I finally got to vote today, but only on a provisional ballot. The reason why is because someone who has the same name as myself and no photo ID voted at 4:25 today in South Waco. It wasnt me because I was home after working all day, 7-4, in Bellmead. I only vote at the civic center in Bellmead. Now I have to spend time I cant afford to lose from work to clear all of this up. Its crazy. Im still wondering, though, how you can allow someone to vote without a photo ID? Crazy.

Kristi DuBois Byrd: Somebody said they voted for Hillary because if she doesnt know what to do, her husband will. Wow! Well, my husbands a nurse. Can I get a nursing license, too? If Im in the middle of a code and I dont know what to do, I can just call him. God, help us!

Ashley N. Warren [on a Trib editorial pleading for an elimination of congressional obstruction]: He will not get any obstruction. We all know this.

Christie Smith: Well, the Republicans are to blame for the gridlock. Now that theyve swept everything, why should we all come together? Is it because finally we have another white man in power? Recession and war coming to you soon.


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Jen KedrowskimbaMission Senior Admissions Consultant17+ years in MBA Admissions Consulting; 40+ positive reviews on GMAT ClubSign up for a free 30-minute consultation: https://www.mbamission.com/consult/mba-admissions/ Read our Insider's Guides to the top b-schools: http://www.mbamission.com/guides.php?category=insiders Signature Read More

Hi there,Thanks for your post, and for your service!!Congrats on the excellent GMAT! That is great news, though as you likely know, you will need it with your GPA. The GPA will be a decent weakness no matter what.... certainly yes if you were able to take a relevant course or two and get A's it would be a small plus. But even so, a 3.0 and below is generally fairly touch to overcome for top 10 schools such as those you are interested in. Anything is possible but you may want to add a few schools outside that range for better chances and variety, food for thought.Otherwise, certainly your military background generally will help in that you likely have plenty of leadership and teamwork experiences to draw from, so be sure to play up those skills. The one thing I'd say is it's quite important to most schools that you make it clear that you really know WHY you need the MBA, since it's slightly less typical (but that said most schools have some military classmates each year!).... show that you've done your research, you have clear short and long term post-MBA goals that you know a lot about, and can explain how the MBA will help you get there.Good luck on the process and keep us posted!_________________
One word describes this U.S. presidential election: dismal. That has ominous implications for the important tasks of governing over the next several years.

Elections in which big issues are joined have value because they provide a governance agenda to be debated and decided.

Both sides bear responsibility for the sorry state of politics this year, but the overwhelming blame belongs to Donald Trump. He has largely waged a campaign of venom and cruel insults that was substantively shallow. If you waded through his deepest policy thoughts your ankles wouldnt get wet.

Lets suppose he wins on Nov. 8. What would be his mandate? To build a wall along the Southern border and make Mexico pay for it? Even a number of his supporters know thats a foolish fantasy. To round up and deport millions of undocumented workers? That would cost a fortune and would be socially catastrophic. To start a trade war with China, the worlds second-largest economy? That would be a replay of the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.

All of these agenda items are at cross purposes with the priorities of House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican congressional leaders. The party establishment concurs with Trumps call for huge tax cuts, tilted to the wealthy, investment income and business. But conservative lawmakers want to balance those reductions with cutbacks in entitlement spending, a non-starter for the Republican nominee, who has extolled the virtues of debt.

Trump has given little indication of a health-care policy, other than to say hed call a post-election session to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Hes equally vague on national security, besides expressing his admiration for the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and a vow to somehow knock the crap out of the Islamic State. There is no Trump governing agenda.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has laid out a comprehensive agenda on many issues. But in a political variation of Greshams Law, her message often seems to have sunk to Trumps level. Can you imagine Republicans even grudgingly admitting she has a mandate to do anything?

If she wins and the Democrats dont capture the Senate, there wont be even a short honeymoon and a long nightmare will commence. Even with a bare Senate majority, with Democrats still a minority in the House, gridlock and rancor may be the norm, given what Republicans are saying now.

Sen. Ted Cruz and even Sen. John McCain have suggested they may not confirm any Supreme Court nominees during her term. As things stand, the court has four justices appointed by Republicans, and four put in place by Democrats, who, with Hillary Clinton, will have won five of the past seven presidential elections (in six of these they carried the popular vote). Theres a vacancy on the court, though a superbly qualified nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, has been stiffed by the Senate for almost eight months.

In the House, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, already is salivating over investigative opportunities with a President Hillary Clinton. It might be tempting to dismiss him as a headline-hunting hypocrite -- when a video surfaced of Donald Trump bragging, in lewd terms, about sexually assaulting women, Chaffetz rushed to TV cameras to say that in good conscience he couldnt support the nominee and look his 15-year-old daughter in the face. Less than three weeks later, under political pressure, he forgot his parental conscience and declared he was voting for Trump. Hes the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which gives him free rein to undertake inquiries.

Michael McCaul, the more respectable chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, topped Chaffetz last week when he raised the specter of impeaching Clinton if shes elected. John Cornyn, the Senate Republican whip, said that might be premature -- before the election and 2 1/2 months before the next president is sworn in.

Campaigns can advance agendas. In 1980, Ronald Reagan promised to slash taxes, curb regulations and aggressively escalate defense spending. As president, he adapted to some realities -- he was more flexible than his conservative loyalists recall -- but was able to achieve what he campaigned and won on.

Similarly, in 2008, Barack Obama made clear that two of his priorities were overhauling the health care system and ending the war in Iraq. He, too, faced some different realities, such as an economy in free fall, but was able to make good on major commitments that resonated with voters.

An ugly environment and an ugly campaign make such success unlikely over the next few years. Campaigns matter.

On a personal note, Im envious of the late David Broder, the esteemed Washington Post political writer: The first presidential race he covered was Kennedy vs. Nixon in 1960, the last was Obama in 2008. If this is my finale, the bookends are Nixons re-election in 1972 and Donald Trump. Thank God for the four great ones in between.

Hunt is a Bloomberg View columnist.
mattce wrote:

The Missouri Compromise of 1820, a legislative effort to mediate the radical differences between slaveholders and abolitionists, did not achieve its goal and thus is remembered by history as a failure, just the first of more than a half-dozen attempts to avert sectional civil war.



a. just the first of more than a half-dozen attempts to avert

b. just the first of a half-dozen more attempts to avert

c. and the first attempt of more than a half-dozen attempts to avert

d. and just the first of more than a half-dozen attempts averting

e. and just the first of more than a half-dozen attempts aimed at averting

Good question.First of all try to identify the simple modifiers and to eliminate it, if it is of no use. Here the simple modifier is : "a legislative effort to mediate the radical differences between slaveholders and abolitionists". On removal of this modifier, the sentence becomes:-The Missouri Compromise of 1820 did not achieve its goal and thus is remembered by history as a failure, just the first of more than a half-dozen attempts to avert sectional civil war.The last part of the sentence is a modifier and is describing the entire preceding clause. Such type of modifier is called Absolute Phrases.POE:B:-changes the meaning entirely.C, D,E: usage of ",and" justifies nothing. In the preceding clause, it says that the act will be remembered by history as failure. Hence, if it were to use in a sense in which it has to be remembered, then there shouldn't have been a comma. Since its there, CDE are incorrect.Regards,_________________
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Sacramento: Passage of marijuana-legalisation initiatives in California and other states this week has given momentum to a national movement to decriminalise pot, but that could change with the election of Republican Donald Trump as president, activists said on Wednesday as state officials scrambled to make the new rules work.

Proposition 64, which allows California adults to possess, transport and buy up to an ounce of marijuana, won passage with 56 percent of the vote.

Armando Rodriguez, who smokes marijuana, wears a jacket with a marijuana leaf in San Francisco. Credit:AP

Similar ballot measures were also approved on Tuesday in Massachusetts and Nevada, and one is ahead in Maine, although that one may face a recount. Arizona was the only state to reject an initiative that would have allowed possession of recreational marijuana. Florida, North Dakota and Arkansas approved medical marijuana initiatives.

"It was really a remarkable set of victories last night," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, in a conference call with reporters. "There is a massive sense of momentum in this regard."
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11 hours ago

Its Still Not Too Late To Get Into Energy Stocks

If you are wondering if it's too late to get into energy stocks the best answer is no. Energy prices are down from their peak and there is a potential slowdown in demand on the way but, for now, the underlying fundamentals are highly in favor of higher share prices.

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From Jeane's Funeral Service:

On Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016, the family of James Martin, along with the military honor guard, the Vernon Parish Sheriff's Department, and several other law enforcement agencies, will escort Jeane's Funeral Service from Leesville to Lake Charles. There, they will be met by the Patriot Riders and escorted to William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas, to transport Sgt. James Martin's remains back to Leesville.

In order to honor Sgt. James Martin's sacrifice to our country, we are asking that the public stand along Highway 171 from Lake Charles to Jeane's Funeral Service at 100 E. Union St. Leesville. The procession should arrive in Lake Charles at approximately 4 p.m. Along the way, fire trucks will display the American flag and the public is encouraged to waves flags as well. Jeane's Funeral Service is giving away flags, so please come by the funeral home to get one.

Then, on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016, a motorcade transporting his remains will leave Jeanes Funeral Service at noon traveling north on Highway 171 to Hornbeck High School. Then, the procession will travel south on Highway 171, go past Anacoco High School, and stop at First Baptist Church of Anacoco where visitation will be held from 1 p.m. until 9 p.m.

A homecoming and celebration of a true American hero, Sgt. James Edward Martin, who sacrificed his life for our country in Korea, will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016, at the First Baptist Church of Anacoco, 4813 Port Author Ave. Anacoco. Guest speakers will honor Sgt. Martin and present his family with awards including the Purple Heart.

Burial will follow in the Mitchell Cemetery where he will receive full military honors and other awards will be given.

Sgt. Martin was born on May 23, 1931, in Anacoco, to Felton Glen and Meldredge Peace Martin. He graduated from Anacoco High School and in 1949, enlisted in the U.S. Army. While serving in the 31st Infantry, he died while under attack from the Chinese Army in the Chosin Reservoir. His family was notified on Dec. 3, 1950, that he was missing and on Dec. 3, 1953, he was declared deceased. For years after the announcement of his death, Mrs. Martin would stand on her porch watching to see if he would return home down the road he left. She passed away continually hoping to see him return home. In 2001, his remains were found, but not positively identified until April 2016. After 65 years, his remains will finally be home and will be buried by his parents and other family members.

Preceding him in death were his parents  Felton Glen and Meldredge Peace Martin, two brothers - Glen and Melvin Martin, and sister - Katherine Martin Jeane.

Survivors are his sister - Ruby Beatrice Sewell of Leesville and a host of nieces and nephews.

The family requests that donations be made to the Korean Veterans Association or to another charity of your choice.

Words of Comfort may be extended to the family at www.jeanesfs.com or on Facebook at Jeanes Funeral Service.
Fort Polk, LA (71446)

Today

Becoming partly cloudy after some evening rain. Low 56F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Becoming partly cloudy after some evening rain. Low 56F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%.
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.
Advertisement

By West Kentucky Star Staff

Nov. 10, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 10, 2016 | 12:25 PM | PADUCAH, KY

Plans to build a $1 billion enrichment facility in McCracken County that could ultimately create more than 1,000 new jobs may be one step closer to becoming a reality.



The Department of Energy says it has agreed to sell depleted uranium to GE-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment, LLC over a 40-year period. GLE is evaluating plans to build a facility to process the material into natural uranium near the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The construction and operation of the facility could create an estimated 800 to 1,200 jobs, according to officials. Natural uranium is used for production of fuel for nuclear reactors.



"This agreement furthers the Energy Department's environmental cleanup mission while reducing cleanup costs, creating good local jobs, and supporting an economical enrichment enterprise for our energy needs," said Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. "The sale contributes to two key Energy Department mission areas  to fulfill the federal government's responsibility to manage the safe storage and disposal of nuclear material and to enable nuclear power, America's largest source of zero-carbon energy and an important enabler for reduced greenhouse gas emissions."



The Paducah plant was constructed in the 1950s to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons, and later enriched uranium for nuclear power generation. The Energy Department resumed control of the plant enrichment facilities in 2014 after the operator ceased gaseous-diffusion enrichment operations in 2013.



The completion of this agreement is an important step forward for GLE, said Bob Crate, GLE President and CEO. Securing the right to acquire depleted uranium hexafluoride from the Department of Energy is a key factor in GLEs plans to potentially license, construct and operate the Paducah laser enrichment facility.



What a great step forward for our Community, Region, and State with this project. We have a long way to go, but todays announcement is a big step in getting this project to fruition. We look forward to sharing more information in the near future regarding this project and are very appreciative of all the support from our Federal, State, and Local delegations to get this project moving. The Department of Energys staff puts our citizens and our community as a priority and we are thankful for their support. said Scott Darnell, President/CEO, Paducah Economic Development.



Stan Eckenberg, Chair of Paducah Economic Development said, Today, we saw another important example of what partnerships can do for our community. PED staff and our public, private partners have spent the past 2 years building stronger relationships with our Congressional Staffs and the Department of Energy to get this project moving forward again. I cannot stress enough how strong our partnership is with Department of Energy, Contractors, and others at the PGDP
By The Associated Press

By The Associated Press Nov. 10, 2016 | 10:09 AM | HOPKINSVILLE, KY

A former Hopkinsville police officer facing sexual-abuse charges has pleaded not guilty.

The Kentucky New Era reports that 32-year-old Ian L. Damber entered a plea of not guilty Wednesday to five counts of first-degree sexual assault.

Damber was arrested in August after police investigated a complaint alleging he inappropriately touched a minor on five separate occasions.

Police said Damber was suspended because of the charges and later resigned. He had been an officer with the department since 2013.

Damber is currently out on bail and is set to appear in court again Nov. 30.

___

Information from: Kentucky New Era, http://www.kentuckynewera.com
By The Associated Press

By The Associated Press Nov. 10, 2016 | 10:13 AM | BOWLING GREEN, KY

Five people have been arrested at Western Kentucky University after demonstrators began protesting the election of Donald Trump as president.

The Daily News in Bowling Green reports protesters clashed with Trump supporters Wednesday evening outside a residence hall.

Campus police Sgt. Rafael Casas said the crowd gathered outside Pearce Ford Tower was peaceful at first, but then escalated into people shoving each other and throwing bottles.

The Warren County Sheriff's Department said deputies were called to assist campus police with the large "out of control" crowd.

The agency said it arrested five people who refused multiple orders to leave the area. All five are charged with failure to disperse and disorderly conduct.

The sheriff's office says the arrests were made to maintain order and ensure public safety.
Rita Redmond was a true lady who felt that every pupil had something to gift to the world
Josue Rivas in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Image Source Guardian





VIDEO

At least 10 shelters were being readied on tribal land against temperatures that can fall below -35.Native American leaders vowed on Saturday to protest through the winter against a North Dakota oil pipeline they say threatens water resources and sacred lands and are weighing lawsuits over police treatment of arrested protesters.Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said he and other tribal leaders were working on providing food, heat and shelter for protectors opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline.Were just working through some technical details as far as where the land is, and the type of land that can be used for some permanent structures, Archambault, who was flanked by Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier, told reporters in Mandan, North Dakota.At least 10 shelters were being readied on tribal land against temperatures that can fall below -35 Fahrenheit (-37 Celsius) for days at time, he said.Lets reroute the pipeline. It doesnt have to put our water at risk, said Archambault, who was flanked by Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier.Opposition to the pipeline has been backed by celebrities and actors, including Mark Ruffalo, Shailene Woodley, Susan Sarandon, Chris Hemsworth and Riley Keough.
Update below

By now we're all familiar with the anti-democratic, unconstitutional, and unseemly things Donald Trump says he wants to do when he's president. There's the ban on Muslims entering the U.S., the implementation of the NYPD's currently banned version of stop-and-frisk nationally (to bring "law and order" to "inner cities" where "the blacks" live), the deportation force rounding up millions of undocumented immigrants, the torture of suspected terrorists and murder of their families, the "opening up" of libel laws to sue his detractors in the media, and the ban on abortions after 20 weeks, to name a few. At this point we are familiar with, if not resigned to, Trump's shortlisting of Rudy Giuliani as attorney general and Newt Gingrich as secretary of state, and Trump's plan to replace late Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia with someone comparably bigoted.

What's harder to grasp at this point is the reality of what awesome power Trump will have, not only by dint of being president, but with the Republicans who never quite got around to condemning him in control of the House and Senate. Starting next year, Republicans will control every branch of federal government, and if Trump can manage to go a few months without re-alienating House Speaker Paul Ryan et al. over some perceived slight or Trump's heresies against conservative doctrine, they can do a lot of damage together.

Republicans don't have the 60 members they need in the Senate for their majority to be filibuster-proof, but in October, Ryan laid out how he intends to bypass Democrats to pass a budget repealing key portions of Obamacare, defunding Planned Parenthood, gutting food stamps and housing assistance programs, and cutting taxes for corporations and the top one percent of income recipients. Ryan explained that he plans to use a process known as budget reconciliation, which Republicans recently criticized Democrats for employing to pass healthcare reform.

The process is for the House and Senate to pass identical budgets, and include instructions for Congress to pass reconciliation legislation that cannot be filibustered in the Senate. Such a bill is supposed to change current law to comply with the budget's demands, but can be used to accomplish wide-ranging objectives.

President Obama vetoed a similar effort last year. President Trump likely would not.

Also, Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker just reiterated his belief that Republicans should change the Senate rules to get rid of the filibuster, which would allow them to pass legislation with a 51-senator majority. (The conservative Heritage Foundation thinks this is "a Bad Idea.")

Trump and Ryan also want to increase military spending, presumably to "bomb the shit out of ISIS," and Trump has vowed to rescind Obama's executive order granting amnesty to the children of undocumented immigrants, and to pull the U.S. out of the limited climate accords it has agreed to. On the appointment side of things, Trump has indicated plans to make a Goldman Sachs veteran Treasury secretary, and a fellow climate-change denier may soon be shaping the leadership of Environmental Protection Agency, according to a Scientific American report.



House Speaker Paul Ryan plans to gut the social safety net under President Trump. (Mark Wilson/Getty)

Also, little-mentioned amid Trump's blizzard of radical proposals is one to repeal the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to people born in this countryit also includes the equal protection clause, enacted after the Civil War, which prohibits states from denying people equal protection under the law, and is the basis for black people getting to vote, as well as: court decisions outlawing school segregation; banning racially discriminatory gerrymandering; ending laws against gay sex; legalizing abortion; and upholding elements of affirmative action.

To do away with the amendment, in addition to making America unrecognizable, would require a new constitutional amendment, something that takes two thirds of both Houses, or the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the states for a constitutional convention. From there, three fourths of state legislatures have to ratify the amendment, or three fourths of states have to ratify it at constitutional conventions.

This particular agenda item would be hard to accomplish, but there is the possibility, however remote, that the current political landscape could one day allow Trump to push through a constitutional amendment.

"Anchor baby" rhetoric and Ann Coulter's protruding Nazism aside, Republicans do not generally support the idea of repealing the 14th Amendment, and Republicans don't have two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate, but they do have control of more than two thirds of the country's state legislative chambers, and they are near a historic high of 34 of 50 governorships, with races in North Carolina and Montana still too close to call. During the first two years of a Trump presidency, the only brake on a constitutional amendment with broad Republican support would be the fact that Republicans are still six state legislatures away from controlling the three quarters they'd need to alter the federal government at its firmament.

This type of leverage makes the last year's unprecedented obstruction of the confirmation of Obama's centrist Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a huge victory for Republicans.

The fact that Trump could in any conceivable universe propose and pass a constitutional amendment should be deeply chilling to anyone who believes (based on the copious available evidence) that the man is a racist, narcissist, and sociopath with the attention span and civic knowledge of a second grader. Supreme Court justices we're stuck with for decades. Constitutional amendments have a way of sticking around for centuries.

On the topic of the Constitution, the ACLU published an analysis of Trump's most prominent policy proposals today, explaining how those proposals, including surveillance of mosques, rounding up immigrants, reinstating and ramping up military torture, and silencing critics, would be wildly unconstitutional.

Of course, the presidency also carries a great deal of executive power, which can be yielded without the input of others. The danger of Trump controlling our nuclear arsenal, which he has wondered aloud why we would make if we didn't intend to use, is well-established.

There is also this to consider: presidents starting with Truman have established a mechanism of taking the U.S. to war without congressional approval, and thanks to Bush and a coterie of willing intelligence spooks, have enabled a massive, extrajudicial domestic spying apparatus that the president can use at will. Obama and various intelligence types have assured us, when exposed, that all this secret spyware is being used responsibly, thank you very much, but that guy, that strongman with a long list of personal enemies and a taste for vendettas that Snowden and the rest warned us about? Trump has given us every indication he is that guy.

It's a brave new fucking world. For an idea of how to protect the privacy of your communications, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a starter guide here. The American Civil Liberties Union is a fan of the First and Fourteenth amendments, among others. Its website is here.

Update 4 p.m.:

We reached out to New York Sen. Charles Schumer (D), who voters reelected last night to his fourth term last night, and who will replace Harry Reid as the Senate's Democratic leader. We asked his office what Schumer plans to do to stop a Republican-controlled federal government. We got this response:
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Are you relatively new to this bustling metropolis? Don't be shy about it, everyone was new to New York once upon a time, except, of course, those battle-hardened residents who've lived here their whole lives and Know It All. One of these lifers works among us at Gothamistpublisher Jake Dobkin grew up in Park Slope and still resides there. He is now fielding questionsask him anything by sending an email here, but be advised that Dobkin is "not sure you guys will be able to handle my realness." We can keep you anonymous if you prefer; just let us know what neighborhood you live in.

This question comes from a fellow New Yorker sharing the profound dread and revulsion that has overwhelmed many of us today.

Dear Jake,

I find myself completely devastated by the election outcome. Like bereft doesn't begin to describe itI've been crying on and off all day. I just can't picture a future with Trump as president, and I'm scared for my kids and for New York, the country, and the whole world. I know you didn't expect this eitherhow are you taking it? Is there anything you can say to make me feel a little better?

Sincerely,



Blue States Lose

A native New Yorker responds:

Dear BSL,

I am not taking it well either. I went to sleep before the results were in, but at that time it was already looking bad, and before I did, I said a fervent prayer to God to not let the worst happen. That did not work: when I woke up, at 5 a.m., I felt an impending sense of doom that was quickly confirmed by a glance at my phone, and since then, I've been going through my day in a complete haze.

How could this have happened? How could 50% of the country vote for someone so obviously unqualified and unstable? How could all the polls and all the pundits have been so wrong? What happens now? Are we headed for a dictatorship? Will immigrants, women, minorities, and liberals immediately feel the boot on their necks? This dreadful cycle of questions goes on and oninterrupted by an occasional feeling of overwhelming upset, a nauseous feeling like seasickness.



Jake Dobkin with his emotional support dog, processing this horrible turn of events. (Courtesy Jake Dobkin Private Collection)

Clearly, in my previous columns, I underestimated Trump's appeal, and the turnout it would bring among his base, particularly rural whites without college degrees. But I also misunderstood how Hillary's flawsher too-cozy relationship with Wall Street, her tremendous self-enrichment giving secret speeches, and her centrist views on trade and foreign policywould depress the excitement on the left. Maybe we should have run Bernie instead, or maybe there was never a shot after eight years of Obama had stirred up so much racist grievance among so many people in our country.

I don't know. It will take me months or years to make sense of it, if it ever makes sense. But I don't need to understand what happened to tell you what you need to do to make yourself feel better, that's simple. First, breathe: I mean really take twenty minutes and just breathe in and out. If you can, meditate on all the hurt in the world, and how it's led us to this tight spot, and give thanks for all the good things you do have in this life: family, friends, work, hobbies, pets, and a great city like New York to live in.

Then, if you can, practice some self-care: a warm bath, a massage, a glass of wine with a friend. Or at least turn off the television, the internet, and the radio for a few days; you really don't need to consume any more of that poison.

Once you have reassembled a basic sense of calm, recommit yourself to the hard work ahead. It's going to be difficultthe Right will control, for a time, all three branches of government, and they will implement a huge tax-giveaway to the rich, slash social programs, massively expand deportations, and roll back many, if not all, of the social progress we've made during the last 50 years: the universal right to an abortion, gay marriage, federal sentencing reform. They may even put an end to the free press, by changing judicial standards for libel rulings, or start a war with Iran.

However! Not everything is controlled by the Federal government. Blue states will become bluer in reaction to this catastrophe, as it galvanizes voters in local races. That can lead to positive local changes on a host of issues, including the minimum wage, marijuana legalization, prison reform, new ethics laws, and so on. And no matter what the Supreme Court rules, gay marriage and abortion will stay legal in New York forever. Our state and city representatives can also make life difficult for a Trump administration trying to implement a deportation plan, by refusing any cooperation with ICE.

What can you do, besides continuing to vote for the most progressive candidates you can? Focus on your community, starting right now. People were crying all over Park Slope when I was doing drop off this morning, but I also saw a lot of people giving out hugs, smiles, and whispering, "It'll be okay." Do that. Then use your money or time to support the local organizations that will be defending women, LGBTQ communities, and immigrants from Trump and his allies. Start with the ACLU, the Audre Lorde Project, and NARAL.

Remember, as I wrote in previous essays: New York has survived many calamitiesfires, floods, terrorism, the Giuliani administrationand we're still going strong. Trump is not going to end that streak. Yes, this may be the toughest challenge our values have ever faced in Washington, but sometimes you have to take a step back before taking two steps forward. Sometimes that step back feels like a kick in the stomach or the faceI know it did to me this morning. But demographics and the long arc of justice favor our victory; we just have to be willing to bear up under this heavy load, and do what we need to do to get there.

In solidarity,

Jake

N.B.: Anil Dash also wrote a thoughtful, hopeful post about what to do next.

Ask a Native New Yorker anything via email. Anonymity is assured.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 09/11/2016 (2183 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba man with two wives and no plumbing credentials is being released from jail after he admitted to defrauding local clients out of more than $100,000 so he could lead a luxurious lifestyle that would appeal to the women in his life.

In a rare case before Manitobas provincial court, 35-year-old Donald Connors was sentenced Wednesday to 690 days in jail for bigamy, fraud, perjury, obstruction of justice and breaching court conditions. Hes been in custody since his July 2015 arrest and was given time-and-a-half credit for the year-and-a-half hes already spent behind bars  time he said prompted him to take responsibility for his crimes and stop thinking of himself as a victim.

Connors, who was born in New Zealand and moved with his family to Canada as a child, was secretly married to two different women for about three months. His wives didnt know about each other until Connors was arrested as part of an RCMP fraud investigation. Police had received complaints from residents who reported Connors had misrepresented himself as a qualified plumber, done shoddy plumbing work for them and wouldnt refund their money. In some cases, Connors was paid deposits worth thousands of dollars and then never returned to finish the work.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Harpreet Kanda pleaded guilty Monday to impersonating a peace officer, uttering threats and conveying false messages as his trial was set to resume.

When officers pulled over Connors and arrested him, he was with his wife  driving a car registered to his other wife, leading police to the bigamy charge. Both women were very embarrassed and upset and no longer want any contact with him, Crown prosecutor Terry McComb said. Hed married his first wife in July 2014 and the second in April 2015.

It might seem hard to understand how someone could be married to two people, however, the accused represented himself as a very successful businessman and pretended to work many nights and take business trips, McComb told court.

Defence lawyer David Walker suggested his client did so because he lacked a positive female role model, having been abused as a child and removed from his mothers care. It was important to him to be able to appear as though he could provide for the women in his life, Walker said.

He did everything he could to make the women in his life happy, he said.

Connors earned a business degree, and though his father was a pipefitter, Connors never trained or received certification as a plumber. He ran a business called Shields Plumbing and Heating where he took on jobs he wasnt capable of finishing and overcharged his customers, which included homeowners, small business owners and a church. He defrauded them of about $120,000 in total.

He also pleaded guilty to perjury for lying about his income in family court. He owed $16,000 in child support to a former common-law spouse but submitted a fake employment letter to make it look like he was being paid very little, court heard. He also admitted to contacting one of his wives in violation of his court conditions and then instructing his girlfriend to take the blame, leading to the obstruction-of-justice conviction.

Connors was to be released from jail under a three-year unsupervised probation order after provincial court Judge Theodore Lismer accepted the lawyers plea bargain. He also imposed two unique conditions: Connors is not allowed to practise a trade or profession without certification in the province in which he lives, and hes barred from being in care of other peoples money.

Connors had no criminal record, but in 2012 he was charged five times under Albertas Fair Trading Act for accepting payment and not completing the work he was hired to do.

He took almost every counselling program offered to him since hes been in custody and plans to return to New Zealand, court heard.

Connors told the judge he wants to become a productive citizen.

Ive had tons of counselling and programming to make me realize Im not the victim, the people I was defrauding were the victims, he said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 09/11/2016 (2183 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Gary Doer

Former Manitoba premier, former Canadian ambassador to the United States

JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS Former Canadian ambassador to the United States, Gary Doer

There will be more hard hats and less Hollywood in the White House now that Donald Trump has won the presidency, Doer said.

Speaking to a luncheon audience convened by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, he said the culture of federal politics in the U.S. will be much different. It is widely believed that Trump won on the strength of his support among white working-class voters.

Trumps populist coalition, which brought a lot of people formerly estranged from politics back into the equation, could be positive, he said.

Hard hats will have a much bigger voice in U.S. policy decision-making, and that can never be a bad thing.

Brian Pallister

Manitoba premier

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Premier Brian Pallister

Pallister congratulated the president-elect on his victory, while denouncing the nasty tone of the campaign.

I decry the kind of politics that I saw and we have seen over the years  not exclusively from Mr. Trump, either  in many United States election campaigns  senatorial, congressional and presidential, he said. But this one takes the cake. I didnt particularly like it. I dont think Manitobans subscribe to those kinds of politics.

Trump has said he would renegotiate international trade deals, which could hurt Manitoba exporters.

Pallister said he hopes the U.S. respects these agreements, but his government is already taking steps to reduce the provinces reliance on American markets.

Manitoba is attempting to forge a closer trade relationship with the countrys three western-most provinces, while working nationally to ease trade restrictions within Canada, he said.

I would encourage Americans who have been proud supporters of openness and competition, at the very least, to recognize that were ready here in Manitoba to compete with them on a fair and level playing field and it wouldnt be wise for them to admit defeat by locking the doors on us.

Brian Bowman

Winnipeg mayor

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman

Bowman said his biggest concern with Trumps victory is how it will affect trade.

A number of (Winnipeg) businesses rely on access to the U.S. market We all watched during the campaign his comments on (the North American Free Trade Agreement). We are a trading nation and a community that trades heavily with the U.S. more than any other nation in the world. We will be watching with great interest and great concern about how our trading relationships might be affected by the change in administration. Time will tell.

Bowman invited Trump to visit the Canadian Museum for Human Rights last December, after the candidate made his threat to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. Bowman said the invitation remains open and thinks the president-elect should visit.

I think the comments he made during the campaign underscored the need and opportunity he has to learn more about human rights the obligation for any political leader is to do your best to bring people together.

Jim Carr

Canadas Natural Resources minister, Winnipeg South Centre MP

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Natural Resources minister Jim Carr

This is a day to congratulate the president-elect of the United States. This is our closest relationship. We will work to ensure that Canada and the United States continue to enjoy the warmth of a relationship that really is a model to the world. So this is a day to pause and reflect and to congratulate not only the president-elect but all of those for hard-fought election campaigns. We will work with the administration and with the Congress.

Chuck Davidson

President and CEO of the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce

Bruce Bumstead/Brandon Sun files Chuck Davidson, president of the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce

The head of Manitobas largest business organization said one of the biggest concerns for the local business community is the uncertainty Trumps victory has created with respect to future trade with the United States and how the Canadian economy could be negatively impacted by the change in government.

He said the U.S. market accounts for 78 per cent of Manitobas yearly export trade, and Trumps victory underscores the need to Manitoba exporters to more aggressively pursue trade opportunities in other foreign markets, such as Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

I would suggest that if the rhetoric were hearing comes to fruition, Canadian companies are going to have to get extremely serious in a hurry, he said.

Another big concern is that companies here could be placed at a competitive disadvantage if Canada and Manitoba go ahead with plans to introduce carbon taxes and other climate-change measures and the United States does not, he said.

That doesnt seem to be the path that Trump is on, so that could put us on an even more uncompetitive standpoint.

Loren Remillard

President and CEO of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce

Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press files Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce President Loren Remillard

The Republican party controlling the White House and both the House of Representatives and the Senate in Congress is worrisome, Remillard said.

One of the things a lot of people were counting on to some degree, regardless of who won the presidency, was the U.S. check-and-balance system (that) balance may not necessarily be there for the first two years (until mid-term elections are held in 2018), he said.

But he also pointed out that NAFTA was a negotiated deal; changes would have to be negotiated, not imposed.

Ultimately the president and the U.S. will require partners, no matter how isolationist they may want to be, and Canada remains their No. 1 partner and ally. So to turn completely on Canada is unlikely because the know they cant operate as an island unto themselves.

Ron Koslowsky

Manitoba vice-president of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Ron Koslowsky, vice president of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters Manitoba

Koslowsky was searching for a silver lining Wednesday, suggesting that while Trump pledged during the campaign to pull out of long-standing trade agreements and to slap double-digit tariffs on goods from Mexico and China, his stance could soften once hes in the Oval Office. Either that, or saner heads within government and the Republican party will prevail.

I dont think youre going to see a wall with Mexico and I dont think youre going to see (NAFTA) scrapped, he said. In small ways, trade could be frustrated a bit, but I dont think well see massive change there.

Even if some Manitoba exporters are forced to shift some of their production south of the border in order to maintain access to the U.S. market, Koslowsky noted some have already done that but have been able to keep head offices and other value-added operations, such as research and development, in Manitoba.

So its not always a bad thing, he said.

Paul Soubry

President and CEO of New Flyer Industries Inc.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Paul Soubry, president and CEO of New Flyer

With annual sales of about $2 billion and manufacturing, parts distribution and service centres throughout Canada and the U.S., the Winnipeg-based bus maker is a true NAFTA entity.

Not only that, but since most of its sales are to American municipal transit authorities that rely on federal funds to buy buses, the company already operates under strictly regulated U.S. content regulations.

Soubry said the company has no intention of altering its strategy under Trumps administration and does not believe it will need to do so.

We have more people in the U.S. than in Canada now, he said. We comply with Buy America we are going to keep working on our business and focusing on our competitiveness

We like our product, we like our market and we like our market position.

Gerry Price

Chairman and CEO of Price Industries Ltd.

FREE PRESS FILES Gerry Price

Price Industries makes registers, grills and a host of other heating, ventilation and air conditioning supplies and is one of the most successful Winnipeg companies in establishing a sustainable U.S. presence.

Gerry Price has built five factories in the U.S. along with the seven it has in Canada, including three in Winnipeg.

His U.S. customers drive the company now. His headquarters and manufacturing operations in Winnipeg employ more than 1,100 people and close to three-quarters of the production here is destined for customers south of the border, which is where the majority of his 3,000 employees are located.

He believes the hand-wringing going on in Canada in the aftermath of Tuesdays vote is mostly uninformed. Canadians likely dont have a very good understanding of the issues that the American voters were dealing with, he said.

And he doesnt believe his company will have to break stride.

We absolutely depend on (the U.S. market) and we absolutely see no issue (with a Trump presidency),he said. We have factories on both sides of the border. We have product that flows across the borders from factories in both countries to customers in both countries.

He points out that both countries are each others largest trading partner.

Each country totally depends on the other on all kinds of fronts. Its almost an invisible border, he said. I honestly dont see any risk in any material change to our relationship with America.

Sean McCormick

CEO, Manitobah Mukluks

Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press FILES Sean McCormick

The Winnipeg-based, aboriginal-owned moccasin and mukluk companys sales have grown more than 200 per cent in the last five years and its because of the companys ability to sell internationally.

McCormick recently took part in a trade summit with other indigenous business owners.

A common theme was that we are traders from a long time ago, he said. It is not a foreign concept to us in the indigenous community, nor is it something we are fearful of.

With offshore production operations and annual sales approaching $20 million  close to 15 per cent of that in the U.S.  McCormick is attuned to workers rights and balancing access to global markets while maintaining democratic principles.

If Trump follows through on his protectionist agenda, that could have an impact on us, he said. But I do not necessarily believe he will follow through on everything he has said. So its kind of wait and see.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 09/11/2016 (2183 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A good number of Canadians were genuinely spooked when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Gary Doer was not among them.

The former Manitoba Premier, who also served as Canadas ambassador in Washington, D.C., has two advantages that help him keep his cool when so many others from Canada are losing theirs: a deep, intimate knowledge of American political culture and the relationships that serve as its foundation; and a lifetime in public demonstrating an above-average capacity for managing stressful situations.

That makes Doer uniquely qualified to find the meaning in the madness of Tuesdays election. Canadians have plenty of social, economic and  yes  political reasons to be deeply concerned about the impact of a Trump presidency. Our countries are so closely connected on so many different levels; the macro forces emanating from America tend to wash over Canada before heading out to influence events around the globe.

JOHN WOODS / CANADIAN PRESS FILES Gary Doer said Donald Trump fancies himself a deal-maker, and whether it's politics or business, people who make deals understand compromise.

We are more than bystanders, less than direct participants. And many of us are worried.

A Trump presidency raises all sorts of red flags. Will the bombastic businessman and reality television star actually walk the walk now? He certainly talked some remarkable talk during the 15-month campaign.

Along with cutting taxes, improving health care and infrastructure and reducing the national debt, Trump promised to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. and subject those already resident to intense surveillance, deport Syrian refugees, build a wall to keep illegal Mexican immigrants out, disband the Environmental Protection Agency, bring back waterboarding and other forms of interrogation that border on torture. Just to name a few.

Doer is the ultimate political pragmatist, a NDP politician from Canada who often espoused prairie conservatism in his policies. As such, he understands the value of political compromise as a way of moving the policy agenda forward.

At a luncheon organized by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, Doer said his main area of concern is the potential impact Trump will have on Canadas free-trade agreements with the U.S. Much of Doers time in Washington was spent fighting or avoiding trade disputes. And Trump has certainly made noises about ending or amending certain trade deals, such as NAFTA. Doer said he sincerely hopes that Trump will honour the rule of law and reciprocity and remember that Canada is Americas largest trading partner.

After his midday address and a brief question-and-answer session, there were three major themes that emerged from Doers analysis of the election and the path forward:

 Trump could be the solution to gridlock in Washington. Doer spoke frequently about the gridlock that ground Congress to a halt during his time in Washington. Although some may mock the notion, Doer said Trump fancies himself a deal-maker, and whether its politics or business, people who make deals understand compromise. Even if Trump didnt seem that predisposed to that notion during the campaign.

Deals are all about compromise, Doer said. Candidate Trump can oppose compromise, but as president, I hope he embraces compromise and gets things done.

 It will be hard, but the Republican-dominated Congress will work with Trump to allow him to accomplish some of what he promised during the campaign. As he moves forward with his administration, Trump will have the advantage of a House of Representatives and Senate that preserved their GOP majorities. Even so, Trump is no normal Republican, and many top party leaders  including House Speaker Paul Ryan and senior South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham  disavowed him during the campaign.

They will help him achieve some of the things in his agenda, Doer said. Some of Trumps promises  including repealing Obamacare, installing conservative justices on the Supreme Court and leaving intact the Second Amendment (right to bear arms)  are already in lock-step with congressional Republicans. Other Trump pledges, particularly those rejected by the Republican leadership, will require more give and take.

On immigration, there are measures that can be navigated through Congress to beef up vetting and close loopholes but dont go nearly as far as Trumps campaign promises. That, Doer said, should satisfy hawks in the Trump camp that want to close Americas borders to anyone of Muslim background.

The president-elect will not get everything he wants, Doer said, but he will get some of it and Congress will work with him. True to form, the day after the election saw many Republicans  including Ryan and Graham  walking back their initial repudiation of Trump and his unorthodox agenda.

It is now time for all Americans to pull together and realize the challenges we face can only be overcome by working together, Graham said in an statement. Ryan was a bit bolder, claiming that Trump will lead a unified Republican government.

Winning an election tends to moderate a political leaders policies, and Trump will be no different. Doer said he fully expects Trump to moderate some of his policy positions and distance himself from some of the more radical constituencies that became part of his alternative conservative coalition. In large part, this will come as Trump leaves the campaign mode  where its all about saying things but not doing much  and the governing mode, where actions speak louder than words.

Yes (governing) does tend to moderate, said Doer. The first thing hes going to think about today is, How am I going to fulfil my promises in the most effective way possible? Hes going to have to deal with all the things he didnt know about when he was campaigning. He will say, I have to end the gridlock in Washington, and I have to be perceived to be draining the swamp, to use his language. And, he will start getting ready to run for a second term because not winning a second term would define him forever.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 10/11/2016 (2182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dr. Michael Routledge has stepped down as the provinces chief provincial public health officer to take a position with a regional health authority outside of Winnipeg.

Routledge was hired as the regional medical officer of health for Southern Health last month. He was succeeded as chief provincial health officer on an acting basis by deputy chief Dr. Elise Weiss.

Routledge said his new position gives him the opportunity to work more closely with health providers.

MELISSA TAIT / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Dr. Michael Routledge, chief provincial public health officer.

I had been four years in the chiefs job, and I felt like it was a good time (to move on), he said Thursday.

Southern Health covers a large area that includes Steinbach, Emerson, Crystal City, Portage la Prairie, Morden and Winkler.

Routledge said he will not have to move his family from Winnipeg to take on the new role. He will commute to an office in La Salle, central within the sprawling health authority.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/11/2016 (2182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When you see veterans decked out in their finest this Remembrance Day, chances are their chest medals were fastened by Marway Militaria.

We do medal tailoring. That usually picks up in October, said Jaime Cline of the family business.

There are two ways of mounting: loose mount, where the medals swing back and forth (from a broach bar), and court mounting, where the medals are fixed to a stiff backing like wood or cork.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Shop pooch Jake by display cases full of knives.

Thats not all Marway does.

We see veterans come in to replace berets, hat badges. Some are looking for tunics because their tunic no longer fits. I dont know if thats ever happened to you, where you put something in the closet and the closet shrinks it.

Marway Militaria, which opened in 1987, has one of the countrys largest collections of vintage military memorabilia, or militaria, as its called.

The military loves insignias, and Marway has heaps of crests, patches, chevrons, brass buttons, dog tags (military indentification tags), lapel pins, collar pins, hat badges, ribbons and medals.

Then there are the bigger-ticket items such as Canadian helmets and jackets from the two world wars.

You can buy a British three-pounder Vickers cannon shell, 1898, for $94.95. There are loads of military silverware. A pair of vintage field glasses can be had for $75 and a bright red British Army Military Police cap for $40.

Marway recently sold a Hitler Youth belt buckle. It went (snaps fingers) like that, said Jaime, for $250.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESSMilitary jackets with shoulder patches on the rack at Marway.

Marway was founded by Wayne Cline, 75, a retired RCMP officer, who runs it with daughter Jaime, and her husband, Jim Domanski. The name is an amalgam of the start of his name and that of Margaret, his wife of more than 45 years, who died in 2012.

Marway also doubles as an army surplus store, meaning it also sells everything from biodegradable toilet paper to army-issued boots, military jackets and pants and sleeping bags. It does not carry any firearms or live ammunition.

It practically takes a reconnaissance mission to find the Marway store. Its tucked away in a U-shaped industrial strip mall off Sargent Avenue next to Standard Aero. Marways advertises on a bus bench in front.

You can lose yourself wandering the museum-like store. A Second World War airborne paratrooper folding bike hangs from the rafters. Paratroopers carried the bikes folded on their backs when they jumped from planes. Its only for display.

Sometimes the craziest things come into the store, like the time a family walked in with no idea their old medal was a Congressional Medal of Honor. Thats the highest military honour in the United States, awarded for bravery in combat at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty.

The Clines further discovered it was awarded to a member of the 7th Calvary at the Battle of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, the massacre that saw 150 native Americans killed and would be the last battle between U.S. forces and the Sioux.

photos by PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Marway Militarias Jim Domanski and his wife, Jaime Cline, with trench art  shell casings with carvings made in First World War trenches or hospitals.

Marway sold the medal on commission but wont reveal the price to protect client privacy. However, if the British Empires highest military award, the Victoria Cross, sells for $200,000 to $300,000, as the Clines can attest because theyve sold them, imagine what a Congressional Medal from Wounded Knee might fetch?

Jaimes favourite militaria are military postcards with animals on them. A glimpse through her private collection shows Canadian soldiers had an inordinate number of pet bears.

In fact, Winnie, of Winnie the Pooh fame, wasnt the only bear donated by Canadian soldiers to the London Zoo. There were from six to eight bears donated from various Canadian army regiments, say the Clines.

But it was Winnie, donated by Lt. Harry Colebourn and named after his home city of Winnipeg, that captured the fancy of writer A. A. Milne, who based his famous childrens book series on the bear.

It was common practice for military camps to have a pet, usually a dog, but more than a few had bears. The former Camp Hughes near Brandon had several bears for pets, said Jaime. The Clearwater Prisoner of War Camp in Riding Mountain had a bear.

Waynes personal favourite militaria is trench art  what the soldiers made from spent artillery shells to pass the time while stuck in trenches. The art was also taken up by men rehabilitating in hospitals.

Wayne has brass munition shells made into vases, bottle openers, ashtrays, jewelry cases, pitchers, picture frames and even a cigar cutter.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Wayne Cline displays a Second World War propaganda poster showing Adolf Hitler as a dancing monkey.

His personal collection includes at least a dozen pairs of souvenir Dutch wooden shoes Dutch people gave to Canadian soldiers who liberated the country. The shoes are all different styles and handmade.

Some must-sees are the old brown leather bomber jackets with the fur collars. Marway also sells many vintage wool coats, such as a brown-green Second World War Canadian Army officer great coat with a Canada patch on the shoulder. It will be the warmest winter jacket you have. Wool is just the best for warmth, breathing and beating wind, said Jaime.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

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This article was published 10/11/2016 (2182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Its the second week of November, so naturally, were completely surrounded by Christmas decorations. The lights are up on Portage Avenue. Store windows are faux-frosted.

For some, this phenomenon known as Christmas Creep is merely annoying. Others say its disrespectful to veterans, taking to Facebook to post passive-aggressive friendly reminders encouraging people to ho-ho-hold it on the Christmas decorations until after Remembrance Day. (Im not sure where this idea originated. The strongest argument Ive heard is, Its just not right, which is not very compelling.)

The ire is usually directed at retailers. But many of the retailers that have holiday displays up right after Halloween also allow Scouts to sell Remembrance Day poppies outside their stores. No one is advertising Remembrance Day Blow-Out Sales. No one is tweeting, Were honouring our vets with a buy-one, get-one! #lestweforget. We dont exchange Happy Remembrance Day cards.

Justin Tang / The Canadian Press Files People place poppies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier following the Remembrance Day ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014.

The majority of retailers show their respect by physically closing, at least for the morning.

Remembrance Day is one of the few truly sacred days left, escaping commercialization in a way other holidays  even solemn, religious ones  have not.

Poppies are not-so-firmly affixed to the lapels of peacoats across the nation; newscasters and politicians are not seen without them. Schools hold Remembrance Day assemblies. Newspapers, including this one, dedicate space to telling veterans stories. Last year, more than 4,000 people attended the service at the RBC Convention Centre, and many others attended the public events held during Veterans Week  including the annual tour of Brookside Cemetery, where many of this nations war dead rest.

All of this happens, and will continue to happen, whether retailers have holiday displays up or not.

Whats too often lost in the debates about what is and isnt respectful to veterans is the fact wearing a poppy or otherwise observing Remembrance Day is a personal choice, and the freedom to make such a choice is defended by our people in uniform. And those who choose to observe Remembrance Day in some way, whether its at a formal service or during two stolen minutes at home, are paying their respects. They are not thinking about the holidays in that moment. Theres already too much to think about.

We might think about how veterans continue to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder in silence. We might think about the horrors of war that replay in the minds of soldiers when they close their eyes. We might think about how certain veterans are erased, because of their gender, their skin colour or their sexual orientation.

We might be thinking about Charlotte Wood, Canadas First Silver Cross Mother, who lost five sons in the First World War. We might think about how King Edward VIII told her, Please God, Mrs. Wood, it shall never happen again. Then we might think about all those Silver Cross Mothers who have laid wreaths at the foot of the National War Memorial in Ottawa every year since 1939, because it did happen again. And again and again.

We might think about how its still happening, right now.

We might think about what the poppy signifies, about the blood that continues to be shed. We might think about the people who are left behind after a war, tasked with cleaning up, with picking up the pieces, with rebuilding. We might think about the strength that requires.

We might think about patriotism and what that means.

We might think about how legion halls are closing. We might think about the fact there are no First World War veterans left and how they didnt see world peace in their lifetimes. We might think about how the idea of world peace became a pat answer for beauty pageant contestants. We might think about cynicism. We might think about hate.

We might think about the freedoms we take for granted. We might think about those who arent free. We might think about what we value, about whats right. We might think about how battlegrounds exist in many forms, as we were reminded during the protests at Standing Rock or during the U.S. presidential election.

We might think about all the people who come back from wars forever changed  and the people who dont come back.

We might not think at all, choosing to mourn instead.

Thats what Remembrance Day is all about, Charlie Brown.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 09/11/2016 (2183 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The federal government has given the Manitoba Museum a $2.5 million gift to open just in time for the provinces 150th birthday in 2020.

And the museum is on track to open its Alloway Hall expansion in time for next Julys celebration of Canadas 150th birthday.

Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said Wednesday that the money, provided through the federal governments Canada Cultural Spaces Fund, will help the museum renovate existing galleries and create a new Winnipeg gallery to give visitors a more engaging experience.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Jim Carr, Minister of Natural Resources makes a $2.5 million funding announcement to the Manitoba Museum Wednesday.

The museum is a terrific place, Carr (Winnipeg South Centre) said after making the announcement on behalf of Canadian Heritage Minister Melanie Joly.

I certainly remember it when it just opened. I dont think there is any better understanding to Manitoba than spending a couple of hours in this museum. I am very pleased.

The museum plans to renew 23,000 square feet of exhibits  about 42 per cent  as part of its Bringing Our Stories Forward project.

Jeoff Chipman, chairman of the museums capital and endowment fund campaign, said its time to bring the museum up to 2016 standards.

Our galleries are in need of major renewal, Chipman said.

We tell the story of Manitoba from north to south and from ancient to modern times it is time to update the Manitoba story. Its not just a story of our past, but our present.

Chipman said the new exhibits would update the provinces stories on indigenous peoples, immigration and trade.

Scott Craig, chairman of the museums board, said the new funding is the second of three steps in its $160-million expansion.

Craig said the first phase  the $5.3 million Alloway Hall expansion  is currently on time and on budget.

It is opening in spring 2017 for Canadas 150th birthday, he said.

The third phase includes a new science centre.

It is an ambitious renewal plan and it wouldnt be possible without generous contributions from both the private and public sectors, Craig said.

The museum gets more than 300,000 visitors each year and helps teach more than 90,000 students.

(The museum) represents the largest classroom in the province, Craig said.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

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This article was published 10/11/2016 (2182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last week, the almost-forgotten war in Afghanistan was once more back in the headlines as a result of two U.S. soldiers being killed in combat.

The incident took place in the northern city of Kunduz, which in recent months has become a hotbed of Taliban activity. The operation was a joint U.S. and Afghan security forces raid, targeting a couple of senior Taliban commanders.

Things somehow went horribly wrong and the U.S.-Afghan army patrol found itself ambushed by a larger Taliban force. In order to extricate themselves from the firefight, the American soldiers called in heavy airstrikes. Given that Kunduz is a congested urban centre, the allied airstrikes killed at least 30 Afghan civilians, many of them women and children, and dozens more innocent bystanders were severely wounded.

NAJIM RAHIM / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Afghan villagers gather their belongings a day after the clashes between the Taliban and Afghan security forces in Kunduz province, Afghanistan, on Nov. 4.

Once the combat subsided, the shocked and outraged citizens of Kunduz gathered up at least a dozen of the bloodied corpses and carried them to the local governors office to protest the Americans indiscriminate use of lethal force against civilian targets. The U.S. media focus was not on the collateral damage created by the allied airstrikes, but rather it highlighted the two dead and four wounded American soldiers caught in the ambush.

In a statement to the press, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter claimed that Our service members were doing their part to help Afghans secure their own country while protecting our homeland from those who would do us harm. And whoomp, there it is.

The same myth the tub-thumping Colonel Blimps used in Canada to morally justify our soldiers killing and being killed during the 12 years that we had troops deployed in Afghanistan.

Secretary Carter claims to be helping the Afghans, but one has to ask, which Afghans?

The Taliban followers are not aliens; they are Afghans. They controlled most of Afghanistan when the U.S. invaded in 2001 and, despite the hundreds of thousands of NATO troops deployed, the countless billions of dollars and the endless hours spent training an Afghan security force, the Taliban still controls an estimated one-third of the country.

Were it not for the continued presence of approximately 8,400 U.S. troops and the allied air armadas constant vigil, the Taliban would very quickly depose the hated regime the West has installed in Kabul.

Afghans may not all love the Taliban, but President Ashraf Ghani and his co-ruler Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah are loathed by their citizenry. Having American warplanes blast apart innocent civilians in order to prop up the Kabul regime only intensifies the hatred.

Canadians in Afghanistan suffered 158 soldiers killed and another 2,000 wounded or injured, not including those suffering from unseen mental scars. During the dozen years our soldiers engaged in combat, they, too, were fighting and killing Afghans who opposed the corrupt cabal of crooks that the U.S.-led alliance installed in Kabul.

Carters second statement about fighting the enemy in Afghanistan to keep the homeland safe is also a misleading whopper. The Taliban have never attacked targets outside of their territory in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

No Afghan to date has been involved in any actual attack or associated with any terror plot in North America. No Taliban leader has vowed to unleash death and destruction upon the West in retaliation for our military intervention against them. Truth be told, most of the Talibans illiterate loyal followers couldnt find North America on a map.

As for the al-Qaeda evildoers the Americans originally sought to eliminate following the 9/11 attacks, well, that cancer not only spread like wildfire, it has morphed into the even more sinister Islamic State.

Before the Canadian government goes running off to commit soldiers to another hopeless United Nations peacekeeping mission somewhere in Africa, we should commission a fully fledged inquiry into how and why we failed so miserably in Afghanistan.

Of course that will not happen any time soon, as the Americans keep telling us they had to kill innocent Afghans in order to save Afghans. Oh yeah, and to keep us safe here at home, from Afghans who have, in fact, never actually done us any harm on our own soil.

Scott Taylor is the founder and publisher of Esprit de Corps Magazine. He is also a bestselling author and award-winning documentary filmmaker.
Opinion

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This article was published 10/11/2016 (2182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

War is not what anyone wants. After the Second World War, there was a real desire  and push  for permanent peace. Unfortunately, thats not what we see today. International attention continues to concentrate on the conflict itself, as opposed to its detrimental effects to civilians, including women and girls.

The United Nations adopted a Security Council Resolution in October 2000 related to women and peace and security. The historic Security Council Resolution  called SCR 1325  has marked womens history and the worlds history for more than 16 years. But how is it that international and local actors have adopted womens rights legislation, yet inequality and violence against women and girls still occurs?

In spite of the apparent support and intentions for peace, specifically including women in prevention and negotiation, that is not happening  or at least, only a token recognition has been made. Yet, women themselves are saying we must be there. We must and we will be. Women bring a different perspective.

Here in Winnipeg, the Women 4 Women of South Sudan are taking a stand and working for peace in their country. On Nov. 12, in partnership with Rotary Peace Partners, the Institute for International Womens Rights Manitoba and the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, we are hosting a Womens Peace Table on South Sudan.

The Womens Peace Table is a global initiative that results from the SCR 1325 anniversary events  which occur at the United Nations every October, in celebration for womens rights  as a way for individuals and groups across the world to take part in building peace. Building peace has been predominant for quite some time now, however women peacebuilders are just beginning to emerge and be recognized as critical actors.

The Womens Peace Table on South Sudan will be hosted from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the South Sudanese Centre in Winnipeg, with a focus on womens full participation in creating and maintaining peace within South Sudan.

For two years now, the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders  supported by Manitoba womens organizations  has implemented a program called the Girl Ambassadors for Peace in South Sudan. There are now 105 such ambassadors. They are trained as peacebuilders, then go into rural communities to teach literacy, numeracy, leadership and capacity-building workshops. There are more than 210 girls that have benefitted from the workshops over the past few years.

It is important that women and girls be included in all avenues of peace, whether it be peacebuilding, peacemaking or maintaining peace. In order to have a just and fair society, everyone must be included.

Winnipegs Womens Peace Table on South Sudan will focus on the dialogue and current violent situation in South Sudan, and how women can be instrumental in creating long-lasting peace. Women and girls, men and boys, are all important to creating a better tomorrow for all our communities.

Katrina Leclerc is program co-ordinator for Girl Ambassadors for Peace. For more on Girl Ambassadors for Peace and the Womens Peace Table on South Sudan, follow #GA4P on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/11/2016 (2182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This article originally appeared in The Voxair, the base newspaper at 17 Wing Winnipeg.

One hundred years ago, the Scottish parents of a Canadian soldier on the tiny Hebrides island of Beinn na Faoghla, otherwise known as Benbecula, made an unexpected and astonishing discovery: the casket supposedly containing the remains of their son instead contained someone else.

The Canadian government had made a mistake and not only notified the wrong family of the death of their son, but also sent them a body.

SUPPLIED / CANADIAN VIRTUAL WAR MUSEUM Private Donald McLeod's grave marker at Nunton Old Churchyard (Baile na Cailleach), beside the B892 road, just south of the town of Balivanich on the Island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland.

Earlier, in 1909, a young man named Donald McLeod left his home in Benbecula and worked his way across the Atlantic Ocean on a cattle boat, one of the estimated one million Scotsmen and women who had begun arriving long before Canada was even a country. He worked for a time on the Hugh McLeod farm at Mather on the southwestern Manitoba prairie before heading further west to briefly become a teamster in beautiful Banff in the new province of Alberta.

When war broke out in 1914, McLeod did what good British subjects did  he signed up to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force. According to a story his son and my father, Norman, told me, there was a strong hint involved. In his story, everyone working in Banff was fired and given a ride to Calgary where they were dropped off in front of the recruiting centre.

Attestation papers available online from Library and Archives Canada from the First World War show that my grandfather joined the 31st Canadian Battalion on Nov. 16, 1914, in Calgary, and was given the regimental number of 79119.

The online attestation papers also show something else. Another young man, also named Donald McLeod, one year younger than my grandfather, also joined the 31st Canadians in Calgary earlier the same day and was given the regimental number of 79110.

He was from the Isle of Lewis, also in the outer Hebrides, a larger island north of tiny Benbecula.

We can only speculate, but in the chaos of war, especially a war with so many mass casualties, its not surprising mistakes could have been made. A clerk attempting to find out who should be notified following the death of Private Donald McLeod of the 31st Canadians on Aug. 4, 1916, may have come across an index card or a document with all the details of a Donald McLeod, but if he noticed the regimental number was wrong he may have assumed it was mistakenly recorded. A handwritten nine can look a lot like a zero.

In any case, the body of the other Donald McLeod was shipped to my great-grandparents, Alex and Christy McLeod, in Benbecula, where the mistake was immediately discovered.

SUPPLIED Donald and Florence McLeod, with an unidentified man in the background, on the Streets of Winnipeg.

According to contemporaneous news reports, when attempts were made to contact the young Canadian soldiers next of kin on Lewis, they were unable to locate any.

It was then that the McLeods and the other islanders of Benbecula did a remarkable thing. Instead of shifting the problem back to the Canadian government, they took up a collection and buried the young private in the Nunton Old Churchyard on Benbecula.

There is a legend in the family, related by my father in Crocus Country: A History of Mather and Surrounding Districts, that Donald McLeod ran into his own brother on a train. The story goes that Donald was returning home to Benbecula and didnt recognize his brother Angus until Angus told Donald he was going home for Donalds funeral. It is a fact that Donald was first wounded by shrapnel in September 1916 and may have returned to the family home around the same time as the body was being shipped there.

A hundred years later, it is hard to know whether there has been any exaggeration of the story, but the attestation papers are easily found at Library and Archives Canada using the name and regimental numbers of the two Donald McLeods and a Toronto Evening Telegraph article from March 28, 1918 relates how the wrong man was buried on Benbecula.

My grandfather, Pte. Donald McLeod, 31st Canadian Battalion, regimental no. 79119, finished the war as a Company Sergeant Major in the 31st Canadians and received the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

The narrative reads: For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty on the night of the 24/25th June 1918 at Neuville Vitasse. During a raid on the enemy defences, this NCO took charge of the party (immediately after his officer fell) and successfully led the party to their objective. At the objective he personally pushed ahead down a small trench and came across some of the enemy. He at once bombed them, inflicting casualties and returned with two prisoners. He personally waited at the objective until every man in his company had withdrawn and personally satisfied himself that all was clear. He personally took a hand in the withdrawal and organized stretcher parties under machine gun fire. He displayed great courage, judgement, skill and leadership.

Although he escaped the Great War with his life, three months before the end of the war in 1918 he was struck in the left shoulder by a bullet. It caused some permanent damage and my father was convinced was it responsible for his eventual death, although he lived another 34 years.

After the war, Donald McLeod moved back to the small hamlet of Mather and purchased his own farm near where he had first worked as a farmhand. He married Florence McLeod, the daughter of John McLeod of Mather, and raised a family of three boys and one girl. He died at age 63 in 1952. Two of their sons and six of their grandchildren have served in the Canadian Armed Forces.

The unfortunate mistake about the mistaken identity has always had some interest from the media, but I had never heard the story until this year, the 100th anniversary of the death of the other Donald McLeod. Annella Macleod, a reporter with BBC Alba (Gaelic), contacted my cousins earlier and was able to supply some information about wrong McLeod.

The BBC reporter was able to discover that the Donald McLeod buried on Benbecula was from Knock Point on Lewis and had been orphaned when both his parents died in 1894 and that he and his six siblings were originally sent to the Quarriers Childrens Home, an orphanage, in the mainland village of Bridge of Weir in Scotland, before they were all sent to separate foster homes in Canada. This is the reason no next of kin was available in the Hebrides.

The McLeods and the people of Benbecula who took care of the Canadian soldier with no next of kin have made sure the final resting place of the wrong McLeod is marked, maintained and remembered.

Bill McLeod is the manager of The Voxair, the base newspaper at 17 Wing Winnipeg.
Senator Bernie Sanders, whose message launched him into a surprisingly fierce battle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, issued a statement about President-elect Donald Trump last night. In his remarks, the Brooklyn native noted how Trump captured the imagination of voters who might have voted for Sanders.

Sanders acknowledged, "Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids - all while the very rich become much richer.

"To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him."

Many Sanders supporters never liked Clintonthe "never Hillary" crowdand some of their favor may have shifted to Trump in the end.

Last month, the Daily Beast spoke to Sanders supporters who weren't very enthusiastic about the treatment they received from establishment Dems.

For many of this Sanders cohort, the experience of attending the Democratic convention in July was profoundly souring. What bothered me most about it was that these were people who spent over a year registering voters for the party, and we were so disrespected, Tascha van Auken, a Sanders delegate from New York, told me. She founded a volunteer group called Team Bernie NY in the summer of 2015, working tirelessly to sign up new Democrats in advance of the states closed primary the following April. Van Auken described a series of slights, affronts, coordinated stifling attempts, and even outright attacks on Sanders delegates at the convention, which in aggregate caused her to wonder whether the Democratic Party itself was fundamentally broken, and ever worth attempting to work within. The feeling hasnt gone away. I think what was ultimately surprising to me about my experience was not the ridiculous spectacle or even the excessive patriotism, she said of the convention. But that Democrats clearly had no interest in welcoming this new progressive component into their party.

Guess Trump's push worked.
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This article was published 09/11/2016 (2183 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

American celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Lena Dunham and Bryan Cranston have said theyd immigrate to Canada if Donald Trump is elected president. But now that the real estate mogul and reality TV star is President-elect Trump, could Canada see a surge of unsettled Americans resettling north of the border?

Judging from the jump in numbers of applications Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada received since Trump declared his candidacy, its possible.

From 2011 to 2014, the number of Americans applying for permanent residency in Canada fell 17 per cent from 8,964 to 7,606. After Trump declared his candidacy for president in June 2015, there was an eight per cent increase in the number of Americans applying to move permanently to Canada, data from IRCC shows.

There are many Americans who are looking to immigrate north, said Winnipeg immigration lawyer Alastair Clarke.

So many that on Tuesday night, with election results showing the reality TV star and businessman was going to win, the Canadian governments immigration web site crashed and was down for hours.

Web searches for move to Canada and immigrate to Canada rose Tuesday night as election returns favoured Trump. Canada immigration was trending on Google and Canada was a leading U.S. trend on Twitter, with more than one million tweets.

For some Americans, checking out a move to Canada was done just for fun. For others, a Trump presidency and the rancour and racism his campaign exposed is seen as a threat to their security. Trump has called Mexicans rapists, retweeted the words of white supremacists and called for a total ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

In Canada, parliament quietly passed an anti-Islamophobia motion on Oct. 26. Islamophobia is defined as dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force. The motion condemns acts of hatred against Muslims. That symbolic move in Canada is a stark contrast to the results of a survey in the U.S. The Council on American-Islamic Relations surveyed Muslim voters on the presidential election and issues of concern. It found that 85 per cent of polled Muslim voters believed that Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. has increased in the past year. Thirty per cent said they have experienced discrimination or profiling in the past year.

CP

America has been turned upside down

Americans affirmation of Trump on Tuesday makes American Muslims even more nervous, said Islamic Social Services Association president Shahina Siddiqui in Winnipeg.

Theyre down, theyre upset. Its like America has been turned upside down, said Siddiqui, who has family and friends living in the U.S.A. The civilization  things that people fought for so long for  its regressing. Muslims she knows are hoping and praying that their fellow Americans will stand with them when Islamaphobia rears its head. Will it even be safe anymore to speak up about it? Still, none of the Muslims shes spoken to are packing their bags for Canada  yet.

The Canadian government says it wants to attract skilled, educated and English-speaking immigrants but Siddiqui doesnt know what to tell her loved ones in the U.S. about moving to Canada  if this country will continue to be an accepting oasis of diversity. The anti-immigrant lobby, xenophobes and Islamaphobes may catch on in Canada, and Muslims wont feel safe here, either, she said. Can I really promise them security here?

Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch has praised American voters for throwing out the elites to elect Trump and said that same message needs to come to Canada, the Globe & Mail reported Wednesday. In a fundraising e-mail to supporters the Ontario MP expands on her plan to screen immigrants and refugees for Canadian values to also include visitors  although what she means by visitors isnt entirely clear.

Canadas parliament may have passed a motion banning Islamaphobia but there has to be action taken to address incidents when they occur, said Siddiqui.

I feel a strong statement coming out from Mr. Trudeau is needed to reiterate Canadian values, Siddiqui said. When it comes to gender, race, religion and human rights, Canada is different.

Tribune Media TNS Maddy Ballard of Philadelphia participates in a protest of the election of Donald Trump at City Hall's Thomas Paine Plaza on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016.

Canada is attractive

South of the border, Canada is seen as different, said Clarke, the immigration lawyer. For liberal-minded Americans, the benefits of living in Canada are obvious, he said. I recently spoke to a family from New York who are now looking to move. For that family, they were very impressed with Parental Leave benefits from Service Canada. When they had their first child, the mother banked her vacation time so she could stay home with their baby for three months, said Clarke.

Now they are looking to grow their family and they want to live somewhere that gives them more time with their children. In another case, I spoke with an American who is married to a Mexican and they are genuinely concerned about his safety. These are highly skilled, educated Americans who see their future in Canada.

For Americans moving to Canada, Manitoba has become a bit more of an attractive destination over the last dozen years. In 2005, Manitoba welcomed 115 newcomers from the U.S. out of 8,096 new permanent residents to the province. In 2014, 172 Americans came to call Manitoba home out of 16,223 new permanent residents who moved to the province.

Every case is different and they are looking to come to Canada for myriad reasons, said Clarke. In my discussions, it often comes down to people. They have relatives or friends who live in Manitoba and they become interested in relocating. Manitoba has a lot to offer, Clarke said. He noted that Vogue magazine recently highlighted Winnipeg as a must-visit destination.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post President-elect Donald Trump addresses supporters at an election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown November 8, 2016.
Winona

Tuesday

3:04 p.m.  A headlight was reported smashed on a vehicle parked on the 200 block of West Broadway.

3:41 p.m.  Victoria Lynn Dulas, 43, Winona, was cited for shoplifting at Rogans Shoes.

3:45 p.m.  A 16-year-old Winona girl was cited for inattentive driving after she was involved in a three-car rear-end collision on the Huff Street dike. No one was injured in the crash.

4:17 p.m. Tyler Duane Henry, 32, Onalaska, Wis., was cited for no Minnesota drivers license, no proof of insurance, and leaving the scene of an accident following a two-vehicle collision at Huff and Mill streets. No one was injured in the crash.

4:30 p.m  Kyle Addison Strand, 22, New Prague, Minn., was cited for inattentive driving after he was involved in a rear-end collision on the Huff Street dike. No one was injured in the crash.
He set up a table in his yard and sold hot apple cider to raise money. He raised $17.50 for each department. He and his mother presented the money to Goodview police chief Kent Russell, where Russell thanked Barrett and told him what a wonderful thing he had done. Russell also gave him a large bag of candy, since he was not able to go out trick or treating himself as well as some patches from the department. Russell also gave him a ride to school one morning as another way to thank him for what he did.
The condition of the county jail was a sore spot with the voters and the race for sheriff was neck and neck as election day approached.

It was 1859, and the people of Winona County were headed for a showdown.

The first settlers made it to Winona County well ahead of the law. The first law man in the area wasnt appointed until 1852, and he had a beat that stretched from right around Hastings to the Iowa border and as far west as Austin. Needless to say, response times werent measured in minutes.

Things improved a bit a year later when John Iams was appointed sheriff of Fillmore County, which, at the time, included Winona and the rest of southeast Minnesota. It was a year later that Winona County was created and Iams was appointed the first sheriff of Winona County, and in the fall, the first incumbent sheriff to stand for reelection  and the first to be embroiled in an election controversy.

Sheriff Iams won re-election in the fall of 1854, but was subsequently disqualified. The office changed hands several times from 1855 until the fall of 1859 when E.D. Williams and Lynch R. King squared off to lay claim to being the top lawman in the county.

The candidates were evenly matched, canvassing the ridges, hollows and ram shackle settlements. When the ballot boxes were emptied 2,023 votes had been cast. After sorting out the mismarked, spoiled and otherwise irregular ballots. 1,970 votes were tallied in the sheriffs race  985 for each candidate.

Deadlocked, the two men agreed to submit the results to the scrutiny, not of the Supreme Court, but of an even more dispassionate arbitrator  Lady Luck. Each man named his second and the designates were seated facing each other across a table. A pack of cards was produced, a hand of euchre was dealt, and Lynch King became sheriff of Winona County.

Sheriff Lynch King went on to serve eight years in the office, his exploits earning him a reputation as a sheriff who always got his man  but often lost track of him shortly thereafter.

The lawman of the time cut quite a striking figure, decked out in a long black coat, bow tie, tight fitting pants tucked into tall black boots, all topped off by a wide brimmed black Stetson. Typically he dispensed with the formality of a badge, letting the Colt strapped to his hip speak for itself.

John Gorilla Man Walker, meanwhile, was a repeated challenge to Kings authority. A hulking menace of a man, Walker was basically indifferent to the law, taking what he pleased from settlers cabins and generally making a frightening nuisance of himself.

The Gorilla Man met his match in Sheriff Lynch. King hauled him in on several occasions  one time disguised as a singularly unattractive woman. The trouble was that what passed for a jail at the time wasnt up to keeping Walker penned up when he decided hed stayed long enough. Finally, fed up with Walkers do-it-yourself Huber release, the judge sentenced the Gorilla Man to a year in the new state prison at Stillwater, where he managed to stay put.

Winonas jails were hardly a point of community pride. Until 1855, there was no jail at all. Lawmen who apprehended wrongdoers were expected to take them home with them and put them up as shackled house guests until they could be hauled before the bar of justice and duly punished for their crimes.

In 1855, Sheriff Charles Eaton set up shop in a building on Front Street. His office was on the second floor and he rented the cellar to provide the county with its first jail. He had a large iron ring firmly affixed to the stone cellar wall and chained his inmates to it, creating a simple, if less than totally satisfactory, county dungeon.

In July of the following year, the county board authorized the countys first above ground correctional facility. J.S. Denman, a member of the county board, was awarded the contract to build a log jail, 12 feet by 16 feet with 12 foot walls.

Incarceration in a cramped log cabin was perhaps preferable to doing time chained to a cellar wall, but conditions in the jail were squalid to the point of offending the sensibilities of those who had no reason to be there. In 1857 a Winona grand jury ruled the jail unfit for human habitation.

Finally, on March 11, 1861, the county board formally resolved to build a new courthouse and a proper jail. They backed their resolve with money, appropriating $6,000 to construct a solid, stone jail with bars on the windows and individual cells for the prisoners.
MADISON, Wis.  Wisconsins highest court is considering whether to grant a new trial to a Minnesota man serving consecutive life terms for the 2012 murders of a father and son at their downtown La Crosse camera store.

The seven Supreme Court justices pressed attorneys on legal issues raised on appeal by Jeffrey Lepsch after a volume of written arguments submitted in the wake of his 2013 convictions.

Lepsch, now 43, appealed the District 4 Court of Appeals decision to uphold the convictions for the killings of Paul Petras, 56, and his 19-year-old son, A.J., at the now-shuttered Mays Photo on Main Street. The state Supreme Court will either affirm the Court of Appeals decision or grant Lepsch a new trial.

Lepsch was convicted of shooting Paul and A.J. Petras on Sept. 15 when they interfered with a robbery before he walked from the store with 27 pieces of camera equipment worth $17,000 to his minivan at Fourth and Main streets.

Police found A.J. Petras body near the stores safe and his fathers in the bathroom hours later when Sherri Petras went to check on her husband and son.

Surveillance video, cell phone and vehicle records led investigators to Lepsch, a broke, unemployed hobby photographer living in Dakota, Minn., at the time of the killings.

Not argued on appeal is the overwhelming evidence against Lepsch, including that investigators traced every piece of equipment stolen from Mays to his home or sold online to support his family of five.

Lepsch contends that nine of the 12 jurors in his trial fail to meet the standard of impartiality required by the U.S. Constitution.

His attorney Steven Zaleski narrowed his concern Wednesday to two of the nine jurors, whose bias went unexamined when attorneys failed to press them during jury selection after they indicated on a pre-trial questionnaire that they found police more credible than other witnesses.

They made no statement during jury selection that they could set aside their beliefs, Zaleski said. Its so problematic.

Thirteen of the states 31 trial witnesses were law enforcement, including one state agent who testified that surveillance video from outside Mays showed that Lepsch was the last to exit the store at 2:58 p.m. before the bodies were discovered.

Zaleski told the court Wednesday that one witness, who did not testify at trial, claims to have spotted a potentially alternative suspect inside Mays between 4 and 4:15 p.m. The surveillance video duplicated for police that shows Lepsch leaving at 2:58 p.m. ends at 3:30 p.m. because of a technology glitch.

Some people found that very suspicious, Zaleski said. At a minimum, credibility was an issue.

Assistant Attorney General Sara Shaeffer told the court that not one single juror who served was biased.

Not seven. Not two. Not one, she said.

Lepschs attorneys would have dismissed potential jurors they considered biased, Shaeffer said, who pointed out that asking whether they find police more or less credible than other witnesses was a generic question.

Both jurors also said they had no problem with the presumption of innocence, she said.

Lepsch also argued on appeal that he wasnt present when the clerk of court read an oath to the full panel of potential jurors, a violation of his right to an impartial jury and public trial.

Prosecutors contend the administration of the oath did not violate Lepschs rights because it is not part of jury selection under state statute.

They made no statement during jury selection that they could set aside their beliefs. Its so problematic. Steven Zaleski, attorney for Jeffrey Lepsch
Leaders at Winona State University are turning again to the state Legislature in hopes of passing a bonding bill in 2017 that funds the completion of Education Village, a trio of buildings intended to become the new home of the universitys ambitious education program.

The project, which calls for the renovation of Cathedral School, Wabasha Recreation Center and Wabasha Hall, was awarded $5.9 million in the states last bonding bill. DFLers and Republicans were set to fund the remaining $25 million during bonding discussions last year, but the sides failed in the end to pass a bill.

If we get the funding, we can be shovel-ready this summer, said Mike Pieper, the universitys assistant vice president for facilities management, at a public community meeting Wednesday at Winona Healths Watkins Hall.

Last year, he said, we had good bipartisan support, but the landscape going forward is more unclear than ever.

Tuesdays elections brought big changes and lots of new faces to the Capitol in both the House and Senate, along with renewed suggestions of the kind of partisan behavior that torpedoed a number of signature bills earlier this year.

Meanwhile at Minnesota State, which oversees all state colleges and universities, including Winona State, and which sets ongoing priorities for which projects it would like to see funded, the chancellor, Steven Rosenstone, is preparing to step down.

The project would bring all of the universitys education classrooms into the cluster of buildings just east of campus along Wabasha Street. Cathedral School will house an education museum with a hall of fame for local teachers. Wabasha Recreation Center will get an addition, including room for offices and classrooms.

And Wabasha Hall will be partially demolished to make space for a two-story glass atrium facing the bluffs.

We want to be good neighbors, Tarrell Portman, dean of the College of Education, told the 30 or so community members who gathered Tuesday at Watkins. We want it to be a lifelong learning center.

The university already has a child care center on the first floor of Wabasha Hall, and children sometimes head over to Watkins to deliver cookies to the residents there.

Portman said the design of Education Village, which includes a playground that will stand not far from Watkins, will create more opportunities for children, education students and seniors to interact.

She also said the finished deal will have classrooms with both modern-day and more traditional technology, preparing students to teach with an iPad or a pencil, she said.

Thanks to the initial $5.9 million award from the state, work has already begun on Education Village.

Crews this fall have been installing new windows and making masonry repairs at Cathedral School and Wabasha Hall.

Ron Dempsey, vice president of university advancement, said the school is trying to preserve as much as they can of the historic buildings, especially the stained glass in Cathedral School.

Several houses in the construction zone along Sanborn Street, meanwhile, have been marked for demolition later this year.

Dempsey said the timeline for the project is dependent on whether the Legislature approves funding, but that construction would take roughly a year.
Stanley Temple has followed in Aldo Leopolds footsteps both physically and metaphorically.

As a Leopold Foundation Senior Fellow, hes studied the famous conservationist extensively. Hes also held the same professorial position as Leopold at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and more recently retraced a few of the authors lesser known journeys through Missouri.

Temple will speak about his travels at the Leopold Center on Friday.

Many Leopold enthusiasts are familiar with the writers shack on the banks of the Wisconsin River, Temple said, but few know of the hunting shanty he also owned along the Current River near the Missouri-Arkansas border.

Prompted by the shortage of information on the shanty, Temple last year retraced Leopolds 1926 journal accounts of a float trip down the Current River to locate the original site.

He said the project began with a desire to learn more about Leopolds life from 1928 to 1933, which was the period between his leaving the U.S. Forrest Service and joining University of Wisconsin faculty. Temple said the period doesnt receive much attention from scholars.

Those were really critical years in formulating a lot of the ideas that Aldo Leopold would eventually become famous for, he said.

Temple found that Leopold spent a lot of time during those years collecting data for a wildlife survey of North Central states. But as he delved further into research, Temple discovered a seldom explored connection between Leopold and the state of Missouri.

I got fascinated by this connection to Missouri, Temple said. I discovered that before Leopold had his shack on the banks of the Wisconsin River, he had a shanty on the banks of the Current River down in Missouri.

His fascination led him on a kayak trip down the Current River.

Temple followed Leopolds path by locating distinct landmarks from the writers journal entries. The excerpts detailed a 10-day float trip and quail hunt that Leopold and his brothers had made 90 years earlier.

Although the landscape had changed significantly, Temple was able to set up camp in many of the same locations as Leopold as he made his way down the river. Leopold did not, however, disclose the exact location of the shanty, leaving Temple with some detective work.

By examining several 1930s photographs of the shanty, Temple deduced that the structure was not in Missouri, as he originally thought. Instead, he located the site just over the state line in Arkansas. Upon reaching the location, Temple found the original shanty was no longer standing, but its stone steps were still intact.

To see that those steps were there exactly as they had been in the 1930s was quite remarkable, Temple said.

Leopold Foundation Program Coordinator Anna Hawley said the organization often hosts speakers to talk about topics related to conservation and Leopold. Temples talk on Friday will span both topics, she said.

Temple said his presentation will mark the first time hes told his story in-depth to an audience.

I love to tell stories, and this one is a good one, Temple said. Its about the nostalgia and inspiration of revisiting a part of Aldo Leopolds life that most people know little about.
About 72 percent of eligible Sauk County voters cast ballots in Tuesdays presidential election, the highest turnout on records that date back to 1978.

That high turnout did not help Democrats, but instead seemed to benefit Republican President-elect Donald Trump, the New York businessman and former reality television star who soared to a stunning victory on Tuesday.

Sauk County turnout in the last four presidential elections was as follows:

2004: 70 percent

2008: 66 percent

2012: 67 percent

2016: 72 percent

In looking at prior clerks records dated back to 1978, this appears to be the highest turnout weve had, Sauk County Clerk Becky Evert said Wednesday.

Preliminary results show Democratic former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the support of more Sauk County residents, having received votes 16,050 to Trumps 15,871. However, Trump performed better here than did the three previous Republican presidential candidates.

Less than 1 percentage point separated the two candidates among Sauk County voters Tuesday. Clinton received nearly 47 percent of presidential votes, compared to just more than 46 percent for Trump.

That was a major shift from the 2012 presidential election, when 59 percent of Sauk County ballots helped re-elect President Barack Obama, and only 40 percent supported his challenger, Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

Republican Party of Sauk County Chair Al Exner said he was not surprised.

Ive been saying for the past two months to the people that come into our center here in Reedsburg that Trump is going to win in a landslide, Exner said. Obviously, many people thought I was mentally ill.

Exner said high turnout among Republicans during the states presidential preference primary in April is mainly what convinced him of the pending landslide. According to him, for every two Wisconsin voters that cast primary ballots for Democrats, three cast ballots for Republicans.

Thats 50 percent more people that turned out on the Republican side, Exner said.

Official numbers from Wisconsins Government Accountability Board tell a different story. The agency reported 1.1 million Republican votes and 1 million Democratic votes cast in the April primary.

Nevertheless, Exner said he has heard from many people who are simply fed up with Democrats and the mainstream media, both of which he said have been full of lies and deceit. He added that while Trump may not have been his first choice as a candidate, he represented the better option for people who want change.

When he sounded off a year ago about (U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona) and some of his rivals in the Republican Party, I said Donald Trump is nothing more than a sixth-grade bully on a playground, Exner said. He did sound like that. I think sometimes he does that for effect. But I dont think youre going to see him act that way as president of the United States. I just dont.

Democratic Party of Sauk County Chair Bob Johnson said he was working Wednesday and did not have a chance to review election numbers.

I will reserve any comment for later other than Im glad more people chose to participate in the process, Johnson said in an email.
Students and staff at Moraine Park Technical College worked with representatives from Bright Futures of Beaver Dam Wednesday to put together packages for service members who are serving overseas.

Students and staff from Moraine Parks Beaver Dam campus, 700 Gould St., conducted the Christmas in a Shoebox beginning in October with the collection of donated items for the drive.

Moraine Park Technical College student veteran specialist Stephen Pepper said the 2016-17 academic year was named the Year of the Student Veteran.

The kick-off event was a re-dedication ceremony of Moraine Parks 9/11 area, which pays tribute to those who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, Pepper said. Other events are planned including the shoebox event at the Beaver Dam campus on Wednesday.

Pepper said the Gifts for the troops event was part of the Year of the Student Veteran emphasis. Moraine Park had a goal of collecting enough to fill 50 boxes in order to distribute the items to people stationed overseas over the holidays.

Students were advised to donate items that were no larger than a shoebox. Items sought included personal care items, snacks, batteries, reading materials, travel games and more.

Throughout the process of donating, sorting and packing, about 100 students have helped to create the packages, Pepper said. The students were able to package enough stuff to fill between 80 and 100 boxes.

The items will be distributed to the troops by Support the Troops Wisconsin.
It hadn't been done in Wisconsin for more than three decades.

Not since Bob Kasten was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980 and Ronald Reagan carried the state in 1984 had a Republican Senate or presidential candidate won Wisconsin in a presidential year.

Donald Trump and Ron Johnson changed that on Tuesday, leaving both Republicans and Democrats stunned. Trump earned the state's 10 electoral votes by a margin of less than 1 percent, while the Republican senator defeated Democratic former Sen. Russ Feingold by about 3 points.

And the historical gains didn't stop there. Democrats failed to pick up seats they were expected to win, and lost seats they were expected to hold onto. Republicans now hold a 20-14 majority in the state Senate  which could grow by one more seat, pending a recount  and a 64-35 Assembly majority.

Despite shattering early voting records, statewide turnout fell far short of what state elections officials projected. At 66 percent, it was the lowest turnout rate since 1996.

The outcome came as a surprise to nearly everyone involved. Not a single public poll showed Trump winning the Badger State, and Johnson only led in one poll released throughout the campaign.

The shock stung Feingold's election night party, where the former senator said he "didn't expect" Johnson would defeat him for a second time in six years. Something is "happening in the country," Feingold said.

"I dont understand it completely. I don't think anybody does, but we as Americans have to do the best we can to deal with the pain in this country and get people to come together," he told his supporters as they watched TV screens forecasting a Trump presidency.

Longtime Republican strategist Bill McCoshen boiled it down to a few factors. He blamed the low turnout rate on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, for whom he argued Democratic voters had little enthusiasm.

Clinton, who led in general election polls throughout the race, did not visit Wisconsin after losing its primary election to Bernie Sanders in April. McCoshen said he's not sure another campaign visit would have helped, though.

But GOP strategist Brian Nemoir said he thinks Democrats will kick themselves for not bringing Clinton back to Wisconsin.

"There clearly was a number of people who fell asleep at the switch when it came to Wisconsin within the Democratic circles," Nemoir said.

McCoshen also attributed the GOP victories to Wisconsin's nationally-renowned Republican campaign operation, noting that House Speaker Paul Ryan barnstormed the state in the election's final days with Johnson, campaigning for the entire Republican ticket.

Ryan gave $1 million from his campaign account to the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and was on the trail for the beginning and end of Johnson's campaign. He also contributed the maximum amount to Johnson's campaign, through Prosperity Action PAC and Ryan for Congress, held campaign events to benefit the senator and sent several direct-mail and digital fundraising solicitations on Johnson's behalf.

"No question, he had an impact. I dont think Donald Trump wins without Paul Ryan," McCoshen said.

Democratic operative Joe Zepecki suggested Trump's "nasty, no-holds-barred, campaign of personality" contributed to depressed turnout throughout the country.

The second thing the Trump campaign did right in Wisconsin, Zepecki said, was tapping into a "reservoir of support" in the 67 Wisconsin counties that are not as clearly defined by politics as deep-blue Dane and Milwaukee and deep-red Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties.

Obama won those 67 counties in 2012 by about 35,000 votes. Trump won them by 130,000 ballots.

"I think its sort of a not-impossible-to-understand brew of economic insecurity, a world that is changing socially and culturally more quickly outside of those communities than it is in those communities, and absolute disdain for large institutions, be they the media, be they government, big business," Zepecki said. "That brew of those things, I think really ignited voters that were not believed to be out there."

Nemoir agreed the rural support for Trump was "unbelievable."

The Republican Party has come to rely on the conservative Milwaukee suburbs  Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington Counties  as an "insurance plan" for its candidates, he said, but opportunity for growth exists in the rest of the state.

Trump proved wrong the theory that a Republican candidate cannot win without a strong performance in the WOW counties, McCoshen said.

The counties with the most significant percentage increases in Republican votes from 2012 to 2016 were Menominee, Juneau, Trempealeau, Forest and Jackson. The Republican vote in Menominee, the state's most impoverished county, jumped by 50 percent, while the others increased by about 30 percent.

In comparison, only three counties saw an increase in Democratic votes from 2012 to 2016: Dane and Waukesha by less than 1 percent, and Ozaukee by 5 percent.

Johnson outperformed Trump by 11 percent statewide, while Feingold lagged behind Clinton by 0.3 percent.

Johnson's victory was less surprising to most than Trump's, if only because polls made clear that momentum was on his side in the campaign's final weeks.

Marquette University Law School poll director Charles Franklin said that although the poll predicted the wrong winner, showing Feingold ahead by one point a week before the election, it captured the dynamics of the Senate race in a way it failed to do with the presidential contest.

Democrats and Republicans alike commended Johnson's discipline, noting that he carried on with an unwavering strategy even when national groups and donors wrote him off. McCoshen likened the race to the "tortoise and the hare," while Zepecki said Johnson deserves "a ton of credit for sticking to his guns."

The senator's role as chairman of the Senate homeland security committee and his opposition to the Affordable Care Act also likely helped him win, McCoshen said, referring in particular to the recently announced Obamacare premium increases. Groups like the conservative Americans for Prosperity also touted their get-out-the-vote efforts, reaching just shy of 3 million voters at the door and on the phone.

"On the flip-side, the Russ Feingold of the 2016 campaign never seemed to capture that spirit or essence of who Russ was or how he was perceived to be, that this state saw in 1998, 2004 and even 2010," Zepecki said.

Feingold was a progressive populist in the vein of Sanders and Elizabeth Warren "before it was cool," but his campaign struggled to recapture that in 2016, Zepecki said.

Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, also credited a "tidal wave of money" that buoyed Johnson.

"I think its very clear that the policies that Democrats are supporting are the ones that are going to make the lives of Wisconsinites better, but Democrats have to do a better job in articulating those policies," Ross said. "That message isnt getting through."

Michelle Litjens, a Republican former state representative, also said Feingold failed to articulate a discernible message, while Johnson gave voters reasons to support him.

Still, Litjens was just as surprised to see Johnson win as she was to see a Trump victory.

The difference is that while Litjens backed Johnson, she did not support Trump. Litjens offered cautious optimism for Trump's presidency, saying she hopes he will work with Ryan.

"As President Obama said, we are not Republicans or Democrats, we are American citizens," Litjens said. "We all want our country to be successful. I actually, after thinking about it more today, I feel better about a Donald Trump presidency than I did before."

Strategists on both sides of the aisle agreed on at least one thing: candidates and campaigns matter.

"Candidates matter. I dont think you can recycle old candidates. Issues matter. People do care about issues. Hopefully just for 2016, character seems to matter the least," McCoshen said. "But Im hoping that matters more in the future. That was not a deciding factor. More than 60 percent of the people didn't think Trump was honest or trustworthy. Fifty-two percent were extremely uncomfortable with him being president, yet he wins the state."

Trump's victory was living proof that marketing can matter more than the product itself, Ross said.

"He was able to channel the economic insecurities of the middle class and poor people, and he was able to do that with basically an agenda that will devastate them," Ross said.

The results may not have been such a shock had the election gone on for one more week, Franklin said. He added that this election may lead pollsters throughout the country to reconsider their practices  perhaps extending their polling into the weekend before the election. The most recent Marquette poll sampled voters Oct. 27-30.

The last time the outcome was so far from what polls had told the public, he said, was likely the Dewey vs. Truman election in 1948.

What Democrats must do next, Ross said, is find a better way to make their message resonate with voters, talking more about issues like student loan debt, for one.

Zepecki agreed student loan debt should be an area of focus for Democrats in future races.

"There clearly are opportunities for us, there clearly are instances where we are on the right side," Zepecki said, looking ahead to the state's next gubernatorial election. "We just need to do a better job communicating that and listening to voters about their concerns and their fears and their hopes and their dreams, and I think in 2018 we will find a candidate who can do that."

Zepecki said he likes Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin's re-election chances in 2018 and he's feeling bullish about a Democratic campaign for governor. That's based mostly on the tendency for the pendulum to swing back after one party holds power.

For Republicans, McCoshen said, there's "plenty of time and room" for members of the "Never Trump" contingent to return to the party. That will be made easier if Trump works with legislative leaders like Ryan and Senate Majority Mitch McConnell to set an ambitious policy agenda, he said.

It was Republicans coming home to their party that helped Trump cinch the win, and even some of the state's longest holdouts have started to embrace him as their party leader, including Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, who said he's "excited" about the party's prospects.

"I do think Republicans have one chance to fix Washington D.C., and Americans are counting on them to do that," Litjens said. "Donald Trump ran against the status quo. And so Republicans now have to make changes to bureaucracy. They need to do it right away, to show Americans you can send us there to get the job done."
The sale of Zinkes Village Market in Wisconsin Dells apparently is back on track, with the suitor once again Maurers Markets of Madison.

The sale was confirmed Wednesday morning by Maurers Markets Principal Jeff Maurer.

Everything is moving toward a December 5 closing date, Maurer told Wisconsin Dells Events. Were very, very excited.

The proposed sale comes five months after a deal between Maurers and Zinkes owner Dan Zinke fell through because of a last-minute financing issue.

Zinke declined to comment for this story, but Maurer expressed optimism that the deal will be consummated successfully this time.

Weve been talking for the last month or so and were working our way toward a deal, he said. Hopefully well get it done this time.

Maurers confidence was reinforced by his companys recent application for a new liquor license, recently filed with the City of Wisconsin Dells  the notice of which appeared in last Saturdays edition of the Dells Events.

The company also received approval from the Dells Design Review Committee (DRC) Wednesday morning for new signage bearing the stores proposed new name (Maurers Market). The DRC approved the application with a few suggested changes, in keeping with the citys year-old downtown signage standards.

The Dells Legislative Committee will review the liquor license at its meeting at 6:45 p.m. Monday. Maurer plans to attend that meeting, he said.

A previous liquor license application for Maurers Markets was approved by the committee in mid-June, the same week the initial proposed sale was announced. But that license never reached the final approval stage at the Dells Common Council after the deal fell through.

At the time, Zinke  whose family has owned and operated the Dells store for almost 75 years  said his unwillingness to provide a two-week bridge loan for the sale to Maurers was the reason the sale fell through.

Maurer and his daughter Kristie Maurer own and operate an upscale line of market-style grocery stores called Fresh Market in Madison and Lafayette, Indiana. Maurer, who was named Wisconsin Grocer of the Year in 2013, has worked in the industry throughout the Midwest for several decades.

Maurer said his companys plans for the Dells store have changed little since June when he and his daughter, also a company principal, announced their planned purchase.

Everything will stay the same for the time being, until we get past the New Year and can evaluate everything, he said. We want to get through the holidays first.

In a June news release that heralded the ultimately aborted sale, Kristi Maurer indicated the companys intent to invest a significant amount of capital into the Wisconsin Dells store.

Jeff Maurer in the news release called Zinkes a staple in the Wisconsin Dells community, and that will continue under the new leadership.

The Maurerss entry into the Dells market via the citys only full-scale grocery store comes on the heels of the news in September that a 42,000-square-foot grocery store is planned as part of a multi-use development announced by Chicago-based Gateway Development Partners at the site of the Indian Trail Motel on Broadway.
Donald Trump has been President-elect for just over a day, and his most ardent supporters are already feeling emboldened by the idea of living under the rule of a man who was endorsed by the Klu Klux Klan. And it's not limited to the heartland.

Yesterday at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, a group of high school students were called racial slurs someone who justified his language because of President-elect Trump, according to a teacher who spoke with Gothamist. The studentsone black, one Latina, one Muslimwere participating in an advanced placement program at the school.

Ilyana Contreras, an English teacher at the Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women, says the three girls were in an elevator with a group of NYU Tandon students "who were using the N-word multiple times over the course of the elevator ride." When one of the girls asked them to stop, one young man allegedly told her that he can say whatever he wants because "Donald Trump is president now" and continued to use the slur, this time directed at her and the other girls.

The students reported the incident to their high school guidance counselor. NYU Tandon spokesperson Kathleen Hamilton told Gothamist that the incident was reported to public safety but was unable to confirm whether the student in question referred to Trump. The girls were unable to identify the student, who was described as being "brown-skinned" and wearing a red shirt.

That same day, Muslim students at NYU Tandon found the door to their on-campus prayer room vandalized by Trump supporters. "We awoke in November 9th to a chilling wakeup call," NYU's Muslim Students Association posted on Facebook regarding the incident. "And as we open our eyes and start to move and organize in the face of these new realities, we ask for new support."

In the wake of Trump's victory, reports of racialized harassment have drastically increasedmost troublingly, at schools across the country, students are being harassed and discriminated against by their peers. Writer and civil rights activist Shaun King has been cataloging reports of post-election racist incidents across America, reportedly receiving dozens of emails per hour, including one about a group of middle school students who built a "wall" with their bodies to block Latino students from accessing their lockers and getting to class.

Elsewhere in NYC, a group of students from the St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows reportedly told people of color on an MTA bus that they should be sitting in the back. "Aren't you supposed to be sitting in the back of the bus now? Trump is president," they allegedly said.

Patrick McLaughlin, the school's principal, issued a statement on Facebook condemning the students' actions. "All matters of disrespect will not be tolerated and going forward our deans will take immediate action," he wrote.

Unfortunately, these are just a handful of incidents that have occurred in the roughly 36 hours since Trump made his victory speech. Donald Trump hasn't even been sworn in yet, but his supporters are already doing a lot of damage.

NYU's Muslim Students Association is having a demonstration at the Kimmel Center for University Life tonight at 6:30 p.m. Beginning at 7 p.m., the Brooklyn Museum is having a collective session for mourning and organization hosted by the Yellowjackets Collective and By Us For Us.
Trumps isolationism: threats and opportunities for Africa

Donald Trumps unexpected victory in the US presidential polls stunned many across the globe.

The Conversation Africas business and economy editor Sibonelo Radebe asked Patrick Bond to unpack the implications for Africa:

What does a Trump victory mean for Africa?

The most catastrophic long-term consequence is climate change. This is because Trump is a denialist. He will give the green light to widespread fracking, coal and oil exploration. Africa will be the most adversely affected continent.

United Nations scientists estimate that nine out of 10 small-scale farmers are unlikely to farm by 2100 because of drying soils. Global warming plus extreme weather will also cause 180 million unnecessary African deaths by then, according to Christian Aid.

Under Trump, we can safely predict that Washington will no longer seek to control United Nations climate negotiations, as Barack Obamas administration did. The WikiLeaks Hillary Clinton emails and State Department cables revealed blatant manipulation of the Copenhagen and Durban climate summits. Instead, Trump will simply pull the US out of the 2015 Paris agreement, as did George W. Bush from the Kyoto Protocol.

By good fortune, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change annual summit is underway this week in Morocco. The only logical move, if the delegates have any spine, is to expel the US State Department and establish the machinery for a major carbon tax applied to products associated with countries  the US especially  which raise emissions and threaten the survival of many species across the globe.

Trump also heralds a rise in US racism and xenophobia, parallel to the Brexit vote by the British white working class. Local solutions wont be effective in either case for the simple reason that neither Trump nor Theresa May, the UK Prime Minister, are interested in the income redistribution required to benefit their economies.

And African elites who have  with a few exceptions  climbed over each other to please Washington, wont find themselves welcome in the White House.

Hopefully the contagion of Trumps racism  which will make life for Africans much harder  will be met by a major resistance movement including Africans from all walks of life in solidarity with various groups that stand to be oppressed of the US: women, African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims, environmentalists, progressives of all sorts. This movement can shape up in the same spirit as those that gave solidarity during the fight against apartheid.

What are the likely economic consequences?

Consistent with his isolationism, world trade stagnation will continue. In the case of Africa, Trump is likely to retract benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act and reduce US aid.

That isolationism, in turn, could give Africans a chance to recalibrate what is now an excessive, self-destructive reliance on the export of oil and gas, minerals and cash crops. Africa must focus on localising its economies to be able to meet basic needs.

Trumps hatred of what he terms the globalists is probably just hot electioneering rhetoric. Its fair to predict that pro-corporate candidates will come forward as Trump allies to calm the crashing stock markets.

The neoliberal group of policy wonks who expressed disgust with Trump and favoured Hillary Clinton will quickly make inroads into the new administration. They will ensure that the continuing US dominance in Western-leaning multilateral institutions is not disturbed.

We can simply anticipate more brazen US self-interest, as witnessed during the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush regimes, with less of the confusing rhetoric promoted by Obama and his allies.

What US policies on Africa are likely to change? With what impact?

To be frank, we can only offer guesses. Trump said literally nothing about Africa during his campaign. He wants to rebuild US military power, which might include strengthening the Pentagons controversial Africa Command, known as Africom.

Economically, it is worth noting Trumps close relations to the oil and gas industry which comes via Vice President Mike Pence. This suggests that multinational corporations in the extractive industries who desire more explicit imperial support for African adventurism will be served well by Trumps bully-boy mentality.

What does this mean for multilateral institutions and how will this affect Africa?

The USs role in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will become nastier given the veto power it enjoys, holding more than 15% of the voting shares. Trump will probably hire a brutal neoliberal as his IMF executive director, someone who will tighten the screws on Africa using Washingtons veto power. The leaders of two big African economies are desperate for IMF credits: Nigeria ($29 billion) and Egypt ($12 billion).

In relation to the United Nations, an interesting question comes to mind: should the UN leadership now sitting in Trumps Manhattan East Side neighbourhood not develop a contingency plan to move UN headquarters out of the US? Trump promises to make life very hard for visitors who are Muslims, Libyans, Syrians and Mexicans  amongst others  so holding multilateral events in the US may soon be impossible.

The period ahead demands a very different multilateralism due to a number of expectations. The first is that Trump will sabotage the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and similar strategies to solve global problems, and wreck nuclear non-proliferation strategies such as the agreement that Obama painstakingly reached with Iran.

And the second is that three of the BRICS nationalistic leaders  Vladimir Putin in Russia, Nahendra Modi in India and Michel Temer in Brazil  can be expected to establish much closer ties to Trump. This is likely to affect the balance of power between geographical regions, added to which are the drift of Pakistan, Turkey and the Philippines away from Washington. Trumps hatred of China is another indeterminate factor.

Regardless of the geopolitical manoeuvres, its time for multilateralism-from-below in which traditional progressive movements in civil society find common cause. This is the most serious threat to humanity, the world economy and environment weve seen in living memory.

Patrick Bond, Professor of Political Economy, University of the Witwatersrand. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
The following companies are subsidiares of American International Group: AGC Life Insurance Company, AIG APAC HOLDINGS PTE. LTD., AIG Aerospace Insurance Services Inc., AIG Asia Pacific Insurance Pte. Ltd., AIG Asset Management (Europe) Limited, AIG Asset Management (U.S.) LLC, AIG Assurance Company, AIG Australia Limited, AIG Brazil Holding I LLC, AIG CIS Investments LLC, AIG Canada Holdings Inc., AIG Capital Corporation, AIG Capital Services Inc., AIG Claims Inc., AIG Credit Management LLC, AIG Egypt Insurance Company S.A.E., AIG Employee Services Inc., AIG Europe Holdings S.a.r.l, AIG Europe S.A., AIG Federal Savings Bank, AIG Financial Products Corp., AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd., AIG Global Asset Management Holdings Corp., AIG Global Operations Inc., AIG Global Real Estate Investment Corp., AIG Global Reinsurance Operations, AIG Holdings Europe Limited, AIG Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, AIG Insurance Company China Limited, AIG Insurance Company JSC, AIG Insurance Company of Canada, AIG Insurance Company-Puerto Rico, AIG Insurance Hong Kong Limited, AIG Insurance Management Services Inc., AIG Insurance New Zealand Limited, AIG International Holdings GmbH, AIG Investments UK Limited, AIG Israel Insurance Company Ltd, AIG Japan Holdings Kabushiki Kaisha, AIG Kenya Insurance Company Limited, AIG Korea Inc., AIG Latin America I.I., AIG Latin America Investments S.L., AIG Lebanon SAL, AIG Life Holdings Inc., AIG Life Limited, AIG Life South Africa Limited, AIG Life of Bermuda Ltd., AIG MEA Holdings Limited, AIG MEA Limited, AIG Malaysia Insurance Berhad, AIG Markets Inc., AIG Matched Funding Corp., AIG PC Global Services Inc., AIG Philippines Insurance Inc., AIG Property Casualty Company, AIG Property Casualty Inc., AIG Property Casualty International LLC, AIG Property Casualty U.S. Inc., AIG Re-Takaful (L) Berhad, AIG Resseguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., AIG South Africa Limited, AIG Specialty Insurance Company, AIG Technologies Inc., AIG Travel Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., AIG Travel Assist Inc., AIG Travel Assist Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., AIG Travel EMEA Limited, AIG Travel Inc., AIG Uganda Limited, AIG Vietnam Insurance Company Limited, AIG WarrantyGuard Inc., AIG-FP Pinestead Holdings Corp., AIG-Metropolitana Cia. de Seguros y Reaseguros S.A., AIGGRE Europe Real Estate Fund I GP S.a r.l., AIGGRE Europe Real Estate Fund II GP S.a r.l., AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund I GP LLC, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund II GP LLC, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund III GP LP, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund IV GP LLC, AIU Insurance Company, AM Holdings LLC, Ageas Protect, AlphaCat Managers Ltd., American General Corporation, American General Life Insurance Company, American Home Assurance Co. Ltd., American Home Assurance Company, American International Group UK Limited, American International Realty LLC, American International Reinsurance Company Ltd., American International Underwriters del Ecuador-Holding S.A. en Liquidacion S.A., Arthur J. Glatfelter Agency Inc., Blackboard Insurance Company, Blackboard Specialty Insurance Company, Blackboard U.S. Holdings Inc., C.A. de Seguros American International, Commerce and Industry Insurance Company, Crop Risk Services Inc., Eaglestone Reinsurance Company, Ellipse, Franklin Life Insurance Company, Fuji Fire and Marine, Glatfelter Insurance Group, Glatfelter Underwriting Services Inc., Globe and Rutgers Insurance Group, Grand Isle SAC Limited, Granite State Insurance Company, Illinois National Insurance Co., Inversiones Segucasai C.A., Johannesburg Insurance Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, Laya Healthcare Limited, Lexington Insurance Company, Lexington Specialty Insurance Agency Inc., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh Pa., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Vermont, New Hampshire Insurance Company, PCG 2019 Corporate Member Limited, PT AIG Insurance Indonesia, Pine Street Real Estate Holdings Corp., Risk Specialists Companies Insurance Agency Inc., SAFG Capital LLC, SAFG Retirement Services Inc., Service Net Warranty LLC, Stratford Insurance Company, SunAmerica Asset Management LLC, Talbot Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Ltd., The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York, The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, Travel Guard, Travel Guard Group Canada Inc./Groupe Garde Voyage du Canada Inc., Travel Guard Group Inc., Tudor Insurance Company, VALIC Financial Advisors Inc., Valic Retirement Services Company, Validus Holdings, Validus Holdings (UK) Ltd., Validus Holdings Ltd., Validus Reinsurance (Switzerland) Ltd, Validus Reinsurance Ltd., Validus Ventures Ltd., Volunteer Firemen's Insurance Services Inc., and Western World Insurance Company.

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The following companies are subsidiares of TE Connectivity: 999 Arques Corp., ABB ENTRELEC terminal block business, ACC Telecommunications, ADC Chile Limitada, ADC Communications (SEA) Pte. Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Holding Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Ltd., ADC Communications Hong Kong Limited, ADC Telecommunications Equipment (Shanghai) Co., AMP Amermex, AMP Products Pacific Limited, AMP Taiwan B.V., AMP Trading B.V., AMP de Venezuela, Acalon Holdings Limited, Advanced Fiber Products LLC, Advanced Fiber Products Limited, Advanced Tube Technologies, AdvancedCath, AdvancedCath Technologies, Alpha Technics, American Sensor Technologies, Betatherm (R&D) Limited, Brantner Holding Company, Brantner and Associates, Butterfly Management SAS, C.S. Tyco Decisive Inc., C.S. Tyco Dependable Inc., C.S. Tyco Durable Inc., C.S. Tyco Reliance Inc., C.S. Tyco Resolute Inc., C.S. Tyco Responder Inc., CII Guardian International Limited, Cablotec GmbH, Carrier Kheops Bac SAS, Catheter and Disposable Technology, Celis Eletrocomponentes Ltda., Cima de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Clarebury Pty. Ltd., Codenoll Technology Corporation, Communication Expert International Investments Limited, Compagnie Deutsch Distribution SAS, Compagnie Deutsch SAS, Comtec Systeme GmbH, Connecteurs Electriques Deutsch SAS, Corcom, Corcom West Indies Limited, Cotsworks LLC, Creganna, Creganna Captial Holding Ireland Unlimited Company, Creganna Finance (US) LLC, Creganna Finance Ireland Limited, Creganna Luxembourg SARL, Creganna Medical Devices, Creganna Medical Pte. Limited, Creganna Medical Technology Unlimited, Creganna Medical s.r.l., Creganna Regulatory, Creganna Solutions Limited, Creganna Solutions Unlimited Company, Creganna Tactx Singapore Limited, Creganna Unlimited Company, Cregstar Bidco Limited, Critchley Group Limited, Crompton Instruments (South-East Asia) Pte. Ltd., Deutsch, Deutsch Connectors Hong Kong Limited, Deutsch Connectors Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Connectors Trading (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Finance SAS, Deutsch GB Limited, Deutsch Group SAS, Deutsch India Power Connectors (Pvt) Ltd, Deutsch Israel Ltd., Deutsch SAS, Deutsch Servicios S. de R.L. De C.V., Deutsch Subco Limited, Deutsch UK, F.A.I. Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, First Sensor, Grangehurst Enterprises Pty. Ltd., Hirschmann Car Communication, Hong Kong Sensors Technologies Limited, Howard A. Schaevitz Technologies, Intercontec Connector System (Shanghai) Co., Intercontec Produkt GmbH, Intercontect Pfeiffer Industrie-Steckverbindungen GmbH, Jaquet North America, Jaquet Technology Group AG, Kemex Holding Company, Kenabell Holding Limited, LADD Distribution LLC, LADD Distribution Limited, LSA, MEAS Asia Limited, MEAS Europe SAS, MEAS France SAS, MEAS Ireland (Betatherm) Limited, MEAS Norway AS, MEAS Shenzhen Limited, MEAS Switzerland S.a r.l., MEAS US Holding, MP&E, Measurement Specialties, Measurement Specialties (Chengdu) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd. Production Branch, Measurement Specialties Foreign Holdings LLC, Measurement Technology (Chengdu) Ltd., Medical Engineering & Design, MicroGroup, Morlynn Ceramics Pty. Ltd., Nikkiso-Therm Co., PT KRONE Indonesia, PT. Tyco Electronics Indonesia, Pfeiffer GmbH & Co KG, Pfeiffer Verwaltungs GmbH, Polamco, Polamco Limited, Potter & Brumfield de Mexico, Precision Interconnect LLC, Precision Subsea AS, Precision Wire Components, Precision Wire Holding Company, Produxx, RAYCHEM-RPG Private Limited, Raychem (HK) Limited, Raychem (Shanghai) Trading Ltd, Raychem China Limited, Raychem Dominicana S.A., Raychem Industries BVBA, Raychem International LLC, Raychem International Manufacturing LLC, Raychem Juarez, Raychem Limited, Raychem Ltd., Raychem Pacific Corporation, Raychem Saudi Arabia Limited, Raychem Shanghai Cable Accessories Ltd, Raychem Technologies Limited, Rochester Wire and Cable LLC, SEACON Advanced Products LLC, Seacon (Europe) Limited, Seacon Global Production, Seacon Produtos e Servicos Opticos e Eletricos Ltda., Sensitive Object, Servo Interconnect Limited, Shanghai CII Electronics Co., Shenzhen Century Man Communication Equipment Co., Sibas Electronics (Xiamen) Co., TCN Holding (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., TE Connectivity (Barbados) SRL, TE Connectivity (Denmark) ApS, TE Connectivity (HKZ) Holding Limited, TE Connectivity (Kunshan) Company Limited, TE Connectivity (Netherlands) Holding S.a r.l. - Irish Branch, TE Connectivity (Schweiz) Management AG, TE Connectivity (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Argentina S.R.L., TE Connectivity Australia Pty Ltd, TE Connectivity Colombia S.A.S., TE Connectivity Connectors (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Distribution (Thailand) Limited, TE Connectivity EMEA Holding GmbH, TE Connectivity Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity HK Limited, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen E-Finance branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. (Ireland Branch), TE Connectivity Holding International S.A., TE Connectivity Inc., TE Connectivity India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A., TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Ireland Limited, TE Connectivity LATAM Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM I S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Limited, TE Connectivity MOG Europe S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Inc., TE Connectivity MOG Sales GmbH, TE Connectivity Manufacturing (Thailand) Company Limited, TE Connectivity Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., TE Connectivity Morocco SARL, TE Connectivity Nederland B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Poland II) Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Turkey) B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Phoenix Optix Inc., TE Connectivity Seacon Phoenix Inc., TE Connectivity Sensors Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity Services India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Solutions GmbH, TE Connectivity South Africa Proprietary Limited, TE Connectivity Spain, TE Connectivity SubCom S.L.U., TE Connectivity SubCom Spain Holding S.L.U., TE Connectivity Technology Solutions Limited, TE Connectivity Tunisia Sarl, TE Connectivity ULC, TE Connectivity US Group Holding Inc., TE Connectivity Vietnam Holding Company Limited, TYCO Electronics Polska Sp.z.o.o., TYCO SUBMARINE SYSTEMS INC., TacPro, Tactx Medical, Taicang Speed & Spin Sensors Co., Taliq Taiwan Limited, Tappat Engineering Pty Ltd, TechDevice Costa Rica Limitada, TechDevice Holdings, TechDevice LLC, The Whitaker LLC, Transoceanic Cable Ship Company LLC, TyCom Holdings II SA, TyCom Networks (Peru) S.A., Tyco Electronics (AMP Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Dongguan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Holding Limited, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics (Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Kunshan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Tyco Electronics (Qingdao) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Schweiz) Holding II GmbH, Tyco Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Tyco Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Suzhou) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Zhuhai) Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Guangdong Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Italia Products S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Italia S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Korea Co., Tyco Electronics AMP Manufacturing (S) Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Qingdao Ltd., Tyco Electronics AMP Shanghai Ltd., Tyco Electronics Austria GmbH, Tyco Electronics Belgium EC BVBA, Tyco Electronics Brasil Ltda., Tyco Electronics Canada ULC, Tyco Electronics China (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Componentes Electromecanicos Lda., Tyco Electronics Corby Limited, Tyco Electronics Corporation, Tyco Electronics Czech s.r.o., Tyco Electronics Del Peru S.A.C., Tyco Electronics EC Trutnov s.r.o., Tyco Electronics EC Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Tyco Electronics Eta Limited, Tyco Electronics Finance Alpha GmbH, Tyco Electronics Finance S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Finland Oy, Tyco Electronics France SAS, Tyco Electronics Germany Holdings GmbH, Tyco Electronics Group S.A., Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (French Branch), Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (Ireland Branch), Tyco Electronics H.K. Limited, Tyco Electronics Hellas MEPE, Tyco Electronics Holding Corp., Tyco Electronics Holding France, Tyco Electronics Holding S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited, Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited Taiwan Branch, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 1 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 2 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 3 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hungary Termelo Kft, Tyco Electronics Idento, Tyco Electronics India (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Industrial Y Comercial Chile Limitada, Tyco Electronics Integrated Cable Systems LLC, Tyco Electronics Ireland Limited, Tyco Electronics Israel Ltd., Tyco Electronics Italia Holding S.r.l., Tyco Electronics Japan G.K., Tyco Electronics Lambda, Tyco Electronics Latin America Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics Manufacturing Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Mexico, Tyco Electronics Middle East FZE, Tyco Electronics Motors Ltd, Tyco Electronics NZ Limited, Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Germany Holding) S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar China) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands Holding B.V., Tyco Electronics Norge AS, Tyco Electronics Philippines, Tyco Electronics Precision Engineering Ltd., Tyco Electronics Printed Circuit Group LP, Tyco Electronics RIMC Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics RUS OOO, Tyco Electronics Raychem GmbH, Tyco Electronics Raychem Korea Limited, Tyco Electronics SIMEL SAS, Tyco Electronics Saudi Arabia Limited, Tyco Electronics Services GmbH, Tyco Electronics Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications LLC, Tyco Electronics Svenska AB, Tyco Electronics Svenska Holdings AB, Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Co., Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Ltd., Tyco Electronics Tecnologias S. de R.L. de C.V., Tyco Electronics UK Holdings Ltd, Tyco Electronics UK Ltd., Tyco Electronics UK Ltd. (Kenya Branch), Tyco Electronics Ukraine Limited, Tyco Electronics Uruguay S.A., Tyco Electronics Verwaltungs GmbH, Tyco Electronics Wireless Systems B.V., Tyco Electronics de Venezuela, Tyco Elektronik AMP Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Tyco Global Networks Ltd., Tyco Iberia, Tyco International Services GmbH, Tyco Networks (Argentina) S.R.L., Tyco Networks (Italy) Srl, Tyco Networks (Netherlands) B.V., Tyco Networks Iberica, Tyco Submarine Systems, Tyco Submarine Systems C.A., Tyco Submarine Systems de Argentina S.A., Tyco Telecommunications Ltd., Wema Americas LLC, Wema Automotive System Private Limited, Wema Environmental Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies (Shenzhen) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies Ltd., Wema System AG, Wema System AS, Wema System Hong Kong Limited, Wema System Production and Distribution HK Limited, Xiamen Delixing Electric Equipment Businesss, and motec Montage GmbH.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Xerox: A B S Digital Limited, Acorn Business Machines (Holmfirth) Limited, Alloy Acquisitions Corp. LLC, Altodigital Networks, Altodigital Networks Limited, American Photocopy Equipment Company of Pittsburgh LLC, Amici, Arena Group, Arena Group Holdings Limited, Arena Group Limited, Arizona Office Technologies Inc., B 2 Business Systems Limited, Back2Business Limited, Bessemer Insurance Limited, Bessemer Trust Limited, Boise Office Equipment Inc., Bright Ceramic Technologies Inc., Bunch CareSolutions, Business Systems (North Wales) Limited, CPAS Systems, CREDITEX - Aluguer de Equipamentos S.A., CTX Business Solutions Inc., Capitol Office Solutions LLC, CareAR Holdings LLC, CareAR Inc., Carolina Office Systems Inc., Carr Business Systems Inc., Chicago Office Technology Group Inc., ComDoc Inc., Competitive Computing, Concept Group, Concept Group Limited, Connecticut Business Systems LLC, Consilience Software, Continua Limited, Continua Sanctum Limited, Conway Technology Group LLC, Copyrite Business Solutions (Holdings) Limited, Copyrite Business Solutions Limited, Copytrend Limited, Criterion IT Limited, Customer Value Group, Dahill Office Technology Corporation, Digitex, Digitex Canada Inc., Docucentric Holdings Limited, Document Systems, Document Systems, Eastern Managed Print Network LLC, Elan Marketing Inc., Electronic Systems Inc., Fovia (Innovation) Limited, G-Five Inc., GDP Technologies Inc., Global Imaging Systems, Global PR Corporation, Groupe CT, Gyricon LLC, Healthy Communities Institute, Heritage Business Systems Inc., ITEC Group, Image Technology Specialists Inc., ImageQuest Inc., Imagetek Office Systems, Impika, Impika SAS, Inland Business Machines Inc., Institute for Research on Learning, Integrity One Technologies Inc., Intrepid Learning, Invoco Group, Irish Business Systems, LRI LLC, LaserNetworks, LaserNetworks Inc., Lateral Data, Learn Something, Lewan & Associates Inc., Limited Liability Company Xerox (C.I.S.), M & S Reprographics Limited, MRC Smart Technology Solutions Inc., MT Business Holdings Inc., MT Business Technologies Inc., MWB Copy Products Inc., Mail A Doc Limited, Merizon Group Incorporated, Michigan Office Solutions Inc., Minnesota Office Technology Group Inc., Mitral Systems Limited, Mr. Copy Inc., Nemo (AKS) Limited, NewField IT, NewField Information Technology LLC, NewField Information Technology Limited, Northeast Office Systems LLC, Osprey Business Systems Limited, PARC China Holdings Inc., Pacific Services and Development Corporation, Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated, Platinum Digital Print Solutions Limited, Powerland, Precision Copier Service Inc., Quality Business Systems Inc., Quilver Business Services Limited, R. K. Dixon Company, RRXH Limited, RRXIL Limited, RRXO Limited, RSA Medical, Rabbit Copiers Inc., Reflex Digital Solutions (UK) Limited, Reprographics Egypt Limited, Saxon Business Systems Inc., Smart Data Consulting, SoCal Office Technologies Inc., Stem Networks Limited, Stewart Business Systems LLC, Stewart of Alabama Inc., StrataCare, Talegen Holdings Inc., Tektronix - color printing, Text Comm Limited (in receivership), The Xerox (UK) Trust, The Xerox Foundation, Time Business Systems Limited, Triton Business Finance Limited, Una-Stem Limited, Veenman B.V., Veenman Financial Services B.V., WDS, WaterWare Internet Services, XC Asia LLC, XC Global Trading B.V., XC Trading Hong Kong Limited, XC Trading Japan G.K., XC Trading Korea YH, XC Trading Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., XC Trading Shenzhen Co. Ltd., XC Trading Singapore Pte Ltd., XEROX CZECH REPUBLIC s r.o., XESystems Foreign Sales Corporation, XFS Secured Borrowing 2020-1 LLC, XHC Acquisition Corp., XMPie, XMPie Inc., XMPie Ltd., XRI Limited, XRO Limited, Xerox (Europe) Limited, Xerox (Ireland) Limited, Xerox (Nederland) BV, Xerox (Romania) Echipmante Si Servici S.A., Xerox (UK) Limited, Xerox (Ukraine) Ltd LLC, Xerox A/S, Xerox AG, Xerox AS, Xerox Argentina Industrial y Comercial S.A., Xerox Austria GmbH, Xerox Bulgaria EOOD, Xerox Business Equipment Limited, Xerox Business Services Bulgaria EOOD, Xerox Business Solutions Inc., Xerox Business Solutions Southeast LLC, Xerox Buro Araclari Servis ve Ticaret Ltd. Sti, Xerox Canada Inc., Xerox Canada Ltd., Xerox Canada N.S. ULC, Xerox Capital (Europe) Limited, Xerox Capital LLC, Xerox Computer Services Limited, Xerox Comercio e Industria Ltda, Xerox Corporation, Xerox DNHC LLC, Xerox Dienstleistungsgesellschaft GmbH, Xerox Distributor Operations Limited, Xerox Egypt S.A.E., Xerox Equipment Limited, Xerox Equipment UK Limited, Xerox Espana S.A.U., Xerox Exports Limited, Xerox Finance AG, Xerox Finance Leasing S.A.E., Xerox Finance Limited, Xerox Financial Services B.V., Xerox Financial Services Belux NV, Xerox Financial Services Canada Ltd., Xerox Financial Services Danmark A/S, Xerox Financial Services Finland Oy, Xerox Financial Services LLC, Xerox Financial Services Norway AS, Xerox Financial Services SAS, Xerox Financial Services Sverige AB, Xerox Foreign Holdings LLC, Xerox Foreign Sales Corporation, Xerox GmbH, Xerox Health Care LLC, Xerox Hellas AEE, Xerox Holding Deutschland GmbH, Xerox Holdings (Ireland) Limited, Xerox Holdings Inc., Xerox Hungary Trading Limited, Xerox IBS Limited, Xerox IBS NI Limited, Xerox India Limited, Xerox International Joint Marketing Inc., Xerox Investments Europe B.V., Xerox Israel Ltd., Xerox Italia Rental Services Srl, Xerox Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Xerox Latinamerican Holdings Inc., Xerox Leasing Deutschland GmbH, Xerox Leasing GmbH, Xerox Limited, Xerox Luxembourg SA, Xerox Mailing Systems Limited, Xerox Manufacturing (Nederland) B.V., Xerox Maroc S.A., Xerox Mexicana S.A. de C.V., Xerox Middle East Investments (Bermuda) Limited, Xerox N.V., Xerox Overseas Holdings Limited, Xerox Overseas Inc., Xerox Oy, Xerox Pensions Limited, Xerox Polska Sp. z o. o, Xerox Portugal Equipamentos de Escritorio Limitada, Xerox Products Limited, Xerox Products UK Limited, Xerox Professional Services Limited, Xerox Realty Corporation, Xerox Renting S.A.U., Xerox Reprographische Services GmbH, Xerox S.A.S., Xerox S.p.A., Xerox Secured Borrowing 2020-1 LLC, Xerox Servicios Compartidos Guatemala y Compani Limitada, Xerox Servicos e Participacoes Ltda, Xerox Shared Services Romania SRL, Xerox Sverige AB, Xerox Technology Services India LLP, Xerox Technology Services SAS, Xerox Telebusiness GmbH, Xerox Trading Enterprises Limited, Xerox Trinidad Limited, Xerox UK Holdings Limited, Xerox XHB Limited, Xerox XIB Limited, Xerox Xf Holdings (Ireland) DAC, Xerox de Chile S.A., Xerox del Ecuador S.A., Xerox del Peru S.A., Zeno Office Solutions, Zeno Office Solutions Inc., Zoom Imaging Solutions Inc., and inVentiv Patient Access Solutions.

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Eli Lilly and Company discovers, develops, and markets human pharmaceuticals worldwide. It offers Basaglar, Humalog, Humalog Mix 75/25, Humalog U-100, Humalog U-200, Humalog Mix 50/50, insulin lispro, insulin lispro protamine, insulin lispro mix 75/25, Humulin, Humulin 70/30, Humulin N, Humulin R, and Humulin U-500 for diabetes; and Jardiance, Trajenta, and Trulicity for type 2 diabetes. The company provides Alimta for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and malignant pleural mesothelioma; Cyramza for metastatic gastric cancer, gastro-esophageal junction adenocarcinoma, metastatic NSCLC, metastatic colorectal cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma; Erbitux for colorectal cancers, and various head and neck cancers; Retevmo for metastatic NSCLC, medullary thyroid cancer, and thyroid cancer; Tyvyt for relapsed or refractory classic Hodgkin's lymph and non-squamous NSCLC; and Verzenio for HR+, HER2- metastatic breast cancer, node positive, and early breast cancer. It offers Olumiant for rheumatoid arthritis; and Taltz for plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and non-radiographic axial spondylarthritis. The company offers Cymbalta for depressive disorder, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, generalized anxiety disorder, fibromyalgia, and chronic musculoskeletal pain; Emgality for migraine prevention and episodic cluster headache; and Zyprexa for schizophrenia, bipolar I disorder, and bipolar maintenance. Its Bamlanivimab and etesevimab, and Bebtelovimab for COVID-19; Cialis for erectile dysfunction and benign prostatic hyperplasia; and Forteo for osteoporosis. The company has collaborations with Incyte Corporation; Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; AbCellera Biologics Inc.; Junshi Biosciences; Regor Therapeutics Group; Lycia Therapeutics, Inc.; Kumquat Biosciences Inc.; Entos Pharmaceuticals Inc.; and Foghorn Therapeutics Inc. Eli Lilly and Company was founded in 1876 and is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, a pharmaceutical company, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes generic medicines, specialty medicines, and biopharmaceutical products in North America, Europe, and internationally. The company offers sterile products, hormones, high-potency drugs, and cytotoxic substances in various dosage forms, including tablets, capsules, injectables, inhalants, liquids, transdermal patches, ointments, and creams. It also develops, manufactures, and sells active pharmaceutical ingredients. In addition, it focuses on the central nervous system, pain, respiratory, and oncology areas. Its products in the central nervous system include Copaxone for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; AJOVY for the preventive treatment of migraine; and AUSTEDO for the treatment of tardive dyskinesia and chorea associated with Huntington disease. The company's products in the respiratory market comprise ProAir, QVAR, ProAir Digihaler, AirDuo Digihaler, and ArmonAir Digihaler, BRALTUS, CINQAIR/CINQAERO, DuoResp Spiromax, and AirDuo RespiClick/ArmonAir RespiClick for the treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Its products in the oncology market include Bendeka, Treanda, Granix, Trisenox, Lonquex, and Tevagrastim/Ratiograstim. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited has a collaboration MedinCell for the development and commercialization of multiple long-acting injectable products, a risperidone suspension for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. The company was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.
Andrew Cuomo has chosen to look on the bright side re: a Trump presidencyhe declared yesterday that President-elect Trump might be a "bonus" for New York, because he's from here, and aren't we all so proud.

Cuomo called into NY1 yesterday afternoon to discuss Trump's election, and though he said he was very sad Hillary Clinton lost, it appears he's kissing Trump's ring now that he's about to be the most powerful man on Earth. Cuomo claims Trump might take some time from his busy Tweeting schedule to allocate funds to the city's bridges and housing programs, while Mike Pence does all the rest of the Presidenting.

"[W]ith President Elect Trump today, I had a very good conversation about building an infrastructure," Cuomo told NY1. "You know, Mr. Trump is very much a private sector builder. Ive built in the private sector also. So, he has a natural orientation toward the needs of this type of urban area. I think thats a good thing."

So, we potentially have a Very Classy Trump LaGuardia Airport to look forward to, and a Trump Tappan Zee Bridge, and a Trump Brooklyn Battery Tunnelmy, this sounds familiar! Note that just a week ago, Cuomo called Trump "un-New York," claiming that "everything the man stands for is this exact opposite that the state stands for," but I guess now that Trump's actually going to be president, he gets to be from here again. [You can read the transcript of the NY1 interview here.]

In other news, Democrats in the state say Cuomo may move to the right to eke out an agenda with Senate Republicans. "He's Mr. pivot," one Democrat told the Daily News. "He came over to the left, which isn't where he started. I have no allusions that he's going to stay a lefty." What great news, considering come January 20th Cuomo will be the most powerful elected Democrat in the country.




Royal Bank of Canada operates as a diversified financial service company worldwide. The company's Personal & Commercial Banking segment offers checking and savings accounts, home equity financing, personal lending, private banking, indirect lending, including auto financing, mutual funds and self-directed brokerage accounts, guaranteed investment certificates, credit cards, and payment products and solutions; and lending, leasing, deposit, investment, foreign exchange, cash management, auto dealer financing, trade products, and services to small and medium-sized commercial businesses. This segment offers financial products and services through branches, automated teller machines, and mobile sales network. Its Wealth Management segment provides a suite of advice-based solutions and strategies to high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals, and institutional clients. The company's Insurance segment offers life, health, home, auto, travel, wealth, annuities, and reinsurance advice and solutions; and business insurance services to individual, business, and group clients through its advice centers, RBC insurance stores, and mobile advisors; digital, mobile, and social platforms; independent brokers; and travel partners. Its Investor & Treasury Services segment provides asset servicing, custody, payments, and treasury services to financial and other investors; and fund and investment administration, shareholder, private capital, performance measurement and compliance monitoring, distribution, transaction banking, cash and liquidity management, foreign exchange, and global securities finance services. The company's Capital Markets segment offers corporate and investment banking, as well as equity and debt origination, distribution, advisory services, sale, and trading services for corporations, institutional investors, asset managers, private equity firms, and governments. The company was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.
The following companies are subsidiares of Novartis: 1 A Pharma GmbH, Abadia Retuerta S.A, Admune Therapeutics, Advanced Accelerator Applications, Advanced Accelerator Applications, Advanced Accelerator Applications International SA, Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A., Advanced Accelerator Applications S.r.l., Advanced Accelerator Applications USA Inc., Aeropharm GmbH, Alcon, Alcon  Couvreur NV, Amblyotech, Amblyotech Inc., Arctos Medical, Arctos Medical AG, Australia Pty Ltd, Beijing Novartis Pharma Co. Ltd., BioMedical Research Co. Ltd., CELLforCURE, Cadent Therapeutics, Cadent Therapeutics Cambridge, Cellerys, Cellerys AG, CellforCure, Chiron Corporation, Ciba-Geigy Japan Limited, Co. Ltd, CoStim Pharmaceuticals, CoStim Pharmaceuticals Inc., Coalesce Product Development Limited, Corthera, Development Co. Ltd., EBEWE Pharma Ges.m.b.H Nfg. KG, Encore Vision, Endocyte, Endocyte Inc., Eon Labs Inc., Farmanova Saglik Hizmetleri Ltd, Fougera Pharmaceuticals, Fougera Pharmaceuticals Inc, Gyroscope Therapeutics, HEXAL AG, Hexal, IDB Holland BV, Iberica S.L.U., Ilaclari Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S, JSC Sandoz, Japat AG, Kedalion Therapeutics Inc., Lek Pharmaceuticals d.d., Lek S.A., Manufacturing Pte Ltd , Navigate BioPharma Services Inc, Neutec Pharma Limited, Novartis (Hellas) S.A.C.I., Novartis (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Novartis (Taiwan) Co. Ltd, Novartis (Thailand) Limited, Novartis Argentina S.A., Novartis Australia Pty Ltd, Novartis Austria GmbH, Novartis Biociencias S.A., Novartis Biosciences Peru S.A., Novartis Bioventures AG, Novartis Business Services GmbH, Novartis Capital Corporation, Novartis Chile S.A., Novartis Corporation, Novartis Corporation Sdn. Bhd., Novartis Deutschland GmbH, Novartis Ecuador S.A., Novartis Farma S.p.A., Novartis Farma  Produtos Farmaceuticos S.A., Novartis Farmaceutica S.A, Novartis Farmaceutica S.A. de C.V., Novartis Finance Corporation, Novartis Finance S.A., Novartis Finance Services Ltd, Novartis Finland Oy Espoo, Novartis Gene Therapies, Novartis Gene Therapies EU Limited, Novartis Gene Therapies Inc., Novartis Grimsby Limited, Novartis Groupe France S.A., Novartis Healthcare A/S, Novartis Healthcare Philippines Inc., Novartis Healthcare Private Limited, Novartis Holding AG, Novartis Hungary Healthcare Limited Liability Company, Novartis India Limited, Novartis Inflammasome Research, Novartis Integrated Services Limited, Novartis International AG, Novartis International Pharmaceutical Investment AG, Novartis Investment Ltd, Novartis Investments S.a r.l., Novartis Ireland Limited, Novartis Israel Ltd, Novartis Korea Ltd., Novartis Middle East FZE, Novartis Netherlands B.V., Novartis Neva LLC, Novartis New Zealand Ltd, Novartis Norge AS, Novartis Ophthalmics AG, Novartis Optogenetics Research Inc., Novartis Overseas Investments AG, Novartis Pharma (Logistics) Inc., Novartis Pharma (Pakistan) Limited, Novartis Pharma AG, Novartis Pharma B.V. , Novartis Pharma GmbH, Novartis Pharma GmbH, Novartis Pharma K.K., Novartis Pharma LLC, Novartis Pharma Maroc SA, Novartis Pharma NV, Novartis Pharma Produktions GmbH, Novartis Pharma S.A.E., Novartis Pharma S.A.S., Novartis Pharma Schweiz AG, Novartis Pharma Schweizerhalle AG, Novartis Pharma Services AG, Novartis Pharma Services Romania S.R.L., Novartis Pharma Stein AG, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc., Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Limited, Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Limited, Novartis Poland Sp. z o.o., Novartis Portugal S.G.P.S. Lda., Novartis Ringaskiddy Limited, Novartis Saglik Gida ve Tarim Urunleri Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S, Novartis Saudi Ltd., Novartis Securities Investment Ltd, Novartis Services Inc., Novartis Slovakia s.r.o., Novartis South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Novartis Sverige AB, Novartis UK Limited, Novartis US Foundation, Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Inc, Novartis Vietnam Company Limited, Novartis de Colombia S.A., Novartis de Venezuela S.A., Novartis s.r.o., Oriel Therapeutics Inc., PT. Novartis Indonesia, Protez Pharmaceuticals, Pte Ltd, Research Inc, Salutas Pharma GmbH, Sandoz A/S, Sandoz AG, Sandoz B.V., Sandoz Canada Inc., Sandoz Egypt Pharma S.A.E., Sandoz Farmaceutica S.A., Sandoz Farmaceutica Lda., Sandoz GmbH, Sandoz Hungary Limited Liability Company, Sandoz Ilac Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., Sandoz Inc, Sandoz Industrial Products S.A, Sandoz International GmbH, Sandoz K.K., Sandoz Limited, Sandoz Manufacturing Inc., Sandoz NV, Sandoz Pharma K.K, Sandoz Pharmaceuticals AG, Sandoz Pharmaceuticals d.d., Sandoz Philippines Corporation, Sandoz Polska Sp. z o.o. , Sandoz Private Limited, Sandoz Pty Ltd, Sandoz S.A. de C.V, Sandoz S.A.S., Sandoz S.R.L., Sandoz S.p.A., Sandoz South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Sandoz Ukraine LLC, Sandoz d.o.o. farmaceutska industrija, Sandoz do Brasil Industria Farmaceutica Ltda, Sandoz s.r.o., Selexys Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Shanghai Novartis Trading Ltd., Societe par actions SANDOZ, Spinifex Pharmaceuticals, The Medicines Company, The Medicines Company, Triangle International Reinsurance Limited, Trinity River Insurance Co Ltd, Vedere Bio, Vedere Bio ll, Xiidra, Ziarco, and Ziarco Group Limited.

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Military policeman prepares to defend the public by learning civilian law at William & Mary

Police training in Mosul U.S. Army soldiers from the 114 Military Police Company (left) conduct a riot control training exercise with Iraqi police officers in the city of Mosul, Iraq. Photo courtesy of Jillian Munyon

Joshua Barnett Army National Guardsman and W&M student Joshua Barnett J.D. 19 (right) poses for a photograph with a friend after a mission in Mosul, Iraq. Barnett is currently attending W&M's law school with the goal of becoming a public defender. Courtesy Photo of Joshua Barnett Photo - of - Hide Caption

The National Conference of State Legislatures determined that between 2000 and 2012, more than 900,000 veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom used their education benefits to attend institutions of higher learning across the United States. In a region including more than 230,000 veterans, William & Marys student body often includes service members looking to earn their undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Joshua Barnett J.D. 19 is one such student veteran. A member of the Army National Guard since 2007 who has deployed to Iraq, Barnett recently decided to trade in his helmet and uniform for the chance to earn his law degree at William & Mary.

As a soldier, Barnett is a military policeman. He deployed to Mosul, Iraq, a city which is located about 200 miles north of Baghdad, in 2009 to assist in training Iraqi police forces. One evening, while Barnett and his platoon were interacting with their Iraqi counterparts, they began taking heavy gunfire from enemy forces.

We took [machine gun] fire while at an Iraqi police station at night, said Barnett. I was a turret gunner in an MRAP vehicle providing cover for our soldiers who were on foot. We were never able to identify where the rounds were coming from.

Although he was under extreme pressure to effectively return fire while protecting friendly forces, Barnett maintained his composure and contacted the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Marez so that he could apprise them of the situation.

I wasnt only the gunner, but I also had responsibility for maintaining radio contact with our TOC back at the FOB, said Barnett. When we started taking contact, I had to watch my sector of fire, coordinate with our dismounts at the scene on one channel, while swapping to another channel to report what was going on as it developed. I was only 22 at the time, and it didn't seem like that big of a deal until it was all over. I didn't realize how close the rounds were impacting until they pulled some of the bullets out of my truck's gas tank and tires the next morning.

A few years and a subsequent deployment to Kuwait later, Barnett started his studies at W&M and is now using his focus and ability to remain calm under pressure to better perform in this scholastic environment, he said.

Law school is incredibly challenging, but in the best way, said Barnett. My veteran experience makes it easy to keep things in proper perspective. When I feel overwhelmed. I just remember that Ive been in more stressful situations, and, if I can deal with those, I can tackle law school.

Transitioning from military service to academia can be challenging for multiple reasons. Barnett, who was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in 2012 after his second tour in the Middle East, still finds certain situations difficult, like large crowds.

But fortunately, with the support of friends and family Ive come a long way since then, he said.

Another challenge that veterans can face in the classroom is a difference in culture. According to the Department of Veteran Affairs, sometimes, core beliefs and principles learned through military service can conflict with the beliefs and principles underlying higher education. For example, following orders and respecting rank and formality may run counter to the independent thinking and informality encouraged in many classrooms.

In addition, veterans  who are typically older and may have had dissimilar life experiences than teenage college students  can have differences of opinion with fellow students regarding social and political matters. Barnett has experienced such differences, but he said that at W&M those views are expressed in a respectful manner.

Law school is a hotbed of intellectual discussion for social and political issues, and I mean that in the best way, said Barnett. Even if I don't always share the same ideals as others, William & Marys law school has a student body that is ready to discuss challenging issues openly.

Lawrence Wilkerson, distinguished adjunct professor of government and public policy at W&M and a retired U.S. Army colonel who served as chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, stated that veterans like Barnett often excel in college settings.

Veterans as students often bring a more serious nature to education, said Wilkerson. They are committed to basically one thing: getting a better education. They are also very single-mindedly focused on that goal, and I find that in classrooms their attitudes can bring a positive mixture because other students learn from the veterans by emulating their seriousness.

Wilkerson also encourages student veterans to not exclude themselves from social gatherings with other students because those events could build lifelong friendships.

Do not isolate yourself on campus, said Wilkerson. Make friends and undertake projects together. You have much to teach each these young people about dedication, service and perseverance. Also, time to time, they might show you a thing or two, as well.

Robert Kaplan, associate dean and professor of the practice at W&M Law School, feels that Barnett is on his way to do great things.

Josh has a bright future as a lawyer, said Kaplan. Through his military experience, he will bring professionalism, maturity, compassion and commitment to his clients.

Although Barnett just started his journey of attaining a law degree in August, he knows that it will not be easy. But with faith in himself and his abilities, he knows that he can move anything put in front of him out of the way.

In April of 2017, I formally leave the National Guard, said Barnett. I think that my deployments really affirmed my personal goals of helping others. Now its time to help myself. I look forward to continuing a career in public service.




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By Flora Fraser (Guest Contributor)

Im not normally one to pursue the What ifs of counterfactual history. Recently, however, Ive been indulging wild thoughts about the yellow fever epidemic that afflicted Philadelphia in the summer of 1793, at the outset of Washingtons second term of office. I blame Designated Survivor on Netflix, which Ive been watching. A Secretary of Housing is sworn in as President, after he escapes a bomb at the Capitol that kills the rest of the government. What if, in 1793, the deadly epidemic had killed off Washington and all his Cabinet, bar none? A Netflix series for someone other than me to make about President Hamilton or Knox or Randolph  Ultimately, Im always more interested in fact than fiction.

The trials of a young republic

In 1793 Philadelphia was the seat of government, and the republic, still young. Anti-federalists condemned the Presidents insistence on American neutrality, after France declared war on Britain. They criticized the stately receptions that George and Martha Washington hosted each week at their Market Street home as monarchical. The President dwelt, in conversation with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, on the extreme wretchedness of his existence.

And then, in July and August, yellow fever developed in the city. No one then understood the role of mosquitoes in transmitting the virus. A drought had succeeded heavy spring rains and pockets of standing water abounded where these insects thrived. Washingtons deficiencies on the national and international stage were forgotten in the urgent need to address the chaotic situation. By early September, despite the best efforts of doctors, hundreds were dying.

Physician Benjamin Rush recorded his symptoms. The sweats, he recorded, were so offensive as to oblige me to draw the bedclothes close to my neck, to defend myself from their smell. He survived, as did Alexander Hamilton, Treasury Secretary, and his wife, Betsy. Countless others, including numerous Government clerks and the speaker of the Pennsylvania senate, perished. Henry Knox, Secretary for War, recorded in mid-September : the great seat of it [the epidemic] at present seems to be from 2nd to 3rd street, and thence to Walnut Street. Water Street, however, continues sickly. By the end of October over four thousand, in a city with a population of 50,000, had died.

The presidents life in danger

Those who could, fled the city early on. The home the Washingtons occupied on Market Street was dangerously close to the streets that Knox named. Indeed, the Presidents valet there was to number among the dead. Either or both of the Washingtons might so easily have succumbed to the fever. Martha would not leave for their Virginia home without her husband. On September 9 he was persuaded to go, leaving Knox in charge of a skele ton government. At Mount Vernon a sombre President received reports of the mounting death toll.

Frosts, in late October, rather than medical intervention, brought the epidemic to a halt. Congress, which had prepared to assemble elsewhere in case of need, reconvened in Philadelphia. Slowly life resumed its normal pattern, and the President was soon under attack again from his critics. But everywhere there were reminders of the recent tumultuous months. Martha Washington wrote, on her return to the city, that almost every family had lost some of their friends: black [for mourning] seems to be the general dress of the city.

The sources of all quotations are to be found in the relevant pages of my book, The Washingtons.

Flora Fraser is author of Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton; The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline; Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III; and Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire. The Washingtons won the George Washington Book Prize. She is chair of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, established in 2003 in affectionate memory of her biographer grandmother. She lives in London.
China, UK unveil new R&D centre

10 November 2016

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China and the UK yesterday signed a Heads of Terms Agreement and held an unveiling ceremony for their Joint Research and Innovation Centre (JRIC) to be opened soon in Manchester, England. The event is the latest milestone since the JRIC was first announced during former Chancellor George Osborne's visit to Beijing in September 2015.

Paul Howarth, Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Ma Kai and Qian Zhimin at the ceremony (Image: CNNC)

The latest development was announced by the UK's National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), the lead organizations for the centre. Ma Kai, vice premier of China's State Council, and Lucy Neville-Rolfe, UK minister of state for energy and intellectual property at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, unveiled a plaque for the JRIC.

NNL said the JRIC aims to inspire innovation in nuclear research and development through UK-China collaboration. This will develop, it said, "leading-edge research and innovative technologies which will support safe and reliable nuclear energy around the globe".

The two sides have been identifying the key priority areas of research, and the full program of work will be finalised in due course, NNL said.

Nuclear AMRC and USNIC collaboration



The UK's Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) said today it had signed a new agreement with the US Nuclear Infrastructure Council (USNIC) to work together on research and development to support the UK's civil nuclear program. The memorandum of understanding was signed by Jay Shaw, senior business development manager for the Nuclear AMRC, and David Blee, executive director of USNIC, during a visit to the Nuclear AMRC on 26 October. Mike Tynan, chief executive officer of the Nuclear AMRC said: "Collaborating with USNIC will further develop our transatlantic relations and grow our scope for future knowledge sharing to better support the UKs civil nuclear program."

A principles agreement on the ownership and exploitation of intellectual property, developed partly in conjunction with the UK government's Intellectual Property Office, has also been agreed.

Initial work may include developing advanced manufacturing methods that "could improve the consistency, speed and cost of modular manufacture"; and transferring innovation in virtual engineering, which has been "developed and demonstrated successfully in other industrial sectors, further into the mind-set of the nuclear landscape", NNL said.

Qian Zhimin, CNNC president, and NNL managing director Paul Howarth had yesterday "jointly introduced the research strengths of the two sides and the future development strategy of the research centre," CNNC said.

It added: "Inauguration of the research centre marks a new chapter in Sino-UK collaboration in nuclear energy, building upon past cooperation in nuclear energy investment, that will allow more cooperation in scientific research, technology, and throughout the whole nuclear industrial chain."

With NNL and CNNC each owning a 50% share, they will jointly pay for the centre's research and development expenses and plan to invest 422 million yuan ($65.1 million) over a five-year period, CNNC said.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

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US president-elect and nuclear

10 November 2016

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As heads of state and business leaders react to US President-elect Donald Trump's victory, the implications of the new administration for nuclear programs in the USA and overseas are still to emerge.

Donald Trump campaigning in Springfield, Ohio last week (Image: @realDonaldTrump)

The Trump campaign's position paper on energy promised to "(m)ake America energy independent, create millions of new jobs, and protect clean air and clean water". That vision included accessing the country's untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves as well as "hundreds of years in clean coal reserves", encouraging onshore and offshore leasing of federal lands and opening shale energy deposits for development. The position paper also promises to rescind certain executive actions by the Obama administration.

Trump's only campaign speech dedicated to energy policy was delivered at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota in May. In it, Trump outlined an action plan that would see him rescind the USA's Climate Action Plan, "cancel" the Paris Agreement and "stop all payments of US tax dollars to UN global warming programs" within his first 100 days in office.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its Clean Power Plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants in August 2015, under which states are required to submit their plans to comply with reductions. The plan, which supports the use of wind and solar renewables as well as allowing credit for new nuclear power plants and uprates to existing units, does not credit the role of existing nuclear capacity. Earlier this year, the state of New York approved a policy explicitly recognising the contribution of existing nuclear plants as part of its efforts to comply with the EPA legislation.

The USA ratified the Paris Climate Change Agreement, which aims to keep global temperature increases this century well below 2 degrees Celsius, in September. The agreement entered into force earlier this month.

Trump's presidency will formally begin with his inauguration on 20 January 2017. Details have yet to emerge about who he will appoint to head departments including the Department of Energy (DOE) and the EPA. In September, however, the Scientific American reported that Myron Ebell, a "climate-change sceptic", would head Trump's transition plans for the EPA. The same report said energy lobbyist Mike McKenna would head the DOE team. Earlier in the year, Reuters named Harold Hamm, CEO of Oklahoma-based oil and gas exploration company Continental Resources, as the leading contender for the position of energy secretary in a future Trump administration.

The Trump administration's intentions regarding Iran's peaceful nuclear program are also uncertain. Citing Iran's IRNA news agency, Bloomberg reported President Hassan Rouhani of Iran as saying the US election result would not have any impact on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed by Iran and the E3/EU+3 countries in 2015.

Maria Korsnick, the incoming president of the USA's Nuclear Energy Institute, issued a statement congratulating Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence on behalf of the US nuclear industry. "Throughout the presidential campaign nuclear energy was a bipartisan issue and one of the few areas of general agreement between the candidates. Additionally, public polling shows that the importance of nuclear energy to this nation's energy mix is one thing voters could agree on, irrespective of their candidate preference," Korsnick said.

"We encourage President-elect Trump to continue advancing his support for nuclear energy to maintain our nation's leadership in nuclear technology and its indispensable role in our critical energy infrastructure and environmental interests," she said.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

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If you're angry, sickened, scared, depressed, insulted, or grieving over the fact that, for at least the next four years, Donald Trump is running the country, then maybe it's time to close the laptop, hit the streets, and exercise your First Amendment rights while you still can. Numerous anti-Trump public protests are being planned in NYC in the coming days, details below.

At 6:30 p.m. Thursday night (tonight), the NYU Muslim Student Association is holding a Rise Above Hate Rally on the grand staircase of the Kimmel Center for University Life (located in Union Square). The rally has been organized in response to pro-Trump graffiti that was found on the door to a Muslim Prayer room at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering Wednesday morning. Those interested in getting more involved with the Muslim Student Association can fill out this google form.

From 2 until 7 p.m. Friday afternoon, there'll be a "Love Rally" in Washington Square Park. Organizers are calling on New Yorkers to stand together in support of Muslims, women, the disabled, latino/latina/latinx persons, and "everyone else Donald Trump has put down to get this far." Also, the Love Rally seemingly hopes to avoid the civil disobedience often associated with New York protests. There's a hope of keeping things kid-friendly.

"Please focus on positivity! Ideally, this will be an excellent way for those of us with children to expose them to a positive response to Trump's bully tactics," organizers wrote in a Facebook post. "We'll have a megaphone to share our affirmations of love, a banner to write on, and hopefully lots of loving signs!" Attendees are encouraged to wear red as a means of taking Trump's color away from him. The last important thing to note is that Trump supporters themselves are encouraged to attend. "This event will not be explicitly anti-Trump...Trump supporters are welcome at this rally to express that their support from him DOES NOT INCLUDE support for this hate speech," the event description reads.

Finally, the big one's on Saturday. Beginning at noon, a Trump Is Not My President rally similar to the one that saw thousands of angry demonstrators surround Trump Tower last night will kick off in Union Square Park. At 3 p.m., the organizers plan to take to the streets and shut down traffic as the rally moves up to to Trump Tower. The terms are simple: "Join us in the streets! Stop Trump and his bigoted agenda! Divided is the reason we just fell. We must unite despite our differences to stop HATE from ruling the land." Attendees are encouraged to bring signs, snacks, and water.
Couple kissing

By: Wayne Morin

A family of the United Kingdom, was horrified when their parents kissed and said goodbye shortly before they died.

An inquest has heard that Michael Jones, 59, and his wife Lynette, 56, of Gloucester, went to bed at a midnight, were they overdosed on painkillers.

At 1:45 a.m., they returned to their kitchen to join their son Stephen, daughter Rachel, and son-in-law Darren Bishop.

Rachel made them a coffee, and the couple hugged, kissed and said goodbye to each other. When Michael tried to get up from his chair, he was unable to move. His daughter called an ambulance.

Lynette admitted that she and her husband both consumed a lot of Carbamazepine. The couple died shortly thereafter.

Rachel said that her father had said some things on that fateful night, which she later realized were significant.

He said: aif something happens to me and your mom, you have our apartment. You will always have a place to live,a she told the court.

The couple left a suicide note, saying that they loved their family and friends, and that they ahad enougha from their hardships.

The couple had been going through a very tough time, after someone accused Michael of sexually abusing a young child.

He maintained his innocence and told his family that he never touched the child. A jury found Michael not guilty. A few weeks after he was cleared of all the charges that were brought against him, the couple decided to commit suicide.

According to family members, the couple had financial issues, which forced them to move into a smaller apartment. They struggled with a family member who has a drug problem, and they had health issues.

Gloucestershire senior coroner Katy Skerrett concluded that both had committed suicide.
A young man wanted to make a point about racism in the United States, but his plan backfired when he was exposed for a liar by police. 20-year-old Khalil Cavil of Texas was working at the Saltgrass Steak House in Odessa when he claimed he was discriminated against because of his Muslim name. Cavil took
KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP)  A California city manager has been selected to serve as the new manager for Alaskas Ketchikan Gateway Borough.

The Borough Assembly picked Ruban Duran for the job on Friday. Hes leaving his position as manager of the Southern California city of El Centro and will take over for the boroughs outgoing manager, Dan Bockhorst, on Dec. 19, The Ketchikan Daily News reported.

Duran was chosen to manage the borough over two other candidates  Washington state-based municipal employee Robert Grumbach and Albert Scott, who most recently managed a homeowners associ...
Guirec Soudee and chicken Monique sit on sledges in April as they wait for the ice to melt off the coast of Greenland. He spent 130 days with his boat completely trapped in ice, braving deadly weather and various privations.

Being "The Last Frontier," Alaska has long been a crossroad for adventure. From the likes of John Muir, Susan Butcher and Jack London, that tradition continues with the arrival of modern-day travelers.

Circling the globe in his sailboat, Guirec Soudee found a friendly harbor in Wrangell last week during a run of rough weather. Hailing from Brittany, a peninsular region in northwestern France, the 24-year-old sailor recently navigated the Arctic's Northwest Passage, accompanied only by his hen, Monique.

For Soudee the journey began when he turned 18, leaving home for Australia with only ...
Police Pooches Pose for Paws Off Duty Calendar

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Nov 10th, 2016

The police dogs of North Wales have put their best paws forward to pose for a new charity calendar.

The 2017 calendar features dogs from the North Wales Police Dog Section and hopes to raise money for the North Wales Police Retired Dogs Charity, Paws Off Duty, which was launched over 18 months ago.

Last year saw the release of the first North Wales Police Dog calendar, which raised 2235 from the sales. It is hoped that this year the charity will be able to double the funds.

The charity, established by PC Jackie Edwards from the Dog Section, has been created to assist with the day to day costs of looking after the K9 unit once theyve retired. This includes the cost of veterinary expenses such as vaccinations and veterinary treatment.

Over 5000 has been raised by the charity from when it was first introduced through the sale of calendars, trolley coins, wristbands, pup cakes and through donations received through events and talks attended by our handlers and their dogs.

Sergeant Howard Watts from the Dog Section said: This is the second calendar for the Paws off Duty fund; last years calendar was a resounding success and was universally well received. However, as good as last years calendar was, this year the Paws off Duty committee have outdone themselves.

I have no doubt that everybody will agree when they see it that this years calendar is even better  I myself have bought three.

As many of the dogs as possible have been featured in the calendar  we have seen some new puppy additions to the section this year, you may see these in the calendar also.

He added: Our dogs continue to provide a fantastic service for the communities of North Wales, and its only right that we do all that we can to ensure that they have the best possible life after retirement.

Under police regulations, dogs used for general purpose or drugs work are paid for by the force until they retire, often between the ages of eight and ten-years-old. But once they leave the force, all funding from the force ceases, and all costs then sit with the dogs handler, or if the dog has been re-homed, the new owner.

The price for the calendar is 5.99 and they can be purchased via The Farm and Pet Place stores across North Wales or via their website.

Keep in touch with the K9 Cops on social media through their Facebook and Twitter pages.
Opinion

Etiquette matters

As we are drawing close to another year I make sure that I always invoke for the world and especially old age. The startling episode that took place with a mum and a passenger in one of the trains just made me send shivers down my spine (Social media users praise women who refused to give up her first-class seat, Oct. 29, Gulf Today website).


In the wake of the late-night announcement of the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Oakland and Berkeley, California, marching down the main thoroughfares and shouting, Not my president! Similar midnight protests broke out in cities across the United States, including in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles and New York.

Some of the demonstrators made a brief attempt to block traffic on the 580 freeway before dispersing at around 3a.m.

The next morning, several thousand high school students in the East Bay walked out of their classes and staged multiple protest marches, denouncing the election of Trump. Fifteen hundred students walked out of Berkeley High School, and were joined by students from neighboring Albany High, and from several schools in North Oakland.

The protesters converged on the UC Berkeley campus where they rallied on Sproul Plaza at 10a.m. followed by a second wave at noon, when they were joined by protesting UC Berkeley students. Campus police stood watching the demonstration, others patrolled its fringes on motorcycles. A helicopter circled overhead.

The UC Berkeley chapter of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) intervened at the protests, distributing 300 copies of the World Socialist Web Sites perspective on the election,Trumps victory and the debacle of American democracy. They built for a meeting on the significance of the election of Trump and the danger of war, which will be held on the Berkeley campus Thursday evening.

The protesting youth gathered on the Berkeley campus displayed a mingled sense of shock, fear and anger. Students who spoke with the WSWS talked of being afraid of concentration camps, mass deportations and a ban on Muslim immigrants under a Trump presidency. Most expressed disbelief at his election.

The leaders of the protest gatherings, associated with By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), the Chicano/Latino Club and the Gay Straight Alliance, controlled the megaphone during the rally at 10a.m. and addressed the crowd, seeking to channel the protests behind identity politics and the Democratic Party. At one point they transformed the chant Not my president! to She's my President, and at another led a chant of We'll be back, openly identifying themselves with the Democratic Party.

The protests, however, had largely emerged spontaneously and were not fully under the control of any particular organization. The impetus for the Berkeley walkouts and marches seems to have originated with high school students on social media late last night. For 20 minutes at noon, over 1,000 people gathered without any leadership and stood in angry silence on the steps of Sproul Plaza.

Some of the handmade signs held up by students expressed the disorientation of identity politics, one read Brown Power, and another White America: We Did This and We Should Be Ashamed. The great majority simply read F*ck Trump.

By 2p.m. the protests had dissipated and the protesters gone home.

The spontaneous protests in the wake of Trump's election express an intuitive recognition on the part of many young people that the right-wing politics of Donald Trump represent a tremendous danger. This is an entirely healthy impulse.

At the same time, the chants and placards of the protest reveal the profoundly disorienting effect which identity politics has had on broad layers of youth, particularly in liberal bastions such as the San Francisco Bay Area. The danger of Donald Trump and the far-right cannot be opposed on the basis of the politics of race, gender or sexuality.

The Democratic Party and its pseudo-left promoters incessantly peddle identity politics as a means of hiding the fundamental question of class and covering up for their right-wing policies of imperialist war, austerity and police state measures.

The shock and outrage expressed on the Berkeley campus and elsewhere are but an initial expression of broader social opposition which will take shape. As was manifested during the Berkeley protest, the pseudo-left will attempt to use identity politics to channel this outrage back behind the Democratic Party, which has been thoroughly discredited by the outcome of the election.
In a damning ruling issued last Thursday, Federal Court Judge Simon Noel sharply criticized the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the countrys premier spy agency, for concealing the existence of a mass data collection program for over a decade.

CSIS established the Operational Data Analysis Centre (ODAC) in July 2006. The facility gathers metadata on a vast and unspecified number of Canadians, including email addresses, telephone numbers, and IP addresses of anyone who has been in contact with a person targeted by CSIS. This information is kept indefinitely, even after the targeted individual is no longer deemed a threat to national security.

In his ruling, Noel pointed to the extraordinary fact that, despite being tasked with authorizing CSIS warrants for data collection, the courts had no idea ODAC existed. The Court had never before been fully informed of the existence of the program. The Court, during the hearings, learned that the program had been in existence since 2006 yet it had never heard nor seen any evidence on the matter, he stated.

The judge emphasized that this represented the second time in three years CSIS had breached its duty of candour, i.e. had lied, to the courts. In 2013, Justice Richard Mosley found that CSIS systematically lied for years in a series of applications it made to the courts to secure authorization for wiretapping operations. The domestic spy agency had failed to disclose that it was collaborating with CSE (Communications Security Establishment), Canadas foreign signals intelligence service, which is part of the NSA-led Five Eyes alliance and is formally prohibited from collecting information on Canadians.

CSIS director Michel Coulombe released a statement in which he insisted that politicians were informed about the work of ODAC. The creation of ODAC ... was presented to the Minister of Public Safety in July, 2006, explaining the requirement for advanced analytics and the ability of ODAC to retain data, including metadata, for extended periods of time, Coulombe said. The minister was also briefed on the program in March, 2010.

Coulombe added that all access to the illegally collected data has been halted. Significantly, however, the store of metadata has not been destroyed, but continues to be expanded because CSIS has other means of increasing its volume. Provisions in Bill C-51, passed by the Harper Conservatives with the support of the Liberals in 2015, mean that CSIS can collect data from 17 government departments without a warrant, including the Canada Revenue Agency, the border service and CSE. As Noel noted, this meant CSIS now has free access to such information as Canadians tax returns.

Stockwell Day, the former Conservative Public Safety Minister in the first Harper government, claimed ignorance of the program in an interview with CBC. Current Liberal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale asserted he only became aware of CSIS illegal activities several weeks ago when he received a version of Noels judgement.

Such denials are hardly credible. Concern about the indefinite holding of metadata was first raised in a Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) report issued in January. SIRC is the watchdog tasked with overseeing CSIS activities and is made up of government appointees. In a further report issued this fall, SIRC accused CSIS of breaching the condition that it only collect data which is strictly necessary, saying instead that the intelligence agency was ingesting data in bulk.

The court ruling confirmed that Day was briefed on the operation in July 2006. While no information has yet been made public on what Goodale knew, even New Democratic Party (NDP) public safety critic Matthew Dube felt obliged to note that it was highly likely he was briefed upon taking office. The NDP made a show of opposing Bill C-51 during the 2015 election, while at the same time offering to participate in a coalition government with the Liberals, who played a key role in instituting much of Canadas draconian anti-terror legislation and backed the anti-democratic Bill C-51 at every stage during its passage through parliament last year.

Regardless of what precise details were known by politicians, responsibility for the systematic violation of the law and the privacy rights of Canadians by CSIS lies with successive governments for granting vast and unprecedented powers to the national security apparatus. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Chretien-Martin Liberal governments implemented anti-terrorist legislation that undermined longstanding democratic principles such as habeas corpus and the right to remain silent.

In relation to the collection of information, a doctrine was developed by the Conservative government that metadata from Canadians emails, cellphones and internet use is not constitutionally-protected private communication and is thus fair game for the intelligence services. Government spokesman repeatedly claimed that metadata is innocuous, yet it is universally recognized by computer and security analysts that the collection and analysis of metadata enables state spy agencies to construct an extremely detailed picture of the day-to-day activities and beliefs of anyone under surveillance.

Under Bill C-51 , CSIS was granted disruption powers, allowing the agency to break virtually any law in actively intervening to disrupt vaguely defined public security threats, so long as they dont deliberately cause bodily harm or violate someones sexual integrity.

One of the few limitations placed on CSIS disruption powers is the requirement it obtain a court warrant if any of its planned disruption operations breaches the Criminal Code or Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The latest revelations only demonstrate how worthless such a provision is, given that the spy agency routinely lies and deceives the courts.

Trudeaus Liberals, aware of the deep-seated hostility to such authoritarian powers, feigned opposition to the Bill C-51 but still voted in favour of it in parliament. Trudeau proclaimed during the election campaign that a Liberal government would repeal several of the legislations most controversial aspects and establish a special parliamentary committee to provide oversight of the intelligence agencies.

More than one year after taking power, the only concrete step the Liberals have taken toward realizing these bogus promises is to introduce a bill creating an oversight committee, staffed with carefully vetted parliamentarians, with severely limited rights to review past intelligence operations.

Any other steps have been delayed pending the outcome of the phony public consultation that Goodale announced in September. The document the government issued to guide this consultation fully embraces the reactionary war on terror narrative that successive Liberal and Conservative governments have used to justify a series of bloody military interventions around the world and attacks on democratic rights at home. It also lauds the intelligence agencies as bastions of democracy. The documents introduction dishonestly proclaims, National security institutions in Canada are professional, responsible and effective in the work they do. They work within a well-defined set of legal authorities and respect Canadian law. (See: Canadas Liberals defend war on terror, spy agencies in Bill C-51 consultation )

Goodales reaction to the latest revelations was decidedly low key. While issuing an obligatory slap on the wrist to CSIS, mainly for public consumption, he made no call for the removal of Coulombe or any other senior intelligence figures despite their systematic violation of the law.

Instead, he released a statement in which he suggested the Liberals may be prepared to further undermine democratic rights so as to permit CSISs Orwellian activities to be deemed legal. The CSIS Act is now more than 30 years old and showing its age as global affairs, threat profiles, technology and public expectations have rapidly evolved, Goodale wrote in his statement.

The response of SIRC makes a mockery of the Liberals claims that parliamentary oversight will do anything to restrain the intelligence agencies. The watchdog agency charged with monitoring CSIS activities first drew attention to the illegal holding of metadata in January 2016, i.e. almost a decade after the practice began.

In response to the court ruling, SIRC chairman Pierre Blais expressed his full confidence in Coulombe, issuing a statement declaring, hes doing a good job and insisting that the head of CSIS had not deliberately misled the courts.
Only hours after Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called Republican candidate Donald Trump to concede the November 8 election, the political establishment of both corporate-controlled parties has embraced Trump as president-elect and buried any criticism of his fascistic appeals.

Clinton spelled out her capitulation in a speech Wednesday morning in which she said nothing about the deep economic distress that was the foundation of Trumps victory. Although acknowledging our nation is more deeply divided than we thought, she was silent on the most fundamental division, the yawning economic gulf between the super-rich and the vast majority of working people.

Donald Trump is going to be our president, she said. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. She made no reference to where Trump threatens to lead America, with his incessant attacks on Muslims, immigrants and other minorities, his bullying towards other countries, and his manifest authoritarianism and contempt for democratic rights.

Clinton also said nothing about the fact that Trump actually lost the popular vote, where he continued to trail by about a quarter million votes, with most uncounted ballots in states like California, Colorado and Maryland, which voted for the Democrat.

President Obama appeared before the press an hour after Clinton, noting his planned meeting with his successor on Thursday, and declaring, We are now all rooting for his success in uniting, and leading, this country.

Everybody is sad when their side loses an election, Obama said. But the day after, we have to remember that were actually all on one team. This is an intramural scrimmage. Were not Democrats first, were not Republicans first. We are Americans first. Were patriots first.

This is more than just political boilerplate. It amounts to an admission that for all the vitriolic exchanges and mutual mudslinging of the bourgeois election campaign, the two parties of big business are actually all on one team. They both defend the property, profits and strategic world position of corporate America, at the expense of the working class at home and abroad.

Two days before Obama appeared on the steps of the White House to salute the president-elect, he was denouncing Trump as a menace to the republic, a threat to democratic rights, someone who was temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief and would be a danger to mankind if put in charge of the US nuclear arsenal.

Now he declares, We all want whats best for this country. Thats what I heard in Mr. Trumps remarks last night. That's what I heard when I spoke to him directly. And I was heartened by that.

Obama likewise made no mention of Clintons victory in the popular vote, or suggested that Trump should be cautious about wielding his alleged mandate because a majority of those who went to the polls voted against him.

For his part, Trump showed that his own denunciations of crooked Hillary were just as cynical as Obamas attacks on him. Announcing Clintons concession phone call to his supporters at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, he declared, Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. Only a few hours before, his supporters were chanting lock her up as they watched the election returns on a giant screen at the closing rally of the campaign.

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who had distanced himself from Trump during much of the campaign, praised the victorious candidate at a news conference Wednesday morning. Donald Trump will lead a unified Republican government, Ryan said.

The corporate-controlled media obediently plays its assigned role in the transition from Obama to Trump, painting the president-elect in bright colors and covering up his racist and authoritarian tirades and threats against democratic rights.

The actual tally of the vote and available data from exit surveys demonstrates the widespread hostility to both presidential candidates.

Remarkably, 60 percent of voters had an unfavorable opinion of Trump, including 20 percent of those who voted for him, while 23 percent of Trump voters described him as unqualified and 29 percent said he was not honest and trustworthy. Clinton was seen as both more qualified and more dishonest, and viewed unfavorably by 54 percent of voters.

These figures demonstrate the dead end of the corporate-controlled two-party system, which gave voters the choice of the two most unpopular figures ever to run as candidates of the two major parties.

Trump will come to Washington in partnership with a Congress that is near-universally reviled, with only 9 percent of those voting having a favorable opinion of the institution. Nonetheless, within the confines of the two-party system, nearly every incumbent senator and representative won reelection on November 8.

While Democrats had expected to regain control of the Senate, where 24 Republican-held seats and only 10 Democratic seats were at stake, they fell far short. The Democrats gained only two seats in the Senate, leaving the Republican Party with a narrow 51-48 edge, pending a December runoff in Louisiana where the Republican candidate is heavily favored. Clinton proved a drag on down-ballot Democratic candidates, as not a single Democratic Senate hopeful won in a state carried by Trump.

Democratic challengers Tammy Duckworth in Illinois and Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire defeated incumbent Republicans, although Hassans margin of victory was barely 700 votes and is likely to be subject to recount. Two prominent former senators, Russ Feingold in Wisconsin and Evan Bayh in Indiana, lost their bids to return to office, and other Democratic challengers lost close races in Pennsylvania, Missouri and North Carolina.

Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto won the Nevada seat vacated by retiring Democratic leader Harry Reid. Clinton narrowly defeated Trump in Nevada, and the Democrats took two Republican-held House seats, their only significant statewide sweep.

In the House of Representatives, Democrats gained seven seats, barely denting the massive Republican majority. Besides the two in Nevada, they gained House seats in New Hampshire, New Jersey, Illinois, Virginia, and three seats in Florida, but they lost two open seats in Florida. Several contests remain undecided in California, where ballots postmarked Election Day are still to be counted, but Democrats already control most of the 53 seats in the most populous US state.

In one high-profile race, liberal Democrat Zephyr Teachout, the most prominent Bernie Sanders supporter seeking an open House seat, lost her race in a Hudson Valley district in New York.

Of the 11 gubernatorial contests, Democrats won six, a net loss of one statehouse, ousting incumbent North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, but losing governorships in both Vermont and New Hampshire. Republicans control 33 statehouses compared to only 17 for the Democrats.
Far-right parties and politicians across Europe yesterday hailed the surprise victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections, seeing it as proof that they could also rise and take power.

Frances neo-fascist National Front (FN), which itself could come to power in next years French presidential elections amid mass anger at the Socialist Party (PS) governments policies of austerity and war, praised Trumps victory for hastening the FNs rise in France.

What happened tonight is not the end of the world, it is the end of a world, declared FN leader Marine Le Pen. She added, The decision of the American people must be interpreted as the victory of liberty The election of Donald Trump is good news for our country.

Her father, former FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pena convicted Holocaust denier who led parachutist units that tortured Algerian independence fighters in the 1954-1962 war against Francecalled Trumps victory a fantastic kick in the ass to pro-globalization political-media systems, including in France. He added, Today, the United States, tomorrow, France. Bravo!

Jean-Pierre Chevenement, a former PS minister who now advises FN number two Florian Philippot, celebrated: The victory of Donald Trump is most certainly a defeat for the establishment.

Such remarks were echoed throughout Europe. Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and a leading campaigner for Britains exit from the European Union (EU), who also campaigned for Trump in the United States during the summer, hailed Trumps victory before the final results were even announced. I thought the Brexit was big but boy, this looks like its going to be bigger, Farage told ITV News.

He wrote on Twitter: Looks like 2016 is going to be the year of two big political revolutions: Donald Trump would be bigger than Brexit.

Similar remarks came from far-right politicians in the Netherlands and in Germany. Beatrix von Storch of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) called Trumps victory historic, downplaying warnings from top German officials that conflicts will emerge between Washington and Berlin under a Trump presidency.

This is a surprise only for the establishment, from my standpoint it was to be expected, she told Die Welt, adding: Much of what Trump said during the election campaign should be seen critically. But it will not be eaten as hot as it was cooked. Even if Trump is supposedly an outsider, he first has to show that he wants a new start for the United States, particularly through the foreign policy restraint he promised.

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), who has denounced Islam as fascist, enthused on Twitter that Trumps victory was an enormous stimulant for parties such as ours.

Hungarian President Viktor Orbanwho played a leading role pressing for the EUs aggressive policy against migrants, that has led to thousands of drownings of refugees fleeing Middle East or African wars in the Mediterranean Seaunsurprisingly endorsed Trumps victory. Hungarys far-right president had long supported Trump, declaring in July, The migration and foreign policy advocated by the Republican candidate Mr Trump is good for Europe and vital for Hungary.

In response to Trumps victory yesterday, Orban wrote on his Facebook page, Congratulations! What great news. Democracy is still alive.

The fact that Trumps victory is being hailed by such anti-working class organizations is a warning that American workers will soon confront vicious attacks from a Trump administration.

The collapse of democracy in America revealed by the election of a demagogic billionaire and charlatan as US president is, however, also progressing rapidly across the Atlantic. Trumps victory illustrates how far-right parties across Europe could exploit mass discontent that is building across Europe, eight years after the Wall Street collapse and the onset of a deep economic and social crisis, in order to come to power.

By denouncing Muslims and foreign countries and demagogically appealing to mass sentiment that America is beset by economic decline, Trump exploited mass hostility to the Obama administration and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Obama, who had come to power promising hope and change, waged unending wars and attacked workers living standards, without any meaningful opposition from the US trade union bureaucracy.

Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders played a particularly pernicious role, posturing as a socialist and pledging to wage a political revolution against the billionaire class, then endorsing Clinton, the stooge of Wall Street. The strangling of left-wing sentiment proved to have disastrous consequences. Having cynically exploited a surge of opposition to Obama that the Democratic Party neither expected nor wanted, Sanders left the field open for Trump to profit from social anger by demagogically posturing as a friend of the little man.

It takes no great insight to see that the European far right is using a similar playbook as Trump in order to progress in the polls. After eight years of deep economic slump and austerity policies imposed by social-democratic parties, from the PS in France to the German Social Democrats and the PASOK party in Greece, there is explosive anger in the European working class.

In this, they were abetted by the various trade union bureaucracies, who at most mobilized a few symbolic protests while workers in Greece, Spain, Ireland and beyond suffered double-digit falls in their income, and mass unemployment emerged across the continent.

The primary obstacle was the role of a layer of reactionary pseudo-left parties, who have postured as an alternative while working to integrate themselves into the state and the political establishment. This took the most striking form with the experience of Syriza (the Coalition of the Radical Left), which took power in Greece last year pledging to end EU austerity and then imposed unprecedented austerity measures, trampling repeated votes of the Greek population opposing austerity.

To the extent that such parties are allowed to block the emergence of genuine struggles by the working class, while supporting or imposing austerity measures themselves, this paves the way for forces like the FN, UKIP, or the PVV to demagogically posture as a populist alternative.
Europes ruling elites responded with shock and horror to the election of Donald Trump as the next US president. Hardly any government or newspaper expected such a result. They now fear that Trumps presidency will not only destabilise the United States, but also the rest of the world.

The financial markets are in chaos, the political world is holding its breath, commented German financial daily Handelsblatt. Even if Trump implements only some of his announcements, this planet will not be the same as it once wasnot geopolitically, not economically and also not culturally.

Britains Financial Times saw a moment of great peril in Trumps victory. After the Brexit referendum vote in Britain, it looks like another grievous blow to the liberal international order, the paper writes. Mr Trump must decide, by his actions and words, whether he intends to contribute to the great unravelling, at incalculable cost to the west.

Guardian columnist Richard Wolffe calls Trumps victory nothing short of a revolution. ... America and its relationship to the world has fundamentally changed overnight. ... Taken together, Trumps victory ushers in the most tumultuous period of American history since the Great Depression and the start of world war two. It will challenge the core concepts of American identity and global security as we have known them for generations.

Even German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, obliged to speak cautiously and respect diplomatic norms, warned of sharp conflicts in his statement on the election result. I think we have to expect that for us, American foreign policy will be less predictable and we must expect that America will increasingly prefer to take its own decisions, said Steinmeier. In other words: I dont want to put a brave face on it. Nothing will be easier, many things will be more difficult.

Many commentators in the European press noted that the result was not a vote of confidence in Trump, but a vote against the political establishment, and that it displayed parallels to Europe.

After the Brexit vote in Britain, this is the second time this year that a neglected and almost forgotten section of the population has won a hearing and power, commented Stefan Kornelius in the Suddeutsche Zeitung. There are forces at work here that even Donald Trump cant contain. He merely exploited them. The rebellious mood goes well beyond Trump. The majority in the US wanted a revolution. And they have got one now.

Handelsblatt also identified social divisions in the US as the reason for Trumps victory. Trump had managed to mobilise forces who had long been rumbling below the surface. His rise was a symptom of deeper problems in American society as a whole.

Both parties bear responsibility for this, according to Handelsblatt. The Republicans had deeply divided the country with their tax policy and destroyed the credibility of the US and all its values [with] an ideological and neo-imperialist foreign policy. The Democrats deregulated the financial markets; the banks began to gamble, provoked the world financial crisis and were rescued thanks to massive state assistance.

French daily Le Monde took a similar view. The Democrat Hillary Clinton is not the only loser of this vote. A wave of protest is shaking the traditional elites on both sides of the Atlantic. The election of Donald Trump is a fundamental transformation, an historic date for Western democracies. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, like 11 September, 2001, this marks the beginning of a new world whose outlines remain as yet hard to recognise but from which one feature is already clearly visible: in this world everything is conceivable that previously seemed impossible or unrealistic. According to Le Monde, Europe will not be protected from the earthquake that has rocked Washington.

This protest wave, which has shaken the traditional elites, this widespread social opposition, which found extremely reactionary and distorted expression in Trumps election victory, is feared much more by the European elites than the new president himself. They are concerned that he will lose control of the spooks he has unleashed.

At the same time, they have not uttered a word on why a semi-fascist billionaire like Trump was capable of channelling widespread social anger in a right-wing direction. At most, they blame the alleged backwardness of white American workers.

But the real reason is the right-wing policies of the Democratic Party and President Obama, which represent the interests of Wall Street and privileged sections of the middle class, as well as the role of Bernie Sanders and his pseudo-left supporters. In the Democratic primary, the senator from Vermont won 13 million votes because he portrayed himself as a socialist and agitated against the billionaire classonly subsequently to lend his backing to Hillary Clinton. He thus left the way clear for Trump to present himself as the only anti-establishment candidate.

In Europe, the ruling elites rely on the pseudo-left to suppress social opposition. Greeces Syriza, Germanys Left Party and many other organisations portray themselves as opponents of capitalism so as to sabotage any struggle against capitalism, andshould they come to powerto impose even more brutal measures against the working class.

A typical representative of this policy is the leader of Britains Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. He writes (correctly) that Trumps election is an unmistakable rejection of a political establishment and an economic system that simply isnt working for most people. It is one that has delivered escalating inequality and stagnating or falling living standards for the majority, both in the US and Britain. This is a rejection of a failed economic consensus and a governing elite that has been seen not to have listened. And the public anger that has propelled Donald Trump to office has been reflected in political upheavals across the world.

Having said this, he calls for the most complacent response imaginable.

He speaks of some of Trumps answers to the big questions facing America, and the divisive rhetoric around them being clearly wrong, before asserting, I have no doubt, however, that the decency and common sense of the American people will prevail, and we send our solidarity to a nation of migrants, innovators and democrats. ... Americans have made their choice. The urgent necessity is now for us all to work across continents to tackle our common global challenges: to secure peace, take action on climate change and deliver economic prosperity and justice.

Overall, Europes ruling elites are responding to Trumps election victory by shifting further rightward. On domestic issues, political representatives argue that it is possible to halt the rise of far-right parties in Europewho all hailed Trumps successby adopting their policies, particularly when it comes to deterring refugees and internal security.

On foreign policy, they are responding to the expected tensions with the US by accelerating military rearmament. As German Defence Minister Ursula Von der Leyen remarked on the election outcome, Europe must get used to looking after itself better. This includes an increased defence budget. An article in Der Spiegel even went as far as calling this week for Germany to develop its own nuclear weapons.
Following an announcement last month by United States Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson suspending the deportation of Haitians, the government has quietly resumed its policy of deportations. Already, planeloads of Haitian nationals are being flown back to Haiti.

On September 22, the US government announced that it was ending a six-year moratorium on deportations of Haitian citizens instituted in the wake of the devastating 2010 earthquake. While US officials claimed that this shift in policy stemmed from a supposed improvement of conditions in Haiti, there real reason was the arrival of growing numbers of Haitians on the border between Tijuana and San Diego.

Just weeks later, in the face of the devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew in October, Homeland Security again reversed its policy, renewing the moratorium on Haitian deportations. The decision was then lauded from both sides of Congress and various humanitarian organizations.

In a letter to President Barack Obama signed by more than 50 members of Congress urging a reversal of his original decision to resume deportations of Haitians, the members cynically struck a pose of disinterested humanitarianism. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, called for a halt to the policy until a degree of internal normalcy could be attained in the Caribbean island nation, stating: Haiti is a deeply impoverished country and there is no question as to the devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew. Haitians living in the United States should be granted short-term relief from deportation until the situation in their home country stabilizes.

At an event in Mexico City, Johnson first announced the decision to temporarily resume the suspension of deportations. We will have to deal with that situation, address it, be sympathetic to the plight of the people of Haiti as a result of the hurricane, he said. This comes from an administration that has deported upwards of 3.2 million people. Johnson did not wait long before he evinced his real intentions, stating, But after that condition has been addressed, we intend to resume the policy change.

Evidently, the ravages caused by the recent hurricane, not to mention the continuing effects of the 2010 earthquake, have, in Johnsons eyes, been addressed in a matter of days. Such shifts in policy are part of a long-standing strategy of the Democrats to falsely pose as the friend of immigrants, and in this case were clearly calculated with the 2016 elections in mind.

The Miami Herald Tuesday quoted officials of the Haitian National Police, which is in charge of meeting deportees upon their arrival in the country, as reporting that the first planeload of Haitian immigrants who had reached the US-Mexico border arrived in Port-au-Prince last Thursday, and a second landed on Tuesday, US Election day. A police spokesman said that the Haitians had been admitted into the US solely in order to imprison them, put them through removal proceedings and then ship them back to Haiti.

These new deportations, coming just five weeks after Hurricane Matthew, with millions still facing homelessness and hunger, was initiated secretly, without any public notification.

Initially, the Department of Homeland Security had stated on September 22 that deportations would begin for those Haitian immigrants who had overstayed their temporary protected status (TPS) first granted them in 2010 following the 2010 earthquake. The Department of Homeland Security issued 18-month TPS to Haitian nationals that allowed them to live and work in the US, although it did not include a path to citizenship. Currently, there are nearly 58,000 Haitians who are living in the US under TPS.

Far from helping the impoverished Haitians, a mere 75 people are accepted each day into the US as more than 300 arrive daily into Mexico, according to Mexicos National Human Rights Commission. Upon arriving at the Tijuana-San Ysidro border, Haitians are given a paper slip with a due date to appear for processing, many having dates forcing them to wait up to five weeks. More than 40,000 Haitians are expected to make the dangerous trip to the US-Mexico border.

Some 85,000 Haitians migrated to Brazil in the wake of the 2010 earthquake. At the time, the Brazilian economy benefitted from a commodities boom fueled in large part by Chinese demand. Just as Brazil sought to play a leading role in the UNs MINUSTAH peacekeeping mission in Haiti, the better to bolster its international prestige and consolidate its role as a regional power, the Brazilian ruling elite was eager to snap up a new supply of lower-paid immigrant workers and began offering work visas to Haitians in 2012 under the guise of humanitarian good will.

Jean Veniel, a 38-year-old construction worker and painter, spoke to WSWS reporters in Tijuana on the dismal prospects facing Haitian workers and youth. The corrupt [Haitian] government isnt offering any help. For professionals, theres nothing for them, no careers waiting for them, theres no place for them in Haiti. The lack of work, education, healthcare  all these things that we dont have are basic and important for the countrys development.

Brazils newly installed president, Michel Temer, also played the humanitarian card at a UN summit in New York in late September, claiming to have taken in 95,000 refugees, the vast bulk of whom were Haitians fleeing the devastation of their country. This is all for public consumption. That the government began issuing visas at all after a two-year delay is telling. Far from a benevolent humanitarian gesture, the basic indifference of the Brazilian ruling class, as much as the American, was underscored in the squalid living conditions that the Haitian immigrants were provided upon arriving in 2010, as well as the hundreds of cases of Haitians working in conditions of slave labor reported by Brazils Ministry of Labor.

Where once it was able to absorb and exploit Haitian labor under a humanitarian guise, the blows of Brazils own ongoing economic crisis have forced the Brazilian ruling class to dispel with this pretense and now mercilessly expel Haitian immigrants from the workforce.

As a result of layoffs, lack of job prospects and absence of any significant social programs to assist them, the tens of thousands of Haitian migrant workers initially taken in are left with few other options than to leave Brazil and make the more than 7,000 mile trip to the US.

On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September, US officials reportedly entered into discussions with Brazils President Temer on the possibility of forcibly deporting the Haitians now gathered on the US border back to Brazil.

WSWS reporters spoke to Haitian immigrants in Tijuana on the conditions that compelled them to take this costly and perilous journey.

Nicaragua was really tough, a former 19-year-old soldier told WSWS reporters. All I remember is being on a boat for nine hours in the middle of the night, it was freezing, it was disorienting. And in Guatemala the police there saw me and would demand money, it was corruption, corruption, corruption Ive been here waiting to cross into the United States for about two months. Ive spent thousands of dollars trying to get here. My father sold his house, my friends got money together just to send me over here.

Vicent, 30, a construction worker, said: Ive been here for three weeks. Like everyone else here, Im looking for a better life, looking for work. After the 2010 earthquake, everything was destroyed and there was no work anywhere. I lost my three-year-old in the earthquake. I was in Brazil for about three years, working in construction, but after a while there was no work in Brazil and I had to leave. Im hoping I can find work in the United States. A roof, a house, being able to share a meal with your family without trouble -- thats all were looking for.

The stranding of Haitian workers at the US-Mexico border is a product of the ongoing worldwide economic crisis. The misplaced hopes in the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as a base for capitalist stabilization has been largely abandoned. The economies of the US, Mexico, Brazil and Haiti, although in many respects differing in quality and magnitude, remain in a general slump, and the immigration policies of all the major nation states have grown increasingly punitive. In the end, it is the international working class that is made to pay for the irrationality of such a political and economic set-up.
In late October, Washington, D.C. Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld released a proposed fiscal budget for the year beginning July 1. The proposal would see the layoff of over 1,000 of the D.C. transit systems 13,000 workers while imposing fare hikes and cuts to services.

The Washington D.C. Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) faces a fiscal deficit of $290 million due to a steady loss of ridership in the D.C. region. The public increasingly avoids traveling on the nations second largest public transit system due to numerous delays, hazardous rail conditions and prohibitive fare rates.

Under the plan, nearly 300 train operators and mechanics would be laid off, with an additional 700 positions being slashed. Calling for the need to rationalize services for todays ridership, Wiedefeld stated, This plan has Metro doing everything in our power to get major expense categories under control while improving safety and making the trains run on time.

The average bus fare would increase by 25 cents to $2 a ride while the minimum and maximum metro fees would jump from $2.15-$5.90 to $2.25-$6, respectively. Parking fees would rise at a similar rate. MetroAccess shuttle services, which primarily serve disabled riders, would also increase to over $4 a ride.

WMATA also announced that it was considering the closure of over a dozen low-ridership bus routes and metro stations throughout the system. There will be increased waiting times between trains and buses, as busier stops near the center of the city would receive trains every two to four minutes while less-centralized stops would see a 15 minute off-peak hour waiting period. Wait times for buses would increase at a similar rate.

In addition, WMATA is requesting increases in localized funding from the different jurisdictions it serves--Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Such funding increases would further impact budget shortfalls throughout the region.

Such additional costs threaten to exacerbate Metros loss of customers. The Washington Post reported last month that an estimated 1 to 4 percent of metro and bus riders would stop using public transit if the proposed fee hikes were imposed.

The proposal to slash services and lay off workers comes as Metro has enacted scheduled delays on its rail services due to safety issues. Enforced single-tracking (SafeTracking), which last month was conducted on the Red Line, the Districts busiest route, has led to massive delays and an additional drop in ridership as commuters seek to avoid onerous wait times.

The SafeTracking program was enacted after a series of equipment failures and other safety issues, which have led to tragedies in the citys transit system. Nearly two years ago, a commuter died from asphyxiation and several more were hospitalized when an electrical fire caused a train to stall in a tunnel near LEnfant Plaza in downtown D.C.

In March, Metro was forced to suspend its services for a day after the discovery of several dozen instances of frayed or defective wiring, which could potentially lead to a similar tragedy as the one that occurred at LEnfant.

Wiedefeld has sought to present his intervention in the metro system as a demonstration of his concern for a culture of safety first. In fact, the enforced service delays and attempts to blame transit employees for the metro systems state of disrepair have had the effect of preparing the way for permanent service cuts and reductions in the workforce.

In October, WMATA began floating a series of proposals, which would make permanent the elimination of late-night metro service. Such policies would drastically impact workers in need of public transit at off-peak hours, such as those working multiple jobs.

Also last month, WMATA announced it would file a lawsuit against the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU). The lawsuit requests that an earlier court decision allowing the union to negotiate with management over forms of punishment to be imposed on workers for alleged infractions be overturned. The Award should be vacated because it is arbitrary and capricious, is irrational, is not supported by the evidence or by reason, fumed Metros attorneys.

For its part, the ATU is content that rail workers should be faulted for the state of disrepair affecting the regions infrastructure, so long as the punishments are negotiated between management and functionaries of the union.

Jackie Jeter, the president of ATU Local 689, declared to the Washington Post, The Union does not necessarily object to establishing an authority-wide system of equitable discipline, but insists that it be negotiated. Elsewhere, Jeter has praised Wiedefelds supposed concern for safety culture, saying to the Post in March that she was impressed with his conduct and management style.

Wiedefelds current budget proposal is based upon the expectation that labor costs for Metro will remain flat in the coming fiscal year. The ATU, which is currently in negotiations with WMATA after the labor agreement expired in June, is expected to accept additional concessions.

Statements by Metro Board Chairman Jack Evans are indicative of the attitude among metro officials. Calling for a federal takeover of the Washington, D.C. transit system last week, Evans, a Democrat, declared, You have to have extraordinary powers--thats the keyYou have to be able to negate contracts, fire people and restructure without outside interference.

Evans added, [W]e have 13,000 employees who take up 70 percent of our budget Do we have too many people? Are the pensions and retirements too generous? You change all that, you get out of the binding-arbitration situation.

The Transport Workers Union (TWU) at the transit system in New York City, the largest in the US, has already accepted the ban on strikes and an anti-democratic binding arbitration system. In Philadelphia, where the TWU just shut down a week-long strike by nearly 5,000 workersin order to bolster the vote for Clintonunion officials say they would prefer binding arbitration.

In addition to the comments by Evans and others, it was reported in the Washington Post in February that Wiedefeld had appointed Washington attorney Kevyn Orr to his supervisory team. Orr, a Democrat, presided over the municipal bankruptcy of Detroit, which cut constitutionally protected pensions for city workers who labored for decades to achieve decent retirements.

Commenting on the appointment of Orr, the Post quotes an anonymous WMATA official as saying, Well have discussions with the jurisdictions We might have discussions with the unions, either in the context of contracts or in the area of pensions and other benefits. Theres a potential for a lot of engagement on reducing our expenses.

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Three weeks after a disparate US-backed force of Iraqi Army troops, Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) militia, Sunni tribal groupings and Shiite militias launched an offensive to retake Mosul from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), reports are beginning to emerge that provide a glimpse of the impact on the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside the city.

Earlier this month, Kurdish militiamen who had captured the village of Fadhiliya to the north-east of Mosul told the Guardian that US air strikes in support of their attack had killed a family of eight, including three children. The report is one of the few in the western media that has referred to civilian casualties as a result of the hundreds of air strikes and relentless artillery bombardment being unleashed on buildings suspected of being used by ISIS fighters. It is suspected, however, that anywhere up to 1.5 million people, including some 600,000 children, are still in the city and its surrounds.

According to the United Nations, barely 20,000 civilians have escaped from Mosul since the start of the offensive on October 17. The primary reason being given for the low number is that ISIS has forced people to retreat with its fighters before government forces capture outlying towns and villages. Numerous reports claim that ISIS is using civilians as human shields at locations such as Mosul airport and strategic points throughout the city. The Islamist extremists have also allegedly murdered hundreds of people who raised opposition.

There is little doubt that ISIS terror is a major factor in preventing people fleeing from the city, as are the minefields, improvised explosive devices and other booby traps that the extremists have set to block or slow the advance of the government forces.

A no less significant factor, however, is the fear within the civilian population of bloody reprisals against them by government forces and pro-government militias who view the predominantly Sunni Arab citizens of Mosul as accomplices of the Islamist movement. During the US-directed assaults on the western Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, hundreds of men and boys were murdered or brutally treated by both Iraqi Army personnel and militias known as the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU).

There are already allegations of atrocities against civilians by anti-ISIS Sunni tribal militias who are taking part in the government operations around Mosul. On November 2, the British Telegraph reported that in the village of Makuk, a Sunni-based PMU militia had brutally beaten young men, put them inside chicken cages and strapped some to the front of vehicles. The report did not indicate whether any of the victims of abuse had been killed.

Lynn Maalouf, a research officer for Amnesty International, told the Telegraph: The Iraqi authorities have repeatedly failed to stop revenge attacks or investigate crimes by militias from the Popular Mobilisation Units, who are also participating in the Mosul offensive. This has fostered a dangerous culture of impunity in which perpetrators of such attacks feel they have free rein to commit crimes and go unpunished.

Accounts as to the nature of the fighting taking place in the residential suburbs of Mosul provide every reason to suspect that large casualties are being inflicted on civilians who are either unable or unwilling to leave their homes.

An October 31 article by the Guardian, describing Iraqi soldiers backed by airstrikes and artillery advancing into the eastern-most neighbourhoods, stated that its source told them at least two families were reported to have been killed in the bombardment.

A CNN camera crew accompanying a government Army convoy were caught up in an ISIS ambush that lasted for some 24 hours. CNN reported that the crew had to shelter at times in peoples homesmany with children who cared for the CNNers while mortars exploded outside.

A November 6 report by Al Jazeera described bloody street-to-street combat on both the eastern and southern edges of the city. Counter-attacks by ISIS included suicide bombers driving explosive-laden vehicles into government forces, who answered with artillery and air strikes against suspected extremist positions in houses and other buildings.

Air strikes are being carried out by aircraft from the US, Britain, France, Australia and Lebanon, as well as the air force of the Iraqi government. On the ground, Iraqi and Kurdish forces are accompanied by military personnel from the US, Britain, Australia, Canada, Germany and Italy, who are serving as so-called advisors or the observers who direct aerial or artillery bombardments. American Marine and French Army artillery units are taking part in the assault.

Iraqi government sources have made conflicting claims that anywhere between 750 and 2,000 ISIS militantsout of an estimated 5,000 in the cityhave been killed since the offensive was begun on October 17. No figures have been released concerning the casualties suffered by the government and KRG forces. American military publication Stars & Stripes reported on November 7 that local news reports estimate hundreds of anti-Islamic State troops have been killed or injured.

Over the coming weeks, intense urban fighting will be taking place as the Iraqi forces move ever deeper into the actual city districts of Mosul. At a media briefing on November 7, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook flatly declared that the decision as to whether American Special Forces troops would fight alongside them would be taken by US commander in Iraq, General Stephen Townsend.

The US military is also playing the lead role in the offensive that was announced on November 6 against ISISs so-called capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa. At least 300 American Special Forces personnel are on the ground with the predominantly Kurdish militia of the US-backed and armed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF is the main US-funded and armed faction seeking to overthrow the Russian-backed Syrian government that joined the operations the US launched against ISIS after it captured Mosul in June 2014.

A US air strike on Tuesday on the village of al-Heesha, some 45 kilometres north of Raqqa, reportedly killed at least 23 civilians.
The European Commission (EC) has indicated a possible investigation into the deal struck last month between the UK Conservative government and Japans auto-manufacturer Nissan.

Nissan is to build two key models at its Sunderland plant after it was given support and assurances over the possible impact of Britains exit from the European Union (EU). Business Secretary Greg Clark confirmed that one such assurance is that the government will seek tariff-free access to EU markets for the car industry, while denying that a cheque book was involved. The plant employs 7,000 people.

Any such agreement may be in breach of EU rules against providing unfair state aid to companies, which govern the UK until the conclusion of Brexit. An EC spokesperson said, The UK authorities have not notified any support to Nissan for assessment under our state aid rules and weve therefore not taken any formal view of this matter.

The deal was announced just weeks after CEO Carlos Ghosn threatened that Nissan would only build the Qashqai and the X-Trail SUV models in Britain if he received a guarantee of compensation to offset the cost of any trade tariffs should Britain leave the EUs single market. At stake is a double-figure tariff on thousands of car components imported from the EU and on the export of more than half the production lines to the EU.

The decision prompted a storm of protest from other auto manufacturers in Britain, along with the aerospace, defence and pharmaceutical industries and the financial institutionsall denouncing the secret deal, demanding to know what assurances had been given and insisting on similar concessions for themselves. All these companies are concerned about regulation, the ability to recruit foreign staff, access to science funding as well as trade barriers.

Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed Nissans announcement as fantastic news and a vote of confidence in the UK. It is nothing of the sort. It sheds light on the politically servile relationship between the government and major corporations and financial institutions. Post-Brexit, all of them are lobbying Downing Street, demanding promises and policies to ensure their continued and increased profitability that can only come from the increased exploitation of the working class in a global race to the bottom.

Just four days later, the government was forced to admit that it had made a written commitment to support Nissan, but denied that it had made any special concessions. It outlined some of the details of its letter to Nissan, but declined to publish the agreement because it contained commercially sensitive information.

Clark told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that there had been lots of communications between us at the highest levels. The governments key objective in its negotiations with the EU would be to secure continued tariff-free access to the Single Market, he stressed. His letter apparently outlined four elements of the governments support for the auto industry: continued support for competitiveness, an increase in small and medium sized firms involved in the industrys supply-chain, the backing of research and development, as well as seeking unencumbered trade.

Commentators have seized on this as indicating that the government, which seemed to be leaning in its public comments towards a Hard Brexit, including losing access to the Single Market, was in reality seeking a Soft Brexit, or customs union with the EU at least for key sectors.

However, this is not in the governments power to deliver. Sectoral deals are a non-starter with the EU, since others would follow suit, presaging the collapse of the EU under a mess of protection and subsidies. Furthermore, the World Trade Organisations (WTO) most favoured nation principle means that Britain would have to offer tariff-free access to the rest of the world as well.

The EU has already indicated that the primary condition for Britains customs-free access to the Single Market is dependent on the acceptance of the free movement of people and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. May has rejected both of these in deference to the Conservative Partys most xenophobic right wing.

Even if the government were to accept these conditions without splitting the Tory party, it is still far from clear that it will be able to reach an agreement with the EU over access to the Single Market.

Crucially then, the governments only bankable pledge is open-ended commitment to fund training and skills, regional relocation grants, scientific research and keeping industry competitive. The least that can be said of the first three assurances is that it will end up costing the earth for the taxpayer and must come at the expense of other social expenditure. This is under conditions where the Institute of Fiscal Studies has forecast lower tax receipts than expected in last Marchs budget, due to weak growth and increased borrowing of 25 billion by 2019-20.

At the same time, keeping the industry competitive and bringing home the supply chain lost to international rivals means a pledge to enforce a low-wage regime, along with the removal of what remains of the social safety net to ensure the acceptance of slave labour conditions, and a dictatorial regime to enforce it.

This has done the trick for Nissan, which has said it wanted to develop Sunderland into a super plant that would build more than 600,000 cars a year. Didier Leroy, the chief competitive officer and executive vice-president of Toyota, which has a large factory in Derbyshire, also said that he had trust in the UK government that it will offer fair treatment for companies when negotiating its exit from the EU.

Jaguar Land Rover, the largest auto manufacturer in the UK, admitted that it too had been reassured by the government about access to the free market during private discussions.

It is believed that the government has promised to protect farmers, construction industries, care homes and the National Health Service that are dependent upon low-wage migrant workers. The big banks are also determined to retain the free movement of their staff and the ability to sell their services across Europe.

This is the real meaning of post-Brexit Britain: a bonanza for big business and financial elite, who can afford to lobby the government, via an escalating offensive against the working class, for innumerable forms of State Aid outlawed under EU law, and sweetheart deals.

The trade unions for their part have welcomed Nissans announcement, as did Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who made only qualified remarks, with concerns about a secret deal between the government and the corporations and the importance of equal treatment for all industries and manufacturers.
Two people were killed last week in armed clashes that broke out in the small town of Curimanai in Perus eastern state of Ucayali.

The bloody battle erupted between rival factions supporting the towns former mayor, Loiber Rocha, and his interim replacement, Delsy Vera.

Rocha had been removed from office after being re-elected to a third term as mayor in 2014 and spent at least six months as a fugitive before a local court cancelled a warrant seeking his arrest on corruption charges. After the court ruling, Perus election board restored him to his post as mayor.

According to local police, a crowd over over 100 people, some armed with guns, gathered outside the municipal building to prevent Rocha from returning to office, clashing with police and the long-time mayors supporters.

The two killed in the ensuing clash both died from gunshot wounds. Another 16 civilians were reported injured, along with 17 policemen brought in to quell the violence.

Mayor Rocha was charged with negotiating an inflated contract to pay $600,000 for road-building machinery for road improvements that never materialized.

The local government receives some $1.4 million annually from the US-based company Duke Energy in the form of taxes on a local natural gas well and processing plant. Nonetheless, half of the areas children suffer from chronic malnutrition and the town lacks both running water and sewage facilities.

This incident in a remote corner of Peru took place as recently elected President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski marked his first 100 days in office last week. It is emblematic of the crisis and corruption, as well as social inequality and dependence upon foreign capital, confronting the country as a whole.

Kuczynski, popularly known as PPK, is a former World Bank and International Monetary Fund official who went on to found a private equity firm, making a fortune off of Latin American privatizations and rapacious corporate restructuring deals.

Wall Street regards PPK, who gained American citizenship, as one of its own. The Wall Street ratings agency Moodys Investors Services issued a report this week predicting a renewed expansion in private sector investment and a better operating environment for corporate and finance capital, after a contraction in private investment in Peru by 4 percent in 2016.

To further this image of a better operating environment for foreign capital, Kuczynski has adopted the guise of a champion of an anti-corruption drive and a crackdown on crime.

Yet, within his first 100 days in office, his administration has been hit with its own series of corruption scandals, which are representative of a longstanding political system in which kickbacks and bribery are commonplace.

On October 2, PPKs presidential health advisor, Carlos Moreno, was forced to resign after a tape emerged in which he offered to funnel patients from the General Health System (Sistema Integral de Salud--SIS) to clinics run by the Archdiocese of Lima in return for a kickback. Moreno is heard in the recording describing the scheme as a gold mine and telling administrators, You dont know how much money we are going to make.

It was not the first time that Moreno, the most politically connected doctor in the country, had been charged with corruption. He had worked in previous administration, including that of Kuczynskis immediate predecessor, Ollanta Humala, and that of the dictatorial Alberto Fujimori. In addition to his public post, he was personal physician to not only Kuczynski, but also Lourdes Nano, former leader and presidential candidate of the right-wing Partido Popular Cristiano (PPC), former President Alan Garcia and various other legislators and party leaders.

Moreno faces seven corruption charges and could face a jail sentence of up to 15 years.

Following on the heels of the Moreno scandal, it was announced at the end of last month that Deputy Agriculture Minister Juan Carlos Gonzales was being charged with having negotiated inflated contracts and political kickbacks in connection with Perus school lunch program.

The corruption crises mirror those that have dogged the right-wing government of President Mauricio Macri in Argentina, like Kuczynski a wealthy businessman, whose election victory over the Peronists a year ago was hailed by the Western media as part of the end of the so-called turn to the left in Latin America. Both Macris vice president and his public media minister have been placed under investigation for corruption, while he himself was implicated in offshore dealings by the Panama Papers.

The right-wing turn being pursued by Kuczynski and Macri, not to mention Brazils Michel Temer, brought to power through the impeachment of Workers Party (PT) President Dilma Rousseff, was prepared by the anti-working class policies pursued by their supposedly left predecessors. In Perus case, Humala, an ex-army officer who was first elected on basis of vague nationalist demagogy and promises to promote social equality, swiftly emerged as the most pliant servant of the foreign banks and corporations, particularly the major mining companies.

In the wake of the initial corruption revelations surrounding his health adviser, and a sharp drop in his approval ratings, Kuczynski enacted a so-called civil death law that would supposedly bar anyone convicted on corruption charges of ever again holding public position.

Kuczynski was able to unilaterally implement the law under decree powers that the Peruvian congress unanimously granted him last September in relation to crime, corruption and reorganizing the state-run energy firm, Petroperu. The 90-day emergency powers relating to these areas were approved with the support of the pseudo-left Frente Amplio.

Kuczynskis anti-corruption rhetoric has gone hand-in-hand with increasing attacks on the Peruvian working class.

A worker was killed in a confrontation on October 18 at the Las Bambas mega-mining project in the Apurimac region, one of the poorest areas of the country. Some 5,000 peasants have blocked access roads to the giant copper mine, which is run by the Chinese firm MMG, stalling its operations. The killing has cast light on a system in which the foreign mining companies make payments to federal police forces to protect their facilities, thereby ensuring their loyalty in confrontations with Peruvian workers and peasants.

Meanwhile, doctors went on a 72-hour strike Tuesday to protest deteriorating conditions in Ministry of Health hospitals, demanding an increase in the sectors budget and protesting official corruption and the failure to pay previously negotiated salary increases.
A public discussion in Melbourne last Thursday provided a chilling insight into the calculations of a layer within the Australian foreign policy and military establishment that now anticipates that US-China strategic rivalry is likely to trigger a war between the nuclear-armed powers.

The panel discussion was organised by La Trobe University and titled How to respond to Chinas rise? The main speakers were Hugh White and Linda Jakobsen.

Jakobsen is formerly of the Lowy Institute and currently a visiting professor at the University of Sydneys United States Studies Centre, which was created in 2006 to promote the US-Australian alliance and Australian involvement in US-led wars of aggression.

White has a long record within the military-intelligence apparatus, having been an advisor to former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, a senior official in the defence department and an intelligence analyst with the top-level Office of National Assessments. More recently he has worked with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Australian National University.

White opened the meeting by repeating the criticisms he has previously levelled at Washingtons pivot to Asia, which has seen an aggressive attempt to militarily and diplomatically isolate China as a means of maintaining US imperialisms domination of the entire Asia-Pacific region.

In 2012, White wrote The China Choice: Why America Should Share Power, opposing the Australian governments participation in the Obama administrations reckless confrontation of Beijing. He remains the most prominent critic of the pivot from within the Australian foreign policy establishment. His remarks on Thursday, however, underscore the fact that this minority position within the ruling class is no less militarist and pro-war than the dominant rival camp, which backs an unwavering commitment to the US strategic alliance and Washingtons confrontation of China.

The public event was billed as a debate between White and Jakobsen, with the latter defending current US and Australian government policies. Yet far more united the two speakers than divided them.

Speaking of the pivot and the associated geostrategic calculation that the Chinese government will accept subordination to US imperialism, White declared: Lets be absolutely clearI really hope this policy works I love US primacy. Its been terrifically good for Australia. I love the rules-based order in Asia which it has supported. It has given us the forty best years in Asias long history. And if it could last forever, no-one would be happier than me.

Having whitewashed Washingtons bloody record in the regionincluding waging brutal wars of aggression in Korea and Vietnam, and backing countless right-wing dictatorshipsWhite expressed regret that the situation had irrevocably changed. Wishes dont make policy, he concluded.

White reviewed both Chinas economic expansion and the decline of US global power. He pointed to a series of US strategic initiatives in the past 15 yearsincluding Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, keeping the Russians in a box, and containing Chinathat all failed. Given this, he stated, there was no legitimate grounds to expect Beijing to back down in the face of US threats and provocations.

He continued: I take seriously the risk of war. A lot of people find that oddbecause they think, how could this possibly come to war, how could that be in anyones interest? Well it wouldnt be, just for the record, but that doesnt mean it wont happen. Anyone who is very confident that escalating rivalry between the US and China, over who is the leader of the Asian order, will not result in war must be very confident that one of them will back off. And the question is: who are you expecting to back off? If neither of them does, then thats how wars start. Thats what happened in 1914.

After having raised the spectre of another world war, White gave short shrift to Jakobsens assurances that the US-China relationship was highly stable and mature.

He told the meeting: Theres surprisingly little serious strategic communication [between the US and China]. Very important people can meet in very expensive rooms and drink very glamorous mineral water, and still say nothing to one another of substance. And I see very little evidence that the United States and China have had a serious discussion about their nuclear relationship.

White repeatedly warned of the danger of a nuclear war between the two powers.

The scary thing is that the mutual expectation [of Washington and Beijing] that the other will back down will carry up through an escalating conventional conflict to the nuclear threshold, he stated. One of the reasons why thats a real danger is that nobody knows what the nuclear threshold is. This is one of the big differences between the situation in Asia today and the situation in Europe during the Cold War. Everybody [then] knew what the threshold was. It was very clear what it was you had to doif you started up your T-72 [tank] and drove it through Checkpoint Charlie, you were going to start a nuclear war. It was geographically defined by a line down the middle of Europe, to the nearest metre.

But nobody knows what the equivalent line in East Asia is today. And I think there is a risk that both sides in a conflict, as it starts to escalate, as it easily would, will find themselves worrying about what the other guy would do, and start to think, well maybe I have to move first

These remarks point to the urgent need for the working class to intervene against the rapidly escalating danger that US imperialism and its allies, including the Australian government, will trigger a third world war that would see incalculable devastation around the world.

White inadvertently pointed to the ruling elites conspiracy of silence on the war danger. Australian political leaders are much more conscious of the seriousness of the strategic rivalry between the US and China than they have ever expressed publicly, he explained. Our political leaders dont speak in private as they do in public. They dont really assume that the United States and China are just getting on fine. They know this is a really serious power political rivalry, the outcome of which is far from clear.

Confronted with the spectre of a nuclear holocaust, Whites proposed response is as reactionary as it is utopian. He advocates a vast expansion of military spendingwith the additional resources inevitably paid for by the working classto allow a more independent Australian imperialism to somehow pressure Washington to cede geostrategic dominance in East Asia to China.

The only realistic perspective, however, is for the working class of Australia to unite with their class brothers and sisters in the US, China, and internationally in a joint political struggle based on the perspective of socialist internationalism against war and against the capitalist system that gives rise to war.
As the Socialist Equality Partys candidate standing in the West Virginia House of Delegates race in District 16, I am pleased to report that our campaign received 902 votes November 8, or 2.3 percent of the vote.

The total vote was split seven ways among three Democrats, three Republicans and myself. The winners were two incumbent delegates and one former delegate, all well-funded and prominent in local advertising and media coverage. I was the only alternative candidate running in the district, and one of only 18 minor party or independent candidates statewide.

The SEP put forward the only socialist option in the state. The campaign was run solely on a volunteer basis, with supporters leafleting door-to-door in neighborhoods for miles after work and on weekends. We campaigned in parking lots, at festivals, on campuses and on the streets. Numerous public meetings were held on the danger of world war, the nature of the US elections, and the need for a socialist alternative.

The campaign received no corporate donations, was virtually boycotted by the local television news, and had no endorsements from special interest groups. The socialist campaign was of an entirely different character than those of the establishment parties. Each of the 902 votes cast for the SEP in West Virginia were hard-fought and well-earned.

The vote for the SEP represents the shift to the left in working class consciousness over the past few years and a desire among millions of people for an end to war, austerity and police violence.

In articulating the real interests of the working class, the SEP campaign won a warm response from working people in West Virginia, as well as substantial support from neighboring areas of southern Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Tennessee. Workers from all over the world sent well wishes to my Facebook campaign page.

While petitioning to get onto the ballot, SEP campaigners spoke to thousands of people in Huntington, West Virginia. Overwhelmingly, residents felt alienated from the two corporate parties and said they did not like either presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

In the middle of the campaign, the SEP had to file a lawsuit to prevent the state from removing my name and the name of all independent candidates from the ballot by seeking to retroactively apply an earlier filing deadline.

The SEP campaign emphasized the need for an internationalist perspective, breaking from nationalist and localist politics, and the need for a new anti-war movement based in the working class and on a socialist program. This was received warmly by many people, particularly younger residents whose whole lives are in the shadow of the war on terror and who feel globally connected through the Internet.

Workers and youth again and again stated that money should be put into providing good jobs, education and health care. The social priorities expressed in the trillions of dollars spent on war and bank bailouts were those of the wealthy, not ordinary Americans. The SEPs program of social rightswhere jobs, education, retirement and more are guaranteed to all peoplewas met with enthusiasm among countless workers.

In two town hall events, we articulated the need for an emergency jobs program to applause from large audiences. By contrast, the Republican and Democratic candidates proposed further tax cuts to businesses.

In a state with the worst employment participation rate and in continual danger of catastrophic flooding, there is overwhelming desire for decent jobs and safe physical infrastructure among the population. Only the SEP connected the social devastation to the enrichment of a tiny layer of billionaires, and called for expropriation of these fortunes to be put into rebuilding society and providing good-paying jobs.

In a distorted form, the victory of Trump in Tuesdays presidential election reflected such social grievances. The Republican Party easily carried the state of West Virginia, doing best where the so-called socialist, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, swept the Democratic primaries.

Trumps win has been characterized as the result of racism and sexism among white workers. But behind the support for both Trump and Sanders was a tidal wave of anger and despair over intolerable poverty and social deterioration. Sanders support for Clinton ensured that this anger could be monopolized by the political right.

While living conditions have continued to worsen nearly a decade after the 2008 crashreaching depression levels in several West Virginia countiesthe Democrats have insisted that the economy is strong, unemployment is low, and that the main area of concern was over issues of racial and sexual identity. White workers were told they were privileged and that their expectation of a decent standard of living was part of the problem.

Trump based his appeal in the devastated Appalachian coalfields on a promise to bring back the coal industry and revitalize communities with jobs and money. This, like his campaign slogan promising to Make America great again, is a cynical fraud that will be quickly exposed by the actions of his administration.

In the absence of a socialist movement, the danger is that social opposition will be channeled behind an extreme right-wing agenda. This will expose many of the same disenfranchised and vulnerable layers of the population that voted for Trump to further economic and social victimization.

The election was not the culmination of the SEPs work in West Virginia. It was just the beginning. In the days ahead, we will be fighting to build a socialist movement of workers to fight for our real class interests. We urge all workers, youth, students, and others to join us in this struggle.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A request has been put in from one of the men charged in the death of Florida State law professor Dan Markel to waive his lawyer fees because he can no longer afford them.

Sigfredo Garcia's attorneys filed the motion on Tuesday to request that his lawyer fees be waived due to his ex-wife Katherine Magbanua's arrest and charges as a co-defendant in the case involving Markel's death.

The request stated that Magbanua was responsible for paying the remaining balance for counsel fees but was no longer able to. It also said that Garcia had been unable to help with the balance either, as he has been in custody since May.

Garcia's attorneys asked that the waive the fees in so that they can submit their evidence.

Garcia's next court date is a pre-trial case management hearing on Dec. 6. Magbanua is also scheduled for her own pre-trial case management hearing on the same day.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A FEMA/state disaster recovery center is opening in two counties who were recently approved for federal aid.

Wakulla and Taylor counties, both of which were approved for federal aid by FEMA on Nov. 3, will both get a disaster recovery center (DRC). The centers are designed to bring information about state and federal assistance so residents can get the help they need.

The DRC's will have representatives from FEMA, Florida Division of Emergency Management and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) there to help residents learn about the kinds of assistance available, learn about the appeals process, and get updates regarding their application status.

The DRC is Taylor County will open at the Steinhatchee Community Center from Nov. 14 through Nov. 16. The center will open at 9 a.m. on those days, and close at 6 p.m.

In Wakulla County, the DRC will be open at the Wakulla County Recreation Department from Nov. 17 through Nov. 19. On those days, the center will open at 9 a.m. and close at 6 p.m.

Many services offered at DRCs are also available by calling the FEMA helpline at 1-800-621-3362. Survivors with questions regarding the application or the appeals process, or who need to register for assistance, may also visit online.
This journal serves a community of small businesses worldwide. Here John Wiley Spiers addresses topics on business start-up and expansion and reports relevant daily headlines.John Wiley Spiers is a small business international trader, author of HOW SMALL BUSINESS TRADES WORLDWIDE , and lecturer at various colleges.



For those interested in becoming members of this community, contact John at john@johnspiers.com.
In downtown Portland, across Southwest 5th Avenue from City Hall, stands a tall glass and aluminum tower. Inside this building, the Pacwest Center, is a safe.

This safe keeps many secrets, but this story is about the disputed contents of a single envelope. Inside the envelope were the last wishes of a holy man, instructions to be revealed after his death.

Many of the holy man's followers were successful entrepreneurs: One founded Kettle Chips, a Salem-based company whose owners sold it in 2006 for a reported $320 million; others co-founded Golden Temple foods in Eugene, a company famous for its Yogi Tea brand. More than a few of his followers were practicing lawyers. But the holy man trusted one lawyer in particular with the most sensitive matters of money, family and legacy.

The holy man was Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji. Most people called him Yogi Bhajan (pronounced Budg'un). He looked the part, wearing robes and a spotless white turban, his handsome face hidden behind a long, wavy beard. Yogi Bhajan was often photographed looking into the distance; something in his eyes revealed intelligence.

Beginning in the 1970s, Yogi Bhajan helped introduce white America to Kundalini yoga, and recruited thousands of seekers into a new religious movement, Sikh Dharma. Today the group has thousands of followers around the world and hundreds in Oregon.

The trusted lawyer was Roy D. Lambert, a tax specialist and partner at the Portland firm of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt. Lambert is not a member of Sikh Dharma. But Lambert had come to know Yogi Bhajan in the 1990s through some legal work he had done for Golden Temple. His square, clean-shaven face and neatly parted hair marked him as an outsider among his turbaned, bearded clients.

When Yogi Bhajan died in October 2004, Lambert asked that the safe be opened and the envelope brought to him. It contained Yogi Bhajan's will.

Yogi Bhajan's last wishes would shape the fate of thousands of people, the control of corporations worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and the future of a unique religious group with thousands of followers across the United States and the world.

What Lambert says were in Yogi Bhajan's last wishes put the control of Sikh Dharma's holdings into the hands of a few men and women who have since become instantly wealthy, and who have paid Lambert handsomely to do their legal work. Those who lost control of the group's holdings, including members of the clergy and Yogi Bhajan's own widow and children, believe they were the victims of a fraud.

Six years after Yogi Bhajan's death, on a late spring day in 2011, Lambert took the stand in a courtroom in downtown Portland, a key witness in a civil trial fraught with alleged deception, theft, sex and sacrilege.

The civil suit, brought by a group of Yogi Bhajan's followers from New Mexico and later joined by the Oregon attorney general, does not name Lambert as a defendant. (He is a named defendant in a separate civil complaint filed by Yogi Bhajan's widow and children, in U.S. District Court in Portland, alleging racketeering; he is also the subject of a related Oregon State Bar complaint.) Instead, the suit targets a few Portland Sikhs who have assumed control of the corporate and nonprofit empire built over four decades by Yogi Bhajan's followers.

The legal cases are extraordinarily complex, with over 800 trial exhibits and thousands of pages of filings aimed at sorting out the byzantine structure of Yogi Bhajan's organization. It's all the more confusing given that nearly all the parties share a surname taken after their religious vows: "Khalsa."

Despite the complexity, this is a familiar kind of story: A family argues over a will.

Yet because the will belonged to the head of an obscure churchand because this church has a great deal of moneythe legal disputes represent much more.

Many members of the faith are pained by the disputes, but also amazed. The legal process has, for the first time, opened a window into opaque business dealings at the highest levels of their church.

"This is a huge corruption case. It really reads like a spy novel," says Hari Nam Singh Khalsa, a longtime Portland Sikh convert now living in New York City.

"It's like the Catholic Church," Hari Nam adds. "My mother-in-law was an absolutely saintly person, but the people running her church were basically criminals. They may look like they're saints, and talk like they're saintsbut you dangle 5 cents in front of them, and what do you know?"

The defendants insist they've done nothing wrong. They say they earned every penny of the raises they bestowed upon themselves. And they claim Yogi Bhajan left them rightfully in charge after his death.

Depending on who tells his story, Yogi Bhajan was either a charismatic spiritual leader who rescued young hippies from the 1970s drug culture, or a huckster who concocted a woo-woo sect in order to support a lifestyle he could never otherwise have attained. Or both.

He was born with the name Harbhajan Singh Puri to middle-class parents in the Punjab region, in an area that is now part of Pakistan. Certainly, his first few decades did not hint at the prominence he would achieve: Yogi Bhajan worked as a customs agent for 15 years before emigrating to North America to teach yoga.

"He started teaching yoga in 1969. By 1972 there were people [in America] wearing turbans," says Sat Hanuman Singh Khalsa, a Troutdale TSA agent who joined Sikh Dharma in 1971.

Bhajan later made friends with U.S. senators, governors and Hollywood stars. In a day before Bollywood and Slumdog Millionaire, he helped introduce America to traditions from the Indian subcontinent.

Sikhism is only 500 years old, but it is the eighth-largest world religion, with more than 30 million followers. (See sidebar, page 20.) Yogi Bhajan added a New Agey twist to traditional Sikh practice, with his embrace of yoga (more of a Hindu thing), astrology and "tantric numerology."

But the most obvious difference between Punjabi Sikhs and followers of Yogi Bhajan is that most of the latter are American converts. If you meet a white hippie in a Sikh turban who practices Kundalini yoga, odds are pretty good he or she is a member of Sikh Dharma.

"What Yogi Bhajan accomplished," says his nephew, Surjit P. Soni, "is truly remarkable. He came without a dime in his pocket. He started teaching yoga, and formed a series of nonprofits. He encouraged entrepreneurialism among a bunch of people that were basically disenfranchised and lost, and created at least two significant businesses to perpetuate the nonprofits.a

Under Yogi Bhajan's guidance, and over a period of decades, the new American Sikhs established a real community.

They built temples; today, there are Sikh Dharma gurdwara in Eugene, Salem and Beaverton, and across the river in Vancouver, Wash. Yogi Bhajan's followers also established themselves in California, Maryland, New York City, North India and South Africa, but the place Yogi Bhajan and his closest advisers called home was Espanola, a small town north of Santa Fe, N.M.

They marriedsometimes, in pairings arranged by Yogi Bhajanand raised Sikh children.

And, just as importantly for the furtherance of Sikh Dharma, they started profitable companies.

According to Kamalla Rose Kaur, a former Sikh Dharma member in Washington state who now runs a website denouncing the group as a cult, "Yogi Bhajan just slammed the men [in the group] to make money. With the money, they could buy more stuff for Yogi Bhajan."

Although it appears Yogi Bhajan had little in the way of money or assets, he had a luxurious lifestyle, with a private chauffeur and a large personal staff of secretaries, attendants and nurses who worked as much as 16 hours a day, according to courtroom testimony, interviews with Sikh Dharma members and published reports.

In the rugged high desert of northern New Mexico, members of Sikh Dharma founded Akal Security. At first, the company hired only Sikhs to guard shops and restaurants. Today, Akal is a $500 million-a-year company that protects federal courthouses across the country (and at least one U.S. embassy overseas), has more than 1,000 guards at government buildings in Washington, D.C., and, two months ago, expanded its transportation security business with a $150 million baggage-screening contract at the Kansas City airport. The founders donated the company to the church in 1980; it is now controlled by the defendants in the Portland lawsuit.

Meanwhile, in the lush, green valley of Eugene, a group of about 15 Oregon Sikhs founded Golden Temple foods. Having purchased a bakery and a granola recipe in the early 1970s, the Eugene Sikhs woke up about 3 am for prayersas devout Sikh Dharma practitioners still do todayand shared the work: mixing granola, baking bread and making deliveries.

Although members came and went, both companies grew steadily, a real achievement considering that the converted Sikhs had little access to outside capital. In addition to individual tithing, members sometimes donated their companies to the church, with the understanding that profits would be used for the good of the community.

"Many have suffered discrimination because of their appearance," says Hari Nam Singh Khalsa, a longtime Portlander and Sikh convert. "If you have a family business, itas a place where people can find work.a

For the next three decades, Yogi Bhajan and his white Sikhs kept a low profile. There were headlines now and then.

(After 9/11, a number of Sikh cab drivers and business owners suffered violence and vandalism in a wave of xenophobic retribution; presumably the culprits mistook the Sikh turban for a form of Islamic dress. In response, members of Sikh Dharma joined Punjabi-American Sikhs and Muslim groups in public appeals for tolerance. )

For the most part, though, Yogi Bhajan's followers focused on growing their revenues and chanting their mantras. They kept to themselves and avoided confrontation like they avoided meat and alcohol.

Until he died.

Yogi Bhajan was, by all accounts, mindful of his legacy, and careful to ensure that the movement he founded would continue after his death.

But if he'd hoped to avoid the internal conflicts that tend to follow when an organization loses a powerful leader, it didn't quite work.

Whether Yogi Bhajan expressly chose successors among anyone in his inner circleapart from a religious authorityis a matter of dispute. Who should rightfully serve on the boards of the corporations that hold Sikh Dharma's assets is at issue in at least two separate lawsuits in Portland.

What is clear is this:

None of the people who wound up in control of the Sikh Dharma organization are Yogi Bhajan's wife, Bibiji Inderjit Kaur Puri, and children in Los Angeles, who have filed a federal lawsuit against the people who did wind up in charge.

None of them are the spiritual authorities of Sikh Dharma in New Mexico.

And most of the people who wound up in charge of the Sikh Dharma empire no longer look like the other Sikhs.

The four people who control the Sikh Dharma organization, through their seats on the board of a corporation called Unto Infinity, include former members of Yogi Bhajan's personal staff, plus the chief executive of Golden Temple. Three of the four now live in Portland. They are Golden Temple CEO Kartar Singh Khalsa; his domestic partner, Peraim Kaur Khalsa, who was a member of Yogi Bhajan's personal staff; Sikh Dharma's longtime comptroller, Sopurkh Kaur Khalsa; and the organization's strategic and legal planner, Siri Karm Kaur Khalsa, a New Mexico resident.

Those four, who could either not be reached or declined to be interviewed, are at the heart of the lawsuits.

The gist of the complaints against them is that they breached their fiduciary duties by selling off the cereal division of Golden Temple to Hearthside Food Solutions last year for $71 million, of which $21 million went to the Golden Temple managers, including $10 million to Kartar, the CEO. The plaintiffs also say the Unto Infinity board and Golden Temple managers paid themselves inflated salaries even while they reduced support for the Sikh Dharma religious organizations, and for Yogi Bhajan's widow and children.

The court testimony showed that within three years of Yogi Bhajan's death, the four began preparing to restructure Golden Temple in a way that would transfer ownership from the church to a company controlled by Unto Infinity's board. Not long after, Kartar, Peraim and others with Unto Infinity and Golden Temple management traded their robes for business suits. They doffed their turbans and cut their hair.

They allegedly started eating meat and drinking alcohol, both forbidden. Kartar left his wife for Peraim.

Kartar left sleepy Eugene behind, and purchased a $550,000 waterfront condo just north of the Fremont Bridge, where he now lives with Peraim. Earlier this year, Portland police ticketed his Porsche.

Kartar, who bears a passing resemblance to the actor Liam Neeson, now wears his hair short and braided tightly in the back. Born Tom Burns, he met Yogi Bhajan in 1973, at a Kundalini yoga class in Corvallis, and went to work for Golden Temple in Eugene soon after.

He and the three others in charge of Sikh Dharma are, in the minds of many who devoted themselves to Yogi Bhajan for decades, no longer Sikhs.

Soon, a judge in Portland will decide if they deserve the power they attained.

The Oregon Attorney General's office joined the case this year. The state's involvement was all but unprecedented.

"We do not typically intervene in litigation when we believe the charitable interests are being sufficiently represented or protected by private individuals. But given the concerns regarding the private parties' standing, the size of the disputed transaction and some questionable aspects of the transaction, we felt it was appropriate to get involved," Oregon Department of Justice spokesman Tony Green says.

That trial began on May 23, concluded on June 17, and both sidesalong with dozens of Sikhs who traveled from all over the world to watchare awaiting a decision from Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Leslie Roberts.

Roberts gave signals during the course of the trial that she sympathized with the plaintiffs and the stateat least insofar as she believes the cereal division of Golden Temple should not have been sold. But she also made clear that she is uncomfortable with the attorney general's proposed remedythat she appoint a receiver to take charge of the Sikh Dharma organization. As the defendants have noted, such a decision would result in court-appointed clergy, a clear First Amendment problem.

If she only had to decide whether or not the new leaders of Sikh Dharma breached their duties, Roberts' decision might be simple. But the plaintiffs' argument goes deeper than that. They also argue that the new Sikh Dharma leaders in Portland should never have attained their positions in the first place.

There is some evidence to back them up. But the truth of what Yogi Bhajan wanted may never be known.

It all comes back to what wasand what was notin that envelope in the safe in Roy Lambert's office downtown: the yogi's last secret.

What was in the envelope?

Nothing. At least, not the thing that everyone expected.

According to Lambert's own testimony, Yogi Bhajan was supposed to leave two sets of instructions to be followed after his death. The first was to be the name of his chosen successor as spiritual leader of Sikh Dharma. The second was to be a list of directors who would oversee the corporate side of things.

In his court testimony, Lambert claimed that when he opened the envelope containing Yogi Bhajan's will, he found only one name: that of Sikh Dharma's religious authority, Guru Amrit Kaur Khalsa. She was promptly appointed.

But according to Lambert, the second list of names was not in the envelope. As a consequence, control over Yogi Bhajan's and Sikh Dharma's affairs fell to an Oregon nonprofit corporation, Unto Infinity, which is controlled by the four people who are now defendants.

Bizarrely, one year after Yogi Bhajan's death, Lambert wrote an email to a Golden Temple manager in Europe, which was introduced as evidence in the circuit court case. In the email, Lambert states that there was a list of names that Yogi Bhajan intended to run the companiesand that those names included Yogi Bhajan's wife, one of his sons, and 11 others, some of whom are plaintiffs in the Portland circuit court case.

Yet, by 2007, Lambert had switched stories, claiming that the names he wrote about in 2005 were not really the people Yogi Bhajan intended to run the companies.

"I have no basis for understanding why I thought that [2005 list] was true," Lambert said at trial.

In the past years, those who control Sikh Darma's affairs have done well; according to an analysis of the tax returns of the four Unto Infinity board members, from 2007 through 2010, Sopurkh made $515,000, Peraim made $502,000 and Siri Karm made $545,000, while plaintiffs figure Golden Temple CEO Kartar made $15.8 million as a result of the company's asset sale and restructuring. Unto Infinity's lawyer, Lambert, who was originally hired by Kartar in 1992, did well, too.

Lambert claimed at least $300,000 in hourly billings for his work advising Unto Infinity and the Golden Temple executives; more importantly, he has a director's seat on the Legacy of Yogiji Foundation, which manages Sikh Dharma's considerable real estate holdings, and a powerful advisory role with the Unto Infinity board.

Surjit P. Soni, the widow's lawyer, believes Lambert hid or destroyed evidencethe missing list of directors. He wants Lambert stripped of the right to practice law.

"He is as bad an apple, if not a worse apple, than the other four" defendants, Soni says. "I'm absolutely convinced of that."

Lambert denies all such criticism and calls the bar complaint "a joke," but won't say much more.

Im not going to spread this through Willamette Week, Lambert says.

Sikh and Ye Shall Find

The first Sikh, born some 500 years ago in Punjab, was Guru Nanak. He taught that Hindus and Muslims could liberate themselves by abandoning the outward trappings of their respective religions and worshipping one god, whose name is Truth.

Nine other gurus followed, and their teachings constitute Sikh theology. Yogi Bhajan is not one of the 10 Sikh gurus. The movement he founded in America, Sikh Dharma, is to traditional Punjabi Sikhism something like an African Christian folk church is to the Vaticansame basic idea, different execution.

But both branches of the religion share some key tenets. Baptized Sikhs, known as Khalsa, pledge to abstain from consuming meat, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, as well as having sex outside of marriage. Not all Sikhs are Khalsa, but Khalsa by definition are Sikhs. Khalsa dont cut their hair. The men also traditionally carry a dagger, known as a kirpan. Today, so the joke goes, many Khalsa have traded their sacred daggers for a sharp tongue.

WWeek 2015
As officials scramble to reopen Helena High School after a suspected arson caused upwards of $1 million in damage, the three 13-year-olds accused in the case remain in a juvenile detention center.

The teens, two girls and one boy, made their first appearance in youth court on Wednesday afternoon. At the hour-long hearing, the details of their alleged crimes were outlined, but no motives were mentioned.

The three minors, allegedly intoxicated on malt liquor, broke into the school around 9:45 p.m. Monday night, said Sgt. Randy Ranalli with the Helena Police Department. In surveillance video, one of the girls and the boy are seen entering a second-floor janitors' closet and about a minute later smoke starts to billow from the area, he said. Shortly after, the flickering of fire is shown.

Following her apprehension, the girl admitted to starting that blaze, Ranalli said.

"She said she lit a mop on fire in the janitors' closet in the high school," he testified. She then took a lighter out of her bra and handed it to him.

After starting that fire, the same girl, along with the boy, went to another wing of the school and entered a classroom, Ranalli said. In the video, they are both seen lighting posters on fire.

Shortly after that, one of the seven janitors working in the building noticed the smoke as alarms sounded and called 911.

"They could have been seriously injured or killed," Ranalli said of the employees.

In addition to the extensive smoke damage, the fire caused a pipe to burst, flooding the upstairs math wing. Officials canceled all classes Tuesday and Wednesday. A complete tally of the damage has yet to be completed, Ranalli said, but it will be at least six figures if not $1 million.

"It was an absolute mess," Ranalli testified.

He said it also appeared the teens tried to clog a toilet by cramming a math book into it.

All of the teens have been students at Helena Middle School and involved with juvenile probation. Authorities said none of the accused attend Helena High.

The teens, who appeared via teleconference from a detention center in Great Falls, did not speak at the probable cause hearing. The judge said she saw enough evidence for juvenile delinquency petitions based on felony charges of burglary for all three and arson for two of them.

The girl not accused of taking part in the arson aspect of the crimes had been reported a runaway. She was taken into custody outside the school.

The boy attempted to flee from police but was found across the street in Stewart Homes. He told officers he unlawfully entered the school but denied setting any fires. Ranalli said police found a lighter on him when he was apprehended.

The girl who admitted to starting two of the fires ran from the scene. Ranalli caught up with her at her home about a half mile from the school.

Wednesday's testimony also unveiled the criminal history of the three teens, who have all faced charges previously.

When he was 10 years old, the boy was cited for possession of dangerous drugs with intent to distribute. He was caught selling marijuana on school property while an elementary student, according to testimony.

The morning of the fire, a juvenile probation officer was at the home of the girl who admitted to starting the mop and poster ablaze. She is accused in an unrelated theft at a local store, the officer said.

Although her public defender argued the other girl was not accused of arson and therefore should be allowed to be released to a youth home, Judge Kathy Seeley countered that the teen has the worst criminal history of the three and was listed as a runaway at the time of the fire. In addition, she tested positive for amphetamines after she was taken into custody.

She might be the "ringleader," Seeley said.

The girl finished probation a month ago. She had previous charges of theft and assault.

Seeley ordered the teens to stay at the detention center. The matter will be revisited during next week's youth court session.
Lee Ellis, with the environmental health and safety and human resources department of Triumph Actuation Services, left, talks with Danny Valencia, assembly technician, during his shift at the Yakima, Wash. facility on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. Ellis, a Marine, is transitioning into the workforce after a 2009 tour in Afghanistan. (SHAWN GUST/Yakima Herald-Republic)
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First Judicial District Court Judge

A Helena attorney will be the new district judge in Lewis and Clark County.

Michael F. McMahon garnered about 55 percent, or 18,343 of the votes.

His opponent, DeeAnn Cooney, who the governor appointed to take over for a retiring judge, claimed 15,190 votes.

"I'm incredibly blessed," McMahon said Wednesday after receiving the final results.

McMahon congratulated Cooney for a well-fought campaign, calling her a "class act."

These results go along with those from the June primary, when McMahon took 54 percent of the votes. McMahon, a managing member of McMahon, Wall & Hubley, PLLC, is an active bar member in Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota.

McMahon feels his experience in civil cases will fill the void left by retired Judge Jeffrey Sherlock.

"I felt in my mind I was more qualified than she was to be on the bench," he said.

The location of the judgeship in the state's capital means the position oversees a variety of topics, including constitutional law and suits involving Montana agencies. The judge's weekly schedule often contains civil suits, divorces, criminal cases and adoptions.

"I have a lot to learn," McMahon, 51, said. "I'm excited. I'm really excited."

McMahon, a Helena native, said he looks forward to working with Cooney to transition into the position in the First Judicial District, which also includes Broadwater County.

At the time of her appointment to the bench, Cooney was the owner of Cooney Law Firm, a solo practice in Helena. She has been on the bench since January.

-- Angela Brandt, Independent Record

U.S. House

Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke defeated Democrat Denise Juneau to win a second term.

Zinke, a Navy SEAL veteran and a former state lawmaker from Whitefish, focused his campaign on increasing natural resources development and halting refugee resettlements.

Juneau is the outgoing superintendent of public instruction. She was seeking to become the first Native American woman elected to Congress.

Voters were not convinced by Juneau's criticism of Zinke for his strong ties to Donald Trump, nor her claims that Zinke's national political ambitions detracted from his service to Montana citizens.

Rick Breckenridge became the Libertarian Party candidate late in the campaign after the party's first candidate, Mike Fellows, died in a car crash.

-- Associated Press

Supreme Court

In the nonpartisan state Supreme Court race, District Judge Dirk Sandefur defeated University of Montana adjunct law professor Kristen Juras.

Sandefur and Juras were competing to replace retiring Justice Patricia Cotter, who is stepping down after two eight-year terms on the state's highest court.

Sandefur cites his experience as a district judge as qualifying him more than Juras to serve on the seven-member, nonpartisan high court. Juras says justices have diverse legal backgrounds, and she would bring knowledge of the legal issues faced by individuals, farmers and small business owners.

A group of Montana attorneys and the state's trial lawyers' association backs Sandefur. A pro-Juras group run by Republican operative Jake Eaton has produced an ad attacking Sandefur's record as a district judge.

Two justices ran unopposed: Chief Justice Mike McGrath and Justice Jim Shea.

-- Associated Press

Attorney General

Republican Attorney General Tim Fox won re-election by defeating Democrat Larry Jent, a former state legislator from Bozeman.

Fox is a popular attorney general who cracked down on sex offenders by instituting compliance checks and revamped the sex offender registry during his first term. He also has expanded an anti-drunken driving program started by then-Attorney General Steve Bullock and hired a prescription drug abuse prevention coordinator.

-- Associated Press

Secretary of State

Republican Corey Stapleton beat Democrat Monica Lindeen in the race for an open seat for Montana secretary of state that had been held by Democrats.

The two veteran Montana politicians were competing for the open post vacated by Linda McCulloch, a Democrat who served two terms.

Stapleton is a former state legislator from Billings who most recently lost in the 2014 U.S. House Republican primary against Zinke. Lindeen, the outgoing state auditor, was seeking to keep the seat in Democratic hands.

Roger Roots was the Libertarian candidate for the job, which administers elections and oversees businesses in the state.

-- Associated Press

Auditor

Jesse Laslovich, the chief legal counsel for the state auditor's office, had hoped to replace his boss as auditor but was defeated by Republican state Sen. Matt Rosendale.

Both candidates have served in the Legislature. Rosendale tells the Great Falls Tribune newspaper his top priority would be to protect citizens from fraud and theft, and that he would try to reduce the cost of auto, workers' compensation and health insurance.

Laslovich says he would seek transparency in health care pricing, fight investment fraud against senior citizens, protect public land access and try to bring down the cost of high air ambulance bills.

-- Associated Press

Initiatives

Montana voters overwhelmingly passed Constitutional Initiative 116, which is intended to ensure that crime victims' rights and interests are respected and protected by law. The initive passed by a margin of 65-34 percent with all precints fully reporting.

Montana voters rejected Initiative 177, which would generally prohibit the use of traps and snares for animals by the public on any public lands, with certain exceptions. The initiative was voted down by a margin of 62-37 percent with all precincts fully reporting.

Montana voters rejected Initiative 181, which would promote research into developing therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries. The measure failed by a margin of 57-42 percent with all precincts reporting.

-- Independent Record
Former US president Bill Clinton will not be returning to the White House, this time as the man behind the woman. As he stood by his wife, former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while she delivered her concession to the American people, Bill Clinton was spotted wiping away an errant tear.

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Hillary Clinton was also moved, her voice at times wavering, as she delivered her statement to her heartbroken supporters on Wednesday. She did not address them the previous night, as the election's results were made clear. And when she did finally speak, it was two hours later than scheduled. Such can happen even with the best made plans.

Hillary Clinton concedes the election ()

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Former US president Bill Clinton (Photo: AP)

Hillary said she was "sorry" she didn't win the election, adding, "This is painful, and it will be for a long time."

Photo: AP

A feminist since her early days at Wellesley, Clinton addressed the women, many of whose vote eluded her. "Women should know nothing has me me prouder than to be your champion," she said.

Photo: AP

"To the little girls who are watching." She added, "you are valuable and powerful and deserving" of every opportunity in the world."
Demonstrators marched in cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest against Republican Donald Trump's presidential election win, blasting his controversial campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

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In New York, thousands of protesters filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, Trump's gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted "Not my president."

Trump detractors protest his election ()

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A demonstration of about 6,000 people blocked traffic in Oakland, California, police said. Protesters threw objects at police in riot gear, burned trash in the middle of an intersection, set off fireworks and smashed store front windows.

Police responded by throwing chemical irritants at the protesters, according to a Reuters witness.

Protests erupt against Donald Trump (Photo: AFP)

In downtown Chicago, an estimated 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA."

Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators' path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there.

"I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."

In Seattle, police responded to a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of anti-Trump protests. Police said it was unrelated to the demonstrations.

Protesters railed against Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally.

Flag burning in New York (Photo: Reuters)

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston and Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday evening, and organizers planned rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland, California.

In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said.

A representative of the Trump campaign did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the protests. Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans, saying: "It is time for us to come together as one united people."

Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that "Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form."

"DREAMERS" FEAR DEPORTATION

Earlier on Wednesday, some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, in a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other Bay Area cities - Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito.

Photo: AFP

A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally.

Chanting in Spanish "the people united will never be defeated," the group held signs with slogans such as "Not Supporting Racism, Not My President" and "Immigrants Make America Great."

Many of those students were members of the "Dreamers" generation, children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration.

Photo: AFP

Protests in University of California, Berkeley (Photo: Reuters)

"A child should not live in fear that they will be deported," said Stephanie Hipolito, one of the student organizers of the walkout. She said her parents were US citizens.

There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence.

Wednesday's demonstrations followed a night of protests in the San Francisco area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump's victory against heavily favored Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Demonstrators smashed storefront windows and set garbage and tires ablaze late on Tuesday in downtown Oakland.
Nechema Friedman says her parents often recalled how the months they spent in a detention camp in Cyprus after World War II nurtured their desire to plant roots in pre-1948 Palestine.

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The 69-year-old returned to the east Mediterranean island on Wednesday along with dozens of fellow Israelis also born in Cyprus to mark the 70th anniversary of the camps where 52,000 Holocaust survivors were interned by the British.

Cyprus' Defense Minister Christoforos Fokaides unveiled a memorial at a Cypriot Army camp that formerly housed a British military hospital where 800 Jewish infants were born after the war. Some 2,200 children in all were born to Jewish couples in the camps.

Cypriot Army camp memorial (Photo: AP)

"People still brought children into this world, their hopes revived here on this ground," Friedman said at the memorial created in the semi-circle shape of the corrugated iron hut that housed detainees.

Friedman's parents, Moshe and Gita Weissler, were among the Holocaust survivors fleeing Europe on 39 crammed, rickety boats who were interned in a dozen camps on Cyprus while trying to reach Palestine.

At the time, Britain controlled the territory that would become Israel. British warships intercepted the boats and kept the passengers behind barbed wire and guard towers between 1946 and 1949, events depicted in the 1958 novel "Exodus" and the 1960 movie of the same name.

But along with separation, the camps also fostered communities where schools, libraries, theater and music flourished, fanning the hope of return, Friedman said.

"We prepared ourselves, we knew that one day we would be out of the camps," she said.

By virtue of a decree issued by Britain's King George VI to celebrate his birthday, the Jewish detainees slowly were allowed to leave the camps and head to Palestine. Friedman was 7 months old when her family they reached Haifa on November 29, 1947.

That was the day the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine, paving the way for the founding of the state of Israel.

"Now we have this monument to show how it was then, it's become something that we could come back to," Friedman said.
IDF and security forces arrested 20 Palestinians overnight Wednesday in the West Bank, 14 of whom are suspected of involvement in terror activities and rioting, along with attacking civilians and security forces. The suspects are being held for questioning.

In addition, IDF and security forces raided a weapons manfacturing workshop and seized a homemade rifle, a pistol and bullets.

The IDF Spokespersons Unit also said that troops sealed off the room of terrorist Younis Awad in his home in the village of Yatta, near Hebron. Awad helped plan last Junes mass shooting at the Sarona market in Tel Aviv, providing weapons and ammunition used in training prior to the attack and hiding them in his house. Four Israelis were killed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Bayit Yehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett on Thursday to request that he postpone a vote which is scheduled to take place on Sunday on the so-called Regulation Bill designed to legalize outposts in the West Bank.

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Despite the prime ministers efforts, Bennett came away from the meeting unconvinced by the reasons expounded such as a reiteration that the vote could have serious international repercussions.

During a Bayit Yehudi party meeting earlier this week, Bennett said that if a decision was not provided by the courts by the end of the week, he would bring the bill to vote at the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu) also participated in the meeting with Netanyahu and Bennett.

Naftali Bennett and PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Amil Salman)

Netanyahu also cited the fact that the court has yet to rule on the question of delaying the evacuation of Amona.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is also expected to tell Netanyahu that the softened version of the law which, which will apply to the settlement of Amona, is also unconstitutional. In doing so, Mandelblit is signalling to both the government and the Knesset that they cannot pass such a law and that he would be unable to defend the legislation if a petition were filed to the High Court against its constitutionality.

The Bayit Yehudi party is claiming that the evacuation of Amona could be the first stage in a series of evacuations which could follow and is therefore seeking to solve the problem through legislation.

An aerial view of the settlement of Amona (Photo: Tomerico)

According to the softened version of the proposed bill, which was submitted by Bayit Yehudi MKs Bezalel Smotrich and Shuli Mualem together with Likud MKs Yoav Kisch and David Bitan, it would only apply to settlements established with the involvement of the state and not to those whose establishment was devoid of state planning. Amona would fall within the first category.

Mandelblit with PM Netanyahu (Photo: Mark Israel Salem)

On Wednesday, Muaelm asked Netanyahu to refrain from delaying the vote, noting that the US election results opened a new opportunity to pass the bill.

The entire affair has resulted in a continuous back and forth between ministers and MKs and the bills proponents and opponents.
COPENHAGEN- Authorities in Norway say two Norwegian nationals have been killed in Vietnam, where state-run media reported a bus with 30 passengers has veered off a road.

Norway's Foreign Ministry declined to elaborate on the circumstances of their deaths. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ingrid Kvammen Ekker customarily declined Thursday to identify the pair.

Vietnam's online Dan Tri newspaper said a bus with 30 passengers on board skidded off a slippery road Wednesday in central Vietnam, killing two and seriously injuring 14 others.
Incumbent Gov. Steve Bullock, who won re-election Wednesday morning with 50 percent of the vote to Republican challenger Greg Gianforte's 46 percent, called Wednesday on the state's lawmakers to rise above the divisive tone that made this year's election, both at a state and national level, unlike anything seen before.

In a passionate and emotional speech to supporters gathered at the same Helena hotel where many lingered until just after midnight, Bullock said he was humbled, proud, inspired and optimistic after hearing the results. He touched on nature of his campaign against Gianforte, which grew increasingly hostile as it drew to an end.

"It may be a challenging time in this experiment called representative democracy, what with the toxicity, the money, the fear, the lack of civility, the innuendo, the politics at times of personal destruction, but I'm optimistic that our leaders, Democrats and Republicans, still rise above that toxicity to demonstrate to those who we represent that we're individually and we're collectively better than that. That we're elected to inspire the next generation and to be role models."

Bullock on Wednesday had 250,570 votes to Gianforte's 231,895, a difference of 18,675. Libertarian Ted Dunlap had 3 percent of the total with 100 percent of precincts reporting and voter turnout around 73 percent, in unofficial results.

The governor also addressed Republican Donald J. Trump's victory in the presidential election and emphasized that Montana can stand above the increasingly crude nature of politics.

"I'm also optimistic that if some of our leaders fall short, I'm optimistic that our friends and our neighbors, our fellow Montanans, will demand better of them, they'll demand that we act as if our children and our grandchildren are watching, because they are. I'm optimistic that at least here in Montana we can be a shining example of how the political system is supposed to work."

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost by 21 percentage points in Montana, yet Bullock was able to win because he's well-liked, said Carroll College associate professor of political science Jeremy Johnson.

"It does show that he was popular that he was able to run so far ahead of the presidential ticket."

Gianforte, a Bozeman businessman who started a software company he later sold to Oracle for almost $2 billion, called Bullock a little after 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Bullock said, to congratulate him and wish him luck in the next four years.

"While this is an incredibly close race, the voters of Montana appear to have spoken," Gianforte said Wednesday morning in a press release. "I knew taking on an incumbent would be a challenge, but I decided to run for office because I believe in the potential of Montana and in all Montanans. Nothing has changed that for me. Even though we did not prevail, you have my commitment that I will continue to work to create better outcomes for all Montanans.

Gianforte also thanked everyone who voted for him and worked on his campaign.

Bullock was the lone bright spot for Montana Democrats, who lost in all the other statewide races. Republican Tim Fox retained his post as attorney general in a race against Democrat Larry Jent, while Republicans Elsie Arntzen, Corey Stapleton and Matt Rosendale beat out, respectively, Democrats Melissa Romano for superintendent of public instruction, Monica Lindeen for secretary of state and Matt Rosendale for state auditor. Early results show Republicans gained a few seats in the state Legislature, which was already mostly Republican in both the House and Senate, as well.

Bullock's success paired with the defeat of other statewide Democrats could either show that Montanans think he's doing a good job or they think the division of power between Republicans and Democrats is good for the state, said University of Montana political researcher and journalism professor Lee Banville.

The governor played down the party divide, saying he expects everyone to work together.

"Each of the other statewides that just got elected, I count on them to help be an example of how to get things done. I expect our leaders to come together and do the right things for Montanans." He said last session the Legislature came together to pass Medicare expansion and sweeping campaign finance reforms, as well as sage grouse legislation and water compacts.

Nationally, Bullock said it's his job to stand up to Trump "to make sure our Montana values, our interests and our needs are being heard. Whoever is president, my job is the same."

Carroll College associate political science professor Jeremy Johnson said Wednesday that with Republican victories across the nation and at the federal level, Bullock will stand alone more than he has in the past.

"He will serve as essentially the only check in Montana to oppose various positions that he might disagree with," Johnson said.

The incumbent is also facing a Legislature with several members who during the election questioned Bullock's ethical compass and called for investigations into his use of the state plane while attending campaign events that coincided with conducting state business, payments of nearly $1 million to former employees and claims of fraud and retaliation against whistle-blowers in the Department of Health and Human Services.

When asked what he expects to come of these calls for investigation, Bullock said "you'd have to talk to (the legislators requesting them) about that."

The intense buzz around the calls for investigations could die down with the end of the election, Banville said. There might not be a payoff for pursuing Bullock now that the session is over.

"The question would be, what's the benefit of that. If you do that you still have to work with the guy if you want to pass anything. You may do it just because you feel that level of outrage, but I think it's much more of a politically risky move."

Key counties that Bullock won include Missoula (65-31), Lewis and Clark (60-37), Cascade (53-43), Silver Bow (70-26) and Gallatin (55-40). While he lost Yellowstone County, the state's most populous, 47 to 48 percent, it was only by 498 votes.

Bullock did 3 percentage points better than in 2012 in Gallatin County and Gianforte did 7 worse that Republican Rick Hill, who lost to Bullock that year. Gallatin County is Gianforte's home county. Banville said the region is becoming more and more critical in the path to victory.

Part of Gianforte's loss could be his emphasis on eastern Montana, which led him to not spend enough time in counties where he needed a stronger showing.

"Pitting one side of the state against the other, saying the more populated side of the state is getting too much stuff, that may have dampened some people's enthusiasm for him," Banville said.

Bullock said he will reach out to that eastern half of the state by passing an infrastructure bill, something that failed in the last two sessions. "I'm going to be asking the Legislature to make that one of the first things we do, not one of the last."

While Gianforte didn't say Wednesday what his future political aspirations are, Banville said he doesn't expect him to disappear, possibly running against U.S. Sen. Jon Tester in four years.

"I would be surprised if we don't see Gianforte again," Banville said. "He spent a lot of money, ran a really intense campaign, almost knocked off a popular incumbent governor. That's no small task."

Bullock on Wednesday said his immediate plans were to get his kids back to school, have lunch with his wife, Lisa, and possibly take a nap after staying up until almost 4:30 a.m. watching results come in.
Hundreds demonstrated in the Moroccan capital Wednesday against the Israeli flag being flown beside the colours of 195 other countries at UN climate talks in the central city of Marrakesh.

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More than 200 people protested outside parliament in Rabat against the Jewish state's flag being hoisted at the COP22 conference that opened Monday.

Protesters in Morocco compare Israel to apartheid (Photo: EPA)

"The Israeli flag at COP22 means Morocco symbolically recognizing the state of Israel. It's unacceptable," one protester told AFP.

"Death to America, death to Israel!" demonstrators cried while burning the Israeli flag and parading anti-Israel placards.

Israeli flag burning (Photo: EPA)

Several pro-Palestinian associations took part in the protest after calling on authorities to take action about the flag earlier this week.

On Tuesday, Morocco's Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar responded that "UN meetings around the world welcome all nations" and that the fight against climate change "requires all governments to commit".

Photo: EPA

Morocco supported Palestine gaining observer status at the United Nations in 2012, Mezouar said, and is "the first to defend the Palestinian cause".

Photo: EPA

Mezouar denounced what he called "political exploitation" of the climate talks running to November 18.

In 2013, a film about Morocco's dwindling Jewish community caused a stir, with around 200 peoplemostly Islamistsdemonstrating against it being shown at the Tangiers film festival, denouncing what they called an attempt to "normalise relations with Israel."

The protests contrast with more cordial relations being established with a delegation of Moroccan journalists who arrived for a visit in Israel this week and were hosted by the foreign ministry despite the threats of intimidation they faced back home.
A top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump says his boss doesn't think Israeli settlements should be condemned and they don't pose an "obstacle to peace."

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Jason Greenblatt's comments to Israel's Army Radio Thursday would mark a stark departure from the long-time American stance that Israeli construction in areas captured in the 1967 Six Day War makes it more difficult to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Trump and Netanyahu in their meeting in New York in September (Photo: GPO)

Greenblatt is the chief legal officer and executive vice president at the Trump Organization. He has been tapped by Trump as his top adviser on Israel.

Israel and the US are close allies but relations were often tense between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mainly over Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. Netanyahu and Trump have been friends for many years and ties between the two are expected to improve.

After Trump was proclaimed the victor of the presidential elections, Netanyahu posted a Facebook video congratulating the president-elect, describing him as a "true friend" and expressed his optimism about elevating the US-Israeli relationship to "new heights." Later on Netanyahu called Trump, reiterated his belief that he was a "true friend of Israel" and assured him that the US has no greater ally than Israel.

Settler leadership happy with Trump victory

Meanwhile, Trump's victory has put a new, optimistic wind in the sails of the settlement enterprise in Israel, as right wing MKs and West Bank regional council leaders welcomed the Republican's election.

Yossi Dagan, head of the Shomron Regional Council, publicly supported Trump, and expressed his hope that a new path will be made in regards to the West Bank settlements.

"I'm sorry to say this, but the decision to build a new park in the West Bank isn't made by the head of the Regional Council nor by the Israeli government, but on the whims of the President of the United States and how he feels that day," Dagan said.

Leader of the Shomron Regional Council Yossi Dagan (Photo: Eli Mendelbaum)

Dagan, who participated in the opening of the Trump campaign headquarters in the West Bank, and even met with Trump Advisor David Friedman, continued by saying that "we decided that we will no longer sit on the side and watch as world leaders decide our lives, but become involved instead  both for our sakes, and for the sake of our children." Dagan said.

"Trump's announcements were clearly in favor of strengthening Jewish settlement in the West Bank. We regularly host parliamentarians, congressmen, and senators, and have created extensive relationships with high ranking Republican officials," he continued

Dagan then directed his message to the Netanyahu government, saying "we have high expectations for a significant change in how the Israeli government treats Judea and Samaria following the election of a US president who is a friend to the settler movement in the West Bank. We expect an end to the construction freeze, and even more."

Mayor of Ariel Eliyahu Shaviro also welcomed Trump's victory. The mayor added that he believes that the new American president will stand by his pledge of preventing a Palestinian state, and will continue to support building within the settlements, especially in Ariel.

Bayit Yehudi MK Bezalel Smotrich (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Meanwhile, Acting Head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council Moshe Saville said "I'm sure that a new era of bravery and connection to the land has begun."

The settlers also received support from the Bayit Yehudi party, specifically from Party Chairman Naftali Bennett. He wrote on Facebook that "Trump's victory is a rare opportunity for Israel to announce on its withdrawal from the idea of establishing (a Palestinian state) in the heart of Israeli territory, something which would constitute a direct harm to our security and in the justice of our cause. This is the President elect's view as is written in his platform, and this of course must also be what we do as well. Straight, simple, and clear. This is the end of the era of the Palestinian state."

Meanwhile, Bezalel Smotrich (Bayit Yehudi) said "something happened, the change which occurred (on Tuesday) in the US is a fait accompli. One thing must be made clear, the two state solution must be shelved immediately. The government in the US is going to change, and with that so will the terrible freeze on building which was forced on the State of Israel by the previous administration I call on the prime minister and the entire government to stand behind the settlement of Judea and Samaria, and to announce the building of thousands of housing units today."

Science Minister Ofir Akunis told Army Radio Thursday that, "We need to think how we move forward now when the administration in Washington, the Trump administration and his advisers, are saying that there is no place for a Palestinian state."
TOKYO- A Japanese journalist deported from Iraq has denied allegations by Kurdish officials that he is a sympathizer of the Islamic State extremist group.

Kosuke Tsuneoka told reporters in Tokyo on Thursday that he was in Mosul only to report as a journalist on the battle to retake the militant-held city.

Tsuneoka, a journalist who has covered militant groups in the Middle East, was arrested Oct. 27 after he was stopped at a security check and found to be carrying a key chain with an ISIS logo that he obtained on an earlier reporting trip.

The Kurdistan authority released Tsuneoka on Monday at the request of Japan's Foreign Ministry.
Israel marked its first "Aliyah Day" earlier this week, celebrating new immigrants with a ceremony put on by the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and the Jewish Agency.

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Israel is a country of eight million citizens, 40 percent of whom were born outside of the country. Over three million people immigrated to the Jewish state since its inception in 1948, coming from every corner of the globefrom the US to Mozambique.

Some 101,900 people made aliyah (the Hebrew term for immigration to Israel) in 1948. Huge portionsif not the entiretyof the Jewish communities from Bulgaria, Libya, Poland, Yemen, Iraq, and Romania came to Israel in its first year of independence.

American Jews make Aliyah (Photo: Getty Images)



Another massive wave of immigration occurred between 1955 and 1957, which saw 166,492 Jews come to the State of Israel. Approximately 70,000 of them came from Morocco.

The next wave of immigrants came in the 1960's, seeing over a quarter million Jews arrive on the shores of Israel, amongst which were 160,000 Romanian Jews and Moroccan Jews.

New immigrants at an Ulpan Hebrew language center on King George street, Tel Aviv (Photo: Ilan Browner)

According to Ministry of Immigrant Absorption figures, two million Jews have immigrated to Israel from 1972 until today. The country with the most Jews making aliyah was the former USSR, with 700,000 people moving to Israel in the 1970's and 1990's. The US follows with 117,000a trend which has picked up in the last few decades.

Two other major waves of aliyah came from Ethiopia (93,246) and France (89,508).

A Jewish family who made Aliyah from the Caucuses at the turn of the 20th century

Ministry figures also include reports of people making aliyah from countries with a miniscule Jewish population. For instance, 46 of the 600 member-strong Jewish community in Gibraltar moved to Israel, as did 22 from the Island of Mauritius. There were even 11 Jews who moved from New Caledoniaan island chain between Australia and Fiji. Additionally, eight Jews immigrated to Israel from Tahiti in French Polynesia.

But only four Jews moved to Israel from the South American country of Surinamehome to one of the first Jewish communities in the Western hemisphere, whose central synagogue is now on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

A new immigrant of the Jewish Beni Menashe tribe arrives in Israel with her family from India (Photo: Moshe Milner)

There are also several countries from which only one member of their tiny Jewish community made aliyah, including: Mali, the Seychelles Islands, Haiti, Grenada, Malaysia, Vietnam, Fiji, Mongolia, the Spanish settlement of Melilla, Turks and Caicos, and Benin in west Africa.

The year with the single largest number of people making aliyah was between 1990 and 1991, when 373,585 Jews came to Israel from the former Soviet Union and from Ethiopia.

For comparison, 345,890 arrived in the Holy Land since the year 2000, with 52,000 people moving to Israel in the last two years alone.

A French-Ivorian Jewish family preparing to start a new life in Israel (Photo: Fellowship of Christians and Jews)

The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption's director-general, Alex Kushner, said that the numbers of people making aliyah from North America have remained stable, at about 3,000 people a year.

"Reasons for making aliyah are split into two primary categories: Zionist and religious reasons, and socio-economic reasons," Kushner said of the North American immigrants.

New immigrant children in Israel in school at Kibbutz Naot (Photo: Fritz Cohen)

The majority of these immigrants settle in Jerusalemwhere there are approximately 9,166 Jewish immigrants of North American decent.

Absorption Minister Sofa Landver (Yisrael Beytenu) said that "olim (immigrants) make up this ingathering of the exiles we call Israel. Tens of thousands of Jews immigrate to Israel and choose to make their homes here, in the land of our forefathers. The goal of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption is to ensure that the country is doing everything it can to continue these waves of immigration, and, of course, make sure that their absorption goes as seamlessly as possible."
Two police officers were shot in southwestern Pennsylvania and one died early on Thursday, local media reported.

Police told residents to remain in their homes as they searched for the gunman in the town of Canonsburg, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Pittsburgh.

There were no immediate details on the other officer's condition or what led to the attack at about 4 a.m. local time.

One officer had been flown to a hospital in Pittsburgh and the other to a hospital in Canonsburg, WPXI.com reported.
A lone IDF soldier has spoken out against what he claims to be the IDFs abandonment of lone soldiers in Israel upon completion of their military service. The military classifies a soldier as "lone" if they have no family in the country or if they are not in contact with their family.

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The 25-year-old soldier from a Haredi backgroundwho requested to be identified as Jonathansaid that at age 21 he decided to enlist in the IDF in the Nahal Haredi brigade in which he received recognition for outstanding conduct.

Despite his estrangement from his ultra-Orthodox family after informing them of his decision, he was determined to fulfill his Zionist ideology. Three years later, his successful fulfillment of this dream is no consolation in the face of a dire financial situation.

Jonathan (Photo: Dana Kopel)

I have nowhere to be. I have no childhood friends that I am in contact with or family. If they tell me to leave here I will be straight on the street, he said about his apartment which he rents with three other roommates.

As a lone soldier, he was entitled to certain benefits and food coupons.

The moment that I took off my uniform the help stopped, he lamented. I turned to the body responsible for helping soldiers and they cant help anyone who has already been released. It is absurd that the day after being discharged they forget the lone soldiers.

He emphasized that the day after we are discharged doesnt mean we are not alone in terms of money and other things. The change into civilian life in one day is extremely hard.

Working as a waiter, Jonathan described the difficulties of funding even the most basic necessities such as his apartment even though it costs a mere NIS 1,600 per month.

Indeed, he said that he ends up in overdraft and that the apartment owner can simply evict him should he fail to pay the rent.

Itzhik Shmuli Photo: (Gil Yohanan)

Its the cheapest I managed to find. I simply have nowhere to get money from...I ask that people who are able, to help me. It is disheartening for me but I have reached the point where I have no choice and they are about to throw me to the street.

MK Itzik Shmuli (Zionist Union) who chairs the Knesset Lobby for Lone Soldiers eventually had to come to Jonathans assistance. He too decried the difficult circumstances in which lone soldiers find themselves upon their return to society.

The State of Israel removes in one stroke all support for lone soldiers, forgets them and sends them to cope alone in civilian life, Shmuli said.

The lone soldier who lacks support from the family has no way of providing shelter, of (enrolling) in higher education and finding an income within just a few weeks, he added. It is about time that the state understands that it has a responsibility to this community.
France's president says European nations need strong, clear strategies on security and the economy as Donald Trump takes over the U.S. presidency, amid concerns that his victory will fortify populists who want to dismantle the EU.

Francois Hollande said Thursday that Trump's election "obliges Europeans to be clear and lucid and capable of facing the challenges that concern them."

Hollande, who had endorsed Hillary Clinton, also suggested European countries should be ready to stand up to Trump if necessary. "Europe wishes to be together with the U.S. but has to be in a position to decide for itself, too."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a joint press conference in Jerusalem with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday afternoon during which the latter described how he felt at home every time visited Israel.

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During the conference, Medvedev spoke about the shared values between the two countries while highlighting his countrys obligation to combat anti-Semitism and as well as the mutual obligation to face common challenges.

First and foremost it is terrorism that threatens the entire globe but here, in your area, it is felt particularly harshly. The Russian Federation also suffers from terror and it is part and parcel of the same thing. In light of this fact, he said, we have to fight terror together and that relates to security cooperation. With joint efforts we need to destroy the seed of terror which lies in the hands of ISIS.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: EPA)

Medvedev went on to describe Israel as the biggest partner in the region for economic affairs. We need to push forward the economic and commercial relations. That is why we have met today and signed the agreements. In Russia there are specific agricultural conditions and in Israel there is the technology which combined can bring about quality.

For his part, Netanyahu thanked the Russian premier for his visit to Israel but he wasted few words before getting down to business and turning the focus to Iran. We are determined to do two things: to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and preventing Iran from establishing a military presence in Syria.

Netanyahu also outlined Israels determination to prevent Iran from building Shiite militias which could strengthen Hezbollah by supplying it with increasingly dangerous weapons. There is a robust alliance and brotherhood between our two countries and this visit will strengthen it.

Netanyahu also thanked Medvedev for "helping in the issue of paramount human interest: the return of the bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, and the three Israeli citizens being held in Gaza. This also expresses the friendship between us."

Leader of the Opposition Isaac Herzog also met with the Russian premier and asked that his government intervene in calling for the return of the return of Abera Mengistu and the remains of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul from Hamas. He said, "I ask you as the prime minister of a very important power with great power in the Middle East to employ the full weight (of your influence) for a humanitarian act and political righteousness to return the soldiers and release Abera Mengistu."
SOFIA - Bulgaria's defence ministry has signed a 21.8-million euro ($23.75 million) contract with Sofia-based company Aviostart for the supply of 10 Russian engines for its ageing fleet of Russian MiG-29 jet fighters, it said on Thursday.

The deal includes the supply of four new and six repaired engines. The first two engines will be delivered by the end of next April, the ministry said, adding that the deal will ensure the operations of the Black Sea country's air forces.

"Bulgaria has nine operational aircraft at the moment and the deal, which was signed on Wednesday, would allow this number to rise to 14," the defence ministry spokesman said.

Last year Bulgaria signed an agreement with NATO ally Poland to repair six MiG-29 fighter jets, part of a push by the Balkan country to reduce its reliance on Russia.
DUBAI -- Fourteen civilians were injured on Thursday by projectiles fired by Yemen's Houthi group into Saudi Arabia, Saudi civil defence reported, the latest in a series of cross-border attacks by the Iran-allied group.

State news agency SPA quoted a civil defence spokesman as saying that 13 Saudi citizens and an expatriate from Bangladesh were injured in the attack in Dhahran al-Janoub province in the Asir region, near the border with Yemen.

"The victims suffered various injuries and were taken to hospital for treatment," the agency said, quoting the civil defence spokesman, Colonel Mohammed al-Assemi.
The Lewis and Clark County Veterans Memorial Foundation is holds its annual Veterans Day ceremony at the Lewis & Clark County Veterans Memorial in Memorial Park at 3 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 11.

Gold Star Families, current military, area veterans, their families and the community are welcome. In case of inclement weather the ceremony will be held at American Legion Post No. 2, 3095 Villard Ave.

A reception will follow at American Legion Post No. 2 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the management by the Lewis & Clark County Veterans Memorial Foundation at American Legion Post No. 2.

CW4 (Ret) Richard A. Fox, chairman of the Helena Area Military Affairs Committee, is serving as the keynote speaker. Fox is a decorated Air Force Vietnam veteran and a professor of archaeology, specializing in the Custer Battlefield.

VFW Post 10010, East Helena, will be conducting their annual Veterans Day Parade at 11 a.m.
JERUSALEM -- The Russian and Israeli leaders have declared themselves partners in a battle against global terrorism.

Dmitry Medvedev told his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, that terrorism threatens Israel in a "very unique way." But Russia also suffers from terror with what he called "common roots," he added at a meeting in Jerusalem on Thursday.

"This is why there is a need to fight terror together," Medvedev said.
A German neo-Nazi organization published a list of 70 Jewish sites in Berlin on its Facebook page on the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which a hundred Jews and destroyed thousands of businesses, synagogues and Jewish homes.

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"The Jews among us!" wrote the neo-Nazi organization in a Facebook post detailing a map, complete with addresses, of 70 synagogues, daycares, schools, monuments, restaurants and cemeteries in Berlin. Included on the list was the new Berlin Synagogue and the city's Holocaust memorial for European Jews.

Kristallnacht (Photo: Getty Images)

Photo: Getty Images

Accompanied with the map and list was a post stating, "Today is such a nice day!"

The Mobile Counsel Against Right-Wing Extremism (MBR), a German anti-extremist organization, spotted the post and together with Green Party MP Volker Beck, informed all Jewish establishments that were on the list.

In an interview with German newspaper Tagesspiegel, MBR Spokesperson Bianca Klose said the neo-Nazi group "regularly shares openly racist and anti-Semitic messages."

The new Berlin Synagogue (Photo: Shutterstock)

German President Joachim Guack placing flowers for the 78 anniversary of Kristallnacht (Photo: EPA)

In an interview with The Local, Sarah Friedrich, spokeswoman for the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, said "We are shocked by this and find it intolerable. The fact that it was on Kristallnacht is disturbing. It feels like how things were in the 1930s were Jews were put on lists and that is a disquieting feeling. We hope nothing bad comes of this."

The Israeli ambassador to Germany, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, said, "It is shameful that these things still happen and even more shameful that it occurred in Germany on the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Unfortunately we are witnesses to a recent rise in the level and daring of anti-Semitic activities in Germany too. There is no room for that here and we expect authorities will do all that is necessary to prevent things like this from happening, even if they happen on Facebook. We also expect German public condemnation of this phenomenon."
Three juvenile terrorists were sentenced to especially harsh sentences on Monday in the Jerusalem District Court to send a message to the public that their actions would not be tolerated.

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Judge Yoram Noam sentenced 14-year-old A. to 12 years' imprisonment and a 14 and 15 year old each to 11. A. carried out the stabbing attack in Pisgat Zeev in October 2015, and the two other convicts, both from Shuafat in Jerusalem, carried out a stabbing attack at Damascus Gate in the Old City in January 2016.

A. in the courthouse (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

The sentences are considered unprecedented in their seriousness. The message from the judicial system was clear: Minors who commit terrorist attacks will be judged with a firm hand. The judge explained, "In today's harsh reality, stricter punishment is inevitable. Under these circumstances, the need to keep terrorists behind bars is growing, and real weight must be given to the principles of deterring the many and the individual are real considerations for the strictness of the penalties."

Many of those who carried out attacks in the latest wave of terrorism were under the age of 20, which has posed a problem for the judicial system. These are not just children throwing rocks at security forces or public transportation, but rather attackers stabbing innocent passersby and who were then charged with attempted murder.

The courts have extremely limited experience in judging terrorists of such a young age, and most of the judgments on record are from the 1990s and concerned 16-year-old attackers. In most cases, their young age and presumed potential for rehabilitation helped to lessen the severity of their punishment.

The three convictions handed down on Monday join other recent court findings that include a 16-year-old terrorist who carried out a stabbing attack in the capital's light rail in November 2015 and who was sentenced to 18 years in prison. The same punishment was handed down on a 17 year old for a similar offense.

Noam explained the harsh sentences that he decreed, "Recently we have seen that even young children aged 14 to 16 are taking an active part in acts of terrorism. However, being a minor doesn't grant impunity from appropriate punishment when committing a serious crime. The punishment needs to express society's dislike of these acts intended to kill a person for nationalistic reasonsand lightening the sentence could send the wrong message to the public."
KABUL -- An Afghan official says the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif has come under attack.

Sher Jan Durrani, the spokesman for the police chief of Balkh province, said on Saturday a gun battle is going on at the consulate.

The Taliban issued a statement saying they had sent suicide attackers to the consulate.

Walter Hassmann, the German ambassador to Afghanistan, says the "incident is ongoing" and provided no further details.

Residents in the city reported hearing a huge explosion near the consulate which shattered windows in buildings nearby.

Germany has 938 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh, as part of NATO's Resolute Support mission.
Exactly twelve years after Yasser Arafat's death, a museum in his memory opened in Ramallah on Thursday.

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The Yasser Arafat Museum is dedicated to his activities as the head of the PLO and chairman of the Palestinian Authority. It presents documentation and personal items from throughout the Cairo-born man's life.

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The museum was constructed with a $7-million investment, and it is located inside his Ramallah compound, behind his grave.

Inside the museum (Photo: AFP)

The building is two floors and spreads over 2,600 sq. m. Amongst the items on display are Arafat's rifle, one of his famous keffiyehs, the sunglasses that he wore in his 1974 UN address and the eyeglasses that he used for his last decade alive. Pictures of the leader with various world leaders are hung in the hallways.

The Nobel Prize for Peace that he was awarded together with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres after the Oslo Accords were signed is also on display. It was brought from his house in the Gaza Strip.





The crowning exhibit is the small bedroom in which Arafat slept when his compound was under siege during the Second Intifada. Inside the 5-sq.-m room are his single bed, a small wardrobe with his uniform hanging, a small television set, and a picture drawn by his daughter, Zahwa. The room is protected by a glass barrier.





Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit attended the opening ceremony along with former Secretary General Amr Moussa and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who cut the ceremonial ribbon.

A memorial ceremony was held on Thursday in Ramallah for Arafat, which was attended by MK Aiman Udeh (Joint List). In response, Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu) wrote on his Facebook page, "He's not willing to attend Peres's funeral in Jerusalem, but he'll make a speech in Arafat's memory. We'll continue to act until he will no longer be a member of Knesset in Jerusalem, but at most a member of the Palestinian Council in Ramallah."
This has been a long time in the making, but in our continuing pursuit to bring only the best of firearms, 2nd Amendment and defence related news to our readers, we are very excited to announce the next step in our evolution as a company.

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Counting of ballots in Lewis and Clark County continued into the early afternoon Wednesday, more than 30 hours after preparations for voting began at 6 a.m. Tuesday.

According to the unofficial results posted shortly before 3 p.m. Wednesday, 78.2 percent of the countys 45,351 registered voters had their votes counted.

James A. Jim McCormick, a Republican, ended up with an 11-point lead over Democrat Matthew Elsaesser in their contest for an open seat on the county commission.

The only other county race on the ballot involved the clerk of the district courts office, and Angie Sparks, a Democrat, ended with a 3-point lead over Republican Kara Thompson.

While voters supported the $6.5 million renovation of the Law Enforcement Center by a single percentage point, the 15-year levy for operations, maintenance and inmate programming aimed at reducing overcrowding failed by some 13 points, with 43 percent in favor and 56 percent opposed.

The bond and levy, although separate ballot measures, are a package deal and one cannot go through without the other, said Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton.

Im very thankful that one did pass, he said.

Wednesday morning, Dutton said he had to break the news of the initiative's failure to detention staff at the jail. They will continue to be at risk due to the overcrowding at the detention center, he said.

Yes, Im very disappointed. I saw the despair in the faces of my detention staff this morning, he said Wednesday.

The sheriff said he will meet with other law enforcement officials and the county commission to discuss their next steps. An upgrade in the jail is vital, he said.

I dont have a choice. Its the safety of my staff, Dutton said. Its not optional.

Yet to be counted by the elections office are the provisional ballots, those issued to people who moved here from another Montana county or moved from one precinct to another in the county, said Audrey Dufrechou, the countys elections supervisor.

However, its not anticipated that adding the results of the provisional ballots into this years tally will affect the outcome of any races.

Prior to there being counted on Monday, records will be checked to ensure that these voters did not vote in other counties or precincts, she said.

While her office issued 273 of these ballots, others were issued at polling places where people voted.

In the June primary, more than 80 provisional ballots were issued at the polls, Dufrechou said, adding that she anticipated there would be more given this years turnout.

Several factors were primarily responsible for driving the counting of ballots into Wednesday afternoon.

The two-page ballot that amounted to almost 69,000 sheets of paper to be counted was partly to blame.

The most I ever counted with the machines was 36,000, said county Treasurer/Clerk and Recorder Paulette DeHart, who with elections department staff was still counting ballots after 1 p.m. on Wednesday.

The machines used to count ballots worked fine, she said.

They did good. They were just really overworked.

Polling place judges, those who counted ballots and county staff provided about 300 people to help with the election.

However, the temporary help began asking to leave around midnight as they had to be at other jobs in the morning, DeHart said, noting that almost all of them were gone by 3 a.m.

Its hard to find people who can stay that whole time, Dufrechou said.

County staff continued to count votes through the night as state law requires the counting to continue until its completed, said DeHart and Dufrechou.

You cant close up and go home, DeHart added.

While the counting of ballots continued on Wednesday morning, some of the staff were allowed to go home for rest before returning to continue the tally.

Voter interest in the election also contributed to the time needed to count ballots, as the last of the ballots didnt reach the county elections office until after 11 p.m.

The last vote to be cast in the City-County Building didnt happen until just after 9 p.m.

While people had been coming to register at the elections office and vote in the booths set up outside of it in the City-County Building, the line grew much longer by about 4 p.m., DeHart said.

Those who came experienced about a two-hour process to register and vote.

Ballots that were marked using pens other than what was recommended or not completed at all further contributed to the delay.

Ballots that were rejected by the machine used for counting had to be examined by three election judges who may have made a copy of the ballot that was documented before being fed into the machine for counting.

Dufrechou called this examination and counting of those ballots a laborious process.

Jefferson County results

Steven Haddon beat Erin T. Inman in the nonpartisan race for county attorney/public administrator by a margin of 57-42 percent.

A public health mill was approved by a margin of 57-42 percent.

An emergency broadcasting system mill was approved by a margin on 51-48 percent.

A noxious weed control mill was approved by a margin of 60-39 percent.

Broadwater County results

Michael L. Delger beat Les Schipman in the nonpartisan race for a county commission seat by a margin of 58-41 percent.
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Atut: Dodatkowe dochody z paczkomatow InPostu, a juz niedugo i z myjni samoobsugowej.



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News

Phoenix, Arizona - Arizona Governor Doug Ducey: "Congratulations to President-elect Donald Trump and my friend Mike Pence on a great and historic victory. This is an exciting moment, and I look forward to working with the new president and administration to expand opportunity for all our citizens. Now is the time for elected leaders to come together, heal the divisions of the past, and work to finally provide Americans some relief from the federal government. I know that I join other governors across the country in standing ready to partner with the new administration and Congress to empower states and citizens, in keeping with the principles of our republic.

"We are still waiting on all the votes in Arizona to come in, but I am proud that so many said 'no' to recreational marijuana in our state. This is a great message for our state to project to the country - protecting our kids from the marketing of edibles, ensuring public safety and keeping out-of-state special interests from writing laws to line their pockets. I thank everyone who partnered with us in that effort, as we await a final result.

"I also want to congratulate all the new and returning members of the Arizona House and Senate. Many faced tough races and overcame big odds. I look forward to working with all legislators, of both parties, to advance our economy, improve our schools and lift the lives of all Arizonans.

"The people of Arizona and America have spoken, and they have spoken loudly and definitively. Now, its up to leaders to lead and deliver results for the people we serve."
Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona - This morning at approximately 1:04 a.m., an unidentified male subject attempted to enter a residence in the 2300 block of S. Walnut Avenue. The homeowner was awoken by a loud noise sounding like someone trying to kick in a door. When a noise was heard coming from the bathroom, the homeowner retrieved a weapon. Upon opening the bathroom door, the homeowner found a male subject in the process of climbing into the bathroom through a window.

Two shots were fired by the homeowner and the suspect fled on foot in an unknown direction of travel.

The suspect is described as a Hispanic male, early 30s with a buzzed type haircut. It is unknown if the suspect was injured during this incident.

This case is under investigation.

The Yuma Police Department encourages anybody with any information about this case to please call the Yuma Police Department at (928) 783-4421, Detective Bonillas at (928)-373-4784 or 78-Crime (928) 782-7463 to remain anonymous.
SD40

Late returns propelled political newcomer Republican Terry Gauthier to the Montana Senate, representing a district that includes portions of Lewis and Clark and Powell counties.

Gauthier, a Republican, took the lead early Wednesday morning as results from more rural Lewis and Clark and Powell surged him past former Democratic Rep. Hal Jacobson. With final votes tallied, Gauthier held about a 600 vote advantage out of nearly 11,000 cast ballots.

It was a long evening but kind of a joyful evening, he said Wednesday morning. It was spent with good friends, and this would not have been possible without my friends going to doors and listening to people. I think thats what won me this race.

Gauthier congratulated Jacobson on running a clean campaign.

As he looks to his term as a freshman legislator, Gauthier, owner of Helenas McDonalds restaurants, says hes looking forward to improving opportunities for business startups and expansion. Infrastructure is also a major priority.

With late results giving Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock a second term, Gauthier says he has spoken with the governor and is ready to work in a bipartisan fashion to find solutions to the issues facing the district and the state.

SD38

Democrat Edith (Edie) McClafferty won the race for Senate District 38, which includes portions of Jefferson and Silver Bow counties.

Strong support from Silver Bow backed Butte native McClafferty and outpaced the Jefferson County support for her opponent, Republican Glenn J. Rosenbaum of Clancy. She held an advantage of 6,063-5,236 votes with all precincts reporting.

"The main thing I want to say to the voters and my supporters is 'Thank you,'" she said.

A school-teacher and term-limited state representative, McClafferty said she still had a desire to serve. While she formerly represented an urban Butte House district, she says she always considered herself working for the entire state as her senate district crosses county lines.

Seeking an extension on the closing of the Montana Development Center in Boulder is a major priority as she looks to the legislative session.

HD70

Broadwater County rancher Rep. Kelly Flynn, R-Townsend, held a commanding 69-30 percent lead Wednesday morning over Democratic challenger Merlyn Huso of Helena in House District 70.

Flynn, 62, is headed back to the House for his fourth term. He chaired the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee last session and says one of his goals in the upcoming session is to improve the popular Block Management Program, which provides access on private land to public hunters.

Im very grateful and humbled and I look forward again to again be going into the Legislature and accomplishing some of the things Ive been working on for three terms, he said.

Flynn said he would be honored to serve on the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee again if asked. Additional focuses include a land stewardship bill focused on eliminating noxious weeds and eliminating the business equipment tax.

HD17

Republican Ross H. Fitzgerald of Fairfield will represent House District 17, which includes the northern portion of Lewis and Clark County and parts of Teton and Pondera counties.

The business broker-intermediary and real estate agent ran on a platform of reducing state government and eliminating regulations while preserving private property rights.

Well Im humbled and overwhelmed and pleased with the confidence of the folks in House District 17, Fitzgerald said, as he held a nearly 3-1 advantage over Democrat Barnett G. Sporkin-Morrison.

While freshman legislators cannot get overly ambitious, the district has some important issues that need attention, such as workers compensation for rural firefighters and water and environmental issues faced by area farmers and ranchers.

Ill be looking to establish those relationships and coalitions to resolve partisan issues that block good progress, Fitzgerald said.

HD75

Two-time incumbent Kirk B. Wagoner, R-Clancy, won in House District 75, with 58 percent of the vote over Democratic newcomer Sabrina Steketee with 41 percent. All nine precincts are fully counted.

Wagoner, a computer tech consultant, diver and bomb disposal technician, said hes honored and thankful they re-elected me. Im going to do my best to represent them and take care of Jefferson County."

Two priorities he plans to work on in the Legislature include introducing whistle-blower protection for state employees and resolving the issues around the Montana Developmental Center in Boulder. There are many options -- closure, not closing it or putting the facilities to some other good use.

HD80

In House District 80, Republican Becky Beard of Elliston won her seat with 70 percent of the vote over Elizabeth Cain, a Democrat from Lincoln, with 20 percent. The final vote count came in Wednesday afternoon. Independent Valerie Clague had 8 percent.

Beard, a self-employed contractor, represents a sprawling legislative district that stretches from Elliston to Ovando to Lincoln and Wolf Creek. "There has been a great deal of support and a lot of trust in me for the job at hand," she said.

"I'm going in there because I know we have a large challenge at hand with so many needs and so limited a budget. I would like to see the state continue to support the Second Amendment and high functioning schools, job opportunities and pretty much keep government as limited as possible."

HD83

Political newcomer Democrat Kim Abbott won the House District 83 seat with 54 percent of the vote, against opponent Republican Bob Leach, who had 45 percent, when the final vote was tallied Wednesday afternoon.

Abbott, who is co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network, said, "I'm just really thrilled that the voters trusted me with the responsibility to represent them in the Montana Legislature and I'm excited to work really hard" for them. "I think that we're going to go into this session looking to invest in education and infrastructure and figure out how we make that work budgetarily. I think there is a strong commitment from both parties and the governor, so I'm excited."

HD84

In House District 84, Democratic incumbent Mary Ann Dunwell of Helena won her race with 49 percent of the vote, compared to 47 percent for Republican challenger Steve Gibson of East Helena. Dunwell represents precincts from Helena and East Helena.

"Winning is an opportunity to move forward together working across the aisle as Montanans to improve people's lives through good public policy," she said. She intends to work on such issues as a livable wage and continued access to health and mental health services for Montanans. She's also particularly interested in implementing suicide prevention recommendations made by the state's suicide review team earlier this month.
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We, Indians, love cricket. We eat, drink and sleep cricket. We even go to the extent of worshipping some of our cricketers. All this is good as long as it is harmless. But, the reported fight between some of our cricketers and their fans in a pub is very disturbing. <br><br> Since the time India has been ousted from the T20 World Cup, media is abuzz with debates about why we lost? Some, which include Dhoni, say it was because of fatigue from the IPL matches, while others attribute it to excessive partying and lack of practice. Whatever be the reason, one thing is very worrying. We all seem to have lost the spirit of sportsmanship. <br><br> Cricket has now become so commercialised with the advent of events like IPL or product endorsements by cricketers, or allegations of match-fixing that it seems, we have lost the real essence of cricket. Cricket is a sport. It is a game and in a game there will always be a winner and a loser. <br><br> It shall be unfair to expect a team to always win. It is natural for fans to get disappointed but, a real fan is one who has faith in the abilities of his sportsman. We should realise that cricketers are also human beings. If they choose to party after a hard days work, then it may be their personal way of unwinding. Which rule states that if one faces some setback then one should not party? Did the cricketers commit a crime if they decided to go to a pub after being ousted from the T20 World Cup? May be it was their way of getting over their failure. Would it have made more PR sense for them if they came in front of the media with sad faces, pretended that they were too ashamed for what they did, lamented their fate, said that all is over and they did not deserve a second chance? Would that have satisfied the fans? No, this would have been wrong! The cricketers would also be sad at their failure but, that is not the end of the road. We should try to empathise with them. Every individual has a different way of dealing with failures. Some cut off themselves from everybody, while others let their hair down. <br><br> Yes, the cricketers are accountable to the country as a whole. Yes, they need to follow a disciplined life. Yes, they need to practice enough. Yes, they need to give their 100 percent to the sport. But, this is for their coach or the BCCI to see. Just because some cricketers went to a pub for a couple of hours does not mean they are frivolous. Moreover, it would be unrealistic to think that the cricketers themselves are not worried about their performance. In fact, they should and would be more worried than the fans. They have their entire career at stake. They know that if they do not deliver, they would be replaced not only on the cricket field but, also in the ad world. <br><br> Let us have some faith in our sportsmen. Let us refrain from extreme reactions. Let us not make them God when they win and abuse them when they lose. Cricket is a sport and a good sport demands good sportsmanship. Let us not be bad losers!
California: Despite sex assault allegations hounding him, fat-shaming a former beauty queen and his controversial abortion stand, a large number of women voters helped put Donald Trump in the White House.

Though his rival, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, clinched 54 percent of the female vote, Donald Trump was backed by 42 percent of women voters, which contributed to his stunning victory, according to CNN exit polls.

Some 53 percent of white women voters supported the Republican candidate, CNN said, the majority of them (62 percent) non-college educated.

The results upended predictions that sexist and degrading comments Trump made against women would sway female voters -- who accounted for about 52 percent of the electorate Tuesday -- in favor of a candidate that could have broken the glass ceiling.

Experts said the outcome is not surprising, and reflects an election in which issues about the economy, jobs and immigration were much higher on all voters` priority list than gender issues.

"At the heart of it is what was driving all voters," said Diane Heith, professor and chair of the Department of Government and Politics at St. John`s University in New York.

Heith said although the leaked Access Hollywood tape in which Trump boasted about groping women, and his disparaging comments about a former Miss Universe had made many women cringe, it was not enough to turn them against the candidate.

"There was no sisterhood created," Heith said. "The issue of how he treated women did not overshadow the attitudes these individuals already had -- being disaffected and how they had been treated by the establishment elite of which Hillary was absolutely part of."Still, the real estate magnate`s shock win has left many women struggling to cope with the election of a president whose misogynistic behavior was disregarded at the polls.

"More than half of white women voted for the man who bragged about committing sexual assault on tape, who said he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade ... who has spent 30-plus years in the public eye reducing women to their sexual attributes," wrote LV Anderson in an article in the online current affairs magazine Slate.

"White women sold out their fellow women, their country, and themselves last night," added the author. "Most white women don`t want to be part of an intersectional feminist sisterhood. Most white women just want to be one of the guys. And we will all suffer for it."

One issue of particular concern for women -- both Democrats and Republicans -- will be how Trump deals with abortion rights while in the White House.

Trump moved further and further to the right on abortion during his campaign, at one point suggesting that women who seek to terminate their pregnancy should be subject "to some form of punishment" should abortion be outlawed.

He backtracked on his remarks following an outcry. But it`s unclear where he really stands on the issue, especially considering his running mate Mike Pence`s views on abortion.

As governor of Indiana, Pence pushed for some of the most abortion-restrictive regulations in the country and has fought to defund Planned Parenthood, which offers reproductive health services, including abortions, to mostly lower-income Americans."American women who are seeking reproductive freedom should be concerned about a Trump-Pence presidency," Heith said.

Juliet Williams, professor of gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Trump`s shocking win could be attributed to a disconnect -- both among Republicans and Democrats -- when it came to women`s voting.

"A narrative about this election took hold very early on and that narrative was that Trump was mobilizing the angry white man vote, with angry white men (such as) coal miners in West Virginia or unemployed auto workers in Michigan," Williams said.

"Frankly, all of us on the right and the left really should have wondered what the angry white vote means," she added.

"What we learned yesterday is that angry white women have political power too ... and if you allow yourself to forget about women, you are going to lose. This is what happened to Hillary."
New York: With his stunning election triumph, Donald Trump has emblazoned his name in golden letters on the brand of the United States.

The superpower of soft power that produces much of the world's most-loved music, movies and technology yesterday chose a president who is wildly unpopular in close US allies.

Trump's surprise election could have far-reaching effects for the US image with potential consequences for companies, universities and tourism.

Still, the extent of Trump's impact remains to be seen.

The presidency itself has long been key to the US global image, with popular films and television series such as "Air Force One" and "The West Wing" depicting wise, principled presidents, and embassies around the world throwing election watch parties to showcase the peaceful transition of power.

The harsh tone of the campaign, and protests that followed Trump's victory, undercut that message this time, said Nicholas Cull, a professor of public diplomacy at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School.

"I think it's unsettling to audiences around the world, especially as part of Trump's approach is to be tough and to be rude around foreigners - saying he is going to teach China a lesson, or that China has been 'raping' the American economy, or to say that NATO allies are not pulling their weight," Cull said.

"However, on the other side of that, I think people around the world are not stupid and they recognise an American version of a kind of politics that is occurring in many countries," said Cull, referring to rise of populist leaders.

The drag on the US image could be particularly acute to the travel and tourism industry, which has been growing steadily with help from the marketing firm Brand USA, set up under a 2010 law.

The United States last year was the largest recipient of foreign tourists after France, with the tourism industry accounting for 7.6 million jobs directly or indirectly.

Trump has called for a ban on all Muslim visitors and a wall to block the border with Mexico, the biggest source of visitors to the United States after Canada.

Christopher Nurko, global chairman of strategy firm FutureBrand, said European countries and especially Canada - whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has laid out a welcome mat to foreigners including refugees - stood in a strong position to woo foreign travelers or investors turned off by Trump.

US universities are also home to nearly one million foreign students, contributing more than USD 30 billion in 2015 to the US economy, according to government data.

Led by China and India, the international student body in the US jumped 10 per cent in 2014-15, its fastest pace in years, amid concerted efforts to attract students of diverse backgrounds.

"What you are seeing now is that the domestic identity of the United States, or of those who elected Trump, is starkly at odds with how the world wants America to be seen," Nurko said.
Washington: Islamic State and al Qaeda jihadists have 'hailed' Donald Trump's win in presidential polls as the beginning of "dark times" for the US with some extremists predicting America's "demise" at the hands of the billionaire businessman, according to media reports.

Shortly after Trump was declared the victor, a number of prominent ideologues linked to jihadist outfits in the Middle East took to social media to cheer the prospect of a Trump presidency, The Washington Post reported.

Social-media sites associated with both the Islamic State and al Qaeda hailed Trump's success as the beginning of "dark times" for the United States, marked by domestic unrest and new foreign military campaigns that would sap the strength of the American superpower, the report said.

"Rejoice...And find glad tidings in the imminent demise of America at the hands of Trump," Islamic State-affiliated Al-Minbar Jihadi Media network was quoted as saying.

The remarks of jihadists signaled their apparent belief that the victory of a candidate like Trump, who has suggested blocks on Muslim immigration and advocated torture, undermines the US' moral standing in the world.

"Trump's win of the American presidency will bring hostility of Muslims against America as a result of his reckless actions, which show the overt and hidden hatred against them," said an essay, provided by the SITE Intelligence group, a private organisation that monitors jihadists' web sites.

Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, on Twitter said, "AQ (Qaeda) & ISIS supporters on election: Trump exposes US' hatred of Muslims, will contribute to America/West's downfall -- likening to brexit."

She quoted pro-al-Qaeda accounts on social media as saying, "On 9-11, US struck with disaster at the hands of AQ (Qaeda). On 11-9, US struck with disaster at the hands of their own voters."

"Jihadists warn that Trump will unite the mujahideen; Announce: 'Bring it on, Donald'; 'The mujahideen are ready!'," another tweet by Katz said.

A pro-al Qaeda al-Maqalaat Twitter account predicted that Trump would "make the US Enemy No.1 again," in the Muslim Middle East.

"Trump will serve as the perfect straw man for the next four years, like Bush did before him," it said.

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a jihadist ideologue linked to al-Qaeda, gloated about Trump's victory, suggesting that it "may be the beginning of America's fragmentation and the era of its breakup," according to the Post.

Just ahead of polls, the Islamic State terror group had called for "slaughter" of American voters on election day and urged Muslims not to participate in the democratic process.
Washington: Marking a symbolic start to the transition of power, President-elect Donald Trump joined President Barack Obama for a meeting at the Oval Office in White House on Thursday.

President Obama spent over an hour with his successor engaged in a discussion on the transition of power.

Later, President Obama said they had an "excellent" and "wide-ranging" conversation.'

Obama added he was encouraged by Donald Trump's wanting to work with his team on issues facing the country.

Importantly, Obama stressed that it's important for all "to now come together."

Terming the meeting a great honour, President-elect Donald Trump said he very much looks forward to dealing with President Barack Obama in the future.

The President-elect will later go to Capitol Hill to talk with congressional leaders about the Republicans' legislative agenda for next year.

Interestingly, this was the first time they met each other.

President Obama was very critical of Trump throughout the campaign and had gone to the extent to assert that Trump was unfit to serve as a commander in chief.

Trump had also launched a no hold barred attack on Obama, promising the electorate that he will  if elected to office - wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office,

First lady Michelle Obama also held a separate meeting with Trump's wife, Melania, at the White House.
Chicago/New York: Throngs of demonstrators marched in cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest Republican Donald Trump`s surprise victory in the US presidential election, blasting his controversial campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

In New York, thousands of protesters filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, Trump`s gilded home on Fifth Avenue, while hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted "Not my president."

In downtown Chicago, an estimated 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA."

Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators` path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence.

"I`m just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."

Protesters railed against Trump`s campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the country illegally.

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday evening, and organizers planned rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland, California.

In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said.

A representative of the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the protests. In his victory speech, Trump said he would be president for all Americans, saying: "It is time for us to come together as one united people."

Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that "Mr Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form."

Earlier on Wednesday, some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, in Berkeley, a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other Bay Area cities, Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito.

A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday morning in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally.

Chanting in Spanish: "The people united will never be defeated," the group held signs with slogans such as "Not Supporting Racism, Not My President" and "Immigrants Make America Great."

Many of those students were members of the "Dreamers" generation, children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration.

"A child should not live in fear that they will be deported," said Stephanie Hipolito, one of the student organizers of the walkout. She said her parents were U.S. citizens.

There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence.

Wednesday`s demonstrations followed a night of protests in the San Francisco area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump`s victory against heavily favored Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Demonstrators smashed storefront windows and set garbage and tires ablaze late on Tuesday in downtown Oakland. A few miles away, students at the University of California, Berkeley protested on campus.
Motihari (Bihar): Counting virtues of prohibition, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said sale of "Rasgulla" has increased by 16.25 per cent in past seven months since ban on alcohol in the state.

"Sale of Rasgulla has increased by 16.25 per cent in the past seven months since prohibition came into effect in Bihar," Kumar said addressing a Chetna sabha as part of his "Nishchaya yatra" here in Bihar's East Champaran district. Rasgulla has increased by 16.25 per cent in the past seven months since prohibition came into effect in Bihar," Kumar said addressing a Chetna sabha as part of his "Nishchaya yatra" here in Bihar's East Champaran district.

In addition, sale of healthy foods like Peda, paneer and Dahi Matha (product of curd) has also risen since ban on liquor was clamped in Bihar in April, he said.

Yesterday, the Chief Minister had reeled figure of hike in sale of milk in the wake of prohibition by 11 per cent.

Kumar was addressing a rally here on his second stop of Nishchay yatra that started yesterday from Bettiah to take feedback from people on prohibition as well as on "seven resolves" which has been adopted by the government as "policy of governance" for next five years.yatra that started yesterday from Bettiah to take feedback from people on prohibition as well as on "seven resolves" which has been adopted by the government as "policy of governance" for next five years.

"Seven resolves" include civic amenities like drinking water, toilet, roads and electricity for every household.

Kumar read figures to claim a substantial drop in crime rate after banning liquor, spiced and domestic as well as Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) in the past seven months.

With Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and state police chief P K Thakur present on the dias, Kumar claimed that heinous crimes have seen a slide.

Murder cases have dropped by 36 per cent in between April 1 to October 31, this year as compared to during same period in 2015, he said.

Likewise, dacoity decreased by 25 per cent, riots by 40 per cent, kidnapping for ransom by 56 per cent and road accidents by 21 per cent, Kumar, who has taken the task of prohibition in a mission mode, said dwelling on impacts of liquor ban.

Kumar, who is also JD(U) chief, apparently hit at Prime

Minister Narendra Modi saying the election promise (of bringing back black money and providing Rs 15 lakh out of it to every citizens) was not fullfilled and instead declared as "jumla" (euphism).

But, unlike those "hollow" promises his government has effected prohibition and started works on seven resolves of providing electricity, road, toilet, drinking water and sewage among others to every household before completion of one year of grand secular alliance government.

With Agriculture minister Ram Vichar Rai of RJD and Congress minister Madan Mohan Jha with him, Kumar slammed the Centre for permiting trial of GM Mustard and said Bihar would not allow genetically modified mustard in any case.

He also hit out at rival BJP for protesting his "Nishchay yatra" with an aim to find publicity in media.
Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday announced Rs 11 lakh ex-gratia to the family of BSF jawan Vikas Kumar Mishra who was killed in Pakistani shelling at the border in Jammu and Kashmir.

Kumar also ordered that the soldier's last rites be held with state honours, an official statement said here.

Mishra was a native of Raiyam village under Jhanjharpur sub-division of Madhubani district of Bihar.

The chief minister also offered condolences over the death of the soldier.

Kumar said the country will always remember his martyrdom and the entire state is with the jawan's family in this hour of grief.

The last rites of the martyred BSF jawan would be held at his native village Raiyam in Madhubani district.
Delhi: Admit cards for Civil Services 2016 main exam has been released by Union Public Service Commission on the official website.

In order to download the admit card, candidates will have log on to the official website - www.upsc.gov.in.

They have to click on the admit card section and then click on the link e-Admit Card - Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2016.

When a new page opens, candidates should go to the Click here tab in the Download e-Admit Card section.

After going through the terms and instructions and they should click on yes.

On doing so, they will be redirected to another page where the candidates can select whether they want your admit card by roll number or registration ID.

Candidates must enter important details like date of birth, roll number/ registration ID and the Captcha Code.

When they click on submit or when they press Enter, their admit card will be available.

As per the official website, "in case of any problem in downloading e-admit card for the Civil Services (Main) Examination, 2016 or discrepancy noticed in the e-admit card, may please be informed in detail on e-mail - web-upsc@nic.in (For Technical Problem) , csm-upsc@nic.in(For Applicant Data Problem)."

The exam is scheduled to be held on December 3.

About UPSC:

According to the official website - "Under Article 320 of the Constitution of India, the Commission is, inter-alia, required to be consulted on all matters relating to recruitment to civil services and posts. The functions of the Commission under Article 320 of the Constitution are:

Conduct examinations for appointment to the services of the Union.

Direct recruitment by selection through interviews.

Appointment of officers on promotion / deputation / absorption.

Framing and amendment of Recruitment Rules for various services and posts under the Government.

Disciplinary cases relating to different Civil Services.

Advising the Government on any matter referred to the Commission by the President of India."
Moscow: The Russian government was in touch with members of President-elect Donald Trump`s campaign staff during the US election campaign, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency on Thursday.

"There were contacts," Interfax cited Ryabkov as saying. He did not give details.

When asked whether these contacts would now intensify after Trump`s election victory, Ryabkov said: "These working moments and follow-up on this or that matter will depend on the situation and the questions which face us. But we will, of course, continue this work after the elections."

Defeated Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton accused Trump of being a "puppet" of President Vladimir Putin during the campaign, and US officials said Russia had hacked into Democratic party e-mails, something Moscow denied.

Trump has said he might meet Putin before his inauguration, but Putin`s spokesman has said there are currently no plans for such a meeting.

The Russian parliament erupted in applause on Wednesday when it heard that Trump had been elected and Putin told foreign ambassadors he was ready to fully restore ties with Washington.

Ryabkov was more circumspect in his interview, saying the Russian Foreign Ministry felt no euphoria about the Republican`s win even though it wanted to normalise relations with Washington.

Ryabkov said Trump`s allies had made some tough statements about Russia during the campaign and that his ministry was therefore not harbouring any rose-tinted hopes.

"We are not expecting anything in particular from the new US administration," Interfax cited Ryabkov as saying.
Athens: Unidentified attackers on a motorcycle threw an explosive device at the French embassy in central Athens early on Thursday, wounding a guard, police said, in an attack that came less than a week before US President Barack Obama visits the city.

"It was probably a hand grenade," one official told Reuters. "The building was not damaged, only externally, on the pavement. One officer, who was at the spot, was slightly injured."

The attackers were riding a motorcycle, according to footage from security cameras, another official said.

The explosion was heard in central Athens.

Small-scale attacks on businesses, police, politicians and embassies are frequent in Greece, with its long history of political violence.
Budapest: The outcome of the US Presidential Election marks the end of a period of "liberal non-democracy" that was mainstream in the past two decades, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Thursday.

Hungary`s conservative leader in July became the first European head of state to express a clear preference for Republican Donald Trump, who scored a surprise victory over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Wednesday.

Like Orban, Trump, a billionaire investor, has also earned rebukes from opponents for what they see as more friendly business and political ties with Russia, Hungary`s former Communist overlord and the United States` main Cold War rival.

"This is the second day of a historic event, in which Western civilisation appears to successfully break free from the confines of an ideology," Orban told a conference organised by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

"We are living in the days where what we call liberal non-democracy - in which we lived for the past 20 years - ends, and we can return to real democracy," said Orban, without explicitly referring to Trump`s election win.

Orban, whose speech two years ago on building an "illiberal state" earned him rebukes from the domestic opposition and some foreign capitals, said the time was ripe for politicians to break the shackles of political correctness.

The combative 53-year-old premier has clashed several times with European Union authorities over reforms affecting the independence of the judiciary and the central bank.

His razor-wire border fence to stem the flow of migrants from the Middle East last year drew criticism from human rights groups.

"We can call problems by their name and find solutions not derived from an ideology but based on pragmatic, creative thinking rooted in common sense," Orban said.

"We are two days after the big bang and still alive," he said. "What a wonderful world. This also shows that democracy is creative and innovative."

Orban said Trump`s victory, like Britons` decision to leave the European Union, represented an important shift in global popular thinking.

"Brexit is not a tragedy, even remotely," Orban said. "It is not a defeat, but an attempt by a great nation to make itself successful in other ways than what everyone else had considered the path to success."
New Delhi: In a huge setback for Punjab government in Satluj-Yamuna Link canal issue, the Supreme Court, Thursday, declared the legislation passed by Punjab government as null and void.

In 2004, the then Congress government led by Amarinder Singh in Punjab had brought the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act-2004 in Punjab Assembly.

The Punjab Assembly, in 2004, had abrogated the water agreement with Haryana by passing a bill in the Punjab assembly. The bill went to the President for assent and was referred to the Supreme Court after Haryana objected to it.

The SYL, which was to link both rivers in these states, has been a bone of contention for over three decades.

Holding the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, not in conformity with constitutional provisions, the constitution bench of Justice Anil R Dave, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, Justice Shiva Kirti Singh, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Amitava Roy answered in the negative all the four questions referred to the apex court in a Presidential reference.

"The Punjab act cannot be said to be in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of India and by virtue of the said act, the state of Punjab cannot nullify the (apex court's 2002 and 2004) judgment and decree and terminate the agreement dated 31st December, 1981. We are of the view that the Punjab act cannot be considered to be legal and valid and the state of Punjab can not absolve itself from its duties/liabilities arising out of the agreement in question," held Justice Dave, speaking for the bench.

The verdict also said that Punjab cannot discharge itself from an obligation arising from the court's January 15, 2002 and January 4, 2004 judgments and decree.

In a separate opinion, Justice Singh said, "...delay in execution of a final judgment or decree, more so when it is of the apex court, should never be countenanced by any authority because it would surely tend to undermine people's faith in the judicial system..." and would mean "avoidable harm to all the institutions and functionaries under the Constitution, may be even to the Constitution itself".

The court said that the existing agreement has "thus a legal sanction" and once a court has passed a binding decree, any party to the litigation cannot unilaterally act in a manner to nullify the decree's effect.

Holding that the Punjab law clearly violated the 1981 agreement, the court said the state had "exceeded its legislative power in proceeding to nullify the decree of this Court and therefore, the Punjab Act cannot be said to be a validly enacted legislation .."

The court said that the agreement, about sharing Ravi and Beas rivers water, could not have been unilaterally terminated by any of the parties through its legislative power and if done, "such unilateral action of a particular state has to be declared contrary to the Constitution of India as well as the provisions of the Inter State Water Disputes Act, 1956".

It also rejected Punjab's contention that July 22, 2004 Presidential reference was not maintainable and should be returned unanswered, ruling this was "not a case where this court would like to refuse to give its opinion to the President under the provisions of Article 143 of the Constitution ... as there is no good reason for the same".

Meanwhile, protesting against the SC order, all Punjab Congress MLAs submitted their resignations to PCC chief Amarinder Singh.

Singh too resigned as MP, protesting against the Sutlej Yamuna link canal row verdict.

Amarinder also demanded imposition of President's rule in the state and suggested holding the Assembly elections in December, voicing apprehension that a "mischievous" Badal government may try to "foment trouble" following the court order.

(With IANS inputs)
Chandigarh: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court`s verdict in the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal row, wherein it declared the legislation passed by the Punjab Government as null and void, saying it is a positive step for the people of Haryana as they truly deserve this.

"I am very happy. It is a positive step for Haryana. The decision came late, but in the favour of Haryana. I welcome it," Khattar told reporters.

The apex court was to give its verdict on the presidential reference of 2004 on the SYL canal row. The controversy is on sharing of waters by states, including Punjab and Haryana.

The five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court answered in negative on all the questions of president reference if Punjab can enact the law over SYL canal.The Centre will now take over the canal and continue building it.

Meanwhile, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Captain Amarinder Singh has decided t0 resign as MP in protest of the apex court ruling.

Also, all Punjab Congress MLAs have sent their resignations to Captain Amarinder Singh in protest of the apex court verdict.

"It is a very unfortunate decision for Punjab. In this issue, the Centre as well as the Punjab Government has failed to put up the side of Punjab," said Bharat Bhushan deputy CLP leader, Punjab Assembly.

"Punjab Congress MLAs have sent resignations to Amarinder Singh. We will submit to speaker in personal capacity tomorrow," he added.

Other Congress leader Ravneet Singh Bittu told ANI, "Punjab can`t afford to give even a drop of water. The decision taken is against Punjab and in favour of Haryana."

The SYL canal was conceived for the sharing of Ravi and Beas river waters after Haryana was carved out of Punjab in 1966. However, Punjab has been regularly opposing it saying its agriculture will suffer.
New Delhi: With banks re-opening on Thursday after government ban on Rs 500, 1000 notes, people were seen rushing to their nearby banks to deposit cash, exchange their high denomination notes, but many faced many difficulties and had to return back, because of invalid or no documents.

Here are few steps which one should take before rushing to banks or ATMs.

All banks across the country will remain open on this Saturday and Sunday for the conveniences of the customers. It is, however, not clear whether post offices would be open or not on the weekend. There are about 1.25 lakh post offices across the country.

You can go to any bank, head post office or sub post office, show your identity proof like Aadhaar card, voter card, ration card, passport, PAN card or other approved proofs, and exchange your old five hundred or thousand rupee notes for new notes.

Persons holding old notes of five hundred or one thousand rupees can deposit these notes in their bank or post office accounts from 10th November till close of banking hours on 30th December 2016 without any limit. After depositing your money in your account, you can draw it when you need it.

Keeping in mind the supply of new notes, in the first few days, there will be a limit of ten thousand rupees per day and twenty thousand rupees per week. This limit will be increased in the coming days.

There will be a limit on withdrawal from banks and post offices to Rs 10,000 a day, and Rs 20,000 a week. The limit will be raised in the coming days.

You can exchange Rs 500/Rs 1,000 notes at any bank, post office or sub post office, showing ID proof, till November 24, 2016. The limit for this is Rs 4,000.

The new hard-to-fake Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 currency notes will be available at bank ATMs when they start operating again from Friday.

Withdrawals from ATMS will be limited to Rs 2,000/day per card up to November 18, 2016. This will be raised to Rs 4,000 late

For 72 hours, till midnight on 11th November, Rs 500, Rs 1000 notes can be used for purchases at consumer cooperative stores operated under authorisation of central or state governments; for purchase at milk booths operating under authorisation of the central or state governments; for purchase of petrol, diesel and gas at the stations operating under the authorisation of public sector oil marketing companies; for payments at crematoria and burial grounds.

There is no restriction of any kind on non-cash payments by cheques, demand drafts, debit or credit cards and electronic fund transfer.

In a historical move that will add record strength in the fight against corruption, black money, money laundering, terrorism and financing of terrorists as well as counterfeit notes, the Narendra Modi government decided that the five hundred and one thousand rupee notes will no longer be legal tender from midnight, 8th November 2016.

Notes of one hundred, fifty, twenty, ten, five, two and one rupee will remain legal tender and will remain unaffected by the decision.
New Delhi: In comments that will trigger a debate, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Thursday that in his personal view India's nuclear doctrine should also have an element of unpredictability.

Speaking his mind on India's no first use policy on nuclear weapons, Parrikar said, People say India has not first used nuclear concept. I should say that I'm a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly.

If written down strategy exists or you take a stand on a nuclear aspect, I think you're actually giving away your strength in nuclear, he added.

Stressing that these are his personal views, the Defence Minister said, This is my thinking. Some may say that Parrikar says nuclear doctrine has changed; it has not changed in any government policy.

Be 'unpredictable' is part of the strategy. But we have to have a written book so that in general, we follow that direction...Necessarily if there is any question or danger to the country, I will not open the book first, Parrikar said.

Apparently taking a dig at Pakistan's threat of using tactical nuclear weapons against India, Parrikar said, Used to get threat from defence minister from neighbouring country that they are going to use tactical nuclear weapons if they're threatened.

The day surgical strikes happened, no threat has come again (sic), he said.

Parrikar also spoke on Modi government's decision to scrap Rs 500/1000 notes.

Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes may have an impact on elections, lot of politicians are already worrying, he said.
New Delhi: In a big relief for common man, banks re-opened on Thursday to dispense new notes in exchange for old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that are no longer legal tender.

Long queues were seen outside bank branches everywhere as individuals lined up for exchanging old currency and collecting smaller denomination notes.

Following are the updates:

The Income Tax department conducts multiple surveys in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities in the wake of reports of alleged profiteering and subsequent tax evasion by traders by converting withdrawn currency notes in an illegal manner.

So happy to learn that citizens are expressing their gratitude to bankers & getting notes exchanged in a very patient & orderly manner.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 10, 2016

It is also heartening to learn that people are actively volunteering to help senior citizens withdraw money & exchange their currency.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 10, 2016

Such warmth, enthusiasm & the patience to bear limited inconvenience for a greater good is indeed very heartening.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 10, 2016

I assure you the Govt is unwavering in its effort to create an India that is corruption free & fruits of development touch every citizen.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 10, 2016

Mumbai: People throng banks to exchange notes after Govt's announcement to withdraw Rs 500/1000 notes threw normal life out of gear pic.twitter.com/KBljCL0XXQ  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

Similar scenes were witnessed in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Bhopal etc where people lined up outside banks to exchange scrapped notes after Centre's announcement to withdraw Rs 500 and 1000 notes.

Mumbai: People throng banks to exchange notes after Govt's announcement to withdraw Rs 500/1000 notes threw normal life out of gear pic.twitter.com/KBljCL0XXQ  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

In Delhi, people queue up outside banks in Khan Market to exchange scrapped notes after Govt announcement to withdraw Rs 500,1000 notes.

Delhi: People queue up outside banks in Khan Market to exchange scrapped notes after Govt announcement to withdraw Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/9FpmmAP0UY  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

Centre accepts Maharashtra govt's request to allow Rs 500, 1000 notes for payment of govt dues like electricity, water, property bills.

I expected a different level of ethics from them: Jaitley

Im certainly disappointed with TMC and Left: FM

FM Arun Jaitley's direct attack on Congress, says not surprised at the reaction of Congress party

Asking people to deal in cheque, digital money and not in cash is a financial emergency? asks FM

Bulk of India is welcoming it, says Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

It will bring ethics, cleanliness and in every sense help the economy: FM

A well thought out decision, says Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Congress-led Opposition demands roll back of demonetisation decision.

We want BJP govt to pull back this ban on currency for few days and let people arrange something. We are with the government: Mulayam Singh Yadav.

BJP promised to bring back black money in their election campaigns, but after getting public pressure they ban Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes: Mulayam Singh Yadav

Centre has spread anarchy in entire country, common man is not even able to buy daily products, says SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Over 3000 paramilitary and police personnel, quick reaction teams deployed in Delhi for security in banks, reports PTI.

New currency notes yet to reach Kashmir and Tripura, reports

Congress party has always fought against corruption; can't understand the time of this demonetisation; several people will be affected: Azad

No political party is against ending black money. But this decision was rushed and premature: Ghulam Nabi Azad of Congress

Demonetisation is good for the country, says Madras HC.

Madras HC dismisses petition seeking stay on demonetisation of currency by Centre.

Modi govt has imposed undeclared economic emergency in the country: BSP chief Mayawati

BSP chief Mayawati slams PM Modi for his move to demonitise high denomination notes.

Banks release Rs 2000 notes. Here is the first look.

Left groups protest against Centre's demonetisation move in Chennai, say reports.

Banks are refusing to exchange notes without ID Proof, says reports.

No limit on depositing money if KYC norms are updated.

Huge crowd gathered outside PNB bank, Sansad Marg to exchange scrapped notes after Govt announcement to withdraw Rs 500, 1000 notes.

Delhi: Huge crowd gathered outside PNB bank, Sansad Marg to exchange scrapped notes after Govt announcement to withdraw Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/mjwWvOprgM  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

For Gold purchase and sell people need to show their PAN card: Jaitley

Centre wants to be heard before Supreme Court passes any order on pleas against demonetisation



We understand need for emergency cash: Jaitley

Trying to ensure requisite replacement currency is available with people at the earliest; no need for people to rush: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

Instead of seeing it as a reduction of wealth, it must be seen as transfer of unaccounted wealth: CEA Arvind Subramanian.

In UP, people queue up outside banks in Lucknow to exchange scrapped notes after Govt announcement to withdraw Rs 500, 1000 notes.

UP: People queue up outside banks in Lucknow to exchange scrapped notes after Govt announcement to withdraw Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/uZpxbjGuu2  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) November 10, 2016

In West Bengal's Siliguri, huge crowd gathered outside banks as it reopens for the first time after Govt withdraws Rs 500, 1000 notes.

Siliguri (West Bengal): Huge crowd gathered outside banks as it reopens for the first time after Govt withdraws Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/tlAxc3gasn  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

It is a good decision taken by govt, we're providing full support to customers & have advised same to every branch: Arundhati Bhattacharya.

It is a good decision taken by govt, we're providing full support to customers & have advised same to every branch: Arundhati Bhattacharya pic.twitter.com/kOWZzPXTkN  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

Customers can withdraw Rs 4000 from ATMs and Rs 10000 from bank counter and can deposit any amount: Arundhati Bhattacharya, MD, SBI.

There is no need to panic; Govt is trying to make available all resources as per demands: Arjun Meghwal, MoS Finance.

There is no need to panic; Govt is trying to make available all resources as per demands: Arjun Meghwal, MoS Finance pic.twitter.com/VM0FqN2AgC  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

People queue up in large numbers outside Reserve Bank of India to exchange banned Rs 500, 1000 notes

We are standing here for last two hours, bank officials are creating nuisance and not allowing us to enter inside: Customer

Chaos outside a bank in Patna after people queue up in huge numbers to deposit/exchange Rs 500, 1000 notes.

Bank officials are co-operating and helping us. The new notes are really good but I hope that I find change for Rs 2000 now: Customer.

In Nagpur, people throng banks as it reopens for first time after Govt withdraws Rs 500,1000 notes.

Nagpur: People throng banks as it reopens for first time after Govt withdraws Rs 500/1000 notes (in pics:People pose with new Rs 2000 notes) pic.twitter.com/uYjFOaB0JR  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

Long queues outside banks in Jhandewalan to exchange scrapped notes after Govt announced to withdraw Rs 500, 1000 notes.

Delhi: Long queues outside banks in Jhandewalan to exchange scrapped notes after Govt announced to withdraw Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/Hmv9G7Q2yZ  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

People queue up outside banks in Hyderabad to deposit/exchange Rs 500,1000 notes.

Hyderabad: People queue up outside banks to deposit/exchange Rs 500/1000 notes (in pics: People pose with the new Rs 2000 currency notes) pic.twitter.com/jHdHh4CXNT  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

In Delhi, banks open early at 8 am today, extend working hours to ensure no inconvenience is caused to customers, Rs 2000 notes now available.

Customers lined up outside banks in Chennai to exchange scrapped notes after Govt announcement to withdraw Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/3mnE5ggx9u  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

Customers lined up outside banks in Chennai to exchange scrapped notes after Centre's announcement to withdraw Rs 500, 1000 notes.

In pic- A customer receives Rs 2000 currency notes upon withdrawal.

Kolkata: New currency notes now available at few banks (in pic: A customer receives Rs 2000 currency notes upon withdrawal) pic.twitter.com/fxmBgD1Zle  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

However, as per the government's announcement, individuals can only collect up to Rs 4,000  the current entitlement  hence several banks have issued informal advisory asking people to have patience in depositing their old currency notes and collecting the new ones.

The advisory from banks despite several efforts taken by the Centre and the RBI to ensure hassle free transactions when the banks open.

A ToI report claimed that apex banks including the State Bank of India and HDFC Bank have hired services of some retired banking officials to help them deal with the "unprecedented rush" to deposit and exchange notes.

Anticipating a huge rush, the Reserve Bank of India has asked banks to remain open for business over the weekend to draw out nearly 13 lakh crore of demonetised notes by December.

The nation's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has announced an extension in banking hours, till 6 pm today.

Each of its branches will be having a dedicated 'exchange counter' to change the currency notes.

Some other banks such as ICICI Bank said that their "busy" branches would remain open for 12 hours starting 8 am.

Others are preparing to stay open till around 7 pm.

Delhi Police makes special arrangements for smooth banking today

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police have also made adequate arrangements to ensure law and order and smooth demonetisation process in the national capital.

Following specific arrangements have been made apart from the general arrangements:

- Police arrangements at all banks ensuring safety and facilitating government demonetising policy.

- Police arrangements at ATMs.

- Police arrangements at all petrol pumps ensuring due law and order.

- Kendriya Bhandar, Safal centres, Pharmacies, Hospitals, Mother dairies etc. also have to be covered with adequate police coverage.

- Banks have been requested to put up proper notice covering scheme details at all bank gates assuring people requesting to keep patience and cooperate.

- Apart from police deployment, patrolling staff will also be covering all vulnerable premises.

- Police arrangements will commence from 9 am.

-Maximum staff have been mobilised from all units of Delhi Police.

-All senior officers including DCPs and Joint CPs will be closely supervising the arrangements ensuring incident free day.

-The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will launch new Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 currency notes from today.

Fearing a jump in footfalls to deposit or withdraw cash following the demonetisation of 500 rupees and 1,000 rupees banknotes, banks will remain open this Saturday and Sunday and its staff will do overtime till 9 pm for the next three days to clear the rush.

In a tweet, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said for public convenience, banks will remain open on coming Saturday and Sunday.

Banks also announced a slew of measures, including extension of banking hours, doing away with ATM charges and expanding credit limits to handle the expected huge rush to tender now defunct 500 rupee and 1000 rupee notes.

The Reserve Bank also came out with an order instructing all the banks to be open for business on the coming weekend, including Sunday.

With ANI inputs
New Delhi: Pakistan will not be able to replicate the new notes that are being planned by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), according to intelligence agencies.

They said that the security features in the new denominations of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 notes will make it impossible for them to copy.

Citing a top government official, the Times of India reported that the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India's external intelligence agency, the Intelligence Bureau and the DRI have examined the features for the past six months.

However, he reportedly did not reveal the security features on the new notes.

Pakistan reportedly had a dedicated mint in Peshawar where only fake Indian currency notes were being printed.

The fake notes are then supplied to various terror groups like the Dawood gang and LeT by Pakistan's intelligence agency.

According to Indian intelligence agencies, the Pakistani mint has achieved a "zero-error counterfeit capability" in printing fake Indian notes.

According to an estimate, Pakistan reportedly pushes about Rs 70 crore worth of fake currency notes into the Indian economy in order to fund terror.

TOI quoting MoS for home Kiren Rijiju reported that the government's move would lead to closure of fake currency "press" in Pakistan.
London: The Indian government is looking at ways to help NRIs who may possess some banned currency notes so that they can deposit them at a branch of an Indian bank overseas, India's acting high commissioner to the UK said.

"Our endeavour is to help everybody. We have asked Delhi about it (any banned notes with NRIs). I have a feeling we will work out something so that people who have carried certain amount of cash in their pocket, should be able to deposit it in any Indian bank abroad," Dinesh Patnaik said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as part of an anti-corruption drive earlier this week, giving Indians the option to exchange them at banks across India until December 30.

The Indian envoy highlighted that under currency rules, people are allowed to carry only less than Rs 10,000 when leaving India.

"Basically, it means people abroad should not have more than that. Also, not everybody will have an account with an Indian bank ? either they will have to open one or find an alternative. So, it is something we will have to look at very closely.

"There is a lot of time, until December 30," he said.

Patnaik, the deputy high commissioner who stepped in as acting high commissioner after Navtej Sarna left to assume charge as Indian ambassador in Washington DC, said that the reason behind the ban was to bring in money from outside the legal system.

"This is not an amnesty scheme or any scheme to garner black money. This is a method to achieve cashless transactions, which in itself will stop corruption, and to make sure that the money which is lying within the non-legal system, gets into the legal system.

"And, of course, the threat of fake Indian currency will be eliminated, because that threat was mostly with Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. The new Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 will have greater security features and it will make it more difficult for counterfeiters to try and copy it," he said.
Tokyo: Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Thursday warmly welcomed by members of the Indian community in Japan.

Soon after his arrival here for the annual India-Japan bilateral summit, PM Modi interacted with members of the Indian community in Japan.

Konbanwa Tokyo! PM @narendramodi arrives in Japan for the Annual Summit, his second visit in two years. pic.twitter.com/n5YKDdIOic  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) November 10, 2016

A warm welcome by the Indian community on this cold November night. PM @narendramodi is greeted by diaspora members in Tokyo pic.twitter.com/Bzeq0uu0ww  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) November 10, 2016

The Indian community extends a very warm welcome to the Prime Minister on his arrival in Tokyo. pic.twitter.com/Mvz97J84mv  PMO India (@PMOIndia) November 10, 2016

According to the External Affairs Ministry, in recent years, there has been a change in the composition of the Indian community in Japan with the arrival of a large number of professionals.

"These include IT professionals and engineers working for Indian and Japanese firms as well as professionals in management, finance, education, and S&T (science and technology) research who are engaged with multinational as well as Indian and Japanese organisations," a ministry brief on Japan stated.

On Friday, PM Modi will call on Emperor Akihito and attend the bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The Prime Minister will also meet some opposition and other political leaders.

(With Agency inputs)
Bangkok: En route to Japan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday made a surprise stopover in the Thai capital where he paid respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illness.

Prime Minister Modi laid a wreath and paid tributes to the late King Bhumibol, whose body is lying in state at the Grand Palace complex here.

"His Majesty will always be remembered for his compassion, foresight, and commitment for the welfare of his people," Modi wrote in his condolence message at the Grand Palace.

Describing the late King as "world statesman", the Prime Minister said, "His (the King's) departure from this world is also a loss for the international community" and has left a void.

"On behalf of the Government and the people of India, I convey our deepest condolences to the Royal family and the Government and the people of the Kingdom of Thailand," he said.

Earlier, Modi was received at the airport by Thai Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith.

Bhumibol, who was the world's longest ruling monarch, passed away at the age of 88 on October 13. He was adored by many of his subjects and seen as an anchor of stability in a kingdom rocked by turbulent politics.

A one-year mourning period had been announced in Thailand following the monarch's death. He will be cremated next year.

The mortal remains of King Bhumibol, also known as King Rama IX, have been kept here for people to pay their respects.

Thousands of Thais are still streaming into the gates of the Grand Palace to pay their respects to the late King.

Modi is headed to Japan for a three-day visit during which the two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in areas like trade, investment, and security.
New Delhi: Further deepening the already close defence ties will be a major focus of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's eight-day trip to India beginning Monday during which both sides are also set to ink a number of MoUs to expand cooperation in areas of energy, agriculture and trade.

Ahead of Rivlin's visit here, first by an Israeli President in nearly two decades, the Jewish country's envoy Daniel Carmon said the bilateral defence ties were beyond buyer-seller and military-to-military relationship and the message will be to broaden it further besides boosting cooperation in some other sectors.

During his stay, the Israeli President will hold extensive talks with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi covering key bilateral and regional issues besides attending a ceremony in Taj Hotel and Chabad House in Mumbai to pay tribute to victims of 26/11 attack in which six Jews were also killed.

On defence cooperation, Carmon said Israel has plans for fresh joint ventures and technology transfer in developing weapons systems and ensuring implementation of Modi's Make in India initiative in the key sector which is a "major facet" of his country's "special relationship" with India.

"It is a very deep relationship. India and Israel enjoy very unique relation in areas of defence.... There are plans for fresh joint venture and technology transfer," he told reporters, refusing to go into specifics.

India is Israel's largest buyer of military hardware and the latter has been supplying various weapons systems, missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles over the last few years but the transactions have largely remained behind the curtains.

Carmon said Rivlin's "large" delegation will comprise honchos of top Israeli arms manufacturing companies and senior government officials dealing with matters relating to defence.

Asked about Modi's proposed visit to Israel, he said it will happen and will be a very important trip.

It was being decided by the two governments when it will happen, the envoy said.

There were indications that the Prime Minister may visit Tel Aviv in the first part of 2017 which will be the 25th year of formal diplomatic ties between the two countries. India had established "full" diplomatic relationship with Israel in 1992 though it had recognised the country in 1950.

Asked about the proposed Free Trade Agreement between the two countries, he said its finalisation "should and could be an easier process henceforth".

The envoy said both countries are set to sign a raft of pacts in areas of education, energy, water, agriculture and research and development during Rivlin's visit.

On Modi comparing India's cross-LoC military action against terror launchpads following Uri attack to Israeli-type response, the envoy said his country had to develop a robust capability to protect its citizens, considering the geopolitical situation.

He said Israel was ready to share with India its technology and enhance security ties.

In October last year, President Mukherjee had visited Israel, the first by an Indian head of state.

Rivlin will also visit Chandigarh where he will inaugurate an Agro Tech conference along with Mukherjee.

President Rivlin will head business and academic delegations including chancellors of 12 Israeli universities as well as Israeli companies, some of which are already active and successful in India.

He said at least 15 MoUs are likely to be signed between Indian and Israeli educational institutions during the visit.

Identifying agriculture and water conservation as key areas of cooperation, he said the number of agri-centres set up by Israel in India will go up from current 15 to 40.

The visit will focus on strengthening the ever growing economic ties between India and Israel in the fields of agriculture and water, and promoting academic cooperation, he said.

Asked about India attempting to strengthen ties with countries like Iran, UAE and Saudi Arabia, the envoy said Indo-Israel bilateral ties were not affected by New Delhi's relationship with other nations.

In Agra, the Israeli President will visit Taj Mahal and an Israeli water treatment plant. He will also visit the Indo-Israeli Agricultural Project's Center of Excellence in Karnal.
Srinagar: Ahead of Friday`s separatist called protest here, authorities on Thursday placed Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq under house arrest and arrested JKLF leader Muhammad Yasin Malik and shifted to jail.

Sources close to the Mirwaiz said he was informed by police that he should not move out of his uptown Nigeen residence as he was under house arrest.

A police party arrived at the uptown Maisuma residence of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief and took him into custody.

A group of his supporters tried to resist Malik`s arrest but were prevented by police from doing so. Malik was taken to the Srinagar Central Jail.

He had been released from the jail two weeks back as he had developed an abscess in his arm.

Senior hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani continues to remain in house arrest inside his uptown Hyderpora residence in the city.

The authorities cracked down on the separatists to prevent their participation in a protest march to the Jamia mosque in Old City Srinagar on Friday.
Jammu: Vice Chancellor Jammu University Prof RD Sharma has courted controversy by saying it would have been "better" if Hizbul Mujahideen 'commander' Burhan Wani was kept in jail instead of being killed.

"If we would have kept him (Burhan) in jail for entire life, it would have better than killing him. I feel so. Killing a militant is ok and those who have done deaths and destruction should be killed. The problem in Kashmir is that people are still with militancy...We need to understand this," Sharma told media at a function here yesterday.

He said an "issued was created" by killing the militant.

"What a big issue was created by killing a militant. I don't know whether I am saying right or wrong? If we would have arrested him, the career of school children would not have been spoiled. I am saying this not as politician but as an educationist," he said.

Sharma said students in Kashmir are "dedicated, well organised and career conscious but would fight if they feel they are being harassed".

"They (Kashmiri students) are very enlightened. It was a surprise and shock for me as to why they don't go to schools and colleges. It is sensitive issue. I am not a politician, I am a educationist," he added.

His statement today sparked protests by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha following which he issued a statement saying his views be interpreted in the light of academic pursuits only.

"It is clarified and impressed upon that the statement given by the vice chancellor, which is already available on the social media as well, be interpreted in the light of academic pursuits only, as it in no way was aimed to promote or protect the interests or hurt the sentiments of any individual. Communication gap caused, if any, is regretted," a statement quoted Sharma as saying.

He said, "It is unfortunate that some vested interests have started twisting the statement to satiate their own objectives".

"We should take lessons from it. If one militant's killing can create this situation for four-long months, where families, parents and children become adamant and want Kashmir issue to be resolved...This is an eye opener for all of us. We need to change our strategy," he said.

BJYM today held protests over Sharma's remarks, saying as an academician he should stick to his work only.

State General Secretary, BJYM, Vikas Choudhary said he (Sharma) has given his statement at a time when there was unrest in the state and "our jawans were giving sacrifices for the nation".

President, Chamber of Commerce and Industry Jammu, Rakesh Gupta said the chamber was concerned about the statement by the vice chancellor.
Bengaluru: Amid state-wide protests by BJP, the Karnataka government on Thursday observed "Tipu Jayanti" in a low-key manner as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the rival party opposed the event for political gains and narrow considerations and termed it as "religious fanatic".

The main event was held at Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat.

The BJP observed the day as a "black day" and staged protest here and across the state with its leaders, including BS Yeddyurappa, courting arrests.

The party held protests in Mangaluru, Mysuru, Kodagu and other districts, against holding celebrations for the 18th century ruler of erstwhile Mysore kingdom who, it said, was a "religious bigot" who "converted people to Islam and massacred many".

Security was beefed up across Karnataka with prohibitory orders in sensitive Mangaluru, Chitradurga, Shivamogga and Kodagu districts and central forces, including Rapid Action Force, and City Armed Reserve personnel being deployed in Bengaluru and elsewhere.

Hitting out at BJP leaders for branding a national icon as a religious fanatic, Siddaramaiah said, "We are celebrating Tipu jayanti for the second time. Our government did not decide to celebrate Tipu Jayanti for the sake of gaining votes, nor for appeasing Muslim community."

Speaking at Tipu Jayanti celebrations organised by the Department of Kannada and Culture, he said, BJP, "because of its narrow mind, is trying to project Tipu as anti-Hindu, anti-Kannada and as religious fanatic".

"You are doing this for politics, for your selfish gains," he added.

Accusing BJP, RSS and Bajrang Dal of trying to twist history, he said, "They are trying to do it for the sake of (next Assembly) elections. We will not fear it and disrespect public sentiment. We will celebrate Tipu jayanti every year, next year we will celebrate with more fanfare."

"It is not Tipu who is a religious fanatic, it is these people (BJP) who are religious fanatics," he added.

Congress government's decision to observe Tipu Jayanti since last year has stirred a major row, with opinion sharply divided among intellectuals, academia and various communities and organisations, which have differing views on his reign.

Last year's celebrations had led to violence in Madikeri and parts of coastal districts, resulting in two deaths.

Addressing a protest here, Yeddyurappa said BJP was not "anti-Muslim" but against celebrating Tipu Sultan against whom there was resentment among different sections of society across the state.

BJP leaders, including former Deputy Chief Minister R Ashok, who addressed the protest, said Tipu Sultan was "anti-Kannada" and a "religious fanatic" and the Congress government was trying to polarise people.
Bengaluru: Elaborate security arrangements were put in place in Karnataka's Madikeri area to avoid any law and order situation during the birth anniversary celebrations of Tipu Sultan on Thursday.

Besides policemen, paramilitary personnel have been deployed on the streets of Karnataka.

The Congress government's decision to observe the birth anniversary of the 18th century ruler of the erstwhile Mysore kingdom has stirred a major controversy, with opinion sharply divided among intellectuals, academia and different communities and organisations.

The ruling Congress began celebrating Tipu's birth anniversary since last year, which led to violent protests by the right-wing organisations in the Mysore region.

Opposition BJP and pro-Hindu organisations like RSS have threatened to stage protests against the event, as Tipu was a "religious bigot and violent sultan".

Interestingly, the Karnataka High Court last week had questioned the S Siddaramaiah government's logic behind celebrating the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan, observing he wasn't a freedom fighter but a monarch who fought to safeguard his interests.

Known as the 'Tiger of Mysore', Tipu Sultan ruled the Mysore kingdom from 1782-1799 succeeding his father Hyder Ali.

Though Tipu was born in 1750 at Devanahalli on the outskirts of Bengaluru, his kingdom's capital was at Srirangapatna near Mysore.
Mumbai: The Centre has accepted Maharashtra government's request to allow Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 bills for payment of electricity bill, water bill, property tax or any kind of government dues, thus easing troubles of the common man in wake of the demonetisation of high denomination notes.

"One more step by the state government for citizens' convenience. The Government of India accepts the state government's request to further help citizens by allowing Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes for payment of electricity bill, water bill, property tax or any kind of government dues," Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in a tweet today.

He said this will be implemented with immediate effect and remain in force till tomorrow midnight.

Yesterday too, the chief minister in a bid to soothe the people, had tweeted urging them not to panic as they can get the currency notes, discontinued by the government, replaced when banks reopen on Friday.

"There is a time period given, so don't panic and crowd the ATMs and bank branches," he had said.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision is revolutionary. There is no reason to panic. Let's all together fight this war against corruption and black money," the CM had said.

He had also asked the people to continue with their daily routine and said that common man need not worry as the money earned through legal means is safe.
Mumbai: Political parties in Maharashtra, which are in the midst of election campaign for the upcoming polls to the local bodies, seem to have been hit by the sudden demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, as it has affected the disbursal of election funds to party offices.

The move has also put some candidates in tight spot, who were otherwise aiming to lure voters with high-value notes, sources said.

192 municipal councils and 20 nagar panchayats are going to polls in the state between November 27 and January 8.

A senior functionary of a political party requesting anonymity said that demonetisation has affected the disbursal of election funds for party units at the district and local level.

"The move has hit the political parties as well as the candidates, most of whom woo voters with cash," he said.

Hailing the Centre's decision to demonetise the notes, state Minister for Finance and Planning Sudhir Mungantiwar said the move will put an end to "politics" of some people, who eye power by buying the votes.

Maharashtra State Election Commissioner J S Saharia had on October 17 last month announced a mega civic election programme for 212 civic bodies that covers 25 of the 36 districts of Maharashtra.

He had said that in order to ensure free and fair polls, the State Election Commission of Maharashtra (SECM) will deploy videography surveillance units, flying squads, men at check posts to keep a check on movement of cash and liquor and gift items. It would also have complaint redressal cell.

As per the manual for conduct of elections, the SECM deputes vigilance teams at state's border check posts and entry points of various civic bodies to check movement of any large amount of unaccounted cash.

As per the election rules, candidates contesting different categories of civic bodies are allowed to spend funds between Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 10 lakhs. However, there is no spending limit for political parties.
New Delhi: In the wake of reports of alleged profiteering and subsequent tax evasion by traders by converting withdrawn currency notes in an illegal manner, the Income Tax department on Thursday conducted multiple surveys in Delhi, Mumbai, and other cities.

Earlier, news agency PTI had reported that the department had conducted multiple raids in the four cities.

Interestingly, the operations (surveys) were launched from the evening as the taxman wanted some hard cash to get accumulated at the payment counters to make the action effective.

Officials said the operations are being carried out at least at four locations in the national capital including popular marketplaces like Karol Bagh, Dariba Kalan, and Chandni Chowk, three locations in Mumbai and few others in Chandigarh and Ludhiana.

Till reports came in, similar survey operations by I-T authorities are also understood to have been launched in two south Indian cities.

Sources said the department had received "actionable inputs" that some traders, jewellers, currency exchanges and hawala dealers were allegedly exploiting the recent currency demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and were changing currencies at "discounted" prices, thereby profiteering illegally.

They said the operations were planned after Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairman Sushil Chandra yesterday asked all the investigation units in the country to keep a check on the suspicious movement of huge cash and other illegal transactions leading to tax evasion.

Officials added that almost over 100 tax sleuths along with police officials have been roped in for the survey operations.

At few places, they said, some preliminary documents have been seized.

The surveys come on the day when millions of anxious people with Rs 500 and 1,000 notes mobbed banks across India to exchange or deposit them after the government declared them illegal tender.

People jostled to get lower denominations or new currency notes as a sweeping cash crunch caused all round chaos and inconveniences to buy even simple daily essentials.

Also Read: Meet Anil Bokil, the man behind Modi's decision to demonetise Rs 500, Rs 1,000 currency notes

In a surprise move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on November 8 announced demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and introduction of the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 ones with additional security features.

Amid the public anger over the inconveniences, the government scrambled to clear confusion about the decision to demonetise.

Earlier today, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley assured people that the taxman will not hound those making small deposits in scrapped Rs 500/1,000 currency, adding, however, people with "large amounts of undisclosed monies will have to face the consequences under the tax laws".

Top I-T department officials had yesterday said the government's directive to them is "very clear", saying any instance of tax evasion and black money should be dealt with strictly, especially after two opportunities in the form of one-time stash declaration window has been provided.

(With PTI inputs)
Mumbai: Shiva Sena on Thursday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, saying ever since the surgical strikes, ceasefire violations are on and time will tell whether the second one now on black money will be successful.

The BJP ally in the state government said one will have to adopt a wait and watch approach to see how far does Modi's "second strike" against black money goes to curb illicit trade of funds.

It said corruption is a mindset and until that changes, the disease of black money cannot be checked completely.

"Modi had last month conducted a sudden surgical strike against Pakistani terror launch pads and now this strike against black money. The second strike has caused chaos among the masses as this strike too was sudden," Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

It said that attempts to stop illicit trade flow have been made in the past as well, but what was derived from it was a question that remained answered in the past and there are no answers today as well.

Sena said questions are being raised about Modi's poll promise of bringing back black money stashed abroad and depositing Rs 15 lakh in bank accounts of Indians.

"How far has the government been successful in bringing back black money from abroad is what people are asking," it said.

"Modi answered the question in his style by demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Only time will tell if the government is able to achieve its objectives by doing so. The truth is that this decision will have far-reaching effects on the Indian economy," it added.

"It was being said that the surgical strike against Pakistan was meant to tighten our grip over the neighbouring nation. But, firing, ceasefire violations are on at the borders ever since the strike. Demonetising currency was the second strike but if it actually pays dividends, only time will tell," the editorial said.
Pune: A waste picker here on Thursday came across a bag full of Rs 1,000 notes totalling up to Rs 52,000, two day after the demonetisation of the currency of these denominations.

The elderly woman ragpicker, who chanced upon the cash in a plastic bag, however, immediately alerted her supervisor who in-turn informed the police of what she found.

Police said the incident took place in one of the by-lanes of Law College Road here this morning.

"Shanta Ovhal, who is working with the civic body, was segregating the waste this morning in one of the by-lanes of Law College Road, where she found a plastic bag," an officer attached to Deccan-Gymkhana police station said.

"To segregate the waste, she opened the bag and was shocked as she saw currency notes in denominations of Rs 1,000 along with some waste in the bag," he said.

The woman then informed about it to her supervisor.

"Later, they approached the police and submitted the bag, full of demonetised currency notes," the officer said.

"We are investigating who had left the bag in the waste and also probing the genuineness of the recovered notes," he added.

On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that high denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 will no longer be legal tender, in a bid to fight against black money and create a "corruption-free" India.
Chandigarh: Congress Punjab unit chief Amarinder Singh on Thursday demanded imposition of President's Rule in the state in the wake of the SYL verdict and sought early elections, claiming Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal may try to create trouble to further his vested political interests.

"Let there be elections in December," Singh said after sending his resignation from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat to the Speaker in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement, favouring Haryana in the Sutlej-Yamuna Canal link case.

"We will go to the people over this issue," he said in a statement, adding, "Having failed to safeguard the interests of the people of Punjab, Badal will now try to cause trouble, and so, the sooner he is out of power, the better for the state."

The already fragile situation in the state has been aggravated as a result of this development and is ripe for mischievous elements to whip up trouble, he claimed, adding that terrorist groups from across the border could exploit the situation to create mayhem in the poll-bound state.

"To avoid this, the state should be immediately placed under the Governor's rule and elections should be held by December," he said.

Stating that the Akalis had 10 years to resolve the SYL issue, which they failed to address, Singh added, "It is too late for them to be thinking of ways and means to wriggle out of the situation that is of their own making."

He said that during its decade-long rule, the Badal government should have fought the case effectively and should have battled for the implementation of the riparian principles of water sharing.

"Haryana has no riparian rights on Satluj River, just as Punjab has no such rights on Yamuna river water.

"Had the Badal government fought the case properly, keeping Punjab's interests in view, the situation might have been different today," he said.

Meanwhile, the Congress state chief asked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is in contest to wrest power in Punjab, to clarify his stand on the SYL issue in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict.

He sought to know whether Kejriwal would allow the water from Punjab to be diverted to Haryana and Delhi.

"Given the fact that he hails from Haryana and is the Chief Minister of Delhi, Kejriwal will never support Punjab on the issue of SYL," he claimed, pointing out that the

Kejriwal government had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court supporting Haryana in the matter.

Pointing to his "contradictory statements" in the past on the SYL issue, he said, "Kejriwal had, time and again exposed his duplicity when it came to issues of concern to the people of Punjab."

Singh recalled that during his Punjab visit Kejriwal had "categorically" said that SYL canal should not be completed, but after returning to Delhi he remarked that "there should be no politics over water".
While their husbands met Thursday in the Oval Office to prepare passing the presidential torch, Michelle Obama and Melania Trump met elsewhere in the White House to plan their own transition.

This first meeting between the two women with vastly different backgrounds was held in the executive residence, far from the eyes of curious journalists.

"Michelle has had a chance to greet the incoming First Lady," President Barack Obama told reporters later in the Oval Office, with Donald Trump sitting at his side. "And we had an excellent conversation with her as well."

The first meeting between a First Lady and her successor traditionally offers both women a chance to confer about the best way to live in the goldfish bowl that is the White House, about how to raise children there, and so on.

Raising children may be one of the few points the two women have in common.

Michelle Obama, elegant at 52, is the first black First Lady in American history. A Harvard-educated lawyer, she will leave the White House on January 20 enjoying sky-high ratings -- approved by 79 percent of the American public, according to a recent Gallup survey. That makes her more popular than her husband.

Melania Trump, who is 46, is a Slovenian-born former model with high Slavic cheekbones, and what was once once described as the "ice blue eyes of a snow leopard about to sneeze."

The new first lady will have much to prove. Only 28 percent of Americans hold favorable opinions of her, while 32 percent are unfavorable -- the worst figures for a future First Lady since the 1980s, according to Gallup.

She kept a low profile through most of her husband`s campaign, preferring to remain in their luxury penthouse apartment atop Trump Tower in New York to take care of Barron, the couple`s 10-year-old son.

Michelle Obama spared no effort in recent weeks to bolster the election campaign of Hillary Clinton -- the woman who was supposed to help preserve her husband`s legacy.

Appearing at several Clinton rallies, the first lady`s passionate speeches and boundless energy brought a level of heightened excitement on the campaign trail.

After a video emerged last month in which Donald Trump spoke of groping and kissing women against their will -- he later denied having actually done so -- she criticized his "intolerable" attitude toward women.

And at the Democratic nominating convention in July, Michelle Obama denounced, without naming him, the "hateful language... that does not represent the true spirit of this country."Often praised for her chic and modern sense of glamour, Obama was a particularly active First Lady. She was a prominent advocate in the fight against child obesity, supported the nation`s military families and, with her husband, launched an initiative last year to help young girls around the world "get the education they deserve."

Melania Trump, always smiling, always immaculately turned out, is much more reserved -- more in keeping with the traditional image of a First Lady.

At the age of 16, she began a career as a high-fashion model in Italy and France.

At the Republican convention in July, her speech introducing her husband, at first well-received, was roundly criticized after its similarities to a 2008 speech by Michelle Obama came to light.

She has "always liked" Michelle Obama and was inspired by her, Melania Trump`s speechwriter later explained. After that, Melania largely disappeared from the campaign trail.

But she returned recently to deliver a speech -- visibly nervous -- to pay tribute to "American values: kindness, honesty, respect, compassion, charity, understanding, cooperation."

"We have to find a better way to talk to each other, to disagree with each other, to respect each other," she said.

As someone who considers herself "very independent," she added that as First Lady she would devote herself to the defense of women`s and children`s causes -- and to fighting Internet bullying.

The latter comment was roundly mocked by online critics, who noted the virulent personal attacks Donald Trump regularly launched on Twitter.

Melania Trump, whose English bears the heavy accent of her native Slovenia -- and who speaks at least four other languages -- will become the first foreign-born First Lady since Louisa Adams, the British-born wife of John Quincy Adams, who was president from 1825 to 1829.

A US resident since 1996, she received American citizenship in 2006, a year after marrying the New York billionaire. In his recent campaign, she has stoutly supported him even amid the worst crises.

She does have one thing in common with Michelle Obama: Both women stand nearly 6 feet tall (1.80 meters).
Western Cape: South Africa`s scandal-hit President Jacob Zuma faced a no-confidence vote in parliament Thursday, with the main opposition party calling on ruling ANC lawmakers to vote him out of office.

Zuma, who looked certain to survive the vote despite mounting anger within his own party, came under further pressure last week after a corruption probe raised fresh allegations of misconduct.

"To put it plainly, we can choose Jacob Zuma, or we can choose South Africa," Mmusi Maimane, leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) opposition party, told parliament during a fiery debate.

"Many of you have been speaking out against him in recent weeks... I know that there are men and women in these ANC benches who want to do the right thing."

But Zuma, 74, who came to power in 2009, retains strong loyalty among ANC (Africa National Congress) lawmakers and many party members.

The no-confidence vote will be the third in under a year, with the first two easily defeated by the ANC`s majority in parliament.

The corruption report by the country`s top watchdog raised accusations of possible criminal activity in Zuma`s relationship with the Guptas, a business family accused of wielding undue political influence.

It included allegations that the Guptas offered Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas a $44 million (40 million euros) bribe, which he said he refused.Increasing numbers of anti-apartheid veterans, ANC activists, trade unions, civil groups and business leaders have called for Zuma to resign in recent months.

The ANC on Thursday attacked Maimane, the DA`s first black leader, for bringing the non-confidence vote.

"The motion (is) using a black face to protect the interest of the white minority," said ANC minister Nomvula Mokonyane.

"They are trying hard to distract the ANC... from dealing with the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality."

The ANC, which has ruled since the first post-apartheid elections in 1994, has seen its popularity dive, with local polls in August delivering its worst-ever result.

Zuma`s term in office ends in 2019, but the ANC is due to elect a new party leader at the end of next year and could then decide to replace him as head of state.

South Africa`s highest court this year found the president guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers` money used to refurbish his private rural house.

He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.

The radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party used the debate to tell the ANC it should have "found it in its own conscience to act against Jacob Zuma".

"He is going to arrest you, to lock you up, to kill you, because... he knows that if he doesn`t have control of political power he is going to go to prison," said EFF deputy leader Floyd Shivambu.

Despite the groundswell of protest and deep divisions in the ANC, the vote in parliament expected later on Thursday posed no threat to Zuma, said Wits University professor Patrick Bond.

"The key people in the ANC are very supportive of Zuma," he said.

When he leaves office, the three leading possible successors are his ex-wife African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize.
Washington: With four Indian-Americans, including two women, elected to the US Congress, euphoric community members said that the unprecedented victory shows they have become part of the mainstream political landscape.

Kamala Harris, who was elected to the Senate, and Pramila Jayapal, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Ro Khanna to the House of Representatives - entered one of the citadels of democracy for the first time, leading to celebrations among community members.

That number is expected to increase to five if Democratic Congressman Ami Bera is declared elected for a third consecutive term after a recounting of votes. In 2012, and in 2014, Bera's race was too close to call on the Election Night. On both occasions, Bera emerged winner.

"It is a no mean achievement. This is a moment of celebration," said M R Rangaswami, a Silicon Valley-based investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

He had held fund-raising events for almost all of them.

"It is important that Indian-Americans become part of the political mainstream," he said.

Rangaswami hoped the "historic election" would encourage others from the community to run for not only Congressional elections, but also those at state and city levels.

"We are growing up and growing out," said Sekhar Narasimhan, an activist in the Greater Washington area.

He has been encouraging young Indian-Americans to run for elected offices.

Ajai Jain Bhutoria from California, who too had raised funds for these candidates, said: "This is matter of pride for Indian-American community."

Indian-Americans - one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the US - this year pooled resources from across the country ? through fund-raising events and by volunteering time and effort.

For instance, the Indian-American community in Tampa, Florida, one of the battleground states - held fund-raising events for Raja Krishnamoorthi, while those in the greater Washington area raised money for Ro Khanna, Raja and Pramila Jayapal and several others running for Congress.

After a bitter experience in the past, in particular with Bobby Jindal, the community now is seeking accountability and commitment from these candidates.

When around two dozen Indian-Americans from the Silicon Valley held a fund-raiser for Kamala Harris about six months ago, they sought her position on issues related to India and Indian-Americans.

"We are thrilled to see a record-breaking number of Indian Americans got elected for the first time in the US political history," said Prasad Thotakura, president of Indian-American Friendship Council.
Bali: A Chinese security official was elected president of Interpol on Thursday for the first time, a potentially controversial choice as Beijing pursues a campaign to hunt down fugitives abroad.

Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei was chosen as the new head of the global police organisation at its annual general assembly on the Indonesian island of Bali, France-headquartered Interpol announced.

He is the first Chinese official to hold the post, China`s official Xinhua news agency said, and takes over from Frenchwoman Mireille Ballestrazzi.

The move could provide a boost to China`s efforts to track down alleged economic criminals, including corrupt officials, living abroad, who have been targeted as part of President Xi Jinping`s much-publicised anti-graft campaign.

Beijing has been seeking more international help for the drive, which has netted large numbers of fugitives.

However, it has also proved controversial in some countries that say Chinese law enforcement agents have been operating covertly on their soil without the approval or consent of local authorities.

After taking power in 2012, Xi launched a massive anti-corruption drive that has led to the punishment of over a million officials, although it has raised questions about whether the president is a reformer or is carrying out a ruthless political purge.

Interpol is an intergovernmental organisation that acts as a network connecting the law enforcement agencies of its 190 member countries. It does not have agents of its own with powers of arrest.
Baghdad: Iraqi government forces killed and tortured civilians south of Mosul, rights groups said on Thursday, in the first such reports of alleged abuse in a US-backed campaign to retake the city from Islamic State.

Amnesty International said up to six people were found dead last month in the Shura and Qayyara sub-districts who security forces suspected of ties to the ultra-hardline jihadist group which seized a third of Iraqi territory in 2014.

"Men in federal police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul," said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty`s Beirut office.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi denied the Amnesty report, saying local residents, not government forces, had killed Islamic State members.

He also said the rights group was spreading fear among Iraqis with its reports and would bear responsibility for displacement of people who might flee the city as a result.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 37 men suspected of being affiliated with Islamic State had been detained by Iraqi and Kurdish forces from checkpoints, villages, screening centres and camps for displaced people around Mosul and Hawija, further south.

Relatives said they did not know where most of the men were being held and had not been able to contact any of them while in detention, according to the report.

HRW said such conduct "significantly increases the risk of other violations", including torture.

An Interior Ministry spokesman denied there had been any violations and said Iraqi forces respected human rights and international law.

A spokesman for the Kurdish regional government denied the HRW report, saying any delays in informing families were limited due to a shortage of resources.

"Nobody has been kept in unknown facilities. They are kept in identified facilities," said Dindar Zebari.

The Mosul operation, involving a 100,000-strong alliance of troops, security forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi`ite Muslim militias and backed by U.S.-led air strikes, has entered its fourth week but has so far gained just a small foothold in the city.

Amnesty`s report described several incidents on or around Oct. 21 in which separate groups of men were beaten with cables and rifle butts before being shot to death. In one case, a man`s head had been severed from his body, it said.

Amnesty said that, without accountability, the alleged abuses risked being repeated in other towns and villages as the Mosul offensive continues.
Baghdad: Iraqi forces executed up to six residents of villages south of Mosul as they launched operations to recapture the Islamic State group-held city last month, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

The rights group called on the Iraqi government to urgently investigate the killings in the Al-Shura area, which it said were carried out by men in federal police uniforms during the offensive to retake Mosul from the jihadists.

Iraq`s federal police issued a statement denying its forces had been involved in extrajudicial killings.

Three of the victims were part of a group of around 10 men and one 16-year-old boy who handed themselves over to men wearing federal police uniforms on October 21.

They had waved a white cloth and lifted their shirts to show they were not wearing explosive belts, Amnesty said, but were taken to an open desert area and brutally beaten, while one man`s beard was set alight.

Three men were taken away, further beaten and shot dead, their decomposing remains found five days later.

On the same day, another victim was led away by men in police uniforms, only for his body to be found a week later.

Again on October 21, another man was reportedly shot as he ran towards men in police uniform, pulling at his clothes to show he was not wearing a bomb.

And the body of a sixth man, who had defied IS`s attempt to remove civilians for use as human shields and stayed in the Al-Shura area, was found with bullet wounds to the chest and chin after government forces moved in.

Amnesty said that forces operating in the area "were apparently presuming that only IS fighters had remained behind", but that the extrajudicial executions were in any case unlawful.

"Men in federal police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul," said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty International`s Beirut regional office.

"In some cases the residents were tortured before they were shot dead execution-style.

"Deliberately killing captives and other defenceless individuals is prohibited by international humanitarian law and is a war crime.

"It is crucial that the Iraqi authorities carry out prompt, thorough, impartial and independent investigations into these crimes under international law, and bring those responsible to justice."
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a three-day visit to Japan from on Thursday during which the two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in the areas like trade, investment and security.

Modi will be holding the annual Summit meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and have an audience with the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo.

From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway, Modi said ahead of his visit.

He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed railway is manufactured.

"I will visit Japan on 10-12 November 2016 for the Annual Summit. This will be my second visit to Japan as Prime Minister," Modi said in a statement here today.

"I will have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties," he said.

Modi said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo on November 11.

"Our partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order," he added.

During the visit, the two countries are expected to sign civil nuclear cooperation agreement which will facilitate leading US-based atomic companies to set up plants in India.

The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abe's visit here last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.

Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week.

When specifically asked whether the pact will be signed during Modi's visit, he only said, "I cannot pre-judge outcome of the talks."

Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two countries have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
New York: A second round of protests was planned across the United States on Thursday a day after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of big cities after Donald Trump`s victory in the presidential election.

An anti-Trump rally was planned at New York City`s Union Square Park for a second straight night and organizers urged demonstrators to join events in Washington DC, Baltimore, the University of Wisconsin and elsewhere.

There were protests in at least 10 cities on Wednesday, including one that filled streets in midtown Manhattan with demonstrators marching to Trump Tower, the president-elect`s gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Many chanted "Not my president!" and blasted his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, said the demonstrators were "a bunch of spoiled cry-babies."

"If you`re looking at the real left-wing loonies on the campus, it`s the professors not the students," Giuliani said on Fox News on Thursday. "So these are the ones who are more influenced by the professors."

He said he would encourage Trump to listen to these voices and tell them to wait a year.

"Calm down, things are not as bad as you think," Giuliani said.

More demonstrations are planned heading into the weekend, according to organizers` online posts. One urged protesters to rally in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.

On Wednesday night, protests in Los Angeles and Oakland, California, each drew several thousand people. More than a dozen people were arrested by Los Angeles police when demonstrators tried to block a major highway intersection, a local CBS affiliate reported.

The Oakland demonstrators also blocked traffic, threw objects at police and smashed store front windows. Police responded by throwing chemical irritants at the protesters, according to a Reuters witness.

`ENJOY YOUR RIGHTS`

Protesters also gathered in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, late on Wednesday.

Some 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower in downtown Chicago, shouting slogans including "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA." There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there.

"I`m just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said Adriana Rizzo, 22, in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."

In Seattle, police responded to a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of an anti-Trump protest. Authorities said it was unrelated to the demonstration.

A Trump campaign representative did not respond to requests for comment on the protests. Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans, saying: "It is time for us to come together as one united people."

Among the demonstrators earlier on Wednesday were hundreds of high school and college students who walked out of class in cities including Seattle, Phoenix and San Francisco`s Bay Area.

About 300 mostly Latino high school students marched to City Hall in Los Angeles where they chanted in Spanish "the people united will never be defeated." Some waved signs with slogans such as "Immigrants Make America Great."

Many of those students were members of the "Dreamers" generation - children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration.
Seoul: North Korea on Thursday warned the incoming Donald Trump administration will have to acknowledge it as a nuclear state, as the South said the maverick billionaire had pledged to protect it.

The US maintains it cannot accept North Korea as a nuclear power, despite it conducting five nuclear tests - including two in 2016 - and has pushed harsh international sanctions against the Pyongyang regime.

"If there is anything the Obama administration has done... it has put the security of the US mainland in the greatest danger," said an editorial carried by North Korea's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

"It has burdened the new administration with the difficulty of facing the Juche nuclear state," it said, referring to the North Korean ideology usually translated as "self-reliance".

The editorial, which did not mention Trump by name, follows growing calls for the US to change tack on North Korea, with US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper last month labelling attempts to denuclearise the North a lost cause.

President Barack Obama has made talks with the North conditional on Pyongyang first making some tangible commitment towards denuclearisation, but today's editorial called the goal an "outdated illusion".

Although Trump has not laid out a clear direction for his policy on North Korea, he has indicated that he would be open to negotiations with its leader Kim Jong-Un in the US to talk him out of his nuclear ambitions.

Trump caused consternation during his campaign when he threatened to withdraw the troops unless Seoul paid more for their upkeep, and suggested South Korea and Japan develop their own nuclear weapons to counter threats from Pyongyang.

But in a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye today, Trump vowed that US commitment on protecting its ally against the North "will not waver".

"We are going to be with you 100 per cent," Trump said, according to a statement from South Korea's Blue House.

"We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea," Seoul quoted him as saying.

North Korea has been hit by five sets of UN sanctions since it first tested a nuclear device in 2006.

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, the Security Council adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date, targeting North Korea's trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

Council members are currently debating a fresh resolution after the North's fifth nuclear test in September.
Western Cape: South Africa`s scandal-hit President Jacob Zuma easily survived a no-confidence vote in parliament Thursday as ruling ANC lawmakers ignored calls from opposition parties to vote him out of office.

Zuma, who has faced mounting criticism from within his own party, came under further pressure last week after a corruption probe raised fresh allegations of misconduct.

But the ANC`s parliamentary majority delivered a resounding signal of support as 214 lawmakers voted against the motion and 126 voted in favour.

Zuma`s victory was expected, despite Mmusi Maimane, the leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) opposition party, appealing to ANC members to vote against their leader.

"To put it plainly, we can choose Jacob Zuma, or we can choose South Africa," Maimane told parliament during a fiery debate.

"Many of you have been speaking out against him in recent weeks... I know that there are men and women in these ANC benches who want to do the right thing."

But Zuma, 74, who came to power in 2009, retains strong loyalty among ANC (African National Congress) lawmakers and many party members.

The no-confidence vote was the third in under a year, with the first two also defeated by wide margins.

The corruption report by the country`s top watchdog raised accusations of possible criminal activity in Zuma`s relationship with the Guptas, a business family accused of wielding undue political influence.

It included allegations that the Guptas offered Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas a $44 million (40 million euros) bribe, which he said he refused.Increasing numbers of anti-apartheid veterans, ANC activists, trade unions, civil groups and business leaders have called for Zuma to resign in recent months.

In Thursday`s debate, the ANC attacked Maimane, the DA`s first black leader, for bringing the non-confidence vote.

"The motion (is) using a black face to protect the interest of the white minority," said ANC minister Nomvula Mokonyane.

"They are trying hard to distract the ANC... from dealing with the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality."

The ANC, which has ruled since the first post-apartheid elections in 1994, has seen its popularity dive, with local polls in August delivering its worst-ever result.

Zuma`s term in office ends in 2019, but the ANC is due to elect a new party leader at the end of next year and could then decide to replace him as head of state.

South Africa`s highest court this year found the president guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers` money used to refurbish his private rural house.

He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.

The radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party used the debate to tell the ANC it should have "found it in its own conscience to act against Jacob Zuma".

"He is going to arrest you, to lock you up, to kill you, because... he knows that if he doesn`t have control of political power he is going to go to prison," said EFF deputy leader Floyd Shivambu.

Despite the groundswell of protest and deep divisions in the ANC, Wits University professor Patrick Bond said Zuma remained secure in his position for now.

"The key people in the ANC are very supportive of Zuma," he said.

When Zuma leaves office, the three leading possible successors are his ex-wife African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize.
A powerful Taliban truck bomb struck the German consulate in Afghanistan`s northern Mazar-i-Sharif city late Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding more than 100 in a major militant assault in the war-torn country.

The Taliban called it a "revenge attack" for US air strikes in the volatile province of Kunduz earlier this month that left up to 32 civilians dead.

The huge explosion, followed by sporadic gunfire, reverberated across the usually tranquil city, smashing windows of nearby shops and leaving terrified local residents fleeing for cover.

"The suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the wall of the German consulate," local police chief Sayed Kamal Sadat told AFP.

The German foreign ministry said the attack had ended and that all German staff from the consulate were unharmed.

"The consulate building has been heavily damaged. It is not yet clear how many Afghan civilians and security personnel died or were injured in the attack," the ministry said in a statement.

"Our sympathies go out to the Afghan injured and their families."

A diplomatic source in Berlin said Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had convened a crisis meeting.

"There was fighting outside and on the grounds of the consulate," a ministry spokesman said. "Afghan security forces and Resolute Support (NATO) forces from Camp Marmal (German base in Mazar-i-Sharif) are on the scene."

Afghan special forces cordoned off the consulate, previously well-known as Mazar Hotel. Helicopters were heard flying over the diplomatic mission early Friday as ambulances with wailing sirens rushed to the area, according to an AFP reporter near the scene.

At least two dead bodies and more than 100 wounded people -- including at least 10 children -- had so far been brought to two city hospitals, said local doctor Noor Mohammad Fayez. Some of the wounded were in a critical condition, he added.

The carnage underscores worsening insecurity in Afghanistan as Taliban insurgents ramp up nationwide attacks despite repeated government attempts to jump-start stalled peace negotiations.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the "martyrdom attack" on the consulate had left "tens of invaders" dead. The insurgents routinely exaggerate battlefield claims.

Posting a Google Earth image of the consulate on Twitter, Mujahid said the assault was in retaliation for American air strikes in Kunduz.US forces conceded last week that its air strikes "very likely" resulted in civilian casualties in Kunduz, pledging a full investigation into the incident.

The strikes killed several children, after a Taliban assault left two American soldiers and three Afghan special forces soldiers dead near Kunduz city.

The strikes triggered impassioned protests in Kunduz city, with the victims` relatives parading mutilated bodies of dead children piled into open trucks through the streets.

Civilian casualties caused by NATO forces have been one of the most contentious issues in the 15-year campaign against the insurgents, prompting strong public and government criticism.

The country`s worsening conflict has prompted US forces to step up air strikes to support their struggling Afghan counterparts, fuelling the perception that they are increasingly being drawn back into the conflict.

The latest attack in Mazar-i-Sharif comes just two days after a bitter US presidential election.

Afghanistan got scarcely a passing mention in the election campaign -- even though the situation there will be an urgent matter for the new president.

President-elect Donald Trump is set to inherit America`s longest war with no end in sight.
I ran across an article about a small business in Minneapolis trying to keep the doors open while battling the big box stores and internet sales.

In making a point to the community, she (the business owner) asked, "Which three stores would you miss if they disappeared, then remind them to return there." Shoppers have become so rooted in thinking about the essentials that they forget about the little gift store on the corner whose owner remembers their names.

If half the employed people in America spent $50 per month in a locally owned retail store, those purchases would generate $42.6 billion. That is a huge impact for a relatively small investment. Just think how this could effect the locally owned businesses and boost our economy. For every $100 spent in locally owned stores, $68 remains in the community. For every $100 spent in national chains, only $43 remains.

As we begin our holiday shopping, challenge yourself to seek out our locally owned retail stores and start your shopping there first. Start with three stores and build from there. You will be pleasantly surprised at what they have to offer. Support our community, buy locally!

Marilyn Trebacz, Decatur, small business owner for 32 years
US President-elect Donald Trump visited Congress on Thursday and proclaimed that health care, border security and jobs will be his top three priorities when he moves to the White House next January.

Continuing a Washington victory tour of sorts after his presidential election shocked the world, Trump and Vice president-elect Mike Pence sat down with House Speaker Paul Ryan and then with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss the Republican priorities in Congress.

Ryan and Trump had a testy relationship during the campaign, with the House speaker last month saying he would not defend the nominee after Trump`s lewd comments about women were made public.

Now that Trump is the president-elect, Ryan appeared friendly and gracious as they met, first over lunch and then in his Capitol office.

"We had a very detailed meeting," Trump told reporters at a brief photo spray.

"As you know, health care -- we`re going to make it affordable. We are going to do a real job on health care," he said.

Trump made repealing Obamacare, and building a border wall between the United States and Mexico, pillars of his presidential campaign.

Trump said he and the Republican majority in Congress were going to accomplish "absolutely spectacular things for the American people," adding he was eager to get started.

Afterwards, following an hour-long meeting with McConnell on the other side of the Capitol, Trump stood at the Senate majority leader`s side and stressed that "we have a lot to do."

"We`re going to look very strongly at immigration," he said.

"We`re going to look very strongly at health care, and we`re looking at jobs -- big league jobs."

Trump did not elaborate.

McConnell said they discussed the transition operations and said "he`s anxious to get going early, and so are we."

Ryan for his part complimented Trump on his astounding come-from-behind victory against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"We`re going to turn that victory into progress for the American people, and we are now talking about how we are going to hit the ground running to get this country turned around and make America great again," Ryan said.

Congress returns to work next week, after an extended break for the US elections.
Geneva: Aid workers in eastern Aleppo were distributing the last available food rations on Thursday as the quarter of a million people besieged in the Syrian city entered what is expected to be a cruel winter, UN humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said.

The United Nations sent a four-part humanitarian plan to all parties to the conflict several days ago, covering delivery of food and medical supplies, medical evacuations and access for health workers, and Egeland said he was hopeful of a deal.

"I do believe we will be able to avert mass hunger this winter," he told reporters in Geneva, adding that he had the clear impression that Russia would continue its pause in air operations over the northern city.
New York: Two days ago, pollsters and statisticians gave Hillary Clinton odds of between 75 and 99 percent of winning the U.S. presidential election. How did so many get it so wrong?

In hindsight, the polling consensus went astray in two major ways.

The media, including Reuters, pumped out two kinds of poll stories. Some were national surveys designed to estimate the entire countrys popular vote, but not the outcome in individual states, where the contest is actually decided. These polls actually got the big picture right: Clinton won more overall votes than President-elect Donald Trump - but not by as much as the polling averages predicted, and not where she needed to.

News organizations also produced a blizzard of stories meant to calculate the probability of victory for the two candidates. These calculations were predicated on polls of individual states. In hindsight, though, the stories seem to have overstated Clintons chances for a win by failing to see that a shift in voting patterns in some states could show up in other, similar states.

In part, this is because polling analysts got the central metaphor wrong.

U.S. presidents are chosen not by the national popular vote, but in the individual Electoral College contests in the 50 states and Washington D.C. In calculating probable outcomes, election predictors generally treated those 51 contests as completely separate events  as unrelated to one another as a series of 51 coin tosses.

But thats not how elections work in the United States. Voting trends that appear in one state - such as a larger-than-expected Republican shift among rural voters - tend to show up in other states with similar demographic make-ups.

And thats what happened Tuesday: The election models calculated the probabilities of a Clinton win that turned out to be high, because they viewed each state too much in isolation.

The Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project projected Clinton to win the popular vote 45 percent to 42 percent, and gave her a 90 percent probability of winning the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the election. In the end, Clinton won the popular vote by 47.7 percent to 47.5 percent, by the latest count, and Trump could win the Electoral College by as many as 303 votes to Clintons 233 when the tally is final.

The state races were not akin to a string of coin tosses but more like 51 rolls of a set of weighted dice. In many states, it turned out, the side of the dice representing white voters in suburban and rural counties carried a heavier weight, and the side representing urbanites a lighter one.

COMMON MISCALCULATIONS

The problem, said Cliff Young, president of Ipsos Public Affairs US, the polling partner of Reuters, came down to the models the pollsters used to predict who would vote - the so-called likely voters.

The models almost universally miscalculated how turnout was distributed among different demographic groups, Young said. And turnout was lower than expected, a result that generally favours Republican candidates.

In 2000, when Republican George W. Bush beat Democrat Al Gore, for example, the turnout was about 60 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Eight years later, turnout was 64 percent when Democratic nominee Barack Obama won his first presidential election against Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain.

This year, whites with lower levels of education came out in greater relative numbers than younger, more-educated and minority voters, Young said. A point here or a point there can really change an election.

Ultimately, missing that shift in the state polls tripped up the predictions. It also highlights how the otherwise empirical process of polling rests on a subjective foundation.

Each pollster must make a decision about turnout. Their decisions are informed by historical voting patterns. But the actual turnout in each state is unknowable before election day.

Among the questions pollsters grappled with this year: Will the electorate look like the won that gave Obama his 2008 victory - or George W. Bush in his 2000 victory? Would black turnout fall after the historically high turnout enjoyed by Obama, the nations first black president, and by how much?

Key for me is turnout in explaining this years polling miss, Young said. The Reuters/Ipsos model anticipated turnout for white men, for example, at around 67 percent, which appears to have been too low, and for black women at 61 percent, which was probably too high. Demographic breakdowns arent available yet.

Drew Linzer, a pollster and creator of the Daily Kos Elections forecasting model, which forecasts the Electoral College result by aggregating large numbers of state polls, said prediction models like his try to estimate the possibility of an unexpected turnout shift.

But ultimately, he said, the effectiveness of the models came down to the accuracy of the underlying state polls likely-voter models. Linzers model predicted a large win for Clinton in the Electoral College, 323 to 215. And because those polls missed the mark, it created an illusion of a near-certain Clinton win.

THE POPULAR VOTE

Beyond the calculations of the candidates` odds of winning the Electoral College, there was a near constant stream so-called horse race polls, or tracker polls, that focused on the distribution of the national vote between the major candidates.

Here, too, pollsters -- and the media that co-sponsored or covered the polls -- stumbled, largely because the popular vote metric itself is of limited utility and cannot, of itself, predict the outcome of the Electoral College.

As of Wednesday morning, Clinton led the popular vote by slightly less than 1 percentage point. The McClatchy-Marist poll released on Nov. 3, for example, had Clinton up by one point - one of the most accurate calls of the popular vote. But even that headline number missed the point a bit, because she lost the election in the Electoral College.

A few polls correctly pegged Trump as the winner. The International Business Times/TIPP poll had Trump leading on Nov. 7. That poll put him ahead in the popular vote by two percentage points, which in the end overstated his share by about three points.

In one sense, most polls were relatively accurate: The Real Clear Politics average of polls, for example, had Clinton leading by about 3.3 points, little more than two points above the actual outcome. A polling error of two or three percentage points is not uncommon in modern politics.

Popular vote polls, however, also exaggerate the influence of massive states, such as New York and California, in the outcome of the election and mask trends that might be occurring outside those left-leaning states.

The Electoral College system reduces the influence of big states by distributing a disproportionate number of votes to smaller states. North Dakota, for example, has about a quarter of one percent of the U.S. population but double that proportion of Electoral College votes. Conversely, Californians make up 12 percent of the population but only 10 percent of the Electoral College votes.

Young said both pollsters and journalist described the results of the national polls and predictions with a false precision by presenting the result as near absolutes.

The forecasting models, which assign probabilities or chances to candidates, are no better than the polls themselves, he said. If the polls are off, the forecasting models will be off, too.

The Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project website did offer an interactive tool that allowed users to adjust the polls estimate of turnout and play pollster themselves.

It also included one fixed scenario that showed how Trump could win - with a higher-than-expected Republican turnout and a lower-than-forecast Democratic turnout. That scenario, as it happened, better reflected what actually happened Tuesday.

We need to recognise that there can be a range of possibilities, said Young. The trick of course is how to communicate that with the larger public.
COWDEN  A Cowden couple were arrested and jailed Wednesday on an arrest warrant charging they battered and injured their own 12-day-old baby.

Police said Kayla N. Girard, 20, and Devan B.N. Porter, 19, were both charged with aggravated battery to a child and were being held in the Shelby County Jail in lieu of posting $100,000 bond.

A statement from the Illinois State Police said investigators were called in Nov. 1 to assist the Shelby County Sheriff's Office, which was investigating unexplained injuries seen on the baby when it had been taken to HSHS St. Anthony's Memorial Hospital in Effingham.

The injuries were determined to be consistent with child abuse, and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services was contacted to assist in the investigation, the state police said.
As reported by WisPolitics.com, the Joint Finance Committee approved redirecting more than $21 million in bonding to offset rising costs for Milwaukee and Racine counties as they build new facilities for young offenders. Meanwhile, one committee member warned inflation will likely raise the 
During Euro Disney's financial year, which ended in September, group turnover fell 6.91 percent to 1.27 billion euros following a 10 percent drop in visitor numbers, a statement said

Euro Disney, which owns Disneyland Paris, on Thursday posted record annual losses in the wake of the jihadist attacks on Paris which weighed heavily on tourist bookings.

During its financial year, which ended in September, group turnover fell 6.91 percent to 1.27 billion euros following a 10 percent drop in visitor numbers, a statement said.

"Disneyland Paris had an exceptionally challenging year. We have been impacted by various external factors that have significantly affected the tourism business in the Paris region," said Euro Disney president Catherine Powell in the statement.

"In this adverse environment, revenue decreased 7%. This, together with the increase in costs driven by our future growth strategy of continually improving the guest experience plus the costs of additional security measures, resulted in a significant decrease in our operating performance for the fiscal year."

The statement was issued as France prepares to mark the year anniversary of the deadly attacks on the French capital which claimed 130 lives.

Over the period, the group registered a net loss attributable to shareholders of 705 million euros, compared with 84.2 million the previous year.

Overall net loss stood at 858 million euros for the year, which included a 565 million euro impairment charge.

"As a result of the adverse economic conditions of the tourism industry in Paris... the group performed an impairment test of all its long-lived assets and determined its assets were impaired," it said.

"The impairment charge had no impact on the group's cash position or cash flows."
Venture capitalist and Hyperloop One co-founder Shervin Pishevar said he wants to help California to secede from the United States and a Donald Trump presidency.



Pishevar tweeted Tuesday night as the election was unfolding that he will be "announcing and funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation," if Trump won the race.

Hours later, Hillary Clinton conceded the election to Trump, and NBC News projected the Republican nominee to win the race .

Pishevar told CNBC he is serious about the proposal, and already has a name for the new sovereign body.

"It's the most patriotic thing I can do," he said. "The country is at serious crossroads. ... Calling it New California."



He went on to describe his plan for California to become the catalyst for a "national dialogue" as the country has reached a "tipping point."

"We can re-enter the union after California becomes a nation," he said. "As the sixth largest economy in the world, the economic engine of the nation and provider of a large percentage of the federal budget, California carries a lot of weight."

He said the country needs to "confront the systemic problems that this election has exposed."

Wednesday morning, Pishevar resigned from the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, telling President Obama he "cannot serve with a good conscious a President Trump in any capacity."

CNBC's Cindy Perman contributed to this report.







More From CNBC


What the day after the election is like when youre an American woman abroad

At my CrossFit class this morning, my friends greeted me with smiles and asked How did it go? referring to last nights election.

I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I am an American citizen, but I have the luxury of living 5,000 miles away from the shock of Donald Trumps victory, insulated somewhat from the disbelief of these results.

It has been an oddly normal day in Buenos Aires for me. Later in the day, my Argentine coworkers chatted and sang along to Stings Every Breath You Take and The Final Countdown  as my mostly American team worked in stunned silence.

I envy those who have gone through today without the weight of the next four years on their mind. Its a jarring yet helpful reminder that life is continuing on around the world, regardless of how disappointed we are in our countrys decision last night.

Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump Holds Election Night Event In New York City

One friend in CrossFit asked, Tan mal es? Is he really that bad?

Yes, I said. And then she picked up her weights and continued with her workout. Just like that.

I was on the verge of tears during the whole hour, and while my classmates shot sideways glances of concern and patted me on the back occasionally, they kept laughing and talking.

When I burst into tears in the middle of my office, one of my coworkers asked what was wrong. She was either unaware, or unconvinced of the magnitude of last nights decision. Youll be ok, she soothed.

Demonstrators Protest Against Donald Trump's Presidency In New York City

Much of the world is watching the U.S. right now, but not everyone has the same level of fear or fixation.

Argentina is as aware of this mornings shocking news as is the rest of the world  and they know how it feels, after experiencing their own election upset less than a year ago. But for those I have talked to, its easy to change the subject, and feel relief from the sorrow that I can imagine is hanging over many cities in the U.S. today.

In Morocco, five hours ahead of EST, a female writer recounts Expats here in Morocco are describing the experience similar to a death condolences keep rolling in.

Story continues

In the Northern Territory of Australia, Allison says that People kept asking how it could be true

Laura is the manager of an NGO in Cusco, Peru. One of her Peruvian staff members asked, Why is everyone so sad and crying?

Hillary Clinton Makes A Statement After Loss In Presidential Election

Katy, an NGO worker in Uganda, says its been really difficult to find a support network here with my non-American colleagues, which I find to be defeating.

Teachers in the U.S. arent the only ones dealing with questions from children. Charlottes sixth grade students in Spain asked her, Why cant Obama just be president again?

President Obama Makes At Statement At White House After Presidential Election

Others are accustomed to crisis: in Guatemala City, Hannah, founder of womens entrepreneurship program CREAMOS, says that the Guatemalan women she works with were most noticeably worried for the safety and well-being of their friends and family in the U.S.. She says they are used to hearing horrific news and having to move forward. I think the news of Trumps presidency affected them, but they quickly moved on as they do in their own personal tragedies  there is no option to spend time mourning.

These Guatemalan women are no stranger to the corruption and crises of their government, which is currently headed by an ex-comedian.

Hannah says, They are never okay with it, but they are resilient and just keep fighting.

As Donald Trump Wins Presidency, Country Reacts

I am inspired by these resilient women in Guatemala and those around the world, whose resolve to fight for respect and equality only hardened with yesterdays decision.

The post What the day after the election is like when youre an American woman abroad appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Identity Management

North Carolina to Test Internet2 Services in K12, Community Colleges

K12 and community colleges will get a taste of the power of networking services delivered by Internet2, at least in North Carolina. Under a new proof-of-concept program, schools, districts and community colleges in that state will specifically be able to try out Internet2's identity management service, InCommon Federated Identity Management. FIM, as it's called, is intended to reduce the number of passwords users need to remember, offers new opportunities to share services and software and gives a more seamless transition between one educational organization and another.

The pilot is being undertaken by MCNC, a North Carolina non-profit that connects the institutions of higher education, including those within the University of North Carolina System, Duke and Wake Forest. The education network also hooks into Internet2 along with National Lambda Rail. Over the last several years, MCNC has opened its services up to non-institutional organizations, including non-profit hospitals, libraries and public safety operations.

Internet2 allowed the InCommon service to begin examining outreach to K12 and community colleges through an "InCommon Steward" program. MCNC will act as a steward to vet the district and community college and operate the identity management infrastructure for those constituents.

As a presentation on the steward community program explained, the advantages are particularly stark as schools move to the cloud for their services. FIM will support access to cloud applications using local authentication systems; it will simplify role-based authorization at scale; and the existing set-up for the InCommon Federation software base, standards and operational processes will "make it all work."

"Trying to extend InCommon to all of K-14 education nationally would be too large to scale. We knew we had to work with our regional network partners that have these key relationships built in," said Ann West, associate vice president for trust and identity at Internet2, in a statement. "InCommon puts the trust in trusted networks, and we're so grateful that MCNC is collaborating with us on a workable solution that benefits both education and the regionals." She added that the work is "generating a lot of interest from other states who are watching this very closely."
For months theres been a running gag on social media about Earth 2, where the 2016 campaign is a happy, normal thing. For instance, in mid-October, shortly after the release of the Access Hollywood video, I joked on Twitter that, On Earth 2 (the GOP) is 15 points ahead, looking to gain seats in Senate. Dems October surprise on Rubios water bill falls flat.

Many of the quips are expressions of Oh, what might been dismay from conservative Trump opponents about how horribly this election has gone. Understandably, Trump supporters tend not to find these jokes very funny.

But theres more to the gag than shoulda coulda wouldas; it captures the fact that this whole election has been otherworldly.

There is a conservatism to politics  and I dont mean ideologically. Its an art whose medium is human nature, which is largely permanent. And because of that, the practitioners tend to stick with what works. What is conservatism? Abraham Lincoln once asked. Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?

When something works over and over, it becomes a rule, not necessarily of science or the universe, but as an axiom, a rule of thumb. And this election season seems to have rendered us all thumbless.

Here is just some of what conventional wisdom held on the eve of the GOP primaries:

Republicans dont nominate people without electoral experience unless they successfully invaded Europe. Conservatives are obsessed with character and/or ideological purity. Religious conservatives place an outsized emphasis on a candidates Christian bona fides. During hard times, voters look to successful governors to steer the party and the country. Republicans tend to pick the candidate next in line for the nomination, usually the runner-up in the last primary. The so-called media primary determines which candidates will be taken seriously by the voters.

None of these rules held. Not one.

The oddity of the GOP primaries may have been particularly intense, but the Democratic primaries had their surprises too. For decades, Democrats took grave offense at being called socialists. But Bernie Sanders embraced the term, and when Debbie Wasserman Schultz was the head of the Democratic Party, she bent over backward to blur the differences.

Our bizarro primaries, naturally enough, yielded a bizarro general campaign.

One of the oldest rules in politics is that voters prefer likable candidates. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump  the two most disliked presidential candidates in the history of polling  have made short work of that. Similarly, Im old enough to remember when gaffes mattered quite a lot. Those were good times.

For generations, pundits thought TV advertising could change voter attitudes; not anymore. According to a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, in January, 40 percent of the electorate had a positive opinion of Clinton while only 29 percent had a positive opinion of Trump. In their latest poll, at the end of October, those numbers were unchanged.

It has been a hard rule of the political landscape for 30 years that Democrats have an easier path in the Electoral College. But according to an analysis at FiveThirtyEight.com, there was better than a 1 in 10 chance Clinton would win the popular vote and still lose the Electoral College.

For obvious reasons, Trump plays a major role in any conversation about how strange this election season has been. But I think historians will see him as a symptom. Demographic, economic and technological changes will surely be part of any root causes analysis, while foreign policy wonks might say the story begins with the Iraq War and the political and psychological dislocations it caused.

Others might point to Barack Obama, who broke one of the oldest rules of thumb in politics simply by virtue of being the first black president. But his contributions extend beyond that. He will have left the country more polarized and more distrustful of elites  on both the left and the right  than when he took office.

Regardless of where or why you think things got weird, the salient point here is that the election was just an illustration of the deeper weirdness of American politics  and that did not end when the votes were tallied.
The man of the hourand the next four years.

This was one of the most contentious elections in US historyand now its ended in a shocking upset: Donald Trump appears to have won a majority in the electoral college, which if confirmed will make him the president-elect of the United States. The rest of the world now has to work out what happens next.

Even before Trump pulled ahead on the night, the campaign itself was disastrous for Americas reputation abroad, exposing the worst in US politics. Trumps views on Muslims, Latinos, blacks, and women earned him global notoriety. He also alarmed many of the USs key allies with his opinions on NATO and the use of nuclear weapons. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton suffered from her own problems, branded by Trump and others as untrustworthy and crooked. Both candidates had historically low likeability ratings.

Many Americans on both sides apparently chose whichever candidate they considered the lesser of two evils. But when it comes to political experience and capability, the difference between the two candidates is very, very stark.

Whether or not you agree with her views, Clinton is experienced and knowledgeable about policy and how politics works in Washington and around the world. Trump, on the other hand, seems ill-informed about almost all global issues. He seems to have no understanding of how the checks and balances built into the US government work. And his ideology, to the extent it can be discerned, seems to border on the anarchic. Four former living US presidents have deemed Trump unfit to the lead the country.

So a Trump victory wont just do incredible damage to the US itselfit will badly tarnish Americas image abroad and will profoundly transform its relationship with almost all countries around the world.

Xenophobia fired up

One of the worst effects of the campaign was Trumps success at firing up openly racist elements of his base. His pitch to white non-college educated voters was a direct attempt to play into their deep fears about the USs rapidly changing demographics. By 2035, white Americans will no longer be the majority group, and not long after that they could be outnumbered by Hispanics. For many white Trump supporters, controlling immigration, sending immigrants home and building a wall to keep them out is the only way to their fears.

Story continues

These tensions are not going to disappear with the election over. Anger that may have been suppressed is now out in the open.

Mobilising this base has particularly serious implications for the USs relationships with its Latin American neighborsand especially Mexico. Mexicans have mostly lampooned Trump and they turned on their own president, Enrique Pena Nieto, when he agreed to meet with the Republican nominee in August. The US is Mexicos biggest trading partner and a Trump presidency could gravely damage that relationship while a Clinton presidency would in all probability have been more of the same.

Donald Trump and Mexico's president Enrique Pena Nieto arrive for a press conference at the Los Pinos residence in Mexico City, Mexico, August 31, 2016.

Donald Trump and Mexicos president Enrique Pena Nieto arrive for a press conference at the Los Pinos residence in Mexico City, Mexico, August 31, 2016.

Europe, meanwhile, is still processing the shock of the UKs vote to leave the European Union, while other European countries are seeing a rise of xenophobic right-wing populist parties. The Trump upset will be alarming for Europe. In fact, one Pew Research poll found that Trumps approval rating in Europe was only 9%. In Japan, a vital American ally, his disapproval rating was 82%.

Europeans will have been appalled by Trumps disregard for NATO and claimed that he would not rule out using nuclear weapons. In Japan, many fear that a Trump presidency would lead to the end of their hard-won security ties with Washington. Trump has said that Japan should end its dependence on the USs nuclear arsenal and develop the ability to defend itself. This could lead to an arms race in an already tense region, which could be highly destabilising.

More resentment in the Middle East

In the Middle East, there even is more pessimism. Clinton was the more stable candidate, though not necessarily a popular one. But there is much greater uncertainty when it comes to Trump. As Harvard Professor Stephen Walt noted, with Trump: We have no idea whatsoever what he will do, and neither does he.

Many Muslims in the Middle East are also fully aware of Trumps powerful anti-Muslim rhetoric and talk of bans. Overall, the election has tarnished the image of the US in the Middle East even further. Hisham Melhem, a correspondent for Lebanons leading daily newspaper An-Nahar, told The New York Times many people there will now have entirely disregarded any reputation it had as a beacon of progress and enlightenment.

Then theres Russia, whose government was accused of meddling in the election in Trumps interest. Vladmir Putin has denied thisbut regardless, a Trump victory plays into his hands.

Trump/Putin shirt

A T-shirt is worth a thousand words.

A former KGB agent, Putin is confident that Trump will be easy to manipulate; Clinton derided her opponent as the Kremlins puppet. He is keen to extend Russias sphere of influence in the Middle East and beyondand this chaotic election has proved that the worlds supposed sole superpower is in fact incredibly vulnerable. This has emboldened Russia in its actions in Syria, undermining the USs chances of helping to end the conflict any time soon.

This election has left the USs image abroad in tatters, alarmed the world of the dangers of a demagogue and has polarised the country more than ever. The very legitimacy of the USs system for selecting a president has been questionedand it may now have produced one of the most dangerous American leaders ever elected.

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Ireland's appeal comes after the Commission's ruling in August that Apple must pay 13 billion ($14.2 billion) in back-taxes, arguing Ireland broke EU state aid rules (AFP Photo/Paul Faith) (AFP/File)

Dublin (AFP) - Ireland lodged a formal appeal Wednesday against a European Commission ruling ordering the country to collect billions of euros in unpaid taxes from tech giant Apple.

"Our application has now been lodged in the General Court of the European Union," a finance ministry spokesman said in a statement, confirming the move mooted in Brussels on Tuesday by Finance Minister Michael Noonan.

The government disagrees profoundly with the commissions analysis in the Apple state aid case, and our position on all aspects of the case is very well known, the spokesman added.

Ireland's appeal comes after the Commission's ruling in August that Apple must pay 13 billion ($14.2 billion) in back-taxes, arguing Ireland broke EU state aid rules.

The EU's competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said the deal Ireland offered Apple allowed the US tech firm to pay a corporate tax rate of 1 percent on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014.

Immediately after the Commission ruling the Irish government said it would appeal the decision, on the basis that Apple had paid its taxes to the Irish state in full.

Dublin also cited the potential impact retrospective penalties could have on its future ability to attract foreign direct investment.

Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday, Noonan said Irelands reputation had been damaged unfairly by the commission's stance.

"We don't believe that Apple owed this money in Ireland at all, he said.

We share the OECD view that whatever they owe they owe to the United States and they paid everything that was due to be paid in Ireland," he said during an address to the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in the European Parliament.

Noonan added that Apple is the biggest corporate taxpayer in Ireland on profits generated in the country, where the multinational employs 6,000 people in its Cork city campus.
English Latvian

Olaine, 2016-11-10 08:30 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Acquisition of DiaMed is the first step of Olainfarm in sector of health care services. From now on our group will not only provide top quality medicines for people that already need them , but we will also offer products and services targeted at preserving ones health. This will be a comprehensive approach to health, with both, prevention and treatment. Within a few coming years we plan to increase number of Olainfarms health care institutions un Riga and in regions, where we plan to offer health care services including treatment, prevention, rehabilitation and introduction to healthy lifestyle under a supervision of high level specialists, says Valerijs Maligins, Chairman of the Board of AS Olainfarm.

Karlis Kupcs, an ex-co-owner of SIA Klinika DiaMed, its Medical director, Head of Institute of Radiology of P. Stradins University Hospital said: I am delighted that in ten years Klinika DiaMed from just an idea with one magnetic resonance device on its equipment list has developed into an important and highly valued private medical institution. We have developed a highly qualified team, providing health care services not only to people throughout Latvia, but also to our foreign patients. Jointly with Olainfarm, we could grow faster, improving the scope of our services and their availability to patients .

High performance standards of DiaMed are well respected by public and private health care institutions, general practitioners and other health professionals and by large companies, many of whom ask us to be a health care provides for their teams. Our advantage is not only an outstanding team of medical professionals, but also the fact that we are one of the every few offering services every day, including weekends. We have created a good bais for a further development, specifically in priority areas of diagnostics, small surgeries and rehabilitation. Being a part of Olainfarm group will boost DiaMeds managerial, organizational, intellectual and financial capacity for further growth. We plan to put particularly large effort in attracting foreign clients and in developing prevention and health promotion services, says Liene Cipule, Director of SIA Klinika DiaMed.

SIA Klinika DiaMed has a ten-year experience in providing health care services. Clinic offers high precision visual diagnostics, consultations, treatment and rehabilitation. This allows providing an assistance of a wide range for different health conditions. SIA Klinika DiaMed offers small surgeries for treatment of blood vessels, neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, traumatology and orthopaedic surgeries. Its daytime inpatient unit performs complicated diagnostic examinations, surgeries and manipulations, and also conservative (non-surgical) treatment and rehabilitation. In DiaMed, you can also consult invasive radiologists, neurosurgeons, neurosonologists, neurologists, cardiologists, orthopaedists, oncologists, traumatologists, physiotherapists and other medical professionals.

There are more than 70 people working in SIA Klinika DiaMed. Medical doctors of DiaMed have been trained not only locally but also in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the USA. Sales of SIA Klinika DiaMed last year exceeded one million euros.

Group of AS Olainfarm consists from the parent company AS Olainfarm, pharmacy chain of SIA Latvijas aptieka, producer of eco-cosmetics SIA Kiwi Cosmetics, producer of elastic and compression materials SIA Tonus Elast. AS Olainfarm also owns 96,69% shares in SIA Silvanols, leading Latvian producer of food supplements.

JSC Olainfarm is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Latvia with more than 40 years of experience in production of medication and chemical and pharmaceutical products. A basic principle of company's operations is to produce reliable and effective top quality products for Latvia and the rest of the world. Products made by the Group are being exported to more than 35 countries of the world, including the Baltics, Russia, other CIS, Europe, Asia, North America and Australia.
As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Illinois congressman who resigned amid scrutiny of lavish spending  including remodeling his Capitol Hill office in the style of the television series "Downton Abbey"  expects to be indicted by a federal grand jury, his defense team said Thursday.

Aaron Schock's attorney, George Terwilliger, called the expected charges a "misuse" of prosecutorial power by the Justice Department.

"This indictment will look bad, but underneath it is just made-up allegations of criminal activity arising from unintentional administrative errors," Terwilliger said in a statement. "These charges are the culmination of an effort to find something, anything, to take down Aaron Schock."

Federal prosecutors in Illinois were expected to announce charges later Thursday. Sharon Paul, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Springfield, declined any comment on the report.

Once a rising star and prodigious fundraiser for the GOP, the 35-year-old Republican from Peoria resigned in March 2015 amid intensifying scrutiny over real estate deals, extensive travel that he documented on his social media accounts and other spending documented by The Associated Press and other media outlets. The reports raised questions about improper mileage reimbursements, trips on donors' aircraft and more.

The former congressman downplayed the allegations in June, saying any wrongdoing was "honest mistakes."

In his own statement Thursday, which was obtained by The Associated Press, Schock said he never intentionally did anything wrong and that he was eager to defend his name and reputation.

"As I have said before, we might have made errors among a few of the thousands and thousands of financial transactions we conducted, but they were honest mistakes  no one intended to break any law," he said.

The charges are the culmination of 19-month investigation that included two grand juries that Schock said "poked, prodded, and probed every aspect of my professional, political, and personal life."

"Like many Americans, I wanted to have faith in the integrity of our Justice Department," he said. "But after this experience, I am forced to join millions of other Americans who have sadly concluded that our federal justice system is broken and too often driven by politics instead of facts."
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Greetings, all, and welcome to the chat! Of course, we all have Thanksgiving on our minds, and I'm confident that you probably do, too. We're here to help!

We took a potluck theme with our coverage for this first of two Thanksgiving issues, but of course that doesn't mean you need to be hosting or attending a potluck in order to make use of it. These dishes work just as well if you make them all yourself, of course.

In case you haven't seen it, you MUST go to our Thanksgiving Central page, which can be your one-stop shop for meal planning. Our newest recipes are featured there, plus videos, FAQs, suggested menus, and a raft of other recipe ideas in each category of the meal. Check it out!

Don't forget, btw, that next week we will have a special two-hour chat, with lots of special guests to help us handle those last-minute questions!

Today, we've got lots of great help, too: Our VIP guests are Justin Fox Burks and Amy Lawrence of "The Chubby Vegetarian" book and blog, whose great recipe I adapted for this year's veg main. They know about ALL KINDS of vegetable cookery/sorcery, so ask away.

We'll be giving away a SIGNED copy of their latest book to a lucky chatter today. We'll also have a copy of "Sicily: Recipes from an Italian Island" by Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi.

For you PostPoints members, here's the code to get credit for participating here: FR8685 . Remember, you'll record and enter it into the PostPoints site under Claim My Points to earn points. The code expires at midnight, so be sure to enter the code by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday to get credit for participating.

Let's do this!
Morocco and Senegal have inked several cooperation deals meant to bolster partnership between the two countries in the fields of agriculture, fisheries and other socioeconomic sectors.

These cooperation agreements were signed in Dakar Monday and Tuesday under the co-chairmanship of King Mohammed VI and President of Senegal Macky Sall.

The two leaders held talks on bilateral relations and latest developments on the regional and international scenes.

Morocco has pledged to support Senegals efforts to develop small-scale agriculture and rural areas through its green know-how, training, technology transfer and financial assistance.

In this vein, King Mohammed VI, who started his currently official visit to Senegal Sunday, and his host President Macky Sall launched an octopus development plan in favor of Senegal. On this occasion, the King handed Senegalese authorities 12 inflatable boats for rescue operations and monitoring of fishing activities, donated by Morocco.

The octopus development plan, to be conducted in five stages, is mainly aimed at the preservation and protection of the species and the replenishment of stocks.

On Tuesday, King Mohammed VI and President Sall chaired the launch ceremony of an Entrepreneurship Training Center.

The facility, reflecting the two countries common vision to share know-how and expertize, will offer technical training on the creation of enterprises to 300 young people a year and will assist 100 young people carry out their projects. It will also provide training on tourism trades to 100 students annually, in a first phase.

The two leaders later on headed to Dakar Hospital where King Mohammed VI donated to the Senegalese National Council for the fight against AIDS 1.6 tons of medicines for the treatment of opportunistic diseases and infections caused by AIDS/HIV. The donation is offered by the Mohammed VI Foundation for sustainable development.

The gesture mirrors the Moroccan Monarchs keenness to contribute to the progress and prosperity of the brotherly people of Senegal, the improvement of the health and living conditions of vulnerable social strata and the creation of necessary conditions for achieving sustainable human development.

On the sidelines of the royal visit, the two countries carriers are also exploring partnership and joint business opportunities.

The visit of King Mohammed VI to Dakar was marked by the speech he delivered on Sunday on the occasion of the 41st anniversary of the Green March.

In this historic and unprecedented speech, the Moroccan Sovereign said he chose to address the Moroccan people from Dakar because Senegal was one of the countries that took part in the Green March, together with other African and Arab nations.

This beloved country has always been at the forefront of advocates of the Kingdoms territorial unity and lofty interests, said the Monarch, noting that this country considers the cause of the Moroccan Sahara as one of its own national causes.

I have also chosen Senegal because of the special status it enjoys in Africa, thanks to its historically democratic model, its political and social stability, as well as its economic dynamism, added King Mohammed VI.

He also said that there are also fraternal bonds, based on solidarity and a shared destiny, which have historically existed between the Moroccan and the Senegalese peoples, who stand as one single people, with each one forming a natural extension of the other, in a unique symbiosis between two independent countries respecting each others particularities.

And all the agreements inked and projects launched during this visit to Senegal, confirm, if need be, the sovereigns continuous commitment to an active and solidarity-based south-south cooperation.
Sweden to reach NATO's defense spending goal of 2% of GDP by 2026

Lebanon raises electricity price for first time since 1990s

Lavrov and Cavusoglu discuss situation over 'grain deal'

Turkey not satisfied with Sweden's promises

Azerbaijan claims to have 'exposed' Azerbaijanis who acted 'under control of Iranian secret service'

Taliban sets up female Interior Ministry unit in Afghanistan to disperse protests

U.S. concerned about Iran's 'threats' against Saudi Arabia

Lebanon is facing a power vacuum, left without a president

Gas exports from Iran to Armenia to double

In first 9 months about $1.7 billion is transferred to Armenia

Baerbock and Scholz disagree on China

Delegations of Ukraine, Turkey and UN temporarily suspend movement of ships in framework of Black Sea grain deal

Qatar Energy Minister calls EU proposal to limit gas prices hypocritical

Jamshidi: Any capturing of further territories is occupation

Putin: Kiev must give real guarantees of strict compliance with the Istanbul agreements

Putin and Erdogan discuss results of meeting of Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in Sochi

Blinken goes to Germany to meet with G-7 colleagues

Iranist: Cooperation between Yerevan and Tehran will prevent further Turkish activism

U.S. military conducts field weapons inspections in Ukraine

Defense Ministers of Russia and Turkey once again discuss suspension of 'grain deal'

Armenian President and ICRC representatives discuss Armenian captives held in Azerbaijan

Aliyev's aide visits Nakhchivan

Berlin urges Serbia to choose between EU and Russia

Armenian Deputy Prime Minister and USAID representatives discuss bilateral cooperation

Erdogan: Turkey continues to make necessary initiatives on grain deal

Macron promises Ukraine to survive winter and strengthen air defense

The Collins British Dictionary chooses main word of 2022

Medvedev: Western countries are pushing the world into a global war

Deputy Minister: 50,5 bln AMD will be allocated to North-South transport corridor construction in 2023

Georgia begins preparations for multinational exercise Agile Spirit 2023

Armenia and Iran discuss bilateral energy cooperation

Paruyr Hovhannisyan receives Erin Elizabeth McKee

Dollar, euro drop in Armenia

Erdogan plans talks with Putin and Zelenskyy in coming days

Head of Armenian State Revenue Committee: In 2022, the state budget will lack about AMD 84.8 billion

Russia's richest billionaires will become $83.4 billion richer in 2022

Expert: expansion of relations between Tehran, Yerevan may prevent corridor creation

Governor of Armenias Gegharkunik briefs EU mission on condition of settlements affected by Azerbaijan shelling (PHOTOS)

Russia and Iran to sign deal on free trade zone with EEU

Armenia National Assembly opposition factions representatives meet with visiting European Parliament members

Hearings on South Caucasus to be held in US Senate

Central Bank chief: High activity in Armenia economy is maintained in third quarter of 2022

OPEC Secretary General: Europe and U.S. are heading for economic recession

Pashinyan briefs Raisi about talks in Sochi and their results

Ardshinbank and Mastercard offer to pay with Apple Pay and get cashback

Nine people arrested in India after mass deaths in bridge collapse

CSTO meeting on Armenia-Azerbaijan border situation to be held on November 23 in Yerevan

Zas: CSTO working towards proposals regarding situation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

Clinton sues Trump to recover $1 million from him

Lukashenko: Armenia turned down proposed settlement plan

Raisi: Iran-Armenia trade can be increased to $3bn

Zas discusses Baku-Yerevan conflict in Minsk

Raisi: Foreigners interference will deepen problems of Caucasus

State Security Service conducts operation in Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture

Iran expands sanctions on U.S.

Cavusoglu discusses relations with Azerbaijan with his Iranian counterpart

European gas price falls to $1,246 per 1,000 cubic meters in October

Legislature vice-speaker thanks visiting European Parliament lawmakers for supporting Armenia

Armenia revenue committee chief: No initiative to ban import of Turkish goods

Economy minister: Authorities plan to increase number of tourists in Armenia to 2.5mn annually by 2026

Armenia official: Our border checkpoints are ready to receive Azerbaijanis

Flight restrictions extended at 11 airports in south and center of Russia until November 9

Sergey Kopirkin: Unblocking of communications must be based on respect for countries sovereignty

Storm Nalgae in the Philippines leaves 110 people killed

Lukashenko on Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict: Why did they engage EU? Why are they engaging CSTO there?

Ambassador: Russia justifies itself as Armenias ally

Kopirkin: September battles between Armenia, Azerbaijan were stopped by Russia militarys efforts

Gold price remains stable

Death toll in Seoul stampede rises to 156

Armenian PM and Iranian President hold talks in Tehran

Kopirkin: Karabakh status issue should be left to next generations

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Armenias Pashinyan arrives in Iran

Armenia economy minister: Government predicts 7% economic growth in 2023

Turkish and Ukraine defense ministers discuss situation with grain deal

Copper prices are rising

Russia envoy to Armenia: Many common paradigms being broken in South Caucasus

Israel holds fifth parliamentary elections since 2019

Lavrov: Over past decades we managed to lay solid foundations for strategic partnership, alliance with Armenia

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Primakov Readings international forum kicks off in Yerevan

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Thunberg calls UN conference place for lies and fraud
By Lilit Vahanyan

They say people always go back to places they once loved or just felt peaceful in.

One of these places for me was YerevansArmenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art, or as most of us know it, NPAK. I used to be a freelance actress in the NPAK Theater back in 1999-2000. I played a part in Harold Pinters very weird and memorable play The Elevator.

When I read about the One Square Meter Theater Festival opening at NPAK, I felt that it was about time to return. I met my former director and very good friend, Gagik Ghazareh, the founder and the organizer of the Festival, who kindly answered my questions.

The story goes like this.

In 2001, the Arab director Mustapha Aouar, from France, came up with the idea to expose some conflicts and disasters from around the world and do it by means of short, seven-minute theatrical performances on a very small stage. The actors, from the conflict countries, would present their tragedy and ways to overcome it.

Their interaction was to show that there was a way out, a peaceful way. This took place in Yerevan, at NPAK, and Armenian actors were a part of it. Afterwards, the Festival traveled to Georgia, some former Yugoslavian republics and back to France.

Later, the Festival, in this format,ceased to exist but Gagik Ghazareh, his colleagues and NPAK Theater tried their best year after year to revive this eve in Armenia.

They finally made it happen in 2006.

It started as a 4-person performance, the founder included, in a one square meter space and from that tiny space the journey started.

By the next year they already had 7-8 theatrical groups wanting to perform and the response from the audience was very encouraging.

The charm of the Festival is that the participants arent well known professionals. Gagik told me they have guys from the Yerevan Medical University wanting to perform and doing it very well.

And not only from there. This is a chance for beginners and experienced actors to interact, learn from each other, read monologues they always dreamed about and admired, thus giving them their own voice and interpretation.One of the most important things is that there are always discussions after the performances. Everyone interested can participate, express their opinion, and share their own experience.

Gagik Ghazareh gives great importance to this because he thinks this provides an educational angle to the Festival. They invite theater critics and art lovers, and everyone takes something home from this discussion; be it fresh interpretations of the performances they saw, advice from directors or just the warmth of meeting good people who love what they do.

Gagik is especially proud of this years Festival, saying that he already is witnessing the results of eleven years of hard and constant work. Many directors and actors from earlier years of the Festival are back this year, wishing to perform again. One of the directors, Garik Hovhannisyan,who won the Best Director award in the past, has established his own art center in his small hometown and has a theatrical troupe with a solid program.

The Festival has a professional jury of three that selects the Best Scenario, Best Actor/Actress, Best Director winners. There is also the Best One Square Meter performance which is decided by the founders of the Festival.

But the award I liked the best is the one that is decided by fellow directors and actors. They discuss and choose who was the best among themselves and present the Grand Prix to that group.

The Festival also gives a stage to solo performances. There is no limitation to expressing oneself. The only condition is not to overstep the one square meter.

When I asked Gagik has this ever put the actors into tight boundaries and interfered with the quality of their performance, he said that its exactly where the beauty of the challenge is.

The actor who can perform and address in that limited space can do anything. It is both a restriction and a freedom for the performer. They are both inside and the outside of the square. Its completely up to the performer. And this makes people think creatively and open.

The One Square Meter helps performers to grow professionally. To gain confidence. To develop theatrical thinking. Its an experience that almost brings down the wall between professionals and simple lovers to act.

To my question, was there a performance that he personally liked and remembered the most through these years, Gagik answered like a father who was asked which kid was his favorite. He is fond of all the performers and devoted supporters who kept the Festival alive for all this time.

One of the things the founder is sorry about is that now, with all the organizing and managing the Festival, he does not have much time to direct or perform himself.

The organizers are doing everything not to limit the freedom or their performers. They never ask them to play before the actual Festival. They have the scripts submitted from the groups and that is the extend of it. Performers are not being censored or told what to do in any other way. On the contrary, the improvised surprises are welcomed, especially if they are delivered with taste and style.

Some of the 10 performances within the competition to take place during the Festival include an interpretation of Samuel Becketts famous Waiting for Godot (director Tatev Hakobyan); a solo performance by Anna Terzikyan called Im Tired; and a tragicomedy called Disobedience based on one of Anton Chekhov's stories. The other seven participants sound as interesting as these three. There also will be Special Program and of course the discussions.

The complete list of the activities is easy to find on NPAKs official website.

The One Square Meter Festival runs until November 13. Admittance is free.

Lilit Vahanyan is a Yerevan translator and linguist by profession who loves multi-tasking and making change where possible. Her motto: the best rest is a good book and a glass of red.
The Court of Appeal hearing into the case of Valery Permyakova serviceman of the 102nd Russian Military Base in Gyumri, Armeniabegan on Thursday.

Permyakovs attorney, Eduard Aghajanyan, had filed an appeal of the decision of the court of first instance, and with respect to the charge of the Russian soldiers attempt to illegally cross the Armenia-Turkey border.

In his defense argument, the attorney had noted that the defendant pleaded guilty for charges of murder. But the lawyer insisted that his client was not guilty regarding the charge of attempting to illegally cross the border.

The appellate court hearing began with a long debate on whether Aghajanyan is authorized to partake in this process.

It turned out that defendant Valery Permyakov had submitted a petition three days ago, and to the effect that he has no objections with any of the points in the aforesaid decision of the court of first instance, and that he had not appeared at court at his own wish.

As per Aghajanyan, Permyakovs retracting his appeal calls the attorneys respective powers into question. The lawyer added, however, that he could not personally ascertain the wishes of his client, and therefore he motioned the court to carry this out.

The court decided to adjourn until November 18 and try to secure the defendants attendance to the next hearing, and instructed the attorney to meet with his client and find out his position.

To note, Valery Permyakov was found guilty of the brutal murder of Avetisyan family of Gyumri. The murder took place on January 12, 2015. According to the indictment, Valery Permyakov entered the Avetisyan family home on that day, and he killed home residents Aida Avetisyan, Hasmik Avetisyan, Seryozha Avetisyan, Armen Avetisyan, Araksya Poghosyan, and little girl Hasmik Avetisyan. Subsequently, he stabbed 6-month-old Seryozha Avetisyan five times. The baby boy died in the hospital one week later.

Permyakov was apprehended by the Russian border guards near the Armenian-Turkish border, on the same night of this murder, he was arrested on January 14, and is held in custody at the Russian military base.

Armenia and Russia instituted criminal cases on charges of murder and military desertion, respectively. On August 12, 2015, the Russian court sentenced Permyakov to ten years in prison. And on October 16 of the same year, Armenia formally brought criminal charges against the Russian soldier.

And on August 23, 2016, the court found Valery Permyakov guilty of all chargesmurder, robbery, and attempt to cross the Armenian state borderthat were brought against him. And he was sentenced to life in prison.
YEREVAN.  With its military exercises, Baku is torpedoing the agreements that were reached in Vienna (Austria) and Saint Petersburg (Russia).

The Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia, Shavarsh Kocharyan, noted the above-said to reporters, after Thursdays Cabinet session.

Under these agreements, the Azerbaijani side needs to inform about such maneuvers 40 days before they are conducted; but it has not done so.

This means that Baku continues to impede the implementation of the agreements that were reached, stressed the Armenian deputy FM.
STEPANAKERT.  In accordance with the arrangement reached with the authorities of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR/Artsakh), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission conducted a planned monitoring of the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.

The monitoring was held on Thursday, in the eastern direction of Talish village of NKR Martakert Region, the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

From the positions of the NKR Defense Army, the monitoring was conducted by Khristo Khristov (Bulgaria) and Jiri Aberle (Czech Republic), field assistants of the Personal Representative to the OSCE Chairman-in-Office (CiO).

From the opposite side of the Line of Contact, the monitoring was held by Ghenadie Petrica (Moldova), field assistant of the Personal Representative to the OSCE CiO; and Simon Tiller (Great Britain), Personal Assistant of the Personal Representative to OSCE CiO.

The monitoring passed in accordance with the agreed schedule, and no ceasefire violation was recorded.

The Azerbaijani side, however, did not lead the OSCE mission to its frontlines.

From the Karabakh side, the monitoring mission was accompanied by representatives of the NKR Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense.
YEREVAN.  Russian Federation Council Deputy Chairman Nikolai Ryzhkov, who is also Co-Chairman of the RussianArmenian Commission on Interparliamentary Cooperation, as well as the participants in the 28th Yerevan meeting of this commission, on Thursday visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial, in the capital city of Armenia.

The guests from Russia placed flowers at the Eternal Flame, and paid silent tribute toand bowed beforethe memory of the Holy Martyrs of this tragedy.

Centuries will pass, but Armenian Genocide will never be forgotten, said Ryzhkov. Even though four generations have already changed in Turkey, they continue the policy of Armenian Genocide denial. Steps should be taken toward reconciliation between the two peoples.

Sadly, the tragic events, which occurred with the Armenians one hundred years ago, today continue in Syria and elsewhere; preventing them is a sacred deed for us and for you.
Macedonian officials extradited a Kazakh man suspected of fraud on Wednesday following his May arrest in the Balkan country, Kazakhstans Interior Ministry (MVD) said in a statement.

With assistance from Interpol and the general prosecutors office of Kazakhstan, MVD officials secured the extradition of Pavel Rukosuyev, an alleged fraudster accused of stealing several million dollars in loans through the use of falsified documents. The extradition seems to be part of a larger crackdown by the Kazakh MVD on fraudsters, following two earlier extraditions from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Rukosuyev, 35, is suspected of being a member of a group of fraudsters who used fake documents to obtain loans from Kazakh banks. Rukosuyev allegedly pocketed illegal cash loans worth more than 1 billion tenge (US$ 2.93 million) from Kazakhstans RBK Bank between March and September of 2014, according to the MVD.

Rukosuyev was detained in Macedonia in May after Interpol Kazakhstan issued a "red notice" placing him on its international wanted list, local media reported.

Less than a month prior to Rukosuyevs arrest in Macedonia, the Kazakh MVD obtained the extradition of two men, also suspected of large-scale fraud, from the UAE, according to local media. It is unknown if the three fraud cases are connected.

occrp.org
Drug Enforcement Administration Strike Forces detained nine reputed members of a Brooklyn-based Russian organized crime syndicate, The New York Post reported.

The defendants, who reported to and took orders from their bosses in the former Soviet Union, were all charged with extortion, drug trafficking, loansharking, illegal gambling and extortionate debt collection.

Law enforcers found eight of the Russian mobsters in Brighton Beach and Coney Island, where they operated by their own rules and laws that terrorized the Eastern European citizens of those neighborhoods  and often times resulted in the use of physical violence.

In particular, the syndicate would collect on millions of dollars in outstanding debts by extorting payments in the U.S. while threatening victims and their family members living abroad.

During pre-trial proceedings, none of defendants admitted the guilt.
Donald Trumps election as a U.S. President will result in the improvement of ties with Russia.

Publisher and editor of The California Courier, Harut Sassounian, told the aforementioned to Armenian News  NEWS.am.

In his words, the Armenian community of U.S. will start everything from scratch.

The relations of U.S. towards the rest of the world will also undergo changes. The relations between U.S. and Russia will improve, which will positively impact the war in Syria and the Karabakh conflict settlement process, Sassounian said.

Touching on Trumps links with the Azerbaijani oligarchs, he noted: Trump supports business ties in different corners of the world. Now he is a president and will look at the world from a completely different standpoint.

Republican Party candidate Donald Trump, who is notorious for his extravagant statements and promises to normalize ties with Russia, won the 2016 U.S. presidential elections Wednesday.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will reimburse the expenses of Armenia within the framework of the investment forum that was convened in October, in New York City.

Accordingly, the Government of Armenia will receive $62,500 in this regard.

The respective funds will be allocated along the lines of the $750,000 grant by the ADB.

President Serzh Sargsyan also had attended Armenia Investment Forum, under the theme Gateway to Major Markets.
YEREVAN. - The fast development of information technologies for the educational system can be considered as a challenge or great opportunity.

Coordinator of IBM University Relation Manager for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Sergey Belov, who attended the opening of ISTC Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center in Yerevan, told Armenian News  NEWS.am.

In his words, the disproportionate development of IT and the educational system is a common issue. The sphere of information technologies is developing so rapidly that even the leading universities cannot keep pace with the latest technological achievements of the sphere. I think, there is nothing surprising here. In the university environment students get fundamental knowledge rather than learn the latest technological achievements. The role of the Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center is to solve this issue.

In fact, the Center is located in a university environment: it will serve as a source of information on the latest technological achievements for students and researchers interested in the sphere of high technologies, Belov said.

The official opening of ISTC Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center took place in Yerevan Thursday. The event was attended by the Minister of Communication, Transport and Information Technologies Vahan Martirosyan, U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills and IBM University Relation Manager for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Sergey Belov.
Regulation Comes Next as Most Legalization Measures Passed

California voters took the lead as they passed a measure legalizing recreational use of marijuana. Arizona voters defeated theirs, and results for Maine's legalization measure were too close to call on Nov. 9.

Now that voters in several U.S. states have passed legalization measures, either for recreational or medicinal use of marijuana, legislators and regulators in the states that did on Nov. 8 will get to work on drafting the rules for regulating and taxing these new industries, likely looking to the example of Colorado and possibly other legalization pioneers among the states.

California's Proposition 64 passed by a 56-44 majority with more than 4.9 million votes in favor. Voters in Nevada and Massachusetts also approved measures legalizing recreational use of marijuana and in Florida, Arkansas, and North Dakota, medical marijuana measures all passed. But the recreational marijuana initiative in Arizona was defeated, and the votes for and against Maine's recreational measure were too close to call it either way early Nov. 9, with the yes votes slightly ahead.

"Proposition 64 is just the beginning of essential work by government officials in California," The Los Angeles Times noted in a Nov. 9 editorial about the proposition's passage. "California has the opportunity to demonstrate that marijuana can be legalized with minimal harm to the public good." The editorial concluded, "It's up to lawmakers, regulators and advocates to ensure that this experiment in legalization works for all."
Top 100 Trending Electronics, Toys and Games this Holiday Season by Ugam

Comprehensive list kicks off managed analytics leaders 2016 holiday shopping analysis

NEW YORK  November 10, 2016  Ugam, a global leader in managed analytics, today announced its list of the U.S. Top 100 Trending Electronics, Toys and Games as part of its 2016 Holiday Season report. Comprising the top trending consumer electronics, toys and games, the list demonstrates how retailers can best evaluate their assortment to improve their holiday season competitiveness.

The highlights of the analysis include the following:

Consumer Electronics:

 Amazons all-new Fire HD 8 Tablet is the most-trending product in the electronics category.

 Samsung has more products (21) than any other brand in the U.S. top trending list of electronics. It was followed by Amazon (9), and Sceptre (5).

 The top categories on the trending electronics list are TVs (27), followed by Cameras (11), and Tablet Computers (8).

 The median price of the top five trending electronics is $94.99.

Toys and Games:

 Same as the previous year, Cards Against Humanity is the most-trending product in the toys and games category.

 Fisher-Price has more products (13) than any other brand in the U.S. top trending list of toys and games. It was followed by Lego (10) and Hasbro (9).

 The top categories on the trending toys list are Learning and Development toys (21), followed by Dollhouses and Playsets (19), and Outdoor Games (13).

 The median price of the top five trending toys and games is $23.25.

Consumers are increasingly turning to the internet to fulfill their holiday shopping needs, said Sunil Mirani, Ugam CEO. Retailers can use this shift to their advantage. By analyzing online shopper data, such as product reviews, search and social media data, retailers can understand the products that customers are looking for and make better merchandising decisions.

To determine the Top 100 Trending Products, Ugam first identified the consumer electronics, toys and games available across major U.S. online retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Target, Toys R Us and Best Buy. Using its proprietary big data platform, Ugam calculated a popularity score for each product, called Ugams Shopper Intent Index (SII), by aggregating consumer demand data such as search volume, social media signals and online reviews and ratings. Ugams SII scores were determined based on data collected on October 24, 2016.

View the complete list of the Top 100 Trending Electronics, Toys and Games.

As part of its third annual Holiday Season report, Ugam will announce subsequent holiday season analysis, highlighting insights that matter to manufacturers and retailers during this critical period.

More point of sale news:

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BEIJING, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/  Chinas Singles Day shopping fest, also known as Shuangshiyi (or Double Eleven, since it takes place on November 11), is the worlds biggest online shopping frenzy, last year achieving unprecedented success in terms of sales, participation rate, customer engagement and media influence.

Company data put the total gross merchandise volume (GMV) on Alibabas shopping platforms at a record-breaking $14.3 billion (RMB 91.2 billion) in 2015, outpacing 2014s $9.3 billion (RMB 57.1 billion) by a dramatic 60%.

This year should be bigger still  but by how much? I expect lower growth this year, in the range of a 30-50% increase over last year, says Teng Bingsheng, Associate Professor of Strategy at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) in Beijing. If so, he adds, it will still be a great achievement.

Already significantly bigger than the US shopping festivals of Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, Singles Day was first invented by Alibabas Tmall in 2009 and has since grown exponentially, especially as rival companies like JD.com and Suning have joined the fray. But can Alibaba ever hope to reclaim this event as its own?

To some extent, people remember that Alibaba initiated the 11.11 shopping festival, says Teng. However, other brands are quickly gaining their fair share as well. But as long as the whole pie  and Alibabas own business  both get bigger, its still good news.

Double Eleven used to last for 24 hours, but this year it will stretch for 24 days, adds CKGSB Associate Professor of Accounting Zhang Weining. I think Alibaba foresaw that the sales growth rate would slow down this year, in part because more and more e-commerce platforms are running these campaigns and consumers are increasingly attracted to promotions offered prior to the day itself. This new strategy will also ease the pressure on delivery logistics, since sales will be more spread out.

But Zhang adds that e-commerce in China has developed so quickly that Alibaba has almost reached its ceiling in this regard and must now look for other areas for growth. Its potential now lies in three places, he says. Building an integrated overseas shopping market, promoting internationally brands that are only sold on Alibabas platforms and exploring the offline market.

In terms of technology, Chairman Jack Ma, a CKGSB alumnus, claims that Alibaba has the support of a computing system that is [by] far the most advanced that human beings can realize, with the company able to process a total of 140,000 transactions per second via its cloud arm Aliyun during the shopping peak, while payment arm Alipay processed an additional 86,000 transactions per second at peak sale time.

Inspired by Paypal, Ma started Alipay in 2003 to provide an escrow service for the online shopping site Taobao. Split from e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2013, Ant Financial, whose Chief Strategy Officer Chen Long is also a Professor of Finance at CKGSB, expanded at an unprecedented speed in the past three years and now it has an estimated market value of $75 billion.

The company also reportedly plans to list in 2017 in either Shanghai or Hong Kong  likely to be Chinas largest IPO since 2010 when the state-owned Agriculture Bank of China offered $22.1 billion worth of shares.

About CKGSB

Established in Beijing in November 2002 with support from the Li Ka Shing Foundation, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business is Chinas first faculty-governed and independent business school. CKGSB boasts more than 40 full-time professors, who have earned their PhDs or held tenured faculty positions at leading schools such as Harvard, Wharton and Stanford.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump arrives for his election night rally at the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan, New York, U.S., November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

WASHINGTON, DC  As the world adjusts to America's newest commander in chief, uncertainties about what policies Donald Trump will pursue  toward North Korea in particular  remain.

"Trying to predict President Trump's policy toward Asia, or any global region for that matter, is difficult if not impossible," Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow of Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, told Business Insider.

"We are in uncharted territory because Trump has not articulated an Asian policy nor does he even have an identifiable cadre of Asian advisors," Klingner added.

Echoing that sentiment, David Straub, former State Department Korea director and associate director of the Korea Program at Stanford University, told Business Insider that Trump knows "next to nothing" about the region.

"He didn't say very much about North Korea during the campaign, and what he did say was incoherent," Straub told Business Insider.

Notably, while on the campaign trail, Trump said he would hold a summit with the North's reckless leader Kim Jong Un over hamburgers.

"It's clear he knows next to nothing about the area and the problems there, and it will take him and his administration a long time to get up to speed," Straub said.

trump foreign policy speech

"I can't see Trump negotiating a denuclearization agreement with North Korea," Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told Business Insider.

"And after Libya and what I anticipate will be the collapse of the agreement with Iran, I don't see any appetite in North Korea either."

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Trump also said he would remove US troops from host nations throughout Asia and Europe if these countries did not pay their share of the costs.

Straub added that Trump should focus on North Korean threats instead of "complaining about how much our allies South Korea and Japan are paying for the upkeep of US forces in their country."

"The fact is that they already pay a great deal of those costs, and that it would cost more to move them to the US than keep them where they are, not to mention the fact that strategic stability in Northeast Asia is very much in US interests as well as in the interests of our allies," Straub said.

In regards to China, Pyongyang's closest ally and the region's most powerful nation, Trump has said he would pressure Chinese president Xi Jinping to address North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

"Given Trump's statements on trade policy with China, it is difficult to imagine how he can get China to do what he wants," Eric Gomez, a policy analyst for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, told Business Insider.

"Despite the instability North Korea causes, Beijing is willing to keep supporting it so long as it can be a hedge against US military power in the region. China probably has the best chance of pressuring North Korea on the nuclear weapons issue, but right now it's difficult to see how Trump would get Beijing to change its current position," Gomez added.

Xi Jinping

Similarly, Melik Kaylan, co-author of "The Russia-China Axis," says that Trump will most likely be unable to adjust Beijing's stance.

"China uses North Korea as a lever to distract its regional rivals," Kaylan said. "If Trump is true to his words, he will try to confront China on a series of issues. China will play the North Korea card."

"Trump will ultimately fall back on the alliances as they exist," Kaylan added.

Straub notes that Trump may even follow the same policy carried out by President Obama when dealing with North Korea.

"If Trump is guided by our government experts and institutions, he will eventually follow roughly the same policy as President Obama, i.e. ratchet up US and international pressure on North Korea to give up nuclear weapons each time it commits a provocation, at the same time bolstering our missile and other defenses against the North and preparing for all manner of contingencies," Straub said.

And while the current administration has slapped Pyongyang with several rounds of heavy sanctions, the Hermit Kingdom's brazen rocket launches and nuclear detonations continue.

"This year, Pyongyang successfully conducted two nuclear tests, an intercontinental ballistic missile test, breakthrough successes with its road-mobile intermediate-range missile and submarine-launched ballistic missile, re-entry vehicle technology, a new solid-fuel rocket engine, and an improved liquid-fuel ICBM engine," Klingner told Business Insider in a previous interview.

kju

What's more, during one week in October, the North launched what are thought to be two Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles  one on October 15 and another on October 19.

"This twice-in-a-week stuff also suggests that they must have an inventory of these things that they're willing and able to expend to advance the program," Thomas Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Business Insider in a previous interview.

Hours after the aforementioned dual missile test, US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter met with South Korea's minister of defense, Han Min Koo, at the Pentagon.

"Make no mistake, any attack on America or our allies will not only be defeated, but any use of nuclear weapons will be met with an overwhelming and effective response," Carter said during the press conference.

"The United States remains committed to defending our allies against any threat with the full spectrum of American military might," Carter added.

Looking to the future, experts agree that Trump's policies will not be known for many months after he transitions to the highest office in the land.

"North Korea will of course seek to use that time to its own advantage, which will not be to ours," Straub said.

"'Bewilderment' and 'uncertainty' will be the keywords for the assessing the 2016 presidential election and the path ahead," Klingner said.

NOW WATCH: Meet THAAD: Americas answer to North Korean threats





More From Business Insider


The funding, raised from Global From Day One, will be used to fuel its growth in China and extend its fintech activities

LetsCargo, a Taiwan-based online logistics startups, has raised US$700,000 in a pre Series A funding led by Global From Day One Fund (GD1), a VC firm dual-headquartered in Taipei and Auckland (New Zealand).

The proceeds will be used towards geographic expansion, especially in China, as well as accelerate acquisition of clients. The startup also plans to further extend its fintech activities, according to an official statement.

LetsCargo was founded in 2015 and was seeded by Xiamens leading accelerator AT Work in August last year.

Globally, LetsCargo levels the playing field for forwarders and shippers through technology. The company offers a surface and air freight price search engine that is comparable to Expedia or Ctrip in the online travel sector.

Furthermore, by working with third-party financial institutions, LetsCargo also provides working capital financing to forwarders through its platform.

Also Read: Global from Day One raises US$26M for its second fund; makes first investment in Qotient

According to the company, small and medium-sized forwarders and shippers have yet to embrace the digital age and instead, still rely on faxes and phones to map out their optimal delivery routes and times. In contrast, LetsCargo offers a suite of software services that feature vendor quotation, customs clearance management, product inspection, in-land transportation, and real time updates of cargo arrival status.

By providing APIs to logistics-related companies involved in the delivery of a shipment from port to warehouse, LetsCargo aggregates the essential information on a common online platform and allows logistics companies to improve their workflow.

Headquartered in Taipei, the startup also has sales offices in Shanghai, Xiamen, and Shenzhen. Currently it serves over 5,000 clients on its logistics platform.

LetsCargos target market includes exporters, freight forwarders, and importers that serve both sides of the global logistics chain.

Story continues

In addition, LetsCargo has teamed up with local financial organisation Ximu to offer credit to its clients in China. Most forwarders have their working capital locked up with shipping companies to whom they pay a deposit to secure cargo space. LetsCargo currently extends a revolving credit line of RMB 500,000 (US$74,000). Since launching this service in May, LetsCargo has extended more than RMB 10 million (US$1.5 million) of working capital to date.

Eric Chou, Founder and CEO of LetsCargo, said: The logistics sector has a very low level of IT utilisation. In this case, old school isnt a good thing. If an enterprise needs to dust off their fax machine in order to get a critical update on an incoming shipment, LetsCargo is here to offer a better way.

Due to expanded free trade agreements and a global boom in e-commerce, the global logistics market is expected to grow at a 7.5 per cent CAGR from 2015 to 2024, from US$8.1 trillion in 2015 to US$15.5 trillion by 2023.

As for its addressable market, millions of companies worldwide need to ship their products through freight forwarding, including over 70,000 forwarders now doing business in China.

Founded in January this year, GD1 is a cross-border technology-focused fund with the majority of capital to be invested in New Zealand and Taiwan startups with a focus on the US and Asian markets. To date, the company has invested in three companies, including Qotient and Spotlight Reporting (both based in New Zealand).

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Image Credit: whaihs / 123RF Stock Photo

The post LetsCargo raises US$700K to provide online logistics, lending services to shippers in Taiwan, China appeared first on e27.
Reuters

Indian police arrested nine people on Monday, including ticketing clerks and contractors, as they investigate the collapse of a foot bridge in which at least 134 people, including many children, were killed. CCTV footage from just before the collapse showed a group of young men taking photos while others tried to rock the suspension bridge in Morbi from side to side, before they tumbled into the river below as the cables gave way. Ashwin Mehra, who was undergoing treatment after sustaining leg and back injuries, said he and six others had reached the shore by holding onto the bridge's metal railings and netting.
By Makini Brice LES CAYES, Haiti (Reuters) - Haiti has launched a massive cholera vaccination campaign to battle a flare-up after Hurricane Matthew, but concerns remain about the capacity for longer-term improvements to water and sanitation infrastructure needed to eradicate the disease. The cholera campaign, launched on Tuesday in two southern areas hammered by the storm, is aiming to be the world's largest, targeting 820,000 people, said Ernsly Jackson, an immunization specialist for UNICEF Haiti. Haiti has battled a cholera outbreak that has sickened more than 800,000 people and killed about 9,000 since 2010, when the bacteria was imported into the country by a contingent of United Nations peacekeepers. Although it had proved stubborn to eradicate, cases had declined sharply from a peak in 2010-11. But Hurricane Matthew struck the island in early October, killing up to 1,000 people, leaving about 1.4 million in need of humanitarian assistance and damaging many health facilities. The storm largely destroyed much of the southwestern region's already meagre water and sanitation infrastructure, leaving it ripe for a cholera outbreak, experts say. Clifford Gauthier, the South department's head of the Ministry of Health, said there had been 1,200 suspected cholera cases since the hurricane hit, a sharp increase since the region had previously had fewer cases than other areas of the country. In total, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says there have been 3,500 suspected cholera cases since the hurricane. In the Immaculate Conception Hospital of the port town of Les Cayes, 19 people suspected of having cholera were hooked up to IVs and lay on hospital bedframes. Marie Wilnine Gaetan, the head nurse of a rapid-response team, said that the region had not seen so many cases since the disease was first spotted in Haiti. SINGLE DOSES The campaign will mark the first time that so many people will be given only one dose of the cholera vaccine. Normally, the vaccine is given in two doses. A previous initiative conducted by Doctors Without Borders in South Sudan found that a single dose of the cholera vaccine proved to be extremely effective at boosting immunity, according to a study published in medical journal The Lancet in November. "This justifies the approach of using a single dose to achieve wider coverage, given the fact that there's not enough of the vaccine to give to everyone," said Alan Hinman, a member of the Global Task Force on Cholera Prevention, who was not involved with the study. The two-dose vaccine lasts for two years, according to the United Kingdom's National Health Service, but it is not known exactly how long the single dose lasts. Despite officials' enthusiasm, some residents were angry that help had taken a month to arrive. "Many people died in the South department because of cholera, especially people who do not have access to a health centre in their community," said Laurient Seebien, a resident of Les Cayes. "Maybe if the government had come quickly with those drugs, it would have saved more lives." Officials at the campaign launch were careful to stress the vaccine was not intended to be the only tool to fight cholera in the region. "The eradication of cholera must include the strengthening of sanitary infrastructures and the population must have access to safe water," said Daphnee Benoit Delsoin, the Minister of Health. "That is to say, it is a very long struggle." But rapid-response team nurse Gaetan said that the water and sanitation authority's repairs appeared to be slow-going. "It's true that DINEPA has started, but I don't know if their means are limited," she said, using the authority's French acronym. A DINEPA spokesman did not respond to multiple calls. Donor financing for longer-term improvements to the water and sanitation system in the cash-strapped country had proved slow to materialize, U.N. officials said. "There have been promises but there has been little funding," said Francois Bellet, a UNICEF specialist in water and sanitation. (Additional reporting by Robenson Sanon, editing by G Crosse)
Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters



Singapores Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong congratulated Donald Trump on winning the US Presidential Election, saying that his victory has defied expectations.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday (9 November), Lee said, US voters have elected a President whom they feel best represents them.

Lee also noted that has it been a contentious, ugly election season, which has shown the bitter division in the American people.

Many will celebrate this result, while others will understandably be surprised and disappointed.

Lee also compared Trumps victory to the unexpected Brexit referendum in June and is part of a broader pattern in developed countries. He said that it reflects a deep frustration with the way things are, and a strong wish to reassert a sense of identity, and somehow to change the status quo.

Lee added that Singapore will continue to work with the United States to strengthen their bilateral ties.


By Tom Perry and Lisa Barrington BEIRUT (Reuters) - Donald Trump's election as U.S. president on Wednesday aroused concern among Syrian rebels and a degree of optimism in Damascus, where his victory was seen as a better outcome than a Hillary Clinton win. Syrian rebels have long been fiercely critical of what they perceive as the Barack Obama administration's inadequate backing for their fight against President Bashar al-Assad, though Washington has been an important sponsor of the uprising. While some in the Syrian opposition said Trump had yet to articulate a clear Syria policy, his statements, and his more open-minded stance towards Assad's ally Russia, have fuelled rebel concern about the stance he may adopt on the war, in which Russia's air force has been bombing insurgents. "I think things will become difficult because of Trump's statements and his relationship with Putin and Russia. I imagine this is not good for the Syrian issue," Zakaria Malahifji, head of the political office of an Aleppo-based rebel group, told Reuters. Trump said in an Oct. 25 interview with Reuters that defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down, and warned that Clinton could drag the United States into a new world war over the Syria conflict. In one of his debates with Clinton, Trump said he did "not like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS" with Russia and Iran. RISE OF ISLAMIC STATE The Syrian civil war, now in its sixth year, has killed hundreds of thousands of people, allowed the rise of Islamic State and created the world's worst refugee crisis. Russia and Iran have provided direct military support to Assad while countries that want to see him gone from power, including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, have provided rebels with backing including military support. Russia's intervention in support of Assad last year helped Damascus turn the tide against insurgents who had been making steady territorial advances, and gave Moscow decisive influence over diplomacy. The Syrian opposition says Obama failed to back them adequately after calling for Assad to leave power, failing to enforce his own "red line" against the use of chemical weapons and blocking the delivery of anti-aircraft weapons to rebels. In Damascus, a member of the Syrian parliament said he was cautiously optimistic that U.S. policy would shift Assad's way under Trump. "We must be optimistic, but cautiously optimistic," Sherif Shehada, the MP, told Reuters in a telephone interview. He said Gulf Arab states - which have backed the Syrian rebellion - had been depending on a Clinton victory and were now in "a predicament". "The American administration must carry out what it said in the election campaign." Georges Janbour, the Damascus-based head of the Syrian Association of Political Science, noted Trump's previous suggestion that Russia could be a valuable ally in the fight against Islamic Sate. "I hope that he continues in this line of thinking," he told Reuters. Clinton was the U.S. secretary of state when the uprising against Assad began in 2011, during a wave of protests against Arab autocrats known as the Arab Spring. Prominent Syrian opposition politician George Sabra said: "We do not expect much from the new American administration, but we hope that the face of President Donald Trump is totally different to the face of Mr. Donald Trump the candidate." While some in the opposition expressed concern about Trump's statements, others said a more isolationist approach from Trump could be a good thing for the rebellion by allowing regional powers such as Saudi Arabia to act free of U.S. constraints. Hadi al-Bahra, former head and current member of the Syrian National Coalition, an opposition political body, told Reuters that potential positive aspects to Trump's presidency included his opposition to Iranian influence and Iran's nuclear deal. Bassma Kodmani, member and spokeswoman for the Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said Trump's intentions remained largely unclear. "All we can say is he has called for good relations with Russia," she told Reuters. "On Syria he will have to make difficult decisions. Cooperation with Russia over the last year and a half has not worked ... considerations should be towards a different policy," she said. Some rebels believe that Trump will make no difference to long-established American policy. "The Americans were never honest with us. They left us in a quagmire that drowned the Syrians ... Everyone is trading with our blood and suffering," said Abu Hamed, head of the military council of rebel group Liwa al Haq Brigade, speaking from Hama. (Reporting by Tom Perry and Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Kinda Makieh in Damascus and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; editing by Ralph Boulton)
By Gergely Szakacs BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The outcome of the U.S. presidential election marks the end of a period of "liberal non-democracy" that was mainstream in the past two decades, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Thursday. Hungary's conservative leader in July became the first European head of state to express a clear preference for Republican Donald Trump, who scored a surprise victory over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Wednesday. Like Orban, Trump, a billionaire investor, has also earned rebukes from opponents for what they see as more friendly business and political ties with Russia, Hungary's former Communist overlord and the United States' main Cold War rival. "This is the second day of a historic event, in which Western civilisation appears to successfully break free from the confines of an ideology," Orban told a conference organised by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. "We are living in the days where what we call liberal non-democracy - in which we lived for the past 20 years - ends, and we can return to real democracy," said Orban, without explicitly referring to Trump's election win. Orban, whose speech two years ago on building an "illiberal state" earned him rebukes from the domestic opposition and some foreign capitals, said the time was ripe for politicians to break the shackles of political correctness. The combative 53-year-old premier has clashed several times with European Union authorities over reforms affecting the independence of the judiciary and the central bank. His razor-wire border fence to stem the flow of migrants from the Middle East last year drew criticism from human rights groups. "We can call problems by their name and find solutions not derived from an ideology but based on pragmatic, creative thinking rooted in common sense," Orban said. "We are two days after the big bang and still alive," he said. "What a wonderful world. This also shows that democracy is creative and innovative." Orban said Trump's victory, like Britons' decision to leave the European Union, represented an important shift in global popular thinking. "Brexit is not a tragedy, even remotely," Orban said. "It is not a defeat, but an attempt by a great nation to make itself successful in other ways than what everyone else had considered the path to success." (Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
The United Nations will count on Donald Trump's new US administration to help combat climate change and advance human rights worldwide, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday. Ban congratulated the US president-elect on his victory and said people everywhere look to the United States to work for the common good. Trump has made no secret of his disregard for the United Nations, which he has described as ineffective and a waste of taxpayer money, and has pledged to withdraw from the Paris climate deal. Describing the United States as an "essential actor across the international agenda", Ban made a plea for continued US engagement in the world. "The United Nations will count on the new administration to strengthen the bonds of international cooperation as we strive together to uphold shared ideals, combat climate change, advance human rights," Ban told reporters at UN headquarters. "People everywhere look to the United States to use its remarkable power to help lift humanity up and to work for the common good." Ban championed the climate deal cafter the United States, China and other big polluters joined the international agreement. "Today's global challenges demand concerted global action and joint solutions," he said. Trump, who has no experience in government, has expressed his distrust of international organizations like the United Nations and NATO. "Where do you ever see the United Nations?" Trump told the New York Times in an interview in April. "Do they ever settle anything? It's just like a political game. The United Nations  I mean the money we spend on the United Nations." The United States is the biggest contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, providing some 29 percent of the nearly $ 8 billion budget for UN missions worldwide. The UN chief also expressed his "deep appreciation" to defeated candidate Hillary Clinton, saying she was a "powerful global symbol of women's empowerment". He praised her "lifetime commitment to peace, the advancement of women and the well-being of children."
You cant ignore the power of visuals, not anymore. In todays crowded marketplace, visuals are considered one of the most compelling types of content.

According to research by Columbia University and the French Canadian institute, 59 percent of the links shared on Twitter have never been clicked on! Clearly, click-baiting doesnt work anymore. You need to connect with your audience in a more powerful manner, and visuals can do that for you.

Which post would you click on, the version with the image, or the one without?

What is Visual Marketing?

Ask Google what visual marketing means, and this is what you will be told.

5 Reasons to Invest in Visual Marketing

1. An average user has the attention span of 8 seconds, visual content can increase it by about 82 percent.

2. Content that includes an image can increase your impressions by 94 percent.

3. Colored visuals can increase the willingness of a person to read your content by 80 percent.

4. Articles with images every para or so are likely to get shared 2X as many times as other articles.

5. People remember only 10 percent of the information they hear 3 days later, but 65 percent of the information paired with an image when asked after 3 days.

How to Leverage Existing Content for Visual Marketing Efforts

Not everyone is gifted with design acumen, but that isnt really an issue. With the tools and resources available today, you can quickly put together powerful content for your marketing purposes.

1. Mix in a GIF or two when scheduling your content

There are over 10 copyright free GIF resources that you can use. In fact, you can even schedule GIFs using social media scheduling solutions, content curation software, or on Twitter, when tweeting. It is a GIPHY world, pun intended.

What is so exciting about a GIF? Well, when used in the right context, they can shoot up your engagement levels. Most of them with a hint of humor and are a great way to break the ice or connect with your social media audience.

Take a look at this fun example of visual marketing. The corgi is a nice way to make an audience warm-up to you.

Even when you are having conversations on social media, use GIFs where you can. When someone says something nice, you can go AWWW on a GIF. There are some super funny ones for agree and dance as well. What matters is how you use them.

2. Choose clever blog covers from copyright free visual resources

Have you used the search tools under Googles image search? If you set the search to Labeled for reuse, every image that is returned on that search is yours to use. Feel free to use them, but always credit your source. It is important to acknowledge peoples work and effort, especially when you are using their content for your purposes.

Additionally, you can also source content from one of many copyright free visual resources like PexelS.

How do you search, when looking for a blog cover? Your search terms will decide how effective your blog turn out to be. Use emotion and action words when conducting your search. Look at this post for instance, it emphasizes fear. Emotions are a sure shot means of connecting with your audience.

3. Re-purpose an old blog post as a SlideShare

After spending hours creating each blog post, you should make sure to get proportional returns from it. Say you have already covered social media promotions and email marketing promotions, what more can you do with the post?

See Also: 7 Ways to Keep Your Email From Ending Up in the Trash

Most people ignore platforms like SlideShare because they arent mainstream. That is a mistake. SlideShare has about 70 million unique monthly visitors. It provides a unique and brilliant solution for marketing.

Suggested read  How to use SlideShare for marketing.

Some presentations on there have over a 100,000 views. There is no reason why yours shouldnt. Also, turning a blog post into a presentation will barely take you any time. So you should definitely make it a part of your content marketing process.

SlideShare has a title, description and meta tags section, so you can also optimize everything you post on the platform for search.

4. Source powerful infographics from listing directories

Infographics get shared 3X more than all other types of content. That fact isnt very surprising because infographics are the perfect mix of concept and data, visually represented. Unfortunately, they are hard to make. Fortunately, you dont have to make them.

There are several infographic repositories on the internet. They have been created to help people get their infographics noticed and shared. These are infographics waiting for you to share them.

Considering that there are multiple repositories, there is a good chance that you will find an infographic that is exactly suitable for your content or niche. Find and use them, but again, credit your source. Just look at how great they look on social media posts!

5. Convert building blocks into the perfect visual

If none of the resources on this post have what you need, you can always create your own visual, but dont do it from scratch. There are visual apps and resources that offer pre-designed templates and icons that you can work with to quickly put together the concept you have in mind.

Pick an image editor, like Canva, that is easy to use. So many of them now offer a drag and drop interface, making your work very much simple and effortless.

For design inspiration, you can look at design blogs, or do a Google search to see how others have represented what you want to create.

Visuals are too effective to ignore. If you cant create them, there are a 100 ways in which you can source them, or assemble them to really make a difference to your marketing efforts. All you really require is the right visual tools and resources, and an idea of how you can place what you find in context. Begin applying this tactic today, you will get better at it over time. With consistent pursuit, you may even transform your marketing results.
Few can argue that the Main Streets of America have been in decline for years. But that has not always been the case. Before World War II, the downtown area was the commercial hub for big cities and small towns alike.

According to Main Street America, a revitalization campaign sponsored by the National Main Street Center, a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, downtown buildings typically had several tenants. Retailers would be on the main floor. Offices or apartments were above.

The presence of municipal buildings such as the post office, library and local government provided further reasons for people to populate the business district.

One event, in particular, served to change that dynamic: the creation of the interstate highway system, which led to the growth of suburbia.

Where the people went, business followed, resulting in the development of regional malls and shopping strips. The downtown customer base dwindled, and property values and sales revenues dropped commensurately.

To put it plainly: Suburban flight led to urban blight.

Neglected buildings, boarded-up storefronts and empty, trash-strewn streets gradually reinforced the publics perception that nothing was happening downtown, that nothing was worth saving there, says the Main Street America website.

Downtown Revitalization Efforts are Underway  and Your Business Can Help

Thanks to the efforts of organizations like Main Street America and state and local revitalization groups, many declining communities are turning around and becoming vibrant, livable places  and businesses in these areas would be wise to help.

So what can your business do if it finds itself trapped in a waning area?

Plenty, say two proponents of urban revitalization efforts: Becky McCray and Deb Brown.

Through a project they started called Save Your Town, McCray, a business owner in Alva, Oklahoma, along with Brown, Executive Director of the Webster City (Iowa) Area Chamber of Commerce, lead workshops and seminars in municipalities across the country. They teach local business owners and government officials how to turn the downtown around.

The two spoke with Small Business Trends by phone and provided the following six pointers for businesses looking to participate in revitalization efforts.

How to Overcome a Bad Small Business Location

To revitalize your downtown, do the following:

1. Partner With Other Businesses

Talk to other business owners regularly with the intent of revitalizing the downtown, McCray said. Share ideas and dream up activities together. Put the power of the network into action.

She said that when people connect, they will come up with better ideas together than what they could on their own.

Brown added that business owners should look for other like-minded individuals and avoid the committee of negativity, the people who question the use of innovative ideas.

2. Participate in Special Events

Special events already take place downtown. But the hardest thing for people who organize them is to get participation from business owners, McCray said.

She urged business owners to volunteer, spread the word, be open during the time the event is going on and have a relevant activity taking place in your store.

She gave as an example, an evening art walk.

Have an artistic activity in your place of business during the event. For example, include an artist displaying her works or a musician performing his songs, McCray said. Go through your customer list and find out who does something artsy. Invite them to present in your store.

3. Provide Better Customer Service

Businesses that want to revitalize their area need to do a better job serving customers, McCray said. For example, be open during the hours that customers want, not when you want.

Do the best job serving your current customers and those who visit your business during special events that you can, she advised. It will work to your benefit, whether youre located in a declining area or not.

4. Keep Up to Date

The pace of change in retail has never been faster and businesses need to do a lot of testing and experimenting, trying new things to see what works and what doesnt.

That includes the use of technology. The prevalence of mobile device geo-targeting via Google Maps and apps such as Foursquare and Perch, which focus on local businesses, has only served to accelerate change.

Look at your impact online, Brown advised. Is your website mobile-friendly? Can you be found via search engines? Make sure your business appears in local directory listings.

She also recommended that business owners consider blogging as a way to establish themselves as experts in their niche, to foster trust and build credibility.

In that vein, McCray said that businesses should market themselves via multiple channels, both online and off, to reach new customers.

Be where prospective customers can find you, she said. That includes online but isnt restricted to it.

She cited a 2013 IBM study that outlined five trends that will take place in the next five years, one of which involved retail.

She said the study revealed that within a half decade, buying local will beat purchasing online.

The very best brick and mortar stores will combine the immersive, immediate experience of shopping in-store with the additional information that results from being connected digitally. Digital information includes customer reviews, product recommendations, wish lists, and so on, McCray said.

Customers will benefit from the ability to feel the merchandise. They get immediate gratification that comes from taking their purchase home right now with the contextual online content that can enrich and advance the purchase process.

5. Try New Ways of Doing Business

Because they wont immediately know everything new customers want, McCray suggested that business owners find someone who best reflects that group. Let that person set up a pop-up shop (a corner of the store or a shelving unit) to display products he or she thinks will appeal to the group.

You will learn from them and gain experience at being able to serve a new type of customer best, she said.

Brown cited an innovative idea that has proven successful, which a small Pennsylvania town implemented a few years ago.

Tionesta, Pennsylvania, a town of about 500 people, created a market as a destination. A revitalization organization lined up small sheds around an empty lot located in the middle of downtown, she said.

The group decorated the sheds. They put a square in the middle (to resemble a town square). Then they rented them out for $250 per month, to allow people to sell their wares.

One person, for example, sold fishing lures he made at home while a winery sold bottles of wine, Brown said.

The project, known as Tionesta Market Village, has since become a favorite weekend shopping destination for residents and visitors alike.

6. Spotlight Empty Buildings

Brown, a chamber of commerce director, suggests showing people empty buildings. One way she found to encourage revitalization is to take interested parties on a walking tour of vacant downtown buildings. One such tour, in Webster City, resulted in 10 out of 14 empty buildings becoming occupied.

A local non-profit group bought the movie theater. A professional services firm purchased another. And several became retail locations, she said.

We intentionally looked for businesses in other towns that we felt would be a fit for ours and found them. A company that had a store wanted to expand, and a woman who was working from her home opened a retail shop. What weve found is that the more people we talk to the more we have people looking at these locations.

McCray added that what works in smaller locales can also work in metropolitan areas.

Large cities are made of up neighborhoods, she said, and by definition, downtowns are small communities. You may think there is a difference between populations made up of hundreds of thousands versus hundreds or thousands. But the people in those communities are the same, regardless of size. Trends in downtowns come more quickly in urban areas, but we all face the same changes in the end.

To that end, Main Street America says that more than 1,600 communities are once again looking to Main Street for help. They want to save historic buildings and revive the commercial core. The goal is to strengthen the businesses that survive there. In turn, they hope to stop community erosion resulting from suburban sprawl.

To learn more about ways that your company can participate in local revitalization efforts, visit the Main Street America and Save Your Town websites. Also, if youre not already a member, join your local chamber. Thats certainly a good way to partner with other area businesses to foster change.
Samsung (KRX:005930) announced it is adding a new generation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the upcoming Galaxy S8 phone to be released in Spring 2017. With Alexa, Cortana, Google Now and Siri as the established AI platforms for mobile, PCs and homes, Samsung looks to outdo all of them with Viv, the AI company it acquired last month.

As reported by Reuters and AP, this early announcement is in part designed to highlight a positive outlook after the Galaxy Note debacle the company went through for the past several months. Samsung said it finally figured out what caused its phones to catch on fire, but not before it discontinued the model and lost around $5.3 billion.

Siri for Samsung? More Like Siris Smarter, Younger Sister

The future is AI, and unlike the current slew of systems, Viv (which by the way was created by the same creators of Siri) uses a propriety platform that continues to learn and answer increasingly more complex queries. It is an AI technology that teaches itself using infinite number of web connections to answer almost any query and perform many tasks.

This technology puts it ahead of Siri, its main competitor in the mobile segment, but it will also transform smart home connectivity. Samsung appliances, consumer electronics, wearables and other devices will become part of this ecosystem.

The AI segment has some heavy hitters in the tech industry investing a considerable amount in the technology. Googles Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and of course Apple are just some of the more prominent brands.

Where Samsung is going to differentiate itself is with an open AI platform. This means third party developers can add services using Viv.

Samsung Executive Vice President Rhee Injong told Reuters, Even if Samsung doesnt do anything on its own, the more services that get attached the smarter this agent will get, learn more new services and provide them to end-users with ease.
- Martha Karua has received a heavy backlash from a section of Kenyans after she endorsed President Uhuru Kenyatta for the presidency in 2017

Former presidential candidate Martha Karua, found herself in a hot soup on Thursday, November 10, when she endorsed President Uhuru Kenyatta for a second term in 2017.

Martha Karua angers a section of Kenyans after endorsing Uhuru

READ ALSO: NARC leader Martha Karua supports Uhuru Kenyatta

Karua announced her decision to support Uhuru at a press conference in Nairobi.

Her decision to support the president, came as a surprise as she had been seen to be working closely with the opposition coalition- Coalition of Reform and Democracy (CORD) leaders.

Karua, had earlier declared interest in vying for the Kirinyaga gubernatorial seat in the coming General Election.

READ ALSO: How Emmy Kosgeys billionaire husband predicted Trump would win

Uhuru Kenyatta.

READ ALSO: President Uhuru and 8 other youngest presidents in Africa

Kenyans accused the former Gichugu MP of being self-centered and lacking principles for supporting the same leaders she had earlier accused of propagating high-level corruption.

Below are the reactions of Kenyans after Karua endorsed Uhuru.

Watch below a video of Martha Karua and Raila Odinga.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Job Today

Business Insider/Sam Shead

Job Today, an app that aims to help people find casual jobs quickly and easily, has raised $20 million (16 million), bringing total investment in the company up to $30 million (24 million).

The Luxembourg startup, which operates in London and Spain, is essentially a jobs marketplace. It helps employers  predominantly in retail and hospitality  to find staff and prospective employees to find jobs.

It secured the funding from a host of sources including Facebook investor Accel Partners, Skype investor Mangrove Capital Partners, and Channel 4's Commercial Growth Fund. The round was led by venture capital firm Flint Capital, which was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2013.

The company, which employs around 50 people across Luxembourg, London, and Barcelona, claims to have attracted 2 million job candidates and 150,000 businesses since launching last May. Businesses that have used the platform to hire people include McDonald's, Starbucks, Subway, Pizza Hut, and Holiday Inn.

Job Today cofounder and CEO Eugene Mizin told Business Insider that the money will be used to hire more staff, develop the platform, and expand into new markets. "Were looking to bring it to other European markets including Germany," said Mizin. "We also are very keen to launch in the US in 2017."

Polina Montano, Job Today cofounder and COO, claimed that Job Today is effectively replacing window job ads and helping people to find work in less than 24 hours. "We are truly changing the way people are searching and finding jobs," she said.

NOW WATCH: These size comparisons show the true scale of enormous things

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By Andrius Sytas and Gederts Gelzis VILNIUS/RIGA (Reuters) - The Baltic States warily congratulated Donald Trump on Wednesday on his U.S. election win, but hoped he would not follow through on campaign pledges to look at the level of their defence spending before deciding whether to defend them against Russia. Worries in the three NATO members that Russia, their former Soviet master, might act to grab them back by force following its annexation of Crimea in 2014, were stoked by Trump's remarks in July to the New York Times that he would consider their contributions to the alliance first before coming to their defence. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia also depend on NATO to police their airspace, and expect the alliance to deploy ground troops next year to deter Russia, while the first two are ramping up defence spending sharply. "The American people have decided. We respect their choice. We trust in the United States, because they are our firmest and closest ally," Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said. Officials said they hoped Trump's rhetoric about Baltic defence and Russia was only a part of the election campaign. "I really hope that the rhetoric on defence and Russia was mostly a part of the election campaign," Saulius Skvernelis, Lithuania's incoming prime minister, told Reuters. "I hope the election campaign is now over, and it is not yet time to panic," he said. His Latvian counterpart, Maris Kucinskis told the Latvian Independent Television he expected the United States to remain committed to the region. "We respect the choice of American people and our policy [...] is not going to change because of that," he added. Lithuania and Latvia have pledged to raise defence spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2018, while Estonia already spends that amount. In July, the head of the Latvian parliament's foreign relations committee, Ojars Eriks Kalnins, said Trump's comments about Baltic defence were "very dangerous" and contradicted policies of both the U.S. Republican and Democrat parties. But on Wednesday, Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis said he was confident the United States was going to fulfil commitments agreed by NATO, which is planning to send 4,000-strong force to the Baltics and eastern Europe next year. Sandra Kalniete, a Latvian member of the European Parliament, said Trump's election was dramatic both for her country and for Eastern Europe in general. "His election shows the U.S. turning towards isolationism, which will weaken the U.S. involvement in NATO. The two most important security pillars of Latvia's security, the U.S. and Britain, have both cracked during the last year," she wrote in her Facebook post. Separately, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday said the promise to defend any ally under attack was an unconditional guarantee set out in the Western alliance's founding treaty in 1949. (Writing by Nerijus Adomaitis, additional reporting by Gwladys Fouche in Oslo and David Mardiste in Tallinn; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
NAIROBI (Reuters) - The first batch of Kenyan troops who had served in a U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan arrived home on Wednesday, after Nairobi ordered them to withdraw in response to the sacking of the Kenyan commander of the UNMISS force. Kenya said last week it would pull its forces out after a U.N. inquiry accused UNMISS of failing to respond to an attack on a Juba hotel during fighting in July. Kenya's Lieutenant General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki was fired. "Today we have started our withdrawal from South Sudan," Kenyan Major General Benjamin Biwott told reporters at Nairobi's international airport as about 100 soldiers flew in. He said further batches of soldiers from the roughly 1,000-strong Kenyan contingent would arrive in coming days, although he did not give a precise timing for completing the withdrawal from UNMISS, which comprised about 12,000 troops. The general said Kenyan soldiers had taken part in peacekeeping operations in 44 countries over the past four decades and Kenya was continuing in its other missions. "We are committed in our peacekeeping operations as a credible and well-trained force," he said. The Juba hotel attack occurred in July during several days of fighting between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his former vice president, Riek Machar. The two men have long been political rivals and come from different ethnic groups. A civil conflict erupted in South Sudan in December 2013, but the two leaders signed a peace deal in 2015 that was meant to halt the fighting, but it failed to stick. Machar has since left the country and sporadic clashes have continued. (Reporting by Ben Makori; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
WASHINGTON  Voters around the country faced long lines, occasional broken machines and some hot tempers Tuesday, but as the polls closed from one coast to the other, there were no signs of the large-scale fraud, intimidation or hacking some had feared.

The scattered problems mostly involved the sort of glitches that arise in every election, including discrepancies in the voter rolls, with no indications of any snags big enough to meaningfully alter the vote count.

The biggest surprise is how uneventful things have been with this large a turnout, said Illinois State Board of Elections spokesman Jim Tenuto. Everyone was expecting more problems than this  and nothing.

In Texas, activists reported malfunctioning voting systems at more than five polling stations in Denton County, and computer problems at a polling place in a suburban Houston high school forced officials to briefly divert voters to another site more than two miles away.

In key battleground North Carolina, computer trouble in the Democratic stronghold of Durham County forced officials to rely on a paper check-in process, triggering long lines. Several precincts extended their closing times up to an hour.

Similar glitches were reported elsewhere around with the country, along with complaints from some voters that their names were missing from the rolls.

Outside one Florida polling place, a woman campaigning for Donald Trump pepper-sprayed a Hillary Clinton supporter, and outside another, two men got into a scuffle after one of them slapped a phone out of the others hand. An argument between a Trump backer and Clinton supporter triggered a fracas in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

There were reports of voters waiting for hours to cast their ballots in such places as Missouri and Utah.

The voting unfolded amid repeated but unsubstantiated claims from Trump that the election would somehow be rigged. His exhortations to followers to watch for fraud at the polls gave rise to fears of vigilantism and harassment.

Overall, the story that everyone was expecting  mass reports of voter intimidation  hasnt happened, said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYUs Law School. Ive definitely seen an uptick in it  but its not the overriding story of the election, which certainly ought to be a relief to many.

Trump again suggested the election might not be on the up-and-up. His campaign said it was seeking an investigation in the battleground state of Nevada over reports that some voters were allowed to get in line after poll closing times.

In an interview on Fox News, Trump would not say whether he would accept the outcome.

Were going to see how things play out today and hopefully they will play out well and hopefully we wont have to worry about it, he said. Later in the interview, he said, Its largely a rigged system.

In Philadelphia, one of the places Trump had suggested were ripe for fraud, District Attorney Seth Williams said that as of the afternoon, there were no substantiated reports of voter fraud or intimidation, and no walking apocalypse of zombies voting around town.

Meanwhile, state election officials were guarding against any attempt by hackers to breach their computer systems.

Forty-eight states accepted cyber hygiene help from the Homeland Security Department to patch their networks and root out problems that could allow hackers in, and the remaining two states hired contractors to do the same, officials said.

Cybersecurity experts said because of the nations decentralized voting system, with people casting ballots in 9,000 jurisdictions and more than 185,000 precincts, it would be difficult for a hacker to have any sizeable effect on the vote.

___

Associated Press writers Diana Heidgerd in Dallas; Ron Todt in Philadelphia; Michael Tarm in Chicago; and Desmond O. Butler, Ben Nuckols, Stephen Braun and Tami Abdollah in Washington contributed to this report.
For the past six years, no law has served as a larger GOP whipping post than the Affordable Care Act, and the Republican sweep Tuesday of political Washington has imperiled the ACAs expansive reach, putting at risk the insurance that more than 20 million Americans have gained.

During the final week of his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to repeal the 2010 health-care law so swiftly that he might summon Congress into a special session to accomplish the task. We will do it, and we will do it very, very quickly. It is a catastrophe, he said.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and other congressional Republicans voiced fresh determination to complete the deal. After dozens of fruitless repeal votes in the House, and a major rescission attempt this year that President Barack Obama blocked, Ryan noted that now we have President Trump coming, who is asking us to do this.

According to lawmakers and health policy analysts, the GOP majorities in both chambers are likely to employ Congress reconciliation process to reverse critical aspects of the statute that involve federal spending, such as the subsidies helping millions of working- and middle-class Americans afford health plans. But analysts said a political path is less clear to dismantling other parts of the law, such as its insurance marketplaces, or to instituting a set of conservative health-care approaches.

The ACAs most ardent supporters have already begun a counteroffensive to stoke opposition to reversing ways the law has upgraded coverage and made it more affordable for some consumers. Families USA, a liberal consumer-health lobby, convened an afternoon call with hundreds of ACA advocates from all 50 states to begin mapping a grass-roots campaign.

The clock is ticking, because Republicans appear to be saying health care is going to be the first item on their list with repeal of the ACA being the banner for that,  said Ron Pollack, Families USAs executive director for three decades. This will be the most intense fight I remember.  One should never underestimate an extraordinary backlash that occurs when people have something that they really value and it is taken away.

The Affordable Care Act, enacted in the spring of 2010 with virtually no GOP support, is a 2,000-page statute that has ushered in the broadest changes to the health-care system in a half-century. With Trumps election, the ACA as we know it would seem to be toast, said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

I dont think there has been a reversal of any public benefit that would be as large as this, Levitt said. The only other significant reversal by Congress of a major health care policy  the expansion of Medicare to include catastrophic coverage  took place in 1989 before the benefit took effect.

The challenge for Republicans, Levitt added,comes now in trying to come to some consensus about how to unwind it and what to replace it with.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., one of the ACAs loudest critics, declined on Wednesday to spell out details of the procedures Republicans would use abolish the law. But in a press briefing to celebrate his caucus preserving its majority, he said, All of that is underway.

Congress demonstrated in January that it could use the upper chambers reconciliation process  requiring just 50 votes  to send a repeal bill to the White House. Though GOP lawmakers understood that Obama would veto that legislation, it was a strategic move, said Tevi Troy, an ACA critic who is a former deputy health secretary and the chief executive of the American Health Policy Institute. Congress intentionally set it up so they could demonstrate a legislative pathway.

Under that bill, there would have been a two-year transition before any features of the law ended. The idea was to give congressional Republicans breathing space to design a replacement and pass a new law.

But with the party holding 51 seats in the next Senate, it is unclear whether they will be able to amass the 60 votes needed to overcome a potential filibuster and adopt an alternative to the ACA.

If the GOP repeals but then is unable to agree in two years on what will take its place, that is the nightmare scenario, said John McDonough, a professor at the the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked intensely on the ACAs creation as an aide to the late-Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Still, the reconciliation process could have sweeping effects if it reversed both the insurance subsidies in ACA marketplaces and a set of taxes that help pay for other parts of the law. If Congress undid a Medicare payroll tax, McDonough said, it would actually implement one of the largest tax cuts on high-income families ever.

For his part, Trump has said that he favors keeping one key aspect, which outlawed the old practice by many insurers of refusing to cover people with preexisting medical problems or charging them more than other customers. The insurance industry has long said it would have a hard time abiding by this rule unless virtually all Americans are required to have insurance  a central feature of the ACA that Trump wants to cut.

Trumps campaign never put details on a set of conservative health-care ideas that he sketched out as a candidate. They included converting Medicaid from an entitlement program for lower-income Americans to annual block grants to states. Also proposed was letting individuals deduct the cost of insurance from their taxes.

Even without details, congressional budget analysts and outside health policy experts have estimated the likely impact of dismantling the ACA and replacing it with Trumps health policies.

The Congressional Budget Office forecast that, over the coming decade, repealing the law would cause the deficit to grow by $353 billion, while the number of people with insurance would drop by about 24 million. Rand Corp. has predicted that in 2018, the first full year of Trumps tenure, his campaigns health plan would add nearly $6 billion to the deficit, primarily by undoing a slowdown in Medicare payments under the law. It also would decrease the number of insured by about 20 million people, according to Rand.

In the short term, the sudden doubt about the laws future also has the potential to confuse  and perhaps thwart  the fourth open-enrollment season for ACA health plans through HealthCare.gov and similar state-run insurance marketplaces. The three-month sign-up period began Nov. 1 amid spiking insurance rates and diminished insurance options in many parts of the country.

In his first briefing after the election, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said there were no specific steps the president or his aides plan to take to shore up policies with which his successor disagrees. This administration is gonna continue to make a strong case that people should go to HealthCare.gov, consider the options that are available to them and sign up for health care, Earnest said.



The Washington Posts Paul Kane contributed to this report.



Video: What Donald Trump would do about Obamacare

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When Guy Rosenschein began working as a pediatric surgeon at Presbyterian Healthcare Services four years ago, he passed extensive background checks, according to Clay Holderman, chief operating officer for the facility. And none of his co-workers or patients raised concerns about his conduct.

But when Bernalillo County Sheriffs deputies found him at his home in the foothills on Tuesday, he was with a former patient of his  a 16-year-old boy wearing only his underwear  in his bedroom, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Rosenschein, 63, also told deputies he had taken another former patient of his on vacation all over the country.

Rosenschein told deputies his relationship with the boys was not sexual.

He was charged with possession and distribution of child pornography after detectives found he had been sharing image of children engaged in sexual acts and had a flash drive with dozens of explicit photos on it. A BCSO spokeswoman did not immediately respond to emailed questions about whether he will face any other charges.

Holderman told the Journal on Wednesday that Rosenschein was hired part time at the end of 2012 and became a full-time pediatric surgeon at the hospital on Central and Cedar at the end of 2013. He said Rosenschein is from France and completed two fellowships overseas.

He was fired as soon as the allegations came to light.

Holderman didnt know where Rosenschein worked before he moved to Albuquerque, but said the hospital had received references from his former employers. Now theyre reviewing the background check process.

We dont believe there was anything missed that was knowable, but were going to take a deep dive into those processes to see if theres anyway we could have found a flag that could have prevented this and to make sure it never happens again, Holderman said.

He said the hospital is working with law enforcement and contacting Rosenscheins hundreds of current and former patients.

Were reaching out to everyone we can identify that he has had contact with, Holderman said. Obviously, we want to make sure our patients are safe, and if there was anyone that was harmed by his actions we reach out and support them.

Holderman said they have received several concerned phone calls from the parents of patients, but no one has brought forward new information or allegations.

He said there is no indication that any illegal acts occurred at the hospital, and its rare for a physician and patient to be alone together.

Contact numbers

Patients with concerns can contact Presbyterian Healthcare Services at 505-923-8100 and anyone with information about the case should call Detective Kyle Hartsock at 505-886-1065
PHOENIX  Republicans who retained control of both chambers of the Arizona Legislature chose new leadership teams Wednesday.

After the GOP victories Tuesday, Rep. J.D. Mesnard was picked as House speaker and Steve Yarbrough as Senate president. Yarbrough secured enough votes to win the presidency early this year, as long as Republicans kept control of the Senate.

Mesnard, meanwhile, lobbied the House GOP caucus for months before getting enough votes about two months ago. Rep. Darin Mitchell also had sought the job.

Rep. Regina Cobb said she backed Mesnard because he helped her understand the complex state budget process in her freshman term. Mesnard has been a Senate staffer and was elected to the House in 2010.

I created a relationship with J.D. right from the beginning, and honestly, I just felt like hes got all of us in mind, Cobb said. And thats important.

Mesnard replaces outgoing Speaker David Gowan, and Yarbrough will replace President Andy Biggs, who was elected to Congress.

Mesnard touted a lengthy plan to reorganize the way legislation is shepherded through the House, re-create budget subcommittees and shift power from leadership to the Republican caucus.

I laid out a vision for the House, put it out there for people to see, so that I could be held accountable for that, and I think that resonated with a lot of people, he said.

The president and speaker wield considerable power because they control the flow of legislation through their respective chambers. They will formally be elected when the Legislature convenes in January.

In other House leadership posts, John Allen will become majority leader and Kelly Townsend, whip. In the Senate, Kimberly Yee will be majority leader and Gail Griffin will serve another two years as whip.

Minority Democrats have not yet announced their new leaders.

Democrats picked up at least one Senate and House seat but some races remain too close to call and could change. Senate Republicans appear to have a 17-13 majority, while the House could be headed to a 35-25 split.
WASHINGTON  The true test now begins for Donald Trump.

The Republican president-elect paid little attention to transition planning leading up to his stunning victory. With 72 days before he takes control of the executive branch, Trump and his senior team on Wednesday immediately began the herculean task of picking a Cabinet and tapping hundreds of appointees to senior roles in key departments  State, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Treasury among them  many requiring multiple security reviews or Senate confirmation.

They have a long way to go, said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, an outside group that was working with both campaigns on transition planning since the summer. Its imperative to have the right people brought in fast and theyre prepared.

Stier described the transition as a point of maximum vulnerability for the nation.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as President Barack Obama  one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by Americas 17 intelligence agencies.

Trumps senior team huddled privately to being a more focused period of transition planning. The group included the transition chairman, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and daughter Ivanka Trumps husband, Jared Kushner, among others.

The team is putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts, according to people familiar with the conversations but not authorized to discuss them publicly.

We had a great meeting and I thought it was valuable. And lots of work has been done, said Sessions, a top Trump adviser. So its the beginning, really a solid beginning. First phase of the beginning. 

Bill Hagerty, Trumps director of presidential appointments, declined to detail a timeline for Trumps first personnel moves. A chief of staff is traditionally appointed in the initial weeks after an election.

Its something thats got to be pretty close held until the president-elect is ready to begin to announce appointments, he said.

A small transition team has been meeting since early August to discuss legislative priorities and plans for taking over agencies. While Christie provided Trump with weekly updates, until now, the campaign and transition operations functioned as relatively distinct entities and in different cities  Trumps campaign in New York and the transition team in Washington.

An organizational chart for the transition team obtained by The Associated Press confirms that some familiar names are playing senior roles shaping a Trump admnistration.

National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Joseph Keith Kellogg, a retired Army lieutenant general, was heading defense planning. For domestic issues, the Trump transition team was relying on the leadership of Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

A Trump spokesman did not respond to questions about the team, but key allies rejected the notion he was behind where he should be in transition planning.

Donald Trump is taking this very seriously, Priebus said, suggesting that Trumps deal-making skills would enable him to quickly make things happen for the American people.

He will get things done, Priebus declared.

Its far from clear who would occupy Trumps Cabinet and senior staff. His inner circle is famously small, defined by loyalty to the president-elect and largely devoid of establishment leaders.

Trump offered a roadmap for prospective administration figures while on stage during his victory speech early Wednesday.

The president-elect praised Christie, who joined Trump on stage as he declared victory, despite Christies abysmal poll numbers at home and continued scrutiny for the so-called Bridgegate scandal.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani emerged as one of Trumps closest advisers and regular traveling partners in the campaigns final stretch. The former federal prosecutor is a possible fit for a post like attorney general or national security adviser.

Sessions was the first major Capitol Hill lawmaker to back Trump. His hard-line immigration views became a centerpiece of the insurgent campaign. Sessions chief of staff, Rick Dearborn, has also emerged as a key figure in transition planning.

While many Republican national security leaders shunned Trump, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was the Republican nominees most experienced national security voice. Flynn accompanied Trump when he received his first classified intelligence briefing.

Steven Mnuchin, a Goldman Sachs veteran and CEO of a private investment firm, served as Trumps finance chairman and instantly becomes a contender for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich could emerge as a possible secretary of state. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who was considered for Trumps running mate and chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, may also be in line for a job.

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Eric Schelzig in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
There have been times in Americas past when an untested new president faced immediate calamity and potentially world-shattering disaster, from the Civil War to the Cuban missile crisis. But the broad array of international challenges now facing Donald Trump is among the most daunting and dangerous in modern U.S. history.

After a campaign of bombastic sound bites and often contradictory policy prescriptions, Trumps plans remain opaque for dealing with issues including terrorism, Russian aggression, and multiple shooting wars in the Middle East.

He has simultaneously called for increased military strength and more forceful American leadership, while also speaking of stepping back from U.S. responsibilities as the free worlds primary protector. He has invited China to invade North Korea and solve that problem but said he would host North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the White House.

He has said he would renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal, and then called for strict enforcement of the existing agreement. His plan to combat the Islamic State, Trump said during the campaign, was a secret.

With little clarity on much of what he intends to do, the best initial indicator of Trumps approach may be those he chooses for his national security team. Many of the names floated so far strike fear in the hearts of mainstream Republicans as well as Democrats, while others instill a sense of reassurance.

Perhaps more than any other area of policy, the universe of potential picks for national security Cabinet positions, agency heads, deputies and those below is limited by the large number of Republican establishment figures in the field who said early and often during the campaign that they would never support a Trump candidacy or work in a Trump administration.

Determining who is even on a list of possibilities is hampered by the fact that those who have been organizing the transition apparently have had little contact with Trump or the tightknit circle of family and top campaign officials around him.

There has been a firewall between people who had access to the man himself and people doing stuff that was serious about a transition, said one prominent Washington conservative who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly. The Trump transition to most of us is just a black box.

Even if some of the senior Republicans who denounced Trump decide to offer their services, he has given no indication he is prepared to forgive and forget. Blackballing job contenders, of course, is not unique to Republicans. Liberal advocacy groups, reportedly with guidance from Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, had assembled names unacceptable for positions in a Clinton administration.

On the Republican side, Trump is like Nixon, the conservative said. They keep lists.

In a post-election message to State Department employees Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry reminded them of the need to continue moving ahead with all the activities and projects on which you are currently engaged. The pace of events across the globe does not allow for timeouts.

The second imperative, Kerry said, is to welcome our incoming colleagues warmly and professionally and to provide them with all the assistance they need to ensure a seamless transition from one administration to the next.

Trumps personnel choices could ease or deepen concern in Cabinet departments and agencies such as the CIA, where Trump has said he would reinstate the use of torture and detention for terrorism suspects. Former agency officials said that any attempt to reintroduce harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding would meet fierce internal resistance.

Among the rumored candidates for secretary of state, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, and former U.N. ambassador John Bolton  both outspoken Trump supporters  are viewed as anathema by many current diplomats and as loose cannons even by many of their fellow Republicans. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is seen as the more mainstream candidate.

Corker said that he had spoken to Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Wednesday to offer his congratulations but that hed had no conversations with them about a position in the new administration. Although he has expressed interest in the State Department job in the past, its way too soon for that kind of thing. . . . These are decisions that others are making, Corker told the Tennessean newspaper Wednesday.

At the Pentagon, Trump has criticized current senior officers counterterrorism policies, saying he would replace them, but also has said he would defer to them on new policies. Among other things, current and former defense officials have expressed unease over threats to withdraw from NATO, use nuclear weapons and engage in military partnerships with Russia while responding more aggressively to Chinese expansionism.

The possibility that retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and an active Trump adviser and surrogate who is highly critical of current policy, would be named as defense secretary or national security adviser does not sit well within the Pentagon or the intelligence community, career officials in both venues have said. Flynns appointment to a Cabinet position would also require a congressional waiver of a law restricting activities of former senior military officers.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, another senior Trump adviser, is said to be interested in the top Defense Department job. While a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he is much better known for his interest in immigration than the military.

Amid the many swirling rumors  and a dearth of actual information  former CIA director and retired Gen. David Petraeus is said to be in the mix for a top national security job, as are House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, former congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan and George W. Bush national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

Trumps lack of foreign policy experience could also shift more focus back to Congress, where Republicans who have sharply criticized the level of unilateral control President Barack Obamas White House has exercised over national security  and some have denigrated Trump as uninformed on the issues  are chafing for a bigger voice. At the same time, Trumps lack of a deep bench to populate the National Security Council staff could result in a reduction from an Obama White House team seen as bloated.

But Trump wasnt elected on the strength of his foreign policy, said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. A non-politician with no record to judge, Trump said enough to get people to elect him, Pletka said. But he has also made a lot of statements that are totally contradictory, she said. . . . I have absolutely no idea how hes going to govern.

As Trump makes his choices and begins to work through the various policies he has described in bullet points, some issues will require immediate attention. They include the fight against the Islamic State, Syrias simultaneous civil war and broad Middle East instability; a newly aggressive Russia that U.S. intelligence says has directly intervened in the American electoral process; and the likelihood that North Korea will have a missile-mounted nuclear weapon capable of reaching U.S. shores during the first year of Trumps presidency.

Others, including China, Iran and global terrorism, are on a larger plate of pressing strategic issues. In Asian capitals such as Tokyo and Seoul, officials voiced trepidation over Trumps campaign promises to make them pay more for a U.S. security shield. In Damascus and Jerusalem, there was optimism that pressure to make concessions to their opponents would lessen.

At NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, one ambassador sent an email to another summing up the high state of anxiety given the president-elects threat to withdraw from the alliance if other members failed to meet their obligations. The email read, Oh my god.

  

Adam Entous contributed to this report.

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Voters resounding call for an election on Albuquerque Rapid Transit didnt resonate at City Hall.

Mayor Richard Berry and several city councilors said Wednesday that it simply isnt practical to halt construction and schedule an election on a project thats already underway.

The results of Tuesdays election  when 76 percent of city voters said they support holding an election on ART  arent binding. The city isnt under any obligation to heed the results of advisory questions placed on the ballot.

But the results do have symbolic value.

The citizens of Albuquerque have spoken, said Tony Anella, who owns property along Central and helped found the Coalition to Make ART Smart, which sued to stop the project. We want to vote on this. The question now is, will City Hall listen?

The ART project would create a nine-mile network of bus lanes and bus stations in the middle of Central Avenue, from Coors to Louisiana. Funding for the $119 million project would largely come from the federal government, though Congress has not yet appropriated the money for a key grant.

Construction began last month and is expected to wrap up late next year. The next regular city election is in October next year, though the city could try holding an election in February when voters go to the polls to vote on school board members.

City Councilor Klarissa Pena opposed ART, but she said Wednesday that the city cant afford to restore Central Avenue to its original condition, now that construction has been underway for a month.

Were between a rock and hard place as a city, she said.

Councilor Ken Sanchez, who has supported ART, said the city needs to do a better job communicating with the public and businesses along the route.

This is a real face-lift to this corridor, Sanchez said. People right now arent seeing that. Theyre seeing the bottlenecks in this construction phase.

Berry has made the project a priority and isnt backing away now.

When its all said and done, he said, were going to have a much more vibrant Central Avenue. With change comes controversy. I understand that.

The project, in any case, still faces some hurdles. A lawsuit challenging the project is pending before the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, and a federal grant that would provide most of the money hasnt yet been funded by Congress.
According to most national polls, Hillary Clinton should have ended Election Day on Tuesday as the president-elect. The surveys showed Clinton leading Donald Trump by anywhere from two to five points  a bigger lead than President Barack Obama enjoyed before his reelection in 2012  and consistently ahead in important swing states. The Huffington Post, New York Times and Fivethirtyeight.com data models were strongly signaling a Clinton win, too.

So what went wrong?

Pollsters were trying to answer that question Wednesday after what may have been the greatest polling failure since they missed Ronald Reagans easy election victory over incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Clinton may have eked out slightly more votes overall  she was expected to lead by about 1 percent when all the votes were tallied. That would put polls indicating a slight Clinton popular-vote win within their margins of error.

But the polls were wildly off in states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania  bricks in the blue wall that Clinton was counting on to reach 270 electoral votes and the presidency. They also missed in critical swing states such as Florida and North Carolina, both of which went to Trump.

The short answer may be that pollsters gave too much weight in their surveys to college-educated white voters and not enough to non-college-educated whites, said Scott Clement, polling manager for The Washington Post, which gave Clinton a 4-point advantage in its final poll. The former group didnt shift to Clinton as much as late-breaking polls anticipated, while the latter came out for Trump in a big way, particularly in northern industrial states, Clement said.

To illustrate: The last Washington Post-ABC News Tracking Poll said Clinton held a nine-point lead among white college graduates just before voting began; the exit poll found Trump won this group by four points.

The reliability of presidential polls has fluctuated wildly over the past five elections, and theres no clear pattern or evidence of systemic flaws. Its not necessarily that the polls are phony, as Trump put it in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday. The National Council on Public Polls rated presidential polls in 2004 and 2008 as the most accurate in the history of scientific sampling.

On the other hand, Gallup  a pioneer in politic research  said Republican Mitt Romney had a one-point advantage over Obama in the 2012 election; Romney actually lost the popular vote by four points, a blown call that prompted Gallup to get out of pre-election polling.

However, as the number of polls has expanded over the years, there may be some degree of poll pollution in averages of all these surveys, said Lee Miringoff, director of Marist Colleges polling operation, which conducts polls for NBC, the Wall Street Journal and the McClatchy newspapers. By combining polls  some good, some bad  into running averages, news organizations may be distorting where the race stands. Youre tossing different modes of data collection into the stew, he said. And some of those methods are unproven.

The final Marist-McClatchy poll had Clinton with a one-point popular-vote advantage on Tuesday; as of Wednesday afternoon, she had a 0.2-point edge in the overall vote.

Polls in 2016 may have been thrown off by relatively low turnout. Despite many reports about Democrats ability to get its voters to the polls, preliminary figures indicate that 55.6 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot, the lowest total since 2004, according to early estimates. Low-turnout elections tend to complicate polling because they throw off assumptions about who and how many people will show up to vote.

Another potential factor: Trump voters, on the margins, may have been more reluctant to tell pollsters they were voting for their man than Clinton supporters were to acknowledge their choice.

In a survey of voters taken this summer, the USC/Los Angeles Times Daybreak tracking poll found some evidence of this, notably among women who backed Trump. It also found that voters who favored a third-party candidate were even more reluctant than Trump voters to say so when asked by a pollster. The Daybreak poll  which is conducted online, without human-to-human contact  has been an outlier, consistently favoring Trump (its final tally had Trump leading, 47 to 44 percent, a result that was no more accurate than polls showing Clinton with a four-point lead).

But Miringhoff doesnt buy the shy-voter theory: People are generally proud of their candidate, he said. Its a pollster cop-out to say, I cant help it if my model didnt work because people wouldnt tell me who they were voting for. I think Trumps supporters were a pretty enthusiastic group.

Saying the polls clearly got it wrong this time, the American Association for Public Opinion Research said it will conduct an autopsy on 2016 presidential polls. Its findings wont be completed until next May.

Data guru Nate Silver, proprietor of the data-crunching Fivethirtyeight.com site, had pegged Clintons chances of winning at 71 percent Tuesday, based on a statistical model of polls. This reflects a meaningful improvement for Clinton in the past 48 hours as the news cycle has taken a final half-twist in her favor, he wrote.

He favored her to win between 302 and 323 electoral votes. In fact, she appears headed for just 239.

But Silver noted on Wednesday that he had repeatedly flagged the uncertainty behind such a forecast and had called attention to Trumps relative strength throughout the campaign.

In an extremely narrow sense, Im not that surprised by the outcome, since polling  to a greater extent than the conventional wisdom acknowledged  had shown a fairly competitive race with critical weaknesses for Clinton in the Electoral College, he wrote.

But in a broader sense? [Trumps election is] the most shocking political development of my lifetime.

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Copyright  2016 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Gov. Susana Martinez may have a bumpy road ahead in her final two years as governor of a cash-strapped state, but she bolstered her bona fides on the national Republican stage in the aftermath of Tuesdays election.

As chairwoman of the Republican Governors Association, Martinez helped GOP governors around the country reach their highest numbers since 1922.

Gov. Martinez was instrumental in achieving these victories, and thanks to her leadership, the RGA is now an even larger and stronger organization, RGA spokesman Jon Thompson said Thursday.

Meanwhile, she took the first step in thawing her relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, issuing a statement congratulating him on his hard-fought victory, adding that he was the better choice than his Democratic opponent. She did so after sharply criticizing Trump for some of his controversial comments during the campaign and Martinezs decision not to endorse him.

I may have taken issue with some of the rhetoric on the campaign trail, but I believe that President-elect Trump was a better choice than Hillary Clinton, and I congratulate him on his hard-fought victory, Martinez, who voted for Trump, said in the statement.

She also attributed Trumps win to general disenchantment among voters.

(His) victory is a testament to the American peoples frustration with Washington, and a federal government that has left them behind and weakened Americas standing on the world stage, Martinez said.

Martinez said last month that she would not endorse Donald Trump for president after a leaked 2005 videotape showed the GOP nominee boasting about kissing women and grabbing their genitals without their consent and getting away with it because he was a celebrity.

She did not attend either of Trumps two campaign rallies in Albuquerque, and her remark in May that she was really busy and could not attend Trumps first campaign stop in the state sparked criticism from the soon-to-be president during that rally and a quip that he might run for governor.

Is her olive branch and leadership of RGA enough to make New Mexicos two-term Republican governor and the nations first Latina governor a candidate for a position in Trumps Cabinet  if she even wanted one?

Longtime New Mexico political observer Brian Sanderoff said it makes sense for Martinez to soften her tone on Trump. But he said its still unlikely that she will land a Cabinet position in the Trump administration. However, he also said anythings possible in the world of modern politics.

Obviously, maintaining a contentious relationship with the next president would not be in the best interest of New Mexico, and Im sure the governor realizes that, said Sanderoff, president of Research & Polling Inc.

33 governors offices

Martinez, who has two years left in office after winning re-election in 2014, took over in late 2015 as chairwoman of the RGA, a deep-pocketed national group that enjoyed a successful Election Day.

Although New Mexico did not have a gubernatorial election this year, the outcomes in the 12 states that did left Republicans in control of at least 33 governors offices around the nation. They claimed wins in three states that went into the election with Democratic governors  Vermont, New Hampshire and Missouri  but faced a possible loss in North Carolina, where the race was still too close to call Thursday.

The overall number of GOP chief executives represents the most governorships for Republicans in 94 years.

Martinez, who was elected as RGA chair a year ago, was highly involved in the national gubernatorial elections, traveling to several different states to stump for GOP candidates and overseeing total RGA campaign spending of more than $50 million on gubernatorial elections.

The governors political adviser, Jay McCleskey, also played a prominent role in many of the gubernatorial races around the country.

McCleskey Media Strategies handled campaign mailers for the RGA in Vermonts gubernatorial election, in which GOP candidate Phil Scott defeated Democrat Sue Minter, and was also involved in the New Hampshire race.

While some pundits had predicted Trump could hurt Republican candidates around the country, it appeared that didnt end up being the case in most states, Sanderoff said.

Martinezs tenure as RGA chairwoman is expected to end next week, as GOP governors will gather in Orlando for the groups annual meeting. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, currently the RGAs vice chairman, is expected to take over the groups reins. RGA leadership terms generally last for one year.

Rough years ahead?

Despite Martinezs success on a national level, she will enter her final two years as New Mexico governor with a diminished approval rating and Democrats holding a majority in both legislative chambers.

Thats because House Democrats picked up at least five and possibly six GOP-held seats to reclaim a majority from Republicans, who had won control of the 70-member chamber in 2014.

Martinez vowed Wednesday to work with Democratic leaders in the Legislature, and at least some Democrats expressed optimism that she might follow through on the pledge.

Its the governors last real chance to make her mark on legislative achievements, Rep. Antonio Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, said in an interview earlier this week.

However, Martinez also said she hopes New Mexicans accept the presidential election results, even though Clinton won the state by a comfortable margin over Trump.

I hope that New Mexicans will come together, as President-elect Trump urged us to do, and join me in wishing the very best for the future of our nation, she said.
Americans woke up Wednesday morning to find the nations drug-policy landscape radically altered.

California, Massachusetts and Nevada legalized recreational marijuana use on Tuesday, while voters in a handful of Southern and deeply conservative states embraced medical marijuana.

Regardless of how a still-contested legalization vote turns out in Maine, more than 1 in 5 Americans now live in states where the recreational use of marijuana is, or soon will be, legal.

This is the most momentous Election Day in history for the movement to end marijuana prohibition, Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that supported a number of the legalization initiatives, said in a statement. The end of prohibition is near, and it would be a mistake for the federal government to continue waging war on its own nonviolent citizens.

But jubilation over marijuanas ballot victories was quickly tempered by the uncertain future marijuana faces under President-elect Donald Trumps Justice Department.

Trump has expressed support for medical marijuana, saying he believes it helps ill people. But when asked about Colorados model of legalized marijuana last year, he said, I think its bad, and I feel strongly about it.

Trump has said he would leave the question of marijuana legalization up to states, but he also has surrounded himself with tough law-and-order-style advisers.

The prospect of Donald Trump as our next president concerns me deeply, Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the pro-legalization group Drug Policy Alliance, said in a statement. His most likely appointees to senior law enforcement positions  Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie  are no friends of marijuana reform, nor is his vice president.

Regardless of what happens at the state level, marijuana remains illegal for all uses under federal law. The Obama administration has adopted a policy of noninterference with state marijuana laws, as outlined in a 2013 memo by then-Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

The Justice Departments position has been that, as long as state legalization efforts dont threaten certain federal priorities  such as keeping marijuana out of the hands of minors, preventing impaired driving and keeping grow operations off federal lands  it would exercise prosecutorial discretion and direct law-enforcement resources to other drug priorities, such as the opiate epidemic.

John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies marijuana policy, said the Cole memo was instrumental in allowing Colorado and Washington state to set up their recreational-marijuana markets.

A lot of people forget that [recreational-marijuana markets in] Colorado and Washington were pretty much on hold until the governors there received guidance from the Department of Justice, Hudak said in an interview.

While Trump has said legalizing marijuana should be a state issue, its unclear what that says about how he would enforce the federal law. Hudak noted that reversing the Obama administrations hands-off approach to marijuana would be as simple as withdrawing the Cole memo, which would have a chilling effect on investment in the marijuana business.

The Drug Policy Alliances Nadelmann agreed.

I dont think were going to have quite the same green light coming out of the new administration, he said in a conference call with reporters.

But some congressional observers are skeptical that there will be any appetite in a Trump administration for quashing marijuana reform.

Go against millions of supporters, against states rights, against where the public is? Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said in an interview. It would be the beginning of tremendous problems for the Trump administration that they dont need.

Blumenauer remains optimistic that Congress will tackle a number of issues that have been vexing marijuana businesses in recent years, including their lack of access to the federal banking system and their inability to take the same tax breaks that other businesses are entitled to.

The number of men and women in Congress who are now going to represent state legal businesses [will see] a quantum increase as a result of the marijuana measures passed Tuesday, Blumenauer said.

Beau Kilmer, a drug-policy expert at the nonprofit Rand Corp., said its unlikely that changes to marijuana law will be a priority for incoming Trump administration officials. In the grand scheme of top issues the new administration is going to be dealing with, marijuana is not going to be a top priority, Kilmer said in an interview.

With 65 million people living in states that have given the green light to marijuana legalization, any federal crackdown could have significant political costs associated with it, Kilmer said.

And the burgeoning marijuana industry is likely to step up its lobbying efforts at the state and local levels.

Hudak agrees that any effort to stop state-level legalization will depend on lawmakers appetite for dealing with the potential political fallout from the move.

This is a Congress that is about to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Hudak said. I think a Congress and an administration that are willing to do that are not going to worry about the optics of quashing the marijuana industry.

At the state level, meanwhile, opponents of legalization are regrouping and considering how to address the growing momentum behind legal marijuana. Smart Approaches to Marijuana, the nations leading anti-legalization group, announced Tuesday an initiative aimed at reform and oversight of the existing marijuana industry.

The groups founder and chief executive, Kevin Sabet, said in an email that the effort doesnt represents a shift away from trying to stop legalization. He noted that the group led a successful campaign against a marijuana legalization measure in Arizona, which lost with 48 percent of the vote Tuesday.

I am feeling (strangely, maybe) optimistic, Sabet wrote in an email.

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Claudia Quinonez was driving home from an election watch party early Wednesday morning when a friend broke the news: Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States. Quinonez, 21, pulled over to the side of the road and wept.

She was 11 when she and her mother moved to Maryland from Bolivia in pursuit of a better life. They had visas, but overstayed them, leaving them undocumented.

Under a controversial policy designed by President Barack Obamas administration, Quinonez had become a dreamer, protected from deportation and given a work permit. She found a job and earned a scholarship to attend college.

I felt like I was going to achieve my American Dream, she said during an interview at CASA de Maryland, an immigration advocacy group.

But now that Donald Trump has been elected president, I dont feel safe, she said, again on the verge of tears. I can be deported. Even my mother can be deported.

More than 11 million undocumented immigrants woke up to the same reality Wednesday morning: a newly elected president who has vowed to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. A president who has described some Latinos as rapists,killers and drug dealers. A president who has vowed to begin deportations within his first hour in office.

Trumps victory came a shock to many Americans. For undocumented immigrants, however, their futures have taken a startling turn, from the promise of immigration reform under Hillary Clinton to the threat of deportation under Trump.

We are now facing an entirely different system of reality to what we are used to, said Jose Antonio Vargas, a former Washington Post reporter-turned-activist who is perhaps the countrys most prominent undocumented immigrant. While the Obama administration deported record numbers of immigrants, it also tried to help others remain in the United States.

Under the Trump administration, the level of fear and anxiety among undocumented people will only get deeper and more prevalent, said Vargas the founder and chief executive of Define American. On Election Day, a man who recognized Vargas outside of Fox News patted him on the back. Get ready to be deported, the man told Vargas, who described himself on Facebook as rattled by the encounter.

Across the country, people are asking themselves what a Trump presidency will look like. How will he handle the Islamic State, the U.S. relationship with Russia, education policy?

On immigration, however, Trump has been explicit. The Republican made it one of his central issues, focusing on it in campaign speeches and connecting it to both national security and the economy. He promised not only to build the wall and deport the bad hombres, but also to triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to carry out mass roundups reminiscent of President Dwight D. Eisenhowers 1954 initiative Operation Wetback, which removed hundreds of thousands of Mexicans from the United States.

The question is how far will President Trump go to deliver.

Trump will keep his promises to his base, said Corey Stewart, chairman of Prince Williams Board of County Supervisors and the former head of Trumps Virginia campaign. Hes got to build the wall and hes got to provide for better internal immigration enforcement. That was the main promise of his campaign. Hes got to keep it, and he will keep it.

David Martin, a former deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama, said the presidents Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program, in limbo after the Supreme Court reached a 4-4 tie on a case challenging it, wont see the light of day.

Dreamers like Quinonez, who essentially outed themselves as undocumented, could see their protections stripped. ICE raids on factories and construction sites  already occurring under Obama  could be accelerated. And I certainly think were going to see some wall-building, Martin said.

But Trumps immigration policies will also face political and financial pressures, Martin said. ICE agents and giant walls are expensive. Deporting university students can be politically damaging. Now that its more than just rhetoric, well see what he prioritizes, Martin said.

Trumps victory has already upended conventional political wisdom, according to Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank.

A lot of Republican brain trusts and Democrats have been saying for years that Republicans cannot win the presidency without embracing comprehensive immigration reform, he said. Well, so much for that.

For Brenda Barrios, 31, who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, Trumps election is a nightmare. She allowed her 10-year-old American-born son, Frankie, to stay up an hour past his bedtime to watch election results on Univision.

When he saw the map go red, and red, and red, and red, he asked me, Mommy, is Donald Trump going to win?  she said. I told him not to worry.

But the next morning, when Frankie woke up from school, the first question out of his mouth was: Who won? When Barrios told him it was Trump, Frankie burst into tears.

He is afraid his mom is going to be sent to another country, she said. For Barrios, that pain is all too real. Her parents immigrated illegally to the United States when she was 5, leaving her and her sister behind in Guatemala. When she and her sister joined them in 2003, Barrios finally felt like she had a family. But it didnt last. Her father was deported in early 2005. Barrioss mom went with him. She hasnt seen them since.

With Trump as president, Barrios shares her sons fear that her own family will be torn apart. She fears ICE will arrest her husband, who is a carpenter and plumber, while he is at work. Or that they will come for her.

Im afraid of ICE coming to my door, to the park when I am there with my kids, she said. Im even scared to take the kids to school since you never know who is watching now.

Not all undocumented immigrants are distraught, however. As a Mexican-born construction worker, Jose Pina said he already lives with the threat of being detained and deported every time he goes to work.

Thats our reality now, he said in Spanish. Weve always had that fear. Its the risk you take crossing the border.

Pina, 38, sneaked into the United States in 1998. He and his childhood sweetheart, who also entered the country illegally, have an 8-year-old daughter, Heather. She was born on the Fourth of July.

Sitting next to her parents in a green Life is Good hoodie, Heather said she thought Donald Trump was mean because he said he didnt want immigrants and the kids who are immigrants.

Asked if she was scared what might happen to her family now, Heather tentatively shook her head.

We can fight against what is happening, she said, her voice caught somewhere between a statement and a question.

undocumented-immig
A parade of restored military vehicles, ceremonies at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial and recognition of a former University of New Mexico soldier who died in Afghanistan are among activities slated for Veterans Day on Friday.

Veterans Day was formerly known as Armistice Day, which celebrated the end of World War I on Nov. 11, 1918. The legal federal holiday, previously held on the fourth Monday in October, reverted to Nov. 11 in 1978. The day is set aside to honor those who served in the U.S. armed forces.

Fridays parade in Albuquerque, which features a collection of meticulously restored military vehicles, starts at 9 a.m. at USS Bullhead Memorial Park at the southern end of San Pedro SE. It winds through the Raymond G. Murphy Veterans Affairs Medical Center complex and onto Ridgecrest Drive. It then turns east on Gibson Boulevard and north on Louisiana Boulevard, concluding at the veterans memorial, 1100 Louisiana SE.

The parade is sponsored by the Roadrunner Convoy of the New Mexico Military Vehicle Preservation Association.

Events at the Veterans Memorial begin at 10 a.m., with music by the Dukes of Albuquerque American Legion Band. There ceremony begins at 11 a.m. Guest speakers include retired New Mexico Air National Guard Brig. Gen. Judy Griego, Denise Rohan, candidate for national commander of the American Legion, and Mayor Richard Berry.

Overflow parking will be at the Kirtland Federal Credit Union at Louisiana and Gibson SE, and free shuttle buses will carry participants to the memorial. Specially equipped vans will be available to shuttle people with disabilities.

Other Veterans Day activities include:

 Unclaimed cremated remains of 22 veterans who, upon their deaths were indigent or went unclaimed by family members, will be laid to rest at a special Forgotten Heroes Funeral at 2:15 p.m. today at the Santa Fe National Cemetery. The public is invited to attend and honor these veterans.

 The village of Corrales will honor veterans with a Veterans Day program and luncheon from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at the Recreation Center, 500 Jones Road. The event is open to veterans age 60 and older, and their families.

 The University of New Mexico will honor veterans and active-duty military with a formal flag ceremony at 9 a.m. Friday at the Alumni Memorial Chapel on campus. The name of Washington National Guard Staff Sgt. Matthew Q. McClintock, 30, of Albuquerque, will be added to the memorial wall. McClintock, a former UNM student, died Jan. 5, 2016, in Afghanistan. He was awarded a Silver Star, the militarys third-highest military award for combat.

 Rio Rancho will have its Veterans Day event at 11 a.m. Friday at Veterans Monument Park, located off Southern Boulevard on Pinetree Road and adjacent to Esther Bone Memorial Library.

 The village of Tijeras will host a wreath-laying ceremony at 10 a.m. Friday at the Tijeras Vietnam Veterans Memorial, located just west of the village library on Old Route 66 (State Highway 333.)

 Santa Fes Veterans Day parade starts at 10:30 a.m. at Fire Station No. 1 just north of Fort Marcy Park, goes through the Plaza and ends at the Santa Fe Veterans Memorial at the intersection of Montezuma Street and Cerrillos Road. Ceremonies begin there at the conclusion of the parade, with music by the Santa Fe Concert Band. After the ceremonies, the public is invited to attend free luncheons hosted by VFW Post 2951, located at 307 Montezuma St., and American Legion Post 1, located at 1601 Berry Ave.

 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park, located 4 miles north of Angel Fire off U.S. Highway 64, will host a Veterans Day ceremony at 11 a.m. Friday. The keynote speaker will be Col. George Brick, an educator at New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. The Cimarron High School Band will perform, and the NMMI JROTC Color Guard will present the colors.

Bubbas 33, 4861 Pan American Freeway NE, is offering a free meal from a select menu to active-duty, retired military and veterans from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Veterans Day. Proof of service is required by a valid military ID, VA card or discharge papers.

Texas Roadhouse restaurants are offering a free meal from a select menu to active-duty, retired military and veterans from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Veterans Day. Proof of service is required by a valid military ID, VA card or discharge papers.

Dennys restaurants are offering free breakfast from a select menu to active-duty, retired military and veterans from 11 a.m. to noon on Veterans Day. Proof of service is required by a valid military ID, VA card or discharge papers.

Jiffy Lube is offering veterans and active-duty military a free standard oil change from 8 a.m. to noon on Veterans Day. Valid military ID or proof of military service will be required.
WASHINGTON  When I opened my front door Wednesday morning after little sleep and numb from a bad dream that wasnt a dream, a dreary rainfall glazed the sidewalk as two neighbors gazed blankly in my direction.

As I leaned down to pick up my newspaper, a Carole King song filtered through my pre-coffee brain fog: Something inside has died, and I cant hide, and I just cant fake it. Oh, no, no. Good ol Carole King.

From there, my morning proceeded mechanically: Find remote control, turn on Morning Joe, fix coffee, open refrigerator door, close refrigerator door, turn off sound on ringing cellphone, turn off TV, lie on floor. Im guessing this routine sounds familiar to fellow election-dazed denizens.

As regular readers of this column know, I rejected Donald Trump on Day One and have spent the past year highlighting the many reasons I found him unacceptable for the job of president.

My opinion hasnt changed, but as Hillary Clinton said in her concession speech, Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead. And Trump, in his victory speech, said without irony that now its time to heal the wounds of division.

Head hurting, but OK.

To begin, there needs to be an honest assessment of what just happened. It isnt really that complicated or mysterious, if youve spent any time in the America where Trump voters live. As one who ventured inside the Beltway only 12 or so years ago  as a spy for Bubba, I introduced myself  Ive spent most of my life among the indigenous peoples.

Two weeks ago, I began saying that Trump would win, whether I liked it or not. Today, I offer a clarification: He didnt win the election. Clinton lost it.

For voters who couldnt stand Trump, she was a terrible alternative. Never a great candidate, she was also, tragically, a Clinton when people were ready to move on. She received several million fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.

And speaking of Obama, he also lost this election to Trump, despite exit polling that showed the presidents approval rating at 50 percent-plus.

The 2016 election was as much a referendum on his legacy as it was on the candidates themselves. When people want the country to change course, they dont typically vote for a third term of the current president.

Thus, a vote for Trump was really a vote against Obamacare and the rising costs of health insurance. It was a vote against the doubling of the national debt to nearly $20 trillion under Obama. It was a vote against a foreign policy that saw the Islamic States expansion rather than its defeat.

Clintons promise to continue Obamas policies was a suicide agenda to a majority of Americans, especially those whose lives havent improved during the economic recovery of the past eight years.

And, yes, too, some Trump voters probably resented the exacerbation of racial discord under Obamas watch when Americans had hoped for the opposite result.

Race as a factor in Republican opposition to Obama cant be ignored or minimized. Nor can Trumps role in nurturing hostility toward Muslims and Mexicans  or his antipathy toward women, the disabled and even a war heros parents  be dismissed in victory.

But leaning primarily on racism, bigotry or sexism to explain what happened Tuesday is too facile by half.

Missing from the audiences that television cameras focused on were millions of others  Republicans, independents, libertarians and maybe even some Democrats  who would rather be horse-whipped than attend a Trump rally but were compelled to vote R against the likelihood of a liberal Supreme Court, lax immigration laws and an increasingly costly health care system, among other concerns.

Trump captured a moment and promised to make America great again. He also said that hell be the president of everybody. Lets hope he wasnt just reading from a teleprompter  and that the word trickles down.
After one of the harshest, loudest presidential campaigns in memory, the first thing that occurs to me in the wake of a Donald Trump victory is the need for some quiet humility. If the characteristically brash president-elect can display it, I can surely follow suit.

I spent more than a year favoring Ted Cruz, up to the moment he withdrew. But even within that span of time, there were so many brutal slanders leveled at Trump that I spent more time defending him than I did voicing my preference for Cruz.

Once Trump was the nominee, the attacks intensified  predictably from the left, and unsettlingly from the Never Trump hordes and other conservatives driven to irrationality by their distaste for him.

The media made clear their revulsion. So-called GOP strategists proudly recoiled. Some corners of patrician Republicanism, from the sphere of the Bush family to ivory-tower pundits like George Will, not only reveled in their disconnect but mightily insulted those of us who dared to unite to stop Hillary Clinton, which until recently was a shared goal of all conservatives.

These people have now been schooled by the will of the people, kicked in the pants by realities they might now begin to grasp. It would be the easiest thing to deliver to the lot of them an I told you so for the ages. Not that I predicted this win; all I did was push back against those who said it was impossible, and those who somehow knew it would signal a societal catastrophe.

But instead of victory laps and ball-spiking, I would prefer to follow the lead of the next president to reach out to those who are inconsolable to say this is not the nightmare the tormentors have painted.

Losing elections is never fun, as I know from seeing my candidate lose four of the last six. But some election night analysis was genuinely disconcerting.

Van Jones, always a reliable source of hot rhetoric on the left, launched into a rant on CNN as midnight approached, lamenting that some of us will have a tough time talking to our kids. How can we tell them not be a bully? Race doesnt explain all of this, but this is whitelash.

On most other nights, I would ignore this kind of outrageous drivel. But today, behind every unhinged commentator, there are large numbers of regular people who really are in pain, well beyond the normal bruises of an electoral loss.

They have been whipped into a lather by the absurd rhetoric that the next president hates Hispanics, hates Muslims, hates women and intends an authoritarian dystopia.

These are false. It is his job to show this to the nation, and his gracious victory address was a great start.

But I want to be an agent of reassurance as well. Politically, the left needs to get ready for an assault on its beliefs, a battle of the precise type Hillary Clinton intended for conservatives. Elections have consequences.

But Trumps complaint has never been with Hispanics. It is with illegal immigrants. It has never been with Muslims. It is with jihadists who wish to kill us. The women who actually know him and work with him sing his praises, and millions of women just helped him win.

The Trump voter is not a racist, not a misogynist, not a xenophobe. I know these people. I am one of these people.

Every voting bloc has its crazies. Does Hillary Clinton deserve to be judged by the hooligans who disrupted Trump rallies?

So everybody relax. Here comes a presidency that will bolster our borders, protect our Constitution, get tough on terrorists, create jobs, lower taxes and find better alternatives to Obamacare. These will attract the usual reactions from those who approve and disapprove.

But enough needless drama driven by the contrived panic of those who have hated him from the start. Trump won fair and square. Voters said yes to him and no to a return of the Clintons to the White House, and no to Barack Obamas third term.

Lets move forward, reacting to actual events and actual policies. After a campaign like this, the relative composure should be refreshing.

Mark Davis is a North Texas-based conservative talk show host who regularly writes for the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
After the most divisive U.S. presidential election in decades, no one is suggesting the candidates and their supporters are going to ignore fundamental differences on policy, let bygones be bygones and embrace a Kumbaya approach moving forward. But for a few days, if we are lucky, we can all think about the post-election words of President-elect Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama and how they demonstrate a commitment to the fundamental premise of peaceful transfer of power in America.

Trumps stunning electoral college victory over Hillary Clinton, unofficially the fifth U.S. presidential candidate to win the popular vote but still lose the election, has the major players singing a tune of peace and cooperation.

Thankfully, thats the American way.

Trump, the ultimate outsider who attracted a populist following that sent a message of throw out the Belt Way elitists, won the electoral college with 290 projected electors to Clintons 232. Clinton, however, was unofficially taking the popular vote as of late Wednesday by a margin of about 200,000 votes bolstered by margins in states like California and New York.

After what seemed like an endless campaign fueled by invective and vitriol, there was at least a brief respite today.

In his victory speech early Wednesday, Trump said, Now its time for America to bind the wounds of division.  To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.  I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans.

Trump also had some rare nice words for Clinton: Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.

Clinton late Wednesday morning gave a classy speech as well.

Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans, she said, adding, We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.

President Obama addressed the election saying, Everybody is sad when their side loses an election, but the day after we have to remember that were actually all on one team. This is an intramural scrimmage. Were not Democrats first. Were not Republicans first. We are Americans first. Were patriots first.

Obama and Trump are expected to meet today at the White House to discuss the transition.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence announced Trumps victory saying, Im deeply grateful to the American people for placing their confidence in this team and giving us this opportunity to serve.

Clinton running mate, Tim Kaine in introducing her Wednesday, said, We know that the dreams of empowering families and children remain.

Even if the positive feelings generated by these uplifting messages are short-lived before political reality takes over, it helps to have some respite from the nasty rhetoric, name-calling and posturing of the campaign trail.

But real challenges lie ahead. There is much work to do not only to repair the battered image of U.S. politics but to address some pressing issues  improving the economy; defeating ISIS and dealing with Middle Eastern instability; protecting our nation from cyber attacks; making health care work; and negotiating both with our allies in NATO and our adversaries  Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

Contrast the efforts by our leaders to seek some semblance of calm with a tweet about the Trump victory by French Ambassador to the U.S. Gerard Araud: After Brexit and this election, everything is now possible. A world is collapsing before our eyes. Dizziness. He later deleted the tweet.

This was a consequential election, and whether you believe America already is a great nation or must be made great again, we clearly need to up our game to meet the many challenges.

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.
Copyright  2016 Albuquerque Journal

Supreme Court Justice-elect Judith Nakamura went to nearly every parade in the state.

She hired the high-powered publicity agency associated with Gov. Susana Martinez, who appointed her to the court last November.

And she relied on a hard-earned reputation as a judge in the Albuquerque area who doesnt go easy on unprepared lawyers, drunken drivers, repeat offenders or bureaucratic waste in the court systems.

That landed her a record-breaking win to the states highest court Tuesday in one of the states most unusual races.

She is now the first female Republican to be elected to the court, where she continues to contribute to the first female majority there.

Her selection  by about 4 percentage points over Democrat Court of Appeals Chief Judge Michael Vigil  is the first election of a Republican to the court in more than 30 years. Before that, New Mexico voters last selected a Republican in the 1920s.

Republicans just have a hard time winning the state Supreme Court race over the years, said Brian Sanderoff, Journal pollster and president of Research & Polling Inc. Not only did she pull off a coup; she did it in a presidential cycle, which makes it even more challenging.

Nakamura said she rose to that challenge with hard work and a dedicated team that helped her make numerous parade and festival appearances.

She ran a good race. She spent her public funds wisely, mostly on television. Her TV ads were effective. She came across as sincere and authentic, Sanderoff said. And Michael Vigil ran a good race also and did perform well in all the areas where a Democrat should outside the Albuquerque area in northern New Mexico.

The state as a whole is made up of about 47 percent registered Democrats and 31 percent registered Republicans.

The Albuquerque area leans Democratic. Combined with consistently Democratic northern New Mexico counties, it usually guarantees Democratic wins for down-ballot races, in which people are more likely to vote their party without a deep knowledge or commitment to a particular candidate.

Vigil carried the northern areas, as predicted, along with Dona Ana County, where the Las Cruces area hosts a strong pocket of Democrats.

Nakamura won the more conservative districts in southern and southeastern New Mexico.

But she also claimed the Albuquerque area, including Valencia and Sandoval counties.

In the other places, they performed like typical candidates, Sanderoff said.

Her name recognition there and her reputation as being no nonsense, tough on crime helped her with that, he said.

She was well-known and well-liked in Bernalillo County, whether you knew her personally or whether you appreciated her tough stances on DWI, etc., Sanderoff said.

Even though Vigil carried the traditionally Democratic areas, without that bloc of voters under his belt, he came in 30,000 votes short of the win.

Nakamura said on election night that she was proud of their contest.

Im proud that, along with my opponent, we ran a really positive campaign, she said.
Copyright  2016 Albuquerque Journal

Two  and possibly three  members of the New Mexico congressional delegation are considering a run for governor in 2018.

Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, both New Mexico Democrats, told the Journal on Wednesday they are seriously mulling gubernatorial bids in 2018. Rep. Steve Pearce, the delegations lone Republican, also said he would at least consider the prospect of a run for the powerful fourth-floor office at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.

Democrats failed to recapture either the House or Senate on Tuesday, and Republican Donald Trump pulled off a surprise upset of Democrat Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House. The Republican sweep marks the first time in a decade that the GOP has controlled both Congress and the presidency, which will make it even more difficult for Democrats to get their legislation signed into law.

Udall, 68, has been mulling a run for governor for more than a year. Clintons defeat could make that option more attractive. The dean of New Mexicos congressional delegation first told the Journal that he was considering a gubernatorial run in 2015, and the two-term senator sounded even more serious about the prospect in an interview Wednesday. Udall, whose current Senate term expires in 2020, could run for governor in 2018 without relinquishing his Senate seat.

If Udall won the governors race in 2018, he would appoint his Senate replacement.

I have not made a decision  but I have an open mind, Udall said, adding that he would decide whether to run for governor very soon but declined to specify when.

Asked if the prospect of losing power under a Republican-controlled House, Senate and White House occupied by Republican President Trump would factor into his decision to run for governor, Udall said: Is that part of the calculation? Of course.

Lujan Grisham said that while she was honored to be re-elected to a third term Tuesday and looks forward to continuing her work in Washington, she is eyeing the New Mexico Governors Office partly because the chief executive of a state has more power than a member of the U.S. House.

Running for governor gives you a sense of maybe being able to have more control over getting things done, she said.

Asked whether she would run for governor even if Udall made it clear he planned to seek the office, Lujan Grisham, 57, suggested she might.

I certainly havent been shy about jumping into primaries (elections) that are tough, she said.

Pearce, who publicly supported Trump and spoke at his campaign rally in Albuquerque in late October, stands to gain clout in Washington under the new power structure that will take hold inside the Beltway in January.

The conservative Hobbs Republican, who was re-elected to a seventh term on Tuesday, hasnt ruled out a run for the Governors Office but remained noncommittal Wednesday. Pearce, 69, is often cited by political observers as being too conservative to win a statewide race in Democratic-leaning New Mexico. He lost bids for a statewide Senate seat in New Mexico in 2000 and 2008.

Well sit down and start looking at that sometime next year, Pearce told the Journal on Wednesday. Right now, were just thinking about serving in this (U.S. House) office right here.

One member of the New Mexico congressional delegation who is definitely not running for governor is Sen. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat who is up for re-election to a second Senate term in 2018. Heinrich, 45, told the Journal on Wednesday he is planning to run for re-election.

Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, a 44-year-old Democrat who chairs the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, was traveling Wednesday and could not be reached for comment. Aides to Lujan, who was re-elected to a fifth House term on Tuesday, have previously told the Journal that the northern New Mexico congressman is not planning to seek the Governors Office in 2018.
SANTA FE  The huge wave of early voting in New Mexico didnt, after all, translate into a bigger turnout in this tumultuous election year. It just meant people voted earlier.

Unofficial results from the Secretary of States Office indicate that 61.6 percent of the states registered voters cast ballots in Tuesdays general election.

Thats below the turnout for the two previous presidential election years, 2012 and 2008, according to data from the secretary of states website.

We had record-breaking early voting, but that was not a barometer of what was to come with the Election Day vote, said Albuquerque pollster and political analyst Brian Sanderoff.

Turnout was mediocre for a presidential year, most of the excitement being prior to Election Day, he said.

According to preliminary vote canvass figures from Secretary of State Brad Winters office, 794,857 of the states 1,289,414 eligible voters cast ballots in Tuesdays election.

The turnout ranged from a high of 76.5 percent in Los Alamos County to a low of 49.4 percent in Curry County.

We were kind of planning for it to be like 08, but we fell short of that, said state Elections Director Kari Fresquez.

The 2008 election, in which Democrat Barack Obama first won the White House, defeating Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, drew a voter turnout of more than 70 percent in New Mexico. That was down some, to just shy of 63 percent, for his re-election in 2012, in which he beat Republican Mitt Romney.

This year, a whopping 57 percent of New Mexicans who voted went in person to some early voting site, while 9 percent used absentee ballots and 34 percent waited until Election Day.

Sanderoff said there are several reasons for the surge in early voting this year: the excitement of the presidential race, the desire to avoid long lines on Election Day, and the fact that New Mexicans are becoming more accustomed to voting early.

Thats particularly true in urban areas, where its more convenient, he said.

My family, and most people we know or talk to, are voting on a Saturday, said Ken Ortiz, chief of staff in Secretary of State Brad Winters office.
Izzy Gutierrez took time off from his job at an auto parts store on Wednesday to bolster the courage of his 10-year-old daughter, Samantha, who was nervous about getting an injection flu vaccination this year.

For years, Samantha and thousands of other New Mexico children have received a painless nasal vaccine at school each fall.

But in June, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended against using the nasal spray, also known by the brand name FluMist, based on evidence that injectable vaccine offers better protection.

As a result, fewer schools have agreed to sponsor school-based flu vaccine clinics this fall, and the number of New Mexico kids vaccinated at school is expected to decline by half or more from the 2015 tally, a program manager estimated.

Because its the actual shot and not the (FluMist), shes nervous, said Gutierrez, who stood by his tearful daughter in the McCollum Elementary School library Wednesday while she received the injection.

The nasal spray had never caused anxiety for Samantha, her father said. As soon as we got the letter saying they werent doing the (FluMist), she didnt want to do it.

This year, only 57 Albuquerque Public Schools have chosen to offer flu clinics, down from 91 schools in 2015, said Christine Long, resource nurse for APS.

The district is allowing parents to accompany their skittish children to the clinics this year, she said.

At the McCollum Elementary clinic, some of the 45 children who received flu shots put on a brave face and took the shots without complaint. Others cried and required assurances from University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy students who gave the shots.

The CDC ban on FluMist has delivered a setback for the School Kids Influenza Immunization Program which was launched in 2008 at 70 New Mexico schools. The SKIIP program expanded for six years, providing flu vaccinations for about 48,000 New Mexico children in fall 2014. Health officials have credited the program for New Mexicos high rate of childhood flu vaccinations.

During the 2014-15 flu season, 69 percent of New Mexico children ages 5 to 12 received a flu vaccine, compared with a nationwide rate of 62 percent, according to CDC data.

But in fall 2015, production delays of FluMist reduced the number of flu vaccinations to about 33,000.

Some school districts, including Los Lunas Public Schools, opted out of the voluntary program this year, said Anna Pentler, executive director of the New Mexico Immunization Coalition, which oversees the program.

School officials balked at providing flu shots because injections are more complex than the handy nasal spray vaccine, and many children have needle phobias, she said.

It takes longer to give shots, she said, and clinicians who staff the clinics need training and experience giving injections.

The program has ordered about 12,500 doses of flu vaccine this year, which is expected to cover most of the state, excluding Santa Fe County.

Im sure we will be considerably down from last year, she said.
A federal appeals court has ruled that Bloomfields Ten Commandments monument violates the U.S. Constitution, but a lawyer for the northwestern New Mexico city says it may appeal.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision Wednesday said Bloomfields monument violates a First Amendment prohibition against endorsing religion partly because of the apparent motivation in allowing its installation on a lawn in front of city hall.

Attorney Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an advocacy group defending the city in the case, said Bloomfield may appeal the 10th U.S. Circuit ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bloomfields city council approved a now-former councilors request for approval of placement of a Ten Commandments monument. The councilor then arranged for construction of the 3,400-pound memorial and churches made donations to pay for it.

The 10th Circuit said circumstances may permit some government displays of the Ten Commandments to pass constitutional muster, but that wasnt so with Bloomfields monument.

Given the fundraising, the monuments plainly religious text and religious aspects of the installation ceremony, any reasonable and objective observer would glean an apparent religious motivation from these circumstances, the 10th Circuit decision stated.

The case stems from a 2012 suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two residents who practice the Wiccan religion and who said they were offended by the monument.

The ACLU supports the right of individuals and organizations to create religious displays on private property, but Bloomfield shouldnt be in the business of deciding which set of beliefs should be favored from among the diverse religious traditions and beliefs held by its citizens, said Peter Simonson, executive director of ACLU of New Mexico.

Scruggs said a constitutional violation doesnt occur simply because a person encounters speech he finds disagreeable. In this case, a Ten Commandments monument nestled among many other monuments honoring significant documents in American history shouldnt be attacked simply because two people feel offended by it.

Bloomfield argued that the monument was permissible because it was a private persons speech in a public forum, but the 10th Circuit said the Supreme Court has previously ruled that permanent monuments constitute speech by government, even one donated by a nongovernment individual or entity.
FARMINGTON  A Sansotee man has been sentenced in federal court to more than two years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of assaulting a woman at his San Juan County home.

Patrick Wadsworth, 47, was sentenced to 27 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release in federal court on Tuesday, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.

The Daily Times reported Wadsworth was arrested on Jan. 22 for allegedly assaulting a woman in an incident that resulted in serious bodily injury on Nov. 6, 2014. He pleaded guilty to the charges on June 27.

Wadsworth admitted on Nov. 6, 2014, to striking the victim and causing bruising to her face, arms and knees in his home on the Navajo Reservation in San Juan County, according to the release.



2016 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.)

Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at www.daily-times.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

_____
MOSCOW  Russian government officials conferred with members of Donald Trumps campaign team, a senior Russian diplomat said Thursday, a disclosure that could reopen scrutiny of the Kremlins role in the president-elects bitter race against Hillary Clinton.

The statement came from Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who said in an interview with the state-run Interfax news agency that there were contacts with the Trump team.

Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage, Ryabkov said.

We have just begun to consider ways of building dialogue with the future Donald Trump administration and channels we will be using for those purposes, Ryabkov was quoted as saying.

Ryabkov provided no further details, and his remarks drew a swift denial from Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, who said the campaign had no contact with Russian officials before Tuesdays election.

Nevertheless, the assertion from Moscow attracted attention from national security experts after a presidential campaign that the Kremlin, according to U.S. officials, sought to influence in unprecedented ways.

Washington, for instance, accused the Kremlin of orchestrating hacks into the Democratic National Committee and the emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that led to politically embarrassing disclosures by WikiLeaks. Trump faced criticism during the campaign for his positive statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin and for other Russia-friendly policy stances, although he repeatedly denied having financial or other ties to Moscow.

Speaking to Bloomberg News, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said staffers at the Russian Embassy in Washington met with members of Trumps campaign  meetings she described as normal practice. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clintons campaign refused similar requests for meetings, Zakharova told the agency.

Asked later for clarification, a Foreign Ministry official declined to elaborate on Ryabkovs remarks but said standard diplomacy called for contact with the leaders in the campaign on matters such as clarifying statements by the candidate or conveying interview requests from Russian journalists. The ministry official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

A Clinton campaign official who was asked to comment on Zakharovas statement answered with a one-word email: false.

In September, Trump was interviewed by host Larry King for a segment broadcast on RT America, part of a state-owned Russian media network. In the interview, Trump criticized the U.S. news media, calling it unbelievably dishonest. A Trump spokesman said the interview had been a favor to King, a former CNN host and a friend of Trumps, and that the campaign did not know the interview would appear on RT America.

Putin throughout the campaign denied that the Kremlin was interfering with the U.S. elections.

But neither the administrations hacking allegations nor reporting of Trumps apparent ties to Russia dissuaded more than 59 million voters from casting their ballots for the Republican.

Speculation has swirled about Trumps links to Russia since early in the campaign, both because of his warm words about Putin and past business ventures in Russia. It is not clear whether Trump has any investments in the country, because he has not released any tax records.

But he made millions of dollars by taking the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013. Wealthy Russians also have been an important source of investments in Trumps businesses. His son Donald Trump Jr. said in 2008 that Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets, adding that we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.

Several Trump advisers also have had well-publicized ties to Russia, including his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who managed an investment fund for a Russian aluminum magnate with close ties to Putin. Manafort resigned from the campaign days after his name was found in a ledger designating funds to be paid out from the party of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in a pro-European street revolution in 2014.

Trumps national security adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, sat next to Putin in 2015 during a dinner held by the Kremlin-funded television channel RT, formerly known as Russia Today.

Politically, Trump has called for closer ties with Russia to fight the Islamic State, and he rebuffed calls to renounce Putin after the Russian leader called Trump colorful and talented, a remark that was mistranslated by some in the news media as a genius.

A guy calls me a genius, and Im going to renounce? Trump said. Im not going to renounce him. Trump has not met Putin, according to statements this year, although in 2015 he claimed he had met the Russian leader.

While Russian officials were openly jubilant about Trumps victory, Ryabkov also said that Moscow does not cherish any special hopes in the wake of Donald Trumps election as U.S. president.

We do not feel any euphoria, Ryabkov told Interfax. We wouldnt like our public, or at least the Interfax subscribers, to have the impression that we are overwhelmed with some rosy anticipation.



The Washington Posts Tom Hamburger and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

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TUCSON, Ariz.  Republican Mark Napier will take over as Pima County sheriff in January.

The Arizona Daily Star reports (http://bit.ly/2emoi7k ) that Napier defeated Sheriff Chris Nanos 56 percent to 44 percent in Tuesdays election.

Nanos, who was appointed last year after the retirement of longtime sheriff Clarence Dupnik, is ensnared in controversy over how the department spent money.

Nanos former second-in-command, Chris Radtke, was indicted on seven felony charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and theft of federal funds. Radtke resigned and pleaded not guilty.

Napier, a former Tucson police officer, says his first priority is to restore department morale.

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Information from: Arizona Daily Star, http://www.tucson.com
RALEIGH, N.C.  A violent gang leader will spend his remaining years in the countrys highest-security prison after directing a botched kidnapping in which his underlings mistakenly grabbed the father of the North Carolina prosecutor who helped convict him, a federal judge said Thursday.

Kelvin Melton, 51, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge James Dever to life plus seven years in the federal Supermax penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.

The prison houses some of the countrys most violent, high-profile or high-security criminals, including Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph, 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, Mafia bosses and former FBI agent and Soviet spy Robert Hanssen.

Melton deserved a life sentence in the prison because he had repeatedly recruited other inmates to gang activities and showed his skill in running outside criminal enterprises while under the most restrictive of conditions, government prosecutors wrote in a report last week.

Melton had previously spent 13 years in New York prisons. While behind bars, he helped create the United Blood Nation and was nicknamed Godfather and Old Man, authorities said.

He was serving a life sentence in a North Carolina prison as a violent habitual felon after a 2011 shooting when he used a smuggled cellphone to direct Blood gang members to commit shootings and robberies in North Carolina and Georgia, prosecutors said.

Melton then turned to vengeance against Colleen Janssen, the North Carolina assistant district attorney who put him in prison. Evidence showed he directed gang members to kidnap two of her female relatives  kidnappings that werent carried out  before turning to Janssen herself. Melton ordered gangsters to kidnap her, but the criminals goofed and kidnapped her father instead. Co-conspirators in the plot also sent threats to Frank Janssens wife.

Again using a smuggled cellphone, Melton instructed the kidnappers how to kill Frank Janssen, dispose of his body and clean up the crime scene. FBI agents monitored Meltons cellphone and tracked Janssen to an Atlanta apartment four days after he was taken from his Wake Forest home.

The FBIs Hostage Rescue Team stormed the apartment as Janssens captors were finalizing details to kill him, authorities said.

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Follow Emery P. Dalesio at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/emery-p-dalesio.
SANTA FE  The atmosphere in the City Council chambers was too electric for some participants during a public hearing Wednesday night on amendments to a telecommunications ordinance that included passionate pleas from speakers  including some who said they were suffering from electromagnetic hypersensitivity on the spot  and a little bit of star power.

Burning the midnight oil and keeping Wi-Fi connectivity alit within City Hall during the hearing despite the objections of those who said it hurt them, the council unanimously approved the amendments along with a rider to form an advisory committee that would include members of the public to address protocols to manage telecommunication towers on public rights of way.

More than two dozen people spoke during the hearing, some sharing anecdotes about the negative health effects electromagnetic fields have had on them and others and warning of fire and public safety dangers associated with telecommunication towers along with the liability the city would incur should an accident happen.

Katherine Greer, one of several members of the Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health and Safety to speak, said the citys decision not to turn off the Wi-Fi and subject her and others with electromagnetic hypersensitivity to frequencies for more than three hours was cruel. She said it caused her to not think straight, lose her orientation and her whole soul.

She said there were many others in the community who suffer severely from the effects of electromagnetic fields.

The citizenry with diseases is huge, but theyre hiding because they cant leave their house, she said.

Another member of the group argued the city was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act by not accommodating their request to turn off the Wi-Fi.

Aside from potential health effects, speakers expressed concern that the amendments would lead to a proliferation of telecom towers in the city. They claimed telecommunication companies would be allowed to litter the landscape with towers and ruin the citys charm.

Is this your vision for a new Santa Fe? Fred King asked the council.

Anti Wi-Fi activist Arthur Firstenberg said the new provision to charge companies a franchise fee amounted to an illegal gross receipt tax and that customers end up paying, not telecommunication companies.

This bill will not allow the city to collect a nickel from them, Firstenberg said.

Opponents had an ally in actress Ali MacGraw, who said she moved to the Santa Fe area 23 years ago because she was attracted by the diverse culture and natural beauty, and because Santa Fe was a community that cared about quality of life.

I have to be honest and tell you, I was

absolutely flabbergasted when I read the proposition, she said, adding that she was similarly outraged when a few years ago there was a proposal to erect a tower next to Gonzales Community School, which she said would have created a horrendous health challenge.

Another reason she moved to New Mexico, she said, was because her Malibu, Calif. home burned down in 1993. A few years later she witnessed to a similar tragedy she said was a direct result of a cellular tower fire.

Its not an experience to be taken lightly, she said.

MacGraw said she would gladly add her name to a petition calling for more public input on the matter.

After more than an hour of public testimony, Assistant City Attorney Marco Martinez explained the purpose of the amendments was to cure sections of the ordinance adopted in 2010 that a federal court struck down after Qwest, now doing business as CenturyLink, challenged the ordinance on the grounds that the franchise fee was a disguised tax and effectively limit telecommunication services in violation of the federal laws .

While that lawsuit was settled, with Qwest agreeing to drop its claim, the city was left with an ordinance that didnt allow for a fee to be charged. He said the amendments would fix that by adding provisions to charge a reasonable fee and change language to comply state and federal laws.

Martinez disputed the claims the ordinance would also allow for a proliferation of telecommunication towers in the city, saying it didnt change current land use requirements at all.

Pressed on the question of whether the amendments would create a pathway for telecommunication companies to build more towers of public rights of way, Martinez said, It doesnt create a pathway any more than a pathway that already exists.

Councilor Peter Ives, who introduced the proposal, said citizen concerns over adverse health effects was a significant issue. He said the reason he brought the legislation forward was to address the deficiencies in the current ordinance resulting from Qwests lawsuit and allow the city to collect compensation for the use and occupancy of public rights of way.

I hope people can understand that is the intent, that is the effect, of this measure, he said.

Ives said he was open to a broader discussion to make sure the city was addressing citizen concerns appropriately, and he promised to bring a new resolution to the next City Council meeting intended to make sure the city was properly addressing the construction and siting of towers.

Before the public hearing, Ives addressed allegations that he had a conflict of interest in that his attorney wife had previously represented the city in litigation brought against the city by Qwest and currently represented telecommunication companies. However, he said, those companies arent currently doing business in the city and had no plans to do so. He denounced the suggestion he had a conflict of interest or stood to gain financially from the amendments and declared he would not recuse himself from discussion or a vote on the issue.

Still, a couple of the speakers professing legal knowledge disagreed.

Mayor Gonzales also disclosed that his family had a business interest in a TV and a radio tower in Santa Fe and affirmed he, too, would participate in the vote if it came to that by the end of what proved to be a long night.

The public hearing on the telecommunication ordinance was preceded by another long hearing on an ordinance amending the land use code to allow people to grow and then sell produce on property zoned for residential, commercial and industrial use. Despite concerns from some members of the public that the changes didnt address water use and allowed for the use of unregulated chemical treatments, the urban farming ordinance also passed unanimously.

The council at one point voted to waive the rules and continue the telecommunications discussion past 11:30 p.m. Including the public hearing, the council spent more than three hours addressing that matter with the vote coming at 11:58 p.m. The meeting adjourned at 12:01 Thursday morning.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M.  Los Alamos County voters have decided to keep the sheriffs office.

The Los Alamos Monitor reports (http://bit.ly/2emBbOE ) that Sheriff Marco Lucero says he is happy about the decision, but he believes the issue to keep or abolish his office should never have reached voters. Tuesday voters defeated the ballot question by about 450 votes.

In October, Lucero and the New Mexico Sheriffs Association filed a lawsuit against the county in an attempt to stop the Los Alamos County Council from abolishing the sheriffs office.

County attorneys had argued that the services the sheriff provides can be done through the Los Alamos County Police Department.

Lucero said he will be meeting with the Sheriffs Association to discuss the future of their lawsuit in the wake of Tuesdays election.

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Information from: Los Alamos Monitor, http://www.lamonitor.com
SAN DIEGO  California authorities were investigating a reported attack on a college campus of a Muslim student wearing a headscarf as a hate crime Thursday.

San Diego State Universitys police department said two suspects who assaulted the student on campus Wednesday had targeted her because of her faith and made comments about Donald Trumps election.

The woman was not hurt. Authorities said the assault occurred in a parking complex while the woman was wearing a hijab. The suspects stole her car keys, and the vehicle was later reported missing, authorities said.

We condemn this hateful act and urge all members of our community to join us in condemning such hateful acts, SDSU President Elliot Hirshman said in a statement.

A similar report came from Northern California, where a woman said she was walking in a parking garage at San Jose State University when a fair-skinned man in a hooded sweatshirt came up behind her and pulled at her head scarf, the university said in a statement.

The victim was briefly choked and lost her balance before the suspect ran away, the statement said.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Thursday issued an information bulletin to law enforcement agencies, outlining laws that prohibit hate crimes.

Meanwhile, a Louisiana student acknowledged she fabricated a reported attack by two men, one she said wore a Trump hat.

In the Louisiana case, the Lafayette Police Department said in a statement that it is no longer investigating the 18-year-old womans claims, which were made within hours of Trumps presidential victory.

Police said the student told investigators she was walking near the University of Louisiana at Lafayettes campus Wednesday morning when she was accosted by two white men who drove up in a gray sedan. Police added the student had claimed the men shouted racial obscenities as they knocked her down and stole her wallet and the headscarf.

Charlie Bier, a spokesman for the university, said a federal privacy law prohibits him from saying whether the student could be disciplined.

Lafayette Police spokesman, Officer Karl Ratcliff, did not immediately respond to emails or phone messages from The Associated Press seeking further comment. But he told The Advocate that the woman offered no explanation for lying. He said the woman might now face charges herself related to filing a false police report.

We dont take this lightly, and its made national headlines now, he said. There will be consequences.
WASHINGTON  The Senates soon-to-be top Democrat told labor leaders Thursday that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal at the center of President Barack Obamas pivot to strengthen ties with key Asian allies, will not be ratified by Congress.

That remark from Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, who is expected to be the incoming Senate minority leader, came as good news to the AFL-CIO Executive Council, which met Thursday in Washington. Schumer relayed statements that Republican congressional leaders had made to him, according to an aide who confirmed the remarks.

Obamas signature global trade deal had been on life support for months as both Democrats and Republicans campaigned against unfair trade policies ahead of the Nov. 8 election. And Donald Trumps triumph in the presidential race cemented its fate.

There is no way to fix the TPP, Trump said in a June economic address. We need bilateral trade deals. We do not need to enter into another massive international agreement that ties us up and binds us down.

The deal never had much of a following among congressional Democrats to begin with. Only 28 of 188 House Democrats and 13 of 44 Senate Democrats supported granting Obama the authority to negotiate and finalize a deal last year. And Trumps rise has decimated support for free trade among Republicans. A former U.S. trade representative, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, said he would oppose the TPP as he campaigned for reelection this year.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said Wednesday there was no chance that the deal would pass during Obamas final months in office. And he said its up to Trump whether any trade deal would move forward after that.

I think the president-elect made it pretty clear he was not in favor of the current agreement, McConnell said. But he has the latitude because [congressional negotiating authority] is in place through the next administration to negotiate better deals, as I think he would put it, if he chooses to.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, who has supported past trade deals, has said that the votes arent there in the House to pass the TPP in its current version and that he has no plans to bring it to a vote in the House.

The news of the trade pacts likely demise prompted disappointed reactions from some industry coalitions, which had hoped to access freer markets and a more level playing field with competitors overseas.

Among them were groups representing Americas farmers and ranchers. The TPP had promised to slash tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods in large markets such as Japan and Vietnam, as well as eliminate agricultural subsidies that gave competitors in the trade bloc an edge.

We would have liked to get it done before the end of the year. The longer we delay, the more likely we lose market share in the Asia-Pacific since other countries are negotiating their own trade deals with nations in the region, David Warner, the director of communications at the National Pork Producers Council, said in emailed comments. Warner said the TPP would exponentially increase pork exports, translating into more American jobs. We certainly hope the TPP is not dead.

Retailers had also largely thrown their support behind TPP, as it would have reduced tariffs on many goods that brands source from overseas. President Obama had even used Nikes Oregon headquarters as backdrop for a speech defending his trade policy.

On balance, [TPP] was viewed by our industry as a win for retailers and our consumers, said David French, the National Retail Federations senior vice president of government relations, in an interview conducted Thursday prior to the news of Schumers statements.

French said he believes that the reduction in tariffs would have been passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices. Tariffs on footwear can be as high as 67.5 percent, according to the NRF, while apparel tariffs can be up to 32 percent.

In September, a coalition of retailers  including Walmart, JCPenney, Gap, Michael Kors and Dicks Sporting Goods  sent letters to each member of Congress to urge them to support the TPP. The letter said the agreement would remove $2.8 million in duties on U.S. imports of clothes, shoes and travel items such as backpacks. They called it once-in-a-generation opportunity to reduce costs and open new markets for U.S. brands and retailers.

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On the campaign trail, Donald Trump declared himself the law and order candidate, and said at the Republican convention that the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored.

But can a president have an impact on crime and the local police who fight it? Trump did not offer many specifics on how he would make America safer, such as the promise Bill Clinton made to add 100,000 new officers to the streets in the 1990s, but he has given some indications of how he might act on the issues which have the largest impact on Americas safety.

For example, gun control is an issue a president could push as an attempt to reduce gun violence, but Trump made it clear during the campaign he would not.

Though Nevada voters on Tuesday passed a measure requiring background checks on nearly all gun sales, and California outlawed possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines, Trump told both the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police he would not support such changes.

Gun control laws are not the answer to gun violence, Trump wrote in response to FOP questionnaire. The Second Amendment is sacrosanct and will in no way be modified in my administration.

He does, however, support tougher penalties for convicted felons found in possession of guns.

Presidents can only have an impact on policing to a very limited degree, said Jim Pasco, executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police officers union, which endorsed Trump in September.

There are 18,000 police departments which all operate totally independently of the federal government, answering to their local governments devising their own police policies and practices, Pasco said. The only ways in which he really can have an impact are by providing federal funding for training, equipment, task forces and the like. And how he uses the bully pulpit to be supportive of and respectful of law enforcement.

President Barack Obama used that pulpit to convene a task force on 21st century policing, and to call for improved relations between police and communities. Those relations have become tense in recent years over concerns about fatal police shootings, especially of African-American men. American police officers kill nearly 1,000 people per year, according to news media counts, and roughly one-third of those involve people who did not have a gun.

A proposal to retrain police officers in deescalation techniques and to respect the sanctity of life of both officers and their subjects has created a deep schism between big city police chiefs who favor the new approach and the national police officers union and small city chiefs who do not.

Trump met with the FOP leaders, who vocally opposed the retraining, and won their endorsement. But the union did not ask him about the deescalation issue in a pre-election questionnaire, and a president likely could not interfere with local police chiefs choosing, or not choosing, to retrain their officers with the 30 Guiding Principles of deescalation promoted by the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum.

At the end of the day, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of PERF, these issues are ultimately state and local issues. The change is happening at the local level.

He said when PERF rolled out its training programs last month, We did not meet resistance, people have embraced the training. Were giving police departments options when they deal with these difficult situations. The challenge is, how do we get that message to 18,000 police agencies? If anything, President Trump could emphasize how important it is for police to get trained in 21st century techniques.

Pasco said Trump could get involved, to the extent the federal government was attempting to institutionalize and proselytize these practices. It had its supporters within the federal government and the Justice Department.

He said the FOP didnt oppose deescalation as a basic tactic, which PERF advocates using for all people not wielding guns, but it cant be the only option when you dont have the time or space to deal with someone, say, with a machete.

Though police officials, including the Justice Department and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, have called for improved data to determine how many officer-involved shootings are occurring and why, Trump said he was opposed to that. The federal government, Trump wrote in response to the IACPs questionnaire, should not be in the habit of demanding data from local or state law enforcement organizations.

The FBI already gathers data from local police for its annual national crime statistics. The Justice Department last month announced a new initiative to gather information on police use of force, but Pasco and others said it was flawed because it was voluntary.

When asked about reducing violence, Trump often pivoted to increased immigration enforcement as a way to decrease crime. That makes police chiefs nervous. Police typically prefer to stay away from immigration enforcement because they want residents of any status to both report crime and cooperate with investigations, and to maintain good relations with all communities.

I never heard him talk about involving the local police, said Thomas Manger, the Montgomery County, Maryland, police chief and president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. I hope he understands the problems between immigration and local police.

Manger said his chiefs support the Priority Enforcement Program launched by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in late 2014, which focuses on deporting immigrants who are gang members, convicted of felonies or multiple misdemeanors or are considered national security threats.

What weve got in PEP, Manger said, is working well. In our view, it strikes the right balance between getting dangerous criminals out of our communities and not putting local police in the position of being immigration police. Our mission is building community trust.

Trump also mentioned on several occasions that police should use stop-and-frisk techniques to proactively reduce crime. Police in many cities already do that, though departments in New York and Chicago have reduced their use of the technique in response to citizen pushback, and the decisions to do so are strictly local.

Police at both the local and federal levels still devote massive resources to enforcing marijuana laws, although California, Massachusetts and Nevada voters elected to legalize pot on Tuesday. About 20 percent of U.S. citizens may now smoke marijuana legally in seven states and the District, and a Gallup poll in October found 60 percent support nationwide for legalization. But marijuana is still illegal under federal law, equated with heroin and LSD in the most serious class of narcotics. The Obama administration took a mostly hands-off approach to enforcement, but it also did not take any steps to reduce marijuana from Schedule 1, making it very difficult to research its effects scientifically.

Trump told the IACP that marijuana was a state issue. However, Congress should work to make compatible the laws of the land with the laws of the states.

He also has said he supports medical marijuana. These views could be translated into redirecting law enforcements priorities and dollars away from pot toward harder drugs or other issues. But both Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani, top Trump advisers and former U.S. attorneys who could wind up serving in the next administration, have expressed strong opposition to legalizing marijuana even for medicinal purposes.

I hope this administration stays strong, Manger said, in terms of recognizing the harm of drug abuse.

He acknowledged the growing tide toward legalization of marijuana, but noted that every single jurisdiction that legalized it has seen a steep rise in use by young people, even though its still illegal for them. Its readily available and people use it. It sends the message its not harmful, and studies have shown marijuana does hurt young brains while theyre still forming.

Mental health issues have played a large part in many serious crime rampages across the country for years. Trump told the IACP that mental health reform is a top priority in my administration.

As a candidate, Trump said he would increase funding for mental health treatment, as well as drug addiction treatment and police training.

Republicans criticized the Obama administration for using executive orders to accomplish what they could not do through legislation. In response to criticism over a program to supply surplus military equipment to local police, Obama established a working group which reduced or removed the availability of some equipment. Trump said he would disband the working group and said the military surplus program was an excellent program that enhances community safety.

Police groups, regardless of politics, were encouraged by Trumps expressions of support for law enforcement. I like to hear somebody say that, Manger said. We understand the publics concerns about use of force and police training. We are working every day to hire and train the right people, to hold ourselves accountable. But the press and social media have convinced the public that theres an epidemic of police abuse in this country. Thats simply not true.

He said the chiefs association was hoping to work with the Trump administration on crime and policing issues, and we are hoping we can shape that agenda to be productive.

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PORTLAND, Maine  Maine residents have voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use in their state.

The final results of the referendum were tabulated on Thursday. The count took nearly two days because of how close the race was, within a fraction of a percentage point, and The Associated Press made the call Thursday afternoon.

Supporters had already declared themselves the winners and had predicted home cultivation of marijuana would be legal by around Christmas.

The Maine people have passed it, and we should work on implementing it, said Republican state Sen. Eric Brakey, of Auburn, who supported the ballot issue.

Medical marijuana was already legal in Maine.

People 21 or older will now be allowed to use up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana, and retail marijuana shops and social clubs could open around the state. Some municipalities have balked at allowing such businesses to open in their communities.

Opponents who had vowed to request a recount said on Thursday that they would meet to decide what to do next.

We need to look at the numbers, said Scott Gagnon, an organizer of a campaign against legalization that portrayed legalization as a threat to the health and safety of children.

The campaign that pushed for legalization turned immediately toward the implementation process on Thursday. They said they hope marijuana will be available in retail establishments by 2018.

Marijuana wont become available at the retail level until after a state rulemaking process that could be slow and arduous. David Boyer, campaign manager for Yes On 1, said the people who advocated for legal marijuana will also play a role in its implementation.

All of the marijuana sold in Maine will also be grown in Maine, he said.

Were excited that Maine is going to join many other states that have decided to have a smarter marijuana policy  a policy that no longer punishes adults for smoking marijuana, Boyer said.

Gov. Paul LePage, who opposed legalization, did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

Pending the possibility of a recount, Maine joins California, Nevada and Massachusetts, which passed similar measures this week. Arizona rejected a similar measure. Recreational marijuana was already legal in Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Alaska.

In Maine, the proposal allows people to cultivate, distribute and sell marijuana and marijuana products. Marijuana is set to be taxed at 10 percent and subject to local restrictions.

Parents groups and some law enforcement organizations opposed the proposal. The proposal also received scrutiny from members of the medical marijuana community, who say they fear it could replace the states medical program.

The secretary of states office said Thursday that the largest bloc of uncounted votes that remained were from more than 4,000 overseas absentee voters. Those were counted and failed to make the difference for those who opposed legalization.

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Associated Press writer David Sharp in Portland contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON  Donald Trump is the president-elect of the United States, and hes got a Republican-controlled House and Senate to pass his every legislative whim.

Except, not really.

The reality is that Trumps unorthodox candidacy included many unorthodox positions for a Republican  positions voters might have eaten up, but that the GOP Congress may be more reluctant to embrace.

And as Trump meets with Republican leaders in Congress on Thursday afternoon, we thought it a good time for a rundown of areas where they might clash:

1. Free trade

Congressional Republicans have generally been very pro-free trade. Theyve actually been the driving force behind trying to get President Barack Obamas Trans-Pacific Partnership passed; they provided 190 of the 218 votes last year to give Obama fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals in hopes of pushing along the TPP. Only 50 House Republicans voted against it.

But Trump has taken a decidedly anti-free trade  and anti-TPP  stance. His election has already led congressional leaders to admit TPP is likely dead, meaning that the clash probably wont happen in public.

But Trump has also said he wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)  a bill that passed in 1992 with more Republican support than Democratic support. He has the authority to do that  and polls show increasing opposition to these trade deals among Republicans  but its something GOP leaders certainly wont like and could try to fight.

2. Immigration/deportation

This is another issue on which the GOP base is largely with Trump, but GOP leaders and many Republicans in Congress arent. The fact is that Trumps varying proposals involving extensive deportation have great appeal among many Republican voters, but not among the broader public and not for a party concerned with appealing to Hispanics over the long term.

Support for extensive deportation is generally between 15 and 20 percent in polls, with about three-quarters wanting those who have been here for years to stay, and a majority wanting them to be given a path to citizenship. Support for Trumps border wall is significantly higher, but fiscally conservative Republicans in Congress would also have to find a way to put together the tens of billions of dollars that it would likely cost to build.

And there are still Republicans in Congress who would like to pursue comprehensive immigration reform, including Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis. Getting Trump to go along with that priority would be very tough, given his rhetoric on the campaign trail.

3. As much as $1 trillion on infrastructure

Trump said in his last book that U.S. infrastructure requires a trillion-dollar rebuilding program. He also said on the campaign trail that he would more than double Clintons plan to spend $275 billion on infrastructure over five years.

Given that the national debt right now is about $19 trillion and our current federal budget is $3.8 trillion, tacking on another $550 billion to $1 trillion  or about $100 billion to $200 billion annually  is a massive government undertaking. Its the kind that fiscally conservative Republicans will want to make sure is paid for so that it doesnt balloon the debt even more. But finding the money in the budget for anything on that level will be nearly impossible.

Republicans arent opposed to infrastructure spending, and its something that both sides generally approve of. But doing it on the scale Trump is talking about will be a pretty tough pill to swallow. There are many examples of big-government ideas that Trump favors that might run into GOP opposition, but this is probably chief among them because of the price tag.

4. No Social Security changes

Lets go to Trumps own words here:

Im not going to cut it, and Im not going to raise ages, and Im not going to do all of the things that they want to do, he said earlier this year. But they want to really cut it, and they want to cut it very substantially  the Republicans  and Im not going to do that.

GOP leaders have danced a very delicate dance in recent years when it comes to reforming entitlements. They say they dont want to cut or curtail Social Security benefits  and neither do the vast majority of voters in each party  but they have argued that its necessary to keep the program solvent. They have proposed creating private accounts and raising the retirement age in the name of making sure the program stays around.

Trump, though, has no time for that. He says hell make it solvent by improving the economy and cutting waste, fraud and abuse. Analysts are dubious. And so any efforts to make basically any changes to Social Security now that Republicans actually have the means to do so will apparently not meet with the approval of President Trump.

5. Glass-Steagall

In a surprise, the Trump campaign was actually able to get a return to the old Glass-Steagall Act inserted into the Republican Party platform this year. The 1933 law was a response to the Great Depression and basically required that commercial and investment banking couldnt take place under the same roof. It was repealed in 1999, and some blame its repeal for the 2008 financial crisis.

But many Republicans in Congress oppose a return to Glass-Steagall, believing it to be an unnecessary burden on the financial sector that makes it more difficult to compete with banks overseas, and that that idea it caused the crises is overblown.

It remains to be seen whether Trump will really press the issue in opposition to business-minded Republicans. While it was a convenient way to draw a contrast with Hillary Clintons Wall Street ties in the general election, it wasnt a feature of his campaign early on.

6. Russia/NATO

Trump has said he would like to improve relations between the United States and Russia, and Russian President Vladimir Putin said after Tuesdays election that he would like to normalize relations. Trump has also said nice things about Putin and suggested the United States might not defend NATO allies against a Russian incursion unless other countries pay more.

Its not clear what specifically Congress would be called upon to decide when it comes to Russia or NATO, but if Congress is part of the process, you can bet it will be a difficult thing for Republicans to go along with Trump. Putin is broadly unpopular in the United States, and NATO is a diplomatic agreement that GOP leaders find very important.

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Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Raquel Reedy sent a letter to all district families Thursday seeking to reassure them in the wake of Tuesdays presidential election, which she said has left some of our students and families feeling anxious and afraid.

The emotionally charged rhetoric we all heard over the last several months was unfortunate and likely wont be forgotten any time soon, she said in the one-page letter.

We ask that principals, teachers and school-based staff be particularly mindful of students feelings right now  especially in our most vulnerable communities  as a result of the tensions and deep divisions we continue to experience as a nation.

The letter did not mention either candidate and was distributed to all students at school.

APS spokeswoman Monica Armenta said Reedy wanted to offer reassurance to parents and students because many were concerned.

They dont know what happens from here, like the rest of the country, she said.

Republican Donald Trumps presidential victory stunned much of the nation after Democrat Hillary Clinton consistently led in most polls.

During the election campaign, Trump called for a stricter immigration stance that would see more deportations of immigrants in the country illegally and called for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

We had a number of students across the district yesterday who showed up distraught and very concerned, so we felt we had to address it, Armenta said. We heard reports from many parts of the city  Pajarito, Highland, Rio Grande.

The district is majority minority, Armenta noted  67 percent of the student body is Hispanic and 17 percent are English Language Learners.

Its important to remember that children of all ages dont always have the skills to cope with stressful situations, especially if the circumstances are perceived to threaten the childs safety or well-being, the letter said.

APS is not bringing additional counselors to schools, but Reedy directs fearful students to talk to a trusted adult.

Besides English, the letter was available in four other languages  Spanish, Arabic, Farsi and Vietnamese.

The letter is not an endorsement of any political party or candidate, Armenta said.

We understand its a very sensitive issue, but more than anything we want to make sure that people understand that APS is a safe haven for students, she said. We remain neutral. All students are wanted and respected and honored.

Based on national news reports, districts across the country are dealing with outrage, anxiety and sadness in the aftermath of the election. Schools in Boston, Denver and St. Paul, Minn., are offering additional counseling services to students, according to The Washington Post.

In an open letter, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg called the election season a reminder of how far we have to go as a country to reach our nations ideals and to heal our wounds.

It is through education that we can better understand our past and grapple with the issues of today, including those that are dividing us, he wrote. That we encourage more and not less dialogue about deep differences and bias in our country around race and ethnicity and class. That we challenge ourselves as to how we can move forward to make our country better.
WASHINGTON  Its been 35 years since a First Kid has attended a school other than Sidwell Friends, the private school whose student body has included Chelsea Clinton and both Obama girls. The elite Quaker institution in leafy upper northwest Washington has educated many a political offspring, from Vice President Joe Bidens grandchildren to Al Gore III to both Nixon daughters.

But will President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, enroll their 10-year-old son, Barron, there? Some educational experts say its unlikely.

First of all, were not even sure that The Family Trump will actually decamp from their glittery penthouse spread high atop Trump Towers (where the boy has his own floor) for the relatively more cramped residence at the White House. Which could mean Barron would continue at his current private school in Manhattan, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School.

And even if the Trumps do put down roots in Washington, some doubt that the Trumps would pick Sidwell, a school thats become associated in recent years with the Clintons and the Obamas. Its associated with the liberal intelligentsia of Washington, says educational consultant Steven Roy Goodman, who has helped many a high-profile family navigate the areas private-school landscape. Ditto the Washington International School, whose internationalist philosophy might not jibe with Trumps build-the-wall ethos. I dont see that as a fit here.

That still leaves plenty of options. Shall we put aside the idea that hed attend public school, as Amy Carter did? According to D.C.s enrollment guide, a kid living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., is slated to attend the School Without Walls at Francis Stevens, a public pre-K-8th-grade institution in Foggy Bottom. But despite Trumps populist bent, he enrolled Barron (and all his other kids) in private schools.

Starchy uniforms arent a problem for the suit-loving boy, whose mom proudly told ABC isnt a sweatpants child.

And whatever school they land on will benefit from the prestige of schooling presidential offspring, the marketing value of which is more than enough to offset the hassle of a Secret Service presence.

Goodman says he often counsels parents to look at their own schooling when picking a spot for their children, since thats most likely to put them in their comfort zone. Given what I know about President-elect Trump, which is that he comes from more of a traditional, classic background, I think that might lead you to Virginia schools, he says. St. Stephens in Alexandria, the co-ed Westminster in Annandale, and Burgundy Farm Country Day School in Fairfax County might fit the bill, he says.

St. Albans, the all-boys school near the Washington National Cathedral (short commute!), is often mentioned as a possibility for the future First Kid. And the Potomac School in McLean is no stranger to political kids, either  students have included the grandchildren of former vice president Dick Cheney, and former senator Evan Bayh, who enrolled when his father, Birch Bayh, was in the Senate.

Leigh Ann Cahill, of the consulting group Independent School Options, notes that the Trumps might want a school thats similar to the one their son currently attends. Columbia (where Barron is either a fourth- or fifth-grader) is a coed, secular school thats not thought of as one of Manhattans academic pressure-cookers.

The Landon School, though its all-boys, could be a good fit, she says, or a religion-lite option, like St. Patricks Episcopal Day.

No matter the school, she says, young Barron might experience some social bumps after such a divisive political campaign. He might find that theres a level of awareness and even commitment among his classmates, she says. Its not necessarily like that in New York.

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The endless election, finally, has ended. Let the books, and the rehashing of the election, begin.

Publishing executives say that few campaign-related book proposals had circulated prior to Tuesdays seismic results  but that changed quickly. The election created a new narrative, a fresh set of victors, and a scramble to understand an outcome that few media elites  and seemingly no polls  had predicted.

Theres going to be a cascade. An awful lot of people want to weigh in, says veteran editor Peter Osnos, founder of the imprint PublicAffairs, who has worked on books with Donald Trump (Until I was ousted on Art of the Deal ), Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Campaign-trail accounts have long been a staple of publishing, and many have become classics of the genre, including Theodore Whites The Making of the President 1960, Joe McGinnis The Selling of the President 1968, and Richard Ben Cramers What It Takes, a history of the 1988 campaign.

Given this years saturation coverage of the race, Hillary Clintons penchant for privacy, Donald Trumps banishment of some reporters, and the dominance of social media, editors say that the challenge will be to offer fresh information, extraordinary insights or a new way of recounting recent history.

Several publishing executives mentioned wanting a prescriptive interpretation, akin to J.D. Vances best-selling Hillbilly Elegy, about rural Rust Belt Ohio, a region that voted enthusiastically for Trump.

Everyone wants to read a supersmart voice on how we fix the social mobility problem, says one editor of multiple political books who, like many publishing officials, was unwilling to speak on the record. Publishing is a competitive and secretive business; houses dont want to tip their hand as to whom theyre hoping to sign.

Editors expect journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, who wrote Game Change and Double Down, juicy accounts of the 2008 and 2012 elections, to write a third volume. (The first book was the rare campaign book made into an Emmy-winning television drama.) The Bloomberg Politics managing editors declined to comment on their plans.

Trump insiders have become highly valuable commodities, although the president-elects penchant for strict non-disclosure agreements has already led to the reported jettisoning in June of former campaign manager Corey Lewandowskis $1.2 million book deal.

Kellyanne Conway, the first woman to helm a winning presidential campaign, is now a valuable prospect, and one Trump insider who may be permitted to publish her story.

He owes her big time. She will write a book, says Osnos, who believes that campaign chairman Steve Bannon may write one, too.

Donald Trump will find it irresistible to have his victory enshrined in books, Osnos says. He will not want his historic victory to go unremarked. Books have always been a big way to tell his story.

Indeed, Trump is his own veritable library, having published 16 titles, most of the you-too-can-get-rich variety. An editor at his current imprint declined to discuss future publishing plans.

The election results could weigh heavily on the outcome of forthcoming titles. Bernie Sanders Our Revolution, to be published Tuesday, may be received differently in the wake of Hillary Clintons defeat. Fox News host Megyn Kellys memoir, Settle for More, which is to be released that same day and which reportedly sold for $6 million, may also be affected by Trumps success and, by extension, that of Kellys former boss, Roger Ailes. Kelly alleges that Ailes, who advised Trump after leaving Fox, sexually harassed her when he was running the network.

Barack and Michelle Obama will write books. Of that, publishers are certain.

Obama, already a best-selling author with Dreams From My Father (1995) and The Audacity of Hope (2006), is expected to command $15 million for his presidential memoir, publishing executives say. This is the same amount that Bill Clinton earned for his 2004 doorstop, My Life. (Given the drastic changes in the book industry over the past dozen years  the bankruptcy of Borders, the rising popularity of e-books vs. print, multiple mergers of imprints  publishers dont anticipate the price spiking much higher.)

Obama will stick with Crown, insiders believe, which published his last book and is owed another volume under contract.

His next book will now have to address Trump and what this elections results mean for the Obama legacy. Washington power lawyer Robert Barnett, who represents Obama and so many other major political players, declined to comment.

The first lady, a star in the campaign who has an even higher approval rating than her husband, will be in great demand. I could see her signing a multiple-book deal, one publishing executive says, a memoir, a book on food or health and fitness. Basically, anything.

And everyone wants a bit of Biden, who combines the common touch with a lengthy career and the extraordinary loss of his first wife, daughter and son.

To the vanquished go fewer spoils. Although, there is one Clinton insider whom many editors would love to sign: Huma Abedin. But less her role as Hillarys aide, one editor says, and more as wife and mother.

In 2018, Random House plans to publish former attorney general Eric Holders Pursuing Justice, co-written with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Douglas Blackmon, which reportedly sold for seven figures. Other former Obama Cabinet members are shopping books, but editors wonder whether the demand is there.

Editors are looking for breakout stylists to make sense of the election. Someone like Hunter Thompson, although this campaign is way too Hunter Thompsonesque and beyond what he could do, says Macmillans John Sterling, who has edited Elizabeth Warren, Al Gore and Jimmy Carter. The real story is what happens to these two parties now that the election is over.

A bit of distance and perspective helps.This is not a traditional trajectory. Because its such a stunning result, its going to take a bit of time, Osnos says. The American intelligentsia is in a state of advanced shock, while the great American masses have just exercised their prerogative.

What so many missed, he says, is that those masses were already signaling what was coming with books.

During the last six to eight months of the campaign, what was really striking was the consistency of profoundly anti-Hillary books by Dick Morris, Dinesh DSouza and Ann Coulter at the top of the bestseller list, he says. Those books represented a kind of plebiscite, while books critical of Trump had astonishingly little impact.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif.  Donald Trumps election as president is giving a big social-media boost to an unlikely effort in the nations most populous state: a plan to vote on seceding from the union.

The Yes California Independence Campaign hopes to put a question on the November 2018 ballot that would authorize a statewide independence vote for spring 2019.

The effort drew little attention until Tuesdays election, which also kept Trumps fellow Republicans in charge of Congress and raised the possibility of a conservative shift on the U.S. Supreme Court.

A look at whats happening:

___

THE TRUMP VICTORY

Campaign President Louis J. Marinelli said the election results offer further proof that California is more progressive than the nation as a whole. Voters endorsed ballot measures that included recreational marijuana and increased taxes on the rich. Many Californians were offended by Trumps statements on immigration and other issues.

People are starting to come to the realization  Wait a minute, this is not the type of country we want to live in,' said Marinelli, who lost a primary bid for the state Assembly this year.

___

THE REACTION

As election results rolled in, the groups Facebook contacts grew from about 11,000 to about 15,000, and its email account received about 3,000 messages. Marinelli said he couldnt keep up with the Twitter messages.

The next day, the group set up a tent outside the state Capitol in Sacramento. About a dozen supporters wearing YesCalifornia.org T-shirts talked to passers-by.

It would frankly be better off if we were our own nation, said the groups vice president, Marcus Ruiz Evans, calling Trumps election further evidence that America is a sinking ship. Our ship can sail on its own.

Skeptics, like Steve Angel of Sacramento, criticized what he said is an effort to balkanize the United States by breaking it into pieces.

To the north, in Portland, Oregon, two residents filed a separate petition for a 2018 ballot initiative for Oregon to secede.

___

THE PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS

Any effort to get an issue on the ballot requires the gathering of hundreds of thousands of signatures.

Marinelli tried unsuccessfully to put several initiatives on the ballot this year, including a proposal to declare California a separate nation, to rename the governor the president of California and to fly the California state flag atop the United States flag. Those signature-gathering efforts fizzled.

Repeated attempts to create a 51st state in Northern California, named the State of Jefferson, have also failed. That movement generally draws more conservative supporters who are dissatisfied with Californias dominance by Democrats.

The Yes California Independence Campaign tries to appeal across the political spectrum but holds a generally progressive ideology, Marinelli said.

___

BREXIT = CALEXIT?

Marinelli equates the movements longshot chances to the recent decision by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.

People said Brexit wouldnt happen, and then they said Trump wouldnt happen  Things that you dont expect to happen are happening, so why not this? he said.

Supporters of the initiative note that California, with its 39 million residents, is often compared to other nations, not other states. Data from the World Bank show its economy was equivalent to the sixth-largest in the world last year.

___

THE HISTORY

Threats to secede from the United States have been a part of American politics almost since the nation was founded. The most serious attempt came before and during the Civil War, when 11 Southern states left to form the Confederacy. The movement ended with the defeat of Confederate forces.

Chapman University law professor Ronald Rotunda said the Constitution does not provide for state secession, so the only way to do it legally would be to change the Constitution  an act that requires the approval of Congress and 38 states.

Its not going to happen. Youre not going to find 38 states, he said. The theory of our Constitution for over 200 years is we sink or swim together.
SAN MARCOS, Texas  Police at a Central Texas university want to know who is behind fliers posted on campus that urge formation of tar and feather vigilante squads to arrest and torture campus diversity advocates.

The fliers posted around the Texas State University campus Thursday morning featured a picture of armed white men labeled Texas State Vigilantes beneath a U.S. flag. It professes support for President-elect Donald Trump and Republican majorities in Congress. Aside from the acts against diversity advocates, the flier also urges augmenting a border wall by irradiation with nuclear waste and stocking the Rio Grande with alligators and piranhas. It also urges the sabotage of campus toilets.

Campus police Sgt. Rolando Belmares (beh-MAH-rehs) says at least five fliers were posted around the San Marcos campus before a campus anti-Trump demonstration.
President Barack Obama has ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an al-Qaida-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government, U.S. officials said.

The decision to deploy more drones and intelligence assets against the militant group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra reflects Obamas concern that it is turning parts of Syria into a new base of operations for al-Qaida on Europes southern doorstep, the officials said.

The move underlines the extent to which Obama has come to prioritize the counterterrorism mission in Syria over efforts to pressure President Bashar al-Assad to step aside, as al-Nusra is among the most effective forces battling the Syrian government.

That shift is likely to accelerate once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump has said he will be even more aggressive in going after militants than Obama, a stance that could lead to the expansion of the targeted-killing campaign against al-Nusra, possibly in direct cooperation with Moscow. The group now calls itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham  or Front for the Conquest of Syria  and says it has broken with al-Qaida, an assertion discounted by U.S. officials.

The United States has conducted sporadic strikes in the past against veteran al-Qaida members who migrated to northwestern Syria from Afghanistan and Pakistan to join al-Nusra and whom U.S. officials suspected of plotting against the United States and its allies.

Obamas new order gives the U.S. militarys Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, wider authority and additional intelligence-collection resources to go after al-Nusras broader leadership, not just al-Qaida veterans or those directly involved in external plotting.

The White House and State Department led the charge within the Obama administration for prioritizing action against the group. Pentagon leaders were reluctant at first to pull resources away from the fight against the Islamic State.

But aides say Obama grew frustrated that more wasnt being done by the Pentagon and the intelligence community to kill al-Nusra leaders given the warnings he had received from top counterterrorism officials about the gathering threat they posed.

In the presidents Daily Brief, the most highly classified intelligence report produced by U.S. spy agencies, Obama was repeatedly told over the summer that the group was allowing al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan to create in northwest Syria the largest haven for the network since it was scattered after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Officials also warned Obama that al-Nusra could try to fill the void as its rival, the Islamic State, lost ground.

Lisa Monaco, Obamas White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, said Obamas decision prioritized our fight against al-Qaida in Syria, including through targeting their leaders and operatives, some of whom are legacy al-Qaida members.

We have made clear to all parties in Syria that we will not allow al-Qaida to grow its capacity to attack the U.S., our allies, and our interests, she said in an statement. We will continue to take action to deny these terrorists any safe haven in Syria.

To support the expanded push against al-Nusra, the White House pressed the Pentagon to deploy additional armed drones and intelligence-collection assets in the airspace over northwestern Syria, an area that had been sparsely covered by the United States until now because of its proximity to advanced Russian air-defense systems and aircraft.

A bitterly divided Obama administration had tried over the summer to cut a deal with Moscow on a joint U.S.-Russian air campaign against al-Nusra, in exchange for a Russian commitment to ground Syrian government warplanes and to allow more humanitarian supplies into besieged areas. But the negotiations broke down in acrimony, with Moscow accusing the United States of failing to separate al-Nusra from more moderate rebel groups and Washington accusing the Russians of war crimes in Aleppo.

Armed JSOC-controlled drones stepped up operations in September, according to military officials.

Drone strikes by the U.S. military under the program began in October and have so far killed at least four high-value targets, including al-Nusras senior external planner. The Pentagon has disclosed two of the strikes so far. One of the most significant strikes  targeting a gathering of al-Nusra leaders on Nov. 2  has yet to be disclosed, officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations.

So far, Russian air-defense systems and aircraft havent interfered with stepped-up U.S. operations against al-Nusra. Officials attributed Moscows acquiescence to the limited number of U.S. aircraft involved in the missions and to Russias interest in letting Washington combat one of the Assad regimes most potent enemies within the insurgency. U.S. officials said they provided notifications to the Russians before the al-Nusra strikes to avoid misunderstandings.

Officials said the expanded al-Nusra campaign was similar to those that Obama has directed against al-Qaida affiliates in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

While al-Qaidas central leadership in Pakistan has been decimated, the United States now faces more threats involving more extremists from more places than at any time since 9/11, Nicholas J. Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told a Senate committee in September.

The push into the province of Idlib and other parts of northwestern Syria coincides with Pentagon-backed offensives in and around Islamic State strongholds in eastern Syria and in Iraq, which have attracted the majority of U.S. military resources and public attention.

White House officials had considered launching a more systematic campaign to destroy al-Nusra from top to bottom, much like the Pentagons approach to the Islamic State. But that option was rejected as too resource-intensive. Many of al-Nusras fighters are Syrians who joined the group because of its ample supply of weapons and cash, and its commitment to defeating Assad, not to plot against the West.

Officials said the strikes on leadership targets were meant to send a message to more-moderate rebel units, including those backed by the CIA, to distance themselves from the al-Qaida affiliate. At critical moments during the five-year-old civil war, moderate rebel units have fought alongside al-Nusra in ground operations against Assads forces. In fact, U.S. officials credit those rebel campaigns in the spring of 2015 with putting so much pressure on the Syrian government that Russia and Iran decided to double down militarily in support of Assad.

U.S. officials who opposed the decision to go after al-Nusras wider leadership warned that the United States would effectively be doing the Assad governments bidding by weakening a group on the front line of the counter-Assad fight. The strikes, these officials warned, could backfire on the United States by bolstering the groups standing, helping it attract more recruits and resources.

Officials who supported the shift said the Obama administration could no longer tolerate what one of them described as a deal with the devil, whereby the United States largely held its fire against al-Nusra because the group was popular with Syrians in rebel-controlled areas and furthered the U.S. goal of putting military pressure on Assad. Russia had accused the United States of sheltering al-Nusra, a charge repeated Thursday in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The president doesnt want this group to be what inherits the country if Assad ever does fall, a senior U.S. official said. This cannot be the viable Syrian opposition. Its al-Qaida.

Officials said the administrations hope is that more-moderate rebel factions will be able to gain ground as both Islamic State and al-Nusra come under increased military pressure.

A growing number of White House and State Department officials, however, have privately voiced doubts about the wisdom of applying U.S. military power, even covertly, to pressure Assad to step aside, particularly since Russias military intervention in Syria last year.

U.S. intelligence officials say they arent sure what Trumps approach to U.S.-backed rebel units will be once he gets briefed on the extent of the covert CIA program. Trump has voiced strong skepticism about arming Syrian rebels in the past, suggesting that U.S. intelligence agencies dont have enough knowledge about rebel intentions to pick reliable allies.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and other Pentagon leaders initially resisted the idea of devoting more Pentagon surveillance aircraft and armed drones against al-Nusra. In White House Situation Room meetings, Carter and other top Pentagon officials argued that the militarys resources were needed to combat the Islamic State and that it would be difficult to operate in the airspace given Russias military presence, officials said.

While Obama, White House national security adviser Susan Rice, Secretary of State John Kerry and special presidential envoy Brett McGurk agreed with Carter on the need to keep the focus on the Islamic State, they favored shifting resources to try to prevent al-Nusra from becoming a bigger threat down the road.

A senior defense official said additional drone assets were assigned to the JSOC mission. Carter also made clear that the Pentagons goal would be to hit al-Nusra leadership targets, not take strikes to try to separate the moderate rebels from al-Nusra, officials said.

If we wake up in five years from now, and Islamic State is dead but al-Qaida in Syria has the equivalent of [the tribal areas of Pakistan] in northwest Syria, then weve got a problem, a second senior U.S. official said.

syria-policy
Santa Fe Gold Corp. is on a new buying spree to acquire an array of gold, silver and copper deposits in southern New Mexico.

The company, which entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2015, has reorganized with new management and plans to rebuild, said chief financial officer Frank Mueller.

We lost everything in the bankruptcy, with no assets left, Mueller said. Last May, we came out of that process. Now, were a new company with an old name thats rebuilding with totally new assets.

Since May, the company has acquired 37 claims covering between 60 to 70 acres of mining area that Santa Fe Gold believes has commercial-scale potential to produce gold, silver and copper.

The old company, which began operating in New Mexico in 2004, had acquired former gold and silver mines in Grant County near the Arizona border and in southern New Mexico near Lordsburg. It opened a flotation mill in Lordsburg in 2011 and began producing there with 50 employees. But output was hindered by equipment problems, and the company lacked funds to upgrade its resources. It shut the operation down in fall 2014.

Santa Fe Gold is a penny stock company that still trades on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board. Some old shareholders have re-invested since the company emerged from bankruptcy, allowing Santa Fe Gold to begin acquiring assets again, Mueller said.

Newly acquired assets are scattered in areas near Lordsburg, Deming and Silver City. Once it builds up sufficient holdings, the company will decide whether to reinitiate its own operations or partner with a larger firm with deeper pockets, Mueller said.
Lung cancer, which kills almost 160,000 Americans a year, is among the cruelest of foes. Most patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage, undergo punishing chemotherapy and still have a bleak prognosis. More than half die within a year.

Bit by bit, though, scientists are making progress against the nations biggest cancer killer. Years ago, they began approaching lung cancer as many different diseases rather than a single one. The 15 percent of patients with certain high-risk mutations, for example, today get targeted medications that work better than chemo.

This divide-and-conquer strategy, as one researcher describes it, is poised to make an even bigger advance  one that involves the immunotherapy drug used as part of former president Jimmy Carters successful treatment for advanced melanoma. It could benefit tens of thousands of patients in the United States alone  as many as a third of those diagnosed at a late stage with the most common form of the disease.

The treatment shift stems from a major international trial in which the drug, Keytruda, beat chemo on both effectiveness and safety in patients who have advanced cancer and a high concentration of a specific protein on their tumors. The Food and Drug Administration last month approved Keytruda as a first-line treatment for such cases, the first time immunotherapy has been given the green light as an initial treatment for lung cancer.

The result is that most new patients now will be tested for the protein, called PD-L1. If they have a high level on their cancer cells, theyll receive Keytruda rather than chemo, which is much more debilitating, oncologists say.

We dont want to oversell this, but for someone like me who has worked in the trenches for years, this is a big deal, said Julie Brahmer, who led the clinical trial and is the interim director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. I have had one patient on this [drug] for five years, and she has seen her daughter graduate from high school and college.

Its decidedly good news in a field where gains are excruciatingly hard to come by and funding lags behind that of many other types of cancer. The National Institutes of Health estimated it would spend $362 million on lung-cancer research in fiscal 2016, compared to almost $700 million for breast-cancer research. Yet lung cancer kills four times more people annually.

Because smoking is the main cause, lung cancer carries a stigma among doctors, the public and patients themselves, studies show. Patients are sometimes blamed as being responsible for their disease even though we dont do that to people who are obese or have heart disease or other conditions that may be lifestyle related, said Albert Rizzo, senior medical adviser to the American Lung Association. Nobody deserves to have lung cancer.

The stigma, plus a sense of futility among some physicians, can contribute to the undertreatment of patients with advanced disease. Theres a lot of nihilism among some community oncologists, who say patients do poorly on treatments and may not have much experience with newer treatments, including immunotherapy, Brahmer said. She and others say immunotherapy, though not a cure, offers an alternative for certain patients whose only option had been chemo.

Ten years ago, there was almost nothing for lung cancer, said Giuseppe Giaccone, an oncologist at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and an investigator in the trial. Then we got targeted therapies for small subsets of patients, and now we have this immunotherapy for a larger group. He thinks that scientists are just at the beginning with immunotherapy, with more gains to follow as they learn how to better use it.

Ruzanna Hovanesian, an 81-year-old resident of Glendale, California, is enthusiastic about her treatment. A smoker for 44 years who dropped the habit two decades ago, she was diagnosed in July 2013 with advanced lung cancer. She never received chemo, instead enrolling in an early Keytruda trial that caused only minor side effects, she wrote in an email. Today, she said, I feel very good.

What is most exciting is that this is not an anecdotal response, said Edward Garon, an oncologist at the University of California at Los Angeles who treated Hovanesian and was an investigator in the Keytruda trial. Although patients with results like this are a minority, they are still a significant segment of the patients treated.

In many ways, whats happening in lung cancer is emblematic of the overall field of oncology. Immunotherapy has been approved for several types of cancer, but its ultimate power is not yet clear. In some cancers, like the pancreatic form, it has had little effect. And even in cancers in which it does work, usually only a minority of individuals are helped, and it can cause side effects.

Yet among those patients who do respond, some have what doctors call durable remissions, extending life far beyond the few months that might otherwise have been expected. Because the treatments are so new, researchers say its impossible to know how long such remissions will last. And the cost of such progress is high given Keytrudas $150,000 annual price tag.

In the Keytruda study, 70 percent of the patients who were given the drug, also known as pembrolizumab, were alive at one year, compared with 54 percent of the chemo group, Brahmer said. The median for progression-free survival  the period during which the disease did not get worse  was 10.3 months in the Keytruda group compared with six months in the chemo group. The Keytruda group also experienced significantly fewer serious side effects.

Although the difference might not sound barrier-breaking, it is significant in the research world. An independent monitoring committee was so impressed that it took the unusual step of recommending that the trial be halted early to allow the chemo patients to switch to Keytruda.

The trial also underscored the increasing importance of biomarkers  in this case, PD-L1  in helping physicians decide who is likely to benefit from the new treatments. The study was restricted to patients who had PD-L1 on at least 50 percent of their cancer cells. Almost half of those in the Keytruda group had significant tumor shrinkage, compared with 28 percent in the chemo group.

Researchers say such biomarkers, which indicate the features of particular tumors, could pave the way for individualized immunotherapy. PD-L1 binds to another protein called PD-1, which is located on T cells, a key part of the immune system. When that handshake occurs, it discourages the immune system from attacking the cancer.

Keytruda, made by Merck, is the only immunotherapy drug approved for previously untreated patients with advanced lung cancer. Other immunotherapy medications are approved as second-line therapies.

Bob Schoenbauer, 82, who lives in Waldorf, Maryland, started coughing in late 2013 and months later was diagnosed with inoperable late-stage lung cancer. He was enrolled in a clinical trial at Georgetown in which he was treated simultaneously with chemo and a Genentech immunotherapy drug called Tecentriq. Within four months, his cancer had disappeared.

The chemo was discontinued, but Schoenbauer has opted to stay on the immunotherapy drug, which he and his doctors credit with his continuing remission. Before the treatment, I was coughing my brains out, he said. Now, the ex-smoker walks a few miles a few times a week at a mall.

Researchers say that smokers and ex-smokers seem to benefit more from immunotherapy than nonsmokers. That may be because their cells have many mutations caused by cigarettes, which may make it easier for the immune system, once boosted by a drug, to see and attack the cancer.

The Keytruda trial involved more than 300 people who had advanced non-small-cell lung cancer, the most common form of the disease, but didnt have certain high-risk mutations.

More than 220,000 cases of lung cancer are diagnosed in the United States every year, and about 158,000 people die of the disease. Globally, the World Health Organization says lung cancer kills about 1.6 million people every year.

lung-cancer
KABUL  Thirty-one years ago, the face of an unnamed Afghan girl, her piercing green eyes staring from the cover of National Geographic magazine, captivated the world and drew attention to the plight of millions of refugees who had fled a brutal conflict between Soviet troops and Islamic Afghan militias.

This week, Sharbat Gula, now 45 and a sickly widow with four children, finally came home to a formal welcome by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Having endured years of poverty and illness in a Pakistani refugee camp, she was jailed this month for carrying a false national ID card and deported across the border in the middle of the night.

I welcome you back to the bosom of your motherland, the beaming president told Gula, who sat silent and expressionless in a palace armchair, a peacock-blue burqa pulled back from her face. Ghani held her young son in his lap, then presented her with the key to a furnished family apartment. I have said repeatedly . . . our country will be incomplete until we absorb all our refugees.

The warm ceremony, recorded by a dozen Afghan TV cameras, was an unspoken rebuke to Pakistani officials, who have been cracking down on identity fraud among more than 2 million long-term Afghan refugees as part of a tough new policy to pressure them to return to Afghanistan.

It was also part of a government publicity campaign to entice refugees to come back from Pakistan, although the gift of a new home contrasted with the struggles facing tens of thousands of families who have been pouring into their impoverished, war-torn homeland for the past year. With no jobs or homes, many have crammed into Afghanistans urban slums, though some are being offered small plots of vacant land.

But in many ways, Gulas high-profile homecoming was an awkward and muddled ending to the sad saga of a briefly famous girl who had vanished into the hardscrabble life of an illiterate refugee, married in her mid-teens and grown ill after the death of her husband, finally ending up in the middle of a political and bureaucratic fight between two neighboring Muslim countries over what to do with a large refugee population neither can afford to sustain.

Gula resurfaced once before, when Steve McCurry, the photographer who had taken the 1985 picture for National Geographic, tracked her down in Pakistan in 2002 and discovered the harsh life she was leading. A follow-up portrait on the magazine cover showed her as a glum figure, posing with the original photo and almost unrecognizable except for the same sharp green eyes.

Then, last month, after Pakistani officials discovered that she was using a fake government ID card, Gula was thrust into an even more unwelcome spotlight, charged with fraud and sentenced to two weeks in jail  complete with a police mug shot. Pakistani officials defended her treatment as strictly by the book, but critics in both countries denounced it as a cruel and absurd abuse of a woman known to the world as the Afghan Mona Lisa.

The Pakistani state seems to have sprung into action a little too late, since bigger security threats than a widowed Afghan woman, like Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and (recent Taliban leader) Mullah Mansoor, all seemed to have been found living in Pakistan, blogger Mona Naseer wrote in the Pakistani newspaper the Nation. Arresting those insurgency leaders would have benefitted Pakistan, but (it) instead chose to crack down on the helpless, poor and ill Sharbat Gula.

The arrest of the renowned Afghan woman Sharbat Gula has opened the lid on the inhumane policies of Pakistan towards Afghan refugees, charged the lead editorial in the Afghanistan Times daily newspaper. It is time to bring her back home with dignity.

The matter quickly developed into a full-fledged diplomatic incident. The Afghan ambassador in Pakistan sprang to her defense, and delegations were sent from Kabul to investigate. Gula suffers from hepatitis C, which killed her husband and one of her children, and she was hospitalized in Pakistan while awaiting a court hearing and deportation. In an aside to the drama, one of Pakistans most respected journalists, Rahimullah Yousufzai, was accused of misusing funds McCurry and others had raised to assist Gula and her family; he has denied the claim.

At first, according to news reports in Pakistan, Gula was reluctant to return to Afghanistan after living virtually her whole life in Pakistan, but later changed her mind. The provincial government stepped up and provided medical treatment and child care. Pakistani officials changed their plans repeatedly but finally drove her to the border from the hospital in Peshawar late Tuesday night and handed her over to Afghan officials.

By Wednesday, Gula, who had lived much of her life in a dusty Pakistani refugee camp, was seated stiffly in a brocade armchair in Afghanistans presidential palace, her face downcast as a phalanx of cameramen tried to zoom in for a shot of her iconic green eyes.

Ghani, hugging her and her four children as they were ushered into the room, promised her a life of dignity and security in Afghanistan and praised her for becoming a national hero. The woman who stands next to me became an iconic figure representing Afghan deprivation, hope and aspirations, he said. All of us are inspired by her courage and determination.

Gula mumbled something unintelligible and kept staring at the floor.

afghan-girl
WASHINGTON  President Barack Obama on Thursday asked Congress for $11.6 billion in additional war-related funding, including money to fight Islamic State militants, sustain higher overseas troop levels, and modernize the Afghan militarys helicopter fleet.

The request was sent to lawmakers for consideration during the lame-duck session that starts next week. Its evenly divided between the Pentagon and the State Department and foreign aid accounts related to battling IS.

In addition to enhancing our effort to defeat ISIL, this plan would fund the presidents decision to adjust our troop levels to better support the Afghan governments strategy to secure its nation, and would help enhance Afghanistans aviation capability, said Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Swift passage of this plan will help the Department of Defense and our partners in the U.S. government and around the world protect this nation.

The requests fate in the coming weeks is uncertain. Its not clear what Republicans controlling Congress want to do about a raft of unfinished spending bills now that Donald Trump has won the White House.

While top Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., want to clear away the unfinished budget work  and avoid cluttering the Trump agenda with this years leftovers  many conservatives hope to win better outcomes next year with Trump in the White House. At the very least, however, Congress must pass a temporary spending bill to avert a government shutdown next month, which would give lawmakers and the new administration time to hash out a final accord on more than $1 trillion in unfinished bills to fund agency operating budgets.

Before the election, Democrats promised they would try to play a strong hand against GOP moves to beef up the defense budget without comparable treatment for domestic programs. The White House and congressional Democrats insist that additional defense dollars be matched with increases for non-defense programs, and pairing the upcoming Pentagon request with non-defense items that would still fit under the umbrella of security costs could free up money for domestic programs elsewhere.

The military portion includes $2.5 billion to maintain elevated U.S. troops levels of 8,400 in Afghanistan as announced over the summer. About $383 million would pay for air strikes against IS. The request would mean a total of $85 billion in war-related funding for the budget year that started in October.

The $5.8 billion portion of the request for the State Department and the Agency for International Development would help stabilize areas of Iraq that have been reclaimed for the militants, remove unexploded bombs and increase aid for Somalia, among other purposes.

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said the request was not enough since it does not accommodate the increased pace of operations against ISIL and does nothing to begin addressing the readiness crisis.
We can help you make sense of the agribusiness industry, extending from chemicals and fertilizers used as inputs into agriculture, to the commodities, food and by-products that are an output to farming, with policy and regulation applied at every step of the value chain.
Sydney-based private equity house Wattle Hill RHC funds has reportedly well on the way to its $300m target for its debut fund spanning Australia and China.

The firm has collected $200m for a first close of the Australian dollar-denominated vehicle according to AVCJ, which said a final close was expected next year.

Wattle Hill said it secured the close thanks to the backing of one of the worlds largest insurance groups from Europe, one of the largest privately-owned insurance companies in China, as well as Chinas largest direct e-commerce player.

The firm, which also has offices in Hong Kong and Beijing, invests in Australian and New Zealand companies which offer products and services in demand by Chinese consumers, as well as leading Australian enterprises that will benefit from Chinas economic growth and development.

It was founded by Albert Tse, former legal representative of Macquarie in Beijing and Shanghai Last month Wattle Hill took a stake in Australian ginger producer Buderim Group alongside QiaQia Food, which saw $20m invested in the business.
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Published On Nov 10, 2016 02:07 PM By Tushar

The facility will cater to the product development needs of the Asia Pacific, Middle East & African regions

Apollo Tyres has officially inaugurated a global research and development centre in Chennai. This is the companys 2nd such facility, after the European Global R&D Centre located in the Netherlands, which has been operational since 2013. Each centre caters to region-specific needs.

The unit in Europe is manned by a team of more than 150 employees and its services are provided to European and American regions. The R&D centre in India has an employee strength of over 140 people and it services the product development needs of the Asia Pacific, Middle East & African regions.

Besides the two global R&D centres, Apollo Tyres has also set up two satellite R&D centres in Bengaluru and Germany. The advanced engineering centre in Bengaluru is working towards integrating electronics into tyre technology, while the one in Raunheim (Frankfurt), Germany, works towards establishing ties with leading German original equipment manufacturers (OEM) for both the Apollo and Vredestein (car tyre) brands.

In conversation with reporters at the inauguration of the new facility, the brand also revealed plans to set up a new manufacturing facility in Andhra Pradesh, which is expected to be built with an investment of around Rs 500 crore. The new plant would be utilized to produce two-wheeler and pickup tyres, though an exact timeline for its operations will be clear at a later stage. The brand already has a production plant located in Oragadam, Chennai, which employs around 1,600 people.
Charities in Scotland will not have to use the Fundraising Preference Service even when calling people based in England and Wales, according to a statement released this week.

The FPS is a system which will allow donors to opt out of all charity communications from large charities in England and Wales. It is likely to launch next year and will be administered by the Fundraising Regulator, the new regulator set up to regulate fundraising in England and Wales.

Charity regulation in Scotland is devolved, and a working group led by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations decided that the remit of the Fundraising Regulator would not extend to Scotland.

Now the Scottish Fundraising Implementation Group  responsible for carrying out the working groups decisions  has issued a statement which formally confirms that, as expected, the FPS will not apply to Scottish charities, even if they call donors in England and Wales.

In the Scottish Fundraising Working Groups consultation on a new system of fundraising regulation in Scotland in the Spring of 2016, there was generally support for the stated aims of the FPS, the statement said. However, charities in Scotland were not convinced that it offered anything over the current legal requirements.

The UK Information Commissioner noted that the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the UK Parliament was not persuaded of the case for a new Fundraising Preference Service, concluding it would duplicate the function of the existing Telephone Preference Service and add limitations to the activity of charities that do not exist for any other sector.

The Scottish Fundraising Implementation Group is therefore recommending to charities in Scotland that they do not need to screen against the FPS.

The move leaves large gaps in FPS coverage. Smaller fundraising charities in England have also been told they will not need to check their campaigns against the FPS. Questions have also been raised about whether charities have the necessary technology to comply with the FPS.

Ten complaints

The working group also said it had so far received ten complaints about Scottish fundraising. Two have been forwarded to OSCR, the Scottish charity regulator.
The Wildlife Trusts is this years charity partner for the John Lewis Christmas campaign, with 10 per cent of the sale of the soft toys featured in the advert set to be donated to the charity.

John Lewis launched its much-anticipated festive advert this morning, featuring Buster the Boxer and some woodland friends who get excited about the arrival of a trampoline, and 10 per cent of the cost of ten products connected to characters in the advert will go to the charity.

The Wildlife Trusts is a federated body of 47 individual trusts covering the UK. They work to improve the environment and collectively have more than 800,000 members.

Previous John Lewis charity partners have included Age UK, WWF and Action on Hearing Loss.

John Lewis has not set any targets for what it expects to raise. The sums from previous partnerships have also not been disclosed, although when a penguin was the main character in the retailers advert two years ago, WWF saw penguin adoptions increase by 250 per cent.
Today Im attending one of my favorite events of the year, INBOUND in Boston, and I attended a session that inspired to me to write a blog about how to better connect Sales and Marketing in your Credit Unions.

Melissa Miller, Marketing Team Operations Leader from HubSpot, presented on how to set up a Service Level Agreement to better connect your marketing leads with your sales/member service team. This tends to be a huge challege we see many of our Credit Union clients facing.

Here are some great highlights from the presentation you might find useful:

Think of the relationship between Sales and Marketing as a marriage. It takes constant communication, compromise, and give and take.

What is a Service Level Agreement (SLA)?

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a formal commitment between a service provider and the end user. An SLA defines exactly what the end user will receive.
Scientists have discovered human leprosy in British red squirrels, uncovering one leprosy-driving bacterial strain, in particular, that is similar to that responsible for outbreaks of the disease in medieval Europe. The researchers say their findings suggest squirrels have been a reservoir for these ancient bacteria for decades, though they stress that the chances of people catching the disease from the animals are low. Leprosy, now largely confined to developing nations, has been thought to be exclusively transmitted in humans, mainly because scientists have failed to culture the bacteria in animals. Here, as part of efforts to further understand incidences of dwindling red squirrel numbers in the U.K., Charlotte Avanzi and colleagues examined more than 100 red squirrel cadavers from the U.K., Ireland and Scotland with genetic screening and blood serum tests, looking for different strains of leprosy-driving bacteria. All 25 red squirrels tested from the U.K.'s Brownsea Island were infected with M. leprae, the oldest pathogen associated with leprosy. Finding M. leprae in squirrels in this region was unexpected, the authors say, because leprosy was eradicated from the British Isles several centuries ago, thus demonstrating that a pathogen can persist in the environment long after its clearance from the human reservoir. Some of the squirrels studied also harbored Mycobacterium lepromatosis, a recently discovered, severely debilitating form of leprosy. The squirrel M. lepromatosis strain from the British Isles diverged from a similar human strain previously found in Mexico about 27,000 years ago, the authors say. The high level of infection that Avanzi and colleagues uncovered in squirrels may be working against efforts to eradicate the disease in humans; therefore, it will be critical to track other occurrences of this stubborn disease in animals, the authors say. A Perspective by Timothy P. Stinear and Roland Brosch lends more insight into the implications of leprosy in animals.

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There is an assumption that following up people with symptoms which are low risk but no risk of cancer will improve cancer pick up. But experts writing in The BMJ today say that we do not know whether this approach works. Nor, do we understand the best way to do it.

Patients visit their doctor every day about symptoms that could be cancer. Some will have easily recognised high risk symptoms such as difficulty swallowing (dysphagia) or coughing up blood (haemoptysis). But most will have vague or non-specific symptoms like cough, fatigue, or abdominal pain, where the likelihood of cancer is low.

Faced with this uncertainty, doctors have a responsibility to avoid causing unnecessary alarm and wasting scarce resources through over-investigation, which may result in harm to the patient. But this must be balanced with the potential harm of delaying a diagnosis of serious disease.

Safety netting is regarded as "best practice" for cancer diagnosis - allowing doctors to tease out serious disease by following up patients over time, for example by asking them to come back if the symptom hasn't resolved, or to watch out for new symptoms.

So Dr Brian Nicholson and colleagues at the University of Oxford searched for evidence on whether and how safety netting can be done effectively as part of a project funded by Cancer Research UK.

They found little evidence on whether it improves cancer detection. They found some evidence on how best to do it in patients with vague symptoms.

They discuss three main issues: the necessary components of safety netting, the roles of patient and doctor, and the problems arising from miscommunication or misinterpretation of initial test results.

Based on this evidence, the authors recommend ways that doctors and patients can work together to safety net more productively. Doctors should explain uncertainty about the cause of symptoms with patients, and ensure that they understand why, when and with who they should re-consult about which concerning symptoms.

Healthcare organisations should also have systems in place to ensure that test results are reviewed by somebody with knowledge of cancer guidelines, and that positive and negative results are communicated to the patient promptly.

Although the evidence base is uncertain, safety netting remains the best option, and is likely better than nothing," say the authors. "It is important that patients continue to visit their doctor until their symptoms are explained. We know that doctors are safety netting every day to keep their patients safe. By conducting research on safety netting we will be able to understand which safety netting messages and systems are effective."

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Practice: Can safety netting improve cancer detection in patients with vague symptoms http://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5515

About BMJ

BMJ is a healthcare knowledge provider that aims to advance healthcare worldwide by sharing knowledge and expertise to improve experiences, outcomes and value. For a full list of BMJ products and services, please visit bmj.com
Baltimore, MD--A first-of-its-kind study on almost 20,000 K-12 underrepresented public school students shows that Project BioEYES, based at Carnegie's Department of Embryology, is effective at increasing students' science knowledge and positive attitudes about science. Younger students had the greatest attitude changes. The study covered five years and tested students before and after the one-week BioEYES program. The research is published in the November 10, 2016, issue of PLOS Biology.

BioEYES uses live zebrafish to teach basic scientific principles, animal development, and genetics. The zebrafish embryo is clear, making it ideal for observations. Each BioEYES Center reflects a partnership between local educators, school districts, and cutting-edge scientific laboratories like that of Steve Farber, co-founder of the program.

This collaboration empowers the students to approach science just as a professional scientist would. The program provides scientific equipment and teaches concepts that are relevant to students' lives. In this case, inner-city students learn about the inheritance of skin color from a biological perspective.

Over the course of a week, students collect zebrafish embryos and watch them develop from a single cell to a swimming larva complete with a beating heart and a distinct pigmentation pattern. Elementary students learn about human and fish anatomy, habitats, cells, and DNA. Older students identify the observable traits of their zebrafish offspring (middle school) or delve into the ways modern scientists determine the genetic makeup of parents by studying their offspring (high school). At week's end, students analyze these data and discuss their results with their fellow students, much the way real scientists do.

For the five-year study (2010-2015) reported in PLOS Biology, the BioEYES team assessed students and teachers before and after a weeklong experiment. They asked students to answer knowledge-based questions as well as questions about their attitudes toward science and scientific careers. Following a BioEYES experience, all grade levels showed significant positive gains in learning. Seven of the eight knowledge questions had significant positive gains for elementary students. At the middle school level, eight of the nine knowledge questions had significant positive gains. Some middle school questions that showed the greatest gains involved concepts in genetics with changes from 72 - 87% depending on the question. The high school questions with the greatest gains were about characteristics of model organisms with a 64% change and stem cells with a 56% change.

Interestingly, for all grade levels BioEYES increased students' ability to imagine themselves as scientists. The largest effect on attitudes occurred at the elementary school level--six out of eleven statements showed significant positive changes. Among all grade levels, the strongest attitude shift was in the statement, "I know what it's like to be a scientist."

The second largest attitude change observed in elementary and high school grades, and the third largest in middle school, was an increase in agreement with the statement, "Science is becoming more popular than it used to be."

Co-founder Farber remarked, "We think educators can leverage this finding in a big way. We think this result shows that BioEYES was fun and engaging for everyone in the class. We know how important popularity is to the social lives of kids. So if the science experience is fun, engaging, and popular, more underserved students could be attracted to the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields."

Farber started BioEYES with educator Jamie Shuda at the University of Pennsylvania and brought BioEYES to Carnegie in 2007. Some 100,000 students have participated in the outreach effort. Additionally, some 1,300 teachers in six states and two countries (the U.S. and Australia) have been trained to teach the course.

"It turns out that our efforts in training teachers have made a huge impact," Farber said. "We see that the program increases their confidence to create innovative and engaging science lessons, which affects many more students beyond BioEYES. Using BioEYES to reach a large population of underserved students can help spark their interest in research and hopefully encourage them to explore college and other STEM career options. While much of time I am exploring questions relating to how cells process fats and related molecules, I feel immensely lucky to have created a program that has reached so many and to be part of an institution like Carnegie that takes seriously its role in inspiring the next generation of STEM leaders."

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BioEYES is a joint effort between the Carnegie Institution for Science and the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. Additional centers are located at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Utah, and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. The program is funded by grants and gifts with help from the Carnegie Institution's endowment. A complete list of sponsors can be found at the project's website http://www.bioeyes.org/index.php

The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegiescience.edu) is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 10, 2016--Leaders in hybrid accelerated high-performance computing (HPC) in the United States (U.S.), Japan, and Switzerland have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) establishing an international institute dedicated to common goals, the sharing of HPC expertise, and forward-thinking evaluation of computing architecture.

The MOU authorizes the creation of the Accelerated Data Analytics and Computing (ADAC) institute to support collaborative projects and programs that bridge the respective HPC missions of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETH Zurich). All three organizations manage HPC centers that run large, GPU-accelerated supercomputers and provide key HPC capabilities to academia, government, and industry to solve many of the world's most complex and pressing scientific problems.

"Forecasting the future of leadership-class computing and managing the risk of architectural change is a shared interest among ORNL, Tokyo Tech, and ETH Zurich," said Jeff Nichols, associate laboratory director of computing and computational sciences at ORNL. "What unites our three organizations is a willingness to embrace change, actively partner with HPC vendors, and devise solutions that advance the work of our scientific users. ADAC provides a framework for member organizations to pursue mutual interests such as accelerated node architectures as computing moves toward the exascale era and beyond."

ADAC will focus on multiple objectives spanning performance, hardware, and applications, including:

Adapting important scientific and engineering applications to hybrid accelerated architectures.

Partnering with HPC vendors to evaluate architecture diversity.

Enabling collaborative scientific efforts in hybrid accelerated data and compute.

Ensuring sustainability and portability of critical applications.

Sharing best practices regarding the operation, management, and procurement of HPC resources.

The institute lays the groundwork for more focused collaboration centered around three inaugural technical areas--applications, performance, and resource management. Designated representatives from each member institution serve as the leads in these areas.

"ADAC is unique in that while all of these research centers compete on some level, the challenges we face are very similar. From application development to fully utilizing novel architectures, we can better evolve toward the exascale by sharing our problems and solutions," said Satoshi Matsuoka of the Global Scientific Information and Computing Center at Tokyo Tech, adding that the initial three-member collaboration could grow to include other institutions in the future.

Thomas Schulthess, of the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) at ETH Zurich, echoed Nichols' and Satoshi's sentiment: "ADAC is an acknowledgement that, despite the myriad accomplishments in accelerated computing, significant challenges remain. These challenges require collaboration across the HPC spectrum in order for our users to continue to push the frontiers of science, and, by extension, computing."

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory is home to the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the DOE's Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the U.S., and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov/.

Image: https://www.ornl.gov/sites/default/files/news/images/adac_photo%5B2%5D.jpg

Caption: ADAC members from ORNL, ETH Zurich and Tokyo Tech gathered in Lugano, Switzerland for a workshop earlier this year.

NOTE TO EDITORS: You may read other press releases from Oak Ridge National Laboratory or learn more about the lab at http://www.ornl.gov/news. Additional information about ORNL is available at the sites below:

Twitter - http://twitter.com/ornl

RSS Feeds - http://www.ornl.gov/ornlhome/rss_feeds.shtml

Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/oakridgelab

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LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/companies/oak-ridge-national-laboratory

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Students living in rural counties are 1.25 times more likely to be obese than city-dwellers

DURHAM, N.C. -- North Carolina children who live in rural counties or attend high poverty schools are more likely to be obese, a newly published study finds.

The research, available online this week in the Journal of School Health, analyzed Body Mass Index data from 74,665 third through fifth grade students from 317 urban and rural schools. The researchers looked at whether the socioeconomic and racial composition of a school affected the likelihood of children being obese.

Overall, 20 percent of the students in the study were obese, a somewhat higher rate than among their peers nationally. However, students living in a rural county were 1.25 times more likely to be obese than their urban counterparts, even when researchers accounted for the county's socioeconomic and racial composition. Obesity was defined as having a Body Mass Index at or above the 95th percentile for students of the same age and sex.

"There are a lot of unique features in rural areas that could lead to higher levels of obesity," said Joy Piontak, a research analyst at Duke University's Center for Child and Family Policy who co-authored the article with Michael D. Schulman, a professor at N.C. State University. "Food insecurity, poverty, the inability to recover from economic recession or a lack of access to grocers could all potentially affect obesity rates."

Researchers also found that a student who attends a high-poverty school is 1.5 times more likely to be obese than a student attending a low-poverty school.

Higher rates of obesity were also found in schools with a high minority population. However, once researchers took into account whether the schools had high levels of poverty, it became clear that poverty, not race, was driving the outcome.

The researchers said public school initiatives could hold the key to lowering obesity rates in both rural areas and schools with higher rates of poverty.

"We should look at interventions in schools and not just target individual kids," Piontak said. "We can teach a kid how to eat better or exercise more, but if we know that particular schools or places are more likely to have higher rates of obesity, we can look at the food or the types of physical education opportunities available there."

Piontak said more research is needed to understand differences in urban and rural obesity rates.

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Schulman's work was supported by USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch Project and by the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service.

CITATION: "School Context Matters: The Impacts of Concentrated Poverty and Racial Segregation on Childhood Obesity," Joy R. Piontak and Michael D. Schulman. Journal of School Health, December 2016. DOI: 10.1111/josh.12458
Microbiologists at EPFL and the University of Edinburgh have discovered that red squirrels in Britain and Ireland carry the two bacterial species that cause leprosy in humans.

Once rampant in medieval Europe, leprosy dramatically declined by the end of the Middle Ages for reasons that are still unclear. About a century ago, leprosy in Europe virtually disappeared, at least among humans. Examining diseased red squirrels from England, Ireland, and Scotland, scientists at EPFL and the University of Edinburgh have now discovered that the same bacteria that cause leprosy in humans also infect red squirrels. The work is published in Science.

Leprosy is an infectious disease that mainly affects the skin, peripheral nerves, the upper respiratory tract, and the eyes. It is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and the recently discovered Mycobacterium lepromatosis. One of the most ancient diseases, leprosy has had an enormous social impact across multiple cultures throughout history. Largely controlled today thanks to antibiotics, there are still over 200,000 new cases of leprosy reported each year worldwide.

A little-known fact is that leprosy also affects animals, such as armadillos, which have reportedly caused a few cases of animal-to-human (or "zoonotic") infections. Drawing from this evidence, the labs of Stewart Cole at EPFL and Anna Meredith at the University of Edinburgh carried out DNA tests on 110 red squirrels from England, Scotland, and Ireland. Some of these animals showed clinical symptoms of leprosy, while others did not; nonetheless, most were found to be infected with leprosy bacteria.

Surprisingly, red squirrels from Brownsea Island, off the south coast of England, were infected with a strain of M. leprae that is closely related to one found in a skeleton of a leprosy victim that was buried in Winchester 730 years ago, just 70 km from Brownsea Island.

On the other hand, red squirrels from Scotland and Ireland and the Isle of Wight (South England) were found to be infected with the other leprosy bacterium, M. lepromatosis. This species causes leprosy in humans in Mexico, and further analysis showed that the two strains from Mexico and Europe diverged from a common ancestor around 27,000 years ago.

"It was completely unexpected to see that centuries after its elimination from humans in the UK M. leprae causes disease in red squirrels," says Stewart Cole. "This has never been observed before."

The study shows how a pathogen can remain undetected in the environment even hundreds of years after it has been cleared from the human population. "The discovery of leprosy in red squirrels is worrying from a conservation perspective but shouldn't raise concerns for people in the UK," says Anna Meredith. "We need to understand how and why the disease is acquired and transmitted among red squirrels so that we can better manage the disease in this iconic species."

But is there a danger to humans? "There is no reason for panic," says Andrej Benjak, one of the paper's lead authors. "Autochthonous leprosy has not been detected in the UK in decades, though we cannot exclude the possibility of rare, unreported or misdiagnosed cases that originated within the UK." He suggests increasing efforts to monitor the disease, as part of the WHO's global Leprosy Surveillance Programme, where there is still room for improvement.

"The next logical step after this study is to check the red squirrel population outside the British Isles, and that includes Switzerland," says Benjak. "Even if there is leprosy in red squirrels in continental Europe, the risk of transmission to people is generally low because of their limited contact with humans, and hunting red squirrels is forbidden in most European countries."

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This work was supported by grants to S.T.C. from the Fondation Raoul Follereau, the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Thomas O'Hanlon Memorial Award in Veterinary Medicine.

Reference

Charlotte Avanzi, Jorge del-Pozo, Andrej Benjak, Karen Stevenson, Victor R. Simpson, Philippe Busso, Joyce McLuckie, Chloe Loiseau, Colin Lawton, Janne Schoening, Darren J. Shaw, Jeremie Piton, Lucio Vera-Cabrera, Jesus S. Velarde-Felix, Fergal McDermott, Stephen V. Gordon, Stewart T. Cole, Anna L. Meredith. Red squirrels in the British Isles are infected with leprosy bacilli. Science 11 November 2016. DOI: 10.1126/science.aah3783
Water and aqueous solutions can behave strangely under pressure. Experiments carried out at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences using Raman spectroscopy and a diamond anvil cell showed that magnesium sulfate dissolved in water was separated less than expected in magnesium and sulfate ions above a pressure of 0.2 Gigapascal, which equals 2,000 times the normal air pressure. Moreover, ion pairing even increased with pressure above about 0.5 Gigapascal.

This is the opposite of the predicted trend that salt solutions become more dissociated with increasing pressure. However, the previously unknown anomaly was only observed at comparably low temperatures. Already at 50 C, the solutions behaved as expected. "That's why this effect does not occur in the Earth's interior", says Christian Schmidt of the GFZ, "as the pressure in our oceans is not high enough even in the deep-sea trenches, and the temperature is too high in the Earth's crust and mantle."

Still, the anomaly is relevant for studies on cold planetary bodies with deep oceans. Christian Schmidt and Craig Manning of the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) published their findings in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters.

Their results may help in studies of the oceans that are probably hidden under thick icy shells in Pluto and in the moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Titan. It is very likely that magnesium sulfate is the major or among the most abundant solutes in these oceans, because it is generated by weathering of magnesium silicates in ocean floors. If more ion pairs form, magnesium silicate weathering is enhanced. "This means that the oceans in these icy worlds are probably saltier than currently thought", says Christian Schmidt. As the ion concentration determines the electrical conductivity of aqueous solutions, the finding will help to better interpret magnetometric data obtained by spacecrafts.

The experiments were carried out at the GFZ's section "Chemistry and Physics of Earth Materials". The scientists explain the observed anomaly with a change in the dynamic structure of water that is generated by hydrogen bonds between water molecules.

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Title of the study: Pressure-induced ion pairing in MgSO4 solutions: Implications for the oceans of icy worlds by C. Schmidt and C.E. Manning in Geochemical Perspective Letters ; DOI: 10.7185/geochemlet.1707

Link: http://www.geochemicalperspectivesletters.org/documents/GPL1707_noSI.pdf
MOUNT PLEASANT  A Racine man is facing burglary charges after his wife reportedly found it suspicious when he brought home two guns over the summer.

Hanief D. Young, 43, of the 1900 block of Washington Avenue, is accused of taking two .38 caliber revolvers and $1,000 in cash from a business in the 2700 block of Sheridan Road in Mount Pleasant.

According to the criminal complaint:

An employee of an area transport company reported the burglary on Aug. 9 after allegedly finding a broken window at the business and two guns and money missing.

Young's wife reportedly later called police to report that her husband had brought two guns and money to their motel room. She described the guns as "antique" and that one of them had a cylinder, the complaint said.

Young was charged Wednesday with two felonies for burglary of a building or dwelling and possession of a firearm by a felon. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 16 at the Racine County Law Enforcement Center, 717 Wisconsin Ave.

Court records did not indicate a reason for the time lapse between when the incident was reported and charges being filed.

Young remained in custody as of Wednesday at the Racine County Jail, online records showed.
The dramatic decline of Iran's Lake Urmia--once the second-largest hypersaline lake in the world--has both direct human and climatic causes, according to a new study published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research. The study was the first to compare the relative impact of climate and water management on the water flowing into the lake.

"Saving Lake Urmia will require both national action to improve water management, and international cooperation to address the issue of climate change," says IIASA and Wageningen University researcher Somayeh Shadkam, who led the study.

Lake Urmia was once the world's second-largest hypersaline lake, but has declined over 80% in recent decades. Previous work by Shadkam and colleagues had shown that climate change threatens the lake's existence, using future scenarios of climate change to project water inflow into the lake. The new study aims to better understand the causes of the lake's decline, teasing out the relative contribution of different factors such as human water usage as well as climate-related variables, using 50 years of data from 1960 to 2010.

The annual flow of water into Lake Urmia dropped by 48% over the study period. Using a model of water flow into the lake, the researchers found that 60% of this decline was caused by climate changes, such as change in precipitation and temperature, and that the remaining 40% of the decline could be attributed to water resources development, such as diverting water for irrigation that would otherwise flow into the lake.

Most previous studies have indicated the dominate role of water usage in changes in the lake surface area. The new study clear indicates that climate change and variability has contributed to the lake desiccation. That means that reduces water use without taking change in the climate into account might be insufficient in saving the lake.

"Water resources and climate change are inextricably interlinked," says IIASA Director General and CEO Professor Dr. Pavel Kabat, a coauthor on the study. "This is just one area where an integrated systems viewpoint is vital for providing sound advice to policymakers trying to solve such pressing issues."

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Reference

Shadkam, S, Ludwig F, van Oel P, Kirmit C, Kabat P (2016). Impacts of climate change and water resources development on the declining inflow into Iran's Urmia Lake. Journal of Great Lakes Research, http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/13926/
There are two types of liquid water, according to research carried out by an international scientific collaboration. This new peculiarity adds to the growing list of strange phenomena in what we imagine is a simple substance. The discovery could have implications for making and using nanoparticles as well as in understanding how proteins fold into their working shape in the body or misfold to cause diseases such as Alzheimer's or CJD.

Writing in the International Journal of Nanotechnology, Oxford University's Laura Maestro and her colleagues in Italy, Mexico, Spain and the USA, explain how the physical and chemical properties of water have been studied for more than a century and revealed some odd behavior not seen in other substances. For instance, when water freezes it expands. By contrast, almost every other known substance contracts when it is cooled. Water also exists as solid, liquid and gas within a very small temperature range (100 degrees Celsius) whereas the melting and boiling points of most other compounds span a much greater range.

Many of water's bizarre properties are due to the molecule's ability to form short-lived connections with each other known as hydrogen bonds. There is a residual positive charge on the hydrogen atoms in the V-shaped water molecule either or both of which can form such bonds with the negative electrons on the oxygen atom at the point of the V. This makes fleeting networks in water possible that are frozen in place when the liquid solidifies. They bonds are so short-lived that they do not endow the liquid with any structure or memory, of course.

The team has looked closely at several physical properties of water like its dielectric constant (how well an electric field can permeate a substance) or the proton-spin lattice relaxation (the process by which the magnetic moments of the hydrogen atoms in water can lose energy having been excited to a higher level). They have found that these phenomena seem to flip between two particular characters at around 50 degrees Celsius, give or take 10 degrees, i.e. from 40 to 60 degrees Celsius. The effect is that thermal expansion, speed of sound and other phenomena switch between two different states at this crossover temperature.

These two states could have important implications for studying and using nanoparticles where the character of water at the molecule level becomes important for the thermal and optical properties of such particles. Gold and silver nanoparticles are used in nanomedicine for diagnostics and as antibacterial agents, for instance. Moreover, the preliminary findings suggest that the structure of liquid water can strongly influence the stability of proteins and how they are denatured at the crossover temperature, which may well have implications for understanding protein processing in the food industry but also in understanding how disease arises when proteins misfold.

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Maestro, L.M., Marques, M.I., Camarillo, E., Jaque, D., Garcia Sole, J., Gonzalo, J.A., Jaque, F., del Valle, J.C., Mallamace, F. and Stanley, H.E. (2016) 'On the existence of two states in liquid water: impact on biological and nanoscopic systems', Int. J. Nanotechnol., Vol. 13, Nos. 8/9, pp.667-677.
A program that brings live fish into classrooms to teach the fundamentals of biology not only helps students learn, but improves their attitudes about science, a new study finds.

The study of nearly 20,000 K-12 students, who raised zebrafish from embryos over the course of a week, found that kids at all grade levels showed significant learning gains. They also responded more positively to statements such as "I know what it's like to be a scientist." The results, to be published by the journal PLOS Biology, suggest that an immersive experience with a living creature can be a particularly successful strategy to engage young people in science, technology, engineering and math.

Co-author Steven A. Farber is a biologist who is a principal investigator at the Carnegie Institution for Science and a Johns Hopkins University adjunct associate professor in the Department of Biology and in the School of Education. He founded BioEYES in 2002 with co-author Jamie R. Shuda, director of life science education at the University of Pennsylvania and an adjunct associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. Intended to reach low-income schools with students who are primarily from underrepresented minorities, BioEYES is now a partnership between the Carnegie Institution and Johns Hopkins that has worked with 100,000 students in Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities.

During the course, students collect zebrafish embryos and watch them develop from single cells to swimming larvae complete with beating hearts and distinct pigmentation. Elementary students learn about human and fish anatomy, habitats, cells, and DNA. Middle school students identify observable traits of zebrafish offspring, and, in high school, students learn how scientists determine the genetic makeup of parents by studying their offspring. By the end of the week, all students are analyzing data and discussing results like real scientists.

"The kids can't wait for a chance to look at their fish - they're natural scientists," Farber said. "They're so focused on the experiments, it doesn't feel like school."

The authors analyzed the performance of 19,463 students who participated in BioEYES from 2010 to 2015. Before and after the program, students were asked knowledge-based questions and questions to assess their attitude about science.

After experiencing BioEYES, elementary school students improved their knowledge of scientific concepts covered in the program 48 percent, while middle school scores and high school scores rose 27 percent.

The results suggest students are particularly able to grasp concepts - even complex ones - when they're delivered through an authentic, hands-on experience, the authors say. Farber also says the chance to work with live animals -- fish that swim, mate and grow right before their eyes -- focuses children's attention in a way a book lesson can't.

After the program, students were more positive about who scientists are, the importance of science and the popularity of science. The attitudes of elementary students changed the most, with improvement in six of 11 statements.

The statement that generated the most positive change for all of the students was, "I know what it's like to be a scientist."

"We're showing that BioEYES allows children to imagine themselves as scientists and that's really important for us," Farber says. "We're changing attitudes and developing a more STEM literate citizenry."

BioEYES operates in 104 schools in the United States and 25 in Australia. In Baltimore, the program runs in 45 schools (36 of them Baltimore City public schools), reaching more than 4,000 students a year. The program is taught by classroom teachers who train alongside educators from the Carnegie Institution and universities, as well as by "model teachers" who train with BioEYES staff for three years before running the program on their own.

At Baltimore's Thomas Jefferson Elementary Middle, third-grade students who were given male and female zebrafish one day this fall were amazed, just 24 hours later, to see embryos form, and thrilled to observe the growing life forms under a microscope.

"You see a whole different side of them when they're learning something that's real," said Kelley Taylor, their teacher. "I have some bright students in here, and they are definitely making the connection that scientists are changing people's lives."

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Co-authors of the paper include Valerie G. Butler, BioEYES program manager, and Robert Vary, BioEYES outreach educator.
Olga Vinogradova, Professor at the Faculty of Physics, the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Director of laboratory at the Frumkin Institute of Physical chemistry and Electrochemistry (the Russian Academy of Sciences), together with Salim Maduar, a junior researcher of her group, being a part of an international scientific team, have suggested a new method of manipulation of microparticles at solid-liquid interface in water. The research has been published in Scientific Reports -- a journal of Nature Publishing Group.

Scientists have suggested a method, based on addition of a photoresponsive surfactant into water. Illumination of this surfactant with laser light results in a formation of fast waterflows moving particles. This allows one to manipulate particles, for instance, clean surfaces from contaminations without any risk of damaging. On the contrary, it allows one also to gather or pattern a micro- and nanoparticle assembly of necessary configuration and size at a solid-liquid interface.

The key component of the proposed method is a photosensitive surfactant, which can change its conformation under illumination of light of appropriate wavelength. In one situation it looks like a rod, in another - like a tick. If you illuminate a solution of such a surfactant, you'll see that molecules inside a light spot will change conformation and the system will generate concentration gradients of "rods" and "ticks".

Theoretical physicists from Moscow have explained that concentration gradients near charged solid-liquid interface lead to an unusual phenomenon - a diffusio-osmotic flow, which allows one to manipulate particles at a solid-liquid interface. The authors have shown that if you select laser wavelength correctly, you could make particles move in the required direction - to remove them out from the light spot or, in contrast, gather towards its center. Scientists have succeded to describe the system theoretically, what has allowed, in its turn, to optimize conditions providing a highest liquid velocity. It was found that diffusio-osmotic flow is very sensitive to whether water is salty or pure. In the last case the velocity could increase in several times.

In spite of the fact that the initial aim of the new method was soft cleaning of surfaces, such as semiconducting crystals for microelectronics, scientists have also found several unusual applications. For instance, moving a laser spot, you could "draw" on the surface, as laser will leave a visible trace with enhanced or, oppositely, decreased concentration of microparticles. In the original article authors also show photos and videos, where the logo of the University of Potsdam, a "happy man" and a "heart" shaped pattern - all made of microparticles by lateral repositioning the laser spotacross the solid liquid interface.

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Chimpanzees often use tools to extract or consume food but which tools they choose for which purpose can differ depending on where they live. In 2010, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, initiated the 'Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee' to characterize and understand the differences in chimpanzee behaviours in un- and poorly studied ape populations across Africa. This is how the researchers encountered a new behavioural variant: Algae fishing with long robust tools at a temporary research site in Bakoun, Guinea.

Chimpanzees have been studied for almost 60 years at a few long-term field sites which have been fundamental for providing insights into natural chimpanzee behavior and most importantly into the differences between populations. However, the true behavioral repertoire of chimpanzees is under represented by these long-term sites alone. Therefore, to better understand the ecological and evolutionary drivers of behavioral diversification in chimpanzees, researchers of the Department of Primatology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology initiated the 'Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee' (PanAf). Since 2010, while following a unique standardized protocol, data on chimpanzee behavior, demography and resource availability have been collected from over 40 different temporary research sites across Africa. "The PanAf project represents a new approach to studying chimpanzees and will provide many interesting insights into chimpanzee demography and social structure, genetics, behavior and culture", says Hjalmar Kuehl of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research. "The PanAf is only possible due to the numerous collaborations with chimpanzee researchers, field workers and national wildlife authorities in 15 countries across Africa". Earlier this year, the collaborative network of researchers published a paper detailing a newly observed 'chimpanzee accumulative stone throwing' behavior.

Since chimpanzees are not habituated to human presence at the PanAf sites, the researchers rely on a wide spectrum of non-invasive sampling methods, including remote camera traps. After discovering conspicuous sticks along some of the rivers and ponds in Bakoun, PanAf site manager Anthony Agbor placed camera traps along these bodies of water. "The tool-use appears quite different from what is known from a nearby long-term chimpanzee site at Bossou, Guinea and also differed from previous reports of rare algae scooping in Congo" says Ammie Kalan of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "All age and sex classes of Bakoun chimpanzees were seen in the camera trap videos to successfully fish for algae in a river, stream or pond using woody branches or twigs as fishing rods. The tools were on average longer and sturdier than the algae fishing tools that are known from Bossou. Some Bakoun tools were more than 4 meters long!"

The researchers note that the freshwater green algae being targeted is the same genus as that at Bossou (Spirogyra), but at Bakoun the algae grow on the bottom of the stream beds and does not collect on the surface as it does at Bossou. "The ecology of the particular algae growing at each site may drive the types of tools necessary to harvest the algae" says Christophe Boesch, Director of the Primatology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, "we suggest that the algae probably provide an important nutritional benefit to the chimpanzees at Bakoun, especially during the dry season when chimpanzees were observed to fish algae for up to an hour at the same spot".

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Further analyses of videos and other data collected from the PanAf are currently underway. Anyone can participate in watching and annotating the PanAf videos using the online citizen science website http://www.chimpandsee.org. At Chimp&See citizen scientists can watch the over 1 million video clips the PanAf has recorded from all across Africa of chimpanzees, gorillas, elephants, buffalo, leopards and many more species! Visit http://www.chimpandsee.org and you could be a citizen scientist contributing to analyzing data in minutes and help with further discoveries in the wild!

Original publication:

Boesch, C., Kalan, A. K., Agbor, A., Arandjelovic, M., Dieguez, P., Lapeyre, V. and Kuhl, H. S. (2016) Chimpanzees routinely fish for algae with tools during the dry season in Bakoun, Guinea. Am J Primatol. doi:10.1002/ajp.22613
In humans and other social animals stress is associated with poor health and high mortality. These negative effects can be buffered by receiving social support from relatives or friends. However, the mechanisms responsible for this effect remain largely unknown. A team led by Roman Wittig, Catherine Crockford and Tobias Deschner from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has studied how wild chimpanzees cope with stressful and non-stressful situations when a close bond partner is present or absent. They measured the animals' urinary stress hormone levels during episodes of intergroup conflict, grooming and resting and found that the support of a friend significantly reduced the chimpanzees' stress hormone levels, especially in situations of conflict. But even during affiliative activities with the bond partner stress levels were generally lower. Daily supportive actions by friends and family maybe key to regulating stress hormone activity, and thus the negative effects of stress, a finding with potential medical implications for humans.

The interaction of the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and the adrenal glands (HPA axis) regulates the body's response to stress as well as many other processes, including digestion, the immune system, moods and emotions. Stress-induced imbalances of the HPA axis may thus lead to poor physical and mental health. Maintaining close social bonds can, to some degree, help regulate the HPA axis and cushion the effects of stress. "A number of studies in humans and non-human animals show that individuals who maintain close social bonds are often healthier and live longer than the loners amongst them", says Roman Wittig. "The mechanisms facilitating such a relationship, however, remain unclear. If we want to understand how they operate we need to link the hormone level directly to behaviors."

Therefore Wittig and colleagues developed a method to use non-invasive hormone samples from urine to draw conclusions on the reactivity of hormones during single behavioral events. Implementing the event sampling method with one of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzee, the researchers wanted to find out whether friends and family, who by definition provide more predictable support and affiliation than other chimpanzees, help each other cope with stress not only during stressors but in general throughout daily life.

To this aim the researchers observed the behavior of wild chimpanzees living in the Budongo Forest in Uganda during different types of events: stressful and potentially life-threatening intergroup encounters , everyday grooming interactions and periods of resting. The researchers also checked whether chimpanzees' close bond partners had been present or absent during these events. Once one of the events had taken place the researchers collected every possible urine sample for the next six hours and analyzed them to determine the chimpanzees' stress hormone levels.

"We found that within each event, the animals' urinary glucocorticoid levels were lower when engaging with bond partners rather than other individuals, whether during stressful intergroup encounters, everyday affiliative grooming, or resting", says co-author Catherine Crockford. "Bond partner effects, however, were strongest during intergroup encounters, then during grooming and least during resting." Tobias Deschner points out: "This study is especially interesting because we are able to trace the impact of general social patterns such as of maintaining social bonds over time down to single social interactions and their influence on glucocorticoid excretion".

The social support of bond partners, no matter of which sex, is highly beneficial for regulating the HPA axis and maintaining a healthy equilibrium. "In chimpanzees social support from bond partners seems to have more pronounced effects not only on urinary stress hormone levels but also on urinary oxytocin levels, as we have found in other studies", says Wittig. "The neuropeptide oxytocin is thought to facilitate the down-regulation of the HPA axis. Given that oxytocin is associated with affiliative interactions between adult chimpanzee friends, it may be that stress buffering provided by chimpanzee friends in this study may in part be mediated by oxytocin".

The researchers conclude that friends might be even more important for us and our health than we have previously thought - helping us to micro-manage HPA axis activity, a finding with potential medical implications also for humans.

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Original publication

Roman M. Wittig, Catherine Crockford, Anja Weltring, Kevin E. Langergraber, Tobias Deschner & Klaus Zuberbuhler

Social support reduces stress hormone levels in wild chimpanzees across stressful events and everyday affiliations.

Nature Communications; 1 November, 2016 (DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS13361)
Scientists are trained to carefully assess theories by designing good experiments and building on existing knowledge. But there is growing concern that too many research findings may in fact be false. New research publishing 10 November in open-access journal PLOS Biology by psychologists at the universities of Bristol and Exeter suggests that this may happen because of the criteria used in funding science and promoting scientists which, they say, place too much weight on novel, eye-catching findings.

Some scientists are becoming concerned that published results are inaccurate -- a recent attempt by 270 scientists to reproduce the findings reported in 100 psychology studies the Reproducibility Project: Psychology found that only about 40 per cent could be reproduced.

This latest study shows that we shouldn't be surprised by this, because researchers are incentivised to work in a certain way if they want to further their careers, such as running a large number of small studies, rather than a smaller number of larger, more definitive ones. But while this might be good for their careers, it won't necessarily be good for science.

Professor Marcus Munafo and Dr Andrew Higginson, researchers in psychology at the universities of Bristol and Exeter, concluded that scientists aiming to progress should carry out lots of small, exploratory studies because this is more likely to lead to surprising results. The most prestigious journals publish only highly novel findings, and scientists often win grants and get promotions if they manage to publish just one paper in these journals, which means that these small (but unreliable) studies may be disproportionately rewarded in the current system.

The authors used a mathematical model to predict how an optimal researcher who is trying to maximise the impact of their publications should spend their research time and effort. Scientific researchers have to decide what proportion of time to invest in looking for exciting new results rather than confirming previous findings. They also must decide how much resource to invest in each experiment.

The model shows that the best thing for career progression is carry out lots of small exploratory studies and no confirmatory ones. Even though each experiment is less likely to identify a real effect if it's there, they are likely to get some false positives, which unfortunately are often published too.

Dr Higginson said: "This is an important issue because so much money is wasted doing research from which the results can't be trusted; a significant finding might be just as likely to be a false positive as actually be measuring a real phenomenon."

This wouldn't happen if more publications, rather than one or two high profile ones, mattered to scientists' careers, nor if novel findings weren't prized so much more than confirmatory work that confirms previous findings, say the researchers.

So is there any way to overcome this problem of bad scientific practice? There could be immediate solutions, as Professor Munafo explained: "Journal editors and reviewers could be much stricter about good statistical procedures, such as insisting on large sample sizes and tougher statistical criteria for deciding whether an effect has been found."

There are already some encouraging signs - for example, a number of journals are introducing reporting checklists which require authors to state, among other things, how they decided on the sample size they used. Funders are also making similar changes to grant application procedures.

"The best thing for scientific progress would be a mixture of medium-sized exploratory studies with large confirmatory studies," said Dr Higginson. "Our work suggests that researchers would be more likely to do this if funding agencies and promotion committees rewarded asking important questions and good methodology, rather than surprising findings and exciting interpretations."

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Biology: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2000995

Citation: Higginson AD, Munafo MR (2016) Current Incentives for Scientists Lead to Underpowered Studies with Erroneous Conclusions. PLoS Biol 14(11): e2000995. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.2000995

Funding: Medical Research Council and the University of Bristol (grant number MC_UU_12013/6).Received by MRM. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Natural Environment Research Council (grant number NE/L011921/1).Received by ADH. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. MRM is a member of the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, a UKCRC Public Health Research: Centre of Excellence. Funding from British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, and the National Institute for Health Research, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Multispectral imaging technology continues to recover new insights from the field diaries of 19th-century explorer David Livingstone. A team of scholars and scientists who worked on the Livingstone Spectral Imaging project will present their research in public talks in the United Kingdom in November.

While stranded in Central Africa, Livingstone composed letters, diaries, maps and sketches on scraps of paper using inks made from local berries. His writings and drawings document the Central African slave trade, social dynamics among local populations and geographical information.

"Because of the poor quality of the ink, the works probably had only been read by Livingstone himself," said Roger Easton, professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at Rochester Institute of Technology, who imaged the Livingstone documents.

Easton is a member of a team of scholars and scientists, led by Adrian Wisnicki, assistant professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Megan Ward, assistant professor at Oregon State University, that has assembled a digitally processed archived dedicated to the explorer. Livingstone Online: Illuminating Imperial Exploration archives more than 7,500 digital documents of original material.

To make Livingstone's writings readable, advanced spectral imaging and analysis was conducted by a team that included Easton and Keith Knox, retired scientist from the U.S. Air Force Research Labs.

The team of four scholars and scientists will present the results of the David Livingstone Spectral Imaging project--including both the technical aspects of the imaging and the results of the scholarly studies--in talks at the University of Edinburgh on Nov. 14, the University of Oxford on Nov. 16 and Queen's University in Belfast on Nov. 18.

For more information, contact Roger Easton at easton@cis.rit.edu.

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In 2009, applied physicist Peter Sturrock was visiting the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, when the deputy director of the observatory told him he should read a controversial article about radioactive decay. Although the subject was outside Sturrock's field, it inspired a thought so intriguing that the next day he phoned the author of the study, Purdue University physicist Ephraim Fischbach, to suggest a collaboration.

Fischbach replied, "We were about to phone you."

More than seven years later, that collaboration could result in an inexpensive tabletop device to detect elusive neutrinos more efficiently and inexpensively than is currently possible, and could simplify scientists' ability to study the inner workings of the sun. The work was published in the Nov. 7 issue of Solar Physics.

"If we're correct, it means that neutrinos are far easier to detect than people have thought," said Sturrock, professor emeritus of applied physics. "Everyone thought that it would be necessary to have huge experiments, with thousands of tons of water or other material, that may involve huge consortia and huge expense, and you might get a few thousand counts a year. But we may get similar or even better data from an experiment involving only micrograms of radioactive material."

Why, how we study neutrinos

For twenty years, Sturrock and his colleague Jeff Scargle, astrophysicist and data scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, have studied neutrinos, subatomic particles with no electric charge and nearly zero mass, which can be used to learn about the inside of the sun.

Nuclear reactions in the sun's core produce neutrinos. A unique feature of neutrinos is that they rarely interact with other particles and so can escape the sun easily, bringing us information about the deep solar interior. Studying neutrinos is thought to be the best way to obtain direct information about the center of the sun, which is otherwise largely a mystery. Neutrinos can also give us information about supernovas, the creation of the universe and much more.

On Earth, an area the size of a fingernail has 65 billion neutrinos pass through it each second. But only one or two in an entire lifetime will actually stop in our bodies. Studying neutrinos involves massive equipment and expenses to trap enough of the elusive particles for investigation.

At present, the gold standard for neutrino detection is Japan's Super-Kamiokande, a magnificent $100 million observatory. In use since 1996, Super-Kamiokande lies 1,000 meters below ground. It consists of a tank filled with 50,000 tons of ultra-pure water, surrounded by about 13,000 photo-multiplier tubes. If a neutrino enters the water and interacts with electrons or nuclei there, it results in a charged particle that moves faster than the speed of light in water. This leads to an optical shock wave, a cone of light called Cherenkov radiation. This light is projected onto the wall of the tank and recorded by the photomultiplier tubes.

Past challenges in detection

The 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Masatoshi Koshiba of Super-Kamiokande and Raymond Davis Jr. of Homestake Neutrino Observatory for the development of neutrino detectors and "for the detection of cosmic neutrinos." One perplexing detail of this work was that, with their ground-breaking detection methods, they were detecting one-third to one-half as many neutrinos as expected, an issue known as the "solar neutrino problem." This shortfall was first thought to be due to experimental problems. But, once it was confirmed by Super-Kamiokande, the deficit was accepted as real.

The year prior to the Nobel, however, scientists announced a solution to the solar neutrino problem. It turned out that neutrinos oscillate among three forms (electron, muon and tau) and detectors were primarily sensitive to only electron neutrinos. For the discovery of these oscillations, the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Takaaki Kajita of Super-Kamiokande and Arthur B. MacDonald of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.

Even with these Nobel Prize-worthy developments in research and equipment at their disposal, scientists can still detect only a few thousand neutrino events each year.

A new option for research

The research that Sturrock learned about in Tucson concerned fluctuations in the rate of decay of radioactive elements. The fluctuations were highly controversial at the time because it had been thought that the decay rate of any radioactive element was constant. Sturrock decided to study these experimental results using analytical techniques that he and Scargle had developed to study neutrinos.

In examining the radioactive decay fluctuations, the team found evidence that those fluctuations matched patterns they had found in Super-Kamiokande neutrino data, each indicating a one-month oscillation attributable to solar rotation. The likely conclusion is that neutrinos from the sun are directly affecting beta-decays. This connection has been theorized by other researchers dating back 25 years, but the Sturrock-Fischbach-Scargle analysis adds the strongest evidence yet. If this relationship holds, a revolution in neutrino research could be underway.

"It means there's another way to study neutrinos that is much simpler and much less expensive than current methods," Sturrock said. "Some data, some information, you won't get from beta-decays, but only from experiments like Super-Kamiokande. However, the study of beta-decay variability indicates there is another way to detect neutrinos, one that gives you a different view of neutrinos and of the sun."

Sturrock said this could mark the beginning of a new field in neutrino research and solar physics. He and Fischbach see the possibility of bench-top detectors that would cost thousands rather than millions of dollars.

The next steps for now will be to gather more and better data and to work toward a theory that can explain how all these physical processes are connected.

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While aromatase inhibitors (AIs) are a preferred therapy for postmenopausal women who have hormone receptor-positive early-stage breast cancer, the vaginal dryness and decreased sex drive that may result can lead to poor medical compliance and decreased quality of life.

In a new study published online by JAMA Oncology, Michelle E. Melisko, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues conducted a randomized clinical trial (funded in full by AstraZeneca) to evaluate the safety of intravaginal testosterone cream (IVT) and a hormonal estradiol-releasing vaginal ring in patients with early-stage breast cancer receiving an AI.

The intervention was to be considered unsafe if more than 25 percent of patients had persistent elevation in estradiol levels, which were measured at baseline and at weeks four and 12. Additional outcomes of the study included changes in sexual quality of life and vaginal atrophy (dryness).

There were 69 patients (35 used the vaginal ring and 34 used intravaginal testosterone cream) who completed 12 weeks of treatment.

The authors report persistent estradiol elevation was observed in none of the women using the vaginal ring and in four of the 34 (12 percent) of the women who used the intravaginal testosterone cream. There also was improvement reported in vaginal atrophy and sexual interest and dysfunction for all patients, according to the results.

"Both treatment arms met the protocol defined primary safety endpoint," according to the report. A surprising finding was that 37 percent of patients had elevated estradiol levels at baseline, which could be potentially be explained, in part, by the use of estrogen-containing supplements.

Limitations of the study include its small size and the high percentage of patients with elevated estradiol levels at baseline before any intervention.

"This study provides further evidence that both an estradiol-releasing vaginal ring and IVT [intravaginal testosterone cream] are effective in treating urogenital symptoms in patients with BC [breast cancer] taking AIs [aromatase inhibitors]," the authors conclude.

Still, the authors note: "The American Menopausal Society and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommend that in patients with a history of estrogen-sensitive cancers, nonhormonal options including vaginal moisturizers, pH balanced gels, topical oils and lubricants be tried first for urogenital atrophy, and vaginal estrogens be reserved for patients who are nonresponsive and only after consultation with the medical oncologist."

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(JAMA Oncol. Published online November 10, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2016.3904. Available pre-embargo to the media at the For The Media website.)

Editor's Note: This study was funded in full by AstraZeneca. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Baraboo High School will see $22 million in improvements after Baraboo residents approved the spending in a referendum Tuesday.

The Sauk County Clerks office reported early Wednesday morning that 7,106 residents voted to support the renovations, while 5,085 voted against the measure, a spread of 58 percent to 42 percent.

Shortly after midnight, District Administrator Lori Mueller said school leaders are thankful to Baraboo residents for supporting the initiative to improve the district's facilities.

We are very thrilled with those results, and we're thankful that the community members and stakeholders of the school district are investing in our schools, students and families," Mueller said.

The referendum calls for $22 million to expand and renovate classrooms for technical education, family and consumer education, art and physical education. It also includes the renovation and expansion of the high schools cafeteria and commons, as well as improvements to the library and student services area. A modern temperature control system and fire sprinklers are included as well.

The improvements were determined by a focus group comprised of parents, business leaders and Baraboo School Board members who spent a year studying the districts facility needs. With just under 1,000 students currently enrolled at the high school, the group said the 55-year old building  originally built to house 600  was filled to capacity and in need of renovations.

The referendum was pared down from an original $35 million after a community survey found that Baraboo residents likely would not support the construction of a new field house along with other improvements. The publics feedback prompted the school board to remove the field house from the referendum.

Board Member Sean McNevin said the survey was critical in gaining community support for the referendum.

"It's the board's job to communicate to the community the needs of the schools," he said. "And it's the community's job to give us that feedback - let us know what the proper timing is and the extent of the projects they want to undertake. The survey allowed us to do that."

The referendum will raise the districts mill rate from $8.90 to $9.35, resulting in a $0.45 increase per year for every $1,000 of property value. An owner of a $150,000 home can expect to pay $1,402.50 in property taxes to go toward the school district next year.

Baraboo voters approved a $10 million referendum in April 2014 that funded security and maintenance renovations at each of the districts seven schools. Improvements to the high school will complete the second part of the districts facilities improvement plan.

Because similar renovations are needed at other buildings within the district, school leaders have said there will be a third referendum in the future, but they have not disclosed when or where those improvements will take place.

For now, Mueller said the district will continue to seek community feedback as it begins the design phase for the current referendum.

"We'll continue to engage community members as we initiate the design phase," she said. "We look forward to delivering on our commitment to the Baraboo community by completing this budget on time and within budget."
New research from the University of Chicago Medicine shows a program that uses electronic medical records to connect Chicagoans with health resources in their community could be a model for other efforts nationally.

That's according to new findings published Nov. 9 in the journal Health Affairs.

The program called CommunityRx launched in 2012 with funding from a $5.9 million federal innovation award. The program works by generating customized "e-prescriptions" called a HealtheRx for patients who visit nearly three dozen health clinics, including UChicago Medicine's adult and pediatric emergency departments. Since it started, CommunityRx has generated more than 506,000 customized HealtheRx prescriptions for an estimated 200,000 or more patients.

The Health Affairs study assessed the program's effectiveness by surveying 458 CommunityRx participants who received a HealtheRx prescription between 2012 and 2014. More than 83 percent reported the personalized referrals were "very useful." Nearly one in five visited a place they learned about through the program. And all but one of six partnering health care organizations (involving 30 of 33 clinical sites) participating in the project continued using CommunityRx after the study period ended.

"To me, the most profound finding and one that motivated me to find a sustainable business model, was that more than half the participants surveyed used their HealtheRx to help connect someone else to community resources," said Stacy Tessler Lindau, MD, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago. "I'm fascinated by the idea that we might motivate people to take better care of themselves by offering them a tool that make it easy to help others."

Lindau directed CommunityRx, was the study's lead author, and has founded a private social enterprise company that is commercializing the effort.

CommunityRx connects patients with specific nearby places and community resources matched to their health needs. A person with diabetes might leave a checkup with an automatically created HealtheRx printout listing nearby locations for nutrition classes while someone with high blood pressure might get a prescription listing free area blood pressure screenings.

The backbone of the project, which was required by its grant funding to also have a sustainable business plan, is a continuously updated database of community assets that is merged with a patient's electronic health record. The database inventory includes nearly 20,000 public-serving entities - from food banks to counseling centers - operating within a 107-square-mile area of Chicago's South Side. The exhaustive catalog is created and updated by a team of high school students who walk every block of the area each summer to document the region's businesses and organizations using a smartphone app.

The Health Affairs study showed that more than 40 percent of the organizations listed in the HealtheRx database didn't have websites, so many patients wouldn't necessarily be able to learn about resource - often just blocks away from their home - unless they received the prescription from their doctor's office or clinic. The most commonly prescribed resources during the study period were food pantries, healthy eating classes, fresh fruits and vegetables and individual counseling.

During the three-year study, the program generated more than 250,000 personalized "prescriptions" for about 113,000 people.

The researchers acknowledge that their study relied on patients to self-report whether they utilized a resource, because the program's electronic interface was only connected to medical records, not the individual community service provider organizations.

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Additional authors of the study, "CommunityRx: A population health improvement innovation that connects clinics to communities," include Jennifer Makelarski, Emily Abramsohn, David G. Beiser, Veronica Escamilla, Jessica Jerome, Daniel Johnson, Abel N. Kho, Karen K. Lee, Timothy Long, and Doriane C. Miller.

About the University of Chicago Medicine & Biological Sciences

The University of Chicago Medicine, located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, is one of the nation's leading academic medical institutions. It comprises the Medical Center, Pritzker School of Medicine and the University of Chicago Biological Sciences Division. Twelve Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine have been affiliated with UChicago Medicine. The medical campus includes the Center for Care and Discovery, Bernard Mitchell Hospital, Comer Children's Hospital and Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine and offers a full range of specialty-care services for adults and children through more than 40 institutes and centers including an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. It has 805 licensed beds, nearly 850 attending physicians, about 2,500 nurses and over 1,100 residents and fellows. Off-campus affiliations and partnerships include Silver Cross Hospital for cancer care, Little Company of Mary Hospital for specialty pediatric care and Edward-Elmhurst Health for specialty pediatric care.

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Leprosy in Britain's red squirrels is being caused by the same species of bacteria responsible for human infections, a DNA study has found.

One of the strains - affecting squirrels on Brownsea Island, off England's south coast - shares close similarities with that responsible for outbreaks of the disease in medieval Europe.

Researchers tested 25 samples from red squirrels on the island and found that all were infected with the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae, though not all showed signs of the disease.

The bacteria shared close similarities with a strain discovered in the skeleton of a leprosy victim buried in Winchester 730 years ago. It is also similar to a strain that is endemic in armadillos in southern states of the US.

Scientists say their findings suggest that leprosy has affected red squirrels on Brownsea Island for centuries but stress that the chances of people catching the disease are low.

Red squirrels in other parts of England, Scotland and Ireland are also affected by leprosy. The study found that these animals were infected with another species of the bacteria called Mycobacterium lepromatosis.

DNA analysis revealed that this strain is similar to those found in human cases of leprosy in Mexico and the Caribbean.

The international team - led by the University of Edinburgh - collected samples of the bacteria during post mortems carried out on red squirrels from each of the locations.

Not all of the squirrels that were infected with the bacteria showed symptoms of leprosy. Those that did had swelling and hair loss on the ears, muzzle and feet.

Red squirrels have drastically declined in the UK with fewer than 140,000 remaining. The main threat is from habitat loss and the squirrelpox virus carried by grey squirrels.

The species was re-introduced into Ireland by transfer of animals from England in the early 1800s. The team says their findings suggest that the squirrels transported were likely infected with leprosy at the time.

Researchers say it is unclear whether leprosy poses a significant threat to the future of red squirrels. They have recently launched a major study on Brownsea Island to study the disease.

Human cases of leprosy are virtually unheard of in the UK but the disease continues to affect people in developing countries. The scientists say their findings suggest that animals could be a reservoir for the bacteria in these areas, thwarting efforts to eradicate the disease.

Vet experts from the University's Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies worked with researchers at the Moredun Institute and experts in human leprosy from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. The study is published in the journal Science.

Professor Anna Meredith, of the University of Edinburgh's Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, said: "The discovery of leprosy in red squirrels is worrying from a conservation perspective but shouldn't raise concerns for people in the UK. We need to understand how and why the disease is acquired and transmitted among red squirrels so that we can better manage the disease in this iconic species."

Ongoing research on Brownsea Island is supported by its owners - National Trust and Dorset Wildlife Trust - which manage a large nature reserve on the island. Brownsea will remain open as usual during the four-year project.

Angela Cott, National Trust General Manager for Brownsea Island, said: "Brownsea's wild red squirrel population has been living with leprosy for at least four decades. But by working with the University of Edinburgh and Dorset Wildlife Trust, we hope to understand how best to look after Brownsea's wild red squirrels. Brownsea Island remains a spectacular place for people to see wildlife."

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Scientists from the UGR and the University Hospital San Rafael conclude that Spanish children are overexposed to TV ads of unhealthy food (burgers, pizzas, soft drinks, bakery, etc.), a worrying situation which promotes childhood obesity

Spanish children are overexposed to TV ads of unhealthy food (burgers, pizzas, soft drinks, chocolate, bakery, etc.) both in generalist and children-oriented channels, a situation that could be described as "worrying" and which promotes childhood obesity.

This follows a pioneering study carried out by scientists from the University of Granada (belonging to the Center of Excellence in Pediatric Research Euristikos and the departments of Pharmacology and Pediatrics) in collaboration with the University Hospital San Rafael (Granada).

The goal of this work was to evaluate the changes experienced by Spanish TV between 2007 and 2013, before and after the entry into force of the Spanish and European public health regulations governing the broadcast of fast food ads on TV. Said regulations came into force in 2011 (Law 17/2011 on Food Safety and Nutrition).

To do this, the researchers recorded and analyzed a total of 1263 ads, corresponding to a total of 256 hours of television. All of them were broadcast on the two most-viewed children-oriented channels watched by Spanish children between 2 and 12 years, and two generalist channels targeting all audiences.

The record was carried out by a nutritionist specialized in marketing, who classified the different types of ads based on the amount of nutrients, subliminal messages and recommendations on healthy habits they gave.

Thematic channels broadcast 16 food advertisements per hour, a figure that rises to 25 in the case of generalist channels.

The most broadcast ads

The most broadcast ads on thematic channels were on infant feeding (excluding milk formulas), with a total of 191 ads (33% of total ads), followed by dairy products (136 ads, 23.5%). In the case of generalist channels, the most broadcast ads were on fast food restaurants (72 ads, 10.5%), vitamins and mineral supplements (71 ads, 10.4%), and dairy products (60 ads, 8.8%).

The results showed that the broadcast of these ads on children-oriented thematic channels increased between 2007 and 2013 (from 6 to 10 ads per hour and channel, respectively), similar to what happens with the generalist channels, where, despite the regulations, the broadcast of 'junk food' advertisements has also increased.

Given the results of their work, the researchers warn of the need to increase control over food commercials that are broadcast on Spanish television, "and take advantage of the level of attention that children pay to television as they watch cartoons to promote healthy lifestyles and a healthy nutrition, with the goal of preventing overweight and obesity", professor Cristina Campoy Folgoso, UGR professor and lead author of this work, says.

The researcher warns that it would be necessary to analyze a larger sample of television channels, in order to know, with precision, the information that Spanish children are getting through advertising.

She also notes that "there is currently no control of the advertisings that reach children through games downloaded to their cellphones and tablets as well as in social networks, so it is very necessary to legislate said aspect".

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Project led By University of Maryland School of Medicine will focus on accelerating the use of vaccines to protect from disease that kills more than 220,000 annually

Baltimore, MD, November 10, 2016 - Typhoid fever, a bacterial infection that causes high fever and other disabling symptoms, remains a serious global problem in the developing world: it kills almost a quarter of a million people annually, and infects about 21 million.

To help speed the introduction of, and access to, new and more effective typhoid vaccines, the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) has received a grant of $36.9 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project, known as Typhoid Vaccine Acceleration Consortium (TyVAC), is a partnership with the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford and PATH, an international nonprofit global health organization based in Seattle. TyVAC will focus on conjugate vaccines, which can trigger a stronger immune response in certain vulnerable populations, such as infants and children, than current typhoid vaccines.

TyVAC will employ a multidisciplinary approach to study and control typhoid, and generate evidence that informs global policies. The project will work closely with governments and policymakers to introduce vaccines in lower-income countries with a high burden of typhoid. The effort will also examine how well the vaccine rollouts work in early adopter countries. The project's overall goal is to support accelerated, evidence-based decisions for new typhoid conjugate vaccine introductions that will significantly reduce the severe health and economic burdens of the disease.

"Typhoid fever disproportionately impacts children and poor populations," said Kathleen Neuzil, MD, MPH, FIDSA, professor of medicine at UM SOM, director of CVD, and deputy director of the Institute for Global Health (IGH). "With our long history of work in typhoid and typhoid vaccines, we look forward to working with partners to catalyze action against this significant public health problem."

"It is unconscionable that children are still dying by the thousands every year from diseases like typhoid that are completely preventable," said Anita Zaidi, director of the Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "The prevention and control of typhoid should be a global health priority and we are pleased to support the Typhoid Vaccine Acceleration Consortium as part of our overall strategy to combat typhoid through an integrated approach including access to clean water, improved sanitation, and immunization."

At present, the currently available vaccines for typhoid fever are underutilized despite the substantial disease burden and a World Health Organization recommendation for the use of typhoid vaccines in areas of high burden. Typhoid conjugate vaccines have the promise to overcome some of the barriers of the currently available vaccines, providing a stronger immune response, a longer duration of protection, and the ability to be incorporated into the routine vaccination schedule targeted at children less than two years old.

"We are excited to work in partnership with CVD to bring our expertise on typhoid infections and vaccines to the consortium and improve health through TyVAC," said Andrew Pollard, MD, PhD, professor of pediatric infection and immunity at the University of Oxford, and director of the Oxford Vaccine Group.

Population density, limited sanitation, and poor water quality can provide a breeding ground for typhoid. "With increasing urbanization, we could see an even greater burden of typhoid," noted Deborah Atherly, PhD, head of Policy, Access, and Introduction for PATH's Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access. "Through TyVAC, we will work to ensure that typhoid vaccines finally reach those who need them most."

"Typhoid is a significant public health problem in many parts of the world," said UM SOM Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, who is also vice president for medical affairs at the University of Maryland and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor. "Over several decades, the CVD has helped save millions of lives. This generous grant from the Gates Foundation will allow our scientists, working with national and international partners, to continue with this crucial work."

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About the Center for Vaccine Development

The CVD at the University of Maryland School of Medicine works nationally and internationally to prevent disease and save lives through the development and delivery of vaccines. As an academic research center, CVD is engaged in the full range of vaccinology, including basic science research, vaccine development, pre-clinical and clinical evaluation, and post-marketing field studies. Learn more at http://medschool.umaryland.edu/cvd/.

About the University of Maryland School of Medicine

The University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 and is the first public medical school in the United States and continues today as an innovative leader in accelerating innovation and discovery in medicine. The School of Medicine is the founding school of the University of Maryland and is an integral part of the 11-campus University System of Maryland. Located on the University of Maryland's Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine works closely with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System to provide a research-intensive, academic and clinically based education. With 43 academic departments, centers and institutes and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians and research scientists plus more than $400 million in extramural funding, the School is regarded as one of the leading biomedical research institutions in the U.S. with top-tier faculty and programs in cancer, brain science, surgery and transplantation, trauma and emergency medicine, vaccine development and human genomics, among other centers of excellence. The School is not only concerned with the health of the citizens of Maryland and the nation, but also has a global presence, with research and treatment facilities in more than 35 countries around the world. Learn more at http://medschool.umaryland.edu/.

About the Oxford Vaccine Group

The University of Oxford is one of the top five higher education institutions in the world and hosts the Oxford Vaccine Group (OVG) in the Department of Paediatrics (http://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk). OVG is a vaccine design, development, clinical trials, and laboratory evaluation research group with specific expertise in vaccine evaluation in paediatric populations. The University of Oxford has strategically made a major investment in infrastructure to support research on vaccines and immunity over the past two decades. The OVG is one of the largest academic research groups in the world focused on designing, developing, and evaluating vaccines for children, as well as characterizing immune response to vaccines and infectious diseases.

About PATH

PATH is the leader in global health innovation. An international nonprofit organization, we save lives and improve health, especially among women and children. We accelerate innovation across five platforms--vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, devices, and system and service innovations--that harness our entrepreneurial insight, scientific and public health expertise, and passion for health equity. By mobilizing partners around the world, we take innovation to scale, working alongside countries primarily in Africa and Asia to tackle their greatest health needs. Together, we deliver measurable results that disrupt the cycle of poor health. Learn more at http://www.path.org
Immunotherapy has revolutionized treatment options in oncology, neurology, and many infectious diseases and now there is fresh hope that the same method could be used to treat or functionally cure HIV, according to two related studies from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine, the research offers new insights into how immunotherapy could be used to develop a functional cure for HIV and eliminate the need for people living with the virus to take a daily regimen of medications.

The study, which examined chronically HIV-infected participants, found that injections of one broadly neutralizing HIV antibody (bNAb), known as VRC01, were safe, generated high levels of the antibody, and modestly delayed the time of HIV viral rebound compared to historical controls. However, suppression did not surpass 8 weeks in the majority of participants. By demonstrating that HIV-specific antibodies could be successfully administered as long-acting agents to suppress or even kill HIV-infected cells, this method is a first step toward the ultimate goal of durable suppression of HIV in the absence of ART.

"I would compare these findings to early days of HIV treatment research in the late 1980s," said Pablo Tebas, MD, a senior author of the study and director of the AIDS Clinical Trials Unit at Penn. "In this study, we looked at one antibody, but we think it may take combinations of more potent antibodies to successfully control the virus."

In the early years of HIV drug development, the first antiretroviral medicines were used as single agents to treat people living with HIV. The virus quickly developed resistance and rebounded in the blood. As additional antiretroviral drugs were introduced to target various aspects of HIV, combination drugs led to more effective and prolonged viral suppression.

Currently, most people living with HIV take a once-daily combination of antiretroviral therapy (ART), which prolongs life expectancy and improves overall health, but cannot completely eradicate the virus. Adherence to a daily HIV medication continues to be a challenge for many people living with HIV, especially in resource-limited settings. However, the vast majority of people living with HIV experience rapid rebound if ART is stopped or interrupted, making those people sicker and more likely to spread the virus to others.

Through bNAb immunotherapy, people living with HIV could potentially receive an injection of antibodies or another immunological intervention that would suppress the virus. The injection would remove HIV from a person's blood and enable control of the virus without a daily ART regimen.

"For the near future, it is unlikely that we will be able to fully eradicate HIV once a person has been infected. But a functional cure is a reasonable intermediate goal," Tebas said.

A functional HIV cure means that while the virus would still exist in a person's body in extremely small amounts, virus replication would be durably suppressed, disease progression drastically slowed, and symptoms of infection stopped - all without the need for daily medications.

"The goal of immunotherapy is to eliminate the need to take a pill every single day while simultaneously chipping away at the latent reservoir of virus-infected cells. However, we are still years away from that goal. And even if a person is able to be functionally cured of HIV, long-term follow-up will be essential to ensure that the virus doesn't return to high levels," Tebas said.

The bNAb tested in this trial did not provide long-lasting virus control in participants. Investigators tested historical blood samples from trial participants that were stored at both Penn and UAB's Centers for AIDS Research (CFAR) in order to determine if there was pre-existing resistance to bNAb immunotherapy and reveal its limitations as a potential cure. They found that the trial participants with the shortest times of HIV suppression harbored viruses that were resistant to the bNAb.

"We found that many trial participants had HIV that was resistant to the bNAb immunotherapy long before they entered the trial. This pre-existing resistance to HIV-targeting bNAbs was a barrier to effective immunotherapy here, and will continue to present challenges to HIV bNAb therapies moving forward," said Katharine Bar, MD, first author of the study and director of Viral and Molecular Core of the Penn Center for AIDS Research (CFAR).

Bar notes that this study was a collaborative effort between several institutions. "The close collaboration between the Penn and UAB CFARs with the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) enabled us to characterize the pre-existing resistance and identify it as a key barrier to developing bNAb immunotherapy as an HIV cure. Continued collaboration between CFARs and the ACTG will be instrumental as we continue to move this research forward."

Future trials that are now in development will test whether combinations of more potent bNAbs can provide durable virus suppression and potentially reduce the size of the persistent reservoir.

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The research team for the Penn/UAB study also included James A. Hoxie and Mark Bardsley of Penn's Perelman School of Medicine; Nancy Tustin of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; and Edgar T. Overton of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Findings from both studies, which were funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of NIH (U01AI068636), appear in the Nov. 24 print issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
PHILADELPHIA - A five-year evaluation involving nearly 20,000 kindergarten through 12th grade under-resourced public school students shows that taking part in Project BioEYES, with one center based in Philadelphia at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, increases students' science knowledge and positive attitudes about science. Younger students had the greatest attitude changes. The study covered five years and tested students before and after the one-week BioEYES program. The research is published in PLOS Biology.

BioEYES uses live zebrafish to teach basic scientific principles, animal development, and genetics. The zebrafish embryo is clear, making it ideal for observations. As of spring 2016, 100,000 students and 1,400 teachers in six states and two countries have participated in the week-long program. Each BioEYES Center, including programs at Penn, Carnegie Institution, and the University of Utah or Monash University in Australia, is a partnership between local educators, school districts, and researchers.

First author Jamie Shuda, EdD, director of Outreach and Education at Penn's Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and senior author Steve Farber, PhD, from the Carnegie Institution in Baltimore, started BioEYES as a grass-roots collaboration between a scientist and teacher. "We share a vision of providing high quality science experiences for all students and building sustainable teacher partnerships," Shuda said. "We expected the students to increase their understanding of the concepts they learned, but what is most promising is the positive increases in their attitudes towards the practice of science."

Over the course of a week, students collect zebrafish embryos and watch them develop from a single cell to a swimming larva, with a beating heart and a distinct pigmentation pattern. Elementary students learn about human and fish anatomy, habitats, cells, and DNA. Middle school students identify the observable traits of their zebrafish offspring, while high school students delve into the ways modern scientists determine the genetic makeup of parents by studying their offspring. At week's end, students analyze these data and discuss their results with their classmates much the way scientists do.

From 2010 to 2015, the team assessed students before and after a week-long experiment. They asked students to answer knowledge-based questions as well as questions about their attitudes toward science and scientific careers. Following a BioEYES class, all grade levels showed significant positive gains in learning. Seven of the eight knowledge questions had significant positive gains for elementary students. At the middle school level, eight of the nine knowledge questions had significant positive gains. For example, students are asked about basic science concepts focused on cell biology, genetics, and how to develop a hypothesis. Some middle school questions that showed the greatest gains involved concepts in genetics, with changes from 72 to 87 percent, depending on the question. For example, students were asked to identify a Punnett Square based on the next generation cross of their offspring. The high school questions with the greatest gains were those identifying characteristics of model organisms in research such as having DNA and providing insight into human health, with a 64 percent change, and a basic understanding of stem cells, with a 56 percent change.

Interestingly, for all grade levels BioEYES increased students' ability to imagine themselves as scientists. The largest effect on attitudes occurred at the elementary school level - six out of eleven statements showed significant positive changes. Among all grade levels, the strongest attitude shift was in the statement, "I know what it's like to be a scientist."

The second-largest attitude change was observed in elementary and high school grades, and the third-largest in middle school, was an increase in agreement with the statement, "Science is becoming more popular than it used to be."

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The work of BioEYES, locally and nationally, is supported by many foundations, corporations, and individuals (see S10 Table in the original paper for a comprehensive list of corporate and nonprofit support). The Penn BioEYES program that serves the Philadelphia area is supported by the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Spain, The Brook J. Lenfest Foundation, Children Can Shape the Future, The Scholler Foundation, and The Seybert Foundation.

Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $5.3 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 18 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $373 million awarded in the 2015 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center -- which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report -- Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Chestnut Hill Hospital and Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2015, Penn Medicine provided $253.3 million to benefit our community.
Scientists at the University of Sussex, trying to uncover how the common Epstein-Barr virus causes blood cancer in adults and children, have discovered how the virus takes control of two genes involved in cancer development so it can switch them on or off.

The research team led by Professor Michelle West, set out to determine how the virus controls two genes; MYC, a gene known to drive cancer development when it is altered or switched on at high level and BCL2L11, a gene which normally triggers cell death to prevent cancer, but can be turned off by the virus.

With thanks to funding from the charity Bloodwise, the scientists discovered that the virus controls the MYC and BCL2L11 genes by hijacking 'enhancer' DNA regions which are situated far away from the genes. These enhancers act as 'control centres' and are able to contact and control genes from long distances by the looping out of the intervening stretches of DNA.

Professor West's team, who are based in the University's School of Life Sciences, found that Epstein-Barr virus turns on the MYC gene by increasing contacts between a specific set of enhancers and the gene. The scientists believe this may explain how the virus causes the changes to the MYC gene that are found in Burkitt's lymphoma.

The team also discovered new enhancers which control the BCL2L11 gene. In this case, they found that Epstein-Barr virus stops these control centres from contacting the gene. Encouragingly the team have discovered that this blocking effect can be reversed by using a specific drug -- paving the way for new treatments.

Professor Michelle West, from the University of Sussex, said: "This is a key step towards uncovering how this common virus which, affects thousands of people every year, causes blood cancer.

"It is now important to carry out further studies to determine how the Epstein-Barr virus controls other genes that are associated with lymphoma. This will tell us more about how the virus drives lymphoma development and will help to identify new ways of targeting Epstein-Barr virus-infected cancer cells with specific drugs."

Dr Alasdair Rankin, Research Director at Bloodwise, said: "We have known for many years that the Epstein-Barr virus causes various types of lymphoma, but we were never sure of the exact mechanisms. These new findings have shed light on how the virus is able to drive blood cancer development by altering the behaviour of genes that control cancer growth.

"By mapping out the complex genetic interactions that help lymphoma cells grow and survive, this research can guide the design of new treatments to target the disease. It may also help to identify those drugs currently used to treat other diseases that could be effective in treating these types of lymphoma."

Professor West has been granted 460,000 by the blood cancer charity Bloodwise for two research projects that are helping to uncover how a number of common types of leukaemia and lymphoma arise in children and adults and to find new ways to treat them. The research team are studying how the common Epstein-Barr virus can sometimes trigger the development of blood cancers including Burkitt and Hodgkin lymphomas.

###

The study entitled: "MYC activation and BCL2L11 silencing by a tumor virus through the large-scale reconfiguration of enhancer-promoter hubs" has been published in eLIFE Journal and can be found here http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.18270

MEDIA RELATIONS

Communications and External Affairs | University of Sussex | Sussex House | Brighton BN1 9RH | United Kingdom T 44-0-1273 678888 | press@sussex.ac.uk

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/newsandevents

Notes to Editors:

The University of Sussex's School of Life Sciences is one of the largest academic schools at the University of Sussex. With 96 per cent of its research rated as world leading, internationally excellent or internationally recognised (REF 2014), it is among the leading research hubs for the biological sciences in the UK. The School is home to a number of prestigious research centres including the Genome Damage and Stability Centre and the Sussex Drug Discovery Centre, where academics work with industry to translate scientific advances into real-world benefits for patients. The University is also planning a new state-of-the-art Life Sciences building which will transform the way scientists carry out research and will provide students with a high-tech learning experience. The world-renowned School, which is one of the University's largest academic facilities, boasts two previous Nobel Prize-winning scientists, Sir Harry Kroto and Sir John Cornforth, and is known for its high quality teaching and ground-breaking research into conditions such as cancer and neurodegeneration, as well as driving major advances in areas such as ecology and conservation, neuroscience and drug discovery.
DALLAS - Nov. 9, 2016 - African-Americans have more rigidity of the aorta, the major artery supplying oxygen-rich blood to the body, than Caucasians and Hispanics, according to a study by UT Southwestern Medical Center cardiologists.

The finding is important because African-Americans are the group at greatest risk of high blood pressure and organ damage caused by high blood pressure, and aortic rigidity is associated with high blood pressure.

The study examined data from some 2,500 participants in the Dallas Heart Study, a multi-ethnic population-based cohort. The researchers used two methods to assess stiffness of the aorta, which is the largest artery in the body, running from the top of the left ventricle in the heart down to the abdomen. Both systems of measurement found greater stiffness in the aortas of African-Americans.

"Our demonstration of ethnic differences in arterial stiffness is an important step in understanding the mechanisms that mediate ethnic differences in cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Wanpen Vongpatanasin, Professor of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and co-senior author of the study, which appears online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging.

Hispanics in the study had an intermediate level of aortic stiffness, greater than Caucasians, but less than that of African-Americans.

The study found that both African-Americans and Hispanics had smaller diameter aortas, after adjustments were made for weight.

"This finding suggests that there may be a mismatch between aortic diameter and adiposity, which contributes to the increased rigidity," said Dr. Vongpatanasin, who holds the Norman and Audrey Kaplan Chair in Hypertension and the Fredric L. Coe Professorship in Nephrolithiasis in Mineral Metabolism.

Other possible mechanisms underlying the increased levels of aortic stiffness in African-Americans and Hispanics include greater sodium intake among African-Americans and Hispanics, lower intake of potassium, and genetic differences in collagen content. Collagen is a protein fiber that is a key component of connective tissue such as bone and artery walls.

According to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 43 percent of African-American men and 45.7 percent of African-American women have hypertension, or high blood pressure, compared with 33.9 percent of Caucasian men and 31.3 percent of Caucasian women.

"Hypertension is strongly associated with heart attack and stroke. Our study provides a potential explanation for excess risk of hypertension and resultant organ complication in African-Americans, who are at particularly high risk of cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Vongpatanasin.

The Dallas Heart Study is an ongoing, multi-ethnic epidemiologic study, funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. More than 6,000 individuals in Dallas County have participated in the study, which has led to more than 200 published papers and key findings about heart disease, cholesterol, and liver disease.

###

Other UT Southwestern researchers who contributed to this study are Dr. Christopher Maroules, Assistant Instructor; Colby Ayers, Faculty Associate; Dr. Roderick McColl, Associate Professor; Dr. Ronald Peshock, Professor of Radiology and Internal Medicine; and Dr. Akshay Goel, former UT Southwestern fellow.

This works was supported by a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, and from UT Southwestern's George M. O'Brien Kidney Research Core Center. Aortic rigidity

The aorta is a large, candy cane-shaped artery extending upward from the top, left chamber of the heart then curving down and running in front of the backbone to the abdomen. It is the main pipeline for the flow of blood from the heart to the rest of the body.

When the aorta is stiffer, or less "compliant," the large blood vessel cannot expand and rebound well as the heart contracts and relaxes, which means the heart has to work harder to pump blood throughout the body.

Aortic stiffness is associated with cardiovascular disease, including heart attack, stroke, and heart failure, which is the inability of the heart to pump sufficient blood to supply oxygen to the body.

SOURCE: National Institutes of Health

About UT Southwestern Medical Center

UT Southwestern, one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution's faculty includes many distinguished members, including six who have been awarded Nobel Prizes since 1985. The faculty of almost 2,800 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide medical care in about 80 specialties to more than 100,000 hospitalized patients and oversee approximately 2.2 million outpatient visits a year.
Safety combined with power and effectiveness is one of the most important targets in the development of pyrotechnic obscurants. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, German and Polish scientists introduced phosphorus nitride as a safe but very powerful alternative to the well-known red phosphorus formulations, which have been used in military and civilian applications for decades.

Obscurants fulfill a prominet role in military applications. An obscurant smoke is an aerosol cloud suddenly brought into the line of sight between an observer and a target. The most prominent source for pyrotechnic obscurants is still powdery red phosphorus, although it suffers from quite unsafe handling and a relatively sluggish burning with the possible release of toxic phosphine. Ernst-Christian Koch at Lutradyn-Energetic Materials Science & Technology and Stanislaw Cudzilo at the Military University of Technology in Warszawa (Poland) have now proposed phosphorus(V) nitride as a safe and effective replacement for red phosphorus.

At ambient temperature, phosphorus(V) nitride, P(3)N(5) is a crystalline powder. Its performance was examined in typical pyrolant formulations, that is, mixed with an oxidant such as potassium nitrate. Upon ignition, which means under excessive heat and air, the phosphorus sublimes and undergoes combustion into its oxide, which serves as the actual aerosol-generating machine by taking up large amounts of water from atmospheric air. The resulting smog of phosphoric acid and water microdroplets will then conceal whatever should be taken out of sight.

The scientists reported three main advantages of phosphorus(V) nitride over red phosphorus. Firstly, the nitride burned fast. "The burn rates are two orders of magnitude greater then those obtained with state-of-the-art red phosphorous / potassium nitrate based pyrolants," said the authors. Secondly, it does not hydrolyze to highly toxic and flammable phosphine. Thirdly, and most importantly, it is resistant to friction. "Phosphorus(V) nitride is safe to handle with a range of oxidizers including chlorates, perchlorates, and nitrates," said the authors. Thus, differently from red phosphorus, there should be no need to add vast amounts of protective fillers like graphite to the formulation.

Notably, phosphorus(V) nitride as a commercial compound has no large-scale application yet. With these revelations on its possible use as a highly effective obscurant, this situation might be about to change.

###

About the Author

Dr. Koch is founder of Lutradyn - Energetic Materials Science & Technology Consulting company in Kaiserslautern (Germany) and is a specialist in energetic materials. Dr. Cudzilois is a Professor of Chemistry and Dean of the Faculty of Advanced Technologies and Chemistry at the Military University of Technology, Warsaw (Poland). His main specialty is the chemistry and technology of energetic materials.

mailto:e-c.koch@lutradyn.com
Study in journal Science says every aspect of life on earth impacted -- from genes to entire ecosystems

Study in journal Science says every aspect of life on earth impacted -- from genes to entire ecosystems

Impacts to humans include increased pests and disease outbreaks, reduced productivity in fisheries, and decreasing agriculture yields

80 percent of 94 ecological processes already show signs of distress

Authors say responses observed in nature could be applied by people to address mounting issues

"Policy makers and politicians must accept that if we don't curb greenhouse gas emissions, an environmental catastrophe is likely," -- senior author Dr. James Watson of WCS and University of Queensland

NEW YORK - Global changes in temperature due to human-induced climate change have already impacted every aspect of life on Earth from genes to entire ecosystems, with increasingly unpredictable consequences for humans -- according to a new study published in the journal Science.

The study found a staggering 80 percent of 94 ecological processes that form the foundation for healthy marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems already show signs of distress and response to climate change.

Impacts to humans include increased pests and disease outbreaks, reduced productivity in fisheries, and decreasing agriculture yields.

"There is now clear evidence that, with only a ~1oC of warming globally, very major impacts are already being felt," said study lead author Dr Brett Scheffers of the University of Florida. "Genes are changing, species' physiology and physical features such as body size are changing, species are rapidly moving to keep track of suitable climate space, and there are now signs of entire ecosystems under stress."

Said the study's senior author, Dr. James Watson from the Wildlife Conservation Society and University of Queensland: "The level of change we have observed is quite astonishing considering we have only experienced a relatively small amount of climate change to date. It is no longer sensible to consider this a concern for the future. Policy makers and politicians must accept that if we don't curb greenhouse gas emissions, an environmental catastrophe is likely."

But the study also points to hope as many of the responses observed in nature could be applied by people to address the mounting issues faced under changing climate conditions. For example, improved understanding of the adaptive capacity in wildlife can be applied to our crops, livestock and fisheries. This can be seen in crops such as wheat and barley, where domesticated crops are crossed with wild varieties to maintain the evolutionary potential of varieties under climate change.

###

WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society)

MISSION: WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. To achieve our mission, WCS, based at the Bronx Zoo, harnesses the power of its Global Conservation Program in nearly 60 nations and in all the world's oceans and its five wildlife parks in New York City, visited by 4 million people annually. WCS combines its expertise in the field, zoos, and aquarium to achieve its conservation mission. Visit: newsroom.wcs.org Follow: @WCSNewsroom. For more information: 347-840-1242.
Wisconsin Department of Veteran Affairs Secretary John Scocos will resign next year, Gov. Scott Walker announced Wednesday.

Scocos is set to leave office Jan. 7, 2017. He "offered his resignation to the governor to pursue other opportunities," said Walker spokesman Tom Evenson.

It has been a distinct privilege to work for the betterment of my fellow veterans as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Scocos said in a statement. We have made an unprecedented difference for Wisconsins veterans over the last six years, and I thank Governor Walker for the opportunity to serve.

In an email to employees at the agency Wednesday, Scocos said serving as WDVA secretary has "truly been a great honor."

The resignation comes in the midst of an audit at the state's largest nursing home, the Wisconsin Veterans Home at King. The home, along with two others, are run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Lawmakers approved an audit in September after the Cap Times reported concerns about the quality of care there. Scocos has repeatedly denied concerns raised in the story, citing the nursing home's consistently high ratings on its care of veterans from the federal government.

Evenson said Scocos' departure would not affect the audit, which is expected to take six to nine months. State auditors arrived at King this week and have asked employees to come forward with concerns or information they have about care or management there.

Evenson did not have information on a potential replacement but said the announcement leaves time to find one before January.

Scocos' tenure as chief of Wisconsin's veterans agency has been eventful.

He was first appointed to the job in 2003 by the Board of Veterans Affairs, a bipartisan board that formerly governed the state veterans agency. In 2009 he was fired by the board, then made up of former Gov. Jim Doyle appointees, after he returned from a deployment to Iraq. Scocos was mobilized in both 2007 and 2008 as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. He later sued the state for firing him and won a $325,000 settlement in 2013.

In 2011, Scocos came back as chief of the WDVA, which had by then become a cabinet agency. The change followed a law change earlier that year giving the power to appoint the Veterans Affairs secretary and limiting the power of the Board of Veterans Affairs.

Scocos' relationship with Walker dates back to their time in the state Assembly when Scocos served as chief clerk and sergeant at arms and Walker served as a representative from 1993-2002.

Scocos has been a polarizing figure in the veterans community, criticized by some for his abrasive management style and praised by others for accomplishments, including reviving the financial solvency of the veteran nursing homes, increasing funding to veteran service organizations and expanding state education aid for veterans, and raising awareness about veteran suicides.

From fully restoring the Wisconsin G.I. Bill to providing more funding for veterans services, we have accomplished a great deal since 2011," Walker said in a statement. "I thank John for serving as a tireless advocate for Wisconsins veterans throughout his time at the department."

Bill Rosenau, former president of the County Veterans Service Officers Association and a CVSO in Waushara County, which has disagreed with Scocos over changes to the grants they receive by the state and proposals to regionalize them, said he was surprised to hear the news.

"It's been a contentious year," he said. "We were kind of wondering what was going on. We had heard rumors of a move to Lake Geneva, and perhaps he was looking at a change to a political career, but again it's all speculation and baseless."

Rosenau said that since summer, the CVSO association's relationship with the state Department of Veterans Affairs has improved and he said he hopes it continues.
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LEXINGTON, Ky.  Limited scholarships are available for military veterans who would like to attend Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Groups (SAWG) annual Practical Tools and Solutions for Sustaining Family Farms Conference.

The conference, which is being held Jan. 25-28 in Lexington, Kentucky, focuses on practical tools and solutions to build the necessary bridges between farmers, marketers, ag professionals and local-food system advocates.

With support from a USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program grant, the University of Arkansas and the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) are partnering to offer the veteran scholarships, which cover general registration for the conference.

The deadline to apply for the scholarships is Dec. 1. The application is available online at www.ncat.org/armed-to-farm-events.

Applicants will be notified no later than Dec. 18 about the status of their scholarship application.

For more information on the scholarships, contact Margo Hale at margoh@ncat.org. To learn more about the conference, visit www.ssawg.org/january-2017-conference/.
A rural charity is among 90 groups in Wales celebrating their share of nearly 220,000 in cash seized from criminals which has been awarded from the Police and Crime Commissioner's Partnership Fund today.

The Vision of Hope Animal Assisted Therapy charity is based on Wenallt farm near the village of Gilwern in Monmouthshire. The 18 acre farm was purchased by the founders and Directors of the charity, Dinah Sansome and her husband David, six years ago.

Dinah, who has been awarded an MBE for her services to charity, has been working with the homeless since 1968 and has been sharing her homes with offenders to help rehabilitate them since 1980. The couple have supported over 7,000 people over the years.

The young people live and work on the farm with Dinah and her husband

Dinah and David have opened their home at Wenallt farm to ex-offenders and young people recovering from substance misuse so that they can benefit from on-site treatment and therapy relating to the care of animals.

The farm houses up to 10 young people who are referred from prisons, charities, social services, housing and other organisations. The young people live and work on the farm with Dinah and her husband. They receive visits from the probation service and substance misuse workers and have all the support that they need.

The therapy helps them build trust and bonds with the farm animals, most of which have been rescued. Several of the residents have gone on to build lives in the local community and work for the charity, either permanently or as volunteers. The 5,000 they have been awarded will help the project to buy agricultural tools, a poultry incubator, the services of an instructor and a moveable animal shelter.

'Perfect mix for those looking to turn their lives around'

One person who can certainly vouch for the impact of the project is 38 year old Andrew Oates.

Andrew has no doubt that he wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for the support of the rural charity. He was about 11 years old when he started misusing substances and his addiction spiralled out of control.

According to Mr Oates, the remoteness and the hard work involved in running the farm coupled with the family atmosphere and the responsibility of looking after the animals is a perfect mix for those looking turn their lives around.

"It's peaceful, quiet and remote on the farm and part of the recovery process is to be removed from the situation that you were in," says Andrew.

"There's a physical distance and barrier away from drugs and alcohol that helps you here. The work on the farm is hard but the emotional and psychological challenge to overcome addiction is even harder.

"We have chickens, cows, sheep, pigs donkeys and horses here to look after. A typical day starts with cleaning out, feeding, grooming and all that hard work that comes with running a farm," Mr Oates said.
Yesterday, Irelands appeal of the Apple tax ruling was lodged in the European Courts, ahead of tomorrows deadline.

In August, the European Commission ruled that Apple should pay 13bn in back taxes to Ireland.

However, the Government here said the money is not in fact owed to Ireland and will appeal on that basis.

The Government disagrees profoundly with the Commissions analysis in the Apple case, and our position on all aspects of the case is very well known, a spokesman for Finance Minister Michael Noonan said last night.

After those disagreements, Mr Noonan arranged for an appeal to be brought before the European courts.

Such an appeal takes the form of an application to the General Court of the European Union, asking it to annul the decision of the Commission, the spokesman added.

Attorney general Marie Whelans office has been preparing the legal grounds in support of the annulment proceedings. Our application will be lodged in the General Court of the EU.

As this topic is the subject of open legal proceedings, it will not be possible to comment further, in particular on any of the individual elements of the States legal case in defence of our position. This is important to ensure we do not prejudice our own legal case, Mr Noonans spokesman said.

The US has said it might seek some of the 13bn after the European Commission said other countries might be able to stake a claim to the money, if it can prove the tax should have been paid there instead.
TORONTO, CANADA--(Marketwired - Nov. 10, 2016) - Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN)(OTCQX:IVPAF) today announced its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2016. All figures are in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

HIGHLIGHTS

On October 12, 2016, Ivanhoe released an independently verified, initial Mineral Resource estimate for the extremely-high-grade Kakula Discovery on the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Kakula's Indicated Resources presently total 192 million tonnes at a grade of 3.45% copper, containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper. Inferred Resources total 101 million tonnes at a grade of 2.74% copper, containing 6.1 billion pounds of copper. Both estimates are at a 1.0% copper cut-off.

The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. Kamoa-Kakula also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres.

With the addition of Kakula's Mineral Resources, Wood Mackenzie - a prominent, international industry research and consulting group - has independently demonstrated that the Kamoa-Kakula Project is the largest copper discovery in Zambia and the DRC, making it the largest copper discovery ever made on the African continent. In addition, Wood Mackenzie's research also shows that Kamoa-Kakula already ranks among the 10 largest copper deposits in the world.

The Kakula Discovery remains open along trend to the northwest and the southeast, while the remainder of the Kakula Exploration Area remains untested. Ivanhoe expects that an updated Mineral Resource estimate for the Kakula Discovery will be issued in Q1 2017.

With the initial Kakula estimate completed, Kamoa Copper has retained OreWin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, to prepare a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the development of the Kakula Deposit. The PEA, which is expected to be completed before the end of 2016, will concentrate on establishing the economic parameters of a potential four-million-tonne-per-year mining operation at Kakula.

Recent bench-scale metallurgical flotation test work at XPS Consulting and Testwork Services laboratories in Falconbridge, Canada, achieved copper recoveries of 87.8% and produced a concentrate with an extremely high grade of 56% copper using the flowsheet developed during the Kamoa pre-feasibility study (PFS). The material tested was a composite of chalcocite-rich Kakula drill core, assaying 8.1% copper.

Underground mine development at Kamoa's planned initial mining area at Kansoko Sud is progressing ahead of plan and within budgeted costs. The twin declines, incorporating both a service and a conveyor tunnel, each have advanced more than 365 metres since the first excavation blast was conducted in May of this year. Development of the underground mine is designed to reach the high-grade copper mineralization at the Kansoko Sud deposit during the first quarter of 2017.

On October 25, 2016, Ivanhoe received the third of five scheduled $41.2 million installment payments from a Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. subsidiary as part of a strategic co-development agreement under which Zijin acquired 49.5% of Ivanhoe's majority stake in the Kamoa-Kakula copper discovery. Zijin agreed to pay $412 million for a 49.5% interest in Ivanhoe subsidiary Kamoa Holding Limited that presently owns 95% of the Kamoa-Kakula Project. The remaining $82.4 million is required to be paid in two further equal installments, every 3.5 months; the next installment is due February 8, 2017.

Cordial negotiations are continuing between Ivanhoe, its Kamoa-Kakula joint-venture partner Zijin Mining and senior DRC government officials to complete the transfer to the DRC government of an additional 15% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project, on terms to be negotiated. Ivanhoe expects a mutually beneficial agreement to be achieved in the near future that will provide long-lasting, positive benefits to the DRC government and the Congolese people.

On September 13, 2016, Ivanhoe announced that ongoing upgrading work financed by the company at the Mwadingusha hydropower plant has begun supplying an initial 11 megawatts (MW) of power to the DRC's national grid. The Kamoa-Kakula Project began drawing power from the national grid on October 30, 2016.

Also in the DRC, Ivanhoe is making good progress on a pre-feasibility study for the redevelopment of the Kipushi zinc-copper-germanium-lead-silver mine. The comprehensive study is being prepared by OreWin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, and will refine the company's May 2016 preliminary economic assessment of Kipushi's proposed redevelopment. The upgraded mine is expected to produce an annual average of 530,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate over a 10-year mine life at a total cash cost, including copper by-product credits, of approximately $0.54 per pound of zinc.

At the Platreef platinum-palladium-gold-nickel-copper project in South Africa, sinking of Shaft 1 has reached a depth of more than 120 metres below surface. Shaft 1, which is expected to reach the Flatreef Deposit in late 2017, will provide development access into the deposit and will be utilized to fast-track production during the project's first phase.

The design has been completed for Platreef's Shaft 2, which will have a total hoisting capacity of six million tonnes per annum and an internal diameter of 10 metres; construction is expected to begin in 2017. When completed, Shaft 2 is expected to be the main production shaft at the Platreef Mine.

The feasibility study for the first phase of mine development at Platreef, which is being managed by DRA Global, is expected to be completed in March 2017.

On August 29, 2016, Ivanhoe announced that its board of directors had authorized the company to seek strategic advice at the project and corporate levels to help address unsolicited interest that the company and its projects have received.

On September 12, 2016, Standard and Poor's (S&P) added Ivanhoe Mines to the S&P/TSX Composite Index, which is widely considered to be the leading indicator of broad market activity in Canadian equity markets.

Ivanhoe Mines' three projects achieved a combined 10.4 million work hours free of lost-time injuries (LTIF) by the end of the third quarter of 2016. Ivanhoe had recorded 178,500 LTIF hours at Platreef, 4.67 million hours at Kipushi and 5.59 million hours at Kamoa-Kakula to the end of Q3 2016.

Principal projects and review of activities

1. Platreef Project

64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

South Africa

The Platreef Project is owned by Ivanplats (Pty) Ltd, which is 64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines. A 26% interest is held by Ivanplats' historically-disadvantaged broad-based, black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) partners, which include 20 local host communities with a total of approximately 150,000 people, project employees and local entrepreneurs. Ivanplats reconfirmed its Level 3 status in its second verification assessment on a B-BBEE scorecard. A Japanese consortium of ITOCHU Corporation and its affiliate, ITC Platinum, plus Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation and JGC Corporation, owns a 10% interest in Ivanplats, which it acquired in two tranches for a total investment of $290 million.

The Platreef Project hosts an underground deposit of thick, platinum-group metals, nickel, copper and gold mineralization in the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex, approximately 280 kilometres northeast of Johannesburg and eight kilometres from the town of Mokopane in Limpopo Province. Since 2007, Ivanhoe has focused its exploration activities on defining and advancing the down-dip extension of its original discovery at Platreef, now known as the Flatreef Deposit, which is amenable to highly mechanized, underground mining methods. The Flatreef area lies entirely on the Turfspruit and Macalacaskop properties, which form part of the company's mining right.

Health and safety at Platreef

The Platreef Project reached a total of 6,331,141 million hours in terms of the Mines Health and Safety Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) by the end of September 2016. The project recorded 178,552 work hours free of lost-time injuries (LTIF) up until the end of Q3 2016.

Unfortunately, the project suffered a lost-time injury during the quarter. A rock-drill operator was injured, booked off and returned to work seven days after the incident. The Platreef Project continues to strive toward its workplace objective of an environment that causes zero harm to any employees, contractors, sub-contractors or consultants.

Shaft 1 construction

Shaft 1, with an internal diameter of 7.25 metres, will provide initial access to the ore body and enable the initial underground capital development to take place during the development of Shaft 2, the main production shaft.

Following the successful commissioning and licencing of the stage and kibble winders and ancillary equipment, the permanent sinking phase started in July 2016. The initial sinking phase was completed to 107 metres below surface and the main sinking phase has been initiated.

A sinking rate of 45 metres per month is expected during the main phase, which includes a 300-millimetre concrete shaft lining and inserts. The current level is approximately 130 metres below surface; stations will be developed at the 450-, 750-, 850- and 950-metre levels. The main sinking phase is expected to reach its projected, final depth of 980 metres below surface in 2018.

To view Figure 1. Shaft 1 headgear and other related surface infrastructure





Project infrastructure

Work is complete on the internal substation, which has a capacity of five million volt-amperes (MVA). Construction is underway on the power transmission lines from Eskom, South Africa's public electricity utility, which are expected to supply the electricity for shaft sinking. Back-up generators have been installed to ensure continued sinking operations during any interruptions in Eskom's supply of electricity. The new transmission lines also are expected to provide power to an adjacent community near the Platreef Project, which will be a major, added community benefit.

To view Figure 2. Eskom's 5MVA line to Platreef Project





Other on-site work completed includes the storm-water pond management system, concrete batch plant, workshops, stores and an explosives magazine.

Construction of the intersection on the National Road (N11) highway for improved access to the Platreef mine site was completed in August 2016. The work included adding extra lanes to the existing roadway, exit and entry ramps, storm-water management and resurfacing of the intersection.

Platreef implementing a phased approach to a large, underground, mechanized mine

Ivanhoe plans to develop the Platreef Mine in phases. The initial annual rate of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) is designed to establish an operating platform to support future expansions. This is expected to be followed by a potential doubling of production to 8 Mtpa; and then a third expansion phase to a steady-state 12 Mtpa, which would establish Platreef among the largest platinum-group-metals mines in the world.

Ivanhoe has made good progress on advancing the feasibility study of the first phase, which began in August 2015. The study is being managed by DRA Global - with specialized sub-consultants including Stantec Consulting, Murray & Roberts Cementation, SRK, Golder Associates and Digby Wells Environmental - and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2017. There are expected to be opportunities to refine and modify the timing and capacities of subsequent phases of production to suit market conditions during the development and commissioning of the first phase.

Planned mining methods to incorporate highly productive, mechanized methods

The selected mining areas in the current mine plan occur at depths ranging from approximately 700 metres to 1,200 metres below the surface. The main access to the Flatreef Deposit and ventilation system is expected to be through four vertical shafts. Shaft 2 will host the main personnel transport cage, material and ore-handling systems; Shafts 1, 3 and 4 will provide ventilation to the underground workings. Shaft 1, now under development, also will be used for initial access to the deposit and early underground development.

Planned mining of the Flatreef Deposit is expected to use highly productive, mechanized methods, including long-hole stoping and drift-and-fill mining. Mined-out areas will be backfilled with a paste mixture that utilizes tailings from the process plant and cement. The ore will be hauled from the stopes to a series of ore passes that will connect to a main haulage level at Shaft 2, from where it will be hoisted to surface for processing.

Bulk water and electricity supply

The Olifants River Water Resource Development Project (ORWRDP) is designed to deliver water to the Eastern and Northern limbs of South Africa's Bushveld Complex. The project consists of the new De Hoop Dam, the raised wall of the Flag Boshielo Dam and related pipeline infrastructure that ultimately is expected to deliver water to Pruissen, southeast of the Northern Limb. The Pruissen Pipeline Project is expected to be developed to deliver water onward from Pruissen to the municipalities, communities and mining projects on the Northern Limb. Ivanhoe is a member of the ORWRDP's Joint Water Forum. The Minister of Water & Sanitation has directed that the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority serve as the implementing agent for the outstanding phases of the ORWRDP scheme, which include the Phase 2B pipeline from Flag Boshielo Dam to Mokopane.

The Platreef Project's water requirement for the first phase of development is projected to peak at approximately 10 million litres per day, which is expected to be serviced by the scheme. Ivanhoe also is investigating various alternative sources of bulk water, including an allocation of bulk grey-water from the local municipality.

The Platreef Project's electricity requirement for a four-million-tonne-per-year underground mine, concentrator and associated infrastructure has been estimated at approximately 100 million volt-amperes. An agreement has been reached with Eskom for the supply of phase-one power. Ivanhoe chose a self-build option for permanent power that will enable the company to manage the construction of the distribution lines from Eskom's Burutho sub-station to the Platreef Mine. The formulation of the self-build and electrical supply agreements are in progress.

Development of human resources and job skills

Work is progressing well on the further implementation of Ivanhoe's Social and Labour Plan (SLP), to which the company has pledged a total of R160 million ($11 million) during the first five years, until November 2019. The approved plan includes R67 million ($4 million) for the development of job skills among local residents and R88 million ($6 million) for local economic development projects. Additional internal training is ongoing to provide members of the current workforce with opportunities to expand their skills.

Ivanplats recently concluded a one-year deal with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) for annual wage increases without any labour disruption or work stoppage during negotiations.

2. Kipushi Project

68%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Kipushi copper-zinc-germanium-lead mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is adjacent to the town of Kipushi and approximately 30 kilometres southwest of Lubumbashi. It is located on the Central African Copperbelt, approximately 250 kilometres southeast of the Kamoa-Kakula Project and less than one kilometre from the Zambian border. Ivanhoe acquired its 68% interest in the Kipushi Project in November 2011; the balance of 32% is held by the state-owned mining company, La Generale des Carrieres et des Mines (Gecamines).

Health, safety and community development at Kipushi

The Kipushi Project achieved a total of 4,674,445 work hours free of lost-time injuries, equivalent to 1,512 days, to the end of Q3 2016. Malaria remains the most frequently occurring health concern at Kipushi; in Q3 2016, there was an average of 15 cases each month among employees, which is above the dry-season norm.

In an effort to reduce the incidence of malaria in the Kipushi community, a Water Sanitation and Health (WASH) program has been initiated in cooperation with the Territorial Administrator and the local community. The main emphasis of the program's first phase is cleaning storm drains in the municipality to prevent the accumulation of ponded water, where malarial mosquitos breed.

The Fionet program to combat malaria has distributed 150 Deki electronic readers in addition to the original 37 readers provided to medical-service providers in Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces. The Deki technology provides automated reading of Rapid Diagnostic Tests to remove the human-error factor and prescription of unnecessary medication and uploads data to a cloud server for analysis by the Ministry of Health in planning malaria-control measures. Data gathered up until September 30, 2016, indicate that 18,818 patients have been tested using the Deki reader, with more than half those testing negative for malaria.

Project development and infrastructure

The Kipushi Mine, which had been placed on care and maintenance in 1993, flooded in early 2011 due to a lack of pump maintenance over an extended period. At its peak, water reached 851 metres below the surface. A major milestone was reached in December 2013 when Ivanhoe restored access to the mine's principal haulage level at 1,150 metres below the surface. Since then, crews have been upgrading underground infrastructure to permanently stabilize the water levels.

Since completion of the drilling program, water levels have been lowered to approximately the 1,245-metre-level in Shaft 5. Engineering work has focused on upgrading of Shaft 5 conveyances and infrastructure, cleaning the shaft bottom to facilitate the installation of new hoist ropes, repairs and upgrades to the hoisting infrastructure and cleaning and stripping of the main pump station at the 1,200-metre-level.

To view Figure 3. Connecting discharge pipes to one of five pumps on the 1,200-metre-level





Pre-feasibility study underway at Kipushi

A pre-feasibility study (PFS) now underway will further refine the optimal development scenario for the existing underground mine at Kipushi. Orewin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, has been appointed the main contractor and Golder Associates, MDM, SRK, DRA and Grindrod have been engaged to complete various aspects of the PFS.

The PFS will refine the positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the redevelopment of the Kipushi Project that was announced on May 2, 2016. The PEA was prepared in compliance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Highlights of the PEA, prepared by OreWin and the MSA Group (Pty) Ltd, of Johannesburg, South Africa, include:

After-tax net present value at an 8% real discount rate is $533 million.

After-tax real internal rate of return is 30.9%.

After-tax project payback period is 2.2 years.

Leveraging existing surface and underground infrastructure significantly lowers the redevelopment capital compared to a greenfield development project, as well as the time required to reinstate production.

Life-of-mine average planned zinc concentrate production of 530,000 dry tonnes per annum - with a concentrate grade of 53% zinc - is expected to rank Kipushi, once in production, among the world's major zinc mines.

Life-of-mine average cash cost of $0.54/lb. of zinc is expected to rank Kipushi, once in production, in the bottom quartile of the cash-cost curve for zinc producers globally.

3. Kamoa-Kakula Project

47%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project, a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines and Zijin Mining, is the largest copper discovery ever made on the African continent, with adjacent prospective exploration areas within the Central African Copperbelt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, approximately 25 kilometres west of the town of Kolwezi and about 270 kilometres west of Lubumbashi. Ivanhoe sold a 49.5% share interest in Kamoa Holding Limited, the company that presently owns 95% of Kamoa Copper SA, the owner of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, to Zijin Mining in December 2015 for an aggregate consideration of $412 million. In addition, Ivanhoe sold a 1% share interest in Kamoa Holding to privately-owned Crystal River Global Limited for $8.32 million - which Crystal River will pay through a non-interest-bearing, 10-year promissory note.

A 5%, non-dilutable interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project was transferred to the DRC government on September 11, 2012, for no consideration, pursuant to the DRC Mining Code. Ivanhoe also has offered to transfer an additional 15% interest to the DRC government on terms to be negotiated. Constructive and cordial negotiations over the offer are continuing between Ivanhoe Mines, Zijin and senior DRC government officials. Ivanhoe expects a mutually beneficial agreement to be achieved in the near future that will provide long-lasting, positive benefits to the DRC government and the Congolese people.

Subsequent to the sales to Zijin and Crystal River, Ivanhoe owns an effective 47% of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which will decrease to an effective 40% should the additional 15% interest be transferred to the DRC government.

Kamoa-Kakula already ranks among the 10 largest copper deposits in the world. On October 12, 2016, an initial Mineral Resource estimate for the extremely-high-grade Kakula Discovery was issued with an effective date of October 9, 2016. The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. Kamoa-Kakula now also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres.

Kamoa-Kakula studies

The mining portion of the feasibility study for a four-million-tonne-per-annum (4 Mtpa) mine at Kansoko Sud is progressing well; the work is being carried out by a number of specialist consultants, including Stantec for the mine, DRA for the underground engineering, KGHM Cuprum for geotechnical and mining method, SRK for the mine geotechnical and Golder for geohydrology.

With the initial Kakula Mineral Resource estimate completed, Kamoa Copper has retained OreWin, of Adelaide, Australia, to prepare a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the development of the Kakula Deposit. The PEA, which is expected to be completed before the end of 2016, will concentrate on establishing the economic parameters of potential mining operations at Kakula, including capital and operating costs for an underground mine.

The PEA will draw on recommendations from the Kamoa 2016 pre-feasibility study, including the potential to increase production to up to four million tonnes per year from the proposed initial mining area.

Recent bench-scale metallurgical flotation test work carried out at XPS Consulting and Testwork Services laboratories in Falconbridge, Canada, achieved copper recoveries of 87.8% and produced a concentrate with an extremely high grade of 56% copper using the flowsheet developed during the Kamoa pre-feasibility study. The material tested was a composite of recent, chalcocite-rich Kakula drill core, assaying 8.1% copper.

Kakula mineralization is characteristically bottom loaded. The Resource estimate demonstrates that opportunities exist to mine Kakula at much higher lateral and vertical cut-offs than at Kamoa's Kansoko Sud. The clear zonation and grades in the central high-grade core should provide sequencing opportunities to mine at significantly elevated grades.

Health and safety at Kamoa-Kakula

Health and safety remain key priorities for all people working at the Kamoa-Kakula Project, where an excellent safety record has been achieved. As of September 30, 2016, a total of 5,590,040 hours had been worked without a lost-time injury.

Exploration activities lead to a substantial expansion of the Kakula Discovery

On October 12, 2016 the company released the initial Resource estimate for its Kakula Discovery at the Kamoa-Kakula Project. Highlights of the initial Kakula Mineral Resource estimate, prepared by Ivanhoe Mines under the direction of Amec Foster Wheeler E&C Services Inc., of Reno, USA, in accordance with the 2014 CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves are:

Indicated Resources total 192 million tonnes at a grade of 3.45% copper, containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper at a 1% copper cut-off. At a 2% copper cut-off, Indicated Resources total 115 million tonnes at a 4.80% copper grade, containing 12.1 billion pounds of copper. At a higher cut-off of 3% copper, Indicated Resources total 66 million tonnes at a grade of 6.59% copper, containing 9.6 billion pounds of copper.

Inferred Resources total 101 million tonnes at a grade of 2.74% copper, containing 6.1 billion pounds of copper at a 1% copper cut-off. At a 2% copper cut-off, Inferred Resources total 51 million tonnes at a 3.92% copper grade, containing 4.4 billion pounds of copper. At a higher cut-off of 3% copper, Inferred Resources total 27 million tonnes at a grade of 5.26% copper, containing 3.2 billion pounds of copper.

The average true thickness of the selective mineralized zone (SMZ) at a 1% cut-off is 14.27 metres in the Indicated Resources area and 10.33 metres in the Inferred Resources area. At a higher 3% cut-off, the average true thickness of the SMZ is 5.91 metres in the Indicated Resources area and 5.15 metres in the Inferred Resources area.

The Kakula Mineral Resource has been defined by drilling covering a total area of 8.7 square kilometres within the larger 60-square-kilometre Kakula Exploration Area, as shown in Figure 4. The total areal extent of Indicated Resource is 4.6 square kilometres at a 1% cut-off and the areal extent of the Inferred Resource is 3.3 square kilometres at a 1% cut-off. The average dip of the mineralized zone in the Indicated Resource area is 13 degrees, while the average dip is 16 degrees in the Inferred Resource area.

The high-grade copper mineralization remains open for significant expansion along trend to the northwest. The remainder of the Kakula Exploration Area remains untested (see Figure 4). The Mineral Resource estimate is based on the results from approximately 24,000 metres of drilling in 65 holes. An additional 13 holes totalling more than 7,000 metres have been completed and assay results are pending.

Indicated Resources are defined when the drill-hole spacing approximates a 400-metre grid, while Inferred Resources are defined when the drill-hole spacing approximates an 800-metre grid.

To view Figure 4. Kamoa-Kakula Project map showing location of Kakula exploration and initial Kakula Resource outline





Updated Kamoa-Kakula Resource

Kakula's estimated Resources are in addition to the Mineral Resources delineated elsewhere on the Kamoa mining licence that were disclosed by Ivanhoe Mines in a news release on February 23, 2016.

The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum true thickness of three metres.

Kamoa-Kakula now also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum true thickness of three metres.

Exploration activities lead to significant expansion of the Kakula Discovery and a substantial increase in the planned scope of exploration activities for 2016 and 2017

During Q3 2016, a total of 19,418 metres of exploration drilling was completed at the new Kakula Discovery. A total of 17,702 metres was completed by the drilling contractor, Titan Drilling SARL, utilizing up to six drill rigs; an additional 1,716 metres was completed using company-owned drill rigs. Included in the drilling program were holes drilled for geotechnical studies as well as PQ drill holes for comminution test work.

In addition to the exploration program, 185 metres were completed for dewatering of the Kansoko Sud declines. A total of 220 metres was completed by Titan Drilling for cover drilling within the declines ahead of the mine development. This program is planned to continue for the duration of the decline development. Drilling for 2016 now totals 33,443 metres.

As a result of the ongoing success of the Kakula drilling program and the extension along trend of the central, high-grade, chalcocite-rich core to the northwest and southeast at relatively shallow depths, the Kakula drilling program was expanded in Q2 by an additional 9,000 metres, to a total of 34,000 metres.

With the completion of the initial Mineral Resource estimate and the significance of the discovery now firmly established, the Kakula exploration program has been significantly expanded by a further 60,000 metres. The expanded program is planned to run through to the end of Q2 2017 and will consist of infill drilling, resource expansion and exploration of the Kakula Discovery area. The expanded drill program will be completed by a combination of contractor drilling and company-owned rigs.

Mine development

Byrnecut Underground Congo SARL progressed well with the decline development at Kansoko during Q3 2016 and is advancing ahead of schedule. The twin declines, incorporating both a service and a conveyor tunnel, each have advanced more than 365 metres.

To view Figure 5. Kansoko box-cut sump being cleaned and equipped





Development of the underground mine is designed to reach the high-grade copper mineralization at the Kansoko Sud deposit during the first quarter of 2017. The development is ahead of schedule and within budgeted costs.

During the quarter, the settling and clean-water dams were constructed and equipped, and the first cross-cut between the declines was blasted. The box-cut sump also was cleaned and equipped with permanent pumps and a pump column.

To view Figure 6. Underground loading operation





In parallel with the Kamoa 2016 PFS, an alternative mining method - controlled-convergence room-and-pillar mining, developed by Poland-based KGHM - was investigated for potential use on the Kansoko deposits. Given the thick, mineralized widths encountered to date in the Kakula drilling program, controlled-convergence room-and-pillar mining also will be investigated for potential use at Kakula.

To help advance the ongoing exploration and development of the Kakula Deposit, the Kamoa engineering team has identified a possible location for a box cut at Kakula. The design of the box cut is underway and the preparation of tender documents for the excavation, support and civil works is underway.

A 10-kilometre road from the Kamoa mine site to Kakula is under construction to facilitate access for drill rigs and construction equipment during the rainy season.

Hydroelectric power plant upgrading project

The Mwadingusha Unit 1 repair work was completed in August 2016 and the official inauguration ceremony took place on September 7, 2016, at the Mwadingusha power station. The Mwadingusha G1 unit, supplying 11MW, was synchronized to the national interconnected grid on September 6, 2016.

Selected quarterly financial information

The following table summarizes selected financial information for the prior eight quarters. Ivanhoe had no operating revenue in any financial reporting period and did not declare or pay any dividend or distribution in any financial reporting period.

3 Months ended September 30, June 30, March 31, December 31, 2016 2016 2016 2015 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure * 7,769 8,233 6,917 10,271 General administrative expenditure * 4,213 3,657 3,693 5,833 Share-based payments 1,750 1,312 1,473 2,345 Gain on partial sale of subsidiary - - - (357,671) Re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in joint venture - - - (376,148) Finance income (7,239) (7,367) (8,469) (1,191) Finance costs 454 445 428 1,556 Mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants - - - (429) Loss (gain) from subsidiary held for partial sale - - - 755 Total comprehensive loss (gain) attributable to: Owners of the Company (1,860) 6,568 4,203 (717,213) Non-controlling interest 2,445 3,483 2,897 2,468 Loss (profit) per share (basic and diluted) 0.00 0.01 0.01 (0.92) 3 Months ended September 30, June 30, March 31, December 31, 2015 2015 2015 2014 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure * 8,553 9,009 12,918 21,178 General administrative expenditure * 4,430 1,323 5,859 8,987 Share-based payments 1,655 1,736 1,986 2,245 Finance income (273) (445) (295) (288) Finance costs 36 48 34 382 Mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants (970) (1,334) (4,212) (2,316) Loss from subsidiary held for partial sale (7,958) 2,675 209 4,813 Total comprehensive loss attributable to: Owners of the Company 9,420 11,008 15,511 31,649 Non-controlling interest 3,439 3,564 3,498 5,434 Loss per share (basic and diluted) 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.05

Discussion of results of operations

Review of the three months ended September 30, 2016 vs. September 30, 2015

The company's total comprehensive loss for Q3 2016 of $0.6 million was $12.3 million lower than for the same period in 2015 ($12.9 million). The decrease mainly was due to exchange gains on translation of foreign operations recognized in Q3 2016 of $10.8 million resulting from the strengthening of the South African Rand by 10% from June 30, 2016, to September 30, 2016.

Finance income increased by $7.0 million in Q3 2016 when compared to the same period in 2015 and mainly included interest earned on loans to the Kamoa joint venture that amounted to $4.2 million and deemed income on the purchase price receivable from the partial sale of the Kamoa-Kakula Project that amounted to $2.3 million.

Exploration and project expenditures for the three months ending September 30, 2016, amounted to $7.8 million and were $0.8 million less than for the same period in 2015 ($8.6 million).

With the focus at the Platreef Project on development, and the Kamoa-Kakula Project being accounted for as a joint venture, $7.5 million of the total $7.8 million exploration and project expenditure related to the Kipushi Project. Expenditure at the Kipushi Project decreased by $0.4 million compared to the same period in 2015.

Review of the nine months ended September 30, 2016 vs. September 30, 2015

The company's total comprehensive loss of $17.7 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016, was $28.7 million lower than for the same period in 2015 ($46.4 million). The decrease was due to exchange gains on translation of foreign operations of $10.4 million recognized in the first nine months of 2016 compared to an exchange loss on translation of foreign operations of $11.7 million for the same period in 2015.

The increase in finance income of $22.1 million, together with a $7.6 million decrease in exploration and project expenditure, also contributed to the decreased comprehensive loss for the period, but was partly offset by the company's share of losses from its Kamoa joint venture that amounted to $15.8 million.

Finance income for the nine months ending September 30, 2016, amounted to $23.1 million, which was $22.1 million more than for the same period in 2015 ($1.0 million). The increase mainly was due to interest earned on loans to the Kamoa joint venture that amounted to $11.5 million for the nine months ending September 30, 2016, together with deemed finance income on the purchase price receivable from the partial sale of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which amounted to $9.5 million.

Exploration and project expenditures for the nine months ending September 30, 2016, amounted to $22.9 million and were $7.6 million less than for the same period in 2015 ($30.5 million). The $4.1 million retrenchment costs incurred in 2015 relating to the closure of Ivanhoe's regional exploration company in the DRC was the main reason for the decrease, together with reduced expenditure at the Kipushi Project.

With the focus at the Platreef Project on development and the Kamoa-Kakula Project being accounted for as a joint venture, $22.2 million of the total $22.9 million exploration and project expenditure related to the Kipushi Project. Expenditure at the Kipushi Project decreased by $2.8 million compared to the same period in 2015.

Financial position as at September 30, 2016 vs. December 31, 2015

The company's total assets decreased by $16.4 million, from $1,022.6 million as at December 31, 2015, to $1,006.2 million as at September 30, 2016. This resulted from the company utilizing its cash resources in its operations.

The remaining purchase price receivable due to the company as a result of the sale of 49.5% of Kamoa Holding decreased as the company received $93.1 million from Zijin during the nine months ending September 30, 2016. The present value of the remaining consideration receivable, net of transaction costs, was $113.4 million as at September 30, 2016. Ivanhoe received $41.2 million of the remaining consideration receivable subsequent to September 30, 2016, on October 25, 2016, and the next of the two remaining installments is due on February 8, 2017.

The company's investment in the Kamoa Holding joint venture increased by $43.8 million from $412.0 as at December 31, 2015, to $455.8 million as at September 30, 2016, with the current shareholders funding the operations equivalent to their proportionate shareholding interest. At Kamoa-Kakula, the focus remained on development, together with an exploration program at the Kakula Discovery.

Property, plant and equipment increased by $37.7 million, with a total of $32.4 million being spent on project development and to acquire other property, plant and equipment, $29.7 million of which pertained to development costs of the Platreef Project.

The company utilized $24.8 million of its cash resources in its operations and earned interest income of $2.1 million on cash balances in the nine months ended September 30, 2016; the company's portion of the Kamoa joint venture cash calls amounted to $47.1 million.

The company's total liabilities decreased to $40.9 million as at September 30, 2016, from $43.8 million as at December 31, 2015. This mainly was due to the decrease in trade and other payables of $3.9 million.

Liquidity and capital resources

The company had $275.9 million in cash and cash equivalents as at September 30, 2016. Certain of the company's cash and cash equivalents, having an aggregate value of $29.1 million, are subject to contractual restrictions as to their use and are reserved for the Platreef Project.

As at September 30, 2016, the company had consolidated working capital of approximately $401.9 million, compared to $424.6 million at December 31, 2015. The Platreef Project working capital is restricted and amounted to $28.8 million at September 30, 2016, and $53.2 million at December 31, 2015. Excluding the Platreef Project working capital, the resultant working capital was $373.1 million at September 30, 2016, and $371.4 million at December 31, 2015. The company believes it has sufficient resources to cover its short-term cash requirements. However, the company's access to financing always is uncertain and there can be no assurance that additional funding will be available to the company in the near future.

On December 8, 2015, Zijin completed its investment in Ivanhoe's Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project. Zijin, through a subsidiary company, has acquired a 49.5% interest in Kamoa Holding for a total of $412 million in a series of payments. Ivanhoe received an initial $206 million from Zijin on December 8, 2015 and a further $41.2 million on each of March 23, 2016, July 8, 2016, and October 25, 2016; the remaining $82.4 million is scheduled to be received in two equal installments, payable every 3.5 months from the previous installment. Upon closing of the transaction, each shareholder is required to fund Kamoa Holding in an amount equivalent to its proportionate shareholding interest.

The company's main objectives for 2016 at the Platreef Project remain the continuation of the phase one feasibility study and Shaft 1 construction. At Kipushi, the principal objective is the continued upgrading of mining infrastructure, now that the preliminary economic assessment has been successfully completed. At the Kamoa-Kakula Project, priorities are the continuation of drilling and the construction of the twin declines at Kamoa. The company expects to spend $14 million on further development at the Platreef Project; $8 million at the Kipushi Project; and $5 million on corporate overheads for the remainder of 2016. The company's proportionate funding of the Kamoa-Kakula Project for Q4 2016 already has been advanced in September; however, funding for Q1 2017 is expected to be advanced in December 2016.

This release should be read in conjunction with Ivanhoe Mines' unaudited, condensed, consolidated interim financial statements for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016, and Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) report available at www.ivanhoemines.com and at www.sedar.com.

Qualified Person

Disclosures of a scientific or technical nature in this news release have been reviewed and approved by Stephen Torr, who is considered, by virtue of his education, experience and professional association, a Qualified Person under the terms of NI 43-101. Mr. Torr is not considered independent under NI 43-101 as he is the Vice President, Project Geology and Evaluation. Mr. Torr has verified the technical data disclosed in this release.

Ivanhoe has prepared a current independent, NI 43-101-compliant technical report for each of the Platreef Project, the Kipushi Project and the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which are available under the company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. These technical reports include relevant information regarding the effective dates and the assumptions, parameters and methods of the mineral resource estimates on the Platreef Project, the Kipushi Project and the Kamoa-Kakula Project cited in this release, as well as information regarding data verification, exploration procedures and other matters relevant to the scientific and technical disclosure contained in this release in respect of the Platreef Project, Kipushi Project and Kamoa-Kakula Project.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including without limitation, the timing and results of: (i) statements regarding Shaft 1 providing initial access for early underground development at the Flatreef Deposit; (ii) statements regarding the station development of Shaft 1 at the 450, 750, 850 and 950 metre levels; (iii) statements regarding the sinking of Shaft 1, including that a sinking rate of 45 metres per month is expected; statements regarding Shaft 1 reaching the planned, final depth at 980 metres below surface in 2018; (iv) statements regarding the timing of the commencement of Shaft 2 development, including that construction is to commence in 2017; (v) statements regarding the operational and technical capacity of Shaft 1; (vi) statements regarding the internal diameter and hoisting capacity of Shaft 2; (vii) statements regarding the Company's plans to develop the Platreef Mine in three phases: an initial annual rate of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) to establish an operating platform to support future expansions; followed by a doubling of production to eight Mtpa; and then a third expansion phase to a steady-state 12 Mtpa; (viii) statements regarding the planned underground mining methods of the Platreef Project; (ix) statements regarding peak water use of 10 million litres per day at the Platreef Project and development of the Pruissen Pipeline Project; (x) statements regarding the Platreef Project's electricity requirement of 100 million volt-amperes; (xi) statements regarding the completion of a feasibility study at the Platreef Project in the first half of 2017; (xii) statements regarding the declines having been designed to intersect the high-grade copper mineralization in the Kansoko Sud area during the first quarter of 2017; (xiii) statements regarding the timing, size and objectives of drilling and other exploration programs for 2016 and future periods; (xiv) statements regarding the expectation to have a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) of the Kakula Discovery at the Kamoa-Kakula Project completed before the end of 2016; (xv) statements regarding the implementation of Social and Labour Plan at the Platreef Project; (xvi) statements that the expanded 60,000 metres of drilling at the Kakula Discovery will run through Q2 2017; and (xvii) statements regarding expected further expenditure in 2016 of $14 million on further development at the Platreef Project; $8 million at the Kipushi Project; and $5 million on corporate overheads - as well as its proportionate funding of the Kamoa-Kakula Project for Q1 2017 expected to be advanced in December 2016.

Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements reflect the company's current expectations regarding future events, performance and results and speak only as of the date of this news release.

As well, the results of the pre-feasibility study of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, the pre-feasibility study of the Platreef Project and the preliminary economic assessment of the Kipushi Project constitute forward-looking information, and include future estimates of internal rates of return, net present value, future production, estimates of cash cost, proposed mining plans and methods, mine life estimates, cash flow forecasts, metal recoveries, estimates of capital and operating costs and the size and timing of phased development of the projects. Furthermore, with respect to this specific forward-looking information concerning the development of the Kamoa-Kakula, Platreef and Kipushi Projects, the company has based its assumptions and analysis on certain factors that are inherently uncertain. Uncertainties include: (i) the adequacy of infrastructure; (ii) geological characteristics; (iii) metallurgical characteristics of the mineralization; (iv) the ability to develop adequate processing capacity; (v) the price of copper, nickel, zinc, platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold; (vi) the availability of equipment and facilities necessary to complete development; (vii) the cost of consumables and mining and processing equipment; (viii) unforeseen technological and engineering problems; (ix) accidents or acts of sabotage or terrorism; (x) currency fluctuations; (xi) changes in regulations; (xii) the compliance by joint venture partners with terms of agreements, (xiii) the availability and productivity of skilled labour; (xiv) the regulation of the mining industry by various governmental agencies; and (xiv) political factors.

This news release also contains references to estimates of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The estimation of Mineral Resources is inherently uncertain and involves subjective judgments about many relevant factors. Estimates of Mineral Reserves provide more certainty but still involve similar subjective judgements. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The accuracy of any such estimates is a function of the quantity and quality of available data, and of the assumptions made and judgments used in engineering and geological interpretation (including estimated future production from the company's projects, the anticipated tonnages and grades that will be mined and the estimated level of recovery that will be realized), which may prove to be unreliable and depend, to a certain extent, upon the analysis of drilling results and statistical inferences that ultimately may prove to be inaccurate. Mineral Resource or Mineral Reserve estimates may have to be re-estimated based on: (i) fluctuations in copper, nickel, zinc, platinum group elements (PGE), gold or other mineral prices; (ii) results of drilling; (iii) metallurgical testing and other studies; (iv) proposed mining operations, including dilution; (v) the evaluation of mine plans subsequent to the date of any estimates and/or changes in mine plans; (vi) the possible failure to receive required permits, approvals and licenses; and (vii) changes in law or regulation.

Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indicators of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed below and under "Risk Factors", as well as unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to contracts with the company to perform as agreed; social or labour unrest; changes in commodity prices; and the failure of exploration programs or studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued exploration, studies, development or operations.

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Subject to applicable securities laws, the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this news release.

The company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the factors set forth in the "Risk Factors" section and elsewhere in the company's MD&A.
TerraX Minerals Inc. (TSX VENTURE:TXR)(FRANKFURT:TX0)(OTC PINK:TRXXF) is pleased to announce assay results from a further 8 holes (2,415 m) from the summer phase of a 27,000 meter drill program at multiple targets on the Yellowknife City Gold Project ("YCG"), immediately north of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. All eight holes reported today are from Mispickel and intersected multiple zones of gold mineralization. Six of these eight holes are located on two sections of drilling approximately 25 and 50 meters north of previously reported drill holes (news release September 22, 2016). Two holes (TWL16-029 and 030) are 40 and 100 meters deeper than previously reported drill hole TWL16-019 (5.85 m @ 12.47 g/t Au, reported September 22, 2016). TWL16-029 returned 8.00 m @ 6.45 g/t Au in the main zone and holes TWL16-023 and TWL16-030 intercepted a new zone of mineralization at the bottom of the holes, both ending in mineralization. All zones remain open along strike and down dip.

Drilling at Mispickel again intersected visible gold zones in quartz veins within wide zones of lower grade mineralization. Highlights include:

7.40 m @ 10.17 g/t Au including 1.00 m @ 68.50 g/t Au in the main zone of hole TWL16-026

including in the main zone of hole TWL16-026 8.00 m @ 6.45 g/t Au including 3.64 m @ 11.60 g/t Au in the main zone of hole TWL16-029, and 4.34 m @ 2.22 g/t Au in the footwall zone

including in the main zone of hole TWL16-029, and in the footwall zone 5.00 m @ 2.04 g/t Au including 2.00 m @ 4.78 g/t Au in the main zone hole TWL16-027

including in the main zone hole TWL16-027 9.69 m @ 1.24 g/t Au including 1.62 m @ 5.84 g/t Au in hole TWL16-023

including in hole TWL16-023 7.00 m @ 1.02 g/t Au in the hanging wall zone of TWL16-030

Joseph Campbell, the CEO of TerraX, stated "These drill results show that the structures hosting the high grade gold zones within the Mispickel system have significant continuity at depth and along strike. In addition, the higher grade intersections are displaying the classic lode gold geometry common to Archean gold systems in Canada. The persistence of the mineralizing structures with pervasive gold mineralization throughout the holes continues to indicate a large mineralizing system. We look forward to receiving the results from the remaining 24 holes drilled this summer on multiple targets and the resumption of drilling in January, 2017. We are fully funded for the balance of this 27,000 meter drill program and are excited about the potential for additional high-grade discoveries in this established gold district."

Drilling at Mispickel comprised fifteen holes totaling approximately 5,200 meters that were following up on nine holes (1,364 m) drilled at Mispickel during the winter of 2016 that returned high grade intersections up to 8.00 m @ 60.60 g/t Au in TWL16-016 (news release June 6, 2016). The first four holes drilled at Mispickel this summer were reported on Sept. 22, 2016 and included 5.53 m of 29.85 g/t Au in the hanging wall and 3.00 of 22.44 g/t Au in the main zone of drill hole TWL16-020. Assays are pending from the remaining three holes drilled at Mispickel along with a further 21 holes drilled at other targets.

Each hole reported here contained wide zones of pervasive low grade gold within which are areas of higher grade, usually accompanied by visible gold, as indicated by the highlights listed above. Mineralization remained strong below previously reported hole TWL16-019 in the main zone, with hole TWL16-029 reporting 8.00 m @ 6.45 g/t Au including 3.64 m @ 11.60 g/t Au. The main zone was also intersected 100 meters deeper in drill hole TWL16-030, showing the continuity of the mineralizing structure, although it intersected outside the high grade lode, returning 3.55 m @ 0.78 g/t gold.

All other holes showed continuity of the mineralizing structures along strike to the north. TWL16-026 intersected 7.40 m @ 10.17 g/t Au including 1.00 m @ 68.50 g/t Au approximately 110 meters below surface. TWL16-017 intersected 5.00 m @ 2.04 g/t Au approximately 145 meters below surface. These two holes indicate a new high grade lode of mineralization on the main zone structure approximately 50 meters north of the previously reported high grade holes. No drill holes have tested the main zone from surface to the 110 meter depth of TWL-16-026.

Of additional interest, hole TWL16-030, which is the deepest hole on the most southerly section of drilling, intersected 29.00 m @ 0.56 g/t Au, including 7.00 m @ 1.02 g/t Au, in the hanging wall zone. This is the widest intersection in this zone to date.

Also holes TWL16-023 and TWL16-030 were continued deeper and further west than the other drill holes reported here. Both holes intersected a new zone of mineralization at the bottom of the holes. Hole TWL16-023 intersected 24.00 m @ 0.61 g/t Au, including 9.69 m @ 1.24 g/t Au. Hole TWL 16-030 intersected 13.35 m @ 0.47 g/t Au. Both holes ended in mineralization and demonstrate the presence of another structural mineralized zone at Mispickel with the potential to host high grade lodes.

A map and cross sections showing the location of these drill holes on the Mispickel target area are available on our web site under "Mispickel 2016 Field Exploration" under "Mispickel" under the "Northbelt" project section.

Current interpretations for dip and strike at Mispickel indicate that the true widths of the drill holes reported here are approximately 60-85% of drill intersection width. The table below contains a summary of some of the greater than 1 g/t Au over multi-meter intersections from the reported drill holes.

Mispickel Drill Hole Dip Azimuth UTM Location From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Au g/t Easting Northing SECTION 240 TWL16-023 -45 240 640339 6945923 136.00 138.00 2.00 2.27 and 283.38 293.07 9.69 1.24 incl. 283.38 285.00 1.62 5.84 TWL16-024 -54 240 640339 6945923 105.95 109.50 3.55 1.26 and 207.40 208.60 1.20 2.59 TWL16-025 -63 240 640339 6945923 312.20 315.00 2.80 0.91 SECTION 250 TWL16-026 -45 250 640339 6945923 87.75 90.80 3.05 1.00 and 146.00 153.40 7.40 10.17 incl. 149.10 150.10 1.00 68.50 TWL16-027 -54 250 640339 6945923 162.00 167.00 5.00 2.04 incl. 165.00 167.00 2.00 4.78 TWL16-028 -61 250 640335 6945922 114.50 116.59 2.09 1.50 and 192.00 194.00 2.00 1.36 SECTION 220 TWL16-029 -50 220 640335 6945922 125.66 132.00 6.34 1.66 incl. 125.66 130.00 4.34 2.22 and 181.00 189.00 8.00 6.45 incl. 185.36 189.00 3.64 11.60 and 223.00 229.00 6.00 1.33 incl. 224.00 226.75 2.75 2.22 TWL16-030 -60 220 640335 6945922 134.50 163.50 29.00 0.56 incl. 146.00 153.00 7.00 1.02 and 225.45 229.00 3.55 0.78 and 348.00 361.35 13.35 0.47

TerraX collected 2,222 samples for assay from the drilling reported here. Results ranged from below detection to 68.50 g/t Au. Drill hole collar locations were surveyed to sub-meter accuracy. Down hole surveying (Reflex Gyro) was completed on all holes. TerraX inserts certified standards and blanks into the sample stream as a check on laboratory QC. Drill core samples are cut by diamond saw at TerraX's core facilities in Yellowknife. A halved core sample is left in the core box. The other half core is sampled and transported by TerraX personnel in securely sealed bags to ALS Chemex's (ALS) preparation laboratory in Yellowknife. After sample preparation, samples are shipped to ALS's Vancouver facility for gold and ICP analysis. Gold assays of >3 g/t are re-assayed on a 30 gm split by fire assay with a gravimetric finish. ALS is a certified and accredited laboratory service. ALS routinely inserts certified gold standards, blanks and pulp duplicates, and results of all QC samples are reported.

The technical information contained in this news release has been approved by Joseph Campbell, the Chief Executive Officer of TerraX, who is a Qualified Person as defined in "National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects."

About the Yellowknife City Gold Project

Yellowknife City Gold ("YCG") encompasses 129 sq km of contiguous land immediately north and south of the City of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. Through a series of acquisitions, TerraX now controls one of the six major high-grade gold camps in Canada. Being within 15 km of the City of Yellowknife, the YCG is close to vital infrastructure, including transportation, service providers, hydro-electric power and skilled tradespeople.

The YCG lies on the prolific Yellowknife greenstone belt, covering 23 km of strike length on the southern and northern extensions of the shear system that hosted the high-grade Con and Giant gold mines. The project area contains multiple shears that are the recognized hosts for gold deposits in the Yellowknife gold district, with innumerable gold showings and recent high grade drill results that serve to indicate the project's potential as a world-class gold district.

For more information on the YCG project, please visit our web site at www.terraxminerals.com.

Source: TerraX Minerals
Condor Gold (AIM: CNR), the AIM-listed gold exploration company, is pleased to announce scout drilling has commenced on its flagship La India Project in Nicaragua, which hosts a high grade mineral resource of 18.08 Mtonnes at 4.0 g/t for 2.31 Moz gold. The Company has started a 4,000 m scout drilling programme to demonstrate the upside of the entire District, which contains approximately 104.5 km strike length of veins of which only 54.8 km have been trenched or mapped in any detail and only 13.2 km have been drill tested. Many veins have never been drill tested. As at 9th November, a drill rig has completed 87 m at the El Cacao target. The programme has been designed by Dr Warren Pratt, who joined Condor as a geological consultant in June 2016. Dr Pratt helped with due diligence on the La India Project on behalf of Ross Beaty, a successful mining entrepreneur who subsequently became a 7.1% shareholder in April 2016.

The first 2,000 m of drilling has three objectives. Firstly, to expand mineralisation and identify ore-shoots at El Cacao. Secondly, to expand mineralisation at the Cristalito-Tatescame target. Thirdly, to test for mineralisation on the Andrea Vein, which has never been drilled. The location of the remaining 2,000 m of drilling will depend on initial drilling results and may also be used to test other targets.

Soil sampling began again in June 2016 and has now covered over half of the district. It aims to identify new epithermal targets suitable for drilling.

Highlights:

Condor initiates 4,000 m of drilling to demonstrate District-scale gold potential.

Drilling to identify a boiling level at El Cacao, current resource of 590 kt at 3.0 g/t gold for 58 koz gold. Previous shallow drilling including intercepts of 14.05 m at 6.1 g/t gold and 2.6 m at 88.7g/t gold.

Drilling to test strike extension at Cristalito-Tatescame, current resource of 200 kt at 5.3 g/t gold for 34 koz gold. Precious shallow drilling included an intercept of 5.3 m at 9.4 g/t gold.

Drilling to test the Andrea Vein, never drill-tested, but has been trenched for 2,300 m by Condor, has sheeted veins and vein breccias of 20 m width in places and rock chips up to 30 g/t gold

Mark Child, CEO comments:

"Condors twin strategy remains to: 1) fully permit and construct a base case 1 Mtpa, 2,800 tpd processing plant with capacity to produce 100,000 oz gold pa from a single open pit on the La India Project. 2) demonstrate District-scale gold mineralisation. The existing resource of 18.08 Mtonnes at 4.0 g/t for 2.31 Moz gold occurs within seven areas (see Figure 1). Four of the smaller resources were excluded from the previous PFS and PEAs;; it now makes sense to consolidate and expand them. Over the last 3 years, Condor has steadily conducted fieldwork to demonstrate that La India Project is a true gold District as evidenced by 104.5 km strike length of veins of which only 13.2 km have been drill tested. This work includes aerial geophysics, a detailed structural model, mapping, rock-chip sampling and trenching. I am delighted that we have now prioritised several highly promising targets and are commencing scout drilling at El Cacao and Cristalito-Tatescame. Although each is currently relatively small, we believe that both have excellent potential to host much larger gold resources."

Drilling to test El Cacao

The resource is 590 kt at 3.0 g/t gold for 58 koz gold. It is open along strike in both directions and at depth. The vein strikes almost east-west and has a strike length of at least 600 m (Figure 1 and 2). Trenching every 20 m resulted in a total of 1,121 m tested. Between July 2007 and February 2008, Condor completed 2,170 m drilling on fences spaced at 40 m. These tested the vein to a maximum depth of 150 m.

Recent re-logging and mapping by Dr Pratt demonstrates that the vein shows many features of the top of an epithermal system. There is widespread phreatic breccia, abundant chalcedony, siliceous spirit levels (geopetal structures) and, in the West, sinter float. There is widespread kaolinite at surface, probably due to an acid sulfate (steam- heated) overprint. All this suggests there is a good chance that the main boiling level, with higher grades, is deeper and has not been drilled yet.

The drill results below are from Condors drilling on El Cacao concession in 2007 and are detailed in an RNS dated 8th November 2007:

CCRD002: 14.05 m at 6.05g/t gold from 87 m

14.05 m at 6.05g/t gold from 87 m CCRD004: 5.55 m at 6.10g/t gold from 123.35 m

5.55 m at 6.10g/t gold from 123.35 m CCRC006: 13.83 m at 2.25g/t from 93.12 m

13.83 m at 2.25g/t from 93.12 m CCRD006: 2.60 m at 88.72g/t gold from 132.90 m

Drilling to test Cristalito-Tatescame

The Cristalito-Tatescame mineral resource is 200 kt at 5.3 g/t gold for 34 koz gold. It is open along strike in both directions and to depth (Figure 1 and 2). However, the Company feels the best potential is to the west. The vein was drill tested by Gold-Ore Resources Ltd in 2004-2005, through a joint venture with Glencairn. They drilled 10 holes for 1,063 m. Underground sampling of the 570 m level returned a weighted average of 1.6 m at 21.7 g/t gold. The drilling confirmed mineralisation over a 200 m strike length to a depth of 150 m. The best intersection was 5.3 m at 9.43 g/t gold from 94.6 m in drillhole DDT-09.

Recent geological mapping shows that felsic lava flows, a densely welded ignimbrite, and a microdiorite have potential to host good grades towards the west. In the drilling, gold grades improve markedly towards the west, with visible adularia and grey silver sulphides in drill core. These features are all considered very positive.

Drilling to test Andrea

The Andrea Vein has never been drill tested and is an excellent opportunity to contribute to the District gold resource. The vein zone is about 2.3 km long and has been trenched by Condor and lies within the 8 km Los Limones-Andrea mineralized corridor (Figure 2). It is arcuate, with a main north-northwest-striking portion, which dips west at about 50-60o, and east-southeast-striking tails at each end. The vein zone also anastomoses and splits. The geometry of these splits suggests there is a dextral strike slip component on an overall extensional vein (as at the La India Vein). Creek exposures indicate that the zone of sheeted veins and vein breccias exceeds 20 m width in places. Good sheeted vein swarms occur in both foot- and hanging wall. Rock chip samples from the Andrea Vein zone are very encouraging, with grades up to 30 g/t gold.

Figure 1: La India Project comprises 7 gold mineral resources



Figure 2 showing an 8 km Andrea-Limones mineralised corridor



About Condor Gold plc:

Condor Gold plc was admitted to AIM on 31st May 2006. The Company is a gold exploration and development company with a focus on Central America.

Condor completed a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) and two Preliminary Economic Assessments (PEA) on La India Project in Nicaragua in December 2014. The PFS details an open pit gold mineral reserve of 6.9 Mtonnes at 3.0 g/t gold for 675,000 oz gold, producing 80,000 oz gold pa for 7 years. The PEA for the open pit only scenario details 100,000 oz gold production pa for 8 years whereas the PEA for a combination of open pit and underground details 140,000 oz gold production pa for 8 years. La India Project contains a total attributable mineral resource of 18.08 Mtonnes at 4.0 g/t for 2.31 Moz gold and 2.68 Moz silver at 6.2 g/t to the CIM Code.

In El Salvador, Condor has an attributable 1,004,000 oz gold equivalent at 2.6 g/t JORC compliant resource. The resource calculations are compiled by independent geologists, SRK Consulting (UK) Limited for Nicaragua, and Ravensgate and Geosure for El Salvador.
One of Sauk Prairies cold cases just got a little warmer, thanks to the research of a Springfield, Missouri man.

Eight years ago a safe and its historical contents went missing from Park Hall in Sauk City. What happened to it remains a mystery, but last week local officials received a welcome clue.

Susan Larkin, administrator for the Free Congregation, said she received a call from a man who claimed to have some papers that belonged to the church.

When I listened to the message this man left me I was flabbergasted, Larkin said. It was quite a story.

In August 2011, Sun Prairie resident Bob Knierim brought some poles and his dog down to the Wisconsin River to do some fishing in Sauk City. Thats when he noticed the top handle of a suitcase sticking out from the riverbed in the mud.

I went over to it and pulled it out and stuck it in the back of my truck, Knierim said.

When he finally opened it later that day, the smell alone caused Knierim to put it on his back porch. Roughly two weeks went by before he finally took the papers out and set them on his counter to dry. Thats when he started noticing dates on some of the papers from the suitcase.

It just blew my mind, he said. Some of the stuff in there was 160 years old.

The river water did a lot of damage to the items, which included parts of three volumes of hand-written meeting minutes from the 1950s and 60s, account ledgers from the 19th century and a few individual documents related to the history of the congregation, including original specifications for the construction of Park Hall.

Knierim said a lot of what was found was a total loss, as the stuff on the outside disintegrated in his hands when trying to take the paper apart.

I feel bad  the amount of stuff that was in that suitcase was unsalvageable, Knierim said. He ended up throwing out what he thought couldnt be saved.

He reached out to a museum in Baraboo to see if there was interest in the documents, but officials there turned him down. So the information sat for years in a safe, while life for Knierim went on. His daughter was born and he moved a few times, finally settling in Springfield, Missouri, yet all that time he kept the documents in his own safe.

Eventually, he found time to start searching the names and buildings that could be identified from the papers. That led him to the Free Congregation, and a call to Larkin.

It was a miracle, practically, Larkin said of Knierims find. I know we arent getting that much, but its good to get anything.

Its not clear exactly when the documents will be returned to the Free Congregation. Knierim said hed prefer to bring the papers back to the area himself, but because of other obligations, he may have to send them instead.

Sauk Prairie Police Department Lt. Travis Hilliard said stolen property often is discovered in waterways. He said he would be interested to speak with Knierim about the find, but doesnt expect it will offer much in the way of evidence.

We still dont have any suspects but we have found property, he said. But if a suspect hasnt come up in eight years  its good the property was recovered but it doesnt help us with a suspect.

Knierim said he was glad to learn that his find will be helpful for someone.

To be able to get it back to them I know it means a lot to the congregation, he said. It makes me feel good.
Cordoba Minerals Corp. (TSX VENTURE:CDB / OTCQX:CDBMF) ("Cordoba" or the "Company") announced today that High Power Exploration Inc. ("HPX"), a private mineral exploration company indirectly controlled by mining entrepreneur Robert Friedland's Ivanhoe Industries, LLC, has completed Phase two of the Joint Venture Agreement ("JV Agreement") and has now earned a 51% interest in the San Matias Copper-Gold Project ("San Matias", or "San Matias Project") in Colombia. HPX has earned its 51% interest in the project by spending a cumulative total of C$19 million in exploration expenditures.

Phase Three of the Joint Venture Agreement has now commenced. HPX can increase its ownership in the San Matias Project to 65% by completing a Feasibility Study on the project.

Mario Stifano, President and CEO of Cordoba, commented: "We are pleased that our partner HPX has committed to moving the highly prospective San Matias Copper-Gold project to the feasibility stage as we continue with our aggressive exploration program."

About San Matias Project

The San Matias Copper-Gold Project comprises a 20,000-hectare land package on the inferred northern extension of the richly endowed Mid-Cauca Belt in Colombia. The project contains several known areas of porphyry copper-gold mineralization, copper-gold skarn mineralization and vein-hosted, gold-copper mineralization. Porphyry mineralization at the San Matias Project incorporates high-grade zones of copper-gold mineralization hosted by diorite porphyries containing secondary biotite alteration and various orientations of sheeted and stockwork quartz-magnetite veins with chalcopyrite and bornite. The copper-gold skarn mineralization at Alacran is associated with stratabound replacement of a marine volcano-sedimentary sequence. The nature of mineralization encountered at San Matias is similar to other large high-grade copper-gold deposits.

About High Power Exploration

HPX is a privately owned, metals-focused exploration company deploying proprietary in-house geophysical technologies to rapidly evaluate buried geophysical targets. The HPX technology cluster comprises geological and geophysical systems for targeting, modelling, survey optimization, acquisition, processing and interpretation. HPX has a highly experienced board and management team led by Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Friedland, President Eric Finlayson, a former head of exploration at Rio Tinto, and co-chaired by Ian Cockerill, a former Chief Executive Officer of Gold Fields Ltd. For further information, please visit www.hpxploration.com.
The nominee for minister of public safety and security on Wednesday declined the nomination amid rising criticisms over his participation in controversial shamanistic rituals, in another setback for the Park Geun-hye government hit by a massive corruption scandal.

In a press conference held late Wednesday night, Park Seung-joo, nominated a week ago to head the Ministry of Public Safety and Security, said, "I will lay down the minister nominee position and return to continue personality education activities for young people."

Park, who served as vice minister of the Ministry of Gender Equality & Family under the 2003-07 Roh Moo-hyun administration, was appointed public safety minister last Wednesday.

The nomination was part of a cabinet reshuffle by the Park government which is struggling to placate mounting public anger over a massive influence-peddling scandal involving the president's longtime personal confidante Choi Soon-sil.

But the appointment immediately faced the criticism that Park was not qualified for the position due to his inappropriate behavior.

In the press conference, he acknowledged and made an apology for the inappropriate acts, saying he "unknowingly" participated in a shamanistic event in May and "unwittingly" plagiarized his doctorate dissertation.

A day earlier, President Park had no other option but to discard her choice for prime minister, Kim Byong-joon, as opposition parties strongly denounced the president's personal reshuffles as a tactic to divert attention away from her scandal.

In the influence-peddling scandal, Choi allegedly wielded unhealthy influence over Park and pushed businesses to make donations to two foundations that she controlled. Last week, she was arrested on charges of fraud and abuse of power. (Yonhap)
Labor supervisors from Mongolia attend a lecture on occupational safety and health statistics at the training institute of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) in Ulsan, Wednesday. / Courtesy of KOSHA



By Kim Bo-eun

In the 1980s and 1990s, Korea was a recipient of technology transfers and training about occupational safety and health from Germany.

As part of official development aid (ODA), Germany sent officials to Korea to help establish a law that would provide technological, organizational and legal standards to promote safety at industrial worksites. Korean labor officials also visited Germany for on-site training.

Now, 30 years later, Korea is providing the same service to developing countries.

Korea drew up its first occupational safety and health act in 1981, which underwent total revision, with the help of foreign assistance, in 1990.

Established in 1987, the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) has been hosting safety training workshops for developing countries since 2004.

This week, it hosted a week-long program at its training center in Ulsan for labor supervisors from Mongolia's General Agency for Specialized Inspection (GASI)  an annual event which has taken place for over a decade.

It covered methodologies of investigating and analyzing industrial accidents and how to draw up related statistics as well as risk assessment. The program also included a course on managing chemicals and a visit to a construction site.

"As the participants are supervisors overseeing occupational safety at workplaces, they found lectures on risk assessment helpful," said Erdenesukh Nergui, head of external cooperation and public relations at GASI.

"We will reflect on the content we learned when revising the law, provide lectures on the same content and also draw up safety booklets when we go back."

The industrial health law in Mongolia was established in 2008 and the country is currently working on improving it.

"Managing chemicals is also a crucial sector to be improved in Mongolia," said Jargal Nomindari of the National Reference Laboratory of Food Safety.

"Based on the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), we will revise areas which need improvement at the laboratory, concerning the toxicity of chemicals."

Meanwhile, KOSHA is discussing the establishment of a training institute in Mongolia.

In July, with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), it built one in Vietnam, also a country KOSHA has closely assisted in safety training.

"Although Korea still has room for improvement on occupational safety and health, we are providing what we were provided by countries such as Germany when we were in the early stages of developing our system," said Chun Sang-heon, head of public relations at KOSHA.
Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, a California company with most of its operations in Madison, has put a temporary hold on a study of ARC-520, a drug candidate for treating chronic hepatitis B virus, while federal regulators look into the deaths of animals in a separate study by the company.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration made a verbal decision to put a clinical hold on the study, Arrowhead said in a news release Wednesday. As a result, the companys stock slid in trading Wednesday and at least two law firms said they are opening investigations.

The ARC-520 drug is the subject of a human testing program that involves up to 12 patients in the U.S. but the FDA did not indicate the clinical hold was based on any human findings, Arrowhead said.

The FDA is asking the company for more information involving a toxicology study in animals using EX1, Arrowheads intravenously administered delivery vehicle that targets the liver, Arrowhead said.

According to the company, EX1 has been given to patients in human studies more than 800 times, and only three serious adverse events have been observed. Two of them were fevers, successfully treated with acetaminophen; the third patient developed liver cancer that was not believed to be related to the drug.

Four other patients stopped ARC-520 treatment because of infusion reactions, the company said.

The animal study that drew the FDAs concern involves higher doses of EX1 than those used clinically in humans or in past animal studies, Arrowhead said. The cause of these animal deaths is unknown and under investigation, the company said.

Arrowhead is not disclosing how many animals died, spokesman Matt Middleman said, in an email exchange. He said that testing did not occur in Madison, where the companys main research and development is conducted.

The company believes the findings in animal toxicology studies are related to dose level, and that the safety profile seen in human clinical studies across the three programs involving EX1 supports continuing all ongoing clinical studies, Arrowhead said.

EX1 is used in tests of three Arrowhead drug candidates. Arrowheads technology involves RNA interference, which silences genes believed to cause diseases.

Arrowhead stock dropped 31 percent Wednesday, closing at $4.20 a share, down $1.91. Meanwhile, two New York law firms, Levi & Korsinsky and Bronstein, Gewirtz and Grossman, filed notices saying they are investigating possible violations of federal securities laws by Arrowheads leaders.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Wake up, India! BIMSTEC is a Reverie

This piece was written some days ago. It is being belatedly published as its contents retain their validity.

Dhaka is throbbing with excitement as the day draws close for Chinese President Xi Jinpings visit to Bangladesh on Friday (October 14). Not only because this is the first visit by a Chinese head of state in 30 yearsLi Xiannian visited it in 1986and Xi himself is making a second visit in the past six years, but legend says Xi unfailingly carries giftsand big ones at that. The gift Xi brought to Pakistan last year was the mother of all gifts that modern history knowsworth $ 46 billion, almost four times the Marshall Planand Bangladesh hopes for a matching gift.

There is talk it could be a matching gift worth $ 40 billion. The gossip seems plausible, because China sees big potential in boosting trade and investments with Bangladesh. The political ties are excellent and Bangladesh has an open-door policy to welcome Chinese business. There is a consensus in Bangladesh amongst the countrys political elites cutting across parties regarding the strategic imperatives of keeping close ties with Chinanot only in intrinsic terms but also as a means to balance the Big Brother that is India who could be overbearing at times.

Two special economic zonesMunshiganj and Chittagongare being prepared exclusively for Chinese investments in the manufacturing sector. As production costs go up in China, it is profitable for Chinese companies to relocate business in Bangladesh, which has plentiful and cheap labour. Textile industry seems a lead sector that Bangladesh is promoting, even as China is vacating from the low-end apparel sector.

China holds close to 40 per cent of the $ 455 billion global market for apparel products. Last year Bangladesh earned $ 28 billion in apparel exports. It hopes to touch $ 50 billion in the next five yearsbut with Chinese investments it now aspires to be the top ready-made garment exporter in the world, overtaking even China! Chinese companies, of course, hope to exploit Bangladeshs quota for the EU and North America by exporting from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is a fascinating country for its intellectual resources and it does think big. And the economy is growing at somewhere between six to seven per cent. Another potential area for Chinese investments is in the infrastructure sector. Again, Bangladesh aspires to be the leading sub-regional trading hub, and connectivity becomes top priority.

So, what is the big picture we are getting this weekend? For a start, by next week this time our pundits may look somewhat foolish in their assumption that Bangladesh is desperate for Indias leadership to scuttle the SAARC and lead a purposive sub-regional grouping with Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Get real, folks. The geopolitical reality is that in the field of economy and defence, China is firmly ensconced as Bangladeshs irreplaceable partner. Again, with or without Indian participation, Bangladesh is bent on developing connectivity with Yunnan.

The ground reality is that Dhaka and Beijing are working on big ideas to build and improve regional connectivity. From the Chinese pers-pective, like Pakistan, Bangladesh is ideally placed in terms of its geographical location for the Silk Road projects. If the CPEC is a lifeline for Xinjiangs development, a similar corridor through Bangla-desh is just what Chinas relatively less-deve-loped southern regions need to reach the markets of Nepal and Bhutanand beyond. (Bangladesh already has in place trade and transit agree-ments with Nepal, Bhutan and India.)

A good case can be made for India to jettison its allergy toward the One Belt One Road and instead seriously apply itself to developing the so-called K2K route (Kunming-Ruili-Bhamo-Lashio-Mandalay-Tamu-Imphal-Sylhet-Dhaka-Kolkata). In fact, the most appropriate outreach at the forthcoming BRICS summit in Goa aside SAARC, of coursewould have been the BCIM (Bangla-desh-China-India-Myanmar) forum. But then, we probably settled for the pompous-sounding BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), which is an insipid forum, because that is the only conceivable way to keep out China and Pakistan.

Regional groupings built on such zero-sum mindset in the era of globalisation have limited future. Regional groupings thrive only if they are willing to be inclusive. The so-called Bay of Bengal regionalism can never mean that Sri Lanka or Bangladesh or Myanmar or Thailand would be willing to forego their cooperation with China for the sake of bonhomie with India in a seaside resort facing the Indian Ocean. Simply put, China happens to be much more meaningful and tangible as a partner country from their point of view than what BIMSTEC can ever hope to offer them even with the best Indian ingenuity. That is the geopolitical reality. How long can India pretend to beat its ineffectual wings in the void in vain?

Sheikh Hasina will be coming to Goa for the BIMSTEC Outreach after launching her countrys closer comprehensive cooperation with China and putting it into a historic new trajectory. Arent we in India living in some reverie, fancying were hearing the Bay of Bengals glad tidings? There is actually no such thing. (The Indian Express)

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).
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Popular TV and fashion star Sandra Ankobiah has joined the political campaign trail ahead of Ghana's general elections slated for December 7.

Unlike other entertainers who have openly declared support for particular political parties, the ex-host of Fashion 101 and a lawyer is pursuing a different course.

She is currently embarking on a nationwide campaign dubbed 'First Time Voters Project' to educate young people who are voting for the first time on voting issues of the day to guide them during December polls.

The idea for the 'First Time Voters Pro ject' is to inform young electorates to actively participate in Ghana's political processes geared towards alternative politics and transformative governance, she explained.

Everybody attached to the project believes that rst time voters have the capacity to signicantly contribute as well as shape the future of this country by its greater involvement in the election process.

The First Time Voters Project seeks to provide voters with knowledge and information on their rights and responsibilities ahead of the election. We want to raise rst time voters' awareness and understanding of the importance of elections in a democracy. We want to provide them with knowledge and skills to enable them to participate meaningfully in the electoral process, she added.

The nationwide campaign has so far seen Sandra Ankobiah visited the Koforidua Technical University, All Nations University College and Islamic University College to preach her message.

She has also been to Jamestown and Nima townships, Ho Technical University, Sunyani Technical University and University Of Education, Winneba (Kumasi Campus).

The campaign has been praised for advocating greater citizen participation in democratic governance and improving democratic institutions and national unity.

For democracy to work effectively, citizens (especially young voters) must have the opportunity to take part in decision making processes, as this is the basis of democracy, Sandra stated.

According to her, By interacting with others like this project is doing, rst time voters will become tolerant of people who hold different views from their own. At community level, people who participate in this project will also develop a sense of their own individual worth and an increased sense of being part of the community.

Sandra who is described as an advocate and entrepreneur continues to set the pace for many Ghanaian women. She is more popular for her impeccable fashion sense which gets attention any other day.

Always on a pursuit for fair representation, the 'First Time Voters Project' is just another step in Sandra Ankobiah's path to make sure all the voices of young people are heard and their faces seen. She is being supported by the Electoral Commission and National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE).
If you are a serious angler world class walleye, smallmouth, and muskie fishing awaits in northeast Wisconsin.

Lake Michigan, Green Bay, Sturgeon Bay, the Fox River, and the Menominee River currently are providing anglers with some of the best fishing there is.

Ive heard for the past decade about the tremendous fishing that the Green Bay area possesses for many different fish species. Ive traveled to Lake Erie, Fort Peck, Leech Lake, Little Bay de Noc, and Saginaw Bay plus many more destinations in the U.S. and Canada chasing big walleyes.

Now I dont like to travel and drive for so many hours to catch big fish. The Lake Michigan and Green Bay area has been getting its share of a place to go for not just numbers, but large size trophy walleyes, muskies, and smallmouth bass. Ive had this trophy spot on my bucket list of places to fish for a few years, but something has always come up and prevented me from making this short trip of only 2 hours from my Wisconsin River home near Sauk City, Wisconsin to Green Bay.

The Wisconsin River and the waters of the Madison Chain of Lakes have been managed by the Department of Natural Resources into first-class fisheries with 50-inch muskies, 12-pound walleyes, and 7-pound smallmouth which is enough to satisfy any angler. Muskie tournaments have had many muskies caught and the past few years have produced 50 inch muskies besides trophy walleye and smallmouth. But one has to spend countless hours fishing these lakes or just be a lucky fisherman to catch a 40-pound muskie. They are there, but not as prevalent as they are in Lake Michigan or Green Bay.

Fishing has been my life the past thirty years, so Im in tune with what is happening in the fishing world in the U.S. and Canada. I see photos, read articles, and have conversations with like-minded people from all over North America. There seemed to be a large amount of information on the Internet, in newspapers, in magazines, and in conversation about Green Bay and the world class fishery in the Lake Michigan waters for the same fish that are my favorites -- walleye, muskie, and smallmouth bass.

When talking and reading about the Bay area, there is one name that pops up constantly with the fantastic fishery and that name is Bret Alexander.

Captain Bret Alexander is a fishing guide who along with his seven other guides are constantly fishing and make up Alexanders Sport Fishing Guide Service. My good friend, Paul Frautschi, asked me if Id like to go to Green Bay with him and fish for big muskies. It didnt take long for me to ask when we were leaving. Frauschi is a tournament angler on the Professional Muskie Tournament Trail.

He also fishes saltwater, so he knows what it is to catch big fish. We made arrangements to fish Nov. 3 on Green Bay for muskies with Alexander and one of his guides, Kyle Tokarski, who is another excellent guide that works with Anderson.

Thursday morning when Frautschi picked me up was so foggy that we could only drive 40 mph much of the way to the Suamico Boat Landing on Sunset Beach Road outside Green Bay. Instead of getting to Green Bay at 6:30 am, we got there 8 a.m.

The area where we were going to fish was only a short boat ride from the landing. The fog had lifted by now and the waters of Green Bay were flat calm. This was a change from the many times that Ive been to Lake Erie and spent half of my time there staring out at the rough waters or watching the Weather Channel for any break in the ugly weather.

Everything that you use from the Penn and Berkley line counter reels to the St. Croix rods was top notch equipment. Alexander's boat is a wrapped Ranger 621 powered by a 300 h.p. Mercury outboard and a four stroke Mercury 9.9 kicker motor. His electronics were the top of the line Humminbird with the side scan and his trolling motors were Minn Kotas with 101 pound thrust.

The reels were spooled with 80-pound braided line with a wire leader to the Rapala Super Shad crank bait. Alexander has found that the wire leader works better and catches more fish than the fluorocarbon line and has tested both and the wire easily wins in his trolling set up. The only drawback that I see is that a muskie could get wrapped in the wire, but that would be a rarity. The trolling set-up that Anderson and Tokarski used had Off Shore planer boards (OR-12) and 11 rods and reels secured in rod holders and one flat line running straight out the boats back with the crank bait high up in the water column.

The area of Green Bay that we trolled was about 8 to 12 feet deep and we did make some runs in shallower water. Our trolling speed was 1.7 to 1.9 mph.

Captain Alexander is an ex-fireman and the father of two children. For the past 8 years he has been a full time fishing guide who fishes over 250 days a year if you include ice fishing. The ice fishing season is also a busy time for Alexander and his guides with the expansion of the fishing for whitefish. He can have many more people fishing during the winter with the walleye bite and the whitefish action.

Frautschi and I fished about 6 or 7 hours with Alexander and Tokarski and boated only one fish which was a 47-inch muskie which was kept in the net and carefully lifted out for a quick photo before its release. We had another short hit that didnt hook up, but the fish youre targeting are the high 40-inch fish and the 50-inch plus tanks.

The Green Bay water temperature was 52 degrees and should be in the 40s by now if it wasnt for the late summer weather. Where else are 50-inch plus muskies relatively common? Alexander and his clients boated close to 60 muskies over 50 inches and his other guide Tokarski boated over 40 muskies 50 inches and greater. Think about this and where else are fish of this size caught regularly?

The walleye fishing is also excellent in both numbers and size. The smallmouth bass fishing in the Sturgeon Bay area is excellent too. Tokarski caught a smallmouth over 8 pounds and smallmouth from 5 to 6 pounds are common. This is a hard fishery to top and look how close Green Bay is to wear you live.

Ive been a guide for more than 20 some years and know what I try to do for my clients. Alexander and his group of guides are as good as a group can be providing cutting edge techniques on a fishery that is providing world-class fish and only a few hours from your door. Their knowledge, tactics and techniques, and wonderful treatment make Alexander Sport Fishing Guide Service one of the top guide service in the Midwest and probably the country.

There few if any guides that put you on big fish, share knowledge openly, and treat you as well as Alexander. Check out his website at Alexanders Sport Fishing Guide Service (http://www.alexandersportfishing.com/) or give him a call at 920-851-4214 and book a day or two with one of best guides you can find.

The people who fished Friday with Alexander had two fish greater than 50 inches, but I guess thats fishing.
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All is set for the maiden edition of the GIJ Eminence Awards which will take place at the Christ The King Parish in Accra on Friday, November 11, 2016.

Favourite actor and actress, Kwadwo Nkansah (Lilwin) and Nana Ama McBrown, including a host of celebrated Ghanaian entertainers will be honoured.

Reigning VGMA Artiste of The Year, Elorm Adabla, better known as E.L, will be honoured with the Eminent Music Personality of The Year, together with BET nominee, MzVee.

EIB Network's Berla Mundi, Jon Germain and KOD will, on the other hand, be honoured as Eminent Media Personalities.

Students who distinguished themselves during the academic year will also be celebrated for their hard work.

Performing on the night will be Nii Funny, with guest appearance by Choir Master, Aaron Leslie Adastsi, Dromeryda, among others.

The 'Yooko Ebreki' hitmaker is expected to thrill patrons who troop to the event with back-to-back hits on the night.

The event is powered by RAD Africa, in partnership with EIB Network, Niwills Events and Echo of Leadership.
South African President Jacob Zuma has fought off a series of damaging controversies during his presidency. By Rodger Bosch (AFP/File)

10.11.2016 LISTEN

Cape Town (AFP) - South Africa's scandal-hit President Jacob Zuma easily survived a no-confidence vote in parliament Thursday as ruling ANC lawmakers ignored calls from opposition parties to vote him out of office.

Zuma, who has faced mounting criticism from within his own party, came under further pressure last week after a corruption probe raised fresh allegations of misconduct.

But the ANC's parliamentary majority delivered a resounding signal of support as 214 lawmakers voted against the motion and 126 voted in favour.

Zuma's victory was expected, despite Mmusi Maimane, the leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) opposition party, appealing to ANC members to vote against their leader.

"To put it plainly, we can choose Jacob Zuma, or we can choose South Africa," Maimane told parliament during a fiery debate.

"Many of you have been speaking out against him in recent weeks... I know that there are men and women in these ANC benches who want to do the right thing."

But Zuma, 74, who came to power in 2009, retains strong loyalty among ANC (African National Congress) lawmakers and many party members.

The no-confidence vote was the third in under a year, with the first two also defeated by wide margins.

The corruption report by the country's top watchdog raised accusations of possible criminal activity in Zuma's relationship with the Guptas, a business family accused of wielding undue political influence.

It included allegations that the Guptas offered Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas a $44 million (40 million euros) bribe, which he said he refused.

Zuma opposition grows

Increasing numbers of anti-apartheid veterans, ANC activists, trade unions, civil groups and business leaders have called for Zuma to resign in recent months.

In Thursday's debate, the ANC attacked Maimane, the DA's first black leader, for bringing the non-confidence vote.

"The motion (is) using a black face to protect the interest of the white minority," said ANC minister Nomvula Mokonyane.

"They are trying hard to distract the ANC... from dealing with the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality."

The ANC, which has ruled since the first post-apartheid elections in 1994, has seen its popularity dive, with local polls in August delivering its worst-ever result.

Zuma's term in office ends in 2019, but the ANC is due to elect a new party leader at the end of next year and could then decide to replace him as head of state.

South Africa's highest court this year found the president guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers' money used to refurbish his private rural house.

He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.

The radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party used the debate to tell the ANC it should have "found it in its own conscience to act against Jacob Zuma".

"He is going to arrest you, to lock you up, to kill you, because... he knows that if he doesn't have control of political power he is going to go to prison," said EFF deputy leader Floyd Shivambu.

Despite the groundswell of protest and deep divisions in the ANC, Wits University professor Patrick Bond said Zuma remained secure in his position for now.

"The key people in the ANC are very supportive of Zuma," he said.

When Zuma leaves office, the three leading possible successors are his ex-wife African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize.
Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africa's scandal-hit President Jacob Zuma faces a no-confidence vote in parliament on Thursday, but looks certain to survive despite mounting anger within his party.

Zuma has fought off a series of damaging controversies during his presidency, and last week came under further pressure after a corruption probe raised fresh allegations of misconduct.

But the 74-year-old, who came to power in 2009, retains strong loyalty among ruling Africa National Congress (ANC) lawmakers and many party activists, particularly in rural areas.

The Democratic Alliance, the main opposition party, has tabled the no-confidence motion accusing Zuma of wreaking "havoc on our infant democracy".

"President Zuma's brand of corruption, economic mismanagement and lies can no longer continue to exist alongside the project of building a better South Africa," the party said in a statement.

The no-confidence vote will be the third in under a year, with the first two easily defeated by the ANC's majority in parliament.

The corruption report by the country's top watchdog raised accusations of possible criminal activity in Zuma's relationship with the Guptas, a business family accused of wielding undue political influence.

South Africans demonstrate against President Jacob Zuma, whose presidency has been engulfed by multiple scandals

It included allegations that the Guptas offere Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas a $44 million (40 million euros) bribe, which he said he refused.

Increasing numbers of anti-apartheid veterans, ANC activists, trade unions, civil groups and business leaders have called for Zuma to resign.

But the ANC leadership scoffed at the no-confidence vote, describing it as "ritualistic" and "founded on spurious allegations and narrow political motives".

'More powerful than the ANC itself'

The ANC, which has ruled since the first post-apartheid elections in 1994, has seen its popularity dive, with local polls in August delivering its worst-ever result.

Zuma's term in office ends in 2019, but the ANC is due to elect a new party leader at the end of next year and could then decide to replace him as head of state.

South Africa's highest court this year found the president guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers' money used to refurbish his private rural house.

He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.

Despite the groundswell of protest against President Zuma and deep divisions in the ANC, Thursday's vote in parliament poses no threat to Zuma, said one pundit

Despite the groundswell of protest and deep divisions in the ANC, Thursday's vote in parliament poses no threat to Zuma, said Wits University professor Patrick Bond.

"The key people in the ANC are very supportive of Zuma," he said.

The Business Day newspaper described Zuma as "back firmly in the saddle" after surviving the latest storm of criticism.

"Zuma has grown bigger and more powerful than the ANC itself," wrote commentator Carol Paton.

When he leaves office, the three leading possible successors are his ex-wife African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize.
31.01.2016 LISTEN

Ivor Kobina Greenstreet was elected presidential candidate of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) after the partys national delegates congress on Saturday, January 30, 2016 at the International Trade Fair Centre.

Mr Greenstreet won the CPP presidential race with 1,288 votes, representing 64.2% of valid votes cast, beating closest contender Samia Yaba Nkrumah  the daughter of the partys founder and Ghanas first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah,  who managed 579 votes. Two others: Joseph Agyapong and Bright Akwetey pulled 83 and 42 votes, respectively.

But who really is Ivor Greenstreet?

Mr Greenstreet was born to two dons of Ghanas premier university, the University of Ghana, Legon. The third of four children, he is a lawyer, both at the English (Inner Temple) and Ghanaian Bars. He is also a writer, publisher, and businessman.

A die-hard Nkrumahist, Mr Greenstreet went into active politics in the 90s, joining the Peoples Convention Party (PCP), and was elected by the PCP as their parliamentary candidate for the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency for the 1996 poll.

However, with his party merging with the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to form the Great Alliance, which contested that year's election, Mr Greenstreet was compelled to give up his ambition, so that the NPP candidate at the time  Isaac Amoo  could contest.

He, nonetheless, managed to run for parliament on the CPPs ticket in 2004, after the collapse of the Great Alliance, in the same constituency, amassing 4,964 votes. It was an unprecedented feat, given that the CPP had managed less than 500 votes in that constituency previously.

He went on to become CPP General Secretary, serving two four-year terms, spanning 2007 to 2015, and holds the reputation of being the only national officer to be re-elected for a second term.

Mr Greenstreet comes across as a bold and principled politician, who is unafraid to speak his mind. For example, at the governing National Democratic Congress' national delegates congress in Kumasi in December 2014, Mr Greenstreet said directly to President John Mahama and Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur that: You don't care.

Nobody is feeling your better Ghana, Greenstreet shouted when he delivered his party's solidarity message to the NDC at the Baba Yara Stadium in the Ashanti regional Captial, Kumasi  stronghold of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

In the full glare of the President, Vice President, former President Jerry Rawlings, and thousands of leaders and supporters of the NDC, a defiant Greenstreet said: Currently nobody, I mean nobody is feeling your better Ghana.

Continuous 'dumsor dumsor,' corruption from top to bottom, left, right, inside, out; and all the challenges you are facing [are] suffocating the Ghanaian people.

We would have thought that perhaps you may have used an occasion like this to discuss policies, programmes and solutions to all the difficulties we are facing as a nation, but no, you chose today to share your Christmas gifts with each other.

Ghanaians are not happy at all. This 'bronya' is dry. Too too dry, he told the President, adding: The most painful thing of all is that you don't care.

NDC continue, we are watching you, Ghana is watching you, do what you want to do, we also know what we'll come and do make sure you'll elect executives who will be able to steer your parties affairs when you are in opposition. Boys abre.

The wheelchair-bound Politician was subsequently called names and criticised by leaders and supporters of the NDC after his bluntness. While Majority Leader Alban Bagbin said he believed Greenstreet was possessed by some demons, which caused him to be so emotional, presidential staffer Sam George wrote on his Facebook wall that: Ivor Greenstreet apparently needs elevation to see the Better Ghana.

Mr Ivor Greenstreet's election for the CPP flagbearership makes him the first physically challenged person to run for president in Ghana.

He is married to the daughter of late former vice president Kow Arkaah. He has been confined to a wheelchair since a ghastly accident that occurred one night in Accra, as he returned home from overseeing business at a nightclub he owned.

-classfmonline


Running mate to Nana Akufo-Addo, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has urged electorates to accept gifts presented to them by the NDC because it is theirs by right.

According to him, the money used to buy the gifts, which is aimed at influencing their voting decisions, is cash stolen from Ghanaians in the last 8 years.

They will come with sewing machines, motorbikes, money et cetera. My advice to you is that when they come collect the motorbikes, sewing machines, and money and spend it well, well because this is your own money, he said.

Dr. Bawumia, however, urged Ghanaians to nonetheless vote out the NDC because another four years under the NDC will mean more corruption, incompetence, and suffering.

The NPP Running Mate made these comments at Manbabga in the Bunkpurugu constituency of the Northern Region on Monday.

Because the NDC has not done any work, you will see that they dont have a message. And so when we leave, in a few days or a few weeks time, the NDC will also come but they will come with propaganda, he said.

Dr. Bawumia told a gathering of NPP supporters that the money that was used to financed the gifts should have been used finance life-transforming projects for Ghanaians, instead the NDC government was not doing that.

That is the money they should have been used for our roads, for our hospitals and the money that should have been used to subsidize fertilizer for you. They did not do that, they took the money and they are now trying to come to us with that same money to bribe us for us to votes for them. Collect it, it is your money, spend it well but vote for Solomon Boar and Nana Akufo-Addo, he reiterated.

The NPP Difference

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia explained that unlike the NDC, the NPP will not corruptly hijack funds belonging to the people but ensure through prudent policies like the $1 million per constituency a year program that the money goes directly into projects that will make the lives of the people better.

For the first time, we will ensure that money from the capital budget is directly brought to you so you also have your fair share of development. With this money, which will come every year to every constituency, we can fix the little problems that our villages have whether it is water, schools, markets, health facilities etc, he explained.

Dr. Bawumia is on the second leg of his tour of the Northern Region and has so far been to the Yunyoo and Bunkpurugu Constituencies.

He is scheduled to also be in the Nalerigu-Gambaga, Walewale and Yagaba-Kubore Constituencies on this leg.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | GN
Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Party (NDP), Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings says her first appearance on the ballot sheet to contest the December polls is a win for women and the rule of law.

The Electoral Commission (EC) had disqualified Mrs. Agyeman Rawlings along with 13 other flagbearers including the for filing presidential nomination forms with anomalies.

But following legal tussles that began in the High Court and ended in the Supreme Court, the apex court ordered the EC to allow the affected candidates to correct the errors and resubmits them. Consequently, three of the parties were given the nod by the EC to contest.

Mrs. Agyeman Rawlings said of the development: this win that we have got as NDP is not a win for me alone; it is a win for our supporters. It is a win for women, it is a chance for us as a nation to change what is going on so the young people, women, the elderly, everybody in Ghana who wants Ghana to be seen as having a stamp on the African continent will see this as their win as well.

In her view, the ensuing litigation after the initial disqualification is proof that the rule of law does work in Ghana and that every institution must work within the law.

Following the balloting of for spots on the ballot paper, the NDP landed the second spot and Mrs. Agyeman Rawlings expressed hope that being number two [on the ballot sheet] will also help propel us to the level that we want to get to.

PPP, PNC also clear to contest

The Progressive People's Partys (PPP) Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom and the People's National Congress' (PNC), Dr. Edward Mahama were also cleared to contest in the upcoming Presidential elections on Wednesday as the EC approved of their respective party's resubmitted presidential nomination forms after reviewing it.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
New Patriotic Party (NPP) supporters in the Odododiodoo constituency in the Greater Accra region have been cautioned against engaging in acts of violence as the December 7 elections beckon.

This is after supporters of the incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for the area, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye the NPP's Parliamentary Candidate, Nii Lante Bannerman on clashed on Tuesday.

A former Metropolitan Cheif Executive (MCE) of the the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and NPP patron, Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson, urged the NPP supporters to put peace first in the name of victory at the polls.

He said, we believe in peace because we know we are winning an election come 7th December. We have warned our people to be cautious because the moment you engage in violet act, the police will arrest you and keep you indefinitely.

The clashes in the constituency, led to the arrest of three NPP members who were eventually released on Wednesday. Some supporters of the NPP besieged the Jamestown Police station demanding the release of the men who were arrested after clashes.

But Mr. Blankson suggested some level of bias on the part of police because there were no reports of arrests on the side of the NDC.

What we are saying is that if you have arrested three people from our party and you fail to arrest any from the other side then justice and fair play have not been exhibited.

Allegations

The incumbent MP, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, alleged that the NPP's Nii Lante Bannerman masterminded the attacks on his supporters on Tuesday [November 8] that led to clashes when his team had ended a rally at Jamestown in the constituency that evening.

According to him, Mr Bannerman had organised some young men to attack his team members with guns, machetes and other weapons.

Nii Lante Bannerman

But Mr. Vanderpuye was also accused of physical assault by his NPP contender. Mr. Bannerman alleged that Mr. Vanderpuye accosted and attacked him at his residence in James Town on Wednesday morning.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
A High Court in The Gambia has sentenced exiled journalist and manager of Taranga FM, Alhagie Abdoulie Ceesay a total of four years imprisonment.

The court presided over by Justice E.O Dada on November 8, 2016, convicted and sentenced Ceesay to a one year imprisonment and a fine of Dalasi 100,000 (about US$ 2,290) on count one and two. On count three to six, the journalist was sentenced to one year imprisonment and also a fine of Dalasi 100,000 (about US$2,290). Counts one to six were duplicated sedition charges . On count seven, which charges Ceesay with false publication, he was sentenced to two years in prison. The sentences are to run concurrently.

Judge Dada in his ruling indicated that if Ceesay fails to pay the fine, he will be made to serve additional two years in prison.

Alhagie Abdoulie Ceesay was first arrested on July 2, 2015, briefly released and re-arrested on July 17, 2015 on accusation of distributing photos of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh with a gun pointed at him. After a two-week detention in which Ceesay was held incommunicado with no access to a lawyer or his family, he was brought before a Magistrates Court on August 4, 2015 and charged with a single count of sedition. On November 18, while the case was still ongoing at the Magistrates Court, the state pressed a fresh seven-count charge against the journalist. These charges were a mere duplication of the first charge at the Magistrates court, except for that of publication of false news. The initial single count charge was later dropped.

Despite several calls by the MFWA and many civil society organisations to the Gambian authorities to release Ceesay, he was kept in detention. On March 3, 2016 the MFWA and 36 other freedom of expression organisations from across Africa and the globe petitioned the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights and the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion to urge President Jammeh to release Ceesay.

On March 31, 2016, two US senate members, Richard Joseph Durbin, a senior United States Senator for Illinois and Patrick Joseph Leahy, Senator for Vermont, also wrote to President Jammeh to release Ceesay who had then been in detention for over eight months.

While in detention, Ceesay was tortured and maltreated and was hospitalized on several occasions until his escape from hospital on April 21, 2016.

While giving the judgement on November 8, 2016, Justice Dada also said an order will be served on the police to declare Abdoulie Ceesay who is currently on exile a fugitive and to bring him to serve his sentence. Ceesay will therefore be arrested and be made to serve his sentence should he return to The Gambia.

The MFWA is deeply concerned about the sentencing of Alhagie Abdoulie Ceesay after the long period of detention and torture that he has already endured. We are particularly dismayed that despite the numerous interventions and appeals by local, regional and international groups and individuals, the Gambian authorities have continued to persecute Ceesay. We call on the Gambian government to grant amnesty to Ceesay who has already been forced to live in exile and far from his family and friends. We are once again calling on ECOWAS, and the African Commission to urge President Yahya Jammeh to grant amnesty to Ceesay and also improve on the press freedom, freedom of expression and human rights conditions in the country.
10.11.2016 LISTEN

According to a famous African proverb, When the music changes, so does the dance. This adage illustrates the continents current position amidst opportunities for, and challenges to, development and governance as the 21st century unfolds.

In recent years, national leaders have pursued many new development initiatives. Among them are the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on sustainable financing, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris climate agreement and the World Trade Organizations Nairobi Package.

These frameworks could fast-track the continents development, and even fulfil the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the next 15 years. The initiatives dovetail with the African Unions (AU) Agenda 2063, a set of aspirations for a more prosperous continent.

At the same time, Africa confronts chronic problems of poverty, food insecurity, ballooning youth unemployment, mounting debt, climate change and environmental degradation. These problems have been exacerbated by falling commodity prices, which have dropped over 40% from their peak in 2011. This translates to a loss of over $63 billion, which has left a trail of economic devastation for commodity-dependent nations such as Angola, Nigeria and Zambia. Commodity revenues make up more than half the total of Africas gross domestic product (GDP).

Africa must make a concerted effort to address these long-standing obstacles to growth, and seize available opportunities to get on a path to sustainable development.

Natural capital losses

Africa currently loses $68 billion annually from environmental degradation, according to Agriculture for Impact, an independent group that advocates for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

In addition, key environmental sectors such as forestry, wildlife, fisheries and mining suffer losses worth billions to illegal logging, illegal trade in wildlife, unaccounted and unregulated fishing and illegal mining practices, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

has found.

Without investments to eliminate inefficiencies in the agro-value chain resulting from farming on degraded lands, Africa loses between $4 billion and $48 billion in food worth annually. This is in addition to 6.6 million tonnes of potential grain harvest lost to degraded ecosystems.

Consequently, countries in Africa spend $35 billion annually on food imports, which is hardly sufficient, as more than 200 million Africans still go hungry, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Yet with appropriate government policies, Africa could recover that $35 billion and be able to finance development projects and boost food security.

Targeted policy interventions

Africas current precarious ecosystem situation can be addressed by promoting environmental sustainability. A good first step is to sustainably harness Africas natural capital, advises UNEP.

At the sixth African Ministerial Conference for the Environment, held in Cairo, Egypt, in April, Africas environmental experts identified three key ways to leverage natural capital opportunities. The first involves policies, actions and partnerships at national, regional and global levels designed to reverse current losses from degraded ecosystems, agro-value-chain inefficiencies, illicit financial flows and crimes involving wildlife, logging, fisheries and mining.

By reversing these losses, Africa could save up to $150 billion annually. Sectors such as health care and education, needing annual investments of up to $32 billion and $26 billion respectively, and infrastructure, for which investments of $93 billion are required annually, could potentially benefit.

The second way Africa can sustainably harness natural capital is by allocating, again at national and regional levels, a portion of current natural capital earnings to unlock the potential of natural-capital-based sectors. By so doing, the continent would be achieving the targets of multiple SDGs.

For example, investments in ecosystem-based, adaptation-driven agriculture and using clean energy for processing and other commercial chains can potentially support sustainable agro-industrialization.

Clean energy can boost sustainable agro-processing in rural areas and, combined with affordable financing and market accessibility, enhance farmers incomes, boost food security by up to 128% and create up to 17 million jobs along the entire value chain. This is in addition to boosting an agro-sector expected to be worth $1 trillion by 2030, according to the World Bank.

Investments in natural-capital-based sustainable agro-industry will contribute towards SDG 1 (poverty eradication), SDG 2 (an end to hunger), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) and SDG 8 (sustainable economic growth and employment), as well as promoting food security and improved nutrition.

Investments can enhance climate adaptation and the health of ecosystems, and produce healthier food even as clean energy options reduce emissions and pollutionall of which would contribute to SDG 3 (good health and well-being for all) and SDG 13 on climate action. Healthy ecosystems would contribute to SDG 15 (protecting life on land).

The World Bank reckons that a 10% increase in crop yields in Africa would translate to approximately a 7% reduction in poverty through agricultural growth, which is at least two to four times more effective in reducing poverty than growth in other sectors.

The third way Africa can leverage natural capital opportunities is by targeting policies and actions to enable value addition of its natural capital exports, instead of exporting raw materials. This would enhance earnings. Policies prioritizing investment in rural transport and energy infrastructure to achieve sustainable agro-industrialization is a good starting point, experts believe.

Unlocking agriculture potential

Experts continue to praise key elements of the Paris climate agreement, the SDGs, and the AUs Agenda 2063. What is lacking, however, are policies to ensure those elements are part of individual countries development frameworks and, most importantly, that their implementation is financed.

Without such policies and financing, it may be difficult to achieve modern, climate-friendly and efficient food systems, and, by extension, inclusive economic growth.

With regard to the critical financing need, one area of intense discussion is how to deal with illicit financial flows, mainly attributable to Africas natural capital. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), financial aid spent on improving tax administration could substantially increase tax revenue for African countries. For instance, a project assisting Kenyas tax administrators returned a massive $1,650 for every $1 extra invested, while a programme in Mozambique was able to increase short-term revenues by 350%.

The potential is huge, yet currently just 0.07% of OECD assistance to poor countries is used to improve tax systems. Building capacity of Africas negotiators with multinational companies and improving regulatory oversight in tax administration could help deal with illicit flows and recoup funds for sustainable development.

African countries should make it a priority to implement the 2015 recommendations of the AU high-level panel on illicit financial flows headed by former South African President Thabo Mbeki. These include taking measures to deal with organized crime, including environmental crimes (which make up about 33% of all organized crimes) and the public sector corruption that plays a key role in facilitating these outflows.

Additionally, unnecessary tax expenditures such as incentives for natural-resource exploration constitute significant revenue losses, up to 4% of GDP, in addition to providing loopholes for fraud. Up to 65% of oil subsidies in Africa benefit the richest 40% of households and feed corrupt cartels, according to the African Development Bank.

Africas huge natural resources can turn the dream of a prosperous continent into a reality. Countries need to act urgently and strengthen the governance structure and to enact and implement appropriate policies. The challenge is to make actions speak louder than all the fine words.

Dr. Richard Munang is an Africa climate change and development policy expert at UNEP, and Mr. Robert Mgendi is an adaptation policy expert. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of UNEP.

Africa Renewal
10.11.2016 LISTEN

On the eve of the fifth anniversary of South Sudans independence on 9 July, sporadic gunfire rent the air in Juba, the capital city.

What many assumed was a celebration of the worlds newest nations fifth anniversary turned out to be a precursor to a deadly clash pitting troops loyal to President Salva Kiir against those loyal to his deputy Riek Machar.

Fighting quickly spilled over, resulting in hundreds of deaths and causing thousands to flee to neighbouring Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda.

Although yet another ceasefire agreement came into effect on 11 July, there were still fears that, as has happened many times in the past, it could be violated.

By mid-July about 300 people, including 33 civilians and two Chinese peacekeepers, had been killed in the fighting.

The worsening humanitarian situation is now a major concern. Within the last five years, South Sudan has produced the fourth-highest number of refugees in the world, just shy of 750,000, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Global Trends Report 2015. The top three countries are Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.

The latest outbreak of fighting, if not contained, is expected to exacerbate refugee outflows, particularly from cities such as Juba, Wau and Bentiu. In addition, thousands of people have sought shelter at the UN mission in Juba.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the clashes and called for peace: I urge President Kiir and First Vice-President Riek Machar to put an immediate end to the ongoing fighting, discipline the military leaders responsible for the violence and finally work together as partners to implement the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan.

Herve Ladsous, the UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, wants a stronger mandate so that UN peacekeepers can enforce an arms embargo and impose targeted sanctions on those perpetrating violence: If this is a forewarning of what is yet to come, only a strong political and coordinated approach can salvage the peace process now, he said.

At the July summit in Kigali, Rwanda, African Union (AU) leaders agreed to send more peacekeepers from Africa to South Sudan, with a robust mandate to enforce the ceasefire and protect civilians.

AU Commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma called on political leaders to engage in dialogue and protect the South Sudanese people. After terming the fighting unacceptable, she said, Hardly two months after the formation of the government of national unity, the belligerents seem to be back in the trenches and the people of South Sudan, instead of celebrating five years of independence, must flee like sheep before the wolves. [The government and leaders must] protect the vulnerable to serve the people, not to be the cause of the peoples suffering.

There are about 12,000 UN peacekeepers in the country, and other UN agencies such as UNICEF and UNHCR are providing other forms of assistance, including medical and humanitarian, to those affected by the clashes.

Trouble began in 2013 when President Kiir sacked his deputy, Mr. Machar, accusing him of planning to topple the government via a coup. Since then the two political heavyweights have been at odds.

Hopes for peace were roused in August 2015 after the two signed a ceasefire agreement, which led to Mr. Machars reinstatement as vice president in April 2016. However, it appears the frosty relationship between the president and his deputy never thawed.

Africa Renewal
Zaka (Zimbabwe) (AFP) - Under the scorching Zimbabwean sun, cattle seek shade among stunted thorn bushes in the drought-prone district of Zaka, where crops wither due to increasing temperatures and changing weather patterns.

Severe lack of rain across southern Africa has hit the country hard, with government officials saying a quarter of the population faces starvation. Many villagers are forced to survive on wild fruit.

Maize, the country's traditional staple crop, has suffered a series of poor harvests.

Late rains this year again wrecked the planting season, and the little that is growing has often been destroyed by heat.

It may not help the immediate crisis, but science is providing a glimmer of hope for smallholder maize farmers in Zimbabwe.

Trials on hybrid maize seeds adapted for drought and high temperatures offer a little hope for Zimbabwe's farmers, affected by late rains and drought

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center -- known by its Spanish acronym CIMMYT -- is conducting trials in Zaka on hybrid maize seeds adapted to tackle drought and high temperatures.

The seeds are developed to survive dry conditions with 60 percent less water than normal and in temperatures of up to 35 degrees C (95 degrees F), according to CIMMYT researchers.

"If we get these new maize seed varieties that will help us a lot," said Ceaser Chavizha, a small smallholder in Zaka, located in Masvingo province, south of the capital Harare.

'Improve yields'

Like many farmers in the region who rely on maize produce, Chavizha has been forced to survive on food handouts as his crops have been reduced to dried husks.

"We cannot continue with handouts as we have fields that we can work on to produce food for our own, so we hope the new maize seeds will help us improve our yields," he told AFP.

A technician holds a drone used to scout a plot of a heat-tolerant hybrid maize growing at the Chiredzi Research Station in Zimbabwe

Maize meal crops are ground and turned into mealie meal, used to make porridge and other food, but the El Nino-induced drought has wrecked arable fields, grazing pastures and water sources.

The drought scourge is high on the agenda at UN COP22 climate talks in Morocco, where world leaders and experts are discussing how to implement the landmark Paris Agreement that was signed last year.

The pact aims to cap global warming at below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F), compared with pre-industrial levels.

A country in need

Once referred to as the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe used to be an exporter of maize, but now aid organisations say the country requires about two million metric tonnes a year to feed itself.

Cosmos Magorokosho, a senior scientist and maize breeder at CIMMYT, said the ultimate goal of hybrids was to help farmers develop long-term sustainable agriculture.

Fillies Muromo holds a basket of drought and heat tolerant maize from her dry field in the Zaka Masvingo province in Zimbabwe

"Basically it means transferring genes from one plant to another type so that you create a new type that has the characteristics that you want," he said.

He said CIMMYT had received $500,000 funding from USAID to develop the new maize variety for drought-prone areas in east, central and southern Africa.

Magorokosho stressed that more funds were needed to extend the project, and criticised the Zimbabwe government's delay in adopting new maize hybrids.

"There is a layer of testing that is required by the authorities which is a little bit long... we would wish it is shortened so that the varieties can get quickly to the farmers," Magorokosho said.

CIMMYT, a non-profit research project headquartered in Mexico, is also working on a vitamin A-rich maize variety which is already in production in other parts of Africa and Latin America.

This year, Zimbabwe's cash-strapped government declared a "state of disaster" in most rural areas, with at least 2.4 million people in urgent need of food aid.

Sekai Makonese, another small-scale farmer in Zaka, welcomed the potential impact of scientific intervention, saying she was counting on hybrids becoming widespread as soon as possible.

"Long ago, we used to farm maize with no problems but now we have a problem with climate change and now our crops fail before we harvest," she said.

The Zimbabwe government is yet to approve the mass distribution of the seeds, but the product is already available at some agricultural outlets.


Former President Jerry John Rawlings, founder of the John Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC), appears pessimistic about the electoral chances of the party as the December 7 general election approaches.

He apparently doubts the NDC's ability to win the crucial election, which could re-elect President Mahama. He has admonished the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) not to cause other parties to feel insecure if it is able to win contest.

Ex-President Rawlings gave the admonition when Volta Regional Executives of the NPP, led by John Peter Amewu, paid a courtesy call on him in Accra yesterday.

The NPP executives had visited the NDC founder to express their concerns about Togolese taking part in Ghana's elections as being trumpeted by the NDC in the region.

Jerry Rawlings said whichever party wins the December 7 polls must ensure that the losing parties and their supporters do not feel intimidated.

Most parties are working towards winning and I wish all of you the best, but one serious appealis that irrespective of whoever emerges as the winner, I hope the losing parties and their supporters will have no reason to feel insecure.

It's important that we take the necessary steps to give the necessary assurance to all citizens  he added.

As far as the December 7 polls is concerned, Mr Rawlings urged the various parties to do everything and anything that is possible to maintain the spirit of goodwill, because the time is a little too short.

The NPP Regional Chairman had to Ex-President Rawlings that the party was concerned that some Togolese have, through illegal means, found their way into Ghana's register of voters so they could vote for a particular party.

Mr. Amewu said: The NPP, as law-abiding citizens, do not intend to stop genuine Ghanaians who reside in Togo coming to Ghana to exercise their democratic right to vote. Instead we are trying to build collaboration between the leaders of the border towns and educate them in understanding the criminal implications and trivialities of the actions of those who are not entitled to vote trying to do so.

NPP has repeatedly claimed Ghanas electoral roll has more foreign nationals registered as voters especially from neighbouring Togo.

In October, the Volta Regional NPP launched Operation Eagle Eye a campaign to prevent non-nationals from taking part in Ghanas election.

This came after General Secretary of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) stormed Togo to persuade citizens who are on the Voters register to show up on December 7.

Mr Amewu registered his disappointment with the development, adding it does not augur well for the democratic credentials of the country.

He claimed the NDC enticed Togolese nationals with freebies such as money, T-shirt, Confidor fertilizer among other incentives to get onto the Voters register.

Although he believes it was going to be difficult to de-motivate the Togolese from turning up on Election Day, he said there could be progress if eminent personalities like Mr Rawlings adds his voice to the issue.

Mr. Rawlings assured the delegation that he would pass on the concern to the relevant institutions for the necessary action.

JJ's Absence

The absence of the former President on the NDC campaign trail in recent times has been so conspicuous that it is becoming the talk of town.

Apart from Cape Coast where the NDC launched its national campaign in August, the former President has not been seen at any major campaign event organized by the governing party including its manifesto launch in Sunyani in late September.

He refused to endorse John Mahama when he attended the NDC Cape Coast campaign launch asking them to wait till after the election before he booms.

The NDC was able to wrestle power from the then New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 2008 largely due to the untiring effort of Mr Rawlings.

Too Old

Early last month, NDC General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia said that the former President was too old to campaign for the NDC as the party seeks re-election of President John Mahama.

He admitted the NDC is going into the 2016 campaign without President Rawlings who founded the NDC but claimed that the ex-military leader was in the 'background' doing some work.

By William Yaw Owusu


Ghana and the rest of the world woke up to a Donald Trump win in the American polls, a development which shocked most Ghanaians as it did others across the globe.

The US president-elect proved bookmakers wrong when he emerged winner in a very acrimonious election that has seen the most powerful country divided, with the defeat of Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State.

Donald John Trump, a 70-year-old business mogul, who has never held political office, was elected the 45th president of the United States of America on the ticket of the Republican Party.

His victory against the Democratic Party's candidate, 69-year-old Hillary Clinton, who was also a former first lady, has been seen as the biggest upset in America's recent political history.

Trump won 279 as against Hilary Clinton's 228 electoral votes, though Clinton garnered nearly 200,000 more popular votes.

The president-elect, in his victory speech, stated, I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all of Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, Im reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country

I mean that very sincerely. Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division, have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.

Hillary on her part, has conceded defeat and called on Americans to give Trump a chance to lead. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power.

Mrs. Clinton expressed the hope that Trump would be a successful president for all Americans.

For many Ghanaians, especially those who believe in the predictions of renowned men of God such as Pastor TB Joshua, the dark horse in the race was certainly Donald Trump and not the Democrat's Hillary Clinton  the favourite.

Pastor TB Joshua predicted a win for Hillary, information which many hours after the unexpected turn of events, was pulled off his online site  reasons yet unknown.

If there is an election result which has reduced the esteem of pollsters, it is the Trump win which has left many wondering whatever informed the unexpected turn of events.

Many Ghanaians kept vigil watching the international networks such as Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC and the others as they churned out the results from across the United States.

At a point all were contended with a roller coaster situation until Donald Trump opened up and never let go his speed towards the White House until it happened.

Sweeping most of the swing states and winning the popular vote put Donald Trump in an unassailable position. The man who the world wrote off as too loud and explicit to be President of the US is the president-elect of one of the most powerful nations of the world  the 45th to have the code to the nuclear button.

Already many Ghanaians have received messages of anxiety from their relations in America about whether Trump would make good his unfavourable campaign promises.

Many of such Ghanaians can only maintain a wait-and-see attitude as a Trump presidency starts work in the coming days or weeks.

In the Obama race, President Mahama was likened to the former with his campaign managers using to effect the mantra Obama/Mahama, the rhyme working to their favour.

On Tuesday General Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) Johnson Asiedu Nketia, reportedly likened Donald Trump to Nana Akufo-Addo, New Patriotic Party (NPP) flag bearer, both of them according to Nketia, making all manner of unfeasible promises. His party however, is a counterpart of the Democrats whose social democrat values have them engaging in projects such as the construction of hospitals.

Now that Donald Trump has won, Asiedu Nketia's gamble has failed, lifting however, the spirit of the NPP supporters whose party's Elephant symbol is shared by the Republicans.

Congratulations

Messages of congratulations have started pouring in from world leaders.

In Ghana a former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Martin Amidu, said the newly elected president has defied the political elite and the political establishment, including the media, to get the nod of American electorate.

According to him, the people of America have voted for a new and changed political and democratic establishment that would make the world great again.

President John Dramani Mahama and Nana Akufo-Addo have also congratulated Mr Trump.

By A.R. Gomda


Angry members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Odododiodioo Constituency in Accra yesterday besieged the Jamestown Police Station demanding the immediate release of three of their members  Teddy Moore, Nii Koodi and another young man whose name was only given as Prince.

It follows their arrest the previous night in relation to clashes between supporters of the party and those of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) after separate rallies.

The incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, who also doubles as the Minister of Youth and Sports, Edwin Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, allegedly started the fracas.

Nii Lantey refused to talk when DAILY GUIDE reached him on telephone, saying he was at a meeting.

According to supporters of the NPP, right after the launch of their constituency campaign at the famous Bukom Square, which recorded a mammoth crowd on Tuesday, they decided to embark on a procession in the area to shore up support for their parliamentary and presidential candidates, Nii Lante Bannerman and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo respectively.

Attacks

The supporters claimed that just when they got to a section of the Gbese chief's palace, the NDC activists started pelting them with stones without any provocation and so they decided to respond in like manner and chased the NDC goons away.

But later, they (NDC supporters) managed to regroup and again attacked the procession, including the NPP parliamentary candidate, at the General Post Office area and ended up shooting one of the NPP supporters.

They, therefore, decided to go to the Jamestown Police Station but that was when matters reportedly got out of hand.

The NDC activists were said to have started moving from house to house assaulting relatives of the NPP supporters, including parents of the party's parliamentary candidate.

Moments after the NPP supporters got to the police station to lodge a formal complaint, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, who was in the company of some stoutly-built men, were also said to have stormed the place demanding the arrest of the NPP boys.

Police Negligence

When the police declined, he reportedly pounced on one of the NPP supporters in the person of Joseph Addo popularly known as Zola, who is the assembly member for Ngleshie Electoral Area, allegedly punching him indiscriminately together with the 'macho men,' including one Mawuko, a police informant.

Immediately he saw me, he punched my face three times in front of the police, Zola narrated to DAILY GUIDE.

One other person, Walter Bruce Tagoe aka Ras, was also reportedly beaten to pulp by the men, leaving him with a swollen lip.

This was said to have happened in the presence of the policemen, including the Jamestown District police commander, ASP Albert Mahu.

The minister reportedly threatened to cause the transfer of the police commander if he did not arrest the assembly member.

At a point when he realized that his life was in danger, Zola said he had to run for his life.

Minister Pulls Gun

But that did not end as yesterday morning Nii Lantey reportedly blocked the vehicle of the NPP parliamentary candidate in the middle of the road around the Assembly Spot area while he [Bannerman] was on his way to a meeting called by the Divisional police commander over the previous day's fracas.

He just crossed my car with his car so my brother wanted to reverse. But there was a taxi behind us; we bumped into the taxi and the car stopped. But I never imagined that he was coming to physically attack me; he gave me two hefty punches on my jaw, he claimed.

Asked what his reaction was, Bannerman said, I wanted to come down and face him. I'm a man. I wanted to come down but people restrained me; I got down and I wanted to attack him but they prevented me.

The minister was said to have immediately reached out for a pistol from his car together with one Nii Amass, described by many as a notorious land guard and a certain Mawuko who all started firing warning shots to scare away people from coming close, before leaving the scene.

Nii Lantey Bannerman said, Absolutely nothing has been done by the Jamestown police, meanwhile, we've lodged over 30 similar complaints of attacks on our supporters but no action has been taken.

Disappointment

The NPP youth, therefore, seemed to have lost confidence in the police at Jamestown whom they accused of being biased and selective in the administration of justice.

They could not fathom why the police arrested three of their supporters while the minister and his supporters, who were fired gunshots and beat up people, had been left off the hook.

They therefore went to the police station not to only demand the release of their colleagues, but also call for the arrest and prosecution of the minister.

Greater Accra Organiser of the NPP, Archibald Cobbina, who led the charged youth, served notice that they would not allow their supporters to be cowed into submission.

Not even the intervention of party elders like former Mayor of Accra and Chairman of the NPP's Greater Accra Council of Elders, Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson; Lawyer Ayikoi Otoo; Greater Accra Regional Chairman, Ishmael Ashietey; former National Organiser, Lord Commey; former Deputy Agric Minister, Dr Hammond and former MP for the area, Reginald Nii Bi Ayibonte could calm their nerves until their colleagues were granted bail.

Also present at the police station were the party's parliamentary candidates for Ablekuma South, Jerry Ahmed Shaib; Ablekuma Central Ebenezer Nartey; Weija-Gbawe, Tina Mensah and Klottey Korle, Phillip Addison.

By Charles Takyi-Boadu


The Electoral Commission (EC) has given the green light to seven presidential candidates to contest in the December election.

The candidates are President John Dramani Mahama, National Democratic Congress (NDC); Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, New Patriotic Party (NPP); Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, Convention People's Party (CPP) and an independent candidate, Jacob Osei Yeboah (JOY).

The rest are Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, the Progressive People Party (PPP); Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, National Democratic Party (NDP) and Dr Edward Nasigiri Mahama, Peoples National Convention (PNC)  who were earlier disqualified by the commission together with eight others last month for anomalies on their nomination forms.

The EC yesterday, finally, cleared the candidates after accepting their nomination forms to join the four candidates approved earlier.

Ayariga, Others Kicked Out

However, the EC rejected the nominations of eight other candidates for failing to abide by the C.I. 94  the law governing the December polls.

The disqualified aspirants are Nana Agyenim Boateng aka Gyataba of the United Front Party (UFP); Thomas Nuako Ward-Brew, Democratic People's Party (DPP); Dr. Hassan Ayariga, All Peoples Congress (APC) and Kofi Akpaloo, Independent People's Party (IPP).

The rest are Henry Lartey, Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP); Richard Nixon Tetteh, Unity Development System Party (UDSP); Alfred Kwame Asiedu Walker and Akua Donkor, Ghana Freedom Party (GFP).

Two other candidates, Akwasi Addai Odike, UPP and Kwabena Adjei Bambata, RPD, had voluntarily stepped down from the race with Odike throwing his weight behind Nana Akufo-Addo.

At a news conference in Accra yesterday, Charlotte Osei, EC chairperson, explained that the disqualified candidates' nomination forms fell short of the requirements stated in the C.I. 94.

The commission was ordered by the Supreme Court to extend the nomination period to Tuesday, the 8th of November, 2016, and to give candidates who have previously submitted their nomination forms as at September 30, 2016, the opportunity to correct any errors that had been discovered on their forms.

Following that order, the Commission invited 13 candidates whose nomination forms had been received as at September 30, 2016, and were given hearings.

The Commission took them through the errors and omissions on their forms. During the meetings we also pointed out to them the areas of concern which the Commission had noticed on their forms during the extended nomination period, with the opportunity to correct them, she said.

The EC boss said contrary to reports in the media, the hearing was amicable and all candidates and their representatives cooperated with the commission and that there were no altercations.

Balloting

After the seven candidates had been cleared to contest in the December 7 presidential poll, balloting for the presidential slot was carried out at the EC head office in Accra.

The balloting saw the two front runners in the 2016 election  the NDC's John Dramani Mahama and NPPs Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo  occupying the third and the fifth positions respectively. Those were the positions the two partied had picked during the parliamentary ballot two weeks ago.

This means that on the voting day (December 7), John Mahama will be third on the ballot paper, and Nana Addo will occupy the fifth position; and the same will apply to these parties' parliamentary aspirants.

Per the balloting, Ivor Greenstreet's CPP took the first position, followed by Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings's NDP, while Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom's PPP picked the fourth.

The sixth and the seventh positions were occupied by Dr. Edward Mahama's PNC and independent candidate Jacob Osei Yeboah respectively.

The NPP was represented by its campaign Chairman, Peter Mac Manu and acting General Secretary, John Boadu, while the NDC was represented by the General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia.

The PPP was also represented by its Director of Operations, Nana Ofori Owusu, and the CPP by Kwabena Bomfeh.

By Cephas Larbi

[email protected]
This is, perhaps the most incredible story in American democratic history.

The Republican establishment was against him.

The Democratic party was against him.

The media was against him.

The intellectuals were against him.

The global capitalists were against him.

Prophets predicted his defeat.

The sitting President called him unfit for the Presidency.

And yet, against all odds, he won.

Today, the pundits who never foresaw his victory are bemoaning it.

David Remnick is predicting dire consequences.

Cookie Roberts is blaming sexism.

Carl Bernstein has fingered sexism, racism etc. And many are threatening to leave America in protest, with Cher threatening to leave the planet. They have belittled his supporters and their motives for electing Trump. And yet, Mr. Trump, despite his unfortunate penchant to digress into personal attacks, campaigned on a solid platform. He pledged to cancel unfavourable trade deals and bring American jobs back. He pledged to build a war and crack down on illegal immigration. He promised to appoint conservative judges. He pledged support law enforcement authoritied.

He promised to "drain the swamp of corruption ". That is what those who voted for Mr. Trump, including many who were derisively referred to as "deplorables " voted for. Already , demonstrators are on the streets of 7 cities, protesting his election. What are they Protesting? Hillary said eloquently during the last debate in response to Trump's reluctance to accept the results that it was part of the American tradition to accept election results. It would be good for Mrs. Clinton's supporters to take her advice and accept Mr. Trump's victory.

This is a moment to celebrate American democracy. The voters have spoken and, as both Secretary Clinton and President Obama urged today, their choice must be accepted and respected.

Finally, those fearful of a Trump presidency are jumping the gun a bit. Yesterday, the President elect pledged to serve all Americans.Yesterday, America voted for a Congress and there are checks and balances in the American system. If Mr. Trump over reaches, he will be checked.

America and the world must give Trump a chance. That is how democracy works.

E pluribus Unum.

Arthur K
Deeply troubling, was how the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) described Electoral Commissions action concerning errors the EC claimed itd further discovered on nomination forms of some disqualified presidential nominees, after the Supreme Court (SC) had directed that the electoral body must reconsider its decision earlier in the week.

The commission had been asked to give the 2016 beleaguered presidential candidates a second chance to correct mistakes on their nomination forms and had their status legitimised. Following the directive nine candidates resubmitted their forms. But for a while, it seemed the EC wasnt going to yield on its stance or it probably cared less about the public outcry.

Beyond that it appeared the commission, which had in the first place ran to the apex court to seek clarification on a number of court suits brought against it by the affected candidates was cutting the nose of the eminent body (the SC) to spite her face.

Lately the EC boss had received acerbic attacks from political observes and stakeholders, saying she acts with impunity. The body is on record to have refused to comply with Supreme Courts directive in May early this year on Evans Nimako and Abu Ramadan case of deleting 56,000 National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) registrants until the plaintiffs went back to court.

Why the sudden U-turn?

Like an unexpected seismic shift the EC softened its entrenched position on Wednesday. And as to where that pressure came from Ive no idea. I really dont know but I wish I were a soothsayer and could read the minds of the chairperson and the panel members of the commission. Nonetheless, I can speculate that perhaps the body was feeling the blazing heat coming from the oven (the public and the SC) and what do they say if you cant stand the heat stay out of the kitchen or find an escape route.

So, what happened yesterday was far from the ECs earlier tough-talking posture. It surprisingly took a safe route as indicated and announced that three of the candidates it had disqualified for irregularities found on their nomination forms could get back into the presidential race due in December 7.

And those who had the life line are: candidates Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom (PPP), Dr. Edward Mahama (PNC) and Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (NDP). The three have had their political ambitions activated successfully after going through all the hustles at the courts--- fighting the EC for reinstatement.

This brings to seven (7) the number of aspirants now vying for the number one spot. They join NDCs John Mahama, NPPs Nana Akufo Addo, CPPs Ivor Greenstreet and Mr. Jacob Osei an independent candidate.

I should point out that not all of them (the candidates) who filed suits at the courts had luck smiled on them. For the second time in their desperate bid, United Front Partys (UFP) Dr. Agyenim Boateng, Mr. Ward Brew Democratic Peoples Party of (DPP), Ghana Freedom Party (GFPs) Madam Akua Donkor and Mr. Kofi Akpaloo an independent candidate failed to make it. Also luck evaded Mr. Hassan Ayariga the All Peoples Congress (PDCs) presidential nominee, Dr. Dixon Tetteh of United Development System Party (UDSP), Dr. Henry Lartey of Great Consolidated Popular Front Party (GCFP) and Mr. Alfred Kwame Asiedu an independent candidate.

Two candidates have already bowed out from the race. Maybe they would stage a comeback come the next general elections in2020 or they might not venture into the Big Boys game anymore. United Progressive Partys (UPPs) Kwasi Addae Odike and Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RFDs) presidential nominee Kwabena Agyei have withdrawn their candidacy from the contest.

In the meantime, all the accepted candidates on Wednesday, November 09, balloted for positions on the presidential ballot paper at the ECs head office.

How everything played out in the day (s) before that:

The EC had given NDP presidential nominee Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings up to Tuesday by 5pm local time (GMT) to correct errors the commission described as concern and discrepancies, if she should qualify to run in the 2016 general elections. It also claimed it had discovered more errors on PNCs candidate Dr. Edward Mahamas nominations and the other candidates as well.

The order by the EC and its seemingly bullying style didnt sit down well with many, drawing sharp reactions from amongst stakeholders and political think tanks across the country.

On Tuesday CDD-Ghana issued a press statement expressing its worry and concern about ECs perceived delay tactics. It said: The centre is dismayed by news that EC at this late stage in the electoral process claims it has discovered new errors on the nomination forms of the disqualified aspirants.

It further said the centre finds this new twist to the processing of nomination forms of presidential aspirants deeply troubling, especially because it was the EC that took the matter to the Supreme Court, ostensibly to bring finality to the many suits at the courts challenging its decision to disqualify a number of aspirants.

While commending the Supreme Court for its courageous move and acting with a sense of urgency as well as responsibility, the executive director of the centre professor Gyimah-Boadi also advised all and sundry in Ghanas democratic governance to be that it wasnt healthy or safe for the adjudicating body of the land to be the only institution for preventing a potential political disaster.

I totally agree with CDD Boss, this must be a shared responsibility, the media, political parties, traditional rulers, religious leaders, civil society groups and the citizenry should all be part in ensuring that we safeguard, protect and do not act in any way that would drive the nation into political chaos. The EC on the other hand, must continue to act responsibly and also ensure that it doesnt do anything that would create doubts in the minds of the public.

That said, in a fledgling democracy such as ours there are bound to be errors or mistakes and certain blunders. But in the midst of all that we must as a people show respect and be tolerant with one another. The way to go is always having strong institutions, committed and honest people to run those institutions.

In a related development, the Supreme Court had rebuked the EC for showing disrespect towards the court. At the courts hearing of oral submissions on the Special Voting case on Wednesday, all seven panel members took turns to lash out at the EC for underestimating the gravity of the issues before the court.

Why the rebuke?

The EC had failed to appear before the court when it needed clarifications on the case. What seemed to have amazed the court was the fact that none of the commissioners, directors, or staff of the EC showed up in court to provide that evidence or clarifications. Even the lead counsel of the commission Mr. Thaddeus Sory wasnt at the court room-- he was represented by his assistant Mr. Sean Poku.

The upshot was that per the technical nature of the case Mr. Poku couldnt provide the court with the information it needed.

According to local media reports the suit which was filed by three individuals had taken a centre stage at the Supreme Court. At the courts sitting on Wednesday, the legal teams of the EC and the three individuals who filed the suit made their oral submissions.

Judgement is expected to be given on Monday November 14,r by the presiding Judge Mr. Justice William Atuguba.
South Africa will mark World Prematurity Day on 17th November 2016. According to the World Health Organization, globally an estimated 15 million babies are born preterm every year, and this number is increasing. Prematurity refers to a broad category of neonates born at less than 37 weeks' gestation, and preterm birth is the leading cause of neonatal mortality and the most common reason for antenatal hospitalisation.

Prematurity is one of the three major causes of newborn deaths in South Africa. The National Department of Health, continues to work in partnership with our stakeholders towards improving newborn care and under five child health and nutrition outcomes.

South Africa has spearheaded the use of innovative solutions including cost effective technologies towards improving outcomes for newborns and children. Some of these initiatives include the first of its kind, largest public health scale up program ever, Mom-Connect - a mobile phone-based messaging service providing South Africa's estimated 1.2 million pregnant women with health care information during pregnancy and through the 1st year of the childs life.

Other innovative solutions to be showcased and launched during the event include a mobile Road to Health Booklet application for parents and caregivers to access key information on child care, immunizations. The application automatically reminds parents of clinic appointments, and gives them interactive tools and information to assess their childs health and development.

An innovative solution pioneered in South Africa for use in resource constrained settings to assess the growth of the baby in the mothers womb, will also be shared. This application can detect abnormalities that can lead to stillbirths.

To support health workers and motivate them we will also launch an application called NurseConnect which with MomConnect is designed to improve maternal care.

The above announcements form part of the World Prematurity Day activities which aim to raise awareness of preterm births. This years focus is to highlight innovations that show the most promise in transforming the prevention, diagnosis and management of pregnancies and safe deliveries.

The Department of Health invites you to a media launch schedule as follows:

Date: Thursday, 17 November 2016

Time: 9h00 - 11h00

Venue: Kgabo Community Health Centre - Winterveldt, Tshwane

Please RSVP before Wednesday, 16 November 2017 to Mr Howard Kgoa at [email protected] or 076 374 0314 / Ms Rayana Rassool at [email protected] 082 416 347.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said that Ghanaians should accept the various goodies the National Democratic Congress (NDC) will bring them ahead of the December election because the goodies were bought with the billions the governing party has stolen from the people in the last eight years.

Dr. Bawumia, however, urged Ghanaians to vote out the NDC as another four years under the NDC will mean more corruption, incompetence and suffering.

The NPP running mate made these comments at Manbabga in the Bunkpurugu Constituency of the Northern Region on Monday.

Because the NDC has not done any work, you will see that they don't have a message. And so when we leave, in a few days or a few weeks' time, the NDC will also come but they will come with propaganda and most importantly, they will come with goodies. They will come with sewing machines, motorbikes, money etc. My advice to you is that when they come collect the motorbikes, sewing machines and money and spend it well, well because this is your own money, he said.

Continuing, Dr. Bawumia explained that the goodies of the NDC are obviously from money they should have used to make the lives of the people better but were corruptly kept through various schemes.

It is only right that the people enjoy what has been denied them in the way of development. This is the money they should have used for your development so collect it because it's your money, it is coming, you wait, you will see them bringing it in articulators. Collect it because it is yours. That is the money they should have used for our roads, for our hospitals and the money that should have been used to subsidize fertiliser for you. They did not do that, they took the money and they are now trying to come to us with that same money to bribe us for us to vote for them. Collect it, it is your money, spend it well but vote for Solomon Boar and Nana Akufo-Addo, he said.

The NPP Difference

Dr. Bawumia explained that unlike the NDC, the NPP will not corruptly hijack funds belonging to the people but ensure through prudent policies like the $ 1 million per constituency a year programme that the money goes directly into projects that will make the lives of the people better.

For the first time, we will ensure that money from the capital budget is directly brought to you so you also have your fair share of development. With this money, which will come every year to every constituency, we can fix the little problems that our villages have whether it is water, schools, markets, health facilities, etc, he explained.

Dr. Bawumia is on the second leg of his tour of the Northern Region and has so far been to the Yunyoo and Bunkpurugu Constituencies.

He is expected to visit the Nalerigu-Gambaga, Walewale and Yagaba-Kubore Constituencies on this leg.


The presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, brought almost all commercial activities to a complete standstill in the Odododiodioo Constituency on Tuesday, November 8, when he resumed his campaign tour of the Greater Accra Region.

On his visits to Old Fadama, Agbogbloshie, Okaishie, Kantamanto and Bukom, Nana Akufo-Addo was met by thousands of market women, business owners and their patrons who lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the NPP flag bearer.

Amidst chants of Nana oo Nana, Yresesamu, Afe yi y w'afe, they were all eager to listen to Nana Akufo-Addo's message of hope ahead of this year's elections.

In the company of the NPP parliamentary candidate for the constituency, Nii Lante Bannerman, as well as regional and national party stalwarts, Nana Addo, while addressing market women at Agbogbloshie, noted that Ghana and Ghanaians have become too miserable under the leadership of President Mahama.

According to him, it is inexplicable that Ghana  a nation blessed with abundance of human and natural resources  is drenched in poverty, leading many to lose hope in the ability of the country to offer them a decent standard of living.

In spite of this, he urged the thousands gathered to have hope in the fact that a government is on its way, God-willing, from 2017, which will bring development, progress and prosperity to every corner of the country without discrimination.

As is stipulated by law, the time has come, this year, for us to vote and decide who leads us. Let us use the power of our thumbs to change Ghana and bring in a government that can change our circumstances, and bring relief, progress and prosperity to all, he implored.

At Kantamanto  Accra's retail hub for used clothing  Nana Akufo-Addo observed that there are too many taxes in our country, adding that it is the reason why businesses are collapsing in our country. We are coming into office to reduce these killer taxes, and scrap the ones we deem unnecessary. This will help bring relief to business owners, who can in turn, create jobs for our unemployed youth.

He assured business owners and traders of the NPP's commitment, as stipulated in the party's 2016 manifesto, of reducing Value Added Tax (VAT) for micro and small enterprises from the current 17.5% to the 3% flat rate introduced by the erstwhile NPP government.

In addition to this, the NPP standard bearer assured traders that a government under him would reduce port clearing charges, reiterating his commitment towards ensuring that the private sector regains its pride of place in Ghana's economic setup when he wins this year's election.

En route to Bukom Square, Nana Addo made a whistle stop at Okaishie, where he was again mobbed by thousands of business owners, traders and residents.

Fishing Harbour

Nana Akufo-Addo, who was born at Swalaba, near Bukom Square, reiterated the NPP's policy of building landing sites and storage facilities along major coastal communities in the country. One of such communities to benefit from the proposed project, he indicated, would be Jamestown.

In collaboration with the private sector, the NPP leader said that his government would construct a new harbour also at Jamestown  a fishing community that was once famous for being a major harbour city.

Nana appealed to NPP members and residents of Odododiodioo to rally behind the party's parliamentary candidate, Nii Lante Bannerman and vote massively for him on December 7.

The team also made brief stops at Mamprobi in the Ablekuma South Constituency and Shiabu in Ablekuma West, eliciting the support of residents for the NPP and its parliamentary candidates, Jerry Ahmed Shaib, and Ursula Owusu Ekuful, respectively.
The flagbearer of the United Progressive Party (UPP), Akwasi Addai aka Odike, has thrown his weight behind Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, leader of the main opposition party after withdrawing from the presidential race.

There is no point in vying for the position when there is clear evidence of scheming to get me out of the race with less than one month to the polls, according to him.

He intimated that he has found solace in the message of change of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential candidate.

Mr. Akwasi Addai told Hello Fm, a Kumasi-based radio station, yesterday that he would hold a press conference on Monday to explain to why he was backing the candidacy of Nana Addo to the electorate.

He said the NPP and its leader would bring the needed change for Ghana to work again, adding that it would be suicidal to maintain the current status quo of joblessness, hardship and mismanagement.

But some activists of the governing party, National Democratic Congress (NDC) claimed Mr. Addai took the decision to avoid humiliation following a warning by lawyers of some executives of his party to the Electoral Commission (EC) not to consider his nomination.

Stephen Kwaku Saahene, National Organiser of UPP and some other executives, are challenging Odike's membership of the party after they alleged that he was dismissed through a unanimous resolution of the National Executive Committee of the party on grounds of misconduct.

They also sought an order of perpetual injunction to restrain the EC from accepting the nomination forms of Odike who claimed he formed the party after parting ways with United Front Party over disagreements with the then National Chairman, Nana Agyanim Boateng aka Gyataba.

It would not be a worthwhile investment to continuously fight to be in the presidential race when my ideas and vision for the nation have been equally espoused by the NPP leader, who is better placed to win the election, Mr Akwasi Addai said.

From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi


Accra, Nov. 9, GNA - Apostle Kadmiel Agbalenyoh, Missionary in charge of the Seven Day Congregation of Theocracy, has noted that the most unwanted period in human history is when politicians are contesting for office.

He said during this period, democracy should promote the rule of law, permit destruction of political opponents and the Western European Democracy was equally guilty.

Apostle Agbalenyoh said in the US leaders of the Republican and Democrat parties fought one another for the November 7 crucial election that their followers applauded.

'Mr Donald Trump of the Republican Party and Mrs Hillary Clinton of the Democrats inhumanly destroyed their decade hard won reputation before Americans whose votes they sought to enter the White House,' he said in a statement issued in Accra and copied to the Ghana News Agency said.

It said in Ghana, the December 7 elections had become destructive of the credibility of opponents.

'Aspiring parliamentarians and those who are contesting for the presidency attack themselves with hurtful statements. Spirit of deception controls most aspiring politicians who lie about their opponents because they must at all course become parliamentarians or the president.

'These politicians must not allow the devil to control them because Satan, according to Christ Jesus, has fathered deception. 'Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye do will do,'' the statement said.

It said: 'As December 7 draws nearer, aspiring parliamentarians as well as those who are contesting the presidency, must avoid defamatory language or utterances during their final campaigns and after December 7 elections, and promote the indiscriminate and lawful democracy, in order to escape the judgment of the Almighty God the creator of the world

'In fact, abusive political languages or statements would be judged by the Almighty God and punished.'

The statement said respect for opponents would give hope unto the Ghanaian community whose mandate the aspiring parliamentarians as well as presidency was seeking.

'In fact, attacking opponents for the four or eight year's political office should be customarily considered because integration of political enemies may be extremely difficult after December 7 elections or when the ruling party should be replaced.'

It said indirect involvement of religious leaders, traditional rulers and the media in the elections may cause mayhem because their activities could do harm to the promoting peaceful and transparent election.

It said the traditional rulers were the divinely custodians of the land and guardians of the people.

'While political positions are replaced each four years, traditional offices remain as long as prudent traditional leadership is exhibited. Their position is most honourable so much that good traditional practice will empower them as advisors to the president and guide to political leadership in Ghana.'

The statement said the Electoral Commission held the key of Ghana and must pray for divine guidance in discharging its duties responsibly by organising peace and transparent election, and to establish true and lawful democratic governance after December 7.

GNA
10.11.2016 LISTEN

By Justina Paaga/Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA

Takoradi, Nov. 9, GNA - For indigenous enterprises to successfully attract direct foreign investments and partnerships, there is the need for the country to grow local companies and make them competitive on the domestic market, Mr Paul Evans Aidoo, Western Regional Minister, has said.

Mr Aidoo said the performances of the local enterprises served as a parameter, which the big multinational companies use to measure the profitability of business environment of the country they want to investment in.

Mr Aidoo said this in a speech read on his behalf at a day's Investment Sensitisation Workshop in Takoradi, on the theme: 'Industrialization through Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Promotion and Making Land Available for Investment Purposes.'

It was organised by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), which brought together entrepreneurs, fashion designers, members from the business community as well as the technocrats from the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Region

The event aimed at soliciting information from the participants concerning issues that inhibit the expansion of small and medium enterprises and strategise ways to make them competitive.

The Regional Minister said it was imperative for the country to break the cycle of over-reliance on the extractive and service industries and rather accelerate the growth of the processing and manufacturing sector through value addition

Mr Aidoo said the Region was endowed with numerous natural resources; however, most of the enterprises fell within the micro categories, which often lacked efficient production technologies, financial capital and thus employ small number of personnel.

He in this regard said there was the need for the SMEs to add value to the primary products, in order to create employment for the people, increase profitability and eventually alleviate poverty in the country.

He said: 'It is time we begin to look for ways of assisting and promoting the initiatives of local enterprises, which call for the support of all stakeholders if we are to make any headway.'

Mr Aidoo urged the various assemblies to create the enabling environment and support young people to develop their entrepreneurial skills in order to take advantage of the investment potentials in the Region.

Dr Richard Adjei, the Deputy Director in-charge of Research and Business Development of the GIPC, assured the participants that the Centre would continue to promote and facilitate investment drive for small-scale and medium enterprises on both local and international markets so that they got the necessary partnership arrangements.

He called for the development of the entrepreneurial skills of Ghanaians so as to drive the productivity of their businesses, adding in 2015, the country recorded $ 2.3 billion dollars Foreign Direct Investment into the local economy following the exploration and production of oil and gas in commercial quantities.

He said in 2014, the Centre registered only six service enterprises from the Region out of 122 in the country, and thus, described the trend as very discouraging.

He noted that the Region was fast becoming the industrial hub of the country; therefore, young entrepreneurs must register their businesses with the Centre in order to market them to the local and international investors for potential partnerships.

To register with the GIPC, Dr Adjei urged businesses to first register their businesses with the Register General's Department in order to get the certificate to commence business, the certificate of incorporation as well as the business code.

Mr Albert Ababio, the Regional President of the Association of Ghana Industries, indicated that one of the major challenges facing young entrepreneurs in the Region was the non-availability of land for industrial purposes.

He explained that for businesses to thrive there was the need to make land acquisition easy and appealed to the MMDAs to facilitate the move through engagements with the traditional authorities and land owners in order to accelerate the development of the nation.

GNA
A parliamentary debate in the Awutu Senya West Constituency in the Central Region was postponed because of the presence of some National Democratic Congress (NDC) women clad in red at the venue to protest against the New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate for the area George Andah.

National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) postponed the debate because Mr. Andah was reportedly insecure with the presense of the protestors.

According to the incumbent Member of Parliament for the area, Hanna Tetteh, the women were there to protest against George Andah, who had attacked her single marital status by challenging her to show her husband to her constituents.

Madam Tetteh indicated that a number of NDC members in the constituency had taken offense to Mr. Andah's comments, of which he has remained unapologetic about, though she herself stated that she is not disturbed by Mr. Andah's campaign attacks.

Quite frankly I couldn't care less about Mr. Andah's attacks on me. They are not my problem and I don't even consider them to be an issue. If that is the way he wants to do his campaign that is his choice. I will do my campaign differently.

But there are some people in this constituency who are members of my party who have taken offense and for that reason; a number of the NDC women who were planning to attend the debate had worn funeral clothes as a sign of protest, she said.

Concerning the cancellation of the debate, Madam Tetteh revealed that from the discussions their NCCE platform, it appeared that Mr. Andah was concerned that protesters constituted propaganda and he [Andah] would not like to see that present during the debate.

For this reason the NCCE decided to suspend the debate and postpone it to another day, she said.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) has waded into the ongoing debate in the cement industry on unfair practices which are collapsing local industries.

The ICU said if the government does not act swiftly to stem the influx of cheap imports on the market, the consequences will be dire for Ghana.

At a news conference in Accra yesterday, Solomon Kotei, General Secretary of lCU, criticized government for not stopping the influx of cheap imports on the Ghanaian market.

The ICU-Ghana is worried at the current happenings in the cement industry which is affecting the employment generation of some cement companies, he said, adding that the government should offer unconditional support for the local companies in the face of the ongoing unfair practices.

He said that the unfair practices include under-declaration of CIF values and volumes imported, lower tariffs, export subsidies, dumping, as well as abuses at bonded warehousing.

All of these have affected retail pricing which the cement importers apply to their advantages, adding that some Chinese cement importers enjoy certain privileges not granted to the local cement companies which give them an advantage over local producers in terms of pricing.

Mr. Kotei said whatever trade protocols, agreements or arrangements that the government or its agencies have made with foreign producers and importers of cement to Ghana must not place our local cement industry at a disadvantage.

The protocols must not seek to undermine local industry but rather help local industry to grow.

He said that local cement manufacturers were already overburdened with high corporate taxes and import duties on their raw materials.

They are unfairly competing with foreign importers who fraudulently package finished cement as semi-unfinished cements in order to evade appropriate taxes and excise duties.

The unfair trade practices enable the foreign cement importers to flood the market with lowly-priced cement of questionable quality to the detriment of the country. The practices have the potential of crippling the businesses of the local manufacturers leading to retrenchment of workers who are our members.

He said the practice had worsened what he called the academia feed into the industry.

It is our obligation to protect our country from unhealthy trade practices and unhealthy competition to ensure sustainable development.

Mr. Kotei said the time has come for the Minister of Trade and Industry Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah to enforce the Legislative Instrument (L.I.) 2240, which set up the Cement Monitoring Committee and allow it to work.

ICU also called on the Minister to place a cap on quotas as recommended by the L.I. 2240, address the issue of license approval process under the instrument and inaugurate the five-member commission to enforce and implement the Ghana International Trade Commission (GITC) Act 926 or 2016 passed by Parliament.

By William Yaw Owusu


Despite a recent report by the Central Bank that overall performance of the banking sector as at July this year was strong, the quality of loans on the banks' books generally worsened compared to 2015.

The report revealed that defaulters, mainly indigenous companies, received 61.2 percent of credit to private enterprises but accounted for 71.8 percent of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) as at July 2016.

It stated that even though the share of foreign enterprises in total private sector credit declined from 10.8 percent in July 2015 to 8.9 percent in July 2016, its contribution to private sector NPLs increased from 11.6 percent to 7.9 percent during the period under review.

Investment decline

Banks' investment in securities as a share of total investment declined to 16.9 percent in July 2016 from 28.7 percent in July 2015.

Investments in bills as a share of total investment however increased to 80.1 percent in July 2016 from 67.5 percent a year earlier.

Banks' investments in shares and other equities as a share of total investment also decreased to 2.9 percent in July 2016 from 3.8 percent in the same period last year.

Credit risk

The banking industry's real gross loans and advances recorded a low growth of 0.7 percent in July 2016, down from 4.8 percent in July 2015 due to the general slowdown in credit extension, which was largely as a result of deteriorating asset quality.

Credit stance

Credit stance in the banking sector remained tight with net loans and advances of GH28.1 billion as at end-July 2016 recording a lower annual growth of 12.1 percent compared to 24.1 percent growth in July 2015.

Growth in banks' investment portfolio (bills and securities) however picked up by 47.3 percent to GH16.1 billion by the end of July 2016 compared to 13.6 percent growth a year ago.

Balance sheet

The banking sector recorded a growth in total assets of 24.6 percent year-on-year to GH67.0 billion as at end July 2016, up from GH53.8 billion in July 2015 (21.7% y/y growth).

The higher growth rate recorded in July 2016 was partly due to the sharp appreciation of the cedi during the same period of 2015, which caused banks to reprice their assets denominated in foreign currency which constitutes about a third of bank total assets at lower exchange rates.

Outlook

In spite of the foregoing, the Central Bank report said the outlook for the industry was positive with the restructured VRA debt and commencement of payments.

Similar restructuring arrangements have been initiated for debts owed by Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) to the banks.

Additionally, it said government's efforts to wean state owned enterprises (SOEs) off its balance sheet, as well as the on-going fiscal consolidation, is likely to minimise government's indebtedness to banks.

By Samuel Boadi

[email protected]


Ethiopian Airlines, the most profitable African airline, has stated that it will fly 10 times weekly to Cape Town starting from December 2016.

Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Ethiopian Airlines, Busera Awel said, Serving Africa is our prior commitment as a Pan-African carrier, and increasing services to Cape Town, known for the Table Mountain, is part of this commitment.

The increase in flight frequency to Cape Town, our third gateway in South Africa, will enable tourists and business travelers to enjoy convenient connectivity options to and from 95 Ethiopian global networks on-board our state-of-the-art fleet Boeing 787.

Furthermore, he said our 10 times weekly service will enhance our capacity to over 400 percent in a year time.

Mr. Awel said the Airlines will strive to offer the best possible passenger and cargo services the industry has to offer.

This includes wide variety of meals with the newly inaugurated modern In-Flight Catering facility.

Ethiopian currently flies to three cities in South Africa, namely Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town.
South Africa and Botswana will deepen their economic cooperation as President Jacob Zuma tomorrow, 11 November 2016, hosts his Botswana counterpart, His Excellency President Lt General Seretse Khama Ian Khama on the occasion of the 3rd Session of the Botswana-South Africa Bi-National Commission (BNC) in Pretoria.

South Africa and Botswana cooperate in a variety of area including among others, transport, trade and investment, health, education, environmental issues, water, science and technology, agriculture, justice, immigration, energy, finance, culture, security and sport.

South Africa remains one of the major trading partners of Botswana. In 2015, South Africas total bilateral trade with Botswana stood at R 57.97 billion.

There is a large presence of South African companies in Botswana which are involved in various sectors such as housing, food and beverages, construction, retail, hotels and leisure, banking, medical services, etc. These companies continue to contribute to the growth and development of the Botswana economy.

The South African delegation to the BNC will comprise Ms Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation; Ms Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, Minister of Defence and Military Veterans; Ms Naledi Pandor, Minister of Science and Technology; Dr Rob Davies, Minister of Trade and Industry; Minister of Energy, Ms Tina Joemat-Pettersson; Ms Dipuo Peters, Minister of Transport; Ms Nomvula Mokonyane, Minister of Water and Sanitation; and Mr Senzeni Zokwana, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Details of the BNC meeting are as follows:

Date: Friday, 11 November 2016

Time: 10h00

Venue: Sefako M Makgatho Presidential Guesthouse, Pretoria

Members of the media attending the BNC should please send their names and ID/Passport numbers to Hlomani Baloyi on [email protected] or 083 276 1295. Members of the media are also advised to bring along their valid press cards and ID/Passport documents.

Note as well that nobody wearing jeans, T-shirts and takkies will be allowed into the venue. The dress code is strictly presentable in line with the decorum of the event and the venue.
A man armed with a hatchet tried to rob a village of Deerfield gas station Wednesday night before taking off empty-handed, the Dane County Sheriff's Office said.

At about 8:05 p.m., deputies responded to a report of an armed robbery at a BP station, 109 N. Main St., the sheriff's office said. The would-be robber had entered the store, demanded cash and fled on foot after the clerk refused to comply with him, the sheriff's office said.

The robber is described as a white male who was wearing a dark green sweatshirt with the hood tightly pulled over his head and a dark ski mask, the sheriff's office said.

Detectives went to investigate the scene, and anyone with information is encouraged to call the Dane County Sheriff's Tips Line at 608-284-6900.
10.11.2016 LISTEN

When a man wears a womans trench coat to an international diplomatic engagement, there is really nothing you can put past him. Yet for all the lowered impression we had of the NDC General Secretary Asiedu Nketia, we were not prepared for his latest unguarded statements in Eastern and Brong Ahafo Regions, that some are saying are his veiled insult of Fantes and President Mills ghost.

When a party has so abysmally failed to keep its promises, and governed with kleptomaniacs from the president down to the last regional executive officer, it becomes difficult to have something meaningful to say on its re-election campaign trail. Thus, it came as no surprise when Asiedu Nketia, a man whose only claim to good looks is to put others down by insulting them, was at his disgraceful best unleashing insults.

Recently in Eastern Region, the scrawny-looking Asiedu Nketia told a small crowd of NDC supporters that Akyems should not allow the late Dr. J. B. Danquah to influence their voting pattern for the NPP because Dr. J. B. Danquah is a ghost. He went on to say with glee that the people of Brong Ahafo have not allowed the influence of Dr. K. A. Busia to inform their vote because here again, Dr. Busia is a ghost.

By these unintelligent remarks, Asiedu Nketia is obviously implying that the people of Central and Western Regions should not allow the influence of the late President Atta Mills to inform their voting patterns, because he is also dead, and a ghost. At a time that the Fantes are still grappling with the mysterious death of their son who became president, with some fingers pointing at president Mahama, the lack of sensitivity to their plight can only come from an uninformed loose cannon like Asiedu Nketia.

To stretch his uncouth logic, Asiedu Nketia could also be saying that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is a ghost so the Nzemas and, to a large extent Ghanaians, should not be influenced by him. It is heart-wrenching to note that Ghana has fallen into the hands of senseless and insensitive people masquerading as leaders. To quote the immortal Shakespeare, O Judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason. In all civilized nations, dead heroes are revered, not denigrated. In the USA, the State of Illinois is referred to as The Land of Lincoln, although to Asiedu Nketias puny mind, Lincoln is a ghost, so the people should have forgotten him.

Sadly, the NDC General Secretary fails to understand that these former Ghanaian leaders gave their lives for our country in their respective rights. We in the NPP, on the other hand, will continue to respect the sacrifices made by these leaders, regardless of their party affiliation. And if Asiedu Nketia has nothing generous to say about them, but would rather disrespect their memories, we leave it to Ghanaians to reject the kind of tribal politics that the NDC loves to indulge in.

NPP-USA further takes this opportunity to call on president Mahama to once and for all come clean on the circumstances leading to president Mills death, making him a ghost in July of 2012, that conveniently paved the way for him to become president without the associated sweat of campaigning.

NPP-USA Public Relations Committee
Baffuor Kotei Kutin Sraman, the Chief of Breman in Kumasi, has openly declared his support for President John Mahama ahead of the December polls.

The traditional leader mounted the political platform and campaigned vigorously for the President who visited the constituency as part of his campaign tour.

Presidents are voted into political office to ensure development of the State and the president is already doing that.

For me I am convinced that President Mahama is on the right track, regarding the development of the state, so he should be retained.

Previous Endorsement

Baffuor Kutin Sraman, it would be recalled, openly endorsed President Mahama prior to the 2012 presidential elections publicly.

The Breman Chief endorsed Mahama when he visited Breman in 2012 to inaugurate road projects.

Denial

DAILY GUIDE published that story on its front page at the time and it generated controversy after the chief was lambasted by members of the general public.

Surprisingly, the Bremanhene made a U-turn and denied endorsing President Mahama on radio apparently due to enormous pressure.

This time around, the Breman chief stated categorically that President Mahama would win the December 7 polls.

According to him, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration had embarked on several development projects across the country.

Baffuor Kutin Sraman said voting out President Mahama and the NDC administration would hamper development in the country.

He repeated the NDC campaign slogan 'JM Toaso' three times on stage, which drew applause from the elated NDC faithful at venue.

It is God who crowns presidents and I believe that President Mahama has won the 2016 polls already, Baffuor Kutin Sraman indicated.

In attendance were Brogya Genfi, the NDC parliamentary candidate for Suame, Kofi Adams, Campaign Coordinator of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Johnson Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of the party.

From I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi


Apple has had some trouble getting customers interested in the new iPhone 7 since its launch and that is justifiable, considering the economic hardship being faced by a majority of people in the society. While very many Nigerians have boycotted the stores vending this new model, there are a few who have defied all odds to purchase the smartphone.

Jumia Travel , Africas No.1 hotel booking portal has done some research and found that these few individuals fall under certain categories. Read on to discover the 5 types of Nigerians who own an iPhone 7.

The super-rich

These set of people are not affected by the recession in the country. The have a lot of money and can afford anything that catches their fancy. Getting an iPhone7, to them, is just like buying bubblegum at the store. In fact, do not be surprised if they share this phone as souvenir at their events.

The wanna-be

This iPhone owner saved so hard to buy the iPhone as he wants to be regarded as high-class. He strongly believes that you have to dress the part to actually become the part, so he would do anything, including even changing his name to iPhone7 to claim ownership of the iPhone.

The iPhone freak

The iPhone freak is excited about everything Apple. He owns not just the previous versions of the iPhone, he also owns an iPad, and iPod and Apple TV. He follows the company on social media and goes out of his way to challenge anyone who says anything remotely negative about Apple products. He may not be the richest person in the world, but he plans his finances and can even take a loan just to buy the newest iPhone.

The poser

This person does not really own an iPhone 7, but his facebook timeline and Instagram page is filled with pictures of him using the phone. Basically, anyone will swear he owns the phone, but in truth, he just poses with an iPhone that belongs to a friend or family member.

The IT guru

The IT guru believes that the iPhone is the best thing that ever happened to technology. He is extremely extra savvy and certainly uses his iPhone7 for much more than just receiving calls and face-timing. He uses it to remotely start his car and turn his neighbours TV on and off from across the street, thanks to his hacking endeavours.
I who am the ring-giver Commanded you to action and death As a thane ought to do, returned justice to where our ancient peoples drink. All men will do that which I bid.

Queen Wealtheow in 'Beowulf'

For surely the food that memory gives to eat is bitter to the taste and it is only with the teeth of hope that we can bear to chew it.

Ayesha in 'She' by Rider Haggard

I am guided by the Daily Guide editorial of Tuesday, November 8, 2016 to exercise caution when handling issues affecting the softer sex (a euphemism for 'weaker sex'). I am threateningly haunted by the fiat: only the most uncouth would go to such an extent especially in dealing with a married woman.

Wherefore, I shall not throw a tantrum, or lose my cool or temper, but discuss Charity Osei in a sober and somber manner. 'Misogynism' is general dislike for women, and 'misandry' is hatred for men. Neither of these is meant in this analysis. I hope to bring out the facts as objectively as they are.

In my article on the E.C. Chairperson, headed 'Charity Who?' published in May, this year, I quoted 1st Kings 2:11 My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions. This was an allusion to what Ghanaians had experienced under Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan and what they were to expect from his successor, Charlotte Osei. A Biblical allegory, if it fits. Or a metaphor, if you are still rigid.

I introduced the article thus: Arrogance, haughtiness, hubris, egotism or self  importance would be the last characteristics of the Electoral Commissioner or the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission or the staff there. As the people at the centre of the electoral process, who are expected to act as the referee or umpire, one would hope that they would demonstrate impartiality, neutrality, indifference, justice and objectivity.

These hopes did not appear to materialize. Charlotte Osei appears to enjoy, not only publicity; she rather triumphs when she wades into controversy and shrugs off all the criticisms. Like Ayesha, the queen in Henry Rider Haggard's novel, she was yesterday, and today and tomorrow. (She was) sorrow and longing and hope unfulfilled (She was she). She who must be obeyed.

Her first task, on assuming office, was to change the logo of the Commission, spending so much time, energy and funds. She defied every criticism or every suggestion until she had introduced an amorphous logo which she 'like (d)' and 'love (d)'.

Ensconcing herself under Article 46 of the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, 1992, she claimed immunity and decided to disqualify twelve presidential aspirants. When Dr Kwesi Nduom took the matter to the High Court and judgment went to his favour, the E.C. decided to go to the Supreme Court. Some of the discerning lawyers and other concerned Ghanaians felt the E.C. did not need to go the Supreme Court. But they did, forgetting the warning by the Supreme Court: You think going to court is easy! But, of course, lawyers, including my friend, Thaddeus Sory deserve their pay or their recognition, and the opportunity offered itself.

In the end, the Supreme Court threw away the E.C's appeal, to make it fall 'efom birim'. The E.C. was ordered: Invite the interested party and all presidential candidates who were able to submit their nomination papers by close of the nomination day, of September 30, 2016 and were disqualified without a hearing and give them a hearing within the extended period. The Supreme Court also ordered the E.C. to grant the candidates the opportunity to comply with Regulation 9(2) of the Public Election Regulations 2016 (C.I. 94) which states: The returning officer shall inform a candidate that the candidate's nomination is invalid where (a) the particulars of the candidate or the persons subscribing to the nomination paper are not as subscribed by law; or (b) the nomination paper is not subscribed to as required by law and shall give the candidate an opportunity to make amendments or any alteration where necessary, within the stipulated nomination period.

Now, the sluice gate has been reopened for all the 12 disqualified candidates (including Akua Donkor) to troop to the Electoral Commission office for a hearing. (You remember Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom requested a hearing for just 5 minutes!). His request was not entertained. One cannot understand the Electoral Commission. Is it there to axe electoral candidates or it is there to encourage the candidates to do the right things according to law? What would they lose or gain if someone is disqualified?

Another controversy seems to be brewing -this time, about the pink sheet contract given by the Electoral Commission to a liquidated firm in the United Kingdom. According to the story, the E.C. has contracted Aerovote to print the pink sheets at a cost of $8.95 million. This is in spite of the offers by Ghanaian Companies like Acts Commercial Printing, Buck Press and lnnolink all of which had tendered offers of half the price of that of Aerovote.

The E.C. owes Ghanaians an explanation as to how the contract was awarded to Aerovote, ignoring all advice, especially about the problems the company had had in the U.K.

The E.C. must read Martin Amidu's statement: There can be no free, transparent and fair elections when any of the disqualified aspiring candidates and any political party sponsoring them have their names added to the ballot more than three weeks belatedly, because the Commissioner's preferred and approved candidates would have had an unequal advantage over them in the contest for the Presidency. Martin Amidu warns Ghanaian citizens: I have already said elsewhere that this Commissioner was appointed with a rigging agenda. Let us as citizens defend the Constitution by watching her every step during this election.

In other democracies, the citizens do not know the existence of the Electoral Commission. It is as if the Commission, by whatever name it is called, does not exist. Everything moves systematically. The Electoral Commission of Ghana has a heavy duty towards Ghanaians: the Commissioner, the deputies and all the staff have the country in their hands. You know one trick about Afari Gyanhe would carry a smile on his face, even if his interlocutor was aggressive, pugilistic or stiff-necked. He would be witty, and answer questions sarcastically if he had to. Respect, respect and respect that should be the hallmark of people in charge of organizing elections in Ghana. The elections of 2012 and aftermath are lessons for all Ghanaians. Ghana was on the brink of disaster during the 2012 Election Petition. But for the maturity of the Petitioner, Nana Akufo Addo, hell would have broken loose and nobody could have predicted the outcome. Joseph Stalin once remarked: The people who cast the votes don't decide on election, the people who count the votes do. In her foreword to Mabel Aku Baneseh's book Pink sheets: The story of Ghana's Presidential Election Petition, Mrs Georgina Wood, the Chief Justice writes: Survival instincts of political parties are heightened in electioneering periods  the incumbent to mend any chink in their armour, and the challenger to ram at the incumbent until the latter buckles. It is not uncommon to witness agitation by the vanquished and opposite reaction and jubilation by the victor. It is tolerable in a democracy.

Africanus Owusu-Ansah

[email protected]
Senior High school students in Ghanaian will from 2017 study Arabic as a compulsory subject.

This was announced by the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, when he interacted with the Muslim Community at Nsawam Zongo as part of his campaign tour of the Eastern Region.

President Mahama has agreed that from 2017 Senior High School students will study Arabic like they do in the English language and we will introduce it at the basic level in 2018 and make it examinable.

Julius Debrah added that the Wenchi Teacher training college has started a programme to train such teachers.

The good news is that for the first time we have a teacher training college in Wenchi that will train our Arabic teachers to be posted to other schools after completion.

He also announced several policies to be introduced by President Mahama if given another term in office to enrich the lives of Ghanaians.

This is not all, under the Islamic education unit, we will have Islamic Junior High Schools and Islamic Junior Technical institutions so that graduates from these schools can be employed in other Arabic countries with the certificates they would acquire. Who will you trust to deliver, is it the one who is offering you fish or the one showing you how to fish?

The Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah also reiterated calls for the Muslim community in particular to vote massively for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and its candidates.



By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @AlloteyGodwin
The Out Patient Department services at public hospitals across the country have been suspended due to a nationwide strike by nurses.

Some patients who visited the various hospitals for treatment on Thursday were unattended to and left to their fate.

The National executives of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association at the beginning of this month gave government and other stakeholders in the health sector an ultimatum to address issues confronting members, failing which they will withdraw their services.

Their series of actions began with the wearing of red bands from 1st to 6th November, followed by the withdrawal of all OPD services with attention to only emergency and maternity cases.

Joy News' Hasmin Muhammed reported on Thursday, November 10, that OPD services at the Tamale Teaching Hospital in the Northern region had been suspended.

"Patients came in their numbers to the hospital, hoping to be attended to but were told nurses are on strike and after hours of waiting, some visited private hospitals," he indicated.

"I came around 8am with my wife. She is to attend anti-natal and we were told to come with her folder so I came to the records office and we were told nurses are on strike," Muhammed Osman told Hasmin.

The situation was no different at the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Manhyia District and Tafo Government Hospitals in the Ashanti region.

Mahmud Mohammed-Nurudeen reported that some doctors attended to some patients who had queued up at the hospitals but noted that the psychiatric department at the Tafo Government Hospital had been deserted.

Story by Ghana| Myjoyonline.com | AA
Africa is endowed with numerous natural resources including oil & gas, forests, wildlife, and massive water bodies including some of the most stunningly beautiful lakes in the world. From crystal-clear waters that give mirror-like reflections to hypnotic ripples whose effect create an amazing allure, here are spectacular lakes in Africa to float and sail.

Lake Tanganyika



Despite its breath-taking scenery, Lake Tanganyika is a glamorous source of pride for four African countries; Tanzania, Burundi, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ranked the longest freshwater and the second deepest lake in the world at 4,710 feet only after Lake Baikal in Russia, its extensive horizon is a stunning view to behold. Its age and diversity has contributed to the evolution of numerous and unique aquatic life, with over 350 species of fish said to inhabit the lake. For adventure buffs, Lake Tanganyika offers several classic activities such as scuba diving, snorkeling and fishing among others.

Lake Nakuru



Its surface is covered by pink flamingos (attributed to the abundance of algae) that make a spectacularly inexplicable aura and a paradise for photographers. Lake Nakuru is protected by Lake Nakuru National Park and is found on Kenyas Great Rift Valley. It also boasts strikingly beautiful surrounding escarpment and scenic crests, so stunning and soothing to any traveler. The natural beauty is complemented by the wildlife in its nearby habitation.

Lake Bogoria



If you thought you had enough of Flamingos without seeing another of Kenyas pride, Lake Bogoria, think again. Nothing can beat the views of pink in the backdrop of a green flora and fauna. The lake is most popular for its striking geysers, hot springs that are a tourist attraction. Lake Bogoria Resort & Spa is among the many accommodation options available for those taking their sweet time to enjoy the splendid lakeside vacation.

Lake Naverone

South Africas Lake Naverone is an irresistible water body whose charisma is drawn from its consummate serenity. It is in the Southern Drakensberg and offers amazingly breathtaking vacation sites and numerous lodges and cottages within its surrounding.

Lake Assal



Is Djibouti in your travel bucket list and you are wondering which destinations to visit once in the country? Lake Assal is one spot you will not want to miss out, as its shallow depth creates a geologic wonder. The Lake is one of the hottest places on earth with temperatures reaching a high of 50C during the day. The solid salt bed evaporates extremely creating a photogenic beauty.

Lake Retba



A first-time visitor to Lake Retba also known as Lac Rose in the north of the Cap Vert peninsula in Senegal , will be taken to a great adventure by the vividly pink color especially during the dry season between November and June. The color is the result of the lakes high salt content which attracts the Dunaliella salina bacteria, that produces a red pigment. The Pink Lake of Senegal is truly unique to the the African continent.

Lake Bunyonyi



A boat ride in the refreshing beautiful Lake Bunyonyi which is also known as place of many little birds is beyond fascinating. Located south west of Uganda and close to the Rwandan Border between the districts of Kabale and Kisoro, Lake Bunyonyi is enclosed by opulent green hills. Its 29 islands strewn across the lake are made of different sizes and shapes makes a magical view to behold.
Embattled presidential nominee for the United Progressive Party (UPP), Akwasi Addai Odike, has thrown his weight behind the flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, ahead of this year's presidential elections.

Mr. Odike, who had earlier backed out of the 2016 presidential election, indicated that he will organize other smaller political parties to join in canvassing votes for the NPP and its flagbearer to unseat President John Mahama in the December polls.

In an interview with Citi News, Mr. Odike, who endorsed the candidature of President Mahama in the 2012 election, described the Mahama administration as a failure hence his decision.

He said he took the decision because both parties [UPP and NPP] have similar ideas for the growth and development of the country.

We are throwing our support to the candidate of the NPP simply because his vision and our vision is almost the same, we believe in industrialization, we think that industries is the best way to turn around the fortunes of this country for the better, he said.

He added that Nana Addo is a very humble person, very affable and he is a man of intelligence so we believe that if this man is at the helm of affairs of this nation [and he is also a listener], we can advise him in so many ways to change the fortunes of this country for better.

He argued that, President Mahama has supervised the decline of Ghana's economy, and has proven that even if he is given additional time, he would do very little to revive the economy.

He [Mahama] has proven that he cannot deliver. Even if he's given a hundred years. President Mahama's economic policies have saddled this country. He doesn't deserve a renewed mandate, Odike said.

'Odike withdraws from presidential race'

The flagbearer had earlier announced his withdrawal from this year's presidential polls citing personal reasons for the decision.

Some executives of the UPP in September this year, dragged Mr. Odike to court asking that he should be prevented from filing his nomination forms to contest in the upcoming polls.

'UPP sacks Odike from party'

The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the United Progressive Party (UPP), earlier this year, also said they had dismissed Mr Odike from the party after what it described as gross disrespect for the party's constitution.



By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Former Interior Minister under the erstwhile Kufour administration says Parliament has not been thoroughly effective in carrying out its oversight responsibilities.

According to Albert Kan-Dapaah, parliament is unable to check the president because the majority or parliamentarians belong to his party.

Speaking at a symposium organized by Forum for Media Accountability and Democratic Governance in Accra, Wednesday under the theme, Redefining our Ethos as a society, the former minister said, Parliament has not been very effective in its oversight duties.

"You would wonder to what extent they in parliament have this independence to hold the president to account. How can they, when the majority of the people there belong to the presidents party?"

"How can they, when those on the government side have been assured by the Constitution that the majority of the ministers will be picked from among their lot, Mr Kan-Dapaah queried.

He noted that parliament still continues to be influenced by elements in government and until the House focuses on its main responsibility - which is not legislative only - the fight against corruption in the country will have no meaningful results.

He said the primary duty of government is to provide public goods and services to citizens with public funds provided by citizens and while doing this, it must be checked.

"In the absence of checks, government led by the president will go out of line and that is why our constitution and public financial management system in this country, recognizes the urgent need for extra vigilance in protecting our public funds."

"But if those who are supposed to check the president are appointed by him, then they will put more effort on pleasing him rather than delivering on their mandate," he noted.

Other accountability institutions like the Auditor Generals Department and the Judiciary, Mr Kan-Dapaah noted also lack independence in this regard.

Mr. Kan-Dapaah believes "the fear of applying sanctions against those who are found complicit in various forms of impropriety in the public sector is dragging back the nations fight against corruption."

He said government needs to decouple itself entirely from these institutions to afford them the impetus to independently hold public officers to account.

In order to hold somebody accountable, what you need is not the best academic degree in auditing in law or in any discipline. What you really need is independence, clearly it doesnt make sense for you to ask my wife to come and audit me.

But for some strange reasons, the auditor general who is supposed to monitor the president is appointed by the president, he indicated.

Clearly the ability of this person to hold the president and govenrment to account is questionable, he said.
Ghanas Foreign Affairs Minister, Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, has said it is too early for Ghana to take a second look at its diplomatic relationship with the United States of America, following the election of Republican Candidate Donald Trump as President.

The American business mogul, Donald Trump of the Republican Party on Wednesday, beat his closest contender, Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, in what many described as a tough election with an unexpected result.

There are fears that President-elect Donald Trump will roll out some policies that may affect the countrys relationship with developing countries.

But speaking to Citi News, Hannah Tettteh argued that, America's President-elect is yet to formally outline his policy initiatives towards Africa as President of the USA, thereby making it improper at this point, for government to consider a review of its diplomatic ties with that country.

We really don't have much to go by to judge what his reaction to Africa will be. It is early days yet. All we can do is to congratulate him on his victory and then wait to see who will appoint as his Secretary of State.

His Secretary of State is the equivalent of Foreign Minister and once we see who he has appointed as his secretary of state and he gives a better indication of the main focal areas of his foreign policy; then we will be able to make a better assessment of what the relationship will have for Africa. But right now; it will be premature to make an assessment. When President Trump lays out his policies and we have clarity , we will be in a better position to assess how our relationship with the US will be managed going forward.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @EfeAnsah
As she stood in a Madison voting booth with her children Tuesday morning, Ellen Carlson said she was caught off guard by the surge of pride she felt casting her ballot for Hillary Clinton.

"I was more overwhelmed than I thought I would be," said Carlson. "I don't think I realized how I would feel, as a woman, being able to do that  being able to see a woman's name that I really respected on that presidential ballot."

But as she watched the results come in that night, and as Donald Trump picked up a surprising string of swing-state victories, Carlson said eventually she realized, "Things weren't ever going to flip."

"The mood really shifted," she said.

Shock. Despair. A punch to the gut. Hopelessness. Countless female Clinton supporters used those words Wednesday to describe their feelings. Some spoke of collapsing in tears, or seeing strangers do the same  on the subway, or on the street.

For many women, Tuesday's election was a one-two punch. A huge milestone that had seemed so tantalizingly close  the election of a woman as president  was now out of reach. And the victorious candidate was one who had denigrated women, mocked a beauty pageant contestant for her weight, described grabbing women by the genitals with impunity, and been accused of multiple instances of sexual assault.

A Clinton victory would have been a fitting next step following the advancements women have made in professional and political spheres over the past several decades, said Roberta Gassman, a former secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

"It was (once) thought preposterous that girls would go to law school or go to medical school or run for office or lead businesses," Gassman said. "During my lifetime we have changed that, and we have seen advances."

Clinton's election, she said, "would have really shown that we've made progress."

By the time Trump had called his opponent "such a nasty woman" in the third presidential debate, it had seemed that women might hand him a defeat at the ballot box. But when the dust cleared, the unprecedented gender gap  13 points in Clinton's favor, assuming exit polls hold up, the largest since the exit poll began in 1972  wasn't enough.

And the fact is that millions of American women did vote for Trump.

"Listen, I didn't love either of the candidates," said Susan Paarz, 69, of Somers Point, New Jersey. "But I voted against corruption and dishonesty."

For Jan Risher, Election Day had begun joyously. She'd rustled up the best pantsuit she could  not matching, but no matter  and headed to downtown Lafayette, Louisiana, to take a joyful photo with some similarly attired women. Hours later, instead of celebrating the first woman president as she'd expected, she was searching online for how to immigrate to Canada.

"I have never felt so forlorn in my life," the 52-year-old said. "I just feel such alienation from my country today."

'This isn't the end'

In the months before the election, Carlson showed her enthusiasm for Clinton's campaign by making T-shirts that spelled "POTUS," the acronym for "President of the United States," with the O replaced by the gender symbol for women.

Despite Trump's victory, Carlson said, she plans to continue wearing her shirt.

"This isn't the end of women seeking that office," she said.

On social media, many women asked: What will we tell our daughters? Clinton herself addressed the issue in an emotional concession speech.

"To all the little girls watching: Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world," she said.

Not all of the women who voted for Trump condoned his behavior. They just preferred him to the alternative.

To Trump supporter Diane Massaroli of Staten Island, New York, the candidate's vulgar, caught-on-tape comments were disgusting  but not a dealbreaker. And the series of women who accused him of sexual assault didn't persuade her, she said. (Her young daughter, though, a Clinton supporter, was in tears at the result.)

"A lot of people said that to me: How could I vote for him, being the mother of a daughter? ... But I think everything else is far greater" than his comments, Massaroli said. "I think people just didn't trust her as much as they would trust him."

Said Paarz of Trump's vulgar comments, "Any woman would have been offended. But guys talk that way in a locker room. Is he different? Probably not."

A disappointed Kathy Spillar, executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation, preferred to accentuate the positive: Clinton, she noted, won among young women, not to mention winning the popular vote. And the subject of sexual assault became front and center in the campaign.

In Florida  a key battleground state won narrowly by Trump  Phyllis Towzey of St. Petersburg watched election night returns from her sofa, and started to cry. "I've dreamed about a woman president since I was a little kid," the 57-year-old attorney said. "And if she couldn't win over a grossly less-qualified male candidate, I don't think there's any hope in my lifetime to have a woman president."

Gassman was still optimistic, though she acknowledged, "It's now going to take us a much longer time."

"It's a bump in the road," she said. "It's a very big bump, but we keep marching forward."

State Journal reporter Nico Savidge and Associated Press reporter Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report.
Cape Town (AFP) - South Africa's scandal-hit President Jacob Zuma faced a no-confidence vote in parliament Thursday, with the main opposition party calling on ruling ANC lawmakers to vote him out of office.

Zuma, who looked certain to survive the vote despite mounting anger within his own party, last week came under further pressure after a corruption probe raised fresh allegations of misconduct.

"To put it plainly, we can choose Jacob Zuma, or we can choose South Africa," Mmusi Maimane, leader of the Democratic Alliance opposition party, told parliament.

"Many of you have been speaking out against him in recent weeks... I know that there are men and women in these ANC benches who want to do the right thing."

But Zuma, 74, who came to power in 2009, retains strong loyalty among ANC (Africa National Congress) lawmakers and many party activists, particularly in rural areas.

The Democratic Alliance tabled the no-confidence motion accusing Zuma of wreaking "havoc on our infant democracy".

The no-confidence vote will be the third in under a year, with the first two easily defeated by the ANC's majority in parliament.

South Africans demonstrate against President Jacob Zuma, whose presidency has been engulfed by multiple scandals

The corruption report by the country's top watchdog raised accusations of possible criminal activity in Zuma's relationship with the Guptas, a business family accused of wielding undue political influence.

It included allegations that the Guptas offered Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas a $44 million (40 million euros) bribe, which he said he refused.

Increasing numbers of anti-apartheid veterans, ANC activists, trade unions, civil groups and business leaders have called for Zuma to resign.

But the ANC leadership scoffed at the no-confidence vote, describing it as "ritualistic" and "founded on spurious allegations and narrow political motives".

'More powerful than the ANC itself'

The ANC, which has ruled since the first post-apartheid elections in 1994, has seen its popularity dive, with local polls in August delivering its worst-ever result.

Zuma's term in office ends in 2019, but the ANC is due to elect a new party leader at the end of next year and could then decide to replace him as head of state.

Despite the groundswell of protest against President Zuma and deep divisions in the ANC, Thursday's vote in parliament poses no threat to Zuma, said one pundit

South Africa's highest court this year found the president guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers' money used to refurbish his private rural house.

He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.

Despite the groundswell of protest and deep divisions in the ANC, Thursday's vote in parliament posed no threat to Zuma, said Wits University professor Patrick Bond.

"The key people in the ANC are very supportive of Zuma," he said.

The Business Day newspaper described Zuma as "back firmly in the saddle" after surviving the latest storm of criticism.

"Zuma has grown bigger and more powerful than the ANC itself," wrote commentator Carol Paton.

When he leaves office, the three leading possible successors are his ex-wife African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize.


The long-awaited presidential debate finally comes off on November 22 according to the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).

Director of Advocacy and Programmes at the IEA, Karen Hendrickson said her outfit is currently in talks with the stakeholders and political parties to ensure a smooth debate.

 I can tell you that our first debate is going to be in Accra on the November 22, and it is going to be at the Kempinski Hotel and our second debate will be on November 29, at the Best Western hotel in Takoradi,  she said.

By the announcement of the Electoral Commission Wednesday, the 2016 presidential election will have seven aspirants on the ballot paper.

They are New Patriotic Party (NPP); Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the National Democratic Congress' (NDC) President John Mahama, Convention People's Party's (CPP) Ivor Kobina Greenstreet and an independent candidate, Jacob Yeboah.

The rest are the flagbearers of the Progressive People's Party, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom; the National Democratic Party's Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, and the People's National Convention's Edward Mahama.

-Yen.com.gh
Some Ghanaians at an open forum for political parties and their candidates in the Kintampo North Constituency, have called on the candidates to conduct their campaign in a manner that promotes peace in the constituency.

This, according to them, was the surest way to help reduce tension in the area before, during and after the December polls.

They also want the candidates to pledge to ensuring access and quick disbursement of the Disability Fund and the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) from the assemblies to improve the quality of their lives.

On HIV/AIDS, they demanded concrete measures to be put in place to help attain the country's HIV/AIDS target of reducing new infections and increasing access to anti-retroviral drugs by 90 per cent.

The programme attracted parliamentary candidates of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Peoples National Convention (PNC), Civil Society organizations, traditional authorities, officials from the security agencies, students and the constituents.

The forum was on the theme,  Election 2016: Promoting Issue Based Debate and Post-Election Accountability at the Constituency level, and was jointly organised National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) and its partner organizations.

The parliamentary candidates, Kwasi Etu-Bonde of the NDC, George Mensah of the CPP and Nkangwah Mateerl Charles of the NPP, were present at the event. Two independent parliamentary candidates in the constituency failed to turn up for the programme.

The aspirants pledged their commitment to ensuring a peaceful electioneering campaign and expressed readiness to accept the outcome of the elections.

An officer at CODEO, Nana Hagan, said it was the desire of CODEO and its partners to deepen the country's democracy, hence the initiative to create a platform that will make the 2016 campaign based on pertinent issues.

He called on the candidates to carry out their campaigns devoid of insults and intimidation of political opponents.



By: Mashoud Kombat/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Cape Town (AFP) - South Africa's scandal-hit President Jacob Zuma faced a no-confidence vote in parliament Thursday, with the main opposition party calling on ruling ANC lawmakers to vote him out of office.

Zuma, who looked certain to survive the vote despite mounting anger within his own party, came under further pressure last week after a corruption probe raised fresh allegations of misconduct.

"To put it plainly, we can choose Jacob Zuma, or we can choose South Africa," Mmusi Maimane, leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) opposition party, told parliament during a fiery debate.

"Many of you have been speaking out against him in recent weeks... I know that there are men and women in these ANC benches who want to do the right thing."

But Zuma, 74, who came to power in 2009, retains strong loyalty among ANC (Africa National Congress) lawmakers and many party members.

The no-confidence vote will be the third in under a year, with the first two easily defeated by the ANC's majority in parliament.

The corruption report by the country's top watchdog raised accusations of possible criminal activity in Zuma's relationship with the Guptas, a business family accused of wielding undue political influence.

It included allegations that the Guptas offered Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas a $44 million (40 million euros) bribe, which he said he refused.

Zuma opposition grows

South Africans demonstrate against President Jacob Zuma, whose presidency has been engulfed by multiple scandals

Increasing numbers of anti-apartheid veterans, ANC activists, trade unions, civil groups and business leaders have called for Zuma to resign in recent months.

The ANC on Thursday attacked Maimane, the DA's first black leader, for bringing the non-confidence vote.

"The motion (is) using a black face to protect the interest of the white minority," said ANC minister Nomvula Mokonyane.

"They are trying hard to distract the ANC... from dealing with the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality."

The ANC, which has ruled since the first post-apartheid elections in 1994, has seen its popularity dive, with local polls in August delivering its worst-ever result.

Zuma's term in office ends in 2019, but the ANC is due to elect a new party leader at the end of next year and could then decide to replace him as head of state.

South Africa's highest court this year found the president guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers' money used to refurbish his private rural house.

He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.

Despite the groundswell of protest against President Zuma and deep divisions in the ANC, Thursday's vote in parliament poses no threat to Zuma, said one pundit

The radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party used the debate to tell the ANC it should have "found it in its own conscience to act against Jacob Zuma".

"He is going to arrest you, to lock you up, to kill you, because... he knows that if he doesn't have control of political power he is going to go to prison," said EFF deputy leader Floyd Shivambu.

Despite the groundswell of protest and deep divisions in the ANC, the vote in parliament expected later on Thursday posed no threat to Zuma, said Wits University professor Patrick Bond.

"The key people in the ANC are very supportive of Zuma," he said.

When he leaves office, the three leading possible successors are his ex-wife African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize.
This years Africa Finance & Investment Forum (AFIF) will focus on Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Growth and will be held for the first time in the vibrant city of Nairobi, Kenya, hosted by the Strathmore University, taking place from 15th -16th February 2017.

In line with growing regional and international trends, this year's edition of AFIF will focus on entrepreneurship and innovation and access to finance in key sectors such as energy, water, ICT, health and agriculture.

Participants will be able to experience a 360 event, which includes an exclusive training for entrepreneurs, a dynamic market place, tailor-made B2B meetings (for all participants, speakers and partners using EMRC matchmaking programme) and the EMRC-Rabobank Entrepreneurship Award to celebrate innovation and excellence.

An expected 300 participants will converge in Nairobi, bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, financiers, market specialists, government representatives and policy makers working towards Africas growth and development.

At EMRC we believe that SMEs are the key drivers for growth: In developed regions they are responsible for over 50% of GDP and over 60% of employment and economies across Sub Saharan Africa follow a similar model,  explains Ines Bastos, Senior Project Manager at EMRC and heading AFIF 2017. To encourage SME growth in Africa, AFIF offers an interactive platform for the entrepreneurs making a difference, for the financiers already investing in Africa, as well as for the larger financial institutions and enterprises interested in accessing this growing market segment. 

This belief will be highlighted during the EMRC-Rabobank Entrepreneurship Award, which will showcase innovative projects happening in Africa and offer investors an opportunity to get to know about solid and growing business from across the continent.

To further encourage strong and active business meetings, that will take place during allocated times and also informally, EMRC will organise a pre-conference training on "A Road-map for Entrepreneurship Growth" (13th -14th February 2017). The training is addressed exclusively to AFIF 2017 participants and will be divided in two linguistic groups (English and French).

The international media will also be present to highlight these projects and to give the opportunity to speakers and partners to gain local, regional and international visibility. The African Press Organisation will be the forums African News Wire, providing extensive coverage and visibility.
Parliamentary candidates of the Progressive People's Party (PPP) in the Ashanti Region have urged voters to be awake for change, and vote out the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the December 7 polls.

About 15.7 million registered voters are expected to cast their ballot in the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in about 29,000 polling stations across the country.

Political pundits have projected a close race between sitting President John Dramani Mahama of the NDC and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

But speaking at a news conference on behalf of the party's 25 parliamentary aspirants in the region, Ms Bertrin Abena Britwum, contesting the Manhyia North seat, said the time had come for the voting public to stand up and vote against the ruling NDC and the opposition NPP because of their record of bad governance.

She said, Consistently voting for these two parties will take our beloved country further down into the stone age because Ghana, under the two parties, has failed to rub shoulders with her peers in the Diaspora.

She unveiled a chain of campaign activities and economic growth agenda of the PPP that focused on human development and progressive leadership which are tipped to generate more job opportunities and tackle the protracted unemployment menace in the Ashanti Region.

We can boast of financial companies, hospitality industries, estate companies and radio and television companies, Ms Britwum said amidst thunderous clapping and chanting from party supporters.

It is time we took our destiny into our own hands as a people and as a region and got rid of the NDC who are championing one million votes without any tangible and worthwhile project that has benefited the people in the region, she said.

Ms Britwum said, Our country is at the threshold of a new era, an era that beckons for a new kind of leadership, a leadership that is uncontaminated by the prejudices of the past, a leadership committed to change and ready to solve the everyday problems that confront the average Ghanaian.

A vote for the PPP is a vote for growth and development in a peaceful environment. A vote for the PPP is liberation from the economic and mental slavery the NDC Government has subjected us to in the last eight years.

Mr Frank Aboagye Danyansah, the Parliamentary Candidate for Obuasi East, slammed both the NDC and NPP for what he described as continuously throwing dust into the eyes of Ghanaians.

The two top political parties often boast of initiating massive non-existent development in the region, he said, but we sit here and cannot point to even one that is changing lives in the region.

Mr Danyansah said: It is time to awake fellow Ghanaians in the region and beyond to bring life back to the region. We shall not sit for our region full of human and natural resources to be destroyed.


The flagbearer of the United Progressive Party (UPP) has declared his support for flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo ahead of the 2016 polls.

Akwasi Addai Odike, whose leadership in the party is being challenged in the court, said the NPP leader is the ideal person to alleviate the hardship of Ghanaians.

Nana Addo is a very humble person, very affable and he is a man of intelligence so we believe that if this man is at the helm of affairs of this nation, we can advise him in so many ways to change the fortunes of this country for better, he said.

The embattled UPP leader made these remarks during an interview with Accra-based Citi FM on Thursday.

There has been an intense internal wrangling within the UPP prior to the opening of nomination by the Electoral Commission (EC) in September.

While one faction believes Mr Odike is the right person to lead the party in the December polls, others hold a contrary view.

The issue took a different twist when the faction challenging Mr Odikes leadership headed to the High Court to restrain him from holding himself as the flagbearer of the party.

The faction succeeded in securing an injunction on the candidacy of Mr Odike, citing the EC as a second defendant.

As a result, when the EC Chair, Charlotte Osei announced the list of disqualified and qualified presidential candidates on October 10, the UPP leader was not added.

The decision by the EC to head to the Supreme Court (SC) to seek review of a ruling in a case brought against it by one of the disqualified 12 presidential candidates resulted in the extension of the nomination period.

The apex court ordered the EC to give an opportunity to the candidates to make corrections on their nomination forms, however, Mr Odike wrote to the Commission withdrawing his nomination.

The reasons he cited for his withdrawal has not been made public.

Speaking a day after the Commission announced the list of seven presidential candidates who would be contesting the polls, he said since he could not contest the elections, he will support the NPP candidate.

Mr Odike who said he supported the candidate of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2012, he believes this time around Nana Akufo-Addo has the diligence for the job.

According to him, if President Mahama is given 100 years he would still be unable to deliver to the satisfaction of Ghanaians.

He has proven that he cannot deliver. President Mahamas economic policies have saddled this country. He doesnt deserve a renewed mandate, Mr Odike said.

We are throwing our support to the candidate of the NPP simply because his vision and our vision is almost the same, we believe in industrialization, we think that industries is the best way to turn around the fortunes of this country for the better, he said.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brakopowers
Ivory Coasts government has banned the production, importation and sale of alcohol in sachets on health grounds.

The small plastic bags, containing rum, vodka or other spirits, are popular with those on a budget  costing between $0.35 (0.28) and $1.65.

The ban was aimed at minimising the impact of alcohol on young people, especially students, government spokesman Bruno Kone said.

A ban on the sale of water in plastic bags led to protests two years ago.

They were banned by the Ivorian authorities in a bid to reduce pollution.

The decision to ban the sachets of alcohol was taken after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday and had been proposed by the ministry of commerce, Mr Kone said.

These products are mostly smuggled into the country, the APA news agency quotes him as saying.

They do not meet our standards and therefore constitute a real threat to the health of consumers  and a threat to the countrys economy.

Cameroon, Malawi and Senegal have also banned the sale and production of alcohol in sachets in recent years.

-Myjoyonline
From Ernest Best Anane, Kumasi.

MR. JOHNY OSEI Kofi, Deputy Chief of Staff and the Parliamentary candidate of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the Oforikrom constituency in Kumasi, has cautioned all eligible voters in the Ashanti Region against engaging in double voting in the December 7 elections.

Addressing an NDC ward meeting at Ayigya Zongo, he urged such people to change their mind before the law catches them. He advised members of the party to be more vigilant during the voting and cast their votes well.

He allayed the fears of the voters saying the security in the region would be fully operational and that nobody would prevent any qualified voter from voting.

According to the Deputy Chief of Staff, nobody would vote twice this year and assured the supporters of the NDC their full protection before, during and after the elections.

Mr. Osei Kofi entreated the electorate to vote massively for the NDC presidential and parliamentary candidates to ensure total developmental transformation without discrimination irrespective of your background.
10.11.2016 LISTEN

By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Nov. 9, GNA - The National Democratic Congress (NDC) placed third and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), fifth on the presidential ballot paper for the December 7 polls, which corresponds with that of their parliamentary candidates.

Due to legal wrangling with the Electoral Commission (EC) by some disqualified presidential aspirants the Commission on October 20, conducted balloting for placement on the parliamentary ballot papers, which should have by convention corresponded with that on the presidential.

At the end of the presidential balloting on Wednesday, which took place under the chairmanship of the EC Chairperson; Mrs Charlotte Osei, incumbent President John Dramani Mahama, NDC would be placing third on the ballot paper, while Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, NPP occupies the fifth position.

Mr Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, Convention People's Party (CPP) is first on the presidential ballot paper, whilst the second place went to Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, National Democratic Party (NDP).

Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, Progressive People's Party (PPP) is fourth, with Dr Edward N. Mahama, People's National Convention (PNC) taking the sixth position, whereas Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah, an independent presidential candidate occupies the seventh position.

Mrs Osei said in compliance with the directive of the Supreme Court that the Commission grant another opportunity to the disqualified presidential for them to make amends and resubmit; the EC offered all 13 disqualified aspirants a fair hearing, pointed out their errors and omissions.

She said at the close of the day Tuesday, November 8, the Commission received the amended forms from the 10 presidential aspirants.

They include Dr Mahama, PNC; Dr Nduom, PPP; Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, NDP; Mr Kwasi Addai Odike, United Progressive Party (UPP), and Dr Agyenim Boating, United Front Party (UFP).

The rest are Dr Hassan Ayariga, All People's Congress (APC); Dr Henry Lartey, Great Consolidate Popular Party (GCPP); Mr Kofi Akpalo, Independent People's Party (IPP); Madam Akua Donkor, Ghana Freedom Party (GFP) and an independent aspirant Mr Asiedu K. Walker.

However, Mr Kwabena Adjei of the Reformed Patriotic Democrat (RPD) withdrew his nomination.

The UPP's Odike also later on Wednesday, November 9, withdrew from the presidential race, for personal reasons.

Whilst Mr Thomas Nii Arko Ward-Brew, Democratic People's Party (DPP) and Warrant Officer Class One Richard Nison Tetteh, United Development System (UDS) failed to submit their amended forms.

Mrs Osei said in line with the Public Elections Regulations 2016 (CI 94), only the seven candidates qualified to contest the December 7 Presidential Polls.

She asked the Media to be circumspective in their reportage in order to not to inflame an already volatile atmosphere in the country.

GNA
Wisconsin Republicans could put more money toward schools and colleges, introduce new tax cuts and look at getting rid of requiring minimum salaries for workers who build roads or government buildings.

Those are some of the early ideas floated by legislative leaders for the next session during which Republicans will have more control than they have had in more than 40 years.

Wisconsin Republicans woke up Wednesday holding the largest legislative majorities in decades, denying Democrats the chance to pick up a handful of seats in the Assembly and Senate in Tuesdays general election.

Instead, one Democratic incumbent lost a seat in the Senate and another Democratic incumbent lost a seat in the Assembly. Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, of La Crosse, was holding on to her seat by fewer than 60 votes.

Shilling thanked voters in a statement Wednesday. Challenger Dan Kapanke did not respond to messages seeking comment on whether he would ask for a recount.

Republicans will have a 20-12 majority in the Senate if Shillings win holds. The GOP hasnt had that many since the 1970s.

In the Assembly, Republicans will outnumber Democrats 64-35, their largest majority in six decades.

It means Republicans, who now wont need to rely as heavily on moderate or Democratic votes, could tackle legislation that failed in previous sessions, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said Wednesday.

Fitzgerald said the Legislatures new majorities mean a continuation of a lot of the same things the GOP-controlled houses have embarked upon since gaining total control in 2010.

Its about reform, said Fitzgerald. I think thats what weve kind of demonstrated to the citizens of Wisconsin. ... This Republican Legislature continues to tackle big things.

Fitzgerald said that means lawmakers may look at putting more money into K-12 schools and the University of Wisconsin System  after cutting funding from them in previous budgets. But he didnt offer specifics Wednesday. He said part of that is a shift in attitude toward school funding on the part of Gov. Scott Walker.

When we took over back in 2011, we pushed bold reforms. They worked, Walker said in a statement. Since then, we gained seats in the Legislature in 2012, 2014, and now in 2016. Looking ahead, we will invest more to help every child succeed.

Assembly agenda

Earlier this year, Speaker Robin Vos and Assembly Republicans unveiled an agenda for 2017 that included a number of proposals, including calling for laptops or tablets to be issued to all high school freshmen, signaling a possible end to the UW System tuition freeze and introducing a new kind of school voucher known as Education Savings Accounts.

One of the largest tasks the Legislature has next session is addressing the states road-funding woes  a solution Walker and Assembly Republicans remain divided on how to accomplish.

Rising road construction costs and stagnant fuel-tax revenues, the main source for the state transportation fund, forced state leaders to increase transportation borrowing and delay highway projects in the last budget. More of the same would be required in the upcoming 2017-19 budget without an infusion of revenue.

Vos and Assembly Republicans have said all options for new revenue must be considered, including raising fuel taxes or registration fees or implementing highway tolls.

Meeting with reporters Wednesday, Vos said he wants the state to have good, strong infrastructure, but we cant do that by borrowing more money.

Walker says instead of increasing taxes or fees, the state should delay expansion projects and scale back its focus to maintaining existing roads. Walker, while unveiling his administrations transportation budget request in September, threatened to veto a budget with a gas tax increase.

Fitzgerald said lawmakers are still trying to strike a balance in finding a solution.

Its very difficult to get votes for something if the governor says hes going to veto it, he said.

Fitzgerald also said lawmakers could tackle some targeted tax cuts during the next legislative session and would likely need to respond to changes or a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare, noting any proposed changes or spending would hinge on final state revenue numbers.

Barca uncertain

The results of Tuesdays election left Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca uncertain about his future. A Barca spokeswoman said Wednesday the Kenosha Democrat is taking a day or so to digest the election results before deciding whether to seek his leadership spot again.

Barca called Tuesdays vote a gut-wrenching and surprising election.

In a statement, he said Wisconsin down-ballot races were swept in a Trump wave that upended the races for President, Congress, State Senate, and the State Assembly.

But Barca also said hes hopeful both parties could work together in the upcoming budget cycle.

So I hope we can work together to solve our transportation crisis, lets fund our public schools, lets grow jobs and wages, lets tackle student loan debt  and lets end this endless cycle of power grabs and special interest influence that has made people in Wisconsin feel like the system is rigged against them, Barca said.
Dodowa (GAR), Nov. 10, GNA - The Ladies for Power, a New Patriotic Party (NPP) Youth Wing, has donated food items worth 8,000 Ghana cedis to three orphanages at Dodowa in the Greater Accra Region.

The orphanages; Porter's Village, Porters Home and Orphans Aid Africa, were presented with items including bags of rice, cartons of soft drinks, bottle water and soaps, toilet roll, three bales of used clothes and pampers.

Maame Serwaa Adjei, the President of Ladies for Power, said the group decided to support the orphanages due to the economic hardships they were facing.

She said the group, whose members include workers, students, businessmen and women and market women, would continue to contribute its widow's mite towards the upkeep of the inmates.

Maame Adjei said the inmates, through no fault of theirs, had been abandoned and it behoved on society to support the good people who had taken pains to care for them.

She assured the inmates and their caregivers that the present economic hardship could change for the better if Ghanaians voted the NPP into power.

Mr Kwesi Oteng, a Gospel Musician, who accompanied the group, assured the orphanages that: 'Once there is life there is hope. Let's vote for Nana Addo to win the 2016 elections to improve our living standards.'

Mr Stephen Nene Oyortey, the NPP Parliamentary Candidate for Shai Osudoku, said the NPP was poised to wrest power from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) adding; 'Ghanaians are yearning for change that will resuscitate the ailing economy'.

He called on the people of Shai Osudoku to change their voting pattern and vote for the NPP to bring more development to the constituency.

Dr (Mrs) Jane Irina Adu, the Founder and President of Portter's Village, commended the group for the gesture and said the items would be used for the benefit of the inmates.

She said the home had 127 inmates with the youngest being seven months old adding that the Village faced serious financial difficulties for the upkeep of inmates.

'The orphanage has to pay 3,600 Ghana cedis as rent every year,' she said, but stated that it had bought three acres of land for the construction of dormitories, modern kitchen, assembly hall and classroom blocks to ensure the welfare and quality education of the inmates.

Mrs Adu called on corporate bodies, churches, Non-Governmental Organisations and philanthropists to assist the home to achieve its dreams.

GNA
Assorkor (W/R), Nov. 10, GNA - Member of Parliament (MP) for Shama, Mr Gabriel Kodwo Essilfie, has asked the electorate to retain President John Dramani Mahama in power as he needs another four- year term to complete the numerous infrastructural projects initiated.

He noted that the Mahama-Amissah- Arthur led administration had done many developmental projects in almost all the communities, which provided a springboard for development in human aspirations.

Mr Essilfie was addressing a rally of NDC party faithful and inhabitants of Assorkor-Essaman at Assorkor in the Shama constituency of the Western Region.

He said government had established a fish processing plant already at Abuesi in the constituency.

He said that made the promise by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to establish a fish processing plant in the community not feasible.

The MP added that government had also concluded negotiations with an Indian company to produce fertilizer in the constituency to help boost farming activities.

He was sure that the NDC was going to win the December 7 elections and appealed to the communications team of the Party to go all out and use the green book to teach Ghanaians on the achievements of government.

National Communications Director of the NDC, Mr Solomon Yaw Nkansah said the NDC had the track record to propel the nation to an accelerated economic development.

He asked the people of Shama to consider the massive projects embarked upon by President Mahama and retain the government in power.

Mr Nkansah appealed to the youth to campaign in a humble and disciplined manner devoid of insults and attacks in a bid to win more votes for the party in the upcoming polls.

Shama District Chief Executive, Mr Eric Cobbinah said the District could boast of eight CHPS compound within the last three and half years which had catered for the health care needs of the people with a drastic reduction in maternal mortality.

He said a ceramic factory which would employ 1,500 people was under construction with an 18-km road asphalted in the District and an additional 19.5km of asphalt road from Asemasa is underway.

On education he said the District topped the 2016 BECE results with 76 per cent, which was a marked improvement on the 33 per cent record in the NPP administration.

The NDC government has also built 37 schools in the District with 34 of them enjoying the school feeding programme as well as the construction of an ultra-modern educational complex with two pick-up vehicles.

GNA
By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - Mr Prosper Bani, Minister of the Interior has called for the prevention of global terrorism as a productive path way of combating campaign.

He said globally organising resources for terrorism prevention was very difficult to come by, however, when there was terrorists attack anywhere, international development partners and donors were always quick to mobilise resources.

He explained that such resources would have rather been channelled into terrorism prevention, since in the event of an attack, the damage and sometimes lost of human lives were irreplaceable.

Mr Bani made this remarks in Accra at the opening of two-day workshop on violent extremism in Africa.

The workshop is being organised jointly by the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) and the African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism (ACSRT/CAERT), with funding from the Spanish Government.

It aims to examine the incidence of violent extremism within local communities and to identify the common contributing factors, indicators, gaps and root causes in order to propose remedial courses of action.

Its objective is to provide an opportunity for the relevant government, civil society and local community actors to discuss the concepts of Violent Extremism and Human Security and share experiences and points of view.

It is being attended by 60 participants, drawn from governmental organisations, civil society organisations, academia, practicitioners, community leaders and religious leaders, counter-terrorism and counter violent extremism experts.

He said violent Extremism and Terrorism had been a growing canker in Africa with no region being exempted from it.

"Although these challenges have always been around, the observation is peacekeepers and national security agencies have increasingly had to deal with violent extremism and terrorism of which Ghana is no exception," the Minister said.

He said Ghana was stepping up its preparedness to confront any act of terror.

Mr Bani said following the attacks on the Grand Bassam Beach Resort in Cote d'Ivoire and those at the Cappuccino restaurant and the Splendid Hotel in Burkina Faso, Ghana had strengthened and enhanced its security systems in anticipation of any such attacks.

He said in order to combat terrorism; there was the need for inter-country collaboration and constant flow of information.

He said the outcome of this workshop would contribute to the counterterrorism objectives of the AU, pursuant to the OAU Convention (1999) on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism, its Plan of Action (2002) and its Protocol (2004), which fit into the spirit of United National Security council.

He reaffirmed Ghana's commitment to countering violent extremism and support for this process.

Air Vice Marshal Griffiths Evans, the Commandant of the KAIPTC, said "there is no doubt that violent extremism continues to pose daunting security challenges, not only to the United Nations Security Council, but also undermines continental, regional and national peace and security".

"Security mechanisms of the African Union and the ECOWAS are increasingly being challenged by the threat of violent extremism," he added.

He said recent research study had identified more than 40 different extremist groups in Africa with the most prominent ones being: Boko Haram found in - Nigeria, Chad, Cameroun, an Niger: Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM) - mainly across Mali and the Sahel Region: Lords Resistant Army (LRA) also found in Northern Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, while Al-Shabab continues to operate in countries such as Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

He said it was against this background that the KAIPTC and the ACSRT/CAERT deemed it important and timely to organise the workshop.

Lieutenant Colonel Larry Gbevlo-Lartey, the AU Special Representative in-charge of Counter-Terrorism Cooperation and Director of ACSRT, expressed gratitude to the Spanish Government for sponsoring the workshop.

He said the democratic and peaceful nature of Ghana would serve as a case study for others to learn from.

Lt Col Gbevo-Lartey, who is also a former National Security Coordinator of Ghana recounted that the KAIPTC and ACSRT in October, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on counter terrorism African.

He said extremism did not exist in vacuum, and therefore, there was the need to trace the root causes.

GNA
GNA Reporter

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - Ethiopian Airlines, the fastest growing and the largest African Airline, has started a thrice-weekly services to Moroni, Comoros with the latest B737-800 New Generation with Sky Interior.

Moroni is the largest city, the federal capital and seat of the government of the Union of the Comoros, a sovereign archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean.

A statement issued in Accra by Mrs Hanna Atnafu, Manager Corporate Communications, Ethiopian Airlines said the flights to Moroni operate thrice weekly via Dar es Salaam.

Mr Tewolde GebreMariam, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Ethiopian Airlines said: 'We are thrilled to spread our wings farther to the Comoros islands.'

He said management believed that flight to Moroni and elsewhere in on the African continent contributed positively to the overall development of the continent and served as a critically essential vehicle for the flow of investment, trade and tourism.

'Hence, with the new service, passengers to and from Moroni will find convenient and hassle free connection to destinations in Ethiopian wide route network to 95 cities in five continents with a minimum layover at our main hub, Addis Ababa,' he added.

In the just ended fiscal year, African cities like Cape Town, Gaborone, Goma, YaoundA and Durban have joined Ethiopian vast intra-African network.

Moroni will be Ethiopian's 53rd African destination.

GNA
By Josephine Naaeke, GNA's correspondent, Marrakech, Morocco

(Courtesy UNFCCC)

Marrakech, Morocco, Nov. 10, GNA - Media professionals have been urged to carry out their professional duty with diligence and circumspection in their reportage on environmental protection and the fight against climate change.

Delegates and experts at the ongoing Conference of Parties on Climate Change in Marrakech (COP 22) said the media are seen as key players in the protection of the environment, the preservation of nature and the fight against climate change.

This came up at an event organised by the High Authority of Audiovisual Communication in the Green Zone on the third day of the second session of the conference.

The COP22 is being organised by the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to come out with concrete decisions for the implementation of the Paris Agreement which was entered into in 2015.

The event was to raise awareness among the general public and all parties in the fight against climate change.

Mr Driss El Yazami, the Head of Civil Society, said: "The goal of the pilot committee of COP22 is to mobilise all the parties to seize the opportunity that had been provided by the Paris Agreement and to raise awareness among Moroccans and indeed everybody on sustainable development and climate change".

He said the media were important actors and instrumental in explaining what climate change was about so that people would understand it better and act accordingly to protect the environment.

Madam Nizar Baraka, the President of the Scientific Committee, said: "Morocco, upon receiving the official Presidency of the Conference of Parties, set about its mission with a new rational namely to involve governmental and non-governmental parties".

She said there was the need to change the paradigm and the daily habits of citizens, states, institutions, journalists, organisations, individuals and groups in relation to nature.

The media needed to relay experiences and successful initiatives in the fight against climate change, she added.

GNA
The Zongo Movement for Change (ZOMOC) has launched a special campaign for change within Zongo communities dubbed "Saakiya 2016" Campaign.

At a launch of the campaign in Accra, ZOMOC stated the campaign is aimed at spreading the message of hope and change by the Presidential Candidate of the NPP Nana Akufo-Addo to zongo communities in the country to persuade members of Zongo communities to vote for change in the 2016 elections.

Key messages to be spread, according to the group include details of the Zongo Development Fund policy promised by NPP's Nana Akufo-Addo, widespread corruption in government as well as the incompetent mismanagement of the Ghanaian economy, which has resulted in unprecedented high cost of living and massive unemployment among the youth.

At the launch of the Saakiya 2016 Campaign in Accra, ZOMOC was of the firm belief that Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP remained the only candidate and party that have demonstrated a clear vision for zongo communities and called on their compatriots to reject the governing NDC which has taken zongo communities for granted for years.

"When Nana Addo and Dr Bawumia announced the Zongo Development Fund earlier his year, the NDC came out to condemn it. ZOMOC publicly threw a challenge to the NDC to come out with their alternative development policy for zongo communities but it has been nearly a year now and we are some few weeks to election, yet they don't have any policy for zongo communities.

Director of Operations and Communications of ZOMOC Mohammed Hashir Issah said President Mahama and the NDC must be changed for the economic hardship and unemployment currently facing Ghanaians.

"The NDC has inflicted so much damage on this country that rough corruption and incompetence. Small scale businesses in the zongos throughout the country are retrogressing due to four years of dumsor and our youth are despondent," Mohammed Hashir said.

"In the last four years, more betting companies have sprung up in our zongo communities than real opportunities for jobs for our energetic youth. This

is not development; we want development and opportunities for our people, particularly the youth. It is time for change." he added.

He said Nana Addo's vision of creating a special fund for the development of zongo communities is a laudable one which ought to be supported by zongo communities.

The group says it is embarking on house to house campaign to explain what the Zongo Development Fund is all about to individuals and identifiable groups within zongo communities.

Saakiya is a Hausa word which means change and the campaign slogan "Saakiya 2016" means Change 2016.

ZOMOC is a political movement made up of youth from zongo communities.
Ghana's Foreign Affairs Minister, Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, has said it is too early for Ghana to take a second look at its diplomatic relationship with the United States of America, following the election of Republican Candidate Donald Trump as President. The American business mogul, Donald Trump of the Republican Party on Wednesday, beat his closest contender, Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, in what many described as a tough election with an unexpected result.

There are fears that President-elect Donald Trump will roll out some policies that may affect the country's relationship with developing countries. But speaking to Citi News, Hannah Tettteh argued that, America's President-elect is yet to formally outline his policy initiatives towards Africa as President of the USA, thereby making it improper at this point, for government to consider a review of its diplomatic ties with that country.

We really don't have much to go by to judge what his reaction to Africa will be. It is early days yet. All we can do is to congratulate him on his victory and then wait to see who will appoint as his Secretary of State. His Secretary of State is the equivalent of Foreign Minister and once we see who he has appointed as his secretary of state and he gives a better indication of the main focal areas of his foreign policy; then we will be able to make a better assessment of what the relationship will have for Africa. But right now; it will be premature to make an assessment. When President Trump lays out his policies and we have clarity , we will be in a better position to assess how our relationship with the US will be managed going forward.

-Citifmonline
For the first time in the history of Ghana's elections, television cameras will be allowed to provide live coverage of activities within the National Election Collation Centre at the headquarters of the Electoral Commission (EC) in Accra, Mrs Charlotte Osei, Chair of the EC, has revealed.

According to her, this is a move to make the December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections more transparent.

Speaking at the Editors' Forum in Accra on Thursday, 10 November, in Accra, Mrs Osei said: For the first time at the National Collation Centre, we will allow the TV cameras in so that everyone will see the process as the results come in from the collation centres.

So, as the results come and as we put them together, the whole country will have the privilege of walking with us along that chain, so, this makes it very difficult for anyone to play mischief, for anyone to amend the results because everyone and all the parties' candidates and their party agents will have the result.

It is really impossible for the chair of the Electoral Commission, working with all the other commissioners, to change any of the results because we really lack the ability to be at the 29,000 polling stations and the 275 constituencies and we also lack the ability to grab the results that are being held by the candidates and their party agents and amend all that.

-peacefmonline
From Sebastian R. Freiku, Kumasi.

Some chiefs are likely to flee and leave their sandals behind in disgrace after the elections for their open involvement in partisan politics, the Founder and Leader of Open Arms Ministries/Jesus Chapel in Kumasi, Apostle Kofi Nkansah-Sarkodie, has said.

He said some pastors also face the same fate like the chiefs for their political prophecies. Some chiefs and pastors will bow their heads in shame after the elections for their partisan stance, he said

The Minister of the Gospel, who also answers to Brother Saint Sark, said 98% of pastors are disgracefully partisan and are not honest with their prophecies.

According to the church leader, some of the prophecies are not divine and lack direction and discernment.

The man of God, who claims to be a representative of Jesus in Ghana, said pastors, should be truthful and wary of false prophecies, because no one particular political party would rule forever.

He said at the monthly media encounter on the political front in Ghana on Monday that the scriptures have outlined the yardstick for choosing national leaders, and that Christians should know better and not just join the band wagon of some of the pastors, who are openly indulging in partisan politics blindly.

He said Matthew 12:25-28 and 1Timothy 3:1-7 have provided the requirements that should guide the electorate to make informed decisions in choosing leaders.

The servant of the Lord Jesus Christ said discerning Christians should be able to point to the next President, based on the conduct of aspirants, in line with the scriptures, and not to be deceived by the false prophecies of some pastors.

Apostle Nkansah-Sarkodie, however, ruled out violence in the 2016 elections, saying Ghana would experience the most peaceful atmosphere before, during, and after the December polls.

The December elections would be the most free, fair, peaceful and transparent ever to be held in the country, he prophesised, saying the elections would be one touch.

He cautioned against electoral violence, claiming the perpetrators would be exposed before their activities are carried out. Those who intend to disrupt the elections risk not living to partake in the elections, he warned.

The church leader has, therefore, called on security personnel and crime officers to be on the lookout for perpetrators of political violence, ahead of the elections, suggesting that the security agencies should convene, strategise and adopt a roadmap for peace.

He said the police must use the maximum of their minimum force to protect society from violence, and urged them not to spare anybody found to be indulging in political violence.

He stressed that elections are not warfare, and that democracy has come of age in Ghana, and called on Ghanaians to be honest with them, and be guided by God's directions in choosing leaders.
10.11.2016 LISTEN

Vivo Energy Ghana, the distributor and marketer of Shell-branded products, has won two prestigious awards at the 2016 Ghana Oil and Gas Awards.

Vivo Energy Ghana emerged as the winner of Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility, while its brand Shell emerged as the Brand of the Year.

Receiving the Brand of the Year Award, the Marketing Manager of Vivo Energy Ghana, Mr Jerry Boachie-Danquah expressed his appreciation to customers, retailers and staff for the award: There are over 80 Oil Marketing Companies in Ghana and we feel very proud to have won Brand of the Year. We want to thank our cherished customers for their loyalty and commitment to the Shell brand over the past 88 years and also commend our hardworking staff and retailers for their dedication and commitment to business excellence.

The Shell brand has, over the years, delivered on its main promise of serving Ghanaians with nothing but quality fuels and lubricants that will not only keep their engines clean but also help them save on cost. The inclusion of value added services at the forecourt and shops has also made it convenient for customers to have access to a wide range of products under one roof. Our aim is to provide an exceptional retail experience at our service stations, reaching more people with better products and services, said Mr Boachie-Danquah.

Commenting on the award for Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility, the Communications Manager of Vivo Energy Ghana, Mrs Shirley Tony Kum indicated that this was the second time Vivo Energy Ghana had won that particular award.

We want to make a real and lasting difference to the communities in which we operate through our community investment initiatives, especially because we employ local people and serve local businesses and individuals. We want to create lasting social and economic benefit for these communities and engage with them to earn their respect and trust, she said.

Mrs Kum commented on some of the impactful community investment initiatives that the company had run, including the My Road Safety, My Life programme, which is being implemented in collaboration with the National Road Safety Commission; the Energy for Education Project; the Breathing Space Project; the Bonanza School Challenge; the Clean a Space, Save a Life Project, among others.

The prestigious Ghana Oil and Gas Awards is an initiative of Xodus Communications Limited and endorsed by the Association of Oil Marketing Companies, which recognises the achievements from local and international companies involved in Ghana's oil and gas sector.
The head of Wisconsins Department of Veterans Affairs will step down soon after the new year starts.

Secretary John Scocos will resign from his job effective Jan. 7, Gov. Scott Walker said in a statement Wednesday. Scocos had led the department since August 2011 when Walker appointed him to the position.

I thank John for serving as a tireless advocate for Wisconsins veterans throughout his time at the department, and I wish him well in his future endeavors, Walker said in the statement.

Scocos previously held the position from 2003 until 2009, when he was fired by the Veterans Affairs Board.

We have made an unprecedented difference for Wisconsins veterans over the last six years, and I thank Governor Scott Walker for the opportunity to serve, Scocos said in the statement.

In recent months, the veterans agency has come under bipartisan scrutiny for its operation of the Wisconsin Veterans Home in King.

Criticism has centered on allegedly inadequate care at the 721-bed nursing home in Waupaca County and on the transfer of millions of dollars from the facility to other veterans funds.

Lawmakers approved an audit of the facility in September.

Scocos has defended the departments running of the nursing home, citing its compliance with all U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs standards.

The statements language was ambiguous about whose decision the resignation was. A month after signing changes in law that allow a governor to pick the Veterans Affairs secretary, Walker appointed Scocos to the job in 2011.

Previously, the Veterans Affairs Board chose the secretary.

The board fired Scocos in 2009, blaming him for making major decisions without their input.

Scocos sued the state, saying he was unfairly treated after being dismissed about two months after returning from a tour in Iraq.

In 2013, the state settled the lawsuit for $325,000, solely to avoid the expense of further litigation, according to the settlement filed in Dane County Circuit Court.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Running Mate to Nana Akufo-Addo, has debunked the claim made by Vice-President Amissah-Arthur that restoring the Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances will collapse the economy and explained that what is destroying the Ghanaian economy is the Incompetence, Mismanagement and Corruption of the NDC government.

Dr. Bawumia also noted the clear confusion between President Mahama and his Vice-President and the several inconsistencies in the governments stance over the Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances.

Speaking at the Nalerigu Nurses Training College, Dr. Bawumia expressed shock at the constant contradictions of government officials on the allowances, saying in government, we will expose the incompetence of this NDC administration. There is nowhere where they have demonstrated as much incompetence as in the area of the Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances. They have demonstrated monumental incompetence.

Today, you do not really know what the policy of the NDC is as far as the issue of Training Allowances is concerned. First, they said they have cancelled the allowances, and as the election was getting close, they said they are going to restore the allowances. And there is now a clear conflict between the President and Vice-President over their policy on Nursing Training Allowances, he pointed out.

Responding to the claim made by the Vice-President on the same campus barely a week ago, Dr. Bawumia noted that the comment by the current Head of the Economic Management Team suggests that handlers of the economy still do not understand how this economy works and how to handle it.

So when the Vice-President came here and said that the allowances will destroy this economy, it simply means they do not understand the economy. What is destroying the economy is mismanagement, incompetence and corruption; that is what is destroying this economy, he said.

Free Lesson to Amissah-Arthur and Government

Providing what he termed as a free lesson for the handlers of the economy, Dr. Bawumia explained that Ghanas current economic challenges, which had led to the cuts in among others the allowances, were down to the mismanagement and unbridled borrowing which had seen a skyrocketing of Ghanas interest payments.

Let me give the NDC and the Vice-President a free lesson in economic management. The interest payments under the NPP before we left office was less than 700million Ghana cedis, under the NDC, in just 8 years, it has jumped to 10.5 billion Ghana cedis. If you look at the Teacher and Nursing Trainee Allowances as a percentage of Ghanas total income, the Training Allowances are 0.1% of our total income. If you look at our Interest Payments, it is 6.5% of GDP; that means that Interest Payments every year is 65 times the Training Allowances, he stated.

Amidst cheers of we need change, we need change by the hundreds of trainee nurses gathered, Dr. Bawumia explained that the numbers indicate that thanks to the NDCs incompetence and mismanagement of the Ghanaian economy, a years interest payments can pay 65 years of Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances at the current levels.

So one years interest payments under the NDC can pay Training Allowances for 65 years. Therefore, when they come and say that Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances will destroy the economy, it means they dont understand the economy, he reiterated.

Dr. Bawumia is on the 2nd leg of his tour of the Northern Region. He has so far on this tour visited the Yunyoo, Bunkpurugu, Nalerigu-Gambaga and Yagaba-Kubore constituencies.
From Ernest Best Anane, Kumasi.

Mrs. Mercy Larbi, Ashanti Regional Director of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has entreated pregnant women not to go on night duties because it is against their rights.

According to the CHRAJ boss, pregnant women must be bold enough to ensure strict compliance of the law passed by the Parliament of the Republic of Ghana, by not going to work at night.

Speaking at the launch of the 20th anniversary of Defence For Children International (DCI) Ghana, sponsored by the government of The Netherlands, under the theme: Protecting the rights of boys and girls, Mrs. Larbi commended DCI Ghana for the close relationship in fighting or addressing issues concerning early marriage of children, sexual abuse and child labour.

She lamented over the recent increases in child abuse, and revealed that another challenge facing them is getting accommodation for the children, who they normally come to their rescue from early marriage and the worst form of child labour, and tasked the government and other stakeholders to always come to their assistance to enable them accommodate them.

Dr. George Oppong, Executive Director of DCI Ghana, explained that through diligence, DCI-Ghana, together with ten other NGOs, submitted a report to complement the government report on the state of rights of Ghanaian children to the UN committee.

According to him, recommendations by the NGOs in their report collaborated concluding observations on the Ghana report by a UN Committee in 1997.

Dr. Oppong noted that in order to have a good front to cooperate with the government in the follow-up actions on the concluding observations for effective promotion and protection of childrens rights in Ghana, the 11 CSOs, including DCI-Ghana, formed the Ghana NGO Coalition on the Rights of the Child (GNCRC) in 1996, soon after the submission of the NGO complementary report.

He said DCI-Ghana became the convenor of the Issues Sub-committee of the coalition leading in the advocacy for child rights issues in the country.

Dr. Oppong, stated that DCI-Ghanas activities evolve around the concept of Socio-Legal Defence Centre (SLDC) operated by the organisation, which centre provides information and training in child rights, as well as socio-legal protective services for child victims of abuse.

He made mention of the thematic areas of operations, which include Juvenile Justice, Children Protection, Sexual and Gender Based Violence and other forms of child abuse, Worst forms of Child Labour and Child Trafficking.

He disclosed that the Girl Power project, which was launched five years ago, sought to empower girls and young women, as the government partners and the CSOs collaborated and worked hard to achieve the targets of the project, which, he said, was externally evaluated and shown to have been successful.

He said some of the key achievements are the Child Protection Network of Government Partners and CSOs, which have now been adopted by the Department of Children as the Child Protection Committee and Referral Protocol among the key partners in child protection.

The platforms, he said, provide useful avenues for advocacy and case management on child protection issues in the region.

He stated that a community-based Child Protection Team, referred to as the Local Advisory Committee for its child friendliness and the usefulness of these community-based child protection structures, lies in their linkage with the formal systems to ensure effective and sustainable child protection at the community and district levels.

DSP Susana Dery, Deputy Regional Director of DOVSU, commended DCI-Ghana, especially, Ms Deborah Asamoah Antwi, Project Coordinator, for a close-working relationship with DOVSU, especially when their support is needed in doing research and tracing, or investigating a victim concerning early forced marriage or child labour in rescuing a victim.

Mrs. Elizabeth Agyemang, MP for Oforikrom constituency, said the nation has failed when it comes to childrens education, saying there are laws, but we dont enforce them.
The Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, has said she will demand of the Supreme Court an order for the former Attorney-General, Martin Amidu, to apologize for false allegations he made against President John Mahama and the government, in respect of government's decision not to orally examine Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, over the unpaid 51 million Ghana Cedis judgement debt.

Mr. Amidu, whose personal action got the Supreme Court to order Mr. Woyome to repay the amount, is back at the apex court, praying it to allow him examine him orally following the decision of the state to discontinue that process.

Mr. Amidu in his application to the Supreme Court alleged among other things that the Attorney-General withdrew her application to examine Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome because President Mahama personally gave an order .

Mr. Amidu's suit covers the Attorney-General, Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, and Waterville Holdings (BVI) Ltd.

According to the man who earned the nickname citizen vigilante, this was done to protect some members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), as well as government officials who benefited from the amount.

Martin Amidu

But the AG in response to the application on Thursday stated in his affidavit that Mr. Amidu's claim suggesting that President Mahama ordered the discontinuation of the oral examination of Mr. Woyome is false.

She said she will demand of the court to instruct Mr. Woyome to apologize for those comments.

That the Plaintiff/Applicant ought to know that any deliberate deception of this Honourable Court on the part of a lawyer is professional misconduct by the rules of the Legal Profession. Furthermore, the Plaintiff/Applicant contrary to the Rules of Court deposes to the scandalous, offensive, malicious and deliberate falsehood without providing the sources of his information or belief. At the hearing of the Plaintiff/Applicant's application I shall apply to the court to have these offending matters struck out of the Plaintiff/Applicant's affidavit, and that he should be ordered to apologize for making these false allegations.

The Attorney-General also questioned in her affidavit the right of Mr. Martin Amidu to orally interrogate Mr. Martin Amidu in court.

That in response to paragraphs 15, 17 and 18, I state that it is arguable whether or not the Plaintiff/Applicant has a right to examine the 3rd Defendant. The order to enforce the Judgment was directed at the 1st Defendant and not the Plaintiff/Applicant. Even if the Plaintiff/Applicant did have this right, the facts relied on by the Plaintiff/Applicant to found this application are scandalous, offensive, malicious and deliberate falsehood and cannot be the basis for the grant of his application.

The Attorney-General also stated that, That I assure this Honourable Court that the staff of the Attorney-General's Department and I have every intention of taking all steps necessary to recover sums adjudged to be repaid to the State and to defend the State in respect of all spurious claims made against the State.

Background

Alfred Woyome was paid 51 million after he claimed that he helped Ghana to raise funds to construct stadia for purposes of hosting the CAN 2008 Nations Cup.

However an Auditor General's report released in 2010, said the amount was paid illegally to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) financier.

The Supreme Court in 2014 ordered Mr. Woyome to pay back 51 million fraudulently taken from the state, after Mr. Martin Amidu, challenged the legality of the judgment debt paid the businessman, Waterville, and Isofoton.

Following delays in retrieving the money, the Supreme Court judges unanimously granted the Attorney-General clearance to execute the court's judgment ordering Mr. Woyome to refund the cash to the state.

Woyome prevents officials from valuing residence

Mr. Woyome in April 2016, prevented officials of the Attorney General's Department and the Lands Commission from having access to his Kpehe residence for valuation.

The move was part of a directive from the Supreme Court to retrieve monies illegally paid to him. But Woyome resisted the move, saying the planned valuation was illegal.

Mr. Woyome had earlier won the criminal prosecution that sought to imprison him for the offence.



By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana
A former Deputy Speaker of Parliament says the decision by the Electoral Commission (EC) to recount the presidential ballot if the results are close would be a lawless act.

Professor Mike Ocquaye says the C.I.94, the law governing the 2016 general elections, does not sanction such a decision and has urged the EC to drop the idea forthright.

The conduct of the election shall be regulated by law [and] the EC cannot operate outside the parameters of the law otherwise it would be a recipe for constitutional crisis, he said.

Speaking to Raymond Acquah, host of Joy FMs Top Story programme Thursday, Prof. Ocquaye said the Commission has to be careful not to engage in acts that flout the Constitution.

EC boss, Charlotte Osei had disclosed during an interview with BBCs Akwasi Sarpong that the Commission would order a recount of the presidential ballot if the results were close.

She came under intense criticism by sections of Ghanaians who believe the decision was not in sync with conventions in the country.

The EC Chairperson reiterated the decision when she addressed section of the media at an Editors Forum in Accra, Thursday.

She explained that as part of international practice, when an election is too close, it is important to call for a ballot recount to safeguard the results.

This, she said forms part of the discretionary powers the Returning Officer enjoys under the law.

It is better to be safer than sorry, she said adding, the Commission does not understand why such a noble idea has generated debate in the country.

But the Chairman of Legal and Constitutional Committee of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said the Commission might be inviting needless lawsuits if it goes ahead with the decision.

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Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brakopowers | Email: [email protected]
The Ghana National Association of Farmers and Fishermen (GNAFF) is accusing parliament of taking its members for a ride over its decision to defer approval of the controversial Plant Breeders Bill to 2017.

Vice President of the Association John Awuku Dziwornu says a delay in passing the bill into law is denying farmers the opportunity to make more money from their toil.

The bill which will allow for breeders of improved crop varieties to earn royalties on their work is aimed at encouraging private sector investment in Agric research. Its been before the house since 2013.

Last October, parliament announced the bill will not be passed until next year to allow for further consultation and education.

Majority leader in Parliament Alban Bagbin told the house, promoters of the Plant Breeders bill agree with me that it is something we could properly do next year. So we have not programmed the bill because there is more work to be done to get Ghanaians to understand.

We still have key players linking it with GMOs and misinforming members of the public. so we are working at that There is more work to be done to get Ghanaians to understand the intent of the bill, Mr. Bagbin added.

Speaking to Joy news Joseph Opoku Gakpo at a meeting of Agric sector players from developing countries in New York State  USA, Mr. Dziwornu described the decision as disappointing.

It is a very great disappointment to almost everybody within the sector with the problems of low yield and others, the plant breeders bill will provide an incentive for investors to partner our research stations to deal with farmers problems... so if the bill is not passed, then people will not put in money, he explained.

A number of Civil Society Groups petitioned parliament last year not to pass the bill claiming it will deny farmers ownership of seeds. This forced the speaker to halt approval procedures and order further consultations.

One of such groups, Food Sovereignty Ghana, argues that the bill promotes breeders rights over and above farmers rights, and also promotes formalised cross-border seed trade over farmers informal seed exchange systems, threatening farmers rights to save, use, share, and sell seeds.

A group of scientists including Director of the West African Center for Crop Improvement (WACCI) Prof. Eric Yirenkyi Danquah and former Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Prof. Walter Alhassan Sandow signed a counter petition to the speaker.

They are insisting that this bill is an important measure to combating poverty in our country. Our farmers desperately need access to improved varieties of our staple crops.

Mr Dziwornu insisted all the controversial issues arising from the bill have been thoroughly cleared up with the parliamentarians, and farmers are not happy the house is dragging its feet in approving it.

They think farmers are not suffering. They want to take farmers for a ride They want farmers to be investing heavily in pesticides and seeds that dont work and there will always be the opportunity for them to go ask our development partners for support as if they are doing something, Mr. Dziwornu added.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com| Joseph Opoku Gakpo
Marrakech, November 10th, 2016---Today has been Youth Day at COP22 and several events have been hosted by YOUNGO, the official youth delegation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

This afternoon's discussion focused on the role youth can play in implementing the Paris Agreement and for the future of climate action.

Hakima El Haite, COP22 Special Envoy and Morocco's Climate Champion, said to youth today "we should spread your message...because maybe we are too old to re-imagine the world to change it."

She was attending an event for Youth Day at COP22 sponsored by YOUNGO, the official youth delegation of the UN climate change body.

El Haite was excited about the upcoming Film4Climate Awards ceremony as well and reminded the young people in the room to remember what President Obama said, Yes, we can! when it comes to changing the environment for the better.

Richard Kinley, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN climate change body, asked the packed room, "how many of you were born after February 1991?" Several raised their hands and he reminded them that the first-ever round of climate talks took place then.

At his final COP, Kinley reflected on all the progress that has been made since then. He reminded everyone though that "youth are the driving force for a sustainable future" and that more work is still needed on climate action.

UN Youth Envoy Ahmed Alhendawi was also on the panel discussion and spoke about the positive energy of the Conference of Youth that was hosted by COP22 organisers ahead of the actual talks.

Alhendawi said that it is easy for him to explain the UN to young people, but not often explaining youth to the UN. His advice to the crowd was to make noise about the changes they want to see in climate policy and actions.
Marrakech, November 10th, 2016---The first of six African media trainings organized by the COP22 communications team and UNFCCC over the course of COP22 was held today in the Blue Zone.

It featured a presentation and Q&A session with Dirk Forrister, CEO, of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) on the topic What the Paris Agreement Entry into Force means for Carbon Markets in Africa.

IETA is a nonprofit business organization engaged with members companies in establishing a functional international framework for greenhouse gas emission reductions trading.

Dirk Forrister discussed the importance of carbon markets and emissions trading as a way for governments and companies to reach their greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets.

He noted that as many as 90 countries expressed an interest in using carbon markets in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) or climate change roadmaps submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Of them, many are on the African continent including Morocco, Senegal, Ethiopia and the Ivory Coast.

For the CEO of IETA the hallmarks of a good carbon reduction mechanism are clear targets, measured and verified results and independent regulatory approval.

Dirk Forrister highlighted a few examples of carbon markets already functioning around the world, including in North America between California and Quebec as well as pilot projects in China and their national carbon market that is slated to be launched by 2017.

External Relations Manager from the COP22 Communications Team, Aicha Benmansour underscored the importance of holding these media trainings during COP22 as a way to provide African journalists with timely and useful information on climate change issues and the Marrakech conference.

Journalists in attendance appreciated this series of trainings that will help them communicate to audiences within their respectives countries and raise awareness on climate change issues affecting the African continent.

Other African media trainings at COP22 will include The Basics of Climate Science presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Renewable Energy Revolution in Africa  Opportunities and Challenges held by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
The flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, has asked President John Mahama to call his Ministers for Local Government and Sports, Collins Dauda and Nii Lantey Vaderpuye to order, over some comments he considers an attacks on members of the NPP.

According to Akufo-Addo, the President has told the world that, Ghana is very peaceful, yet in his cabinet, around the cabinet table at which he is presiding, are people who are to be instigated for violence  purveyors of violence, sitting around his cabinet table.

He doesn't care. He doesn't have the strength of character to reprimand them, and tell them to stop what they are doing. He is simply looking on unconcerned. Does this mean he endorses this kind of conduct?

Akufo-Addo made the comment while campaigning at Hwidiem in the Asutifi South Constituency of the Brong Ahafo Region, on Thursday.

Akufo-Addo made the comment on the back of what he calls consistent attacks against NPP members in Asutifi South, allegedly being perpetrated by Collins Dauda, who also is the Member of Parliament for the area, as well as a recent assault on NPP members in the Odododiodioo Constituency, allegedly led by Nii Lante Vanderpuye.

Nana Akufo-Addo noted that, this kind of leadership, being displayed by President Mahama, is not the kind needed to move Ghana forward and return the country on the path of progress and prosperity.

No one should see himself or herself above the law. We don't want any trouble in Ghana. Those who think that violence, through the use of guns and machetes is the only path to which they can succeed, should have a good rethink, because it will not succeed, he added.

The NPP Presidential Candidate further rebuked Collins Daudu for the attacks in the Asutifi South constituency.

You [Collins Dauda] are contesting a woman, and you're having to employ guns, harmful weapons and the use of macho men in order to win? It is a shame and a disgrace. What kind of a man are you then? You are employing all of these shameful tactics, not against a fellow man, but, against a woman. This is a disgrace. When such things happen, it means you have already lost, he said.

Nana Akufo-Addo further urged the constituents to vote massively for the NPP in the upcoming polls on December 7.

Until the ballots are cast and counted, we should not be complacent. If you want change, you have to go and vote for the change, he charged.



By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @AlloteyGodwin
Members of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) have threatened a complete withdrawal of their services if their concerns are not addressed.

In the meantime, the association will continue with their withdrawal of Out Patient Services from all public hospitals.

The nurses withdrew their services earlier this week over unpaid salary arrears for three months, concerns with the non-posting of graduate nurses and the lack of logistics for their duties.

Speaking to Citi News, the General Secretary of the Association, Perpetual Ofori Ampofo, said a dialogue with government has been fruitless.

We have so many unresolved issue and we have tried as much as possible we have tried as much as possible to dialogue with the employer and stakeholders to make sure issue are resolved but they have not been resolved.

Perpetual Ofori Ampofo also lamented the lack of personnel adding that the workload on some of our colleague in some of the remote areas is so much.

She explained that negotiations were still on-going with government and the other relevant agencies but they are yet to reach clear consensus on issues like timelines for addressing their concerns.

The discussions are still on-going because some to the issues, we still need some clarity on them By the 14th of November if the issues are not resolved, we will embark on a total withdrawal of our services.

Despite the ultimatum, Perpetual Ofori Ampofo indicated that we are still having a lot of discussions with our stakeholders. They have shown good faith in all this, especially our sector minister and we are on course. We are trying as much as possible to have resolution to all the matters.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Hassan Ayariga, disqualified presidential candidate of the All Peoples Party

Disqualified presidential candidate of the All People's Party (APC) Hassan Ayariga says Ghanaians must know what a tyrant the Electoral Commissioner is for her treatment of the party.

He says considering that the APC has been told by the Electoral Commission what corrections to effect, they are disappointed in Mrs Osei's handling of the issue and disqualifying them from the December polls.

The Commissioner rejected Mr Ayarigas nomination forms together with six others again on Wednesday after giving the APC opportunity to effect corrections on the forms as ordered by Supreme Court.

Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings and Dr Edward Mahama who were previously disqualified from contesting the presidential election were given the green light to join four other parties whose forms were passed last October.

At a news conference in Accra Wednesday, Mrs Osei announced that the Commission has rejected the nominations of eight other presidential candidates for failing to abide by the C.I.94, the law governing the December polls.

However, narrating what happened to his party on Joy News, the former flagbearer of People's National Convention (PNC) said their disqualification has more to do about the attitude of the Commissioner and less of their ability to fill the forms.

Mr Ayariga who said he never thought of being rejected again added that per the court's orders the party had to substitute two subscribers whom the EC said had also endorsed for other candidates.

On Monday we rushed to the EC office to make sure that the corrections were updated. The General Secretary and other executives of the Party had spent the whole day [at the EC office]. At 7 p.m, she [EC Chair] called them and gave them 95 anomalies saying that the signatories were inconsistent and for that matter, we should get the members to re-sign.

Obviously shocked, he said they asked Charlotte Osei, how their two corrections had jumped to 95.

We took the documents and went to make the corrections. We got there around 3 p.m and immediately she saw the general secretary she told him to go out and that she would call him at 5 o'clock.

The General Secretary said no, we have come for you to check the documents so if you have issues with it, we have two hours to go back and do the corrections, he said.

According to him, Mrs Osei got angry stating that she was not ready to see them to which the General Secretary insisted on his right of being attended to.

He said the video is available for all to see and it is fair that Ghanaians are made aware what happened leading to his disqualification.

Mr Ayariga said the APC will hold a press conference Friday to speak about its next line of action.

-Myjoyonline
The Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson has restated the Commission's readiness for the December polls allaying the fears of Ghanaians about the possibility of the elections being postponed.

Charlotte Osei stressed at an Editors Forum in Accra Thursday that there is no cause for concern, stating emphatically that "we are ready."

The concern of many Ghanaians for some time now has been about the preparedness of the EC to supervise this years polls.

The fear of a botched election was heightened following the litany of court cases against the EC which was finally put to rest by the Supreme Court last Monday.

Private legal practitioner Akoto-Ampaw, concerned about the EC's preparedness penned a letter to the EC boss demanding that she answers some seven questions regarding what plans the EC has put in place to organise the elections.

With the legal hurdle overcome, Mrs. Charlotte Osei has been defending the electoral body's suit describing it as a strategic one aimed at ensuring that the commission stayed within schedule.

She explained that part of the reasons the Commission had to go to the Supreme Court was to bring a finality to the disputes over the nominations process and to basically meet the November 7 deadline."

She said the decision by the EC to go to the Supreme Court was informed by the plan to have an order that will cover all the other suits pending in court and bring finality to the process.

The Commission was expected to have issued a notice of poll for both the parliamentary and presidential elections a month to the December 7 election but delayed as a result of the suits.

The EC chair said as an electoral body mandated by the constitution they are committed fully to always following the law as we understand it. If the court brings a different appreciation of the law we would obey that.

Mrs Osei noted the Commissions lawyers have spent a lot of time in the courts this year with some of the courts upholding their decisions while in others cases aspects of the ruling have gone against us, we have complied with the court process expeditiously and to the best of our ability.

After giving three other previously disqualified presidential aspirants the green light to join four others in the race to the Flagstaff House on Wednesday, the presidential balloting has been done as well as the notice of polls issued to show the Commission's activities is going on as scheduled.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim |[email protected]
By Joyce Danso, GNA

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - A 35 year old businessman who allegedly killed Detective Corporal Albert Ahiave of the Airport District Police Command has been put before a District Court charged with murder.

Vincent Sackey whose plea was reserved; was said to have allegedly committed the act to escape arrest following a report that he was involved in defrauding a bank to the tune of GHa 500,000.00.

Sackey had been remanded by the court presided over by Mr Ebenezer Kweku Ansah to reappear on November 25.

This was after prosecution had prayed the court to give them time for further investigations.

A senior brother of the accused nearly attacked a journalist from Hot FM for taking pictures of the accused.

According to the accused's brother, their father was a senior Police Officer and so he was demanding that pictures of the accused persons taken should be deleted. It took the intervention of some Police Officers to cool down tempers.

The Police on September 23, 2016 received an official complaint from the Universal Merchant Bank that some unscrupulous persons had hacked into their accounts and managed to steal a total of GH 500,000.

Whilst investigations was going on, Michael Azu aged 40 was apprehended to assist the Police in their investigations and he mentioned Sackey as an accomplice

Prosecution said on Friday, November 4, this year, the Police had information that Sackey, an alleged accomplice of Michael Azu, was at African Regent Hotel and Sergeant Julius Sewor, the investigator in the case and the Corporal Ahiave proceeded to the scene.

Upon reaching the entrance, the Police saw Sackey in a Ford 4A4 Explorer with registration number GN 1180-16, coming out of the car park and gave him a chase.

The Police finally caught up with him at the Shangrila Hotel traffic signal area and approached him.

There the late corporal was said to have shown his identity card to the suspect and told him that they needed him to assist in investigations in a fraud-related case.

At the same time, Sergeant Sewor, also stood at the passenger side of the vehicle to observe proceedings.

The accused wanted to escape and so the deceased, who had his head inside the vehicle, attempted to remove the ignition key of the vehicle but the suspect held the steering wheel firmly move the vehicle.

Sergeant Sewor then jumped back to prevent being run over.

The accused person drove recklessly crashed the deceased against the wall of the Egyptian Embassy nearby.

After killing him, he then reversed and attempted to escape but was apprehended.

Detective Corporal Ahiave died instantly, he was married with three kids.

The body of the deceased has since been deposited at the Police Hospital mortuary.

GNA
10.11.2016 LISTEN

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - Students, small to medium scale business owners, and first-time phone users have been offered yet another opportunity to own a range of affordable high performance phones by the CIMG Telecom Company of the year, Tigo.

The company launched its new campaign called: 'Ma gye me de3 Smartphone's', which literally means,' 'I've got my Smartphone's.'

'Following the resounding success of our 2014 Christmas Campaign, 'Drop that Yam' we are launching this as our way of encouraging Ghanaians to switch to Smartphone's and enjoy the benefits of digital connection,' said the Chief Commercial Officer for Tigo, Tara Squire.

The promotion gives customers iTel phones with a free Tigo SIM card loaded with 9GB of data for six months - for the first month customers get 3GB of data and subsequently 1GB every month for WhatsApp and YouTube.

Customers also have the option to choose a Fero handset which comes with 100 minutes of calls to all Tigo numbers, 100 text messages to Tigo numbers and 100MB data for 30 days which is valid for 3 months.

The promotion is available in all Tigo stores across that country and will end on January 31, 2017.

GNA
By Gideon Ahenkorah/Zuur Winifred, GNA

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - The Electoral Commission (EC) says Returning Officers (RO) are mandated for the conduct and supervision of the Presidential and Parliamentary elections in a constituency under the direction of the District Electoral officer and the Commission.

The Returning Officer would be issued with two writs of election: first to certify the number of votes cast in favour of each Presidential candidate; and second to certify on the writ the name of the Member of Parliament elected for his or her constituency.

Election 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary manual tagged: 'A Guide to Voters,' made available to the Ghana News Agency indicates that as part of its efforts to ensure smooth electioneering processes, the EC has launch educational campaign to assist the public understand the roles of the officers who would be in charged to execute various tasks during the December 7 polls.

The Returning Officer's principal duties include: to receive and process nominations of parliamentary candidates; train and supervise the work of Presiding Officers and Polling Assistants; and certify the letter of appointment of the party or candidate agents.

The RO is also in charge of retrieving ballot boxes and other election materials from the polling stations; resolve disagreements over rejected ballot papers; collate the election results from polling stations in the constituency; and submit election related documents to the District Electoral Officer.

The RO is assisted with two or more Deputy Returning Officers in the performance of his or her duties.

According to the EC manual on polling day, the RO and the deputies must inspect the polling station in the constituency on a continuous basis to ensure the smooth and proper conduct of the poll.

'Where necessary, a returning or deputy returning officer has the power to take over the management of the polling station or instruct a polling assistant to take charge as a Presiding Officer when the need arises,' the EC stated.

In collating the results, a summation of the votes cast for each candidate at the polling stations including that of special voting day in the constituency shall be executed so as to ascertain the winner.

The Officer would declare the winner of the parliamentary contest and also announce the collated provisional results for the presidential contest.

Copies of the results declaration forms (EL 23 A&B and EL24 A&B), would be forwarded to the Commission by the Returning officer.

Also the RO would endorse the results of the election on the writ of election (forms E.L. 1A& 1B) and forward it to the district officer.

In addition, a copy of the constituency summary result sheet forms E.L. 24A &24b duly endorsed by the RO and collation agents would be sent to the district officer.

The Returning Officer would finally post a copy of the results sheet in an inconspicuous place at the constituency centre.

The publication of the EC Guide to the Voter is captured under the 'GNA Tracks Election 2016 Project', being funded by GOIL, the foremost indigenous oil marketing company and CIMG 2015 Petroleum Company of the year.

The project seeks to sensitise the electorate on the various issues raised by political parties, the elections management body and other governance institutions.

It aims at ensuring gender and social inclusion in national politics and to provide voice for the youth, vulnerable groups, opinion leaders and the broader spectrum of the society, and to contribute to the achievement of peaceful polls.

Another objective of the project is to create a platform to dissect the manifestoes of all political parties and provide in-depth analysis of each thematic area to the electorate to enable them to make an informed judgment.

GNA
Agona Nkwanta (W/R), Nov. 10 GNA - Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has urged the electorate not to be swayed by the sweet promises of the opposition since they have no record of delivering.

He said the National Democratic Congress (NDC) record on building infrastructure to accelerate the growth and development of the country was unparalleled.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur gave the advice when he addressed hundreds of supporters of the NDC at Agona Nkwanta in the Ahanta West District of the Western Region.

The event marked the second day of the Vice President's four-day campaign tour of the Western Region.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur is being accompanied on the campaign tour by Mr Paul Evans Aidoo, Regional Minister, Mr Armah Kofi Buah, Minister of Petroleum, Ms Barbara Serwah Asamoah, Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, National Vice Chairman of the NDC, Mr Yaw Boateng Gyan, former National Organiser of the NDC among others.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur also said President Mahama led administration had put the human resource development at the centre of its vision.

He, therefore, called on the electorate to vote massively to retain President John Dramani Mahama to enable him continue with his transformation agenda of the country.

He urged the voters to refrain from voting 'skirt and blouse' since President Mahama would have to work with Mr George Kwame Aboagye, the NDC Parliamentary candidate for Ahanta West to deliver on his second term agenda.

Nana Kwesi Agyeman, the Chief of Lower Dixcove announced that the chiefs and people in the area want to install President Mahama as development chief for giving the area their share of the national cake.

He also commended Mr Aboagye, the incumbent Member of Parliament for Ahanta West for bringing lots of developments to the area.

Nana Agyeman also appealed to the government to build a sea defence wall to prevent tidal waves from destroying the coastal communities.

He urged the government to rehabilitate the roads in the Dixcove area, which were in deplorable state.

Mr Paul Evans Aidoo, Regional Minister on his part assured the chiefs of the government's plan to build a sea defence wall in the area.

He said the government had started building sea defence walls in Shama, Aboadze, Nkotompo, New Takoradi, Abura and the next project would be for Dixcove.

He urged the electorate to vote for President Mahama to continue with the development projects in the area.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur also paid courtesy call on Nana Kow Entie II, Paramount Chief of Mpohor, Nana Trikwadu II, Chief of Adum Benso and addressed NDC rallies in Apowa, Mpohor, Adum Benso and Sekyere Krobo.

He also introduced Mr Aboagye, Mr Eric Kyeremah and Mr Isaac Adjei Mensah as the NDC Parliamentary candidates for Ahanta West, Mpohor and Wassa East constituencies.

GNA
Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - The Governing Council of The Civilian Institute of Democratic Administration (CIDA), has conferred Professional Fellowship of the Council on Nii Okwei Kinka Dowuona VI, the Osu Mantse and the President of the Traditional Council.

This is in recognition of the Chief's sterling leadership qualities and immense contributions to the society.

Nii Kinka Dowuona was decorated with a gown and a hat with two medals and received a certificate of fellowship, a plaque and some books of CIDA.

The CIDA was established in 1999 as an independent, non-political and non-profit-making body, with the objective of promoting and advancing efficient administration and management in the public service, industry and business in civil societies with democratic institutions.

It has a membership of 300 with its headquarters based in Nigeria with CIDA-Ghana branch.

Dr Charles Marcus, the West Africa Regional Representative of CIDA, performing the conferral on behalf of the CIDA Council mentioned some of the achievement of Nii Dowuona as a banker who played major roles to bring improvement into the sector.

He said the Chief with his tenacity, courage and hard work installed as the legitimate occupant of the Osu Stool in May 2007, and since then he had advanced the Kingdom of Osu to the admiration of the outside world.

Some of the achievements, he mentioned, were the settling of the more than 60-year-old chieftaincy dispute in Osu, attainment of paramountcy, establishment of a Traditional Council, refurbishment of the Osu Mantse Palace, establishment of an educational fund among others.

Dr Marcus said these show of exemplary leadership caught the attention of the Osu Citizens Social Club of North America in the United States and donated a large quantity of books and computers to support education in the community as an honour.

Nii Dowuona is a member of the National and the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs and also serves on a number of committees on both houses.

Dr Marcus said for these great contributions to the society the CIDA Governing Council deemed it fit to confer the honour on Nii Dowuona as an acknowledgment.

Nii Kinka Dowuona in his response expressed gratitude to the CIDA Council for the honour done him.

He encouraged his Traditional Council members not to rest on their oars, but support him to do more so that the respect that Osu had attained in the outside world would be sustained for further development of the community.

GNA
By Elsie Appiah-Osei, GNA

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - The 2016 edition of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) Alumini homecoming, has been launched with a call on Ghanaians to go into the general election as one people and come out as one family.

Mr Norman Yemetey Tetteh, the President of the GIMPA Alumini Association who made the call in Accra said: 'With 27 days more to the national elections, I pray we all go into this before, during and after with the nation of one people and coming out as one family in that, Ghana first.'

Speaking at the launch on Thursday, Mr Yemetey Tetteh also called on all Alumini both in and out of the country to come together in celebrating what their alma mater had given them and to also give back to them all that is required.

"I see this in two ways in that while the Alumini come together to network, make merry and to assist the institution we are very mindful of the current students about to graduate and the support that we can offer to make them useful," he said.

Outlining the yearlong programme year marked for the celebration, he noted that a presentation of items including soft drinks, food items and toiletries valued at GHa4,000.00 would be presented to students of the Akropong School of the Blind on November 11.

Mr Yemetey Tetteh added that on November 25, the Association in collaboration with the Student Representative committee of GIMPA would organise the very first happy hour together where Alumini and students would interact on past, present and most of all network amongst themselves.

"The Alumini as a statutory requirement will hold congress on campus where current executives will render accounts for their stewardship on November 26.

"And there will be an inter-denominational thanksgiving service expected to be held on campus and we are looking forward to having our own Bishop James as the officiating Minister," he said.

Going forward, the President of the association told newsmen that, in January 2017, there would be a health walk to Peduase adding: "In February 2017, there will be a sod-cutting ceremony for the proposed 600- bed student hostel on campus, a candlelight possession, a bonfire and blind date as well as the second Alumini lecture series," he said.

Mr Yemetey Tetteh stated that there would be a business breakfast meeting amongst top corporate personalities who are Alumini in March 2017 to enhance networking as well as a career fair in collaboration with GIMPA Business School for students in that same month.

"The Alumini fun games where we are look to having our friends from other institutions join us to compete in various games is slated for April 2017,"he said.

In climaxing the yearlong activities, Mr Yemetey Tetteh disclosed that in May 2017, fundraising, dinner dance and awards night would be held to afford members the opportunity to raise funds for other Alumini projects and also to award distinguished Alumini who had served the nation or institute in various capacities.

Mr Kwaku Sakyi Danso, the Vice President of the Association lauding the executives for their efforts in helping to bring old students together said it was also the primary goal of the executives to revive the Alumini and making it vibrant.

This year's home coming celebration is on the theme: "Keeping the Greenhill Alive." GNA
10.11.2016 LISTEN

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - A group of outgoing Members of Parliament from the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), have come together to support the campaign of the President John Dramani Mahama for a resounding victory in the 2016 general election.

Known as 2016 NDC MP Exit Group, the 49-member group is composed of current NDC Members of Parliament who could not make it at the Party's primaries and NDC MPs who would not be contesting at the parliamentary polls on December 7.

Hajia Mary Salifu Boforo, First Deputy Majority Chief Whip is the leader of the group, and Mr Emmanuel Nii Ashie Moore, MP for Adentan, the originator.

According to Mr Ashie Moore, the group is visiting constituencies identified as challenging to parliamentary candidates, and offer moral and material support to ensure the victory of the candidates in the polls.

Among the constituencies penciled to be visited are Kpando, Ho Central, North Tongu, Ledzokuku and Bortianor Ngleshie Amanfro.

The group has so far been to the Ho Central, Ledzokuku and the Bortianor Ngleshie Amanfro constituencies.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after Mrs Benita Sena Okity-Duah, MP for Ledzokuku Constituency, had launched her election campaign, at the Teshie Aboma Park, Mr Ashie Moore said the group realised the need for the support because the task ahead of the 2016 polls, was a herculean one.

'In as much as we, the members of this group are not returning to the House this time, we realise it a duty to contribute our support to make our party candidates retain their seats.

'In all the constituencies we have been to, we realised that despite the challenge, our candidates can make it. We need to work a bit harder, and victory will certainly be ours. The victory of the NDC is coming again, let the people say, 'Ehe edzo bordoor,' Mr Ashie said.

He urged all the rank and file to put aside their differences and work for a resounding victory of the Party.

Mr Ashie Moore, urged Ghanaians to examine the massive infrastructure that the NDC Government, under President Mahama had worked on and give the President and his MP another for years to complete the assignment they were faithfully carrying out.

He urged the voters in the Ledzokuku Constituency to retain Mrs Okity Duah and give her second term, because of her excellent lobbying skills through which she had assisted the constituency with numerous development projects.

Mrs Okity Duah's campaign launch was attend by some big wigs in the NDC as Mr Kofi Portuphy, the National Chairman of the NDC; Mr Francis Aggrey Agbotse, former MP for Ho West, Ms Sherry Ayittey, Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Nii Lantey Vandepuije, Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Sylvester Mensah, former MP for neighbouring La Dadakotopon, Mr Zaphenat Amenowode, MP for Afadjato, and Alhaji Siad Sinare Ghana's Ambassador to Egypt.

Mrs Okity Duah said the NDC would defeat her opponents by more than 20,000 votes on December 7.

Mrs Okity-Duah, who doubles as the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture noted that the NDC was looking to increase the margin in the 2012 elections on the back of massive developments by the President Mahama-led administration in the constituency.

She explained that her outfit was working tirelessly in the constituency to win both the Parliamentary and Presidential elections for the Party, having achieved 70 per cent of her promises to the constituents and promised to add more when voted again into parliament. GNA
By Elsie Appiah-Osei, GNA

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - Commander JSK Dzamefe, the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the 37 Nursing and Midwifery Training College (NMTC), has charged parents to take interest in their children's education.

He said parents needed not to only pay their children's school fees but rather take active part in their educational cycle.

'As parents, you are not just to pay the fees of your children, instead you need to take interest in their education, be part of what happens in their academic lives and be a part of all the successes and failures of their education,' Commander Dzamefe stated at the matriculation ceremony of the Registered General Nursing intake 33 Diploma and Registered Midwifery intake 4 of the NMTC 37 held in Accra on Wednesday.

He has also urged staff of the Hospital to be role models to students and upcoming health professionals to emulate wherever they go.

Colonel Sally Mensah, the out-going Principal of NMTC 37, said the Management and Staff of the Institute had the duty of working together to uphold, preserve and translate into practice the concept and ideas that informed the establishment of the school.

'As an institution that we have a vision of becoming a college of science along the West Coast of West Africa in the view of producing competent health professionals we have a duty of working together to uphold, preserve and translate into practice the concept and ideas that informed the establishment of our school,' she said.

Mentioning the successes chalked out by the school, Col Mensah also called for the building of a wall around the school to prevent intruders from invading their privacy.

'The school needs a wall, the current wall was initiated by friends of 37 and in an era of change we plead with authorities to provide us with a wall that will prevent stealing and intruders in the form of sellers from invading our privacy as this is a major challenge to us,' she said.

She also called for the building of an assembly hall saying: 'We need a hall like any health institution in the country, a bus and other equipment,' she said.

Col Mensah called for effective leadership role in the school as well as the school being recognised as a military school in the country.

She advised the students to take advantage of the opportunity offered them to make hay while the sun shines.

Commander Eric Adu, the Director General of Training at the General Headquarters Burma Camp, lauded Staff and Management for their efforts at producing quality health professionals despite the challenges confronting the school.

'I take this opportunity to commend NMC for playing a key role in the administration of nurses and midwives,' he said.

He urged the students to comply with all rules and regulations of the school and make a difference as they embark on their academic goals.

'Be exceptional from other nurses because you have a military training and it should be seen wherever you go,' he said.

Commander Adu also encouraged the students to conduct themselves well so that their dreams of being professional nurses would be realised.

'The task ahead may be tough but with consistency you can wither the storm,' he said.

In all 178 students were matriculated for the 2016/2017 academic year.

As part of activities marking the day, the maiden magazine of the NMTC 37 was launched with a presentation made to a retired Stenographer of the school.

GNA
10.11.2016 LISTEN

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - The United States (U.S) Ambassador to Ghana, Robert P. Jackson has observed that American voters were not entirely honest about whether or not they were prepared to have a woman as President as they went into last Tuesday's Presidential election.

Ambassador Jackson was responding to a question during an interaction with the media at a Presidential Election Breakfast Celebration held by the U.S. Embassy in Accra.

He said the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election had presented a moment in the history of that nation when the people had to reflect on the role of women, especially in politics.

On an optimistic note, however, he indicated that since America had had its first African-American President, it would have its first woman President at some point.

'We thought that was going to happen now but it seems we have to wait till when the American people think is right', said the Ambassador.

Asked about President-elect Donald Trump's likely stance on immigration, Ambassador Jackson said the President-in-waiting would probably take a tougher action on the issue than what was seen during the current administration, with a possible crackdown on illegal immigrants.

He, however, added that 'Ane of the things that make America strong is its diversity. There will be steps to maintain diversity by encouraging other nationals to come to the U.S., but processes will be put in place to ensure security'.

On US-Africa relations under the Trump Administration, Ambassador Jackson noted that there had been no significant policy change in that direction for quite some time now, and that there wasn't likely to be any dramatic shift from the current situation.

Nonetheless, there would be a continued interest in Africa because the US regards it as an important partner in many aspects, including trade, the envoy added.

Republican Donald John Trump who had trailed behind Democrat Hilary Clinton in forecasts throughout the campaign trail, as well as during the greater part of the voting process, defied all odds to clinch a surprise victory in Tuesday's Presidential election.

"Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division  have to get together," he said. "To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people", said the President-elect in his speech after the outcome of the poll had been declared. GNA
Donald Trump has done it again, upending American politics and proving the polls wrong.

Running against globalism, immigration, the media and even the establishment of his own Republican Party, the New York businessman and reality television star was shockingly elected the 45th president of the United States on Tuesday.

Even Wisconsin, which hadnt supported a GOP nominee for the White House in three decades, narrowly went his way.

The message is clear. Many voters are tired of politics as usual. They care far less about decorum than they do about change. And theyre willing to risk the leadership of the free world on a man with no experience in public office, hoping to shake up a system they believe is stacked against them.

Trump exposed deep frustration among the electorate over rapid change in our economy and society. But going back to a nostalgic past isnt possible. America must move forward with confidence and embrace a new and complicated world, which offers many opportunities.

Now, more than ever, Trump must act presidential. That pivot to a dignified and serious tone  which he was supposed to make, but didnt, after securing the Republican nomination  is essential to his and Americas success.

Trumps victory speech early Wednesday morning was a good start. He praised his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Instead of feeding his supporters reckless chants of Lock her up!, Trump insisted the former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady was owed a major debt of gratitude for her service to her country.

Trump called for unity. America definitely needs more of that. We hope Trumps words are sincere. And we hope he will follow through on his pledge to represent all people, rather than continuing to create scapegoats.

Our U.S. allies around the globe depend on a steady hand in the White House. And our prosperity at home requires a stable and free market, with Washington leaders cooperating to fix the federal governments fiscal mess.

Trump must be a leader who concentrates on results, not an entertainer in search of ratings. Running for the presidency is very different from being president. What you say, and how you say it, really, really matters.

Trump must assemble a strong, smart and professional team of advisers. He needs to listen to their advice, and think before he acts. Trump must build relationships and trust in Congress with members of his own party as well as with Democrats, some of whose votes hell need to avoid filibusters.

Trump should support the re-election of Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, as speaker of the House, despite their conflict during the campaign. Ryan knows more about the policies and personalities in Washington than just about anyone. Ryan can bring intellectual heft to Trumps ideas, and help build conservative consensus.

We didnt support Trumps candidacy  far from it. Were worried hes unfit and unprepared. His potential threat to the First Amendment is chilling.

But America is a great country. It will survive Trumps mistakes. It will benefit from his successes.

We hope Trump proves his critics, including our editorial board, wrong. We hope he drops his hyperbolic rhetoric and becomes the strong, level-headed leader America needs.
10.11.2016 LISTEN

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has announced the third call for proposals of research into non-communicable diseases (NCD's) in Ghana and the sub-Saharan Africa.

The move which forms part of the Africa NCD Open Lab this week is to strengthen the company's commitment to much-needed scientific research into NCDs.

The third call for research proposals to address these growing challenges is open from November 7 2016 until January 12, 2017 and successful applicants will be awarded  100,000 for up to two years, along with scientific support from GSK.

GSK, which is a science-led global healthcare company that researches and develops a broad range of innovative product, is using the NCD open lap as a tool for researchers to delve deeper into NCD's.

According to a release in Accra, the Africa NCD Open Lab is part of a series of investments GSK is making across Sub-Saharan Africa.

'The Open Lab, launched in 2014, aims to work in partnership with African researchers and academic groups to conduct research into NCDs such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and chronic respiratory diseases.

'NCDs were estimated to account for over one third, 42 per cent of total deaths in Ghana in 2014, and across the country the probability of dying at a young age from 30 and 70 years from an NCD is 27 per cent

'NCDs cause over half of all reported adult deaths in some African countries, suggesting that NCDs could become a leading cause of health issues, disability and premature death.'

It is hoped that the vital research conducted by scientists across the continent would improve the understanding of NCDs, and inform best practice prevention and treatment strategies.

Marie-Jose Pokou, Regional Medical Director for GSK, West & Central Africa, said: 'Whilst huge progress has been made in recent years to understand and combat infectious diseases, more work needs to be done to tackle the growing health concern presented by NCDs in Ghana and across Sub-Saharan Africa.'

When an issue is better understood it could be more effectively tackled by collaborating with our research network across Africa through the Open Lab, Ghanaian scientists can work to vastly improve our understanding of NCDs in Ghana and beyond.'

Dr Mike Strange, Vice President and Head of Africa NCD Open Lab, said: 'GSK is committed to tackling the huge burden that NCDs place on patients, communities and health systems in Ghana and across sub-Saharan Africa.

'The Open Lab supports our efforts to address these challenges. I encourage scientists to consider applying for the funding and support that the programme offers and work to help us better understand NCDs across Africa.'

Information on submitting a proposal could be found on the website http://www.gsk.com/en-gb/research/open-innovation/africa-ncd-open-lab

GNA
- Major Hamza Al-Mustapha insisted that his role during Abacha's administration was to offer protection

- He denied killing Kudirat Abiola as widely speculated

- The former military officersurged Nigerians o work together for progress

Major Hamza Al-Mustapha has spoken about the death of Kudirat Abiola and has denied his involvement in her demise.

Al-Mustapha served as the chief security officer to the late General Sani Abacha and has been linked to the death of the wife of Moshood Abiola the winner of the presidential election in 199 which was later annulled by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.

READ ALSO: Hamzat Al-Mustapha bags honorary doctorate

Vanguard reports that Al-Mustapha spoke at the Dr. Fredrick Fasehun annual public lecture in Akure on Wednesday, November 9 where he exonerated himself of the death of Kudirat.

He said: I am often misrepresented, I discharge my duties as required which was to protect the Head of State, protect the government and the people of the country.

Anything aside that would have made me a traitor and I was never a traitor, I am not a traitor and will never be a traitor.

The former military officer called on all Nigerians irrespective of political affiliation to come together for a better Nigeria.

He said: There is so much turbulence, greed and selfishness. We take two steps forward, four steps backward.

My concern is patriotism and true love for the country our desire is to invest and allow our institutions to stay rather than forcing them into decay. That is what we should be cautious about.

Those in leadership and those being led particularly those who have attained statesmanship position should understand there is heavier responsibility on their shoulder and they should realize that this country is too important to be allowed to fail. We must support all those in power.

He also spoke about the anti-corruption was championed by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and described it as difficult.

He said: Anti corruption war is not easy as it is being said, we saw it in the past administrations.

READ ALSO: AYCF says it has uncovered plans to destabilise the north

But before you start the anti corruption war itself, there are measures to take. One is to heal the wounds; two, corruption has eaten deep so it is going to be a combination of many things, moral law, science and force.

The law should be seen to be enforced, ensuring the right of man and those who are enforcing it should also realize that the right of man must be respected.

And those who are stealing should realize law is hot water, if you dare put your hand in hot water, you will get burnt and when it is burnt you have no one to blame. This is where we are and this must be done.

Source: Legit.ng
- Local vigilante are to be trained in intelligence gathering in Adamawa and Taraba states

- Nigerian police have conducted a five-day basic intelligence gathering programme for 251 members

- The training would boost the capacity of the vigilante members by providing them with necessary techniques

Nigeria Army

In a bid to curb the Boko Haram menace, the Nigerian police have conducted a five-day basic intelligence gathering programme for 251 members of vigilante groups from Adamawa and Taraba states.

The vigilante groups which are made up of local hunters, who have been indispensable to the Nigerian army in the continuing fight against Boko Haram.

The five-day training programme is aimed at helping the hunters become better at intelligence gathering. On Wednesday, November 9, Murtala Aliyu the state commander of the vigilantes while speaking at the mobile police 14 base in Yola, Adamawa state said the training was essential.

Aliyu said the training would boost the capacity of the vigilante members by providing them with necessary techniques to operate more effectively in supporting the police and other security agencies against the insurgency.

The state commander was also of the opinion that the training would help members conform to standards in their operations. He expressed his happiness for the support his members were enjoying from the public in Adamawa.

READ ALSO: Superior fire! Top Niger Delta militants beg DSS, surrender sophisticated weapons

However he also lamented the state and local governments were not doing much to support the operation of his members. He explained that as people who mix with the public, the vigilante members if fully supported would play a more effective role in gathering intelligence that would help reduce crime to the minimum.

Mr Aliyu promised that his members would continue to contribute effectively contribute to national security using their presence in all the nooks and crannies of the states in which they reside.

He went on to roll out plans to recruit more members in Adamawa next year. He said: "Currently, Adamawa has 2,800 members and we hope to increase the number next year."

Speaking on the recruitment process, he revealed that the membership is voluntary, but also that the intending recruits must be responsible members of society and have their applications endorsed by their ward, village or district heads and divisional police officers.

READ ALSO: This is why Nigeria must not allow Lt. Col. Abu Ali, others to rest in peace

Some of our members are also hunters," he explained their relationship with other hunters, saying that they are different but work together.

When asked about disciplinary measures against erring members in the state, the commander said that about 20 members had been sanctioned within the year.

Some of them were suspended and some dismissed, he concluded.

This training is especially vital as the army recently lost a high ranking soldier in the person of Lt. Col. Abu Ali and about six other soldiers to the war on the Boko Haram insurgents.

Source: Legit.ng
- The Primate of the Church of Nigeria in the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh is not happy

- His unhappiness stems from the fact that there are incessant lynching of Christians in the north

- The Archbishop called on President Muhammadu Buhari to address the situation

The Primate of the Church of Nigeria in the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to address the rising case of abduction, forced conversion to Islam and forced marriage of Christian girls in the north.

Archbishop Okoh and President Buhari

According to Leadership, the Archbishop particularly called on the president to quickly address the rising cases of incessant lynching of Christians in the north due to religious intolerance.

Archbishop Okoh made the comment while speaking with journalists during the sixth edition of the Divine Common Wealth Conference (DWCCON) in Abuja.

He expressed displeasure over what he termed as seeming silence of the president on unhealthy religious happenings in the country, lamenting that it could spark off unrest in the society.

READ ALSO: Our plan for you  Femi Fani-Kayode sends message to northern minorities

His words: Government should make effort to explain what happened, not to give impression that people can take laws into their hands and be set free, that is not a good signal, the Kano state government need to explain the justification of their release.

There is fear in the land, the common mans perception of inclination of the present administration is on its own a cause of mistrust and fear.

The Archbishop further stated that the selective governance style of the present administration, in which Muslim and Islamic values are given priority over the diversity of citizens in Nigeria, is really worrisome.

How can anybody explain the call for full implementation of the sharia criminal code in Nigerias legal system in a country where you have Christians and people of other faith? he queried.

The Archbishop's comment is coming few days after a Kano magistrate court discharged and acquitted, without trial, the five Muslim youths accused of masterminding the gruesome killing of a 74- year old Mrs. Bridget Agbahime on June 2, 2016 on allegations of blasphemy.

READ ALSO: Hausas and Igbos sign agreement to foster ONE NIGERIA plan

The court's decision sparked outrage especially in Nigeria's Christian community.

Source: Legit.ng
At least 4 people have died and 6 others injured after 2 male suicide bombers exploded improvised explosive device (IED) strapped on their bodies at Golori area before Mamanti in Maiduguri, Leadership reports.

Boko Haram insurgents with their flag

Borno state police public relations officer DSP Victor Isuku confirmed the incident and said the explosion occurred on Tuesday, November 8 evening.

READ ALSO: Champion of love: This Prince gave his life to save many Nigerians (Pictured)

The 2 male suicide bombers detonated the improvised explosive device on them killing themselves and 2 other innocent persons on the spot while 6 others sustained various degree of injuries.

The injured were taken to Borno state specialist hospitals accident and emergency section while the 4 dead persons including the 2 suicide bombers have been evacuated from the scene," Isuku told Leadership.

He urged residents to be vigilant at all times and report any suspicious persons or movements to the security agencies to avert any disaster.

READ ALSO: Superior fire! Top Niger Delta militants beg DSS, surrender sophisticated weapons

Meanwhile, in a bid to curb the Boko Haram menace, the Nigerian police has conducted a five-day basic intelligence gathering programme for 251 members of vigilante groups from Adamawa and Taraba states.

The vigilante groups which are made up of local hunters, who have been indispensable to the Nigerian army in the continuing fight against Boko Haram.

Source: Legit.ng
- An Abuja based lawyer Kayode Ajulo says Wole Soyinka could run into trouble with the American law if he destroys his green card

- Ajulo says under the American law, losing or having your green card destroyed can be a serious problem

- The layer urges Soyinka to rescind his threat to destroy his green card

Soyinka says he will leave the United States by Jan. 20, 2017, the day president-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated.

An Abuja based lawyer Kayode Ajulo, has cautioned Nigerian Nobel Literature Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, against carrying out his threat to destroy his American green card in protest of Donald Trumps victory at the US presidential election.

READ ALSO: OBJ sends message to Trump, as ISIS says he will destroy US

Ajuko, reacting to threats made by Soyinka to destroy his American citizens card, warned that the Nobel Literature Laureate could run into trouble with the American law if he does so.

The lawyer told Vanguard in an interview on Thursday, November 10, that under the American law losing or having your US green card destroyed can be a serious problem.

He said legally such is tagged as wishful destruction of governments property.

Ajulo urged Soyinka to rescind his threat to destroy his resident permit, noting that he is far better and far bigger than that because such act is provocative and unacceptable.

READ ALSO: Donald Trump supporters beat homosexual man to a pulp

He described Soyinka as a good ambassador who cares not just about Nigeria but the world at large, advising him to keep to it.

Recall that literary icon pledged to keep a promise he had given a few days before the Nov. 8 election, when he told students at Oxford University that he will cut his green card and start packing up if Trump won the polls.

Soyinka also said he will leave the United States by Jan. 20, 2017, the day president-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated. The green card is the U.S. permanent residence permit.

Meanwhile, following the widespread condemnation that trailed the prophesy by influential Nigerian TV evangelist, TB Joshua that Hillary Clinton would win the US presidential election which later turned out otherwise, the cleric has reinstated the post on his Facebook page after deleting on Wednesday, November 9.

Prophet TB Joshua during his church sermon on Sunday, November 6, had predicted a narrow victory for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party presidential candidate. The prediction was also posted on the Facebook page of TB Joshua ministries.

But after Donald Trump convincingly won US presidential election, visitors to the preachers Facebook page on Wednesday, November 9, noticed the prophecy had been deleted from TB Joshua Ministries Facebook page.

Source: Legit.ng
- Bayelsa doctors are in despair as their autumn salaries are yet to be paid

- The protesting medics demand the federal government to pay them as soon as possible

- They even said they are considering MMM as an option to feed their families

Last week hundreds of doctors took to the streets of Yenagoa, Bayelsa state, to protest against unpaid four-months salaries owed them by the federal government.

Resident doctors protest in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state, last week

The desperate medics even threatened to stop providing medical care to patients giving November 15 as the last date to repay all the debts.

The Association of Resident Doctors have recently met the Federal Medical Centre authorities to discuss the issue, however, the results left a lot to be desired.

READ ALSO: Shock as Yakubu Dogara also joins MMM (Photo)

The doctors led by Dr. Nonso Okoye, their chairman, were seen carrying placards saying "Our families are hungry", "FG pay our salaries" and "We are hungry, MMM is becoming an option".

According to the protesters, they were paid just half of their salary from February to May this year and still awaiting September and October payments.

The said: "We want the federal government to pay us our monies. We have not withdrawn services. All we are saying is for the government to pay us for work done.

Nigerians should prevail on the federal government to pay us. As much as we dont want to withdraw our services, we have resolved to withdraw the services by 15th of November if nothing is done.

We have met with the management but all they did was pay us a month salary. They told us that the budget available cannot pay salary."

READ ALSO: Muhammed Buhari is doing MMM (See evidence!)

Commenting on the issue, Dennis Alagoa, the chief medical director of the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), said: "With Tuesday's statement by President Muhammadu Buhari, we are assured that the issue will be resolved soon."

He also stressed that there's no sense in a strike as the local management is not responsible for the issue and the matter has been already studied by the federal government officials.

Source: Legit.ng
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The iPhones were released, the elections are over, and Christmas music is starting to play in department stores. Its been an eventful year for Android smartphones, with a few huge surprises along the waywhether its Googles first smartphone or the Galaxy Note 7s exploding batteries.

But now that all of the major smartphone manufacturers have released its smartphones, its a great time to take a look at the best Android smartphones you can buy right now. With the exception of the LG V20, which weve still yet to get a full review of, heres our ranking of the best of the best:

Every year, the cheap flagship Android smartphone space gets tighter and tighter. The brand new manufacturer Nextbit just released its first phone, the Robin, with a very particular problem it was looking to solve: storage. Using its seamless cloud storage, youll never have to worry about filling up your limited storage with photos, videos, and apps.

Aside from the great storage solution, the Robin also has a pretty unique look, as you can see in the photo. The $399 pricetag is also attractive, but you should know that the camera and display wont be competing with the Galaxy S7 or G5 anytime soon. Even with that in mind though, the Robin is a great cheap Android smartphone alternative that doesnt feel cheap at all and stands up pretty good against phones like the OnePlus X, Honor 5x, and Nexus 5X.Luke Larsen

At just $349, youd think the Nexus 5X would be as cheap as a good Android phone gets, but in this day and age, even competition for that price level is stiff. The Nexus 5X is a modest phone in pretty much every way, which makes it ideal for a lot of people. Especially if you are someone looking for a smaller device (this ones got a 5.2-inch display) that is also clean and fully functional, the Nexus 5X really is a good way to go.LL

The definition of the budget phone has changed significantly in the past few years. Where midrange phones from LG, Samsung, and Motorola used to rule this market, the recent influx of excellent smartphones at a highly discounted price (under $400) from smaller companies has completely upended the market.

Our winner for best small, budget phone is the OnePlus X, an impressive 5.0-inch device made up entirely of metal and glass. The device can be bought unlocked from OnePlus for only $249a staggering price that completely reframes the category of budget phone.LL

For years, LG lagged behind its counterpart Samsung. But with last years G4, the company really found away to pare down the design to a point that really separated it from the competition. With the new G5, LG took a big gamble by veering off course with its new accessory ecosystem. With the ability to swap out different modules like an extended battery or camera accessory, the G5 can be customized to the way you use your phone. This could be pretty cool down the line if LG really goes all-in on it and gets the pricing down, but for now itll probably confuse more users than anything else.

While the upgrades are notable, the experimentation makes an otherwise top-tier phone come across as a bit imperfect. Yet still, if youre in the market for a current-generation smartphone, the LG G5 deserves a recommendation. The competition is stiff in Android with options like the Galaxy S7 and the Nexus 6P, but the G5 still holds up as a more refined version of what was already one of the best smartphone lines on the market.Stephen Clark

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Karlis Dambrans

Samsungs other phone. Though its now over six months old, the Galaxy S7 is the smartphone Samsung would much rather have you talk about at this point. You wont find the Galaxy Note 7 on this list, which is a phone we can no longer recommend.

With the S7, Samsung reintroduced waterproofing and expandable storage, which pleased many Android users. Most importantly, Samsung pulled in these features without having to compromise the great design and build quality that it introduced last year. Oh yeahand then theres that incredible OLED display, which you have to see in person to truly appreciate. The S8 is that far away, but the S7 is still a fantastic smartphone.LL

The newest hotness from HTC isnt exactly the most standout device. Its pretty much exactly what youd expect from the company in 2016, which means it might not be the savior of this smartphone manufacturer that it needs to be. But when you just look at the phone itself, its hard to find much to complain about.

The device feels great in the hand and its a design that has been iterated upon over the years quite well. Its a bit clunkier than what youll get with a phone from Apple or Samsung, but theres also no questioning this things durability and some people are going to love the idea of going caseless with the HTC 10. Whats more, the HTC 10 feels a step further than the Galaxy S7 or LG G5 on the software end of things, not overly relying on the companys proprietary Android skin much at all. Instead, you get a light, responsive, and clean interface that makes the new HTC 10 one of the very best options for Android smartphones out there right now.LL

After Lenovo acquired Motorola, the entire tech world knew the longstanding Chicago telecommunications company was in for a shakeup. Google Motorola and Lenovo Motorola were going to offer the world very different products.

That has rung true with the Moto Z. It is an entirely different animal to the Moto X, but one with a similarly great experience and its own set of quirks that make it distinct from the rest of the smartphone market. If, and this is a massive if, the modular idea catches on, it could change how people look at smartphones. Instead of seeing a device theyll hope lasts them two years, consumers might look at the Z and see it as a phone that will be great when they buy it, and maybe even better in the future.Eric Walters

Here at Paste, when we put the iPhone up against stock Android, we tend to choose stock Android. Despite the fact that weve got fresh new phones from LG, Samsung, and HTC, last years Nexus 6P tops all of them. The stock Android phone from Huawei and Google from last year was our phone of the year and its still a phone that is worth every dollar of its $499 pricetag.

The Nexus 6P edges out over the HTC 10 thanks to our love of stock Android software. The Galaxy S7 might have a nicer camera and the HTC 10 might be a little more durable, but the Nexus 6P is still the Android device that we want to use more on a day-to-day basis. Whats more, the Nexus 6P is cheaper off contract than those other flagship options as well.LL

If the OnePlus 3 costed as much as the Nexus 6P and HTC 10, it still would have been the best Android phone you could buy. Its got an impressive camera, a great display, fast performance, and the best feel in the hand out there. When you throw in the $400 pricetag, it makes me have very few reasons to recommend a different Android smartphone that isnt made directly by Google.LL

The Google Pixel is the most important phone of 2016. It may not be the one most remembered, thanks to the explosive tendencies of the Note 7, or the best, thanks to the stacked field of 2016, but its the device that will have the most impact on the industry moving forward. After years of dancing around the idea, Google finally released a phone designed entirely in Mountain View. If it performs well, it could end the Apple-Samsung duopoly that has dominated the market for nearly a decade. Thats a big deal.

But it cant be a big deal if the phone doesnt live up to expectations. Google clearly learned from the Nexus program, and its other hardware ventures like the Chromebook Pixel and Pixel C, because its first smartphone is rock solid. The design may not impress, but the experience of using the phone certainly does. From a hardware perspective, even if it echoes the iPhone too much, its a well built machine that lives up to the standards set by other premium smartphones. On the software side, Google is showing real innovation with the Google Assistant which, while not perfect, is clearly the companys idea of the future.

If youre an Android user, the experience doesnt get better than Pixel. Googles smartphones, under the Nexus moniker, always provided the best user experience on the platform, and the Pixel ups it several notches with a bevy of features.EW
2016 WSOPC Caribbean: Daniel Azancot Halts Holiday to Play, Wins WSOP Circuit Ring

November 10, 2016 Christian Zetzsche Contributor

Another World Series of Poker Circuit ring winner has been crowned and 12 other players made it one step closer to being the next one to pose for the winner pictures at the Caribbean Festival on Sint Maarten.

After more than 12 hours, it was Daniel Azancot who emerged victorious in the Monster Stack after a fierce heads-up battle with Ingrid Etienne. The Canadian, who was on the island for vacation and then found out about the tournament, secured a payday of $11,400.

Place Player Country Payout 1 Daniel Azancot Canada $11,400 2 Ingrid Etienne Martinique $7,060 3 Cedric Cavalier Martinique $5,100 4 Dueval Fenton Sint Maarten $3,750 5 Stephen Saleh UK $2,800 6 Jose Delgado Puerto Rico $2,130 7 Willie Janssen Netherlands $1,640 8 Chan Ping Hsiung Austria $1,300 9 Layne Flack United States $1,030 10 Marvin Browne Sint Maarten $840 11 Christopher Staats United States $840 12 Christophe Enrici Sint Maarten $840 13 James Harper United States $690 14 Derik Lewis United States $690 15 Robert Cheung Canada $690

The day started with 29 players coming back to the tables and Stevan Prager busted in the very first hand. He was soon followed by Augusto Cavazzini, who lost with ace-king against the ace-queen suited of Dueval Fenton. Both had already met at the final table of Event #3 a few days ago. Shawn Rice and Ryan Martin were also eliminated and soon the last three tables were found.

Benjamin Perez ran with tens into the queens of Christopher Staats and Dominik French stood no chance with ace-jack against the aces of Christophe Enrici. After Jean Mrakic and Hamy Wuhjadi followed to the rail, the last two tables were set. Ultimately it was Herve Bourgois, who earned the unfortunate honor of becoming the bubble boy. He shoved with pocket tens and Chan Ping Hsiung called with nines, then improved with a nine on the turn.

Robert Cheung called a shove of Hsiung with jack-ten suited and second pair only to see the Austrian turn over top pair. Derik Lewis ran with ace-king and top pair into the set of kings of Jose Delgado and James Harper bluffed with king-high only to walk into two pair. The elimination of Enrici came from a three-way all in. Azancot shoved the button with fours, Staats called in the small blind with king-jack and Enrici held ace-king in the big blind. The flop delivered a four and Enrici was drawing dead by the turn, while Azancot scored a vital boost to his stack.

Staats's roller coaster ride ended in 11th place and Marvin Browne followed in 10th after more than one hour of short-handed play on two tables brought no seat open before the dinner break. Layne Flack had to settle for ninth place after he raised with the seven-five suited and flopped a gutshot and flush draw. Delgado's top pair held and Hsiung then lost a flip with eights against the ace-king of Azancot shortly after.

Willie Janssen, who had already reached the final table of the Six-Handed event, finished in seventh after pushing his short stack with ace-four suited. Delgado found queens on the button and claimed the pot. A series of unfortunate hands then saw Delgado go out next. He first called an all-in with ace-king on a four-high flop, but Stephen Saleh had already flopped the full house. Delgado then three-bet shoved ace-six and Etienne snapped him off with pocket aces.

Once Saleh lost a flip with eights against the ace-queen of Azancot, the Canadian had established a serious lead over his remaining opponents. It turned into a short-stack grind for them and Fenton blinked first, getting it in with queen-seven suited to the pocket eights of Azancot. The Canadian also took care of Cedric Cavalier with pocket threes versus king-seven before engaging in the heads-up battle with the second part of the poker couple from Martinique.

Azancot started with a 2-1 lead and kept that for most of the time before his nut flush draw failed and Etienne doubled with top pair. Azancot grinded back into the lead. Another double up for Etienne was just short-lived and the final hand was a flip with king-ten for Azancot and pocket fours for Etienne - a king eventually hit on the river.

Daniel Azancot

Bounty Island

The $365 Bounty Event #16 saw a total of 80 unique players and 24 reentries to create a field of 104 and a total prize pool of $31,200. Jean Luc Adam not only let the bubble burst with a turned set of sevens, he also claimed astonishing 16 bounties throughout Day 1 and ended up on top with 231,400. Notables that made it through include Walter Treccarichi (135,000), Joachim Lob (113,500), Robbie Bakker (92,800) and Arman Bosnakyan (80,600).

Bounty Event #16 Day 2 Seat assignments:

Table Seat Player Country Chip Count 1 1 Gerald Mortensen United States 65,900 1 2 John Yocca USA 59,500 1 3 - - - 1 4 Arman Bosnakyan Canada 80,600 1 5 Jacco van Limpt Netherlands 80,100 1 6 Jose Menalque France 110,200 1 7 1 8 Walter Treccarichi Italy 135,000 2 1 Robbie Bakker Netherlands 92,800 2 2 Herve Bourgois Guadeloupe 74,100 2 3 - - - 2 4 Jean Luc Adam France 231,400 2 5 Joachim Lob Switzerland 113,500 2 6 Sylvie Renelier Sint Maarten 112,500 2 7 - - - 2 8 Mohammed Elmazouni Netherlands 76,900

The action will recommence at 3:30 p.m. local time with level 15 (1,500-3,000, ante 500). A min-cash is worth $430, but all eyes are set on the first-place payout of $6,240 and collecting more $100 bounty prizes.

Besides the usual lineup of satellites, the next WSOP Circuit ring event will take place with Day 1 of the $365 Pot Limit Omaha Event #19 at of 6 p.m. local time. The first day of the tournament will play a total of 15 levels at 30 minutes each.

Sharelines Daniel Azancot bested Ingrid Etienne in a heads-up battle to take the WSOP Circuit Monster Stack.
The Railbird Report: "Tom Dwan Is Not Kidnapped and Not Part of the Triads"

November 10, 2016 Frank Op de Woerd

For quite some time, Tom "durrrr" Dwan was the biggest name in poker. At the top of his popularity, he earned a spot on Team Full Tilt. And it wasn't just some lousy "Red Pro" contract getting $20 an hour and 100 percent rake back, but a spot on the main team, presumably accompanied by a fat paycheck.

Howard Lederer hailed him as "the first pure internet player to come up and really establish dominance playing the biggest games."

In an introduction, Chris Ferguson dubbed him the best player out there and Patrik Antonius followed up in agreement.

"Tom Dwan has been the real deal since he stepped into the big games," Antonius said.

That was November 2009, and in 2010, Dwan was still on top of the poker world, partaking in one of the biggest WSOP bets at the World Series of Poker that year.

The high stakes world held their breath as Dwan made it to the heads-up portion in a $1,500-event. Established pros like Lederer, Ferguson, Matusow and countless others walked around nervously, uneasy about the prospect of losing a ton of money if Dwan would grab the precious first-place prize and bracelet. He eventually finished second to Simon Watt and some of the most prominent players simultaneously sighed in relief.

In 2011, Dwan was still living the good life, flying private jets around the world talking about big winning days (seven-figures) and huge losing days (minus $3.8 million):

Then, Black Friday happened and Full Tilt Poker crumbled. The truth started to surface; Full Tilt Poker wasn't going to return and Team Full Tilt was no more. As PokerStars stepped in and bought Full Tilt Poker's assets and debts, the site was back up a year later and one of their first big marketing stunts was to establish "The Professionals," a team of pros that would represent the site.

Gus Hansen was brought on board first, followed by Viktor Blom and Tom Dwan. Upon his introduction, he was hailed in as "one of the most feared and respected players in the world today" by the marketing department of the relaunched site.

A little over a year later, Tom Dwan and Full Tilt Poker parted ways. While a Full Tilt Poker spokesman still called him "one of the most respected names in poker", he was by no means that at that point in time. Dwan would later say he had a big issue with Full Tilt Poker and those not so warm feelings were mutual. While it never came out what the issue exactly was about, Amaya personnel didn't hide their surprise when he later showed up to the EPT Grand Final to play cash games. "How does he dare to show up here?" one employee was overheard saying, declining to address what had happened when asked.

Tom Dwan didn't show up to a photo shoot before heads-up matches between "The Professionals" and Team PokerStars in London in 2013.

Dwan still had an unfinished "Durrrr Challenge" with Dan "Jungleman12" Cates. The latter wasn't happy about things not moving ahead. Dwan, in the meantime, wasn't showing his face in public all that much after that.

Some poker fans started to get worried, especially since he was seen in Macau more and more. The digital railbirds started threads on message boards, hinting at the former top pro being in trouble with the American government, the Chinese Triads and more.

Those rumors were only fueled when Tom Dwan's name popped up when Paul Phua was arrested. He was one of the people besides Phil Ivey and Andrew Robl who put up bond money for the accused.

While Phua was acquitted of all charges and it turned out the link to the 14K Triad was anything but substantial, many railbirds kept linking Dwan to the Triads. Memes putting the former Team Full Tilt pro in moist dungeons hit the internet. Dwan was still tight to the Asian high rollers, as confirmed by Winfred Yu back in May 2015:

Tom Dwan's Twitter account died down, and Dwan's last comment on Two Plus Two with any substance was in a thread about him playing a huge game in Macau back in 2014. Every now and then, news did resurface of his whereabouts. People even spoke of a $20 million losing session.

While Tom Dwan still remains silent himself, some news came out this week, again by Winfred Yu, president of the Poker King Club. As action was underway in the Triton High Roller Series, Yu gave Asian poker website somuchpoker.com spoke out about Dwan:

"Tom has access to the big games because he is a very likable guy and he gives a lot of action. VIPs love his action. Ive read many stories about Tom being kidnapped or is part of the Triad, and people staking him, thats totally not true."

So, it appears Tom Dwan is doing fine. He does still look a bit bleak, though.

Last Week's Biggest Pots Online

Dwan might be doing fine, but he hasn't been seen online in years. Over on Full Tilt Poker (+$2,165,475), he was last seen in November of 2013 according to HighStakesDB.com. Over on Stars, his screenname "Holdem_NL" hasn't been spotted online in even longer and he doesn't have a profile anymore.

It's a different group of players roaming online these days. Here's this month's biggest three pots so far:

1) "WRUUUUM" Wins a $75,624-Pot (756 big blinds) versus "Ravenswood13"

($50/$100 NLHM HU)

click for replay

"WRUUUUM" raised the button to $340 only for "Ravenswood13" to three-bet to $1,060. WRUUUUM called to create a $2,200 pot and see a flop.

The flop came and Ravenswood13 check-called a bet of $1,438.33. With now $5,076.66 in the middle, the hit the turn and Ravenswood13 check-called $5,034.16.

The on the river paired the board and Ravenswood13 bet out $5,889.96 into the $15,144.98 pot. WRUUUUM shoved all in and Ravenswood13 called all in for $30,239,90.

WRUUUUM showed , winning the pot as Ravenswood13 mucked his .

2) Patrik "Fake Love888" Antonius Wins a $66,170-Pot (132 big blinds) versus Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky

($250/$500 NLHM HU - part of mix)

click for replay

Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky was first to act and raised to $1,000 from his button. Patrik "Fake Love888" Antonius, seated in the big blind, three-bet to $3,000 and Sulsky called to create a 6,000 pot.

The flop came and Antonius bet $3,000. Sulsky called. Both checked the on the turn and the completed the board. Antonius checked again and, with $12,000 in the middle, Sulsky pushed for $27,085. Antonius called with for rivered trips; Sulsky showed for the missed flush draw.

3) Alexandros "mexican222" Kolonias Wins a $63,156-Pot (316 big blinds) versus "prot0"

($250/$500 NLHM 6-max - part of mix)

click for replay

Action folded to Greek high roller Alexandros "mexican222" Kolonias and he raised to $400 from the button. In the small blind, "prot0" three-bet to $2,000 and the big blind folded. Kolonias called in position to see a flop in a $4,200 pot.

The flop came and "pro0" bet $2,307,25. Kolonias raised to $6,712 and "prot0" called to build the pot to $17,624.

The on the turn saw "prot0" check. Kolonias bet $5,814.27 and a call followed.

With the on the river and $29,252.54 in the middle, "prot0" pushed for effectively $16,951. Kolonias called all in with for flopped trips and rivered quads. "prot0" showed and left the pot to his neighbor.

Online High-Stakes Action This Month

2016 hasn't been kind so far to Viktor "Isildur1" Blom, but the last couple of weeks, he has recouped in an impressive manner. He topped the daily leaderboard many times, and so far this month, he's the biggest winner as well, with over $150,000:

(user)name hands profit/loss last week profit/loss 2016 profit/loss all time Winning Players 1 Viktor "Isildur1" Blom 3038 +$150,488 -$505,088 +$1,495,873 2 Alexandros "mexican222" Kolonias 704 +$73,407 -$41,692 +$133,001 3 terror777727 92 +$58,087 +$54,013 +$74,097 4 Dan "w00ki3z." Cates 1,507 +$42,131 -$12,064 +$1,252,090 5 Scarface.VLT 851 +$37,441 +$22,174 -$18,407 6 Grazvis1 485 +$36,773 +$212,883 +$217,941 7 VeGeTTo89 1214 +$32,603 +$231,307 +$287,919 8 Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky 2,095 +$30,917 +$787,621 +$4,824,823 9 Mariosy 770 +$25,806 +$21,689 +$21,689 10 Trocola7 66 +$16,678 +$35,699 +$34,928 Losing Players 1 bodamos 663 -$165,688 -$828,483 -$2,155,605 2 Patrik "Fake Love888" Antonius 2,111 -$153,044 +$290,634 -$1,293,502 3 Bill "GASTRADER" Perkins 99 -$82,622 -$56,693 -$283,705 4 Henrik "hhecklen" Hecklen 3,569 -$63,161 -$57,653 +$17,831 5 ltt1981 1,824 -$60,439 +$257,596 +$257,596 6 Dani "supernova9" Stern 626 -$51,710 -$108,483 -$542,943 7 Andrey "Kroko-dill" Zaichenko 510 -$38,635 -$105,498 -$316,925 8 Alex "Kanu7" Millar 116 -$38,425 -$635,521 +$2,625,070 9 ZarubaNT 103 -$32,110 -$72,033 -$72,033 10 Mark "AceSpades11" Radoja 576 -$23,534 +$66,008 +$85,172

The 2016 Leaderboard

Andres "Educa-p0ker" Artinano didn't play any hands of poker again, while Mikael "ChaoRen160" Thuritz won some to overtake the second spot on the podium of biggest winners in 2016. Top spot still goes to Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky, though he lost a bit in the first 10 days of November.

Blom leads the top three biggest losers, but dropped to the third spot after some winning weeks. While he was down over a million at one point, he's now down "only" $600,000 for the year. "bodamos" and Alex "Kanu7" Millar both lost this month and now make up the top two spots.

(user)name hands 2016 profit/loss 2016 profit/loss per hand 2016 profit/loss all time / most played game 2016 Winning players 1 Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky 78,920 +$787,621 +$9.97 +$4,824,823  8-game 2 Mikael "ChaoRen160" Thuritz 48,068 +$586,022 +$12.19 +$1,446,570  8-Game 3 Andres "Educa-p0ker" Artinano 29,380 +$561,403 +$19.10 +$982,391 - NLHM Losing players 1 "bodamos" 10,646 -$828,483 -$77.82 -$2,155,605  8-Game 2 Alex "Kanu7" Millar 28,694 -$635,521 -$22.14 +$2,625,070  NLHM 3 Viktor "Isildur1" Blom 178,222 -$599,003 -$3.36 +$1,401,957  8-game

The above top three biggest winners and losers in online poker for 2016 and the top 10 biggest winners and losers online for the last week only consist of PokerStars accounts that haven't opted out with HighStakesDB.com. *Photos by Neil Stoddart
Wai Kin Yong Wins Triton Super High Roller Series Main Event ($2,080,557)

November 10, 2016 Mo Nuwwarah Editor

Wai Kin Yong won one of the biggest first-place prizes of the year over the weekend when he took down the Triton Super High Roller Series HK$500,000 Main Event in Manila, Philippines. The buy-in is roughly $65,000 and Yong banked just under $2.1 million for the win.

Yong is the son of well-known high roller Richard Yong, who has nearly $6 million in cashes himself.

Official Final Table Results

Place Player Prize 1 Wai Kin Yong $2,080,557 2 Bryn Kenney $1,401,694 3 Sergio Aido $848,557 4 John Juanda $584,560 5 Winfred Yu $402,275 6 Peter Chan $301,712 7 Wai Chan $245,145 8 David Peters $213,709 9 Arnaud Romain $207,430

The tournament got 44 unique entries, with reentries and add-ons pushing the total prize pool to almost $6.3 million. According to the live updates, superstars such as Mustapha Kanit, Fedor Holz, Erik Seidel, Dan Cates and Tom Dwan made the trip to the Philippines but walked away empty-handed. After Pratyush Buddiga busted out on the bubble, the remaining nine players bagged for the final day with Yong in the lead.

French player Arnaud Romain, described as a high-stakes regular in the Macau games, came in with a hefty second-place stack but fell in ninth. He lost a flip to Wai Leong Chan and then ran ace-king into the kings of Sergio Aido for the last of it.

Aido picked up kings again in a monster hand shortly after that, mowing down Chan and 2016 bracelet winner David Peters, who had ace-queen and ace-six, respectively. That pot left the Spanish pro with over 100 big blinds with six players left.

Two short stacks went out next. First, Peter Chan shoved his remaining chips with jack-seven and got looked up by Bryn Kenney, who held ace-king and won. Then, Winfred Yu put his last seven big blinds in on a three-bet jam with against button raiser John Juanda, who had . Juanda flopped two pair on and dodged Yu's straight draw.

Aido then busted Juanda with jacks against , and a lengthy three-handed battle between Aido, Yong and Kenney ensued.

Yong moved back into the lead when he won a race with sevens against Aido's . Aido regained the lead, but then lost a big pot to Kenney where he opted to bet the flop, check the turn and call a river bet on a board of . Kenney mustered only queen-jack high but it was a winner. Aido then got his in on a flop against Yong's and bricked his draws for nearly all of his stack, busting third right after that.

Yong held a 2-1 lead going into heads-up play and Kenney had only a little over 30 big blinds. They were in the pot mere minutes later with , but Yong had a dominating . Yong's hand held up when neither player improved, so while the New Yorker added to more than $10 million in tournament cashes, it was Yong in the winner's circle for the big $2 million cash.
By: RTM Business Group

Blueprintcover

Contact

Kari More, Program Director

***@rtmbusinessgroup.com Kari More, Program Director

End

--, a leading organization fostering collaboration amongst school district administrators in the K-12 education space, has launched a series of presentations titledDistrict leaders participating in the ongoing RTM K-12 events have compiled their experience in this format to share their combined knowledge. Each Blueprint whitepaper is followed by an interactive presentation at an RTM event. Topics and titles are curated by the authors in conjunction with the RTM Advisory Board.The 2016 RTM Blueprint is dedicated to personalized learning, and is now available for download upon request.Following the Spring 2016 RTM Education & CIO Congress in February, the authors concluded that, above all other topics, personalized learning was a priority given the continuing district efforts to move towards new pedagogical models. Co-author Jeff McCoy (Interim Associate Superintendent for Academics, Greenville County Schools, SC) explained: "Today's educational environment requires us to think differently in order to meet the needs of our students. Preparing them to be innovative thinkers, creative problem solvers and high level collaborators is key to their future success in their chosen career! Personalized Learning changes the way teachers teach and how students learn. Working on this blueprint with some of the best minds in the country was a learning experience for me and a privilege."The document was released and the live session took place at the Fall 2016 RTM Education & CIO Congress in Orlando in October. It is titled "Personalized Learning  A Blueprint for Success." Co-authored byand, and produced by RTM Business Group, the 2016 Blueprint acknowledges that one plan does not fit all. In addition, it provides a checklist for practical and successful implementation."Personalized learning is THE key differentiator in transforming learning for all students. The RTM group has proven again to provide important thought leadership on topics that are most needed by school district leaders seeking to improve teaching and learning. I'm so proud to have been a part of this initiative that will prove to be a valuable resource for school districts everywhere,"said author Sheryl Abshire, Ph.D. (Chief Technology Officer, Calcasieu Parish Public Schools, LA).Future RTM Blueprint topics are currently being researched, and include security, professional development and academic achievement."I enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to collaborate with like-minded professionals in building this Blueprint. I trust that it will serve as a guide to those aspiring to further personalize the teaching and learning experience for students," added Scott Bailey (Chief Academic Officer, Washoe County School District, NV).Dr. Tim Clark (Educational Consultant and Strategist), stated: "Working on the RTM Blueprint for Personalized Learning provided a unique opportunity to collaborate with other leaders in education about effective practices and strategies for transforming instruction."Upcoming RTM events include the 2017 Spring Education ( http://www.rtmeducationcongress.com/ spring/ ) & CIO Congress ( http://www.rtmciocongress.com/ spring/ ) (March 5th - 7th) and the K-12 Innovation Forum (http://www.k12innovationforum.com/)& School Planning Congress (http://www.spfcongress.com/)(May 7th -9th). Participants at these events will have the ability to contribute ideas for the development of future collaborative projects. The attending district leaders can now access whitepapers, case studies and other professional development resources through the RTM Blueprint library. Panelists at the RTM Education events are asked to share the steps they have taken in implementing successful solutions to help their peers tackle similar challenges.Past Keynotes have included Steve Wozniak, Ted Dintersmith, Sir Ken Robinson, Dr. Yong Zhao and Ron Clark.Sheryl Abshire, Ph.D. - Chief Technology Officer, Calcasieu Parish Public Schools (LA):As the Chief Technology Officer for the Calcasieu Parish Public Schools for nineteen years, Dr. Abshire is a catalyst to initiate the integration of technology throughout the nation and internationally by providing leadership on numerous national, state and district committees focusing on the role of technology and curriculum in changing educational practice. Dr. Abshire is the past president of the Louisiana ISTE affiliate  LACUE where she presently serves as the Vice President of Advocacy and Programs. She was the first teacher inducted into our country's National Teachers' Hall of Fame and serves on the board and is past chair of Consortium for School Networking (CoSN).Scott Bailey - Chief Academic Officer, Washoe County School District (NV): With approximately 65,000 students, the Washoe County School District is the second largest school district in Nevada. Scott's leadership experience in the WCSD also includes service as a school principal and a district performance director. As a member of the Superintendent's Leadership Team, Scott oversees multiple initiatives within the District's strategic plan. Under the strategic plan, the WCSD has made tremendous progress in student achievement, including the realization of record-setting graduation rates. In 2005, Scott earned the distinction of Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce Educator of the Year. In addition to numerous recognitions for excellence in educational service over the years, Scott was appointed to the Baldrige Board of Examiners by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce in 2010.Tim Clark, Ed.D. - Educational Consultant and Strategist:In this role, Dr. Clark provides guidance to districts in strategic planning & professional development for integrating technology and designing digital curriculum. He has been an educator for over 25 years and has taught all grade levels, ESL & gifted learners, and most recently served as Coordinator of Instructional Technology for Forsyth County Schools, GA. He is the author of the BYOTNetwork blog. He has been featured in NBC News, EdTech Magazine & many other news outlets. Throughout his career, he has been a vocal advocate for the use of instructional technology and digital content to increase achievement & motivation, encourage collaboration, facilitate critical thinking and construct innovative learning environments.Jeff McCoy - Interim Associate Superintendent of Academics, Greenville County Schools (SC): Jeff McCoy is currently serving as the Interim Associate Superintendent of Academics for Greenville County Schools in South Carolina. Greenville County Schools is the largest district in South Carolina and 45th largest in the nation with over 76,000 students. Jeff started his career in Greenville County Schools as a middle school teacher in 2000 and has held various district leadership positions throughout his sixteen year career. He is currently an adjunct professor at Furman University and serves on multiple state and national committees.Kerry Padrick - Chief Communications Officer, St. Lucie Public Schools (FL): As the Chief Communications Officer for St. Lucie Public Schools, her responsibilities entail internal as well as external streams of two-way communication and engagement. Her recent support of quality teaching and learning via district-wide implementation of the new standards and of the migration into the digital realm of accessing content provides context to springboard new information. She works in collaboration with others and seeks input to refine communication, pursue partnerships, and support customer service. By placing high value on working in such a manner, she and her team have experienced success in telling the school district's story, marketing, and re-branding the educational organization to highlight the accomplishments of students and educators alike. Mrs. Padrick recognizes that she can accomplish far more through collaboration than through solo operations.ContactSenior Event Operations Manager(646) 927 1794briana@rtmbusinessgroup.com
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-- Almost all experts agree that perception is one of the biggest factors in determining if a business ultimately succeeds or fails. Simply put, consumers or clients are less likely to trust a new company that doesn't project a professional image at least comparable to or better than that of the larger, more established brands. For small businesses and startups, however, creating such an image can be a difficult, costly process. Fortunately, TDT Printing in Anchorage, Alaska is helping area businesses by offering professional, customized print jobs that allow for them to not only develop a sleek, corporate image but to also increase brand awareness among prospective customers.Consumer perception is molded through the use of effective advertising and marketing. Branding is perhaps the most important part of this process. At TDT, a wide range of products are offered for businesses to utilize in creating their own unique images. In fact, TDT Printing is a full service shop, offering not only the standard selection of T-shirts, decals, signage and more, but also custom graphic design work for creating beautiful websites, vehicle graphics, and storefront designs. They're more than happy to work with businesses who have requirements beyond basic print work and instead need customized service to better forge brand identity.While the use of templates is quite common within the print industry, these do not effectively allow for businesses to differentiate themselves from the competition. Also, branding is more effectively accomplished when it is creative, unique, and consistent. The true value of having a professional printing shop such as TDT Printing at one's disposal is that the services offered allow for businesses to more easily establish a distinct brand that can then be used effectively to create and sustain consumer interest in the company's products or services.What would many of the major companies be without their iconic brands? Fortunately, small businesses and startups alike don't need millions of dollars available in order to take advantage of branding. All that is required is the services of energetic, imaginative, and driven graphic artists who are willing to use their creative talents for the benefit of these companies. At TDT, you get that level of service and more. Clients can rely on their professional services to better build customer awareness through colorful, eye-catching designs and high quality printing that are guaranteed to convert leads into clients, visitors into customers, or garner the attention of passersby. For more information about what TDT Printing can do for your business, visit their website today at http://www.tdtprinting.com
Unexpected Prisoner set for official release on Veterans Day, 11/11/16

By: Robert Wideman, author

1 2 UNEXPECTED PRISONER: Memoir of a Vietnam POW by Robert Wideman Robert Wideman, author of UNEXPECTED PRISONER: Memoir of a Vietnam POW

End

--by Robert Wideman will be available where fine books are sold on Veterans Day. November 11, 2016.Whenopens, it's May 6, 1967 and 23-year-old Lieutenant Robert Wideman is flying a Navy A-4 Skyhawk over Vietnam. At 23, Wideman had already served three and a half years in the Navyand was only 27 combat days away from heading home to America. But on that cloudless day in May, on a routine bombing run, Wideman's plane crashed and he fell into enemy hands. Captured and held for six years as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam, Wideman endured the kind of pain that makes people question humanity. Physical torture, however, was not the biggest challenge he was forced to withstand. In his candid memoir,Wideman details the raw, unvarnished tale of how he came to understand the truth behind Jean-Paul Sartre's words: "Hell is other people."A gripping, first-person account that chronicles the six-year period Wideman spent in captivity as a POW,plunges readers deep into the heart of one of the most protracted, deadliest conflicts in American history: the Vietnam War. Wideman, along with acclaimed memoirist Cara Lopez Lee, has crafted a story that is exquisitely engaging, richly detailed, and wholly captivating. Unexpectedly candid and vibrantly vivid, this moving memoir chronicles a POW's struggle with enemies and comrades, Vietnamese interrogators and American commanders, lost dreams, and ultimately, himself.With its eye-opening look at a soldier's life before, during and after captivity,presents a uniquely human perspective on war and on conflicts both external and internal.An exceptional story exceptionally well-told,is a powerful, poignant, often provocative tale about struggle, survival, hope, and redemption.has garnered high advance praise:"(A) remarkable book" , author ofand 1Army Vietnam Veteran"An eye-opener.is a must-read." ., Vietnam War Veteran"Unless you were there, you will never truly understand what it was like being a POW in Vietnam. Robert Wideman and his remarkable book do an incredible job of putting you there." , Author ofRobert Wideman was born in Montreal, grew up in East Aurora, New York, and has dual U.S./Canadian citizenship. During the Vietnam War, he flew 134 missions for the U.S. Navy and spent six years as a prisoner of war. Wideman earned a master's degree in finance from the Naval Postgraduate School. After retiring from the Navy, he graduated from the University of Florida College of Law, practiced law in Florida and Mississippi, and became a flight instructor. Robert Wideman holds a commercial pilot's license with an instrument rating, belongs to Veterans Plaza of Northern Colorado, and lives in Ft. Collins near his two sons and six grandchildren.is published in trade paper (ISBN: 978-0997364606, 374 pages, $15.95) and eBook editions ($4.95)
Crosslane Fund Managers, part of the Crosslane Group, has advised the St Regent Fund (part of the Coral Student Portfolio) on the sale of its 48-bed purpose-built student accommodation property, Cambridge House, Manchester, to Cambridge Street Holdings Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of National Bank of Kuwait S.A.K., for 4.3

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Penta Investments has sold the Florentinum office building, its first development completed in the Czech Republic, to Chinese investment group CEFC. Florentinum is a LEED platinum certified property delivered in 2014 and home to 70 long-term tenants, many of them blue chip companies such as EY, HSBC Bank, Bank of

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UBM Development AG has taken another step towards optimising its standing portfolio. The sale of Doppio Offices to Union Investment has been finalised and the property handed over.The sales proceeds from the property total  19.5 mn. With the handover of Doppio Offices to Union Investment, we have succeeded in

Photos: Anna Blau



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The first predications of coastal sea level with warming of two degrees by 2040 show an average rate of increase three times higher than the 20th century rate of sea level rise. These predictions have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America (PNAS) by National Oceanography Centre (NOC) scientists.

According to this research, by 2040 with 2 degrees centigrade warming, more than 90% of coastal areas will experience sea level rise exceeding the global estimate of 20cm, with up to 40cm expected along the Atlantic coast of North America and Norway due to ocean dynamics. Furthermore, the impact of this sea level rise will be more pronounced in locations, such as Jakarta, where there is subsidence of the land.

Dr Svetlana Jevrejeva from the NOC, who is the lead author on this paper, said "Coastal cities and vulnerable tropical coastal ecosystems will have very little time to adapt to the fast sea level rise these predictions show, in scenarios with global warming above two degree.

A worst case scenario considered involving 5 degrees warming shows that up to 80% of global coastlines could experience changes in sea level of over 1.8 meters by the end of 21st century. This might never happen, but could not be ruled out due to large uncertainties in the contribution of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets in these sea level rise predications. As a result, millions of people living by the coast could be displaced and the beaches that attract tourists could be destroyed, particularly in low lying coastal cities in South East Asia and in the USA, such as Miami."

Professor Ed Hill, Executive Director of the National Oceanography Centre commented, "We trust that these findings will help inform coastal sea level adaptation and mitigation strategies. Work of this type forms part of the NOC's ongoing commitment to providing the best possible information to decision makers based on rigorous scientific analysis."

The research is part of the EU funded RISES-AM project, which looks at the impact of sea level rise from a physical, economic and social perspective. The study was carried out by team with experts from Denmark, the Netherlands, China and the UK.
A new paper published in FEMS Microbiology Letters, resulting from an investigation of a laundry facility that services several Seattle-area hospitals, suggests that soiled clinical linens may be a source of surface Clostridium difficile contamination.

C. difficile is a hospital and community acquired pathogen. C. difficile are spore-forming anaerobic bacteria that have been identified in 2-3% of healthy, non-hospitalized adults and in 10-25% of hospitalized adults. Toxin-producing C. difficile is the most common cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea. It is estimated that 25% of all C. difficile infections occur from exposures in the community that may stem from potential sources including water, soil, livestock, meats, vegetables and pets. There is evidence that C. difficile infections are seasonal and are correlated with 151 respiratory illnesses in the winter, due to antibiotic use.

The study determined if C. difficile could be cultured from clinical laundry facility surfaces. A total of 240 surface samples were collected from dirty areas, which handle soiled clinical linens, and from clean areas, which process and fold the clean linens, within the University of Washington Consolidated Laundry facility in 2015.

All samples were collected at a laundry facility in Seattle, WA. This facility processes linens from six Seattle area hospitals, 30 local outpatient clinics and the Washington National Primate Research Center. Each week about 300,000 lbs. of laundry are processed. The facility is separated into two floors with the majority of the soiled linen handled on the 2nd floor and the clean linen handled exclusively on the 1st floor.

The dirty area surface sample sites included the receiving area, the primary sort area, the secondary sort area, and the customer owned goods area for a total of 30 samples at each visit. The clean area sampling sites included washers, the folding area, the processing area and the break area. Thirty samples per sampling time with 120 samples total were collected each from the dirty and clean areas.

All of the samples that tested positive were in areas where dirty linens are handled; no C. difficile contamination was found in areas where only clean laundry was handled. Of the samples taken from surfaces in the dirty side of the laundry facility, 23% (25/120 samples) tested positive for C. difficile. Only 2% (2/120 samples) of sampled surfaces from the clean side were positive for C. difficile. The two surfaces that were positive for C. difficile both came from a small area where soiled linen is handled in small batches. While the area is distinct from where clean linen is dried, ironed, and folded, it is on the same floor as the clean side. This indicates that the dirty linens were the likely source of the environmental contamination in the laundry.

According to researchers, their data may be an underestimation of true prevalence and diversity of C. difficile on surfaces. The study is limited by the inherently poor recovery of microbes from environmental surfaces, difficulty in culturing C. difficile spores, differences in recommended incubation times and media used.

"This research supports the idea that its possible for the soiled hospital linens to contaminate the environment with C. difficile, which is the number one cause of hospital associated diarrhea," said study author Marilyn Roberts, PhD. "It's also extremely hard to remove from the environment. Due to this contamination, laundry facilities should be considered an extension of the healthcare environment when considering infection prevention and occupational health."
A group of European chemists including Prof. Joost Reek of the University of Amsterdam's research priority area Sustainable Chemistry has recently published a whitepaper on Solar-Driven Chemistry. They show that it is possible, and even necessary for a sustainable future, to drive chemical reactions using solar energy.

In an overview of less than twenty pages the chemists identify the opportunities and challenges of this visionary concept that could in the long run replace fossil fuels as the main source of fuels, chemicals and materials.

The whitepaper results from presentations at a brainstorming workshop on Solar-driven Chemistry in Berlin organized by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the European Association of Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS). Prof. Joost Reek of the Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences was among the international experts participating in this workshop.

Professor Reek is a leading researcher in the field of solar-driven chemistry, which was underlined earlier this year by the publication in Science Advances on a bio-inspired enzyme-mimicking catalyst for hydrogen production. More recently he acted as a guest editor of a special ChemPlusChem edition on Catalytic Systems for Water Splitting. He is the coordinator of the University of Amsterdam's Research Priority Area Sustainable Chemistry and headed the artificial photosynthesis research theme of the Dutch national research initiative BioSolarCells.

According to professor Reek, the EuCheMS whitepaper identifies the much needed scientific breakthroughs that are crucial for making Solar-Driven chemistry a future reality. "It reflects the findings of our Sustainable Chemistry research at UvA where we combine the efforts of dozens of researchers in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, molecular photonics and theoretical chemistry. We do make progress on both fundamental and technological levels, but much more effort is needed to establish a really meaningful European solar-driven chemical community in research as well as industry." Reek expects the whitepaper will enable EuCheMS to raise awareness with EU policymakers which will hopefully result in the allocation of future research funds.

Novel molecules

As an illustration of the relevance of research in this field Reek mentions the recent licensing of a patent on novel molecules for solar-driven hydrogen generation to the French company PorphyChem. Another example is a new project for developing a so-called molecular dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical cell (DSPEC) capable of reducing CO2 to methanol (or formic acid or even alkanes). The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO has funded the research under Reek's supervision with half a million euros. It is being conducted in cooperation with the German chemicals company Merck and the Dutch research institutes ECN and FOM-AMOLF.

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The latter two have teamed up with UvA and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Solardam consortium to harvest energy from the sun by generating electricity and fuel through combinations of photovoltaics, photocatalysis and photosynthesis. As professor Van Reek points out, this is an illustration of the multidisciplinary effort that is essential in the field of solar-driven chemistry.

Huge benefits

The EuCheMS whitepaper asserts that driving chemical reactions by the energy from the sun is crucial in order to guarantee the welfare of future generations.

Solar-Driven Chemistry entails a long-term innovative scientific and technological endeavour but it will enable the progressive substitution of fossil fuels. It will also have a large impact on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, with huge environmental, societal and economic benefits.

According to the whitepaper solar-driven chemistry can increase the competitiveness and sustainability of the European industrial system. It can create knowledge-driven competitiveness for Europe's industrial production, while preserving jobs and the environment.

However, it does require strong, concerted and unconventional support for basic and applied research. The whitepaper calls for a large, integrated and synergic approach encompassing catalysis, electrochemistry, photochemistry, and nanosciences, in concert with semiconductor physics, engineering, biosciences and social sciences.
Fake reviews do nothing for the confidence of customers buying products and services online, they also damage company reputations and can lead to ill feeling about the online marketplace itself.

Now, researchers in China have devised an algorithm to help weed out fake reviews on ecommerce sites. They publish details this month in the International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics.

Song Deng of the Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, China, explains how our shopping habits have changed and more and more people are buying products and services online. One of the mainstays of the modern sales website are customer reviews and there are even complete sites that offer consumers a place to discuss their experiences with a given product.

Over the years, there have been several scandals regarding large numbers of fake reviews on major online marketplaces and sites offering travel advice and holiday packages. There is an urgent need to develop a robust algorithm that can detect the fakers and remove their hyperbole and give consumers a truer picture of whether a given product is an five-star or a no-star item. In other words, we need an automatic lawnmower to cut down the "astroturfing," the artificial grass-roots marketing of products.

Deng's method recognises deceptive reviews based on how the posters has behaved previously and the content of their earlier reviews. First, it builds a recognition model that can spot fake reviewers, ghostwriters and paid members of the "so-called "water army" based on the number of reviews, frequency and length. It then looks at content features, such as review length, the degree of professionalism, the emotional density, the format and any obvious biases. Finally, the algorithm applies an unsupervised clustering algorithm based on F statistics and a feature degree.

When combined, these techniques outshine earlier detection algorithms for reviews of cars, smart phones and computers. Fundamentally, the system combines the advantages of behavior feature and content feature recognition to improve accuracy.
Bacterial pathogens pose serious health risks, especially for infants, young children, elderly and those with compromised immune systems. The evolution of drug-resistant bacteria is particularly concerning in the fight against disease. A research team in Canada is exploring a new platform for detecting pathogenic bacteria using bacteriophages, viruses that use bacteria as their host.

During the AVS 63rd International Symposium and Exhibition being held November 6-11, 2016, in Nashville, Tennessee, Stephane Evoy, an applied physicist from the University of Alberta, will explain how the team recognized the limited reliability of antibodies in providing bacteria detection with specificity. Instead they used phage-derived proteins, proteins developed from the bacteria-invading viruses, for detection of pathogenic bacteria to address this deficiency. This work has implications not only in disease diagnosis, but also in food and water safety.

"The high specificity of phages offers a potent alternative for the targeting of pathogens," Evoy said. "More specifically, recombinant phage-receptor-binding proteins (RBPs) responsible for phage-host specificity can be used as biological probes and present numerous advantages over the use of a whole phage."

The study used skim cow milk spiked with different phages or combinations of phages, such as mycobacteria (MAP) and Escherichia coli cells, and a unique process to capture the DNA after incubation. The entire process took less than 24 hours and resulted in significantly better sensitivity of detecting targeted DNA.

"The use of phage-derived proteins in such a manner was quite unique when we started that work back in 2005, but since then the approach thrived, and multinational companies integrated this into their product line," Envoy said. "However, there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of applying the technology to diseases such as tuberculosis and staphylococcus infections."

In addition to demonstrating this capture technique, the research team designed and developed a sophisticated bacteria detector comprised of an array of microresonators, able to enumerate bacteria over a large area and detect the attachment of a single cell anywhere on the array. The devices were prepared with their phage proteins, adding this high specificity of detection to the spatial precision offered by the array design.

"We are looking forward to adapting this technology for the rapid diagnosis of drug-resistant bacteria," Evoy said. "It could go a long way toward make microbial testing methods both more rapid and affordable."
A molecule thought to play a key role in some inflammatory diseases can be switched off by two widely used medicines, new research has shown.

Scientists at the Universities of Bradford and Glasgow (UK) have identified a new biochemical pathway that can be controlled using metformin -- a medicine used by diabetics to control blood sugar levels -- and salicylate -- the main ingredient in aspirin.

The researchers now hope to conduct further studies and eventually clinical trails with the drugs, which are already prescribed to millions of patients around the world, for a range of inflammatory disorders.

Professor Tim Palmer, a pharmacologist at the University of Bradford who led the research, said: "While our studies are at a very early stage, we've identified a new biochemical process that suggests certain anti-diabetic drugs could potentially be repurposed to treat diseases caused by activated Janus kinase proteins."

Janus kinase (JAK) proteins -- named after the ancient Roman two-faced god -- are involved in controlling inflammation in certain tissues. They act like gatekeepers at the surface of cells, reacting to signals released by the immune system and transmitting these messages inside the cell.

These Janus kinase proteins, however, can also carry mutations that make them faulty so they are permanently turned on and become overactive. A fault like this in Janus kinase 1 (JAK1) has been found to occur in several diseases.

Professor Palmer and his colleagues have found another protein, known as AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), is able to turn JAK1 off -- even when it is faulty.

According to their findings, published in the journal Science Signaling, it does this by chemically altering two key amino acids in the JAK1 protein in a process called phosphorylation. They also showed metformin and salicylate can activate AMPK so it turns off JAK1 in this way.

Professor Palmer said: "We found this AMPK pathway is able to profoundly inhibit JAK signalling and it seems to work in a way that other drugs that target the JAK proteins do not."

The researchers believe this approach could also be used to turn off other Janus kinase proteins, which are known to be overactive in other diseases.

Co-author Dr Ian Salt, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow, added: "Although it is still early in our work, our findings suggest we can design future therapies for those disorders that target this pathway. Indeed, as AMPK is known to be stimulated by a number of existing anti-diabetic drugs, these should be investigated as potential drugs to treat those disorders."
Up to now, the speed record for horizontal flight was held by birds from the swift family: the common swift, for example, can reach speeds of over 100 kilometers per hour. Together with colleagues from the USA, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell have now discovered a new front-runner among the acrobats of the air. However, the animal involved here is not a bird but a bat: the Brazilian free-tailed bat shoots through the night skies at over 160 kilometers per hour. Their aerodynamic body shape and longer than average wings compared to other bat species enable them to reach such vast speeds.

Birds are still a model for aviation engineers today and remain unequaled when it comes to flight characteristics. While birds can take off at comparatively low speeds, even the most modern aircraft must reach a speed of around 300 kilometers per hour to be able to lift off. The main contributing factors here are the animals' aerodynamic, projectile-like body shape and their low weight due to special bones. Moreover, the narrow wings found in faster-flying species also enable greater lift relative to the aerodynamic force invested.

Swifts, like the common swift (Apus apus), which can reach speeds of 110 kilometers per hour, are considered the fastest birds in the world at horizontal flight. Peregrine falcons can even reach speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour when diving. In contrast, due to their wing structure, bats generate greater resistance, and are generally considered slower flyers.

Animals with long and narrow wings usually fly faster than those with shorter and wider ones. For this reason, the scientists selected the Brazilian free-flying bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) for their study. Even the experts themselves were surprised by their results: "Initially, we could hardly believe our data, but they were correct: at times, the female bats, which weigh between 11 and 12 grams, flew at speeds of over 160 kilometers per hour -- a new record for horizontal flight," says Kamran Safi from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology.

The data on the bats' flying speeds were collected using a radio transmitter weighing just half a gram and attached to the their backs using an adhesive and fell off after two to five days. Its regular beeping signal was localized using a mobile receiver installed on a small aircraft. "It was not easy for the pilot to follow the fast-flying animals so that we could localize them accurately and measure their flight path continuously," explains Dina Dechmann. The scientists also evaluated the data recorded by the closest weather station and noted the wind conditions at the time of the studied flights. "External factors like landscape and tailwinds cannot explain these results, as they had no impact on the maximum speeds," says Dechmann.
Climate-related catastrophes are expensive, whether they come on suddenly, like the thousand-year flood in Louisiana in August 2016, or move slowly and inexorably, like desertification in Turkey. A new paper by researchers at Brown University's Climate and Development Lab outlines financial instruments that could help countries pay for the irreversible losses climate change can cause, such as loss of life, species or land due to rising seas, and damages like the destruction of infrastructure and property by hurricanes and floods.

The study, "Financing options for loss and damage: a review and roadmap," aims to advance the discussion of loss and damage under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and appears just as the 2015 Paris Agreement goes into effect and the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP22) gets underway in Marrakesh from November 7 to 18.

Finding ways to deliver financial assistance to communities that face damages or losses is necessary, the researchers wrote, because of the growing certainty that global efforts are insufficient to prevent significant climate-related damage.

"The basic formula in dealing with climate change is that it is best to sharply reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases," said study coauthor J. Timmons Roberts, Ittleson Professor of Environmental Studies and professor of sociology at Brown. "As a second line of defense, we can attempt to adapt to the impacts that come when we don't mitigate emissions quickly enough. Emissions reductions have come too slowly, and now some impacts cannot be adapted to. That's called 'loss and damage,' a reference to the common legal idea."

That term, however, "has not been officially defined under the UNFCCC," said Victoria Hoffmeister, a Brown undergraduate and paper coauthor, "and it remains unclear which specific mechanisms will be used to raise financial support for loss and damage."

To remedy that lack of clarity, Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, asked Brown's Climate and Development Lab (CDL) to look into ways to pay for loss and damage.

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Hoffmeister, Huq and Roberts and a team of researchers presented a draft of the study at a workshop held at the German Development Institute (DIE) in Germany during the UNFCCC's negotiations in May 2016. Experts from around the world participated in the workshop, Roberts said, and provided feedback that was incorporated to the final version of the paper, now available via DIE for use at COP22.

Means of paying for climate-related loss and damage

A key component of the Paris Agreement, a global climate change accord ratified by 97 parties in 2016, requires the enhancement of "understanding, action and support" for loss and damage associated with climate change. At particular risk are the "least developed countries," underdeveloped nations where more than 75 percent of the population lives in poverty, and small island developing states. Broadly, the financing mechanisms are intended to raise money from large nations that have historically emitted the most greenhouse gases to the poor and vulnerable, Hoffmeister said.

It is challenging to apply traditional financial tools to climate change loss and damage, the authors wrote in the study, because they do not adequately address slow-onset events like sea-level rise, non-economic loss and damage or high-frequency events, such as repeated highly destructive hurricanes.

The researchers looked at financial instruments suggested by the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts Executive Committee (WIM ExCom). They also considered innovative financial instruments, like levies on air travel and bunker fuels, and assessed the potential effectiveness of each.

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The WIM ExCom's suggestions included catastrophe risk insurance, coverage for individuals and communities for low-probability, high-cost disasters. The insurance could be effective, the CDL researchers found, if contracts covered a large enough geographical area and incentivized risk-reduction activities.

The drawback, they noted, is that some countries might not be able to generate or afford the high-quality catastrophe risk models that would underpin the insurance. Founding catastrophe risk insurance instruments in Asia, where none currently exist, they wrote "has huge potential to energize the global climate risk insurance market."

Contingency finance, which involves setting aside funds for specified uses during emergencies, could enable quick responses after catastrophes, but posed tough planning challenges and limited flexibility, because it is difficult to predict how much money should be set aside and for which specific uses.

Two types of debt securities, climate-themed bonds and catastrophe bonds, earned mixed reviews. Climate-themed bonds, the authors wrote, are better suited to mitigation projects like wind or solar farms than to loss and damage funding, because bonds are typically sold to raise funds for projects that turn profits. On the other hand, catastrophe bonds protect the issuer from impacts of disasters, the researchers wrote, and investors might be attracted to them because they would allow diversification of risk.

Other tools

The CDL researchers considered three promising sources of funding pertaining to air travel and three broader-based taxes.

The international airline passenger levy would impose a modest fee to those traveling internationally. As originally proposed, its revenues would be paid directly into the Adaption Fund of the UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol, but these could instead be channeled into a specific "loss and damage fund," Hoffmeister said.

The solidarity levy, currently used by nine countries, is a fee on passengers departing from a single country, the authors wrote. The levy can earn substantial revenues and preserve national sovereignty because it does not require universal adoption, and countries can adjust their participation as economic conditions change.

A bunker fuels levy applies to both air and maritime transport. Airplane and ship fuels are not currently taxed, the authors wrote, but emissions from international aviation and maritime transport increased by 70 percent between 1990 and 2010, account for 3 to 4 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions and are projected to increase six-fold. A levy on these fuels "would exploit a tax base not naturally belonging to national governments," the authors wrote.

Beyond transportation-related levies, possible funding mechanisms include the financial transaction tax, a small levy placed on monetary transactions or trades of financial instruments. While these can generate substantial revenues, a downside, the authors note, is that some countries may be unwilling or logistically unprepared to administer them.

A fossil fuel majors carbon levy is a global fossil fuel extraction tax that would be imposed on large oil, coal and gas producers. The authors pointed to the 2013 Carbon Majors Study, "which found that just 90 companies were responsible for 63 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions." The levy would impose taxes on these and other large fossil fuel extractors on a global scale.

Finally, the authors considered a global carbon tax, a worldwide system of carbon pricing in the form of either a tax or auction revenues generated from a cap and trade system, in which a "cap," or upper limit, is set on the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions allowed by a system like a group of companies. If one company emits less than their share of that total amount, another company can buy the right to emit that amount of gases, going over their pre-set share but keeping the total system emissions within the limit. This tax would be levied on the carbon content of fossil fuels, rather than on energy content.

While the difficulty of this approach is that it would require worldwide consent and the cost of enforcement would be significant, the authors wrote, it is not a new or untested concept, and it could be "applied to financing loss and damage while simultaneously promoting substitution of cleaner energy sources."

See more at: https://www.die-gdi.de/en/discussion-paper/article/financing-options-for-loss-and-damage-a-review-and-roadmap/
On Nov. 25, 1901, a 51-year-old woman is admitted to a hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, displaying a bizarre constellation of symptoms. Her behavior is erratic. She shows signs of paranoia as well as auditory hallucinations, disorientation and severe memory impairment. Asked to write her own name, she manages "Mrs.," then lingers over the page, unable to remember the rest. "I have lost myself," she tells the attending physician.

Over time, she will withdraw into her own inscrutable universe, before dying on April 9, 1906.

The tragic case of Auguste Deter might have vanished into the recesses of medical history, but for the following fact: Her doctor, Alois Alzheimer, made a thorough examination of her medical condition, including her excised brain, discovering the telltale amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles characteristic of her illness. Auguste Deter was the first person diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Today, society faces an epidemic of Alzheimer's, with some 5 million afflicted in the U.S. alone. The number is projected to swell to 14 million by midcentury, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the top 10 leading fatal illnesses, Alzheimer's remains the only one that cannot be prevented, treated or cured.

In new research appearing in the journal Alzheimer's and Dementia, Diego Mastroeni, Paul Coleman and their colleagues at the ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center (NDRC) and the Biodesign Center for Bioenergetics investigate the role of mitochondria in Alzheimer's disease pathology. Mitochondria act as energy centers for cells and are of central importance in health and disease.

The study builds on earlier work suggesting gene mutations affecting mitochondrial function may be critical in the development -- and pitiless progression -- of the disease.

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"Age-related neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's, progress over a long period of time before they become clinically apparent. The earliest physiological and molecular events are largely unknown," said Mastroeni. "Findings from our laboratory have uncovered early expression changes in nuclear-encoded, but not mitochondrial-encoded mRNAs occurring in one's early 30s, giving us a glimpse into what we suspect are some of the earliest cellular changes in the progression of Alzheimer's disease."

Results of the new study show that specific classes of genes associated with mitochondrial cell respiration display reduced expression levels in patients with Alzheimer's disease, compared with normal patients.

The study also examines gene expression in subjects whose brains show an intermediate level of illness known as mild cognitive impairment. Here, the opposite effect is observed, with relevant genes exhibiting increased levels of expression. The authors suggest this observation may point to some kind of compensatory mechanism in the brain attempting to stave off the disease in its earlier stages.

Further, the study proposes that restoring a specific set of damaged genes linked to mitochondrial function and located in the nuclear DNA of cells may offer a promising strategy for halting the disease's advance.

Assault on identity

Alzheimer's -- the most common form of dementia -- is a progressive, degenerative disease of the brain. While commonly associated with elderly individuals, this devastating illness is now believed to have its origins much earlier, infiltrating the nervous system decades before the onset of clinical symptoms. Indeed, the greatest obstacle to successful treatment of Alzheimer's is the fact that the disease is typically not recognized until its progress has irreparably ravaged the brain.

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The disease often begins with mild memory loss, which may interfere with normal conversation. While advancing age remains the leading risk factor for Alzheimer's, some individuals are also genetically predisposed. Other risk factors include high cholesterol, heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure. Today, Alzheimer's is the fifth-leading cause of death in adults 65-85 years old.

Despite the increasingly pronounced effects of dementia, a definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease usually requires the post-mortem examination of brain tissue and identification of two stereotypic symptoms, known as plaques and tangles. More recently, new imaging technology has enabled researchers to detect these symptoms in living brains, though Coleman is cautious about their interpretation:

"Although plaques and tangles remain as the definitive neuropathological hallmark of the disease, plaques do not correlate at all with degree of cognitive impairment in [Alzheimer's] and tangles correlate only slightly," he said. "We further know that plaques and tangles are late comers in the cascade of events that cause the dementia of [Alzheimer's]."

Alzheimer's is believed to account for 60-70 percent of dementia cases. As the disease progresses, symptoms become more severe, including erosion of language ability, physical disorientation and behavioral transformations, often involving the withdrawal from family and society. Over time, bodily functions are lost, ultimately leading to death. Life expectancy for Alzheimer's patients varies, but three to nine years following diagnosis is typical.

Quick energy

Mitochondria -- membrane-bound organelles found in all eukaryotic organisms -- are often called the powerhouses of the cell. Through a process known as oxidative phosphorylation, they produce most of the cell's chemical energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate or ATP.

In addition to supplying cellular energy, mitochondria are involved in cell signaling, cellular differentiation and cell death, as well as in cellular growth and the maintenance of the cell cycle.

Because mitochondria play such an important role in the cell, mitochondrial dysfunction has been implicated in a broad range of illness, including cardiovascular disease, autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, stroke, Lou Gehrig's disease and diabetes along with forms of dementia including Alzheimer's.

Unsurprisingly, defects in mitochondrial function more severely affect energy-hungry organ systems in the body, particularly muscles, the GI tract and the brain -- an organ making up just 2 percent of a person's weight while consuming 20 percent of the body's total energy budget.

Mitochondria are unique among the cell's organelles, as they possess their own DNA, distinct from the DNA contained within the cell's nucleus. This strange state of affairs is due to mitochondrial evolution. Mitochondria are descended from free-living bacteria that colonized other cells some 2 billion years ago. After being incorporated into nucleated cells, these endosymbionts, as they are known, lost much of their original machinery, yet retained their own complement of DNA.

In addition to the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in disease, the gradual degradation of mitochondrial integrity is believed to play a central role in the normal process of aging.

Broken genes

The current study examines tissue from the hippocampus, a structure critical for memory and one severely impacted by the advance of Alzheimer's. Using microarray technology, the authors examined hippocampal tissue from an aging cohort-44 normal brains from 29-99 years of age, 10 with mild cognitive impairment and 18 with Alzheimer's disease.

Gene expression was examined for two sets of genes, 1 encoding mitochondrial DNA and the other, in the nuclear DNA. The two sets of genes both coded for proteins associated with a mitochondrial complex essential for oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), producing energy in the form of ATP for the cell.

Intriguingly, while the mitochondrial genes themselves were largely unaffected, the nuclear genes associated with the OXPHOS complex underwent significant modification, depending on the tissues examined. The microarray data revealed substantial down-regulation of nuclear-encoded OXPHOS genes in Alzheimer's tissue, a finding also found in normally aging brains.

The same genes, however, were up-regulated in the case of mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to Alzheimer's disease. The authors suggest this effect may be due to a compensatory mechanism in the brain in response to early pathology.

The findings are consistent with earlier work establishing that accumulations of amyloid beta (A) in neurons, a hallmark of Alzheimer's, are directly implicated in mitochondrial dysfunction. The pronounced effect on nuclear-encoded but not mitochondrial-encoded OXPHOS genes may point to dysfunctions in the transport of molecules from the cell nucleus to the mitochondria.

"Our work on mitochondria offers the promise of a reliable marker appearing earlier in the course of the disease -- one which more closely correlates with the degree of dementia than the current diagnostic of plaques and tangles," Coleman said.

Precise mechanisms of mitochondrial decline in aging and Alzheimer's have yet to be teased out and will be the focus of continuing research. The study suggests that therapies aimed at restoring function in nuclear-encoded OXPHOS genes may provide an exciting new avenue for treatment of Alzheimer's.
Chimpanzees often use tools to extract or consume food but which tools they choose for which purpose can differ depending on where they live. In 2010, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, initiated the 'Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee' to characterize and understand the differences in chimpanzee behaviours in un- and poorly studied ape populations across Africa. This is how the researchers encountered a new behavioural variant: Algae fishing with long robust tools at a temporary research site in Bakoun, Guinea.

Chimpanzees have been studied for almost 60 years at a few long-term field sites which have been fundamental for providing insights into natural chimpanzee behavior and most importantly into the differences between populations. However, the true behavioral repertoire of chimpanzees is under represented by these long-term sites alone. Therefore, to better understand the ecological and evolutionary drivers of behavioral diversification in chimpanzees, researchers of the Department of Primatology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology initiated the 'Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee' (PanAf). Since 2010, while following a unique standardized protocol, data on chimpanzee behavior, demography and resource availability have been collected from over 40 different temporary research sites across Africa. "The PanAf project represents a new approach to studying chimpanzees and will provide many interesting insights into chimpanzee demography and social structure, genetics, behavior and culture," says Hjalmar Kuehl of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research. "The PanAf is only possible due to the numerous collaborations with chimpanzee researchers, field workers and national wildlife authorities in 15 countries across Africa." Earlier this year, the collaborative network of researchers published a paper detailing a newly observed 'chimpanzee accumulative stone throwing' behavior.

Since chimpanzees are not habituated to human presence at the PanAf sites, the researchers rely on a wide spectrum of non-invasive sampling methods, including remote camera traps. After discovering conspicuous sticks along some of the rivers and ponds in Bakoun, PanAf site manager Anthony Agbor placed camera traps along these bodies of water. "The tool-use appears quite different from what is known from a nearby long-term chimpanzee site at Bossou, Guinea and also differed from previous reports of rare algae scooping in Congo" says Ammie Kalan of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "All age and sex classes of Bakoun chimpanzees were seen in the camera trap videos to successfully fish for algae in a river, stream or pond using woody branches or twigs as fishing rods. The tools were on average longer and sturdier than the algae fishing tools that are known from Bossou. Some Bakoun tools were more than 4 meters long!"

The researchers note that the freshwater green algae being targeted is the same genus as that at Bossou (Spirogyra), but at Bakoun the algae grow on the bottom of the stream beds and does not collect on the surface as it does at Bossou. "The ecology of the particular algae growing at each site may drive the types of tools necessary to harvest the algae" says Christophe Boesch, Director of the Primatology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, "we suggest that the algae probably provide an important nutritional benefit to the chimpanzees at Bakoun, especially during the dry season when chimpanzees were observed to fish algae for up to an hour at the same spot."
When the crate arrived from Israel, the people who surrounded it expected to find the same old nightmare inside. After all, dozens of battered, neglected animals had already been streaming into Dog Tales Rescue and Sanctuary in Ontario, Canada. The sanctuary was flying the dogs to Canada as part of a massive rescue operation.

It represented a chance at a new life for dogs who had been piled into cages, knee-deep in dark waters writhing with rats. But, despite all her rescuers had seen already, Doba, among the last of the Israeli dogs, managed to instill a fresh sense of horror. "I remember that when she was taken out of her crate there was a collective gasp from our entire team," Clare Forndran of Dog Tales tells The Dodo. "All of the dogs were in rough shape, but none looked as terrible as her."

Dodo Shows Dodo Heroes Woman Devotes Her Life To The Stray Dogs Of Bali

She also couldn't close her mouth due to a severe tooth infection. Vets suggested the dog had been chewing on the metal poles of her shelter kennel, a desperate exercise in madness. Even worse, her fur was so hopelessly matted, human touch actually hurt Doba.

"I have never seen a dog with a coat so matted, and I imagine that it caused her a great deal of pain," Forndran says.

In Israel, Doba's condition had made her practically untouchable. "She was so terrified and uncomfortable that the volunteers were unable to handle her," Forndran says.

But somewhere between there and the Canadian sanctuary, something changed for Doba. "It was almost as though she immediately knew that she was in a better place and that she was safe here," Forndran explains. "She allowed one of our staff members to take her for that first walk, and, although she was very shy, you could tell that she was hopeful." And with that flicker of hope came more change. Her coat was ever-so-carefully shorn. She welcomed real human contact.

"It was incredible to see how quickly she transformed into an entirely different dog," Forndran says. "She now waits in her room, tail wagging, to greet new guests."

"When she is in playgroup with our other dogs, she will always be the first dog to run to the gate to say hello when someone new approaches," Forndran adds. "Doba is a true testament to the fact that a dog's environment can have a tremendous impact on their personality."
Iceland is so hot right now.

Safe, accessible, small and friendly, more North American tourists than ever are flocking to the tiny Atlantic nation.

Icelanders have a fond regard for Canadians and vice versa, said Eliza Reid, Icelands new Canadian First Lady, explaining the connection between the two countries she knows so well.

While hard to generalize, there are similarities in that were open, tolerant societies (with) a close relationship to nature, she said.

Reid, who grew up near Ottawa and whose husband, Icelands new president Gudni Johannesson, is in Toronto this weekend for the sixth annual Taste of Iceland, a series of mostly-free cultural events, running until Nov. 13.

Reid will lead a free discussion on Friday at Ben McNally Books on the literary prowess of the small island and why it is a destination for writers and creative types alike. The First Lady founded the Icelandic Writers Retreat, an annual, international program for aspiring and established scribes.

Even today books are the most popular gifts Icelanders give, Reid explained. There is a great emphasis on literature . . . and the natural environment is just so inspirational. Getting out of your normal routine can give you that creative jolt.

Her recommended reading included authors like Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Arnaldur Indridason, currently riding a popular crime fiction wave of Noridic noir.

Other Icelandic offerings this weekend include film, music and food.

The quirky, award-winning country romance Of Horses and Men will be screened at noon on Saturday at Royal Cinema.

And Sigurdur Helgason, executive chef of the celebrated Reykjavik-based restaurant Grilli, will join Torontos Miheer Shete, chef de cuisine at Jump, all weekend.

What I like in cooking is the simplicity and keenness. This is something (that comes) to me from my region and Iceland, said Helgason. Keen produce and flavours, I dont want to mask them. I want them to shine in each dish.

Helgason will be serving up fine fare in a four-course dinner made entirely of Icelandic ingredients. Cured and cooked Arctic char, Icelandic cod sou vide and free-mountainside-range lamb (if it gets through customs) will take the plate.

The three courses will be followed by a white chocolate brownie with the famous Icelandic dairy product Skyr ganache served with wild bilberry for dessert.

I brought five kilos of bilberries, laughed Helgason, explaining they are in the blueberry family and grow wild across the country. What makes Icelandic cuisine so different and special, he says, is how limited the produce and local ingredients are. Its Nordic, but quite extremely Nordic.

Chef Siggi will be joined by Icelandic folk artist Axel Flovent on Sunday, who will play through the cocktail hour. Visiting Toronto from the northern fishing village of Husavik, Flovent will also play a free show at The Horseshoe Tavern Saturday.

For more information, check out Taste of Iceland Toronto on Facebook, or follow #TasteOfIceland.

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Actress Ruth Negga sees the 50-year-old story of American interracial couple Richard and Mildred Loving revealing itself onscreen like a couples dance in the fact-based drama Loving, opening Nov. 11.

Richard Loving, (Australian actor Joel Edgerton) begins the film by leading. Slowly, the hand positions change and shes the one taking control. And I think thats really important, said Negga, hours before Loving had its North American premiere at TIFF in September.

Over the nine years that Loving covers, it is a joy to watch Neggas portrayal of Mildred as she goes from a shy country girl to confident woman, speaking up with gradually revealed determination against the unfairness endured by her family at a time when many voices were silenced. Its not surprising Best Actress Oscar talk began when the movie had its premiere at Cannes in May and again in September at TIFF.

I think its important to see a woman whos quite reserved and shy and quiet show a certain strength, because theres many kind of strengths isnt there? said the Ethiopia-born and Ireland-raised Negga in her soft Irish lilt.

The Lovings were a Virginia couple that married in 1958 and had a family at a time when interracial unions in that state  and others  were outlawed. Mildred Loving was African American and Native American; Richard Loving was white.

The couple went to neighbouring Washington, D.C. to marry and returned home, where Mildred was jailed after their relationship was discovered. The Lovings were forced to leave Virginia permanently, raising their three children in Washington, away from family and all things familiar to them or face imprisonment. A resigned Mildred bore it with quiet dignity until she couldnt stand the injustice any longer.

She wrote a letter to then-U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy asking for help with their civil rights case, which was eventually taken up by the American Civil Liberties Union. They fought to the Supreme Court.

Negga, born to an Irish mother and Ethiopian father, needed to do considerable research both into that time in America and her character. She turned to Nancy Buirskis 2011 documentary The Loving Story, calling it my Bible, not only for providing her introduction to accidental hero Mildred and the racial politics of the time but also for the footage of the bucolic beauty of rural Virginia, where Loving was filmed.

Written and directed by Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud), the depth of feeling between the Lovings and the forced suppression of their emotions plays out as profoundly genuine. The drama also benefits from careful production design and scenes often suffused with muted golden light, along with costumes that accurately convey not only the time the story is set, but also the Lovings modest means.

It was like, have you ever been given a present, or bought really lovely jasmine tea, those little balls, and then the whole tea ceremony where you put the water and it (opens) and its really moving, quite beautiful, Negga said quietly.

Thats what reading Jeffs script is like. And even the colour, theres these tone-y colours, this great light to our film. Amber light. And theres something so warm and inviting and beautiful. Reading the script I felt that sort of energy. I felt those colours come through.

She credits her co-star Edgerton, who, like her, came from a theatre background, with helping create her characterization of Mildred. That process was aided by spending two weeks in Virginia before filming began, meeting the Lovings only surviving child, Peggy, visiting the couples graves and seeing the cell where Mildred was jailed.

These experiences helped her form thoughts about the nature of the Lovings relationship.

The overwhelming thing you come away from when you watch the picture is that (they are) deeply connected deeply, soulfully connected, deeply in love, she said. And whats apparent is that love is the kindest, most gentle, most loving respectful love Ive ever seen between two human beings. You could almost see it.

Playing Mildred is pushing Negga into the spotlight after more than a decade of roles in indies (Breakfast on Pluto and Toronto-shot drama The Samaritan, opposite Samuel L. Jackson) and small supporting parts (World War Z) along with more substantial roles on TVs Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Preacher.

She hopes seeing Loving will get people talking about issues surrounding equality, reminding them of the stand a Virginia couple made a generation ago.

Definitely, I think its going to continue a conversation and generate compassion, generate empathy and outrage on this couples behalf, and then many other unknown couples and unsung heroes, hidden figures that we dont know about, said Negga.

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Quiet Please, Theres a Lady on Stage: several in fact, back for a second season of concerts starring women from many musical genres at the Royal Conservatory of Musics Koerner Hall.

Last years experiment in female-centric programming began with a sellout performance by Joan Armatrading, continued with sellouts for performers such as Lisa Fischer and ended with cabaret performer Meow Meow bodysurfing to the rear of the auditorium and back to the stage again without putting a hair out of place.

The performers this season span classical, jazz, roots and world music with ancient instruments and full bands providing accompaniment. Here are the ladies of the series.

Aviva Chernick: world music

Chernick, accompanied by her bandmates in Jaffa Road, has an expansive interest in music that embraces Jewish, Arabic, Indian and Persian traditions as well as pop and rock. She begins her show with the ringing sound of Tibetan bowls.

A cantor, Chernick has just returned to Toronto from California where she sang and led congregations over the Jewish high holy days. She sings in Hebrew, English and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) and describes her music as enchanting with lots of crossovers.

I take traditional music into a place that is alive and in the moment.

While her background is traditional and devotional there is a heavy dose of jazz, classical and Indian music, she says. The goal is to make a connection and go on a journey that is joyous and adventurous. People leave feeling something has moved them. Each song is a jewel in a treasure box.

Chernick appears with Israeli singer Noa and Gil Dor on Nov. 12.

Laila Biali: jazz

Biali recently moved back to Toronto after living in Brooklyn for almost a decade. She brought her 6-year-old son, Josh, and husband, drummer Ben Wittman, in search of work-life balance.

Shes been working on a record, Crossings, which will be released shortly. The songs were inspired by her many trips back to the U.S. During this time of great transition, the road surprisingly became a stabilizing factor. The familiarity of air travel, hotel rooms and moving from one city to the next felt much more normal that trying to adjust to life as a family in a new city, she said.

These new songs will be the main focus of her concert and are a combination of pop with an edge and jazz. She will be accompanied by George Koller on bass, Larnell Lewis on drums, Wittman on percussion and William Sperandei on trumpet. She is touring Europe before her concert.

Laila Biali appears with Italian jazz and cabaret singer Pilar on Dec. 1.

Patricia Cano: Afro-Brazilian jazz

The star of Tomson Highways The (Post) Mistress has been singing the work of the First Nations playwright for almost 20 years. But her own cabaret shows reaches into her Peruvian past.

Born in Canada while her father studied to become a doctor, Cano grew up in Sudbury. He was the only rheumatologist in the mining town so I saw everyones grandfathers all my life. She met Highway at a Christmas party when she was 6 and reconnected as a drama student at the University of Toronto. He persuaded her to follow a career in singing as well as acting.

Cano describes her music as Afro-Peruvian, Afro-Brazilian, which she sings in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese accompanied by a guitarist. Most of the concert will feature music from her new album coming out in February.

My music is fusion style, a mix of languages, she says.

Patricia Cano appears with Colombian band Monsieur Perine on April 19.

Rosanne Cash: country

Cash is joined by her husband and collaborator John Leventhal, who has a great interest in roots music.

Her next album is a mix of Delta blues and Appalachian country music, the result of recent time spent in Arkansas where the boyhood home of her father, Johnny Cash, is being turned into a museum. She says she began to think about personal ancestry and musical ancestry and how it infuses her music.

In the South she was both the insider and the outsider. Her husband, a native New Yorker, threw himself into the music of the South. We wanted to pain a landscape we experienced, which she also described as a rich tapestry involving blues, country, gospel and rock.

Genres of music are not a religion to me. I like all music. All the songs on the new album will be originals except for one cover of a Jesse Winchester piece.

Together for 24 years, Cash and Leventhal are held together by their love of the music they create together, Cash says.

Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal appear April 27.

The fifth concert in the Quiet Please series stars vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant and pianist Aaron Diehl in Jelly & George, a tribute to Jelly Roll Morton and George Gershwin, on Feb. 23, 2017. See rcmusic.ca for more information.

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Canadas close relationship with America has been rattled by the election of Donald Trump. Canadians are worried about how Trumps campaign promises  if fulfilled  could reverberate north of the border. Here are the key issues to watch and what Trump has said about each.

TRADE:

Donald Trump made radically overhauling U.S. trade arrangements a key issue in his campaign, and this issue could have the greatest effect on Canada after he takes power.

The president-elect campaigned on a pledge to force Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, to provide greater benefits to U.S. businesses.

If the countries dont agree on a new deal, Trump has promised to leave NAFTA completely.

Combined with a pledge to withdraw from trans-Pacific Partnership talks and take a more aggressive line on trade with China, Trump pitched isolationism and independence as a way to increase jobs, fix crumbling infrastructure, even reduce crime.

All of these things, and so much more, are possible. But to accomplish them, we must replace the present policy of globalism  which has moved so many jobs and so much wealth out of our country  and replace it with a new policy of Americanism, Trump said in a September speech.

Approximately $51 billion in goods cross the Canada-U.S. border per month, according to TD Economics.

CLIMATE CHANGE:

Hard-won progress in the fight against climate change will be dramatically rolled back if Trump sticks to his word.

Trump vowed to back the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement, a landmark international climate treaty aimed at curbing emissions and limiting global temperature increases.

Trump has also pledged to revive the coal industry, relax restrictions on polluters, and expand exploration and drilling for fossil fuels.

The Paris agreement, ratified by the House of Commons in October, commits almost 200 nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a goal of limiting global temperature increases to under 2 degrees Celsius. The U.S. and China, the worlds two largest emitters of greenhouse gasses, were crucial to reaching the deal.

Trump previously suggested climate change is a hoax perpetuated by China to hurt U.S. business. Kellyanne Conway, Trumps campaign manager, said in September that Trump believes climate change is naturally occurring.

Its unclear what Trumps energy agenda will mean for Canada, where the Liberal government has made environmental protection one of their main priorities. In October, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Ottawa would enforce a national carbon-pricing plan.

ECONOMY:

Global financial markets twitched early Wednesday on news that Trump had emerged the surprise victor.

But Trumps long-term plan to boost the U.S. economy  creating 25 million jobs and spurring growth through tax cuts and infrastructure spending  could help boost Canadas economic fortunes, too, if the president-elect can make it happen, said Craig Alexander, senior vice-president and chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada.

That should help lift economic growth and to the extent that happens, thats really good for Canada, Alexander said.

The election of a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Congress may breathe new life into the Keystone XL pipeline.

The controversial project, meant to carry Alberta crude oil to refineries on the U.S. Gulf coast, had been sidelined by the Obama administration because of environmental concerns, despite a hard-line push by the previous Conservative government to get the pipeline built.

During the campaign, Trump said he would approve the line but wanted a piece of the profits. On Wednesday, TransCanada, proponent of the pipeline, said it remains fully committed to building the line and said it was evaluating ways to engage the new administration on the merits of the project.

BORDER:

Trump vows to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border but rejected a wall on the border with Canada as too long, too expensive, and unnecessary.

Yet its far from clear if a Trump administration will honour deals to ensure a thinner, smoother border to the north. Canada and the U.S. have a perimeter approach to economic and border security that saw countless travel and security screening procedures harmonized. Bills to enable more information-sharing on entries and exits, and more pre-clearance of cross-border travellers are now before Parliament and the U.S. Congress. Canadian Ambassador David McNaughton is quite optimistic a lame-duck Congress will pass the necessary legislation because of bipartisan support before a new administration takes over.

But the business community worries if NAFTA collapses, the flow of goods and people across the border could be choked by tariff and non-tariff regulations and/or stiffer immigration controls in the guise of security concerns. McNaughton says hes nevertheless open to discussions about reopening NAFTA.

Any agreement can be improved, said McNaughton, adding Canada is ready to come to the table to put before the new administration anything that will benefit Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. He said the first thing hed like to see is free trade in softwood lumber.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Canada is re-engaging with the United Nations on climate change, Syrian refugees, and peace operations, just as Trump has signalled America is hunkering down to look after itself.

Trump promised to stem not just Mexican immigration but to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. He called Syrian refugees a terrorist Trojan horse threatening public safety and Americas quality of life. Canada accepted nearly 34,000 Syrian refugees since November 2015. Mexicans will soon be able to travel more freely to Canada when Ottawa drops its Mexican visa requirement on Dec. 1.

Trumps campaign talk worries Americas military allies in Eastern Europe and Asia. He mused about resetting relations with Russia, pulling troops out of South Korea, and using tariffs to compete with and halt a rising China  all of which reverse long-standing U.S. policy. He condemned the U.S.-brokered deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program and lifted sanctions while Trudeau used it as a springboard to re-engagement with Iran.

Trump publicly admired Russian President Vladimir Putin, dismissed U.S. intelligence about Russian hacking of Democratic National Committee emails, and stunned allies in the Baltics who fear Russian expansionism. He said he would require NATO freeloaders to pay full freight or forget about U.S. protection. Canada, which is leading the NATO mission in Latvia, spends only about 1 per cent of GDP on NATO, less than the 2-per-cent-of-GDP goal for NATO members.

McNaughton said Canada will not shy from discussions with a new Trump administration around military alliances, including NORAD, which he said could be modernized. Its easy to throw around numbers, said McNaughton. Some people when they want to talk about defence, send their accountants out and we tend to send our soldiers out.

I think we have stepped up to the plate in terms of defence at NATO . . . NORAD and elsewhere, shoulder-to-shoulder with the Americans.

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VANCOUVER  The fire hall in Vancouvers Downtown Eastside has been overwhelmed by emergency medical calls since the illicit opioid fentanyl has spurred a deadly overdose crisis.

Vancouver Fire Chief John McKearney said crews at Fire Hall No. 2 have been making about 1,000 runs per month this year, compared with an average of 600 calls every month in past years as overdose reports pour in from the neighbourhood.

It has forced the department to redistribute resources, jurisdictions and staff.

While fighting fires remains the priority for the hall, McKearney said, Theyre mostly just focused now on very small areas that relates to medical calls.

The B.C. government declared a public health emergency in April because of the dramatic increase in overdose deaths in the province, much of them caused by fentanyl. There were 555 reported overdose deaths in the province as of Sept. 30.

Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott met with municipal and provincial officials on Thursday at the fire hall to hear about the challenges that first responders are experiencing as they try to cope with the overdose crisis.

Across the country, an estimated five to six people die every day due to overdosing, Philpott said to reporters ahead of the meeting.

It is long past time that we all come together and do our part to respond to this, she said.

Firefighters in Vancouver have long been the first responder to medical emergencies and earlier this year they were trained to use the opioid antidote naloxone in response to the rising number of deaths, McKearney said.

The new life-saving practice could set an example for other fire departments across the country to adopt, he said.

But the repeated calls to drug-related health emergencies takes a toll on first responders.

The hardest thing on the staff is to keep going back and to see the same people, with their lives ruined, living on the street, with mental health issues either as a result of or caused by (substance abuse), McKearney said.

Firefighters at the Downtown Eastside hall are allowed to work at the site for only a year and are then transferred to other locations in the city, reducing the mental health implications that come with the stress of the job, the chief said.

Philpott said that responding to the crisis requires a complex plan that addresses issues of poverty, homelessness, and mental health and addictions.

One single change of legislation is not going to fix the problem, she said. We need to make sure we look at the big picture.

Regional health officials, including Vancouver Coastal Health, have called on the federal government to make it easier for communities to set up safe consumption sites as one method of tackling overdoses and other issues that result from drug use.

Philpott said the government is looking at reducing barriers for setting up such sites, but wouldnt be specific.

Legislative changes for safe consumption sites are under consideration and will be announced in the near future, she said.

Former New Democrat MP for East Vancouver Libby Davies said promises of legislative changes coming soon are frustrating to hear for communities struggling to respond to the overdose crisis.

This is an urgent situation ... we know safe injection sites work, we need them now, Davies said. The consequence is more people dying.

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A few thoughts about this mess.

First, if you think Donald Trump is an idiot, of course youre not alone. But youre also hardly the first. Google the words Barack Obama idiot, without quotes. I got more than 800,000 results.

In politics, everyone exaggerates the intelligence of candidates they like and the foolishness of those they dont. In 2008 it was routine to hear Obama dismissed as a community organizer, as though that was one step up from a flatline on an EEG, just as Justin Trudeaus opponents use his stint as a supply teacher in drama class to write him off as a drama teacher.

Rob Ford was an idiot, George W. Bush was an idiot. Ive read columns mocking Jason Kenneys intelligence, which cannot have been written by people who ever met him. I used to get letters about what a fool Jean Chretien was. With surprising regularity they were written by people who couldnt spell Chretien. Heres a tip: theres no a in it.

Your best guess about an opponents intelligence may comfort you, but it is not useful information. Not after he wins an election. Donald Trump is going to be the president of the United States. Mocking him is not useful.

Also not useful: Blaming people who could have voted for his opponent, but didnt. Does voting for Trump make a woman a bad feminist? Amazing fact: Millions did it anyway. For many different reasons, they define their identity and their obligations differently from the assignments a Toronto columnist might want to hand out. Incidentally, if gender dictates voting behaviour, were some women wrong to support Bernie Sanders at the start of this year? Or Barack Obama in 2008? How about Ann Coulter in 2020, or Kellie Leitch next spring for the Conservative leadership?

Democracy is a funny thing. Give people a vote and some will insist on using it. Their choices are mysterious. Your side will not always win. Id have voted for Hillary Clinton against Obama, Sanders and Trump, and I think her defeat on Tuesday is something close to a global catastrophe, but venting is not a strategy.

Im not sure what a good strategy is. For Canada, I suppose, its to hope for the best while remaining aware how bad the worst can get.

The best will not be great. Justin Trudeau followed tradition and courtesy when he telephoned Trump quickly to congratulate him and invited him to Ottawa for an early meeting. There is no point handing out the first snub. The relationship between our countries is so vast that there will be things even these two can agree on.

But Trudeau and Trump have starkly different philosophies. Weve seen a lot of that lately: Chretien and Bush, Martin and Bush, Harper and Obama. Liberals and Republicans, or a Conservative and a Democrat. Chalk and cheese.

Since 2001, the Canadian prime minister and the American president have come from compatible political families only briefly: Harper and Bush in 2006-2009, Trudeau and Obama this year. By the time Trudeau faces re-election in 2019, the extended estrangement at the top between our two countries will have lasted most of two decades. Canadas most crucial bilateral relationship has never seen the like of it.

And thats the optimistic scenario, the one in which Trump acts like a typical Republican president, and relations remain cordial but frosty. The next-best scenario is the one in which Trump actually tries to implement his campaign agenda. Gutting or abrogating NAFTA. Attracting legions of opportunistic imitators in Washington, in Canada (imagine 60 or 80 variations on Kellie Leitch) and in every Western democracy. Provoking angry backlash politics on the left, collapsing the public consensus for much of what Trudeau wants to do.

The worst scenario? Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia in the last months of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, and Ukraine shortly before the 2014 mid-terms. Maybe those were coincidences. But Russias leader feels beset by three instruments of Western power: The United States, the European Union and NATO. He would like chaos in all three. Between Trump and Brexit, hes been enjoying a lucky streak at the very least. How to destabilize NATO? Send a few busloads of rowdy Russian irregulars into border regions of Estonia, Latvia or Finland. Thats how the annexation of Crimea began. Dump a highly ambiguous crisis into the lap of a new president. A man who has never commanded anything, doubts NATOs value and may owe Putin his job.

Chaos in the White House, in the heart of the European Union, and in Canadas most important military alliance would be global trouble on a scale no prime minister since Mackenzie King has faced. No wonder Trudeau is trying to make nice. The optimistic scenario will be hard enough to manage.

Paul Wells is a national affairs writer. His column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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Canadas Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship website crashed on U.S. election night when it was flooded with a huge increase in traffic from Americans looking for advice on how to move north, a government spokesperson said.

Late-night traffic to the immigration website from Americans was about five times higher than usual on Tuesday, spokesperson Sonia Lesage said.

Site traffic on Tuesday night rose dramatically as it became clear that Donald Trump had a good chance of winning the presidency.

A number of U.S. citizens have said they may consider applying to move to Canada if Trump follows through on proposed policies such as mass deportations of illegal immigrants or the reopening of international trade agreements.

Immigration lawyers have warned, however, that the process to move to Canada can be long and complex and may cause a number of potential U.S. emigrants to reconsider their plans to move north once they learn more.

The site crashed late Tuesday night and remained down until shortly before 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

Lesage said a significant increase in web traffic and technical difficulties was found to be behind Tuesday's site crash. The website is now fully operational.

At around 11 p.m. (Tuesday night), when we started to experience difficulties, there were more than 200,000 users accessing the site, Lesage confirmed. At that time, American IP addresses accounted for approximately 50 per cent of the traffic, followed by Canada at 37 per cent, then Australia at 3 per cent, and U.K. at 1 per cent.

These figures dont include any users to tried to access the site but were turned away and received server error messages.

On average, the percentage of users from American IP addresses ranges from 8.8 per cent to 11.6 per cent, Lesage said.

The volume for this time period is significantly higher than the same time the previous week, when the website saw just over 17,000 users, Lesage said.

Users trying to get onto the site were redirected to a page reading there is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed.

Also on Tuesday night, Google Trends saw a surge in searches on Canadian immigration amid projections that Trump would take key swing states.

Starting at 9 p.m., Google Trends in the U.S. saw a surge in the topic of Canada and the election, amid CNN projections that Republican candidate Donald Trump would take key swing states, including Florida.

With files from Canadian Press and Evelyn Kwong

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A Markham elementary school principal has apologized for her discriminatory social media posts and says she pledges to learn from her actions and create an open and inclusive school community.

In September, the York Region District School Board said it was investigating after being notified about anti-Muslim postings on the Facebook page of Ghada Sadaka, a principal at Sir Wilfrid Laurier Public School.

After months of silence, Sadakas apology was posted on the school boards website Thursday, under the weekly message from director J. Philip Parappally.

As an educator for 26 years, my days are filled with ensuring that the students with whom I am entrusted are given constant opportunities to learn, Sadakas statement said. In the last two months, I have been the one who has learned a number of lessons about how sharing inappropriate posts on social media has affected those around me, my reputation and the reputation of one of the most diverse school boards in the country.

I apologize for my actions and accept responsibility for ensuring that I learn from them, Sadaka wrote.

Sadaka said she did not intend to be disrespectful towards any group or individual and I sincerely regret the upset this has caused to those who were offended by the posts.

Upon reflection, I accept that sharing the posts was discriminatory, and should not have occurred. I am committed to improving my understanding of human rights issues, and ensuring that I am more careful, respectful and aware of what I post and share on social media.

Some of the Facebook posts the principal is alleged to have shared and commented on include: videos purportedly showing violent Muslim takeovers of Paris and London, and one headlined: Must see: Dutch mayor tells fellow Muslims they can f------ if they dont like freedom.

Sadaka didnt respond to a request for comment Thursday.

In his weekly message Parappally, the school board director, said he appreciated Sadakas apology and believe all of us within the Board can use this as an opportunity to learn and grow.

As one of the most diverse regions in the country, we have a responsibility to continue the work of equity, he said.

The statement was issued on the same day Parappally and board chair Anna DeBartolo met Education Minister Mitzie Hunter to discuss allegations of racism and trustee transparency, that the Star has chronicled over the past year.

As previously disclosed, this was the ministers first meeting with the chair and director and she used this opportunity to discuss her expectations of Ontarios publicly funded education system to be one of inclusion and opportunity, a beacon of equity and respect, and a strong example of transparency and efficient use of precious student funding, said spokesman Patrick Searle.

Parappallys message on the school board website doesnt clarify the outcome of the investigation into the principal, or say if the policy for such investigations was followed. Last month, two trustees asked the board to confirm if proper policy was followed during their investigation.

The board has said the investigation was a confidential personnel matter. Previously, board spokesman Licinio Miguelo said: I can confirm that in any case where such allegations are brought forward all applicable policies and regulations are strictly followed.

York Region parents said that while they welcome Sadakas apology, they still have concerns.

This is a good first step, said parent Naeem Siddiqi, after speaking to parents with children who attend Sir Wilfrid Laurier Public School. But what (Sadaka) needs to do is start a dialogue with parents and children, and take steps to show that she is sincere.

At the board level, we have little faith that they have an ability to deal with the systemic issues, if another incident was to arise. They have shown that they dont deal with these things properly: they hide, they obfuscate and they block parents.

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Two class-action lawsuits arising out of the chaotic Toronto G20 summit more than six years ago appear destined for trial after the countrys highest court refused on Thursday to get involved.

Torontos police authorities had wanted the Supreme Court of Canada to stop the legal actions in their tracks. The court, however, declined. It also ordered the police services to pay costs of the appeal.

Sherry Good, one of the two lead plaintiffs, said she was delighted the case could now move forward.

Weve been fighting for over six years now and were committed to another six if its necessary, Good, 58, said in an interview. We want justice no matter how long it takes.

The class actions were spawned by the violence-marred weekend in June 2010 when police arrested or detained more than 1,000 people in what was later described as one of the worst violations of civil liberties in Canadian history. Many of the detainees were kept in appalling conditions at a makeshift detention centre in Toronto. Almost all were released without charge within 24 hours.

Good and co-plaintiff Tommy Taylor are seeking a court declaration that class members charter rights were violated. They also are looking for damages they say would be strong instruments of behaviour modification. Its not clear when any trial might take place.

Nothing is going to get in our way, Good said. This is about freedom and democracy. The police need to know were not going to stop until we make sure this never happens again.

After one false start and two bruising court battles, Ontarios top court in April ruled that the two separate but related civil actions  one for people boxed in on the streets, the other for those sent to the detention centre  should go ahead.

In turning to the Supreme Court, the police services board argued class actions were inappropriate. Instead, the board maintained any claims of wrongful arrest or detention should be treated individually. It also suggested the formulations of the class actions were unfair.

The board did not respond immediately to the Supreme Court decision on Thursday.

Goods lawyers said police now risk multiple lawsuits if they ever indiscriminately arrest entire crowds of demonstrators again.

This case is about the right of everyday Canadians to publicly speak their minds without being arbitrarily rounded up and thrown in jail, lawyer Eric Gillespie said in a statement.

Good was among scores of people police kettled in torrential rain at a downtown intersection, while Taylor was sent to the makeshift east-end detention centre.

Both she and Taylor want damages for false arrest or imprisonment, and violations of their constitutional rights. They maintain a senior officer gave orders for the indiscriminate roundup of anyone present at various downtown locations  including peaceful protesters, bystanders and journalists. Police also conducted humiliating strip searches and needlessly beat people, they say.

Last year, a tribunal convicted Toronto police Supt. Mark Fenton of misconduct for ordering the mass arrests. He was given a formal reprimand and docked 30 days vacation. Fenton is appealing.

In an even earlier ruling allowing the class actions, Divisional Court said the mass arrests could be seen as one of the hallmarks of a police state.

MORE ON THESTAR.COM

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G20 police commander says he faked arrests to let bystanders escape kettling

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Dont fret about the U.S.

Lets focus on us.

Theres nothing to be done about the American presidential election. But theres something to be said  and done  about our own politics closer to home.

U.S. voters, many of them faith-based, have taken a leap of faith with Donald Trump  despite his bad faith, bald-faced lies. But Torontonians are in no position to preach about the perils of following false messiahs.

Been there, voted that.

We elected Rob Ford in 2010 despite  or perhaps in defiance of  media coverage exposing how ill-suited his mayoral ambitions were: undisciplined, intemperate, un-collegial, outrageous, egregious.

By 2014 wed mended our ways and amended our votes, opting for civility over cynicism in Torontos next mayoral race. Again in 2015, Canadians elected a prime minister with a positive message of national unity that trumped divisiveness over national origin.

We learned from history municipally, and then federally. Whats in our future provincially, in the wake of Americas overnight political earthquake?

Now its up to us to pay closer attention  not just to what politicians say, but whether their numbers add up, the facts pan out, and the narrative has context.

The takeaway from Trumps victory is that crime pays. Or more precisely, that accusing an opponent of crimes  email or ephemeral  pays off for opposition politicians.

On the campaign trail, he excelled at deploying innuendo and leveraging the mass media to disseminate his allegations without context. The Trump taint stuck, demolishing public trust in Clintons character.

And were hearing an echo of it, increasingly, provincially.

Ontarios next general election is 19 months away, and the next pair of byelections is a week away. On cue, fanciful stories are being spread that Premier Kathleen Wynne personally oversaw a vast criminal empire brimming with unprecedented bribery, chicanery, union payoffs and billion-dollar scandals.

Trumps election distortions have reminded journalists everywhere that the corruption narrative is overly simplistic and easily amplified. But its not always reflective of reality, no matter how much voters lap it up.

All that said, Clinton didnt just lose because of excessive innuendo, but a lack of inspiration, a paucity of vision, and an absence of empathy. Above all, she was weighed down by the baggage of Democratic rule at a time when people were clamouring for regime change  cold comfort for Ontarios Liberals after 13 years in power.

Another parallel: Americas democracy is demographically divided  along class lines, education, race, and geography. The so-called new economy is leaving old people behind, and they are lashing out.

Many of those fault lines are emerging in Ontario, but an urban-rural divide poses the biggest challenge to the Liberals. Despite Wynnes efforts to reach out  she took on the agriculture portfolio during her first year as premier  her party is relegated to the big cities and her personal popularity is plunging.

Dont overlook ethnic divisions. Trumps intolerance is being channelled by federal Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch, who sent out a fundraising letter Wednesday hailing his victory: Its an exciting message and one that we need delivered in Canada, she wrote, reminding Tories of her plan to ensure that every visitor, immigrant, and refugee will be screened for Canadian values.

In Ontario, Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown has so far gone in the other direction. Brown reached out to ethnic groups during his provincial leadership campaign, but must expand that outreach if he is serious about becoming premier. The best way to innoculate himself against Trumps intolerance, while distancing himself from Leitchs loose language, is to embrace diversity across the province  not just racial and religious, but gender orientation.

As Opposition leader, Brown could broaden his vision by showing greater tolerance  not only of people, but politics itself. Rather than normalizing Trumps smear tactics, can Ontarios Tories go beyond criminalizing their opponents  developing a serious agenda to govern ahead of the next provincial campaign?

Against that backdrop, consider this advice to all MPPs from Deborah Deller, the clerk of the legislature, upon her retirement last month. Pointing to the architectural flourishes looming over the chambers archways, she offered a lesson in Ontarios tradition of political tolerance:

The owl in the centre of those two archways is an owl that looks down on the government. Its an owl that is there to remind those members that sit on the government side to govern wisely. The eagle in the centre of the arches on the opposite gallery faces the opposition, and its there to remind those of you that sit on the opposition side to be vigilant. Those are the roles you play, but they are interactive roles. The motto of this place is, Hear the other side. 

Wise advice in a week when the American eagle is under the gun.

Martin Regg Cohns political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hilary Clinton and won America in the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday. Trumps victory was unexpected to many to say the least, but it all starts now for the former reality television star to prepare before he is inaugurated in January. Heres a roundup of the possible changes Trumps administration Americans can expect from the new president-elect.

Giuliani, Christie and Gingrich Could Get Top Positions

The American political establishment was reeling from shock on Wednesday as leaders in both parties began coming to grips with four years of President Donald Trump in the White House, a once-unimaginable scenario that has now plunged the United States and its allies and adversaries into a period of unprecedented uncertainty about the policies and impact of Trump.

Trump campaign advisers said on Wednesday that the president-elect was turning to assembling a Cabinet and White House team and selecting a conservative nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy. The advisers said Trump was inclined to roll out a few Cabinet nominations at a time, rather than kicking them off with one high-profile pick for a critical department like Treasury or State.

Among the candidates for Cabinet secretaries and advisers are members of Trumps inner circle, aides said, including Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a crucial adviser on policy issues; Steven Mnuchin, a businessman who was Trumps national finance chairman; Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York; Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey; and Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House.

--- The New York Times

Obamacares future is in critical condition

For the past six years, no law has served as a larger GOP whipping post than the Affordable Care Act, and the Republican sweep Tuesday of political Washington has imperiled the ACAs expansive reach, putting at risk the insurance more than 20 million Americans have gained.

During the final week of his campaign, President-elect Trump vowed to repeal the 2010 health-care law so quickly that he might summon Congress into a special session to accomplish the task. We will do it, and we will do it very, very quickly. It is a catastrophe, he said.

Yet shortly after dawn Wednesday, a top Republican Senate spokesman said the chamber had not yet formulated its strategy for the coming session. In recent years, the GOP-led House has voted more than five dozen times to rescind the ACA, and Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., returned to that point late Wednesday morning when he described the law as collapsing under its own weight.

While President Obama has blocked congressional attempts to repeal the statute, now we have President Trump coming, who is asking us to do this, Ryan said.

-- The Washington Post

Trump victory reverses U.S. energy and environmental priorities

Donald J. Trump comes into office with a plan to toss out most of what President Barack Obama achieved on energy and the environment.

While vowing to cancel the international Paris climate accord Obama championed, Trump would also rearrange domestic energy and environmental priorities. He wants to open up federal lands to oil and gas drilling and coal mining. He wants to eliminate regulations he calls needless. He would scrap proposed regulations for tighter methane controls on domestic drillers. And he wants to shrink the role of the Environmental Protection Agency to a mostly advisory one and pull back the Clean Power Plan, Obamas proposed plan to push utilities toward lower carbon emissions.

Although Trump has portrayed himself as the ultimate outsider, in putting together a transition team, the New York real estate mogul has chosen veteran Washington insiders, many of them lobbyists for fossil fuel companies and skeptics about climate science.

--- The Washington Post

Trump win leaves Obamas higher education reforms in doubt

Donald Trumps defeat of Hillary Clinton in the election places eight years of higher-education reform under President Obama in doubt, raising questions about the direction of policies governing financial aid and for-profit colleges.

The Obama administration has enacted sweeping changes to the way the federal government provides and collects student loans, kicking banks out of the lending process and expanding a suite of repayment plans tied to income. Those moves rankled Republicans, as did a set of policies pushing tough employment and student-debt-forgiveness rules aimed at for-profit colleges. Now, advocates fear that there is nothing preventing the GOP from overturning those regulations.

--- The Washington Post

Congressional GOP pledges swift action on Trumps agenda

President-elect Donald Trumps stunning victory Tuesday has delivered to GOP congressional leaders the gift they dreamed of, even if they never quite believed it was within reach: A Republican president to sign Republican bills passed by a uniformly Republican Congress.

Trumps victory heralds a period of intense legislative activity not seen on Capitol Hill since 2009 and 2010, when President Barack Obama enjoyed Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, allowing him to pass a massive fiscal stimulus, a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations and a generational overhaul of American health care.

Republicans, who suffered only glancing blows to their House and Senate majorities Tuesday, now threaten to not only undo much of that legislation but to pursue their own dramatic remaking of the federal governments role in American life and commerce.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who rose to prominence based on his plans to dramatically scale back federal spending, said early Wednesday that Trump win marks a repudiation of the status quo of failed liberal progressive policies.

--- Associated Press

Now that Trump has won, TransCanada wants to give Keystone XL pipeline another try

TransCanada said it hopes to persuade a new Trump administration to revive the controversial Keystone XL crude oil pipeline that President Obama rejected on Nov. 6, 2015.

Taking advantage of President-elect Trumps vow to launch a series of major infrastructure programs, Calgary-based TransCanada said it was evaluating ways to convince the new administration on the benefits, the jobs and the tax revenues this project brings to the table.

TransCanada remains fully committed to building Keystone XL, the company said.

TransCanadas seven-year effort to obtain a permit from the State Department needed to cross an international border was one of the central environmental battles of the Obama administration. Environmental groups count the rejection of the pipeline as one of their main achievements after Obama rejected the permit shortly before the international climate accord was signed in Paris.

--- The Washington Post

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CHICAGOThe raw divisions exposed by the presidential race were on full display across America on Wednesday, as protesters flooded city streets to condemn Donald Trumps election in demonstrations that police said were mostly peaceful.

From New England to heartland cities like Kansas City and along the West Coast, demonstrators carried flags and anti-Trump signs, disrupting traffic and declaring that they refused to accept Trumps triumph.

In Chicago, where thousands had recently poured into the streets to celebrate the Chicago Cubs first World Series victory in over a century, several thousand people marched through the Loop. They gathered outside Trump Tower, chanting Not my president!

Chicago resident Michael Burke said he believes the president-elect will divide the country and stir up hatred. He added there was a constitutional duty not to accept that outcome.

A similar protest in Manhattan drew about 1,000 people. Outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in midtown, police installed barricades to keep the demonstrators at bay.

Protesters take to the streets across the U.S.

Hundreds of protesters gathered near Philadelphias City Hall despite chilly, wet weather. Participants  who included both supporters of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost to Clinton in the primary  expressed anger at both Republicans and Democrats over the elections outcome.

In Boston, thousands of anti-Trump protesters streamed through downtown, chanting Trumps a racist and carrying signs that said Impeach Trump and Abolish Electoral College. Clinton appears to be on pace to win the popular vote, despite losing the electoral count that decides the presidential race.

The protesters gathered on Boston Common before marching toward the Massachusetts Statehouse, with beefed-up security including extra police officers.

Protests flared at universities in California and Connecticut, while several hundred people marched in San Francisco and others gathered outside City Hall in Los Angeles. And they spread south to Richmond, Virginia, and to middle American cities like Kansas City and Omaha, Nebraska.

Hundreds of University of Texas students spilled out of classrooms to march through downtown Austin. They marched along streets near the Texas Capitol, then briefly blocked a crowded traffic bridge.

Marchers protesting Trumps election as president chanted and carried signs in front of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Media outlets broadcast video Wednesday night showing a peaceful crowd in front of the new downtown hotel. Many chanted No racist USA, no Trump, no KKK.

Another group stood outside the White House. They held candles, listened to speeches and sang songs.

Earlier Wednesday, protesters at American University burned U.S. flags on campus.

In Oregon, dozens of people blocked traffic in downtown Portland, burned American flags and forced a delay for trains on two light-rail lines. Earlier, the protest in downtown drew several Trump supporters, who taunted the demonstrators with signs. A lone Trump supporter was chased across Pioneer Courthouse Square and hit in the back with a skateboard before others intervened.

The only major violence was reported in Oakland, California, during a protest that began shortly before midnight and lasted into early Wednesday morning.

Some demonstrators set garbage bins on fire, broke windows and sprayed graffiti at five businesses in the downtown area, police said. No arrests were made.

Another protest began Wednesday evening downtown, with several hundred chanting, sign-waving people gathering in Frank Ogawa Plaza.

In San Francisco, hundreds are marching along Market Avenue, one of the citys main avenues, to join a vigil in the Castro District, a predominantly gay neighbourhood.

Hundreds massed in downtown Seattle streets.

Many held anti-Trump and Black Lives Matter signs and chanted slogans, including Misogyny has to go, and The people united, will never be defeated.

At Evergreen State College south of Seattle, scores of students walked out of classes Wednesday to gather with anti-Trump signs.

Back in New York, several groups of protesters caused massive gridlock as police mobilized to contain them under a light rain.

They held signs that read Trump Makes America Hate and chanted hey, hey, ho, ho Donald Trump has got to go. and Impeach Trump.

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12 lessons from Donald Trumps astounding, stupendous, historic win

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NEW YORKWe all got it wrong. We all got it wrong. We all got it wrong.

Thats what the Trump triumphalists want to hear as an admission. From the pollsters, the political sages, the pundits and mainstream media  240 newspaper editorial boards across the United States endorsed Hillary Clinton, 17 endorsed Donald Trump.

But even the we is part of the problem in that statement. It implies a superiority of integrity and virtue.

Social media, which was so brashly exploited by the man who will be Americas 45th president in January, saw it differently and said it differently, often steeped in a prideful and unapologetic coarseness. Because thats the language they speak and Trump made it OK. Thats a cultural convulsion we should have better grasped.

Much as we decried the jagged divisiveness that Trump fostered on his road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, legitimizing the American great crevice cracking open between them and us, we did the very same thing. Except we cast Trumps swelling support as the odious them, focusing on the crackpots.

And on election day they told us in resounding terms, humbling terms, that they are America, too. They are the 30 states that went blood-dripping red, despite Clinton winning the popular vote nationally, as of the latest count Wednesday night. They are the disenfranchised white working class whove given up on upward mobility. They are the men and women who dont have a college degree, who are unemployed or threadbare employed; a generation whose skills are no longer needed and, for the first time, is worse off than their parents. Whites, who make up 69 per cent of the electorate, voted 58 per cent for Trump. Non-whites, who make up 31 per cent of the electorate, voted 74 per cent for Clinton. (According to exit polls, though clearly we should be more skeptical of big data.)

And yes, theirs is a tuning fork pitched to the whine of disgruntlement over immigration and a demographic landscape that has rendered the America they love unrecognizable. The melting pot that has defined America for centuries was put on the back burner in favour of identity politics, where the rights of suspicious others  or so Trumpists fervently believe  have big-footed the rights they still hold sacrosanct. Those suspicious others, sadly, include Muslims, illegal Mexicans, a la-la intelligentsia, a vainly patronizing celebrity aristocracy, business profiteers, technocrats and, of course, a despised Washington establishment.

They relate more to trolls and avatars  and a saloon brawler  than nuanced pedantry.

Clintons greatest sin isnt that she was a woman seeking the presidency, because the U.S. will have a female commander-in-chief at some point. Its that she was not the right woman  person  for these tumultuous times and, frankly, Americans dont like political dynasties unless their surname is Kennedy. Jeb Bush found that out, among the 16 Republican candidates set aside by Trump en route to the nomination. At that point, he should have ceased being a joke that many of them just didnt get. To our eternal discredit, we continued treating him and his frothing adherents as such. As if they were all LOCK HER UP! caterwaulers when they clearly are not, any more than they are adherents of the Ku Klux Klan despite the dirty sheet crusaders endorsing Trump. Thats part of the abysmal picture on the day after but it should be an inset photo, not the widescreen.

They hit the pause button, I guess. But the worst of the past wont be resurrected in an enlightened nation. This isnt the Weimar Republic, even with Trump controlling the legislative, executive, and doubtlessly the judicial arms of government.

Trump was the heretic, pounding away at the orthodoxy of government  Democrat and Republican  inside the Washington Beltway. The swamp hes vowed to drain.

He connected with harsh voices that have been raised in protest for a long time, certainly through the two terms of President Barack Obama, and orchestrated what was a lament, a dirge, for a way of life rapidly disappearing into the rearview mirror.

So Trump will begin to dismantle Obama legacy policies, most promptly repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)  throwing 20 million people off health insurance  and rip up multilateral trade agreements that have sucked manufacturing jobs out of the country, benefitting primarily corporations (as Bernie Sanders so passionately argued), and likely ditch climate change targets that Trump dismissed as a hysterical hoax perpetrated by China.

Theres a crucial lesson to be learned in this outcome: The liberal tent is too small, too exclusive even as it champions inclusivity as a core value.

The term racist, so hurtful, is flung about too easily, defaming and denigrating everybody who, I honestly believe, dont have a bigoted bone in their bodies. Trump indeed courted the hidebound prejudiced, but thats hardly the nearly 60 million voters who cast their ballot for him. Objecting to the niqab doesnt make you an Islamophobe. Chanting Go Indians! at a ball game doesnt make you a cultural appropriator. Discomfort with transgender bathrooms doesnt necessarily make you homophobic. At least, I am willing to give those many factions the benefit of the doubt at this moment. So, I would respectfully suggest, the Democratic Party should respect a divergence of views on the spectrum of liberalism without slamming the door on multi-millions who arent social conservatives but voted for Trump anyway.

Trump may build his stupid wall but a vast middle-of-the-road constituency has felt itself walled in by accommodation run amok. That doesnt make them xenophobic and intolerant. It makes them bewildered and vulnerable to a demagogue like Trump, who shamelessly rubbed grievances raw. However, Trump is not a traditional ideologue and liberals should take some comfort in that  as well as the fact he doesnt owe the social conservatives anything.

The electorate backlash was against the status quo in Washington and the perceived extremism of disentitlement everywhere else.

Those are wounds that need binding rather than amputation of the afflicted.

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A white voter movement came out and staged its own version of Brexit on Tuesday by supporting U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his xenophobic, anti-free trade ways, polling data show.

It wasnt just the white, disaffected male and female voter without a college degree who voted for Trump. So did the white middle class of both sexes and the wealthy, according to U.S. election exit data compiled by CNN based on 24,537 people leaving 350 voting stations.

White voters made up 70 per cent of the total election votes. Of the white support, 58 per cent voted for Trump while 37 per cent went for Hillary Clinton, the data show.

African-Americans made up 12 per cent of the vote and of those 88 per cent supported Clinton and 8 per cent Trump. Of Latin American voters, which made up 11 per cent of the vote  65 per cent voted Clinton and 29 per cent went Trump.

White, non-college educated support for Trump was expected and so was the support for him among wealthier whites, said Melissa Williams, a University of Toronto political science professor.

But the base, the core of the support is of white, middle income people of both sexes. The extent of which women in that cohort ended up supporting Trump is a bit surprising, said Williams, who is spending this year as a senior democracy fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Among white men, 63 per cent went for Trump while 31 per cent voted for Clinton. Among the women, 53 per cent went Trump and only 43 per cent voted Clinton.

It clearly is a white voting block. The demographic profile of Trump supporters is very similar to that of Brexit supporters, Williams said.

When the working class is angry, facing a bleak future, it is very easy for elites to mobilize racist sentiments, find a racialized scapegoat and turn that anger away from elites and towards a racialized scapegoat. That is the dynamic we saw in the Brexit and Trump campaigns, Williams said.

Brexit is the term used to describe the British voters decision to leave the European Union. The man who helped lead Britain out of the EU, Nigel Farage, the interim United Kingdom Independence Party Leader, said Trumps victory is part of this populist wave, currently upturning establishments.

Brexit was the first brick that was knocked out of the establishment wall. A lot more were knocked out last night, Farage told Time magazine on Wednesday.

This truly is a transnational phenomenon, agreed Williams.

We have been witnessing the rise of right wing, populist; I call them white wing populist movements across advanced democracies. There is something structural going on here that is common to the U.S. and many European countries, including the U.K., she said.

Growing wealth inequality, the growth of the 1 per cent top income earners against the 99 per cent, played a role and Clinton did not appeal to those young, millennial voters who supported Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders. They trusted Bernie because he has been hammering inequality forever. He was credible, said Williams, adding Clinton never achieved Sanders popularity with youth.

Trump was not the perfect candidate, but his voters accepted that early on and he had the perfect message for his base, agreed Connor Whitworth, a consultant at Navigator. That was a message of fear, anti-immigration, of calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals and of building walls between America and Mexico.

Voters made up their mind about Trump early on. Yes he was sexist and said terrible things. If they were voting based on what he was going to do for America, Whitworth said.

Trump supporters railed against globalization. His coalition was formed from a vacuum of deep divisions. Out of this came rural white voters who came out like never before, Whitworth said.

Trump also won in Pennsylvania and Michigan, rust belt states that he wasnt expected to win. Not since 1988 has a Republican won Pennsylvania and Michigan. These are white rural voters. It is not white voters but white rural voters who felt absolutely ignored by Washington, he said.

Meanwhile, perhaps Clintons soft supporters believed the media reports that she was going to win the election and stayed home, neglecting to vote, he added. Clinton, however, did win 94 per cent of the black, female vote while 4 per cent of black females voted Trump.

The US Elections Projects predicted 128.8 million Americans voted, out of 231 million eligible voters, reported Vox, adding this was a low turnout.

Even though Clinton won the popular vote, she still did not gain a majority of the 538 Electoral College votes she needed to become president. Trump won 290 out of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the election. Clinton only won 228.

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While western elites and politicians were numb with shock about Donald Trumps unexpected victory, warmth for the U.S.s president-elect overflowed elsewhere, including from North Korea, Cambodia and the Philippines.

In keeping with his outsider status, Trumps most enthusiastic endorsements came from international outcasts, like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen, leader of Frances anti-immigrant National Front, who declared the American people free.

Putin vowed he was ready to restore good relations with the U.S., adding it is not our fault that Russian-American relations are in such a state.

In Mexico, the mood was sombre  former foreign minister Jorge Castaneda called the election result an unmitigated disaster.

There are very few tools to fix the relationship, Castaneda, a professor at New York University, told the New York Times.

Enrique Krauze, a Mexican historian, tweeted: A civilized and democratic world will have to once again confront EVIL. Once again, with blood, sweat and tears, it will be defeated.

During his campaign, Trump used Mexico as a whipping boy for concerns about free trade and undocumented immigrants, and threatened to force Mexico to pay for a wall on the Rio Grande.

Were in uncharted territory and should expect a setback in Mexican-American relations, said Gonzalo Soto, with Reforma newspaper.

The peso fell to its lowest level in 22 years. The concern was such that the countrys economic policy-makers held a news conference to reassure investors their country is in a strong position to deal with any uncertainty.

President Enrique Pena Nieto struck a more conciliatory tone, tweeting Mexico and the U.S. are friends, partners and allies that should continue to collaborate for the competitiveness and development of North America.

Trump has vowed to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement, and to pressure NATO allies  including Canada  to contribute significantly more to defence spending. He questions the value of allies in Asia, and has called on Japan and Korea to develop nuclear weapons to shoulder their own defence burden.

That may explain the jubilation Wednesday in China, which could emerge as an unchallenged power. I highly value China-U.S. relations and am looking forward to working with you to expand co-operation in all fields, said President Xi Jinping Wednesday in a message to Trump.

Pakistans president called the Trump victory a triumph of the American people and their enduring faith in the ideals of democracy...

President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines tough-talking leader, offered his warm congratulations.

Cuba, on the other hand, took the news hard, no doubt fearful Trump will reverse President Barack Obamas push to re-establish diplomatic relations. Cubas Revolutionary Armed Forces announced it would launch five days of military exercises to prepare troops to confront what the government calls a range of enemy actions.

In Iran, President Hassan Rouhani urged Trump to stay committed to the nuclear accord which has led to the easing of sanctions.

Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had a strained relationship with Obama, said he hoped to reach new heights in bilateral ties with Trump.

Analysts were loathe to predict whether Trump would carry out his many contentious pledges. For a lot of analysts and pollsters, our frameworks have proven wrong. That makes it harder to predict Trumps foreign policy, noted Carlo Dade, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa, and director at the Canada West Foundation.

The president-elect may be tempered by advisers, as well as by other branches of government. However, there is no denying he has thrown the old world order on its head. The possibility of him winning was looked at as a joke in many countries, said David Perry, an analyst with Canadian Global Affairs Institute. That means the U.S. will have less moral suasion and leadership in the world. His victory enhances and accelerates the trend of the American decline.

Other friends and foes:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered Trump close co-operation on the basis of shared trans-Atlantic values that include respect for human dignity, regardless of peoples origin, gender or religion.

Nigel Farage, who led the Brexit movement in the U.K., predicted Trumps triumph would bring a massive result for his own country.

President Francois Hollande said France wanted to begin talks with Trump to clarify his stance on international affairs. This American election opens a period of uncertainty.

South Korea expressed hope that Trump would maintain the U.S. policy of pressuring North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests.

With files from The Associated Press

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TOKYOA Japanese official says Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump next week.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters Thursday that Abe and Trump had talked by telephone and confirmed the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance and their commitment for co-operation.

Their meeting marks a very good start for building trust, Suga said. Their talks are being arranged for Nov. 17 in New York.

Officials said Abe and Trump also confirmed their resolve to co-operate in ensuring peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, but did not discuss the trans-Pacific trade pact and other contentious issues such as the cost of American troops in Japan.

Kyodo News agency additionally reported that Trump praised the Japanese premiers Abenomics economic measures.

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President-elect Donald Trumps campaign staff has erased from his website a statement detailing his controversial proposal to temporarily ban Muslim immigration into the United States, one of the most divisive and controversial policy ideas of his campaign.

Trump, who has in the past insisted Muslim immigration posed a threat to the United States, in December called for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

We can be politically correct and we can be stupid, but its going to get worse and worse, Trump said in December during a campaign event in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where he read the statement released earlier in the day. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem, and the dangers the threat imposes, our country cannot be the victim of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad.

The proposal was previously detailed on a page titled, Donald J. Trump statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration. That page now redirects to a new page where supporters can donate to the campaign. Thank you America, says the banner on the page. We showed America the silent majority is no longer silent.

The proposal was met with massive backlash from Democrats and Republicans alike, who accused the then-candidate of scapegoating Muslims and race-baiting. Trumps critics have accused him of using racial grievances and fears of radical jihadism to motivate his base.

I think Islam hates us, Trump said in March during an interview with CNN. Theres something there that  theres a tremendous hatred there. Theres a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. Theres an unbelievable hatred of us.

The campaign sought to back away from that language earlier this year amid intense scrutiny after it was clear he would clinch the Republican presidential nomination.

The repackaged proposal shifted from focusing on Muslims in particular and instead saying immigration should be suspended from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism. Many at the time saw it as an attempt to broaden his appeal beyond his base for the general election.

After shifting to a geography-based ban, Trump still made regular reference to jihadism and Muslims in speeches on the campaign trail. His campaign website still included the statement on the morning of Election Day, according to web caches.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

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Officials at universities in California said police were investigating two attacks on Wednesday against female Muslim students, with officials describing one of the episodes as a hate crime.

The attacks, coming the day after the nation voted to elect Donald Trump, underscored the criticism he had faced throughout his presidential campaign from opponents who said his harsh anti-Muslim language was emboldening extremists.

On Wednesday night, San Jose State University police said in a campuswide email that they were investigating an attack against a female student. A man had approached her from behind earlier in the afternoon and pulled at her hijab, choking her and throwing her off balance, the email said.

He caused me to choke, and my back arched, the student, 19-year-old Esra Altun told NBC Bay Area on Thursday. I tried to pull away from him. I fell on my knees. He didnt say anything. He ran away as I hit the floor.

No arrests have been made, but the investigation is ongoing, school spokeswoman Pat Harris said in an emailed statement.

We are, of course, very concerned that this has occurred on our campus, she said. No one should experience this kind of behavior at San Jose State.

The San Diego State University police said they were investigating a similar attack, which they described as a hate crime.

A student who was wearing a traditional garment and a hijab reported that while she was walking to her car, two men  one white and one Hispanic  confronted her and made comments about Trump and Muslims, according to a police summary.

The student reported that the men had grabbed her purse and backpack and had taken her car keys before fleeing. She was not injured. The unidentified victim alerted police and led them back to the scene, discovering that her car was gone.

In a joint statement, the university president, Elliot Hirshman; the vice president for student affairs, Eric Rivera; and the interim police chief, Josh Mays, said: We condemn this hateful act, and urge all members of our community to join us in condemning such hateful acts.

Hate crimes are destructive to the spirit of our campus, and we urge all members of our community to stand together in rejecting hate.

An account of a third attack, reported on Wednesday by an 18-year-old Muslim woman in Lafayette, La., fell apart by midday Thursday, police said.

This entire story was fabricated; she admitted that to our detectives, said Cpl. Karl Ratcliff, a spokesman for the Lafayette Police Department. The department is no longer investigating the report, he said.

The woman had claimed that two men, one of them wearing a white Trump hat, had hit her with a metal object and robbed her of her head covering and wallet. University officials had notified the campus of the attack in an email on Wednesday.

After the election, universities also reported campus graffiti referring to Trump and some of the themes he has espoused.

New York Universitys Muslim Students Association said on its Facebook page that students at the Tandon School of Engineering awoke on Wednesday to find Trump scrawled on the door of their prayer room, adding that they are realizing that our campus is not immune to the bigotry that grips America.

In Wisconsin, the beating death in October of a Saudi student, Hussain Saeed Alnahdi, 24, who had been enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, is still unsolved. He was attacked outside a pizza restaurant, and the killing shocked the university campus where the 9,600 students include a tight-knit group of 142 from Saudi Arabia.

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Shock. Revulsion. Smug satisfaction. Pragmatic optimism. Our reactions as Canadians to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States mirror our own culture back to us. We know Trumps victory has meaning for our country, for the entire planet. But before we try to understand the geopolitical consequences of a Trump presidency, we should dwell on the way this historic event is making us feel.

My overriding emotion is fear. I am terrified by Trumps victory, and by the loathsome campaign he waged for over a year. Trump targeted and attacked specific groups of people  women, Muslims, indigenous people, black people, Mexicans and Latinos  based solely on their respective identities. He has permanently endangered the lives of vulnerable people by normalizing hatred of them. Trump has degraded standards of humanity not only in the U.S., but in places like Canada, where many are actually congratulating themselves for electing less monstrous leaders.

I am afraid for my sisters and brothers of African ancestry in the United States. I visited St. Louis last weekend before the vote. I stood on the sidewalk outside the Maryland Heights Police Department with Tranell Stewart, a young black man who was protesting a beating he received days earlier from police. The police told Stewart he was being pulled over for failing to signal. They beat him so badly that one of his eyes swelled shut. His infant child was in the back seat.

As Stewart, his wife, and a handful of others stood near the road last weekend, holding up signs with messages condemning his treatment, an endless stream of white motorists slowed down to swear at them, to give them the middle finger, to mock them with phrases like white lives matter more!

Trump didnt create this kind of hatred, but his violent, racist rhetoric will ensure it continues and thrives. The president-elect egged on supporters at rallies when they attacked black protestors. Besides the vague promise of jobs, Trumps only other major pledge to black residents is that he will bring in more police to stop and frisk them in their own neighbourhoods. His candidacy was an assault on blackness, and his presidency will be no different.

I am afraid for the indigenous people in the U.S., who repeatedly heard Trump refer to Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas after she claimed indigenous heritage.

Trumps statements are more than ignorant talk  they coincide with the struggle of indigenous people at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, who are trying to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline project. For months, indigenous demonstrators have been attacked by police and the National Guard. This will almost certainly continue under Trump, who is friendly with the Dakota pipeline owners. Trumps support for the Keystone XL pipeline also threatens to revive a fight against indigenous people on the stolen territory we call Canada. Trumps indifference to indigenous peoples will manifest in his actions, not just his words.

I am afraid for people like Maan Singh Khalsa, a Sikh man who was beaten by two attackers in the San Francisco area. The attackers beat Khalsa and used a knife to cut off some of his hair. Attacks against Muslims, but also Sikhs, in America have increased in the Islamophobic aftermath of 9-11. Perhaps the attackers dont know the difference between Muslims and Sikhs. Trumps campaign promise to ban Muslim immigrants will only inflame and encourage the ignorant.

I am afraid for every woman in the U.S. who has experienced sexual violence, or who will in the future. The election of Trump  a self-described and unrepentant perpetrator of sexual assault  is another brick in the towering wall of patriarchal Western culture.

A number of Canadians seem to be taking smug satisfaction in his victory over Hillary Clinton. In an apparent attempt at contrast, Canadas official Twitter account posted photos of black and brown people dancing and singing in traditional clothing, with the words, In Canada, immigrants are encouraged to bring their cultural traditions with them and share them with their fellow citizens.

How Canadian of us to see a neighbours suffering, and to congratulate ourselves for our relatively happy position. A great many of our neighbours are understandably terrified. Now would be a great time to reassure them we will be there for them, instead of simply reassuring ourselves.

Desmond Cole is a Toronto-based journalist. His column appears every second Thursday.

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As we attempt to wrap our minds around the surreal outcome of the American presidential election, Canadians might understandably be tempted by smugness. After all, we did not just imperil our nations progress and destabilize the world order by electing a uniquely unfit and profoundly unqualified candidate to our highest office, a man who fomented fear and hate and incited violence along the way.

On the contrary, it wasnt long ago that we sent Justin Trudeau and his sunny ways to the Prime Ministers Office, an act that has inspired international admiration (for reasons both founded and not), rather than fear and sadness. Just last week, The Economist magazine declared on its cover that liberty has moved north and Canada has become an example to the world.

Yet if there is one lesson the Trump tragedy holds for our country it is that complacency in these times of upheaval can be gangrenous. The social and economic factors that fuelled Trumps rise and the Brexit folly before it are at play here, too: economic anxiety and rising inequality, the growing distrust of institutions and elites, and our own examples of xenophobia and scapegoating.

These troubles are clearly not as acute or as widespread here as in the United States, but Canada is by no means insulated from this anti-establishment moment. We, too, ignore or dismiss the disaffected and disengaged at our peril.

Already politicians are emerging to promote a kind of Trumpism here at home. Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch sent out a fundraising email on Wednesday morning celebrating Trumps victory. Our American cousins threw out the elites, she wrote. Its an exciting message and one that we need delivered in Canada as well.

Leitch is set on mirroring the U.S. president-elect, subtly regressive slogan and all. Trump ominously wants to make America great again; Leitch to stand up for Canadian values. She wont be the only imitator.

We should not assume that there is no Canadian audience for this. Here, as in the U.S. and elsewhere, globalization has left too many behind in recent decades, prompting a steep rise in precarious work and income inequality. As elsewhere, these economic trends have been accompanied by troubling social ones: polls have shown a consistent decline in social cohesion, trust in government, and, more recently, openness to immigration. A recent Forum poll found that two-thirds of Canadians support Leitchs plan to screen prospective immigrants for anti-Canadian values, anti-Canadian though it may be.

The growing sense that politics and economics are rigged by the few against the many has already shaped electoral outcomes here. In Toronto, where precarity and inequality are particularly rampant, we saw a demagogue rise. Rob Ford, it must be remembered, was elected by a populist movement not unlike Trumps and remained popular, despite his infamous failings, until illness forced him out of politics.

No, we are not incapable of U.S.-style self-immolation. So we must learn the lessons of Trumps stunning win. Decent Conservatives should do as too many Republicans would not: condemn, in no uncertain terms, the politics of fear and division that Leitch and her ilk seek to practice.

More important, progressives, including the Liberal government, must succeed where the Democrats so consequentially fell short: by offering a positive vision for our country that rivals the emotional appeal of the demagogues bitter promises  and without ignoring that things are not all right for many Canadians.

We have seen twice in recent months the danger of dismissing those who think the system is rigged. The prime minister was right to say on Wednesday that Trump won in part because too many citizens were not sharing in the countrys prosperity and that this problem is one Ottawa must also address.

Many Canadians watched Trumps win in horror. We were powerless to stop it. But there is something we can do. We can urge our politicians to take seriously economic anxiety at home so that populists proffering fraudulent solutions dont fill the void.

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Last week the Star ran a series of articles on Canadas peacemaking options in Africa and quoted both Justin Trudeau and Romeo Dallaire as saying that these missions must offer more than military might. Yet there were no specifics about non-military options.

Similarly, the governments recent cross-country public consultations on defence policy and cyber security only focused on militarized options.

What can be made of Canadian peacekeeping when Canada increases its direct military involvement in Iraq and in the NATO exercises up to the Russian border, as Canada is now No. 6 in worldwide arms sales ($15 billion sales to Saudi Arabia), with the Trudeau government further watering down of weapons export regulations?

How can the public evaluate peacekeeping when they are not informed that Canada just voted against the UN Open Ended Working Group resolution to eliminate nuclear weapons?

Theres much more to know. Dallaires man in Rwanda, Paul Kagame, is greatly responsible for the Congo genocide that left at least 6 million fatalities. UN peacekeeping is fraught with abuse and Canada has so far been silent: impunity around infecting post-earthquake Haiti with cholera and its toll of at least 10,000 deaths, UN Peacekeepers interference in Haitis democratic elections, the lack of accountability for child sexual abuse in the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Haiti.

Fortunately, voices within the UN point to non-military interventions, like protecting women, rebuilding infrastructure and local economies. Recall that particularly in Africa, public education and public health were destroyed by the International Monetary Fund demanding elimination of most public services in order to pay off high-interest debt that was incurred by dictators buying weapons.

The Canadian public needs to know that African wars and poverty are largely caused by a long history of Western exploitation, looting, ravaging the continent of its people and resources.

The Star articles point to Canadas wish to be a rotating member of the UN Security Council. Lest we forget, the prior rejection of Canadas bid was attributed to Canadas lone veto of a UN Human Rights Council call for a ceasefire in Israels 2009 attack on Gaza.

What should peacekeeping really look like?

Judith Deutsch, Toronto

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Stocks that stand to benefit from Donald Trump's presidency soared in the wake of the real estate magnate's victory.

TheStreet's Donald Trump Stock Portfolio, a set of 15 stocks that should benefit from the president-elect's policies, traded up 4.47% midday Monday. Broader markets rallied as well, with U.S. stocks posting solid gains despite futures markets showing signs of distress as election results rolled in overnight. Hillary Clinton delivered her concession speech late morning, urging her supporters to keep an "open mind" and give her rival "a chance to lead." President Obama encouraged a smooth transition to the Trump administration and said we are "all rooting for his success."

Trump has remained relatively quiet throughout the day apart from a tweet pledging that we will "all come together as never before."

Speculation has already begun to swirl about his administration, agenda and plans.

U.S. Steel (X) was the top performer in the Trump stock portfolio midday Wednesday, trading up 18.18% to $24.77. Trump has promised to get tough on trade with China and practices by the country that hurt American steel companies. As part of his campaign platform, he pledged to instruct his Treasury Secretary to label China a currency manipulator and ask the U.S. Trade Representative to bring trade cases against it.

The Geo Group (GEO) soared as well, climbing 17.25% to $28.00. Private prison stocks were among the biggest beneficiaries of Trump's victory on Wednesday. Corrections Corp. of America (CXW) , which recently rebranded as CoreCivic, rallied as well. Both Geo and CCA took a hit in August when it appeared the federal government would be phasing out private prison contracts. Trump, however, appears quite favorable to the private prison industry, and he will need such facilities should he attempt to enact his mass deportation plan.

Steel Dynamics (STLD) , like U.S. Steel, got a boost thanks to steel bulls under President-elect Trump. It gained 8.87% to $31.04.

Defense contractors Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Northrop Grumman (NOC) made gains as well, rallying 5.96% to $253.45 and 5.12% to $241.63, respectively. Lockheed Martin was the U.S. government's biggest single contractor in 2015, garnering $36.2 billion in contracts from various agencies. Northrop Grumman is the third-largest maker of military arms and equipment.

Gold miner Randgold Resources (GOLD) surged 4.89% to $87.80, indicating some investors may have moved to the stock as a safe haven in anticipation of volatility. Gold prices Wednesday remained relatively flat and were down about 0.20%.

Here's how the entire Trump portfolio did post-election day, starting with the biggest gainers:

U.S. Steel 18.18%

The Geo Group 17.25%

Steel Dynamics 8.87%

Lockheed Martin 5.96%

Northrop Grumman 5.12%

Randgold Resources 4.89%

Capital One Financial (COF) 4.67%

Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) 3.22%

Boeing (BA) 2.16%

Oracle (ORCL) 0.95%

Tetra Tech (TTEK) 0.92%

ExxonMobil (XOM) 0.42%

Microsoft (MSFT) -0.07%

Cemex (CX) -8.57%
This is a current list of the top 250 companies by market capitalization on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Learn more .

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is one of the largest, and most recognizable, stock exchanges in the world. The NYSE is in New York City, New York at 11 Wall Street. The NYSE has been in existence since the earliest days of the United States becoming a nation, in 1792 and is primarily made up of blue-chip companies with large market capitalizations. In fact, many of the stocks that make up the Dow Jones Composite Index (i.e. The Dow) are listed on the NYSE.

This article gives a brief history of the New York Stock Exchange. In addition, it covers topics such as what kind of stocks trade on the exchange, what are the listing requirements, how trading is performed, and what the daily price movement of the NYSE tells investors about investor sentiment.

What Were the Origins of the NYSE?

Today, the New York Stock Exchange is known as the center of the financial universe. However, the exchanges origin is far more humble. On May 17, 1792, 24 stockbrokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement creating a centralized exchange to help provide order to the securities market in what was still a young nation. The "Buttonwood Agreement comes from the tree of the same name under which the founders signed the agreement.

An initial benefit of the exchange was how it removed the need for auctioneers when trading commodities like wheat and tobacco and to set a commission rate. The exchange initially focused on government bonds.

However, the exchange had no formal home. Business was usually conducted informally in the local coffeehouses. In 1817, the exchange changed its name to the New York Stock & Exchange Board which later became the New York Stock Exchange. At this time, the exchange adopted a constitution that set the rules for trading. A group of stockbrokers met twice a day at 40 Wall Street to trade 30 stocks and bonds.

Over time, the exchange moved became the financial hub of the country and moved to its current location in 1865.

What Kind of Stocks Trade on the NYSE?

As of June 2022, the NYSE includes approximately 2,400 companies with a market capitalization of over $28.2 trillion. Although the NYSE trades stocks of all market capitalizations, its best known for trading the stocks of large cap companies. These have the benefit of being mature companies in mature industries. And many of these companies reward shareholders with dividends.

However, that also means that many of these companies are better suited for value investors as opposed to growth investors. In bear markets this stability can be a benefit for investors as these stocks tend to perform less bad than more volatile stocks. But in a bull market, these stocks are not likely to provide investors with the growth that they look for.

An interesting fact about how the NYSE and NASDAQ operate is that the companies with the five largest market caps on the NYSE are also listed on the NASDAQ exchange.

What Are the Listing Requirements For the NYSE?

The NYSE has strict guidelines that govern the types of companies that can list on the exchange. Here are the major requirements that all companies must meet:

The company must have at least 2,200 shareholders

The company must trade over 100,000 shares per month

The company must have a market valuation of over $100 million

The company must generate more than $75 million in annual revenue

However, there is at least one advantage of having such stringent requirements. That is the companies that meet the requirements generally find it easier to get more investors funds when they hold their initial public offering (IPO).

Once a company begins trading on the NYSE, it must continue to meet these requirements. If it doesnt it can be delisted. In addition to these requirements, the stock must continue to trade above $1. If the price of a stock drops below $1 for more than 29 consecutive trading days, the stock receives an Initial Price Violation Notice.

At that point, the company has 10 days to provide the exchange with a plan for bringing their shares above $1.

How are Trades Executed on the NYSE?

For over a century, the floor of the NYSE was the place for investors to be. This meant trades were conducted by traders who ran buy and sell orders across the trading floor looking to broker a deal for their clients. But with the birth of the NASDAQ exchange in 1971, the New York Stock Exchange began conducting electronic trading.

However, the NYSE continues to conduct trades in an auction style. Brokers purchase stocks on behalf of their clients or firms. Every order features a broker who will enter the order electronically and a specialist who serves as the market maker for that stock. The specialist posts bid and ask prices and manages the actual execution of the trades. And there are still a handful of stockbrokers who still traffic buy and sell orders physically on the floor of the exchange.

How Does the NYSE Signal Investor Sentiment?

Like its counterpart, the NASDAQ, the NYSE measures the risk appetite of investors. When the NYSE is moving higher over a length of time, it signals that a risk on environment. Conversely when the NYSE moves lower over a significant period, it signals that investors are moving to a risk off position.

Some Final Thoughts on the NYSE

Financial news networks plan their programming schedule around the opening and closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange. Its still considered a distinguished honor when individuals or groups are invited to ring the opening bell. In fact, Warren Buffett is attributed with saying that in the short term, the stock market acts like a voting machine. A fact that many U.S. presidents will attest to.

The NYSE is the oldest and most recognizable of all the stock exchanges. It also has the most stringent requirements for inclusion. And those requirements must be maintained even after a stock begins publicly trading on the exchange.

Although the NYSE still has a small in-person Trading Floor, much of the trading is done electronically to provide traders with the speed to execute trades.
AmerisourceBergen Corporation sources and distributes pharmaceutical products in the United States and internationally. Its Pharmaceutical Distribution segment distributes brand-name and generic pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter healthcare products, home healthcare supplies and equipment, and related services to various healthcare providers, including acute care hospitals and health systems, independent and chain retail pharmacies, mail order pharmacies, medical clinics, long-term care and alternate site pharmacies, and other customers. It also provides pharmacy management, staffing, and other consulting services; supply management software to retail and institutional healthcare providers; and packaging solutions to various institutional and retail healthcare providers. In addition, this segment distributes plasma and other blood products, injectable pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and other specialty products; provides other services primarily to physicians who specialize in various disease states, primarily oncology, as well as to other healthcare providers, including hospitals and dialysis clinics; and offers data analytics, outcomes research, and additional services for biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The company's Other segment provides integrated manufacturer services, such as clinical trial support, product post-approval, and commercialization support; specialty transportation and logistics services for the biopharmaceutical industry; and sells pharmaceuticals, vaccines, parasiticides, diagnostics, micro feed ingredients, and various other products to customers in the companion animal and production animal markets, as well as demand-creating sales force services to manufacturers. AmerisourceBergen Corporation was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.
The following companies are subsidiares of Dover: APM Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, Accelerated Production Systems, Acme Cryo Intermediate Inc., Acme Cryogenics, Acme Cryogenics Inc., Acme Elevator, Advansor A/S, Advansor Dover International (Poland) sp. z o.o., Advansor Germany GmbH, Alfred Fueling Systems Holdco Ltd., Alfred Fueling Systems Inc., Alfred Fueling Systems Intermediate Holdco Ltd., All-Flo Pump Company, Anman LLC, Anthony Equity Holdings Inc., Anthony Holdings Inc., Anthony Inc., Anthony International, Anthony International Foreign Sales Corp., Anthony International Holding Company, Anthony Mexico Holdings LLC, Anthony North Holdco Inc., Anthony Specialty Glass LLC, Anthony TemperBent GP LLC, Audax ECII Blocker Inc., Auto Glanz Solutions LLC, AvaLAN Wireless Systems Incorporated, BELVAC CR spol s r.o., BSC Filters Limited, Belanger, Belanger Inc., Belvac Middle East FZE, Belvac Production Machinery Inc., Blackmer, BlitzRotary GmbH, Blue Bite LLC, Blue Bite LLC, Butler Engineering and Marketing S.P.A., CDS Visual, CDS Visual Inc., CEP Liquidation LLC, CP Formation LLC, CPC Europe Inc., CPI Products Inc., Caldera, Canada Organization & Development LLC, Chief Automotive Technologies (Shanghai) Trading Company Ltd., Chippewa Square Captive Insurance Company, Colder Products Company, Colder Products Company GmbH, Colder Products Company LTD, Cook Compression LLC, Cook Compression Limited, Cook-MFS Inc., Cryogenic Experts LLC, DD1 Inc., DDI Properties Inc., DE-STA-CO Benelux B.V., DE-STA-CO FRANCE, DE-STA-CO Shanghai Co. Ltd., DESTACO UK Limited, DFH Corporation, DFS Netherlands B.V., Datamax International Corp, De Sta Co (Asia) Company Limited, De-Sta-Co Cylinders Inc., DeStaCo Europe GmbH, Delaware Capital Formation Inc., Delaware Capital Holdings Inc., Dositec Sistemas SL, Dosmatic U.S.A. Inc., Dover (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Dover (Schweiz) Holding GmbH, Dover (Shanghai) Industrial Co. Ltd., Dover (Shenzhen) Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Dover (Suzhou) Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Dover Asia Trading Private Ltd., Dover Australia Holdings Pty Limited, Dover Business Services EMEA Limited, Dover Business Services Europe S.R.L., Dover Business Services LLC, Dover Business Services Philippines Corporation, Dover CLP Formation Limited Partnership, Dover Canada Holdings ULC, Dover Canada Operations ULC, Dover Corporation Regional Headquarters, Dover DEI Services Inc., Dover Denmark Holdings ApS, Dover EMEA FZCO, Dover Energy UK Ltd, Dover Engineered Products Segment Inc., Dover Europe Inc., Dover Europe Sarl, Dover Fluids UK Ltd, Dover France Holdings, Dover France Participations, Dover France Technologies, Dover Fueling Solutions Segment Inc., Dover Fueling Solutions UK Limited, Dover Germany GmbH, Dover Global Holdings LLC, Dover Holdings de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Dover Imaging & Identification Segment Inc., Dover India Pvt. Ltd., Dover Intercompany Services UK Limited, Dover International B.V., Dover International Operations Inc., Dover International Ventures Inc., Dover International ithalat ihracat ve Pazarlama Limited Sirketi, Dover Italy Holdings S.r.l., Dover Luxembourg Finance Sarl, Dover Luxembourg Participations Sarl, Dover Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Dover Luxembourg Services Sarl, Dover Operations South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Dover Overseas Ventures Inc., Dover Pumps & Process Solutions Segment Inc., Dover Refrigeration & Food Equipment Segment Inc., Dover Refrigeration & Food Equipment UK Ltd, Dover Resources International de Mexico S. de R.L. C.V., Dover Solutions Colombia SAS, Dover Southeast Asia (Thailand) Ltd., Dover Spain Holdings S.L., Dover Switzerland Participations GmbH, Dover UK Pensions Limited, Dover WSCR Holding LLC, Dover WSCR LLC, Dover do Brasil Ltda., Dow-Key Microwave Corporation, Dresser Wayne Data Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Dresser Wayne Fuel Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ECI - IGT Holdings LLC, ECI Holding Company LLC, ECI RegO S. de R.L. de C.V, ECI RegO Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., ECII (Mexico) LLC, EOA Systems Inc., Ebs-Ray Holdings Pty Ltd, Ebs-Ray Industries Pty Ltd, Ebs-Ray Pumps Pty Ltd, Em-Tec, Engineered Controls International LLC, Espy, Ettlinger, Ettlinger Kunststoffmaschinen GmbH, Fairbanks Environmental Limited, Fibrelite Composites Limited, Fibresec Holdings Limited, Fibresec Limited, Finder, GAL LLC, GIIER LLC, Gala Industries, Guangdong Tokheim LIYUAN Oil Industry Technology Limited Company, Highland Park Insurance Company, Hill PHOENIX Inc., Hill PHOENIX WIC LLC, Hill Phoenix Costa Rica Sociedad De Responsabilidad Limitada, Hill Phoenix El Salvador Limitada de Capital Variable, Hill Phoenix Guatemala Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix Honduras Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hiltap Fittings Ltd., Hydro Systems Company, Hydro Systems Europe Ltd., Industrial Motion Control LLC, Innovative Control Systems, Innovative Control Systems Inc., Inpro/Seal LLC, JK Group, JK Group S.P.A., JK Group USA Inc., K S Boca Inc., K&L Microwave DR Inc., K&L Microwave Inc., KPS (Beijing) Petroleum Equipment Trading Co Ltd., KPS Fueling Solutions Sdn. Bhd., KPS Hong Kong Holding Limited, KPS UK Limited, KS Formation Inc., KS Liquidation Inc., KSLP Liquidation L.P., Kiian Digital (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Knappco LLC, Knowles Electronics, LIQAL, LIQAL B.V., Liquip, Liquip, Liquip International Pty Limited, MAAG, MARKEM FZ SA, MARKEM-IMAJE Corporation, MIP Holdings Inc., MS Printing Solutions, MS Printing Solutions S.R.L., Maag, Maag Automatik Plastics Machinery (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Maag Gala Inc., Maag Germany GmbH, Maag Italy S.R.L., Maag Pump Systems, Maag Pump Systems (US) Inc., Maag Pump Systems AG, Maag Reduction Inc., Maag Service (Malaysia) Sdn. Bdn., Maag Service (Taiwan) Ltd., Maag Systems (Thailand) Limited, Macro Technologies LLC, Malema, Marathon Equipment Company (Delaware), Markem Imaje Center of Competencies Spain S.L.U., Markem-Imaje, Markem-Imaje (China) Co. Limited, Markem-Imaje - Unipessoal Lda, Markem-Imaje A/S, Markem-Imaje AB, Markem-Imaje AG, Markem-Imaje AS, Markem-Imaje B.V., Markem-Imaje CSAT GmbH, Markem-Imaje Co. Ltd., Markem-Imaje GmbH, Markem-Imaje Holding, Markem-Imaje Identificacao de Produtos Ltda., Markem-Imaje Inc., Markem-Imaje India Private Limited, Markem-Imaje Industries, Markem-Imaje Industries Limited, Markem-Imaje KK, Markem-Imaje LLC, Markem-Imaje Limited, Markem-Imaje Ltd., Markem-Imaje N.V., Markem-Imaje Oy, Markem-Imaje Philippines Corporation, Markem-Imaje Pty. Ltd., Markem-Imaje S.A., Markem-Imaje S.A. de C.V., Markem-Imaje S.r.l., Markem-Imaje SAS, Markem-Imaje Sdn. Bhd., Markem-Imaje Singapore Pte. Ltd., Markem-Imaje Spain S.A., Markpoint Holding AB, Midland Manufacturing LLC, Midwest Cryogenics Inc., Mouvex, Northeast Services Inc., Northern Lights (Nevada) Inc., Northern Lights Funding LP, Northern Lights Investments LLC, Nova Controls Inc., OK International, OK International Holdings Inc., OK International Inc., OK International Ltd., OPW Engineered Systems LLC, OPW Fluid Transfer Group Europe B.V., OPW Fluid Transfer Solutions (Jiang Su) Co. Ltd., OPW Fluids Group Inc., OPW Fuel Management Systems Inc., OPW Fueling Components (SuZhou) Co. Ltd., OPW Fueling Components LLC, OPW Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., OPW Slovakia s.r.o., OPW Sweden AB, Officine Meccaniche Sirio S.R.L., PDQ Manufacturing, PDQ Manufacturing Inc., PISCES by OPW Inc., PSD Codax Holdings Limited, PSD Codax Limited, PSG (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PSG (Tianjin) Co. 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Now it's midnight, and the Chicago Board of Elections is just about finished counting the local votes. With 95 percent of the totals in, Clinton won roughly 84 percent of the city vote. About the same as Obama. So don't blame me. I'm from Chicago. Our firewall held strong. I don't think I've ever felt so alienated and isolated from the rest of the country. We're like a tiny island of blue in a sea of red.

But here's what Chicago Reader's Ben Jorvasky is dealing with in a piece entitled " Chicago's new, frightening reality: a blue city in the red nation: "

What Liberals don't understand is that those that see the world from a traditional conservative perspective have been fully aware of the Leftist view imposed upon them and have psychologically learned to deal with it. It has made conservatives stronger and more committed to liberty than ever as they've watched the destruction of their great country left to Leftist values.

CHICAGO - It's evidently scary and somewhat traumatizing for Liberals to realize that there's half a population in America that sees things totally different from the way they do. And there's a sizable number that share that view in the only blue Midwestern state of Illinois, too.

So what about the ideals of those that hold true among Illinois' sea of red whose numbers and views are ignored and mocked by those dwelling in the "tiny island of blue"? We've had to not only deal with the ridicule of Blue-sters, we've paid for their ideological foolishness and experimentation.

We've had no way to get our message out to the red masses who think like us because you've muffled our ideas and done your best to bully us into submission. We've kept our heads down, worked hard to pay the insatiable demands of tax masters that use our hard-earned funds to take care of their political buddies and build up political dynasties.

We're tired of it. Oh yes, we are. Still, we don't protest in the streets - and we didn't in 2008 or 2012. We remember you making fun of Tea Party rallies that upheld freedom, liberty and the Constitution.

We've been dominated by Blue elites for decades - and it's time that we drew a line in the sand for the sake of our children and grandchildren. The nonsense is going to stop.

We're sorry you're distressed - we know how it feels. But while we were angry and upset, we grew stronger and more determined to resist your domination.

One thing you'll find, though, we're gracious winners. And while our movement for freedom and liberty grows, we'll hold our lawmakers feet to the fire - no matter which party affiliation they hold.

And we'll do our best to explain to you what your professors and the media have misled you to believe - because we need you to understand we're out here, and what we think and believe matters.

Welcome to the island of isolation, Blue-sters - Take care of it while we're gone.
Constellium SE, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the design, manufacture, and sale of specialty rolled and extruded aluminum products for the packaging, aerospace, and automotive end-markets. The company operates through three segments: Packaging & Automotive Rolled Products, Aerospace & Transportation, and Automotive Structures & Industry. The Packaging & Automotive Rolled Products segment produces rolled aluminum products, including can stock and closure stock for the beverage and food industry, as well as foil stock for the flexible packaging market. It also supplies automotive body sheets and heat exchangers for the automotive market; and specialty reflective sheets. The Aerospace & Transportation segment provides rolled aluminum products, including aerospace plates, sheets, and extrusions; and aerospace wing skins, as well as plates and sheets for use in transportation, industry, and defense applications. The Automotive Structures & Industry segment offers extruded products and technologically advanced structures for the automotive industry, including crash-management systems, body structures, side impact beams, and battery enclosures; and hard and soft alloy extruded profiles for various industry applications in the automotive, engineering, rail, and other transportation end markets. This segment also provides downstream technology and services, which include pre-machining, surface treatment, research and development, and technical support services. The company sells its products directly or through distributors in France, Germany, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States, as well as Shanghai, and Seoul. Constellium SE was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in Paris, France.
Mark Kirk may have been the only Republican U.S. Senator to lose, and readers of this site should consider that a positive political outcome. (Update: New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte has since conceded to her Democrat opponent as well.) He proved to be not only a turncoat, but also mentally unfit for his job. From one cringe-inducing insult to another, Illinois Republicans had every reason to wonder why Governor Rauner allowed him to run for re-election. Perhaps the real story will now be told. The governor is said to be close to Kirk and could have asked him not to run for re-election. We may then have had a nominee who could have held the seat, though that would have been a tall order. Duckworth essentially ran an error-free campaign.

Ironically Kirk lost the collar counties, including DuPage, the very constituency his centrist (pro-immigration and gun control) views were supposed to appeal to. There was also a drop-off in support for him from Trump supporters in many downstate counties. Typical is Adams County, which includes the Republican stronghold of Quincy, on the Mississippi river, where Trump won 21,957 votes, a staggering 71% of the total. Kirk trailed with 17,454. Nearly one-in-five Trump voters refused to support him. So he ended up having no natural constituency beyond hard-core Republicans.

Perhaps the Governor, whose money was otherwise well spent yesterday, carrying some new Republicans to the General Assembly over Madigan allies, will at least realize what does not work electorally in this state. Trump did not do well here (41%), but neither did Kirk. Yet Rauner, as principled a politician as we have, was elected to change this state. He should have focused on that and left Senator Kirk to his own devices.
Estimated combined seismic energy released: 2.9 x 1013 joules (7.96 gigawatt hours, equivalent to 6845 tons of TNT or 0.4 atomic bombs!) | 2.9 x 10joules (7.96 gigawatt hours, equivalent to 6845 tons of TNT or 0.4 atomic bombs!) | about seismic energy

Earthquake Catalog - Look up past earthquakes

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Earthquake FAQ

When was the latest earthquake anywhere in the world?

The last earthquake in the world occurred 27 minutes ago: Weak mag. 2.8 earthquake - Edirne, 29 km south of Silivri, Stambul, Turkey, on Wednesday, Nov 2, 2022 at 3:46 am (GMT +3).

Where did the last earthquake happen in the world?

The last quake above magnitude 4 today occurred 31 minutes ago in Philippine Sea, 48 km NW of Dededo Village, Guam.

Smaller quakes below magnitude 4 are much more frequent and happen somewhere in the world every few minutes. However, many (if not most) of them go unrecorded, because not all areas in the world are covered by sensitive-enough seismic networks able to detect them.

Where do most earthquakes occur in the world?

By far, most earthquakes in the world occur along the margins of the Pacific Ocean, followed by the vast Alpine-Himalayan mountain belts that stretch from southern Europe through Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran, Pakistan, to northern India, Nepal and southern China.

Most of these regions are in oceanic or continental collision zones where tectonic plates collide with each other and release energy in form of earthquakes.

How many quakes were there in the world today?

In the past 24 hours, there have been 94 quakes up to magnitude 5.4.

What was the strongest quake in the world today?

The strongest earthquake in the world today occurred 17 hours ago: Moderate mag. 5.4 earthquake - East China Sea, Japan, 88 km east of Yilan, Taiwan, on Tuesday, Nov 1, 2022 at 4:30 pm (GMT +8).

What category of earthquake is considered an emergency?

Most earthquakes are small and cause no damage, but occasionally, there are bigger ones that can cause considerable damage to people and infrastructure. How much damage a quake does depends a lot on a number of factors including:

- magnitude

- depth beneath the surface

- duration and motion of the shaking

- local geology

- population density

- overall building standards of the affected area

- risk awareness and preparedness

Quakes below magnitude 5 rarely cause damage, while quakes above around magnitude 7 almost always result in extensive damage, even in areas with very good building standards such as in the western US or Japan. Quakes from magnitudes 8 often result in wide-spread or even catastrophic destruction.

What kind of damage can an earthquake do?

The ground shaking of earthquakes can cause soil liquefaction, landslides and avalanches, the opening of fissures in the ground, deformation of the ground, cracks in walls and other structures leading to their collapse. As secondary and often even more severe damage, this can lead to fires, gas leaks, or even tsunamis if the sea floor is moved in a way to displace a large mass of water.

How dangerous are earthquakes?

Earthquakes are among the (if not THE) most dangerous type of natural disaster.

According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), quakes caused nearly 750,000 deaths globally in the period 1998-2017, more than half of all deaths related to natural disasters.

How many people are affected by earthquakes every year?

Each day, many thousands of people feel an earthquake somewhere. Stronger quakes can be felt by millions of people.

According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 750,000 people were killed by quakes and more than 125 million people injured, made homeless or displaced or otherwise seriously affected by earthquakes during the 20 years from 1998-2017.
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A Chevrolet Bolt EV is on display at the General Motors Orion Assembly plant Friday. The automaker will lay off 2,000 at its Ohio, Michigan plants. (Duane Burleson/AP)

AUTO INDUSTRY

GM will lay off 2,000 at Ohio, Michigan plants

Shifting demand from cars to trucks and SUVs is forcing General Motors to lay off more than 2,000 workers indefinitely at two assembly plants in Ohio and Michigan starting in January, the company said Wednesday.

GM said it will suspend the third shifts at factories in Lordstown, Ohio, and Lansing, Mich., because of the market change, which is growing and shows no sign of abating.

About 1,250 workers will be furloughed at the Lordstown plant, which makes the Chevrolet Cruze compact car, starting Jan. 23. Another 840 will be idled at the Lansing Grand River factory, which makes the Chevrolet Camaro and Cadillac ATS and CTS luxury cars, when their shifts end Jan. 16.

Its supply and demand, and right now the demand is not there for what we have, said Glenn Johnson, president of a United Auto Workers union local at the Lordstown plant.

Sales of the Cruze are down nearly 20 percent this year. ATS and CTS sales are down about 17 percent each, while Camaro sales are off nine percent.

GM doesnt know when the workers will be called back, said spokesman Tom Wickham. Laid-off workers will get state unemployment benefits and supplemental pay.

 Associated Press

WORKPLACE

Women, men differ in STEM collaboration

Female researchers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) departments tend to have a wider range of collaborators than men, but are still significantly underrepresented, according to a new study.

Northwestern Universitys Xiao Han T. Zeng and co-authors studied the publication records of nearly 4,000 faculty members at top U.S. research universities in six STEM disciplines: chemical engineering, chemistry, ecology, materials science, molecular biology and psychology. They included active faculty members as of 2010.

Women had fewer distinct co-authors in total publications, but this was explained by publishing fewer papers during shorter careers, the researchers found.

Female scientists were also less likely than males to publish again with previous co-authors.

In molecular biology in particular, women later in their careers had significantly fewer co-authors per publication than men, the study published in PLoS Biology showed.

Indiana University professor Stasa Milojevic, who was not part of the new study, said the results show conspicuous male dominance in genomics. Other studies have suggested that women tend to work on less prestigious topics and areas.

 Reuters

Also in Business

 Generic drugmaker Mylan, which is under investigation over steep price increases for its EpiPen allergy treatment, on Wednesday reported a third-quarter loss due to the cost of a proposed settlement with the U.S. government. Mylan posted a net loss of $119.8 million, or 23 cents per share, compared with a profit of $428.6 million, or 83 cents per share, a year ago. The company has said it agreed to terms of a settlement set at $456 million. The U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies have yet to confirm an agreement. Mylan said it had adjusted earnings of $1.38 per share.

 From news services

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 From news services
Daily Show host Trevor Noah has a new memoir about growing up mixed race in apartheid South Africa. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

Trump. Trump. Clinton. The Obamas dancing like dorks.

Such is the stuff of a recent pre-election morning meeting at The Daily Show headquarters. Trevor Noah enters, water bottle and orange in hand, and wedges himself in among the writers, his back never pressing against the sofa.

Can we talk about Brexit? he asks. I find Brexit fascinating, because in the U.S., people see it as done and dusted.

They talk of Brexit, how British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson resembles a Muppet. But then the discussion swiftly returns to the steady drip of Trump, Trump, Trump.

You may hire a guy for his global perspective, but comedy comes back to the familiar fast.

[Well pick a president, but the search continues for a perfect late-night host]

Last year, after a 16-year reign, Jon Stewart was replaced by a young comedian who is nothing like him: foreign, biracial, cool, GQ-photogenic and utterly unknown to Americans, having appeared on the show only three times before being tapped as the successor.

Noah was given six weeks to create his own version of the program, all during a presidential campaign that became so absurd and unprecedented as to seem the work of deranged comedy writers. (When Trump won, Noah told his audience that it feels like the end of the world.)



Noah makes his debut on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Trevor Noah" on Sept. 28, 2015. (Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central)

At the time, the move seemed unfair, not only to the shows devout audience but also to Stewarts replacement. Nor was Noahs start aided by the discovery of old tweets critical of Jews and heavier women.

Noah remained undaunted. I had no fears, because I was extremely ignorant. It was bliss, the 32-year-old says later, sitting in a makeup room. Only an idiot would take the job after Jon Stewart, and I was that idiot. (This from a man confident enough to conduct an interview while a barber trims a nanometer off his close-cropped hair.)

He took the job, continued doing stand-up on nights off and, oh, wrote an affecting memoir, Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, which is also a love letter to his mother. The book will be published Tuesday, and on Saturday, the comic will appear in conversation with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) at Sixth & I. (The event is sold out.)

The crime was that his birth in 1984 violated South Africas 1927 Immorality Act, which prohibited illicit carnal intercourse between a European male and a native female. As the child of a black mother and a white father in a society that kept the two races strictly separated, Noah has long lived outside rigid racial lines. I never met any kids who were biracial, he says.

His defiant mother was jailed so many times for breaking apartheids severe racial laws and frequenting whites-only areas that I think she even lost count, Noah says.

Before apartheid ended when he was almost 6, young Trevor was kept mostly indoors, often staying in Soweto with his maternal grandmother, who told him, Im afraid they will steal you.

He thought she meant the people in the township where he lived with his mother. (He never lived with his father, a Swiss national residing in South Africa whom his mother, a secretary, met when she was living illegally in a Johannesburg apartment building that prohibited blacks.)

Trevor Noah as a child. (Courtesy of Patricia Noah)

I thought she was being paranoid. And it was only while writing the book, he says, that I realized that she was afraid, rightfully so, that the police would take me.

He couldnt be seen in public with his parents. In my head, I grew up running with my parents, Noah says. His mother, told him otherwise: You were chasing your father down the street and I was chasing you because he couldnt be seen with you because of the police.

Because of his lighter skin, Noah was viewed as coloured by society and at school, a racial classification shared by no other member of his black family.

My grandmother was very lenient to me because of my skin color, he says. But often I saw myself as inferior, because I grew up in a black world. I was the only kid who was getting sunburned, the only kid whose skin would show bruises the way it did. I was stared at whether it was a wedding or a funeral or a family gathering with extended members. So, if anything, I didnt see myself as whole or complete or part of a thing.

[How Trevor Noah can save his tenure at The Daily Show before it starts]

In his memoir, the comedian portrays his mother, Patricia Noah, as fiercely Christian  attending as many as three churches on Sunday (black, white and mixed)  and funny, proud and fearless. He writes that she once threw her eldest son from a moving car to save his life, and took a bullet to the head from Noahs abusive stepfather and lived to joke about it.

On the bright side, she told Noah from her hospital bed, now youre officially the best-looking person in the family.

Although they remain close, shell never come over, says Noah, who returns home six times a year. I dont even know if she watches the show. He pauses. I dont think she does. (His father, whom he visited on Sundays growing up, eventually returned to Switzerland.)



(Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

(Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

Noah decided to become a stand-up comedian before he had ever seen one in his country, or before he knew that he could make a living doing such a thing.

Famous is an understatement. Hes mega-famous in South Africa, says Ugandan comedian Joseph Opio. Hes basically the South African comedy industry personified.

Most of the writers and producers  as well as the work culture  from Stewarts tenure on The Daily Show were retained, but Noah asked Opio and comedian David Kibuuka, who was born in Uganda but later moved to South Africa, to join the writing staff. Says Opio, We share an outsiders voice. In the packed meeting of almost 30 staffers, Noah, Opio and Kibuuka, along with show correspondent Roy Wood Jr., are the only black participants.

[Late-night TV hosts react to Trumps presidency with disbelief, lots of jokes]

The shows Hells Kitchen offices resemble an indoor dog park. The place is fueled by staggering quantities of caffeine and junk food. The latter still astonishes Noah and his African colleagues, who grew up viewing cake as a rarity, not a given. Noahs grandmothers house was not a two-bedroom house. A two-room house, he says, with no running water, and an outdoor communal faucet and a toilet shared by multiple families.

Noah learned quickly that to work with a successful program and a large (108-member) production team, you really have to go for evolution rather than revolution, he says. Because anything you do initially is seen as incorrect.



Noah hosts the live one-hour election night special Democalypse 2016 on Nov. 8. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Comedy Central)

Critics fault him for appearing too detached on-screen, where Stewart delivered arias of indignation. But Trevor hasnt earned the right to be that angry about whats happening in America, Opio says. And where weve come from, weve seen worse things.

Says Noah, I understand that some people think of me as cold and somewhat dismissive, but the truth is Im genuine.

He lived in the United States previously, from 2010 to 2012, with Los Angeles as his base, and became the first African comedian  not South African, from the entire continent  to appear on The Tonight Show. (He thinks he is still the only one to have done so.)

I was extremely lonely, he says. Hollywood is like a person that doesnt have time to be with you, but it always wants you to be available.

He went to Britain, toured constantly, then returned to New York. Jon called and said he wanted to hang out, he recalls. So Noah would visit the Daily Show office, sit there and listen to what people were saying. He was given a small desk in a shared office, so that he might contribute some writing. He never thought it would ultimately end in his joining the staff, let alone hosting.

Making the show his own requires patience, though he didnt understand this when he first arrived. When I started, I had lofty ideas of what I was going to do, he says, and I thought I would do it within 100 days, and I would change everything.

Fast and all at once wasnt going to work. I learned, Noah says. The show was my Guantanamo.

Nor is the writing staffs task easy. Its very difficult writing for me, he says. You are writing for a biracial South African, who is from a world you cannot lock down. You cannot understand my experience. It is the black experience, but its a different black experience.

So, to help his audience understand, he did what only he could do, and wrote the story of his childhood.
(Click here to skip down to this weeks new neologism contest, the annual Tour de Fours)



(Bob Staake/For The Washington Post )

In Week 1197 we asked for captions for any of these Bob Staake cartoons. Remember, the entry deadline was well before Election Day. Whoever it was who described the woman in Picture 4 as Melania Trump . . . wha?

4th place

Picture 2: Everyone said Crocs werent very stylish but comfortable to wear; Franks experience, though, was exactly the opposite. (Larry Gray, Union Bridge, Md.)

3rd place

Picture 3: Oh, crap. I hate backing out of parking spaces. (Hildy Zampella, Falls Church, Va.)

No, the milk doesn't come out the udder tucked under this ceramic mug, this week's second prize. (Pat Myers/The Washington Post)

2nd place and the faux- primitive surfer figurine:

Picture 1: Although pleased with his ice cream cone head and drumstick ears, Buffet the Clown was less sure about the haggis nose. (Jerry Birchmore, Springfield, Va.)

And the winner of the Inkin Memorial:

Picture 4: Grab them by the uvula. You can do anything you want when youre famous. (Steven Steele Cawman, Poughquag, N.Y.)

Art depreciation: honorable mentions

(Bob Staake/For The Washington Post)

PICTURE 1

Im not breaking up with you; Id just like to see other faces. (Art Grinath, Takoma Park, Md.)

Donald Trump Jr. wonders about letting in just one Skittle. (Ralph Nitkin, Rockville, Md.)

Mama always said that if I didnt quit playing with it, it was gonna fall off. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

Bobo wonders if the five-second rule applies to body parts. (Chuck Salerno, Chelmsford, Mass., a First Offender; Roger Dalrymple, Gettysburg, Pa.)

A big blob of blood comes out of Donalds wherever after an alley meeting with Megyn. (Stephen Dudzik, Olney, Md.)

Medieval court jesters were often required to spite their faces. (Art Grinath)

When Blinky was expelled from Klown Kollege, he just went to pieces. (Doug Frank, Crosby, Tex.)

Bubbles wondered how the nine circus clowns would fit inside the Mini-Beetle. (Barry Koch, Catlett, Va.)

Fredos balloon animal poops werent the hit hed imagined. (Cindi Rae Caron, Blowing Rock, N.C.)

Mike knows he shouldnt pick someone elses nose, but when in need ... (Roger Dalrymple)

Even for a clown, its no laughing matter when your prostate falls out. (Jesse Frankovich, Lansing, Mich.)

The end of Cocos career found him working at a tiny one-ring circus. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)



(Bob Staake/For The Washington Post)

PICTURE 2

Im a litigator, not a crocodile! (John Hutchins, Silver Spring, Md.)

I suppose your mother told you she was a bit wild back in college? Um, yeah. Nice to finally meet you, Dad. (Hildy Zampella)

The two attorneys were naturally drawn to pro boscis cases. (Dave Prevar, Annapolis)

The IRSs newest investigator decides to poke his nose in the Caimans. (Doug Frank)

If you think its such a hostile takeover, why dont you walk? (Dan Kinney, Charlottesville)

The new Grand Floridian Resort gateway arch was designed by Stephan Pastis. (Kevin Dopart, Washington)

Jim didnt quite understand when he heard that gaiters were coming back into vogue. (Larry Gray)

Ambulance Chasers Success Tip No. 4: The pre-meeting breath check. (Warren Tanabe, Annapolis, Md.)

Bob mistakenly thought the alligator, briefcase listing was for an alligator briefcase. (John Hutchins)



(Bob Staake/For The Washington Post)

PICTURE 3

NASA soon gave up on planning April 1 launches. (Pam Sweeney, Burlington, Mass.)

The order to aim rockets at China appeared to have been misinterpreted. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

My ex-wife was right  I am going straight to Hell! (Michele Uhler, Fort Washington, Md.)

Ever vigilant, Capt. Wilbur detected that someone had mounted the rockets flag upside down. (Steve Fahey, Kensington, Md.; Warren Tanabe; Dave Prevar)

Cash-strapped NASA begins drilling for oil. (John Hutchins)

Your software update is complete. (Roger Strauss, Silver Spring, Md., a First Offender)

Biff still wasnt convinced that an expedition to the sun was a good idea, even if done at night and backward. (Frank Osen)

Those literal-minded engineers misinterpreted NASAs Back to the Moon program. (Ward Kay, Vienna, Va.)

When I said, Weve got to turn this program around, I didnt mean this. (Jack Turner, Milford, Del.)

Liftoff in T minus 3, 4, 5 . . . (Nick Semanko, Washington, a First Offender; Warren Tanabe)

NASAs reverse-engineering effort seemed fraught with confusion. (Howard Walderman, Columbia)

Theres a difference between moon rocket and moon, rocket. (Kevin Dopart)



(Bob Staake/For The Washington Post)

PICTURE 4

Even at age 67, Gene Simmons still has groupies. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Hills, Md.)

What do you mean your tapeworm doesnt like my lasagna? (Jennifer Dickey, Silver Spring, Md.)

Margie caught the linguine thief right in the act. (Roger Dalrymple)

If your wife tells you to watch your tongue, NEVER sass back, Just how can you do that? (Dave Prevar)

Problem: Foulmouthed politician. Solution: Soap on a rope. (Ben Aronin, Washington)

I told you that was no way to get rid of a sex tape! (Jennifer Dickey)

I love you, Harold, but its high time you got one of those self-starting brains. (Nathanael Dewhurst, Lynn, Mass.)



(Bob Staake/For The Washington Post )

ALL FOUR PICTURES

Its always awkward asking someone to dance. (Art Grinath)

Still running  deadline Monday, Nov. 14: Our contest for wry Devils Dictionary definitions. See bit.ly/invite1200.

And this weeks new contest:

WEEK 1201: TOUR DE FOURS XIII  WHATS THERE TO NOVE?

NEVOLUTION: The science-deniers theory of human development.

LOVE-NUMB: Suffering the results of extended lip-lock.

Its a neologism contest that the Empress has run in each year of her sorry regime celebrated reign, each time with a different set of four letters: Coin a word or multi-word term that contains the letter block N-O-V-E (hey, its November) and describe it, as in the examples above; the letters may be in any order, but there may be no other letters between them (you may insert a space or hyphen). Feel free to use it in a funny sentence, especially since several other people might coin the same word you did, and the funniest description is going to get the ink.

Submit entries at the website bit.ly/enter-invite-1201 (all lowercase).

Winner gets the Inkin Memorial, the Lincoln statue bobblehead that is the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives this purebred Holstein black and white ceramic mug with a little pink ceramic udder between its little mug-legs. Donated by Loser Every Year Since Year 1 Elden Carnahan, who thought he might have won it in the Invite way back when, but we dont think he can pin this one on us.

Other runners-up win their choice of the yearned-for This Is Your Brain on Mugs Loser mug or our Grossery Bag, I Got a B in Punmanship. Honorable mentions get one of our lusted-after Loser magnets, Magnet Dum Laude or Falling Jest Short. First Offenders receive a smelly tree-shaped air freshener (FirStink for their first ink). Deadline is Monday night, Nov. 21; results published Dec. 11 (online Dec. 8). You may submit up to 25 entries per contest. See general contest rules and guidelines at wapo.st/InvRules. The headline for this weeks results is by Kevin Dopart; the honorable-mentions subhead is by Chris Doyle. Join the lively Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook at on.fb.me/invdev. Like the Style Invitational Ink of the Day on Facebook at bit.ly/inkofday; follow @StyleInvite on Twitter.

The Style Conversational The Empresss weekly online column, published late Thursday afternoon, discusses each new contest and set of results. Especially if you plan to enter Week 1201, check it out at wapo.st/styleconv.


Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is a linguist called in by the government to communicate with Earths surprise visitors in Arrival. (Jan Thijs/Paramount Pictures)

With its intriguing premise and handsome production values, Arrival continues an encouraging trend in science-fiction filmmaking, embodied by the likes of Gravity and The Martian: films that imbue the genres inherent flights of fancy with sophistication and meaningful subtext.

In this adaptation of a short story by Ted Chiang, director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario) announces from the outset what kind of journey he intends to take us on. Opening with a musical score of mournful strings, which are soon joined by a somber voice-over by Amy Adams, its clear that were in for a serious-minded reflection on memory, time and, as a few early scenes indicate, overwhelming grief.

In other words, youve been warned.

As with so many movies this season  from Loving and Manchester By the Sea to the supposedly cheerful musical La La Land  many viewers are probably in for a cry at Arrival, but its the good kind. Working from a thoughtful script by Eric Heisserer (Lights Out) and a superb, quietly interior performance by Adams, Villeneuve has crafted a movie akin to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Contact: an imaginative, escapist what-if scenario overlaid with semi-profound questions about fate, loss and the meaning of love. Arrival cant be described as philosophically deep, exactly. But neither does it sacrifice worthy ideas on the altar of pure entertainment. Rather, Villeneuve understands that the best movies are those that allow the two to coexist in unforced, tolerant balance.



Adams as Louise Banks in Arrival. (Jan Thijs/Paramount Pictures)

Because Arrival is so carefully constructed as a continually unfolding series of reveals, the less synopsis the better. Suffice it to say that Adams plays Louise Banks, a linguist who is called in by the U.S. government when a mysterious ovoid object appears just above Montana, hovering ominously over the prairie like one half of an enormous almond. It turns out that 11 more spacecraft just like it have popped up at other locations around the globe. Louise, along with a rakishly handsome physicist played by Jeremy Renner, is tasked with establishing communication with the intergalactic visitors, and finding out what they want.

The premise of Arrival is elegantly simple  see UFO, approach UFO, stop UFO from destroying the world or vice versa  and Villeneuve wisely doesnt mess with it. The power of the film lies in its intricate structure, which is a tricky series of fakes and feints that keep viewers unsure, exactly, of what theyre seeing, in terms of time frames and subjective reality. The danger with a film this purposefully enigmatic and scrambled is that the viewer becomes hopelessly lost. This is where Villeneuves gifts as a craftsman come sharply into play, as he allows Arrival to be as enigmatic as possible until giving the audience a crucial, orienting piece of information  gratifyingly, with relatively little chitchat and dumbed-down action.

"Arrival" is a science fiction film about alien space ships touching down across the globe. A team is put together to investigate, including linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams), mathematician Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) and U.S. Army Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker). ( / Paramount Pictures)

Rather than those usual superfluous distractions, Arrival hews to its sleek, unfussy storytelling, which is both suspenseful and almost poetically abstract, an effect heightened by Johann Johannssons unsettling score. Photographed with muted shadows and understated style by Bradford Young, and visualized with elegant simplicity by production designer Patrice Vermette, the movie is suffused with mystery, not only about the visitors designs on the planet, but about Louises sometimes confounding air of dazed bemusement at making first contact with alien life-forms.

Staged by Villeneuve to make the most of its potential for spectacle, Arrival is often awesome to look at, especially when Adams, Renner and their characters colleagues are dwarfed by the pendent obelisk theyre desperately trying to understand. Coming on the heels of a fractious election season, Arrival could reflexively be interpreted as an allegory about immigration, communication and belligerence. But the climactic encounter, when it finally occurs, is staged almost as an afterthought and, after all the scientific and linguistic jargon has been spouted, maybe not the point. Nothing is precisely what it seems in Arrival, until it all becomes clear, like one of the films spindly, squidlike beings emerging out of the mist. Muted, measured and meditative, Arrival brings taste and restraint to a genre in the midst of a mini golden age: It comes in peace.
Editors note: This year, our Thanksgiving meal is a virtual potluck. Writers and editors signed up to provide one of 11 dishes, then tested recipes and brought contenders to a final taste-off for a vote. Heres the winning turkey.



Roast Turkey With Garlic Cream; see recipe below. (Jennifer Chase/For The Washington Post)

I went back to the bag this year  you know, the one that makes the righteous Food Police comment till the cows come home. The turkey oven bag.

When youre all in for Thanksgiving, a big bird is the holiday tables chief ongoing concern. You make room for it in cold storage, you weigh the merits of a brine, you schedule around its cooking, you tinker with how its seasoned, you hope the white meat stays juicy, you try not to shred it as you carve and you wonder whether there will be leftovers.

The turkey recipe that Wagshals butcher Pam Ginsberg shared with Post readers in 2016 was about the easiest one Ive ever roasted, with little prep and no brine. Could I improve on it? I wanted to brine and fuss a little but keep the oven time about the same. For a 14-pounder, that translated to about 2 hours. So I bought a package and followed the directions: Dust the inside of the bag with flour. Cut slits in the top. Make sure to tuck it inside the pan.

[Make the recipe: Roast Turkey With Garlic Cream]



For traveling to a potluck, tent the warm turkey with foil. (Jennifer Chase/For The Washington Post)

The Reynolds brand bags I used are made of heat-resistant nylon, which is the same material used in the cooking utensils found in so many home kitchens. Food-grade safe, non-leaching. The company has sold the product steadily since its introduction in 1976, and there has been an uptick in sales the past two years. My mother would load up a smaller-size one with a chuck roast, carrots, onions and Lipton soup mix when I was growing up, for Sunday dinners. The bags were designed to keep big cuts of meat moist in the oven; that the bags eased cleanup was a bonus, says Reynolds Consumer Products test kitchen manager Charry Brown.

[Thanksgiving Central: Your essential menu-planning tool]

Tales of exploding bags persist, she says, and such scary things did happen initially, before the test kitchen discovered the flour-and-top-slits approach.

Bottom line: If youre looking to cook the turkey faster and keep its meat moist throughout, the bags for you. If you want to skip scrubbing the roasting pan, the bags for you. If you want the turkeys skin to be evenly browned and crisped, it might not be for you. If you want to crank up the heat to 400-plus degrees or use a countertop roaster oven, the bags definitely not for you.

Carving a Thanksgiving turkey is easy. Seriously. Here's how to do it. (Jayne Orenstein,Bonnie Benwick/The Washington Post)

Brown has learned ways of compensating for some bag issues. You can slather the turkey with oil or butter before it goes in to help with browning; I use the latter. For even browning, youll have better luck with a modest-size bird than a large one, she says; I found that rotating the pan a few times from front to back during cooking also helped. Reynolds does not recommend splitting open the bag for the last bit of roasting to crisp the skin, because the nylon will slump over the sides of the hot metal pan, a no-no.

My fuss amounts to peeling enough garlic cloves  about 50  to put inside the cavity of the turkey so they become almost tender and absorb some meat juices. A quick turn in the food processor with a touch of maple syrup and a pinch of salt yields a mellow garlic cream thats good with just about everything on the Thanksgiving table, except for dessert.
Selkie arrived at the National Zoo in 1979 after five years of working with the Navy in a secret government program. Selkie, who died Thursday at age 43, is shown in January playing in the snow. (Chelsea Grubb/Smithsonian's National Zoo)

The National Zoo lost ones of its elders Thursday. Gray seal Selkie, part of the American Trail exhibit, died at age 43.

Selkie was among the oldest zoo residents. But her age wasnt noteworthy just in Washington. Selkie was the oldest gray seal living in human care, according to zoo officials. Female gray seals often live close to 40 years old in zoos but only 25 to 30 years in the wild.

[Read about how the National Zoo cares for older animals.]

She also had an interesting backstory. Selkie was born in Iceland and spent her early years in a secret program at the Naval Ocean Systems Center in San Diego, California. A real-life Navy seal, she was trained to retrieve equipment from the ocean floor. She also learned how to use a screwdriver and turn a large wheel valve.

In 1979, the Navy stopped working with animal seals (Human SEALs are part of a special Navy combat unit). Selkie and a male seal named Gunnar were sent to the National Zoo.

Selkie was the oldest gray seal living in human care, zoo officials said. (Mark Van Bergh/Smithsonian Institution)

After arriving in Washington, she and Gunnar had four female pups. Pups Kara and Kjya, along with granddaughter Rona can be seen on American Trail. Gunnar died in 2012.

In recent years, Selkie was unable to see because of cataracts. She often used ramps to get out of the pool. For the past several months, zookeepers and veterinarians had been watching growths on her abdomen, according to a zoo statement. She had an exam Tuesday but had seemed to recover well and behave normally. Doctors will look into how and why Selkie died, the zoo said.

Gray seals live in the coastal waters of the North Atlantic and eat fish, crustaceans, squid and octopus. They weigh about 35 pounds at birth and grow to more than 500 pounds.

The species isnt considered an endangered. Gray seal populations fell dramatically in the first half of the 20th century because of widespread hunting. But the numbers have bounced back off New England since 1972, when the Marine Mammal Protection Act made killing them a crime.


Laura Deal, left, 30, librarian, and Rachel Slezak, 27, math teacher. (Photo courtesy of daters/ )

Interviews by Debra Bruno

Laura Deal, 30, is a librarian who is proud to live up to the librarian stereotype and tends to stay in a lot. She says she doesnt necessarily have a physical type and just wants someone who will be nice to me. Rachel Slezak, 27, is a math teacher with a tattoo of a fractal on one arm who says living near nightlife-rich H Street NE is part of my identity. She is looking for a person who cares about what she does, has close friends but isnt secretly in love with one of them, is pretty, and proud of her unique qualities, whatever they may be. Both love cats. But will Lauras love of cheese be a problem for vegan Rachel? We sent them to Fare Well, a vegan diner on H Street, to find out.

Rachel: She seemed really nice, really friendly and not a person who would bash me to The Washington Post. [She was] not taking herself too seriously.

Laura: She seemed cool. I wasnt sure what to expect, but I liked her right away. It was pretty obvious why we got matched.

Rachel: Shes from Cleveland, which is one of my favorite cities, so we talked about what there is to do in Cleveland, where to eat, where some things are. We didnt get to the menu until the waiter had come to see us three times.

Laura: We did the usual D.C. thing [and talked about] when we first moved here. Both of us have been here for a few years now. We found out we both have cats, which is a positive!

Rachel: Work came up, but it came up organically. I love to talk about my job, so I tried to rein it in a little bit.

Laura: She teaches math and has a couple of math-based tattoos. She even used them to teach in her class. On one exam, she asked students to explain why I have this tattoo and drew of picture of it. They had to figure out what it means.

Rachel: Both of our families still live in Ohio, so we talked about the difference between dating in Ohio and in D.C. In Ohio, I would be married by now.

Laura: She lives on H Street, and I dont get over there a whole lot.

Rachel: I was really excited about the restaurant. There are not that many vegan restaurants in the city.

Laura: We both like cooking. A lot of my cooking involves cheese, so I would have to adapt all of my recipes [to cook for Rachel].

Rachel: We actually had quite a long adventure. We were on the west end of H Street, so [after dinner] we went on the streetcar. We rode it to the east side and went to H Street Country Club .

Laura: We told the bartender we had been set up by Date Lab, which took like 10 minutes to explain. At the end, he gave us [each] a shot of vodka lemonade.

Rachel: The bartender thought we were waiting for our dates. I said, No, no. We are on Date Lab right now. We are on Date Lab with each other!

Laura: We both had the same feeling that even if it was an awkward date, it still would be fun to do.

Rachel: We were getting sleepy, so I said she could sit on my couch and wait for her [car service]. She sat on my floor and played with my cat. Hes a really mean cat, but he didnt attack her.

Laura: I said, Im tired, Im an old lady. I got a Lyft and went home.

Rachel: I dont know if there were sparks. Its hard to say. Im always wrong.

Laura: I never know how to answer that. I would say we would probably go out again.

Rate the date

Rachel: 5 [out of 5]. Whether that translates to spending time together, I dont know.

Laura: 4. It went the best it could for a blind date. We will probably go out again. The only drawback is that Im afraid that cheese might be more important to me than having a girlfriend.

Update

Rachel: Weve been texting a little, but we havent actually met up yet. We have plans for next week  its a long time from now because were both really busy. I do think theres genuine interest in meeting back up, though! I felt much happier after I asked if she wanted to hang out and she said she would. So thats good!


One of 60 U.S. hostages, blindfolded and with his hands bound, is displayed to the crowd outside the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian captors on Nov. 9, 1979. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The story in The Washington Post in 1979. ( / )

Nov. 4, 1979 Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 66 people hostage, including diplomatic staff, Marine guards and local Iranian [employees] in an assault that appears to have left the government temporarily paralyzed, according to an account by The Washington Posts Nicholas Cumming-Bruce. That set off a protracted crisis that would last through the end of Jimmy Carters first and only term as president, and into the first day of the Reagan administration. The Iranian government, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, said it would release the hostages if the United States agreed to extradite the deposed shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. But the United States refused. A week and a half later, Khomeini ordered the release of female and African American hostages, leaving 53. In April 1980, eight U.S. soldiers died in a failed rescue attempt when a helicopter collided with a transport plane. A hostage was later released due to illness. In January 1981, the United States and Iran finally reached an agreement to free the remaining 52. By the time Iranians let them go, the hostages had spent 444 days in captivity. Thirty-six years after their capture, in December 2015, President Obama signed legislation to compensate each of the surviving 37 former hostages or the estates of 16 others who had died since their release, up to $4.4 million.
Reader: My boyfriend of six years, whom Ive lived with for more than four years, recently ended our relationship and asked me to move out. He gave me a few months to purchase another home and move, so were living together still.

The worst part is that we work in the same department and sit within earshot of one another. Thanks to telecommuting, we are both in the office at the same time only once a week.

The only person Ive told about this situation so far is my boss, but Im concerned about how, if and when I can inform other colleagues and office friends that the relationship ended without getting myself in trouble.

Im connected on social media with half the office, so even if I dont announce it, people will figure out we split up, unless I deliberately hide it, which I dont think is a good long-term solution. Can I change my social media status to single and then tell people the truth if they ask? I imagine that jerk dumped me and kicked me out, but heres a pic of my new house might be too much?

Also, should I notify HR of this breakup to protect myself? My ex is in management and Im not, so I fear he might have some influence that could be used to jeopardize my employment. I dont report to him; we report to different bosses.

Karla: Id say the first move to make is into a place of your own with a short-term lease. On everything else, proceed with extreme caution.

See what your employee handbook says about romance at work. Employment attorney Carla Murphy of Duane Morris notes that some companies require employees to give HR a heads-up when a relationship begins or ends.

If your company is one with a kiss-and-tell policy  or if your ex threatens or does anything to sabotage, harass or retaliate against you, or you sincerely fear he will  you need to go to HR. Otherwise, I see no need to involve them until you update your contact information.

Aside from those two contingencies, treat this situation as need to know and let word travel in its own time while your raw feelings heal. Theres probably no harm in having told your boss, in case your personal stress starts to affect your performance, but do what you can to keep it from reaching that point, including using PTO to hit reset. And of course you should be able to lean on your closest work friends  but ask them to help you keep any venting sessions offline and off the clock.

After-hours pot-shots, whether over fro-yo or Facebook, can have professional recoil, so tighten up those privacy settings and boost your personal firewall.

How long should you keep your broken heart under wraps? Until you no longer feel the urge to let everyone know what happened. Yes, he did you wrong, but you dont want to do yourself one wrong-er.

Pro tip: Are sparks flying with that cutie down the hall? Check whether your company requires you to sign a love contract, says Murphy. These affirm that employees are involved by mutual consent and aware of the companys policies on relationships and harassment.

Ask Karla Miller about your work dramas and traumas by emailing wpmagazine@washpost.com. Read more @Work Advicecolumns.

For stories, features such as Date Lab, Gene Weingarten and more, visit The Washington Post Magazine.

Follow the Magazine on Twitter.

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Email us at wpmagazine@washpost.com.


First lady Michelle Obama meets with Melania Trump for tea in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House on Nov. 10. (Chuck Kennedy/The White House)

Michelle Obama carried on an awkward White House tradition when she hosted Melania Trump for tea Thursday. It was their first meeting, coming on the heels of the ugliest campaign in recent history.

They talked about raising children and took a tour of the White Houses private residence before heading to the Oval Office to meet with the president and president-elect. The tour also included a visit to the Truman Balcony, which overlooks the South Lawn, and a tour of the State Floor of the executive mansion with the White House curator.

Mrs. Obamas aides offered no further details of the meeting. Donald Trump and his wife arrived at the White House via a back door on the South Lawn, an area not visible to the public.

[Meet Melania Trump, a new model for first lady]

Still, the meeting of the current and future first ladies was a moment to consider both the fraught public relationship between the two and their differing styles.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Nov. 10, President Obama said he was "very encouraged" following a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump. Trump said the meeting lasted longer than expected and easily could have gone longer. (The Washington Post)

Michelle Obama played an unprecedented role in the failed campaign to elect Hillary Clinton, traveling the country to make the case that Donald Trump was a poor role model for the nations children and unfit for the presidency.

[How Michelle Obama talks to voters in a way Hillary Clinton cant]

Melania Trump was less involved in her husbands campaign. She rarely gave public speeches, saying she preferred to stay home in Manhattan and care for her young son, Barron.

Mrs. Trumps most prominent moment of the campaign came during the Republican National Convention when she gave her first speech before a large national audience. It was well received  until a journalist discovered that several phrases had been plagiarized from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech. Trumps campaign later explained that Melania was an admirer of Michelles.

Obama addressed the plagiarism matter only briefly, when talk-show host Stephen Colbert asked her about it during a September appearance on his show. Thats tough, she said.

[Whats on Michelle Obamas mind? Meet the speechwriter who puts it into words.]

Aside from being mothers whose children were young when their husbands won the presidency, Obama and Trump have little in common. Trump, who is from Slovenia, is only the second first lady to be born outside the country.

Though Melania Trump has evidently read up a little on the current first lady, Michelle Obama has said she never expected to become first lady and purposely did not read the memoirs of other East Wing inhabitants before she took on the role.

There is likely to be another visit by Melania Trump to the White House prior to moving her family in. During the transition period, the spouse of the president-elect usually meets with White House staff to discuss a range of issues, from interior decor to nitty-gritty household details such as which kinds of soaps and deodorants their families prefer, said Kate Andersen Brower, author of two books about the White House, The Residence and First Women.

[When first ladies meet: an awkward post-election White House tradition]

Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Trump are far from the first political spouses to be tossed together following a difficult campaign. Betty Ford had no interest in meeting with Rosalynn Carter and had to be prodded to greet her. Mamie Eisenhower never offered a seat to Jackie Kennedy, who toured the house just days after giving birth.

They dont have to like each other personally, and given what has gone on, I would be surprised if Michelle Obama was chatty with Melania, Brower said. This is pure political theater now.


A man looks at election coverage on the front pages of newspapers on display outside the Newseum in Washington on Nov. 9. (Michael Reynolds/EPA)

According to most national polls, Hillary Clinton should have ended Election Day on Tuesday as the president-elect. The surveys showed Clinton leading Donald Trump by anywhere from 2 to 5 points  a bigger lead than President Obama enjoyed before his reelection in 2012  and consistently ahead in important swing states. The Huffington Post, New York Times and Fivethirtyeight.com data models were strongly signaling a Clinton win, too.

So what went wrong?

Pollsters were trying to answer that question Wednesday after what may have been the greatest polling failure since they missed Ronald Reagans easy election victory over incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Clinton may have eked out slightly more votes overall  she was expected to lead by about 1 percent when all the votes were tallied. That would put polls indicating a slight Clinton popular-vote win within their margins of error.

But the polls were wildly off in states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania  bricks in the blue wall that Clinton was counting on to reach 270 electoral votes and the presidency. They also missed in critical swing states like Florida and North Carolina, both of which went to Trump.

[How did polls miss the presidential election result so badly?]

The short answer may be that pollsters gave too much weight in their surveys to college-educated white voters, and not enough to non-college-educated whites, said Scott Clement, polling manager for The Washington Post, which gave Clinton a 4-point advantage in its final poll. The former group didnt shift to Clinton as much as late-breaking polls anticipated, while the latter came out for Trump in a big way, particularly in northern industrial states, Clement said.

To illustrate: The last Washington Post-ABC News Tracking Poll said Clinton held a nine-point lead among white college graduates just before voting began; the exit poll found Trump won this group by four points.



A man stops at a newsstand Nov. 9 to pick up copies of the New York Post newspaper featuring President-elect Donald Trump's victory. (Mark Lennihan/AP)

The reliability of presidential polls has fluctuated wildly over the past five elections, and theres no clear pattern or evidence of systemic flaws. Its not necessarily that the polls are phony, as Trump put it in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday. The National Council on Public Polls rated presidential polls in 2004 and 2008 as the most accurate in the history of scientific sampling.

On the other hand, Gallup  a pioneer in politic research  said Republican Mitt Romney had a one-point advantage over Obama in the 2012 election; Romney actually lost the popular vote by four points, a blown call that prompted Gallup to get out of pre-election polling.

However, as the number of polls has expanded over the years, there may be some degree of poll pollution in averages of all these surveys, said Lee Miringoff, director of Marist Colleges polling operation, which conducts polls for NBC, the Wall Street Journal and the McClatchy newspapers. By combining polls  some good, some bad  into running averages, news organizations may be distorting where the race stands. Youre tossing different modes of data collection into the stew, he said. And some of those methods are unproven.

[The media didnt want to believe Trump could win. So they looked the other way.]

The final Marist-McClatchy poll had Clinton with a one-point popular-vote advantage on Tuesday; as of Wednesday afternoon, she had a 0.2-point edge in the overall vote.

Polls in 2016 may have been thrown off by relatively low turnout. Despite many reports about Democrats ability to get its voters to the polls, preliminary figures indicate that 55.6 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot, the lowest total since 2004, according to early estimates. Low-turnout elections tend to complicate polling because they throw off assumptions about who and how many people will show up to vote.

Another potential factor: Trump voters, on the margins, may have been more reluctant to tell pollsters they were voting for their man than Clinton supporters were to acknowledge their choice.



President-elect Donald Trump greets the crowd after speaking during an election rally in New York on Nov. 9. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

In a survey of voters taken this summer, the USC/Los Angeles Times Daybreak tracking poll found some evidence of this, notably among women who backed Trump. It also found that voters who favored a third-party candidate were even more reluctant than Trump voters to say so when asked by a pollster. The Daybreak poll  which is conducted online, without human-to-human contact  has been an outlier, consistently favoring Trump (its final tally had Trump leading, 47 to 44 percent, a result that was no more accurate than polls showing Clinton with a four-point lead).

But Miringhoff doesnt buy the shy-voter theory: People are generally proud of their candidate, he said. Its a pollster cop-out to say, I cant help it if my model didnt work because people wouldnt tell me who they were voting for. I think Trumps supporters were a pretty enthusiastic group.

Saying the polls clearly got it wrong this time, the American Association for Public Opinion Research said it will conduct an autopsy on 2016 presidential polls. Its findings wont be completed until next May.

Data guru Nate Silver, proprietor of the data-crunching Fivethirtyeight.com site, had pegged Clintons chances of winning at 71 percent Tuesday, based on a statistical model of polls. This reflects a meaningful improvement for Clinton in the past 48 hours as the news cycle has taken a final half-twist in her favor, he wrote. He favored her to win between 302 and 323 electoral votes. In fact, she appears headed for just 239.

But Silver noted on Wednesday that he had repeatedly flagged the uncertainty behind such a forecast and had called attention to Trumps relative strength throughout the campaign.

In an extremely narrow sense, Im not that surprised by the outcome, since polling  to a greater extent than the conventional wisdom acknowledged  had shown a fairly competitive race with critical weaknesses for Clinton in the Electoral College, he wrote.

But in a broader sense? [Trumps election is] the most shocking political development of my lifetime.
Scenic is celebrating its 30th birthday with several promotions, including free airfare with the Gems of the Danube cruise from Budapest to Nuremberg, Germany (above). (Sean Pavone / Alamy Stock Photo)

This weeks best travel bargains around the globe.

Land

The Dorchester Collection, a group of luxury hotels around the world, is offering a free third night at several properties in Europe, including London, Paris, Rome, Milan and Geneva. For example, a three-night stay in early March at Coworth Park, Ascot, about 45 minutes outside London, starts at about $900, including tax  a savings of $452. Book by Jan. 31; stay through April 23. Info: 800-650-1842, www.dorchestercollection.com.

Palace Resorts, a collection of oceanfront properties in Mexico and Jamaica, has a Cyber Monday deal with savings of up to 50 percent. Pay half price at Moon Palace Cancun and Moon Palace Jamaica Grande in Ocho Rios; nightly rates start at $203 per person double, with taxes. Also, save up to 45 percent at Le Blanc Spa Resort, an adults-only property in Cancun, with rates from $304. The same discount applies to Beach Palace (Cancun), Playacar Palace (Playa del Carmen), Cozumel Palace, Sun Palace (Cancun) and Isla Mujeres Palace. Rates start at $175. Book at www.palaceresorts.com from Nov. 28-30; travel from Nov. 28 to Dec. 23, 2017. Minimum stay of three nights required.

Sea

G Adventures has an early booking sale on three new cruise itineraries in Norway for 2017. Save 15 percent on the 14-day Scottish Islands & Norwegian Fjords expedition and the 15-day Norwegian Fjords & Arctic Discovery cruise. Rates, with tax, start at $4,249 per person and $5,099, respectively. The eight-day Cruise the Norwegian Fjords starts at $1,874, a savings of 25 percent. All cruises include a free parka. Book by Dec. 14; several departures available in May. Info: 888-800-4100, www.gadventures.com.

Paul Gauguin Cruises has a sale on select sailings in the South Pacific. For example, the 11-night Society Islands & Tuamotus cruise departing Papeete, Tahiti, on Dec. 3 starts at $3,495 per person double, a savings of $800. Add $185 in taxes and fees. Sale applies to six additional cruises ranging from seven to 10 days and departing in January, February, March, August and September. Book by Nov. 19. Info: 800-848-6172, www.pgcruises.com/november-2016-sale.

Scenic is celebrating its 30th birthday with several promotions, including free airfare or cruise discounts with free pre- or post-trip hotel nights and tours. For example, the April 3 or April 10 departure of the seven-night Gems of the Danube cruise starts at $3,680 per person double and includes free round-trip premium economy air from Washington, a value of about $1,470 per person. The ship sails from Budapest to Nuremburg, Germany. A different promotion that applies to the same cruise starts at the discounted rate of $3,195 and includes three pre- or post-cruise nights in Prague and daily guided tours (value of at least $1,260 per couple). Prices also include transfers and taxes. Book by Jan. 15. Info: 855-517-1200, www.scenicusa.com/special-offers/30th-birthday.

Air

Southwest has a sale on flights to Cuba. Deal applies to round-trip flights from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Havana or Varadero, and from Tampa to Havana. One-way airfare starts at $59 (Florida outbound flights) and $91 (return flights from Cuba), including taxes. Book by Nov. 20; travel Nov. 13 to April 24, 2017. Service to Varadero starts on Nov. 13; Havana flights begin on Dec. 12. Passengers must be eligible to travel to Cuba under one of 12 general license categories. Fourteen-day advance purchase required. Purchased separately, air from BWI Marshall to Fort Lauderdale starts at $108 round trip. Info: www.southwest.com.

Package

Great Value Vacations is offering a deal on a week-long trip to Ireland. The Irish B&B Getaway with Dublin package includes round-trip air from Washington to Dublin; two nights at the Ashling Hotel in Dublin, with breakfast; five-night bed-and-breakfast voucher; seven-day car rental; and taxes. In December, the trip starts at $912 per person double. Priced separately, it costs about $115 more. Book by Nov. 20. Info: 800-896-4600, www.greatvaluevacations.com/vacations/irish-b-and-b-getaway-with-dublin.

 Carol Sottili, Andrea Sachs

Submit travel deals to whatsthedeal@washpost.com. Prices were verified at press time Thursday, but deals sell out and availability is not guaranteed. Some restrictions may apply.


Women watch election results during Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clintons election night rally in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. (Frank Franklin II/AP)

Belva Ann Lockwood is not spinning in her grave. I went there and checked.

Some other women went there, too, weaving between the headstones of Congressional Cemetery in the nations capital, finding the tombstone of the feminist pioneer tucked between a pair of tall Italian cypress trees.

They left their I Voted stickers for Lockwood, who became the first woman to appear as an official candidate on a presidential ballot back in 1884, when she wasnt even allowed to vote in the election.

And on Wednesday, after the country had once again refused to elect a woman to the White House, someone left a handwritten apology: Im so sorry. We tried but we couldnt do it. And then someone else added Yet to the end of the note.

Belva Ann Lockwood, who ran for president in 1884 before women had the right to vote. (Collection of Jill Norgren)

The Yet matters. And so does Lockwood, who was one of the United States first female lawyers and whose law school wouldnt give her a degree  even after she aced all the classes  until President Ulysses S. Grant intervened on her behalf. Her campaign for the presidency predated Hillary Clintons by 132 years, but the outcome was exactly the same. The response has to be the same, too.

[They existed in a girls-can-do-anything world. Then Donald Trump won the White House]

The fight by American women for equal representation in government, equal pay, equal human rights has never been easy and probably will never be over. At least not in our lifetimes.

The soaring hopes of so many women this week werent so much about a single person  an accomplished but flawed former first lady, senator and secretary of state  as they were for a milestone breakthrough. Finally, a woman as president, the crashing of the ultimate glass ceiling.

So when Clinton lost to the misogynistic Donald Trump, it left millions of women reeling, feeling like the reset button was just pushed on 200 years of progress.

In Lockwoods days, the sexism was so blatant it was almost funny. When she applied to law school at Columbian College (now George Washington University) in 1869, her rejection letter said such admission would not be expedient, as it would be likely to distract the attention of the young men.

She fought until another law school let her in. Then she fought to get her degree. Then she fought to be allowed to practice in a court.

Born a woman, with all of a womans feelings and intuitions, I had all of the ambitions of a man, forgetting the gulf between the rights and privileges of the sexes, she wrote in Lippincotts Monthly Magazine in a February 1888 article about her struggles.

[Hillary Clinton is a 69-year-old woman. And plenty of people hate her for it.]

So many women still face resistance in pursuing their ambitions in modern-day America.

Capt. Kristen M. Griest became one of the first two women to graduate from the Armys notoriously demanding Ranger School last year, 233 years after Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a man to fight for the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War.

In 2004, Susan Hockfield became the first female president of MIT, 131 years after the Ellen Swallow Richards became the schools first female graduate.

It took 91 years for the U.S. House of Representatives to elect a female speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), after the first woman, Jeanette Rankin (R-Mont.), was elected in 1916.

All of these women have battled, been knocked down and got back up.



At Congressional Cemetery, women paid tribute at the grave of Belva Ann Lockwood, who became the first woman to appear on an official presidential ballot in 1884. (Petula Dvorak/The Washington Post)

Belva Ann Lockwood died in 1917, three years before the 19th Amendment gave American women the right to vote. She had to push relentlessly for every bit of progress she achieved in making it in a mans world.

Not long after the presidential campaign in 1884, she wrote about her struggles to be taken seriously in the legal profession.

In the autumn of 1877 some of the newspaper men of Washington, who had begun to be interested in the long and unequal contest that I had waged, asked me what I intended to do next, she remembered.

Get up a fight all along the line, she told them.

Get up a fight. Its what American women have always done. And its what we will keep doing.
Claudia Quinonez was driving home from an election watch party early Wednesday morning when a friend broke the news: Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States. Quinonez, 21, pulled over to the side of the road and wept.

She was 11 when she and her mother moved to Maryland from Bolivia in pursuit of a better life. They had visas, but overstayed them, leaving them undocumented.

Under a controversial policy designed by the Obama administration, Quinonez had become a dreamer, protected from deportation and given a work permit. She found a job and earned a scholarship to attend college.

I felt like I was going to achieve my American Dream, she said during an interview at CASA, an immigration advocacy group.

But now that Donald Trump has been elected president, I dont feel safe, she said, again on the verge of tears. I can be deported. Even my mother can be deported.

Claudia Quinonez, 21, left, a college student comforts Brenda Barrios, 31, during in interview at CASA, an immigration advocacy group in Hyattsville. (Michael Miller/Pool)

More than 11 million undocumented immigrants woke up to the same reality Wednesday morning: a newly elected president who has vowed to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. A president who has described some Latinos as rapists, killers and drug dealers. A president who has vowed to begin deportations within his first hour in office.

Trumps victory came a shock to many Americans. For undocumented immigrants, however, their futures have taken a startling turn, from the promise of immigration reform under Hillary Clinton to the threat of deportation under Trump.

[She fought to keep immigrants from being deported. Now she faces the same fate.]

We are now facing an entirely different system of reality to what we are used to, said Jose Antonio Vargas, a former Washington Post reporter-turned-activist who is perhaps the countrys most prominent undocumented immigrant. While the Obama administration deported record numbers of immigrants, it also tried to help others remain in the United States.

Under the Trump administration, the level of fear and anxiety among undocumented people will only get deeper and more prevalent, said Vargas the founder and chief executive of Define American. On Election Day, a man who recognized Vargas outside of Fox News patted him on the back. Get ready to be deported, the man told Vargas, who described himself on Facebook as rattled by the encounter.

Across the country, people are asking themselves what a Trump presidency will look like. How will he handle the Islamic State, the U.S. relationship with Russia, education policy?

On immigration, however, Trump has been explicit. The Republican made it one of his central issues, focusing on it in campaign speeches and connecting it to both national security and the economy. He promised not only to build the wall and deport the bad hombres, but also to triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to carry out mass roundups reminiscent of President Dwight D. Eisenhowers 1954 initiative Operation Wetback, which removed hundreds of thousands of Mexicans from the United States.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump mused about accepting immigrants to the United States using a "merit system" during a campaign rally in Pensacola, Fla. (The Washington Post)

The question is how far will President Trump go to deliver.

Trump will keep his promises to his base, said Corey Stewart, chairman of Prince Williams Board of County Supervisors and the former head of Trumps Virginia campaign. Hes got to build the wall and hes got to provide for better internal immigration enforcement. That was the main promise of his campaign. Hes got to keep it, and he will keep it.

David A. Martin, a former deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama, said the presidents Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program, in limbo after the Supreme Court reached a 4-4 tie on a case challenging it, wont see the light of day.

Dreamers like Quinonez, who essentially outed themselves as undocumented, could see their protections stripped. ICE raids on factories and construction sites could begin anew. And I certainly think were going to see some wall-building, Martin said.

[What it will take for President Trump to deport millions and build the wall]

But Trumps immigration policies will also face political and financial pressures, Martin said. ICE agents and giant walls are expensive. Deporting university students can be politically damaging. Now that its more than just rhetoric, well see what he prioritizes, Martin said.

Trumps victory has already upended conventional political wisdom, according to Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank.

A lot of Republican brain trusts and Democrats have been saying for years that Republicans cannot win the presidency without embracing comprehensive immigration reform, he said. Well, so much for that.

For Brenda Barrios, 31, who lives in Silver Spring, Md., Trumps election is a nightmare. She allowed her 10-year-old American-born son, Frankie, to stay up an hour past his bedtime to watch election results on Univision.

When he saw the map go red, and red, and red, and red, he asked me, Mommy, is Donald Trump going to win?  she said. I told him not to worry.

But the next morning, when Frankie woke up from school, the first question out of his mouth was: Who won? When Barrios told him it was Trump, Frankie burst into tears.

He is afraid his mom is going to be sent to another country, she said. For Barrios, that pain is all too real. Her parents immigrated illegally to the United States when she was 5, leaving her and her sister behind in Guatemala. When she and her sister joined them in 2003, Barrios finally felt like she had a family. But it didnt last. Her father was deported in early 2005. Barrioss mom went with him. She hasnt seen them since.

With Trump as president, Barrios shares her sons fear that her own family will be torn apart. She fears ICE will arrest her husband, who is a carpenter and plumber, while he is at work. Or that they will come for her.

Im afraid of ICE coming to my door, to the park when I am there with my kids, she said. Im even scared to take the kids to school since you never know who is watching now.

Not all undocumented immigrants are distraught, however. As a Mexican-born construction worker, Jose Pina said he already lives with the threat of being detained and deported every time he goes to work.

Thats our reality now, he said in Spanish. Weve always had that fear. Its the risk you take crossing the border.

Pina, 38, sneaked into the United States in 1998. He and his childhood sweetheart, who also entered the country illegally, have an 8-year-old daughter, Heather. She was born on the Fourth of July.

Sitting next to her parents in a green Life is Good hoodie, Heather said she thought Donald Trump was mean because he said he didnt want immigrants and the kids who are immigrants.

Asked if she was scared what might happen to her family now, Heather tentatively shook her head.

We can fight against what is happening, she said, her voice caught somewhere between a statement and a question.
A man awaiting trial in a fatal shooting last year in Northeast Washington was charged this week in another homicide that occurred 21 years ago, according to D.C. police and court records.

Rodney Stretch Baggott, 48, of Southeast, faces first and second-degree murder charges in the two cases. A D.C. Superior Court judge Thursday continued his detention until a preliminary hearing Dec. 14. He is scheduled for a May trial in the more recent killing.

Calls to the Public Defender Service, which is representing Baggott, were not returned on Thursday.

Police said Thursday that a witnesses came forward this year and told detectives new details about the fatal shooting of DeAngelo Barr, 23, on Nov. 20 1995. Barr was shot in the head about 8:10 p.m. in the 1600 block of Montana Avenue NE between Rhode Island and New York avenues.

[Man charged with killing another man during dispute]

An arrest affidavit unsealed Thursday says that Baggott and Barr were involved in feuding drug crews in the Brentwood neighborhood and that Baggott suspected the victim of showing rivals how to sneak up and shoot at people. Police said the groups each controlled parts of Montana Avenue  Baggott was part of the back, or bottom, part of the street, while Barr, described by police as a jokester, was part of the top, or upper section.

Police said in the affidavit that before he was killed, Barr told a friend that he was a marked man. If something happens to me, it will be because of the back boys, he told a friend, according to the court document. After Barr was killed, two witnesses told police they heard Baggott say, You all not laughing right now. The funny man is dead.

Authorities said in the affidavit that detectives investigated several false leads in the case and it wasnt until the witness came forward this year that they were able to make an arrest.

Baggott was arrested in the last years killing on Sept. 24 and charged with second-degree murder. Police said that on June 13, 2015, he shot Donald Franklin Bush, 44, of Upper Marlboro, Md., in the 2300 block of 15th Street NE. The victim was shot in the neck.

Police said in an arrest affidavit that Baggott and Bush had known each other for years but on that day had gotten into an argument. During the dispute, Baggott felt that Bush had disrespected him, the affidavit says.
A Maryland man faces a maximum sentence of life in prison after his conviction Thursday in the sexual assaults and robberies of five women at knifepoint near two Northeast Washington Metro stations during the summer of 2015.

After a four-week trial in D.C. Superior Court, a jury found Demetrius Banks, 32, of Riverdale, Md., guilty of 23 felony counts of attacking and robbing the women as they walked home from the Fort Totten and Brookland Metro stations between July 28 and Aug. 28 in 2015.

Banks, who remains in D.C. jail, is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 27 by Judge Jose M. Lopez.

Prosecutors argued that Banks stalked his victims while waiting near the Metro stations late at night as each of the women walked out of the stations. On July 28, Banks grabbed his first victim, a 21-year-old cashier, from behind as she left the Fort Totten Metro, then pressed a knife to her side and forced her into a driveway, where he raped and robbed her, prosecutors told the jury.

Two days later, Banks grabbed a 26-year-old bartender as she was walking home from the same Metro station and forced her into an alley, where he robbed her. Four days later, Banks grabbed a third woman from behind as the 26-year-old government worker walked from the Fort Totten station and dragged her into a wooded area. A passer-by saw the attack and intervened. Prosecutors say Banks then grabbed the womans purse and fled.

Then about three weeks later on Aug. 23, Banks approached a 41-year-old server as she walked home from the Metro station, showed a knife and demanded that the woman give him her property.

On Aug. 28, Banks attacked his last victim, a 22-year-old waitress, as she walked home from the Brookland station, grabbing her from behind and forcing her into an alley, where he raped and robbed her at knifepoint.
Demonstrators around the country hit the streets on Nov. 9 to protest the election of President-elect Donald Trump. Protests were reported in major cities including New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles. (Victoria Walker,Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Demonstrators around the country hit the streets on Nov. 9 to protest the election of President-elect Donald Trump. Protests were reported in major cities including New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles. (Victoria Walker,Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Protesters against President-elect Donald Trump in Richmond on Wednesday night vandalized the headquarters of the Republican Party of Virginia.

According to NBC12, someone threw a pumpkin at the RPV building, damaging the windows and door. The doorbell was also broken, and graffiti was written on the walls. RPV called the police Thursday afternoon to report the incident.

In a statement, RPV Chairman John Whitbeck pointed to the hateful rhetoric of Democrats as the cause of this violence.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe and other Democratic leaders in Virginia, Whitbeck added, should apologize for Hillary Clintons campaign and advocates calling Trump supporters racist, sexist, mentally ill and a basket of deplorables. 

The Democratic Party of Virginia condemned the vandalism.

This is not the Virginia way, nor is it compatible with our values as Democrats, Chairwoman Susan Swecker said in a statement. While we strongly respect and support the right to protest peacefully, these actions are indefensible.

Evan Feinman, the executive director of the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission, launched an effort for Democrats to help pay for the repairs that by Thursday evening had raised $2,800.

While we support the right to protest, its never ok to vandalize property, and we want our friends and colleagues in the Republican party to know we dont EVER support violence in politics, Feinman said on the fundraisers website.

Republicans, however, rejected the funds.

The RPV . . . has more than enough money to fix our windows, Whitbeck wrote. He suggested Democrats instead donate the funds to an antiabortion crisis pregnancy shelter.

Police are investigating the vandalism.

About 1,000 people protested Wednesday night in Richmond, according to local police. Hundreds of protesters shut down several streets and twice attempted to block Interstate 95, state police said. The first group was steered off the roadway about 10 p.m. Around 11:39 p.m., about 100 to 150 protesters sat down in the travel lanes of the expressway. Twelve people were arrested after refusing to leave  10 by state police and two by city police.

The march was just one of many demonstrations across the country against Trumps victory in small cities such as Richmond and major urban centers, including New York and Los Angeles.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said during a speech on the economy on Sept. 15 in New York that policies of "globalism" have resulted in job losses in the U.S. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said during a speech on the economy on Sept. 15 in New York that policies of "globalism" have resulted in job losses in the U.S. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Buoyed by Donald Trumps protectionist campaign rhetoric, U.S. airlines who believe they are in an unfair competition with heavily-subsidized Persian Gulf carriers say they will ask the president-elect to intercede on their behalf.

The three big U.S. international carriers  Delta, American and United  have unsuccessfully lobbied the Obama administration to take up their cause against a trio of Gulf airlines who have grown exponentially, making inroads in the global market. The U.S. airlines want Trump to hear their case for renegotiation of Open Skies Agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

We look forward to briefing President-elect Donald Trump and his new administration on the massive, unfair subsidies that the UAE and Qatar give to their state-owned Gulf carriers, said Jill Zuckman, spokeswoman for the Partnership for Open and Fair Skies. The Gulf carrier subsidies threaten the jobs of 300,000 U.S. aviation workers and the American aviation industry as a whole, and we are optimistic that the Trump administration will stand up to the UAE and Qatar, enforce our trade agreements and fight for American jobs.

[U.S. airlines seek federal help in dogfight with Persian Gulf carriers]

Open Skies agreements with more than 100 nations allow airlines from different countries equal access to one anothers airports without interference from the respective national governments. But the rapid international expansion of three airlines from the two nations  Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways and Emirates  has alarmed the three big U.S. airlines.

While altering an international airline agreement affecting that many nations could cause headaches for the United States, the airlines hope that opening formal or informal talks backed up by the White House with the two gulf countries could win concessions from their airlines.

Last year, the three U.S. airlines said competition from the gulf carriers had cut their passenger load to the Middle East and Asia by more than 20 percent.

In a filing to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the airlines said passenger loads from Boston were down by almost 23 percent and from Washington Dulles International Airport by 25 percent, and their joint venture partners had seen a more than 28 percent drop from Seattle on flights bound for the two regions.

The U.S. airlines contend that the three gulf carriers receive enormous subsidies from the countries that own them. Determining subsidies vs. investments is challenging because the gulf airlines have not opened their books to scrutiny.

As an example of a subsidy, the filing by the U.S. airlines last year cited the $7.8 billion United Arab Emirates spent to expand and transform the airport in Dubai for the benefit of Emirates airline. It also pointed to government land that was given to Qatar Airways to build office and residential space. And it said financial statements showed that Etihad received billions in cash from the Abu Dhabi government.

The gulf airlines counter that their governments are making investments in their airlines with the expectation of financial returns. They reject the contention they are government-subsidized.

The international market is vital to recently resurgent U.S. airlines, which have regained profitability after a decade of bankruptcies and mergers. But the companies return to solvency comes in an era in which there is little growth in the domestic market and international flights offer a better prospect.
Contractors for Alexandria scrape and flush a sewer at the corner of King and Union streets in 2012. The city will speed up by 14 years its study of what to do about the 11.3 million gallons of sewage spilled into the Potomac River each year. (Tracy A. Woodward)

Alexandria will speed up by 14 years its study of what to do about the 11.3 million gallons of sewage spilled into the Potomac River each year from a single pipe in Old Town, the City Council unanimously agreed Wednesday night.

The city is under pressure from the state and federal governments  and local environmentalists  to stop allowing overflows from its combined stormwater and sewer system, which happen every time it rains more than a trace.

The council earlier this year approved a $188 million plan to catch and hold the overflows from three of its four outfalls, which drain south into Hunting Creek and then into the Potomac. But the council said it would wait until 2032 to study how to address the biggest overflow, the one that dumps sewage directly into Oronoco Bay at the foot of Pendleton Street.

On Wednesday, the council voted to have the city environmental services office launch its study of how to address the Oronoco outfall in 2018. Planning would start in 2026, followed by construction in the 2030s.

[Alexandrias Old Town spews 11 million gallons of raw sewage into Potomac]

The council voted in May to build a 1.6-million-gallon storage tunnel and a 3-million-gallon holding tank for the three outfalls that empty south of the Capital Beltway.

The state Department of Environmental Quality, which must approve the sewer repair plan, sent the city a letter in mid-October questioning its assumptions on rainfall.

That tunnel and tank project would be paid for with bonds, potentially adding $10 to $15 per month to the average residential sewer bill, which now ranges from $45 to $60. City officials say a similar fix at the Oronoco site would probably add another $12.50 a month to sewer bills.

Mayor Allison Silberberg (D) and council member Paul Smedberg (D) have asked state lawmakers who represent Alexandria to seek state money to defray some of those costs.

A spokesman for the Potomac Riverkeeper Network on Thursday called the citys decision to alter its time frame spinning to a ridiculous degree,and argued that the years-long studies are merely foot-dragging because the technology to address the overflows is well established.

That is unacceptable to us and should be unacceptable to the citizens of Alexandria who want to recreate in the river safely, said Phillip Musegaas, vice president of programs and litigation for the environmental group. To us, it makes no sense to deal with half the problem now and push the other half of the problem far down the road.

Silberberg said city officials are moving as fast as they can.

This issue has been festering in the city not just for years, but decades, she said. Given the magnitude of the construction that will be necessary, the citys timeline is a reasonable and responsible approach.

More than 800 cities nationwide are grappling with sewer-overflow issues, including Chicago, Philadelphia and the District, which is building a $2.6 billion, 13-mile tunnel to store sewage and rainwater en route to the Blue Plains wastewater-treatment plant, just across the river from Alexandria.

Until this week, Alexandria planned to address the North Old Town sewage overflow in the short term by requiring separate sewage and stormwater systems in new projects and encouraging installation of permeable pavement, green roofs and more trees.

After pushback from some residents, environmentalists and state Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax), whose legislative district lies just south of Alexandria, the council decided to also speed up its plan to study of what else might be needed.

At their meeting, council members credited local activist Jack Sullivan, who wrote a report to a citizens advisory committee recommendation, for pushing them to come up with a more proactive plan for Oronoco Bay.

Silberberg said his effort was a great reminder that one citizen can make a difference.

Sullivan called the councils action a step in the right direction Thursday, and said he was glad the council had acknowledged that we have an obligation to clean up the Oronoco Bay sewage overflow as well as others.
Jo Watts, left, jokes with Corey Stewart, then-Virginia chairman of Trump for President, as he talks with patrons prior to a Veterans for Trump dinner at L&B Pizzeria in Woodbridge in August. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)

As most of America was still absorbing the news that Donald Trump had won the presidency, Republican Corey Stewart had already declared it rocket fuel for his 2017 bid for Virginia governor.

Stewart, the one-time chairman of Trumps Virginia campaign, said that despite the fact that Clinton beat Trump by nearly five percentage points in Virginia, Republican primary voters will reward him for being Trumps biggest cheerleader in the state.

And he figures the Trump administration will be in accord with his stance that illegal immigrants who have committed crimes be deported.

If youre an illegal alien in Prince William County, Id get out, said Stewart, who chairs the countys board of supervisors. Its the very first thing Im going to do with a friendly Trump administration. Now were going to find out where each and every one of these guys is, and were going hunt them down and were going to deport them.

Its a game changer, Stewart said of Trumps win. It just propelled me into front-runner status for governor.

Donald Trumps presidential campaign fired its Virginia state co-chairman, Corey Stewart, on Oct. 10 after he took part in a protest in front of Republican National Committee headquarters. The protest drew dozens of Trump supporters. (WUSA)

Its not at all certain that Trumps White House victory will help Stewart in next years race for governor in Virginia.

Trumps loss in Virginia could benefit Republican candidates who kept their distance from the presidential candidate. That number includes Ed Gillespie, the best known of the four who have declared so far. The others in the race are U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman and state Sen. Frank Wagner.

Virginia and New Jersey are the only states holding gubernatorial races next year. In New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie (R) will leave office because of term limits, the Republican brand has been tarnished by the Bridgegate scandal, analysts say.

That makes Virginia the first real test to be faced by a Republican Party in the coming Trump era. In a quandary that mirrors the national GOPs, the state party will have to contend with a three-way fracture between the establishment wing, Trump supporters and the tea party.

One great unknown  how well Trump governs  looms over all of it. But his victory is already shaping the issues on the front burner, the candidates and the people who ultimately will turn out to vote.

Trumps victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton means her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, will not vacate his Senate seat. Had Kaine become vice president, there would have been a Senate race on the ballot in 2017 to fill the remainder of his term.

Democrats  Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) chief among them  had been counting on a Senate contest next year to energize Washington-oriented Democrats in Northern Virginia, who have helped turn the state blue for the past three presidential elections but do not turn out as faithfully during off-year elections. A Senate race would have greatly boosted prospects for Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, so far the only Democrat running to succeed the governor, McAuliffe said.

A Senate race also could have thinned the Republican field. Wittman had mulled bowing out of the governors race to seek Kaines seat if it came open in 2017. With that opportunity gone, the field stays crowded  something that could benefit Stewart if the other three split the mainstream Republican vote.

The four GOP contenders have relationships with the president-elect that are varied and complicated, to say the least.

At one extreme is Stewart, a brasher-than-Trump figure who embraced the nominee with such abandon that the campaign ultimately gave him the heave-ho. At the other extreme, Gillespie, one-time counselor to President George W. Bush who stumped with Trumps running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, but studiously avoided appearing with Trump. Wittman and Wagner fell between, belatedly getting on board with Trump but showing up at his rallies and lending their names to his state leadership team.

Those differences  already the source of caustic sniping not just between Stewart and Gillespie, but also between Stewart and the Trump campaign leaders who fired him  could be critical to winning over voters in the June GOP primary and the general election a year from now. Whether it pays to play up ties to Trump or keep him at arms length will depend in large part on how well Trump performs as president.

The fact that Republicans will choose their nominee this year in a statewide primary rather than in a closed convention should give the edge to a more moderate candidate. But the electorate that votes in off-years tends to be smaller and more conservative than in presidential contests.

From the Democrats standpoint, it could wind up being a plus for the governors race, said state Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax). The president-elect has got a tendency to say things best left unsaid. That may help him with the base in middle America. But we aint talking anymore about Kansas or the area between Pittsburgh and Philly. Were talking about Virginia, a state [Clinton] carried by 186,000 votes.

But former Republican attorney general Ken Cuccinelli II, who narrowly lost the 2013 governors race to McAuliffe, said Trumps national victory will make it hard for Democrats to demonize his supporters. Certainly the Democrats are gearing up to try to wrap him around Republicans necks as a huge negative, he said. That looks pretty dubious today.

In fact, when Wagner formally launched his bid for governor Wednesday, he promoted himself as statewide Trump campaign co-chairman. He was one of 17 co-chairmen, as was Wittman.

Wittman and Gillespie walked a finer line. After winning reelection to Congress on Tuesday, Wittman issued a statement that did not mention Trump by name. The Congressman is excited about Republican victories across the board, said Wittmans political director, Garrison Coward.

As the election results rolled in Tuesday night, Gillespie was at a victory party for his friend Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, where he watched Trumps improbable rise flash across his Twitter feed.

Asked about the impact of Trump on the Virginia governors race, Gillespie said he was focused on his own campaign.

Im running for the Republican nomination for governor on my ideas, my plans, on what I believe we need to do, he said. Ill put it forward, and Ill let the voters decide.

Trumps victory exposed the extent of the discontent among many, Gillespie said.

I think it shows you that there are a lot of voters out there who are very concerned about being left behind in this economy, the frustration over stagnant wages and the economy, he said.

Gillespie, who came close to toppling Sen. Mark R. Warner in 2014, has positioned himself as someone who can unite a splintered GOP and appeal to swing voters. During and after his Senate bid, he courted tea party activists as well as the GOP establishment, racking up campaign donations and endorsements.

Stewart contends that Gillespie will pay for keeping his distance from the nominee. Ed Gillespie treated Donald Trump like he had typhoid, Stewart said.

During the campaign, Stewart positioned himself as more Trump than Trump himself. Critics, including some inside the Trump campaign, accused Stewart of grandstanding.

In July, when Stewart blamed Clinton and Northam for a Dallas police massacre, the campaign disavowed his comments. In October, it fired him for participating in a protest outside of Republican National Committee headquarters and accusing establishment pukes of starving the Virginia campaign of resources.

[Trumps Virginia chairman blames Clinton, Northam for Dallas massacre]

Stewart never blamed Trump for his firing, saying it was the work of the RNC. He wore his ouster as a badge of honor, using it as the basis of a fundraising appeal for his anti-establishment campaign.

[Youre fired: Trump campaign dumps Virginia state chair Corey Stewart]

Mike Rubino, Trumps senior Virginia adviser, said Stewart should not expect support from the president-elect.

To be honest, Mr. Trump doesnt even know who Corey Stewart is, Rubino said. He went rogue. He never followed orders. He never did what the campaign asked him to do. He was so preoccupied with running for governor that we had to fire him. . . . This guy was a cancer to the organization in Virginia, and weve been paying for it ever since.

[Trumps Virginia chair: Trump acted like a frat boy, as a lot of guys do]

Stewart said he was floored by Rubinos criticism, which he chalked up to finger-pointing over Trumps loss in Virginia, the only Southern state that went blue.

I worked my tail off for Trump, he said. If hes looking for a scapegoat, he should look at the establishment that sat on their haunches and diverted [resources] away from Virginia.

John Fredericks, the conservative radio host who became chairman of Trumps Virginia campaign after Stewarts ouster, said Stewart and Gillespie will have to repair their relationships with Trump voters.

And for that reason, he said, This is a wide-open race.

Jenna Portnoy contributed to this report.
Bearded Cuban leader Fidel Castro confers with E. Barrett Prettyman Jr., fourth from right, in Havana during 1962 negotiations to release prisoners taken in the Bay of Pigs operation. (JOE MCGOWAN JR./AP)

E. Barrett Prettyman Jr., a Washington lawyer who had an advisory role in the Supreme Courts landmark 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed segregated schools, and who decades later investigated congressional corruption in the Abscam case, died Nov. 4 at a hospital in the District. He was 91.

The cause was a respiratory ailment, said his son, E. Barrett Prettyman III.

Mr. Prettyman, whose father was a prominent D.C. jurist, was a law clerk to three Supreme Court justices in the 1950s, an assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and, in later years, a mentor to current U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

In 1962, Mr. Prettyman negotiated with Cuban leader Fidel Castro for the release of prisoners taken in the ill-fated Bay of Pigs operation, and his clients later included General Motors, acclaimed writers such as Truman Capote and former Beatle John Lennon.

Mr. Prettymans contribution to the Supreme Courts 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was unknown until author Richard Kluger described it in his 1976 book about the case, Simple Justice.

E. Barrett Prettyman Jr. in 2005. (Susan Biddle/The Washington Post)

At the time, Mr. Prettyman was a clerk to Justice Robert H. Jackson, who had drafted a separate opinion in support of the courts unanimous decision regarding segregated schools. After reading Jacksons concurring opinion, Mr. Prettyman realized it could be seen as, at best, a lukewarm endorsement of the full courts ruling.

He composed a sharply worded memorandum in which he urged Jackson not to publish his separate opinion.

I told him quite candidly, he said in a 1996 interview with the Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit Court, that I didnt think much of the opinion, that it sounded more like a dissent than a concurring opinion.

He argued that Jacksons separate opinion would only undercut the force of the courts unified ruling. Jackson ultimately agreed, and the opinion was never published.

It is doubtful, Kluger wrote in Simple Justice, if any of the many excellent young men who have come fresh out of the law schools . . . to serve the justices of the Supreme Court ever served more faithfully or usefully than Barrett Prettyman served Robert Jackson.

Jackson died soon after the Brown decision, and Mr. Prettyman continued at the Supreme Court as a clerk to Felix Frankfurter and later to John M. Harlan. He is believed to have been the only person to serve as a law clerk to three justices in succession.

In 1955, Mr. Prettyman joined the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells), where he took on First Amendment and death-penalty cases and established the firms appellate practice. He argued before the Supreme Court 19 times. Among the dozens of lawyers he mentored at Hogan Lovells was Roberts, who was named chief justice in 2005.

E. Barrett Pretty Jr., right, with his late sister, Courtney Paddock, left, and U.S. John Warner (R-Va.) in 1997. (Susan Biddle/The Washington Post)

In 1961, Mr. Prettyman published Death and the Supreme Court, a nonfiction study of legal cases involving the death penalty. It won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best factual crime book. He later accompanied one of his clients, Capote, across the country for a series of interviews with death-row inmates.

In the early 1980s, Mr. Prettyman was special counsel to the House Ethics Committee during the Abscam investigation, in which several congressmen were convicted of accepting bribes from a would-be Arab sheik in an undercover FBI sting.

Mr. Prettyman recommended that Michael Myers (D-Pa.) be expelled from the House of Representatives after he was caught taking $50,000 in cash.

He used his influence as bait and barter to wring huge sums of money from those he thought could use his office, Mr. Prettyman told the House committee, adding that Myers made a mockery of the seat in which his constituents placed him.

Myers was the first member of Congress to be expelled since the Civil War.

Elijah Barrett Prettyman Jr. was born June 1, 1925, in Washington. His father was a chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court. The U.S. Courthouse in the District is named in his honor.

After graduating in 1943 from the private St. Albans School in Washington, the younger Barrett Prettyman served in the Army in Europe during World War II. He graduated from Yale University in 1949.

He spent two years as a newspaper reporter in Providence, R.I., before attending law school at the University of Virginia, where he became friends with a fellow student, Robert F. Kennedy. He received his law degree in 1953.

In 1998 and 1999, Mr. Prettyman worked pro bono as inspector general of the District of Columbia, rooting out corruption in city agencies.

Its the best job I ever had, he said at the time. Every time you think youve seen every scam and scoundrel that could possibly come down the pike, youre surprised by a new one.

His marriages to Evelyn Savage and Victoria Keesecker ended in divorce. His third wife, Noreen McGuire, died in 2011. Survivors include two children from his first marriage, E. Barrett Ty Prettyman III of Oakton, Va., and Jill Prettyman Lukoschek of Houston; and three grandsons.

Mr. Prettyman was a collector of rare books and served as president of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, which presents awards to writers, from 1990 to 1993. He had a wall of photographs taken with many illustrious figures, including one with Castro.

In 1961, more than 1,000 Cuban exiles were taken prisoner after they attempted to invade their homeland with U.S. help. The next year, the administration of President John F. Kennedy asked Mr. Prettyman to arrange the release of the prisoners in exchange for more than $50 million in food and medical supplies.

During negotiations with Castro, Mr. Prettyman asked to see novelist Ernest Hemingways former home in Havana. Castro gave him a private tour.

Afterward, Castro agreed to allow many of the prisoners family members to leave as well. Mr. Prettyman joined many of them on their flight out of Cuba.

As soon as those wheels were up, he told The Washington Post in 2000, they went berserk. Yelling, crying, singing. It was very, very emotional. Best Christmas Eve I ever had.
Baby, a marmalade tomcat, lets out a yawn as he and Hershey, a Chiweenie (a Chihuahua- Dachshund mix), soak up a little sun Wednesday on the porch of Joe Goins of Evansville, Ind. (Denny Simmons/Evansville Courier & Press via AP)

CALIFORNIA

Man on drug binge

shoots neighbor dead

A gunman was bingeing on drugs when he randomly opened fire Tuesday in a peaceful Southern California neighborhood, killing a neighbor and wounding two women before police shot him, authorities said Wednesday.

The 45-year-old man was found dead in the entryway to an Azusa home, ending an hours-long standoff east of Los Angeles. His name wasnt immediately released.

The shooting that erupted about 2 p.m. Tuesday closed two nearby polling places at a park and an elementary school in the San Gabriel Valley.

The man, who told his family that he used to be in the military, was a gun fanatic who began bingeing on drugs at least a day earlier, prompting his wife and two children to leave their home Monday evening because he was getting out of control, said Lt. John Corina of the Los Angeles County sheriffs department.

Police were called to the home Monday night about a disturbance involving the man but had no probable cause to arrest him, Corina said.

On Tuesday afternoon, the man grabbed at least three of his guns, including an assault rifle, and attacked, Corina said.

The man shot a woman who was driving a van, which later crashed, then walked up to a neighbor who had stepped outside to see what was happening and shot and killed him, authorities said. The neighbor was identified Wednesday as Francis Varney, 77. The gunman also shot a woman who was on the street, according to the sheriffs department.

 Associated Press

SOUTH CAROLINA

More bodies linked

to grisly murder case

Two bodies found on the rural property of a South Carolina man linked to five other deaths were a couple who had a history of panhandling and had been buried there for nearly a year, authorities said Wednesday.

One of the victims was Meagan Coxie, 25, of Spartanburg, who appears to have died of a gunshot wound to the head. The other was her husband, Johnny Coxie, 29, who was shot in the chest, Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said. The couple has at least one child, he said.

Authorities caught a break in the cold cases last week when investigators searching the property discovered a woman alive and chained in a large storage container, yelling for help. Her boyfriends body was later found in a shallow grave on the land. That couple had disappeared about two months earlier.

The property owner, Todd Kohlhepp, 45, was arrested at his suburban home in Moore, about 10 miles away. After his arrest, deputies say he confessed to killing four other people in the county at a motorcycle shop in 2003. He acknowledged the grisly cold case after authorities granted him several requests, including letting him speak to his mother. He also led authorities to the graves on his property.

Kohlhepp, 45, was denied bond Sunday on four murder charges.

 Associated Press

Former Detroit official sentenced: The former president of the Detroit City Council who turned to politics after working as a popular TV journalist was sentenced to at least 5 years in prison Wednesday for having sex with a teenage boy. Charles Pugh apologized to the victim, who was under 16 when they illegally engaged in sex acts in 2003 and 2004.

 Associated Press
Lung cancer, which kills almost 160,000 Americans a year, is among the cruelest of foes. Most patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage and after punishing chemotherapy still have a bleak prognosis. More than half die within a year.

Bit by bit, though, scientists are making progress against the nations biggest cancer killer. Years ago, they began approaching lung cancer as many different diseases rather than a single one. The 15 percent of patients with certain high-risk mutations, for example, today get targeted medications that work better than chemo.

This divide-and-conquer strategy, as one researcher describes it, is poised to make an even bigger advance  one that involves the immunotherapy drug used as part of former president Jimmy Carters successful treatment for advanced melanoma. It could benefit tens of thousands of patients in the United States alone  as many as one-third of those diagnosed at a late stage with the most common form of the disease.

The treatment shift stems from a major international trial in which the drug, Keytruda, beat chemo on both effectiveness and safety in patients who have advanced cancer and a high concentration of a specific protein on their tumors. The Food and Drug Administration last month approved Keytruda as a first-line treatment for such cases, the first time that immunotherapy has been given the green light as an initial treatment for lung cancer.

The result: Most new patients will be tested for the protein, called PD-L1. If they have a high level on their cancer cells, they will receive Keytruda rather than chemo, which is much more debilitating, oncologists say.

Bob Schoenbauer wears a crown made by nurses during his immunotherapy treatment at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. (Courtesy of Bob Schoenbauer)

We dont want to oversell this, but for someone like me who has worked in the trenches for years, this is a big deal, said Julie Brahmer, who led the clinical trial and is an oncologist at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. I have had one patient on this [drug] for five years, and she has seen her daughter graduate from high school and college.

Its decidedly good news in a field in which gains are excruciatingly hard to come by and funding lags behind that of many other types of cancer. The National Institutes of Health estimated that it would spend $362 million on lung cancer research in fiscal 2016, compared with almost $700 million for breast cancer research. Yet lung cancer kills four times as many people annually.

Because smoking is the main cause, lung cancer carries a stigma among doctors, the public and patients themselves, studies show.

Patients are sometimes blamed as being responsible for their disease even though we dont do that to people who are obese or have heart disease or other conditions that may be lifestyle related, said Albert Rizzo, senior medical adviser to the American Lung Association. Nobody deserves to have lung cancer.

The stigma, plus a sense of futility among some physicians, can contribute to the undertreatment of patients with advanced disease. Theres a lot of nihilism among some community oncologists, who say patients do poorly on treatments and may not have much experience with newer treatments, including immunotherapy, Brahmer said. She and others say that immunotherapy, though not a cure, offers an alternative for certain patients whose only option had been chemo.

Ten years ago, there was almost nothing for lung cancer, said Giuseppe Giaccone, an oncologist at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and an investigator in the trial. Then we got targeted therapies for small subsets of patients, and now we have this immunotherapy for a larger group. He says that scientists are just at the beginning with immunotherapy, with more gains to follow as they learn how to better use it.

[FDA approves new trial to test Cuban lung-cancer vaccine]

Ruzanna Hovanesian, an 81-year-old resident of Glendale, Calif., is enthusiastic about her treatment. Hovanesian, a smoker for 44 years who dropped the habit two decades ago, was diagnosed in July 2013 with advanced lung cancer.

She never received chemo, instead enrolling in an early Keytruda trial that caused only minor side effects, she wrote in an email. Today, she said, I feel very good.

What is most exciting is that this is not an anecdotal response, said Edward Garon, an oncologist at the University of California at Los Angeles who treated Hovanesian and was an investigator in the Keytruda trial. Although patients with results like this are a minority, they are still a significant segment of the patients treated.

In many ways, whats happening in lung cancer is emblematic of the overall field of oncology. Immunotherapy has been approved for several types of cancer, but its ultimate power is not yet clear. In some cancers, such as the pancreatic form, it has had little effect. And even in cancers in which it does work, usually only a minority of individuals are helped, and it can cause side effects.

Yet among those patients who do respond, some have what doctors call durable remissions, extending life far beyond the few months that might otherwise have been expected. Because the treatments are so new, researchers say, its impossible to know how long such remissions will last. And the cost of such progress is high given Keytrudas $150,000 annual price tag.

In the Keytruda study, 70 percent of the patients who were given the drug, also known as pembrolizumab, were alive at one year, compared with 54 percent of the chemo group, Brahmer said. The median for progression-free survival  the period during which the disease did not get worse  was 10.3 months in the Keytruda group compared with six months in the chemo group. The Keytruda group also experienced significantly fewer serious side effects.

Although the difference might not sound barrier-breaking, it is significant in the research world. An independent monitoring committee was so impressed that it took the unusual step of recommending that the trial be halted early to allow the chemo patients to switch to Keytruda.

The trial also underscored the increasing importance of biomarkers  in this case, PD-L1  in helping physicians decide who is likely to benefit from the new treatments. The study was restricted to patients who had PD-L1 on at least 50 percent of their cancer cells. Almost half of those in the Keytruda group had significant tumor shrinkage, compared with 28 percent in the chemo group.

[FAQ: Heres what you need to know about immunotherapy.]

Researchers say such biomarkers, which indicate the features of particular tumors, could pave the way for individualized immunotherapy. PD-L1 binds to another protein called PD-1, which is located on T cells, a key part of the immune system. When that handshake occurs, it discourages the immune system from attacking the cancer.

Keytruda, made by Merck, is the only immunotherapy drug approved for previously untreated patients with advanced lung cancer. Other immunotherapy medications are approved as second-line therapies.

Bob Schoenbauer, 82, who lives in Waldorf, Md., started coughing in late 2013 and months later was diagnosed with inoperable late-stage lung cancer. He was enrolled in a clinical trial at Georgetown in which he was treated simultaneously with chemo and a Genentech immunotherapy drug called Tecentriq. Within four months, his cancer had disappeared.

The chemo was discontinued, but Schoenbauer has opted to stay on the immunotherapy drug, which he and his doctors credit with his continuing remission.

Before the treatment, I was coughing my brains out, he said. Now, the ex-smoker walks a few miles a few times a week at a mall.

Researchers say that smokers and ex-smokers seem to benefit more from immunotherapy than nonsmokers. That may be because their cells have many mutations caused by cigarettes, which may make it easier for the immune system, once boosted by a drug, to see and attack the cancer.

The Keytruda trial involved more than 300 people who had advanced non-small-cell lung cancer, the most common form of the disease, but didnt have certain high-risk mutations.

More than 220,000 cases of lung cancer are diagnosed in the United States every year, and about 158,000 people die of the disease. Globally, the World Health Organization says lung cancer kills about 1.6 million people every year.

Read more:

Melanoma is the poster child for immunotherapy

Brain cancer replaces leukemia as the leading cause of cancer deaths in kids

How cancer thwarts immunotherapy drugs

Video: Immunotherapy as new weapon in leukemia fight


A supporter waits for the beginning of a Trump campaign event on Nov. 3 in Berwyn, Pa. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Mike Adams, a conservative Texas blogger, greeted President-elect Donald Trumps victory with this post: The evil, demonic, mass murdering Hillary Clinton has been defeated. This is VICTORY for all Americans, even the uninformed, ignorant morons who voted for Hillary.

But a few hours later, as the news sank in, Adams posted again with a more hopeful tone: Today I declare LOVE WINS because it is love for America that inspired us to collectively achieve this great victory. He said he was going to send Trump a video with his suggestions about how to reform health care.

Adams and thousands of others on the furious far-right of American political discourse, who have railed for years against the criminal and treasonous excesses of the federal government under President Obama, woke up Wednesday to find themselves in the odd position of being, essentially, insiders.

[Im not paranoid. These Americans are doing more than just stockpiling food and ammunition]

Members of the so-called alt-right, who reject establishment conservatism and spread their far-right ideology online, were eagerly courted by candidate Trump. Now this vocal constituency feels emboldened by its new ally in the White House, presenting Trump with a major challenge to satisfy its pent-up demands while trying to unite a deeply divided nation.

Adams, who blogs about health, wellness and politics on a Facebook page that has 2 million likes, said he sees the Trump election as a long-awaited chance to be heard by the White House. In addition to sending Trump his health-care ideas, he is urging him to fight abortion and nominate Supreme Court justices who will protect his right to own a gun.

The alternative right has come under fire from Hillary Clinton and establishment Republicans, but it has been seeping into American politics for years as a far-right option for conservatives. Here's what you need to know about the alt-right movement. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

My message is going to be: Lets move forward, lets contribute, Adams said in an interview. Its like JFK: Ask what you can do for your country. Were at that kind of moment. Myself, and I hope many others, are going to do our best to try to contribute to solutions.

Trumps election has sent hopes flying among a broad array of Americans angry at the federal government for what they see as unconstitutional overreach into their lives. They often describe themselves as part of the patriot or liberty movements, and many belong to well-armed militia groups such as the Oath Keepers or the 3 Percenters, whose membership has soared into the hundreds of thousands since Obama took office in 2008.

[Meet the woman who spends 260 days a year preaching the constitution]

Many people in those movements backed Trumps candidacy with full-throated gusto on the Internet and social media. However, others have been skeptical of his conservative credentials, and some are now vowing to pressure him to make good on his campaign rhetoric on issues such as abortion, immigration and putting America first.

It is now up to us to keep the heat on Congress and Trump, to fulfill the promises that were made by Mr. Trump, said Shorty Dawkins, writing on the Oath Keepers website. We have won a battle, but not the war against globalism. We cannot rest.

KrisAnne Hall, a radio host who tours the nation preaching against federal overreach of the Constitution, said she wanted voters to make a list of things they wanted changed that motivated them to vote and hang that list on their refrigerator.

Then I want them to review that list in two years and again in four years and see if those things actually changed for the better, she said. Perhaps then we can see where the changes need to be made and who has or doesnt have the power to make those changes.

Trumps victory has also energized white supremacists, who believe that Trump, with his calls to deport immigrants and ban Muslims, could bring their racist and anti-Semitic views into the mainstream in a way no politician has for decades.



A supporter for the Ku Klux Klan and the Confederate flag yells at African American demonstrators during a rally at the statehouse in Columbia, South Carolina on July 18, 2015. (Chris Keane/Reuters)

The people in our movement are really excited with the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency, what it can do for us, said William Daniel Johnson of the American Freedom Party, a prominent white nationalist in Los Angeles who has called for a whites-only United States and the deportation of other races and ethnicities.

[The rise of black nationalist groups: Apparently hate makes AmeriKKKa great]

In the past, presidents have reached out to all peoples, except those whites who are proud of their heritage and want to preserve Western civilization, Johnson said. Our hope is that his large tent will include us who have really been despised for generations.

During the campaign, Trump retweeted messages from white nationalist groups and often seemed reluctant to distance himself from those groups. He was endorsed by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

After the election, the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in North Carolina, posted a large photo of Trump on its website with the message TRUMP=TRUMPS RACE UNITED MY PEOPLE. The group says it has scheduled a victory parade on Dec. 3 in North Carolina. The group did not return a telephone message seeking comment and more details.

Two months after Trump announced his candidacy last year, a South Florida tattoo artist named Lonny Morgan latched on to Trumps crusade against political correctness and started a website called Outlaw Morgan, devoted to promoting Trump and trashing Clinton and Obama. The Democrat-turned-Republican, who now earns his living selling T-shirts and other merchandise on his Facebook site, has more than 260,000 likes.

I couldnt take it anymore; I got to a point where I was tired of oversensitive people claiming that everything is bigotry and everything is racist, said Morgan, 41, who doesnt count himself among the white supremacists.

[They dont need the baggage: White supremacist resigns as Trump delegate]

Morgan said many Trump supporters were pretty much talking 1776-style revolution if Clinton had won. But with Trump in the White House, they now see a chance for their beliefs and ideas to be taken seriously at the highest levels of government.

For example, Morgan said he hoped Trump would select Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who led a congressional inquiry into Clintons role in the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, to replace Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch.

He said he and others who felt completely alienated by the government view Trumps victory as a torch of hope for people to carry.

You can feel the hope in your chest. You wake up this morning and youre like, Hell yeah, he said. I woke up today and the tension in my shoulders was lifted. I feel calm. I have a Harley-Davidson that I love to ride. I bought a 91 Jeep Cherokee that Im going to put a lift kit on and take out in the woods. I feel like I can finally get back to my life.

Morgan said he planned to keep his website going to support Trump and to make sure that he keeps his campaign promises.

[The white flight of Derek Black]

Its up to us to monitor everything and make sure he stays true to his word, Morgan said. The American people are going to hold him accountable.

Since the election, Johnson, the white supremacist, who has said U.S. citizenship should be limited to white people with no ascertainable trace of Negro blood, has been emailing and calling Trump campaign officials, and people at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to promote himself and allies for positions in the Trump administration. He said they could be a conscience pressuring Trump to live up to some of his pro-white, pro-nationalist, pro-populist political campaign promises.

Johnson said he has promoted himself for undersecretary of agriculture for food, nutrition and consumer services, the position that oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program  the federal food stamp program. He said he wants to get rid of this entitlement mentality that we have in this country. It needs to be adjusted and reduced.

[These photos show what its like inside an American militia]

He said he has asked his British friend Nigel Farage, of the far-right, anti-immigrant United Kingdom Independence Party, which was a key driver of this years Brexit vote for Britain to leave the European Union, to recommend him to Trump officials. Farage appeared with Trump at a few rallies over the summer.

Johnson was briefly included on the Trump campaigns list of delegates to the Republican National Convention in July. But after media reports, campaign officials removed him, saying he had been inadvertently included through a database error.

Hes had no better luck this time. Despite his hopeful pleadings to be part of the Trump administration, he said so far hes had no response from anyone in the Trump camp.

Jared Taylor, a prominent white nationalist known for his opposition to multiculturalism, said he does not believe Trump is a white supremacist.

Donald Trump has stumbled onto certain policies that are congruent with a racialist view of the world, but hes got completely different motives, Taylor said.

But he said there is hope that Trumps thinking may evolve, opening the door to contact with Taylor. If so, he said, he will certainly take advantage of the opportunity to influence the new administration.

The possibility of that happening is greater than ever before, he said. Here is a guy who has broken the mold for how we talk about race. The fact that he was nominated at all was a huge step forward.

Taylor said that if he is contacted by members of the Trump administration, hes unlikely to publicize it any time soon.

As an earthly assistant of the devil, boldly writing about my plans to meet the Trump entourage  how could that possibly do to the president-elect any good? he said.

Read more:

Dear Ann Coulter: Just say you only want white people to vote.

For a President Trump, global real estate deals present unprecedented gray areas

Police call him an ISIS recruiter. He says hes just an outspoken preacher.

Justice in the Islamic State: A climate of fear and violence

A question on Americans minds: What does Trumps win say about us as a nation?
After Donald Trump's many shifting comments about women's health and reproductive rights, some women are worried about what will happen under the new administration. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

After Donald Trump's many shifting comments about women's health and reproductive rights, some women are worried about what will happen under the new administration. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

The antiabortion movement reluctantly embraced Donald Trump. Now, activists say they plan to make sure that uneasy partnership pays dividends.

Groups taking some credit for Trumps presidential upset on Wednesday pledged to hold him to his promise to promote an antiabortion agenda. They announced immediate plans to revive in Congress several bills, including one targeting Planned Parenthood, and to press Trump to appoint a Supreme Court justice who opposes Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion nationally.

Today, preborn babies got a reprieve, Mark Harrington, director of Created Equal, a group that campaigned for Trump in 18 cities in battleground states and in some places flew airplane-toted banners depicting pictures of aborted fetuses, said in a statement.

Now, we must hold our new president-elect accountable for his promises to defund Planned Parenthood, as well as pass a ban on abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy and appoint antiabortion judges, he said.

[Live updates from 2016 election fallout]

Pastor Joshua Nink, right, prays for Donald Trump Jan. 31, 2016 after a Sunday service at First Christian Church, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (Jae C. Hong/AP)

The surge of optimism marks a turnaround from just this summer, when antiabortion groups had assumed a defensive position in the wake of a Supreme Court decision striking down clinic regulations in Texas. The decision led Alabama and Wisconsin to roll back restrictions in those states. Activists also faced the prospect of a victory by Hillary Clinton, who embraced abortion rights like no previous major-party nominee for president.

Now, Republicans are poised to control Congress, occupy the White House and choose and approve quickly the next Supreme Court justice. And while restricting abortion may not be at the top of Trumps priority list, it is paramount for many of the activists who helped propel him to the White House.

Trumps record on abortion is murky at best. He previously supported the right to an abortion and left conservatives aghast by repeatedly praising the good things done by Planned Parenthood.

But the antiabortion movement rallied around Trump after an about-face on the issue. At one point during the campaign, he went so far as to say women ought to be punished for terminating a pregnancy. He backtracked after critics and some antiabortion groups condemned the remarks.

He tried to reassure skeptical social conservatives about the sincerity of his transformation by choosing as his running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), who has a long record opposing abortion rights.

[Obamacares future in critical condition with Trumps victory]

Then, this fall, Trump sealed the deal by issuing a letter to antiabortion leaders. In addition to pledging to cut off federal funds to Planned Parenthood and support a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, he promised to make permanent the Hyde Amendment. That measure bars federal funds from being used to pay for abortions; right now, it must be renewed annually by Congress.

Abortion rights groups struck a defiant tone Wednesday, calling Trumps abortion policies extreme even among his supporters.

We will fight to make sure that Planned Parenthood health center doors stay open, and that people in this country can get access to basic reproductive health care, no matter their Zip code, income, sexual orientation, race, religion, gender, or country of origin, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement. The majority of Americans, including Trumps own voters, support access to health care at Planned Parenthood and want abortion to stay legal and safe.

Read more:

Trumps upset win is a loud repudiation of the status quo

Winners and losers from the 2016 election

Trumps victory shocks international climate negotiations

Medical marijuana victories in Florida, North Dakota, Arkansas turn the tide
Why can I not literally vote against a candidate?

I know Im not alone in having been repulsed by both our major-party choices this election cycle. While some people dont vote out of indifference, others dont vote because they find neither choice worthy and dont think it right to cast a ballot in favor of a person they dont favor.

So why not give people another choice? Instead of having had to vote for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump because you disliked Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton more, or vice versa, how about being able to cast a negative vote, subtracting one from that candidates total?

I think that would produce a much more accurate read on the peoples feelings about the candidates and political class as a whole. Id bet this cycle, the winner might even have been the candidate whose negative number was closer to zero.

Harry Viener, Burke
CHINAS INTERNET is a universe of contradictions. It has brought hundreds of millions of people online and has become a vast marketplace for digital commerce, yet it is also heavily policed by censors to snuff out any challenge to the ruling Communist Party. Under President Xi Jinping, the censors are working overtime to keep 721 million Internet users under control.

The latest effort came Monday. Chinas national parliament approved a cybersecurity law that can be used to restrict free speech and force foreign Internet companies to heed the demands of Chinas security services. Censorship is not new in China; a huge phalanx of officials are devoted to it, harsh punishments are meted out, and the country is ringed by a content-blocking Great Firewall. But now censorship will be more fully enshrined in the legal code.

Article 12 of the new law prohibits use of the Internet for inciting subversion of the national regime or the overthrow of the Socialist system. Also banned is inciting separatism or ethnic hatred, endangering national unity, or fabricating or disseminating false information about the economy. These are all touchstones of Chinese authoritarianism, vague enough to be deployed in many circumstances to smother dissent. Article 37 of the new law requires critical information infrastructure operators to store users data, including that of foreign companies, on Chinese territory, making it easier for the security services to snoop. Article 24 requires Internet providers to demand the real identity of those they provide services to  making it easier for security services to track down those who would like to speak their mind. Many foreign businesses are also alarmed that the new law may give the Chinese authorities access to their technology and data.

Offering a glimpse of how censorship actually works in China, Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Torontos Munk School of Global Affairs, released a report recently on digital streaming services. Similar to Periscope (which is banned in China), these apps, such as YY, 9158 and Sina Show, have become a craze. Mr. Deiberts researchers downloaded these three, and between February 2015 and October 2016 extracted 19,464 keywords that trigger censorship on chats associated with each application. Rather than monolithic control, they found censorship is decentralized and somewhat chaotic; the platforms are often expected to adhere to a kind of self-discipline rather than direct orders. Mr. Deiberts group discovered that the most popular app, YY, with 844 million registered users, automatically sends a report back when a user types a banned keyword; the report includes not only the users name but also who the message was sent to and the message itself.

In law and in practice, China is creating the worlds largest online thought prison. It turns the idea of the Internet as a force for freedom on its head, and as China goes, so go other tyrants. From Vietnam to Saudi Arabia, from Russia to Turkey, the age of Internet repression has blossomed.
Almost four years ago, The Post published a list of definitive biographies for each president. And I foolishly took that list as a challenge.

As I have finished my long slog through all 43 (in order) just in time for this election finally to end, there are two overarching lessons I want to share.

First, these are not the most difficult or contentious times Americans have endured. No states have announced their secession (yet). There has not been a caning on the Senate floor in 160 years. Elections have all come with their own controversies that are now largely forgotten. When you take in all that has happened in minute detail, its easier to relax and know that we can and will get through it.

Second, there is no mold for the perfect president. There have been crooks and honest brokers, scholars and graduates of the school of hard knocks, introverts and extroverts. But one thing that becomes clear is that they are all fantastically, undeniably, sometimes laughably human. You see yourself in more than a few of them. Awareness of our politicians humanity is somewhat lacking in our political mind-set, and remembering it once in a while helps explain the stumbles.

As we move forward, let us think about things in the larger context. You might find yourself wanting to fight your neighbor less and forgive your president more.

Ellen Locke, Washington
MANY AMERICANS awoke Wednesday morning to wonder if they were welcome in their own land.

This feeling of alienation was different from the normal jolt we get when our party or candidate loses an election. That moment of disappointment, though also painful, is one of the costs we bear for living in a democracy  and caring passionately about how it is run.

Donald Trumps victory brought a more visceral pain to many because it was not just a matter of Rs and Ds. Mr. Trump won overwhelmingly with white support in a country that is no longer overwhelmingly white. His language during the campaign  the Hispanics, my African American  was frequently dehumanizing, and the substance of his policies was more so: proposing to exclude Muslims from the country, for example, or to round up and deport millions of Hispanics. He enjoyed disproportionate support from men and is set to become Americas 45th male president. Of course, he received the votes of many women, people of color, people with disabilities  the case should not be overstated. But it is just as true that many women, Muslims, immigrants and others historically excluded from power wondered what Mr. Trumps election would mean for them.

Hillary Clinton, in her gracious concession speech Wednesday, spoke of building an America thats hopeful, inclusive and big-hearted. Her campaign, she said, had been about an American Dream . . . big enough for everyone  for people of all races and religions, for men and women, for immigrants, for LGBT people, and people with disabilities. For everyone.

In his also gracious victory speech earlier Wednesday, Mr. Trump had promised to bind the wounds of division. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, Mr. Trump said. We hope he means it; it is not only right for the country but in his political interest, too, given Americas changing demography, which Mr. Trump may be able to slow but cannot reverse. His sincerity will be measured by the diversity of his appointments and even more by his words and policies. Can he stop casting aspersions, for example, on an entire religion (All I can say is theres something going on) and judge everyone, including Muslims, as individuals? Will he act on his pledge to welcome large numbers of legal immigrants?

We can hope, as we say, but we also must not wait to find out if such hopes will be realized. That Mr. Trump did not win a majority of Americans votes does not make his election any less legitimate  we all accept the Constitution we have  but it is not irrelevant, either, as we think about what kind of country we live in. And the fact is that each of us can work toward making our country more inclusive and big-hearted. Each of us can reach out to a neighbor who looks different, or talks differently, or gets around differently, and say, yes, this land is our land. Those are the kinds of bonds that can help a democracy survive from the bottom up in times of stress. Maybe Mr. Trumps election can be the spur some of us need to help strengthen those bonds.
Virginia Coleman Hoag of Dillwyn, Va., looking at a page from the family Bible that lists births, including John Winn Moseleys. Moseley was shot and captured during the Battle of Gettysburg, and a scan of his last letter to his mother is now in the Library of Virginia. Moseleys sister was Hoags great-grandmother. (Gregory Schneider/The Washington Post)

The Nov. 6 front-page article From attics and shoeboxes in Va., a trove of Civil War gold was timely. Many of these letters are special from a family perspective and frequently are also of historical significance. When they are gone, they are gone forever.

My family did a good job protecting letters. I had a phone conversation with a gentleman whose Confederate great-grandfather gave the order to charge a Union artillery battery commanded by one of my great-great-uncles at the Battle of Valverde in what is today New Mexico. Capt. Alexander McRae was killed while standing beside his artillery piece, fighting bravely to preserve our Union. The family protected letters about this in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina. The great-grandfather of the gentleman on the other end of the phone conversation was Col. Tom Green  later a general  who fought during the Texas Revolution. He fought under Sam Houston, a personal friend. The gentleman I was talking to once had letters from Mr. Houston to Mr. Green in a file cabinet in his office at work. There was a fire. He lost the Houston letters.

I suggest the Hoag family protect the John Winn Moseley letter by hanging a copy on the wall and either donating the original to the Library of Virginia or putting it in a lockbox.

Charles D. Webb, Arlington
DONALD TRUMP was president-elect for less than a day before Republicans in Congress began gearing up to move policy in a way the country has not seen in six years. The opportunity is to go big, to go bold, to get things done, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) declared.

The last time one party controlled Congress and the White House, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law. This time, Obamacare is on the chopping block. Full repeal seems unlikely for a variety of practical and political reasons. But even before the new administration and Congress set about scaling back the ACA, they must have a real replacement plan on deck.

That will be tricky. Republicans must explain whether their replacement plan would cover as many Americans as the law covers now. If it would not, they must explain why this result would be better for people. They must also think about how to guarantee coverage to people with preexisting conditions  one of the most popular parts of the current law  while abolishing the laws individual mandate requiring Americans to carry health insurance. Without the mandate, Americans would simply sign up for coverage when they were sick, and insurance-company costs would spiral out of control. Another problem is finding enough money to fund high-risk pools for people with extremely large medical expenses. As these details are worked out, Obamacare will continue to operate, but the uncertainty about the laws future and a hostile new administration may cause chaos in already shaky ACA marketplaces.

Similarly, Mr. Trump has frequently emphasized rolling back the countrys climate change policies, including tearing up the recently struck Paris climate agreement and undercutting a variety of clean-air regulations, such as the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Obamas climate program. Mr. Trump may well get an assist from Congress, which could conceivably eliminate any statutory authority the Environmental Protection Agency has to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.

Yet, once again, Mr. Trump and Republicans would have the obligation of mapping out their alternative policies. Given scientists warnings about climate change  and the effects they are pointing to right now  nothing cannot be the policy. Republicans will also have to explain how they will assure Americans who want  deserve  clean air and water that their government will act to prevent dangerous pollution, before Mr. Trump engages in broad regulatory rollback.

Then there is Mr. Trumps promise to bring back manufacturing jobs. Because so many of them were lost to automation, not trade, this goal will be far more difficult than Mr. Trump has suggested, particularly for low-skilled workers. Republicans, meanwhile, are split on trade, with many GOP lawmakers longtime defenders of free trade. If Mr. Trump has a realistic plan for pumping up manufacturing employment in the Rust Belt areas that carried him over the top Tuesday night, he has not shared it.

In other words, Mr. Trump, the speaker and other Republicans in Congress might soon find that making promises is much easier than actually governing.
When I opened my front door Wednesday morning after little sleep and numb from a bad dream that wasnt a dream, a dreary rainfall glazed the sidewalk as two neighbors gazed blankly in my direction.

As I leaned down to pick up my newspaper, a Carole King song filtered through my pre-coffee brain fog: Something inside has died, and I cant hide, and I just cant fake it, oh, no, no. Good ol Carole King.

From there, my morning proceeded mechanically: Find remote control, turn on Morning Joe, fix coffee, open refrigerator, close refrigerator, turn off sound on ringing cellphone, turn off TV, lie on floor. Im guessing this routine sounds familiar to fellow election-dazed denizens.

As regular readers of this column know, I rejected Donald Trump on Day One and have spent the past year  in columns, on TV and in speeches across the country  highlighting the many reasons I found him unacceptable for the job of president.

My opinion hasnt changed, but as Hillary Clinton said in her concession speech, Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead. And Trump, in his victory speech, said without irony that now its time to heal the wounds of division.

Hillary Clinton spoke to supporters, Nov. 9, offering a message of thanks, apology and hope. Here are the key moments from that fervent address. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Head hurting, but okay.

[Trump won. Heres how to fight back.]

To begin, there needs to be an honest assessment of what just happened. It isnt really that complicated or mysterious, if youve spent any time in the America where Trump voters live. As one who ventured inside the Beltway only 12 or so years ago  as a spy for Bubba, I introduced myself  Ive spent most of my life among the indigenous peoples.

Two weeks ago, I began saying that Trump would win, whether I liked it or not. Today, I offer a clarification: He didnt win the election. Clinton lost it.

For voters who couldnt stand Trump, she was a terrible alternative. Never a great candidate, she was also, tragically, a Clinton when people were ready to move on. She received several million fewer votes than President Obama did in 2012.

And speaking of Obama, he also lost this election to Trump, despite exit polling that showed the presidents approval rating at 50 percent-plus.

The 2016 election was as much a referendum on Obamas legacy as it was on the candidates themselves. When people want the country to change course, they dont typically vote for a third term of the current president.

1 of 75 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Protests swell across U.S. in wake of Trump victory View Photos Vigils and protests flared up across the country Wednesday evening as opponents of President-elect Donald Trump expressed dismay with the election results, underscoring the difficult task he faces in uniting a fractured country. Caption Vigils and protests flare up among opponents of the president-elect. Nov. 20. 2016 People participate in an anti-hate rally at a Brooklyn park named in memory of Beastie Boys band member Adam Yauch after it was defaced with swastikas. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

Thus, a vote for Trump was really a vote against Obamacare and the rising costs of health insurance. It was a vote against the doubling of the national debt to nearly $20 trillion under Obama. It was a vote against a foreign policy that saw the Islamic States expansion rather than its defeat.

Clintons promise to continue Obamas policies was a suicide agenda to a majority of Americans, especially those whose lives havent improved during the economic recovery of the past eight years. Clinton also embraced much of Bernie Sanderss socialist platform, which no conservative-leaning voter could support.

And, yes, too, some Trump voters probably resented the exacerbation of racial discord under Obamas watch when Americans had hoped for the opposite. Race as a factor in Republican opposition to Obama cant be ignored or minimized. Nor can Trumps role in nurturing hostility toward Muslims and Mexicans  or his antipathy toward women, people with disabilities and even a war heros parents  be dismissed in victory.

[Hillary Clinton lost. Bernie Sanders could have won.]

Minorities have reason to feel threatened in a Trump-inspired environment of hostility toward the other.

But leaning primarily on racism, bigotry or sexism to explain what happened Tuesday is too facile by half. Missing from the audiences that television cameras focused on were millions of others  Republicans, independents, libertarians and maybe even some Democrats  who would rather be horse-whipped than attend a Trump rally but were compelled to vote R against the likelihood of a more liberal Supreme Court, laxer immigration laws and an increasingly costly health-care system, among other concerns.

The giant X-factor about which I have written  the however many who would never admit to voting for Trump but did  was enormous, indeed.

Trump captured a moment and promised to make America great again. He also said that hell be the president for everybody. Lets hope he wasnt just reading from a teleprompter  and that the word trickles down.

Read more from Kathleen Parkers archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook.
Richard H. Kohn is an emeritus professor of history and peace, war and defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dear Republican national security expert:

Like dozens of other prominent GOP national security leaders, you may have publicly opposed Donald Trumps presidential campaign in harsh terms. (Or perhaps you found him appalling but kept your views to yourself.) Now that he will be moving into the White House, however, you must serve in a Trump administration if given the opportunity.

A president as seriously deficient in knowledge, experience and temperament as Trump is going to need a lot of help, and he will need it from the A-Team. Most national political figures have established ideas about policy and also know many individuals who are qualified and prepared to people their administrations. Given his demagoguery, inconsistency and changeability, Trump lacks a fixed agenda. Hes all style, no substance  a tabula rasa.

With your experience and professional network, you could help Trump find the dozens of appointees necessary to direct the foreign policy, national defense, intelligence, homeland security and other agencies that defend the country. You can suggest generals and admirals for the different commands and let Trump know whose advice to heed in the many ticklish (and dangerous) situations sure to arise during his term. You can warn him when a given comment or idea will tempt or deter an adversary, reassure or unhinge an ally, strengthen or weaken our war-making capacity. You will know how to craft the short memos needed to get his attention and which perspectives will need to be added to the policy discussions that will be ongoing in his administration. You might even prevent a financial as well as a national security crisis.

I know you worry deeply about working for a man you dislike and distrust. Remember, however, that you would be serving the American people and the country. It can be done.

To succeed, you will have to be prepared to speak truth to power, and then to be ignored, overruled, dissed and otherwise embarrassed. The people in charge may not be principled or capable and, including in Trumps case, perhaps even disparaging of those around them and working for them. In other words, the gig may test your capacity for abuse. Be prepared to resign or otherwise walk off the job after careful calculation of the pros and cons of helping the country vs. going home to lick ones wounds. The only people who cant resign in the national security community are the most senior military leaders, because to do so would violate their core professional obligations, akin to an emergency-room doctor walking away from a patient in need.

You will also have to inquire carefully about the conditions of service. Trump is known for requiring nondisclosure agreements from his employees. You may have to measure a promise to go home in silence against what may be a need to alert the country to problems and perils of the administration  in other words, the balance between loyalty and discretion on the one hand and blowing the whistle on the other. And think through beforehand how you would handle being asked to do something illegal, immoral, unethical or just plain stupid.

Last, before going to work for a president who can be insulting, illogical, erratic, inappropriate and the like, it may be wise to find out the extent to which you would be expected to serve as a spokesperson or public defender of the administrations positions, thinking and decisions. One has to be able to look oneself in the mirror every day and talk frankly to ones family every evening. Once out of government, you want to be able to remember, and speak privately of your service with pride, firm in the belief that you emerged with your integrity, honor and reputation intact. All of the above, in fact, applies to experts in other fields as well  national security is just one of many areas of vital national interest in which the president will need significant help from people who didnt want him to win.

Yes, Trump is a master of chaos with no core of belief. He would be a difficult boss. But as we mark another Veterans Day honoring those who have served our nation, you must not turn down a reasonable offer. At any point, you can go home, knowing that at least you tried. And that the country will be in your debt.
Danielle Allen is a political theorist at Harvard University and a contributing columnist for The Post.

The president-elect is at work on identifying appointees for his new administration. Both New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani have been floated as possibilities for the role of attorney general. Neither appointment would serve the work we most need at the Justice Department: a restoration of impartiality, fairness, nonpartisanship and thoroughgoing avoidance of conflicts and the appearance of conflict.

A Christie aide and an appointee have just been convicted in the Bridgegate scandal over the closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, N.J. Christie, who was not himself indicted, claims he did not know about the lane closings, but three people contradicted him under oath: Bridget Kelly, Christies deputy chief of staff when the closings occurred; Bill Baroni, a top Christie appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; and David Wildstein, a political ally of the governor and also a senior official at the Port Authority at the time of the scandal. According to the New York Times, It was impossible for even casual trial observers not to discern, from witness after witness, the evident viciousness and grubbiness of the governor and his administration.

Kelly and Baroni were found guilty on all charges of fraud, conspiracy and depriving the residents of Fort Lee of their civil rights.

Wildstein, who pleaded guilty in 2015, testified that the purpose of the lane closings was to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, for refusing to endorse Christies reelection bid. According to the Times, Wildstein testified that Christie laughed when told of Sokolichs frustration over the traffic.

Earlier in the scandal, in an effort of self-protection, Christie commissioned what the Times called, a friendly Bridgegate investigation by Randy Mastro, a former aide to Mr. Giuliani.

The attorney general must embody impartiality, integrity and public service. Christie does not.

Then we have Giuliani, who boasted during the final days of the election that he had inside access to the FBI. Matt Zapotosky reviewed for The Post precisely what Giuliani said and concluded that Giuliani is claiming to have known not of the development in the Clinton email case, but of frustration over the Clinton Foundation matter. But the conversations reveal close, and possibly problematic, involvement with a bureau that appears to be politicized.

Also, during the campaign, to advance the cause of candidate Trump, Giuliani frequently offered prejudgments about criminal guilt on the part of Hillary Clinton. For instance, in a statement on the subject of the Clinton Foundation, Giuliani said:

It is now abundantly clear that the Clintons set up a business to profit from public office; they sold access and specific actions for money. This makes a mockery of her promise to Congress and the president to keep the Clinton Foundation and the State Department entirely separate. In other words, they merged the two into the Clinton family racketeering enterprise.

The legal views Giuliani expressed here were fully entangled with his political goals; no stable justice system can be built on such a starting point. The attorney general must avoid not only conflicts of interest but also all appearances of a conflict of interest. The attorney general must be equipped to embody and protect the impartiality of investigations and decisions to prosecute. On all these counts, Giuliani has already disqualified himself for this role.

In his acceptance speech, Trump said this:

Following a New York Times report alleging that Donald Trump could have avoided paying federal income taxes for 18 years, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Oct. 2 said Trumps handling of tax laws was genius. (The Washington Post)

I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, Im reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.

Heres a piece of guidance then: We need to de-politicize the judicial branch to preserve our constitutional fabric, so dont appoint Christie or Giuliani to the role of attorney general. Appoint a nonpartisan legal figure with a deep record for integrity and public service, who is squeaky clean with regard to conflicts and the appearance of conflict. We need such an appointment to de-politicize the Justice Department and the FBI. Only such an appointment will make it clear that the Justice Department will protect liberty and justice for all Americans. There could be no more important early signal for the president-elect to send.
For those of us who viewed a potential Donald Trump presidency with alarm, the only thing more troubling than his victory Tuesday is the manner in which he won.

If Trump had run a more-or-less conventional campaign, and if it had earned him a lead in the polls for weeks before Election Day, then his triumph would have been a more-or-less normal event, in the eyes of both his supporters and his foes.

Instead, he broke all the rules of American politics (and politesse) on his way to proving false a near-unanimous expert consensus that his election was not possible.

As his rambling wreck of a campaign rolled on, only he and a hardy few true believers insisted to the end that he knew better, and was going to win  and, well, now no one can argue with his success.

Therefore, this victory is also a vindication  confirmation, in the eyes of the millions who evidently wish to believe it, that Mr. Trump is gifted with special insight and a special connection with the people.

Demonstrators around the country hit the streets on Nov. 9 to protest the election of President-elect Donald Trump. Protests were reported in major cities including New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles. (Victoria Walker,Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Such political miracles (which is what, on Nov. 8, a senior adviser said a Trump win would be) confer upon their authors a particular kind of authority.

[How each of us can help keep America inclusive, even under Trump]

It is charismatic authority, which is not quite the same as personal charm or magnetism, neither of which Trump possesses. Nor, of course, does it have anything in common with the traditional authority of, say, a hereditary prince, or the legal authority that U.S. elections under our Constitution were meant to confer.

Rather, as Max Weber famously defined it, charismatic authority stems from a kind of political mojo resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him.

Anyone who has witnessed a Trump rally, and the energy generated by the mutually reinforcing rule-breaking carried out by both candidate and crowd, can confirm that Webers concept applies.

Looking ahead to the Trump administration, the hope must be that all of that was so much political spectacle, and that he will accept constitutional and political constraints once in office. The fear, though, is that his charismatic authority intoxicates, portending great difficulty for any who would challenge him, at least at the beginning.

For those outside Trumps charmed circle, of course, the overwhelming sensation now is cognitive dissonance, and a particularly crippling form of it at that.

Supporters of President-elect Donald Trump rejoiced across the nation on Election Night as their candidate defied the polls. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

Democrats feel that they quite literally do not know what is going on in their own country, and it may be a long time before they can formulate an effective response.

Yet the situation could also be complicated for Republicans who might try to deal with their new leader and the acolytes  Chris Christie, perhaps, or Ben Carson  who may accompany him to Washington, whether their goal is control, cooperation or co-optation.

The Trump White House response could well be He was right about the election, when everyone else said he was wrong, so who are you to say hes not right about this, too?  on Russia, immigration or anything else.

Add to that the fact that some of the Republicans who were reelected to the Senate or the House arguably owe their upset victories to Trumps coattails, and you have a formula for Trump domination of the GOP establishment, not the opposite.

[Trump won. Heres how to fight back.]

On paper, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) have ample means to contend with Trump. Yet those consist mainly of conventional parliamentary mechanisms. Trump can go over their heads to the GOP masses, aided by the new high priest of Republican communications, Stephen K. Bannon of Breitbart News, who has just helped Trump to campaign victory and is therefore enjoying his own powerful moment of vindication.

When and if resistance develops, or Trump blunders, or untoward world events  such as a recession  occur, aides will be ready to assist Trump in deflecting blame onto anyone except the new president himself, just as pro-Trump media promiscuously scapegoated the mainstream press and other enemies during the campaign.

The American constitutional systems checks and balances may be about to face a historic test. If they still work, however, Trump should find himself bogged down in a series of inconclusive political battles, which ultimately disillusion his followers, encourage his opponents and force him into a more conventional, and stable, form of democratic politics.

This would be the disarming of his charismatic authority through its routinization  Webers word  and, fortunately, the great German sociologist, with his prodigious learning, was able to identify multiple instances of this throughout history. But not even Max Weber ever had to analyze a case quite like Donald Trump.

Read more from Charles Lanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
The Posts Marc Fisher explains how some of President-elect Donald Trumps traits could inform his leadership style when he takes office. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

The Posts Marc Fisher explains how some of President-elect Donald Trumps traits could inform his leadership style when he takes office. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office under immense pressure to quickly deliver on a list of audacious campaign promises that served as the cornerstone of his bid to disrupt Washington and undo pieces of President Obamas agenda.

Some of Trumps most dramatic undertakings  such as canceling Obamas illegal executive actions  can be done in his first hours as president. Other priorities, such as repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act or building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, will require the approval of Congress, which will be controlled by Republicans but could still squabble over details. Others still could run into political or legal obstacles that may be difficult to overcome.

For Trump, the transition from proposing severe changes on the campaign trail to trying to navigate the complex gears of government to implement them will serve as a jarring early test of his tenure in the White House.

Two of Trumps ideas could probably be realized as early as his first day in office: scrapping executive orders issued by Obama  including those that shielded from deportation some immigrants who are here illegally  and appointing a special prosecutor to investigate vanquished Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

[GOP sweep imperils Obamas signature health-care law]

The former is a common tactic for new presidents whose predecessors belong to the opposing political party. Obama signed an executive order ending a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research imposed by George W. Bush early in his first term.

The latter would be a political risk. By going after the opponent he just defeated, Trump could imperil his chances of broadening his appeal to the millions of Americans who did not vote for him.

He certainly could do it, but it could have a major, devastating impact on her and would create a very bad precedent like we see in Third World countries where election winners often imprison their rivals, said John F. Banzhaf III, professor of public interest law at George Washington University and a scholar on administration law.

Repealing the ACA would take an act of Congress, as would levying some types of tariffs on corporations that move operations overseas, ending regulations that limit pollution and coal production, getting rid of gun-free school zones, and renegotiating the Iran nuclear deal. He would have the authority to renegotiate trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement that he has long railed against  and to withdraw with six months notice if he wished  but such a move could be catastrophic for stock markets and the economy.

For years, Republicans on Capitol Hill have tried to shred Obamas signature health-care law, only to be stopped by the president. But after holding their majorities, they are finally in position to make it happen in conjunction with the new Republican president.

[Iran nuclear deal could collapse under Trump]

While Trump spent countless hours on the campaign trail assailing the law, he has yet to fully articulate what he would offer as an alternative. Trump said that he would encourage health savings accounts, allow insurers to sell policies across state lines and convert Medicaid from an entitlement program to a block grant to states  ideas long favored by GOP conservatives. As for the rest of Trumps plan, he has assured supporters that it will be something terrific that is so much better, so much better, so much better.

1 of 75 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Protests swell across U.S. in wake of Trump victory View Photos Vigils and protests flared up across the country Wednesday evening as opponents of President-elect Donald Trump expressed dismay with the election results, underscoring the difficult task he faces in uniting a fractured country. Caption Vigils and protests flare up among opponents of the president-elect. Nov. 20. 2016 People participate in an anti-hate rally at a Brooklyn park named in memory of Beastie Boys band member Adam Yauch after it was defaced with swastikas. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

Building a wall on the southern border would require Congress to commit hundreds of billions of dollars to make it happen. Trump also has no power to force Mexico to pay for it, as he has repeatedly promised to do, although he could pressure the Mexican government with threats to limit trade or drug-related law enforcement activities.

History shows it can be hard to fulfill vows that sounded easier to make in front of cheering crowds on the campaign trail. For example, Obama immediately issued an executive order closing the military prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but members of both parties in Congress voted to block its closure. In the final months of Obamas presidency, the prison remains open.

Heavily surveilling mosques in the United States in the way Trump has advocated would require courts to reinterpret constitutional protections and rights. And if he wants to follow through with his proposal to ban most Muslims from entering the country  which he stopped talking about in the final months of the race even as it remained on his campaign website  would immediately be challenged in court as either unconstitutional or against current law, legal experts said.

But Trump would probably have the ability to ban a narrower group of Muslims living in certain parts of some countries controlled by Islamic State terrorists because the immigration statutes afford some discretion on national security grounds.

[Donald Trump will have the power to move swiftly on trade promises]

Another category of Trumps promises amounts to changing the priorities of agencies. That would require getting Congress to allocate more money for programs already underway, such as deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records and broader promises to fix the Veterans Administration and start taking care of our military.

In the area of national security, where presidents traditionally have more leeway, Trump could order his top military chiefs to come up with a plan within 30 days to stop the Islamic State, as he has promised. But if the plan would require the deployment of troops to Iraq and possibly an invasion of Syria, a war-weary Congress eventually would need to sign off and agree to fund a large and open-ended increase in military spending.

Even if the plan were to rely on the CIAs covert action authority and be carried out in secret, Trump would face limits on what he could do and what the professionals at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies might be willing to do.

For example, if he tried to order the use of torture against terrorists, as he has pledged, Trump would immediately run into legal impediments and a buzz-saw of resistance from CIA lawyers and operators still smarting from a decade of revelations and public criticism over waterboarding and secret prisons, intelligence officials said.

Trump would have to persuade Congress to overturn the ban on waterboarding instituted by George W. Bush in 2006 and the congressional ban on any interrogations that go beyond the restrictive ones outlined in the Army Field Manual.

He could ask the intelligence community and White House lawyers to come up with a new set of harsh interrogation methods that they believe do not violate U.S. law and do not amount to torture, which is prohibited under U.S. and international law, said John Rizzo, longtime acting general counsel at the CIA.

But, Rizzo and half a dozen former intelligence officers warned, There would be such pushback from many at the CIA, given the damage that revelations over extreme measures did to the agencys reputation.

At his final campaign rally, in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Monday, Trump said he would put in place the largest tax cut since Ronald Reagan and offered less specific ideas such as eliminating every unnecessary, job-killing regulation, protecting religious liberty and rebuilding the military and law enforcement.

Just think about what we can accomplish in the first 100 days of a Trump administration, he told the crowd.

Priest reported from Washington. Jenna Johnson in Washington contributed to this report.
Few Americans knew the voters who rejected Hillary Clinton better than her husband. He lived among them growing up, and then studied them with a fanatical intensity during his political rise.

But now, with any notion of a dynasty dead and gone, one explanation for the stunning political demise of the Clintons might be the extent to which they moved away from a middle-American sensibility into the realm of the coastal elite, from McDonalds to veganism to put it in symbolic terms, making it harder for Hillary to bridge the nations yawning social divide. This rendered her vulnerable even to the most unlikely opponent, a wealthy Manhattan real estate developer who had nothing in common with many of his voters except his uncanny ability to speak their language of discontent.

Bill Clinton grew up in rural southwest Arkansas. His mother called him Bubba and thought of him as her Elvis. Their neighbors were mostly white, had little money or clout, and felt alienated from the social and economic changes rumbling through the outside world and headed their way.

These same citizens later dealt the brash young Bill Clinton an unsettling early defeat, tossing him and his wife, Hillary, out of the Arkansas governors mansion in 1980 after a single two-year term. They thought he was too much of an elitist, that his wife was not one of them, but an independent feminist who wouldnt even take his last name, and that his policies ignored their daily struggles. What incited their rage was a state tax on license plates based on the weight instead of price of a vehicle  making a farmer with a heavy, old pickup truck pay more than a rich city slicker driving a Porsche.

His opponent, Frank White, had been dismissed as a lightweight know-nothing who would drag Arkansas back into the 19th century, but White found a way to turn that argument on its end, saying he would return the state to its gloried past. His message connected with the frustrations of many white voters  an early variation of what Donald Trump would do to Hillary a full 36 years later with his evocation of a long lost great American past that only he could restore. Clinton became the youngest ex-governor in American history, and the Clinton era was thought to be over not soon after it had begun.

Bill and Hillary drew on the lessons of that defeat in constructing their comeback in Arkansas and their rise to national prominence, building an unprecedented political partnership that carried them through a decades-long cycle of loss and recovery and mostly success until it all came crashing down at long last in the early hours of Wednesday morning. They focused relentlessly on the economy and found ways to communicate directly with the electorate, creating a permanent campaign. A shared pragmatism that had been evident since they first met at Yale Law School in 1971 went into overdrive. Losing power so early shaped everything they would do from then on, their ambition at times overtaking their ideals in the fight to survive. They believed that in the name of doing good, the ends could at times justify the means.

In the four terms Bill served as governor after returning to power in 1982, he and his wife constantly tried to figure out how to keep going even as the country turned more conservative in the Reagan era. That became the essence of his successful 1992 presidential campaign, when he relied on pollster Stan Greenbergs seminal study of Reagan Democrats in Michigans Macomb County, the blue-collar suburban region north of Detroit populated largely by white men who felt adrift from the cultural changes in America and struggling from the decline of manufacturing jobs. There and in similar areas, Clinton knew how to take his old Bubba personality and combine it with a relentless focus on the economy, stupid to make his winning case.

He used that ability again later in the White House to keep his connection with the white working class, among other ways by opposing same-sex marriage and supporting reform of a welfare system that many wrongly believed was aimed primarily at helping poor minorities.

Two decades later, when Hillary tried to reclaim the Clinton legend, everything had changed. The country and the candidate. She was no Bubba, but maybe he wasnt anymore, either. By the time she won the Democratic nomination, she had more experience than any candidate in modern times, but also as much baggage. She had been investigated by a special prosecutor, called to appear alone before a federal grand jury, grilled for 11 hours straight by a hostile congressional committee and probed by the FBI. She was such an established persona in American culture that a first name sufficed. Hillary. Singular first names usually evoke singular identities, but not in her case. Despite all that she has done and been, or perhaps because of it, her identity remains not singular but kaleidoscopic, with ever-changing shards of opaqueness and clarity.

Many of her problems could be traced to her husband in ways large and small. She suffered both in comparison with him and because of him.

As a campaigner, he was magnetic and extemporaneous, she was studied and practiced. It had been that way from the beginning. In one of their first tag-team efforts, as partners in a mock Prize Trial run by the Barristers Union at Yale, Bill was soft and engaging and emotive, working to charm the judge, making the jurors feel as though he was addressing them individually, pouting when a ruling did not go his way, while Hillary was calm and cerebral, deliberate and tough. One classmate noted that while Bill would massage their toes, Hillary was less concerned about stepping on them. A campaign is not a courtroom, the sharp contrast between his performance style and hers did not help her any when it came time to be the candidate. Her style also played into gender stereotypes that persist in American life, the sexist denigration of an aggressively competitive female.

And Bills personal vulnerabilities when it came to sex and women, while sometimes making Hillary a more sympathetic figure to the public, had a long-term problematic effect on her. She developed an encrusted defensiveness over the years as the lawyer in her tried to protect him and their shared goals. What became a reflexive tendency toward secrecy and lack of transparency merged with her deeply held Methodist belief that her mission was to do the best she could in as many ways as she could and that she and her husband were persisting in the face of fierce and wrongheaded right-wing opposition.

Almost every controversy she has been enmeshed in over the years can be seen through that prism  her advice in 1993 essentially to stonewall the press as the inscrutable non-scandalous Whitewater story was unfolding; her decision to go on the Today show one January morning in 1998 as the Lewinsky affair was breaking to decry what she called this vast right-wing conspiracy against her husband; and her more recent travails with the use of a private server during her tenure as secretary of state. Carrying the accumulated weight of those stories on her back through this 2016 campaign proved to be a load too heavy.

There is also the complicated interplay between Hillarys pioneering status as the first woman to be the presidential nominee for a major party and her position in what was considered a political dynasty, which though not unprecedented rubbed against a myth of American democracy. Most modern presidents, from Richard M. Nixon to Barack Obama, with Bill Clinton as a prime example, came out of nowhere, pushed along by their own will, with no family wealth or prestige or political legacy to assist them. Hillarys early rise was not all that different, from the middle-class heart of unpretentious Midwestern America in suburban Chicago, with her own generational story of despair and salvation involving her mother, who had been abandoned by her parents and grandparents and essentially made her own way since age 14, imparting that determination and will on her only daughter. But Hillarys lift into elective office came only after another Clinton had paved the way, just as George W. Bush followed in the path of his father, George H.W. Bush. Among other things that Trump did in his improbable campaign, by disposing of first Jeb Bush and then Hillary Clinton, he took down not one but two dynasties.

The question of what role sexism played in Hillarys defeat will be the source of endless debate, lasting at least until a woman finally breaks the glass ceiling in the White House, which has persisted for 227 years, headed toward at least 231. Back in 1969, when Hillary was delivering a commencement address at Wellesley, another accomplished woman who would later become her friend and ally, Paula Stern, wrote an article for the Atlantic about the nascent womens movement titled The Womanly Image: Character Assassination Through the Ages. Stern wrote about how an employers most pressing question to her was whether she was in love, about how the legend of Eve, as mans subordinate helper and temptress, overtook the legend of Lilith, mans equal; about how the writings of Aristotle and Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson and Rousseau and Freud had all diminished the value of women in various ways; and about how being competitively aggressive was considered unladylike behavior.

All of that came back to Stern this week as she watched Hillary in the final days of what she hoped would be a history-making campaign, but instead became a moment of bitter disappointment. Speaking of the most popular mob-like incantation at Trump rallies, Stern said, I see the cries of Lock her up as the 21st-century expression of character assassination through the ages. Hillary, she said, was not just trying to break through a glass ceiling, but through centuries of misogyny.

Bill Clinton had his own problems, but never that one, and neither did Trump, who openly disparaged women throughout his campaign and still prevailed. The result was at once unfathomably difficult for the Clintons and yet not entirely surprising to Bill. He saw the signs all along the way of this campaign. He knew the people who were voting for Trump, and also the people who during the primaries were voting not for his wife but for Bernie Sanders. He saw the anger and the feelings of disconnection, but he did not know how he, or his wifes campaign, could connect to it effectively without resorting to demagoguery or false populism, something Hillary was not good at even if she was disposed to try.

Once, in New Hampshire back during the primary season, Bill Clinton described the mood of the moment, all the various forms of anger roiling to the surface, by using a line from one of his favorite poets, W.B. Yeats  Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. Now, to borrow from another Yeats poem, there will be no second coming of the Clintons, and it will be Donald Trump slouching toward Washington.

Read more:

How Donald Trump won: The insiders tell their story

Trump maps out a new administration to bring a seismic shift to Washington

A question on Americans minds: What does Trumps win say about us as a nation?
Galmadug security forces hold their weapons as they stand in a field near the central Somali town of Galkayo on Aug. 18, 2010. (Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

An American drone strike thought to have struck Islamist militants in Somalia actually killed 10 members of a regional force allied with the United States, according to results of a Pentagon investigation that have not yet been made public.

The September incident sheds light on the escalating involvement of U.S. forces in Somalias protracted war against al-Shabab, a group of al-Qaeda-linked militants. It also points to the unforeseen consequences of increased U.S. drone strikes in a country still run by clan militias.

Theyve helped us out against a common enemy, a U.S. military official said Thursday, referring to the regional forces who were killed in the strike. If we had known who they were, we would have done everything we could to prevent it. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigations findings are not yet public.

As the United States has waded further into Somalia, it has struggled to form a coalition of allies from a range of rival groups. Two of those groups  from the states of Puntland and Galmadug  have targeted and arrested al-Shabab terrorists, and received American accolades for doing so.

But the groups also have been fighting one another for decades, mostly over territory in the city of Galkayo.

On Sept. 28, Puntland security forces were sent to investigate a suspicious group, thought to be al-Shabab based on American surveillance imagery, according to the U.S. official.

American forces accompanied the patrol as advisers, until they neared the unknown group. It was early in the morning, and visibility was limited when Puntland forces started taking fire, said the U.S. official. They asked for air support, and the U.S. military launched the drone strike.

Shortly after the attack, officials in Galmadug began accusing the United States of killing its own allies. They released images of government vehicles destroyed by the strike. There were protests in the streets. People burned American flags.

[Somalias president says al-Qaeda-backed rebels are resurgent]

In interviews with The Washington Post in a hospital in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, two survivors of the strike who belonged to the Galmadug forces described the way it had hammered their unit.

Small aircraft, sounding like flies, started hovering over us, said one survivor, Ali Adan Mohamed. At about six in the morning the airstrike started, the aircraft fired three missiles.

I believed that the U.S. was neutral, but now it seems to me that they have sided with one of two clans, he said.

When Galmadug state officials heard what happened, they were furious with the Americans.

There is not any justification that could lead to such disaster, Minister Osman Ise Nur, the head of Galmadugs security operations, said in a phone interview. We were amazed with what has happened to our forces despite the fact that they were fighting al-Shabab.

The U.S. Africa Command issued a statement shortly after the attack that described the target of the strike as a group of armed al-Shabaab fighters.

But a new Pentagon report, parts of which were described to The Washington Post, contradicts that initial conclusion.

We responded and struck the hostile force with the belief that it was al-Shabab, the U.S. official said. But we recognize that they were Galmadug forces.

In other words, the United States appeared to have unwittingly entered into a war between two regional fighting forces, both its allies.

More than 75,000 people have been displaced by the fighting between Puntland and Galmadug forces in recent months, and are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, according to Abdelgadir Galal Ahmed, the Norwegian Refugee Councils country director.

Somalia has been torn apart by civil war for 25 years, resulting in chaos that allowed the rise of al-Shabab in 2005. The White House considers the group one of its top concerns in sub-Saharan Africa, in part because its attacks extend beyond Somalia to civilian targets in neighboring Kenya, including the bloody strike on Nairobis upscale Westgate Mall in 2013.

The United States has a particularly strong relationship with the Puntland forces and has for years helped to train them.

Although the U.S. Africa Command investigation found that the drone strike had inadvertently killed Galmadug forces, it nonetheless ruled that the action was legitimate in that it probably saved the lives of the United States Puntland allies.

The strike was clearly lawful, the U.S. military official said.

Not long after the strike, Stephen M. Schwartz, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Somalia, met with Abdikarim Hussein Guled, the president of Galmadug, and other local officials. Galmadug officials said the ambassador apologized for the strike. The State Department would not confirm the apology.

Unlike politicians in countries like Afghanistan, who have denounced U.S. drone strikes because of collateral damage, Somalias government has been supportive of the attacks aimed at al-Shabab.

I heard that in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the experience of the drones was not good, the countrys president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, said in an interview in April. But here they are precise, and we are informed of them before.

The drone strike and the controversy over it come just before Somalias presidential election, set for Nov. 30, and as Western donor nations are revising plans for the countrys national army, which is largely considered poorly structured, incompetent and unaccountable.

A new plan would provide more assistance to regional fighting forces, such as the one in Galmadug, which are seen as having more legitimacy in their own states, rather than just funding a national army thats recruited largely from Mogadishu and not welcome in much of the fractured nation.

We need to have a greater involvement of the regions, because the problem at the moment is the Somali National Army is seen as supporting one clan, said a senior Western official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of sensitivity involving military planning. It is not a national army, and it is more likely to provoke violence in some areas.

Melding those regional forces into a single Somali fighting force is an enormous challenge. But the current situation, in which regional fighting forces target both al-Shabab and one another, is untenable, officials and experts say.

We cant have a state that has all sorts of armed forces lingering around with all sorts of loyalties, said another Western official.

More than 20,000 troops are based in Somalia as part of the African Unions mission there. Those troops are set to begin withdrawing in 2018, and the international community has been desperate to find a Somali solution to the countrys security problems.

The United States has pledged to defend its Somali partners while also targeting high-profile Islamist militants. It has conducted more than a dozen airstrikes and drone strikes in 2016, according to Defense Department statements.

Mustafa Haji Abdi in Mogadishu contributed to this report.

Read more

U.S.-funded Somali intelligence agency has been using kids as spies

How a breakaway region of Somalia hopes to build a new country

He once tried to fix failing D.C. schools. Now hes trying to fix Somalia.

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
An American Democratic Party supporter reacts after Donald Trump wins the state of Florida at the Democrats Abroad election night party on Tuesday in London. (Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

How did Donald Trump win the 2016 election? Can you explain how this is even possible given his comments on minorities and the claims of sexual assault? Will he really seek to jail his vanquished opponent?

These are the kinds of questions that many Americans living abroad have faced in the wake of Trumps shock victory.

The undercurrent to conversations goes like this: What the hell is your country thinking? and Can you speak for your country?  said Mena Mark Hanna, a 32-year-old academic who moved to Berlin two years ago.

It is estimated that more than 8 million Americans live abroad, and, like many of them, Hanna is no fan of the 45th president-elect. But that hasnt stopped him from being pelted with questions about how his fellow Americans could vote for Trump.

Hanna doesnt always know how to answer the questions. I cant speak for this man, Trump, or the political results of this election. Its not the America I know or recognize, he said, noting that Trumps rival, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote.

1 of 26 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  How the world is reacting to results of the U.S. election View Photos People around the globe watched as Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. Caption People around the globe watched as Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. Nov. 12, 2016 Activists take part in an anti-Donald Trump demonstration at the Angel de la Independencia monument in Mexico City. Edgard Garrido/Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.

Trump is widely disliked in Europe. In Britain, members of Parliament debated earlier this year whether to ban him from the country after his controversial comments about Muslims. The motion was not passed, but lawmakers dug deep into the well of insulting adjectives, calling Trump a ridiculous xenophobe and the orange prince of American self-publicity.

[Islamist extremists celebrate Trumps election win]

Trumps victory sent shock waves around the world, and reactions from global leaders have ranged from Russian President Vladimir Putins optimistic note of congratulations to German Chancellor Angela Merkels very cautious welcome.

But there is an intense curiosity and eagerness on the ground to understand how the nation that elected Barack Obama could, just a few years later, choose Trump, or as the comedy writer Rob Fee tweeted: How do we go from our first black president to a president endorsed by the KKK? How?

Foreigners are curious, too, and ears perk up when they hear an American accent with its distinctive rs.

As expats, we are expected to be able to explain the actions of the president, said Lucia Lucas, a 36-year-old from Sacramento who moved to Germany in 2009. Sometimes strangers overhear her on the train, recognize her accent and launch into questions about U.S. politics. People who dont know us feel like we owe them an explanation, she said.

She hasnt resorted to sewing a maple leaf on her backpack or  as some of her American friends have done  telling people that her accent is a Canadian one. But she has vowed to work on her German accent in hopes of blending in.

Guests watch the results come in Tuesday at an election night party at the U.S. Embassy in London. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

[Vigils and protests swell across U.S. in wake of Trump victory]

This sensation is new. When Obama first assumed power eight years ago, the world was enamored with the United States for electing its first black president, and there was enough stardust around to be sprinkled on U.S. expats. It was a strange feeling for many Americans who lived overseas during the George W. Bush era, when anti-Americanism was rife.

Obama has this rock star status, and you felt like, as an American over here, you were a roadie in his rock star entourage, just because you were an American, said John Scardino, a 56-year-old high school teacher who moved to Britain in 2000.

Now, he says, his British friends and colleagues are flabbergasted.

When I walk into school, a lot of my teaching colleagues will say, What is going on? Something Trump has proposed or said will be in the news, and people at work will say, Is this for real? 

[Angela Merkel congratulates Donald Trump  kind of]

Some expats find it easier than others to explain the appeal of Trump.

I think Brexit and Trumpism are a necessary corrective to excesses of globalization, said Alex Sundstrom, a 37-year-old from Boston and a board member of the British branch of Republicans Overseas.

On Tuesday night, Sundstrom was at a watch party at the U.S. Embassy in London, where he estimated that of the 1,500 guests, about 99 to 99.5 percent were pro-Hillary. But he also said that just as there are shy Tories in Britain, there are shy Trump supporters, too.

At the embassy party, Sundstroms Make America Great Again pin easily identified him as pro-Trump, and he described the experience of walking into a room filled with journalists as going into a pen with starving lions and wrapping yourself with raw meat.

Part of the global interest in the results of the election stem from how Trump defied the expectations of almost every pollster and pundit.

Albert Frantz, 41, an American entrepreneur who lives in Vienna, was pre-celebrating with friends on Tuesday evening. But as it became clear that Trump had won, the proud American went from feeling jubilant to feeling ashamed of his homeland.

I was shocked and horrified. We just clicked the undo button for all of the advances that Western societies have made in the last century, he said. I never thought this could be a reality.
Members of the Kosovo Security Force take part in a field exercise in the village of Nashec near the town of Prizren on Oct. 27. (Armend Nimani/AFP/Getty Images)

The surprise triumph of Donald Trump is raising fears of a historic recalibration between the United States and its allies in Europe, threatening to upend the allegiances that became the cornerstone of post-World War II peace.

Few countries are more in the crosshairs than Germany, Western Europes most populous nation and the pacifist home to 47,000 U.S. troops. For decades, American power has been a security blanket here. Even as thousands of U.S. troops were redeployed elsewhere, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Obama forged a bond that became important in tackling various issues, including the Ukraine crisis and the fight against global warming.

[Its going to be Trumps world, and not everybody likes it]

Enter President-elect Trump, who threatened on the campaign trail to back away from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and force U.S. allies to shoulder more of the burden of their defense. Amid concern of a future bromance between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the victory has put Europe on notice  and bracing for transatlantic divisions potentially greater than the freedom fries era of President George W. Bush.

A big question now is whether Trumps America could awaken the sleeping giant of German might. This nation, weighed down by the horrific violence of Adolf Hitler, has shied away from military strength since the end of World War II. But leading voices here are now calling for a fresh debate on beefing up capabilities and equipment. They join a chorus from Belgium to Finland, where the clamor is growing for a more independent security strategy with the dawn of Trump.

Many far-right parties in Europe are celebrating the presidential victory of Donald J. Trump. (Jason Aldag,Ishaan Tharoor/The Washington Post)

Europe will have to be prepared to take better precautions itself, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told public television.

[With Trump as commander in chief, America is in uncharted territory]

Trump could pull back from his most radical pledges, and massive obstacles remain before Germany could reemerge as a normal nation matching its economic strength with muscle. Public opposition to military power is part of the DNA here. The military is also an atrophied limb, with a 2014 parliamentary report detailing a shocking state of disrepair. Only one of Germanys four submarines was operational. Only 70 of its 180 GTK Boxer armored vehicles were fit for deployment. Seven of the German navys fleet of 43 helicopters were flight-worthy.

Yet a provocative Trump presidency could prove a tipping point for change, including accelerated talks to create a European army anchored by Germany and France.

In a sense, that new era of European security is already unfolding. Berlin is sending 650 soldiers to Mali next month in an experimental operation to relieve French forces fighting militants affiliated with the Islamic State. Next year, German troops will also stage a deeply symbolic deployment to Lithuania  a nation once brutally occupied by the Nazis  as part of NATOs mission to counter an increasingly belligerent Russia.

[Russian warplanes keep buzzing the Baltics. Heres how NATO scrambles.]

If Russia reaches a great power understanding with Trump, Germany would need to reconsider its defense, said Christian Molling, senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. But defending against whom? Also the U.S.? You open a Pandoras box.

As with many Americans, the unknowns of Trump frighten Europe. His foreign-policy plan has been only loosely sketched out. To minimize surprises, envoys from major U.S. allies typically meet campaign advisers to Democrats and Republicans ahead of the election. But countries such as Germany have not been able to secure advance meetings with the Trump campaign, officials say. Trump has also never met key European leaders, including Merkel.

The nascent push for more independence stems also from the fact that many Europeans saw Trumps election in deeply personal terms  deflating their view of the United States as a serious nation and a bastion of tolerance. Many feel not just shocked but betrayed. Even senior voices in a nation more familiar with the risks of demagoguery than any other are asking whether it may really be wise for Germany to hitch its wagon to Trump.

Trump is the trailblazer of a new authoritarian and international chauvinist movement, Sigmar Gabriel, Germanys deputy chancellor, told German media after the U.S. presidential election. He added: They want a rollback to the bad old times in which women belonged by the stove or in bed, gays in jail, and unions at best at the side table. He who doesnt keep his mouth shut gets publicly bashed.

[For Americans living in Europe, a struggle to explain Trump]

In the aftermath of Trumps victory and the vote by Britain to leave the European Union, many across the continent see an old world order crumbling. Europes greatest ally could emerge as its chief adversary on climate change, the peace accord with Iran and free trade. German officials, for instance, are already calculating that Trumps victory means a massive transatlantic free-trade deal  years in the making  is effectively dead. And Berlin will be hard-pressed to maintain European unity on sanctions against Russia if the United States backs away from its own.

Concern is also rising of a possible frost between Trump and Merkel, whom he repeatedly jabbed at on the stump. Many European leaders sent him innoxious congratulations Wednesday. But Merkel dispatched a cautionary note, offering cooperation with the caveat that it be based on democracy, freedom, as well as respect for the rule of law and the dignity of each and every person, regardless of their origin, skin color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or political views.

In fact, some see Merkel  particularly if she runs and wins reelection next year  as potentially filling the gap on the world stage left by Obamas exit. In a full-circle transition for Germany, she could emerge as the leading champion, and defender, of liberal Western values.

All eyes will be on Berlin, said Josef Janning, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Merkel appears to be the only pillar still standing.

The Germans have for years been under pressure from the United States to increase military spending and contribute more to operations in international conflicts. Even if Hillary Clinton had won, Germans say they expected that pressure to increase. Although German defense spending has recently grown, it is still only 1.2 percent of gross domestic product, compared with NATOs benchmark of 2 percent.

Conventional wisdom holds that Germanys neighbors, particularly France, would fear a stronger military here. But new calculations with Trump as the leader of the free world may change that, experts say.

Germans avoid military conflict, whereas we rather tend to seek it, said Francois Heisbourg, a former member of a French presidential commission on defense. When the Germans display greater willingness to act like a normal power, that actually makes the French quite happy, because theyre acting like a normal country.

Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin, Michael Birnbaum in Brussels and James McAuley in Paris contributed to this report.

Read more

Angela Merkel congratulates Donald Trump  kind of

Across Europe, revulsion at Trump but little idea of what to do about him

Germany, once the promised land for migrants, is turning back more of them

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Afghan first lady Rula Ghani, left, receive Sharbat Gula, in blue burqa, and her children in Kabul after she arrived from Pakistan on Nov. 9. (Hedayatullah Amid/European Pressphoto Agency)

Thirty-one years ago, the face of an unnamed Afghan girl, her piercing green eyes staring from the cover of National Geographic magazine, captivated the world and drew attention to the plight of millions of refugees who had fled a brutal conflict between Soviet troops and Islamic Afghan militias.

This week, Sharbat Gula, now 45 and a sickly widow with four children, finally came home to a formal welcome by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Having endured years of poverty and illness in a Pakistani refugee camp, she was jailed this month for carrying a false national ID card and deported across the border in the middle of the night.

[From a Nat Geo cover to a mug shot: The sad story of the green-eyed Afghan Girl]

I welcome you back to the bosom of your motherland, the beaming president told Gula, who sat silent and expressionless in a palace armchair, a peacock-blue burqa pulled back from her face. Ghani held her young son in his lap, then presented her with the key to a furnished family apartment. I have said repeatedly . . . our country will be incomplete until we absorb all our refugees.

The warm ceremony, recorded by a dozen Afghan TV cameras, was an unspoken rebuke to Pakistani officials, who have been cracking down on identity fraud among more than 2 million long-term Afghan refugees as part of a tough new policy to pressure them to return to Afghanistan.

A photo taken Oct. 26 shows Inam Khan, owner of a bookshop in Islamabad, Pakistan, showing a copy of the iconic National Geographic cover photo of Afghan refugee Sharbat Gula. (B.K. Bangash/Associated Press)

It was also part of a government publicity campaign to entice refugees to come back from Pakistan, although the gift of a new home contrasted with the struggles facing tens of thousands of families who have been pouring into their impoverished, war-torn homeland for the past year. With no jobs or homes, many have crammed into Afghanistans urban slums, though some are being offered small plots of vacant land.

But in many ways, Gulas high-profile homecoming was an awkward and muddled ending to the sad saga of a briefly famous girl who had vanished into the hardscrabble life of an illiterate refugee, married in her mid-teens and grown ill after the death of her husband, finally ending up in the middle of a political and bureaucratic fight between two neighboring Muslim countries over what to do with a large refugee population neither can afford to sustain.

Gula resurfaced once before, when Steve McCurry, the photographer who had taken the 1985 picture for National Geographic, tracked her down in Pakistan in 2002 and discovered the harsh life she was leading. A follow-up portrait on the magazine cover showed her as a glum figure, posing with the original photo and almost unrecognizable except for the same sharp green eyes.

[Afghan refugees have settled in Pakistan for decades. Now theyre being ordered to leave.]

Then, last month, after Pakistani officials discovered that she was using a fake government ID card, Gula was thrust into an even more unwelcome spotlight, charged with fraud and sentenced to two weeks in jail  complete with a police mug shot. Pakistani officials defended her treatment as strictly by the book, but critics in both countries denounced it as a cruel and absurd abuse of a woman known to the world as the Afghan Mona Lisa.

The Pakistani state seems to have sprung into action a little too late, since bigger security threats than a widowed Afghan woman, like Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and [recent Taliban leader] Mullah Mansoor, all seemed to have been found living in Pakistan, blogger Mona Naseer wrote in the Pakistani newspaper the Nation. Arresting those insurgency leaders would have benefitted Pakistan, but [it] instead chose to crack down on the helpless, poor and ill Sharbat Gula.

The arrest of the renowned Afghan woman Sharbat Gula has opened the lid on the inhumane policies of Pakistan towards Afghan refugees, charged the lead editorial in the Afghanistan Times daily newspaper. It is time to bring her back home with dignity.

[Afghan refugees face pressure at home, in Pakistan]

The matter quickly developed into a full-fledged diplomatic incident. The Afghan ambassador in Pakistan sprang to her defense, and delegations were sent from Kabul to investigate. Gula suffers from hepatitis C, which killed her husband and one of her children, and she was hospitalized in Pakistan while awaiting a court hearing and deportation. In an aside to the drama, one of Pakistans most respected journalists, Rahimullah Yousufzai, was accused of misusing funds McCurry and others had raised to assist Gula and her family; he has denied the claim.

At first, according to news reports in Pakistan, Gula was reluctant to return to Afghanistan after living virtually her whole life in Pakistan, but later changed her mind. The provincial government stepped up and provided medical treatment and child care. Pakistani officials changed their plans repeatedly but finally drove her to the border from the hospital in Peshawar late Tuesday night and handed her over to Afghan officials.

By Wednesday, Gula, who had lived much of her life in a dusty Pakistani refugee camp, was seated stiffly in a brocade armchair in Afghanistans presidential palace, her face downcast as a phalanx of cameramen tried to zoom in for a shot of her iconic green eyes.

Ghani, hugging her and her four children as they were ushered into the room, promised her a life of dignity and security in Afghanistan and praised her for becoming a national hero. The woman who stands next to me became an iconic figure representing Afghan deprivation, hope and aspirations, he said. All of us are inspired by her courage and determination.

Gula mumbled something unintelligible and kept staring at the floor.

Read more

A humanitarian crisis looms in Afghanistan as the number of displaced climbs

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai denounces deadly NATO airstrikes

Donors pledge billions to Afghanistan but seek push for peace

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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An Israeli border guard walks past a souvenir shop displaying a T-shirt bearing a montaged image of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump dressed as a Hasidic Jew for sale in a souvenir shop in Jerusalem's Old City on Nov. 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)

Israelis who support the Jewish presence in the occupied West Bank were buoyed Thursday after a top adviser to Donald Trump told an Israeli radio station that the president-elect does not view settlements as an obstacle to peace.

Speaking to Israels Army Radio, Jason Greenblatt, co-chairman of the Trump campaigns Israel Advisory Committee, said: It is certainly not Mr. Trumps view that settlement activities should be condemned and that it is an obstacle for peace, because it is not an obstacle for peace.

It is widely believed that Greenblatt may be appointed Trumps envoy to the Middle East.

If Trumps position on Israeli settlements holds true, it would mark a sharp departure from the administration of outgoing President Obama. Throughout his nearly eight years in the White House, Obama spoke out strongly against Israeli expansion of Jewish settlements, which sit on land that Palestinians seek as part of a future state.

[Giuliani: Israeli leaders back Trump]

The consistent message of Obamas administration was that allowing the settlements to grow makes achieving a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians more difficult. Last month, the U.S. State Department condemned Israeli plans to build 300 additional units in the settlements, saying they would further damage the prospects for a two-state solution.

In response to Greenblatts message, Ofer Akunis, a senior Israeli government minister, said he was happy that the onus for achieving peace was no longer on whether Israel did or did not build in the settlements. He urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to start building immediately.

Oded Revivi, chief foreign envoy for the YESHA Council, an organization representing more than 430,000 Israelis who live in Israeli settlements, also welcomed Greenblatts comments.

Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria are the answer to peace, enabling Israelis and Palestinians to live and work together. We hope to continue building a peaceful future with the blessing of the new Trump administration, said Revivi, who is also the mayor of Efrat, one of the largest Israeli settlements.

Israelis refer to the West Bank by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria.

David Makovsky, a fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted that for the first time since Netanyahu became prime minister in 2009, he will be dealing with a Republican president. Makovsky predicted that Netanyahu and Trump will enjoy an initial honeymoon period.

But he warned that the relationship could face challenges if the two leaders are confronted with different aims on substantive issues such as Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

At what point does the honeymoon wear off and the Trump that emerges is the Trump dedicated to the art of the deal? he said. At what point does the bonding between these two diverge if he thinks Netanyahu doesnt want to do a deal, or a deal thats not doable?

Makovsky cautioned that the right wing in Netanyahus government may view the Trump position on settlements as an open invitation for settlement expansion, which could provoke a clash if the Trump administration wants to resume the peace process.

[Israelis tell Trump to hurry up and move U.S. Embassy]

Also on Thursday, Israelis discussed the prospect of the Trump administration moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, keeping a promise made by Trump earlier this year. The lack of a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem has been a point of contention between the two allies since Israels founding in 1948. Another of Netanyahus ministers, Tzahi Hanegbi, said he was hopeful that Trump would follow through.

Every time there is a new president, he is told by the State Department: You cant do that. If you do, there will be bloody demonstrations in the Arab world. Americans will be killed all over the Muslim world, Hanegbi told Israel Radio. We are not talking about moving the embassy to East Jerusalem; were talking about West Jerusalem. This is a fundamental issue. The U.S. has never recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital since 1948. This is a scandal with no justification.

Carol Morello in Washington contributed to this report.

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Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly characterized the Interfax news agency of Russia as a state-run agency. Interfax is a privately owned and managed company.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during an international conference in Moscow on Nov. 10, 2016. (Sergei Karpukhin/Pool photo via European Pressphoto Agency)

Russian government officials conferred with members of Donald Trumps campaign team, a senior Russian diplomat said Thursday, a disclosure that could reopen scrutiny of the Kremlins role in the president-elects bitter race against Hillary Clinton.

The statement came from Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who said in an interview with the Interfax news agency that there were contacts with the Trump team.

Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage, Ryabkov said.

We have just begun to consider ways of building dialogue with the future Donald Trump administration and channels we will be using for those purposes, Ryabkov was quoted as saying.

Ryabkov provided no further details, and his remarks drew a swift denial from Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, who said the campaign had no contact with Russian officials before Tuesdays election.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Nevertheless, the assertion from Moscow attracted attention from national security experts after a presidential campaign that the Kremlin, according to U.S. officials, sought to influence in unprecedented ways.

Washington, for instance, accused the Kremlin of orchestrating hacks into the Democratic National Committee and the emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that led to politically embarrassing disclosures by WikiLeaks. Trump faced criticism during the campaign for his positive statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin and for other Russia-friendly policy stances, although he repeatedly denied having financial or other ties to Moscow.

Speaking to Bloomberg News, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said staffers at the Russian Embassy in Washington met with members of Trumps campaign  meetings she described as normal practice. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clintons campaign refused similar requests for meetings, Zakharova told the agency.

Asked later for clarification, a Foreign Ministry official declined to elaborate on Ryabkovs remarks but said standard diplomacy called for contact with the leaders in the campaign on matters such as clarifying statements by the candidate or conveying interview requests from Russian journalists. The ministry official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

A Clinton campaign official who was asked to comment on Zakharovas statement answered with a one-word email: false.

In September, Trump was interviewed by host Larry King for a segment broadcast on RT America, part of a state-owned Russian media network. In the interview, Trump criticized the U.S. news media, calling it unbelievably dishonest. A Trump spokesman said the interview had been a favor to King, a former CNN host and a friend of Trumps, and that the campaign did not know the interview would appear on RT America.

[Russian government hackers stole opposition research on Trump]

1 of 26 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  How the world is reacting to results of the U.S. election View Photos People around the globe watched as Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. Caption People around the globe watched as Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. Nov. 12, 2016 Activists take part in an anti-Donald Trump demonstration at the Angel de la Independencia monument in Mexico City. Edgard Garrido/Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.

Putin throughout the campaign denied that the Kremlin was interfering with the U.S. elections.

But neither the administrations hacking allegations nor reporting of Trumps apparent ties to Russia dissuaded more than 59 million voters from casting their ballots for the Republican.

Speculation has swirled about Trumps links to Russia since early in the campaign, both because of his warm words about Putin and past business ventures in Russia. It is not clear whether Trump has any investments in the country, because he has not released any tax records.

But he made millions of dollars by taking the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013. Wealthy Russians also have been an important source of investments in Trumps businesses. His son Donald Trump Jr. said in 2008 that Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets, adding that we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.

Several Trump advisers also have had well-publicized ties to Russia, including his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who managed an investment fund for a Russian aluminum magnate with close ties to Putin. Manafort resigned from the campaign days after his name was found in a ledger designating funds to be paid out from the party of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in a pro-European street revolution in 2014.

[How Manafort revived his career  and business fortunes  in Ukraine]

Trumps national security adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, sat next to Putin in 2015 during a dinner held by the Kremlin-funded television channel RT, formerly known as Russia Today.

Politically, Trump has called for closer ties with Russia to fight the Islamic State, and he rebuffed calls to renounce Putin after the Russian leader called Trump colorful and talented, a remark that was mistranslated by some in the news media as a genius.

A guy calls me a genius, and Im going to renounce? Trump said. Im not going to renounce him. Trump has not met Putin, according to statements this year, although in 2015 he claimed he had met the Russian leader.

While Russian officials were openly jubilant about Trumps victory, Ryabkov also said that Moscow does not cherish any special hopes in the wake of Donald Trumps election as U.S. president.

We do not feel any euphoria, Ryabkov told Interfax. We wouldnt like our public, or at least the Interfax subscribers, to have the impression that we are overwhelmed with some rosy anticipation.

Tom Hamburger and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more:

Its going to be Trumps world, and not everybody likes it

Intelligence community is already feeling a sense of dread

Amid a world of problems, Trumps policy prescriptions remain opaque

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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There have been times in Americas past when an untested new president faced immediate calamity and potentially world-shattering disaster, from the Civil War to the Cuban missile crisis. But the broad array of international challenges now facing Donald Trump is among the most daunting and dangerous in modern U.S. history.

After a campaign of bombastic sound bites and often contradictory policy prescriptions, Trumps plans remain opaque for dealing with issues including terrorism, Russian aggression and multiple shooting wars in the Middle East.

He has called for increased military strength and more forceful American leadership, while also speaking of stepping back from U.S. responsibilities as the free worlds primary protector. He has invited China to invade North Korea and solve that problem, but also said he would host North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the White House.

He said he would renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal, and then called for strict enforcement of the existing agreement. His plan to combat the Islamic State, Trump said during the campaign, is a secret.

[Who will Trump be as commander in chief?]

In Mexico, China, Russia and Israel we ask people what they think of the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States. (Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

With little clarity on much of what he intends to do, the best initial indicator of Trumps approach may be those he chooses for his national security team. Many of the names floated so far strike fear in the hearts of mainstream Republicans as well as Democrats, while others instill a sense of reassurance.

Perhaps more than any other area of policy, the universe of potential picks for national security Cabinet positions, agency heads, deputies and those below is limited by the large number of Republican establishment figures in the field who said early and often during the campaign that they would never support a Trump candidacy or work in a Trump administration.

Determining who is even on a list of possibilities is hampered by the fact that those who have been organizing the transition apparently have had little contact with Trump or the tightknit circle of family and top campaign officials around him.

There has been a firewall between people who had access to the man himself and people doing stuff that was serious about a transition, said one prominent Washington conservative who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly. The Trump transition to most of us is just a black box.

Even if some of the senior Republicans who denounced Trump decide to offer their services, he has given no indication he is prepared to forgive and forget. Blackballing job contenders, of course, is not unique to Republicans. Liberal advocacy groups, reportedly with guidance from Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), had assembled names unacceptable for positions in a Clinton administration.

On the Republican side, Trump is like Nixon, the conservative said. They keep lists.

In a post-election message to State Department employees Wednesday, Secretary of State John F. Kerry reminded them of the need to continue moving ahead with all the activities and projects on which you are currently engaged. The pace of events across the globe does not allow for timeouts.

The second imperative, Kerry said, is to welcome our incoming colleagues warmly and professionally and to provide them with all the assistance they need to ensure a seamless transition from one administration to the next.

Trumps personnel choices could ease or deepen concern in Cabinet departments and agencies such as the CIA, where Trump has said he would reinstate the use of torture and detention for terrorism suspects. Former agency officials said that any attempt to reintroduce harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding would meet fierce internal resistance.

[Intelligence community is already feeling a sense of dread about Trump]

Among the rumored candidates for secretary of state, former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former U.N. ambassador John Bolton  both outspoken Trump supporters  are viewed as anathema by many current diplomats and as loose cannons even by many of their fellow Republicans. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is seen as the more mainstream candidate.

Corker said that he had spoken to Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Wednesday to offer his congratulations but that hed had no conversations with them about a position in the new administration. Although he has expressed interest in the State Department job in the past, its way too soon for that kind of thing. . . . These are decisions that others are making, Corker told the Tennessean newspaper Wednesday.

At the Pentagon, Trump has criticized the counterterrorism policies of current senior officers, saying he would replace them, but also has said he would defer to them on new policies. Among other things, current and former defense officials have expressed unease over threats to withdraw from NATO, use nuclear weapons, and engage in military partnerships with Russia while responding more aggressively to Chinese expansionism.

The possibility that retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and an active Trump adviser and surrogate who is highly critical of current policy, would be named as defense secretary or national security adviser does not sit well within the Pentagon or the intelligence community, career officials in both have said. Flynns appointment to a Cabinet position would also require a congressional waiver of a law restricting activities of former senior military officers.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), another senior Trump adviser, is said to be interested in the top Defense Department job. Though a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he is much better known for his interest in immigration than the military.

Amid the many swirling rumors  and a dearth of actual information  former CIA director and retired Gen. David Petraeus is said to be in the mix for a top national security job, as are House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), former congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan and George W. Bush national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

Trumps lack of foreign policy experience could also shift more focus back to Congress, where Republicans who have sharply criticized the level of unilateral control President Obamas White House has exercised over national security  and some of whom have denigrated Trump as uninformed on the issues  are chafing for a bigger voice. At the same time, Trumps lack of a deep bench to populate the National Security Council staff could result in a reduction from an Obama White House team seen as bloated.

But Trump wasnt elected on the strength of his foreign policy, said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. A non-politician with no record to judge, Trump said enough to get people to elect him, Pletka said. But he has also made a lot of statements that are totally contradictory, she said. . . . I have absolutely no idea how hes going to govern.

As Trump makes his choices and begins to work through the various policies he has described in bullet points, some issues will require immediate attention. They include the fight against the Islamic State, Syrias simultaneous civil war and broad Middle East instability; a newly aggressive Russia that U.S. intelligence says has directly intervened in the American electoral process; and the likelihood that North Korea will have a missile-mounted nuclear weapon capable of reaching U.S. shores during the first year of Trumps presidency.

Others, including China, Iran and global terrorism, are on a larger plate of pressing strategic issues. In Asian capitals such as Tokyo and Seoul, officials voiced trepidation over Trumps campaign promises to make them pay more for a U.S. security shield. In Damascus and Jerusalem, there was optimism that pressure to make concessions to their opponents would lessen.

At NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, one ambassador sent an email to another summing up the high state of anxiety given the president-elects threat to withdraw from the alliance if other members failed to meet their obligations. The email read, Oh my god.

Adam Entous contributed to this report.

Read more:

Iran nuclear deal could collapse under Trump

How the military is reacting to Trumps victory

Four questions about how Trump could affect the military industrial complex
This 2015 file photo posted on the Twitter page of Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, shows al-Nusra fighters in Idlib province where the United States has begun to strike the groups leadership. (AP)

President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government, U.S. officials said.

The decision to deploy more drones and intelligence assets against the militant group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra reflects Obamas concern that it is turning parts of Syria into a new base of operations for al-Qaeda on Europes southern doorstep, the officials said.

The move underlines the extent to which Obama has come to prioritize the counterterrorism mission in Syria over efforts to pressure President Bashar al-Assad to step aside, as al-Nusra is among the most effective forces battling the Syrian government.

[Amid a world of problems, Trumps policy prescriptions remain opaque]

That shift is likely to accelerate once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump has said he will be even more aggressive in going after militants than Obama, a stance that could lead to the expansion of the campaign against al-Nusra, possibly in direct cooperation with Moscow. The group now calls itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham  or Front for the Conquest of Syria  and says it has broken with al-Qaeda, an assertion discounted by U.S. officials.

President Obama arrives at the 71st annual U.N. General Assembly in New York, on Sept. 20, 2016. (Peter Foley/Via Bloomberg)

The United States has conducted sporadic strikes in the past against veteran al-Qaeda members who migrated to northwestern Syria from Afghanistan and Pakistan to join al-Nusra and whom U.S. officials suspected of plotting against the United States and its allies.

Obamas new order gives the U.S. militarys Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, wider authority and additional intelligence-collection resources to go after al-Nusras broader leadership, not just al-Qaeda veterans or those directly involved in external plotting.

The White House and State Department led the charge within the Obama administration for prioritizing action against the group. Pentagon leaders were reluctant at first to pull resources away from the fight against the Islamic State.

But aides say Obama grew frustrated that more wasnt being done by the Pentagon and the intelligence community to kill al-Nusra leaders given the warnings he had received from top counterterrorism officials about the gathering threat they posed.

In the presidents Daily Brief, the most highly classified intelligence report produced by U.S. spy agencies, Obama was repeatedly told over the summer that the group was allowing al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan to create in northwest Syria the largest haven for the network since it was scattered after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Officials also warned Obama that al-Nusra could try to fill the void as its rival, the Islamic State, lost ground.

Lisa Monaco, Obamas White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, said Obamas decision prioritized our fight against al-Qaeda in Syria, including through targeting their leaders and operatives, some of whom are legacy al-Qaeda members.

We have made clear to all parties in Syria that we will not allow al-Qaeda to grow its capacity to attack the U.S., our allies, and our interests, she said in a statement. We will continue to take action to deny these terrorists any safe haven in Syria.

In this 2013 photo, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, rebels from al-Qaida affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra sit on a truck full of ammunition at Taftanaz air base, that was captured by the rebels, in Idlib province, northern Syria. (Edlib News Network/AP)

To support the expanded push against al-Nusra, the White House pressed the Pentagon to deploy additional armed drones and intelligence-collection assets in the airspace over northwestern Syria, an area that had been sparsely covered by the United States until now because of its proximity to advanced Russian air-defense systems and aircraft.

[Who will Trump be as commander in chief?]

A bitterly divided Obama administration had tried over the summer to cut a deal with Moscow on a joint U.S.-Russian air campaign against al-Nusra, in exchange for a Russian commitment to ground Syrian government warplanes and to allow more humanitarian supplies into besieged areas. But the negotiations broke down in acrimony, with Moscow accusing the United States of failing to separate al-Nusra from more moderate rebel groups and Washington accusing the Russians of war crimes in Aleppo.

Armed drones controlled by JSOC stepped up operations in September, according to military officials.

Drone strikes by the U.S. military under the program began in October and have so far killed at least four high-value targets, including al-Nusras senior external planner. The Pentagon has disclosed two of the strikes so far. One of the most significant strikes  targeting a gathering of al-Nusra leaders on Nov. 2  has yet to be disclosed, officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations.

So far, Russian air-defense systems and aircraft havent interfered with stepped-up U.S. operations against al-Nusra. Officials attributed Moscows acquiescence to the limited number of U.S. aircraft involved in the missions and to Russias interest in letting Washington combat one of the Assad regimes most potent enemies within the insurgency. U.S. officials said they provided notifications to the Russians before the al-Nusra strikes to avoid misunderstandings.

Officials said the expanded al-Nusra campaign was similar to those that Obama has directed against al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

While al-Qaedas central leadership in Pakistan has been decimated, the United States now faces more threats involving more extremists from more places than at any time since 9/11, Nicholas J. Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told a Senate committee in September.

The push into the province of Idlib and other parts of northwestern Syria coincides with Pentagon-backed offensives in and around Islamic State strongholds in eastern Syria and in Iraq, which have attracted the majority of U.S. military resources and public attention.

White House officials had considered launching a more systematic campaign to destroy al-Nusra from top to bottom, much like the Pentagons approach to the Islamic State. But that option was rejected as too resource-intensive. Many of al-Nusras fighters are Syrians who joined the group because of its ample supply of weapons and cash, and its commitment to defeating Assad, not to plot against the West.

Officials said the strikes on leadership targets were meant to send a message to more-moderate rebel units, including those backed by the CIA, to distance themselves from the al-Qaeda affiliate. At critical moments during the five-year-old civil war, moderate rebel units have fought alongside al-Nusra in ground operations against Assads forces. In fact, U.S. officials credit those rebel campaigns in the spring of 2015 with putting so much pressure on the Syrian government that Russia and Iran decided to double down militarily in support of Assad.

U.S. officials who opposed the decision to go after al-Nusras wider leadership warned that the United States would effectively be doing the Assad government's bidding by weakening a group on the front line of the counter-

Assad fight. The strikes, these officials warned, could backfire on the United States by bolstering the groups standing, helping it attract more recruits and resources.

Officials who supported the shift said the Obama administration could no longer tolerate what one of them described as a deal with the devil, whereby the United States largely held its fire against al-Nusra because the group was popular with Syrians in rebel-controlled areas and furthered the U.S. goal of putting military pressure on Assad. Russia had accused the United States of sheltering al-Nusra, a charge repeated Thursday in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The president doesnt want this group to be what inherits the country if Assad ever does fall, a senior U.S. official said. This cannot be the viable Syrian opposition. Its al-Qaeda.

Officials said the administrations hope is that more-moderate rebel factions will be able to gain ground as both the Islamic State and al-Nusra come under increased military pressure.

A growing number of White House and State Department officials, however, have privately voiced doubts about the wisdom of applying U.S. military power, even covertly, to pressure Assad to step aside, particularly since Russias military intervention in Syria last year.

U.S. intelligence officials say they arent sure what Trumps approach to U.S.-backed rebel units will be once he gets briefed on the extent of the covert CIA program. Trump has voiced strong skepticism about arming Syrian rebels in the past, suggesting that U.S. intelligence agencies dont have enough knowledge about rebel intentions to pick reliable allies.

[Intelligence community is already feeling a sense of dread about Trump]

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and other Pentagon leaders initially resisted the idea of devoting more Pentagon surveillance aircraft and armed drones against al-Nusra. In White House Situation Room meetings, Carter and other top Pentagon officials argued that the militarys resources were needed to combat the Islamic State and that it would be difficult to operate in the airspace given Russias military presence, officials said.

While Obama, White House national security adviser Susan E. Rice, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and special presidential envoy Brett McGurk agreed with Carter on the need to keep the focus on the Islamic State, they favored shifting resources to try to prevent al-Nusra from becoming a bigger threat down the road.

A senior defense official said additional drone assets were assigned to the JSOC mission. Carter also made clear that the Pentagons goal would be to hit al-Nusra leadership targets, not take strikes to try to separate the moderate rebels from al-Nusra, officials said.

If we wake up in five years from now, and Islamic State is dead but al-Qaeda in Syria has the equivalent of [the tribal areas of Pakistan] in northwest Syria, then weve got a problem, a second senior U.S. official said.

Read more:

Syrias Jabhat al-Nusra splits from al-Qaeda and changes its name

Is al-Qaedas affiliate in Syria no longer a sideshow?

Tracking the Islamic States rise
FBI Director James B. Comey testifies during a hearing with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on Capitol Hill in September. (Yuri Gripas/AFP/Getty Images)

Donald Trump will enter the White House with an awkward relationship with the FBI director after attacking the bureau over its handling of the investigation into former secretary of state Hillary Clintons private email server.

Hours after FBI Director James B. Comey cleared Clinton in July for using a private server to send classified emails, Trump accused him of rigging the justice system.

Its a bribe, tweeted Trump, suggesting that Comey was in the tank for the Democrats. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment.

Then on Oct. 28, 11 days before the election, Comey sent a bombshell letter to Congress announcing that he was renewing the Clinton probe after agents turned up new emails.

Suddenly, Comey was A-OK.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said, "Hillary Clinton is guilty," at a Nov. 6 rally in Sterling Heights, Mich., after FBI Director James B. Comey said the bureau wont recommend charges against Hillary Clinton after reviewing newly discovered emails. (The Washington Post)

It took a lot of guts for him to make that decision, Trump told supporters in Grand Rapids, Mich. I was not his fan, he said. But Ill tell you what. What he did, he brought back his reputation. He brought it back. . . . What he did was the right thing.

Comey, who is in the third year of a 10-year term, is unlikely to go anywhere. Unlike the attorney general, the FBI director does not change with the administration. And officials close to Comey say he has no plans to leave, despite the political turmoil around the bureau since his surprise announcement last month on the Clinton investigation.

Comeys handling of the Clinton matter drew withering criticism from current and former Justice Department officials, including former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. Nearly 100 former senior law enforcement officials from both parties censured Comey for sending his letter, which they said amounted to influencing the election in violation of long-standing Justice Department policy.

James O. Pasco, the executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, which endorsed Trump, said that Comey needs to avoid such controversial actions if he is to succeed in a relationship with the president-elect.

The thing about Comey is that he set himself up as a man who reports to no one, Pasco said. Because he reports to no one, he feels empowered to just act with his own voice. I think its important for any public servant to be responsive to the people that the public has elected to represent them. And I think if he does that, hell probably be okay.

Trump and Comey have never met. But former senior officials say that once they do, Trump will quickly see how much he needs Comey.

I think the relationship will be fine, said former senior official Robert Anderson, who has overseen cyber, criminal and counterintelligence investigations at the bureau and is now a managing director at the security firm Navigant.

The Posts Marc Fisher explains how some of President-elect Donald Trumps traits could inform his leadership style when he takes office. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

One potential wrinkle in the relationship, though, could be the FBIs interest in Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, and allegations of illegal financial dealings in Ukraine, according to officials with knowledge of the case. The bureau refrained from taking investigative steps that might become public as the election drew near to avoid potentially influencing the election outcome. But now that voting is over, the bureau could proceed with the probe.

The relationship between the FBI director and the president is absolutely critical to protecting our national security, said Benjamin Powell, a former associate White House counsel and former general counsel to the director of national intelligence, who noted that preventing a terrorist attack is the bureaus top priority. They need to have open and regular communication about threats to the country and steps the FBI is taking to thwart those threats.

During the Clinton administration, then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh and President Bill Clinton had such a frosty relationship that the two barely spoke. Freeh, who returned his White House pass, oversaw multiple investigations of Clinton, including Whitewater, Gennifer Flowers and the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Said Powell: We cant have a 90s situation, where people are at odds and not talking about it. Thats how things slip through the cracks.

Had Hillary Clinton been elected, her relationship with Comey probably would have been highly fraught. Comeys letter to Congress shocked her campaign. Many of her supporters say it was a critical factor in her loss  and some even say it cost her the election. The top House Democrat, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), told reporters Tuesday evening that Comeys letter to Congress on Oct. 28 was like a molotov cocktail.

But Comeys defenders say that while the letter did not help Clinton, Trump ultimately had a deeper well of support among voters.

The relationship between Trump and Comey will be filtered through whomever Trump selects as his next attorney general. One of his closest advisers is former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney. Giuliani served as the Justice Departments third highest-ranking official under President Ronald Reagan.

ellen.nakashima@washpost.com

Matt Zapotosky, Julie Tate, Rosalind Helderman and Abby Phillip contributed to this report.

Read more:

Five myths about the FBI

Hes got to get control of the ship again: How tensions at the FBI will persist after the election
Indians wait in line outside a bank in Mumbai to exchange discontinued currency notes on Nov. 10. (Rajanish Kakade/AP)

Banks reopened to long lines and angry customers throughout India on Thursday after the governments surprise move to demonetize high-denomination currency as part of its fight against corruption and black money.

The government announced on Tuesday what it called a strike against those who keep unaccounted-for cash in India, where many jobs are in the informal sector and few pay taxes. The countrys central bank temporarily shuttered banks and ATMs and voided its large bank notes, issuing a 2,000-rupee note (about $30) on Thursday as the largest bill.

Panicked customers lined up at banks  sometimes for hours  to exchange and deposit old notes. Fistfights broke out at gas stations when clerks ran out of change; at toll booths, operators simply let cars stream through.

Gold and silver prices soared as investors sought to move their money into tangible assets  partly a response to the currency switch and partly a reaction to global uncertainty after the U.S. presidential election.

Indeed, some of those lined up at banks praised the governments move, exhibiting the same populist, anti-elite fervor that drove U.S. voters to Donald Trump and U.K. voters to Brexit.

Im happy about it. The countrys rot is at its roots. Now the roots are going to be treated, said Kalindi Jagdish, 63, an interior designer who caters to Mumbais wealthy and is often paid in cash.

[Reining in the rupee]

At a news conference Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley called for calm, reminding consumers that they had until Dec. 30 to change their legitimate bills into new currency. The move brings ethics and transparency and is a decisive step toward a cashless society, he said.

Experts predicted that the worst-hit would be wealthy real estate professionals, doctors and lawyers  who are often paid in cash and stash their money in overseas accounts. Only those with large sums will have to face the consequences under existing laws, Jaitley said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long made fighting black money a priority  as the country moves to legitimize its shadow economy, change an age-old culture of corruption and attract foreign investment. A voluntary disclosure program has netted $19 billion, a fraction of the estimated $400 billion to more than $1 trillion in black money.

Dinesh Rana was driving around Delhi on Thursday with a sack full of his bosss money, depositing 49,000 rupees (about $735) in separate accounts at five banks. Anything over 50,000 rupees would have garnered official scrutiny.

Rich people are worried, he said. They are trying to get rid of cash or spread it around.

Some economists questioned whether the governments move would be effective in the long run.

Neeraj Hatekar, director of the economics department at the University of Mumbai, said the demonetization program will be effective in ridding the system of counterfeit bills  about $20 million was seized last year in his state, he said.

But it would probably not have much effect on Indias black market economy overall  as a lot of the illegitimate funds are in real estate or gold.

[Indias rock star central banker calls it quits]

Will it shut off new black money thats being created? It wont, said Rama Bijapurkar, a market strategist and consumer expert in Mumbai. But as a one-time shut-off, its a masterstroke.

The effect on regular folk was immediate and widespread, especially in villages  whose predominantly cash-based economies ground to a halt as residents scrounged for coins to pay for basic supplies.

Wives who secretly squirreled away hundreds in kitchen kitties  away from the control of husbands  suddenly had to admit to their secret stash or ponder opening a bank account. The government has made a major push to provide bank accounts to those who previously did not have them, but 233 million still remain unbanked, Bijapurkar said.

Dashrat Kumar Pal, 40, a steel company clerk in Delhi, said a lavish wedding party for his niece had been canceled in favor of a small religious ceremony because the family did not have enough cash to pay the vendors.

The big party we had planned is called off, he said glumly. The cooks, the music band, the florist  all of them want to be paid in cash. Where do we go? What do we do?

He went on, Now we are calling everybody and canceling.

The governments move was a boon to Indias growing online-payment industry, which has long operated on a cash-on-delivery model designed to address low credit-card use.

After the governments announcement, downloads of digital payment apps have soared.

Paytm, an online payment system, saw a 200 percent increase in application downloads and 1,000 percent growth in the amount of money flowing to digital wallets since Tuesday evening, according to Madhur Deora, its chief financial officer.

The governments decision will structurally change the digital-payment behavior of Indians, said Rajnish Wahi, senior vice president for corporate affairs at Snapdeal, a major online retailer.

Suchi Goenka, a restaurateur in Mumbai, said that although she supported the governments plan, it will take time for the country to reconcile to the change.

In India, we prefer cash, she said. We were brought up that way.

Lakshmi reported from New Delhi.

Read more

India launches its most sweeping economic reforms in a generation

The incredible rise of China and India, in two GIFs

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Trump administration ideas are scaring many LGBTQ folks this week. (Photo: Getty Images)

The last time phones rang off the hook at the Trevor Project  the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth ages 25 and under  was in June, after the deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando.

But as it became clear on election night that Donald Trump would become the 45th president of the United States, calls to the Trevor Projects hotline began to steadily increase, very quickly doubling in number from the usual daily volume.

Ditto for the hotline of Trans Lifeline, an organization dedicated to the well-being of transgender people, which reported close to 300 calls in the hours immediately following the election.

Almost everyone is anxious and worried, and theres a fear that there will be a reversal of the progress that has been made, Steve Mendelsohn, deputy executive director of the Trevor Project, tells Yahoo Beauty. A lot of young people dont know who to turn to, so they call us. After Orlando, people banded together and there was a feeling that things would get better. Now theres a real fear that everything will come apart, that the entire infrastructure will come undone.

That fear has taken root throughout the LGBTQ community regardless of age. It is terrifying transgender women like Jemma Jones (whose name has been changed for the article at her request), 48, who say they have no idea whats coming down the road but fear the very worst in a Trump presidency, not least based on vice president-elect Mike Pences radical views on LGBTQ rights. Pence has, among other things, advocated for taxpayer money to support so-called gay conversion therapy, opposed a law that wouldve protected LGBTQ people from workplace discrimination, and spoken out against President Obamas HB2 (transgender bathroom) law support in North Carolina.

Im scared to visit my home state of Nebraska for Thanksgiving, scared to face my family, most of whom voted for Trump, Jones tells Yahoo Beauty. I just dont have the balls for it, or the fortitude.

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Trumps administration is going to do all that they can to silence me and my community, Xavier Morales, a 36-year-old transgender man in California, adds. And to hear Trump say that now is the time for the country to heal itself, is like receiving a bouquet of flowers from my abuser who just spent the last 15 months beating the s*** out of me. Thats how this feels.

At this time, the younger segment of the population  particularly those in ethnic, gender, and other minority groups  are feeling particularly vulnerable and are susceptible to the fear and anxiety gripping the nation, says Rachel Ostrov, a licensed clinical social worker at Chicagos North Shore Pediatric Therapy, who works with children, adolescents, and young adults

We need to make sure kids are not jumping to conclusions, we need to help them understand how to take things day by day, no matter what anxiety they are working through, she says. With older adolescents who have a bit more self-advocacy, they should be encouraged to reach out for support  to parents, to support groups at schools, or elsewhere. Those in minority groups in particular should be encouraged to reach out.

According to a recent report on child and adolescent fatalities from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of suicides in this demographic rose sharply between 2007 and 2014.

Parents need to look out for the important signs of changed behavior  isolation, worsening function in school, Ostrov says. But its also very important now to help kids encourage mutual respect and inclusion, to make them understand that everyone can have their own opinion, that everyone can be who they are.

That is a principle that Morales continues to uphold. I want everyone to hear my voice, he says.

And voices are being heard and will continue to be heard at the Trevor Project and on other helplines across the nation.

We have had a big step-up in the number of volunteers, and that is extremely encouraging, Mendelsohn says. We have extra volunteers coming in [Thursday] and next week. People are asking what they can do  the best thing they can do is tell young people that we love them and care about them and are there for them, because it only takes one person to save a life.

The Trevor Lifeline, 866-488-7386, is available 24/7; Trans Lifeline volunteers can be reached 24/7 at 877-565-8860.

Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Searches for IUDs are up since Donald Trump became president-elect. But many women still have questions, such as: Is getting an IUD really as painful as youve heard? Ob-gyns provide some answers. (Photo: Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

When we win on Nov. 8 and elect a Republican Congress, we will be able to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare, Trump said during a speech in Philadelphia. Though he has said he will replace it with some other form of health care, many women are concerned that this replacement will remove one of the ACA benefits  free birth control.

The ACA requires insurance plans to cover all methods of birth control that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, without out-of-pockets costs. Trump, however, told Mehmet Oz, MD, in September that he believes birth control should be available over the counter  and therefore not covered by insurance.

Beginning Tuesday evening, when it became apparent that Trump was closing in on victory, women have been telling others to get an intrauterine device, or IUD, implanted before Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2017.

GET AN IUD TOMORROW  Erin Gloria Ryan (@morninggloria) November 9, 2016

Women, call your docs. Today. Take charge of your health before Jan. 20. Get an IUD, get mammograms, get ultrasounds, get Paps. Do it now.  Maura Brannigan (@maura_brannigan) November 9, 2016

Free birth control under insurance will probably be revoked by Trump. IUD's last 6-10 years, might be a more affordable option.  Yasmin Yonis (@YasminYonis) November 10, 2016

The IUD is a long-lasting form of birth control thats implanted in the uterus. And though it has gained popularity over the past decade, only 6.4 percent of women said it was their preferred form of contraception from 2011 to 2013.

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ABC News first reported that Google searches for IUDs have spiked since the election ended:

Given this conversation, were republishing this comprehensive look at the IUD, written for Yahoo Health late last year by writer Molly Triffin. The beauty of an IUD is that some forms can last up to 10 years, which, as some pointed out, is more than the longest possible Trump presidency.

Get your IUD. If you have light periods, opt for a Paragard, which can last 10-12 years. Get your birth control that will outlast Trump.  grimalkin (@grimalkinrn) November 9, 2016

***********

Youve Heard the Rumors About Getting an IUD  But Are They Actually True?

The Pill is so 2010. These days, the IUD is the contraceptive method du jour.

Recently, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a statement urging ob-gyns to increase access to IUDs and implants. And those in the know are already on board: Research published last year found that 40 percent of female family planning providers (ob-gyns, midwives, and nurses) who use contraception opt for an intrauterine device, or IUD, compared to only 12 percent who pop the birth control pill.

Hey, it makes sense, considering that the unintended pregnancy rate for this method is practically zilch. According to research, women who used the pill, patch, or ring were 20 times more likely to have an unintended pregnancy than IUD users.

But despite all its awesome qualities (effectiveness, minimal side effects, the option of going hormone-free, ease of use) myths about the IUD abound. Some people swear it causes infections and can lead to infertility; others are under the impression that its only for women who have already had kids. Word on the street is that getting one inserted is the worst pain imaginable  and that your partner will be able to feel the string during sex. Yikes!

Worldwide, IUDs are the most popular form of contraception, with 25 percent usage, but in the U.S., only 2 to 3 percent of women use them, says Jason James, MD, chairman of the ob-gyn department at the Baptist Hospital of Miami. This is mainly because of an IUD that was popular in the early 1970s, called the Dalkon Shield, that resulted in infections and chronic pain. As a result, IUDs in general got a bad reputation, and many patients fear complications to this day.

Its time to finally clear up those pesky rumors and give IUDs the respect they deserve. The truth is that IUDs are very safe and effective and should be one of the first-line options for women looking for long-term birth control, James says. Here are all the answers to your IUD questions  including debunking of some of those pesky rumors that continue to persist.

Does it really hurt like the worst pain ever when an IUD is being inserted  or taken out?

The way people talk, youd think inserting an IUD was the equivalent of getting a frontal lobotomy. B.S. Think more along the lines of a bad  but fleeting  period cramp. There is a strong crampy feeling that lasts a few seconds, says Nicole Williams, MD, gynecological surgeon and founder of the Gynecology Institute of Chicago. Taking ibuprofen 30 minutes beforehand will minimize the pain. Your doctor may also recommend Cytotec, which softens the cervix to make it easier to place the IUD. Removing the device feels similar.

Whats the difference between a hormonal and copper IUD?

They may look similar and fit in your body the same way, but the two IUD types operate very differently. Hormonal IUDs contain a small amount of progesterone, which thins the lining of the uterus and thickens the mucus of the cervix to decrease sperm entry, Williams explains. Copper IUDs contain no hormones and work by causing local inflammation in the uterus, which is inhospitable to sperm.

How worried should I be about the warning that it can perforate the uterus?

Sounds absolutely terrifying  but is it something we should really freak out about? There is a slight risk of the device going through the uterus during insertion, Williams says. If this happens, the uterus will normally heal itself; otherwise, you may need a surgery to remove it. The chances of this happening are superslim (about 0.001 percent), although some women are more prone to this result than others. According to a study, breastfeeding, amenorrhoea, and being less than six months postpartum (when the uterus is still quite soft) all increase your chances. Symptoms are generally mild (they include abnormal bleeding and abdominal pain), and one-third of women have no signs at all.

What exactly is the string like? And can my partner feel it during sex?

The plastic filament is shorter and thinner than a tampon string and stays inside the vagina, Williams says. It is used to make sure the device is in place and to facilitate removal. Its possible that your S.O. may feel the string for up to a month postplacement. After that, the thread winds around the cervix and is barely detectable, if at all.

Related: 8 Myths You Should Stop Believing About Vaginas

What happens if my IUD accidentally comes out?

In the first year of use, theres a 3 to 10 percent chance your IUD could go MIA. Its most likely if you recently had a baby or second-trimester abortion, if youve had an IUD that came out in the past, or if you experience heavy or abnormally painful periods. The issue could be that the IUD wasnt placed in the right position, or perhaps it shifted in your uterus as your body adjusted to it. The biggest risk of expulsion is in the first 6 to 8 weeks after placement, Williams says. Physicians sometimes order a pelvic ultrasound to ensure proper position. If yours does bail, you can either replace it or consider another form of birth control.

How would you know if your IUD has shifted inside your body?

An IUD should, ideally, be situated inside the main part of the uterus, but occasionally it changes position, moving lower into the cervical canal or becoming embedded in the body of the uterus, James explains. Rarely, it can perforate through the uterus and end up in the abdominal cavity. Signs to look out for include pain when you do certain movements, during intercourse, or while working out  in which case, see your doctor.

That said, some women are symptom-free if their IUD shifts. So every month, verify that your IUD is right where it should be. Feel for the string after your period to make sure it hasnt gotten longer or shorter  or disappeared altogether, James says. If it seems off, give your gyno a call.

Can the IUD impact your ability to get pregnant later?

You can rest easy: Using an IUD wont hurt your chances of having a bun in the oven someday. All of the IUDs on the market in the U.S. are meant to prevent pregnancy temporarily and allow the patient to return to full fertility once removed, James says. Unless the patient has an adverse event, like an infection, the IUD should not, under normal circumstances, decrease a womans ability to get pregnant in the future.

Related: More Women May Now Get IUDs Right After Giving Birth

What are the available options for IUDs? Does insurance cover them?

You have four IUD choices: Paragard, Mirena, Skyla, and Liletta. Heres the scoop: The Paragard is a nonhormonal, copper-containing IUD that can be used for up to 10 years, James says. Mirena, Liletta, and Skyla all contain levonorgestrel, a progestin hormone that is released over time in a controlled fashion. The Mirena is approved for five years, while Skyla and Liletta last three years. Mirena and Liletta are similar in size, shape, and progestin content; Skyla is smaller, with a lower dose of hormone, designed especially for younger patients.

Although the Affordable Care Act has improved contraception coverage, its unfortunately not a given. So have your health care provider check with your insurance company first. Some providers will shell out the full amount; others may pay for only a portion, or nada  in which case youre looking at a cool $1,000 once you factor in the device as well as the insertion procedure. The good news: Most manufacturers offer payment plans, and Liletta was developed specifically to provide affordable IUD access, James says.

Related: What to Expect When You Go On or Off the Pill

Are there any women who should steer clear of IUDs?

Yup. Although IUDs are ideal for many, its not a one-size-fits-all method. The IUD is not recommended for women with a very abnormally shaped uterus  too large, too small, or distorted by fibroid tumors, James says. In addition, it should not be inserted if you have unexplained vaginal bleeding. Add to the list women with active pelvic infection or cervical cancer.

In addition, Paragard is contraindicated in women with a copper allergy or Wilsons disease, James adds, while hormonal IUDs are unsuitable for women with breast cancer or certain liver tumors.

Can the IUD affect your sex drive?

The jurys out on this one. According to James, some studies actually point to a surge in frisky feelings, while others demonstrate the opposite. Since the fear of accidental pregnancy can inhibit libido, a reliable form of contraception like an IUD might alleviate this worry and result in a greater desire for intimacy and sex, James says. On the other hand, anecdotally, some women complain of diminished libido when using hormonal IUDs. Have you experienced a slump in sexiness after giving the IUD a go? To rule it out as the crux of the problem, you might have to temporarily ditch the device.

Related: Why Women Are Giving Up the Pill

Can you take the IUD out at any time?

Absolutely. Even though each device is approved for between three and 10 years of use, you dont need to keep it in for the full duration. You can remove an IUD at any time during the month, says Sherry Ross, MD, an ob-gyn at Providence Saint Johns Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif. The copper IUD is easier to take out during your period, when the cervix is slightly more dilated.

What happens if you leave an IUD in past the expiration date? Could you get pregnant immediately?

Although theres probably a buffer zone, its best not to take the risk. A recent study suggested IUDs can be safe and effective for longer than the expiration date, says Ross. Still, as a hard-and-fast rule, when the doctor gives you the date to remove your IUD, follow the manufacturers recommendations and take it out or have it replaced. Look up the expiration date and set an alert on your phone.

Can the IUD lead to weight gain, like the pill? What other side effects can women expect?

If youre accustomed to pill-induced moodiness and bloating, youre in luck: IUD side effects tend to be much milder, because hormonal IUDs release progesterone slowly, according to Ross. Prepare for a lighter or nonexistent period (particularly with Mirena). Less frequently, women experience headaches, nausea, and ovarian cysts.

While the copper IUD, Paragard, may make your periods heavier and cause more cramping, the fact that youre going hormone-free may be worth it. And whichever way you go, theres definitely no weight gain with any of the IUDs, says Ross. (Yes!)

Read This Next: Newer Birth Control Pills May Pose Health Risk

 Intro by Laura Kenney; IUD story by Molly Triffin.
Television personality Audrina Patridge and BMX biker Corey Bohan are now happily married. (Photo: Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

She grew up on The Hills, but she tied the knot in Hawaii! On Nov. 9, Audrina Patridge shared an array of pics from her wedding to her longtime love and baby daddy, Corey Bohan. The shots, which featured the reality TV alums family, friends, and daughter, perfectly captured the lighthearted spirit of her big day.

It's official! We tied the knot Nov 5 with family and friends:) Mr. and Mrs. Bohan ???????? A photo posted by Audrina Patridge (@audrinapatridge) on Nov 9, 2016 at 6:36pm PST

Its official! We tied the knot Nov 5 with family and friends, she announced alongside a pic of herself walking hand-in-hand along a beachside bluff with the BMX rider. Mr. and Mrs. Bohan. The shot also showcased the dramatic back of her lacy mermaid gown. Her groom eschewed a traditional tux in favor of a simple white button-down shirt, khakis, suspenders, and striped socks. She wore her hair down in waves, while he twirled his up in a man bun. In other words, Bohan was in full hipster mode.

Always smiling and giggling. life would not be the same without Kirra. A photo posted by Audrina Patridge (@audrinapatridge) on Nov 9, 2016 at 6:40pm PST

The bride also shared a sweet picture of herself snuggling with their 4-month-old daughter, Kirra, who wore an adorable cream-colored dress of her own for the happy affair. Always smiling and giggling. life would not be the same without Kirra, Patridge gushed.

I'll put more photos up on my blog:)!( I don't want to take up your feed). but here's one last one of my sisters and I A photo posted by Audrina Patridge (@audrinapatridge) on Nov 9, 2016 at 6:44pm PST

A slightly more posed shot featured Patridge surrounded by her bridesmaids. All of the ladies held gorgeous red and pink bouquets, and flashed beaming smiles. Ill put more photos up on my blog! Patridge wrote, explaining she didnt want to take up her followers feeds. But heres one last one of my sisters and I. She also posted a picture of her girl squad from inside the limo, noting they were on point.

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Our girl squad is on point???? A photo posted by Audrina Patridge (@audrinapatridge) on Nov 9, 2016 at 7:52pm PST

After sundown, the newly married star took a snap of herself planting a kiss on Kirras cheek. Hawaii nights, she wrote.

Hawaii nights A photo posted by Audrina Patridge (@audrinapatridge) on Nov 9, 2016 at 7:27pm PST

It appeared to be the perfect ending to a picture-perfect day.




David and Victoria Beckham with Alibabas Jack Ma. (Instagram)

Before you get too jealous over that headline, Singles Day in China has zero to do with hooking up (unless your goal is to hook up with a hot new handbag). The 24-hour shopping event, which has become somewhat of an unofficial holiday in China, features thousands of deep discounts on e-commerce giant Alibabas marketplace and online stores. (Think Cyber Monday, but way more intense.)

In an effort to drum up even more excitement for the sales, Jack Ma and the Alibaba team have recruited international stars to promote the event  and who better to tout spending loads of cash on retail purchases than the Beckhams? Answer: no one.

Victoria and David Beckham traveled to China for the occasion, where they rubbed elbows with Jack Ma and Kobe Bryant. (Bryant was another celebrity event promoter.)

Great to meet #JackMa tonight here in Shenzhen! ???????? X VB A photo posted by Victoria Beckham (@victoriabeckham) on Nov 9, 2016 at 5:23am PST

Great to meet #JackMa tonight here in Shenzhen! the fashion designer wrote beside a shot of herself with the controversial retail genius.

Meanwhile, her better half spent some time with the guys, posing with Jack and Kobe and a few others who appear to be Alibaba execs. Fun night in Shenzhen  @kobebryant, David posted.

Fun night in Shenzhen .. @kobebryant A photo posted by David Beckham (@davidbeckham) on Nov 9, 2016 at 10:03pm PST

Because she cant help herself, Victoria then posted a sexy shot of herself perched in a window, the cityscape stretched out behind her. Kisses from China! she captioned the pic, which mainly highlighted her bare legs.

Kisses from China! ???????? x VB A photo posted by Victoria Beckham (@victoriabeckham) on Nov 10, 2016 at 1:02am PST

Victoria also posted a follow-up shot of herself with her husband and Jack Ma from the event. So nice to attend yesterdays Global Shopping Festival with #JackMa and @davidbeckham, she gushed. In the snap, she and David are presented with figurines of the logo of Ant Financial, parent company of Alibaba.

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So nice to attend yesterday's Alibaba Global Shopping Festival with #JackMa and @davidbeckham ???????? x VB A photo posted by Victoria Beckham (@victoriabeckham) on Nov 10, 2016 at 3:43am PST

But the best photo, by far, was the one David posted of himself holding an adorable, wide-eyed cat toy. Great to be part of singles day in Shenzhen today Big thank you to Jack Ma, he wrote with the hashtag #lovingchina.

Great to be part of singles day in Shenzhen today Big thank you to Jack Ma  @kentandcurwen @victoriabeckham @haigclub @biothermhomme #lovingchina A photo posted by David Beckham (@davidbeckham) on Nov 10, 2016 at 4:39am PST

Naturally, he took the opportunity to give a shout out to Haig Club, the whiskey brand he founded with Simon Fuller. It almost made us want to try the whiskey. Almost.




15 amazing organizations that help women that you can donate to right now

Yesterday, we all had a free pass to sit catatonic in our sweatpants, crying and hugging ourselves and our loved ones. With a presidential election that went a direction few people expected, and win that could be devastating for millions of women, immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQ-identifying citizens, we needed a day to let the results sink in. But today, we must pick ourselves and act. What does that mean? The answers are vast. It could mean rediscovering a dedication to your education, craft, career, or business. It could mean volunteering to help those in need. Or, it could mean donating funds to organizations that help women.

In the spirit of Hillary Clinton, who dedicated her life to helping women and children, weve compiled a list of organizations that provide assistance and opportunities to women across the world. As always, do your research. Check if the charity is trustworthy by contacting the Better Business Bureaus (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator, Charity Watch, or GuideStar.

1. The Boys & Girls Clubs of America offers enrichment programs and support for children when theyre not in school.

2. The Center for Reproductive Rights is the worlds foremost legal advocate for securing womens access to quality reproductive health care. Donate here.

The majority of Americans still believe in Roe. That has been consistently true for the last two decades, and it remains true today. pic.twitter.com/eg2nF3ojIu  CenterforReproRights (@ReproRights) November 9, 2016

3. EMILYs List is a political action committee that works to elect pro-choice Democratic women candidates to public office. Donate here, or find out how to how to run for office here.

4. Equality Now works with grassroots organizations and activists to document violence and discrimination against women and promote mobilizing efforts to stop these abuses.

One small sign of progress: the number of women of color in the Senate quadrupled https://t.co/sbUibcub3e via @voxdotcom  equalitynow (@equalitynow) November 10, 2016

5. Every Mother Counts is an advocacy and mobilization campaign founded by Christy Turlington to reduce maternal mortality. Hundreds of thousands of women die each year from pregnancy complications or childbirth difficulties, 90% of these deaths are preventable.

6. Ladies Learning Code is women-run nonprofit group that teaches women beginner-friendly technical skills in a social, collaborative way.

7. National Organization for Women (NOW) is an activist organization, foundation and PAC that advocates for equal rights for women. Donate here, and look for volunteer programs, like clinic escorting, on your local chapters page.

The fight isn't over yet. Feminism doesn't give up. Pitch in and help us fight another day: https://t.co/6YxXBYuhHW  National NOW (@NationalNOW) November 10, 2016

8. Planned Parenthood is the countrys leading sexual and reproductive healthcare provider. Throughout the campaign, Donald Trump has vowed to defund Planned Parenthood. Help them stay open by donating or volunteering.

9. Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) is the countrys largest anti-sexual violence organization, which provides programs to help victims of sexual violence.

10. The Reproductive Health Access Project is a non-profit that trains clinicians to make quality reproductive healthcare more accessible. Click here to donate.

Together we can support organizations to work harder than ever to make reproductive health available to all https://t.co/CAPphgNA6T  RHAP (@RHAP1) November 10, 2016

11. Running Start educates young women and girls about the importance of politics, and imbues them with the skills they need to be leaders, through the Young Womens Political Leadership Program and other fellowships and internships.

12. School Girls Unite is an organization dedicated to expanding the freedom of girls everywhere through education and leadership. Started by a group of 12 year old girls and young African women who were discussing discrimination experienced by girls in developing countries.

13. She Should Run working to create a culture that inspires women and girls to aspire towards public leadership.

14. Willow Tree Roots empowers vulnerable women in nations in need to socioeconomic independence through entrepreneurship.

15. Women for Women International is a non-profit humanitarian organization dedicated to financial, educational, and interpersonal support of women survivors of war, poverty and injustice.

The post 15 amazing organizations that help women that you can donate to right now appeared first on HelloGiggles.
donald trump racism protester

A police department in California reported an attack on a Muslim women potentially carried out by supporters of Donald Trump just one day after Trump's election victory.

A Muslim student at San Diego State University said she was robbed by two men who "made comments about President-elect Trump," according to a university police statement.

The two men, one described as being Hispanic and the other white, grabbed the student's backpack and took her car keys before fleeing, the statement said. The student was uninjured.

"We condemn this hateful act and urge all members of our community to join us in condemning such hateful acts," the university's president, Elliot Hirshman, said in a statement. "Hate crimes are destructive to the spirit of our campus and we urge all members of our community to stand together in rejecting hate."

In a separate incident, an 18-year-old student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette reported being assaulted and robbed by two white men on Wednesday morning, Lafayette police officials said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.

However, the student admitted to Lafayette police on Thursday afternoon that she fabricated the incident, reports The Associated Press. The police are no longer investigating the incident.

David Duke

"She made the entire story up," Lafayette Police spokesman Officer Karl Ratcliff told NBC News. "More than likely she will be charged with filing a false police report."

Trump and his campaign have been criticized as inflaming racial tensions because of statements made on the campaign trail. The reality-television star turned president-elect has previously called for the mass deportation of Mexican immigrants as well as a ban on Muslims entering the country.

He has also sometimes been slow to distance himself from supporters including avowed white supremacists like David Duke, the former Klu Klux Klan grand wizard, and the white nationalist alt-right movement.

Story continues

A North Carolina-based KKK group, the The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, has announced plans to hold a rally on December 3 to celebrate Trump's win, the Raleigh-based News & Observer reported.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that the student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette admitted to fabricating her claims.

NOW WATCH: Watch the Trump protest that shut down parts of New York City





More From Business Insider


Two Oregon residents are attempting to ratchet up enough support in the state to try to secede from the U.S. following the rise of President-elect Donald Trump to the highest office in the country.

Jennifer Rollins and Christian Trejbal on Thursday filed a petition for a 2018 ballot initiative to have Oregon peacefully leave America, The Oregonian reported. Oregonian values are no longer the values held by the rest of the United States, Trejbal told the newspaper.

The pair, unhappy with Tuesdays election results, need 1,000 signatures before the measure is even considered. Regardless of whether they meet their mandated target, they have a near-zero chance of success, constitutional experts say.

Several petitions seeking secessions have been filed after previous elections, including one in Oregon in 2012 when President Barack Obama was first elected.

Bill Funk, a constitutional law professor at the Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, told KPTV at the time that those who file such long-shot attempts mostly just want attention. He said its not in the presidents power under the U.S. Constitution to let a state secede. That would require amending the Constitutiona feat rarely and not easily accomplished, according to the Washington Post.

Rollins and Trejbals petition urges the state governor and legislature to actively pursue Oregons secession from the U.S. If petitioners in Oregon gather the required amount of signatures, the initiative is placed on the ballot for voters in the state to adopt or reject, according to the states policy on the matter.

However, Oregons ballot initiative process allows people only to propose laws or amendments to its own state Constitution.

About 41% of Oregon voters cast their ballots for Trump, preliminary results showed.
The third-quarter 2016 earnings season is in its last leg for most of the 16 Zacks sectors, with only a few companies left to unveil their quarterly financial numbers. Per our latest Earnings Preview report, 445 S&P 500 companies (representing 91.1% in terms of market capitalization) have already reported their numbers.



The picture is an extremely bullish one with the bottom line expanding 4% and the top line displaying 2.7% growth. The healthy performance indicates that the current earnings season is set to become the first quarter to display bottom-line expansion after five consecutive quarters of earnings contraction.



Transports Continue to Lag



Despite the overall favorable scenario, the transportation sector remains one of the most underperforming sectors. The sector has already seen reports from its entire S&P 500 fraternity this reporting cycle. The above report states that the bottom-line contracted 13.6% on a year-over-year basis for the sector. The earnings performance is worse than that witnessed in the second quarter, wherein the bottom line contracted 12.4%.

However, the outcome is not surprising as the sector has been passing through turbulent times. The multiple headwinds confronting stocks in the space include declining travel demand due to security fears, weak coal market, driver shortages and Brexit-induced uncertainty. Collectively, these negatives resulted in the disappointing year-over-year earnings performance.



The unfavorable Zacks Industry Ranks of most of the sub-groups of the transportation industry also reflect the challenges faced by the space. We note that the Transportation-Airline, Transportation-Truck, Transportation-Services and the Transportation-Ship units carry a bearish Zacks Industry Rank of 184, 247, 206 and 178, respectively, among more than 260 groups.



Glimmer of Hope



Despite the multiple challenges confronting sector participants, quite a few players in the transportation space have outperformed on the bottom-line front. Per the above report, an impressive 66.7% of the S&P 500 transportation companies have reported better-than-expected earnings in the current reporting cycle. Key sector participants to have reported better-than-expected earnings in the quarter include the likes of Delta Air Lines (DAL), United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) and Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC).



However, we note that earnings estimates have been declining for most of the sector participants due to the multiple headwinds. Consequently, it was easier for transports to surpass the Zacks Consensus Estimate on the earnings front in the third quarter as the bar was lowered significantly.



Shipping Stocks in Trouble



With the broader transportation sector in doldrums, it is unlikely for any sub-group to outperform. Shipping stocks, which form an integral part of the sector, have been hurt by headwinds like low freight rates and weak financial position.



The waning impact of cheap oil is also not favorable for transportation companies and shipping stocks are no exception. The tough times are evidenced by the fact that we currently have only one shipping stock  KNOT Offshore Partners LP (KNOP)  sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



The upsurge (2016 Zacks Consensus Estimate has climbed 14 cents over the last seven days) followed the companys bottom-line outperformance in the third quarter of 2016. The company delivered a positive earnings surprise of 15.56% on Nov 2.



Some Outperformers Still Left



While most transportation companies (including the entire S&P 500 fraternity) have already reported their quarterly numbers, there are a handful companies that are yet to report third-quarter financials. However, the transportation sector is highly diversified and includes airline companies, truckers and railroads to name a few. Hence, it is by no means an easy task to pinpoint potential outperformers. This is where our proprietary methodology comes in handy. It advises investors to look for stocks that have the combination of a favorable Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) and a positive Earnings ESP.



Earnings ESP is our proprietary methodology for identifying stocks that have high chances of surprising in their next earnings announcement. It shows the percentage difference between the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate.



Our research shows that for stocks with this combination, the chance of a positive earnings surprise is as high as 70%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.



An earnings beat more often than not boosts investor confidence in the stocks, which translates into rapid price appreciation. Consequently, adding such stocks to your portfolio is undoubtedly prudent.



2 Attractive Shipping Stocks



With the aid of the above methodology, we present two shipping stocks that are expected to outshine earnings estimates in the third quarter.

Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NM) operates as a seaborne shipping and logistics company which focuses on transportation and shipment of dry bulk commodities including iron ore, coal, and grains. The company will likely release third-quarter results on Nov 28. We expect Navios Maritime to surpass expectations as it has an Earnings ESP of +16.00% and a Zacks Rank #2.



Golden Ocean Group Limited (GOGL), based in Hamilton, Bermuda, focuses on the transportation of bulk commodities. The company is scheduled to release third-quarter results on Nov 22. We expect Golden Ocean Group Limited to surpass expectations as it has an Earnings ESP of +28.13% and a Zacks Rank #3.



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Zacks Investment Research
In the days since Donald Trump was elected president, two women in hijabs say they were attacked in separate incidents by men invoking the President-elect, according to police and university officials.

A Muslim student at San Diego State University was robbed on Wednesday by two men who made comments about Trump and Muslims, police and university officials said. Separately, two white men robbed, beat and stole the hijab of a female student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the Daily Advertiser reported. One of the men was wearing a white Trump hat, police told the paper.

The attacks occurred on a day when protests broke out around the country in response to Trumps surprise upset victory over Hillary Clinton.

The San Diego State University Muslim Student Association said the victim in the incident there was a Muslim student dressed in a hijab and full Islamic garb. SDSU President Elliot Hirshman called the act a hate crime and said the university hopes to find the suspects.

We condemn this hateful act and urge all members of our community to join us in condemning such hateful acts, Hirshman said in a statement to KPBS. Hate crimes are destructive to the spirit of our campus and we urge all members of our community to stand together in rejecting hate.

In the Louisiana incident, the men hit the victim and took her wallet while saying ugly stuff to her, police told the Daily Advertiser.
Yahoo Celebrity

With the final season of "Dead to Me" dropping on Netflix on Nov. 17, Applegate said, "This is the first time anyones going to see me the way I am. I put on 40 pounds; I cant walk without a cane. I want people to know that I am very aware of all of that."
From Popular Mechanics

More than 100 years ago, in 1901-1902, British archaeologist Arthur Weigall discovered a strange structure buried in the Egyptian sands west of the Nile river. He and a team of archaeologists exposed a barrel-vaulted roof, constructed around 1840 B.C., and they were just getting their first glimpses of the structure's interior walls when part of the roof collapsed as they attempted to excavate the sands beneath it.

The location of the structure has been known since Weigall first attempted to unearth it, but the contents of its interior and its purpose in ancient Egyptian society have remained a mystery until now.

Archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania led by Josef Wegner, associate curator of the University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, have returned to the ancient site and finished Weigall's excavation work. They revealed a 70-foot-long, 13-foot-wide grand hall of mud-bricks with more than 120 incised drawings of boats on immaculately preserved whitewashed walls.

Photo credit: Josef Wegner/University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Decaying wood discovered within the structure, as well as a curved floor perfect for the hull of a large boat, have lead the team of archaeologists to conclude that the 910-square-foot hall was intended as a burial chamber for the Egyptian King Senwosret III's funerary boat. Though the boat itself was not discovered, the scraps of wood suggest that an immaculate royal boat constructed from cedar once sat in the chamber, long since looted for its lumber-a valuable commodity that would have been imported from Lebanon to the sparse Egyptian desert.

"We were quite mystified," Wegner told National Geographic, which helped fund the excavation. "We were expecting it to be a tomb."

The discovery comes as a bit of a surprise as funerary boats were thought to have faded out of practice with Egyptian royalty prior to the construction of the newly uncovered burial chamber. Rulers were buried with boats, among other objects of value, to assist them in the afterlife, shuttling the dead to the Egyptian underworld Duat and providing a vessel for navigating the rivers that crisscross the subterranean realm of the dead.

Story continues

Wegner participated in an archaeological dig as a graduate student in 2000 in the same region of Egypt, named for the ancient city of Abydos, that the new burial hall has been uncovered. Fourteen funerary boats were discovered in the 2000 excavation, but these Abydos boats date back to almost 3,000 B.C., some 5,000 years old compared to the newer burial hall constructed closer to 3,800 years ago. An additional ancient Egyptian funeral boat in the region of Abusir-which lies to the north of Abydos, also just west of the Nile-was discovered this past February.

The new find indicates that rulers kept up the practice of funerary boats longer than previously thought. By the time King Tut was laid to rest around 1,300 B.C., Egyptian kings simply had model-sized boats entombed with them for their journey to the underworld, along with many other lavish treasures.

[contentlinks align="left" textonly="false" numbered="false" headline="Funerary%20Boats" customtitles="Archaeologists%20Find%20Ancient%20Egyptian%20Funeral%20Boat" customimages="" content="article.19281"]

Though the burial chamber and the boat that once lay within belonged to the fifth dynasty pharaoh King Senwosret III, he himself was likely not buried there. The chamber is a mere part of a larger mortuary complex with the actual tomb of Senwosret III believed to be nearby-a luxury he could afford as the ruler during one of ancient Egypt's most powerful and prosperous periods.

Senwosret III is known to have been a devout follower of Osiris, the god of the dead, whose mythical burial location was thought to be Abydos. Even as Senwosret III was constructing his own mortuary complex, he was having the nearby temple to Osiris renovated. Wegner believes that a massive funeral procession carried the body of Senwosret III from northern Egypt, where he almost certainly died, down the Nile in a large vessel with dozens of accompanying boats to his final resting place in Abydos.

When I die, bury me in my Sunday best-and don't forget my boat.

Source: National Geographic

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Voters in California, Massachusetts and Nevada decided yesterday (Nov. 8) to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in their states.

These three states joined Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia, which had already legalized the drug for recreational use in previous votes.

In addition, four states voted yesterday to legalize using marijuana for medical reasons: Arkansas, Florida, Montana and North Dakota, Time magazine reported.

That means that medical marijuana is now legal in 28 states, and an additional 16 states have laws that allow for limited medical use of the drug, according to Time. In most cases, these limited-medical-use laws mean that only a specific type of cannabis extract can be used. This extract contains concentrated cannabidiol but is low in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive compound of marijuana, according to the marijuana advocacy organization National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. [Marijuana Legalization in the US (Map)]

In California, Massachusetts and Nevada, the new laws limit marijuana use and possession to adults ages 21 and up. Residents of those states will legally be allowed to grow up to six marijuana plants, although in Nevada, cultivation will be allowed only for people who live more than 25 miles from a retail marijuana store.

In California and Nevada, employers will have the right to enforce rules about how their employees use marijuana. In Massachusetts, the ballot measure states that employers will be permitted "to prohibit the consumption of marijuana by employees in the workplace."

Marijuana use in public places, however, is still illegal in all states that have legalized recreational marijuana use.

A Gallup poll from October found that 60 percent of Americans now say marijuana should be legal.

Originally published on Live Science.

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ATLANTA (AP) -- R.A. Dickey was won over by an Atlanta Braves sales team that included two Hall of Famers, including a fellow knuckleballer.

Dickey said he knew the Braves would be a good fit after meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, with a group that included manager Brian Snitker, general manager John Coppolella and two Hall of Famers - former manager Bobby Cox and knuckleballer Phil Niekro.

''I had a great feeling then there was great hope I would be able to join the organization,'' Dickey said Thursday after agreeing to a one-year contract with an $8 million guarantee.

He considers Niekro to be part of the ''Jedi council of knuckleballers'' who influenced his career.

''Phil and I have a good relationship,'' Dickey said. ''I consider him a friend. We filmed a documentary together.''

He gets a $7.5 million salary next year, and the Braves have an $8 million option for 2018 with a $500,000 buyout. The deal for the 42-year-old right-hander, the first of the 158 free agents to switch teams this offseason, is subject to a successful physical, tentatively planned for late next week.

Dickey said he had the Braves near the top of a short list of prospective teams. He noted the short travel distance - ''3 hours, 15 minutes from doorstep to doorstep'' - from his home to Atlanta was a big factor.

''I've grown up a Braves fan and have always admired the organization,'' Dickey said.

Dickey said having four children ages 14 and younger kept retirement an option if he did not find interest from the right team.

Dickey had a career-high 20 wins and won the NL Cy Young in 2012, his final season with the New York Mets. The right-hander spent the last four years with the Toronto Blue Jays, going 10-15 with a 4.46 ERA this year.

Dickey said the velocities on his knuckleball ''were as high as they've ever been'' and he expects to pitch 200 innings in 2017.

Story continues

No one had double-figure wins for Atlanta this year, prompting Coppolella to say he will pursue at least two established starters on the free-agent market. Julio Teheran heads a rotation projected to include Josh Collmenter.

Dickey is 110-108 with a 4.01 ERA in his career. He logged at least 200 innings five straight seasons from 2011 to 2015. Since 2010, his 1,441 innings rank ninth in the majors.

He said it was a challenge to pitch in the AL East's small parks and said the rebuilding Braves' potential in their new SunTrust Park in suburban Atlanta was a selling point.
When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, most pollsters and pundits were shocked. All talk of social media echo chambers and regional bubbles aside, the surprise is understandable -- Trump won the electoral college but not the popular vote, so it was a close race.

But even for a president-elect who won while receiving fewer overall votes, the race was a lot tighter than most expected. Still, a few celebrities -- on both sides of the aisle -- managed to correctly assess Trump's chances of winning the presidency, even as data-mining experts flubbed their predictions.

Here are five people who called it ahead of time -- and one person who really got it wrong.

Michael Moore

The documentary filmmaker called Donald Trump's nomination for the Republican ticket and victory in the general election months ahead of time. How did he know better than experts from both parties? Well, don't forget Moore's debut film, Roger & Me -- Moore comes from Flint, MI, which means that unlike many political commentators from wealthy, elite backgrounds, he knows and understands the frustrations of the Midwestern middle class reeling from the dying manufacturing economy. Although we should point out he also predicted President Romney in 2012, so maybe it's just a case of filling out 'A' every time on a multiple choice test -- eventually you'll be right.

Alice Bag

When I interviewed the pioneering L.A. punk icon in June 2016, she was the first person I spoke to who set me straight on Trump's chances for victory. After she discussed her disgust with his campaign, I replied, "I don't think he'll win." Her response: "I've thought that before. 'There's no way anybody would take Ronald Reagan seriously' and then the fool was elected and reelected. I don't make those assumptions anymore." Turns out she was not only right, but right to make the Reagan connection -- America has a fetish for pop culture celebrities turned Republican politicians, it seems.

Story continues

Ann Coulter

You might be saying, "Well, obviously conservative talking head Ann Coulter predicted Trump would win." But you gotta give it up in this case because Coulter called Trump's victory more than a year ago (June 2015) on Real Time With Bill Maher, which was well before anyone thought he'd even nab the Republican nomination.

Lisa Simpson

The first prediction of the business mogul's presidential future came way back in 2000 when The Simpsons featured a flash-forward episode where a grown-up Lisa takes office as President of the United States of America. "Well, as you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump," Lisa tells her cabinet staff. So... let's just hope The Simpsons only predicted part of the future correctly.

Azealia Banks

Though her Twitter account has since been suspended (not unlike Trump himself, whose staff reportedly took his own Twitter account away from him), the rapper shared her enthusiasm for Trump's presidential run back in February. "I only trust this country to be what it is: full of shit. Takes shit to know shit so we may as well put a piece of shit in the White House," she wrote of Trump's run for office. Banks' estimation of Trump's chances in her now-gone Twitter rant was far more optimistic (and as it turns out, accurate) than most others.

The One Person Who Got It Very Wrong: Stephen Colbert

You'd think a man who became a beloved household name thanks to his pitch-perfect impersonation of a conservative blowhard would inherently understand America's affection for a politician who is full of talk and low on information. But Colbert, who probably could have won the 2016 election playing his old Comedy Central character, underestimated Trump's chances back in Oct. 2015 on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert: "You're not going to be president. It's been fun but come on buddy, there is zero chance we'll be seeing you sworn in on the Capitol steps with a giant golden Bible." To be fair, Colbert may still be proven right if Trump goes for a diamond-encrusted Bible instead.
Thanksgiving is a popular holiday, but the cost of celebrating can get out of hand if you're not careful. Although the average price of ingredients for a Thanksgiving dinner is around $50, according to Statista, that number might not hold if you have a lot of guests.

Luckily, you can keep the cost of Thanksgiving dinner down with the right plan. Here are the best savings tips, from personal finance and shopping experts, for a full Thanksgiving meal that won't ruin your budget.

[See: 10 Tasty Tips for a Frugal Thanksgiving.]

1. Make it a potluck. If you plan ahead, you can find many ways to save money on Thanksgiving dinner. One of the best ways to spread out the cost of dinner is to organize a potluck.

"Prepare the main dishes, but ask for some help with the sides," says Kyle James of Rather-Be-Shopping.com. "Most family and friends are more than happy to bring side dishes, drinks, appetizers and dessert."

A potluck can be a great tradition, with long-term benefits. "Over the years, it begins to run like clockwork, as everyone knows what their specialty is and everyone looks forward to Aunt Millie's famous sausage stuffing," says grocery expert Teri Gault. "No one has to do all the work. Everyone wants to have a part in making Thanksgiving something to remember."

2. Plan and organize your dishes. Once you've decided on a potluck, you should assign dishes to your guests. "It's a holiday, so let everyone contribute. Don't be afraid to let them know what you need specifically for a well-rounded menu, and let them know how many [people] to prepare for," Gault says.

Sides, such as potatoes and yams, will be on sale for Thanksgiving, Gault says. "They're a must-have as they are a super cheap filler," she says. "Even if not on sale, a 10-pound bag of potatoes with your butter on sale -- and milk -- will cost about $5 and will feed 20 people."

But try to stay away from canned yams and boxed potatoes, she says. "Your best price and flavor are in the fresh produce section. Some may have limits, which indicates a loss leader," Gault says. Loss leaders are items sold at huge discounts in order to lure customers in and get them to buy other, more expensive products.

Story continues

[See: 20 Tips for Saving Money at the Grocery Store.]

3. Buy in bulk and save. Thanksgiving is one of the best times of the year to buy food in bulk, James says. "Take advantage of your Costco membership when buying for the big meal," he says. "It's one of the only times of the year where you might consume the cheap, and big, bag of potatoes or ginormous box of stuffing."

Keep your eye out for loss leaders, and buy as much as you can. "If there is a limit of how many you can buy [for] the sale price ... buy the limit," Gault says. "There will be sales that save you something like $1 per item if you buy a specified number. The savings add up, and you can also use manufacturer coupons with these deals."

When you do buy in bulk, be sure to seek out generic or store-brand ingredients, says Kendal Perez, a spokeswoman for CouponSherpa.com and contributor to the U.S. News My Money blog. "Popular ingredients like flour, sugar, spices, pumpkin puree and frozen green beans need not be purchased as premium brand names," she says. "Consumers can save 30 to 50 percent by purchasing generic or store brands compared to brand names ... without sacrificing flavor."

4. Stack coupons and discounts. Buying in bulk can help you save, but don't forget to stay on top of sales and coupons. "Thanksgiving dinner staples are on sale throughout November, so plan your menu early and stock up on ingredients when they're marked down," Perez says.

Thanksgiving is also a convenient time to stack manufacturer coupons, store coupons and sales, adding up to even bigger savings, Gault says. "Check the supermarket's app for additional savings with digital coupons," she says.

Another good way to approach shopping for Thanksgiving ingredients and dishes is to plan your menu based on store sales, Gault says. Although tradition can be tough to break, especially on Thanksgiving, you shouldn't let it dictate what you prepare and serve, Perez says. "To avoid packing up leftovers of dishes you didn't like well enough the first time around, consider what went untouched last year and make something else this year," she says.

You don't need to shop at a club store to score the lowest prices because most supermarkets will offer lower prices anyway, Gault says. "Choose your best supermarket -- the deals are over-the-top fantastic for Thanksgiving and all of the supermarkets are running more loss leaders than [at] any other time of the year," she says. "Take a glance at the front page of the sales circulars in your area and decide where you want to shop."

[See: 8 Big Budgeting Blunders -- and How to Fix Them.]

5. Stick to turkey. Many families like to cook up multiple meat plates, such as ham or cornish game hen, in addition to turkey. Although this can provide variety, it can be a drag on your wallet.

"Go for the turkey and pass on the ham," James says. "Turkey is pretty darn cheap. Ham? Not so much, especially the honey-glazed variety."

Turkey might be cheap around Thanksgiving, but that doesn't mean you should settle. "Stores offer deals on turkey to compete for consumer dollars, so compare prices and offers before you shop," Perez says. "In previous years, offers include a free turkey with purchase of $100 or $150 in groceries; or reduced-price turkeys when you spend at least $20 or $50. You can typically save 40 percent on the price of the bird when you buy frozen over fresh."

There's no reason to lose quality when you're trying to save money on Thanksgiving. With these five simple steps, you can plan from start to finish an affordable Thanksgiving dinner that everyone can contribute to -- and enjoy.





More From US News & World Report


Many Americans have no retirement savings at all. Families across the U.S. have a median of just $5,000 stashed away, according to an Economic Policy Institute of 2013 Survey of Consumer Finance data. But families who have a retirement account have managed to tuck away a median of $60,000 for the future. That's certainly better than nothing, but no where close to enough money to pay for several decades of retirement.

While the obvious solution is boosting contributions to work-sponsored retirement plans, another type of account can also help. Individual retirement accounts, also known as IRAs, offer a smart solution for those looking to grow wealth for retirement and score helpful tax benefits along the way. Individuals can invest up to $5,500 per year across both types of IRAs -- traditional and Roth. If you're age 50 and older, you can contribute $6,500 in 2017.

Depending on the situation, having an IRA could mean the difference between enjoying retirement and struggling to get by. Here are a few ways an IRA could save you from a serious retirement shortfall:

[Read: 5 New 401(k) and IRA Rules for 2017 .]

More money to cover emergencies. Never having to go to work again might sound like a dream come true, but it won't save you from all of life's struggles. While you may never have to clock in again, you'll still have home repairs to deal with, cars that break down and medical bills to pay.

Investing in an IRA on top of your work-sponsored retirement plan means you'll have more money at your disposal that you can use to cover unexpected repairs, car failures and medical emergencies. "Fixed income sources may be becoming a smaller portion of any retiree's income, so beefing up other retirement savings is important," says Minnesota financial advisor Jamie Pomeroy. "Start investing in an IRA early, be consistent with it, don't waiver, and you might just find your IRA showing up at just the right time, helping to save your finances in retirement should other fixed income sources be less than expected."

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Enjoy tax-free money in the future. With a traditional IRA, most people make tax-deductible contributions now and then pay taxes on their distributions later. With a Roth IRA, the exact opposite is true. When you invest in a Roth IRA, your contributions are made with after-tax dollars and your distributions are tax-free down the line.

Having several accounts with different tax treatments is a great way to diversify your retirement assets. If you're contributing to a traditional 401(k) plan at work, investing in a Roth IRA outside of your job can be beneficial if your income allows it. You're essentially hedging your bets about your future tax rate. "You'll have a bucket of money that is pre-tax, and a bucket that is post-tax," Pomeroy says. "That way, once you're retired, you'll have the option of withdrawing from one or the other depending upon your individual tax situation."

[See: 10 Steps to Max Out Your IRA.]

Invest your dollars where it makes the most sense. While investing enough in your employer-sponsored 401(k) plan to get company matching contributions is generally a good idea, some financial advisors say you should look closely at your plan before you max it out. Large expense ratios and management fees can eat away at your returns and cost you big money over the years. And if your employer only offers a few funds, there's not much you can do.

With an IRA, you decide which firm and investments get your money. You can shop around for the best places to open an IRA based on ongoing costs, your choice of investments or any other criteria you choose. "Prudently invested, IRA accounts often avoid layers of administration fees levied to company plans," says Indiana financial advisor Tom Diem of Diem Wealth Management. The money you're not paying in administration fees will help grow your account faster, which means more money in your pocket when you retire.

Use your IRA as a dream fund. A lifetime of work should be rewarded, yet few people save enough to follow their dreams once they retire. By opening a traditional or Roth IRA now and contributing the max each year, you can set money aside to travel and enjoy life. "An IRA can help cover any type of expense in retirement," Pomeroy says. "If you've done some financial planning, and this makes sense for you, why not think of your IRA as the account that you'll withdraw from to take your annual vacation?"

Since you can begin taking distributions from your traditional IRA without paying a penalty at age 59  and you can withdraw your contributions to a Roth IRA at any time, they typically provide more flexibility than 401(k) plans. Not only could having a dream fund "save" your retirement, but it could make it a lot more fun, too.

[See: How to Save for Retirement on Less Than $40,000 Per Year.]

Roth IRAs provide additional flexibility. You can withdraw your contributions to a Roth IRA without penalty. However, if you withdraw any of the investment earnings before age 59  you might trigger income tax and the early withdrawal penalty. Roth IRAs also allow you to access cash quickly and often without any tax consequences in retirement. Having access to tax-free money can make your retirement a lot less bumpy and more enjoyable.

If you're worried you're behind when it comes to saving for retirement, take the initiative to open an IRA. Provided you meet the income requirements, these accounts can help fill the gap between what you're saving now and how much you need for retirement.

"An investment in an IRA or Roth IRA can grow to be a substantial sum over the years, and is an important asset to provide income in retirement," says financial advisor David Niggel of Key Wealth Partners in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. "Along with your company sponsored retirement plan, your IRA, Social Security and proper planning, you should be able to sustain a comfortable lifestyle in retirement."

Jeff Rose is a certified financial planner, U.S. combat veteran and the founder of GoodFinancialCents.com.
Make a difference in these forward-thinking destinations.

Leaving a positive impact through responsible tourism practices can feel like a daunting task. While industry-wide initiatives to promote social and animal welfare and reduce carbon emissions have helped trailblaze a path for sustainable travel, determining which destinations allow you to empower the local community isn't always clear-cut. "Each of our travel choices makes a difference when we take a trip or go on holiday. Forward-thinking travelers should reward those destinations working towards a more sustainable future for people and the planet," says Costas Christ, one of the world's leading sustainable travel experts. If you're ready to tread lightly and do good on your next getaway, head to these destinations.

Canada

With a focus on conservation and human rights, it's no wonder Canada has become a "hot and trending destination," says Yves Marceau, vice president of global buying and contracting with travel outfitter G Adventures. With the country's recent adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, our northern neighbor earns high marks for its social welfare efforts. Canada also happens to be spearheading environmentally friendly practices. Take the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, which collaborated with the First Nations and academics to preserve forests, conserve coastal ecosystems and promote local well-being, says Martha Honey, executive director of the Center for Responsible Travel, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.

Norway

Aside from maintaining one of the highest standards of living in Europe, Norway is "also a global leader in environmental protection," Marceau explains. Plus, the country offers plenty of environmentally certified lodging options and tour operators, which limit the carbon footprint through energy-efficient materials. Norway also promotes social welfare rights for its workers with a Scandinavian model for maternity leave and paternity leave, which gives parents 46 weeks of paid time off. If you want to experience Norway's iconic fjords responsibly, G Adventures is offering an eight-day cruise in May 2017 (starting at $1,874) that takes you to UNESCO-protected treasures, charming fishing villages and spectacular glaciers.

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Aruba

"It may come as no surprise that small islands like Aruba, dangling on the front lines of climate change impacts, are also putting major emphasis on policies and projects to usher in what one day could become fossil-fuel-free societies," Christ says. The Dutch-Caribbean island contains one of the biggest solar parks in the Caribbean, along with a renewable energy plant that six other isles in the region have adopted, Christ adds. Aruba is even aiming to offset carbon fuels by 2020, Honey adds. The island also boasts eco-friendly hotels like Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort, which prides itself on solar paneling and aiding community foundations, like the Donkey Sanctuary.

Mongolia

In Mongolia, the local government has "worked really hard to get electricity and access to remote areas," Marceau says. In fact, 70 percent of the area's herder population is striving to attain 100 percent solar-powered electricity by 2017, Marceau explains. Mongolia has also championed land conservation and protected the region from mining and development, Marceau adds. And that's not all Mongolia has going for it. Mongolia also celebrates International Women's Day and pushes for senior welfare, Marceau explains. For a far-flung getaway like no other, tag along G Adventures' eight-day "Local Living" experience on the Mongolia-Nomadic Life tour ($1,099 per person), which takes visitors through Terejl National Park with nomadic families.

Bhutan, South Asia

According to Christ, Bhutan has established "national tourism plans for the country, based upon sustainable tourism development criteria including environmentally friendly business practices, support for the protection of cultural heritage, tangible social and economic benefits to local people, and safeguarding biodiversity and natural resources for future generations." Marceau also highlights the country's priority for low-impact tourism with locally owned properties to boost the area's social development and infrastructure. If you want to meet Bhuddist monks and explore ancient temples, join a 10-day journey with G Adventures ($3,099 per person).

Grenada

Grenada's commitment to environmentally friendly practices and ensuring tourists' dollars fuel the local community through small-scale tourism makes the island an ideal choice for conscientious travelers, Honey says. Despite the island's small size, Grenada has raised funds and awareness around climate change and benefited its local people, Honey adds. Grenada has also made great strides to preserve its coral reef ecosystems through the International Coral Reef Initiative, a coalition to use sustainable management practices and increase awareness of vanishing coral reefs across the globe. On your next trip, don't skip visiting Grand Anse Beach or checking out the impressive marine life at Grenada's numerous dive sites.

Costa Rica

When you picture Costa Rica's cloud-blanketed rainforests, diverse wildlife and UNESCO World Heritage-protected areas, it's easy to understand its appeal to nature and wildlife seekers. Tourism demand spiked in the 1980s when small-scale ecotourism paved the way for a growing international market, Honey explains. But while the initial boom helped create jobs, in 2000 a series of hotel chains were built and cruises began stopping at the Port of Puntarenas, ushering in outside labor that no longer benefitted local employees. That said, while Costa Rica could stand to improve its social welfare, hotels have taken great strides in reducing water consumption and adding solar panels to have a minimal impact on the environment.

Colombia

With country-wide initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, preserve rainforests and support indigenous communities, Colombia is leading the charge to advocate responsible business practices and rebrand its image, Marceau says. And with the recent peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, smaller communities are poised to thrive and the country "is really looking forward to the opportunity for people to go there," he adds. For a trip to remember, join G Adventures' action-packed seven-day Lost City Trek with indigenous communities near Santa Marta, which takes visitors to Tayrona National Park with the indigenous Wiwa people to explore the Lost City of Teyuna (prices start at $799 per person).

What's on the horizon?

According to Christ, "we are beginning to hit a tipping point where more and more travel companies -- such as Uniworld River Cruises in Europe, who helped to establish the criteria for environmentally friendly river cruising, and Asia-based hospitality groups like Six Senses Resorts and Spas -- have also made sustainability practices a cornerstone of their brand." Though he cautions the work is far from finished, "the United Nations declaration of 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism [for] Development will be a milestone in bringing more awareness on why the travel industry must make sustainability business as usual," he says.





More From US News & World Report


Sorkin Girls,

Well the world changed late last night in a way I couldnt protect us from. Thats a terrible feeling for a father. I wont sugarcoat itthis is truly horrible. Its hardly the first time my candidate didnt win (in fact its the sixth time) but it is the first time that a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn has.

And it wasnt just Donald Trump who won last nightit was his supporters too. The Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons. Angry young white men who think rap music and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to their way of life (or are the reason for their way of life) have been given cause to celebrate. Men who have no right to call themselves that and who think that women who aspire to more than looking hot are shrill, ugly, and otherwise worthy of our scorn rather than our admiration struck a blow for misogynistic shitheads everywhere. Hate was given hope. Abject dumbness was glamorized as being the fresh voice of an outsider whos going to shake things up. (Did anyone bother to ask how? Is he going to re-arrange the chairs in the Roosevelt Room?) For the next four years, the President of the United States, the same office held by Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, F.D.R., J.F.K. and Barack Obama, will be held by a man-boy wholl spend his hours exacting Twitter vengeance against all who criticize him (and those numbers will be legion). Weve embarrassed ourselves in front of our children and the world.

And the world took no time to react. The Dow futures dropped 7,000 points overnight. Economists are predicting a deep and prolonged recession. Our NATO allies are in a state of legitimate fear. And speaking of fear, Muslim-Americans, Mexican-Americans and African-Americans are shaking in their shoes. And wed be right to note that many of Donald Trumps fans are not fans of Jews. On the other hand, there is a party going on at ISIS headquarters. What wouldnt we give to trade this small fraction of a man for Richard Nixon right now?

So what do we do?

First of all, we remember that were not alone. A hundred million people in America and a billion more around the world feel exactly the same way we do.

Second, we get out of bed. The Trumpsters want to see people like us (Jewish, coastal elites, educated, socially progressive, Hollywood) sobbing and wailing and talking about moving to Canada. I wont give them that and neither will you. Heres what well do

well fucking fight. (Roxy, theres a time for this kind of language and its now.) Were not powerless and were not voiceless. We dont have majorities in the House or Senate but we do have representatives there. Its also good to remember that most members of Trumps own party feel exactly the same way about him that we do. We make sure that the people we sent to Washingtonincluding Kamala Harristake our strength with them and never take a day off.

We get involved. We do what we can to fight injustice anywhere we see itwhether its writing a check or rolling up our sleeves. Our family is fairly insulated from the effects of a Trump presidency so we fight for the families that arent. We fight for a woman to keep her right to choose. We fight for the First Amendment and we fight mostly for equalitynot for a guarantee of equal outcomes but for equal opportunities. We stand up.

America didnt stop being America last night and we didnt stop being Americans and heres the thing about Americans: Our darkest days have alwaysalwaysbeen followed by our finest hours.

Roxy, I know my predictions have let you down in the past, but personally, I dont think this guy can make it a year without committing an impeachable crime. If he does manage to be a douche nozzle without breaking the law for four years, well make it through those four years. And three years from now well fight like hell for our candidate and well win and theyll lose and this time theyll lose for good. Honey, itll be your first vote.

The battle isnt over, its just begun. Grandpa fought in World War II and when he came home this country handed him an opportunity to make a great life for his family. I will not hand his granddaughter a country shaped by hateful and stupid men. Your tears last night woke me up, and Ill never go to sleep on you again.

Love,

Dad
By Lisa Baertlein and Michael Flaherty

(Reuters) - Billionaire investor William Ackman on Thursday said he has had an "extremely constructive relationship" with Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc (CMG.N) since buying a large stake in the beleaguered burrito seller.

Shares in Chipotle were up 6 percent at $391.70 in midday trading, buoyed by Ackman's comments and the expectation that the company could benefit from business-friendly tax reforms expected to be championed by President-elect Donald Trump.

Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management announced a nearly 10 percent stake in Chipotle in September. His team believes that marketing, menu, cost-saving, technology and governance initiatives will help the shares rebound from a 40 percent swoon since last year's high-profile food safety lapses.

In October, Reuters reported that Chipotle had hired a top Wall Street law firm, investment banks and a public relations shop to help defend itself against the hedge fund billionaire.

Ackman said such hires are standard operating procedure for companies when an activist investor buys a stake.

"Our investors should not be concerned that we're in some kind of hostile engagement here," Ackman said on his fund's quarterly call with investors.

Chipotle's board has been criticized by pension funds and other shareholders, who say it is too chummy, too generous with executive compensation and too entrenched, with five of its nine directors having served 18 years or more.

Two union-affiliated shareholders in Chipotle earlier this month filed a shareholder resolution to replace company chairman, founder and co-Chief Executive Steve Ells, with an independent director.

People familiar with Ackman's thinking have suggested that he believes Chipotle's long-serving board is due for an overhaul. Ackman and his team did not mention Chipotle's board on Thursday's call.

Chipotle last week said it was committed to dialogue with investors including its largest shareholders and that it has been "actively working on board refreshment."

Reuters last week reported that Ackman and Chipotle signed an agreement to engage in confidential discussions, a sign that the activist may be able to wield change at the chain without an expensive and time consuming proxy contest.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Michael Flaherty in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby)
(Adds details on board, bylines)

By Lisa Baertlein and Michael Flaherty

Nov 10 (Reuters) - Billionaire investor William Ackman on Thursday said he has had an "extremely constructive relationship" with Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc since buying a large stake in the beleaguered burrito seller.

Shares in Chipotle were up 6 percent at $391.70 in midday trading, buoyed by Ackman's comments and the expectation that the company could benefit from business-friendly tax reforms expected to be championed by President-elect Donald Trump.

Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management announced a nearly 10 percent stake in Chipotle in September. His team believes that marketing, menu, cost-saving, technology and governance initiatives will help the shares rebound from a 40 percent swoon since last year's high-profile food safety lapses.

In October, Reuters reported that Chipotle had hired a top Wall Street law firm, investment banks and a public relations shop to help defend itself against the hedge fund billionaire.

Ackman said such hires are standard operating procedure for companies when an activist investor buys a stake.

"Our investors should not be concerned that we're in some kind of hostile engagement here," Ackman said on his fund's quarterly call with investors.

Chipotle's board has been criticized by pension funds and other shareholders, who say it is too chummy, too generous with executive compensation and too entrenched, with five of its nine directors having served 18 years or more.

Two union-affiliated shareholders in Chipotle earlier this month filed a shareholder resolution to replace company chairman, founder and co-Chief Executive Steve Ells, with an independent director.

People familiar with Ackman's thinking have suggested that he believes Chipotle's long-serving board is due for an overhaul. Ackman and his team did not mention Chipotle's board on Thursday's call.

Chipotle last week said it was committed to dialogue with investors including its largest shareholders and that it has been "actively working on board refreshment."

Reuters last week reported that Ackman and Chipotle signed an agreement to engage in confidential discussions, a sign that the activist may be able to wield change at the chain without an expensive and time consuming proxy contest.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Michael Flaherty in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby)
By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Film star Brad Pitt has been cleared of abuse allegations in a child welfare investigation and has asked a court to grant him shared custody of his six children with his estranged wife, actress Angelina Jolie, a source close to the matter said on Wednesday. Pitt, 52, fully cooperated in a comprehensive inquiry conducted by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, which found no wrongdoing on his part, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Hollywood power couple, dubbed "Brangelina" during their decade-long romance, split following an incident on a private plane in which Pitt was reported to have lost his temper in front of one or more of the children. According to celebrity news website TMZ.com, Jolie accused Pitt of striking their eldest son, Maddox. Jolie, 41, filed for divorce from the actor, her husband of two years and romantic partner since 2005, in September, citing irreconcilable differences and seeking full physical custody of their children, ages 8 to 15. At the time, the Oscar-winning actress said her decision to end the marriage "was made for the health of the family." Their children include two adopted sons, Maddox from Cambodia and Pax from Vietnam, an adopted daughter from Ethiopia, Zahara, and three biological children, Shiloh Nouvel and twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline. Having been cleared by the child welfare agency of abuse, Pitt went to court last Friday and filed for joint custody of all six youngsters, according to the source. The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) declined to comment on the matter to Reuters, citing confidentiality laws. A representative for Jolie said on Wednesday she was "relieved that after their 8-week involvement, the DCFS is now satisfied the safeguards are put in place that will allow the children to heal." In September, Pitt agreed to submit to drug and alcohol testing under a temporary agreement with Jolie allowing him visits with their children, two people familiar with that agreement said then. The estranged couple also agreed to undergo individual counseling at the time. Both stars have kept a generally low profile since the announcement of their divorce. But on Wednesday night, Pitt resumed press obligations for his upcoming film, "Allied," attending a screening of the movie in Los Angeles. (Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy in Los Angeles; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Sandra Maler)
A Donald Trump pinata is burned in Los Angeles on Nov. 9, 2016, by people protesting his election as president. (Photo: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

In the wake of Donald Trumps stunning victory in Tuesdays U.S. presidential election, there have been multiple reports of violence and vandalism tied to the inflammatory comments the president-elect made about women, Hispanics and other minorities during his divisive campaign.

 In Philadelphia, graffiti  including swastikas, Trumps name and the message Sieg Heil 2016  was found spray-painted on the windows of an abandoned fur store. Police are investigating the incident.

We are horrified by the appearance of hate graffiti on a storefront in South Philadelphia, Nancy K. Baron-Baer, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement. Swastikas and the Nazi salute send a message of intolerance and hate to the entire community.

Nazi-related Trump graffiti was spotted inside a high school in Minnesota. (WCCO-TV)

 In Minneapolis, the president-elects name was included in racist graffiti that was scrawled on the door of a high school bathroom.

In an image of the vandalism at Maple Grove Senior High School posted to social media, Trump Train was written below whites only, white America and a vulgar message that included the N word. School officials said they are investigating.

The tweet you may have seen of a racist message scrawled in a school bathroom is real and we are horrified by it, a representative for the school district said in a statement. It goes against everything we stand for, and it is completely contrary to our core values as a district and individual schools. School leaders immediately launched an investigation into the incident, and they will take swift and appropriate action based on the investigation findings.

Some students told WCCO-TV they are scared to go to school.

I dont feel comfortable, to be honest, Atep Ndip said.

 In Detroit, students at a middle school broke into chants of build the wall in the cafeteria on Wednesday as Latino children at the school were reportedly crying.

We addressed this incident when it occurred. We are addressing it today, Royal Oak Schools superintendent Shawn Lewis-Lakin said in a statement. We are working with our students to help them understand the impact of their words and actions on others in their school community.

Story continues

 In Durham, N.C., the message Black lives dont matter and neither does your votes appeared on a wall in the city on Wednesday.

Someone spray painted "Black lives don't matter and neither does your votes" on a wall in Durham overnight. pic.twitter.com/Idfm5T8RFg  Derrick Lewis (@DerrickQLewis) November 9, 2016

 In San Francisco, a homeowner decided to fly a Nazi flag over his home following Trumps triumph.

According to CBS San Francisco, the owner, Frederick Roeber, a noted physicist and Internet pioneer, was apparently flying it to make a statement against Trump. After he was confronted by an angry neighbor, Roeber removed the flag and replaced it with a rainbow flag in honor of gay pride.

I had a very visceral reaction. I went across the street as soon as I saw it, the neighbor, Francine Miller, told KPIX-TV. I think that there is just general unease right now, with Trump being the president-elect. And I think if you woke up this morning and youre a woman, youre a Jewish person, youre gay, youre a Latino, youre a little on edge. And so I felt really uncomfortable.

Also read: Reference to Muslim ban briefly removed from Trump website

Protests have erupted around the country in response to Trumps election, with thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets in cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia and Portland, Ore., on Wednesday night. While some arrests have been reported, the protests have been largely peaceful.

But there have been scattered reports of vandalism and violence aimed at Trump supporters.

 In Los Angeles, protesters burned a Trump pinata in effigy on Wednesday night.

 In Chicago, police are investigating the beating of a suspected Trump supporter who had stopped in an intersection.

In a video of the incident uploaded to YouTube, the victim, a 50-year-old white man, was pulled from his car by a group of black men, who proceeded to kick and punch him while yelling you voted Trump as he tried to get back in the vehicle. One of the assailants appeared to get in the car and drive away as the man held onto a drivers-side window.

According to CBS Chicago, the man was taken to a local hospital and is in good condition, but police have yet to make an arrest in the case.

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a local activist, condemned the attack.

This is unacceptable and must be condemned by everybody, Pfleger said in a statement. Violence is NEVER an acceptable response. Emotions are raw coming out of this election, but frustration, anger and despair do not give permission to be violent. Let us not surrender to evil, rather rise above it!

_____

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If you think AFI Fest exists just as a hometown awards-season exercise, think again.

The festival, which runs Nov. 10-17 at Los Angeles TCL Chinese Theatre, is celebrating its 30th edition this year and has grown into an increasingly diverse mix of world and local premieres that focus on new auteurs, the best of global cinema, and, of course, potential Oscar players.

We are unique in that we are at the end of the year, says festival director Jacqueline Lyanga. Our goal is to showcase not only the significant films of the year and find a way to contextualize those films for the audience; we are trying to find ways to bring the international conversation about cinema to Los Angeles.

To that end, this year the festival is introducing what it hopes will become a new tradition, the series World Cinema: Masters in Conversation, highlighting outstanding international filmmakers who might be under the radar of the general public.

The fest has recruited notable moderators to spark each chat in the series. Raoul Peck will discuss his body of work with Toronto Intl. Film Festival director Cameron Bailey, as well as screen his latest documentary, I Am Not Your Negro. Venice festival director Alberto Barbera will join Gianfranco Rosi to reflect on the filmmakers latest endeavor, the Golden Bear winner Fire at Sea, which is Italys entry for the foreign-language Oscar. Filipino director Lav Diaz will showcase his latest work, The Woman Who Left.

AFI Fest is also celebrating its third decade by highlighting the cinematic contributions of three women of color who made historical strides in the industry: Dorothy Dandridge, the first African- American nominated for a lead-actress Academy Award, for her role in Carmen Jones; Ida Lupino, a trailblazing filmmaker and actress who directed 11 feature films between 1949 and 1966; and Anna May Wong, Hollywoods first Chinese-American movie star. Carmen Jones and Lupinos The Hitch-Hiker will play as part of the festivals Cinemas Legacy section. And the projection of Wongs 1929 classic silent Piccadilly, accompanied by a live set from DJ Miss 45s, enters the realm of cant-miss events.

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But its the galas and tributes that draw the most attention at AFI. Lyanga and her programming team have recruited a stellar lineup. The festival kicks off on opening night with the world premiere of Warren Beattys first directorial effort in 18 years, Rules Dont Apply, bringing Howard Hughes cinematically back to the TCL Chinese Theatre.

Other notable world premieres include John Maddens Miss Sloane with Jessica Chastain, Taylor Hackfords The Comedian starring Robert De Niro, and Walt Disney Animations Moana, which features original music written by Hamilton sensation Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Los Angeles will also have a chance to bask in the glory of the legendary Isabelle Huppert as she is honored with a tribute before the screening of Paul Verhoevens Elle, in which she stars. Its Frances submission in the foreign-language Oscar race.

Annette Bening will receive a tribute before a centerpiece gala screening of Mike Mills 20th Century Women.

Other high-profile selections include Fisher Stevens and Alexis Blooms moving documentary Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds; Gareth Davis Toronto festival audience favorite Lion; Jim Jarmuschs Paterson; Maren Ades acclaimed dramedy Toni Erdmann, which is Germanys foreign-language submission; Pablo Larrains Jackie; and the Hollywood homecoming of Damien Chazelles musical La La Land.

There are numerous other selections in the American Independents, Midnight, New Auteurs, Shorts World Cinema, and aforementioned Cinemas Legacy sections.

Lyanga is excited for this years films. She makes it clear that even though AFI Fest takes place during award season, when plenty of films are looking for an L.A. spotlight, shaping the slate is no easy task.

Every film, every filmmaker, and every year, to some extent, is different, Lyanga says. As much as this time of year sometimes works out really well for films, sometimes there are films that we love that we do not have an opportunity to showcase. A film may have opened before us, or a film may not be ready. So we certainly face challenges like any other festival of this size and scope.

One of the reasons AFI Fests reputation has grown over the years is because of the world premieres that have gone on to make a mark not only at the Academy Awards, but also with cinephiles around

the world.

Lyanga has been director of AFI Fest for seven years, and during that span, the event has generated a tremendous amount of acclaim by securing the first screenings of David O. Russells The Fighter, J. C. Chandors A Most Violent Year, and, last year, Adam McKays The Big Short.

But Lyangas most memorable moment at the festival so far: the back-to-back debuts of Ava DuVernays Selma and Clint Eastwoods American Sniper two years ago.

It was just really exciting, not just because they were excited to be premiering their films, but the audience was so excited, Lyanga recalls. And to see all these people who are in the industry and filmmakers and critics and fellow curators racing into the theater excited to see films? Thats what a festival is about. To me its about bringing that excitement and joy you have when you are anticipating great work and having that fulfilled. There is nothing like it if you love working in cinema. So that was really rewarding to share that and experience it with so many people that night.

While its unclear if the festival will feature any surprise screenings this year, the fact that many in the industry are trying to guess whether there will be only brings more excitement to the event.

I think its one of those things that, looking for the opportunity or having the challenge of presenting a sneak that people are anticipating is never a burden, Lyanga says. Thats really exciting for us. I hope each year it happens that it works out, and it has to be the right film. So, there is just a lot of watching films and waiting and hoping for some serendipity.

Tipsheet

What: AFI Fest

When: Nov. 10-17

Where: TCL Chinese Theatre

web: http://www.afifest.com

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Cape Town (AFP) - South Africa's scandal-hit President Jacob Zuma easily survived a no-confidence vote in parliament Thursday as ruling ANC lawmakers ignored calls from opposition parties to vote him out of office.

Zuma, who has faced mounting criticism from within his own party, came under further pressure last week after a corruption probe raised fresh allegations of misconduct.

But the ANC's parliamentary majority delivered a resounding signal of support as 214 lawmakers voted against the motion and 126 voted in favour.

Zuma's victory was expected, despite Mmusi Maimane, the leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) opposition party, appealing to ANC members to vote against their leader.

"To put it plainly, we can choose Jacob Zuma, or we can choose South Africa," Maimane told parliament during a fiery debate.

"Many of you have been speaking out against him in recent weeks... I know that there are men and women in these ANC benches who want to do the right thing."

But Zuma, 74, who came to power in 2009, retains strong loyalty among ANC (African National Congress) lawmakers and many party members.

The no-confidence vote was the third in under a year, with the first two also defeated by wide margins.

The corruption report by the country's top watchdog raised accusations of possible criminal activity in Zuma's relationship with the Guptas, a business family accused of wielding undue political influence.

It included allegations that the Guptas offered Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas a $44 million (40 million euros) bribe, which he said he refused.

- Zuma opposition grows -

Increasing numbers of anti-apartheid veterans, ANC activists, trade unions, civil groups and business leaders have called for Zuma to resign in recent months.

In Thursday's debate, the ANC attacked Maimane, the DA's first black leader, for bringing the non-confidence vote.

"The motion (is) using a black face to protect the interest of the white minority," said ANC minister Nomvula Mokonyane.

Story continues

"They are trying hard to distract the ANC... from dealing with the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality."

The ANC, which has ruled since the first post-apartheid elections in 1994, has seen its popularity dive, with local polls in August delivering its worst-ever result.

Zuma's term in office ends in 2019, but the ANC is due to elect a new party leader at the end of next year and could then decide to replace him as head of state.

South Africa's highest court this year found the president guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers' money used to refurbish his private rural house.

He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.

The radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party used the debate to tell the ANC it should have "found it in its own conscience to act against Jacob Zuma".

"He is going to arrest you, to lock you up, to kill you, because... he knows that if he doesn't have control of political power he is going to go to prison," said EFF deputy leader Floyd Shivambu.

Despite the groundswell of protest and deep divisions in the ANC, Wits University professor Patrick Bond said Zuma remained secure in his position for now.

"The key people in the ANC are very supportive of Zuma," he said.

When Zuma leaves office, the three leading possible successors are his ex-wife African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 / New Age Farm Inc. (CSE:NF) (NWGFF) (FSE:ONF) (www.newagefarminc.com) ("New Age Farm" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it will implement the Plan of Arrangement with its wholly owned subsidiary, NHS Industries Ltd. ("NHS") approved by the Company's shareholders at its AGM (see News Releases dated September 22 and 30, 2016). The Company will prepare NHS facilities and infrastructure in Langley, BC in anticipation of Canada's recreational marijuana industry.

Plan of Arrangement

New Age Farm and NHS entered into an arrangement agreement effective August 31, 2016 whereby New Age Farm would spin-off NHS, together with all its assets and liabilities, as a separate operating entity and NHS would operate the Company's Langley Property located in Langley, British Columbia (the "Arrangement"). In return, following completion of the Arrangement, Shareholders would hold one new share (each, a "New Share", collectively the "New Shares") in the capital of the Company and its prorata share of the post-consolidation NHS Shares to be distributed under the Arrangement for each currently held New Age Farm share. The New Shares would be identical in every respect to the present New Age Farm shares.

Share Distribution Record Date

The board of directors of New Age Farm have set the share distribution record date of the Plan of Arrangement at close of business on November 30, 2016 (the "Share Distribution Record Date"). Shareholders as of the Share Distribution Record Date will be entitled to receive the New Shares and the NHS Shares. Each shareholder of record on November 30, 2016 will participate in the Arrangement on a prorata basis and, upon completion of the Arrangement, will continue to hold substantially the same prorata interest they held in the Company prior to completion of the Arrangement. The New Shares will be identical in every respect to the shareholders' current New Age Farm shares; in addition, each New Age Farm shareholder will receive from NHS the number of common shares equal to the issued and outstanding common shares of New Age Farm held by the shareholder as of the Share Distribution Record Date, divided by an exchange ratio.

The Arrangement was unanimously approved by the Shareholders at the AGM, and remains subject to final approval from applicable regulators. The Company provided full details of the Arrangement in an information circular that was mailed to the Shareholders and is available on SEDAR (the "Circular").

After the Arrangement

Following completion of the Arrangement, there will be two separate operating companies: New Age Farm Inc. and NHS Industries Ltd., each with its own assets, liabilities and separate business operations. New Age Farm will continue to operate the properties in Washington State and NHS will be responsible for operations at the Langley location. Shareholders of New Age Farm will now hold an interest in two operating agribusinesses and will benefit from the Company's plan to list NHS Industries Ltd. on a stock exchange that will ultimately provide shareholders the opportunity to realize the benefit of additional liquidity in their investments.

About New Age Farm

Washington State

Through its Washington State subsidiary, New Age Farm owns two properties, one located in Sumas, WA, and the other in Oroville, WA, where it offers fully built out turnkey service operations to licensed I-502 tenant-growers who will lease the facilities for production and / or processing. With three leases already in place, operations in Washington State have begun and will expand further as the Company completes its build outs. In compliance with state regulatory requirements, New Age Farm's facilities feature 24 hour security that enhances the safety and security of the community, our tenant-growers and their operations. All New Age Farm's tenant-growers hold either Tier 2 or Tier 3 licenses allowing them to produce and / or process marijuana for sale at wholesale to marijuana processor licensees and to other marijuana producer licensees. A Tier 3 license allows for between ten thousand square feet and thirty thousand square feet of dedicated plant canopy while Tier 2 licensees can have up to ten thousand square feet of dedicated plant canopy. Revenue is generated on a base lease rate and the level of service that the tenant-grower requires for its production and / or its processing needs.

About the Washington I-502 Marijuana Market

In November 2012, the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board ("WSLCB") passed Initiative 502 ("I-502") pursuant to a vote by the people of the State of Washington. I-502 authorized the WSLCB to regulate and tax recreational marijuana products for persons over twenty-one years of age and thereby created a new industry for the growing, processing and selling of Washington State-regulated recreational marijuana products. A recent WSLCB commissioned report by the Rand organization suggests that there are currently up to 650,000 recreational marijuana users in Washington State, worth approximately $1.25 - $1.5 Billion USD in annual sales.

British Columbia

Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, NHS Industries Ltd. ("NHS"), New Age owns a five and a half acre greenhouse facility in the lower mainland of BC with a 48,000 square foot greenhouse facility, capable of growing 2.4 million 4" potted plants annually. NHS is in the process of formulating innovative proposals for small scale agricultural facilities for exploring multiple avenues for cash flow processes. The facility is located minutes from three major Canada  USA border crossings and direct routes to the lower mainland west and to all points east and west along 16th Ave to Hwy 99 and to Hwy 1 make its location in South Langley an ideal hub. NHS intends to become a beta site for sustainable growing capabilities as well as minimizing all carbon footprints with regard to all its on-site operations. This facility will meet a growing demand in the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley areas to help smaller growers become more efficient, more productive, implement value added product lines, and reduce waste.

For further information about New Age Farm, please consult the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

On Behalf of the Board Of Directors

Carman Parente

President and Chief Executive Officer

cparente@newagefarminc.com

For Further Information Contact

Catherine Jones

Corporate Communications

corpcom@newagefarminc.com

604-889-5200

Or

Stan Buchalter

Investor Relations

905-631-6537

WWW.NEWAGEFARMINC.COM

Follow us

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy hereof.

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected including, but not limited to completion of planned improvements at both the Canadian and US sites on schedule and on budget, the availability of financing needed to complete the Company's planned improvements on commercially reasonable terms, planned occupancy by the tenant-growers, commencement of operations, the ability to mitigate the risk of loss through appropriate insurance policies, and the risks presented by federal statutes that may contradict local and state legislation respecting legalized marijuana. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required under applicable securities legislation. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell securities and the Company is not soliciting an offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.

This news release does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States. These securities have not and will not be registered under United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to a U.S. Person unless so registered, or an exemption from registration is relied upon.

SOURCE: New Age Farm Inc.
The airline industry has been quick to act on the results of the stunning US election with special post-election airfares launched to help shell-shocked travelers escape.

In a move that plays on the discontent in America -- or that of the crestfallen Hillary Clinton supporters, anyway -- Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair has launched bottom of the barrel airfares for as low as $10 USD (7.99).

The airline has set aside one million seats for its "US Election Special."

With taglines like "No one Trumps Ryanair Fares" and "Even she wouldn't delete our email offers," the election special covers flights between European cities.

For $10, for example, those in London thinking of embarking on cross-European travels can fly from London Stansted to Dusseldorf, Germany or Luxembourg. Throw in a few more dollars and they can also visit Barcelona, Berlin or Bordeaux, France.

Likewise, in a promo that also reminds travelers not to let the election "trump" their getaway plans, Malaysian low-cost carrier AirAsia posted basement bargain flights between Malaysia and cities across Asia for as little as $9 USD (39 MYR).

Both promotions expire November 12.

- 'Travel to the US while you're still allowed to" -

On election day, Royal Jordanian posted a special promotion for flights to the US on Facebook with the tagline "Just in case he wins...Travel to the US while you're still allowed to."

Australian holidaymakers who may be turned off by the idea of their upcoming travels to the US, meanwhile, are being offered the chance to cancel their flight or switch destinations by travel outfits like Flight Center and AirAsia X for a limited time, reports Escape.com.

The promo names? "Travel Trump Card" and "Make Their Holiday Great Again."

In a cheeky tweet posted Wednesday, Iceland's Wow Air also made allusion to the disenchanted voters of America with the message, "Moving? Your friends at Wow Air got you covered! One-way flights to Europe from only $99."

And finally, disillusioned Americans who are thinking of making good on their threat to move to Canada with a Trump presidency can book weekend reconnaissance trips to cities across Canada with annual seat sale promotions currently running from Air Canada and WestJet.
Last night, the American people heard the results of the 2016 presidential election. And as the population of Canada began to rise, airfares begin to fall.

Whether youre celebrating or escaping, there are dozens of flight deals available to help you get pretty much anywhere else in the world.

Fly With AirAsia for $6.85

This Malaysia-based low-cost carrier promised early this morning not to trump your getaway plans with a flash sale that expires November 12. While flights primarily originate in Malaysia, you can use these shortand super cheapflights to explore cities all across Asia, including Bangkok, Hanoi, Hong Kong, and the beautiful island of Phuket.

Travel dates are effective immediately, and will be available until May 25. Fares start at $6.85, or 29 MalaysianRinggits.

Check Out the European Union

According to the Airfare Spot, its not just AirAsia riding the turbulent tide of the election. British Airways, TAP Portugal, and a number of SkyTeam Alliance partners (think: Delta, KLM Royal Dutch, and AirFrance) have all posted a number of extremely affordable flight deals.

From New York City, for example, travelers can fly to Palma De Mallorca, Ibiza, Madrid, or Barcelona, Spain, for as little as $400 round-trip. Flights are also available to Geneva and Rome, though depending on your destination, January may be the earliest departure month.

Boston currently boasts the best flight deal to Europe, with round-trip flights to Madrid hovering around $350 round-trip. Travel dates area available from March until early April. Flight can also be found to Milan, Rome, and Barcelona beginning at $361 round-trip.

And if youre based in Florida, $420 flights are available as early as December 6 for flights from Miami to Milan, Paris, Madrid, or Barcelona on British Airways.

The Airfare Spot also noted flight deals from Dallas to various Italian cities (Naples, Florence, and Venice included) for as little as $371 round-trip. Flights originating in Philadelphia are starting at $387 to Rome and Barcelona; British Airways flights from Chicago to Paris can be had for $419 round-trip, and Los Angeles-based citizens can make moves for $424 round-trip, with flights available to Barcelona, Rome, Milan, or Venice.

Story continues

Score a One-way Ticket in Ireland

To be clear, you need to first get yourself to Ireland. But once youre there, you can score one of 1,000,000 seats with the countrys low-cost carrier, Ryanair, for 9.99just shy of $11. The dedicated United States Election Special includes one-way flights to Amsterdam, Brussels, Basel, and London.

The sale ends at midnight on November 9, but you could be traveling across Europe as early as next week.

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Former Vice President Al Gore addressed the future of climate policy following the election of Donald Trump in a statement released on Wednesday.

Urging people to continue the work needed to solve the climate crisis, Gore wrote that the efforts are dependent not on politics or ideologyor electionsbut on our commitment to each other, to the health of our planet and to a sustainable future for all.

Last night President-elect Trump said he wanted to be a president for all Americans, Gore wrote. In that spirit, I hope that he will work with the overwhelming majority of us who believe that the climate crisis is the greatest threat we face as a nation.

Trump winning the election has all but guaranteed an end to action that will address climate change in the U.S.the president-elect indicated in his speeches throughout the campaign that he would scrap current environmental regulation and revamp the coal industry. He also repeatedly said he would cancel or renegotiate the Paris Agreement, the worlds most significant agreement on climate change to date.

Referring to the Paris Agreement, Gore wrote, We knew this work would not be easyindeed, more would be required.

Now we know that our work must be redoubled, he wrote. Today, without regard to last nights outcome, we must turn our focus to making the promises of the Paris Agreement a reality by embracing the forces that are already working to grow our economy and transform our energy future.
- By Sangara Narayanan





Alibaba (BABA), the Chinese ecommerce giant, continued its double-digit growth story by posting 55% revenue growth during the second quarter. Alibaba's revenue growth has considerably accelerated in the first six months of the current fiscal, reaching its highest level in two years.

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There were a lot of questions about Alibaba's future growth potential due to a slowdown in the Chinese economy, which impacted all types of businesses across the country. But contrary to local trends Alibaba has continued its upward march, posting above 50% growth in the past two quarters even when the economy did not do so well on a comparative basis.

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One of the key reasons behind the above-average performance in the core commerce segment was the robust growth of Alibaba's online marketing service revenue. Alibaba, a broker of sorts that provides the technology platform to connect buyers and sellers, has also added a digital marketing tool to its arsenal, merging digital marketing and digital commerce and positioning it as the one place to which the seller needs to come, place his goods, throw out ads, sell the product and walk out.

The one-stop solution model seems to work well for the company, and advertising revenues are expected to steadily climb in the next few years.

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Shelleen Shum, eMarketer forecasting analyst, commented, "The heightened regulation on Internet advertising is expected to weigh heavily on Baidu's (BIDU) search revenues in the near term as they roll out stricter standards across all advertisers. Although also affected by the new regulations, Alibaba's ad revenue particularly from mobile shows no sign of ebbing with robust growth from the ecommerce retail business. We now expect Alibaba to take a larger share of digital ad revenues than Baidu in 2016."

Story continues

Despite robust growth on the top line as well bottom line, Alibaba, which was grossly overvalued during the time of its IPO, took nearly two years to cross the $93 level the company saw at the end of its first trading day. At nearly 60 times earnings, Alibaba still looks a bit expensive, but adding small bits of the stock over a long period could give your portfolio a nice exposure to an overseas company that is bound to stay in control of its home market for many years to come.

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Alibaba's current size and scale has made it a compelling case for global sellers who want wide access to Chinese customers. As such, the company will enjoy stable growth within the country for a long time. Internet penetration in China has just crossed 50%, and there is plenty more ground to cover. As an ecommerce company, Alibaba will stand to benefit as the Chinese economy keeps moving.

Disclosure: I have no positions in the stock mentioned above and no intention to initiate a position in the next 72 hours.

Start a free seven-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






BII Drone

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence IoT Briefing subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

Googles parent company Alphabet recently curtailed its drone project, known as Project Wing, and cancelled the projects partnership with Starbucks, according to Bloomberg.

Both projects were cut back due to budgetary constraints, and are part of a broader effort by Alphabet to reign in spending. Many Project Wing employees have been asked to seek employment elsewhere in Alphabet, and the project is currently in a hiring freeze.

The company was in advanced talks with Starbucks to test coffee deliveries, but disagreements over access to customer data halted these talks. This anticipated partnership was part of Alphabets larger plan to secure partnerships to test drone deliveries. In one example, it recently teamed with Chipotle to test burrito deliveries on the campus of Virginia Tech.

Further, the unit is in talks to deliver groceries via drones in Ireland, though further cuts could dissolve these talks. There has also been speculation that it could deliver medical supplies, which current Project Wing head Astro Teller shed light on in a recent interview with The Verge.

Project Wing has suffered from a series of strategic directional shifts since its founding, which may have prompted Alphabet to curtail it. Initially led by MIT robotics expert Nicholas Roy, the division was operated along the lines of an ongoing academic research project, according to former employees who spoke to Bloomberg.

In 2014, the unit brought on David Vos, who led Project Wing until he was recently replaced by Teller. Vos led the project to conduct more simulation tests and implemented a revamped product review system that reflected standards similar to the aviation industry, which were continued until Vos departed last month.

Overall, it's unclear how much this news will affect Project Wing and Alphabet as a whole.While this is certainly a blow to one of the most prominent drone initiatives on the market, it's still possible that Project Wing could explore commercial drone deliveries when they become legal under Federal Aviation Administration regulations, as the project is one of the older drone initiatives in the US and is already testing such deliveries. Overall, it's worth monitoring Project Wings progress moving forward as it may encounter more setbacks, or take strides forward, in the next few years.

Story continues

Drones turned the corner in 2015 to become a popular consumer device, while a framework for regulation that legitimizes drones in the US began to take shape. Technological and regulatory barriers still exist to further drone adoption.

Drone manufacturers and software providers are quickly developing technologies like geo-fencing and collision avoidance that will make flying drones safer. The accelerating pace of drone adoption is also pushing governments to create new regulations that balance safety and innovation.

Safer technology and better regulation will open up new applications for drones in the commercial sector, including drone delivery programs like Amazons Prime Air and Googles Project Wing initiatives.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed drones report that forecasts sales revenues for consumer, enterprise, and military drones. It also projects the growth of drone shipments for consumers and enterprises.

The report details several of worlds major drone suppliers and examines trends in drone adoption among several leading industries. Finally, it examines the regulatory landscape in several markets and explains how technologies like obstacle avoidance and drone-to-drone communications will impact drone adoption.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

We project revenues from drones sales to top $12 billion in 2021, up from just over $8 billion last year.

Shipments of consumer drones will more than quadruple over the next five years, fueled by increasing price competition and new technologies that make flying drones easier for beginners.

Growth in the enterprise sector will outpace the consumer sector in both shipments and revenues as regulations open up new use cases in the US and EU, the two biggest potential markets for enterprise drones.

Technologies like geo-fencing and collision avoidance will make flying drones safer and make regulators feel more comfortable with larger numbers of drones taking to the skies.

Right now FAA regulations have limited commercial drones to a select few industries and applications like aerial surveying in the agriculture, mining, and oil and gas sectors.

The military sector will continue to lead all other sectors in drone spending during our forecast period thanks to the high cost of military drones and the growing number of countries seeking to acquire them.

In full, the report:

Compares drone adoption across the consumer, enterprise, and government sectors.

Breaks down drone regulations across several key markets and explains how theyve impacted adoption.

Discusses popular use cases for drones in the enterprise sector, as well as nascent use case that are on the rise.

Analyzes how different drone manufacturers are trying to differentiate their offerings with better hardware and software components.

Explains how drone manufacturers are quickly enabling autonomous flight in their products that will be a major boon for drone adoption.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:

Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, youve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the world of drones.





More From Business Insider


Howard dean

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is putting himself back in the running for chair of the Democratic National Committee.

In a tweet on Thursday, the former chair said the party needs to rehabilitate its technology and develop a strategy that does not just play in battleground states following the the upset loss to Donald Trump.

"The dems need organization and focus on the young. Need a fifty State strategy and tech rehab. I am in for chairman again," Dean said.

The former governor's tweet echoes his strategy when he ran the DNC in the lead-up to the 2008 presidential election.

Dean aggressively courted the grassroots activists within the party while clashing occasionally with party leaders, arguing that the party should try to put every state in play, instead of focusing on key battleground states.

Though he was criticized for not raising enough money to compete with the Republican National Committee, the former governor also focused on upgrading the party's voter file and data operation, which the DNC believed it had the advantage on going into 2016.

Speaking with Business Insider on Wednesday, DNC Vice Chair RT Rybak said Dean's attempt to build a coalition and broad support within the party during his initial bid for chair in 2005 "put more democracy into the DNC."

"The best time it seems the DNC did that was when Howard Dean used his campaign apparatus to run for chair," Rybak said.

"One thing we should be asking ourselves is if we had a chair who is not representative of what was happening in the community and was perceived to be not listening, then maybe we should actually have more democracy, where theres more - where the chair actually has to go out and win a constituency and mobilize people. I hope that doesnt break along Hillary-Bernie lines, because that would be the worst thing, but I do think its a really good time to have one of those big raw family discussions like were all going to have over the Thanksgiving table, where theres a lot of heat but we hug on the way out the door."

Story continues

Dean isn't the only Democrat vying for the spot.

The Huffington Post reported that Rep. Keith Ellison, one of the more outspoken progressive voices in the House of Representatives, is also jockeying for the DNC chair position. He garnered an endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday.

NOW WATCH: Its surreal to watch this 2011 video of Obama and Seth Meyers taunting Trump about a presidential run





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In Wednesdays penultimate episode of American Horror Story: Roanoke, Audrey declared, Everybodys dead!  which was demonstrably false, since when she shouted it Lee was standing right next to her, very much alive, thanks. Still, the outburst succeeded in impressing upon new arrival Dylan (whod played Ambrose in My Roanoke Nightmare) that the goings-on at the Millers former house were not a joke. Of course, even if the reenactress exaggeration hadnt done the trick, what happened next undoubtedly would have have gotten the message across to Dylan that the variety of s he was in was the deep sort. Read on, and well go over all the gory details.

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american horror story roanoke season 6 episode 9 recap

FRESH BLOOD

| As Chapter 9 began, a trio of thrill-seeking young hikers (including Taissa Farmiga as Sophie and Jacob Artist as Todd) hoping to post pics of the haunted house on Instagram during the blood moon happened upon first Dianas ghost, then her remains. Subsequently, the kids tried to relate what they had seen to the police, but alas, the authorities were beyond skeptical since, when officers went to the scene of Dianas accident, they found no body. On the plus side, at least the threesomes spooky upload got them a buncha new followers. #winning

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HERE TODAY, DEAD TOMORROW | Inside the haunted house, once Audrey was done informing Dylan (Wes Bentley) that there had been no need for him to show up to stir the pot, because it had already runneth over  with blood  the former soldier was making plans to get them all outta there. First, however, they had to find Monet. Upon arriving at the Polks, Dylan was pretty much screw no man left behind, lets just take a truck and scram! But Lee was determined to get back her confession to Masons murder. So, while she searched for the evidence, Audrey located Monet and dispatched Old Man Polk. Outside, Dylan appeared to be murdered by (if Im not mistaken) Lot, who then drove off in a rush to escape the blood moon.

Story continues

RELATEDAmerican Horror Story Renewed for Season 7 at FX

NOWHERE TO RUN | With nowhere better to hide out, Monet and Audrey fled back to the haunted house. The Brit assumed that, since she had the tape of Mama Polks murder  and, they soon discovered, Lees confession to Masons murder  Lee must be dead. In fact, she wasnt, she had been saved by Scathach, and upon encountering the Instagrammers, killed Todd. The remaining duo were cornered by Dylans ghost in Sidneys production trailer, where, looking at the monitors, they saw Lee heading for the house  and Audrey and Monet!

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POSSESSED | We have to do something, Sophie said as she and Milo observed Lee entering the house. We have to stop her. As the duo headed back into the woods, Monet and Audrey heard a noise and discovered that Lee had returned. You dont belong here, she said, clutching a cleaver and sounding a lot like The Butcher. When Monet called Lee out, Lee pushed her over the stairway railing to her death. By and by, Lee hacked Audrey, too, and shut her in the storm cellar. By then, Sophie and Milo had arrived at the house to see the real Butcher disembowel Dylan.

SURVIVOR: ROANOKE | As the hour neared its conclusion, a title card informed us that we were about to see footage from Todds iCloud. What was it? Sophie and Milo being impaled on stakes and burned alive on Lees orders. The morning after, the police descended on the house and found the kids still-smoldering corpses. And Monets body. And Dominics. And Dylans. Only Lee appeared to still be alive. Who did this to you? a cop asked her. In response, she screamed and pleaded to be taken away from this hellhole. But wait  Audrey was alive, too, it turned out, and just then crawled out of the storm cellar. When Lee approached her, having apparently no recollection of her possession, Audrey grabbed a cops gun. But before she could fire, the police shot her down.

So, what did you think of Chapter 9? And what are you hoping to get out of Asylum survivor Lanas interview with Lee in the finale? Hit the comments.

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American interest in a $10 lot buying program in Manitoba, Canada, has increased since Tuesday night.

The rural village of Reston sells lots for 10 CAD (less than $7.50 USD) to encourage people to move and build in the small community. Tanis Chalmers, economic development officer for the Pipestone municipality, said her office received six inquiries from Americans on Wednesday morning, and a slew of new Facebook likes, CBC reports.

While six inquires in one morning may not seem like a lotit was far more than the one inquiry per day her office receives on average, according to the CBC.

Chalmers said that the U.S. election results are motivating the queries about moving across the border. Especially when they are specifically saying, Im from America. Im looking to move to Canada. You cant help but not think that that is what it is about, Chalmers told CBC.

The Canadian immigration site did, after all, crash under the weight of all the demand as the vote results came in. In a way Im not surprised, Chalmers said, the CBC reports.

However, for those interested, purchasing the lot is not as simple as becoming a landowner for a few dollars. The lots require a $1,000 deposit, $990 of which is returned when you build a house or move onto the land. Canadian citizenship does not come included.

[CBC]
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi government forces killed and tortured civilians south of Mosul, rights groups said on Thursday, in the first such reports of alleged abuse in a U.S.-backed campaign to retake the city from Islamic State. Amnesty International said up to six people were found dead last month in the Shura and Qayyara sub-districts who security forces suspected of ties to the ultra-hardline jihadist group which seized a third of Iraqi territory in 2014. "Men in federal police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul," said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty's Beirut office. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi denied the Amnesty report, saying local residents, not government forces, had killed Islamic State members. He also said the rights group was spreading fear among Iraqis with its reports and would bear responsibility for displacement of people who might flee the city as a result. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 37 men suspected of being affiliated with Islamic State had been detained by Iraqi and Kurdish forces from checkpoints, villages, screening centers and camps for displaced people around Mosul and Hawija, further south. Relatives said they did not know where most of the men were being held and had not been able to contact any of them while in detention, according to the report. HRW said such conduct "significantly increases the risk of other violations", including torture. An Interior Ministry spokesman denied there had been any violations and said Iraqi forces respected human rights and international law. A spokesman for the Kurdish regional government denied the HRW report, saying any delays in informing families were limited due to a shortage of resources. "Nobody has been kept in unknown facilities. They are kept in identified facilities," said Dindar Zebari. The Mosul operation, involving a 100,000-strong alliance of troops, security forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi'ite Muslim militias and backed by U.S.-led air strikes, has entered its fourth week but has so far gained just a small foothold in the city. Amnesty's report described several incidents on or around Oct. 21 in which separate groups of men were beaten with cables and rifle butts before being shot to death. In one case, a man's head had been severed from his body, it said. Amnesty said that, without accountability, the alleged abuses risked being repeated in other towns and villages as the Mosul offensive continues. (Reporting By Stephen Kalin; Editing by John Stonestreet and Nick Macfie)
Amy Adams has spoken about how making this one change affected her whole career

We hear stories about how actresses have to do many things to get roles in Hollywood, and now Amy Adams has spoken about how changing her hair color landed her more jobs.

This isnt the first time that Amy Adams has spoken about her experiences working in the movie industry. The star has previously opened up about how she knew that she was being paid less than her male co-stars when filming American Hustle. Similarly, Adams has also talked about her insecurities when it comes to her career, too.

Now Amy Adams has revealed about how changing her hair color from strawberry blonde to red helped her get roles in Hollywood.

As People report, Adams was speaking at the New York Times-hosted TimesTalk when she made the revelation.

Based on roles that I was getting, called in for, people were responding to certain types of characters with me as a blonde and the minute I went red, it was quirky and fun instead of flirtatious and dumb, Adams said.

Hmm, this doesnt seem okay AT ALL.

Continuing, Adams went on to say that she enjoyed the fact that perceptions of her changed.

In fact, it helped her as an actor.

It was great, I liked that. But in all seriousness, its just hair color. It was really fascinating to see just one element of yourself change peoples perception and that became a very powerful tool for me even in my acting, she said. If you can change one very small thing and create an entirely different perception to the outside world based on one thing, and that was actually an important lesson for me to learn, I didnt quite get that before then.

Adams comments feed into a wider conversation about sexism and misogyny in Hollywood.

In fact, fellow actor Mila Kunis wrote a powerful op-ed for A Plus about the double standards and how she was over not vocalizing her concerns and problems when it came to her career.

Its what we are conditioned to believe  that if we speak up, our livelihoods will be threatened; that standing our ground will lead to our demise. We dont want to be kicked out of the sandbox for being a bitch. So we compromise our integrity for the sake of maintaining the status quo and hope that change is coming, she wrote.

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While Adams doesnt overtly make any comments regarding sexism in the industry, its something that is certainly still prevalent.

The fact that a person can be judged for specific roles over something as surface as hair color seems pretty outdated and ridiculous, especially given how easy it now is to change it. Its a perfect example of the sort of microaggressions that women face on a daily basis.

So, while its great that Adams learned something from the experience, it still seems unfair and kind of ridiculous.

It really changed things up. People began to see me in a different way, for different roles Adams continued. I dont know if I can give credit to just the hair color, but maybe it did help people see me past blonde.

The post Amy Adams has spoken about how making this one change affected her whole career appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Shares of Anthera Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ANTH) lost roughly one-third of their value on Thursday after the company gave an update on its late-stage Lupus clinical trial. The company announced that the CHABLIS-SC1 clinical trial with blisibimod for the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) failed to meet its primary endpoint.

Although 47% of patients in the blisibimod arm versus 42% of patients in the placebo arm achieved this endpoint, the difference was not statistically significant.

The SRI is a composite index comprised of SELENA-SLEDAI, BILAG and Physician Global Assessment criteria. A SRI-6 response requires a decrease of at least six points in SELENA-SLEDAI. The magnitude of blisibimod treatment effects for other SLE Response (SRI-4, and SRI-8) also did not achieve statistical significance.

ALSO READ: 9 Big Losers From Hillary Clinton Not Winning the White House

Serum biological markers, including B-cells, immunoglobulins and complement, demonstrated statistically significant treatment effects consistent with expectations and previous blisibimod clinical studies in lupus and IgA nephropathy. Adverse events between the blisibimod and placebo treatment arms were well balanced and blisibimod was generally well tolerated.

William Shanahan, M.D., Antheras chief medical officer, commented:

We are disappointed that the results did not demonstrate a meaningful improvement in patients disease activity as assessed by SRI endpoints. We would like to thank the patients, caregivers, investigators and key opinion leaders who made the CHABLIS-SC1 clinical study possible. It has yielded significant amounts of data which we look forward to sharing with the scientific community in the future which we believe will help to further inform the development of treatments for severe lupus.

ALSO READ: The Next 14 States to Legalize Marijuana

Excluding Thursdays move, Anthera has underperformed the market, with the stock down 40% year to date.

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Shares of Anthera were last seen down 34% at $1.81, with a consensus analyst price target of $9.80 and a 52-week trading range of $1.83 to $6.08.

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Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the U.S. on Wednesday to protest against Donald Trump following his surprise defeat of Hillary Clinton in Tuesdays presidential election.

Disappointed voters in New York City and Chicago marched into the night, denouncing the President-elects rhetoric on immigrants, Muslims and other minority groups. Chants of not my President! were heard in cities nationwide.

The largest demonstrations looked to be in New York City, where thousands marched from various sites throughout the city and converged at the foot of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan. Dump trucks lined the street leading up to the President-elects lavish 5th Avenue residence to guard the peaceful demonstrators, according to the New York Times.

Im more than a little nervous about the future, Blanca Torres, an anthropology student, told the Times. We all want to have conversations with each other, to figure out how to move forward. Theres a whole new reality out there for us now.

In downtown Chicago and Washington, D.C., crowds also amassed outside Trump International Hotels. In Chicago, protesters chanted: No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA. NBC Washington reports that some protesters vandalized a number of sites in the capital and several arrests were made. Outside the White House, people gathered for a peaceful candle-lit vigil, where they chanted, sang and prayed.

"Build a wall, we'll tear it down!" American flags flap in the wind above as protesters chant at Trump Hotel in DC pic.twitter.com/g8hrgwGFFH  Natalie DiBlasio (@ndiblasio) November 10, 2016

Protests also sprung up in Oakland, Calif.; Seattle; Pittsburgh; Austin; Dallas; Philadelphia; Portland; Providence, R.I.; Atlanta; St. Paul, Minn.; and several cities around the world. The demonstrations were mostly peaceful, but there were pockets of unrest. Police in Oakland fired tear gas at protesters who threw projectiles and firecrackers at officers, reports KTVU. There were also reports of smashed storefront windows and protesters setting garbage cans on fire.

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In Miami, a city home to many immigrants and a Democrat stronghold in a state that voted red on Tuesday, women of color rallied at a monument known as the Torch of Friendship, CBS reports.

We are all afraid of what may come, but we are stronger when we are organized, one protester said.

Dozens gathered in Lee Circle in New Orleans, the Times-Picayune reports, where they rallied as well. During the protests, some people wrote anti-Trump messages on a monument of General Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate Army in the Civil War. The windows of a bank were also shattered during a subsequent march, but it is unclear if that was done by participants, as some described it as a peaceful protest.

Protestors allegedly vandalized two statues of Civil War heroes Jefferson Davis and Matthew Fontaine Maury in Richmond, Va., by spray painting the words Your vote was a hate crime on them. Hundreds marched and 10 were arrested in Richmond, CBS 6 reports.

Further up the East Coast in Massachusetts, about 4,000 people gathered at Boston Common and marched to the State House. Police described the protest as peaceful in nature, according to Boston.com. Social media users noted that the crowds had begun to chant popular vote! in reference to Clintons apparent lead in actual ballots. She lost on the delegate count despite being forecast to win more votes than Trump.

The West Coast simmered, as well. Hundreds of Latino high school students staged walkouts in Los Angeles, where they marched to City Hall. Many of the students were children of immigrants who had entered the U.S. illegally seeking a better future, school officials told Reuters.

That is a lot of people, Oakland. pic.twitter.com/ympBWtPGBn  Alexis C. Madrigal (@alexismadrigal) November 10, 2016

U.S. Route 101, a freeway that winds along the coast of Washington State, Oregon and California, was brought to a standstill by hundreds of people in Los Angeles. Traffic was backed up for miles and the California Highway Patrol were responding, the Los Angeles Times reports. As in other towns, cries of hands up, dont shoot! and respect all women burst from the crowd.

In Portland, dozens of demonstrators blocked traffic and burned American flags, the Associated Press reports. Hundreds filled the streets of downtown Seattle, many holding signs that read Black Lives Matter and some chanted the phrase the people, united, will never be defeated!

Deep in the countrys heartland, Texas joined in demonstration. NBC reports that some 200 people attended an anti-Trump rally through the streets of downtown Dallas, some holding signs with slogans such as spirit unbreakable. The rally was reportedly organized by a group of activists called the Next Generation Action Network.

Read More: The Making of President Donald Trump

Trump stunned Americans at home and abroad on Tuesday when he beat opponent Hillary Clinton following what has been considered the most polarized and fraught U.S. election in modern memory. Clinton was widely expected to clinch the victory and become the first female President in U.S. history.

Throughout the campaign period, Trump came under fierce criticism for his zero-tolerance stance on immigration and remarks he has made about both women and minorities.
Apple CEO Tim Cook sent a memo on Wednesday night to all US Apple employees about Republican Donald Trump's election victory for the presidency, Buzzfeed reported on Thursday morning.

Cook personally raised funds for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in August, and Apple withdrew financial support for the Republican National Convention, where Trump accepted his party's nomination.

The memo does not mention Trump by name, and although it contains some language about celebrating diversity, it doesn't include a direct response to some of Trump's stated policy positions, such as limiting immigration.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment about a public response to Trump's victory.

Read the memo below:

Team,

Ive heard from many of you today about the presidential election. In a political contest where the candidates were so different and each received a similar number of popular votes, its inevitable that the aftermath leaves many of you with strong feelings.

We have a very diverse team of employees, including supporters of each of the candidates. Regardless of which candidate each of us supported as individuals, the only way to move forward is to move forward together. I recall something Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said 50 years ago: If you cant fly, then run. If you cant run, then walk. If you cant walk, then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. This advice is timeless, and a reminder that we only do great work and improve the world by moving forward.

While there is discussion today about uncertainties ahead, you can be confident that Apples North Star hasnt changed. Our products connect people everywhere, and they provide the tools for our customers to do great things to improve their lives and the world at large. Our company is open to all, and we celebrate the diversity of our team here in the United States and around the world  regardless of what they look like, where they come from, how they worship or who they love.

Story continues

Ive always looked at Apple as one big family and I encourage you to reach out to your co-workers if they are feeling anxious.

Lets move forward  together!

Best,

Tim

NOW WATCH: A mysterious cloud moving 700,000 mph is going to collide with our galaxy  here's what will happen





More From Business Insider
PARIS (Reuters) - French state-controlled nuclear group Areva (AREVA.PA) is making progress in talks with European Union regulators over its restructuring and it is confident its recapitalisation will be carried out in 2017, said the chairman of the group.

Areva is planning a 5 billion euro (4.39 billion) capital increase to restore its finances.

Areva Chairman Philippe Varin added on Thursday that the company was making progress in discussions with potential partners.

"The talks are progressing and they are progressing positively," Varin said on the sidelines of a conference in Paris.

(Reporting by Benjamin Mallet; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)
With six full-length albums, a Grammy nod and multiple treks around the world, Armin van Buuren will commemorate his 20th anniversary in music with a special ' The Best of Armin Only' show set for May 13, 2017.

Armin will return to his stomping grounds to celebrate his career with a retrospective performance at the Amsterdam ArenA, his first solo show at the famed venue.

"I feel blessed with such an incredible fan base, and wherever the destination, you have always been there for me," says van Buuren. "This show brings everything together for me. It is a milestone to celebrate the highlights of all these past years: with my beloved fans, in my own country, in the Amsterdam ArenA. It is going to be a night to remember forever."

The artist is currently on his Armin Only tour in support of his 2015 sixth album Embrace, making stops in China, Germany, Russia.

The word is out! Join me at my biggest solo show ever in the Amsterdam ArenA on 13 May 2017. #SomethingBig #ArminOnly pic.twitter.com/vRfFmUlveS

- Armin van Buuren (@arminvanbuuren) November 10, 2016

Pre-sale tickets for "The Best of Armin" show will be available on Nov. 24 at https://www.arminonly.com/.
With six full-length albums, a Grammy nod and multiple treks around the world, Armin van Buuren will commemorate his 20th anniversary in music with exclusive US tour dates and a special 'The Best of Armin Only' show set for May 13, 2017.

Next year, Armin will bring his Armin Only Embrace world tour to Oakland's Oracle Arena and Los Angeles' The Forum on Feb. 3 and 4, respectively. The Dutch artist will also return to his stomping grounds to celebrate the anniversary with a career retrospective performance at the Amsterdam ArenA, his first solo show at the famed venue.

"I feel blessed with such an incredible fan base, and wherever the destination, you have always been there for me," says van Buuren. "This show brings everything together for me. It is a milestone to celebrate the highlights of all these past years: with my beloved fans, in my own country, in the Amsterdam ArenA. It is going to be a night to remember forever."

The word is out! Join me at my biggest solo show ever in the Amsterdam ArenA on 13 May 2017. #SomethingBig #ArminOnly pic.twitter.com/vRfFmUlveS

- Armin van Buuren (@arminvanbuuren) November 10, 2016

Tickets for Armin's US tour dates are now available at Insomniac.com/ArminOnly. Pre-sale tickets for "The Best of Armin" show will be available on Nov. 24 at https://www.arminonly.com/.
(Corrects timeline for drilling under Lake Oahe to 90 to 120 days, not 100 days)

By Liz Hampton

HOUSTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Energy Transfer Partners on Thursday said an easement from the Army Corps of Engineers to drill under Lake Oahe will unlock an additional $1.4 billion in financing for its Dakota Access Pipeline.

The company has already drawn $1.1 billion from its $2.5 billion credit facility but needs the easement, a right to use the property without possessing it, to access the remaining $1.4 billion. Energy Transfer expects the U.S. government to make a decision on the Dakota Access "anytime" now, executives said on Thursday during the company's third-quarter earnings call.

The company this week said it was mobilizing equipment to drill under Lake Oahe, the water source that has been a focus of the protests surrounding the project. The mobilization will take two weeks, after which the company expects to begin construction.

Drilling under the lake will take about 90 to 120 days, executives said on Thursday.

Banks financing the $3.7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline have come under increased pressure from activists to pull their support of the project amid concerns that the line will destory sacred lands and that a spill might contaminate drinking water.

Earlier this week, Norwegian bank DNB said it would recondsider its participation in finanacing the project if the concerns of tribes were not addressed. Meanwhile, Citigroup Inc on Tuesday said it had discussed its concerns with Energy Transfer and urged the company to reach a resolution with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

Tuesday's election of Republican Donald Trump, who has voiced support for other pipeline projects such as TransCanada's Keystone XL, may be a positive development for the Dakota Access, which saw construction halted in North Dakota by the U.S. government in September.

Energy Transfer Chief Executive Kelcy Warren on Wednesday said the election's outcome was "favorable" for the Dakota Access project as well as other energy infrastructure projects.

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The company said on Thursday it was still working to get firm shipping commitments for the 570,000-barrel-per-day pipeline, adding that the system is contracted over the 450,000 bpd previously disclosed.

The 1,172-mile (1,885 km)pipeline will transport crude from the Bakken shale of North Dakota to the Midwest, and connect to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)
(Adds details about protests planned at Army Corps offices around the United States, Energy Transfer stock move)

By Liz Hampton

HOUSTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Energy Transfer Partners on Thursday said an easement from the Army Corps of Engineers to drill under Lake Oahe would unlock an additional $1.4 billion in financing for its Dakota Access Pipeline.

The company has already drawn $1.1 billion from its $2.5 billion credit facility but needs the easement, a right to use the property without possessing it, to access the remaining $1.4 billion required for the project. Energy Transfer expects the U.S. government to make a decision on whether to grant the easement for Dakota Access "anytime" now, executives said on Thursday during the company's third-quarter earnings call.

Banks financing the $3.7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline have come under increased pressure from activists to pull their support of the project amid concerns that the line would desecrate sacred lands and that a spill might contaminate drinking water.

Energy Transfer this week said it was mobilizing equipment to drill under Lake Oahe, the water source that has been a focus of the protests surrounding the project, in anticipation of being granted the easement. The mobilization will take two weeks, after which the company expects to begin construction.

Drilling under the lake would take about 90 to 120 days, executives said on Thursday, which would put the pipeline on track to begin service in the first quarter of 2017.

Earlier this week, Norwegian bank DNB said it would reconsider its participation in financing the project if the concerns of tribes were not addressed. Meanwhile, Citigroup Inc on Tuesday said it had discussed its concerns with Energy Transfer and urged the company to reach a resolution with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

Environmental and Native American groups opposed to the pipeline are planning massive protests around the country on Nov. 15 at offices of the Army Corps of Engineers.

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Protestors believe the federal agency, which is responsible for the easement, "'fast-tracked' the Dakota Access Pipeline approval process, neglecting tribal consultation and environmental review," according to a statement released this week by CREDO Action, an activist network opposed to the project.

Tuesday's election of Republican Donald Trump, who has voiced support for other pipeline projects such as TransCanada's Keystone XL, may be a positive development for the Dakota Access, which saw construction halted by the U.S. government in September.

Energy Transfer Chief Executive Kelcy Warren on Wednesday said the election's outcome was "favorable" for the Dakota Access project as well as other energy infrastructure projects.

Shares of Energy Transfer were up more than 3 percent on Thursday, trading around $38 per share, the highest level since early September, when the U.S. congress halted construction on the project.

The company said on Thursday it was still working to get firm shipping commitments for the 570,000-barrel-per-day pipeline, adding that the system is contracted over the 450,000 bpd previously disclosed.

The 1,172-mile (1,885 km)pipeline will transport crude from the Bakken shale of North Dakota to the Midwest, and connect to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Andrew Hay)
* First full quarter of Crestor generics in U.S. market

* Tax gain, cost cuts, externalisation offset sales fall

* Q3 revenue $5.7 billion vs consensus $5.9 billion

* Q3 core EPS $1.32 vs consensus 97 cents (Adds comments by CEO on U.S. market, analyst's comment, updates share price)

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Drugmaker AstraZeneca expects major U.S. healthcare changes after Donald Trump's election victory but its chief executive warned on Thursday that pricing pressures in the world's biggest drugs market would not go away.

Drug stocks surged on Trump's surprise win as fears of tough action on prices subsided, given the Republican president-elect's focus on scrapping Obamacare rather than bearing down hard on drugmakers as Democrats demanded.

"Nobody knows what the new landscape will look like. It's reasonable to assume it will change substantially," Pascal Soriot told reporters.

"The U.S. has always been a country that supports innovation and new differentiated medicines, and we hope it will remain the same. But we also believe we will continue to have to deal with price pressures."

His comments came as AstraZeneca reported lower third-quarter sales, hit by competition from multiple generic versions of its cholesterol fighter Crestor. Earnings, however, were propped up by a one-off tax gain, cost cuts and income from disposals.

The drugmaker enjoyed a tax benefit of $453 million due to agreements on transfer pricing arrangements between Canadian, British and Swedish tax authorities.

Revenue in the quarter declined 4 percent to $5.7 billion but core earnings per share (EPS), which exclude some items, rose 28 percent to $1.32.

Industry analysts had, on average, forecast quarterly revenue of $5.90 billion and earnings of 97 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters.

Shares in AstraZeneca fell 3 percent by 1130 GMT as investors looked through the 36-cents-a-share tax windfall to the weaker-than-expected results.

The group reiterated its forecast of a low to mid single-digit percentage decline in both revenue and core earnings at constant exchange rates for the full year.

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"Today's results were a little soft versus expectations but key growth drivers reassured as the company heads into its most challenging period," said Deutsche Bank analyst Richard Parkes, who recommends buying the stock.

INFLECTION POINT

Sales of new cancer drugs Tagrisso and Lynparza were bright spots in the quarter, while income from "externalisation" deals, involving the sale of certain rights to products, totalled $674 million.

Selling, general and administrative costs fell by 12 percent to $1.9 billion as the company increased its focus on its primary therapy areas. Research spending was stable at $1.3 billion.

"We are still dealing with the formidable patent expiry challenge but we are showing we can deal with it and the inflection point is not that far away," Soriot said.

AstraZeneca expects to return to growth in the second half of 2017, with no patent expiries then expected until 2024.

Its long-term prospects hinge on its roster of new cancer drugs, with investors focused especially on a trial combining the immunotherapies durvalumab and tremelimumab, which will report initial results in lung cancer in the first half of 2017.

The recent failure of Bristol-Myers Squibb's rival immunotherapy Opdivo in previously untreated lung patients has opened up the market opportunity, but there is no certainty AstraZeneca's trial will hit its goal.

A sharp share price fall last month on a setback in two studies testing durvalumab in treating head and neck cancers shows the nervousness surrounding the firm's big cancer bet.

On the research front, AstraZeneca said it now expected the first submission for regulatory approval of its new blood cancer drug acalabrutinib to be made in the first half of 2017.

It also said it had given up on the idea of seeking an early approval of durvalumab in head and neck cancer, although this would not affect prospects for its use in a combination therapy treatment for lung cancer.

Unlike British rival GlaxoSmithKline, which has lower-risk businesses such as consumer healthcare to buttress risky drug research, AstraZeneca is focused solely on finding new prescription medicines.

Soriot saw off a $100 billion takeover attempt by Pfizer in 2014 but the company has remained subject to takeover speculation.

(Editing by Jane Merriman, Greg Mahlich)
LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Competition from multiple generic versions of its cholesterol fighter Crestor hit AstraZeneca's third-quarter sales but the drugmaker mitigated the damage with income from disposals and good growth in new products.

Revenue declined 4 percent $5.7 billion but core earnings per share (EPS), which exclude some items, rose 28 percent to $1.32, the British group said on Thursday.

Industry analysts had on average forecast quarterly revenue of $5.90 billion and earnings of 97 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters.

For the full year AstraZeneca reiterated its forecast of a low to mid single-digit percentage decline in both revenue and core earnings at constant exchange rates.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
By Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein and Christine Murray

TIJUANA, Mexico/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - From avocado orchards to border factories, Mexican exporters who have prospered under two decades of NAFTA face the prospect of an abrupt end to the boom if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump carries out his threats to ditch the free trade pact.

Trump says the North American Free Trade Agreement favors Mexico at the expense of U.S. workers and has vowed to either rewrite or withdraw from the deal, as well as build a giant border wall and possibly slap steep tariffs on imports.

Since the treaty took effect in 1994, Mexican exports to the United States have jumped six-fold to some $320 billion a year, transforming a once-closed economy into a hub for investment and a workshop for some of the world's biggest companies.

So business leaders there were stunned as Trump romped to victory on Tuesday night, upsetting the widespread expectation in Mexico that his candidacy would fade.

(We) couldnt believe what was unfolding before our eyes, said Marcello Hinojosa, president of the Canacintra industrial chamber in Tijuana, the border city whose economy is based on a mix of U.S. tourism and assembly plants.

"Our main partner where we export is the United States. So if we take that away were going to have a lot of unemployment, were going to have a really big trade deficit," said Hinojosa, who runs a company that collects factory waste.

Further south, on the outskirts of the city of Leon, Rosendo Castillo, business director of leather exporter WYNY, whose customers include global retailers like Hugo Boss (BOSSn.DE) and Inditex's (ITX.MC) Zara unit, fretted about a potential blow to sales that are six times higher than when NAFTA began.

"It would really jeopardize the business" if the deal were rescinded, Castillo said, adding that WYNY, whose sales reached $120 million last year, was "not very successful" before NAFTA.

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 35 percent on Mexican-made goods and said he would scrap NAFTA if he cannot renegotiate what he calls the "worst deal ever."

Story continues

His victory has also put new pressure on automakers and other manufacturers that have become dependent on open trade with Mexico.

If NAFTA is scrapped, "it would be terrible" for the members of the Automotive Cluster of Nuevo Leon, said the group's director, Manuel Montoya. Nuevo Leon is a northern state bordering the United States.

And it would hurt consumers, he said.

"Cars made in Mexico are $3,000 cheaper than in the United States, I don't know if North Americans are prepared to pay $3,000 more for every car they buy," Montoya said.

In announcing his campaign in June 2015, Trump vowed to block Ford from opening a new plant in Mexico and threatened to impose tariffs on cars it shipped back across the border.

Those moves could add $5,000 or more to the price of a small car from Mexico said Charles Chesbrough, senior economist at the Detroit-based Original Equipment Suppliers Association trade group.

A relative minnow in manufacturing before NAFTA, Mexico has become one of the world's biggest and fastest-growing carmakers, surging past wealthier European economies and establishing itself as an indispensable part of the global supply chain.

Excluding China, Mexico and the United States are the only two of the world's top 10 automakers to have increased motor vehicle production in each of the last five years, according to data from international trade body OICA.

During the campaign, Trump raged against U.S. carmakers like General Motors Corp (GM.N) and Ford Motor Co (F.N) for investing in Mexico.

Ford on Wednesday vowed to work with Trump "to support economic growth and jobs." GM similarly said it looked forward to working with Trump on "policies that support a strong and competitive U.S. manufacturing base."

GREEN GOLD

NAFTA brought mixed results for Mexican agriculture, with the sector suffering a net loss of 1.9 million jobs between 1991 to 2007 in the face of competition from U.S. agribusiness, according to a 2014 study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

But there have been clear winners too, such as avocado farmers who since 2007 have been able to sell their fashionable fruit north of the border, triggering a "green gold" rush that some say has stemmed migration and crime in some of Mexico's most troubled regions.

Mexico exported more than 1.7 billion pounds (771,000 tonnes) of the fruit to the United States in 2015, more than six times the amount a decade earlier, according to the Hass Avocado Board.

The United States has overtaken Mexico as the world's top avocado consumer, said Ramon Paz, spokesman for an avocado growers group in Michoacan state.

Paz said his members were so worried about protectionism under Trump that they had hired lobbyists in Washington.

"We would have to redirect out production to other places," if NAFTA was scuttled, said Paz. "In particular Europe, Canada, Japan and China."

He said growers were also worried about Trump's position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country trade deal from which the president-elect has vowed to withdraw.

"That is generally bad news," said Paz, adding that TPP, which Mexico has also signed, would open up the possibility of exporting to new markets like Australia.

Even farmers who might see some benefits from a protectionist turn in U.S. policy are spooked by Trump's threat to scrap the treaty.

If Trump started a trade war that slowed such imports, it would probably boost local demand for domestic potatoes, which have battled to compete with processed imports from the United States and Canada, said Bosco de la Vega, a partner in Agro Groppo, a potato producer in the northern state of Sinaloa.

But the repercussions for the rest of the economy would be far more serious, he added.

The competitiveness of the entire continent depends on avoiding moves that hurt producers and consumers alike, said Jaime Serra, who as trade minister in the early 1990s led Mexico's NAFTA negotiations.

"The prevailing rhetoric in the United States is completely myopic," said Serra. "It's not that we're on one side of the table and the others are on the opposite side: we're both on the same side of the table now."

(Additional reporting by Adriana Barrera and Dave Graham in Mexico, Paul Lienert in Detroit and Meredith Davis in Chicago; Editing by Christian Plumb and James Dalgleish)
By Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein and Christine Murray TIJUANA, Mexico/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - From avocado orchards to border factories, Mexican exporters who have prospered under two decades of NAFTA face the prospect of an abrupt end to the boom if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump carries out his threats to ditch the free trade pact. Trump says the North American Free Trade Agreement favors Mexico at the expense of U.S. workers and has vowed to either rewrite or withdraw from the deal, as well as build a giant border wall and possibly slap steep tariffs on imports. Since the treaty took effect in 1994, Mexican exports to the United States have jumped six-fold to some $320 billion a year, transforming a once-closed economy into a hub for investment and a workshop for some of the world's biggest companies. So business leaders there were stunned as Trump romped to victory on Tuesday night, upsetting the widespread expectation in Mexico that his candidacy would fade. (We) couldnt believe what was unfolding before our eyes, said Marcello Hinojosa, president of the Canacintra industrial chamber in Tijuana, the border city whose economy is based on a mix of U.S. tourism and assembly plants. "Our main partner where we export is the United States. So if we take that away were going to have a lot of unemployment, were going to have a really big trade deficit," said Hinojosa, who runs a company that collects factory waste. Further south, on the outskirts of the city of Leon, Rosendo Castillo, business director of leather exporter WYNY, whose customers include global retailers like Hugo Boss and Inditex's Zara unit, fretted about a potential blow to sales that are six times higher than when NAFTA began. "It would really jeopardize the business" if the deal were rescinded, Castillo said, adding that WYNY, whose sales reached $120 million last year, was "not very successful" before NAFTA. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 35 percent on Mexican-made goods and said he would scrap NAFTA if he cannot renegotiate what he calls the "worst deal ever." His victory has also put new pressure on automakers and other manufacturers that have become dependent on open trade with Mexico. If NAFTA is scrapped, "it would be terrible" for the members of the Automotive Cluster of Nuevo Leon, said the group's director, Manuel Montoya. Nuevo Leon is a northern state bordering the United States. And it would hurt consumers, he said. "Cars made in Mexico are $3,000 cheaper than in the United States, I don't know if North Americans are prepared to pay $3,000 more for every car they buy," Montoya said. In announcing his campaign in June 2015, Trump vowed to block Ford from opening a new plant in Mexico and threatened to impose tariffs on cars it shipped back across the border. Those moves could add $5,000 or more to the price of a small car from Mexico said Charles Chesbrough, senior economist at the Detroit-based Original Equipment Suppliers Association trade group. A relative minnow in manufacturing before NAFTA, Mexico has become one of the world's biggest and fastest-growing carmakers, surging past wealthier European economies and establishing itself as an indispensable part of the global supply chain. Excluding China, Mexico and the United States are the only two of the world's top 10 automakers to have increased motor vehicle production in each of the last five years, according to data from international trade body OICA. During the campaign, Trump raged against U.S. carmakers like General Motors Corp and Ford Motor Co for investing in Mexico. Ford on Wednesday vowed to work with Trump "to support economic growth and jobs." GM similarly said it looked forward to working with Trump on "policies that support a strong and competitive U.S. manufacturing base." GREEN GOLD NAFTA brought mixed results for Mexican agriculture, with the sector suffering a net loss of 1.9 million jobs between 1991 to 2007 in the face of competition from U.S. agribusiness, according to a 2014 study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. But there have been clear winners too, such as avocado farmers who since 2007 have been able to sell their fashionable fruit north of the border, triggering a "green gold" rush that some say has stemmed migration and crime in some of Mexico's most troubled regions. Mexico exported more than 1.7 billion pounds (771,000 tonnes) of the fruit to the United States in 2015, more than six times the amount a decade earlier, according to the Hass Avocado Board. The United States has overtaken Mexico as the world's top avocado consumer, said Ramon Paz, spokesman for an avocado growers group in Michoacan state. Paz said his members were so worried about protectionism under Trump that they had hired lobbyists in Washington. "We would have to redirect out production to other places," if NAFTA was scuttled, said Paz. "In particular Europe, Canada, Japan and China." He said growers were also worried about Trump's position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country trade deal from which the president-elect has vowed to withdraw. "That is generally bad news," said Paz, adding that TPP, which Mexico has also signed, would open up the possibility of exporting to new markets like Australia. Even farmers who might see some benefits from a protectionist turn in U.S. policy are spooked by Trump's threat to scrap the treaty. If Trump started a trade war that slowed such imports, it would probably boost local demand for domestic potatoes, which have battled to compete with processed imports from the United States and Canada, said Bosco de la Vega, a partner in Agro Groppo, a potato producer in the northern state of Sinaloa. But the repercussions for the rest of the economy would be far more serious, he added. The competitiveness of the entire continent depends on avoiding moves that hurt producers and consumers alike, said Jaime Serra, who as trade minister in the early 1990s led Mexico's NAFTA negotiations. "The prevailing rhetoric in the United States is completely myopic," said Serra. "It's not that we're on one side of the table and the others are on the opposite side: we're both on the same side of the table now." (Additional reporting by Adriana Barrera and Dave Graham in Mexico, Paul Lienert in Detroit and Meredith Davis in Chicago; Editing by Christian Plumb and James Dalgleish)
Washington (AFP) - US Senator Kelly Ayotte conceded to her Democratic challenger on Wednesday, making her the third Republican to lose a Senate race in a battleground state after refusing to endorse Donald Trump.

Ayotte's defeat to Governor Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire means another pick-up for the Democrats in the battle for control of the Senate.

But Republicans outperformed expectations in Tuesday's election and kept their grip on the chamber, with a likely final tally of 52 Republicans to 48 Democrats.

The two New Hampshire rivals were separated by just 600 votes by mid-afternoon Wednesday, some 22 hours after polls closed in the US election that saw Republican presidential nominee Trump deliver a stunning defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Ayotte called Hassan on Wednesday and conceded the race, US media reported.

Republican lawmakers had debated their strategy in recent months given the toxic rhetoric emanating from Trump, who had called Mexicans rapists, demeaned women and vowed to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Some, particularly in swing states, strategized about whether to endorse Trump and incur the wrath of angry independent voters, or reject him and risk a backlash from his supporters.

After last month's release of a 2005 video clip that caught Trump making vulgar remarks about women, Ayotte and Joe Heck, a congressman who lost his Senate bid Tuesday in Nevada, were among the first Republican lawmakers to reject the party's presidential nominee.

Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, locked in a tight battle with Iraq war veteran congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, had rejected Trump months earlier. Kirk was trounced by Duckworth on Tuesday.

Republican senators in safe re-election bids, such as John Thune of South Dakota and Mark Crap of Idaho, severely criticized Trump after the video clip remarks went public.

But within days they reversed course and re-endorsed the nominee, and handily won re-election.
Marion Cotillard on the red carpet. (Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

The red carpet was a little bumpy last night. Two glowing expectant actresses attended events with their cute pregnancy bumps on full display.

First, Marion Cotillard attended a fan event for her new film, Allied. She wore a floor-length, sleeveless, navy-blue gown that clung to her curves but still flowed. It looked like the perfect option for a pregnant women working the red carpet: loose without being frumpy, elegant without being uncomfortable.

Photo: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Next we have Natalie Portman. She attended the 30th Israel Film Festival Anniversary Gala Awards Dinner, bump in tow. While she also went with a loose look, hers was a bit more daring, but she pulled it off. In a belted, white floor-length gown with blue stripes and bell sleeves, Portman floated over the carpet. A tie rested right above her belly, which accentuated it just the right amount. Portman looked breezy and comfortable.

Both actresses are pregnant for the second time, and their mastered comfy-elegant looks show theyve done this before.

Photo: Allen Berezovsky/WireImage

While they walked different carpets last night, they watched the same runway this past September during Paris Fashion Week, when they both attended the Dior show. Cotillard had just announced her second pregnancy and gave us a taste of the cozy-chic fashion we would see more of from her in the coming months: a slouchy white dress featuring ruched detailing. She wore the look over a printed slip. Portman, who also broke news of her pregnancy shortly before the show, was more covert in an elegant black peacoat over a barely visible silvery knee-length dress.

We love the low key, Yes, Im pregnant, but no, Im not going to put my bump on display like a crystal ball attitude.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.




Getty / New Balance

While half of the United States is still coming to terms with a Donald Trump presidency, its clear New Balance is very excited about it.

SoleCollector notes that New Balance is the first major sportswear company to back the president-elect since winning the race for president on early Wednesday morning.

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Many companies are making public statements about president-elect Trump and what his presidency will mean for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. While Nike issued what amounts to a non-statement about the future of the trade deal, New Balance minced no words about what they feel is a failure of the current Obama administration to protect American business interests.

New Balance: "The Obama admin turned a deaf ear to us & frankly w/ Pres-Elect Trump we feel things are going to move in the right direction"  Sara Germano (@germanotes) November 9, 2016

The Boston-based companys disdain for TPP is nothing new. In April, NPRs All Things Considered did a story about the companys criticism of the trade deal.

New Balance has made it a company priority to make some of its shoes in the U.S., and New Balance gets a benefit from it  their competitors pay the tariff, the tax. New Balance, on its American-made shoes, does not. At least, until the TPP came along. Part of the trade deal is that tariffs on shoes from Vietnam will be phased out, and that is a huge boost to companies that import their shoes. Think Nike or Adidas. And frankly, its good for some shoe buyers.

Featured in the story is Matt LeBretton, the vice president of public affairs that was quoted in Germanos tweet on Wednesday. LeBretton said in April that the trade ambassadors trying to pass TPP offered New Balance a military contract to quell the companys rumblings of concern about the trade agreement, which is still stalled in congress.

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Heres how the story played out on All Things Considered:

LEBRETTON: The hook to that was that we werent  we were told that we werent to speak about this publicly in any way, shape or form. And we werent to criticize the TPP or the administration in any way, shape or form. We took the deal. SMITH: And so when the TPP was being negotiated, New Balance kept its objections to itself and hoped to get a meeting with the military about those shoes. The meeting never came. LEBRETTON: We couldnt even get in the front door. I mean, they wouldnt even let us in the parking lot.

Whether New Balance had reason to be upset about its lack of military contract or not, they will get their way. Most experts say TPP  which was seven years in the making and consisted of 11 other nations around the world  is dead and buried now that Trump will take office on Jan. 20 of next year.

The death of TPP means that your next pair of New Balances may be entirely made in America. Though, depending on how you voted your current pair of NBs could be your last.
The world's second-largest economy is US president-elect Donald Trump's designated bogeyman, threatening it on the campaign trail with tariffs for stealing American jobs, but analysts say US protectionism could create opportunities for Beijing.

For months Trump has railed against China's trade practices, saying it artificially lowers its currency to boost its exporters at the cost of American manufacturing jobs, and threatening to levy a 45 percent tariff on all Chinese-made goods.

He also denounced the Obama administration's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement with Asia-Pacific economies -- excluding China -- that accounts for nearly 40 percent of the global economy.

Before the election two of Trump's advisors wrote in Foreign Policy magazine that he would "never again sacrifice the US economy on the altar of foreign policy by entering into bad trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement, allowing China into the World Trade Organization, and passing the proposed TPP".

The TPP has yet to be ratified by the US and "is now dead", said Mark Williams of Capital Economics.

The demise of that deal, intended to bolster US influence in the region, hands Beijing an opportunity to forge an Asia-focused trade agreement of its own that "excludes the US", he added.

Moreover, "if the US is less engaged in Asia, Beijing will have an opportunity to shape regional political and economic integration on its own terms".

- US retreat -

China has already embarked on negotiations to create the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a free trade area encompassing the southeast Asian grouping ASEAN, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Something of a mirror image to TPP, it includes six of the Washington-led grouping's 12 members -- but not the US.

It would encompass more than three billion people and Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop told media Thursday that if TPP does fail, "then the vacuum that would be created is most likely to be filled by RCEP".

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Any retreat from trade and engagement by the US could also send its business partners into the arms of Beijing, which regularly offers countries soft loans to encourage deals and has urged its companies to expand overseas and compete directly with foreign firms.

President Xi Jinping's signature One Belt One Road initiative has already made inroads for Chinese construction and industrial firms in central Asia, aided by generous loans from state-owned banks.

- Trade war -

Trump's threat of a 45 percent tariff on all Chinese-made goods could set off a trade war between the world's top two economies.

The immediate impact would be felt first by China, which has long enjoyed a substantial trade surplus with the US.

Daiwa Capital Markets analyst Kevin Lai said in a note that a 45 percent tariff would see Chinese exports to the world's largest economy plummet by 87 percent, or $420 billion.

Even a "watered-down" 15 percent tariff would see them fall by 31 percent, he said, according to Bloomberg News, eventually costing China 1.75 percent of its GDP.

Labour-intensive exports such as agricultural products, iron and steel would be hit hardest, Lu Zhengwei, chief economist at Industrial Bank, told AFP.

But with the Asian giant a key driver of global growth, the ramifications would ripple across the world and ultimately rebound on the US.

US corporations and legislators would likely lobby against disruptions to trade, Christopher Balding of Peking University's business school told AFP.

"I don't think it is feasible as a matter of politics, and I don't think it is feasible as a matter of legal authority," he said, "even if it seems that with Trump there is nothing you can't rule out."

Moreover, such tariffs would probably prompt a strong response from Beijing, said Raymond Yeung, chief China economist at ANZ Research.

"Any trade retaliation by China against the US could actually hurt US interests severely," he said.

Asked about Trump's tariff threat, China's foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters Thursday that the 200-fold expansion in bilateral trade between the two countries in recent decades had been mutually beneficial.

"Any statesman in the US who has his people's and his country's interests in mind will make the right decision," he said.
The siege of Petersburg, Virginia, dragged on for 10 months, the longest siege in American military history. Beginning in March 1864, Union forces tried and failed to break the entrenched Confederate forces. By July, the Federals believed that they had seized on a plan that just might break the Rebel linesthey would dig a tunnel underneath the Confederate fortifications, then detonate a massive bomb, allowing their forces to rush into the breach and break the stalemate.

The engagement was catastrophe, as black and white Union soldiers would end up trapped in the crater fighting for their lives, while white soldiers turned on their comrades and sought mercy from the Rebels. Black Union soldiers were fighting for a Republic whose principles did not yet apply to them.

Black Union soldiers were meant to be key to the operation from the beginning. The decision to recruit them was controversialmany white Union soldiers did not want to serve alongside blacks. But the Civil War had become a fight for abolition, and black Americans were eager to prove themselves. As historian Richard Slotkin writes in No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, recruiters told black men that valor on the battlefield would sink the opprobrious epithet nigger into eternal oblivion. Black men chose to fight for the Union while many of their white counterpartssuch as those Irish Americans in New York City who reacted to the draft with a massive pogrom targeting blacks in Manhattanresisted putting on the blue by any means available.

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You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you, Lincoln wrote in a letter to be read at an 1863 rally he was unable to attend. When victory finally comes, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it.

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Last night, Americas communities of color sought to purchase the Republic a precious opportunity by foiling the ambitions of an incompetent would-be strongman and alleged sexual predator in Donald Trump. They did not fail, but they were failed, much like the black Union soldiers at Petersburg were failed. They were failed because the principle of American pluralism that they were willing to defend in the face of an authoritarian tide was not shared by enough of their countrymen to make a difference.

The idea that by fighting for the Union, blacks could extinguish the flame of racial prejudice was unduly optimistic, but even the Confederates recognized the symbolism of black troops fighting for union and emancipation. In April 1864, Confederate General and later Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest had presided over a massacre of black troops at Fort Pillow in Tennessee. Forrest wrote after the battle that he hoped the atrocity would prove to the Northern people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.

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Black Union recruits were eager to prove Forrest wrong. As Slotkin writes, the mine detonated at 4:45 on July 30, 1864, the explosion forming a mushroom cloud as a rain of earth, boulders, beams of wood, human bodies, and body parts filled the air. The initial advance of white Union troops failedthey lay trapped in the crater, pinned down by enemy fire, casualty to poor organization and leadership. Struggling through the crater, an advance by black troops managed to push the Confederates back, as they cried Fort Pillow, no quarter!

Forrests thesis was quickly disproven. Confronted by the sight of armed black Union soldiers, many Confederate soldiers were gripped by utter panic. As Slotkin writes, At the sight of the Black troops, some of them grabbed their guards and begged them not to let the niggers bayonet them. One cried For Gods sake, boys, dont let the niggers kill me! The men of the 17th South Carolina regiment begged the white Union commander to protect them from the niggers.

Yet the Union lacked the numbers and the leadership to prevail. The Confederate counterattack pushed the Federals back into the crater, where some white Union soldiers turned on their black comrades. Small groups of Whites turned on and mobbed Blacks fighting nearby, crying out whatever words they knew that might tell the Rebels they shared their disgust, never wanted this comradeship with niggers, asked only to be allowed to surrender.

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Enraged by the presence of black troops, perhaps ashamed that they had earlier been unable to withstand their advance, the Confederates, indiscriminately massacred the black wounded. In the words of one Rebel officer, Nothing in the war could have exceeded the horrors that followed. No quarter was given, and for what seemed a long time, fearful butchery was carried on.

The Battle of the Crater was an unmitigated calamityone that some white Union soldiers were eager to blame on their black comrades. According to Slotkin, the more than 4,000 Union casualties were more than twice those of the Confederates, whose dead, wounded and missing numbered just under 1,500. Burdened with incompetent leadership, black soldiers had nonetheless shown incomparable valor in defense of the Republic.

The Union was preserved in 1865 in part because of the sacrifice of black soldiers who were willing to charge, sometimes literally, into the breach to defend a country that did not recognize their fundamental rights. Tuesday, voters of color tried to rescued the American experiment in all its imperfection once again, seeking to deny the presidency to a candidate who had vowed explicitly to use the power of the state against ethnic and religious minorities.

The anti-war Democrats of the 1860s cried the Union as it was, the Constitution as it is, seeking to restore the racial hegemony of antebellum times. Donald Trump promised to Make America Great Again, largely by restoring second-class citizenship to the voters who wished to prevent him from taking office. He won the presidency not just by railing against corrupt elites, but by telling Americans their social and economic troubles were largely the fault of people who were not like them.

Like the black soldiers at Petersburg, those voters found that the idea they were willing to defend when few others would was not shared by their comrades. The white Federals turned on their black compatriots, appealing to the Confederate on the principle of white supremacy, which they shared. Those white soldiers were willing to fight for the Union, but at Petersburg, they were not willing to die for niggers.

By rushing into the breach, voters of color sought to save America from itself once again. They have done what so many of their countrymen were unwilling to do, to stand for the Constitutions unfulfilled promise of tolerance and pluralism that the Republican base chose to abandon in a fit of rage, and Republican elites jettisoned in an act of historic cowardice.

Hillary Clinton is no Lincolnshe was a deeply flawed candidate with a record of questionable judgement, particularly on matters of war. But unlike her opponent, she accepted the principle of pluralism that should be the minimum standard for the office. And when voters of color flocked to the polls for her, they, like the black soldiers at the crater, were defending a core American ideal that has yet to truly include them. No, their sacrifice was not as great. But what they tried to defend was no less important.

Donald Trumps campaign was an attack on the American idea, the principle that out of many, we are one. That was the principle upon which Martin Luther King Jr.s dream stood, it was the core of the promissory note that the Civil Rights Movement sought to redeem. It is the core of the integrationist idea, without which, a more perfect union can never be achieved.

Yet the Battle of the Crater was not the final chapter for black Union soldiers, or black Americans. Their struggle to force America to live up to its ideals did not die with the end of Reconstruction, and the disenfranchisement of Southern blacks for generations. It did not die during Jim Crow, and it did not die during the darkest days of the Drug War and mass incarceration.

Pluralism is the best of America, and today, with Donald Trumps victory, its future is uncertain. But it is a flame worth keeping alive.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Bayou Billionaires star Valerie Dowden Wells was killed in what police now say was a murder-suicide, CBS affiliate KSLA reports. She was 47. Find out more in the video above, and detailed below.

Wells was shot multiple times as she sat in the driver's seat of her parked car outside a McDonald's in Shreveport, Louisiana, authorities confirmed. She was later pronounced dead at University Health Hospital.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Deaths in 2016: Stars Weve Lost

Near the chain restaurant, police found a 46-year-old man named Robert Gaddy with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He died after the Shreveport Fire Department transported him to the same hospital.

Shreveport Police Department Corporal Marcus Hines told KSLA that Wells and Gaddy may have had a relationship in the past. No other information was provided.



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Wells was best known for starring on the short-lived CMT series Bayou Billionaires in 2012. The reality show focused on her family and the discovery that the fourth-largest deposit of natural gas in the U.S. was located underneath their home.

PHOTOS: Stars at Court

Wells worked in the public defender's office in Mansfield before her passing. Her parents, Kitten and Gerald Dowden, reportedly posted about their loss via Facebook. "This is really hard on us and her children. It is out of order," they wrote on Tuesday. "No parents should have to go through this."





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Behind Enemy

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will face the Chicago Bears this Sunday in an attempt to move to 3-5. Though the Bears look to be one of the less-intimidating opponents on the Bucs schedule, this team has shown that no win comes easy.

AROUND COVER32

Winners and Losers: Cowboys take hold of NFC, Vikings fall

Power Rankings::: Raiders roll, Broncos ousted

Draft Preview:: Breaking down the best edge rushers in 2017 class

I had the chance to interview Jacob Infante, the managing editor of the Bears here at Cover32. Have a look at my questions and his answers:

Alex: Its another tough year for the Bears. Are there any positives to come out of it?

Jacob: Even though the Bears havent been great, there are multiple positives from this year so far. The rookies are shining: Leonard Floyd has blossomed in recent weeks, Cody Whitehair looks like a future Pro Bowler and Jordan Howard has been fantastic.

Their offensive line, when fully healthy, is better than many expected it to be. The pass rush is very good, and linebackers Jerrell Freeman and Danny Trevathan have been great.

Alex: Who is the Bears mid-season MVP?

Jacob: Probably Jerrell Freeman. The free agent signing has been an absolute force so far, leading the team with 72 tackles. He has also been healthy all year, which is more than most Bears players can say.

Alex: What needs to change for a strong second half?

Jacob: The Bears need to stay healthy. Heres a fun game: list off the players that you consider to be the best on the Bears. Odds are, that player that you chose has missed time due to injury. They have a fairly easy schedule ahead of them, so health is absolutely crucial.

Alex: Key matchup?

Jacob: Mike Evans vs. Tracy Porter. With the injuries that Tampa Bay has at running back, Mike Evans will play an even more significant role on offense. If the Bears can shut him down, winning will be a lot easier for them.

Alex: Prediction?

Jacob: Im typically very negative about the Bears, but I feel that they could very well win this game. They take advantage of a hobbled Bucs offense and edge out a win. Bears 23, Buccaneers 17

The post Behind enemy lines: Bucs vs. Bears interview appeared first on Cover32.
Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders has some words about Donald Trump's election victory.

The Vermont senator has never been a fan of Trump, as evidenced by his fervent rebuke of the real-estate-mogul-turned-president-elect over the course of the campaign, but Sanders appears to have given Trump the benefit of the doubt.

In his statement on Wednesday evening, Sanders reprised some familiar calls he made during the campaign, saying that Trump "tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media."

The sentiments resemble the language that drove his own political movement in the throes of the Democratic primary, where he fought Hillary Clinton for the party's nomination.

Here's more from Sanders' statement:

"People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids - all while the very rich become much richer. "

Then, Sanders  like Clinton, and President Barack Obama, and even House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday  struck a cooperative tone, saying: "To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him."

But he added one condition: "To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.

NOW WATCH: 'We owe him an open mind': Clinton urges unity in her concession speech





More From Business Insider


It seems that half of America woke up Wednesday (Nov. 9) feeling uncomfortable with presidential election that had played out the night before. For those fearing Donald Trump's forthcoming presidency, Best Coast wants to help.

Following Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton, Best Coast frontwoman Bethany Cosentino posted a message to fans offering support for anyone feeling "scared, discouraged, unsafe, etc." She set up an email account to field messages, saying, "Please write me and I'll do my best to help."

A few hours later, Cosentino followed up her post, saying, "Yr emails are giving me life! Doing my best to get to all of them so keep em coming."

Cosentino also posted a lengthy message on Instagram, encapsulating many Clinton supporters' sentiments.

"I know that a large percentage of us feel empty, disgusted, confused, helpless and scared right now- I am one of those people," she wrote. "I stand with all of my sisters and brothers today. Immigrants, POC, disabled, women (especially survivors of sexual abuse/assault), poor, single mothers and fathers, minorities, everyone - I stand with you today and everyday. Be kind to one another, we need it now more than ever."

See some of her many posts below.

If you feel scared, discouraged, unsafe, etc. today- I made this: bestcoasthotline@gmail.com. Please write me and I'll do my best to help 

- Best Coast (@BestCoast) November 9, 2016

Yr emails are giving me life! Doing my best to get to all of them so keep em coming: bestcoasthotline@gmail.com. So thankful for you guys 

- Best Coast (@BestCoast) November 9, 2016

I know that a large percentage of us feel empty, disgusted, confused, helpless and scared right now- I am one of those people. However, if we lay around and sulk in bed all day, nothing will ever change. This feels like an attack on so many of us, but this also presents us all with so much motivation to get up and fight back. We have never needed each other more than we do right now. The Tower card represents change, and change is what we're going to fight for. I stand with all of my sisters and brothers today. Immigrants, POC, disabled, women (especially survivors of sexual abuse/assault), poor, single mothers and fathers, minorities, everyone - I stand with you today and everyday. Be kind to one another, we need it now more than ever. Love you guys, hang in there xxBC 

Story continues

A photo posted by Best Coast (@best_coast) on Nov 9, 2016 at 10:18am PST

the ONLY thing making me feel slightly better about this devastating event is knowing we are all in this together. My heart is with you all.

- Best Coast (@BestCoast) November 9, 2016

I don't even care that I'm covered in zit cream and hours worth of crying eye bags. I've never in my life felt as awful as I do right now. All I can say is, wow. Love to all my friends and fans that are feeling this same way right now. Tomorrow is a new day- bless you all --

A photo posted by Best Coast (@best_coast) on Nov 9, 2016 at 12:55am PST

I don't give a FUCK how many fans I lose- if you support Trump, I DO NOT support you

- Best Coast (@BestCoast) November 9, 2016

TO ANYONE TRYING TO SAY DONALD TRUMP ISNT A RACIST- I FEEL SORRY FOR YOUR BLATANT IGNORANCE.

- Best Coast (@BestCoast) November 9, 2016

This is the point in the night where i start texting my therapist

- Best Coast (@BestCoast) November 9, 2016

Two truths: 1) America hates women and minorities, even if Hillary wins. 2) next BC album is gonna be ANGRY as fuck.

- Best Coast (@BestCoast) November 9, 2016

This sucks because part of me is like "WHAT THE FUCK AMERICA" and the other part of me is like "yup, not surprised."

- Best Coast (@BestCoast) November 9, 2016
By Paulo Prada

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - BHP Billiton's president of mining in the Americas on Thursday said "complex" negotiations continue with partner Vale SA and other stakeholders to restart operations next year at Samarco, the iron ore mine in Brazil where a 2015 dam burst killed 19 people and caused massive environmental damage.

BHP remains "confident" of a 2017 restart, said BHP executive Daniel Malchuk during an interview in Rio de Janeiro. He added that Vale, Samarco employees, regulators and financial stakeholders must all agree on the terms of renewed operations at the mine in the mineral-rich state of Minas Gerais.

"We continue to work quite hard to find a solution," Malchuk said, calling it "a complex situation that involves many stakeholders."

A restart at the mine is crucial for Samarco, a joint venture between the two miners, to begin paying off mounting debts and other liabilities after a tailings dam gave way a year ago, prompting the worst environmental disaster on record in Brazil.

Vale and BHP in March reached a framework agreement with Brazil's government for the two partners to pay long-term penalties, cleanup costs and other compensation.

But the commercial viability of Samarco remains uncertain. It recently missed bond interest payments and has about $2.2 billion in outstanding bond obligations and $1.6 billion of bank loans.

Malchuk said part of BHP's ongoing talks involve under what terms Samarco might use some of Vale's nearby infrastructure for renewed operations.

"It does make sense to use Vale's infrastructure, no question about it," he said. "But it needs to make financial sense for Samarco and for us as a shareholder."

The complexity of talks, he added, means nothing is guaranteed, especially because licensing agencies, Samarco employees and debt holders must all also be on board with restart plans.

"I continue to be confident that there must be a solution," Malchuk said. "But I can't say that everyone will."

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The companies are also working to move past ongoing litigation and criminal charges that impede some of the framework agreement for recovery efforts. The disaster sent millions of tonnes of iron ore tailings and sludge into two of Brazil's most important rivers.

"We remain committed to what was agreed," he said, explaining that the company continues to work to review the pending legal problems. "The situation is quite fluid."

Malchuk, previous president of copper at BHP, this month became responsible for all mining in the Americas after the company reorganized operations around regional lines, not specific commodities.

Beyond Brazil, Malchuk said BHP is gearing up for negotiations in December with workers at its Escondida mine in Chile. Because of cost-cutting efforts and low copper prices, talks could be more challenging than in previous negotiations.

"It's important to remain conscious that the situation we have now is different to when previous agreements were negotiated," he said.

BHP is also bracing for the impact of lower coal prices, Malchuk said, noting that stimulus efforts by the Chinese government continue to sustain strong demand there.

Because the company is not sure when policy may change, BHP must be ready for a drop in demand. "You can't keep sustaining prices through short-term policy," he said.

(Reporting by Paulo Prada; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Meredith Mazzilli)
In the era of dwindling mass-audience TV hits, networks will do just about anything to keep bankable franchises going. So it's no surprise that CBS would want a spinoff of The Big Bang Theory, TV's No. 1 comedy in the key adults 18-to-49 demo (5.5 rating) and broadcast's most watched program (20 million weekly viewers).

The network is teaming with Big Bang co-creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, as well as showrunner Steve Molaro, for the prequel Sheldon. The plan is for a single-camera comedy exploring the teenage years of Dr. Sheldon Cooper, played in the current show by Jim Parsons, who would executive produce the prequel. Big Bang remains a core asset for both producer Warner Bros. TV and CBS, with the latter using the series to help launch new comedies.

Read more: 'Big Bang Theory' Sheldon Prequel Series in the Works at CBS

The studio and network are negotiating new deals with the show's core cast in a bid to take it into an 11th season and beyond. (Stars Parsons, Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco currently earn a cool $1 million per episode, plus a cut of the show's lucrative backend.) CBS and Warner Bros. declined comment.

For ABC's part, the network is looking to Adam F. Goldberg and Marc Firek to develop a 1990s-set spinoff starring Bryan Callen of '80s comedy The Goldbergs, which has become a self-starter for the Disney-owned network on Wednesdays.

TV spinoffs are nothing new, of course. CBS is using The Good Wife's Christine Baranski to launch CBS All Access' The Good Fight in February. NBC is looking to The Blacklist for a midseason spinoff, The Blacklist: Redemption, which will join its roster of Chicago spinoffs. AMC found success with Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul, and NBC also scored Emmy gold with Cheers spinoff Frasier (though Friends birthed dud Joey). But with so few new series delivering Big Bang-like numbers, pressure to keep hits going is growing.

HBO programming president Casey Bloys recently told THR he'd even be open to a Game of Thrones spinoff if he could find the right writers, even though it already has extended beyond the George R.R. Martin books.

A version of this story first appeared in the Nov. 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Read more: Next Gen Talent 2016: Exclusive Portraits of Ansel Elgort, Suki Waterhouse, Tye Sheridan and More
PARIS (Reuters) - Several European countries have reported outbreaks of a severe strain of bird flu, the World Organisation for Animal Health said on Thursday, while France raised safety checks to counter the virus which can have a major impact on farmers. The World Health Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said Germany, Austria, Croatia and Switzerland had all officially reported the outbreaks, which concerned a particularly virulent strain affecting wild birds. France's Agriculture Ministry added in a statement that the highly pathogenic H5N8 virus had been found in wild birds in Hungary, Poland, Germany, Croatia, the Netherlands and Denmark. Austria and Switzerland on Thursday took precautionary steps to prevent the spread of bird flu to domestic poultry after discovering cases of the disease in wild ducks around Lake Constance. The Dutch government took similar steps earlier this week, when it ordered farmers in the Netherlands to keep poultry flocks indoors following the outbreak of the virus. Though the H5N8 virus is highly contagious in birds, it has never been found in humans. It had been found in several European Union countries in 2014 and led to massive poultry cullings. France, the European Union's largest agricultural producer, had at one stage imposed stricter controls and banned duck and goose production in 17 administrative departments, to contain an earlier outbreak of the bird flu virus. (Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide, Editing by Mark Potter and Elaine Hardcastle)
Another heir to the Kardashian dynasty! Blac Chyna and Rob Kardashian have welcomed their first child together, a baby girl, Us Weekly can exclusively confirm. Chyna gave birth to their daughter at Los Angeles Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Thursday, November 10. Find out more in the video above, and also detailed below..

A source tells Us that the the couple named their baby girl Dream Renee Kardashian. She weighed in at 7 pounds and 5 ounces. (Renee is Chyna's middle name.)



Chyna's rep exclusively told Us Weekly in May that the model, 28, and the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star, 29, were expecting. The engaged couple later confirmed the news themselves via Instagram by posting emojis of Chyna with a baby bump.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Babies 2016

As previously reported, the Rob & Chyna stars decided to televise the birth. On November 6, TMZ reported that Chyna would be undergoing a C-section in the same $4,000-a-night luxury hospital suite that Kim Kardashian delivered Saint West in late last year.

PHOTOS: 10 Times Rob Kardashian Sassed the Kardashian Family

This is the first child for Kardashian and the second for Chyna. The Lashed owner also shares son King Cairo, 3, with ex Tyga. The rapper has been dating Rob's sister Kylie Jenner since 2014.

Chyna, who celebrated her cloud-themed baby shower last month, plans to eat her placenta now that she has given birth. "I feel like with my second baby, Im more educated than the first one," she said on Play.Its Loveline with Amber Rose podcast on September 14. "Just reading and knowing the pros of breast-feeding for your baby, and just recently I found out some new, cool stuff about not cutting the cord and sending your placenta; you can get these pills to take them after to make you and the baby healthy."

PHOTOS: TV Pregnancies: How Stars Worked Around Their Baby Bumps

Rob, meanwhile, hopes to continue to slim down. In October, he said on Instagram that he wants to drop the "pregnancy weight."

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Chyna has been supportive of Rob's goal. Since their pregnancy announcement, Chyna has also put aside her past feuds with Jenner and Khloe Kardashian.

Earlier this month, the Strong Looks Better Naked author, 32, opened up with Jimmy Kimmel about Rob's next chapter. "Rob has so many traits like my dad, so I think he's gonna be great with a baby," she said at the time. "I'm sure he's nervous, I think any new dad should be."





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One of the most popular surf movies, Blue Crush, is headed to television. NBC has given a script commitment with penalty to a series based on the 2002 Imagine feature directed by John Stockwell, which starred Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez and Sanoe Lake.

Lizzy Weiss, who co-wrote the movie with Stockwell, will pen the series adaptation and will executive produce. The movies producer, Imagines Brian Grazer, also will executive produce with the companys Francie Calfo. Universal TV, whose feature sibling Universal Pictures released the film, is the studio, co-producing with Imagine Television.

The 2002 movie revolved around three best friends (Bosworth, Rodriguez, Lake) living in Hawaii and surfing on its famed North Shore. It was a breakout, helping to launch the movie careers of Bosworth and Rodriguez and spawning a direct-to-video sequel. (you can watch the trailer below)

Weiss also wrote the story for Blue Crush based on an Outside magazine article. In TV, she created the ABC Family/Freeform Peabody-winning drama series Switched At Birth, whose fifth and final series will premiere in January. She is repped by UTA and Kaplan/Perrone.

For Imagine TV, Blue Crush joins single-camera half-hour comedy starring standup comedian Ms. Pat, which has a put pilot commitment at Fox with Lee Daniels executive producing. This marks Grazers return to NBC and Uni TV where he executive produced two praised series based on Imagine movies, Friday Night Lights and Parenthood.

Imagine TVs series portfolio includes hit Empire and the upcoming 24: Legacy and Shots Fired on Fox and Genius on NatGeo. The company is repped by CAA.

This is the latest broadcast series project this season that is based on a movie. The list also includes The Italian Job at NBC, Enemy of the State at ABC, S.W.A.T. at CBS, Behind Enemy Lines at Fox and Lost Boys at the CW.

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By Fathin Ungku JOHOR BAHRU, Malaysia (Reuters) - When Malaysian officials went to an island near the site of a boat accident that killed dozens of Indonesians on their way home last week, they were told the vessel was plying illegally with more than double the permitted number of passengers aboard. For Paul Khiu, commander of the marine police in Johor state at the southern tip of peninsula Malaysia, the discovery came as no surprise. "These boats can take 30 to 50 people, but they always overload," Khiu told Reuters on his return from Batam island, on the other side of the Singapore Strait. The boat had come from Johor, a one-hour voyage, carrying Indonesian workers and their families before it capsized near Batam. Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians are illegal migrants in Malaysia, doing construction, plantation and domestic work that pays much more than they could earn at home. Some have lived in Malaysia for years and have also brought over their families. Advocacy groups say the illegal workers are subjected to many abuses and the two governments are doing little to address the situation. Between 600 and 700 illegal Indonesian workers die in Malaysia each year of various causes, including disease, work accidents, drowning and starvation, said Anis Hidayah of the Migrant Care group. A spokesman for Indonesia's foreign ministry, Armanatha Nasir, said illegal workers remained "a challenge" but both governments were committed to finding a solution. Malaysia's Home Affairs Ministry said it would soon be meeting Indonesian Embassy officials for preliminary talks on the illegal workers issue, but did not give any further details. The government had said in March that it would stop bringing in new foreign workers in a bid to encourage businesses to hire locally and also to stop illegal migration. It had launched a major exercise to legalize foreign workers in 2011, including an amnesty that expired in 2014. DANGEROUS CROSSING Some of the migrants make the illegal crossing across the Strait of Malacca separating Indonesia's Sumatra from peninsular Malaysia, but most slip over the sprawling land border between the two countries on the island of Borneo. There are few controls along the 2,000-km (1,200-mile) border which experts say is virtually impossible to police. The to-and-fro movement has become a lively business, and there are towns on both sides to cater for the migrants. The sea route is more dangerous. Officials said that more than half of the 101 people on board the high-speed boat died after it hit a reef off Batam and sank, many of them infants and children. Forty-one people survived and six remain missing. Migrant Care puts the number of Indonesians living in Malaysia at more than 1 million, but other estimates put it even higher. Hidayah, at Migrant Care, said government regulation in the plantation, construction and domestic helper sectors was poor. "There is no policy on protection of domestic helpers. There is no regulation of working hours. There are no holidays," she said, adding the situation was much the same in the construction and plantation sectors. Because of the prohibitive costs and bureaucracy required to enter Malaysia legally, most workers opt for illicit ways to get in, Hidayah said. SHORT-LIVED REACTION When tragedies such as last week's accident strike, government action is reactive and short-lived, activists say. "Despite the need for sustained political attention, often these issues are only addressed in the wake of some particularly egregious incident that sparks public outcry," said Paul Dillon, Jakarta-based program director at the International Organization for Migration. A 64-year-old Indonesian metalworker, who has lived illegally in Malaysia for nine years, said that on a night-time journey home last year, his boat capsized. "I could have gone the normal, legal route ... but I just couldn't afford it at that time," the worker told Reuters from a sparsely furnished housing block in Johor he shares with six others. "I thought I was going to die," he said of the ordeal which he and 35 others survived by swimming 1 km (a half mile) to shore. Since that incident he has been considering getting documentation, regardless of the costs. Indonesia has in recent years tried to stop unskilled workers, especially domestic workers, going overseas after a string of physical abuse cases. There is now a moratorium on domestic workers going to 21 countries in the Middle East, and government officials have also discussed banning them from Malaysia and Singapore. But a persistent shortage of jobs at home means Indonesians are still desperate to work overseas. "The point is availability of work. For that reason, the most important thing is to create as many jobs as possible domestically," said Hermono, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, of the National Migrant Workers' Protection Agency. Indonesian migrant workers contributed around $9.6 billion in remittances in 2015, according to the World Bank. Activists say a ban would only cut off these economically critical inflows and force low-skilled workers to resort to illegal and dangerous means of travel. "People need to earn and if the jobs are elsewhere, you should be ensuring people can go legitimately and work safely," said Dee Jupp, an independent researcher who has done studies on Indonesian migrant workers. "Recognizing this will give legitimacy and allow it to be regulated and safer." (Additional reporting by Hidayat Setiaji, Fergus Jensen and Kanupriya Kapoor in JAKARTA, A.Ananthalakshmi in KUALA LUMPUR; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Alex Richardson)
(Adds management remarks from conference)

By Allison Lampert

MONTREAL, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Bombardier Inc shares jumped 5 percent in morning trading on Thursday, after the Canadian plane and train maker reported a lower-than-expected adjusted net loss in the third quarter and said it would end 2016 with higher margins.

The company, which has struggled in recent years with cost overruns as it developed its CSeries commercial jet, raised the lower end of its full-year forecast for earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to $350 million from $200 million, while maintaining the upper end at $400 million.

"We are in full motion when it comes to turnaround," Chief Executive Alain Bellemare said in an interview regarding his 5-year plan to improve results.

Montreal-headquartered Bombardier revised its transportation division's 2016 revenue forecast down to $8 billion from $8.5 billion, but raised its margin forecast to above 6.5 percent.

Chief Financial Officer John Di Bert told a call with analysts that Bombardier is well placed to further increase margins.

"The margin growth is a sign of current performance and also things to come," Di Bert said.

Bombardier's reported 32 percent rise in the transport division's order intake during the third quarter ended Sept. 30 to $2.9 billion and Di Bert suggested revenue could rise in 2017.

"I think we've positioned ourselves well here with another solid of year of orders," he said.

The company will not make major changes to the production of softer-selling regional jets and Q400 props or its business jets in 2017, Bellemare said.

The company forecast revenue of $16.5 billion for the year. In September, it said it expected to be close to the lower end of a $16.5 billion to $17.5 billion revenue range after it halved the 2016 delivery forecast for its CSeries mid-range aircraft.

Bombardier said last month it would cut 7,500 jobs, mostly in its train-making division, the second round of layoffs this year.

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Net loss narrowed to $94 million, or 4 cents per share, compared with $4.88 billion, or $2.20 a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell nearly 10 percent to $3.74 billion.

Bombardier booked non-cash charges of about $4.4 billion a year earlier.

The company posted an adjusted loss of $10 million, compared with analysts' average estimate of a loss of $92.8 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

It broke even on a per share basis. Analysts had expected a loss of 3 cents per share.

($1 = 1.3428 Canadian dollars) (Additional reporting by Vishaka George in Bengaluru and Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Bernadette Baum)
Nov 10 (Reuters) - Canadian plane and train maker Bombardier Inc reported a smaller third-quarter net loss compared with a year earlier, when the company booked non-cash charges of about $4.4 billion on its CSeries and Learjet 85 programs.

Bombardier delivered 36 business jets in the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with 43 in the same period last year.

The company delivered 16 commercial aircraft in the quarter, two more than a year earlier.

Montreal-based Bombardier said last month it would cut 7,500 jobs, mostly in its train-making division, in the second round of layoffs this year, following extended delays and budget overruns in its aerospace business.

Bombardier's net loss narrowed to $94 million, or 4 cents per share, compared with $4.88 billion, or $2.20 a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell nearly 10 percent to $3.74 billion.

The company posted an adjusted loss of $10 million, compared with a profit of $2 million, a year earlier. It broke even on a per share basis.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert and Vishaka George in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
A young boy who had been trapped down a well in China for more than four days was found dead Thursday, state media said, despite a desperate rescue attempt involving hundreds of people.

The six-year-old's body was discovered in the abandoned, narrow 80-metre (260-foot) deep well in Hebei province in northern China, the official Xinhua news agency said.

He had been helping his father harvest vegetables in Baoding city on Sunday when he fell.

A team of more than 500 rescuers and 100 excavators arrived on the scene after the father made a call for help on social media, Xinhua said.

The 30-centimetre well shaft was too small for adults to enter, so rescuers widened it while pumping in oxygen, it added.

Photos showed teams of hard-hatted men hauling woven baskets filled with dirt away from the well's mouth, while digging machines scrabbled frantically at the dry brown earth around it, carving a wide, shallow crater. Multiple ambulances stood by on-site.

Rescue efforts were hampered by the surrounding soil, whose soft and sandy consistency makes it prone to collapse.
(LOS ANGELES)  An investigation into whether Brad Pitt was abusive toward his son on a private flight in September has been closed with no finding of abuse by the actor, a source familiar with the inquiry said Wednesday.

The source, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Associated Press that the investigation was closed within the past few days.

Multiples sources have said the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services had been looking into allegations Pitt was abusive toward his 15-year-old son on the flight in mid-September. Pitts wife, Angelina Jolie Pitt, filed for divorce days after the incident, and her attorney said it was for the health of the family.

A department spokesman said the agency could not confirm it investigated Pitt.

Custody of the actors six children has been the primary issue in their divorce. Jolie Pitt is seeking sole custody of the children, while Pitt is seeking joint custody.

Pitt has had visitation with his children under terms agreed upon by the former couple. Jolie Pittsrepresentatives said Monday that an agreement on custody had been reached, although a final agreement will be part of the couples divorce judgment when it is entered.

California law favors joint custody, although details about custody arrangements are rarely made public in celebrity divorce cases.

Representatives for Pitt and Jolie Pitt did not immediately return messages seeking comment Wednesday.

The actors were married for two years and together for 12 years after becoming close while filming 2005s Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
Brad Pitt has been cleared by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services after an investigation into an incident regarding himself and his family, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.

Angelina Jolies rep also issued a statement to Variety on Wednesday, saying that the DCFS is satisfied with the safeguards put in place.

The job of the DCFS is to make sure the children are in a safe and secure situation, reads the statement. As we said earlier this week, childcare professionals encouraged a legal agreement accepted and signed by both sides that was in the best interest of the children. Angelina said from the beginning that she felt she had to take action for the health of the family and is relieved that after their 8-week involvement, the DCFS is now satisfied the safeguards are put in place that will allow the children to heal.

The agency was reportedly looking into Pitt over accusations surrounding an incident between himself and his teenage son Maddox. An argument the two had while the family was aboard a private jet allegedly ended in physical contact, but not child abuse, the investigation concluded, according to TMZ, which first reported the news.

When reached by email, the DCFS said it does not comment on possible involvement with clients, citing confidentiality laws.

On Sept. 22, the FBI said it was continuing to gather facts over the incident, which took place on Sept. 14 on a jet flying from France to Los Angeles, with a stop in Minnesota. While the FBI might not usually get involved in such a case, a source explained to Variety that because the incident happened while the family was in the air, it fell on the FBI to look into the situation and determine whether or not a federal investigation is necessary. A spokesperson with the FBI said Wednesday that the agencys position has not changed since its last statement.

The incident gained attention in the wake of the news that Jolie was filing for divorce from Pitt in September. Jolie stated irreconcilable differences as legal grounds, and said in a statement through her lawyer that she filed for divorce for the health of the family.

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On Monday, Jolies rep said in a statement that she and Pitt reached a custody agreement in the divorce, with Jolie retaining custody of all six of their children. As part of the agreement, Pitt will continue therapeutic visits with the children.

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Los Angeles (AFP) - Brad Pitt has been cleared after an investigation into whether he behaved abusively toward one of his children, US media has reported.

The claims centered on an alleged incident with his 15 year old son Maddox in September on a flight from France.

Pitt's wife Angelina Jolie had said that Pitt intentionally hit his son, without justification, on the plane, the celebrity website TMZ reported.

Social workers interviewed the couple, their children and witnesses who were on the plane, TMZ said.

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services concluded Wednesday that Pitt, 52, did not behave abusively, USA Today and CNN reported, quoting a source that had seen the agency's report.

Jolie, 41, filed for divorce in September, citing irreconcilable differences. She is seeking sole custody of their six children.

Pitt is seeking joint legal and physical custody.

The A-listers -- given the celebrity moniker "Brangelina" -- wed in France two years ago, but had been a couple since 2004.
Brad Pitt is back on the red carpet scene.

The actor, who has kept a low profile since his split with Angelina Jolie, stepped out Wednesday night to the L.A. premiere of his World War II drama Allied.

At the event, which was livestreamed on Facebook, Pitt appeared to be in good spirits as he smiled for photos and chatted with fans.

The actor even thanked his fans for their backing in the wake of the split.

Its really sweet, everyone has been really kind out here, he said. Its really nice to have all the support.

It was a big night for Pitt: Just hours before the premiere, sources told PEOPLE that he has been cleared of child abuse allegations following an investigation by L.A.s Department of Children and Family Services into an altercation between Pitt and his son Maddox, 15, on the familys private plane on Sept. 14.

Pitt, 52, made his first public appearance since Jolie filed for divorce on Monday night while attending a private screening of Moonlight in Los Angeles. He was joined by longtime pal and Oceans 11 costar Julia Roberts. Pitts production company, Plan B, partnered with A24 to produce the coming-of-age drama, which has been earning Oscar buzz.

Before the back-to-back appearances, Pitt had chosen to stay out of the spotlight, even skipping the premiere of his film Voyage of Time on Sept. 28. He explained in a statement that he preferred to stay focused on his family at the time.

On Monday, a rep for Jolie released a new statement saying that the former couple reached a legal agreement about the custody of their six children: Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and 8-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.

However, other sources close to the situation maintain the pair have not reached any new agreement or permanently settled their differences, and Pitt still plans to push for joint custody.

Pitt filed a response on Nov. 4 requesting joint custody after Jolie, 41, requested sole physical custody in her Sept. 19 divorce filing.

Allied, which also stars Marion Cotillard, hits theaters Nov. 23.

Reporting by MARIAH HAAS


Brasilia (AFP) - Brazil's Congress has voted to allow state oil company Petrobras to sell off its massive "pre-salt" oil fields, opening the door for the struggling company to raise much-needed cash.

After weeks of opposition maneuvers to block the legislation in the lower house, lawmakers pushed it through in a late-night session on Wednesday by voting down two amendments proposed by the leftist Workers' Party, 251 to 22.

The bill -- which had already passed the lower house in October and the Senate in February -- will now undergo a technical analysis, then be sent to President Michel Temer.

The center-right president is expected to sign it.

The pre-salt fields hold potentially huge amounts of oil, but reaching it is technically challenging and eye-wateringly expensive.

Petrobras, which is reeling from a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal and depressed oil prices, announced last year it would start selling off the fields, its prize assets.

It said it needed the money to get its books back in order.

Petrobras is too short on cash to develop all the fields, which were discovered in 2007 at a depth of some five kilometers (three miles).

Last month the company announced it was cutting investments by 25 percent for the period 2017 to 2021.

Brazilian law initially gave Petrobras exclusive rights to the pre-salt fields and set the company's minimum stake at 30 percent.

Petrobras has already begun selling off stakes, starting with a $2.5-billion deal with Norway's Statoil.

Foreign firms will also now be able to participate independently in upcoming auctions for more of the Atlantic Ocean blocks.

Petrobras has been battered by revelations that corrupt executives, contractors and politicians bilked the company out of billions of dollars over the course of a decade.

The politically explosive scandal contributed to the downfall of president Dilma Rousseff of the Workers' Party, which led Brazil from 2003 until her impeachment in August.

Now in the opposition, the party accuses the new government of surrendering the nation's oil resources to foreigners and the private sector.
SAO PAULO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Phone carrier Oi SA, which in June filed for Brazil's largest ever in-court reorganization, has hired financial advisory firm Laplace Financas to restructure about 41.2 billion reais ($13 billion) in debt with banks and bondholders, a person with direct knowledge of the situation said on Thursday.

The board of Rio de Janeiro-based Oi formalized the hiring of Laplace at a meeting on Wednesday, said the person, who requested anonymity because the matter remains private.

Laplace, which is based in Sao Paulo, replaces PJT Partners Inc as Oi's adviser on the renegotiation plan.

Oi declined to comment. Laplace's senior partners were not available for immediate comment.

($1 = 3.2375 reais) (Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal and Ana Mano; editing by Jason Neely)
With Donald Trumps historic presidential election victory reverberating globally, KT zu Guttenberg, former German Minister of Economics under Angela Merkel, weighed in on reactions in Europe to the U.S. election, comparisons to the U.K. vote to leave the European Union and how Trumps win is causing politicians to reevaluate their campaign strategies.

Honestly, I was also surprised. I was in Hamburg last morning, and yesterday morning and I looked into the same frozen faces that I saw just right after the Brexit, so there was that kind of deja vu reaction, Guttenberg told the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo.

Guttenberg explained that many leaders across Europe are still puzzled over what Donald Trump stands for, particularly on issues such as foreign policy.

For me its hard, with an international background, with a foreign policy background, to actually understand or get a grip on what does he [Donald Trump] stand for. What will be his wider, his wider scheme and take on foreign policy? And thats exactly the reaction you get from every single capital across Europe right now.

Guttenberg reacted to the wording of German Chancellor Angela Merkels congratulations to Donald Trump.

I think her remark was rather unusual for her to say, to tie it to shared values but then to come up and actually tell everybody, well this means human dignity, this means that we respect gender, that we respect different races, that we respect everything. So we will cooperate on the basis of that. So, its [a] surprising move by Angela Merkel. I think she will reach out quite professionally, not in an embracing way, but you see already how uncomfortable many do feel at the moment.

Guttenberg then weighed in on the parallels between Donald Trumps election win and Brexit and why it is a game changer for planning campaigns.

Definitely, there are a lot of parallels of what means to use to actually capture and attract people who are extremely tired of the so-called establishment. And thats nothing you have solely in the U.S., you have that in almost every single European member state. And there are a lot of concerns right now that they say, okay, here we have the blueprint, now to do it.

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According to Guttenberg, politicians will now look to Donald Trumps blueprint as a strategy to win elections across Europe.

We see populism as a means to come to power and you have that across the borderlines in the European Union.

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A24 has set a March 17 release date in the U.S. rights to Ben Wheatleys action-thriller Free Fire, starring Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy and Jack Reynor.

Larson won the best actress Oscar on Feb. 28 for Room, which was also released by A24.

Martin Scorsese is exec producing Free Fire, which also stars Sam Riley and Noah Taylor. Wheatley is directing from a script he co-wrote with Amy Jump.

Andrew Starke is producing. Additional executive producers include Sikelias Emma Tillinger-Koskoff, Reno Antoniades, Film4s David Kosse and Sam Lavender, along with Ben Roberts and Lizzie Francke from the British Film Institute.

Free Fire centers around an arms deal that goes spectacularly and explosively wrong. Larson will portray a woman who has brokered a meeting in a deserted warehouse between two Irishmen and a gang selling them a stash of guns. But when shots are fired during the handover, complete pandemonium ensues.

Here is the official red band trailer 

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LONDON (Reuters) - Welcoming Donald Trump's election triumph, prominent Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage called on the U.S. president-elect to reverse "loathsome" Barack Obama's policy by making Britain his top priority. Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, told a late night radio programme on Wednesday that he was "absolutely happy" with Trump's election victory in the United States and expected Britain to profit from the presidency. "That Obama creature, loathsome individual, who cannot stand our country, said we'd be back of the queue ... what was interesting is that Trump said we would be in the front of the queue," he told talkRADIO. Farage, whose party opposes the European Union, added: "Once we've left that awful EU thing, we can now do our first trade deal with the United States of America. Isn't that great?" Farage made light of allegations of sexual assault against Trump, a former reality TV host, by encouraging him to "come and schmooze Theresa" May, the British prime minister. "Don't touch her for goodness sake," he said laughing, and added he could attend any meeting and be the "responsible adult to make sure everything is ok". (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; editing by Stephen Addison)
LONDON (Reuters) - Welcoming Donald Trump's election triumph, prominent Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage called on the U.S. president-elect to reverse "loathsome" Barack Obama's policy by making Britain his top priority. Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, told a late night radio program on Wednesday that he was "absolutely happy" with Trump's election victory in the United States and expected Britain to profit from the presidency. "That Obama creature, loathsome individual, who cannot stand our country, said we'd be back of the queue ... what was interesting is that Trump said we would be in the front of the queue," he told talkRADIO. Farage, whose party opposes the European Union, added: "Once we've left that awful EU thing, we can now do our first trade deal with the United States of America. Isn't that great?" Farage made light of allegations of sexual assault against Trump, a former reality TV host, by encouraging him to "come and schmooze Theresa" May, the British prime minister. "Don't touch her for goodness sake," he said laughing, added he could attend any meeting and be the "responsible adult to make sure everything is ok". (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; editing by Stephen Addison)
By Carolyn Cohn, Simon Jessop and Huw Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - British authorities are considering changing the rules governing commercial property funds to prevent a repeat of the investor panic that followed the country's vote to leave the European Union.

Big funds worth around 18 billion pounds in total were forced to suspend their activities after running out of ready cash when investors who feared property prices would collapse demanded their money.

The financial regulator is expected to focus on how the industry and its investors can be better protected during future periods of market stress. British and global authorities are already concerned about the knock-on effects to other markets if funds are forced to sell off assets quickly to try to meet redemption obligations.

The Financial Conduct Authority said a discussion paper would be published in the new year, without giving details about the reforms it is considering.

One option for the regulator could be to push asset managers away from offering funds which allow investors to pull out money on any given day without notice, according to industry players.

This model is far removed from the nature of the underlying assets being traded, as selling property can often take many months, a so-called 'liquidity mismatch'.

If the FCA chose to change this structure, it could to some degree follow the example set by Germany after the financial crisis when it introduced a minimum holding period of 24 months for investments, and a notice period of 12 months for investors to get their money back.

While that would be a particularly extreme change, the industry sources said the FCA could instead make redemptions possible only weekly, monthly or quarterly.

Megan Butler, director of wholesale supervision at the FCA, said the regulator was talking to property fund managers about the suspension process as well as governance and oversight of these funds, which have grown popular among private individuals as well as pension funds and insurers.

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"We encourage you to think carefully how you manage any long run risks here, particularly around redemptions, if you have clients looking for a quick exit," she told a conference hosted by the Wealth Management Association on Wednesday, adding that a discussion paper would be published early in 2017.

John Cartwright, chief executive of Britain's Association of Real Estate Funds, said it had also commissioned research into fund structure which would also be published early next year.

GLOBAL CONCERN

Liquidity mismatches have risen to the top of the agenda for regulators across the world after bond funds came under intense pressure to meet redemptions following big falls in prices during several period of market stress, including in the "taper tantrum" of 2013 when the U.S. Federal Reserve began tapering its massive asset-purchase programme.

Like the FCA, global regulators and central banks worry that financial stability can be undermined by funds rushing to sell assets quickly to meet customer cash demands.

Among the funds to suspend trading after the Brexit vote were Henderson Global Investors' 3.9 billion pound UK PAIF Property Fund and M&G Investments, which lifted the its suspension on its multi-billion-pound property portfolio on Oct. 21.

Marc Haynes, London-based senior vice president at real estate fund manager Cohen & Steers, said the daily dealing structure of the industry had led to unrealistic expectations among many investors.

"You might have to restrict their investments or the onus needs to be on the advisers to help them, so they understand what they are getting into."

Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at funds supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown, said regulators could potentially move the industry to a weekly dealing date, but that this was likely to be unpopular with investors.

Other industry sources said longer lock-up periods could hit flows into funds and reduce the fees earned by the managers who run them.

For some, suspensions were considered the fairest way to treat remaining and would-be investors in the funds, as opposed to writing down the value of the fund, which would have hurt investors who had no desire to exit.

Some have considered increasing cash reserves so they can process exit requests faster, but the drag on returns of parking cash in this way is painful, particularly in the current low interest-rate environment.

(Additional reporting by Tina Bellon in Frankfurt; Editing by Sinead Cruise and Pravin Char)
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, setting aside his previous hostility toward Donald Trump, said on Thursday his U.S. presidential election victory offered economic opportunities and there was no need for Europeans to be despondent about it.

"I may respectfully say to my European friends and colleagues that it's time we snapped out of general doom and gloom about this election," Johnson said after meeting Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.

"He is after all a deal maker. He wants to do a free trade deal with the UK," Johnson told reporters.

Trump's shock victory over Hillary Clinton has delighted far-right politicians in France, the Netherlands and Austria but worried some mainstream politicians who fear it may be part of a populist, anti-establishment trend.

"I believe that this is a great opportunity for us in the UK to build on that relationship with America that is of fundamental economic importance for us but also of great importance for stability and prosperity in the world," Johnson said.

On Wednesday the former London mayor congratulated Trump on his victory and wrote on his Twitter account he looked forward to continuing the partnership between the two nations.

Last year Johnson said that he feared going to New York because of "the real risk of meeting Donald Trump" after the billionaire said parts of London were now so radicalized that police officers feared to go there.

(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
By Nathan Layne

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Brooklyn volunteer neighborhood safety patrol member pleaded guilty on Thursday to bribing police officers to expedite gun license applications, becoming the latest person to admit wrongdoing in a wide-ranging corruption probe in New York City.

Alex Lichtenstein, a member of an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood patrol group, told a federal judge in Manhattan that he paid the bribes to New York police officers in charge of approving gun permits between 2013 and 2016.

"During these years I gave police officers in the Licensing Division things of value including money knowing that by giving them these things the officers would do me favors," a trembling Lichtenstein said before U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein.

Wearing a dark suit, open-collared white shirt and black yarmulke, Lichtenstein, 45, pleaded guilty to one count of bribery and one count of offering a bribe.

Under a plea deal, he agreed not to appeal any prison sentence of 71 months or less and forfeit $230,000. His sentencing is scheduled for March 16.

Lichtenstein was arrested in April as part of a wide-ranging corruption investigation that has resulted in several police officers being charged or disciplined, and put the fundraising of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio under scrutiny.

At least three people have pleaded guilty, including Jona Rechnitz, a real estate investor who secretly pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with investigators, a person familiar with the matter previously told Reuters.

Rechnitz has been central to the investigation along with another businessman, Jeremy Reichberg, who was charged in June as part of the bribery probe.

Both served on de Blasio's inaugural committee after his 2013 election and either raised money for his campaign or for a nonprofit organization set up to advance his agenda. De Blasio has not been charged with any wrongdoing and has said he and his administration have acted legally.

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In Lichtenstein's case, prosecutors said he charged his clients as much as $18,000 to expedite gun license applications.

They said he offered to pay one police officer $6,000 per license application while boasting that he had secured licenses for 150 people in the past. The officer reported the incident to the police department's internal affairs division.

When asked by reporters after the hearing if he was cooperating with the government in providing information on others, Lichtenstein shook his head and replied: "No, no, no." His lawyer declined further comment.

(This story has been refiled to correct day of week to Thursday in first paragraph)

(Reporting by Nathan Layne and Nate Raymond; Editing by Will Dunham)
Shortly after it became clear Donald Trump was going to win the presidential election Tuesday night, the hashtag #Calexit started trending locally on Twitter.

Calexit, of course, is a play on Brexit and suggests California should exit the United States as Great Britain left the European Union this summer. However the actual logistics of a state seceding are far more complicated than the portmanteau would suggest.

First things first. The U.S. Constitution contains rules for how a state may enter the union but doesn't have explicit instructions on how to leave. According to Article IV, "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress."

It actually hasn't been that long since a state has tried to leave. In fact, it was just a few days after President Barack Obama was elected to his second term. In 2012, a Texas-based online petition asked the White House to set the Lone Star state free but, unsurprisingly, it was rejected.

"Our founding fathers established the Constitution of the United States 'in order to form a more perfect union' through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government," wrote public engagement director Jon Carson at the time. "They enshrined in that document the right to change our national government through the power of the ballot - a right that generations of Americans have fought to secure for all. But they did not provide a right to walk away from it."

It has been more than a hundred years since the Supreme Court considered the issue in 1868's Texas v. White. There the high court held that the U.S. is "an indestructible union."

That doesn't mean Californians aren't pursuing the idea, though. One group called YesCalifornia is convinced that the lack of specificity in the Constitution combined with the language in Texas v. White opens the door for California to leave. Quoting the Supreme Court, the site states: "When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States."

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The highlighted portion is important, according to the site, because it highlights that California cannot leave the U.S. without the help of other states.

YesCalifornia is pushing for a 2018 ballot measure that would call for a special election in which Californians would vote for or against splitting from the U.S. The site lays out nine key arguments for leaving, ranging from taxes to immigration to natural resources, and claims the state's economy is more comparable to that of other nations than other states.

If voters were to support a Calexit, then a California lawmaker would have to propose a constitutional amendment. Under Article V, changing the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote from the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

"If the Amendment passed it would be sent to the 50 state legislatures to be considered (to satisfy the "consent of the states" requirement in Texas v. White)," writes Louis Marinelli on the site. "It would need to be accepted by at least 38 of the 50 state legislatures to be adopted."

Alternatively, YesCalifornia says that California could call for a convention of the states and two-thirds of those delegates would have to approve the amendment. Then 38 of the 50 state legislatures would have to approve it.

It's a long shot, but not impossible. Silicon Valley venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar even offered to fund the endeavor Tuesday night on Twitter, although he couldn't be reached for further comment.
(TORONTO)  Canadas ambassador to Washington said Wednesday that Canada is open to renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement if thats what President-elect Donald Trump wants.

Ambassador David MacNaughton, on a conference call with journalists, said free trade on lumber, long an irritant, would be one of the first things hed like to see if theres a new agreement. He noted that the U.S. is Canadas largest trading partner and Canada is the largest trading partner for the U.S.

Were ready to come to the table, he said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to Trump on Wednesday night to congratulate him and to invite him to Canada at the earliest opportunity. Trump also invited Trudeau to visit him.

The Prime Minister and the President-elect reiterated the importance of the Canada-United States bilateral relationship, and discussed various areas of mutual interest, Trudeaus office said.

The Liberal prime minister has vowed to work very closely with Trump and said Canada has no closer ally and partner than the United States. But Trudeaus openness to trade, refugees and the environment stands in stark contrast to Trump. Of particular concern to Canada is Trumps vow to renegotiate NAFTA but MacNaughton said any agreement can be improved. Trump has called NAFTA the worst deal in history.

MacNaughton said if NAFTA was scrapped, the original Canada-U.S. trade agreement that predated NAFTA would come back into force and he said he doubted the Americans would want to end that.

A positive for Canada could be the eventual approval of TransCanadas Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast. President Obama nixed it but Trump supports the pipeline though he has said he wants a share of the profits. TransCanada said it remains committed to building the pipeline.

Brad Wall, premier of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, noted Trumps support for Keystone XL.

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And with Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, I am hopeful that this important project will move ahead quickly, Wall said in a statement. On the other hand, I hope he reconsiders his plan to end the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Canada and the prospect of Americans moving there drew so much interest that the countrys immigration website was knocked out Tuesday night.

Immigration spokeswoman Sonia Lesage said more than 200,000 users were accessing the site when it went down at 11 p.m. At that time, American IP addresses accounted for approximately 50 percent of the traffic, about five times higher than normal. The website saw just over 17,000 users at the same time a week earlier.
By Matt Scuffham TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, one of the world's biggest dealmakers, sees potential opportunities arising from Republican Donald Trump's election victory, its chief executive said in an interview. Mark Machin, who became CPPIB's chief executive in June, said equity markets were reacting positively to the Republican party having control of the house and senate, potentially making it easier to pass legislation, and to the possibility of lighter regulation, particularly in the financial sector. He also identified Trump's commitment to spend big on infrastructure as a potential opportunity for investors. "There's a lot of expectation of increased fiscal stimulus, less regulation, more economic activity, that's getting priced in here and that's obviously helping the value of the assets that we own in the country and we would expect it will throw up some interesting opportunities over time," Machin said. Machin added that the expectation for rising interest rates in the U.S. was something that the CPPIB had been "anticipating for quite a time". "The market's moving towards where we've had some positioning," he said. Machin said CPPIB, the world's third biggest infrastructure investor, would be keen to invest in more U.S. infrastructure projects. "We'd very much welcome more infrastructure opportunities. That's terrific for us," he said. Machin also welcomed plans announced by the Canadian government last week to set up an infrastructure bank and said CPPIB could be willing to invest in 'greenfield' projects that include taking on construction risk through the new entity. "We're open to that. We'd certainly look at those opportunities," he said. Canada's biggest public pension fund, which invests on behalf of 19 million Canadians, said on Thursday it ended the second quarter of its fiscal year with C$300.5 billion in assets, up from C$287.3 billion three months earlier. The CPPIB, which manages Canada's national pension fund, said it delivered gross investment returns of 4.83 percent in the second quarter, or 4.75 percent, net of all costs. That compared with returns of 1.5 percent in the previous quarter. A report by RBC Investor & Treasury Services earlier this month showed Canadian pensions achieved average returns of 4.2 percent in the last quarter, benefiting from strength in global and Canadian equities markets. Despite pursuing a strategy of diversifying into alternative asset classes such as infrastructure and real estate, the majority of CPPIB's investments remain in public equities and fixed-income markets. (Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis and Bernard Orr)
(Corrects title of Royce Mendes, paragraph 9)

By David Ljunggren and Andrea Hopkins

OTTAWA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Canada could fall back on a free trade agreement that excludes Mexico if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump follows through on radical protectionist policies, officials said, predicting fears of a massive economic hit are overblown.

During a raucous election campaign, Trump vowed to either renegotiate or scrap the 1994 three-nation North American Free Trade Agreement, under which Canada sends 75 percent of all its exports to the United States.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday that "if Americans want to talk about NAFTA, I'm more than happy to talk about it", a day after Canada's ambassador to the U.S. said Ottawa would be "happy" to renegotiate NAFTA.

The envoy, David MacNaughton, said that even if NAFTA were torn up, the two nations would be bound by the terms of the 1987 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the precursor to the trilateral deal which added Mexico, noting, "I can't imagine them wanting to do anything about" that deal.

A source with direct knowledge of Canadian government thinking said Ottawa saw only a small chance that Trump, who won a Nov. 8 election, would move quickly on NAFTA, since changes would require cooperation from pro-business Republicans in Congress.

"He has other priorities, such as ending illegal immigration. Is he really going to burn up political capital on a step that could damage the economy?" said the person, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Peter Hall, chief economist with Export Development Canada, said he expected U.S. corporations with major investments in Canada to balk at big changes to NAFTA, which could harm U.S. consumers by hiking tariffs and making goods more expensive.

Trump's unhappiness with NAFTA has largely centered around trade with Mexico. He has also threatened to slap tariffs on imports of Chinese goods.

"I don't think at this point we've seen anything in his public statements that indicate that he is going to take a hard line against a country like Canada," said Royce Mendes, senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets.

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Mendes said if the United States eventually ended up trading with fewer countries, Canada's exports could actually go up.

According to official U.S. data, bilateral trade with Canada in goods and services in 2015 totaled $662.7 billion, more than the $659.4 billion between the United States and China.

In the run-up to the election, Canadian diplomats fanned out across the United States to make the point that Canada is the top export destination for 35 U.S. states and that 9 million U.S. jobs depend on trade with Canada.

Canadian officials and analysts are quietly confident the economy will survive, and might even thrive under a Trump presidency, given the high integration between the two countries' economies.

Cross-border partnerships in key industries such as the auto sector means "Buy American" policies may still allow Canadian components to sneak in under the wire, beating out competitors' goods.

Meanwhile, Canada's recent trade deal with Europe means U.S. firms can potentially access that market through their Canadian operations.

"What we need to see is an accelerating U.S. economy, keeping our currency weak enough that we're competitive on the global stage," said CIBC's Mendes. "All else being equal, if we lay low ...I think that'll be good." (Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Alan Crosby)
(Adds peso reaction, trade data; figures in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated)

By David Ljunggren and Andrea Hopkins

OTTAWA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Canada could fall back on a free trade agreement that excludes Mexico if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump follows through on radical protectionist policies, officials said, predicting fears of a massive economic hit are overblown.

During a raucous election campaign, Trump vowed to either renegotiate or scrap the 1994 three-nation North American Free Trade Agreement, under which Canada sends 75 percent of all its exports to the United States.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday that "if Americans want to talk about NAFTA, I'm more than happy to talk about it", a day after Canada's ambassador to the U.S. said Ottawa would be "happy" to renegotiate NAFTA.

The envoy, David MacNaughton, said that even if NAFTA were torn up, the two nations would be bound by the terms of the 1987 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the precursor to the trilateral deal which added Mexico, noting, "I can't imagine them wanting to do anything about" that deal.

A source with direct knowledge of Canadian government thinking said Ottawa saw only a small chance that Trump, who won a Nov. 8 election, would move quickly on NAFTA, since changes would require cooperation from pro-business Republicans in Congress.

"He has other priorities, such as ending illegal immigration. Is he really going to burn up political capital on a step that could damage the economy?" said the person, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Peter Hall, chief economist with Export Development Canada, said he expected U.S. corporations with major investments in Canada to balk at big changes to NAFTA, which could harm U.S. consumers by hiking tariffs and making goods more expensive.

Trump's unhappiness with NAFTA has largely centered around trade with Mexico. He has also threatened to slap tariffs on imports of Chinese goods.

Story continues

"I don't think at this point we've seen anything in his public statements that indicate that he is going to take a hard line against a country like Canada," said Royce Mendes, senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets.

Mendes said if the United States eventually ended up trading with fewer countries, Canada's exports could actually go up.

According to official U.S. data, bilateral trade with Canada in goods and services in 2015 totaled $662.7 billion, more than the $659.4 billion between the United States and China.

By contrast, Statistics Canada data showed that in 2015, bilateral trade in goods and services between Canada and Mexico totaled just C$30.2 billion. Canadian imports of vehicles, parts and accessories from Mexico totaled C$9.7 billion last year.

The possibility that Canada would take the U.S. side to the exclusion of Mexico added to weakness in the peso in late afternoon trade on Thursday.

"This kind of thing also scares people ... because it means the Canadian government is worried and so the market reacts," said CI Banco analyst Jorge Gordillo in Mexico City.

The Mexican embassy in Ottawa could not immediately be reached for comment.

In the run-up to the election, Canadian diplomats fanned out across the United States to make the point that Canada is the top export destination for 35 U.S. states and that 9 million U.S. jobs depend on trade with Canada.

Canadian officials and analysts are quietly confident the economy will survive, and might even thrive under a Trump presidency, given the high integration between the two countries' economies.

Cross-border partnerships in key industries such as the auto sector means "Buy American" policies may still allow Canadian components to sneak in under the wire, beating out competitors' goods.

Meanwhile, Canada's recent trade deal with Europe means U.S. firms can potentially access that market through their Canadian operations.

"What we need to see is an accelerating U.S. economy, keeping our currency weak enough that we're competitive on the global stage," said CIBC's Mendes. "All else being equal, if we lay low ...I think that'll be good." (Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Alan Crosby)
Content industry players in Asia this week called for an update of copyright laws around the region to fight against illicit streaming devices and mobile apps.

Speaking at a panel debate industry on Tuesday executives said illicit streaming devices and apps pose as legitimate services. That meant consumers cannot tell if they were subscribing to authorized or pirated services.

The debate was part of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia annual convention which is being held in Macau for the first time at Studio City.

Avigail Gutman, program director, operational security with CISCO, said these streaming devices aggregate content from hundreds of channels illegally, but they were charging consumers subscription fees. They dont pay for the content and yet they are making a huge profit. The service is attractive to end users as they pay so little, she said. In Asia, consumers dont even know they are consuming pirated products.

Desmond Chan, deputy general manager of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB, said that it has sought to counter pirate platforms by launching its own OTT services. He said MyTV Super, targeted at Hong Kong, already has over 1 million subscribers since its launch in April, while TVB Anywhere is aimed at overseas users and was launched just two months ago.

We offer services at low fees hoping that viewers can come back from the illicit streaming devices, he said.

Gutman said local legislation must catch up with technology, but that development in varies across Asia.

According to a paper published by CISCO, the sale of streaming devices pre-loaded with copyright infringing apps was considered a criminal offence by South Korean courts in 2015. On Monday (November 7), Singapore completed a three-month public consultation on a proposal to review the copyright regime.

Its a cat and mouse game. We still need to find a solution to stop people from uploading our content. I advocate for criminal liability for uploading content illegally, Chan said.

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But the situation for Hong Kong was depressing, according to Chan and John Medeiros, chief policy officer of CASBAA.

Last year, CASBAA and other industry players pushed for an amendment of copyright law in Hong Kong to fight online piracy, but the mission failed in Hong Kongs Legislative Council. Reviving it amid the current political chaos in Hong Kong, which sees pro-Beijing, pro-democracy and pro-independence battles extend to all areas of policy reviving the copyright bill amendment seems out of reach.

Theres no hope for a copyright law reform now. Were looking instead into a review of the Broadcasting Ordinance or to expand the scope of piracy under the current copyright law, Chan said.

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Premium branded spirits company, Castle Brands Inc. ROX, broke even in the second quarter of fiscal 2017, in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate. However, revenues surpassed the consensus mark on strong performance by the core brands.



Quarterly Discussion



Castle Brands bottom line reached the breakeven point in the quarter compared with a loss of 1 cent a year ago. Solid growth of the companys more profitable brands, Jefferson's and Irish whiskeys, resulted in strong revenue growth and even greater growth in gross profit.



The companys quarterly revenues of $19.63 million exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $18.90 million by 3.9%. Revenues also reflected a 5.9% year-over-year rise on U.S. sales growth of Jefferson's bourbons and Goslings Stormy Ginger Beer.



Adjusted EBITDA of $1 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2017 improved from $0.9 million in the prior-year quarter on the back of solid revenues.



Other Updates



During the fiscal second quarter, Castle Brands additional purchases of aged bourbon reserves, coupled with the continuation of two long-term new fill programs has supported continued sales growth of its Jefferson's bourbon portfolio. Castle Brands intends to expand its wine finishes program as well as introduce other new Jefferson's expressions over the remainder of fiscal 2017.



The company has also boosted its Irish whiskey offerings and expanded barrel program for Knappogue Castle Whiskey. Again, ginger beer cocktails, including Goslings' trademarked "Dark 'n Stormy" cocktail has been an important growth driver of Goslings "Stormy Ginger Beer". Castle Brands has been boosting the popularity of the Goslings brand through its sponsorship of the 35th America's Cup.



Castle Brands has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



Peer Releases



Constellation Brands Inc.s STZ adjusted earnings for the second quarter of fiscal 2017 jumped 13.5% year over year to $1.77 per share, outpacing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.66.



Global brewer, Molson Coors Brewing Companys TAP adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.01 by 2% but plunged 26.4% from the prior-year earnings of $1.40 per share.



Boston Beer Co. Inc.s SAM third-quarter earnings per share of $2.48 missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.54 and declined nearly 13% year over year.

Story continues

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* Budapest stocks at record high, Warsaw approaches 3-month high * Polish KGHM, PZO, Pekao report good Q3 earnings * Investors digest Trump's pledges on industry * Hungarian bond auctions seen drawing healthy demand By Sandor Peto and Bartosz Chmielewski BUDAPEST/WARSAW, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Warsaw led a rise of Central European equities on Thursday as some Polish companies reported better than expected earnings and investors, still unsettled by Donald Trump's shock win in the U.S. election, began to focus on his pledges on industry.

Although the European Union's eastern members are shielded by healthy growth and close ties with the euro zone, traders were still citing uncertainty following Trump's presidential victory.

"Although uncertainties linger about what a Trump presidency would mean for global trade and geopolitics, his first speech was conciliatory, and some of his centre-stage policies are seen as pro-growth," ING analysts said in a note.

Among other promises, Trump has pledged to re-industrialise the United States.

Poland lagged a rebound of regional assets in the previous session due to concerns its strained relations with Russia could impact its relationship with the United States as Trump is seen seeking better ties with Moscow.

But attention turned towards a batch of good Polish third-quarter corporate earnings reports on Thursday.

The stocks of KGHM surged by over 10 percent after the copper producer reported a jump in earnings.

"The market (also) reacts to Donald Trump's comments on industrialisation of the US," said Jaroslaw Janusz, equity trader at Noble Securities based in Krakow, Poland.

"He wants to build new manufacturing powers in America and return to times when manufacturing rose faster than services and this strongly supports commodity prices," he added.

The stocks of insurer PZU rose 3.5 percent after it reported 37 percent annual rise in profits.

Warsaw's bluechip equities index led a rise of the region's main indices. It gained 1.8 percent by 0946 GMT, almost fully recovering from a decline earlier this month before the U.S. elections, approching its highest level in 3 months.

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Budapest's main stock index rose by only 1 percent, but hit a new record high.

Hungarian assets have been helped by last week's credit rating upgrade to investment grade by Moody's.

Thursday's Hungarian auction of 3-, 5- and 10-year government bonds could draw strong demand for all maturities despite a steepening of yield curves in the region due to the uncertainty caused by Trump's win, traders said.

They also expect Hungary's central bank and the government debt agency to improve market liquidity to support bonds. The debt agency bought back bonds worth over 140 billion forints ($498.27 million) at an auction on Wednesday.

"That auction has also released funds into the market," one trader said.

Hungarian 10-year bond yields rose 7 basis points to 3.2 percent. Poland's corresponding yield jumped 10 basis points to 3.245 percent.
Donald Trump (Photo: Neilson Barnard/WireImage)

People has come under fire for its Donald Trump cover that hit newsstands this week, with several celebrities expressing their outrage and some even calling for a boycott of the weekly magazine.

The newest issue, which came out on Wednesday, features a smiling president-elect in a shiny blue suit and red-and-white striped tie. The headline reads, "President Trump," along with the words: "His life, his family and his astonishing journey to the White House."

In the pinned tweet on People's Twitter page, the caption exclaims: "He's hired!"

Hes hired! Donald Trump is elected 45th President of the United States in stunning upset https://t.co/nIJUq46x27 pic.twitter.com/XbnrfokfoW  People Magazine (@people) November 9, 2016

In October, the magazine itself made headlines after publishing an account from former reporter Natasha Stoynoff, who accused the then-GOP presidential candidate of groping her during a 2005 interview. The high-profile personal essay came on the heels of the Trump-Billy Bush tape and ushered in a slew of other women who spoke out for the first time to accuse Trump of sexual assault and similar treatment.

When Trump threatened a lawsuit, People editor-in-chief Jess Cagle stood behind his writer and her "clear, credible account of what happened." He said in a statement: "It is heartbreaking that her fear of retaliation by Trump kept her from reporting the incident when it happened."

On Wednesday, celebrities and the media were quick to call out the cover story for celebrating the divisive president-elect in its biography of the Trump family and chronological revisiting of election season events.

Asked about the backlash, a People spokesperson sent this statement: "Donald Trump's win is a history-making news event that warranted the cover of the magazine. The story is not a celebration or an endorsement and we continue to stand by Natasha Stoynoff, whose account of being attacked by Trump in 2005 is recounted in this week's cover story."

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The day it hit stands, the country saw nationwide anti-Trump across major cities: In New York City, thousands chanted "Not my president" outside his Trump Tower residence; in Downtown Los Angeles, crowds burned a giant papier mache Trump head and whacked a Trump pinata.

Judd Apatow blasted the magazine, tweeting: "F - @people magazine. How disgusting. Selling their soul. Soon the happy Donald cover. Sell those mags! F - your employees."

Fuck @people magazine. How disgusting. Selling their soul. Soon the happy Donald cover. Sell those mags! Fuck your employees. https://t.co/z0OPSGUnbc  Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) November 9, 2016

"The accompanying writeup is f - ing surreal, with an unnamed Trump 'family source' confirming the blindingly newsworthy tidbit that yes, 'the kids' are very excited," writes Anna Merlan for Jezebel. "In the same breath, the writer Julie Mazziotta blankly notes that everyone at Trump's party was chanting 'Lock her up' and 'Build a wall.'"

Actress Zoe Kazan called for a boycott, using the hashtag #BOYCOTTPEOPLEMAGAZINE. "Your own writer was assaulted by this man. Now you look the other way for profit?" she tweeted. "Normalizing him is shameful. I won't stand for it."

#BOYCOTTPEOPLEMAGAZINE

Celebs: do not give them your interviews or sell them your pictures

Readers: do not give them your money

This matters https://t.co/cwIJEOpbEl  zoe kazan (@zoeinthecities) November 10, 2016

.@people your own writer was assaulted by this man. Now you look the other way for profit? Normalizing him is shameful. I won't stand for it https://t.co/3uk4xzDdnb  zoe kazan (@zoeinthecities) November 10, 2016

John Cryer joined Kazan's call.

And while we're at it #BoycottPeopleMagazine  Jon Cryer (@MrJonCryer) November 10, 2016

Gabriella Paiella for New York Magazine's The Cut called out the magazine for treating Trump and his family in a "noticeably more positive light" on social media, highlighting a post of 22 photos of Ivanka Trump and her children and a family portrait of the Trumps to accompany a story about his White House decor plans.

Chrissy Teigen replied to People's tweets of the cover and of the Ivanka Trump photos saying, "If I didn't love you guys so much, I wouldn't feel so sick. So much for that writer, eh?"

Comedian Emmy Blotnick also replied to the Ivanka Trump tweet saying, "@people go f - yourself."

@people go fuck yourself  Emmy Blotnick (@emmyblotnick) November 9, 2016

Slate's L.V. Anderson focused on the Ivanka Trump tweet in its piece, titled: "Amoral People Magazine Is Already Fawning Over How 'Cute' Trump's Family Is."

When People initially published Stoynoff's piece, many wondered why it took the magazine so long to come out with the story. In an Oct. 19 column for The Hollywood Reporter, columnist Michael Wolff wrote just that.

"People had firsthand proof the marriage [between Donald and Melania Trump] was something other than what it said it was but drooled sycophantically over the couple anyway," Wolff writes. "The influence of People contributed to creating the celebrity stature of Trump. Now, with no more information than it had then, it wants to take that stature back. Who's responsible for what? Who's less trustworthy here?"

Read more: Chelsea Handler Cries as She Talks Fighting the Urge to Move to Spain Following Trump Win
People has come under fire for its Donald Trump cover that hit newsstands this week, with several celebrities expressing their outrage and some even calling for a boycott of the weekly magazine.

The newest issue, which came out Wednesday, features a smiling president-elect in a shiny blue suit and red-and-white striped tie. The headline reads "President Trump," along with the words: "His life, his family and his astonishing journey to the White House."

In the pinned tweet on People's Twitter page, the caption exclaims: "He's hired!"

He's hired! Donald Trump is elected 45th President of the United States in stunning upset https://t.co/nIJUq46x27 pic.twitter.com/XbnrfokfoW

- People Magazine (@people) November 9, 2016

In October, the magazine itself made headlines after publishing an account from former reporter Natasha Stoynoff, who accused the then-presidential candidate of groping her during a 2005 interview. The high-profile personal essay came on the heels of the Trump-Billy Bush tape and ushered in a slew of other women who spoke out for the first time to accuse Trump of sexual assault and similar treatment.

When Trump threatened a lawsuit, People editor-in-chief Jess Cagle stood behind his writer and her "clear, credible account of what happened." He said in a statement: "It is heartbreaking that her fear of retaliation by Trump kept her from reporting the incident when it happened."

On Wednesday, celebrities and the media were quick to call out the cover story for celebrating the divisive president-elect in its biography of the Trump family and chronological revisiting of election season events. The day it hit stands, the country saw nationwide anti-Trump rallies across major cities: In New York City, thousands chanted "Not my president" outside his Trump Tower residence; in downtown Los Angeles, crowds burned a giant papier-mache Trump head and whacked a Trump pinata.

Story continues

Judd Apatow blasted the magazine, tweeting: "F--- @people magazine. How disgusting. Selling their soul. Soon the happy Donald cover. Sell those mags! F--- your employees."

Fuck @people magazine. How disgusting. Selling their soul. Soon the happy Donald cover. Sell those mags! Fuck your employees. https://t.co/z0OPSGUnbc

- Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) November 9, 2016

"The accompanying write-up is f---ing surreal, with an unnamed Trump 'family source' confirming the blindingly newsworthy tidbit that yes, 'the kids' are very excited," writes Anna Merlan for Jezebel. "In the same breath, the writer Julie Mazziotta blankly notes that everyone at Trump's party was chanting 'Lock her up' and 'Build a wall.'"

Actress Zoe Kazan called for a boycott, using the hashtag #BOYCOTTPEOPLEMAGAZINE. "Your own writer was assaulted by this man. Now you look the other way for profit?" she tweeted. "Normalizing him is shameful. I won't stand for it."

#BOYCOTTPEOPLEMAGAZINE

Celebs: do not give them your interviews or sell them your pictures

Readers: do not give them your money

This matters https://t.co/cwIJEOpbEl- zoe kazan (@zoeinthecities) November 10, 2016

.@people your own writer was assaulted by this man. Now you look the other way for profit? Normalizing him is shameful. I won't stand for it https://t.co/3uk4xzDdnb

- zoe kazan (@zoeinthecities) November 10, 2016

Jon Cryer joined Kazan's call.

And while we're at it #BoycottPeopleMagazine

- Jon Cryer (@MrJonCryer) November 10, 2016

Gabriella Paiella for New York magazine's The Cut called out People for treating Trump and his family in a "noticeably more positive light" on social media, highlighting a post of 22 photos of Ivanka Trump and her children and a family portrait of the Trumps to accompany a story about his White House decor plans.

Chrissy Teigen replied to People's tweets of the cover and of the Ivanka Trump photos saying, "If I didn't love you guys so much, I wouldn't feel so sick. So much for that writer, eh?"

Comedian Emmy Blotnick also replied to the Ivanka Trump tweet saying, "@people go f--- yourself."

@people go fuck yourself

- Emmy Blotnick (@emmyblotnick) November 9, 2016

And Slate's L.V. Anderson focused on the Ivanka Trump tweet in its piece, titled: "Amoral People Magazine Is Already Fawning Over How 'Cute' Trump's Family Is."

When People initially published Stoynoff's piece, many wondered why it took the magazine so long to come out with the story. In an Oct. 19 column for The Hollywood Reporter, columnist Michael Wolff wrote just that.

"People had firsthand proof the marriage [between Donald and Melania Trump] was something other than what it said it was but drooled sycophantically over the couple anyway," Wolff writes. "The influence of People contributed to creating the celebrity stature of Trump. Now, with no more information than it had then, it wants to take that stature back. Who's responsible for what? Who's less trustworthy here?"

This article originally appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.
From Harper's BAZAAR

While her royal in-laws and family members have been depicted on The Crown and other television biopics, Kate Middleton is finally about to get a TV portrayal of her own. Charlotte Riley (Peaky Blinders, London Has Fallen) will be playing the Duchess of Cambridge in a TV adaption of the play King Charles III. The actress is "really excited" to take on the "challenge" of playing the royal, according to BBC.

"Kate Middleton is a really interesting woman, particularly within the context of this play, and it is a challenge I am really looking forward to," she said. The play, written by Mike Bartlett, follows an imagined story of Prince Charles (father to Prince William, father-in-law to Middleton) assuming the throne after the Queen's death.

"It's such a unique project," Riley added. "To be both modern and rich in verse and to play someone who is real but yet totally re-imagined for this story is an exciting prospect for an actor."

The drama, which will air on BBC Two, will star Tim Pigott-Smith, who played the King when the play debuted on stage. There's no announced air date yet, but expect this to be your next royal-infused binge watch.

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Chelsea Handler fought back tears several times during her Netflix talk show while discussing the outcome of Tuesdays presidential election.

The host was emotional right from the top of her show.

Like a lot of people in this country, Im sad. Im disappointed, and Im confused. But if Hillary [Clinton] can make it through a concession speech, then I can make it through a stupid television show, Handler said.

She was later joined by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) who also expressed her disappointment over Donald Trumps victory. My hearts on the floor, Boxer said. I have learned how painful politics can be. But that doesnt mean you run away. It means you pick yourself up, as the president said, and you fight even harder for your country, because its ours. Its ours.

When asked if she had spoken to Clinton since the results, Boxer said she hadnt. No, I did not want to speak to her at this point, Boxer said. I like to write, she explained emotionally. I have too much to say. I want to think about it.

I know as a woman, it feels so sexist, Handler responded, beginning to cry. I guess the message that I want to spread out to other women is to not give up  sorry, I hate fking crying on camera  because this is so important. Its easy to throw in the towel and say that were gonna leave, or Im gonna move to Spain. Because I want to move to Spain, I really, really want to move to Spain right now. And everyone in my office is like you have a responsibility. You have a voice and you have to use it and you have to be here.'

Handler continued, If youre caught lying on camera three times in a row, if youre referring to a womans genitalia. Those are non-presidential things unpresidential things.

The segment ended on a hopeful note, with Boxer praising the women who won Senate seats, including Kamala Harris, who is replacing her.

Handler later reiterated her stance, posting another video on Instagram Thursday morning.

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Instagram Photo

Im not leaving the country, Handler said defiantly. This is my announcement. Im going to keep fighting. For Hillary Clinton. In honor of Hillary Clinton.

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Chelsea Handler hosted an emotional post-election episode of her Netflix show on Wednesday.

"Obviously the result is not what I was hoping for," said Handler. "Like a lot of people in this country I'm sad, I'm disappointed and I'm confused, but if Hillary [Clinton] can make it through a concession speech then I can make it through a stupid television show."

Handler interviewed Senator Barbara Boxer, who got choked up when talking about how she hasn't spoken to Clinton yet about her loss. Handler got emotional in response, saying, "I know for a woman, as a woman it feels so sexist."

She started crying and said, "I guess the message that I want to spread out to other women is exactly what you're saying, is not to give up. Sorry, I hate f---ing crying on camera."

Handler continued, "It's so easy to say throw in the towel and that we're going to leave or I'm going to move to Spain, because I want to move to Spain. I really, really want to move to Spain right now."

Before Trump won, Handler had repeatedly talked about moving to her house in Spain should he become president. "I did buy a house in another country just in case, so all of these people that threaten to leave the country and then don't - I will leave the country," she said this past May.

Handler said that her co-workers have spoken to her about staying and using her platform instead. "Everyone in my office is like 'You have a responsibility, you have a voice and you need to use it, and you have to be here,'" she said.

Through their disappointment, Handler and Boxer shared a message of hope and resilience. "My heart is on the floor," admitted Boxer, but she said it's important to focus that a person is not defined by how they act when they are in despair.

"It's not where you are when you're high and doing great, it's when you fall down," said Boxer, adding "A lot of us are on the ground right now.

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Boxer pointed out that Clinton won the popular vote and spoke about the complexity of the electoral college and what it would take to change it. She also quoted Martin Luther King's words about the arc of history bending towards justice and the Preamble to the Constitution discussing finding a more perfect union.

"When you say, 'I want to leave, I want to go,' of course - it's the flight syndrome," Boxer told Handler, "That's just what the people who gave this hateful message want us to do and we're not going to do it."

This article was originally published on The Hollywood Reporter.

Plus, Zara Larsson on Trump's Election: 'It Was Supposed to Be a Joke, It Was Not Supposed to Happen'
Chevrolet has overhauled its most popular SUVs both inside and out with an emphasis on safety and connectivity

When the 2018 Chevrolet Equinox goes on sale it will do so with sharper exterior lines, a raft of turbocharged powertrains and even a special teen driving mode that parents can use to curb their kids' bad driving habits before they develop.

"The all-new 2018 Chevrolet Equinox is a modern SUV sized and designed to meet the needs of the compact SUV customer," said Alan Batey, president of GM North America and brand chief, Global Chevrolet.

With 2 million sales and counting, the original Equinox has been an outstanding hit for Chevrolet - only the Silverado Pickup is more popular.

Therefore the company is focusing on features such as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility and systems that help owners drive with even greater peace of mind to keep the car appealing to customers.

For example, as well as the teen driver setting, the car will come with a rear seat reminder so that parents don't forget their children are in the back; autonomous emergency braking; blind spot monitoring; and a lane keep assist feature with lane departure warning.

The 2016 LA Auto Show opens its doors to the public from November 18.
Chicago Med docs Will Halstead and Natalie Manning have moved on to new relationships  he with pathologist Nina, she with med student Jeff  but you wouldnt know it from the unresolved romantic tension between them.

RELATEDChicago P.D. Stars Sophia Bush and Jesse Lee Soffer Mull Linstead Engagement, Preview Fatherly Trouble

Ahead of this Thursdays fall finale (NBC, 9/8c), TVLine checked in with executive producer Andrew Schneider and the shows cast about Mansteads lingering feelings and that complicated love square rectangle (Because Jeff and I are kind of tall, star Nick Gehlfuss explains). We also got scoop on Connor and Robins growing spark, and April and Tates ominous future.

Chicago Med Spoilers

NATALIE AND JEFF |

Natalies relationship with Jeff is very complex, Schneider describes. He was her late husbands best friend. Thats sort of always there. Her late husband is always the elephant in the room in their relationship. And although Natalie really is into Jeff, she struggles with the connection that she and Will have, Torrey DeVitto says. She doesnt really know what it is.

RELATEDChicago P.D.s Jon Seda on His Unprecedented Move to Justice

WILL AND NATALIE | As wonderfully as things are going between Will and the bubbly Nina, his affection for Natalie just wont go away. Once you put feelings like that about somebody out there in the open, you cant turn them off, Gehlfuss notes. And the fact that we work so close together, youre going to be seeing some of that come into play in the near future with Manstead.'

Chicago Med Spoilers

CONNOR AND ROBIN |

The hospitals newest workplace flirtation will cause a kind of odd triangle with Charles, who doesnt approve of his daughters love interest, Schneider previews. Adds Colin Donnell: Connor has his own family issues that he has to work with that Dr. Charles recognizes. So [Dr. Charles] gets a little parentally protective.

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As for the relationship between Connor and Robin, theyre rolling it out slowly, which I think is smart and fun, Donnell says, while Schneider describes their dynamic as very different from the one between the surgeon and Dr. Sam Zanetti last season. That woman was actually kind of his boss and competing with him. [Connor and Robin] dont have those issues, the EP explains.

RELATEDChicago Fire Boss Talks [Spoiler]s Exit Following Jimmy vs. Boden Battle

Chicago Med Spoilers

APRIL AND TATE |

Forget finding the perfect wedding dress; newly engaged April has bigger problems to tackle now that her TB is flaring up. If it were that simple of, I love my boyfriend! then it would be easier. But shes got this disease that shes fighting, and its serious, Yaya DaCosta shares. So will the nurse want to break things off with her fiance in order to protect him and his son? Shes being careful, and shes trying to be smart about things, the actress hedges.

Chicago Med fans, who are you shipping?

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SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A plane traveling between Santiago and the southern Chilean city of Punta Arenas had to return to the capital and make an emergency landing on Thursday afternoon after a bomb threat, authorities said. A Brazilian woman on board the LATAM Airlines flight had told one of the flight attendants there was a bomb on the plane around 20 minutes into the flight, said airport manager Juan Luis Rodriguez. After returning to Santiago, the passengers were escorted off the plane, he said, and the woman was arrested. Authorities are searching the plane, he added. LATAM Airlines said it could not comment under aviation protocols. (Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Rosalba O'Brien; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Cross-border M&A deals rose 19.5% in the first 10 months.

China's outbound investment will continue to be elevated over the coming quarters despite rising political headwinds, said BMI Research.

The research house adds that Chinese firms will continue to favour developed markets such as Western Europe, North America and developed Asian economies.

Chinese companies started a shopping spree in the global mergers and acquisition (M&A) market in Q315. According to Bloomberg, a total of 852 cross-border M&A deals were announced in the first 10 months of 2016, which marks a 19.5% y-o-y increase when compared with the same period in 2015.

Additionally, the total value of the announced deals came in at USD294.4bn in the January to October period, which is approximately 160% higher than the number of announced deals in the same period in 2015.

However, BMI notes that the growing number of deals is attracting more government scrutiny from both Beijing and foreign governments.

"While Chinese investors could face rising political headwinds, we expect them to continue conducting a large number of outward M&A deals over the coming quarters in an effort to move up the value chain and to hedge for currency and economic risks, it said.

Here's more from BMI:

We expect Chinese firms to continue facing political obstacles when conducting cross-border M&A activities. We believe that foreign governments could increasingly intervene in Chinese companies' M&A attempts on the back of national security concerns and rising populism. For example, in August, the Australian government blocked the sale of a 50% stake in Australia's largest network operator, Ausgrid, to Chinese and Hong Kong bidders due to 'security concerns'.

Chinese appliance-maker Midea also currently faces political resistance to it finalising the legal process of a takeover of German robot-maker Kuka Ag, despite the fact that it now holds approximately 94.5% of Kuka's shares. As Chinese firms start to target household names, major regional employers or companies that possess key technology, the odds of greater resistance by local governments will increase further. This, combined with rising protectionism encouraged by growing populism, will continue to weigh on China's outward investment.

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Meanwhile, resistance from the Chinese government could also increase on the back of concerns over rising capital outflows. Indeed, on September 22, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) stated that in an effort to ease capital outflows, it will crack down on fake overseas mergers and acquisitions conducted by domestic firms.

The Chinese government has also become more concerned about the abnormally high premiums that Chinese firms are willing to pay for cross-border M&A deals. For example, according to Caixin, objections from the SAFE and other regulatory agencies were one of the reasons why Anbang, a Chinese insurance company known for its strong government connections, withdrew its bid for Starwood Hotels in March.





More From Singapore Business Review


Donald Trump isnt the only president-elect sparking controversy this week. The International Criminal Police Organization elected a former Chinese paramilitary police force deputy as its president, and many human rights observers are up in arms about it.

Interpol announced the election results for its new chief, Chinas Vice Minister for Public Security Meng Hongwei, on Twitter on Thursday. Hongwei is the first Chinese official to take the helm of the organization. Hongweis career history, and his countrys questionable human rights and policing record, have already drawn criticisms from day one.

The appointment of Meng Hongwei is alarming, given Chinas long-standing practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad, said Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia director at Amnesty International in a press release Thursday.

It seems at odds with Interpols mandate to work in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Bequelin added, referring to the U.N. declaration enshrined in Article 2 of Interpols constitution.

Before Hongwei became vice minister since 2004, he was deputy director of the armed police forces Beijing would send to quell unrest in Tibet, Xinjiang, and other unstable outskirts of China.

China has used Interpols red notices, a de facto international police warrant, to try to detain former officials and political asylum seekers that fled the country. China issued 100 of such notices last year.

There now needs to be close scrutiny of the kind of notices that Interpol issues at the request of the Chinese government, Bequelin said. The United States and many other countries do not have an extradition treaty with China, which has been regularly accused by human rights watchdogs of widespread police and judiciary abuses.

Hongwei is becoming Interpol president in the midst of Chinese President Xi Jinpings major anti-corruption drive across China. Hongweis election, coupled China hosting Interpols 86th general assembly in 2017, could be a big PR score for Xis anti-graft campaign. Over 1 million officials in China have been punished in the past three years, BBC reported. But critics worry Xi is using the drive to consolidate power and target political rivals.

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Interpols president is primarily a symbolic figurehead, but Hongwei can still drive the organizations strategy and set guidance for its general assembly body. Interpol also has a secretary general; that job currently is held by Jurgen Stock, who chairs the organizations executive committee. With 190 members, Interpol is the second-largest international organization after the U.N.

And just to round things out, Interpol also elected a Russian official, Maj. Gen. Alexander Prokopchuk, as its vice president on Thursday. Russia, like China, isnt known for having a particularly fair and just police force. Prokopchuk has been with Russias Interior Ministry since 2003.

Photo credit: JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK/AFP/Getty Images
LONDON (Reuters) - China expects Brexit negotiations between Britain and the European Union will produce a favourable outcome, Vice Finance Minister Shi Yaobin said on Thursday. "The EU and UK are both very important trading partners ... for China. We hope (they) conduct smooth and successful negotiations which reach the kind of arrangement which is mutually agreeable and mutually beneficial," Shi told a news conference in London, through a translator. "We ourselves expect to see that the negotiations produce a very stable and very good outcome for EU and UK. That's what we want to see." (Reporting by William James, writing by Andy Bruce; editing by Stephen Addison)
LONDON (Reuters) - Chinese Vice Finance Minister Shi Yaobin said on Thursday that U.S. election victor Donald Trump should be aware of the benefits of economic co-operation with China, after Trump had campaigned to take on the world's No.2 economy. Speaking at a news conference in London, Shi described Trump's pledges to challenge China as rhetoric to win the election and that it remained to be seen whether he would deliver on them. "I want to emphasize that long-standing economic cooperation between China and the U.S, particularly in the economic areas, this cooperation has yielded win-win benefits for the Chinese people and American people," Shi said through a translator. "I think these facts should be recognized by the president-elect and also by the people of the two countries." On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to tax Chinese imports to stop currency devaluation. (Reporting by William James, writing by Andy Bruce; editing by Stephen Addison)
BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States has not told China about an investigation into whether Chinese companies shipped steel through other countries to avoid anti-dumping duties, China's commerce ministry spokesman said on Thursday. The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday formally opened an investigation into allegations that Chinese steel producers are diverting shipments through Vietnam to avoid American import tariffs. "To date, the U.S. has not informed China about this," Shen Danyang told reporters at a routine news briefing. "Protectionism in international trade is gaining traction, and some countries are imposing increased restrictions on steel which is most certainly distorting normal trade." China hopes all countries would adopt policies that "would create a desirable environment for global economic growth rather than the opposite which would create obstacles that impact normal trade," Shen added. The European Union's anti-fraud office (OLAF) is also looking into several cases where Chinese steel firms shipped the metal to another country, disguised its origin, and then shipped it on to Europe in a process known as "transshipment." When asked about whether China was aware of OLAF's investigation, Shen told Reuters he "wasn't well acquainted" with the situation. (Reporting by Sue-Lin Wong; Editing by Kim Coghill)
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese state media has warned the U.S. president-elect against isolationism and interventionism, calling instead for the United States to actively work with China to maintain the international status quo. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to tear up trade deals and pursue a more unilateral foreign policy under his "America First" principle during a tempestuous election campaign. But China and other foreign governments are uncertain how much of Trump's rhetoric will be translated into policy because he has at times made contradictory statements and provided few details of how he would deal with the world. Trump often targeted China in the campaign, blaming Beijing for U.S. job losses and vowing to impose 45 percent tariffs on Chinese imports. The Republican also promised to call China a currency manipulator on his first day in office. U.S. isolationist policies had "accelerated the country's economic crisis" during the Great Depression, warned a commentary by China's official Xinhua News Agency, though it added that "election talk is just election talk". The commentary also cautioned against any tilt towards intervention. POTENTIAL PRAGMATIST The Chinese media in the past have criticized the United States and other Western powers for intervening in Afghanistan and Iraq and meddling in international hot spots such as Ukraine. "History has proven that U.S. overseas military interventionism causes them to pay disastrous political and economic costs," the commentary said. Hillary Clinton was widely seen in China as the more hawkish of the two candidates, while some Chinese commentators saw Trump as a potential pragmatist on foreign policy. But Beijing fears the unpredictability of a Trump presidency as it seeks to maintain an equilibrium in Sino-U.S. relations while dealing with the daunting tasks of a reform agenda to combat a slowing economy at home. A second Xinhua commentary published on Thursday morning said the new U.S. president and China should "jointly build a new model of major power relations". That echoes the position of Chinese President Xi Jinping that says global powers should work to accommodate, not contain, a rising China in the international system. 'SHOCK OF HERESY' Trump's victory was watched closely on the Chinese internet with the tag "Trump has won" becoming the most-searched term on Weibo, a popular Chinese microblog service, on Wednesday afternoon in Asia, well before the race was conceded. Some of the posts agreed that Trump might be just the change agent the United States needs now. "The U.S. has chosen indeterminacy in order to create change," according to a post by Tsinghua University professor Sun Liping on Thursday that has been shared over a thousand times. "When the usual, determined method has already been unable to solve the problems, then you need the shock of heresy instead." Chinese state media had previously said the U.S. election process reflects a troubled political system, and showed an increasingly divided, disillusioned and indignant U.S. citizenry. "This election has also made clear that the U.S. political system is already caught in a predicament," a third Xinhua commentary said. "As for when it will exit this predicament, the answer is still unknown." The Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling party's People's Daily newspaper, said Trump's victory had "dealt a heavy blow to the heart of U.S. politics" but that he would be unable to make many changes in U.S. foreign policy. "In an elite-controlled U.S., most of those holding power don't support Trump. And U.S. allies across the world will pressure Washington to restrain Trump from isolationism," it said. (Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Ryan Woo and Bill Tarrant.)
Following an unprecedented move by Beijing to effectively bar two newly elected, pro-independence Hong Kong lawmakers from taking their seats, there are now worrying signs that more than a dozen of their more moderate colleagues could be in the central governments crosshairs.

Speaking at a seminar Wednesday in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, part of the sprawling conurbation that borders Hong Kong, mainland legal official Wang Zhenmin claimed that up to 15 currently serving legislators who favor greater political freedoms for the semiautonomous territory had brought shame on people across China by turning their October inaugurations into acts of protest  or, as he put it, making a show at a solemn oath-taking ceremony and turning oath-taking into a joke.

Wang is the legal chief of Chinas Liaison Office  Beijings official establishment in Hong Kong.

His remarks came two days after the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress (NPCSC), Chinas largely ceremonial legislature, decided that pro-independence lawmakers Yau Wai-ching, 25, and Sixtus Baggio Leung, 30, should be barred from the legislature because, during their swearing-in ceremonies, they pledged allegiance to the Hong Kong Nation instead of Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region of China, and also referred to China in a manner considered derogatory.

Barring the additional 15 lawmakers would amount to a major purge of liberal voices in the chamber and leave the legislature in complete control of the government and pro-Beijing politicians.

Nathan Law, a student leader who emerged from the Umbrella Revolution protests of 2014 to become, at 23, Hong Kongs youngest ever legislator, is one of the lawmakers in Beijings sights. During his swearing-in, he stuck to the script of the oath, but raised his intonation at the end of The Peoples Republic of China whenever it was mentioned in the script, as though asking a question. He had also quoted Indian independence icon Mohandas Gandhi before he took the oath.

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Law insists that he has taken his oath lawfully. They are trying to launch an all-in war against all the democrats, he tells TIME. That is political oppression from the Beijing government.

Also on Wednesday, Ted Hui, a legislator from the Democratic Party, was ejected from the chamber when he questioned the presidents decision not to allow an adjournment debate on the NPCSCs intervention. Efforts by fellow legislators to stop Huis eviction led to scuffles, reports Radio Television Hong Kong, causing the meeting to be suspended and relocated.

Read More: Hong Kong Legislative Elections Have Given Voice to a New Political Generation

The NPCSCs ruling on Yau and Leung followed an appeal to it by the citys deeply unpopular, pro-Beijing administration. The two rebel lawmakers were elected on a wave of popular sentiment that has seen many in Hong Kong consider, for the first time, far greater autonomy for the territory if not self-determination or outright independence.

The committees decision comes as the culmination of a weeks-long firestorm and political crisis, which could well become a constitutional one, in a city that has constantly chafed under Beijings sovereignty since it was returned to China by former colonial power Britain in 1997. Many are furious that the local government invited mainland authorities to rule on a matter that the Hong Kong legislature should have been allowed to independently resolve.

Anger and trepidation over the interference drove thousands onto the territorys streets Sunday afternoon. Skirmishes broke out later that evening, when protesters attempted to approach the gates of the Liaison Office building, forcing the police to disperse the crowd with batons and pepper spray.

Inviting China to rule on the status of Hong Kong legislators amounts to China directly handpicking legislative candidates, veteran labor organizer and former pro-democracy lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan tells TIME. It might be that, even the act of merely calling for ending one-party rule in China or opposing the Chinese Communist Party could well be found as out of line.

David Zweig, a China observer at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, tells TIME that while Yau and Leung brought the wrath of China down on themselves, pushback from Hong Kong people will only increase if Beijing starts clamping down on other lawmakers.

Its going to become a huge crisis if Beijing does further interfere, he says. At this point its just still small-scale protest. But if they use this excuse to cull the Legislative Council of people who they dont like, thats a whole different ballgame.

By Thursday morning local time, local media outlets were reporting that the former head of the politically conservative Taxi Drivers and Operators Association had entered an application at Hong Kongs High Court for a judicial review, seeking to challenge the validity of the oaths taken by eight pro-democracy lawmakers.
By Jackie Cai

SHANGHAI, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Chinese packaging makers are bracing themselves for Singles' Day on Friday, stocking up on cardboard and taking on staff ahead of an online shopping bonanza that shifts more goods than Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States combined.

Sun Jingyun, owner of Kunshan Jiaze Packaging in eastern Jiangsu, has added a third extra staff since early October to meet a threefold jump in demand ahead of a day of discounts led by internet retailer Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Yet the packaging business gets slightly less lucrative with every Nov. 11. More packagers have emerged in answer to China's e-commerce boom which began around 2010, squeezing profit margins as the cost of cardboard and tape rises while output prices fall.

"It seems everyone is now making express delivery boxes, and price competition is pretty fierce," said Sun, who entered the market for delivery boxes early last year. "Lots of people are jumping into the business which is pushing down profits."

The trend is reflected throughout the e-commerce industry as players such as sellers and couriers settle for tiny profit margins in a massive online market that is redrawing the retail landscape to the detriment of physical stores.

SHARP GROWTH

But the attraction is clear: In packaging, China used 9.9 billion cardboard cartons and 17 billion metres of adhesive tape last year, each almost 50 percent more than a year earlier, showed a report last month from China's State Post Bureau.

On Singles' Day alone this year, the Post Bureau expects demand for 1 billion boxes, up 35 percent from last year.

To meet that demand, firms both big and small - such as Nine Dragon Paper Holdings Ltd and Sun's Jiaze - are expanding into the sector. The exact number is unknown, but the steep growth in e-commerce has attracted enough entrants to squeeze margins, Sun said.

The story is similar one step up the chain, with the number of large firms making the base for adhesive tape jumping over 60 percent in the past three years, showed data from petrochemicals website Chem99.

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CONNECTED CUSTOMERS

Package makers sell their boxes and tape to couriers such as U.S.-listed ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc, which box up sellers' goods and deliver them to shoppers.

"In 2007 China's express delivery market had around 1 billion parcels," Post Bureau deputy head Liu Jun said this week. "This year it will break though 30 billion and be the number one market in the world."

The growth is being driven by increasingly internet-savvy consumers who want to pay online for items as varied as clothes, cosmetics, meals and cinema tickets through platforms such as Alibaba's Tmall and that of rival JD.com Inc.

On Singles' Day last year, these shoppers ran $14 billion worth of transactions through Tmall - a number most company watchers expect to be surpassed on Friday.

One such shopper is 28-year-old accountant Zhang Yuting from Shanghai. In the run up to Singles' Day, Zhang has been filling her online shopping cart on a daily basis with goods such as nappies, tea, motor oil and a Japanese electronic toilet seat.

"I've got loads of e-commerce apps on my phone," said Zhang, listing apps from Alibaba, JD.com, Suning Commerce Group Co Ltd , Amazon.com Inc and fresh produce retailer Beijing MissFresh Ecommerce Co Ltd.

"I probably place one order a day. If its available online, I won't buy it from a high street store," said Zhang.

"For this year's Singles' Day, I'm going to spend at least 10,000 yuan ($1,473)," she said.

($1 = 6.7911 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Jackie Cai; Writing by Adam Jourdan; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
Chris Pratt calls himself the male Jennifer Lawrence and were like HELL YA!

The truths out  everyone wants to be Jennifer Lawrence, including Chris Pratt, who is totally okay being called, the male Jennifer Lawrence.

On Thursdays episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Lawrence and Pratt sat down with Ellen DeGeneres to talk about their new sci-fi romance, Passengers, and things quickly turned into a love fest for J.Law. In fact, the Guardians of the Galaxy star revealed he is a big fan of his new nickname.

When asked what he thinks about being dubbed the male Jennifer Lawrence, Pratt cheered and said, Isnt that awesome? I love that.

It could be worse, he joked. Preach, Chris, preach.

While Pratt seemed totally on board with the nickname, since it came about because he is so nice and Lawrence is so nice, the Hunger Games actress revealed that hes way nicer than her.

Hes much, much nicer than me, Lawrence told the talkshow host. Hes a hard worker, he has a good attitude, hes very positive.

The two continued to chat about Passengers, which is about two humans, played by Pratt and Lawrence, who were supposed to be frozen and ended up waking up 90 years early on a spaceship that is malfunctioning. Their characters ultimately fall in love or at least think its love and along the way they do some serious stunts  well, Pratt does some stunts.

He had to do basically everything, because I suffer from paranoia mixed with delusions, Lawrence joked. So I thought if I wore a harness I would never be able to bare children, so he took care of all the harness work.

While Pratt revealed that he did do most of the stunt work in the movie, Lawrence has been known to be a team player, so obviously she did stunt work as well even in a harness!

Check out the trailer for Passengers below, and prepare yourself for even more Pratt and Lawrence banter.

The movie hits theaters December 21st.

The post Chris Pratt calls himself the male Jennifer Lawrence and were like HELL YA! appeared first on HelloGiggles.
By Steve Holland and John Whitesides

(Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump put aside the celebrations and focused on Wednesday on his 73-day transition to the White House as rival Hillary Clinton promised to bury the bitterness of their long presidential race and work to unify a divided country.

After Trump's stunning upset of the heavily favored Clinton, Democratic President Barack Obama and leading figures in the Republican Party who had struggled to make peace with Trump all vowed to move past the campaign ugliness.

"Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead," Clinton, the Democratic nominee, said in a concession speech in New York, joined by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea.

While her loss was painful "and it will be for a long time," she had offered to work with Trump as he prepares to begin his four-year term on Jan. 20, Clinton told supporters.

A wealthy New York real estate developer and former reality TV host, Trump rode a wave of anger toward Washington insiders to win Tuesday's election against Clinton. A former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state, Clinton also ran for president in 2008.

Obama, who campaigned hard against Trump, invited him to the White House for a meeting on Thursday after a brutal night for the Democratic Party, which also fell short of recapturing majorities in both chambers of Congress.

"We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country," Obama said at the White House, adding he and his staff would work with Trump to ensure a successful transition. "We are not Democrats first, we are not Republicans first, we are Americans first."

But reflecting the bitterness of a long election campaign that often focused more on character than on policy, scattered anti-Trump protests broke out across the country, including in New York and Chicago, with demonstrators denouncing Trump's campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

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Thousands of protesters thronged Midtown Manhattan and marched toward Trump Tower on Wednesday evening, while at a park farther downtown, hundreds of people shouted: "Not my president." In Chicago, thousands gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower downtown while chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA."

Trump and his senior aides met at Trump Tower in New York to begin the transition. "They are hunkered down in meetings, plotting the next steps, the transition, the first 100 days, key staff positions," said a source close to Trump's campaign.

Potential choices for his administration included Republican figures who eagerly supported Trump even when he faced opprobrium from other senior Republicans.

Possible names included Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff, RNC spokesman Sean Spicer as White House spokesman, U.S. Senators Jeff Sessions and Bob Corker in possible roles as secretary of state or defense secretary, and former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich as secretary of state, a source close to the campaign said.

Trump will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of the U.S. Congress that could help him implement his legislative agenda and appoint a Supreme Court justice to fill the vacancy created by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

In the Senate, Democrats secured a second gain on Wednesday, when Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte conceded defeat in New Hampshire to challenger Maggie Hassan, the state's Democratic governor. But the Republicans retained their majority.

"Now, Donald Trump will lead a unified Republican government and we will work hand-in-hand on a positive agenda to tackle this country's big challenges," House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who had a strained relationship with Trump, told reporters, saying Trump had earned a mandate in the election.

TRUMP PRIORITIES

In an Oct. 25 Reuters interview, Trump said his top priorities when he took office would be building stronger borders, repealing Obama's national healthcare plan, aiding military veterans and working to create more jobs.

In his victory speech early on Wednesday, he also promised to embark on a project to rebuild American infrastructure and to double U.S. economic growth.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday that repealing the healthcare plan known as Obamacare would be a "pretty high item" on the agenda. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that she spoke to Trump about passing a "robust" jobs bill.

Worried that a Trump victory could cause economic and global uncertainty, investors initially fled stocks worldwide, but Wall Street made a dramatic turnaround and the U.S. dollar hit its highest level against the Japanese yen in nearly four months.

The Mexican peso recouped some losses after falling to a record low. The currency has been vulnerable to Trump's threats to rip up a free trade agreement with Mexico and to tax money sent home by migrants to pay to build a border wall.

Speaking to cheering supporters after his victory, Trump said it was time to heal divisions. "It is time for us to come together as one united people," Trump said. "I will be president for all Americans," he said, praising Clinton for her service.

His comments departed sharply from his campaign rhetoric in which he repeatedly branded Clinton as "Crooked Hillary" amid supporters' chants of "lock her up."

Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, did not rule out on Wednesday the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton's past conduct, a threat Trump made in an election debate last month.

Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House hoped the tradition of not using the criminal justice system to exact revenge on political opponents would continue under Trump.

Senior House Republican Jason Chaffetz plans to continue investigating Clinton's use of a private rather than government email server while she was secretary of state, a Chaffetz aide said. FBI Director James Comey has said a year-long probe by the agency into the setup revealed nothing to merit criminal charges.

Despite losing the state-by-state electoral battle that determines the U.S. presidency, Clinton narrowly led Trump in the nationwide popular vote, according to U.S. media tallies.

Fueling his upset win was Trump's avid support among white non-college educated workers. He ran up big leads in rural areas, beating Clinton by 27 percentage points among voters outside of urban areas, a Reuters/Ipsos Election Day poll found.

While Clinton, 69, won Hispanics and black and young voters, she did not win those groups by greater margins than Obama did in 2012. Younger blacks did not support Clinton like they did Obama. She won eight of 10 black voters between the ages of 35 and 54. Obama won almost 100 percent of those voters in 2012.

At 70, Trump will be the oldest first-term U.S. president. The presidency will be Trump's first elected office, and it remains to be seen how he will work with Congress. During the campaign, Trump was the target of sharp disapproval, not just from Democrats but from many in his own party.

GOOD NEWS FOR RUSSIA

Foreign leaders pledged to work with Trump, but some officials expressed alarm the vote could mark the end of an era in which Washington promoted democratic values and was seen by its allies as a guarantor of peace.

During the campaign, Trump expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, questioned central tenets of the NATO military alliance and suggested that Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons to shoulder their own defense burden.

Russia and Putin appeared to be winners from Trump's victory. Defying years of U.S. foreign policy orthodoxy, the Republican had promised much warmer relations with Moscow, despite Russia's intervention in the Syrian civil war and its seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region.

Russia's parliament erupted in applause after a lawmaker announced that Trump had been elected, and Putin told foreign ambassadors he was ready to fully restore ties with Washington.

Russia is hoping that improved relations could yield an elusive prize: the lifting or easing of sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union to punish Moscow for its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who sparred with Obama, spoke by phone to Trump, who proposed they meet "at the first opportunity," Netanyahu's office said. Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing and Washington shared responsibility for promoting global development and prosperity.

Iran urged Trump to stay committed to the nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers, which Trump has sharply criticized. Several authoritarian and right-wing leaders hailed Trump's victory.

Other officials abroad, some with senior roles in government, took the unusual step of denouncing the outcome, calling it a worrying signal for liberal democracy and tolerance in the world.

"Trump is the pioneer of a new authoritarian and chauvinist international movement. He is also a warning for us," German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said in an interview with the Funke newspaper group.

U.S. neighbor Mexico was pitched into deep uncertainty by the victory for Trump, who has often accused it of stealing U.S. jobs and sending criminals across the U.S. border.

Trump campaigned on a pledge to take the country on a more isolationist, protectionist "America First" path.

He wants to rewrite international trade deals to reduce trade deficits and has taken positions that raise the possibility of damaging relations with America's most trusted allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

(Reporting by Steve Holland in New York and John Whitesides in Washington; Writing by John Whitesides, Alistair Bell and Frances Kerry; Additional reporting by Amanda Becker, Emily Stephenson, Alexander Besant and Christopher Kahn in New York, Susan Cornwell in Washington, Letitia Stein in St. Petersburg, Fla., Luciana Lopez in Miami, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Kim Palmer in Ohio, Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago,; Editing by Howard Goller and Peter Cooney)
By Gwenaelle Barzic and Jessica Toonkel

PARIS/NEW YORK (Reuters) - NBCUniversal, the U.S. media conglomerate owned by Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O), said on Thursday it was in talks to buy a stake in European broadcaster Euronews.

Euronews' supervisory board has mandated Chief Executive Michael Peters to conduct exclusive talks with the aim of finding an agreement by the end of the year, a source close to Euronews management told Reuters.

Under a possible plan, NBC News - part of NBCUniversal - would look to strengthen Euronews' offerings, while NBCUniversal could use the transaction as a first step to expanding its operations on the European continent.

NBC would take a stake of between 15 percent and 30 percent in Euronews, the source said.

A spokesman for NBC News said it is "in discussions with Euronews about a potential investment and collaborative partnership between the two," but did not provide any details.

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, who owns 53 percent of the broadcaster's shares following a 35 million euro ($38.1 million) capital increase last year, would remain the controlling shareholder in Euronews, the source added.

Created in 1993, Euronews broadcasts in 13 languages and covers 155 countries.

Initially conceived in the wake of the 1990 Gulf War as a 'European CNN,' it used to be owned by a consortium of state-owned European channels, which became minority shareholders after the arrival of Sawiris.

Comcast acquired NBCUniversal in stages for about $30 billion, completing its takeover in 2011.

($1 = 0.9182 euros)

(Editing by Bill Rigby)
By Gwenaelle Barzic and Jessica Toonkel

PARIS/NEW YORK (Reuters) - NBCUniversal, the U.S. media conglomerate owned by Comcast Corp <CMCSA.O>, said on Thursday it was in talks to buy a stake in European broadcaster Euronews.

Euronews' supervisory board has mandated Chief Executive Michael Peters to conduct exclusive talks with the aim of finding an agreement by the end of the year, a source close to Euronews management told Reuters.

Under a possible plan, NBC News - part of NBCUniversal - would look to strengthen Euronews' offerings, while NBCUniversal could use the transaction as a first step to expanding its operations on the European continent.

NBC would take a stake of between 15 percent and 30 percent in Euronews, the source said.

A spokesman for NBC News said it is "in discussions with Euronews about a potential investment and collaborative partnership between the two," but did not provide any details.

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, who owns 53 percent of the broadcaster's shares following a 35 million euro ($38.1 million) capital increase last year, would remain the controlling shareholder in Euronews, the source added.

Created in 1993, Euronews broadcasts in 13 languages and covers 155 countries.

Initially conceived in the wake of the 1990 Gulf War as a 'European CNN,' it used to be owned by a consortium of state-owned European channels, which became minority shareholders after the arrival of Sawiris.

Comcast acquired NBCUniversal in stages for about $30 billion, completing its takeover in 2011.

($1 = 0.9182 euros)

(Editing by Bill Rigby)
Conan OBrien, like some of his other late night colleagues, opened his first program following Donald Trumps stunning Election Night win, with a mix of pathos and humor usually reserved for first broadcasts following a terror attack or some other massive catastrophe:

Two things happened last night  Donald Trump got elected president, and my job just got easier for the next 4 years, he began his eponymous TBS show.

The first thing I did this morning was call my old high school bully and congratulate him.

And for the millions who are disappointed for Hillary, remember, America has a special place for people who lose. And ironically, its the cast of Celebrity Apprentice.

Addressing the previous nights massive shock, Conan noted, In the last few years Ive traveled to a bunch of countries  Cuba, Armenia, the Middle East  where the people would give anything to have our system. In America, we get to pick whos going to ruin our country, and that is a privilege. It has given me a great perspective I was watching President Obama and Hillary Clinton speak today about a peaceful transfer of power and it gave me chills.

Today, Americans have the right to feel happy, angry, pessimistic, optimistic, but everyone should feel grateful that we get to vote and if we dont get our way, we have the chance to try again. Winston Churchill once said Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried. Of course, Winston Churchill also said, when healing a divided nation always resort to cheap, visual comedy.

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(Reuters) - ConocoPhillips <COP.N>, the largest U.S. independent oil producer, said it was looking to raise $5 billion to $8 billion from the sale of assets, particularly natural gas-producing operations in North America.

The company, which is attempting to shore up its balance sheet after a steep slide in oil prices that began in mid 2014, also said it would buy back $3 billion of its stock.

(Reporting by Swetha Gopinath in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
Theres no shortage of digs Conor McGregors opponents have found to throw at the larger-than-life Irishman, but one that may still have a ring of truth to it is that he lacks the cardio to go hard for five rounds. Ironically, part of that perception comes from McGregor finishing almost all of his fights in the first round. The other part is due to his loss to Nate Diaz in their first meeting. In that fight McGregor seemed to punch himself out before getting tagged by Diaz and submitted shortly after.

Conor redoubled his training efforts and managed to defeat Nate in their rematch over five rounds, but many still think he doesnt have the gas tank to truly go to war for twenty five minutes. As far as his UFC 205 opponent Eddie Alvarez is concerned, McGregor is a great fighter for exactly eight minutes. But the cardio work McGregor put in to beat Nate Diaz back in August didnt stop after his win.

Related Links:





Obviously in the first, Diaz fight I couldnt last two rounds, McGregor admitted to the UFCs Megan Olivi. My lactic acid filled and I couldnt clear it. After the contest, I was unsure what was going on and I was blaming absolutely everything. So [F.A.S.T.] was the program I went through. Cardiovascular based, scientifically monitored program.

Getty Image

I learned about over training. I used to work work work and then Id work myself into a brick wall. So this training, monitoring the heart rate, monitoring all the lactate test results, I was able to train at certain zones and not over train. It kept me training and it kept me climbing up and up and up. Now Im rolling in, my body fat is going down, my VO2max is coming up. Im lean. Im faster. Im longer on the program. So now I look forward to showing phase two.

The only question, in Conors mind, is if hell get to show off his next-level cardio against Eddie Alvarez.

Part of me hopes that he can last, because Im sprinting in round five, McGregor continued. Im literally balls to the wall in round five. And theres fresh bodies coming in. There people coming in fresh halfway through my training and Im still pushing harder than anyone in the fifth and final round. So part of me wants to show that to the fans, to everyone.

I just dont think he has it in him. Hes too easily hit. You can smack him from anywhere. I have everything on him. Reach. Height. Everything. So I dont see him getting out of the first round. If he does, great, Ill take my hat to his toughness, hes a tough dude. He can get in and fight and hes been doing it a long time. But tough is not enough to go against me.
Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f279570%2f00a7a71dc3d840b28a9a1994527663ac

Our rising plastic consumption and growing appetite for beef are endangering bird species around the world, scientists said this week.

Two separate studies found that our consumer habits are affecting birds more profoundly than we previously thought. Researchers said their work could help inform conservation efforts to protect birds on both land and at sea.

SEE ALSO: Hawaii's bees are now protected under U.S. Endangered Species Act

The papers were both published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. The first study explores why seabirds are so inclined to gobble up marine plastic pollution.

A plastic bottle lies among other plastic debris washed ashore on the Indian Ocean beach in Uswetakeiyawa, Sri Lanka.

Image: AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe

Plastic bait-and-switch

With trillions of pieces of plastic floating in the oceans, about 99 percent of the world's seabird species are expected to suffer from plastic ingestion by 2050, a 2015 study found.

Birds often mistake bags, bottle caps, plastic fibers and other materials for food and swallow the plastic, damaging their insides and potentially killing them. Yet little research exists into why plastic confuses birds in the first place, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis.

Some species of seabirds, including blue petrels, are particularly vulnerable to eating plastic debris at sea.

Image: J.J. Harrison

Gabrielle Nevitt, an ecologist at UC Davis, and her former graduate student Matthew Savoca found that the smell of algae on marine plastic debris may be what attracts seabirds.

Algae leaks a sulfurous compound when it's dying or in distress. When tiny crustaceans feast on algae, the sulfurous scent sends a chemical message to seabirds: "Here is food."

In Nevitt's earlier research, she found that petrels, an abundant species of tube-nose seabird, have used this olfactory cue to forage for thousands of years. But that skill turns against petrels when the algae forms on plastic.

"The birds don't want to eat the algae. They want to eat what's eating the algae," Savoca, the lead author of Wednesday's paper, told Mashable. "Now [the compound] is telling them where to find the plastic."

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Plastic bottles, balls and floating trash pollutes Manchester Ship Canal in England.

Image: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Savoca and Nevitt made this finding by tying plastic beads wrapped in mesh bags to ocean buoys. The team collected the beads three weeks later, then took the haul to UC Davis' Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science. Researchers confirmed that the marine plastic reeked of the same sulfur compound released by algae.

Savoca noted the study is just the "first early evidence" that scent is a key reason why birds eat plastic and said further field research is still needed to validate the findings.

Mapping habitat loss

Birds are a critical part of any ecosystem: They disperse seeds, pollinate plants and recycle nutrients back into the ground. Because the welfare of birds often points to the overall health of their environments, the new research has consequences far beyond the bird nest.

"If there are problems with birds, then there are almost certainly problems with mammals and amphibians," said Stuart Pimm, a professor of conservation ecology at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment.

Pimm co-authored a Wednesday paper that used satellite imaging, remote-sensing data and field work to measure the habitats of bird species worldwide.

They found that hundreds of species are at risk due to land-use changes such as deforestation and industrial agriculture.

A map of the Velvet-purple Coronet's habitat.

Image: NATALIA OCAMPO-PENUELA

The study fills a critical knowledge gap in conservation research, the authors said.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is responsible for monitoring and listing threatened species around the world, but its methods don't always incorporate modern data tools.

The Duke study found that more than 200 bird species at risk of extinction are not included on the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species. Those birds are found in six rapidly developing regions: Brazil's Atlantic forest, Central America, Colombia's western Andes, Sumatra, Madagascar and Southeast Asia.

"We were surprised by how extensive the problems are," Pimm told Mashable.

The Munchique Wood-Wren.

Image: Natalia Ocampo-Penuela

The widely respected Red List helps governments and conservation groups set legal protections and create restricted areas for threatened species. By adding satellite and mapping tools, conservationists would have a much deeper understanding of where birds are in trouble and need extra protection, Pimm said.

The study also found that more than 600 species in those six developing areas are seeing their habitats shrink from land-use changes. Of that group, only 108 species are classified by IUCN as at risk of extinction.

"Preventing these extinctions requires knowing what species are at risk and where they live," Natalia Ocampo-Penuela, the study's lead author, said in a statement.

Stuart Butchart, who is responsible for the Red List's assessment of birds, said Pimm and his co-authors misunderstood the list's criteria and, as a result, incorrectly identified many species as not appropriately marked as threatened.

He said IUCN developed guidelines and material precisely to prevent the researchers' errors. "All Red List assessments are carefully reviewed before they are published to ensure that the criteria are applied correctly and consistently," Butchart told Mashable by email.
Could Trumps legal problems keep him from becoming president? Heres the score on that front

Donald Trump has officially been named the 45th President Elect of the United States of America, but what does that mean for the dozens of lawsuits hes currently facing? If there was one thing we learned during the long, tumultuous campaign season, it was that Donald Trump has some serious legal issues. But could they prevent him from becoming President in January?

Trumps well-document history of being sued is more relevant than ever, now that hes slated to be the next president. The lingering question behind the lawsuits is whether or not these problems could prevent him from taking office in January.

The most notable of these ongoing legal issues are the Trump University lawsuit, the Donald J. Trump Foundation investigation, and his rape lawsuit.

The Trump University lawsuit, which, of Trumps lawsuits, has made the most headlines, will see Trump in court on November 28th to defend the university against claims of fraud from former students. Over the summer, Trump made headlines when he said that the presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, should recuse himself due to his Mexican heritage.

During the final months of his campaign, there was speculation about financial inconsistencies in the Trump Foundations fundraisers and donations. Last month, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ordered the foundation to stop fundraising due to improper registration with the state. Finally, in the weeks before the election, it was revealed that Trump was being sued for alleged rape against a 13-year-old girl in the 1990s. Despite all this, it seems that Trumps path to the White House is clear.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Manchester

Jean Card, a former Bush administration official and GOP analyst told People Magazine that she doesnt believe that the lawsuits will impede Trumps ability to become president. She said,

Im not an attorney, but if there were any way Trump could be stopped, Hillary Clinton would not have conceded and Barack Obama would not have talked to the nation today about the peaceful transfer of power. The stories about his legal troubles wont change what happens on Jan. 20th: a Trump inauguration.

So it looks like Trump is in the clear right now but itll definitely be interesting to see how things will play out in the long run.

The post Could Trumps legal problems keep him from becoming president? Heres the score on that front appeared first on HelloGiggles.
By Dominic Evans and Ahmed Rasheed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A week after his tank division punched through Islamic State defenses on the southeast edge of Mosul, an Iraqi army colonel says the fight to drive the militants out of their urban stronghold is turning into a nightmare. Against a well-drilled, mobile and brutally effective enemy, exploiting the cover of built-up neighborhoods and the city's civilian population, his tanks were useless, he said, and his men untrained for the urban warfare they face. His Ninth Armoured Division and elite counter terrorism units fighting nearby seized six of some 60 neighborhoods last week, the first gains inside Mosul since the Oct. 17 start of a campaign to crush Islamic State in its Iraqi fortress. Even that small foothold is proving hard to maintain, however, with waves of counter attacks by jihadist units including snipers and suicide bombers who use a network of tunnels stretching for miles (km) under the city. They appear able to strike at will, often at night, denying the troops rest and rattling frayed nerves. "We're an armored brigade, and fighting without being able to use tanks and with soldiers unused to urban warfare is putting troops in a tough situation," the officer told Reuters. He asked not to be named because he was not authorized to talk to the media. A year ago, when his forces took part in an operation to drive Islamic State from the much smaller city of Ramadi west of Baghdad, they were tasked with holding territory outside while the counter terrorism forces entered the city. Mosul, whose capture is a crucial step towards dismantling the caliphate Islamic State declared two years ago across large areas of Iraq and Syria, is too big for specialist forces alone. "In Mosul, we have to advance inside residential areas, comb streets, clear houses from terrorists and deal with civilians. I'm afraid this job is too tough for us to handle". He said it was impossible to differentiate between civilians and fighters who melt in amongst them. Islamic State has forced its dress code on the population during the two years it has controlled the city. Men are required to have long beards, something the militants are still policing. "Our soldiers can't recognize them until it's too late, when the attacker either detonates his explosive vest or throws a grenade," the colonel said, adding that he lost two T-72 tanks and an armored vehicle in a single day's fighting on Tuesday. "It's becoming a nightmare and it's nerve-wracking for the soldiers," he said. TOUGHEST URBAN WAR Even for the Counter Terrorism Service, or special forces, trained more specifically for the challenges in Mosul, the last week of fighting has been unprecedented. "We are carrying out the toughest urban warfare that any force in the world could undertake", CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numani said on Sunday. One CTS officer, in Baghdad on leave, told Reuters the biggest threat came from snipers. "You don't know where or when a sniper will strike," he said. That, combined with thousands of people trying to escape the fighting, was a constant source of stress. As he spoke, a voice on his radio crackled - one of his men on the frontline. "Sir, there are so many civilians, they have these suitcases with them as well. How do I know what's in them? And they're coming towards me..." Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared a crossborder caliphate in Syria and Iraq from the pulpit of a Mosul mosque two years ago, told his fighters last week there could be no retreat in a "total war" with their enemies. Hisham al-Hashemi, who advises the Iraqi government on Islamic State issues and has visited the frontlines, said all the indications from Mosul so far showed that Baghdadi's comments were no idle threat. "Now Daesh (Islamic State) is really fighting," he said. Hashemi said the jihadists had dug a 70 km (45 mile) network of tunnels just on the eastern side of the Tigris River, which runs through the center of Mosul, since they took over in 2014. Using the tunnels they were able to surprise troops inside the city, striking between 2 am and dawn when their defenses are at their lowest. "They are not ready for these surprises - it's the tunnels which have caused our greatest losses," he said. "CRASHING WAVES" Hashemi said government forces were only in full control of two of the districts they entered last week. The army says it has captured five other districts, but fighting continues in all of them and Hashemi said in some neighborhoods the army had been driven back three or four times - often at night - before reclaiming territory the next day. With its tanks unable to navigate narrow city streets, the Iraqi army has called on U.S. Apache helicopters to target car bombers. The Pentagon said on Monday they would continue to be used "in what we expect will be tough fighting to come". One of the most devastating tactics the militants employed, which helped them tie down a far greater force than their own, was to send consecutive waves of small units - about 50 strong - against the troops so they could never let down their guard. The militants call the operation "crashing waves". Each unit includes suicide bombers, snipers, assault fighters, and what they call infiltrators, as well as logistics and mortar experts. "Each one only fights for a short period and is then relieved by the next group - it exhausts the army," Hashemi said. Although they face a coalition of Iraqi army, special forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi'ite paramilitary groups which may total around 100,000 fighters, the asymmetric war strategy has so far meant the 5,000-strong jihadists in Mosul have tied down the advancing troops, without using their full reserves. Hashemi said an inner core of mainly Francophone foreign fighters, given the name 'al-Murabitoun' (Guards) had taken an oath to fight to the death defending strategic positions in the heart of the city. "The only way they will leave is when they are dead," he said, adding they were also holding residents as human shields against air strikes. So far the advancing forces have only breached eastern Mosul. Hashemi said two infantry divisions which have advanced close to its northern and southern limits were preparing to open two new fronts in the city, possibly as soon as Friday. Ultimately, he said the superior numbers of the forces attacking on multiple fronts would wear down the militants. "We will win, without doubt. But it will be a costly victory". (Additional reporting by Saif Hameed in Baghdad and Phil Stewart in Washington)
Hey, who's up for some escapist television?

Yes, it's mourning in America for millions of people. Yes, it's a national nightmare we might not wake up from until 2020. Yes, it's shocking and depressing and unbelievable. I was there. I saw it, too, and vented on Twitter (for all the good that will do) and disgustedly watched it unfold on several TV news channels I had written about avoiding for more than a year just a day before the reckoning.

Now we're all spun and hopeless and hurting and searching.

We all have ways of coping. Months ago on Twitter I began only looking at the "mentions" feed - people interacting with me about television and maybe a few other things - getting back to them when possible, which is essentially the deal made between the person being followed and said followers. I stopped even looking at my Twitter timeline (of people I follow) because it was filled with political garbage, hand-wringing worry and lecturing that slowly morphed into smugness until it careened last night into shocked horror, finger-pointing and dread.

Yeah, so taking a break from social media or using it more wisely is not a bad idea.

Taking walks in nature - also not a terrible idea. Reading books or magazines? Absolutely (but choose carefully!).

I know the passionate-cause fighters will be back out there today with searing, directed rage. Others, who maybe need just a few more days to sit bummed in their houses and apartments, will join in when ready. However, if you're looking to disengage as a way to regain your sanity or some semblance of happiness, I not only completely endorse that but I can help the hell out of you.

Television is our shared cultural experience. And I'm THR's Chief Television Critic right here. Handy!

But first a few hard truths:

1. I'm not going to recommend some of the series I love the most right now because they contain triggers that will just make you sadder (see: Atlanta, One Mississippi, etc.); and for other shows, I will have caveats because there are likely to contain metaphors that just won't sit right (The Man in the High Castle, The Walking Dead) when the point is to catch a mental break.

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2. You should absolutely stop watching television news, particularly nonstop cable coverage. You are enabling their brokenness, ensuring their complicity and allowing them to profit off your fears (wait until they all crow about their ratings). Cable news is a televised carnival, an endless spinning wheel of useless, dangerous, unchecked rhetoric that pivots on what it didn't see coming to say, "We told you so" before going back around again. If you can't quit that, I can't help you.

3. I'm going to turn you on to what I call "visual Xanax," so be ready.

OK, let's do this.

First, if you're gutted - and who's not? - you can't start with pointlessly light comedy. Silly will be too soon. No, your metastasizing depression can only be addressed by the aforementioned "visual Xanax." My two choices are Maisy and Little Bear.

Yes, those are old children's television shows.

Maisy is a mouse. Little Bear is, well, a bear who is little. Nobody is currently steaming Maisy so you'll have to get it on DVD, and I'm telling you right now that the primary colors, preschool plotting, lack of talking, hilarious animal voices and a pretty awesome soundtrack will save your life so go get it now.

You can also find Maisy in snippets on YouTube, but it's not quite the same as watching it on your TV and turning every light in the house off and soaking in those primary colors as one episode rolls into the next and you heal.

Amazon Prime is showing the first two seasons of Little Bear, an endearing little gem based on the Maurice Sendak books that basically depict a world where everybody is nice to one another and there's lots of curiosity and thoughtfulness set to lovely and calming classical music, and it usually ends with Little Bear getting an enormous piece of chocolate cake. It's perfect. Do not think this is some "let's go back to 1950s America" bullshit that the Trump people wanted. Nope. This is just stories about animals being nice to each other, and we could all use a lot of hours of that.

Now, once you've spent a day or two completely immersed in those, you will understand what I mean by "visual Xanax." I think you can also safely pair both with alcohol, so there's that.

Once your early-stage nightmare is lifting, then we can move on to what broadcast network television was actually invented for (besides selling soap) and that is to mindlessly entertain a nation. Again, let me say that if your reaction to this notion is "Screw that, we need change and we need it now, and I'm going to burn America to the ground," well, you do you - no judgment. This is for people who need to not think right now and not watch cable news on a loop.

It might be very hard to watch ABC's Blackish or Fresh Off the Boat or any super-topical sitcoms about race right now because of the whole inevitable rolling-back of progress thing, but there's still Fox's Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Bob's Burgers, NBC's Superstore and The Good Place, ABC's The Goldbergs, etc. (and no, I'm not going with a CBS comedy because that's just getting too close to the nightmare).

Branching out into cable and streaming there's always South Park (Comedy Central), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (the Gang definitely voted Hillary; FX), Veep (come on, you can do it; HBO), Silicon Valley (HBO), Master of None (yes, I know this will remind us all of progress thwarted, but it's essential; Netflix), You're the Worst (FX), Catastrophe (Amazon), Fleabag (Amazon), Casual (Hulu), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix), People of Earth (TBS), Archer (FX), Red Oaks (Amazon), Insecure (yeah, it'll hurt; HBO), High Maintenance (HBO), Better Things (yeah, it'll hurt; FX), BoJack Horseman (Netflix), etc.

The point is, there are tons of things to take your mind off of the hell you're in.

I would seriously start with the comedies, though. Laughter as medicine, laughing to keep from crying - it so obviously is not going to fix things but temporarily dulls the pain.

I tried to note the comedies with triggers in them, but your mileage may vary.

Dramas are perhaps a little harder because the very best of them are, how to say this, not escapist. They are dark, grim, often depressing. On the other hand, think of all the options. There's obviously Game of Thrones (HBO). And Chance (Hulu) and Goliath (Amazon). Even a good futuristic series like Westworld (HBO) might seem less escapist and more Trumpian if you look hard enough (and the point is to look without it all being hard). I still recommend that one, though. Maybe not something like The Leftovers (HBO) because it's so depressing and taps into cultish behavior and you'll probably wish you were part of that vanishing. Or Billions (Showtime) because duh. See, this isn't super easy.

But you could totally watch The Americans (FX) because Ronald Reagan-era America doesn't seem so damned scary now and it might be nice to remember that we were in a Cold War once with the Russians instead of inviting them to topple us. Rectify (Sundance) might be great because it's slow and thoughtful and the idea of being locked away from the world for 20 years isn't as horrific as it seemed when it started four seasons ago. Probably not a good idea to do Orange Is the New Black (Netflix) or Good Girls Revolt (Amazon) - I know, I'm not helping! -- but maybe The Crown (Netflix) is Old World escapist enough? Jessica Jones and Luke Cage (Netflix) are New World escapist. Same with Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (BBC America) or No Tomorrow (The CW), though I'd stay away from all the time-travel shows because they will only make you wish that, you know 

Look, the ultimate point here is that all the stuff we TV critics complain about (we are approaching 500 scripted series and it's hard to breathe) goes hand-in-hand with what we celebrate (that there's an endless amount of greatness in the Platinum TV Era). If you have just enough strength left to point a remote at a television screen or tap a finger on a tablet, then a temporary escape from reality is at your fingertips.

Television, when it's not tuned to the news, is your friend. And it's here for you in times of need.
Regulation A+ Conference Proves to be Compelling Destination for Consumer Products Companies Looking to Extend their Brand Equity

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 / The Crowd Invest Summit, a new conference connecting everyday Americans with crowdfunded investment opportunities, is proud to announce the addition of three innovative companies that will exhibit their unique cars at the event, December 7-8 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles.

The Crowd Invest Summit was developed with the vision that every American, through the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (also known as the JOBS Act), can now be a venture capitalist - or shark.

Elio Motors Leads the Pack



Elio Motors' Regulation A+ crowdfunding campaign, launched in June, 2015 and completed this past February, did more than just allow individuals to participate in the company's vision of disrupting auto transportation - it has been one of the most successful campaigns to date, raising $17 million from 6,500 everyday Americans. In February, Elio Motors became the first crowdfunded IPO in the United States when it listed its shares on the OTC Markets' OTCQX ("ELIO").

Although Elio Motors will not be exhibiting this year, the company has inspired other automotive innovators - including Campagna Motors, Ronn Motor Company, and HyGen Industries - to participate.

Campagna Motors

Campagna Motors is a forward-thinking car company that has been designing and producing three-wheel vehicles with a focus on performance since 1988. Located in Montreal, Canada, the company's most popular models are the T-REX and V13R, both of which will be featured at the conference. The company plans to create a sister company in the United States to facilitate an upcoming Regulation A+ campaign.

CEO of Campagna Motors, Andre Morissette said, "Campagna is a vehicle manufacturer that wants to expand and grow to be a serious player in the emerging three-wheel vehicle market. We looked at all sorts of financing avenues and opportunities and we chose the Reg A+ route because it will provide us with the possibility of engaging our large fan base to become investors and partners in our business, and it allows us to raise the required capital in conditions that are interesting for us and our investors to realize our vision."

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Ronn Motor Company

Through its current Regulation A+ campaign, Ronn Motor Company has enlisted the support of its community and beyond, asking for one million partners to co-create technology that has "the face of a supercar."

Ronn Ford, Chairman and CEO of Ronn Motor Company said, "This new investment approach through crowdfunding allows us to partner with many to take on the big automakers and give the small guys a way to bring their collective dreams to fruition by joining us as investors and partners. We celebrate this community approach of building cars by capitalizing community effort through crowdfunding."

HyGen Industries

HyGen Industries, based in Los Angeles, California, produces fuel to power eco-friendly vehicles, distributing the fuel through partner locations throughout the state. HyGen's hydrogen refueling pumps coexist with current gasoline dispensers without additional infrastructure. The company is currently running a Regulation A+ campaign to build hydrogen fuel stations.

HyGen's technology will be on display at the conference; the company will feature a Toyota Mirai that runs on hydrogen fuel.

Paul Dillon, CFO of HyGen Industries said, "What really excites me about Reg. A+ is the ability to connect directly with impact investors. The transition from fossil fuel vehicles to zero-emission cars, buses, and trucks presents unlimited opportunities for innovation, jobs, and economic growth. HyGen is at the forefront of this sea change. We believe Reg A+ lets small investors put their money to work for a sustainable future by opening up access to promising startups."



About The Crowd Invest Summit

The Crowd Invest Summit was founded by three pioneers in the equity crowdfunding sector: Josef Holm, Darren Marble, and Alon Goren. The conference was developed with the vision that every American - whether accredited or not - can now become equity investors. Visit us online at www.crowdinvestsummit.com.

For sponsorship opportunities, visit CIS Sponsors. Follow and engage with us on social media via: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and via the event's primary hashtag #CIS16.

SEC LEGEND:

Campagna Motors USA, Inc. HyGen Industries, Inc., and Ronn Motor Company are contemplating an offering of securities under Tier 2 of Regulation A under the Securities Act of 1933. No money or other consideration is being solicited, and if sent in response, will not be accepted.

No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the offering statement, filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), has been qualified by the SEC. Any such offer may be withdrawn or revoked without obligation or commitment of any kind, at any time before notice of its acceptance given after the date of qualification.

An indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind.

Media Contact:



Darren Marble

Crowd Invest Summit

darren@crowdinvestsummit.com

(310) 710-9920

SOURCE: The Crowd Invest Summit
Lawyers for the federal government and for the 26 states that challenged the Obama administrations sweeping change of immigration policy are due to meet this week to see if they can agree on how that controversy is to unfold from here on. The further review of the policy in the federal courts, however, may be thwarted by Tuesdays presidential election result.

President-elect Donald J. Trump, during the campaign leading up to his victory on Tuesday, has vowed to move quickly after he takes office in January to overturn the policy that was aimed at delaying deportation for upwards of four million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., most of them parents of children who are legally in the country. The policy also would allow those immigrants to get and keep jobs.

Because the policy was adopted by Executive Department orders, the new administration probably would have the authority to nullify the orders and thus the policy itself. The policy was adopted by the Obama administration after Congress failed to pass a broad new immigration policy proposal.

The Obama policy, designed to keep families together while limiting deportations to criminals and other high-risk individuals, has been on hold for more than 20 months under delay orders issued by lower courts. Those courts have ruled, temporarily, that the administration did not have the legal authority to adopt the new policy without action by Congress.

The Supreme Court, splitting 4-to-4, refused last June to review the policy, thus leaving intact the lower court orders against enforcing the policy. After the Justices refused in October to grant the administrations plea to reconsider, the case returned to a federal trial judge in Brownsville, Texas.

The Justices actions led the judge to order lawyers on both sides to get together, before Friday of this week, to see if they can agree on what procedures should be used to carry on the case further. It actually has never had a full-scale trial on the validity of the policy.

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Judge Andrew S. Hanen said he would keep the case on hold until those conversations were held. The attorneys are to notify the judge by Friday, November 18, on whether they have come up with a common proposal, or would have to leave the scheduling to him.

Given the significance of the case, and the complexity of the issues, it seems unlikely that a trial could be completed promptly. That probably would mean that the case would still be open when President Obamas term ends and Trumps begins on January 20.

Because the President-elect is weeks away from taking office, the federal governments existing legal team from the Justice Department necessarily is carrying on as if the trial is actually going to occur.

If the President-elect does go through with his plan to end the policy initiative, the fate of millions of immigrants will be uncertain for perhaps many more months. Both houses of Congress, newly kept under Republican control by the voters on Tuesday, may take up immigration policy bills at some point.

Among Donald Trumps campaign comments, he had said he would move to deport all immigrants who are in the country without legal permission. Some of the critics of those comments have suggested that an attempt to accomplish all of those deportations would raise serious constitutional questions.

It will be up to the new Presidents lawyers, in the White House, the Justice Department and in the Department of Homeland Security to advise him on the steps he can take, using only the powers of the presidency, to deal with immigration policy. It is highly likely that any new White House initiatives would be challenged in new court cases.

Legendary journalist Lyle Denniston is Constitution Dailys Supreme Court correspondent. Denniston has written for us as a contributor since June 2011 and he has covered the Supreme Court since 1958. His work also appears on lyldenlawnews.com.
daily show

One of the most provocative among Donald Trump's many provocative statements throughout his presidential campaign was a suggested temporary ban on Muslims entering the US.

On Wednesday night, "The Daily Show" zeroed in on the fears among many Muslim-Americans following Trump's presidential election.

Senior correspondent Hasan Minhaj gave a funny and heartbreaking take on what it feels like for him to be Muslim-American and preparing for a Trump presidency.

"Seriously, how is that not instantly disqualifying?" Minhaj said of Trump's proposed Muslim ban. "Even if that's not why most people voted for him, open racism should just be a deal-breaker."

Minhaj went on to describe his panic at not knowing if the president has his back when he gets stares on an airplane. He says his mom, a US citizen who's abroad, asked him if she'll be able to get back into the country next year.

"The fact that I can't tell her yes with 100-percent certainty is heartbreaking," he said. "That is my mom, and I need her back home."

Watch the video below:

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Nora Danish urges the public to understand the truth before making assumptions.

10 Nov  Local actress Nora Danish's suggestion for artists to be exempted from the tax amount they spend to appear attractive in public caused a massive outrage among netizens on all social media sites. The artist has since then claimed that her statement was taken out of context.



However, not all are against Nora Danish's suggestion. Some are backing the statement in support of the "Polis Evo" actress. One such person is local celebrity Daphne Iking who claims that Nora Danish's statement was misinterpreteated by the media.



Daphne posted on her instagram that "I think what she said was taken out of context. A performer has a number of tax deductions that are unique. In the balance of this, we will try to break them down to their component parts to make the issue more understandable."



Nora Danish 'reposted' Daphne Iking's status.





In fact, Daphne also cited an example from artstaxinfo that claimed that an artist's basic spending includes a few categories such as travel (hotel, meals, etc), vehicle and transportation, equipment, supplies, wardrobe, home office expenses, legal and professional fees, video costs,agent fees, promotional expenses, and so on.



Moreover, the Malay actress also posted a screenshot of a netizen's comment that explained the justification behind Nora Danish's claim.



A netizen's explanation on what was actually meant by Nora Danish





Through the 'screenshot' uploaded by her, she also further explained that a celebrity's tax from would difffer from a normal tax form as it includes a 'public appeareance' category.



She went on to express that what she proposed was to increase the current 15 percent declare rate to help the artists.



On that note, the actress also told that she is a proper taxpayer and firmly stated that whoever earns more than Rm 3,000 a month has to pay tax in accordance to the law.



With that being said, Nora urged the public to understand her content before making crude accusations.



Meanwhile, the Inland Revenue Board Malaysia's (IRB) Public Relations Officer, Masrun Maslim said that "there are tax exemptions for artists that covers beauty products fee, wardrobe rentals, artist management and advertisement."



"Even travel expenses such as petrol, toll and parking chargers can be exempted from tax," added Masrun.



Masrun then cleared the confusion of terms to ProjekMMO by stating that the statement that Nora referring to is not tax exemption, but it is referred to as operational costs for artist and celebrities.



He went on to say that many art performers are paying a high amount of taxes as they are not submitting their tax form with the relevant documents needed for exemptions.



(Photo Source: Nora Danish Instagram)
Darryl Fisher is a civilian pilot committed to honoring senior veterans.

As captain of a mini-fleet of vintage World War II biplanes, Fisher travels the country dispensing dream flights to those who have served our country. Fishers nonprofit Ageless Aviation Dream Foundation so far has awarded more than 2,000 flights aboard open-cockpit Stearman aircraft.

Our mission is to give back to those who have given, says Fisher, whose group is based in Carson City, Nevada. We want them to know how grateful we are.

Most of the flight recipients live in nursing homes or assisted living communities, Fisher tells PEOPLE.

We focus on vets in that situation because they cant get out and cant travel, he says.

A third-generation aviator, Fisher and his father William flew across country in 2011 in William Fishers Stearman. While heading west, the Fishers offered free flights to veterans. The flights spread such joy that Darryl Fisher wanted to keep giving them.

Soon, the Ageless Aviation Dreams Foundation was born. The group is funded via donations and corporate sponsors, and relies on volunteer pilots and ground crews.

Seniors from all wars are eligible for the flights, but World War II veterans are a priority.

Former Army Air Corps Staff Sergeant Lloyd Smith, 93, received the groups 2,000th flight on October 27. A former ball turret gunner in a B-17 during World War II, Smith never before had flown in a biplane.

I enjoyed that, Smith tells PEOPLE of his flight over Oxford, Mississippi. It was a real clear day, and I saw a pretty city.

Happy experiences are important to Smith, who clearly recalls being shot down over the North Sea while on a bombing raid.

We were in icy water in a rubber lifeboat, Smith says. We knew we werent going to make it through the night.

One of Smiths comrades fired a flare at a passing aircraft. The airborne pilot saw the flare, and changed course; only then did the downed Americans realize that theyd signaled an enemy German Ju-88.

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We spent more than 13 months as prisoners of war, the former gunner says.

Smith understands gratitude  he and his crew were liberated by Gen. George Pattons 3rd Army  and appreciates Darryls work, on many levels.

Darryl is a real good pilot, Smith says. Ive got a bad hip, and they didnt hurt me at all. They didnt bump a bit on landing. Thats quite an accomplishment.

Memorable moments are not just for the veterans.

Ive had some unforgettable experiences, Fisher says.

In Wyoming, one dream-flighter was a former British Royal Air Force pilot who flew the iconic Spitfire in World War II. The ex-pilot hadnt flown in 70-plus years, and was thrilled at the chance to step inside the Stearman.

He couldnt wait to get his hands on that airplane, says Fisher, who always allows former pilots a hand at the controls. He took over for about 20 minutes. In that time, he was a fighter pilot again. He had me practically upside down a few times, but he had it under control.

Another passenger was a 100-year old woman who flew in honor of her veteran husband.

When we got back I was taking the flight helmet off her, and I asked for her secret for living so long, Fisher says. With a twinkle in her eye, the woman responded: You need to live a good life and have an occasional scotch and water.

Still another passenger was a Korean War veteran who hadnt left his house in six months. After the flight, he went out for a night on the town with his daughter. A week later, he died.

He went out on top, Fisher says.

The Ageless Aviation team plans the flight paths for their three Stearmans each year in January, after sorting the requests that are submitted via the groups website.

We get out a map, and we look at which flights make sense when, Fisher says. We start flying in March, and go through the fall.

Upcoming flights this year are scheduled in Florida and Texas, where the weather remains good.

Vintage warbird flights from for-profit organizations can be pricey. An hour in a Stearman, in some places, can cost nearly $600  a big bite from a limited income. The free trips, then, offer an opportunity that might not otherwise be available.

The biggest payoff, Fisher says, is the happiness the flights bring to the veterans.

It was great, says Smith of his flight. It was just like the good old days.

Know a hero? Send suggestions to heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine.




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Donald Trump, the KKK-endorsed candidate who rose to power promising to deport millions of Americans, purge the media and sue the women who accused him of sexual assault, will be America's president in January. And People Magazine thinks that makes just an adorable cover story.

Yesterday, People Magazine published a shiny, happy photo of Donald Trump on their cover, and shared it with a predictably glib tweet announcing that he was "hired!" (Yes, there was an exclamation point). For the readers of People Magazine, the appointment of self-identified sexual predator, who helped to bring white nationalism into the mainstream, looked normal, expected, part of our smooth democratic process, a moment worth celebrating, nothing to worry about.

SEE ALSO: You don't have to organize today. You can just grieve.

Hes hired! Donald Trump is elected 45th President of the United States in stunning upset https://t.co/nIJUq46x27 pic.twitter.com/XbnrfokfoW  People Magazine (@people) November 9, 2016

Of course, it's very possible that People Magazine didn't want to send that message. After all, this was the often-maligned publication that brought a groundbreaking story into the mainstream in October, when one of their writers, Natasha Stoynoff, came forward alleging that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her. Their editorial director, Jess Cagle, came forward in support of such a "remarkable, ethical, honest, and patriotic woman and wrote that the magazine stand steadfastly by her, and are proud to publish her clear, credible account of what happened."

The magazine best known for their explosive coverage of Brangelina's breakup explored what a real tragedy looks like, then stood by their story.

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Which makes their subsequent cover feels all the more apathetic and dissociated. People and other mainstream media organizations are simply not designed to cover politics, especially politics with blatant fascist undertones. And whatever their actual political orientations are, they are going to have to grapple with how to properly handle the next (at least) four years of history.

It's a real challenge for organizations best used to deciding what dress Michelle Obama looks best in, or the most appropriate pet for the president. How could they  or any mainstream media organization, actually  possibly argue which fluffy fear pup is better for Melania's allergies, as millions of immigrants flee this country, whether by force or preemptively, out of fear?

Here's a way not to do it: by publishing an article called "27 Photos of Ivanka Trump and Her Family That Are Way Too Cute," which they did yesterday.

22 photos of Ivanka Trump and her family that are way too cute https://t.co/AZdq7b2Gwa pic.twitter.com/e6cSxQAft1  People Magazine (@people) November 9, 2016

"Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner, and their children Arabella, Joseph, and Theodore have the adorable Instagram thing down pat," the magazine wrote.

And the content kept coming:

Will it be the gold house? Donald Trump reveals his plans for the most famous home in America https://t.co/VBxsL0gQmQ via @peoplehome pic.twitter.com/bB2RnHac1p  People Magazine (@people) November 9, 2016

And coming:

Melania Trumps First Lady style: See her best moments on the campaign trail https://t.co/p5hLZK4u5h pic.twitter.com/wLCcvcgsEk  People Magazine (@people) November 9, 2016

And coming:

Back to business for the Trumps as Ivanka steps out after fathers shocking victory https://t.co/BuIaYww8hC pic.twitter.com/vUYjfWMliL  People Magazine (@people) November 9, 2016

Magazines like People, even more so than traditional news outlets like The New York Times, have a unique opportunity to access readers otherwise disaffected by or disengaged from the political process. That doesn't mean they have to publish Trump's tax returns or do an in-depth analysis of his administration's trade plans, but they have to do something. And something better than this.

BONUS: This woman just became one of the most important players in the Senate
Criminal justice reforms had a mixed night Tuesday.

Voters chose to speed up the death penalty process in California, reinstate capital punishment in Nebraska and restart stalled executions Oklahoma -- but also approved measures to reduce incarceration. Voters approved strengthening gun control in three out of four states where the issue was on the ballot, but rejected a plan to pay prisoners for forced labor in Colorado, even as they approved a reform of the bail system in New Mexico and sentencing guidelines for nonviolent offenders in California.

As Democrats suffered historic losses and stunning upsets in races for the presidency, Senate, House and state legislatures, ballot measures aimed at overhauling the criminal justice system -- a traditionally liberal cause, but one that's won recent bipartisan support -- had both success and failure Tuesday.

Here's the rundown:

The Death Penalty

The sentence is illegal in 19 states and the District of Columbia. In California, where two competing measures were on the ballot, voters rejected a proposal to eliminate the death penalty and instead supported a measure that would speed up the death penalty appeals process.

In Nebraska, locals voted to reinstate the death penalty, which had been repealed by the legislature in May 2015 with enough support to override a veto by Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts.

And in Oklahoma, voters said they support amending the state's constitution to enshrine the state's power to impose capital punishment. While the death penalty is already legal in Oklahoma, executions were put on hold in October 2015 after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett the year before. There were 49 inmates on death row at the start of 2016. Three executions had been scheduled for last year, but they have not been carried out as the sentence and execution procedures undergo review.

Gun Control

Only 40 percent of gun sales in the U.S. are carried out after a background check. In Maine voters narrowly rejected a proposal to require background checks for gun sales or transfers by people who are not licensed firearms dealers.

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In California, however, voters strongly backed a measure to require anyone buying ammunition to obtain a permit. It would also prohibit large-capacity magazines and remove an exemption for owners of such magazines from pre-2000, and it would strengthen courts' ability to remove firearms.

In Nevada, a measure to require firearms transfers to go through licensed gun dealers for background checks narrowly won, 50.4 to 49.6 percent.

And in Washington, voters roundly supported a proposal to empower courts to issue extreme risk protection orders that would remove firearms from the home of someone who's deemed a significant danger to himself or others.

Forced Labor

The issue of compensating prisoners for forced labor has recently garnered more attention from civil rights advocates and members of the media, who have explored how it can exploit prisoners who have no choice but to work. In Colorado, however, a proposal to amend the state constitution to remove a clause that allows for forced, unpaid labor by criminals -- or "involuntary servitude," the state defines it -- fell 49.2 percent to 50.8 percent.

Sentencing Guidelines

California voted 63.6 percent to 36.4 percent to expand parole opportunities for felons convicted of nonviolent crimes, and to empower judges -- not prosecutors -- to decide when to try children as adults in court.

In New Mexico, 87.2 percent of voters approved a constitutional amendment that both allows judges to deny bail to defendants deemed especially dangerous, but also provides pretrial release to those who aren't considered a threat but cannot afford bail.

And in Oklahoma, voters backed measures to reclassify certain drug possession and property crimes from felonies and misdemeanors, and to allow counties to put any money saved from not incarcerating those offenders toward drug treatment programs.

Alan Neuhauser covers law enforcement and criminal justice for U.S. News & World Report. He also contributes to STEM and Healthcare of Tomorrow, and previously reported on energy and the environment. You can follow him on Twitter or reach him at aneuhauser@usnews.com.


By Humeyra Pamuk ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's air force in September made a public appeal to hundreds of former pilots to return to its depleted ranks to replace more than 350 airmen purged after July's failed coup. The call has largely gone unanswered, according to military officials and former pilots, as the deep divisions exposed by the coup attempt in Turkey's military and other institutions remain unhealed. Six pilots who left the air force over the past decade and would be eligible to return spoke to Reuters. Only one said he would re-register to help replace dismissed colleagues whom the government blames for being part of a network that planned the failed July 15 coup. Air force pilots played a major role in the abortive putsch, commandeering jets and helicopters that bombed parliament and threatened the aircraft of President Tayyip Erdogan. Turkish media have reported that only a tiny proportion of the several hundred pilots who left the force between 2010 and 2015 and would be eligible to return have actually re-registered. The numbers are "below expectations," said a military source who is not authorized to speak publicly. The depletion in air-force resources comes at a delicate time for Turkey, the second-most militarized member of NATO. Ankara is pursuing military incursions against Islamic State in Syria and battling Kurdish PKK militants in Turkey and northern Iraq. Yet the former air force pilots contacted by Reuters said they felt betrayed by a military which had failed to protect them from followers within the ranks of Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based cleric Turkey blames for the attempted coup and whose supporters have been jailed en masse since. COMMERCIAL AVIATION Working in commercial aviation is also more remunerative than air force salaries of less than 10,000 lira ($3,200) a month. "Flying an F-16 was an honor for me and I have been unfairly deprived of that. I feel betrayed. Why should I come back?" said a former major who only gave his first name, Mehmet, for fear of being seen as disloyal. Mehmet  who graduated at the top of his pilot training course and has a post-graduate diploma from an international military school  said he was grounded in 2008 by military doctors who said he had a heart condition. He left the air force and built a career as a commercial pilot after other doctors gave him a clean bill of health, he said. Reuters could not independently confirm his medical status. The military doctors who grounded him are now in jail, accused by the government of being members of the Gulen network. Government officials deny that the coup and its aftermath have damaged Turkey's military capabilities. They acknowledge staff shortages but say that a more loyal and focused military will ultimately emerge. The defense ministry and military command both declined to comment for this story. The military source said the air force was considering a reserve system to allow commercial pilots to take temporary contracts, a move that could help lure back experienced fliers because it would allow them to maintain their lucrative commercial contracts at the same time. The defense ministry also plans to start enrolling students from private universities to the Air Force Academy, widening its pool of candidates by dropping a condition that they must have attended military school. "In two years time, you will see, our air force will be stronger than before," Abidin Unal, the top air force commander, told Turkey's Vatan newspaper two weeks ago. INFILTRATORS The Turkish government blames Gulen and his sympathizers for infiltrating state institutions over decades and ultimately masterminding the July 15 coup attempt. Erdogan's critics, particularly Turkish secularists, say he and the Islamist-rooted AK party he founded allowed Gulen's followers to rise through the ranks to help control the military. Turkeys military institutions have long seen themselves as the guardians of the country's secular order and have ousted four governments since 1960 for posing what they saw as an Islamist threat. The Gulenists' impact was particularly acute in the air force, former military officials say. Several former pilots said military doctors struck off colleagues on what the pilots said were minor medical grounds as they tried to remove non-Gulenists from senior positions. "I can count dozens of people like this ... It seemed that some people were getting rid of others who didn't necessarily think like them. But we could never be sure, so we didn't speak up enough," the second former air force pilot said. Air force pilots were prominent in the coup attempt on July 15, commandeering fighter jets and helicopters in part of the bid to seize power. Fighter jets flown by pilots involved in the attempted coup harassed Erdogan's aircraft while he tried to return to Istanbul as the events unfolded. More than 350 pilots and 40 technicians have been dismissed, detained, or are being sought. NERVE CENTER Among those detained were the former head of the air force and several commanders of air bases including Incirlik, a hub for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State. Three squadrons were taken off duty at the Akinci air base near Ankara, nerve center of the failed coup and home to some of the force's top pilots. "Those who were dismissed mostly consisted of either experienced pilots or junior ones who were in the process of receiving weapons and tactics training," said Arda Mevlutoglu, a defense industry consultant. "It can safely be said that Turkey's air force had lost a huge portion of experience and know-how because of this coup attempt," he added. Turkey does not disclose the total number of its combat pilots, but its Defence and Aerospace magazine quoted the head of the air force in March 2015 as saying overall pilot numbers were expected to rise to 1,300 that year. Turkish media have reported that the ratio of jets to combat pilots has dropped to below the 1:1.5 considered a healthy standard internationally, although there is no NATO rule on what the ratio should be. The air force has 240 F-16 jets and 49 F-4s for combat use, according to its website. One NATO diplomat said that while there was concern about the purge of the Turkish air force, it had not yet resulted in any change to Turkey's commitments to NATO operations. Faced with the shortfall, the force appealed in September for pilots with combat experience to rejoin, a call launched on its website and announced by the defense minister and widely publicized in the Turkish media. Ersoy Cil, 40, a former F-4 pilot who left the military in 2015 after nearly two decades, is now returning. "I never would have had the opportunity of a university education if it wasn't for the force," he said. Cils parents would not have been able to afford a private university education but he was able to go through state-funded higher education after graduating from military school. "This is me trying to pay back my huge debt. But the others contacted by Reuters all shared a sense of betrayal for what had happened in the past. If there was an emergency situation, I'd go running, said a pilot who left the force in 2013 after more than a decade patrolling Turkey's borders and fighting the PKK. But apart from that, the moment has gone, I've set up a new life." (Additional reporting by Robin Emmott Editing by Nick Tattersall, Giles Elgood and Alessandra Galloni)
By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - The number of deaths from measles has fallen by 79 percent worldwide since 2000, thanks mainly to mass vaccination campaigns, but nearly 400 children still die from the disease every day, global health experts said on Thursday. In a report on global efforts to "make measles history", the United Nations children's fund, the World Health Organization and other bodies said fight was being hampered not by a lack of tools or knowledge, but a lack of political will to get every child immunized against the highly infectious disease. "Without this commitment, children will continue to die from a disease that is easy and cheap to prevent," said Robin Nandy, UNICEF's head of immunization. Mass measles vaccination campaigns and a global increase in routine vaccine coverage saved an estimated 20.3 million young lives between 2000 and 2015, the report said. But coverage is patchy, and in some countries the majority of children are not vaccinated. In 2015, around 20 million babies missed their measles shots and an estimated 134,000 children died from the disease. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan account for half of the unvaccinated babies and 75 percent of the measles deaths. Measles is a highly contagious virus that spreads through direct contact and through the air. It is one of the biggest killers of children worldwide, but can be prevented with two doses of a widely available and inexpensive vaccine. According to the report, published by UNICEF, the WHO, the GAVI vaccines alliance and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, outbreaks of measles in various countries  caused by gaps in immunization  are still a major problem. Seth Berkley, GAVI's chief executive, urged governments to recognize the threat of "one of the world's most deadly vaccine-preventable childhood killers" and act to contain it. "We need strong commitments from countries and partners to boost routine immunization coverage and to strengthen surveillance systems," he said. In 2015, large outbreaks were reported in Egypt, Ethiopia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, the report said. The epidemics in Germany and Mongolia affected older people, highlighting the need to vaccinate young adults who missed out on measles jabs. Measles also tends to flare up during conflicts or humanitarian emergencies when vaccination schedules are disrupted. Last year, outbreaks were reported in Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan. (Editing by Richard Balmforth)
There are plenty of reasons why Democrat Hillary Clinton went down to defeat Tuesday night at the hands of Republican Donald Trump --from the surprising groundswell of angry, aggrieved Trump supporters to the former secretary of states missteps in handling her email scandal and blatant mistakes by her advisers in targeting their ample resources.

Clinton was also hurt by lackluster turnouts of some of her key constituencies, including Hispanics, African Americans and union members in key battleground states. And of course, its hard to overlook the damage done to her by a tidal wave of hacked Democratic emails released by WikiLeaks in the final weeks of the campaign. Or FBI Director James Comeys inexplicable decision to briefly reopen and then abruptly close the federal investigation into Clintons use of a private email server during her tenure at the State Department.

Related: Gary Johnsons Fading Run Could Be the Margin of Victory for Clinton or Trump

But in a national election that came down to the wire in a small handful of battleground states, it was hard not to notice that the third party candidacies of Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Green might have played an outsized role in Clintons stunning demise.

Johnson, the former businessman and New Mexico governor, mounted a high-profile effort this year to shakeup the presidential campaign and put the sleepy Libertarian Party on the political map. He pressed to be included in the nationally televised presidential debates and drew at least five percent of the national vote to make it easier for his party to gain ballot access in future elections.

Johnson and Stein dismissed the Republican and Democratic parties as obsolete and expressed no compunction about spoiling the prospects of either Clinton or Trump. However, Johnsons efforts faded in recent weeks as a series of political gaffes including an inability to identify the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo and his ignorance about recent terrorist attacks in the U.S. caught up with him.

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Johnsons once ambitious hopes for a banner campaign year gave way to a modest showing Tuesday night, as his ticket drew just 3 percent of the popular vote. Stein did worse with just one percent. But theoretically, at least, that was enough in some states to potentially make a difference in the outcome of the presidential election.

Related: Johnson Says the GOP and Democrats Are Dinosaurs Headed for Extinction

The election wasnt settled until late Tuesday night or early Wednesday when the final tallies from Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin came in. Remarkably, the outcome of the Trump-Clinton clashes in all four states was decided by a single percentage point or less in Trumps favor. Collectively, those states gave Trump about a third of the 270 electoral votes he needed nationwide to claim the presidency. In each case, Johnson and Stein together drew more than enough votes to have tipped the election one way or another.

In Florida, for example, with 29 electoral votes at stake, Trump drew 4,605,515 votes or 49 percent of the total, compared with 4,485,745 votes or 48 percent of the total for Clinton. Just 119,770 votes separated Trump and Clinton, while Johnson and Stein together attracted 270,026 votes -- or 2.7 percent of the total.

The results were a reminder of the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida when Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by a mere 537 votes. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, running as the Green Party nominee at the time, received 97,421 vote  which prompted claims that Nader played the Democratic spoiler and was responsible for Gores defeat. Nader has routinely disputed that claim and noted that many registered Democrats at the time chose to vote for Gore.

The dynamic was the same on Tuesday night in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three Midwestern states that at one time were considered a firewall for Democratic presidential candidates but abruptly turned from blue to red in helping to elect Trump.

In Michigan, for example, with 29 electoral votes, Trump appears to have defeated Clinton by three-tenths of a percentage point, 47.6 percent to 47.3 percent  a difference of just 11,837 popular votes. Johnson, meanwhile, picked up 173,021 votes or 3.6 percent, and Stein drew 50,686, or 1.1 percent.

Still, given Johnsons small government bent as a Libertarian and his desire to eliminate the IRS and Social Security, its more likely that if the two main candidates were affected, Trump would take the hit more than Clinton. Stein, on the other hand, with a smaller piece of the pie, would more likely take a bite out of Clintons total because of her commitment to environmental reform.

Related: Abolish Social Security? Gary Johnson's Libertarian Party Gets a Closer Look

Trump defeated Clinton in Pennsylvania, 48.8 percent to 47.67 percent, while Johnson and Stein together picked up 3.2 percent of the vote. In Wisconsin, Trump prevailed 48 percent to 47 percent, while Johnson and Stein together attracted five percent of the vote.

Johnsonsrunning mate, former Republican Governor Bill Weld of Massachusetts, has frequently expressed a strong preference for Clinton over Trump and appeared conflicted on whether his party was inadvertently helping Trump become president.

Johnson claimed to be agnostic on the subject and insisted, Im not going to lose any sleep over whether he hurt Clintons chances of winning the White House. He guessed that he would take as many votes away from Clinton as he did from Trump.

Political experts said at the time it was hard to predict how Johnsons and Steins supporters would vote if they were cut loose. Johnsons libertarian credo including limited military involvement overseas, smaller government and fewer regulations suggests that his backers might be more comfortable backing Trump than Clinton. And Steins far left views on spending and social programs  much in line with those of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont  suggested that some of her followers would gravitate to Clinton.

A CBS News' exit poll provides grist for the argument that Johnsons and Steins quixotic quest for the presidency drained critically important support from Clinton. The poll asked those identified as third party voters who they would support if the race came down to just Clinton and Trump.

Related: As Johnson Loses Ground and Trump Self-Destructs, Clinton Gains Big

Both Johnson and Stein supporters chose Clinton over Trump by about 25 percent to 15 percent. But 55 percent of Johnson's supporters said they would have skipped the election altogether if those were the only choices, as would 61 percent of Stein supporters.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 / DIGATRADE FINANCIAL CORP (DIGAF) an online digital asset exchange platform and blockchain development services company today announced the execution of a proposed stock purchase agreement dated 10.31.2016 with GHS Investments LLC to purchase up to four million dollars (USD$4,000,000) (the "equity sum or commitment amount") of the Company common stock from time to time over the course of twenty-four (24) months after the effective registration of the underlying shares (the "Contract Period").

As per British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) BC Instrument 51-509 "Issuers Quoted in the U.S. Over-the-Counter Markets" the stock price terms of the financing include a maximum discount to market equal to 19.9% of the average closing price of the stock during a 10 day valuation period. This funding mechanism will minimize dilution while providing growth capital to the Company. The Company currently has 34,911,150 shares issued and outstanding (26,326,157 restricted and 8,584,993 free trading).

The Company's legal counsel is currently preparing the filing with full disclosure of the financing to be made available on both Edgar and Sedar within 30-60 days.

ABOUT DIGATRADE:

DIGATRADE is a global digital asset exchange and blockchain development Services Company located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Company is owned and operated 100% by Digatrade Financial Corp which is publically listed on the OTC.QB under the trading symbol DIGAF. DIGAF is a reporting issuer in the Province of British Columbia, Canada with the British Columbia Securities Commission "BCSC" and in the United States with the Securities Exchange Commission "SEC".

CORPORATE CONTACT INFORMATION:

Digatrade Financial Corp

885 West Georgia Street, 1500

Vancouver, BC V6C-0A6 Canada

Tel: +1(604) 200-0071

Fax: +1(604) 200-0072

www.digatrade.com

Media inquiries:

press@digatrade.com

Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains certain "forward-looking information". All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or development that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future constitute forward-looking information. This forward-looking information reflects the current expectations or beliefs of the company based on information currently available to the Company. Forward-looking information is subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, the possibility of unanticipated costs and expenses. Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein.

SOURCE: Digatrade Financial Corp
Disney Ufufy is a new set of palm-size plush toys based upon popular Disney characters. Launched on 3 Nov 2016 at Disney Stores Japan, the first batch to join the team include 16 new characters: Mickey, Minnie, Pooh, Piglet, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Chip, Dale, Goofy, Pluto, Tigger, Eeyore, Dumbo, Stich, Cheshire and Marie.

Disney Ufufy from Japan via Airfrov Travellers

At just 12cm x 10cm tall, each mini plushie stands comfortably on ones palm. According to Disney, these Disney Ufufy are born from the clouds, which explains why they are soft and fluffy to touch, and carries a unique sweet scent.

Disney Ufufy from Japan via Airfrov Travellers

We were lucky enough to feel and smell them at the Airfrov collection centre, and they are indeed soft like mochi. Its hard to explain how great they smell, but they have a unique, sweet and calming effect after a long day at work.

Disney Ufufy from Japan via Airfrov Travellers

Only available at launch, each Disney Ufufy comes with a cute heart-shaped message card on a stick. This makes a great Christmas gifts to any fans of Disney Characters!

Disney Ufufy from Japan via Airfrov Travellers

Is Disney Ufufy the same as Tsum Tsum?

Though similar, Disney Ufufy is different from the stackables Tsum Tsums we know. Instead of lying on their tummies like how Tsum Tsum characters did, Disney Ufufy characters can stand up-right on its own!

How much does each Disney Ufufy plushie cost and where to buy?

Each Disney Ufufy plushie costs 756 Yen (approx SGD $10). They are also available in a full set of 16 at 12,096 Yen, and Mickey & Friends set of 8 at 6048 Yen. You can buy them from Disney Store Japan.

Disney Ufufy from Japan via Airfrov Travellers

Disney Ufufy from Japan via Airfrov Travellers

Not travelling to Japan or dont have an address in Japan to do online ordering?

Ask a traveller whos going to Japan to help you it back to Singapore! Travellers will drop them off at Airfrov and you can come and collect from us or we can send the plushies to you.

Click to check out how our users did it:

Disney Ufufy from Japan via Airfrov Travellers

Image source: Disney Ufufy

The post What is Disney Ufufy and Where to Buy Them? appeared first on Airfrov Blog.
Long, long ago, on Monday, when a Hillary Clinton victory seemed likely, the forecast for the Democratic Party looked grim. The party was confident that its aging candidate, the spouse of another former Democratic president, could win, and it was optimistic about winning control of the Senate. Clinton might serve (to borrow a phrase) as a bridge to the 2010s, but the next two elections would be much tougher: Democrats would be defending a lot of difficult Senate seats in 2018, and simple structural forces made it unlikely a President Clinton could hold the White House for two terms. Who would lead the party then?

Instead, the nightmare has arrived early. All of those dangers still beset the party, but now without the bridge of a Clinton presidency to ease the blow. Donald Trump will enter the White House with a Republican Senate and a Republican House. Because President Obama was unable to get the Senate to vote on his appointee for an open Supreme Court seat, Trump will immediately have the chance to appoint a ninth member to the Court, breaking a 4-4 tie. At the state level, Republicans now control at least 34 governorships, the most since 1922, and ran up their advantage in state legislatures.

Related Story

Donald Trump's Stunning Upset

The result is that much of the Barack Obama legacy, the most sweeping and impressive progressive program of social reform since Lyndon Johnson, is in peril. There are many places where Trump and the leaders of the Republican Congress disagree, but they have all pushed for the chance to dismantle two signature Obama achievements: the Affordable Care Act, which was the crowning if incomplete culmination of decades of Democratic effort; and both domestic and multilateral efforts to slow climate change. A conservative majority on the Court also throws long-settled precedents like Roe v. Wade into question.

As if thats not bad enough, its hard to see who will lead the party back now. Smart analysts have been warning of the weak Democratic bench for years, but the Clinton loss makes it even more urgent. Clinton, at 69, is unlikely to maintain a high-profile presence. Her defeat also signals the final eclipse of the political dynasty that her husband, Bill Clinton, constructed in the 1980s and 1990s and rode to two terms in the White House. This is not without irony: Bill Clinton was elected president with the support of many white, blue-collar voters, but Hillary Clinton and the team of confidants they had built up lost because of the same votersin part thanks to Bill Clintons policies (in particular, NAFTA) and in part thanks to racial backlash against Barack Obama.

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Recommended: There Will Be an Evangelical Reckoning Over Donald Trump

Obama, whose strong popularity ratings could not save Clinton, will remain a leader for the party for years to come, but he will never top a ballot again, and this cycle proved that he doesnt have the capacity to single-handedly drag a Democratic nominee over the finish line, either.

Bernie Sanders electrified many voters, and theres a raging battle among progressives today over whether he might have fared better in a general election, but given that he is 75 today, he is unlikely to be a repeat candidate for president. Who then? Elizabeth Warren is widely loved by the most progressive Democrats, but she, too is agingshell be 71 on Election Day 2020and somewhat unproven, having only won a single election in the bluest state in America. Tim Kaines profile has risen, but his low-key campaigning style didnt exactly set Democrats afire. There is a crop of young senators who might vie for the title, like Cory Booker, who is charismatic but bland and associated with the centrist, neoliberal wing of the party. Kamala Harris, the newly elected senator from California, is viewed as a rising star, but she is just that, a newly elected senator, so its hard to know her future. Republican domination of governorships robs the Democratic Party of another pipeline.

Some Democrats, witnessing Michelle Obamas commanding performances on the stump this year, have fantasized about her running for president in 2020. But she has evinced zero interest in electoral politics, and the Clinton experience should probably give Democrats pause about putting their trust in beloved former dynasties.

Recommended: How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul

Of course, deciding who will lead the party is intertwined with what the party will look like. Obama has managed to hold a coalition of leftist and centrist Democrats together, but that is already crumbling. There will be great pressure for the party to adopt a vision that draws on the populist success of both Trump and Sanders, but that pressure will meet opposition from party insiders as well as from the educated, well-to-do whites on whom the party increasingly depends. With the Republican Party looking like an anti-free-trade bloc, Democrats could try to become the party of business, but that might only worsen the problems that sank Clinton. Theres no obvious answer to how the party can reconcile its need for some working-class whites with the focus on social and racial justice that has become a Democratic priority, driven by the near unification of minorities under the partys banner.

Democratic success in Nevada, driven by the muscle of labor unions, might look like a bright spot, but its difficult to see how it is replicated. Unions are in secular decline, more and more states have adopted right to work laws, and a conservative Supreme Court and Congress are likely to continue curtailing the power of unions at the national level.

This makes the stakes in the two next elections very high. First, theres 2018. On the House side, past trends suggest Republicans will likely lose ground in the House, but Democrats will have to win seats in several red states just to stay even in the Senate. Then comes the 2020 election. If Democrats can win then, behind whatever candidate eventually emerges, they may be in decent shape. But if they lose, the outlook is very grim. Just look to Republican success in 2010, ahead of the Census and redistricting of Congress. By winning across the board, the GOP was able to give the map a lasting tilt toward Republican dominance. A Democratic win in 2020 could rebalance that, but a loss would make the systemic challenges even greater. (Theres a reason that Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder have already announced plans to focus on trying to help Democrats at the state level after Obama leaves office.)

Recommended: Donald Trump Wins the Presidential Race

The last couple decades have shown the folly of predictions of party demise, from Karl Roves wrecked dream of a permanent Republican majority to Democratic hubris in 2008, right up through forecasts of the demise of the GOP earlier this year. As Harold Macmillan may or may not have said, what makes a politician, and by extension a party, is events, dear boy, and one cannot assume all exogenous factors will remain stable.

If Democrats have anything on their side, its the same force that was supposed to save them in 2016: demographic change. As the nation gets less white, a Republican Party largely dependent on white votes will get less tenable. But many smart analysts predicted that would decide this election, too. Just days after its death was foretold, the Republican Party is radically changed but holds great power, while the Democratic Party is the one on life support.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
This Immigrant Doctor Is Reimagining Health in the American City

From the repeal of a ban on bilingual education in California to a smackdown of charter school expansion in Massachusetts, a wide range of education issues were subject to voter scrutiny across the United States on Election Day. But the fate of the nations K12 public schools and institutions of higher education never became a prominent issue in the presidential race, leaving some Americans to wonder what the education agenda of President Donald Trump will be.

During his victory speech in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Trump vowed to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. The specifics of how the nations public schools will be improved went unmentioned.

RELATED: As Scandals Plague Charter Schools, Calls for Oversight Grow

It is a mixed picture, prominent education historian, author, and New York University professor Diane Ravitch wrote in an email to TakePart. Certainly Trump said nothing during the campaign that showed any interest in public schools.

But if Trump follows through on what campaign rhetoric he did offer, one of the major changes he may attempt will be to shrink, gut, or completely eliminate the U.S. Department of Education.

We want to bring education local, so were going to be cutting the Department of Education big league because were running our education from Washington, D.C., which is ridiculous, instead of running it out of Miami or running it out of the different place that we have so many people, Trump said in a speech in Florida in August.

His surrogate Carl Paladino (businessman who ran against Cuomo and has financial interests in charters in Buffalo) said Trump would not put an educator in charge of the Department of Ed., wrote Ravitch, who served as assistant secretary of education under both President George H. W. Bush and President Bill Clinton.

Trump is not the first politician to suggest that the nation ditch the Department of Education. In 1980, Ronald Reagan ran on a platform that included abolishing the department, which his opponent, President Jimmy Carter, had founded. Even though Reagan won the election, he kept the department, thanks in part to opposition from a Democratic-controlled Congress.

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Under Reagans tenure, in 1983 the Department of Education produced the landmark report A Nation at Risk, which framed the nations education problems in terms a Cold War audience could understand: We have dismantled essential support systems which helped makegains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament, the reports authors wrote.

Despite his campaign rhetoric, Reagan found that slashing the Department of Education could produce disastrous results for students, teachers, and the economy. Similarly, an analysis this September from the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund found that if the Deptarment of Education were dissolved, roughly 8 million low-income students would lose the Pell Grants they depend on to afford college, and 5 million children and students with disabilities would lose $12.7 billion used every year to ensure that they receive a quality education.

RELATED: Who Will Teach Americas Learning Disabledand How?

In addition, over 490,000 teacher positions could be eliminated14 percent of K12 public school teachers nationwide, the center wrote in its analysis. This would have a terrible effect on the U.S. economy. The loss of that many jobs would be like UPSone of the countrys largest employers, with over 350,000 American workersgoing out of business.

As for what else Trump might do, vouchers and charters seem to be among his priorities for education policy. At the same October event where he made his remarks about downsizing the Department of Education, Paladino, who served as Trumps cochairman in New York state, said that Trump would seek to encourage competition in the marketplace and eventually dismantle the corrupted, incompetent urban school districts that we have in America today, reported The Washington Post.

The first bullet on the education section of Trumps campaign website says that his administration will immediately add an additional federal investment of $20 billion towards school choice. This will be done by reprioritizing existing federal dollars.

I assume he wants to turn Title I into a block grant to the states for charters, vouchers, or even public schools. Thats the $20 billion he promised to redirect to choice, Ravitch wrote to TakePart. Title I is the federal program that provides funding to local school districts to improve the achievement of students from low-income families. A report on the issue released in September from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the private school choice programs may indeed prevent equitable services from being provided to all students.

RELATED: Feds Spar With NAACP Over Criticism of Charter Schools

While public schools have the responsibility for educating all students, many voucher schools take public funding while picking and choosing students based on their academic and behavioral characteristics, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers labor union, said in a statement after the reports release. Voucher schools dont abide by the same academic quality standards as public schools. They blur the lines separating church and state. Finally, vouchers exacerbate inequity by directly draining critical funding away from public schoolsoften the schools that need that funding most.

What may end up lessening the impact of whatever Trumps plans end up being is that theres no mention of education in the Constitution, so its left to states to decide.

In a curious twist, the salvation of public education may be [the Every Student Succeeds Act], which devolved greater discretion to states, wrote Ravitch.

The ESSA passed both chambers of Congress with strong bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Obama in December. The law, which goes into effect during the 201718 school year, replaced the federal, top-down, standardized testheavy mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act and gives states more flexibility in choosing their student achievement accountability goals.

Local and state governments are less likely to harm their public schools than DC pols, because they are closer to their communities, Ravitch wrote.

Take the Pledge: If We Dont Act Now, Who Will Teach Our Kids?

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The Secret Service may be advising President-elect Donald Trump and his family to move out of Trump Tower for safety reasons.

Read: After Trump's First-Ever Trip to the White House, Obama Says They Had an 'Excellent Conversation'

The building is located on New Yorks Fifth Avenue, one of the busiest streets in America, where thousands of tourists and city residents stroll by every day.



Police have done their best to turn Trump Tower into a virtual fortress as concrete barriers have been installed outside the building.



The FAA has ordered the air space above Trump Tower restricted. Pilots are banned from flying within two miles of Trump Tower from now until January 20, Trump's Inauguration Day.



If the president-elect is compelled to leave his beloved Trump Tower prior to a White House move, he has several estates at his disposal.

In the town of Bedford, New York, Trump owns a beautiful secluded mansion with 15 bedrooms that sits on 230 acres.

Read: Hillary State of Mind: How Is Presidential Contender Coping After Crushing Defeat?

Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino says that from a security point of view, Trump's best bet would be his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida

"This is a place where he built from the ground up, for security you cant get a better location. It has everything Trump Tower doesnt," he told Inside Edition.

Bongino discussed the difficulties of securing Trump Tower, saying: "I am not just talking about people, I am talking about car bombs, people walking in with an explosive device, I am not just talking about the individual lone gunman. Controlling access is not impossible but it is really, really difficult in Trump Tower."

He also has Trump Vineyard Estates in Charlottesville, Virginia, which could be a temporary residence before he takes office. The property is located about 116 miles from Washington, D.C.

Watch: Whoa, Canada: Will These Celebs Actually Move North Now That Trump Has Won White House?

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In October, U.S. Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante was suddenly removed from her position by new Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, a move that was met with dismay from many members of the music industry and creators' rights groups. Now, Eagles founding member Don Henley has added his voice to the chorus of those decrying the decision, calling Pallante's ouster an "enormous blow" for artists, according to the Washington Post.

"She was a champion of copyright and stood up for the creative community, which is one of the things that got her fired," Henley said of Pallante, before turning his attention to Hayden. "The Librarian wants free content, and the copyright office is there to protect creators of content. They are diametrically opposed ideologies... [Hayden] has a long track record of being an activist Librarian who is anti-copyright and a Librarian who worked at places funded by Google."

In her position as Register, Pallante was seen as a generally fair and sympathetic figure when it came to expanding creators' rights, and advocated for updating many of the Copyright Office's tech-based policies. With the music industry's continuous shift into the digital realm, the office has become a battleground between tech companies that have emerged as the new distributors in a streaming economy and creators, like Henley, who say they are not being fairly compensated for their work.

"There's a mindset that the digital giants have fostered that everything on the internet should be free," Henley told the Post. "When they say they want free and open access, that's code for, 'We want free content.'"

Henley is not the only voice speaking out against Pallante's ouster; the Post also quotes the Motion Picture Association of America, U.S. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and publisher and songwriter Dean Kay as coming out against the move, with Kay calling it "a major affront to copyright," adding, "Unless we can straighten things out and get copyright adhered to in terms of paying fairly, we'll see great damage to all kind of creators."

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But Pallante's exit wasn't greeted with alarm by all fronts; non-profit organization Public Knowledge, which receives some funding from tech companies, tweeted that the ouster represented "a great opportunity to bring balance to the Office's policy work."

But as licensing and piracy issues continue to dominate the Copyright Office's agenda, spurred on by demands for reform from many in the industry who are concerned about fair compensation for artists, the immediate future following Pallante's removal is unclear as the battle over rights and payments intensifies.

"You don't make any money from recording music anymore," Henley said. "The streaming services have wiped out that revenue stream."
Peebles Corporation CEO Don Peebles calls current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio corrupt and incompetent, saying he is seriously considering throwing his hat in the ring for the position come January.

In think that this city is in such trouble and no one has stepped up to offer leadership to bring us to a better place and with the continued direction that the city is going, it will decline, Peebles said during an interview with the FOX Business Networks Neil Cavuto.

The real estate developer said there are currently six investigations underway in the Big Apple, casting a shadow of corruption over the de Blasio administration as New York City taxpayers foot the legal fees.

And with Donald Trump moving in to the Oval Office in 2017, Peebles thinks the public is ready to see more business-minded people in public office.

Trumps election in some ways was very encouraging because it showed negative attacks dont work, and I suspect when people have no ideas and no record to run on they negatively attack. And two, I think the public wants to see more business people and Mike Bloomberg was a great mayor, he said.

The real estate developer said New York City will become a less attractive place to live and do business in if it continues to implement the policies of Mayor de Blasio.

All the people that the progressive want to move upwardly are declining. So clearly, this direction we are going on now is not the place we should be in, Peebles said.

When asked when he will make up his mind about running for mayor of New York City, Peebles said, I am in that process now.

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Donald Trump briefing

The election is finally over. It has resulted in the most stunning political upset in the modern era.

But that is really just the end of the beginning. The country will require a large amount of healing. That the electorate has expressed record-high levels of disgust with the political process, and that few believe that the country can be united, does not augur well for the new administration.

And, unlike in the past, America appears as divided over key aspects of foreign policy as it is over domestic policy. So how does president-elect Trump hope that to handle that divide, and what will be the major issues facing him?

Foreign policy was once bipartisan

At the outset of the Cold War, Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg first uttered what became a common mantra. Faced with the Soviet threat, he suggested that politics stopped at the waters edge, meaning the American approach to foreign policy was to be bipartisan.

The protests against the Vietnam War dealt a blow to that assumption. But Americans were united in initially supporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, even if Democrats and Republicans were divided on this too a decade later. Indeed, Americans today are as polarized about foreign affairs as they are about domestic mattersand regard them as very important.

In pre-election polls, the economy and job security were ranked the number one issue. But, in fact, this was a foreign policy issue masquerading as a domestic one, because it was a debate about the merits of globalization and whether the new president should pursue a free trade agenda. Its significant that in these same polls, terrorism ranked second, and foreign policy in general ranked third, in front of health care.

Old and new style

Hillary Clinton campaigned on a promise, largely, of extending Barack Obamas legacy. Donald Trump campaigned to reverse domestic reforms and repeatedly signaled a disdain for Obamas preference for multilateralism and strategic patience. Instead, he offered Americans a return to a more muscular foreign policycrushing ISIL, rebuffing China, and engaging Russia.

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Scholars, unlike the media, often argue about whether individual leadership really matters when it comes to foreign policy. Many argue that American foreign policy is dictated by consistent factors such as the size of its military and its importance to the global economy.

So is it the personality of the leadership, or are broader factors at play in the formulation and implementation of US foreign policy? In a grand experiment, we are about to find out.

And what is likely to preoccupy the new president when it comes to foreign policy over the next four years? Id identify five challengesin order of their public visibility, if not their importanceplus a bonus that nobody is yet discussing.

Challenge number one: the Middle East

Americans regard ISIL as the greatest foreign threat. But clearly, ISILs position in both Iraq and Syria is waning.

By the time Trump gets into office in January, ISIL will probably represent a negligible threat in Iraq. And there will be no need for American intervention in Syria if, as anticipated, Trump signals a willingness to let Bashar al-Assad and Putin finish the job of pulverizing the opposition. So, ironically, it is likely that Trump will maintain Obamas policy of no boots on the ground in Syria, although in reality American forces are already there, assuming a variety of advisory and training functions.

Still, the abiding question is what the US will do after ISIL disintegrates as a coherent fighting force in Iraq and Syria. American Special Forces are now operating in Libya, where ISIL has a powerful affiliate. That may become the next large-scale venue for American operations in the vortex of the Middle East.

But it is just as possible that Trump will tell the Europeans that Libya is their problem, not Americas, and they should invade the country to stop the flow of both migrants and terrorists into Europe. Unlike Obama, however, there will be no JV comments about IS coming from Trump.

Challenge number two: Russia

Trump, of course, has spoken admiringly of Putin. His views of the Russian leader are more reminiscent of George W. Bushs comment that he famously looked Russian President Vladimir Putin in the eye and peered into his soul. So there is some superficial evidence that Trump and Putin can reach some rapprochement, a kind of reset. This view is further fueled by Trumps avowed preference to treat every negotiation as transactionalpragmatically treating any foreign policy like a business deal.

So, in the short term, Trumps election boosts Putins ambitions to regenerate Russia as a global power. Nonetheless, a shrinking economy,

declining military spending, a host of domestic problems, and no sign of a major rise in oil and gas prices to bring Putin more revenues will limit Russias options.

But then again, if personality plays a role when it comes to foreign policy, then there are grounds for concern that Trumps and Putins honeymoon wont last long. The president-elect likes to play second fiddle to no one. The same is true for Putin.

A clash could eventually ensue. There is now an arc that spreads from the Arctic down to the Black Sea that constitutes a zone of potential conflict. And there has already been a small movement of NATOs troops into the Baltics and Poland. Trump may make greater demands of NATO. But troop deployment wont change in the short term. So their presence may eventually reinforce hostilities once the honeymoon is over.

Challenge number three: Europe

Trump is unpopular to an unprecedented degree in Europe. Only 15 percent of the public expressed confidence in his leadership, in contrast to the 85 percent that said the same about Obama.

That said, the one thing that Obama, Clinton, and Trump all have agreed onalbeit using different languageis that European countries should pay more toward the cost of their own defense. Last year, only five of NATOs 28 members fulfilled their commitment to pay the two percent of GNP for defense. It is the United States that pays 73 percent of NATOs defense.

But now a new reality is taking shape. Poll after poll reveals that Americans may like NATO, but many are tired of paying for Europes defense.

Expect Trump to reinforce Obamas warning, even as Trumps prior comments about Japan and South Korea paying for their own defense suggest that the US might militarily re-pivot to Europe and the Middle East, in contrast to Obamas focus on Asia.

Challenge number four: China

Every American president since Richard Nixon has tried a combination of three strategies when it comes to the China: First, engage the Chinese diplomatically, mostly to draw them away from Russia. Second, do all that the US can to encourage the growth of a large Chinese middle class in the hope that they will demand democratic reforms. And third, constrain Chinas growth as a regional military power by locating forces in Asia and reinforcing alliances with other Asian powers.

Obama did all three. Trump will likely represent a notable contrast.

Contrary to what he has said about Russia, Trump has sounded an avowedly confrontational tone about China. He has called it a currency manipulator and discussed introducing new trade barriers against Chinese imports.

It is easy to dismiss some of this as electoral hyperbole. But, in the absence of a track record, we have to believe what he says. And the early responses from China are not comforting, despite Xi Jingpings conciliatory expression of congratulations.

Obama had championed the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement that does not include China as a means to deal with Chinas rising power. But the TPP is extremely unpopular in the US, and that deal is now probably dead in the water.

So the policy toward Asia will likely tilt from a military presence coupled with multilateral economic engagement to a bilateral focus on trade and finance between the US and China. Still, Trump will need Chinas help in dealing with a bellicose North Korea to avoid war on the Korean peninsula.

Challenge number five: Free trade agreements

Since 2008, many Americans have abandoned the notion that globalization benefits the US. They think it is the source of job insecurity, not the solution to it. Even the Democrats recognized this problem; Clinton was forced to incorporate Bernie Sanders criticism of free trade into her electoral platform.

Trump was far more hostile, criticizing NAFTA and any possible trade agreements that did not explicitly put Americas interests first. So, while he might try to renegotiate existing agreements, the proposed new ones are all off the table for now.

Clinton made it undiplomatically clear that there is no saving those mining jobs in Appalachia. Her vision of a 21st-century American economy is built on technology, finance, and a few high-value added manufacturing jobsand that requires free access to global markets. Trumps vision is of a 19th-century economy, with revitalized production of steel and fossil fuels to appeal to his electoral base. That will be hard to pull off. So it is no surprise that he immediately announced a new infrastructure program to create new jobs for those former miners.

Finally, the black swan challenge from the Arctic

Foreign policy is always full of unforeseen problems that are often described as black swans. My best guess is that Trumps will be the Arctic. The accelerating effects of climate change are creating a series of challenges that the new president will have to face, even if he thinks it is a hoax.

These include Russian claims of sovereignty as it builds up its military forces, new waves of environmental refugees as its waters rise and questions about access in keeping the new waterways open for global shipping, energy, and even tourism. America has no long-term plan to deal with these issues.

New presidents quickly discover that being the most powerful figure in the world does not mean that your orders will be carried out as you wish, that others respond as you expect or that you can achieve your policy outcomes. The environment is far more complex. New actors, new threats, and new forms of warfare pose significant challenges for any American president. Even the largest military does not ensure an effective foreign policy.

Having a president with no foreign policy experience isnt helpful in that environment. America and the world are inevitably in for a rocky rideat odds with the simple solutions espoused by politicians on the campaign trail.

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Donald Trump

Donald Trump appears slated to become the fifth person to win the presidential election while losing the popular vote.

As of this publication, Democrat Hillary Clinton was winning the popular vote by about 200,000 ballots, a lead that will likely increase as absentee and provisional ballots from heavily Democratic states continue to trickle in. But Trump convincingly collected the necessary 270 electoral votes by eking out slim victories in swing states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida.

However, back in 2012, Trump was denouncing the very system that would eventually hand him the presidency.

It was election night, and for a brief time, it seemed that Republican nominee Mitt Romney might win the popular vote over Barack Obama, while still losing the electoral vote.

A now-ironic tweetstorm ensued:

The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012

This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012

"He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!" said Trump in a tweet that was later deleted. "More votes equals a loss  revolution!" he said in another.

He continued:

trump electoral college

Obama's popular vote total eventually surpassed Romney's, and the incumbent safely won re-election with 51.1% of the vote.

NOW WATCH: Clinton and Trump's final ads perfectly explain how different they are





More From Business Insider


U.S. President-elect Donald Trump spoke to U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday to affirm Americas special relationship with Britain and invite May to visit him as soon as possible.

In the telephone call President-elect Trump set out his close and personal connections with, and warmth for, the U.K. the Prime Ministers office said. He said he was confident that the special relationship would go from strength to strength.

The call came after reports in the U.K. that May had been snubbed by the President-elect in his first hours after winning election. Some in the U.K. have welcomed Trumps election as a chance for the U.K. to reforge trade links following the countrys forthcoming Brexit departure from the European Union.

During the call, May highlighted her intention to strengthen investment and bilateral trade with the U.S. in light of Brexit. She also noted that Britain and the U.S. have always stood together as close allies. Trump, the statement said, strongly agreed with this claim and said the U.K. is a very, very special place for me and for our country.

May returned from a three-day visit to India earlier this week, part of a drive to pave the way for post-Brexit trade deals with countries outside the E.U. after leaving the bloc.
President-elect Donald Trump will be interviewed for CBS 60 Minutes tomorrow in his first interview since winning Tuesdays presidential election.

Lesley Stahl will conduct the interview from Trumps Fifth Avenue home in New York City on Friday. She will also speak with the Trump family, including future First Lady Melania as well as children Ivanka, Tiffany, Eric and Donald Jr.

The interview will air on 60 Minutes on Sunday.

Also Read: Anti-Trump Protest Erupts on a Los Angeles Street Corner (Photos)

Donald Trumps surprise electoral-college victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has been met with protests in city streets across the country. The former secretary of state won the popular vote but that was not enough to declare victory.

Protesters gathered throughout the day on Wednesday in Chicago, Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Portland chanting, Not my president.

Despite the protests, Trump met with President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday to discuss the transition, and he is scheduled to meet with House Speaker Paul Ryan later in the day.

Also Read: 9 Ways Donald Trump Presidency Could Completely Reshape Hollywood (Photos)

Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division, have to get together, Trump said in his victory speech on Wednesday. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.

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President-elect Donald Trumps transition team is now part of the government, at least online, in the form of a GreatAgain.gov website.

The website, registered through the General Services Administration, is a traditional element of the federally funded transition between administrations, carried out under the terms of the 2010 Pre-Election Presidential Transition Act.

The GSA has been supporting transition activities for months, not only for the Trump team but for Democratic candidate Hillary Clintons team as well.

GreatAgain.gov, which is inspired by Trumps Make America Great Again slogan, made its public debut on Wednesday, a day after the election. But it was primed for action even before the outcome was known. On Sunday, for example, the website noted that 4,000 political appointees would be leaving to make room for the new administration.

Finding qualified people to fill these jobs is an enormous undertaking, but it is critically important to making the federal government work effectively for the American public, according to the posting, which mirrors a notice that was posted by the Center for Presidential Transition back in March.

The Help Wanted notice is likely to be fleshed out in the weeks ahead with information about job applications, just as it was in the case of then-President-elect Barack Obamas Change.gov website back in 2008.

Like Change.gov (which is now offline), GreatAgain.gov lays out Trumps positions on a wide array of issues in advance of Januarys inauguration.

For example, theres been a lot of talk about Trumps trillion-dollar initiative to rebuild Americas infrastructure. Some have compared the concept to President Dwight Eisenhowers initiative to build the interstate highway system, and the promise of more spending and jobs has helped boost the Dow Jones industrial average. (Tech stocks havent fared as well.)

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The website says the Trump administration seeks to invest $550 billion to ensure we can export our goods and move our people faster and safer.

On another big issue, immigration, the websites 10-point plan doubles down on Trumps intention to build a wall on the southern border, block funding for sanctuary cities and cancel executive orders that the incoming administration deems unconstitutional.

For what its worth, Mexicos leaders say they want to meet with Trump to talk about the transition, but they wont pay for the wall.

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As the world digested the reality of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the glee among Chinas political establishment was hard to contain. China is feeling a little bit delighted, says Shen Dingli, deputy dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

The giddiness comes in various forms. First, what better advertisement for the stable, technocratic authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party than an America so divided that half the electorate failed to recognize how disenfranchised the rest of the nation felt?

Trumps election shows the problem of American democracy, says Yu Tiejun, a professor of international studies at Peking University in Beijing.

The Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party-linked tabloid, opined that the U.S. president-elect was known for being a blowhard and an egomaniac. But if such a person can be president, there is something wrong with the existing political order.

There is a lot of Chinese schadenfreude about the lowly nature of the debate in the U.S. election campaign, says Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing. Its a total gift to Chinese propaganda.

Second, Trump has shown little interest in holding China accountable for its human-rights record, even as President Xi Jinping has tightened control on free-thinkers who speak out against the ruling Chinese Communist Party. During the campaign, Trump even lauded the steeliness of the Chinese leadership for ordering the 1989 massacre of Tiananmen democracy protesters.

Trump doesnt care about whether China is an authoritarian state, says Qiao Mu, media-studies professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, who is no longer allowed to teach because of his outspokenness on political issues.

Compare that to Hillary Clinton, whose public objections to the Chinese Communist Party go back decades, from her critical speech at the 1995 U.N. Womens Conference in Beijing to her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State.

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Trump is not going to be as harsh on human rights as Hillary Clinton would have been, says Zhang Ming, a professor at the Institute of Political Studies at Renmin University in Beijing.

Third, while Barack Obama talked about pivoting toward Asiaa foreign-policy maneuver that the Chinese saw as little more than containmentTrump campaigned on isolationism. He has scorned the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the 12-nation trading bloc that was supposed to add economic ballast to Obamas Asia pivot. Trump has also threatened to tear up defense treaties with Americas Asian allies, such as Japan and South Korea.

The Chinese like that Trump talks about America growing inward, that the U.S. is overreached in the Middle East, that hes ripping up TPP, that hes not paying much attention in Asia, says Haenle. Trump says we need to pull back. All that sounds great to the Chinese.

An increasingly assertive Chinese government has turned disputed islets in the South China Sea into de-facto military bases. At the same time, Beijing has unleashed a charm offensive on Asian leaders whose countries are embroiled in territorial disputes in the vast waterway, such as the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Malaysias Najib Razak. After decades in which the U.S. Navy prided itself on keeping the peace in the Pacific, could China capitalize on American inattention in the region?

In terms of the South China Sea, Trumps conservatism and isolationism mean he will intervene less, says Zhang. There will be less trouble for the Chinese government.

But Chinese foreign policy cannot depend solely on expectations of American insularity. With exports flagging and growth slowing, Chinese rulers must attend to the worlds most important bilateral economic relationship. As a candidate, Trump talked tough on China trade. He vowed to name China a currency manipulator. He spoke of a 45% tariff on Chinese imports. While presidential candidates perennially denounce China only to moderate their positions when they take office, Trump rode to power on a wave of protectionist sentiment. The voters who swept Trump to victory think that China has stolen their jobs through unfair competition. Thats sobering news for a country that has profited more from free markets than almost any other economic power.

Trumps victory has a direct impact on our trade relationship, says Shen Minggao, an economist at the Caixin think-tank. Brexit and Trumps win show a clear trend of de-globalization and Trumps election will serve as a huge blow to Chinas economy.

Some Chinese academics arent as worried. They regard Trump as a businessmen who has also profited from economic cross-pollination. Trump is against TPP but hes not against globalization, says Fudan Universitys Shen. TPP is 12 countries selected by America, and it expels other countries. Thats not free trade. WTO is globalization, and Trump has never said hes against the WTO.

That may be. But Trump has said a lot of different things at a lot of different times. That leads to another worry for Chinas leadership. Without electorates to upend local politics, Chinas ruling Communists value stabilityboth at home and abroad. The Chinese are always worried about uncertainty, says Haenle. Even though they like that America is probably going to be pulling back from Asia, they also dont like surprises. Trump is not predictable.

In the end, Trumps victory has not prompted the kind of existential worries in China that it has in other parts of the world. For some countries, the election of an isolationist populist as the American President carries troubling messages for local political development or regional security. China, though, sees itself as the center of the world, just as America still does.

China is rising, says deputy dean Shen. China is quite different from when Barack Obama became president eight years ago. The U.S. has far fewer resources to force China to do something. China should not worry about Trump coercing us.

With reporting by Yang Siqi and Zhang Chi/Beijing
NEW YORK -- Donald J. Trump was projected to become the 45th president of the United States on Wednesday in a stunning upset of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first major party female nominee for the White House, who polls showed as the clear favorite heading into Election Day.

Trump's historic and shocking victory is the culmination of an exhausting, astonishing and at times, depressing 19-month campaign that often centered around the least desirable aspects of two polarizing candidates that were each viewed unfavorably by a majority of Americans.

At the same time, the 2016 election result will be remembered as a transformative moment in American politics: Trump is the first person in the country's 240-year history to have ascended to the presidency without having prior elected or military service. And he was the underdog throughout the entire general election campaign, never attaining a lead in a national polling average and counted out by Washington pundits, political prognosticators and a spate of Republican politicians and strategists.

He proved them all wrong, sweeping away a cluster of battleground states that have served as Democratic bulwarks during the past two presidential elections of Barack Obama and preventing Clinton's lifelong ambition of shattering the ultimate glass ceiling in American life.

"I just received a call from Secretary Clinton," Trump told a crowd in midtown Manhattan about a quarter to 3 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday. "She congratulated us -- it's about us -- on our victory. And I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard fought campaign."

Just moments before that, networks called Pennsylvania for Trump, placing him over the 270 electoral votes needed to attain the presidency.

Trump won Ohio, Florida and North Carolina -- three states he had to carry to have a chance -- and then added to that tally a pair of states that have eluded Republicans for decades: Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

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The 70-year-old Trump, a Queens, New York, native, built his controversial media-driven brand around glitzy real estate deals and a popular celebrity reality television show.

He had little prior political experience and was an erratic, undisciplined and often self-immolating candidate. This is also what made him a singularly captivating figure, attracting massive crowds and often tossing aside a stage-managed script for the impulsive, humorous riff. A charismatic billionaire, the irony is that he appealed directly to members of the often-overlooked white, disenchanted working class, who were fed up with career politicians and systems -- political, governmental, financial, media -- that they saw as increasingly stacked against them, or as he would put it, were "rigged."

Many of Trump's supporters fully understood he was a flawed candidate who harbored unrealistic ideas and blurted out cringe-worthy statements. But they looked past those warts because they saw him as a powerful vessel for their anger and a unique figure willing to take great risks to disrupt accepted political norms.

Trump's election amounts to a dramatic realignment not only within the Republican Party but in national politics. For Trump's feat is not an ideological victory for conservatism -- he failed to win the support of the last Republican nominee and last Republican president. It is, rather, a seminal cultural movement driven by geographic, ethnic and economic fault lines.

It also cannot be read as anything other than a staggering repudiation of Clinton.

Whereas Trump's ascendance through a crowded and accomplished Republican primary field jolted the party, Clinton's re-emergence as a White House candidate following her 2008 loss to Barack Obama was always expected.

While she outraised Trump and assembled a larger, more sophisticated campaign operation, she lacked a natural charisma and an ability to connect with voters on a personal level, even after all her years as a public servant. She was dogged by a messy, sustained controversy over her use of a private email server as the country's chief diplomat and stung by a foreign hacking of her campaign chairman's private email account. At some points, she seemed jarringly out of touch, like when she dubbed a group of Trump enthusiasts "a basket full of deplorables."

Throughout, she was saddled with pervasive fears among Americans that she's untrustworthy. Trump poured gasoline on those simmering political embers, by battering her incessantly as secretive and corrupt, labeling her with the catchy nickname, "Crooked Hillary." A late October surprise reopening of the inquiry into Clinton's email practices will also be cited by Democrats as a reason her candidacy lost steam. Because of all this, the election result -- a undoubtedly narrow one -- will be seen almost as much a rejection of Clinton as it is an affirmation of Trump.

Much of Clinton's campaign strategy was to disqualify Trump in the eyes of voters. She repeatedly portrayed him as as unfit for the Oval Office and as lacking the level-headed temperament to preside over the nuclear codes. But her message was devoid of the magnetism that motivated the diverse Obama coalition over the past two elections. "Stronger Together" was an attempt at a united front against Trump, but it turned out to be insufficient to the "Hope and Change" that produced two terms for Obama.

At Clinton's election night party at the Javits Center -- under a literal and symbolic glass ceiling -- the night started out with a near-giddiness that after a long, arduous struggle, Clinton would finally attain the prize of becoming the first female to achieve the presidency. But as the results started to pour in, the mood turned puzzling and then downright dour as revelers considered what they had thought was impossible -- a Trump victory.

Then came the calls, the first one being Ohio, which the networks projected for Trump just before 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time. A half-hour later, both North Carolina and Florida fell to Trump.

At that point, inside the New York Hilton in midtown Manhattan at Trump's election night party, cheers burst out of "President Trump! President Trump!"

But it was the calls by Fox News of Wisconsin and Iowa for Trump near the 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time hour that shook the room. His path to 270 electoral votes suddenly looked almost inevitable.

Back inside the Javits Center, word emerged that Clinton would not appear in person.

Instead, her campaign chairman, John Podesta, took the stage in an attempt to delay any decision on a concession until later in the day.

"It's been a long night and it's been a long campaign. But I can say, we waited a long time, we can wait a little longer, can't we? They're still counting votes and every vote should count," Podesta said.

But with Clinton trailing in both Pennsylvania and Michigan, remarkably, it was she who faced an almost insurmountable numerical hurdle in the Electoral College.

At Trump's headquarters, supporters donning "Make America Great Again" caps chanted at the Fox News broadcast on large overhanging screens to "Call it! Call it!"

And moments after Trump entered the Hilton, but minutes before he took the stage, the network did. Pandemonium erupted as first Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana took the stage, followed by Trump, who gave a gracious and tempered speech.

"Ours was not a campaign," he said, his voice noticeably hoarse from a long night and grueling year-and-a-half endeavor, "but rather an incredible and great movement."

David Catanese is senior politics writer for U.S. News & World Report and founder of the blog The Run 2016. You can follow him on Twitter and send him feedback at dcatanese@usnews.com.
Its official. Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States. Now comes the interesting part: dissecting the kind of impact his campaign promises could have on the country.

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly expressed his desire to overhaul trade policy on goods produced overseas. But doing so could hurt US consumers, especially when it comes to the cost of consumer tech. The cost of some products could spike by as much as 45%, if Trump goes forward with his suggestion that the US place a 45% tariff on Chinese goods.

Trump took a very strong negative position on trade, said Professor Gian Luca Clementi of New York Universitys Stern School of Business. The question is if he is going to follow through on these threats, and what these impacts will be on these industry.

In an interview with The New York Times editorial board, Trump said he would consider placing a 45% tax on Chinese goods. Such a move could prove especially damaging for consumer technology companies such as Apple (AAPL), which produces the vast majority of its products in China. Indeed, most technology companies rely on Chinese manufacturing or Chinese parts.

If such a tariff were put into place, it would cost companies more to sell Chinese-made products in the US and cost US consumers more to purchase those products. For Apple that means some goods might cost 45% more.

But not every Apple product would see the same kind of price increase for US consumers, according to Dr. Robert Rogowsky, program chair and professor of international trade and economic diplomacy at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Some products will probably go up by 45%, but most products will not, because some of that profit will be absorbed by the producers, Rogowsky said, adding that assemblers in China could offset some of the increased costs.

That said, such action would have far-reaching global consequences. The consumer technology industry is, after all, a worldwide market. Raising tariffs on China, then, could lead to tax spikes in companies as far away as Europe, through.

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Everything would rise for consumers and they would consume less. But that filters back through the whole supply chain. So American businesses, Korean businesses, Japanese businesses and German businesses would feel this, Rogowsky explained.

Korean companies like LG and Samsung would likely be insulated from any direct changes to tariffs, as Korea and the US already have a trade agreement in place. They could still face problems because they use Chinese parts. But because China produces nearly all consumer tech products, every tech company would face the same issues.

The fact that the consumer tech industry is so globalized could be its biggest saving grace. As Rogowsky explains it, companies like Apple and Samsung do more business around the world than they do in the US. In fact, most of Apples growth and sales come from overseas, and that will continue regardless of what happens in the US.

Apple and the whole consumer tech market functions in a global marketplace, so if one part  is blocked, they will still sell well elsewhere, Rogowsky said. In the end, US consumers would suffer the most.

The consumer tech industry would likely, however, push back against any plan to re-negotiate existing trade deals or introduce new tariffs.

The way you make money is by broadening the marketplace, so the interest of these companies is to broaden the marketplace as much as possible. But to renegotiate a trade deal could start a trade war that could reduce the size of the market, Clementi explained.

Overall, this idea of re-negotiating trade treaties and introducing tariffs is just a bad, bad idea. There is no subtle way to put it, he added.

As Rogowsky put it, the tech industry would likely lobby against any new tariffs or trade agreements aggressively, as would the likes of Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT), and the transportation industry.

Neither Clementi nor Rogowsky believe Trump will move forward with any new tariffs or trade deals. Thats because negotiating trade deals isnt exactly an easy task. Generally speaking, a trade deal can take up to about three years to flesh out. At that point, Congress then has to approve the agreement .

Its easy to go out and threaten to do something about it, Clementi said. But its very, very difficult to go out and actually do something about it.

Of course, presidential candidates regularly bash China and Japan over trade, Rogowsky said.

Still, he added, The magnitude of what he expects to do, the large tariff increases, which would be almost prohibitive  seems almost remarkably unlikely.

More from Dan:

Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States of America. Following his defeat of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, the Republican is set to replace Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Jan. 20, 2017. What can we expect from the proceedings and how will the pop culture world respond?

Presidential inaugurations are a daylong ceremony. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to visit the District of Columbia, though spots at the official events are, of course, limited. Traditionally, the day begins with a morning worship service. After that, the new vice president takes the oath of office, followed by the president. After they're sworn in, Trump will give his inaugural address speech. Once evening falls, the presidential family will attend several formal events around town, including the Inaugural Ball.

Along the way, there are opportunities for numerous musical performances. The national anthem is most notably built into the procession, though there are opportunities for others. At Barack Obama's re-election inauguration in 2013, Beyonce sang the anthem, while musicians like Kelly Clarkson and James Taylor added other performances. Even more notables performed at the balls that evening: Alicia Keys, Marc Anthony, Brad Paisley and others. But what will that docket look like this January for Trump?

Musicians (and A-list celebrities in general) avoided Trump on his election trail -- some passively, some bluntly. The Republican National Convention featured dozens of pro-Trump speakers, overwhelmingly from government, military and conservative media backgrounds; the musicians were almost nowhere to be found. This largely held true right up through the Nov. 8 election. Are we headed toward a change? Will winning the election normalize Trump's divisiveness and embolden musicians who'd been reluctant to go public with their support?

Ted Nugent has publicly supported Trump -- and conservative issues in general -- for a long time. He recently performed at Trump rallies along the campaign trail, so he'd be a good bet to be involved somehow.

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Kid Rock and Lynyrd Skynyrd are possibilities. Both have long championed Republican causes and both were in Cleveland to play concerts during the 2016 convention. However, their performances were private affairs to honor military veterans and were not associated with the RNC.

A disparate few others -- like Staind's Aaron Lewis and Azealia Banks -- voiced support at times this year, though both wavered in their level of devotion. Banks went as far as to applaud Trump's victory.

Other entertainers who've expressed Trump support include country legend Loretta Lynn and Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton.

Of course, for requisite performances like "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America," the Trump White House could look outside popular music entirely and go for musicians with other backgrounds, like the military. The recording industry's support for Trump's campaign was even weaker than it was for Mitt Romney's 2012 convention, so a near-total avoidance is possible. Or, as previously stated, popular musicians with conservative leanings could come out of the woodwork following Trump's largely unexpected victory.

During the Donald Trump inauguration, protests are also likely. The official events -- like the swearing-in ceremony and the Inaugural Ball -- are all ticketed, with guests often having to go through local representatives' or senators' offices for admittance. Thus, demonstrations on the inside are unlikely, though sidewalk spots are open to the public. When Trump takes his ceremonial ride down Pennsylvania Avenue in the Presidential Cadillac limo, dissent could be in the air.

Popular music's response to a Trump presidency is in its earliest stages, and on Jan. 20, it will enter its official phase. The 2016 campaign trail was unpredictable and brought out strong emotions; a Trump White House -- once thought almost unthinkable -- is likely to continue evoking fervent activism.

Plus, Zara Larsson on Trump's Election: 'It Was Supposed to Be a Joke, It Was Not Supposed to Happen'
Donald Trump ran for president promising to scrap the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare. But the whole law wont be gutted, according to Jonathan Bush, founder and CEO of athenahealth (ATHN), a company that provides cloud-based management services to health care providers.

Bush, whose uncle and cousin were the 41st and 43rd presidents of the United States respectively, said he was totally surprised that Trump won the 2016 election but sees it as part of larger global trend.

As we get more sophisticated and automated and elite-oriented, you get a bigger and bigger chunk of peoplewhether its the British exiting [the European Union], us selecting Trump, the Colombians rejecting the treaty with FARC, the Italians maybe rejecting their constitutional reforms from finally a non-corrupt prime ministerits a thing like world peace shoved down your throat still doesnt taste good, he said. A lot of people feel like things are shoved down their throats right now.

Obamacare may have been part of that trend, Bush postulates. It is a great example of something thats sort of a nice idea meant with the best of intentions, that people got mad [about] because it felt shoved down their throats, he said. It was a very tight push to get that big bill passed  And obviously that momentum has now come to a grinding halt.

Trumps low mandate presidency

However, that wont mean there will be a reversal of the ACA because president-elect Trump is taking office after losing the popular vote and with low poll numbers.

The best news of this election is, regardless of who won, its a very low mandate presidency, he said. This is a high negative president70-plus percent negative president.

That could throw water on the idea of scrapping Obamacare entirely. If he gets rid of it, it will be around the edges. I dont think hes going to get rid of MIPS [Merit-Based Incentive Payment Systems], and MACRA [Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act], and HITECH [Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act], and all of the regulations on how care is delivered easily, Bush said. It either is that they get eased back slightly, or they just sit there.

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Dialing back on some of the ACAs mandates would suit Bush, but he believes there needs to be some change.

The definition of health insurance is not everything possible under the sun in an all-you-can-eat buffet, said Bush, adding that he would like to see something similar to car insurance. In some states, you have to have car insurance for when you hit someone else. You dont have to have it for when you hit yourself. You can have a similar kind of emergency room and hospital coverage that everybody has to have. That would be a fraction of what this costs and would allow for more innovation. If you force an all-you-can-eat buffet, nobody has an incentive to reduce their prices to bring people into the market because everybody is forced into the market at the end of a bayonet.

GOP control of courts kind of scary but 

The Republican sweep in the 2016 election means an exceptional amount of control for the partyand perhaps a little too much, even for a Bush family memberwith its ability to select and approve a Supreme Court Justice to replace the late Antonin Scalia and other federal judges. Yet Bush sees the potential for positive results.

Kind of scary, the courts, and Im a Republicanthe courts, the Congress (both sides) and the White House, he said. But if we just calmly pull back the minimum definition to something a little humbler and a little more affordable to let people have more choice, that would be a big deal.
Alcohol abuse cost the United States $250 billion in 2010, according to a 2015 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These costs include health care expenses associated with alcohol consumption as well as estimated lost productivity. Binge drinking was related to three-quarters of the total cost. Residents of different states report different drinking habits, as do residents of metropolitan areas within each state.

The CDC defines binge drinking as the consumption of four or more drinks for women and five or more drinks for men during a single occasion. Heavy drinking is defined as the consumption per week of 15 or more drinks for men, and typically eight or more drinks for women.

ALSO READ: America's 50 Best Cities to Live

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the metropolitan areas reporting the highest levels of binge and heavy drinking in each state. Appleton, the drunkest city in Wisconsin, also leads the nation with 26.8% of adults reporting excessive drinking in the metropolitan area. The Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tennessee metro area, where 13.5% of adults report such a drinking habit, is the booziest city in Tennessee. Nationwide, 87.6% of adults have drank alcohol at some point in their lives, 71.0% consumed alcohol in the past year, 56.9% say they drank in the past month, and 18.0% of adults report excessive drinking.

While there can be health benefits to moderate drinking as an adult, consuming excessive amounts of alcohol is associated with a range of health problems. Close to 88,000 people die from alcohol-related causes each year, and one in 10 deaths among U.S. adults is due to excessive drinking. According to the National Institute of Health, alcohol is the fourth leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

While it is established that excessive drinking can lead to negative health outcomes, drinking is only one of the many factors that can affect the health of a population. For this reason, many of the cities with high rates of excessive alcohol consumption do not exhibit the negative consequences that might be expected to accompany alcohol abuse.

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For example, just under half of the cities with the highest rates of alcohol consumption in their state report an above average incidence of premature death. Similarly, in slightly less than half of the 50 cities, relatively more adults report being in fair or poor health than the average nationwide.

To identify the drunkest city in each state, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the percentage of men and women over 18 who report binge or heavy drinking in each states metro areas. Metro level data was aggregated from county level data provided by County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute joint program. Health outcomes, including the number of deaths before age 75 per 100,000 people, also known as the premature death rate, and the percentage of adults who report fair or poor health were also aggregated from county-level data obtained from County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. All data are as of the most recent available year. Social and economic characteristics, including median household income and percentage of adults who have completed at least a bachelors degree came from the U.S. Census Bureaus 2015 American Community Survey.

These are the drunkest cities in each state.

1. Alabama

> Drunkest city: Auburn-Opelika

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 16.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 13.3%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 28.1%

More than 16% of adults in the Auburn-Opelika metro area report heavy drinking or binge drinking  defined as at least five drinks for men and four drinks for women on a single occasion  in the past 30 days, according to the CDC.

While Auburns excessive drinking rate is the highest of any of the states dozen metro areas, it is relatively low when compared to other metro areas in the country. Nationwide, 18% of American adults report binge or heavy drinking in the last month.

2. Alaska

> Drunkest city: Fairbanks

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 23.0%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.7%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 36.7%

People with higher incomes are more likely to drink to excess than those with lower incomes. In Alaska, the typical household earns $73,355 a year, about $17,000 more than the typical American household. Not surprisingly, more than one in five adults in the state identify as excessive drinkers, compared to 18% of American adults.

Binge and heavy drinking in Alaska is somewhat concentrated in the states two main metro areas, Anchorage and Fairbanks. At 22.9% and 23.0% respectively, both metro areas have even higher excessive drinking rates than the state a whole.

3. Arizona

> Drunkest city: Flagstaff

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 16.6%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 24.9%

In the Flagstaff metro area, 19.2% of adults report unhealthy drinking habits, the highest share of any metro area in Arizona. Unhealthy behavior in the metro area does not stop with alcohol. Roughly one in five area adults identify as smokers, a larger rate than both the national and state smoking rates of 17.0% and 16.5% respectively.

Bad habits may be putting Flagstaff residents at greater risk of early death. In the Flagstaff metro area, just 324 out of every 100,000 residents die before the age of 75 due to preventable causes, compared to the national premature death rate of 474 per 100,000.

4. Arkansas

> Drunkest city: Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 16.0%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 14.3%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 35.2%

Adults in Arkansas are among the least likely in the country to report unhealthy drinking habits. Even in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metro, the area with the largest share of excessive drinkers in the state, only 16% of adults are heavy or binge drinkers, slightly lower than national 18% excessive drinking rate.

People with higher incomes are statistically more likely to drink excessively than people with lower incomes, and Fayetteville is an apt example of the pattern. The median income in Fayetteville of $50,788 a year is roughly $8,800 more than the median annual income statewide.

5. California

> Drunkest city: San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles-Arroyo Grande

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.1%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.2%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 32.3%

Roughly one in five adults in the San Luis Obispo metro area report drinking to excess in the past month. While the potential health consequences associated with alcohol consumption are well established, metro area residents tend to be relatively healthy. Only 13.1% of area adults report being below optimal health, far less than the 18.1% statewide share and the 14.0% national share.

Still, high alcohol consumption may be taking its toll on metro area residents in other ways. Across the San Luis Obispo metro area, 32.3% of roadway fatalities involve alcohol, a larger share than both the state and nationwide figures.

6. Colorado

> Drunkest city: Denver-Aurora-Lakewood

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.6%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.0%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 35.0%

By many measures of both behavior and outcomes, Denver is one of the healthiest metro areas in the country. Adults in the city are more likely to live full lives, less likely to be obese, and more likely to exercise than most American adults. However, one major exception is the high share of adults in the area who drink excessively. More than one in five Denver area adults report binge or heavy drinking within the past month, more than in any other metro area across the state.

Alcohol is closely linked to the metro areas identity and economy. The city of Denver alone is home to dozens of breweries, including Blue Moon Brewing Company and Flying Dog Brewery.

7. Connecticut

> Drunkest city: Norwich-New London

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.7%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.6%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 36.0%

Adults in the Norwich-New London area are more likely to drink excessively than adults in any of Connecticuts four metro areas. While alcohol abuse can come with negative, often serious consequences, area residents tend to be relatively healthy. The Norwich metro area has one of the lower premature death rates in the country, and area residents are far less likely to report feeling unhealthy than Americans on the whole.

ALSO READ: The Most Republican County in Each State

Still, excessive drinking does not appear to be consequence-free in the Norwich-New London metro area. Alcohol is involved in 36.0% of all area roadway fatalities, more than the corresponding state and national rates of 33.2% and 31.0% respectively.

8. Delaware

> Drunkest city: Dover

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 15.3%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.2%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 46.5%

As the only metro area in Delaware, Dover has the highest share of excessive drinkers in the state by default. Dover is perhaps undeserving of the title as the share of adults who identify as heavy or binge drinkers is greater statewide than it is in the city. Only 15.3% of adults in the Dover metro area drink excessively, compared to 17.2% of adults statewide.

Despite lower binge and heavy drinking rates, an outsized share of deadly car accidents in the metro area involve alcohol. Nearly 47% of all roadway fatalities in Dover involve alcohol, nearly the highest share of any of the countrys 381 metro areas.

9. Florida

> Drunkest city: Tallahassee

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.0%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 34.3%

Of Floridas 22 metro areas, Tallahassee has the highest share of adults who report drinking to excess in the past month at 21.2%. Across the state, only 17% of adults report an unhealthy drinking habit.

Bad habits do not stop with excessive drinking in Floridas capital. Area residents are also more likely to be obese and identify as smokers than the typical Floridian. It is likely that the residents' excessive alcohol consumption and other unhealthy habits have, at least partially, contributed to a higher premature death rate in the area. Tallahassee residents are more likely to die from preventable causes before age 75 than is typical across the state.

10. Georgia

> Drunkest city: Hinesville

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.3%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 15.6%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 28.1%

Excessive alcohol consumption is relatively rare in Georgia. Of all 14 metro areas in the Peach State, Hinesville has the highest share of adults who drink excessively, at 18.3%. Still, this is only slightly higher than the 18.0% national share.

While alcohol abuse does not necessarily lead to negative health outcomes, adults in Hinesville are more likely to be obese and less likely to report being in good health than the typical Georgia resident.

11. Hawaii

> Drunkest city: Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 22.6%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.1%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 44.6%

In the Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina metro area, 22.6% of adults binge drink or drink heavily. In Urban Honolulu, Hawaiis only other metro area, only 20.1% of adults drink excessively.

Just as heavy drinking is more common in the Kahului metro area, so too are alcohol-related roadway deaths. Nearly 45% of all driving deaths in the Kahului region involve alcohol, a higher share than across the state, the country, and all but a dozen other U.S. metro areas.

12. Idaho

> Drunkest city: Coeur d'Alene

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.1%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 16.1%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 31.4%

Adults in Idaho are less likely than the typical American to report unhealthy drinking habits. In Coeur d'Alene -- the metro area with the highest excessive drinking rate in the state -- only 18.1% of adults report drinking to excess in the past month, slightly higher than the corresponding national rate of 18.0%.

While higher excessive drinking rates sometimes indicate unhealthy lifestyles overall, people tend to be in good health in Coeur d'Alene. Area adults report fewer days of poor mental and physical health and are less likely to be obese than the typical American.

13. Illinois

> Drunkest city: Bloomington

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 22.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.4%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 31.5%

All 10 metro areas in Illinois have a higher excessive drinking rate than the nation as a whole. In Bloomington, 22.2% of adults report binge drinking or drinking heavily in the past month, the highest share in the state.

Heavy drinking alone does not explain risky behavior in a community, but it may help explain the high prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases in Bloomington. For every 100,000 metro area residents, there are 510 cases of chlamydia, considerably more than the 447 cases per 100,000 people nationwide.

14. Indiana

> Drunkest city: Bloomington

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.3%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 15.8%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 25.0%

Of the dozen metro areas across Indiana, Bloomington has the largest share of adults who report drinking excessively. While the areas self-reported rate of binge and heavy drinking is high compared to the state's rate of 15.8%, it is relatively modest on a national scale -- at 17.3% versus 18.0% nationwide.

While alcohol abuse is not healthy, excessive drinking has either not taken a meaningful toll on Bloomington residents health, or is mitigated by other factors. People in Bloomington are less likely to die before age 75, be in fair or poor health, or be obese than the average Indiana resident.

15. Iowa

> Drunkest city: Ames

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 24.4%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 22.3%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 11.8%

Residents of all eight metro areas in Iowa report higher excessive drinking rates than the nation as a whole. In Ames, 24.4% of adults report heavy or binge drinking -- the largest share in the state and the eighth highest in the country.

While heavy drinking can potentially lead to impaired judgement and risky situations, a higher than typical share of drinkers in Ames appear to understand those risks. Only 11.8% of deadly car accidents in the area involve alcohol, one of the smallest shares in the country and well below the 31.0% nationwide share.

16. Kansas

> Drunkest city: Manhattan

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.0%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.1%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 11.1%

Excessive alcohol consumption is never healthy. However, in Manhattan, Kansas, the heaviest drinking metro area in the state, residents report far better than average health outcomes. Despite the areas 21.0% excessive drinking rate, Manhattan residents are less likely to be obese, be in poor health, or die prematurely than residents across the state.

Healthier outcomes in the area are likely the result of habits and behaviors unrelated to alcohol. Only 18.7% of area adults never make time for physical activity, and only 16.6% report a smoking habit, below the respective 24.6% and 18.1% statewide rates.

17. Kentucky

> Drunkest city: Louisville/Jefferson County

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 15.5%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 13.6%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 27.3%

While many may recognize Kentucky as the birthplace of American bourbon, adults in the state are far less likely to have unhealthy drinking habits than the average American. Statewide, only 13.6% of adults report either heavy or binge drinking in the past month, well below the 18.0% share of American adults. Lower than average excessive drinking rates are likely due to the fact that several dozen counties in the state are completely dry, meaning that the sale of any alcoholic beverage is prohibited.

ALSO READ: 80 Most Infuential Americans Over 80

No part of the Louisville/Jefferson County metro area is dry. The region is also the heaviest drinking metro area in the state. Of adults in Louisville, 15.5% report either binge or heavy drinking in the last 30 days.

18. Louisiana

> Drunkest city: New Orleans-Metairie

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.4%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.7%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 30.2%

Residents of the New Orleans metro area, which includes Metairie, are the heaviest drinkers in Louisiana. Nearly one in five adults in the area report binge or heavy drinking at least once per month. Like a number of other southern cities, New Orleans does not restrict drinking in public -- a feature that shapes the dining and nightlife culture in New Orleans for residents and tourists alike.

Residents of cities where excessive drinking is prevalent are not necessarily more likely to engage in other unhealthy behaviors. In the New Orleans area, however, 20.6% of adults are smokers, and 28.6% do not exercise in their leisure time -- each among the highest percentages in the nation.

19. Maine

> Drunkest city: Portland-South Portland

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.6%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.0%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 37.3%

The residents of affluent regions of the country are more likely to drink to excess than those living in poorer communities. The typical household in the Portland metro area earns $62,074 a year, about $10,600 more than the statewide median income. The Portland area also has a slightly higher excessive drinking rate than the state as whole. More than one in five metro area adults drank to excess in the last 30 days compared to 19% of adults in Maine.

The higher excessive drinking rate in the metro area could help explain the areas roadway fatality statistics. Of all fatal car accidents in Portland, 37.3% involved alcohol, a higher share than across both Maine and the country as a whole.

20. Maryland

> Drunkest city: California-Lexington Park

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.0%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 16.8%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 27.3%

In the California-Lexington Park metro area, one in five adults drink excessively, the highest share of any metro area in Maryland. People living in more affluent regions of the country are more likely to drink to excess than those living in poorer communities, and California-Lexington Park is one of the wealthiest metro areas in the country. The typical area household earns $85,163 a year, more than all but three other U.S. metro areas.

21. Massachusetts

> Drunkest city: Boston-Cambridge-Newton

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.5%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.6%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 30.9%

All five metro areas in Massachusetts have a larger share of adults who drink excessively than the corresponding 18% national figure. Within the Boston metro area, 20.5% of adults report either binge or heavy drinking in the last month, the highest share in the state.

While excessive drinking is relatively common in Boston, others unhealthy activities are not. Only 14% of area adults identify as smokers, a smaller share than both the state and national smoking rates. Additionally, Boston metro area residents are more likely to exercise in their leisure time than the typical American or Massachusetts resident.

22. Michigan

> Drunkest city: Monroe

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 22.9%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.4%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 37.9%

Monroe is the heaviest drinking metro area in one of the heaviest drinking states in the country. Nearly 23% of adults in Monroe and more than 20% of adults across Michigan drink excessively.

The relatively high alcohol consumption may partially explain Monroes drunk driving problem. About 38% of the areas traffic fatalities involve alcohol, a far larger share than is typical nationwide.

23. Minnesota

> Drunkest city: Mankato-North Mankato

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 24.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.2%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 20.8%

Adults in the Mankato metro area are far more likely to drink excessively than the typical adult nationwide. Slightly more than 24% of Mankato adults report drinking excessively in the last 30 days, a larger share than in all metro areas in Minnesota and all but nine other metros nationwide. Mankato residents are also slightly more likely to be smokers than the typical Minnesota resident.

While certain unhealthy habits, such as smoking and excessive drinking, often lead to negative health outcomes, their effect on the Mankato population appears to be minimal. Mankato metro area residents are less likely to die before age 75 than the broader population across the state.

24. Mississippi

> Drunkest city: Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 15.3%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 13.8%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 24.5%

Located on the states southern border along the Gulf of Mexico, Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula metro area residents tend to be far healthier than people across Mississippi. Adults in the area are less likely to be obese or be a smoker, and more likely to exercise than the typical adult in Mississippi.

Slightly more than 15% of area adults have either binge or heavily drank in the last 30 days, however, more than in any other state metro area. Excessive drinking is only one aspect of an individuals overall health. So although excessive drinking is far less common in Mississippi than nationwide, the state consistently ranks as one of the least healthy.

25. Missouri

> Drunkest city: Columbia

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.0%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 16.1%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 45.6%

In Columbia, 19% of adults drink excessively, more than in any of Missouris seven other metro areas. While excessive alcohol consumption does not necessarily cause major problems in a population, it appears to be an issue in Columbia. Alcohol is involved in 45.6% of all fatal car accidents in the area, nearly the largest share of any metro area in the country.

According to national advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Missouri could reduce drunk driving fatalities by mandating ignition interlocks for all convicted drunk drivers and adding additional penalties for offenders driving with young passengers.

26. Montana

> Drunkest city: Missoula

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 23.8%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.8%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 48.6%

Missoula is the heaviest drinking metro area in Montana. Nearly 24% of area adults drink excessively, a larger share than in all but a dozen other U.S. metros. Excessive drinking can lead to long term health problems, but sometimes poor judgement can make the consequences more immediate. Of all fatal car accidents in the Missoula metro area, close to half involve alcohol, nearly the highest proportion anywhere in the country.

ALSO READ: States With the Worst Roads

According to national advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Montana ranks among the worst states in the country for its legislation aimed at reducing rates of alcohol impaired driving.

27. Nebraska

> Drunkest city: Lincoln

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 23.3%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.4%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 26.7%

Just over 21% of adults in Nebraska report drinking excessively in the last 30 days, the fifth highest percentage of all states. The percentage of adults who drink excessively in Lincoln, at 23.3%, is both the highest in Nebraska and one of the highest of any metro in the country.

Excessive drinking can lead to harmful health consequences. High levels of excessive drinking in a metro area, however, does not necessarily mean residents are more likely to be in poor health -- as is the case in Lincoln. Fewer than one in 10 Lincoln adults report being in fair or poor health, one of the lowest percentages in the country.

28. Nevada

> Drunkest city: Reno

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.4%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.6%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 30.7%

Reno is the heaviest drinking metro area in Nevada. Of all metro area adults, 21.4% report drinking to excess, far more than the 17.6% statewide and 18.0% national excessive drinking rates.

Alcohol abuse can be harmful to both physical and mental health, and a high excessive drinking rate can also contribute to negative health outcomes across a metro area. Adults in Reno are far more likely to report being in poor health and more likely to die before age 75 than the typical American.

29. New Hampshire

> Drunkest city: Manchester-Nashua

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.3%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.9%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 32.8%

In the Manchester-Nashua area, 18.3% of adults report excessive drinking, slightly higher than the national rate of 18.0%. The area is the only metro in New Hampshire, however, so it is by default the heaviest drinking metro.

Manchester is near the New Hampshire border and a short drive from Boston. Because New Hampshire does not levy a sales tax, alcohol is cheaper there than in many other states. This may encourage more drinking among residents, and it typically attracts people shopping for alcohol from other states.

30. New Jersey

> Drunkest city: Trenton

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.3%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 23.6%

In Trenton, 18.2% of adults report binge or heavy drinking, a slightly larger share than across New Jersey and the country as a whole.

According to the CDC, excessive alcohol consumption is more likely among households earning $75,000 or more per year. Trenton, one of the highest income areas in the country, fits this pattern. The median household income in Trenton of $72,417 a year is roughly in line with the state median income but well above the national median income of $55,775 annually.

31. New Mexico

> Drunkest city: Las Cruces

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 16.5%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 15.1%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 34.0%

The percentage of adults in New Mexico who report excessive drinking, at 15.1%, is among the smallest shares compared with other states. Yet, alcohol is involved in nearly one-third of driving deaths in the state, one of the higher proportions. The problem is slightly more pronounced in Las Cruces, the city reporting the highest level of excessive drinking in New Mexico. Of driving deaths in the city, 34% are alcohol related.

Higher levels of excessive drinking can be associated with financial well-being. Las Cruces, however, is one of a minority of cities on this list where the typical household income of $39,902 a year does not exceed the statewide median income.

32. New York

> Drunkest city: Watertown-Fort Drum

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.4%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 16.5%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 28.6%

At 21.4%, adults in the Watertown-Fort Drum area report higher levels of excessive drinking than adults in any other metro area in New York. Across the state, just 16.5% of adults report such high alcohol consumption, one of the lower percentages compared with other states. The share of driving fatalities that involve alcohol in the Watertown area of 28.6% is not especially high compared to national levels. However, it is far higher than the statewide incidence of alcohol-related driving fatalities, which at 23.4% is the second lowest of all states.

33. North Carolina

> Drunkest city: Jacksonville

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 15.1%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 33.3%

High alcohol consumption alone cannot explain poor health outcomes in a population. However, excessive drinking in Jacksonville, the city reporting the highest level of alcohol consumption in North Carolina, may partially explain the areas prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases. This is often a consequence of risky behavior, which according to the CDC is associated with alcohol abuse. There are 808 cases of chlamydia for every 100,000 Jacksonville residents, in the top 10 compared with all U.S. metro areas.

34. North Dakota

> Drunkest city: Fargo

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 25.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 25.0%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 29.5%

More than one in four adults in Fargo, North Dakota drink excessively, a larger share than in any other metro area in the state and all but four other metro areas nationwide.

Drinking habits in Fargo are not exceptional compared with people living in North Dakota. No state has a higher share of heavy drinking adults than North Dakota. The states 25% excessive drinking rate is likely tied to its nation-leading share of alcohol related roadway fatalities. More than 47% of all deadly car accidents across the state might have been avoided if alcohol were not involved.

35. Ohio

> Drunkest city: Columbus

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.1%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 30.6%

Adults in Ohio are slightly more likely to have unhealthy drinking habits than adults across the country. In the Columbus metro area, 19.2% of adults drink excessively -- the largest share of the states 11 metro areas. Excessive drinking is more common in high income areas, and the typical Columbus household earns $58,192 a year, more than in any other metro area in the state.

While binge and heavy drinking are relatively common in Columbus, other unhealthy habits are not. Only 18.3% of area adults smoke, and only 24.5% are not physically active -- smaller shares than the corresponding 21.0% and 26.3% statewide shares.

36. Oklahoma

> Drunkest city: Oklahoma City

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 14.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 13.5%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 30.6%

Just 13.5% of adults in Oklahoma report an excessive drinking habit, nearly the lowest share of all states. So in Oklahoma City, where excessive drinking is more common than anywhere else in the state, the 14.2% share of adults who are abusing alcohol actually trails most U.S. metro areas. Excessive alcohol consumption can lead to physical harm, and lower levels of alcohol consumption in an area can help people reach favorable health outcomes. Oklahoma City reports a lower incidence of premature death than across the state. However, 427 lives are lost due to preventable causes per 100,000 people in Oklahoma City each year, higher than in most metro areas.

ALSO READ: 10 Worst States for Women

37. Oregon

> Drunkest city: Corvallis

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 23.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.9%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 32.0%

Excessive drinking is more common in all eight metro areas in Oregon than it is across the country as a whole. In the Corvallis metro area, 23.2% of adults consume alcohol in excess, the highest share in the state.

While long-term excessive drinking can have some serious health consequences, it does not necessarily lead to poorer overall health. Despite the relative prevalence of binge and heavy drinking in Corvallis, people in the metro area are far more likely to lead full, healthy lives than the broader Oregon population. Each year, for every 100,000 Corvallis residents, 229 die before age 75 from preventable causes, a lower rate than the 309 per 100,000 statewide preventable death rate. In addition, people in Corvallis are more likely to report being in good overall health than residents statewide.

38. Pennsylvania

> Drunkest city: State College

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.2%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.7%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 28.4%

The share of adults in State College who drink in excess is the highest of any state metro area. As is generally the case, however, the excessive drinking -- while not a healthy behavior -- has not resulted in especially poor health outcomes in the city. Despite consuming more alcohol more frequently than across the state, State College residents report a lower incidence of premature death than statewide. Similarly, the 14% of adults who say they are in fair or poor health is also lower than the statewide percentage.

The healthier outcomes are likely because of the area's higher educational attainment and financial well-being -- two factors common among people who drink excessively that also tend to lead to better health. More than two in five adults in State College have a college degree, and the typical household earns $56,337 a year -- each higher than the state figures.

39. Rhode Island

> Drunkest city: Providence-Warwick

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.0%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.2%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 36.2%

As the only metro area in the state, Providence-Warwicks excessive drinking rate is roughly in line with that of the state as a whole. Across Providence and Rhode Island, roughly one in five adults drink excessively, a slightly higher share than the 18% of American adults who either binge or heavily drink.

While it is not always the case, it appears that higher alcohol abuse rates in the Providence area and Rhode Island play an outsized role in fatal car accidents. Of roadway fatalities in Providence, 36.2% involve alcohol, and across Rhode Island 40.8% of traffic deaths involve alcohol -- each far more than the 31% share nationwide.

40. South Carolina

> Drunkest city: Charleston-North Charleston

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.8%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 15.5%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 44.0%

Adults across South Carolina are less likely to abuse alcohol than adults nationwide, with 15.5% reporting heavy or binge drinking on a regular basis versus 18.0% nationwide. However, the percentage of driving fatalities that involve alcohol, at over 40%, is fourth highest compared with other states. Both excessive alcohol consumption and alcohol-related driving deaths are more prevalent in the Charleston metro area than across the state and nation. Nearly one in five area adults drinks excessively, and alcohol is involved in approximately 44% of driving fatalities in the area.

41. South Dakota

> Drunkest city: Sioux Falls

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 19.4%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.3%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 30.5%

Compared with South Dakota, Sioux Falls is healthier by several measures. Metro residents report a lower incidence of premature death. Also, just 11% of adults report being in fair or poor health, lower than the statewide percentage of 13.2% -- itself one of the lower shares in the nation. The relative health of the citys population is despite the higher share of excess alcohol consumption, which can lead to harmful health consequences.

Economic prosperity among Sioux Falls residents -- the median household income of nearly $60,000 annually is well above both the state and national median incomes -- largely explains the health outcomes as well as the alcohol consumption. According to the CDC, people earning $75,000 annually or more are among the most likely to drink excessively. At the same time, wealthier people tend to report better health.

42. Tennessee

> Drunkest city: Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 13.5%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 11.6%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 26.3%

Trailing only West Virginia, Tennessee has the second lowest excessive drinking rate in the country. Even in Nashville, the states heaviest drinking metro area, only 13.5% of adults are excessive drinkers, a far smaller share than the national 18.0% excessive drinking rate.

Relatively low rates of alcohol abuse do not mean the area is devoid of bad habits. Slightly more than 21% of adults in Nashville and 24% of adults across the state identify as smokers, well above the 17% nationwide smoking rate.

43. Texas

> Drunkest city: Austin-Round Rock

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.5%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 17.4%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 34.9%

The Austin-Round Rock region is the heaviest drinking metro area in a state with relatively low alcohol consumption levels. The share of adults in the Austin area who drink excessively is 21.5%, well above the national percentage of 18.0%, while the share in Texas of 17.4% is lower. Excessive drinking in a community does not necessarily increase the likelihood of drunk driving, but high alcohol consumption may partially explain such risky behavior in the Austin area. Alcohol is involved in 34.9% of driving deaths in the area, higher than both the state and national rates.

Since people -- especially white men -- who earn $75,000 or more annually are among the most likely to drink excessively, higher incomes may help explain the excessive drinking in Austin-Round Rock. The typical household earns $67,195 a year, well above the median incomes in Texas and the U.S.

44. Utah

> Drunkest city: Salt Lake City

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 14.1%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 12.1%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 21.8%

Utah has one of the lowest excessive drinking rates of any state in the country. This may not come as a surprise, as more than half of the states population identifies as Mormon, a religion that strongly discourages alcohol consumption.

Of the states five metro areas, Salt Lake City has the highest share of excessive drinkers. Still, the 14.1% of adults who either binge or heavily drink in the Salt Lake metro area, is relatively small when compared to the 18.0% share of American adults who drink to excess. The relatively infrequent heavy drinking in the Salt Lake metro area likely contributes to healthier communities. Adults in the capital city metro area are more likely to report good overall health and more likely to live to age 75 than Americans in general.

ALSO READ: 40 Countries the U.S. Government Doesn't Want You to Visit

45. Vermont

> Drunkest city: Burlington-South Burlington

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 23.0%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 20.6%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 32.4%

The Burlington region is the only metropolitan area in Vermont, which means it is by default the heaviest drinking area in the state.

Burlington, with a median household income of $66,807 a year, is one of the wealthier metro areas in the country and the highest income area in Vermont. Because binge drinking is most common among people -- particularly white men -- earning $75,000 or more annually, the higher incomes in Burlington could explain the metros similarly high excessive drinking rate. At 23% of adults, it is slightly higher than the percentage across Vermont, itself one of the higher figures compared with other states.

46. Virginia

> Drunkest city: Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.1%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 16.6%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 30.1%

Virginians are on the whole less likely than adults nationwide to drink in excess. Even in the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford metropolitan area, which has the states highest excessive drinking rate, just 18.1% of adults binge drink or drink heavily. This is in line with the national share of 18.0%.

The unhealthy behaviors of Blacksburg residents do not appear to be limited to alcohol consumption. More than 20% of residents are smokers, the highest share in the state and well above the national adult smoking rate of 17%. The areas poor health choices may have contributed to a higher premature death rate. Of every 100,000 residents, 388 die before the age of 75 due to preventable causes, the second worst premature death rate of the states metropolitan areas.

47. Washington

> Drunkest city: Bellingham

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 21.8%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.8%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 28.4%

Each of Washington's 11 metro areas has a higher excessive drinking rate than the country as a whole. In the Bellingham metro area, 21.8% of adults either binge or heavily drink, the largest share in the state.

While unhealthy levels of alcohol consumption are relatively common across Bellingham, other unhealthy habits are far less common. Only 13.6% of area adults smoke, and 16.3% do not get any exercise -- far lower than both the comparable state and national rates.

48. West Virginia

> Drunkest city: Wheeling

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 14.9%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 10.3%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 29.6%

In Wheeling, 14.9% of adults drink excessively. Though the metro areas excessive drinking rate is the highest in the state, it is still well below the nationwide excessive drinking rate of 18.0% of adults.

Statewide, binge and heavy drinking are relatively uncommon. Only about one in 10 adults in West Virginia drink to excess, by far the smallest share of any state in the country. The low excessive alcohol consumption rate in the state is likely due to the fact that alcohol sales are prohibited in many counties. The Wheeling metro area is primarily located in the Marshall and Ohio counties, neither of which are dry.

49. Wisconsin

> Drunkest city: Appleton

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 26.8%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 23.3%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 30.3%

Only North Dakota reports higher alcohol consumption than Wisconsin, where 23.3% of adults report drinking excessively on a regular basis. Appleton is far and away the heaviest drinking city in both the state and the nation, with 26.8% of adults reporting drinking excessively. Despite the more excessive drinking habits, alcohol is involved in approximately 30.3% of driving deaths in the area, well below the statewide alcohol-related driving fatality rate of 37.8%, which is seventh highest compared with other states.

As is generally the case in the cities drinking the most in each state, Appleton residents have higher incomes than Wisconsin residents and people across the nation. The typical Appleton metro area household earns $61,245 annually, higher than the state median income of $55,638 a year and the national median income of $55,775 a year.

50. Wyoming

> Drunkest city: Casper

> Pct. of MSA adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.1%

> Pct. of state adults binge or heavy drinking: 18.5%

> Pct. of alcohol related driving deaths: 35.6%

There are only two metropolitan areas in Wyoming -- Casper and Cheyenne. Residents of the area reporting the highest level of excessive drinking, Casper, do not drink much heavier than adults nationwide and actually less than Wyoming residents as a whole. Across the state, 18.5% of adults drink excessively, also right in line with the national excessive drinking level. Alcohol drinkers in Wyoming living outside metro areas likely drive up the overall state percentage.

Alcohol is involved in 35.6% of driving fatalities in Casper, in line with the state percentage -- but both are well above the national incidence.

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Dustin Diamond is apologizing to his Saved by the Bell castmates for this super legitimate reason

You cant have Saved By The Bell without a bit of Screech  even if you wanted to. But, Screech himself really wants you to rethink your opinion on him. Saved By The Bells Dustin Diamond apologized to his cast mates for his pretty terrible behavior the last few years, and revealed more about what caused the downfall on todays episode of The Dr. Oz Show.

If youve been stuck at Bayside High since the early 90s, heres what happened  In 2009, Diamond released a book about his experience on set, and did not paint Zack and the gang in a positive light.

While he later tried to remove his name from the book, it was still the basis around an unauthorized Lifetime TV movie that came out a few years ago.

Diamond has been in a rough spot since the series (and its spin-offs) went off air, and it seems like he was quick to blame well, everyone. Recently, he was even arrested on reckless endangerment charges after getting into a bar brawl in Wisconsin. And, well  drug charges just this year didnt really boost his 2016. But now, hes trying to make some positive changes in his life.





Guys, I think youre fantastic, Diamond says in the clip. Im sure youve experienced downfalls as well in your time.

If youre unfamiliar with the book, some of the most scathing lines and accusations were revealed while Diamond was on stage.





As it turns out, the general public doesnt realize I didnt write the book. I had a ghostwriter, Diamond explains

(Even so, youd think hed read it over before it was published  right?)

While we totally believe in the art of forgiveness, and think that Diamonds apology was totally sincere, we do hope that Diamond can move onto the next chapter of his life  and, keep the calm and serene disposition that he demonstrated on Dr. Oz. No matter what, well always have extreme nostalgia for the show, and he helped make it the success that it was!

The post Dustin Diamond is apologizing to his Saved by the Bell castmates for this super legitimate reason appeared first on HelloGiggles.
By Aidan Lewis TUNIS (Reuters) - Allies of Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, the dominant figure in the divided country's east, have welcomed Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. election, betting on more support for their anti-Islamist stance. The result could boost pro-Haftar factions with strong ties to Egypt and increasingly to Russia, while diluting Western support for a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli that Haftar and his allies have opposed, analysts say. Libya splintered into rival political and armed groupings after the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and remains deeply divided between factions based in the east and west that backed rival governments and parliaments. The leaders of a U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) arrived in Tripoli in March. But they have failed to fully displace the previous administration in Tripoli or win endorsement from power-brokers in the east, who accuse the GNA of being beholden to Islamist-leaning militias. Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) have been fighting a two-year military campaign against Islamists and other opponents in Benghazi and elsewhere in the east. Many suspect he seeks national power. Haftar is aligned with the eastern parliament and government, both of which were quick to congratulate Trump on his win. "I strongly support Trump because of his and the Republicans' resolute and decisive attitudes," said Tarek al-Jaroushi, a member of the parliament whose father commands Haftar's air force. "The Republican Party, which understands the truth about Daesh (Islamic State) and the positions and the victories of the Libyan army, will support us." A statement from the parliament to Trump said: "We hope for your support  and we call for the lifting of the arms embargo on the Libyan army which is waging a war against terrorism." Trump's win is likely to result in a retreat of U.S. support for the struggling GNA's leadership, or Presidential Council, said Claudia Gazzini, a Libya analyst at International Crisis Group. "Up until now it's the U.S. Democratic administration that has been the major cheerleader of the Presidential Council, and the U.S. position on Libya has really dictated the international alignments, at least among Western countries," she said. That could benefit Haftar, who in September seized control of key oil terminals from a rival faction aligned with the GNA. REGIONAL POWERS Change is unlikely in U.S. counter-terrorism policy in Libya, which has included air strikes against Islamic State in its former stronghold of Sirte, said Frederic Wehrey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but shuttle diplomacy and "the follow-on task of rebuilding Libya's government and especially security" could be reduced. Any lessening of U.S. involvement in Libya could leave regional powers freer to act. In recent years western factions including Islamists have been close to Qatr and Turkey, whilst their eastern rivals have relied on support from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Haftar's allies have also cultivated ties with Russia, which printed banknotes for an eastern breakaway branch of Libya's central bank. Trends in eastern Libya of "disengagement from party politics, a tightening of control over civil society, over mosques, over journalism" are a reflection of what is happening in Egypt, and close relations between Trump and Sisi could "strongly affect Libya", said Wehrey. Egypt said its President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was the first international leader to congratulate Trump by telephone. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is ready to repair ties with the U.S. under Trump. On Facebook, some Libyan supporters of Haftar expressed hope that a Trump victory would lead to a crackdown on Islamists in the region. Opponents said they would fight to defend the 2011 revolution regardless. In one widely shared post a woman from the western city of Misrata wrote: "They (the LNA) may be supported by Trump, Russia, Sisi, and Haftar, but we still have God with us." (This version of the story was refiled to correct the spelling of analyst Frederic Wehrey's name) (Additional reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli in Benghazi and Ahmed Elumami in Tripoli; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
By Huw Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - A European Central Bank push to iron out differences in how banks calculate capital requirements will inadvertently help the euro zone in its bid to attract banks from Britain after Brexit.

Foreign banks in London say they will shift some operations to the euro zone if that is the only way they can serve customers on the continent after Britain leaves the European Union.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that Goldman Sachs (GS.N) is considering relocating some operations from London to Frankfurt to qualify for supervision by the ECB and thus ensure it can continue selling services to clients in the euro zone and wider EU post-Brexit.

Paris, Milan, Luxembourg, Dublin and Madrid are also wooing banks in London. Lenders, however, have worried that euro zone regulators don't have enough experience in approving or understanding the models big banks use to work out how much capital they must hold.

Nor do they have enough staff to issue approvals in a timely way - especially if a queue of lenders from London creates a logjam, bankers say.

This, they say, limits the range of cities they can move operations to - something the ECB has been trying to rectify.

Last December the central bank quietly launched a project called "targeted review of internal models", or TRIM, to assess the reliability and comparability of banks' models.

Big banks like Goldman typically have models to cover different risks, such as the potential for loans on their books to default. It can take a year to two years for regulators to vet their use.

TRIM dovetails with the work by global regulators at the Basel Committee to stop what they see as some banks calibrating their models to downplay the amount of capital needed.

The ECB said in March that a network of senior model experts from national banking regulators and the ECB has been established to steer the TRIM project.

"TRIM foresees on-site investigations of selected credit, market and counterparty credit risk models from 2017 to 2018 (or to 2019, if the project is extended for credit risk)," the ECB said in March.

Story continues

Outside consultants will also reinforce numbers.

The ECB, which declined a request for comment for this story, now has several dozen staff focusing on models.

"Model approval will be one of many issues for banks thinking of relocating after Brexit, but I am not sure it's the most significant," said Thomas Huertas, a former banking supervisor in Britain and now chair of regulatory partners at EY consultancy.

"They (the ECB) have built up their model evaluation capacity quite considerably and it has the side effect that they would be prepared for potential additional reviews. In some cases the banks will have the same model in two jurisdictions," Huertas said.

The ECB, could, for example grant a temporary waiver to a bank whose model has already been signed off by UK watchdogs, to speed things up.

STREAMLINING APPROVALS

An official at a U.S. bank said lenders hope that regulators on the continent would either come up with a streamlined approval process for their models, such as by accepting for a set period the model approval already given by UK regulators.

"That's behind the scenes and no one talks about it, but it is quite intensive," the official said.

As the euro zone sizes up opportunities presented by Brexit, French President Francois Hollande has gone further, saying that clearing of euro-denominated financial transactions in London should be moved to the euro zone after Brexit.

"I think there will be considerable encouragement to do what one can to facilitate bringing euro business to the euro zone and I can't see this falling down due to not having enough resources to approve models," Huertas said.

The ECB's efforts to help national regulators impose consistency across models will be backed up by the EU's European Banking Authority, which is harmonising how supervisors across the bloc approach models.

National supervisors vet models for banks with assets under 30 billion euros (26.37 billion), and the ECB vets banks bigger than that.

However, the ECB sets out procedures and guidance for all model approvals across the euro zone, and can intervene in any euro zone lender if it suspects inconsistencies.

Last week the ECB announced that U.S. bank Citi's Irish unit had passed its health check, paving the way for direct supervision by the Frankfurt-based central bank.

(Additional reporting by Anjuli Davies in London and Olivia Oran in New York, editing by Susan Fenton)
By Huw Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - A European Central Bank push to iron out differences in how banks calculate capital requirements will inadvertently help the euro zone in its bid to attract banks from Britain after Brexit.

Foreign banks in London say they will shift some operations to the euro zone if that is the only way they can serve customers on the continent after Britain leaves the European Union.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that Goldman Sachs (GS.N) is considering relocating some operations from London to Frankfurt to qualify for supervision by the ECB and thus ensure it can continue selling services to clients in the euro zone and wider EU post-Brexit.

Paris, Milan, Luxembourg, Dublin and Madrid are also wooing banks in London. Lenders, however, have worried that euro zone regulators don't have enough experience in approving or understanding the models big banks use to work out how much capital they must hold.

Nor do they have enough staff to issue approvals in a timely way - especially if a queue of lenders from London creates a logjam, bankers say.

This, they say, limits the range of cities they can move operations to - something the ECB has been trying to rectify.

Last December the central bank quietly launched a project called "targeted review of internal models", or TRIM, to assess the reliability and comparability of banks' models.

Big banks like Goldman typically have models to cover different risks, such as the potential for loans on their books to default. It can take a year to two years for regulators to vet their use.

TRIM dovetails with the work by global regulators at the Basel Committee to stop what they see as some banks calibrating their models to downplay the amount of capital needed.

The ECB said in March that a network of senior model experts from national banking regulators and the ECB has been established to steer the TRIM project.

"TRIM foresees on-site investigations of selected credit, market and counterparty credit risk models from 2017 to 2018 (or to 2019, if the project is extended for credit risk)," the ECB said in March.

Story continues

Outside consultants will also reinforce numbers.

The ECB, which declined a request for comment for this story, now has several dozen staff focusing on models.

"Model approval will be one of many issues for banks thinking of relocating after Brexit, but I am not sure it's the most significant," said Thomas Huertas, a former banking supervisor in Britain and now chair of regulatory partners at EY consultancy.

"They (the ECB) have built up their model evaluation capacity quite considerably and it has the side effect that they would be prepared for potential additional reviews. In some cases the banks will have the same model in two jurisdictions," Huertas said.

The ECB, could, for example grant a temporary waiver to a bank whose model has already been signed off by UK watchdogs, to speed things up.

STREAMLINING APPROVALS

An official at a U.S. bank said lenders hope that regulators on the continent would either come up with a streamlined approval process for their models, such as by accepting for a set period the model approval already given by UK regulators.

"That's behind the scenes and no one talks about it, but it is quite intensive," the official said.

As the euro zone sizes up opportunities presented by Brexit, French President Francois Hollande has gone further, saying that clearing of euro-denominated financial transactions in London should be moved to the euro zone after Brexit.

"I think there will be considerable encouragement to do what one can to facilitate bringing euro business to the euro zone and I can't see this falling down due to not having enough resources to approve models," Huertas said.

The ECB's efforts to help national regulators impose consistency across models will be backed up by the EU's European Banking Authority, which is harmonizing how supervisors across the bloc approach models.

National supervisors vet models for banks with assets under 30 billion euros ($33 billion), and the ECB vets banks bigger than that.

However, the ECB sets out procedures and guidance for all model approvals across the euro zone, and can intervene in any euro zone lender if it suspects inconsistencies.

Last week the ECB announced that U.S. bank Citi's Irish unit had passed its health check, paving the way for direct supervision by the Frankfurt-based central bank.

(Additional reporting by Anjuli Davies in London and Olivia Oran in New York, editing by Susan Fenton)
By Anuradha Nagaraj Kantabanji, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Every November and December, villagers across the Balangir district of Odisha state in eastern India stuff belongings into sacks, leave their huts and visit the nearest temple to pray for good fortune. They then climb onto tractors and buses and head to the train station in Kantabanji town, where they start an annual migration that takes them to brick kilns across India. Frequent droughts and dire poverty force thousands of men and women to take loans from labor agents in every village. They spend the next six months working to pay the debts back. Rights groups call this a form of slavery known as debt bondage. Here are key facts about the economics of seasonal debt bondage in India, where around 18 million people are trapped in some kind of slavery, according to the latest Global Slavery Index by Walk Free Foundation: At least 10 million people work in India's tens of thousands of brick kilns, according to a 2015 report by the Centre for Science and Environment. Almost 500,000 migrant workers are sent out illegally by labor agents from Odisha's Balangir district each year, India's main hub of debt bondage. The agents use a system known as "pathariya", in which three people are considered a single labor unit. So a husband, wife and brother, for example, might be responsible for collectively producing enough bricks to pay back loans from labor agents. Each worker is given an initial advance of up to 10,000 rupees ($150) around the time of the harvest festival of Nuakhai. A second installment of 10,000 rupees is given two weeks later as the Dusherra celebrations start across India. Workers are promised 300-400 rupees ($4-6) for every 10,000 bricks they make. Each week, they are paid 100 rupees ($1) to buy provisions and essentials like soap from the weekly market, where they are escorted by security guards or a manager from the kiln. The main accounts are settled at the end of six months, after the loan is deducted, leaving them with as little as 5,000 rupees ($75) to take home - just enough for the return journey. Labor contractors are paid per person sent. They get additional income for every 1,000 bricks made by a set of workers, making the business extremely lucrative, rights groups say. Under the 1979 Inter-State Migrant Act, agents have to get a license from the labor department. In the eastern state of Odisha, agents have to pay the government at least 200 rupees ($3) for up to 20 workers and 10,000 rupees ($150) for sending more than 2,000 outside the state to work. In addition, a security deposit of 100 rupees ($1) has to be paid for each migrant worker, along with a declaration signed by the agent that they are "migrating of their own free will". The agent also signs a declaration that he or she will be responsible for the health and safety of migrant workers until they return to their village. Such requirements act as a deterrent to registering laborers officially, rights groups say. In practice, workers say they are herded onto trains, dropped off at brick kilns and forgotten. Their next contact with the agent is only when it's time to settle payment at the kiln six months later. A toll-free helpline number (155368) was started by the Odisha government in 2014 to rescue migrant laborers from exploitative workplaces. According to district labor officer Madan Mohan Paik, in 2015 the helpline received around 15 calls from migrant laborers complaining of trafficking, harassment and overwork. ($1=66.723 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Anuradha Nagaraj; editing by Timothy Large; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)
Eddie Redmayne stopped by the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to promote his newest film - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. But something the Oscar winning heartthrob didnt expect to do, was talk about the moves he's been making with his British booty. Eddie, who plays legendary wizard Newt Scamander in the film Fantastic Beasts, made sure to leave his wizard's robes at home on his day off and shared a pretty embarrassing story. Apparently the Danish Girl star had to make up his own creature mating dance for the role of Newt Scamander. The actor looked to be full of the joys of life as he chatted with Fallon about the dance. After the giggles set in the boys decided it was time to dance for everyone. Redmayne taught Fallon how to mate and the audience learned how to love it.
Eddie Redmayne stopped by the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to promote his newest film, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. But something the Oscar-winning heartthrob didnt expect to do was talk about the moves hes been making with his British booty. Eddie, who plays legendary wizard Newt Scamander in the film, left his wizards robes at home on his day off and shared a pretty embarrassing story. Apparently, the Danish Girl star had to make up his own creature mating dance for the role of Newt Scamander. The actor looked to be full of the joys of life as he chatted with Fallon about the dance. After the giggles set in, the boys decided it was time to dance for everyone. Redmayne taught Fallon how to mate, and the audience learned how to love it.

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on NBC.

Benedict Cumberbatchs Confusing Crime Dramedy on The Tonight Show:

Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram  or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Cynthia LuCiette, on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
By Ahmed Aboulenein CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian rights group that treats torture victims was prevented on Thursday from accessing its funds and told that its account had been blocked, its lawyer told Reuters. Taher Abu al-Nasr, who represents the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, said an employee was not allowed to cash a check for the center and was told by a bank manager that the central bank had ordered its account suspended until it registers as a non-governmental organization with the social solidarity ministry. Nadeem says it is registered as a clinic with the health ministry and does not need to register as an NGO. "We couldn't cash a check today. We don't know exactly what happened; whether our assets are frozen or our account is shut down or what. We will try to obtain the written order on Sunday when banks reopen," Abu al-Nasr said. Egyptian authorities deny allegations by human rights groups and activists that security forces round up people and torture them in secret detention centres. Amnesty International condemned the move against Nadeem, saying the NGO provides hundreds of torture victims with vital services including counselling and legal assistance. "This is yet more evidence of the Egyptian authorities' chilling contempt of perceived critics. By freezing Nadeem's financial assets the authorities are preventing the Center from carrying out their crucial work to provide care to survivors of horrific violence," said Philip Luther, Research and Advocacy Director at Amnesty for the Middle East and North Africa. The government had already ordered the closure of the center in February without providing an official reason. Health ministry sources at the time said it committed unspecified violations. The center challenged the order in court and still operates. Egyptian rights activists say they are facing the worst assault in their history amid a wider campaign to erase freedoms won in a 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule as president. In October, an Egyptian court approved a freeze on the assets of five prominent human rights activists and three NGOs accused of receiving foreign funds to sow chaos. The groups accuse President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government of widespread abuses, allegations it denies. As military chief, Sisi toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule. Security forces killed hundreds of Mursi supporters in the streets and arrested thousands. Secular activists were later rounded up. (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Netflix

Beloved multi-hyphenate and alleged Mr. Sheffield enthusiast Elizabeth Banks has yet another comedy offering at the ready. Not only that, but this one comes with a Bojack Horseman pedigree.

According to Variety, Banks has shepherded the series Something to Celebrate to a development deal at CBS. Vera Santamaria, who has written for programs like Bojack Horseman and Degrassi: The Next Generation, is the brains behind the family comedy with Banks joining her in an executive producer capacity. Heres how Variety presents the premise of Something to Celebrate:

The single-camera comedy follows four adult siblings work in their familys popular bakery and enjoy the fun of being in a second-generation American family that loves a celebration.

After all, who doesnt love a celebration? *checks the mood of the country at the moment* Okay, traditionally EVERYBODY loves a celebration. Were certainly intrigued by the project and works like the Pitch Perfect films serve as a quality calling card for the industry acumen of Elizabeth Banks. This particular deal holds the distinction of being the first network TV pact knocked out by the team of Banks and her husband Max Handelman.

This seems like as good a time as any to remind the planet that Banks is playing Rita Repulsa in the upcoming Power Rangers movie. We think shes going to do an excellent job and hopefully get to keep her prop staff.

(Via Variety)
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday said Americans are right to be worried about the prospect of Donald Trump as president and promised Democrats will stand up to bigotry as the Republican takes office.

In a speech to the AFL-CIO Executive Council, she condemned Trump for encouraging a toxic stew of hatred and fear but also showed a willingness to work with the president-elect on issues such as reforming trade policies, improving infrastructure and getting money out of politics.

Warren, who has been an aggressive critic of Trump for months, described a new era for the Democratic Party, saying lawmakers will stand up to bigotry.

In all its forms, we will fight back against attacks on Latinos, African Americans, women, Muslims, immigrants, disabled Americans  on anyone, she said. Whether Donald Trump sits in a glass tower or sits in the White House, we will not give an inch on this, not now, not ever.

Trumps victory and the presidential primaries were signs that many Americans want change, Warren argued. She said that lawmakers in Washington would need to listen to this desire going forward.

There are many millions of people who did not vote for Donald Trump because of the bigotry and hate that fueled his campaign rallies, Warren said. They voted for him despite the hate. They voted for him out of frustration and anger, and out of hope that he would bring change in this country.

While Republicans will keep their hold on both chmabers of Congress, Warren promised to keep fighting. We do not control the tools of government, but make no mistake, we know what we stand for, the sun will keep rising, and we will keep fighting, she said.
By Bruno Federowski SAO PAULO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The Brazilian and Mexican currencies stumbled for a second day on Thursday amid worries of a potential trade shock under U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

The Chilean peso weakened less than its peers and Brazilian stocks rose as Trump's promises of infrastructure spending boosted prices of industrial metals.

"We see a tug of war between the impact of higher policy uncertainty ... and impactful pro-growth U.S. policies under Trump," Credit Suisse analyst Shahab Jalinoos wrote in a report.

The Mexican peso weakened 2.1 percent on Thursday after tumbling 8 percent the day before, its worst one-day slide since the 1994 Tequila Crisis.

Trump had vowed, during his election campaign, that if elected his administration would force Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States as part of what he says is an effort to protect and restore American jobs.

The Brazilian real slipped 2.6 percent, nearing 3.30 to the U.S. dollar for the first time in two months.

Currency volatility drove Brazil's central bank to pause its daily interventions for a second straight day on Thursday as it assesses market conditions.

However, Brazil's benchmark Bovespa stock index rose 0.4 percent, supported by shares of miner Vale SA.

Iron ore futures in China surged 9 percent on Thursday to hit a 30-month peak, as Trump's promises to invest heavily in infrastructure helped it extend a recent rally.

Copper prices also jumped, helping limit losses in the Chilean peso to only 0.3 percent.

Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 1300 GMT: Stock indexes daily % YTD % change change Latest MSCI Emerging Markets 885.38 0.59 10.83 MSCI LatAm 2463.49 -1.23 36.31 Brazil Bovespa 63525.66 0.42 46.54 Chile IPSA 4310.06 0.34 17.11 Chile IGPA 21493.18 0.32 18.41 Currencies daily % YTD % change change Latest Brazil real 3.2930 -2.58 19.86 Mexico peso 20.2620 -2.08 -14.96 Chile peso 651 -0.31 9.02 Argentina peso (interbank) 14.9200 0.34 -12.99 Argentina peso (parallel) 15.33 0.59 -6.91
Domestic oil and gas explorer Energy XXI Ltd. EXXIQ is expected to release its third-quarter 2016 results on Monday, Nov 14.

Factors to Consider This Quarter

As is the case with other oil and gas producers, Energy XXIs revenues/earnings have borne the brunt of the freefall in realized prices over the past two and half years. However, the company has come up with certain initiatives to overcome the industry-wide slump.

With an aggressive cost reduction program, Energy XXI is looking to shore up its margins even in this weak oil and gas pricing environment. As part of this strategy, the company has embarked on a policy to minimize service and lease operating costs.

Importantly, even after pruning its cost structure, Energy XXI has been able to maintain stable production numbers. We expect the same for the to-be-reported-quarter as well.

ENERGY XXI LTD Price and EPS Surprise

ENERGY XXI LTD Price and EPS Surprise | ENERGY XXI LTD Quote

Other Stocks to Report Near-Term

Apart from Energy XXI, here are some other firms from the energy space that are expected to come out with earnings in the next few days:

Africa Oil Corp. AOIFF, having a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), is expected to release earnings results on Nov 21. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Gevo Inc. GEVO, with a Zacks Rank #2, is likely to release earnings on Nov 14.

Lonestar Resources US Inc. LONE, with a Zacks Rank #2, is likely to release earnings on Nov 18.

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Nov 9 (Reuters) - U.S. seeds and agrochemicals maker Monsanto Co has secured approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a new dicamba-based weed killer designed for its next generation biotech soy and cotton varieties, the company said on Wednesday.

While approval had been expected, it is seen as a major step forward for the company's newest herbicide tolerant products amid rising problems in the U.S. farm belt with weeds resistant to glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup weed killer.

Environmental groups criticized the EPA approval.

The Center for Biological Diversity said the ruling would lead to sharp increases in pesticide use that could harm threatened plant and animal species, including the whooping crane.

"Piling on more pesticides will just result in superweeds resistant to more pesticides," said Nathan Donley, a scientist with the group.

The EPA signed off on Monsanto's XtendiMax herbicide for in-crop use on Roundup Ready 2 Xtend biotech soybeans, designed to tolerate applications of glyphosate and dicamba, and its Bollgard II XtendFlex cotton, which can tolerate the two chemicals as well as glufosinate.

The company is still awaiting an EPA ruling on its Roundup Xtend herbicide, a glyphosate and dicamba blend.

Farmers have used dicamba for years to kill weeds ahead of planting, but until now have not been allowed to use it on growing crops.

Monsanto has invested more than $1 billion in a dicamba production facility in Luling, Louisiana, to supply demand it expects will blossom in the coming years. The company has said the Xtend platform will be its largest-ever technology launch.

The company said it expects the soybean variety to be planted on 15 million U.S. acres in 2017 and its cotton to be planted on more than 3 million acres.

(Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; editing by Diane Craft)
By Chris Prentice NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Thursday it plans to deny several petitions from oil groups to change the country's biofuels program, an issue that has deeply divided the petroleum industry. The oil industry has spent millions lobbying against the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a 2005 policy that establishes annual targets for the volume of biofuels that need to be blended with gasoline and diesel. Petroleum companies say it will take major overhauls to fueling station infrastructure and vehicle design before they can meet biofuel targets set by Congress. The recent petitions by oil refiners to change the program segments have pitted them against integrated oil companies, which can make money from blending the fuels. The EPA said it did not believe it should start the process, as multiple groups have requested, to make the regulatory change to the so-called "point of obligation" of the RFS program. The agency's timeline makes it unlikely that it would decide on the change before the current administration leaves office. Valero Energy Corp, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), HollyFrontier and Monroe Energy have petitioned the EPA to consider changing the rule to reduce the onus on refiners that have little capacity to blend biofuels at their operations. These merchant refiners have said they are being squeezed by annual government mandates that require increasing volumes of biofuels. To meet them, they have been forced to buy paper credits in an opaque market, spending hundreds of millions of dollars. This year, those costs are poised to reach a record. The change the refiners are requesting "would not address the challenges associated" with boosting availability of advanced fuels and getting more ethanol into the fuel system, the EPA said in the statement. Still, some petitioners expressed support for the EPA's decision to open a 60-day public comment period. "We are very pleased they decided to do this, whereas I would have been ecstatic if they granted it. We live to keep fighting on this issue," said Chet Thompson, AFPM president. EPA's decision to open a docket is a sign the issue is "serious and merits full consideration," a Valero spokeswoman said. Still, a final decision will probably not be made until President-elect Donald Trump is in the White House. A Trump administration is more likely to consider the refiners' requests, said Timothy Cheung, vice president at ClearView Energy Partners in Washington. The EPA's move on Thursday drew applause from biofuels advocacy groups Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuel Association, along with the National Association of Convenience Stores and Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America. Tesoro Corp and Marathon Petroleum Corp, companies that have invested in biofuels blending capacity, expressed support for the EPA's move toward denying the change. Tesoro's vice president and counsel, Stephen Brown, said in a statement that comprehensive reform is the "more important task at hand." (Reporting by Chris Prentice; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Simon Webb and David Gregorio)
Tallinn (AFP) - The three parties set to form Estonia's next coalition government pledged on Thursday to keep the small Baltic state firmly rooted in the European Union and NATO.

The centrist Centre party, leftist Social Democrat SDE, and conservative IRL began formal coalition talks on Wednesday after embattled Prime Minister Taavi Roivas, leader of the centre-right Reform party, lost a confidence vote in parliament.

The trio that will command a comfortable 56-seat majority in Estonia's 101-seat parliament moved quickly to ensure stability as the country gears up to assume the EU's rotating presidency in the second half of 2017.

"We will adhere unconditionally to the current principles of security and foreign policy; our membership in NATO and the EU is the paramount guarantee for our security," the parties said in the joint statement confirming their cooperation.

They also vowed to spend the NATO recommended amount of at least 2.0 percent of GDP on defence, a point that US president-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign he would press with NATO allies.

"Our parties are responsible for establishing a government which has to put an end to the economic stagnation in Estonia, guard our security, increase social well-being and boost up population numbers," they added.

President Kersti Kaljulaid must designate a prime minister within two weeks, after which the new leader will face a confidence vote.

Centre party leader Juri Ratas, 38, is tipped for the job.

The respected deputy speaker of parliament became the party's new leader last weekend replacing Edgar Savisaar, 66, whose perceived ties to Russia had scared off potential coalition partners amid heightened tensions with Moscow.

The Centre party is popular among Estonia's sizeable ethnic Russian minority who account for a quarter of the 1.3 million population.

- Cooperation 'frozen' -

Ratas has been at pains to stress that a memorandum of understanding signed by Savissar with Russian President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party "never set off cooperation between the two parties."

Story continues

"Since relations with Russia are very difficult and complex, the protocol has been frozen for many years," Ratas told AFP via email, adding that his party supports the EU sanctions on Russia triggered by its 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

Analysts in Tallinn however suggest that tearing up the memorandum would risk alienating the Centre Party's ethnic Russian supporters.

The new coalition's other priorities include measures to boost economic and population growth in order to avert a demographic crisis.

Their joint statement called for "serious measures to improve the business and economic environment in order to put an end to economic stagnation," and also said that measures designed to raise the birth rate were a top priority.

Long a paragon of fiscal responsibility in the EU, which it joined in 2004, Estonia posted 1.2 percent economic growth in 2015, with a 1.8 percent expansion expected this year, according to OECD estimates. Joblessness hovers around seven percent.

Deep reforms and years of painful austerity paved the way to Estonia's 2011 eurozone entry.

Roivas's three-party government collapsed on Monday after his SDE and IRL junior coalition partners demanded he resign as prime minister over poor leadership on the economy, while also accusing him of seeking a backroom political alliance with the popular Ratas.

Roivas however refused to step down, triggering Wednesday's vote of no confidence.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union lawmakers on Thursday approved plans to coordinate the rollout across the bloc of the 700MHz spectrum band for wireless broadband by 2022 to provide faster mobile broadband and improved access to Internet services.

The 700 MHz band (694-790 MHz), currently widely used for digital television signals and wireless microphones, can penetrate buildings and walls easily and cover larger geographic areas with less infrastructure than frequencies in higher bands.

The EU hopes that the new allocation of the 700 MHz band will facilitate the launch of the next-generation 5G mobile technology that is expected to support driverless cars, remote healthcare and billions of everyday objects connected to the Internet.

"5G will change the logic of our economies. Successfully launching 5G in the European Union will require the efficient use of spectrum," said MEP Gunnar Hokmark, who steered the legislation through European Parliament.

"This proposal is a first and very important step forward."

Member states will allocate the 700MHz band to wireless broadband services by June 30, 2020, but can delay it by up to two years for legitimate reasons such as unresolved coordination issues with neighbouring non-EU countries or if they need more time to reallocate the spectrum from broadcasting services.

Thursday's vote means that the European Parliament can start negotiations with EU member states to reach a final accord, after which the proposal will become law.

"Europe needs to ensure enough spectrum is allocated to mobile broadband in order to cope with future data traffic needs," said Lise Fuhr, Director General of ETNO, a trade group representing telecoms operators such as Orange (ORAN.PA), Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) and Telefonica (TEF.MC).

(Reporting by Julia Fioretti; Editing by David Goodman)
Brussels (AFP) - The European Union is becoming a "superpower" indispensible for world peace, the bloc's foreign affairs chief said Thursday as Europe pondered the implications of Donald Trump's upset US election victory.

"In the months and years ahead, actually I can say in the hours we are living, there is and will be an increasing demand of Europe from our neighbours and from our partners worldwide," Federica Mogherini said.

"There is and there will be an increasing demand for a principled global security provider, for a superpower that believes in multilateralism and cooperation," Mogherini said in an address to the European Defence Agency.

Trump's stunning win has shocked a Europe fearful that his "America First" campaign pledge will see Washington downgrade ties with both NATO and the European Union that have underpinned the Western political order since World War II.

The EU has already started pushing ahead with plans for a European army in the wake of another geopolitical shock: key defence player Britain's Brexit vote to leave the bloc.

Some EU states such as France and Germany see Brexit as an opportunity to press ahead with defence cooperation that London has long blocked, and analysts have said the same could be true if Trump were to turn his back on Europe.

"It is up to us. In a changing global landscape, Europe will be more and more an indispensible power," Mogherini said.

"This is the time I believe to take on our responsibilities and to respond to that call (for security) ... and we can do this only as a true union."

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has repeatedly spoken of the need for a "European army" while Mogherini has published an ambitious Global Strategy to turn pledges of increased cooperation into reality.

France and Germany moved quickly after the June Brexit vote to put plans for a an EU military headquarters on the table.

Story continues

They and Mogherini have been careful, however, to stress they do not intend to duplicate NATO efforts, a no-go area for Washington.

The EU does not have a separate military arm but has mounted several small civil-military missions, for example in central Africa and combatting piracy off the Horn of Africa.

The EDA is a small unit set up to help coordinate efforts to boost overall EU defence capabilities by increasing cooperation among member states.
Sometimes all it takes to leave home bare faced are great lashes. If you were born with naturally full, luxurious eyelashes, youre one of the lucky few.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are constantly on the lookout for the best, most affordable ways to get magazine worthy blinkers. Fortunately, the beauty gods are always listening and the demand for long lashes has resulted in a bevy of options at varying price points.

While theres no permanent way to get covet worthy lashes, one of these temporary solutions will undoubtedly meet your needs.

Mascara

Good old fashioned mascara is a simple and affordable way to get long, voluminous lashes. It takes some trial and error to find the perfect product that works for you but its generally the most accessible option and the one we recommend newbies start with.

Our pick: Lancome Hypose Star Waterproof Mascara, $34.50

Fiber Mascara

Once youve graduated from regular mascara, you might delve into the wonderful world of fiber mascaras. These products typically yield more dramatic results than regular mascara due to little silk or rayon fibers that grab onto your lashes during application.



One major complaint of going the fiber mascara route is that its prone to clumping, but if you find the right product and develop an expert hand at application, were sure youll be more than pleased with the results.

Our pick: Maybelline Illegal Length Fiber Extension Mascara, $7.46

Eyelash Extensions

Our collective obsession with eyelash extensions is pretty widespread and its easy to see why. An expertly applied set of lashes can yield major results and they last for a substantial amount of time if cared for properly.



Its important to enlist a skilled technician who knows what length and type of lash will work with your natural lashes. Some of the cons associated with this method is the high price point and the possibility of damaging your naturally occurring lashes if you dont take the necessary steps to maintain them.

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Glue on false lashes

Falsies adhered with lash glue are great for a night out but not exactly realistic for everyday wear. Theyre not always the most affordable option either as a quality set can cost anywhere in the area of $10-30 and will only last 2-3 wears.



The best thing about this option is that you can achieve any type of look, no matter how subtle or outlandish. Small lash clusters can give you a subtle boost or you can go full on glamor with a denser, longer style.



At home application can be a lesson in patience. Your first few attempts will probably result in your lashes being plastered to your hand rather than your eye.

Our pick: House of Lashes Au Naturale, $12.05

Bimatoprost lash serums

First came Latisse, a prescription eyelash growth serum originally used to treat glaucoma. Than came non-prescription lash serums like Careprost that gives similar results to Latisse. Both products contain bimatoprost ophthalmic solution, which encourages lash growth.

In terms of Latisse and Careprost, the saying its too good to be true kind of ringswell true. If you decide to discontinue use, your lashes will simply revert back to its original state.



When dealing with products that can affect the health of your eye, its always best to consult a professional before shelling out.

Our pick: Careprost Eyelash Growth Serum, $29.99

Conditioning lash serums

It seems every cosmetic company jumped on the bandwagon after Latisse made its debut. Lash conditioning serums from your favourite makeup brands dont contain bimatoprost solution but many contain vitamins and ingredients that contribute to the health and ultimately the growth of your natural lashes.

A quick Google search will yield dozens of options like the popular Eye Envy, Lash Food and cheaper options like Rimmels Lash Accelerator Serum. The results may not be as dramatic as the prescription variety but healthy, conditioned lashes will automatically look fuller and longer.

Our pick: Shisheido Full Lash Serum, $42

Vitamins + at home remedies

If you prefer a more holistic approach to growing longer lashes, vitamins and oils may be your ideal option.



Vitamin B-3 (Niacin), vitamin H (Biotin) and vitamin C all contribute to healthy lashes that are less prone to breaking. Its also helpful to occasionally treat your lashes to a generous dose of castor oil or petroleum jelly if you prefer to stay away from pricey conditioning products.

Our pick: Divine Essence Organic Castor Oil, $8.49
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A former U.S. representative whose lavish office in Washington raised questions about use of taxpayer dollars was indicted on Thursday on charges of defrauding the federal government and campaign committees and attempting to cover it up, according to court documents. Aaron Schock, a 35-year-old former Republican congressman from Illinois, was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on 24 counts, including wire fraud, theft of government funds and filing false federal income tax returns. Schock maintained his innocence on Thursday before the indictment was announced. "Neither I nor anyone else intentionally did anything wrong," he said in a statement. "As I have said before, we might have made errors among a few of the thousands and thousands of financial transactions we conducted, but they were honest mistakes  no one intended to break any law." Schock's position in public office did not put him above the law, the Department of Justice said. "These charges allege that Mr. Schock deliberately and repeatedly violated federal law, to his personal and financial advantage," Jim Lewis, U.S. attorney for the Central District of Illinois, said in a statement on Thursday. "Mr. Schock held public office at the time of the alleged offenses, but public office does not exempt him or anyone else from accountability for alleged intentional misuse of public funds and campaign funds. Schock, elected to the, U.S. House of Representatives in 2008 at the age of 27, gained a following for posting flashy photos on social media of himself traveling around the world. But he was hounded with questions after The Washington Post reported last year about lavish decorations in his Capitol Hill office based on the PBS period melodrama "Downton Abbey." Although staff told the Post that the interior design work had been done for free, the story prompted more investigations into Schock's spending habits, with several media outlets reporting he failed to disclose some expenditures and had to repay others after improperly using taxpayer funds. On Thursday, Schock said before the indictment that his faith in the Justice Department had been eroded. "This indictment will look bad, but underneath it is just made-up allegations of criminal activity arising from unintentional administrative errors," George Terwilliger III, Schock's attorney, said in a statement prior to the indictment. A summons will be issued to Schock by the U.S. Clerk of the Court for an arraignment date in Springfield, Illinois. (Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago and Julia Harte in Washington; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Jonathan Oatis)
After battling a brain tumor twice before, Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton has been diagnosed with a tumor for a third time, and he opened up about his fight with ET.

"I guess this little guy is going to come back every six years," Hamilton says.

WATCH: Debbie Rowe Says Daughter Paris Jackson Gives Her 'a Reason to Get Up' Each Morning Amid Cancer Battle

The iconic ice skater previously battled brain tumors in 2004 and 2010. Prior to that, he overcame testicular cancer in 1997.

"A pattern has emerged," Hamilton, 58, says. "Ultimately, this changes the way I approach treatment, but I have got time because I caught it early. Usually after surgery they stay away, but this one has decided to come back and we will figure it out."

Doctors made the diagnosis -- a benign pituitary tumor -- during a routine check-up. While the tumor is not malignant and was caught before any symptoms became present, it can still be dangerous because of its location on his brain, so he is currently figuring out his plan of attack.

One way he is fighting back is by staying positive and setting an uplifting tone for his wife, Tracie, and their four children, Evelyne, Maxx, Aidan and Jean Paul. Hamilton said his positive vibes come from the example set by his mother, whom he lost to breast cancer in 1977 when he was 18.

"When my kids asked, 'Do you have a brain tumor?' I go, 'Yeah, I do! It's OK. I got this,'" Hamilton shares. "Worry will not add one hour to my life, as it says in the good book. I want to love every minute of my life. I'm not going to allow anything -- whether it's this or anything I've had in the past -- throw me off enjoying myself."

Of course, one of the things Hamilton enjoys most is skating, and he actually credits his tumors with allowing him to rediscover his love of the sport.

WATCH: Michael Buble's 3-Year-Old Son Has Cancer, Singer Puts Career 'On Hold'

"This brain tumor has given me a lot more than it has taken away," he insists. "This is a brain tumor I was born with. Without it I wouldn't have been in and out of hospitals for four years. Without this my parents wouldn't have been so exhausted that they needed to give me a morning off, and the morning off they chose was a skating rink. There are no accidents."

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And Hamilton said it "would be great" if he can skate through his treatments.

"When I learned of this diagnosis, two things came to my mind. I have to draw closer to God and I have to get physically strong," Hamilton notes. "And I have been doing both."

Outside of his family, Hamilton has been touching the hearts of thousands through motivational speaking engagements and his Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation, which raises funds for cancer research and provides support and resources to cancer patients.

"The Cares Foundation started out here in Cleveland as a Cares Initiative. What I wanted to do was thank the Cleveland clinic for giving me my life back," Hamilton explains. "But I knew that there were gaping holes in the cancer community. I went online to find out what I needed to know about testicular cancer and all I found were medical journal papers with 12-syllable words, five to a sentence ... So we created ChemoCare.com, which is everything you need to know about chemo therapy in 8th grade English and Spanish. Every drug is listed. Every side effect is listed. It's an amazing accomplishment. Its sister side is RadCare.org, which is everything about radiation therapy."

WATCH: Shannen Doherty Reacts to Michael Buble's Son's 'Devastating' Cancer Diagnosis

On Nov. 20, Sheryl Crow, Sara Evans, Ben Rector and Jewel will join Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi and a dozen of the world's greatest figure skaters at "An Evening With Scott Hamilton and Friends" in Nashville, Tennessee, in order to celebrate life while raising money to fight cancer.

"I don't think anyone has ever seen anything like this," Hamilton said of the event. "It's so good, it's indescribable."

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It's hard to believe Zoe Kazan, who gained notoriety for the 2012 fantastical love story Ruby Sparks and earned an Emmy nomination for HBO's Olive Kitteridge, is already experiencing something of a creative drought in her career.

As Kazan explains, it's the sad reality that actresses over 30 face in Hollywood. "I had so many more auditions at 23 than I do at 33," she tells ET by phone. "We, in our culture, tell stories about young girls and tell stories about mothers. There's a desert in the middle."

Even more limiting for the actress, who still passes for 16 in the Off-Broadway play Love, Love, Love, is the fact that she's admittedly played the same ingenue part onscreen in the string of romantic comedies that followed Ruby Sparks. It's thanks to "me looking demure and having big eyes and being kind of small and looking young," she says.

MORE: Nick Kroll, Jenny Slate, Adam Scott and Zoe Kazan Have an Awkward Date in 'My Blind Brother'

It's one of the primary reasons she fought to play an ill-equipped mother in director Bryan Bertino's new horror film, The Monster, on demand and in theaters on Nov. 11 and available now exclusively on DirecTV. "Getting this opportunity to play someone very far away from myself was exciting to me," Kazan says. "I've gotten to play a more diverse group of people on stage than I have on film."

On stage, she's played an agoraphobic Mormon housewife in Angels in America, a betrayer-turned-Roman Catholic nun in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and 21 years in the life of a put-upon daughter in playwright Mike Bartlett's scathing comedy Love, Love, Love. The Roundabout Theatre Company's limited engagement ends on Dec. 18.

"It's not that I like doing stage more than film," Kazan told ET last summer, from the Ottawa, Canada set of Monster. "It's that I like doing parts that are further away from myself, if given the choice. For a while, [the roles sent to me] were fitting into one kind of part. I tried to make them as different as I could, but you also have to play true to the material."

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Joan Marcus

While life in theater, especially Off-Broadway, is unsustainable, she does appreciate the challenges it's afforded her. "Playing Harper Pitt in Angels in America, you know, that's one of those roles that stretches you beyond your capacity," Kazan says. And in Love, Love, Love, she's enjoying the precise rhythm of Bartlett's script. "I feel like an athlete or a concerto musician," she says, adding: "There's no room to mess up."

To combat the creative constraints onscreen, Kazan told her agent to stop sending her romantic comedy scripts. "I didn't want to see them," she says, acknowledging that, in some ways, she's limiting her opportunities to work. But she's also been taking more control of her work, following in the footsteps of her parents, screenwriters Robin Swicord (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Nicholas Kazan (Matilda).

"I write as much as I can and I try to write for women in an interesting way as much as possible," Kazan says. Of the screenplays she's recently been working on, Wildlife just began its first week of production, with boyfriend Paul Dano directing.

MORE: Carey Mulligan Doesn't Need You to Compliment Her for Playing Strong Women

Adapted from the Richard Ford novel by her and Dano, Wildlife's female lead is "a really wonderful role for a woman" that's gone to friend and The Walker co-star Carey Mulligan. "That's one way that I think I'm trying to add to the conversation," she says of trying to combat the Hollywood mentality facing her and friends.

"When you have the desire to play a lot more character parts and you look young and cute -- the way that people think I look cute -- it does feel limiting in some way," Kazan says. "I do feel a curiosity about what will be there for me in 10 years."

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By Ellen Wulfhorst NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president raises questions about how his administration will affect women's rights, abortion and gender equality, experts say. During his campaign, Republican Trump was criticized for his views on women. On tape, he was heard talking about grabbing women by their genitalia, and he insulted female reporters and a female political rival over their looks. He also said abortion should be largely banned, that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Roe v Wade legalizing abortion should be overturned and that he would appoint an anti-abortion justice to the nation's highest court. He said women who had abortions should be punished, but later retracted this, saying that doctors who perform abortions should be punished. Here are some expert views on what lies ahead: MARCIA GREENBERGER, CO-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER "We take with deadly seriousness the promise of President-elect Donald Trump to reshape the Supreme Court to overturn key protections for women like Roe v. Wade. We take with deadly seriousness his commitment to withdraw all Executive Orders issued by President Obama, like stronger equal pay protections and a higher minimum wage for millions of women and men working for federal contractors. And we take with deadly seriousness his vow to enact tax changes that will create huge windfalls for the richest among us and deepen inequality in America. "We have fought these kinds of dangerous threats before - and won. We will again." ILYSE HOGUE, PRESIDENT, NARAL PRO-CHOICE AMERICA "Donald Trumps vision for America and the policies he has proposed are a clear and present danger to women, our bodies, and our freedoms. Our charge every day is to work to ensure President-elect Trump cannot strip away our freedoms, our rights, and our ability to chart our own destiny. We know the fight for our values isn't won or lost in a single election ... seven in 10 Americans believe in legal abortion, and we'll continue to be their voice and advocates." JULIE SUK, PROFESSOR OF LAW, CARDOZO LAW, YESHIVA UNIVERSITY "Our nation has just elected a man who has notoriously groped, belittled, and disparaged women. Our compatriots chose him over the opportunity to inaugurate our first woman president. The Trump presidency will thus begin in a climate that feels misogynistic and hostile to gender equality. "Candidate Trump did support six weeks of paid maternity leave for new mothers. This would be a step towards economic justice for women. It could open a path toward paid leave for parents of all genders, which is what true gender equality requires. Trump said: 'Nobody respects women more than I do.' If he delivers on paid maternity leave, we might start to believe him. YAMANI HERNANDEZ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS "We always knew racism, sexism, xenophobia, ableism, and other forms of hate were on the ballot ... The destructive nature of this cultural and political moment is undeniable and heart-breaking. "Our work to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion has never been more critical. Our work to organize in larger numbers around a shared agenda has never been more necessary. We must be the ones who make abortion more than legal - but truly possible. "We know that the fight for reproductive justice is more than access to abortion. Our struggle must ensure that people across the nation, and around the world, are able to raise their children without fear of violence." LYNN PALTROW, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ADVOCATES FOR PREGNANT WOMEN "...the United States elected a president who suggested during the campaign that women who have abortions should be punished. We also elected as vice president the current governor of Indiana, a state where Purvi Patel was arrested, tried, and convicted of feticide for attempting to have an abortion. Fortunately, that conviction was recently overturned, but only after Ms. Patel was incarcerated for more than a year. "We hope that our country will reject punishment and instead come together to ensure the health and human rights of all people, including pregnant women." SONIA OSSORIO, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN, NEW YORK CITY "Watching our country choose an inexperienced, unprepared man who incites sexism and racism over a deeply qualified and highly prepared woman, has been a painful shock for me. I am committed to not letting disillusionment sent in. "As a dear friend and NOW colleague said to our team today: the grief you feel today is a direct reflection of the goodness that is in your heart, of the fact that you reject sexism, bigotry, intolerance and hate and you embrace inclusivity, integrity and empathy. All those who hold those values have just been dealt a blow. "History has faced even darker moments than this, and good people have rallied to turn things back in the right direction. We will do that." CECILE RICHARDS, PRESIDENT, PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA "We will never back down and we will never stop fighting to ensure that Planned Parenthood patients have access to the care they need, people who come from communities that need our continued support in this new reality  immigrants, people of color, the LGBTQ community, people of faith, and more. Healthcare should not be political. Every morning, Planned Parenthood health center staff across the country wake up and open their doors, as they have this morning, to care for anyone who needs them, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, income, or country of origin. They will do so today, they will do so tomorrow, they will do so every day as they have for 100 years." LAURIE ADAMS, PRESIDENT, WOMEN FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL "Since 1993, Women for Women International has helped more than 447,000 marginalized women in countries affected by war and conflict ... to move from crisis and poverty to stability and economic self-sufficiency. "We connect people across cultures to increase understanding and common ground. The elections brought forth fear of 'the other' and our work strives to build bridges and common understanding. Whereas Hillary Clinton has been a champion of women's rights since Beijing, we look forward to learning more about the Trump administration's plans to assist the most vulnerable women in line with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals." NANCY DUFF CAMPBELL, CO-PRESIDENT, NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER "We are fortified by the knowledge that for the first time in history tens of millions of Americans could - and did - vote for a woman presidential candidate from a major political party, that girls and boys could see a powerful woman have a real chance of becoming president, and that because of this breakthrough, we will see a woman occupy the highest office in the land one day." (Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, Editing by Jo Griffin and Astrid Zweynert.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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In another demonstration of the repercussions of Trump's victory, the Federal Aviation Administration has now banned flights over midtown Manhattanwhere Trump Tower is locateduntil Trump moves into the White House in January.

The temporary flight restriction, or TFR in FAA-speak, went into effect on Nov. 9 and continues through Jan. 21, 2017. It bans flights from the surface through 3,000 feet with a radius of 2 miles. According to the FAA's website, the restriction's reason is "VIP movement."

SEE ALSO: Everyone is hugging each other after Trump's win

While TFRs are frequently issued for presidential visits at the request of the Secret Service, this one blocks off flights over a popular corridor for helicopter tours, media choppers and even airliners maneuvering in the busiest airspace in the country.

Because of nearby commercial airports, it's smaller than typical presidential TFRs, which have a radius of 30 miles.

Police officers walk in front of Trump Tower, the home of President-elect Donald Trump, in New York, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016.

Image: Seth Wenig/AP

Still, flights on approach to LaGuardia Airport frequently fly northward above the west side of Manhattan or Hudson River at about 3,000 feet.

In other words, this restriction could lead to more flight delays at LaGuardia. The restrictions do not affect helicopters going into or out of heliports on the east and west sides of Manhattan.
This photo of burn survivor Lasse Gustavson was deleted from Facebook twice until people expressed outrage. (Photo: Courtesy of Facebook/Natthiko)

Swedish meditation teacher Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad was in for a rude awakening when he posted a birthday tribute on Sunday to his friend Lasse Gustavson, a beloved public figure and motivational speaker in the city of Gothenburg. He included a photo of the 60-year-olds smiling face  a face burned severely 35 years prior when, as a professional firefighter, he was caught in a gas explosion. The devastating fire disfigured Gustavsons face and left him without ears, hair, or eyebrows, according to the Telegraph.

That very same day, though, Facebook deleted the photo of Gustavson without explanation  and immediately bumped Lindeblad off the site. Baffled, he logged back in and reposted the image of his friend, but the photo was taken down again, on Monday, by Facebook administrators. According to the Telegraph, Lindeblad couldnt fathom what kind of rule he might have violated, so he started looking for answers. Thats when other burn survivors began messaging him to explain that theyd experienced similar censorship on Facebook. They said that actually this is a regular occurrence when burn victims post something where you can clearly see the burns, he told the Telegraph.

Disturbed, Lindeblad decided to report the problem to Facebook on Monday. According to a screenshot, Lindeblads message claims that hed posted the photo of Gustavson on his wall with some appreciative words. He explained that the photo received lots of likes quickly, but within an hour, Facebook removed the photo and threw me out of my session. No explanation. Very 1984. He explains that he republished the identical post, and it was pulled again.

By now, a few Swedish people with severe burn damage contacted me and explained that it is common practice on Facebook to treat photos of people with serious burn damage the same way you treat photos with sexist or rasist [sic] content. What a despicable policy, he wrote.

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Gustavson himself was diplomatic in his reaction to the censorship, speculating to the Telegraph that perhaps Facebook risked adding to the suffering of those recently disfigured. He told the publication, When I was 24, I probably would have felt offended and upset that pictures of me were considered wrong and unpleasant, he said. It is a very volatile and sensitive time.  But now I have lived so long with my burns.

But Lindeblad wouldnt take it lying down. On Monday, he took to Facebook to expose the flawed policy to his thousands of friends and followers. Posting the photo of a beaming Gustavson a third time, Lindeblad wrote, in part, You want to help me to speak out against a disgusting Facebook policy? Share or spread or love this photo of one of the most beautiful souls I know. He explained the situation, then included a call to action: So lets let Facebook know what we think of the policy by disseminating this picture wildly! he urged his friends.

And they listened. At last count, Lindeblads protest post has been shared more than 30,000 times and has received more than 26,000 reactions. Thousands of people cheered on the teachers and the beautiful friendship by leaving supportive comments. Lindeblad left a comment of his own too: the original birthday tribute to Gustavson, a man who has clearly made a huge impact on him.

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It is thanks to people like you that I can do my job with joy. You reflected my light when most of it inside felt dark. You opened doors that seemed to me closed, Lindeblad wrote in his touching message. You are a living example [that] wisdom and playfulness go hand in hand. And you remind me, again and again, so much that is beautiful with true masculinity. May we get to have your light among us a long, long time yet.

Love prevailed, though, as Lindeblads message and the outpouring of support caused Facebook to reinstate the photo and issue and apology on Tuesday that read, A member of our team accidentally removed something you posted on Facebook. This was a mistake, and we sincerely apologize for this error. Whether or not the move was actually a mistake  both times  is unclear, but Lindeblad is being cautiously optimistic.

He wrote on Facebook that he hopes the networks explanation is true and that its not a policy to systematically censor photos of burn victims. He also praised the power of digital networks and expressed, Thank you is not enough! to all who helped mobilize the change.

Yahoo Beauty reached out to Facebook for comment but has not heard back.

Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, andPinterest.
Floyd Abrams, a lawyer whose reputation as a fierce protector of free speech is perhaps second to no one, has a surprising message to the media establishment. On Wednesday evening, he told a room full of other media lawyers that in light of Tuesday's election of Donald Trump, they needed to think creatively and even contemplate bringing libel cases on the plaintiff's side to bolster the First Amendment. The suggestion drew audible gasps from those who had gathered at a dinner hosted by the Media Law Resource Center to hear from Edward Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg about the tension between national security and an independent media.

Abrams, 80, has been on the defenders' side of the courtroom most of his legendary career. His bona fides are too numerous to mention in full, but among his cases are representing The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case, Senator Al Franken in a trademark lawsuit brought by Fox News over the use of "fair and balanced," and in a showcase of principles over politics, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. During the late 1990s, he also went toe-to-toe with New York City's then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani - Trump's potential choice to lead the Justice Department - over public funds taken away from the Brooklyn Museum of Art over an exhibition that included a painting of the Virgin Mary on a canvas adorned with elephant dung. Abrams prevailed in each of these cases.

So when Abrams, before moderating a discussion with Snowden and Ellsberg, called Donald Trump the "greatest threat to the First Amendment since the passage of the Sedition Act of 1798," a roomful of lawyers took notice and began murmuring. He then told attendees they would be on the front lines of an important battle during the next four years.

What did Abrams mean by his suggestion that those in the media needed to get creative in the face of a president promising to open up libel laws?

"Trump has denounced people in language that punctuated his campaign," Abrams tells The Hollywood Reporter in a follow-up conversation. "If what he said is not pure protected opinion, then the press side ought to take a hard look and see if they have a basis for commencing litigation. They have to think creatively, as no candidate in living memory has denounced the press as he has; no candidate has banned journalists from covering him because they didn't like the tone or substance of what [journalists] are saying. And so, press lawyers ought to bear in mind that if things get rough, if the relationship is one of constant denigration and threats, it may be time for journalists to think about using libel laws in a way that is constitutional."

How would this work in practice? If Trump calls a reporter "dishonest" and claims a story is "" would it be grounds for a lawsuit?

"If what he's saying is merely rhetorical or hyperbolic in the sense of 'reporters are no good,' that would not give [the journalist] a right [to sue]," answers Abrams. "But if he seems to mean it, if he says a reporter is routinely publishingmaterial, then maybe we're moving down the road where a reporter responds by not only saying, 'It is not so,' but by going to court."

Abrams is protective enough of the First Amendment to caution journalists contemplating theoretical lawsuits to consider the ways litigation could backfire. He acknowledges there could be legal battles, for example, over whether reporters qualify as public figures. But he's equally insistent that it could be time for members of the press to begin thinking broadly enough to go on the offensive. An added benefit, besides protecting one's reputation, would be providing President Trump with an instructive lesson on the wisdom for libel limits.

A lawsuit wouldn't be without enormous difficulty. Getting around logistical nightmares like any asserted executive immunity and scheduling concerns would be challenging to say the least. Abrams points to the Supreme Court's decision to deny President Bill Clinton's immunity request and not delay in its 1997 decision over Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit. The lawyer says he disagreed with the outcome at the time, but is now thankful there's no flat rule protecting a president from having to respond to a civil lawsuit.

Should reporters bring libel claims against Trump or any member of his cabinet, such plaintiffs would not only face challenges over their ability to contest statements arguably within the ambit of ministerial duties. Media figures suing would also be inviting a professional quandary: By becoming a direct legal adversary against Trump, a journalist would be sacrificing perceived impartiality, which could harm their ability to profess fairness in ongoing coverage.

Of course, charges of rampant bias in the media have already undermined any illusion of objectivity, but bringing a lawsuit would certainly mean even more provocation - subjecting a journalist's credibility to inspection in more ways than one.

Abrams responds that publications would certainly have to make their own judgments about removing plaintiff journalists from their beats, but adds, "Just in the same way should Trump sue a reporter."

(UPDATE: The story originally reported that Abrams told media lawyers that Trump was the biggest threat since the Sedition Act of 1918. He actually referred to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. The post has been corrected.)
NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority named Stephen Cutler, vice chairman and former linchpin lawyer for JPMorgan Chase & Co, to its board of governors Thursday.

He replaces Greg Fleming, Morgan Stanley's last head of wealth management, who resigned from the board earlier this year.

FINRA's organizing rules require that the securities industry self-regulator be overseen by a board of 10 industry governors, three of whom must come from large firms.

Cutler, who will step into one of the large-firm seats, has been on the regulatory side before as head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division. However, he has clashed with them, too.

As chief counsel for JPMorgan, Cutler played a key role in the bank's $13 billion settlement with the federal government over charges that JPMorgan overstated the quality of mortgages it sold to investors in the run-up to the financial crisis.

Months later at a conference sponsored by the Clearing House, Cutler said that regulation of the banks was spiraling out of control and what had become "enforcement-worthy has changed." (Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts; Editing by Leslie Adler)
A frightened feline named after founding father Thomas Jefferson was rescued from a drainpipe by Tennessee firefighters, just in time for Election Day.

Read: 200-Pound Pig Finally Rescued From Manhole After Devoted Owner Climbs Inside With Him

The Nashville Fire Department was alerted to the scene after a neighbor reported a cat he had heard meowing in the area early in the morning, and then again in the afternoon.

"He realized he probably shouldn't be hearing the cat in the same area, and it wasn't sounding good," said spokesperson Brian Haas, with the Nashville Fire Department.

To keep the public in the loop about the cat, the fire department posted developments to their Twitter using the hashtag, #drainpipekitty.

When firefighters arrived on the scene, they quickly discovered the poor feline had found itself at the bottom of a third floor gutter that evacuated into an underground drainpipe.

To free the cat, firefighters dug up the drainpipe, and searched until they found the cat at the end of the drainpipe.

"He was miserable, and tired and wet," said Haas, who was one of the men on scene. "He looked like he had a rough morning."

Almost immediately after the cat was freed, its owner showed up on the scene.

"He ignored all of us, grabbed the cat, and just goes, 'What were you thinking?'" Haas laughed. "[The cat]'s owner brought him inside, warmed him up, dried him off, and he perked up relatively quickly."

Read: Octopus Escapes Tank, Inking His Way to Freedom Through Aquarium Pipe Leading to Sea

That's when the fire department was told the cat they rescued on Election Day was named Thomas Jefferson.

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Cats name: Thomas Jefferson. Not joking. Owner is J. Kline, president of Watkins College. First words to his cat: What were you thinking?  Nashville Fire Dept (@NashvilleFD) November 8, 2016

"It was a nice distraction," Haas joked.

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The Democratic party is in shambles in the wake of Donald Trumps stunning victory over Hillary Clinton for president and the Republicans success in solidifying its hold on both chambers of Congress. President Obama is leaving office with his party virtually rudderless, and it may be many months before new leadership steps up to the plate and takes the shell-shocked Democrats in a new direction.

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who will become the new Democratic leader in the Senate next year, and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California will have little leverage at the outset in shaping legislation. Republicans lost two seats in Tuesdays historic election but still retain control, 51 to 48, while House Republicans suffered minor losses and still enjoy a 238 to 193 seat advantage over the Democrats.

Related: Ryan Declares GOP Has a Mandate to Enact Sweeping Changes

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) already are working on a conservative GOP agenda of tax cuts, Obamacare repeal, trade and other issues that were hot topics during the bitter 2016 presidential and congressional campaigns.

The reality is that the party as a whole has taken a real beating, said Jim Manley, a Democratic policy consultant in describing the Democrats dilemma. Manley sees little hope for bipartisanship in the early going of a new Trump administration after the two parties emerged from one of the most bitter and nasty campaigns of modern times.

Still, hope springs eternal, and for all their differences, there is still some commonality of interest between prominent Democrats and Trump and the Republicans that might eventually blossom into compromise. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, as the saying goes, even among the most liberal and conservative of politicians. Here are five areas that may be ripe for agreement.

Related: Despite Differences, President Obama Asks Americans to Unite Behind President Elect Trump

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Infrastructure  Clinton and Trump disagreed on most things during the campaign, but they were totally in sync on the need for the government to invest hundreds of billions more in building and repairing highways, bridges, dams, transit systems and other major projects. Trump proposed an eye-popping $1 trillion in new infrastructure investment over the coming decade to add as many as six million jobs to the economy.

Trumps proposal was double the $500 billion of new infrastructure spending that Clinton advocated over the next five years. The president-elect and his advisers claim that their plan would be revenue neutral and would be financed by funds from public-private partnerships and tax credits that would spur private investment.

The day after the election, Pelosi declared that she and other Democrats would be willing to work with Trump and the Republicans on a major infrastructure and transportation package. As President-elect Trump indicated last night, investing in infrastructure is an important priority of his, Pelosi said in a statement. We can work together to quickly pass a robust infrastructure jobs bill.

Trade  Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the Democratic socialist who ran for president, acknowledged in a statement after the election that Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics, and the establishment media."

Related - Trump Proposes $1 Trillion for Infrastructure Without Raising Taxes

To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him, Sanders said.

In general, both believe that international trade deals like NAFTA and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are bad for American workers because they cost the U.S. steady, well-paying jobs. They have different reasoning, of course. Sanders believes that the system is set up to help businesses drive down their costs, frequently by exploiting the cheapest labor and loosest regulatory environment they can find.

Trump's thinking is vaguer: he thinks trade deals have just been badly negotiated and that his superior deal-making skills can quickly force the country's economic competitors to buckle, which will bring jobs pouring back into the country. Both men, though, have shown a willingness to impose tariffs on countries that, in their view, engage in unfair trade practices.

Paid Family Leave  Inspired by his daughter, Ivanka, as a way of appealing to alienated women, Trump made waves in September by announcing a plan for six weeks of paid maternity leave for new mothers whose employers dont guarantee paid leave. The time off would be financed through the unemployment insurance system and would be supplemented by tax credits for stay-at-home mothers and other child care credits.

Although Trumps proposal differed in many ways from that of Clintons and other moderate to liberal Democrats  including denying the benefit to fathers  it marked the first time in U.S. history that candidates from both major parties offered paid family leave policies.

Paid family leave proposals have long been a point of contention in Congress. While many Democrats have favored universal paid family leave, congressional Republicans have only reluctantly come around to plans to provide tax credits to employers who provide paid leave to their workers or allow them to accrue time off instead of income for working overtime. With Trump committed to a more ambitious approach, paid family leave might crop up this year as part of a larger tax reform measure.

Carried interest  Few tax loopholes received more attention during the campaign than the one tied to carried interest, the astronomical management fees charged by hedge fund managers and venture capitalists that are treated like an investment and taxed at the capital gains rate instead of the much higher rate on ordinary income.

The provision has for decades lined the pockets of billionaire financiers and has been protected on Capitol Hill by Republicans and some Democrats. But on the presidential campaign trail, Clinton and Sanders targeted the glaring loophole for closing. Last August, Trump declared that he was willing to close the carried-interest loophole as part of his plan for a massive tax cut that would primarily benefit the wealthy.

The hedge fund guys didnt build this country, Trump said during an appearance on CBSs Face the Nation. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky. The hedge fund guys are getting away with murder.

Trump subsequently criticized Clinton for not pushing sooner to eliminate the costly loophole while she served as a senator from New York and represented Wall Street. If Trump is serious about doing battle with hedge fund operators in rewriting the tax laws in the coming year, he will likely find eager allies among the Democrats, including Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Related: Dueling Trump and GOP Tax Plans Would both Cause Much Larger Deficits

The Deficit  Budget watchdog groups and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for months have been sounding the alarm about the mounting $19.7 trillion national debt and danger signs that the government may be returning to an era of trillion-dollar a year budget deficits as spending on domestic programs, defense and entitlements continue to rise.

Many experts have argued that it will take a comprehensive strategy of spending cuts, higher taxes and major reforms of Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements to slow the growth of the long-term debt. But both Trump and Clinton were unwilling to endorse such an approach, and instead promoted big spending initiatives and, in Trumps case, a massive tax cut that would add $5.3 trillion to the debt in the coming decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Trump and liberal Democrats obviously have conflicting priorities on most domestic and defense issues, yet they have a convergence of interest when it comes to the deficit. While paying lip service to concerns about runaway spending, both see the virtue in investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new government programs and defense efforts to spur the economy and create more jobs  even if that means continued growth in the debt. And both strongly oppose cuts in Social Security as part of a larger move towards entitlement reform.

Sanders and other liberal Democrats are championing a proposal to expand the amount of monthly Social Security benefits to many struggling Americans, especially surviving spouses and people who left their jobs to care for ailing relatives. While that idea is certain to encounter stiff opposition from conservative lawmakers next year, it might get a sympathetic hearing from Trump.

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Arizona criminal defense attorney Allen Bickart has defended many people during his 60 years of practicing law, but last week, the case of one client came back to haunt him.

He was a very troubled, very vicious kid, Bickart tells PEOPLE exclusively, describing his brush with Todd Kohlhepp, a South Carolina man who police have linked to seven murders. Bickert represented Kohlhepp back in 1987, after he was arrested for allegedly raping a 14-year-old neighbor at gunpoint in Tempe, Arizona, at the age of 15, according to court records obtained by PEOPLE.

Kohlhepp ultimately pleaded guilty to kidnapping, served prison time from 1987 to 2001, and was placed on the sex offender registry, according to records.

That girl should be very lucky he didnt kill her, recalls Bickart, 85.

Kohlhepp emerged in the news on Nov. 3 when police, acting on a tip, arrived at the 45-year-old real estate agents 95-acre property in Woodruff, South Carolina, and discovered a woman inside a metal storage container. According to the local sheriff, she had been chained up like a dog for the past two months.

The body of her boyfriend, who had reportedly been shot to death, was found buried nearby in a shallow grave. Two additional bodies were also discovered buried on the property, revealed Wednesday to be married couple Meagan Coxie, 25, and Johnny Coxie, 29, police tell PEOPLE.

When questioned by police two days later, Kohlhepp confessed to the unsolved murders of four people at a motorcycle shop in 2003. He has so far only been charged in the 2003 murders.

He had some very, very, very serious issues, says Bickart, who worked with a psychiatrist in an effort to get his client sent to a facility where mental health specialists could attempt to help the violence-prone teen  instead of prison. He was off the edge.

Kohlhepp took responsibility for what he did, adds Bickart, but soon his case was bumped from juvenile to adult court, a move his former attorney described as very rare for such a young defendant.

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He didnt qualify for the state hospital because he didnt show all the symptoms of being a complete whacko, says Bickart, who adds that Kohlhepps birth father put him up for adoption when he was younger because he couldnt control his sons violent temper and unpredictable outbursts.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

In recommending that the teenager be tried in adult court, an Arizona judge overseeing the case wrote, in documents obtained by PEOPLE, At less than the age of 9, this juvenile was impulsive, explosive, and preoccupied with sexual content. He has not changed. He has been unabatedly aggressive to others and destructive of property since nursery school. He destroys his own clothing, personal possessions and pets apparently on whim and caprice.

Approximately six years of intervention in fifteen years of life have resulted in abysmal failure. Twenty-five months of the most intensive and expensive professional intervention, short of Gods, will provide no protection for the public and no rehabilitation of this juvenile by any services or facilities presently available to the Juvenile Court.

Bickart admits to being terribly conflicted while handling Kohlhepps case because he realized what the big, very bright teenager might one day be capable of.

Apparently, so did the Maricopa County Superior Court judge who eventually sentenced Kohlhepp to 15 years in prison after a plea deal was reached that involved the youth pleading guilty to kidnapping and registering as a sex offender.

I never thought hed be the type to shoot up a school, insists Bickart. but I thought hed focus on women.. . . I dont think truly matured until he got older and got out of prison, but he got developed in prison, believe me.




(Reuters) - Former Los Angeles Mayor and former California State Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday publicly launched his campaign to become the next governor of the country's most populous state. With a new campaign website, the Democrat said his main focuses if elected would be investing in schools, repairing infrastructure around the state and shoring up an ailing middle class. He said his campaign would stand in direct contrast to that of President-elect Donald Trump, a Republican who campaigned heavily on building a wall between the United States and Mexico and deporting undocumented immigrants. Trump won the presidency in a surprise upset against Democrat Hillary Clinton earlier this week. "We are a state that builds bridges, not walls. We are inclusive. We celebrate our diversity. And we welcome newcomers," Villaraigosa said in a statement on his campaign website. "We know the answer to fear is hope. The answer to division is unity." Villaraigosa, who was Los Angeles mayor from 2005 to 2013 and served as speaker of the California Assembly from 1998 to 2000, is perhaps the state's highest-profile Latino leader. Villaraigosa in June said he had formed a political action committee and started raising money to help fight Trump's presidential campaign in key states with large Latino immigrant populations. California's Democratic Lieutenant Governor and former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said in early 2015 that he would also run for the state's top political position. The two are currently the leading entrants in the race to fill the seat of the popular Governor Jerry Brown, who will be 81 when his term ends. (Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
(Reuters) - The former chief executive of a red-light camera company that used to run Chicago's controversial traffic cameras was sentenced on Thursday to 30 months in federal prison in connection with a bribery scheme, prosecutors said.

Karen Finley, 57, was also ordered to pay $2 million in restitution after pleading guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit bribery before a federal judge in August 2015, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for northern Illinois.

Attorneys for Finley could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday.

Finley, former transportation official John Bills, and Bills' friend Martin O'Malley, who worked as a contractor for Redflex, conspired for Bills to receive $570,000 in cash, an Arizona condo and other kickbacks, according to a federal indictment. In exchange, Bills made sure Redflex maintained lucrative traffic-control camera contracts.

O'Malley, who is different from the former Maryland governor who ran for president, testified against Bills in the case saying he often stuffed lavish bonuses into envelopes and gave them to Bills in Chicago restaurants.

Bills was sentenced in August to 10 years in prison over the scheme. O'Malley pleaded guilty and was sentenced in September to six months in prison.

Chicago's unpopular traffic cameras include 174 installed at intersections with stop-lights and 144 speed cameras near schools and parks. The Australia-based Redflex had contracts with Chicago for 11 years, making as much as $25 million a year.

The company was barred in 2013 from doing business with the city and a division of Xerox Corp now runs Chicago's red-light cameras.

Finley in June pleaded guilty to a similar charge in Ohio and federal prosecutors have agreed that she will serve prison sentences in both cases simultaneously. She was sentenced to a shorter 14-month prison sentence in Ohio last month, according to the Chicago Tribune.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by James Dalgleish)
- Formula 1 driver Sergio "Checo" Perez has dumped his sponsor, Hawkers sunglasses, for a tweet in which they mocked Mexicans after the triumph of US president-elect Donald Trump. The Hawkers tweet encouraged Mexicans to purchase their sunglasses to hide their crying eyes while they build the wall which Trump had promised to force Mexico to build between the two countries. In response, Force India driver Perez said he was ending his association with the brand which had only began sponsoring him this month. "I'll never let anyone mock my country!" Perez wrote on Twitter. Hawkers Mexico later apologised: "We have made a serious mistake ... it will not happen again."

AFP
Iggy Azalea and boyfriend French Montana came under fire this week while celebrating his 32nd birthday.

Some of the rappers' fans weren't pleased with an elephant wearing jewelry on its ankles and head being delivered to Montana's backyard. After posting pics with the animal, the couple were accused of animal cruelty.

PHOTOS: Iggy Azalea Gets Seven Diamond Rings From Boyfriend French Montana -- See the Bling!

"I love animals more than people!!" Montana wrote. "Happy b-day to me. Positive vibes at the Casa."

"Turn your life to a life time vacation," he captioned another photo with the elephant. "Grinded all day so I can ball tomorrow. B-day officially here all praise due to the most high. #freemaxb #foreverchinx."

I love animals more than people !! Happy bday to me positive vibes at the Casa  A photo posted by French Montana (@frenchmontana) on Nov 9, 2016 at 1:10am PST

Turn your life to a life time vacation  Grinded all day so I can ball tomorrow  bday officially here all praise due to the most high #freemaxb #foreverchinx CB A photo posted by French Montana (@frenchmontana) on Nov 9, 2016 at 6:58am PST

A photo posted by Iggy Azalea (@thenewclassic) on Nov 9, 2016 at 1:37pm PST

"French, if you love them, you wouldn't take part in this kind of attraction," one of the hip-hop musician's Instagram followers wrote. "They torture the elephants from a young age to discipline them into performing and performing tricks on command. Please don't support this!"

SECURITY VS ELEPHANT IN THE BACKYARD  A video posted by French Montana (@frenchmontana) on Nov 8, 2016 at 5:00pm PST

Several Azalea's fans also lashed out at the "Fancy" rapper. "Elephants don't deserve abuse! Elephants shouldn't be hired out for a party!" an Azalea Instagram follower commented.

WATCH: Nick Young Sings a Very Telling Drake Song After Iggy Azalea Calls Off Engagement

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Montana responded to the backlash on Twitter, writing: "Shut yo a** up. That elephant was a surprise for my b-day in my yard when I walked out, and was from the zoo and people that take care of it."

Shut yo ass up that elephant was a surprise for my bday in my yard when I walked out and was from the zoo and people that take care of it https://t.co/4xYembikJO  French Montana (@FrencHMonTanA) November 9, 2016

The negative comments didn't seem to get in the way of the couple's good time. Hours later, Azalea shared some pics of herself and Montana cuddling up in a photo booth. "Happy birthday," she captioned the images.

Happy birthday  A photo posted by Iggy Azalea (@thenewclassic) on Nov 10, 2016 at 3:42am PST

Montana also posted videos from his birthday bash, which appeared to be on a yacht.

BDAY NIGHT STAY TUNEEEE  A video posted by French Montana (@frenchmontana) on Nov 9, 2016 at 7:32pm PST

A video posted by French Montana (@frenchmontana) on Nov 9, 2016 at 9:47pm PST

Drake was also at the party, and gave his friend a birthday shout-out on Instagram. "Happy Birthday Splash! @frenchmontana my brother for life too much memories and victories to ever switch up," he wrote. "I'm playing '17,000' all day long today. Always one of my icons living to the fullest."

Happy Birthday Splash! @frenchmontana my brother for life too much memories and victories to ever switch up. I'm playing 17000 all day long today. Always one of my icons living to the fullest. A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Nov 9, 2016 at 4:50pm PST

The "Hotline Bling" artist recently celebrated his 30th birthday in West Hollywood, California, and also had a star-studded party that included John Mayer and his exes, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. Check it out:

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Washington (AFP) - Thousands of protesters angry over Donald Trump's election win took to the streets for a second straight night, with at least one demonstration degenerating into a riot against the tycoon turned president-elect.

Accusing Trump of racism, sexism and xenophobia, protesters from New York to Los Angeles blocked traffic and chanted slogans like "Not my president" and "We reject the president-elect."

The worst violence was in the northwestern city of Portland, where protesters hurled projectiles at officers, vandalized businesses, smashed car windows and attacked drivers.

Police said they were treating the protests as a "riot" due to what they said was "extensive criminal and dangerous behavior."

In his first comments on the unrest, Trump blamed the media.

"Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!" tweeted Trump.

Hours later he seemed to change tack, writing "Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!"

The violence stood in contrast to an apparently harmonious meeting between Trump and President Barack Obama designed to heal divisions after the most acrimonious election campaign in recent memory.

Obama and Trump put past animosity aside during the 90-minute White House meeting designed to quell fears about the health of the world's pre-eminent democracy, and vowed to carry out a smooth transfer of power.

After a nasty campaign that culminated in the election of a 70-year-old billionaire and former reality TV star who has never held public office and who gained power on a populist platform, the message was: this is business as usual in a democracy.

The outgoing Democratic president and his successor huddled one-on-one in the Oval Office, for what Obama characterized as an "excellent conversation" and then put on a remarkably civil joint public appearance.

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"It is important for all of us, regardless of party and regardless of political preferences, to now come together, work together, to deal with the many challenges that we face," Obama said.

Trump appeared more subdued than usual, and was unusually cautious and deferential in his remarks.

"Mr President, it was a great honor being with you," Trump said, calling Obama a "very good man."

- 'Don't answer questions' -

The meeting, which came less than 36 hours after Trump's shock election victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, had the potential to be awkward.

After all, Trump championed the so-called "birther movement" challenging that Obama was actually born in the United States -- a suggestion laden with deep racial overtones -- only dropping the position recently.

And if the president-elect fulfils his campaign promises, he will unravel almost all of Obama's signature achievements.

Trump -- who previously called Obama the "most ignorant president in our history" -- said he looked forward to receiving the president's counsel.

Obama -- who has cast Trump as a whiner and "uniquely unqualified" to be commander-in-chief -- vowed his support.

He told Trump his administration would "do everything we can to help you succeed, because if you succeed, then the country succeeds."

The two men ended the improbable and historic White House encounter with a handshake and refused to take questions, appearing to find common cause in their opinion of the press.

"Here's a good rule. Don't answer questions when they just start yelling," Obama told Trump.

- Current, future first ladies -

While their husbands were getting acquainted, First Lady Michelle Obama met soon-to-be successor Melania Trump while Vice President Joe Biden held West Wing talks with Trump's running mate Mike Pence.

In the evening, Trump tweeted: "A fantastic day in D.C. Met with President Obama for first time. Really good meeting, great chemistry. Melania liked Mrs. O a lot!"

White House officials said Obama and Trump discussed a range of issues including global hotspots and the president's meetings next week with leaders from Germany, Greece and across the Asia-Pacific.

On that trip, Obama is likely to be inundated with panicked questions about America's role in world affairs.

The White House hopes that by rolling out the red carpet for Trump, they can bind him to some of the conventions of the office.

- 'Real job' on health care -

Trump then traveled to Capitol Hill to meet Republican leaders who had been at best cool to him winning their party's nomination.

The president-elect proclaimed health care, border security and jobs as his top three priorities in the White House.

"We had a very detailed meeting," Trump told reporters. "As you know, health care -- we're going to make it affordable. We are going to do a real job on health care," he said.

Trump made repealing Obamacare, and building a border wall between the United States and Mexico, pillars of his presidential campaign.

During a bitter campaign that tugged at America's democratic fabric, the tycoon also pledged to deport illegal immigrants, ban Muslims from the country and tear up free-trade deals.

Trump said he and the Republican majority in Congress were going to accomplish "absolutely spectacular things for the American people," adding he was eager to get started.

Team Trump unveiled a transition website -- www.greatagain.gov -- that highlights the colossal human resources challenge facing the incoming administration under the headline "Help wanted: 4,000 presidential appointees."
Samsungs unprecedented Galaxy Note 7 recall was an immense blow to the South Korean company. Samsung took a massive financial hit, and its image was badly hurt after having to recall the fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 twice. Samsung killed the phone only a few months after it launched it, and some reports said the company might be willing to dump the entire Galaxy Note brand to clean up its name. However, that might not happen, a new leak suggests, as Samsung has already planned a Galaxy Note 8 handset.

DONT MISS: T-Mobile is giving away Samsung Galaxy S7s in a blowout deal this weekend

Well-known leaker Evan Blass said on Twitter that Samsung is making two Galaxy S8 models and a Galaxy Note 8 for next year.

Samsung Galaxy S8 models are indeed skipping SM-G94* model numbers, will ship as SM-G950 & SM-G955, he said. Know what else is in the works? SM-N950.

The number 4 is believed to bring bad luck in Korea, which is why Samsung skips it in numbering schemes. So, in other words, the SM-N950 would be the successor to the SM-N930*, which is the codename of the Galaxy Note 7.

https://twitter.com/evleaks/status/796430939815641088

Samsung may still decide to cancel the Galaxy Note 8, but at the moment, it looks like the company is actively planning to make a new phablet next year. Another report has also claimed that Samsung is looking to target potential Galaxy Note 7 buyers with a bigger Galaxy S8 version in 2017.

In a second tweet, Blass stated that both Galaxy S8 models would have edge displays. Recent reports said that Samsung is ditching flat screens on future flagship smartphones. That isnt surprising considering that the Galaxy Note 7 did not have a flat version either.

https://twitter.com/evleaks/status/796448046586482688

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - The Gambia's controversial leader Yahya Jammeh on Thursday submitted his candidacy to seek a fifth term in December's presidential election, saying he would listen only to God for guidance in governing.

Jammeh, 51, took power in a bloodless coup in 1994 and has run the country with an iron fist ever since, surviving successive coup attempts by consolidating his power at every level of society.

After submitting the required documentation to the electoral commission, Jammeh told its chairman: "No matter what people say about me, I am not moved... I don't listen to anybody because I know what is important.

"It is between me and God Almighty."

He had harsh words for his critics, or even putative advisors, adding: "You want to listen to everybody and satisfy everybody, you will end up satisfying the evil people.

"Do what is right. Make sure you satisfy the Almighty Allah."

The president went on to present a policy platform of free education and healthcare for all, adding that his government believed especially in empowering women.

The Gambia has made great progress in the last 20 years in improving literacy and child mortality rates, and the president has in the last year banned child marriage and female genital mutilation.

But his record on civil liberties is less impressive: he has promised to bury critics "nine feet deep" and told the UN Secretary-General to "go to hell" after Ban Ki-moon called for an investigation into an activist's death in custody.

Intimidation of opposition parties, media repression and politicised security forces have "all but extinguished" the chance of a free and fair election in the Gambia, Human Rights Watch said in a report this month.

Jammeh has attracted worldwide attention for declaring the Gambia an Islamic state, withdrawing the country from the International Criminal Court, and claiming he had concocted a herbal cure for HIV/AIDS.

Gambian opposition parties have decided to join forces to field a single candidate, Adama Barrow, to take on Jammeh on December 1.

The only other candidate is a former ruling party MP, Mama Kandeh, who has been accused of being used to split opposition votes.
George R.R. Martin has invoked his famous fantasy-world phrase to describe the future of America after Donald Trump's stunning Election Day victory: "Winter is coming."

Like many in Hollywood, the author of A Song of Ice and Fire, the novel series on which HBO's Game of Thrones is based, took to the internet to express his thoughts about president-elect Trump.

"There are really no words for how I feel this morning," Martin wrote on Wednesday in a post titled "President Pussygrabber" on his LiveJournal blog. He continued, "America has spoken. I really thought we were better than this. Guess not."

Calling Trump the "least qualified candidate" ever nominated for the presidency, Martin predicted that, come Inauguration Day in January, Trump will become the "worst president in American history, and a dangerously unstable player on the world stage."

Days ahead of the election, the author penned a much lengthier post on Trump's attack ads, specifically the one targeting "Pervert Anthony Weiner." Saying there has "never been a presidential candidate more unfit to lead this nation," he urged voters to simply listen to Trump. "If you can do that, and still consider voting for him well"

To sum up his thoughts on Wednesday, Martin turned to the one Game of Thrones phrase used in his books and on the long-running series that serves as the biggest warning of an unstoppable and unpredictable darkness on the horizon.

"The decimated Democrats, a minority in both House and Senate, do not have the power to hinder him," he said of Trump. "Over the next four years, our problems are going to get much, much worse. Winter is coming. I told you so."

Read more: Michael Moore Weighs In on Trump's Election Victory: "I Don't Think He Wanted the Job"
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday announced he would visit Turkey next week and said it was important not to "slam the door" on Ankara despite Berlin's unhappiness over its post-coup crackdown. The German parliament also voted 445 to 139 late on Thursday to extend German military support for the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State through the end of 2017, including deployment of over 250 soldiers at Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey. In a parliamentary debate in which he said he would visit Turkey on Nov. 15, Steinmeier said cutting off talks with Turkey about joining the European Union would hurt Turkish citizens as well as the government. "If we slam the door now and throw away the key, then we will disappoint many people in Turkey who are looking to Europe for help and support, especially now," Steinmeier told lawmakers. But Steinmeier repeated that reintroduction of the death penalty in Turkey would mean the "unmistakable end" of negotiations on Turkish entry into the bloc. He said Berlin would continue to press Ankara to respect the rule of law. Turkey has detained, dismissed or suspended more than 110,000 soldiers, judges, teachers, journalists and others in the aftermath of an unsuccessful putsch by rogue military last July. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has said a "limited measure" could be drafted to restore the death penalty, which was formally abandoned in 2002, and President Tayyip Erdogan has said he would approve such a measure if parliament backed it. "We want good relations with Turkey, but the reality has changed and we have to adjust our policies accordingly," Steinmeier said. Ties between Germany and Turkey are also strained over a vote by the German parliament in June labelling as genocide the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces, which had triggered Ankara to temporarily ban German lawmakers from visiting troops at Incirlik Air Base. German lawmakers spoke critically about Turkey's actions and insisted on the right to continue to visit Incirlik Air Base before approving continued deployment of military resources to support the fight against Islamic State. Germany flies reconnaissance missions from the Turkish base with six Tornado fighter jets. "Our solders are not at Incirlik because of Turkey, but rather to fight Islamic State," said Julia Obermeier, a member of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats. Steinmeier told lawmakers that Germany was taking steps to help strengthen Turkish civil society, and would try to enable Turkish academics, journalists and artists who could not work in Turkey anymore to continue their work in Germany. (Reporting by Sabine Siebold and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Richard Balmforth; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Berlin (AFP) - German police launched an investigation Thursday after the addresses of Jewish institutions were published on Facebook by neo-Nazis on the anniversary of the 1938 pogroms against Jews.

A map pointing out locations of almost 70 synagogues, Jewish kindergartens, schools, memorials, businesses, restaurants and cemeteries was posted on the Facebook page of a far-right Berlin group, reported Tagesspiegel daily.

The words "Jews among us!" appeared in the Gothic font used by Nazis on the map published on Wednesday, November 9, the day which marks the pogroms known as "Kristallnacht" or "Night of the Broken Glass".

"A criminal complaint was filed over suspicion of incitement," a police spokeswoman told AFP, adding that Berlin officers were investigating.

An anti-far-right group called MBR, which had spotted the map on Facebook, together with the office of Green lawmaker Volker Beck informed the Jewish institutions listed to warn them of the neo-Nazi post, according to the Tagesspiegel.

The map was a chilling reminder of the lists of Jewish addresses published on the night of the 1938 pogroms.

During attacks of November 9 and 10, Nazi thugs plundered Jewish businesses throughout Germany, torched synagogues and rounded up about 30,000 Jewish men for deportation to concentration camps.

At least 90 Jews were killed in the violence.
Traunstein (Germany) (AFP) - A German rail dispatcher admitted at the start of his trial Thursday that his negligence caused a train crash that killed 12 people as he was playing a mobile phone game while on duty.

Michael Paul, 40, stands accused of involuntary manslaughter over the February accident near the southern town of Bad Aibling, in which two commuter trains collided head-on at high speed.

He faces five years' imprisonment over one of Germany's worst train crashes in decades.

Paul left his lawyers to read out his confession in which he admitted to negligence, but also addressed victims' relatives personally.

"I know that I cannot undo what has happened, even if I wish I could," he told them.

His lawyers said Paul admitted to playing a mobile phone game on duty, even though this was banned by the railway operators.

He ended up setting the wrong train signals, and although he had a chance to prevent the head-on crash through an emergency call placed to the train drivers, he dialled the wrong number, said his lawyer.

One of the passengers, Thomas Staudinger, 23, who was lightly injured in the accident, said he thought that the statement "was heartfelt."

But Peter Duerr, a lawyer for secondary plaintiffs, argued that the confession was a tactical move.

He said "the real question" would be how absorbed Paul was in the mobile phone game and to what extent this distracted him from his duty.

The accident was Germany's first fatal train crash since April 2012, when three people were killed and 13 injured in a collision between two regional trains in the western city of Offenbach.

The country's deadliest post-war rail accident happened in 1998 when a high-speed ICE train linking Munich and Hamburg derailed in the northern town of Eschede, killing 101 people and injuring 88.

Authorities said after the Bad Aibling disaster an investigation had ruled out a technical defect as the cause.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's highest court has approved the extended detention of a 19-year-old Syrian man who was arrested in March for links to the Islamic State militant group, saying he had scouted out key tourist sites in Berlin for potential attacks for months. In its decision, the Federal Court of Justice said the man, who was not identified by name, could be held for three more months to allow investigators to continue their work, and given the high risk that he could flee the country. It said prosecutors expected to file formal charges soon. The suspect, who arrived in Germany in August 2015, was believed to have been gathering detailed information for Islamic State until February 2016 about the number of people and tourist buses at Berlin's Alexanderplatz square, the area around the historic Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag parliament building, according to the ruling. Germany is on heightened alert after two attacks linked to Islamic State in July. On Tuesday, police arrested five suspected Islamist militants accused of recruiting fighters for Islamic State in Syria. In October, Syrian refugee Jaber Albakr was arrested on suspicion of planning a major attack on a Berlin airport. He later committed suicide in prison. It was not immediately clear if there was any link between Albakr and the Syrian man whose detention was being extended. The suspect provided details about Berlin tourist sites to an Islamic State contact by telephone in February 2016. He also offered, through electronic messages, to act as a contact for potential attackers in Germany, or carry out an attack himself with two other unidentified people, according to the report, first made public on Thursday. Investigators examined four mobile telephones and data cards seized during his arrest, and had so far reviewed over 37,000 text messages and chats, nearly 13,000 visual images and over 9,800 video images, according to the court document. They believe that the man had worked with Islamic State in Syria since 2013, and maintained contact with the jihadist group using his mobile phone after arriving in Germany. He also planned to return to Syria, where his parents, wife and son still live, to fight in the conflict there, according to the court document. (Reporting by Sabine Siebold and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - BayernLB [BAYLB.UL] entered into a partnership with Standard Chartered (STAN.L) on Thursday to get a foothold in Asia as the German bank seeks to capitalise on struggles at larger rivals.

BayernLB expects the cooperation - through which Standard Chartered will help finance Asian operations for German companies - to attract export-oriented small and medium-sized businesses, commonly referred to as the Mittelstand.

BayernLB, a local government owned lender, will in turn help provide loans for clients of Standard Chartered looking to move into the German market. Standard Chartered is based in London but has geared its business heavily towards Asia.

No financial targets for the partnership were given.

BayernLB hopes the deal will give it another leg up as Germany's two biggest banks, Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Commerzbank (CBKG.DE), restructure to cut costs.

BayernLB's A2 credit rating from Moody's on its long-term unsecured debt is a key advantage in the fight for corporate clients in Germany, BayernLB's corporate banking head Michael Buecker told media in Frankfurt.

"The single-A rating has such importance you can't imagine," Buecker said. "A lot of other banks now still have to detoxify."

Deutsche Bank has a Baa2 rating while Commerzbank has a Baa1 rating.

BayernLB has also had to recover from major setbacks in recent years, including at the height of the financial crisis when the German federal state of Bavaria which owns the bank funded a 10-billion-euro (8.79 billion) bailout of the lender.

(Reporting by Joshua Franklin and Andreas Kroener; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - BayernLB [BAYLB.UL] entered into a partnership with Standard Chartered <STAN.L> on Thursday to get a foothold in Asia as the German bank seeks to capitalize on struggles at larger rivals.

BayernLB expects the cooperation - through which Standard Chartered will help finance Asian operations for German companies - to attract export-oriented small and medium-sized businesses, commonly referred to as the Mittelstand.

BayernLB, a local government owned lender, will in turn help provide loans for clients of Standard Chartered looking to move into the German market. Standard Chartered is based in London but has geared its business heavily towards Asia.

No financial targets for the partnership were given.

BayernLB hopes the deal will give it another leg up as Germany's two biggest banks, Deutsche Bank <DBKGn.DE> and Commerzbank <CBKG.DE>, restructure to cut costs.

BayernLB's A2 credit rating from Moody's on its long-term unsecured debt is a key advantage in the fight for corporate clients in Germany, BayernLB's corporate banking head Michael Buecker told media in Frankfurt.

"The single-A rating has such importance you can't imagine," Buecker said. "A lot of other banks now still have to detoxify."

Deutsche Bank has a Baa2 rating while Commerzbank has a Baa1 rating.

BayernLB has also had to recover from major setbacks in recent years, including at the height of the financial crisis when the German federal state of Bavaria which owns the bank funded a 10-billion-euro ($11 billion) bailout of the lender.

($1 = 0.9174 euros)

(Reporting by Joshua Franklin and Andreas Kroener; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
LOS CABOS, Mexico  Mexican playwright turned laureled film scribe Gibran Portela, a co-screenwriter on Diego Quemada-Diezs La Jaula de Oro, Alonso Ruizpalacios Gueros and Amat Escalantes The Untamed, has completed two new screenplays, with Spains Beatriz Sanchis and Mexicos Yibran Assuad, while writing a new miniseries with Gabriel Ripstein.

La Jaula de Oro scooped Cannes Un Certain Talent Award in 2013; Gueros was a Berlin Best First Feature awardee in 2014, Amat Escalantes The Untamed took Venices 2016 best director plaudit.

Gueros editor Yibran Assuad is set to direct Todas Las Pecas del Mundo, (literally: All the Freckles in the World) a high-school comedy co-penned with Portela; It is scheduled to go into production next year.

A second Portela screenplay, A donde fue el verano, will be directed by Sanchis, who helmed Todos los muertos, (All Your Dead Ones), starring Elena Anaya.

Portela is also writing an untitled and potentially controversial eight-part TV mini-series with Gabriel Ripstein, a Berlin Best First Feature winner in 2015.

An alum of the Centro de Capacitation Cinematografica (CCC), one of Mexicos most prestigious film schools, Portela also writes for theatre group Bocanegra.

On El jaula de oro, Quemada-Diez brought in Portela when he was looking to pare down his screenplay, based on 600 interviews.

He helped me a lot to edit, synthesise, select the most important scene and write new ones, Quemada-Diez recalled.

Gibran has a great sense of humor. Hes very witty. I had a great time working with him, and he introduced more positive elements into the story, made it more human, he added.

Portela may also be one of Mexico`s budding auteurs. On paper, La Jaula de Oro, Gueros and The Untamed might seem worlds apart. An immigration thriller La Jaula de Oro tracks three teens, one a young Tzxotzil native, from Guatemala, across the length of Mexico, as they journey on train-tops to the U.S. border.

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Gueros follows three misfits  a rebel teen, his college slacker brother and larky best friend  as they cruise Mexico City, just as a massive students strike unspools nearby. In The Untamed a young wife battles misogyny and homophobia in Mexicos sticks while a tentacled alien creature offers humans exquisite sexual pleasure.

All have common points, however. Ones a sensitivity to film type. In its early going, La Jaula de Oro establishes a large Hollywood-style empathy with the three teens. Together with the films high-production values, this suggests the film could go the way of a feel-good triumph-over-adversity immigration drama. But in Jaulas mid-to-final stretches, these wishful assumptions are brutally and memorably shattered, as the films sobering bedrock realism sets in.

Shot in black and white and in Academy ratio, Gueros is part slice-of-life kitchen sink realism, part political theatre, part playful Nouvelle Vague joie de vivre,

For Portela himself, both La Jaula de Oro and Gueros talk about people who are looking for their place in the world. Thats something I find attractive about the characters.

Broadcasters, cablers and SVOD platforms are all driving into higher-end TV fiction.

In Mexico, with Blim and Netflix, therea a big demand for stories, Portela said.

So hes busier than ever, as a lot of people are. With his beard and glasses, Portela bears a passing resemblance to Mexican director Carlos Reygadas who has built a Splendor Omnium post-production facility in the mountains outside Mexico City.

Where would Portela like to be in five years? Somewhere not so dissimilar. Not so busy. Living outside Mexico City. Having a calm place to be in. Still making films. Maybe only screenplays and projects I like. On TV, becoming a show runner perhaps.

As the battle for true premium content in Mexico heats up, Portela may have to put off that dream for a while.

Related stories

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Los Cabos: Producer Carlos Sosa on Music, Nature and Docus

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Glamour Brazil

Dont forget to set you clocks back 50 years this week, because thats apparently where the world is headed.

If the election results werent devastating enough, take a look at this Instagram post by Glamour Brazil.

Glamour Brazil

The publication posted a Boomerang video last week of Glamour Brazil editors imitating stereotypical Asian features by pulling their eyes back. Its caption reads Our Glamour in Japan project has just come true! Here in this fun Boomerang with eyes pulled are those who made everything happen.

The post garnered more than 22,000 views, with plenty of negative comments on Instagram and Twitter calling out the offensive post.

What year is it @GlamourBR? Brasil has the most Japanese living outside of Japan. Arrived in early 1900s. Smarten up https://t.co/wzCUEumyOr  (((Nobu Adilman))) (@captaineyeliner) November 7, 2016

Where my power Asians at? Let's band together in fashion and stop bullying and racism. Let's show the world it is NOT a joke. @GlamourBR  David Yi (@seoulcialite) November 7, 2016

DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT, GLAMOUR BRASIL! https://t.co/L47Q0BabHl  Rayberry Relish ???? (@prancingpapio) November 4, 2016

To make matters worse, the post remained up for a whole 48 hours before it was deleted.

The publication later issued a public apology in English and Portuguese three days after the original post.

In it, the publication states that they had absolutely no intention to offend.

We are deeply sorry we have offended the Asian community and other followers, it writes. Glamour Brasil has always been known by its diversity and this episode has taught us a lot.

The magazine vows to be more careful and sensible in the future.

What do you think of Glamour Brazils Instagram post? Let us know by tweeting us @YahooStyleCA.




So much for the glass ceiling.

Hillary Clinton had planned for this moment her whole life, doing civil rights work in the South as a young lawyer, taking the role of first lady when another Yale-educated lawyer -- her husband, Bill Clinton -- won the White House, then running herself for the Senate. Bruised in a loss to Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination in 2008, she accepted the job of Secretary of State and waited for her chance to work from the Oval Office herself.

Her choice of venue for her expected victory party -- the Javits Center in mid-town Manhattan -- had a built-in glass ceiling to underscore the win the polls had virtually assured her of securing.

That dream ended early Wednesday morning, as Clinton grappled with the news that a businessman with no political or public policy experience, who came seemingly out of nowhere, had won instead.

The day had started with an ebullient, almost giddy tone. Across the country, women -- and some men -- donned pantsuits in solidarity with the Democratic nominee's de facto uniform. Others wore white, a color associated with the suffragette movement, and put "I voted" stickers on the grave of legendary feminist Susan B. Anthony. In lower Manhattan early Tuesday morning, a beaming woman posed for a photo with her young daughter as they prepared to go to the busy polls.

"I was the first woman in almost every job I ever held," says Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat who was the first female to represent her districts in the New York City Council and in Congress, and the first woman to chair the Joint Economic Committee. And Tuesday morning, Maloney near certain she was voting for the first female president.

Women indeed backed Clinton, exit polls showed. That's in part because females tend to vote Democratic, and partly because Trump had alienated women with the revelations about him bragging about using his fame to sexually assault women without consequence. But men strongly favored Trump, and while males make up a smaller segment of the electorate, it was enough to push Trump over the top. Early exit polls indicated that 2016 would have the biggest gender gap since the data started being collected in 1972.

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Her campaign was not focused on gender, but it was a constant undercurrent. Trump brushed off reports that he had walked in on beauty contestants -- including underage girls -- in a state of undress, that he had called it "disgusting" when a woman wanted a break from a court proceeding to pump breast milk and had referred to a Miss Universe as "Miss Piggy" when she gained weight and held a press conference for journalists and photographers to document her working out.

READ [Election Day 2016 Results]

At the Republican National Convention, vendors sold (and attendees wore) T-shirts saying "Trump the Bitch." The Texas Agriculture Commissioner tweeted a Pennsylvania poll result that referred to her as a c--t. And the gender-based vitriol didn't just come from Republicans; supporters of her Democratic primary opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, weaved it into their speeches and social media postings as well. "A uterus doesn't qualify you to be president of the United States," rapper Killer Mike said in a speech at a Sanders campaign event.

Before the results were in on Election Day, Eleanor Smeal, one of the founding leaders of the feminist movement of the 1960s and '70s, mused on Clinton's struggles and the gender-related issues and comments that characterized Clinton's fight for the ultimate job.

"It [was] outrageous," Smeal says. "She has been the most admired woman in the world longer than anybody. Her numbers were so high when she was Secretary of State. It was when she said she wanted to run for president that this whole negative, awful campaign was unleashed, bringing down her numbers."

On Wednesday morning, under a still-intact glass ceiling, Clinton called President-elect Donald Trump and conceded.

Susan Milligan is a political and foreign affairs writer and contributed to a biography of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, "Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy." Follow her on Twitter: @MilliganSusan
These glass igloos provide front row seats to the northern lights Wilderness has never looked more welcoming. (Photo: Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort)

Planning to catch a glimpse of the northern lights this winter? There are high-tech glass igloos for that in Finnish Lapland.

Aurora hunters who dare travel further north can take refuge in Kakslauttanen Artic Resorts strategically placed accommodation. Celebrating the frozen landscape with windows for walls, this hotel offers sightings of natural phenomenons in the sky.

But it isnt cheap, one night in this unique setting will cost you close to $750 (CAD) in December this year. A sacrifice many star-glazers have taken, given Kakslauttanens scarce availability this season. Our gallery will prove useful for those whod like to stay toasty and admire from afar.

Would you stay in this winter wonderland? Let us know by tweeting @YahooStyleCA.
* Google lawyer says EU ignored Apple in market assessment

* Google says bundling allows it to offer package for free

* Company faces hefty fine if found guilty (Adds complainant FairSearch comment)

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Google's Android mobile operating system boosts competition rather than hurts it, the company's general counsel said on Thursday, in a rebuttal of EU antitrust charges that it uses the platform to crush rivals.

The comments by Google general counsel Kent Walker on a blog came a week after the U.S. technology group rejected two other EU accusations of unfairly promoting its shopping service and blocking competitors in online search advertising.

The Android case could potentially be the most damaging for Google. Android has made about $31 billion in revenue and $22 billion in profit for Google since its release in 2008, an Oracle Corp lawyer told a U.S. court in January.

Android's market share in Europe is above 90 percent, according to the European Commission.

Walker said the Commission has got the whole case wrong, ignoring both the fierce rivalry with iPhone maker Apple , the demands from apps developers and the dangers of modified versions of Android.

"The response we filed today shows how the Android ecosystem carefully balances the interests of users, developers, hardware makers, and mobile network operators. Android hasn't hurt competition, it's expanded it," he said.

The case is distorted because the EU competition enforcer does not see Apple's iOS as a rival to Android, he said.

"To ignore competition with Apple is to miss the defining feature of today's competitive smartphone landscape," Walker said.

The company said it bundles some of its apps and products in order to offer the package for free instead of charging upfront licensing fees. Such a practice put Microsoft in the EU crosshairs, eventually resulting in millions of euros of fines for the U.S. software company.

Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso confirmed receipt of Google's response.

Story continues

Lobbying group and complainant FairSearch, whose members include U.S. travel sites Expedia and TripAdvisor , dismissed Google's arguments.

"The truth is that Android is today a closed operating system, and any claim to the contrary is disingenuous. Google imposes severe sanctions on those who defy its insistence on conformity," FairSearch lawyer Thomas Vinje said in a statement.

The EU antitrust enforcer intends to hit the company with deterrent fines in the Android and shopping cases, according to charge sheets seen by Reuters.

The penalty could reach $7.4 billion, or 10 percent of Google's global turnover, for each case if it is found guilty of breaching EU rules.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Jane Merriman and Mark Potter)
Brussels (AFP) - US Internet giant Google on Thursday rejected EU allegations that it abused the market dominance of its hugely successful Android mobile phone operating system.

The rapsheet targets one of Google's most sensitive businesses, as smartphones become by far the dominant player over PCs and laptops.

"Android hasn't hurt competition, it's expanded it," said Kent Walker, senior vice president and general counsel of Google, in a blog.

Google was responding to a long list of charges involving Android that Margrethe Vestager, the EU's outspoken competition commissioner, filed in April.

They include the claim that the firm used practices such as making manufacturers pre-install its market-leading search engine as well as its Chrome browser as the default in their phones.

"The response we filed today shows how the Android ecosytem carefully balances the interests of users, developers, hardware makers and mobile operators," Walker said.

Google's response comes a week after the company rejected separate EU charges over online shopping and its advertising services in a series of rulings against US companies that has raised hackles across the Atlantic.

The Android charges are seen as especially sensitive for one of Google's most strategic businesses that could alter a global smartphone sector which has taken over traditional PC's as the biggest segment in the world of computing.

The case only pertains to Android-run phones, with the European Commission not considering Apple's iPhone as a factor in the case.

- 'Into compliance' -

The EU in its charge sheet accused Google of obstructing innovation by giving unfair prominence to its own apps, especially its search engine, in deals with giant mobile manufacturers such as South Korea's Samsung or China's Huawei.

"No manufacturer is obliged to preload any Google apps on an Android phone," Google insisted.

Google is also accused of restricting manufacturers from installing rival versions or modifications of Android, an open source software operating system, on their phones.

Story continues

The commission, through a spokesman, confirmed the receipt of Google's official response.

"As is standard practice, we will carefully consider Google's response before taking any decision on how to proceed and cannot at this stage prejudge the final outcome of the investigation," it said.

Google critics rejected the company's arguments.

"Google imposes severe sanctions on those who defy its insistence on conformity," said Thomas Vinje, legal counsel to FairSearch, a group that represents many of the complainants in the case.

"This is a problem that law enforcement can solve, by acting to bring Google into compliance with competition law," he added.

Complainants who brought the case to the EU include Yandez, a Russia-based search engine that says Google is stopping it from expanding beyond Russia.

They also include telecom companies that are looking to have better control of the Android software they provide on their smartphones.

But Google, which originally created Android, says limiting changes by companies to the system helps software developers so they do not have to make many versions of their apps to run on different versions of Android.

Developers of apps such as Spotify or WhatsApp, "depend on a stable and consistent framework to do their work," Google said.
By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google's Android mobile operating system boosts competition rather than hurts it, the company's general counsel said on Thursday, in a rebuttal of EU antitrust charges that it uses the platform to crush rivals.

The comments by Google general counsel Kent Walker on a blog came a week after the U.S. technology group rejected two other EU accusations of unfairly promoting its shopping service and blocking competitors in online search advertising.

The Android case could potentially be the most damaging for Google. Android has made about $31 billion in revenue and $22 billion in profit for Google since its release in 2008, an Oracle Corp lawyer told a U.S. court in January.

Android's market share in Europe is above 90 percent, according to the European Commission.

Walker said the Commission has got the whole case wrong, ignoring both the fierce rivalry with iPhone maker Apple, the demands from apps developers and the dangers of modified versions of Android.

"The response we filed today shows how the Android ecosystem carefully balances the interests of users, developers, hardware makers, and mobile network operators. Android hasnt hurt competition, it's expanded it," he said.

The case is distorted because the EU competition enforcer does not see Apple's iOS as a rival to Android, he said.

"To ignore competition with Apple is to miss the defining feature of today's competitive smartphone landscape," Walker said.

The company said it bundles some of its apps and products in order to offer the package for free instead of charging upfront licensing fees. Such a practice put Microsoft in the EU crosshairs, eventually resulting in millions of euros of fines for the U.S. software company.

Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso confirmed receipt of Google's response.

Lobbying group and complainant FairSearch, whose members include U.S. travel sites Expedia and TripAdvisor, dismissed Google's arguments.

"The truth is that Android is today a closed operating system, and any claim to the contrary is disingenuous. Google imposes severe sanctions on those who defy its insistence on conformity," FairSearch lawyer Thomas Vinje said in a statement.

Story continues

The EU antitrust enforcer intends to hit the company with deterrent fines in the Android and shopping cases, according to charge sheets seen by Reuters.

The penalty could reach $7.4 billion, or 10 percent of Google's global turnover, for each case if it is found guilty of breaching EU rules.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Jane Merriman and Mark Potter)
"Grey Anatomy" actress Kate Walsh has been confirmed to be joining upcoming comedy movie "Girls Trip" reports Deadline.

The actress will star alongside Jada Pinkett-Smith, Queen Latifah, Regina Hall, Deborah Ayorinde and Mike Colter in the film, which tellls the story of college best friends who get together for their traditional trip to Essence magazine's annual convention in New Orleans.

"Scary Movie 5" director Malcolm Lee is helming the project, which will see Walsh play a crude and ballsy talent agent.

Walsh has also been confirmed for the Netflix comedy #REALITYHIGH, a film about nerdy girl who must learn how to handle the pitfalls of high school when a social media celebrity classmate becomes her enemy. Walsh will play a quirky, single doctor at an animal shelter who is always on the hunt for a man.

"Girls' Trip" is scheduled for release July 21, 2017 with #REALITYHIGH making its Netflix debut soon after on July 17.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The gunman who killed an elderly neighbor and critically wounded two other people in an Election Day shooting spree across the street from a Southern California polling station was under the influence of cocaine at the time, police said on Wednesday.

The 45-year-old suspect was killed by police gunfire on Tuesday in the normally quiet foothill town of Azusa, about 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Los Angeles, according to an update from the county sheriff's department.

Although the midday shooting rampage unfolded across the street from a polling place, disrupting voting activities at the venue, police have said it had nothing to do with the U.S. presidential election.

Authorities had said the gunman's motives were unknown. But the sheriff's department said in a statement on Wednesday that detectives since "have learned that the suspect was on a cocaine binge" when he stepped outside his home and began shooting at passing cars.

One woman was struck by gunfire while driving a van, which later crashed. The gunman then walked up to a 77-year-old neighbor and shot him dead, before shooting another woman down the street outside, police said.

The two women were hospitalized in critical condition.

Officers responding to initial reports of gunshots came under fire as they tried to assist victims at the scene. Returning fire, police then surrounded the house and cornered the suspect inside, according to authorities.

The man was found dead hours later when police finally gained entry to the home, authorities said. Neither the suspect nor his victims were publicly identified.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Sky Atlantic has announced a new comedy show for 2017, starring Heather Graham, Stephen Mangan and Jo Hartley.

Entitled "Bliss," the show has been written and directed by Emmy Award-winning David Cross, known for his work on "Arrested Development" and "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret."

The show is set to be a six-part series and will join Sky Atlantic's new line-up of original comedies for next year including "Sick Note" and "The Trip to Spain."

The series will follow the complicated double life of Andrew (Mangan), a successful travel writer who is struggling to juggle two families, who are blissfully unaware that the other exists.

Andrew must find a way to balance his time between his wife Kim (Graham) and teenage daughter, and wife Denise (Hartley) and their teenage son.

However as his two worlds become harder to control, so does his sanity.
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As it became more and more likely on Election Night that Donald Trump was heading for a shocking victory, users flooded Canada's immigration website and caused it to crash.

SEE ALSO: What you should know if you're planning a move to Canada

Now, we're learning more about who was flooding the site. The CBC reports that approximately 200,000 people were on the site at one time on Election Night, and half of those people were American.

Officials confirm to CBC that 200,000 people, half from US addresses, were on Canada immigration site when it crashed on election night.1/2  CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) November 10, 2016

For reference's sake, a week before the election, when Hillary Clinton was leading in most polls, the average daily traffic was around 17,000 people with fewer than 2,000 of those being from the United States.

A week earlier, traffic was 17,000 with average 10% of that from the U.S. Traffic was 12 times normal rate as Trump's victory sank in. 2/2  CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) November 10, 2016

Beyond those rough estimates, we still don't know much. A spokesperson for the department told Mashable that it's too early to know the exact number of immigration applications submitted since Election Day.

Canada expects to welcome 300,000 new citizens in 2017, but how many of those will be American remains to be seen. According to data provided by Canada's immigration office, 6,664 Americans became new citizens of Canada in 2015.

Planning a flight to Canada after Nov 9? Our entry rules have changed. You may need an eTA. https://t.co/5nXMj5hrrX  CIC (@CitImmCanada) November 3, 2016

While much of the interest is just intense emotional reaction to Trump's election, for those who try to follow through on the threat, the road to becoming Canadian is actually pretty tough. Immigration lawyer Chantal Desloges told the Globe and Mail:

So, remember: you can try to immigrate to Canada, but you'd better have a damn good sales pitch when you do.
Remittances

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Payments Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

After Donald Trump unexpectedly clinched the US presidency early Wednesday, the uncertainty rippling through the world could extend to the payments industry in a few key ways.

A Trump presidency could limit one of US remittance firms largest drivers of business.

Trump at one point threatened to cut off remittance send from the US to Mexico. Back in April, the Washington Post received a memo regarding Trumps plans to fund his proposed 1,000-mile border wall between the US and Mexico. In the memo, Trump noted that he planned to force Mexico to pay for the wall by invoking the US Patriot Act to cut off portions of the flow of money between the US and Mexico until Mexico made a one-time $5 billion-$10 billion payment. That monetary flow would likely include remittances.

That could drastically curtail the operations of US remittance firms. Mexico is the largest receive destination for US remittances, cashing $25 billion in 2015, according to the World Bank. The strength of that corridor is pushing firms to double down on Mexico  for instance, Western Union recently nearly doubled the size of its retail network in the country, and MoneyGram unveiled a product in partnership with Walmart to make it easier and less expensive to send money from the US to Mexico. Cutting off access to the corridor, even temporarily, could drastically change the trajectory for these companies.

Trump's victory could also impact two key categories of transaction volume.

Domestic spend: The election's results will likely bring about economic uncertainty to US markets, which could affect how businesses and consumers spend. An increase in economic uncertainty is often accompanied by a decrease in consumer confidence. This, in turn, may lead to businesses and citizens mitigating any risk of a potential economic downturn by implementing safeguards such as hiring freezes or holding more in savings rather than spending. A reduction in spending would likely have a negative impact on sales for all the major players in the payments ecosystem, including but not limited to credit card companies, payment gateways, retailers, and even banks.

Cross-border spend: Throughout his candidacy, Trump emphasized bringing manufacturing back to America, specifically taking aim at firms like Apple to build its products in the US rather than China. If Donald Trump pushes isolationist trade policies and issues tougher manufacturing restrictions, there could be a huge shift in how both consumers and businesses make international transactions. There would likely be a major decrease in international spending as more consumers are either unable to make transactions due to restrictions or unwilling to pay any extra fees.

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Regardless of how Trump's presidency unfolds, the payments ecosystem will continue to grow and change.

Evan Bakker and John Heggestuen, senior analysts at BI Intelligence, have compiled a detailed report on the payments ecosystem that drills into the industry to explain how a broad range of transactions are processed, including prepaid and store cards, as well as revealing which types of companies are in the best and worst position to capitalize on the latest industry trends.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:



2016 will be a watershed year for the payments industry. Payments companies are improving security, expanding their mobile offerings, and building commerce capabilities that will give consumers a more compelling reason to make purchases using digital devices.

Payments is an extremely complex industry. To understand the next big digital opportunity lies, it's critical to understand how the traditional credit- and debit-processing chain works and what roles acquirers, processors, issuing banks, card networks, independent sales organizations, gateways, and software and hardware providers play.

Alternative technologies could disrupt the processing ecosystem. Devices ranging from refrigerators to smartwatches now feature payment capabilities, which will spur changes in consumer payment behaviors. Likewise, blockchain technology, the protocol that underlies Bitcoin, could one day change how consumer card payments are verified.

In full, the report:



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After a tough election loss, Hillary Clinton and one of her supporters had the same idea.

One voter shared a moving photo of a run-in she had with the Democratic presidential nominee on Thursday while hiking in Chappaqua, New York.

"I've been feeling so heartbroken since yesterday's election and decided what better way to relax than take my girls hiking. So I decided to take them to one of favorite places in Chappaqua," she wrote on Facebook. "We were the only ones there and it was so beautiful and relaxing. As we were leaving, I heard a bit of rustling coming towards me and as I stepped into the clearing there she was, Hillary Clinton and Bill with their dogs doing exactly the same thing as I was."

WATCH: Hillary Clinton Gives Concession Speech Day After Donald Trump Wins Presidential Election: 'Never Stop Believing'

"I got to hug her and talk to her and tell her that one of my most proudest moments as a mother was taking Phoebe with me to vote for her," she revealed. "She hugged me and thanked me and we exchanged some sweet pleasantries and then I let them continue their walk. Now, I'm not one for signs but I think ill definitely take this one. So proud. #iamstillwithher #lovetrumpshate #keepfighting #lightfollowsdarkness."

During her concession speech on Wednesday, Clinton offered a hopeful message of gratitude to her supporters.

MORE: Jennifer Lawrence Pens Essay After Trump Win: 'Do Not Let This Defeat You, Let This Enrage You'

"You represent the best of America, and being your candidate has been one of the greatest honors of my life," she shared. "This is painful, and it will be for a long time."

"I have spent my entire adult life fighting for what I believe in. I've had successes and setbacks," she told her supporters. "This loss hurts, but please never stop believing and fighting for what's right. It's worth it."

Story continues

MORE: Mark Zuckerberg Shares Message of Hope After Watching Donald Trump Victory With Daughter Max

"And to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams," she proclaimed. "We still have not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling -- but some day, someone will."

Watch the video below.

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From Esquire

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA-She gave a great speech, powerful and graceful and leavened with enough obvious pain to belie (once again) the cartoon that too many people in this business have made of her. Per CNN:

"Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and a chance to leadThis is not the outcome that we wanted and we worked so hard for, and I am sorry that we did not win this electionI know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday, someone will, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.To all the women and especially the young women who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion," Clinton said, her voice breaking with emotion. "And to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and to achieve your own dreams."

In May, in the middle of what was her long slog toward her party's nomination, this is what I wrote about Hillary Rodham Clinton as a competitor in what already was a surreal and unique presidential campaign.

If this year has proven anything, it's that any Democrat that gets in the race against He, Trump is going to have to run a campaign that is both razor-sharp and incredibly dexterous. After all, you are running against a walking fiction, a performance piece that has had a longer run than anyone could have anticipated. You're not running against a human being. If you were, the human being that is He, Trump would have been out of the race before Scott Walker was. Instead, you are running against the idea of Trump, against the walking representation of the desire of many angry white people to hock a loogie at the system and then walk away, high-fiving and bro-hugging their way to glory. It is the height of understatement to call what He, Trump is doing "unconventional." Jerry Brown was "unconventional." Hell, Ben Carson was "unconventional." He, Trump is something far beyond that.

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He, Trump is running a very different, and a very shrewd, campaign. He allows his audience to assume he's the smartest guy in the room while telling them how smart they are for realizing that. He is making a kind of intellectual appeal to their emotions. It is going to take a kind of political genius to counter that, day after day, for the next six months. It is going to take the ability to match He, Trump head-fake for head-fake so as to make him pay for the approximately 9,768 policy reversals he's going to undertake between now and election day.

I wish I could take back a syllable of that, but I don't. In politics, I don't have many hard and fast rules, but one of them in which I believe deeply is the concept of horses for courses. Some politicians are built to beat certain politicians and they are helpless against others. For every successful politician, there is, out there, somewhere, the perfect foil. You spend your entire political career hoping you never run into that person. As it turns out, HRC's perfect foil was Donald Trump.

Photo credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty

She was smart and careful, full of nine-point plans and ideas, and she was a woman. He was ignorant and reckless, full of vague promises and wild threats, and he was a man, a faux alpha-male appealing to various alpha-male wannabes. She never found a language in which she could plausibly engage him on that level, on the battleground he spent the primary process creating. Her speech on Wednesday was heartfelt and warm, and it still was not in the language within which this election ultimately was conducted. The closest she came was in what sounded at first like a warning, and then like the emptiest of threats. She found the language of the campaign at last, about 18 hours after anyone stopped listening.

"Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power and we don't just respect that, we cherish it. It also enshrines other things: the rule of law, the principle that we are equal in rights and dignity, freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values too and we must defend them."

And thus ends a long and honorable career in public service. But it does not end HRC's public life. She is going to be investigated by Congress because the Republicans there are going to feel empowered to do so and they are going to need a diversion to prove to the new crowd in the White House that they are with the program. Trying to put HRC in jail is going to be the ultimate loyalty oath.

Failing that, and with the cooperation of an elite political media that just can't resist the prospect, the campaign to demolish her reputation will run on a parallel track to the campaign to erase the legacy of the president who was defeated on Tuesday night as surely as she was. Ugliness is going to be the ultimate loyalty oath.

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It may have been Hillary's Clinton's best speech of her political career. And it was the one that effectively marked the end of it.

Looking sad, resigned and oddly hopeful after a stunning loss to Donald Trump, Clinton acknowledged her profound disappointment in losing the presidential election but urged her supporters to continue her hard-fought but unsuccessful quest to shatter the metaphorical glass ceiling.

"This is painful, and it will be for a long time," Clinton, appearing at times to fight back tears, told staffers and supporters at a midtown Manhattan hotel. "I've had successes and I've had setbacks. Sometimes really painful ones," she added with a wry smile. "This loss hurts, but, please, never stop believing that fighting for what's right is worth it."

Of Trump -- the man she called unfit to be president and who repeatedly referred to her as "Crooked Hillary" -- Clinton called on her supporters to root for his success in the office.

"Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead," she said, saying that she wants her election foe to "be a successful president for all Americans."

President Barack Obama, speaking from the White House soon after Clinton concluded her remarks, repeated the refrain.

"We are all now rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country," Obama said.

The speech, much like Trump's victory address hours before, was markedly gracious and conciliatory after a bitterly combative campaign. Virtually no one -- least of all the Clinton campaign, which had planned a massive celebration in the glass-ceilinged Javits Center on Tuesday night -- had expected the former secretary of state to deliver her second concession speech of her two presidential campaigns.

But Clinton, whom aides said had prepared both a victory speech and a concession speech despite polling that overwhelmingly showed her the favorite, had the never-give-up tone and rhetoric that characterized both her 2008 and 2016 primary campaigns. She spoke directly to the women and young people who had worked for her campaign, pleading with them not to abandon the fight for an "inclusive" America.

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"To all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion," Clinton said, her voice breaking up.

"And to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and to achieve your own dreams," added Clinton, who was flanked by a grim-faced Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea Clinton.

Some in the room were audibly weeping during Clinton's remarks, as the Democratic nominee put an official stamp on the overnight news that she would not, after all, become the nation's first female president.

Women indeed had some notable successes Tuesday night that were overshadowed by Clinton's loss. Three females were newly elected to the U.S. Senate, including the first Latina in Nevada Sen.-elect Catherine Cortez Masto and the second African-American woman in California Sen.-elect Kamala Harris. The razor-thin victories of Maggie Hassan to the Senate and Carol Shea-Porter to the House mean New Hampshire, which went very narrowly for Clinton, will have an all-female, all-Democratic delegation to Congress.

But the failure to take the top job disheartened activists who have been working decades to elect more women to high office.

"The results of last night's presidential election make one thing clear: Our work is far from over. Like you, we are all in shock and it will take time to understand what happened," Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY's List, said in a statement.

Clinton had denounced Trump as not only unqualified to be president but as a man who had disqualified himself by making offensive comments about women, Latinos, people with disabilities and Muslims. She had thought the aggrieved groups would catapult her to victory, eager to keep Trump out of the White House.

But despite a strong ground game and ensuing jump in Latino voter turnout, Clinton could not cobble together the states needed for victory. On Wednesday, Clinton was ahead in the popular vote, but losses in Rust Belt states as well as Florida kept her from winning the Electoral College.

Clinton made no comments about Trump's campaign season remarks and behavior. But she did send a message that her supporters should not let go of the values they fought for in the race.

"Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power and we don't just respect that, we cherish it. It also enshrines other things: the rule of law, the principle that we are equal in rights and dignity, freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values too and we must defend them," Clinton said.

It was the second presidential campaign concession speech for Clinton, who surrendered the battle for the Democratic nomination in 2008 to Barack Obama. Then, an emotional Clinton bucked up and noted the remarkable progress she had made in coming so close to getting the nomination.

"Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it," Clinton said in 2008. "And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time."

This year, Clinton kept the optimism about shattering that last barrier for women. But she acknowledged it wasn't going to be her who did it.

"I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday, someone will, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now," Clinton said.

Susan Milligan is a political and foreign affairs writer and contributed to a biography of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, "Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy." Follow her on Twitter: @MilliganSusan
By Peter Eisler BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The unraveling of the coalition that was supposed to carry Hillary Clinton to the White House had a lot to do with voters like Jim McAndrew in counties like Northampton, Pennsylvania. McAndrew, 69, a retired steel worker, voted Democrat in every presidential election for half a century. This year he stayed home. And Northampton County, a heavily white, heavily Democratic, largely working class area that backed President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, went for Donald Trump, a Republican. McAndrew, who voted for Obama in the two previous races, was intrigued by Trump, but decided eventually that all he does is insult everybody ... women, black people, white people, rich, poor. Hes an idiot. He considered Clinton, but was concerned by the scandal over her handling of classified material on a private email server as secretary of state. I hated both of them, so I just said, the hell with it, McAndrew said. His wife, also a life-long Democrat, went to the polls without him - and voted Republican. First time ever," he said. Trumps ability to flip reliably Democratic counties like Northampton helped drive his victory in the presidential election this week. It was critical to his win in Pennsylvania and other Rust Belt states, a bulwark in the Democrats electoral strategy for winning the White House, and it helped fuel his victories in critical swing states, such as Florida and North Carolina. Its not that Trumps economic populism and "America First" messages generated widespread enthusiasm; he won some of those counties with far fewer votes than Mitt Romney captured as the Republican nominee in 2012. Nationwide, Trumps 59.7 million votes are about 1.2 million behind the 60.9 million Romney got when he lost four years ago, based on initial projections. But Clintons troubles holding on to Democratic voters were far more stark. Some crossed party lines for Trump or backed an independent. Many just stayed home. Clinton won the popular vote with 59.9 million votes, 6 million fewer than the 65.9 million Obama won in 2012. And her weakness in traditionally Democratic areas helped cost her the electoral college that chooses the winner of the election. Clinton came across as a status quo candidate unlikely to shake up the Washington establishment, says Mike Sly, 74, a retiree and independent voter in Pinellas County, Florida, who backed Obama in 2012 and voted for Trump this year. Clintons message failed to convince him that she would address his concerns about the state of the economy and rising health insurance premiums under Obamas Affordable Care Act. The race came down to basically what change do I think is going to happen, and how I think it is going to happen, Sly says. I felt that Hillary really carried too much baggage to be trusted. NEW COALITIONS Clintons loss in Florida, a key battleground state, stemmed partly from her inability to hold voters like Sly in white, middle- and working-class areas that previously went Democrat. In vote-rich Pinellas, a beach community popular with retirees in the Tampa Bay region, Trump won 48 percent of the vote, besting Clintons 47 percent. In 2012, Obama won 52 percent. Nationally, initial projections show low voter turnout of just over 55 percent, the worst since the contested election of 2000, when Republican George W. Bush defeated then-Democratic Vice President Al Gore. In Obamas first victory, turnout was more than 62 percent. Clinton beat Trump among black and Hispanic voters, but her effort to forge a winning coalition by leveraging that strength in diverse, urban areas was upended by Trumps strength among whites. Meanwhile, Trump still managed to hold roughly the same level of minority support that Romney got in 2012. The pattern held true not only in rural areas, but also in many suburbs, particularly in the Rust Belt and the South, that tipped towards Obama in the previous two presidential races. It was pretty much a base election, but one group was better at turning out their voters than the other, says Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political science professor. In Gates County, North Carolina, Trumps vows to crack down on illegal immigration and police Muslim communities for radicalism resonated, says Eric J. Earhart, 49, pastor of the evangelical Upper Room Assembly church. There has been a definite shift over the past eight years away from us being a Judeo-Christian nation, Earhart adds, and many congregants worry about that. The rural county of 12,000 people went for Obama in 2012 with 52 percent of the vote, but it flipped into Trumps column in this years race, giving him 53 percent. Thomas Hill, 38, chairman of the Gates County Republican Party, says voters also were attracted to Trumps blunt speaking and his pledge to bring back manufacturing jobs that went overseas. Trumps economic message, which included a promise to kill free trade agreements that are unpopular among many working-class voters in industrial areas, also succeeded in Macomb County, Michigan, a predominantly white area north of Detroit. The number of voters casting ballots in the county jumped by more than 14,000 over 2012, and Trump captured 53 percent of the vote to Clintons 42 percent. Four years ago, Obama won the county with just under 52 percent of the vote. Youve got a lot of blue collar workers here (and) ... a lot of union guys, and they went Republican, says David Phair, 59, a construction worker and Trump voter who didnt cast a ballot in 2012. Theyre tired of politicians. Phair also liked Trumps promise to end illegal immigration. Im looking forward to how hes going to handle illegal aliens. DEFYING EXPECTATIONS In Pennsylvania, Northampton County and neighboring Lehigh County, once reliant on steel companies, have bounced back from the industrys decline. In Bethlehem, which straddles the two counties, new development has mushroomed around the old steel mill, including a Sands casino resort with 2,400 employees. E-commerce companies, white collar firms and big corporations, such as Olympus, the Japanese imaging giant, have also moved to the region. Lehigh and Northampton counties have a larger share of households than the state as a whole that earn more than $75,000, about 36 percent. All that suggests ripe country for Clinton. But the counties also are whiter and older than the country as a whole. And Trump dominated voting among older whites. Around the table where McAndrew has a weekly poker game in the basement of the United Steel Workers office in Bethlehem, the retired men of the citys steel mills have different opinions on why Clinton failed to match Obamas success in the region. But they agree that she didnt offer a compelling message. Among the five at the table, all lifelong Democrats, only three cast votes for Clinton. She was going to continue everything the way it is and a lot of people think there are things that need to be changed, says Ken Rayden, 80, who voted for Clinton, but mainly out of party loyalty. She didnt show the people anything new. (Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Florida, Howard Schneider in Washington, DC, Gary Robertson in North Carolina, and Tim Branfalt in Michigan. Editing by Jason Szep and Ross Colvin)
By Maki Shiraki MARYSVILLE (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co <7267.T> is shifting around its North American vehicle production mix and may raise imports from Japan to squeeze out more SUVs as it struggles to keep up with strong U.S. demand for larger models, a factor which has prompted the automaker to trim its annual sales forecast. From early next year, Honda will dedicate production at its Alabama plant to its Pilot SUV, Ridgeline pick-up truck and Odyssey minivan, shifting production of its luxury Acura MDX SUV to its plant in Ohio as part of efforts to align its overall production of popular models to better reflect market demand. Demand for multi-tasking vehicles from cost-conscious consumers and historically low gasoline prices have ramped up demand for SUVs and other larger models over that of passenger cars. So far this year, roughly 59 percent of all new vehicles sold in the world's No.2 automaker have been light trucks, versus 41 percent passenger vehicles, compared with 55 percent and 45 percent, respectively, a year earlier. In comments scheduled for release on Thursday, American Honda Motor Co CEO Toshiaki Mikoshiba told reporters that by also shifting more production of its popular CR-V model to its Indiana plant from Mexico, and producing more of its HR-V models in Mexico, the company planned to lift its production weighting between light trucks and passenger cars more in favor of light trucks, from an even balance currently. "While maintaining our current overall capacity (in North America), we'd like to also consider our production options in Japan ... to produce more light trucks to respond to strong demand," Mikoshiba said. "So long as we don't see a sudden reversal in gasoline prices, we believe this would be the right move for the market." Japan's third-largest automaker by vehicle sales also said that it was considering producing the CR-V and the Civic sedan in Japan to be exported to North America to fill any gaps in local production. Honda is planning to market the recently revamped Civic in Japan, which a company spokeswoman said would add to production capacity, while it is also considering marketing the latest CR-V at home. Last month, Honda lowered its annual North American vehicle sales forecast to 1.985 million, from its previous expectation for 1.990 million, due in part to the skew in market demand. (Reporting by Maki Shiraki; Writing by Naomi Tajitsu)
Tegucigalpa (AFP) - Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez vowed Thursday to ensure Hondurans living in the United States -- many of them illegally -- are protected, following the election of Donald Trump on an anti-immigrant platform.

"We are going to fight to defend our people, as you would expect," Hernandez said in an interview with the private television network Televicentro.

Among his campaign promises, Trump said he would deport undocumented migrants in the United States, focusing on those with criminal records. He also said he would jail deported migrants who attempted to return.

The United States has an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants, the overwhelming majority from Latin America, especially Mexico and Central America.

There are around one million Hondurans in America, most of them there illegally. They send some $4 billion a year in remittances to their families in their native country -- accounting for 20 percent of Honduras' gross domestic product.

Guatemala's government on Wednesday likewise urged Trump to ensure the "protection" of its 1.5 million citizens in the US.

The Honduran president said he was not unduly "preoccupied" by Trump becoming US president, explaining that the US Congress and other institutions can limit executive power.

Hernandez said he also foresaw no changes to the Alliance for Prosperity plan, under which the United States seeks to reduce migration from troubled Central American states by providing $750 million in development aid and security.
By Julia Edwards Ainsley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the House of Representatives hope to offer President-elect Donald Trump an alternate plan to his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, a first test by lawmakers from his own party of one of his key campaign promises. Just a day after Trump's stunning election victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, congressional aides told Reuters the lawmakers wanted to meet with Trump's advisers to discuss a less costly option to his "big, beautiful, powerful wall." The plan would involve more border fencing and additional border staffing with federal agents, many of whom belong to labor unions that supported Trump's candidacy, the aides said. Double layers of fencing would be extended along parts of the roughly 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border, rather than constructing a brick-and-mortar wall, according to the proposal. A House Republican aide and a Department of Homeland Security official said a wall was not realistic because it would block visibility for border agents and cut through rugged terrain, as well as bodies of water and private land. The House aide said House Republicans working on the alternative plan were waiting for Trump's transition team to be put in place before setting a date for the meeting. A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment on the lawmakers' proposal or their desired meeting. Mexico said on Wednesday that it would not pay for a border wall, as Trump has pledged. Immigration was a central feature of the Trump campaign, focusing on concerns among some voters about illegal immigrants and perceptions they take jobs and pose security risks. Before the Republican convention in July, party platform committee members successfully petitioned delegates to add language about the proposed wall to the platform statement. But U.S. Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has called a wall along the entire border a "knee-jerk" reaction and has not mentioned the idea in legislation on Capitol Hill. If Congress stands up to Trump, his wall may end up being a fence extension, said Steve Legomsky, professor emeritus and immigration law expert at Washington University School of Law. "Congress won't fund the kind of wall Trump promised, and Mexico won't pay for it. But to save face, President Trump and congressional leaders will likely agree to a modest extension of the existing border fence," Legomsky predicted. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Wednesday that border security was an important agenda item that he wanted to achieve "in whatever way is the most effective." The National Border Patrol Council, a union representing border agents, said the agency had already had a difficult time meeting hiring goals mandated by Congress. (Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley, Additional reporting by Julia Harte and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Millennials react to Donald Trump winning the presidential election, from excitement to shock and fear. (Photo: Getty Images)

I am really scared, Blair Imani, the executive director of Equality for HER, tells Yahoo Beauty about how she feels after Republican nominee Donald Trump won the election for the American presidency.

Imani, a young woman and activist who is black and Muslim, tweeted on election night:

I'm scared that today will be the last day I felt somewhat safe wearing my hijab. https://t.co/C29V7GGOXj  Blair Imani (@BlairImani) November 9, 2016

And on Nov. 9:

Today I bought hats because I still want to cover. https://t.co/E8J76Wvf5O  Blair Imani (@BlairImani) November 9, 2016

I just got back from the store  I was shopping for a hat, Imani tells Yahoo Beauty, speaking from her cellphone on a New York City street. I have an interview by Trump Tower to go to, and I am scared to wear my hijab. I was stopped by someone on the subway today. It is very scary.

While many progressive millennials are deeply concerned about what a Trump presidency will look like, young conservative activists are having their own responses to the Republican nominee winning the election.

Our job is to keep him accountable to every pro-life promise he made, Lila Rose, the founder of Live Action, tells Yahoo Beauty. We need to make sure they come to fruition to make sure that millions of lives are saved. Our work is cut out for us.

We must unite to hold Trump to his pledges to defund @PPact, appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices, and end taxpayer-funded abortions.  Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) November 9, 2016

But for Yong Jung Cho, one of the leaders of All of Us 2016, a progressive organizing coalition that is focused on building a multiracial millennial generation committed to fighting racism, inequality, and economic injustice, a Trump presidency evokes fear and concern.

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When Trump was announced as the next president, Cho says, I was really scared. That was my first feeling. And I was really sad for my family and for our country. And really disappointed about how much racism and misogyny still runs our country  and the fear thats built upon racism in particular, and the hate built on racism, and how politicians like Trump use hate and fear as a strategy to court white voters is still incredibly real. And so, with that, we have so much more work ahead of us to make this country that represents all of us.

We always knew this. I'll say it again. It's up to #allofus to create the community, country and economy that we deserve #ElectionDay  Yong Jung Cho (@YongJungC) November 9, 2016

On Nov. 9, Cho participated in a candlelight vigil she helped to organize in front of the White House.

Giant march on Trump Hotel in DC to say that this is not our America. #WeStandTogether #AllOfUs pic.twitter.com/dvbgMp2Rjs  #AllofUs (@AllOfUs2016) November 9, 2016

For some conservative millennial activists, however, having a pro-life president-elect is invigorating for their movement. Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life, tells Yahoo Beauty, Last nights victory was historic for the movement. We now have a pro-life president overseeing a House and a Senate with a pro-life majority. [Trump] made very specific promises as to what he will do as president of the United States  for the first time, we have a candidate making specific promises to our movement.

Hawkins says that moving forward, much of the work she and her peers will be focused on is defunding Planned Parenthood and that she is excited about being able to advocate in a way that can make an impact. Hawkins adds: We have different tactics than the previous generations  were focusing our sights on defunding Planned Parenthood and making a difference.

Along with the threat to womens reproductive rights and access to care, some progressive millennial activists are worried about what it will mean to not only have a Republican president but also a Republican majority in the House and Senate. Sadie Hernandez, a Latinx activist and member of Planned Parenthoods Young Leaders Advisory Council, tells Yahoo Beauty, Trumps election came with the worst-case scenario: complete Republican control. This is not surprising, as weve seen the backlash white America has had with the modern progression of marginalized people in our country. As a Xicana living on the border in Texas, I cant even bring myself to imagine what atrocities will happen in my community and state during the Trump administration. This was a loss across all fronts.

We are literally in the worst case scenario. Republicans control the Senate, House, Governors, and presidency. Everything. EVERYTHING  sadie (@sadieeehdz) November 9, 2016

Hernandez continues, Not only will we see great loss politically, but socially  boundaries and the ideas of basic human decency have been shattered. From here on out, activists and organizers will have to be more vigilant, creative, and supported than ever.

Other progressive millennials are concerned about how a Trump presidency might impact sexual harassment and assault on campus. President Obama took urgent steps to finally address widespread sexual harassment and violence on campus  and it is absolutely critical that the next administration doesnt undo the progress that weve made, Sejal Singh is a policy organizer with Know Your IX, the student-led activist group that helps student activists and student survivors organize on issues related to gender-based and sexual violence in academic settings, tells Yahoo Beauty. Donald Trump and his surrogates have raised the possibility of shuttering the Education Departments Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is responsible for enforcing nondiscrimination laws in education, including Title IX. Closing OCR would be an absolute disaster for survivors, safe schools, and educational access in America.

Singh adds, While Donald Trump has publicly floated the idea of closing OCR, we know it would be a deeply unpopular one. The opportunity to learn is a fundamental American value, and the American people care about students getting a safe education that isnt disrupted by sexual assault. We know that they support keeping OCR in place and well-staffed, because closing it puts students at heightened risk of sexual and dating violence.

So what were you saying about how being accused of sexual assault and harassment "destroys a man's life and career"?  Sejal Singh (@Sej_Singh) November 9, 2016

But even some conservative millennials, like Rose, dont necessarily see Trump as their champion.

We have our work cut out for us, adds Rose. Trump was not the strongest in a field of candidates who had far deeper background on life. And millennials were given the short end of the stick politically in the Democratic Party  they had no pro-life candidates for them to choose from. Now, we dont know what will happen. I know a lot of people have a lot of concerns about Trumps candidacy. But they had even more concerns about Clintons, especially when it comes to life. But theres a path forward here now. Theres a path to appoint justices who respect human rights. Theres a path forward in our communities to help single mothers and young children. We have our work cut out for us, we need to reach out across the aisle and do good work to protect the weak.

Let's make today a day for mercy; how we talk to each other, how we treat each other, how we pray, and how we live.  Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) November 9, 2016

But for Imani, its a very different demographic that needs the most empathy today. Im really concerned about immigration and mass deportation, she says. But more than that, its the nonlegislative issues. Im most scared of the sentiment. The culture has spoken. There are a mass amount of people who dont want us here.

She adds that today, her fellow progressive millennials have to make sure that the most vulnerable people in your community are safe from retaliation from Pence and Trump. And this manifests in everything from public housing to womens decisions about their reproductive health care.

Imani also notes that, at this time, many activists who feel other as a result of the Trump election should also do self care. Do not apologize for doing things like not wearing hijab to preserve yourselves. Just take a breather. This isnt anything we havent survived before. Thats not totally encouraging or reassuring, but its true. Dont give up  and take care of yourself while you care for your community.

Echoes Singh, Survivors should take care of themselves and be with their communities today. But I know that I have found healing in fighting for my rights and for the rights of people like me  so to any survivors out there, when youre ready, I welcome you to join this fight with us. It is only more urgent today.

Singh also notes that the millennials, like those who make up Know Your IX, are on the frontline of the gender justice, racial justice, LGBT rights, disability justice fights  and are all likewise intersectionally committed to making sure that there is a federal government in place who works with us to fulfill our civil right to equal access to education.

Adds Imani, In an awful way, the Trump presidency will be good for the movement. The level of sustained violence we will be experiencing as activists will need a sustained method of organizing. This is a time for people to really put their noses to the grindstone.

Singh also points to this map as the most important map of the election. If only people 18-25 had voted, Trump would have lost in a landslide, with only 23 electoral votes. The future voted to reject his hatred of people of color, women, immigrants, and queer and trans people. Our job now is to empower committed young people as we, no matter the opposition, work hand-in-hand to realize our vision of a better world.

Ilyse Hogue is the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, a group that turned out huge numbers of millennial organizers in this election cycle. She tells Yahoo Beauty that shes now hearing these young activists express shock and sadness. We are hearing a lot of what Im going to call today reckoning,' Hogue says. People actually realizing that we live in a country that isnt going to just naturally politically reflect the future.

Hogue adds that Trumps victory last night was a physical representation of the fact that when a new generation is rising, the old generation just digs in tighter. This was a backlash against the changes going on in our country, changes that millennials represent just by the nature of who they are. They are demanding equality and justice and plurality. This election is clutching to a power system that is outdated and threatened by those vary values that so many millennials hold dear. I think people are realizing that power doesnt just shift naturally. You have to commit really deeply to making [institutions] reflect the next generation  and that takes playing a long game and that takes working together. Electoral politics is just one component of it. Legislation is another component. Doing service work, getting involved in communities, caring about local races  these are all parts.  But organizing can create a community that can advocate for itself and that creates political power in a new set of values already being lived. And Im seeing that happen naturally.

Hernandez says this is anything but the end of progressive millennial activism. This election will only make us stronger and more resistant, she says. We will take back the progress weve made and create our own world by any means possible. Were not done here by a long shot.

Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Stock prices crashed as it became clear that Donald Trump would be elected the next President of the United States. And then they did a complete reversal to actually rally during the first trading day after the votes were counted.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) closed at an all-time high on Wednesday, and looks to go even higher on Thursday.

Just when you thought the stock market was starting to make sense, it goes ahead and does the exact opposite.

The markets were supposed to get crushed

Ahead of Election Day, Wall Streets stock market experts were in broad agreement that a surprise victory by Republican candidate Donald Trump would be met by a sharp sell-off, ranging somewhere between -3% to -15%. Yahoo Finance reported on this multiple times.

What were behind these bearish calls?

For months, candidate Trump employed a divisive tone as he promised aggressive actions, including renegotiating or withdrawing from NAFTA, tightening the screws on immigration, and pressuring the Federal Reserve and its monetary policy. Most of his promises were considered bearish and recessionary. At the very least, they introduced more uncertainty, which by definition increases the premium investors demand for taking on risk.

On the night of the election, stock prices plummeted as the odds of a Trump win improved. When it became clear that Trump would win, the futures market hit limit down, which is just another way of saying that prices wouldve gone lower if the exchanges didnt step in. S&P 500 futures (ES=F) were down by an eye-popping 5%.

And then the exact opposite happened

As the world awaited the US stock markets to open on Wednesday morning, traders slowly bid prices back up. And in a total shocker, stocks erased all losses and opened in the green.

When it was all said and done, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) closed at 2,163, up 23 points or 1.1% for the day. It wouldve been considered an impressive rally under any circumstance.

(Before we get to the big picture, its important to note that there were plenty of losers in the market. IT stocks and utilities tumbled, as financials and health care stocks surged. Our discussion today about the net effects.)

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What happened? Were the stock market forecasters dead wrong? Was Donald Trump the better candidate all along?

The most common explanation for the turnaround is tied Trumps victory speech.

Donald Trump

To all Republicans and Democrats and Independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people, Trump said in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, Im reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so we can work together and unify our great country.

The President-elects more conciliatory tone and pledge to work together with his opponents came as a positive surprise to market participants, many of whom had expected more of the aggressive rhetoric that marked his campaign, UBSs Mark Haefele said.

Indeed, while he couldve taken a victory lap and kicked his opponents while they were down, he didnt.

Trumps gracious acceptance speech has encouraged hopes that he will moderate his more extreme positions when actually in office, Capital Economics Julian Jessop said. Indeed, it is fair to ask does Trump mean Trump?'

This is not to say that Trump wont eventually push for policies deemed unfriendly to the markets. All these arguments suggest is that Trump is being seen as less bad than previously thought.

Lets not get too carried away

There are plenty of other theories for the rally, including the suggestion that this is very similar to Junes surprise Brexit vote, when the UK unexpectedly voted to leave the European Union. Initially, markets cratered, and then they came back.

But rather than belaboring the rationale for one or two days worth of rallies, its best to just stop now. Because who knows what the market will do tomorrow or the day after that?

If theres one lesson to be learned here, its that markets are unpredictable and often times they flat out wont make sense.

As Gluskin Sheffs David Rosenberg once said: Nobody ever said it had to make sense.

Click here for Yahoo Finances complete coverage of the 2016 presidential election.



Sam Ro is managing editor at Yahoo Finance.

Read more:
Meg Whitman

As protests erupted nationwide after Donald Trump pulled off a surprise win of the US presidential election, some of Hillary Clinton's most vocal supporters are urging that people take a breath and give him their support.

On Thursday Hewlett-Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman posted a note to Facebook expressing disappointment with the election and saying "it is the obligation of every citizen to support our President."

Whitman is a life-long Republican and active in politics. She even tried to enter politics herself, running for governor of California in 2010, but lost to the Democratic opponent, Jerry Brown.

However, Whitman was so put off by Donald Trump's divisive and often derogatory remarks, that she not only endorsed Hillary Clinton, she went out stumping and campaigning for her, saying, "Donald Trump's demagoguery has undermined the fabric of our national character," and adding, "I urge all Republicans to reject Donald Trump this November."

In Silicon Valley, the rumor was that Whitman would be offered a position in a Clinton administration.

With Trump now headed to the White House, she says she's ready to give him the benefit of the doubt and support him.

Here's the full statement, posted to Facebook.

As you may know, I have been a vocal participant in this years presidential election. I believe strongly that every citizen has an obligation to constructively speak out for their beliefs during the political process. That is what makes America special in the world.

While the results of the election are not what I had hoped for, I believe that once the debate is over and the votes have been counted, it is the obligation of every citizen to support our President. So, I for one intend to give President-elect Trump the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity to demonstrate that he can lead our diverse nation.

After such a hard fought election, it is important that every American take a moment to reflect on the results and to understand the message that our citizens have sent. Then we must bring the country together and move forward, stronger than ever.

Story continues

NOW WATCH: A mysterious cloud moving 700,000 mph is going to collide with our galaxy  here's what will happen





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Budapest (AFP) - Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of the EU's biggest supporters of Donald Trump, said Thursday that the US billionaire's election victory sounded the death knell for political correctness.

"We can return to true democracy, to honest talk, away from the crippling restraints of political correctness. We are living in great days and great times," the rightwinger said in Budapest.

"Western civilisation has managed to free itself from the captivity of an ideology," he said.

"The era of what we call 'liberal non-democracy', that we have been living in for the last 20 years, is over," he told a conference organised by the European Bank for Research and Development.

In July, Orban, 53, came out in favour of Trump, praising his policy proposals on immigration and security. Most of Europe's other leaders were highly sceptical and in some cases outright alarmed about the Republican.

Orban, who has long been accused of eroding democratic norms in EU and NATO member Hungary, was also one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump after his victory was confirmed on Wednesday.

"Congratulations. What a great news. Democracy is still alive," Orban wrote on his Facebook page in English.

By contrast, the combative Hungarian crossed swords several times with the administration of outgoing President Barack Obama over Washington's criticisms of his policies since coming to power in 2010.

In a 2014 speech, Obama included Hungary among countries where "endless regulations and overt intimidation increasingly target civil society" in a remark that prompted a government complaint to the US envoy in Budapest.

- 'A new start' -

Relations between Budapest and Washington soured again soon after when several unnamed Hungarian government officials were denied entry to the US over alleged corruption.

In 2011 while on a trip to Budapest as secretary of state Hillary Clinton -- later Trump's election rival -- also expressed concern over Hungary and warned Orban against dismantling democratic "checks and balances".

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Orban has also clashed with Brussels over his refusal to accept any of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrived in Europe in 2015, seeing them as security threats and a danger to European Christian culture.

"Hungary has had its debates with the US, but with the Democratic Party not its people," Orban's chief of staff Janos Lazar told reporters Thursday.

"Hungary considers the new presidency as a new start, which can also be full of hope for the world," he said.
A California man is pleading for the safe return of his wife, who he says was abducted last week while jogging.

I just want her back, and I want her back safe, an audibly devastated Keith Papini tells PEOPLE.

Just bring her home, he says to whomever is responsible. Please bring her back. The sooner the better.

Theres been no trace of 34-year-old Sherri Papini since she went for a morning jog on Old Oregon Trail and Sunrise Drive on Nov. 2 near Redding, California, a rural town in the northern part of the state. Authorities have not named any suspects and said Sherri doesnt have any known medical conditions that could explain why she vanished.

The Shasta County sheriff previously said an abduction was possible, but investigators did not yet have any evidence thats what happened. They are still trying to determine if Sherri going missing was voluntary or involuntary, according to the Record Searchlight.

But her family says her disappearance is completely unlike her  and the discovery of her abandoned cell phone and earbuds near her running trail has fueled their concerns.

She is my wife, and I know everything about her, Keith says. I know that my wife would never leave me and never in a million years leave our kids.

Keith believes his wife would have to have been either snuck up on, or there would have been multiple or maybe two people, because my wife is very aware. She wouldnt have allowed somebody to get that close to her unless it was unsuspecting

The abductor, he says, is probably a stranger: My gut says it is a person unknown to myself and Sherri. My gut tells me it is just low-life people.

Search teams including family members and friends have scoured the area since her disappearance. A Help Find Sherri Papini Facebook page has been set up, as was a GoFundMe campaign, which has raised more than $42,000 toward search efforts. The Papini family has also offered a $40,000 reward for Sherris safe return.

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Authorities have said Keith was not involved, according to the Record Searchlight. Sheriffs officials told the paper that Keith passed a polygraph test and that they were able to confirm his location on the day Sherri vanished. (The sheriffs office did not return multiple calls.)

There is no physical evidence at this time suggesting he had any involvement, a spokesman told the Searchlight.

Keith tells PEOPLE such speculation was the least concern I had.

They already knew at that time it wasnt me, he says. Once this story went everywhere, it was time for them to release to the public  so it is not like it was a relief for me, because that is not where my head has been this whole time. My head has been trying to find my wife.

Their Last Conversation

Keith says he last received a text from Sherri at 10:37 a.m. that Wednesday, asking if he planned to return home for lunch.

I didnt get that message because I dont usually bring my personal phone in with me, he tells PEOPLE. I texted her back later at 1:30 p.m. and said, Sorry, it is going to be a late day. 

Keith says he believes his wife went jogging around 11 a.m., shortly after he didnt return her text. I am putting her leaving around that time, he says. That is based on the text I got, and there were some people I spoke with that were cutting down a tree, and they informed us that they saw my wife running. 

He says he became worried when he arrived home from his job at Best Buy that night to find neither Sherri nor their two children, who Sherri usually picked up from child care.

During his search of the house, Keith says he found a partially wrapped present addressed to him from his wife and two kids. She must have been wrapping her presents, he says. It is like an American flag pillow that she more than likely she made it. It wasnt here when I left, so I know that she must have been working on that.

I Knew Something Horrible Had Happened

Keith says he texted his wife again, and when she didnt respond he used the Find my iPhone application and located his her cell phone and earbuds about one mile from their home, near the intersection of Old Oregon Trail and Sunrise Drive. The earbuds reportedly had strands of Sherris hair on them.

Keith confirms that a few strands of hair were found  maybe between three and eight strands  but says it wasnt a normal thing.

Once when I saw the phone, it only confirmed what I already felt that I knew somebody grabbed her, he says.  I knew something horrible had happened, and I immediately called 911.

In the days leading up to his wifes disappearance, Keith says nothing seemed amiss.

There wasnt any weird texts phone calls or emails, he says. There is not like a suspicious thing I thought of or seen that I could point in that direction.

It is nothing like that. It is just like she vanished.

Anyone with information about Sherris disappearance is urged to call the Shasta County Sheriffs Office at 530-245-6540 or 530-245-6135. Tips also can be submitted at mcu@co.shasta.ca.us.




Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 Aero Concept Teases Cafe Sexiness

Erstwhile Swedish-now-Austrian Husqvarna brand was responsible for one of the sexier bikes unveiled at EICMA this year: the Vitpilen 401 Aero.

But like many of the most intriguing bikes seen this year  e.g., the Yamaha T7, or KTM 790 Duke  the Aero wont be rolling off a production line anytime soon. Its a concept model.

Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 Aero

The Vitpilen 401 Aero Concept is a concept thats been in the works for a while. A sketch of the bike surfaced around last years EICMA, when the Vitpilen concept (upon which the Aero is based) first surfaced. It seems Husqvarna is happy to move very slowly toward the shining future reflected in its street bike designs.

That may be because Husqvarna uses so many components from KTM machines (KTM took over Husqvarna about three years ago) and the two sides are trying to work out the delicate balance of being quite similar but distinct.

Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 Aero

Like the Vitpilen and Svartpilen bikes, which we learned this week will go into production in 2017, the Aero is powered by a 375cc single-cylinder engine delivering a respectable 44hp. Or, well, we assume it is. Husqvarna wasnt terribly forthcoming with specific info about the bike except to say that it is very proud of it. There was also an intimation that if the bike ever does go into production it wont happen until 2018.

Husky describes the Aero as a modern interpretation of what a faired bike should look like.

Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 Aero

As is often the case these days, the bikes designers claim to have thrown out the rulebook and started from scratch in determining how a bike should look and function. They also claim that the Aeros bodywork completely changes the whole set up of the bike.

An all-new windshield gives the Aeros surface a fuller appearance compared to the Vitpilen 401, while allowing the front and rear of the bike to perfectly match each other, says a company media release.

Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 Aero

Its easy to be cynical about the hyperbole Husqvarna uses to describe a machine that cynics would claim is a glorified KTM 390 Duke, but theres no denying that it is a great big bunch of sexy.

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To my eyes, the styling is reminiscent of 1920s art-deco modernism. It seems like the sort of bike that the robot Maria from Metropolis would ride. OK, maybe Im overthinking it (Gotta put all those college film courses to use somehow). Point is: I think its gorgeous and hope it will eventually turn into something more than just a concept.

Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 Aero

Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 Aero

Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 Aero

Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 Aero
By Axel Bugge

LISBON (Reuters) - Hyperloop One, which is developing a futuristic high-speed transport system, aims to raise hundreds of millions of dollars of fresh capital next year after a first full-scale test that could secure firm orders from clients, its founders said.

The founders of Hyperloop One, which uses magnets to levitate pods inside huge airless tubes at speeds up to 750 mph (1,100 kmh) to transport people and cargo, said they have also now signed agreements on feasibility studies with the Dutch and Finnish governments.

Earlier this week, the company said it agreed to jointly evaluate a Hyperloop One transport system in Dubai.[nFWN1D908Y]

Early next year the company will carry out its first full-scale test of the system at a facility in Nevada, which could demonstrate the system's viability. So far the company has raised $160 million to finance its growth, including $50 million last month from Dubai port operator DP World.

"Basically, we are looking to do a big raise next year," Josh Giegel, co-founder and head of engineering at Hyperloop One, told Reuters at the Web Summit, a tech conference held in Lisbon this week. "If we can have a customer on the hook, it will be all that much easier."

He said the size of the funding round would "be something in the hundreds of millions, but not high hundreds of millions," and that it would depend on the potential of the projects under consideration by countries.

The concept behind Hyperloop One originated in a paper by Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Motors Inc, in 2013. Skeptics still wonder if the technology can move from science fiction to reality.

But Hyperloop One's increasing number of agreements on feasibility studies with countries suggests growing optimism. Giegel said he has no doubts that the test will work.

"There is no doubt about it working at this point, it's just that how quickly can you go through the regulatory process, the customer process and to basically get the funding situation in place?" Giegel said.

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Building networks of the huge tubes being built by Hyperloop One, either above or under ground, would cost billions.

Hyperloop One co-founder and executive chairman Shervin Pishevar said he expected governments to embrace the technology once they understand the huge time savings the system can offer, for transporting people and cargo.

"Once governments see what the potential is, they will basically accelerate the regulatory process," Pishevar said, adding that regulation may not be that cumbersome as it would start from a blank sheet as the system is completely new.

The feasibility study for Finland includes a possible transport link between Helsinki and Stockholm in Sweden, a trip which would take about half an hour in a Hyperloop rather than overnight on a ferry through the Baltic.

(Reporting By Axel Bugge; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
LONDON  Matthew Kirton won the Write to Green Light competition, which is organized by Lionsgate UK and Idris Elbas Green Door Pictures, for his script Sin of God at an event at Londons Savoy Hotel on Wednesday.

The contest was launched earlier this year in order to discover new writing talent in the U.K. Candidates were asked to present ideas for a returnable drama series. Kirton, who is unrepresented, will receive a paid development option with Green Door and Lionsgate UK, with a potential green-light option.

Zygi Kamasa, CEO of Lionsgate UK, said at the start of the event that the genesis of the competition came when he and Elba discussed over a year ago about how we could find an exciting way to work together developing new talent in original, fresh and daring television series.

He added: At the heart of this initiative is our joint desire to source new and exciting talent in the U.K., and look at the different ways that we can work with, develop and support them.

Kamasa said that theyd received more than 250 submissions with ideas for returnable drama series, each accompanied by a full pilot script, a series outline, and bible, and over half of those were from unrepresented and unproduced TV writers.

This process really shows the varied and unique talent we have in this country and we are so excited to keep discovering more.

Elba added: I am the product of someone elses dedication to looking for new talent. When I was looking for an agent when I was 19/20 [years old], I hadnt gone to drama school, I couldnt afford that, the route was a rocky road, and it was my talent and somebodys vision  an agents vision, Sandra Griffin  to say Ill give you a shot. So my company, Green Door, is deeply entrenched in doing the same for others, and finding new talent.

So its been a complete pleasure for [Green Door] and me to work with Zygi and Lionsgate to pull together this competition. It has been a privilege to see how much talent came forward; we got an amazing response some really good material.

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Kirtons script is set in the U.K. in the near future, and centers on John Monaghan, a convicted murderer, who was executed for his crime, but comes back from the dead. Kirton said: When I set out to write a story about a man coming back from the dead, I knew I wanted it to feel very real I started off by thinking about what might actually happen if someone was to make that miraculous return. How would it be reported? How would people feel?

The three finalists were selected by an industry panel of producers, talent management and development executives, which included Elba, Kamasa, Amanda Davis, Damian Jones, Katie Swinden, Natasha Galloway, and Robert Taylor.

Extracts from the three finalists work were performed by professional actors and directed by Jim OHanlon (Shameless, House of Saddam) at Wednesdays event in front of an audience of industry figures, including all key broadcasters across all platforms. OHanlon had worked with the actors over three days of intensive rehearsal.

The other finalists were Ryan Brown with We Are Your Children, and Lauren Sequeira with Cleo. Browns script was based on a real-life pursuit of a serial killer who preyed on gay men in 1970s San Francisco. Sequeiras story is based on a young woman fighting for power in the world of contemporary London gangs.

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Imax on Thursday said it has raised $50 million for a virtual reality fund, working with strategic investors to create at least 25 interactive VR content "experiences" over the next three years for the local mall and multiplex.

The giant-screen exhibitor is already working with tech developer Starbreeze on its VR content, using the Swedish company's headsets and games. VR content will eventually come from Hollywood filmmakers using a camera that Imax is building with Google.

The company also is in advanced talks with Hollywood studios, gaming publishers and others about developing VR content. Imax has now revealed that strategic investors in the $50 million VR fund include hardware maker CAA; Acer; China Media Capital; China's Enlight Media; Studio City, an investment company active in China; and WPP, the advertising and marketing services giant.

Imax said its VR product will roll out across all VR platforms and at previously announced Imax VR centers. "We will be leveraging our collective relationships with world-class filmmakers and content creators to fund VR experiences that excite and attract a larger user base to capitalize on opportunities across all VR platforms including Imax VR," Imax CEO Richard Gelfond said in a statement.

The first pilot VR centers are planned for Los Angeles and at Odeon & UCI Cinemas Group's Printworks multiplex location in Manchester, England. Imax also plans additional test facilities to open in the U.S., China, Japan, the Middle East and Western Europe in the coming months.

Imax expects that the VR experiences, typically lasting around 10 minutes, will cost between $7 and $10 and that VR content developed will be tied to film franchises. The company also expects to follow its screen tech business model, licensing the VR equipment to theater operators and malls and then taking a percentage of the revenue.

Read more: Imax to Open VR Locations in Multiplexes, Malls
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 9, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm') announces a class action lawsuit against Adeptus Health Inc. ("Adeptus" or the "Company") (ADPT). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares pursuant and/or traceable to the Company's secondary public offering (the "SPO") on or about July 31, 2015, or purchasers of common shares between April 23, 2015 and November 16, 2015, inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm in advance of the December 27, 2016 lead plaintiff motion deadline.

If you purchased shares of Adeptus during the SPO or Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case yet. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, Adeptus Health made material false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose: that the Company engaged in widespread predatory billing practices, particularly with respect to lower acuity level patients; that Adeptus Health's predatory billing practices subjected the Company to numerous known but undisclosed risks, such as financial risks, reputational risks, risks associated with improper financial reporting, civil or criminal sanctions, and even exclusion from federal and state healthcare programs; that the Company's financial statements were not prepared in conformity with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles; that contrary to the Company's representations about its practice of referring lower acuity patients to urgent care facilities, Adeptus Health routinely treated lower acuity patients and excessively billed them for services; and that as a result of the above, Adeptus Health lacked a reasonable basis for its statements about its business and future financial prospects at all relevant times. On November 17, 2015, an NBC-affiliated television station located in Denver, Colorado aired an investigative report about the predatory billing practices at the Company's Colorado First Choice emergency rooms.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit free of charge, or if you have questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or via e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.

Contacts

Joon M. Khang, Esq.

Telephone: 949-419-3834

Facsimile: 949-225-4474

joon@khanglaw.com

SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
India's top court ordered authorities in northern Punjab state Thursday to share river water supplies with a neighbouring state, triggering a spate of resignations by angry lawmakers.

The water dispute between Punjab and Haryana has been simmering for over a decade, after a bilateral agreement to construct a 214-kilometre (133-mile) canal connecting two rivers in the states was unilaterally scrapped in 2004.

The Supreme Court said the Punjab government's decision to terminate the agreement via a state legislation was unconstitutional and defied the court's own earlier orders calling for the canal's completion.

"The State of Punjab had exceeded its legislative power in proceeding to nullify the decree of this Court and therefore, the Punjab Act cannot be said to be validly enacted," a five-judge bench headed by Justice A R Dave said in its order on Thursday.

Both the states depend on agriculture for employment and revenues, with farmers in Punjab saying they will suffer drought if the river water is diverted elsewhere.

The order was hailed as a "victory" by politicians in Haryana, which is ruled by an alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

But in Punjab, dozens of legislators from the main opposition Congress party resigned from the state assembly in protest against the order.

Haryana's powerful caste councils have threated to launch an street agitation if Punjab fails to implement the order.

There are at least seven major water sharing disputes between 10 Indian states.

The disputes have often turned violent in recent years with protesters damaging a critical water supply canal to New Delhi in February.

Authorities in southern Karnataka state had to impose a curfew in Bangalore in September after riots erupted following a Supreme Court order to release millions of cusecs of water from the Cauvery river to neighbouring Tamil Nadu state.

Work on the disputed canal to connect Punjab's Sutlej river with the Yamuna in Haryana began in the 1970s, but a large section of it remains incomplete.
By Sanjeev Miglani and Linda Sieg NEW DELHI/TOKYO (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi headed to Japan on Thursday to seal a landmark nuclear energy pact and strengthen ties, as China's regional influence grows and Donald Trump's election throws U.S. policies across Asia into doubt. India, Japan and the United States have been building security ties and holding three-way naval exercises, but Trump's "America First" campaign promise has stirred concern about a reduced U.S. engagement in the region. Such an approach by Washington could draw Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe even closer, said foreign policy commentator and former Indian ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar. Officials in New Delhi and Tokyo said a deal that will allow Japan to supply nuclear reactors, fuel and technology is ready for signing after six years of negotiations to find a way around Tokyo's reservations about such an agreement with a country that has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India says the NPT is discriminatory and it has concerns about nuclear-armed China as well as its long-time rival Pakistan. Japan, the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, has been seeking assurances from New Delhi that it would not conduct nuclear tests any more. Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said the two sides had reached a broad agreement on nuclear collaboration as early as last December and had since been trying to finalize the document. A "legal, technical scrub" of the agreed text has now been done, he said, but added that he could not pre-judge the outcome of Modi's summit talks with Abe over Friday and Saturday. A Japanese ruling party lawmaker said the two sides will sign an agreement during Modi's visit. A Japanese foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment. JAPANESE AIRCRAFT ALSO DISCUSSED The nuclear agreement with Japan follows a similar one with the United States in 2008 which gave India access to nuclear technology after decades of isolation. That step was seen as the first big move to build India into a regional counterweight to China. India hopes to lift ties with the United States to a new height, Modi said in a message to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday. A final deal with Japan could also benefit U.S. firms. India is in advanced negotiations with U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric, owned by Japan's Toshiba, to build six nuclear reactors in southern India, part of New Delhi's plan to ramp up nuclear capacity more than ten times by 2032. "Japan is keen to put aside it's staunch non-proliferation principles and engage with the lucrative Indian program," said Manpreet Sethi, nuclear affairs expert at the Centre for Air Power Studies, a New Delhi think-tank. But the agreement will still have to be ratified by the Japanese parliament, she said. Japan's Yomiuri newspaper said the main accord will likely be accompanied by a separate document stipulating that Tokyo will suspend nuclear cooperation if India conducts a nuclear test. Initially, Japan wanted that inserted into the agreement itself, but India resisted, it said. India has declared a moratorium on such testing since its last explosions in 1998. The two countries have also been trying to close a deal on the supply of amphibious rescue aircraft US-2 to the Indian navy, which would be one of Japan's first sales of military equipment since Abe lifted a 50-year ban on arms exports. India's Defence Acquisitions Council met earlier this week to consider the purchase of 12 of the planes made by ShinMaywa Industries, but failed to reach a decision. An Indian government source said opinion within the military was divided over whether to buy the aircraft when it was struggling to find resources to replace aging and accident-prone submarines and address a shortage of helicopters. A Japanese defense source said Japan was considering a cost reduction, which would mean a price cut for India as well as for the Japanese navy which it supplies. A US-2 currently costs about 13 billion yen ($123 million). (Additional reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo in TOKYO; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
President Barack Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton have both called for a peaceful transition of power to president-elect Donald Trump. But as Democratic voters and #NeverTrumpers struggle to come to terms with the stunning upset, some are still wondering: Is there anything that could stop Trump from taking the White House?

Lets start with the legal battles the president-elect has become entangled in.

The Trump University Fraud Trial

Just weeks before Trump is set to be sworn in as Americas next commander in chief, hes due in court on Nov. 28 to defend himself against allegations of fraud in a federal civil trial over the Trump University real estate seminar program.

According to Politico, Trump has been called as a witness by both sides in the trial that will reunite him with U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel. Trump faced bipartisan backlash after he said during his campaign that Judge Curiel should recuse himself from the case because his Mexican heritage was a conflict of interest. (Curiel was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants.)

In a previous statement on the case, Trump said his comments about Curiel had been misconstrued, saying, I do not feel that ones heritage makes them incapable of being impartial, but, based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial. He added: Throughout the litigation my attorneys have continually demonstrated that students who participated in Trump University were provided a substantive, valuable education based upon a curriculum developed by professors from Northwestern University, Columbia Business School, Stanford University and other respected institutions.

This is an extremely unusual situation, Stephen Kaufman, an attorney specializing in political and election law, told Bloomberg of the case. Certainly no presidential candidate in modern times has potentially come to the Office of President with such a litigation cloud hanging over his head.

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Kaufman said that while, as president, Trump would have some immunity from lawsuits, it wouldnt cover suits filed against him before his election.

Taking the office would not protect Mr. Trump from lawsuits that have been filed against him already or lawsuits that could be filed against him for civil matters that arose before he became President, said Kaufman. Having said that, there would be a mountain of logistical issues in trying to pursue a civil claim against a President.

As for whether the case could affect Trumps presidency, University of Utah Law Professor Christopher Lewis Peterson wrote an article arguing that there is already enough evidence in the fraud case for Congress to impeach Trump.

He wrote, A federal judge appointed under Article III of the U.S. Constitution has already determined that Trumps alleged actions, if true, constitute fraud and racketeering  Congress would be well within its legal rights under the Constitution to insist upon a President who is not a fraudster or a racketeer as defined in its own law.

RELATED VIDEO: Donald Trump Addresses Crowd After Being Elected President in Stunning Upset

The New York Attorney Generals Investigation of the Donald J. Trump Foundation

Last month, New York Attorney General Eric Schneidermans office ordered Trumps charitable foundation to stop fundraising immediately, accusing the Donald J. Trump Foundation of violating state law. Schneiderman alleged in a cease and desist letter that the foundation solicited contributions in 2016 without being properly registered to do so with the attorney generals charities bureau. That investigation is ongoing.

Trumps campaign spokeswoman said in statement last month, While we remain very concerned about the political motives behind A.G. Schneidermans investigation, the Trump Foundation nevertheless intends to cooperate fully with the investigation. Because this is an ongoing legal matter, the Trump Foundation will not comment further at this time.

Schneiderman also filed a fraud lawsuit against Trump University in August 2013. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in this case.

The Rape Lawsuit

In a dramatic development, the woman who alleged in a federal lawsuit that Trump raped her in the 1990s when she was 13 years old dropped the suit in the final days of the election. The accuser, named in the lawsuit as Jane Doe, was set to come forward with her allegations for the first time at a press conference in Los Angeles last week. Her lawyer canceled the conference at the last minute, however, saying her client was too afraid to appear after receiving death threats.

Alan Garten, vice president and general counsel for the Trump Organization, did not return a call for comment to PEOPLE last week. But Garten has repeatedly and vehemently denied the allegations, telling the New York Daily News they were categorically untrue, completely fabricated and politically motivated.

Could Any of These Legal Battles Delay or Stop Trump from Taking Office?

GOP consultant Jean Card, a former Bush administration official whose analysis appears on U.S. News, told PEOPLE its unlikely these legal troubles would hinder Trump from the presidency.

Im not an attorney, but if there were any way Trump could be stopped, Hillary Clinton would not have conceded and Barack Obama would not have talked to the nation today about the peaceful transfer of power, she said. The stories about his legal troubles wont change what happens on Jan. 20th: a Trump inauguration.




Garth Brooks is making his way to the small screen.

Brooks, 54, and AT&T are teaming up to air his exclusive concert event Garth Brooks / Yankee Stadium / Live.

Filmed over the summer, the two-night, sold out arena shows made history as the first-ever country music concert to be performed at Yankee Stadium. The shows marked Brooks return to New York City for his first performance in 19 years.

I will say no matter what device you view the show on, none of them are going to be big enough!! said Brooks in a statement.

This show is HUGE!!! I got to see the show for the first time this week and I was blown away with how clear it looks, how real it feels  it is like you are right there when it is happening!

Fans can expect to hear classics like The Dance, Friends In Low Places, The Thunder Rolls, and many more during the concert special.

Brooks wife, and fellow country superstar, Trisha Yearwood, 52, will also join him on stage for a series of songs including In Anothers Eyes and Shes in Love with the Boy. Brooks is currently in the midst of the three-year Garth Brooks World Tour with Yearwood.

Its been a big year for Brooks, who most recently was honored as the 2016 entertainer of the year at the CMA Awards. He was also named the #1-selling solo artist in U.S. history by the Recording Industry Association of America, and hes the first to receive seven RIAA Diamond Awards for his albums.

The country legend can also be seen serving as the key adviser for the Top 12 contestants on The Voice next week.

He will release a holiday record with Yearwood, Christmas Together, on Friday, followed by his new album, Gunslinger, on Nov. 25.

Garth Brooks / Yankee Stadium / Live airs across all AT&T AUDIENCE Network platforms and att.com/garthbrooks Thursday at 8 p.m ET.




By Kathryn Doyle (Reuters Health) - During pregnancy, women and their male partners sometimes report insomnia or insufficient sleep, which may be tied to depression, according to a new study. Almost half of women reported that they slept more than usual during pregnancy, but did not have better quality sleep, said senior author Tiina Paunio of Helsinki University Hospital in Finland. Overall, 12 percent of women and 15 percent of men had either insomnia or too little sleep, researchers found. The results are well in line with those obtained from previous studies for pregnant women: symptoms of insomnia and, in particular, frequent nocturnal awakenings were very common, and a majority of the women (over 80 percent) also reported that their sleep quality had worsened during pregnancy, Paunio said. The researchers studied a population of 1,667 mothers and 1,498 fathers in Finland who were part of a long-term study. Participants were recruited during pregnancy when almost half were expecting their first child. They provided data before their childs birth and several more times in the babys first 24 months of life. Researchers evaluated the participants problems falling asleep, nocturnal awakenings, too-early awakenings and sleep quality as well as short sleep  defined as either a two-hour difference between self-assessed sleep need and actual sleep duration or a sleep duration shorter than six hours per night. They found that insomnia was more common for women, with 10 percent reporting it, along with 6 percent of men. Sleep debt was more common for men, at 10 percent versus almost 5 percent of women. Parents with insomnia more often had symptoms of depression than those without insomnia. Men with lower education levels, poor health and a higher number of children more often had short sleep, as reported in Sleep Medicine. Interestingly, short sleep was explained by very different factors in women and men: among women, it related to negative life events and depressiveness but among men, to more general background factors, such as health, education and number of children in the household, Paunio told Reuters Health by email. Most women reported poorer quality of sleep during pregnancy than before, and one in 10 experienced multiple insomnia symptoms, Paunio said. It is yet to be seen how symptoms of insomnia and depressed mood affect the health of the parents in (the) postpartum period as well as that of the offspring in our sample, Paunio said. In a stressful life situation or after a psychological trauma, it is normal to experience transient symptoms of insomnia and they do not normally pose a serious problem for health, Paunio said. Chronic symptoms of insomnia do, however, pose a risk for both (physical) and mental health. For these Finnish women, insomnia in pregnancy was less common than it is for women in the U.S., said Jen Jen Chang of Saint Louis University in Missouri, which could have been influenced by other factors like employment status, work hours and the number of other children in the family. When moms don't get enough sleep, it has a negative impact on a developing baby, Chang, who was not part of the new study, told Reuters Health by email. Sleep disturbance and short sleep duration during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes including preterm births, preeclampsia, cesarean deliveries, and postpartum depression. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2emyI6V Sleep Medicine, online November 3, 2016.
Nusa Dua (Indonesia) (AFP) - A Chinese security official was elected president of Interpol Thursday for the first time, sparking criticism from activists who say Beijing uses the agency to track down dissidents abroad.

Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei was chosen as the new head of the global police organisation at its annual general assembly on the Indonesian island of Bali, France-headquartered Interpol announced.

He is the first Chinese official to hold the post, China's official Xinhua news agency said, and takes over from Frenchwoman Mireille Ballestrazzi.

While it could provide a boost to China's campaign to hunt alleged economic criminals abroad as part of a much-publicised anti-graft drive, rights groups raised concerns that Beijing's intentions may be more sinister.

"Its worrying in the sense that for a long time, China has been using... Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad," William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, told AFP.

"We have looked at cases in the past where it seems that China has abused Interpols system to target particularly Uighur dissidents who, as far as we know, have committed no crime under international standards.

"Thats a worrying precedent that might be used towards people from other walks of life."

The mostly Muslim Uighur minority in the Chinese region of Xinjiang have long complained of religious and cultural repression. Many have fled the northwestern region in recent years, often heading to Central or Southeast Asia.

- Targeting fugitives abroad -

China has been seeking international help for its secretive campaign to track down alleged white-collar criminals abroad, including corrupt officials. Known as "Operation Fox Hunt", it has netted large numbers of fugitives.

However the drive has also proved controversial in some countries that say Chinese law enforcement agents have been operating covertly on their soil without the approval or consent of local authorities.

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Amnesty's Nee said that having a Chinese official in the top job at Interpol could be aimed at helping in this campaign.

But he expressed concerns that the drive was being carried out through the Communist Party's feared internal watchdog, and with the use of its own investigative system that operates without judicial oversight.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang congratulated Meng on his appointment, noting China enjoyed "close communication and cooperation with Interpol and its member states.

"We attach high importance to the role played by Interpol, and would like to shoulder more responsibility and contribute more in the field of law enforcement and security."

After taking power in 2012, Xi launched a massive anti-corruption drive that has led to the punishment of over a million officials, although it has raised questions about whether the president is a reformer or is carrying out a ruthless political purge.

Interpol is an intergovernmental organisation that acts as a network connecting the law enforcement agencies of its 190 member countries. It does not have agents of its own with powers of arrest.
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces a class action lawsuit against Xerox Corporation ("Xerox" or the "Company") (XRX). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between April 23, 2012 and October 23, 2015 inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm prior to the December 23, 2016 lead plaintiff motion deadline.

If you purchased shares of Xerox during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, Xerox repeatedly touted its new software product, Health Enterprise, as an important growth area for the Company, which would operate at low cost and high profit margin. The Company's statements pertaining to the profitability and growth prospects of the Health Enterprise business were materially false and misleading because Xerox failed to disclose: that the Company's existing Health Enterprise projects were experiencing major delays and cost overruns; that Xerox would be unable to deliver Health Enterprise implementations at sustainable profits; and that as a result of the above, the Company's statements about its business, operations, and prospects lacked a reasonable basis. On October 26, 2015, Xerox released its third quarter 2015 financial results which were disappointing due to costs associated with the implementation of Health Enterprise and the termination of Health Enterprise contracts with the state agencies of California and Montana. When this information was disclosed to the public, shares of Xerox dropped in value, causing investors harm.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit at no charge to you, or if you have questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or via e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

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This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.

Contacts

Joon M. Khang, Esq.

Telephone: 949-419-3834

Facsimile: 949-225-4474

joon@khanglaw.com

SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
BOSTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 / DarioHealth Corp. (DRIO) will host a conference call and live webcast to discuss the results of third quarter 2016, to be held Friday, November 11, 2016 at 9:00 AM Eastern Time.

Live Event Information

To participate, connect approximately 5 to 10 minutes before the beginning of the event.

Date, Time: November 11, 2016 at 9 AM ET

Toll Free: 866-635-0172

International: 785-424-1629

Live Webcast: www.investorcalendar.com/IC/CEPage.asp?ID=175458

Replay Information

The replay will be available beginning approximately 2 hours after the completion of the live event, ending at midnight Eastern on November 23, 2016.

Toll Free: 877-481-4010

International: 919-882-2331

Replay ID#: 10146

Webcast: www.investorcalendar.com

About DarioHealth Corp.

DarioHealth is a leader in digital health self-management solutions. DarioHealth delivers the ability to combine and analyze consumer health data to personalize treatment and advance medical knowledge. Dario's smart diabetes management solution is a platform for diabetes management that combines the Dario Blood Glucose Monitoring System all-in-one blood glucose meter, native smart phone app, website portal and a wide variety of treatment tools to support more proactive and better informed decisions by users living with diabetes, their doctors and healthcare systems. Having recently launched in the largest market in the world for glucose monitoring, U.S. sales are expected to have a significant impact on revenues and gross margins. With marketing clearance in Europe and the U.S., the Dario iOS mobile app recently launched with reimbursement in the United Kingdom, Australia, Israel, Italy, and Canada, and has also launched in New Zealand, Netherlands, Italy, and Belgium. For more information, visit http://mydario.investorroom.com/

SOURCE: Investor Calendar
RESTON, VA / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 / Lightbridge Corporation (LTBR) will host a conference call to discuss the results of the third quarter 2016, to be held Friday, November 11, 2016 at 11:00 AM Eastern Time.

Live Event Information

To participate, connect approximately 5 to 10 minutes before the beginning of the event.

Date, Time: November 11, 2016 at 11:00 AM ET

Toll Free: 866-320-0174

International: 785-424-1631

Live Webcast: www.investorcalendar.com/IC/CEPage.asp?ID=175438 or http://ir.ltbridge.com/events.cfm

Replay Information

The replay will be available beginning approximately 2 hours after the completion of the live event, ending at midnight Eastern on December 12, 2016.

Toll Free: 877-481-4010

International: 919-882-2331

Replay ID#: 10134

Webcast: www.investorcalendar.com or www.ltbridge.com

About Lightbridge Corporation

Lightbridge (LTBR) is a nuclear fuel technology development company based in Reston, Virginia, USA. The Company develops proprietary next generation nuclear fuel technologies for current and future reactors. The technology significantly enhances the economics and safety of nuclear power, operating about 1000 C cooler than standard fuel. Lightbridge invented, patented and has independently validated the technology, including successful demonstration of the fuel in a research reactor with near-term plans to demonstrate the fuel under commercial reactor conditions. The Company has assembled a world class development team including veterans of leading global fuel manufacturers. Four large electric utilities that generate about half the nuclear power in the US already advise Lightbridge on fuel development and deployment. The Company operates under a licensing and royalty model, independently validated and based on the increased power generated by Lightbridge-designed fuel and high ROI for operators of existing and new reactors. The economic benefits are further enhanced by anticipated carbon credits available under the Clean Power Plan. Lightbridge also provides comprehensive advisory services for established and emerging nuclear programs based on a philosophy of transparency, non-proliferation, safety and operational excellence. For more information please visit: www.ltbridge.com.

SOURCE: Investor Calendar
Cairo (AFP) - Islamist extremists have responded to Donald Trump's election victory with glee over his reputation as a loose cannon who has been openly hostile to Muslims.

The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, which is being pummelled by a US-led military coalition in Iraq and Syria, had said ahead of the US presidential vote that there was no substantial difference between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

But as the results came in, the group's supporters took to chat groups and accounts on the social media app Telegram to celebrate Trump's win.

"Rejoice, he will show America's ugly face," said one post.

"I am optimistic about Trump's victory because he is a stupid, arrogant, hubristic bull who is dumber than (George W) Bush," said another.

"Trump's vulgarity will embarrass (Arab) tyrants and enlarge the field of jihad," one poster wrote on an Internet chat forum used by IS supporters.

They were apparently referring to Trump's proposal during his campaign to ban Muslims from entering the United States, and to disparaging remarks on Saudi Arabia whose monarchy the extremists loathe.

IS has not officially commented on Trump's victory.

Both candidates, Trump and Clinton, had "committed themselves to the Jewish state and the war on Islam", the group said in a pre-election English-language article released by its Al-Hayat propaganda arm on social media.

-'Cut their heads off'-

However, Clinton was "more skilled in 'political correctness' giving her leverage in the sorcery of hypocrisy".

On the other hand, Trump -- who has said he wants to "bomb the shit out of them" -- was "impulsive and unpredictable", the article said.

Some IS supporters found the whole idea of celebrating either candidate's victory scandalous.

"If Trump wins, it's in our favour," one wrote on a pro-IS chat group as the results were coming in, prompting condemnation from offended fellow Islamists.

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"They're both tyrants and we just want to cut off their heads," another user, whose account profile features a scimitar, responded.

Extremists also celebrated news of anti-Trump protests in US cities.

"Praise God, may He increase this," read one comment about a video apparently showing Trump opponents assaulting a supporter of the president-elect.

Another IS supporter posted an appeal on a chat forum for fellow users to tweet "racist" pro and anti-Trump messages.

"If we can inflame the dissension and troubles in their countries maybe they'll withdraw" from the self-styled IS caliphate in Iraq and Syria, he wrote.

Al-Qaeda ideologue Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, who is based in Jordan, played up the division in American society over Trump's victory.

"Trump's rule may be the beginning of a split in the United States and the era of its disintegration," he wrote on Twitter.

In contrast to the small minority of extremists, many Muslims in the United States and elsewhere have reacted with horror on social media to Trump's victory.

"I'm sorry to all the Americans and my fellow Muslims #Trump sorry you have to tolerate such an idiot. #pray," one wrote on Twitter.
Brussels (AFP) - Donald Trump's "America first" approach has Europe worried he may cut US commitments to NATO just as it mounts its biggest military build-up since the end of the Cold War to counter a more assertive Russia.

Trump caused uproar during the campaign when he suggested Washington would think twice about coming to the aid of an endangered NATO ally if it had not paid its dues.

The fear is that Trump embodies an isolationist tradition -- "avoid entangling alliances" -- which will add to uncertainties as Europe faces challenges new and old from the east, the Middle East and North Africa.

"A Trump administration will increase US isolationist tendencies, which is a further blow to (its global) leadership role," said Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive at the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

The United States set up NATO to protect post-war Europe from the Soviet Union and its "all for one, one for all" collective defence guarantee has stood the test of time.

But for many years Washington, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of combined NATO defence spending, has demanded that its 27 allies do more to share the burden.

Trump's harking on this issue during the campaign caused such fears in the Baltic states and former Soviet-ruled eastern European NATO members that US Vice President Joe Biden was sent on a reassurance mission.

"Don't listen to that other fellow -- he knows not of what he speaks. America will never fail to defend our allies," Biden told them.

Now that "other fellow" is set to be the 45th President of the United States of America.

- NATO in shock -

The shock in Europe Wednesday was palpable.

In an unusual series of public statements shortly after Trump's victory was confirmed, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg stressed the continued importance of US global leadership.

"Our alliance has brought together America's closest friends in times of peace and of conflict for almost 70 years. A strong NATO is good for the United States and good for Europe," he said.

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Poland's President Andrzej Duda urged Trump to stick by commitments to boost NATO's presence on its eastern flank to ensure allies would not be left in the lurch if Russia attempted another Ukraine-style adventure.

"We sincerely hope that your leadership will open new opportunities for our cooperation based on mutual commitment," Duda said.

The Polish deployment is led by a US battalion and so is especially emblematic.

European Council head Donald Tusk, a former Polish premier, weighed in with a plea that the European Union -- of whose 28 members 22 also belong to NATO -- and the United States work together in defence of shared values.

"I do not believe that any country today can be great in isolation," he added, alluding to Trump's campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."

- EU defence opportunity? -

For some analysts, the fear factor may be overdone -- foreign policy was not a major issue in the election, Trump's focus is domestic and it is much too early to say what he will actually do as president.

Ian Lesser, senior director with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels, said the new president "is not so much an isolationist as a rigourous unilateralist ... who may demand a great deal from the allies."

"For him, foreign policy starts with homeland security and works out from there," Lesser said.

A key test will be Russia and whether Trump keeps campaign promises to improve ties strained to breaking point by the Ukraine crisis.

Russian President Vladimir Putin cited those promises when congratulating Trump, insisting: "Russia is ready and wants to restore fully-fledged relations with the US."

Where that would leave Europe, and especially NATO's eastern allies, is a major uncertainty.

But it is perhaps also an opportunity, in the same way that Britain's shock vote to quit the EU has cleared the way for France and Germany to press the sort of increased military cooperation London has resisted for years.

"It is the moment to realise that what is being done (to boost Europe's own defence capabilities) is not entirely useless, that there is a good reason for it," an EU diplomat said.
Jerusalem (AFP) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks on Thursday with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, with the Israeli leader stressing he hoped to limit his arch-foe Iran's influence in Syria.

The talks came two days after Donald Trump's election as US president, though the meeting had long been planned.

Israel and Russia have held a series of talks in recent months to coordinate their actions in Syria, where Moscow has been conducting an air campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Iran is a key ally of Assad as well as Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, also Israel's enemy.

"We are determined to do two things: first, prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons, and second, to prevent Iran... from establishing itself militarily in Syria, on the ground, in the air or at sea," Netanyahu said as he met Medvedev.

"We are also determined to prevent it from bringing about the establishment of Shiite militias, which it is organising, and of course, the arming of Hezbollah with dangerous weapons aimed at us."

Netanyahu called Israel and Russia "partners in the war on radical Islamic terror" and noted that the two countries along with the United States and others "share the goal of eliminating" the Islamic State jihadist group.

Israel opposes Assad but has sought to avoid being dragged into the Syrian war.

It has however carried out strikes there to stop arms deliveries to Hezbollah, which fights alongside Assad's forces.

Netanyahu admitted publicly for the first time in April that Israel had attacked dozens of convoys in Syria which were transporting weapons to Hezbollah.

Last year, Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to set up a "hotline" to avoid accidental clashes.

Medvedev is to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank city of Jericho on Friday before departing.
Jerusalem (AFP) - An Israeli mayor said Thursday he taught Donald Trump how to win elections, despite never having met him.

"It is a fact that Trump learned from me, he learned everything from me," Ali Salam, the Muslim mayor of the largely Arab-Israeli city of Nazareth in northern Israel, told local radio.

One of his claims seemed to be that after victory Trump told supporters "I love you, I love you, I love you," a phrase Salam says he himself used before.

"That's what I did when I won," he said.

Salam did not claim to have ever met Trump or provide evidence the president-elect knew he existed, but said that the 2014 battle for the Nazareth municipality had been ferocious like the US election.

The two men shared a lot of personality traits, he added.

"Like me he is a businessman, who pursued his career and ignored anyone who stood in his way to get to the top."

"He does not take anyone into account when someone accused him of harassing women."

The interview, conducted on Arabic-language radio, was widely shared between somewhat disbelieving locals.

Salam, who has stirred controversy in the past, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January.

Asked if Trump and Salam could perhaps have had similar ideas without coordination, the mayor said "this is no coincidence".
Milan (Reuters) - A Milan civil court on Thursday rejected an appeal against the wording of a Dec. 4 national referendum on constitutional reform. Valerio Onida, a former constitutional court judge, brought the case arguing that it was unacceptable that the ballot sheet lumps together multiple issues into one question requesting a single 'yes' or 'no' answer. Opinion polls suggest Prime Minister Matteo Renzi may lose the ballot over his proposal to drastically reduce the role of the Senate and curb the powers of regional governments. All but one of 33 opinion polls conducted over the last month have put the 'No' camp ahead On Nov. 16, an administrative court in Rome will hear another appeal made by Onida against the referendum. The same court has already thrown out a similar case brought by opposition parties, although Onida's case does have some technical differences. (Reporting by Manuala D'Alessandro, writing by Gavin Jones, editing by Isla Binnie)
LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Italy's 10-year government bond yield rose to its highest level in a year on Thursday as Donald Trump's shock victory in the U.S. presidential election raised concerns about a looming Italian referendum.

The referendum on constitutional reform is set for Dec. 4 and is shaping up as the next big risk event for the euro zone, with Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi earlier this year saying he would resign in the case of a referendum defeat.

Italian 10-year bond yields rose to a one-year high at 1.795 percent, up 5 basis points on day, according to Reuters data. The gap between yields on similarly-rated Italian and Spanish bonds -- seen as a bellwether of political risk -- was near its highest level since the 2012 debt crisis at 49 bps.

(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe; Editing by John Geddie)
By Bernadette Christina Munthe JAKARTA (Reuters) - The governor of Indonesia's capital Jakarta, the first ethnic Chinese and Christian in the job, is losing support in his bid for reelection as allegations that he insulted the Koran increasingly put off Muslim voters. An opinion poll published on Thursday showed support for Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known as "Ahok", plunged from 60 percent in March to 25 percent in the latest survey. Over 100,000 Muslims marched through Jakarta last week to demand his resignation and urge voters not to re-elect him in February, raising concerns over the rise of hardline Islamists in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation. Last month's survey by pollster Lingkaran Survei Indonesia, taken before the protest, showed him at 31 percent support. "The controversy over the comments on the Koran is a factor affecting his electability and resistance is rising against a non-Muslim leader," said Adjie Alfaraby of LSI. The vast majority of Indonesians practice a moderate form of Islam and faith is not often a determining factor in elections, especially in a cosmopolitan city like Jakarta. But the poll showed changing opinions among the city's Muslim voters. "There would be religious sentiment in the election, but it wouldn't be so strong were it not for the (blasphemy) case," Alfaraby said. "We are seeing less rational voters, and more voters choosing based on other factors." Muslim groups have accused Purnama of blasphemy after he said his opponents had deceived voters by attacking him using a verse from the Koran. Police are investigating the case against the governor, who has apologized for the comments. But Purnama, a Protestant known as a tough reformer with an abrasive tongue, still remains ahead of his rivals - former education minister Anies Baswedan, and Agus Yudhoyono, the son of Indonesia's previous president. A third of voters remain undecided. Governing Jakarta, a city of 10 million, is often seen as a stepping stone to higher political office. Purnama took over the governorship in 2014, when his then-boss, Joko Widodo, stepped down to contest and win the presidency. Census data show only about one percent of Indonesians are ethnic Chinese and about seven percent are Protestants. (Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
By Kanupriya Kapoor, Asad Hashim and Omar Fahmy JAKARTA/ISLAMABAD/CAIRO (Reuters) - Many Muslims around the world expressed dismay on Wednesday at Donald Trump's election as U.S. president, saying they feared it might raise tensions between the West and Islam and contribute to radicalisation. While Egypt's president made an early congratulatory call to Trump, ordinary Muslims were worried that his victory would be a propaganda gift to jihadist groups. Others were apprehensive that the president-elect will implement campaign pledges to clamp down on Muslims entering the United States. "Trump has espoused highly inflammatory rhetoric against Muslims. Voters there will expect him to fulfill his promises. That makes me worry about the impact on Muslims in the U.S. and in the rest of the world," said Yenny Wahid, a prominent mainstream Muslim figure in Indonesia. The world's 1.6 billion Muslims follow a multitude of sects and schools of thought, constitute a majority of the population in countries as varied as Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Albania, and hold a vast array of political views. Yet Trump's previous comments about Muslims, that those from abroad should be barred entry or intensely scrutinised beforehand, and the presence of vocal anti-Islam activists among his supporters, has alarmed many. During a bitter election campaign, Trump also attacked his opponents for what he characterised as their denial about the threat posed by militant Islam, which he said was "coming to our shores", adding that he would quickly form a commission on it. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was the first world leader to congratulate Trump on the phone, Sisi's office said. Many other Egyptians also welcomed his victory, saying his opponent Hillary Clinton's record in office had won her few friends in the most populous Arab country. Clinton, Secretary of State during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, is unpopular with many Egyptians. Many of those who backed the revolt saw her as a long-standing supporter of Hosni Mubarak, the autocrat they toppled from power.[nL8N1DA3R6] But elsewhere, other Muslims saw Trump as a hostile figure. "Whatever happens to America affects everybody and with all these promises of doom by Trump to the blacks, to the Muslims, the minority, so it's not something we're happy about," said Ganiu Olukanga, a Muslim resident of the Nigerian capital Lagos. Some Muslims, including Wahid, said they feared his election as president might encourage a view that the United States held enmity for Muslims and that this would hinder efforts in Islam to counter radicalisation. "Trump's victory will be an enormous gift to a failing jihadist movement, that will have now have a renewed rallying cry," said Ammar Rashid, an academic and member of Pakistan's Awami Workers Party on Twitter. "If jihadi ideology has a source of sustenance, it is the image of the US as the evil anti-Muslim crusader. They will milk Trump's win dry," he added. In jihadist social media forums, militants said Trump's election had merely revealed the true position of the United States towards Muslims. "The masks have slipped," one wrote. But some other Muslims were more hopeful, including Umer Daudzai, former Afghan minister of interior, citing the record of Ronald Reagan who was U.S. president from 1981-89. "Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War. I hope Donald Trump will end all wars and become hero of peace in the world," he told Reuters. "NEGATIVE, CYNICAL" Among some officials, there were also expressions of concern but the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the body that represents Muslim states, issued no statement early on Wednesday. In Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation, an official from the faith's top clerical body there said Trump's election could create new tension between the United States and the Islamic world. Trump had made "negative, cynical" comments about Muslims in the past, Din Syamsuddin, a senior official at the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), told reporters in Jakarta. "He had forgotten that many Americans are immigrants." Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally that is both birthplace of Islam and home to its holiest places, issued a statement that it had congratulated Trump on his election win without making further comment. However, Awad al-Qirni, one of its most popular clerics with a Twitter following of two million, said in a social media post after the election - but without referring to Trump directly - that "America declines into collapse" and that "its internal crisis will grow severely". In Pakistan, Sherry Rehman, a senator and former ambassador to Washington, said Trump's proposal last year to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. had disturbed many. "Pakistan obviously cannot rule out engaging with whomever America elects but his anti-Muslim rhetoric may cast a shadow on relations in times of uncertainty," he told Reuters on Wednesday. And in Bangladesh, a government official who asked not to be named said: "I can't think what awaits us. Donald Trump was talking about fighting against Muslims. Are we going to see more wars?" Among private citizens in Dhaka, some said they hoped the pressure of office would temper Trump's views. "It is just unbelievable and I am a bit tense. I hope there will be a difference between Donald Trump and President Donald Trump. President Trump will be more mature than individual Trump," Asif Iqbal, a private sector employee, said. (Additional reporting by Seun Sanni in Lagos, Ruma Paul in Dhaka, Bernadette Christina Munthe in Jakarta, Ahmed Aboulenein in Cairo, Hamid Shalizi in Kabul, Kay Johnson in Islamabad, Bozorgmehr Sharafedin Nouri in Beirut, Reem Shamseddine in Khobar; Writing and additional reporting by Angus McDowall in Beirut)
Jennifer Lawrence discussed her favorite male body parts with Ellen and Chris Pratt and it was perfection

With their upcoming movie Passengers premiering on December 21, Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt have begun promoting the film. Which means the two delightful humans have been making a ton of super fun appearances and delighting audiences everywhere with their dynamic duo charm.

Jennifer and Chris were playing a game called 5 second rule. The goal is to name three things in a category within 5 seconds. And the results were spectacular.

After completing a couple rounds of generic categories like, Movies that take place in space and Planets besides earth, the categories got a little spicier.

Ellen first asked Chris Pratt to Name three of your favorite body parts of the opposite sex.

After a hilarious reaction from Chris, he starts with lungs, and adds a couple more (expected) answers from there. Jennifer gets the same question and, taking her time, starts listing some specifics.

She says, Upper back. Bicep. And that dent.

Because she was making a V-gesture on her body, the audience starts cracking up. Ellen double checks her answer by affirming she called that stomach muscle area a dent, and more laughter ensues.

Of course, Chris cant help but chime in that her gesture didnt exactly look like she was pointing out the muscles, but rather something else. Jennifer, who jokes she was oblivious to what she was hinting at, starts to laugh even harder.

The whole segment was pure comedy gold. Jennifer and Chris clearly have a great time together. If their chemistry is anything like what we get to see in these fun appearances, Passengers is going to be an insanely good film!

The post Jennifer Lawrence discussed her favorite male body parts with Ellen and Chris Pratt and it was perfection appeared first on HelloGiggles.
"Today the only people that feel safe, that their rights are recognized and respected are white men," said Jennifer Lawrence on Wednesday. Joining the scores of celebrities who are speaking out, the actress wrote an editorial aimed at the dejected half of a divided nation in the wake of Donald Trump winning the presidential election.

"Is this the stark reality?" she begins in the piece for Vice's website for women, Broadly, titled "Don't Be Afraid, Be Loud: Jennifer Lawrence on What We Do Now." She continues, "It doesn't matter how hard you work or how qualified you are, at the end of the day, you're not a man?"

The actress, who has championed equal rights and spoken out about closing the gender pay gap in Hollywood, helped to get out the vote for Hillary Clinton on Election Day. Director Darren Aronofsky, a Clinton supporter, hit Duke University to offer voting students a chance to FaceTime with Lawrence, as the pair are newly dating.

Now dealing with Clinton's loss, Lawrence admits that she is struggling to remain positive in the face of a Trump presidency.

"If you're a woman and you're worried that no matter how hard you work or how much you learn, there will always be a glass ceiling, then I don't really know what to say," she wrote. "I don't know what I would tell my daughter if I were you. Except to have hope. To work for the future."

Read more: Chelsea Handler Cries as She Talks Fighting the Urge to Move to Spain Following Trump Win

In 2015, the Kentucky-born actress explained that she was raised as a Republican but couldn't imagine "supporting a party that doesn't support women's basic rights." She said a Trump presidency would be the "end of the world."

Now that Trump is the president-elect, Lawrence said, "We're all allowed to be sad that the present isn't what we thought it was. But we mustn't be defeated."

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She continued, "We will keep educating ourselves and working twice as hard as the man next to us because we know now that it is not fair. It is not fair in the workplace, so you make it impossible to fail. And like Hillary, it might not work. But like Hillary, you can still be an inspiration and get important things done."

She then dug up some inspiring words for the groups of people who feel left behind with Trump in the White House.

"Do not let this defeat you - let this enrage you! Let it motivate you! Let this be the fire you didn't have before. If you are an immigrant, if you are a person of color, if you are LGBTQ+, if you are a woman - don't be afraid, be loud!"

Read the full op-ed here.

Read more: Late-Night Hosts Send Hopeful Messages in Somber Post-Election Shows
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, setting aside his previous hostility towards Donald Trump, said on Thursday his U.S. presidential election victory offered economic opportunities and there was no need for Europeans to be despondent about it. "I may respectfully say to my European friends and colleagues that it's time we snapped out of general doom and gloom about this election," Johnson said after meeting Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. "He is after all a deal maker. He wants to do a free trade deal with the UK," Johnson told reporters. Trump's shock victory over Hillary Clinton has delighted far-right politicians in France, the Netherlands and Austria but worried some mainstream politicians who fear it may be part of a populist, anti-establishment trend. "I believe that this is a great opportunity for us in the UK to build on that relationship with America that is of fundamental economic importance for us but also of great importance for stability and prosperity in the world," Johnson said. On Wednesday the former London mayor congratulated Trump on his victory and wrote on his Twitter account he looked forward to continuing the partnership between the two nations. Last year Johnson said that he feared going to New York because of "the real risk of meeting Donald Trump" after the billionaire said parts of London were now so radicalised that police officers feared to go there. (Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
On Donald Trump's path to the White House, he'll have to make a detour on Nov. 28 to San Diego, California to face claims in a civil lawsuit of duping Trump University students. At the coming trial, a reprisal of many of the most incendiary elements of his presidential campaign may occur.

In advance of a hearing on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel put out a tentative ruling that denied a motion by Trump's lawyer to exclude all evidence and arguments relating to the events of the presidential primaries and general election.

In a Oct. 20 motion, Daniel Petrocelli wrote, "The media have reported on every aspect of Mr. Trump's life from his long background and history in business and his work in television, to his wife, daughters and sons, charitable foundation, taxes, and even the Miss Universe pageant."

The attorney went on to argue that matters concerning the candidate's character and controversial behavior carries a danger of "extreme and irremediable prejudice," potentially tainting Trump's right to a fair trial.

Brian Cochran, the attorney who will be pushing the case that Trump made misrepresentations by among other things vouching that Trump University teachers were personally "handpicked," objected and even compared the logic to Alec Baldwin's imitation of Trump on Saturday Night Live.

"Trump cannot be allowed to bar from trial, without reference to a single specific statement or grounding in precedent, his own well-documented melange of misrepresentations, hoods and flip-flops, as such statements are textbook impeachment evidence appropriate for trial," wrote Cochran.

Judge Curiel seems to agree.

"Defendants have not identified specific evidence that they wish to exclude," states the tentative order. "Accordingly, the Court declines to issue a blanket ruling at this time and is prepared to DENY Defendants' motion without prejudice. Defendants may renew their objection to specific testimony at trial."

During the campaign, Curiel's own rulings were subject to venom by Trump, who argued that a Hispanic judge was being hostile to him. The comment about Curiel's supposed roots (he's actually from Indiana) generated widespread criticism even in Republican quarters.
By Dan Levine and Karen Freifeld SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The U.S. judge overseeing the lawsuit against President-elect Donald Trump and his Trump University told both sides they would be wise to settle the case "given all else that's involved." Lawyers for the president-elect are squaring off against students who claim they were they were lured by false promises to pay up to $35,000 to learn Trump's real estate investing "secrets" from his "hand-picked" instructors. Earlier on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel tentatively rejected a bid by Trump to keep a wide range of statements from the presidential campaign out of the fraud trial. Trump owned 92 percent of Trump University and had control over all major decisions, the students' court papers say. The president-elect denies the allegations and has argued that he relied on others to manage the business. Trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 28, but in the hearing on Thursday, Trump lawyer Daniel Petrocelli said he would ask to put the trial on hold until early next year, in light of the many tasks the magnate has before his inauguration. "It would be wise for the plaintiffs, for the defendants, to look closely at trying to resolve this case given all else thats involved, Curiel said. He added that he would allow Trump to testify via video given his obligations. In the tentative ruling Curiel, based in San Diego, said Trump's lawyers can renew objections to specific campaign statements and evidence during trial. Trump's attorneys had argued that jurors should not hear about statements Trump made during the campaign, including about Curiel himself. Trump attacked the judge as biased against him. He claimed Curiel, who was born in Indiana but is of Mexican descent, could not be impartial because of Trump's pledge to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Trump's lawyers argued that Curiel should bar from the trial accusations about Trump's personal conduct including alleged sexual misconduct, his taxes and corporate bankruptcies, along with speeches and tweets. They argued the information is irrelevant to the jury and prejudicial to the case. In court papers, lawyers for the students claimed that Trump's statements would help jurors as they weigh the Republican's credibility. "Defendants have not identified specific evidence that they wish to exclude," Curiel wrote on Thursday. "Accordingly, the court declines to issue a blanket ruling at this time." The judge also barred Trump lawyers from telling jurors that the university had a 98 percent approval rate on student evaluations. That rating is irrelevant as to whether Trump University misrepresented itself, Curiel wrote. California judges often issue tentative rulings, which are then finalized after a hearing with few major changes. Curiel is presiding over two cases against Trump and the university. A separate lawsuit by New York's attorney general is pending. (Reporting by Dan Levine in San Diego and Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Peter Henderson and Cynthia Osterman)
Julie Bowen has no problems with Sofia Vergara -- and she's got the blouse to prove it.

The Modern Family star stopped by the Ellen DeGeneres Show on Wednesday, where she put to rest some rumors that she and her co-star don't get along.

MORE: Peyton Manning Will Make Acting Debut on 'Modern Family'

"So and so trash mag will be running a story ... 'You are icy to Sofia Vergara,'" the 46-year-old actress told host Ellen DeGeneres. "So I email her last night, and then we talked and I'm like, 'What should I say?' 'Cause we're friends!"

"She goes, 'Please just borrow my blouse,'" Bowen added. "So I'm borrowing her blouse."

"You don't have to have the truth anymore, you just have to have the internet," she explained. "You can just make up anything."

MORE: Eric Stonestreet Has a Baby Look-Alike Who Dressed Up as His 'Modern Family' Character Cam for Halloween

Watch the clip below.

That settles it for us!

Modern Family airs Wednesdays at 9/8c.

EXCLUSIVE: Watch Sofia Vergara Hilariously Try to Change Her Iconic Accent

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By Davide Scigliuzzo

NEW YORK, Nov 10 (IFR) - Bankers are advising junk-bond issuers to be prudent in the aftermath of Donald Trump's US electoral victory, warning that conditions are likely to remain volatile for some time to come.

Treasury yields widened sharply after the vote, making conditions less attractive for better quality junk borrowers, whose curve more closely mirrors that of Treasuries.

At least two junk-rated companies planning to announce refinancing deals this week were advised to hold off for the moment, bankers told IFR.

And expectations for more than US$10bn of new high-yield supply next week may need to be revised down if more opportunistic issuers decide to wait.

"There could be a pause for higher-quality issuers coming to the market," a senior leveraged finance banker said.

"They are probably going to wait if they lost 20bp and they have (Double B) ratings."

Even for those companies that need to come to market to fund planned acquisitions, underwriters are recommending a prudent approach when they pull the trigger.

"We are taking a cautious tone," a second banker said. "Maybe we won't accelerate or tighten (deals) as quickly out of respect for the volatility."

Still, the primary market seems to be ticking along.

Canadian satellite company Telesat on Wednesday priced a US$500m eight-year non-call three bond issue that had been announced before the elections at 8.875% - the midpoint of 8.75%-9% price talk.

While the size was cut by US$250m, investors said that had more to do with challenges in the satellite industry than with the election outcome.

The notes jumped by over two points on Thursday.

Meanwhile Envision Healthcare is expected to kick off a roadshow next week for a US$750m unsecured bond that will help finance its merger with surgery center operator AmSurg.

Barring fresh outflows from the asset class, many on the buyside say they are still receptive to new issues.

"We are not going to sit here and say that because of the result (of the elections) new issues are off-limits for us," said Tom Stolberg, a portfolio manager at Loomis Sayles.

"We bought new issues in February, when the world was a lot more miserable than it is now. Sometimes it can be an opportunity." (Reporting by Davide Scigliuzzo; Editing by Marc Carnegie)
James Schamus Symbolic Exchange is joining forces with Germanys X-Filme, Frances Haut et Court, and the U.K.s Potboiler to produce an adaptation of Mary Gabriels book about Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and their families, Love and Capital, as a limited TV series.

Playwright and screenwriter Alice Birch will write the show. She recently wrote the script for William Olroyds feature debut Lady Macbeth, which premiered to acclaim at this years Toronto Intl. Film Festival, where it was picked up by Roadside Attractions for a 2017 release in the U.S. Published in 2011, Love and Capital was a National Book Award finalist, a National Book Critics Circle finalist, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

The story centers on the real lives of Jenny and Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and the two sisters  Mary and Lizzie Burns  whom he loved and who loved him, and the Marx daughters  Jennychen, Laura, and Eleanor. They lived their lives at a fever pitch, well-suited to the possibilities of the most dramatic television imaginable, according to a statement.

Illicit affairs, revolutionary plots, murder-suicide pacts, midnight escapes, aristocratic luxury and Dickensian poverty  the true story of the Marx dynasty outdoes even the most fanciful of todays invented soap operas, all against the background of a world on fire and the formation of ideas that still transform todays global society.

By allowing us to experience this extraordinary story through the eyes primarily of the women who lived it, Mary Gabriel allows us for the first time to feel the entire human drama that changed our world, Schamus said.

This is event television, and a perfect topic for large-scale European co-production with partners of tremendous distinction and taste. To have a bold visionary like Alice Birch leading the initial creative charge makes this all the more exciting.

Birch was the co-winner of the 2014 George Devine Award for Revolt. She said. Revolt Again, winner of the Arts Foundation Award for Playwriting 2014, and was one of the BBC Writersroom 10 for 2014.

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Her plays include Ophelias Zimmer for the Royal Court and Schaubune, We Want You to Watch for the National Theatre, Little on the Inside for the Almeida, So Much Once for the Old Vic, and Open Court Soap Opera for the Royal Court.

Schamus, who set up New York City-based Symbolic Exchange in 2015, wrote the screenplay for The Ice Storm, which won best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival, and produced the Oscar-nominated Brokeback Mountain. He also served as CEO of Focus Features. His feature directorial debut, an adaptation of Philip Roths Indignation, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Symbolic Exchange has a first-look and financing deal with Meridian Entertainment, and recently announced its first two pictures to be financed under that deal, Kitty Greens Casting JonBenet, and Jean-Stephane Sauvaires A Prayer Before Dawn, starring Joe Cole, which will both premiere next year.

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By Duncan Miriri OTHAYA, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenya plans to increase coffee roasting and is encouraging farmers to link up with foreign partners who can help build markets abroad, to add value to its raw bean exports that are a major source of foreign exchange. Kenya grows just 1 percent of the world's coffee a year, but punches above its weight in quality as many global firms seek its arabica beans to blend with lower quality varieties. However, most of its produce is exported as cleaned beans and just 5 percent is roasted, so Kenya misses out on the added value from selling roasted and packaged coffee. Kenya produced 45,000 tonnes of beans in the 2015/16 season and forecasts output of 50,000 tonnes in 2016/17. It is seeking to raise the amount of coffee roasted locally by 5 to 10 percent annually over the next five years, Richard Lesiyampe, principal secretary for agriculture, told Reuters. "Any value addition that can give us more money, that is the direction we want to take. We should actually go to 50 percent if possible," he said. "It is really ambitious but can be done." In the coffee growing region of the central highlands, Othaya Farmers Co-operative is installing a roasting machine and a grinder at a cost of 50 million shillings ($500,000) to produce packed coffee for local retail and export in future. The aim is boost earnings for the co-operative's 15,000 farmers, who now earn a maximum of 78 shillings per kg on the best quality raw beans but could earn 100 shillings after roasting, co-operative chairman James Gathua told Reuters. While a 50-kg bag of top grade AA coffee fetches about $500 at the weekly auction in Nairobi, a bag of lower grade coffee goes for about $150. But experts say the value of this lower grade coffee can be doubled when roasted. "Opportunities exist for private partnerships with roasters abroad, who have expressed interest in investing in roasting machinery in Kenya," Kenya's industry regulator, the Coffee Directorate, said in response to questions. Among the new entrants, Denmark's African Coffee Roasters (ACR) set up a roasting facility this year. For now, local roasting is dominated by C. Dorman Ltd, which operates a chain of coffee shops in Kenya and also exports to foreign markets, and Java House, which has a fast growing chain of coffee shops and restaurants that is expending beyond Kenya. President Uhuru Kenyatta launched a study this year into ways of revive coffee production, now roughly half output at its peak in the 1980s. Growers want the government to support producers including by removing duty on roasting machines. "If the government can support us, the portion of locally roasted coffee can go to 10 percent in the next three years," said Matthew Mugo, the managing director of Gibsons coffee Co. $1 = 101.7000 Kenyan shillings) (Editing by Edmund Blair and David Evans)
SYDNEY (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday he had told State Department officials to fully cooperate with President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration. After Trump's stunning upset of the heavily favored Hillary Clinton, Democratic President Barack Obama and leading figures in the Republican Party who had struggled to make peace with Trump all vowed to move past the ugliness of an angry campaign to seek common ground. Kerry said State Department staff must not lose sight of the important issues facing the United States. "One of the beautiful things of democracy - and we particularly pride ourselves in the United States - is that we have this amazing peaceful transfer of power," Kerry told reporters in Christchurch, New Zealand. "And we will do everything in our power, as I have instructed our team, to work with the incoming administration as fully and openly as possible, to be as helpful as possible, so that the transfer of power will be as smooth as it possibly can without missing a beat on the important issues before us." Kerry is in New Zealand en route to Antarctica. Last month 24 countries, which included the United States, and the European Union agreed to create the world's largest marine park in the Antarctic Ocean. (Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Michael Perry)
A group of young Americans suing the federal government to demand increased efforts on climate change won a notable battle Thursday, as a federal court rejected the governments request to dismiss the case.

The ruling paves the way for the 21 plaintiffswho range in age from 9 to 20to take their case to trial in federal court. A ruling in their favor could be a landmark decision on climate change, though it would almost certainly be appealed to a Supreme Court that is set to become more conservative in the wake of Donald Trumps win.

We are standing here to fight and protect everything that we lovefrom our land to our waters to the mountains to the rivers and forests, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, a 16-year-old plaintiff in the case told supporters after a hearing in Eugene, Ore. this fall. This is the moment where we decide what kind of legacy we are going to leave behind for future generations.

The case rests on the legal argument that climate change threatens the plaintiffs fundamental constitutional right to life and liberty. Julia Olson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs and executive director of Our Childrens Trust, argued in court that the federal government has understood the threat of climate change for decades and knowingly put the lives of future generations in danger. The current measures in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are insufficient and not aligned with current science, she argued.

Read More: Donald Trumps Victory Could Mean Disaster for the Planet

The lawsuit awkwardly puts President Obamas Justice Department in a position arguing that the children do not have standing to sueeven though Obama himself has made climate action a priority. Sean Duffy, a lawyer for the Justice Department, acknowledged in a September hearing that climate change poses an urgent threat but dismissed the idea that individual citizens could sue the federal government over the issue. The federal government has no means to address the complaint, Duffy argued. Quin Sorenson, a lawyer representing industry interests including the American Petroleum Institute, supported that argument and added others.

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But in the hearing Judge Ann Aiken appeared not just sympathetic to the childrenmost of whom were seated in the front of the courtroombut also downright hostile toward the challengers. Aiken seemed to suggest that the court could play a role bringing the federal government to the table with environmental activists to negotiate an agreement.

I would think the government would want the help of the courts to push the good work its doing, she told Duffy. There is so much common ground.

Read More: What to Know About the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests

Of course, that common ground will likely evaporate as soon as Trump takes office in January. Trump repeatedly rejected the science of man-made climate change as a candidate and promised to undo many existing regulations. A lawsuit forcing policymakers to the table to take action on climate change would be a game-changingif unlikelyvictory for climate change activists at an otherwise dark moment.

This weeks victory is only a preliminary step forward for the novel lawsuit. The case now faces an actual trial and whatever decision emerges will inevitably be appealed, perhaps as far as the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court ruled in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency that the EPA needs to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. But the Court has changed since then and will continue to change with Trump in office.
Donald Trump is ready to "Make America Great Again," and he already has a number of celebrities on his side.

Hours after the 70-year-old businessman was declared the 45th President of the United States over Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, stars took to social media to show their support.

WATCH: Alec Baldwin Reacts to Donald Trump's Presidential Win

Actress Kirstie Alley was one of the first to send Trump well wishes. "CONGRATULATIONS PRESIDENT TRUMP! " she tweeted. "@realDonaldTrump against all odds ..against the establishment and even against most from the GOP..U did it!"

CONGRATULATIONS PRESIDENT TRUMP! @realDonaldTrump against all odds ..against the establishment and even against most from the GOP..U did it!  Kirstie Alley (@kirstiealley) November 9, 2016

Scott Baio echoed Alley's sentiments, writing, "Great faith in God works."

"Mr @realDonaldTrump," he continued, "I'm proud to call you President of the United States of America. And First Lady @MELANIATRUMP."

Great faith in God works. Mr @realDonaldTrump I'm proud to call you President of the United States of America. And First Lady @MELANIATRUMP  Scott Baio (@ScottBaio) November 9, 2016

WATCH: Hillary Clinton Gives Concession Speech Day After Donald Trump Wins Presidential Election

Azealia Banks, who has never been shy about publicly sharing her views, also weighed in, writing, "I'm f**king proud as F**K of you."

"One for being a gemini, two for being from NYC, three for winning the presidency and four for beating the media," she continued. "The last part is your biggest victory in my eyes and I must say that I am TRULY inspired by this and feel deep amounts of vindication."

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"Thanks for letting me know that I'm not crazy (even though I fronted a few times)," she added. "Liberals run Hollywood and it's been a COLD WORLD OUT HERE FOR ME AS A TRUMP SUPPORTER . Best of luck on everything and thanks again. Sincerely - AB #TRUMP2017."

WATCH: President Barack Obama Calls Donald Trump Following His Election Victory, Invites Him to the White House

Stephen Baldwin seemed pleased with the results, sharing a screenshot from Fox News' live election coverage.

"God is moving ..... & America is speaking !! PTL," he captioned it.

"Soon the REAL work begins ... to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain!" another tweet read. "Proud to have been a part of such amazing history !! @realDonaldTrump."

Soon the REAL work begins ... to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain !

Proud to have been a part of such amazing history !!@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/YDWANm2YEZ  Stephen Baldwin (@StephenBaldwin7) November 9, 2016

See more below.

WATCH: Donald Trump Wins Election: Officially Named 45th President of the United States

Thank you God for the highly favored miracle,thank you for the shift and thank you for the truth! Only one love HH4Life  Hulk Hogan (@HulkHogan) November 9, 2016

What a glorious morning to wake up knowing that America will be great again! We did it fam! How many bucket of leftist tears? Lol  Tila Tequila (@AngelTilaLove) November 9, 2016

TrumpTrain my season7 castmate @StephenBaldwin7 is in the house!! He has been with us from day1!!#MAGA pic.twitter.com/gOLeXFjzBb  OMAROSA (@OMAROSA) November 9, 2016

when in doubt I whip it out I got me a rockNroll band itsa free for all!  Ted Nugent (@TedNugent) November 9, 2016

Donald you will be the best most awesome President . What a beautiful morning it is . @realDonaldTrump   Antonio Sabato Jr (@antoniosabatojr) November 9, 2016

Congratulations @realDonaldTrump for your stunning victory over your opponent! Looking forward to making AMERICA great again!  Steven Seagal (@sseagalofficial) November 9, 2016

WATCH: Katy Perry, Madonna, and More Celebs React With Shock as Donald Trump Is Elected President of the United States

While some celebrities were happy about a Trump victory, others were "shocked," "heartbroken" and "disappointed" by the results, and the "sad" reality that Clinton wasn't going to make history as the first female president.

Hear their reactions in the video below.

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kohl's2

Kohl's says it's starting to go after a customer that is often ignored.

"Our focus is really on the family, so this is focusing on the family member we kind of forgot about  the millennial, who is still part of that family." Sofia Wacksman, Kohl's vice president of trend, told Business Insider.

November 14 Kohl's is launching a new initiative, targeted at the stylish urban millennial, called k/lab. It's a new collection that aims to be more fast-fashion than the brand's typical offerings.

The collection will not be tied down to traditional fashion seasons, and, because Kohl's has worked closely with partners and distributors, has been able to cut down the time from concept to delivery to a matter of weeks.

Much of the retail industry decides fashions up to a year ahead of time, but Kohl's is looking at k/lab as more reactive, with an emphasis on speed.

The company hopes to spread what is learned during this experiment to the rest of the store and other collections.

The brand's investment comes at a time when department store stalwarts Macy's and Sears are grappling with falling traffic, aging brick-and-mortar stores, and customers who are addicted to steep discounts.

Kohl's is aware that the millennial woman is not their core customer. The goal with k/lab, according to the company, is to get new customers in the store who may not have considered shopping at Kohl's before, but are interested in the new collection.

To develop the collection, Kohl's trend team, along with a data scientist charged with finding what's new and now in women's fashion, in their New York City office. The data scientist will scour social media and sales numbers to help inform what pieces to bring to market next.

The pieces in k/lab will be much more fashion-forward than other more conservative Kohl's collections, Wacksman said. They're also allowed the team to be a bit more "crazy," and Wacksman says the team is not afraid to make mistakes.

kohls

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A jumpsuit made from velvet called the "Feel Me Jumpsuit," a brightly patterned bomber jacket called the "Boy Bomber," and other designs that would appeal to a younger demographic are all expected.

Prices are expected to range from $28 - $78, with shirts and skirts selling for under $58, dresses and pants ranging from $58 - $68, and jackets $78. Wholesale orders for the items will start in low quantities, with the flexibility to ramp up or down as an item becomes more or less popular, so the collection's stock will change more frequently than Kohl's other lines. If an item becomes a huge hit, there's potential to move it to another Kohl's collection.

For the in-store experience, k/lab will be housed in a completely separate display  different from other collections and built in a way to stand out. The collection will launch in 21 stores across the nation in cities identified by Kohl's as having larger populations of the customer it's trying to reach with this initiative. Online, the collection has its own landing page separate from the rest of the Kohl's website.

K/lab plays into Kohl's greater multi-year strategy for turning around sales called the Greatness Agenda, which is a multi-pillared approach began in 2014. The hope is to take the initiatives piloted and lessons learned at k/lab and apply them to rest of the store.

"Whether [k/lab] works or not, for me, is less relevant. It's teaching us new skills and new tools on how we can approach the business," Michelle Gass, chief merchandising and customer officer for Kohl's, told Business Insider. "It's helping us think differently, so it's already is a success in my mind."

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Kourtney Kardashian has a fear of missing out.

In an interview with Amazon's Style Code airing on Thursday, the 37-year-old reality star dishes on juggling motherhood with a busy social life, and why she never slows down.

"It is like a 7:30 wake-up call, daily," the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star says of her hectic schedule. "But that's like to, you know, be a mom in the morning, have my mornings and then, I always have to do the gym. Every morning."

"I'm kind of like an all day and night person," she adds. "Like, I don't stop. If people are like, 'What are you doing today?' I can literally send them the longest list."

WATCH: Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick Dress Up as 'Avengers' With Their Kids  Check Out the Superhero Family

It's been especially hectic lately for the Kardashian-Jenner crew with Kanye West's Life of Pablo tour rolling into Los Angeles, and Kendall Jenner's epic birthday bash last week.

"I was talking on the phone to Khloe [Kardashian] last night and I was like, 'This is like a lot that I'm juggling,'" explains Kourtney. "It's been a busy two weeks. We've had the Pablo Kanye concerts. And then it was Kendall's 21st birthday, and then it was Halloween."

Despite her packed schedule, the mother of three doesn't like to miss any events.

"There's been like so many things going on that I'm like, 'How do people have work, mom, and have a social life?' It's exhausting," she admits, adding, "And I get fomo [fear of missing out], if I don't go to somethingI have to go to everything."

RELATED: Kourtney Kardashian Shares Adorable Pics of Penelope on Election Day

The reality star also gushed about spending "tea time" with her 3-year-old daughter, Penelope, and the toddler's love for makeup.

"She has a little vanity in her room that my mom got for her and North last year for Christmas," Kourtney shares.

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"She loves makeup," Kourtney says of Penelope, before revealing another one of her daughter's beauty obsessions. "She loves to put color in her hair. We found these natural powder colors, so they're not bad for you. She'll do those once a week, like a fun color."

MORE: Kourtney Kardashian Says Penelope and North West Experiment With Makeup, Talks Her Sisters Being 'Critical of Each Other's Looks'

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Concerts get cancelled all the time for any number of reasons. Travel delays, illness and even structural issues can derail a long-planned show at any time. But the reasoning behind Kraftwerks scrapping of their Buenos Aires show has to be one of the strangest weve ever seen. The electronic music legends are being forced to cancel their November 23 show in the Argentinian capital because of a city-wide ban on synthesizer-based performances.

The citys ban  enacted earlier this year  outlaws any performance by a band that uses synthesizers or samplers as their primary instrument. According to the Argentine newspaper Clarin, the group was initially permitted to sell tickets to the event and only informed two weeks ago that they would not be able to perform.

The strange ban was instituted after five festivalgoers died of drug overdoses at the Buenos Aires-offshoot of the German electronic music festival Time Warp in April. Though Kraftwerks all-ages 3D performance is a far cry from a thumping, EDM fest, the broad language of the ban means that they cant host their show within the city.

After Time Warp, a ruling by [Argentian appellate] Judge [Lisandro] Fastman banned all electronic festivals, the Citys Governmental Control Agency told Clarin. Therefore, despite the fact that the papers were presented 30 days in advance, we can not grant such permission.

The shows promoter Move Concerts told the paper that over 70% of the tickets have already been sold and that Kraftwerk should not be subject to the ban.

They use synthesizers but [the show] has another format: It is a concert for all audiences that lasts between an hour and a half and two hours; And no alcoholic beverages are offered, they said.

Fans were also quick to point out the difference between a Kraftwerk show and an EDM fest, with one Twitter user joking that the only pills taken by Kraftwerk fans in 2016 are ibuprofen.

Move has yet to announce what they plan to do about the already sold tickets, or whether they plan to move the concert outside of the city.
Legendary German electronic music outfit Kraftwerk may be forced to cancel its upcoming Buenos Aires concert due to a new law banning electronic music in the city.

According to a report from Brazilian publication Clarin, Buenos Aires officials passed the ban in September as a reaction to 10 drug overdoses by party-goers at April's Time Warp festival. Those behind the Kraftwerk concert applied for their permits and were granted those papers in July. About 70 percent of tickets have already been sold, but now, the city government is stepping in to put a hold on the event.

Organizers argue the Kraftwerk show is nothing like a dance music festival, and they are right, but the city maintains that any show using synthesizers is strictly prohibited. Organizers point out that the show won't last longer than two-and-a-half hours, and go so far as to ban alcohol from the premises, but the city is yet unmoved.

Meanwhile, Sonar Festival - featuring very electronic performances from Moderat, Jacques Green, and more - is planned and approved for the city on Dec. 3. The Ministry of Culture of Buenos Aires has said it is okay "because they are concerts: no dancing or DJ situations."
Lattice Semiconductor Corporation LSCC reported third-quarter 2016 earnings per share of 2 cents, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a couple of cents.



Revenues



Lattices revenues of $113.2 million increased 14.1% sequentially and 3.2% year over year. The increase was driven by a 23% gain in FPGA revenue and continued growth in the overall consumer market.



Also, revenues were within the companys guidance range of $110-$116 million and in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate.



Revenues by End Market



Communications and Computing segments contributed 27% to Lattices third-quarter sales, down from 29% last quarter; Mobile and Consumer segment brought in 31% of total sales, up from 24% in the previous quarter; Industrial and Automotive segment brought in 33% of total sales, down from 37% in the previous quarter; while the Licensing and Services segment generated the remaining 9%, down from 10% in the second quarter.



Revenues by Geography



On a sequential basis, Asia accounted for 74% of Lattices sales, up from 68% in the prior quarter; Europe, including Africa, generated 12%, down from 15% in the previous quarter, while the Americas contributed the remaining 14%, down from 17% in second-quarter 2016.



Margins



Reported gross margin was 59.5%, up 66 basis points (bps) sequentially and 500 bps year over year. The increase was due to a favorable product mix and higher revenues.



Operating expenses  selling, general and administrative (SG&A) and research and development (R&D)  of $57.0 million decreased 7.2% from $61.4 million in the year-ago quarter. As a percentage of sales, both SG&A and R&D expenses increased. So reported operating margin came in at (5.3%) compared with (16.4%) a year ago.



GAAP net loss was $12.4 million or a loss per share of 10 cents in the third quarter versus loss of $24.9 million or 21 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. Excluding all special charges but including stock-based compensation expense, adjusted earnings per share were 2 cents compared with a loss of 8 cents in the year-ago quarter.



Balance Sheet



Lattice exited the third quarter with cash and short-term investments balance of $98.9 million, down from $119.3 million last quarter. Trade receivables were $93.9 million, slightly up from $84.7 million in the previous quarter. Day sales outstanding improved to 76 in the third quarter from 78 days in the prior quarter. Inventories were $80.5 million compared with $86.7 million at the end of the second quarter.

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LATTICE SEMICON Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

LATTICE SEMICON Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | LATTICE SEMICON Quote

Conclusion



Lattice Semiconductor designs, develops and markets high performance programmable logic devices and related development system software.



During the quarter, Lattice launched several products. Also, demand for FPGAs is increasing because these offer flexibility in terms of designs at lower R&D costs to electronic device manufacturing companies. Therefore, the companys new innovations in the FPGA space, solid execution and design wins will likely drive demand, going forward.



However, increasing competition from rivals and global uncertainty remain as headwinds.



Currently, Lattice Semiconductor has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the industry are Mercadolibre, Inc. MELI, with a Zacks Rank #1, and EVINE Live Inc. EVLV and Groupon, Inc. GRPN with a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



Mercadolibre, Inc. delivered a positive earnings surprise of 23.58% in the trailing four quarters.



EVINE Live Inc. delivered a positive earnings surprise of 6.25%, on average, in the trailing four quarters.



Groupon, Inc. delivered a positive earnings surprise of 31.07% in the trailing four quarters.



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Desperate for a little cheer in your life right now? Step right up! Lauren Conrad is showing off her Christmas tree in the December 2016 issue of Good Housekeeping, and we're not going to lie  it's just the shot of festivity the doctor ordered.

Posing inside her Pacific Palisades home, the Celebrate author, 30, showed off her Christmas blues in the mag  that is, her assortment of cerulean-hued tree decor. She has gold and blue balls, stars, and feathered ornaments hanging on the tree. Her choice of garland  tiny balls on a long string  is hung not-too-precisely in a scalloped style. And her finishing touch? A sky-blue ribbon tied into a bow at the top  so Conrad.



PHOTOS: Lauren Conrad's Best Hairstyles Ever

The rest of the spread features the LC Lauren Conrad designer (who just launched her sixth collaboration with Disney) crafting more holiday cheer: rose-accented wreaths and a dinner table covered with springtime posies. (She is a California girl, after all!) Conrad also shared her recipes for a brie-and-apple tart and her signature holiday beverage (hint: there's scotch and ginger involved).



Despite the twinkling scene, Conrad revealed that Christmas morning will not be spent at home. "One of my favorite new traditions, which is from my husband's [William Tell] family, is going over on Christmas morning in our pajamas," she shared. (Conrad and Tell, 36, celebrated their second wedding anniversary in September.) "It's really sweet  his mom drops off a set for me so we'll all match."



PHOTOS: Celebrities Buying Christmas Trees

Being the fashionista Conrad is, she also offered her best holiday party styling tip. "If you go to a lot of holiday parties, it's good to invest in accessories that can help mix up a little black dress, such as a cool embellished jacket, a statement necklace or fun heels," she said. "Buying a new outfit for every party can get costly  I like having fun with accessories instead."

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By James Regan

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Top Rio Tinto executives discussed payments to a consultant working to smooth relations with Guinea, weeks after it announced a settlement allowing it access to one of the world's largest iron ore deposits, according to internal emails.

Rio reported the April 2011 email correspondence on Wednesday after an internal probe. It said it had notified authorities and suspended the senior executive in charge of the project at the time, head of energy and minerals Alan Davies.

There is no suggestion that officials or the consultant acted illegally, but the emails, which involve two former chief executives, are a blow to a group that has campaigned for transparency even in complex countries, and in projects as devilishly difficult as Guinea's $20 billion Simandou mine.

U.S. authorities have investigated corruption in Guinean mining and a former representative of a rival miner, BSG Resources, was jailed for two years in 2014. BSGR denied allegations it paid bribes or ordered others to do so.

A U.S. investigation into Rio's activities and any payments in Guinea, however, could complicate a move announced late last month to sell the project to the miner's Chinese partner, Chinalco.

Guinea has been a focus for anti-corruption campaigners and funds, attracting cash from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and billionaire George Soros to improve governance.

"The company did self report and people have been stood aside, but that doesn't tell a lot about the ethical governance within Rio Tinto," Transparency International Australia chairman Anthony Whealy said.

The U.S. and Britain in recent years have ratcheted up their anti-corruption rules.

The email exchange in question, between then chief executive Tom Albanese, iron ore head Sam Walsh and Davies discussed a $10.5 million payment to Francois de Combret, a former Lazard investment banker with a long history operating in Guinea.

Rio has not confirmed the details, referring to an unnamed consultant and a "contractual payment".

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Davies did not answer his mobile phone when contacted by Reuters. Albanese did not immediately respond to messages. Walsh could not be immediately contacted for comment. Rio declined further comment.

It was not clear exactly what services de Combret was being compensated for, although one email referenced "his very unique and irreplaceable services and closeness to the (Guinean) President", referring to Alpha Conde, elected in 2010.

In one exchange, Davies said he had spoken to de Combret.

"We have reached a final point, where Francois has requested a fee for services on securing [Simandou blocks] 3 and 4 of US$10.5m," Davies wrote.

"Sam, I accept that this is a lot of money, but I also put forward that the result we achieved was significantly improved by Francois' contribution," he wrote.

"He vouched for our integrity when it was needed and helped bring us together when things were looking extremely difficult."

In the correspondence, Walsh wrote there was "no question" de Combret "delivered sizeable value."

De Combret was a classmate of Conde who worked at Lazard bank until 2005, according to a document on the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes web site.

De Combret could not be reached for comment.

Albanese was ousted by Rio's board in 2013 after investments in aluminum and coal that turned into billions of dollars of writedowns. He was replaced by Walsh, who retired in July.

(Reporting by James Regan; Additional reporting by Jamie Freed and Sonali Paul; Editing by Clara Ferreira Marques and Richard Pullin)
Washington (AFP) - Bernie Sanders, who galvanized young Americans during this year's Democratic primary race, said that he is ready to work with president-elect Donald Trump if he wants to "improve the lives of working families."

"Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media," the Vermont senator said in a statement following the Republican billionaire's surprise victory, which has sent shockwaves through the United States and around the world.

"To the degree that Mr Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him," added Sanders, the left-leaning independent who called for a political revolution during his surprisingly strong but ultimately failed populist primary challenge to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him," he said.

Like Sanders -- who denounced what he called the corrupt influence of the country's wealthy elites on politics, and advocated free public college education and universal health care -- Trump honed a populist appeal to Americans who feel left behind by economic globalization and mounting inequity.

Unlike Sanders, however, Trump proposes slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and has said that schemes to avoid paying millions of dollars in personal income tax proves he is "smart."

After his primary loss, Sanders called on his supporters to rally behind Clinton, campaigning against Trump, whom he called a "danger" and a "demagogue."

The other main voice of left-wing Democrats, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren -- who waged a bitter personal war of words against Trump during the campaign -- said Wednesday that she is "intensely frustrated" by his victory.

However, she also offered the Republican an olive branch.

"President-elect Trump promised to rebuild our economy for working people," she said, "and I offer to put aside our differences and work with him on that task."
Parks and Recreation leslie knope donald trump president

It has been over a year since "Parks and Recreation" ended its run on NBC, but its duty-bound main character, Leslie Knope (played by Amy Poehler), is back to offer some comfort for those Americans who are saddened by the 2016 election results.

Published by Yahoo, the letter opened with an appeal for donations to the ACLU, which has vowed to fight Trump in court if he were to challenge civil liberties, and the International Rescue Committee, which provides relief services to refugees.

Knope, a middle-management government worker in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, began the letter by expressing her own level of sadness over Trump's win.

"Amidst the confusion, and despair, and disbelief, it was suggested to me by a very close friend of mine," wrote Knope, who revealed the close friend was Rashida Jones' character Ann, "that perhaps a few people would enjoy hearing my thoughts on this election. So I sat down at my computer, cleared my head, and opened a document. Then I started crying."

Fans of the show will remember that Hillary Clinton was one of the character's role models. And while Clinton never got to appear on the show, she expressed an interest in watching "Parks and Rec" in one of the emails released as part of the investigation into her use of a private server.

The letter goes on to tell a story from Knope's fourth-grade class. She and her classmates read a story about "two fictional candidates: a smart if slightly bookish-looking cartoon tortoise named Greenie, and a cool-looking jaguar named Speedy."

The students had to argue which one would make a better class president. But as it was looking like the children would pick Speedy, one kid introduced a third candidate: "a T-Rex named Dr. Farts who wears sunglasses and plays the saxophone, and his plan is to fart as much as possible and eat all the teachers."

Dr. Farts won the election, which left Leslie saddened. She was the only one who voted for the sensible choice. Her teacher then told her the exercise's lesson: "People are unpredictable, and democracy is insane."

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But the idea Knope wanted to get across was that democracy is still better than other forms of government, even if it doesn't go your way.

"The point is: people making their own decisions is, on balance, better than an autocrat making decisions for them," she wrote. "Its just that sometimes those decisions are bad, or self-defeating, or maddening."

Read Leslie Knope's entire letter to America at Yahoo.

NOW WATCH: Watch the Trump protest that shut down parts of New York City





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From Good Housekeeping

Dear Ava,

This morning while you stood in the kitchen all sleepy-eyed and half awake, I told you who won the presidential election. Your eyes widened, and your mouth dropped. You stood there in silence for a second, then said, "I feel so sad for Hillary." Me too, love, me too.

Our family was unnervingly quiet as we rushed to get you and your brother out the door to school. Your brother broke the silence when he announced, "Trump is a jerk!" He went on to tell me, "because he talks bad about women like you and Ava." While his father was telling him our family doesn't call anyone names, I turned to see your face flushed in delight and your eyes twinkling. The little man you adore the most in the world was calling out our President-elect's bad behavior while taking up for his favorite girls (me and you). Maybe your brother's defense will carry you through the day.

As we walked to the bus with your hair wildly blowing in the wind, you blurted out, "If I ran for president, I am never giving in!" Thatta girl - fighting defeat with optimism! From the age of four, you have been deeply shocked that the United States has never elected a female president. But all of us, especially the men in your life, celebrate you - a girl, perfectly capable of leading anything from a theater production to a political party. I hope this news doesn't make you change your beliefs that women are more than capable of leading our country.

Before putting you on the bus, I said that there will be a lot of girls who will feel very sad and disappointed that Hillary was not elected the first female president. You reminded me, "Well, so will the boys in my class!" I can only hope your 2nd grader's attitude that girls can do anything continues in the years to come.

Remember your first grade project, where you had to answer the question: "What are ways you think would make the world a better place?" You drew the American flag with a picture of a woman across it and wrote, " I wish there were a female President so girls could be treated fairly." I plan to dig this out of the keepsake box and hang on the wall across from where you sleep. I hope as you doze off to sleep, you keep this dream alive.

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Photo credit: Courtesy of Tanya Bishai

My fiercely courageous daughter, you have what it takes to be a great leader. Take care to fan the flame of desire, empathy and service. Support the endeavors of the girls and women around you. Also, know that Hillary may have not lost because she is female. Her party, not her, may have lost the election - she certainly won the popular vote.

Despite the somberness of today, take heart, my love. One day very soon, a woman will lead this great country. And maybe, just maybe, it will be you.

Lead like a girl!

Lovingly,

Mom

Tanya Bishai is the mother to two elementary aged children, married to a musician and composer. Raised in Texas, born for New York City, she works in luxury real estate at Elegran in Midtown Manhattan and spends time hosting book clubs for women and serving in the community.

Follow Good Housekeeping on Instagram and Pinterest.

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LONDON (Reuters) - Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said on Wednesday she was saddened by the fact U.S. voters had not elected a woman president, and expressed concern about what President-elect Donald Trump's policy towards Africa would be. Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman to be elected a head of state in Africa, said: "We are extremely saddened by this missed opportunity on the part of the people of the United States to join smaller democracies in ending the marginalisation of women." In an interview with BBC television, she said that Liberia, a nation founded in the 19th century by freed American slaves, had a long and historical relationship with the United States and she expected that to continue. "We are concerned as to whether President-elect Trump will have an African agenda, will be able to build bridges with Africa. We can only hope that he will do so in due course. "I'm worried about trade deals for Liberia, for Africa. I'm worried about investment and the special programmes that have been put in place by President Obama and by President George Bush before him, and we just don't know what the policy towards Africa will be." (Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
The third branch of the federal government wasnt on the ballot Tuesday, but voters shaped its future for at least a generation.

President-elect Trumps upset victory means the U.S. Supreme Courts conservative wing will shape its decisions for the immediate future. It also guarantees that Merrick Garland, President Obamas nominee for the seat formerly held by Justice Antonin Scalia, will not be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate.

Beyond that, the future is unwritten. Trumps unprecedented rise to power, as well as his disregard for longstanding American political norms, raises serious questions about the federal judiciarys future under his watch. Heres an attempt to answer some of them.

What happens to Scalias vacant seat?

Gone are the hopes that Obamas third justice could tip the Courts ideological balance towards the left. Merrick Garland, his nominee for that vacancy, will return to his old job as chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells gambit to deny Obama the chance to fill that seat worked without any apparent electoral blowback. With that precedent set, will future presidents ever again get their Supreme Court nominees past a Senate controlled by the opposite party? Im not optimistic.

Who will be the next justice?

On the campaign trail, Trump said he would nominate a jurist in the ideological mold of Antonin Scalia to fill the late justices vacancy on the Court. In May, the Trump campaign released a list of eleven judges he would consider appointing to the high court; he added another ten names in September.

Will Democrats be able to block Trumps nominee?

Its very unlikely. The GOP will likely hold 52 Senate seats in the next Congress, meaning Democrats would need at least three Republican senators backing to vote down any nomineean uphill battle, to say the least. If they attempt a filibuster to prevent a vote, McConnell could invoke the nuclear optionchanging the Senate rules by a simple majority voteand abolish the practice for Supreme Court nominees.

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But a bruising confirmation battle could still occur. With advance warning about Trumps choices, left-leaning interest groups could build extensive research on the nominees judicial records and personal histories. They might not be able to block a potential justice outright, but they could make the process a headache for the Trump administration and Republican senators alike.

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What would have happened if Clinton had won?

For the American left, the opportunity cost is incalculable. Replacing Scalia with Garland (or, if Clinton had won, a more liberal jurist) would have given liberals their first five-justice majority since 1970, ending a half-century of conservative leadership of the Court.

Its impossible to know how a more liberal Court would behave with any certainty, but legal scholars anticipated major rulings protecting abortion rights, narrowing the scope of the Second Amendment, overturning Citizens United, and abolishing the death penalty.

How will the Court rule on major cases now?

Predicting how the justices will vote can be tricky, as best shown by Chief Justice John Robertss surprise vote to save the Affordable Care Acts individual mandate in 2012. But weve seen some glimpses of the rightward lurch to come. (Its unlikely a new justice will join the Court before its current term ends in June, so the cases currently on its docket will likely be decided by the current justices.)

During the Courts 2015-2016 term, the justices appeared poised to hand down major rulings on affirmative action, the ACAs religious exemptions, collective bargaining by public unions, and Obamas executive immigration orders. Scalias death in February threw most of those cases into turmoil: the Court deadlocked in 4-4 splits on the immigration-order and organized-labor cases, and punted the religious-exemptions case back to the lower courts.

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Justice Anthony Kennedys vote to uphold affirmative-action programs in Fisher v. University of Texas could deter a serious attempt to challenge their constitutionality while he remains on the Court. But attempts to revisit the underlying issues in the other cases are likely after Scalias replacement is confirmed. Conservative legal groups could also seek new challenges to gun-control laws as the courts continue to define the Second Amendments extent, while Republican-led states could redouble their efforts to restrict abortion rights.

After her criticism of him this summer, will Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse herself from cases involving Trump?

Apparently not. The U.S. Supreme Court fielded a number of last-minute appeals on election-related cases ahead of Tuesdays vote, and Ginsburg didnt announce her recusal from any of them. In one case, which dealt with an anti-voter-intimidation order in Ohio, she appended a brief comment reminding both parties voter intimidation is illegal under state law.

What do the other justices think of Trump?

Ginsburgs notable exception aside, the other justices havent commented on him. But theyre also not cloistered monastics; they read newspapers and watch TV and know as much about him as we do.

While we dont know their personal views on Trump, its worth noting he comes from a very different ideological place than any of the justices. Archconservatives like Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, for example, belong to intellectual traditions that value the Constitutions original meaning and a constrained interpretation of its text. But Trump hasnt really articulated a view of the Constitution beyond his boilerplate support for conservative judges.

And while some of the justices likely agree with him on one issue or another, Trumps syncretic brand of economic populism and ethno-nationalism doesnt really have a kindred spirit on the Court. Its also doubtful Trumps racist attacks this summer on federal judge Gonzalo Curiel sat well with any of the justices, conservative or liberal.

What does Trump think of the other justices?

I dont think Trump cares about the Supreme Court as an institution very much, and hes rarely talked about most of the justices on it. A notable exception is Scalia: Trump frequently invoked his memory on the campaign trail after the justices death, saying he would appoint other justices in his image.

But hes more often venomous than praiseworthy. After his spat with Ginsburg this summer, Trump described her as a disgrace and said her mind is shot. Hes also no fan of Roberts, whom hes frequently criticized for casting the fifth vote to save the ACAs individual mandate in 2012.

If the Supreme Court takes a hard turn to the right, is there any hope for liberals?

For starters, its not the nations only court. Obamas appointments to the federal district and appellate courts have already shifted the judiciarys ideological balance towards the left. Judges appointed by Democratic presidents currently hold a majority on nine of the 13 circuit courts of appeals, for example. That includes the pivotal D.C. Circuit, which rules on most cases involving the federal government, and most of the regional circuit courts.

A staunchly conservative Supreme Court could still deliver fatal blows to liberal economic and social policies. But it cant be everywhere at once.

What happens if theres a constitutional crisis?

That depends on the crisis. But its worth noting the Court has overcome sharp divisions in times of constitutional peril before. During the civil-rights movement, the Warren Court issued unanimous opinions on desegregation cases to maintain a united front against Southern resistance. The eight justices who heard U.S. v. Nixon labored to craft a common opinion that would force Richard Nixon to hand over the Watergate tapes, fearing that he would use any dissent to defy the Court.

The Court also has episodes of momentous failure in its history: Dred Scott and slavery, Plessy v. Ferguson and segregation, Korematsu and Japanese-American internment. But those decisions largely occurred when the Court was swept up in the prevailing mood of the nation; the current justices are far more insulated from Trumps populism by comparison. If he exercises the authoritarian tendencies he displayed on the campaign trail while in office, the Court is well positioned to resist him even when other institutions have not.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
SINA Corporation SINA is expected to report third-quarter 2016 results on Nov 16. Last quarter, it posted a positive earnings surprise of 700.00%. The company posted an average positive surprise of 188.35% over the trailing four quarters.

Lets see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Factors at Play

SINA has a strong product pipeline and is investing in product development and marketing. The companys robust user base for its e-Commerce and Weibo offerings are the positives. In August this year, SINA announced that it will be distributing its Weibo stock to its shareholders on a pro rata basis. SINA has a majority stake (54% or 78% by voting power) in Weibo, which is a microblogging service available in China. Share distribution will reduce SINAs stake in Weibo to 51% or 75% by voting power. SINA will be giving away one Weibo Class A ordinary share to shareholders holding 10 shares of SINA. The move is widely observed as a way to tackle overvaluation of Weibo shares and closing the valuation gap for SINA shareholders.

However, the companys business is likely to be impacted by soft macroeconomic conditions in China. Also, significant restrictions on online search and other social-networking activities in the region remain concerns.

Moreover, Weibo is expected to face stiff competition from the likes of WeChat in China, which may hurt its user base. We believe that Weibos monetization ability will be a major driving factor for SINA amid intensifying competition from the likes of Sohu.com Inc. SOHU and NetEase NTES in the video and brand advertising market.

Earnings Whispers

Our proven model does not conclusively show that SINA is likely to beat earnings this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. That is not the case here as you will see below.

Zacks ESP: SINA has an Earnings ESP of 0.00%. This is because both the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate are pegged at 19 cents. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Story continues

Zacks Rank: SINA has a Zacks Rank #1.Though Zacks Rank #1, 2 or 3 increases the predictive power of ESP, the companys ESP of 0.00% makes surprise prediction difficult.

We caution against stocks with a Zacks Rank #4 or 5 (Sell-rated stocks) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions momentum.

SINA CORP Price and EPS Surprise

SINA CORP Price and EPS Surprise | SINA CORP Quote

Stock to Consider

Heres a stock that you may want to consider as our model shows that it has the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter

EVINE Live Inc. EVLV with an Earnings ESP of +25.00% and a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

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Zacks Investment Research
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dan Loeb's Third Point hedge fund took a new share stake in Apple Inc, Visa Inc and Dell Technologies Inc during the third quarter, according to regulatory filings late on Thursday.

Third Point, closely followed in the investment community because of its pattern of delivering strong returns, took a 2.5 million stake in Apple, a 2.1 million class A share-stake in Visa and a 2.3 million share-stake in Dell Technologies.

In early November, Loeb told clients that Third Point's bets on corporate debt issued by Dell and Sprint Corp ranked among the year's top winners for the firm.

Through the end of September, the Third Point Offshore fund gained 7.2 percent, beating the average fund's 4 percent return.

Loeb's Third Point also increased its share stake in Facebook Inc by 45.3 percent to 5.5 million class A shares, according to regulatory filings. In addition, the fund increased its stake in Alphabet Inc by 37.5 percent to 550,000 class A capital stock shares, the filings said.

Third Point also took a 2.6 million sponsored ADS stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, according to the regulatory filings.

(Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Nordstrom Inc. (JWN) is set to report its fiscal third-quarter financial results after the markets close on Thursday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters call for $0.51 in earnings per share (EPS) and $3.48 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had EPS of $0.57 and $3.33 billion in revenue.

Recently across United States, the top-performing merchandise categories have been Beauty and Shoes. The younger customer-focused departments in Womens Apparel continued to outperform, demonstrating strength in denim and collaborations with new and emerging brands that have limited distribution some expect this to continue in the third quarter. In the July earnings report, the Midwest was the top-performing geographic region.

ALSO READ: 9 Big Losers From Hillary Clinton Not Winning the White House

Over the past several quarters, Nordstrom has been actively addressing its inventory, expense and capital, and in the second quarter, made substantial progress by bringing down inventory in line with sales. Those efforts, along with the strength of its Anniversary Sale and a great response from customers to that event, drove better-than-expected results for the second quarter. The company is hoping to continue these trends into the third quarter and holiday season.

Shareholders were optimistic on Thursday after rival retailers Macys and Kohls reported fiscal third-quarter results that stunned investors.

A few analysts weighed in on Nordstrom ahead of earnings:

Deutsche Bank has a Hold rating.

Guggenheim has a Buy rating with a $60 price target.

Stifel has a Buy rating with a $58 price target.

Cowen reiterated an Outperform with a $55 price target.

RBC Capital Markets has a Sector Perform rating with a $47 price target.

Morgan Stanley has an Underweight rating with a $36 price target.

Excluding Thursdays move, Nordstrom has performed more or less in line with the broad markets, with the stock up 5% year to date.

ALSO READ: The Next 14 States to Legalize Marijuana

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Shares of Nordstrom were last seen up nearly 9% at $56.90, with a consensus analyst price target of $49.38 and a 52-week trading range of $35.01 to $64.51.

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(Reuters) - Everton striker Romelu Lukaku will likely need to look away from the Merseyside club if he wants to fulfil his potential, according to his manager Ronald Koeman. The Belgian was linked in the British media with a move away from Goodison Park during the close season but Koeman managed to convince the 23-year-old to withdraw his transfer request. "I gave him confidence and he has himself recognised that it was good for his development to play another year at Everton. There is a very good contact and appreciation between us," Koeman told Belgian newspaper HLN. "No one knows what will come after this season. If Romelu was to play at Everton until the end of his career, I know he has left something (behind). His potential is greater and higher than Everton, as a final destination." Koeman compared Lukaku, who has scored seven of Everton's 15 Premier League goals this season, with clinical Dutch striker Patrick Kluivert and said the Belgian international had the potential to play for Spanish champions Barcelona. "Kluivert was also a striker who was quite young in the picture and had a fantastic career. Eventually Kluivert played for Barcelona, which could happen with Lukaku," Koeman, a former Barcelona defender, added. "He is potentially a great striker, one who is only 23 years old. I think Lukaku is quite complete. He can hold a ball and be a target man and, because he is tall and physically strong. You can play directly with the long ball." (Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by John O'Brien)
trump

Donald Trump's menswear line is still banned from Macy's, despite his election as the next US president.

Macy's stopped selling Trump's line of menswear  which includes suits, ties, and accessories  last year after the president-elect referred to Mexican immigrants as "rapists."

Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren told TheStreet's Brian Sozzi on Thursday that the company is not reversing that decision, despite Trump's election win.

"We made our decision about a year and a half ago, and stand by our decision," Lundgren told TheStreet. "As I have said, we wouldn't carry product from a political candidate  and now a politician  whether they be Republican or Democrat. If Hillary Clinton had a line of women's suits or handbags I wouldn't carry those either. I just think we don't want to be a politically associated company, we sell to everybody at Macy's and have a broad and diverse customer base."

Macy's stopped selling the brand in July of last year after then-candidate Trump said people coming into the United States from Mexico "are bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

Macy's released the following statement to explain its decision at the time: "We welcome all customers, and respect for the dignity of all people is a cornerstone of our culture. We are disappointed and distressed by recent remarks about immigrants from Mexico. ... In light of statements made by Donald Trump, we have decided to discontinue our business relationship."

Trump responded by urging people to boycott Macy's.

Those who believe in tight border security, stopping illegal immigration & SMART trade deals w/other countries should boycott @Macys.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2015

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Trump also released a statement saying he had decided to terminate his relationship with Macy's because it "clearly" supports illegal immigration, "which is totally detrimental to the fabric of our one great country."

My recent statement re: @macys -- We must have strong borders & stop illegal immigration now! #MakeAmericaGreatAgain A photo posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on Jul 1, 2015 at 8:21am PDT

Macy's Chief Financial Officer Karen Hoguet was asked Thursday how the election might affect the company's business.

"Im not going to answer it," she said in response to the question. "I have no clue. I have no clue  well all work together."

Related:

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS.

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(Adds CEO comments, details; updates shares)

By Siddharth Cavale and Gayathree Ganesan

Nov 10 (Reuters) - Macy's Inc and Kohl's Corp struck an optimistic note going into the holiday shopping season, giving a rare boost to shares of department store operators, which have struggled to grow in the face of intense competition from online retailers.

Macy's Inc shares were up 6.8 percent and Kohl's 13.4 percent after upbeat comments that accompanied their otherwise lackluster quarterly results on Thursday.

Shares of Nordstrom Inc, which reports later on Thursday, were up 8 percent while those of J.C. Penney Co Inc , reporting on Friday, were up 7.7 percent.

Kohl's Chief Executive Kevin Mansell said he was encouraged by a strong back-to-school season and sales during October.

Macy's Chief Executive Terry Lundgren was also upbeat.

"Our third-quarter top-line results were better than the first half of the year and our sales-driving initiatives continue to gain traction," he said.

Macy's, which also formed a partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to look at ways it can cash in on the value of its real estate, said total sales for the full year would be better than the 2 percent decline it had previously estimated.

"The trends we saw in the third quarter give us confidence that we can deliver our expectations for the fourth quarter and our guidance for fiscal 2016," Lundgren said in a statement.

Strengthening trends in Macy's apparel businesses, coupled with initiatives related to Apple Inc watches, handbags from Michael Kors Holdings Ltd and others, will help performance in the current quarter, he added.

Macy's said that Brookfield would have exclusive rights to create pre-development plans for about 50 Macy's real estate assets, including owned and leased stores and associated land.

UNDER PRESSURE

The partnership, which is for up to two years, is the latest move by Macy's to squeeze more value from its vast real estate holdings across the United States.

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The company, under pressure from activist investor Starboard Value LP, is already exploring options for its flagship stores, including its famous Herald Square store in New York.

Macy's has also said it plans to close about 100 stores, or about 14 percent of the total, representing annual net sales volume of about $1 billion.

U.S. department store operators have been struggling to grow in the face of intense competition from online retailers, especially Amazon.com Inc.

Macy's net sales fell 4.2 percent in the latest quarter while Kohl's sales dropped 2.3 percent.

Macy's same-store sales on an owned plus licensed basis fell 2.7 percent - but that was better than the 3.4 percent fall expected by analysts polled by consultancy Consensus Metrix.

Kohl's same-store fell 1.7 percent, more than the 1.4 percent analysts had expected.

But while Macy's net profit fell 85 percent, mainly due to a pension-related charge, Kohl's profit rose 21.7 percent.

Both retailers have been closing stores and looking for other ways to cut costs as shoppers spend more on pricey things such as holidays and home improvement items and less on apparel, which accounts for most of their sales.

Macy's sales have also been hit by a strong dollar, which has affected tourist spending at the company's U.S. stores, which include Bloomingdale's.

Unlike Kohl's, Macy's has been focusing on its huge real estate holdings as a way to shore up its business.

Since the beginning of 2015, the retailer has announced or completed asset sales with anticipated proceeds of more than $800 million.

In its latest deals, Macy's said on Thursday it had signed a contract to sell its Union Square Men's building in San Francisco for $250 million and its downtown Portland, Oregon store for $54 million.

Under the deal with Brookfield, the asset manager will create plans for real estate assets mostly in or near malls.

"While we might close stores in some of these locations, it is more likely that we will create value with surplus land or through improvements alongside an existing store," Macy's Chief Financial Officer Karen Hoguet said on a call with analysts.

"This (partnership) should give us insight into the potential of our total portfolio," she said.

Macy's said it now expected full-year comparable sales on an owned-plus-licensed basis to decrease 2.5-3.0 percent this year, an improvement on its prior forecast for a fall of 3-4 percent.

Up to Wednesday's close of $38.38, Macy's shares had risen 9.7 percent this year. Kohl's shares, which closed at $45.70 on Wednesday, had gained 4.1 percent.

(Reporting by Gayathree Ganesan in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Ted Kerr)
trump phone

The maker of the gold-plated Vladimir Putin iPhone has a new addition to its Supremo collection, which celebrates "great men." You guessed it: president-elect Donald Trump.

The custom iPhone 7 has a gold back with an engraved portrait of Trump along with his tagline "Make America Great Again," and the coat of arms of the United States. The phone, which is made by the Russian-Italian company Caviar, costs about $3,082 (197,000 rubles).

Caviar made waves in 2014 when its gold-plated Putin phone, of a similar design, was passed around the internet (the company now has a few versions of that phone). The company said buying a Putin phone was "the best way to express patriotism."

"President Vladimir Putin has become a symbol of the new generation, strong-willed and a decisive leader," the company said. "Caviar jewelers chose him as among the most important figures of our time."

Here's one of the Putin phones:

Putin iPhone

Caviar hopes to get one of its new Trump phones into the hands of Trump himself. "We will do everything possible to bring the phone to Mr. Trump," the company told Lenta.

But don't expect Trump and Putin to call each other with iPhones emblazoned with their own faces, however. Putin congratulated Trump on his election win using an old-fashioned telegram.

Here's a shot of how Caviar does its work:

putin iphone 3

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Simone Anderson has been documenting her health and weight-loss journey on social media for years, and now  in light of her commitment to transparency  she is revealing that she had fillers put in her face.

I dont think anythings wrong with wanting to enhance our looks, the makeup artist, 25, tells PEOPLE. I know friends that have had it done but dont talk about it because theyre ashamed. I think the more openly we talk about that sort of thing, the more its not going to be a big deal.

Anderson says part of the reason she opted for facial fillers is because she was left with loose skin after losing 194 lbs. in 2015. She underwent skin removal surgery last year, but the procedure is not safe for facial skin.

Theres certain parts of your body you can get it removed from, but there are other parts, like your face, where you cant easily get it removed, she explains. I started looking into options of what I can do to rejuvenate the face, and thats when I discovered fillers. Its a really non-invasive procedure, and I thought Why not? 

Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Rey says facial fillers  which can cost between $600 and $1,000  are commonly used for patients who have lost a lot of weight.

Hyaluronic acids such as Juvederm and Restylane can fill out sagging facial skin and areas of facial weight loss such as the temples and under the eyes, Rey tells PEOPLE. Fillers will plump up these areas and give the face a much more youthful appearance. The great thing, too, is that they are reversible and carry very little risk.

WATCH: Kylie Jenner Answers Plastic Surgery Rumors

And the Auckland, Australia-based social media star is more than happy with her results.

Its been incredible, Anderson says. I was doing everything in my power to disguise , but now I dont have to worry about it because they have disappeared. I look youthful, as I should at 25 years old. It instantly improved my self-confidence. I really like looking at myself in the mirror.

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Psychologist Dr. Judy Rosenblum of the Psychological Healing Center explains that feeling better about our external appearance can also improve how we feel about ourselves internally.

When we look in the mirror, we see a reflection of ourselves and that reflection can begin to activate some core beliefs we hold about ourselves, she tells PEOPLE. We live in a world where outer beauty matters, and we now have easy-enough, although costly, ways of enhancing our looks. It is no surprise that reflecting back that outer beauty can boost self-esteem.




(Adds quotes)

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Palm oil stockpiles in

Malaysia at the end of October registered a marginal rise as

exports dipped from a month ago and as imports increased.

Rising inventories could dampen benchmark palm oil prices

, which rose to the highest in over two-and-a-half

years on Tuesday. Palm future were down 1 percent at 2,816

ringgit ($663) per tonne at the midday break on Thursday.

Stockpiles in Malaysia, the world's second-largest palm oil

producer after Indonesia, rose 1.8 percent from September to

October to 1.57 million tonnes, according to data from industry

regulator the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) on Thursday.

(MYPOMS-TPO)

Inventories gained as exports last month dropped 1.4 percent

from September to 1.43 million tonnes, the MPOB said. That is

the lowest since July.

The supply also built as imports jumped to 26,857 tonnes in

October from only 1,792 in September.

"India has passed seasonal buying as Diwali demand has

almost faded. China's port stocks are still relatively well,"

said a trader from Kuala Lumpur, explaining why falling demand

from the world's top two consumers of palm oil led to lower

exports.

"Imports were higher possibly due to the biodiesel mandates.

If local consumption increases then imports will also be high."

Higher biodiesel mandates spur imports by increasing the

demand for palm oil, which is used as a component of biodiesel.

MPOB data also showed October's production falling to 1.68

million tonnes, down 2.2 percent from the previous month and its

lowest October levels since 2010. (MYPOMP-CPOTT)

"The impact of a severe El Nino is still very much there,

and the market has not fully priced in the strong El Nino," said

Alan Lim, a plantations analyst at MIDF Research.

"We take the stand that production has already peaked.

November and December should see further output declines."

A Reuters poll of eight traders, analysts and planters had

forecast October inventories to gain 8.8 percent to 1.68 million

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tonnes, while output was seen marginally rising by 1.1 percent

to 1.73 million tonnes. Exports were forecast to drop 5.4

percent to 1.37 million tonnes.

The following is a breakdown of Malaysian Palm Oil Board

figures and Reuters estimates for October:

(volumes in tonnes)

Oct 2016 Oct 2016 poll Oct 2015 Sept 2016

Output 1,677,873 1,734,500 2,037,466 1,715,085*

Stocks 1,574,114 1,682,500 2,835,348 1,546,413*

Exports 1,430,946 1,372,500 1,711,924 1,451,144

Imports 26,857 5,000 73,434 1,792

* Denotes revised figures

($1 = 4.2500 ringgit)

(Reporting by Emily Chow; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and

Christian Schmollinger)
London (AFP) - A gas leak at a Carlsberg brewery in central England has left one man dead and 22 people requiring hospital treatment, police and the Danish company said.

Julian Momen, chief executive officer of Carlsberg UK, said the company was "deeply saddened" by the incident on Wednesday lunchtime at the Northampton brewery.

Eleven of those hospitalised were working on site, including a 51-year-old man who is in a "serious but stable condition", according to police.

Eleven members of the emergency services were also taken to hospital following the incident, which is under investigation.

"Police have confirmed the gas leak is confined to the Carlsberg UK site and the emergency services do not believe there to be any wider risk to members of the public outside of the site," Momen said in a statement late Wednesday.

He added: "Nothing is more important to us than the safety of everyone working for us.

"We are working closely with the authorities to investigate how this tragic incident occurred and we will be in a position to say more once a full investigation has been concluded."

Momen said the company would support the family of the victim, a man in his 40s, in "every way we can".
Marion Cotillard had the coolest take on pregnancy fashion at the Allied premiere

Being a celebrity would be so glamorous dont you think? Well, Marion Cotillard had the coolest pregnancy style at her Allied premiere event on Wednesday, further proving that being an actress would be so chic and fun.

While Cotillard, who is expecting her first child with her partner of eight years, Guillaume Canet, has always been fashionable, we are loving her spin on pregnancy style this week. Instead of rocking a baby bump hugging gown, the French actress opted for a loose and lovely navy gown that is spectacular.

The 41-year-old actress gave maternity wear a red carpet twist, by dressing comfortable, but staying chic and on trend at the same time.

In fact, Cotillard wore a long, navy, sleeveless dress at the Allied fan event in Los Angeles this week, and looked both modern and timeless  if thats even possible. Our favorite part is the high neckline!

Her gown had a hint of old Hollywood to it and flowed right over her growing bump. Her hair seemed to be another nod to a time where stars wore gorgeous gowns and always had a curl in their hair. It was very reminiscent of the character that Cotillard is playing in Allied actually.

It was like a little girls dream to try on all those beautiful outfits, the actress said during the Q&A via Variety, about her 1940s on-screen costumes, which clearly match her red carpet elegance.

In Allied, Cotillard plays Marianne Beausejour, who is part of the French Resistance in North Africa in 1942, where she meets intelligence officer Max Vatan, played by Brad Pitt.

The two characters are eventually reunited in London and their relationship is threatened by war and rumors that one of them is not truly who they say they are.

The beautiful @MarionCotillard has arrived on the red carpet! #Allied A photo posted by Allied Movie (@alliedmovie) on Nov 9, 2016 at 7:23pm PST

Despite the fact that its 2016, Cotillard did look like a 1940s starlet while posing on the red carpet.

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She even stopped to pose with fans and gave us a better look at her beautiful, curled hairdo and flawless natural, makeup look.

Cotillard looked like a glowing mother-to-be while standing alongside her co-star, Pitt, and the movies producers and director in Westwood.

She did however standout amongst the men, because lets be honest, her gown and happy demeanor totally stole the show.

What do you think about Cotillards pregnancy style? Is it too subtle or just the right amount of glam?

Were going with the just the right amount of glam, because she looked both comfortable  which is key while pregnant  and stunning with the color and cut choice!

The post Marion Cotillard had the coolest take on pregnancy fashion at the Allied premiere appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Mark Ruffalo, Jamie Lee Curtis, and more celebs are speaking out as post-election protests erupted in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and several other cities across the country on Wednesday.

"It begins," Curtis tweeted along with video of thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators in Chicago. "Protests and more protests."

"My niece is in Chicago is already voicing what we all are feeling!" the actress explained before ending her post with the hashtag "#notmypresident."

It begins. Protest and more protest. My niece in Chicago is already voicing what we all are feeling! #notmypresident pic.twitter.com/6TRCUOTZSU  Jamie Lee Curtis (@jamieleecurtis) November 10, 2016

WATCH: Alec Baldwin Reacts to Donald Trump's Presidential Win: 'He's All Yours, America'

Demonstrators in Trump's hometown of New York City came out in droves to denounce his presidential victory over Hillary Clinton. Ruffalo was among the thousands who attended a "Love Fest" demonstration in front of the Big Apple's Trump Towers building.

The Avengers star Instagrammed a video of protestors packing the streets of Midtown Manhattan bearing signs that read, "Donald Trump Doesn't Speak for Me," "Wall St. Is The Enemy, Not Muslims or Immigrants," and "Liberty For All Americans, Not Hate."

Love Trumps Hate love fest NYC Thousands in the Street. A video posted by Mark Ruffalo (@markruffalo) on Nov 9, 2016 at 5:50pm PST

The Roots drummer, Questlove, shared similar footage from Times Square. "Taking It To The Streets," he captioned video of the Big Apple protest. "Trump March Protests In Manhattan."

Taking It To The Streets. Trump March Protests In Manhattan. A video posted by Questlove Gomez (@questlove) on Nov 9, 2016 at 4:16pm PST

RELATED: Kirstie Alley, Scott Baio, Stephen Baldwin and More Celebs Tweet Support for Donald Trump

Former Saturday Night Live cast member Taran Killam also shared a few different posts from NYC protests, including a selfie video which he captioned, "I love America! I LOVE New York!!!"

Story continues

I love America! I LOVE New York!!! A video posted by Taran Killam (@tarzannoz) on Nov 9, 2016 at 4:05pm PST

In keeping with the Twitter trend, Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandavi posted some of the cities participating in "anti-Trump protests," and noted that around 10,000 protestors were heading to Trump Towers.

Taking a more straightforward approach to Trump, Charmed actress Holly Marie Combs tweeted a message to the president-elect.

"@RealdonaldTrump The protests have started," Combs wrote. "Are you paying attention? Do you hear them?"

.@realDonaldTrump The protests have started. Are you paying attention? Do you hear them? #Election2016  Holly Marie Combs (@H_Combs) November 10, 2016

Lady Gaga addressed Trump as well, although in a less direct manner than Combs.

"The chaos in [the] USA is the result of Trump's irresponsible campaigning," Gaga tweeted. "He is not a role model, look at this mess he created. #LoveTrumpsHate."

The chaos in USA is the result of Trump's irresponsible campaigning. He is not a role model, look at this mess he created. #LoveTrumpsHate  #CountryOfKindness (@ladygaga) November 10, 2016

Although Trump was accused of divisive homophobic, xenophobic, racist and misogynistic rhetoric throughout his presidential campaign, the 70-year-old billionaire called for unity during his victory speech early Wednesday.

"To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people," he said, adding a "pledge" to American citizens.

"I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me," promised the former reality star.

See more on Trump's big win in the video below.

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LONDON (Reuters) - A show home with features to help its residents survive life on Mars went on display in London on Thursday, offering visitors a glimpse of what setting up house on the red planet could look like if it ever happens. Set in a mocked-up Martian landscape at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, the pod-like construction has room for a bed and a computer desk and space to grow plants and exercise. It was designed in consultation with astronomers at the observatory and Stephen Petranek, author of "How We'll Live On Mars", who was also a consultant on the upcoming National Geographic drama "MARS". The six-part series is set in 2033 and follows a manned mission to Mars. "This is a typical Mars home if you want to call it that but it's really a survival centre," Petranek told Reuters. "It will make oxygen for people to breathe and it will supply its own water by sucking in the Martian atmosphere, which is about 100 percent humid most nights, and pull out water through a very simple dehumidifier mechanism. You'll have a 3D printer which will make almost everything that you need." The Mars show home is on display until Nov. 16. (Reporting by Francis Maguire; Editing by Catherine Evans)
By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday dashed any remaining hopes that President Barack Obama's signature Pacific-Rim trade deal would come up for a vote before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

"It's certainly not going to be brought up this year," McConnell said of the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at a news briefing in Washington.

McConnell said any decisions on TPP or other future trade agreements would be up to Trump, who would still have the authority for four more years to negotiate "better deals" with expedited approval procedures in Congress.

Trump excoriated TPP on the campaign trail as a "disaster" and "a rape of our country," tapping into populist anger at globalisation, trade and manufacturing job losses that helped propel his candidacy.

In an opinion piece published on Monday, Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Alexander Gray reiterated his opposition to major trade deals.

"Trump will never again sacrifice the U.S. economy on the altar of foreign policy by entering into bad trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement, allowing China into the World Trade Organization, and passing the proposed TPP," Navarro and Gray wrote in Foreign Policy magazine. "These deals only weaken our manufacturing base and ability to defend ourselves and our allies."

The Obama administration has been promoting TPP among lawmakers and industry groups in anticipation of a long-shot, post-election vote despite opposition to the deal by Trump and his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

While there are many Republican supporters of free trade and TPP in Congress, McConnell and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday they were now focussed on laying the groundwork with Trump to pass Republican-focused healthcare and tax reform legislation next year.

A spokeswoman for Ryan said he had not had a change of heart since he said on a radio talk show in October that the House would not bring TPP up for a vote because of problems with several provisions and insufficient support in the House.

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McConnell said his priorities for the post-election "lame-duck" session were passing a government funding extension and medical innovation legislation.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest was still trying to sell the TPP agreement in a news briefing on Wednesday.

"President Obama does continue to believe that this is the best opportunity that the Congress has to take advantage of the benefits of a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that cuts taxes, 18,000 taxes, that other countries impose on American products," Earnest told reporters. "Weve got a strong case to make."

But the strong vote for Trump in industrial states made it unlikely Republicans would be willing to go against him on trade policy, analysts said.

"It's fair to say that TPP is now in the dustbin of history," said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a pro-trade think tank in Washington. "I don't see a path forward for the United States to join."

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)
By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday dashed any remaining hopes that President Barack Obama's signature Pacific-Rim trade deal would come up for a vote before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. "It's certainly not going to be brought up this year," McConnell said of the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at a news briefing in Washington. McConnell said any decisions on TPP or other future trade agreements would be up to Trump, who would still have the authority for four more years to negotiate "better deals" with expedited approval procedures in Congress. Trump excoriated TPP on the campaign trail as a "disaster" and "a rape of our country," tapping into populist anger at globalization, trade and manufacturing job losses that helped propel his candidacy. In an opinion piece published on Monday, Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Alexander Gray reiterated his opposition to major trade deals. "Trump will never again sacrifice the U.S. economy on the altar of foreign policy by entering into bad trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement, allowing China into the World Trade Organization, and passing the proposed TPP," Navarro and Gray wrote in Foreign Policy magazine. "These deals only weaken our manufacturing base and ability to defend ourselves and our allies." The Obama administration has been promoting TPP among lawmakers and industry groups in anticipation of a long-shot, post-election vote despite opposition to the deal by Trump and his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. While there are many Republican supporters of free trade and TPP in Congress, McConnell and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday they were now focused on laying the groundwork with Trump to pass Republican-focused healthcare and tax reform legislation next year. A spokeswoman for Ryan said he had not had a change of heart since he said on a radio talk show in October that the House would not bring TPP up for a vote because of problems with several provisions and insufficient support in the House. McConnell said his priorities for the post-election "lame-duck" session were passing a government funding extension and medical innovation legislation. White House spokesman Josh Earnest was still trying to sell the TPP agreement in a news briefing on Wednesday. "President Obama does continue to believe that this is the best opportunity that the Congress has to take advantage of the benefits of a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that cuts taxes, 18,000 taxes, that other countries impose on American products," Earnest told reporters. "Weve got a strong case to make." But the strong vote for Trump in industrial states made it unlikely Republicans would be willing to go against him on trade policy, analysts said. "It's fair to say that TPP is now in the dustbin of history," said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a pro-trade think tank in Washington. "I don't see a path forward for the United States to join." (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)
It was announced early Wednesday (Nov. 9) that Donald Trump will be heading to the oval office as America's 45th president, and the news left a large number of Americans furious and "Sick. Disgusted. Heartbroken." In response, multiple anti-Trump protests were staged later that day across the United States.

Joining in on the protests were some of hip-hop's biggest names, including Meek Mill, T.I, and Questlove, who channeled their anger into action and marched with protesters Wednesday night.

"'she got more votes' 'we reject the president elect' The people ain't goin for it....I'm right here wit em!!!! #USorELSE," T.I captioned a video posted to his Instagram, where he stands in the midst of people chanting outside the Trump Towers in Manhattan. Questlove also joined the Manhattan anti-Trump march, as protesters made their way to Times Square.

The people have spoken.... They turning America on its head.

A video posted by TIP (@troubleman31) on Nov 9, 2016 at 8:09pm PST

Taking It To The Streets. Trump March Protests In Manhattan.

A video posted by Questlove Gomez (@questlove) on Nov 9, 2016 at 4:16pm PST

Elsewhere in Manhattan, Meek Mill supported the angry crowd from the sidelines as he encouraged the protesters, asking "F--k who?" in a call-and-response fashion.

F#%k who.....

A video posted by Meek Mill (@meekmill) on Nov 9, 2016 at 5:50pm PST

ScHoolboy Q also had a message for Donald Trump as well. While the TDE rapper didn't protest along Manhattan streets, Q delivered his message to an Australian crowd, and enlisted YG's "FDT" song to share his feelings. "I don't believe your vote count anymore", he told the crowd. "I don't believe that, I don't believe that."

I could b wrong witH my statements about your vote not counting, I prolly was jus in my feelings but sHoutout @yg FDT even AUSSIE AGREE FUCK DAT NIGGAH

A video posted by ScHoolboy Q (@groovyq) on Nov 9, 2016 at 12:42pm PST

Earlier on Weds., T.I posted a photo of Barack and Michelle Obama apologizing for the results of the election. "If I could've done more I would've," he wrote. "But Unfortunately, it seems like we've been brought back to a worse place than we were in before. In your honor we'll remain honorable,respectable & continue to strive for greatness. I'll never let our dream die!!! WE CAN STILL DO IT!!!!"
From Harper's BAZAAR

Actress Meghan Markle will take a week off shooting her USA series Suits because she has"something important to do," unnamed sources told Page Six.

The news comes in the wake of a letter issued by the Palace which confirms her relationship with Prince Harry and also detailed the "wave of abuse and harassment" Markle has faced since she started dating the royal.

Kensington Palace has issued a statement this morning about the harassment currently being experienced by Meghan Markle and her family. pic.twitter.com/EuFZ4fmUIj - Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) November 8, 2016

The letter goes on to describe racial undertones in media coverage of Markle, reporters harassing her family and "nightly legal battles to keep defamatory stories out of the papers."

Insiders speculated to Page Six the actress' hiatus from her Toronto-filmed TV series could be to meet with a lawyer to navigate the overwhelming attention.

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If there's one fashion winner in the election, it's Ralph Lauren.

The American designer was a go-to for Hillary Clinton's pantsuits throughout the presidential campaign, from the cobalt blue suit she wore for her opening-day rally at Roosevelt Island, to the white version she wore to accept the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention this summer, to the purple-trimmed charcoal gray style she chose for her concession speech.

Now, it appears Lauren could be a go-to for Melania Trump as well.

For husband Donald Trump's victory speech in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday, the first-lady-to-be chose a white Ralph Lauren jumpsuit with an asymmetrically draped front, which looked remarkably similar to Clinton's now famous white DNC Ralph Lauren pantsuit, only sleeveless and sexier. Was she trying to steal the Democratic nominee's style? Or worse, trump it with a younger, trendier model?

Read more: #MAGA Hat Trumps Pantsuit in Historic Election

While Clinton had her pantsuits custom made with the help of Lauren's celebrity dressing team, Melania bought the made-in-Italy jumpsuit off-the-rack, for $3,999, either at one of the brand's boutiques or at a department store.

"Going into a store, or having someone go into a store for you, to buy the sexiest white pantsuit she could find? Of course it was intentional," said a guest who asked not to be named at the opening party for the renovated Ralph Lauren boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills on Wednesday night, when election wounds were still raw. "It was totally calculated. Earlier in the day, Melania was wearing a Balmain coat and a Michael Kors dress. She did this intentionally."

It will be interesting to see how the fashion industry, which largely supported Clinton, comes around to the new first lady, and whether she comes around to the industry. Will Melania Trump, like other first ladies before her, cover American Vogue, for example, after Anna Wintour so vocally campaigned for her husband's opponent?

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From an economic standpoint, there's a lot at stake.

"It seems obvious that as a former fashion model, Mrs. Trump may have a large impact on the apparel industry," said David Yermack, professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, who studied Michelle Obama's impact on the fashion industry and found that for 189 public appearances the first lady made between November 2008 and December 2009, she generated about $2.7 billion in value for the brands she wore, including U.S. labels J. Crew and Liz Claiborne, and European labels, too.

Melania's style has evolved in recent years from lingerie-inspired looks, corset tops and mermaid gowns to more sleek and tailored separates. And to be fair, she did wear a Ralph Lauren jumpsuit to another high-profile campaign event before Election Night, the final presidential debate.

Read more: How Melania Trump's Style Has Evolved On Her Road to First Lady

But Melania had mostly worn European labels on the campaign trail until then, including Gucci, Emilia Wickstead and Roksanda Ilinicic for her now infamous speech at the Republican National Convention. Her choice to wear Ilincic, a designer who, like her, originally hails from Eastern Europe, suggests she does have a keen understanding of the symbolism of clothes.

As first lady, Melania will likely face pressure to dress in clothing by American designers. Will they offer their help, or will she have to continue buying off the rack? Time will tell.

But one thing's for sure: Standing 5 foot 11 inches, with a model figure at age 46, she wears clothes well. So do first daughters Ivanka and Tiffany Trump.

"The fashion industry is going to come around to them quickly," said one insider. "It has to."
By Madeline Chambers and Michael Nienaber BERLIN (Reuters) - Leading allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Thursday that populists would pose a problem for Europe unless mainstream politicians came up with answers after Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election. Trump's win has encouraged right-wing parties in Austria, France and the Netherlands, among others. A Politbarometer poll for broadcaster ZDF showed 82 percent of Germans viewed it as bad or very bad, and 65 percent expected relations with the United States to deteriorate under Trump's presidency. "Demagogic populism is not only a problem in America," Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Bild daily. "Elsewhere in the West, too, the political debate is in an alarming state." Merkel is widely expected to stand for a fourth term in an election next September and although her conservatives are roughly 10 points ahead of their nearest rivals, her open-door migrant policy has angered many voters. The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has embraced tough anti-immigrant rhetoric, is siphoning supporters from the bigger parties. Founded less than four years ago, it now has seats in more than half of Germany's state assemblies. Schaeuble said politicians had to respond by being more inclusive. He later told a group of bankers that Trump's calls for Europe to shoulder more responsibility for its own defense and security needs would have consequences. "We Europeans are probably going to have to continue down the path of increasingly doing the job on our own," he said. Hans-Peter Friedrich, a conservative from Merkel's Bavarian sister party, told Bild that voters felt they had no control over things, from European Central Bank policy to immigration. "If there are no answers provided by the main parties in our country, they will turn to populists," he said. EU Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, also a senior conservative, said the U.S. election was a warning for Germany. "Things are getting simplified, black or white, good or bad, right or wrong. You can ask simple questions, but one should not give simple answers," Oettinger told Deutschlandfunk radio. Even some companies pointed to risks for business in Europe's biggest economy. Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser told reporters: "The rapid rise of political and social populism and accelerating global migration are causes of concern. As a result, uncertainty continues to dominate our lives." The AfD, polling at around 13 percent, has seized on Trump's victory, saying his message resonates in Germany. "The issues that moved the detached middle class in America to vote for Trump are issues we face in Europe," AfD chief Frauke Petry told MDR radio, pointing to tax and migration. (Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke and Georgina Prodhan; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Mexican congressional committee on Wednesday voted to reject a bid by President Enrique Pena Nieto to legalize gay marriage in the country, marking a setback for the president and gay rights in the traditionally conservative country. The president's office asked Congress in May to change Mexico's constitution to guarantee adults the right to marry without restrictions based on gender, sexual preference, or other reasons. But, the measure was rejected by a constitutional committee in Mexico's lower house on Wednesday with 19 votes against, 8 in favor and one abstention. The gay marriage initiative "is considered to be totally and definitively concluded," the lower house committee said in a statement on the vote. The initiative could technically still move forward but its prospects look poor, said a congressional source. The rejection was more bad news for Pena Nieto, who is grappling with discontent over a slow economy, conflict of interest scandals, drug gang violence and Donald Trump's successful White House bid which has sent the peso into a tailspin. Trump has made pejorative comments about Mexicans and vowed to make Mexico pay for a new wall on the border between the two countries. Same-sex marriage is permitted in Mexico City, as well as in several states including Coahuila, Quintana Roo, Jalisco, Nayarit, Chihuahua and Sonora. Pena Nieto's measure would have extended that right nationally. Mexico's Supreme Court said last year that laws restricting marriage to a man and woman were unconstitutional and a Supreme Court judge urged states to legalize gay marriage. However, many state legislatures have not changed their statutes to comply, meaning couples must file legal challenges case by case to get married. Gay marriage is still banned under local laws in many of Mexico's 31 states. In September, tens of thousands of people across Mexico marched in protest against gay marriage. (Reporting by Dave Graham; Writing by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
Mexico City (AFP) - A former Mexican governor wanted on allegations of tax fraud and money laundering turned himself in on Thursday to appear before a judge in the capital.

Guillermo Padres, who governed the northern state of Sonora from 2009 to 2015, declared his innocence as he appeared at a radio station for an interview after being in hiding for weeks.

"It's a difficult decision, but I have to do it. It's the right thing to do," Padres, 47, told Radio Formula before heading to a prison where a judge was to hear his case.

Padres, of the opposition National Action Party (PAN), is accused of giving tax exemptions to companies owned by his relatives.

He claims the charges are a political witch hunt by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which won the governor's seat last year.

Padres said he never left the country and was in hiding to prepare his defense. The PAN has suspended his party rights.

"We trust that the federal judge will put political issues aside and we will focus on legal issues," he said. "I have all the proof that I'm innocent."

Soldiers stood guard outside the radio station and followed his car as he headed to the prison in the east of the city, where a scrum of journalists recorded his arrival.

Authorities are searching for another former governor, Javier Duarte of Veracruz state, who stepped down last month and is facing charges of organized crime and money laundering. The PRI has expelled him from the party.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Thursday he was optimistic Mexico could come up with a new, positive bilateral relationship with the United States after the election of Donald Trump as president. "I have real optimism that we will be able to build a new working agenda in the bilateral relationship that would be positive," Pena Nieto told a conference. "It will also benefit the societies of both countries." Pena Nieto said on Wednesday that he and Trump have agreed to meet, possibly during the transition period before his inauguration on Jan. 20. (Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Christine Murray)
Ottawa (AFP) - Canada and Mexico agreed Thursday to US President-elect Donald Trump's demand to have a fresh look at their tripartite 22-year-old free trade pact, fearing they could be shut out of the US market.

But the two US allies diverged on the level of changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) each was willing to accept, with Mexico taking a harder line.

The 1994 trade pact became a source of friction with America's neighbors during the campaign when Trump called NAFTA the worst trade deal the United States has ever signed.

The Republican president-elect's protectionist notions to repatriate American jobs lost to free trade sent shockwaves through Canada and Mexico's economies, which both rely heavily on exports to the United States.

"I think it's important that we be open to talking about trade deals," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau -- a fierce defender of free trade -- said Thursday.

"If the Americans want to talk about NAFTA, I'm more than happy to talk about it," he said.

Mexico's Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu, meanwhile, said her government was willing to seek to "modernize" NAFTA with Trump's incoming administration and Canada, but not ready to start from scratch.

"We are willing to talk about this with the new government and with Canada as well," Ruiz Massieu told CNN.

"We think it is an opportunity to think if we should modernize it -- not renegotiate it, but to modernize it," she insisted.

Ruiz Massieu said NAFTA would be discussed with Trump's transition team in the coming months.

Trump has also agreed to meet with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, possibly before the New York billionaire's inauguration in January.

Trudeau has meanwhile pledged to work closely with the new US leader.

- 530 million consumers -

NAFTA created a continental market with 530 million consumers in Canada, the United States and Mexico.

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Two-way trade in goods between Mexico and the United States totalled about US$1.5 billion daily in 2015, while bilateral trade crossing the US-Canadian border amounted to $1.8 billion daily.

The United States, however, is a net loser in both cases, posting $15 billion and $58 billion trade deficits with Canada and Mexico, respectively, last year.

Ruiz Massieu said Mexico "believes in free trade" and the governments "have the challenge to make sure that the opportunities created by NAFTA are more inclusive and that more people in the three countries feel the benefit of this integration agreement."

Trudeau said also that it was important to periodically reassess trade deals to ensure that they continue to be of benefit to the middle class.

Some analysts predict a drop in trade if Trump follows through with protectionist measures, and even possibly a recession in Canada, whose exports to the United States account for 20 percent of its GDP.

Others insist the United States would never seek to curb trade with Canada and Mexico since their economies are so heavily intertwined.

Whether or not NAFTA actually helped generate thousands of jobs and reduce income disparities across North America, or caused huge job losses in the United States as companies moved production to lower cost Mexico -- as Trump has suggested -- is up for debate.

In 2015, the US Congressional Research Service summarized several studies this way: "In reality, NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics or the large economic gains predicted by supporters."

"The net overall effect of NAFTA on the US economy," it concluded, "appears to have been relatively modest, primarily because trade with Canada and Mexico accounts for a small percentage of US GDP."

The report acknowledged there were corporate and employee costs associated with the transition to more open trade.

It also noted that NAFTA has served as a template for all subsequent free trade agreements negotiated by the United States.
michael moore

Getty Image

Back in July, Michael Moore appeared on Bill Mahers show and made a bold prediction that at the time made some waves, though it was dismissed by many as the sour grapes opinion of a Bernie Sanders supporter: Donald Trump would win the presidential election. Beyond his appearance on Mahers show, Moore laid out in great detail the reasons why he felt the way that he did on his website. Looking back now on what he clearly spelled out, its clear that Moore was pretty spot-on, arguably much more than any prominent political pundit who covered the campaign.

For instance, Moore was eerily right about the ways Trump would appeal in the Midwestern/rust belt swing states that he swept on Election Day, much to the shock of all the experts. Most polls, and conventional wisdom, indicated that Michigan and Wisconsin were highly probable to go for Clinton. In fact, not one single poll conducted in Wisconsin ever showed Trump winning the state. A week before the election, at a time when the Trump campaign had been flooding the Michigan and Wisconsin with campaign appearances and TV ads, the New Yorker openly wondered, Why Is Donald Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin? instead of a state like Florida, which was believed to present a much more realistic chance for him to win. Well, now we know! Moore called it; the rust belt states were much more vulnerable for Democrats than most people suspected, and the Trump team apparently knew it (or just guessed right).

I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes  Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states  but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million).  In 2012, Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Its 64. All Trump needs to do to win is to carry, as hes expected to do, the swath of traditional red states from Idaho to Georgia (states thatll never vote for Hillary Clinton), and then he just needs these four rust belt states. He doesnt need Florida. He doesnt need Colorado or Virginia. Just Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And that will put him over the top. This is how it will happen in November.

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Moore also expressed fear that Democratic voters would not get out to vote for Clinton, a fear which the raw numbers from Tuesday now seem to vindicate. As we noted yesterday, Clinton was done in largely by low turnout from traditionally Democratic voting blocs. Moore correctly predicted that most Dems would vote for Hillary, but that they wouldnt do so enthusiastically, meaning that they wouldnt do much more than cast a vote for her. In other words, they wouldnt go the extra mile for Hillary; they wouldnt drag friends to the polls, volunteer to work phone banks, go knocking on doors in their neighborhoods, etc. He termed these Democratic voters depressed voters, voters who were, well, feeling kind of dead inside about their candidate. In order to inspire some enthusiasm, Moore felt that Clinton needed to pick a running mate who got young voters and the partys liberal base people fired up. Instead she went with Tim Kaine, arguably the safest choice Clinton could possibly make, a moderate, non-controversial  and, lets face it, exceedingly boring  white male she hoped would appeal to moderate Republicans who were uneasy about voting for Trump.

Our biggest problem here isnt Trump  its Hillary. She is hugely unpopular  nearly 70% of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really believing in anything other than what can get you elected. Thats why she fights against gays getting married one moment, and the next shes officiating a gay marriage. Young women are among her biggest detractors, which has to hurt considering its the sacrifices and the battles that Hillary and other women of her generation endured so that this younger generation would never have to be told by the Barbara Bushes of the world that they should just shut up and go bake some cookies. But the kids dont like her, and not a day goes by that a millennial doesnt tell me they arent voting for her. No Democrat, and certainly no independent, is waking up on November 8th excited to run out and vote for Hillary the way they did the day Obama became president or when Bernie was on the primary ballot. The enthusiasm just isnt there. And because this election is going to come down to just one thing  who drags the most people out of the house and gets them to the polls  Trump right now is in the catbird seat.  Stop fretting about Bernies supporters not voting for Clinton  were voting for Clinton! The polls already show that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary this year than the number of Hillary primary voters in 08 who then voted for Obama. This is not the problem. The fire alarm that should be going off is that while the average Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to somewhat reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be whats called a depressed vote  meaning the voter doesnt bring five people to vote with her. He doesnt volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never talks in an excited voice when asked why shes voting for Hillary. A depressed voter. Because, when youre young, you have zero tolerance for phonies and BS. Returning to the Clinton/Bush era for them is like suddenly having to pay for music, or using MySpace or carrying around one of those big-ass portable phones. Theyre not going to vote for Trump; some will vote third party, but many will just stay home. Hillary Clinton is going to have to do something to give them a reason to support her  and picking a moderate, bland-o, middle of the road old white guy as her running mate is not the kind of edgy move that tells millenials that their vote is important to Hillary. Having two women on the ticket  that was an exciting idea. But then Hillary got scared and has decided to play it safe. This is just one example of how she is killing the youth vote.

Again, the numbers back Moore up. As of last night, Clinton logged 59,814,018 votes, considerably less than the 69,498,516 Obama got in 2008, and the 65,915,795 he received in 2012. In Michigan, Clinton got 13 percent fewer votes than Obama did. These vote deficits proved to be the reason she lost those states. They gave Trump, who tallied less votes nationally than McCain did in 08 and Romney did in 12, the margin he needed for victory in those crucial states.

Yesterday, Moore posted a post-mortem of sorts to his Facebook page laying out a list of things he believes the Democrats need to do now that Trump has won. Perhaps theyll now listen to him  as well as others who have insight and perspective to offer about working class voters  a little closer?
Monsanto Company MON recently declared that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has given a green signal for the usage of its XtendiMax herbicide. It is a less volatile dicamba herbicide and includes the unique VaporGrip technology. The company stated that the herbicide can be used with its Bollgard II XtendFlex cotton and with Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans. In-crop usage of XtendiMax would help farmers to use dicamba in Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System (pending for state sanctions) from 2017.

Monsanto believes that farmers have been looking forward to experience the benefits of the Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System, counting in-crop practice of both glyphosate and dicamba. The farmers would be able to control weeds more consistently and flexibility, with Monsantos Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System.

Hence, it would be supporting in maximizing their crop yields. Monsanto estimates that the acreage of Bollgard II XtendFlex cotton and million Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybean would be more than 3 and 15 million respectively, in 2017.

Monsanto believes that its XtendiMax dicamba herbicide would be widely accepted by the growers as it would be an economical as well as effective weed-control tool.

Existing Scenario

Monsanto accepted Bayer AGs BAYRY buyout offer worth $66 billion, inclusive of debt in Sep 2016. The company perceives that the grouping of Bayer would unlock the next tranche of opportunities and growth for its business. The deal is currently subjected to regulatory approvals but the companies expect to accomplish it by the fall of fiscal 2017.

However, at present, Monsanto carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) due to some major headwinds. External factors such as stiff industry rivalry, a stronger U.S. dollar, weak agricultural product prices and a low cyclical phase in the agricultural industry are currently hurting the companys revenues and profitability.

MONSANTO CO-NEW Price

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MONSANTO CO-NEW Price | MONSANTO CO-NEW Quote

Monsantos stock price was $98.94 per share as of Nov 9, 2016.

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By Ian Simpson and Gina Cherelus WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Demonstrators took to streets across the country for a second day on Thursday to protest Republican Donald Trump's election victory, voicing worries that Trump would strike a blow against civil rights. Trump's marquee buildings in New York and Washington were targets of protesters, and police put up security fences around the president-elect's hotel in Washington, not far from the White House, and shielded New York's Trump Tower with a line of concrete blocks. About 100 protesters marched from the White House, where Trump had his first transition meeting with President Barack Obama on Thursday, to the newly opened Trump International Hotel, chanting "love Trumps hate." "This generation deserves better than Donald Trump," said Lily Morton, 17, marching with about 100 classmates from the Georgetown Day School. "The queer people, coloured people, women, girls, everyone that is going to be affected by this, we need to protest to help them." After the students marched on, 72-year-old John Allen, of Silver Spring, Maryland, remained behind to protest at the hotel. "We are not going back to this racist white supremacist oligarchy," Allen said. A Trump campaign representative did not respond to requests for comment on the protests. In his acceptance speech early Wednesday, when Trump stuck a far more sedate tone than he had at many of his campaign events, Trump said he would be a president for all Americans. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, called the demonstrators "a bunch of spoiled cry-babies," in an interview with Fox News. Protesters cited a list of objections to Trump, including his campaign rhetoric critical of immigrants and Muslims, as well as allegations that he had sexually abused women and bragged about it. Trump has denied those allegations. White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said Obama supported the demonstrators' right to express themselves peacefully. Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer urged the protesters to give Trump a chance once he is sworn into office in January. "I hope that people get it out of their systems. They go out, they exercise ... their right to free speech, but then they give this man that was just elected very historically and his new vice president an opportunity to govern," Spicer said in an interview on MSNBC In San Francisco, more than 1,000 students walked out of classes on Thursday morning and marched through the citys financial district carrying rainbow flags representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, Mexican flags and signs decrying Trump. Several hundred students at Texas State University in San Marcos took to the campus to protest Trump's election, with many saying they fear he will infringe the civil rights of minorities and the LGBT community. Civil rights groups and police reported an uptick in attacks on members of minority groups, in some cases carried out by people claiming to support Trump. There were also reports of Trump opponents lashing out violently against people carrying signs indicating support for Trump. "#NOTMYPRESIDENT" Organizers used social media to plan and schedule many of the protests. A Facebook group using the name "#NotMyPresident," formed by college and high school students, called for an anti-Trump rally on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. In New York's Washington Square park, several hundred people gathered to protest Trump's election. Three miles (5 km) to the north at the gilt Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, where Trump lives, 29-year-old Alex Conway stood holding a sign with the "not my president" slogan. "This sign is not to say he isn't the president of the United States, but for two days I can use my emotion to be against this outcome and to express that he's not mine," said Conway, who works in the film industry. More anti-Trump demonstrations are planned heading into the weekend. The United States has seen waves of large-scale, sometimes violent protests in the past few years. Cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Chicago have been rocked by demonstrations following high-profile police killings of unarmed black men and teens. Those followed a wave of large-scale protest encampments, starting with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York in 2011. (Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York and Ian Simpson in Washington; Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Leslie Adler)
By Huw Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - More Chinese banks want to set up shop in London despite the Brexit vote which has prompted foreign lenders in the capital to consider bases in continental Europe.

British and Chinese government officials met in London on Thursday to unveil a "strategic plan" to deepen financial and economic ties between the two countries.

"It will support the integration of China's financial markets into the global market through London's financial centre, exchange of expertise and increase market access," Britain and China said in a joint statement.

It takes forward plans for closer ties between the London and Shanghai stock exchanges.

The two countries underscored a commitment by their regulators to cooperate more closely in banking, asset management, insurance, and financial technology or fintech.

"Both sides welcome the continuing interest by firms, including Agricultural Bank of China (UK), Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, and others, in submitting further applications to establish branches in the UK, once they are ready to make applications," Britain and China said in a joint statement.

Regulators from both countries were committed to working together to ensure an "effective review" of all proposals from the banks, it added.

The announcement may help soothe jitters in the City of London financial district that foreign banks will shun Britain because it is leaving the EU.

British regulators have already authorised London branches for Bank of Communications Co, and China Merchants Bank.

The China Banking Association will also open a London office "when conditions permit". The Shanghai Clearing House also intends to set up a London office next year, the document said.

Chinese authorities will support Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN.L) in its application to register private fund management entities in China, and then launch private fund products after authorisation.

Chinese authorities will also "positively" consider the application of Heng An Standard Life, part-owned by Standard Life (SL.L), for a pensions licence in China, the document said.

(Reporting by Huw Jones, editing by David Evans)
More people deal with this chronic stomach condition than we thought

A new government study estimates more people suffer from inflammatory bowel disease than we assumed  3 million people struggle with IBD, to be exact.

Seem like a lot to you? Well, it is: About triple what we previously thought.

Researchers with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimate 1.3 percent of U.S. adults, or 3.1 million Americans, have IBD.

IBD causes chronic inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract, resulting in pain, fatigue, cramping, and diarrhea. There is no known single cause of IBD, but experts believe Americas increasing consumption of fatty, processed foods could be responsible for the growing statistic.

The survey also found that the rate of IBD is much higher in people older than 45, Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites, and people who did not graduate from high school.

For a disease traditionally thought to affect young adults, it is surprising to see a high prevalence of [IBD] in older adults, said Dr. Siddharth Singh, a gastroenterologist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

These new discoveries will help analysts better understand IBDs affect on Americas health care system, giving doctors better tools to help patients.

The post More people deal with this chronic stomach condition than we thought appeared first on HelloGiggles.
* Perez offended by post-U.S. election tweet * Sunglass brand had planned 20,000 special edition (Adds details, comment, reaction of Diablos Rojos) By Alan Baldwin SAO PAULO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Formula One driver Sergio Perez said on Thursday he has dumped his sunglasses sponsor for a comment it made on Twitter about his Mexican compatriots after Donald Trump was elected as the next U.S. president. The brand, Hawkers, had said on its Mexican Twitter account (@HawkersMX) on Wednesday: "Mexicans, put on these sunglasses so your swollen eyes can't be seen during tomorrow's building of the wall." U.S. President-elect Trump had promised while campaigning ahead of Tuesday's election to build a "big, beautiful, powerful" border wall with Mexico to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants. "What a bad commentary. Today I am ending my relations with @HawkerMX," Perez said on his own Twitter account in reply. "I will never let anyone laugh at my country." Hawkers subsequently said it had made a "serious error," and removed the offending tweet, which it said had not been made in "mockery." "It will not happen again," the Spain-based company added. But the tweet also proved to be a deal breaker for the Diablos Rojos of the Mexican Baseball League. The team on Thursday said its players would no longer use the sunglasses, nor would the company's products be sold in its official store. "We see it as an aggression against Mexico," said Carlos Alberto Fernandez, a spokesperson for the Diablos. "For the moment, Hawkers is not an option," he said, adding that the team was evaluating other brands. For his part, Perez, who drives for Force India, would not say how much the brand was paying him, but told reporters at the Brazilian Grand Prix on Thursday that his mind was made up, even though production had started on a run of some 20,000 glasses bearing his name. The sponsorship deal had only recently been agreed, he added. "I decided to split with the brand," said the driver, who found out about the comment after landing in Sao Paulo and seeing a lot of angry messages from his fans on Twitter. "It was a very unfortunate comment about my country .. I didn't find it funny at all. I feel sorry because it's a great brand, they've done really well but I'm not willing to stay there," he added. "The relationship was going to be very successful but my country and my people come first," added Perez. "I won't let anyone make fun of my country and it's a shame that the brand pays for it because it's a mistake from one person." (Reporting by Alan Baldwin and Natalie Schachar; editing by Pritha Sarkar and G Crosse)
By Alice Gledhill and Helene Durand

LONDON, Nov 10 (IFR) - Alaoui Zenere, a vice president on JP Morgan's financial institutions bond syndicate, has relocated to New York to work on the bank's North America equity capital markets desk, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Zenere joined JP Morgan's London financials syndicate bond desk in October 2014 having transferred from the US where she had been an associate in the US debt capital markets team.

In her new job, Zenere will report to Frank Bruni who is responsible for ECM origination for clients in the financial sector.

A JP Morgan spokeswoman confirmed the move.

(Reporting by Helene Durand, editing by Alex Chambers; editing by Alex Chambers)
Los Angeles (AFP) - Authorities at two universities in California said Thursday police were investigating attacks against female Muslim students, one of which was described as a hate crime.

Both attacks came on Wednesday, the day after Donald Trump was elected president at the end of a campaign during which the Republican was criticized for divisive and inflammatory language against Muslims.

In one of the incidents, two assailants confronted their victim at San Diego State University and "made comments about President-elect Trump and the Muslim community," according to campus police.

The woman had her purse, backpack and car keys stolen. She went to get help and returned to the scene with police officers, only to find her car had been stolen, police spokesman Ronald Broussard said.

The case was being investigated as a suspected hate crime as well as a strong-arm robbery and auto theft, Broussard said.

"Comments made to the student indicate she was targeted because of her Muslim faith, including her wearing of a traditional garment and hijab," university president Elliot Hirshman and interim police chief Josh Mays said in a joint statement.

San Jose State University police said in a statement they were investigating a similar attack against a female student at a campus parking garage.

A male assailant approached the victim from behind, pulling at the victim's head scarf, choking and throwing her off balance, according to the statement circulated to students on Wednesday.

"Campus officials are closely monitoring the situation as the investigation continues. No arrests have been made," university spokeswoman Pat Harris said in an emailed statement to AFP.

"We are, of course, very concerned that this has occurred on our campus. No one should experience this kind of behavior at San Jose State," she added.

New York University's Muslim Students Association issued a statement on Wednesday saying engineering undergraduates had arrived that morning to find "Trump" scrawled on the door of their prayer room.

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The organization said members were "realizing that our campus is not immune to the bigotry that grips America."

A Muslim student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette told police on Wednesday that she was attacked by two men, one of whom was wearing a white hat emblazoned with "Trump."

Local media reported a police statement on Thursday however alleging that the girl had made up the attack.

The Lafayette Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yangon (AFP) - Myanmar's anti-Muslim hardliners cheered Donald Trump's election as US president in prose and poetry on Thursday, hailing the divisive billionaire's triumph as a victory in the fight against "Islamic terrorism".

Trump's shock ascent to the White House topped a vitriolic campaign in which he promised to ban Muslims from entering the US and pledged to establish a database of those living in the country.

Muslims around the world were left reeling from his surprise win on Tuesday, with many fearing he would bring in anti-Islam policies that could help bolster extremist groups like Islamic State.

But in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, a country simmering with religious tensions, hardline anti-Muslim groups waxed lyrical about his victory.

Firebrand monk Wirathu, once dubbed the "face of Buddhist terror" for his anti-Muslim sermons, celebrated with a four-line poem on Facebook.

"Public security is the most important consideration/Donald Trump is the real leader/People love him so much/Nationalism is the priority," he wrote.

"May US citizens be free from jihad. May the world be free of bloodshed," he added in a statement underneath.

Anti-Muslim sentiment has billowed in Myanmar in recent years, erupting into bouts of bloodshed and leaving a stain on the country's recent democratic transition.

More than a million of Myanmar's Muslims are Rohingya, a stateless ethnic group reviled by many Buddhists who insist they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Myanmar's president has accused Islamist Rohingya militants of attacking police border posts in western Rakhine state last month, an incident that sparked a deadly military crackdown in the border region.

Independent investigators have been prevented from carrying out enquiries into the allegations that Rohingya extremists carried out the deadly raids.

But ethnic Rakhine Buddhist nationalists, who have long railed against the Rohingya, have seized on the attacks as evidence the oppressed minority is launching a new front for terrorism.

"Being engulfed in Islamisation and illegal immigration problems, we the Arakanese (Rakhine) people look up to you as a new world leader who will change the rigged system being infested with jihadi infiltrators," said Aye Maung, chairman of the Arakan National Party, in an open letter to Trump.

"We... hope your leadership will steer the US and the world into a safer place without radical Islamic terrorism."
North Korea on Thursday warned the incoming Donald Trump administration will have to acknowledge it as a nuclear state, as the South said the maverick billionaire had pledged to protect it.

The United States maintains it cannot accept North Korea as a nuclear power, despite it conducting five nuclear tests -- including two in 2016 -- and has pushed harsh international sanctions against the Pyongyang regime.

"If there is anything the Obama administration has done... it has put the security of the US mainland in the greatest danger," said an editorial carried by North Korea's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

"It has burdened the new administration with the difficulty of facing the Juche nuclear state," it said, referring to the North Korean ideology usually translated as "self-reliance".

The editorial, which did not mention Trump by name, follows growing calls for the United States to change tack on North Korea, with US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper last month labelling attempts to denuclearise the North a lost cause.

President Barack Obama has made talks with the North conditional on Pyongyang first making some tangible commitment towards denuclearisation, but Thursday's editorial called the goal an "outdated illusion".

Although Trump has not laid out a clear direction for his policy on North Korea, he has indicated that he would be open to negotiations with its leader Kim Jong-Un in the US to talk him out of his nuclear ambitions.

Trump caused consternation during his campaign when he threatened to withdraw the troops unless Seoul paid more for their upkeep, and suggested South Korea and Japan develop their own nuclear weapons to counter threats from Pyongyang.

But in a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Thursday, Trump vowed that US commitment on protecting its ally against the North "will not waver".

"We are going to be with you 100 percent," Trump said, according to a statement from South Korea's Blue House.

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"We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea," Seoul quoted him as saying.

North Korea has been hit by five sets of UN sanctions since it first tested a nuclear device in 2006.

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, the Security Council adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date, targeting North Korea's trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

Council members are currently debating a fresh resolution after the North's fifth nuclear test in September.

According to Security Council diplomats, the negotiations are focused on closing loopholes and zeroing in on North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile technology industry.
Nasty Gal - the online fashion empire founded by Sophia Amoruso - is reportedly filing for bankruptcy.

Recode reports that the e-commerce company is planning to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. According to the tech news site's source, Amoruso is also resigning as executive chairwoman. A Nasty Gal spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Hollywood Reporter's request for comment.

Amoruso first started Nasty Gal as an eBay store in 2006 and grew it into a booming business (the company's sales were up to $128 million in 2012, according to Forbes) with more than 200 employees. Nasty Gal opened its first retail location on Melrose Avenue in 2014 and and then a second store in Santa Monica the following year.

Read more: There's Already a "Nasty Woman" Tee for Sale, and Proceeds Benefit Planned Parenthood

Since then Nasty Gal has had a rocky few years. The e-comm laid off 10 percent of its staff as part of a company-wide restructuring plan in February; faced several lawsuits from former employees; and experienced a change in CEO (Amoruso stepped down from the role in January 2015, promoting Sheree Waterson into the position).

In the meantime Amoruso has been promoting her second book, Nasty Galaxy, a visual tome filled with illustrations, photos and short essays. Her first book, #Girlboss, which is part memoir and part how-to guide on running a business, went on to become a New York Times best-seller in 2014. Amoruso recently teamed up with Courtney Love again on a holiday party collection that's now available online.

Amoruso's next project will involve working with Netflix on the comedy series #Girlboss, inspired by Amoruso herself, starring Britt Robertson as the Nasty Gal founder.

Read more: Netflix Orders Comedy Based on Sophia Amoruso Best-Seller '#Girlboss' to Series
Natalie Portmans striped dress is the perfect maternity maxi

Finding the perfect maternity maxi dress that isnt too loose, too tight, or too ugly isnt easy (I literally just got home from shopping for them, and it was rough out there). But Natalie Portman pulls off her second pregnancy style so well, she makes it look easy. Sure, she probably has stylists helping her out, but we still are in awe of her ability to effortlessly rock maternity clothes.

(Portman is expecting her second child with Benjamin Millepied, which could be why shes such a pro at maternity clothes. This isnt her first baby rodeo.)

The soon-to-be mama of two attended the 30th Israel Film Festival Anniversary Gala Awards Dinner on Tuesday in Beverly Hills. The Oscar-winning actress received the 2016 IFF Achievement in Film Award.

And of course, her dress was stunning and perfect.

30th Israel Film Festival Anniversary Gala Awards Dinner - Arrivals

Portman looked gorgeous in a floor-length white dress with a striped pattern and long flared sleeves. We arent sure where the dress is from, but if anyone knows, please go ahead and have it shipped to my house.

And just look at that adorable baby bump

30th Israel Film Festival Anniversary Gala Awards Dinner - Arrivals

On Sunday, Portman also made an appearance at the Hollywood Film Awards, where she took home the award for best actress in the upcoming biopic Jackie (and looked amazing, of course).

20th Annual Hollywood Film Awards - Show

Im feeling great, she told People. Its really, of course, a big honor every time that you are recognized for your work, and its really exciting, always, just to be in a room with so many artists that you admire.

Jackie is set to premiere December 2nd and we cannot wait.

The post Natalie Portmans striped dress is the perfect maternity maxi appeared first on HelloGiggles.
President-elect Donald Trump could name Newt Gingrich as secretary of state, per a report.

Gingrich, the former Speaker of the house, 2012 presidential candidate and finalist to be Trump's vice president, could be nominated to take over the job as the nation's top diplomat, NBC reports.

Others rumored for top jobs include prominent supporters retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. Flynn is rumored as a possible secretary of defense or National Security Advisor, while Giuliani is said to be a possibility for attorney general.

[READ: 5 Things That Explain Donald Trump's Presidential Election Victory]

Trump is likely to draw from the private sector for many of these positions and some are concerned he might have trouble attracting top-tier women candidates after his campaign was criticized for marginalizing women.

Priebus is reported to be under consideration for White House Chief of Staff. Trump took the extraordinary step of calling the RNC chair up to speak Wednesday morning during his victory speech.

"So let me tell you about Reince... Reince is a superstar," Trump said, introducing him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the United States, Donald Trump. Thank you. It's been an honor. God bless. Thank God," Priebus said in brief remarks.

Priebus' performance had been much maligned in some quarters -- losing the 2012 presidential election, and allowing Trump's rise. But Wednesday, some noted the scale of the victory he helped shepherd.

"Reince Priebus has delivered the GOP to basically unprecedented power," Aaron Blake of the Washington Post wrote in a tweet.

But Trump campaign spokeswoman denies the NBC report, saying "none of this is accurate."

Curt Mills is a news writer at U.S. News & World Report. Email him at cmills@usnews.com.
Most late-night shows were on hiatus on Election Night in favor of news coverage, so when they returned to their posts on Wednesday, they had plenty to talk about.

Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah aired live shows on Tuesday, sharing somber messages as well as their usual lighthearted jokes and monologues. Other hosts followed suit on Wednesday, including Samantha Bee, Conan O'Brien, Seth Meyers, Colbert and James Corden.

On TBS, O'Brien spoke to his audience about history. "Today is a really strange day," said the host. "Half the country is really happy, half the country is somewhere between despondent and furious."

Speaking about history, he reminded the audience that, "We have been here before. We have had bitter, angry elections for 200 years."

"In America, we get to choose who's going to ruin our country," he continued, saying that he chose to remain positive and be thankful "that we have fair and free elections at all."

Meyers' Late Night was largely a reflection on his coverage of Trump thus far and a hopeful message for the future first female president.

"Well, that was a real grab in the pussy," Meyers began, adding that because he's been wrong on every single prediction he's had of Trump so far, "he's probably going to be a great f - ing president."

Read more: Stephen Colbert Takes on Dire Election Night in Live Showtime Special

"I do really feel for the parents who had to explain this to their kids this morning, especially parents with daughters. Because a lot of them, like me, probably thought Hillary would be our first woman president, but she won't be. But that does mean that someone's daughter is out there, right now, who will one day have that title." Choking up, he spoke about how excited his mother was for a possible Clinton win. "Whoever you are, I hope I live to see your inauguration."

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"I felt a lot of emotions last night and into today; some sadness, some anger, some fear. But I'm also aware that those are the same emotions a lot of Trump supporters felt; emotions that led them to make their choice. And it would be wrong for me to think my emotions are somehow more authentic than their emotions. We're always better as a society when we have empathy for one another," he concluded, offering his congratulations for Trump and his supporters.

Bee's Full Frontal began with a fun montage (starring Jon Stewart, Ana Navarro and Larry Wilmore) of Bee excited that the election was finally over, but the tone quickly turned incredulous and angry before she could turn hopeful.

"How did everyone get this so spectacularly wrong?" she asked, saying it was "white people" who "ruined America."

"The Caucasian nation showed up in droves to vote for Trump," she explained.

"America is still a great country and it is still worth fighting for," Bee said, on a hopeful note. "It has Shonda Rhimes shows, peanut butter, and Beyonce, and Lin-Manuel Miranda rap-weeping at awards shows, and it has the beautiful U.S. Constitution ... (which we should probably start teaching in schools)."

"We still have millions of nasty women who aren't going away, and as along as women over 25 are still allowed on television, I'll be here cheering them on."

She then broke down other results of the election, including the first Somali-American legislator, the first Latina U.S. senator, Tammy Duckworth's Congress election and more.

Read more: Thousands of Anti-Trump Protesters Hit the Streets in NYC Chanting "Not My President"

Over on The Late Show, when Colbert told guest Neil deGrasse Tyson that "it might be hard to do a comedy show" after the election results, the scientist advised him to "invoke the cosmic perspective." When that didn't work, they just threw a telescope off the roof.

"I'm not sure what to believe about anything anymore," said the host in his monologue. "I'm so glad to be with you tonight, I wouldn't want to be alone right now."

"We've got four very interesting years in front of us," he said, noting that he didn't get much sleep last night and things looked bleak on his way to work. "There's no way around it. This is what it feels like when America's made great again," he joked. "I was really hoping it would feel better because this sucks."

"Don't stop speaking up. Don't ever be cowed by what happens in the next four years," Colbert said. "But, like it or not  for the record, not  we have to accept that Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States," he said, noting that he had to say it one more time "until I stop throwing up in my mouth a little bit."

He also struggled with what people should tell their kids about the election: "Tell them to work hard, care about other people, don't be selfish, don't grab them where they don't want to be grabbed, and they'll make the world a better place than Donald Trump can."

The Late Late Show's James Corden shared a story about his family moving to the U.S. in order to lift his audience's spirits.

"When me and my wife told my son that we were going to be moving to America, he looked at us, and I'll never forget, and he said, 'Daddy, that's great.' Somehow he knew this was a fantastic place to live," explained Corden. "It's a country of opportunity and diversity and hope, and that will never change."

"Whoever you voted for last night Trump, Hillary, those other two ... now is the time more than ever to remember our values," he said. "It's the tone you set that will define who we are. Treat people with love and respect - go out and put your arm around someone, even if you hate their politics, tell them that you care."

"If this country can unite together and work together," he concluded, "we will remember America is great and always has been."

Read more: Aaron Sorkin Pens Emotional Letter to Daughter After Trump's Victory

Jimmy Kimmel took his audience through the stages of grief in the wake of the election results. He said people were in denial that the person who hosted The Apprentice is now president-elect and discussed the anger and blame being thrown about.

Kimmel said the one thing everyone can feel is a sense of relief that the election is finally over. He said he's going to take a guess at what the future holds for the cast of characters we've gotten to know from the election. The host played a video montage set to the song "Shout" depicting the future candidates and their supporters.

In this fictional future, Eric Trump has killed Donald Trump Jr., Chris Christie is a George Washington Bridge tollbooth operator and Scott Baio is starring in Sharknado 5. Bernie Sanders is a Walmart greeter, Ivanka Trump has blocked her father on Tinder and Hillary Clinton is screaming into a pillow.
- By insider



Chairman, President and CEO of Northern Trust Corp (NTRS) Frederick H Waddell sold 195,260 shares of NTRS on 11/09/2016 at an average price of $73.99 a share. The total sale was $14.4 million.Northern Trust Corp is a financial holding company that provides asset servicing, fund administration, asset management, fiduciary and banking solutions for corporations, institutions, families and individuals. Northern Trust Corp has a market cap of $17.47 billion; its shares were traded at around $77.15 with a P/E ratio of 18.52 and P/S ratio of 3.65. The dividend yield of Northern Trust Corp stocks is 1.89%. Northern Trust Corp had an annual average EBITDA growth of 4.00% over the past 10 years.









CEO Recent Trades:

Chairman, President and CEO Frederick H Waddell sold 195,260 shares of NTRS stock on 11/09/2016 at the average price of $73.99. The price of the stock has increased by 4.27% since.

Chairman, President and CEO Frederick H Waddell sold 1,900 shares of NTRS stock on 11/03/2016 at the average price of $73.01. The price of the stock has increased by 5.67% since.



CFO Recent Trades:

CFO Biff Bowman sold 7,371 shares of NTRS stock on 11/07/2016 at the average price of $74. The price of the stock has increased by 4.26% since.



Directors and Officers Recent Trades:

Executive Vice President Clair Joyce St sold 95,396 shares of NTRS stock on 11/09/2016 at the average price of $74.31. The price of the stock has increased by 3.82% since.

COO Jana R Schreuder sold 137,102 shares of NTRS stock on 11/09/2016 at the average price of $75.12. The price of the stock has increased by 2.7% since.

Executive Vice President Clair Joyce St sold 1,820 shares of NTRS stock on 11/03/2016 at the average price of $73. The price of the stock has increased by 5.68% since.

COO Jana R Schreuder sold 3,319 shares of NTRS stock on 11/03/2016 at the average price of $73.01. The price of the stock has increased by 5.67% since.

EVP, Human Resources Susan Gillian Pembleton sold 15,574 shares of NTRS stock on 11/02/2016 at the average price of $72.04. The price of the stock has increased by 7.09% since.

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For the complete insider trading history of NTRS, click here.This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






Donald Trumps victory in Tuesdays presidential election has spurred intense reactions, and it seems one of those reactions is to get as far away as possible from Americas next president.

The number of U.S. visitors to New Zealands immigration websites jumped dramatically after Trump was elected, the Guardian reports. The website of Immigration New Zealand received 56,300 visit from the U.S. in a 24 hour period, according to the paper, compared with its daily average of 2,300 visits.

Another government website, New Zealand Now, which offers information on working, studying and investing in the island country, saw 70,500 visits from U.S. internet users over the same period.

In a regular month, about 3,000 Americans register with Immigration New Zealand, a manager for the agency told CNN Money. But in the past 24 hours, more than 7,000 Americans have signed up.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joked over the summer that she might leave the country should Trump be elected. Now its time for us to move to New Zealand, Ginsburg told the New York Times in July.

New Zealand isnt the only country Americans are looking to escape to. On election night, a spike in traffic from the United States crashed the Canadian immigration site.
From Popular Mechanics

Fourteen years ago, out in the scrublands of the Nevada desert on the Tonopah Test Range, a forklift slowly raised a new instrument of death onto its test stand. Built in only a few months (for reasons that remain classified) the lone missile had one chance. Success or failure, this explosive test would decide the future of the bunker-buster and teams of people who came together to make it.

The Air Force hadtasked John Andersen of Sandia National Laboratories with this job. The challenge: build an explosive charge with enough power to break through at least 15 feet of solid rock. The design: a so-called shaped charge, a hollow cone of explosive lined with metal meant to blast a huge hole. The follow-on warhead would continue through that hole to destroy any bunker hiding below.

"It wasn't our objective to create the largest conical shaped charge ever," Andersen told Popular Mechanics. "But it happened as a result."

Normally, projects like these could take several years to complete-Andersen and his team had six months.

Normally, projects like these could take several years to get through all the design, testing, and approval phases of making a 21st-century weapon. Not this time. "We took the fast, higher risk path because no development work could be conducted," Andersen says. "The rush was part of the excitement."

How to Make a Bunker Buster

The shaped charge, the main ingredient behind any bunker buster, is not a new idea. Anti-tank weapons all the way back to World War II have used similar designs on a much smaller scale. The M1A1 Bazooka, for example, could make a hole the size of a pencil through three inches of steel. But the Sandia project had to supersize that hole to nine inches across and fifteen-feet deep, and it needed to pierce volcanic rock called tuff, which Andersen compares to high-strength concrete.

A shaped charge has two main elements, the explosive and a thin metal liner, which blasts into a high-speed drill when it detonates. Because a denser explosive makes for a better shaped charge, warhead designer Manny Vigil's wanted to use HMX, an advanced explosive which can be pressed to achieve maximum density. But the cost to make such a dense charge was too expensive. Instead the team settled on Octol, an explosive which is shaped by casting rather than machining. Only three sites in the country were able to precision-cast the huge six-hundred-pound charge, and only one of these, American Ordnance in Middletown, Iowa, was willing to attempt the job on such a strict deadline.

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Meanwhile, Andersen turned his attention to the metal liner, another element that would also require compromise. More elaborate designs, Andersen says, would improve penetration, but there was no time to develop and validate these advanced techniques. After all, they only had one shot. So the team chose a well-proven cone shape instead.

Usually, shaped-charge liners are not much bigger than DVDs...this liner was about the size of a manhole cover.

The material used for the metal liner is just as important as its design. The liner needs to be as dense as possible so it can dig deep into rock. The list possible elements started with well-known dense metals like gold, platinum, and tungsten, but Andersen knew these would be too pricey. Tungsten, while not incredibly expensive is incredibly hard, so fabricating anything out of tungsten can cost upwards of $60,000.

The only possible answer was copper. Although only half as dense as tungsten, copper is cheap, easy to work with, and has been the material of choice for anti-tank charges for decades.

Usually, shaped-charge liners are not much bigger than DVDs. But for the monstrous size of this project, this liner was about the size of a manhole cover, weighing in at 117 pounds. Detailed computer modeling predicted that the charge should work without any problems. But as any engineer can tell you, computer models can fail.

All or Nothing

With all the pieces in place, the charge was assembled and fitted with a detonator and test instrumentation. The entire process of fabrication had been completed in five weeks, leaving just enough time to plan and execute the test if everything went right.

Photo credit: Sandia National Laboratory

Andersen had confidence in the team's work, but things like surrounding wildlife, and especially weather, were beyond his control. After all, the shaped charge was out in the open and on top of a large metal frame. It was chilly, Andersen recalls, and storm clouds threatened overhead. When the lightning warnings arrived, the whole apparatus had to move into a storage bunker.

"If we had a lightning strike, that would have been a bad day," says Andersen. The safe distance from the explosive was 3,000 feet-the team evacuated two miles just to be safe.

Despite the assurance of simulations and talented engineers, everyone wondered if this missile could pull it off.

"I was still nervous before the detonation," says Andersen, with full confidence that the charge would go off but nervous that the hole wouldn't be big enough. "You've done all the preparation you can, now you see if it paid off. That's the feeling I had  confident but nervous."

Then the firing officer pressed the button and-boom.

The team returned to the test sit with fragments of the test stand and other metal scrap scattered 1,400 feet from the explosion.

But what had happened at Ground Zero? Before they could find out, the team waited while rock fragments were vacuumed from the hole. Then they measured the hole's depth: ten inches wide while punching through 19-foot-deep hole of solid rock. Andersen's confidence prevailed:

"The test was a complete success."

Building Better Bunker Busters

After making sure a warhead could fit down this hole, the new dual-warhead design was validated. Although the Air Force did not build the bunker busting cruise missile that Andersen's nail-bitting project was designed for (though classified it was possibly in preparation for armed conflict after 9/11), its test data helped pave the way for a new generation of weapons.

This type of bunker buster can be found on the U.S. Navy's AGM-154C Joint Standoff Weapon and the Storm Shadow used by Britain's RAF. They allow a relatively small missile to break through rock and concrete that would otherwise need the kinetic energy of a massive bomb. In June, Storm Shadows fired by RAF jets destroyed a large ISIS bunker in western Iraq.

Andersen went on to work on the W80 nuclear warhead and some ICBM warheads. Meanwhile work continues on shaped charges at Sandia and other National Laboratories though much of this information remains classified.

But few of them are likely to have quite as much impact as what could literally and figuratively be called a groundbreaking piece of research.

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By Narottam Medhora

(Reuters) - Nvidia Corp reported its biggest quarterly revenue growth in more than six years as demand soared for its gaming chips used in personal computers.

Shares of the company, which also forecast current-quarter revenue above analysts' average estimate, rose 14.2 percent at $77.40 in after-hours trading and were set to open at a record high.

Revenue rose 53.6 percent to $2.00 billion in the third quarter, blowing past analysts' expectations of $1.69 billion.

"I certainly had suspected that the possibility of them beating consensus by a decent margin was certainly on the table," Canaccord Genuity analyst Matt Ramsay said. "Did I expect them to beat consensus by $300 million? No."

Nvidia commands a dominant share of the high-end PC gaming market, where its chips are used to power graphically demanding games such as Electronic Arts Inc's "Titanfall 2" and Activision Blizzard Inc's "Call of Duty" series.

Revenue from the company's graphics processing units business, which contributes 85 percent to its total revenue, rose 52.9 percent to $1.70 billion in the quarter.

"Our new Pascal GPUs are fully ramped and enjoying great success in gaming, VR, self-driving cars and datacenter AI computing," Jen-Hsun Huang said. "The GPU is no longer a niche component."

Revenue at the company's fast-growing data center business, which counts Amazon.com Inc's Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Corp's Azure and Alibaba Group Holding Inc's cloud business among its customers, nearly tripled to $240 million.

Revenue from the company's automotive business, which recently signed an agreement to supply chips for Tesla Motors Inc's Autopilot system, soared 60.8 percent to $127 million.

Nvidia also increased its quarterly dividend to 14 cents per share from 11.5 cents and said it would buy back an additional $2 billion of its shares.

Nvidia forecast revenue to increase to $2.10 billion, plus or minus 2 percent, in the current quarter. Analysts on average were expecting a rise to $1.69 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

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Excluding items, Nvidia earned 94 cents per share in the second quarter.

The company's net income rose to $542 million, or 83 cents per share, for the three months ended Oct. 30 from $246 million, or 44 cents per share, a year earlier.

Up to Thursday's close of $67.77, shares had more than doubled this year, far exceeding the 6 percent gain in the broader S&P 500 index.

(Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Anil D'Silva)
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave a statement at the Bethlehem Steel plant on November 10 about the giant fire that engulfed the building the day before and is still smoldering at the time of writing.

Cuomo praised the first responders for their quick action and assured that local and state officials were investigating health concerns from the potentially toxic smoke still coming from the building.

Multiple explosions were reported at the former Bethlehem Steel Plant in Lackawanna, New York, on November 9, causing large billows of smoke, which can be seen in this aerial footage. The fire quickly spread to three buildings connected to the plant, and nearby residents were reportedly advised to evacuate the area by police. Credit: Youtube/NYGovCuomo via Storyful
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama greeted President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday to coordinate a smooth transfer of power after the New York real estate developer scored a stunning election victory.

The two men have had almost no one-on-one contact previously. Trump, a Republican, led the "birther" movement that questioned Obama's U.S. citizenship and has pledged to overturn the Democrat's signature policy achievements after he takes office on Jan. 20

Obama campaigned vigorously for Trump's Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and called Trump both temperamentally unfit for the presidency and dangerously unprepared to have access to U.S. nuclear codes.

Obama and Trump will seek to put their tensions behind them, at least for the cameras, during their Oval Office meeting.

First lady Michelle Obama will also meet privately with Trump's wife, Melania, in the White House residence.

On Wednesday, Obama said that despite his major differences with Trump, he would follow the lead of former Republican President George W. Bush in 2008 and ensure a smooth handover to Trump.

"Eight years ago, President Bush and I had some pretty significant differences, but President Bushs team could not have been more professional or more gracious in making sure we had a smooth transition," Obama said. "So I have instructed my team to follow the example that President Bushs team set."

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Richard Cowan; Editing by Alistair Bell)
Insurance Companies are Dropping Out of Florida and Causing Havoc for Clients Under Their Networks. ezHealthMart Came up with a Solution

HOLLYWOOD, FL / ACCESSWIRE / November 9, 2016 / Big insurance companies are leaving South Florida for the 2017 Open Enrollment Period in Obamacare. This leaves hundreds of thousands of people with a plan that is subject to change. ezHealthMart has opened a new Obamacare Enrollment Assistance Center in the heart of Miami at 5735 NW 7th Street, Miami, FL 33126. The area has over 150,000 plans that will fall off next year because of the companies that are leaving. Because of the big change, ezHealthMart has received mass amounts of inquiries from residents in this area of Miami for assistance with applying for their Obamacare Health Plans.

Premiums have spiked to an average of %20 throughout Florida, and other states have forecasted a far worse outlook. "Prices have gone up," said Joseph Gannon, President of ezHealthMart, an Obamacare Enrollment Assistance Center in Miami. "But you still have options that include good plans with good pricing here in South Florida. In other states, that's just not the case."

Many will lose coverage on Dec 31st because their current carriers are dropping out of the Obamacare Marketplace for 2017, leaving only 4 to choose from in South Florida and leaving residents unsure where to turn. With plans and pricing changes every year, many customers prefer to talk to an enrollment specialist in person to help them make the best decision.

At the main enrollment centers in Miami, Hollywood and West Palm Beach, experts are helping people chose the right plan by looking at 3 key factors.

"Pricing, Benefit Plan, and the Plan Network," Joseph said. "You really have to find a good combination of all 3 and that's not so easy. There are many Insurance Companies that do not have contracted doctors in certain areas and so while the plan and pricing might look good, there might not be a doctor in the plan's network that is in their area. So what good is a great health plan if you cannot see a Doctor?"

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At ezHealthMart's Obamacare Enrollment Assistance Centers, there are no long lines and the new ACA software will have customers in and out within 5-10 minutes. ezHealthMart has over 300 State-Licensed Professional agents spread in 25 different locations throughout Florida. They also have Obamacare agents that are bilingual in multiple languages. These agents will navigate applicants through the difficult application in minutes, help them upload any documentation they may need, and also help them make their first payment if necessary. The ezHealthMart motto is quality, combined with efficiency.

For more information on where to find help with the enrollment process visit this ezHealthMart's website. The Obamacare Enrollment Assistance Center in Miami has several different locations and they also offer help over the phone. Go to their website or call them at 877-962-8332.

For more information, please visit http://www.ezhealthmart.com/

Contact Info:

Name: Darian Sanders

Organization: ezHealthMart

Address: 3043 Johnson St Hollywood FL

Phone: (877) 962-8332

SOURCE: ezHealthMart
Sao Paulo (AFP) - Young French driver Esteban Ocon, who made his Formula One debut with Manor in August, will join Force India next year, the team announced on Thursday.

Ocon, 20, will partner Mexican Sergio Perez following German Nico Hulkenbergs move to join Renault next season.

The Silverstone-based team said Ocon had agreed a multi-year deal.

Im very excited to be joining Force India, said Ocon, who started 2016 as a test driver with Renault and as a race driver for Mercedes in the German DTM Touring Car series.

I know the team quite well already because I was a test driver last year and Im really looking forward to working with everybody at Silverstone once again.

Im still relatively new to Formula One, but spending half a season at Manor Racing has given me some valuable experience and I feel ready for this new opportunity with Force India.

Ocon is a former European Formula Three and GP3 champion.

"Its something Ive been working towards my whole life and I intend to grab this opportunity with both hands, so that I can deliver the results the team expects from me.

I want to say thank you to everybody at Manor and especially to Mercedes-Benz for their support and belief in me. I cant wait for 2017 and my first full season racing in F1.

Paddock speculation had suggested that Ocon would go to Renault, but Hulkenbergs move ended that and Renault has since confirmed it will retain Briton Jolyon Palmer alongside the German.

In other moves, Sauber appears likely to retain its current driver line-up of Swede Marcus Ericsson and Brazilian Felipe Nasr while the American Haas team is poised to confirm the signing of Dane Kevin Magnussen, who is leaving Renault.
Photo credit: Trulia

From House Beautiful

We've seen quite a few Victorian homes in our lifetime (remember this charmer?), but the Armour-Stiner House is in a league of its own. The 8,400-square-foot home was built in Irvington, New York in 1859 and boasts an octagonal shape that gives the historic exterior a whimsical vibe.

From the outside, visitors will first notice the Renaissance-style domed roof and a wrap-around veranda. Then, they might notice the 56 columns and cast-iron railings that make the porch an architectural marvel and (dare we say it) totally magical. Don't you half expect Harry Potter to come flying into the picture on his broomstick?

Inside, the home embodies all the opulence you would expect. We're talking grand ceilings and woodwork in the 20 different rooms that make up the home. Plus, the formal living room, dining room, and ball room with views of the Hudson River don't hurt either. But the most unique space in the home is the attic, which has a spiral staircase that leads up to a cupola that features 360-degree views of the river.

If you want to live in this home (which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places!), it can be yours for $40,000 per month.

Take a look:

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

Photo credit: Trulia

[h/t Trulia]

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Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.- Warren Buffett.

At the moment, the quote perfectly fits Cabela's Incorporated CAB as the companys future looks bleak after two successive quarters of earnings miss. Investors need to exercise extreme caution when it comes to the stock as it is unlikely to show any major improvement in the near future. Lets delve deeper and try to find out what might take this Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) company down the hill.

Cabelas reported an earnings miss for the second consecutive quarter in third-quarter 2016. The company recorded earnings per share of 53 cents, which came way below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 80 cents and slumped 25.4% year over year. On the other hand, the top line came in at $929.9 million, lagging the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1,014 million.

Moreover, consolidated comparable store sales (comps) dipped 2.3% in the quarter primarily due to weakness in the companys apparel categories which offset the gains in powersports, firearms, shooting, camping and optical categories. In the previous quarter, the company had reported positive comps for the first time since third-quarter 2013. Moreover, U.S. comps slipped 1.8% in the quarter under review.

Lets look at Cabela's earnings estimate revisions in order to get a clear picture of what analysts are thinking about the company. In the past 30 days, the companys earnings estimates for 2016 have declined by 8.9% to $2.87. On the other hand, over the same time frame, its earnings estimates for fourth-quarter 2016 have moved down to 8 cents from $1.24.

CABELAS INC Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

CABELAS INC Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | CABELAS INC Quote

Cabela's has been exploring strategic alternatives, including a potential sale, after it came under pressure from an activist fund. Recently, it accepted the buyout offer of Bass Pro Shops in all-cash deal valued at $5.5 billion. Soft economic recovery, deceleration in the sale of sporting goods and stiff competition from both brick & mortar and e-commerce have made things tough for Cabelas. Moreover, the companys expansion in the geographies where it already serves has boomeranged, by cannibalizing sales and leading to lower traffic count at existing stores. The acquisition will result in a retail giant that will control over 20% of the U.S. hunting, camping and fishing market and help withstand competitive pressure.

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Other Stocks to Consider

Better-ranked stocks worth considering in the retail sector include Big 5 Sporting Goods Corp. BGFV, Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. DKS and Tilly's, Inc. TLYS. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Big 5 Sporting Goods shares have increased more than 40% in the past three months and the companys earnings have surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in the trailing four quarters, with an average surprise of 4.8%.

Dick's Sporting Goods has a long-term earnings growth rate of 12.3%.

Tilly's shares have surged nearly 60% in the past three months and have a long-term earnings growth rate of 15.5%.



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Today, you are invited to download the full list of 220 Zacks Rank #1 ""Strong Buy"" stocks  absolutely free of charge. Since 1988, Zacks Rank #1 stocks have nearly tripled the market, with average gains of +26% per year. Plus, you can access the list of portfolio-killing Zacks Rank #5 ""Strong Sells"" and other private research. See these stocks free >>



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To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
By Ethan Lou

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices settled more than 1 percent lower on Thursday as markets recovered from shock over U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's victory and focused on oversupply concerns, as well as whether OPEC will decide later this month to cut production.

Most markets shook off post-election losses and bounced back on Thursday, but oil still faces a glut that has kept prices under pressure for much of the past two years.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meets in Vienna on Nov. 30 for talks on output cuts. It has sought cooperation from non-members, including Russia, but doubts remain over whether they can come to an agreement.

Brent crude settled down 54 cents, or 1.1 percent, at $45.84 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude ended 61 cents, or 1.4 percent, lower at $44.66.

WTI's front-month discount to the second-month, or contango, hit its widest in nearly three months on concerns about domestic oversupply as data shows rising stockpiles, traders said.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday reported a 2.4 million-barrel rise in domestic crude inventories to 485 million barrels last week.

"When the physical markets are weak, that influences people to hedge their cargos, and that results in selling," said Scott Shelton, energy futures broker with ICAP in Durham, North Carolina.

The market was under pressure even as stockpiles at the U.S. delivery hub for crude futures in Cushing, Oklahoma dropped by 663,916 barrels for the week to Nov. 8, according to traders, citing energy monitoring service Genscape.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said the global market will remain in surplus unless OPEC can reach an agreement at its Nov. 30 meeting.

"If the supply surplus persists in 2017, there must be some risk of prices falling back," the IEA said in its monthly report.

Prices will likely rebound, at least temporarily, in the coming days and may go above $50 a barrel as traders cling to the hope of an OPEC deal, said Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at Forex.com.

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"Although there is so much doubt about the prospects of a production cut or freeze deal between the OPEC and Russia, an agreement is still possible," he said.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said he saw higher chances of reaching a deal than before, and that global crude output could be frozen at November levels if an agreement is reached.

(Additional reporting by Christopher Johnson in London and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Will Dunham)
By Ethan Lou

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices slipped on Thursday as markets recovered from shock at U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's surprise victory and focused on global oversupply as well whether OPEC will decide to cut production later this month.

Most markets shook off post-election losses and bounced back on Thursday, but oil still faces a glut that has kept prices under pressure for much of the past two years.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meets in Vienna on Nov. 30 for talks on output cuts. It has sought cooperation from non-members, including Russia, but doubts remain over whether they can come to an agreement.

Prices were down even as stockpiles at the U.S. delivery hub for crude futures in Cushing, Oklahoma, dropped by 663,916 barrels for the week, according to traders, citing energy monitoring service Genscape.

Brent crude (LCOc1) fell 26 cents at $46.10 a barrel by 10:36 a.m. (1036 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 37 cents at $44.90.

"If no agreement is reached and some individual members continue to expand their production, then the market will remain in surplus throughout the year, with little prospect of oil prices rising significantly," the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its monthly report on Thursday.

"If the supply surplus persists in 2017, there must be some risk of prices falling back," the IEA added.

But prices will likely rebound, at least temporarily, in the coming days and may even go above $50 a barrel as traders cling to the hope of an OPEC deal, said Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at Forex.com.

"Although there is so much doubt about the prospects of a production cut or freeze deal between the OPEC and Russia, an agreement is still possible," he said.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday he saw higher chances of reaching a deal than before, and that global crude oil output could be frozen at November levels if an agreement is reached on Nov. 30.

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The market was dampened by a 2.4-million-barrel rise in U.S. crude inventories to 485 million barrels last week, reported by the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday.

Investors are also still assessing the impact of a Trump presidency, which Goldman Sachs said is likely to result in higher investment and, in time, increased U.S. oil output as the president-elect has said he intends to deregulate fossil fuel production.

(Additional reporting by Christopher Johnson in London and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
LOS ANGELES, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump's stunning victory in the U.S. presidential election was applauded on Wednesday by the Los Angeles bid committee that hopes to land the 2024 Olympics. While Trump has angered many people with his polarizing words during a lengthy and often tumultuous presidential campaign, LA 2024 praised the Republican for "his longstanding support of the Olympic movement in the United States." In a statement, the LA bid committee said: "LA 2024 congratulates President-elect Donald J. Trump ... we strongly believe the Olympics and LA 2024 transcend politics and can help unify our diverse communities and our world. "LA 2024 has achieved 88 percent public support in the latest poll and strong bipartisan government support at the local, state and federal level. "We look forward to working closely with President-elect Trump and his Administration across the federal government to deliver a 'New Games for a new Era' that will benefit and inspire the entire Olympic movement in 2024." A wealthy real estate developer and former reality TV host, Trump defeated heavily favoured rival Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's presidential election, ending eight years of Democratic rule and sending the U.S. on a new, uncertain path. On the campaign trail, Trump had made even his party's establishment uneasy with his abrasive tone and policy positions, including his promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, deport 11 million illegal immigrants and temporarily bar Muslims from entering the country. Earlier this year, however, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the Olympics transcended politics and it would not matter whether Trump or Clinton ended up winning the presidential election. "When the dust settles on these presidential campaigns and we have a new president, he or she will squarely be behind Los Angeles' bid to bring these Games back to the U.S." Garcetti said at the United States Olympic Committee media summit. "This is something that breaks down walls and something that brings us together." Los Angeles is up against European glamour cities Paris and Budapest in the race to host the 2024 Summer Games. (Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes; Editing by Frank Pingue)
Like so many seniors who want to maintain their independence, Shirley Dixon lived on her own in Florida as long as she could. It wasnt until her late 80s that she finally decided it was time to relocate to Oregon to be closer to her children and their families. In my 70s, my friends began moving away to be with their children, or losing their wits, so I knew I had to make a decision, said Dixon.

Her daughter, Lesa Dixon-Gray, 59, knew how much her mother valued her independence and began looking into several retirement communities in the Portland area where Dixon-Gray lives with her husband, Ken. Because both of them work full-time, they knew theyd need more help supporting her mothers needs during the day, so an assisted-living situation seemed like the best fit.

But the senior communities they visited cost too much. With a typical asking price of around $350,000 down, plus $4,000 to $5,000 in fees each month, the high cost forced them to search for more affordable options. Thats when Dixon-Gray discovered that Portland was encouraging property owners to build housing additions, called accessory dwelling units (ADUs), by waiving about $10,000 worth of fees associated with construction.

Its a way to provide more affordable housing options for people looking to relocate and a way to increase the density of housing, which is an objective for our city, said Ross Caron, a public information officer for Portlands Bureau of Development Services.

But building an ADU meant that Dixon-Grey and her husband would have to sell their home and move into one with enough land for the addition. Despite the effort, they were willing to take on the investment and take advantage of the ADU benefit.

From the sale of their house, they were able to afford a similar-sized home on a larger piece of land for $350,000, and then spent about $110,000 for the ADU. From start to finish, it took five months to build the 500-square-feet, one-story wheelchair accessible home, customized to their moms likingand she couldnt be happier with the results.

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It turned out beautifully. I live independently here in a home on the piece of land that my daughter and son-in-law own. Im saving money and enjoying my life, said Dixon.

Finding solutions

ADUs can provide a wide variety of practical and financial solutions for multigenerational families. Depending on where you live, the level of difficulty in building one can vary greatly as the process is different from state to state, even county to county.

Each community has to balance out the issues they face. If they see a need to have more solutions for families with caregivers or aging relatives, being flexible with housing regulations is one response, explained Rodney Harrell, AARPs director of livable communities. He noted that New Hampshire and Virginia recently passed laws that make it easier to build, giving more flexibility to homeowners.

For homeowners interested in building an ADU, Harrell says the first thing you need to do is check with a local planning and zoning department in your county. There are state laws, but they are always impacted by the local building regulations, so speak to someone who knows the local zoning ordinance, advises Harrell. Some permits to build ADUs can cost as little as $100, while others can be upwards of $10,000.

Its been about five years since Dixon moved into her daughters backyard. Up to this point, we would have paid over $201,000 for her to be in assisted living over a five-year period. We paid $110,000 for the ADU. So thus far, weve saved $90,000, said Dixon-Grey, doing the math.

As for providing Dixon with assistance during the day, they rely primarily on long-term care insurance, which she began paying for her in her 70s. Before Dixon started using the coverage, she paid about $3,000 a year for the supplemental insurance. The plan currently allots her about $2,200 to $2,500 worth of coverage a month, so the family hasnt had to pay much out-of-pocket for the roughly $30,000 it would cost to provide private home health care.

I have been very lucky. Its a question of being comfortable here and not imposing myself on my daughter and my son-in-law, and I think both of us are doing very well in that arrangement. I would recommend it to anybody, said Dixon.

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LIMA (Reuters) - (This story corrects culture ministry's Nov 9 comments to say man was accidentally shot dead and not killed by arrow from isolated tribe; corrects headline, paragraph 1 and paragraph 3 to reflect Nov 10 ministry statement.) An indigenous man was killed and two were wounded last week in the latest clash between sedentary communities and the isolated Mashco Piro tribe as they emerge more frequently from their jungle enclaves, the government said. The nomadic Mashco Piro turned their bows and arrows on members of the Nahua tribe who had followed their footprints into the wilderness near their town Santa Rosa de Serjali in the region of Ucayali, said Deputy Culture Minister Alfredo Luna. Some of the Nahua were carrying weapons and a Nahua man was accidentally shot dead in the encounter, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday. Two members of the Nahua community were wounded by arrows. The Mashco Piro have largely shunned contact with outsiders for at least 100 years as they live off of hunting and foraging in a vast expanse of rainforest in Peru and Brazil. Believed to be descendants of farmers who fled abuse by white plantation owners during the Amazonian rubber boom in the late 1800s, the Mashco Piro have increasingly ventured outside of their safe havens in recent years. Illegal logging, drug trafficking and wildcat gold mining may be forcing the Mashco Piro from some lands, while climate change may be disrupting where they traditionally find food and water, Luna said. Peru broke with its longstanding policy of avoiding contact with isolated tribes last year to communicate with a group of Mashco Piro that had repeatedly appeared at the edge of settled indigenous towns in recent years, killing at least two locals in bow and arrow attacks. Luna said last week's deadly clash was the first inside a reserve set up for the Nahua, Indians who had lived in isolation up until the 1980s when illegal loggers captured a group of them and spread disease among their members that killed scores. Peru is home to about a dozen isolated tribes whose members have immune systems with little resistance to common illnesses. The Mashco Piro may also be drawn to settled areas where they can seize machetes, cooking pots and crops that make their lives in the wilderness easier. Luna said studies indicate that there may be between 1,000 to 4,000 members of the Mashco Piro in the Amazon. (Reporting by Mitra Taj and Reuters TV; Editing by Sandra Maler)
(Reuters) - British oil and gas explorer Ophir Energy Plc said it had signed an agreement with OneLNGSM, a joint venture between units of Golar LNG Ltd and Schlumberger, to develop the Fortuna project in Equatorial Guinea. Shares in the company rose as much as 13.8 percent, before trading at 77.75 pence at 0956 GMT on the London Stock Exchange on Thursday. Ophir said earlier this month that it could go forward without new partners for the Fortuna floating liquefied natural gas project as the cost estimates had halved to around $450 million. Schlumberger had walked away from the deal in June. Jefferies analysts said the return of Schlumberger would be looked at positively by the market. The brokerage has a "hold" rating on the stock. Ophir said it would have a 33.8 percent stake in the joint operating company, while OneLNG would own the rest. The company expects the final investment decision to take place in the first half of 2017, with first gas expected in the first half of 2020. The final decision is subject to approval by Ophir shareholders and clearance from the government of Equatorial Guinea. Capital expenditure for the integrated project is expected to be about $2 billion to reach first gas, of which about $1.2 billion is expected to be debt-financed. "Ophir's committed future expenditure to first gas will not exceed $150 million and certain other commercial exposures have been limited. We will now be able to advance the project while preserving our balance sheet strength," Ophir CEO Nick Cooper said. (Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Sanjeeban Sarkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
(Reuters) - Ratings agency Standard & Poor's affirmed the United States' investment-grade 'AA+/A-1+' rating on Wednesday, a day after the presidential election, while maintaining its stable outlook.

Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election in a stunning upset, and will take office in January, with the Republicans maintaining majority control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

"We assume the longstanding institutional strengths and robust checks and balances of the U.S. will support policy execution in a Trump administration, despite the president-elect's lack of experience in public office, which raises uncertainty on policy proposals, the ratings agency said.

But S&P added that the United States' high general government debt and increased uncertainty over its trajectory constrain the ratings of the world's largest economy.

There is a risk of policy uncertainty and potential missteps given the untested nature of the incoming Trump administration. If these risks eventuate, there could be downward pressure on the rating, S&P said.

S&P said it would raise the rating if it saw evidence that efforts point to more proactive fiscal and public policies that result in a lower debt burden.

Fitch Ratings said on Wednesday that Trump's victory does not have near-term implications for the United States' AAA/stable rating.

The medium-term impact of president-elect Trump's economic and fiscal policies would be negative for U.S. sovereign creditworthiness if they were implemented in full, the ratings agency said. http://bit.ly/2fmgQ97

Moody's Investors Service said that Trump's victory will impact a range of companies operating in several different sectors. http://bit.ly/2eE0V4n

(Reporting by Sangameswaran S and Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru; Editing by G Crosse and Leslie Adler)
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Thursday he knows who killed Yasser Arafat as he marked the 12th anniversary of the former leader's death but stopped short of giving a name.

Speaking in front of thousands, Abbas said "you ask me who killed him, I know -- but my testimony alone is not enough."

"A commission of inquiry is digging into that, but you'll find out at the earliest opportunity and be amazed when you know who did it."

"I do not want to mention names, because these names do not deserve to be remembered," he added.

Arafat rose to become the leader of the Palestinian movement in the late 1960s, leading an armed struggle against Israel.

He died on November 11, 2004 at a hospital near Paris from unknown causes at the age of 75.

More than a decade after his death, he remains a towering figure in Palestinian culture, politics and society.

The Palestinians have long accused Israel of poisoning him, charges the Israeli government firmly denies.

His body was exhumed in 2012 for tests but a subsequent French investigation found no proof of poisoning.

The Palestinians rejected that report, citing apparent inconsistencies between the French findings and separate ones from Switzerland and Russia that gave currency to alleged poisoning by polonium.

Abbas and his longtime rival Mohammed Dahlan have both accused each other of complicity in Arafat's death in the past.

Abbas's comments came with some Arab countries reportedly pressuring the 81-year-old to allow Dahlan, who has been in exile in the United Arab Emirates, to return to the West Bank.

Those moves come amid talk of who will succeed Abbas.

Sources in Abbas' Fatah movement said Arafat's death could be discussed at the party's seventh annual conference, with the commission of inquiry potentially announcing its conclusions.

The conference will be held on November 29.
Photo: NBC

The following is a letter from Leslie Knope, who works for the U.S. Department of the Interior, Midwest Branch, in her hometown of Pawnee, Indiana. She believes that optimism defeats pessimism, and asks that if you have the means, you kindly make a donation to the ACLU, the International Rescue Committee, or the charity of your choice, to help the country and those most in need.

Dear America,

Amidst the confusion, and despair, and disbelief, it was suggested to me by a very close friend of mine (I wont say her name, to protect her identity) (Ann. It was Ann) that perhaps a few people would enjoy hearing my thoughts on this election. So I sat down at my computer, cleared my head, and opened a document. Then I started crying. So I had some hot chocolate, and my close friend (Ann) rubbed my back for a while, and I got myself together, and sat down. And started crying. Then more Ann comforting me, and more hot chocolate, and back and forth like that for about six hours or so, the chain of hot-chocolate-and-back-rubs only interrupted briefly when I had to run to the store for more hot chocolate packets (Just give me all of them, all the boxes, I remember saying, through tears, to a very scared stockroom boy) and now I am ready to go.

When I was in fourth grade, my teacher Mrs. Kolphner taught us a social studies lesson. The seventeen students in our class were introduced to two fictional candidates: a smart if slightly bookish-looking cartoon tortoise named Greenie, and a cool-looking jaguar named Speedy. Rick Dissellio read a speech from Speedy, in which he promised that if elected he would end school early, have extra recess, and provide endless lunches of chocolate pizzandy. (A local Pawnee delicacy at the time  deep fried pizza where the crust was candy bars.) Then I read a speech from Greenie, who promised to go slow and steady, think about the problems of our school, and try her best to solve them in a way that would benefit the most people. Then Mrs. Kolphner had us vote on who should be Class President.

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I think you know where this is going.

Except you dont, because before we voted, Greg Laresque asked if he could nominate a third candidate, and Mrs. Kolphner said Sure! The essence of democracy is that everyone and Greg cut her off and said I nominate a T. rex named Dr. Farts who wears sunglasses and plays the saxophone, and his plan is to fart as much as possible and eat all the teachers, and everyone laughed, and before Mrs. Kolphner could blink, Dr. Farts the T. rex had been elected President of Pawnee Elementary School in a 1984 Reagan-esque landslide, with my one vote for Greenie the Tortoise playing the role of Minnesota.

Related: 12 TV Moments That Will Lift Your Spirits

After class I was inconsolable. Once all the other kids left, Mrs. Kolphner came over and put her arm around me. She told me I had done a great job advocating for Greenie the Tortoise. Through tears I remember saying, How good, exactly? and she said Very very good, and I said, Good enough to? and she sighed and went to her desk to get one of the silver stars she gave out to kids who did a good job on something, and as I tearfully added it to my Silver Star Diary she asked me what upset me the most.

Greenie was the better candidate, I said. Greenie should have won.

She nodded.

I suppose that was the point of the lesson, I said.

Oh no, she said. The point of the lesson is: people are unpredictable, and democracy is insane.

Winston Churchill once said, Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried. That is perhaps a pithier and better way to get my point across, than that long anecdote about Mrs. Kolphner. Should I just erase all of that and start with this? Whatever. Im pot-committed now, and is there extra caffeine in that hot chocolate? Because my head feels like a spaceship. The point is: people making their own decisions is, on balance, better than an autocrat making decisions for them. Its just that sometimes those decisions are bad, or self-defeating, or maddening, and a day where you get dressed up in your best victory pantsuit and spend an ungodly amount of money decorating your house with American flags and custom-made cardboard-cutouts of suffragettes in anticipation of a glass-ceiling-shattering historical milestone ends with you getting (metaphorically) eaten by a giant farting T. rex.

Related: Pamela Adlon, Julie Plec, and More Share The Female Friendships on TV That Influenced Them

Like most people, I deal with tragedy by processing the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. My denial over the election results was intense. My anger was (in Rons words) significant. My bargaining was short, but creative  I offered my soul and the souls of all of my friends in exchange for 60,000 more votes in Milwaukee, to any demon who cared to accept. (Tom told me it was a terrible deal, but I didnt care, in that moment.) My depression I have already mentioned. Which brings us to Acceptance. And heres where I stand on that:

No. I do not accept it.

I acknowledge that Donald Trump is the President. I understand, intellectually, that he won the election. But I do not accept that our country has descended into the hatred-swirled slop pile that he lives in. I reject out of hand the notion that we have thrown up our hands and succumbed to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and crypto-fascism. I do not accept that. I reject that. I fight that. Today, and tomorrow, and every day until the next election, I reject and fight that story. I work hard and I form ideas and I meet and talk to other people who feel like me, and we sit down and drink hot chocolate (I have plenty) and we plan. We plan like mofos. We figure out how to fight back, and do good in this infuriating world that constantly wants to bend toward the bad. And we will be kind to each other, and supportive of each others ideas, and we will do literally anything but accept this as our fate.

And let me say something to the young girls who are reading this. Hi, girls. On behalf of the grown-ups of America who care about you and your futures, I am awfully sorry about how miserably we screwed this up. We elected a giant farting T. rex who does not like you, or care about you, or think about you, unless he is scanning your bodies with his creepy T. rex eyes, or trying to physically grab you like a toy his daddy got him (or would have, if his daddy had loved him). (Sorry, that was a low blow.) (Actually, not sorry, Im pissed, and Im on a roll, so zip it, super-ego!) Our President-Elect is everything you should abhor, and fear, in a male role model. He has spent his life telling you, and girls and women like you, that your lives are valueless except as sexual objects. He has demeaned you, and belittled you, and put you in a little box to be looked at and not heard. It is your job, and the job of girls and women like you, to bust out.

Photo: NBC

You are going to run this country, and this world, very soon. So you will not listen to this man, or the 75-year-old, doughy-faced, gray-haired nightmare men like him, when they try to tell you where to stand or how to behave or what you can and cannot do with your own bodies, or what you should or should not think with your own minds. You will not be cowed or discouraged by his stream of retrogressive babble. You wont have time to be cowed, because you will be too busy working and learning and communing with other girls and women like you, and when the time comes you will effortlessly flick away his miserable, petty misogynistic worldview like a fly on your picnic potato salad.

He is the present, sadly, but he is not the future. You are the future. Your strength is a million times his. Your power is a billion times his. We will acknowledge this result, but we will not accept it. We will overcome it, and we will defeat it.

Now find your team, and get to work.

Love,

Leslie

Parks and Recreation is streaming now on Netflix. This piece was written by a member of the Parks and Recreation writing staff.
Donald Trump military gun

The Obama administration notoriously micromanaged the Pentagon, but experts and insiders told the Military Times that they fear a President Trump could treat them even worse.

Hes micromanaged everything. He disregards the advice of the people working for him, and he makes the final decision himself. So it's hard to think that he would change that style, Larry Korb, a defense expert with the Center for American Progress, told the Military Times.

The Guardian interviewed 12 former Trump employees and arrived at a consensus that Trump is "a businessman obsessed with minute detail, prone to micromanagement, who takes little interest in the diversity of his executives or the welfare of lower-level employees."

But Obama had his own style of micromanagement that Pentagon officials often bemoaned.

You know, the president is quoted as having said at one point to his staff, I can do every one of your jobs better than you can, said former secretary of defense Robert Gates, who served under eight presidents.

He has centralized power and operational activities of the government in the White House to a degree that I think is unparalleled. An NSC [National Security Council] staff of 450 people at this point, Gates said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" in January.

For context, the NSC, a group of civilians responsible for coordinating national security policy, stood at around 100 members during George W. Bush's term.

obama military

But a military advisor to Trump, Randy Forbes, gave reason to hope that Trump may return to a military-led security stance. "We are going to have an international defense strategy driven by the Pentagon and not by the political National Security Council," Forbes told Defense News.

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But due to the sweeping nature of the changes Trump wants to make, he may be unable to even get a team in place to manage.

I suspect we're looking at perhaps 18 to 24 months before he has his whole team in place. That means he'll have to rely on a bureaucracy which is overwhelmingly hostile to him, and that could mean more gridlock, Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and current scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Military Times.

NOW WATCH: Anti-Trump protesters are starting fires and blocking freeways all around the country





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From Cosmopolitan

Following the shocking results of the 2016 election, thousands of people gathered for vigils and peaceful protests across the country on Wednesday night to express their pain, terror, rage, and disapproval over Donald Trump being elected president.

Masses of people protesting in Union Square in New York tonight.

Together, we are stronger. #LoveTrumpsHate #NotMyPresident pic.twitter.com/ubbGpBCAda - PerfectWarrior (@SurvivorHealer) November 10, 2016

From New York to Los Angeles and Chicago to Washington, D.C., thousands of protestors marched the streets in peaceful protest of the results of the election, largely criticizing the president-elect for his lewd remarks on women, his racist comments about minorities, his anti-LGBTQ beliefs, and his xenophobic policies against immigrants.



According to the Washington Post, protests have so far mostly occurred in major cities, predominantly in areas where Hillary Clinton won the majority of votes during Tuesday's election.

"Hes going to lead us to a very dark place for women," one protestor in Chicago told the publication. "Along with how it affects our reproductive rights, the things Donald Trump spews about women shape how Americans think they can talk about women and other marginalized people."

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"I just felt waking up today that I was waking up to a whole new world, to a nightmare for my parents and people I care about and love," another Chicago protestor said. "Theres so much heartache. Its a bad time to be a Muslim or an illegal citizen in this country."

In Chicago and New York, thousands of protestors gathered outside Trump Tower to double-down on their protests, shouting "love trumps hate" among other chants. Some protestors lit American flags on fire in front of the buildings, in order to express their belief that this country does not represent them - and has no intentions of honoring and protecting them - in light of Trump's winning the presidency.

It begins. Protest and more protest. My niece in Chicago is already voicing what we all are feeling! #notmypresident pic.twitter.com/6TRCUOTZSU - Jamie Lee Curtis (@jamieleecurtis) November 10, 2016

#NotMyPresident march moves from the sidewalks into the streets as thousands chant and march from Union Square up to Trump Tower in NYC pic.twitter.com/KfDTrbvE6K - Jackie Strause (@jackiedstrause) November 10, 2016

Others protested on the University of Pennsylvania's campus in Philadelphia. Trump graduated from the university's Wharton School of Business in 1968.



Many others also voiced their frustration over the fact that Clinton won the majority of the popular vote. Hundreds of protestors carried signs saying "#NotMyPresident," voicing their anger and fear that Trump does not have the support of most Americans.

My best friend is in downtown Chicago right now and sent me this picture. Said the mood is "inspiring." Take care, everyone #notmypresident pic.twitter.com/PUKQuYL89G - Hale Goetz (@HaleGoetz) November 10, 2016

Thousands of people line the streets of American cities to protest. Our voices will be heard. #TrumpProtest #NotMyPresident pic.twitter.com/kuyZduwN1u - Jordan (@jordansdiamonds) November 10, 2016

But in case that isn't enough to prove just how disappointed many Americans are with the election's results, here are just a few more posts from protests across the nation.

Students are peacefully protesting at UC Berkeley to send a message to Donald Trump: #NotMyPresident. pic.twitter.com/HLqY6aYVl9 - Fusion (@Fusion) November 9, 2016

Chills, student of UT Austin coming together as one, standing up in peaceful protest against the election #NotmyPresident pic.twitter.com/xmkv1UFvAt - Camila Ayerbe (@camilaayerbeee) November 9, 2016

Trump Protest in front of the State House in Boston #Election2016 #NotMyPresident pic.twitter.com/Qj2oo3qrr7 - erin (@ErinLaVigueur) November 9, 2016

Follow Gina on Twitter.

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One of the creative minds behind FXs The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story is turning his true-crime lens on the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls (a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G.).

RELATEDFXs American Crime Story Season 3 to Revolve Around Versace Murder

USA Network has ordered a pilot for Unsolved, a docu-drama that chronicles the two major police investigations into the rappers murders. People v. O.J. Simpson Emmy winner Anthony Hemingway will direct the pilot and serve as an EP alongside Mark Taylor and Suits Kyle Long (who is penning the script).

The drama is based on the experiences of former LAPD Detective Greg Kading, who penned the book Murder Rap: The Untold Story of Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations.

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Indra Nooyi Quote

PepsiCos CEO is tired of people blaming her for the health consequences of sugary soda beverages.

"Your ancestors invented soda, and then it was exported to the rest of the world," Indra Nooyi said in a conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin on Thursday at The New York Times' DealBook conference. "Guess what? Im here, as an immigrant, making it healthier."

Nooyi, who was born in Madras (now Chennai), India, went on to defend soda as a "great product." PepsiCo, she said, has been working to cut the amount of sugar in products without alienating customers.

"If this is a public health issue, lets talk about it holistically," Nooyi said, arguing that soda taxes do little to improve American health.

Pepsi

Nooyi also mentioned she received advice from an unlikely source to cut sugar from Pepsi products. Steve Jobs, she said, told her that she needed to immediately cut sugar from Pepsi products  advice she found "unrealistic."

In recent years, PepsiCo has made a major effort to cut sugar from beverages and grow business outside of the soda industry.

In October, PepsiCo announced that by 2025, two thirds of its drinks will have 100 calories or fewer from added sugar, per 12 oz serving. Currently, these types of sugary beverages make up roughly 40% of PepsiCo's drinks.

Nooyi has said PepsiCo is "future-proofing" its portfolio by increasing its emphasis on products aimed at nutritionally-savvy customers.

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(Reuters) - Perrigo Co Plc reported a higher-than-expected adjusted quarterly profit and said it would review strategic options for royalty rights from sales of multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri. Shares of the Dublin-based company, which specializes in generic and over-the-counter drugs, were up about 4 percent at $86.75 in premarket trading on Thursday. Perrigo has been under pressure from activist investor Starboard Value LP to make changes - including exploring options for Tysabri - that will boost its stock price. Starboard disclosed a 4.6 percent stake in Perrigo in September. The company's stock had lost about 42 percent of its value through Wednesday's close of $83.51 and the company has cut its earnings forecast twice. Perrigo has blamed much of its troubles on former Chief Executive Joseph Papa who convinced investors to reject a $205 per share cash-and-stock bid from Mylan NV, worth about $26 billion when it was rejected last November. Papa, now CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc, said Perrigo would be better off on its own. Perrigo recognized $93 million of royalty revenue in the third quarter related to global net sales of Tysabri. The drug is marketed through a partnership with Biogen Inc, which paid more than $300 million in royalties to Perrigo. Perrigo, run by CEO John Hendrickson, has hired Morgan Stanley as financial adviser to lead the review process for Tysabri. Royalty Pharma, a privately held company that specializes in acquiring drug royalties, is among potential buyers, Reuters reported in September, citing people familiar with the matter. Perrigo reported a net loss of $1.26 billion, or $8.76 per share, for the third quarter ended Oct. 1, compared with a profit of $113 million, or 77 cents per share, a year earlier. The net loss includes a goodwill impairment charge of $804 million and a brand intangible assets impairment charge of $866 million related to its $3 billion acquisition of Belgian over-the-counter drugmaker Omega Pharma. On an adjusted basis, the company earned $1.80 per share, beating analysts' average estimate of $1.58, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Revenue rose 1 percent to $1.35 billion, including sales of $22 million from held-for-sale businesses. Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $1.28 billion. The company said it expected to report a net loss of $9.04 to $9.34 per share for all of 2016. (Reporting By Aurindom Mukherjee and Akankshita Mukhopadhyay in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier and Ted Kerr)
San Francisco (AFP) - The improbable triumph of Donald Trump is a victory for tech sector investor Peter Thiel, who unabashedly backed the Republican candidate despite overwhelming opposition from his Silicon Valley peers.

The 49-year-old Thiel, an early investor in Facebook and active tech sector figure, was a contrarian in a land of entrepreneurs and internet stars that saw Trump as looking to the past instead of the future.

A co-founder of online payments firm PayPal and big-data analytics company Palantir known for secretive work with counter-intelligence agencies, Thiel is a board member of Facebook and has a fortune estimated at $2.7 billion.

Thiel bucked the trend in Silicon Valley by donating $1.25 million to Trump's campaign, and became the first openly gay speaker at a Republican convention.

He received applause for his speech, in which he said he was proud to be gay, Republican, and American.

While Silicon Valley has seen some Republican support, Thiel appeared an oddity in a race where Hewlett Packard Enterprise chief executive Meg Whitman, who once ran as a Republican for governor of California, endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Thiel said during his speech that he didn't "agree with every plank" of a party platform that has long been at odds with rights and issues important to the gay and transgender community that is important in California.

After reports about Trump's alleged sexual misconduct to women, Thiel referred to them as "clearly offensive and inappropriate."

- 'Not crazy' -

Still, his support for the candidate was unwavering.

"I think a lot of voters who vote for Trump take him seriously but not literally," Thiel said at a Washington news conference in October.

"What Trump represents isn't crazy, and it isn't going away," he contended. "We are voting for Trump because we judge the leadership of our country to have failed."

Thiel funded conservative political candidates in the past, but backing a candidate seen as anathema to Silicon Valley values went too far for some.

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Former Reddit chief Ellen Pao severed ties between Project Include, which is devoted to promoting diversity in the tech industry, and Y Combinator, a startup incubator Thiel is involved with.

Some called, unsuccessfully, for entrepreneurs to shun Y Combinator and for him to be booted from the Facebook board.

Thiel, like Trump, has portrayed the media as villainous.

In May, Thiel acknowledged funding a legal battle against the gossip website Gawker that outed him as a homosexual.

"It's less about revenge and more about specific deterrence," Thiel said in an interview at the time.

Thiel backed former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, who agreed this month to accept at least $31 million from Gawker Media to settle his lawsuit over publication of a sex tape.

While Gawker made enemies for its no-holds-barred approach to celebrity coverage, the case raised questions about whether powerful interests can use their resources to silence media for unfavorable coverage.

- Chess and Mordor -

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Thiel was a year old when his parents brought him to the United States.

The chess enthusiast and fan of author JRR Tolkien (even taking inspiration for fund names from Lord of the Rings books) studied at Stanford University in Silicon Valley.

His first tech startup win came with PayPal, which he co-founded in 1998 and was bought four years later by eBay.

Thiel's influence in Silicon Valley is due largely to investments, his biggest hit being an early stake in Facebook.

He spent $500,000 in exchange for about 10 percent of the social networking startup in 2004, essentially selling it after Facebook went public with a stock offering in 2012.

The billionaire also funds initiatives in artificial intelligence and research into thwarting the aging process. He is a candidate for cryogenics, signing on to have his body frozen after death in the hope medical advances will restore him to life one day.

Thiel has a charitable foundation which offers scholarships to young people who drop out of school to start businesses.

He also sits on the steering committee of a mysterious Bilderberg group, an annual and secretive gathering of political and economic elite that has inspired conspiracy theories.

Palantir, where Thiel presides over the board of directors, in September was accused by the US Department of Labor of discriminating against Asians when it came to hiring workers.
Theres a petition to get rid of the Electoral College  heres what that would mean

When the popular vote results are different than the electoral vote results during a presidential election, outrage usually follows. So its no surprise that theres a petition to get rid of the Electoral College over on Daily Kos.

With Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote, but losing the election to Donald Trump, many people  particularly Democrats  who disagree with the Electoral College are looking to take action.

The Electoral College has been around since 1787, but this petition wants to get rid of this long-established American process. Because rather than every individual vote counting, the Electoral College rarely (but sometimes!) leads to the candidate who won the most votes still not becoming president. Its what just happened to Clinton in 2016 and before then, it happened to Al Gore in 2000.

Although the New York Post wrote that the Electoral College could still vote for Clinton as president, that would go against precedent. And thats not what this petition is all about.

Instead, the goal of the Daily Kos petition is to make the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact a national issue.

Washington, D.C. and 10 states have already signed this compact and what it would mean is that rather than the Electoral College giving all of its votes to the candidate who won the majority in its state, the Electoral College would give its votes to the candidate who won the overall popular vote in the country. As FiveThirtyEights Nate Silver explained back in 2014, that means even a blue state like New York would have given its Electoral College votes to George W. Bush in 2004.

Story continues

Confused? This TED-Ed video might help.

So the purpose of this petition is to get states to agree to this interstate compact so that in 2020, the winner of the popular vote will become president. It doesnt mean anything will change with 2016s election though. And honestly, despite the positivity of the Daily Kos, the compacts success is far from ensured as outlets like FiveThirtyEight and The Washington Post have been sure to note.

The surprisingly realistic path to eliminating the Electoral College by 2020 https://t.co/KWFU4KpGSm  Daily Kos (@dailykos) November 9, 2016

Still, if the magic number of 270 frustrates you, do some research and decide if signing the petition is right for you. Because no matter your view of the Electoral College, one thing we can all agree on is that every vote should count.

The post Theres a petition to get rid of the Electoral College  heres what that would mean appeared first on HelloGiggles.
MANILA (Reuters) - A Philippine law enforcement agency filed bribery, graft and drug-related complaints against a senator and former minister on Thursday, in the first step towards prosecuting the biggest critic of President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs. The cases were lodged by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), the Philippine equivalent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, against Senator Leila de Lima, two former prison officials and a dozen inmates for involvement in the illegal drug trade at a national jail. "It is evident from the revelations of numerous witnesses as detailed in their sworn affidavits that ... de Lima was fully aware of the unlawfulness of their actions," said the NBI complaint. De Lima, a former justice secretary, has been trying for years to link Duterte to involvement in large numbers of drug killings when he was mayor of Davao, long before he became president and launched a similar crackdown on a national scale. More than 2,300 people have been killed in the four-month campaign, mostly in police operations to arrest suspects and others classified as deaths under investigation and believed to be the work of vigilantes. The NBI said de Lima had protected a favored inmate at the prison to facilitate illegal drug deals in exchange for money she collected every month. The case was filed before the justice department. "I'm no longer surprised when this administration files trumped-up charges against me," de Lima said in a statement. She described the evidence against her as "fantastic lies and fairytales". On Monday she lodged a writ with the Supreme Court seeking to stop what she called harassment and intrusion into her private life by Duterte and his allies. The NBI gathered testimonies from the recent congressional hearings about the prison drugs trade, which were launched just days after de Lima was ousted by fellow senators as head of a Senate probe into Duterte's crackdown. The case includes documentary evidence and interviews with more witnesses about a lucrative illicit drug trade in prisons it said had the approval of de Lima. If the cases go to court and de Lima is found guilty, she faces up to 30 years in prison. (Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Martin Petty & Simon Cameron-Moore)
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to extend an olive branch to the U.S. after Wednesdays election result, citing common ground with Americas new populist President-elect Donald Trump.

I would like to congratulate President Trump. Long live! Duterte said, according to CNN. Now were here, I dont want to  fight because Trump is already there.

The outspoken Duterte, whos war on drugs has killed more than 2,000 people, found an apparent common interest with Trump: We both like to swear, he said. One little thing, we curse right away, were the same.

The traditionally close ties between the U.S. and the Philippines have undergone severe strain in recent months: Duterte called the former U.S. ambassador to the Philippines a gay son of a whore, used the same expletive when discussing Obama and later told him to go to hell. Then, in front of crowds in Beijing last month Duterte announced a separation from the U.S.

Duterte has also called for an end to joint U.S.-Philippines military drills. On Thursday, however, Philippines National Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana issued a statement saying that Duterte had agreed to continue military training with the U.S. The focus, he clarified, would be joint training and exercises, while assault exercises and some bilateral drills would remain off limits.

[CNN]
A pivotal Game of Thrones villain will return for Season 7 and now were worried

As Game of Thrones continues filming overseas, were getting crazy excited about what lies in store for the highly anticipated season next year. And while most of the news out of Westeros so far has been VERY intriguing, were a little worried about the latest Game of Thrones cast sighting for Season 7.

Be warned, however, if you want to go into Season 7 as knowledge-less as Jon Snow stop here!

Okay. So the latest Game of Thrones cast member spotting, which was first picked up by the always reliable Watchers on the Wall, shows the return of a pivotal villain

Randyll Tarly, aka Sams jerk dad.

Randyll Tarly

The salty Tarly family patriarch, played by talented British actor James Faulkner, made a very strong (and scary) impression with his one and only episode appearance in Season 6s Blood of My Blood.

And while Randylls return has not officially been confirmed by HBO yet, according to Watchers on the Wall, Faulkner has been spotted all around Caceres, Spain, which all but confirms his return for next year because this is where Thrones is CURRENTLY filming.

Here he is just posing with a horse like, Have you seen my son, Samwell Tarly?!

And here he is actually RIDING a horse in Spain!

Ohand now hes just moving on to ~zebras~ because WHY NOT!?

The idea of Randyll returning for Season 7 has us worried for Samwell, Gilly, and little Sam, though! Because, if you recall, things did not end so ~positively~ between Sam and his dad. Like, Sam literally stole the family heirloom/sword Heartsbane and took off in the middle of the night for Oldtowns Citadel, so



But we are loving James hilariously candid photos from Spain. Perhaps his Game of Thrones alter ego Randyll Tarly could take a hint and lighten up, too? DOUBTFUL.

The post A pivotal Game of Thrones villain will return for Season 7 and now were worried appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Welcome to Playback, a Variety podcast.

On todays episode Variety Senior VP Tim Gray stops by to discuss the upcoming Academy Governors Awards. Casting director Lynn Stalmaster, documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, film editor Anne V. Coates and international superstar Jackie Chan are set to be honored this weekend. We also discuss Denzel Washingtons Fences, which finally came out into the light recently.

Later on (17:43) Im talking to Nocturnal Animals star Jake Gyllenhaal, who also appeared in Jean-Marc Vallees Demolition earlier in the year. With an on-going list of filmmaker collaborators that includes Tom Ford, David Gordon Green, Bong Joon-ho and Paul Dano, the 35-year-old star is maintaining a fascinating pace at this stage in his career.

For more, listen to the latest episode of Playback below. Check back next week when Ill be talking to Captain Fantastic star Viggo Mortensen, and be sure to subscribe!

I think admittedly I was judgmental of where his focus would be, Gyllenhaal says of director Tom Ford. Hes made a beautiful film. Beauty is a big part of the film. I think he cant shake that. But I think I was, more than any other time in my career, surprised that he, as someone who came from a world that really puts an emphasis on vanity, could blow that up and focus on what was true to him and be vulnerable and admit his insecurities, particularly to me as an actor  his love of human behavior, his love of actors and the process.

The past few years for Gyllenhaal have, he says, been all about exploring different aspects of acting. Often he is drawn to what might be considered darker material on the outside, and certainly in Nocturnal Animals, he goes to some dark places. But he sees it a little differently.

These types of stories, I think theres so much to mine, he says. In the darkness, you have to  everyone asks me that often: Why do you mine such dark places? And, Are you fascinated with that? Constantly, its a mantra: You should do a rom-com or a romantic comedy. And sometimes those, to me, are darker than dark material. But I also think you have to bring your light when you go into the dark. Whatever light you have, you have to bring that.

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Gyllenhaal also starred in Jean-Marc Vallees Demolition earlier this year, but it was both a financial and critical disappointment. But prior to shooting, Gyllenhaal was eager to work with the director behind films like Dallas Buyers Club and Wild and ultimately he relished the experience, whatever the response ended up being.

One of the things that has been really lovely about the way I look at the world now, having done this for a while, is none of that  critics, whether it does well  is what defines a success, he says. Jean-Marc is one of those people who is rare in that he does what he believes and what he feels, and he doesnt move with what people tell him he should do but what his heart does. I adored working with him and I think thats his longevity. In this business, where everybody is so afraid of what their movie is going to make, we do still live in a business of relationships. People with open hearts and who are talented regardless continue to work.

Hear more about that, as well as Gyllenhaals upcoming collaborations, via the streaming link above.

Subscribe to Playback:

Related stories

Playback: Jessica Chastain on 'Miss Sloane' and a 'Depressing' Presidential Election

Live Q&A With Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Tom Ford of 'Nocturnal Animals' - Watch Now!

Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds Discover Alien Organism in 'Life' Trailer (Watch)
By Sanjeev Miglani and Linda Sieg

NEW DELHI/TOKYO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi headed to Japan on Thursday to seal a landmark nuclear energy pact and strengthen ties, as China's regional influence grows and Donald Trump's election throws U.S. policies across Asia into doubt.

India, Japan and the United States have been building security ties and holding three-way naval exercises, but Trump's "America First" campaign promise has stirred concern about a reduced U.S. engagement in the region.

Such an approach by Washington could draw Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe even closer, said foreign policy commentator and former Indian ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar.

Officials in New Delhi and Tokyo said a deal that will allow Japan to supply nuclear reactors, fuel and technology is ready for signing after six years of negotiations to find a way around Tokyo's reservations about such an agreement with a country that has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

India says the NPT is discriminatory and it has concerns about nuclear-armed China as well as its long-time rival Pakistan.

Japan, the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, has been seeking assurances from New Delhi that it would not conduct nuclear tests any more.

Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said the two sides had reached a broad agreement on nuclear collaboration as early as last December and had since been trying to finalise the document.

A "legal, technical scrub" of the agreed text has now been done, he said, but added that he could not pre-judge the outcome of Modi's summit talks with Abe over Friday and Saturday.

A Japanese ruling party lawmaker said the two sides will sign an agreement during Modi's visit. A Japanese foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment.

JAPANESE AIRCRAFT ALSO DISCUSSED

The nuclear agreement with Japan follows a similar one with the United States in 2008 which gave India access to nuclear technology after decades of isolation.

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That step was seen as the first big move to build India into a regional counterweight to China.

India hopes to lift ties with the United States to a new height, Modi said in a message to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday.

A final deal with Japan could also benefit U.S. firms.

India is in advanced negotiations with U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric, owned by Japan's Toshiba, to build six nuclear reactors in southern India, part of New Delhi's plan to ramp up nuclear capacity more than ten times by 2032.

"Japan is keen to put aside it's staunch non-proliferation principles and engage with the lucrative Indian programme," said Manpreet Sethi, nuclear affairs expert at the Centre for Air Power Studies, a New Delhi think-tank.

But the agreement will still have to be ratified by the Japanese parliament, she said.

Japan's Yomiuri newspaper said the main accord will likely be accompanied by a separate document stipulating that Tokyo will suspend nuclear cooperation if India conducts a nuclear test. Initially, Japan wanted that inserted into the agreement itself, but India resisted, it said.

India has declared a moratorium on such testing since its last explosions in 1998.

The two countries have also been trying to close a deal on the supply of amphibious rescue aircraft US-2 to the Indian navy, which would be one of Japan's first sales of military equipment since Abe lifted a 50-year ban on arms exports.

India's Defence Acquisitions Council met earlier this week to consider the purchase of 12 of the planes made by ShinMaywa Industries, but failed to reach a decision.

An Indian government source said opinion within the military was divided over whether to buy the aircraft when it was struggling to find resources to replace ageing and accident-prone submarines and address a shortage of helicopters.

A Japanese defence source said Japan was considering a cost reduction, which would mean a price cut for India as well as for the Japanese navy which it supplies. A US-2 currently costs about 13 billion yen ($123 million).

(Additional reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo in TOKYO; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
(credit: Gage Skidmore)

(credit: Gage Skidmore)

* Producers Note: We need your help! Share your feedback on the podcasttopics, guests, potential new projects, and moreby taking this brief survey: bit.ly/wethepeoplepodcast. Thanks!

What do the results of the historic 2016 elections mean for the Constitution and the nation?

Early Wednesday morning, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called businessman Donald Trump to concede the presidential race. In Congress, Democrats gained two seats in the Senate and a handful in the House, yet Republicans will maintain control of both chambers. There were also interesting results at the state level, with ballot measures on marijuana, gun rights, and the death penalty.

Joining We the People to discuss the 2016 election and how the Constitution will restrain or empower the incoming Trump administration are two members of the Constitution Centers Coalition of Freedom Advisory Board.

Michael Dorf is the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell University Law School.

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute in Washington and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review.

This show was engineered by David Stotz and produced by Nicandro Iannacci. Research was provided by Lana Ulrich and Tom Donnelly. The host of We the People is Jeffrey Rosen.

Get the latest constitutional news, and continue the conversation, on Facebook and Twitter.

We want to know what you think of the podcast! Go to bit.ly/wethepeoplepodcast to share your feedback.

Please subscribe to We the People and our companion podcast, Live at Americas Town Hall, on iTunes, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

We the People is a member of Slates Panoply network. Check out the full roster at Panoply.fm.

Despite our congressional charter, the National Constitution Center is a private nonprofit; we receive little government support, and we rely on the generosity of people around the country who are inspired by our nonpartisan mission of constitutional debate and education. Please consider becoming a member to support our work, including this podcast. Visit constitutioncenter.org to learn more.

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Rome (AFP) - The Pope's "Jubilee of Mercy" year, which ends this month, has brought more than 20 million pilgrims to Rome, the Vatican said Thursday.

Monsignor Rino Fisichella, head of the Vatican's evangelisation efforts, estimated that over 20.4 million participants had travelled to take part in the jubilee year events.

Overall a billion people may have participated in churches around the world, Bishop Fisichella told members of the foreign press association.

Fisichella said that the theme of mercy had been neglected by theologians but was now back at the centre of Christian thinking.

The Papal holy year, the first since 2000-2001, has seen many events including the canonisation of Mother Teresa.

On Friday Pope Francis will receive thousands of disadvantaged and homeless people at the Vatican. That will be the last major event of the Jubilee Year which ends officially on November 20.

The Jubilee has also seen heightened security at the Vatican because the Islamic State group has several threats against it.
These post-election protests by high school and college students give us hope for the future

Positive and negative, reactions have been strong since it became clear that Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States.

All around the nation, high school and college students have already begun rising up in protest of Trumps election.

Here are some highlights from across the country, thanks to the reporters at TeenVogue:

University of Connecticut

A massive rally took over streets on the UConn campus. There was very little anger visible at the demonstration. Instead, students were cheering and clapping, holding up signs about love and acceptance. We make joy out of the worst situations, said the woman leading the rally. We win in the worst situations. This is just a road block that we will overcome.

University of Oklahoma

Students hosted a #BlackOUt march on campus after the election results came in. One student delivered a powerful speech: People that are here today; people who have been marginalized: I want you to know that you are loved, your identities hold deep value, [and] you are truly what makes America great.

Yale University

Students on the Yale campus gathered the evening of the announcement. In an expression of catharsis and bonding, they all stood together and screamed. The scream offered students a chance to come together, process the shock of the moment and use that energy to move forward, reported Yale Daily News.

If you feel pain and fear after election night, know that youre not alone. Find your loved ones, hold them close, and raise your voice.

The post These post-election protests by high school and college students give us hope for the future appeared first on HelloGiggles.
The White House meeting of President Barack Obama and President-Elect Donald Trump follows a tradition of animosity giving way to assistance that dates back to 1952. No matter how personally or politically hostile an outgoing and incoming president may be, once voters have selected a new member of The Presidents Club, a different dynamic takes over. Only those who have held the job can understand what it does to you, or the help that you need to succeed at it. And so upon the election of a new president, the sitting president takes the opportunity to pull back the curtain, and give his successor a glimpse of the challenge that lies ahead.

The tradition began with Harry Truman. After an utterly brutal and bruising campaign, Truman invited the newly elected Dwight Eisenhower to the White House; then as now, the two men could not stand one another. Truman and Ike had been friends and allies in the early years of Trumans presidency, working together in World War IIs aftermath to erect the post-war security structure. But that had changed by 1952 when Eisenhower hung up his uniform and aimed for the White House, another political outsider whose party affiliation was in doubt until he entered the New Hampshire primary and had to affirm that he was, in fact, a Republican. Eisenhowers attacks on the Truman administration during that campaign, and his failure to denounce Senator Joe McCarthy, enraged Truman, to the point that Truman poured every bit as much energy into defeating Ike as Obama did to defeating Trump.

But Election Day changed all that. Truman had taken office in 1945 upon Franklin Roosevelts death with no preparation whatsoever for managing the immense burden of the office. In the post-war, nuclear age, ignorance was dangerous, and so with Eisenhowers victory, Truman instructed members of the White House staff to do everything they could to help the incoming administration, and invited Ike to visit before the inauguration so Truman could brief him on what would confront him on his first day. When Eisenhower came to the White House on November 18, it was only the fourth meeting of its kind in history, and like the firstbetween Jefferson and Adamsit produced only acrimony. The second and third such meetings were between Herbert Hoover and Roosevelt, and those were positively toxic.

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But this time there was important business to discuss, particularly the war in Korea. Truman came away from the meeting convinced that Eisenhower was awestruck by the long array of problems and decisions the President has to face. Ike admitted to no such reaction, and relations between the two men remained hostile until both were out of office a decade later, and reconciled in the twilight of their long public lives.

Eight years later, Eisenhower, for his part, kept up the tradition. Once again, the incoming and outgoing presidents were hardly friendly: Before election day in 1960, Ike told one Oval Office visitor, as he jabbed a finger toward his desk chair: Listen, dammit, Im going to do everything possible to keep that Jack Kennedy from sitting in this chair. John F. Kennedy was just as harsh, referring to Eisenhower privately as that old ahole. But upon Kennedys victory, Eisenhower invited him to the White House twice for briefings and discussion. He too told his staff to help the incoming team in any way they could. They met in the Oval Office to discuss how the national security apparatus was arranged, the roles of members of the White House staff, how to handle the cabinet. No easy matters will ever come to you as President, Eisenhower warned Kennedy. If they are easy, they will be settled at a lower level. He urged Kennedy to avoid any reorganization until he had learned for himself the nature of the job. I pray that he understands it, Eisenhower wrote that night. Certainly his attitude was that of a serious, earnest seeker for information.

Yet another handoff between political enemies occurred in 1968, after Richard Nixon narrowly defeated Lyndon Johnsons vice president Hubert Humphrey. Here too there was ample reason for the two men to be at each others throats: In the final weeks of the campaign, Johnson had obtained evidence that Nixon was secretly undermining the Vietnam peace talks in order to avoid an October breakthrough that would have boosted Humphreys candidacy and sealed Johnsons legacy. Yet once again, the meetings after Nixons victory were cordial, businesslike, and strangely prescient. At one point, Nixon sat on the sofa, Johnson in his king-size rocker. The retiring president talked about secrecy, of all things. I will warn you now, the leaks can kill you, Johnson said, and he urged Nixon to tear out the recording system that Johnson had used in the Oval Office.

And so it went through the years, including when George W. Bush invited the entire Presidents Club to meet the newest member in January of 2009. Both Presidents Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton all assembled for lunch with President-elect Barack Obama. We want you to succeed, Bush told him. All of us who have served in this office understand that the office transcends the individual.

Obama echoed those words the day after the election, in anticipation of meeting face-to-face the man he had wholeheartedly denounced in the last weeks of a bitter race. One thing you realize in this job is that the presidencyor the vice presidencyis bigger than all of us, Obama said.

As the President-elect is about to discover.

Nancy Gibbs is the editor-in-chief of TIME and, along with Michael Duffy, the author of The Presidents Club: Inside the Worlds Most Exclusive Fraternity.
Nov 10 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Financial Times. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Headlines

Emails link Rio Tinto managers to Guinea payments http://on.ft.com/2fg5NRi

John Lewis strikes deal with Sky to push Christmas ad http://on.ft.com/2ffZ4GY

S&P affirms U.S.'s double A plus credit rating http://on.ft.com/2fg5N3X

Renault referred to French state prosecutors over emissions http://on.ft.com/2fg44vc

Overview

Two former chief executives of Rio Tinto Plc discussed payments to a consultant for work on a $20 billion iron ore project in Guinea that the company has since reported to regulators.

John Lewis Plc signed a deal with Sky TV to give the broadcaster rights to screen the department store chain's Christmas advert.

Standard & Poor's has affirmed the credit ratings of the United States of America following Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election.

French anti-fraud investigators have referred Renault SA to state prosecutors over abnormal emissions of nitrogen oxide pollutants from some of its diesel engines.

(Compiled by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Nov 10 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Wall Street Journal. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

- President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi on Wednesday and will have his first post election meeting with President Barack Obama on Thursday to discuss the transfer of power between their two administrations in January. http://on.wsj.com/2fEdr6z

- Shaken by the election results, Democrats are pointing to Hillary Clinton's defeat in the presidential race as a repudiation of the party's message, candidates and reliance on high-dollar donations. http://on.wsj.com/2fEgaNA

- Thousands of protesters packed the area around Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday night, chanting slogans against President-elect Donald Trump. Demonstrators marched in other cities around the country, including San Francisco, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, Seattle, Austin, Texas, and Portland, Ore. In Chicago, thousands massed outside Trump Tower. http://on.wsj.com/2fzBgvY

- Executives world-wide encountered a political and economic landscape radically changed by Donald Trump's surprise election, which reverberated through the energy, health-care and manufacturing sectors. http://on.wsj.com/2ekG7DZ

- Yahoo Inc is evaluating whether an unidentified hacker has access to its user account data, following a 2014 hack that resulted in the theft of more than 500 million user account records. http://on.wsj.com/2eDYX3W

- Donald Trump's surprise victory is injecting a wave of uncertainty into a global climate conference that began this week in Marrakesh, Morocco. http://on.wsj.com/2elys8n

- European populists seized on Donald Trump's election Wednesday as evidence of a sea change that will help sweep away the continent's political establishment and carry them to power. http://on.wsj.com/2fmCNFh

- Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Wednesday named 84 new partners, a smaller crop of executives than in years past as core businesses remain challenged. http://on.wsj.com/2fEjCYg

- Mexico's government, amid a record decline in the peso, rushed to reassure both its own citizens and foreign investors that the country was on solid footing in facing the fallout of Donald Trump's surprise victory in the U.S. presidential election. http://on.wsj.com/2eEbKUe (Compiled by Aurindom Mukherjee in Bengaluru)
Several preventive arrests have been made across the state so far.(Photo for representation: PTI)

By Rohini Swamy: Ahead of the Tipu Sultan Jayanti celebrations in Karnataka, former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa courted arrest to protest against it. "We are not anti-Muslim but we strongly oppose the Tipu Jayanti programme," Yeddyurappa told India Today.

Earlier, 48 BJP protesters were arrested today in Madikeri. Those arrested include BJP's Kodagu unit president Manu Muthappa, MLAs KG Bopaiah, Appachu Ranjan and MLC Sunil Subramani. Appachu Ranjan was scheduled to preside over a meeting.

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"All of them were picked up under preventive arrests," said Superintendent of Police, Coorg, P Rajendra Prasad.

Several BJP workers also staged a protest outside the Town Hall in Bengaluru against the Tipu Sultan Jayanti celebration.



In Kodagu district, people responded to the call for bandh by the Hindu Jagran Vedike and other organisations. Private buses and autos were off the road and shops remained shut.

ALSO WATCH



On Wednesday, two people were killed in the clashes which erupted in Kodagu when a procession was taken out as part of the Tipu Sultan Jayanti celebration. Prohibitory orders have also been put in place in Bengaluru city as well to maintain law and order.

Across Karnataka, many have decided to stay indoors today.

ALSO READ: Tipu Sultan Jayanti: While in power, BJP praised Mysore ruler, says JDS



KARNATAKA TURNS INTO A FORTRESS

Meanwhile, to avoid any law and order situation, heavy security has been deployed across the Bengaluru.

BJP workers protest outside Town Hall in Bengaluru. (SourceL ANI)

Extensive security arrangements have been put in place in Madikeri, which has been the hotbed of protests over celebrations of Tipu Sultan's birth anniversary last year.

There have been more than 2,000 preventive arrests across the state ahead of the celebrations. So far, 70 arrests have been made in Madikeri, 132 in Sonwarpet, 28 in Virajpet and 26 in Kushalnagara.

Forces have also been asked to record visuals if there are any protests.

ALSO READ: Karnataka: Ahead of Tipu Jayanti celebrations, CM asks police to carry out preventive arrests of troublemakers



Security arrangements:

60,000 police personnel including

15,000 home guards

Karnataka state reserve police

District armed reserve

Rapid Action Force

Sashastra Seema Bal

Central Industrial Security Force

Sensitive areas: Coorg, Chitradurga, Mysore, Belagavi and Chikkamagalur

ALSO READ: Tipu Jayanti is like celebrating Aurangzeb's anniversary: Voices against Karnataka event



THE TIPU CONTROVERSY

The BJP and the RSS have been protesting against the Siddaramaiah government's decision to hold the celebrations.

Earlier, the Karnataka High Court came down heavily on the Karnataka government asking why the government was "so excited" to go ahead with celebrations of Tipu Jayanti.

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The court observed that "the state govt was making a huge deal about Tipu Jayanti".

The Chief Justice of Karnataka, SK Mukherjee, while hearing the petition, had asked the government "What is the necessity to celebrate Tipu Jayanti? As far as my knowledge goes, Tipu was only a king and fought the British to safeguard his kingdom. He is not a freedom fighter."

ALSO READ: Karnataka HC questions state govt's excitement over Tipu Jayanti, says he wasn't a freedom fighter

ALSO READ: Everything you need to know about Tipu Sultan's anniversary controversy





--- ENDS ---
Prince Harry made a firm stance earlier this week against those harassing his actress-girlfriend, Meghan Markle, but that hasn't stopped the royal from fulfilling his official obligations. On Thursday, he attended the Field of Remembrance Service at Westminster Abbey in London alongside his grandfather, Prince Philip.

WATCH: Prince Harry Condemns 'Sexism and Racism' Against 'Girlfriend' Meghan Markle, Is 'Deeply Disappointed' He's Not Been Able to Protect Her

Harry wore the symbolic red poppy pin as he participated in the ceremony honoring fallen soldiers.

The event marks Harry's first public appearance since releasing a rare statement on Tuesday, slamming the "outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments" against the Suits star.

His statement also confirmed his previously rumored relationship, explicitly calling Markle his "girlfriend."

Also on Thursday, the Palace released the official itinerary for Harry's two-week royal tour of the Caribbean, which will run from Nov. 20 through Dec. 4.

The prince will visit seven different countries over that span of time and celebrate the 35th Anniversary of Independence in Antigua and Barbuda and the 50th Anniversary of Independence in Barbados and Guyana.

MORE: Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton Wear the Same Dress -- See the Pics!

The Palace confirmed to ET on Wednesday that the 35-year-old Markle will not be joining Harry at any of his official events and appearances this month.

However, throughout his travels, Harry will attend numerous events, including a performance by pop superstar Rihanna in her home country of Barbados.

For more on Prince Harry, watch the clip below!

Related Articles
Prince Harry stepped out for the first time since confirming his relationship with Suits star Meghan Markle as he joined his grandfather Prince Philip at a ceremony to remember those lost in battle Thursday.

Harry and Philip, 95, came together to view the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey  the first in a series of events to mark the fallen in the U.K.

On Tuesday, Harry fiercely defended Markle in an unprecedented statement that slammed the harassment and abuse she has faced since news of their relationship broke.

The prince, 32, and the L.A.-born actress, 35, have been dating seriously for about two months, PEOPLE confirmed last week. Things are moving so quickly, in fact, that Harry has already introduced Markle to his father (and the future king of England), Prince Charles, PEOPLE has learned.

Want to keep up with the latest royals coverage? Click here to subscribe to the Royals Newsletter.

It was fitting that the two princes kicked off the series of commemorations for sacrifices made in battle as both are Armed Forces veterans themselves. Harry, 32, served two tours of Afghanistan during his decade-long service in the Army, while Philip, 94, was a naval officer during WWII.

The duo also represented the royal family during the same event last year. On Friday, Harry will visit the the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire for the Armistace Day service.

Princess Kate and Prince William are expected to join Queen Elizabeth and other members of the royal family at the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday evening, while most of the senior royals will lay wreaths of bright red poppies at the Cenotaph war memorial in Whitehall, central London, on Sunday.




Anti-Trump protesters marched near New Yorks Times Square on the evening of Wednesday, November 9.

More than 10,000 Facebook users said on the social media platform that they would attend the demonstrations against the president-elect, according to NBC New York. The NYPD said they would make multiple arrests in the rally. Marchers can be heard chanting Trump not president! in this footage.

Trump protesters and supporters clashed in New York City earlier in the day after the real estate tycoon won the 45th presidential election. Credit: Kyle Orangio via Storyful
By Timothy Mclaughlin and Alexander Besant CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Demonstrators marched in cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest against Republican Donald Trump's surprise presidential election win, blasting his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups. In New York, thousands filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, Trump's gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted "Not my president." In Los Angeles, protesters sat on the 110 and 101 highway interchange, blocking traffic on one of the city's main arteries as police in riot gear tried to clear them. Some 13 protesters were arrested, a local CBS affiliate reported. An earlier rally and march in Los Angeles drew more than 5,000 people, many of them high school and college students, local media reported. A demonstration of more than 6,000 people blocked traffic in Oakland, California, police said. Protesters threw objects at police in riot gear, burned trash in the middle of an intersection, set off fireworks and smashed store front windows. Police responded by throwing chemical irritants at the protesters, according to a Reuters witness. Two officers were injured in Oakland and two police squad cars were damaged, Johnna Watson, spokeswoman for the Oakland Police Department told CNN. In downtown Chicago, an estimated 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA." Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators' path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there. "I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can." In Seattle, police responded to a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of anti-Trump protests. Police said it was unrelated to the demonstrations. Protesters railed against Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally. Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston and Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday evening. In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said. A representative of the Trump campaign did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the protests. Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans, saying: "It is time for us to come together as one united people." Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that "Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form." "DREAMERS" FEAR DEPORTATION Earlier on Wednesday, some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, in a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other Bay Area cities - Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito. A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally. Chanting in Spanish "the people united will never be defeated," the group held signs with slogans such as "Not Supporting Racism, Not My President" and "Immigrants Make America Great." Many of those students were members of the "Dreamers" generation, children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration. "A child should not live in fear that they will be deported," said Stephanie Hipolito, one of the student organizers of the walkout. She said her parents were U.S. citizens. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence. Wednesday's demonstrations followed a night of protests in the San Francisco area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump's victory against heavily favored Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. (Reporting by Noah Berger and Stephen Lam in Oakland, Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago, Alexander Besant in New York, Curtis Skinner in Berkeley, California, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler, Peter Cooney and Paul Tait)
Donald Trump protest San Francisco

Protests against Donald Trump took place in several major cities across the US on Wednesday night, less than 24 hours after after Trump won the presidential election.

Demonstrators in New York City, Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, DC, and Detroit were in the streets chanting "Not my president" and accusing Trump of running a campaign fueled by racism, xenophobia, and sexism.

In New York, thousands of people began a march at Union Square in Manhattan and moved up Broadway toward Trump Tower in midtown, stopping rush-hour traffic in its place. The mass of people spanned more than 40 city blocks.

Crowds broke out into dozens of anti-Trump chants, including "Love trumps hate" and "P---y grabs back." The crowd outside Trump Tower grew to nearly 10,000 late Wednesday, according to the New York Police Department.

People in San Francisco also numbered in the thousands, holding signs with messages like "Trump says go back, we say fight back. No to racism, sexism, war."

Donald Trump protests San Francisco

Natalie Toland, a San Francisco resident, told Business Insider she reacted to Trump's victory in Tuesday's election with "shock and awe."

"We're showing the American people and Donald Trump that we will not back down and we will not stand for his blatant ignorance," Toland said, holding a "Not my president" sign.

A demonstrator named Sarah Huck said she underestimated how angry and divided the country had become in recent years.

"I think it is a symptom of our country being so fed up with the way the government is run," Huck told Business Insider. "I don't think that I truly understand how angry people have been by what I consider progress and what they consider a changing white America."

Exit polls suggested that Trump's upset victory was possible in large part because his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, underperformed with numerous voter demographics including African-Americans and Latinos. She was poised to win the popular vote, however.

Story continues

Berkeley High School Donald Trump protests

Students started their own marches as well.

At Berkeley High School in California, about 1,500 students and teachers walked out of class before 9 a.m., the Los Angeles Times reported.

About 2,000 people protested Trump's election on Wednesday morning at the University of California at Los Angeles. At the height of the protest, a Trump pinata was set on fire in a trash can, according to The Times. On Wednesday night, a Trump effigy was burned outside city hall. Some of the demonstrators stopped traffic on the 101 Freeway at about 10:40 p.m. PT.

Nearly 2,000 people gathered at the Trump International Hotel in Chicago, chanting, "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA," Reuters reported.

Adriana Rizzo, one of the Chicago demonstrators, told the news wire service "I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country." She held a sign that said "Enjoy your rights while you can."

The marches come at a time when political luminaries have asked Americans to unite behind Trump.

President Barack Obama, Clinton, and House Speaker Paul Ryan called for healing the divisions after a bruising campaign.

The massive protests suggest little interest in that at the moment.

Here's how things were unfolding across the country:

The protests are strikingly similar to those that were held over the past 18 months of the election cycle. During and after the Republican primary, people were shouting down Trump supporters and protesting his appearances. Many of those demonstrations turned violent.

Trump, after receiving Clinton's concession early Wednesday morning, addressed a celebratory audience at a hotel in New York, asking Americans to put aside their differences and vowing to be a president "for all Americans."

The words, however, were not well received by citizens who say they have felt the repercussions of what has been a bitter and divisive election.

Abby Jackson, Jeremy Berke, and Mark Abadi contributed reporting.

NOW WATCH: Watch the Trump protest that shut down parts of New York City





More From Business Insider


From Popular Mechanics

Vladimir Putin played an outsized role in the 2016 U.S. election, with repeated Russian hacks leading many to suspect the Kremlin was trying to sway the vote for Russia-friendly Donald Trump. And after Trump's victory came another weird turn: Putin sent him a telegram.

There may be a hundred ways to send a message in 2016, but the Russian leader is decidedly old-school in this regard. The good old-fashioned telegram remains his "preferred method of communicating with newly elected leaders," says NBC News.

No word on whether the president-elect plans to drop his beloved Twitter in favor of chatting like it's the 1800s.

Source: Kremlin via NBC News

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Ralph Lauren Corporation RL reported second-quarter fiscal 2017 adjusted earnings of $1.90 per share that fared better than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.70 but declined 10.8% from $2.13 reported in the prior-year quarter.



In response, the companys shares rose nearly 2% in the pre-market trading session.



On a reported basis, the company posted earnings of 55 cents per share against $1.86 earned in the prior-year quarter. Reported earnings for the quarter primarily included restructuring and other charges associated with the companys Way Forward plan, which was announced in Jun 2016.

FindTheCompany | Graphiq

Way Forward Plan



Under its Way Forward plan. Ralph Laurens management expects to generate annualized cost savings worth $180$220 million, on the back of its fiscal 2017 restructuring activities. These restructuring activities include rightsizing the portfolio and cost-structure, alongside streamlining the structure of the organization. Further, the company expects to incur $400 million and $150 million by the end of fiscal 2017, on account of these restructuring charges and inventory charge associated with the companys Way Forward Plan, respectively.



Revenues



Net revenue of this luxury apparel retailer was down about 8% year over year to $1,821 million and slightly short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1,829 million. On a currency-neutral basis too, revenues fell nearly 8% in the quarter. Quarterly revenue growth was in line with the companys guidance of a mid-to-high single-digits decline.



During the quarter, reported revenues for the International business increased 2%, offset by a 12% fall in North American revenues.



Segment-wise, Wholesale revenues witnessed a 10% decline year over year to $831 million, both on a reported and currency-neutral basis. The decline in Wholesale revenues is attributed to the soft performance in North America due to lowered shipments as part of its Way Forward plan, partly compensated by a rise in Europe.



Reported Retail revenues dipped nearly 5% to $942 million, while currency-neutral revenues fell 6% owing to a decline in comparable-store sales (comps), which were down 8% on a reported basis and 9% in constant-currency. The decline in comps was mainly attributed to reduced traffic partly negated by diminished markdowns.



Licensing revenues increased 2% to $48 million on a reported basis, while the same remained nearly flat in constant-currency.



Margins



Ralph Lauren's adjusted gross profit margins expanded 40 basis points (bps) to 56.9%, owing to favorable geographic and channel mix shifts and early efforts under its Way Forward plan to lower product costs and enhance the quality of sales metrics. However, the improvement was partly neutralized by foreign currency headwinds.



Adjusted operating income margin contracted 110 bps to 12.4% but fared better than the previously guided 200250 bps decline. The better-than-expected operating margin was primarily owing to international quality of sales initiatives, higher inventory productivity and a change in the timing of operating expenses. However, operating margin comparisons suffered due to fixed expense deleverage, offset by gross margin gains.



Financials



Ralph Lauren ended the quarter with cash and investments of $965 million, long-term debt of $597 million and total shareholders equity of $3,598 million.



Store Update



At the end of second-quarter fiscal 2017, Ralph Lauren had 485 directly-operated stores and 620 concession shops across the globe. The directly-operated stores included 128 Ralph Lauren, 82 Club Monaco and 275 Polo factory stores.



Additionally, the companys global licensing partners operated 102 Ralph Lauren stores and 59 Club Monaco stores, bringing the total number of licensed stores to 161. Additionally, the company had 97 licensed concession shops in operation as of Oct 1, 2016.



Guidance



Ralph Lauren provided its outlook for third-quarter while it reiterated its fiscal 2017 guidance. The company expects fiscal third-quarter reported revenues to be down in the low-double digits to down low-teens range. This is expected to be driven by smooth execution of its quality of sales actions, lowered inventory receipts and fleet optimization plans in sync with its Way Forward plan. Though the company anticipates currency headwinds to have lesser impact on the companys revenue growth, it is likely to reduce gross margin by about 120 bps.



Operating margin for the upcoming quarter is expected to contract about 200250 bps from last year, as the timing shift in operating expenses will pressure third-quarter margins, with synergies from the cost savings initiatives under the Way Forward plan anticipated to be realized in fourth-quarter. Effective tax rate is projected at 29%.



Coming to fiscal 2017, the company reiterated its low double-digit percentage revenue decline forecast, in line with its Way Forward plan. The fall is likely to reflect from an intentional pullback in inventory receipts, closing of stores, harmonizing pricing and other quality of sale initiatives. However, the company expects currency to bear minimal effect on its fiscal 2017 revenues, based on current exchange rates.



Further, the company anticipates operating margin for fiscal 2017 at 10% reflecting a rise in new store expenses, negative currency impacts, infrastructure investments and fixed expense deleverage, offset by synergies from cost-saving actions. The company expects an effective tax rate of 29%.



Additionally, the company stated that its fiscal third-quarter and fiscal 2017 guidance excludes any impact from the Way Forward Plan related charges.

RALPH LAUREN CP Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

RALPH LAUREN CP Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | RALPH LAUREN CP Quote

Zacks Rank



Currently, Ralph Lauren carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the related industry include Duluth Holdings Inc. DLTH, Zumiez Inc. ZUMZ and The Gap Inc. GPS, all carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



Duluth Holdings, with a long-term earnings growth rate of 25%, has surged nearly 92.2% year-to-date.



Zumiez has jumped 58.7% year-to-date. The stock has a long-term earnings growth rate of 15%.



Gap has gained nearly 11% year-to-date. Moreover, it has a long-term earnings growth rate of 9.4%.



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By India Today Web Desk: Abhishek Bachchan recently made the cutest and funniest revelation on a chat show. He shared an incident from his childhood, when a five-year-old him wanted to sleep in Zeenat Aman's room.

ALSO READ | Abhishek Bachchan once asked Zeenat Aman: Can I sleep with you?

Here's a look at other funny confessions by B-Town celebs.

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When Saif Ali Khan bit a villain's leg to save Shashi Kapoor

Sharmila Tagore revealed an anecdote from son Saif's childhood. Sharmila had taken a two-year-old Saif to Jaipur for her shooting schedule of Paap Aur Punya with Shashi Kapoor. A young Saif spent hours playing with 'Shashi uncle' and grew very attached to him. Talking about Saif's 'heroic' act, Sharmila says, "One day, Shashi happened to be shooting a scene where a villain put a noose around his neck, while he yanked at the rope and struggled quite desperately. Suddenly, the villain, who was in complete command of the scene, screamed! Unknown to him, Saif had crawled up and bitten him on the leg! You see, Saif thought that his Shashi Uncle was being beaten up, was in huge danger, and nobody was helping him. He had to act!"

When Arjun Kapoor was the third wheel on Sonam Kapoor's dates

That Arjun Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor are cousins and very close is widely known. However, the Ishaqzaade actor revealed that Sonam used to take him on her dates. For Sonam, Arjun served the dual purpose of being her excuse to get out of the house to meet the boys as well as a protective brother who kept her dates in check.

When Shah Rukh Khan danced with a girl for the first time

If SRK is to be believed, he was not always the charming heartthrob that he is now. He revealed on a show that he was very shy and had never asked a girl out when he met Gauri. Shah Rukh reveals that when he finally got a chance to dance with her, he thought, "I danced with her, she was very good. I asked for her telephone number and she was the first girl with whom I had danced or asked for their number. I felt that she is the one for me, as she has not told me a 'no' for now."

--- ENDS ---
A powerful coalition of social conservatives, evangelicals, Tea Partiers and fiscal hawks gathered in Washington, D.C., this week to lay out a framework for transformative conservative leadership under President-elect Donald Trump.

Representatives from Freedom Works, the Susan B. Anthony List, the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, Club for Growth and seven other highly influential conservative organizations, many of which did not support Trump as the Republican nominee, all lined up behind the new president.

We will be an enthusiastic army working with the new administration on a pro-growth agenda, said Club for Growth president David McIntosh, whose organization underwrote a campaign of attack ads against Trump earlier this year.

I was one of many who did not support Donald Trump in the primary, said Penny Nance, who heads the Concerned Women for Americas Legislative Action Committee, but I believe that the bumps that we came upon, the rockiness early on in our relationship, made us stronger, brought us more together.

He was not our first choice, added Ginni Thomas, the founder of Liberty Consulting, but said her organization saw 2017, the first year in which all three branches of the federal government will be controlled by Republicans for just the second time since 1929, as a transformative world event similar to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This is a new American Revolution, said Richard Viguerie, the chairman of ConservativeHQ. The Bush wing of the Republican Party is dead. It was buried by the American people.

Some of the groups present at the meeting advanced dissonant agendas for a new Trump administration. McIntosh, for example, said he thought the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a good agreement while FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon urged Congress not to pass it. But the take-home message was clear: Grassroots groups on the right see Trumps victory Tuesday not as a validation of Republican leadership, but as a mandate to fundamentally remake Washington in their image.

Story continues

In planning for 2017, Brent Bozell, the head of conservative advocacy group Media Research Center, suggested that Republicans take notes from President Obama, who enjoyed Democratic majorities in Congress during his first two years in the White House. He came in with an agenda of legislative priorities, one after another after another after another, and he believed that was his mandate, he said. I would expect President Trump is going to do the same thing.

At the top of their list is to undo as many of Obamas policies as possible to bank a lot of wins in the first several weeks, Bozell said. Many of those actions could be achieved through executive actionunfiating the fiats, as Bozell put it.

Here are ten top agenda items for 2017.

1. Appoint a pro-life justice to the Supreme Court

In May, Trump first published a list of 21 potential nominees, all of whom have met conservative criteria that they be pro-life and pro-gun, to fill the seat of former Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February. Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council Action, described Trumps election as a rejection in part of a Supreme Court that has acted as an oligarchy for the last four decades. With 80-year-old Justice Anthony Kennedy and 83-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the bench as well, several conservative leaders said they expect Trump will eventually appoint several like-minded justices to control the court for decades.

2. Repeal Obamacare

Republican majorities will likely jump at the chance to scrap the long-hated law shortly after taking office in January. But none of the conservative groups present at Wednesdays meeting cited a specific plan on how to replace it (except to suggest, as McIntosh did, a free market solution.) In June, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan published a barebones blueprint that would create new refundable tax credits and reform private health savings accounts to help lower and middle class Americans afford insurance. Roughly 20 million Americans currently get their health insurance on the public exchanges created by Obamacare.

3. Chuck the Iran Nuclear Deal

Ralph Reed, Chairman of Faith and Freedom Coalition, said his group planned to push the new administration to take seriously Trumps campaign promise to blow-up the U.S.s negotiated pact with Iran. From a constitutional standpoint, Trump has all the cards: since the deal was a political commitment, and not a formal treaty, which requires Congresss ratification, Trump will have the power to simply stop waiving the sanctions, to renegotiate the terms entirely, or to simply renege on the U.S.s commitment so far.

4. Defund Planned Parenthood, outlaw abortions after 20 weeks and codify the Hyde Amendment

A Republican-majority Congress has already passed legislation in recent years banning federal funding to health care centers that provide abortions and outlawing all abortions after twenty weeks, but it was vetoed by President Obama. We had the wrong president, so of course he didnt sign it, said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, but this time will be different. Nance, of Concerned Women for America, agreed that now is the time to permanently codify the Hyde Amendment, a 40-year old provision barring the use of federal funds to pay for most abortions.

5. Pass tax reform

We will support the tax cuts, the repeal of Obamacare, the cutting of regulations that are killing millions of jobs, said McIntosh of the Club For Growth. While he didnt cite any particular tax reform plan, Trumps two proposed tax plans, as well as Speaker Ryans more comprehensive version, all promise large tax breaks to top income earners.

6. Undo all of Obamas executive actions

Conservative leaders say theyll hold Trump to his campaign promise to cancel immediately all illegal and overreaching executive orders. That could include dozens of Obama administration executive actions, from its commitment to the Paris Agreement, the treaty to reduce global warming, and executive guidance on protecting transgender students from discrimination to Obamas executive order requiring all gun sellers to have a license and conduct background checks. The White Houses executive action prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and the Pentagons decision to remove the ban on transgender service members are also on the list. Perkins drew murmurs of support from his conservative allies Wednesday when he suggested that Trump rescind Obamas executive actions that make a social experiment out of the U.S. military.

In 2014, the conservative Heritage Foundation also published a list of abusive executive actions by Obama administration agencies, which included the Education Departments move to underwrite states Common Core standards and the Justice Departments tacit refusal to enforce federal drug laws in states that have legalized marijuana.

7. Undo DACA and DAPA

Getting rid of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which protects children who were brought to the U.S. illegally from deportation, and the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, which was designed to protect illegal immigrants who have lived in the U.S. since 2010 and have children who are American citizens are at the top of many conservatives list. In June, the Supreme Court struck down large parts of those measures, both of which were passed by executive action, Trump could score a win with conservatives by expunging them from the books.

8. Stop all new regulations

Several conservative leaders noted Trumps campaign pledge to reform the entire regulatory code to and to place a temporary moratorium on new agency regulations that are not compelled by Congress or public safety. That could include, they mused, all Environmental Protection Agency regulations that havent been finalized, which includes Clean Power Plan limiting carbon emissions, and some pending regulations associated with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. While most of the financial regulatory agencies, like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve, are technically independent, Trump will have unilateral power to appoint those agency heads. Depending on a pending federal court appeal, the Trump administration may also have the power to replace the director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, the agency created by Dodd-Frank and the brainchild of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

At the meeting Wednesday, the Madison Coalition also advocated for the passage whats known as the Madison Rule, which would require that Congress approve any major new federal regulation. The Madison rule would effectively end federal agencies normal operations.

9. Impose the strongest possible border control

Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act gives presidents near unilateral power to control the borders. It reads, Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States the president can keep them out for such period as he shall deem necessary. While the conservative coalition Wednesday talked only obliquely of closing the border and pursuing tougher national security concerns, Trump will have the power to ban immigration from any list of countries he chooses that he says pose a threat owing to radical Islamic terrorism. On Wednesdays Trumps campaign promise to impose a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States was taken down from his website.

10. Possibly pass an infrastructure bill?

Trumps campaign promise to spend $500 billion dollars on new infrastructure has drawn ire from Republicans worried about big government expenditures. But the conservative groups gathered Wednesday were on board with Trumps plan. Club for Growths McIntosh said that conservatives are not against federal government spending on roads and bridges so long as its done right. He suggested his group would back an infrastructure bill that did not include big pork spending projects and that funneled federal money to the states, which could choose which projects to spend the money on.

While its not clear how much of these action items the Trump administration will implement immediately, or what Trumps top priorities will be, Reed, of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said the populist, evangelical, Tea Party wing of the Republican Party was now inarguably at the helm.

There were an awful lot of premature obtituarlites written about us, he said with a smile. But as Mark Twain said, The reports of our death have been grateful exaggerated.
Learn How to Minimize the Acid Damage to Teeth that Halloween Sweets will Cause this Year. Additional Information is Available in Dr. Grellner's book "8 Secrets About Teeth EVERYONE Needs to Know"

TAMPA, FL / ACCESSWIRE / November 9, 2016 / Oral Surgeon Dr. Ted Grellner DDS, author of the recently published book "8 Secrets About Teeth EVERYONE Needs to Know" issued this warning today to the Nation's parents.

In the aftermath of recent attacks on internet companies by suspected foreign hackers, this is not another attack originating from distant lands. News of a domestic "acid attack" was based on projected candy sales in the U.S. for this past Halloween.

In anticipation of sales reaching $2.5 billion this year (per the National Retail Federation) which translates into hundreds of millions of pounds of candy, Dr. Grellner asked to share valuable information from his new book with parents in time for this holiday "acid attack" on children's teeth.

The 1st Secret in his book discusses how sugar ultimately damages teeth and how to minimize it. "The bacteria we routinely miss when we brush will turn sugar into acid that is corrosive to the tooth surface underneath. The more TIME that sugar is in the mouth to feed these bacteria, the longer that acid is available to eat away at the tooth surface, eventually making the holes we call 'cavities' " says Dr. Grellner.

"When that enormous bag of candy comes through the door after a successful Halloween outing by your 'little superheroes', take control of the amount of time that your youngsters have those sweets in their mouths".

"By limiting the exposure time and rinsing with water afterwards (brushing is even better), you may be able to slow the tooth damage sustained during this holiday season" Dr. Grellner said.

"A side benefit would be controlling their insulin levels as well, especially important as we battle juvenile obesity and diabetes."

"The more time that parents can limit the presence of sugar in their child's mouth, the better the chance that they'll successfully slow their child's rate of tooth decay. Losing baby teeth prematurely to cavities is not only unnatural, making it much harder to chew their foods, but can also affect how and where the permanent teeth come in later" Dr. Grellner advises.

Story continues

Enjoy this annual tradition, but do it smartly for the kids!

For more information, please visit http://www.grellnerdds.com

Contact Info:

Name: Ted Grellner DDS

Email: tg@grellnerdds.com

Organization: Theodore J. Grellner DDS PA

Address: 15310 Amberly Dr Ste 195

Phone: (813) 972-3478

SOURCE: Theodore J. Grellner DDS PA
Paris (AFP) - Euro Disney, which owns Disneyland Paris, on Thursday posted record annual losses in the wake of the jihadist attacks on Paris which weighed heavily on tourist bookings.

During its financial year, which ended in September, group turnover fell 6.91 percent to 1.27 billion euros following a 10 percent drop in visitor numbers, a statement said.

"Disneyland Paris had an exceptionally challenging year. We have been impacted by various external factors that have significantly affected the tourism business in the Paris region," said Euro Disney president Catherine Powell in the statement.

"In this adverse environment, revenue decreased 7%. This, together with the increase in costs driven by our future growth strategy of continually improving the guest experience plus the costs of additional security measures, resulted in a significant decrease in our operating performance for the fiscal year."

The statement was issued as France prepares to mark the year anniversary of the deadly attacks on the French capital which claimed 130 lives.

Over the period, the group registered a net loss attributable to shareholders of 705 million euros, compared with 84.2 million the previous year.

Overall net loss stood at 858 million euros for the year, which included a 565 million euro impairment charge.

"As a result of the adverse economic conditions of the tourism industry in Paris... the group performed an impairment test of all its long-lived assets and determined its assets were impaired," it said.

"The impairment charge had no impact on the group's cash position or cash flows."
Get ready to go inside a monumental moment in Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna's lives.

Chyna gave birth to the couple's first child together, daughter Dream, on Thursday, the same day E! also announced that the network will be airing a special revolving around Dream's arrival on Dec. 18 at 8 p.m. The "Rob & Chyna Baby Special" will bring viewers into the delivery room, and focus on the complicated journey the couple takes as they start their new family.

Of course, 29-year-old Rob's famous family will be represented in the episode, as well as three of Chyna's sisters. The special will also feature Rob's mother, Kris Jenner, and Chyna's mother, Tokyo Toni, reconnecting with each other for the first time in five years at the birthday party of Chyna's 4-year-old son, King Cairo. King's father is Chyna's ex-fiance, rapper Tyga, who's currently dating Kris' youngest daughter, Kylie Jenner.

WATCH: Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna Welcome Daughter!

And cameras were also rolling while Rob and Chyna made important decisions for their family. The special will show them deciding whether or not it's best for 28-year-old Chyna to have another C-section, and where the new family should live after the baby is born.

Chyna reportedly gave birth to Dream via C-section at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "Everyone is doing great! Rob and Chyna are so happy to finally meet Dream," a source gushed to ET on Thursday.

As for where the two are going to live, a source close to Rob told ET on Wednesday that Rob and Chyna were planning to continue living in separate houses -- Rob in Calabasas, California, and Chyna in nearby Tarzana -- even after the birth of their baby.

"Rob can be a very hard person to live with," the source said. "Chyna wants a healthy environment and home for both her children. If there is any chance of not having that, she will make sure to avoid it at all costs."

Story continues

WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna Will Continue to Live Separately After Baby Is Born

Watch the video below for more on the birth of the newest member of the Kardashian family!

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Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna are officially the proud parents of a baby girl.

The reality star couple welcomed their daughter on Thursday, ET confirms. The duo named their bundle of joy, Dream Renee Kardashian, E! News reports, adding she weighs 7 pounds, 5 ounces. Both mom, whose real name is Angela Renee White, and baby share a middle name.

Chyna reportedly gave birth via C-section at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

"Everyone is doing great! Rob and Chyna are so happy to finally meet Dream," a source gushed to ET.



Despite the engaged pair's up-and-down moments, which played out on their debut series, Rob & Chyna, the two continued to agree on their excitement for their little one's arrival.

MORE: Rob Kardashian Shares Snapchat Video of Blac Chyna's Baby Bump Amid Relationship 'Issues'

"4 weeks to go!! Super excited to meet my baby girl," the happy mama tweeted earlier last month.

"Love this woman, can't wait for my baby girl to come already," Rob also shared ahead of the birth along with a pic of Chyna.



Checking on our baby girl ! Never knew I'd be so happy about gaining 72lbs ! A photo posted by Blac Chyna (@blacchyna) on Oct 28, 2016 at 12:41pm PDT

This marks the first child for Rob and the second for the 28-year-old model, who shares 4-year-old son King Cairo with her ex, Tyga.

WATCH: Kim Kardashian Helps Rob Get Ready for Fatherhood: 'Nothing Will Prepare You For This'

The 26-year-old rapper is currently in a relationship with Rob's younger sister, Kylie Jenner, making for some awkward family drama, but the Kardashian-Jenner clan has since made several public efforts showing they have put it behind them.

Rob and Chyna announced they were expecting a girl during an episode of Rob & Chyna in early September.

"It's an emotional moment. Me wanting to have a boy, it definitely stems from my dad, but I'm sure I'll have the same relationship that I had with my father with my daughter," Rob told the cameras, referencing his late father, Robert Kardashian. "I'm just happy that the baby's healthy."

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"So happy for Rob and Chyna! Can't wait to welcome this new little love bug to the world. #RobandChyna," Rob's mom, Kris Jenner, tweeted at the time. Dream is the sixth grandchild for the momager, joining her cousins, North and Saint West, and Mason, Penelope and Reign Disick.



In June, Chyna opened up to ET about what kind of dad she sees Rob being. "Overprotective! For sure," she said. "Loving, caring. Rob is just a big bundle of joy."

For more on the months leading up to Chyna giving birth, watch below:

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The 2016 Sundance Film Festival will be the last for Robert Redford's Zoom restaurant - a Park City staple that anchors Main Street and always plays host to industry power players and talent during the annual event. The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Zoom will close on May 31, 2017, but the details around the closure are much more complicated.

Rumors of changes at the restaurant have been circling since the summer when Sundance Partners, owner of Zoom, sued the landlord of the property at 660 Main Street, alleging that Ken Abdalla was trying to force the restaurant out before the expiration of its current lease in 2020.

An attorney for Abdalla tells a different story. Joseph Wrona of Wrona Dubois Law Firm tells THR that Zoom filed a lawsuit against his client to cover up wrongdoing. "Zoom was allowing literally tons of grease to collect in the crawl space under the Zoom kitchen last winter," Wrona says. "The building owner discovered the mess and demanded that Zoom clean it up. Zoom refused and tried to conduct an illegal demolition and reconstruction of its kitchen area to get rid of the evidence of its culpability."

Wrona continues that his client, landlord Abdalla, caught Zoom doing this and alerted city officials, who promptly shut the restaurant down. It reopened shortly thereafter. "Zoom then filed a bogus lawsuit against the landlord trying to obscure Zoom's culpability for its breach of its lease obligations," he says. "I then began crushing Zoom in litigation, and after I filed a motion for summary judgment proving that Zoom had exclusive access to the contaminated crawl space underneath the kitchen, Zoom begged me to allow Zoom to dismiss its lawsuit."

Local news outlets picked up on all the bad blood between Zoom management and Abdalla, a financier and real estate mogul (known for buying and razing O.J. Simpson's Brentwood compound) who has purchased several parcels on Main Street to develop into luxury properties. And in the past few weeks, a source tells The Hollywood Reporter that Zoom staff had been informing potential patrons of a tentative plan to close in May of 2017, a decision confirmed by the restaurant's attorneys at Salt Lake City law firm Magleby Cataxinos Greenwood, as well as Wrona.

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"Although the court ruled in our favor on dispositive motions, my clients have elected to settle outside of court so that Zoom can serve the Park City community without distraction," attorney Peggy Tomsic said in a statement to THR. "After 21 years of service, Zoom is shutting its doors at the Depot location on May 31, 2017."

Read more: Margaret Cho Reveals She Is Residing in a Sober-Living House

Wrona said it's a decision he and his client fought for. "I demanded approximately $65,000 to reimburse the landlord for its attorneys' fees incurred as a result of Zoom's bogus lawsuit, and I demanded that Zoom terminate its lease three years early and depart the premises after the ski season," Wrona says, adding that Zoom capitulated.

Until then, it's business as usual, but a restaurant source said fest-goers should expect some special events to happen during Sundance 2017 to commemorate the closure. However, it might not be gone for long: Tomsic added that Zoom is "sincerely grateful for the community support and patronage over these last two decades," and that the restaurant is exploring "several very exciting opportunities" in Park City for a continued presence.

As for the space, Wrona adds that his client "has a concept in mind for the building but does not yet want to reveal that concept to the public."

Redford opened Zoom in 1995 as part of his Sundance Resort family. The building that houses Zoom first opened in 1886 as the Union Pacific Railroad station.

A rep for Redford declined further comment.

A version of this story first appeared in the Nov. 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
EXCLUSIVE: Rosario Dawson has come aboard to play activist Donna Hylton in a feature film based on the biography A Little Piece Of Light. The title of the book is said to have been taken from something that happened to Hylton as a child.

According to the story that will be used for the feature film: Growing up in Jamaica, Hyltons mother first sold her to an American couple in New York. She was 7 years old. Thinking that she was going to Disneyland, she ended up in a very different reality: Hylton would find out that her adoptive father was a pedophile. To get away from him, she would hide in the closet, and when she saw a little piece of light coming through the room, she knew he was on his way to get her.

Hylton, whose beauty became her curse in a life of sexual abuse, was later arrested at age 19 when she was a high school track star as a result of her participation in the kidnapping and murder of a Rikers Island real estate agent. She was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison and was put in solitary confinement where she, once again, would see that little piece of light. This time, however, it grew to mean something very different.

Once out of prison in 2012, she would look for that little piece of light in others. And eventually found her calling  she began fighting for the rights of women alongside her mother figure and womens rights activist, author Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues).

Dawson and Hylton are currently looking for a female screenwriter to adapt the book as well as a female director.

We are all looking for the right female screenwriter and director for A Little Piece Of Light. This is a project for women, by women, of women, said Dan Pearson, who is repping the material and Hyltons life rights through his D4 Entertainement. Thats how its got to go. Donna says, Your voice is my voice. My voice is your voice. And together our voice is powerful.  Frank Weimann at the FolioLit literary agency in New York is working with Pearson.

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Pearson helped set up a Leonardo DiCaprio mafia drama at Showtime. Set in Brooklyn, the untitled project centers around the relationship between a mafia captain and a rogue federal agent who conduct themselves by their own set of rules.

Dawson (Iron Fist and Sin City) is repped by CAA and Untitled Management.

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In response to Donald Trump's presidential election victory on Tuesday, Run the Jewels have shared a new song called "2100" that Killer Mike and El-P said feels fitting of the current political climate.

Sharing the BOOTS-featuring track to SoundCloud, the hip-hop duo posted a statement providing some context: "for our friends. for our family. for everyone who is hurting or scared right now. here is a song we wrote months ago. we werent planning on releasing it yet but well it feels right, now. its about fear and its about love and its about wanting more for all of us. its called 2100. we hope it finds you well."

On the track that easily blends a hip-hop beat with acoustic guitar, Killer Mike opens things up, rapping, "How long before the hate that we hold/ Lead us to another Holocaust?"

Run the Jewels' third studio album, Run The Jewels 3, is expected to drop in the near future, with a tour announced to support its release starting Jan. 11 in Philadelphia and running until Feb. 25 in New York.

Earlier Wednesday, Killer Mike appeared on The Real to discuss Tuesday's election results and offer his perspective on Donald Trump's victory.

Listen to Run the Jewels' "2100" here:
By PTI: From Lalit K Jha

New York, Nov 9 (PTI) As the US awaits the results of a bitterly fought presidential campaign, Republican Donald Trump issued a last-minute appeal to voters to cast their ballots, urging them to not "let up".

Trump, who needs to win in key battleground states including Florida in order to chart a viable course to the White House, sent out a 11th hour tweet saying the election was far from over.

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"Dont let up, keep getting out to vote - this election is FAR FROM OVER! We are doing well but there is much time left. GO FLORIDA!" he tweeted in the evening.

He said in another tweet that he would be following the election results from the Trump Towers in Manhattan along with his family.

"I will be watching the election results from Trump Tower in Manhattan with my family and friends. Very exciting!" he tweeted.

Soon after he voted at a school in Manhattan in the morning, the Republican presidential nominee had taken to twitter to say, "Today we make America Great Again."

A video captured by a news network of Trump glancing over at his wifes ballot as the two cast their votes, went viral on social media.

Meanwhile there were reports that former US president George Bush and his wife Laura Bush did not vote for Trump.

The column on the ballot was left blank, his spokesman said.

"President and Mrs Bush voted two weeks ago (not today) and did not vote for Hillary Clinton," said Freddy Ford Communication director for the former US President. PTI LKJ BSA

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday global crude oil output could be frozen at November levels if the world's leading oil producers reach an agreement on November 30.

Novak said he saw higher chances of reaching the agreement than before. Russia will take part in any meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC countries if such a meeting takes place.

Novak reiterated that it was highly important to reach the agreement on output on November 30. He said Russia would prefer the output to be frozen.

(Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva; Writing by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Maria Kiselyova)
Moscow (AFP) - Russia's defence ministry on Thursday dismissed as "counterproductive" a request from the United Nations to extend future pauses in fighting to allow aid into rebel-held eastern Aleppo as winter comes.

The ministry said it received a request from the head of a UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, to make future breaks in fighting longer to allow in aid supplies.

But Russia in a statement quoting spokesman Igor Konashenkov said it was "counterproductive and against common sense" to extend the ceasefires "just for the sake of it, not to bring real help to peaceful civilians, but so that terrorists can better restore their battleworthiness".

Egeland earlier Thursday warned that the "last food rations" were now being distributed in eastern Aleppo after four months of deadlock.

"I don't think anybody wants a quarter of a million people to be starving in east Aleppo," Egeland said, referring to the number of civilians the UN says are living under siege.

Russia has held a series of unilateral ceasefires that saw Syrian forces on the ground halt fire to allow rebels and civilians to quit east Aleppo, although very few have done so, with many expressing scepticism about the declared safe passages.

Russia held a 10-hour pause in fighting on November 4 and a three-day truce in late October.

Russia said Thursday that it had brought more than 100,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Aleppo in recent months "irrespective of any humanitarian pauses".

"Those who really want to help the residents of Aleppo, are helping them," the ministry said. Russia, a long-term ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, launched air strikes to back up his forces in September last year.

Moscow says it has halted airstrikes on east Aleppo since October 18 after a month-long ferocious bombardment of Syria's second city that killed hundreds of civilians and hit health facilities, sparking international condemnation.
(Adds Ukrainian reaction, background)

MOSCOW/KIEV, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Russia's Federal Security Service said on Thursday it had detained a group of Ukrainian saboteurs who it accused of planning to attack military sites and infrastructure in Crimea, but Kiev dismissed the story as false.

The Federal Security Service, or FSB, said it had confiscated explosive devices and weapons from the group, which it said was made up of intelligence agents from the Ukrainian Defence Ministry.

The Interfax news agency cited a person familiar with the matter as saying that the FSB had detained three Ukrainian military personnel who had been plotting to attack power plants and water purification facilities in Crimea.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraine said the FSB story was false.

"Nobody has detained Ukrainian military personnel," Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the National Security and Defence Council, told Reuters. "This is yet another frame-up by the Russian security forces."

The incident echoes a similar episode in August when Russia said it had detained a group of Ukrainian saboteurs and dismantled a Ukrainian spy network inside Crimea. Kiev said that incident never happened either.

Real or imagined, the August episode stirred tensions between Moscow and Kiev with Russian President Vladimir Putin accusing Ukraine of using terrorist tactics to try to provoke a new conflict.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova in Moscow and Natalia Zinets in Kiev; Writing by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
Donald Trumps spokeswoman says that if there was any contact between members of the president-elects campaign and the Russian government, she was not aware of it.

I do not know of any campaign official that was communicating with any foreign entity during the campaign, Hope Hicks, Trumps longtime spokeswoman, told Yahoo News on Thursday.

She said this after a top Russian diplomat told the state-run Interfax news agency that there was a routine line of communication between Moscow and the Trump campaign during the lead-up to Tuesdays presidential election.

Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions. I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives.

Ryabkov said that Russian officials are just beginning to consider how to set up formal channels of communication with the former reality television stars future administration. He also said he reached out to Hillary Clintons campaign but was rebuffed.

Throughout the campaign, Trump and his campaign repeatedly denied having any connection with the Kremlin, while the U.S. government said it believed Russia was behind a series of cyberattacks aimed at influencing the election. The attacks released thousands of embarrassing emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clintons campaign chair John Podesta.

Trumps spokeswoman says she was not aware of any connection between his campaign and Russia. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that FBI had conducted a preliminary investigation into possible electronic communications between the Trump Organization and servers connected to a Russian bank, but the bureau failed to find a direct link. The bureau reportedly concluded that the interaction could have been a coincidence.

During the third and final presidential debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee accused him of being a puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Youre the puppet, Trump fired back. Youre the puppet.

Two days before, Trump said he could see himself meeting with Putin before his inauguration.

On Wednesday, Interfax reported that Putin will be in New York this week for a chess tournament a few blocks away from Trump Tower. But Putins spokesman said there were no immediate plans for a summit with Trump.

When the election was called for Trump, the Russian Parliament erupted in applause. Putin congratulated Trump on his victory and said Russia is ready to fully restore relations with the United States.

But Ryabkov said that Moscow is not harboring any rose-tinted hopes about such a thawing.

We are not expecting anything in particular from the new U.S. administration, he said.

Throughout the campaign, Trump repeatedly praised Putin and took a relatively soft stance against Russian aggression. Among other things he echoed the Kremlins talking points about its annexation of Crimea, backed Russias military intervention in Syria and would not fully commit to defending Eastern European members of NATO if attacked by Russia.

During an interview with MSNBCs Morning Joe late last year, Trump explained why he defied U.S. leaders on both sides of the aisle to embrace Putin.

Hes running his country, and at least hes a leader, Trump said when host Joe Scarborough brought up allegations that Putin kills journalists. Unlike what we have in this country.

_____

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American Horror Story producer Ryan Murphy will receive the Distinguished Artisan Award at the Annual Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards on Feb. 19 at The Novo at L.A. Live.

The announcement was made by Susan Cabral-Ebert, president of Local 706 of the Alliance of International Theatrical Stage Employees.

Were excited to bestow our 2017 Distinguished Artisan Award on Ryan Murphy, who constantly raises the bar and challenges the skills of our members to their utmost abilities when delineating his television characters, she said. He has always shown strong support while working in collaboration with our make-up artists and hair stylists.

Murphy has won four Primetime Emmys and is the originator of the television series American Horror Story, Glee, Nip/Tuck and The New Normal. In 2014 his HBO film The Normal Heart won an Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie.

His first program, teenager comedy-drama Popular, aired for the WB Network for three seasons starting in 1999. Additional credits include American Crime Story, Feud, Scream Queens, Eat Pray Love and The Glee Project.

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After watching his preferred candidate Hillary Clinton get trounced by Donald Trump in Tuesdays' election, RZA paid a visit to Sway in the Morning and touched on the importance of retooling the flawed criminal prison system.

After being arrested as a teen during the 1980s for selling marijuana, RZA explained he has since been required to re-enter the country in handcuffs every time he heads overseas.

"Last time I came, I had my wife and my son and I can't have my son see me handcuffed," he said.

To further validate his point, he spoke on how wealthy white men today are thriving selling weed, years after he was reprimanded for committing the same deed.

"When you look at nine states right now, where young white men are becoming millionaires and are selling weed... nobody's going to go to jail for it," he said.

The Wu-Tang Clan co-founder went on, saying he believes the criminal justice system "needs more correction than any part of our systemyou see what they're doing as far as arresting us, beating us on the head, killing unarmed citizens."

Sadly, for RZA, with Trump's victory the likeliness of any great criminal justice system reform has dwindled. According to Quartz, the country's two biggest private prison companies watched their stocks rise exponentially, after it became crystal clear that Donald Trump was going to walk away victorious as the 45th President of the United States.

"Trump's victory may be fatal to the unusually bipartisan campaign to reduce prison sentences, invest in rehabilitation, and otherwise render the federal justice system more humane and effective," added New York Times editor Bill Keller, as he explained for The Marshall Project.

Check out the reminder of the interview featuring RZA as he speaks on his issues with Azealia Banks, his thoughts on Trump, and more.
Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fstory%2fthumbnail%2f27571%2f9b1fb45921c1450292202a07857cc375

Like most other late night TV hosts, Samantha Bee is reeling from Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election. But amid the storm of analysis and blame, she says, there's really one reason Trump came out on top: white people.

"The Caucasian nation showed up in droves to vote for Trump," she said, "so I don't want to hear a goddamn word about black voter turnout. How many times do we expect black people to build our country for us?"

Bee concluded her segment with a plea for white female voters  52 percent of whom voted for Trump  to redeem themselves by supporting diverse, progressive candidates for Congress in 2018.

"We got some karma to work off," she said.

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Reports earlier this year said that Samsung is developing three distinct flagship devices for next year, including the expected Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 but also a brand new type of handset. Samsung is rumored to finally release a commercial foldable smartphone, a technology Samsung has been teasing for years.

DONT MISS: Watch President-elect Donald Trumps full victory speech

Its not clear at this time whether Samsung will release three flagship handsets next year. But a patent application discovered in Korea by Dutch tech site GalaxyClub gives us a first look at Samsungs foldable design.

samsung-foldable-smartphone-2017-project-valley-4

Dubbed Project Valley, the smartphone would somewhat resemble old flip phones, as seen above.

samsung-foldable-smartphone-2017-project-valley-5

The phone would feature a flexible rear hinge and a flexible display. These components would let the user seamlessly move from a regular smartphone shape to flip phone mode.

samsung-foldable-smartphone-2017-project-valley-3

The back of the phone would feature an innovative type of hinge that would let you actually bend the rear case. Whats interesting about the patent is that it suggests the hinge could be moved across the length of the phone. This would let users fold the handset in a variety of ways. However, its unclear how a movable hinge would affect internal components, especially the battery. Other drawings suggest moving the hinge might not be possible, but you might be able to fold it at different levels.

samsung-foldable-smartphone-2017-project-valley-7

Its unclear /when Project Valley would launch, but a recent report from The Korea Herald said that Samsung still wants to bring it to market next year.

samsung-foldable-smartphone-2017-project-valley-6

The year 2017 will be the first year of foldable smartphones for the mass market, Hyundai Securities analyst Kim Dong-won said. Following the launches by the Korean firms, other global rivals such as Apple and Google are also likely to unveil their own versions in 2018.

samsung-foldable-smartphone-2017-project-valley-2

The Herald says that such smartphones could be used as tablets when unfolded. Samsung apparently plans to produce 7-inch flexible OLED panels for 10 million smartphones per month.

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samsung-foldable-smartphone-2017-project-valley-1

From the latter half of next year, Korean display makers like Samsung Display and LG Display will start producing the sixth-generation flexible organic light-emitting diode panels, the analyst said.

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
US President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday discussed a range of domestic and foreign policy topics at the White House during their first meeting since Trump's stunning election victory.

President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (Photo: AP)

By AP: In a cordial beginning to their transfer of power, President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump met at the White House today. Obama called the 90-minute meeting "excellent," and his successor said he looked forward to receiving the outgoing president's "counsel."

Afterward, Obama said to Trump, "We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds."

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The two men, who have been harshly critical of each other for years, were meeting for the first time, Trump said. The Republican said he looked forward "to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel."

Obama blasted Trump throughout the campaign as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, falsely suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States.

READ| Obama on Trump victory: We are now all rooting for his success



But at least publicly, the two men appeared to put aside their animosity. As the meeting concluded and journalists scrambled out of the Oval Office, Obama smiled at his successor and explained the unfolding scene.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he'll wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

First lady Michelle Obama also meet privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Also on Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.

READ| Hillary Clinton delivers a presidential speech, says Trump will be our president



As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Obama and Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.



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The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought."

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

READ| What President Donald Trump could mean for Modi and India



In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

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According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama - one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

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READ: Hillary concedes defeat, bid for 'herstory' as first woman US President fails

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. He's pledged to repeal Obama's health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He's vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

It's unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He'll enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.

WATCH VIDEO



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DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi business magnate Prince Alwaleed bin Talal on Thursday put aside his bitter clash with Donald Trump and embraced the Republican U.S. president-elect, saying he was heartened by reports that Trump had appeared to delete online references to his proposed ban on Muslims. Prince Alwaleed, in a wide-ranging telephone interview on CNBC, said he planned to meet Trump in the United States soon. "I have no problem with him right now, and I'm very happy to interact with him," he said on CNBC. "Candidate Trump, for sure, is not like President-elect Trump and then President Trump ... He is progressing in the right direction." ABC News and Britain's the Independent reported that Trump's statement calling "for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" had been scrubbed from his campaign website. Prince Alwaleed also cited reports that Trump had deleted some of his posts on Twitter referencing Muslims. Representatives for the Trump campaign could not be immediately reached for comment. Earlier on Thursday, Prince Alwaleed congratulated Trump on his presidential victory via Twitter, almost a year after the two had clashed on the social media site. "President elect @realDonaldTrump whatever the past differences, America has spoken, congratulations & best wishes for your presidency," the prince tweeted. In December 2015, Prince Alwaleed had called Trump a "disgrace" and demanded he withdraw from the election after the property developer's pledge to ban Muslims entry into the United States raised hackles in the Middle East. The next day, Trump responded by tweeting: "Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddys money. Can't do it when I get elected." On Thursday, Prince Alwaleed said he did not regret criticizing Trump during the campaign but that he hoped a Trump presidency would be different than what he promised during his campaign. The prince also said the Middle East needs some reassurance from Trump that the Arab world remains an ally. World leaders also want to know Trump is committed "to all of the international treaties that he had," he said on CNBC. Prince Alwaleed, the billionaire chairman of Kingdom Holding Co who also owns shares of several U.S. companies, said he has high expectations for U.S. economy. There are no more excuses for Republicans, who will preside over the White House as well as in Congress, "not to deliver this growth that is expected from them," he told CNBC. (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing By Noah Browning; Editing by William Maclean and Bill Trott)
(Recasts with comments from CNBC interview)

DUBAI, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Saudi business magnate Prince Alwaleed bin Talal on Thursday put aside his bitter clash with Donald Trump and embraced the Republican U.S. president-elect, saying he was heartened by reports that Trump had appeared to delete online references to his proposed ban on Muslims.

Prince Alwaleed, in a wide-ranging telephone interview on CNBC, said he planned to meet Trump in the United States soon.

"I have no problem with him right now, and I'm very happy to interact with him," he said on CNBC. "Candidate Trump, for sure, is not like President-elect Trump and then President Trump ... He is progressing in the right direction."

ABC News and Britain's the Independent reported that Trump's statement calling "for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" had been scrubbed from his campaign website.

Prince Alwaleed also cited reports that Trump had deleted some of his posts on Twitter referencing Muslims.

Representatives for the Trump campaign could not be immediately reached for comment.

Earlier on Thursday, Prince Alwaleed congratulated Trump on his presidential victory via Twitter, almost a year after the two had clashed on the social media site.

"President elect @realDonaldTrump whatever the past differences, America has spoken, congratulations & best wishes for your presidency," the prince tweeted.

In December 2015, Prince Alwaleed had called Trump a "disgrace" and demanded he withdraw from the election after the property developer's pledge to ban Muslims entry into the United States raised hackles in the Middle East.

The next day, Trump responded by tweeting: "Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy's money. Can't do it when I get elected."

On Thursday, Prince Alwaleed said he did not regret criticizing Trump during the campaign but that he hoped a Trump presidency would be different than what he promised during his campaign.

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The prince also said the Middle East needs some reassurance from Trump that the Arab world remains an ally. World leaders also want to know Trump is committed "to all of the international treaties that he had," he said on CNBC.

Prince Alwaleed, the billionaire chairman of Kingdom Holding Co who also owns shares of several U.S. companies, said he has high expectations for U.S. economy.

There are no more excuses for Republicans, who will preside over the White House as well as in Congress, "not to deliver this growth that is expected from them," he told CNBC.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing By Noah Browning; Editing by William Maclean and Bill Trott)
(Reuters) - Shares in Devro Plc (DVO.L) plunged more than 25 percent after the British sausage-skin maker warned that 2017 core operating profit would be lower than expected due to a drop in sales volumes in Latin America related to plant upgrades.

The company, which makes edible collagen casings, said on Thursday it expected sales volumes next year to be about 10 percent lower than previously thought, mainly in Latin America, due to a programme to upgrade its manufacturing processes.

The Americas accounted for about 27 percent of total Devro's total revenue in 2015, according to the company's annual report.

The company said sales volumes in Russia and South East Asia had improved since July but total volume was little changed from the first half of 2016.

Devro is in the final phase of a three-year program to upgrade its factories. The company said in August that Latin America was "most significantly impacted" by the programme, which began in 2014.

Investec analysts said in a client note that while Devro was accelerating some restructuring plans to help mitigate the volume impact, "the backdrop remains challenging".

The broker firm trimmed its 2017 pretax profit estimate by 20 percent and slashed its price target to 270 pence from 332 pence. Devro shares were down 21.5 percent at 176.8 pence at 0944 GMT on the London Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Rahul B in Bengaluru; Editing by Ted Kerr)
By Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters) - The morning after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States on a campaign to deport illegal immigrants and limit Muslim refugees, New Jersey mom Yasmeen Shehab awoke to the sound of crying.

Her 10-year-old, sobbing, jumped into her arms.

"President Trump is going to ban us and gonna make us leave America," Shehab's daughter wailed, terrified that despite their American birth she and her Muslim family would be deported. "Where are we going to go?"

Trump's angry anti-immigrant rhetoric and the presence of some white nationalists among his supporters have frightened many U.S. immigrants and minority groups.

On Wednesday, some immigrant workers reported taunts and harassment and children begged to be brought home from school amid ethnic or religious bullying, parents and teachers said. People took to social media to voice their anger and concerns, and rights organizations fielded calls from worried people seeking advice.

Parents and many advocates, meanwhile, worked to calm people down. While Trump could undo some of Democratic President Barack Obama's legacy on immigration through executive orders, many of Republican's promises would require the cooperation of Congress and likely face court challenges. Experts have also cautioned that finding and deporting the country's 11 million illegal immigrants would carry enormous logistic and financial costs.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Among those for whom concern about deportation is the greatest are young people who are in the United States on a program started under an order from Obama that is opposed by many Congressional Republicans.

To request protection from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields young people brought to the United States as children from deportation, applicants must send the government a form with their parents' names and addresses. Obama enacted the program through executive order after a Republican-controlled Congress blocked the Dream Act.

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"The government now has a list of people who are here without documentation - their names, their addresses, how long theyve been here, where they work," said California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a Democrat from San Diego who has been fielding calls from constituents all day.

Pakistan-born Sana Altaf, who has protection under the program and lives in New York, said her parents were legal residents and safe, but she worried about her own status.

I have been crying all night, this morning, she said. Its like someone telling you youre not welcome here.

SCARY BUT UNREALISTIC?

Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel for the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund in Los Angeles, said his organization has been telling callers to remain calm, stressing the constitutional protections and practical concerns that would render wholesale deportation of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States unlikely.

"Trump's rhetoric was scary," Saenz said. "It was also unrealistic."

But Ignacia Rodriguez, a policy advocate with the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center, said her group was not so certain that the Deferred Action database could not be used for deportations under Trump.

The honest answer is we dont know whats going to happen, Rodriguez said.

With so much uncertainty, Wednesday was full of worry and unpleasant encounters for many.

Lidia Calvo, an office administrator for a Massachusetts labor union, said she noticed that an immigrant cafeteria worker in her building seemed upset.

"She shared with me that somebody said to her .... 'have you packed your bags already?' " Calvo said.

In San Francisco's heavily Latino Mission District, parents at Everett Middle School nervously asked whether they or their children would be deported, said administrator Tracy Brown Gallardo.

At meetings for students to share their concerns at Aptos Middle School in San Francisco, some children sobbed openly out of concern about what might happen to their undocumented parents and family members, said Jason Hannon, the school's principal.

Shehab, 40, said her older daughter, 13, contacted her during school Wednesday to say that a boy who supports Trump's plan to limit Muslim immigrants was taunting her.

She begged her mother to pick her up, and was crying in the school office when Shehab arrived.

"It's a hard day," Shehab said. "They're scared."

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Additional reporting by Rory Carroll in San Francisco and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Luciana Lopez in Miami and Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Gabrielle Nevitt remembers the first time she noticed the smell. It was sometime in the early 1980s and she was an undergraduate, heading out to sea on a research trip.

Hey, can you smell it? a fisherman said to her. It smells like a productive area for fishing.

She didnt know what he meant at the time, but the odor has been a familiar part of her life for the last few decades. Its hard to describe, but its unmistakably marine: Nevitt calls it like oysters or kinda seaweed-y. Its the scent of dimethyl sulfide, or DMSa gas thats been described as a keystone molecule, because it influences everything from the presence of birds to the formation of clouds.

DMS is produced when microscopic animals graze upon the algae that grows near the ocean surface. Since it doesnt dissolve easily in water, it eventually makes its way into the overlying air. Thats why passing sailors can smell it. Some of the gas rises into the atmosphere, where it seeds the creation of clouds. And other DMS molecules drift through the skies until they find their way into the noses of birds.

Recommended: There Will Be an Evangelical Reckoning Over Donald Trump

Tube-nosed birdsthe albatrosses, petrels, and shearwaterssoar across the open oceans, relying on their keen sense of smell to find food. For them, DMS is intensely alluring. This attraction makes sense. DMS gives away the presence of clouds of plankton, and so acts as a loud dinner bell, telling the birds where meals can be found. Nevitt proved this in 1995 by sailing through the southern Atlantic and releasing oil slicks that were scented with either DMS or cod liver oil. Seabirds like white-chinned petrels, prions, and storm petrels flocked to the former over the latter.

But sometimes, that bell rings incorrectlyand with disastrous consequences.

We think of these birds as little humans flying around with our senses, and theyre not.

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Every year, people dump 8 million tons of plastic garbage into the oceans, which provides hard surfaces on which microbes and algae can grow. If you work at sea, you know that plastic gets junk growing on it, says Nevitt. And it smells like DMS. Could that explain why an estimated 90 percent of seabirds have swallowed plastic flotsam before, risking their lives for the sake of unpleasant and indigestible mouthfuls?

To find out, Matthew Savoca, one of Nevitts graduate students at the University of California, Davis, analyzed data on 25 species of seabirds, which vary considerably in how strongly they respond to DMS. Right off the bat, we saw a trend: It looked like the DMS responders were consuming more plastics, says Nevitt. On average, these birds ingest plastic five times more frequently than species that ignore the telltale scent. I thought: Oh my God, we have to do an experiment! says Nevitt.

Recommended: Seth Meyers's Promise to Donald Trump

Savoca sailed off the coast of California with bagfuls of beads, made from three common types of plastics. He tied these to buoys and left them for three weeks. After he recovered them, he turned to Susan Ebelera chemist who typically studies the smells of wine. She turned her instruments onto the beads and showed that they were giving off DMSat the same concentrations as plankton, and at levels that seabirds can easily detect.

This discovery might explain why these birds would eat something as clearly weird and visually conspicuous as a scrap of plastic. We think of these birds as little humans flying around with our senses, and theyre not, says Nevitt. Their visual acuity is poorer than ours, and this world of smell is extremely important. Perhaps plastic acts as a sensory trap, luring them in with the fragrant promise of food and overriding any countervailing information from their other senses.

It takes us one step closer to understanding why seabirds may be predisposed to plastic ingestion, says Denise Hardesty from CSIRO in Australia. At the same time, it reminds us that the entire story cant be encapsulated by one factor like attraction to DMS, since some of the species that eat the most plastic arent that attracted to DMS. These include the Laysan albatross, which became a poster child for plastic consumption thanks to photographer Chris Jordans series of iconic shots.

Recommended: Donald Trump: A Disaster for Americans in Poverty

The plight of the albatross remains a mystery, but Nevitt wants her work on DMS to throw some light onto lesser known species like storm petrels. Since they are drabber and less majestic than albatrosses, they are often ignored. And since they nest underground, theyre often neglected because you have to stick your arm down a burrow to sample them, says Nevitt. But they too are suffering from the rubbish that we throw into the oceans.

Other ocean animals, including penguins, sea turtles, sharks, and perhaps large whales, are also known to detect or track DMS. Perhaps we are also inadvertently luring them towards their last suppers.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
One day after the 2016 presidential election, Scooter Braun -- manager of Justin Bieber -- shared his thoughts on president-elect Donald Trump.

"We don't have time to be sad," Braun said Wednesday (Nov. 9) in a Q&A session with Billboard news director Shirley Halperin at the Billboard Touring & Conference Awards, held at the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles. "We have to heal as fast as we can and come together." Still, he said, it was "very surreal" watching the results.

As a country, he said, "We are stuck with the decision we made," but he plans to support the new president, who still "has a lot of people he has to win over."

He added that he hopes that Trump will be a president for everyone, and supporters must be willing to "cross lines and embrace everybody."

"I just don't want any females who weren't for him but were for Hillary to get discouraged and think they are not wanted, or my Mexican-American friends to explain to their children what happened and that they are not wanted," he said. "I don't want anyone who is Muslim not to be able to dream that they can be President of the United States and I don't want any of my friends, regardless of their orientation, thinking they are less of a citizen."

Despite the result of last night's election, Braun said Americans can still be happy to "wake up in the morning and be in this country."

"We have been through worse and we'll get through this," he said. "You know, my dad was a refugee, and I still have my very firm beliefs of what this country is. And I was raised that when you get knocked down, you get back up and fight harder."

Returning to the topic later in the talk, Braun joked of the former Celebrity Apprentice host: "He did fire Coolio, and now he's our president."

Braun is set to be honored Wednesday night as the recipient of the Humanitarian Award at the Billboard Touring Conference Awards for his work with Make-A-Wish, Pencils for Promise and F--- Cancer. He added that the result of the election motivates him to concentrate on philanthropy even more.

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"I am going to be more dedicated to policy and helping people than ever before," he promised.

While Braun said the election was more important than talking about "how many sweatshirts we sold on the Saint Pablo Tour," there was plenty to cover in the hour-long discussion about his role as a manager to Bieber, Kanye West and Ariana Grande.

"My job is making irrational people do rational things," he said, saying honesty, transparency and even having "a full-on argument" over decisions are all necessary factors in artist relations. "I think your artists will respect you more."

Braun's job also includes overseeing what Halperin described as a "tale of two tours" with Bieber's Purpose Tour grossing $139 million as of Oct. 30, while West's Saint Pablo Tour earned $1.6 million per night over the course of six shows.

While Bieber created an intimate experience for fans by merely performing "sexier songs" by himself on stage, West brought the show directly to every inch of the venue with his own vision to "fly the entire show" utilizing a special stage that moved above the crowd.

"After the first show, we realized he never needs to come down," he said, explaining that West as an artist is interested in giving fans a VIP experience no matter where they are in the audience.

Braun was candid discussing Bieber's decision to cancel meet and greets prior to performances on his Purpose Tour resulted in a loss of $21 million, but in the end his mental health was more important.

"He had a rough two years," Braun said. "He was suffering and he wasn't healthy."

While Braun said he got "a lot of credit" for getting the troubled entertainer back on track, he said it was really Bieber who made the decision to change on his own. At the beginning of the tour, Bieber wanted to do the meet and greets because he wanted to please his fans, but that after a while it got too intense.

"One hundred or two hundred people, they come in and look at him like he's some sort of God saying, 'You saved me,'" he said. "He is giving all of himself before he hits the stage. He came to me and said, 'Being healthy is great, but I have now found my boundaries and I suffer from anxiety. I can't do this anymore.'"

"We aren't made to be worshipped as humans," Braun said. "I think that is why we see so many great artists crumble, because as humans we are made to serve each other. None of us are made to be worshipped and when we take that in, we get sick. We are very lucky that Justin identified that early. And he is in a place now where he's created his space with boundaries so he can keep doing what he does, and he loves his fans."

Braun advised future managers not to expect to always be appreciated by the artists they represent.

"That's the job," he said. "If you sign up for it, don't expect to be appreciated. If you want to be appreciated, call your mom. Your job is to go above and beyond for them and if they don't reciprocate, tough luck. And if they do, it's a beautiful thing and take it in when it happens."

Plus, Zara Larsson on Trump's Election: 'It Was Supposed to Be a Joke, It Was Not Supposed to Happen'
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli-based firm EZTD Inc (EZTD.PK) must pay more than $1.7 million for misleading investors into trading binary options over the internet, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday.

EZTD failed to disclose on its trading platforms that there was significantly greater potential for investors to lose rather than earn money, the SEC said in a news release.

EZTD agreed to forfeit approximately $1.5 million in revenues obtained from U.S. customers and pay a $200,000 penalty, the SEC said.

(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Eric Walsh)
By India Today Web Desk: Things will heat up in the Bigg Boss house again after the first captaincy task will be announced. Om Swami, Manoj Punjabi and Bani Judge will be the respective candidates of the three political parties. While the fight between Manu and Bani will be a tough one, Om will get cold shoulder from the majority of contestants. Meanwhile, we will see another interesting turn in Gaurav and Bani's 'love story'

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Here are all the highlights from tonight's episode.

Also read: BB10 Day 24: Om Swami returns to the house; Mona Lisa fights with Swami

Mona Lisa to hug Manoj Punjabi

Mona Lisa will deliberately hug Manoj Punjabi to piss off Om Swami. While Manveer will ask her to stop, the Bhojpuri actress will continue with her 'act' till Swami walks away from the scene. Manu, Manveer and Mona will later have a good laugh over the episode.





Now contestants to play real politics



Bigg Boss will announce its first captaincy task--Siyaasat saying that the first three contestants to enter the confession room will be considered for the responsibility. Bani, Om and Manu will be the ones to make it to the room first. Later, the three will be seen fighting for captaincy as heads of three political parties. They will have to convince the other housemates to become part of their respective parties. Each party will have a signature colour. Bani's party will have orange colour, Manu's party will be represented by the colour white, while Swami Om would get the colour red.

Things get mushy in the Bigg Boss house: Gaurav flirts with Bani

The audiences already know about this blooming romance. Gaurav will turn Bani's supporter and will be heard saying: "Main aapka vote nahi chahta aapka dil chahta hun. Main aapko bas ek promise karna chahta hun. Main aapke dil ka bahot khayal rakhunga." Does this mean that Gaurav and Bani are an item already?

Meanwhile, Manu and Bani will end up getting the maximum supporters, while Om Swami would be able to convince only few.

Most of the contestants will be seen wearing either orange or white garlands.

Gaurav and Mona bond over chocolates

Later in the day, Gaurav will give away his share of chocolates to Mona and she will try to hug him, to thank him for the gesture. However, Gaurav will air kiss her saying that her 'special someone' might take offence. Noticing Gaurav and Mona's proximity, Manu will question Mona jokingly on why she was flirting with Gaurav. But when Mona will narrate the incident to him, it will bring a smile on his face.



Bigg Boss airs every Mon-Fri at 10:30pm and at 9pm on Colors TV



--- ENDS ---
Belgrade (AFP) - Far-right Serbian MPs prevented a top European Union official from presenting an annual report in parliament on Thursday, local media reported.

A statement from the EU delegation in Serbia said it "regrets that conditions were not in place" for Ambassador Michael Davenport to present the report on Serbia's progress to the European Integration Committee.

Davenport, head of the EU delegation, "stands ready to return" to the assembly "when conditions for such a discussions are in place," the statement said.

Members of the Radical Party, led by ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj, obstructed the session by lodging complaints to the committee's chairperson who was forced to call off the event, N1 television reported.

The Radicals, who support closer ties with Slavic big brother Russia and oppose accession to the EU, objected to the report being only in English.

Seselj also said that Davenport, as a British national, had neither "moral ground nor legitimacy to attend the committee session because his state 'ran away' from the EU," N1 reported.

It said Seselj and his allies also addressed the ambassador inappropriately.

The Radical Party returned to parliament in April after failing to win seats in the previous two elections.

This year's vote came a month after firebrand Seselj was acquitted by a Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal for his role in the 1990s Balkan wars, during which he was a close ally of late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

Serbia and the EU opened the first stages in accession negotiations in December, but a significant proportion of the population remains sceptical of joining.
Seth Meyers chokes up while addressing the first future female president, wherever she may be right now

If youre anything like us, Donald Trumps election on Tuesday night has brought up a lot of feelings. To get through these difficult days, you may have been searching for words of comfort and inspiration. Well, Seth Myers heartfelt message to the future first female president may be just the thing you need to brighten your day.

In a monologue delivered Wednesday night, the Late Night host spoke directly to Hillary Clinton supporters who felt devastated by the nations failure to elect a woman president. He said that while his 8-month-old son isnt old enough to understand the implications of a Trump presidency, he sympathized with parents who had to explain to their children what happens next.

He also had some comforting words, though, and they brought him to near-tears as he spoke them.

Said Myers,

[A lot of parents] probably thought, like me, that Hillary would be our first woman president, but she wont be. But that does mean that someones daughter is out there right now who will, one day, have that title.

Myers also addressed the future first woman president directly, with these beautiful words:

Whoever you are, I hope I live to see your inauguration, and I hope my mom does, too.

Dont mind us, well just be over here sniffling.

Myers, who has openly supported Clinton throughout her campaign and admitted Wednesday night that he has been wrong about Trump since the president-elect announced his candidacy (Myers thought it was a stunt), reminded us that Trump has held every position on every issue, from reproductive rights to the war in Iraq, so perhaps that means hell surprise us in the White House, too.

Heres hoping, Seth.

The post Seth Meyers chokes up while addressing the first future female president, wherever she may be right now appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, the Natural Resource Defense Council held a Night of Comedy event in New York, hosted by Seth Meyers, with sets from John Oliver, George Lopez, Mike Birbiglia and Hasan Minhaj.

"Look, I had a whole different act," Meyers said, using bits of the monologue he delivered on Wednesday's Late Night. "So this is, like, hot off the presses, you guys. I can only do gallows humor." The host also joked about how the depression felt by those who opposed Donald Trump's campaign and were exhausted by an ugly election created a great atmosphere for the event.

"You definitely want to be playing a Manhattan room the night after a Trump victory to save the environment, cause everybody's in a fantastic mood," Meyers said.

Meyers said the NRDC will be more important than ever, with Trump denouncing climate change, even calling it a hoax created by the Chinese. And neither candidate addressed climate change during the debates, Meyers pointed out.

"Alicia Machado has an incredible story, but she shouldn't have been mentioned more than Earth," the Late Night host joked. "Having a kid now, I want him to have a planet the whole time."

Read more: Late-Night Hosts Send Hopeful Messages in Somber Post-Election Shows

The Daily Show's Hasan Minhaj seemed most shaken by Trump's victory, given his Muslim background, saying he wasn't sure if he would be coming that evening, and that he couldn't answer his mother as to whether she would be readmitted into the country come February. "What if we're at the downfall section of America's Wikipedia page, but we don't realize it yet?" he wondered. "We're just living through history. Someone's gonna write a musical about this. But we're just living through it." He ended his set saying, after a long pause, "We gotta fight though, I don't know, man. That's all I can say."

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Birbiglia, meanwhile, addressed the day head on, calling it depressing and hard. "This got me out of bed," he joked. "I don't think I would have left my bed."

John Oliver, who like Meyers rallied against Trump on his late-night program, wasn't sure where to begin: "I don't know really what to say tonight to you. You'll probably hear versions of the same thing. You'll hear despair characterized in different ways. I was trying to think of a way to tell you that everything going to be OK. I'm obviously impractically not sure I can do that. That depends who you are and what you're definition of OK is. Looking out, most of you - fine. That's not the point."

Read more: Stephen Colbert Takes on Dire Election Night in Live Showtime Special

George Lopez closed the show, cursing Trump almost immediately. "I can't stay long," he joked, nervously looking at the crowd, saying the piece of paper he placed on the podium was his birth certificate, not notes. "Do not fear us, because I know there's a big divide in this country. Do not fear the Latino; we're here to help," he said, before ending his set with, "This will be the last time that you see me in America."

The election results were on the minds of most of the comedians, though some delved into different topics. For those who did tackle the election, they expressed a sense of frustration and a daze that many were feeling on Wednesday. Meyers said at the end of the night that he thought the evening was cathartic for those who touched the stage.

Guests in attendance included CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, NBC News head Andrew Lack and designer Diane von Furstenberg.

Read more: Seth Meyers, Susie Essman Lament Election Results, Climate Change at NRDC Night of Comedy
For Hillary Clinton supporters, the sting of loss is still quite fresh after Tuesdays election results, with many still in shock about the outcome. Count Seth Meyers among those who cant believe that Trump will actually be President, and in his monologue for Wednesdays edition of Late Night With Seth Meyers, he is the first to admit that he has been completely off the mark with his predictions.

You know, weve been talking about DT on this show for about 18 months, and one of the things that we have tried to make clear over those 18 months is that I have been wrong about him at every turn. When he first came out the escalator at Trump Tower to announce, I boldly said on this show that it was a stunt, and that he would never really run. Then I said that he would never win the GOP nomination, and I certainly didnt think that he would be our next president. The good news is with this pattern and me being wrong about Donald Trump predictions, hes probably going to be a great fucking president. Lets just hope this trajectory holds.

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While expressing his regret that Clinton will not be the first female POTUS, he does share a message of hope about whoever gets to eventually claim that title.

But that does mean that someones daughter is out there right now who will one day have that title. Maybe youre a woman who is currently a Senator, maybe youre still in college. Hopefully youre not a toddler, but who knows. With the way things went last night, who knows. We dont know who you are, but I imagine at this moment today was a defining one for you. One that will make you work harder and strive farther, and I hope I live to see your inauguration. And I hope my mom does too.

On a lighter note, Meyers notes that early on in this election cycle, NBC offered Trump a 13 episode show (probably called Chicago President, as that is the NBC way) where he could play a fictional president, if he dropped out of the race. Apparently, they have upped that offer to 22 episodes, and the offer still stands. Theyll even give him the time slot after The Voice.
UPDATE with video: Taking one last stab at talking Donald Trump out of a move into the White House, Seth Meyers upped NBCs offer to star the real estate developer in a POTUS drama called Chicago President. NBC, via Meyers and without the networks sanction, has increased the order to 22 episodes and promised the vehicle the nets coveted 10 PM Monday time slot, immediately following The Voice.

This offer stands until Inauguration Day, Meyers says on tonights Late Night, joining the pantheon of late-night hosts who tackled Trumps stunning election upset the previous night. Cmon, you didnt think you were going to win this thing either, and Im guessing that right now you are spinning out. Youre probably looking at a map of the United States and thinking, Wait, how long does this wall have to be?

And I cant imagine the people you had to call this morning to say, Hey, I guess Trump TV is on hold for now. Why? Because I have to be the president. Not to mention the fact that youre going to have to give Rudy Giuliani a job and then hang out with him, and I dont have to tell you, he is batsh*t crazy.

Meyers acknowledged hes been wrong about Trump literally every step of his presidential run.

But the good news is, based on this pattern of me being wrong on every one of my Donald Trump predictions, hes probably going to be a great f*cking President.

Meyers thinks he has cause to be hopeful: We know from interviews hes given over the years that he has, at any given point, held every position on every issue. Hes been pro-choice, pro-life, for the Iraq War, against the Iraq War, pretty much his only consistent position has been anti-Rosie ODonnellSo Im hopeful that hes not actually a racist, and that he just used racist rhetoric to court voters.

Meyers noted Trump made a boatload of huge promises as to what hes going to do in the next four years.

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And so, Id just like to make one promise to him: We here at Late Night will be watching.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEskg0Z-NAQ&w=620&h=340]

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 / The following statement is being issued by Levi & Korsinsky, LLP:

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Levi & Korsinsky is a national firm with offices in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California, and Washington D.C. The firm's attorneys have extensive expertise in prosecuting securities litigation involving financial fraud, representing investors throughout the nation in securities lawsuits and have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for aggrieved shareholders. For more information, please feel free to contact any of the attorneys listed below. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

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SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
Shari Redstone, vice chair of the board at CBS (CBS) and Viacom, said it makes sense for the two companies to explore ways they can merge.

"Scale will matter to your advertisers, who more than ever have to reach the consumer on a number of platform," Redstone said. It's going to give us leverage with some of our partners."



Redstone spoke from the DealBook Conference in New York City, moderated by CNBC anchor and New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and the editors of Times. The conference focuses on "playing for the long term" in a business environment that's shackled to quarterly returns and compressed news cycles.



Viacom (VIAB), the parent company of MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and others, has been embroiled in a battle over the control of the company. Redstone's father, Sumner, the controlling shareholder of Viacom and CBS, escalated an ouster of Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman earlier this year.



"I can't say it was great year, or the most fun year I've ever had, but if I look back from last year, the battles are over," Redstone said. "We have a great CEO at Viacom who I'm super excited about. He does a great job of our international business, embraces change and innovation, understands its all about the brandwe have a great boardit's been a tough year, but a year ago, to be sitting here today and talk about all we have accomplished, I don't think I would have believed it."



Shari Redstone's involvement in the company has deepened as of late, Variety reported this week. It comes as the media industry has faced increasing pressure to consolidate, as traditional cable bundles increasingly compete with over-the-top services.



While Viacom and CBS are strong enough to stand on their own, she said the paths of the two companies, once merged, "could have gone differently." Still, she was limited in what she could share, as she's being intentionally left out of the independent review of any merger possibility.



Redstone said that CBS's Les Moonves is one of the best in content  and content is still king. She gave the potential AT&T Time Warner merger agreement as an example.



Story continues

"We're continuing to see the combination of content and distribution," she said. "[Consumers]'re going to find it where they're going find it."



The emphasis on content is part of why she and her father fought for Paramount Pictures, she said.



"When you look at being in the business of creating content, you really want to have a studio for creating content," Redstone said. "The studio of the future is creating content across multiple platforms. Want to look at content as a way to create television  for Snapchat."



Despite criticism from rivals, Redstone said that data is increasingly important for advertisers and to know where viewers are going next.



"It's great to have data, but at the end of the day, you have to surround yourself with people that know content," Redstone said.





More From CNBC


BRASILIA (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) will invest $10 billion (8 billion pounds) in Brazil over five years now that the country has increased opportunities for foreign companies in its oil industry, its chief executive officer said on Thursday.

Already the largest foreign investor in Brazil, Shell is particularly encouraged by recent legislation that increases the role of private oil companies in the tapping of vast off-shore oil deposits in the subsalt layer, Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said.

"This was a good move by the government and it will open up opportunities for more players to invest in Brazil," Van Beurden told reporters after meeting with President Michel Temer.

Temer took office this year after the impeachment and removal of leftist Dilma Rousseff, whose Workers Party was opposed to reducing the central role of state-controlled oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA) in the subsalt region.

Shell is already a major subsalt player as a Petrobras partner in the massive Libra oil field, and acquired more assets in Brazil through its merger with rival BG Group.

New investments could be made by Shell in oil industry auctions planned next year, Van Beurden said, and the company will look at opportunities in distribution at a time that Petrobras is considering selling a big stake in its subsidiary BR Distribuidora.

"If there are opportunities, we will also look at the possibility of deepening our portfolio in the downstream area, he said.

(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
In Uttar Pradesh's Faizabad district, a trader died of a heart failure after he heard about the demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 bills, his doctor said.

By India Today Web Desk: Prime minister Narendra Modi's surprise ban on high-value banknotes drove millions of Indians to fuel stations and ATMs overnight. Many others scurried to underground markets to barter their unaccounted money.

But for some, the unexpected measure has come as a fatal shock.

In Uttar Pradesh's Faizabad district, a trader died of a heart failure after he heard about the demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 bills, his doctor said.

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The man phoned his physician Anand Gupta after he felt chest pain and light-headedness.

ALSO READ: Bengaluru: Chaos at GPO as officials fail to manage crowd waiting to deposit old notes



But he died before he could get any medical help, Gupta said.

Gupta and several other doctors in Faizabad told India Today they had been receiving calls from many people complaining of anxiety and palpitations since the government announced abolition of high-denomination currency.

Physicians attribute the spurt in heart-related conditions to stress induced by the crackdown on money floating in the informal economy.

"It apparently caused too much of duress to handle. They came under severe stress about how to dispose of their 500s and 1,000s," said a doctor.

Not just the moderately rich, some of the impoverished people were also unable to cope with the repeal of currency notes.



Tirathraji Devi collapsed at the gates of her bank in Uttar Pradesh's Kushinagar after she came to know the 2,000 rupees she was carrying in the 1,000-denomination were no longer valid, her son said.

ALSO READ: Hyderabad: Woman commits suicide as she thought that all her money in home is valueless



"She saved this money after labouring hard and washing clothes. When she heard her money had become useless, she fell down and died," lamented her son, Devendra.

Her widower blamed the government for her death.

"She saved this money for difficult times. It was unbearable for her to hear it's not legal anymore," said Ram Prasad, Devi's husband. "The government is responsible for her death. It didn't give a single day to us," he alleged.

Prasad's comments suggested the centre's message to the nation to deposit their high-denomination bills in banks before the December 30 deadline might not have reached many people like Devi and her family.

ALSO READ: Currency chaos in Kerala: How state saw midnight hunt for 100-rupee notes



In Telangana's Mahabubabad, a poor 55-year-old woman farmer allegedly committed suicide over the currency revocation.

In panic, she hanged herself, police said. The incident took place AT Shanigapuram village in Mahbubabad.

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The woman, K. Vinoda and her husband, Uppenderiya, had sold 12 acres of their land three month back for Rs 55 lakh.

The couple didn't deposit the money in their bank because they wanted to buy land elsewhere, police said.

Shocked at the announcement that 500 and 1,000 bills would become a piece of paper, she blamed her husband for keeping the money at home, her son, Srinivas, said.

"My mother quarrelled with my father after she heard about the government's decision. Later, she hanged herself from the ceiling fan" added Srinivas.

ALSO READ: Rupee revamp: Big fat Indian weddings take a hit after demonetisation

ALSO READ: Modi's decision is a joke, calamity and a brake on Indian economy: Kerala Finance Minister

ALSO READ: India Goes to Banks: Millions stand in long queues, Madras HC praises Modi govt's cash purge





--- ENDS ---
By Tife Owolabi and Libby George LAGOS/LONDON, Nigeria (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell has shut down an Escravos crude oil flow station in Nigeria's Niger Delta after villagers demanding aid staged a protest, the firm and residents said on Wednesday. In another blow to the oil major, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) militant group said it had attacked the Forcados crude export line. Shell said the flow station on the pipeline operated by its joint-venture partner SPDC was no longer processing crude oil, but the impact on Escravos exports, which can run via other routes, was not immediately clear. Protest leader Shyne Edema said his group was demonstrating at the facility, shutting down power and water supplies as well as crude production, to press Shell into providing aid. This is a common refrain in the neglected region that provides much of Nigeria's oil output. "Today is the eighth day of the protest," he said. "We have laid siege at the facility from dusk to dawn since then. We are there now as I speak." He said the protesters complained about Shell's "neglect of its social responsibility of providing good roads, water and electricity for its host communities where none of these things exist." Shell said it was "engaging" the Delta state government and local leaders to discuss the grievances. "SPDC provides power to Ugborodo communities through company-maintained diesel generating sets, pending the completion of the electricity project for the communities," Shell said. Oil firms spend funds on the development of host communities but impoverished villagers say this is just a drop in the bucket. Demanding a greater share of oil revenues in the Niger Delta region, militants have made a number of attacks on crude and gas pipelines this year. One of the most active militant groups, the NDA, confirmed to Reuters by email that it had attacked Shell's Forcados export pipeline. On Twitter, the group said the strike occurred on Tuesday at 1045 p.m. local time. A community leader, Chief New-World Endoro, said there was an oil spill at the site of the attack. Soldiers were now patrolling the area, he added. Several attacks have been claimed on the pipeline since President Muhammadu Buhari met last week with community leaders and representatives of militants to address complaints of poverty. An attack last week forced the closure of the Trans Forcados Pipeline, cutting the OPEC member's oil production by at least 200,000 barrels per day. Before last week's attack, Oil Minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said oil output had risen to 2.1 million barrels a day. Before that, a wave of attacks had caused production to plunge to just 1.37 million barrels per day in May, the lowest level since July 1988, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), from 2.2 million barrels in January 2016. Any ceasefire would be difficult to enforce as the militants are splintered into small groups of young unemployed men whom even their leaders struggle to control. (Reporting by Libby George, Anamesere Igboeroteonwu, Tife Owolabi, Ulf Laessing and Alexis Akwagyiram; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Greg Mahlich and Tom Heneghan)
The day after Donald Trumps presidential-election victory, protests against the future president broke out nationwide. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke reacted to the protests.

These are anarchists, these are the ones that weve been putting up with, the cop haters, for a long time. They are in shock. They are in shock because the liberal mainstream media made everybody believe that Ms. Bill Clinton would be the next President of the United States, they never saw this coming,, Clarke told the FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney.

He explained that though peaceful protest has had a long history in America, the protestors should follow Clintons and Obamas calls for a peaceful transfer of power.

We have a time-honored tradition in this country, okay, and its gone back all the way to the beginning of the constitution, it is called the peaceful transfer of power. Mrs. Bill Clinton called for it yesterday, Barack Obama called for it yesterday. I expect these anarchists to follow what their leaders are saying, he said.

But, according to Clarke, despite the tradition of peaceful protests in America, once demonstrations turn violent, law enforcement has to step in and put a stop to the protests.

Once the violence starts then law enforcement has to go in and use all reasonable force. Im never going to back off on that because the rule of law must be upheld in this country, property must be protected, lives must be safeguarded, he said.

Clarke then responded to questions over whether he would accept a post in the Trump Administration.

Let Donald Trump get his feet underneath him, hes got a lot to do. But of course, if the president calls on you to serve, you step up and you fulfill that duty, he said.

Related Articles
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore's white-collar crime unit for the first time on Thursday identified Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho as a key figure in the money laundering investigation linked to scandal-tainted 1MDB fund.

The revelation came from an investigator during the trial of a former wealth manager of Swiss private bank BSI in Singapore's most high-profile money laundering case.

Low is also among the people named in civil lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, which alleged that more than $3.5 billion was allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB.

Singapore authorities have also frozen Low's assets, however the 34-year-old has not been charged with any offense in the investigations into 1MDB.

Founded by Najib, who previously chaired its advisory board, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) is currently the subject of money laundering investigations in at least six countries, including Switzerland, Singapore and the United States.

Najib has denied any wrongdoing and said Malaysia will cooperate with the international investigations.

Oh Yong Yang, an officer with the police Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), told a Singapore court Low had been under investigation since 2015.

"Low Taek Jho is a key person of interest in our investigation, and he is also a person of interest in related investigations in other jurisdictions... It started in 2015," he said.

He made the statement during the trial of Yeo Jiawei, a former wealth manager at Swiss private bank BSI who faces four charges related to his alleged attempt to pervert the course of justice by urging witnesses to lie to police and destroy evidence.

The CAD officer also said Eric Tan Kim Loong and Mohamed Ahmed Badawy Al Husseiny, former chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi's Aabar Investments, are also being investigated in the money laundering probe.

Husseiny was replaced as chief executive of Aabar last year after holding that post since 2010.

Story continues

Yeo told the court Jho Low was a key client of BSI and also introduced 1MDB to the private bank.

Reuters could not reach Jho Low, Eric Tan or Husseiny for a comment.

Ex-BSI banker Yeo is also facing seven separate charges, including money laundering, cheating and forgery, which the prosecution said will be tried next year.

Singapore's central bank ordered the closure of the operations of BSI in May and asked the Attorney General's Chambers to investigate six members of BSI bank's senior management and staff.

Yeo's trial will last until Nov 11.

(Reporting by Fathin Ungku; Editing by Saeed Azhar)
China's annual shopping frenzy has arrived, and that can only mean one thing: it's 'Singles Day'.

The internet spree, which takes place every year on November 11, was the world's biggest online retail event in 2015, with consumers spending over $14billion on slashed-price goods -- a 60% increase on the previous year. The 2016 event is set to be even more profitable, with Teng Bingsheng, Associate Professor of Strategy at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) in Beijing, saying that though he expects "lower growth this year, in the range of a 30-50% increase over last year...it will still be a great achievement."

This year's celebration will be more fashionable than ever, with an eight-hour catwalk show set to take place in Shanghai, reports the Business of Fashion. Katy Perry has been scheduled to perform and shoppers will be able to order looks directly off the runway.

The figures are even more impressive considering that the concept of 'Singles Day' was only founded a few years ago. Chinese retail giant Alibaba's Tmall website started the trend as an anti-Valentine's day gimmick in 2009, encouraging singletons to celebrate their solo status by taking advantage of sale prices on products on November 11, as the date, 11/11, is made up entirely of the lonely number one. It has since become an entrenched shopping tradition with a spending total that outstrips Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

Singles Day has expanded so much that the concept has reached US shores, with a focus on fashion, beauty and lifestyle deals. This year department stores including Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, as well as brands including Lancome, Michael Kors, Estee Lauder and others, are teaming up with the shopping platform Dealmoon.com to tempt shoppers with deals and discounts. According to Chinadaily.com, this year will also allow buyers in Hong Kong and Taiwan to shop directly online via Alibaba's Tmall for the first time.
By Rajesh Kumar Singh

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - As New Delhi grappled with its worst smog in 17 years, the head of India's largest mobile payment firm got on a plane and left, one of thousands of professionals escaping pollution that could cost the capital and the broader economy dear.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of PayTM payment start-up, left last Sunday for a temporary stay in Mumbai, worried about the impact of hazardous clouds of dust, smoke and fumes that hang over Delhi during the winter months.

"It became very visibly clear that it is going to be tough in Delhi, especially with young kids," Sharma said in Mumbai.

"We were worried that it could create long-term (health) problems."

His company, which has considered moving from its base outside Delhi, has installed air purifiers, brought in plants and masks and offered extra health assistance.

Telecoms operator Idea Cellular and others have allowed more employees to work at home, and hired buses so that car traffic is reduced - all at their own expense.

A few companies are thriving from the heavy smog hanging over the city earlier this month - providers of face masks and air purifiers have seen sales soar.

But others, like the car manufacturers, are in the firing line of local and national politicians who want to reduce the deadly haze, while estate agents and tour operators have complained of a slowdown in business.

Delhi, home to around 17 million people, is among the fastest growing states in India. Its $84 billion economy has been expanding at more than 8 percent for the past two years, faster than a 7.4 percent national average.

Its air quality, meanwhile, has deteriorated, even by the standards of a country with some of the world's most polluted cities. Conditions had improved by Friday, but the problem is perennial and has been particularly acute this winter.

Companies have yet to tot up the cost of a week of coughing, spluttering and watering eyes, but local industry lobby group Assocham estimates "several billions of dollars" of new investments are under threat.

Story continues

A study by the World Bank shows Asia's third-largest economy lost 8.5 percent of its GDP in 2013 due to air pollution.

"WORST ON EARTH"

Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), a global real estate services firm serving large corporates, said some clients were reconsidering Delhi as a base, as costs of working there rise.

"This is increasing their operational costs as they are being made to spend more to provide a healthy workplace to their employees," said Santosh Kumar, a senior executive at the firm.

Delhi's image is deteriorating more widely, a headache for tour promoters and a government touting "Brand India".

Some local tour operators say they are already receiving requests from overseas partners to redraw the itinerary of foreign tourists to avoid even an overnight stay in Delhi. Business travellers say they are cancelling trips.

"The ongoing tourism season, which is yet to pick up, could see a maximum hit," Assocham said.

Expatriates are also thinking twice about living in the Indian capital. JLL's Kumar said more smog could see foreigners packing their bags, a blow to real estate as well as employment.

Lisa Akerman, a Swedish national who lives in an affluent Delhi neighbourhood, said authorities needed to do much more than they were.

Akerman moved to the city two years ago with her family and has taken measures to ensure clean air in her apartment for her two small daughters. Still, the choking smog left her worried about their health.

Earlier this week, she decided to take them out of the city for a while.

"The pollution level is too much for the children," she said by 'phone from Goa, where she is camping with her kids. "While I love Delhi, its air quality will be a major consideration in deciding whether we want to extend our stay here."

NOT EVERYONE LOSES

The local government has taken steps to reduce traffic amid widespread public anger at pollution that has caused choking, wheezing and breathlessness.

Licences are being withdrawn for diesel-powered vehicles older than 15 years, and authorities are considering resuming an "odd-even" scheme, under which cars can only travel in the city on alternate days depending on their registration number.

Those steps, and the risk that India's courts will impose stricter rules on emissions, are a potential blow to foreign and domestic carmakers, some of whom have asked for greater clarity.

But not everyone is complaining about the smog.

Japan's Daikin has seen sales of air purifiers increase by up to three times since the Hindu Diwali festival, and its stock that had been expected to last until March is exhausted.

To meet growing orders, the Osaka-based air-conditioner maker increased shipments from its Thai factory by 50 percent.

Nirvana India, which distributes the Vogmask face mask in South Asia, reported soaring sales.

It sold 300 to 400 pieces a week around this time last year, but since Diwali at the end of October, it has sold 5,000-8,000 a week and is seeking emergency stocks from Singapore, China and Korea.

"Earlier, only expats, patients and government departments would buy these masks," said chief executive Jaidhar Gupta. "Now everyone is buying."

(Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy in Mumbai and Manoj Kumar in New Delhi; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
SodaStream International Ltd. SODA makes beverage carbonation systems which transforms tap water into soft drinks and sparkling water. SodaStreams products are primarily sold at major retail stores like Kohls, Corp, Macys and Bed Bath & Beyond.



The companys sales figures have been weak in over the past few quarters due to low demand for its products  soda/sparkling water machines and flavored syrups. The carbonated soft drink market is facing troubles as consumers are shifting away from traditional soda toward more natural, water-based beverages containing fewer calories.



Keeping in line with this, SodaStream is pursuing a global restructuring and growth plan. The company is repositioning itself as a water-based brand under a health and wellness plan and making significant changes in its growth strategies to boost business.



As part of the plan, the company rolled out a range of natural water-enhanced flavors in the U.S. and some international markets last year. Also, the company is working on the transformation of its manufacturing base and operating structure  which includes consolidating production under the new Lehavim facility in Southern Israel and closing other legacy facilities  to enhance efficiency.



Investors should also note that earnings estimate has mostly been stable ahead of this earnings release. However, the stock does have a decent history in earnings season. SODA delivered positive earnings surprise in all of the past four quarters, bringing the average positive earnings surprise to 57.31%.



Currently, SODA has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), but that could definitely change following SodaStreams earnings report which was just released. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here .



We have highlighted some of the key stats from this just-revealed announcement below:



Earnings: SODA beat earnings. Our consensus earnings estimate called for EPS of 24 cents/share, and the company reported EPS of 69 cents instead. Investors should note that these figures take out stock option expenses.



Revenues: SODA reported revenues of $124.2 million. This beat our consensus estimate of $117.7 million.



Stock Price: Shares rose a massive 13.8% during pre-market trading.

Story continues

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's largest private hospital group Mediclinic International reported a 26 percent drop in underlying half-year earnings per share (EPS) on Thursday, as its operations in the Middle East weighed on profits. * Underlying EPS fell to 12.8 pence, from 17.2 pence for the six months to end-September. * Earnings were largely impacted by the shares issued to acquire Al Noor, a firm Mediclinic bought last year. Al Noor helped Mediclinic double its exposure to the United Arab Emirates, but negatively affected its operating performance. * Mediclinic's underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 11 percent to 220 million pounds ($274 million). * Revenue from Mediclinic's Swiss Hirslanden unit rose 5 percent and the South African firm said it expects modest growth and stable margins for the 2016/17 financial year. * Switzerland is the largest contributor to the group's revenue in pound terms, and turnover was further boosted by sterling's decline after Brexit, CEO Danie Meintjes said. * Meintjes said he expects continued growth in Southern Africa despite macro-economic challenges and increasing competition anticipated in the year ahead. * In the Middle East, revenue growth is expected to be at the bottom end of expectations after new health insurance regulations took effect in July, he said, adding that the region offered a "long-term growth opportunity." * Mediclinic shares listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange fell 2.6 percent to 148.11 rand, compared with a 1.1 percent gain in the benchmark Top-40 index by 0817 GMT. ($1 = 0.8037 pounds) (Reporting by TJ Strydom; Editing by James Macharia)
Border and Fall's initiative, The Sari has also roped in three indie filmmakers to make three full-fledged films about the relevance and versatility of a sari.

By Mini Dixit: There aren't many garments that exude grace and elegance like a well-draped sari. And to honour the nine yards of wonder that saris are, Border & Fall, a digital platform promoting India's craft and fashion has come up with an initiative titled, The Sari.

The initiative seeks to bring the beauty and versatility of saris to the fore, while educating the world about its historical significance. Blending the technological era with the rich lineage of saris, Border and Fall's initiative, has roped in three eminent independent filmmakers, Bon Duke, Pooja Kaul and Q, each of whom will create a short movie highlighting the importance of saris.





Picture courtesy: Instagram/Raw Mango

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Apart from the three short films, The Sari will also create the "first ever comprehensive digital library of every sari drape through 84 clear, short and attractive 'how-to' drape films," the initiative's website reads. The movies thus produced will be available for free across social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and the digital sites of the filmmakers.





Picture courtesy: Instagram/Border and Fall

Also Read: Sixteen MPs from Singapore posed in vibrant sarees to mark Diwali







But there's a tiny catch. The Sari seeks to raise funds by means of crowd-sourcing, for which it needs your support.

"It feels strange to be in a place to ask for money but also strangely correct. The sari and its documentation belongs to no one, yet millions,"

Malika Verma Kashyap, owner of Border and Fall writes in a piece explaining the project's relevance, aim and highlights.





Picture courtesy: Instagram/Border and Fall

Other eminent names involved in the project include, textile scholar Rta Kapur Chishti, designer Rashmi Varma and Fashion Editor, Deep Kailey.





Picture courtesy: Instagram/ Sonam Kapoor Picture courtesy: Instagram/ Sonam Kapoor

With support from Bollywood fashionista Sonam Kapoor, designer Sanjay Garg and sari enthusiasts all around, here's bestowing more power and love on Border and Fall's beautiful project.



--- ENDS ---
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South African President Jacob Zuma survived a no-confidence vote on Thursday, over what the opposition called his "reckless leadership", after the anti-graft watchdog called for an inquiry into allegations of influence-peddling in the government. "I think the no's have it," Deputy Speaker Lechesa Tsenoli ruled, after lawmakers of Zuma's African National Congress (ANC), which controls almost two-thirds of the assembly, voted against the motion and burst into song in support of Zuma. The main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) called for a re-count, a request which the deputy speaker granted. (Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by James Macharia)
MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police have arrested 56 men accused of possessing and distributing pornographic photos and videos of children, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday. The men, some of whom were repeat offenders, all lived in Spain and were between 40 and 60 years old. They used an online file-sharing ring which disseminated caches of pornographic material featuring the sexual abuse or exploitation of minors, the police said. The 18-month police operation covered the entire country and uncovered hundreds of computers, hard drives and DVDs with an undisclosed number of files featuring extreme sexual violence against boys and girls, the ministry said. (Reporting by Amanda Calvo, editing by Paul Day, Larry King)
Madrid (AFP) - Spanish police said Thursday they had arrested 56 men suspected of sharing photos online of severe abuse on young children, some of them babies, in a nationwide crackdown on child pornography.

The suspects, the majority Spanish aged between 40 and 60, are accused of "distributing over the internet images of extreme cruelty involving very young minors," police said in a statement, adding that most of the children were younger than 10.

"In many cases, there are even babies subjected to serious abuse, including torture," Luis Garcia Pascual, in charge of the investigation, told reporters at a press briefing.

Over 150 police officers and 46 investigating magistrates took part in the operation carried out across Spain.

Police said they seized over 170 computer hard drives, as well as 614 CDs and DVDs, which contained pornographic images.

Garcia Pascual said there were "aggravating factors" in almost all the arrests made, such as the age of the victims, the huge amount of files found or the degrading nature of acts committed against the children.

The authorities are examining the material to see if any of the men who were detained sexually abused minors themselves.

Police said several of the suspects, none of whom were identified, had been arrested in the past for exchanging pornographic images involving minors over the internet.

They risk up to nine years in jail.

Close to 750 people have been arrested this year over alleged cyber crime, including nearly 400 for offences involving sexual abuse on minors, Ignacio Cosido, director general of Spain's police, told reporters at the briefing.

In August police arrested seven people, mainly French and Moroccan nationals, who were suspected of running a ring that produced pornography involving children.

The authorities suspect the ring exploited at least 80 minors during the past 15 years and distributed over a million pictures and videos of pornography and over a thousand DVDs.
Madrid (AFP) - Spain's two biggest unions said Thursday they "firmly opposed" measures demanded by Brussels to reduce the public deficit and demanded a hike in the minimum wage.

"We firmly reject the adjustment of 5.5 billion euros demanded by the European Commission," the head of the UGT union, Pepe Alvarez, told a joint news conference with Ignacio Fernandez Toxo who heads the nation's biggest union Commissiones Obreras.

Spain had agreed with Brussels to reduce its public deficit from 5.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015 to 4.6 percent this year and 3.1 percent in 2017.

But the draft 2017 budget which Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government sent to Brussels last month forecasts a public deficit of 3.6 percent this year.

The European Commission responded by demanding that Madrid adopt additional measures to lower the deficit down to 3.1 percent, which will require roughly 5.5 billion euros ($6.1 billion) in spending cuts and tax increases.

"It is essential that Spain get at least an additional year of flexibility to adjust its public accounts," Toxo said.

That would give Spain until 2019 to bring its public deficit below the EU's limit of 3.0 percent of economic output. The country has already been granted another two years to bring the deficit below the limit.

The two unions also demanded that the monthly minimum wage be raised from 764 euros to 933 euros.

Rajoy won a parliamentary confidence vote on October 29, taking power after two indecisive elections that led to 10 months of political paralysis.

But this time around he has a minority government and will need to scrabble for approval from other opposition parties further to the left to win approval in parliament for legislation.
Brexit and The Very Big Picture By Susan Abbott Gidel

June 24, 2016 After the trading dust has settled from todays historic majority Brexit leave vote, I urge you to take a step back and look at the very big picture, which I believe is related to the planet Plutos 16-year move through the sign of Capricorn. We are only halfway through this transit, which began in 2008 and ends in 2024. Pluto was last in Capricorn from 1762-1778. Pluto is an extremely powerful planet, able to disrupt and tear down what exists in order to transform into something new. Because it is so far away from the Sun, it takes 248 years for Pluto to go around the Sun once, the longest cycle of any of the planets. Pluto takes no prisoners. If you resist Plutos transformative energy, the ride will be very rough indeed. However, if you embrace the power, you can make significant advances. Capricorn is the zodiac sign that rules business, governments, structures, organizations, authority and rules. Put the two together and you can see why Pluto in Capricorn equates to transformation of business and government. Plutos Road Signs

It didnt take long for Pluto to make its mark. It entered the sign of Capricorn on January 27, 2008 and kicked off warning signs to the U.S. financial crisis that was full-blown while it retreated back into Sagittarius from mid-June through end-November that year. Hello, Im here! Its safe to say that nothing has really been the same since 2008 from a business and government standpoint. Weve seen the value of investmentsincluding our homesdisappear so quickly that we question what is truly solid. Weve seen the Occupy movements and other grass-roots uprisings that are challenging the status quo of how governments of the world operate. Weve seen the rise of a very unlikely U.S. presidential candidate, fueled by citizens who feel unrepresented in their government. All Pluto in Capricorn. And now, at the halfway point of Plutos move through Capricorn, we get another significant markerBritains populous decision to leave the European Union. Pluto is breaking down the old structure in order to transform it into something new. This really is no different than tearing down an old warehouse in order to build a new, gleaming high-tech one. The old has to be demolished in order to make way for the new. The Brexit vote is a big sign in the road that says You Are Here. It is shocking only because we are resisting the change that Pluto is demanding we make. Where Were Headed

I am watching three significant astrological events over the next eight years that help me remain focused on what will be cosmically supported. First, Pluto remains in Capricorn until January 22, 2024, when it first enters the sign of Aquarius. It retrogrades back into Capricorn in the fall, then is in Aquarius to stay on November 20, 2024 for the next 20 years. Aquarius is the zodiac sign that rules brilliant, aha type ideas, electricity, the internet, technology, groups and communitiesand astrology. J Just as Pluto in Capricorn can be summed up as transformation business and government, Pluto in Aquarius can be summed up as transformation of ideas and community. How we value ideas, intellectual property and communitieson a global basiswill be transformed during this period. Pluto in Capricorn is breaking down our current business and government structures in preparation for supporting its travels through Aquarius. Second, at the winter solstice of 2020, we formally enter a new era that will last the rest of our lifetimes in which global economies value ideas and intellectual property rather than physical, material goods. The change is marked by the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction at 0 degrees Aquarius, an air sign, on December 20, 2020. Jupiter and Saturn have a 20-year cycle that astrologers use as a significant economic marker, generally seeing economic lows at the conjunction, when the planets are together in the sky. This last occurred on May 28, 2000. Jupiter and Saturn have had conjunctions in zodiac signs that are earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn) since the summer solstice of 1821. During this period, our global economies have valued the physical and materialincluding money. We are moving into a new paradigmin just four yearsas Jupiter and Saturn enter an era of conjunctions in air signs (Aquarius, Gemini, Libra) that will last into the 22nd century. In the air period, our economies will values ideas and intellectual property rather than physical and material goods. Owning things will be far less valuable than owning ideas. The first taste of this new paradigm was from December 31, 1980-May 28, 2000, when the Jupiter/Saturn cycle was in the air sign of Libra. If youll recall, this was a time of an incredible bull market, the introduction of the internet and the rise of dot-com stocks and online tradingwhich abruptly ended in March 2000 just before Jupiter/Saturn made one last reunion in an earth sign that is now in its waning years. Perhaps this next go-round well get that dot-com thing right. Thirdand perhaps most significantis that Pluto in Capricorn will be making what is known as a Pluto return with the natal horoscope of the United States exact on February 22, 2022 (2/22/22 for those of you into numbers). This means that transiting Pluto will be exactly at the same place it was when then United States declared independence from England in 1776. Because of Plutos long trip around the Sun, this is its first return since the country was founded. RememberPluto in Capricorn is about transforming business and government. Pluto was in Capricorn when the United States decided to transform its government and break away from England. It is safe to say that this country will be examining very seriously whether that form of government remains valid as we approach the Pluto return. Indeed, I expect intense focus on the topic of the structure of the U.S. government to begin in January 2021, when Pluto in Capricorn comes within two degrees of its exact return a little more than a year later. Pluto remains within striking range of the U.S. natal Pluto through mid-November 2024, so the discussion likely will occupy the entire term of the president we elect in 2020. How to Ride the Pluto in Capricorn Wave

Easier said than done, I know, but heres what Im trying to do to maintain focus on the big picture during the second half of Plutos visit in Capricorn: 1. Understand better the historical context of large planetary influences in the world. For this, there is no better read than Cosmos and Psyche, by Richard Tarnas, a cultural historian who spent 30 years researching societys shifts over the last 500 years and concluded that long-term planetary cycles were the common denominator. 2. Expect that the new and unusual will be breaking down the old and outdated.Look for signposts like the Occupy movement and the Brexit vote to indicate where were headed. Go with the flow. 3. Remain alert to shifts (economic, corporate, governmental) that are starting now that will gain strength as we hit the air sign era in 2020, and give them serious attention. Bitcoin (or something like it) and the blockchain are in this category for me. 4. Look for and support the U.S. presidential candidate in 2020 who can lead the country through this shift into air values of ideas, intellectual property, technology and community. No clue who this might be, and he/she likely will not come from the pool of usual suspects. Rememberthe big picture is that the state of business and government that was in place in 2008 will be completely different by 2025. Embrace Plutos transformative power and support change to something better.
Sri Lanka announced Thursday it would lift a ban on foreigners owning property as the cash-strapped country sought to attract foreign capital to rebuild its war-ravaged economy.

Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake told parliament of the potential to attract much-needed foreign investment in the construction sector, which is experiencing a boom following the end of the island's ethnic war in 2009.

"To further incentivise such investment, we will remove freehold right restrictions from the ground floor," the minister said, referring to a 2014 ban on foreigners purchasing real estate.

In a bid to encourage more foreign exchange inflows, the minister said the government will also allow individuals to bring up to $45,000 into the country without declaring the source, up from a previous limit of $15,000.

Unveiling the annual budget for the 2017 calendar year, the minister slapped a new carbon tax on cars and sharply raised traffic fines in an effort to shore up revenues.

The government is targeting a budget deficit of 4.6 percent of GDP next year, down from 5.4 percent of GDP this year, with foreign borrowings of $3.1 billion and $1.2 billion in domestic loans helping to bridge the gap, Karunanayake said.

The government will also focus on encouraging investment in the island's war-ravaged north and east, offering huge tax concessions for start ups in the region, which is struggling to rebuild seven years after the decades-long Tamil separatist war ended.

"I wish to lay emphasis on the fact that the government is committed to eliminate existing socio-economic gap between North and East with the rest of the country by 2020," Karunanayake said.

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka secured a $1.5 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund in June after suffering a balance of payments crisis earlier this year.
Joe Scarborough on Thursday singled out The New York Times for its coverage of Donald Trump's campaign, accusing it of underestimating the president-elect's support.

The "Morning Joe" anchor took aim at The Times for its Thursday-morning article titled "Democrats, Students and Foreign Allies Face the Reality of a Trump Presidency," which Scarborough suggested was too focused on the paper's left-leaning audience.

"This is staggering, it really is," Scarborough said. "This shows that the editors of The New York Times  I have the greatest respect for them  don't get it. This is a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch. You went to a cocktail party the night before and you decided to write this."

joe scarborough

Scarborough and cohost Mika Brzezinski argued that large institutions like The Times and The Washington Post were too focused on the "elite cluster" to see Trump's path to electoral victory.

Though he acknowledged that he was equally removed from many Trump voters' reality, Scarborough placed himself in a coterie of skeptical reporters and analysts. They included FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver and Bloomberg's Mark Halperin, who Scarborough said was "mocked and ridiculed" by some members of the media for suggesting that Trump could win.

"You had a complete blind spot, and you wanted to keep it that way," Scarborough said. "It was much easier for you to stay in Manhattan and say that they are all racists and bigots."

He added: "You don't understand what's going on. Let's face it: I didn't understand what's going on out there. But you know what Mark and I did that you didn't do? You know what Mika did that you didn't do? We actually talked to people in Middle America. And they told us they were hurting, and they told us why they were voting for Trump."

While many polls and some in the media underestimated Trump's support in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, many urban areas and their corresponding suburbs suggested a vastly different story of the electorate. Hillary Clinton is projected to win the popular vote because of her overwhelming support in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

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Scarborough praised New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg for his postelection media-industry mea culpa, which said many reporters were reassured by state polling data in places like Pennsylvania that equally underestimated Trump's support.

"They stopped being journalists over the past month and began being cheerleaders and began being people who had a conclusion that they reached and then searched for facts to show that Hillary Clinton was a 92, 93, 99.999% chance winner of this campaign," Scarborough said.

Watch the clip below, via MSNBC:

.@JoeNBC's message to the media: You had a complete blindspot and you wanted to keep it that way https://t.co/pux3mOBAHa

 Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) November 10, 2016

NOW WATCH: What it was really like to be inside Trump's victory party

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS.



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The Starbucks red holiday cup designs are here, and they are gorgeous

Just what we need today  some holiday cheer. Starbucks is bringing back its red holiday cups, and theyre unlike any weve seen in past years. The mega coffee chain debuted not just one of the 2016 holiday cups today, but 13 brand new red cups designs.

Starbucks has been bringing in the holidays with special red cups since 1997. Throughout the years, designs have ranged from modern, using whimsical brushstrokes in bold colors, to the nostalgic, featuring mistletoe and ornaments, Starbucks noted in a press release.

Last year, the company faced major backlash when it came out with classic red cups that many complained werent Christmas-y enough. People protested in outrage on social media about the basic cup. But ultimately, they either dealt with the red cups or they bought their coffee elsewhere. Shrug.

Were pretty sure Starbucks didnt feel that loss.

During the reveal of the new cups today in New York City, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz joked about the controversy.

Should we just go back to last year and come out with a great red cup and perhaps start another firestorm? Schultz said. We didnt think that was such a good idea.

Instead, they decided to use inspiration from customers! The 13 new cups are all inspired from actual photos that customers posted of designs they drew on the blank red cups last year (see, the red cups DID have a purpose).

We were surprised and inspired by the amount of incredible art submitted by our customers. The designs were beautiful, expressive and engaging, said Dena Blevins, creative director of Starbucks Global Creative Studio. We quickly realized there was potential to use the customer-created art for our holiday cups.

So they rounded up their favorite designs and asked those customers to mail in their cups to be evaluated for possible use. They chose the 13 designs from six countries to represent the spirit of the holidays around the world. Their designs will be showcased on the holiday cups served in the more than 25,000 Starbucks stores in 75 countries.

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People will be walking around the street in Shanghai, New York and London carrying these cups, Blevins said. We love that this year our customers artistry can play a part in brightening someones day.

Starbucks will start serving beverages in the holiday cups starting Thursday, and that means the HOLIDAYS ARE BASICALLY HERE!

The post The Starbucks red holiday cup designs are here, and they are gorgeous appeared first on HelloGiggles.
At 10 am, the post office officials had still not decided on the counters where people could deposit and collect cash.

By Nolan Pinto: A day after remaining shut to make arrangements for the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes, banks and post offices opened today to mad rush of people waiting outside to exchange old notes with the new ones.

People in Bengaluru woke up early and rushed to their nearest bank or GPO branches to deposit the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes declared invalid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8.

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ALSO READ: Currency chaos in Kerala: How state saw midnight hunt for 100-rupee notes

Long queues were seen outside all bank branches and post offices. It was chaos at the Bengaluru General Post Office (GPO). Despite government's repeated assurances of a smooth transaction at post offices, the GPO officials were unable to handle the huge crowd that had been waiting outside the gate since 8 in the morning.

ALSO WATCH



At 10 am, the officials had still not decided on the counters where people could deposit and collect cash.

ALSO READ: Hyderabad: Woman commits suicide as she thought that all her money in home is valueless



ANGRY CUSTOMERS

Sridhar who had come from Shivajinager to the GPO was angry as he had to wait till noon to deposit his old notes. "I have been here from 8 in the morning and I am still waiting. They have asked me to wait till around 12," he said.

Another post office customer was not happy with the way the officials treated him. "I went to deposit Rs 8,000 but they tell me that my PAN card details have not been updated. I have given all the required details while opening my account in 2013. What have they been doing all these years," he asked.

ALSO READ: Markets shuffle: Modi's move benefits Paytm, Ola; hits shopping destinations



WHAT WILL I DO WITH Rs 2,000 NOTE?

Several customers at banks and post offices were puzzled over how to use a high denomination currency for making small payments. Munazir, who collected the new Rs 2,000 note from an Axis Bank branch, said he was not sure if shopkeepers will agree to give him change against that note if he were to make a small purchase.

Fortunately for a lot of customers, the banks were also providing small denomination currency in addition to one Rs 2,000 note.

"We could not make any purchase the day before. Thankfully, we have got some Rs 10 and Rs 20 notes which will help us manage for some time," Munazir said.



ALSO READ: Modi's masterstroke has left common man happy, will cost Congress votes and notes: BJP

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ALSO READ: Operation Black Money: Here is the inside story of Modi's bold move



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Stephen Baldwin is doing a little gloating when it comes to his older brother, Alec Baldwin.

Stephen, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter, appeared on Good Morning America on Thursday, when he shared the conversation he had with Alec prior to the election. Alec, a Hillary Clinton supporter, skewered Trump in his Saturday Night Live portrayal of the billionaire businessman in the months leading up to the election.

"I had a fun conversation with Alec a couple weeks back, like, literally at his house, home with the kids, floating in the swimming pool, having a good time and he said, 'So, your boy's basically handing us this election don't you think?'" Stephen recalled. "And I went, 'I got a funny feeling you need to be more prepared for a Trump president than I do a Hillary president.'"

WATCH: Stephen Baldwin Is Not Amused by Brother Alec's Impersonation of Donald Trump

Trump, of course, is now officially the 45th president of the United States. Stephen had a sense of humor about being one of the few celebrities to openly endorse Trump, when GMA anchor George Stephanopoulos commented that the election results were a rejection of the "elite," including elite Hollywood such as his brother.

"Me and Scott Baio baby, that's it!" Stephen said with a laugh.

Though on a more serious note, the 50-year-old actor acknowledged that there are plenty of people who share his brother's unhappy sentiments about the election.

"And the thing that is so overwhelming to me this morning is that I stayed at Mr. Trump's hotel last night with all the protesters outside, and it really freaked me out because I can be all excited and happy about the outcome, but then it was a wave of reality to see there's folks out there that still don't agree with all this," he shared. "And this is what makes the country so amazing, is that right now we the people -- all of us -- have an amazing opportunity to demonstrate the greatness of our freedom, of our vote, and the opportunity to really do our best and pay it forward and do the right thing."

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"Last night, as much as I wanted to say to a bunch of young people, 'Hey, stop, everybody, can't we all just get along?' I realized that I have to respect those people. I have to respect them. [But] if you agree or not, the cool thing to do is really give Mr. Trump the opportunity," he added.

Stephen was also at Trump's election victory party at New York Hilton Midtown on Tuesday night, where he described the mood as Trump pulled off an upset over Clinton.

"People were just as shocked as people who didn't vote for Mr. Trump," he admitted.

As for Stephen's current relationship with Alec, he joked that he might need GMA anchor Michael Strahan's intervention.

"I might need you Michael, I might need you," he said with a laugh, to which the former Live! host quipped, "You're on your own with that one."

WATCH: @StephenBaldwin7 rejection of Hollywood elite in election, his brothers SNL impression of Trump, more... https://t.co/KHdkhvpTi8  Good Morning America (@GMA) November 10, 2016

NEWS: Kirstie Alley, Scott Baio, Stephen Baldwin and More Celebs Tweet Support for Donald Trump

Alec tweeted his candid thoughts about the presidential election on Tuesday, writing that the American political system is "broken."

"I was taught in college that Americans choose their President like they choose laundry soap, w a knee-jerk brand loyalty devoid of reason," he also tweeted. "The billionaire Republican businessman is close to winning the race and world markets are crashing. He's all yours, America. He's all yours."

Watch below:

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UPDATED with video: Late Show host Stephen Colbert, now back on CBS but only partially recovered from his live Election Night Showtime special trauma, noted that while hes having to periodically put on bedazzled kitten ears to cope with Trumps election, Hillary Clinton is taking it like, well, a leader.

You know whos taking this strangely well? Hillary Clinton, even though the possible first female president lost to a crotch grabbing beauty pageant owner, Stephen Colbert said unhappily the night after Donald Trump beat her in the Electoral College to become our 45th POTUS-elect. Listen to what she said this morning, Colbert told the studio audience for his live post-election Late Show.

Cue up clip of Hillarys concession speech: Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.

How are you already accepting this? Colbert asked Clinton, in absentia. Did you pay extra for the Fast Pass Through the Five Stages of Grief?

Colbert had hosted his Election Night live show on CBSs pay-cable cousin Showtime. Free of the CBS Decency Police, the one-hour late-night special included the always-welcome nudity and naughty language, but mostly overflowed with despair, which was a problem because it was supposed to be a comedy show.

Getting back to Hillary Clinton, Colbert said, You know acceptance is last, right? You gotta go through each stage. The first three are easy to remember  Denial, Anger, and Bargaining, because that was Trumps campaign strategy. Then youve got depression, then acceptance. Then dramatic haircut, and rebound boyfriend.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evVKFFL1iTs&w=620&h=340]

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Stephen Colbert was just one of the late-night hosts that repeatedly mocked Donald Trump throughout the 2016 presidential election  so how did he handle his shocking win Tuesday night?

Well, as he explained on Wednesdays episode of The Late Show, he still hasnt been able to shake off his disbelief.

Im Stephen Colbert  I think, said Colbert, 52, kicking off his opening monologue. Im not sure what to believe about anything anymore.

Noting that we certainly have four very interesting years in front of us, the comedian struggled to put his thoughts into words.

Theres no way around it, he said. This is what it feels like when America is made great again. I was really hoping it would feel better.

The comedian then took a moment to address the protests that swept the country on Wednesday, quipping that the unity thing might take a scooch longer than Trump was hoping for.

I just want to say freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, first amendment  the most important things we can do together, he continued. Dont stop speaking up, dont stop speaking your mind.

But do keep in mind that for eight years, a lot of people wouldnt accept that Barack Obama was President of the United States, he continued. Like it or not, for the record, we have to accept that Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States.

The audience groaned, and Colbert nodded in agreement.

No, I get that feeling completely  I just had to say it one more time, he said. I just want to keep saying it until I can say it without throwing up in my mouth a little bit. It feels like a little bit of a dream state. All day Ive had to remind myself this isnt a dream.  This is real.

RELATED VIDEO: President Obama Says Hes Rooting for Trump  as He Prepares to Welcome Him to the White House

And no matter what the GOP is saying publicly, I think they might be feeling the same way, he added. Because remember, the Republican Party spent the entirety of this election in panic, trying to stop Donald Trump from being the nominee. And when they couldnt  surprise! They won the presidency, both houses of Congress, and a seat on the Supreme Court. Its like the GOP got caught in a plunging elevator, and they all fell 10 stories screaming, only for the doors to open on a candy store where everythings free.

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In the rest of his monologue, Colbert addressed other elements that come into play with a Trump victory  notably, how to tell your kids.

Tell them what you should always tell kids: Work hard, be kind, care about other people, dont be selfish, dont grab them where they dont want to be grabbed,  he said. And theyll make the world a better place than Donald Trump can.

Then Colbert took a moment to discuss the now-common refrain of moving to Canada to escape Trump. (After all, the Canadian immigration website did crash Tuesday evening.)

A lot of folks are very casually throwing around the idea of moving to Canada. Canada: the language of France with the culture of Minnesota! joked Colbert.

I can understand why Canada is so attractive  youve got the free health care, and a prime minister who looks like the prince from Tangled, he went on. But listen up there, everybody out there whos saying: Im going to move to Canada  you dont get to flee when things get rough here! Being an American citizen is like family. Youre in it whether you like it or not.

Being a man of some faith, Colbert even staged a mock conversation with God, who was shocked to learn that Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote didnt mean much, and who doesnt understand the Electoral College any better than you do.

I guess I shouldnt be surprised white men came out on top again, considering how everyone assumes I look, God said.

But Colberts impassioned monologue wasnt his only weigh-in on the election: He also brought on Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, the puppet voiced by Robert Smigel, to deliver a few zingers.

People are blaming the election on voters being stupid, which I think is very unfair to the racists, Triumph said. You elitists, you need to go out and see the real America. I hear the meth is amazing. I mean, it has to be: look who they voted for.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs weeknights (11:35 p.m. ET) on CBS.




stephen colbert moving to canada donald trump president late show cbs

Stephen Colbert had a stern message for those Americans who want to move to Canada after Donald Trump was elected president.

But before that, he opened Wednesday's taping of "The Late Show" by saying what he thought Americans really needed to do over the real-estate mogul's presidential term.

"I just want to say freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, First Amendment," he said. "The most important things we can do together. Don't stop speaking up, don't stop speaking your mind, don't ever be cowed by whatever happens in the next four years."

As much as he's in a fighting spirit now, Colbert acknowledged that he didn't sleep well and described the shock he felt after Trump was elected.

"We have to accept that Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States," the host said, as the audience moaned. "No, I get that feeling completely. I just had to say it one more time. I just want to keep saying it until I can say it without throwing up in my mouth a little bit. It feels like a little bit of a dream state. All day I've had to remind myself this isn't a dream. I'm not on a peyote trip on the hunt of the great deer. This is real."

Even before the presidential election, many Americans said they would move to Canada if Trump were elected. Many were pretty serious about researching the move  enough to crash Canada's immigration website on Tuesday night. But Colbert had strong words for those people.

"I can understand why Canada is so attractive," Colbert said. "You've got the free healthcare and a prime minister who looks like the prince from 'Tangled.' But listen up, everybody out there who's saying, 'I'm gonna move to Canada': You don't get to flee when things get rough here. Being an American citizen is like family. You're in it whether you like it or not."

Watch the video below:

NOW WATCH: Watch the Trump protest that shut down parts of New York City





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After cracking jokes about the new president-elect Donald Trump and suggesting Elizabeth Warren grieve with a neck tattoo, Stephen Colbert offered a message of unity during his monologue Wednesday night.

Colbert urged viewers who want to move up north to Canada ("the language of France with the culture of Minnesota," as he described it) to reconsiderand not just because the Canadian immigration site crashed.

"You don't get to flee to another country when things get rough here," Colbert said. "Being an American citizen is like family. You're in it whether you like it or not."

Oh, and if you're feeling anything but elated about the election results, Colbert dishes the perfect advice on how to overcome.

Who the hell unfollowed me?

Watch your favorite superheroes react to the Trump presidency news

Samantha Bee has a few choice words for white people after this election

Quidditch is no longer only for Harry Potter fans
Sting says he won't be wearing a hearing aid ever again.

The 65-year-old music legend recently admitted to being "fairly deaf" and ditching his hearing aid because the device worked better than he anticipated.

"I tried wearing a hearing aid, but I heard more than I wanted to hear!" he told Sirius XM's Artists Confidential on Tuesday. "People talk a lot of s**t!"

NEWS: Sting and Cirque de Soleil to Perform at NBA All-Star Game

Aside from hearing trouble, the GRAMMY-winning musician discussed his upcoming 57th & 9th album, which is named after the daily route that he walks through New York City.

"Walking has always been important to me," said Sting. "The binary rhythm of walking invokes narrative. 57th & 9th became this taking-stock point."

The U.K. native, who has called the Big Apple home for several years, gets a lot of inspiration from the city that never sleeps.

"You could write a play just by listening to people's phone conversations on the street in New York," he joked. "The energy of New York gave [the album] an urgency."

Sting will perform 57th & 9th at the reopening of Paris' Bataclan Theater on Saturday. The concert marks the one-year anniversary since terrorists attacked the venue, killing nearly 100 people.

"In re-opening the Bataclan, we have two important tasks to reconcile," Sting said in a statement on his website announcing the performance. "First, to remember and honor those who lost their lives in the attack a year ago, and second to celebrate the life and the music that this historic theatre represents."

"In doing so," added Sting, "We hope to respect the memory as well as the life affirming spirit of those who fell. We shall not forget them."

MORE: Sting's Daughter Eliot Sumner Reveals Long-Term Relationship With Woman, Rejects Gender Labels

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CoverGirl Appoints First-Ever Hijab-Wearing Ambassador [New York Times]

Just weeks after appointing its first male ambassador, American cosmetics brand CoverGirl has named YouTube beauty guru Nura Afia as its first-ever hijab-wearing ambassador. The Colorado native, who has more than 200K subscribers on YouTube and 300K followers on Instagram, told The New York Times that she felt it was important to be a face for Muslim women in the U.S. who love beauty.

A video posted by COVERGIRL (@covergirl) on Nov 5, 2016 at 3:08pm PDT

Fashion Mags React to Election Results, Urge Women to Take Action on Health

In the wake of Donald Trump's victory at the polls, and his pledge to repeal Obamacare, which has made birth control and gynecological procedures more affordable, sites such as The Cut, Elle, Fashionista and Vogue pivoted from their regularly scheduled style stories on Wednesday to publish articles urging readers to take care of their women's health needs. Stories suggested getting a pap smear or an IUD as soon as possible, in the context of the new political climate and Trump's potential to appoint a conservative Supreme Court justice who could overturn Roe v. Wade. Man Repeller and Racked also put together comprehensive lists of organizations Clinton supporters can donate to now, including the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and Black Lives Matter. On a lighter note, Fashionista posted a gallery of baby animals in attempt to put a smile on the faces of women feeling the post-election blues.

Kendall Jenner Stars in La Perla Spring Campaign [Pret-a-Reporter Inbox]

Kendall Jenner, Liu Wen and Isabeli Fontana star in La Perla's new spring 2017 lingerie campaign, which was photographed by Steven Klein. The photographer chose three symbols - a burning bra, shattered glass and a constrictive corset - in order to illustrate the campaign's theme that women shouldn't suffer for the sake of beauty.

A photo posted by LA PERLA (@laperlalingerie) on Nov 9, 2016 at 3:34am PST

Vogue Pins Hopes on Kamala Harris [Vogue]

Earlier this year, Vogue magazine endorsed a candidate for president for the first time in its history. The glossy not-so-surprisingly threw its support behind first female Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, for whom editor-in-chief Anna Wintour relentlessly campaigned. On Wednesday, after Clinton's defeat, Vogue shined a light on another Democratic woman who is headed to D.C.: California attorney general Kamala Harris, who is succeeding Sen. Barbara Boxer. Vogue labeled Harris as "one to watch" in the years to come.
By Liz Hampton

HOUSTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Sunoco Logistics Partners said on Wednesday it is forming a joint venture with Exxon Mobil , giving the midstream company strategic assets near the Dakota Access line while expanding its West Texas footprint for the second time in less than two months.

The joint venture, called Permian Express Partners, will consist of assets owned by both companies, according to a statement. Sunoco Logistics will take a stake of 85 percent, while Exxon will control the remaining 15 percent.

Sunoco Logistics will contribute its Permian Express 1 and 2, Permian Longview and Louisiana Access pipelines to the joint venture. Exxon's contribution includes its Longview to Louisiana and Pegasus pipelines, Hawkings gathering system, an idle pipeline in southern Oklahoma and its Patoka, Illinois terminal.

The joint venture expands the footprint of Sunoco Logistics in West Texas, home to the prolific Permian Basin shale play. It comes less than two months after an announcement to buy Vitol's crude oil unit in the Permian for $760 million.

Oil companies in recent months have rushed to secure acreage and assets in the Permian Basin, considered "a sweet spot" for U.S. shale producers. This has driven up dealmaking among both exploration and production companies and midstream operators.

The access to Exxon's terminal gives Sunoco a "foothold" in Patoka, Illinois, an important oil hub in the Midwest that connects to the Dakota Access pipeline, said Dominic Haywood, an analyst at Energy Aspects in London.

Under the deal, Sunoco Logistics will operate the proposed Dakota Access pipeline, which has been delayed by regulatory issues and intense opposition by environmentalists and Native American groups. Construction was halted in September, but the election of Republican Donald Trump as U.S. president may give the project a boost, as he is expected to support energy development.

Part of Exxon's Patoka to Nederland, Texas, Pegasus pipeline, is currently shut. The line leaked about 5,000 barrels of oil in a residential neighborhood in Arkansas 2013, resulting in a $2.63 million fine for Exxon.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton; Editing by David Gregorio)
By Liz Hampton

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Sunoco Logistics Partners (SXL.N) said on Wednesday it is forming a joint venture with Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), giving the midstream company strategic assets near the Dakota Access line while expanding its West Texas footprint for the second time in less than two months.

The joint venture, called Permian Express Partners, will consist of assets owned by both companies, according to a statement. Sunoco Logistics will take a stake of 85 percent, while Exxon will control the remaining 15 percent.

Sunoco Logistics will contribute its Permian Express 1 and 2, Permian Longview and Louisiana Access pipelines to the joint venture. Exxon's contribution includes its Longview to Louisiana and Pegasus pipelines, Hawkings gathering system, an idle pipeline in southern Oklahoma and its Patoka, Illinois terminal.

The joint venture expands the footprint of Sunoco Logistics in West Texas, home to the prolific Permian Basin shale play. It comes less than two months after an announcement to buy Vitol's crude oil unit in the Permian for $760 million (612 million pounds).

Oil companies in recent months have rushed to secure acreage and assets in the Permian Basin, considered "a sweet spot" for U.S. shale producers. This has driven up dealmaking among both exploration and production companies and midstream operators.

The access to Exxon's terminal gives Sunoco a "foothold" in Patoka, Illinois, an important oil hub in the Midwest that connects to the Dakota Access pipeline, said Dominic Haywood, an analyst at Energy Aspects in London.

Under the deal, Sunoco Logistics will operate the proposed Dakota Access pipeline, which has been delayed by regulatory issues and intense opposition by environmentalists and Native American groups. Construction was halted in September, but the election of Republican Donald Trump as U.S. president may give the project a boost, as he is expected to support energy development.

Part of Exxon's Patoka to Nederland, Texas, Pegasus pipeline, is currently shut. The line leaked about 5,000 barrels of oil in a residential neighbourhood in Arkansas 2013, resulting in a $2.63 million fine for Exxon.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton; Editing by David Gregorio)
By Ananth Krishnan: China has asked India to "respect its concerns" as Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday begins a three-day visit to Japan that will deepen economic and security ties.

China had previously expressed concern on the deal for US-2 Shinmaywa amphibious aircraft expected to be agreed during the visit, and also cautioned both countries against making statements on the South China Sea dispute.

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WON'T COMMENT ON SPECULATIONS: LU KANG



Asked about the deal, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said he would not comment on "speculations".

ALSO READ | India to buy rescue aircraft from Japan for $1.5 billion



"Regarding what might be discussed by two leaders, we note that Prime Minister Modi will kick off his visit to Japan," he said.

"We have no problem with our neighbours developing normal relations. We hope that when they develop their relationships they can respect legitimate concerns of their neighbours and contribute to regional peace and stability."

A day before the PM's departure, State media warned Delhi against "seeking support" from Tokyo on censuring China on its moves in the South China Sea, responding to media reports which speculated India might up the ante in response to differences with China on its membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

"India won't benefit much by balancing China through Japan," said the hawkish Global Times in a commentary. "It will only lead to more mistrust between New Delhi and Beijing."

The commentary said doing so would reflect a "mistake in India's China policy". "As a non-claimant to the South China Sea and an outsider that has no traditional influence on the region, India has been paying keen attention to any activity... India, however, seems to have overestimated its leverage in the region. Although China's major rivals in the dispute, such as the US and Japan, have been trying to draw India into their camp, the country will be likely regarded as having a token role."

On reports that Singapore recently rebuffed India's request to mention the South China Sea in a joint statement following its Prime Minister's recent visit, the commentary, by Liu Zhun, said that "India should realise that the South China Sea disputes have passed the pinnacle of tensions" referring to the recent rapprochement between China and the Philippines under new leader Rodrigo Duterte.

"India's proposal to make new waves in the South China Sea first came to Singapore last month, but Singapore, a master of the rebalancing strategy, snubbed it," said the commentary. "The rejection shows India lacks legitimacy and leadership in making new waves in the South China Sea. India should beware of the possibility that by becoming embroiled in the disputes, it might end up being a pawn of the US and suffer great losses, especially in terms of business and trade, from China," it added.

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The Global Times said India and China should "put more efforts into resolving problems like the imbalance of their trade ties".

--- ENDS ---
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canadian synthetic crude differentials tested recent lows on Thursday as a result of healthy supply from northern Alberta's oil sands. Light synthetic crude from the oil sands for December delivery last traded at $2.10 per barrel below the West Texas Intermediate benchmark, according to Shorcan Energy brokers, deepening from a discount of $1.85 per barrel below WTI on Wednesday. Synthetic crude hit a 14-month low of $2.20 per barrel below WTI on Oct. 31, according to Reuters data, amid thin trading volumes in the illiquid month-end period. Prices have been under pressure this month as Canadian Natural Resource Ltd's 45,000 barrel per day Horizon expansion project ramped up synthetic crude output. Last week the company said Horizon is currently producing 175,000 bpd and would "imminently" meet its targeted production rate of more than 182,000 bpd. Output from the Syncrude oil sands project, majority-owned by Suncor Energy , has also been strong since it returned from wildfire-related outages earlier in the year. Western Canada Select heavy blend crude for December delivery last traded at $15.30 per barrel below the West Texas Intermediate benchmark, according to Shorcan Energy brokers, weakening from Wednesday's settle of $15.25 per barrel below WTI. (Reporting by Nia Williams; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Mazraat Khaled (Syria) (AFP) - Headed for the front line near Syria's Raqa, 23-year-old Kurdish fighter Kaziwar has just one thought on her mind: to make her jihadist foes pay for their treatment of women.

"Our taking part in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) is revenge for the women who were kidnapped in Sinjar (in Iraq) and sold (as sex slaves) in markets," said the brown-haired woman riding a four-wheel-drive.

The YPJ has been fighting alongside male comrades in an offensive launched last Saturday to recapture the city of Raqa which the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group has made its de facto capital.

Kaziwar, who was clad in trainers and a tracksuit over military fatigues because of the cold, took up arms five years ago and has since fought in several battles against Sunni Muslim extremists.

She lost her "sister-in-arms" in one such confrontation and has since kept Bahareen Jia's picture attached to the vehicle's rear-view mirror wherever she goes.

Hundreds of Kurdish women are taking part in a showdown with the jihadists imposing a reign of terror over territories they seized in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, where IS has since 2014 enslaved women of the minority Yazidi community.

According to UN experts, around 3,200 Yazidis are still being held by IS, the majority of them in Syria.

The young woman who goes by the nom-de-guerre of Kaziwar drove into Mazraat Khaled, a village one kilometre (less than a mile) from the front line between IS and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.

On the top floor of a building perched on a hill and overlooking a river, she reported to a local commander, Rojda Felat, 38, in the village of Mazraat Khaled, around 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Raqa.

As the two women went over battle plans, shells crashed down nearby and warplanes of the US-led coalition struck jihadist positions from where the firing originated, sending up black plumes of smoke.

Story continues

- 'Haram' to be killed by woman -

IS fighters "feel shame at the idea of being killed by a woman, something which they regard as 'haram'", or forbidden under Islam, Kaziwar said with scorn in her voice.

"When they hear our voices, they get very scared, whereas we at the front, we break out into 'youyous' (ululate) every time we advance," she said.

Rojda, wearing a black-and-white keffiyeh Arab headscarf and with the yellow badge of the YPJ on the left shoulder of her uniform, used two walkie-talkies to send out orders to the fighters in the field.

Pickups mounted with Dushkas, Russian-made heavy machineguns, were parked outside, as men and women fighters took a respite from the battle on the ground floor of the building used as a command post.

Rojda gave orders for villagers who had fled to Mazraat Khaled from nearby Al-Heisha to be escorted to a safe area away from the shelling.

It was in IS-held Al-Heisha that 20 civilians were killed and 32 wounded on Tuesday night in an air strike by the international coalition, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Rojda said the YPJ's mission is straightforward.

"We're fighting to keep our mothers and sisters safe. Our victories are making history," said the commander clad in a navy-blue parka.

"Often, in military matters, people look down on women with condescension, claiming we're too delicate, that we wouldn't dare carry a knife or a gun," she said.

"But you can see for yourself that in the YPJ we can operate a dushka, we know how to use mortars and we can conduct demining operations," said Rojda, flashing a smile.

Eating a sandwich, Rojda joined a group of women fighters, their Kalashnikov assault rifles leaning against the wall, hunkered down on the ground for a chat on how the battle is going or just to share a laugh.

Shireen, a 25-year-old from Ras al-Ain on the border with Turkey, scanned the battlefront with a pair of binoculars.

"As a Kurdish woman in the YPJ, it gives me great pleasure to take part in this campaign to defeat those mercenaries," she said, before mocking the fear that her unit inspires.

"Our voice frightens them. They're scared a woman will kill them. For them, women should be slaves to men," said Shireen.

"It drives me crazy when I see women wearing the niqab (Islamic face veil), and I get so happy when I see them taking it off," when they are no longer under IS rule, said Shireen, herself wearing a scarf embroidered with multicoloured flowers.
From ELLE

It was the first thing I saw when I logged onto Facebook this morning, looking for who knows what kind of solace. My friend's status, a single word: "Nausea."

She, like me, is the mother of a toddler. She, like so many of us, woke up today literally sick to her stomach about how to move through a day in which the chyron on the TV screen says "Donald Trump Elected President"-all casual, same font as ever, like it's just a normal news story. I don't know what I was expecting-a skull emoji, maybe?

When it comes to what parents of Trump opponents are feeling today, no one can match Van Jones's heartfelt summation, which I saw people posting again and again on social media before Hillary Clinton even conceded last night. (Jesus Christ, did I really just write the words "Hillary Clinton conceded?" It's still not real.)

"You tell your kids, don't be a bully," Jones said softly as the rest of the CNN panel blinked at him. "You tell your kids, don't be a bigot you have people putting children to bed tonight, and they're afraid of breakfast."

I was definitely afraid of breakfast. My two-year-old was asleep; earlier that day, we had voted together. I was so proud of him for standing in line like a good boy; I let him push the button. In my head, I was already telling an older version of him the story of us sharing this historic moment. Before he went to bed, I taught him to say "Madam President." This morning, I'm glad he's not quite old enough to follow up and ask what happened. It is the smallest thing I am mourning today: that selfish feeling that I was cheated out of history, that I wanted me and my little kid and our buttons to be part of this story of the first female president.

Because there are far bigger issues afoot now. Really, as a parent, what do you do today? I want to buy into the evolved mindset, the various "no leaving America" and "work to do" and "fight for love" sentiments. But I'm still angry. I'm not ready to come together. I'm so angry to know, unequivocally, that half the people in this country signed off on bigotry and cruelty last night, and that there is no way to prevent my children from interacting with those people as they grow up here. When you're staring down the barrel of your kids' formative years coinciding with a Trump presidency, it's hard not to flip half your Facebook friends the finger and move out of the country. Let fighting for love be somebody else's problem. I've had real estate listings for a cute Canadian seaside town bookmarked since the primaries. I can easily envision my boys running around on the grassy plains. Option one is sticking around to battle Trump vibes for the next four or eight years. Option two is your children growing up safe and sympathetic within view of a Canadian lighthouse. It seems an easy choice.

Story continues

I am not the parent of a daughter, lying awake wondering how to introduce her to a president I wouldn't trust alone in a room with her.

But it's not my children I'll stay for. I'm raising two little white men in the making; outside of the possibility that Trump will temper-tantrum us into nuclear war, my fears for them concern the shaping of their minds and souls. I am not the parent of a daughter, lying awake wondering how to introduce her to a president I wouldn't trust alone in a room with her. I am not a parent of Latino children, lying awake wondering whether my kids will show up to school tomorrow and find it scrawled with, "BUILD THE WALL HIGHER." I am not a parent of Muslim children, lying awake wondering whether some kid will innocently ask my kid one day what he's doing here-isn't there a ban? I am not a parent of black children, lying awake wondering whether a child of mine will someday be gunned down by a person who has hungrily internalized Trump's veiled call to action: "Law and order! Law and order!"

No, I am the parent of two white children. And while I always would have made tolerance a priority, now it is urgent. If I fail them in every other way, I will make sure they know their place in this conversation. It is a place of privilege. It is a place of watchfulness. It will be their responsibility to speak up for the people president-elect Trump speaks down to. Love has its own law and order, too. I intend my children to be part of it.

I am not a parent of Muslim children, lying awake wondering whether some kid will innocently ask my kid one day what he's doing here-isn't there a ban?

That means, I realize, that they may grow up with a more militant mother than they would have if, say, Mitt Romney was displacing Barack Obama in January. I will not politely laugh political differences off in the car pickup line. I will embarrass parents and children alike if they make racist jokes in front of my kids. If you voted for Trump, be warned: you signed up for this.

When I was a child myself, reading about some atrocity of human hate or apathy, I would think to myself, "Oh no, not me. I'd never be like that, and I'd never let my children be like that. I'd make them different."

Turns out, I'm going to get my chance.

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LONDON (Reuters) - Tata Steel UK is looking at closing its defined benefit pension scheme to future accruals and move members onto a defined contribution pension instead, a union source said on Wednesday. Britain's largest steelmaker is seeking a way to lessen the British Steel Pensions Scheme's deficit, which is one of the main stumbling blocks in talks to merge Tata Steel's European and UK assets with Germany's Thyssenkrupp . "The proposal was put to us two weeks ago. They are proposing everybody stops paying into it, that includes Tata and the members," said the source, adding that if the scheme was closed the deficit would effectively be wiped out, although there would still be obligations to existing pensioners. BSPS trustees, who said last month the deficit had shrunk to around 50 million pounds from around 700 million pounds earlier this year, declined to comment on the plans. The source said Tata is proposing to move members onto a defined contribution scheme, in which members build up a pension pot which they can use at retirement. Defined benefit schemes typically offer higher payments to employees than defined contribution schemes. "Tata Steel UK continues to be in active dialogue with all relevant stakeholders to ... find a solution to ... the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) and the risks this brings to the future of the Tata Steel UK business," a company spokesman said. Stephen Kinnock, the member of parliament for Aberavon in Wales, which is part of the Port Talbot area where Tata's largest steelworks is based, said: "It is an absolute disgrace if these reports are true. For this news to leak out in the manner that it has threatens to fracture the trust upon which negotiations have been based." Kinnock was responding to an earlier report in the Financial Times flagging the proposed pensions move. He added that in closing the scheme, Tata was trying to avoid paying the current deficit by "exploiting a technicality". However, Martin Hunter, pensions consultant at Punter Southall, said "closing the scheme will not be a panacea, as it is the historic liabilities which have already been built up which are the key obstacle to a deal". (Reporting by Maytaal Angel and Carolyn Cohn; Editing by Alexander Smith)
elon musk

Tesla is defending its use of the Autopilot name in Germany with the results of a new survey, despite receiving criticism from Germany's transport agency.

Tesla wrote in a blog post that it issued a third-party survey to Tesla owners in Germany about their understanding of Autopilot in response to criticism from Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, Germany's federal transport agency. The survey asked 675 Tesla owners about their use of Autopilot and whether they were aware they had to keep their hands on the wheel while it is in use.

As highlighted in the survey and the blog post, 98% of survey respondents said they are aware they have to maintain control of the Tesla when Autopilot is activated.

The survey was issued in response to an internal report by the German transport agency that called Tesla's Autopilot a "considerable traffic hazard" in early October.

The agency carried out a series of tests on Tesla cars and criticized it for not alerting drivers when they entered a situation Autopilot couldn't handle. It also alleged that Tesla's emergency braking system did not perform adequately.

The German agency wrote a letter to Tesla asking it to stop using the term Autopilot, calling it misleading, Reuters reported.

tesla enhanced autopilot video

Tesla's recent survey isn't the first time the automaker has defended its use of Autopilot.

Tesla wrote in a statement to Reuters that "we have always been clear with our customers that Autopilot is a drivers assistance system that requires the driver to pay attention at all times."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk also questioned the criticism on Twitter:

Tesla has been criticized for its use of Autopilot, with many alleging the name misleads buyers into assuming the car is self-driving and has more autonomous capabilities than it can currently handle.

Story continues

A Tesla driver got into an accident while Autopilot was activated in China this August. Tesla removed the Chinese term for self-driving from its Chinese website following that accident, Reuters reported. There were no injuries from the accident.

Tesla is still under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for a fatal accident that occurred while Autopilot was activated in May. A DVD player was found in the car, which means the driver may not have had proper control of the Tesla while it was in Autopilot at the time of the accident.

Tesla issued an over-the-air update for Autopilot that Musk said could have prevented the fatal accident in September.

Musk announced in October that Tesla cars currently in production  which includes the Model S, Model X, and future Model 3  are being built with new hardware that improves Autopilot and will enable them to be fully driverless, pending further software validation and regulatory approval.

NOW WATCH: Tesla cars just got a whole lot better  heres whats changing





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Just call it Sneaker Heaven. Stadium Goods is the latest consignment sneaker store to cash in on the $1.2 billion dollar-plus sneaker resale market, with more than 30,000 of the coolest, rarest kicks on the planet all for saleif the price is right.

The 5,5000-square-foot store in New York Citys Soho neighborhood is looking to make its mark on the growing sneakerhead culture and steal some business away from Flight Club, the citys other big consignment sneaker re-seller.

After opening its doors just over a year ago, the co-founder of Stadium Goods, Yu-Ming Wu, says business is booming. In the video above, Wu gives me a tour of the store and explains how its steady stream of suppliers keeps them well stocked.

Consignors bring their dead stock (never worn) sneakers to Stadium Goods, and the store takes a 20% cut on the final sale price. For that 20%, Stadium Goods takes professional photos of the sneakers, stores them and makes them available in-store and online.

In addition to its physical store, it also runs stadiumgoods.com, and has partnered with Ebay, Amazon, and Chinas Alibaba.

Stadium Goods is the only consignment sneaker seller currently featured on Alibaba. On November 11th, it took part in its very first Singles Day, an online shopping extravaganza and one of the years biggest events in China.

This year, Alibaba said a record $17.7 billion changed hands over its platform on Singles Day, easily crushing last years record sales of $14.3 billion.

At the moment, Kanye Wests Adidas Yeezy Boost Moonrock 350s are Wus biggest seller. The sneakers retail for $200, but are going for between $900 and $2,300 on the resale market. Wu says he sells a minimum of five pairs a day.

If money is truly no object, you can be the proud owner of rapper Eminems limited-edition Air Jordan 4s for $23 thousand  currently the most expensive sneakers in the store.

The Eminem Shoe

Stadium Goods has quickly found a loyal and eclectic clientele willing to plunk down thousands for that special pair. From teenagers and baby boomers, to professional athletes Marshawn Lynch and Matt Harvey and celebs Chris Rock, Jonah Hill, and Justin Theroux, Stadium Goods is home to sneaker heads of all kinds.
Thousands of New Yorkers have taken to the streets to join the nationwide anti-Trump protests.

Chanting "Not my president!" and "Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Donald Trump has got to go, hey hey," New Yorkers marched from Union Square, holding signs and dressed in American flags, to their final destination - the president-elect's Trump Tower in Midtown. Many also shouted "F - Donald Trump!" and "F - the wall" as they headed toward Trump's main residence and campaign headquarters in Manhattan.

Facebook events for demonstrations in both Union Square and Columbus Circle were posted on Wednesday morning, with the group Socialist Alternative NYC sharing the start time of the rally at 6 p.m. in Union Square and the anti-racism group Answer Coalition posting about Columbus Circle.

More than 10,000 Facebook users responded that they would attend.

By 7 p.m., the droves of protesters moved from the sidewalk and into the streets, causing a traffic jam at the busy 23rd Street intersection with Broadway and Fifth Avenue. The light rain didn't deter the crowd, who grew louder and louder with their chants as they began to stop traffic. Bystanders stopped to film and take pictures of the protesters as they walked by. At the time, the protests appeared to be peaceful.

#NotMyPresident march moves from the sidewalks into the streets as thousands chant and march from Union Square up to Trump Tower in NYC pic.twitter.com/KfDTrbvE6K

- Jackie Strause (@jackiedstrause) November 10, 2016

"Build a movement to fight racism, sexism, and Islamophobia!" read the Socialist Alternative NYC Facebook invite, which listed the following issues: "No Border Wall! Stop the deportations of undocumented immigrants! - Black Lives Matter! Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline -- Green Jobs now! -- #NoDAPL. Fight sexism, rape culture, and all attacks on women! Tax the super rich like Trump! Fund healthcare for all! Make college free!"

Story continues

Read more: Trump Protesters Set Fires, Smash Glass in Oakland

The post continued, "The Democratic Party has proven they are incapable of stopping Trump. The Democratic Party has failed. This is the result of the Democratic Party leadership backing Hillary Clinton instead of Bernie Sanders. It is time to build a new party of the 99 percent."

The page encouraged smaller protests to contact them so they could link up throughout their march.

Watch a live feed of the protest below.

Read more: Donald Trump's Victory Sets Off Protests on Both Coasts

Getty Images
By PTI: From K J M Varma

Beijing, Nov 10 (PTI) A top Chinese security official was today elected to head the Interpol, in a move that fortifies Chinas global influence and could boost its anti-graft campaign in tracking fugitives who have fled the country.

Vice Minister for Public Security Meng Hongwei was elected President of the International Criminal Police Organisation, making him the first Chinese official to take the prestigious post.

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Meng took over from his predecessor Mireille Ballestrazzi of France at the closing ceremony of Interpols 85th General Assembly in Bali, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Hailings Mengs election, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters here that it showed China would like to shoulder more responsibility and contribute to the global law enforcement.

Besides boosting Chinas global influence, the move was expected to give a fillip to the anti-graft campaign launched by President Xi Jinping after he took over in 2012, helping Beijing in tracking down fugitives or suspects staying abroad.

More than a million officials have been punished under the crackdown. Chinese police have brought over 400 fugitives from at least 61 countries in a campaign called "fox hunt".

Official estimates say that the officials accused of corruption fled the country with more than USD 126 billion.

Mengs election also gives China another seat at a global organisation tasked with fighting transnational crimes.

In his speech, Meng promised to work together with all member-states of Interpol to build the international group into a stronger platform for global police cooperation.

He said he will promote a "more effective" global police cooperation, better support the capacity-building efforts of police in member-countries, with a view to building a safer world and a more efficient Interpol.

The Interpol President heads its Executive Committee and is elected by the General Assembly for a period of four years.

Mengs new charge will include chairing meetings of the committee which ensures the implementation of decisions made at the General Assembly.

Founded in 1914 and now headquartered in Lyon, France, Interpol is the second-largest international organisation after the United Nations with 190 members.

By establishing a global police communications system, the agency has played an important role in deepening international police cooperation to combat transnational criminal offences.

China became a member state of Interpol in September 1984.

The 86th General Assembly of Interpol is scheduled to be held in China in 2017, according to the report. PTI KJV ABH AKJ ABH

--- ENDS ---

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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The head of ThyssenKrupp's (TKAG.DE) Industrial Solutions business, Jens Wegmann, has stepped down after accepting a gift from a business partner.

"I realize that my conduct in my dealings with a sales partner was not in line with ThyssenKrupp's values and that I can no longer credibly drive the necessary changes at Industrial Solutions," Wegmann said in a statement on Thursday.

The unit's chief financial officer, Stefan Gesing, will assume Wegmann's duties on an acting basis, ThyssenKrupp said.

Wegmann had admitted accepting a golden bracelet for his wife from a Pakistani business partner.

(Reporting by Arno Schuetze; Editing by Mark Potter)
From ELLE

This morning, Senator Tim Kaine delivered a moving speech ahead of his running-mate Hillary Clinton's official concession. In it, he thanked Clinton and reaffirmed his faith in her saying, "it is so comforting even at a tough time to know that Hillary Clinton is somebody until her very last breath is going to be battling for the values that make this nation great and the values that we care so deeply about." Below, read his full speech:

My wife Anne and I are so proud of Hillary Clinton.

I'm proud of Hillary Clinton because she has been and is a great history maker in everything she has done, as a civil rights lawyer and first lady of Arkansas and first lady of this country and senator and secretary of state. She has made history in a nation that is good at so many things but that has made it uniquely difficult for a woman to be elected to federal office. She became the first major party nominee as a woman to be president and last night, won the popular vote of Americans. That is an amazing accomplishment. It is an amazing accomplishment.

I'm proud of Hillary Clinton because she has held fast to dreams. She was inspired at a young age to an epiphany that if families and children do well that's the best barometer for whether a society does well and in everything she's done, she's focused on that. We know she would have made history as a president in one sense but we never have had a president who has made their whole career about the empowerment of families and children and I was as excited about that in the oval office as I was excited to have my friend Hillary there and make history as the first woman president. I'm excited and proud of Hillary because she has built such a wonderful team.

There is a beautiful and kind of comical parable in the new testament about a vineyard owner that hires people to work and says I'm going to pay you this for a full day. Then he hires people at noon, I'm going to pay you the same thing for a half day. Then he hires people for one hour's work and I'm going to pay you the day. The people that started early in the day said we don't like this, you are treating everybody who came late just as well as you are treating us. I want to tell you something. Here's what I have come to know so well about Hillary. The team she has assembled over the years of people that are so deeply loyal to her because she's so deeply loyal to them, is inspiring but I have seen that same degree of loyalty and compassion and sensitivity extended to the most recent folks who have joined the team, the folks who came to the vineyard with just one hour to go. Her loyalty and compassion of Hillary and bill to people, if you are with you, you are with you and that's just something so remarkable. Finally, I'm proud of Hillary because she loves this country.

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Nobody, nobody had to wonder about Hillary Clinton whether she would accept an outcome of an election in our beautiful democracy. Nobody had to ask that question. Nobody had to doubt it. She knows our country for what it is. She knows the system that we have and its warts and blemishes. She's deeply in love with it and accepts it. She's been in battles before where if it didn't go her way, she accepted it but then woke up the next day and battled again for the dreams that she's held fast to. That love of country is something that I think is obvious to everybody, obvious to everyone.

I want to thank Hillary Clinton for asking Anne and I to join this wild ride. About a week before she asked if I would be her running mate, Anne and I went up to Westchester and sat down with Hillary, Bill, Chelsea and Mark and Charlotte and Aden for about three hours of conversation to try to determine whether we would be the right people to be on the ticket. And when we got in the car to head back to the airport after the three-hour discussion, I said to Anne, 'honey, I don't know whether we are going to be on this ticket or not but I do know this. We are going to remember that three hours for the rest of our life.' And now we will remember 105 days that we have had with this fantastic couple of public servants and all of you for the rest of our life. I will just say this. Hillary and I know well the wisdom and the words of William Faulkner. He said they killed us, but they ain't whooped us yet. They killed us. They killed us. But they ain't whooped us yet. Because we know that the work remains.

We know that the dreams of empowering families and children remain and in that work, that important work that we have to do as a nation, it is so comforting even at a tough time to know that Hillary Clinton is somebody until her very last breath is going to be battling for the values that make this nation great and the values that we care so deeply about. So now, please join me in welcoming Secretary HillaryClinton.

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Donald Trump, the U.S. president-elect, has never made a secret of the fact that he holds NATO, in its current form, in low regard. He has called NATO obsolete and suggested the adoption of a sort of pay to play system in which Americas commitment to its allies is measured against their commitment to defense spending, and Washington could even ultimately charge allies for any military action undertaken on their behalf.

Advocates for NATO will now have to go back to basics. They do not have to accept the validity of Trumps critiques of NATO, but they do have to accept their legitimacy. Americas continued leadership of this venerable institution depends on persuading the new president-elect that the alliance is good value for the money. There is a strong business case to be made in favor of preserving most  but, crucially, not all  aspects of NATO in its present form.

The case for NATO consists of four principle arguments. The first is a simple and pragmatic one: the non-U.S. NATO nations spend nearly $300 billion on defense. That amounts to a defense budget second only to the United States on its own. As a point of comparison, the Chinese spend somewhere around $150 billon (half of what the Europeans spend) and the Russians (whose defense budget is actually declining in the face of low oil prices and Western sanctions applied after their invasion of Ukraine) about $90 billion. Although the Europeans dont meet their self-mandated goal of 2 percent of GDP (averaging around 1.6 percent in the aggregate), they still buy an awful lot of hardware, train and deploy troops, and build new complex military systems  from satellites to warships to airborne surveillance systems.

A second benefit of the alliance is that for all the frustration we have with its cumbersome bureaucracy and decision-making process, the Europeans have generally been willing to fight alongside us for decades in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and on counterpiracy missions at sea. The U.S.-European military coalition has been the nucleus around which larger global coalitions (like the one opposing the so-called Islamic State today) have been formed. Although their contributions have been uneven (with the Brits, Dutch, Canadians, Estonians, and the French doing more fighting than others), all the nations have played a role alongside the United States in true combat operations.

Thirdly, Europes geographic position remains important. Unless the United States intends on becoming completely isolationist (a disastrous idea that even Trump hasnt endorsed), it needs to be forward deployed in European NATO territory. The old Cold War bases have evolved into the forward-operating stations of the 21st century and enable the U.S. military to project power into the near Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. Once we withdraw from those bases, they arent coming back. And although that might have a short-term financial benefit and afford a feel good moment, history suggests Americans would come to regret it, because the threats that they fail to confront at distance tend to eventually confront them at home.

Fourth and finally, the Europeans are technologically sophisticated and have well-developed capabilities in intelligence and cybersecurity. Although we could possibly tap those attributes with a series of bilateral arrangements, doing so in concert via the existing mechanisms of NATO is far more efficient and thorough. Using NATOs Special Operations Headquarters, its growing cybercenters (notably in Estonia), and its robust intelligence fusion centers is efficient and pragmatic.

Could the alliance do more to improve its value proposition in the eyes of a Trump administration? Absolutely.

It should more rapidly and forcefully push all the NATO nations to reach the 2 percent GDP goal. Today, the countries that reach that mark range from the United States to medium-sized countries like the United Kingdom and very small countries like Estonia. It should be the norm throughout the alliance. Although defense spending is rising somewhat on average, the new administration would be in its rights to push for more member states to join the trend. Forcing frequent and detailed assessments of defense spending by all the nations  perhaps by a NATO inspector general  could publicize and push laggards.

It would also make sense for NATO to place a greater emphasis on three key elements of combat power: cyber, special forces, and unmanned vehicles. There is a good deal of work underway in the alliance along these three lines, and the synergies between them could be profound. NATO could expand its fleet of unmanned aircraft, which is already in use monitoring the Mediterranean. Cyber and Special Operations Headquarters, exercises, and training should also be increased. All of this could be done at European expense.

Finally, NATO should reach out for other partners who can be formally included in operations on a regular basis  Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, Finland, Sweden, and Austria all come to mind. Formalizing agreements with these non-NATO but highly capable militaries would increase the value of the alliance. Using NATO as a forum for further constructing partnerships to deal with emergent 21st-century challenges  the so-called Islamic State, cyberattacks from Russia, tension in the Arctic  would increase the alliances relevancy.

Given the undercurrent of disdain from the Trump campaign, NATO needs to put its best foot forward before a skeptical and business-oriented new administration. Arguments about the importance of shared values like democracy, liberty, and all the rest will not resonate. Neither will historical and traditional pleading. Now is the time for NATO to improve its return on investment in the face of some tough questions ahead. It is a winnable case, but business as usual will likely lead to new business decisions in Washington, to the disadvantage of us all.

Photo credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Spider-Man: Homecoming star Tom Holland says his version of Peter Parker is unlike anything we've ever seen.

"You've seen the billionaire, the scientist, the soldier. Now it's time to see the kid," the 20-year-old actor explains in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "And every decision we make on set is based off how would a kid react in this situation."

EXCLUSIVE: Tom Holland Shows Off His 'Spider-Man' Wrist Flick

The Hollywood Reporter

"So every fight scene we have is designed in a way that's almost child-friendly, so he never actually punches anyone," he says. "It's all done kind of by accident. I think the biggest difference is his youth and innocence."

Holland, who is the third actor to take on the role of Peter Parker, debuted as Spider-Man this summer in Captain America: Civil War, and admits that he's been prepping for the role by studying Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man trilogy as well as Andrew Garfield's two films.

"I watched every single one years before I even got cast in this movie. And then we watched them all again and just picked little things that I thought was great and that I'd like to keep," says Holland.

RELATED: Zendaya Responds to 'Spider-Man' Casting Controversy: 'People Are Going to React Over Anything'

His co-star, Zendaya, also opened up about her new role in the film, which she says is not romantically linked to Peter Parker.

"My character is not romantic," she explains. "My character is like very dry, awkward, intellectual and because she's so smart, she just feels like she doesn't need to talk to people, like 'My brain is so far ahead of you that you're just not really on my level.' So she comes off very weird. But to me, she is very cool because she's deep. She's always thinking about something, always reading. I like that. And I also like that I don't really have to do anything for hair and makeup. I just get to walk in and walk out."

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Spider-Man: Homecoming hits theaters July 7, 2017.

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Tom Holland in Captain America: Civil War (Photo: Marvel)

By Aaron Couch, The Hollywood Reporter

Tom Holland is giving fans a hint of where the wall crawler will swing after 2017s Spider-Man: Homecoming.

In this weeks The Hollywood Reporter cover story, Holland says hes on board for three Spider-Man solo movies and three appearances as the web slinger in other Marvel Cinematic films. So far, hes already shot two of those films  this summers Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Related: Tom Holland Learned He Got His Spider-Man: Homecoming Role From a Marvel Instagram Post

They give you options and those could be exercised whenever. Like a cameo in Avengers, Holland says of Marvel. Im unclear as to which movies though. I do know I have three Spider-Man [appearances in other] movies and three solo movies contracted. But if you have another movie, Marvel is so good at working around it. Theyre very respectful of your life, really. They understand that you have to work on other movies, and they try and fix it up so you can work around each other.

Hollands introduction in the MCU was among the most well-received parts of Civil War, and fans are assuming Holland will appear in 2018s Avengers: Infinity War, but studio head Kevin Feige has remained coy about whether the web slinger will appear.

Related: Tom Holland Explains Why His Spider-Man Never Actually Punches Anyone

Theres more Spider-Man: Homecoming scoops in this weeks THR magazine  including Hollands costar Zendaya weighing in on the controversy surrounding her mystery character (shes not a romantic interest) and how Holland learned he was playing the iconic character.

Marvels and Sonys Spider-Man: Homecoming is directed by Jon Watts and opens July 7, 2017.

Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jon Watts on why Spider-Man: Homecoming is like a John Hughes movie:
Prague (AFP) - World number 10 Tomas Berdych said Thursday his 2016 season was over because of recurrent appendicitis, giving up his post of first alternate at next week's ATP Tour Finals.

"After discussion with doctors in Prague Hospital I was recommended to have a break for two weeks and then we will see what they gonna do with my appendix," Berdych tweeted.

"See you next year," added the Czech player.

The 30-year-old Berdych was hospitalised with appendicitis in Cincinnati in August and had to skip the US Open because of the illness which he cured with antibiotics.

Czech media said he might undergo surgery and quoted him as saying he would like that to happen as soon as possible so that he could start training for next season.

The ATP Tour Finals start in London on Sunday with Novak Djokovic facing Dominic Thiem in the opening rubber.
Washington (AFP) - A top aide to President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday refused to rule out prosecuting Democrat Hillary Clinton or investigating the foundation run by former president Bill Clinton.

Ex-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, a likely member of the incoming president's cabinet, told CNN that it was a "tough decision" on whether a special prosecutor should be appointed to look into possible illegal Clinton activities, as Trump threatened to do on the campaign trail.

"It's been a tradition in our politics to put things behind us. On the other hand you have to look at how bad was it?" he said.

"Equal administration of justice. It's one of our most important principles," he said.

Trump in August called for a special prosecutor -- an independent outsider -- to probe the financial dealings of the Clinton Foundation, claiming while on the campaign trail that the FBI and the Justice Department could not be trusted to impartially investigate the case.

Trump suggested that the foundation allowed Clinton to set up a "pay for play" scheme while she was the US secretary of state.

Speaking on Fox, the ex-mayor said "I don't think President Obama should pardon her" -- even though Clinton has not been convicted of any crime.

Giuliani was coy when asked if he'd accept if offered the office of the US attorney general.

"I certainly have the energy, and there's probably nobody that knows the Justice Department better than me," he told CNN.

In the early 1980s, under president Ronald Reagan, Giuliani had a senior position in the US Justice Department. He was later US attorney for the southern district of New York, where among other things he prosecuted cases against the mafia.

Giuliani was New York mayor from 1994-2001, leading the city in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks.

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By Howard Schneider CHARLOTTE, North Carolina - Donald Trump's promise to revive small town America faces a tough challenge in an economy that for decades has been wired to direct income and opportunities toward urban hubs and the better educated. Little in the president-elect's so far sketchy economic plans indicates the trend can be reversed any time soon, according to interviews with experts on income inequality and recent occupational trends. The manufacturing jobs Trump pledges to bring back have disappeared as much because of automation as the trade deals he has promised to rewrite, and that process will only continue. A promised infrastructure revamp would boost middle wage jobs but for only as long as the programs last, economists point out. During President Barack Obama's eight years in office incomes for the best off continued to diverge, despite nearly 10 million new jobs and recent strength in those paying middle-tier wages. On a pre-tax basis, the share of income to the top fifth of households increased from 50.4 percent to 51.4 percent between 2008 and 2015 at the expense of all the others, according to census estimates. (Graphic:http://tmsnrt.rs/2elimH2) Without the sort of tax and redistribution policies Republicans have traditionally opposed, Trump may struggle to make good on his promise to help those left behind in the global economy, economists who study inequality trends say. "We have 30 to 40 years to catch up on...Lots of money has gone to the top and to change that is going to be a long and slow process," said David Madland, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a think tank with close ties to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign. Trump campaigned promising to shake up a Washington establishment he argued was responsible for destroying middle class jobs with bad trade deals. The message hit home across rural America and mid-sized cities, where voters felt they missed out on the fruits of the seven-year economic recovery that big cities may have enjoyed. Charlotte has been growing fast as a financial hub that attracts college educated talent from around the country, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton did better there than Obama did in 2012, handily beating Trump by 137,000 votes. But in the state's textile and furniture belt just northwest from here, Trump's promise of economic renewal and anxieties of a shrinking white majority more than offset Clinton's urban victory, giving him 76 out of 100 North Carolina's counties. The Catawaba County region, one of the nation's hardest-hit by cheap imports from China, now has a more diverse economy and even the furniture industry has begun adding jobs. But many still live in poverty and rely on disability and social services for support. "The trade argument was as prominent as any. That is certainly the bet that the Trump campaign has made," said John Dinan, a political scientist at Wake Forest University. TAKING OUT OBAMACARE Trump has not highlighted income inequality the way Clinton did, but to help low-wage industries such as textiles or offer a "new deal" for blacks, he would need to tackle the income gap. Recent data show how hard it may be if Trump relies on economic growth alone: Despite a record jump in household income and a continued surge in middle wage jobs nationally, the effect on income inequality was "statistically insignificant" according to census estimates. Under Obama, after tax income for the bottom fifth of households did increase by about 18 percent, or $2,200, according to a recent Council of Economic Advisers study. But that was made possible by higher taxes on the wealthy, more benefits for the poor and, in large part, by an estimated $1,900 gain from health coverage extended under the Affordable Care Act. Trump has vowed to roll Obamacare back. Instead, Trump has proposed to strike better trade deals and offered a familiar Republican recipe - tax cuts for businesses meant to spur investment and jobs. He has been ambiguous about a possible increase in the federal minimum wage typically opposed by Republicans, but advocated by many economists as a way to help the disenfranchised workers Trump focused on in his campaign. Economists say that even if economic growth accelerates under Trump, it may not do much to counter the downward pressures on wages and middle income jobs from automation, technology and other longstanding trends. Brookings Institution senior fellow Isabel V. Sawhill said researchers on inequality agree on one point: it is hard to move the needle. "Even when you distribute all of the dividends from growth in a progressive fashion you dont change things very much," Sawhill said. "You shift things at the margin." (Correct paragraph 2 to remove extraneous word.) (Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by David Chance and Tomasz Janowski)
(Adds more from letter, no immediate NHTSA, EPA comment)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - A major auto trade group on Thursday urged President-elect Donald Trump's transition team to revise fuel efficiency mandates that could cost them billions of dollars and called for a full-scale review of the Obama administration's autonomous vehicle policies.

In an eight-page letter Thursday to Trump's transition team made public and reported earlier by Reuters, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which presents major automakers including General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Toyota Motor Corp, urged the incoming Trump White House to find "a pathway forward" on setting final fuel efficiency standards through 2025, calling on the next administration to "harmonize and adjust" the rules.

The letter also urges Trump to create a presidential advisory committee to "coordinate auto sector regulators" and said the panel could suggest a new approach to auto regulations.

Automakers told Trump's team in the letter "technology and change are swamping the regulatory capacity to manage our emerging reality. Reform is imperative."

Major automakers have raised concerns about the Obama administration's ambitious targets for cutting vehicle greenhouse gas emissions through 2025, arguing low gasoline prices and weak demand for electric vehicles may require significant revisions to the rules.

The automakers' letter urges the Trump administration to conduct a "comprehensive regulatory review" of all regulations and actions since Sept. 1, including the Obama administration's new guidance on self-driving vehicles.

In September, the Obama administration unveiled guidance asking automakers to voluntarily submit details of self-driving vehicle systems in a 15 point "safety assessment." The Obama administration said it was considering seeking the power to review and approve technology for self-driving cars before they hit the road.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must decide by April 2018 whether the 2022 through 2025 model year requirements for fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions are feasible or should be changed.

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Automakers in 2011 backed aggressive fuel rules to nearly double fuel efficiency by 2025, but only if the policy included a "mid-term review."

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly vowed to restore auto jobs. On Wednesday, GM said it would cut 2,000 jobs because of slowing demand for smaller cars.

Automakers have expressed concern that states may set their own self-driving rules that could make it difficult or impossible to roll out the technology.

The letter wants the Trump administration to harmonize fuel rules, warning automakers "may be in compliance with the EPA program, yet subject to fines in the NHTSA program... Potentially billions of dollars in fines under the NHTSA (fuel economy) program are anticipated."

The letter also seeks a "robust examination" of the combined impact of "uncoordinated regulatory oversight" by at least 10 federal and state agencies. It urges creation of a new timetable for regulators to respond to industry requests and seeks that regulators adopt a "whole car cost analysis" for new vehicle regulations.

The Trump transition team, NHTSA and the EPA did not immediately comment on the letter.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, Editing by Soyoung Kim and David Gregorio)
The currency ban virtually shocked Kerala, a consumer state. Most people could not believe when they listened to Prime Minister's address. After the dramatic announcement, Kerala started its frantic search for Rs 100 notes.

By Jeemon Jacob: The currency ban virtually shocked Kerala, a consumer state. Most people could not believe when they listened to Prime Minister's address. After the dramatic announcement, Kerala started its frantic search for Rs 100 notes.

On Tuesday by 9 pm, People lined up before ATMs withdrawing Rs.400 and long ques formed before petrol pumps to get rid off banned currency denomination. Wednesday witnessed chaos and shortage of hundred rupees and lesser denomination notes. Shops welcomed customers with a warning that they would not accept the banned denomination notes. Many people travelled in trains without tickets and Train Ticket examiners never bothered to check tickets.

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Only government hospitals accepted banned currency denomination from patients.

There was not much crowd before Beverage Corporation outlets that sell liquor. Sale of liquor was worst hit after demonetization drive. Kerala abstained from liquor due to lack of 100 rupees notes. "Only people who have 100 rupee notes could buy liquor. Sale of liquor in all shops dropped drastically. Normally we used to sell Rs 5 lakh worth liquor every day. Yesterday our sales dropped to Rs 1.5 lakh," Sudheesh Raghavan, billing clerk in BEVCO outlet in Thiruvananthapuram told India Today.

Sudden death for Rs500 and 1000 currency notes offered mega opportunity for private money changers in many parts of Kerala. They offered Rs.80,000 for Rs one lakh banned currency without bargain. Private money changers offered their services near BEVCO outlets, Jewellerry shops and hospitals. Many disappeared after special branch police started tracking their operation.

Land registration also hit by currency ban. Kerala recorded only 1199 land transactions on Wednesday. Malappuram recorded maximum land registration on November 9 with 215 deals. On November 2, state recorded 3084 land registrations.

Jewellery shops in Kerala too had a dry Wednesday as most of their customers could not purchase gold with lesser denomination currency notes. "We had lot of enquiries yesterday. But actual sale was only very few. We had sale turnover worth Rs 75 lakh to Rs one crore daily during marriage season. Yesterday we could sell only Rs. 30 lakh worth gold jewellery," a Jeweller in Thiruvananthapuram told India Today.

Modi's surgical strike on black money blotted out hawala operators in Kerala with a single strike. The state accounts for Rs 50,000 crore hawala or tube money operations annually.

"The decision of withdrawing higher value denomination currency notes will certainly bring in transparency in money market and nip hawala network in Kerala which is directly linked to Gulf. Hawala money is one form of black money in Kerala with criminal nexus. It's used by gold smugglers, drug syndicate and run with the support of mafia. New decision will also uproot fake currency operations," Jacob Punnoose, former Director General of Police told India Today. Punnoose earlier had submitted a report to government that the state has wide network of hawala operations when he was Intelligence Chief of Kerala police.

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Kasargod, Kozhikode, Malappuram and Thrissur are the districts which has wide havala networks running the parallel banking operations. The NRIs use Hawala network to send money home for a better transaction value from Gulf. "The hawala network operating in Kerala has political patronage and thrived in Kerala with the support of some shady police officials who are in the payrolls of hawala operators," alleged K. Surendran, General Secretary of BJP in Kerala.

But Finance Minister Thomas Isaac viewed the ban on currency as a political gimmick played by Prime Minister. Dr. Isaac wanted Prime Minister should initiate steps to bring back the black money hidden in foreign banks.

"Prime Minister is under the fallacy that black money is stored as loads of cash in sacks. This is absurd. The lion's share of black money is abroad. Even if 500 and 1000 notes are scrapped, the union government itself has opened ways for black money to reach Indian banks via Mauritius. Those who have black money here are depositing it in the form of gold or land. That black money cannot be just caught by scrapping notes," Dr. Isaac fb post said.

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Dr. Isaac may have his own reasons to criticise Prime Minister's decision and timing of announcement. But Aam Admi in Kerala are happy about the turn of events.

"Who is afraid of withdrawing high value currency. Not me. I've only accounted money. Black marketers, hawala operators, real estate dons, private financiers, corrupt politicians and officials and the rich who run self Financing colleges in Kerala. They have tons of black money. With the decision, at least pPrime Minister Narendra Modi made us equal for a day. The gap between haves and have notes was minimum yesterday. That's a great magic," Sali Ahmed, a newspaper vendor told India Today.

Also Read:

Operation Black Money: Here is the inside story of Modi's bold move

Rupee revamp: AIIMS exempts out-patient clinical charges below Rs 500

New Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes: All you need to know

What the FAQ just happened! All your questions about Rs 500-1000 notes answered

Rs 1000 note to return with more security features, new colour, says government



--- ENDS ---

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The just-concluded presidential campaigns casted trade in an unflattering spotlight. So what will happen under President-Elect Donald Trump? We have arrived a moment when President Barack Obama once hoped to have completed both Atlantic and Pacific trade deals, as well as a Bilateral Investment Treaty with China. It now appears he will conclude none of these.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has a fairly despondent take on trade prospects under Trump. He may be right. But the situation is not quite as novel as he suggests.

We have had a president-elect before who campaigned against the ill effects of trade, blocked completed trade agreements, stepped away from trade negotiations underway, promised withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement, urged much tougher enforcement actions, committed to name China immediately as a currency manipulator, and both threatened and implemented futile tariffs against China. Obama did all of this in 2008-2009.

Dan Griswold acknowledges the parallels, but draws a distinction. He argues that Obama didnt really believe what he was saying on trade and that the issue was not as central to his campaign as it was to Trumps. Perhaps. But here are three things to track as the new Trump administration forms.

1. The trade and economic team. To date, President-elect Trump has surrounded himself with a distinctly heterodox bunch of trade advisers (Dan Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, is less diplomatic). Reportedly, trade critic Dan DiMicco is leading the transition effort in this area. Commenting in August on what Trump would seek in a U.S. Trade Representative, adviser Peter Navarro said, I can assure you it will be the toughest, smartest SOB on trade that Mr. Trump can find. Thats the job description.

Yet there will be pressure from business and financial markets to take a more orthodox approach, and optimists may hope for greater input from Vice President-elect Mike Pence. The Financial Times quotes adviser Anthony Scaramucci, who said, When people see that there are real adults on the team, the markets will calm down. Pence is key.

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2. Learning curve. Obama, via his Treasury Secretary nominee, Tim Geithner, seemed to learn on inauguration day that there was little to be gained from naming China a currency manipulator. Ultimately, he never did.

For Trump, there are at least three areas in which his campaign trade stances diverged notably from reality. First, while China is currently manipulating its currency, it is propping it up. Were it to stop, the renminbi would depreciate, making Chinese goods even cheaper. This is probably not what he wants.

Second, while Trump was highly critical of trade agreements such as NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he never specified how he would improve them. That is likely to prove more difficult than he expects. Note, for example, that pre-NAFTA, U.S. average tariffs on Mexico were three percent. Mexican average tariffs on the United States were 15 percent.

Finally, on bringing trade dispute cases, particularly against China, the limiting factor does not tend to be the toughness and resolve of U.S. Trade Representative staff. It tends to be the willingness of U.S. business to back a case. Without business support, its hard to put a case together. But businesses are wary of being seen as publicly attacking China.

3. Bargaining: Congress and diplomacy. There is a serious difference of approach on trade between Speaker Paul Ryan and President-elect Trump. In the immediate aftermath of the election, both are speaking of unity. How will this work in practice? Will this be a compromise in which each gets some of what he wants? Will it be more lopsided? Or will it descend into discord?

Similarly, with foreign countries, Trump will discover that allies are useful and that our partners care a great deal about trade. This was why Obama revived George W. Bushs TPP proposal in 2009, when the president began his first round of late-year Asian diplomacy.

None of this is to predict an easy time for trade under Trump. There will be serious negative repercussions from the failure to fulfill Obama administration promises on the TPP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the China BIT. But that would have been true under a President Hillary Clinton as well. President-elect Trump managed to tone down his campaign rhetoric when it came to congratulating Clinton on the race she had run. It remains to be seen whether there will be any similar moderation in trade.

Photo credit: DREW ANGERER/Getty Images
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The finest way to close out the election mightve come during Stephen Coberts Showtime special on election night. His closing words really were needed and they helped put things back onto a track that you could see healing some of the divide 2016 has created. It was nice and he decided to follow it up by letting out a little bit of anger during the tail end of his follow-up Live show on CBS.

With a little help from Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, Colbert finds that his canine pal used Donald Trump as an indoor toilet. When Triumph said he was all over the cover of The New York Times, he wasnt lying. He apparently relieved himself all over poor Trumps face on the day of his greatest triumph. Expect to see Trump lock up the puppet at his new prison on some barge out in the Atlantic ocean. Thats where most of us people who bad mouthed the newly elected president will end up once those deportation squads really ramp things up.

I dont see myself making it that far. A ditch on the side of the road maybe, but not Super Prison 84. Thats reserved for like Triumph, Seth Meyers, and probably Chris Evans, complaining daily that hes not really Captain America.

The rest of the segment is just Triumph riffing on the election, making Colbert laugh a bit, and making sure everybody knows that it will be business as usual in this version of America. It smells like the old version so far!

(Via The Late Show)
Headquartered in San Diego, CA, TrovaGene Inc TROV, a developer of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) molecular diagnostics, reported loss of 34 cents per share in the third quarter of 2016, wider than the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2 cents. However, the loss is narrower than the year-ago loss of 37 cents.

The wider loss was a result of increasing operating expenses of $10.0 million, compared with $6.5 million recorded in the year-ago quarter. The upside in operating costs was chiefly a result of an increase in research & development (R&D) as well as clinical & commercial activities.

R&D expenses were on the higher side in the quarter, thanks to increased spending on the second generation urine collection, DNA preservation and the development of multi-gene panels. In fact, for the coming quarters, management predicts global distribution and a broader adoption of these platforms.

Meanwhile, revenues totaled $89 thousand as compared with $57 thousand in the year-ago quarter, reflecting growing traction of Trovera and Precision Cancer Monitoring (PCM) technology.

Trovagene Inc. - Earnings Surprise | FindTheBest

Publications in the Quarter

TrovaGene continues to present and publish clinical data along with study results, which confirm the effectiveness of its flagship platform Trovera in detecting cancerous mutation.

In the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, a report definedthe TROVERA platform as highly sensitive for the detectionnon-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) EGFR mutations in urine and plasma. Notably, Trovera is a highly exclusive non-invasive test in detecting EGFR T790M mutations in the urine and blood of patients with NSCLC.

The clinical utility of Trovera was also demonstrated in a presentation in the 3rd Precision Medicine Congress oral presentation and the IASLC 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

In the journal of Experimental Hematology & Oncology, a case report of Non-invasive urine testing of EGFR activating mutation and T790M resistance mutation in NSCLC was published.

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Apart from these noteworthy publications, the company got patented from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for detecting high-risk HPV infections by identifying mutations in the E1 gene of HPV in the urine. Notably, the patent has been entitled as "Method for Detection of High Risk Human Papillomavirus".

Collaborations

Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, the leading national organization providing support, resources and volunteer opportunities for people fighting cancer, has selected TrovaGene's Trovera test as a liquid biopsy provider for Precision Promise. In this regard, Precision Promise is the first precision medicine trial on a large scale basis, which exclusively focuses on issues of patients with pancreatic cancer (read more: Trovagene's Liquid Biopsy to Participate in Precision Promise).

TrovaGene also collaborated with the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center to conduct a multi-phased research program using Trovera KRAS ctDNA liquid biopsy test. The research program also makes use of Trovera to monitor patient response to pancreatic cancer therapy.

TROVAGENE INC Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

TROVAGENE INC Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | TROVAGENE INC Quote

A notable partnership was inked by TrovaGene with the University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center to demonstrate the use of ctDNA liquid biopsy testing and thus establish a standardized framework for liquid biopsy testing from urine.

Zacks Rank & Other Stocks to Consider

Currently, TrovaGene has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

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Well, Donald Trump did vow to rip up trade deals. It may be starting even before his inauguration.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today that he is willing to reopen NAFTA, noting that its important that we be open to talking about trade deals. And in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, David MacNaughton, Canadas ambassador to Washington, said, Were ready to come to the table.

As president, Trump will have executive authority to remove the United States from any trade deal. NAFTA has been in effect since January 1994  and Trump has railed against it almost as long, saying he would renegotiate it or withdraw from it altogether. Trump, who, over the course of the campaign, called NAFTA an absolute catastrophe and a total disaster, stated his opposition to it in 1993 because the Mexicans want it, and that doesnt sound good.

In 2015, U.S.-Canada trade came to about $660 billion, a two-way exchange that could be upended by a reopened NAFTA, though neither the Canadian government nor Trump has specified what, exactly, is up for discussion. But then, Canada has never been the controversial member of NAFTA. According to the Congressional Research Service, from 1993 to 2014, exports to Canada doubled; imports from Mexico, by comparison, jumped 251 percent. And its against Mexico, not Canada, that Trump has specifically threatened double-digit tariffs (in his presidential announcement speech, he said he would put a 35 percent tariff on automotive parts that came from a hypothetical factory in Mexico).

Still, renegotiating trade deals is not the same as tearing them up. And theres plenty of anti-trade feeling among Trump supporters (as there was among supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders). Half of the electorate in Michigan think trade is bad for jobs, and 47 percent of Ohio voters this trade is bad for workers. Time will tell if Trudeaus preemptive gesture will be enough to satisfy them that Trump has their back.

Photo credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Donald Trump arrived at the White House Thursday for his first meeting with President Barack Obama, a symbolic start to the transition of power to the nation's 45th president.

Obama was harshly critical of Trump throughout the campaign, blasting him as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, ly suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he'll wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

First lady Michelle Obama was meeting privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Donald Trump: "I very much look forward to dealing with the President in the future, including counsel" https://t.co/iYMqR1ADgM

- CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) November 10, 2016

Also on Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.

The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

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Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought."

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama - one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. He's pledged to repeal Obama's health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He's vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

It's unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He'll enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Read more: Hollywood Studios, Agencies in a Daze After Trump Win: "Many of Us Will Be Scared and Threatened"
Donald Trump

Donald Trump made a lot of promises during his campaign for president, but he's hinted at what his top initiatives would be once he assumes office.

Immigration was key to the Republican president-elect's campaign platform, and so was repealing and replacing the healthcare law known as Obamacare.

He has also come out strongly against the nuclear deal with Iran and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

We took a look at what Trump could accomplish quickly during his first days in the Oval Office.

Obamacare

The quickest way to nullify President Barack Obama's universal-healthcare policy is probably to defund it, something Congress could feasibly do right away.

"We're pretty confident that he's going to get off to a quick start, and he can take action on Obamacare right away if he wants to and can submit that," Lee Edwards, a fellow at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, told Business Insider. "From what we can tell, that's going to be high on his list."

The Heritage Foundation is working with Trump's White House transition team, and Edwards said Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, is likely to be a top priority for the president-elect.

Robert Shapiro, a political science professor at Columbia University, said the way to nullify Obamacare would be to defund it.

"They could pass a bill rescinding it. Period. Done deal," Shapiro said, adding, "They can do it in a way that cuts off funding."

Cynthia Cox, a health-policy expert at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told Business Insider earlier this week that because Republicans do not control a filibuster-proof majority in Congress, they will be able to use only budget-reconciliation measures to change the Affordable Care Act.

But Shapiro said there might be a way around that.

"If they're worried about Democrats filibustering it, they can enact what's called the 'nuclear option' and change the rules and eliminate the filibuster," he said.

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Under this option, Republicans would need only a simple majority, rather than a three-fifths majority, to end a Democratic filibuster.

Immigration

Overhauling immigration laws will be "a little more difficult to do right off the bat," Edwards said.

But there are some things Trump could move on quickly.

"The idea of secure borders, there's a bill right there in the House which calls for 700 miles of double-layered wire fencing, and that could get some immediate action," he said.

Trump has also said he would "immediately terminate" executive orders from Obama that protected 4 million immigrants living in the US without permission from deportation. Executive orders implemented by Obama are indeed reversible once a new president takes office.

Another popular pledge from Trump's campaign was building a wall  not just a fence  on the southern border of the US to prevent illegal immigration from Mexico. He has also insisted that Mexico will pay for the wall.

But it's unlikely that Trump will actually be able to make that happen, Shapiro said.

"Mexico is not paying for the wall," Shapiro said. "They may want to rethink that."

There's "absolutely no way" for the US to force Mexico to pay for the border wall short of threatening the country, he said.

"We can threaten to invade them," Shapiro said, adding sarcastically, "That would be a nice, smart thing to do."

Trump's administration could also threaten a halt to remittances (money transfers) sent from the US to Mexico, something Trump has proposed in the past.

"They could do something with regard to trying to control remittances from Mexicans working in the US, so that's the leverage they might have," Shapiro said.

But this plan could have an unintended side effect.

"They may want to think good and hard about that because when remittances go back, they go to families to try to support them so they don't try to immigrate to the United States," he said.

Iran deal

Trump has called the nuclear agreement with Iran "one of the worst deals" he has "ever seen negotiated," but he has been somewhat unclear on what exactly he would do about it.

Obama brokered the deal between a US-led group of world powers and Iran that provided guarantees of sanctions relief in exchange for the Middle Eastern country curtailing its nuclear program.

And while Trump has made clear that he's against the deal, he has also acknowledged that it would be difficult to rescind the deal. He's said that instead he might "police" Iran to make sure it upholds its end of the bargain.

But he has also suggested that he would rescind the deal, telling the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC that his "number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran."

State Department spokesman Mark Toner has said Trump could throw out the deal, noting that it is "valid only as long as all parties uphold it." In that case, Trump could reinstate US sanctions against Iran by executive order.

Still, it's unlikely that the deal would be nullified immediately.

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Analysts also speculate that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement championed by Obama that aims to slash tariffs and promote economic growth among 12 nations in the Pacific Rim, is dead in the water.

Obama had hoped to get the deal passed during the lame-duck session.

"The coffin is nearly closed on TPP," Nate Olson, the director of the Trade21 project at the Stimson Center, told Politico. "There's no viable action in the lame duck."

Trump once called the deal "a rape of our country."

Taxes

Trump will also most likely hope to figure out a tax plan during his early days in office.

"If they're going to cut taxes, they're probably going to want to figure out a more comprehensive tax plan," Shapiro said. "There is consensus about cutting taxes on businesses, there is a consensus on simplifying the tax code in a certain way."

Politico reported Thursday that Republican lawmakers were already discussing ways to cut taxes.

The Supreme Court

Another box Trump will probably want to check as soon as possible is nominating a Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia, who died in February. Obama nominated federal judge Merrick Garland to take Scalia's place, but because Republicans hold a majority in the Senate and the nomination happened during an election year, the Senate has refused to hold a confirmation hearing for Garland.

Even Senate Republicans who opposed Trump said Congress should wait until the new administration is in place to confirm a new justice.

Trump "will want to appoint the successor to Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, and there him and the Republican leadership see eye-to-eye," Shapiro said.

NOW WATCH: 'HOLD UP!': Watch Obama defend a Trump protester and scold the crowd at a Clinton rally





More From Business Insider


By Yeganeh Torbati and Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama's foreign policy legacy rests in part on a foundation of unilateral actions that his successor Donald Trump could reverse with the stroke of a pen. Due to take office on Jan. 20, Trump, the winner in Tuesday's election, campaigned at times to dismantle Obama's nuclear deal with Iran and to reimpose sanctions Obama eased on Cuba. Trump also disagreed with foreign policy decisions that included the way Obama has deployed troops abroad to combat Islamist militant groups. In his most notable foreign policy achievements, Obama, a Democrat, used executive authorities that offered a convenient legal path around a Republican-controlled Congress committed to blocking his agenda. The U.S. Constitution gives a president broad executive powers to enact foreign policy. Both Republican and Democratic presidents have sought to exercise those powers by issuing executive orders, presidential memoranda and what are called findings. "He (Obama) relied on executive authority to build a foreign policy legacy," said Thomas Wright, director of the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. "That is all vulnerable to countervailing executive authority by a Trump administration," Wright said. Obama had hoped to pass his legacy on to Democrat Hillary Clinton, his former secretary of state, but she lost the presidential election to Trump, a Republican businessman who has never held public office or served in the military. TRUMP PLANS UNCLEAR Often contradicting himself during the campaign, Trump made it difficult to know for sure what policies he would pursue. Major constraints include budget caps, laws he cannot reverse without Congress, and the pressure that will emerge to replace policies he chooses to abandon. Trump said in an October speech that he would "cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama" on his first day in office, without saying who would determine their constitutionality. A Trump spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday on his latest plans. EXECUTIVE ORDERS, ENACTED & RESCINDED Perhaps nowhere has Obama faced more congressional opposition than in his pursuit of the 2015 deal with Iran, which Republicans and some Democrats said put too few restrictions on Iran's nuclear program in return for too much sanctions relief. Trump has vowed to dismantle it, although his statements on the deal have been contradictory. A president may tighten and relax economic sanctions by executive order. "Anything enacted by executive order can be rescinded by executive order," said Zachary Goldman, a former U.S. Treasury official now at New York University. Obama drew enough support from Democrats to block a Republican-led resolution rejecting the Iran deal, achieving a political victory but falling short of a consensus. Trump will have the added advantage of working with a U.S. Senate and a House of Representatives controlled by fellow Republicans. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday he hoped Trump would "see how much he can undo the unilateral actions the president took all by himself, which would not require us." CUBA, DRONES Breaking with longstanding U.S. policy on another issue, Obama restored diplomatic ties with Cuba in 2015. But facing opposition in Congress to lifting a broad economic embargo, especially from Republicans, he used executive actions to ease some U.S. sanctions. Obama capped his Cuba efforts last month with a sweeping "presidential policy directive," which also is reversible and sets forth mandates for government engagement, people-to-people exchanges, and greater U.S. business ties. Trump has taken contradictory positions on whether he supports the embargo or not. Obama's aides said the easing of restrictions was aimed at securing enough benefits for U.S. businesses and travelers that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for any Republican president to reverse the opening to Cuba. Trump could roll back Obama's efforts to create greater transparency about drone strikes. Obama issued an executive order in July requiring annual disclosures about such strikes. MILITARY POWER As commander-in-chief, Trump will wield the power to mobilize the U.S. military on short notice and without first seeking approval from Congress. Obama deployed U.S. troops to Iraq, Syria and Libya to help fight the Islamic State militant group by relying on the authority Congress granted President George W. Bush to battle al Qaeda. That same authority would allow Trump to ramp up U.S. deployments in fights against Islamist militants if he chose to do so. One former U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president can approve covert action and needs only to brief relevant leaders in Congress once the operation is under way. Trump's powers, however, are limited. He pledged to expand the Army, grow the Marine Corps, boost the Navy from 276 to 350 ships and submarines, and raise the number of Air Force tactical aircraft from 1,100 to 1,200. For starters, that would require that Congress scrap government spending caps under the Budget Control Act. Trump's support for water-boarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, also would meet opposition. Congress last year passed legislation barring the use of waterboarding and other "extreme interrogation techniques" widely considered torture. Obama signed the measure into law last November. (Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Jonathan Landay and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Howard Goller)
Moneychangers set shop to cash in on confusion and desperation sparked by the discontinuation of Rs 500, 1000 currency notes across the country.

"The new notes will be difficult to imitate, making it easier to keep a check on it," a senior officer in Delhi Police said.

By Mail Today Bureau: As the government aims to check the flow of black money in markets by discontinuing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, illegal financial institutions cropped up overnight that have been accepting these notes in exchange of a hefty commission.

EXCHANGE RATES WITHIN 24 HOURS OF ANNOUNCEMENT



In Delhi, agents are ready to pay Rs 3.5 lakh in exchange of Rs 5 lakh ---they are accepting Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes for this 'favour'.

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READ | Banks to remain open this weekend, new Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes in ATMs from Friday



Sources in the business circles said that people are ready to offload a currency note of Rs 500 in return for Rs 400, and Rs 1,000 for Rs 850. On Wednesday, the rate in Rajasthan stood at Rs 900 for a Rs 1,000 note.



In Gujarat and Haryana agents are offering Rs 950 for Rs 1,000 note and Rs 450 for Rs 500 note. Exchange rate is lowest in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh where one will get Rs 750 for each Rs 1,000 note Sources claim that the commission is going to increase with each passing day. Mail Today visited the wholesale market of Chandni Chowk in Delhi which wore a deserted look on Wednesday as most of the traders here transact in cash.

READ| How scrapping 500, 1000 notes and bringing in 2000 notes will check black money: Congress



Most of the shops remained closed, but small traders exchanged Rs 1,000 note and gave Rs 850 in return. One such exchange agent revealed that these transactions are only for people dealing in amount less than Rs 10 lakh as fear of being under Income Tax scanner is a reality.

READ | Operation Black Money: Here is the inside story of Modi's bold move

"Even the black marketers are confused about routes to circulate their money. Clarity on the subject will come only after the banks start exchanging the notes. Some black marketers will try to encash on banking loopholes. Some illegal financers will try to circulate the money using lowincome group people who are out of the tax net. Accounts of many fake and inactive companies will be used to channelise the unaccounted money," said an expert, adding that the income tax department will keep a check on any dubious transaction.

NEW NOTES ARE GOOD NEWS



But they will be focused on high-value transactions. Experts claim that the government's decision has badly hit hawala channels, which were being extensively used to finance terror networks.

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The hawala operators would generally stash cash in currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination because these were easy to handle. Thousand and 500 rupee notes account for 85 per cent of the value of currency --- which is roughly Rs 17 lakh crore.

READ | New Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes: All you need to know

READ | What the FAQ just happened! All your questions about Rs 500-1000 notes answered

A large chunk of the black money will either find its way to bonfire or get caught in the taxman's net or turn out to be a mix of both. But the move has given a relief to policemen chasing counterfeit notes. "The new notes will be difficult to imitate, making it easier to keep a check on it," a senior officer in Delhi Police said.

--- ENDS ---
President-elect Donald Trump swooped into Washington, D.C., on Thursday for his first-ever visit to the White House since his historic election, huddling with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office for more than an hour and a half. The brash entrepreneur then headed off for meetings with leaders of the Republican majorities in Congress.

Obama and Trump struck a conciliatory pose in brief remarks after the meeting, their first face-to-face conversation after years of doing long-distance political battle. They presented a united, bipartisan front by refusing to answer questions from reporters.

Obama said he and Trump had an excellent and wide-ranging conversation about domestic policy and world affairs, and he urged Americans to rally behind their soon-to-be leader at a time when angry protesters have taken to the streets in several cities to reject Trumps election.

I believe that it is important for all of us  regardless of party, and regardless of political preferences  to now come together, work together and deal with the many challenges that we face, Obama said. I want to emphasize to you, Mr. President-elect, that we now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed. Because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.

Trump, sitting in the office he will soon redecorate, described the discussion as an opportunity for the two men to get to know each other and professed to have great respect for the sitting president. For years, Trump had spearheaded the birther movement seeking to discredit Obamas legitimacy as president.

President-elect Donald Trump meets with President Barack Obama. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

SLIDESHOW: Donald Trump meets with Obama at the White House >>>

We discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel, Trump said. Mr. President, it was a great honor meeting with you. And I look forward to meeting with you many, many more times in the future.

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Meanwhile, first lady Michelle Obama met in private with Melania Trump, who inherits the East Room come Jan. 20. And White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough led senior Trump advisers, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, around the grounds of the presidential mansion, and other top Obama aides met with their counterparts or potential successors. In front of the White Houses north fence, workers kept up the hammering and nailing required to build the presidential reviewing stand for the inauguration in barely two months.

After the meeting, Trump headed off to meet with Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Breaking with longstanding protocol, reporters were not permitted to view Trumps arrival at the White House. And the president-elect also traveled without a protective pool of reporters, who would typically follow his movements and keep Americans informed of his whereabouts and well-being in the event of a crisis.

_____

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Trump hugs a U.S. flag as he comes onstage to another rally with supporters in Tampa, Florida on October 24.

One of the United States' most important defense alliances may be unraveled or reoriented by President-elect Donald Trump after he takes office, based on a review of his campaign statements, in a shake-up that would affect the country's longtime role as a global police officer.

It's a position that aligns closely with that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose spokesman said on Thursday that Putin and Trump "set out the same main foreign policy principles, and that is incredible."

"It is phenomenal how close they are to one another when it comes to their conceptual approach to foreign policy," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in comments broadcast by Russian state TV's Channel One.

"And that is probably a good basis for our moderate optimism that they will at least be able to start a dialogue to start to clear out the Augean stables in our bilateral relations," he said.

Peskov's comments came after reports emerged Thursday morning that the Trump campaign had been in contact with the Kremlin before the election.

Trump has questioned the value of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization along the campaign trail. He has postulated that the US should not be obligated to come to the defense of its NATO allies if they "aren't paying their bills."

NATO has 28 member countries and serves, among other things, as a counterweight to Russia's ambitions in Eastern Europe. Several post-Soviet states, including Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, are NATO members.

Notably, President Barack Obama has also criticized some NATO members in the past for not paying their fair share, and many foreign policy experts have argued that member countries should be pressured by the US to contribute more to the organization's operating costs.

(According to NATO's website, "members contribute according to an agreed cost-share formula, based on gross national income.")

NATO

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But none has gone as far as to suggest, as Trump has, that the US disengage from the alliance completely because some of its members are not living up to various financial obligations.

As many experts say, the value of being allied with strategically positioned nations around the world  and being perceived as a global leader  far outweighs the financial losses that the US might incur from picking up some of the slack.

"Sooner or later, the mess created by a disengaged US will become a threat to the US itself, and the US will have to clean it up eventually to a much larger cost," Magnus Petersson, the head of the Centre for Transatlantic Studies at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, told NBC earlier this year.

'A solemn commitment'

Ian Bremmer, president of the political risk firm Eurasia Group, wrote in an article published Wednesday that a disengaged America and weakened NATO would lead to a strengthened Asian bloc capable of providing an alternative to "lower-tier allies" looking for protection.

Between May and July of this year, the Russians heightened their military posture throughout Europe and spurred talk of a renewed intervention in Ukraine.

The country stopped short of provoking an armed NATO response, but it warned Europe that it could find itself in Russia's "crosshairs" if NATO didn't back down from plans to conduct war games in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

U.S. Army soldiers guard as U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fighters are parked in the military air base in Siauliai, Lithuania, April 27, 2016. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

"The newer members of NATO  and especially the Baltics  have reason to be very concerned," Stephen Biddle, an adjunct senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of political science at George Washington University, told Business Insider on Wednesday.

"They're not rich enough or big enough to defend themselves against the Russians, and a Trump administration's willingness to help them is very unclear," he said.

It's more unclear given Trump's stated admiration for Putin, as well as his apparent desire to work more closely with Russia to fight terrorism once he takes office.

Putin has repeatedly characterized the US-led organization as an "aggressive" force whose aim is to isolate Russia from Europe  rhetoric that's grown more heated amid NATO's military exercises in the Baltic Sea. Russia has responded to those drills by transferring nuclear-capable missiles to Kaliningrad, which borders Poland and Lithuania.

Kaliningrad Russia Europe Baltics

From threats about pulling out of NATO to altering the GOP's policy on Ukraine  which has long called for arming Ukrainian soldiers against pro-Russian rebels  Trump's rhetoric has consistently aligned with a narrative that continues to overwhelm the collective Russian psyche: namely, that the US is overly meddlesome and "globalist."

US-Russia relations are now at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War, largely because of two major Russian interventions, in Crimea and in Syria, since 2014.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg congratulated Trump on his election victory in a statement on Wednesday. But he reminded the president-elect of the "solemn" and "unconditioned" commitment all NATO members have to the organization.

"NATO's security guarantee is a treaty commitment," said Stoltenberg, who cautioned over the summer that NATO's security depends on US security, and vice versa.

"All allies have made a solemn commitment to defend each other," he said. 'This is something absolutely unconditioned."

NOW WATCH: Trump now says he never met Putin  here's footage of when he said the opposite





More From Business Insider


As a political outsider who campaigned with venomous disdain for Washingtons national security establishment, Donald Trump appears likely to overhaul the nations military leadership, displace many of its top civilian advisers, and provoke turmoil inside the intelligence community.

If he keeps his campaign promises and secures the support of Republican lawmakers who will retain a majority next year in both houses on Capitol Hill, Trump will engineer a substantial increase in the defense budget to build more ships and planes, and enlarge the Army and the Marine Corps, fulfilling a long-held dream by those services and the contractors that support them.

Hes also said he wants to double down on the Obama administrations multi-billion dollar investment in weapons systems designed to defend against attacking missiles, though these systems havent worked well in tests to date. And hell accelerate Americas production of nuclear warheads, as well as the bombers, submarines, and ballistic missiles that carry them, despite worries among budget hawks that these agenda items are unaffordable in light of other pressing defense needs.

Trump has promised vaguely that he will pay for new military spending by conducting a full audit of the Pentagon, eliminating incorrect payments, reducing duplicative bureaucracy, collecting unpaid taxes, and ending unwanted and unauthorized federal programs. Weapons, he says, come in at costs that are so far above what they were supposed to be, because we dont have people that know what theyre doing. (The Pentagon has been trying for years, so far unsuccessfully, to bring its accounting systems up to modern standards.)

Its doubtful, though, that these proposed reforms will produce the billions of dollars in savings needed to fulfill the new presidents lofty ambitions. And while the Republican Partys platform has called for lifting a congressional cap on defense spending, the prospects are at best uncertain, since Democratic lawmakers have said they will go along only if the GOP agrees to commensurate increases in non-defense spending  which most Republicans still oppose. The Democrats will have the votes to filibuster new spending initiatives they dont like, although some Republicans have threatened to alter the filibuster rules.

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This story is part of Up in Arms. National security-related events, reports and findings that deserve more attention. Click here to read more stories in this series.

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Mass resignations follow any transfer of presidential power across party lines, but Trumps ascension to power  built in part on his Drain the Swamp campaign slogan  seems certain to provoke an exodus by those who have attached themselves to the Obama administrations big foreign policy goals. Among them: last years international global climate change agreement; the controversial U.N.-backed deal to obstruct Irans acquisition of a nuclear arsenal; and pursuit of peaceful settlement in the Middle East that encompasses an independent Palestinian state.

Each of these initiatives could be pushed into a trash bin by Trump, if he keeps his word. Trump has called global climate change  a scientifically recognized phenomenon  an unproven foreign conspiracy, and one of Trumps national security advisory council members is Sen. James Inhofe R-Ok., a well-known climate warming denier. (Other members include the current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Bob Corker, R-Tenn.; the chairman of the Senate strategic forces subcommittee, Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; former Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft, and former CIA director Jim Woolsey.) During the campaign, Trump called the Iran nuclear deal disastrous, but experts say its unclear whether he would scrap it outright. Trump likewise has said he plans to undo proscriptions on exceptionally brutal interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists, such as waterboarding  but it remains unclear how the CIA or the military would react if ordered to use such methods again.Trump's relations with top intelligence officials are already poor, due to his rejection of their consensus opinion that Russia organized the hacking of emails involving Democratic party officials and operatives.

Those running the U.S. military campaign against ISIS are doubtless even less clear about what might lie ahead. Trump has promised a decisive military defeat of ISIS, but never detailed how he would do it differently than the Obama administration. Instead, hes assured audiences that he understands the task better than the generals in charge.

U.S. allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East might be wise to start reviewing their out-year military spending plans, because Trump has also promised to short-circuit U.S. financial support for NATO, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea unless each starts ponying up more funds to pay for associated military costs. The U.S. share of total defense spending in Europe by all NATO members, for example, exceeds 70 percent, although some of this spending is for forces that can be used elsewhere in the world. Washingtons share of NATOs direct budget (for its operations and staff) is far less  roughly 22 percent  but still larger than anyone else's.

At the third debate, Trump said, Were defending other countries. We are spending a fortune doing it. They have the bargain of the centuryWe have to renegotiate those agreements. He went on: South Korea, these are very rich, powerful countries. Saudi Arabia, nothing but money. We protect Saudi Arabia. Why arent they paying? Actually, they do pay billions of dollars to reimburse some U.S. costs. But senior U.S. officials, including Obama himself, have repeatedly expressed identical frustrations; in April, Obama colorfully called such countries free riders, virtually echoing Trump.

After Im elected president, Trump said in an April speech, I willcall for a summit with our NATO allies and a separate summit with our Asian allies. In these summits, we will not only discuss a rebalancing of financial commitments, butdiscuss how we can upgrade NATOs outdated mission and structure, grown out of the Cold War to confront our shared challenges, including migration and Islamic terrorism.

Mexico and China should similarly ready themselves for tough new negotiations over trade and immigration, two of Trumps signature issues. Mexicos president said during the campaign that his country would not finance completion of a nearly 2,000 mile long wall to halt immigration across the southern U.S. border, despite Trumps insistence that it could be forced to do so. Trump has also said he wants to renegotiate the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which paved the way for smoother trade with Mexico and Canada.

Will America be less safe in a Trump presidency? The Obama administrations nuclear arms deal with the Russians, the Republican partys platform says, has flimsy verification provisions and wrongly allows Russia to build up its nuclear arsenal while reducing ours. He has promised to modernize U.S. nuclear warheads  but it remains unclear whether or how his plan might differ from a modernization program already being aggressively pursued by the Obama administration.

Hillary Clinton accused Trump of being cavalier about a nuclear conflict, saying he had told Asian nations engaged in a nuclear competition, in effect, to go ahead, enjoy yourselves, folks. In March, Trump said maybe its not so badif Japan had that nuclear threat. He also said this is going to happen whether we like it or not, and that other countries such as South Korea and Saudi Arabia might also get the bomb unless the world gets rid of them entirely. But its unclear if this was a prediction or an endorsement, particularly when viewed alongside another remark by Trump last January that nuclear proliferation  including the seizure of a warhead by a madman  is the single biggest problem that our country faces right now.

Much speculation about Trumps foreign policy has focused on how he will interact with Vladimir Putin. Trump has visited Moscow, where he tried to do some business, but he admitted during the second debate that I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia. From a distance, Trump has admired Putin for being very much of a leader with substantial popularity. But Trump has an exaggerated sense of Putins return admiration, believing that Putin called him brilliant and a genius; actually Putin called him talented and used a Russian word correctly translated as colorful or bold rather than brilliant.

If we got along well, that would be good, Trump said of Putin at the third debate. He also has said, with an odd casualness, that I dont happen to like the system in Russia, but he hasnt acknowledged the systematic stifling of dissent under Putin, which led to street protests by tens of thousands of citizens between 2011 and 2013 (Putin has alleged that Clinton, while at the State Department, helped finance and stoke those demonstrations, giving him ample motive to try to subvert her campaign).

Some Trump confidants and campaign contributors do have ties to Moscow. A Russian-American businessman, Simon Grigorievich Kukes, who was installed as the head of the Yukos oil empire after Putins government ousted one of his critics, contributed more than $150,000 to Trumps campaign and a related joint fundraising committee, according to OpenSecrets.org, a nonpartisan group. A businessman who Trump identified earlier this year as a foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, has worked with state-owned Russian energy companies subsequently punished by U.S. sanctions  which Trump might want to lift. Moreover, Trumps campaign manager for four months this year, Paul Manaforta longtime consultant to dictators and others of ill repute on the international stage  resigned from his managerial post shortly after new Ukrainian documents surfaced that linked him to the political party of a Putin ally.

Two years ago, Trump said we should definitely do sanctions in response to Russias takeover of Crimea by military force, rather than annexation through peaceful political means. (The Russian militarys occupation preceded a pro-Russian vote by Crimeas population, representing a classic rigged election of the type Trump warned about at home.) But later, breaking with a broad consensus in Washington and allied European capitals, Trump said neutrally that the people of Crimeawould rather be with Russia than where they were. And you have to look at that. He said his administration will be looking at lifting anti-Russian sanctions (which are currently slated to be renewed next month).

In short, the message Trumps voters have now sent to the rest of the world is Brace yourselves. Its going to be quite a ride.

This article was co-published with PRI/Globalpost.

This story is part of Up in Arms. National security-related events, reports and findings that deserve more attention. 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.
For a long time, our elites have been in the habit of denying difficult realities. Thats how bubbles form.  Peter Thiel, venture capitalist and entrepreneur

Completely out of the blue, 500 Startups founder Dave McClure threw a full on, expletive-laden temper tantrum on stage at the annual Web Summit conference in Lisbon, yesterday. I counted eight f-bombs among other colorful profanities during his minute and a half rant.

What had the Silicon Valley angel investor so upset? Donald Trump winning the election. When the moderator tried to reel him in and get him back on topic, thats when McClure totally blew up, leaving the other onstage panelists sort of shell-shocked. Frankly, Ive never seen anyone behave so childishly and unprofessionally. Ever.

On the other hand, it is a little hard to take a guy in a Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat t-shirt seriously.

Sadly, McClure is far from alone. All day long Ive been watching one meltdown after another among tech elites from New York to San Francisco. Not only is it disappointing, its downright embarrassing to see respected leaders of the tech community devolve into something akin to an angry lynch mob because their candidate didnt win.

Most of the Tweets Ive seen are too vulgar to share, but here are a few I could get away with:

M.G. Siegler of GV, aka Google Ventures, didnt just go after Trump, but also those who voted for him, writing, I hate to break out hyperbole. But were f----ed. Not because of Trump necessarily. But the people who elected him 

Outspoken blogger Anil Dash tweeted, No matter what, we have to organize & stand up to Trump and fight for the marginalized. I am not afraid of that motherf---er. Defiant, to the last.

Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus made the obligatory reference to none other than the Fuehrer himself: "Is this what it felt like when people first realized hitler could actually take power?" I guess somebody had to do it.

And before the polls closed on election day, Shervin Pishevar, executive chairman of Hyperloop One, tweeted and pinned this to his Twitter page, If Trump wins I am announcing and funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation.

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To me, they all sound like a bunch of whiny, self-important narcissists vying for attention in their own little virtual world. More important, they do appear to be genuinely terrified of a phenomenon they dont understand. Im not just talking about Trump and his policies, but the 59 million Americans who voted for him. They have no idea whats happening or why. To them, it makes no sense at all. And therein lies the rub.

The problem is, the tech elite live inside an insulated bubble of their own making. As a result, theyre out of touch with the real world outside. Some of them recognize this, but instead of waking up from their utopian daydream to see whats really going on, they use it as an excuse for their own myopia and astounding lack of compassion for half the nation.

As Sprinklr CEO Ragy Thomas told Recode, Were biased by the container we have created around ourselves, he said. We've created this world that obviously shielded us from really being intimate with what's going on elsewhere. This exposes reality. This is eye-opening data for everyone.

Thomas isnt the only one who gets it. While all the tech and media bigwigs were focused on trying to stop the Trump movement, they never stopped to look around and see how much a big chunk of the country is hurting, said Kik CEO Ted Livingston. Leave it to a Canadian to figure that out.

Now lets try to reconcile that with the Valleys popular meme of diversity and inclusion.

On the one hand, they broadly accuse Trump and his basket of deplorables of being racist, misogynist and xenophobic. Meanwhile, they rail against legitimate opposing viewpoints, simply because they disagree. The irony is, theyre just too narrow-minded to see the hypocrisy of their position.

In all fairness, the tech industry does have a few leaders who actually understand how democracy works and behave like grownups, as opposed to cursing and stomping around onstage in front of thousands of people who paid to hear about technology, like McClure.

After the dust settled Wednesday morning, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff tweeted, "Congratulations, President Trump. This is what makes America great---our democracy. Now it's time for us to come together as one country."

And although he spent months attacking Trump, his policies, even how he hugged his children at the RNC, Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban tweeted, We all need to give President-Elect Trump a chance. Support the good. Lobby against what we disagree on, followed by, One Nation. Under God. Indivisible. With Liberty and Justice for All.

Amen to that.

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A Los Angeles woman told CNN that people have to die, following Donald Trumps upset over Hillary Clinton on election night to become the next president.

If we dont fight, who is going to fight for us? People had to die for your freedom where were at today. We cant just do rallies, we have to fight back, the protester said. There will be casualties on both sides. There will be, because people have to die to make a change in this world.

The Hispanic protester mentioned that shes nervous her family will get broken up because of Trump policies and yelled to impeach the next president, who hasnt been sworn into office yet.

Also Read: Nate Silver Explains How Close Hillary Clinton Was to Beating Donald Trump

CNN Tonight anchor Don Lemon immediately said his network does not condone violence following the remarks. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tweeted that the response is not cool and President Obama or Clinton should address it.

Trump shocked the world on Tuesday night by upsetting Clinton to win the election. He is scheduled to take office on Jan. 20, and will meet with President Obama in Washington D.C. on Thursday afternoon to discuss the transition.

Check out the video above.

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Anti-Trump Protest Erupts on a Los Angeles Street Corner (Photos)

Anti-Trump Protesters Take to the Streets in Cities Across the Country

Lady Gaga Protests President-Elect Outside of Trump Tower (Photo)
An old man died in Agra after he was told that the banks won't accept his Rs 1,000 notes as they were just scraps of paper.

By Siraj Qureshi: As the banks opened in Agra, rumours began spreading which created panic in the city. An old man, who had gone to the bank to exchange some Rs 1000 notes, fell ill due to the chaos and passed away by the time he reached home. People alleged the old man died due to the shock when he was told at the bank that his notes were now just scraps of paper.

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At Taj Mahal, many tourists were also turned away. A tourist couple threw their Rs 500 notes in the face of the booking clerk, when he refused to accept those notes from the couple for entry tickets. The notes, which were scattered around the ticket window, were picked up by beggars and children, who ran away immediately.

Agra Tourist Welfare Chamber Secretary, Vishal Sharma told India Today that Union Minister of State for Tourism and Heritage, Mahesh Sharma has assured that old currency will be acceptable at monuments and it was probably some miscommunication that such an incident took place.

With the high-value currency notes being demonetised by the Modi government, private schools in Agra also have begun demanding tuition fee for the next 5 months, if the payment is made in the old currency. Parents who are not ready to pay this amount are being given some time as relaxation to arrange money, with some schools even demanding late fee if the payment is made after November 10.

Also read: Revamp of currency has led to financial emergency-like situation, alleges Mayawati



A parent, who was standing in the queue to pay the school fee at a private school, told India Today that the school administration is only accepting old currency, if the entire fee till March 2017 is paid in full.



WHIMSICAL DECISION



Mohd Sharif Kale of the Congress told India Today that India is in a state of financial emergency following Modi's whimsical decision and the party will oppose it with all its might. He said that the people will punish prime Minister Narendra Modi for this in the upcoming Assembly elections and all the BJP candidates will lose their deposits.

Samajwadi Party leader Mohd Akbar Qureshi said hundreds of Indians have black money hoarded in the foreign banks. Modi should have brought that black money to India before launching an attack on the small savings of Indians. Now, people are being forced to leave their work and stand in long queues at banks for currency exchange and are living in fear that the income tax department could send notice to them, demanding to know the source of cash.

Also read: This is how RBI will dispose of 2,203 crore currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000

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New York (Reuters)  Republican Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential race puts a new rule on retirement advice in limbo, even after Wall Street's biggest wealth management firms have spent millions preparing for it, lawyers and analysts said this week.

The U.S. Department of Labor fiduciary rule, which is set to start taking effect in April, is meant to promote the best interests of retirement savers by eliminating conflicts of interest for brokers.

The financial services industry has tried to stop the rule in the courts, arguing that the Labor Department overreached and that the rule would result in high costs that will ultimately make small accounts unprofitable.

But a federal judge blocked one such lawsuit, and companies like Bank of America Corp's Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have already announced plans to cooperate with the rule.

$31 Billion To Comply

It could cost firms as much as $31 billion over the next decade to comply, according to Labor Department estimates.

On the campaign trail, Trump has said that "70 percent of regulations can go," and an adviser, Anthony Scaramucci, told Reuters the fiduciary rule "would likely be stopped."

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment on his plans for the rule.

A Trump presidency, coupled with Republican control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, have created uncertainty around a whole host of post-2008-2009 financial crisis measures, including the Dodd-Frank reform legislation.

Impact Assessment Delay

"They will do whatever they want to do," said attorney Jay Gould, who co-chairs the financial services practice at Winston & Strawn LLP. "Say goodbye to Dodd-Frank. Say goodbye to the fiduciary rule at DOL."

Congress and the White House can influence the rule in several ways, including by delaying the April start date with a request for another impact assessment, said Sean Tuffy, head of regulatory intelligence for Brown Brothers Harriman.

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"That's a typical trick to use to delay changes to be made," Tuffy said. "This puts the DOL rule in a state of limbo."

However, it will be hard for any politician to block a rule that has such moral appeal, said Michael Spellacy, PwC's head of global wealth management.

"We don't expect any material or significant changes because the core of the rule is about consumer protection, about the elimination of conflicts and about transparency," Spellacy said. "It's a difficult stretch of the imagination to think that Congress would cancel the rule."

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Permalink |  Copyright 2016 ETF.com. All rights reserved
Donald Trump was an unconventional candidate, but now that hes been elected president hes assembling a fairly conventional Cabinet of key economic advisers plucked right from the Republican mainstream, the Fox Business Network has learned.

People inside the Trump camp say the President-elect has signaled he wants to select billionaire financier Wilbur Ross as his Commerce Secretary, and continues to favor, as first reported by Fox Business, his campaign finance chief Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary.

Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund executive, remains the odds-on favorite to be Treasury, these people say. They denied a report from the business network CNBC that the campaign is actively considering JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon for the post.

A source close to Dimon inside JP Morgan also said Dimon, a long-time Democrat, has indicated that he isnt interested in a government position in either party and has no plans to leave the big bank. A spokesman for JP Morgan had no comment.

Ross, who made his fortune, estimated at $3 billion, specializing in distressed investments, was a senior adviser to Trump during his campaign. He is considered a top choice as a Commerce Secretary because of his close ties to the business community, which is essential for the job.

Even though Trump has waged war against Wall Street and the establishment donor base on the campaign trail, he has privately grown close to Mnuchin who used his contacts in the financial community to raise money against difficult odds.

Though heavily outspent by Clinton, Trump managed to wage an effective campaign thanks in part to Mnuchins ability to raise enough money to keep Trump competitive; albeit with a bare-bone ground game and far fewer attack ads than his ultimately vanquished Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Another mainstream business name likely to find a place in the Trump administration is former Bear Stearns economist David Malpass, a Trump economic adviser throughout the campaign cycle. During his long career in business and government, Malpass served in economic policy related posts in both the administrations of presidents Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. He is currently running an economic forecasting firm, Encima Global.

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A spokeswoman for Trump didnt return calls for comment. Ross, Mnuchin and Malpass also didnt return calls for comment.

People inside the Trump transition team say the list is fluid and Trump himself has been known to make last-minute decisions. Trump wavered on his selection of Governor Mike Pence (R-IN) for Vice President, and almost opted for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Still, the Trump short list of possible Cabinet choices reflects a group of people who the President-elect feels comfortable with inside the White House when he takes over. Other possible Cabinet choices include former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; Trump himself would like Giuliani to be his Attorney General or Homeland Security chief, while Giuliani has indicated he would also like to be considered for Secretary of State or Defense.

Giuliani didnt return a call for comment.

Sources lay low odds, at least for now, that Giuliani will get either post. The Defense post is likely to go to Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and the top Secretary of State contenders are John Bolton, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and Senator Robert Corker (R-TN), who is also chairman on the Senator Committee on Foreign Relations.

Sessions and Bolton couldnt be reached for comment.

The top choices for Trumps Chief of Staff include his campaign chief Steve Bannon, a media executive who left his leadership post at Breitbart.com to join the campaign, and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus. Neither Bannon nor Priebus returned calls for comment.

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska Governor and running mate of Senator John McCain (R-AZ) during his unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign, is likely to receive some role in a Trump administration as an undersecretary, possibly in the Department of the Interior. Richard Grenell, a former adviser to Bolton, is now among the top choices to get his old bosss job as UN Ambassador.

Grenell had no comment and Palin couldnt be reached for comment.

One large unknown: Whether Christie will have any Cabinet position that needs a Senate confirmation following the conviction of two of his top aides on federal fraud charges in the so-called BridgeGate scandal. Christie wasnt charged in the matter, but several witnesses during the trial said Christie had some knowledge of the closing of lanes on the George Washington Bridge that was allegedly designed to cause the traffic jam in the town of Fort Lee, where the mayor refused to endorse the governor for re-election.

Christie had no comment.

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By Ernest Scheyder and Valerie Volcovici

(Reuters) - The surprising victory by Native American and environmental groups in September to delay the Dakota Access Pipeline may turn out to be short-lived, after Donald Trump's unexpected win in the U.S. presidential election.

Trump backs measures to speed energy industry development and upgrade the country's oil and gas infrastructure. He has not commented specifically on the $3.7 billion Dakota Access line but has said he would seek to revive another controversial pipeline, the Keystone XL line. That project, which would pump oil from Canada through Nebraska, was rejected in 2014 by the Obama administration.

The 1,172-mile (1,885 km) line was planned to run from North Dakota's Bakken shale region to Illinois, but protests from environmental activists and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North Dakota galvanized the Obama administration to delay construction to ensure Native American concerns about the line's route were properly addressed.

One day after Trump's victory, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said the results show "that we as a country have so much work to do." He did not mention Trump in his statement to Reuters, instead saying President Barack Obama could still halt the pipeline.

"We must strengthen our resolve to protect the water, pray together for understanding, and pour our hearts and minds into the future of all our children," he said.

It is not clear now whether Dakota Access would be rerouted or piped under the sensitive watershed, which the tribe considers sacred.

Kelcy Warren, chief executive officer of Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the pipeline, said a Trump presidency was a good thing.

"I view the results of last night's election as favorable not only for our project, but for future infrastructure projects that have been vetted and reviewed as thoroughly as ours has been," Warren said on Wednesday in a statement emailed to Reuters.

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Representative Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, a Trump energy adviser, said he expects the Obama administration to approve the permit because the federal government is "out of legal reasons" not to allow the line to proceed, saying he did not think Trump "would have to weigh in with an opinion on this."

"We're especially hopeful that the pipeline approval process will be allowed to work without political interferences. We saw both Keystone XL and DAPL, which passed their NEPA review, get blocked for unrelated political reasons," said John Stoody, vice president of government and public relations for the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, referring to the National Environmental Policy Act review.

TRUMP IS "CLIMATE THREAT"

Trump carried the state of North Dakota by a wide margin, though his Democrat Hillary Clinton won Sioux County, which lies entirely within the Standing Rock reservation.

Environmental groups said they would continue to support the tribe, and looked to Obama to take any action he can to kill the pipeline.

"There is no doubt that Donald Trump poses an immediate threat to our climate and will try to fast track this and other fossil fuel projects across the country," Greenpeace spokeswoman Lilian Molina said in a statement.

"This is all the more reason for President Obama to step in immediately to stop the pipeline once and for all."

Trump's victory makes the completion of the pipeline more likely, analysts said. Energy Transfer Partners said Tuesday that it had completed construction to the edge of Lake Oahe, the location of the federal land where regulators delayed construction to review permitting.

Phillips 66, a 25 percent owner of the line, said 85 percent of the line is complete. Company spokesman Dennis Nuss said Wednesday that Phillips expects operations to begin in the first quarter of 2017.

Last week, Obama said that the U.S. government was looking for ways to move the line. Banks financing the line have been feeling the pressure from activists; Citigroup Inc on Tuesday said it had discussed concerns with Energy Transfer about reaching a resolution with the Standing Rock Sioux.

Trump has said he would ask TransCanada Corp, the principal owner of Keystone XL, to renew its application for the pipeline. TransCanada said Wednesday it is committed to building the project. "We are evaluating ways to engage the new administration on the benefits, the jobs and the tax revenues this project brings to the table," a spokesman said.

(Reporting By Ernie Scheyder and Valerie Volcovici; Additional reporting by Liz Hampton; Writing by David Gaffen; Editing by Andrew Hay and Leslie Adler)
Editors' pick: Originally published Nov. 10.

Referring to the women who were his prey, the president-elect of the United States once famously noted, while tape was running, that his stardom entitled him to "grab 'em by the pussy."

So it would be wise to begin considering what President Donald J. Trump's power, influence and attitudes will mean to the 53 million women in the United States who go to work each day.

Notwithstanding Ivanka Trump's ill-considered assurance that her father has "total respect for women," women in the workplace have plenty of reasons to anticipate that things will get worse for them after Trump takes office.

There is, for starters, the copycat effect of the misogynistic and bullying statements he's made.

Even before Election Day, Trump's supporters gleefully Tweeted and posted on blogs various combinations of "Hillary" and the C-word. That should have come as no surprise, I suppose, from fans of a guy who called Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly a bimbo and mused that she must have had "blood coming out of her wherever" because she had asked him at a presidential debate to account for the repugnant things he'd said about women.

We women really did know before all this that some men harbored a resentment that tended to rise in correlation to the measure of our success, whether we were kicking ass running the family farm or running a Fortune 500 company. What many of us hadn't caught on to was how pervasive and deep-seated it still was in the 21st century.

Now, Trump's shameless anti-women spouting has given voice to once-silently seething misogynists.

Lest you should kid yourself that the destructive attitudes are restricted to men, like Trump, of a certain age, consider what happened on Nov. 8 at a campus bar at Sydney University in Australia.

A small group of young Trump fans had to be hauled off by security officers during election-day festivities after they got rowdy in the campus saloon, shouting "Grab them by the pussy -- that's how we do it!"

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Might that wind up being the way more men in the workplace will do it, too?

Joseph Sellers, a partner at the Washington, D.C., employment law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, worries that, figuratively speaking, we could indeed wind up facing that.

"People model their behavior after their leaders, and the president is the top elected leader in the country," said Sellers. "I think there will be people who now feel particularly comfortable" speaking to and about women the way Trump does, he said.

By his actions, Trump has made it "socially acceptable in a way that it hasn't been" to denigrate women, said Joan C. Williams, founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law at University of California Hastings College of Law.

"The fact there was a woman, and a woman like Hillary, running on the other side, just fueled men's anger," she said. "They think of her as an arrogant professional-class woman who was part of a national conspiracy to humiliate them."

Sellers added that Trump's recorded words while speaking with former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush -- "When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy" -- are a textbook example of how sexual harassers think.

"He said he could do various things with women because he is in such a position of power and authority," said Sellers. "I can tell you from many years of handling this kind of work that that's the quintessential mindset of a person who engages in sexual harassment in the workplace -- the sense of privilege they feel they have to treat people in certain ways."

Sellers is holding out hope that Trump might take the opportunity to make clear to the electorate that he does not condone even his own innocuously labeled "locker room banter." Our next president will have a mighty platform to communicate a constructive and supportive stance on women, if he chooses to use it, said Sellers.

Alas, "I'm not optimistic that he will change," Sellers said.

A lone bright spot is that the incoming president may follow his daughter's suggestion to provide paid maternity leave for working women.

Along with the looming possibility that men in the workplace will feel emboldened by Trump's misogyny, there is the additional negative that the law may change in ways that hurt women who work.

Sellers said that workplace law is in flux as companies face challenges to mandatory arbitration agreements that include provisions that forbid employees to participate in class-action lawsuits.

Class-action suits are critical to bringing reform to the workplace, Sellers explained, because when a group successfully brings a suit, plaintiffs can demand that companies change the underlying practices that led to discrimination. Without that, "you are dealing with these problems with band-aids," in Sellers' view.

Currently before the Supreme Court are several requests to review diverging appellate court decisions on the legality of prohibiting employees from bringing class action claims. Those requests have been queuing up as the court waits to get a ninth member. Given that Trump is likely to appoint at least one new business-sympathetic justice, Sellers expects "it could have a profound impact on the rights and responsibilities of people in the workplace."

So don't be surprised to see things get harder for women at work. Don't be shocked either, given the president-elect's stated desire to take away media freedoms, to see it get harder for reporters to write about those workplace problems.

Giving up, though, is not an option. If you're dealing with an unfair workplace situation, consider the Homeland Security approach: If you see something, say something. Try your company's never-totally-confidential hotline. If that doesn't work, you'd be surprised to see how much change can result after you send a copy of your Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint to an interested news reporter.

Staying quiet will only abet an upcoming administration that shows little sign of caring about the civil rights laws that even before Trump didn't protect us as they should.

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President-elect Donald Trump received a water cannon salute Thursday as his plane left LaGuardia Airport in New York City and headed to Washington, DC, for a meeting with President Barack Obama.

So this is what it looks like when Trump's plane takes off from LaGuardia--> pic.twitter.com/PzcMdHmlyf  Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) November 10, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump's plane receives water cannon salute at LaGuardia Airport as he departs for White House pic.twitter.com/qgawG1yoFu  ABC News (@ABC) November 10, 2016

The meeting between Obama and Trump will be the duo's first after the shocking results of Tuesday night's election.

NOW WATCH: A model that has correctly predicted the presidential election since 1980 says Clinton will have a landslide victory





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Donald Trumps presidential victory threatens to intensify sexism and misogyny in American public life.

Polling indicates that most Americans believed the women who came forward to accuse Trump of sexual assault. Election exit polls suggest that allegations over his treatment of women have made a majority of voters feel uncomfortable.

Americans elected him president anyway. That sends a message that bragging about groping womenas Trump did in the 2005 Access Hollywood recording that surfaced during his presidential runis behavior to either be rewarded or ignored. That it is permissible to talk about women as little more than sex objects. That when women report sexual assault they may be believed, but the person they accuse may evade serious repercussions all the same.

As a presidential candidate, Trump called the women who claim he groped them liars, even suggesting that some were too ugly to sexually assault. He has also threatened to sue them for speaking out. Trumps presidential triumph risks leaving the impression that each of these actions have earned a stamp of approval from the electorate. If that is one of the lessons that men and women draw from the result of the election, it could set back efforts to combat sexual violence as well as prejudice and discrimination against women.

Americans may feel even more emboldened to echo his words.

The President of the United States is an extremely important role model to future generations, said Jennifer Lawless, the director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University. And we have a generation now of young boys who will have watched an election where that there were no consequences to behaving that way and speaking that way about women.

Young girls who watched the election have received that message as well. And there is already evidence to suggest that Trumps comments have had a negative impact. A national poll of teenage girls conducted for The New York Times found that forty-two percent said that the way Trump talks about women has influenced the way they think about their own bodies.

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Recommended: There Will Be an Evangelical Reckoning Over Donald Trump

Heres what some of the girls surveyed had to say from a report in the Times:

That hits me hard when people like Trump say people who are skinnier than I am are too big, said Morgan Lesh, 15, in Moro. It makes me feel extremely insecure about myself. Morgans friend Jordan Barrett, 14, agreed with her, even though they disagree on who should win the election. Especially for girls in high school, rating girls on a scale of 1 to 10 does not help because it really does get into your head that they think Im ugly or I dont look good, Jordan said.

For at least four years, Trump will command a highly-visible platform from which to speak his mind whenever he chooses. When he speaks, his words will carry a significant amount of weight and influence. The message he sends will matter. And now that he has won the presidency, Americans may feel even more emboldened to echo his words.

To the extent that they do, rape culturea term coined in the 1970s to describe the various ways that society normalizes sexual violence by blaming the victim and failing to hold the perpetrator accountablecould spread. Women may be more hesitant to speak out about sexual assault in the future after witnessing the way that Trump not only retaliated against and threatened his accusers, but did not appear to suffer any serious penalty stemming from the accusations.

The results of the election may also give women and young girls pause when considering whether to run for political office. Clinton herself faced a sexist backlash during her campaign, voiced not just by some Trump supporters, but by Trump himself. Trump framed Clintons entire candidacy as a cynical ploy to use her gender for political gain when he accused her of playing the woman card. He suggested she did not have the stamina for the job, a line of attack that built on a long history of attacking womens health in an attempt to discredit them. And he won. Women may conclude that they would face a similar backlash if they entered into politics, and may consequently decide against it, especially if they believe that enduring it as Clinton did is no guarantee of victory.

Recommended: How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul

Exit polls suggest that the American public is deeply conflicted about Trumps election. There are undoubtedly many people who voted for Trump, including many women, who do not believe that everything he has said or done is right or morally defensible. But those people, as well as the rest of the nation, must now grapple with the fact that Trumps election may normalize, excuse, or otherwise encourage, everything he has said, done and advocated for all the same.

During her concession speech on Wednesday, Clinton delivered her own message to girls. To all the little girls that are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable, and powerful, and deserving of every chance, and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams, Clinton said. The question now: Under a Trump presidency, who will believe that assertion holds true?

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Barry Bonds hits a home run in front of a Bank of America sign.

Celebrity billionaire businessman Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States on Tuesday, and it looks like a big win for Wall Street.

Its a grand slam home run for the banks, bank analyst Dick Bove of Rafferty Capital Markets told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday, Trump led the Republicans in a sweep of Congress, putting the party in control of both the House and the Senate.

As Trumps victory unfolded, global markets went haywire, with S&P futures dropping 5%. Gold, considered a safe haven asset, soared. Meanwhile, financial stocks, including Goldman Sachs (GS), Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C), were trading higher on Wednesday morning.

KBW analyst Brian Gardner also characterized Trumps win as a positive for the banks and other financials despite the markets initial broad sell-off reaction.

Big winners are insurers, brokers, and asset managers since this increases the chances that the DOLs fiduciary rule is delayed, rewritten or even scrapped. Smaller banks should still do better in Washington than big banks, Gardner wrote.

The Financial CHOICE Act

For Rafferty Capitals Bove, the real victory for the banks comes down to the The Financial CHOICE Act, a bill introduced by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). According to Bove, the bill is extremely positive for the banking industry.

Hensarlings bill aims to repeal sections and titles of Dodd-Frank, including the Volcker Rule. The bill would basically ease regulations on banking dramatically based upon the amount of capital-to-assets. That capital-to-asset ratio would determine how strong regulators should treat a bank. The bill also gets rid of the living will rule and the Durbin amendment.

With Republicans maintaining control of congress, that bill is seen as more likely to pass.

Whats more is with the Republican congress, the rhetoric from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) goes right down to the toilet, Bove said.

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No one is going to let anything they think pass, he said, adding this is also a huge success for the banks.

The Fiduciary Rule

Another change the industry might see is to Obama Administrations new fiduciary rule, which was finalized by the Department of Labor in April. According to KBWs Gardner, its possible that Trumps administration may delay, alter, or scrap the new fiduciary rule. This would be positive for brokers and asset managers, the note said.

The DOLs new rule has many in the investment community up in arms. The rule impacts retirement accounts by requiring brokers to uphold a fiduciary duty and put clients interest ahead of the firm by going with the most cost-effective means of providing a product or solution. While its intentions sound good, some are concerned about government over-reaching and unintended consequences such as pushing investors into passive indexes and passive investments.

Ahead of the election, SkyBridge Capitals founder Anthony Scaramucci, an economic adviser to the Trump campaign, told Yahoo Finance he expects theyll be working very, very hard to repeal this silly ruling.



Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance.

Read more:

SCARAMUCCI: The governments new rule will hurt investors
From Cosmopolitan

On election night, I sat riveted to the television, watching the results come in and a sea of red spread across the map as state after state was called for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. I watched until a newscaster announced that Democrat Hillary Clinton conceded the race, and I spent the last few hours until my children woke up imagining and worrying about what a President Donald Trump term would look like.



Once my children were off to school, I embarked, still sleep-deprived and anxious, on my daily walk around the park down the road. As I trekked the path silently, I realized that unlike every other morning by the small lake and playground, I was outside all alone. Not a single person met me along the way and nobody passed me on my route.

The park is surrounded by townhomes, many of them resided in by the numerous Somali refugees who have immigrated here to Minnesota. Usually I would see an old couple, wrinkled and smiling, nodding to me as they cross to the bus stop, or a group of grandmotherly women wrapped in colorful hijabs that matched their flowing skirts, chattering as they passed me. In one corner by the now dry splash pad, a man often kneels, doling out handfuls of cooked rice to the geese huddling in the grass nearby. Sometimes a few mothers have their toddlers in strollers or wagons for an early morning ride.

But on the morning of Nov. 9, just hours after Trump was declared the president-elect, no one was anywhere to be seen.

Trump made immigration a key policy plank when he was on the campaign trail, promising a wall to separate Mexico and the U.S., extreme vetting for anyone from Muslim countries, and an immediate reversal of any of President Barack Obamas executive orders that expanded assistance for refugees and undocumented children. Trump riled his rally crowds by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers, and just two days before the election itself, he was here, in Minnesota, telling a crowd of supporters at a makeshift rally in an airport hangar that our Somali refugees were unwanted and breed terrorism, and that as president, he would stop the flow of Somalis to our state. You've suffered enough in Minnesota, he declared to cheering crowds.

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Now that Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president in January 2017, and a Republican-led Senate and House along with him, he could very well make his campaign trail promises come true. According to his First 100 Days agenda, that means ending any federal funding to sanctuary cities - places that shield undocumented immigrants from federal authorities looking to deport them, usually by barring police from looking into a persons immigration status without a legitimate reason to suspect the person was in the country illegally when they committed a crime. This would be done to urge those places to let ICE agents gain custody of those who are in the country illegally more easily. Federal defunding actions were proposed in the Senate earlier this year but were blocked by Democrats, and could continue to be even with the new makeup of senators in 2017, but at this point, it isnt clear if Trump could defund them himself with an executive order.

Trump also promised to immediately start deporting as many as 11 million criminal illegal immigrants, an alarmingly ambiguous term that could refer to any person in the country without the proper visa or other current papers. This action, if he did proceed, would cost roughly $300 billion, would require 90,000 immigration agents and 1,250 immigration courts, and would likely lose the U.S. $1 trillion in gross domestic product, leaving even conservative think tanks skeptical that he would ever follow through. He would rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, both of which offer paths to citizenship for those already in the country and were signed into law by executive order when Congress refused to act on them. And he promises to suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur, adding, All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.

Its that extreme vetting term that is so alarming - especially for a country that is supposed to be offering religious freedom and a separation between church and state. When he first introduced the phrase, it was an effort to explicitly ban Muslim immigrants without doing it directly. The policy would attempt to establish whether applicants' beliefs match U.S. values on gay rights, gender equality and religious freedoms, among others, CNN explained, a puzzling description considering the Republican Party has been so notoriously lagging when it comes to both gay rights and gender equality, making you wonder whose definition of U.S. values is going to be used.

And yes, even after all of the other items of his immigration agenda are underway, Trump said he would still plan to build a wall, despite the fact that this proposed $25 billion monstrosity is apparently impossible to construct.

Unlike his anti-abortion promises, however, the road to pass his anti-immigration policies through the legislature isnt quiet as smooth. The congressional Republicans may be almost unanimous on their opposition to legal abortion, but they are far more diverse when it comes to immigration in the United States. With Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who often bucked his colleagues opposed to developing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, winning reelection, there is still the potential for him to work across the aisle with Democrats in the Senate to water down some of Trumps proposed reforms. Other Republican senators recognizing the growing Hispanic voter block in the country may be inclined to follow suit, especially if they consider the economic impact that mass deportations would have on the country.

"Some actions, like reversing President Obamas immigration executive actions, can be done unilaterally," Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School, told Politifact. "Others, like building a wall and strengthening border security, will require Congress to change current law or to agree to spend the billions of dollars such proposals will require." Yale-Loehr added that other policies, like ideological testing, would likely provoke a court challenge too.

According to Trump, his very humane mass deportations could start Day One, my first hour in office. If so, I cant help but wonder just how much quieter my walk around the park will be in the coming mornings, and just how much our entire neighborhood community - white, Somali, African American, and Hispanic - will suffer as a result.

Follow Robin on Twitter.

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Through this month-long campaign, the party will reach out to 10 lakh households in the poll-bound state.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: Congress will launch a massive Dalit outreach programme from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh on Friday. Through this month-long campaign, the party will reach out to 10 lakh households in the poll-bound state.

Congress General Secretary and UP in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad will flag off this Dalit campaign in Lucknow.

CONGRESS PLANS TO HOLD CHAUPALS IN SMALL TOWNS

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"Around 200 teams, consisting of Congress leaders and workers, will reach out to the Dalit community. We plan to hold chaupals in villages and small towns. Through these chaupals, we will share Congress party's vision and policies with the community members," said a party source.

Also read: Little chance of Bihar redux in UP as SP-BSP-Congress grand alliance remains non-starter



Prior to this initiative, Congress has already launched three massive outreach campaigns which included party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's Kisan Yatra, party's CM candidate Sheila Dixit and PCC chief Raj Babbar's bus yatras and then the Rahul Sandesh Yatra.

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USA Network is eyeing Tupac Shakur's murder for a new project.

The cable network has ordered pilot Unsolved, a scripted true crime story that chronicles the two major police investigations into the sudden deaths of the rapper and The Notorious B.I.G.

From Universal Cable Productions, the drama is based on the experiences of former LAPD Detective Greg Kading. He is consulting on the pilot script and also will serve as co-executive producer. Kading led multiple law-enforcement task forces investigating the murders and authored the book Murder Rap: The Untold Story of Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations.

Kyle Long (Suits) is writing the pilot and will also executive produce, while Anthony Hemingway (The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story) is set to direct. He also will executive produce along with Mark Taylor via their Hemingway | Taylor production company.

Unsolved is the fourth pilot greenlighted as part of USA's 2016-2017 slate, all of which hail from UCP. The cabler recently announced pilot pickups for The Sinner, executive produced by and starring Jessica Biel;Damnation, from executive producers Tony Tost (Longmire), James Mangold (Walk the Line), Guymon Casady (Game of Thrones) and Daniel Rappaport (Office Space); and The Tap, from executive producers Andrew Lenchewski (Royal Pains), Rob Reiner, Alan Greisman and Charlie Ebersol of The Company (The Profit).

Kyle Long is repped by WME, The Shuman Co. and Hansen Jacobson. Hemingway is with WME and Hansen Jacobson.

This article originally appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.
Istanbul (AFP) - Turkish prosecutors Thursday demanded life sentences for nine suspects charged over their work at a now closed pro-Kurdish newspaper, including the internationally-renowned novelist Asli Erdogan.

The newspaper Ozgur Gundem was raided by the authorities in August and then shut down on accusations of links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The nine suspects, including Erdogan, have been charged with membership of an armed terror organisation, making propaganda for a terror organisation and seeking to disrupt national unity, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

The full indictment and sentencing request from prosecutors have now been sent to the Istanbul criminal court which will decide within 15 days whether to accept it and proceed with the trial.

Four of the suspects are currently under arrest in pre-trial detention, while the others have been freed on remand.

Those charged also include the paper's former editor-in-chief Zana Bilir Kaya and the prominent writer Ragp Zarakolu as well as other journalists and executives.

Erdogan, 49, one of Turkey's best known contemporary female novelists, has now been held for 84 days, prompting growing concerns for her welfare among press freedom groups.

Supporters have said she suffers from asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes. She has published several novels including "The City in Crimson Cloak" which also appeared in English translation.

Turkey is in the throes of a state of emergency imposed in the wake of the failed July 15 coup.

Critics say its scope goes far beyond measures against the suspected coup plotters and is targeting any critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ten MPs from the country's main pro-Kurdish party were arrested last week, as well as nine staff from the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper. At least 35,000 people have been placed under arrest in the wake of the coup.

According to the indictment, the Ozgur Gundem newspaper, for which Erdogan wrote a column and sat on the board, acted as a mouthpiece for the PKK, promoted its activities and published writings by some of its most senior militants under pseudonyms.

The PKK had waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and has stepped up attacks after the collapse of a truce in 2015.

According to the Platform for Independent Journalism website, there are now 142 journalists behind bars in Turkey. Turkey is ranked 151st of 180 countries in the 2016 World Press Freedom index published by Reporters Without Borders.
Istanbul (AFP) - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday hailed the founder of modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on the 78th anniversary of his death but added the country's influence should go well beyond the borders of the state he created.

Ataturk, who died on November 10, 1938, founded Turkey as a secular republic in 1923 out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire and defeat in World War I.

He remains a hero for many modern Turks and, as is traditional, life across the country again came to a halt for two minutes from 9:05 am (0605 GMT) to mark his passing, with sirens wailing and traffic stopping on the Bosphorus bridge in Istanbul.

Thousands of people meanwhile thronged Ataturk's Anitkabir mausoleum in Ankara -- where he was laid to rest after dying in the imperial-era Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul -- to pay their respects.

Erdogan has been accused by critics of eroding Ataturk's secular legacy with a creeping Islamisation and taking Turkey further from Europe.

But the president, who has overseen a relentless crackdown in the wake of the failed July 15 coup, heaped praise on Ataturk at a conference in Ankara commemorating him.

"We will reinforce more and more the independence of the Republic of Turkey that Mustafa Gazi described as his greatest work and left us as his legacy," said Erdogan.

Erdogan often describes Ataturk as Gazi -- warrior -- in recognition of his victory in the War of Independence that many Turks see as ensuring the existence of the country.

But in an emotionally-charged address, Erdogan also returned to a favourite theme that "Turkey is bigger than Turkey" and its influence must go well beyond its physical borders.

The Ottoman Empire at its peak covered a territory many times the size of modern Turkey, extending into the Balkans to the west and Arabia to the east.

"Our brothers in Crimea, in the Caucasus, in Aleppo and in Mosul may be beyond our physical borders but they are within the frontiers of our hearts and in the very middle of our hearts," he said.

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"It's a century since we were separated from this territory. But the hope of the populations has not disappeared.

"We will not be prisoners of 780,000 square kilometres," he added, referring to the area of modern Turkey.

Anti-Erdogan media fondly recalled Ataturk but wished he could come back to reverse the country's current course. "Friend, Where are You?" headlined the anti-Erdogan daily Soczu.
The Americans alumna Alison Wright will soon find herself in the middle of a very different kind of cold war.

The actress has joined the cast of Ryan Murphys FX anthology series Feud, the first season of which chronicles the rivalry between film stars Joan Crawford (played by Jessica Lange) and Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon), our sister site Deadline reports.

RELATEDKathy Bates Joins Ryan Murphys Feud as Bette Davis BFF Joan Blondell

Wright  whose Americans character Martha was shipped off to Russia last season  will portray a development assistant who works for film director Robert Aldrich (Alfred Molina).

Ready for more of todays newsy nuggets? Well

* ABC is developing a workplace comedy based on the 1976 movie Car Wash, which starred comedians George Carlin and Richard Pryor, per The Hollywood Reporter. The project will explore one kids determination to create his own destiny and one mans struggle to accept who he has become, and the bonds they form at Deluxe Car Wash.

* Rosie ODonnell (The Fosters) will play the unapologetic mother of Frankie Shaws main character in Showtimes comedy pilot SMILF.

* Nicholas Gonzalez (Sleepy Hollow, The Flash) will recur during Season 3 of Narcos as an American DEA agent, according to Deadline.

Launch Gallery: TV Reboots and Revivals: A Complete Guide

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By Dan Whitcomb

(Reuters) - Two bodies unearthed on the South Carolina property of a registered sex offender suspected in as many as seven murders have been identified as a husband and wife reported missing last December, a county coroner said on Wednesday.

The remains were discovered on the nearly 100-acre grounds in Woodruff of 45-year-old Todd Kohlhepp in the days after police freed a woman found chained inside a metal storage container there.

The bodies have been identified as married couple Johnny Joe Coxie, 29, and Meagan Leigh McCraw Coxie, 25, Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger told reporters at a news conference.

Preliminary autopsy results show that the wife died of a gunshot wound to the head and her husband of a gunshot wound to the torso. They had been buried on the property belonging to Kohlhepp for approximately 11 months, Clevenger said.

Due to the condition of the clothed bodies they were identified through dental records and "extensive tattoos" on both bodies, he said.

Kohlhepp, who worked as a real estate agent, was taken into custody last week after sheriff's deputies heard banging from the storage container and found 30-year-old Kala Brown inside, chained by the neck.

Brown, who was reported missing in August along with her live-in boyfriend, Charlie Carver, told authorities that Kohlhepp shot Carver dead in front of her and that four more bodies might be buried on the grounds.

The remains of Carver, 32, were found in a shallow grave on the property the following day. Two more bodies were discovered in the ensuing investigation.

Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright has said that Kohlhepp has confessed to four previously unsolved killings at a motorcycle shop 13 years ago may ultimately be linked to as many as seven murders.

Kohlhepp, who has not yet retained an attorney, has so far been charged with four counts of murder and denied bail.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Two police officers were shot in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in the early hours of November 10, according to local reports.

CBS reported that the suspect had barricaded themselves inside a home after the shooting. Authorities responded to the scene, and urged local residents to remain indoors.

Reporter Steven Fisher shot this video of a helicopter landing at Canonsburg Hospital. He reported that one officer was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital and the other was taken to Canonsburg Hospital by ambulance.

The local school district was placed on a two-hour delay. The situation was ongoing at the time of this writing. Credit: Twitter/WPXISteveFisher via Storyful
Washington (AFP) - Head of a business empire and now US president: by combining these two roles, billionaire Donald Trump could face conflicts of interest of an scale unprecedented in American political history.

The Republican elected to the White House Tuesday made his fortune by building a network of hotels, office towers and luxury apartment buildings as the head of the Trump Organization.

His real estate empire is primarily located in the United States, but also extends to countries such as South Korea and Turkey. Managing political relations with such US allies while president risks creating a curious mix of competing goals.

The Trump Organization is not publicly traded, so many of its activities are closed to scrutiny. But US media have reported it has financial ties with people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who the real estate mogul praised leadership during his campaign.

"For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia," Trump tweeted in July.

The potential for conflicts of interest from Trump's business activities are not limited to countries like Russia. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump has received some $2.5 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank since 1998.

But US regulators are currently in negotiations with the German bank over imposing a possibly multi-billion dollar fine for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. This raises questions about how the Trump administration will react if it inherits the case, and whether the new president's business interests will be considered.

- 'Unprecedented' -

Accusations of conflicts of interest are not new in US politics. They tainted the administration of president George W. Bush, whose vice president Dick Cheney, until his appointment in 2000, headed the Halliburton oil services and logistics company, which went on to win lucrative contracts in Iraq after the US invasion.

But the problem takes on another dimension with Trump, whose name is inextricably tied to his business empire.

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"It's unprecedented in the history of the US in part because we don't know the scope or the nature of his many financial ties in particular," Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told AFP.

She said one ethical point of particular concern is that Trump financed his company's expansion through debt.

"We don't know to whom he owes money. In some ways owing money is a much more significant financial contact than an investment," she said.

Trump so far has not spoken much about his potential conflicts of interest. Possibly because few imagined he would end up in the Oval Office, but also perhaps because US laws on the issue are flexible when it comes to the president.

Under current law, while non-elected members of the US administration face stringent constraints on their business activities, those rules do not apply to the president or vice president.

Although the US Constitution prohibits any politician from accepting any "fee" from a foreign power, there is no prohibition on doing business with private partners abroad.

Trump had pledged during the campaign to entrust his business to a blind trust which would wall him off from any say in the company's activities.

But the tycoon added that this would put the company under the control of three of his children who already are executive vice presidents of the Trump Organization.

Is that really enough to separate a President Trump away from his business empire?

"We're not going to discuss those things ... Trust me. As you know, it's a very full-time job. He doesn't need to worry about the business," son Donald Trump Jr said in September of his father's becoming US president.

Another world leader used the same strategy. After his first election in 1994 as head of the Italian government, Silvio Berlusconi entrusted the management of his media empire to his family. But that did not prevent persistent criticisms over conflict of interest.
By Warren Strobel WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A September U.S. air strike in Somalia killed local militia forces and not al Shabaab militants as the Pentagon had initially believed, the U.S. military acknowledged in a draft statement obtained by Reuters on Thursday. The Sept. 28 strike in Somalia's Galkayo area killed 10 fighters and wounded three, the statement said. No civilian casualties were caused by the strike, it said. Somalia's government had asked the United States to explain the strike, which it said had been conducted against forces of the semi-autonomous, northern region of Galmudug. The errant strike illustrated the perils of Washington's efforts to battle al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-aligned group, by working with armed Somali factions that are often feuding. Shabaab has been responsible for numerous attacks, including the September 2013 siege of Kenya's Westgate shopping mall that left at least 67 dead. The day after the Sept. 28 U.S. strike in Somalia, officials in Galmudug accused a rival region, Puntland, of duping the United States into believing members of its security forces were in fact Islamist rebels. An al Shabaab spokesman told Reuters at the time it did not have any fighters in the area of the strike. The draft statement by the U.S. military's Africa Command said the air strike was carried out at the request of Puntland Security Forces "and our own assessment of the situation." A PSF-led patrol had come under attack by a group of armed fighters and in response, "the U.S. conducted a self-defense strike to neutralize the threat, killing 10 armed fighters and wounding three others," the statement said. A review of the strike, which began Oct. 4, determined that "The armed fighters were initially believed to be al-Shabaab but with further review it was determined they were local militia forces," it said. "Operating under legal authorities, U.S. forces lawfully utilized self-defense to support the PSF in response to hostile actions conducted by the armed group against a partnered force," the review concluded. "No U.S. forces were killed or injured as a result of this incident." (Editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)
(WASHINGTON)  Sixty-four civilians were killed and eight were injured in 24 U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria over the past year, the U.S. military said Wednesday, based on newly completed investigations.

The latest totals bring the number of civilians killed in airstrikes in the fight against the Islamic State group to 119, with another 37 injured, according to U.S. Central Command.

Col. John Thomas, Central Command spokesman, said the investigations concluded that the proper military process was followed in each incident and precautions are always taken to try to avoid any civilian deaths.

Independent monitoring groups and activists, however, have repeatedly said that coalition and other airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians.

The cases announced Wednesday include strikes from last November through September. And they range from one or two civilians killed to a March strike near Mosul, Iraq, that killed 10 civilians.

The latest report, however, doesnt include two air attacks in Syria in recent months that may have each killed dozens. According to residents and international aid groups, an airstrike in July near Manbij, Syria, may have killed at least 56 civilians and wounded many more.

And a U.S. brigadier general has been appointed to lead an investigation in a September airstrike near Deir el-Zour, Syria, that may have unintentionally killed dozens of Syrian government forces.

The U.S. has said that it monitored the target for two days and deemed it valid before launching the strike. But it was halted when Russian officials called the coalition to say the attack was hitting personnel and vehicles that were part of the Syrian military.

There have been lingering questions about reports that the troops or people on the ground were not wearing uniforms and that they were armed, leading to confusion about who they might be. Other theories suggest they may have been conscripted troops or prisoners of some sort, but there have been no solid findings yet on those reports.

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As of Wednesday, U.S. Central Command has received 257 allegations of airstrikes causing possible civilian casualties, and has concluded that 76 of the reports were valid and required further investigation. Of those 76, four were duplicates.

To date, 65 of the investigations have been completed, and about half of them have been publicly disclosed. Seven allegations remain open.
The Navy has been pushing for the acquisition of these amphibious planes which can land on both sea and runways.

By Mail Today Bureau: The Defence Ministry has deferred a proposal worth over Rs 10,000 crore for acquiring 12 amphibious aircraft from Japan for the Navy as the government feels that there is a need for further clarity in the project. "There is a view in the Ministry that there is still need for further discussion on the requirement of these planes for the Navy and what roles would they play in the maritime force," sources told Mail Today.

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READ | Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar clears defence deals worth Rs 80,000 crore



The Navy is now planning to give a detailed presentation to the government on how the planes would be useful for the force and bring in more clarity on the issue, the sources said. The deal was also taken up for discussion during the recent meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.

READ| Tejas Light Combat Aircraft: Here's how India created its first Flying Dagger

The Navy has been pushing for the acquisition of these amphibious planes which can land on both sea and runways but the Defence Ministry's acquisition wing has not been very keen for procuring it.

Joint Secretary-rank officers in the Ministry in the past have questioned the proposal to buy the planes.

EXCLUSIVE: With only two planes and issues unresolved, IAF to bring LCA Tejas home



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By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Four Turkish and Iranian nationals from the same family have been indicted on charges they violated U.S. sanctions against Iran by conducting hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions for Iran's government and Iranian metals companies. According to an indictment made public on Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Habibollah Zarei, Nesteren Zarei Deniz, Bora Deniz and Abdullah Evren Erdem conspired to evade U.S. sanctions from 2014 until at least January 2016. The defendants were accused of helping three Iranian companies import and export large quantities of copper and steel to and from Iran, and arranging for U.S. banks to transfer at least $100 million to further the scheme. "These defendants conspired and schemed to hide millions of dollars' of financial transactions specifically to evade U.S. sanctions laws," and deserve to face "strong legal action," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said in a statement. All of the defendants are at large. It is unclear whether they have hired lawyers. Earlier this year, Reza Zarrab, a prominent Turkish gold trader, was arrested and criminally charged in a separate U.S. case for allegedly conspiring to conduct large transactions on behalf of Iran and entities there. Prosecutors said Zarei, 67, is the father of Zarei Deniz, 39, and father-in-law of both her husband Deniz, 44, and Erdem, 32. All live in Turkey and are citizens there, while Zarei and Zarei Deniz are also Iranian citizens, prosecutors added. Each of the four defendants was charged with four conspiracy counts for alleged bank fraud, evading sanctions, money laundering and defrauding the United States. The bank fraud conspiracy charge carries a maximum 30-year prison term. Papers relating to the case were first filed last December in the Manhattan court. The case is U.S. v. Deniz et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00833. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish)
By Natalie Grover (Reuters) - The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said on Thursday it had temporarily categorized a synthetic opioid nicknamed "pink" as a dangerous drug, after receiving at least 46 reports of deaths associated with its use. The abuse of opioids  a class of drugs that includes heroin and prescription painkillers  has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 78 Americans die every day from opioid overdose. "Pink", known to chemists as U-47700, comes from a family of deadly synthetic opioids that are far more potent than heroin, and is usually imported to the United States mainly from China. It gets its name from the pink-purple hue that comes from the way it is cut or processed. The DEA said it had temporarily categorized U-47700 as a "Schedule 1" substance, effective Nov. 14, classifying it as a dangerous addictive drug with no medicinal use, placing it on par with heroin, cannabis and LSD. The scheduling will last for two years, with a possible one-year extension if the DEA requires more data to determine whether it should be permanently scheduled, the agency said. Of the 46 fatalities, 31 occurred in New York and 10 in North Carolina, the DEA said, from reports it received between Oct. 2015 and Sept. 2016. Law enforcement agencies have seized the drug in powder form and counterfeit tablets that mimic prescription opioid painkillers, the agency said. (http://bit.ly/2eFLSr3) Since substances like U-47700 are often made in illicit labs overseas, their identity, purity, and quantity are unknown, creating a 'Russian roulette' scenario for users, the DEA said. In March, law enforcement agencies in Ohio seized 500 blue pills that visually appeared to be short-acting oxycodone pills, but a laboratory analysis confirmed they were U-47700. (http://bit.ly/2emt8BD) (Reporting by Natalie Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)
DUSHANBE (Reuters) - The United States embassy in Tajikistan said on Thursday it had received information about possible attacks on large public gatherings in the Central Asian nation and its border crossings with Afghanistan. The embassy said in a statement that "terrorist groups" may carry out such attacks, but did not name them. It urged U.S. citizens to avoid large crowds and public transportation. The impoverished, mostly Muslim nation often reports clashes with Afghan drug smugglers along the border. The former Soviet republic is also planning a series of events in parks and other public places to mark a new holiday, President's Day, on Nov. 16. President Imomali Rakhmon, in power since 1992, faced a coup attempt by a senior defense official in September 2015. His government has since banned an Islamist party, once the country's main opposition . (Reporting by Nazarali Pirnazarov; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov)
By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - A panel of U.S. appeals court judges sought answers on Thursday about how widespread spoofing is in U.S. financial markets and whether it represents an advancement in trading, as they considered whether to overturn the nation's first criminal conviction for the banned practice.

Three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, heard arguments from a lawyer for trader Michael Coscia, who is appealing convictions for spoofing and commodities fraud, and from a government lawyer fighting to uphold the conviction.

Their decision could set a precedent that affects how other U.S. traders are regulated because Coscia was the first to be criminally prosecuted under an anti-spoofing provision implemented as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform.

Spoofing involves placing bids to buy or offers to sell futures contracts with the intent to cancel them before execution. By creating an illusion of demand, spoofers can influence prices to benefit their market positions.

In a separate case on Wednesday, a British trader, Navinder Sarao, became the second person convicted of criminally spoofing U.S. futures markets.

In November 2015, a jury convicted Coscia of using computer algorithms to quickly place large orders he never intended to execute into markets run by CME Group Inc and Intercontinental Exchange.

During the appeals hearing, Judge Ilana Rovner asked whether Coscia had "created an entirely new way to manipulate the market."

She also asked whether the U.S. government was punishing Coscia "for being the first to build a better mouse trap," if his trading technique was new and different.

"It seems like all of these computer algorithms are just trying to outsmart each other," said Rovner, who participated in the hearing via telephone.

She said learning trading terms to consider Coscia's appeal was akin to learning a new language.

Another judge hearing the appeal, Daniel Manion, asked twice whether Coscia's trading technique was unique. He said it seemed Coscia was guilty "if you just go by the straight definition."

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Coscia's lawyer, Michael Kim, of the law firm Kobre and Kim, said Coscia had not manipulated markets. Instead, he said, Coscia created an algorithm that worked in a way other traders had not anticipated.

Kim also said the U.S. anti-spoofing provision was cryptic.

Andrianna Kastanek, an assistant U.S. attorney, said the provision was not unconstitutionally vague.

The judges will decide later whether to overturn Coscia's conviction.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Leslie Adler)
DETROIT, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The United Auto Workers union will work with president-elect Donald Trump to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, its President Dennis Williams said on Thursday.

Williams told reporters that one reason Hillary Clinton lost was that she was blamed for NAFTA. The union opposed Trump's candidacy, but said his "position on trade is right on."

As a candidate, Trump vowed to force Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the trade deal.

Williams said the union believes about 32 percent of union members voted for Trump. He also backed Trump's call for an infrastructure bill, saying it is "one of the most important things we can do."

Williams said he would be open to tariffs on Mexican or Chinese vehicles "as an option," but would have to evaluate the impact of tariffs on the union overall including workers at export oriented companies such as Caterpillar Inc.

Williams said the union is considering running advertisements to say "if it's not made in America don't buy it." (Reporting by Joseph White in Detroit. Writing by David Shepardson; Editing by Andrew Hay)
(recasts after talks)

By William James

LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Britain and China smoothed over a diplomatic spat on Thursday as top finance officials announced closer cooperation between stock exchanges in the two countries and other initiatives in the financial services sector.

British finance minister Philip Hammond met Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai as part of efforts to shore up what the two governments have called a "golden era" in their relationship between the world's second and fifth biggest economies.

A decision by Prime Minister Theresa May's in July to delay approval of a partly-Chinese funded nuclear power project was criticised at the time by Beijing. May has since granted approval for the project.

As China gradually relaxes controls on its currency, Britain has developed close financial links with the country, hoping to use the City of London's global status to tap into a potentially huge and lucrative market.

Hammond announced several financial initiatives including progress on a link between the London and Shanghai stock exchanges, the opening of Chinese financial firms' offices in London, and a promised relaxation of rules to allow British firms to own higher stakes in parts of China's financial sector.

"Our strategic collaborations ... are evidence of the continuing strength of this relationship," Hammond said, speaking alongside Ma in London at the conclusion of annual talks on closer financial cooperation.

Although Britain is facing a long and complicated withdrawal from the European Union and an uncertain economic outlook, deputy finance minister Shi Yaobin said he expected to see a smooth transition and good exit deal.

Ma also held a private meeting with May on Wednesday.

May's intervention on the Hinkley power plant, one of her first major decisions after taking power, raised the prospect that the national security-conscious former interior minister would change Britain's strategy of courting Chinese investment in key energy, housing and transport infrastructure projects.

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But May and senior colleagues used Ma's visit to try to persuade China to put money into a series of infrastructure investments across northern England.

May said she wanted China to know that Britain was "open for business" as it prepares for life outside the EU.

($1 = 0.8019 pounds) (Editing by Tom Heneghan and William Schomberg)
LONDON (Reuters) - Finance minister Philip Hammond said on Thursday he was certain that Britain would have a constructive relationship with U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump's administration. Trump, a wealthy New York real estate developer and former reality TV host, rode a wave of anger toward Washington insiders to win a shock victory at Tuesday's U.S. election. "I'm sure we will have a very constructive dialogue ... with the new American administration," Hammond told the BBC. Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to revive the U.S. economy by cutting taxes, preventing companies from making products overseas, renegotiating trade accords and imposing tariffs on imports from countries like China. Asked about warnings from the World Trade Organization that major economies, like the United States, were becoming increasingly protectionist, Hammond said Britain was committed to free trade and open markets. "It's about getting the right balance in the global trading system, so that we can have the benefits of open markets while being properly and appropriately protected from unfair practices," he said. (Reporting by William James, editing by Elizabeth Piper)
By William James LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and China smoothed over a diplomatic spat on Thursday as top finance officials announced closer cooperation between stock exchanges in the two countries and other initiatives in the financial services sector. British finance minister Philip Hammond met Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai as part of efforts to shore up what the two governments have called a "golden era" in their relationship between the world's second and fifth biggest economies. A decision by Prime Minister Theresa May's in July to delay approval of a partly-Chinese funded nuclear power project was criticised at the time by Beijing. May has since granted approval for the project. As China gradually relaxes controls on its currency, Britain has developed close financial links with the country, hoping to use the City of London's global status to tap into a potentially huge and lucrative market. Hammond announced several financial initiatives including progress on a link between the London and Shanghai stock exchanges, the opening of Chinese financial firms' offices in London, and a promised relaxation of rules to allow British firms to own higher stakes in parts of China's financial sector. "Our strategic collaborations ... are evidence of the continuing strength of this relationship," Hammond said, speaking alongside Ma in London at the conclusion of annual talks on closer financial cooperation. Although Britain is facing a long and complicated withdrawal from the European Union and an uncertain economic outlook, deputy finance minister Shi Yaobin said he expected to see a smooth transition and good exit deal. Ma also held a private meeting with May on Wednesday. May's intervention on the Hinkley power plant, one of her first major decisions after taking power, raised the prospect that the national security-conscious former interior minister would change Britain's strategy of courting Chinese investment in key energy, housing and transport infrastructure projects. But May and senior colleagues used Ma's visit to try to persuade China to put money into a series of infrastructure investments across northern England. May said she wanted China to know that Britain was "open for business" as it prepares for life outside the EU. ($1 = 0.8019 pounds) (Editing by Tom Heneghan and William Schomberg)
Considering the hardships, AIIMS for the time being has exempted walk-in patients from OPD card charges and outpatient clinical charges less than Rs 500.

By Mail Today Bureau: Following demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, patients at various private and government hospitals across the national Capital faced a tough time on Wednesday. While government hospitals were allowed to accept currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, shortage of lower denomination currency notes made it difficult for cashiers and patients alike.

READ | Great dud currency bazaar: Illegal financial institutions erupt, exchange rates dip



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On Wednesday, Mail Today visited RML Hospital and found that patients from lower income groups were mostly unaware of the demonetisation. There were long queues at the counters where several people got into arguments with the hospital staff.

READ | Banks to remain open this weekend, new Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes in ATMs from Friday



RS 500 REDUCED TO DUST

Rema, who was visiting RML Hospital for ultrasound check-up, could not undergo the procedure as she only had Rs 500 notes. "I was unaware about the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. I have been here since morning, and nobody is accepting Rs 500 notes. Even the cashier threw up his hands as he did not have change," she said.

A senior accountant at the hospital told Mail Today, "There might have been some problem due to shortage of change, but we are accepting currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000." It was a similar picture at chemists' shops outside Safdarjung Hospital and AIIMS where shortage of lower denominations forced shopkeepers to stop sale of medicines.

READ| How scrapping 500, 1000 notes and bringing in 2000 notes will check black money: Congress

Several outstation patients who arrived at AIIMS for treatment also faced a tough time. Right from arriving at Delhi railway station or ISBT to reaching the hospital, they had a harrowing time trying to make payments as most of them did not have currencies of lower denomination.

READ | Operation Black Money: Here is the inside story of Modi's bold move

PRIVATE HOSPITALS REJECT 500, 1000 NOTES



Girdhar Kumar Das, who arrived in Delhi on Wednesday morning, said that he was unaware of the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. "As I travelled to Delhi, I only had currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. After I reached Delhi, I tried to persuade the autorickshaw drivers to accept Rs 500 notes, but none of them were ready. I don't even have a place to stay as the hotels won't accept these currency notes. My mother is suffering from cardiac complications and I don't know what to do."

Considering the hardships, AIIMS for the time being has exempted walk-in patients from OPD card charges and outpatient clinical charges less than Rs 500, said an official.

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READ | New Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes: All you need to know

READ | What the FAQ just happened! All your questions about Rs 500-1000 notes answered

However, private hospitals are not accepting Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Several patients were turned away as they did not have any other currency notes.

A Fortis Hospital official said: "We are not accepting currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. We are asking all patients to opt for online transactions. But in case someone is tendering cash money, it cannot be currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000."

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Jerusalem (AFP) - The United Nations special rapporteur to the occupied Palestinian territories said Thursday he was "very concerned" by Israel's use of live fire in dealing with Palestinian knife attackers.

"Lethal force is supposed to be used as a last resort and only when there is a legitimate threat to a security officer's life," Michael Lynk, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, told AFP.

Lynk, who took over the role in March and has so far been denied a visa to visit, said this rule was "being neglected."

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed since October 2015, most of them while carrying out attacks -- often equipped with knives. Thirty-six Israelis have been killed during the same period.

Israel has dismissed allegations of excessive force in most cases, saying its officers do only what is necessary to protect lives.

Lynk compared the shootings of Palestinian attackers in the West Bank to that of an ultra-Orthodox Jew who stabbed six people at a Gay Pride march in Jerusalem in 2015, killing one.

In that case the attacker was wrestled to the ground.

"He was actually brought down and wasn't actually physically harmed in any way," Lynk said in a phone interview with AFP shortly after the release of his first report.

"If that kind of force can be used to neutralise an attacker with a knife, why can't that be used with most of the alleged Palestinian assailants in similar circumstances?"

A United Nations report last month said that of the Palestinians injured by Israelis in 2016, 14 percent were hurt by live ammunition, up from four percent in 2013.

Lynk added that he was concerned that "lone wolf violence" from Palestinians was being driven by a growing hopelessness at their situation.

"When you look at the larger picture, with no hope on the horizon for a peace process, with deteriorating economic circumstances, it becomes clear that there is a nexus, a relationship, or a connection between these kinds of attacks -- deplorable as they may be -- and the much larger economic, social and political circumstances."

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Israel has long accused the special rapporteur position of being inherently biased as it is only mandated to investigate alleged Israeli abuses.

The Jewish state has used this as justification for not cooperating with investigations, refusing the previous two occupants of the role permission to visit.

Lynk, too, has so far been refused a visa and he said Israeli officials have also refused his offer to meet in North America, where the Canadian is based as a law professor at Western University in Ontario.

Lynk said the idea of extending his mandate to include rights abuses by all sides was "something I am open to and am considering."

He called on the Israeli government to meet him to discuss the matter.

Any extension would then need to be approved by the UN Human Rights Council.
Company Seeks Approval For Cultivation, Processing, Transportation and Research Of Cannabis

DENVER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 / United Cannabis Corporation (CNAB) (the "Company" or "United Cannabis") today announced that its Joint Venture (the "Joint Venture" or "UCANN/CRD"), which is 50% owned with Jamaica-based Cannabis Research & Development ("CRD"), has submitted its application for a license to cultivate, process, transport and conduct research on cannabis within Jamaica.

In keeping with its mission, UCANN/CRD has been working closely with its partners in Jamaica to assemble and prepare all the information and documentation required by the Cannabis Licensing Authority. The application was submitted on November 3 and has been accepted; the review process is expected to begin presently.

Earnest Blackmon, Chief Executive Officer of United Cannabis, commented on the announcement, "This is a significant milestone for our Jamaican team. The cannabis licensing application process is a cumbersome undertaking regardless of the domain. Fortunately, we have a strong business model, considerable experience with the process and a solid partnership with CRD. I am pleased that our application was accepted and expect it will be approved in the near term."

Marcus "Bubbleman" Richardson, Director of CRD, also commented, "While the application has been our primary focus recently, we have also been fine-tuning our business plan and securing the relationships necessary to implement that plan. We are on track and anxious to get to work!"

About UCANN/CRD

UCANN/CRD was established following the approval by Jamaica's Cabinet and Parliament of an Amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act, providing for the decriminalization of the cultivation, production, possession and use of Ganja (aka cannabis) for medical, therapeutic, and scientific purposes within the country.

About CRD

Cannabinoid Research and Development Company Limited was founded by a small group of Jamaican cannabis advocates, with the cooperation of the Company, who felt that it was high time for, as said in Jamaica, 'freeing up the weed'. Their desires were further buttressed by the government passing legislation to establish medical marijuana and industrial hemp industries in Jamaica. CRD salutes the small farmers and their sacrifices, who have paid the ultimate price of incarceration, persecution and the separation from loved ones. It is the spirit, hope, dreams and aspirations of these people that is embodied in the dream and justification for CRD today.

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About United Cannabis Corporation

The Company's Prana Bio Medicinal products provide patients a simple, safe, accurate, and easy way to mix/match cannabinoids for therapeutic purpose. These products, licensed to regulated marijuana dispensaries, are broken into 5 categories that are available in capsules, sublingual's, and topical delivery methods. The Company uses a patent-pending infusion process utilizing select fatty acids, lipids, and specific combination of cannabis derived terpenes to increase bioavailability. Prana Bio Medicinal products are NON-GMO, ethanol free, alcohol free, glycerin free, gluten free, 100% naturally derived, chemical-free, solventless, and hypoallergenic.

For further information, please visit www.unitedcannabis.us.

Contact: Staff@UnitedCannabis.us

Phone: 303-386-7321

Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933, are subject to Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbors, created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and other results and further events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Future events and actual results could differ materially from those set forth in, contemplated by, or underlying the forward-looking statements.

SOURCE: United Cannabis Corporation
Marrakesh (Morocco) (AFP) - The United States will likely fail to meet its pledges under the landmark Paris climate pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, analysts said Thursday on the margin of UN climate talks.

Even if president-elect Donald Trump does not reverse policies already put in place by Barack Obama -- and that is a big 'if' -- US emissions of heat-trapping gases would remain stable over the next 15 years, badly missing the target, the experts said in a report.

"With no additional policies, emissions in the US will be flat until 2030," said Niklas Hohne, director of the NewClimate Institute in Cologne, Germany and co-author of the analysis.

Under the Paris Agreement, which went into force last week, the United States committed to slash its carbon pollution by 26-28 percent, as measured against a 2005 benchmark.

If Trump carries out threats to unwind the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, these emissions could be even higher, Hohne said.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton vowed to continue Obama's policies, and would have had at least a chance of meeting the Paris goals through executive action, experts say.

It is highly uncertain whether Obama's long-term objective of slashing economy-wide emission 80 percent by mid-century will be maintained by the new administration.

Trump has described global warming as a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese government, and has said at different times that he would "renegotiate" or "cancel" the 196-nation deal.

The country-by-country analysis of the world's biggest CO2 emitters, updated from last year, found that average global temperatures would rise by 2.8 degrees Celsius (5.0 Fahrenheit) if all nations fully carry out their emissions reduction pledges.

With no change from current policies, the global thermometer would rise about 3.6C (6.5F) by century's end, a recipe for climate catastrophe, scientists say.

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Already with barely 1.0C (1.8F) of warming, the world has seen an uptick in deadly storms, droughts, heatwaves and flooding caused by unusually heavy rains.

- Leadership role up for grabs -

Nations must seriously boost efforts to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels if the Paris pact's goal of holding global warming to below 2.0C (3.6F) are to be met, said Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, who also co-authored the report.

"Not much change has happened in the level of ambition being put forward by countries" since the deal was inked in the French capital last December, he said.

But developments in China and India are "encouraging," he added, with both countries moving away from carbon-intensive coal to renewables.

China has cut coal consumption for three years running, massively developed solar and wind energy, and is boosting electric vehicles.

"With the election of Donald Trump, the position of global leader on climate is open," said Hohne.

China, he added, could well fill that slot.

A research note from HSBC released Wednesday made much the same point: "The result puts the US leadership in the global climate policy arena in doubt."

But other experts said the US transition away from fossil fuels is too far advanced to reverse.

"Trump's victory will take the Federal government out of the game," said Alden Meyer, a veteran climate expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"But it won't stop the trend towards the clean energy economy."

Tax credits in the US for wind and solar energy installation were recently extended for five years.

Both sectors are booming. Nearly 30 percent of all new capacity added to the US electricity grid in 2015 was solar.
Washington (AFP) - The Pentagon said Wednesday that US air strikes in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State group may have killed 119 civilians since 2014, a figure far lower than casualty estimates by monitoring groups.

The figures released by Centcom, the US military command in the Middle East, came from a months-long review of reports and databases, it said, adding that the deaths and injuries stemmed from 24 air strikes.

London-based NGO Airways estimates coalition bombing has killed 1,787 civilians since the air campaign to destroy the Islamic State group began in August 2014.

"We have teams who work full time to prevent unintended civilian casualties," Colonel John Thomas was quoted as saying in the Centcom statement.

"We do all we can to minimize those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time."

The Pentagon's investigation found that "in each of these strikes the right processes were followed; each complied with Law of Armed Conflict and significant precautions were taken, despite the unfortunate outcome," Thomas said.

The United States, which carries out 80 percent of the coalition bombing, says it uses precision-guided munitions that limit civilian casualties.

Meanwhile Russia is accused of using conventional bombs that are much more deadly to civilian populations.

Amnesty International estimates that there have been at least 300 civilian victims in Syria alone from coalition strikes.

The number of casualties has risen sharply since the start of the coalition's campaign in late 2015 to lay the groundwork to take back IS strongholds in Mosul, Iraq and Raqa, Syria.
By David Henry and Olivia Oran

NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Wall Street power brokers may have rolled their eyes in private when ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker Steven Mnuchin agreed to be Donald Trump's national finance chairman, but now they are lining up to meet him.

Financial lobbyists and their bosses are hoping that Mnuchin and others Trump has enlisted as advisers will help convey their views and act as interpreters of the president-elect's so far at times confusing messages.

"This is different from a lot of elections in the past where you could say, 'If so-and-so wins, this will be good for that industry and bad for that one,'" said Scott Bok, chief executive of investment bank Greenhill & Co Inc.

"It's not like Trump laid out a clear set of policies where you can say, 'This is good for these types of companies and bad for those.'"

Bankers and their lobbyists are hoping their path to influence will become clearer in the coming weeks with Trump's cabinet appointments.

"It is a matter now of getting to the people who are coming in and convincing them of the benefits of some moderate deregulation to foster economic growth," said one industry executive, who declined to speak publicly about Trump.

During the presidential campaign, many people on Wall Street had supported his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton viewing her as a pragmatist and a stabilizing force.

Despite castigating hedge fund managers for "getting away with murder" on their taxes and making a vague pledge to strip big banks of their profitable trading arms, Trump has surrounded himself with financiers including Mnuchin and hedge fund firm bosses John Paulson and Anthony Scaramucci.

At the time some of their peers thought they were taking an opportunistic punt as they viewed Trump as unpredictable and populist and were vexed by his snipes at the industry.

Six months later, government-relations executives for big banks are scrambling to secure meetings with them as well as key staffers on Capitol Hill's important financial committees, in hopes they can provide a sympathetic ear for the industry.

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"That work begins immediately," said one industry lobbyist who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Trump's lack of political experience and his scattershot pronouncements have made him a wild card for big business, making private contacts with his inner circle especially critical.

On bank regulation, Trump has promised to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and implement a new, possibly tougher one, but offered few details on what it would look like.

SEC APPOINTMENTS

Although Trump's outsider status helped him win, he has turned to some well-known Washington insiders when looking to fill vacancies at U.S. financial regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Former Republican SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, who founded and heads the regulatory consulting firm Patomak Global Partners LLC, is leading the transition team for financial regulation, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Come January, Trump is expected to designate SEC Republican Commissioner Michael Piwowar as acting chair. It is unclear if Trump will make the role permanent or later tap someone new.

SEC Chair Mary Jo White, an independent appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013, is expected to leave the agency when Obama's term is over.

Mnuchin is seen as the likely pick for Treasury Secretary. He did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

KBW policy analyst Brian Gardner predicts Vice President-elect Mike Pence will have a major influence on who gets appointed to key roles, and will choose "orthodox Republicans" who are equally familiar as some others in Trump's circle.

In an emailed statement, Scaramucci said Trump's reputation for unpredictability was undeserved.

"While spending time with President-elect Trump during the campaign I got to know a very analytical and compassionate person," Scaramucci, founder and a co-managing partner of investment firm SkyBridge Capital, said.

Several policy experts predicted Trump and the new Congress will water down some financial reform rules, such as the Durbin amendment that limits bank fees or the Volcker rule against proprietary trading. They uniformly expect diminished power, if not a gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

But the Trump administration may also propose regulations that are more problematic, such as extremely high capital requirements or a revival of the Depression-era Glass Steagall law that broke up big banks.

Mnuchin, however, was cited by many as a ray of hope.

Although he has not publicly expressed opinions on financial regulation or fiscal policy, bankers and lobbyists said they felt reassured by his experience on Wall Street.

"I can't imagine that his goal would be to destroy Goldman Sachs," said the industry executive, "which is better than some." (Additional reporting by Dan Freed, Suzanne Barlyn, John McCrank and Lawrence Delevingne in New York and Lisa Lambert, Patrick Rucker and Sarah N Lynch in Washington; Writing by Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Carmel Crimmins)
From Esquire

Russia and Vladimir Putin were prominent figures in the U.S. presidential race. Russian hackers stole a trove of emails from chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign, John Podesta, leaking them with the aim, many suspect, of influencing the election. Meanwhile, Putin and Donald Trump engaged in bit of a bromance. At one point, Clinton even accused Trump of being Putin's puppet.

Trump denied her claim and insisted he doesn't even know Putin, despite having bragged earlier about meeting the Russian leader. But the day after the U.S. Election, the bromance was back on. Putin sent Trump a telegram to congratulate him on his victory. According to the official Kremlin website, Putin wrote that he hopes to "work together to end the crisis in Russian-American relations and "search for effective responses to global security challenges." He also said that he was confident that "building a constructive dialogue between Moscow and Washington, which is based on principles of equality, mutual respect and taking into account one another's true positions, is in the interest of our peoples and the world community."

In a presentation in Moscow on Wednesday, Putin congratulated Trump, again emphasizing that he looks forward to being friends (but don't forget that it was all America's fault in first place):

I'd like to congratulate the American people with the end of the electoral cycle. And I also would like to congratulate Mr. Donald Trump with his victory. We heard [Trump's] campaign rhetoric while still a candidate for the US presidency, which was focused on restoring the relations between Russia and the United States. We understand and are aware that it will be a difficult path in the light of the degradation in which, unfortunately, the relationship between Russia and the US are at the moment. And as I have already said at length, it is not our fault that Russian American relations are currently in this state. But Russia wants to and is ready to restore full-length relations with the United States. I repeat we understand that this will not be an easy route, but we are ready to walk our part in it, and do everything to return Russian American relations to a stable and sustainable developmental track.

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Within Russia, reactions are mixed. Among many of my own Russian friends and relatives, there is a sense of shock at Trump's rise to power.

"If this had happened in Russia, I would have assumed that he just bought the votes and been done with it," my cousin, Sveta, who lives in St. Petersburg, told me. "But it seems like America is strict about that sort of thing, which is why I don't understand how this could have happened."

I finally really and truly understand my Russian journalist friends. I only hope I have half their courage. - Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) November 9, 2016

But those who support Putin (and benefit from that support) are elated.

"We are very glad that relations will improve with Russia and stop the artificial Cold War which Washington and London try to push on the world," pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov told the BBC.

Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the state-owned television news network RT and the state-owned international news agency Rossiya Segodnya, tweeted that she wanted "to drive through Moscow with an American flag in the window."

She then tweeted: "If Trump recognizes our Crimea, cancels the sanctions, reaches an agreement with us about Syria and releasing Assange, I'll retire. For the world will be perfect."

    ,  ,        ,    .    . -   (@M_Simonyan) November 9, 2016

Putin's detractors, however, are feeling even more anxious than usual.

The dissident music group Pussy Riot offered these words of comfort.

It's like being arrested. Dramatic at the beginning. But then you start to figure out how to live and create in prison. You'll overcome. - Pussy Riot (@pussyrrriot) November 9, 2016

And Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess grandmaster and fierce Putin critic, made a fitting Game of Thrones reference.

Winter Is Here. - Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) November 9, 2016

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With the Centre scrapping the two denominations, no transactions took place on Wednesday and no auction is likely to take place until Monday.

By Revathi Rajeevan: Sanal, a native of Trivandrum, was waiting for the monthly auction of his Kerala State Financial Enterprises (KSFE) chit fund today to call for an amount that he needed for a personal emergency. But with the sudden demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1,000 notes, it has been put on hold for another two days. In Kerala, a significant number of people like Sanal depend on this parallel banking system that came to a sudden halt on Wednesday.

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Kerala State Financial Enterprises is a public sector non-banking financial company whose products include but is not limited to chitty (chit funds), loans and savings.

"I have opted for a Rs 3 lakh chitty for which I have to pay Rs 10,000 on the 10th of every month. On the same day, there will be an auction to call for the total amount. I urgently needed the money and hoped to call it today but I have to wait for a few more days now, after which the money may not be of use to me," said Sanal.

Also read: Currency chaos in Kerala: How state saw midnight hunt for 100-rupee notes



The KSFE has 600 branches across the state with at least 32,000 auctions taking place in a month per branch. A medium sized branch collects around Rs 5-10 lakh per day. More than 2000 agents under these branches collect the amount from consumers (those who have opted for the chitty) on a daily basis. The amount could be as low as Rs 2,000 to Rs 7,000 or above which is almost always given in cash, easily in denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.



QUICK MONEY



With the central government scrapping the two denominations, no transactions took place on Wednesday and no auction is likely to take place until Monday. This means that those who had an eye on the auction for quick money are forced to wait, coupled with the loss that the sector has undergone, in a day.

The concerns of the KSFE was among the first that Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac pointed out on Tuesday during his first reaction to the Centre's decision. Speaking to India Today, Isaac today said, "the KSFE's loss due to this could be to the tune of RS 750 crore. For co-operative banks, it is even higher, around Rs 4,000-5,000 crores."

Also read: State of States 2016: Why Kerala remains India's No 1, Tamil Nadu most improved



Criticising the Centre's sudden decision, he added, "It was not a well thought decision."

KSFE's Managing Director, Joshy Paul Velayath, however, chose to look at it optimistically. "The customer has the option of giving cheques but usually they all give it in cash. The Centre's decision has definitely affected KSFE negatively. But we will overcome this. There are times in the past when we have post-poned our auctions and made up for it, later. The customer will not lose money," he said.

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Walking Dead Leaders Ranked Worst to Best: From Rick to Negan (Photos)

On The Walking Dead, plenty have tried to lead, but few have been successful. Here we look back on all those who led others to safety or their graves

Gregory (Alive). Leader of: Hilltop Colony. Gregory runs Hilltopfor now anyway. He has shown himself to be an ineffectual leader who immediately caved to The Saviors. He is currently recovering from a knife wound sustained when one of his own tried to kill him to appease Negan.

Deanna (Deceased). Leader of: Alexandria. Deanna helped keep Alexandria together early on. She was a great judge of character, but did not recognize the walker threat for what it was. She died after the walls of Alexandria fell, leaving the community to Rick.

Dawn took charge of the hospital when her predecessor failed to keep people safe. But her practice of requiring forced labor in exchange for meds earned her no friends, and eventually led to her death

Gareth and his fellow Terminus residents promised weary travelers sanctuary, only to kill and eat them cannibal style. He became obsessed with getting revenge on Rick, eventually leading to his death at Ricks hands. Hershel kept himself and his family safe on his farm during the early days of the outbreak, eventually offering shelter to Rick and his group. But Hershel believed that the walkers could be returned to human form, which proved a costly mistake.
I Wanted to be Rambo I Wanted to be Lakota  Native American veterans tell their stories Sculpture of a warrior adorns the grave of Eugene Yallow Boy at the cemetery of Wolf Creek, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Lakota Nation has a long warrior tradition to prove manhood in combat. Native Americans join the US military at a higher rate than any other ethnic group. This was true even before 1924, when the Snyder Act granted United States citizenship to all Native Americans. More than 98 000 Native Americans served in World War I, II and Vietnam. More than 18,000 have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are close to 190,000 living Native American veterans. (Photo: Svetlana Bachevanova)

"When I signed to go to the war in Iraq, it was the Lakota way to be like our ancestors, it was American because I wanted to be like Rambo. - John Old Horse, third generation Lakota warrior

Text and photography by Svetlana Bachevanova

_____

The Lakota Nation has a long warrior tradition to prove manhood in combat. Native Americans join the US military at a higher rate than any other ethnic group. This was true even before 1924, when the Snyder Act granted United States citizenship to all Native Americans. More than 98 000 Native Americans served in World War I, II and Vietnam. More than 18,000 have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are close to 190,000 living Native American veterans.

In the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to the Lakota nation, almost every man knows the smell of battle. Going to war is how they live. The tribe that twice defeated the U.S. Army, today sends their sons and daughters to the same army to practice their vibrant warrior tradition and to defend their homeland.

The power of the warrior tradition may not be the only factor influencing a large Native American participation in the military. Native Americans have a disproportionately lower standard of living than most Americans. In the Pine Ridge Reservation, the unemployment rate exceeds 70%. The median annual income is approximately $3,500 and nine out of ten families live below the federal poverty level. Under these conditions, the military promises opportunity not available in the reservation.

"I signed up to go to Vietnam to learn how to be a killer", share Tony Bush, a Vietnam veteran who did not received his military benefits 42 years after his participation in the war. He, as many other veterans from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation lives in extreme poverty. Forgotten and abandoned by the government sometime Tony walks 24 miles distance to meet his lawyer who promised to help him receive his military benefits back. The war in Vietnam is over but Tony's war is still going every time when he hears children cry. It reminds him the times he and his fellow soldiers did horrible things to civilian families back then.

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"When I signed to go to war in Iraq, it was the Lakota way to be like our ancestors, it was American because I wanted to be like Rambo", share with laud laughing Jon Old Horse, a third generation Old Horse who went to war to proves his manhood and to become a modern day warrior. He came back from Iraq a different man. His wife divorces him. After months of severe PTSD Jon discovered that his participation in the white man army made him loose everything-family, friends, and comrades. He was not well accepted as a Native American among his fellow soldiers and criticized by Lakotas why he went to fight on the site of Lakota's biggest enemy: The US government.

The end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan brought back to the reservation a large number of veterans suffering PTSD from their war experience. There is an increasing amount of evidence showing that American Indian Veterans have the highest rate of PTSD of any ethnic group. Return of Lakota veterans specifically to the Pine Ridge Reservation means returning to a reservation beset by intense socio-economic pressures, vast unemployment, homelessness, alcoholism, gang activity, and domestic violence. Oglala Sioux veterans returning to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and suffering from the aftermath of their combat experience, inherently face these realities upon coming home. In many cases, they have to fight for their veterans benefits, including among living veterans who served pre-Iraq and Afghanistan, for whom PTSD, now a recognized disability, was not considered as such to entitle them to disability benefits by the VA .

The reservation is isolated and remote from suitable medical facilities. The Lakota have turned again to their roots, searching for spiritual peace for their wounded souls by participating in Sundance and sweat lodge ceremonies. These rituals, illegal for decades, now play a critical role in helping Native American veterans with PTSD.

The story is told through the voices of several veterans from different US wars I followed the past few years.

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Can Trump also happen in Germany?

Thats what German newspaper Bild wondered on Thursday. Der Spiegel took a different approach, bemoaning that It Becomes Lonely in Europe, as Berlin and Brussels must now deal with Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Donald Trump, in addition to local populists like Viktor Orban.

Germany might not be lonely for long. The European powerhouse, for obvious reasons, has for decades been hyper conscious of hate speech and xenophobia. In Septembers regional elections, however, the right-wing populist party AfD outperformed German Chancellor Angela Merkels party in her home state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Merkel took blame for her partys poor performance but nevertheless maintained that her refugee policy  which the AfD openly hates  was fundamentally right.

AfD was originally formed in 2013 to protest the euro, but has since morphed into an anti-immigrant, anti-Islam party, and has taken to aping the anti-establishment rhetoric of the (also anti-immigrant, anti-Islam) Pegida movement.

Its official policy says that Islam does not belong to Germany. And, since the German governments 2015 decision to take in refugees, it has done quite well. In the September regional elections, it won 24.2 percent of the vote in Saxony Anhalt; 12.6 percent of the vote in Rhineland-Palatinate, and 15.1 percent of the vote in Baden-Wurttemberg. It has nine MPs across Germanys state parliaments. And it may well win seats in next years federal elections, which bodes ill for Merkels already struggling current coalition. Electoral desperation has prompted some in Merkels own center-right CDU party to suggest banding together with AfD. Meanwhile, after Tuesdays shock, some German officials are warning that Trumps victory should put German politicians on alert.

In response to Trumps election, Frauke Petry, the leader of AfD, tweeted, Congratulations to the next president of the United States of America #USElection2016 #Trump #AfD. She added, Americans have decided for a new political beginning and against sleaze/corruption  this opportunity is historic #Trump, and Its revealing how establishment politicians and journalists treat a democratic election as the apocalypse. #USAWahl2016.

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Frauke Petry was certainly not alone: Marine Le Pen, front of the National Front and Nigel Farage, former head of UKIP and champion of Brexit, both extended their heartiest congratulations.

While most world leaders were not as effusive as Russias Vladimir Putin, prime ministers and presidents from friendly nations  Canadas Justin Trudeau, Georgias Giorgi Margvelashvili, Indias Narendra Modi, and U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May (dont touch her, for goodness sake, Farage joked)  offered Trump straightforward congratulations.

Merkel, however, whom some have called the last guardian of liberalism and whom Trump called his favorite world leader after many months of blaming her for ruining Germany, did not.

After the election, Merkel submitted a statement saying, Germany and America are bound by common values  democracy, freedom, as well as respect for the rule of law and the dignity of each and every person, regardless of their origin, skin color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or political views. It is based on these values that I wish to offer close cooperation, both with me personally and between our countries governments.

Germany holds federal elections next year. The world will have to wait until then to see if Germans agree with Merkel as to the centrality and importance of any of those things.

And to answer Bilds question: After Tuesdays result, its clear that Trump can happen anywhere  even, potentially, in Germany.

Photo credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
From Esquire

Donald Trump said in the past that he wanted to bring back waterboarding "and a hell of a lot more." Now, just one day after he was elected, it looks like he's still planning on following through with that promise, according to CNN.

CNN just listed water-boarding as one of President Trump's top priorities, alongside repealing Obamacare and building a Mexican border wall. - Liam Stack (@liamstack) November 9, 2016

CNN says that Trump's top priorities aren't jobs, or the economy, and sure as hell not reproductive rights or reducing carbon emissions. To give you an idea, waterboarding makes the list, right below building the Infamous Wall and improving ties with Russia.

how horrifying is it that "waterboarding" makes the cut for a list of Trump's top 5 known priorities pic.twitter.com/07YgFkBz9W - Nick Robinson (@Babylonian) November 9, 2016

As if that's enough, Senator Tom Cotton also told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "waterboarding isn't torture" and that "Trump is a pretty tough guy and he's ready to make these tough calls."

And it's only the first day.

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Donald Trumps surprise victory poses the question: How did we get this thing this wrong? From the myriad polls and poll aggregators, to the vaunted oracles at Nate Silvers FiveThirtyEight and the New York Timess shiny forecasting interface, most serious predictors completely misjudged Trumps chances of victory.

Though election night had the appearance of an unlikely come-from-behind victory by Trump, that narrative only exists because virtually all predictionsperhaps even from the Trump campstarted with the assumption that Trump was an underdog. In reality, when viewed with proper perspective, Trump sailed to a rather easy victory, challenged Clinton in several stronghold states, and realistically wrapped the election well before midnight. That kind of result doesnt come out of nowhere, but few pre-election polls even began to pick up such large effects.

So what happened? Caveat emptor: If pollsters dont really know the answer, we probably wont really know it for some time. Also, as of the time of this writing, Hillary Clinton is ahead in the popular vote totals, meaning that polls showing her ahead by a few points in head-to-head matchups with Trump were wrong in magnitude, but not directionality.

Recommended: There Will Be an Evangelical Reckoning Over Donald Trump

National polls dont usually show Electoral College vote counts, and dont often maintain the granularity to make the kind of state-by-state predictions to make those projections, so their usefulness even in aggregate to forecast elections is limited. Given that electors are determined by congressional representation, that representation is only reapportioned every 10 years, and that the overall number has not increased in over 50 years, there is an increasing discrepancy between the popular vote and the actual outcome of elections, one that will make national overall polls that simulate the popular vote less relevant to predictions over time.*

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Forecasting sites and models have keyed into this discrepancy and had success over the past few election cycles by aggregating smaller state and county-level polls, and then forecasting actual Electoral College votes from those aggregates. That approach has obvious advantages, but suffers sometimes from lack of available and reliable data. As a rule, many state and local polls are newer and more volatile than national polls, and several rely necessarily on unorthodox methods to achieve enough proper sample sizes, which are also often much lower than national polls. Also, the baseline statistics from Census products and other large surveys used for weighting state and local results become less reliable as they drill down.

Long story short: Statistical power is important, and any misrepresentation of the population in the sample or weights can lead to unusable results.

Recommended: How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul

The problem with finding accurate and random samples of voters to poll has plagued polling since cell phones came into wide use. Prior to that technological development, the ubiquity of landline telephones made finding reasonably-random and representative samples easy, as pollsters could just pick random names out of phone books, call potential voters, and talk them through interviews, which supplied the kinds of rich context and human understanding necessary for properly analyzing their responses. That method also ensured reasonably high response rates and helped control nonresponse bias, by which the polls themselves become skewed by the kinds of people who tend to answer.

But the rise of cell phones and the demographic differences of their adoption meant that random samples of landlines became increasingly inadequate in finding good samples. The problem with moving to cell phones or even attempting a hybrid approach is that cell phones are not usually publicly-listed, making it harder and harder to find representative samples. Various online survey methods have been used to supplement or supplant more expensive and less expansive phone methods, but they often also suffer from bias and are generally considered of lower quality than other polls.

Did we all believe Clinton would win because of bad data, or did we ignore bad data because we believed Clinton would win?

The difficulties in polls are illustrated by FiveThirtyEights final forecast model of Pennsylvania, where only three of the models polls from the week before the election were rated by the site as an A- or above. The poll with the most weight in that model is the Remington Research Poll, a robo-call-powered poll run by former Ted Cruz manager Jeff Roe that does not appear to publish its sampling or weighting methodology, and thus has not been given a rating by FiveThirtyEight.

The most recent poll in that model came from the mixed landline and online Gravis Marketing poll, and featured results with a whopping 3 percentage-point margin of error and a sample that was weighted not to Pennsylvania demographics, but to national demographics. One other poll in the aggregate is the SurveyMonkey poll, which is likely limited by its reliance on a largely skewed group of voterspeople who respond to SurveyMonkey polls. Each of these showed Clinton leads in the state that Donald Trump eventually won.

Recommended: Donald Trump Wins the Presidential Race

New forecasting models of aggregation like FiveThirtyEights are marvels in increasing predictive power, and work well in smoothing out the kinks of individual state polls by increasing their statistical power in groups, but when those polls suffer similar problems, those models might theoretically amplify their discrepancies.

Namely, if polls tend to weight Democratic or Republican likely-voters and demographics based on 2012 elections patterns or older demographic distributions, they will naturally miss out on big shifts in the composition of likely-voters or where they live. If high numbers of the wealthy, white, educated pieces of the Obama coalition turned out for Trump, and he also picked up unprecedented turnout from rural voters, models that weight data to recent past elections might understate those effects. Many of these polls might be ill-suited to understanding sudden changes in the electorate or the way the electorate votes.

There are some solutions to this likely-voter problem in polls, but many of them involve methods that might make several cheap and accessible polls less so. Utilizing advanced statistics, analyzing previous similar election events, using machine-learning, and creating kitchen-sink models based on voter rolls are established ways to improve the underlying assumptions of polls. But those methods might be a bit too costly and time-intensive for polls that use online surveys and publicly-available annual Census data precisely because they tend to be cheaper than deep research.

Bad models happen, and the very nature of what appears to be the Trump constituency probably made most models worse. Forecasts are best at telling us what old data tells us about new data, and the thing about using existing data is that large deviations in the underlying assumptions of those data may go unnoticed. Those deviations are especially dangerous when they bolster existing confirmation bias among analysts and journalists, but the directionality of that bias is often unclear. Did we all believe Clinton would win because of bad data, or did we ignore bad data because we believed Clinton would win? Theres the question for the ages.

Perhaps the lesson here about the Trump presidency is that it was truly unpredictable. Good models often fail to accommodate events outside of the bounds of their sensitivity, and sounding the alarm on their flaws would necessarily involve knowing or suspecting more about elections than the data we fed the polls.

For many unfortunate Cassandras like Silver himself, caution was roundly ridiculed from this lack of perspective. But if this is the new normal, pollsters will have to adapt in order to maintain relevance.

* This article originally suggested that electoral votes had not been reapportioned in 50 years. We regret the error.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
UPA took no concerted steps during its 10-year tenure to keep a tab on unaccounted wealth and it was that inaction that had led to the situation as it stood today, the Finance Minister said.

By India Today Web Desk: Following the demonetisation of 500 and 1000 rupee currency notes, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has mentioned how the Government plans to crack down on black money. In an exclusive chat with Aaj Tak, Jaitley said that the measures taken by the Centre would yield results.

He blamed the Congress-led UPA for not taking any firm and concerted steps during its 10-year tenure to keep a tab on unaccounted wealth and it was that inaction that had led to the situation as it stood today.

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ATMs TO GIVE NEW CURRENCY NOTES FROM MIDNIGHT



Jaitley said that people could withdraw the new series of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes from the ATMs from Thursday midnight.



A total amount of Rs 14 lakh crore is in circulation in the economy in high denomination notes. "But how much will be replaced by people, I cannot predict," he said.

All banks have been directed to work for 12 hours on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday to clear the rush of desperate customers for exchange transactions and, if required, remain open even next Sunday (November 20).

FARMERS' INCOMES WON'T BE TAXABLE: JAITLEY



The UPA government under Dr Manmohan Singh from 2004 to 2014 took no stern measures to rein in the exchange of black money.

Slamming the Congress' criticism of the Government over this development, Jaitley said, "Rahul Gandhi is a representative of that party which has not done anything to contain black money."

Also read: Will change the way people spend, keep their money: Arun Jaitley



He added, "Farmers must keep their money in banks and their incomes would not be taxable. The common man needs to change his habit of spending and that there will be no action against small investors in this crackdown process."

RUBBISHES OPPOSITION'S CHARGES



Hitting back at the Opposition for criticising the Government's decision as unfriendly and draconian, Jaitley said that the objections raised by Opposition parties were motivated by petty point-scoring and had no merit. "Some political parties did not have faith in this move of the Government. We have been saying that pay money through cheque and use white money", he said.

The Finance added that the general public was not bothered by the Opposition's objections and rubbished rumours of a chip inside the new 2000-rupee note.

He said that the Government had warned those with undisclosed income several times about its plans to go public with their names. Jaitley said that demonetisation of notes was not the only step that the Centre had planned to bring the black money hoarders to book. "When real time transactions start coming in from various countries, a lot of details will come forward", he said. Jaitley added that those evading tax, who had turned a deaf ear to government ultimatums by not declaring their assets, would be dealt with strictly.

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Also read: Arun Jaitley on currency revamp: This is a bold step in right direction



RESPONSE OF CITIZENS HEARTENING

Jaitley said, "We will be able to push sufficient amount of new currency in 2-3 weeks' time. Response of citizens to this initiative of the government is heartening. Due to this step, GST will be more efficiently levied and it will be difficult for people to evade paying the same."

He added that there won't be any action on people who have small savings, especially under exemption limit.



Watch link





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Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna's baby girl is finally here!

The couple welcomed daughter Dream Renee Kardashian on Thursday, and while the newborn's name is definitely one of a kind, she's in good company with the rest of the Kardashian crew.

WATCH: Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna Welcome Daughter

Find out where Dream ranks on the scale of unique Kardashian baby names below:

1. Dream Renee

Rob and Chyna  E! A photo posted by Blac Chyna (@blacchyna) on Sep 11, 2016 at 5:46pm PDT

While Rob and Chyna announced months before their daughter's birth that she would not be given a signature K name, Dream is certainly going to take some getting used to. The couple went a little more conventional with Dream's middle name, Renee, which she shares with Chyna, whose real name is Angela Renee White.

2. Saint

 on my snap chat A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Jun 23, 2016 at 10:06pm PDT

Only Kim Kardashian and Kanye West could find a way to top North West. The couple did just that when they named their second child Saint a few days after he was born on Dec. 5, 2015. Kim announced the little's one name on Twitter, with reports that she and Kanye chose Saint as they considered their son "a blessing," especially "because she had such a difficult pregnancy."

WATCH: Kourtney Kardashian Shares Adorable Pic of North and Penelope on Election Day

3. Reign Aston

My heart. A photo posted by Kourtney Kardashian (@kourtneykardash) on Aug 25, 2016 at 9:55pm PDT

The usually traditional Kourtney Kardashian surprised fans with her third child's unique name, Reign Aston Disick. "I'm never certain [with names] until they're born," Kourtney told People after she and Scott Disick welcomed their son on Dec. 14, 2014. "I actually had the name on our list with Mason. Then with Penelope, I had it on the list, but spelled R-A-I-N. Once I found out I was having a boy, we just changed the spelling again."

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4. (Honorable Mention) King Cairo

 A photo posted by Tyga / T-Raww (@kinggoldchains) on Oct 16, 2016 at 2:16pm PDT

Though not officially a Kardashian, King Cairo might as well be, considering his mom, Blac Chyna, is engaged to Rob Kardashian and his dad, Tyga, is dating Kylie Jenner. While neither Chyna nor Tyga have publicly commented on their son's name, Tyga made the meaning behind the moniker clear in his first photo with his son on Oct. 16, 2012. "Most amazing feeling ever. #Blessed #2Kings," he wrote on Twitter.

WATCH: Blac Chyna Celebrates King's 4th Birthday With Epic Lego and Ferrari-Themed Party

5. North

MOOD A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Jun 13, 2016 at 11:51pm PDT

The world couldn't believe when Kim and Kanye named their firstborn North on June 15, 2013, but three years later, we're kind of digging it. While little Nori's parents never explained the meaning behind her directional name, family matriarch Kris Jenner later clarified it on The View.

"The way [Kim] explained it to me was that North means highest power, and she says that North is their highest point together and I thought that was really sweet," Kris shared. "It's North West, but you don't walk around calling somebody 'Hi North West,' it's just North."

6. Penelope Scotland

Happy birthday to my little mermaid! Seeing the magic in the world through your eyes makes me so happy. A photo posted by Kourtney Kardashian (@kourtneykardash) on Jul 8, 2016 at 7:21am PDT

Kourtney went more traditional upon welcoming her daughter into the world on July 8, 2012. Kris told E! News that Penelope's parents simply thought the name was cute, and it was Kris who suggested the middle name Scotland -- a tribute to Penelope's father, Scott.

WATCH: Kourtney Kardashian Says Penelope and North 'Experiment' With Makeup

7. Mason Dash

I miss my boys  How cute are they?!? A video posted by Khloe (@khloekardashian) on Jul 18, 2016 at 9:26pm PDT

The most common name of the bunch, the first Kardashian kid's moniker also has a sentimental meaning. As Kourtney explained to Life & Style shortly after his birth on Dec. 14, 2009, Mason shares the same meaning in English that Kardashian has in Armenian: stone worker. As for his middle name, the reality star explained, "Dash is not for my clothing store, as some people have suggested online. That would be stupid. Dash is short for Kardashian, and it was my father's nickname."

WATCH: Kim Kardashian Considers Secretly Having a Baby Via Surrogate

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Photo credit: Getty Images

From ELLE DECOR

When a president is living in the White House, his time there is illuminated by the spotlight. But when that president becomes a former president and the White House becomes the home of his predecessor, where does he go?

For someone like President Obama, the answer is to remain in Washington D.C., but that's an anomaly (in fact, he's the first president to do so since 1921). Read on for the details on where he's headed next, and the places five presidents before him chose as their new locales.

President Obama: Kalorama, Washington D.C.

"I'm like the old guy at the bar where you went to high school, right? Still kinda hanging around. Like his shirt's buttoned a little too low. Still thinks he's cool."

That's exactly the description President Obama gave Jimmy Kimmel about himself in an interview last month while discussing his plans to stay in Washington D.C. after his presidency. (C'mon Obama, you know you'll always be cool after that drop-the-mic move.)

More specifically, the Obama family will unpack in Kolorama, a neighborhood just two miles away from the White House. The exclusive area has been home to past presidents both before and after their terms - think: Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover.

Before the Obamas purchased it, the 8,200-square-foot house they're moving into in Kolorama belonged to Joe Lockhart, who was the press secretary and senior advisor to Former President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2000.

Former President George W. Bush: Dallas, Texas

Photo credit: Getty Images

Known well for having a deep fondness of his home state, Former President George W. Bush purchased a multimillion-dollar, 8,500-square-foot home in the Dallas neighborhood of Preston Hollow shortly before his second term ended in 2009, reports The Wall Street Journal.

According to the Miller Center at University of Virginia, he and former first lady Laura Bush became part of the Dallas community very quickly by hosting barbecues at the home and partaking in local events. The family had lived in Dallas before, from 1988 to 1995, before moving to Austin to live in the Texas Governor's Mansion.

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While the price tag for Bush's home is thought to have been quite large, the median price of homes currently listed in Preston Hollow is $549,500, or $221 per square foot - just slightly higher than the Dallas average of $189, according to Zillow.

Former President Bill Clinton: Chappaqua, New York

Photo credit: Getty Images

In 1999, shortly before the end of his term, the Clintons paid $1.7 million for an 11-room home in Chappaqua, New York. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was preparing to run for the United States Senate.

The white, Dutch colonial house is shaped somewhat like a barn, and is situated in a tree-lined cul-de-sac at 15 Old House Lane. It recent years, it was conveniently a short commute from Hillary Clinton's campaign headquarters in Brooklyn.

It has five bedrooms, four bathrooms and a pool. Today, experts at Trulia estimate it would be worth about $2.7 million. In September, the Clintons also purchased a $1.16 million house next door - but the jury's still out on what it will be used for.

Former President George W. H. Bush: Kennebunkport, New York

Photo credit: Getty Images

Though it certainly isn't a new residence for Bush, his family compound was one of the first places he returned to after leaving the White House. Following his presidency, he and former first lady Barbara Bush split their time between Houston, Texas and Kennebunkport, Maine, where the Bush family has owned property for more than a century.

When Jeb Bush announced his presidential campaign last year, the compound started receiving more attention than usual as tourists traveled to the oceanside town for a glimpse of the mansion, reports the Washington Post. Still, locals are said to keep the exact location quiet out of respect for the family, and the house is protected by the Secret Service.

According to the Washington Post, George and Barbara Bush still spend six months every year at the compound, flying the Texas flag when they're there.

Former President Ronald Reagan: Bel Air, California

Photo credit: Getty Images

Once Reagan's presidency ended in 1989, he retired to the wealthy Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel Air. It was actually purchased for the Reagans by their friends in late 1986 for $2.5 million, according to the Los Angeles Times.

After his presidency, Reagan spent time in the home creating his memoirs and supervising the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. His suite of offices were in nearby Century City, and he enjoyed riding horses at his ranch just northwest of Santa Barbara.

The approximately 7,200-square-foot house, with 17 rooms across two floors, sold to billionaire Jerry Perenchio in July 2016 for $15 million, reports the Los Angeles Times.

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After the release of a video in which President-elect Donald Trump said he felt he could grab womens genitals with impunity, many thought for sure two of his supporter contingents would abandon him: conservative women and Christians.

Instead, last night, both stuck by him.

Trump won over 53 percent of white women, to Clintons 43 percent, according to CBS, and he did about as well among white, Republican women as among white, Republican men.

Women and Trump

As of 12:30 a.m. Nov. 9 (NBC News Exit Poll)

And despite the vulgar language Trump was heard using in the Access Hollywood tape, which many social conservatives found off-putting, 81 percent of white evangelical Christians still voted for Trump, as did the majority of people who attend religious services once a week or more. (Catholics were slightly more divided than born-again protestants, but 60 percent still went for Trump.)

Recommended: How to Cope With Post-Election Stress

Trumps embrace by these groups might signal the importance of abortionan issue on which at least a fifth of Americans say they will not compromise when voting. In 2015, 21 percent of Americans said they would only vote for a candidate who shared their abortion views, up from 13 percent in 2008.

Vice-President-elect Mike Pences abortion stance is well known: As governor of Indiana, he signed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation.

Trumps position, meanwhile, has veered from vaguely pro, to staunchly opposed, to downright inscrutable. He has historically supported abortion rights, and last year he told Jake Tapper he was pro-choice, before immediately correcting himself to say he is actually pro-life. In March, Trump said if abortion is banned in the U.S., women who seek the procedure should be punishedthen quickly backtracked the statement.

Then, his remarks about abortion during the final presidential debatehe said, you can take a baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the babysuggested to many that he is unfamiliar with the mechanics of the procedure.

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It seems, though, that pro-life voters might have been persuaded by some of Trumps other comments in the final debate. He said hed like to see the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade and for abortion rights to be left up to the states. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, said, I strongly support Roe v. Wade.

Today, preborn babies got a reprieve.

Seven in 10 voters on Tuesday said the next presidents appointment of a new Supreme Court justice was an important factorpresumably because this judge could have a decisive vote in cases involving abortion and other social issues. Voters were mobilized by whats at stake & the clear contrast w/Hillary on life, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins tweeted late Tuesday.

Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary and part of Trumps evangelical advisory committee, believes evangelicals were motivated to vote in unprecedented numbers because of Hillary Clintons record on abortion, according to the Huffington Post.

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Though Trump hasnt been their most steadfast ally, several pro-life activists celebrated his victory Tuesday.

For 25 years, we fought the Clinton abortion machine; finally the American people have brought an end to that era, Mark Harrington, who led a pro-life get-out-the-vote initiative across Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida last month, said in an emailed statement. Today, preborn babies got a reprieve.

Meanwhile, Willie Parker, board chair of the pro-choice Physicians for Reproductive Health and one of the last few doctors to provide abortions in Mississippi, said in a statement that he was deeply disheartened by Trumps win, adding, A Trump presidency will mean that attacks on access to abortion and all other reproductive health services will continue.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Many Americans may be thrilled that the election is finally over, but theres one group that almost certainly wont be: political journalists at CNN and elsewhere.

During a time of retrenchment across the media industry, Campaign 2016 has been a shot in the arm for CNN, MSNBC, Politico and any other network or website that traffics in scoops about the latest Donald Trump accuser or Hillary Clinton email. The cable news networks, for example, have posted double  and in some cases triple-digit  gains in viewers this year compared to 2015.

The end of this legendarily nasty (and newsy) election cycle is unlikely to cheer anyone who writes headlines for a living. Thats especially true since the winner was Trump, a indefatigable critic of reporters he doesnt like. But it was inevitable that the bubble had to burst.

Also Read: Is Donald Trump's Reported Media Network Holding Auditions?

Theres massive news-watching fatigue, Tom Nunan, a TV and movie producer and lecturer at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, said. I really think people are going to take a break until the inauguration.

Well, perhaps not all people. But the kind of growth seen this year was simply not sustainable.

Just check out CNN, which has seen a broad resurgence under boss Jeff Zucker (pictured, right, with Trump). In October, the cable news network was up a stunning 95 percent in prime time to 1.9 million total viewers, according to Nielsen. MSNBC saw a 160 percent hike to 1.7 million.

Also Read: Donald Trump Thinks He's Receiving Worst Media Treatment 'In American History' (Video)

Even No. 1 Fox News, which tends to be less dependent on breaking news for its ratings, was up 72 percent, to 3.1 million.

The growth extends to politics-heavy websites as well. In September, Politico logged 20.2 million unique visitors, according to comScore, a 104 percent increase over the same period last year.

The New York Times website drew 88.8 million uniques, for a 33.5 percent rise.

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Also Read: Cable Ratings: Fox News Heads Into Election Topping Total Viewers for 12th Straight Week

One possible silver lining for the media did not materialize. If Clinton had won, Fox News probably would have gotten a long-lasting bump, as her detractors looked for support on the airwaves.

Fox News  whenever theres a Democrat in the White House  always enjoys a surge, Nunan said. Its really the only place [Republicans] can get their comfort food. But with Trump the victor, conservatives are unlikely to feel as urgent a need to gather in front of a Sean Hannity or Bill OReilly.

In fact  barring some real histrionics in the first 100 days of the Trump administration  the comedown will likely be dramatic for media organizations.

I think you can anticipate a pretty precipitous  drop, Nunan said.

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Watch CNN's Jake Tapper Troll Donald Trump (Video)

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Theres no denying that cancer treatments keep getting better, thanks in large part to ever more sophisticated and precise drugs that can target tumors exquisitely and eliminate them before they spread and cause serious disease.

But in an article published in the BMJ, scientists argue that some vaunted cancer medications arent living up to their promises to save more patients lives.

The reason has to do with the many ethically questionable practices throughout the drug-development process, says Peter Wise, retired from Charing Cross Hospital and Imperial College School of Medicine in London. These practices range from research by pharmaceutical companies to the way new compounds are tested, how data is interpreted, to the approval process by regulatory agencies and the way that doctors are incentivized to prescribe them. There are different layers in the whole process and real problems all the way down the line, he says.

For example, drugs used to be tested in academic centers by faculty researchers who were independent of the companies that developed them, and therefore were more likely to have unbiased perspectives in analyzing the data. But many are now tested by contract research organizations hired by pharmaceutical companies to conduct the trials. Because they are beholden to the companies, these groups may introduce biases in interpretation of their results, says Wise.

More important, the way trials are designed has changed considerably. Traditionally, scientists would evaluate new drugs based on how much they improved the death rate from disease. Now so-called surrogate endpoints  such as how the agent affects tumor growth or levels of certain tumor-related proteins  are used as ways to validate the effectiveness of a new drug. If approved, doctors and patients still dont know for sure whether the drug will actually lengthen lives and improve their survival.

Regulatory agencies also perpetuate the problem when they accelerate approval for medications, allowing such surrogate endpoints in an effort to telescope the process rather than requiring that studies continue until data on survival can be collected. A Food and Drug Administration analysis in 2010 found that 45% of cancer drugs awarded accelerated approval failed to earn full approval, either because their early results proved untenable or the companies failed to provide the required additional data to support their application.

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Even doctors arent immune to the bias, because once a drug is approved, pharmaceutical companies launch aggressive campaigns to educate and persuade doctors to prescribe their product.

For the patient, this means that more drugs that offer only marginal benefit, such as a two-to-three-month longer survival, are flooding the market. Thats especially worrisome, since a study found that 75% of people with advanced colon or lung cancers believed that the chemotherapy treatment their doctors offered would cure them, an unrealistic belief not supported by any science. Wise says that patients need to be fully informed of what benefits new cancer drugs can provide, and doctors need to ensure that their patients understand the medications may provide only a marginal improvement over traditional therapies.

What could be more helpful, he argues, is if doctors give patients more opportunities to participate in clinical trials, rather than directing them toward new drugs that might only give them a few more months. Because trials often compare new agents with existing standard therapy, people who enroll will be, at the very least, receiving the standard of care. And the more information such trials generate about the effectiveness of new drugs, the less likely it will be that current unethical practices continue. At the moment, only about 3% of adult cancer patients participate in clinical trials. If more patients enrolled in clinical trials, there would be quicker recognition of whether the drug being tested is a good one, and it would save the country money in health care costs, says Wise.

More consideration also needs to be given to the option of forgoing drugs as well, especially if they will only provide little benefit for people whose cancer is essentially untreatable. Its a more controversial view, but one that Wise says would allow more people to enjoy their final days with family in their own homes and not in a hospital weakened by an ineffective treatment. Patients need to be counseled about options and not just given willy-nilly cancer drugs because thats the knee-jerk reaction, he says. That has to stop.
Donald Trumps relationship with the news media during his successful run for the presidency was, put politely, complex. A better word might be codependent. Trump lashed out regularly at those whose coverage of his campaign he found unfavorable  tweeting insults, banning and unbanning news organizations, promising to strengthen libel and defamation laws. But free media coverage, particularly from TV news outlets, was also the fuel that powered the Trump machine.

What television news outlets received in return were outsize ratings. For the four weeks of Oct. 10-Nov. 6, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC averaged 84% more primetime viewers than they did over the same period a year ago. The increased numbers  and accompanying ad dollars  rolled in as the networks handed large swathes of airtime over to live feeds of Trump campaign events. Those same networks were caught by surprise Tuesday night by Trumps victory. Now they must decide whether the trade-off was worth it.

I think they have to examine the amount of unfiltered airtime they gave to the President-elect, said Katz Television Groups Bill Carroll. If you were going to look at any of the cable networks for the last year, often the key phrase would be, And now we go to a rally for Donald Trump.

Speaking at Harvard in October, CNN president Jeff Zucker defended his networks coverage of Trump.

If we made a mistake last year, its that we probably did put on too many of his campaign rallies in those early months unedited and just let them run, Zucker said. But, he added, I do not believe and I totally reject that thats how he got the Republican nomination.

The Trump campaign, however, was well aware of how the candidates TV ubiquity aided his cause. Former Trump advisor Barry Bennett bragged to Fox News in April that the candidate had literally gotten hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free media from TV news. Analysts have predicted a downturn in overall political ad spending from projections made last year based on a Trump media strategy that relied more heavily on free screen time than paid.

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The foundation of that strategy was Trumps celebrity, particularly his experience as a reality television star on The Apprentice (which was greenlit by Zucker when he led NBC). Trumps flair for improvisation and ability to entertain set him apart the crowded field of Republican primary aspirants early in the campaign.

One reason that he got more coverage [than other GOP candidates] was that some of the things he said were just amazing, said the Poynter Institutes Al Tompkins. Trumps off-the-cuff, sometimes entertaining, often offensive remarks provided needed grist for the TV news mill. Every journalist that travels with candidates knows that you hear exactly the same thing day after day after day, Tompkins said. Trump just didnt do that. Trump was constantly supplying new narrative, and that makes for fresh coverage.

The other reason for Trumps near-constant presence on TV news was his near-constant availability. Whereas other primary candidates were comparatively cautious about giving interviews, Trump early in the campaign spoke frequently with multiple outlets. In his defense and in our defense, when we asked him for an interview, he said yes, and I cannot say that about the other Republicans who were running for President, Zucker said in October.

But as the campaign wore on and Trump emerged as the GOP standard bearer, he began to limit his interviews to friendly journalists such as Fox News Sean Hannity and Bill OReilly. His relationship with media at large became more contentious. At his rallies, supporters antagonized journalists with threatening remarks and slogans.

Trump also began to take aim at press freedom. At a rally in February, he told the crowd, Im going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.

With Trump now bound for the Oval Office, his relationship with the press could hinge on whether he is serious about that goal. If he is, he would set himself again at odds with the television news organizations that have been a traditional communication pipeline between the White House and the electorate and midwifed his political career.

But even open warfare with the President may not be enough to compel networks to reconsider their early coverage of Trump.

Im not sure how much choice the news media had, said Nikko Mele of Harvards Kennedy School of Government. He was a legitimate news story. But the quality of that coverage was questionable. A September study by Meles Kennedy School colleague Tom Patterson found that between the Iowa and Indiana primaries, coverage of Trump skewed overwhelmingly positive  57% positive, well more than top rivals Ted Cruz (46%), John Kasich (38%), and Marco Rubio (37%). Very little of the coverage was about issues or character or qualifications, Mele said. The vast majority of the coverage was, Hes winning the polls!'

Asked whether he believes pursuit of ratings drove TV news coverage of Trump, Carroll said, of course, then added, There needs to be a reasonable examination of how the cable networks, the broadcast networks, how we cover elections. Certainly Donald Trump was the creation of the media.

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From today until the end of the year women are effectively working for free because of the gender pay gap [Photo: Getty]

Hows your day at work shaping up ladies? Drowning in emails? Back to back meetings? To-do list off-the-scale? But no matter how tough your working day least theres the silver lining in the thought that youre getting paid for it. Oh wait, turns out you're not. Because from now until 2017 female employees are effectively working for free thanks to the gender pay gap.

According to statistics released by the The Fawcett Society, a charity for womens rights, the current pay gap stands at almost 13.9% and would take an inconceivable 60 years to eradicate if we continue at the progress rate were going.

To fight back the organisation has dubbed today Equal Pay Day and called for men to help them join their fight to secure equal pay for both sexes.

Its a fight that has gathered pace over the past month with women across Europe taking parts in various walkouts in protest of the pay disparity. Earlier this week women in French workplaces switched off their computers at precisely 4.34pm, the exact moment at which their annual 38.2 days of unpaid labour began. And back in October thousands of Icelandic women left work at 2.38pm on a Monday afternoon, the time from which they are essentially working for free per eight-hour day they work.

Though not everyone is in a position to walk out of their workplace to make a stand, weve come up with some alternative mini protests that might not have the same clout, but will at least make you feel youre making your pay gap point.

If you get a male colleague to buy for in the office Secret Santa buy him something that costs 13.9% less than the set budget.

Next time you do the tea round, give your male colleagues 13.9% less tea.

Celebrating a birthday at work? Sorry, male colleagues youll only get 86.1% of a slice of cake.

According to statistics it will take 60 years to close the pay gap [Photo: Getty]

Obviously its not actually your male colleagues fault that women are earning so much less than their male counterparts, but as the Fawcett Society points out, unless we all get behind the fight for equal pay, its likely well only continue to make the baby step progress weve been making so far, or indeed start to slip backwards.

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A root cause of the gender pay gap is that we dont value the work done by women, says Fawcett Society chief executive Sam Smethers. As we mark EPD this year we are focusing on the fundamental question of who and what we value and asking why it is that we dont value women and the work they do  paid or unpaid.

Equal value goes to the heart of the fight for pay equality, because the reality is that if it is a sector dominated by women the pay will be lower, she continues. As we look ahead to a UK outside the EU and possibly the single market, we have to guard against the risk of going backwards and losing some of the rights that women have fought for over many years.

What would you like to see done to close the gender pay gap? Let us know @YahooStyleUK

Women a distinct minority among highest UK earners

Women feel pressured to dress sexier at work by wearing heels and putting on make-up
There has been 1,000 per cent rise in rail ticket bookings after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of high value currency notes.

By India Today Web Desk: Agencies suspect that some black money hoarders are attempting to short-circuit demonetisation move by the government. There has been 1,000 per cent increase in the booking of AC-I class tickets in the Indian railways.

Airlines have also reported surge in business at least in terms of ticket bookings.

Announcing the demonetisation of currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that these legal tenders would continue to be accepted at railway and airport ticket counters till November 11.

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So, soon came into cycle the great Indian jugaad.

READ| This is how RBI will dispose of 2,203 crore currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000

SHARP RISE IN RAIL TICKETS SALE

According to central PRO of the Indian railways, Anil Saxena there has been 1,000 per cent in AC-I class ticket booking in various trains.

The railways have alerted its vigilance department for unusual pattern of booking. The department has also taken a few precautionary steps to thwart the ulterior motives of suspected black money hoarders.

The railways have put a cap on the number of wait list tickets for AC-I and AC-II classes. As a result tickets for these classes are not available in majority of the trains.

READ: Madras HC says Modi government's currency purge good for country



RAILWAYS CLAMPDOWN

The western railways have decided to issue wait-list ticket till November 12 only for Ac-I and Ac-II classes.

The Indian railways have decided to refund amount in excess of Rs 10,000 against cancelation only in the bank account of the concerned person.

The catering refreshment room, Jan Aahar and pantry cars have been instructed to maintain a detail register of acceptance of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes so that the source person could be identified.

For any transaction of over Rs 50,000 in any form with the railways, a copy of PAN has been made mandatory.

READ: Madras HC says Modi government's currency purge good for country



DGMA ALSO ACTS TOUGH

After the demonetisation decision was announced, people were seen queuing up at the airport counters of airlines to buy ticket using Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. The sudden rush for air tickets did not go unnoticed by the authorities.

Several airlines felt that people, with unaccounted notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 saw the air ticket booking as an easy way to convert their black money into white.

But, by Thursday evening the DGCA gave a clear instruction to the airlines to make air tickets bought with Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes 'strictly non-refundable'. Such tickets cannot be cancelled.

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Master sommelier Ian Cauble founded SommSelect to serve collectors who are more interested in laying down wines to drink than saving them for auction. Here, Cauble shares insights on under-explored regions, cellar-worthy wines that pay dividends in complexity and taste, and trophy bottlings that may disappoint.

In 2014, Ian Cauble and Brandon Carneiro decided to give their dreams the old college try. Classmates at Sonoma State University in Northern California, they found themselves in separate parts of the wine business, yet each had a desire to do something on his ownsomething that met a specific need in the marketplace.

Ten years after graduation, Caublewho was working at the time as a sommelier at a renowned restaurant in Las Vegasgained a degree of notoriety through his appearance in the documentary Somm, which traces the experiences of several hopefuls preparing for their master-sommelier exam. (Cauble passed in 2012.) Carneiro, an economics major in college, had completed his MBA and was employed in fine-wine sales during this period. Together they founded SommSelect, an online wine service that, on a daily basis, offers new wines they have uncoveredoften from out-of-the-way places. Customers may purchase wines individually or receive curated selections in a single shipment. Cauble con-centrates on the wine choices while Carneiro runs operations, although they often taste together. People have said that one of us is the right brain and the other the left brain, notes Carneiro, touching upon the two critical aspects of wine collecting: art and business. With this in mind, we asked Cauble which regions and producers he recommends that contemporary collectors include in their cellarsparticularly those who measure the return on their investment in terms of pleasure rather than dollars.

Along with practiced collectors, SommSelect has great appeal to consumers who are just starting to collect. What general advice do you give them?

I tell people just to try everything. But they should remember that their palates will change as they drink more. There is the saying that you start liking fruit and end up liking earth, which means that most drinkers are first impressed with a wines fruitiness, but their palate grows to appreciate the savory notes, the earthy side of wine. A handful of fruit with a handful of dirt in the glass is one way to look at it.

How does this advice apply practically to collecting?

Its important when youre getting started not to buy too much of any one wine, no matter how much you love it. Your tastes change and develop. There were people who bought lots of big California Cabernet Sauvignons at the beginning of the 2000s, and today they are trying to get rid of them because this isnt what they want to drink now.

That addresses taste. What about price?

Remember, value doesnt just mean inexpensive wines. You can have wines that have value at all price levels. A wine that costs over $100 can still over-deliver quality for the price. For example, Bernard Levet makes some great Cote-Roties at about $60, which have great quality-to-price value and will be absolutely stellar 8 to 10 years after the vintage.

When youre thinking about value wines today, what comes up at the top of your list?

My first thought is Beaujolais, technically in southern Burgundy. They have some incredible valuesCru Beaujolais wines for around $25 a bottle that will be aging beautifully in 10 years. Some good producers are Jean Foillard and Jean-Louis Dutraive. Staying in France, in the northern Rhone you have Crozes-Hermitage, which has some great producers, such as Domaine Combier, which produces the amazing Clos de Grives. There are also good values in Saint-Joseph and in Cornas. These are age-worthy wines [from the Syrah grape] that need a decade to reach their peak; then they are incredible!

Collectors who like to invest have traditionally flocked to Bordeaux. Can you still find value wines there for collecting?

There are so many good producers in Bordeaux that you can always find good valuesfor example, Chateau La Peyre in Saint-Estephe or Chateau Moulin de Tricot in Margaux. You should also look for good value in the second wines of the classified-growth producers, which many people find more approachable than the estate wines for early drinking. One of my favorites is La Dame de Montrose, the second wine of Chateau Montrose in Saint-Estephe.

What about Italy?

I like the wines of Sicily a lot, particularly the reds from Mount Etna. There are many very interesting, very good wines there at affordable prices. Also, in southern Italy you have some great wines being made with the Aglianico grape, which is sometimes called the Nebbiolo of the South, in places such as the Taurasi appellation in Campania. Some of the wines of Mastroberardino age incredibly well, particularly the Radici. But I also like the wines of northern Italy, located north of Barolo and Barbaresco in northern Piedmont. Like Barolo, they are made with Nebbiolo, but they cost less. Look for Boca, Lessona, Bramaterra, and Gattinara for amazing values.

What do you like in New World wines? Is Australia back from the doldrums?

I love Australian winessome incredible wineries, a lot like California in the many styles produced. I love drinking Henschkes Hill of Grace or Penfolds Grange. But there is not a huge demand these days for Australian wines in my world. Chile has some good values, especially with producers like Montes; their Purple Angel, made from old Carmenere vines, is lovely and one of my favorite wines from the Southern Hemisphere. There are some incredible red wines being made in Chile, but unfortunately, you may have to pay a lot for them.

What about California?

There are so many great wines produced these days. I like the Sandhi wines produced by Rajat Parr [a sommelier turned wine producer], and Kutch and Wind Gap wines in Sonoma are relatively undervalued. You should also look at Tyler Winery in Santa Barbara. One of my big favorites is Mayacamas in Napa Valley, whose wines are atypical of other Napa Cabernets, which are often very dense and rich. When the reds from Mayacamas hit their peak, which is often 20-plus years in bottle, they are deeply moving wines on par with the greatest in Bordeaux.

What do you like in the United States apart from the West Coast?

I dont get to drink that many wines from the East Coast, but I do know they make some very good Rieslings in the Finger Lakes area. In fact, I have rated Hermann J. Wiemers Riesling as one of the top five white wines domestically.

Do you recommend collecting white wines for aging?

Yes, but you must be careful which appellations and vintages you purchase. Even with white Burgundies, such vintages as 2003, 2006, and 2009 are not going to age as well as some others because warmer weather at harvest caused higher sugars and lower acids, which typically makes for a wine which will drink earlier during its lifetime, say 4 to 8 years. There are always exceptions.

In addition to recommending wines, what other advice do you give your customers?

We give lots of information every day about every single wine we offer. We tell why we love it, how it is made, the history of the winery, our tasting notes, decanting instructions, how it will age, service and glassware advice, food pairings, and so on.

At some point, most collectors begin thinking about the value of their collection. Is wine still a good investment financially as well as aesthetically?

The odds are very high that you can make money as a collector of blue-chip wines, such as first-growth Bordeaux and some seconds, as well as the top wines of the Right Bank. But you cant make as much as you used to decades ago, because the wines are now sold at a much higher price than they once were, leaving less potential profit for the collector. Wine can be a very good investment, but you must make smart decisions and buy from the correct sources, as it can be dangerouspotentially buying fake winesif you dont.

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Politics

Women and record number of Latinos voted  but it still didnt help Clinton

Latino voters were supposed to be Hillary Clintons secret weapon to win the White House  but even high turnout by voters in the fastest-growing U.S. minority and threats to deport undocumented immigrants by her rival Donald Trump werent enough for her to seal the deal. Post-election data also shows that fewer African-Americans came out for Clinton in 2016 than in 2012 for Barack Obama. Although many saw the prospect of putting a female president in the White House, large numbers of female voters still lined up behind Trump, despite sexual assault claims and sexist remarks that made many cringe.

The issue of how he treated women did not overshadow the attitudes these individuals already had  being disaffected and how they had been treated by the establishment elite of which Hillary was absolutely part of. Diane Heith, professor and chair of the Department of Government and Politics at St. Johns University in New York

The 2016 presidential election is certain to be one that is examined and re-examined countless times. Many pollsters point to Trumps popular appeal, while other experts look at Clinton and her possible missteps, including calling Trump supporters deplorables, misinterpreting the electoral map and misallocating resources in the final days of the campaign, and not dispelling perceptions that she was untrustworthy.
These women share what they wish they could say to Hillary Clinton, and, grab the tissues

With the election finally over, many people are currently experiencing a roller coaster of emotions  especially if your preferred candidate didnt win.

Millions of Americans supported the fight for the first female president, and Cosmo just released a powerful video featuring women sharing what they wish they could say to Hillary Clinton.

Since winning the popular vote and her powerful concession speech, Clinton has been at the forefront of our minds. Its great to see so many spirited women getting involved in politics and supporting a candidate they believe in, because she deserves to hear how meaningful her campaign was to them  and how the hope shes given women (and men, and children) is opening hearts and minds in the best way.

Thank you for reminding us that women will ALWAYS run the world.

You are my hero. Thank you.

If we could share a few words with Hillary, wed thank her for being such a gracious, compassionate, thoughtful, and inspiring leader.

This has been a historic campaign, and many of her actions have inspired women to conquer their dreams. Shes definitely made us stronger and fueled our ambition. And thats no small thing!

Along with these women, were sending so much gratitude to Hillary Clinton.

The post These women share what they wish they could say to Hillary Clinton, and, grab the tissues appeared first on HelloGiggles.
(Writes through with details, economist quote)

By Isla Binnie

ROME, Nov 10 (Reuters) - World food prices edged up in October to continue an upward trend since January, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday, adding that prospects for global cereal output had improved.

Barring a slight dip in July, the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) food price index has steadily increased from a seven-year low hit in the first month of this year.

The index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar, averaged 172.6 points in October, 0.7 percent above the month before and 9.1 percent above October last year.

Sustained demand for cheese and butter in the European Union pushed up dairy prices 3.9 percent on the month, while sugar rose on reports of production shortfalls in Brazil and India.

Conversely, sluggish import demand globally for palm oil pushed oil and fats prices down, and weaker appetite for European pigmeat from importers in China weighed on meat prices.

FAO senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian said high production prospects for basic foods such as cereals meant any future price rises would probably be muted.

But he added that currency volatility and uncertainty unleashed by the U.S. presidential election this week hampered predictions about changes in dollar terms.

"It's not an election in just any country, it's the very country whose currency is the common denominator for all international trade," Abbassian said.

"This is an additional uncertainty, but ... if you had assumed that business as usual were to continue I would have argued that, given the good prospects at hand, the potential for further price increases was probably limited."

Cereal prices rose 1.0 percent month-on-month in October as high-quality wheat supplies tightened, but the FAO forecast global wheat output this year would be 1.5 percent higher than in 2015.

(Reporting by Isla Binnie; Editing by Dale Hudson)
ray dalio

Around eight years ago, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio introduced Transcendental Meditation to his 735 employees.

Dalio had already established a unique, intense culture of "radical transparency" at Bridgewater that he likes to say is akin to being part of an "intellectual Navy SEALs," and he believed that Transcendental Meditation, or TM, would work as an effective counterbalance.

"I did it because it's the greatest gift I could give anyone  it brings about equanimity, creativity, and peace," Dalio told Business Insider in an email.

Since then, TM has popped into the mainstream, and Dalio has helped significantly. Over the last three years, the David Lynch Foundation TM center has taught almost 2,500 professionals  1,150 in 2016 alone  and roughly 55% are from Wall Street.

The foundation was founded by the eponymous acclaimed director ("Twin Peaks," "Mulholland Drive") in 2005 to teach TM for free to underserved students, veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, and victims of domestic abuse. Dalio has donated about $20 million to the DLF through the Dalio Foundation over the past decade, with funds specifically allocated to students in New York and San Francisco and veterans. The Dalio Foundation accounts for 20% of the DLF's funding.

Dalio began practicing TM in 1969 as a college student, after seeing that its founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, taught it to the Beatles.

Dalio brought TM to his Bridgewater through the DLF's teachers, who still regularly visit.

Practitioners must learn TM from a certified teacher, who gives them one of many mantras, a meaningless "vibration sound," and assists them with perfecting the technique. Meditators sit still for 20 minutes and repeat this mantra in their head, letting thoughts float by and possibly "transcending," reaching a pleasant and invigorating state of "restful alertness." These teachers then regularly meet with the student to give personalized advice, because while the technique is easy in theory, it takes some practice.

Story continues

The initial deal Dalio proposed to his company around 2008 was that any employee with a tenure of six months or longer could take a customized-for-Bridgewater course. The four-month program would cost $1,000 and, upon completion, Dalio would reimburse half the cost out of his own pocket.

bridgewater associates

After a few years, the course became popular, and many employees began regularly meditating twice a day. Dalio and his management team decided that it would be best to create a formal corporate reimbursement and training plan.

In the past eight years, around 500 employees have been trained. (Bridgewater's employee count ranged from roughly 735 to 1,700 employees in that time.)

Also in that time, Dalio has become easily the most vocal and influential proponent of TM in the finance community.

Though Bridgewater, which now has $150 billion in assets under management, became the world's largest hedge fund in 2005, it remained largely under the radar until 2011, when Dalio received mainstream press, including a full profile in The New Yorker. When the media asked him about his "secrets to success," he would laud TM.

As he's quoted as saying in the 2011 book "Transcendence," not coincidentally written by his son Paul's psychiatrist, Norman Rosenthal, TM is "the single biggest influence" in his life. It was Paul who convinced Rosenthal to revisit TM, which Rosenthal had learned years before, and to investigate it from a scientific standpoint. Rosenthal then went on to become possibly the highest profile doctor bringing to the public the wealth of peer-reviewed research on TM's proven ability to benefit people with high blood pressure and anxiety.

Dalio himself is far from a casual meditator using the technique as a way to take some quiet time  he seeks out moments of transcendence and has found them to have changed the way he interacts with life.

He told Rosenthal, in a passage from "Transcendence" now regularly cited in the TM community, that his decades of practicing TM have made him more "centered," in the sense of "being in a calm, clear-headed state so that when challenges come at you, you can deal with them like a ninja  in a calm, thoughtful way.

"When you're centered, your emotions are not hijacking you. You have the ability to think clearly, put things in their right place, and have good perspective."

NOW WATCH: Former Navy SEAL commanders: When things get tough, forget motivation  you need discipline





More From Business Insider


By Jack Kim and Ju-min Park SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump pledged his commitment to defending South Korea under an existing security alliance during a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday, her office said. Trump had said during the election campaign he would be willing to withdraw U.S. military stationed in South Korea unless Seoul paid a greater share of the cost of the U.S. deployment, but an adviser to the president-elect played down such comments on Thursday. There are about 28,500 U.S. troops based in South Korea helping to defend the country against nuclear-armed North Korea, which has remained in a technical state of war with the South since the 1950-53 Korean conflict. Park said the U.S.-South Korean alliance had grown in the past six decades and she hoped it would develop further. She asked Trump to join in the effort to help minimize the threat from North Korea, which has carried out repeated nuclear and missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and sanctions. South Korea's presidential Blue House said Trump agreed with Park and it quoted Trump as saying: "We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea." Trump's transition team did not respond to requests for comment, but an adviser to the president-elect played down concerns about any changes in approach to alliances in Asia. "I think what we are going to see is a very mainstream Republican administration," he said, adding that sharing the costs of sustaining combined defense was a matter for negotiation, as it always had been. "Its going to be a respectful conversation thats going to be done at the working level and will have absolutely nothing to do with the overall strength of these alliances, which is going to remain extremely close," he said. The adviser, who did not want to be identified by name, also noted that during the election campaign Trump had dropped comments he had made saying he would consider letting Japan and South Korea build their own nuclear weapons rather than have them rely on the United States nuclear umbrella. "He has moved on to talk about non-proliferation in a way that you would hear from any Republican president," he said. "We are very much committed to both non-proliferation and assuring the allies that not only will they continue to be under the nuclear umbrella, but that we are going to be strengthening our missile defense in ways that alleviate some of their concerns about North Korea." The Blue House said the call between Park and Trump lasted about 10 minutes and Park said she hoped Trump would be able to visit South Korea soon. COST SHARING CONCERNS There has been concern in South Korea that a Trump presidency will demand that Seoul sharply raise its share of the cost of maintaining the U.S. military presence. Under a five-year cost-sharing accord reached two years ago, Seoul agreed to contribute $867 million toward U.S. military costs in 2014, about 40 percent of the total. The deal called for the amount to rise annually at the rate of inflation. Trump said earlier this year that the United States was paid "peanuts" for the troop presence and that he would be willing to withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea and Japan, but "would not do so happily." South Korea believes its share of the cost is much higher when the vast amount of land occupied by the U.S. forces, including a large area in central Seoul, are considered. Some members of the South Korean parliament have suggested that the country has little choice but to consider nuclear armament if U.S. forces are withdrawn while North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons and missiles that could carry them. South Korea's Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun said on Thursday the country paid its share of the cost of maintaining the U.S. military and the contribution had been recognized by the U.S. government and Congress. South Korea and the United States have also agreed to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system with the U.S. military to counter missile threats from North Korea. South Korea has consistently said it had no plan to buy the THAAD system, which is built by Lockheed Martin Corp and costs an estimated $800 million a piece, that will likely add to the cost of maintaining the U.S. military presence. The official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party said on Thursday the U.S. wish for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program was "only a fantasy of a bygone era" and the policy of pressure and sanctions had failed. "The only accomplishment of the Obama administration is that it is leaving behind for the new administration coming next year the burden of having to deal with a strong nuclear power," Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary. It did not mention Trump by name. But Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper published in Japan and controlled by Pyongyang, said: "Trump is well advised to learn the lesson of history from Obama's failure. "Otherwise, the new owner of the White House will be met with the ashes of the calamity started by the previous owner." (Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Nick Macfie and Bill Trott)
By Jack Kim and Ju-min Park SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump pledged his commitment to defending South Korea under an existing security alliance during a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday, her office said. Trump had said during the election campaign he would be willing to withdraw U.S. military stationed in South Korea unless Seoul paid a greater share of the cost of the deployment. There are about 28,500 U.S. troops based in South Korea in combined defence against North Korea. Park said the alliance between the two countries had grown as they faced various challenges over the past six decades, adding she hoped the ties would develop further. She asked Trump to join in the effort to help minimise the threat from the North, which has carried out a series of nuclear and missile tests in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions. Trump agreed with Park and said: "We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea," the presidential Blue House said. The official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party said on Thursday the U.S. wish for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme "is only a fantasy of a bygone era" and the policy of pressure and sanctions had failed. "The only accomplishment of the Obama administration is that it is leaving behind for the new administration coming next year the burden of having to deal with a strong nuclear power," Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary. It did not mention Trump by name. But Choson Sinbo, a pro-North newspaper published in Japan and controlled by Pyongyang, said: "Trump is well advised to learn the lesson of history from Obama's failure. "Otherwise, the new owner of the White House will be met with the ashes of the calamity started by the previous owner." The call between Park and Trump lasted about 10 minutes and Park said she hoped Trump would be able to visit South Korea soon, according to the Blue House. There has been concern in South Korea that a Trump presidency will demand that Seoul sharply raise its share of the cost of maintaining the U.S. military presence in the country. Trump said earlier this year in various media interviews that he would be willing to withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea and Japan but "would not do so happily". "We get paid nothing, we get paid peanuts" for deploying the troops to South Korea," he said in an interview with CNN. Under a five-year cost-sharing accord reached two years ago, Seoul agreed to contribute $867 million toward U.S. military costs in 2014, about 40 percent of the total. The deal called for the amount to rise annually at the rate of inflation. South Korea believes its share of the cost is much higher when the vast amount of land occupied by the U.S. forces including a large area in central Seoul are considered. Some members of parliament have suggested that the country has little choice but to consider nuclear armament if U.S. forces are withdrawn while North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons and missiles that could carry them. South Korea's Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun said on Thursday the country has paid for its share of the cost of maintaining the U.S. military and the contribution has been recognised by the U.S. government and Congress. South Korea and the United States have also agreed to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system with the U.S. military to counter missile threats from North Korea. South Korea has consistently said it had no plan to buy the THAAD system, which is built by Lockheed Martin Corp and costs an estimated $800 million a piece, that will likely add to the cost of maintaining the U.S. military presence. The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. (Editing by Nick Macfie)
President-elect Donald Trumps election win hinged, to a large extent, on his economic promises. He had more to say on some issues (growing GDP by 4%, slashing federal regulations, Obamacare, trade) than others (Social Security benefits, student debt). Heres a look at some of Trumps policies and how they might affect everyday Americans pocketbooks.

Student loans and college costs

In a speech in October in Ohio, Trump addressed the high costs of college, in perhaps the most elaborate comments he has made about higher education during the campaign. In it now President-elect Trump said we will lower the cost of college and solve the student loan crisis. Americans owe nearly $1.3 trillion in student loan debt  a figure he cited  spread out among about 44 million borrowers.

First, Trump would cap repayments at 12.5% of a borrowers income for a maximum of 15 years. The debt should not be an albatross around their necks for the rest of their lives, he said.

Currently, federal student loan borrowers have the option to have their loan payments capped as a percentage of their income (10% to 15%) through income-driven repayment plans. The most generous of these plans allows borrowers to put 10% of their income toward their loans for 20 years and then have the remainder forgiven.

Trump also said he will take steps to get colleges to cut the skyrocketing cost of tuition, and wants to incentivize colleges  which he said are suffering from administration bloat  to reduce tuition.

If the federal government is going to subsidize student loans, it has a right to expect that colleges work hard to control costs and invest their resources in their students, Trump said. Universities with big endowments might lose their tax-exempt status if they refuse to take this responsibility seriously, he said.

Its also quite possible Trump will make cuts to the Department of Education, which he has targeted as a federal agency he dislikes; he has said that we want to bring education local.

Story continues

Healthcare

Of course, Trump, along with most of the GOP, wants to gut Obamacare, though full repeal of the law is unlikely (because the Senate Republicans  though holding on to their majority  wont have the 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster). What a replacement would look like is not fleshed out. So far, the details of his plan include allowing insurers to sell plans across state lines, which would, he says, drive up competition; making healthcare premiums tax-deductible (right now health insurance payments are tax advantageous only if you purchase your insurance through an employer or if you are self-employed). Trump has also proposed a block-grant system for Medicaid, in which the federal government would give states a fixed amount to fund their programs  and some reports have found this system would result in millions more uninsured.

Trumpcare would also include the use of health savings accounts, or HSAs, which is a tax-advantaged savings account, with money used toward healthcare expenses. Read our story for more details on Trumpcare.

Your retirement portfolio

Youve heard it before: When theres a heavy air of uncertainty weighing on the markets, they usually go down and in alarming fashion. Markets  like people  dont like uncertainty, so its normal at least in the short term for markets and investors to freak out a little (as stocks did, but then roared back).

People are sensitive to surprising, unexpected events, which often leads them to take action. But for long-term investors, the guidance is simply: sit tight. Wealth management firm Francis Financial had this to say to clients the morning after the election: The market will continue to move forward, albeit with continued volatility. This leads us back to the most important lesson we can take away from this unexpected event. Long-term investors that maintain their ideal asset allocation in good times and bad win.

One area Trumps win makes less certain is the Department of Labors fiduciary rule, set to take effect in April 2017. The rule requires financial advisors and broker-dealers to act in the best interests of their clients in 401(k), IRAs and other qualified accounts, and eliminate conflicts of interest (which costs Americans about $17 billion in foregone retirements savings each year, according to the Council of Economic Advisors). An advisor to Trump has called the rule an example of government overreach and said a Trump administration would repeal it. The rule has already faced a number of lawsuits from the financial industry, which is concerned with higher costs of doing business. Recently a federal judge rejected a request from the National Association for Fixed Annuities, which asked for a court order to put a hold on the rules implementation.

Consumer protections

As we wrote Wednesday, Trump has said he wants to get of Dodd-Frank, the banking-reform legislation passed after the 2008 financial crisis, and that created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Republican Party isnt a fan, either. Trump has vowed to cut back government regulations and a weaker CFPB is something he can get behind. Its likely Republican lawmakers or Trump will oust the agencys head, Richard Cordray; a recent federal appeals court ruled that the CFPBs structure  with a single director  was unconstitutional. If that ruling is upheld the president would be able to fire the CFPB director at will (whereas before the director could only be removed with cause). The CFPB has proposed a handful of rules on debt collectors, payday loans and mandatory arbitration; these rules havent been finalized yet, so dont be surprised if President-elect Trump and the Republican Congress take aim at them.

Social Security

Social Security wont have enough money to pay full benefits beginning in 2034, according to the latest Social Security trustees report. Trump hasnt said much during the campaign on this vital safety net for millions of Americans, but he said he has no plans to cut the program. In an outline of his and Hillary Clintons positions on Social Security in the July/August issue of AARP magazine, Trump pointed to his plans for comprehensive tax reform and sustained GDP growth as ways to help secure Social Security for the future.

When asked about Social Security in the vice presidential debate in October, Trumps running mate Mike Pence responded: All Donald Trump and I have said about Social Security is were going to meet our obligations to our seniors. Thats it. Same for Medicare.

Taxes

Trump would replace the seven individual tax rates (ranging from 10% to 39.6%) with three rates of 12%, 25%, and 33%. He would also repeal the individual alternative minimum tax. His proposal would cut taxes at all income levels, although the largest benefits, in dollar and percentage terms, would go to the highest-income households.

Overall the plan would slash the average tax bill in 2017 by $2,940, increasing after-tax income by 4.1%, according to the Tax Policy Center. The highest-income taxpayers (those with incomes over $3.7 million) would see an average tax cut of nearly $1.1 million, or over 14% of after-tax income. Households in the middle fifth of income distribution would get an average tax cut of $1,010 or 1.8% of after-tax income, and the poorest fifth would see their taxes drop an average of $110, or 0.8% of after-tax income.

Under Trumps plan, say goodbye to the federal estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxes. Lots more More details on Trumps tax plan here and here.
Government tonight warned that cash deposits above Rs 2.5 lakh threshold under the 50-day window could attract tax plus a 200 per cent penalty in case of income mismatch.

By PTI: Further dangling the stick, government warned that cash deposits above Rs 2.5 lakh threshold under the 50-day window could attract tax plus a 200 per cent penalty in case of income mismatch.

"We would be getting reports of all cash deposited during the period of November 10 to December 30, 2016, above a threshold of Rs 2.5 lakh in every account.

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"The (tax) department would do matching of this with income returns filed by the depositors. And suitable action may follow," Revenue Secretary Hashmukh Adhia said tonight. Any mismatch with income declared by the account holder will be treated as a case of tax evasion.

"This would be treated as a case of tax evasion and the tax amount plus a penalty of 200 per cent of the tax payable would be levied as per the Section 270(A) of the Income Tax Act," he said.

READ| How scrapping 500, 1000 notes and bringing in 2000 notes will check black money: Congress

The government has allowed citizens to deposit in their bank accounts old currency of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, which had been declared invalid in the nation's biggest crackdown on blackmoney, corruption and counterfeit notes, between November 10 and December 30.

Adhia said small businessmen, housewives, artisans and Adhia said small businessmen, housewives, artisans and workers who had some cash lying as their savings at home should not be worried about any tax department scrutiny.

READ: Black money surgical strike destroys Pakistan's fake currency network

"Such group of people need not worry about such small amount of deposits up to Rs 1.5 or 2 lakh since it would be below the taxable income. There will be no harassment by the Income Tax Department for such small deposits made," he said. On people resorting to buying of jewellery, he said persons buying jewelery has to provide the PAN number.

"We are issuing instructions to the field authorities to check with all the jewellers to ensure this requirement is not compromised. "Action will be taken against those jewellers who fail to take PAN numbers from such buyers. When the cash deposits of the jewellers would be scrutinised against the sales made, whether they have taken the PAN number of the buyer or not will also be checked," he added.



Also Read:

Operation Black Money: Here is the inside story of Modi's bold move

Rupee revamp: AIIMS exempts out-patient clinical charges below Rs 500

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New Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes: All you need to know

What the FAQ just happened! All your questions about Rs 500-1000 notes answered



--- ENDS ---
"Chain Breaker," the debut single in the Christian music genre for Zach Williams, leads three of Billboard's Christian charts (dated Nov. 19), highlighted by its 2-1 rise on Hot Christian Songs, as it continues to top Christian Airplay and Christian Digital Song Sales.

On the hybrid Hot Christian Songs chart, which combines airplay, sales and streaming data, "Chain" reaches the top in its 21st week. The song, co-written by Williams, rules Christian Airplay for a second frame, up 6 percent to 11 million in radio audience, in the tracking week ending Nov. 6, according to Nielsen Music. Despite a 3 percent decline to 7,000 downloads sold, "Chain" paces Christian Digital Song Sales for a third week.

Williams, based in Jonesboro, Arkansas, formerly fronted the band Zach Williams & The Reformation before beginning his solo Christian music career.

The triple-coronation of "Chain" marks the first time that an artist has ruled the three Christian lists simultaneously since the charts dated Sept. 24 and Oct. 1, when Hillary Scott & The Scott Family scored the hat trick.

NEW TOP 10s: Hot Christian Songs welcomes one addition to the top 10, as Natalie Grant's "King of the World," the lead track from her ninth studio album Be One, pushes 11-10. "King" is Grant's eighth Hot Christian Songs top 10 and first since No. 8-peaking "Hurricane" in September 2013.

Additionally, One Sonic Society achieves its first Christian Airplay top 10, as "Great Are You Lord" rises 11-10 (6.4 million, up 1 percent). The worship track marks the group's third Christian Airplay appearance, following 2013's No. 28-peaking "Never Once" and its debut, "Forever Reign" (No. 17, 2011).

MORTON DEBUTS: Finally, on Top Gospel Albums, Bishop Paul S. Morton's Legacy: Live in New Orleans debuts at No. 3, selling 1,000 copies in its first week. The 15-track set, being billed as the worship leader's final solo album, includes features from artists including Tasha Cobbs, Shirley Caesar and Zacardi Cortez.

The set is Morton's 12th to appear on Top Gospel Albums, a sum that includes seven top 10s and one No. 1, 2003's Let It Rain, featuring The FGBCF Mass Choir.
The Brazilian doctor who first linked the Zika virus to brain damage in babies warns that rich countries are not safe from the disease, urging them to increase research funding.

Obstetrician Adriana Melo was the first person to make the connection between an outbreak of Zika in Brazil and a surge in babies born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads.

Melo, who works at the heart of the outbreak in the northeast Brazilian city of Campina Grande, sent her first sample of amniotic fluid in for Zika tests on November 10, 2015.

The positive result -- the first of many for mothers whose babies had the debilitating neurological condition -- sparked a chain reaction of alarm.

It culminated in February, when the World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency over the link between Zika and microcephaly.

Melo said the world has not done enough since then to understand and fight this "neglected" disease.

She urged wealthy countries to wake up to recent findings that Zika, which is typically spread by tropical mosquitoes, can also be transmitted sexually, and possibly through other bodily fluids.

"We know there are other transmission vectors and that (Zika) can break out anywhere, in any country," she told AFP in an interview in Rio de Janeiro, on the sidelines of an international conference on the disease.

"It's a disease that doesn't interest rich countries much because they think it won't reach them. But it's a risk to underestimate this virus. I am very afraid of viruses," she said.

Melo called for more clinical studies of Zika, which has been linked not only to microcephaly in babies but also a potentially deadly neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome in adults.

There is currently no treatment or vaccine for the virus, whose mild, flu-like symptoms belie its potentially devastating side effects.

- 'Here to stay' -

Brazil has been the country hit hardest by Zika, with 1.5 million people infected and more than 2,000 babies born with brain damage.

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The disease, which originated in Africa, has swept Latin America and the Caribbean since it was first detected in Brazil last year.

"Traveler's Zika" -- cases brought back by people who spent time in affected countries -- also reached Europe and the United States.

Then, last July, US health authorities announced that locally transmitted Zika cases had been detected in Florida.

Meanwhile, warnings were emerging that tropical mosquitoes were not the only vector for the disease.

In February 2016, the United States reported a case of sexual transmission in Texas. Dozens more followed.

Recent research indicates the virus could also be spread through tears or sweat.

Melo warned health authorities not to take their eyes off the epidemic, even though the number of cases has diminished as mosquito populations have declined during the southern hemisphere winter.

"We need to use this moment of calm, after the explosion of 2015, to push ahead with research on the virus," she said.

"The current reduction in cases doesn't mean the virus isn't there. We still know very little about it.... We don't know if the virus can reactivate or mutate, like dengue fever, which now has four sub-types," she said.

"We need to better study this disease, which is here to stay."
By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - Adult women in Puerto Rico were significantly more likely to develop Zika than men, researchers said on Thursday, raising new questions about the potential role of sexual transmission of the virus from males to females. The study, published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly report on death and disease, evaluated more than 29,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of Zika since the outbreak began in Puerto Rico in November 2015. The data show that of all Zika cases with laboratory evidence of infection, 62 percent were female. The results pattern similar observations from Brazil and El Salvador, the authors said. One obvious explanation might be that pregnant women are more likely than men to seek treatment for Zika because of the potential risk of birth defects. To account for that, the researchers excluded all pregnant women who tested positive for the virus. Of the remaining 28,219 non-pregnant women and men testing positive for Zika, 61 percent of these cases occurred in women over the age of 20. The Zika findings differ from prior outbreaks in Puerto Rico of arboviruses transmitted by the same mosquitoes as Zika. For example, in the 2010 dengue outbreak and the 2014 chikungunya outbreak, infections were equally distributed among men and women. "It is possible that male-to-female sexual transmission is a contributing factor to this skewing of the burden of disease toward women," the CDC said in a statement summarizing the findings. However, the contribution of sexual transmission to overall Zika rates is just beginning to be explored, the CDC said. It could be that women are more likely than men to seek care if they are sick, or that women are more likely to develop Zika symptoms if they become infected. The CDC is conducting blood tests of individuals living near people with confirmed Zika to try to answer some of these questions. Zika infections in pregnant women have been shown to cause microcephaly - a severe birth defect in which the head and brain are undersized - as well as other brain abnormalities. The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has since confirmed more than 2,000 cases of microcephaly. (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Andrew Hay)
A model holds a gun during designer Tatiana Efremovas show on Nov. 5, 2016. (Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images)

The annual Belarus Fashion Week was recently held in the capital, Minsk, to promote designers and fashion in the Eastern European country.

This year brought out an impressive lineup, including one touching show, organized by Kids Fashion Days BFW and designer Tatiana Efremova, that gave young children with disabilities the opportunity to walk down the runway to raise money for charity. But Efremova produced another show that stood out for a very different reason.

The Belarusian designer of the popular brand Harydavets & Efremova put on quite a controversial display when she sent models adorned with weapons in place of accessories down the runway for her Spring-Summer 2017 presentation.

 #Efremova  @bfwlive ????.  @efremovatn ???????????????? #thisisWar#belarusfashionweek2016 # #belarusfashionweek A photo posted by Polina Pimahina (@miravailin) on Nov 6, 2016 at 3:33am PST

The designer channeled a military aesthetic, with many models walking the runway in black boots, goggles, and helmets along with the guns they were holding. Some models even wore gas masks, while others posed as if they were pledging allegiance.

T.Efremova @efremovatn  BFW SS 17. #bfw #efremova #springsummer17 #springsummer #springsummercollection #maisoncarreemagazine A photo posted by Maison Carree (@maisoncarree_magazine) on Nov 9, 2016 at 11:16am PST

#bfw #efremova A photo posted by Olga Nosik (@wldfx96) on Nov 7, 2016 at 2:26pm PST

One model wearing a gas mask backstage posted an Instagram with Efremova and explained her take on the show in the caption.

      ,,     ,      .    ,, , , .  , ,    .        .  @efremovatn    ???????? A photo posted by S A V E  I Y A (@a.s.v.7) on Nov 6, 2016 at 11:48am PST

The caption loosely translates to, Tatiana Efremova decided to wear a mask and goggles, helmet, to give arms and wear luxurious bows, which played a huge role in the shows atmosphere. In her show, we were like, defenders of it, its territory, its time. A very interesting statement, assemble a team, and ideally show the waste. Very grateful to once again be a part of her work. Thank you very much and look forward to the next @efremovatn.

Story continues

Another unique aspect of the show: The models signature catwalk strut was replaced with what appeared to be a militaristic march.

    T. Efremova.          #bfw#efremova A video posted by  (@daria.korulina) on Nov 6, 2016 at 7:20am PST

Fashion week in Belarus maintains a relatively low profile compared to others around the world, such as New York Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week. Theres no question that the show would have garnered major attention if the event had been better publicized, since casually replacing handbags with weapons is highly controversial.

Yahoo Style has reached out to Efremova for comment and will update if we hear back.





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By Tom Bergin LONDON (Reuters) - Dutch Bank ABN-AMRO considered sending undercover security staff amid employees to help improve cyber security but has decided not to follow this practice, officials said. As the risk of cyber attacks increase, many banks are developing more sophisticated ways to prevent security lapses. In particular, they want to understand the reasons for unintentional compliance failures, such as clicking on "phishing" emails that carry viruses or giving out confidential information by phone. ABN-AMRO Chief Information Security Officer Martijn Dekker said in September he was looking at sending staff undercover to observe employees' security practices. "We've been looking at indeed maybe (if) we can have someone in a department, work there as an intern for say, two months, and to really see what type of culture is there," Dekker told a conference. Dekker and a spokeswoman for the bank said last week that they were not examining the option. Dekker did not say why he had dropped the possibility. The spokeswoman said it was not "seriously" considered. But Dekker said they were looking at other ways to examine behavior. For example, his team is increasingly hiring people with philosophy and music backgrounds. He said such people were better at spotting and understanding staff's behavioral habits than the technical people he used to mostly hire. The idea, Dekker said last week, was to use the observations his team gleans to redesign systems so that when employees are presented with a decision "the easy choice is the secure choice". There was a stark reminder of security risks this week when Tesco Plc's banking arm said hackers stole 2.5 million pounds from 9,000 customers in what cyber experts said was the first theft by a mass hacking of accounts at a western bank. "Sometimes a team leader will ask us to sit in on their team meeting and then people know about this, why this person is here, and sometimes it's undercover but usually it's quite open," Dekker added on the sidelines of the conference. ABN has offices all over the world. Ben Willmott, Head of Public Policy at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said covertly monitoring employees may be against the law in some countries, such as the United Kingdom. However, Rob Zwanenberg a lawyer with Smart Advocaten in Eindhoven, said it would be permitted in the Netherlands. Three cyber security experts Reuters interviewed said they thought spying on staff would be unethical and an ineffective way to coax staff into changing their behavior. "I haven't heard of 'undercover' type engagements getting much traction, mostly because of the ...cultural effects of a 'Big Brother' type environment," said Benjamin Caudill, Founder of Rhino Security Labs. (Reporting by Tom Bergin; editing by John Stonestreet)
Cyrus Mistry, chairman of Tata Group, smiles during the Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) annual general meeting in Mumbai June 27, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer (Reuters)

By Aditi Shah

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Tata Sons, holding firm of India's $100-billion salt-to-software Tata conglomerate, launched a broadside on Thursday against its ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry, criticizing his performance and removing him as head of the group's flagship business.

In a nine-page statement, Tata accused Mistry of trying to take control of one of Tata's units and creating distance between the promoter, Tata Sons, and its group companies.

It also blamed him for nearly causing losses and eroding shareholder value.

Sources in Mistry's camp dubbed the Tata Sons' criticisms as "fallacious" and said they reflect "desperation."

The war of words between the two sides has escalated, as Tata attempts to convince the boards of Tata group companies, which it does not have majority stakes in, that it was justified in ousting Mistry as chairman of the conglomerate last month.

The Tata Sons board has already suffered two major setbacks, as the board of Indian Hotels <IHTL.NS> last week, and that of Tata Chemicals <TTCH.NS> on Thursday, both backed Mistry, saying he would remain chair of those group companies.

Tata Sons on Thursday axed Mistry as chair of its main cash cow Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) <TCS.NS>, however, as it owns a stake of over 70 percent in that company.

The corporate power struggle is set to continue over coming days as Mistry remains chairman of other key Tata companies like Tata Steel <TISC.NS> and Tata Motors <TAMO.NS>, whose boards are set to meet soon.

"It was fair expectation of Tata Sons that Mr. Mistry would gracefully resign from the boards of other Tata companies," the group said in its statement, adding that his refusal to step down went against Tata's values and ethos.

Mistry's office did not respond to an emailed request seeking comment.

Mistry was axed as chair of Tata Sons in a boardroom coup last month, with family patriarch Ratan Tata brought back to helm the company temporarily.

Story continues

Since then the camps have traded barbs on a regular basis, leading to a drop in share prices of listed Tata entities and sparking concern among shareholders and other stakeholders.

DIVIDEND DECLINES

Tata Sons said on Thursday it had received queries from across the globe about its removal of Mistry as Tata Sons chair, and offered an explanation to provide the "desired perspective" behind the decision.

The group has criticized Mistry for his inability to turn around loss-making units during his four-year term, instead continuing to blame them as "legacy hot spots" and writing off huge amounts which have also not resolved the problem.

The company would have shown operating losses over the past three years, but for dividends from its flagship firm TCS, Tata Sons said, adding that "significant dependence" on TCS was a source of concern for its board. http://bit.ly/2fzQiSj

Dividends from 40 listed Tata companies, except TCS, fell to 7.8 billion rupees ($117 mln) in the fiscal year ending March 31, from 10 billion rupees three years ago, Tata Sons said.

Expenses, other than interest on debt, more than doubled to 1.8 billion rupees over the same period and impairment provisions have jumped to 24 billion rupees from 2 billion rupees, "indicating inability to stem falling values," it said.

Sources close to Mistry said Tata Sons used selective data in its representation. Mistry has also blamed Ratan Tata for some of the company's biggest debacles and alleged failures in corporate governance at Tata Sons and some group companies.

"ULTERIOR MOTIVE"

Tata Sons has blamed Mistry for "consciously dismantling" the group's existing management structure, thereby reducing the control and influence, between Tata group companies and their major shareholder and promoter, Tata Sons. Tata Sons has alleged that Indian Hotels' support for Mistry shows his "ulterior motive" of trying to gain control of the company with the support of the independent directors.

Sources close to Mistry dismissed the allegation, and said Tata had attempted to fault independent directors for demonstrating their integrity and independence.

Tata have now called an extraordinary general meeting of all Indian Hotels shareholders in an attempt to get Mistry removed as a director from the board. Tata Sons has made several other allegations against Mistry, including a conflict of interest with Shapoorji Pallonji group, his family firm, which also owns a 18.41 percent stake in Tata Sons.

Sources close to Mistry said that Tata had nothing to show for its allegations of a conflict of interest and called them a smear campaign unworthy of either the Tata group or a response.

($1 = 66.3929 Indian rupees)

(Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy in Mumbai and Darshana Sankararaman in Bengaluru; Editing by Euan Rocha, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Mike Collett-White)
A Websummit attendee tries a virtual reality goggles during the Web Summit at Parque das Nacoes, in Lisbon on November 10, 2016 (AFP Photo/Patricia De Melo Moreira)

Lisbon (AFP) - They are under-represented in the industry and sometimes made to feel unwelcome in geek-infested workspaces, but women are making their voices heard at Europe's largest technology marketplace.

Organisers of this week's Web Summit in Lisbon said nearly half its 53,000 attendees were women, helped by their offer of free tickets for female entrepreneurs in a drive to try to rectify a large gender imbalance in tech.

The scale of the industry's challenge remains immense. In France for example, 91 percent of startups are run by men, according to a study last year.

Rana el Kaliouby, chief executive of the artificial intelligence startup Affectiva, called for gender quotas in recruitment at tech firms.

"Women are the majority of gamers, they spend the most time on social media, they make the most app purchases, but they're not part of the design process and the (development) of these technologies. That is a problem," she said in Lisbon.

"When you don't get the female perspective, you miss out entirely on an opportunity to leverage that."

The homogeneous workforce in the US technology industry became a hot topic after an attention-grabbing civil trial in 2014 that aired charges of sexism at a powerful Silicon Valley venture capital firm and disclosures by internet titans that workforces are mostly male, and very white.

Hillary Clinton's agonising failure to break through the ultimate glass ceiling, in losing the US presidential race to Donald Trump, was a motif of discussion at the Web Summit as tech evangelists fretted about the consequences for their industry.

Tony Conrad, founder of the about.me blog site, said Trump's views on women and immigrants were "antithetical to everything we in the tech community believe in".

"We already have gender imbalances in tech companies specifically. I don't know the impact specific to our community, but as a society the impact is going to be profound. It sends a really bad message."

Story continues

- A long way to go -

Still, there was recognition of the efforts in Lisbon, where the summit set aside a "Women in Tech Lounge" and organised several panels to discuss the gender question.

"There is this space (the lounge), coffee breaks and even events just for us, lot of opportunities to meet and discuss, for networking," said Carla Barros, who heads strategy and marketing for a digital firm in Brazil.

The imbalance, however, remained plain in the makeup of panel discussions at the Web Summit, which likes to promote itself as "the Davos for geeks" and provides a platform for startups to hook up with venture capitalists and hear about new trends from industry leaders such as Facebook.

Of the 663 speakers on the various stages over the week, only about 100 were women.

"Even here, where we have a private space for women, you only have white men in their 40s speaking on stage. There isn't much diversity," said Maria Ines, who heads digital marketing at a Portuguese hotel group.

"When you look at the upper hierarchy of companies, you can see only men. We still have a long way to go," she said.

Female speakers included Rebecca Parsons, chief technology officer at software design company ThoughtWorks, a pioneering woman in tech whose panel was entitled: "I'm a technologist, not a female technologist."

Ines underlined that at every level, "you must prove yourself much more" as a woman in tech when the overwhelming majority of executives, software writers and engineers are male.

While happy to have made some inroads on the imbalance, Web Summit organisers recognised the work ahead.

"It's a global problem and we are part of this industry," said one of the Irish organisers, Mike Harvey.

"We know that there's much to do, specially on the stages. We scan the whole industry to find female speakers."
Stand-up comics including John Oliver, Seth Meyers and George Lopez joked about how presidency of Donald Trump might be disastrous and something they never expected to come true.

Donald Trump, the new President-elect of the United States of America. Photo: Reuters

By AP: Protecting the Earth may not be a laughing matter, nor, for many Americans, is the outcome of the presidential race.

Even so, comedians including Seth Meyers, John Oliver and George Lopez delivered jokes Wednesday night to benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council. And also to provide those in attendance at the New York event - clearly not a Donald Trump crowd - a bit of solace.

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Also read: What does Donald Trump's HISTORIC win say about Americans?



Meyers, host of NBC's "Late Night," even voiced a bit of hope for how the Trump administration might turn out.

He said: "I have been wrong about him every step of the way. Wrong that Trump wouldn't run; wrong that he wouldn't get the GOP nomination; wrong that he wouldn't win.



The good news is, based on my pattern of getting it all wrong, he's going to be a great (darn) president!"

Also read: Lesser known Donald Trump facts: At 13, parents wanted him to behave

The benefit for NRDC -- a non-profit advocacy group dedicated to clean air, clean water and healthy communities -- was billed as "the place to be the night after the presidential election." But clearly the original plan had been to celebrate Hillary Clinton's election. When Trump pulled his upset win, it caught the comedians, like nearly everybody else, by surprise.

In fact, news of Trump's victory sent many citizens, including standup Mike Birbiglia, straight to their computers.

"We were all Googling 'What do you do when someone who talks like a dictator takes over your country?'" Birbiglia joked. "And all the results were in Korean."

Will America manage with Trump as chief executive? "That's a difficult question to answer," mused Oliver, host of HBO's "Last Week Tonight."



Also read: Oh my god! America will have a president who said such things



But in its favor, he proposed, is the fact that America is "a defiant nation." As an example of its national defiance, he reported that during the devastating financial crisis of 2009, Americans spent $310 million on Halloween costumes - for their pets.

Hasan Minhaj, a senior correspondent for Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," is American-born to Muslim parents who originally came from India.

"For the past 15 years I've been blamed for 9/11," he said. But referring to Wednesday's date, when Trump's victory was clenched, he added, "White Americans are now responsible for '11/9.'"

Also read: Meet the new First Lady of the US, Melania Trump, former model and immigrant



Lopez, an American-born standup whose humor draws on his Mexican heritage, invoked Trump's pledge to crack down on immigrants. Upon arriving on stage Lopez told his audience, "I can't stay long." A pause. "I'd LIKE to, but I don't think I have anything to say about it."

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But as he was speaking, he produced a sheet of paper.

"This isn't my notes," he said. "It's my birth certificate."

--- ENDS ---
Yahoo is trying to pin down when it first knew hackers had breached its systems and whether they left ways to regain access to accounts later on (AFP Photo/Karen Bleier)

San Francisco (AFP) - Yahoo provided more details on Wednesday about an epic hack of its services, including that the culprits may have planted software "cookies" for ongoing access to users' accounts.

In revelations that could jeopardize the company's pending $4.8 billion acquisition by US telecom giant Verizon, the internet pioneer said it was trying to pin down when it first knew its system had been breached and whether hackers gave themselves a way to get back into accounts whenever they wished.

"Forensic experts are currently investigating certain evidence and activity that indicates an intruder, believed to be the same state-sponsored actor responsible for the security Incident, created cookies that could have enabled such intruder to bypass the need for a password to access certain users' accounts or account information," Yahoo said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

There is no evidence the state-sponsored actor is still active in the California-based company's network, Yahoo told regulators.

Investigators are also trying to figure out how much people at Yahoo knew about the hack in late 2014, when the breach took place, according to the filing.

Yahoo announced the breach in September, saying it affected at least 500 million customers.

Stolen user information included names, email addresses and answers to security questions, but did not include payment card data or unscrambled passwords, according to Yahoo.

The company warned users after checking into a hacker's claim of having stolen data.

Yahoo said in the SEC filing that law enforcement officials this week shared more data that a hacker claimed was pilfered from Yahoo, saying it was checking the authenticity.

There have been 23 lawsuits filed on behalf of Yahoo users claiming they were harmed by the hack, according to the filing.

A Verizon executive overseeing the purchase of Yahoo said last month that the deal was moving ahead pending the outcome of an investigation into the hack.

Story continues

"We are not going to jump off a cliff blindly, but strategically the deal still does make sense to us," Verizon executive vice president Marni Walden said at a technology conference in California.

"What we have to be careful about is what we don't know."

He declined to comment on what information or circumstances might cause Verizon to walk away from the deal inked in July.

The company said earlier this month that the breach affecting Yahoo customers could have a "material" effect on the acquisition. Yahoo also warned of the possibility in its filing.

The use of the term "material" suggests a substantive change in Yahoo's value that was not previously known, and which could allow the telecom group to lower its offer or scrap the deal.
In less than 24 hours from electing Donald Trump as the President of the US, America saw a glimpse of madness that's in store. People from across the country are sharing horror tales of racism, bullying and Islamophobic attacks among others on social media.

By India Today Web Desk:

"When you are a star, they let you do it."

Well, it looks like many are okay with Trump doing it and grabbing women by their... What else could possibly explain Americans electing Donald Trump as the President of the United States of America, right?

Also Read: Maybe most Americans don't want me here, says US Muslim journalist after Trump's win





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You know he's the new president-elect, but did you know he's the first American president to get a Stone Cold stunner in wrestling?

People across the world are wondering how Americans could, after eight years of Barack Obama's presidency, 300 million people in the US and having a chance to create history by electing the first-ever woman President, vote for Donald Trump.

It has been mere 24 hours since his victory and people from across America have lost their calm already. Some are calling it America's doom and some are shedding tears because they feel Americans, collectively, failed altogether after Trump's victory was announced.

Also Read: Presidency is a man's job: Video shows how misogynist, stupid some Trump supporters are





In a day, the world has changed, like it has never changed before. For bad, for the most part of it, it has changed only to bring in horror stories from across the country.

The threat lingers. African American, Hispanic, Muslim, Sikh, Indian, Pakistani, their worst nightmare might be on the verge of becoming their reality.

Also Read: Lesser known Donald Trump facts: At 13, parents wanted him to behave



In less than 24 hours, the life in the United States of America, thanks to Donald Trump and his loyal racist, misogynist, xenophobic supporters, has come down to this:



She wrote on Twitter, "scared for my life as an Indian, female and Jew".

A Trump supporter tried to pull off a woman's hijab.



Guys, a trump supporter tried pulling off my hijab... This is not a joke anymore, all non-whites have become targets. Stay safe ??? bye (@Palestixian) November 9, 2016

A knife comes out in 24 hours.



Not even 24 hours yet. My friend's sister, who is Muslim, had a knife pulled on her by a Trump supporter while on the bus by UIUC campus. Sarah A. Harvard (@amyharvard_) November 9, 2016

Muslim student escapes death.



URGENT. Muslim student brutally assaulted by two Trump supporters in Louisiana. Hijab ripped off. Day 1. pic.twitter.com/QkCAaZE7BT Shaun King (@ShaunKing) November 10, 2016

"I can't wait until Trump asks us to rape your people..."



This just happened. Trump supporter tossed water in her face after threatening to rape her and build the wall. Day 1 of Trump. pic.twitter.com/8JJAM2ugJf Shaun King (@ShaunKing) November 10, 2016

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In protest of Trump.



A house three blocks away from where I used to live in Noe Valley/Dolores Heights is now waving a Nazi flag in their front yard. pic.twitter.com/ET8xt9AYQu Cristina Cordova (@cjc) November 9, 2016

Ethnic cleansing tightening its grip.



As I'm stopped at a gas station this morning, a group of guys yell over: "Time to get out of this country, Apu!" Day 1. Manik R (@ManikRathee) November 9, 2016

Senior Writer at Cosmopolitan in New York shared her experience. She tweeted, "hey guys, at least now it will be legal to grab pussy!"



Street vendor here just yelled, "hey guys, at least now it will be legal to grab pussy!" And high-fived a group of men who laughed. pic.twitter.com/voTGBdKEUa Prachi Gupta (@prachigu) November 9, 2016

After a road was blocked due to protest against Trump, a couple voted for arts. They started dancing in the middle of the road.

"A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having." - V for Vendetta



A couple danced on a highway in Los Angeles after protesters angry with Donald Trump's election blocked it pic.twitter.com/syMu9Fi93W omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) November 10, 2016

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People have already started protesting and some even say that Donald Trump is not their president. While some are weeping, there are others who pledge to support Donald Trump, no matter what happens.

What nobody expected but feared, happened.

God bless America!

Also Read: What does Donald Trump's HISTORIC win say about Americans?



--- ENDS ---
Pakistan feels that Donald Trump may accelerate what they see as a shift in American policy to favour arch-foe Indi.

By Reuters: Donald Trump's surprise election as US president has Pakistanis wary that he may accelerate what they see as a shift in American policy to favour arch-foe India in the long rivalry between nuclear-armed neighbours, analysts said on Wednesday.

Historical allies in the region, Islamabad and Washington have seen relations sour over US accusations that Pakistan shelters Islamist militants, a charge Pakistan denies.

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They hit new lows in May when a US drone killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban movement on Pakistani territory.

ALSO READ | 5 differences between Donald Trump and Narendra Modi



At the same time, Pakistan's ties with traditional rival India have also deteriorated this year, with India saying Pakistan-based militants killed 19 of its soldiers in a September attack on an army base in the disputed Kashmir region.

To many Pakistanis, Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric - he once proposed banning Muslims entering the United States - and business ties to India are signs that his administration could shift further toward New Delhi.

"America will not abandon Pakistan, but definitely, Trump will be a tougher president than Hillary Clinton for Pakistan," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, Lahore-based foreign policy analyst.

"I think India will have a better and smoother interaction compared to Pakistan."

ALSO READ | 2 sides of same coin? Here's what Donald Trump and PM Modi have in common



Trump has yet to lay out a detailed policy for South Asia, although he recently offered to mediate between India and Pakistan in their dispute over the divided territory of Kashmir.

He also told Fox News in May he would favour keeping nearly 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan "because it's adjacent and right next to Pakistan which has nuclear weapons."

CONGRATULATIONS, ASSURANCES

On Wednesday, a US diplomat in Pakistan sought to assure the country that Trump's election did not signal a drastic policy change.

"Our foreign policy is based on national interest and they don't change when the government changes," Grace Shelton, US Consul General in Karachi, told Geo News television.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Trump.

"Your election is indeed the triumph of the American people and their enduring faith in the ideals of democracy, freedom, human rights and free enterprise," Sharif said in a statement.

Still, the uncertainty of a Trump presidency has many Pakistanis on edge, even if the country has leaned towards China in recent years for investment and diplomatic support.

"Trump is a bit of a wild card," said Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and former ambassador to the United States.

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"Pakistan obviously cannot rule out engaging with whomever America elects, but his anti-Muslim rhetoric may cast a shadow on relations in times of uncertainty."

INDIA HOPEFUL

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also congratulated Trump on Wednesday.

"We look forward to working with you closely to take India-US bilateral ties to a new height," Modi said in a tweet.

Trump has partnered with Indian businessmen on a handful of real estate ventures, but apart from courting the Indian-American vote he has not articulated how he would develop the bilateral relationship.

India-US ties have flourished under President Barack Obama and Modi, who came to power in 2014, with the two countries striking key defence agreements this year.

Modi's government has also waged a campaign to isolate Pakistan diplomatically.

Shaurya Doval, director of the India Foundation, a think-tank close to Modi's government, called Trump's election "a very positive development", but added that India and the United States would have continued to grow closer under a Hillary Clinton presidency as well.

"My sense is that India-US relations are not dependent on individuals - there are strong institutions and processes there," he said.

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One fringe Hindu nationalist group in India held a victory gathering at New Delhi's speakers' corner on Wednesday.

"He's an American nationalist. We are Indian nationalists. Only he can understand us," Rashmi Gupta of the Hindu Sena, or Hindu Army, told Reuters. "We expect him to support us when it comes to terrorist attacks on India from Pakistan."

AFGHANISTAN WAR

Trump will also have to decide whether to maintain the number of US troops in Afghanistan or change the scope of the mission, 15 years after a U.S.-led campaign toppled the hardline Islamist Taliban government.

The United States has spent some $115 billion in aid for Afghanistan since 2002, but the country is still caught in conflict, with a third of the country out of government control and thousands of Afghan civilians, soldiers and police dying every year.

Afghan officials have voiced concern that the conflict is being forgotten in Washington, and warned privately that the West will pay a huge price if that continues.

"The people of Afghanistan are tired of war. We want (Trump) to invest heavily in bringing peace to war-torn Afghanistan and stabilize our region," said Umer Daudzai, former Afghan minister of interior.

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Obama's original aim of pulling out of Afghanistan entirely has been put on hold in the face of mounting gains by Taliban militants, with U.S. air power and special forces still regularly involved in combat.

As recently as last week, two US Green Berets were killed near the northern city of Kunduz.

Although Afghan security forces have been fighting largely alone since the end of the main NATO-led combat mission in 2014, their performance has been patchy and they continue to rely heavily on US air power.

The Taliban on Wednesday urged Trump to withdraw all US troops.

"They should not cause damage to their economy and their military in this failed war," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said of the American government in a statement.

--- ENDS ---
Are you rattled by the long queues outside banks after demonetisation move by the government? These simple things can help you regain your composure.

By India Today Web Desk: Long queues were seen outside banks across the country this Thursday morning. Similar scene is expected for next few days before the aam aadmi have enough cash on hand to run their households.

People are going to get their old notes deposited in their bank accounts or exchanged at specified counters in banks and post-offices.

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READ| Rs 1000 note to return with more security features, new colour, says government

WATCH:







While you go to get new notes, keep following points in mind to make the process hassle-free:

1. Invalid currency notes of denominations 500 and 1,000 can be exchanged at all banks, post-offices and RBI centres.

2. The old notes can be exchanged and new notes obtained during 8 am-8 pm period.

READ: PILs in Supreme Court against making Rs 500, Rs 1000 notes illegal



3. Rs 2,000 can be withdrawn from ATM counters from November 10 till November 18. From November 19, Rs 4,000 can be withdrawn.

4. A valid identity proof is required for exchange of old notes with new ones worth upto Rs 4,000. Any higher amount can only be credited into one's bank account.

WATCH: HOW WILL CURRENCY BAN HELP IN CURBING CORRUPTION







5. Rs 10,000 can be withdrawn from banks at their counters against cheque or withdrawal slip in a day. But, the overall limit should not exceed Rs 20,000 for the week.

6. Any amount can be deposited in one's bank account till December 30 without revealing the sources of income.

7. Banks will remain open for public work on Saturday and Sunday (November 13 and 14).

8. Old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 will continue to be accepted at government hospital counters, railway ticket counters, airports, government approved milk parlours, and at chemist shops on production of doctor's prescription till November 11.



Patna: Chaos outside banks after customers made to wait in queue for over 2 hours; limited availability of forms also adds to inconvenience pic.twitter.com/Werd5QPjMt ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

9. If you don't have a bank account then you can get your old currency notes exchanged into your relative/friend's account if he/she gives you a written permission. You will have to submit the evidence of permission to the bank.

10. If you fail to get your old notes exchanged or deposited in your bank account by December 30, you will still be able to get it credited in your account by revealing the source of income.

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ALSO READ:

Long queues to exchange, security beefed up as banks reopen



--- ENDS ---
Police on Thursday arrested Retired Colonel Ahlawat in a high-profile sex-racket case in Delhi after he had come to the Saket court to surrender. Ahlawat has been sent to three-day police custody.

By Ram Kinkar Singh: Police on Thursday arrested Retired Colonel Ahlawat in a high-profile sex-racket case in Delhi after he had come to the Saket court to surrender. Ahlawat has been sent to three-day police custody.

Ahlawat used to work as a pimp for an accused called Mr Sanyal. Sanyal, 62, was arrested earlier in connection with the trafficking of women from Central Asian countries and for running a sex racket.



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MATTER FIRST CAME TO LIGHT AFTER I-T RAIDS IN JUNE



The matter first came to the fore after Mr Sanyal's residences in Safdarjung Enclave and Vasant Kunj in Delhi and also in Lucknow were raided by Income Tax authorities in June.

Also read:Tamil Nadu: Government school teacher held for sexually assaulting 12-year-old student



During the search, incriminating documents indicating his involvements in illegal activities like human trafficking and impersonation came to light.

Documentary evidence in the form of WhatsApp messages and SMSes were seized from phones at his residence at Safadarjung Enclave.



RUSSIAN WOMAN RESCUED



The IT officials had rescued a Russian national, about 23 years old, from his residence in Safdarjung Enclave. The SMSes and WhatsApp data of the woman's mobile phone indicated that she was being kept against her will. Her travel documents, including her passport, were allegedly taken away by the accused.

In a statement given to the officials, the woman said she was feeling "very insecure" with the accused and wished to leave the premises immediately. She said that she also allegedly attempted suicide by cutting her wrist vein.

The woman came to India on a tourist visa on February 25.

AHLAWAT INTROCUED RUSSIAN WOMAN TO MR SANYAL



She was introduced to Mr Sanyal by retired Colonel Ajay Ahlawat, whose involvement in the case is being probed. He was previously involved in many cheating cases.

Also read: Delhi: Married casanova, who extorted and sexually exploited 30 women, arrested



The IT raid had also led to recovery of copies of passports of other foreign nationals as well as phone numbers of dozens of women belonging to Central Asian countries from the accused's residence.



FOREIGN WOMEN INVOLVED IN FLESH TRADE



"Messages exchanged between the accused Mr Sanyal and his associates revealed financial transactions over foreign women.

The investigation so far has revealed he has sent messages to government officials and other senior functionaries, posing as a Member of Parliament and top bureaucrat for getting favours in certain business deals.

--- ENDS ---
Why did the Clintons choose to wear the colour purple for the concession speech? Most saw it as a sign of unity.

By Geetika Sasan Bhandari: As Hillary Clinton delivered her concession speech in New York yesterday, everyone couldn't help but notice her dignity, grace and poise. But viewers were also quick to notice something else--the colour she wore, the colour purple.

In a custom--probably Ralph Lauren--pantsuit, since the designer has made several of her outfits for this election, Hillary's

dark suit with lapels and lining in purple, and husband Bill's tie, also in the same shade, caught the attention of a populace who saw it as a sign of unity.



Many assumed this is what she would have probably planned to wear had she won, since blue and red (the colours of the two parties, The Democrats and The Republicans) together make the colour purple. According to Quartz, "It suggested a mix of the red and blue that represent the Republican and Democratic parties, a poignant choice indicating bipartisanship and a need for Americans on both sides of the aisle to come together to work toward a common goal."

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There were other suggestions as well. On a debate on CNN International, commentator Carl Bernstein said purple is "the colour of spirituality, the colour of mourning, the colour of mystery."

Watch: Melania Trump's journey from her modelling days to First Lady



On Twitter, many commented saying it was a deliberate choice as Hillary has worn her suits in symbolic colours throughout her campaign. She wore suffragette white to accept her nomination and purple too was a colour favoured by the suffrage movement, and makes up with white and green the suffragette flag. The suffragette movement was started in the early 20th century to protest against women not being allowed to vote.

Since purple is also a colour of spirituality and Hillary is known to be deeply religious, viewers were quick to connect the colour to her Methodist faith, in which purple signifies royalty and penitence.



Also Read: Melania Trump steals the show in a white jumpsuit

Vanity Fair also said that "Swing states are often referred to as 'purple states' during elections, and Clinton's words addressed the battleground parts of the country that remained in contention until the final hour last night."

Since her campaign has talked about being inclusive, and was seen as the antithesis to Trump's racist and exclusive agenda, her choice of colour was also linked to the LGBTQ communities, who are often represented by the colour purple.



--- ENDS ---
Post Donald Trump's HISTORIC win, the Humans of New York shared the story of an American Muslim journalist who now feels reduced to being a pariah in America, knowing that a majority here voted for Trump.

By India Today Web Desk: The world is reacting to Donald Trump snapping away US presidency from Hillary Clinton. And America (the minority that didn't vote for Trump) is bracing up for the times ahead under President Trump.

Amid the hue and cry about what hell will break loose on Americans, some voices are of sense and fear, of emotion that's not anger. To a part of America, Trump's victory is a personal loss, for they will now be under the leadership of a man who wanted them out in the first place.

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Shared on the Facebook page of Humans of New York, here's the story of an American Muslim journalist, who now feels reduced to being a pariah in her own country.

Read on:

"I covered a lot of Trump rallies as a journalist. I didn't feel any hatred. People were more curious than anything. I was never assaulted. I felt like most people were just supporting him because he wasn't part of the establishment. Or because they were tired of politics. But it was confusing. Because even though I didnt feel like they hated me, these people were supporting someone who said I should be banned from the country.

Even the father of one of my best friends supports Trump. This man had me over to his house. I went to Thanksgiving with him. My friend asked him: 'Dad, how can you support that man? Our friend Zahra is a Muslim.' He told her: 'Dont worry. He won't do everything that he says.'

Today has been difficult. These last few weeks, it was mostly speculation. There was suspicion that most Americans supported him but I could hope that it was wrong. But now that hope is gone. And I have to feel differently. I have to feel like maybe most Americans don't want me here. And I feel like no matter how hard I try, I'll never be part of the community. And even if they're friendly to me, or if they invite me to Thanksgiving, deep down they believe that America is a country that belongs to white people."

The post that was shared just nine hours ago has, by now, garnered 4,10,000 likes, over 60,000 shares and more than 17,000 comments. It just shows how many people resonate with Zahra, the journalist.

Here are some of the responses:

Here's the Facebook post:





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Thousands of people thronged in to banks to exchange or deposit their existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

By Ashish Pandey: As the banks reopened on Thursday after the announcement of scrapping of currency valuing 500 and 1,000 denomination, thousands of people thronged to banks to exchange or deposit their existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Even though banks are working extra hour today but people started lining up outside various branches from early morning. While in the city, few banks started operating from 8 AM, while others opened the doors for public at 9 AM and 10 AM.

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ALSO READ | Centre gets tough on black money: Deposits above Rs 2.5 lakh to face tax, 200 per cent penalty on mismatch



As the government has kept and exchange limit of Rs 4,000 for one individual bank, staff was seen helping their customers with the necessary information assistance and documentation.

As per the HDFC Branch, Raj Bhavan Road, customer needs to fill a form and submit it with official identification proof to get their money exchanged.



The bank was giving the newly launched Rs 2,000 currency but the new Rs 500 note remain missing from the bank counters in the city.

ALSO READ | We are not happy: How operation black money is drawing flak from people



The bank even made it clear that, however, there is limit of withdrawal there is no limit on deposit.



Meanwhile, the Telangana DGP Anurag Sharma instructed District Superintendent of Police and ASP to provide adequate security to banks to avoid any kind of unpleasant situation in the state. The Commissioner of Police Hyderabad also instructed all the area DCPs to do adequate arrangements outside banks.

The Andhra government has also set up a help desk in Vijayawada to help people. People can dial toll-free number 1800-599-1111 in case of any problem.





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The soon-to-be-signed India-Japan nuclear agreement speaks of 'cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy'.

By Manjeet Negi: Indian cabinet has cleared the Indo-Japan nuke deal. It speaks of "cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy". The agreement will be signed and ratified during Modi's visit.

This is especially important as Japan manufactures nuclear components and partly or fully owns firms like Westinghouse. So, a clearance will allow these firms to sell such components to India. Japan has so far opposed the sale of these equipments to India as the latter has not yet signed the NPT.

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Also read: China asks India to 'respect concerns' as PM Modi heads to Japan



MoU EXISTS BETWEEN COAST GUARDS OF INDIA, JAPAN



The Indo-Japan Civilian Nuclear Deal is one of the crucial elements of cooperation in Indo-Japanese relationship. An MoU exists between the Indian Coast Guard and the Japan Coast Guard for the establishment of a collaborative relationship to combat crimes at sea and develop regional cooperation.



Reached Japan. Looking forward to fruitful deliberations that will boost economic and cultural ties between India and Japan. pic.twitter.com/tYRTRHCSrW Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 10, 2016

India and Japan have been holding exchanges and talks at military-to-military level and information exchanges on maritime data, with both countries being prominent maritime states in the Indo-Pacific region. There has been agreement on technology transfer and protection of military information. A framework for collaboration in the field of defence in high-tech areas is being looked at. India identifies Japan as a privileged partner in the 'Make in India' program and an important strategic partner in its 'Act East Policy'.

CHINA EXPRESSES CONCERN OVER IMMINENT INDO-JAPAN DEAL



China had expressed concern on the deal for US-2 Shinmaywa amphibious aircraft expected to be signed during PM Modi's visit to Japan, and also cautioned both the countries against making statements on the South China Sea dispute.

WATCH VIDEO







CHINESE MEDIA WARNED INDIA AGAINST TAKING SUPPORT FROM TOKYO



A day before the PM's departure, Chinese State media had warned Delhi against "seeking support" from Tokyo on censuring China on its moves in the South China Sea, responding to media reports which speculated India might up the ante in response to differences with China on its membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Chinese daily The Global Times said India and China should "put more efforts into resolving problems like the imbalance of their trade ties".

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On the issue of differences between India and Pakistan on Kishenganga and Ratle Hydroelectric Projects under the Indus Waters Treaty, India had asked the World Bank to appoint a Neutral Expert to resolve the differences of a technical nature which are within the domain of a neutral technical expert.

By Maha Siddiqui: Under the Indus Waters Treaty, signed between India and Pakistan and also the World Bank in 1960, the World Bank has a specified role in the process of resolution of differences and disputes.

On the issue of differences between India and Pakistan on Kishenganga and Ratle Hydroelectric Projects under the Indus Waters Treaty, India had asked the World Bank to appoint a Neutral Expert to resolve the differences of a technical nature which are within the domain of a neutral technical expert.

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Pakistan had sought the establishment of a Court of Arbitration, which is normally the logical next step in the process of resolution in the Treaty. The Neutral Expert can also determine that there are issues beyond mere technical differences.

The World Bank has decided to proceed with both steps simultaneously. It was pointed by the Government to the World Bank that the pursuit of two parallel difference/ dispute resolution mechanisms - appointment of a Neutral Expert and establishment of a Court of Arbitration - at the same time is legally untenable.

Inexplicably, the World Bank has decided to continue to proceed with these two parallel mechanisms simultaneously. India cannot be party to actions which are not in accordance with the Indus Waters Treaty.

The Government will examine further options and take steps accordingly.

--- ENDS ---
The cross-firing took place in the Rampur sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

By India Today Web Desk: The Indian Army foiled yet another infiltration bid by terrorists from Pakistan on Wednesday night. A terrorist has been killed and one AK-47 has been recovered from his possession.

The cross-firing took place in the Rampur sector of Uri in Jammu and Kashmir.

A few days ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meet of three services to review the defence preparedness and the situation along the border.

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ALSO READ: In wake of ceasefire violations, PM Modi chairs meet of 3 services, reviews defence preparedness

ALSO WATCH



The meeting had come in the wake of repeated infiltration bids by terrorists from Pakistan and rampant ceasefire violations by the Pakistan Army and the Pakistan Rangers in the last few months.

Earlier reports had said that Lashkar-e-Taiba is plotting a big strike on India and its chief Hafiz Saeed has directed commander Abu Irfan Tandewala to chalk out a river route to enter India.

ALSO READ: Hafiz Saeed planning big strike, Lashkar men may use river route to infiltrate



Sources had said that at least eight to nine men are likely to be a part of this operation. The Pakistan Army, said sources, is allegedly helping them infiltrate the border.

ALSO READ: Defence Minister and Army Chief review security in Kashmir - meet forward troops

ALSO READ: India hits out at UN Security Council for taking months to sanction Masood Azhar

ALSO WATCH



--- ENDS ---
After Tannishtha Chatterjee, John Abraham is the latest celebrity to have walked out of Comedy Nights Bachao Taaza, and it is definitely a bad news for Krushna Abhishek.

By India Today Web Desk: Krushna Abhishek has managed to offend one more celebrity with his roast. John Abraham, who had gone to Colors' comedy show Comedy Nights Bachao (CNB) to promote his upcoming film Force 2 along with Sonakshi Sinha, made his displeasure apparent before staging a walkout.

Apparently, Krushna cracked a joke about John's one of the favourite movies Paap, and that didn't go down well with the actor.

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"John and I have known each other for many years now and he is the only Bollywood actor who called me when my father passed away recently. I am really sad that I upset him. I was cracking jokes on his earlier films like Paap. That's when he told me that those were his favourite films," Krushna told Bombay Times.

Also read: Tannishtha Chatterjee walks out of Comedy Nights Bachao after getting roasted for her skin tone

After refusing to shake a leg with Krushna, the Jism actor walked out of the show.

"Sometime later, when he refused to shake a leg with Sonakshi and me on stage, I realised that he was upset. He soon walked out and I ran after him, but he left. I want to apologise to him; I haven't slept since the last few days because of this. I specially flew down from my shoot in Kulu Manali because John had agreed to be on the show. I hope he understands and forgives me," said Krushna.

Also read: Not just Tannishtha Chatterjee, these celebs also felt offended by Comedy Nights Bachao's humour

The CNB comedian had some time back, offended Parched actress Tannishtha Chatterjee by making a distasteful comment on her dark skin. She too had walked out of the show and had posted a long Facebook post about the episode.

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By PTI: Bengaluru, Nov 10 (PTI) The Karnataka High Court today partially upheld the constitutional validity of the states transportation rules for cab aggregators and stalled Ubers surge pricing, holding that fares charged cannot exceed those prescribed by the state government.

"The court partially upholds the constitutional validity of On-demand Transportation Technology Rules (OTTR) of 2016 and hopes that Uber would comply with the undertaking given before the high court that it would not hike the fares prescribed by the state government," Justice Raghavendra S Chauhan said.

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The court held some sections of the rules as unconstitutional.

Justice Chauhan allowed Uber a months time to comply with and get a licence to ensure smooth operations.

Uber had challenged OTTR in the court after the transport department impounded vehicles for not securing licences under the new norms.

It had contended that since taxi-hailing app Uber is a technology platform that connects drivers with passengers, it cannot be regulated under Indias Motor Vehicles Act, which governs taxis and aggregators in the country.

Pronouncing the order, Justice Chauhan said some of the provisions under OTTR were unconstitutional and others would survive after the government severs the unconstitutional clauses.

The government can frame these rules under Sections 93, 95 and 96 of the Motor Vehicles Act, he said.

Justice Chauhan struck down rules under 10 (o), which prevents drivers plying under one licensee from operating independently, as unconstitutional.

He also held that the sub-clauses (c) and (v) of Rule 10, which requires the licensee to maintain records of all passengers to be made available for inspection by the authority at any time, were unconstitutional.

The rules that were upheld include 6(a), which requires the licensee to have a minimum fleet of 100 taxis, 7(c), which requires all taxis to be fitted with a panic button.

Justice Chauhan also upheld Rule 10(h), which requires the licensee to ensure that the antecedents of drivers are checked out and 11 (1) (a), (b) and (c), which highlight the circumstances under which a licence may be suspended.

He also upheld Rule 7(e), which requires the aggregators vehicles to have an illuminated Taxi board, and 8(d), which requires drivers to have a working knowledge of Kannada. PTI BDN RA VS ZMN NTR

--- ENDS ---
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Maharashtra citizens will be able to pay their government dues including electricity, fixed-line telephone bills and water bills using the old currency till tomorrow night.

By Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: In what is being seen as a big relief to commoners who were struggling with regular payments at govt offices, the Maharashtra govt has allowed payment of utility bills at govt-owned and semi-govt organisations with the old demonetised currency of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 till tomorrow night.

The state govt issued a GR (Govt Resolution) in this regard after receiving several complaints. Citizens will now be able to pay their government dues of any kind including electricity, fixed-line telephone bills and water bills, etc using Rs 500 and 1000 notes till November 11.

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FADNAVIS SOUGHT CONCESSION FROM PM



Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had written a letter to the Prime minister on Wednesday seeking the concession.

On Thursday afternoon, Fadnavis tweeted, "One more step by the state government for citizens' convenience. The Government of India accepts the state government's request to help citizens by allowing Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes for payment of electricity bill, water bill, property tax or any kind of government dues."

Also read: Arun Jaitley to India Today: Rs 500-1000 currency revamp not the only step govt will take



The decision was implemented with immediate effect and remain in force till Friday midnight.

GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION



"To avoid inconvenience to the public, old high-denomination banknotes may also be accepted by the government, state-owned enterprises and local bodies (urban and rural) until the midnight of 11th Nov 2016. However, the amount so accepted would be subjected to raised demand only. The amount may be accepted only from the concerned individual /individual entity against whom the dues exist. A third party may also deposit the amount subject to authorisation", read the notification issued by the state government.

Also read: You can now pay your electricity, water bills using old Rs 500, Rs 1,000 notes



In pursuance of the order, Govt offices all across Maharashtra will work extra hours till late in the night for accepting payments (of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes) from citizens.

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Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today wondered why India cannot say "we are a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly" instead of affirming a "no first use policy", remarks he said were personal in nature.

By Manjeet Negi: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today spoke about India's no first use nuclear policy at the book launch of (Retd.) Brig Gurmeet Kanwal's 'The New Arthashastra: A security strategy for India'.

Parrikar said, "I wonder why we say that we don't use nuclear weapons first. It doesn't mean that India has to use nukes, but why rule out.

This is my thinking. Some may say that Parrikar says nuclear doctrine has changed, it has not changed in any government policy."

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READ: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar clears defence deals worth Rs 80,000 crore



He added, "People say India has no first use nuclear concept. I should say that I'm a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly, If written down strategy exists or you take a stand on a nuclear aspect, I think you are actually giving away your strength in nuclear".

He also talked about how Pakistan used to threaten India with tactical nukes before the surgical strikes and how since the strikes they haven't threatened once.

"From the day surgical strike happened, no threat has come. They realised that we can do something which is not well defined," he said



Ministry of Defence issued a statement after the Defence Minister's remark in which it said, "What Defence Minister Parrikar said was his personal opinion and not official position. What he said was that India being a responsible power should not get into first use debate."

On demonetisation of currency, Parrikar said that it may impact elections and a lot of politicians are already worried.

READ: Black money surgical strike destroys Pakistan's fake currency network



"Black money that was going to be used in assembly elections has now become irrelevant, it will lead to cleaner elections. The most affected are the ones who are protesting the loudest," Parrikar said.

Talking about the best national security strategy for India, the Defence Minister said that it is best to be unpredictable and never let the enemy know what you will do next.

"India has signed Rs 2 lakh crore worth of defence orders in the two years when I have been in charge. 150 defence orders are still pending at this time and I have asked the three service chiefs to decide what their priority is."

Parrikar said that no one wants to leave turf and that all the three services chiefs need to be on board for the government to push higher defence management reforms.

Calling it the 'need of the hour', Parrikar talked about the setting up of a joint services command soon in Andaman and Nicobar.

WATCH VIDEO



Also Read:

Tejas Light Combat Aircraft: Here's how India created its first Flying Dagger

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What happens after 500, 1000 rupee notes scrapped: 10 things you must know



Suicide, shock death, out of cash: How Modi's surgical strike on black money has hit some people hard

Modi's decision is a joke, calamity and a brake on Indian economy: Kerala Finance Minister





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Mark Zuckerberg made an emotional Facebook post talking about how a presidential election should not demoralise people or distract them from the long-term goal of creating a better world for the coming generations. The post made just an hour ago has already gone viral.

By India Today Web Desk: The US presidential election results did shatter a million hearts. Americans currently living in the US, who have moved out, and people across the world are blaming those who voted Donald Trump for the President of the United States of America.

However, the truth is that America is a democracy, and people chose to vote Trump, nobody put a gun on anybody's head. As Donald Trump, the infamous business tycoon known for his racist, misogynist and Islamophobic views, becomes the President-elect, Mark Zuckerberg has something else to say.

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Posting a photo of him holding his 11-month-old daughter Max, as they watch the presidential election results on television, Zuckerberg made an emotional post this morning.

In the post, he said it's Max's first election and she's got a lot of election nights ahead of her, and that as he held her his thoughts were only about the work adults have ahead of them in creating a better world for children.

He said: "This work is bigger than any presidency and progress does not move in a straight line," and "we are all blessed to have the ability to make the world better, and we have the responsibility to do it. Let's go work even harder."

The post made just an hour ago has already gone viral with over 1,44,000 likes, nearly 5,000 shares and over 4,300 comments.

Here's the full Facebook post:

"Last night was Max's first election. She's got a lot of election nights ahead of her.

Holding Max, I thought about all the work ahead of us to create the world we want for our children. This work is bigger than any presidency and progress does not move in a straight line. The most important opportunities of Max's generation -- like curing all disease, improving education, connecting everyone and promoting equal opportunity -- will take long term focus and finding new ways for all of us to work together, sometimes over decades.

We are all blessed to have the ability to make the world better, and we have the responsibility to do it. Let's go work even harder."







When a Facebook user commented saying "having a child/children changes your perspective on everything," Zuckerberg replied saying, "it does".

--- ENDS ---
After three days of searching, the bodies of actors Uday and Anil who drowned during the shooting of Kannada film Masthigudi, has been found.

By India Today Web Desk: On November 7, tragedy struck, when three actors jumped into a lake from a helicopter without training or safety measures on the sets of Kannada film Masthigudi. While one actor, Duniya Vijay survived, the other two Uday and Anli drowed into the lake.

Soon enough, rescue teams were deployed to find the bodies of the two actors. For hours, they could not be found under water. However, according to reports, Uday's body was found by the search party on November 9.

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ALSO READ: What went wrong with Masthigudi helicopter stunt

ALSO READ: Helicopter stunt goes horribly wrong during Kannada film shoot, 2 actors dead

Well, now, even the second body has been found. Anil's body was found at Thippagondanahalli this morning. The body will be sent for post-mortem and the final rites will be performed by the family.

The scene which ended up in such a tragedy was supposedly the climax scene of Masthigudi. Actors Duniya Vijay, Raghav Uday and Anil jumped into the Thippagondanahalli Reservoir, 35km west of Bengaluru, from a helicopter. But the lapses on the part of the film crew as well as the actors led to their death.







Interestingly, Uday and Anil did not know swimming. "I will go for this shot with all faith in God," Vijay told reporters before Monday's stunt scene.

Response from what appeared to be a rescue boat on a standby appeared too late to pull out two of the actors, Raghav Uday and Anil, who struggled in the waters below.

Police have lodged a criminal case against Masthigudi makers. The Superintendent of Police of Ramanagara, Karnataka, reportedly said that a suo moto case is being filed against the film team.

Masthigudi, which is supposedly based on the life of actor Duniya Vijay, saw the actor joining hands with Nagashekar. The script of the film is said to be inspired from Duniya Vijay's attitude towards life.





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Author and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore knew Donald Trump would win the US presidential elections, and he had written about it four months ago. Now, after Trump's win, his blog article, with a 5-point analysis, is going viral.

By India Today Web Desk: As millions of Americans and many around the world are wondering how the infamous business magnet, a TV reality star with zero experience in politics -- Donald Trump -- won the US presidential elections to become the 45th President of the United States of America, author and filmmaker Michael Moore would possibly be smiling in disgust, a smile that says "i told you so".

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Also Read: Maybe most Americans don't want me here, says US Muslim journalist after Trump's win



Moore had predicted Donald Trump's win four months ago. He had written an article titled "5 reasons why Donald Trump will win" on his website then, a 5-point analysis explaining why Trump will trump.



Moore started his article saying, "I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November."

Calling Trump a "wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath," Moore wrote, "never in my life have I wanted to be proven wrong more than I do right now."

Also Read: Presidency is a man's job: Video shows how misogynist, stupid some Trump supporters are



Here are Moore's five reasons based on which he predicted Trump's win:

1. MIDWEST MATH:



Moore had written that Trump would focus on four traditionally Democratic states -- Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- and turn them against Hillary saying her support of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) is what destroyed the industrial states of these states and ruined the lives its people.

Now, as he said, Trump won Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and was leading in Michigan.

2. THE ANGRY WHITE MAN



The male ego of the White men, Moore wrote, that feels insecure to elect a woman as the country's President, worked for Donald Trump. He wrote, "There is a sense that the power has slipped out of their hands, that their way of doing things is no longer how things are done," and explained how the White supremacists, who had to endure a black man as their President, would not vote for a woman for President.



3. HILLARY, THE LIAR

Donald Trump sure had the tag of being a serial liar, but maybe, just maybe, his outspoken nature made him come across as an honest, fearless man. Hillary on the other hand, Moore wrote, "is hugely unpopular - nearly 70% of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really believing in anything other than what can get you elected," and said "our biggest problem here isn't Trump - it's Hillary."

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4. LAZY BERNIE SANDERS SUPPORTERS

Moore, who seems to get the average American's insight spot-on, had described how the depressed Bernie Sanders supporters will vote Hillary, but how it would still be a "depressed vote". He explained, "while the average Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to somewhat reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be what's called a "depressed vote" - meaning the voter doesn't bring five people to vote with her. He doesn't volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never talks in an excited voice when asked why she's voting for Hillary. A depressed voter."

5. MISCHIEVOUS ELECTORATE

Moore knew how the electoral votes would go to Trump, because it's one change the electorate would get to express their discontent at the establishment. He wrote, "the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can."

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Also Read: Lesser known Donald Trump facts: At 13, parents wanted him to behave



You can read the entire article here.

Watch Michael Moore explaining why Donald Trump will win:







Also Read: What does Donald Trump's HISTORIC win say about Americans?





--- ENDS ---
The Narendra Modi government's demonetisation scheme has dealt a cruel blow to many who have little access to resources.

By India Today Web Desk: While the government's surgical strike on black money by banning Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes was lauded by a section of the country, the decision has dealt a cruel blow to many who have little access to banks and online payment medium.

In Hyderabad, a 55-year-old woman committed suicide after she got to know that her Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes are redundant following the new government order.

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The woman, a farmer in Shanigapuram village of Telangana, thought her money was just a piece of paper with no value and hanged herself.

"Yesterday my mother and father had a fight after she heard about the government decision. She was heartbroken and later she hanged herself to the ceiling fan," her son Srinivas said.

ALSO READ: Bengaluru: Chaos at GPO as officials fail to manage crowd waiting to deposit old notes

ALSO READ: Hyderabad: Woman commits suicide as she thought that all her money in home is valueless



WOMAN DIES OF SHOCK

The confusion and chaos following the government's decision to ban currency caused the death of a 40-year-old woman in Gorakhpur.

ALSO WATCH



Tirtharaji, a washerwoman, allegedly died of shock in Captainganj tehsil of Kushinagar district in Uttar Pradesh. She had saved Rs 2,000 and had recently got it exchanged for two Rs 1,000 notes. Pictures of the two Rs 1,000 notes and a passbook lying next to her body went viral.

In another incident, an elderly person in Agra went to the bank to exchange some Rs 1,000 notes and suddenly fell ill. Onlookers alleged he died of shock after being told by the bank that his notes were now scraps of paper.



ALSO READ: Currency chaos in Kerala: How state saw midnight hunt for 100-rupee notes



MAN LOSES DAUGHTER

Lack of money also hit a family in Mahua Mafi village in Uttar Pradesh. An eight-year-old died after her father was unable to pay for the petrol while rushing her to a hospital. Since the man was carrying a Rs 1,000 note, the petrol pump attendant refused to take it.

Long queues were seen outside banks and post offices across the country. (Source: PTI)

In Delhi, a woman who went to the bank asking for Rs 10,000 for her daughter's wedding was turned away. She went to the bank with the wedding card but was told by the staff that the withdrawal limit was Rs 4,000.

ALSO READ: Rupee revamp: Big fat Indian weddings take a hit after demonetisation



NO MONEY TO RUN FAMILY

People with minimum resources at their disposal have suffered maximum in the wake of the government's decision.

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In Lucknow, Sant Kumar Chouhan was in tears as his family of 13 is finding it difficult to survive because of the bank's apathetic attitude. Chouhan, who had Rs 38,000 in old currency, went to the bank to deposit it all, but got only Rs 1,000 in return.

The bank allegedly refused him Rs 4,000 saying that if they were to give everyone the same amount they would soon run out of cash.

ALSO READ: Modi's decision is a joke, calamity and a brake on Indian economy: Kerala Finance Minister

ALSO READ: India Goes to Banks: Millions stand in long queues, Madras HC praises Modi govt's cash purge

ALSO WATCH



--- ENDS ---
By Mail Today Bureau: The BJP on Wednesday said the common man was happy with the Modi government's decision to demonetise high value notes. Party president Amit Shah cancelled his visit to Uttar Pradesh to get in touch with organisation leaders to receive feedback on the move. Shah was to visit Balia in UP, where he was to launch the fourth and last phase of 'Parivartan Yatra' as part of the BJP's poll campaign.

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READ | Delhi: Hospitals reject banned currency, turn away patients as demonetisation kicks in



BJP hit back at critics saying the "common man is happy", but the Opposition parties such as Congress were upset because they had lost "votes as well as notes". "Black money, corruption and fake currency are obstacles between the common man and development and the Centre's decision will help remove them," BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said. "They (Congress and its allies) have lost votes as well as notes. A party whose vice president (Rahul Gandhi) is out on bail in a corruption case has no right to speak over it," Sharma said, in an obvious reference to the National Herald case.

READ | Markets shuffle: Modi's move benefits Paytm, Ola; hits shopping destinations



ONE CONGRESS, MANY VOICES



Meanwhile, the Congress seemed to be talking in several voices, ranging from outright rejection to welcoming the step.

While Rahul Gandhi targeted the PM, Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi complimented the PM, saying he had started remembering his poll promises. "It is good that it appeared the Prime Minister has started remembering the poll promises," Dwivedi said. "At least today socialism has been ushered in India in view of the fact that those who have lot of resources and those who are 'have nots' have become equal."



READ | Banks to remain open this weekend, new Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes in ATMs from Friday



Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh too questioned the timing of the move. "Black money must be stopped, but the government seems to have taken a hasty decision and the timing too is bad. It appears that the Modi government did not think the move through and acted on shallow political impulse."

On the other hand, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav alleged the Centre had moved so fast on demonetisation owing to the UP poll pressure.

READ | Operation Black Money: Here is the inside story of Modi's bold move

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"The way in which Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes have been banned, it is creating a lot of problems for the people. PM could have discussed it in the Parliament before taken the decision," he said.

READ | Great dud currency bazaar: Illegal financial institutions erupt, exchange rates dip



--- ENDS ---
The meeting was held as there were rumours of management change at the Islamic International School.

By Mustafa Shaikh: A parent-teacher meeting was held by Zakir Naik's Islamic International School (IIS) on Sunday after being under the scanner of Mumbai's Economic Offence Wing (EOW) for financial irregularity. The meeting was held amidst reports of change in management after a ban on Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), in which parents were assured by the management that nothing will change at the school.

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Many parents were apprehensive as the school and its founder has been in news for a long time. Students travel daily from as far as Mira Road to study in this school.

Operational since 2001, the school is situated around Mumbai's Dockyard Road which is far from residential areas of the Mumbai city. Thirteen students from Musharaf Armar's family study at the IIS because they feel that Cambridge syllabus with Islamic studies gives the students an edge over other students.

Also read: Demonetisation effect: Hawala operations come to a grinding halt



When asked about fear of students getting radicalised in the school, Adil Patanwala, a businessman said, "My daughters study here. If there was fear of radicalisation and any wrong doing, we are not fools to send our children here. They know languages like Arabic, Urdu and are black belts in martial arts. I don't see any harm in the school."



POLICE INVESTIGATION



Parents revealed that enquiries by Mumbai Police have not deterred them to send their children to the school. "We were asked questions like why are we sending them to the IIS and not any other international school. What do we want them to become in future? I said that I just want them to be a better human being with understanding of both worlds," said Armar.

After 2nd standard, the IIS has separate premises for boys and girls and parents are told to stop watching cable TV at their homes. "Not watching the cable television has helped as focus on better things. I support gender segregation as demanded in Islam," added Armar.

Also read: Bombay HC rejects lawyers' plea to suo moto take up issue of demonetisation of 500, 1000 notes



"We are not against technology, but only advise parental supervision on what kids are doing. Because there are good and bad things available on the internet and kids are not mature enough to filter such things on their own," said Mohammed Imran Qureshi, Principal of IIS.

The school is in the process of being affiliated to Cambridge IGCSE Board. There are two other schools running smoothly by Zakir Naik's trust, both in Chennai.

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--- ENDS ---
By Vidya : Food stalls around Lower Parel in Mumbai which used to do brisk business, until the beginning of this week, appear deserted today with not many people around.

SB Narsale works as a general manager in a firm in Lower Parel. As a routine, he used to come down to these street joints, spread out on the foot paths near his office, and could choose from an array of food to eat. Depending on what he liked to eat, Narsale had to spend anything between Rs 40-100. But with the new notes and lack of change in the market, he had to face a severe crunch and so had rushed to the bank, as soon as they opened in the morning.

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"I stood in the queue for an hour at the bank and around 12:30, I managed to get two new notes of Rs 2000. However, after I came down to have my lunch, I realised that no one was going to give me change for such a note." Slightly inconvenienced but Narsale has the option of heading to a restaurant and using his debit card or ordering food through an app and paying online.

Also read: Bombay HC rejects lawyers' plea to suo moto take up issue of demonetisation of 500, 1000 notes



Even Kishore, who also works in Lower Parel, with few notes of smaller denomination has been managing to eat and travel by using plastic money. "I have a few notes of Rs 100 and have been managing without much issues, as I ordered everything I needed online," he adds.



NO CHANGE TO RETURN

However, the currency turmoil that India has had to go through since prime minister's announcement of demonetisation, has hugely hit the street vendors.

"We have all executives coming down from these tall buildings to have lunch at our stalls but for the last two days, our business has been hit. People come to us with big notes and we don't have the change to return. Today, people came to us with Rs 2000 but we had to turn them away," says Netra Vengurlekar, who has been serving affordable hot lunches on this street for the last one decade.

It's not just the office areas were people take their lunch and breakfast that has been hit but the local vendors selling bhelpuri and panipuri vendors have also felt the heat. Not many takers seem to be around for their spicy concoctions which people generally relish during evenings.

Also read: Cannabis alert in Mumbai ahead of new year; anti-narcotics cell keeping a tab



"I don't know if it is for good or bad but my business has suffered in the last two days. I feed my family with my daily earnings and so could barely manage," rues Rajendra Jadhav. Even the famous Crawford market and the surrounding shopping hubs where people can be seen pushing each other to reach their favourite stalls wore a deserted look. These markets were badly hit as they mostly deal in cash.

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The stalls on roads here were either closed or not doing good business. Abdul khan, one of the shop owner, said, "Either the shop owners have gone to banks to get money or they are sitting at home, as they know that not many customers will come. we are waiting for the business to pick up again."

--- ENDS ---
Online sites that sell vegetables and services like Ola and Uber are cashing in on the demonetisation move. (Photo: K Asif)

By Karishma Kuenzang, Adila Matra: It's certainly a hardship for the common man, but with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's bold move to curb black money, people are going about their business dealing with the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes. It's short-term pain for a long-term gain.

Mail Today visited markets in the national Capital for a reality check and found that the currency note of Rs 100 has become precious and online or app-based transactions have become the way forward for many people. Online sites that sell vegetables and services like Ola and Uber are cashing in on the demonetisation move. Unable to go to local vegetable vendors, many have taken to sites such as Big Basket, Grofers and Freshfalsabzi for their daily grocery needs.

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READ | Banks to remain open this weekend, new Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes in ATMs from Friday



Freshfalsabzi CEO Sanjay Goel said: "We have around 2,000 premium customers and we are explaining to them the process of paying online. We are also offering credit in the form of negative balance up to a certain amount till the crisis lifts."

READ| How scrapping 500, 1000 notes and bringing in 2000 notes will check black money: Congress



OLA SHINES



Ola, the mobile taxi service, has reported over 1,500 percent increase in recharges across the 102 cities of its operation since 8.30 pm on November 8 till 12 pm.

READ | Operation Black Money: Here is the inside story of Modi's bold move

Says Pallav Singh, SVP and Head, Ola Money: "The Ola Money Wallet has witnessed unprecedented traction amongst consumers over the last 12-15 hours with a 15-time increase in recharge volume. In many smaller towns and cities across the country, which have predominantly been high on cash usage, there has been as much as 30 times growth. This includes cities like Nagpur, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Lucknow, Patna, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Indore, etc. A majority of rides are being paid for using Ola Money as against cash across India." The app is offering 10 percent cash back to first-time Ola Money users, up to Rs 50.

GOOD TIMES FOR PAYTM



India's largest mobile payment and commerce platform, Paytm saw an overwhelming 435 percent increase in overall traffic as millions of consumers across India have taken to using their Paytm Wallets to transact offline.

"Within hours of the Prime Minister's announcement, the company has registered a 200 percent hike in number of app downloads and 250 per cent surge in number of overall transactions and transaction value," said Madhur Deora, CFO of Paytm.

READ | New Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes: All you need to know

READ | What the FAQ just happened! All your questions about Rs 500-1000 notes answered

A typical Wednesday evening in Lajpat Nagar's Central Market at this time of the year usually comprises shoppers bustling around. But now the market seemed almost deserted. Sanjay, the owner of Sindhi Footwear, which has been there for around 20 years, said: "Sale has gone down by 70 per cent today. Nobody seems to have any change and customers are just walking away."

Ramesh Chandra, who owns a crockery store in the market, said: "In some stores, they are making people buy stuff worth Rs 500 or Rs 1000 and accepting notes of that denomination. I ran out of change by noon and haven't even made Rs 100 the whole day today. There's literally one per cent business today."

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READ | Great dud currency bazaar: Illegal financial institutions erupt, exchange rates dip





--- ENDS ---
Right from the time PM Modi announced the withdrawal of Rs 500, 1,000 currency notes from the financial system of India, marketers got to work and started flooding customers with offers. Here is how they are making the most of it.

Marketers are trying make the most of Rs 500, 1,000 currency withdrawal

By India Today Web Desk:

Marketers are a breed of people trained to be on their toes all the time, and to make the most of any opportunity they spot to promote their company's products. While some of them play it fair, and rely on their creativity and ability to think out-of-the-box, others compromise on quality and go to any extent to get whatever mileage they could get. The latter sect believe any publicity is good publicity.

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After prime minister Modi announced the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from the financial system of India during an unprecedented national address, marketers of online payment / e-commerce ventures knew that the following days have to be seized.

Also read: Hawala operations come to a grinding halt



Here's how they made the most of it:

Paytm



PM Modi reappeared on a full front-page ad, and this time around, it was not Reliance behind it, but e-commerce, online payment player Paytm.

The last time we saw prime minister Narendra Modi on a full front-page ad in what seemed like he was endorsing Reliance Jio, was on September 2, the day after India's richest man Mukesh Ambani announced Reliance 4G services, what he claims to be the world's lowest data tariff.

Also read: Here's what you can do with your useless Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes



This ad.

Heated debates had followed, with one group slamming Ambani for using prime minister's photo, possibly without his consent, to promote his company's product, and another group blaming the prime minister for not talking against it, and letting it appear as if it was a favour to his business tycoon friend. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal even called Modi Mr Reliance.

Also read: Also read: Going to the bank with Rs 500, 1000 notes? Beware, the Income Tax department is watching



When the Jio ad was pretty straightforward and made Modiji look like their brand ambassador, Paytm played it safe and said, "Paytm congratulates Honorable Prime Minister Sh. Narendra Modi on taking the boldest decision in the financial history of independent India [sic]!"

Paytm also tweeted, "Now is the time to go cashless".





Ola and Uber

App-based cab provider biggies Ola and Uber knew that from November 8 midnight, people will have to depend more on their services because change.

Both the players, who provide online wallet facility, were quick to reach out to people on social media. Ola tweeted, "thank god for Ola money" and Uber urged people to switch to digital payment modes from midnight.



Well let's just say Thank God for Ola Money! Ola (@Olacabs) November 8, 2016

We've always said choice is a great thing. Switch to digital payment modes starting midnight #UberOn Uber India (@Uber_India) November 8, 2016

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Also read: What the FAQ just happened! All your questions about Rs 500-1000 notes answered

Zomato and Swiggy

Food delivery startups who accept online payments were also quick to change their payment accepting policies right after PM Modi announced the withdrawal.

Zomato, on their app, made it clear that Cash on Delivery option is not available anymore and tweeted "ahem" along with an image of their payment mode page on the app blurring all other options but online payment.





Swiggy, the smaller player, chose to give Rs 75 off for the customer's first order above Rs 300 and up to 20 per cent cashback for those who pay using wallets. Swiggy went a step ahead and christened their offer code MODI.



Freecharge

The online recharge startup Freecharge went the Paytm way, and wished newspaper readers good morning with a full front-page ad saying, "Cash is so yesterday".

--- ENDS ---

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By PTI: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Nov 10 (PTI) Nepal has once again banned the use of Indian currency of denominations Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 after allowing them for the past one year, a day after India demonetised the high-value notes.

Nepals central bank has issued a directive to the Nepali banking and financial institutions as well as "currency exchange centres" to stop transacting the two currency notes.

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The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) yesterday issued a directive in this regard. It also decided to write to the Reserve Bank of India for the management of the higher-denomination notes in Nepal, according to officials.

Limited use of Indian currency notes of Rs 500 was allowed in Nepal in 2015 though restrictions after they were being restricted for 13 years since 2002.

Indias ban on the currency notes on Tuesday is likely to trouble traders in border areas, who rely heavily on Indian currency because of their businesses and imports from India through the "open borders".

Indian currency is widely used in Nepal for day-to-day transactions, especially in the border areas.

Also, a large number of Nepalese citizens working in India send remittances to their family in Nepal in higher denomination notes.

Nepal, a landlocked country, depends on India for trade and supplies. PTI SBP ABH AKJ ABH

--- ENDS ---
The National Green Tribunal said in such situations, a state of environment emergency should be declared.

By Anusha Soni: Expressing its concern on the high pollution levels in the national capital, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) today slammed the Centre and states for inaction over the issue. The tribunal has prescribed a state of "environment emergency" subject to thresholds.

The NGT has said that if PM 10, PM 2.5 are in excess of 500, 300 respectively, a state of environment emergency should be declared. It directed emergency measures if pollution levels breach prescribed levels.

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The NGT said in such emergency situation, a temporary shut down of thermal power plants and temporary closure of all construction activity in affected areas is necessary.

Also read: Delhi government launches app to register garbage and pollution complaints



The state government has also been directed to reach out to corporates for discharge of CSR by collecting agricultural residue. The tribunal also reaffirmed the 10-year-old diesel ban order for NCT.



BAN ON DIESEL CARS



It also expressed its intent to expand scope of ban on diesel cars to neighbouring four states including Rajasthan, UP, Haryana and Punjab. The NGT has also directed all the four states to consider a policy banning 10-yr-old diesel vehicles.

Also read: NGT poses 5 questions on pollution, Delhi government draws a blank



It has been further recommended that a committee must be constituted involving central, state environment representatives to tackle crop burning and sources of pollution. The committee has been asked to submit a report on the same.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From Aditi Khanna

London, Nov 10 (PTI) The Indian government is looking at ways to help NRIs who may possess some banned currency notes so that they can deposit them at a branch of an Indian bank overseas, Indias acting high commissioner to the UK said.

"Our endeavour is to help everybody. We have asked Delhi about it (any banned notes with NRIs). I have a feeling we will work out something so that people who have carried certain amount of cash in their pocket, should be able to deposit it in any Indian bank abroad," Dinesh Patnaik said.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as part of an anti-corruption drive earlier this week, giving Indians the option to exchange them at banks across India until December 30.

The Indian envoy highlighted that under currency rules, people are allowed to carry only less than Rs 10,000 when leaving India.

"Basically, it means people abroad should not have more than that. Also, not everybody will have an account with an Indian bank ? either they will have to open one or find an alternative. So, it is something we will have to look at very closely.

"There is a lot of time, until December 30," he said.

Patnaik, the deputy high commissioner who stepped in as acting high commissioner after Navtej Sarna left to assume charge as Indian ambassador in Washington DC, said that the reason behind the ban was to bring in money from outside the legal system.

"This is not an amnesty schemeor any scheme to garner black money. This is a method to achieve cashless transactions, which in itself will stop corruption, and to make sure that the money which is lying within the non-legal system, gets into the legal system.

"And, of course, the threat of fake Indian currency will be eliminated, because that threat was mostly with Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. The new Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 will have greater security features and it will make it more difficult for counterfeiters to try and copy it," he said. PTI AK SAI AKJ SAI

--- ENDS ---
After the currency ban on Rs 500 and 1,000 notes, aap-based services are cashing in on the opportunity.

By Manogya Loiwal : In a major boost to digital marketing, app-based services are witnessing an exponential growth as millions of consumers are now going cashless and opting for online payments instead.

Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement of demonitising Rs 500 and 1,000 notes on Tuesday, mobile-based services are now cashing in on the opportunity with aggressive campaigns to increase their traffic.

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By introducing user-friendly methods to make online payments simpler, digital firms are registering an immense spike in application downloads and overall transactions.

OLA REGISTERS 1500% INCREASE IN 24 HOURS

App-based taxi service Ola said it had recorded an enormous rise of 1,500 per cent from 08:30 pm on November 8 to midnight of November 9.

"As India's most preferred mobility platform and one of the top three digital wallets in the country, we are proud to help citizens go cashless. Ever since the announcement, we have seen a growth of over 15 times on Ola Money recharge. There has been a growth of upto 30x in recharges and wallet usage in tier 2 and 3 cities," Pallav Singh, SVP and Head - Ola Money, said.

According to Singh, Ola Money wallet witnessed an unprecedented traction amongst consumers with a 15 times increase in recharge volume. In smaller towns and cities, which have predominantly been high on cash usage, there has been as much as 30 times growth. This includes cities like Nagpur, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Lucknow, Patna, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Indore etc. A majority of rides are being paid for using Ola Money as against cash across India.

Also read: Demonetisation effect: Hawala operations come to a grinding halt



Lauding Modi's initiative of demonitising big currencies and curb illegal trade, e-commerce companies said it was a significant step towards a cashless economy. "The prime minister's move marks the beginning of a significant step towards a cashless economy and Ola Money is at the forefront of our vision of a Digital India. We urge our customers to conserve cash and use Ola Money instead for their mobility needs and across other online and offline merchants," Singh said.



CHANGE HAILED



Bill pay service ItzCash said it registered more than 30-40 per cent growth in the volumes traded since yesterday.

"ItzCash card is now coming in as a huge rescue instrument for the public at large, so much so that we have witnessed more than 30-40 per cent growth in the volumes traded since yesterday. Industry has positively hailed the change as it is a much called for move," Naveen Surya, Chairman, Payment Council of India and Managing Director of ItzCash, said.

However, Kolkata centric app-based OTL cab service appeared to be little affected by the drastic changes in cash payments.

Managing Director OTL cab service, Adhrick Roy said, "It hasn't changed much for us as most of our customers use wallet money. Those who are struggling with big notes, we are trying to make their journey hassle-free."

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Also read: This is how RBI will dispose of 2,203 crore currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000



"We welcome this great initiative by the Modi government. Not only will it stop the circulation of black money, but it will also put a fear in the minds of black money marketers in the future. The decision may be instant and may lead in chaos but will eventually settle things in the market," Roy said.

Vodafone M-Pesa too welcomed the government's bold step to accelerate India's progress into a cashless economy. "We reiterate our commitment to actualise the government's vision through Vodafone M-Pesa that leverages the reach of mobile technology to enable financial inclusion and offers the convenience of a digital wallet for easy transactions," Suresh Sethi, Business Head, M-Pesa, Vodafone India, said.

OIL AND LUBRICANTS COMPANIES OPTIMISTIC

Meanwhile, amid public rush to petrol pumps and gas stations to get rid of the big currency notes, public sector oil marketing companies have assured acceptance of the same for all fuel and related product purchases till November 11 midnight.

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Indian Oil Corporation Limited, HPCL and BPCL urged customers not to unnecessarily stock up petroleum products and purchase quantities to fulfil their immediate/routine needs and sought their co-operation to ensure a smooth transition to the new currency system.

Also read: Revamp of currency has led to financial emergency-like situation, alleges Mayawati



The major lubricant manufacturers and exporters of India, however, feel this move will benefit the entire industry in the long run, despite some short-term hiccups.

Aditya Vikram Agarwal, Chairman of Vineet Group, manufacturer and exporter of lubricant and oils under brand name 'Speedo' was optimistic that the online payments will enhance the growth of the entire vehicle and fuel segment particularly the long travel along with carriage segment.

Agarwal said, "This is a big and quick move which has left people speechless and will definitely be a strong move to remove the black marketing."

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Lucknow/New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) The opposition parties and BJP today sparred over the Centres ban on high denomination notes with BSP chief Mayawati calling the action imposition of "undeclared economic emergency" and the ruling party asserting it was a fight against black money. The opposition parties--SP, BSP and AAP--also questioned the timing of the move, claiming it was linked to the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Echoing Mayawatis sentiments, arch rival and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav said the "sudden ban" showed the NDA government did not keep the plight of people in mind and took the decision with an eye on UP polls. The Trinamool Congress gave a notice in the Rajya Sabha to suspend business on the opening day of Winter Session of Parliament on November 16 to discuss the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes, saying it was inconveniencing the poor. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged that BJP and its "friends" were informed about the demonetisation of high value currency "a week before" the move was effected, especially keeping the UP polls in mind. "Just before UP elections, Modi has realised the problem of black money after remaining in the saddle at the Centre for two-and-a-half years. Ninety per cent people are unhappy with this decision," Mayawati told a press conference in Lucknow.

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She said poor people and farmers have been badly hit by high denomination rupee ban decision.

"It (the decision) is not in the interest of the people, it is in self-interest," she said, reminding people of the dark days of Emergency imposed by then Congress government.

Had Modi been honest in his approach, he would not have waited for two-and-a-half years to take action against black money, she said.

"Centre has not thought about the poor and the way in which people formed serpentine queues at petrol pumps shows their connivance with the government for earning a quick buck," she said, adding people will punish BJP for this. At another press conference in Lucknow, Mulayam said the the demonetisation has been done by the NDA government with an eye on elections, and not keeping plight of people in mind. The SP patriarch demanded a roll back of the decision for a few days in view of the wedding season. A top BJP leader said the partys fight against black money and corruption will continue, observing that the common man will not be impacted at all with the demonetising exercise. "More measures will be taken(by the Centre). We are committed to curbing black money," the leader said during an informal interaction with journalists in New Delhi. He said the "war chest" of both the ruling SP and BSP for the UP polls has been "hit hard" with the move to demonetise Rs 1000/500 notes. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said only those with unaccounted income will face the consequences. BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav questioned the stand of CPIM and party-led LDF government in Kerala on demonetisation and sought to know whether it stood with the poor or with blackmoney holders and fake currency racketeers. TMC leader in the Upper House Derek OBrien said it was vital that the black money hoarders and the corrupt were punished, but it must not be done by inconveniencing the common people and the poor. PTI ABN SMI SBR KR TGB SUN GSN GSN

--- ENDS ---
The US President-elect had said if elected, he would be willing to play the mediator in addressing the "very, very hot tinderbox" of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Pakistan today said it "welcomed" the US President-elect Donald Trump's offer to mediate between Pakistan and India on the Kashmir dispute.

During a weekly press briefing in Islamabad, while responding to queries about the victory of Republican Donald Trump in the US presidential election, Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said the President-elect had earlier offered mediation between Pakistan and India on Kashmir dispute and "we had welcomed that offer".

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ALSO READ: World in shock as Donald Trump wins US election



Pakistan's statement comes on the wake of various reports that suggest the new US President may favour India over its other long-time ally. Trump had once called Pakistan "probably the most dangerous country in the world".



ALSO READ: Donald Trump's decisive victory, his past tweets cast a shadow on Pakistan



PAKISTAN WANTS CLOSE TIES WITH US

Zakaria said Pakistan desires a close relationship with the US, and wishes to further strengthen it.

ALSO WATCH



The US President-elect last month said that if elected, he would be willing to play the mediator in addressing the "very, very hot tinderbox" of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

ALSO READ: Beijing welcomes Trump rise despite tough trade talk



"If it was necessary, I would do that. If we could get India and Pakistan getting along, I would be honoured to do that. That would be a tremendous achievement... I think if they wanted me to, I would love to be the mediator or arbitrator," Trump had said in the interview.

ALSO READ: Modi congratulates Trump, here's what his win could mean for India

ALSO WATCH



--- ENDS ---
Two Public Interest Litigations (PILs) were filed in the Supreme Court today challenging the government's decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in order to check black money.

By Ahmad Azeem: Two Public Interest Litigations (PILs) were filed in the Supreme Court today challenging the government's decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in order to check black money.

Soon after the PILs were filed, the Centre filed a caveat asking the court not to pass any interim order without hearing its argument on the issue. The matter will be now heard on Tuesday.

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Both the petitions have been filed by practising lawyers: Advocate-on-Record at the Supreme Court Vivek Narayan Sharma, and Sangam Lal Pandey.

Sharma's petition, running into 39 pages, questions the manner in which the scheme was implemented. He has alleged the government "failed to follow constitutional rule of law, principles of natural justice and provide sufficient time to citizens of India to prepare for such phasing out of specified bank notes."

The PIL questions the timing of the move, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a televised address on Tuesday night. Sharma alleges the violation of Section 26(2) of the Reserve Bank India Act, 1934 which, according to him, mandates that "reasonable time be given to people to make alternate financial arrangements to avoid large scale mayhem and chaos."

"TUGHLAQI FARMAAN"

The other PIL, filed by Pandey, has also pointed out the various difficulties faced by the public due to the sudden discontinuation of the currency notes.

He has submitted that private hospitals are refusing to accept notes of denomination 500 and 1000. Besides that, other grounds like initiation of marriage ceremonies, difficulties in travelling by public transport etc. have been raised by Pandey.

Calling it a "Tughlaqi Farman", Pandey has prayed that the notification be quashed.

Also Read:

Operation Black Money: Here is the inside story of Modi's bold move

Rupee revamp: AIIMS exempts out-patient clinical charges below Rs 500

New Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes: All you need to know

What the FAQ just happened! All your questions about Rs 500-1000 notes answered



--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From Jaishree Balasubramanian

Bangkok, Nov 10 (PTI) En route to Japan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today made a surprise stopover in the Thai capital to pay his respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illness.

Prime Minister Modi will lay a wreath and pay final respects to the late King Bhumibol, whose body is lying in state at the Grand Palace complex here.

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Modi was received at the airport by Thai Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith.

Bhumibol, the worlds longest ruling monarch, died aged 88 on October 13. He was adored by many of his subjects and seen as an anchor of stability in a kingdom rocked by turbulent politics.

A one-year mourning period had been announced in Thailand following the monarchs death.

Thousands of Thais are still streaming into the gates of Bangkoks Grand Palace to pay their respects to the late King.

After laying the wreath, Modi will head to Japan for a three-day visit during which the two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in areas like trade, investment and security. PTI JB ASK AKJ ASK

--- ENDS ---
By Asit Jolly: Punjab's politics was hit by a raging torrent on Thursday in the form of a Supreme Court verdict that a state law scrapping water-sharing agreements with other states was "unconstitutional".

Observers say the poll-bound state may even end up under President's Rule in the near future with Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh resigning from his Lok Sabha seat in protest and his party MLAs quitting en-masse from the state assembly, while leaders from other parties including the ruling SAD may follow suit. The top court said the Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal, which is at the centre of a row between Punjab and Haryana, has to be completed.

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THE WATER AND FARMER CARD



At the root of the dispute is water, an emotive issue in SAD-BJP-ruled Punjab where elections are due early next year. Every party wants to be seen as furthering the cause of the state's crisis-hit farmers who perceive any water flowing through the canal would be at their cost.

READ | Punjab can't scrap water sharing with states, says Supreme Court; Amarinder, Congress MLAs resign



The Congress was in power in Punjab in 1982 when Indira Gandhi flagged off the project.

The venture, however, got stalled in the state during the Khalistan movement. In 2004, the then Amarinder-led government passed the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, that stopped construction of the SYL canal designed to carry Haryana's portion of the Ravi-Beas waters from Punjab. The neighbouring state took the matter to court.

In March this year, the Parkash Singh Badal government decided to de-notify the 5,376 acres acquired for the project with the passage of the Punjab Sutlej-Yamuna Link Land (Return of Property Rights) Bill, 2016, to facilitate the return of 3,928 acres to villagers. But within a week of the passage of the bill, the top court asked Punjab to maintain status quo.

NOT A SINGLE DROP WILL GO OUT OF PUNJAB: BADAL



While CM Badal hastily convened an emergency meeting of his council of ministers to discuss the "crisis" provoked by Thursday's SC order, his son and deputy, Sukhbir Badal, had already made it clear that his government would go to any lengths to block the canal's completion.

"We will not allow a single drop of (Ravi-Beas) water to go out from Punjab," Badal said on the sidelines of an official function in Adampur near Jalandhar ahead of the Cabinet meeting on Thursday evening. The deputy CM blamed the Congress and former PM Indira Gandhi for planning and executing the construction of the canal "against Punjabi interests".

But minutes after the news of the Supreme Court order came in, Amarinder dashed off a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker, conveying his decision to resign his parliamentary seat (Amritsar). All Congress party MLAs too quit their Assembly seats simultaneously.

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SAD RESPONSIBLE FOR ACUTE WATER SCARCITY: CAPTAIN



In his letter, Amarinder said he had decided to quit "as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of my state of the much-needed Sutlej river water." He blamed the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal for bringing the people of Punjab to "this pitiable pass," where they face imminent devastation from acute water scarcity.

READ: Punjab, Haryana lock horns over SYL canal as Punjab de-notifies land acquisition



Amarinder insisted that CM Parkash Singh Badal and his government had failed to defend Punjab's stand in the court, leading to the adverse verdict. AAP, which had earlier been slow to realise emotive potential of the SYL issue, also responded with a measured mix of anger and rhetoric as state convener Gurpreet Ghuggi announced a "new morcha (demonstration)" starting from Kapoori, the village in Patiala District where Indira Gandhi inaugurated the digging of the canal in April 1982. Among other leaders, Sanjay Singh accused the Congress and SAD of indulging in histrionics while HS Phoolka claimed his party is "prepared to make any sacrifice" on the issue.

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SUTLEJ YAMUNA LINK'S BLOODY PAST

The SYL has a long and bloody history that includes the assassination of SAD chief Harchand Longowal in August 1985, the killings of Punjab irrigation chief engineer ML Sikri and his clerk in 1990 and Khalistani terrorists mercilessly gunning down 30 construction workers engaged in digging the canal near Chandigarh.

Analysts say the current political rhetoric which is already finding angrier echoes amid fringe hardline Sikh outfits such as the Dal Khalsa and the SAD faction headed by Simranjit Singh Mann, could easily fan more flames in the charged atmosphere ahead of the Assembly polls.

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Rathore's lawyer said "The flat, which was allotted, did not have access to common facilities of the project as was shown in the site map at the time of booking".

By Harish V Nair: Not just common man. It seems even ministers of the Union government are at the receiving end of builder's apathy. Minister of state for I & B Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore has knocked the doors of the Supreme Court saying the flat 'Parsvanath Developers' allotted to him on the orders of the court in its Exotica project, that too after a seven year delay was "uninhabitable".

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Rathore says there is no parking facility and the only access road was kachcha which opened into a slum cluster. The court has intervened and on Wednesday appointed a two-member lawyer commission to visit the housing society to verify his claim.

READ | Parsvnath ordered to give Rajyavardhan Rathore flat in 2 days by Supreme Court



The panel has been directed to submit a report in two weeks. The matter has now been fixed for hearing on November 29. Rathore had booked the flat in 2006 and paid around Rs 70 lakh for it. The firm was to deliver the flat in 2008-09.

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED

In January 2015 the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission had directed the builder to refund the principal amount with interest and compensation to Rathore. On October 21 the Supreme Court had asked the builder to hand over the possession of the flat.

Rathore's lawyer said "The flat, which was allotted, did not have access to common facilities of the project as was shown in the site map at the time of booking". He added "While the tower in which the flat is located had a kachcha access road which opened into a slum cluster, there was no parking facility provided and the tower did not have an occupancy certificate".

Parsvanath denied the allegation saying the flat was in a good condition and work at the project site to improve the amenities was still going on. He wondered why Rathore is not asking for a refund. However, Rathore's counsel said they did not want refund as they have contested for so long to get the flat and urged for another flat instead, in the tower which has the occupancy certificate.

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By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) Further deepening the already close defence ties will be a major focus of Israeli President Reuven Rivlins eight-day trip to India beginning Monday during which both sides are also set to ink a number of MoUs to expand cooperation in areas of energy, agriculture and trade.

Ahead of Rivlins visit here, first by an Israeli President in nearly two decades, the Jewish countrys envoy Daniel Carmon said the bilateral defence ties were beyond buyer-seller and military-to-military relationship and the message will be to broaden it further besides boosting cooperation in some other sectors.

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During his stay, the Israeli President will hold extensive talks with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi covering key bilateral and regional issues besides attending a ceremony in Taj Hotel and Chabad House in Mumbai to pay tribute to victims of 26/11 attack in which six Jews were also killed.

On defence cooperation, Carmon said Israel has plans for fresh joint ventures and technology transfer in developing weapons systems and ensuring implementation of Modis Make in India initiative in the key sector which is a "major facet" of his countrys "special relationship" with India.

"It is a very deep relationship. India and Israel enjoy very unique relation in areas of defence.... There are plans for fresh joint venture and technology transfer," he told reporters, refusing to go into specifics.

India is Israels largest buyer of military hardware and the latter has been supplying various weapons systems, missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles over the last few years but the transactions have largely remained behind the curtains.

Carmon said Rivlins "large" delegation will comprise honchos of top Israeli arms manufacturing companies and senior government officials dealing with matters relating to defence.

Asked about Modis proposed visit to Israel, he said it will happen and will be a very important trip.

It was being decided by the two governments when it will happen, the envoy said.

There were indications that the Prime Minister may visit Tel Aviv in first part of 2017 which will be 25th year of formal diplomatic ties between the two countries. India had established "full" diplomatic relationship with Israel in 1992 though it had recognised the country in 1950.

Asked about the proposed Free Trade Agreement between the two countries, he said its finalisation "should and could be a easier process henceforth".

The envoy said both countries are set to sign a raft of pacts in areas of education, energy, water, agriculture and research and development during Rivlins visit. MORE PTI MPB RT

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Delhi smog has successfully managed to defer fest celebrating Delhi as a tourism hub. The 21-day-long gala will now be held in February.

By Baishali Adak: The much-awaited 'Delhi Festival' - a unique gala celebrating the Capital as a tourism hub - has been deferred due to the intense smog.

Tourism Minister, Kapil Mishra, informed on Wednesday that the extravaganza will now be held from February 4 to 24, a period of 21 days. Planned on the lines of Dubai & Edinburgh Festivals, the extravaganza was earlier scheduled from November 19 to December 10 to 'rebrand the city.'

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READ | Delhi government launches app to register garbage and pollution complaints



Minister Kapil Mishra said, "Plans were afoot on a warscale. The best consulting agencies have been hired, including Wieden+Kennedy, for the job. But first the political turmoil following the Uri attack & then the smog have forced us to shift the event by a few days." "Foreign and even domestic tourists will not be inclined to visit Delhi right now. In February, the weather will be much more pleasant," he added.

READ | Kejriwal's artificial rain idea to tackle Delhi smog dreamy, impractical: Experts



Mail Today had reported on October 9 that the AAP Government plans to give an image makeover to Delhi in terms of tourism and has even allocated Rs 25 crore for a unique 'Delhi Festival.' With a unique slogan 'Aao Dilli Manayein' (Let's celebrate Delhi), the government plans to showcase the city in all its glory, from Chandni Chowk's street food and theatre festivals of Mandi House to South Delhi's plush shopping malls and eco-tourism at Yamuna and Asola Mines biodiversity parks. For the first time, a slogan has been thought up for Delhi-'Dilli Hain Hum' such as Kerala's 'God's Own Country.'

READ | For non-smokers, Delhi's toxic air equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes, will lead to cancer in a month

Posters and TV commercials being designed for the event will also be splashed across the city soon. An enviable list of artistes and venues were being drawn up for perfomances for the mega festival.

Delhi has much to offer, from its Nizamuddin qawallis to Lotus Temple and from the astronomical wonder Jantar Mantar to the tall Qutab Minar.

During the peak tourist season (November-April), roughly 2.5-3 lakh foreign tourists visit the Golden Triangle Circuit of Delhi-Agra-Jaipur. This accounts for about 30 per cent of the total number of the inbound traffic in India.

READ | A day after Diwali, smog blankets Delhi



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By PTI: Mumbai, Nov 10 (PTI) Meng Jianzhu, special envoy to President of China Xi Jinping along with a delegation today visited the iconic Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus here.

CST, which is a UNESCO heritage building, is the headquarter of the Central Railway (CR).

CRs Additional General Manager AK Srivastava, along with Principal Head of Departments and Divisional Railway Manager, Mumbai of CR held a meeting and presented how the oldest railway system in the world works with such a great efficiency.

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Meng Jianzhu and the delegation went around the UNESCO world heritage building and interacted with commuters on platform no 2, star chamber where the booking counters are situated and at the concourse, CR said in a statement. PTI APM NRB TIR

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By PTI: Shimla, Nov 9 (PTI) Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modis decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, but said the "sudden" move would make it difficult for farmers and small traders to make transactions.

"It is a bold step taken by the Prime Minister. However the decision is astep taken hastily," he told reporters in Mandi.

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"It has come as a setback for those who have marriages, for farmers and marginal traders. They will face problems in making immediate financial transactions," the Chief Minister claimed.

"I hail the bold decision and welcome the step taken to curb and stop the menace of black money and fight corruption," he said.

"Necessary arrangements and steps before demonetisation of currency notes could have been ensured to safeguard the interest of farmers, small traders, shopkeepers, daily-wagers and those having the denominations as cash-in-hand," he said.

Himachal Pradesh Governor Acharya Devvrat yesterday had said it was a big step towards reforms and no one expected it.

"It will have a huge impact on people who are hoarding black money. It is a historical step and we should cooperate on this issue by thinking above personal interests," he said.

Meanwhile, describing the move as a "master stroke", former chief minister and Leader of Opposition P K Dhumal said the parallel economy of black money that funds terrorist activists would be a thing of past.

Listing the initiatives taken to put an end to corruption and black money, he said the Centre has constituted a Special Investigation Team, ensured bank accounts through Jandhan Yojana and an income declaration scheme.

"The final move was making Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 invalid tenders," he added.

Terming it an revolutionary step MP Shanta Kumar said, "This step will narrow the gap between the rich and poor."

State BJP chief Satpal Singh Satti said the Prime Minister has given a new lease of life to the economy of the nation and the step will go a long way in curbing corruption and recover unaccounted money.

"The step is daring because discontinuation of the currency notes has dealt a heavy blow on the lobby financing the elections in states," former HP BJP President Suresh Bhardwaj said.

"It is estimated Rs 15,000 crore have been spent in Uttar Pradesh for the ensuing assembly elections. With the step people will choose a government without the influence of money," he claimed. PTI CORR PCL ANB DIP

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The External Affairs Minister promises all possible help to the woman in New Jersey.

By India Today Web Desk: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj once again played the guardian angel to an Indian woman in the US who recently gave birth to a baby girl weeks after her husband died of a heart attack.

Swaraj who was informed about Deepika Pandey and her newborn baby on Twitter immediately responded saying, "Deepika - We are with you in this hour of tragedy. I have asked @IndianEmbassyUS to help you".

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Swaraj directed the Indian Embassy in Washington to extend all possible help to Deepika who is currently residing in New Jersey.

Deepika - We are with you in this hour of tragedy. I have asked @IndianEmbassyUS to help you. @BJPLucknowBJP @templetree1 Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) November 9, 2016

FAMILY WANTS EARLY RETURN

Deepika's husband Hariom Pandey, who was a software engineer, died of a heart attack on October 19 in Boston. Days later Hariom's friends from New Jersey took her along with them to ensure her better care. Deepika also has a four-year-old son.

ALSO WATCH

ALSO READ: No borders for daughters: When Sushma reached out to scared Pakistani girls in India

Deepika's family wants her and the two children to return to India at the earliest and therefore requested the government to ensure early grant of passport to the newborn by the US authorities who by birth is an American citizen.

The family also requested the government to ensure expeditious issuance of Overseas Indian Card to the newborn.

ALSO READ: Sushma Swaraj meets Pakistani refugee Madhu, helps her get admission into school

MINISTER HELPS ALL

The minister has been lauded often for her prompt response to people in distress.

A few weeks ago, she assured Pakistani girls, in India to participate in a youth festival in Chandigarh, of safe return. In her tweet, she had said there are no borders for daughters, and they belong to all; their security is of utmost importance to her.

Earlier, Swaraj had fast-tracked the passport formalities of a five-month-old baby after his father, a Singapore-based Kashmiri man, sought the minister's help on Twitter.

(with inputs from PTI)

ALSO READ: Sushma Swaraj to the rescue again: 3 Indians stuck in war-torn Libya to be flown back

ALSO READ: Retrenched Indian workers in Saudi Arabia have started returning home, says Sushma Swaraj

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The Supreme Court on November 10, 2016 ruled that Punjab's law scrapping water-sharing agreements with neighbouring Haryana and other states is unconstitutional.Here's all you need to know about the SYL Canal controversy.

By Alok Ranjan: The Supreme Court on November 10, 2016 termed the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, as invalid. It ruled that Punjab's law scrapping water-sharing agreements with neighbouring Haryana and other states is unconstitutional. The court also said that the Sutlej Yamuna Canal or SYL canal, which is at the centre of a row between Punjab and Haryana, has to be completed. The court said Punjab cannot unilaterally move out of an agreement involving other states.

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Supreme Court in March 2016 started hearings into a presidential reference to decide on the legality of the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004. The presidential reference was made by the Centre days after the Punjab Assembly passed the Act.

Punjab passed another law on March 14 this year for returning to the farmers the land acquired from them for the SYL. Within hours, Haryana moved the Supreme Court protesting against the law as part of the hearing on the Presidential reference following which the apex court passed a status quo order on March 17.

Haryana pleaded that Punjab had enacted the 2004 Act to nullify the SC verdicts for the completion of the SYL canal and to deny it a share in the Ravi-Beas waters while the 2016 Act was meant to render the Presidential reference irrelevant.

Punjab, however, pleaded that since the SC verdicts on the SYL were no longer valid in view of the 2004 Act, the 2016 legislation for the return of SYL land did not violate any SC order.

During the hearing, the Centre had told the Constitution Bench that it was taking a neutral stand.

Punjab wants a fresh tribunal to ascertain the present flow of waters and decide the entitlement of each state on the basis of the rights of riparian and non-riparian states under national and international law.

Earlier a five-judge constitution bench headed by justice AR Dave, who is demitting office on November 18, reserved the verdict on May 12 after the Centre maintained its earlier stand of 2004, that the states concerned should settle their disputes on the matter by themselves.

READ: Punjab can't scrap water sharing with states, says Supreme Court; Amarinder, Congress MLAs resign





Here's a look at the history and the chronology relating to SYL The creation of Haryana from the undivided Punjab in 1966 threw up the problem of giving Haryana its share of river waters. Punjab was opposed to sharing waters of the Ravi and Beas with Haryana, citing river sharing principles, and contending that it had no water to spare. At an inter-state meeting arranged by the union government in 1955, the total calculated flow of water of the Ravi and Beas - 15.85 million acre feet (MAF) - had been divided among Rajasthan (8 MAF), undivided Punjab (7.20 MAF) and Jammu and Kashmir (0.65 MAF). In March 1976, a decade after the Punjab Reorganisation Act was implemented, and even as Punjab continued to protest, the union government issued a notification allocating to Haryana 3.5 MAF out of undivided Punjab's 7.2 MAF. To enable Haryana to use its share of the waters of the Sutlej and its tributary Beas, a canal linking the Sutlej with the Yamuna, cutting across the state, was considered. In 1981, union government under Indira Gandhi had negotiated a tripartite agreement between Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Available supply of the Beas and Ravi were recalculated to be 17.17 MAF, and Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan were allocated 4.22 MAF, 3.5 MAF and 8.6 MAF respectively. Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi got 0.65 MAF and 0.20 MAF. In April 1982, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ceremonially dug the ground at Kapoori village in Patiala district for the construction of the 214-km Sutlej-Yamuna Link (or SYL) canal, 122 km of which was to be in Punjab, and 92 km in Haryana. The Akali Dal, which disagreed with the agreement, started an agitation known as Kapoori Morcha to oppose the construction of the SYL canal. In July 1985, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Akali Dal president HS Longowal signed the Punjab Accord, agreeing that a tribunal would verify the claims of both Punjab and Haryana on river waters - following which the Akali Dal agreed to withdraw the agitation. The Eradi tribunal headed by Supreme Court Justice V Balakrishna Eradi in 1987 recommended an increase in the shares of Punjab and Haryana to 5 MAF and 3.83 MAF respectively. The tribunal's decision, however, could not be notified. Punjab was roiled by militancy, and even many Akali leaders were opposed to the deal. Longowal was assassinated in less than a month of signing the accord. In September 1985 Punjab come out from nearly two years of President's Rule and Surjit Singh Barnala became CM. After that work began on building the canal. But the opposition never died. In the subsequent years, even as some of the work was completed, SYL controversy kept exploding periodically in violent incidents. In 1990, a chief engineer and his assistant were killed by militants apparently to protest the construction; 30 labourers working at a project had been killed earlier. As the turmoil escalated, Punjab stopped work. In November 1990, Haryana took up the matter with Delhi, and asked that the work be taken over by a central agency. After failing to make headway, it moved the Supreme Court in 1996, seeking directions to Punjab to complete the work on the SYL. In 2002, and again in June 2004, the court directed Punjab to complete the work in its area. But within a month of the Supreme Court order, on July 12, 2004, the Punjab Assembly passed The Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, terminating its water-sharing agreements, and thus imperil the construction of SYL in Punjab.

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Also Read:

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Punjab, Haryana lock horns over SYL canal as Punjab de-notifies land acquisition



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The Congress has been protesting over the proposed plan of state government to demolish the Secretariat building.

By Ashish Pandey: The protest over the proposed demolition of Telangana Secretariat is intensifying with every passing day. While a PIL has been filed in the Hyderabad High Court, the Congress is also mounting pressure on the Telangana Rastra Samiti (TRS) led government to cancel the plan.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President N Uttam Kumar Reddy, along with thousands of party workers on Thursday laid siege to the State Secretariat, protesting against the proposed demolition of the present secretariat building to facilitate construction of a new building.

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Fearing that the Congress workers might storm the Secretariat building, elaborate security arrangements were made by the Hyderabad Police.

As the city police sealed all the entry points and erected barricades along the main entrance, the protesting Congress workers staged a sit-in protest for over an hour and raised slogans against the TRS and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

WASTAGE OF MONEY



Reddy alleged that at a time when people of Telangana were engulfed in various problems and several welfare schemes were not being implemented properly for want of funds, KCR was planning to waste hundreds of crores of rupees from public exchequer to construct a new secretariat, just to satisfy his ego.

Also read: Hyderabad: Early morning accident kills 6



"Most of the blocks in the State Secretariat were constructed in recent past and they were totally fit for office accommodation. But KCR wants to demolish them, just to follow the advise of his Vaasthu experts," said the Congress leader. He also alleged that the Advocate General of Telangana resorted to falsehood before the high court where he said that present building does not meet fire safety norms.

SAFETY NORMS



Pointing out that previous 16 chief ministers and their cabinet ministers operated from the same premises and successfully completed their tenures including Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, who enjoys Z-Plus security, he added that it was not possible for security agencies to allow a VIP to function from an office which is not safe from fire.

Also read: Hyderabad man takes selfie with noose before committing suicide



KCR is behaving like a "Vaasthu maniac" and wants to demolish even good buildings, to please his sentiments, added the state Congress president. He also announced that the party will intensify agitation across the state.

Later, police arrested all the Congress workers and leaders including Reddy when they were protesting. They were later released on personal bond.

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This is not the first time The Simpsons have creepily predicted something much, much before it actually happened.

By India Today Web Desk: And once again, The Simpsons have proved that they're above everyone else.

Sixteen years ago, The Simpsons predicted that Donald Trump would be President of the United States. Last night, America made that prediction come true.

In the episode, Bart to the Future--which first aired in the US in March 2000--Lisa Simpson is set to become the US president, and she's expected to restore order and repair a nation reeling from the damage caused by a disastrous presidency, by her predecessor, a fictionalised Donald Trump.

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In the episode, Trump's presidency caused "quite a budget crunch" that ultimately led America to bankruptcy.

Simpsons writer Dan Greaney told the Hollywood Reporter back in March that the episode was intended as "a warning to America".

"That just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane," he said.

Watch some other predictions that The Simpsons have made over the years, and get set to get goosebumps:

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By PTI: out: Singh

Bengaluru, Nov 10 (PTI) Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh today said he does not know how relations between India and the United States will pan out under the administration of Donald Trump as the President-elect is not an "established politician".

"I dont know. Let us see. He (Trump) is not an established politician. We will see how things pan out," he told PTI after calling on Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah at the state secretariat here.

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Singh was responding when he was asked how relations between India and US would pan out under Trumps administration.

The billionaire businessman defeated seasoned politician Hillary Clinton in the knife-edge polls, defying the odds to become the 45th US President after starting off as a rank political outsider.

Asked how India must see Trumps victory, Singh said, "I have no comment on that."

Asked whether Indian diplomats are being called back after the surgical strikes across the LoC, Singh told reporters that the government would see what is to be done depending on how things pan out.

"Diplomacy is the procedure, and depending on how things pan out we will see what is to be done," he said.

Amid the raging Indo-Pak tensions, in a tit-for-tat action, it was reported that India was mulling withdrawal of eight of its diplomats as their security has been "completely compromised."

Pakistan, earlier, had pulled out six of its officials in the wake of a spy scandal involving staffers of its High Commission in New Delhi.

Asked about the problems faced by people due to the BJP-led NDA governments decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination notes, Singh said in a lighter vein "You and me also (are suffering)."

Replying to a query, Singh said he met Siddaramaiah to discuss about Pravasi Bharatiya Divas to be held in Bengaluru in February.

"I met the Chief Minister with regard to Pravasi Bharatiya Divas to be held here. This is an event of India, and that is why both the state and the Centre are coming together," he said. PTI BDN RA BN DIP

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Of the eight Indian High Commission staffers declared "persona non grata", two left Pakistan today. Remaining three staffers to leave today through Wagah border.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Two more of the eight Indian High Commission staff members declared "persona non grata" left Pakistan today, the Foreign Office said.

Indian High Commission First Secretary Balbir Singh and Staff Officer Jayabalan Senthil, who Islamabad alleged were Indian intelligence agents, left for Dubai, the Foreign Office said in a statement.

After the names of eight mission staffers were leaked in a media report, the External Affairs Ministry had said that India was mulling withdrawing its diplomats as their security was "completely compromised".

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ALSO READ: Pakistan to expel 2 Indian mission staffers, says they are RAW agents



THREE MORE TO LEAVE TODAY



On November 8, three of the eight Indian High Commission officials, declared persona non grata, left for home. They were Anurag Singh, Vijay Kumar Varma and Mandhawan Nanda Kumar.

ALSO WATCH



The remaining three officials are expected to leave Pakistan today through the Wagah border crossing, the statement said.

ALSO READ: Espionage racket: 6 Pakistani High Commission officials leave India

The Foreign Office last week alleged that a number of Indian diplomats and staff belonging to Indian intelligence agencies were found involved in coordinating terrorist and subversive activities in Pakistan.

TIT-FOR-TAT WAR



Both India and Pakistan have been engaged in a tit-for-tat over expelling mission staffers. India expelled Pakistani High Commission staffer Mehmood Akhtar for spying on 27 October. Subsequently, Pakistan pulled out six of its staffers from its mission in India.

Pakistan responded by declaring Surjeet Singh, an official of the Indian High Commission, as persona non grata.

ALSO READ: Pakistan spy ring explodes, expelled embassy staff takes 16 more names

ALSO READ: Pakistan spy racket: 2 Indians arrested, embassy staff asked to leave India



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By PTI: Hyderabad, Nov 8 (PTI) A delegation of MPs from Britain will visit the Legislative Assemblies of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana from tomorrow and hold meetings with Speakers, politicians and business community members.

The visit is part of a series of programmes organised by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK Branch (CPA UK) with the Indian state legislatures.

The tour is aimed at enabling UK lawmakers to gain a better understanding of challenges faced by parliamentary colleagues on a range of issues, including relationship between members and their constituents, representation of women in political life, UK-India trade and investment, and development of new technologies, the British Deputy High Commission, Hyderabad said in a release here.

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As part of the visit from November 9-12, delegates will learn how the states are responding to global challenges, including urban planning, gender equality and energy security, it said.

The delegates would visit T-Hub, an incubator for start-ups created by the Telangana government here, and also look at the work carried out by SHE Team, a special police team set up for the safety and security of women in the state.

Meetings will be held with Speakers of Legislative Assemblies of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, senior politicians and also members of the business community and civil society organisations.

The delegation would also visit Sattanapalle in Andhra Pradesh, constituency of AP Legislative Assembly Speaker K Sivaprasad on November 11, apart from attending a round-table conference on Smart Cities, the release added. PTI SJR RSY SRY SRE

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A day after he was elected to what is arguably the most powerful office in the world, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had a warning for Donald Trump: "See you in court".

By India Today Web Desk: A day after he was elected to what is arguably the most powerful office in the world, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had a warning for Donald Trump: "See you in court".

The message, in bold face, was spread along with a photo of Trump splashed across the homepage of the ACLU website on Thursday, asking people to donate to the civil rights organisation.

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In the run-up to one of the most controversial political campaigns, Trump was repeatedly accused of harassment and sexual assault by a number of women. Several of those women came forward to share their stories.

SEXUAL ABUSE

In fact, days before he was elected, a civil suit against Trump, alleging he raped a 13-year-old girl, was dropped by the complainant.

From kissing a former Miss USA contestant, allegedly groping a co-passenger on a place to kissing a receptionist at Trump Tower - the 70-year-old has a long list of misconduct to flaunt.

A 2005 videotape in which Trump could be heard making lewd and sexist comments about women also emerged during the campaign, which the Republican dismissed as "locker room talk".

In a powerful speech, US First Lady Michelle Obama had urged all Americans to say "enough is enough" to the then presidential nominee's "intolerable" treatment of women, as "this is not normal and cannot be ignored".

"This wasn't just locker room banter, this was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behaviour," Obama had said.



'THAT MAKES ME SMART'

During a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump, who is worth $3.7 billion, had also unapologetically bragged about paying zero taxes. "That makes me smart," he had said.

With protests all over the US following his election, it will be interesting to see if the ACLU actually drags its President elect to court.

ALSO READ | 2 sides of same coin? Here's what Donald Trump and PM Modi have in common

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Informed sources said the burnt currency notes were reportedly brought in sacks and then dumped by workers of a company on Parsa Kheda road at C B Ganj in Bareilly.

By Indo-Asian News Service: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, the burnt remnants of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes were found at a place in Bareilly on Wednesday, police said.

Informed sources said the burnt currency notes were reportedly brought in sacks and then dumped by workers of a company on Parsa Kheda road at C B Ganj in Bareilly.

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Police officials said prima facie, the currency notes appeared to have been cut, damaged and then burnt.

The police has since taken over the remains of the currency notes and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials have been informed of the incident.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday evening announced demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination currency notes.

Also Read:

Operation Black Money: Here is the inside story of Modi's bold move

Rupee revamp: AIIMS exempts out-patient clinical charges below Rs 500

New Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes: All you need to know

What the FAQ just happened! All your questions about Rs 500-1000 notes answered

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By PTI: From Yoshita Singh

New York, Nov 10 (PTI) Asking Apples "diverse" workforce to stay united in the face of "uncertainties" following Donald Trumps surprise win in a bitterly fought US election, CEO Tim Cook today asked the tech-giants employees to "move forward together" regardless of their individual political choices.

Without naming either Trump or his rival Hillary Clinton, Cook in a memo to Apple employees, said it is inevitable that the election results have left many with strong feelings but urged them to move forward "together" regardless of their political affiliations.

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"We have a very diverse team of employees, including supporters of each of the candidates. Regardless of which candidate each of us supported as individuals, the only way to move forward is to move forward together," he said.

Cook said Martin Luther Kings phrase "to keep moving forward" is timeless and a reminder that "we only do great work and improve the world by moving forward".

He sought to reassure his companys employees amid "uncertainties ahead", saying "Apples North Star hasnt changed".

"Our company is open to all, and we celebrate the diversity of our team here in the United States and around the world ? regardless of what they look like, where they come from, how they worship or who they love.

"Ive always looked at Apple as one big family and I encourage you to reach out to your co-workers if they are feeling anxious.

"Lets move forward ? together!," he said.

Cook had hosted a fund-raiser for Clinton in August and one for RepublicanSpeaker of the House Paul Ryanbuthe had not hosted an event for Trump who was declared the next president-elect of the US yesterday after he won with a comfortable margin securing 289 electoral college votes against Clintons 218. PTI YAS SUA AKJ SUA

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By India Today Web Desk: Zeenat Aman was the heartthrob of every 70s guy, and Abhishek Bachchan was no different. Bachchan Jr revealed on a television show that he was besotted by Zeenat and revealed that the Satyam Shivam Sundaram actor was his first love.

ALSO READ: Abhishek chooses football over Aishwarya's film ADHM. Displeased with intimate scenes?

SEE PICS: Aaradhya's day out with Aishwarya, Abhishek and Amitabh Bachchan

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Abhishek revealed a cute little incident from his childhood, when he had accompanied his father Amitabh Bachchan on a film shoot with Zeenat in Himachal. The Bluffmaster actor was extremely fond of his father's co-star and would often spend time playing with her. One day, when Zeenat was returning to her room after dinner, little Abhishek wanted to know who she is going to sleep with.

When he learnt that Zeenat would be sleeping alone, five-year-old Abhishek was surprised. He innocently asked her, "Can I sleep with you?" Zeenat jokingly responded, "thode bade ho jao phir."

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On October 26, the brothers sent a letter from Evin Prison alleging that they had received promises from the court that their medical needs would be attended to and that prison authorities would end their arbitrary separation of Mehdi and Hossein into different wards. But after ending their September hunger strike on the basis of these promises, conditions reportedly became even worse, prompting the brothers to resume their protest on October 28.

In this case, they are evidently committed to persisting until they are actually reunited and granted medical furlough, not merely promises thereof. The International Campaign quoted a source close to brothers as saying, Mehdis condition is critical. Were worried that if hes not transferred to the hospital, he will be in serious danger. But the source then added, Sending Mehdi to the hospital for a few hours to break his hunger strike and get hooked up to an IV will not solve anything.

But for that matter, even being granted release may ultimately do very little good, since the Iranian judiciary has a long record of arbitrarily ordering former political detainees back to prison after granting them some form of conditional release. This was recently the case with three different teachers rights activists, each of whom had carried out long hunger strikes of their own.

The reports noted that Esmail Abdi had been contacted three times by Evin Prison authorities on October 9 and ordered to return to prison. This verbal order came two days after an appeals court had upheld his six-year prison sentence for his peaceful activities. On October 23, Mahmoud Beheshti-Langroudi was also ordered back to prison, as was Jafar Azimzadeh on the following day.

All three had only been granted bail during the appeals process after lengthy hunger strikes. Beheshti-Langroudis had lasted 22 days and Azimzadehs had lasted nearly two months. Like Abdi, Azimzadeh had been sentenced to six years in prison for his work on behalf of an unofficial labor union. The charges against him were assembly and collusion against national security and propaganda against the state. Beheshti-Langroudi received a staggering 14 year sentence as a result of three separate cases regarding his peaceful union activities.

Each of these mens return to prison reaffirms the continuation of a crackdown on political dissent and social activism, of which the Rajabians case is also a widely recognized example. The ongoing enforcement of such sentences and the additional pressure exerted on their recipients are examples of the actions that have been taken against political opponents in the wake of the election of the supposedly moderate President Hassan Rouhani. But at the same time, longstanding cases continue to make headlines as the Rouhani administration and other Iranian authorities refuse to let up on the punishment of activists targeted for prosecution years ago.

The International Campaign recently highlighted an example of this as well, pointing out that prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani had just marked his 64th birthday while being held in Evin Prison on a 13-year sentence that was initiated in 2011. The absence of an identifiable crime is at least as apparent in Soltanis case as it is in any of the above-mentioned cases. Charges against him included giving media interviews about his clients cases and co-founding a human rights advocacy group. But perhaps most absurd of all, Soltania was convicted of having simply been the recipient of a European human rights award.

The regimes ongoing commitment to that sentence can be seen as further reiteration of Iranian authorities rejection of international human rights principles. This has been codified on various occasions, some of them quite recent, through the judiciarys upholding of internationally-decried rulings such as death sentences for persons who were juveniles at the time of their crimes.

There have been some recent indications of support for death penalty reform among Iranian members of parliament, although this support has focused not on the execution of minor offenders or on a reevaluation of human rights principles, but rather on the apparent lack of effectiveness of the death penalty in deterring non-violent drug crimes.

Although a bill to diminish the number of those executions is under consideration, executions continue to run rampant in the Islamic Republic. The Iran Human Rights website reported on Monday that at least five persons were executed on Saturday alone, four of them for drug crimes. The same site also pointed out that two other people were known to be in imminent danger of having their death sentences carried out.

At about the same time that those five executions were being carried out, the Human Rights Activists News Agency was still working to identify all of the prisoners who had been put to death in a mass execution at Ghezelhesar Prison. On Saturday, the outlet was able to confirm that the number of victims was at least 12, although information has been slow in coming from surviving inmates, and that figure might still increase.

The persistence of these mass executions raises serious doubts about the prospects for the government to actually reform the death penalty. Meanwhile, other judicial behaviors underscore that any such reforms would not be ground in human rights considerations. As well as continuing to hold political prisoners and deny them medical treatment, the Iranian regime also continues to abide by hardline Islamic laws that have been repudiated by international human rights groups. These include the principle of an eye for an eye, which was applied on Tuesday to the case against a man who had blinded a young girl in 2009.

That man has himself been blinded by judicial authorities, and Agence-France Presse reports that it is the second time this year that the country has carried out such a retributive punishment. However, the AFP report also suggests that in spite of the ongoing enforcement of such punishments by the ruling regime, the Iranian people are increasingly rejecting them. In 2011, young Iranian woman Ameneh Bahrami, one of a number who have been blinded and disfigured in acid attacks in recent years, used the right [to spare her attacker from the planned punishment], saying she did not want her attacker to endure what she had.
Mark Toner, State Department spokesman, admitted last Thursday, just how misplaced those hopes were when he stated, [W]e continue to see Iranian behavior in the region that is, frankly, not positive, that is unconstructive.

According to Basiri, A year after the nuclear deal came into effect, not only has the Iranian regime failed to manifest a modicum of cooperation on the crises riddling the region, but it has also grown bolder in its efforts to expand terrorism, to fan the fires of sectarianism in neighboring countries, and to threaten global peace and stability. He adds, During this time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which controls a large portion of Irans economy and has benefited the most from the economic incentives of the nuclear deal, has spent the cash windfall to send arms to the Houthis in Yemen, which the latter fires at U.S. ships off the coast of Yemen.

Iran has dispatched of tens of thousands of troops to assist the Assad regime with the Syrian conflict, that has so far claimed the lives of nearly half a million Syrians.

And in Iraq, Iran-backed militias continue to keep the country on the precipice of sectarian strife while national security forces are pushing forward a campaign to root out the Islamic State, Basiri says.

Whats happened in the past year shows how far off the mark the Obama administrations estimation of change in Iran would be after the nuclear deal.

The deputy chief of the IRGC, General Hossein Salami, boasted of Irans territorial expansion in a speech he delivered on the anniversary of the occupation of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Salami threatened that if the U.S. didnt stand up to its commitments, Iran would scrap the nuclear deal and reactivate its centrifuges. His remarks are among a wave of threats from top Iranian regime officials.

Another IRGC commander, took those threats farther, when he recently promised that elite fighters would be in the U.S. and Europe very soon, hinting at terrorist activities to be carried out in those countries.

However, Basiri says that, in contrast to the powerful image that Tehran is trying to exude, Iran is engulfed in economic and social crises, and its increased hostility toward its neighbors and the international community is not a display of its might, but rather a testament to the failure of the West  especially the Obama administration  in adopting a decisive plan of action toward Tehran and opting to curb the nefarious deeds of the Iranian regime through incentives and leniency.

He adds, This is yet more proof of the reality that the Iranian regimes belligerence cannot be undercut through appeasement and concessions, and only a firm policy will force Tehran to retrace their steps and toe the line. Anything less will further drive the region into chaos and mayhem.

Perhaps the next U.S. President will right the wrongs and correct the mistake, and will take the right side to benefit the people of Iran and the region. Perhaps the next U.S. President can put Iran and the Middle East on the path toward the re-establishment of peace and stability.
According to Dr. Rafizadeh, while President Obama asks us to trust the Iranian regime, Irans high-level officials are boasting about killing Americans.

Hossein Salami, the deputy commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), just this past week, claimed that, In 1983, the flames of Islamic revolution flared among Lebanese youth for the first time, and in a courageous act, a young Muslim buried 260 United States Marines under the rebels east of Mediterranean Sea. It ranks as the single deadliest terrorist attack on American citizens overseas. Salami calls the killer as a hero, and the American victims he characterizes as devils who deserved to go to hell. The IRGC commanders words encourage even more terrorist attacks.

Salami is not the first military leader to boast about terrorists attacks that killed Americans. Mohsen Rafighdoost, Former Minister of the IRGC, was quoted by the state-run daily, Resalat, as saying that, The United States knows the explosives that mixed with ideology and sent up to 400 officers and Marines in the United States Marine Barracks to hell; both the TNT and the ideology behind it came from Iran. The IRGC commander also bragged about Iran expanding military empire across the world. He stated, today reaches to the North of the Red Sea in the Bab-el-Mandeb, is present in Yemen, and geographically extends to North Africa. He added that Irans military presence in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen is to keep the danger away from our land.

Dr. Rafizadeh says, The deputy general of IRGC is the same individual who promoted annihilating Israel a few months ago. He boasted, Today, more than ever, there is fertile ground  with the grace of God  for the annihilation, the wiping out and the collapse of the Zionist regimeIn Lebanon alone, over 100,000 missiles are ready to be launched. If there is a will, if it serves [our] interests, and if the Zionist regime repeats its past mistakes due to its miscalculations, these missiles will pierce through space, and will strike at the heart of the Zionist regime. They will prepare the ground for its great collapse in the new eratens of thousands of other high-precision, long-range missiles, with the necessary destructive capabilities, have been placed in various places throughout the Islamic world.They are just waiting for the command, so that when the trigger is pulled, the accursed black dot will be wiped off the geopolitical map of the world, once and for all.

Irans military has been emboldened by US appeasement policies to the extent that on Tuesday, November 8, an Iranian general threatened the United States, saying that if Washington does not fulfill its commitments, the centrifuges will be active again, but this will not be a return to the position we were in when we ceased our nuclear activities. We will advance and again the nuclear cycle will revive completely in this country.

He went on to say that any damage to the US is a bonus to the Islamic Republic. He stated, The Islamic revolution benefits from developments that the United States pays for.The United States has offered big achievements to the Islamic Republic through its conquests in Afghanistan and Iraq and paying heavy prices for them.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Irans Supreme Leader, backed up the general, when he stated, the young generation is losing its confidence about the future and the revolution and is distancing itself from the path of the Imam (i.e. Khomeini). Compromising with the United States in no way solves the problems of the country. None of the economic problems, political problems, security problems, and moral problems will be solved. They will be exacerbated. There are a dozen reasons for this. More than a dozen reasons can be raised to this effect. The nuclear agreement is the last case.

Dr. Rafizadeh asks, Should we continue with appeasement policies towards a country that its leaders publicly boast about murdering and bombing Americans?
[November 09, 2016] Global Cloud-Based Payroll Software Market Gains Popularity Over On-Premises Solutions Through 2020, Reports Technavio

Technavio analysts forecast the global cloud-based payroll software market to grow at a CAGR of close to 7% during the forecast period, according to their latest report. The research study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global cloud-based payroll software market for 2016-2020. This report provides a list of leading global vendors that provide global cloud-based payroll software. Vendors are identified based on the revenue and market dominance in terms of geographical presence, product portfolio, financials, and R&D. The report considers the revenue generated from software subscriptions, maintenance costs, and professional services to calculate the market size. Request a sample report: http://www.technavio.com/request-a-sample?report=54219 Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Technavio ICT analysts highlight the following three factors that are contributing to the growth of the global cloud-based payroll software market: Advantages of cloud over on-premises solutions

Secure backup of employee data

Ease in system updates and enhancements Advantages of cloud over on-premises solutions On-premises payroll solutions usually require an initial investment such as servers, hardware, and power backup. In addition, it is also necessary to have an experienced IT staff for the maintenance of the hardware and to ensure the system functions on a consistent basis. In cloud-based payroll solution, the initial investment is much lower as compared with the on-premises payroll solution. The cloud-based payroll infrastructure is hosted and maintained by the vendor, and the users can access the payroll using a web browser with an Internet connection. Hence, the cost of implementing cloud-based payroll solution is lower than the cost of on-premises payroll solutions. Cloud-based payroll software includes an initial price, which includes the price of configuration and customization that makes it readily available for the HR department to access its functions. Cloud-based payroll solutions operate on a pay-as-you-go subscription model, which means they make the HR policies and planning payroll process much easier as compared with on-premises implementation. "An enormous amount of payroll data, employe details, tax, and deductions data can be efficiently imported and stored with a single click of a button. This results in cost cutting and a more flexible and predictable budgeting for SMEs, entrepreneurs, and large enterprises," says Amrita Choudhury, a lead analyst at Technavio for enterprise application research.



Secure backup of employee data Cloud storage is a cost-effective and suitable way to store organizational data, but organizations implement the cloud technology only if the trust is built between the cloud service providers and consumers. Vendors are providing numerous encryption tools such as password protection, biometric authentication, and session timeouts etc. to provide security between the user, server, and database.

Therefore, many business organizations prefer cloud-based solutions over on-premises because of their cost effectiveness and ease of accessibility. Financial crises, such as the one in Europe, have forced many government organizations to think in terms of reducing their IT-related expenses. Hence, a cost-effective cloud deployment with better features and agility seems to be the best option for such organizations. The cloud technology has become a vital part of conventional IT in government agencies. For instance, government agencies such as federal, state, and local agencies moved their sensitive data to cloud as it provides improved information management, with centralized data storage and high-speed networks enabling increased productivity and enhanced data sharing and collaboration. These benefits include easy management of software maintenance and upgrades, low upfront costs, effective security, high reliability, and integration capabilities to connect functional gaps in the existing systems and processes. Ease in system updates and enhancements When an organization deploys an on-premises payroll solution provided by the vendor and if the vendor releases an updated version with additional features, then the organization has to initially re-deploy the older version of the payroll software. After the completion of re-deployment of the old software, it has to install the newer version to avail its new functionality. The bigger threat to the organization during this updating process is the customization of the newer version. For example, if the organization has customized the older version according to the business requirements, then its IT team again has to customize the newer version of the payroll software from scratch. This would result in a delay and increased cost for the entire process to take place. Small businesses that run on-premises payroll software are forced to continue with the older versions in order to reduce the costs. Organizations deploying cloud-based payroll software solutions find it much easier to update their versions. These software updates are initiated by the vendors, and the initial customization and features are automatically carried forward through to the newer version. "Cloud-based payroll software solutions also provide automatic updates when tax and compliance laws change when compared with on-premises payroll software, which has to be manually updated," says Amrita. Browse Related Reports: Global Payroll Outsourcing Market 2016-2020

Global Cloud Spending by SMBs Market 2016-2020

Global Marketing Resource Management Market 2016-2020 Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact [email protected] with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you. About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies. Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at [email protected]. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161109005930/en/

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[November 09, 2016] Minister Bains visits India's "Silicon Valley" - Tours quantum computing research centre and technology companies

BENGALURU, India, Nov. 9, 2016 /CNW/ - Bengaluru (Bangalore) has been a centre of human history since 4,000 BCE. Today, it is the epicentre of India's 21st-century information and communications technology industry-the country's own version of Silicon Valley. In both Canada and India, technological advances and innovation hold the key to creating well-paying middle-class jobs. The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, was in Bengaluru to build on the partnership between Canada and India on innovation. This trade mission raises Canada's profile as a destination for foreign investment and a source of cutting-edge research and development. Minister Bains toured the prestigious Raman Research Institute, a partner of the University of Waterloo. Minister Bains spoke about collaboration between Canada and India on research into quantum computing, which uses the laws of quantum mechanics to process vast amounts of information simultaneously. Quantum computing is most applicable to computer encryption and security. The Minister visited Bengaluru-based Wipro Ltd., an information technology services company, where he met Azim Premji, the firm's chairman. Wipro has a Canadian connection through Calgary's ATCO Group, an energy and construction company. In 2014, Wipro signed its biggest-ever dealworth more than $1.1 billion over 10 yearswith ATCO Group.



Minister Bains also met A.S. Kiran Kumar, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization. During the meeting, the Minister promoted the Canadian Space Agency and spoke about opportunities for cooperation in the aerospace sector. Quote

"Bengaluru and KitchenerWaterloo are leading centres of technology research and are economic drivers of prosperity and growth for the middle class in their respective countries. The partnership between the knowledge institutions from these two cities will drive advances in quantum computing. This field of computing has the potential to completely transform the scale, speed and complexity of what even the most powerful computers today can do. And it has the potential to upend everything we know about the science of computing. The partnership between the Raman Research Institute and the University of Waterloo could even plant the seeds for the next great companies to come from our two countries. Canada stands ready to be a world leader in the potentially transformative field of quantum computing."  The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Quick facts Founded in 1948 by Indian physicist and Nobel laureate C.V. Raman , the Raman Research Institute conducts research into astrophysics, the physics of light and matter, theoretical physics and more.

, the Raman Research Institute conducts research into astrophysics, the physics of light and matter, theoretical physics and more. Wipro employs more than 170,000 workers and was voted one of the most ethical companies in the world for five years straight by the Ethisphere Institute. Associated link Canada's Innovation Agenda Follow Minister Bains on social media.

Twitter: @MinisterISED SOURCE Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

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[November 10, 2016] Level 3 Announces Consent Solicitation with Respect to Certain Series of Notes

BROOMFIELD, Colo., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Level 3 Communications, Inc. ("Level 3") (NYSE: LVLT) announced today that, together with Level 3 Financing, Inc. ("Level 3 Financing", and together with Level 3, the "Company"), it has commenced a consent solicitation relating to proposed amendments (the "Proposed Amendments") to the indentures (the "Indentures") governing Level 3's 5.750% Senior Notes due 2022 (CUSIP No. 52729N BX7) and Level 3 Financing's 6.125% Senior Notes due 2021 (CUSIP No. 527298 AY9), 5.375% Senior Notes due 2022 (CUSIP Nos. 527298 BD4 and 52730G AA0), 5.625% Senior Notes due 2023 (CUSIP No. 527298 BC6), 5.125% Senior Notes due 2023 (CUSIP Nos. 527298 BF9, 527298 BE2 and U52783 AP9), 5.375% Senior Notes due 2024 (CUSIP Nos. 527298 BK8 and 527298 BJ1), 5.375% Senior Notes due 2025 (CUSIP No. 527298 BH5) and 5.250% Senior Notes due 2026 (CUSIP Nos. 527298 BL6 and U52783 AS3) (collectively, the "Notes," and each series of the Notes, a "Series"). The Proposed Amendments are being sought in connection with the proposed acquisition (the "CenturyLink Acquisition") of Level 3 by CenturyLink, Inc., a Louisiana corporation ("CenturyLink"), pursuant to the Agreement and Plan of Merger dated October 31, 2016, between Level 3, CenturyLink, Wildcat Merger Sub 1 LLC and WMG Merger Sub LLC. Under the Indenture for each Series, the occurrence of both a "Change of Control" and a "Rating Decline" in relation to the credit ratings in effect on the date of issuance of such Series is a "Change of Control Triggering Event" requiring the Company to make an offer to repurchase the outstanding Notes of such Series for 101% of the principal amount thereof plus accrued and unpaid interest (a "Change of Control Offer"), subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable Indenture. The table below describes, for each series of Notes, the credit ratings in effect on the "Issue Date", the ratings required to trigger a "Ratings Decline" under the applicable Indenture, the ratings currently in effect, and the number of notches by which the Notes would need to be downgraded from current ratings in order to qualify as a "Rating Decline" under the applicable Indenture.











"Issue Date

Rating" "Rating Decline"1

Trigger Rating Current Rating Required Notches

from Current Rating

for

"Rating Decline"4 Issue

Date Series Moody's S&P Moody's S&P2 Moody's S&P3 Moody's S&P



















11/14/13 Level 3 Financing's 6.125% Senior

Notes due 2021 B3 CCC Caa1 CCC- B1 B++ 3 5 08/12/14 Level 3 Financing's 5.375% Senior

Notes due 2022 B3 B Caa1 B- B1 B++ 3 2 12/01/14 Level 3's 5.750% Senior Notes due

2022 Caa1 B Caa2 B- B2 B+ 3 2 01/29/15 Level 3 Financing's 5.625% Senior

Notes due 2023 B3 B Caa1 B- B1 B++ 3 2 04/28/15 Level 3 Financing's 5.125% Senior

Notes due 2023 B3 B Caa1 B- B1 B++ 3 2 04/28/15 Level 3 Financing's 5.375% Senior

Notes due 2025 B3 B Caa1 B- B1 B++ 3 2 11/13/15 Level 3 Financing's 5.375% Senior

Notes due 2024 B1 B B2 B- B1 B++ 1 2 03/22/16 Level 3 Financing's 5.250% Senior

Notes due 2026 B1 B B2 B- B1 B++ 1 2





_________________________________________________________ 1. Under the applicable Indentures as currently in effect, a "Rating Decline" will occur: for the 2024 Notes, only if both Moody's and S&P issue the requisite downgrades; for the 2026 Notes, only if all three of Moody's, S&P and Fitch issue the requisite downgrades; and for the other Series, if either Moody's or S&P issues the requisite downgrade. 2. The 2026 Notes also refer to a Fitch rating, which was BB on their Issue Date and is currently BB. Accordingly, the "Rating Decline" Trigger Rating for Fitch on the 2026 Notes is BB-. 3. A designation of + denotes credit watch positive. 4. The Indenture for each Series of Notes defines "Rating Decline" to include any Rating Decline with respect to certain previously issued Series of Notes. If the Proposed Amendments are adopted, the CenturyLink Acquisition will not constitute a Change of Control under each Indenture, a Change of Control Triggering Event will not occur as a result of the CenturyLink Acquisition (regardless of any Rating Decline) and, accordingly, the Company will not be required to make a Change of Control Offer as a result of the CenturyLink Acquisition. If, on the other hand, the Proposed Amendments are not adopted, the Company will still only be required to make a Change of Control Offer for a particular Series as a result of the CenturyLink Acquisition if there is a corresponding "Rating Decline" under the applicable Indenture for such Series. CenturyLink will make a cash payment of $2.50 per $1,000 principal amount of Notes of each Series for which a consent is validly delivered, subject to satisfaction (or waiver) of certain conditions, including the receipt of valid consents in respect of a majority in aggregate principal amount of the outstanding Notes of such Series and the receipt of the requisite majority consents from each Series. Payment of the consent fees will be made promptly after the Expiration Time. The Company may, in its sole discretion, amend, extend or terminate the consent solicitation at any time. Except for the Proposed Amendments described above, all of the existing terms of the Notes and the Indentures will remain unchanged. The consent solicitation will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on November 21, 2016 (the "Expiration Time"). Only holders of record as of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on November 9, 2016 (such date and time, the "Record Date") are eligible to submit consents. This press release does not set forth all of the terms and conditions of the consent solicitation. Holders of Notes should carefully read Level 3's Consent Solicitation Statement, dated November 10, 2016, and the accompanying materials for a complete description of all terms and conditions before making any decision with respect to the consent solicitation. The Company does not make any recommendation as to whether or not any holder should consent to the Proposed Amendments. Additional information concerning the terms and conditions of the consent solicitation, and the procedure for delivering consents, may be obtained from the solicitation agents, BofA Merrill Lynch at (888) 292-0070 (toll free) or (980) 388-4813 (collect) and Morgan Stanley at (800) 624-1808 or (212) 761-1057. Copies of the Consent Solicitation Statement and related documents may be obtained from the information agent, Global Bondholder Services Corporation, by calling (866) 794-2200 or (212) 430-3774 for banks and brokers or by email at [email protected] or visiting http://www.gbsc-usa.com/Level3/. This announcement is for information purposes only and is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy any Series of Notes or any other securities. This announcement is also not a solicitation of consents with respect to the Proposed Amendments or any securities. The solicitation of consents is not being made in any jurisdiction in which, or to or from any person to or from whom, it is unlawful to make such solicitation under applicable state or foreign securities or "blue sky" laws. Forward Looking Statements Except for the historical and factual information contained herein, the matters set forth in this release, including statements regarding the expected timing and benefits of the proposed transaction, such as efficiencies, cost savings, enhanced revenues, growth potential, market profile and financial strength, and the competitive ability and position of the combined company, and other statements identified by words such as "will," "estimates," "expects," "projects," "plans," "intends" and similar expressions, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, many of which are beyond our control. Actual events and results may differ materially from those anticipated, estimated or projected if one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if underlying assumptions prove incorrect. Factors that could affect actual results include but are not limited to: the ability of the parties to timely and successfully receive the required approvals of regulatory agencies and their respective shareholders; the possibility that the anticipated benefits from the proposed transaction cannot be fully realized or may take longer to realize than expected; the possibility that costs or difficulties related to the integration of Level 3's operations with those of CenturyLink will be greater than expected; the ability of the combined company to retain and hire key personnel; the effects of competition from a wide variety of competitive providers, including lower demand for CenturyLink's legacy offerings; the effects of new, emerging or competing technologies, including those that could make the combined company's products less desirable or obsolete; the effects of ongoing changes in the regulation of the communications industry, including the outcome of regulatory or judicial proceedings relating to intercarrier compensation, interconnection obligations, access charges, universal service, broadband deployment, data protection and net neutrality; adverse changes in CenturyLink's or the combined company's access to credit markets on favorable terms, whether caused by changes in its financial position, lower debt credit ratings, unstable markets or otherwise; the combined company's ability to effectively adjust to changes in the communications industry, and changes in the composition of its markets and product mix; possible changes in the demand for, or pricing of, the combined company's products and services, including the combined company's ability to effectively respond to increased demand for high-speed broadband service; the combined company's ability to successfully maintain the quality and profitability of its existing product and service offerings and to introduce new offerings on a timely and cost-effective basis; the adverse impact on the combined company's business and network from possible equipment failures, service outages, security breaches or similar events impacting its network; the combined company's ability to maintain favorable relations with key business partners, suppliers, vendors, landlords and financial institutions; the ability of the combined company to utilize net operating losses in amounts projected; changes in the future cash requirements of the combined company; and other risk factors and cautionary statements as detailed from time to time in each of CenturyLink's and Level 3's reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). There can be no assurance that the proposed acquisition or any other transaction described above will in fact be consummated in the manner described or at all. You should be aware that new factors may emerge from time to time and it is not possible for us to identify all such factors nor can we predict the impact of each such factor on the proposed transaction or the combined company. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this document. Unless legally required, CenturyLink and Level 3 undertake no obligation and each expressly disclaim any such obligation, to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additional Information CenturyLink and Level 3 plan to file a joint proxy statement/prospectus with the SEC. INVESTORS ARE URGED TO READ THE JOINT PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS WHEN IT BECOMES AVAILABLE BECAUSE IT WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. You will be able to obtain the joint proxy statement/prospectus and the filings that will be incorporated by reference in the joint proxy statement/prospectus, as well as other filings containing information about CenturyLink and Level 3, free of charge, at the website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov. Copies of the joint proxy statement/prospectus and the filings with the SEC that will be incorporated by reference in the joint proxy statement/prospectus can also be obtained, free of charge, by directing a request to CenturyLink, 100 CenturyLink Drive, Monroe, Louisiana 71203, Attention: Corporate Secretary, or to Level 3, 1025 Eldorado Boulevard, Broomfield, Colorado 80021, Attention: Investor Relations. Participants in the Solicitation The respective directors and executive officers of CenturyLink and Level 3 and other persons may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies in respect of the proposed transaction. Information regarding CenturyLink's directors and executive officers is available in its proxy statement filed with the SEC by CenturyLink on April 5, 2016, and information regarding Level 3's directors and executive officers is available in its proxy statement filed with the SEC by Level 3 on April 7, 2016. These documents can be obtained free of charge from the sources indicated above. Other information regarding the interests of the participants in the proxy solicitation will be included in the joint proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant materials to be filed with the SEC when they become available. This communication is not intended to and does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offer of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. About Level 3 Communications Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NYSE: LVLT) is a Fortune 500 company that provides local, national and global communications services to enterprise, government and carrier customers. Level 3's comprehensive portfolio of secure, managed solutions includes fiber and infrastructure solutions; IP-based voice and data communications; wide-area Ethernet services; video and content distribution; data center and cloud-based solutions. Level 3 serves customers in more than 500 markets in over 60 countries across a global services platform anchored by owned fiber networks on three continents and connected by extensive undersea facilities. For more information, please visit www.level3.com or get to know us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  Level 3 Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Level 3, Level 3 Communications, Level (3) and the Level 3 Logo are either registered service marks or service marks of Level 3 Communications, LLC and/or one of its Affiliates in the United States and elsewhere. Any other service names, product names, company names or logos included herein are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Level 3 services are provided by subsidiaries of Level 3 Communications, Inc. Contact(s):



Media:

D. Nikki Wheeler, 720-888-0560

[email protected]

or

Investors:

Mark Stoutenberg, 720-888-2518

[email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140908/144115 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/level-3-announces-consent-solicitation-with-respect-to-certain-series-of-notes-300360362.html SOURCE Level 3 Communications, Inc.

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[November 10, 2016] Fitch: New US Cell Phone Securitization Positive for Carriers

The advent of cellular equipment installment plans (EIPs) and the securitization of pools of the payments on those plans diversifies cell phone carriers' financing, provides liquidity and can lower carriers' overall financing costs, Fitch Ratings says. EIPs can also provide transparency to consumers in terms of device cost, rather than having carriers heavily subsidizing it. Fitch considers handset financing a financial operation and, provided enough information is available, will deconsolidate such financial services debt in its analysis. The deconsolidation makes the carrier more comparable to an issuer without EIPs. Fitch rated the first public securitization of EIPs, Verizon (News - Alert) Owner Trust 2016-1, in July and expects to rate Verizon Owner Trust 2016-2, which is currently marketing. We rated the highest series of the 2016-1 trust 'AAAsf', and expect the same for 2016-2. Verizon may contribute additional receivables to the trusts, rather than pay off the bonds, for up to two years, after which the trust will pay down for an additional two years. The transactions give Verizon additional flexibility by allowing for two levels of asset quality, corresponding to two levels of required credit enhancement. While not directly linked, these transactions have greater exposure to the credit profile and market position of the issuer than other consumer loan transactions. If Verizon Communications Inc. (A-/F2/Stable) were downgraded, particularly to speculative grade, it could affect Fitch's credit ratings of the notes. We believe that borrower payment behavior could change significantly if the associated network is dissolved or large segments of it are divested. However, those eventualities are unlikely as Verizon has a strong competitive position, low churn rates, high margins and extensive network coverage. The dissolution of its network is also a remote risk as it has been acquiring assets that broaden it this year. Verizon bought XO Communications' (News - Alert) fiber network, which will likely close in first-quarter 2017. Since 2013, cell phone carriers have shifted away from subsidizing their customers' purchases of their cell phones and toward financing those costs with loans or leases. This creates a distinct receivable, separate from the contract on the wireless service, which can be pooled into a securitization. The carrier may then issue debt with exposure to its broad book of customers. The above article originally appeared as a post on the Fitch Wire credit market commentary page. The original article can be accessed at www.fitchratings.com. All opinions expressed are those of Fitch Ratings. Related Research Verizon Owner Trust 2016-2 (US ABS (News - Alert)) https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/890086 ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTPS://WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON (News - Alert) THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEB SITE AT WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA, AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE, AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE CODE OF CONDUCT SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE.



Copyright  2016 by Fitch Ratings, Inc., Fitch Ratings Ltd. and its subsidiaries. 33 Whitehall Street, NY, NY 10004. Telephone: 1-800-753-4824, (212) 908-0500. Fax: (212) 480-4435. Reproduction or retransmission in whole or in part is prohibited except by permission. All rights reserved. In issuing and maintaining its ratings and in making other reports (including forecast information), Fitch relies on factual information it receives from issuers and underwriters and from other sources Fitch believes to be credible. Fitch conducts a reasonable investigation of the factual information relied upon by it in accordance with its ratings methodology, and obtains reasonable verification of that information from independent sources, to the extent such sources are available for a given security or in a given jurisdiction. 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Fitch receives fees from issuers, insurers, guarantors, other obligors, and underwriters for rating securities. Such fees generally vary from US$1,000 to US$750,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent) per issue. In certain cases, Fitch will rate all or a number of issues issued by a particular issuer, or insured or guaranteed by a particular insurer or guarantor, for a single annual fee. Such fees are expected to vary from US$10,000 to US$1,500,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent). The assignment, publication, or dissemination of a rating by Fitch shall not constitute a consent by Fitch to use its name as an expert in connection with any registration statement filed under the United States securities laws, the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 of the United Kingdom, or the securities laws of any particular jurisdiction. Due to the relative efficiency of electronic publishing and distribution, Fitch research may be available to electronic subscribers up to three days earlier than to print subscribers.

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CHARLESTON -- Following similar protests across the country on Donald Trump's impending presidency, Eastern Illinois University students plan to rally against his move to the Oval Office in January.

The students are scheduled to protest at 4 p.m. Friday at the Doudna Steps, a seemingly regular focal point for protests and rallies in the recent past at Eastern.

Dana Jo, Eastern student and protest organizer, said this "Not My President" protest is a representation of Eastern student's opposition to Trump.

"This is a protest to show our opposition to the bigotry of the new president- elect," Jo said.
CHARLESTON -- The campus community is encouraged to donate books, toys or money to help local families this Christmas. Booth Library is a donation site for the One Stop Community Christmas program.

The One Stop Community Christmas program is a collaborative effort of many different area organizations (civic groups, schools, businesses, aid organizations, churches, sororities, health care providers, etc.) to come together and provide help and hope to families from seven counties during the holiday season. The program services Clark, Coles, Cumberland, Douglas, Edgar, Moultrie and Shelby counties.

An estimated 2,400 children will be helped through the program this year, and the goal is for each child to receive a book. Donations of new books, activity books, comic books or coloring books for ages newborn to 18 years old will be accepted.

New, unwrapped toys also will be accepted. All donations may be placed in the Toys for Tots box located in the Marvin Foyer near the north entrance of Booth Library until Dec. 2.

Monetary donations also will be accepted for the program. Checks should be made out to the Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation (SEICF), with a memo indicating the donation is for One Stop. Mail donations to Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation, P.O. Box 1211, Effingham, IL 62401. Donations also may be made online at www.OneStopCC.org.

For more information on the One Stop Community Christmas program, visit www.OneStopCC.org. Families who sign up to receive assistance through the program will pick up a variety of donations on Dec. 10 at Lake Land College in Mattoon.

During the fall semester, Booth Librarys regular hours will be from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and noon to 1 a.m. Sunday. For more information on the library, visit the website, www.library.eiu.edu; call 217-581-6072; or find the library on Facebook or Twitter.
CHARLESTON -- An Edgar County woman will serve a prison term for a Coles County burglary conviction before she begins a probation sentence from her home county.

Paige C. Plew, 22, for whom court records list a Paris address, pleaded guilty to a residential burglary charge that accused her of entering a Charleston residence and stealing items there on March 24.

With the agreement reached in her case, Plew received the minimum possible sentence, four years in prison. The conviction required a four- to 15-year prison term with no option for probation.

A charge of possession of a stolen firearm alleging she was found with a handgun she took from the Harrison Avenue residence was dismissed.

The agreement also included a recommendation for the Illinois Department of Corrections' Impact Incarceration program.

Often called a prison "boot camp," the program allows for the possibility of an early release if the prisoner successfully completes its discipline requirements.

A judge's recommendation for the program is required but it will be up to prison officials whether to admit Plew to the program.

The sentence also included payment of about $900 in fines and court fees plus about $45 in restitution.

Edgar County records show that Plew received a two-year probation sentence on Oct. 20 when she pleaded guilty in that county to felony charge of possession of a syringe.

In the Coles County case, Circuit Judge Teresa Righter sentenced Plew by accepting the terms of a plea agreement that Assistant State's Attorney Rob Scales and Public Defender Anthony Ortega recommended.

In other cases in Coles County criminal court recently, guilty pleas were also entered by:

Cameron C. Shipman, 28, whose address on record is the Old State Village mobile home park southeast of Mattoon, to a charge of failure to register as a sex offender.

Shipman admitted to a charge that accused him of failing to register his address with police within three days of moving in August.

He was sentenced to prison for 2 1/2 years for the conviction that could have brought a two- to 10-year prison term. He was eligible for twice the usual maximum sentence because of his prior convictions but prison time wasn't required.

Shipman was required to register as a sex offender because of his 2012 Piatt County conviction for aggravated criminal sexual abuse, for which he also served prison time.

Circuit Judge Mitchell Shick accepted a plea agreement that Assistant State's Attorney Tom Bucher and Assistant Public Defender Lupita Thompson recommended.

Larry B. Parke, 31, for whom records list an address of "homeless" but also on Jackson Avenue in Charleston, to a methamphetamine possession charge alleging he had the drug on Feb. 11.

Parke was place on probation for 2 1/2 years with terms including an evaluation for substance abuse treatment and a requirement that he follow the evaluation's recommendations.

He was also ordered to pay about $1,400 in fines and court fees while jail time was stayed, meaning he won't have to serve if he follows his probation requirements.

Shick accepted a plea agreement that Assistant State's Attorney Bryant Hitchings and Ortega recommended.
MATTOON -- Army infantryman Wayne McDowell was on a troop transport ship bound for World War II's Pacific Theatre in 1943 when one of his fellow soldiers pointed out a "black speck" on the horizon.

McDowell, of Mattoon, said he soon learned that the "speck" was Hawaii, but he only got a fleeting glimpse of this American soil as their ship sped west across the Pacific Ocean.

"They wanted to get us into combat as soon as they could," McDowell said.

In advance of Veterans Day, McDowell recently reflected on his service with the 164th Infantry Battalion, Company B of the Americal Division. He said this American division took its name from being formed on the Pacific island of New Caledonia.

McDowell, who was nicknamed "Red" by fellow soldiers because of his hair color, said his unit took part in advanced combat training in New Caledonia led by veterans of Guadalcanal. He said they were then sent to the front lines, spending more than a year in Bouganville Island in Papua New Guinea.

The veteran said he still vividly remembers that, when they first arrived, he and his unit tromped through a field of beautiful orchids on their way to take up position along a river. McDowell said heavy combat was winding down there at the time, but Japanese forces were still at large and fighting.

"I can still hear that first bullet whistling over my head," McDowell said.

After Bouganville, McDowell continued serving in the island hopping campaign in the Philippines and elsewhere in the Pacific. The veteran said weekdays, weekends and holidays blended together without distinction as he and his unit were in the field for 365 days a year.

"You got used to it because you were busy all the time," McDowell said.

His unit was assigned to the occupation of Japan during the immediate aftermath of the war in 1945. McDowell said his commanding officer disregarded written olders to pull their landing craft up to docks, fearing Japanese forces there might still be hostile. He said they landed on a beach instead.

While searching a Japanese airbase, McDowell said he found a locked room with a man inside. McDowell said he was preparing to force the door open when he found out this was a darkroom, where a photographer was trying to preserve film that was being developed.

McDowell, a staff sergeant at the time, said he asked the Japanese photographer in this room to take a photo of him and his fellow soldiers. The veteran still has this image as a treasured keepsake.

The Army did not leave his unit in Japan for very long during this time period. McDowell said they and other units had been in combat not long before arriving in Japan, so the Army thought they might be the best fit for helping start a peaceful occupation.

"We had been under fire for so long, we were used to it," McDowell said.
Costco will have to wait a few weeks to move forward on its plans for a store near 14th Street and Pine Lake Road.

With only five members of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Commission in attendance Wednesday -- the minimum needed for a quorum -- a unanimous vote, for or against, was needed to move the proposal on to the City Council.

But the vote was 4-1 in favor of the project, requiring commissioners to vote on the proposal again on Nov. 30.

Costco wants to build a 156,000-square-foot warehouse store, along with a 16-stall fueling station, on about 20 acres between 16th Street and Hazel Scott Drive on the north side of Pine Lake Road.

The land is farmland owned by Lincoln Memorial Funeral Home, which is directly to the south.

The site sits between Lincoln Southwest High School and Scott Middle School and is only a few blocks away from Adams Elementary School.

That has prompted concerns from neighbors who say the project will produce too much traffic and put students in the area at risk.

Most people opposed to the plan say they have nothing against Costco but don't believe the 14th and Pine Lake location is appropriate for such a large store.

"I think the point that is so clearly being made is that this is not the right site for Costco," said Debbie Stuart, who lives near the site.

Stuart said she was hopeful that city planners would help the warehouse retailer find a more appropriate site, and she specifically mentioned U.S. 77 and West Denton Road, home to the Lincoln Race Course and an area once considered by Wal-Mart.

But Brian Whelan, whose company helps Costco with site selection, said it has been looking at potential sites in Lincoln for a decade and has not found anything suitable. Most are either too small or, like the U.S. 77 site, are on the fringes of the city, far from the population center.

Another bone of contention at Wednesday's hearing: Costco is proposing two traffic lights on Pine Lake Road, at 16th Street and at Hazel Scott Drive. It's something most neighbors, including businesses in the commercial area to the south, support. But city officials do not want that many traffic lights in such a short distance.

Costco also challenged the city's requirements that it provide more screening around the property than what would normally be required and a requirement that it add brick to its building. Whalen and Ted Johnson, Costco's director of development for Midwest projects, said those requirements will drive up the cost and make the project less economically feasible.

But commissioners said they felt the requirements were reasonable to make the building a better fit in the neighborhood and protect neighbors.

Commissioner Jeanelle Lust said she would take Costco at its word that the site was the only acceptable one.

However, "I think in order to have that site, you're going to have to live with the design standards," she said.

Lust, who lives near the site, voted in favor of the project, as did Tracy Corr, Maja Harris and Dennis Scheer.

Chris Hove, the chairman of the commission, was the only vote against the project.

Hove, who also lives near the site, said Costco belongs in a regional shopping center, not a neighborhood one, and he said he thought Costco was being shortsighted by not considering other areas of the city.
Adam Dodworth is hoping the Copper Kettle will be to Moscow Mules what Cliffs Lounge is to Kamikazes and Shark Water.

The new bar, which opened Sept. 3 at 1320 O St., features around 30 craft mules to go along with an ample craft beer and liquor selection.

Each mule is served -- as it should be -- in a 100 percent copper mug.

A lot of places use aluminum and stainless steel, said Dodworth, who manages the bar with Mackenzi Madison. They dont have the same alkaline reaction that you get with copper.

Dodworth and Madison came to Copper Kettle from Chef Karims Mediterranean Grill (before it closed), where Dodworth was a chef and Madison was the marketing director. Dodworths resume also includes stints as BarVino, The Cask and Rich Bar & Lounge.

He is putting his chef skills to work in Copper Kettles kitchen, creating a menu of finger foods and desserts to complement the mules. The food menu features tacos, sliders (including a chicken and waffle one), brownies baked in copper pots and apple strudel.

Were hoping people will grasp our idea and give us a try, Dodworth said.

He knows he has a challenge. Despite being on a busy section of O Street, the site has been home to several restaurants and bars over the last 20 years, including such fare as Indian, Italian and Mexican.

Its most recent occupant, the sports-themed bar Crawfords, lasted a year.

Before opening, the Copper Kettle underwent a makeover. Dodworth lightened up the 65-seat bar with white paint, white-ish subway tile and cedar planking.

We wanted to something big and drastically change the appearance, Dodworth said. It used to so dark in here.

The Copper Kettle is open from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Wednesday-Thursday from 4 p.m. to 1:30 am. Friday-Saturday. The bar is closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Just desserts

* bread&cup, 440 N. Eighth St., has a new chef d cuisine in Devin OConnell. Patrons will get a chance to meet him through a supper club on select Monday nights, when the restaurant usually is closed.

OConnell will feature a prix fixe menu at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 14, Dec. 12, Jan. 16 and Feb. 13. Cost is $25 per person and includes an aperitif and glass of wine. For tickets, go to bread&cups Facebook page or eventbrite.com.

* I joined NET Radios Robert Goldberg and State Sen. Adam Morfeld in judging last weeks Curry Clash 2016 at Chez Hay. With more amateur and professional chefs on board, this years event, a fundraiser for the Asian Community and Cultural Center, was bigger and better than last years inaugural Clash.

The nights big winner was amateur chef Sushma Agrawal, whom the Journal Star featured on its Nov. 2 food page. She not only won the amateur category, but also took the overall prize for her butter chicken curry with naan. You can find her winning recipe online at JournalStar.com/lifestyles/food-and-cooking.

Winning the chefs division was Honest Abes Erik Hustad, who prepared a curry braised pork belly in a coconut curry sauce. First place went to Bahnwich Cafe for its banh mi sandwiches (chicken or tofu) in the casual dining category.
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Our cover features (from left) Centennial Mall renovation project campaign co-leader Mary Arth, Mayor Chris Beutler and Patty Pansing Brooks, another campaign co-leader who is now a state senator. An Oct. 9 celebration dedicated Nebraskas revitalized Centennial Mall. See the details in our cover story on pages 28-30. Cover photo by John F. Keller

L Magazine welcomes your submissions of photographs and feature ideas. Organizations must notify us of upcoming events at least six weeks in advance. All submissions will be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit submitted material. Views expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect our publishing policies. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, for any purpose without the express written consent of L Magazine, 926 P St., Lincoln, NE 68508.
A former Santee Community Schools superintendent on Tuesday pleaded guilty to a charge he stole $314,000 from a federal program between 2010 and 2013, according to court documents.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl Zwart set Paul D. Sellon's case for sentencing in February when he will face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine in connection with the theft.

Sellon was superintendent for the Santee-based school district on the Santee Sioux Reservation from 2010 to 2014, according to a plea agreement.

During that time, the school district received annual school improvement grant funding through the stimulus package passed by President Barack Obama, the agreement said.

Sellon contracted with Mastery Learning and Achievement, paying $683,000 in funds from the grant to the company he had worked with when he was superintendent of other districts in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota.

In the other districts, Sellon didn't require the contractor to pay him a portion of the proceeds, the agreement said.

But as a pre-condition to being hired in Santee, Sellon told MLA it needed to pay him a portion of the money it received for its service, the agreement said.

Company officials told investigators they believed the company wouldn't get a contract unless they paid the money to Sellon as he directed, the agreement said.

All told, $314,121 were paid to Sellon through two businesses he co-owned with his wife, the agreement said.

Federal prosecutors filed the charge at the 33-minute hearing Tuesday afternoon at the Robert V. Denney Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Lincoln.

Sellon appeared with his attorney, Carlos Monzon, and told the judge he received money in checks or wire transfers and that he knew he was embezzling from the government.

In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed not to file charges against his wife.

Santee Community Schools named Carol Rempp, most recently an employee of the Nebraska Department of Education, to lead the district in July.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a former Nebraska probation officer to nine years in prison for using his position to sexually exploit women he supervised.

Jurors in July convicted Thomas Peterson, 57, of depriving four women of their civil rights, specifically their due process rights to "bodily integrity," while they were on probation in the Kearney area. He also was convicted of making false statements to FBI agents investigating the case.

"We have an individual here who targeted people who are about as vulnerable as anyone can think of," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jan Sharp said at Peterson's sentencing in Lincoln.

Peterson was an officer with the District 9 probation office in Kearney. At trial, Sharp said Peterson subjected the women to unsolicited and nonconsensual sexual conduct between 2010 and early 2014. He coerced the women into sexual acts under the color of his authority over them as a probation officer, Sharp said.

These women were battling drug addictions and mental health issues and felt they couldn't report the sexual contact with Peterson because they wouldn't be seen as credible or could be punished, Sharp said.

One of the women under his supervision testified that she performed oral sex on him two times because she felt like she didn't have another choice.

During a surprise home visit, Peterson saw bricks of marijuana in her apartment and he could have had her probation revoked if she declined his requests, she said.

Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf on Thursday called Peterson cold and calculating, saying he hoped Peterson's sentence would deter other probation officers from preying on vulnerable probationers.

"They were easy pickings," said Kopf, who also noted the fact that it occurred in the criminal justice system "made me sick to his stomach."

Peterson declined to speak before he was sentenced. His attorney, Bob Creager, argued Peterson should have only faced two to three years under federal sentencing guidelines disputing federal prosecutors' arguments that he receive a sentence of at least five years because of the underlying nature of the crimes.

The sex was consensual and none of the women said no, Creager said, noting that one of the women remained in a relationship with Peterson after her probation term was up.

Ultimately, Kopf varied from the guidelines and gave Peterson the maximum, a nine-year sentence followed by five years of post-release supervision.

He allowed Peterson to leave the courthouse and self-surrender to a federal prison at a yet unspecified date.

After the sentencing, Creager said Peterson will appeal the sentence and the conviction. He declined further comment.

"I think he's stunned that he got nine years," Mary Anderson said of her older brother following the sentencing.

She said she believes prison won't change the man she describes as a "sexual predator." She's sad for her relatives who feel ashamed of what he's done.

"But I do believe justice was served," she said after the hearing.

Marshals escorted Peterson and his attorneys out to their cars as Ron Schade of Grand Island, who attended the sentencing, looked on.

His screen-printed, black shirt commemorated his daughter, Angela, a former probationer under Peterson's care who never saw him stand trial for his crimes.

Two years ago, Schade buried Angela a month shy of her 29th birthday after she committed suicide.

Shed struggled with substance abuse and mental health issues, and Schade believes Peterson violated his daughter while he supervised her probation.

She described it at the time as her "special treatment," he said. But Schade, who is suing Peterson in federal court, believes Peterson's actions wrongfully caused his daughter's death.

Tom Peterson might as well have been sticking the needle in her arm, Ron Schade said.

Though Kopf gave Peterson the maximum, Schade said, "It wasn't near enough.

"I don't think there could be enough punishment for this."
A 36-year-old Lincoln man is not guilty of obstructing and resisting arrest early on March 20 as downtown bars closed, a Lancaster County jury found Thursday.

Barine Deezia was accused of getting between his girlfriend and an officer trying to talk to her about an intoxicated friend she and another man helped across the street at 14th and O.

Street camera footage, with no audio, caught most of the scene: a drunk woman in a bright blue dress and 5-inch heels, and the four helping her to an outdoor patio.

But the footage skipped at the crucial moment when Officer Aaron Peth put his hand on Deezia's chest to push him away and the immediate aftermath.

Three Lincoln officers wore body cameras, but none was turned on until after Deezia was on the ground, knocked unconscious.

"For me, it's hard to stomach," Lincoln defense attorney Seth Morris said in closing arguments Thursday with a class of new police recruits watching in the courtroom behind him.

A day earlier, Deezia, testified that police slammed his face against the glass door of a sandwich shop and he fell back trying to put some distance between himself and them. He was taken down twice before blacking out.

After the skip, Morris said, the footage shows that Deezia wasn't throwing elbows or haymakers but rather trying to maintain his balance.

Deezia said the police never asked him to back away or told him he was under arrest.

He said he came to with level-10 pain, an officer's knee on his broken shoulder, his shrill screams caught on a body cam video.

"I'm not trying to say the officers were bad people. They're good guys, but we make mistakes," Deezia testified in a Nigerian accent.

Police didn't dispute that Peth instigated physical contact but said it was the least amount of force necessary to move Deezia out of the way when, screaming, he stepped between Peth and Elizabeth Grayer.

"This situation escalated like this," Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Sam Cooper said, snapping his finger. "When it happens like this, officers don't have to say a magic word."

Or words, like "you're under arrest."

He told the jury Deezia was guilty of obstructing officers when he prevented Grayer from talking to police, and even before that, when he said their friend was OK and walked away from officers as they tried to find out where she'd been drinking so they could ticket the bar for over-serving her.

Officers were reasonable to be concerned about the woman, Cooper argued, and Deezia was trying to insert himself into the middle of their questions when, frustrated, police approached them a fourth time.

He said they just responded to Deezia's actions.

"Can a person who's never been told he's under arrest resist arrest?" Cooper asked. "Yes, this man did."

But, after deliberating for nearly two hours Thursday, the jury of six women found Deezia not guilty.

In the hallway shortly after the verdict, Deezia said he was feeling great. He said he's not the most physical person and feels like law enforcement is there to protect people like him.

In Nigeria, his father and sister both were police officers. He came to Lincoln in 2010.

"With this trial I'm solidifying my belief in the legal system," Deezia said.

His excessive force lawsuit against the city is still pending.

Later in the day, Morris said he believes the camera issue is a training point for police going forward. Having video, he said, benefits both the officers and individuals, holding them both accountable.
Cindy Lange-Kubick Columnist Cindy Lange-Kubick has loved writing columns about life in her hometown since 1994. She had hoped to become a people person by now, nonetheless she would love to hear your tales of fascinating neighbors and interesting places. Follow Cindy Lange-Kubick Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

We decided it didn't matter.

It didn't matter if Donald Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women or dishonored a Gold Star family or smeared a judge of Mexican descent or refused to release his tax returns or didn't pay his contractors or his pollster.

We decided it didnt matter if he stereotyped Muslims or Hispanics or blacks or poked fun at a disabled reporter, declared climate change a Chinese hoax or called for jailing his Democratic opponent.

We decided it didnt matter he filed for business bankruptcies six times, married three times, inherited his wealth from his father, never held a public office, couldn't seem to put a cogent sentence together without a teleprompter.

We decided it didnt matter if he had the temperament of a 2-year-old, the attention span of a house fly, the world view of a cave dweller.

We decided we were sick of politics as usual, and the rich candidate with the populist slogan was going to save us.

We decided anyone was better than Hillary Clinton.

So Tuesday night, we elected a gossamer-haired narcissist who admires Vladimir Putin, builds gold-gilded towers and spent 14 years firing contestants on a game show to be the next president of the United States.

And the sun came up Wednesday morning.

No one claimed a rigged election, and the 59,450,907 Americans who voted Donald Trump into our highest office are giddy, seeing hope on the horizon and a wall on our southern border.

Those of us who voted with our daughters -- and for our daughters -- woke up to realize our sisters (not our black sisters but our white sisters) voted for Trump in large numbers.

We realized the pundits were wrong and the polls were wrong and some of us were wrong about what we thought we were -- a great land of opportunity for all.

That lie has been hung out to dry, but there was more to the rise of Trump than simple economics and simmering political frustration.

This was a white-lash, Van Jones said on CNN as Trump closed in on victory. This was a white-lash against a changing country.

Thats not hyperbole, even if those of us whose skin color protects us from Trumps hate deny that it is.

There will be weeks of spin and speculation, and no one will know exactly what a Trump presidency might mean.

The sky isnt yet falling, and the stock market is up.

We havent banned Muslims (yet) but all over America, people of Middle Eastern descent are wondering how safe they are. Mexican-American children are afraid to go to school. African-Americans, who boosted Clinton with 88 percent of their collective vote, wonder what comes next. Same-sex couples worry about their marriages, pro-choice advocates worry about the Supreme Court, transgender citizens see a Trump presidency as a gateway to discrimination.

Trump himself was conciliatory in his acceptance speech, urging the nation to come together -- tempering the rhetoric that won him the support of white nationalists and the KKK.

It was a surreal night at the end of a surreal election.

The night before the vote, I drove across town to see my 2-year-old grandson and before I left, I reminded my son to visit his polling place.

He promised he would.

Then he held his little boy in the doorway to say goodbye: Can you believe James will grow up never knowing what its like to have a white man as president?

I laughed.

But I drove home half believing it -- full of hope for this crazy quilt of a country that welcomed my immigrant ancestors to its shores and opened its arms to millions more, including our next First Lady.

Its not funny anymore.

The glass ceiling feels unbreakable once again. Bigotry feels like a new family value.

But love still trumps hate in my head and my heart, and I plan to follow the lead of the woman who won the popular vote on Tuesday.

Let us have faith in each other, let us not grow weary, let us not lose heart, for there are more seasons to come. And there is more work to do.

And that still matters.
Some women were stunned at Tuesday's presidential election results.

Some were sad. Some scared. Others, those who supported Donald Trump, were pleased, even a little smug.

But many women, when they woke up Wednesday, seemed ready to move forward, to expand the conversation that has been ignited on gender issues.

A group of young women touring the Capitol Wednesday morning, seniors at Minden High School, were matter-of-fact about their future under President Trump.

Isabella Van Dusen, 17, a Republican, supported Trump, even as she was concerned about his views on abortion and a woman's right to choose.

"I disagree with the government's involvement on that personal decision of women," she said.

Some of them weren't so concerned about his disrespect of women -- that was in the past -- but believed he should have toned down the name calling and degrading comments.

Courtney Thompson, 17, didn't think the concerns some have about his view of women would affect his ability to lead the country. After all, he has Congress and his vice president to keep him in line, she said.

She downplayed his responsibility as a role model. Young people, including young men, are more influenced by family and friends than by a president, Thompson said.

"A lot of popular culture really degrades women," said Sydney Wilson, 17. "I think it's just kind of a common theme within society. And so we just kind of learn to accept that as young women and know that we know who we are. We find our own role models as we get older and form our own opinions."

But Marissa Romero and Lizeth Gonzalez, both 17, had concerns about Trump's words about Latinos and his characterization of Mexicans as killers, rapists and criminals.

"I am Mexican," Gonzalez said. "And I know a lot of people who would like to show Donald Trump that he's wrong, talking about us that way."

Gonzalez wasn't buying the words from his acceptance speech Wednesday morning about wanting to be the president for all people.

"I don't believe that he's being honest," she said. "I don't know what's going to happen with this country, but I don't think it's going to be good."

Romero said Mexicans are some of the hardest-working people she knows. And she's worried.

Facebook comments Tuesday night of Clinton supporters were filled with shock and dismay. By Wednesday they had turned to defiance and the desire to connect and keep going.

One Lincoln woman said she was angry and ready to fight. An Omaha woman said she had just walked up to two people at the gym she didn't know, a black man and a black woman, and with tears in her eyes told them she appreciated and respected them.

And a Hastings woman wrote:

"I was fine.

All centered, meditated, caffeinated and calm

until I heard her speech just now ....

and for all that should be, for all that still needs to be done - I weep."

Mary Kay Roth of Lincoln, whose mother, Ardell, 98, recently died, had posted on Facebook that her mother had been an ardent Hillary Clinton supporter, based on political and policy reasons, but also because she's a woman.

Wednesday morning she began getting messages from friends saying her mother would have been so disappointed and disheartened at the results of the election.

"But my mother was not that kind of woman," Roth said. "And that's helped me this morning, because she would not be devastated. Not for a minute."

She would have hit the ground running Wednesday morning, would have said she had seen much worse and survived it all. She would have gotten up with the sun, made her bed and carried on.

"Wherever we have landed politically, let's not be complacent in what we believe and let's get up and go and do a better job giving voice to our beliefs and figuring out how we make things happen," Roth said. "I know that would be my mother's voice."

As Cheryl Jackson, 69, and Erinn Lundholm, 59, sat talking on the porch of their apartment building Wednesday afternoon, they expressed some worry. Both were Clinton supporters, although Jackson had changed her views on Hillary after she voted.

Lundholm worried about Trump's crusade to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.

"I think it's a foolish, foolish, thoughtless thing to say. But he said it," she said. "I think it's unsettling to anybody on a fixed income. Or just anybody, to have their entire life changed in the experience of Trump and his lack of understanding of the common man. He's a 1-percenter. It's sad."

Jackson regretted her vote after she watched what she considered a negative video about Clinton.

"I think she got a low vote count because her credibility was not that good," Jackson said.

What happens now will depend on Trump's cabinet picks and handlers, Lundholm said.

Jackson hopes he'll be fair to all people now that he's in office, she said, and more respectful of women.

"And I think it's going to be very scary for black people," she said.
Little Saigon, 940 N. 26th St. Some packages of rice, sesame seeds and pasta adulterated by mice, pulled and discarded, moldy package of tofu on shelf, discarded (corrected). Tofu at incorrect temp in reach-in cooler, ice added for quick cooling (corrected). Evidence of mice in facility, mouse droppings observed where rice stored and pasta/beans stored. DCON open in some locations in facility--do not use. Abandoned floor drains not draining in meat dept, repeat, plumber called immediately (corrected). Slicer with food residues. No date making on items being sold for individual sale. Some packages of chicken feet and duck lacking safe handling instructions.
WASHINGTON -- At dawn Tuesday in West Quoddy Head, Maine, America's easternmost point, it was certain that by midnight in Cape Wrangell, Alaska, America's westernmost fringe, there would be a loser who deserved to lose and a winner who did not deserve to win.

The surprise is that Barack Obama must have immediately seen his legacy, a compound of stylistic and substantive arrogance, disappearing, as though written on water in ink of vapor.

His health care reform has contributed to three Democratic drubbings. The 2010 and 2014 wave elections, like scythes in a wheat field, decapitated a rising generation of potential party leaders. Then came Tuesday's earthquake, which followed shocking increases of Obamacare's prices. This law has been as historic as Obama thinks, but not as he thinks: It might be the last gasp of progressivism's hubris expressed in continentwide social engineering imposed from the continent's Eastern edge.

Hillary Clinton's proposed solution to Obamacare's accelerating unraveling was a "public option": intensified government manipulation to correct the consequences of government manipulation of health care's 18 percent of the economy. Her campaign's other defining proposal, "free" tuition in public higher education, insulted the intelligence of voters aware that "free" means "paid for by others, including you."

Obama's foreign policy legacy, aside from mounting chaos worldwide, was the Iran nuclear agreement. By precedent and constitutional norms, this should have been a treaty submitted to the Senate. Instead, disdainfully and characteristically, he produced it as an executive agreement. Because the agreement lacks legitimizing ratification by senators, the president-elect will feel uninhibited concerning his promise to repudiate it.

The simultaneous sickness of both parties surely reveals a crisis of the American regime. The GOP was easily captured, and then quickly normalized, by history's most unpleasant and unprepared candidate, whose campaign was a Niagara of mendacities. And the world's oldest party contrived to nominate someone who lost to him.

To an electorate clamoring for disruptive change, Democrats offered a candidate as familiar as faded wallpaper. The party produced no plausible alternative to her joyless, stained embodiment of arrogant entitlement. And she promised to intensify the progressive mentality. "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it"? Actually, you can't even keep your light bulbs.

From Clinton's nastiest aspiration, we are now safe. She promised Supreme Court justices who would reverse Citizens United, thereby eviscerating the First Amendment by empowering the political class to regulate the quantity, content and timing of campaign speech about itself. This will never happen.

Demography need not dictate for Republicans a grim destiny but it soon will, unless they act to counter adverse trends. Republicans should absorb Tim Alberta's data in National Review: Arizona whites have gone from 74 percent to 54 percent of the population in 25 years; minorities will be a majority there by 2022. Texas minorities became a majority in 2004; whites are now 43 percent of the population. Nevada is 52 percent white and projected to be majority-minority in 2020. Georgia is 54 percent white, heading for majority-minority in 2026. Because of inexorably rising minorities, Clinton, an epically untalented candidate, did better than Obama did in 2012 in Georgia, Texas, Arizona and where one in eight Americans lives -- California.

The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on, perhaps soon to inscribe this: In 2016, Republicans won a ruinous triumph that convinced them that they can forever prosper by capturing an ever-larger portion of an ever-smaller portion of the electorate.

This kamikaze arithmetic of white nationalism should prompt the president-elect to test his followers' devotion to him by asking their permission to see the national tapestry as it is and should be.
One of the most important and distinguishing features of American democracy is the peaceful transition of power.

It should never be taken for granted. The tradition may be the strongest glue holding the country together in the current era of bitter polarization. In conceding victory to Donald Trump in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton said, Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. We don't just respect that. We cherish it.

Its a strength that allows the great American experiment to take a meandering, exploratory course through history. Eight years ago this country elected its first African-American president, Barack Obama. Four years later voters re-elected him.

On Tuesday they replaced Obama with a man who promised to undo most of what Obama has done in an upset win that confounded the political establishment. Yet, in a graceful act, Obama called Trump early Wednesday morning to offer congratulations.

Too often cynics sniff at these acts of graciousness. They should be celebrated.

And attention should be paid to the words that came from Trump as he acknowledged that he was the president-elect.

Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.

It is time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all of Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I'm reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.

Trump should be held to those words as much as any promise he has made. Theres no doubt that his campaign has emboldened overt racists in America. On too many occasions Trump himself has voiced bigotry and fomented racial animosity.

The presidential campaigns exposed and magnified the divisions in America. The precarious balance of power is illustrated by the fact that Clinton apparently won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college.

Yet the nation is taking this wrenching change of leadership in stride, with only a few protests and scattered acts of vandalism reported around the country, like the messages spray-painted on the Nebraska Capitol.

Clinton said, Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.

Lets take both Clinton and Trump at their word. The critically important work of governing  defending the country, building its streets, highways and bridges, educating children, and so on  is done more effectively when Americans work together.
I was greatly moved by Marcella Mercers powerful, poignant story of Pine Ridge Reservation child victims of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (A mom for all ages, Oct. 30).

Mercers story, and fellow UNL journalism school student Calla Kesslers photos, paid well-earned homage to Nora Boesem of Newell, South Dakota, an angel on earth who, along with her husband, adopted 9 children suffering the ravages of alcohol-caused birth defects.

The gritty account of Boesems heroic efforts to provide a loving family life to these needy children touched my heart and the costs involved in their medical care astounded me. Medication for just two of the children costs $12,000 a month. The reporter found it has cost $3 million to keep one of the children alive for the three years of her life so far. Medicare shoulders most of the burden.

All thats very depressing to learn, but if you look hard enough, there may be a bright side to this story for someone, namely the booze merchants of the skid-row village of White Clay, Nebraska, who sell 3.5 million cans of beer yearly to reservation residents. They are making profits.

Bob Copperstone, Wahoo
As its members work through several issues tied to a lawsuit filed by six people wrongfully convicted of a 1985 Beatrice murder, the Gage County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday signed contracts with three law firms to provide ongoing legal services.

One of them, Lincoln-based Woods & Aitken, offers legal services, including for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, which is reserved for government entities, among its other practices.

The county appears to be preparing itself for several scenarios -- including bankruptcy -- as the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals considers a motion to stay execution of an estimated $30 million federal judgment and attorneys fees awarded to the so-called Beatrice 6 in July.

Gage County was hit with the judgment at the end of a seven-year legal battle after the six sued the county, Deputy Sheriff Burdette Searcey and Reserve Deputy Wayne Price for violating their civil rights in a cold-case investigation of the rape and beating death of 68-year-old Helen Wilson.

Joseph White, Ada JoAnn Taylor, James Dean, Thomas Winslow, Kathleen Gonzalez and Debra Shelden spent a combined 75 years in prison before they were exonerated by the state after DNA evidence showed a seventh person committed the crime.

On Wednesday, Gage County asked the 8th Circuit to delay execution of the judgment, saying it far exceeds the $18.4 million the county spent on governmental operations last year.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Kopf denied a similar request from the county last month.

The judgment is far beyond the available tax levy the county could set under state law, private-practice attorney Jennifer Tomka wrote on behalf of the county Wednesday.

The countys current and former insurance carriers have denied coverage in the case, and Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said last week there was no remedy available to the county through a loan program offered by the State Treasurer.

Staying execution of the judgment, Tomka wrote, would maintain the countys status quo while the court considers the case, particularly after two companies -- Travelers Insurance Co. and Nationwide insurance -- told the county they could not provide the bond guaranteeing payment should the 8th Circuit side on behalf of the six.

The county has provided evidence that it is unable to obtain a supersedeas bond and that execution of the judgment will likely cause it to become insolvent, she wrote.

Furthermore, Tomka said, the county has diligently looked, and continues to diligently look, for avenues to satisfy any judgment that survives appeal."

Nonetheless, given the countys current financial status and the lack of immediately available mechanisms for raising funds, allowing immediate execution of the judgment creates serious risk that the county will be forced to enter bankruptcy before the county even has an opportunity to pursue its rights on appeal, she wrote.

Applying for Chapter 9 bankruptcy would cause serious harm to the taxpayers of Gage County, as well as the countys other creditors, and would not be reversible if the 8th Circuit rules in the countys favor, Tomka added.

County Attorney Roger Harris said the appeal process is the county's priority at this point, but it is looking at other options, too.

"Those options require our attorneys to have specialties and expertise our legal team doesn't have at this juncture," he said. "You can't wait until the last minute to do these things, so we are taking some steps to protect the rights of the taxpayers."

The county also asked attorneys Melanie Whittamore-Mantzios and Elizabeth Ryan Cano, who practice with Wolfe, Snowden, Hurd, Luers & AHL, to continue working as part of its team of private-practice attorneys.

And the County Board asked Keating OGara Law Firm of Lincoln to continue providing legal counsel related to the countys insurance history dating back to 1989.

Attorneys Joel Bacon and Joel Nelson said in September their investigation shows its likely the county had liability insurance -- either from the Nebraska Intergovernmental Risk Management Association or Employers Mutual Casualty Cos. -- during three critical periods in the cold-case investigation, as well as when the six were exonerated.

On advice from the insurance attorneys, Gage County asked both to reconsider the denials of coverage they gave the county in 2009. The risk-sharing pool and the private insurer responded to the countys request, but the responses have not been made public.

The county could ask a Nebraska district court judge to interpret the insurance policy and issue a declaratory judgment, although Tomka noted in her motion to the 8th Circuit that any coverage would be capped well below the judgment amount.

Chairman Myron Dorn said Bacon and Nelson completed the original scope of the study, and the county plans to look more at options pertaining to its liability insurance coverage dating back to the investigation and prosecution of the six.

Were slowly working through different stages and starting to discuss the options out there and explore everything we can, Dorn said.
BRIDGEPORT  Another trial starting date has been set for a Nebraskan accused of killing a Colorado man and stuffing his body into a barrel.

The trial of Zachary Mueller is scheduled to begin the first week of January. The 25-year-old has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and related weapons charges. He's accused of killing 33-year-old Pedro Dominguez of Greeley, Colorado.

A farmer found the barrel near Bayard on Dec. 4 last year. Authorities said Dominguez had been shot in the back of the head.

It's the second trial delay approved for Mueller. His first trial starting date was Sept. 6, then Nov. 14.
Peru State Colleges Feeding 44 program was a finalist in the Volunteer Group category of the ServeNebraska Step Forward Awards. The program was recognized at a luncheon Oct. 28 in Ashland. JeKerra Hopper of Lincoln, the student director for the program, accepted the award for Peru State. Feeding 44 is a mobile food bank program that distributes food to those in need in Nemaha County on the second Friday of every month. The program has had 51 distributions and has helped serve more than 8,000 people since its inception in May 2013.
RACINE  A Racine was charged Wednesday for allegedly selling cocaine near a school.

Travis T. Williams, 34, of the 1500 block of Packard Avenue, reportedly sold a total of 1 gram of cocaine to a controlled informant in October, according to the criminal complaint.

Both sales reportedly took place in the 1000 block of Villa Street. The location where the transaction was made is approximately 361 feet from St. Rose School, the complaint said.

Williams faces two felony charges for maintaining a drug trafficking place with intent to deliver on or near a school, and two felony charges for manufacturing or delivering cocaine with intent to deliver on or near a school. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing at 9 a.m. Nov. 16 at the Racine County Law Enforcement Center, 717 Wisconsin Ave.

Williams remained in custody as of Thursday at the Racine County Jail, online records showed.
RACINE COUNTY  Surprise!

America woke up to President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday after one of the biggest political earthquakes in American history. The New York billionaire, a walking controversy for most of the past 18 months, emerged early Wednesday morning with enough Electoral College votes to defeat Democratic nominee and prohibitive election favorite Hillary Clinton.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called it "the most incredible political feat I have seen," while Democrats were perhaps even more stunned.

"I, like I think many Americans, was surely shocked when it came out that way," said state Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine, a top local Clinton backer. "Nobody in the media, none of the pollsters, nobody who follows this stuff" thought Trump would win, he said.

How it happened will likely be dissected for years to come. For Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the outcome pointed to an electorate frustrated with politicians who don't get things done.

While campaigning this summer, Vos noticed most of residents' comments were directed at the federal government and Washington, D.C. People wanted elected officials who say what they will do "and then actually work like crazy to get it done," said Vos, R-Rochester.

He also said Clinton "had an awful lot of problems going into this election that people chose to overlook."

"She was incredibly unliked, she has been part of the bureaucracy for a long time, she had a bad record as secretary of state," Vos told reporters. "All those things coupled together depressed her own turnout."

Nowhere was low Democratic turnout more evident than in Wisconsin. Trump became the first Republican to win the state since 1984 but had roughly the same amount of votes  1.4 million  as past GOP candidates George W. Bush and Mitt Romney.

Clinton's 1.38 million votes, though, were about 240,000 fewer than Obama's 1.6 million in 2012. Wisconsin as a whole saw its lowest turnout in a presidential year since 1996 and below the predicted 69 percent, according to the Associated Press.

Fear, optimism

After incendiary comments on Muslims, immigrants, women, people with disabilities and others, Trump's victory portends a dark future ahead for some.

"My 6-year-old asked if this means that her friends at school who aren't white have to live behind a wall now," Mason said.

"There's a lot of uncertainty and even some very real fear. Is he really going to go for the Muslim ban? Is he really going to build a wall and try to make Mexico pay for it? You hope that some of these things will be remembered as bad campaign hyperbole, but if you go by what he says and what he says he'll do, I think there's good cause for a lot of people to be very nervous about what comes next," Mason added.

Others, like Mount Pleasant resident Van Carson Sr., expressed confidence. The 56-year-old said the voice of the people have been heard and Trump will have to work hard as president.

People are angry because of the past presidents, Carson said. I think hes going to bring something good to the table because he has to prove himself now.

Carson also said the political parties still have to work together with the new president.

Im happy that there still is a balance with the Republicans as well as the Democrats, Carson said. All the decisions will not be up to him.

For some residents like Racine resident Rickie Sorenson, 37, the outcome wasnt surprising.

I figured it was going to be a Republican this year, granted not the greatest choice Republican, Sorenson said, adding shes indifferent to the results. Nothings going to change  he cant really do anything to help me or hurt me.

Valeria Ruiz couldn't help but feel differently.

The 20-year-old Racine resident is undocumented and protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act. Trump has proposed deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, a fact Ruiz said made her "terrified" as she watched the results Tuesday night.

"My future," she said, "was being determined at that moment."
RACINE COUNTY  The countys status as a political bellwether for Wisconsin remains intact.

Racine County supported President-elect Donald Trump with 49 percent of the vote, over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who got 45 percent, final unofficial results show. In picking Trump, the county went along with the rest of the state, which made Trump the first Republican to win Wisconsin since 1984.

Trump, who received 46,620 votes in Racine County, racked up huge margins in the west end. He eclipsed 70 percent of the vote in Norway and the Town of Waterford, and was over 60 percent in every other municipality west of Interstate 94 except for the City of Burlington, where he won with 55 percent.

Clinton received 42,506 votes locally. Her biggest total came in the City of Racine, where she got 64 percent of the vote. Outside of the city, however, she won a majority of very few polling places: North Bay and Elmwood Park, as well as two in Mount Pleasant and one in Caledonia.

Trump beat Clinton in Mount Pleasant overall with 49 percent of the vote against Clintons 45 percent; in Sturtevant with 51 percent of the vote compared to Clintons 42 percent; and he took 55 percent of the Caledonia vote against Clintons 39 percent.

Additionally, thousands of residents voted for third parties or in the write-in category. Unofficial results show Libertarian Gary Johnson with 3,246 votes (3 percent) in Racine County, while the Green Partys Jill Stein got 834 votes (less than 1 percent).

The write-in category showed 1,243 votes (1 percent). Candidates names were not known as Racine County election officials were still going through those votes, Clerk Wendy Christensen said. The number will be updated after the Board of Canvass meets Tuesday.

And 1,880 residents cast a ballot while leaving the presidential field blank, according to the unofficial totals.

Check out an interactive map breaking down results by polling place and municipality at JournalTimes.com.

Down ballot

Racine Countys vote in the U.S. Senate race also reflected the state vote.

Republican Ron Johnson, who was re-elected to a second term Tuesday, received 53 percent (49,680 votes) of the Racine County vote, according to unofficial results. Democrat Russ Feingold pulled in 44 percent (41,600 votes).

Libertarian Phillip N. Anderson received 2,485 votes (3 percent).

A total of 96,904 ballots were cast in Racine County, making for a turnout of 85 percent of registered voters, county figures show.
STURTEVANT  Next year could be the year the Village of Sturtevant gets its own library/community center, if the Village Board agrees the time is right to fund one.

Over the past three months, village residents Linda Busha and Rose Woodruff have drawn up a proposal for a part-time public library that would also serve as a community center, with an initial cost estimate and even a suggested location. Theyve identified the northeast corner of a small retail center at 8700 Durand Ave., about a 6,600-square-foot space, as a good place for Sturtevants first library.

Busha and Woodruff  both retired from University of Wisconsin-Parkside positions  are asking the Village Board to put money into the 2017 budget to help start a village library/community center.

Their calculated first-year cost would be $160,733, with the minimum state-required purchase of library materials. That would pay for a 20-hour-per-week library with days and hours of operation to be determined by a future library board.

Woodruff said the money would cover salaries for a head librarian at 10 hours a week, an assistant at 20 hours a week, rent and utilities, phone and Wi-Fi, cleaning, equipment, IT support, the cost of joining the Lakeshores Library System, and books and library materials. The minimum a library must spend on books and materials is $2,500 per year, she said. The head librarian would need a master of library science degree.

We think this is an opportune time because of the closing of the other (Renaissance Business Park tax increment district), and while the board is putting together the 2017 budget, Busha said. Its a one-time opportunity.

Moreover, their suggested location is within Sturtevants newly formed TID designed to redevelop the villages Highway 11 corridor. The women can imagine the new TID attracting a coffee shop to open near the library.

Woodruff called their proposal a library/community center  or even community center/library. Its important that it would become a hub for the village.

One of their ideas is to be able to divide the two areas, so the community center could be used even when the library would be closed.

Other revenue sources

Woodruff said their plan includes fundraising, writing for grants and seeking donations. It would all be up to the library board, she said.

For 2015, Sturtevant paid more than $86,000 to the Lakeshores Library System based on residents usage of all area libraries that are Lakeshore members. With its own library, Sturtevant would still pay to be part of Lakeshores but at a greatly reduced cost that Busha and Woodruff estimated at about $10,000.

The first step to a Sturtevant library/community center would be favorable Village Board action, Woodruff explained. Next the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction would have 30 days to approve it. Finally, Racine County would have 90 days to exempt the village from the tax levy to support the Racine Public Library, which now sends its bookmobile to Sturtevant once a week for two hours.

Realistically, a village library might open by fall of 2017, Woodruff said.

She said she and Busha have shared their plan with each village trustee, with favorable reactions, even before the presentation that was scheduled for Wednesday evening before the full Village Board.

People weve talked to are enthused, Busha said. Our message to the board is: Dont reduce property taxes so much that you cant add some of the services people would like to see.
Republican President-elect Donald Trump secured a victory of less than 1 percentage point in Wisconsin on Tuesday in part because Democrat Hillary Clinton received nearly a quarter-million fewer votes than President Barack Obama in 2012.

Overall turnout was 66.2 percent of eligible voters, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the lowest level in a Wisconsin presidential election since 1996.

A little more than 2.94 million votes were cast for president in Wisconsin, not counting write-ins, according to preliminary results tallied by The Associated Press. That's almost 124,000 fewer than in 2012.

Trump was able to win a close 27,000-vote victory in the state  a margin of 0.9 percent, 47.8746.94  by picking up about 1,500 more votes than Romney, while Clinton received nearly 239,000 fewer votes than Obama.

Third-party candidates received more than 150,000 votes.

Trump improved on Romney's vote total in 63 counties while Clinton improved on Obama's total in just three counties: Dane, Waukesha and Ozaukee.

Trump won 59 of the state's 72 counties, compared with Obama's 35 counties in 2012.

Republican political strategist Brandon Scholz, a Trump critic throughout the campaign, said nobody, including Republicans, saw Trump's victory coming.

"It was seismic because it's bigger than just a wave election," Scholz said. "It defied all polling, all pundits, all gut reactions.  It is about ground game and I think the Republican Party and (party executive director) Mike Duffey and those guys proved they have a better ground game."

Milwaukee Democratic strategist Sachin Chheda said Trump's win in Wisconsin resulted from a confluence of factors, including changes in election law that he said dampened minority and low-income voter turnout in Milwaukee and other urban, traditionally Democratic strongholds such as Racine and Kenosha counties, both of which Trump won.

Chheda mentioned the voter ID law, gerrymandered political districts that reduced the number of competitive local races and a state law that no longer allows third parties to vouch for someone's residence, which in past elections allowed homeless shelter coordinators to vouch for homeless voters.

He also said there may have been less voter enthusiasm among black voters because President Barack Obama was no longer on the ballot. There were about 62,000 fewer votes cast for the top two candidates in Milwaukee County this year than in 2012, including almost 40,000 fewer for Clinton compared with Obama and 23,000 fewer for Trump compared with Romney.

"There is a quote out there: 'When an airliner crashes, 17 things have to go wrong,' " Chheda said, adding it may take time to assess all of the reasons a GOP presidential candidate won Wisconsin for the first time since 1984. "What we're going to find here is a bunch of things added up and that's what made the difference in the end."

Democratic strategist Patrick Guarasci said the Clinton campaign may have put too much focus on ground game and not enough on TV ads. Clinton spent nearly $3 million in the final two weeks of the campaign, topping Trump's $2 million over the final four weeks.

"I think that's too late," Guarasci said, referring to when Clinton started ads in Wisconsin.

He added that the Trump campaign may have been able to get Clinton voters to stay home by amplifying Clinton's negative qualities in ads.

"I think a number of voters were turned off by all of that and believed she was not someone who was on their side," Guarasci said. "Clearly there were people in Wisconsin who were feeling like they connected with Trump who should have connected with Hillary, but did not."

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said Clinton was incredibly unpopular, part of the bureaucracy for a long time and had a bad record as secretary of state.

"I think all of those things coming together suppressed her own turnout," Vos said. "The reality is if you look all around the state, Hillary Clinton was a truly uninspiring candidate. She had an awful lot of problems going into this election that a lot of people chose to overlook."

Ryan: 'Most incredible feat'

House Speaker Paul Ryan, talking to reporters in Janesville on Tuesday, called Trump's nationwide victory "the most incredible political feat I have seen in my lifetime."

"Many of our citizens feel alienated and have lost their faith in our core institutions," Ryan said. "Donald Trump heard a voice out in this country that no one else heard. He connected with people in ways no one else did. He turned politics on its head."

Ryan said Tuesday morning he spoke with Trump twice in the last 18 hours and "will work hand in hand on a positive agenda to help tackle this country's challenges."

Ryan plans to run for House speaker, though he has faced some dissent among tea party members of his own party. He sparred with Trump throughout the campaign and the two never campaigned together.

Gov. Scott Walker said Trump and running mate Mike Pence, the Indiana governor, have hinted over the past few months about inviting him to join the new administration in Washington. But Walker, speaking on WTMJ-AM Wednesday, said he told them he can best serve the Trump administration as the new chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

Walker said as chairman of the association he can help ensure the Republican governors, the House, the Senate and the president work together.

Walker said he plans to finish out his term as governor. He said the only race he's eyeing himself is a potential third term as Wisconsin's chief executive.

One of 16 Republican candidates for president Trump bested during a hard-fought primary, Walker was critical of Trump during the presidential campaign but ultimately embraced him.

There was speculation Wednesday that Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus of Kenosha would serve as chief of staff in a Trump administration. RNC member Steve King, who will be one of Wisconsin's 10 electoral college voters next month, said he's not sure what Priebus will do next, though it's possible with a young family he would look to more financially lucrative options in the private sector.

"He's got some pretty interesting and exciting potential options," King said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Five Fast Gun Reforms President

Trump Will Sign Into Law

By Bob Owens. November 9th, 2016

President-Elect Donald Trump stunned the world last night with a commanding upset victory over the heavy favorite, Democrat Hillary Clinton. In addition to Trump's victory in the contest to be the 45th President of the United States, the National Rifle Association's five million members helped retain control of the Senate by backing victorious GOP contenders in Florida, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, and Wisconsin (at this time, New Hampshire's Senate contest between Kelly Ayotte (R) and Maggie Hassan (D) remains too close to call). The House also remains comfortably under the control of the GOP.

The NRA pumped more money into Trump's election than any super-PAC, and Trump has a reputation for standing by his allies.

Here are five fast gun law reforms President Trump and his Republican House and Senate can make.

Ending Gun-Free Zones On Military Bases

National Concealed Carry Reciprocity

Legalizing Silencers

NICS Background Check Reform

Allow Importation of Collectable Historical Firearms

These are five laws that a Republican Congress and President Trump can pass within the first 90-180 days, but they are not the only laws being considered. ......

There are many restrictions and controls in existence against the gun owner that could well be gotten rid of, but the five mentioned sound like a potentially good start. For so long now, the attempts have been made to infringe on the Second Amendment while claiming at the same time to support it - all efforts to in a sense 'dumb down' the 2A. The time is perhaps soon upon us when we can hopefully see common sense rule over what has almost become in recent years, progressive rape of the Bill of Rights.

Follow the link to read the full details.

"You don't have to be Jewish to fight by our side."

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Bellevue, WA 98005 USA

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We make the NRA look like moderates

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19-year-old man held for girlfriends murder

Police in Bhaktapur have arrested a 19-year-old man on charge of murdering his girlfriend.
Bridge project in limbo

A bridge construction project to link Panchthar and Tehrathum districts has been left incomplete by the contractor.
Charter amendment proposal by mid-Nov

Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi have informed Madhesi leaders that the government was preparing to table a constitution amendment proposal before Kartik-end (mid-November).
Pramod Mishra is a biweekly columnist for The Kathmandu Post. He is the department chair of English Studies at Lewis University in the United States.
Committed to one-China policy

Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba has said that he and his party are committed to one-China policy.
Donald Trump and Barack Obama to meet at White House

President Obama is to welcome his successor Donald Trump to the White House for talks aimed at smoothing over the transition of power.
Donald Trump election win sparks protests in US cities

Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of several US cities to protest against the election of Donald Trump.
Elderly man injured in rhino attack

An elderly man was critically injured in a rhino attack at Nawadurga Chowk in Bharatpur Sub-Metropolitan City in Chitwan district.
Growth summit: Nepal stuck in low-income trap, thanks to politicians

The practice of politicians and the government making tall promises, but failing to fulfil them is not a problem faced by Nepal alone
KVDA gets UN aid to make Valley green

The United Nations Economic and Social commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has decided to provide a grant assistance of $7million (Rs7.45billion) to the Kathmandu Valley Development Authority (KVDA) for a project that aims to make Valleys opens green, according to KVDA officials.
Late Ganesh Man Singh remembered

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari said on Wednesday that all should learn from the ideals espoused by the supreme commander of the 1990 democracy movement, the late Ganesh Man Singh.
Legal hurdle delays probe into TRC cases

The transitional justice process has suffered a major setback with lack of law to proceed with the investigation into complaints received in the past months.
Migrant workers in India in a fix

The Indian governments surprise decision to pull Rs500 and Rs1,000 banknotes out of circulation from midnight Wednesday has put Nepali migrant workers in India in a fix as they have not been able to send money back home since remittance companies will not accept them.
India withdraws 500- and 1,000-rupee banknotes from circulation, Nepalis in border areas worried

The Indian governments decision to withdraw 500- and 1,000-rupee banknotes from circulation has worried common Nepalis, businessmen and traders residing in border areas where the use of the Indian rupee is widespread.
Naya Shakti coordinator Bhattarai off to Britain

Former Prime Minister and coordinator of Naya Shakti Nepal Baburam Bhattarai on Thursday left for Britain. He was invited to Britain by the UK based International Nepali Society.
Nepal ratifies Biological Weapons Convention

Nepal has become the 177th state party of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction after formally depositing the Instrument of Ratification by Nepal in Washington D.C on November 4, said a press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here on Thursday.
Nepali banks have 33.6 million of Rs500, Rs1,000 IC banknotes: NRB

Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the central bank of the country, has stated there are around 33.6 million Indian currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations with the banks and the financial institutions across the country.
NRA mobilises Rs 3.57billion for housing grant in Valley

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) on Wednesday authorised the mobilisation of Rs 3.57 billion to the Central Level Project Implementation Unit (CLPIU) to distribute the first instalment of private housing reconstruction aid in Kathmandu Valley.
NRB urges India to facilitate exchange of banned Indian bills

The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) on Wednesday urged the Indian government to make some arrangements so that Nepalis can exchange 500 and 1,000 Indian banknotes with valid bills here in the country.
PM Dahal, CPN-UML Chairman Oli holding meeting

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN-UML Chairman KP Oli are holding a meeting at House Speaker Onsari Gharti Magar's office in Nayabaneshwor, Kathmandu on Thursday.
PM makes a pitch for broader trans-Himalayan cooperation

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has stressed on the need to widen trans-Himalayan cooperation to supplement the existing mechanisms like Saarc, Bimstec.
RBI seeks stock of 500 and 1,000 Indian banknotes within Nepali financial system

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday asked Nepal Rastra Bank to inform the former about the stock of Indian currency in denomination of 500 and 1000 within the Nepali financial system.
Stop child labour

We can make a difference by refusing to buy products made using child labour
The new America

Immigrants and minorities in the US fear that a Trump presidency will be difficult
Two Romanians ascend Mt Peak 5 for first time

Romanian climbers Vlad Capusan and Zsolt Torok have become the first persons to step foot on the summit of Mt Peak 5 in the Mahalangur Himalaya. The 6,421-metre mountain is located southeast of Makalu base camp on the border between Nepal and China.
The US Ambassador to Uganda Deborah Malac says All US government funded projects will continue running at least up to September next year.

Ambassador Malac was last evening speaking to KFM at the US Mission in Kampala hours after Donald Trump was declared winner of presidential race, making him the 45th president of the USA.

There have been concerns generally regarding Trumps foreign policy and how this will impact Uganda and other parts of the world, owing to the fact that he holds a more inward viewpoint of administration.

One of the most successful and high impact programs by the US government is the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, with the US government injecting at least More than 3 billion dollars between 2004 and 2015.

Ambassador Malac says for now the US Congress has appropriated funding to cover the activities for this financial year up to September 30th 2017.

In 2015 alone the initiative supported over 700,000 Ugandans in accessing Life Saving anti-retroviral treatment, Voluntary Safe male circumcision for close to 500,000 men, and the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in over 91,000 pregnant women.
The 34-year-old Muslim woman was elected to Minnesotas state house of representatives, soon after Donald Trump said Somali immigrants are a disaster

Those feeling bitterly disappointed at learning 2016 would not be the year a woman become President for the first time may find some comfort in the results of one election which went largely under the radar on Tuesday.

Hillary Clinton supporters become increasingly despairing overnight as Donald Trump scooped swing states including Florida and Ohio.

But one woman who did make history was Ilhan Omar, who became Americas first Somalian-American Muslim woman legislator on Tuesday night.

The 34-year-old former refugee was standing in District 60B in Minneapolis and claimed victory in the Minnesota House race.

Ms Omar arrived in the United States aged 12 after fleeing the civil war which ravaged her home country of Somalia. After initially arriving in Somalia, she spent four years at a Kenyan refugee camp.

I am so proud of this win because District 60B represents Minnesota at its finest, Ms Omar said. My neighbours and everyone here in this room, represents what we as a nation want to be: United in our diversity. Long time residents, East African immigrants and students  we came together and engaged in the political progress. We talked about the issues that concern us and we connected on the future we want to create.

Tonight, we are celebrating this win, our win. But our work wont stop. We will continue to build a more prosperous and equitable district  state and nation  where each and every one of us has opportunities to thrive and move forward together.

Minnesota has voted Democrat since 1972 but had its margin held by President Obama reduced in 2012.

STORY BY THE INDEPENDENT UK
By Damalie Mukhaye

Kampala lord mayor Erias Lukwago has raised concern over the increasing level of HIV infections among Ugandans most especially in urban centers.

Speaking during the ongoing forum of Alliance of Mayors and Municipal leaders on HIV/AIDS in Kampala,

Lukwago argues that despite the tremendous efforts put in place to fight the scourge, statistics still indicate that the prevalence of HIV is too high in the country and especially in urban areas.

Figures by UNAIDS, indicate that an estimated 33 new HIV infections occur per day among young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years.

Lukwago has called for more resource allocation to the Health sector, to ensure a tremendous reduction of HIV infection cases.

He has emphasized the need to educate and sensitise communities especially slum dwellers on the dangers of HIV.
Baked General Tsos Chicken



An easy and homemade version of General Tsos Chicken using crunchy baked chicken pieces rather than fried chicken pieces.

In celebration of General Tsos birthday on November 10, Ive partnered with Panda Express to share my version of General Tsos Chicken, an American Chinese staple that is known to differ from kitchen-to-kitchen . From now through December 27, Panda Express is offering General Tsos Chicken on its restaurant menus nationwide.



Ive been deeply fascinated with the history of General Tsos Chicken. I read about it in The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, watched the documentary The Search for General Tso and have done quite a bit of eating research as well.

General Tso was a real general, from Hunan, China. However, the dish actually originated in a restaurant in Taipei, Taiwan from Chef C.K. Peng, who was originally from Hunan. He created the dish inspired by flavor favorites found in his hometown and named it General Tsos Chicken, after the hometown hero. A chef from New York City, Chef T.T. Wang, visited Chef Pengs restaurant and tasted the dish and then recreated his own version at Shun Lee Palace restaurant in New York City, tailoring the flavors to fit the local ingredients and people. This version became extremely popular and spread across the US.

Before creating my version, I went to Panda Express to try out theirs. I loved the use of green beans, red and yellow bell peppers, and onions. It made the dish so colorful and vibrant. The dish itself is sweet, spicy and tangy.



By the way, how cool is the fork and chopstick hybrid? Panda Express sent me a few of these Chorks and now I really want to throw a party using them. Panda Express will be gifting these Chorks at their restaurants on November 10 for General Tsos birthday as they symbolize what it means to be Chinese inspired and American crafted  just like the restaurant and General Tsos Chicken.

Now a little bit about my version, which you can see, looks quite a bit different. Ive made General Tsos Chicken at home before, but its not something I make often because I dont like doing a lot of frying at home as it gets messy and requires a lot of oil. We usually save eating fried foods for when we dine out. So I decided to make a baked version.



The chicken is coated in egg and cornstarch and then baked. The chicken pieces still have a light, crunchy coating that is a bit healthier than the fried version.





I also made my sauce a little more savory and less sweet and tangy. Over the years, Ive experienced a few variations of General Tsos Chicken. The sweet, tangy and spicy flavor profile like the one at Panda Express is what is usually found at American-Chinese restaurants. Ive also tasted a more savory spicy version served at small Chinese restaurants. Both are good in their own way and for me, it usually just comes down to what Im in the mood for. Since I already had the sweet and sour version at Panda Express, I decided to share a more savory version.

Finally, I mixed mine with some steamed broccoli and served it over rice.



Baked General Tsos Chicken A healthier, baked version of the popular American-Chinese General Tso's Chicken. 5 from 1 vote Print Pin Ingredients 1 lb boneless chicken breast cut into 1-inch pieces

1 cup cornstarch

2 eggs whisked

1 cup steamed broccoli florets For the sauce 1/2 cup water

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp light soy sauce

3 tbsp rice wine vinegar

2 tsp hoisin sauce

3 tbsp granulated white sugar

2 tsp + 1/8 tsp cornstarch

2 tsp sriracha

1 tsp minced garlic

2 tsp thinly sliced ginger

 tsp red pepper flakes optional Instructions Preheat oven to 375F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Add whisked eggs to a small bowl and set aside. Add cornstarch to a wide bowl and set aside.

Dip a piece of chicken in egg, shaking a few times to get off excess egg. Lightly roll chicken in cornstarch, tapping chicken a few times against the edge of your bowl to remove excess cornstarch. Place onto baking sheet. Repeat with remaining chicken.

Bake chicken for about 12-15 minutes until chicken is cooked and crusted in a pale yellow coating (from the cornstarch and egg). If any chicken pieces have loose cornstarch remaining, brush off. Flip chicken pieces and bake an additional 5 minutes. Flip chicken back and set oven to low broil. Cook 5-10 minutes until the coating of the chicken turns a light brown and crisps up. Keep checking through the oven door during the broiling, as the heat is quite high and you dont want to burn your chicken.

To make the sauce, add all ingredients into a small saucepan. Without turning on heat, whisk until sauce is smooth and cornstarch is completely dissolved. Bring sauce to a simmer, stirring constantly so cornstarch doesnt clump up. Cook 1-2 minutes until sauce is very thick. Turn off heat and set sauce aside for a few minutes, allowing it to cool slightly and thicken even more.

Toss chicken with the sauce until chicken is evenly coated. Add in broccoli. Serve over rice. Nutrition Serving: 0.25 of recipe , Calories: 363 kcal , Carbohydrates: 44.4 g , Protein: 30.7 g , Fat: 5.7 g , Saturated Fat: 1.5 g , Sodium: 844.2 mg , Fiber: 1.1 g , Sugar: 11.3 g , NET CARBS: 43 g The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have. Did you make this recipe? I'd love to see it! Mention @KirbieCravings and tag #kirbiecravings

This post was created in partnership with Panda Express. All opinions expressed are my own.
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Henry Hank Gamroth wasnt much for war movies. The only war movie daughter Patty Bagniewski can remember her late father going to was Platoon, and he only lasted about 10 minutes before he had to leave because it was too intense  and this would have been more than 41 years after he had been in his last battle during World War II.

Gamroth wasnt interested in reliving the horrors of war, and he probably wouldnt want to see Mel Gibsons new movie, Hacksaw Ridge, which tells the true story of a World War II medic categorized as a conscientious objector who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving the lives of 75 men wounded in battle near the end of the war on the Japanese-held island of Okinawa. It would hit Gamroth very close to home.

He was one of the soldiers saved by the heroic medic.

He didnt talk about the war hardly at all, Bagniewski said of her father, a longtime Independence police chief who died in 1994. But he did talk about Desmond Doss.

Doss is the hero in Hacksaw Ridge, but Doss didnt really consider himself a conscientious objector; he liked to say he was a conscientious cooperator. He saw the war as a just cause, one he actually wanted to help with. He enlisted in the Army in 1942, but he was a faithful adherent of the Seventh-day Adventist faith and he refused to kill (or work on Saturday, the Sabbath). In fact, he refused to even carry a gun, insisting that he wanted to serve his country as a medic.

Gamroth was a member of Company B of the 77th Infantry Divisions 307th Infantry Regiment, and they had a big job: wrest control of Okinawa from the entrenched Japanese Imperial Army so Allied forces could use the island as an air base to mount attacks on Japan, roughly 340 miles north. The Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest in the Pacific Theater, ran from April 1 to June 22, 1945, with more than 14,000 Allied soldiers and 77,000 Japanese soldiers killed. Tens of thousands of civilians also were killed, used by Japanese soldiers as human shields.

The 307th Infantrys fighting on Okinawa started on April 29, 1945, and their task was a tall order. They had to take control of the Maeda Escarpment, a jagged 400-foot cliff that ran the length of the island and came to be called Hacksaw Ridge because of the fierce fighting. To reach the top of the ridge, Gamroth and his comrades climbed cargo netting, and once to the top they faced stiff resistance from Japanese fighters.

An early assault on Hacksaw Ridge left an estimated 75 wounded American soldiers on top after withering enemy fire drove the Allied forces back. Doss alone remained atop the ridge, bringing the wounded to the cliffs edge and lowering them down one by one.

Back in 1987, just after Memorial Day, Gamroth shared his memories of Hacksaw Ridge with La Crosse Tribune reporter Grant Blum. Gamroth had seen an Associated Press story about Doss rescuing a soldier who had been hit by mortar fire and fell from a cliff, severely injuring his leg.

That was me, Gamroth told Blum, adding that he was still amazed at what Doss did, dodging enemy fire to drag him to safety. I cant figure that guy out. The lead was flying. He was bending over and treating the wounded.

Gamroth told Blum that when he fell he landed near a cave in which enemy soldiers were dug in. I heard Japanese jabbering, Gamroth said, adding that he got a grenade ready, just in case, and let it fly just as Doss got to his side because he thought the enemy soldiers were coming toward them.

Gamroth was wounded and rescued by Doss on May 5, and it seems likely that his rescue is mentioned in the citation that went along with Dosss Medal of Honor: When an American was severely wounded by fire from a cave, Pfc. Doss crawled to him where he had fallen 25 feet from the enemy position, rendered aid, and carried him 100 yards to safety while continually exposed to enemy fire.

The day before Gamroth was wounded, he was in a foxhole with two other soldiers, who were sleeping while he kept watch. Gamroth tried to rouse the other two when he heard the tell-tale tapping sound of a Japanese grenade after one was lobbed into their foxhole, but they didnt get out in time.

After he was wounded on May 5, that was the end of the war for Gamroth. Only one of the other 11 members of his squad left Okinawa alive.

For Doss, the war came to an end on May 21, when he was twice wounded as he was caring for other wounded soldiers, first by shrapnel from an enemy grenade and then by a snipers bullet that shattered his left arm. On top of his wounds, Doss also contracted tuberculosis during his recovery and lost his hearing after he was given an overdose of antibiotics.

The day Gamroth talked to Blum, Gamroth had called Dosss home in Rising Fawn, Ga., not knowing that Doss had lost his hearing. Gamroth did talk to Dosss wife, who mentioned that her husband planned to attend a reunion of his Army unit in South Carolina.

Bagniewski, a longtime Holmen resident, said her father wanted to go to that reunion so he could personally thank the man who saved his life, but he couldnt make it. That was no indication of a lack of gratitude, though.

He did have the sense that he was fortunate to be here, Bagniewski said of her father. I cant imagine that it didnt change the way that he looked at life and how fortunate he was.

Back home in Independence, Gamroth recovered completely from his battle wounds and came to be known for his hard work, generosity, upbeat outlook, humility, kindness and humor. He tried not to dwell on what he and his fellow soldiers went through on Okinawa, but he never forgot the friends he lost or what Doss did for him, Bagniewski said.

Historyvshollywood.com, a website that compares films with the real people and events that inspired them, gave Hacksaw Ridge high marks for accuracy in the depiction of Dosss life. And judging by the early reviews of the movie, the battle scenes give an unflinching view of the carnage Doss and Gamroth saw on that island.

Still, Bagniewski and her siblings  Bonnie Klimek of Arcadia and Tom Gamroth of Texas  will go see Hacksaw Ridge, maybe even more than once, she said.

We know its going to be very emotional, Bagniewski said. When you think about it, if it wouldnt have been for Desmond Doss, our family wouldnt be.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines friend as a person you know well and like a lot, but who is usually not a member of your family. In La Crosse County libraries, our friends are family, on top of liking them a lot. They help take care of our services and dedicate their time and talent to make us better. I am always so humbled by the generosity that volunteers provide to our library locations in Bangor, Campbell, Holmen, Onalaska and West Salem. Our Friends of the Library groups at these locations range from veteran organizations that have stuck with us through thick and thin to brand-new groups just recently organizing or re-organizing. These dedicated volunteers and advocates have countless options in their communities where they can direct their support and we just count our lucky stars they have chosen us.

The Friends of the Onalaska Public Library organized decades ago and continue to be a driving force and advocates forced to be reckoned with for library services in the Onalaska area. For years, they have virtually been solely responsible for any type of adult programming that occurs. They are the driving force behind our feature film series that provides free big screen viewings of newly released DVDs, and they even enhance the experience with fresh popcorn. They also work tirelessly to raise money for items outside of our regular operating and capital budgets, including initially providing the AV system in our public meetings room and recently updating the system. They provide financial support to our summer reading programming, and the ability now to work with our Onalaska area schools to display student artwork is due to the Friends financial support of the recent addition of tackable fabric panels.

Another veteran group is our Friends of the Campbell Library. Since the late 1970s, they have continued to provide support to our F.J. Robers Library. Their annual book and bake sale each May also raises money to support added initiatives at our French Island location. They were integral in raising funds to furnish the newly renovated library in 2013 and their work continues with plans to host an inaugural Summit Elementary art display reception at the library in spring 2017.

Our Bangor Friends have also stood the test of time and their annual book and bake sale is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 9 and Saturday, Dec. 10, with a visit from Santa from 1:30 to 3 p.m. that Saturday. Their dedication enables us to almost double our selection of magazine subscriptions each year.

A revised Friends group is re-organizing in the Holmen area  with the new library building now well underway. The Friends are gearing up for a capital campaign to help furnish the new building and relieve some of the tax burden on Village of Holmen residents who are supporting the enormous expansion. They have embodied the idea that every area citizen can make a difference and no donation is too small. Their grassroots efforts have already created a partnership with the Holmen Area Foundation and their year-end letter campaign will kick off shortly.

The newest of our Friends group is at our West Salem location. More than 30 members have joined the cause in just a months time and they will host their first used book sale next weekend, Nov. 18 and 19, at the Hazel Brown Leicht Memorial Library to raise funds for seasonal decorations.

The endless support from these groups is truly heartfelt and the definition of friends for us at La Crosse County Library absolutely equates to library family. For more information about the La Crosse County Library, check out our website at www.lacrossecountylibrary.org or find us on Facebook.
Some area farmers are plucking more than four-and-a-half tons of golden kernels off their fields due to the good weather theyve had this year.

Steven Kling, president of the Jackson County Farm Bureau, said Monday farmers are reporting yields up to 260 bushels per acre for corn, higher than 60 bushels per acre for soybeans, and with the warm sunny weather continuing into November, even a fifth cutting of alfalfa. The weather has been good this year to many of the countys farmers, he said, with warm temperatures, a long growing season and timely rains keeping things moving all season.

A lot of farmers are reporting around 200 bushels per acre, he said. Overall its just been a really good harvest.

While Kling said no farmers were reporting yields nearing 300 bushels per acre, some other places in the state are hoping to break that ceiling. It wasnt long ago when a Wisconsin farmer stood a better chance of rolling a 300, or perfect, game in bowling than producing a corn crop with a yield of 300 bushels per acre. The odds have changed in favor this year, thanks to a near-perfect growing season that has experts predicting record corn and soybean yields throughout much of the state, including Dane County.

I would imagine well get to 300 this year by somebody around here, and I think its that good that well get it. Thats the number farmers dream of, said Heidi Johnson, UW-Extensions Dane County agricultural agent.

The number has already been reached by Wisconsin farmers. The record for irrigated corn is 327 bushels an acre set by Jeff Laskowski, of Plover, in 2012, while the record for non-irrigated corn is 322.3 bushels an acre set by Betty Steiger, of Bloomington, in 2013, according to the National Corn Growers Association. A bushel weighs 56 pounds.

Record yields were predicted after Wisconsin led the country for the highest percentage of corn and soybeans in good or excellent condition for much of the growing season. A rainy spell in September created problems with the harvest in some parts of the state, but it didnt hamper the crops in south-central Wisconsin.

In my three decades doing this, this is the best growing season weve had. It might be another 30 years before we see a year like this again, said Mark Mayer, UW-Extensions ag agent for Green County.

The state is expected to produce 549 million bushels, or nearly 15.4 million tons, of corn for grain this year. That is nearly 7 percent higher than the state record 515 million bushels harvested in 2011 and up 57 million bushels, or 11.6 percent, higher than last years total, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

It also predicted that the average yield would reach 177 bushels per acre, which is 13 bushels higher than the record set last year.

Last year, the state ranked ninth in the country in corn for grain production, with a value of at $1.67 billion, NASS reports.

As the harvest nears completion, Green County is looking at a corn yield average nearing 200 bushels an acre, which would easily break the existing county record of 178 set in 2009, Mayer said.

The quality of the corn is at high levels, too, experts are saying. Quality is usually dictated by the type of growing season you have, said Tom Stehr, grain manager for VitaPlus, a Madison-based livestock feed company.

The soybean yield looks just as impressive, and the average yield should break records both in the Green County (56.5 bushels an acre set in 2011) and Wisconsin-wide (50.5 bushels set in 2010), Mayer said.

The average soybean yield for the state is expected to reach 52 bushels per acre for a total production of 101 million bushels (606 million pounds), which would break the record of 92.6 million bushels set last year, according to NASS.

Wisconsins soybean crop is the 14th largest in the United States and is worth about $786 million, NASS has reported.

Rock County has seen soybean yields above 100 bushels per acre in some places, and counties north of Dane County are seeing yields above 65 in sandy soil, or 20 bushels above average, Johnson said.

Ive had some crazy soybean numbers. The beans are off the charts, Johnson said.

One key downside: The harvest is being greeted by continued low prices. Corn futures for December delivery hovered around $3.50 a bushel, which most experts believe is below the break-even point for farmers to make money.

Many farmers who didnt sell their corn when December future prices were above $4 a bushel earlier this year are going to store this years corn harvest and sell it when prices rise again, Mayer said.

Im not hearing or seeing anything piled yet, he said, meaning storage capacity is keeping up with the bumper crop. Thats a good thing as well.

Despite wetter conditions for this harvest compared with last year, most of the corn is drying naturally, and that reduces farmers drying expenses, VitaPluss Stehr said.

Its a different story for soybeans. Were seeing more wet soybeans than I can remember. But its not extreme. Its not like some years with really wet corn where farmers get a big drying bill. Its on the lower end (for cost) this year, he said.
The 14,000 Cuban refugees of the Mariel boatlift who were brought to Fort McCoy in 1980 have been unfairly represented as predominantly criminals, poor unskilled laborers and the mentally ill, according to a UW-L professor.

The refugees, mostly males in their teens or 20s, were a portion of the nearly 125,000 Mariel refugees who fled Cuba in 1980 when the countrys leader, Fidel Castro, let people leave during a period of turmoil and civil unrest. Many narratives describe acts of violence and sexual assault inside the fort and crime in communities after the refugees were allowed to leave, such the story of Lene Cespedes-Torres, who was convicted of killing his sponsor Berniece Taylor in Tomah.

During a presentation Friday afternoon at the 2016 North Central Council of Latin Americanists conference at the UW-La Crosse, modern languages professor Omar Granados presented evidence that only a small fraction of the refugees were criminals or suffered from mental illness and that most crimes were perpetrated by whites who created an unwelcome environment for the new residents. Media reports fueled negative impressions of the refugees.

It is hard to deal with this, Granados said. But it is so relevant to our world today. I cant not show it to my students.

Granados blamed the violence at Fort McCoy on the Federal Emergency Management Agencys decision to institute a system of self-government of the barracks, with Warhawks  wearing donated UW-Whitewater jackets  running the buildings and carrying knives, clubs and other weapons to enforce order. He cites Kathleen Mann, the lawyer who represented Cespedes-Torres and many other Mariel refugees, who described the refugees as victims of anti-Cuban sentiment and said that most crimes were the result of a lack of understanding of U.S laws and an inability to communicate in English.

El Mercurio de McCoy, a bilingual publication written by the refugees at the camp, provides a better picture of the immigrants and their experiences, he said, highlighting social life at the camp, reporting on world affairs and helping prepare refugees with English homework and articles on American history and geography, as well as offering legal, immigration and basic health advice. Granados pointed out the blog of Cespedes-Torres, who maintains his innocence to this day.

This contrasts with statements from others at the time, including Janet Jenkins, a former La Crosse lawyer who also defended Cespedes-Torres. She, along with former La Crosse Mayor John Medinger, a refugee sponsor, local law enforcement officials and UW-L political science professor Joe Heim all told the Tribune in interviews that La Crosse went from welcoming to distrustful as the incidents of crime rose after the refugees began arriving.

It was a mess because the policy was not well thought out and planned, Jenkins said in a 2005 Tribune story. President Carter was well-intentioned and so good-hearted, but we were taken advantage of. Most of the refugees were criminals, and most have come and gone.

One thing both Granados presentation and the Tribune coverage agree upon was that very few of the refugees remained in the La Crosse area. Many were transferred to other refugee centers or settled in major Latin American population centers such Miami or Los Angeles.

Providing a venue for such research is an important part of the NCCLA mission, the organizations president and UW-L professor Christine Hippert said. This year marks the first time the organization has held its annual conference in La Crosse, and she said the two-day conference that ends today is especially relevant as immigration and refugees are topic of political conversation this election year.

(The Mariel refugees) were a sad chapter in La Crosse history, she said, one that we dont want to reproduce.
MADISON  Wisconsins highest court is considering whether to grant a new trial to a Minnesota man serving consecutive life terms for the 2012 murders of a father and son at their downtown La Crosse camera store.

The seven Supreme Court Justices pressed attorneys on legal issues raised on appeal by Jeffrey Lepsch after a volume of written arguments submitted in the wake of his 2013 convictions.

Lepsch, now 43, appealed the District 4 Court of Appeals decision to uphold the convictions for the killings of Paul Petras, 56, and his 19-year-old son, A.J., at the now-shuttered Mays Photo on Main Street. The state Supreme Court will either affirm the Court of Appeals decision or grant Lepsch a new trial.

Lepsch was convicted of shooting Paul and A.J. Petras on Sept. 15 when they interfered with a robbery before he walked from the store with 27 pieces of camera equipment worth $17,000 to his minivan at Fourth and Main streets.

Police found A.J. Petras body near the stores safe and his fathers in the bathroom hours later when Sherri Petras went to check on her husband and son.

Surveillance video, cell phone and vehicle records led investigators to Lepsch, a broke, unemployed hobby photographer living in Dakota, Minn., at the time of the killings.

Not argued on appeal is the overwhelming evidence against Lepsch, including that investigators traced every piece of equipment stolen from Mays to his home or sold online to support his family of five.

Lepsch contends that nine of the 12 jurors in his trial fail to meet the standard of impartiality required by the U.S. Constitution.

His attorney Steven Zaleski narrowed his concern Wednesday to two of the nine jurors, whose bias went unexamined when attorneys failed to press them during jury selection after they indicated on a pre-trial questionnaire that they found police more credible than other witnesses.

They made no statement during jury selection that they could set aside their beliefs, Zaleski said. Its so problematic.

Thirteen of the states 31 trial witnesses were law enforcement, including one state agent who testified that surveillance video from outside Mays showed that Lepsch was the last to exit the store at 2:58 p.m. before the bodies were discovered.

Zaleski told the court Wednesday that one witness, who did not testify at trial, claims to have spotted a potentially alternative suspect inside Mays between 4 and 4:15 p.m. The surveillance video duplicated for police that shows Lepsch leaving at 2:58 p.m. ends at 3:30 p.m. because of a technology glitch.

Some people found that very suspicious, Zaleski said. At a minimum, credibility was an issue.

Assistant Attorney General Sara Shaeffer told the court that not one single juror who served was biased.

Not seven. Not two. Not one, she said.

Lepschs attorneys would have dismissed potential jurors they considered biased, Shaeffer said, who pointed out that asking whether they find police more or less credible than other witnesses was a generic question.

Both jurors also said they had no problem with the presumption of innocence, she said.

Lepsch also argued on appeal that he wasnt present when the clerk of court read an oath to the full panel of potential jurors, a violation of his right to an impartial jury and public trial.

Prosecutors contend the administration of the oath did not violate Lepschs rights because it is not part of jury selection under state statute.
State Senate Republicans, still giddy from a surprisingly strong Election Day showing that expanded their majority, met at the state Capitol Thursday to re-elect Sen. Scott Fitzgerald as their leader.

Fitzgerald was a staunch supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who on Tuesday became the first Republican to carry Wisconsin in a presidential election since Ronald Reagan in 1984. Trumps presence on the ballot, particularly his strength in rural areas, helped the GOP grow its already-large majorities in the state Legislature.

Fitzgerald on Thursday urged his federal GOP counterparts, who will have complete control on Capitol Hill when Trump takes office in January, not to do anything rash affecting the more than 10 million people with health coverage through exchanges created under President Barack Obamas health care law.

Repealing Obamas signature law is a top priority for congressional Republicans and Trump early next year.

The leadership vote for Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, was unanimous. He has been Majority Leader almost nonstop since 2011, except for a few months in 2012 when recall elections briefly gave Democrats a Senate majority.

Roger Roth, R-Appleton, was unanimously voted Senate president, the chambers procedural chief. He succeeds outgoing President Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, who did not seek re-election.

Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, was elected Senate president pro tempore. That post previously was held by Rick Gudex, R-Fond du Lac, who died in October.

Other Senate Republicans unanimously returned to leadership posts were Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa, as assistant majority leader, Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, as majority caucus chairperson, and Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, as vice chairperson.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Fitzgerald said he would reappoint all six Senate Republicans to the 16-member budget-crafting Joint Finance Committee. They are Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, the committees co-chairperson, Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, its co-vice-chairperson, Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, and Vukmir, Marklein and Harsdorf.

All Senate Republican incumbents who sought re-election Tuesday won it. The caucus also welcomed three new members to their ranks: Patrick Testin of Stevens Point; Dan Feyen of Fond du Lac; and Dave Craig of Big Bend. Feyen and Craig, now a state representative, succeeded two Republican senators: Gudex and Lazich, in Senate districts 18 and 28, respectively. Lazich did not seek re-election.

Testin defeated Sen. Julie Lassa, D-Stevens Point, in Tuesdays election in the 24th Senate District. His win expanded the GOP majority in the 33-person Senate to at least 20 seats.

Republicans continue to hope a 21st seat could be added to the mix: Senate District 32, now represented by Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse. Unofficial results had Shilling clinging to a 58-vote lead in that race, in which she was challenged by former Republican Sen. Dan Kapanke, also of La Crosse.

A recount is likely in that contest.

Fitzgerald supported Trump throughout the campaign even as some Wisconsin Republicans, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, criticized the GOP standard-bearer.

From the leadership position, I just did what I thought we needed to do, Fitzgerald said. It was just practical from a political perspective.

Hes a populist candidate thats very difficult to explain, and people still cant explain it.

Depending on what Trump and federal lawmakers do with the health care law, it could create a huge issue to address in 2017 for state lawmakers in Wisconsin and in 49 other state capitols.

Fitzgerald said he expects federal lawmakers to adopt an overall shift back toward the states, and for the states to manage the exchanges. The health care law created the exchanges as a marketplace to shop for health care coverage and a mechanism to give income-based subsidies to people to pay for coverage.

Fitzgerald acknowledged he doesnt yet know what that could mean for Wisconsin, which unlike some other states, opted to use the federal exchange instead of creating its own.

More than 207,000 Wisconsinites currently are covered on the federal exchange. They could be without coverage if federal lawmakers and Trump simply repeal the law but go no further.

Fitzgerald said Thursday that to do anything rash would be a mistake, I think.

It is going to be difficult to just make some wholesale change without taking into consideration the people that have already become a part of that system, he said.
State Sen. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, appears to have won re-election with a margin of just 58 votes in a race that is likely to be subject to a recount.

With all precincts reporting Wednesday, Shilling finished with 43,565 votes to 43,507 for Republican Dan Kapanke, who was seeking to retake the seat he lost in a 2011 recall.

Because Shillings margin is less than 0.25 percent of the total votes cast, Kapanke can request a recount at no cost to his campaign. He has three days to request a recount after all votes are canvassed, which is expected to be completed next week. The deadline to begin canvassing is 9 a.m. Tuesday.

There are at least 34 provisional ballots that will have to be counted if the voters show up by 4 p.m. Friday with valid identification.

At 3:40 a.m. Wednesday, Shilling, the minority leader in the state Senate, released the following statement:

I am proud to have earned the support of the voters in the 32nd Senate District and I look forward to continue serving as a strong voice for western Wisconsin in our State Capitol, she said.

Shillings campaign manager said she would have no additional comment Wednesday.

Kapanke was not ready to concede.

In an early morning Facebook post, he wrote, The vote is close and we must make sure every vote is counted, including provisional and military ballots. I am looking forward to the conclusion of the official canvass.

Kapanke did not respond to calls seeking further comment Wednesday.

Republicans, riding a wave of support for Donald Trump, extended their Senate majority to 20-12 by knocking off Democratic incumbent Julie Lassa of Stevens Point. A Kapanke win would give the GOP its largest Senate majority in nearly 50 years.

Kapanke is attempting to retake the 32nd District seat he lost to Shilling in a 2011 recall spurred by anger over Republican efforts to curtail collective bargaining rights for public workers. He was first elected to the seat in 2005.

The owner of the La Crosse Loggers campaigned with a focus on education, touting his support for school choice and the state voucher system.

Kapanke was pleased to see the strong Republican showing across the state and nation, saying Republican nominee Donald Trumps performance shows the GOP message is well-received.

Hes outperformed in so many of the states no one expected him to, Kapanke said Tuesday night.

Shilling campaigned with a focus on infrastructure, calling for expanded funding for both roads and broadband internet.

Families in Wisconsin have said they want leaders to restore funding for local schools, increase access to affordable health care and expand economic opportunities for hardworking families, she said in her Wednesday morning statement. From student loan debt relief and higher family wages to infrastructure investments and groundwater protections, Im committed to advancing solutions to the most pressing issues facing our state.

Independent Chip DeNure finished third with 2,087 votes, or 2.3 percent. He campaigned with a focus on blocking the DOT-proposed north-south corridor and legalizing recreational marijuana.

The 32nd District includes La Crosse, Crawford and parts of Vernon and Monroe counties.

THE VOTE

County Shilling (D) Kapanke(R)

La Crosse 31,953 28,969

Vernon 6,405 7,225

Crawford 3,433 4,080

Monroe 1,774 3,233

TOTAL 43,565 43,507
State Rep. Nancy VanderMeer will try to broaden health care coverage and broadband internet access, be an advocate for education in rural Wisconsin and pursue policies to prevent and treat drug abuse after easily winning re-election Tuesday.

Voters in the Republicans 70th Assembly District sent the Tomah businesswoman back to the Legislature by nearly a 2-to-1 margin over first-time candidate Mark Holbrook of Wisconsin Rapids.

She has opposed some legislation of her own party when she believed it wasnt in the best interest of her predominantly rural district, and that might have made it harder for Holbrook, an accomplished educator and Vietnam veteran, to gain the traction he needed to turn the district blue.

I opposed efforts to reduce funding for K-12 education and the University of Wisconsin System, she said. I also worked in conjunction with our UW System to reach a compromise to help save a program that provided college course opportunities to our high school students.

VanderMeer said her property-rights rhetoric was attractive in the predominantly rural 70th District.

Whether its working at my familys small-town car dealership or on my husband Dave Halls fifth-generation dairy farm, hard work is at my core, she says. Thats why I will fight to protect our rural way of life by keeping big government out of our family farms and protecting our rights as property owners.

She is a member of the Rural Wisconsin Initiative, a group of outstate legislators who support boosting funding for broadband expansion grants, increasing available resources for youth apprenticeship grants and tuition reimbursement grants for apprenticeships.

VanderMeer was elected to the Assembly in 2014 after narrowly a 2012 bid. She returns to a lower house that has a 64-35 Republican majority after Tuesdays election results.

THE VOTE

County VanderMeer Holbrook

Monroe 8,603 4,682

Wood 5,087 3,006

Portage 2,691 2,325

Jackson 578 241

TOTAL 16,959 10,254
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Three of the biggest problems facing Los Angeles were on Tuesday's ballot, and the results indicate that Angelenos want to get things fixed. Proposition HHH, which would raise $1.2 billion to build housing for the homeless, and Measure M, which implements a new sales tax hike to fund an enormous expansion of the county's public transportation, both passed with overwhelming majorities. You can also add Measure JJJ to this list, which mandates the creation of affordable housing in L.A.With all precincts reporting, Measure JJJ, also known as Build Better LA, passed with 64% of the vote. JJJ makes it a requirement that developments that require changes to zoning codes (i.e. "typically bigger than what codes allow," according to Curbed) set aside a certain percentage of units available for low-income residents. It also requires these projects to hire workers from the City of Los Angeles, and includes incentives for the developments to be built near public transportation.

"It's really important that we not only have access to housing that's affordable, but also that people are earning good wages and able to live in the housing that they've built," Mariana Huerta Jones of the Alliance for Community Transit told LAist back in May, when JJJ received enough signatures to appear on the ballot. "That's why we want to make sure it's not just about producing and preserving affordable housing, but also making sure that there is access to good jobs."

While it received support from groups like the L.A. County Democratic Party, the ACLU of Southern California and the National Resources Defense Council, backing was mixed from housing advocates. In an editorial, the L.A. Times opposed JJJ, saying it would only increase the cost of construction, and thus limit the amount of affordable housing that will actually be built.

JJJ was a direct response to That Terrible NIMBY Ballot Measure (also known as the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative), which aims to freeze new development in Los Angeles. The NII was originally going to go against JJJ on the November ballot, but it is now on the March ballot. A similar anti-growth measure in Santa Monica, known as Measure LV, was defeated last night.
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The high school students of L.A.'s Robert F. Kennedy Community School staged a walkout today in protest of the new overlord their elders who should know better voted into office.

The students marched on 6th Street and Shatto Place, ABC7 reports, possibly towards the Mexican Consulate, according to the LAPD.

We reached out to Superintendent Michelle King who had no comment beyond this statement:

We teach our students that they have a right to freedom of speech. They are also allowed to participate in peaceful demonstrations on campus during non-instructional times, within parameters set by administrators. They are not permitted to leave school. Because fears and emotions may be running high after the election results, we directed school-based staff to talk with students, and if necessary, identify those who may need support. In an abundance of caution, District staff also has initiated conversations about student rights. At L.A. Unified, the safety of students and staff remains our highest priority.

LAPD Officer Aareon Jefferson told us that all students had returned to school by 3:22 p.m.

This walkout in Koreatown wasn't the only one California schools saw today, Reuters reports that "1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School... [and] a mostly Latino group of about 300 high school students, mostly from the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, walked out of classes and marched to the steps of City Hall." The latter group was reportedly chanting, "The people united will never be defeated," and carried signs reading: "Not My President," and "Immigrants Make America Great."

Student organizer Stephanie Hipolit told Reuters, "A child should not live in fear that they will be deported. They should not live in fear that they themselves will be deported."

Anti-Trump rallies will be seen in many cities tonightwith a large one already taking place in New York. In L.A., a protest is scheduled for City Hall, starting at 8 p.m.
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Someday, your children will ask you about the night that the United States of America elected Donald J. Trump to be their 45th president. What was the morning after like? Did you wake up in your same bed, in a different country? Did you cry at work? Did everyone at your office have tears streaming down their faces as they drank lukewarm coffee and thought about getting drunk and going back to sleep? Or did you organize? Did you reach out to the people you love, and especially to your LGBT and POC friends and familywho suddenly live in a far scarier nationand tell them that you love them, and that they are not alone? Did you curl up and hide, or did you build community? Did you protest? Did you pray?

The ruins of yesterday may be wrought, but today's sliver of history remains unwritten. It's yours for the taking, wet clay to shape as you desire, tonightand over the next four years. Do you want to join in silent prayer, strategize for the resistance, stand with marginalized allies, or make some fucking noise? Well, luckily, this is the great city of L.A., and you can do any or all of the above. Because, as my old buddy Samuel Beckett once told me, You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on. So let's go on.

THE BIG DOWNTOWN PROTEST

There are anti-Trump protests set to begin at Pershing Square at 7 p.m. and City Hall at 8 p.m. It's possible marchers will move around downtown, so you can check Twitter for updates later in the night. Officer Aareon Jefferson of the LAPD told LAist that the department was aware of the protests and "will be prepared to handle anything as it comes up," though the department has not issued any alerts or extra officers.

Pershing Square is located at 532 South Olive Street and City Hall is located at 200 North Spring Street.

SILVER LAKE MEADOW VIGIL

Organizers say: "We're all heartbroken and furious but tonight let's all get together in the Silverlake Meadow to grieve and vent but also figure out what we can do for the future. Wear white. Bring a candle. 6 pm on. Please spread the word."

Silver Lake Meadow Park is located at 1850 W Silver Lake Drive in Silver Lake.

POST-ELECTION GATHERING AT THE LGBT CENTER

The LA LGBT Center is inviting community and allies to comfort each other, grow stronger and confront whatever challenges lie ahead. The gathering will be held at the Village at Ed Gould Plaza from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The LGBT Center's Village at Ed Gould Plaza is located at 1125 N. McCadden Place in Hollywood.

PRAYER AT ALL SAINTS CHURCH

Organizers say: Join us tonight at 7:00 p.m. as we bring all of who we areour hopes and fears, our dreams and disappointments, our grief and gratitudeto the altar for a special service of Holy Eucharist in the wake of yesterday's election. In his message to the parish, Mike Kinman wrote 'We choose love over hate, courage over fear, and inclusion over degradation.' Come gather in community as together we find strength for the journey ahead." Child care will be available.

All Saints Church is located at 132 N Euclid Avenue in Pasadena.

DHARMA TALK AT AGAINST THE STREAM BUDDHIST MEDITATION SOCIETY

Buddhist teacher Stephen Dansiger "will be talking about the dharma and how we can use it to be with our emotions and everything that is coming up for us around the election," according to organizers. Everyone is welcome to come sit and share, starting at 7:30 p.m.

Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society is located at 4300 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.

HEALING, HOPE, AND MEDITATION AT CONGREGATION KOL AMI

Congregation Kol Ami, an LGBT synagogue in West Hollywood, invites anyone in pain or turmoil over last night's results, and those who are scared or questioning your faith in America, or questioning your faith at all, to join them from 6:30 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. at our their temple for 45 minutes of healing and hope with meditations for our future and our country. Afterwards, they will adjourn to their rooftop deck for refreshments, conversation, listening to one another and supporting each other. For those who would like to stay, at 8 p.m. they'll join Pastor Keith Cox and the Center for Spiritual Living for 30 minutes of uplifting music and communal prayer in their sanctuary.

Congregation Kol Ami is located at 1200 N La Brea Avenue in West Hollywood.
Do you enjoy a good gothic novel? Do you wonder what it would have been like to be a part of a trio of three gifted sisters living a lonely...
Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Prof. Bainbridge the other day commented on the following, which is item 10 from the Modern Corporation Statement on Company Law (available here):

Contrary to widespread belief, corporate directors generally are not under a legal obligation to maximise profits for their shareholders. This is reflected in the acceptance in nearly all jurisdictions of some version of the business judgment rule, under which disinterested and informed directors have the discretion to act in what they believe to be in the best long term interests of the company as a separate entity, even if this does not entail seeking to maximise short-term shareholder value. Where directors pursue the latter goal, it is usually a product not of legal obligation, but of the pressures imposed on them by financial markets, activist shareholders, the threat of a hostile takeover and/or stock-based compensation schemes.

Bainbridge take a contrary position, citing Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Strine, who says, "a clear-eyed look at the law of corporations in Delaware reveals that, within the limits of their discretion, directors must make stockholder welfare their sole end, and that other interests may be taken into consideration only as a means of promoting stockholder welfare." Strine further notes that "advocates for corporate social responsibility pretend that directors do not have to make stockholder welfare the sole end of corporate governance, within the limits of their legal discretion."

I read these positions as consistent, though I think the scope of what is permissible is certainly implicitly different. I agree that Strine is right to say that "directors must make stockholder welfare their sole end." But I also agree that "disinterested and informed directors have the discretion to act in what they believe to be in the best long term interests of the company as a separate entity." My read of the business judgment rule (BJR) is that, absent fraud, illegality, or self-dealing, courts should abstain from reviewing director decisions, meaning that the directors decide what"stockholder welfare" means and what ends to use in pursuit of that end. That is, I think it's wrong to say "directors generally are not under a legal obligation to maximise profits for their shareholders," but I do think directors usually get to decide what it means to "maximise profits."

I am a firm believer in director primacy, and I believe directors should have a lot of latitude in their choices, subject to the BJR requirements. Thus, if a plaintiff can show self dealing (like maybe via giving to a "pet charity" described in A.P. Smith v. Barlow), then the BJR might be rebutted (if the gift is inconsistent with state law and/or constituency statutes). But otherwise, it's the board's call. Furthermore, where a company builds its brand and acts consistently with its prior actions, that might expand the scope of permissible behavior for a company (i.e., not be evidence of self-dealing). Thus, companies like Tom's Shoes and Ben and Jerry's should be able to continue to operate as they always have when they bring in new directors, because what might look like self-dealing in another context, is consistent with the business model.

eBay v. Newmark (pdf here) is often used to rebut that notion, but I still maintain that case is really about self-dealing -- the actions taken by Jim and Craig were impermissible not because they were working toward "purely philanthropic ends," but because they took actions that benefited themselves to the detriment of their minority shareholder, such as use of poison pills).

Anyway, I am still a believer in the BJR as abstention doctrine. Show me some fraud, illegality, or self-dealing or I'm leaving the board's decision alone.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/business_law/2016/11/director-primacy-and-the-bjr-reconciling-strine-v-signatories--1.html
Democrat Hillary Clinton has conceded the American presidential election to Republican Donald Trump.

Most political experts and voter studies had predicted Clinton would win the election. But after very close voting in many states across the country, Trump received the required 270 electoral votes early Wednesday to win the White House.

In a speech Wednesday to supporters, Clinton said she was sorry for the loss, which she described as painful. But she said Americans owe Trump an open mind and a chance to lead.



Clinton is a former secretary of state, U.S. senator and wife of two-term president Bill Clinton. She called Trump early Wednesday morning to congratulate him on his victory. She said that she told him she would work with him for the good of the country. She said America is more deeply divided than we thought.

Clinton said she hopes Trump will be a successful president for all Americans. She urged her supporters to "please never stop believing that fighting for what's right is worth it.

If she had won, Clinton would have become the first female president of the United States. During her speech, she said she was disappointed she had not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling.

She also spoke directly to young girls and women watching her speech.

Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world, to pursue and achieve your own dreams.

During his acceptance speech to supporters early Wednesday, Trump congratulated Clinton on her campaign effort.

Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely.

The president-elect also called on all Americans to unite.

To all Republicans and Democrats and Independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people. Its time.

Trump's victory ended one of the most divisive presidential campaigns ever. Both Clinton and Trump repeatedly said the other candidate was unfit to serve as president.

The win also ends eight years of Democratic Party rule in the White House. Political experts have said the change could lead to the undoing of many of President Barack Obamas policies.

Obama said Wednesday he had congratulated Trump by phone and that he will meet with him Thursday at the White House.

Obama promised a smooth change of leadership. He also urged the country to join him in supporting Trumps efforts to succeed as president. We all want what's best for this country, he said.

We try really hard to persuade people that we're right, and then people vote. And then if we lose, we learn from our mistakes. We do some reflection, we lick our wounds, we brush ourselves off, we get back in the arena. We go at it. We try even harder the next time.

House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who leads the Republican majority in the House, said Trump had managed to win a great political battle.

Ryan was slow to back Trumps candidacy and had publicly disagreed with him on several issues. But on Wednesday, he said he was excited about working with him.

Im Anne Ball.

Bryan Lynn wrote this story for Learning English based on reports from VOA News, the Associated Press and Reuters. Caty Weaver was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

concede - v. to admit that you have been defeated and stop trying to win

disappointed  adj. unhappy about something that didnt meet expectations

shatter  v. to break up

glass ceiling  n. unfair barriers that block people, especially women, from getting the most powerful jobs

pursue  v. to try to do something over time

gratitude  n. showing thankfulness to someone for a helpful act

root  v. to express or show support for (a person, a team, etc.)

reflection  n. serious and careful thought

arena  n. involved in the area of politics


Rice farmers in Thailand are facing a large drop in income because of the drop in the price of rice throughout Asia.

At the same time, costs to grow the crop are increasing. Farmers are not sure who to ask for help. Many of them are struggling this year. Some of them may not even make enough money to pay their production costs.

Experts say the governments rice storage plan is a short-term answer. It is similar to a plan put in place by then-Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Because of the failure of that plan, the military ousted the prime minister and fined her over $1 billion.

Many Thai workers believe the government does not know how to manage the economy. They believe the government is more interested in controlling the country than in helping farmers.

About 40 percent of the Thai workforce has agricultural jobs.

Lung Chai is a rice farmer in Chiang Mai.

He says the situation has affected all farmers. He says he is losing money, but does not know who to talk to about it. No one would hear our voice, he said.

Thailand faces strong competition for rice exports from India and Vietnam. This is partly because of lower pay in neighboring countries and large expected harvests this year.

A recent study paid for by the Bank of Thailand said Thai farmers should grow crops in addition to rice. It also said farmers should be trained to help predict market changes.

Singhachai Boonyayotin is a senior director of the Bank of Thailand.

He said Thailand should produce products other than white rice to compete with Vietnam and Cambodia.

Wachirajak Nin-khuntod wanted to help his father who is a rice farmer. He began packaging his crops and selling them on the internet as a way to increase income.

He said, My parents didnt believe at first that I would be able to sell rice on social media, because most farmers believe we can sell rice to the middleman or rice mill company only.

Now, he says, his parents know that they can sell their own rice without a middleman.

Im Phil Dierking.

Correspondent Steve Sandford reported this story from Chiang Mai, Thailand. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted it into VOA Special English. Mario Ritter 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

package  v. the act of process of putting something in a package or container

middleman  n. a person or company that buys goods from a producer and sells them to someone else

mill  n.a building with machinery for grinding grain into flour or a machine for grinding grain
The memory of a beloved pet inspires one couple's fight against injustice.
LEXINGTON,Neb. - After graduating from Grand Island High School, career options were limited for Pat Samway.

"I had no inkling I was going to go into healthcare, I was wavering," she said.

"Only nursing, secretary, teaching or housewife were available for a woman. So a friend suggested nursing and here I am," Samway said.

She moved to Omaha with a friend, where she trained to become a registered nurse.

Samway and her husband, Denny Samway, moved to Lexington in the 1970s when Denny was transferred to manage the Wheeler Store. The couple had previously lived in other parts of the state before the Lexington transfer.

"I got to Lexington, and liked Lexington for its great education system for my sons," she said.

On Sept. 1, 1976, Samway began her first day on the job with Tri-County Hospital (what is now Lexington Regional Health Center) as a nurse.

During her nursing career, she worked as a clinic nurse and as a school nurse, but mostly in a hospital setting, Samway said.

It wasn't until after she worked as a nurse that she found her calling in life: to become a social worker. Samway then went back to school at the University of Nebraska at Kearney to become a social worker.

Samway is now the Executive Director of Community and External Affairs at LRHC. She is also a coordinator for the Community Fitness Initiative (CFI), organizer for the monthly Wellness Connection Health Talks and serves as the LRHC Auxiliary's hospital liaison.

Even when she and Denny had opportunities and job offers to move to McCook andFt. Collins,Colo., Samway said she appreciated working at a wonderful place in the Lexington hospital and believed in the community. Thus she didn't move.

"I truly believe in the community and want to give back to it," she said. Samway said she has always been fortunate to have Chief Executive Officers who have allowed her to volunteer and give back to the community.

Samway has previously served as the president of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce board and was honored as the Nebraska Hospital Association's Social Worker of the Year for 2004 - 2005 and Caring Kind Award recipient in 2007.

She said LRHC is a great place to work. The leadership is generous about family time, which is very important to me, Samway said.

"The hospital has a true family environment. You get to know an individual as if they are a family member. I love to come to work; I'm long past the age of retirement. I keep coming back," Samway said.

Samway said Denny calls workers at LRHC, her "family away from family."

Kristina Bergmark, Director of Social Services at LRHC, has worked with Samway since 2009. Bergmark said Samway is multi-talented and very caring with co-workers and patients.

Bergmark described Samway as a very kind person who is always helpful, and has exceeded in being a multi-tasker.

"She is a wonderful patient advocate, as she will always defend what is right. She is someone you want on your team," Bergmark said.

Bergmark said Samway is a good leader who is not afraid to take on new responsibilities.

"Pat does wear several hats, but it's because she is flexible and always seeks opportunities. She is a positive thinker and has a great love for this hospital. She is the best role model when it comes to loyalty. She is also a great cheerleader for this facility and is so proud of what we have accomplished," Bergmark said.

Samway's welcoming personality and compassionate nature is often seen in her warm greetings to others, Bergmark said.

"Pat treats you like family regardless of who you are. She loves to give hugs and hold hands. She is so welcoming and has a listening ear. She wants the best outcome for all who walk into her life. She provides strength and support to everyone with her kind and energetic spirit," Bergmark said.

Bergmark said Samway has been a mentor and role model for her since she was began working at LRHC.

"Pat has helped me grow from day one. I was so excited to start my career at what was then called Tri - County hospital, because of Pat. She was so enthusiastic during our interview that I could not help, but be excited to start working with her. Pat has been a great role model and leader. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience that allows a great opportunity to learn from her," Bergmark said.

Bergmark continued, "She shares a passion for her career and she is well respected throughout our community. She has built my assertiveness skills and has led me to a path of becoming a leader as well. She is the best example of a kindhearted leader. She is such a treasure and I have been very blessed to work alongside her all of these years."

Editor's note: The Clipper-Herald is running a story on each of the five Lexington Regional Health Center (LRHC) employees who were recently recognized by the hospital for reaching the 40-years of service milestone.
disclaimer

I have received the books on this blog for review from the publisher or author or I have bought them. I have no financial interest in any book featured on this blog.
It is often asserted that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 proved that HWA was right and he really did see the future.

This of course is nonsense. Herbert W. Armstrong said that Christ would return within twenty years in his book Mystery of the Ages. (PCG has since deleted those words so someone in there knows HWA spoke nonsense.) How convenient for them to forget this.

Also Herbert W. Armstrong never said the Soviet Union would collapse. He thought it would survive intact until a few years after Christ's return. It shows how biased some many in the COGs are that they never seem to notice this. This inconvenient truth is just tossed into the memory hole.

It is true that HWA said that some Eastern European states would break away from Moscow's orbit and join the European Empire he said would arise at any moment. But he never talked of the Soviet Union collapsing. He did not teach that. Also he portrayed the rise of the European Empire to be far quicker then what has actually happened. In Mystery of the Ages Christ was supposed to return by 2005 at the most.

So assertions that the fall of the Berlin Wall somehow prove that HWA was right is just complete nonsense spread by people who, for whatever reason, are still in denial that HWA was a false prophet who merely talked out of his own "human reasoning".




Particularly during my sojourns in South Africa, it may not be possible for me to perform the moderation function speedily. I regret the necessity of moderation but it has been rendered inevitable by the behaviour of a particular commentator whose contributions will always and without exception be rejected.





No correspondence will be entered into regarding moderation decisions.

Readers are invited to comment on blog posts. All comments require to be pre-moderated by me, and I shall reject all (a) that are not related to the Lockerbie disaster or (b) that fail to meet my -- perhaps idiosyncratic -- standards of courtesy towards other contributors. Comments will not be rejected simply because I disagree with them or because I, or other contributors, find them irritating. But comments will be rejected if they distort or misrepresent the evidence; are defamatory; or if they risk embroiling me, as publisher, in defamation proceedings. I am perfectly relaxed about being sued in respect of material which I personally have posted -- but not in respect of material that others wish to post as comments and which, in any case, I often strongly disagree with.
The rabbinical students hesitated before knocking. The name on the doorbell read David OMalley-Keyes.

Not a very Jewish sounding name. But you never know.

Levi Levertov and Yisrael Treitel had come from New York looking for Jews in Alaskas vast hinterland. They followed a few leads from Wasillas local Chabad representative, Rabbi Mendel Greenberg.

As they waited, they overheard a mans voice inside: Look, weve got guys in yarmulkes here!

A woman came to the door. They spoke for a while. Julia OMalley told them that her mother was Jewish. Her brother David, the tall fellow resting in the living room, was terminally ill. Perhaps this wasnt a good time. They exchanged contact information. The rabbis were about to leave when the ailing man struck up a conversation with them. One of the rabbis asked him if he knows what tefillin are.

He didnt.

Did he have a bar-mitzvah?

He hadnt.

Would he like a two-minute bar mitzvah now?

David Austin OMalley-Keyes asked the rabbis to please come in.

As they began to bind the tefillin with him, his complexion changed. David had only recently learned that his maternal grandmother was Jewish, a fact that helped explain why he never felt quite right thinking he was Christian. He read the Shema for the first time, now emotionally overwhelmed. The rabbinical students wished him Mazel Tov! Davids sister snapped a few photos.

You just told me, his sister said to him incredulously, that you said you wished you had something that you could take with you to the other side!

David took some time to regain his composure.

I did, he said, tears spilling from his eyes.

Please believe me, he told the young men, that for this alone it was worth it for you to come from New York.

Before the rabbinical students were due to return to New York, Wasillas Chabad representative invited the community to join the young rabbis at Chabads Shabbat dinner. A very weakened David made the effort to come with his sister Julia.

David spoke briefly at the Shabbat table. When he learned that there was no treatment for his illness, he said, he was seized by an urgent desire for something enduring, something spiritual.

I prayed for a sign of some sort.

His voice broke. And then theres a knock on the door and these two wonderful rabbis from New York came to celebrate my bar mitzvah with me. I felt that they were G-d sent.

Davids spiritual thirst grew. He was now binding tefillin every day, sometimes reluctant to unwrap them.

With his health deteriorating, Rabbi Greenberg felt he owed it to David to open the conversation about the Jewish way in death and burial. He was interested, hungry to make up for lost time and learn as much as possible.

David traveled to Tacoma, Washington, to be with his daughter. The high holidays were coming up. Rabbi Greenberg put him in touch with the citys Chabad rabbi, Zalman Heber.

Rabbi Heber was taken with Davids dignity and sharp intelligence. He was, said Heber, deeply thoughtful and filled with gratitude for what had transpired in the last weeks of his life.

In shul on Rosh Hashana, David held the Torah as the shofar was sounded. He talked about what it meant to him to have forged a personal bond with G-d.

On Sunday, October 20, Rabbi Heber visited David. By now he had grown much weaker.

Did he have any thoughts about what he wanted said at his funeral?

Tell them, said David, that its never too late to embrace your Judaism and live as a proud Jew.

He said the Shema. Rabbi Heber helped him bind the tefillin one last time.

The following day, Monday, October 21, David, 64, took his last breath. His family had planned for his cremation but instead respected Davids last wishes. At his funeral, his brother recited the kaddish with Rabbi Hebers help.

A world traveler, a long-time talk radio host, a man of great wit, remarkable knowledge and musical talent, in the last weeks of his life David found what had eluded him for so long. Thanks to the guys in the yarmulkes, David Austin OMalley Keyes finally lived as a Jew, died as a Jew and was buried as a Jew. May his memory be for a blessing.
Devon Freeman is being accused by authorities of gunning down a young Manatee County woman.

Moriah Goode, 18, was shot and killed Sunday night

Deputies say Devon Freeman is responsible



No word yet if Goode was acquainted with Freeman

The 21-year-old man was arrested in Sarasota late Wednesday night on charges of second degree murder.

Detectives say he fatally shot 18-year-old Moriah Goode.

According to authorities, Goode was shot to death over the weekend while sitting in her car.

She was well known in the community. Just three years ago, neighbors rallied around the lupus survivor, helping the teen get the stem cell treatments she desperately needed.

Goodes mother, Janet, told reporters after her daughters death that she forgave her murderer, but pleaded that he turn himself in. The family has also started a GoFundMe.com page to help cover funeral costs.



Goode, who had also reportedly overcome juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, was adopted by her parents from her native country, Haiti. According to the Bradenton Herald, she had hoped to become a medical technician.

This Gofundme.com site is not managed by Bay News 9. For more information on how the site works and the rules visit http://www.gofundme.com /safety.
The Florida Department of Transportation is holding a public workshop to discuss a new bikeway through downtown Tampa.

Additional bike lanes coming to downtown Tampa

Proposed lanes would go from Jackson St. to Ashley Dr., to Nebraska

The proposed bike lanes would be on the north side of Jackson Street, running from Ashley Drive to Nebraska Avenue.

The addition would look a lot like the new lanes already on Cass Street.

It's something we can definitely utilize, said Hillsborough resident Carlos Vidal. With the tremendous growth in the area, that would be a good idea.

In the early phases, locals will see protected bike lanes on Cass Street, or the green spine, complete with bike signals. The addition will give cyclists a safe place to ride.

As the project moves forward, Floridas Department of Transportation would like to expand the lanes through the heart of downtown. According to leaders, Jackson Street is a natural connection because theres less traffic than on Kennedy Boulevard.

Jackson also provides a straight-shot through the downtown Tampa.

Officials note that its possible on current on-street parking configurations could change.

Bay News 9 has partnered with the Florida Department of Transportation on its Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow campaign. The idea is to make sure were all sharing the road with people who walk or ride their bikes, and everyone makes it where they need to be safely. FDOT has all kinds of resources for you on alerttodayflorida.com.
A local food bank needs help saving people from going hungry.

Officials at the St. Petersburg Free Clinic took Bay News 9 cameras inside Thursday to show how bare their shelves are.

The food bank is a victim of supply and demand.

"This is the time of year before the major holiday food drives that our pantry becomes very bare," said Beth Houghton, executive director of the clinic.

"And so things like pasta, pasta sauce, this is where canned vegetables are supposed to go and there's literally not a can. Canned soup, canned beans, peanut butter and jelly, those kinda of staples that get families through, we're just very thin on."

To help restock the shelves, please check the links and information below.

- St. Petersburg Free Clinic Website

- Food donation wish list

- Donation hours: 8 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. (general business hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.)

- If you're donating a large volume of food, please call 727-821-1200 x109 in advance so St. Petersburg Free Clinic can arrange for help unloading the goods.

- To hold a food drive, visit this page or call 727-821-1200 x109. St. Petersburg Free Clinic will deliver a barrel to collect goods and pick it up when its full.

- Viewers can shop from home with their Amazon wish list and have the items delivered to the Free Clinic. Click here to learn more.




The cafeteria at Tara Elementary in Manatee County was filled with red, white, and blue in honor of Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

More than 700 students thanked those who have served with songs, as more than 30 veterans watched the show.

Tara Elementary students honor veterans with songs

Veterans Day is Friday, Nov. 11

Students were able to talk to the veterans about their time in the military

"I enjoyed the music and watching the people on the board in their remembrance of all that have served and were related to this school," said Army Veteran Ian Brand.

Another veteran in attendance was Bruce Curtis, who served in the Army for almost 17 years. Curtis' 4th grade son, Austin, was one of the students singing.

"I knew he was coming because he drove me to school, but it was cool to see him because hes a veteran and the whole show was about veterans," Austin said.



After the show the kids got to ask the veterans about their time in the military.

"By doing this it really engrains in them, especially year after year and grade after grade, it really engrains in them to respect the flag and what it means," said Bruce Curtis.



Whether they served in Vietnam or Iraq, each of these veterans lit up with pride talking about our country. The thank you remarks went both ways.

This is the first time the celebration was hosted at Tara Elementary, but the school hopes to make it an annual event.

The event was sponsored by Bright House Networks, the parent company of Bay News 9.
There are a countless things to see and do this Veterans Day weekend for those living or visiting the Central Florida and Tampa Bay areas.

Let's take a look:

Central Florida

Who doesn't love a parade? Orlando's parade for Saturday, Nov. 12, will feature such things as marching bands, veterans groups, active duty military and decorative floats. And if you keep your eyes open, you just may see some News 13 anchors and staff on a float.

Many from all branches of military service are expected to appear on Friday, Nov. 11. Everyone will enjoy the musical tributes and the anecdotal speakers.

The celebration honors those who served, and it will be hosted on Veteran's Day, Nov. 11, on the lower level outside Dillard's. This special ceremony is free and everyone is welcome.

The event features free health screenings, special free programs and refreshments, plus free flu shots for those with a Medicare card. The event is Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016.

Tampa

Lake St. George Elementary on Friday, Nov. 11, has invited current and former members of the U.S. Armed Forces to this celebration.

This is a free patriotic event on Friday, Nov. 11, that will have guest speakers, music and refreshments to honor all branches and members of the U.S. military, past and present.

"Join us in downtown Haines City at Railroad Park in the Military Court of Honor to honor all those who have served," says the parade Facebook page. The parade will be held Friday, Nov. 11.

Now through Nov. 13, enjoy rides, food and music during this Veterans Day weekend.
Thousands of people took to the streets, across the country, Wednesday night and Thursday morning to protest the election of Donald Trump.

Police did not anticipate the crowds flooding streets and blocking traffic.

The protests occurred across the country, from Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle, to Atlanta, Washington, Philadelphia, New York City and Boston.

Thousands of young-ish protesters of every race swarm 5th and 6th Ave the Empire State Building. pic.twitter.com/mtM3VFTQVT  Jacob Bernstein (@BernsteinJacob) November 10, 2016

Not only are they protesting Donald Trump, but also the election process.

"It just has an awful, awful message about this country and the way people feel in this country, especially towards people who are marginalized, toward the LGBT communities and people of color and immigrants," said protester Rudy Costello.

In Oakland, Calif., police said more than two dozen have been arrested and at least three officers were injured.

The protests come as President-Elect Trump tries to unify a nation.

Now its time for America to bind the wounds of division, we have to get together, Trump said during his victory party speech early Wednesday morning.

Even his opponent, Hillary Clinton urged unity.

We owe (Trump) an open mind and a chance to lead, Clinton said at a concession speech Wednesday morning.

It's an idea that has struck a chord with some protestors. I also dont believe in a lot of the sentiment right now, said protester Taylor Eubanks. The hate thats being directed at Donald Trump, hes not the president I elected, but hes the president were stuck with so we need to come together and work together.
The body of Kannada actor Anil was found early Thursday in the lake in which he drowned along with actor Uday after jumping from a helicopter during the filming of a Kannada movie earlier this week, said police.

"The NDRF (National Disaster Relief Force) team found Anil's bloated body floating in the backwaters of the TG Halli lake in the wee hours when it resumed search today," Magadi police station Circle Inspector H.L. Nandeesha told IANS.

The search team recovered Uday's body on Wednesday evening after it surfaced in the middle of the lake.

The Thippagondanahalli (TG Halli) lake is about 40 km northwest of Bengaluru at the confluence of the Arkavathy and Kumudavathi rivers in Ramanagara district. It is one of the sources of drinking water supply to Bengaluru.

The stunt act was the climax of the upcoming film Maastigudi where the hero Vijay chases the two villains trying to escape in a chopper from the lake shore. The hero too hops onto the chopper, which flies over the lake's backwaters.

As seen from the film footage, aired on news channels, in the fight between the hero and the duo, the hero pushes both the villains from the slow-cruising chopper and joins them in the reservoir to carry on the fight.

After the trio jumped from an altitude of about 60 feet while the shoot was on, they struggled to stay afloat. Vijay was rescued by local fishermen in a coracle, while Anil and Uday drowned as they did not know swimming and were not wearing life-jackets.

District police filed a criminal case under various sections of the IPC against the film unit, including producer, director and assistant director for negligence, failure to take precautionary measures like providing life-jackets.

"Anil's body will be handed over to his family members after autopsy at the state-run Victoria hospital in the city for the last rites later in the evening," said Nandeesha.

In a related development, the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce and Industry banned the film unit's director Nagashekhar, stunt director Ravi Verma and Vijay from doing any new film till the inquiry into the mishap is completed.

"The trio will not take up any new film project till the police investigation into the case and our inquiry is completed. The film ('Maastigudi'), for which the climax scene ended in tragedy, will also not be released till further notice," Chamber President Sa Ra Govinda told reporters here.
Brad Pitt has been cleared of abuse allegations in a child welfare investigation and has asked a court to grant him shared custody of his six children with his estranged wife, actress Angelina Jolie, a source close to the matter said on Wednesday.

Pitt, 52, fully cooperated in a comprehensive inquiry conducted by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, which found no wrongdoing on his part, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Hollywood power couple, dubbed 'Brangelina' during their decade-long romance, split following an incident on a private plane in which Pitt was reported to have lost his temper in front of one or more of the children.

According to celebrity news website TMZ.com, Jolie accused Pitt of striking their eldest son, Maddox.

Jolie, 41, filed for divorce from the actor, her husband of two years and romantic partner since 2005, in September, citing irreconcilable differences and seeking full physical custody of their children, ages 8 to 15.

At the time, the Oscar-winning actress said her decision to end the marriage 'was made for the health of the family.'

Their children include two adopted sons, Maddox from Cambodia and Pax from Vietnam, an adopted daughter from Ethiopia, Zahara, and three biological children, Shiloh Nouvel and twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.

Having been cleared by the child welfare agency of abuse, Pitt went to court last Friday and filed for joint custody of all six youngsters, according to the source.

The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) declined to comment on the matter to Reuters, citing confidentiality laws.

A representative for Jolie said on Wednesday she was 'relieved that after their 8-week involvement, the DCFS is now satisfied the safeguards are put in place that will allow the children to heal.'

Pitt then made his first public appearance following his being cleared of allegations when he hosted a private screening of his film Moonlight with pal Julia Roberts. Dressed in a plaid shirt and black suit, the 51-year-old smiled for cameras as his Ocean's Eleven co-star embraced him.

(Compiled with wire inputs)
Panaji: If you thought Goa was all about Sunburn, wait till you attend GOAT, a three-day boutique music and arts festival scheduled to take place in Goa starting from 27 January. The festival focuses on a fusion of music genres and artistes from around the world as well as showcase alternative India through art, design, fashion and gastronomy.

Organised by Goat Music, a London-based music and events agency founded by Dave Gaydon and Lou Birkett, the multi-genre festival will take place on the beaches of Ashvem and Morjim in Goa.

Leading the first announcement of acts is Gilles Peterson, a music connoisseur who has championed a global music perspective through his radio shows and label. Peterson is also the festival's artiste ambassador.

"GOAT promises to be a cross-fusion of cultures and sounds including some artistes which I have had the great pleasure of working with before," said Peterson, who often exchanges roles between being a DJ, broadcaster, producer, compiler and label boss.

Joining Peterson in Ashwem will be US-born, Pune-educated and London-based jazz composer, percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar.

Korwar's debut album Day to Day fuses traditional Folk music of the Sidi community in India (combining East African, Sufi and Indian influences) with Jazz and Electronics.

A flavour of one of London's coolest parties will be found on the beaches of Goa when Secretsundaze founder James Priestley plays at GOAT.

Joining him will be some raw talent like Dope St Jude, a socially conscious rapper from Cape Town alongside New Zealand soul electronic five-piece act Sorceress, London-based Medlar, famous for his funk-infuse strain of House music, Jazz-based duo Yussef Kamaal.

Also making an appearance at the festival will be Henry Wu, a rising beatmaker on the London scene and one-half of Yussef Kamal.

Janus Rasmussen of the Icelandic duo Kiasmos will present a DJ set as will Berlin-based DJ and house producer Marquis Hawkes. Dutch group blessed with the sound of the Caribbean and Tambu drums, Kuenta i Tambu (KiT) will invoke the sounds of the carnival.

Representing India at the festival will be live electronica producer Donn Bhat with his band, Donn Bhat + Passenger Revelator, Electronica DJ and producer Sandunes, Acid-infused-Synthpop producer Aqua Dominatrix, Mumbai-based Downtempo producer Kumail and Electro-cabaret and Disco duo, Madboy Mink.

The festival will feature two stages alongside three alternative performance spaces/DJ booths. After 10 pm, the festival will move to two night-time venues close to the festival grounds.

There will be well-being workshops and yoga sessions available through the day alongside on-site spa therapies.

There will be a chance to interact with like-minded people through dance and art workshops, storytelling and pop-up restaurants, which will serve local delicacies using sustainable produce.

For those with an adventurous streak, watersports such as surfing and paddle boarding will be an attractive option.
When it comes to kaala dhan, I have nothing to declare, except my regret. And, unlike the famous Oscar Wilde quip he probably never made, I really mean it.

I wish we had known and taken the bazaar gossip about demonetisation seriously, believed all those rumours about the new nuke-resistant, self-destructing, GPRS-enabled new Rs 2,000 notes. But, then, we suspended disbelief only for surgical strikes. I wish I knew, like Mikhail Gorbachev dismantling the Berlin Wall at Ronald Reagan's plea that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be dismantling the black economy to Baba Ramdev's applause.

I wish I knew  I could have kept a piece of it, like a piece of the Berlin Wall. I could have buried it in a book like a leaf to look at wistfully in old age.

But, the last note went, without a warning, without a goodbye, without looking back even once, without a farewell. Like, well, you know the feeling, don't you?

A wise man and his money are soon partying. It is their deserved destiny. So, the last Rs 500 note went wisely. It just left a hangover of nostalgia. A fool and his money, though, are soon parting.

And Modi has delivered the parting shot to all those who were foolish enough to miss the signs, to laugh at everyone that wears a khadau and wears bhagwa dhotis.

Banking transaction tax, the Baba chanted with every outgoing breath of his anulom, vilom before the 2014 General Election. We laughed.

"Declare voluntarily," exhorted Arun Jaitley and his team till September. We laughed again, asking, "Who pays a 45 percent penalty?"

Now, par 200 percent. A fool and his black money are soon parting.

Let's cooperate, build the nation, calls up my enthusiastic friend GP Goenka. He is a part-time trader and a full-time bookie, what we north Indians call a satoria.

After having accepted bets, managed betting books on the odds against anything  from who will win UP to how many dead bodies will come to a crematorium  for a lifetime, he is livid with the air of levity around Narendra Modi's action on black money. "Everybody with black money should suffer," he says. You bet!

Newspapers are flooded with adulatory advertisements from builders the next morning. Having built their business on the '70 percent kachcha, 30 percent pucca' philosophy, they are now ecstatic India is turning 100 percent white.

"What do you have to say about Modi now, ab bolo?" taunts an architect friend who takes a flat five percent commission on Rs 10 crore houses made by those with declared income of Rs 2 lakh.

With Rs 500 and 1,000 notes, irony also died on Tuesday night. (As did the great American dream).

When they burn all those gaddis, will they call it bonfire of hypocrisy?

You can't withdraw money any more from banks, but there is no end to withdrawal symptoms.

I am stuck in a Mumbai hotel, three Rs 100 notes in my pocket and a debit card no ATM will accept till Friday, listening to the cawing of black crows.

No kaali peeli driver will take kaala dhan any more. Bars, markets, theatres have all, like in the WH Auden poem, decided to stop the clock, stop the dog from barking with a juicy bone, pack up the moon and dismantle the sun. For nothing now can ever come to any good with Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Until a few days ago, I was looking forward to the tamasha of the Uttar Pradesh polls. Now, they will become such a low note affair. What will Mayawati do with all those garlands she gets on choosing the right candidates? Maybe she has a valid reason to choose candidates afresh. Start her poll pitch on a higher moral note, so to speak. Perhaps this is the end of the tiff in Mulayam's Parivar. With the root cause gone, they too can start on a fresh note!

On a serious note, it belies convention, money market logic to rush in where economists fear to tread.

You just can't suck 86 percent or so of currency in circulation out of the market and turn hard-earned cash into pieces of scrap. Abracadabra, gone.

What then is the idea behind statutory liquidity ratios, repo rates, reverse repo rates, rate cuts that are debated, argued for months? What then is the rocket science behind monetary policy?

How many people in rural India have easy access to banks, plastic money, ATMs? How many have enough valid notes to go through their lives with weddings, medical emergencies, constructions? Is this the return of tax raj?

In the long term, a lifetime of savings parked in real estate and gold will suffer. Who will buy those big expensive cars, build those lofty buildings, buy those expensive flats? Many traders who rely on cash circulation will just keel over. Consumption will fall, discretionary demand would vanish.

But, that, perhaps, is momentary pain. Some day, with the black economy, it will also be gone.

Only one regret will remain forever: You left without a goodbye. Now, I don't have even a piece of you.
Mumbai: Hurried donations made to nearly 100 temples and trusts and sudden spurt in cash reserves in nearly 1,000 cooperative banks and credit societies in Maharashtra after Centre's decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes have come under government's scanner, a senior state minister said on Thursday.

"The suspicious part of the whole rush for temple donations and opening six deposit accounts is that they were triggered immediately after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement of demonetising currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination," the minister said.

The minister, who did not wish to be named, said officials have apprised the state government that there has been a surge in donations to temples immediately after the announcement.

"Some people have tried to secure their unaccounted cash by donating it to temples by taking its management into confidence and making receipt of such donations as anonymous donors," he said.

A similar pattern was applied in some cooperative banks that are associated or directly controlled by politicians, he said.

"Some people having unaccounted cash in lakhs of rupees have managed to secure receipts of the opening of fixed deposit account. It was possible because these (cooperative) banks operate locally with the handful of branches and cater to local banking needs," the minister said.

"In such cases, the unaccounted cash will turn into white money, if people manage to produce all valid documents. We have asked officials from departments concerned to keep a tab on any suspicious transaction, donations or deals," he said.

"In most of these banks, works, including issuing receipts, is done manually. As a result, some people managed to get the date of opening of the FD account, as prior to the PM's announcement. To counter such frauds, the government will check the unnatural rise in the cash reserves in these banks. They will be under scanner," the minister added.

Such fraudulent transactions have taken place in over 100 temples and trusts in the state, he said, adding, action will be initiated against those guilty of colluding with the fraudsters.

The government will also monitor the sudden spurt in cash reserves in the nearly 1,000 cooperative banks and credit societies in Maharashtra.

Some temple managements are "close to political parties, making such transactions possible," he alleged.
On the night of 8 November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi shocked the nation with the announcement that all notes of the denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 would not be legal tender after four hours. This sudden war on black money surprised and shocked the nation.

While the big issues on everybody's minds were the complications and inconveniences associated with turning in the new notes and managing without legal denominations (Rs 100, Rs 50, Rs 20, Rs 10 etc) in the interim, another thought was, and is, hanging in the air: Where did this idea for such unprecedented action come from?

It is possible that when a government of a country with an economy as large as India's takes a decision of such magnitude it might source ideas from multiple or even multitude entities, Firstpost has identified one organisation whose idea for cleansing India of black money matches the plan announced by the prime minister to a T.

The organisation's name is ArthaKranti. It is a Pune-based think-tank consisting of technocrats and chartered accountants whose mission is captured aptly in the name they picked for themselves: Financial/economic revolution (loose translation). ArthaKranti claims that it had made the proposal of abolishing the currency notes of larger denomination along with four other proposals to the prime minister even before he assumed office in 2014.

According to a newsletter published on its website on 9 September, "Anil Bokil, one of the key members of Arthakranti Sansthan was given time to share (their plan for wiping out black money ed) to Modi. He was given nine minutes for sharing but Modi heard him for two hours". ArthaKranti says it made five proposals and defines them as "well-researched scientific approaches designed to completely transform the current Indian socio-economic scenario. This approach will enable 'Principled, Prosperous and Peaceful living' for all citizens of our country".

Talking about the vision behind the proposals and journey of the organisation, Amod Phalke, a mechanical engineer and one of the members of ArthaKranti said, "The five-point ArthaKranti Proposal came into being in 1999. It is worth noting that in 1999, Rs 1,000 notes did not exist. They came into circulation in 2001 and today account for 38 percent (by value) of all currency money."

He added, "The quest began around 1995. The trigger was some sensible and sensitive minds who saw some families around collapsing under burden of private money lenders who would charge rates starting at two percent per month. The quest began with some basic queries: Why is the government not printing the required amount of money? Why do so many people have no access to banks? What is currency money? What is bank money? What is the logic behind the government printing a certain amount of currency money? And in this quest, these minds could see the larger picture  involving the roles of  taxation system, high-denomination currency and underdeveloped banking system  which cover both monetary and fiscal aspects of the macro-economy. And this relentless pursuit led to the birth of the 'ArthaKranti Proposal' in 1999".

About their meeting with the prime minister, Phalke said, "We met Modiji in 2013 in Gandhinagar when he was Gujarat's chief minister. The meeting lasted for around 90 minutes. We highlighted how the root causes of the current economic reality lie in the technical flaws in the macro-economy  the taxation system, high-denomination currency and the underdeveloped banking system".

He added, "High denominations (Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes) accounting for around 85 percent of currency money are helping black money, corruption, and anti-social and anti-national activities. They also make money a 'commodity' in our country displacing it from its intended function  a 'medium of exchange'." A medium is one which everybody can use but nobody can possess.

However, thanks to high denominations, in our country we can easily hold large amount of cash thus making money a commodity. This blocks generation of credit money, also known as bank money. Also to be noted is the menace of fake currency  again a technical problem. The cost of printing high denominations is very low (Rs 4 per note), provides a huge premium for printing and injecting them into our economy."

He added, "And we see that Modiji has shown outstanding courage to take the first difficult step  withdrawal of high denominations. We look forward to the implementation of the remaining points of the ArthaKranti proposal soon!"

So what are the other revolutionary proposals of ArthaKranti? While, as pointed out earlier, it is likely that ArthaKranti is just one of the many entities from which Modi sourced his big idea. But the fact that there are striking similarities between what ArthaKranti proposes and what the government has done, raises the next big question: What is the next big idea up ArthaKranti's sleeve and will the government travel down that road?

Keep watching this space. Here's is ArthaKranti's next big idea that will make your jaw drop. At the level of an idea it is galling, so you never know if it will see the light of the day. But, wait, wasn't that what we thought about demonetisation until two days ago?

Come back soon for the next killer idea by ArthaKranti.
Most reports that followed post Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dramatic announcement on Tuesday evening clamping down on the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes had one thing in common  the role of Anil Bokil and his NGO Arthakranti Pratisthan.

The Maharashtra-based organisation claims that it gave a presentation to the Modi cabinet on August 2014 how to remove black money from the system. The cabinet was all ears and reportedly sought more material to convince itself of the positive impact that such a move might create. Following this, one of the core members from Bokil's NGO on the condition of anonymity, claimed that a senior official from the Prime Minister's Office was constantly in touch with the office bearers of Arthakranti Pratisthan after the NGO made its presentation to top BJP ministers at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi at the behest of the PM.

No sooner had the move was taken to junk the biggest Indian currency notes, the organisation has been claiming that it was, in fact, their idea which was submitted to the Prime Minister even before he became the country's premier. Bokil, who is trained as an engineer and as a chartered accountant in an exclusive interview to Firstpost, spoke about his meeting with Modi, the many theories that are popping up on how long he actually met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and his thoughts what ails the Indian economy and how the country needs to get over the financial trauma.

When did you first meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

I first met PM Narendra Modi in December 2013 when he was serving as the chief minister of Gujarat along with my team from Arthakranti Pratishtan. After that, we regularly met top BJP leaders including LK Advani. Two years after Modi formed the government at the Centre, I and my team met him again in July 2016. We gave a presentation on how black money could be wiped out from the country to the Union cabinet ministers in August 2014 soon after Modi became the PM.

Actually, since 2000, we have been regularly meeting BJP top leaders like Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Manohar Parrikar among others.

Modi in our first meeting listened to us for around 90 minutes. He had assured us that he will definitely consider our suggestion and now after three years when we first met him, the Prime Minister practically took the initiative to erase black money from the system.

How do you react to the PM's move of scrapping Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination currency notes?

I could only say that it's a great decision and a great gesture. I personally congratulate Prime Minister Modi for taking this decision fast. All Indians know that our PM is a daring man. It's a historical decision as it will free the Indian economy from black money. Out of the total currency in circulation, 80 percent notes were of the denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. Fake currencies are being pumped into India from the neighbouring countries quite easily. It only costs Rs 3 to make a Rs 1,000 fake currency note. That means with an investment of just Rs 3, the neighbouring nations actually put Rs 997 fake cash into our system.

We last met the Prime Minister in July 2016. But the sudden decision was even shocking for us. We also proposed withdrawal of the existing taxation system and replacing it with a single-point transaction tax.

PM Modi took up the challenge and this would strengthen our economy. I am the happiest man in the country today.

Post the currency ban what should be the next step of the government?

To suddenly scrap high-value denomination notes is 50 percent of the job done. But the remaining 50 percent to wipe out all the 56 taxes from the country is going to be a very tough decision. All 130 crore Indians should rally behind PM Modi to get these taxes removed. Eighty percent of the country's transaction is done by cash and only 20 percent are done through cheques, demand draft and online. So nobody knows about the extent of actual money in our country. Besides that, most of the terror groups, unsocial elements use cash transfer from hawala or fake notes. Whenever we physically exchange the cash, we usually don't record the cash transaction . So from now on people will be more drawn towards e-payments, cheque, DD etc.

The country's taxation policy also speaks little about cash transaction. Apart from the terror links that black money is normally associated with, this menace has encouraged corruption and has also increased the rate of unemployment and staggered the growth of the country.

Have you met leaders from other political outfits apart from the BJP?

In 2005, we met Shiv Sena leader Suresh Prabhu for the first time. (Prabhu has now joined the BJP). He was very much impressed by our proposal. He also suggested some important points and when he became a minister in the Modi cabinet. Both Prabhu and Gadkari have encouraged us a lot as I am from Maharashtra. Both the leaders have been helping me and my NGO Arthkranti Pratishtan a lot.

We have also met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh and many other Congress leaders as well. Rahul listened carefully to me and my team and then advised us to meet the Congress Core Group ahead of the Lok Sabha election in 2014.

We have met all leaders from all major parties on the issue of freeing India of black money. But without a hint the PM did an outstanding job. He showed courage. It's not a small thing to take such a historic decision. This decision is no less than a major surgery done on a patient.

Did Rahul Gandhi give you enough time?

I really dont want to indulge in a blame game that Rahul Gandhi gave us less time whereas Modi gave us time more than 10 times than it was actually allotted for us.

How strong is Arthkranti Pratishtan?

There are primary 10 to 15 members of Arthkranti Pratishtan when it was launched in 2000. Now there are lakhs of accountants, engineered and other highly qualified youths who have joined us.
New Delhi: The nine-page description released by Tata Sons today, putting the blame of all that went wrong in the group during Cyrus Mistrys chairmanship, is a very interesting document. Since 24 October, when the Tata Sons board replaced Mistry as chairman in a shock announcement, there has been a lot of speculation over why Mistry was sacked.

In the absence of any details from Tata Sons, most stories in the media have quoted unnamed sources from either side of the divide to justify, variously, how the group prospered under Mistry and how it was in doldrums due to Mistrys mishandling. Todays rebuttal by Tata Sons is of deep interest because it reveals a lot of financial and operational details of the group and major group companies, which were not in the public domain till now.

The single most important factor confirmed by Tata Sons is: the groups profit is primarily accruing from just two entities  TCS and Jaguar Land Rover. These two companies probably account for around 50 percent of the total turnover and probably over 90 percent of the total profits of the whole group! In fact, the fight has now moved to events in the TCS board of directors, over which both sides have different stories to tell.

Heres what the Tata Sons statement reveals about the over $100 billion Tata Group:

Dividends: The groups dividend declined by a fifth during Mistrys tenure. Tata Sons earned Rs 780 crore in dividend from 41 companies in 2015-16 against Rs 1,000 crore in 2012-13. The statement clarifies that the figure for last fiscal also includes interim dividend of Rs 100 crore which would have been normally received in 2016-17 (due to budgetary changes). Takeaway: Tata Sons earned just over Rs 2 crore in dividend from group companies a day in 2015-16.

Staff expenses: Excluding interest on debt, the spends on staff rose to Rs 180 crore in 2015-16 from just Rs 84 crore in 2012-13, a 114 percent increase. Other expenses increased from Rs 220 crore in 2012-13 to Rs 290 crore last fiscal.

Impairment: Impairment provisions last fiscal were a whopping Rs 2,400 crore, or Rs 200 crore a month. The statement says this figure was just Rs 200 crore in 2012-13 and the dramatic increase indicates an inability to stem falling values and turning around the hot spots. This term was referred to by Mistry in an earlier statement.

Loss: If we exclude dividend from crown jewel TCS, even before impairment provisions, Tata Sons was making operating losses over the last 3 years (with a small surplus in between). This means if something happened to alter/worsen TCS performance over the coming years, the groups worsening profitability would become, well, even more precarious. The groups actual loss figures are not provided in the statement.

Debt: Group indebtedness went up by a whopping 30 percent in the four years under Mistry rule, says Tata Sons. It increased by about Rs 48 crore a day on an average or by Rs 69,877 crore in the four years to settle at Rs 225,740 crore.

Profit: TCS and Jaguar LandRover account for over 90 percent of the groups profits. Excluding these two companies, the group turnover has increased but the profits of the rest of the group declined during Mistrys four-year tenure. No figures are provided for these claims though.

Tata Steel: The statement says during the past three years, the Tata group has written down/ written off or made provisions for impairment worth thousands of crores. Tata Steel alone has written off a large part of its investment in its UK/European assets. It is interesting to note that the new buyers of some of the steel assets for 1 in the UK have claimed a dramatic turnaround in the very first year of their take-over. In our view, these sub-par results cannot be blamed on the commodity cycle or economic conditions  but on his leadership. The statement does not provide any indication of the way forward on proposed disposal of the UK assets of Tata Steel.

Tata Motors: The statement reveals that the market share of Tatas passenger car business has dropped to less than half, from 13 percent in 2012-13 to just 5 percent now. The decline in the commercial vehicle business share is much more steep: from 60 percent in 2012-13 to 40 percent plus now. Remember, Tata has been a market leader in trucks and buses and the 40% share is the lowest in the groups history. The statement goes on to say that Bolt and Zest launches have seen lacklustre performance, achieving current sales levels more or less equal to those of the Indica and Indigo which are around 15-year-old vehicles. The third launch of Tiago has been well received in the market but its sustained steady state volumes are yet to be determined.

Tata Teleservices/NTT DoCoMo: Along with Tata Steel and Tata Motors, this is the third problem area identified in the Tata Sons statement. But not a word was mentioned on how the dispute between the Tatas and Japan's NTT DoCoMo would be resolved given the latter exercising its put option for selling off its 26 percent stake in the venture. The matter is in the Delhi High Court after a UK court awarded DoCoMo the entire amount it had sought as a pre-determined sale price. With Prime Minister Modi in Japan now, perhaps a solution could emerge!
India is witnessing the emergence of a movement of 'ex-Muslims'. Troubled by the involvement of Muslims in suicide bombings in primarily Muslim countries like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, helped by the availability of alternative interpretations of Islam on the internet, and driven by a questioning mind, Muslim youths in India are gradually leaving Islam. Such youths  both men and women, and well educated  are typically in their twenties and thirties and describe themselves as ex-Muslims, atheists or cultural Muslims. They network through social media, Facebook and WhatsApp, often use anonymous IDs, and are based in towns across India.

Sultan Shahin, editor of the reformist website NewageIslam.com, says that there is no organised movement of ex-Muslims in India like it is in Western countries such as Britain, but some Muslims called him to inquire about real Islam. "I have spoken to 3-4 Muslims who have left five-time prayers. A lawyer in Delhi even convinced his father to leave Islam," Shahin says, adding that many such youths browse anti-Islam websites and accept the jihadi discourse as real Islam.

"I see individuals coming up [on social media] and we know each other. I can say that I am one of them," says Nadia Nongzai, speaking of ex-Muslims. Nadia, who is based in Shillong and holds a B Tech in computer science and a Master's degree in economics, comes from a practicing Muslim family. "In school, I could not believe that the god [Allah] who is so great will not have a sense of fair play and will send all non-Muslim kids of my school to hell," she says, questioning the Islamic teachings that non-Muslims will not enter heaven. She does not hesitate in describing herself an ex-Muslim. Asked if this could pose a security threat to her, she says she doesn't hide her identity and adds: "I am trained in martial arts."

Sazi Suber (name changed) was born in Saudi Arabia and raised there by his parents till 10. His mother, who converted from Christianity to Islam and returned to Christianity later, brought him back to Mangalore, where he was sent to a madrassa. Sazi now holds a BE in computer science and is working on an app for comic books. "When I came to India, I found dogs cute and lovable. My mother told me that playing with dogs is haram [forbidden by Islam]," he says about the first clash of viewpoint he had regarding Islam. In Islam, dogs are seen as unpious and Muslims are forbidden to keep them as pets.

Two years after coming to India, Sazi was attending a congregation in Mangalore where an Islamic cleric was telling Muslims on a loudspeaker to not accept water and food from non-Muslim homes. This came as a shock to him and he couldn't reconcile with this idea. "It was like telling me to hate my mom who was a Christian. No child can accept this," he says about the cleric's announcement. It fuelled his questioning of Islam. "I started reading science. Islam appeared as a shock. The logical conclusion led me to think: this was not right," Sazi, now an atheist and 27 years old, says, adding that he also began questioning as to why only Muslims were involved in suicide bombings.

Ashiq (nickname) is an electronics engineer based in Thiruvananthapuram. "I used to go to a madrassa. I read books from the library about science. I used to ask my teachers: Who created god? But the teachers wouldnt respond to my questions," he says, adding that they would instead say: "You are guided by Satan. They would call me Satan's shadow." Ashiq's most piercing question to his madrassa teachers was: since a day can last six months in countries near the North Pole, when should Muslims break their day-long fast? The madrassa teachers did not have knowledge of geography. "The clerics beat me up for asking this," he says.

Read the full story here.
Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has welcomed the decision of the Central Government to withdraw currency denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, saying the step was needed to check the scourge of black money and corruption in the country.

The Chief Minister described corruption as a "vicious menace" which eats up the vitals of growth and development of a society and the country.

She hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his bold steps to check corruption, illegal transaction of money and other such evils which hamper the development of the country.

The Chief Minister said though the step would entail temporary inconvenience to people but its positive effects would be in the larger and long-term interests of the country and people.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh today welcomed the decision of the Central Government to withdraw currency denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 maintaining that the step would go a long way in eradication of money laundering and corruption.

While describing the step as a historic, the Deputy Chief Minister said that the Prime Minister has taken several measures to end the menace of corruption.

He said that corruption is the scourge which is eating into the vitals of the country thereby hampering its overall development. He said the historical initiative should be welcomed by one and all.

The Deputy Chief Minister informed that he has already taken up the issue of inconvenience being faced by certain traders at toll posts with the State Finance Minister.

He said the remedial measures in this regard would be soon taken.
Srinagar: A militant was on Thursday killed as army foiled an infiltration bid near the Line of Control (LoC) in Baramulla district of north Kashmir.

A group of militants tried to infiltrate in Rampur sector in Baramulla, but their attempt was thwarted by the alert troops, an army official said. During the exchange of fire, one militant was killed, he added.

The operation was in progress, the official said, adding that further details were awaited.
Ask any South Indian living in Mumbai where he would like to meet up for coffee and some hot meals and the answer would be Matunga East  Mumbais very own Chennai. Here, every small restaurant is a story  of hardworking, self-taught cooks, who would start humbly and then went on to create iconic food outlets.

So when Matungas jewel  Manis Lunch Home (next to Sankar Mattam), shut shop in July this year, it made it to the headlines. Voted as best South Indian restaurant by many food writers/critics, it is their unique Kerala-style vegetarian food that drew people across the city for 14 years.

But owner KS Narayanaswamy was helpless as many in tenants in Matunga, where old structures are giving way to fancy high rises. He promised to return soon. Everyone (including me) sighed and tried to move on to other outlets, only to get a call from Narayanaswamy on Wednesday that Manis is reopening on Thursday, not in Matunga, but in Chembur East.

For a non-South Indian like me, Manis has become a habit ever since I moved into Matunga-Wadala area in April 2002, the same month it opened. Situated in the crowded lane of Matunga flower market, Manis was a perfect, affordable place to eat (hot piping idlis, medhu vadas with unlimited sambar and chutney, an offer unique to them) along with Pongal Vadai, thick kela bajjis, Neyyappams, Yela adais and much more. Manis Lunch Home served food at affordable rates (meals at Rs 65) and for years I saw thousands of people  young, old, officer goers and single women  depending on its food.

While hot upma and lemon/curd rice are legendary dishes here, the reason why people thronged to Manis was its fresh food at amazingly low prices. Sunday pongal and avial breakfast was a treat. As he now moves in 1,200 sq place in Chembur, the menu remains the same. "It is a simple place and Im following the family tradition of serving quality food at low prices. But we may increase the prices marginally in the coming days," Narayanaswamy told Firstpost.

Manis story begins 80 years ago, when VS Mani Iyer, opened a small restaurant near Ruia college, which would open at 6.30 am. Iyer, who came to Mumbai from Keralas Palakkad district, soon became a father figure to many in the area. Post his demise, his elder son Narayanaswamy took over the running of Manis in 1978 and eventually opened the Sankar Mattam branch in 2002. The brand also has a sister concern in Sion, run by Mani Iyers nephew KV Narayanan. Ruia outlet serves snacks, Sion one serves lunch, while the Sankar Mattam one ran round-the-clock  breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Mention Manis and every die-hard Keralite would wait in queue for hours for their Onam feast. Called Thiruvona Sadya (Sadya means feast), it was a concept started by late Mani Iyer 50 years ago and then priced at Rs 2 and now costing Rs 250. I have never missed it. On an average around 1,000 people come across Mumbai to eat this feast price consisting of 22 authentic Keralite dishes, said K A Vishwanathan, a Matunga resident.

As he gets ready for a traditional pooja today and opening tomorrow, Narayanaswamy is ensuring to buzz all his old Mani loyalists. We are a little far from Matunga now but many people have assured me that they will come, he said with a sense of pride.

At a time when all old food places in Mumbai are shutting down, the resurgence of Manis is one happy story every die-hard foodie would love.

The author is a senior journalist and communications expert based in Mumbai. You can follow her on twitter @smitadeshmukh
Tokyo: Prime Minister Narendra Modi was today warmly welcomed by members of the Indian community in Japan after his arrival here to attend the annual bilateral summit.

Modi, who arrived here after a brief stopover in Thai capital Bangkok to pay respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, met the members of the Indian community in the lobby of the hotel where he is staying.

"The Indian community extends a very warm welcome to the Prime Minister on his arrival in Tokyo," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted along with his photograph with the community members. Modi, who is on his second visit to Japan in two years, will meet his counterpart Shinzo Abe and hold wide-ranging talks tomorrow. He will also have an audience with Japanese Emperor Akihito.

The Prime Minister will also meet some opposition and other political leaders.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday said it "welcomed" the US President-elect Donald Trump's offer to mediate between Pakistan and India on the Kashmir dispute.

During a weekly press briefing in Islamabad, while responding to queries about the victory of Republican Donald Trump in the US presidential election, Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said the President-elect had earlier offered mediation between Pakistan and India on Kashmir dispute and "we had welcomed that offer".

Zakaria said Pakistan desires a close relationship with the US, and wishes to further strengthen it.

The US President-elect last month said that if elected, he would be willing to play a mediatory role in addressing the "very, very hot tinderbox" of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

"If it was necessary, I would do that. If we could get India and Pakistan getting along, I would be honoured to do that. That would be a tremendous achievement... I think if they wanted me to, I would love to be the mediator or arbitrator," Trump said in the interview.
Pune: A waste picker here today came across a bag full of Rs 1,000 notes totalling upto Rs 52,000, two day after the demonetisation of the currency of these denominations.

The elderly woman ragpicker, who chanced upon the cash in a plastic bag, however, immediately alerted her supervisor who in-turn informed the police of what she found. Police said the incident took place in one of the by-lanes of Law College Road here this morning.

"Shanta Ovhal, who is working with the civic body, was segregating the waste this morning in one of the by-lanes of Law College Road, where she found a plastic bag," an officer attached to Deccan-Gymkhana police station said.

"To segregate the waste, she opened the bag and was shocked as she saw currency notes in denominations of Rs 1,000 along with some waste in the bag," he said. The woman then informed about it to her supervisor.

"Later, they approached the police and submitted the bag, full of demonetised currency notes," the officer said. "We are investigating who had left the bag in the waste and also probing the genuineness of the recovered notes," he added.

On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that high denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 will no longer be legal tender, in a bid to fight against black money and create a "corruption-free" India.
New Delhi: Chaos was witnessed at various hospitals in the national capital as patients and their family members faced inconvenience in buying medicines, food and availing transportation after Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes lost their legitimacy overnight.

Though the government-run hospitals and their medicine shops were accepting currency notes of all denominations, but patients and their family members seeking treatment at private hospitals had a harried time in paying bills and purchasing medicines. Private hospitals allegedly refused to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes and instead asked people to make the payment through credit or debit card or internet banking. Many patients returned without availing of the services in Outpatient department and emergency ward.

Though government hospitals have permission to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes till midnight of November 11, the order doesn't apply on private ones. Patients had to face inconvenience at local pathological laboratories who also refused to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination currency notes. "I went for an ultrasound at nearby laboratory but could not get it done as I was not having notes of lower denomination," said Lakshmi, a resident of Mayur Vihar.

Even, cafeterias at several hospitals refused to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1000 bills, causing problems for patients and their relatives, especially those who have come from far off places. According to sources, at RML hospital, large amount of food at its canteen remained unsold despite there being huge demand. "We came from Saharsa (in Bihar) to get my mother admitted and went to the hospital canteen to have lunch. We couldn't buy the food as were having Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. Government should have thought about the problems of the poor people before taking such a drastic step," Lokesh Mishra said.

Chaos also prevailed at the chemist shops with customers pleading the staff and owners to accept the currency of Rs 500 and 1,000 denominations. But store owners repeatedly requested people not to give Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination notes saying they were short of lower denomination notes.
Historically, the demonetisation of currency notes in India has been invariably linked to Gujarat and its politicians. In 1978, when the Morarji Desai government had decided to invalidate the currency notes of Rs 1,000, Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 denomination, the then Finance Ministry was headed by a strong-headed civil servant from Gujarat  Haribhai M Patel.

Patel had served Indias first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel for a long time. His no-nonsense demeanour endeared him to an equally taut prime minister in Desai. Incidentally, Desai, in his role as chief minister of the state of Bombay (a large state created at the time of Independence which comprised of present day Maharashtra and Gujarat) and Patel, as a civil servant, were aware of peoples fascination with cash in their home state.

In the post-Emergency phase, the Janata Party essentially rode on the popular wave against corruption and nepotism in the Congress party, and on the authoritarianism of Indira Gandhi. In peoples perception, the Janata Party was mandated to end corruption in high places by initiating some radical measures, as promised before the polls.

Though he held a pro-capitalist and liberal view of the economy, Desai was absolutely intolerant towards corruption and criminals in politics. At the instance of Patel, Desai agreed to go ahead with the ban on currency notes of Rs 1,000 and above in denomination.

There is a world of difference, however, between the demonetisation of 1978 and now. The middle class in 1978 was not only sparse but also lived mostly within the modest income bracket. A large section of this class had no access to high denomination currency notes, that began with Rs 1,000 and went up to Rs 10,000.

Much of the currency notes of high denomination in those times were stocked by businessmen. In Kanpur, and several other trading centres, reports emerged that businessmen, instead of declaring their black money in the banks, were using the currency as waste paper. Since the quantity of this high denomination currency was very limited, such stories made for great headlines.

Contrast this with todays situation, and you will quickly realise the difference. Notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations are much more prevalent than even the smaller currency notes. In ATMs across the country, high denomination notes are the only available legal tender and this has practically pushed the smaller denominations out of circulation. With the preponderance of higher denomination currency, it became normal to transact in these notes across the social spectrum.

The most sinister aspect of the dominance of higher currency notes, however, pertained to the growth of terrorism and the spurt in corruption. For instance, Pakistans Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) took advantage of the situation by introducing a large chunk of counterfeit currencies all over the country  to fund terrorism and spread radicalisation.

A special cell of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), that deals with counterfeit currency, came across many instances where bags of fake notes were being pushed from Bangladesh into India  in West Bengal and the North Eastern states  in order to finance insurgency. Despite the best efforts of the Indian security agencies, it seems that it is rather impossible to purge the economy of counterfeit currencies without employing such a drastic measure.

A much deeper malaise was also evident in politics, where corruption effectively subverted the system. Recall the US diplomat's cables that were revealed on WikiLeaks, exposing the cash for vote scam at the fag end of Manmohan Singhs term as prime minister. The US diplomat recounted how he was shown boxes full of cash, to be used as bribes for members of Parliament.

Similarly, there were stories of machines being used in Noida and Lucknow by agents of political parties, to count the notes received in suitcases and bags as bribes. Much of these stories are based on credible evidence. The unsavoury episode in February involving the arrest of Noida's chief engineer, Yadav Singh, on malfeasance was a symptom of this very syndrome.

In the present political context, Modis bold move of demonetisation entailed a great risk. The BJPs capacity to raise funds for the upcoming elections would be grossly limited in view of these restrictions. Like other parties, the BJP is as much infected by black money and corruption. Similarly, in Modi's home state of Gujarat, where Assembly elections are due shortly, the ban on currency notes would go against the grain of traders who have the tendency of stocking money.

The move is bound to evoke a strong sense of hostility from a powerful moneyed section of Gujarat. But this is not the first time that Modi would be ranged against the influential and moneyed sections in Gujarat. A veteran of many such battles, Modi knows how to turn the tide.

Much has changed between 1978 and 2016. Modi, though a Gujarati, is now far more pragmatic and powerful in realpolitik than Desai, who was constantly weighed down by satraps like Charan Singh and his acolytes.
In a huge setback to the Punjab government, the Supreme Court on Thursday set aside the Punjab government's order quashing water sharing agreement with Haryana. The court ruled that the legislations passed by Punjab government on Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal dispute stand null and void as a bilateral agreement cannot be tampered with by one party alone. unconstitutional

All Congress Party MLA's have sent their resignation as a protest over the order. Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh have also quit as an MP from the Lok Sabha, according to Times Now.

Punjab Cong MLAs sent resignations to Amarinder Singh,will submit to speaker in personal capacity tomorrow:Bharat Bhushan,Dy CLP leader #SYL pic.twitter.com/UPB42fm74M  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

Captain Amarinder Singh's resignation letter as MP to Lok Sabha speaker protesting the Sutlej Yamuna link canal row Verdict. pic.twitter.com/C9WWOYr1bG  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

The court answered in negative all the questions raised before it through presidential reference under Article 143 of the Constitution, stating that the Punjab water Law is unconstituional. Following the court order, the Centre will take over the canal and continue the construction work on it, according to ANI.

However, the political fall out of the Supreme Court order in poll-bound Punjab is already gathering heat. With all Punjab Congress MLAs resigning over the issue, the Punjab Congress has blamed the state government, stating that the Badal government did not make a strong case in court, which led to the Supreme Court order that is against the interests of Punjabis.

Punjab government, on the other hand, has maintained a cautious line, stating that a cabinet meeting will be held in which the government will review the court order and then convey its stand. The SAD-BJP alliance government in Punjab also rubbished Congress' allegations, and termed the resignation of the Opposition party's MLAs a "farce".

The BJP was quick to point out that the foundation laying ceremony of the dam was carried out by Indira Gandhi and Punjab's State Congress chief Amarinder Singh had went to recieve her. Amarinder has now resigned from the Lok Sabha as a sign of protest.

Haryana on the other hand has welcomed the Supreme Court order. "The decision came late, but it is finally in the favour of Haryana. I welcome it," Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar told ANI.

The contentious Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal dispute, where north Indian states, including Punjab and Haryana, have contested the sharing of water, was pending for hearing in the apex court since 2004.

The Centre had said it was not taking sides and was maintaining a neutral stand in the matter in which the court has recorded the stand of other states  Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice AR Dave, who is leaving office on 18 November, had reserved the verdict on 12 May after the Centre maintained its earlier stand of 2004, that the states concerned should settle their disputes on the matter by themselves.

During the hearing of the case, while Punjab Assembly passed a law to return the land acquired on its side for the construction of SYL canal, the Haryana government approached the apex court which directed to maintain the status quo. The court has also appointed the Union Home Secretary and Punjab's Chief Secretary and Director General of Police (DGP) as the 'joint receiver' of land and other property meant for SYL canal.

Isolated by other stakeholders over the dispute, Punjab has earlier said the SC was not bound to answer the presidential reference made at the instance of the Centre which had no power to resolve the dispute. Article 143 of the Constitution of India gives the President the power to the refer to the Supreme Court, a question of law or fact which pertains to the public.

The Parkash Singh Badal-led Punjab government has submitted that a fresh tribunal be set up to resolve all disputes with other states, including Haryana, on all aspects, which will also cover the riparian rights and the dwindling flow of water.

It had said a fresh tribunal was sought in 2003, about 18 months before the 2004 law, to review the 1981 Rajiv-Longowal Accord on river water-sharing in view of depleting flow and other changed circumstances.

A history of the SYL dispute

The water-sharing agreement is among Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir.

According to the Wire, the history of this dispute goes back to Partition  after India and Pakistan were formed, they signed the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960, settling for the unrestricted use of three rivers  (the disputed rivers in question of undivided Punjab were Beas, Chenab, Indus, Jhelum, Ravi, and Sutlej), Beas, Ravi and Sutlej. Once signed, water from the three rivers was shared between Punjab, Delhi, and Jammu and Kashmir.

After Haryana's succession from Punjab in 1966, it became eligible for riparian rights, stressing that it cannot lose them because of redrawing of state borders, especially for political purposes, reports Praveen Swami for Frontline. Yamuna, the Wire adds, which once flowed through unidivided Punjab now charted a course only in Haryana and wasn't included in this arrangement. This became the bone of contention between the two states.

In 2004, the state passed the Punjab Termination of Agreements legislation, which meant it went back on its word to share water with Haryana through the SYL Canal, according to an editorial in The Hindu. The issue has been dragging on in the SC since March this year, where a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court ordered status quo on the land marked for the construction of the SYL Canal.

With inputs from PTI
The Karnataka High Court recently questioned the state government's logic behind celebrating the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan, stating he was a monarch and not a freedom fighter as portrayed by the government. However, the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by a native from southern Kodagu calling Tipu Sultan a tyrant, who massacred people from different communities was disposed off by the high court and directed 'the petitioner to make a representation to the chief secretary to consider the objections raised and pass an order by 8 November with regard to the celebration of the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan'. The courts directive unfortunately might have little impact on the government plans for celebration, which is evident from Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs recent statement to the press reiterating the government's commitment to commemorate 'Tipu Sultan Jayanti' on 10 November.

Now, if theres anything that this controversy has taught us it's that we must unlearn everything that has been taught in schools for decades. Moreover, television series and popular narratives have romanticised the Tiger of Mysore  Tipu Sultan as a freedom fighter, who fought the British East India Company.

Lets look at the facts: Mysore under Tipu Sultan was not under the occupation by the British East India Company, Tipu and his father Hyder Ali fought as sovereign rulers of Mysore and not freedom fighters under colonial occupation. Additionally, Tipu and Hyder Ali both sought to bolster territory and thus waged war with most of their neighbours, including the states of Hyderabad, Travancore, Tanjore, Maratha Confederacy and Kodagu (Coorg), who all at some point invariably allied themselves with the British to end persistent attacks from Tipu Sultan.

By the end of the Second Anglo-Mysore War (1780-1784), Tipu Sultan had managed to regain lost territory through the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784. However, his desire to conquer new territories triggered the Third and Fourth Anglo-Mysore wars, which he invariable lost to the combined forces of the British East India Company, Nizam, Travancore and Marathas. Like the other Indian kingdoms, Tipu Sultan had a European ally, namely Napoleon of France and some marginal support from the Dutch to suppress the British and their allies. However, it would be naive to think that French or Dutch participation in Tipus campaigns were benign, if Tipu had won with French support, Mysore would have been a vassal of France if not a French colony, and I would be writing this article in French, not English.

Another deeply contested issue is Tipu Sultans deplorable conduct against civilians during his campaign in Kodagu and Travancore. On the pretext of negotiating an end to the Kodava rebellion in the 1780s, Tipu surrounded and attacked the Kodavas killing many and imprisoning close to 1,00,000 men, women and children in Srirangapatna, invariably subjecting them to forced conversion to Islam, torture and conscription into the ranks of the military. During the same time, similar acts of violence and imprisonment were committed against the Nairs of the Malabar and the Catholics of Mangalore. Their liberation came only after the fall of Tipu Sultan during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799.

Now with the looming Legislative Assembly election slated in the beginning of 2018, the Congress governments motive in commemorating Tipu Sultan Jayanti is solely a political move to appease the Muslim electorate in Karnataka, especially the electorate in the old Mysore areas whose votes have always been divided between the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Congress parties, a consolidation of these votes would be a boost for the Congress in the state. However, it is unfortunate that this comes at the cost of the sentiments of other inhabitants of the state who view Tipu Sultan as a bigot and tyrant that should have been left to rest in peace.

Moreover, the government seems to have disregarded factual accuracy in their haste to commemorate Tipu Jayanti on 10 November, many academics and historians have criticised the government for historical inaccuracy and claim that Tipus birthday falls on 20 November, whereas 10 November happens to be the day he hanged 700 Iyengars in Melkote, thus again questioning the motives of the state government.

While Tipu Sultan is undoubtedly a divisive figure in the state, the Chief Minister of Karnataka has clarified that the celebration of his birthday would continue as a state policy and has also assured security in case of threat to peace and harmony; he has also called on officials and the police to carry out preventive arrests of known trouble-makers in the state. However, gauging from last years violence (in Chitradurga) and the opposition to the celebration from the BJP and RSS, the stage is set for another face off between different political and religious factions in the state.
In what could intensify the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan manifold, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday said that he sees no reason why India should bind itself a 'no first use policy' on nuclear weapons.

Explaining the need to be unpredictable in warfare strategy, according to PTI, Parrikar said: "Why should I bind myself? I should say I am a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly. This is my (personal) thinking."

India had declared a "no first use" nuclear policy following the nuclear weapons test in 1998. However, its arch-rival and nuclear-armed state Pakistan has no such policy.

Though the minister clarified that the remarks were personal in nature, and the nuke doctrine has not changed in the government, giving up the "no first use policy" could prevent "hoax" threats.

"It has not changed in the government. It is my concept. As an individual I also get feeling. I am not saying you have to use it first. Hoax can be called off," PTI quoted the minister where he also added that prior to the surgical strike, the Pakistan defence minister used to threaten India with the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons.

"From the day surgical strike happened, no threat has come. They realised that we can do something which is not well defined," he said.

"Necessarily if there is any question or danger to the country, I will not open the book first," ANI tweeted.

Necessarily if there is any question or danger to the country, I will not open the book first: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar pic.twitter.com/ld6hMiYUc2  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

However, soon after Parrikar's interview was aired on television, according to ANI, the Ministry of Defence, issued a statement saying that the views expressed were the minister's personal views and not his official stand on the issue. "What Defence Minister Parrikar said was his personal opinion and not the official position. What he said was that India being a responsible power should not get into 1st use debate...," the news agency tweeted.

What he (Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar) said was that India being a responsible power should not get into 1st use debate: MoD Statement  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

Although, the defence ministry was quick to call the opinion minister's "personal" one, this kind of assertion could potentially hamper India's bid to the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group member as few countries including China are playing hard ball.
Ottawa: Middle-aged adults suffering from arthritis, heart diseases, diabetes and depression are more likely to experience disability and limited involvement in society, a study has found.

According to the study, physical and mental chronic conditions, alone and in combination, were strongly associated with disability and social participation restrictions.

However, the impact of these combinations of conditions differed by gender and age.

"What this research shows is that depending on your age and sex, the specific chronic diseases most highly associated with disability in the population, differ," said Lauren Griffith, Associate Professor, McMaster University in the study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The study found that arthritis was consistently associated with disability for men and women across most age groups. In middle-aged adults (45-54 years), depression and arthritis were most often associated with disability and social participation restrictions, especially in women.

Compared to women, combinations of chronic conditions that included diabetes and heart disease were stronger drivers of disability in men, especially in the younger age group (45-54 years).

To conduct the study, the research team analysed population-based data from more than 15,000 participants aged 45 to 85 years.

While the association between single chronic conditions and disability is well documented, there is little research examining the combination of both physical and mental chronic conditions on disability and social participation.

The researchers concluded that knowing which chronic conditions are associated with greater disability and social participation limitations may help clinicians to target treatment strategies for patients.
Motihari (Bihar): Counting virtues of prohibition, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said sale of "rasgulla" has increased by 16.25 percent in past seven months since ban on alcohol in the state.

"Sale of Rasgulla has increased by 16.25 percent in the past seven months since prohibition came into effect in Bihar," Kumar said addressing a Chetna sabha as part of his "Nishchaya yatra" here in Bihar's East Champaran district.

In addition, sale of healthy foods like Peda, paneer and Dahi Matha (product of curd) has also risen since ban on liquor was clamped in Bihar in April, he said.

Yesterday, the Chief Minister had reeled figure of hike in sale of milk in the wake of prohibition by 11 percent.

Kumar was addressing a rally here on his second stop of Nishchay yatra that started yesterday from Bettiah to take feedback from people on prohibition as well as on "seven resolves" which has been adopted by the government as "policy of governance" for next five years.

"Seven resolves" include civic amenities like drinking water, toilet, roads and electricity for every household.

Kumar read figures to claim a substantial drop in crime rate after banning liquor, spiced and domestic as well as Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) in the past seven months.

With Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and state police chief P K Thakur present on the dias, Kumar claimed that heinous crimes have seen a slide.

Murder cases have dropped by 36 percent in between 1 April to 31 October, this year as compared to during same period in 2015, he said.

Likewise, dacoity decreased by 25 per cent, riots by 40 percent, kidnapping for ransom by 56 percent and road accidents by 21 percent, Kumar, who has taken the task of prohibition in a mission mode, said dwelling on impacts of liquor ban.

Kumar, who is also JD(U) chief, apparently hit at Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying the election promise (of bringing back black money and providing Rs 15 lakh out of it to every citizens) was not fullfilled and instead declared as "jumla" (euphism).

But, unlike those "hollow" promises his government has effected prohibition and started works on seven resolves of providing electricity, road, toilet, drinking water and sewage among others to every household before completion of one year of grand secular alliance government.

With Agriculture minister Ram Vichar Rai of RJD and Congress minister Madan Mohan Jha with him, Kumar slammed the Centre for permiting trial of GM Mustard and said Bihar would not allow genetically modified mustard in any case.

He also hit out at rival BJP for protesting his "Nishchay yatra" with an aim to find publicity in media.
"Bhagwan kabhi maaf nahi karega" was Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's bitter punch against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ban on old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes aimed at curbing black money and fake currency in India.

Interestingly, Kejriwal seemed to have taken a cue from BSP chief Mayawati's barb against Modi's announcement of the surprise demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes alleging that Modi had leaked this information to his "friends" in the BJP and elsewhere to deposit their back money in foreign banks, buy landed properties and gold.

Why was it that no big industrialist, or businessman, was seen in the queues at banks to change his currency notes? According to him, Modi's (inke doston) friends have already done their "setting" for "home delivery of Rs 2,000 notes" in the next few days. While making this allegation the Delhi chief minister and Aam Admi Party boss conveniently forgot that he, his ministers and other party leaders too did not stand in a queue to exchange old notes for the new ones. Aam Aadmi Party would underscore that part too.

Mind you, Kejriwal owes his rise to prominence in politics to his association with Anna Hazare as an anti-corruption crusader. But completely unmindful of his own image, he is now criticising what is being hailed as a bold and decisive move by the prime minister against corruption, black money, fake currency and terror financing.

More so, Kejriwal's video message was released hours after BSP chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had raved and ranted against Modi on the same issue. Three senior opposition leaders, albeit of rival formations, blazing their guns on an anti-corruption move has loaded connotations.

Rahul Gandhi and the Congress can relish this moment and bask in the glory. For once, he set the agenda by being the first one to blast PM Modi on demonetisation move. Rahul's thesis is now being followed by the likes of Kejriwal, Mayawati and Mulayam.

What is noteworthy is that all the three leaders  Mulayam, Mayawati and Kejriwal  who trained guns at Modi linked the immediate demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with the coming state elections in UP, Uttrakhand, Punjab and Goa.

Kejriwal's charge was that Modi made this big move after making arrangements to fight assembly elections in UP and other states by converting his party's Rs 1,000 notes into Rs 100 notes. Mulayam and Mayawati too had levelled similar political charge that Modi's move is angled at the coming elections. "Aapko kewal chunav dikh raha hai," Mulayam said.

This writer had earlier written how Modi's move would impact elections in these states, and how political parties and candidates in the fray including BJP's who had kept their cash chest loaded would feel the pinch. Thus apart from popular curiosity on win and loss, the coming round of assembly elections would also be scrutinised as to how the political parties and their candidates devise new modes of campaigning, cash distribution and fight elections.

While the Congress will be pitted against BJP in all these states, SP and BSP are serious contenders in UP, whereas AAP is claiming that it has emerged as an alternate political force in Punjab and Goa.

Mayawati's attack against Modi was sharp and blunt. She seemed to be very angry. Amar Ujala, a leading Hindi daily in Uttar Pradesh today published a photo feature showing SUVs outside a BSP office in Lucknow with suitcases in their boots. The cars would go inside the BSP headquarter and move out after loading something in those suitcases. The newspaper quoted BSP leaders who claimed that candidates were called for a meeting and were provided with publicity material to be dispatched to various districts.

Various political leaders including those who rebelled against Mayawati have alleged that the BSP Chief sold party tickets for Rs 2-5 crore. Rebel BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya who later joined BJP had called her the "Goddess of corruption". Mayawati has often been called daulat ki beti, paraphrasing her dalit ki beti or devi usage.

However, in contrast to Mayawati's blunt allegation, Mulayam's anguish on the subject was a bit sober. While supporting Modi saheb's move to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the Samajwadi Party chief demanded a week's reprieve for all to take care of stashed high-value cash.

While it's open to interpretations why the SP chief is demanding a week's extension for free flow and exchange of old high denomination currency, his argument is not without reasoning. Sample his logic: marriage ceremony of crores of brides has got affected, traders no longer fulfill their financial obligations, several transactions are done over phone but each of their words carry trust (for post-dated financial transactions), businessman's plight is severely impacting farmers, poor people are suffering, economy will come to a grinding halt and held hostage in hands of "few big houses".

Mulayam said: "Badi khatarnak sthiti banegi. Videshon se bhi paisa nahi ayega... itna asmanjas ho gaya hai ki demag me nahi aa raha hai ki kya karein (this would lead to a very dangerous situation. Money would not come from abroad either... The dilemma is so intense that the mind can't think of what to do).
They are supposed to be very alike, The Don and NaMo. They both bucked the media and the elite and won big; or so pundits like Shekhar Gupta and Chetan Bhagat and Ram Madhav are telling us on Twitter.

Yet, on the same day, while one was promising that the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer, the other was running the risk of turning parts of his population into the forgotten people.

It was amazing to watch BJP spokespersons and besotted TV anchors dismiss the hardships faced by ordinary people at the abrupt and swift withdrawal of big notes from circulation by blithely referring them to credit cards, debit cards, and cheques. As if that is how most Indians live and conduct their financial transactions. As if ours is a cashless society, the whole country has long been demonetised and bank accounts are common to every household.

On television, smartly-dressed yuppies were full-throatedly welcoming the historic move outside ATMs or driving into petrol pumps with their sedans or SUVs. In short, these people are those who are well on the way to arriving. Ordinary people are either clueless or in a tizzy.

Maybe, it's because I live in Kolkata, in one of the poorer parts of the country, that I can see firsthand the trials being faced by maidservants, drivers, small shopkeepers, construction workers, electricians, plumbers and other independent service providers. Their only option is to request people like me to relieve them of their riches to meet their basic needs.

Maybe, that is why the chief minister of West Bengal was one of the first to point out the trouble this would put the poor into. I want to know from PM, she tweeted soon after Narendra Modi finished his speech to the nation on Tuesday evening,How my poorest brothers, sisters, whove received their weeks hard earned wage in one 500 re note will buy, ata, chal, tomo?

Heartless and ill- conceived blow on the common people and the middle class in the fake name of anti-corruption  Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) November 8, 2016

Mamata Banerjee, whose political instincts have seldom let her down, has kept up the refrain with tweet after tweet demanding this heartless and ill-conceived blow on common people and middle class be stopped immediately. Please save people from this disaster. Roads are closed, markets shut, patients not being admitted to private hospitals, millions affected.

Please save people from this disaster. Roads are closed,markets shut, patients not being admitted to private hospitals,millions affected 1/4  Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) November 9, 2016

One Bengali tweet doing the rounds that Didi cannot lay claim to says, Why are our businessmen brothers so happy? Since last night? Because they have no black money? And why are we middle-class so apprehensive? Because we have stashes of black money?

The ruling party is already dismissing all such reservations as politically motivated and mean-spirited. Politicians are having doubts but ordinary people are having no doubts, was how Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu responded to reservations brought to his notice by the press.

But even economists are not unanimous whether such moves to check corruption, black money and fake currency rackets that slow our progress really work. Its been tried before and not been that successful but maybe itll be better this time round. At least let us hope so.

The prime minister has also conceded that we would face some inconvenience in the beginning and he was sure that we would put up with it for the greater good. Maybe

Maybe the country will grin and bear it but it would do him no harm if his party appeared to be more sympathetic to the common mans woes instead of the usual chest-thumping that seems to be their reflex response to any act of the government.

Especially since such moves have a tendency of turning on their heads and biting their initiators in the back.

It was only the other day that outsourcing was seen as the answer to all ills that plagued the American economy. American companies would be able to make goods cheaper, hence make greater profits and thereby contribute to the strengthening of the countrys economy. Ditto: free trade. Moves that were mostly put into place when Hillary Clinton was the First Lady of America.

Today, it is the army of aggrieved people left behind by these very acts of globalisation that marched to the voting booths and put a man with no experience in governance into power. In their light, those acts of greater good only helped the rich to get richer and left them with nothing.

It took several decades for people in America to come to this realisation and rise in revolt. It may happen quicker in a country like India. Narendra Modi should beware that his moves for the greater good may end up alienating the greater numbers.
Revenue Secretary, Hashmukh Adhias warning on prosecution on deposits above Rs. 2.5 lakhs that do not match the depositor's income, has triggered panic among holders of Rs 500, Rs 1,000 notes, but only among those who have no evidence to show the source of this money.

For them, the statement from Adhia has come as a nightmare: We would be getting reports of all cash deposited during the period of November 10 to December 30, 2016 above a threshold of Rs 2.5 lakh in every account. The (tax) department would do matching of this with income returns filed by the depositors. And suitable action may follow."

But, there is no surprise here in Adhias caution. The very objective of the currency crackdown was to break the back of black money/fake currency community, who lived happily so far with only occasional intrusions in their peaceful lives, holding cash that existed on no worldly records.

When Prime Minister, Narendra Modi announced the decision to withdraw Rs 500, Rs 1000 notes from public use post-Tuesday midnight, the idea was to give no time for illegal holders of money to find an escape channel.

The currency crackdown was a meticulously planned joint operation between the government, the tax department and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Most bankers were kept in the dark about the exact nature of this plan. An operation planned in high secrecy and executed with clinical precision, much like the surgical attacks of 29 September that has now become part of Modis urban legends.

How it began

According to banking industry sources, there were some indications a few months before that some action will happen, but no one knew what exactly.

Recently, new notes arrived but most officers thought it is part of routine operations. It wasnt, said one of the Mumbai-based bankers.

The Modi-government even risked a great deal of public discontent following the hurried, unpopular move. None of the people who experienced the chaos before ATMs across the country on Tuesday night would have praised Modi for what he did. But, given the larger purpose of the operation, the short-term discontent was an acceptable proposition for the government.

It timed the operation well.

When the 30 September black money window was on, both the government and the RBI were silently preparing the ground for the final crackdown without giving any clue to habitual offenders on what was coming. The planning for this excercise must have begun at least six months in advance when the government opened a black money window for offenders to come clean.

New notes were being printed and the transition mode was worked out. This was needed since 86 percent of the currency in circulation, in terms of value, is Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. In absolute terms, the figure will work out to around Rs 14 lakh crore.

Remember, in July, when the black money window opened for domestic citizens, PM Modi had warned that no one should blame him for what he does after 30 September. Aur us paap ko karna nahi chahata hu jo September 30 ko mujhe karna padega (I do not want to commit the sin which I will have to do after 30 September against black money holders)," Modi had said. This shows that the government had a clear picture of the post 30 September operation in mind and were working on the whole process silently. The RBI was consulted and taken into confidence throughout, though the government took the lead in the operation.

The Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) that opened on 1 June, gave an opportunity to illegal asset holders to come clean by declaring the assets by 30 September and paying tax and penalty of 45 percent thereafter. The government warned that those who fail to take advantage of the scheme will have to face stringent action, including imprisonment. That was a time when the Income Tax department had already identified 90 lakh high value transactions without PAN.

Lets be clear, what is on now is an operation to hunt down black money holders, no matter what the near-term repercussions. Even P Chidambarams presser on Wednesday didnt have much to point at the government on the currency crackdown, except to caution that it should implement the process fast.

Adhias statement sends a clear message to wrongdoers. Anyone hoping to join the queue of customers to deposit sacks of Rs 500/Rs 1,000 notes -- their ill-gotten wealth -- and make it legitimate from today will risk prosecution.

To be sure, even now there are some loopholes to bring out a small portion of their black money by depositing small amounts below the limit the government has prescribed or using benami bank accounts and fudged documents to split the booty.

But, it isnt going to be easy when the deposits will be recorded on camera and ientity proofs will be insisted at every stage. The smart crooks can still do some tricks but most of their ill-gotten wealth stored in hard cash will not see the light of day.

A job half-done yet

Have no illusion. The governments currency crackdown will not entirely destroy Indias parallel economy. But, it will certainly address important constituents of Indias parallel economythe black money holders and fake currency in circulation. Who will be left out are those who have stocked their black money in gold, real estate and through benami transactions. But, this too will come under the golden light sooner or later.

Also, counterfeit note makers, who are completely off the job for now, will return to the market upgrading their machines once they get a sample of the new Rs 500, Rs 2,000 notes. They will have to significantly upgrade their technology if government adds the rumored extra features in the new notes. But, the nature of crooks are such that they will work around that too. But, that wont happen immediately. Down the line, 6-8 months later, the government will have to deal with the problem of new counterfeit notes and a fresh batch of black money. A similar exercise will have to be repeated then and government has to do what it did on Tuesday night.

The extent of fake currency and black money in the domestic economy is so huge that it has created a substantial parallel economy that no oneneither the RBI nor the taxmenhad any clue about. A confidential government report in 2011 said, four in every 1,000 currency notes in circulation in India were fake at that point, amounting to as much as Rs 3,200 crore in 2010.

But, this was only an estimate, not even close to an accurate assessment. As far as black money is concerned, the scene is even vaguer.

Remember, when the governments black money window was closed in September, under which Rs 65,250 crore worth black money was declared from 64,275 declarations, Firstpost said its time Modi-government went for the final crackdown.

Going by the governments version, any entry in bank branches where old Rs 500, Rs 1,000 notes are to be exchanged between 10 November and 30 December, will be recorded with documentary evidence, making it impossible to escape the taxman. The source of the money needs to be shown properly, else risk getting caught with the booty. The crackdown practically offers no time for the depositors to think of alternative plans. Thanks to the power of social media, to use a cliche, the news spread like wildfire leaving no room for the wrongdoers to get rid of their unaccounted cash. The approaching days will be even difficult for them.

It will hit real estate developers and small traders most since they typically deal in cash to avoid paying tax; also, political parties. In India, about 70-75 percent of political funding does not have any records of source. These politicians would have spent Tuesday night wondering what to do with their hidden cash piles.

Fight against black money

The currency crackdown is the third and most important stage of Modi-governments attempt to bring black money back to the formal system. The process began when it announced a 90 days amnesty-like window for foreign black money holders charging them 60 percent tax shortly after coming to power.

A total of Rs 4,147 crore of undeclared wealth was declared and the government garnered Rs 2,500 crore from the whole exercise, a paltry sum considering the kind of black money stashed abroad. This was followed by the July-September window that saw declarations worth Rs 65,250 crore. Beyond attacking the parallel economy, the crackdown will offer a major boost to promote non-cash transactions in the country, a long-term dream of the governments and the central bank, but which has largely remained on paper so far.

Tuesday evenings currency crackdown shouldnt be seen as a one-off event. It was a carefully executed operation, a political and economic masterstroke by Modi, which is unlikely to end here. The next line of action should be tracking down the benami assets and asset holding disproportionate to the recorded income, which is even more difficult since most of the offenders will be either politicians or those who have links to them.
London: Amnesty International on Wednesday urged US president-elect Donald Trump to commit to upholding human rights, criticising his "poisonous rhetoric" following the Republican candidate's election victory.

Trump has "raised serious concerns about the strength of commitment we can expect to see from the United States towards human rights in the future," said Salil Shetty, secretary general of the London-based group.

"He must now put this behind him and both reaffirm and abide by the United States' obligations on human rights, at home and abroad," Shetty said.

Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA, criticised "disturbing and, at times, poisonous rhetoric" from Trump in the campaign.

"This rhetoric cannot and must not become government policy. The xenophobic, sexist and other hateful remarks made by Trump have no place in government.

"From internment camps to the use of torture, we have seen disastrous results when those we elect to represent us flout the United States' obligations to uphold human rights," she said.

Trump "must publicly commit to upholding the human rights of all without discrimination".

During a bitter two-year campaign that tugged at America's democratic fabric, the 70-year-old tycoon pledged to deport illegal immigrants and ban Muslims from entering the United States.
By Gina Cherelus and Ian Simpson

| NEW YORK/WASHINGTON

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON Police put up security fences around U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's new hotel in Washington on Thursday and a line of concrete blocks shielded New York's Trump Tower as students around the country staged a second day of protests over his election.A day after thousands of people took to the streets in at least 10 U.S. cities from Boston to Berkeley, California, chanting "not my president" and "no Trump," fresh protests were held in cities from New Orleans to San Francisco.About 100 protesters marched from the White House, where Trump had his first transition meeting with President Barack Obama on Thursday, to the nearby Trump International Hotel, chanting "love Trumps hate.""This generation deserves better than Donald Trump," said Lily Morton, 17, marching with about 100 classmates from the Georgetown Day School. "The queer people, coloured people, women, girls, everyone that is going to be affected by this, we need to protest to help them. There is still love in this country."A Trump campaign representative did not respond to requests for comment on the protests.Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, called the demonstrators "a bunch of spoiled cry-babies," in an interview with Fox News.Protesters cited a list of objections to Trump, including his campaign rhetoric critical of immigrants and Muslims, as well as allegations that he had sexually abused women and bragged about it. Trump has denied those allegations.More than 20 people were arrested for blocking or attempting to block highways in Los Angeles and Richmond, Virginia, early Thursday morning.

White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said Obama supported the demonstrators' right to express themselves peacefully.Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer urged the protesters to give Trump a chance once he is sworn into office in January."I hope that people get it out of their . They go out, they exercise ... their right to free speech, but then they give this man that was just elected very historically and his new vice president an opportunity to govern," Spicer said in an interview on MSNBC In San Francisco, more than 1,000 students walked out of classes on Thursday morning and marched through the citys financial district carrying rainbow flags representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, Mexican flags and signs decrying Trump.

Several hundred students at Texas State University in San Marcos took to the campus to protest Trump's election, with many saying they fear he will infringe the civil rights of minorities and the LGBT community.Civil rights groups and police reported an uptick in attacks on members of minority groups, in some cases carried out by people claiming to support Trump. There were also reports of Trump opponents lashing out violently against people carrying signs indicating support for Trump."#NOTMYPRESIDENT"

Organizers used social media to plan and schedule many of the protests. A Facebook group using the name "#NotMyPresident," formed by college and high school students, called for an anti-Trump rally on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.In New York's Washington Square park, several hundred people gathered to protest Trump's election. Three miles (5 km) to the north at the gilt Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, where Trump lives, 29-year-old Alex Conway stood holding a sign with the "not my president" slogan."This sign is not to say he isn't the president of the United States, but for two days I can use my emotion to be against this outcome and to express that he's not mine," said Conway, who works in the film industry.More anti-Trump demonstrations are planned heading into the weekend.The United States has seen waves of large-scale, sometimes violent protests in the past few years. Cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Chicago have been rocked by demonstrations following high-profile police killings of unarmed black men and teens. Those followed a wave of large-scale protest encampments, starting with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York in 2011.Trump said in his victory speech, which was delivered in a far calmer manner than he displayed in many campaign appearances, that he would be president for all Americans. (Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York and Ian Simpson in Washington; Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Leslie Adler)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
New Delhi: Underlining that black money is one of the main sources of funding terror activities, Afghanistan on welcomed India's decision to demonetise high-denomination currency, saying the move will benefit the region.

Afghan Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali said the move will help curb economic terrorism by foiling the usage of counterfeit currency for terror activities.

"Black money is one of the main sources of funding for activities related to terrorism. And therefore it will help in fighting against it. Terrorism certainly has no boundary and so India's move will help the region too," he said on the sidelines of the 'Heart of Asia' seminar in New Delhi.

The two-day seminar, organised by International Council for World Affairs (ICWA), is being held in the run-up to the 'Heart of Asia' conference in Amritsar in December, which India will co-chair with Afghanistan. Earlier, speaking at the event, Abdali appreciated the role of 'Heart of Asia' in the stabilisation of Afghanistan and the region while pitching for for bold, result-oriented regional leadership.

"The National Unity Government of Afghanistan took unprecedented steps to address the question of terrorism and improve our relations with Pakistan. We have exchanged with Pakistan several delegations, to secure Pakistan's cooperation in ending war and violence," he said. "We appreciated the initial gestures of goodwill of the Pakistani government...but we are yet to see tangible steps to be taken towards the peace process," he said.

He said zero-sum postures must be discarded and win-win strategies adopted to secure Afghanistan against the same threats that undermine the security of every nation in South Asia and Central Asia, and the countries that neighbour these resourceful regions in Asia.

Abdali said a well-defined regional counter-terrorism strategy was a necessity and no longer an option for stabilisation. The seminar is being attended by representative from several member and supporting countries of 'Heart of Asia'.

There are 13 member countries, which include Afghanistan, India, China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Besides, there are 30 supporting countries which include the US, the UK and Germany.
My dear daughters,

I am writing to you today to let you know that my generation has let you down. We have broken the social contract on decency, equality and respect.

Repeatedly, first in 2014 in India, then in 2016 in the UK and the US, and pretty much every part of the civilised world, my generation has used its political enfranchisement to endorse movements that dispense hatred as if from a vending machine. While history will judge the leaders of these movements, I do know though they picked political pugilists who used divisiveness, derision and the darkest elements of human nature to arrive at the seat of power. They unleashed fear and anger as a weapon. They made the majority feel like a marginalised force that was under threat. They used the us versus them narrative to create Machiavellian miracles.

I want you to know that Im sorry for falling prey to that. Im sorry that I couldnt be the bigger person and give a patient hearing to these voices instead of trying to outshout them. Im sorry I closed my eyes and hoped they would fade away into the night like a mist that wasnt supposed to be there.

Right now, I want to stop using fear, hate and anger as a weapon of public discourse. Im not going to wait for the leaders to change it because it has to begin with me. We can choose to change the world.

As you grow up, if we havent moved on and we havent matured, I want you to talk about a unified we. Where there is hate, I want you to use empathy. Where there is anger, I want you to exercise patience. Where there is ignorance, I want you to use compassion. Its not going to be easy, but you have to win back this world, one person at a time.

I have failed you because I never listened. Whenever I heard that people were angry, I immediately tried to ignore those voices. If that didnt help I shouted, posted, or intellectualised their reasons and showed them to be of inferior thought. I have failed you because instead of making the situation better, I only helped polarise it further.

I know youre thinking that there are some people whose only aim in life is to divide people, create fission in social structure and make islands of us all. You need to understand this fact that deeply  they only succeed if you let them. My generation didnt reach out to the very people they wanted to isolate and made them feel marginalised. No one can feel neglected if you genuinely listen. Every time someone groans, dont dismiss it but address the reason behind that groan.

It will be a long, tiring process but unfortunately, its your cross to carry now.

The world youre going to inherit is incredibly fragmented. We broke it up with our frustration, our grief and our sense of entitlement. While, I promise Im going to do my best, I suspect youre going to have to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Begin by never letting anyone tell you that youre different, and dont ever believe that about anyone else either. I ask that when you grow up as a woman or as a man, as a liberal or a conservative, as a circus clown or a corporate executive, you see everyone as the same. People arent really that different when you get to the bottom of it. They all have the same emotions, the same insecurities and the same aspirations. Bigots seek to exploit that. Dont let them.

I recognise its a huge burden to place on your four-year-old and four-month-old shoulders, but I promise to help you. A man who changed a nation once asked us to be the change we wish to be. As of today, I resolve to embody that sentiment and just hopefully, you and your world will live and breathe the idea. Forgive me for my sins, but you mustnt suffer for mine, so this is my promise, that were worth saving, but we just need to believe it dearly.
The world is what you make of it.

Let's assume there are a set of open-ended data points from which multiple conclusions could be drawn. The job is to infer meaning from the implied information and make sense of it. The accuracy of any conclusion would depend on several factors. It may include painstaking analysis, thorough background research, creating and testing of hypothesis and last but not the least, ensuring that one is as far removed from own confirmation bias as possible.

Which is why the doomsday predictions and naked fear-mongering from liberal media following the election of Donald J Trump as the 45th American president makes little sense. As the ultimate outsider gatecrashed into the White House in a breathtaking abjuration of the Establishment, the liberal media in the US and India suffered a meltdown, alternating between stubborn denial, intense breast-beating and a bitter attack on democracy. And as we saw during Brexit, the voters who elected Trump were quickly labeled a bunch of primeval racists and bigoted, misogynist, white-skinned barbarians.

It may have been the insularity of American mainstream media that prevented it from paying attention to what was happening outside its borders but as had happened elsewhere, the unremitting demonisation of the majority and the relentless savagery of a candidate served to coalesce popular opinion in his favour. In their dislike for Trump, the political pundits forgot a simple truth. Beyond the saturation point, any more character assassination makes a candidate stronger. The personal flaws, and there could be many, are overlooked in favour of a suspicion that the media is acting on an agenda.

Besides, none of the candidates were a paragon of virtue. If Trump was exposed as a misogynist boor and a slippery operator during the campaign, Hillary Clinton had a lot to answer for as well for the shadowy dealings of Clinton Foundation, email scandal and the charge that she threatened, smeared and targeted the many women her husband had sexually assaulted or carried out consensual affairs with.

And yet among the two, the media had only one in its cross hairs. The dissatisfied, disenfranchised voters of Trump were obviously not oblivious to his flaws but they were ready to back him because Trump promised to upset the cozy cabal of a tiny elite who ruled and prospered at their expense. They voted in the disruptor because they were tired of being upended by the patronising elite who swatted them aside as xenophobic idiots and had no time for their very real concerns.

The media should have seen it coming had it had its nose to the ground but it picked sides and turned its face away from the truth. It refused to come out of the echo chamber and listen to the wave that had engulfed many parts of the world and had finally reached the American shores. And when it was finally forced to confront the reality on 9 November, the media erupted in the exact, same way it did post-Brexit. In a fit of righteous anger, it started propagating the theory that democracy is a flawed system in the hands of racist, cloistered fools.

This stems from a dangerous elitist illusion that democracy is legit as long as it throws up suitable results, and is disposable in favour of an elitocracy as soon as it does not. Brexit taught the elites no lessons. And those who don't learn from history are doomed to see it being repeated.

If the media was honest with itself, instead of alleging that America had almost overnight turned into a nation of bigoted xenophobes, it would have tried to make sense of the data set that shows Trump won nearly 29 percent of the Latino votes and that Clinton failed to overwhelmingly curry their favour.

As The Daily Beast fulminates in rage, "given the bad blood between Trump and Latinos, one of the biggest surprises on Election Night was that so many Latinos ended up voting for their tormentor. According to CNNs exit polls, about 27 percent of Latinos voted for Trump. Exit polls from The New York Times put the figure at 29 percent. This means that Trump did better with Hispanics than Bob Dole in 1996 (21 percent), and wound up comparable to Mitt Romney in 2012 (27 percent)."

What explains this peculiar phenomenon where so many Hispanics turned out for Trump who had infamously called them "criminals and rapists"? But analysing this sort of disruptive data requires a reality check that was missing from the US media. They were too busy painting the whole body of Trump backers as "racists".

Had that been the case, what explains the fact that former Barack Obama strongholds sealed the deal for Trump?

How does the liberal media explain this data that the same set of people who sent America's first black President to the White House in 2008 and re-elected him in 2012, brought in a 'white supremacist' four years later? Does it imply that a nation had inexplicably turned racist and misogynist or that Obama's rule had alienated people and disempowered the masses to such an extent that they were fed up of the corrupted system and desperately wanted a change?

Look closely at Washington Post's analysis: "Across swing states  and others previously thought to be safe for Democrats  Trump coloured dozens of counties red that hadnt gone Republican in decades. Of the nearly 700 counties that twice sent Obama to the White House, a stunning one-third flipped to support Trump. Trump also won 194 of the 207 counties that voted for Obama either in 2008 or 2012."

Do keep in mind that this included Michigan which the Republicans hadn't won since 1988. To conclude, it is lazy analysis and chicanery of data to suggest that whole of America turned into a nation of xenophobic bigots on 9 November. The media must introspect where and why it went wrong and apply more honesty in its workings. But that may be asking for too much at this juncture.
They said Donald Trump would lose; he won.

Experts, psephologists, with fancy analytical tools included, disappointed again. Given the frequency with which they fail, perhaps it is time we treated them on a par with astrologers and crystal ball gazers. Or we should treat them as simple entertainers who play with numbers and spice it up with some knowledge of history and good articulation of the commonsensical.

For those intrigued by the expert phenomenon  the way they fail spectacularly and the way we keep buying their confident intellectual talk every time  one would recommend the book Future Babble by Dan Gardner. The book deconstructs the phenomenon with ruthless logic backed by research. Heres what the jacket of the book says:

In 2007, experts said it would be smooth sailing in 2008; then came the global financial hurricane. In 2008, as oil surged above $140 a barrel, experts said it would soon hit $200.; a few months later, it plunged to $30. This is how it always goes. In the 1960s, experts said the Soviet economy would be bigger than the American economy by 1997; in 1997, the Soviet Union did not exist. In 1911, experts predicted declared there would be no more major wars; we all know how it all turned out.

Lets face it: Experts are about as accurate as dirt-throwing monkeys. And yet every day, we ask them to predict the future  everything from the weather to the likelihood of a catastrophic terrorist attack...

While on monkeys, a report in The Times of India says, Geda, a Chinese monkey with a reputation for predicting things right, got it right on Trump too. Chanakya, the fish doing a similar job in Chennai, also foresaw the victory of the mercurial Republican. All the while, experts, both Indian and American, had been predicting a Hillary landslide. They were busy reducing Trump to a bizarre mix of racism, nativism, misogyny and whatnot, making him look inferior to his competitor, while he was actually connecting with his voters in a more meaningful way than Hillary.

It is possible they were talking about the Trump phenomenon without understanding it at all. They were too busy studying statistics, splicing and dicing data on demography and making excel sheet projections while ignoring the real factor that counts in all elections: the man who votes. Using numbers to predict human behaviour is fraught with risks. It becomes riskier when societies are in a churn, thus unstable. That is one big reason why psephologists and experts are falling short everywhere. We have seen it in India too.

Again, to be blunt, the expert may have more information at his command than the common man but the universe of his knowledge is limited. A lot of his knowledge draws from history  pattern of voter behaviour over a length of time; the distinct voting track record of a community or in a constituency; and the past of the party and the candidate. A bit of it comes from quick analysis of immediate developments  for example, a controversial statement made, a senior leader switching loyalty, a case of communal violence etc. Experts tend to mix both to have a presentable argument to back their prediction.

But as evidence over the last some elections suggest the knowledge fails to capture the reality on the ground or the complexity of voter behaviour. In the US many of the states that have been voting Democratic shifted to Republicans this time. Women, who were expected to be disgusted at Trumps rather vulgar record with them, didnt vote overwhelmingly against him. Few experts caught the shift in the first case and all of them wholly misread the so-called anger against his misogyny.

The truth of the matter is media experts have been pulling a con job on their audience. A truly knowledgeable person would be defensive about making a prediction. Like Gardner says in his book: Expertise means more knowledge and more knowledge produces more detail and complication. More detail and complication makes it harder to come to a clear and confident answer. At least it should make it harder...A conmans greatest strength is confidence. We see a lot of it in experts in the media.

The strategy is simple. Dont get troubled with the complexities that massive information brings. Like researcher Philip Tetlock, quoted in Gardners book, would say: ...Reduce the problem to some core theoretical theme and use the theme over and over, like a template, to stamp out predictions...

It does not matter if the prediction goes wrong, not once but again and again. We are psychologically so conditioned to seeking predictions that we go back to them always. If we are ready to be conned, there will be people to con us. But thats another story for another day.
In her book Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild writes about the deep story underlying the recent transformations in American politics.

A professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Hochschild describes the phenomenon in these words: The deep story of the right, the feelsasif story corresponds to a real structural squeeze. People want to achieve the American Dream, but for a mixture of reasons feel they are being held back, and this leads people of the right to feel frustrated, angry and betrayed by the government. Race is an essential part of this story.

We could easily add misogyny as another narrative component that is as integral to this story. And it is this deep story that seems to have played out in the stunning outcome of the elections in the US.

The result has left pollsters and media analysts red-faced, with many of them asking what happened in a bewildered way. These luminaries spent days and months picking threadbare Americas political fluctuations; the trends, and the mood of its people. Yet they utterly failed to anticipate the unprecedented results. The postmortem now underway gestures towards a dark and uncertain future that the worlds most powerful country seems to be headed towards.

The Republican nominee Donald Trump  a real estate tycoon and rank outsider to Washingtons political system  has defeated the experienced politician and veteran Democrat Hillary Clinton. She, who could perhaps have broken the ultimate glass ceiling in the patriarchal power structure has won the popular vote, but lost to her adversary in the Electoral College. That the very notion of an Electoral College renders democracy somewhat meaningless is a pertinent point, but also irrelevant at this moment. For now, Trumps victory seems to have propelled America to a political, economic and social trajectory that gives one plenty of reason for anxiety.

The deep disquiet over Trumps victory is not simply to do with his status as a greenhorn politician whose image, till now, has been mainly that of a swaggering, overconfident aspirant for the presidential office. There is enough cause for apprehension about his inexperience in governance and politics. But that does not explain the fear and anxiety currently sweeping across large swathes of America at the prospect of a Trump presidency that could last for up to eight years.

There is good reason for anxiety. The President-elect has emerged as a rallying point for the different varieties of bigots who, till his emergence as a forceful, hate-spewing candidate were hovering in the background. While the Republican Party has always provided a platform for misogyny, racism, and a love of guns, Trump has harnessed these forces in a unique way. The scary symbolism of Americas first African-American President being followed by a President endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan speaks volumes for the tragedy many are anticipating will unfold in the coming days.

KKK leader David Duke even tweeted last night that: This is one of the most exciting nights of my life. Make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump!

This is one of the most exciting nights of my life -> make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/HvJyiJYuVa  David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) November 9, 2016

These lobbies that have solidly backed Trump, no matter the level of offense he has caused  repeatedly  throughout the campaign. They have asserted themselves more and more in the months leading up to the polls and are now hoping to deepen already existing sentiments of racism and misogyny. No matter how much Trump may (for appearances sake) now appeal for unity and call for bridging the deep chasm within American society, he has successfully unleashed the genie of hatred against a whole range of people  Muslims, Latinos, women, LGBTQ people  who are fearing years of targeted torment and surveillance.

While white poverty and alienation from the mainstream might provide one explanation for what happened, there are no simple answers at hand. The racism and sexism of voters has to be understood alongside years of failed policies, economic devastation and unfulfilled aspirations. That post-mortem is yet to happen. And it is now too late to realise that these questions should have been asked months, if not years ago.
By Makini Brice

| LES CAYES, Haiti

LES CAYES, Haiti Haiti has launched a massive cholera vaccination campaign to battle a flare-up after Hurricane Matthew, but concerns remain about the capacity for longer-term improvements to water and sanitation infrastructure needed to eradicate the disease. The cholera campaign, launched on Tuesday in two southern areas hammered by the storm, is aiming to be the world's largest, targeting 820,000 people, said Ernsly Jackson, an immunization specialist for UNICEF Haiti. Haiti has battled a cholera outbreak that has sickened more than 800,000 people and killed about 9,000 since 2010, when the bacteria was imported into the country by a contingent of United Nations peacekeepers. Although it had proved stubborn to eradicate, cases had declined sharply from a peak in 2010-11. But Hurricane Matthew struck the island in early October, killing up to 1,000 people, leaving about 1.4 million in need of humanitarian assistance and damaging many health facilities. The storm largely destroyed much of the southwestern region's already meagre water and sanitation infrastructure, leaving it ripe for a cholera outbreak, experts say. Clifford Gauthier, the South department's head of the Ministry of Health, said there had been 1,200 suspected cholera cases since the hurricane hit, a sharp increase since the region had previously had fewer cases than other areas of the country. In total, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says there have been 3,500 suspected cholera cases since the hurricane. In the Immaculate Conception Hospital of the port town of Les Cayes, 19 people suspected of having cholera were hooked up to IVs and lay on hospital bedframes.Marie Wilnine Gaetan, the head nurse of a rapid-response team, said that the region had not seen so many cases since the disease was first spotted in Haiti.



SINGLE DOSES

The campaign will mark the first time that so many people will be given only one dose of the cholera vaccine. Normally, the vaccine is given in two doses. A previous initiative conducted by Doctors Without Borders in South Sudan found that a single dose of the cholera vaccine proved to be extremely effective at boosting immunity, according to a study published in medical journal The Lancet in November.

"This justifies the approach of using a single dose to achieve wider coverage, given the fact that there's not enough of the vaccine to give to everyone," said Alan Hinman, a member of the Global Task Force on Cholera Prevention, who was not involved with the study. The two-dose vaccine lasts for two years, according to the United Kingdom's National Health Service, but it is not known exactly how long the single dose lasts. Despite officials' enthusiasm, some residents were angry that help had taken a month to arrive."Many people died in the South department because of cholera, especially people who do not have access to a health centre in their community," said Laurient Seebien, a resident of Les Cayes. "Maybe if the government had come quickly with those drugs, it would have saved more lives."

Officials at the campaign launch were careful to stress the vaccine was not intended to be the only tool to fight cholera in the region. "The eradication of cholera must include the strengthening of sanitary infrastructures and the population must have access to safe water," said Daphnee Benoit Delsoin, the Minister of Health. "That is to say, it is a very long struggle." But rapid-response team nurse Gaetan said that the water and sanitation authority's repairs appeared to be slow-going. "It's true that DINEPA has started, but I don't know if their means are limited," she said, using the authority's French acronym. A DINEPA spokesman did not respond to multiple calls. Donor financing for longer-term improvements to the water and sanitation system in the cash-strapped country had proved slow to materialize, U.N. officials said. "There have been promises but there has been little funding," said Francois Bellet, a UNICEF specialist in water and sanitation. (Additional reporting by Robenson Sanon, editing by G Crosse)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
New York: It was meant to be a day of celebration. Instead, Hillary Clinton brought down the curtain on her historic run for the White House  the likely coda to a decades-long career in the public eye.

The former first lady, senator and secretary of state had hoped Tuesday would catapult her to the Oval Office, capping a lifetime of public service. Instead, Republican rival Donald Trump pulled off a political upset for the ages.

The 69-year-old Clinton  so close to breaking through the glass ceiling and becoming America's first woman president  ended up skipping her own Election Night party at the cavernous Javits Center in New York.

But on Wednesday, it was time to face the music.

Elegant in a dark pantsuit  what else  with a purple blouse and lapels, in perhaps an unspoken nod to the need to unite the blue of the Democratic Party and the red of the Republicans, Clinton faced her tearful supporters.

At times steely and at other times emotional, Clinton vowed to work with President-elect Donald Trump and urged fellow Democrats to allow him the chance to lead the deeply divided country.

"Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country," the defeated candidate said at a Manhattan hotel, in her first public remarks since the Republican's shock victory.

"I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans."

"We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought," she said. "We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

Untrustworthy

Clinton's bid to become America's first female commander-in-chief shuddered to a halt after one of the nastiest campaigns in modern US history.

When the election season kicked off some 18 months ago, she seemed as close to a sure bet as there could be in politics, bringing name recognition, a polished resume and fundraising prowess to the White House race.

But she faced a surprisingly bitter race in the Democratic primary against the populist Bernie Sanders, who exploded onto the scene riding a wave of support from young voters energized by his calls for income equality, free college and ridding politics of big money.

And against Trump, Clinton was ultimately unable to convince a big enough slice of the American electorate that the reality TV star was "temperamentally unfit" for the nation's highest office.

Voters consistently described Clinton as untrustworthy and she was hamstrung by an FBI investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Opponents said the private email case showed her carelessness in handling state secrets and was another example of how Clinton felt the rules didn't apply to her.

Her unexpected defeat in the White House race ushered a political novice who had disparaged her as "crooked Hillary" into the Oval Office  though in his victory speech, Trump, 70, spoke warmly of his Democratic opponent.

"Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely," he said.

The latest partial results showed Trump winning the White House with 290 Electoral College votes to Clinton's 228, though she was leading the popular vote count by nearly 239,000, according to CNN.

More seasons to come

On Wednesday, Clinton said her presidential run was bigger than her own ambitions.

"This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for and I'm sorry that we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country," she said.

"This is painful, and it will be for a long time, but I want you to remember this: our campaign was never about one person or even one election."

She said constitutional democracy "enshrines the peaceful transfer of power, and we don't just respect that, we cherish it."

"It enshrines other things too," she said. "The rule of law, the principle that we are all equal in rights and dignity, freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them."

It appeared to be a gentle jab at Trump, who called for a ban on Muslims during the campaign, and during one presidential debate appeared to threaten Clinton with jail if he were elected.

But Clinton ended her speech  perhaps the last of her political career  on a hopeful note.

"I still believe as deeply as ever have that if we stand together and work together with respect for our differences, strength in our convictions and love for this nation, our best days are still ahead of us," she said.

"So, my friends, let us have faith in each other. Let us not grow weary. Let us not lose heart, for there are more seasons to come, and there is more work to do."
Islamabad: Pakistani foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz says his country would like to work with US President-elect Donald Trump on the common interest of combating terrorism.

In an interview with Pakistan's Geo News channel on Thursday, he says that helping negotiate a political settlement in Afghanistan is another area where the two countries could work together.

The US president-elect has publicly criticised Pakistan in the past for battling some Islamic militant groups while tolerating others.

Aziz acknowledged that perception, but said such policies were "in the past."

Local and al-Qaeda-linked Islamic militants who have had long used Pakistan's lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border as safe havens. The Afghan government frequently accuses Islamabad of sheltering the senior leadership of the Taliban.
By Gina Cherelus and Ian Simpson

| NEW YORK/WASHINGTON

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON Police put up security fences around U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's new Washington hotel on Thursday and a line of concrete blocks shielded New York's Trump Tower as students around the country staged a second day of protests over his election.A day after thousands of people took to the streets in at least 10 U.S. cities from Boston to Berkeley, California, chanting "not my president" and "no Trump," fresh protests were held in Texas to San Francisco.A Trump campaign representative did not respond to requests for comment on the protests but Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, called the demonstrators "a bunch of spoiled cry-babies.""If you're looking at the real left-wing loonies on the campus, it's the professors not the students," Giuliani said on Fox News on Thursday. "Calm down, things are not as bad as you think."The protesters blasted Trump for campaign rhetoric critical of immigrants, Muslims and allegations of sexual abuse of women. More than 20 people were arrested for blocking or attempting to block highways in Los Angeles and Richmond, Virginia, early Thursday morning.White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said Obama supported the demonstrators' right to express themselves peacefully."We've got a carefully, constitutionally protected right to free speech," Earnest told reporters. "The president believes that that is a right that should be protected. It is a right that should be exercised without violence." In San Francisco, more than 1,000 students walked out of classes on Thursday morning and marched through the citys financial district carrying rainbow flags representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, Mexican flags and signs decrying the president-elect.

Several hundred students at Texas State University in San Marcos took to the campus to protest Trump's election, with many students saying they fear he will infringe the civil rights of minorities and the LGBT community."NOT MY PRESIDENT"

In New York's Washington Square park, several hundred people gathered to protest Trump's election. Three miles (5 km) to the north at the gilt Trump Tower, where Trump lives, 29-year-old Alex Conway stood holding a sign that read "not my president."

"This sign is not to say he isn't the president of the United States, but for two days I can use my emotion to be against this outcome and to express that he's not mine," said Conway, who works in the film industry. "The only thing I can hope for is that in four years I'm proved wrong."In Washington, a jogger shouted an expletive about Trump as he passed the Trump International Hotel on Thursday, just blocks from the White House, where the former reality TV star had his first meeting with President Barack Obama to discuss transition plans.More anti-Trump demonstrations are planned heading into the weekend, according to organizers' online posts. One urged protesters to rally in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.Supporters of Trump, who surprised many in the political and media establishment with Tuesday's win, urged calm and recommended that Americans wait to see how he performed as president.

The United States has seen waves of large-scale, sometimes violent protests in the past few years. Cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Berkeley have been rocked by demonstrations following high-profile police killings of unarmed black men and teens. Those followed a wave of large-scale protest encampments, starting with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York in 2011.Trump said in his victory speech, which was delivered in a far calmer manner than he displayed in many campaign appearances, that he would be president for all Americans. Some of his most controversial campaign proposals, including the call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, had been removed from his campaign website by Thursday.A spate of isolated attacks on women and members of minority groups by people wearing Trump hats or saying his name were reported by police and U.S. media.A hijab-wearing female student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette was assaulted on Wednesday morning by a man wearing a white "Trump" hat, who knocked her to the ground and took her head scarf and wallet, university police said in a statement.Reports also showed other cases in which Trump opponents lashed out violently against people carrying signs indicating they supported him. (Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York, Ian Simpson in Washington, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Bill Trott)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Idrees Ali

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON Sixty-four civilians were killed and eight injured in 24 U.S. air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria between Nov. 20, 2015, and Sept. 10, 2016, the U.S. military said in a statement on Wednesday."In each of the cases released today, the assessment determined that although all feasible precautions were taken and strikes complied with laws of armed conflict, civilian casualties unfortunately did occur, Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in a statement. In a strike on Nov. 20, five civilians were killed near Dayr Az Zawr, Syria after they entered the target area after the aircraft released its weapons.In a strike on March 5, near Mosul, Iraq, 10 civilians were killed in a strike against an Islamic State "weapons production facility," the statement said.

Mitigating civilian casualties is a key component of the counter-ISIL air campaign, and weve applied lessons learned to reduce the likelihood of future civilian casualties, Thomas said, using an acronym for Islamic State.Including the latest disclosure, the Pentagon has assessed that 119 civilians have been killed in U.S air strikes since 2014, while 37 have been injured, Major Josh Jacques, another spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said.

Last month a report from Amnesty International said that about 300 civilians have been killed in 11 coalition attacks in the past two years.Jacques said the latest release did not include an investigation into a coalition air strike in mid-July near Manbij, Syria, which groups say killed dozens of civilians, but that it was near completion.

The United States has conducted 12,354 air strikes against Islamic State as of Nov. 2, with 6,992 in Iraq and 5,362 in Syria, according to U.S. military data.The operation against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has cost $9.3 billion since 2014, the data shows. (Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Bill Rigby)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
This piece was originally published on 11 February, 2016. It is being updated and republished in light of Donald Trump being elected the next President of the United States.

Keeping things secret in showbiz is like trying to stop a cow from dropping dung (the rationale for this graphic metaphor will become clear soon). Just ask Quentin Tarantino.

But the fact that Funny or Die and the production team on this mock-biopic of Donald Trump were able to keep it under wraps is truly remarkable. Late on Wednesday night (10 February), the 50-minute film finally hit the internet. And what a resounding hit it was. Releasing a whole nine months before Election Day, this prescient film actually ominously predicts that Trump is elected to the highest office in the land. It's also replete with some of the finest Trumpisms (imagined more than real) ever heard.

You know, suing someone  thats the most beautiful thing one human being can do to another human being. New York should be a place where everyone no matter their race, religion, creed, colour can be priced out of their neighbourhood. Not this hellhole where the wealthy elite live in fear of rent control.

I could go on and on with more of the gems with which Donald Trumps The Art of The Deal: The Movie is liberally strewn, but that would be a disservice to you as well as this hysterical mock-biopic on Donald Trump. Starring Johnny Depp as the Republican Partys frontrunner this year in the race to become President of the United States (still feels weird saying that), the film turns back the clock to 1986 and Trump's 40th birthday.

The premise of the film is simple enough: A young boy finds himself sneaking into Trump's office after stealing a copy of his book The Art of The Deal, only to run into Donald himself. A brilliantly portrayed Trump  that leans less towards caricature than embraces it wholeheartedly  sits the boy down and proceeds to tell him the secrets of his success, while simultaneously trying to goad/barrack/coerce Merv Griffin (a camply-played cameo from Patton Oswalt) into selling him the Taj Mahal Casino. And as Trump lays down his wisdom, the deal goes back and forth.

Running through the little boy's (or maybe that should that be boys'. It'll make sense when you watch the film) education, is a foul-mouthed barrage filled with enough pee and poop jokes  if the phrase 'world-class Trump dump' makes you laugh, this film is highly recommended  to maybe even impress Jay and Silent Bob.

via GIPHY

And that's before Alfred Molina (playing Jerry Schrager, 'Jewish Lawyer') simulates oral bobbitisation.

Along the way come Trump's outrageously politically incorrect relationship with his wife Ivana (Michaela Watkins), a hilarious rap about how cool lawsuits are, a typically over-the-top 80s-style opening credits theme by Kenny Loggins, Trump's toilet troubles, a shocking visitor from the future, and plenty more. While the highlight of Donald Trumps The Art of The Deal: The Movie is unarguably Depp, who ably demonstrates what the offspring of real estate mogul-turned-politician and Raoul Duke (click here to jog your memory) might be like, cameos by Jack MacBrayer, Henry Winkler, Christopher Lloyd and Stephen Merchant truly make this film worth a few watches.

With that sort of cast, that sort of subject matter and that sort of treatment, just how did they manage to keep it all so hush-hush?

Funny or Die's editor-in-chief Owen Burke told The New York Times, "We had a few people sign nondisclosures, but mostly we just begged people not to say anything." According to the report, the film was conceptualised in September last year, and Depp spent four days in December filming the performance Burke described as 'absolutely bananas'.

But wait, what if Trump had dropped out of the presidential race and as a consequence, dropped out of the news cycle?

"The plan was to move really fast because we thought Trump would go away, as least as a presidential candidate, The New York Times quoted Burke as saying, and added: When he bizarrely didnt go away, we had a little more time."

Considering how the Trump juggernaut is rolling along at present, it's difficult to dismiss the horrible feeling that Funny or Die probably have enough time to make a full-length feature, or even a three-part miniseries. Besides, as the movie shows, in the future, Trump does become the US president and returns from 2016 to tell his 40-year-old self just that.

Watch the trailer below and should it grab your fancy, the link to the full film will magically emerge. Enjoy, ok?
By Emily Flitter

| NEW YORK

NEW YORK Some of the most controversial proposals Donald Trump made while running for U.S. president were gone from his campaign website by Thursday, including his call to ban Muslims from entering the country and his promise to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement.The link to his Dec. 7 proposal titled: "Donald J. Trump statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration," in which he called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" vanished, along with his list of his potential Supreme Court justice picks as president and certain details of his economic, defense and regulatory reform plans.The Trump campaign did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment on the website changes.The links, which now redirect readers to a campaign fundraising page, appear to have been removed around Election Day on Tuesday, when Trump won a historic upset against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, according to a website that records historic snapshots of web pages.MUSLIMS

In an appearance on CNBC on Thursday, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal praised Trump for removing the Muslim ban proposal from his website and also said Trump had deleted statements offensive to Muslims from his Twitter account. [nL8N1DB6QYSeveral tweets attacking Muslims that Trump sent while campaigning for president remained in his feed on Thursday, however, including a March 22 tweet in which Trump wrote: "Incompetent Hillary, despite the horrible attack in Brussels today, wants borders to be weak and open-and let the Muslims flow in. No way!"

A Nov. 30, 2015 tweet from a supporter which Trump quoted in a tweet of his own repeated the claim that Muslims celebrated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and suggested Trump include footage of the celebrations in his political ads. At a news conference with other civil rights leaders on Thursday, Samer Khalaf, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the group was still worried about Trump's policies' effects on Muslims. "We thank him for removing those words," Khalaf said, referring to the Muslim ban proposal, "but you know what, words are one thing, actions are something totally different."

DELETIONS

Most of Trump's core policy positions remained on his website, including his central immigration promise to build an "impenetrable physical wall" on the border with Mexico and make Mexico pay for its construction.It was not the first time the Trump campaign has made unexplained changes to its site. The campaign this year also replaced the part of the site describing Trump's healthcare policy with a different version. When contacted about it by Reuters in September, the campaign put the original page back up. (Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson and Julia Harte in Washington, Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Jonathan Oatis)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump held a 90-minute meeting on Thursday with U.S. President Barack Obama in the White House to discuss the transition of power after the Republican's stunning election victory. Sitting next to the Democratic president in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters: "We really discussed a lot of situations, some wonderful, some difficulties." He said Obama explained "some of the great things that have been achieved," but did not elaborate.

Trump, elected on Tuesday to his first public office, said he looked forward to more meetings with Obama. Obama said he will do everything he can to help the New York businessman succeed when he takes office on Jan. 20 and urged the country to unite to face its challenges.

"My number-one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful," Obama said at the end of the meeting.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton, Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; Writing by Richard Cowan; Editing by Alistair Bell)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
In a victory speech devoid of the divisive rhetoric that had marked his campaign, US President-elect Donald Trump thanked rival Hillary Clinton and vowed that the forgotten men and women in America will remain forgotten no longer and the rebuilding of the nation will be done keeping their voices in mind.

"Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. Were going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it," said Trump after the elections were called on Wednesday.

Who are these "forgotten men and women" that Trump was talking about? And why didn't this significant part of the American population feature in the conversation around US presidential elections?

Throughout the excruciatingly long campaign, the entire mainstream media chatter revolved around Hillary breaking the glass ceiling, reaching out to the marginalised, building bridges. Her campaign raised billions and the entire Hollywood flocked by her side. She waved, and everyone from Jay Z, Beyonce, Lady Ga Ga to Ben Affleck waved back.

Liberal media convinced us that this election wasn't even a choice, given the fact that Democratic nominee was up against such a candidate who might find it difficult to get backing from even his own family. He was a fascist, a sexual predator, a bloviating tycoon with no morals and a reflection of our worst selves. Only the most bigoted, racist and Islamophobic white American males would ever vote for him. Relax, said the media, Trump would never, ever win. A day before the polls, the media's star pollsters pegged Clinton's chance of winning the elections at a staggering 98 percent. On 9 November, reporters from all around the world flew in to congratulate Clinton as the ultimate Establishment insider was getting ready to deliver the victory speech.

Where did we go wrong?

Considering the enormous clout of American media and its ability to drive opinion around the world, the mystifying thing is how it made a series of elementary mistakes. It needed to come out of the echo chamber and witness the anger brewing within but it shut out the reality  maybe because it was too frightening  and chose to stay firmly within the bubble. This is inverse racism where people from similar social, cultural and economic background sharing the same set of values flock together and go into a collective denial when challenged. They also share the same fear of the other.

As the Democrats ripped into Trump and focused relentlessly on his shortcomings and prejudices, the media, in a spate of self-righteous anger, refused to remain neutral and sided with the force it believes was on the side of truth, light and liberal values. It could have been right but that is not the media's job.

This fundamental error of identifying itself with a political force, siding with it and indulging in groupthink instead of listening to the disruptive voices raging outside and reporting it with honesty, made it misread the signals. But it didn't stop there. The media chose to mock Trump and his supporters, reject their concerns and finally act for their defeat. In all of these actions, it further fuelled the anger of those men and women who have been hard done by the effects of globalisation and made them root for a disruptive change agent. Donald Trump became, to these "forgotten men and women", their revenge against the broken political order.

A lot has been said about how Trump Presidency and globalisation are a populist backlash against globalisation. As the media belatedly discovers the reality, it finally sees the truth in Trump's slogan of "Brexit plus plus". One of the interesting things about globalisation is that people believe in it as long globalisation works to their benefit. But when the same market forces break free of the shackles and run according to their own algorithm bringing hitherto unseen changes, globalisation then becomes a negative force.

The middle America, the four states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin that voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and re-elected him to power in 2012, this time sided with Donald Trump. The proverbial American rust belt turned red, a phenomenon unheard of in decades. These are the manufacturing hubs that used to drive American engine in the 1970s and 80s. Why did these voters, who ushered in America's first black president, refused to side with his nominee Hillary Clinton? Full of contempt and still in denial, the liberal media dismissed these predominantly white working class American voters as proto-fascists, bigots and racists. And therein lies the Trump story.

If the media was attentive enough, it would have paid heed to what Michael Moore, documentary filmmaker and activist, had predicted back in July. In a blog post '5 reasons why Trump will win' a prescient Moore read signals which the media failed to fathom.

He wrote: "I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes  Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin four traditionally Democratic states. Trump is going to hammer Clinton on NAFTA and her support of TPP and other trade policies that have royally screwed the people of these four states

"From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the middle of England  broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs wholl write them nice big check before leaving the room. What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here."

Trump won because he threatened to slap General Motors with a stiff fine if they tried to ship Mexican-built small cars back to US. He became the darling of these "forgotten men and women" by threatening Tim Cook that he will make Apple build iPhones in the US instead of China if he becomes the President. Whether or not he fulfils these rather stiff promises, the simplicity of his message turned a multi-millionaire reality TV star into a "messiah of the masses".

Trump told these angry, embittered men who have seen the great American dream vanish before their eyes that he, the quintessential outsider, will fix the broken political system and they believed him.

Clinton never had a chance because she was seen as the ultimate insider belonging to the elites of coastal cities who have no patience for these 'forgotten men and women" and their concerns. While Trump promised to disrupt the system and reinvent the broken political order, Clinton offered only minor tweaks and was seen as a status quoist. And these voters were not happy with status quo. Trump was the businessman, she was a career politician and they did not trust her, no matter what the media told them.

Trump had a story to tell that these "forgotten men" wanted to hear. Clinton had nothing to say. The result is clear.
The unthinkable has happened.

Donald Trump has won the US presidency.

Only a month ago, this weak candidate seemed to destroy his own prospects by his first debate performance; falling as he did into an obvious trap Hillary Clinton had laid, by tweeting in the middle of the night about a Miss Universe contestant. After that, and in the wake of the release of an appalling hot mic tape where he spoke about sexually assaulting women, he watched the entire Republican establishment abandon him.

Now Trump has emerged as the winner, with a convincing electoral victory, although at the time of writing, he is losing the popular vote. However improbable  and most poll-tracking sites, with the notable exception of Nate Silvers 538, had his chances well under 10 percent as of Tuesday  his victory followed the lines people had speculated it might. Basically, he won the white vote by a wide margin, 58 to 37 percent, doing particularly well among whites with without college degrees, 67 to 28 percent. None of Clintons possible firewalls materialised.

Her share of those with college degrees or more was up eight percent  not enough, nor did an enlarged gender gap materialise (Clinton won 41 percent of votes from men and 54 percent from women; worse among men and about the same among women as Barack Obama in 2012), nor did Latinos swing even further away from Republicans. In fact, notwithstanding Trumps often horrific rhetoric on race matters and immigration, he improved on Romneys share of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans. Although Trump lost the lowest income categories, he substantially improved on Romneys share, while Clinton made more modest gains among the upper middle class.

As is usually the case, those who believe the economy is in good shape went with the party in power, while those unhappy with it went with the party out of power. In an election in which many wanted change, Clinton embodied the establishment, and was tarnished by the focus on minor scandals. Basically, Trumps coalition of whites, particularly those without college education, came out in big numbers, while Clintons coalition did not. And Trumps coalition has more weight in the electoral swing states. Not surprisingly, Trumps victory has also resulted in the Republicans maintaining both Houses of Congress. Undoubtedly, one of the first orders of business will be to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, restoring a 5-4 conservative majority to that body, with more appointments likely in the next four years given the age of liberal justices there.

Although the picture above is not too far from norms of American politics, Trumps victory has horrified and devastated liberals in the United States. His rhetoric often seemed little more than a stew of racist, anti-immigrant and misogynist resentments. With no experience whatsoever in public office, he also showed little respect for freedom of the press and seems personally vengeful. Rather than a simple passing of the baton back to the Republicans, Trump emerges as a surly No from "flyover country," hollowed out of decent paying jobs over the past 30 years and fearful of cultural changes epitomised by a Black president, to a multicultural, corporate establishment. This vote thus joins a number of similar ones around the world this year, including the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte, Brexit, and the failed Peace Accords in Colombia, in all of which a mobilised Right was able to defeat the establishment, notwithstanding the screams that such votes would be practically suicidal.

What should we expect?

Trump will be of the same party as both Houses of Congress, and soon, as noted above, the Supreme Court. At the same time, many Republicans are not presently on the same page as Trump. Trump attacked bipartisan policies, including trade pacts, Nato, and fiscal austerity, although for all of his populist appeal, he tended to drift back towards Republican promises of deregulation and tax cuts as the campaign went on. Many Republicans have close connections to donors who want little more than the status quo with cuts to taxes. Trump has no ties to them, but rather to a working class base whose lot he has promised to improve, although it is unclear how.

The more traditional Republicans will probably cave to his will out of fear for their own positions  some donors and upper middle class voters may drift to the Democrats in search of a new home. His foreign policy ideas, such as they are, mix a dampening down of tensions with Russia with extremely belligerent rhetoric. The Paris Climate deal is likely dead. The FBI seemed to be on Trumps side, particularly in the last couple of weeks of the campaign; it is conceivable it will be deployed against his enemies.

The Left side of the political spectrum faces a very serious reckoning. The Democratic Party will likely be pulled in two different directions. Some will argue that it must deepen its appeal to the upper middle class, perhaps by stepping to the Right from the modest economic measures Clinton proposed as her agenda, making it more amenable to the homeless Republicans noted above, while pulling some working class whites back by taking less pro-immigration stances. Others, associated with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, will likely argue that the party should deliver a Left populist alternative to Trump, staking out opposition to corporate domination of Washington and mapping out ways government can work better for ordinary people through redistributive measures.

Probably the former position  moving to the Right  will be more popular with pro-Clinton Democratic office holders, while the latter position  moving to the Left  will be more popular with the Democratic base.

African-Americans and Latinos would be in the middle  they put Clinton over the top during the primary, but clearly lacked enthusiasm in the General Election. They could conceivably be pulled to the Left. Already during the primary season, majorities of younger cohorts of these groups went for Sanders, who was not particularly adept at navigating the Democratic Partys multiracial terrain. This tension would have emerged under Clinton, but it is hard to deny that the struggle will occur under more difficult conditions under Trump, where it will play out under conditions of Trump's choosing.

The last five years have been lively ones for protest in the US, and these social movements will also face new challenges. Both Occupy and Black Lives Matters showed signs of producing multiracial coalitions. Movements around climate, immigration and the minimum wage have also shown promise. All, however, have a limited organisational presence in American life. How will they fare under conditions where nearly all white uniformed officers (police, border patrol, corrections officers) support Trump, who they likely anticipate will provide them with support after being on the defensive for the last couple of years?

Although fascism has been a popular optic to frame Trump, it might be more productive to look at other periods in US history in which racism was successfully reinvigorated to isolate poor and working class whites from multiracial coalitions of the oppressed (Reconstruction, Populism). If this were to occur again, it would be devastating to long-term hopes for a more equitable United States.

Today, it is hard to be optimistic about the capacity to meet these challenges, but this is what is ahead for the Left in the United States.

The author is a sociologist and author who lives in Brooklyn, New York
Pakistan is engulfed in severe lawlessness. The port city of Karachi, once renowned as Bombay of Pakistan, is marred by target killings and sectarian violence. Possibly because of the ongoing happenings of terrorist-linked violence in Balochistan, the news of bloodshed in Karachi often gets eclipsed.

Other than these killings, excesses on Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) activists continue unabated. MQM has people from India, largely Urdu speaking, who chose to go to Pakistan after partition hoping that Pakistan will be their new home. However, are now disappointed as their hopes were belied. They still reel under the Punjabi discrimination and are at present dominated by the Pathans who are being steadily rehabilitated in Karachi and adjacent areas unsettling the non-pushto speaking population which has been affecting the existence of the Mohajirs.

For long, MQM has been a thorn in the flesh of the Pakistani establishment due to its vigorous and legitimate struggle for their rights leading MQM to wage a relentless defiance of the government under the leadership of Altaf Hussain.

Altaf and his affiliates in and outside MQM were often targets of atrocities more due to government suspicion that their allegiance was for India. For electoral gains, however, PPP and other political parties tried to cajole MQM as they carry a sizeable vote bank.

Reverting to lawlessness. On 22 October, three London-based MQM members  Zafar Arif, Kunwar Khalid Yunus, and Amjad Ullah Khan  were arrested outside Karachi press club under the draconian Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) Act and sent to the central prison.

Meanwhile, Momin Khan Momin, a prominent human rights activist and an MQM member, was falsely implicated in an arms case and arrested.

Similarly, Arif, an eighty-plus-old academic and even a philosopher of great renown having taught philosophy in Karachi university were not spared and put behind the bars.

Arif has authored many important books on philosophy and his students have won great acclaim.

Karachi authorities, as evident from these arbitrary and discriminatory actions, are pursuing a policy of repression to maintain their writ and any dissent is suppressed with brute force with scant or no respect for human rights and any reasoning or logic.

It's no exaggeration to state that freedom of expression has been a misnomer in Pakistan where free speech is curbed and stifled under the guise of national interest, the glory of Islam and religious sentiments.

The authoritative and highly-placed sources in Karachi claim that in a pseudo democracy in Pakistan, where might is right, intellectuals are the softest targets.

Journalists, scholars, human rights and political activists are routinely attacked under the convenient Blasphemy law, Protection of Pakistan Act (PPA), Protection against Cyber Crime Act (PECA), MPO etc to curb free speech and state-sponsored atrocities are legitimised through these legislations.

Few liberals confided recently that with the authorities' whose hands are stained in blood and have disrepute of the worst kind have no moral right to blame India for alleged persecutions in the Valley. In Kashmir, any dissent is not muzzled in a manner pursued in Sindh, Balochistan and other places of Pakistan.

Speaking of sectarian violence in Karachi, five people were gunned down outside a women's majlis in Nizamabad on 29 October. Again, on last Friday (4 November), sectarian bloodshed took a toll of six persons.

These incidents led to arrests of high-profile and peace-loving Shia leaders and clerics, including ex-PPP senator Faisal Raza Abidi and others.

In a most recent case, on 7 November, protesters agitating over killings in Malir area, blocked the national highways and disrupted rail traffic causing major law and order problem. They were demanding the release of incarcerated Shia leaders currently under arrest.

Sindh CM has been calling for peace but his pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears ostensibly due to the genuine demands of the protesting elements.

The situation remains grim and with increasing repression, more counterproductive measures by the dissenters are on the anvil threatening peace in Karachi.

Sindh may assume same titanic proportions of violence and lawlessness, as currently witnessed in Balochistan, in not so distant future. This is noticed glaringly from the emerging pattern and indicators in the troubled areas in Pakistan showing no signs of cessation.

Some analysts say the prevailing situation is limping towards the Balochistan way and Karachi may see more intensified killings and disorder as being witnessed in Quetta perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other supported outfits who generally have a field day.

Objectively, if the independence-seeking Balochis who are, at present, on a defiant mode and MQM (with thirty-two years of standing as a political party) join hands proactively, then all the government-created roadblocks are likely to crumble paving way for a concerted movement aimed at unsettling the 'might' and despotism of the federal government.

With the government fatigued with its battle for survival under the leadership of PM Nawaz Sharif (tainted with accusations on Panama papers), a stepped-up aggressive movement by Imran Khan and his party, the civil and military entities embroiled in an ugly showdown, uncertainty about the appointment of the new Army Chief Raheel Sharif expected to retire this month and most significantly, with Donald Trump (known for his anti-Pakistan innuendoes during his campaigns) emerging triumphant as the next US president, Pakistan may have to face serious trouble with skeptics possibly telling its establishment "You asked for it".

The author is a retired IPS officer is a security analyst and columnist. Views are personal.
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(Phys.org)Light behaves both as a particle and as a wave. Since the days of Einstein, scientists have been trying to directly observe both of these aspects of light at the same time. Now, scientists at EPFL have succeeded in capturing the first-ever snapshot of this dual behavior.

Quantum mechanics tells us that light can behave simultaneously as a particle or a wave. However, there has never been an experiment able to capture both natures of light at the same time; the closest we have come is seeing either wave or particle, but always at different times. Taking a radically different experimental approach, EPFL scientists have now been able to take the first ever snapshot of light behaving both as a wave and as a particle. The breakthrough work is published in Nature Communications.

When UV light hits a metal surface, it causes an emission of electrons. Albert Einstein explained this "photoelectric" effect by proposing that light  thought to only be a wave  is also a stream of particles. Even though a variety of experiments have successfully observed both the particle- and wave-like behaviors of light, they have never been able to observe both at the same time.

A research team led by Fabrizio Carbone at EPFL has now carried out an experiment with a clever twist: using electrons to image light. The researchers have captured, for the first time ever, a single snapshot of light behaving simultaneously as both a wave and a stream of particles.

The experiment is set up like this: A pulse of laser light is fired at a tiny metallic nanowire. The laser adds energy to the charged particles in the nanowire, causing them to vibrate. Light travels along this tiny wire in two possible directions, like cars on a highway. When waves traveling in opposite directions meet each other they form a new wave that looks like it is standing in place. Here, this standing wave becomes the source of light for the experiment, radiating around the nanowire.

This is where the experiment's trick comes in: The scientists shot a stream of electrons close to the nanowire, using them to image the standing wave of light. As the electrons interacted with the confined light on the nanowire, they either sped up or slowed down. Using the ultrafast microscope to image the position where this change in speed occurred, Carbone's team could now visualize the standing wave, which acts as a fingerprint of the wave-nature of light.

Credit: Fabrizio Carbone/EPFL

While this phenomenon shows the wave-like nature of light, it simultaneously demonstrated its particle aspect as well. As the electrons pass close to the standing wave of light, they "hit" the light's particles, the photons. As mentioned above, this affects their speed, making them move faster or slower. This change in speed appears as an exchange of energy "packets" (quanta) between electrons and photons. The very occurrence of these energy packets shows that the light on the nanowire behaves as a particle.

"This experiment demonstrates that, for the first time ever, we can film quantum mechanics  and its paradoxical nature  directly," says Fabrizio Carbone. In addition, the importance of this pioneering work can extend beyond fundamental science and to future technologies. As Carbone explains: "Being able to image and control quantum phenomena at the nanometer scale like this opens up a new route towards quantum computing."

More information: "Simultaneous observation of the quantization and the interference pattern of a plasmonic near-field." Nature Communications 02 March 2015. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7407 Journal information: Nature Communications
Two different ways the helium atom can be ionized Credit: TU Wien

In the double slit experiment, a particle travels on two different paths at the same time. Something similar can be observed when a helium atom is ionized with a laser beam. The ionization of helium can happen via two different processes, and this leads to characteristic interference effects. A team of scientists has now managed to observe the buildup up of these effectseven though this effect takes place on a time scale of femtoseconds.

It is definitely the most famous experiment in quantum physics: in the double slit experiment, a particle is fired onto a plate with two parallel slits, so there are two different paths on which the particle can reach the detector on the other side. Due to its quantum properties, the particle does not have to choose between these two possibilities, it can pass through both slits at the same time. Something quite similar can be observed when a helium atom is ionized with a laser beam.

Just like the two paths through the plate, the ionization of helium can happen via two different processes at the same time, and this leads to characteristic interference effects. In the case of the helium atom, they are called "Fano resonances". A team of scientists from TU Wien (Vienna, Austria), the Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg (Germany) and Kansas State University (USA) has now managed to observe the buildup up of these Fano resonanceseven though this effect takes place on a time scale of femtoseconds.

The experiment was performed in Heidelberg, the original proposal for such an experiment and computer simulations were developed by the team from Vienna, additional theoretical calculations came from Kansas State University.

Direct and Indirect Path

When a laser pulse transfers enough energy to one of the electrons in the helium atom, the electron is ripped out of the atom right away.

There is, however, another way to ionize the helium atom, which is a little bit more complex, as Professor Joachim Burgdorfer (TU Wien) explains: "If at first the laser lifts both electrons to a state of higher energy, one of the electrons may return into the state of lower energy. Part of this electron's energy is transferred to the second electron, which can then leave the helium atom."

The outcome of these two processes is exactly the same - both turn the neutral helium atom into an ion with one remaining electron. From this perspective, they are fundamentally indistinguishable.

Fano Resonances

"According to the laws of quantum physics, each atom can undergo both processes at the same time", says Renate Pazourek (TU Wien). "And this combination of paths leaves us characteristic traces that can be detected." Analyzing the light absorbed by the helium atoms, so-called Fano resonances are found - an unmistakable sign that the final state was reached via two different paths.

This can also be prevented. During the ionization process, the indirect path can be effectively switched off with a second laser beam so that only the other path remains open and the Fano-resonance disappears.

This opens up a new possibility of studying the time evolution of this process. At first, the atom is allowed to follow both paths simultaneously. After some time, the indirect path is blocked. Depending on how long the system was allowed to access both paths, the Fano-resonance becomes more or less distinct.

"Fano resonances have been observed in a wide variety of physical systems, they play an important role in atomic physics", says Stefan Donsa (TU Wien). "For the first time, it is now possible to control these resonances and to show precisely, how they build up within femtoseconds." "These quantum effects are so fast that on our usual time scales they appear to happen instantaneously, from one moment to the next", says Stefan Nagele. "Only by employing new sophisticated methods of attosecond physics it has become possible to study the time evolution of these processes."

This does not only help quantum scientists to understand the fundamental theory of important quantum effects, it also opens up new possibilities of controlling such processesfor example facilitating or inhibiting chemical reactions.

The study is published in today's Science.

In the same issue of Science magazine, a team of scientists from France and Spain has published another paper, in which a complementary method of time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy is used to obtain a view on the Fano resonance.

More information: Observing the ultrafast build-up of a Fano resonance in the time domain, Science, science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi  1126/science.aah6972 Journal information: Science
The Macao Cultural Centre is set to present two family programmes that will be staged this December and in early January 2017.

Immediately before Christmas, Japanese Theatre Hikosen is bringing the puppet musical The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, while the Norwich Puppet Theatre will be coming from England to celebrate New Year with Three Colours, a childrens play specially conceived for the little audience.

Having toured more than 20 countries, Theatre Hikosen is returning to the city after a string of previous performances, from Peter Pan to Treasure Island and the musical Chibi Maruko Chan.

This December 23 to 25, the Japanese company will present The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a puppet musical based on the classic American tale.

Dubbed in Cantonese with English subtitles, the show will take kids three years old and above into the magical world of Dorothy and friends through a colourful rendition of an eternal adventure, according to the statement by the bureau.

The Norwich Puppet Theatre was founded in England where it has been producing original shows, workshops and various theatrical projects for over 35 years.

From December 30 to January 1, the company will be using the colours red, blue and green as a theme to present Three Colours.

The upcoming performance merges projections, body movement and music that will guide children two years old and above to discover the beauty of nature landscapes.

The Norwich Puppet Theatre will also host two workshops where children will be able to interact with puppet props and projections used in the show.

The theatre company was founded in Britain, where it has been producing original shows, workshops and various theatrical projects for over 35 years.
Economic activity in East Timor is expanding at a satisfactory pace that is expected to continue in 2017, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a statement released on Monday in Washington.

The IMF said, however, that Timorese economic development in the medium term will depends on the ability to diversify, given that most of the oil wells currently in operation are expected to be exhausted by 2020.

An IMF team, led by Yu Ching Wong, visited Timor-Leste from October 24 to 28 in order to assess recent economic developments and analyze government policies, and held meetings with the Minister of Finance, with the vice-governors of the Timor-Leste Central Bank and held meetings with representatives of the private sector and civil society.

Public investment should be carried out more effectively by focusing on projects with higher returns, determined by rigorous evaluation of each of these projects, a strategy that would ensure more effective Oil Fund spending, according to Yu Ching Wong.

The IMF says that real non-oil Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to grow 5 percent this year, supported by public expenditure and that prices will fall 0.6 percent, with the balance of trade changing from a surplus to a deficit of 9.9 percent of GDP, largely due to the strong increase in imports related to the increase in public investment.

The budget deficit this year will be 13.9 percent of GDP, with the increase in expenditure financed by additional withdrawals from the Oil Fund. MDT/Macauhub
The Hengqin New Areas Administrative Committee announced 16 new policies that will make it more convenient for foreigners to enter and stay in the region.

The new policies were approved by the Chinas Ministry of Public Security and apply to all of Guangdongs free trade zones.

Under these new policies, requirements for foreign investors applying for Chinese residence permits have been eased.

In the past, foreign investors were required to invest at least USD2 million to apply for the residence permit. This minimum investment has now been halved.

Another change indicates that applicants for residency no longer need to attain a certain level or hold a certain position in a company in order to apply for the permit.

The age restriction has also been removed. Qualified overseas-Chinese and foreigners can apply directly for a five-

year working residence permit.

From now on, foreign students studying outside China can apply for internships at all of Guangdongs free trade zones.

Zhuhai Public Security Bureau speaker Hu Lin said that foreign professionals, who currently live in Macau, Hong Kong or Taiwan, are also allowed to take their domestic helpers to China, as long as the requisite documents are brought along with them.

Besides the new policies, the committee also announced the results of its taxation convenience survey.

Currently, Hengqin is completely switching to an electronic tax system, which allows all taxation services in the region to be conducted through electronic devices.

Earlier, Hengqin had adopted mainland Chinas first tax convenience index assessment system. PricewaterhouseCoopers Shenzhen has given Hengqin 90.84 points out of 100 in terms of its taxation convenience level.

The committee claims that the region is considered advanced in terms of taxation convenience. JZ
The Macao Archives (MAM) will launch a book on radio broadcaster Leong Song Fong. Concurrently, the opening ceremony of the exhibition Thirty-three years in Radio  the broadcaster Leong Song Fong will be held on Saturday, November 26 at Jao Tsung-I Academy at 3 p.m.

In conjunction with the publication, two related lectures, entitled The broadcasting career of Leong Song Fong and The voice of a generation, will be held on Sunday, November 27. The lectures will be conducted in Cantonese and will be open to the public from 3 p.m. to 5p.m. in the lobby of the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) building at Tap Seac Square.

Leong worked on radio broadcasting from 1952 to 1985, during the golden age of the radio broadcasting industry in Hong Kong and Macau. At that time, radio dramas were a means of cultural dissemination and a favourite pastime of all ages. Over the years, they have become part of the collective memory of many Macau people.

According to a statement issued by the IC, Leongs humorous radio dramas were highly popular and some characters that he portrayed left a deep impression on the audience.

The book, included in the Macao Oral History book series, gives an insight into Leongs life from 1932 to 1985, shedding light on his life experiences, broadcasting skills, broadcasting career in radio stations Emission Vila Verde and Radio Macau, as well as his recollections of Macaus historic events such as the Wu vs Chan fight in 1954.

The exhibition is divided in three sections, focusing on Leongs biography, his radio broadcasting career and his colleagues and friends. The valuable photographs, objects and multimedia materials presented courtesy of Leong will enable the public to discover more about his 33-year career and achievements in his profession, as well as his creativity and innovation in radio drama.

The lectures will be conducted by broadcaster Leong and media professional Tang Io Weng, respectively, sharing Leongs interesting experience in playing multiple roles and the development of radio broadcasting in Macau.
The British Business Association of Macao (BBAM) held a business breakfast meeting yesterday morning at the St. Regis Macao, where senior tax consultant for The Fry Group, Jonathan Burt, explained likely scenarios for the future of Britains taxation policies in light of the countrys June 23 decision to exit the European Union.

As Britains Supreme Court recently ruled that triggering Article 50, the formal process by which an EU member state irreversibly heads for the exit, cannot be the decision of the government alone, Burt warned that the forecasts made by The Fry Group may never come into force.

Speaking to the Times on the sidelines the event, Burt and his colleague Justin Davies, who is a senior financial planner at the group, nevertheless said that should Brexit occur, they do not think an exodus of workers is a likely scenario, adding that it would be a bad decision.

As such, government revenues from income tax and value-added tax are equally unlikely to diminish in the short term.

Nevertheless, Burt explained the groups predictions that the British government would attempt to make foreign investment in the country more attractive for those overseas  probably by way of a reduction in corporate taxation.

Corporation tax which used to be set at 28 percent, should be falling down to 17 percent in three or four years time, explained Burt.

Davies also remarked on the possibility of Ireland benefiting from Britains departure from the EU, considering that the former country already offers competitive rates of corporation tax and is well-suited to take-over from Britain given that it is an English-speaking country within the EU.

If youre a large corporation and want [to establish] European headquarters [], would you set it up in London or the U.K.? Not today you wouldnt. And if you had to go ahead and do that  to take advantage of the European market  then Ireland could be a good choice. And again, [corporation] tax rates are pretty reasonable, rationalized Davies. Im sure that they would be competitive.

The talk was specifically geared toward British citizens living abroad in locations such as Macau, Hong Kong and Singapore, and according to organizers would be informative for those who are intending to return to the U.K. in the coming years.

BBAM chairman Henry Brockman raised the example of executives and consultants within the local construction sector during the event. He said that, with fewer large-scale projects now on the horizon in the MSAR, British workers in that field might consider relocating back to Britain.
Story by Rachel Richardson (513-556-5219)

Video by Andrew Higley/UC Creative Services; Photos by Jay Yocis/UC Creative Services

Nov. 10, 2016



Its hard to say which lit up the crisp autumn day more  the sun shining high and bright in an immaculate blue sky against the green backdrop of McMicken Commons, the brilliant red and blue of the Stars and Stripes fluttering against it or the faces of the dozens of people who gathered in the heart of the University of Cincinnatis campus, beaming with patriotic pride, respect and gratitude.

The universitys Veterans Day Ceremony was mixed with celebratory applause and salutes from the more than 125 area veterans, community members and distinguished guests who joined UC faculty, staff and students Thursday in paying tribute to our nations veterans.

UC Interim President Beverly Davenport, who led the event, urged the crowd to remember the sacrifices of the members of the nations armed forces and to seek out and learn from those who served.

Take note of those who have served in the military, she told the dozens of students gathered. Reflect on their service and be grateful that we are part of this great nation who honors those who serve us.

And to the veterans, Davenport, herself the mother of a former U.S. Army ranger, relayed the heartfelt thanks of a grateful campus and nation.

Thank you for putting our nation first, she said. Please know that from the bottom of my heart and all those who came today, we appreciate all that you have done and all that you will do for those who come after you to keep freedom alive and this nation safe from harm.

The tribute included a musical performance by the UC Bearcat Band, presentation of colors by the ROTC Color Guard, three volleys of rifle fire from the Honor Guard American Legion Post 530 and two buglers stationed in the towers of Tangeman University Center and McMicken Hall playing "Taps."
BOISE (AP)  As of Tuesday, Idaho shares 77 percent of its border with pot-friendly states, making it an island of abstinence on the legal weed frontier.

With new laws to be enacted in Nevada and Montana and including British Columbia, where medical pot is legal, nearly 80 percent of Idaho now borders legal marijuana, The Spokesman-Review reported. Medical marijuana is permitted in British Columbia, and Canada is moving toward decriminalizing marijuana nationally in 2017.

Recreational marijuana is already legal in Washington and Oregon. In Nevada, where medical pot is already legal, voters just approved recreational sales. Those three states together account for 669 miles of Idaho's 1,605-mile perimeter.

Also Tuesday, Montana voters loosened limits on the state's medical marijuana law, adding another 567 miles marijuana-adjacent territory.

Only the bordering states of Utah and Wyoming continue to have firm bans on pot. The only exception is the supervised use of cannabidiol oil to treat intractable epilepsy or seizure disorders, which Utah permitted in 2014 and Wyoming did so in 2015.

In conservative Idaho, efforts to put a medical marijuana initiative on the ballot in Idaho failed this year and two years ago. The only exception is a similar supervised use of cannabidiol oil to treat seizure disorders in up to 25 children, which Gov. Butch Otter signed as an executive order last year.

It is unlikely that the Idaho Legislature will legalize any form of marijuana soon. In 2013, the Legislature passed a resolution against ever legalizing any form of marijuana use for any purpose.

"It is well known that marijuana use adversely affects the health and developing brains of children and adolescents and legalization increases access to this harmful drug," Elisha Figueroa, administrator of the Idaho Office of Drug Policy, said earlier this year.

Possession of less than 3 ounces of marijuana in Idaho is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison or a $1,000 fine.

___

Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesman.com
Idaho's House and Senate leaders hope a Donald Trump presidency will mean a shift of more power to the states and away from the federal government.

As a candidate, Mr. Trump has been a defender of states rights and states sovereignty, said Senate President Pro Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg.

However, Hill said he doesn't yet know the details of how this would play out.

I dont think its any secret that much of the campaign on both sides was talked about in pretty broad terms, and we just dont have the specifics yet, he said.

House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, pointed to the "Waters of the United States" rule, an expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory authority much opposed by Republicans and by farming groups, as an example of something he would like to see rolled back.

And while no one in Idaho is in favor of damaging our resources, particularly water  some of the regulations coming out of the Obama administration were beyond the pale, and I look forward to those being rescinded, Bedke said. I look forward to the states playing a much larger role when it comes to resource issues. I look forward to the states playing a much larger role when it comes to welfare issues and health care issues. I look forward to the power that is ceded to the states under the 10th Amendment really being ceded to the states. The states are where we can solve these problems, not top-down management from Washington D.C.

Bedke said less federal regulation means state lawmakers will have to step up, since problems arent going to go away.

Now its going to be incumbent on the state and its leaders to be ready to be problem solvers, being inclusive with all the stakeholders to get on top of these problems, he said. I reiterate, the state is best suited to solve nearly all of these.

Debates over state vs. federal power have been part of American politics as long as the country has existed, and western Republicans tend to be deeply skeptical of the federal government and in favor of state control, with the topic coming up frequently in campaign rhetoric and in policy debates at the statehouse. In recent years it has factored, to name just a few examples, in debates in Idaho over Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act, gay marriage, refugee resettlement, control of public lands and a bill to implement a child support treaty that lawmakers initially rejected, prompting Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter to call a special session to pass it to avoid a loss of federal funding.
That buck or bull standing next to the road might be a tempting target, but it could also be a very costly mistake that causes you to lose your money and hunting license.
JEROME  Southern Idaho Muzzleloaders Association will hold its November turkey shoot at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Jerome Gun Club on U.S. 93, at mile marker 64.

A $5 fee will be charged to cover cost of prizes. Its planned to be a short and sweet, piece-of-cake shoot, the groups announcement said. Votes are also needed for officers.
TWIN FALLS  A Twin Falls chiropractor accused of sexually abusing nine women has pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of sexual exploitation by a medical care provider.

Robert Max Johnson, 54, entered a written plea of guilty last week in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court. On Wednesday, his state-appointed public defender confirmed during a pretrial conference Johnson was pleading guilty to five charges while four others would be dismissed.

Johnson faces up to five years in county jail, a fine up to $5,000 and likely must register as a sex offender.

Possible sentences have not been discussed as part of a plea agreement, Twin Falls Deputy City Prosecutor Shayne Nope said.

The Idaho State Board of Chiropractor Physicians also suspended Johnson in September and will review his case fully once the criminal case has wrapped up. The board could decide on a lengthy suspension or could revoke his license completely.

Johnson owned and operated Family Chiropractic Clinic of Idaho and BrainCore Therapy of Southern Idaho. He was charged in July with four misdemeanor counts of sexual exploitation by a medical care provider, and prosecutors added five additional counts in August after more women came forward.

Shortly after he was first charged, his wife filed for divorce.

If it was just one isolated thing, it would be really hard to believe it were true, Sherry Martin told the Times-News last month. But if several people are coming out and saying it, its hard not to believe them.

After news of Johnsons first four charges became public, at least five more women came forward to accuse Johnson of inappropriate sexual conduct. All nine told similar stories of Johnson spending inordinate amounts of time massaging their inner thighs, brushing up against their genitals and fondling their breasts. Most of the women said the massages lasted much longer than the time theyd paid for and that Johnsons hands would shake and his breathing would become heavy when he was touching near their inner thighs, breasts or genitals.

Johnson is set for sentencing Dec. 28 in front of 5th District Magistrate Judge Roger Harris.
TWIN FALLS  Twin Falls attorney Laird Stone will keep his seat on the College of Southern Idahos board of trustees for another four years.

As of Wednesday morning, unofficial results show Stone earned 19,466 votes. He outpaced refugee resettlement opponent Rick Martin, who brought in 17,126 votes.

Complete results werent available by late Tuesday night.

Voters in Twin Falls and Jerome counties, which make up CSIs taxing district, cast ballots.

Martin  a Buhl resident who works in health care technology  took the lead especially among Jerome County voters. He earned 4,988 votes in that county, 724 more than Stone.

On Wednesday, Martin was taking down his campaign signs. He said hes satisfied with the race and congratulates Stone on his victory.

The people have spoken and I respect that, he said. I was encouraged by the results in Jerome. We did well there, but we fell short in Twin Falls.

Whats next for Martin? He said he plans to take some time off to rest and be with his family.
BOISE  The election of Donald Trump as president means the likely repeal of the Affordable Care Act and even more doubt about whether lawmakers will expand Medicaid in Idaho in 2017.

No sense in working on the branches of a problem if the root is going to be pulled up, House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, said Wednesday.

Certainly, I think, itll have an effect on not only the actions that might be taken, but the attitude of the legislators themselves, said Senate President Pro Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg. Part of the problem all along has been the uncertainty going along with the Affordable Care Act, and this greatly increases that uncertainty.

President-elect Trump has promised to repeal and replace the ACA, and he will enter a Washington, D.C. with the U.S. House and the Senate both controlled by Republicans. The House has voted numerous times to repeal the act over the past few years. And although the Republican majority in the Senate wont be filibuster-proof, the Senate did pass a bill in January 2016 to get rid of the ACA, including defunding both Medicaid expansion and the subsidies to buy insurance on the exchanges, using the budget reconciliation process to get around a filibuster. President Barack Obama vetoed it.

Republicans expanded their super-majority in the Idaho Legislature, going from 28 to 29 out of the state Senates 35 seats and from 56 to 59 of the 70 in the House.

The political bent of the Magic Valley delegation stayed the same  two Democrats in District 26, the rest all Republican  but Democratic losses elsewhere include House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston, and Sen. Dan Schmidt, D-Moscow, both doctors and major Medicaid expansion proponents. Schmidt authored the two expansion bills that got a committee hearing for the first time during the 2016 session, and he announced in March he was giving up his state health insurance to protest the Legislatures inaction.

The ACA as originally written envisioned that all states would expand Medicaid eligibility to everyone with incomes at or below 138 percent of the poverty level, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Medicaid expansion mandate in 2012, and it has been debated at the state level since then, with the state-organized Medicaid Redesign Workgroup recommending it and the Democrats in favor but many Republicans opposed.

This year, the state Senate passed a bill to authorize the state to apply for a Medicaid expansion waiver and then adjourned for the year, but the House shot it down the next day. A group of state lawmakers has been studying coverage for people in the Medicaid gap  people who dont qualify either for Medicaid or for tax credits to buy insurance on the state exchange  over the interim, and its last meeting is scheduled for Nov. 22. However, both Bedke and Hill said Wednesday they expect the Legislature will wait to see what Trump does when lawmakers reconvene in January.

Well probably defer long enough to see what alternatives the new administration proposes, Hill said. I guess, to be more blunt, I would be surprised to see the Legislature take any action until we see what alternatives might be coming from the new administration.

Bedke, too, said lawmakers would be in a wait and see mode, and that the approaches that have been pushed forward nationally up to this point, those are going to be non-starters.

I dont think the issue is going to go away, but the underlying policy that created the problem is, Bedke said.

What could those alternatives look like? Trump has proposed giving states more control over Medicaid by turning it into a block grant to states, letting people deduct insurance costs from their taxes, buy insurance across state lines and expanding health savings accounts. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., came out with a proposal this year that includes some aspects of this, with added elements such as subsidized high-risk pools and keeping a few aspects of the ACA, like letting children stay on their parents insurance until they turn 26 and letting states that have already expanded Medicaid keep it.

A possible ACA repeal also throws into question the future of Your Health Idaho, the state-run health insurance exchange created in 2013 over the opposition of many Republicans in the Legislature. About 95,000 Idahoans have insurance through the exchange, of whom about 90 percent pay for it with tax credits.

Senate Minority Leader Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, said repeal means we wont be taking care of our people and we wont be taking care of our veterans. According to some estimates, there are 10,000 uninsured veterans in Idaho, of whom 3,800 would be covered by Medicaid expansion.

Stennett said repeal could endanger the coverage of many people who have insurance now and put more costs on hospital emergency rooms and county and state taxpayers.

The problem doesnt go away, she said. It just shifts to another place that would have to provide the service.

Stennett also doesnt expect lawmakers to do anything without seeing what Trump is going to do first.

I just dont see this year (there) being any political will to do anything, she said.

Fred Birnbaum, the vice president of the conservative Idaho Freedom Foundation, wrote an op-ed Wednesday calling on the Legislature to stand down on Medicaid expansion, pointing to Rusches and Schmidts losses and the national election results. Obamacare defenders, he writes, did not seem to notice that many self-employed and small business people were being brought to their knees over premium increases while others were getting free insurance.

It is fundamentally unfair for the government to force someone, who is working full-time, to purchase a product they may not want or cant afford and turn around to offer another person no-cost health insurance  even if he or she could afford to pay a small premium, he writes.

Yvonne Ketchum-Ward, CEO of the Idaho Primary Care Association, said repeal could mean millions of Americans lose health coverage, both those covered by the exchanges and those in states that have expanded Medicaid.

There certainly is concern about the momentum to repeal the Affordable Care Act, she said.

However, she expressed hope that the discussion would continue at the state level in Idaho and that lawmakers will do something.

The good thing is, I have seen a recognition of the gap population, she said. Through the last legislative subcommittee, all agreed Idaho has to do something. And that hasnt changed.
While the Snake River is acclaimed for its scenic canyon and falls, rarely is its name questioned today.

But there was a time when the name wasnt widely accepted.

Five months after irrigation water from the river first spilled upon the Twin Falls Tract, folks were suggesting the name be changed.

The citizens of Twin Falls would welcome such revision and would be glad to see the mighty river which supplies moisture for the largest irrigated tract in America called by its proper name, Shoshonee, opined the Twin Falls Weekly News in its Aug. 11, 1905, edition.

Snake is a revolting appellation and while it may suggest the sinuous course of the stream, it forever eliminates the river from song or sentiment, the newspaper explained. To some, Snake implied that the rivers edge is infested with rattlesnakes, keeping tourists from visiting the falls.

It is a pity we cannot get rid of the offensive name Snake, said E.G. Eagleson, surveyor general for Idaho who later became a Boise mayor.

In an interesting offshoot, Eagleson suggested a prehistoric population that inhabited the area before the Indians.

It would seem that nearly all our great rivers were named by the people of some prehistoric race and the survival of these names is about all the oral evidence we have that North America was peopled by a race which flourished before the Indians, he said.

His message was clear, but moot.

Let the grandest stream in America be known by its proper name, the Shoshonee, and let us forget the repulsive and offensive Snake.
Volunteers  The Senior Companion Program at the CSI Office on Aging needs volunteers, age 55 and older, to assist homebound seniors by providing friendly visits, transportation or other assistance as needed. Senior Companions make positive impacts by helping to improve the mental and emotional status of their clients. Senior Companions receive a stipend per hour of service (to income eligible seniors) and can work between 15 to 40 hours a week. They receive reimbursement for mileage, and training on age-related problems. Information: Dandre, 208-736-2122, or toll free, 800-574-8656.

Drivers  The American Cancer Society is looking for volunteer drivers for its Road to Recovery program in Twin Falls. Volunteers will drive patients to and from medical treatments. Commitment is flexible. Information: 1-800-227-2345.

Volunteers  The AARP Foundation Tax-Aide program needs volunteers to provide tax assistance and preparation services for seniors and low-income taxpayers from Feb. 1 through April 15. Volunteers with good computer skills are needed to assist with electronic filing tax returns in Glenns Ferry, Gooding, Hagerman, Hailey, Jerome, Shoshone, and Twin Falls, which has a need for at least 12 volunteers. Free tax law and computer training, followed by completion of an IRS Certification Test for volunteers, is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, beginning Jan. 3 to Jan. 13, at the CSI Evergreen Building, Room C93. Preregister so sufficient training materials can be provided. Register at www.aarp.org/taxaide or www.aarp.org/giving-back. Information: Jim Simpson, 208-733-1808 or simpsonjim@cableone.net.

Volunteers  Horizon Home Health and Hospice is looking for volunteers to join our team to provide quality compassionate care to our patients through the following activities: companionship, socialization, respite, and support for patients and families and much more. Information: Cynthia Nixon, 208-800-8085 or cnixon@horizonhh.com.

Drivers  The Twin Falls Senior Center needs drivers to deliver meals to homebound seniors in Twin Falls Monday through Friday, and the routes take an hour or less to complete. Commitment is based on your availability. Volunteers must be 18 years of age with their own car, and have proof of liability insurance and a background check. Drivers receive 54 cents a mile fuel reimbursement. Information: 208-734-5084.

Volunteers  Hospice Visions Inc. is looking for volunteers to visit with patients and their families, do minor home modifications such as grab bars, and also volunteer Light Touch Massage therapists, hair dressers, meal assist volunteers, and to play music and games with hospice patients. Volunteers are needed with licensed certified therapy animals to love our hospice patients in their own homes or assisted living centers. Hospice Visions is looking for volunteers interested in doing art projects with patients or filming and creating a Life Legacy Video, or to take someone to the store, run an errand or out for a drive. Veterans can become a Vet-to-Vet Volunteer and visit with other veterans. Volunteers are also needed to assist with fundraising events and provide office assistance. Information: Nora at 208-735-0121 or nwells@hospicevisions.org.

Volunteers  St. Lukes Home Health and Hospice is looking for new volunteers to join its team to share compassion and care and increase the quality of life for patients and their families. The program is designed to offer companionship and socialization to patients as well as respite and support for the caregivers. Information: Marie Sharp, 208-814-7603 or sharpm@slhs.org.

Volunteers  The Twin Falls Senior Center has a ladies group (The Crazy Quilters), who are looking for individuals to put finishing touches on quilts as a group while socializing. The group meets from 9 a.m. to noon every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. All quilt project proceeds are given to the Twin Falls Senior Center. Information: 208-734-5084.


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The Rise Of Eurasian Silk Road

Premier Lis Eurasian tour heralds the new future of Eurasia that will be based on regional economic integration.



Last Wednesday, Premier Li Keqiang began a week-long trip in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Latvia seeking to promote Chinas relations with the four countries, and boosting regional development and cooperation.





Interestingly, it was one of those multinational visits that was left in the dark by the Western media. Yet, Premier Lis visits precipitate increasing economic, political and security cooperation in a world region that the leading US strategic thinkers have historically considered critical to American primacy; that is, US global hegemony.



U.S. security doctrines contend that no Eurasian challengers should emerge capable of dominating Eurasia. In reality, Eurasia wants peace and prosperity, not dominance and hegemony.

The rise of Eurasian Economy



During his tour, Premier Li also attended the 15th prime ministers meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, and the fifth leaders meeting of China and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in Riga. In the Latvian capital, he proposed four principles to guide 16+1 cooperation: mutual respect and assistance, win-win cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, and joint development.



From the Eurasian perspective, Premier Lis visit continues to pave the way to regional cooperation in Eurasia and economic integration within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). In January 2015, the EAEU was signed by Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, with further accession treaties by Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.



The five EAEU nations represent an integrated single market of more than 180 million people and a GDP of $1.5 trillion; the economic size of Canada or South Korea, respectively. While Russia dominates more than 85% of the total, the real importance of the Union is that through economic integration it will ensure peace and economic cooperation between the member countries.



From the Chinese perspective, the four countries - Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Latvia - are all located along the ancient Silk Road. Indeed, Lis tour sought to foster the joint implementation of Chinas One Road One Belt (OBOR) initiative.



It is the modern restoration of the trade, logistics and infrastructure network that will connect East, South and Southeast Asia with Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, through Central and Eastern Europe to Western Europe.

From SCO security to economic development



In the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, Premier Li also backed the creation of a development bank and fund to boost financial cooperation. The proposal was signed by member countries of the five-country group: China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Li also proposed that China is open to the establishment of a free-trade zone among the SCO members.



The transition to a preferential trade regime within the SCO is a complicated matter, said Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Free trade among the SCO members will not happen overnight, but it is something that could take the cooperation to a new level in the not-so-distant future.



The proposed development bank and fund, and the free-trade zone complement not only the OBOR Initiative, but the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS New Development Bank, and China-proposed free-trade initiatives, which rely on regional and trans-regional economic integration .



However, historically, an economically strong, politically coordinated and strategically united Eurasia has not been in Washingtons interest. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the veteran US security advisers, argued in The Grand Chessboard (1997), a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia and Americas global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.



In this view, the Eurasia is a grand chessboard, which has room for only one hegemon - the United States.

From destabilization to prosperity



Three years ago, when I first argued that the SCO is moving from security to economic development, the idea was welcomed with great skepticism in the West. After all, for half a century, US global primacy has been seen to depend on pre-eminence in Eurasia, according to Western security doctrines.



Eurasia is the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played, and that struggle involves geopolitical interests, Brzezinski argued in The Grand Chessboard. Only a year before the release of his treatise on Eurasian power, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan founded an Eurasian political, economic and military organization called the Shanghai Five. After the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, it became the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.



In 2007, the SCO signed a collective security treaty agreement to broaden cooperation in security, crime and drug trafficking. At the same time, many nations have received observer status at the SCO summits (including Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan), while others have become dialogue partners, (including Belarus, Sri Lanka and Turkey, a member of NATO). Today, the SCOs six full members account for 60 percent of the land mass of Eurasia. It is home to a quarter of world population.



Brzezinski thought it was imperative that no Eurasian challenger should challenge America's global pre-eminence. Unlike NATO, the SCO does not seek hegemonic expansion through destabilization, but economic prosperity through stabilization. Thats the way to the future - the only way.

Dr. Dan Steinbock is an internationally recognised expert of the nascent multipolar world. He is the CEO of Difference Group and has served as Research Director at the India, China and America Institute (USA) and visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Centre (Singapore). For more, see www.differencegroup.net

 2016 Copyright Dan Steinbock - All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Fatou Bensouda, Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) told Wednesday the UN Security Council that her institution will make civil war-ravaged Libya its top priority next year.

In an address before the Security Council, the UN top prosecutor said that widespread violence, lawlessness, impunity in the country and the tragic consequences of the conflict borne by civilians cannot leave her institution unmoved.

The referral by definition carries great responsibility to seek justice for the countless civilians who have been victims of the widespread crimes in Libya since 15 February 2011, she said.

Libya descended in lawlessness since the fall of Col. Muammar Gaddafi killed in a NATO-backed revolution in 2011. Uncontrolled factions have caused mayhem. UN-backed Government of National Accord tasked to reunify the country has failed to impose its rule.

The Gambian lawyer acknowledged that permanent instability in the oil-rich country has made investigations hard to carry out. She pointed out that her office is poised to issue other arrest warrants against additional suspects.

Timely execution of these new arrest warrants will be crucial, will require coordinated efforts by States, and may also require support from the Council, she said, adding that she has decided to allocate additional resources from within her Offices overall budget to the Libya situation.

Without this Councils support, this allocation will necessarily come at the expense of investigations of other crimes in other situations, she said.
The Tunisian Ministry of Defense Wednesday announced the army hunted down and killed Talal Saidi, the leader of IS-linked terrorist Jund al-Khilafa, which killed a Tunisian soldier in his house in the central-western region of the country.

Jund al-Khilafa assaulted service man, Said Ghozlani in his house near Sidi Bouzid, in the mountainous region of the country.

The Ministry said in its statement the army seized a Kalashnikov and ammunitions during the operation.

The Islamic State group (IS) had claimed responsibility for the soldiers assassination via its news agency amaq.

Terrorists are using the Tunisian mountains of Salloum and Mghilla as safe haven to act against army forces via ambushes and landmine lying.

Jund al-Khalifa was also responsible for the beheading of a 16-year old shepherd last year on Mghilla mountain.

The North African country has been experiencing a surge in terror attacks since the 2011 revolution. Attacks have spilled to the countrys main cities.
This liberation operation marks the beginning of the end of the so-called Daesh Caliphate in Iraq stated Jan Kubis of the ongoing offensive assault of the Iraqi forces, backed by militia groups and the US-led coalition, to takeover Mosul.

The battle for the city began more than three weeks ago and the UN envoy for the country pointed out that after the eventual victory over the extremist group, reconciliation at both community and national level is the way to make military victories against ISIL sustainable, to make Iraq truly peaceful and united.

Kubis who was briefing the UN Security Council on the situation in Iraq pointed out that some of the armed groups fighting on the sidelines of the Iraqi forces have been engaged in revenge acts against ISIS militants. He urged the Iraqi government to continue its efforts to prevent such incidents from occurring and to investigate and punish any such incidents should they occur.

Iraqi forces have progressed faster than Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi had projected since the operation began but the number of civilian casualties could increase because the extremist group is forcing locals to relocate inside the city of Mosul with the intention of using them as human shields, Kubis stated. The extremist group is trying to intimidate locals from cooperating with its enemies by public displaying crucified bodies of those accused of being spies.

Around 35,000 people have been displaced by the operation to liberate Mosul and their numbers are expected to increase although relief and aid organizations are already struggling to provide the necessities to those sheltered in camps.
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.
Clean energy projects will be flying high across Africa as the World Bank is planning to raise $16 billion for solar, hydro, and geothermal energy projects.

Practice Manager for Energy and Extractives at the World Bank, Charles Cormier, said at a side event held at the African Pavilion at the COP 22, that the move is part of the Africa Climate Business Plan which was presented at the COP 21.

The plan will provide investments to boost clean energy and help 5 million off-grid consumers to access modern energy services by 2023, he said.

The Africa Climate Business Plan, dubbed Accelerating Climate-Resilient and Low-Carbon Development, lays out measures to boost the resilience of the continents assets  its people, land, water, and cities  as well as other moves including boosting renewable energy and strengthening early warning systems.

During the side event, a senior executive of MASEN, the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energ in charge of leading the countrys shift to renewable energy, surveyed Moroccos national plan and experience in renewable energy, primarily Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). He said the success of the countrys efforts in the field can be an incentive to Sub-Saharan Africa, a region ideally suited to the CSP technology due to its abundant sunshine.

He noted that so far, solar power only makes up approximately 0.5% of the energy in sub-Saharan countries.

Morocco is committed to breaking its dependence on imported fossil fuels and to taking action on climate change. To meet this goal, it set a target to meet 42% of its power generating capacity needs through renewables by 2020 a figure that was raised to 52% by 2030 at last years climate talks in Paris, France.

The COP22 Moroccan pavilion also hosted on Wednesday a side event that debated the theme of migration, resilience and health. Opening this side event, Senegals Prime Minister Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne stressed the need for gearing action during COP22 towards addressing climate change as a root-cause of the threats to sustainability, stability and security in Africa.

Participants in the debate shared views on means to address the multidimensional climate change risks on the continent.

These side events are held in preparation for the adoption on November 14 of the Marrakech Declaration: Forging Sustainability, Stability and Security in Africa.
Cholera patients are seen in one of two tents depending on their level of severity. Credit: Dr. Adam Levine

Since Dr. Adam Levine arrived in Haiti in late October, he's been managing a cholera treatment unit for International Medical Corps. Hurricane Matthew devastated the area on Oct. 4, creating conditions that foment the spread of the disease. The unit is still running near its 30-bed capacity.

The unit is a pair of tents on the grounds of a local health center in Les Anglais, said Levine, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Brown University and a physician at Rhode Island Hospital. The town sits almost at Haiti's western tip on the southwest shore of its southern peninsula.

Levine, who directs the new Humanitarian Innovation Initiative at Brown's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, answered questions about his work providing life-saving rehydration and medicine to people who make a difficult trek to the center from surrounding villages.

Tell us about the cholera epidemic in Haiti in the wake of Matthew.

Our 30-bed unit runs pretty full on most days, and we probably get about 10 to 15 new patients each day. Most of the cases coming from the small villages and towns of the department we are in. We generally see the sickest patients who are able to make it to our treatment unit. They have traveled quite far to get here. They have to walk down from their village in the hills to the nearest road to catch a motorcycle that can bring them here.

We're probably seeing just a small proportion and just the sickest patients. We know that there are many more in the surrounding area. International Medical Corps. has been setting up oral rehydration pointssending someone up to a village with a backpack with oral rehydration stations and basic medicines and supplies. They set up an oral rehydration point there so they can at least treat mild or moderate cases in the village and only have to send the most severe cases to us because transport is so difficult.

How are you treating cholera?

Cholera treatment is relatively straightforward, but it's important to stick to the protocols very carefully. A cholera patient can lose up to 10 to 15 liters of water a day from profuse diarrheait can actually kill patients within 24 hours just from severe dehydration. So the most important aspect of treatment is providing adequate rehydration either with oral rehydration solution or, for those who are more severe, with intravenous fluids. There is also an antibiotic that we use. It decreases the length of the course of cholera.

The complicated part of running a cholera treatment unit is that cholera is very contagious and you don't want to spread it. We need to pay very close attention to infection prevention and control. That's why we treat patients in a separate unit instead of in the hospital.

More than a month after Hurricane Matthew, the unit still sees about 10-15 new patients a day, meaning that it runs near its 30-bed capacity. Credit: Brown University

Can you describe what the treatment unit is like?

In the back of the health center, we've cordoned off an area with fencing so that nobody comes in or out except for patients and staff. Within that cordoned-off area, we've set up two tents. One of the tents is for treating patients with severe dehydration with IV fluids. The other is for treating patients with oral fluids for moderate dehydration. Patients will come into a small triage area and nurse's station where we evaluation them and confirm whether they have cholera. If they do, we assess how severe their dehydration is.

Usually cholera resolves in a few days, or a little bit faster if you use the antibiotic. When they are feeling better and are totally rehydrated and no longer have diarrhea and vomitingand therefore are no longer infectiouswe will have them take a chlorine shower and discharge them.

Usually a patient comes in with a family member or a caretaker. They help take care of them inside the unit so we also have to make sure that caretakers wash their hands frequently and do not put themselves at risk.

From what you see around you, are the resources there enough to meet the need?

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and its health care system is underdeveloped as a result of that. In Les Anglais, the health center is staffed by one doctor and a few nurses. They have limited medical supplies and limited diagnostics and treatment that they can provide. They do the best that they can with what they have. But this health center is hard for many patients to reach because they live up in the hills where there are no roads.

This is a problem in the best of times. But now we're in the aftermath of a natural disaster, and we know that people are displaced from their homes and living in more crowded conditions. Maybe they are living with family members because their home was destroyed. A lot of people in surrounding communities have been sheltering in schools.

You know there are a lot of people living together and it's easier for cholera to be transmitted quickly from one patient to the next. The hurricane didn't cause cholera. Cholera has been in Haiti for six years now. But the hurricane caused conditions that make the spread of cholera easier. That's why we are seeing more cases.

As you perform your clinical work, are there research questions on your mind, too?

I always have research in the back of my mind. Much of my research focuses on assessment and management of dehydration in patients in Bangladesh. Working in an actual cholera treatment unit in the field definitely makes me understand and realize a lot of technical aspects of cholera management. It makes me think more about the ways you can help cliniciansnurses and doctors in the fieldin poor countries who respond to these types of outbreaks. Are there better tools we could give them? How can we make their lives simpler and easier?

One example is that the treatment guidelines for cholera are pretty simple, in theorythere are specific amounts of fluids and medicine based on patients' needs. But then when you actually try to implement that, you realize that (a) they don't have a scale in the health center, so they are not able to actually weigh the patient; and then (b) they don't have calculators, and it's not easy to calculate 70 ccs (of fluid) per kilo (of weight). Nor is it easy when you don't have an automated IV pump to type in how many milliliters you are going to give over an hour. You have to do it by counting the drips from the IV.

So one of the studies that I'm going to be doing next April in Bangladesh is looking at a mobile phone based app that can help clinicians figure out exactly how dehydrated the patient is just by typing in the symptomsand then also help them figure out how much fluid to give a patient and how many drips per minute they have to give. It's those implementation questions that I think are most interesting.
New Australian research has shown how the immune system avoids attacking its own tissues with antibodies - whilst still maintaining a strong defence against invaders. The findings, from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research (Sydney) and the John Curtin School of Medical Research (Australian National University), have just been published in the leading journal Nature Communications.

Our immune system is charged with the crucial task of keeping us safe from overwhelming infection. Time and again, our immune cells must decide very quickly whether they are looking at an invading microbe, which poses a threat, or a part of the body, which should be protected. Getting it wrong - and attacking 'self' - can lead to devastating autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus.

The researchers have shown how the immune system can stop 'traitor' cells - which could otherwise make damaging antibodies against the body's own tissues (auto-antibodies) - in their tracks.

They show that a type of antibody called Immunoglobulin D or 'IgD'- which sits on the surface of immune cells termed B cells - is responsible for stopping the 'traitor' cells from producing auto-antibodies. IgD keeps the cells in 'lockdown' - unresponsive to the body's tissues, yet still capable of producing antibodies against invaders.

The findings solve a longstanding mystery surrounding the function of IgD, whose role in the immune system has been unclear since it was first observed 50 years ago.

Professor Christopher Goodnow, Deputy Director of Garvan and Head of the Immunogenomics laboratory, co-led the research with Dr Anselm Enders (who leads John Curtin's Immunisation Genomics group) and Dr Joanne Reed (Garvan).

Prof Goodnow says, "We have known for some time that more than half of the immune system's B cells are capable of producing damaging antibodies against the body's own tissues - yet they don't do this.

"What we haven't understood before is why and how the immune system keeps these potential 'traitor cells' alive, instead of getting rid of them completely.

"Our new research shows that the antibody IgD is the key player in locking down the traitor cells, so that the immune system can hedge its bets between discarding these cells and drawing upon them to fight an infection. By placing the cells that bear autoantibodies in lockdown, IgD dials down their capacity to produce antibodies against the body's own tissues - but keeps them alive in case they are needed to fight invasion by a microbe."

The researchers carried out a detailed study of gene expression across the whole genome in locked down (or anergic) B cells from mice, comparing mice with or without functional IgD. The studies revealed a core set of over 200 genes, one third of which are controlled by IgD, that together keep the cells unresponsive to the body's own tissues.

Importantly, however, the cells in lockdown are not removed from the immune system. On the contrary, the researchers found that IgD supports the cells to accumulate in the spleen and lymph nodes (just as other B cells do) and, if necessary, to take part in "target training" to make antibodies against invaders.

"Our experiments have shown that, although IgD places the B cells that can produce autoantibodies in lockdown, it still promotes the formation of germinal centres of those muted cells, which is like a military special operations camp of B cells that begin sharpening their ability to target an invader when they 'see' one," Dr Reed says.

The presence of germinal centres is an indication that, under the right circumstances, the cells are still capable of mounting an attack against an invader.

"We think that the large-scale lockdown of B cells is the immune system's way of avoiding 'holes' in its defensive line, so that it is ready to respond to any conceivable invasion," Prof Goodnow says.

"If every B cell capable of producing autoantibodies was removed, rather than kept in lockdown, we would severely limit the number of foreign invaders that our immune system could recognise.

"By locking down B cells, and keeping them alive, IgD strikes a delicate balance between protection from invaders and avoiding an immune attack on the body's own tissues."

The findings have personal significance for Prof Goodnow, who in the late 1980s was the first to describe the presence of an anergic, unresponsive population of self-reactive B cells in mice.

"To have observed these cells in lockdown, at a point where they were mysterious to us - and now to be at a point where we can define with great clarity precisely what's happening in this population of cells - is a remarkable thing," Prof Goodnow says.

The findings provide a new depth of understanding of the human immune system and are likely to help cancer researchers understand how B cells break out of their 'holding pattern' and multiply in common forms of leukaemia and lymphoma.
Sometimes, even a miracle needs a hand.

Immunotherapy, a cancer treatment approach that's decades old, has become the hottest subject in oncology. In the past few years, researchers have developed a host of new drugs capable of jumpstarting the immune response to tumors. Now, these treatments have reached the clinic. Reports on their success were the focus of numerous presentations at this summer's American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference in Chicago. In naming immunotherapy its Advance of the Year for 2016, ASCO President Julie Vose, M.D., said "no recent advance has been more transformative." In media reports, other physicians have said immunotherapy could be "an even more important intervention than chemotherapy," and patients have chronicled "miracle" results.

"Cancer patients who respond to immunotherapy tend to have a prolonged response," says Rebecca C. Arend, M.D., an assistant professor in the UAB Division of Gynecologic Oncology and associate scientist in the Experimental Therapeutics Program at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center who specializes in treating ovarian cancer. "It's really exciting, because this is something that we don't usually see with chemotherapy and 75 percent of patients recur within two years of receiving initial chemotherapy and surgery for ovarian cancer." Unfortunately, only a fraction of patients benefit from immunotherapy treatments. So Arend, with a new grant from UAB's Center for Clinical and Translational Science, is exploring a fresh approach: "priming" the body to respond to immunotherapy using another new class of drugs: epigenetic modifiers.

A loophole in the body's defenses

There are many varieties of immunotherapy, including checkpoint inhibitors, CAR T cell therapy, therapeutic cancer vaccines and oncolytic viruses. But they all begin with the concept that the immune system is very good at isolating and destroying unhealthy cells. The trouble is, tumors often develop mutations that let them escape these attacks by switching off or otherwise thwarting the immune response. Immunotherapies work to get the body's defense system back into the fight.

The greatest excitement at the moment surrounds the new class of checkpoint inhibitors, including PD-1 and CTLA-4 inhibitors. "Your body has a natural response of putting the brakes on the immune system," says Arend. "These drugs take those brakes off."

Why is the immune system braking in the face of a grave threat like cancer? Some years ago, researchers realized that T cells, the immune system's frontline soldiers, are often found surrounding tumors. But instead of attacking the malignant cells, or calling in other troops, they aren't doing much of anything. That's because the tumor cells have co-opted the T cells' on-off switch. They have to have one: Without a "stop" sign, T cells would keep on attacking, chewing into healthy tissue and causing serious damage. So they have several different kinds of checkpoint receptors to receive "stand-down" messages from healthy cells in the area. But cancer cells know how to send these messages, too, blunting the immune response. The discovery of these checkpoints, and the development of drugs to block them, has brought immunotherapy to the fore in cancer care.

The most well-known of the checkpoint inhibitors, pembrolizumab (Keytruda), is a PD-1 inhibitor. It was initially approved by the FDA in 2014 to treat advanced melanoma, but it has been used successfully to treat several other cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer and head and neck cancer. Former President Jimmy Carter credited the drug with shrinking his brain tumors and saving his life. Other patients have experienced similarly striking results. But many more do not. In one study of a different checkpoint inhibitor, targeting CTLA4, a fifth of patients with metastatic melanoma experienced durable remissions.

Mutations could hold the key

What's the difference between responders and non-responders? Recent studies have shown that a key factor could be the mutation burden of a patient's tumor. All cancers are triggered by mutations, but the number of mutations varies widely. "Mutation burden enhances the response to immunotherapy, probably because the tumor looks even more like non-self," says Arend. "So more and more research is being done to look at ways that we can prime tumors to look like the ones in these good responders."

Several human trials are already underway using epigenome-modifying drugs in combination with checkpoint inhibitors. There are several theories as to why the combination of epigenetic and immunotherapy drugs is more successful than either alone. "One theory is that epigenetic drugs enhance immune modulator pathways," Arend says. "Another is that you are causing more genomic disarray in the tumor itself. And there are papers that have shown that resistance to immunotherapy is because of epigenetic modification. So there could be multiple interactions."

Arend and others also suspect that the timing and dosage of the combination will be critical to success. "Most of the human trials that are ongoing basically give the drugs at the same time," Arend says. "I don't know that that's the way to go. It may be that you need to give the epigenetic drug first, followed by immunotherapy. And it may be more beneficial to give it upfront, rather than later on in the course of disease."

The right drug, for the right patient, at the right time

Arend hopes to gain new insight into these questions thanks to a Multidisciplinary Pilot Program Award from the UAB CCTS. With the award, one of nine given by the CCTS in 2016, Arend will study the immunotherapy/epigenetic drug combination in laboratory models of ovarian cancer, and in a potential human clinical trial. The Pilot Program grants offer up to $60,000 to cover one year of research into an emerging, high-potential problem.

Arend notes that she has been working under the mentorship of Cancer Center senior scientist Donald Buchsbaum, Ph.D., since her first year as a fellow at UAB. She is partially funded by a training scholarship through the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG) Education Foundation. Her collaborators on this research include Troy Randall, Ph.D., J. Claude Bennett Professor of Medicine in the UAB Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, who is an expert in immune signaling in cancer; and Sara Cooper, Ph.D., investigator at Huntsville's HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, who is studying genomic profiling to predict drug response in ovarian cancer. (In 2014, the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center and HudsonAlpha launched a consortium to combine research efforts at the institutions.) The research team will be studying two types of epigenetic drugsDNA methyltransferase inhibitors and histone deacetylase inhibitorsin combination with an immunotherapy drug, a PD1 inhibitor.

In a separate project, Arend is collaborating with Cooper "to fine-tune the process of prescribing medications for ovarian cancer patients with specific genetic signatures," she says. Arend is also working with HudsonAlpha scientists to study the immune repertoire (subtypes of immune proteins) found in T cell receptors. "We're sequencing the RNA of T cell receptors as a possible marker of response to PD1 therapy," Arend says.

Personalized medicine is a major interest for Arend. "I'm a clinician-scientist," she says. "I give the chemotherapy and I also study new treatments in the lab. I want to understand which patients are going to respond to which drugs, and why."
Credit: University of Missouri-Columbia

By age 75, approximately half of all Americans will develop cloudy vision caused by cataracts, according to the National Eye Institute. The most common complication from cataract surgery is high eye pressure, which can cause swelling and other issues that can lead to vision loss or even blindness. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine recommend a new test to check eye pressure to prevent possible vision loss.

"The current standard of care following cataract surgery is to refill the eye with a saline solution and tap on the eye with a Q-tip to observe if it is too firm, too soft or just right," said John Jarstad, M.D., associate professor of ophthalmology at the MU School of Medicine and lead researcher of the study. "This Goldilocks-style guesstimate often is inaccurate, and patients might actually have higher eye fluid pressure than the surgeon believes. Here at MU Health Care, we use a device known as a tonometer to accurately gauge eye pressure."

An electronic eye pressure monitoring device known as a tonometer often is used in a clinical setting to determine eye pressure, but the device rarely is used in a surgical setting. The researchers studied 170 patients who had eye pressure adjusted after cataract surgery with a tonometer and found that patients were 2.5 to 4 times less likely to develop cystoid macular edemacyst-like pockets of fluid in the macula of the eye.

According to Jarstad, normal eye pressure should be between 16 and 21 mmHg, or millimeters of mercury. In most cases, a high eye pressure will resolve itself in a matter of days without issue, but in cases in which the pressure is significantly high, a person can experience symptoms of nausea and pain above the eyebrow. In these cases, it's important that the pressure be adjusted to prevent permanent damage to the eye.

A tonometer costs eye surgeons approximately $4,000, though its use can save patients up to $150 in medications and eye drops used to treat retinal swelling or edema. A lower cost pressure ring also can be used as an effective alternative tool to gauge eye pressure, Jarstad said. Potential complications from using a pressure monitoring device include eye infections, though Jarstad has not observed an infection in five years of using a pressure monitor.

"Seeing patients who had gone blind because of high eye pressure convinced me that there needed to be a better, more accurate gauge," Jarstad said. "I recommend eye surgeons adopt this practice for the good of their patients. There is no additional cost to patients, and if it saves just one patient from going blind, it would be well worth every doctor using it in his or her surgical practice."
A new report led by The University of Western Australia calls on the Federal Government to support a radical overhaul of suicide prevention programs including an Indigenous community-led national prevention plan.

The report's lead author Professor Pat Dudgeon from UWA's School of Indigenous Studies, said the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project (ATSISPEP) had evaluated 88 suicide prevention programs Australia-wide to identify the successful ones. The report was launched today in Canberra by Senator Pat Dodson.

"Nearly one in three young Australians (aged between five and 17 years) who takes their own life is Indigenous and this report was about finding out which programs were working to help us improve our response to suicide prevention," Professor Dudgeon said.

"We also developed an evaluation tool to ensure vital factors were employed in suicide prevention programs and to measure the level of success of these programs. This gives the funding bodies an understanding of what works and the people running the programs some certainty in long-term funding."

The report made 17 recommendations for government and those working in Indigenous suicide prevention, including funding to divert Indigenous young people from the criminal justice system through sport and other activities or access to quality education and employment.

It also recommended prevention programs should focus on healing and strengthening social and emotional wellbeing and cultural renewal as well as developing specific programs to meet the needs of those who had experienced child sexual abuse.

Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services should remain the preferred providers to mental health care within their communities and Indigenous young people should be supported and trained to work in suicide prevention among their peer group.

Professor Dudgeon said the project team had run a pilot critical response project in WA, working with Indigenous families affected by suicide trauma to map long-term support needs, galvanise more effective care coordination and report where needs were not being met in communities with limited or no services.

"The ATSISPEP report has also helped us to raise awareness of the pressing issues that can lead to suicide," she said.

Professor Dudgeon, from the Bardi people of the Kimberley region in Western Australia, has made a significant contribution to promoting and enhancing the mental health and human rights of Indigenous Australians as Australia's first Aboriginal psychologist.

She is a National Mental Health Commissioner and director of the National Empowerment Project, an Indigenous suicide prevention project working with 11 Aboriginal communities around Australia.

More information: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project Report: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project Report: www.atsispep.sis.uwa.edu.au/__  Report-Final-Web.pdf
When female employees of a mystery shopping firm called posing as 17-year-olds interested in tanning, 81 percent of indoor tanning facilities complied with the Texas ban on indoor tanning for those under the age of 18 in a study conducted by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Upon discovering the caller's age, employees at those facilities told the caller she could not use indoor tanning, even with the permission of her parents.

"This level of compliance with the under-18 ban enacted by the Texas Legislature in 2013 underscores the importance of this approach as a strategy for skin cancer prevention," said Mary Tripp, Ph.D., instructor in Behavioral Science and lead author of the study, published as a letter to JAMA Dermatology.

Research shows that indoor tanning before the age of 18 increases a person's risk of developing melanoma - the most lethal form of skin cancer - by 85 percent. In 2013, 1.6 million youths under the age of 18 reported indoor tanning, including 20 percent of female high school students.

The incidence of melanoma has been rising in the United States for 30 years, while the frequency of most other solid tumors declined. From 1975 to 2012, cases of melanoma grew by about 3 percent per year. In 2016, an estimated 76,380 people will receive a diagnosis of invasive melanoma and 10,130 will die of the disease.

Researchers identified 829 tanning facilities in Texas to contact in July and August of 2015. Of these, 635 could be reached by the mystery shopping firm callers; 445 were free-standing indoor tanning establishments, 133 were beauty salons or spas and 57 were other retail businesses that housed a tanning device.

Free-standing centers have best compliance

Of the 635 surveyed, 512 provided responses that complied with the ban and 120 did not, with the most common non-compliant responses indicating the shoppers could tan with a note from their parents or accompanied by a parent. Free-standing centers (86 percent) were most likely to comply, with beauty salons/spas (68 percent) least likely.

Tripp noted an alarming proportion of facilities, 83 percent, told callers their clients could tan daily, in contrast to a schedule of three or fewer sessions during the first week recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The vast majority of facilities responded directly (68 percent) or indirectly (25 percent) that a burn is possible with indoor tanning.

Given that 15 states have enacted similar prohibitions and the FDA has proposed limiting indoor tanning to those age 18 and older, evaluating and improving compliance with under-18 bans will be critical to reducing the incidence of skin cancer, Tripp said.

Moon Shots Program prevention efforts

Providing educational information in support of indoor tanning bans for minors has been a central part of prevention efforts under MD Anderson's Cancer Moon Shots Program, launched in 2012 to accelerate the pace of converting scientific discoveries into prevention, detection and treatment advances that significantly reduce cancer deaths.

Faculty and governmental relations leaders in the Melanoma Moon Shot and the Cancer Prevention and Control Platform provided educational information about indoor tanning and cancer risk to Texas legislators and served as the primary clinical and research resources on the Texas prohibition law, which took effect in September 2013. Texas was the fourth state to enact a ban, and since then moon shots educational efforts have shifted to other states.
TBC Bank Wins Multiple Awards for Best Private Banking Lines

TBC Bank has been named the Best Private Bank in Georgia 2016 by The Banker and Professional Wealth Management (PWM) magazines and the Best Private Bank in Georgia for 2017 by Global Finance magazine.TBC Bank has won The Bankers and PWMs joint award for the third year running since the publications first extended this prestigious competition to Georgia in 2014. Global Finance extended its annual Worlds Best Private Banks Awards to Georgia only this year and TBC Bank has received the inaugural award.Both magazines commended TBCs affluent banking service model, with its well-trained relationship managers, the breakthrough design concept of its affluent banking, TBC Status, special lifestyle services, and market leading multichannel capabilities. The Banker underlined the fact that TBC Bank holds a significant competitive advantage in internet and mobile banking applications, thanks to its long-established strategy of focusing on digital channels.Commenting on the news, Vakhtang Butskhrikidze, TBC Banks Chief Executive Officer said: "We are proud to receive these distinguished awards as they are recognition of our excellent track record in delivering the best private banking experience on the market and we continue to focus on offering next generation banking services to our customers.The Bankers and PWMs joint awards recognize players that are emerging as industry leaders in private banking. Private banks operating in Europe, Asia, North America, Middle East, Latin America and Africa, or globally, are evaluated against a set of growth and performance measures, as well as on their particular private banking services.Global Finances editorial board selected the winners making use of entry submissions, market research, input from industry analysts and executives, and other users of private banking services.
New E-Georgia: EU helps develop e-Government in Georgia

Georgian and international experts are working together to develop an e-Georgia Development Strategy and turn Georgia into an IT-based governance state.We are actively working on the e-Georgia Development Strategy. This document is a guideline based on international and local experiences and best standards in practice, said chairman of Georgias Data Exchange Agency (DEA) Irakli Gvenetadze.The Strategy unites all state institutions and identifies the necessary activities, the implementation of which can turn Georgia into a sustainable e-Governance model state, he added.The new e-Georgia would improve access to e-services for businesses and citizens, strengthen transparent and open governance, and define the role of information technologies in administration reform.For this purpose the European Union (EU)-funded 'Twinning workshop' was held this week in capital Tbilisi, where EU experts and representatives from the Georgian Government discussed the countrys e-Government Development Strategy for the next two years.The event was part of the Support to Strengthening of e-Governance in Georgia II project.International experts from Great Britain, Austria, Estonia and Denmark presented their recommendations for the document.The final version of this document is to be approved by the Government of Georgia.The EU Twinning project Support to Strengthening of e-Governance in Georgia II is a two year project aimed at assisting implementation of Georgia's E-Government Strategy with a total budget of 1.3 million.Electronic governance - or e-governance - is the application of information and communication technology for delivering government services as well as back office processes and interactions within the entire government framework. Through e-governance, government services will be made available to citizens in a convenient, efficient and transparent manner.
Minimal salary in Georgia?

By Messenger Staff

The Public Defender of Georgia has presented a survey on the relevance of the minimal wage policy which depicts rather unfortunate results.The survey reads that the current Labor Code does not define the quantity of a minimum wage.According to the Presidential Decree of 1999, the minimum monthly wage is 20 GEL. According to the Presidential Decree of 2005, the minimum monthly wage of the executive government employees is 135 GEL.In both cases, the minimum monthly wage is lower than the subsistence minimum (the subsistence minimum of an adult, able-bodied male was 157.3 GEL as of September 2016), which cannot be considered fair and adequate payment, Ombudsman Ucha Nanuashvili says.Based on the data of the Revenue Service, as of March 2016, 25,001 citizens of Georgia had salaries lower than 100 GEL, 62,681 people had lower than the subsistence minimum and 130, 282 had lower than the family subsistence minimum.These figures make it clear that Georgian employees cannot satisfy even their minimum needs with their wages, Nanuashvili added.Nanushvili has also released several recommendations to address the difficulties of the current situation.He claims that the Parliament of Georgia should ratify Convention N131 of the International Labour Organization (1970), concerning the imposition of a minimal wageThe Labor Code of Georgia should be amended, and the definition of a minimum wage should be provided in it.A fair minimum wage should be defined based on a relevant survey. The Trade Union believes that the relativity of the minimum wage with the average wage should be taken into account during the determination of the amount of the minimum wage, and it should be defined as at least 30% of the average wageThe quantity of a minimum wage should be defined according to both working hours and months, in order to prevent the reduction of part-time jobsThe laws of Georgia on the Labor Code of Georgia should provide for a mechanism that would annually review the minimum wage in the country. This obligation should be imposed on a social partnership tripartite commission, which should develop recommendations and submit them to the Prime Minister, which will be obliged to annually define the quantity of a minimal wage based on the commissions recommendations.Payment of the minimum wage should be controlled by the labour inspectorate, which must have appropriate levers to reveal violations and use sanctions against them.The fact that Georgian employees rights are consistently violated is very obvious. In many cases, employers do not keep their promises or adhere to contract conditions, and blatantly violate their employees rights.With regards to jobs that are risky, a majority of employers even refuse to ensure even minimal safety standards.Georgia has no strong labour inspection service with enough power to guarantee that employees rights are protected in terms of salaries and working conditions.If their rights are continually ignored as they are now, it will be extremely hard for Georgia to become a truly European country and suspend the flow of the countrys younger generations abroad.
The News in Brief

Patriarch to visit Russia on November 18



On November 18, Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II will visit Russia. The Patriarch, together with members of a Georgian Orthodox Church delegation, will take part in the festive events dedicated to the Russian Orthodox Church leader's 70-year-old jubilee on November 18-24.



Various delegations of autocephalous churches will arrive in Moscow for the event. In particular, Patriarchs of Alexandria, Jerusalem and Serbia will be among the guests. Information about participation of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in the festive events is being specified now.



Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II will take part in a joint church service together with Russian Patriarch Kirill and other Patriarchs on November 20.



As for the report that the Patriarchs may be hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Patriarchate of Georgia said he had not received any such information.

(IPN)







Biden Calls on Georgian PM to Use Strong Majority in Parliament to Continue Reforms



U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke to Georgias Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili by phone on November 4 to congratulate him on his partys victory in the recent parliamentary elections and encouraged him to use the election results, which gave the ruling party constitutional majority, to continue democratic reforms, the White House said.



The Vice President commended Georgias democratic leadership in the region, the White House said in readout of Bidens call with Kvirikashvili.



He also reiterated U.S. support for Georgias sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders and condemned Russias ratification of a treaty with Abkhazia on setting up a joint armed force, the White House said.



The leaders agreed that Georgian Dreams strong majority imposes a great responsibility on the government to lead inclusively and reach out to all pro-reform forces as it crafts its policies.



The Vice President encouraged the Prime Minister to use the election results to continue Georgias democratic and economic reforms that will further Georgias integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions, the White House said.

(Civil.ge)







19-year-old girl took part in ritual murder of her own mother



The teenager colluded with her boyfriend and another friend to knock her elderly mother unconscious, then stab and kill her. They dismembered the body, burnt it with gasoline at a garbage dump in Tbilisi and threw it in a ditch, according to Georgias Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA).



Five people were detained for involvement in the brutal murder. Three of the young people, whose ages range from 17 to 23, are suspected of direct involvement in what the ministry described as a ritual murder.



The three detainees knocked the elderly woman, Luba K., unconscious with an electric shock device and afterward stabbed her with a knife. The detainees placed Luba Ks body in a large bag and transported it to a rented apartment, temporarily owned by Beka Sh, where they disintegrated the corpse, the statement reads.



The same evening, the detainees took the dismembered body to a closed landfill located in Gldani, near penitentiary facility number 8, poured previously purchased gasoline over it and set it on fire. The offenders threw the body remains in a ditch to conceal the traces of the crime.



The three are charged with premeditated murder. Two have admitted committing murder, while the third detainee, who is a minor, used her right to remain silent.



The other two detainees are accused of having known about the macabre murder but failing to alarm the authorities.



Police examined the murder scene, the apartment where the body was disintegrated and the place where the body was burned. They collected evidence, interrogated witnesses and conducted forensic examinations, including DNA tests. The police also found video tapes.



The murdered Luba was reported missing by her family on October 19.



The case is being investigated as conspiracy to commit murder under aggravating circumstances, premeditated murder, concealing a crime and not reporting a crime.

(DF watch)







Georgia shows improvement in safety and personal life in latest global index



Georgia has been praised for its impressive performance in several areas, including education and governance in the latest global index.



The countrys good performance in many fields helped Georgia improve its prosperity over the last decade, the new global index revealed.



The Legatum Institute, a London based research institute released its 10th annual global Prosperity Index, a huge survey that ranked the most prosperous countries in the world.



Georgia came out 84th of the 149-nation list.



Results were based on a range of factors, including economic quality, business environment, governance, education, health, safety and security, personal freedom, social capital and environment. Each variable measured (using data from sources like the World Health Organisation and the World Bank) was given a weight depending on its importance.



In the Prosperity Sub-Index rankings, Georgia performed best on education and governance and scored lowest on the social capital sub-index.



In the 2016 ranking, Georgia maintained the same position as in last years index in all sub-indexes but showed improvement in safety and personal freedom during the past year.



The Prosperity Gap was also measured which took the country's GDP and used it as the yardstick to measure the nation's expected Prosperity Index ranking.



"Georgia has a small prosperity deficit signifying that it slightly under-delivers prosperity for its citizens compared to its wealth. Nevertheless, this is an excellent result compared to its regional peers, the Legatum Institute said.



Armenia and Azerbaijan had much larger prosperity deficits than Georgia despite having similar wealth and prosperity ranks.

(Agenda.ge)




@ByKristenMClark

Newly re-elected Miami Republican Sen. Anitere Flores has been named the Florida Senate's President Pro Tempore for the 2017 session.

Incoming Florida Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, announced Flores' appointment as his No. 2 on Thursday, heralding Flores as a "loyal friend and trusted ally."

"The role of Senate President Pro Tempore is a significant position of trust and authority," Negron said in a statement, adding that Flores has "longstanding relationships with many new and returning senators. She has a proven ability to work in a bipartisan manner without compromising her own unwavering principles. I have complete confidence in her ability to represent the Senate in this important leadership position."

Flores was re-elected to the Senate on Tuesday with 54 percent of the vote after a competitive battle with Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell for the newly redrawn District 39. The district includes portions of Miami-Dade County and all of Monroe County. Flores has been in the Florida Senate since 2010.

Flores' appointment will become effective Nov. 22, when the Senate convenes in Organization Session. The President Pro Tempore is formally nominated and elected by the full Senate during the Organization Session.

Flores joins a growing list of Miami lawmakers who will hold influential positions in Tallahassee next session. On Wednesday, several Miami-Dade County representatives were also named to the leadership team in the Florida House under incoming Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O'Lakes.

Photo credit: AP
HELENA  Larvae from aquatic invasive mussels have been detected in Montana for the first time.

Water samples from Tiber Reservoir east of Shelby tested positive for the larvae of aquatic invasive mussels, with similar tests from Canyon Ferry Reservoir near Helena showing suspect or inconclusive results, according to officials at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

FWP, along with other state and federal agencies and the Montana Invasive Species Advisory Council (MISAC), are now working to determine whether adult mussels are present in Tiber Reservoir and to get further test results on Canyon Ferry.

This is the first positive test in Montana for the larvae of quagga or zebra mussels, said Eileen Ryce, FWP fisheries division administrator. Although we hoped we would never see these invasive species in Montana waters, weve been preparing for this possibility for some time, and were going to work together to address this threat.

Quagga and zebra mussels are aquatic invasive species not known to be established in Montana. In other parts of the country, such as the Midwest, Southwest and the Great Lakes areas, mussels have impaired hydroelectric, municipal and agricultural water infrastructure. Mussels may also impact fisheries and other aquatic resources and damage recreation facilities.

FWP runs aquatic invasive inspection stations during the warmers months as well as the Clean. Drain. Dry. campaign to discourage unintentionally transporting invasives on watercraft.

Recent site inspections at Tiber and Canyon Ferry did not turn up any established populations of adult mussels, but officials will conduct more extensive inspections with the assistance of dam operators, marina concessionaires and other groups. State agencies are also making arrangements to bring in dogs that may detect mussels at Tiber and Canyon Ferry reservoirs.

FWP regularly tests the states rivers, lakes and reservoirs for aquatic invasive mussels. Water samples from Fresno, Holter and Hauser reservoirs have come back negative, as did samples from Lake Frances, the Marias River and the Milk River. Testing at Fort Peck Reservoir and the entire Missouri River system is ongoing.

The recent test results are definitely bad news, but they do indicate our detection system is working, Ryce said. The results from Tiber Reservoir show the larvae exist at very low densities, which improves our chances for containment.

The coming winter also offers some hope of stifling a potential infestation.

At 50 degrees and below the larvae are unable to reproduce, said Stephanie Hester, MISAC coordinator. Were in the process of determining what state the larvae are in  so timing wise were in a pretty good spot.

Thats not to say there isnt concern because theyre just crazy in terms of what theyre able to do and hide and proliferate once adult mussels are established. Were taking this very seriously.

Officials are unsure of when the introduction may have occurred, although Hester suspects the larvae were transported via recreational boat.

A rapid response plan includes assessing the risks, coordinating state and federal agencies and other water users, contacting legislators and looking at possible control measures, she said. Recent work on the council and regionally to address invasive species has given officials a framework for responding, she added.

We have a huge list of people were on the phone with right now letting them know we need their support and help, Hester said. I feel like were in really good shape with the goal to protect the resource and prevent any more issues.

If adult mussels are detected, potential controls include aeration or dissolving potash in an attempt to eradicate them.

Bob Gilbert, executive director for Walleyes Unlimited of Montana said he is hopeful the Canyon Ferry detection is a false alarm, but encouraged officials to get out ahead of potential infestations as soon as possible.

Our organization is 100 percent behind keeping any invasive species out of Montana and especially these mussels, he said. Theyre not only devastating to fisheries but to just about everyone who uses water in this state.

This latest invasive species detection is much different than the high-profile detection of a fish-killing parasite which caused temporary closures of the Yellowstone River this summer, Ryce said.

The Yellowstone River was much more of an emergency to prevent the spread to other waterbodies and reduce additional stressors on the fish, she said. For this situation its less of an emergency because we have the luxury of having the winter to come up with plans to minimize the spread and containment.

As officials look at strategies watercraft inspection and mandatory decontamination may be instituted to alleviate concerns of spreading larvae or adult mussels. Boating restrictions are not expected.
Almost 77 percent of registered voters in Ravalli County took the time to cast a ballot in Tuesdays election. And a record number of those opted to vote absentee this year.

A total of 23,121 Ravalli County residents voted in the election. The county sent out 13,699 absentee ballots this year and received 12,993 of those back.

Thats a 95 percent return,'' said Ravalli County Clerk and Recorder Regina Plettenberg. It set a new record for absentee ballots in the county.

Ravalli County voters re-elected incumbents in all of the state and local races.

Republican Ravalli County Commissioner Greg Chilcott defeated Democrat David Smith by a vote of 14,399 to 7,570.

With the shakeup in Washington, D.C., Chilcott said it will be interesting to see what happens with federal funding from PILT and Secure Rural Schools.

I think active forest management will get some more traction, he said. When you look at the national election, I think its a referendum on the frustration people have with Washingtons efficiency.

All four of the Republican legislative seats up for grabs in Ravalli County went to incumbents.

One of those  Rep. Ron Ehli, R-Hamilton  will be on the short list for majority leader of the House when Republicans meet next week in Helena.

Ehli defeated his Democrat challenger, Nancy A Neal, 3,542 to 1,861. That 65 percent margin was the largest Ehli has received in his four election cycles.

Rep. Ed Greef, R-Florence. Greef defeated Margaret Gorski 3,598 to 1,798.

Greef said he was pleased with the experienced legislative group that Ravalli County will send to Helena for the next session, as well as the overall makeup of the House.

Sen. Fred Thomas, R-Stevensville, was elected to his eighth term in the Montana Legislature, defeating challenger James R. Olsen of Hamilton 7,531 to 3,226.

I think what that says is that people are happy with the way things are going, Thomas said. In general, people want less government, less taxes, less regulations. But on top of that, they want honesty and integrity in government. Thats why this county voted for Gianforte and Trump.

Rep. Theresa Manzella, R-Darby, defeated Democrat A. Jo Young 4,298 to 1,582.

Our legislative team made a clean sweep, Manzella said.

Montanas longest serving district judge, Jeff Langton, easily defeated challenger Robert Myers 12,601 to 8,104.

Langton will begin his fifth six-year term in January. He said it will be his last as district judge.
While the approval of the initiative making medical marijuana more accessible in Montana was cause for celebration among proponents, its effect for medical marijuana providers and patients won't be felt immediately.

The state health department will begin plans to retool the program, adding systems for laboratory testing and new licensing procedures. Additionally, a drafting error in I-182 could hold off full implementation of the new program until mid-2017.

After a tumultuous year for those involved in medical marijuana, Tuesday's vote is a sign that there's more work to be done.

"It's like a rollercoaster that just won't stop," said Nick Frentsos, owner of the Billings-based dispensary Bloom Montana.

Montana voters passed the initiative by a 13-point margin, supported by widespread support in the state's most populous counties. It will be the latest iteration of the program, which was first passed in 2004, revised in 2011 and curtailed earlier this year.

The initiative amends the program, which will be recreated in the coming months.

I consider that a pretty significant mandate, and I think the administrators and elected officials going forward need to make this work, said Jeff Krauss, treasurer of the I-182 campaign and a Bozeman city commissioner.

As drafted, some provisions of the initiative take effect immediately. They include the addition of post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of eligible conditions that can be treated with medical marijuana, as well as a mandate for the state health department to establish licensing and testing systems.

But other parts of the initiative won't take effect until June 30  the result of what previously was called a technical error.

That includes the rule that providers can only serve up to three patients each  the provision seen as the most onerous in the medical marijuana industry. It caused many providers to close.

"Most sections of the initiative do not go into effect until June 30, 2017," said Jon Ebelt, spokesman for the Department of Public Health and Human Services. "At this time, DPHHS is reviewing the sections that are effective upon approval and passage to determine our transition plan going forward for those sections."

Krauss said that the Montana Legislature, which convenes on Jan. 2, would be best suited to move up the effective date.

Todd Everts, chief legal counsel of the Montana Legislative Services Division, said in August that only the Legislature can make substantive changes to a voter-approved bill.

The delays mean additional wait times for patients, most of whom lost their providers on Aug. 31. Nancy Moore, who uses marijuana to help ease symptoms of multiple sclerosis, was among them.

She said that the passage of I-182 will give her regular access to cannabis again. She wasn't able to successfully grow her own. Years ago, she swore off traditional prescription medications that she said were draining, mentally and physically.

"It means my provider will once again open up, and that will be a good thing," she said. "It means also that I won't have to worry about having to go back on the pharmaceutical meds."

The vote

Montana was among nine states voting on marijuana-related ballot issues on Tuesday.

Maine, California, Massachusetts and Nevada passed recreational measures. North Dakota, Florida and Arkansas passed medical marijuana programs.

Arizona voters declined a recreational marijuana measure, though it does have a medical program.

Montana's most populous counties favored I-182, while some of the smallest voted against it.

Flathead, Cascade, Gallatin, Lewis and Clark, Missoula and Yellowstone Counties all came out in favor of the measure.

The most votes against I-182 in a single county came out of Fergus County, where 3,300 people  56 percent  opposed the initiative. Stillwater, Sweet Grass and Musselshell counties also voted against the measure.

In total, 29 counties opposed I-182 and 27 supported it, but the regions weighted with population carried the most sway.

Steve Zabawa, who spent more than $150,000 opposing I-182, said that having medical marijuana is "good," though he initially campaigned to repeal the state program. He called the Montana medical marijuana program a step toward legal recreational use.

"It's lacking a lot of direction in the law, which is what Safe Montana's opposed to," Zabawa said in a statement to The Gazette.

Both opponents and proponents of medical marijuana will be watching the state legislative session to see if the issue comes up again.

Zabawa said the Legislature could make further revisions to the program. Krauss said lawmakers could help ease the implementation delay.

Moore, the medical marijuana patient, said that she hopes the plan stays intact.

And I'm ready," she said. "They're gonna have a bigger fight next time if there has to be.
KALISPELL  Republicans dominated the more than a dozen state legislative races in Flathead County Tuesday, winning ones that were contested with up to 77 percent of the vote and sending a father and son to Helena as well.

But there were two noticeable exceptions.

In House District 3 incumbent Zac Perry, a Columbia Falls Democrat, held off a challenge by a Republican nominee who was linked to white nationalism. And in HD 5, Whitefish School Board member Dave Fern also kept a rare Democratic Flathead seat in Democratic hands.

He beat a 19-year-old who, when he was a Whitefish High School student, had attempted to put an initiative on the ballot that would have allowed public school teachers with concealed weapons permits to carry weapons in their classrooms.

Everyplace else, it was a GOP sweep in the traditional Republican stronghold.

That includes Senate District 3, where House Majority Leader Keith Regier of Kalispell advanced to the upper body by defeating Melissa Hartman with 56 percent of the vote, 6,480 to 4,921.

It was the closest race of the night for Republican legislative winners.

Regiers son, Matt, took his fathers old House seat in HD 4 with 77 percent of the vote. Matt Regier posted a 3,938 to 1,169 win over Deborah Gentry.

***

Keith Regiers win made it a clean sweep for the GOP in senate districts that are in, or partially in, Flathead County.

Kalispell orthopedic surgeon Albert Olszewski got 80 percent of the vote in Flathead County precincts, and 72 percent overall, in SD 6. After serving one term in the Montana House, Olszewski beat Democrat Rolf Harmsen 7,332 to 2,829 to move up to the Senate.

Flathead voters also gave 80 percent of their votes to State Sen. Jennifer Fielder in SD 7, most of which lies in Sanders County. Fielder, a champion of transferring federal public land to state control, beat Thompson Falls Mayor Mark Sheets with 67 percent of the overall vote, 6,686 to 3,268.

State Sen. Dee Brown of Hungry Horse was unopposed in Senate District 2.

***

Perry, the Columbia Falls Democrat, was first elected to the House two years ago, when he edged the Republican incumbent by 47 votes. Jerry ONeil, his 2014 opponent, had unsuccessfully demanded the state pay his legislator salary in gold and silver, and introduced an unsuccessful bill that would have allowed convicted criminals to substitute corporal punishment for prison time.

This time around his opponent was 29-year-old Taylor Rose, who was involved in Youth for Western Civilization when he was a college student at Liberty University. The co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network compared Roses candidacy to former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke in Louisiana, an assertion Rose called preposterous.

The minute you reject multiculturalism, you become a target for the left, and that is whats happened here, Rose told Flathead Beacon reporter Tristan Scott last month.

Perry beat Rose, 2,464 to 2,186.

Fern posted a 3,241 to 2,470 win over teenager Chet Billi, who filed for the HD 5 seat while he was still a senior at Whitefish High School. Billi ran on the principle that Man is a free and sovereign being, and there is nothing in nature that ordains one human to rule over another.

***

The rest of the countys house seats went to Republicans by large margins.

In HD 6, Carl Glimm was re-elected with 3,754 votes (66 percent) to 1,606 for Democrat Lisa Morrow. Libertarian Ian Wheeler got 311.

Former Kalispell Police Chief Frank Garner was re-elected in HD 7 with 65 percent of the vote, 2,585 to 1,383 for Lynn Stanley. Also re-elected were Steve Lavin in HD 8 (with 76 percent of the vote) and Randy Brodehl in HD 9 (72 percent).

Lavin beat C. Paige Rappleye 3,642 to 1,110. Brodehl got 2,790 votes to 1,047 for challenger Brittany MacLean.

Derek Skees, who unsuccessfully ran for state auditor and the Montana Public Service Commission in the last two elections, successfully returned to the Montana Legislature Tuesday. The former representative from HD 4 from 2011-13 got 74 percent of the vote in HD 11, beating Eileen Bach Bech 3,743 to 1,303.

Two more House districts are partially in Flathead County. Mark Ray Noland was re-elected with 72 percent of the vote in HD 10, and Bob Brown was re-elected with 75 percent in HD 13.

Also easily re-elected Tuesday was Flathead County Commissioner Pamela Holmquist, a Republican who got 31,066 votes to 14,036 for her Democratic challenger, Eileen Lowery. Flathead County Clerk of Court Peg Allison was unopposed for re-election.
Voters handily sent Commissioner Bob Lake back to the Montana Public Service Commission, helping ensure an all-Republican regulatory body.

"Obviously, we've represented well to the point where they trust me (to) continue to represent them on the Public Service Commission," Lake said Thursday.

Lake, a Republican from Hamilton who already has served one term on the commission, won by 54 percent over Democrat Gail Gutsche of Missoula.

People generally like incumbents, and Lake has met many people as a former legislator and commissioner, he said. Some 16 years ago, he ran an animal feed business, and he said people in District 4's seven counties got to know him and appreciate his service.

"They evidently liked my style," Lake said.

Gutsche had held the office one term earlier, and she tried unsuccessfully to return to the post this year on a campaign of clean energy.

Lake's re-election, along with a win by Tony O'Donnell in District 2 and Roger Koopman's re-election in District 3, means the five-member body that regulates private utilities in the state remains all Republican.

Of the counties comprising District 4, only Missoula preferred Gutsche. Voters in Missoula County gave her 57 percent of the vote compared to Lake's 42 percent.

Lake won handily in the other six counties, pulling in percentages in the high 60s and low 70s, and as high as 73 percent in Sanders County.
Republican challenger Adam Hertz appears to have won a tightly-contested race against Democratic incumbent Andrew Person for a seat in Montana House District 96.

According to the Montana Secretary of State site at 5 p.m., Hertz had 2,677 votes to 2,477 votes for Person, a victory of 51-48 percent.

Hertz previously served on the Missoula City Council. He was first elected in 2011 at the age of 26, the youngest person ever elected to city council. Hertz ran on a platform of lowering property taxes, defending the Constitution, promoting pro-growth economic policy and protecting public access to public lands.

It was a tight race, and that was to be expected, Hertz said. I had a tough opponent. We both ran strong campaigns, and I was expecting a close race.

Hertz said hes proud of the fact that he and Person both ran positive campaigns and avoided the mudslinging that afflicted much of this election season.

When I first decided to run, Andrew was one of the first people I told, Hertz recalled. We had coffee. We didnt make any verbal commitment to not go negative, but we had a good conversation. Hes a good person and we are naturally on the same page on (not going negative)."

Their campaigns stand in stark contrast to the bitter presidential election this year.

"I wish we could say the same thing at the national level," he said. "Voters deserve for candidates to stick to issues and not go to personal attacks. I am proud of the campaign we ran and the campaign Andrew ran and voters got to choose a candidate based on the issues and not based on low blows.

Hertz said the number one thing he heard from voters was the need for property tax relief.

I am committed to seeing what we can do on that, he said. Its going to be a tough session. The state budget is not looking good, and were going to have to be cutting spending. The revenue numbers are not looking good. Ill be working on that issue, but its probably not a one-session issue. But its one that voters are overwhelmingly talking about in my district.

Legislators will have to find a way to work together, he added.

We will have a Republican majority working with a Democratic governor, he said. So were going to have to work together for the people of Montana to do the job.

As a lone conservative voice on the city council, Hertz learned a lot about working to find common ground.

I think I have a perspective that maybe a lot of Republicans dont, he said. I wont compromise my core values, core beliefs, but Ill be trying to build consensus.

Hertz also offered some perspective on why the state and national races couldnt be more like the campaigns he and his opponent ran.

You know, I think some of it is people just have a lot more fear and concern over whats happening at the federal level, he said. Theres some people really hurting over federal policies over the last couple years. I think in Montana, our race was about hope and what we can do to make things better, Montana is a pretty well-governed state, but at the national level theres a lot of pain and they dont feel like Washington, D.C., is listening to them. Its a major wake-up call.
Missoula County Public Schools trustees planned ahead this week, preparing for Superintendent Mark Thane's evaluation and teacher retirement incentives and sabbaticals.

Thane officially took over as superintendent in January, though he had been interim superintendent since Alex Apostle resigned at the end of the 2014-2015 school year.

Thane's first evaluation, which also took place in January, was a new process for MCPS. Starting in 2014, Apostle chose to have his review take place in executive session after several years of releasing his evaluation to the public. He announced his resignation in March 2015.

While Thane's final, formal evaluation will take place in executive session, MCPS trustees have scheduled a Nov. 17 work session to "be more fluid," board chair Marcia Holland said Tuesday night. It will be a time for a public back-and-forth between the board and Thane.

The superintendent's evaluation is due by Jan. 31, according to Thane's contract. His current contract runs through June 30, 2019. In this first year, his salary is $155,000. His salary is up for review annually during his evaluation, during which it can stay the same or be increased.

"In years past with different superintendents, there was a different model used," Holland said. "This is more sharing information across the board than a big pile of information without a good way to evaluate it."

***

The trustees unanimously approved early retirement incentives for teachers.

If teachers let the district know they plan to retire between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28 of their last school year, they receive a $500 incentive, human resources executive director David Rott said Tuesday.

Rott was not available for comment Wednesday on how many years retirement incentives have been in place and how many teachers have taken advantage of the incentive.

"It's advantageous for the district, for Pat (McHugh) and HR both, to know who is going to retire next school year," Rott said Tuesday. "We can plan for vacancies and be ready before we get into arenas."

Rott said data indicates the incentive plan works.

"Several people have come to depend upon it," he said. "A lot of people hold off sending in their retirement until this period to let us know."

Last school year, 49 teachers left MCPS, either due to retirement, resignation or administrative transfer, as well as three deaths.

***

Trustees also gave teacher sabbaticals the OK.

MCPS has offered cost-neutral teacher sabbaticals for several years, a process outlined in the teachers' collective bargaining agreement.

A teacher has to have at least seven years with MCPS under his or her belt before applying to take a sabbatical. Applications are due in February before the school year in which the sabbatical would take place. There are currently three teachers on sabbatical.

According to the agreement, teachers will be paid two-thirds of their salary while on sabbatical, with the remaining salary going toward their replacement teacher.

But there's a stipulation that "in cases of declining budgets," the board can grant cost-neutral sabbaticals.

"In my time here, I do not recall a time that sabbaticals were funded," said teachers' union president Melanie Charlson.

The "replacement teacher" is generally paid less, Rott said, therefore "the difference between those is the compensation the teacher receives, hence it being cost-neutral."

Because of that, sabbaticals are not built into annual budgets, said McHugh, executive director of business and operations.

Charlson suggested the board look at adding back sabbatical pay during the 2017-2018 budgeting process. According to the collective bargaining agreement, up to 1.5 percent of the district's teaching staff can be on sabbatical in a given year.

"We're not talking about a lot of teachers," Charlson said. "We've never ever hit that (1.5 percent) in the number of sabbaticals, by any means."

Trustee Heidi Kendall said she hopes the board could "figure out a way to make it less costly to teachers so more teachers could do this."

"It lights a fire under the teacher," she said.

Holland said that had been discussed in the past, but "we have a really tight budget these days."
Almost lost in this frenzied election week that saw the dashed efforts of the first serious run of a female presidential candidate was another historic milestone.

One hundred years ago Monday, Montana voters gave the nation its first Congresswoman in Missoula's Jeannette Rankin.

By Tuesday, I Voted stickers, flowers and other memorabilia decorated Rankins headstone in the family plot at the Missoula Cemetery, where Rankins parents and brother Wellington are buried. Her own cremains were strewn in the Pacific Ocean near her home in Carmel, California, in 1973.

In a scene from an experimental stage production that Allyson Adams brings Saturday night to the Crystal Theater, Adams, as Rankin, is part of a telephone campaign on Election Day, Nov. 7, 1916.

Good morning! the greeting went. Have you voted for Jeannette Rankin?

She gets a man on the phone and starts talking about her platform, Adams related in an interview Monday. She says, And yes, women need equal wages for equal work performed. This is 1916, for heavens sake! 

The line drew one of the biggest laughs at the first staging of Adams Save the Country: How Belle Fligelman and Jeannette Rankin Changed the World in Bozeman last week.

Rankin is best known for her outspoken stance for peace  she was the only member of Congress to cast votes against the United States entrance into both world wars. She loved to quote Claude Kitchin, the U.S. House majority leader in 1916 who also spoke against the war.

Let me remind the House that it takes neither moral nor physical courage to declare a war for others to fight, Kitchin said.

But there was so much more to Rankin and her causes.

Jeannette was very much focused on womens and childrens issues before her vote for peace, Adams said. She was a champion for equal wages, education, womens prenatal care and child nutrition. Then she kind of got swept away with the whole war and peace thing.

Adams, who had her own run at public service as mayor of Virginia City 10 years ago, has been intrigued with Rankins story since she came across Flight of the Dove by Montana native Kevin Giles in 1997. Giles expanded that work in One Woman Against War: The Jeannette Rankin Story that came out last month.

A playwright, teacher and author, Adams toured Montana for a decade performing Moment of Peace, which interpreted Rankins life from childhood in Missoula through her very public opposition to the Vietnam War.

Adams also produced a docudrama Peace is A Womans Job that was first aired on Montana PBS in 2005.

Her most recent play, which she said shed like to turn into a full-fledged stage production if she can find the money, delves into the years from 1914, when Rankin successfully led Montanas fight for womens suffrage, to her No vote on World War I in April 1917.

The cast includes actress Amber Rose Mason, a University of Montana alum as Fligelman, Rankins campaign manager from Helena. The role of Rankins little brother Wellington, a Helena attorney who financed her run, is played by John Hosking, co-founder of the Vigilante Theater in Bozeman.

Adams said the play studies the emotional triangle among the three players in those years.

It has a lot of humor, especially the dynamics between brother and sister, she said. I think people should know that because sometimes they think history is very dry and dramatic.

In truth, Rankin placed second in her first run for Congress  7,600 votes behind Democrat and incumbent John Evans, the former mayor of Missoula. But this was in a brief period in time, less than a decade, when Montanans elected two at-large candidates to the House of Representatives. Rankin took advantage by campaigning almost entirely east of the mountains, returning to Missoula only a couple of days before the election. It was also the first major election after Montana women were accorded the vote.

Shed had a national presence since launching the Montana suffrage campaign that culminated in 1914, when the male voters of the state approved the womens vote. That was six years before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified to prohibit any U.S. citizen being denied the vote on the basis of sex.

Rankins bid for Congress in 1916 was watched more closely than any other race in 1916 except for the presidential clash between Democrat incumbent Woodrow Wilson and Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes. In Flight of the Dove, Giles wrote that her victory resulted in marriage proposals and photograph requests, an offer of a free automobile in exchange for an endorsement, and another from a toothpaste company that promised her $5,000 for a photo of her teeth.

But she wasnt taken seriously in the nations eyes until those who knew her well spoke up.

Jeannette is the best stump speaker in Montana, can dance like a boarding-school girl and, believe me, she will lead those Congressmen a merry little two-step when she comes to Washington, a suffrage leader from the East Coast said.

A New York Times reporter called Louis Levine, an economics professor from the University of Montana, to get his take.

There is a great surprise in store for the members of the new Congress when they convene in Washington next year and meet their first woman colleague, The Lady from Montana, Levine said. They will have to throw overboard a lot of mental baggage which they may have valued very highly for many years.

They will find in their midst not that impulsive, irrational, sentimental, capriciously thinking and obstinately feeling being which many imagine woman to be, but a strong and well-balanced personality, scientifically trained, accustomed to strict reasoning, well versed in the art of politics, inspired by high social ideals, tempered by wide experience.

Her story is so powerful. Its not about her and it has never been about her, said Suzette Dussault of Missoula, who for several years has assumed the role of Rankin for Humanities Montana presentations in classrooms and history gatherings. Its about her belief in the people and that each individual has something to contribute and needs to stand up and speak up.
Sandy Comptons (Oct. 13) opinion column in the Missoulian complained that the Alliance for the Wild Rockies wouldnt come to their collaborative meetings. But why would the Alliance, which is an organization that advocates for healthy forests and recovery of endangered species, want to conspire to help local people in the Kootenai National Forest figure out how to break federal laws?

Compton's collaborative group came up with a less-than-amazing plan where federal taxpayers across the nation would pay millions of dollars to subsidize clearcutting of lynx, grizzly bear and bull trout habitat on the national forests owned by all Americans, not just a handful in the Kootenai. And as the court ruling proved, their plan ignored the legal requirements of the Endangered Species Act.

Didnt the Bundys come up with a similar plan to dictate policies on public lands for their own local profits? Of course Comptons group was more sophisticated than the Bundys and instead of showing up with guns to take over a wildlife refuge, they conspired with the Forest Service, the timber industry and groups like the Montana Wilderness Association to break federal laws.

The bottom line  and the core of the problem  is that Comptons collaborative agreed to massively log one of the most heavily logged forests in Montana. The grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem are going extinct because of past logging and road-building that produced 22,000 acres of existing clearcuts in the East Reservoir area on the east side of Lake Koocanusa.

Despite this, the East Reservoir timber sale, which the collaborative backed, calls for another 8,845 acres of commercial logging, of which 3,458 acres will be new clearcuts in federally designated lynx critical habitat. Bear in mind that the Forest Services own scientists say clearcuts harm, not help, lynx. Meanwhile, consider that by the Forest Services own estimate the sale will cost taxpayers $2,589,535 to subsidize the further degradation of already degraded habitat.

The problem with both the Bundys' and Comptons scheme is that America is a nation of laws. The Bundys were arrested by the FBI but there is no federal agency policing the Forest Service. Instead, when Congress wrote natural resource laws they included a citizen enforcement provision because our Constitution has the First Amendment, which gives all Americans the right to challenge the federal government.

This is what the Alliance for the Wild Rockies did when we challenged the Forest Services decision on East Reservoir. When the local district court decided that it was alright for the Forest Service to violate the Endangered Species Act, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in. Judges appointed by both a Republican president and a Democrat president halted the clearcutting because the Forest Service was clearly violating the law.

In the end both Compton and the Bundys are finding out that just because a group of people get together and decide that they dont want to follow the law, thats not the way it works in America. We are a nation of laws and nobody is above the law. Not the Bundys (they are still in jail awaiting trial in Nevada), not the Forest Service, not timber corporations, not pseudo conservation groups and not Comptons collaborative.
Sometimes you cant begrudge the American people for tuning out the policy debates in our nations capital. The real day-to-day concerns facing Main Street America and our nations entrepreneurs often differ widely from what you hear on the campaign trail or on cable news. But make no mistake, our elected officials make decisions that profoundly affect our daily lives. One of those decisions could disseminate an entire industry if its not corrected.

The science is mounting: vaping is a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes, and vaping has been proven an effective method for many people who want to quit smoking. I see it every day in my businesswere helping people quit tobacco, and I have no doubt were helping save lives.

But the vaping industry will be wiped out unless something is done to prevent the Food and Drug Administration from arbitrarily taking most of the products we sell off the market. The FDA is currently moving forward with new rules that would retroactively require lengthy review of any vaping product that came on the market after February 2007. Almost all of the products we sell would fall into that category.

This is an FDA review process that was designed to address tobacco products, but the FDA now seeks to apply it to safer vaping alternatives as well. Dont get me wrong, our industry welcomes reasonable government oversight and regulation, but what the FDA is proposing is an extremely expensive and time-consuming process to go through. For any small- or mid-sized vaping manufacturer, its an impossibly high bar to meet.

Vaping provides consumers more choices. Smoking rates for adults in our country are at an all-time low, and they are projected to decline further. Some estimates indicate roughly 2 million ex-smokers are using vaping products in our country today.

My experience as a vape shop owner supports these statistics. Most of my customers are ex-smokers. Every day, I hear stories about how vaping was the one thing that worked to help ease them off traditional tobacco products and eventually quit smoking.

If the FDA removes virtually all vaping products from the market, I have little doubt that many of those ex-smokers will return to traditional cigarettes. From a public health perspective, that outcome would run contrary to the mission of the FDA.

That move would also run contrary to the science that is piling up that vaping is safer. A recent independent review by the U.K. Department of Health concluded that e-cigarette use is around 95 percent safer than smoking.

Vaping products are not traditional tobacco products, and its important that the FDA not treat them as such. In order to protect the burgeoning vaping industry and the thousands of Montanans who have benefited from making the switch from cigarettes, we need our congressional delegation to act.

The House of Representatives has already passed the Cole-Bishop amendment, which would set a more reasonable timeframe for the FDAs review of vapor products that does not outright eliminate existing products from the marketplace. Moreover, Cole-Bishop includes important provisions like restrictions on advertising and requiring warning labels to help keep vaping products out of the hands of children.

These are all regulations that we in the vaping industry support.

Though the House has taken action, we need the Senate to support the Cole-Bishop amendment as well by ensuring its enacted this year by adding it to one of the must-pass bills theyll take up before Congress adjourns. U.S. Sens. Jon Tester and Steve Daines: we need you to act to help protect Montana small businesses and the Montanans whose lives are better today because vaping helped them quit smoking.
The Kootenai National Forest is one of Montanas hidden secrets. Productive forests, soaring peaks, rushing water and small communities are around each bend in the road.

Even with so much going on to support communities and the land in our area, theres a lot that is still as it should be. Folks still cut their own wood to heat their homes each winter. They fill their freezers every fall with venison or elk, and they prefer to work out their differences together instead of in the courtroom.

Its in this spirit that a group of business owners, community leaders, mill operators and conservationists hashed out a plan over time that will provide a more predictable flow of timber, protect access for recreationists and secure some of the best big-game habitat for future generations. Through the better part of a decade, the Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Coalition remained dedicated to finding a unique, Montana-made solution to our public land challenges by focusing on a better future for the Kootenai.

Its no secret; the Kootenai National Forest has been a tough place to find agreement, but weve worked through the toughest times and our public lands dont have to be a place of winners and losers. We dont have to choose between harvesting trees and harvesting elk. Its not a choice to have wilderness areas or snowmobile trails. Instead, we agree that the 2.2 million acre Kootenai Forest is big enough for each of us - where others see impossibility, we see potential.

Thats why we worked together to draft guidelines outlining common ground to improve timber management that bring economic and forest restoration benefits to our communities. Our common ground agreement is our vision for how the current forest plan can be implemented on the Kootenai National Forest and informs how we participate in the public comment process.

We worked together to ensure motorized and non-motorized recreation has a place in the forest and we agreed to set aside some areas like the Scotchman Peaks, Roderick Mountain and Canyon Peak as wilderness so that places in the Kootenai stay just the way they are today.

Our plan is an investment in jobs. Its an investment in the forest. Its an investment in adventure. Its an investment in our future. It also has the support and endorsement of groups and individuals from the forest industry, local and regional conservation groups, local elected officials and outdoor motorized recreational groups.

Now we would like to hear from you.

Join the Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Coalition at one of our open house meetings near you to discuss a vision of community-based stewardship for our national forest. These meetings are open to the public and will be held around northwestern Montana in Troy, Noxon, Libby and Eureka. You can visit kootenaifuture.org for details and to learn more about our ongoing work together.

The Kootenai Forest belongs to all of us. A love of our public lands and respect for one another brought us together. Please join us.
When a group of loggers, hikers, snowmobilers, ranchers and local businessmen came together 10 years ago, they all had different goals with the same aim. They had lived in the area around Seeley and Ovando and loved the natural wilderness. However, these are not groups which usually get along and agree on wilderness legislation. They did, however, all see the importance of the land.

These concerned people are all different members of a similar community. They have different interests or goals for public lands. The unique part of this amalgamation of people is that they were able to come together and see across the table. To speak civilly with one another and come to a compromise about what to do with this pristine landscape that worked for all of them. After many meetings and continued communication, the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project was formed.

The BCSP has already had many important impacts on the area. It has not only been able to protect a large swath of land for fishing, hiking and other recreation, but it has brought in a significant amount of income. Its created almost 150 jobs, trail work and noxious weed spraying included, funded from $19 million of federal funding and overall of $33 million.

As you can see, this is not only an important area for the local community, but for all of those who use this area to recreate. The BCSP exemplifies the ideals of community, communication, compromise and a need to balance the way that we use our public lands in a sustainable manner.

Our congressional delegation needs to acknowledge that Montanans support the BCSP and they need to act on that support by taking the proposal to Washington, D.C., and stewarding it through Congress to the presidents desk. It is important to Montanans.

Theo Bullock,

Missoula
Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. The less fortunate, minority and undocumented immigrant beware; it is the birth of Trump nation.

In Trump nation, instead of pointed-hooded white sheets, the politically incorrect Trump disciple will adorn themselves with business suits. In like manner, instead of the burning cross, threats to repeal government benefits and liberal immigration policies will instill fear.

Furthermore, in Donald Trumps nation, the white middle class will continue to believe the myth of self-reliance with no government assistance. They will be fooled, as described by Soren Kierkegaard. He said, There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what is not true; the other is to refuse to accept what is true.

It is their refusal to accept what the upper class hypocrite knows to be true. The upper class knows everyone feeds from the government trough. The trough is filled with welfare payments, food stamps, various disability stipends, subsidies, bailouts, generous tax breaks and loopholes, research grants, student loans, foreign aid and the list goes on. Even Trump benefits from government tax laws.

Therefore, no matter what Donald Trump says, it will be business as usual. Trump is a deal maker who will say and do whatever it takes to close the deal. He won the election because gullible followers believed his self-serving, fiery rhetoric.

He was the type of political candidate described by H.L. Mencken. Mencken said, If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner. Welcome to Trump nation.

Kevin Palmer,

Martinez, Georgia
BILLINGS - Nicole Walksalong has special expertise in the area of foster and adopted children, a knowledge that comes from beyond her formal education.

Shes the adopted mother of twin girls and her own mother was adopted into a white family as a child. The family raised her mother on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, which later allowed Walksalong to stay connected to her culture.

Walksalong's intimate knowledge on the topic of adoption and fostering children is part of the reason she will help to define a newly created position within Yellowstone County's Court Appointed Special Advocates.

"The important thing to remember is that you're not saving these children," Walksalong said. "You're helping them."

Walksalong began in October working as CASA's Indian Child Welfare Act program coordinator. Part of her job is helping programs like the Center for Children and Families and Child Family Services, understand the cultural background of Native American children.

About 40 percent of the countys foster children are Native American, Walksalong said. CASA hopes to reduce the number of Native American children in foster homes and connect more Native American families with resources to help them through the foster care system.

Shes also working with county Judge Rod Souza to establish what would be the fourth special ICWA court in the nation. The court is scheduled to begin taking on cases in July 2017.

Congress passed ICWA in 1978 in order to keep native families and tribes together. The act requires states to place native children removed from their families with relatives or other tribal members.

Taking children from Native American families without their consent goes back to when trains would run through reservations picking up children and shipping them to boarding schools to be educated, Walksalong said. Tribes lost much of their culture when that generation of children was taken.

There are some cultural differences with Native American families, Walksalong said. Its normal for multiple generations to live in a household, and older children are taught to look after their younger siblings, she said.

These arent signs of neglect, Walksalong said. It is part of a childs education.

Many Native American families feel like theyre often misunderstood when dealing with dependent or neglect cases, she said. The special court could be a more relaxed place where families can discuss what is happening in their homes.

The changes would be small. Things like scheduling the court in the afternoon to help with travel time from the nearby reservations and having the judge sit at the table with parents rather than speaking from the bench, Walksalong said.

She is reaching out to Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes to see what they need and what they are struggling with when it comes to members of their tribes in foster families.

While in high school, Walksalong worked with children in the foster care system at Watson Childrens Shelter in Missoula. The shelter provides short-term care for children who have been abused, neglected, abandoned or whose family is in crisis.

She was awarded a full scholarship to Rocky Mountain College. After earning a bachelor's degree in psychology, she began working for New Day, a private nonprofit working to improve the lives of troubled youth, particularly Native American kids.

My heart is with kids, Walksalong said.

It was through New Day that Walksalong met her twin daughters. The girls had been placed in 19 different homes before she adopted them. Their last placement had been with Lavonna Bird, who was arrested in 2012 after killing a boy she was fostering along with the girls.

Walksalong was an ideal parent for the girls, having worked before with children who suffered huge traumas. Her husband is also an enrolled member of the Crow tribe, and able to help the girls continue to connect with their culture, Walksalong said.

She encourages Native American families to foster Indian children, or be a CASA volunteer. Even if a family can't adopt a child, the foster system needs more Native American advocates working for the children in the court system, Walksalong said.

It takes a lot to adopt, and you have to give them a certain type of love, because youre taking in children you didnt get a chance to raise, to mold, Walksalong said. But to me, theyve always been my kids.

Walksalongs mother, Lonette Keehner, was adopted as a child from her Blackfeet family. Keehner and her two siblings were the first set of triplets born to the Blackfeet tribe in recent history. Keehner and the surviving sister were adopted by a white hospital nurse after the two got sick soon after their birth. Their brother died in the hospital.

That experience had helped Keehner bond deeply with Walkalongs two adopted daughters.

They started calling their grandparents grandma and grandpa, before they called my husband and me, mom and dad, Walksalong said.

Keehner was murdered on Dec. 21, 2015, in Missoula by Scott Austin Price. Walksalong struggled to help her children through another painful loss. She said her grief overcame her for a time, before realizing she needed to help herself before she could help others again. She entered therapy to help her process what had happened.

When Keehners side of the family met to spread her ashes in Glacier National Park, Walksalongs daughters were included. The two girls wear a piece of their grandmothers jewelry every day in memory of her, Walksalong said.

The tragedy of her mothers death brought her daughters closer to their family in many ways, she said.

If we look at our old ways, our traditions say all children deserve a home, Walksalong said. All children deserve a family.

The last three informational sessions this year for people interested in becoming a CASA will be at 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 16 and Dec. 14 as well as an evening session at 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 1. All informational sessions will be held at the CASA offices located at 1201 Grand Avenue, suite five.

For more information, people can visit the Yellowstone CASA website.
HELENA - As officials scramble to reopen Helena High School after a suspected arson caused upwards of $1 million in damage, the three 13-year-olds accused in the case remain in a juvenile detention center.

The teens, two girls and one boy, made their first appearance in youth court on Wednesday afternoon. At the hour-long hearing, the details of their alleged crimes were outlined, but no motives were mentioned.

The three minors, allegedly intoxicated on malt liquor, broke into the school around 9:45 p.m. Monday night, said Sgt. Randy Ranalli with the Helena Police Department. In surveillance video, one of the girls and the boy are seen entering a second-floor janitors' closet and about a minute later smoke starts to billow from the area, he said. Shortly after, the flickering of fire is shown.

Following her apprehension, the girl admitted to starting that blaze, Ranalli said.

"She said she lit a mop on fire in the janitors' closet in the high school," he testified. She then took a lighter out of her bra and handed it to him.

After starting that fire, the same girl, along with the boy, went to another wing of the school and entered a classroom, Ranalli said. In the video, they are both seen lighting posters on fire.

Shortly after that, one of the seven janitors working in the building noticed the smoke as alarms sounded and called 911.

"They could have been seriously injured or killed," Ranalli said of the employees.

In addition to the extensive smoke damage, the fire caused a pipe to burst, flooding the upstairs math wing. Officials canceled all classes Tuesday and Wednesday. A complete tally of the damage has yet to be completed, Ranalli said, but it will be at least six figures if not $1 million.

"It was an absolute mess," Ranalli testified.

He said it also appeared the teens tried to clog a toilet by cramming a math book into it.

All of the teens have been students at Helena Middle School and involved with juvenile probation. Authorities said none of the accused attend Helena High.

The teens, who appeared via teleconference from a detention center in Great Falls, did not speak at the probable cause hearing. The judge said she saw enough evidence for juvenile delinquency petitions based on felony charges of burglary for all three and arson for two of them.

The girl not accused of taking part in the arson aspect of the crimes had been reported a runaway. She was taken into custody outside the school.

The boy attempted to flee from police but was found across the street in Stewart Homes. He told officers he unlawfully entered the school but denied setting any fires. Ranalli said police found a lighter on him when he was apprehended.

The girl who admitted to starting two of the fires ran from the scene. Ranalli caught up with her at her home about a half mile from the school.

Wednesday's testimony also unveiled the criminal history of the three teens, who have all faced charges previously.

When he was 10 years old, the boy was cited for possession of dangerous drugs with intent to distribute. He was caught selling marijuana on school property while an elementary student, according to testimony.

The morning of the fire, a juvenile probation officer was at the home of the girl who admitted to starting the mop and poster ablaze. She is accused in an unrelated theft of a local store, the officer said.

Although her public defender argued the other girl was not accused of arson and therefore should be allowed to be released to a youth home, Judge Kathy Seeley countered that the teen has the worst criminal history of the three and was listed as a runaway at the time of the fire. In addition, she tested positive for amphetamines after she was taken into custody.

She might be the "ringleader," Seeley said.

The girl finished probation a month ago. She had previous charges of theft and assault.

Seeley ordered the teens to stay at the detention center. The matter will be revisited during next week's youth court session.
BILLINGS - Barry Beach was taken to the Yellowstone County Detention Facility on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Yellowstone County Sheriff.

"I was notified he was coming in and was going to be in around 5 o'clock and brought in by Probation and Parole," Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder said.

Linder said he did not know the reason Beach was brought to the jail.

Sgt. Rich Peters at the Yellowstone County Detention Facility said that Beach was jailed for violating of the terms of his release.

In October, a woman was granted a temporary order of protection against Beach in Yellowstone County after she alleged she was being stalked by him.

A hearing on whether to continue the order has been set for Nov. 14 before Justice of the Peace Pedro Hernandez.

Beach said the woman who sought the order of protection against him is the mother of a 4-year-old boy he recently learned was his.

Beach said he was trying to obtain visitation rights and the restraining order was the woman's effort to keep him away from the boy.

Earlier in October increased restrictions were placed on Beach's release. The new terms included wearing a GPS device, travel restrictions, an evening curfew and approval of visitors to his home.

Beach was released from prison in 2011 after a judge ordered a new trial in the 1979 murder of Kim Nees of Poplar. However, the Supreme Court reversed the order and Beach was returned to prison.

Beach was granted clemency and released on probation last year.
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NorthWestern Energy and a group of employees have been honored for their work on a large transmission upgrade project now serving customers in the Big Sky area.

NorthWesterns Jackrabbit-Big Sky project, a 37-mile, $45 million upgrade to the electrical transmission line between Four Corners and Big Skys Meadow Village, recently received the 2017 Engineering Excellence Award presented by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Montana.

This project was unique and challenging, said Mike Cashell, NorthWestern Energys vice president-Transmission. Planning and permitting to meet the growing customer needs in the Big Sky area began nearly a decade ago. Im very proud of what our many employees, contractors and other stakeholders that worked on this project accomplished by working together. The engineering award is a testament to the effort and we appreciate the recognition

The transmission line, which passes through the Gallatin Canyon, went into service this fall and was energized at 161-kilovolts. The line was upgraded from 69-kilovolt to 161-kilovolt capacity. The 69-kilovolt line was constructed in the early 1970s and was nearing the end of its functional life. The new 161-kilovolt line will provide continued reliable service to the Big Sky area, one of the fastest growing communities in NorthWesterns service territory.
A jury found a Dillon man guilty in district court recently of drug, endangerment and intimidation charges.

The charges stem from April 3, 2016, when Jamie Michael Johnson, 41, high on meth, sped erratically around Dillon, specifically in front of the home a local health department worker.

According to the charging document, Johnson told police that "somebody needs to put a shank in her," and that "she is scared, paranoid of what could happen. Scared because (expletive) she does to people and gets away with. She should be scared. I'm (expletive) scared. I just want her to know that I'm close to her. She needs to know that she is in reach."

Johnson also threatened to kill himself and police, and went to another person's home to demand Xanax, a drug used to treat anxiety disorders, panic disorders, and anxiety caused by depression.

The charging document states Johnson called police and said he had injected meth and poison, thrown up, and was dying in the parking lot of a Dillon gas station. Johnson was taken to the Dillon hospitals emergency room.

Johnson was arraigned on April 19 in Dillon district court on felony counts of criminal endangerment, intimidation, drug possession, and drug solicitation.

The jury found Johnson guilty of all charges but the criminal endangerment felony, which it dropped to a misdemeanor negligent endangerment sentence.

No trial date is yet set for Johnson's sentencing. His convictions carry the potential for decades in jail or tens of thousands of dollars in fines.

The Montana Department of Corrections website shows Johnson has served time in the past for theft, criminal possession of dangerous drugs and burglary, all out of Beaverhead County.
When the evening dust settled on his election as Butte-Silver Bows top official and the sun came up on Wednesday, Dave Palmer got to work.

First on the list was taking down all his campaign signs around town, and there were a lot. He knows there is a lot of work to do on behalf of taxpayers as the next county chief executive, too, since voters gave him a resounding victory over incumbent Chief Executive Matt Vincent on Tuesday.

But he took a few moments on Wednesday to take a breath and reflect a little on the race.

Its called thank God its over, Palmer told The Montana Standard before his work as longtime commissioner resumed Wednesday night.

Palmer finished with 9,485 votes, or 58 percent, to 6,670 votes, or 41 percent, for Vincent, according to unofficial returns

Vincent, the night before, said one possible reason he lost was that he tried to do too much too fast. Palmer suggested another factor came into play.

I think the morale among county employees is low, said Palmer, who has spent 20 years as a commissioner, including stints as council chairman and chair of all its committees at one time or another.

I have been meeting with them and talking with them and Im not promising I can fix everything, but I am willing to listen and work with them and talk to them  sit down with them in negotiations, he said. Just show them they are appreciated. They say they rarely saw Matt. I cant attest to that, but that's what they said.

Palmer expects to be sworn in Dec. 30 and take office a few days after that. He said he has not talked to Vincent yet about working together on the transition.

He has two months to go and I respect that and I will allow him to run the county as he sees fit the next two months, but at some point we need to sit down and make the transition, he said.

Palmer said often on the stump that he was not as vocal as Vincent  that his approach was to listen more, be more inclusive and seek compromise. There is no shortage of issues to test that as chief executive.

The MSE technology industry complex just south of Butte, which is in dire financial straits and in danger of going under, is one of them. The county should do what it can to save it, Palmer says.

It is part of economic development because there are a lot of jobs we are talking about there if they go under, he said. We spend a lot of money in this county to gain five jobs, 10 jobs, and if there are 50 jobs we can save out there, we need to be working on that.

There are other issues to address, he said, some big  such as roads and infrastructure  and some small. The latter include trimming trees along the sidewalks of Uptown so people dont have to crouch down while walking, he said, and putting risers around elevated manhole covers so theyre easier on passing vehicles.

I think you should pay attention to the smaller details, too, he said. The small things add up.

Council Chairwoman Cindi Shaw predicted that Palmer  true to his pledges  would seek a better working relationship with commissioners than Vincent did.

Shaw got to know Palmer in 2004 when both served on a study commission that examined the city-county charter and suggested several changes, some of them later approved by voters.

He took me under his arm and was very helpful and always has an open mind about things, she said. He is much more of a thinker and he listens to both sides of an argument. He has been a great mentor  and when he says he will sit at the table and bring everyone in and be inclusive, I agree 100 percent that he will do that.
It was a bright and icy morning in the early fall of 2014. I had spent two days by the serene Holland Lake, Montana, sheltered by the incomparable majesty of the high Rockies. During the long drive home, the return of cellular reception suddenly unleashed a multitude of shocking text messages.

My friend Bill was in Dallas, and he was making a desperate attempt to ask for prayers. His wife Susan  a uniquely capable, energetic, sophisticated, and deeply spiritual woman  had just suffered a devastating stroke. It was life-threatening. Thanks to Gods grace and remarkable medical care, she survived. Thanks to her tirelessly loving husband, she eventually flourished.

Survival, though, was only the first step on a long and arduous path. The brave and intelligent Susan had to relearn everything: walking, eating, reading, writing, climbing stairs, getting dressed, speaking, etc.

Everything progressed with surprising ease and heartening speed  except for speech. Observing, over the months, Susan learning to talk again was admirable, inspiring, and at times incredibly painful.

Since the beginning of our presidential electoral cycle, I have often thought of Susan and Bill and their heroic effort to reconquer communication.

As a nation, we have completely lost the ability to talk to one another. We speak and we listen only to those with whom we agree. Essentially we end up only talking to ourselves in a bizarre, culturally impoverished sort of self-preoccupied stupor.

We are exclusively interested in arguments that confirm our already held convictions. They are not arguments, of course; they are simply repetitive reinforcements.

When I was a student in Rome, an old man shared with me this ancient Roman wisdom: The person in Rome who possesses real power is not the Pope but the one who reports the news to the Pope. Intriguingly, he told this to me in front of the stunning Farnese Palace, historically notorious for heights of Renaissance architecture and depths of political corruption.

CULTIVATING RAGE

By choosing only one source of news, we have essentially surrendered our electoral power to large businesses whose degree of success depends largely on how angry we are at each other. The truth is that cultivating rage among Americans is an excellent business model.

The Pew research and all of Tuesdays exit polls have consistently shown that the only bipartisanship of this election was in the widespread dissatisfaction of the electorate with both candidates. Even if one takes into account the intricacies of the primary system, it is fair to reach the conclusion that, if a majority is unhappy with the choice, then the choice was somehow imposed on the majority. It would define understatement to consider this situation harmful to democracy.

It seems that much of the media is becoming opinion talking points whose objective is more conditioning than informing. Many dark historic precedents remind us that this environment suppresses conversation and, as a result, gives rise to extremism, almost irreversibly.

Without dialogue, our thoughts evolve in isolation. Our ideas of society and nation form without the refining effect of the dialectic process. We drift further and further apart as vessels in an increasingly turbulent ocean until our positions become literally irreconcilable.

The community of Butte that I have the great honor of serving is, for a variety of fascinating historic factors, an intensely political town. It cherishes strong opinions and the even stronger articulation of them. Butte never shies away from a political fight. It is part of the DNA of a mining town with a fierce tradition of labor struggles. Butte did not survive a history of hardship by being timid. To study the decades of relentless adversities is to love Butte and admire its resilience.

WELCOMING ALL

In a hyper-partisan society, a priest is only effective when strictly non-partisan. However, when you live authentically within a community, the boundaries are not so distinct. Several friends had to remind me of this delicate balance and of areas of sensitivity that I would never otherwise have suspected.

I remain, however, unshakably committed to welcoming everyone who respects the sacred refuge of our House of Prayer. In this, I answer to a Higher Authority.

Every week I have to address my congregation on spiritual and moral matters. In order to remain meaningful to my parishioners  as well as satisfy my own curiosity  I read incessantly, including a wide variety of opinions. Sometimes they offend me, but my personal sensitivity is irrelevant to my work. Most of the time, the opinions challenge me to sharpen my message.

As a priest in this intensely political town, I have reached the following conclusions. The future health of democracy in our great country will depend on three attitude shifts by the electorate:

Reacquiring a healthy skepticism with all sources of news.

Committing to listen respectfully to those with whom we disagree.

Accepting the discomfort of being challenged by new and different ideas as a responsibility and a privilege of living in a free society.

As long as we do not give up on this privilege and meet our responsibilities, we can afford to remain optimistic about the country we will pass on to our children.

As Susan and Bill brilliantly taught me, learning to speak to each other again will be the hardest accomplishment. It will also be  and by far  the most rewarding, because with it, the elusive electoral power will be restored to the people.
State legislative leaders predict 2017 will be defined by battles to balance the budget amid declining state revenues as well as another round of partisan clashes between the GOP majority and Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock.

Republicans gained three state Senate seats in Tuesday's election and will hold a 32-18 majority. They swept every statewide office except the gubernatorial race  in which Bullock eked out a victory over challenger Greg Gianforte  and will maintain their 59-41 advantage in the House. Both parties lost a handful of experienced leaders from losses, retirement or term limits, while others swapped chambers. When caucuses meet next week, there could be a shake-up in top chamber leaders who will set the tone for the 2017 session.

GOP Chairman Jeff Essmann said Bullock should take note of the strong returns for Republicans and be ready to compromise more than he has in past sessions.

It is very clear that the nation and the state of Montana are moving away from putting the entity of government first and the people last, he said, echoing campaign criticisms of the Democrat as a career politician and reflecting a bitter tone common among Republicans who had hoped for a unified government under Gianforte.

Democrats refused to bend in the election's immediate aftermath, rejecting the notion of a Republican voter mandate and noting that Bullock still wields the veto pen.

The message I got from the election is that people are generally satisfied with their representation in the Legislature, said Senate Minority Leader Jon Sesso of Butte, noting that the party breakdown of the chambers had changed little. We have to continue to build the coalition that is interested in governing -- not interested in advancing ideologies  and is willing to resist bad policies and work with the governor.

The opposing messages from the two sides set the stage for a repeat of the partisan acrimony that first emerged when Republicans gained control of both chambers in 2011 and grew more bitter during Bullock's first term.

Bullock said during a Wednesday victory speech in Helena that he expects party leaders to come together "to do the right things for Montana."

Outgoing Senate President Debby Barrett called on the governor to work directly with the Republican leadership, rather than the handful of GOP moderates that Bullock relied on to advance pieces of his agenda during the 2015 session.

"The ball is in the governor's court," said Barrett, of Dillon. "If he wants to ram his liberal agenda and his liberal spending and pick up the same few, sorry Republicans as in his first term, then he will set the stage."

Barrett and other Republicans also vowed not to give up their election-season calls for investigations into Bullock's deletion of emails from his years as attorney general and allegations of retaliation against employees who raised concerns about wrongdoing within state agencies.

House Minority Leader Chuck Hunter, a Helena Democrat, rejected the proposal for further investigations into those matters as politically driven.

"I hope we get back to the business of government rather than to the business of making the other guy look bad for political gain," Hunter said. "Both sides will still need to move toward compromise going forward."

Further complicating the upcoming legislative session are declines in tax revenues that have drastically reduced the state's budget surplus, from more than $455 million in 2015 to a projected $110 million in 2017, according to a September report from the Legislative Fiscal Division.

Rep. Duane Ankney of Colstrip is among the so-called Responsible Republicans who worked out a budget compromise with Bullock in 2015, drawing the ire of Barrett and others from the party's conservative wing.

Ankney predicted similar efforts will be needed to reach agreement during the next session on the biennial budget, regulations for natural resources development and public works and other infrastructure spending.

Ankney added that the declining surplus could make some of those tasks more straightforward.

"You're going to have to deal with the people's needs and not a lot of wants," he said.

An updated 2017 budget outlook is due next week, as is the governors budget proposal.

Thats when were going to see where his priorities are, said outgoing Senate Majority Leader Matt Rosendale, who will become state auditor.

House Speaker Austin Knudsen of Culbertson, who secured reelection, said he is doubtful the state will have enough money to fund some of the priorities on wishlists, such as an injection of funding into infrastructure improvements or the governors proposal to offer public preschool.

Were going to be strapped for money, he said. Thats going to temper everyones expectations and motivations. It has to.

Which priorities survive expected budget cuts and to what extent bipartisan collaborations thrive could depend largely on who is elected legislative leadership roles. Those selected will be tasked with corralling ideas into a cohesive agenda then brokering the inter- and intra-party deals to make sure those bills pass.

Legislators have for days been calling fellow party members to make a pitch for their election to certain leadership jobs or appointment to specific committees. The internal politicking will continue throughout the week as they prepare to caucus next week.

Two of the three top GOP senate positions have been vacated, along with seats on the Committee of Committees that ultimately has significant influence over which bills move forward. The House has had similar turnover: Knudsen hopes to retain his role as speaker but the jobs of speaker pro tempore and majority leader are vacant.

Little is so far expected to change for Senate democrats, who have repeatedly selected Sesso to be minority leader, but the House will inevitably see a shake-up. Minority Leader Hunter is termed-out of office and the party has openings for Minority Caucus Chair and at least one whip.

Just because the partisan split in both chambers has changed little, Essmann said that does not mean the logjams in policy and budget debates will be the same as last session.

A lot depends on House and Senate leadership and the work they do, the Billings Republican said.
"He should withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, should not praise defeated generals as previous administrations have done, and also should refrain from harming American's dignity, economy or soldiers any further in this fight."
2016 WAR: -2.0

In a streak spanning across two seasons from Aug. 5, 2015, to April 25, 2016, Albers made 30 consecutive scoreless appearances for Chicago. Since then, though, the veteran left-hander completely fell apart.

In his ensuing 48 games, Albers had a 7.97 ERA, with 23 strikeouts, 17 walks and 10 home runs allowed in 40.2 innings. The highlight of his season came on June 1, when he doubled in the winning run during Chicago's 2-1, 13-inning win against the Mets in his first at-bat since 2009. He also pitched the final two innings to pick up the win. Aside from that highlight, it was a season to forget for the 33-year-old.
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A Public Hearing was called to order by Chairperson Sorensen at 9:02 A.M. on a request from Jeffrey A. or Pamela R. Turkle, Record Owners, to rezone approximately .39 acres of property located in Fulton Township from A-1 Agricultural District to I-1 Light Industrial District. Planning and Zoning Administrator Eric Furnas stated this property is located in Fulton Township, South of the Iowa Interstate Railroad, West of Vine Avenue, adjacent to the City of Stockton, in the NE1/4 of Section 5-T78N-R1E. Furnas stated the property is a tree service that recycles trees by sawing the trees with a recreational sawmill. Furnas stated the operation is not a full scale sawmill, but more like a lumber yard. In response to Howard, Furnas stated County Attorney Alan Ostergren does not feel conditional rezoning should be done because of enforcement issues. Furnas stated a variance may be another viable possibility. Mark Brockway, Brockway Land Planning Associates, stated it is not an agricultural property so agricultural zoning is not the appropriate classification. Brockway stated there have been concerns regarding open burning and hours of operation so he presented a document stating Jeff and Pam Turkle are proposing the following conditions be applied to the rezoning: 1. No open burning will be permitted on-site. 2. Hours of operation will be limited to 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM. 3. This operation and use will be subject to an annual review by the County to ensure continued compliance and functioning as a good neighbor in the Stockton Community. Dennis Holmes, 109 Commerce Street, Stockton, IA, stated he is not in favor of the rezoning because Turkle has broken the law with illegal burning and Holmes feels he should not be rewarded for breaking the law. Jeff Turkle, 3601 135th Street, Stockton, stated there were complaints four years ago and the DNR wrote him up for some burned logs that were not his. Turkle stated he was told he could burn as long as it was recreational. Turkle stated the complaints started again recently and Zoning Administrator Eric Furnas came out and made a judgement that he was open burning. Turkle stated he would have to go to court to contest the judgement. Sauer asked Turkle how he will discard excess material in the future that he used to burn. Turkle stated he will take it to an area mulch plant or to a local chiropractor who uses a wood burning stove in three houses. In response to Bonebrake, Furnas stated they had 8 - 12 written complaints about the open burning. Furnas stated he contacted Department of Natural Resources, who initially ruled it recreational, but when he visited the site an employee was putting wood on a large fire and Mr. Turkle was not present at the time which is why he made the determination that it was not recreational. Wendy Fletcher, 110 Commerce Street, Stockton, IA, stated she is against the rezoning because in May 2012 Turkle was told to cease all burning and has burned ever since. Fletcher stated the last fire created a lot of smoke and left ashes on her vehicle in her driveway. Fletcher stated she has asthma and her house filled up with smoke all weekend causing her asthma to act up. In response to Bonebrake, Fletcher stated she called the fire department because the fire was out of control and the fire was within  mile of a residence. Kelly asked what other reason she has for not wanting it rezoned. Fletcher does not want it rezoned because she does not want them rewarded for blatantly burning for four years when they were told not to. Howard stated the Turkle's have set an example by saying they are going to do one thing and then they doing something else. Howard stated he is not in favor of rezoning but would consider a variance. Furnas stated the burning issue is put to rest whether this is rezoned or not because Turkle has confirmed there will be no burning recreational or otherwise. Furnas stated once property is rezoned, the County does not have a lot of control, but a variance would allow a very specific use and could be revoked if violations continue. Bonebrake stated he agrees with Howard that a variance would be better. Kelly agreed a variance would be more beneficial. Brockway stated the Board of Adjustment could refuse a variance and the Turkle's would have a useless property. Brockway stated they went for rezoning because it has been nonconforming use for over 100 years and could never be used for agricultural purposes. Furnas stated the property has low agricultural potential but that does not necessarily mean it has good industrial potential and he does not feel there has been continual nonconforming use for 100 years. On a motion by Kelly, second by Howard, the public hearing was closed at 9:50 A.M. Roll call vote: Ayes: All. The proposed rezoning died for lack of a motion.
2016 WAR: -1.7

Another highly regarded pitching prospect, Berrios was ranked as the No. 19 minor leaguer by MLB.com and made his much-anticipated debut this season on April 27. Like many young, talented pitchers, he struggled with his command, walking 35 and hitting five batters in 58.1 innings. He has electric stuff, averaging over 93 miles per hour on his fastball with a devastating slider that's already big league-ready. He's on his way to becoming a bona fide ace once he gets some consistency and added control.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  The Muscatine High School Class of 1962 will meet for lunch at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 17, at the Yacky Shack, 163 Colorado St, Muscatine.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  Republican Scott Sauer says he is looking forward to four more years on the Muscatine County Board of Supervisors after his win on Tuesday night.

Sauer defeated Democrat Nathan Reichert 10,321 to 8,288 for District 3. Reichert has previously served as a state representative in the Iowa House.

During his last four years as a Supervisor, Sauer has served on the conservation, Riverbend Transit, and Muscatine County Fair boards as well as several others including the Courthouse Security Committee.

"Obviously I was very pleased with how the election turned out on my behalf," he said.

His focus for his second term will be continuing the work the board has been doing like the new county-wide communications system, Sauer said.

"Im interested in continuing to work forward on the board doing what weve been doing in regard to the movement of DHS downtown," he said.

The county, Sauer said, will face challenges moving forward and he plans to work with the board in resolving any issues it encounters.

"A new challenge ahead of us, of course, is the flood damage out by the Cedar River up on Iron City Avenue," he said.

Mental health funding and the lack of funding within the Eastern Iowa Mental Health and Disability Services region has been a frequently discussed issue at the county board meetings, and Sauer said he plans to work through that challenge as well.

"A big one of course is going to be how this regionalized mental health is going to shake out," he said. "Theres a lot of bumps in the road there with that situation, with the cap they have on Scott County with their ability to contribute."

Moving forward, Sauer said, many things need to be done.

"There's plenty of work to do," he said.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  A group of walkers gathered near the Mississippi Harvest statue on Harbor Drive Wednesday afternoon for an hour of walking in the November sun. The walking group is part of the Blue Zone Project, a private-public partnership designed to improve the health and wellbeing of residents in one of 15 Iowa communities.

Muscatine joined the Blue Zone Project in 2013, and since then, more than 63 walking groups have convened at different times.

Jodi Hansen, Muscatines Blue Zone Project community lead, said groups also known as Moais, a Japanese term that means coming together for a common purposeconvene on a semi-regular basis when the weather allows.

Walking Moais are designed to get people together and get people walking, she said. So this is an example today of what we would call walking lunch, just an open invitation to meet up with your current friends and with your coworkers.

Hansen said people can also make new friends while walking.

Jody Riibe said she did just that. When she moved to Muscatine more than three years ago, Riibe, a retired teacher, said she did not know anyone in town.

I went to the initial Blue Zones meetings and then went to the first organization of the walking moais. Actually that was three years ago and thats where I made my first friends in Muscatine, she said.

Riibe met Micki Tripp, who also came to Wednesdays walk, through the walking groups nearly three years ago.

Its nice to just meet other people that I havent known before and doing it on a walk is even better, Tripp said.

You certainly feel better after walking, even if you dont feel like starting, she said.

Hansen said walking groups can help people get in the habit of walking for exercise.

So what we like to see is groups that meet today [and] they continue walking, she said.

Walkers are encouraged to walk as little or as much as they want and at their own pace. And conversations are always welcome. In fact, Hansen said, enhancing social connectedness is one way to reduce stress and improve well-being.

Coworkers Janet Morrow and Susan Fulton of the Muscatine Chamber of Commerce came to the walk together.

Theres no reason to not be out here walking today in the sun, Morrow said.

Fulton agreed.

Walking always makes you feel better, Fulton said. Especially on a beautiful day. Its very good for your soul.

Were very fortunate to have this beautiful place to walk, she added.

Enticing people to walk through beauty and function is another aspect of the Blue Zone. Since the projects inception, the city added new sidewalks and constructed new walking trails. The trick, Hansen said, is to promote moving naturally by widening sidewalks and adding places to walk to.

Many facets of the project fit so seamlessly in the fabric of the city that they are almost invisible. But the outcomes are anything but invisible. A Gallup-Healthways Well-Being survey showed that Muscatine residents are walking more, exercising more, and their stress levels have decreased.

Anyone interested in finding a walking group can contact Jody Hansen at 263-8895 or at jhansen@muscatine.com.
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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 secret that the majority of South Africas workforce earns far less than is needed to lead comfortable, fulfilling lives.

Funeral plans and stokvels generally serve as the only safety cushion upon which honest, hard working South Africans can fall back.

The bulk of employed South Africans have to endure the stress of time-consuming, and expensive commutes, not to mention dangerous conditions both at home and work.

Simply put, working South Africans face tricky and risky situations even before leaving home to earn a living.

In order to safeguard against these risks and maximise earning potential, workers must be afforded a layer of financial protection so that their earning potential is not damaged.

MadeSure has been designed with the day-to-day needs of workers in mind.

It improves on any existing funeral plans by adding income protection, hospital cash plans and other benefits that add real value.

Included is money back in cellphone airtime, a very valuable benefit in South Africa.

The lifestyle protector can be taken out and paid for by an employer, for an employee, so that both parties get financial assistance during trying times.

MadeSure makes it possible for workers to save money and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with their new layer of lifestyle protection.

MadeSures revolutionary approach to lifestyle insurance makes it a South African FIRST.
At the end of October, the Mirai botnet was used to launch a massive DDoS attack against managed DNS infrastructure provider Dyn in the United States.

The attack resulted in multiple large websites going down in the States and South Africa, including Twitter, PayPal, and the Sony PlayStation Network.

Kyle York, Dyns Chief Strategy Officer, confirmed that the sophisticated attacks were across multiple attack vectors and Internet locations.

One source of the attack traffic was devices infected by the Mirai botnet.

We observed tens of millions of discrete IP addresses associated with the Mirai botnet that were part of the attack, said York.

The Mirai botnet

The Mirai botnet is essentially made up of tens of millions of unsecured Internet of Things devices, such as cameras, printers, and routers.

The Mirai malware is used to scan the Internet for IoT systems protected by factory default usernames and passwords  which can then be exploited and made part of the botnet.

The devices are then used to attack a target.

An attack on Liberia

Following the attack on Dyn, ZDNet reported that a large DDoS attack through a Mirai botnet  known as Botnet 14  was used to attack telecommunications providers in Liberia.

Multiple reports stated that the attack was an attempt to take the entire country offline, with some stating that the move was successful.

Security experts have subsequently stated the attack did not take Liberia offline, despite exceeding 500Gbps, but that Internet traffic was affected.

Krebs on Security said that although the country was not knocked offline, the Mirai botnet posed a threat to an entire countrys Internet connectivity.

The attack which would take down South Africa

Vernon Fryer, group chief technology security officer at Vodacom, previously stated that a DDoS attack of 200Gbps to 300Gbps aimed at certain targets in South Africa would be enough to wipe the country off the Internet.

Mirai-based attacks in recent weeks have been recorded at well over 600Gbps, while there have been reports that the attacks against Dyn were close to the 1Tbps mark.

MyBroadband spoke to Neotel, who is a key player in South Africas Internet landscape, and NAPAfrica, which hosts layer 2 Internet exchange points within Teracos local data centres, about a possible Mirai attack.

There is a risk

Moya Rapholo, Information Security Product Management at Neotel, said there is always a risk a country could come under attack from botnets like Mirai.

South Africa is a developing country, so the bandwidth pipe sizes that we use relative to world or developed countries are much smaller and cyber criminals can take advantage of these limitations, said Rapholo.

He said users still believed that traditional security controls such as firewalls were enough to stop DDoS attacks  but this was not the case.

We are moving towards more proactive measures such as Security Operation Centre and Security Information and Event Management which can significantly minimise the risks.

Rapholo said companies must not view information security as an afterthought and Internet services should be bundled with some form of security.

Andrew Owens, Product Development Manager at Teraco, said from a NAPAfrica perspective, the primary risk would be if the exchange fabric were to be targeted.

The peering ranges we use are not supposed to exported to the global table, and even if someone were to accidentally leak the prefixes, any attack would affect that particular members network only, said Owens.

As an IX, our primary function is switching packets. We do use a system that will alert members of security risks, but we cannot scrub the traffic. That is a service that our members and clients offer.

The other consideration would be if the source and destination of the attack were both peered at the exchange.

Technically, it may be possible to cause congestion on member ports at the exchange, but the initiator of the attack would have to make sure that infected PCs are all on networks that are peered at the exchange. Currently, NAPAfrica has connected capacity of 1.6Tbps.

Owens said it is difficult to determine a number, in terms of size, which would take the country offline  given that an attacker would need to find a target that would affect all of the capacity on all of the cables coming into the country.

The best defence against a distributed attack is a distributed defence, he said.

Dominic White, CTO at SensePost, said for an attack to take down the entire country, three resilient aspects of South Africas Internet landscape would need to be overwhelmed.

We have multiple connections coming into the country. Taking all of them down would be hard, he said, referencing the ACE, SAT3, WACS, SEACOM, and EASSy cables, along with wireless links.

He added that many of the big operators have smart people and DoS contingency plans and can move quickly to mitigate a possible attack.

Additionally, many South African companies have the same and can continue to operate.

White also said many South African Internet properties arent hosted in South Africa, but are hosted in international data centres.

That said, with enough devices, some careful planning, and quick reactions to changes defenders put in place, a DDoS can always take down something.

Now read: Behind the huge DDoS attack which crippled the Internet
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JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia When Souad al-Shammary posted a series of tweets about the thick beards worn by Saudi clerics, she never imagined she would land in jail.

She put up images of several men with beards: An Orthodox Jew, a hipster, a communist, an Ottoman Caliph, a Sikh, and a Muslim. She wrote that having a beard was not what made a man holy or a Muslim. And she pointed out that one of Islam's staunchest critics during the time of Prophet Muhammad had an even longer beard than him.

The frank comments are typical of this twice-divorced mother of six and graduate of Islamic law. Raised a devout girl in a large tribe where she tended sheep, al-Shammary is now a 42-year-old liberal feminist who roots her arguments in Islam, taking on Saudi Arabia's powerful religious establishment.

She has paid a price for her opinions. She spent three months in prison without charge for "agitating public opinion." She has been barred by the government from traveling abroad. Her co-founder of the online forum Free Saudi Liberals Network, blogger Raif Badawi, is serving a 10-year prison sentence and was publicly lashed 50 times. Her father disowned her in public.

None of it was enough to keep her quiet.

"I have rights that I don't view as against my religion," says al-Shammary. "I want to ask for these rights, and I want those who make decisions to hear me and act."

Across the Arab world, female Islamic scholars and activists have long been pushing for interpretations of Shariah law that consider men and women as equals before God. Al-Shammary is one of the most vocal and high-profile religious and women's rights activists within Saudi Arabia.

"She's very sure of what she's saying  she doesn't hesitate," says Sahar Nassief, a friend and fellow Saudi activist. "She literally comes from a Bedouin environment, a desert environment. She's very proud of her background, but this makes her a bit blunt with everyone and very blunt in what she says."

Al-Shammary grew up the daughter of a peasant farmer in Ha'il, a landlocked province. As the eldest of 12 children, she was in charge of the sheep. She was not just religious but a practicing Salafi, a Muslim who adheres to a literalist interpretation of Islamic law.

She graduated from the University of Ha'il with a degree in Islamic studies and became a public school teacher. At 17, she married a man twice her age from the same tribe. She had a girl, Yara, was divorced at 20 and then re-married, this time to the chief judge in Ha'il who'd overseen her divorce proceedings.

Al-Shammary's journey to activism began on the day her daughter was taken from her.

Almost as soon as Yara turned seven, her ex-husband gained custody. Since al-Shammary had remarried, the court ruled that the girl should live with her father rather than in a house with another man.

"When they took her and said, 'this is Allah's will' and 'this is Islam', this is when my internal rebellion was sparked," says al-Shammary. "There is no way that there is a God in this universe that would accept this injustice and this pain on the basis that I am a woman."

For eight years, she fought her parents, her community and anyone who stood between her and Yara, whom she wasn't able to see.

"I became crazy, but in front of my parents and my husband the judge, and the tribal community around him, and because of my position in the community and my name, I was expected to just sit like this and be a hero," she says, making an expressionless face and clasping her hands.

She had five children from her second marriage, but it wasn't long before she was divorced again.

When Yara's father fell ill and the grandmother passed away, he finally allowed her, then 16, to live with her mother again. Al-Shammary relocated to the more liberal city of Jiddah with all her children finally under one roof.

She used her knowledge of Shariah as a legal adviser for women in need. Sometimes her advice was more Machiavellian than pious. Once she told a friend to wear some make-up, find out which judge was slated to oversee her case, and then cry in front of him and plead for her court date to be moved up. It worked.

She shared her thoughts online on how Islam sees people, including women, as born free and equal, ideas she found in line with liberalism. So began a war of words  and of images.

After she posted the pictures of men with beards, top clerics and other conservatives in the kingdom called her a hypocrite, a disbeliever, wicked and evil. Her outspokenness and her appearances on television talk shows without a face veil were not easy on her family in Ha'il. Her younger brother, Fayez, recalls being told by a community elder: "You aren't a man. How can you allow your sister to behave like this?"

Fayez says he left Ha'il for about seven years because the comments became unbearable. His marriage proposal to a girl from another tribe was rejected because of his sister's reputation. He also came to blows with one of his younger brothers who cursed her flagrant disregard for social norms, with the two ending up in the hospital.

Even Yara opposed her at first. And kids at school would taunt her sons. In turn, they sometimes lashed out against their mother, Fayez says.

Al-Shammary was detained at the women's section of Jiddah's Briman prison on October 28, 2014. She was accused of agitating public opinion. She was never tried or convicted.

In prison, al-Shammary continued her advocacy behind bars, telling women that music is permissible and explaining their legal rights. She says female Muslim missionaries began appearing in prison more often, telling women their time there was the will of God. The television was always turned onto the religious Majd channel.

She was released from detention on January 29, 2015. She had to sign a pledge to reduce her activism. And a male relative, Fayez, had to sign for her release. She continues to tweet to her more than 207,000 followers, though she says she weighs her words more carefully than before.

Yara supports her mother's activism, although she still wishes al-Shammary would not argue against the hijab or with influential religious figures.

"She is so encouraging to me," Yara says. "She survived stuff that you can't survive."
Here's a look at the 17 statewide measures on the ballot in California:

PROPOSITION 51  Approved. Authorizes $9 billion in general obligation bonds for public school buildings, charter schools, vocational education facilities and community college campuses. The bonds would be paid off over 35 years at a total cost of about $17.6 billion.

PROPOSITION 52  Approved. Extends a law that imposes fees on hospitals to fund health care for low-income people, primarily those in the Medi-Cal program that serves a third of Californians. Proposition 52 would indefinitely enshrine the fee in law, making it harder for the Legislature to use the money for other purposes.

PROPOSITION 53  Rejected. Requires voter approval before revenue bonds exceeding $2 billion can be issued. Gov. Jerry Brown campaigned hard against the question, which threatened his plans for high-speed rail and a project to build two giant tunnels to divert water from the Sacramento River delta for use in Southern California.

PROPOSITION 54  Approved. Requires the Legislature to publish bills for at least 72 hours before voting on them and to post videos of legislative proceedings online.

PROPOSITION 55  Approved. Extends a temporary income tax increase on the wealthy for another 12 years, raising an estimated $4 billion to $9 billion per year through 2030 for schools, community colleges, Medi-Cal and budget reserves. Voters first approved the higher tax rates for individual incomes above $250,000 in 2012.

PROPOSITION 56  Approved. Raises cigarette taxes by $2 to $2.87 per pack and hikes taxes on other tobacco products and nicotine products used with electronic cigarettes. It would raise an estimated $1 billion in the first year, with much of the money earmarked for health care for people with low incomes.

PROPOSITION 57  Approved. Gives corrections officials more say in when criminals are released and strips prosecutors of the power to decide when juveniles should be tried as adults.

PROPOSITION 58  Approved. Rolls back California's voter-approved 1998 ban on teaching English learners in any language other than English, giving school districts the option to bring back bilingual education.

PROPOSITION 59  Approved. A nonbinding measure that asks whether California lawmakers should push for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court case, which threw out restrictions on corporate and union political contributions.

PROPOSITION 60  Rejected. Requires that pornography actors wear condoms while filming sexual intercourse and requires porn producers to pay for vaccinations and medical exams for actors who perform in the films.

PROPOSITION 61  Rejected. Prohibits the state from paying more than the reduced rate paid by the Veterans Administration for prescription drugs. The measure would apply to health programs for prison inmates, retired government workers and some low-income Californians on Medi-Cal.

PROPOSITION 62  Rejected. Repeals the death penalty in California and sets the maximum sentence as life without the possibility of parole. It would apply retroactively to inmates currently on death row.

PROPOSITION 63  Approved. Enacts several gun-control measures, including background checks for ammunition sales and a ban on high-capacity magazines.

PROPOSITION 64  Approved. Legalizes the use and possession of marijuana for adults 21 or older and creates licensing standards. Revenue from sales and cultivation taxes would pay for youth programs, environmental protection and law enforcement.

PROPOSITION 65  Rejected. Requires that the 10-cent fee for grocery bags be used for environmental programs, redirecting money that now goes to grocers and other retailers. The measure was promoted by opponents of Proposition 67, which would enact a statewide ban on single-use plastic grocery bags and require a fee for paper and thicker plastic bags used at checkout.

PROPOSITION 66  Approved. Speeds up the appeals process so death-row inmates are executed more quickly.

PROPOSITION 67  Approved. Enacts a statewide ban on single-use plastic grocery bags and requires large retailers to charge at least a dime for recycled paper bags and reusable bags.
Doris Gentrys election bid for the Napa City Council has succeeded, with the challenger taking the seat of Vice Mayor Mary Luros.

As of 10:02 p.m. Tuesday, Gentry, running for council for the second time, had 32.94 percent of the vote, ahead of Luros 26.77 percent for one of the two open seats. Incumbent Scott Sedgley led the field at 39.64 percent in his bid for a second term.

An unknown number of additional vote-by-mail ballots are yet to be counted in the council race before the results are final.

Gentrys path to victory came as a complete surprise to her, the longtime community volunteer freely admitted during a victory reception at Bay Commercial Bank downtown.

I won, I won, I won! I worked so hard for this! she shouted to someone on her cellphone 30 minutes after the polls closed at 8 p.m.

This was a complete and total surprise; I did not have any expectation that I would win, said Gentry, a former Southern California businesswoman and 27-year Napa resident who has been active in organizing the Fourth of July Parade, foster parenting and efforts to combat sex trafficking.

All I did was work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Today, I was waving and holding signs from 7 in the morning until 5 at night at the entrance to CrossWalk Church. I didnt leave one stone unturned; I was working today as though I had no votes at all.

While some 35 guests chitchatted over glasses of wine or buttonholed the councilwoman-elect for congratulations, three of Gentrys future colleagues stopped by the party  first Sedgley, then Juliana Inman and finally Mayor Jill Techel, the longest serving Napa council member, to greet her, pose for photos and hand her a white corsage.

Hopefully her interests are for the benefit of the community and we can work together as a council, said Sedgley. And I believe she will.

On Wednesday afternoon, Luros said in an email: Like every candidate approaching an election with the best of intentions I am disappointed that I was not victorious. That said, it is heartwarming that 6,156 people supported my platform and leadership.

I am proud of the community and issues focused campaign I ran, she wrote. If I were to run again I would put the same amount of heart and soul into my campaign.

During the campaign, Gentry promised a more forceful approach to making Napa more livable for its residents as well as tourists. She called for more funding of city infrastructure, including speeding up its 10-mile-a-year road resurfacing program, as well as partnerships with private firms to encourage faster home construction and recruit non-tourist businesses.

While Gentry offered much the same platform as she did in 2012  when she finished third behind Sedgley and Alfredo Pedroza  she credited this years apparent success to tireless effort and outreach.

The last four years I never gave up, I never slowed down, I never accepted defeat, said Gentry, who ran for the state Assembly as a Republican in 2008 and 2010. I only accepted that people didnt know me yet.

Luros was pursuing her first full council term, after her January 2015 appointment to replace Pedroza who was chosen for an open seat on the Napa County Board of Supervisors.

In the three-way council campaign, fostering affordable housing was a key platform for both Luros and Sedgley, who pointed to high rents, record-low vacancies and shrinking land supplies as among Napas most pressing challenges.

Luros also advocated creating a small-business incubator program and recruiting technology firms to serve Napa Valley wine industries, while Sedgley pledged a closer partnership with Napa County to protect watersheds around its two reservoirs from the effects of projects such as the Walt Ranch vineyard development.

Techel was unopposed on the ballot for the mayors chair and will receive another term.
Napa County has counted about 34,000 ballots and has as many as 34,000 yet to count, with several close races hinging in the balance.

Thats how Registrar of Voters John Tuteur portrayed the Nov. 8 election on Wednesday. The latest results released at 11:06 p.m. Tuesday tallied vote-by-mail ballots received by noon Saturday and precincts votes.

Tuteur said he expects the county will release the results from several thousand more ballots by Monday. It should release a tally for the balance of the uncounted ballots by Nov. 22 and the final count by Dec. 2.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Baker leads incumbent Dan Digardi by only 15 votes in the race for the Napa Valley College Area One Trustee seat. Kenneth Leary leads Joan Bennett by 14 votes in the race for an American Canyon City Council seat.

When you only have 12- or 14-vote margins, youre not going to know until everything is in, Tuteur said.

Other close races are for the third open seat on Calistoga Joint Unified School Board and for a seat on the Napa Valley Unified School District Board.

Measure Z has 62.48 percent of the vote, but needs 66.6 percent  two-thirds  to win. It would create a quarter-cent sales tax in Napa County to preserve open space and watersheds.

That would take a huge difference in the last votes, Tuteur said. If its more than 50 votes, the odds of it changing are small. But the one that belies this is Measure H.

Measure H, a Napa Valley Unified School District bond on the June 7 ballot, overcame a deficit of more than 2 percent on Election Night. It emerged a winner when the county announced the final results in late June.

Tuteur expressed general satisfaction with a Tuesday election that he guesses could have a local voter turnout of more than 80 percent.

Our staff was great, the voters were great, we had a huge turnout, he said. Im not sure exactly what yet, but its going to be a wonderful turnout, maybe the best in a couple of decades.

Ballots mailed and postmarked on Tuesday will count as long as the Election Division receives them by Monday.

Monitoring Tuesdays Napa County election were three teams of two from the U.S. Department of Justice. That is in accordance with an agreement the county reached with the agency last spring to improve election outreach to voters who speak only Spanish.

County officials are likely to have a conference call with Department of Justice officials by Thanksgiving, but he is unaware of any significant issues emerging, Tuteur said.

The monitors in one instance had concerns about the bilingual abilities of a bilingual poll worker, Tuteur said. The county dispatched another bilingual worker to the precinct.

The agreement between the county and the Department of Justice calls for federal monitoring in elections through 2018. Among the changes enacted for Tuesdays election was sending out bilingual voting materials to all voters, as opposed to sending out Spanish materials only to voters who requested them.

All of this resulted from Department of Justice monitoring in the 2014 elections. This spring, the department said in a letter that it intended to file a complaint against the county under the Voters Right Act. The subsequent agreement between county and department resolved the matter.
Donald Trump may have won the presidential election, but Hillary Clinton won California. Even so, the more than 29 percent of Napans who did vote for Trump seemed to be celebrating quietly on Wednesday.

They definitely were not gloating in public.

When asked about the election results, one man outside of an auto body shop on Action Avenue said Trump supporters in Napa might not be willing to talk about the victory because the valley is too small.

We do need a change in this country, said the man, who was wearing a gray shirt with the words Red White & Blue across it. He refused to say more.

Trump isnt the greatest choice, but if youve got a choice between two of them, well, well try some change, said Ron Leneker, a retired civilian engineer from Mare Island Navy Shipyard, who admitted to voting for Donald Trump via absentee ballot.

Leneker said he was surprised by Trumps win, quipping, I didnt give him a snowballs chance in hell.

Though he was less than confident about Trumps chances at securing the presidency, Leneker said, I wasnt going to vote for Hillary. Shes just too ingrained with Wall Street and Obama. Were kind of in a rut.

Clinton supporters, especially students, were much more outspoken and expressed sadness, shock, anger and even fear.

Im going to try to stop crying, said Maddie Wu, a student at Napa Valley College. Wu, 20, said that she was shocked that so many voters supported Trump without any consideration about what effect it might have on minority populations, including immigrants, women, and people who identify as LGBTQ.

I went to sleep crying, I woke up crying because its not the America I thought I was living, Wu said, trying to hold back her tears.

In downtown Napa on Wednesday afternoon, Napa attorney Jess Raphael never broke his brisk walk, saying he was late for a show at the Napa Valley Film Festival. Within steps of the entrance, Raphael paused only long enough to assert, Ive never been so humiliated to be an American, before darting into the theater.

Just around the block on First Street, an 82-year-old man with a straggly beard and wearing Bohemian beads said that he is also embarrassed. I was just talking to a guy from Iran and telling him how embarrassed I was, he said. Ive seen a lot of presidents come and go  I have never felt frightened by somebody, but this guy (Trump) is frightening.

You dont know what hes going to do next, he said.

Not everyone in Napa is scared of a Trump presidency. Carlo Pizzinato, 50, owner of Cross Town cycles on Action Avenue, said that he will accept Trump as president.

It would have been nice to have a woman as president, he said. But, he added, he still believes that we have checks and balances and that Trump wont be able to do whatever he wants.

In between classes on Thursday, NVC student 19-year-old Juan Rodriguez said that he is uncomfortable having a president who hates American minorities.

Instead of progress, were taking a step back, said Rodriguez. Although he isnt a U.S. citizen, Rodriguez said that he isnt worried for himself, but he is worried for other immigrants.

The Republicans are going to control all three branches of government, said NVC student Davon Gresham, 19. What kind of checks and balances is there going to be if everyone agrees?

Sisters Madeline Reyes, 18, and Christina Reyes, 20, planned to attend a protest in Oakland on Wednesday night. Madeline, a political science major, was wearing a sign that read RIP Equality, RIP Democracy, RIP Individuality, RIP Liberty, RIP U.S.A.

Voting for the first time on Tuesday, Madeline Reyes said she voted for Clinton and went to bed thinking the first female president was getting elected.

Its a real smack in the face, said Christina Reyes. All we can really do now is to utilize what little resources we have in order to spread awareness and to spread empathy and compassion and care and a listening ear.

What really, really gets me is that Hillary actually won the popular vote, said Madeline Reyes. Im hoping by going to protests and by speaking up we can start changing our system so that we can get rid of things like the Electoral College.

Luis Hernandez, 42, owner of Angels Sandwich and Deli on Soscol Avenue, said he feels the future is secure, despite the outcome of the election. Hernandez, who was born in Mexico but has lived in Napa for 20 years, said that he came to the U.S. in 1990 at the age of 15 to get a better life.

Reflecting on Trumps campaign, Hernandez said, How are they going to pull it off now, all the stuff they promised? Hes in deep trouble at this point. How hes going to make it happen at this point nobody knows.

They might be able to do some of the stuff, Hernandez said but I would say maybe 95 percent of the stuff that they proposed is not going to happen anyways.

I remember Ross Perot and a lot of other people, he said. Everybody has their own ideas, but they cant do so much. It is a country that theyre running, its not a company. Its not a revolution, its just an election.

Its a democratic election and people vote and they make a decision, he said. We just hope for the best at this point.
People from all corners of the wine grape industry swarmed the Napa Valley Expo on Tuesday for myriad product booths, displays of tractors and assorted farm equipment and vast tents for seminars and vineyard and wine trials.

This years event included expanded seminars in Spanish. We have headphones in the seminars with translators, explained Jennifer Putnam, executive director of Napa Valley Grapegrowers, the Rootstock sponsor.

So if youre a Spanish speaker you can go in the seminars, put the headphones on and theres a real-time translation happening in your headphones so you can follow the slides and all the information.

The new Spanish-inclusive approach also played a role at the wine sensory station positioned at the far end of Chardonnay Hall. The station presented two side-by-side tables, each with 10 small bottles containing cotton balls laden with aromas found in wine.

Managed by Opus One winery staff members Meredith McGough and Pablo Hernandez, the otherwise virtually identical tables maintained one distinction. McGough explained the spectrum of aromas in English, while Hernandez provided attendees with explanations in Spanish.

Elsewhere in the exhibition hall, booths presented a wealth of products and services catering to those in the industry.

Dan Conners, vineyard manager at Langtry Farms in Lake County, attended the event for the first time with several members of his staff. Upon entering the exhibition hall, he gave them a task.

Their assignment, Conners said later, was to find one innovative tool or process that we could use to improve quality and cut costs in the vineyard.

These guys are ambitious and aggressive, Conners said, so I imagine we have five or six things that they found.

Jose Avalos, a member of Conners staff, relayed his find after he had explored several of the exhibits. The Portland-based company Bird Control Group had caught his eye. The company offers both automated and handheld systems that repel birds by emitting lasers, he noted.

You always have people watching for birds, Avalos said. You send them out there with a shotgun and theyre shooting blanks. By using an automated system from Bird Control Group, he said, you eliminate having a worker.

Jamie Warwick, Bird Control Groups director of operations in North America, explained the technology, while the systems whirling head cast the point of a neon green laser onto the walls and ceiling of the exhibit hall, churning with patterned motions.

The goal of the systems, Warwick said, is changing the habits of birds using the humane and non-lethal laser technology.

His company has had success working with cherry and apple orchards in the Northwest, but has yet to see its systems applied in a Napa vineyard.

Our biggest competition is just skepticism, Warwick said, because its a new technology.

Bird Control Groups automated system was among several products on display that represented the industrys shift toward mechanized labor. Other exhibits included an unmanned drone at the Yamaha Motor Corporation booth resembling a miniaturized helicopter, and a pair of mechanical harvesters equipped with de-stemmers and sorting tables.

While the purpose of the technology is to reduce the need for manual labor, Avalos and Conners said they were not concerned by the industrys shift.

Right now, you can hardly find people that want to work [in the vineyards], Avalos said, so the more machines the better.

This is the strongest attendance weve ever seen, Putnam said of this years Rootstock.

Rootstock continued into Wednesday with seminars and leadership training sessions that were also offered in Spanish.

While the normal attendance at Rootstock is about 1,500, Putnam estimated Tuesdays draw at closer to 2,100.
Doris Gentry's election bid for the Napa City Council has succeeded, with the challenger taking the seat of Vice Mayor Mary Luros.

As of 10:02 p.m. Tuesday, Gentry, running for council for the second time, had 32.94 percent of the vote, ahead of Luros 26.77 percent for one of the two open seats. Incumbent Scott Sedgley led the field at 39.64 percent in his bid for a second term.

An unknown number of additional vote-by-mail ballots are yet to be counted before the results are final.

Gentrys path to victory came as a complete surprise to herself, the longtime community volunteer freely admitted during a victory reception at Bay Commercial Bank downtown.

I won, I won, I won! I worked so hard for this! she shouted to someone on her cellphone 30 minutes after the polls closed at 8 p.m.

This was a complete and total surprise; I did not have any expectation that I would win, said Gentry, a community volunteer, former Southern California businesswoman and 27-year Napa resident who has been active in organizing the Fourth of July Parade, foster parenting and efforts to combat sex trafficking.

All I did was work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Today I was waving and holding signs from 7 in the morning until 5 at night at the entrance to CrossWalk Church. I didnt leave one stone unturned; I was working today as though I had no votes at all.

While some 35 guests chitchatted over glasses of wine or buttonholed the councilwoman-elect for congratulations, three of Gentrys future colleagues stopped by the party  first Sedgley, then Juliana Inman and finally Mayor Jill Techel, the longest serving Napa council member, to greet her, pose for photos and hand her a white corsage.

Hopefully her interests are for the benefit of the community and we can work together as a council, said Sedgley. And I believe she will.

On Wednesday afternoon, Luros said in an email: "Like every candidate approaching an election with the best of intentions I am disappointed that I was not victorious. That said, it is heartwarming that 6,156 people supported my platform and leadership.

"I am proud of the community and issues focused campaign I ran," she wrote. "If I were to run again I would put the same amount of heart and soul into my campaign."

During the campaign Gentry, a longtime community volunteer, promised a more forceful approach to making Napa more livable for its residents as well as tourists. She called for stronger funding of city infrastructure, including speeding up its 10-mile-a-year road resurfacing program, as well as partnerships with private firms to encourage faster home construction and recruit non-tourist businesses.

While Gentry offered much the same platform as she did in 2012  when she finished third behind Sedgley and Alfredo Pedroza  she credited this years apparent success to tireless effort and outreach.

The last four years I never gave up, I never slowed down, I never accepted defeat, said Gentry, who ran for the state Assembly as a Republican in 2008 and 2010. I only accepted that people didnt know me yet.

Luros was pursuing her first full council term, after her January 2015 appointment to replace Pedroza who was chosen for an open seat on the Napa County Board of Supervisors.

In the three-way council campaign, fostering affordable housing was a key platform for both Luros and Sedgley, who pointed to high rents, record-low vacancies and shrinking land supplies as among Napas most pressing challenges.

Luros also advocated creating a small-business incubator program and recruiting technology firms to serve Napa Valley wine industries, while Sedgley pledged a closer partnership with Napa County to protect watersheds around its two reservoirs from the effects of projects such as the Walt Ranch vineyard development.

Techel was unopposed on the ballot for the mayors chair and will receive another term.
The Daughters of the American Revolution would like you to join us in honoring the Veterans who served in our United States Armed Forces on the official public holiday on Nov. 11. This holiday is traditionally marked by wearing a red poppy. It honors all living and deceased veterans.

The United States Congress adopted a resolution on June 4, 1926 requesting that President Calvin Coolidge issue a proclamation calling for this observance. Then in 1938, there was a Congressional act that made it a legal holiday dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as Armistice Day." This term was revisited in 1954 replacing Armistice with Veterans.

The Vineyard Trails Chapter honors our veterans by supporting the Veterans Home library, donating good and services and locally participating in veterans projects. Please join in remembering their service and sacrifice.

Carol Cavagnaro, Regent

Vineyard Trails Chapter, Napa NSDAR
This is a response to the misleading 'Feature article' in the Nation & World section Friday, Oct. 21, 2016 by Erica Werner of the AP.

Guess the Democrats have a case of selective memory loss, a seemingly constant Democrat affliction. To this day, they do not accept George W. Bush won - and continually degrade his presidency. This is "acceptance of our president?

They constantly spout their non-acceptance. A few days ago at a Clinton rally, the entire Democrat crowd started chanting to Al Gone, "you won. You won." Hillary Clinton continually bobbed her head up and down 'yes' in agreement - some "acceptance. She tends to bobble her head up and down more than a bobblehead doll.

And remember both Clintons agreed with Gore when he filed a lawsuit contesting the election -- which is not an acceptance of the results by any stretch.

Nancy Pelosi should issue an apology to Donald Trump and the American people for her gross lie that there has never before in our history has a major party candidate refused to accept the results of an election. There have been several such cases - dating to Harding.

And Hillary Clinton and Pelosi have been right in the mix. Retiring would be an even better gesture.

I simply cannot distinguish which party leader lies the most: Pelosi, Harry Reid, or Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile. Seems this entire party has a difficulty with their own emails.

Robert Wilkinson

Napa
My wife Barbara and I are in Tuscany winding up a truly amazing visit to two of Italys most dramatic and treasured winemaking areas.

Two years ago, we led a group of wine- and food-loving friends on a tour of Paris followed by a barge trip through the Canal de Bourgogne in Burgundy. We thoroughly enjoyed exploring many of the wines of France with the emphasis on Champagne and Burgundy.

Our fellow travelers loved the experience and asked if we could plan a repeat adventure to Italy for the fall of 2016. We enthusiastically agreed, the planning began and here we are.

Italy is perhaps the most complex winemaking country in the world with more officially designated areas, varietals and age-old traditions than any other. It would take many weeks, or even months, to explore each of the areas in detail so I am focusing on two: Veneto in the northeast and Tuscany just to its south. Our goal was to focus on not only the local wines and cuisine, but also the regions culture and history through personal encounters.

And in an effort to expose our friends to the wide range of wines produced throughout Italy (beyond Veneto and Tuscany), I arranged for a series of lunches and dinners each with a focus on several other wine-making areas. Our culinary quest took us to the many wines from the far northeast of Friuli Venezia-Giulia, Alto Adige and Trentino, through great wines of Piedmont to the northwest and toward the extreme south to Puligia and Sicily with everything in between.

In all, we sampled and enjoyed about 80 wines with a strong presence of Italys splendid whites (too often overlooked by many consumers) through many private tastings and wine-oriented meals. Many of the wines are available in the U.S., and most of our guests were determined to search them out when returning home.

We began our Veneto journey with local friends Sharla Ault and Marina and Maurizio Bergozza, who offered an insiders view to the historic towns of Bassano del Grappa and Marostica. Our day was also highlighted by a grappa tasting at Nardini, a family owned producer since 1779, and a locally inspired lunch at Vignaioli Contra Soarda in the hills surrounding Bassano.

The next day, we visited Filippi in Soave Classico and Allegrini in Valpolicella Both are considered among the finest of their respective regions, and through our visits we all learned much about these areas and the traditions of both producers. We were fortunate to have noted wine writer Gianpaolo Giacobbo accompany us during this Diamonds in the Rough day.

Soave Classico is just now beginning to overcome the negative impression of being linked to the mass-produced commercial wines of the valley floor. But as the steep hillsides rise sharply above the valley, the quality of the fruit and resultant wines increases dramatically. We were hosted at Filippi by owner/winemaker and third-generation grower Filippo Filippi whose home, winery and vineyards share this magnificent property.

Filippi is located at the highest point atop the hill of Soave where we were escorted on a hike through the vineyards to observe the soil types and vineyard blocks as they changed from clay and chalk to gravel and volcanic rocks. An extensive tasting then continued our education. Each vineyard block is farmed, harvested and vinified separately with specific bottlings of the traditional garganega (three distinct blocks), trebbiano (the highest block) and chardonnay (very Chablis-like).

Allegrini, one of the most respected vintners of Valpolicella, is housed in their historic 16th-century Villa della Torre estate and vineyards. They are a more modern-day producer of Valpolicella Superiore Riserva, Recioto (a traditional sweet red), Palazzo della Torre (similar to a Ripasso) and spectacular Amarone. All are world-class wines made in a more modern style.

Amarone is a traditional wine of the area that is seen as not only one of the great wines of Italy but also of the world. The grapes are harvested and left on bamboo racks (appassimento) to dry for about five months before fermentation begins in the winter after harvest. Allegrini has pioneered a newer drying regimen by using small flat plastic bins to dry the clusters that has now been adopted as well by others in the area.

After visiting Filippi and before reaching Allegrini, we traveled to the ancient town of Valpolicella to enjoy a traditional multi-course lunch paired with Franciacorta, several other whites of the northeast and a very rare red schiave from Alto Adige (mostly known for its whites) expressing a similar flavor profile to grenache. And for dinner, we dined in the old town of Verona for a culinary adventure paired primarily with the reds of the northwest and Piedmont.

We left Veneto and headed south to Tuscany with fond memories and a vast store of knowledge gained by meeting the people and learning the history of this very under-appreciated area. More on our Tuscan adventure and an amazing surprise we all shared in a couple of weeks. Ciao!
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Poll: Judges should have sentencing options with veterans

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- An overwhelming majority of Illinois voters agree that judges should be allowed to make exceptions to mandatory minimum sentencing requirements for certain veterans who are convicted of crimes, according to the results of the latest poll from Southern Illinois University Carbondales Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

Among the 1,000 Illinois registered voters surveyed, seven out of 10 (69 percent) say they agree that judges should be allowed to make exceptions to minimum sentencing laws for veterans who are convicted of crimes but have service related disabilities. Only 22 percent of respondents disagree and 9 percent answered otherwise. Post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury were listed as examples of these disabilities.

The survey was conducted Sept. 27-Oct 2. It has a margin for error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Political differences exist, but support is strong in each party. Democrats show the most support. Seven in 10 (71 percent) Democrats agree that judges should be able to make these sentencing exceptions for certain veterans and only one in five (21 percent) disagree. Two-thirds (66 percent) of Republicans agree that judges should be able to make sentencing exceptions for certain veterans and one in four (24 percent) disagree. Among independents, 67 percent agree and 20 percent disagree.

Differences by geography emerge, but clear majorities in each region of the state show strong support for the idea of judges having more sentencing discretion when it comes to veterans. In the Chicago suburbs (suburban Cook and the collar counties) 72 percent of respondents agree that judges should be allowed to make exceptions to minimum sentencing law for certain veterans and only 20 percent of respondents in the Chicago suburbs disagree. In Chicago, support is slightly lower than the suburbs, with 68 percent of respondents in the city agreeing and 20 percent disagreeing. Support is at its lowest in the rural parts of the state where 63 percent agree with the statement and 26 percent disagree.

Though mandatory minimum sentencing laws can serve a purpose, they can also unjustly tie judges hands, said Delio Calzolari, institute associate director one of the designers of the poll. The unique and varied issues faced by veterans returning from over a decade and a half of conflict overseas require courts to have more discretion and be more flexible to achieve justice for all parties involved. Calzolari is a U.S. Navy veteran and attorney.

Support is statistically the same for military and nonmilitary households. The poll considers a military household one in which the respondent or any member of the respondents immediate family served in the military. Seven in 10 (69 percent) of military household respondents and two-thirds (67 percent) of nonmilitary households agree that judges should be allowed to make exceptions to minimum sentencing law for certain veterans. One in five (21 percent) of military and one-quarter (24 percent) of nonmilitary households disagree.

Poll results are available here.

For more results, contact Calzolari at 618/453-4001 or John Jackson, institute visiting professor, at 618/453-3106.

The margin of error for the entire sample of 1,000 voters is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. This means that if we conducted the survey 100 times, in 95 of those instances, the population proportion would be within plus or minus the reported margin for error for each subsample. For subsamples, the margin of error increases as the sample size goes down. The margin of error was not adjusted for design effects.

Live telephone interviews were conducted by Customer Research International of San Marcos, Texas using the random digit dialing method. The telephone sample was provided to Customer Research International by Scientific Telephone Samples. Potential interviewees were screened based on whether they were registered voters and quotas based on area code and sex (<60% female). Interviewers asked to speak to the youngest registered voter at home at the time of the call. Cell phone interviews accounted for 60 percent of the sample. A Spanish language version of the questionnaire and a Spanish-speaking interviewer were made available.

Field work was conducted from Sept. 27 to Oct. 2. No auto-dial or robo polling is included. Customer Research International reports no Illinois political clients. The survey was paid for with non-tax dollars from the institutes endowment fund. The data were not weighted in any way. Crosstabs for the referenced questions will be on the institutes polling website, http://paulsimoninstitute.siu.edu/opinion-polls/index.php

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute is a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Researchs (AAPOR) Transparency Initiative. AAPOR works to encourage objective survey standards for practice and disclosure. Membership in the Transparency Initiative reflects a pledge to practice transparency in reporting survey-based findings.

Simon Institute polling data are archived by four academic institutions for use by scholars and the public. The four open source data repositories are: the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/), the University of Michigans Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (http://home.isr.umich.edu/centers/icpsr/), the University of North Carolinas Odum Institute Dataverse Network (https://dataverse.unc.edu/), and the Simon Institute Collection at OpenSIUC (http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/ppi/).

Note: The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute Poll, the Simon Poll and the Southern Illinois Poll are the copyrighted trademarks of the Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University. Use and publication of these polls is encouraged -- but only with credit to the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at SIU Carbondale.
Mr Modi, who was accorded a warm and traditional welcome at the airport, earlier made a brief stopover in Thailand to pay his homage to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month due to age related ailments. after a protracted illness.

The Prime Minister will start his engagements here with an audience with Japanese Emperor tomorrow morning, followed by interaction with industrial leaders at meeting of India-Japan Business Leaders Forum.

The delegation level talks and one-on-one talks with Mr Abe will take place tomorrow evening, an official travelling with the Prime Minister told UNI.

An agreement for civil nuclear cooperation is likely to be the high point of the agreement signing ceremony.

Mr Abe will host a banquet in the evening for the visiting dignitary.

On November 12, both the Prime Ministers will travel to Kobe on the famed Shinkansen the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway.

Both the leaders will also visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed railway is manufactured.

The High Speed Railway cooperation between India and Japan is a shining example of the strength of their close cooperation.

Japan has already won a Shinkansen bullet-train order for the route between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, in the western state of Gujarat, one of seven planned routes.

Japan is likely to offer India its Shinkansen technology for the rail corridor project's six other routes.UNI MK AE RP1930

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-1017478.Xml
State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya on Thursday welcomed the government's decision to scrap Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes and said that the banks would provide full support to the customers. "It is a good decision taken by the government. We are providing full support to the customers and have advised the same to every branch. Our banks have been given responsibilities which we are trying to handle. A slip with account details and signature will have to be filled. Any measure of amount can be put in an account. At once, an amount of Rs. 10,000 can be taken from the cash counter," Bhattacharya told ANI. "Customers can withdraw Rs. 4000 from the ATMs and can deposit any amount in the banks," she added. The banks were closed yesterday to realign and reload new Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 currency notes. However, the banks are today open to ensure that the customers do not have any problems in exchanging Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes. (ANI)
Bollywood newbie Tiger Shroff, who has had two releases this year, 'Baaghi' and 'A Flying Jatt', is overwhelmed with the response his films are getting on the small screen. The Actor's films did not only do well at the cash counters during the theatrical release, but also during the world television premieres. When Baaghi premiered on television, the ratings beat other big films like 'Airlift', 'Bajirao Mastani', 'Fan', 'Dilwale', etc. and stood at number 2 after Salman Khan's 'Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo'. According to statistics, 'A Flying Jatt' was watched by 45.8 million people during its worldwide premiere on TV. Compared to Salman Khan's 'Sultan' which had 57.6 million people watching it, it is a big thing for Tiger Shroff, as he is only 3 films old in the industry. Sharing his happiness, an elated Tiger said, "My team brought it to my notice how well both 'Baaghi' and 'A Flying Jatt' did on television as well. I even saw some parents upload their kids' pictures in my character's signature take off pose from my superhero film.. It is extremely heartening to know that all our hard work has paid off in this manner." When Tiger Shroff made his debut, he immediately got popular among the masses. From thereon, his popularity among all age groups has been only increasing. Television ratings show the interest among the mass audience which Tiger Shroff has been able to develop, early in his career. On the professional front, the actor is currently working on his next film, 'Munna Michael'. (ANI)
Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) leader Harshdev Singh has said India must give Pakistan a befitting reply for its consistent violation of the November 2003 ceasefire arrangement on the International Border (IB) and the Line of Control (LoC). Singh told ANI, "We feel that we need to protest against Pakistan for this continued firing which has endangered the lives of civilians on this side of the border. Pakistan should be told in very categorically terms that this can be tolerated only up to a certain limit and that it must stop trying our patience." A soldier was killed in firing by the Pakistan Army in Machhal Sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Machhal district on Wednesday evening. In retaliation to the firing, the Indian forces carried out fire assault with heavy weapons on many Pakistani posts. Meanwhile, two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists have been killed in an encounter with security forces in Watergam area of Baramulla district. As per latest reports, the encounter has ended. Earlier on Tuesday, the Pakistan Army initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing on Indian Army posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Naushera Sector. In the ensuing unprovoked shelling, a Non Commissioned Officer Naik Prem Singh was martyred while Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav sustained grievous injuries and was immediately admitted to the hospital. However, the brave heart succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.Naik Prem Singh, aged 26 years, is survived by his wife, The soldier hailed from Village Shahar, Tehsil Bayatu, District Barmer, Rajasthan. The other martyr, Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav, aged 30 years, is survived by his wife and three young children. Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav hailed from Ballia District, Uttar Pradesh. (ANI)
A defence expert on Thursday condemned Pakistan's constant ceasefire violations and said that it is time for India to recalibrate its policies and take tough decisions against Islamabad. "The tit-for-tat policy going on across the Line of Control (LoC) is not having much of an effect on Pakistan. I think the time has come where we need to recalibrate our policy and take some tough decisions and ensure that Pakistan stops firing and sniping at our troops unnecessarily," Anil Gupta told ANI. Another expert, S.R. Sinho, said Pakistan's aim is to highlight the lack of peace in the Kashmir Valley on the international platform. On Wednesday, a soldier was killed in firing by the Pakistan Army in Machhal Sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district. In retaliation to the firing, the Indian forces carried out fire assault with heavy weapons on many Pakistani posts. Meanwhile, two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists have been killed in an encounter with security forces in Watergam area of Baramulla district. As per latest reports, the encounter has ended. Earlier on Tuesday, the Pakistan Army initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing on Indian Army posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Naushera Sector. In the ensuing unprovoked shelling, a Non Commissioned Officer Naik Prem Singh was martyred while Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav sustained grievous injuries and was immediately admitted to the hospital. However, the brave heart succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.Naik Prem Singh, aged 26 years, is survived by his wife, The soldier hailed from Village Shahar, Tehsil Bayatu, District Barmer, Rajasthan. The other martyr, Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav, aged 30 years, is survived by his wife and three young children. Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav hailed from Ballia District, Uttar Pradesh. (ANI)
The Centre has called for an all-party meeting on November 15 to discuss about the upcoming Winter Session of Parliament. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to attend the meet. The two controversial events of the recent past - the suicide of a former Indian Army soldier Ram Kishan Grewal and the manner in which eight SIMI under trials were killed in an encounter in Bhopal earlier on October 31 - are likely to be taken up in this session. To add to the Bharatiya Janata Party's woes, the third dimension has emerged in the form of the missing Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Najeeb Ahmed, who reportedly had scuffle with some of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members. The Winter session usually starts in the third or fourth week of November, but has been advanced this time to achieve the government's ambitious target of rolling out the Goods And Services Tax (GST) - a uniform indirect tax regime that will subsume all central and local levies such as excise, octroi and Value Added Tax (VAT) from April 1 next year. (ANI)
An agreement for the civil nuclear cooperation and an intergovernmental agreement for the purchase of 12 Japanese amphibian aircraft is likely to be signed after the dialogue.

During his stay, the Prime Minister will also call on the Japanese Emperor.

The Japanese Prime Minister will take Mr Modi to Kobe by the Shinkansen bullet train. The famous bullet train technology was being offered to India by Tokyo for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad railway.

The two leaders will also travel to Kawasaki Heavy Industries, where bullet trains are manufactured.

"The High Speed Railway cooperation between India and Japan is a shining example of the strength of our cooperation," the Prime Minister said in a statement, prior to his departure to Tokyo.

'' It will not only boost our trade and investment ties, but will also create skilled jobs in India, improve our infrastructure and give a boost to our 'Make in India' mission,'' he said. More UNI MK SB 0911

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Stating that over Rs 21 lakh crore black money are generated from brothels, Nobel laureate and anti-child labour activist Kailash Satyarthi has commended the "boldness of the step" taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to eradicate black money and corruption."It is a positive step towards creating a more prosperous India for the future generations. The dream of development and child slavery cannot co-exist. I congratulate the government for the courage it has shown," Mr Satyarthi said in a statement here last night. He said it is "a lesser known fact that human trafficking and child labour are amongst the largest sources of black money" and went on to add that, the announcement by the government "will go a long way" in fighting exploitation of children and corruption in an organised manner. "I commend the boldness of the step taken by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put an end to black money and corruption," he said. "Every single rupee earned by the traffickers and slave masters is black money. This move (by government) will break their backbone," he said.Mr Satyarthi claimed according to a study conducted by Global March against Child Labour, 21 lakh crore Indian rupees are generated "by enslaving young girls in brothels"."Another study conducted by Bachpan Bachao Andolan reveals huge sums of money which is blatantly stolen in the name of wages paid to labourers," he said."I have come across innumerable incidents where the agent or middle man earned at least five thousand rupees for the placement of young boys in bonded labour and in cases of girls sold for prostitution and child marriages, this amount was around two lakh rupees," he said.UNI XC VS ADG 1310 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0440-1016538.Xml
Banks across the country are taking several measures to ensure that customers are least inconvenienced by the Centre's decision to cancel the legal tender character of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. From keeping branches open over the coming Saturday and Sunday to extended working hours to opening more counters, bankers are pulling no stops. The RBI has asked banks to keep all their branches opened on November 12 (Saturday) and 13 (Sunday) as regular working days for transacting business. Further, some banks such as State Bank of India and ICICI Bank have decided to have extended working hours and open more counters on today to clear the rush of public wanting to exchange these notes. Bank branches across the country remained closed yesterday to enable them to prepare for exchanging Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for notes of valid denominations or depositing the old notes into their accounts. ATMs, cash deposit machines and cash recyclers too are shut for two days (November 9 and 10) to enable them to be re-configured in order to disburse bank notes of Rs 100 and Rs 50 denominations prior to reactivation of the machines on November 11. SBI said all of its branches will remain open today with extended business hours up to 1800 hrs. SBI said from today exchange counters will be set up at branches where specified bank notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations can be exchanged for up to a maximum of Rs 4,000. For this, identity document and an exchange slip duly filled in will be required. There is no ceiling on deposit of the specified bank notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 in the customer's account with the bank. All ATMs across the country will become operational from November 11. As of now, the bank has sufficient notes of Rs 100 denomination to be dispensed through ATMs and branches. ''There is no need for panic as specified bank notes can be deposited in the account, without ceiling, up to December 30, 2016, with the bank.'' ICICI Bank said its branch timings will be extended by two hours on today and tomorrow. Further, branches in prominent locations shall remain open from 8 am to 8 pm on these two days. ''The bank will equip its branches with additional cash counters to manage heightened footfall of customers ''. All charges pertaining to cash deposit in our savings accounts across all branches will be waived off, with effect from November 10 till November 30,'' said Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank. The bank, in a statement, said charges related to transactions at its ATMs by its customers will be waived off till December 31. Further, ICICI Bank said it has doubled the daily usage limit of debit cards for use at point-of-sale (POS) as well as for online transactions. It has also offered its credit-worthy customers an additional credit limit of 20 per cent on credit cards. A senior Central Bank of India official said officials from administrative offices will be posted at branches to man additional counters that will be opened for customer convenience.UNI JS NV SM1302 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1016597.Xml
Former Karnataka Chief Minister and BJPState President B S Yeddyurappa was taken into custody along withhundreds of workers today by police when they protested againstbirth anniversary celebration of 18th century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan by the State Government. other senior party leaders taken into custody included Lok Sabhamember Shobha Kharandlje, former Deputy Chief Minister R Ashokand former Minister S Suresh Kumars. They were taken toundisclosed place by three buses. The BJP had launched statewide agitation in protest against theState government celebrating Tipu Jayanti alleging that the Mysoreruler had indulged in conversion of people to Muslim community andindulged in atrocities at Kodagu and Madikerei. Addressing the gathering, Mr Yeddyurappa challenged ChiefMinister Siddaramaiah to prove that he had spoken appreciating TipuSultan. Tipu was not a freedom fighter. Mr Siddaramaiah alleged yesterday that Mr Yeddyurappa, when hehad quit BJP and floated Karnataka Janata Party (KJP), had laudedthe role played by Tipu and had even worn turban, but after returningto BJP he had changed the cap. It showed how he could change hisstand for political gains. Police had elaborate bandobust through out the State to maintainlaw and order and prohibitory orders have been clamped in Kolar andKodagu District as precautionary measure. CCTVs were fixed atvulnerable places and personels from CPRF, KSRP, and Paramilitaryforces were deployed at District Headquarters in the State. At Tumkur, some miscreants burnt tyres on the highway in an attemptto disrupt vehicle movement. However, police took immediate actionto clear the road. At Gadag, BJP workers were taken to custody when they tried toenter the Deputy Commissioner office by taking out protest marchwith black flags. The authorities have banned taking out protest marches throughout the State.UNI MSP CNR1315 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0287-1016582.Xml
Unimpressed by the Prime Minister's announcement about the demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) termed it ''more like political posturing'' and said the move would have limited effect. Asserting that the step would not yield the desired result of unearthing black money, the Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) in a release pointed out that the basic avenues for money laundering through Participatory notes and diversions through tax havens remained untouched nor attempt made to curb the roots of generation of black money such as in the real estate sector. It said the claim that the demonetisation would check black money, fake currency, corruption and terrorism lacked substance. By the Prime Minister's own admission, the bulk of black money generation and storage was in off-shore accounts in foreign currency. Further, the announcement of a new Rs 2000 note along with another Rs 500 note did not in any way prevent future possible counterfeit circulation. ''It's an established fact that terrorist funds flow through electronic transfers and not through currency transactions,'' the Polit Bureau said. Since conversion of existing 1000 and 500 currency notes was being allowed within a prescribed time limit and no effective measure was there to prevent benami conversions, it said transactions through plastic would continue as usual. The Polit Bureau blamed total disruption of the payments and settlements that were part of daily life of the economy that would ensue, burdening the vast mass of people from daily wage labourers, fishermen, small businesses, traders and vendors selling at the door step. ''What is going to happen is the disruption in livelihoods and bureaucratic harassment of ordinary people who wish to change the currency notes,'' it added.UNI SD SNU 1434 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0005-1016688.Xml
Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic arm ofInfosys, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with theInter-University Center of Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA)through an endowment worth Rs 6.5 Crore to build Wide Area LinearOptical Polarimeter (WALOP). The endowment will also be used to boost support forinternational travel, post-doctorate fellowships and thematicworkshops amongst researchers of IUCAA, according to a statement here today. WALOP, the instrument is currently at the design stage at IUCAA'sinstrumentation laboratory. It will be used to measure polarizationcaused by interstellar dust and to map the distribution of dust inthe Milky Way Galaxy. Instrument's uniqueness is in the combinedstrengths of very wide field polarimetry, high sensitivity andsingle shot measurement ability. Speaking about the endowment, Ms Sudha Murthy, Chairperson ofInfosys Foundation, said, "Astronomy fuels the most basic of humancuriosity and seeks answers to elementary questions related to theorigin of our universe. Historically, ancient Indian scientists likeVarahamira and Aryabhatta contributed immensely to the field ofastronomy. The Foundation is excited to collaborate with IUCAA, aninstitute dedicated to the study of Astronomy and Astrophysics, intheir endeavor of developing a new instrument that will greatlybenefit the research community. Through this endowment, we also aimto provide the stimulus to create a globally competitive scientificenvironment at IUCAA by enabling the researchers to engage with thebest in the business at international meetings, colloquia and workshops." Subsequent to funding from Infosys Foundation, IUCAA has beensuccessful in garnering funding for the project from reputedinternational organizations such as the National Science Foundationof USA, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation of Greece and NationalResearch Foundation of South Africa. "The instrument proposal has gone through reviews in fourcontinents starting with Infosys Foundation in India and hassucceeded in all of them. We thank Infosys Foundation to be thefirst to recognize our proposal worthy of funding which has enabledus to develop the breakthrough technology needed for building thisinstrument and carry out potentially transformational scientificventures. We are entering unchartered waters here and Foundation hasshown their confidence in supporting exploration of new domains,"said Prof. A N Ramaprakash, Principle Investigator of the project, IUCAA. "It is important for us to showcase our unique capability andinnovation in order to gain the confidence of the internationalcommunity in a competitive market. At IUCAA, Professor A. N.Ramaprakash and his team have been working on designing several suchinnovative instruments, and the support of the Infosys Foundationhas been essential for us to develop such ideas into reality," saidProf Somak Raychaudhury, Director, IUCAA.UNI MSP CS 1600 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0287-1016880.Xml
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Mohammad Yasin Malik was again arrested in Srinagar this afternoon. A spokesman for the Front said a police party arrested Malik from Maisuma this afternoon. Malik has been lodged in Kotibagh Police Station, he said, adding it was not immediately clear why he was arrested. The JKLF chief was released on October 29 after remaining under arrest since July 9, a day after Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) commander Burhan Wani and two other militants were killed in an encounter in Anantnag. Killing of Burhan evoked massive protests during which 86 people, mostly youths, have died in security force and police action in the Kashmir Valley, where life remained crippled due to strike for the past 125 days.UNI BAS SW SNU 1611 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0331-1016907.Xml
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu today enquired from New Delhi over the post demonetisation situation in the state. The Chief Minister directed the officials to make necessary arrangements at the banks to prevent inconvenience to people. In a teleconference conducted with Ministers and Collectors, he asked the officials to extend cooperation to people lined up at various banks by providing shelter and drinking water supply. The Chief Minister appealed to people to extend cooperation though they are facing initial inconvenience with the cancellation of higher denomination notes as the PM's action yields long term benefits. He directed the officials to discuss with trade associations to supply essential commodities by accepting higher denomination currency notes. It may be noted that the Chief Minister appointed a committee with Chief Secretary and Director General of Police and arranged toll free number 1800-599-1111 at command control centre in Vijayawada. Meanwhile the state government released some more toll free numbers for the convenience of people. The Toll free No.s of -AP SLBC call centre : 18004258525, Andhra Bank toll free No.: 18004251515, RBI control Room No. at Mumbai: 022-22602804, 22602944.UNI DP CS 1900 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1017404.Xml
The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF) today completed 16 years with a strive to address the issue of "classroom hunger" and promote "education" by providing nutritious meals to children in government and government-aided schools. The foundation is spurred to fulfill its mission of 'feeding 5 million children by 2020', the foundation officials said. Akshaya Patra is one of the best examples of public private partnership model, where the Central government, state governments, corporate and individual donors contribute to the cause, and the Mid-Day Meal Programme of the government is successfully implemented through the efficient workmanship of Akshaya Patra. Akshaya Patra Foundation Chairman Madhu Pandit Dasa said here today in statement that the foundation provides a great satisfaction to see the positive change one meal can make in the children's lives. "Around 39 per cent of our population are children and we would want them to be transformed as assets of our country, as against liability. My heartfelt thanks to the Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, all the State Governments, corporates and individual donors, who have constantly and whole heartedly contributed in upholding the philosophy of 'unlimited food for education," he said. The journey of the foundation began in 2000, with the feeding of 1,500 children in five schools in Bengaluru. Today, TAPF reaching 13,210 schools, feeding over 1.65 million children every day in 11 states through 27 kitchens. Apart from school feeding, Akshaya Patra also feeds Anganwadi children, lactating mothers, and expecting women. The aim is to provide nutritious meals from the beginning of the child's life and continue to nurture throughout the childhood, so that the child grows in the environment where social equality is for real and every child is provided a chance to learn and bloom.UNI MB SW AE2015 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-1017307.Xml
The Himachal Pradesh cabinet today gave approval to launch "Mukhya Mantri Shikshak Samman Yojana" to motivate teachers to give overall good results and particularly in subjects like Maths, Science and English. In the meeting, it was decided that teachers who will give 100 per cent results will be given one year extension in service and monetary rewards. The scheme was announced by the Chief Minister in his budget speech in 2016 wherein he said one year extension would be given to teachers, who will consistently give 100 per cent results in board examinations for a period of five years. With an aim to create self-employment and employment generation and for up-grading the skill of entrepreneurs besides providing them all support including professional guidance etc the Cabinet approved 'Chief Minister's start-up/innovation projects/new industries scheme'. The scheme also aims at helping and hand-holding entrepreneurs to select viable projects in the potential areas in manufacturing and service sectors and train them to set up start-ups and subsequently manage and run their enterprises professionally. The Cabinet also approved to start education as a new subject at under graduate level in Government Degree Colleges for 2017-18 provided that the strength of students should be 4,000 or more. This is being done with the view to provide better foundation for students to qualify the entrance test for admission in various examinations.UNI ML SW GC2020 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-1017542.Xml
Hundreds of students across California and other states walked out of classes, many of them chanting "not our president," to protest Republican Donald Trump's victory in Tuesday's US presidential election.In one of the largest demonstrations, some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School in California yesterday, and then marched toward the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, a city known for its progressive politics."We're sitting here, setting our clocks back to 1950 electing this fool. You know? Trump honestly just makes us realize how much hate and ignorance is left," a female student told the rally, monitored via the social media app Periscope.In downtown Los Angeles, a mostly Latino group of about 300 high school students, mostly from the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, walked out of classes and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally. Several school officials accompanied the youths as chaperones.Chanting in Spanish, "The people united will never be defeated," the group held signs with slogans such as "Not Supporting Racism, Not My President," and "Immigrants Make America Great."A representative of the Trump campaign could not be reached immediately for comment.About a fourth of the students from Miguel Contreras are members of the so-called "Dreamers" generation, children whose undocumented parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and fear of deportation under a Trump administration is a major concern.One of Trump's marquee campaign pledges was to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep out undocumented immigrants and deport en masse those who immigrated illegally."A child should not live in fear that they will be deported. They should not live in fear that they themselves will be deported," said Stephanie Hipolito, one of the student organizers of the walkout. She said her parents are US citizens."We're not criminals. We're not drug dealers. We're hard-working people looking for the American dream like anybody else," she said.A few hundred students also walked out of classes in Seattle, Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area cities of Oakland, El Cerrito and Richmond. Several hundred more pupils at the University of Texas protested on campus as well, according to local reports and footage on social media.Anti-Trump rallies were planned later Wednesday in New York, Boston, Chicago and other cities as well, according to social media postings. A Facebook page for a protest scheduled for Manhattan's Union Square Park showed more than 8,000 people planned to attend.In Austin, Texas, about 400 people staged a peaceful protest march through the streets of the Texas capital, police said.The demonstrations followed a night of protests around the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump's political upset.Demonstrators smashed storefront windows and set garbage and tires ablaze late Tuesday in downtown Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco. A few miles away, students at the University of California at Berkeley students protested on campus. REUTERS RSD 0412 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0435-1016305.Xml
Republican Donald Trump put aside the celebrations and focused on his 73-day transition to the White House as rival Hillary Clinton promised to bury the bitterness of their long presidential race and work to unify a divided country.After Trump's stunning upset of the heavily favored Clinton yesterday, Democratic President Barack Obama and leading figures in the Republican Party who had struggled to make peace with Trump all vowed to move past the ugliness of the campaign to seek common ground."Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead," Clinton, the Democratic nominee, said in a concession speech in New York, joined by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea.With a row of American flags in the background, she told supporters her loss was painful "and it will be for a long time," and that she had offered to work with Trump as he prepares to begin his four-year term on January 20.A wealthy New York real estate developer and former reality TV host, Trump rode a wave of anger toward Washington insiders to win Tuesday's election against Clinton, whose establishment resume included stints as a first lady, US senator and Obama's secretary of state.Trump's victory marked a crushing end to Clinton's second quest to be the first woman elected president. She also failed in a White House bid in 2008.Obama, who campaigned hard against Trump, invited him to the White House for a meeting on Thursday after a brutal night for the Democratic Party, which also fell short of recapturing majorities in both chambers of Congress."We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country," Obama said at the White House, adding he and his staff would work with Trump to ensure a successful transition. "We are not Democrats first, we are not Republicans first, we are Americans first."Trump and his senior aides met at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday to begin the transition. "They are hunkered down in meetings, plotting the next steps, the transition, the first 100 days, key staff positions," said a source close to Trump's campaign.Potential choices in a Trump administration included Republican figures who eagerly supported Trump even when he faced opprobrium from other senior Republicans.Possible names included Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff, RNC spokesman Sean Spicer as White House spokesman, US Senators Jeff Sessions and Bob Corker in possible roles as secretary of state or defense secretary, and former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich as secretary of state, a source close to the campaign said.Trump will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of the US Congress that could help him implement his legislative agenda and appoint a Supreme Court justice to fill the vacancy created by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.In the Senate, Democrats secured a second gain on Wednesday, when Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte conceded defeat in New Hampshire to challenger Maggie Hassan, the state's Democratic governor. But the Republicans retained their majority."Now, Donald Trump will lead a unified Republican government and we will work hand-in-hand on a positive agenda to tackle this country's big challenges," House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who had a strained relationship with Trump, told reporters, saying Trump had earned a mandate in the election.TRUMP PRIORITIESIn an October 25 Reuters interview, Trump said his top priorities when he took office would be building stronger borders, repealing Obama's national healthcare plan, aiding military veterans and working to create more jobs.In his victory speech early on Wednesday, he also promised to embark on a project to rebuild American infrastructure and to double US economic growth.Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday that repealing the healthcare plan known as Obamacare would be a "pretty high item" on the agenda. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that she spoke to Trump about passing a "robust" jobs bill.Worried that a Trump victory could cause economic and global uncertainty, investors initially fled stocks worldwide, but Wall Street made a dramatic turnaround and the US dollar hit its highest level against the Japanese yen in nearly four months.The Mexican peso recouped some losses after falling to a record low. The currency has been vulnerable to Trump's threats to rip up a free trade agreement with Mexico and to tax money sent home by migrants to pay to build a border wall.Scattered protests broke out across the country over Trump's triumph. In Berkeley, California, outside San Francisco, some 1,500 high school students and teachers walked out of classes chanting: "Not our president." Smaller groups of students walked out of classes in nearby Oakland and in Seattle, while several hundred students protested at the University of Texas, according to local reports.Speaking to cheering supporters in a New York hotel ballroom after his victory, Trump said it was time to heal divisions after a campaign that exposed deep differences among Americans."It is time for us to come together as one united people," Trump said. "I will be president for all Americans."His comments departed sharply from his campaign rhetoric in which he repeatedly branded Clinton as "Crooked Hillary" amid supporters' chants of "lock her up."Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, did not rule out yesterday the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton's past conduct, a threat Trump made in an election debate last month.White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it hoped the tradition of not using the criminal justice system to extract revenge on political opponents would continue under Trump.Senior House Republican Jason Chaffetz plans to continue investigating Clinton's use of a private rather than government email server while she was secretary of state, a Chaffetz aide said. FBI Director James Comey has said a year-long probe by the agency into the setup revealed nothing to merit criminal charges.Despite losing the state-by-state electoral battle that determines the US presidency, Clinton narrowly led Trump in the nationwide popular vote, according to US media tallies.Fueling his upset was Trump's avid support among white non-college educated workers. He ran up big leads in rural areas, beating Clinton by 27 percentage points among voters outside of urban areas, a Reuters/Ipsos Election Day poll found.While Clinton, 69, won Hispanics and black and young voters, she did not win those groups by greater margins than Obama did in 2012. Younger blacks did not support Clinton like they did Obama. She won eight of 10 black voters between the ages of 35 and 54. Obama won almost 100 per cent of those voters in 2012.At 70, Trump will be the oldest first-term US president. The presidency will be Trump's first elected office, and it remains to be seen how he will work with Congress. During the campaign, Trump was the target of sharp disapproval, not just from Democrats but from many in his own party.GOOD NEWS FOR RUSSIAForeign leaders pledged to work with Trump, but some officials expressed alarm the vote could mark the end of an era in which Washington promoted democratic values and was seen by its allies as a guarantor of peace.During the campaign, Trump expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, questioned central tenets of the NATO military alliance and suggested that Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons to shoulder their own defense burden.Russia and Putin appeared to be winners from Trump's victory. Defying years of US foreign policy orthodoxy, the Republican had promised much warmer relations with Moscow, despite Russia's intervention in the Syrian civil war and its seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region.Russia's parliament erupted in applause after a lawmaker announced that Trump had been elected, and Putin told foreign ambassadors he was ready to fully restore ties with Washington.Russia is hoping that improved relations could yield an elusive prize: the lifting or easing of sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union to punish Moscow for its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who sparred with Obama, spoke by phone to Trump, who proposed they meet "at the first opportunity," Netanyahu's office said. Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing and Washington shared responsibility for promoting global development and prosperity.Iran urged Trump to stay committed to the nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers, which Trump has sharply criticized. Several authoritarian and right-wing leaders hailed Trump's victory.Other officials abroad, some with senior roles in government, took the unusual step of denouncing the outcome, calling it a worrying signal for liberal democracy and tolerance in the world."Trump is the pioneer of a new authoritarian and chauvinist international movement. He is also a warning for us," German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said in an interview with the Funke newspaper group.US neighbor Mexico was pitched into deep uncertainty by the victory for Trump, who has often accused it of stealing US jobs and sending criminals across the US border.Trump campaigned on a pledge to take the country on a more isolationist, protectionist "America First" path.He wants to rewrite international trade deals to reduce trade deficits and has taken positions that raise the possibility of damaging relations with America's most trusted allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.REUTERS RSD 0626 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0435-1016310.Xml
Throngs of demonstrators held marches across the United States to protest Republican Donald Trump's surprise victory in the US presidential election, blasting his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.In New York, thousands of protesters filled streets in Midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower yesterday, while hundreds others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted: "Not my president."In downtown Chicago, thousands more gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower while chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA." Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators' path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence."I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."Protesters railed against Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep out undocumented immigrants, and other policies they deemed racist."I'm particularly concerned about the rise of white nationalism and this is to show my support against that type of thing," Rizzo said.Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia and Boston yesterday evening, and organizers planned rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland, California. In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said.A representative of the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the protests. In his victory speech, Trump said he would be president for all Americans, saying: "It is time for us to come together as one united people."Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that "Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form."'DREAMERS'Some 1,500 California students and teachers rallied earlier yesterday in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito, California.A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday morning in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally.Chanting in Spanish: "The people united will never be defeated," the group held signs with slogans such as "Not Supporting Racism, Not My President" and "Immigrants Make America Great."Many of those students were members of the "Dreamers" generation, children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration."A child should not live in fear that they will be deported," said Stephanie Hipolito, one of the student organizers of the walkout. She said her parents were US citizens.There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence.Wednesday's demonstrations followed a night of protests in the San Francisco area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump's victory against heavily favored Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.Demonstrators smashed storefront windows and set garbage and tires ablaze late on Tuesday in downtown Oakland. A few miles away, students at the University of California, Berkeley protested on campus.REUTERS RSD 0713 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0435-1016317.Xml
Russia's Federal Security Service said today it had detained a group of saboteurs who it said were planning to attack military sites and vital infrastructure in Crimea.The FSB said it had confiscated explosive devices and weapons from the group, which it said was made up of intelligence agents from the Ukrainian defence ministry.Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. REUTERS VS PM1253 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0440-1016552.Xml
Saudi business magnate Prince Alwaleed bin Talal congratulated Donald Trump on his US presidential victory, almost a year after the two clashed bitterly on Twitter."President elect @realDonaldTrump whatever the past differences, America has spoken, congratulations & best wishes for your presidency," the prince wrote on his twitter page.In December 2015 Bin Talal had called Trump a "disgrace" and demanded he withdraw from the election after the property developer's pledge to ban Muslims entry into the US raised hackles in the Middle East.The next day, Trump issued a withering riposte: "Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our US politicians with daddy's money. Can't do it when I get elected."REUTERS VS PM1348 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0440-1016585.Xml
Chinese state media has warned the US president-elect against isolationism and interventionism, calling instead for the United States to actively work with China to maintain the international status quo.President-elect Donald Trump threatened to tear up trade deals and pursue a more unilateral foreign policy under his "America First" principle during a tempestuous election campaign.But China and other foreign governments are uncertain how much of Trump's rhetoric will be translated into policy because he has at times made contradictory statements and provided few details of how he would deal with the world.Trump often targeted China in the campaign, blaming Beijing for US job losses and vowing to impose 45 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports. The Republican also promised to call China a currency manipulator on his first day in office.US isolationist policies had "accelerated the country's economic crisis" during the Great Depression, warned a commentary by China's official Xinhua News Agency, though it added that "election talk is just election talk".The commentary also cautioned against any tilt towards intervention.POTENTIAL PRAGMATISTThe Chinese media in the past have criticised the United States and other Western powers for intervening in Afghanistan and Iraq and meddling in international hot spots such as Ukraine."History has proven that US overseas military interventionism causes them to pay disastrous political and economic costs," the commentary said.Hillary Clinton was widely seen in China as the more hawkish of the two candidates, while some Chinese commentators saw Trump as a potential pragmatist on foreign policy.But Beijing fears the unpredictability of a Trump presidency as it seeks to maintain an equilibrium in Sino-US relations while dealing with the daunting tasks of a reform agenda to combat a slowing economy at home.A second Xinhua commentary published today morning said the new US president and China should "jointly build a new model of major power relations". That echoes the position of Chinese President Xi Jinping that says global powers should work to accommodate, not contain, a rising China in the international system.'SHOCK OF HERESY'Trump's victory was watched closely on the Chinese internet with the tag "Trump has won" becoming the most-searched term on Weibo, a popular Chinese microblog service, yesterday afternoon in Asia, well before the race was conceded.Some of the posts agreed that Trump might be just the change agent the United States needs now."The US has chosen indeterminacy in order to create change," according to a post by Tsinghua University professor Sun Liping today that has been shared over a thousand times."When the usual, determined method has already been unable to solve the problems, then you need the shock of heresy instead."Chinese state media had previously said the US election process reflects a troubled political system, and showed an increasingly divided, disillusioned and indignant US citizenry."This election has also made clear that the US political system is already caught in a predicament," a third Xinhua commentary said. "As for when it will exit this predicament, the answer is still unknown."The Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling party's People's Daily newspaper, said Trump's victory had "dealt a heavy blow to the heart of US politics" but that he would be unable to make many changes in US foreign policy."In an elite-controlled US, most of those holding power don't support Trump. And US allies across the world will pressure Washington to restrain Trump from isolationism," it said. REUTERS VS PM1347 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0440-1016614.Xml
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and other conservatives warned on Thursday that populists would pose a problem for Europe unless mainstream politicians responded after Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election.Trump's win has shaken many European lawmakers ahead of elections next year, including in France and Germany, where right-wing parties are expected to notch up big gains."Demagogic populism is not only a problem in America," Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Bild daily. "Elsewhere in the West, too, the political debate is in an alarming state."Chancellor Angela Merkel is widely expected to stand for a fourth term in an election in September and her conservatives are roughly 10 points ahead of their nearest rivals, the Social Democrats who currently share power with her.However, her open-door migrant policy has angered voters. The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has embraced tough anti-immigrant rhetoric, is swaying supporters from the bigger parties. Founded less than four years ago, it now has seats in more than half of Germany's state assemblies.Schaeuble said politicians had to respond by being more inclusive. His words were echoed by Hans-Peter Friedrich, of Bavaria's CSU - sister party to Merkel's CDU - who said he feared that there could be a Trump effect in Germany.He said people feel they have no control over things, including European Central Bank policy and immigration, he said."If there are no answers provided by the main parties in our country, they will turn to populists," Friedrich told Bild.Germany's EU Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, a senior member of Merkel's conservative, told German radio that the US election was a warning for Germany."Things are getting simplified, black or white, good or bad, right or wrong. You can asked simple questions, but one should not give simple answers," Oettinger told Deutschlandfunk radio.He said politicians and media should better explain complicated things with facts, but they should also embrace social media to reach younger voters in the new digital world.The AfD, polling at around 13 percent, on Wednesday welcomed Trump's victory as the disempowerment of political elites.INSA chief Hermann Binkert told Bild politicians had not taken on board the warning signs and a growing number of people had rejected the established parties and turned to the AfD.However, polls show a majority of Germans still reject rabble rousing slogans. A Politbarometer poll for broadcaster ZDF showed some 82 percent of Germans think it is bad or very bad that Trump became president.Experts also argue that Germany's political system, established after World War Two to avoid the rise of another dictator after Hitler, makes the rise of individual politicians like Trump or even a single party difficult.The poll also showed that 65 percent of Germans expect relations with the U.S. to deteriorate under Trump.After World War Two, the United States was one of the closest allies of West Germany - then the front line in the Cold War. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, ties have remained close but a scandal about NSA mass surveillance in Germany have chilled relations.Merkel has offered to work closely with Trump on the basis of shared values, such as democracy, freedom, respect for the rule of law and people's race, religion and gender. REUTERS SW PR1425 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0101-1016702.Xml
Prime Minster Narendra Modi today honoured the memory of Thailand's late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, laying a wreath and offering his condolences at the Grand Palace here during a short stopover in the Thai capital on his way to Tokyo. "His majesty was truly a world statesman. His departure from this world is also a loss for the international community," the Prime Minister said in a condolence message. The Prime Minister's flight landed at 1315 hrs local time and departed for Tokyo at 1500 hrs, the Indian Embassy told UNI. The Prime Minister was received at the airport by Thailand's Transport Minister. Thailand is observing a year-long mourning for the late monarch who passed away on October 13 and was the 9th king of the country's 234-year-old ruling Chakri dynasty. UNI XC RSA SNU 1430 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0104-1016690.Xml
Republicans in the US House of Representatives hope to offer President-elect Donald Trump an alternate plan to his proposed US-Mexico border wall, a first test by lawmakers from his own party of one of his key campaign promises. Just a day after Trump's stunning election victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, congressional aides told Reuters the lawmakers wanted to meet with Trump's advisers to discuss a less costly option to his "big, beautiful, powerful wall." The plan would involve more border fencing and additional border staffing with federal agents, many of whom belong to labor unions that supported Trump's candidacy, the aides said. Double layers of fencing would be extended along parts of the roughly 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border, rather than constructing a brick-and-mortar wall, according to the proposal. A House Republican aide and a Department of Homeland Security official said a wall was not realistic because it would block visibility for border agents and cut through rugged terrain, as well as bodies of water and private land. The House aide said House Republicans working on the alternative plan were waiting for Trump's transition team to be put in place before setting a date for the meeting. A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment on the lawmakers' proposal or their desired meeting. Mexico said yesterday that it would not pay for a border wall, as Trump has pledged. Immigration was a central feature of the Trump campaign, focusing on concerns among some voters about illegal immigrants and perceptions they take jobs and pose security risks. Before the Republican convention in July, party platform committee members successfully petitioned delegates to add language about the proposed wall to the platform statement. But US Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has called a wall along the entire border a "knee-jerk" reaction and has not mentioned the idea in legislation on Capitol Hill. If Congress stands up to Trump, his wall may end up being a fence extension, said Steve Legomsky, professor emeritus and immigration law expert at Washington University School of Law. "Congress won't fund the kind of wall Trump promised, and Mexico won't pay for it. But to save face, President Trump and congressional leaders will likely agree to a modest extension of the existing border fence," Legomsky predicted. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Wednesday that border security was an important agenda item that he wanted to achieve "in whatever way is the most effective." The National Border Patrol Council, a union representing border agents, said the agency had already had a difficult time meeting hiring goals mandated by Congress. REUTERS SW BD1646 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0101-1016992.Xml
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called today for clarity from Donald Trump on issues such as global trade, climate policy and future relations with NATO allies following his US victory in the presidential election.During the election campaign, Trump, a billionaire businessman who has never held public office, strongly criticised free trade, NATO and policies designed to halt global warming, rattling Washington's allies and trade partners."We would like to know how things will proceed with global trade policy," Juncker said at a business event in Berlin."We would like to know what intentions he has regarding the (NATO) alliance. We must know what climate policies he intends to pursue. This must be cleared up in the next few months."Juncker said he did not expect the trade deal between the United States and the European Union, currently being negotiated, to be finalised this year as previously planned."The trade deal with the United States, I do not view that as something that would happen in the next two years," he said.Juncker, speaking in the German capital, also said on Thursday the EU's Stability and Growth Pact which sets rules on reducing public debt and budget deficits had to be flexible."Flexibility does not mean a departure for stability but an intelligent application of our common system of rules," he said.Juncker said he understood Italy's position after the Commission forecast on Wednesday that Rome would break EU rules on budget deficit and public debt reduction this year and next.Rome says the higher structural deficit is due to extraordinary spending on migration and post-earthquake reconstruction.Juncker had said on Wednesday that the Commission must judge a country according to its problems and that in this situation the EU's place was "at Italy's side and not against it".Juncker urged restraint in criticism of the European Central Bank's monetary policy and accused German politicians - many of whom frequently make verbal attacks on the bank's ultra-loose monetary policy - of applying double standards.Juncker said former German finance minister Theo Waigel had in the 1990s told other EU states not to criticise the bank."Now, the European Central Bank is not exactly doing what many Germans want and now criticism of the ECB is allowed," Juncker said. "I'm in favour of discussing monetary policy in an argumentative manner, but this cannot happen depending on how one feels. This has to be consistent."Addressing the rise of euroscepticism across the EU that was highlighted by Britain's vote in June to leave the bloc, Juncker said the European Commission had in the past "stuck its nose" into too many details of people's lives."There is now a draft for an EU directive, which I stopped, about the height of heels of female hairdressers all over Europe," Juncker said. "So I stopped that and now I have a row with the European labour unions."REUTERS SW NS1650 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0101-1017030.Xml
A top adviser of US President-elect Donald Trump lashed out at the Obama administration for failing to embrace the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), suggesting a possible policy shift when Trump takes office in January. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post said that Trump's national security adviser, James Woolsey, called the Obama's administration's opposition to the formation of the AIIB "a strategic mistake" in a letter to the newspaper. Woolsey wrote that he hoped the Trump response to the "One Road, One Belt" initiative would be "much warmer". China launched the infrastructure bank three years ago to promote economic co-operation among a corridor of countries stretching from Southeast Asia to Europe. The AIIB was officially launched with 57 countries, including several US allies, such as Britain, Australia and South Korea. China unveiled its 'One Road' blueprint and the establishment of the AIIB after China was excluded from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Pacific Rim trade deal led by the United States but which excluded China.REUTERS SW BD1715 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0101-1017071.Xml
The Philippines today agreed to allow Malaysia and Indonesia to carry out "hot pursuits" in its territorial waters, as the three nations look to tackle kidnappings and piracy by Islamist Abu Sayyaf rebels.The announcement was made by Prime Minister Najib Razak after a meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who is on a two-day visit to Malaysia."When we reach their waters, they have allowed us to keep chasing these kidnap-for-ransom groups," Najib said at a news conference.He said the agreement would be further discussed at a meeting between the three countries on Nov 22 in Vientiane.Abu Sayyaf rebels have been intercepting slow-moving tugboats in waters near the borders of Malaysia and the Philippines, taking captive more than a dozen Indonesian and Malaysian sailors.Several hostages have been freed, after paying ransom to the Abu Sayyaf, a group linked to al-Qaeda and known for kidnappings and beheadings, including of two Canadians this year.On Monday, the Philippine military said a German national was believed to be the latest person to be taken hostage. His companion, a woman, was found dead on a yacht abandoned on a remote island in the Sulu archipelago, an Abu Sayyaf stronghold.The Abu Sayyaf is holding another 15 captives, including a Netherlands citizen, five Malaysians, two Indonesians and seven Filipinos.REUTERS SW NS1721 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0101-1017098.Xml
Lawyers for president-elect Donald Trump today will head to court for a hearing pitting the future leader of the United States against a group of students who say they were defrauded by one of his businesses. The 2010 lawsuit, one of three over the defunct Trump University venture, was filed on behalf of students who say they were lured by false promises to pay up to $35,000 to learn Trump's real estate investing "secrets" from his "hand-picked" instructors. Trump owned 92 percent of Trump University and had control over all major decisions, the students' court papers say. The president-elect denies the allegations and has argued that he relied on others to manage the business. Trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 28. Trump's attorneys will try to convince a San Diego federal judge that jurors should not hear about statements Trump made during the campaign, including about the judge overseeing the case. Trump attacked US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel as biased against him. He claimed Curiel, who was born in Indiana but is of Mexican descent, could not be impartial because of Trump's pledge to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Trump's lawyers argue that Curiel should bar accusations about Trump's personal conduct, including alleged sexual misconduct and comments about the case or court, from the trial, along with speeches, tweets, tax issues, the Donald J. Trump Foundation controversies, beauty pageants and bankruptcies. In addition, the celebrity-businessman's lawyers want to exclude evidence of instructors involved in bankruptcy proceedings, and the Better Business Bureau's ratings of Trump University, along with complaints it received. Trump's lawyers argue the information is irrelevant to the jury and prejudicial to the case. Lawyers for the students disagree. In court papers, they claim that statements by the former Republican nominee would help jurors as they weigh Trump's credibility and whether he and his venture were deceptive. Curiel is presiding over two cases against Trump and the university. A separate lawsuit by New York's attorney general is pending in that state.REUTERS SW BD1755 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0101-1017154.Xml
Mr Modi was warmly greeted by Japanese officials on his arrival here.

Several agreements, including on civil nuclear cooperation, will be signedduring his visit. Both the leaders are likely to discuss defence cooperation, featuring joint maritime exercises between Japan, India and the US.

The South China Sea issue is expected to feature in the talks.

Mr Modi earlier made a brief stopover in Bangkok, where he paid respectsto revered Thai king Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protractedillness

Mr Modi and Mr Abe will review the entire spectrum of bilateral co-operation. He will have an audience with the Emperor of Japan here tomorrow.

Listed on his itinerary is a visit to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed railway. Mr Modi will be visiting the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where the high speed trains are manufactured.

Mr Modi and Mr Abe will review the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation tomorrow. He will interact with top business leaders from India and Japan to look for ways to further strengthen bilateral trade and investment ties.UNI SD AE RP1910

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A September US air strike in Somalia killed local militia forces and not al Shabaab militants as the Pentagon had initially believed, the US military acknowledged in a draft statement obtained by Reuters.The September 28 strike in Somalia's Galkayo area killed 10 fighters and wounded three others, the statement said. There were no civilian casualties caused by the strike, it said.Somalia's government had requested an explanation from the United States of the strike, which it said had been conducted against forces of the semi-autonomous, northern region of Galmudug.REUTERS PY RAI2245 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1017772.Xml
BEIJING, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- The 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress will be held in Beijing during the second half of 2017, according to a communique released Thursday after a key CPC meeting.

A resolution on convening the 19th CPC National Congress was deliberated and passed at the sixth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee held from Monday to Thursday.

The 19th CPC National Congress is a major event in the political life of the Party and the state, the communique said

The entire Party shall comprehensively implement the spirit of the 18th CPC National Congress, as well as the third, fourth, fifth and sixth plenary sessions of the 18th CPC Central Committee, according to the communique.

In the lead-up to the 19th CPC National Congress, the Party shall rally and lead people of all ethnicities to forge ahead with firm confidence; perform various works of the Party and the state, particularly preparatory work for thought, theories and organization, economic and social development, as well as ideological work; and safeguard social harmony and stability, the communique said.
Gou Haibo, deputy chief of Chinese delegation to COP22 in Marrakech of Morocco, is interviewed by Xinhua News Agency in Marrakech, Morocco, on Nov. 9, 2016. China expects to push forward the existing cooperation on climate changes together with all parties including the United States, said Gou Haibo on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Meng Tao)



MARRAKECH, Morocco, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- China expects to push forward the existing cooperation on climate changes together with all parties including the United States, said Gou Haibo, deputy chief of Chinese delegation to COP22 in Marrakech of Morocco on Wednesday.

Gou told reporters that international mechanism like Paris Agreement is a fruit of the trend in which green and low-carbon development dominates, benefiting general interests of all countries and the international community.

China will uphold a development concept highlighting innovation, coordination, greenness, openness and sharing, said Gou, underlining that China will act positively and forcefully in maintaining the international mechanism, promoting international cooperation, and combating climate change.

He also voiced hope for China and the U.S. to work together in boosting China-U.S. relations so as to better benefit peoples around the world.
TALLINN, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Estonian parliament said Wednesday parliament members expressed no confidence in Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas with 63 votes in favor, 28 votes against and no abstentions.

The no confidence vote came after Roivas refused to resign by 2 p.m. local time (1200 GMT) Wednesday following the proposals made by the coalition partners, the Social Democratic Party and the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union, on Monday evening in which they asked Roivas to resign.

Forty one members of the opposition in the Estonian parliament initiated the vote of no confidence on Monday, said an Estonian parliament press release.

Presented by Kadri Simson of Estonian Center Party Faction, the motion alleged that the Estonian government led by Roivas lacked reasonable tax and economic policy, and therefore it was impossible to bring the economic growth of Estonia out of stagnation.

As for the procedure, the Estonian government led by Roivas resigns upon his resignation. The incumbent Estonian government will continue its activities until a new Estonian government assumes office.

After receiving the letter of resignation of the Estonian government, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid has to appoint a candidate for Prime Minister within 14 days, and give him or her the task to form a new government.
BRUSSELS, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission on Wednesday presented its long-waited proposal introducing changes to the EU's anti-dumping and anti-subsidy legislation against the backdrop of forthcoming changes in the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework.

The move comes one month before the expiration of some provisions under Article 15 of the Protocol on China's accession to the World Trade Organization, due on Dec. 11.

The expiration would require WTO members to end the so-called "analogue country" methodology under which cost data of production in a third country is used to calculate the value of products from China.

In response to the above change, EU legislation would become country-neutral and WTO members will no longer be part of a list of countries subject to the "analogue country" methodology, according to an interpretative document released by the European Commission.

These changes will not lead to any country being granted market economy status, including China.

However, the Commission, the EU's executive arm, left open the option to use "international" price and cost reference in further anti-dumping cases if "market distortion" was found, which could still fall short of its obligation to international trade rules.

"When distortions exist, other benchmarks reflecting undistorted costs of production and sale will be used," it said in the document.

The document said intended changes would concern all WTO members whose economies or certain sectors of the economy are distorted by state intervention.

State interference occurs when a market is, to a significant extent, served by enterprises which operate under the ownership, control or guidance of the authorities of the exporting country, as defined by the European Commission.

Apart from the new methodology for calculating dumping, the European Commission also proposed transitional arrangements for already existing trade defense measures and ongoing investigations.

The new system would only apply to cases initiated upon entry into force of the amended provisions. Any given ongoing anti-dumping investigation at the time of entry into force would remain subject to the existing legislation.

Furthermore, the European Commission has also proposed a strengthening of the EU anti-subsidy legislation so that in future cases, any new subsidies revealed in the course of an investigation can also be investigated and included in the final duties imposed.

"Trade is Europe's best growth lever. But free trade must be fair, and only fair trade can be free," European Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen, responsible for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness, told a press conference.

"More than 30 million jobs in Europe, including 6 million jobs in SMEs, depend on free and fair trade which remains at the heart of EU strategy for jobs and growth," he added.

"The proposal is important because it means that the EU is living up to its WTO commitments," EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said, noting the new method is country neutral and does not grant market economy status to any country.

"Competition is good, but global trade must stick to certain rules. We must make sure that we have an effective and clear rulebook when things go wrong," said Malmstrom.

"We are proposing to modify anti-dumping and anti-subsidy regulation, maintaining a similar level of anti-dumping duty as today." She added.

The proposals will be discussed among EU trade ministers on Friday and EU parliament will soon make a decision, Malmstrom noted.

The proposal was tabled after a routine meeting of EU commissioners earlier the day, and is scheduled to be submitted to other European decision-makers including the European Council and the European Parliament.

Any change to the EU's anti-dumping and anti-subsidy legislation will only become effective once the EU institutions and member states have adopted the proposal.

Beijing has urged Brussels to strictly fulfill its WTO obligation without any additional condition by due time.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry earlier cautioned that Brussels's new anti-dumping rules should not exceed the current standards under the WTO on market distortion, and should not become an excuse for enforcing anti-dumping measures that were against WTO rules.

The ministry also expressed hope that Brussels would avoid sending the wrong signals on trade protectionism.
LONDON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people have been killed and more than 50 injured after a Croydon Tramlink tram overturned in south London, British Transport Police officers announced Wednesday.

The 42-year-old tram driver has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and is currently in police custody. British Transport Police said they were investigating whether he fell asleep.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch said the tram was traveling at a "significantly higher speed than is permitted."

It derailed when rounding a sharp curve with a 12mph (20kph) speed limit on the approach to a junction as it traveled from New Addington to Wimbledon.

Emergency services were called to a tram derailment near Sandilands tram stop at after 06:00 GMT this morning.

Deputy Chief Constable Adrian Hanstock said: "This is a tragic incident and our hearts and thoughts go out to all those affected. When officers arrived on scene this morning, they were met with a complex and challenging situation."

British Transport Police officers are continuing to work at the scene of a major incident in Croydon.

"We expect to be at the scene for at least the next 24 hours, continuing searches and carrying out forensic examinations in support of the investigation into the circumstances, and in order to provide a report for the Coroner," Hanstock said.

He said the police will assess on Thursday how and when it is appropriate to recover the tram and remove it from the tracks.

London Ambulance Service said eight people have serious or life-threatening injuries, while a total of 51 had been taken to two hospitals.

"We have treated a number of patients at the scene, mainly for minor injuries such as cuts and bruises. However, very sadly some people have died and others have suffered serious injuries," said Peter McKenna, deputy Director of Operations at London Ambulance Service.

Wednesday's accident was the greatest loss of life in a British rail accident since seven people were killed and 76 injured when a high-speed train from London came off the tracks at Potters Bar station north of the capital in 2002.
U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) crosses his fingers during a speech to the crowd at an "Election Night event" in Janesville, Wisconsin, U.S. November 8, 2016. (Xinhua/REUTERS)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Republican Party on Wednesday managed to retain control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress, bagging two branches of the U.S. government and eyeing the third.

Republicans went into the Senate race with 54 seats and kept at least 51 in the 100-seat chamber, according to projections from major U.S. TV networks.

The battle for Senate majority, though overshadowed by the Presidential Election, was every bit as heated as many analysts predicted the Democrats to gain a slight margin riding on their presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's healthy poll numbers in several battleground states.

But crucial Republican wins in the states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin saw the Democrat's effort thwarted.

The Republicans had an easier job defending their majority in the House of Representatives, with major U.S. news outlets projecting the GOP to keep 239 seats in the 435 member group.

The Democrats needed to occupy 30 more seats during the election but snatched less spots than expectation.

"It is my hope and intent that we succeed in the years ahead by working together with our colleagues across the aisle to strengthen our national and economic security," said veteran Republican Senator Mitch McConnell.

McConnell, who will serve as the Senate Majority leader, also congratulated fellow Republican Donald Trump, saying "after eight years of the Obama administration, the American people have chosen a new direction for our nation."

After controlling the White House and the U.S. congress, the Republican Party is on course to appoint a conservative Justice in the U.S. Supreme Court, filling in the crucial slot vacated by late Justice Antonin Scalia.

With four Justices appointed by Republican presidents and four appointed by Democrats, the Supreme Court will likely tilt toward conservative values after the new appointment.
by Keren Setton

JERUSALEM, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Republican candidate Donald Trump's surprise victory in the U.S. presidential elections may help ease international pressure on Israel over its long-running conflict with the Palestinians in the future, observers here said.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was careful to not voice an opinion on his favored candidate, the tumultuous relationship with the administration of Barack Obama, with Hillary Clinton as secretary of state during part of the time, had many Israelis believing the Israeli leader had a clear preference toward Trump.

In recent months, international pressure against Israel has mounted. As Israelis and Palestinians are embroiled in violence on a nearly daily basis and Israeli settlements continuously expand, the international community is growing impatient with the impasse.

Time and again, anti-Israeli resolutions were adopted at international bodies, with Obama staying vocal in his dismay with Israeli policies.

With Trump at the White House, it is seen unlikely that Netanyahu will be pressured to make changes in dealing with the Palestinians.

During his campaign, Trump even promised to overturn decades of U.S. foreign policy by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and moving the U.S. embassy from the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv.

The status of Jerusalem has been one of the core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Israel captured the Palestinian-dominated eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it to west Jerusalem. The annexation is not recognized by the international community.

Naftali Bennet, a key member in Netanyahu's ultra-right coalition, hailed the winning of Trump, saying it means that the "era of a Palestinian state is over."

Trump's win may prompt Obama to act to prevent a huge change in U.S. policy on Palestine, said Alon Liel, a former senior Israeli diplomat and a lecturer at Tel Aviv University.

He said that for Obama, the remaining two months until Trump takes over the oval office may be the golden hour.

"I think the next two months are critical to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process," Liel said. "After seven and a half years of loudly speaking in favor of a Palestinian state and against the settlements, he will leave his mark."

Liel was referring to a possible United Nations Security Council resolution calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the 1967 Middle East War borders.

"My gut feeling is that Obama will not veto it in order to prevent a huge change in the American policy once Trump is in the White House," Liel said. "This is not something that Trump can cancel."

Although the Palestinians and Israelis have not sat at the negotiating table since April 2014, Liel said the prospects now for resumption remain slim.

A lot depends on the final weeks of the Obama administration, he said.

"If there is no UNSC resolution, everything will continue. Israel will do nothing, and continue with the settlements," Liel said. "Nobody will even ask America to stop it."

"What this victory is doing is that it puts everything in Israel's hands. The world can declare. The world can state, but we will have four years, where there will be no one phone call screaming from the White House to Jerusalem," Liel said.

"I don't see the possibility of a peace process," he said, noting that as Israeli settlements expand, a viable Palestinian state will be more difficult to establish.

It remains to be seen whether Trump will oppose this together with the international community or he will be indifferent to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, letting it manage itself.

In a column posted on the Nana news website, political analyst Moav Vardi said Netanyahu can be "calm" about the Palestine issue, but on other issues Netanyahu "does not know what to expect."
Volunteers take part in an event against HIV/AIDS along Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics, August 5, 2016. (Xinhua/REUTERS)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Immunotherapy has been considered a potentially promising for many different kinds of cancer, and now there is fresh hope that the same method could be used to treat or functionally cure HIV, U.S. researchers said Wednesday.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, examined a total of 24 chronically HIV-infected participants in clinical trials conducted at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

It found injections of one broadly neutralizing HIV antibody (bNAb), known as VRC01, were safe, generated high levels of the antibody and modestly delayed the time of HIV viral rebound, but suppression did not surpass eight weeks in the majority of participants.

Senior author Pablo Tebas, director of the AIDS Clinical Trials Unit at Penn, said the study only looked at one antibody and they believe combinations of more potent bNAbs may help successfully control the AIDS virus.

As a result, this method marks a first step toward the ultimate goal of durable suppression of HIV in the absence of antiretroviral therapy, Tebas said.

"For the near future, it is unlikely that we will be able to fully eradicate HIV once a person has been infected. But a functional cure is a reasonable intermediate goal," he said in a statement.

A functional HIV cure means that while the virus would still exist in a person's body in extremely small amounts, virus replication would be durably suppressed, disease progression drastically slowed, and symptoms of infection stopped -- all without the need for daily medications.

"The goal of immunotherapy is to eliminate the need to take a pill every single day while simultaneously chipping away at the latent reservoir of virus-infected cells. However, we are still years away from that goal. And even if a person is able to be functionally cured of HIV, long-term follow-up will be essential to ensure that the virus doesn't return to high levels," Tebas said.

But many participants were also found to have HIV that was resistant to the bNAb long before they entered the trial.

The researchers identified this pre-existing resistance as a barrier to effective antibody-based immunotherapy.

Currently, most people living with HIV take a once-daily combination of antiretroviral therapy, which prolongs life expectancy and improves overall health, but cannot completely eradicate the virus.

However, adherence to a daily HIV medication continues to be a challenge for many people living with HIV, especially in resource-limited settings, and the vast majority of people living with HIV would experience rapid rebound if antiretroviral therapy is stopped or interrupted.
People watch flag-raising ceremony at the U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba, Aug. 14, 2015. (Xinhua/Liu Bin)

By Raimundo Urrechaga

HAVANA, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The shocking electoral victory by Republican candidate, Donald Trump, who will assume the U.S. presidency early next year has impacted Cubans. Many seem skeptical of the future policy the billionaire will take towards the island, fearing he will reverse Washington's historical opening.

In every corner and bus stop of Havana, Cubans debated the major upset against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton after a controversial and scandalous campaign.

"It was the American people who decided and that is what really surprises me. After so many criticisms, offensive comments against women, blacks and Hispanics, over 55 million U.S. citizens voted for Trump and he won," Barbara Feijo, a private worker, told Xinhua.

Many Cubans now fear Trump will reverse President Barack Obama's opening-up to the island and that the few economic improvements seen since the December 2014 detente will be stripped away.

Cuba has seen a surge in tourism over the last year and hundreds of business executives from all over the world, including the U.S., have visited the island to expand commercial ties.

"Trump's victory has many interpretations regarding U.S.-Cuba ties. He can continue Obama's policy of engagement or simply eliminate what both nations have achieved in the last two years," said Carlos San Martin, a young Cuban construction worker.

The billionaire promised to reverse Obama's policy, unless Cuban president Raul Castro agrees to "more political freedom" on the island, something Havana has rejected.

Trump believes Obama's new Cuba policy is "weak" and he will seek a "better deal" that benefits Washington.

During the campaign, Clinton vowed to continue Obama's "engagement policy" towards Cuba and said the economic blockade on the island must be lifted by Congress.

"Only time will tell and hopefully everything that Trump said about reversing Washington's new policy towards Cuba was part of an electoral strategy. We all anticipate he doesn't return to a strategy that failed for over 50 years," said San Martin.

The Cuban phalanx attends the military parade in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 3, 2015. (Xinhua/Pan Yulong)

On Wednesday, the Cuban government announced the launch of five days of nationwide military exercises between November 16 and 20 to prepare troops to confront "a range of enemy actions."

Havana did not link the drills to Trump's U.S. presidential victory and neither has it expressed an official government position, regarding the billionaire's win at the polls.

"Trump is a businessman with great power and very radical positions regarding important U.S. foreign policy issues. We still have to see if he acts like a businessman or a political extremist regarding Cuba," Noelia Martinez, a retired Havana resident, told Xinhua.

Many believe the coming months could be vital in determining Trump's position towards the island but the news of his victory hit hard among ordinary people who see it as a return to the past.

Trump called on Americans early Wednesday to come together as a united people, and promised to reach out to voters that had not supported him.

In a nail-biting contest throughout the night, Trump was able to pull a winning margin in many of the crucial swing states, including Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, and was even able to snatch previously Democratic-leaning states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
MANILA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to stop picking a fight with the United States, saying Donald Trump has been elected as president.

In a speech before the Filipino community in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Duterte said, "I said I don't want to pick fight because Trump is there."

"I would like to congratulate President Trump. Long live! We have something in common. We are alike because we both curse easily," Duterte added.

Duterte is in Kuala Lumpur for an overnight official visit.

During the campaign early this year, Duterte has been likened to Trump and even earned the nickname "Trump of the East" for his style that many say is similar to Trump.

Both leaders are septuagenarians and managed to win the votes of millions even if they did not have occupied national positions.

Duterte, 71, was a former mayor of a southern Philippine city of Davao while Trump, 70, was a billionaire, real estate developer-turned reality television star with no government experience.

Political analyst Ramon Casiple said both leaders "think out of the box," adding that they could probably get along better than outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama.

He predicted that Trump's victory could usher in a new beginning in the U.S.-Philippines relations.

Duterte has hurled expletive-laced remarks against Obama and the United States for criticizing his campaign against drug users and pushers, which has reportedly left 4,000 suspects dead.
By Matt Goss

CANBERRA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Foreign Minister said the country will turn its focus towards an economic partnership with China and other Asian countries in place of a free-trade agreement with the United States after Donald Trump's election win.

Julie Bishop, Australia's Foreign Minister, said if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation regional free trade agreement, should fail then Australia would turn its attention to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Bishop said Trump's approach to world affairs resembled that of a "classic isolationist or protectionist" at a time when Asia-Pacific nations were looking for greater U.S. leadership.

"We are hopeful that the Obama administration, through President Obama, can pass the TPP (before Trump takes office in January)," Bishop told News Limited on Thursday.

"We see the TPP as an important economic manifestation of the United States' presence in our region.

"Should the TPP not go ahead, then the vacuum that would be created is most likely to be filled by RCEP, the free-trade agreement that comprises ASEAN countries, China, Australia and others at its core."

Australian trade experts have conceded that it is increasingly unlikely that incumbent President Barack Obama will be able to pass the TPP through Congress before he vacates the White House.

Opposition to the TPP, which took seven years to negotiate, was a centerpiece of Trump's campaign.

Bob Carr, Australia's former Foreign Minister, said any hope of Obama pushing the legislation through in the "lame duck" sitting of Congress before Trump is swore in was "doomed."

Former Australian ambassador to Washington, Michael Thawley, said the world was "at the end of an era" in managing global strategic stability and urged Australia to play a more purposeful and muscular role in international relations.

"It might be a rockier period with (Donald) Trump ... but a major transition is inevitable," Thawley told News Limited.

"We should not get hysterical, just decide how best Australia can encourage and help the US maintain the global balance. That balance will continue to be the decisive underpinning of economic growth in our region especially."
BUJUMBURA, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Burundian ruling party is eying more cooperation with the United States, its party chief Evariste Ndayishimiye said Wednesday at a press conference.

"We hope that new leaders of the United States will know the real and objective situation of Burundi," said Ndayishimiye, secretary general of the Burundian ruling party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD).

Wednesday's victory of Donald Trump as the new U.S. president is a "sign of hope" for the two countries, he said, adding that "it will be an opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Burundi and the United States."

Ndayishimiye congratulated Trump on his election and commended the behavior of Trump's opponent Hilary Clinton, who accepted her defeat in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

"We have drawn a lesson from the U.S. elections. The winner and the loser remain citizens of the same country after all. Burundians should also know that if they lose elections, they do not lose their citizenship," he said.

Earlier, Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza welcomed Trump's election as the U.S. president.

"On behalf of the people of Burundi, we warmly congratulate you. Your victory is the victory of all Americans," said Nkurunziza on Twitter.

Meanwhile, political analyst Julien Nimubona pointed out the policy of Republicans is slightly different from that of Democrats.

"Republicans focus on the U.S. internal economy and protecting U.S. interests in other countries. When U.S. interests are endangered, a fight can take place," he said.

Nimubona then said he believes that Trump will appoint successful collaborators who will advise him to adequately rule the country.
LA PAZ, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Women in regions of Bolivia affected by Zika virus should delay pregnancies to avoid microcephaly cases in newborns, recommended the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on Wednesday.

Fernando Leanes, PAHO representative in Bolivia, said at a press conference that it was one of several advised measures to avoid the proliferation of microcephaly cases.

"The epidemic of Zika, from what we have seen in other countries, will have a rise and fall in Bolivia. Therefore, there are options such as delaying the decision to get pregnant in areas where Zika is spreading. This will avoid the dreaded microcephaly and the complications it represents," explained Leanes.

He warned people against the "relatively low" probability that a pregnant woman contracting Zika will lead to microcephaly in her child. In order to avoid this, he urged authorities to provide contraceptives, adding that the virus can also be sexually transmitted.

Leanes also called for buildings to be cleaned to eliminate potential breeding grounds for the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

According to a report released on Nov. 1, Bolivia registered the first three births of babies with microcephaly due to Zika in the province of Santa Cruz.

The province has seen 127 cases of Zika, including 57 pregnant women, of which 41 have given birth, with three fetuses confirmed with malformation.
SEOUL, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans are expected to rally during the upcoming weekend to demand President Park Geun-hye's resignation over scandal involving her longtime confidante and former aides.

A private association aiming to let President Park step down, which is composed of about 1,500 civic groups, announced a plan to hold a massive rally in a city hall square in central Seoul this Saturday.

It would be the third weekend protest since the scandal over the president's decades-long friend, Choi Soon-sil, came into focus last month. Choi, who has been placed under custody, is charged with meddling in state affairs behind the scenes and peddling undue influence for personal gains.

Police estimates 160,000-170,000 protesters would attend the rally. Organizers said at least 500,000 would turn out, according to Yonhap news agency report on Thursday. Last Saturday, about 200,000 marched in Seoul to demand the embattled president's resignation.

This Saturday, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of the country's two umbrella labor union groups, expected to bring at least 100,000 unionists and supporters to the square.

Voluntary participants, including couples, families and students as seen in last Saturday's protest, are expected to peak in number. Three main opposition party members vowed to join the rally.
YANGON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar is formulating a new anti-drug policy to allow opportunity to remedy and mete out punishment, official media reported Thursday.

The new policy is being drawn from the development and health perspectives, Police Col Zaw Lin Tun was quoted as saying.

Deterrent action against the drug traffickers will be taken, while meting out punishment on the drug abusers, Zaw Lin Tun told the 8th Asian Informal Drug Policy Dialogue Initiative meeting held in collaboration with Myanmar's Central Committee for Drug Abuse.

The new narcotics control policy will be made public in April 2017 after government approval, he added.

Myanmar burned over 56 million U.S. dollars worth of seized narcotic drugs across the country including Yangon, Mandalay, Nay Phi Taw and Taunggyi in June.

The country has extended its drug elimination plan from 2014-2015 to 2018-2019 to fight against drug.

Meanwhile, over 700 drug- related cases included those of trading of opium, Yaba pills and other illegal chemical substances, were exposed in Myanmar's Yangon region in the first eight months of this year under a rule-of-law program of the police.

A total of 993 offenders including 100 women in connection with the cases were arrested.
LONDON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The first Chinese firearm with an imperial reign mark ever to be offered at auction sold for 1.985 million pounds (2.5 million U.S. dollars), the auction house Sotheby's London announced in a statement on Wednesday.

The gun -- a brilliantly designed and exquisitely crafted musket, produced in imperial workshops -- was created for the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty, arguably the greatest collector and patron of the arts in Chinese history.

Estimated at 1 million to 1.5 million pounds (1.33 million to 1.99 million dollars), the firearm ignited a 10-minute bidding battle before finally selling to an Asian private collector.

"This gun ranks as one of the most significant Chinese treasures ever to come to auction. Today's result will be remembered alongside landmark sales of other extraordinary objects that epitomize the pinnacle of imperial craftsmanship during the Qing dynasty," said Robert Bradlow, senior director of Chinese Works of Art, Sotheby's London in a statement to Xinhua.

"Over the last 10 years we've seen the market for historical Chinese works of art go from strength to strength, with collectors drawn from across the globe and exceptional prices achieved whether the sale is staged in London, Hong Kong or New York," he added.

The musket bears not only the imperial reign mark on top of its barrel, but in addition, incised on the breech of the barrel are four Chinese characters which denote the gun's peerless ranking -- "Supreme Grade, Number One." This exceptional grading makes it unique amongst the known extant guns from imperial workshops, and asserts its status as one of the most important firearms produced for Emperor Qianlong.

According to Sotheby's London, the advent of Western firearm technology sparked the production of muskets in imperial workshops, and this modern mode of weaponry had unquestionable advantages over the traditional bow and arrow for hunting.

Using only the most luxurious materials, imperial muskets were created in very small numbers for Emperor Qianlong. While the Emperor is unlikely ever to have held a gun in battle, he would regularly hunt with a musket.

The auction house said the Supreme Number One is closely related to six celebrated, named imperial Qianlong muskets in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, which appear to correspond with seven muskets listed in the Qing work, Collected Statutes of the Qing Dynasty with Illustrations. These guns were probably graded in the same way as the Supreme Number One, but with lower grade and/or number ("Supreme Grade, Number Two", "Top Grade, Number 2").

Revered as one of the most powerful "Sons of Heaven," Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) was the longest-lived and de-facto longest-reigning emperor in Chinese history (1736-1795).
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (3rd L Front) inspects the guard of honor in a farewell ceremony held for him at the airport in Moscow, Russia, Nov. 9, 2016. Li returned to Beijing on Wednesday after paying official visits to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Russia. (Xinhua/Zhang Duo)

MOSCOW, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday concluded its week-long Eurasian trip with a series of proposals to promote regional cooperation between China and the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries as well as among members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Li's proposals mark China's efforts to inject new impetus into regional cooperation, showing the importance China attaches to the role of regional mechanisms as well as its determination to enhance cooperation and safeguard regional peace and stability.

Observers hold that China has developed a pattern of regional cooperation different from those by the West, which better meets the interests of the countries concerned, rendering it a comparative advantage in carrying out more mutually beneficial and win-win regional cooperation.

SIX-PRONGED PROPOSAL TO SPEED UP SCO DEVELOPMENT

The SCO represents a new type of regional cooperation initiatives that takes into full consideration the realities of relevant countries with an aim to realize mutual benefits on the basis of equality, said Sun Zhuangzhi, secretary-general of the SCO Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Fifteen years after its founding, the China-initiated SCO has borne rich fruits in trade, security cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, said Sun, adding that in the Central Asian region, the SCO role has proved irreplaceable in maintaining stability and significant to driving growth.

During the 15th SCO Prime Ministers' Meeting held in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, Li made a six-pronged proposal to enhance cooperation within SCO in a wide range of fields including security, economic development and production capacity.

On security, the Chinese premier urged all members to observe a concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, suggesting deepening information exchanges and cooperation in law enforcement so as to ensure the security of peoples, institutions, enterprises and personnel of SCO members.

As for the alignment of their development strategies, Li called for more efforts to promote the coordination and dovetailing of economic policies, citing the growing synergy between China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) as an example.

As to enhancing production capacity cooperation, Li said China is ready to join efforts to make this a pillar of regional trade cooperation. Major cooperation projects, including a power plant in Uzbekistan, an oil refinery in Kyrgyzstan, a cement plant in Tajikistan and a China-Uzbekistan industrial park, are carrying on smoothly, Li added.

Li added that China is ready to smooth e-commerce customs clearance, strengthen logistics support, and strengthen cooperation in environmental technology and building green economies.

Regarding regional financing, the Chinese premier urged all member states to take full use of regional platforms like the SCO Interbank Consortium, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund and the BRICS New Development Bank, among others.

For people-to-people exchanges, Li pledged more scholarships for SCO members to study in China.

For their parts, leaders of SCO member states vowed to maintain regional security and stability and propel regional economic cooperation.

ADDING FRESH IMPETUS TO CHINA-CEE TIES

China and the CEE have developed a pattern of regional cooperation that is different from those led by the West. CEE countries have witnessed tangible benefits from their relations with China and showed growing interest in further boosting ties.

During his stay in Latvia, Li and CEE leaders agreed to increase people-to-people exchanges in a bid to strengthen ties.

Cooperation between China and the CEE countries, dubbed the "16+1 cooperation", has maintained sound growth over the past four years, becoming a new, important engine for China-Europe ties, said ambassador Yang Yanyi, head of the Chinese Mission to the European Union (EU).

She said the "16+1 cooperation", a platform jointly created in April 2012 by China and CEE countries to deepen ties, complements the China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership.

China, the world's second-largest economy, and the CEE countries, many of them emerging markets seeking foreign investment to upgrade local infrastructure, are highly complementary.

To find synergy between China's enterprises and investors wishing to "go global" and the CEE countries where demands for inbound investment are steadily rising, will provide new opportunities for the "16+1 cooperation", according to Yang.

The win-win cooperation between China and the 16 CEE countries over the past four years was the result of consultations to meet the interests of all, Yang said, noting that existing projects were mostly CEE-proposed.

The "16+1 cooperation" is increasingly maturing, advancing the China-CEE cooperation in various areas, Yang said, adding that the Medium-Term Agenda for Cooperation adopted during last year's China-CEE summit in Suzhou, has set the roadmap for future cooperation.

CONSTRUCTIVE ROLE IN PROMOTING REGIONAL COOPERATION

Besides the SCO and China-CEE, China is also playing a constructive role in many other international bodies, such as the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries as well as the summit between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Last month in Macao, Premier Li put forward 18 new measures to boost relations with Portuguese-speaking countries (PSCs) in the next three years.

China will provide at least 4 billion yuan (almost 600 million U.S. dollars) in aid and preferential loans to PSCs in Asia and Africa, Li said.

At least half of the aid is intended to help develop agriculture, facilitate trade and investment, prevent and control malaria, and conduct research on traditional medicine in these countries. The other half in preferential loans is largely for infrastructure development.

China has also pledged more medical teams, training programs and government scholarships, as well as help in building marine meteorological facilities to respond to disasters and climate change.

As for cooperation between China and ASEAN, China has vowed to form tight-knit ties with Southeast Asian nations.

"If we say the past 25 years were a period of growth for the China-ASEAN relations, the upcoming 25 years will be a period of maturity, facing new opportunities as well as new challenges," Premier Li told the 19th China-ASEAN summit in September.

China established a dialogue relationship with ASEAN in 1991. It was the first country to ink the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, to become ASEAN's strategic partner, to voice support for the protocol of the treaty of Southeast Asia nuclear weapon free zone, and to start free trade negotiations with ASEAN.

"With full consideration of the reality on the ground of all countries, China is striving to achieve mutual benefits with them, especially those smaller ones through those cooperation," said Sun.
British Prime Minister Theresa May (R) meets with Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai in London Nov. 9, 2016. Britain remains "open for business" and committed to maintaining the "Golden Era" relations with China, Theresa May said on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

LONDON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Britain remained "open for business" and committed to maintain the "Golden Era" relations with China, British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday.

Meeting a delegation headed by Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai in London for the eighth China-Britain Economic and Financial Dialogue, May noted the dialogue is an important part of the China-Britain relations.

May said the British people will build a truly global Britain that is open for business as the country is leaving the European Union. She also expected more Chinese enterprises to invest in Britain.

Ma said that during May's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Hangzhou earlier this year, the two leaders agreed that their countries have entered a period of "Golden Era" relations.

The year 2017 will mark the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Britain, Ma noted. China is willing to work with Britain to further promote political mutual trust, pragmatic cooperation, and the development of "a global comprehensive strategic partnership for the 21st century" between the two countries.

Ma stressed that members of the World Trade Organization are obligated to fulfill the "Protocol on the Accession of the People's Republic of China to the World Trade Organization."

China hopes that Britain will take a fair position on the issue and pushes for fulfilling its obligations neatly and cleanly in due time, Ma added.

Ma traveled to Britain to co-chair the eighth China-Britain Economic and Financial Dialogue with British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond. He is also going to attend the fourth China-France High-Level Economic and Financial Dialogue in France.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (7th L) poses for a group photo with other leaders at the 15th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) prime ministers' meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Nov. 3, 2016. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

MOSCOW, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday concluded its week-long Eurasian trip with a series of proposals to promote regional cooperation between China and the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries as well as among members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Li's proposals mark China's efforts to inject new impetus into regional cooperation, showing the importance China attaches to the role of regional mechanisms as well as its determination to enhance cooperation and safeguard regional peace and stability.

Observers hold that China has developed a pattern of regional cooperation different from those by the West, which better meets the interests of the countries concerned, rendering it a comparative advantage in carrying out more mutually beneficial and win-win regional cooperation.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (C) attends the 15th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) prime ministers' meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Nov. 3, 2016. (Xinhua/Zhang Duo)

SIX-PRONGED PROPOSAL TO SPEED UP SCO DEVELOPMENT

The SCO represents a new type of regional cooperation initiatives that takes into full consideration the realities of relevant countries with an aim to realize mutual benefits on the basis of equality, said Sun Zhuangzhi, secretary-general of the SCO Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Fifteen years after its founding, the China-initiated SCO has borne rich fruits in trade, security cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, said Sun, adding that in the Central Asian region, the SCO role has proved irreplaceable in maintaining stability and significant to driving growth.

During the 15th SCO Prime Ministers' Meeting held in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, Li made a six-pronged proposal to enhance cooperation within SCO in a wide range of fields including security, economic development and production capacity.

On security, the Chinese premier urged all members to observe a concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, suggesting deepening information exchanges and cooperation in law enforcement so as to ensure the security of peoples, institutions, enterprises and personnel of SCO members.

As for the alignment of their development strategies, Li called for more efforts to promote the coordination and dovetailing of economic policies, citing the growing synergy between China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) as an example.

As to enhancing production capacity cooperation, Li said China is ready to join efforts to make this a pillar of regional trade cooperation. Major cooperation projects, including a power plant in Uzbekistan, an oil refinery in Kyrgyzstan, a cement plant in Tajikistan and a China-Uzbekistan industrial park, are carrying on smoothly, Li added.

Li added that China is ready to smooth e-commerce customs clearance, strengthen logistics support, and strengthen cooperation in environmental technology and building green economies.

Regarding regional financing, the Chinese premier urged all member states to take full use of regional platforms like the SCO Interbank Consortium, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund and the BRICS New Development Bank, among others.

For people-to-people exchanges, Li pledged more scholarships for SCO members to study in China.

For their parts, leaders of SCO member states vowed to maintain regional security and stability and propel regional economic cooperation.

Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis holds a welcome ceremony for Chinese Premier Li Keqiang before their talks in Riga, Latvia, Nov. 4, 2016. (Xinhua/Zhang Duo)

ADDING FRESH IMPETUS TO CHINA-CEE TIES

China and the CEE have developed a pattern of regional cooperation that is different from those led by the West. CEE countries have witnessed tangible benefits from their relations with China and showed growing interest in further boosting ties.

During his stay in Latvia, Li and CEE leaders agreed to increase people-to-people exchanges in a bid to strengthen ties.

Cooperation between China and the CEE countries, dubbed the "16+1 cooperation", has maintained sound growth over the past four years, becoming a new, important engine for China-Europe ties, said ambassador Yang Yanyi, head of the Chinese Mission to the European Union (EU).

She said the "16+1 cooperation", a platform jointly created in April 2012 by China and CEE countries to deepen ties, complements the China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership.

China, the world's second-largest economy, and the CEE countries, many of them emerging markets seeking foreign investment to upgrade local infrastructure, are highly complementary.

To find synergy between China's enterprises and investors wishing to "go global" and the CEE countries where demands for inbound investment are steadily rising, will provide new opportunities for the "16+1 cooperation", according to Yang.

The win-win cooperation between China and the 16 CEE countries over the past four years was the result of consultations to meet the interests of all, Yang said, noting that existing projects were mostly CEE-proposed.

The "16+1 cooperation" is increasingly maturing, advancing the China-CEE cooperation in various areas, Yang said, adding that the Medium-Term Agenda for Cooperation adopted during last year's China-CEE summit in Suzhou, has set the roadmap for future cooperation.

Photo of a high-speed railyway across the field. (Xinhua)

CONSTRUCTIVE ROLE IN PROMOTING REGIONAL COOPERATION

Besides the SCO and China-CEE, China is also playing a constructive role in many other international bodies, such as the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries as well as the summit between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Last month in Macao, Premier Li put forward 18 new measures to boost relations with Portuguese-speaking countries (PSCs) in the next three years.

China will provide at least 4 billion yuan (almost 600 million U.S. dollars) in aid and preferential loans to PSCs in Asia and Africa, Li said.

At least half of the aid is intended to help develop agriculture, facilitate trade and investment, prevent and control malaria, and conduct research on traditional medicine in these countries. The other half in preferential loans is largely for infrastructure development.

China has also pledged more medical teams, training programs and government scholarships, as well as help in building marine meteorological facilities to respond to disasters and climate change.

As for cooperation between China and ASEAN, China has vowed to form tight-knit ties with Southeast Asian nations.

"If we say the past 25 years were a period of growth for the China-ASEAN relations, the upcoming 25 years will be a period of maturity, facing new opportunities as well as new challenges," Premier Li told the 19th China-ASEAN summit in September.

China established a dialogue relationship with ASEAN in 1991. It was the first country to ink the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, to become ASEAN's strategic partner, to voice support for the protocol of the treaty of Southeast Asia nuclear weapon free zone, and to start free trade negotiations with ASEAN.

"With full consideration of the reality on the ground of all countries, China is striving to achieve mutual benefits with them, especially those smaller ones through those cooperation," said Sun.
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian officials and analysts have showed suspicion on the prospect of the U.S. - led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) following the astonishing victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election.

During his campaign, Trump has publicly objected the trade deal, which involves Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Malaysian parliament approved TPP and the government has promised to ratify it by 2018.

Mustapa Mohamed, Malaysia's International Trade and Industry Minister who led the negotiations, was quoted as saying by local media on Thursday that the agreement would fail without the participation of the world's biggest economy, and that might affect Malaysia's economy.

Oh Ei Sun, an analyst at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, told the local Malay Mail that the chances of the TPP being implemented would be slim even if Democrat Hillary Clinton was elected considering her objection.

Some officials and analysts are putting the hope on the outgoing U.S. president Barack Obama to put through TPP at the remaining of his tenure.

Trump's surprising victory sent waves across the global financial markets. The Malaysian ringgit fell to nine-month low against the greenback.

The central bank said it was closely monitoring the market situation and ensures that liquidity remains ample to support an orderly market.
BALI, INDONESIA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China's Vice Minister for Public Security Meng Hongwei was elected here on Thursday as President of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).

He is the first Chinese official to take the post.

Meng Hongwei took over the position from his predecessor Mireille Ballestrazzi from France after being elected at the closing ceremony of Interpol's 85th General Assembly.

The President of the Interpol heads its Executive Committee and is elected by the General Assembly for a period of four years. As the new president of the organization, Meng's duty includes chairing meetings of the Executive Committee which ensures the implementation of decisions made at the General Assembly.

During his speech, Meng promised to work together with all member states of Interpol to build the international group into a stronger platform for global police cooperation.

According to Meng, he will promote more effective global police cooperation, better support the capacity-building efforts of police in all member countries, improve the coordination among regional and global police forces with a view to building a safer world and a more efficient Interpol that is beneficial for all member states.

Founded in 1914 and now headquartered in Lyon, France, Interpol is the second largest international organization after the United Nations with 190 members.

By establishing I-24/7 global police communications system, a large scale database for stolen and lost travel documents, and coordinating global and regional joint law enforcement operations on regular basis, Interpol has played an important role in deepening global police cooperation and combating transnational criminal offences.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) became a member state of Interpol in September 1984. Since then, PRC has been committed to developing practical and effective cooperation with Interpol in all aspects. The 86th General Assembly of Interpol will be held in China in 2017.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee has highlighted the significance of the election of delegates to the Party's 19th National Congress in an interview with Xinhua.

The department said that the 19th CPC National Congress will not only take stock of work done in the five years leading up to the meeting, but also set a future direction for the Party and the state, as well as elect new central leadership.

Electing capable delegates to the 19th CPC National Congress is crucial to a successful national congress, as the political integrity, capability and the overall mix of delegates have direct bearing on the quality of consultation and decision making, it added.

During the congress, delegates will hear and examine reports from the CPC Central Committee and the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), express the voices of Party members and the general public, discuss and decide on major issues of the Party, as well as elect a new central committee of the CPC and a new CCDI.

Election of delegates to the 19th CPC National Congress is an important approach and format for Party members to execute democratic rights and participate in intra-Party political life, in line with the principle of democratic centralism, according to the department.

In electing delegates, priority will be placed on the political soundness of candidates. "Candidates' beliefs, political integrity and moral qualities should be emphasized," the department said.

All candidates will be subject to anti-graft screening to prevent any questionable candidate being nominated, it added.

The quota of delegates from the front line of workers, farmers and professionals will be increased; and model workers, farmers and professionals will be recommended for election, according to the department.

Also, the election will feature a strong emphasis on discipline and rules, and a zero-tolerance attitude will be adopted against breaches of disciplines and rules, the department said, adding that the election fraud cases in Liaoning Province, Hengyang in Hunan Province, and Nanchong in Sichuan province should be used to alert people against misconduct.

Moreover, intra-Party democracy must be carried forward with all grassroot Party organizations and members mobilized to recommend and nominate candidates.

The Central Committee of the CPC on Wednesday released guidelines for the election of delegates to the Party's 19th National Congress, marking the beginning of the election process.
WELLINGTON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand will use the country's UN Security Council status to address conflicts during talks in the Middle East next week, Foreign Minister Murray McCully said.

McCully said Thursday he would meet with leaders and counterparts in Jordan, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories and attend the Sir Bani Yas Forum in Abu Dhabi.

"New Zealand continues to serve as a member of the United Nations Security Council until the end of the year and we remain focused on doing what we can to help address the current conflicts in the Middle East," McCully said in a statement.

Hosted annually by the United Arab Emirates, the Sir Bani Yas Forum is a high-level retreat and a leading venue for discussing peace and security issues in the Middle East.
By Charles Happell

CANBERRA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government, and national farmers' body, have called on opposition groups to support the new, reduced 'backpacker tax', saying farmers desperately needed help in picking their summer fruit harvest.

A recent Senate report recommended that backpackers - young foreigners visiting Australia on working holidays - should be subject to a 19 percent tax rate, down from the 32 percent rate which currently applies.

The Senate committee urged parliament to pass the 'backpacker tax' legislation at this sitting, in order to maintain Australia's attractiveness to backpackers, and to secure extra harvest labor for farmers.

National Farmers Federation chief executive, Tony Mahar, said on Thursday that, with just three parliamentary sitting weeks left this year, an outcome was time critical. He said the summer harvest would be left to rot unless a deal can be reached soon.

"There are real people and real jobs at stake here particularly with summer crops ready for harvest. A failure to pass the legislation currently before the Senate before the end of the year would create further unnecessary uncertainty for backpackers and agricultural businesses," Mahar said.

"Backpacker workers make up more than a quarter of the national agricultural workforce. In some areas of Australia, that figure is closer to 80 per cent. As uncertainty over this tax lingers, inquiries about farm work are steadily dropping away. This affects our farmers more than any other sector of the economy - and that's not good enough."

The Labor Opposition, One Nation and Tasmanian Senator Jacquie Lambie have proposed an even smaller backpacker tax - of 10.5 per cent - which the government says would put a $500 million hole in the Budget.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Barnaby Joyce, said on Thursday that the 19% backpacker tax was eminently fair and legislation supporting that tax needed to be passed by parliament soon.

"The Senate Committee is confident the reform package will ensure that working holiday makers are paying a fair share of tax and not disadvantaging Australian workers, while retaining Australia as a destination of choice for those workers," Joyce said.

Joyce said backpackers would have more money in their pockets when they work in Australia compared to New Zealand, Canada, or the UK under a 19% tax.

"Our tax position is fully funded and internationally competitive due to our high wage rates, which was also highlighted by NSW Farmers and Cotton Australia in their submissions to the report," he said.

"Not only does Labor's blatantly political game playing add more delays that could see fruit left unpicked on the trees over Christmas; and not only does Labor's proposal leave a $500 million hole in the federal budget, but Labor plans to slap a higher marginal tax rate on Aussie workers than it does on foreign backpackers."

"It was Labor who referred the reform package to the Senate Economics Committee for review, the committee has reported and it is now up to Labor to stop picking at the scab and playing games with peoples' livelihoods."

Usually employed on a casual basis, backpackers help farmers pick seasonal harvests of grapes, cherries, blueberries, melons, apples and bananas, mainly in Australia's eastern states.
MOSCOW, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China (CPC) highlighting the need for strengthening intra-party discipline was absolutely timely under changing and not always favorable conditions, a Russian scholar said.

Held on Oct. 24 to Oct. 27, the sixth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee adopted decisions on further strengthening intra-party discipline.

"In the new situation, the role of the ruling party as a generator of strategic development plans and a managing force of the giant country increases," Yuri Tavrovsky, a professor with the People's Friendship University of Russia, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

The situation is changing in the Chinese economy, in the world markets, as well as in the world as a whole.

While achieving unprecedented success in the process of "reform and opening up," some party functionaries established corrupt connections with business structures under their control, Tavrovsky said.

Such relations are unacceptable, the expert believes, as they hamper the transformation of the economy, and poison the environment in the society.

In a global market, a growing number of China's competitors have increased output of cheaper products which require less expensive technologies, he said.

He cited the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as an example, saying this is "an ambitious and potentially dangerous plan" for China as it aims for the reorientation of financial and trade flows.

On the borders of China, military provocations in the South China Sea have been taking a systemic nature, with the United States expanding its military presence on the Korean peninsula and Japan exploring new areas closer to China.

"These new situations require efficient work of the ruling party of China," he noted.

Today, the role of the CPC is that of "the brain of the nation and its nervous system," the Russian expert said. "The brain of the party should work impeccably, while the nervous system has to react to the signals sent by brain instantly and accurately."

The lack of discipline and, especially, corruption at any point in any component of the party organism is fraught with the most serious consequences, Tavrovsky said.

Therefore, the decisions of the plenary session on strengthening the party discipline and improving the system of inner-Party supervision, as well as on systemic fight against corruption, are absolutely timely and necessary, he concluded.
QUITO, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Bilateral ties between China and Ecuador have seen notable growth within the framework of their strategic partnership, and Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to the country will further boost the development of the relations.

At the invitation of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, Peruvian President Pablo Kuczynski and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Xi will pay state visits to the three countries from Nov. 17 to Nov. 23.

During the tour, Xi will also attend the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting from Nov. 19 to Nov. 20 in Peru.

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Guillaume Long told Xinhua, "It is a historic visit, the first time that a president from China visits us, so we are very excited. They (Correa and Xi) met in China, and now, on Ecuadorian soil. It is an honor for us."

Ecuador "hopes the historic visit by a Chinese president...leads to strengthening strategic ties," Long said, adding that "the ties with China in recent years have been very fruitful, very significant."

Ecuador and China established diplomatic ties in 1980. Since Correa came to power in 2007, the South American country has focused on deepening ties with the Asian country.

Correa's first official trip to Beijing took place in the same year, to bolster cooperation in different fields, from energy, science and technology, to economy, trade and education.

In 2015, on his second visit, Correa and Xi agreed to elevate the ties to the level of strategic partnership, signing 14 bilateral agreements in diverse areas.

"The establishment of strategic partnership precisely reflects the level of China-Ecuador relations and will boost the development of the ties," Xi said at the time. Correa has said the relationship "is at its peak."

Such an assessment was echoed by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, when he met Correa in Quito in October.

Wang said that China and Ecuador, with mutual trust and support, have entered a new stage of development and achieved fruitful results in all fields.

China is willing to further enhance the all-round and in-depth development of bilateral relations, he said.

Long said Xi's trip to Quito next week will further cement the ties.

Katalina Barreiro, an expert on international relations at Ecuador's Institute of Advanced National Studies, said that "traditionally, we have been more familiar with Western powers than Eastern powers, but China is a strategic partner at this historic point in time for Latin America and for Ecuador."

China's presence in Ecuador "is palpable and highly useful," Barreiro told Xinhua, speaking highly of "China's successful cooperation" in the aftermath of the powerful earthquake that devastated towns along Ecuador's northern coast on April 16, killing 673 people.

"The most effective cooperation came from China," said Barreiro, referring to the humanitarian aid, including tents, foldaway beds and water purifiers that China donated for the homeless.

The bilateral ties have been propelled forward not just by the exchanges of high-level visits, but also by mutual respect for the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention in domestic affairs.

Milton Reyes, a professor and researcher of Asia-Pacific affairs at the Latin American Integration Association (Aladi), said the two countries "have shared values on the matter of sovereignty," which allows Ecuador to "make its own decisions."

That has also encouraged Correa's government "to seek to elevate the bilateral ties and explore the potential to expand cooperation, access to financial resources, direct investment and the entry of (Ecuadorian) products into the Chinese market," Reyes said.
WELLINGTON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand will host two multinational naval exercises on its coast before carrying out other events in celebration of its navy's 75th anniversary, Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee said Thursday.

The Nga Tahi and Mahi Tangaroa exercises, to be held from Nov. 13 to 16, had been designed to maximize the training opportunity provided by the presence of ships and personnel from at least 15 international navies, Brownlee said in a statement.

The navy detachments arriving for the anniversary event will include the first U.S. Navy ship to visit New Zealand in three decades.

The international naval review in Auckland from Nov. 17 to 22 will also involve a Chinese navy frigate, an Australian frigate and submarine, a Japanese destroyer, a frigate each from Canada and the Republic of Korea, and the USS Sampson, a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.

The review, the biggest event of the celebrations, will start on Nov. 17 with the entry of the multinational fleet into Auckland's Waitemata Harbour.

Peace campaigners have vowed to protest the visits by the USS Sampson and the other visiting naval vessels, saying combat drills off Auckland were the real reason for the U.S. ship visit.

Las month the government had cleared the way for the first visit by a U.S. Navy vessel since a rift formed between the two countries over New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance 32 years ago.

The U.S. froze New Zealand out of defense cooperation after the ban, but the Washington and Wellington declarations of recent years have seen renewed military contacts.
HANOI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Some 1,000 Vietnamese girls aged under 18 are sexually abused each year, local media on Thursday reporting ,quoted statistics from the Vietnamese Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.

Up to 58 percent of Vietnamese women have faced physical, spiritual or sexual violence at least once in their life, daily newspaper Tien Phong (Pioneer) reported.

To help reduce violence against Vietnamese girls and women, the ministry is implementing a month of action for gender equality and gender-based violation prevention and fight. The month lasts from Nov. 15 to Dec. 12.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee has highlighted the significance of the election of delegates to the Party's 19th National Congress in an interview with Xinhua.

The department said that the 19th CPC National Congress will not only take stock of work done in the five years leading up to the meeting, but also set a future direction for the Party and the state, as well as elect new central leadership.

Electing capable delegates to the 19th CPC National Congress is crucial to a successful national congress, as the political integrity, capability and the overall mix of delegates have direct bearing on the quality of consultation and decision making, it added.

During the congress, delegates will hear and examine reports from the CPC Central Committee and the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), express the voices of Party members and the general public, discuss and decide on major issues of the Party, as well as elect a new central committee of the CPC and a new CCDI.

Election of delegates to the 19th CPC National Congress is an important approach and format for Party members to execute democratic rights and participate in intra-Party political life, in line with the principle of democratic centralism, according to the department.

In electing delegates, priority will be placed on the political soundness of candidates. "Candidates' beliefs, political integrity and moral qualities should be emphasized," the department said.

All candidates will be subject to anti-graft screening to prevent any questionable candidate being nominated, it added.

The quota of delegates from the front line of workers, farmers and professionals will be increased; and model workers, farmers and professionals will be recommended for election, according to the department.

Also, the election will feature a strong emphasis on discipline and rules, and a zero-tolerance attitude will be adopted against breaches of disciplines and rules, the department said, adding that the election fraud cases in Liaoning Province, Hengyang in Hunan Province, and Nanchong in Sichuan province should be used to alert people against misconduct.

Moreover, intra-Party democracy must be carried forward with all grassroot Party organizations and members mobilized to recommend and nominate candidates.

The Central Committee of the CPC on Wednesday released guidelines for the election of delegates to the Party's 19th National Congress, marking the beginning of the election process.

A total of 2,300 delegates will be elected by 40 electoral units across the country, according to the guidelines.

The total number of delegates has increased by 30 compared to the number of delegates elected to the 18th CPC National Congress, mainly because CPC membership has increased over the past five years, and the Party wants to include more delegates from the front line of workers, farmers and professionals, the department said.

The CPC now has more than 88 million members across the country.

To better reflect views of Party members and cement public support for the Party, the CPC has increased the quota of delegates from the front line and lowered that of leading CPC officials in the election, according to the department.

Delegates should come from various sectors, such as the economy, science and technology, national defense, and education, as well as from different regional levels, including village, county, city and province, the department said.

Women and those from ethnic groups should take up a proper proportion of the delegates, it added.

Model workers, farmers and professionals should be recommended for election, especially excellent Party members making outstanding contribution to reforms, technological innovation and poverty alleviation, said the department.
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Five people were injured in a shooting in downtown Seattle on Wednesday night, but police said the accident seemed unrelated to nearby protests against President-elect Donald Trump.

The gunshots happened around 7 p.m. local time (0300 GMT) on Third Avenue between Pine and Pike streets while an anti-Trump march was proceeding down nearby streets, local media reported.

Seattle Police Assistant Chief Robert Merner told the press that the shooting was unrelated to the protests at all. "It appears to be some type of personal argument," he said.

The lone suspect, who was in a crowd near or watching the anti-Trump protests, was involved in an argument before walking away and firing back into the crowd at people with whom he was arguing, according to Merner. At least one victim was a bystander.

All the five victims, four males and one female, were taken to hospital and two of them had life-threatening injuries, Seattle Fire Department said on Twitter.

Police are investigating the accident and the shooter remains at large.
NEW YORK, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- There might be some changes in Washington's China policy, but the relations between the two countries are positive in a long term, said a U.S. expert on China on Wednesday.

The election of Donald Trump as new president is going to lead to some changes in U.S. policy toward China, said Stephen A. Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

"I believe in a long term, and look at the horizon, I am optimistic about U.S.-China relations," he told representatives of U.S. students who had studied in China.

Orlins forecast a debate about U.S.-China relations in the next several months, or even several years. He urged those U.S. students who had lived and studied in China to participate in the debate, as they could help Americans who have never gone to China better understand China.
CANBERRA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Australian top government officials on Thursday expressed concern over the passage by the U.S. Congress of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation regional free trade agreement after Donald Trump won the presidential election in the United States Wednesday.

"I'd say that the TPP's U.S. passage is less likely than likely," Steve Ciobo, minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment said to Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) radio.

"Importantly though, across trade, Donald Trump has made it clear that he's a believer in trade that benefits America, that benefits American jobs and American economic growth and helps with their deficit repair. Now those are goals that aren't dissimilar to obviously our trade aspirations here in Australia. We want trade deals that are good for Australia, good for Australian jobs, and good for helping to restore Australia's budget," he said.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said at a press conference in the parliament that he had already had a telephone conversation with Trump, when both men discussed briefly on trade issues including the TPP.

"...on trade, yes we did discuss, briefly, the TPP and I explained why Australia supported its ratification to him," Turnbull said.

When asked about Trump's reaction to Australia's stance, Turnbull said he did not want to quoteTrump. "We agreed that we could refer to the fact that we had the discussion but I think his views on that treaty are pretty well-known."

He stressed that as prime minister, his job is to advocate the interests of Australia.

"We believe the ratification of the TPP is in our national interest. It is in Australia's national interests. We believe it makes, and the argument we have put to the United States is that it is in America's strategic interest to be seen to be the cornerstone of an important trade agreement in our region ..." said Turnbull.

Earlier on Thursday, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said if the TPP fails then Australia would turn its attention to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a 16-nation deal. that comprises the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, China, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.
ATHENS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The French embassy in central Athens was attacked with a grenade on early Thursday, leaving one Greek police officer slightly injured, according to local media reports.

Eye witnesses said that the attack was carried out by two perpetrators on a motorcycle who fled the scene afterwards, which is opposite to the Greek parliament building.

No group has claimed responsibility yet as the police have cordoned off the area seeking clues to locate the attackers.

Greece has suffered from domestic terrorism for decades.

The attack came a few days ahead of the outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Athens on Nov. 15 as part of his Europe tour.
SHENZHEN, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to a high-level international forum on museums, which began Thursday in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province.

Museums, which are important places that protect and pass on human civilizations, as well as bridges that link the past, the present and the future, play a special role in promoting the exchanges and mutual learning of the world's civilizations, Xi said in the letter to the UNESCO High Level Forum on Museums.

Xi said that in recent years, Chinese museums have made continuous progress in the building of facilities, protection and research of collections, exhibitions and granting free admission, as well as in serving the public's needs and promoting cultural exchanges.

Aside from the preservation and recording of Chinese history, museums in China are also witnesses and participants of Chinese people's ongoing efforts to realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, said Xi.

The president called on attendees at the forum to pool their wisdom of managing museums and make contributions to the joint efforts of protecting cultural diversity, promoting understanding among people of different countries and promoting the progress of human civilizations.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Following Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday, reactions poured in from across the world.

Chinese President Xi Jinping:

Both China and the United States bear the special responsibility of maintaining world peace and stability and boosting global development and prosperity; the two share extensive interests.

"I am looking forward to working together with you to expand China-U.S. cooperation in every field, at the bilateral, regional and global levels, on the basis of the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, with differences controlled in a constructive manner, so as to push China-U.S. relations further forward from a new starting point, benefiting the peoples of the two countries and other countries as well," Xi said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin:

Putin "expressed his hope for joint work aimed at steering Russia-U.S. relations out of the crisis, as well as solving pressing issues on the international agenda and searching for efficient responses to global security challenges."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

Ban encouraged the United States to stay true to its "unity in diversity."

"As a founding member of the United Nations and permanent member of the Security Council, the United States is an essential actor across the international agenda," he said, adding that "now more than ever, we must mobilize around the principles and common values of the United Nations Charter."

European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker:

"Only by cooperating closely can the EU and the United States continue to make a difference when dealing with unprecedented challenges."

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg:

"It is important that the trans-Atlantic bond remains strong" and that "U.S. leadership is as important as ever."

Salaheddine Mezouar, president of the 22nd Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22):

Mezouar noted that "we are convinced that all parties will respect their commitments and stay the course in this collective effort," insisting that the presidency of COP22 will continue to pursue progress, particularly with the new U.S. administration.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe:

Abe reminded Trump of the importance of the Asia-Pacific region, saying its peace and stability are "a driving force of the global economy" that also brings peace and prosperity to the United States.

British Prime Minister Theresa May:

The United Kingdom and the United States "are, and will remain, strong and close partners on trade, security and defense." Both countries will build on these ties "to ensure the security and prosperity of our nations in the years ahead."

French President Francois Hollande:

Trump's victory in the U.S. election "opens a period of uncertainty." He called for "a united Europe, capable of making itself heard and of promoting policies wherever its interests or its values are challenged."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel:

Merkel has offered Trump "close cooperation" on the basis of shared trans-Atlantic values, adding that the partnership with the United States "is a foundation stone of German foreign policy."

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern:

Kern believed that Trump would not implement many of the controversial announcements he made during the U.S. presidential election campaign, and that people would have to wait and see what would happen during the Trump administration.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen:

Rasmussen hoped that "the next administration would continue the open and constructive cooperation that has characterized the United States for many years."

Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila:

The election result indicated that Americans were longing for change. It also reflects the uncertainty caused by globalization, he said. Sipila also hoped that Trump would open new doors to resolve, for example, the crisis in Syria.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

"We look forward to working very closely with President-elect Trump, his administration, and with the United States Congress in the years ahead, including on issues such as trade, investment, and international peace and security."

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto:

Pena Nieto and Trump had agreed on a meeting to define the future of bilateral relations. "Our teams should...begin to outline a new work agenda which incorporates topics of common interest, such as security, cooperation and the prosperity of our societies."

Brazilian President Michel Temer:

"We view positively the message of overcoming national divisions and the search of a constructive compromise with all countries, spoken by Donald Trump in his acceptance speech."

Bolivian President Evo Morales:

Morales said he hopes to work with the new administration "against racism, sexism, anti-immigration (and) for the sovereignty of our peoples."

Peruvian Minister of Economy and Finance Alfredo Thorne:

"The markets are very worried...due to an unexpected result. They were waiting for the opposition candidate (Hillary Clinton) but the indicators of Peru are very stable and we have all the instruments to anchor our expectations," he said, adding that "things will be fine, we have all manner of presidents in American history."

The Burundian ruling party chief Evariste Ndayishimiye:

"We hope that new leaders of the United States will know the real and objective situation of Burundi."
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Young people, mostly students, held protests across California on Wednesday after Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, according to media reports.

Shortly after Trump declared his victory, 1,500 to 3,000 people left their dormitories or apartments, protesting against the presidential election results at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

Videos from the scene showed that the students were chanting "not my president" in a march on the UCLA campus.

Republican presidential nominee Trump, 70, won Tuesday's presidential election in the United States and is set to succeed Democratic Barack Obama as the next U.S. president.

"There's nothing destructive...Just students exercising their First Amendment right. We're just monitoring them but they've been fully cooperative," Sgt. Miguel Banuelos of the UCLA Police Department told local media.

"The University of California is proud of being a diverse and welcoming place for students, faculty and staff with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives," according to a statement from UC President Janet Napolitano and the chancellors of UC campuses.

About 200 people demonstrated near Cal State L.A., and about 300 others participated in a peaceful march at UC Irvine, which started at a university shopping center, then moved across the campus.

In downtown Los Angeles, 200 to 300 teenagers and young adults rallied outside the City Hall.

Some property was defaced, including a fence scrawled with graffiti insulting Trump. Some demonstrators chanted "Not my president," and at least one held a sign that stated: "Trump Equals Death", according to City News Service.

Protests also formed in other cities in southern California. At UC Santa Barbara, hundreds marched near the campus shortly after Trump delivered his victory speech, "Not my president." Some of them were waving Mexican flags, worrying about Trump's immigration policy, according to a video posted by the students.

At UC San Diego, an estimated 500 students marched through the La Jolla campus.

Smaller groups were also seen at other University of California campuses and neighborhoods in Davis and at California State University, San Jose.

In northern California, students on Wednesday also spoke out loud their outrage about Trump's victory.

Thousands of Berkeley High School students walked out of class Wednesday morning and pledged to unify, according to posts on social media.

After marching through downtown Berkeley, students used a bullhorn to speak their strong opposition to the Republican president-elect, according to UC Berkeley.

At noon, undocumented UC Berkeley students and their allies, joined by some of the high school crowd, protested again, under a huge banner that read "Undocumented, unafraid."

In Bay Area, hundreds of anti-Trump protesters, who predominantly appeared to be students and other millennials, poured onto streets early Wednesday morning. The protesters blocked freeways, lighted fires and shouted, "Not our president", according to L.A. Times.

The protesters burned Trump effigies and chanted his name with expletives. They also smashed windows and set garbage bins on fire early Wednesday in downtown Oakland.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- High-quality Sunflower oil, wheat flour and organic jam from Russia are no longer the rare, exotic food stuffs they once were. They are now common pantry items in the homes of many Chinese thanks to the significant improvement of economic and trade ties between China and Russia.

China is now Russia's biggest trading partner and an important source of foreign investment, while Russia is one of China's main import sources of energy, electromechanical products and high technology.

In the first half of this year, bilateral trade between China and Russia rose 1.8 percent year on year to 31.72 billion U.S. dollars, official data showed.

During Premier Li Keqiang's official visit to Russia, from Sunday to Tuesday, Li said that China and Russia should capitalize on their complementary advantages, and help promote each other's development, revitalization, and economic transformation.

Regarding trade and investment, Li said the two sides should continue to promote healthy and sustainable development of bilateral economic and trade ties and two-way investment.

Luz Yanin, head of the Institute of the Far East of Russia's Academy of Sciences, said that besides traditional cooperation areas like oil and natural gas, new areas, such as e-commerce, are emerging that will continue to boost bilateral cooperation.

In the first quarter of 2016, Russian cross-border e-commerce totalled about 1.1 billion U.S. dollars with nearly half through Chinese e-commerce platforms. On average, 300,000 parcels were sent daily from China to Russia.

Infrastructure investment is also a highlight of bilateral cooperation, which will further stimulate trade and economic exchanges between China and Russia, said Jia.

Chen Yu, researcher with China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said that one of the opportunities for both nations to deepen their joint work is the development of Russia's Far East, a vast region with abundant resources.

China is willing to work with Russia to synergize the Belt and Road initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

Li Hui, Chinese ambassador to Russia, told Xinhua that the integration would unlock the potential of economic complementarity between China and Russia, and contribute to the economic recovery of the EEU member states as well as benefiting countries along the ancient Silk Road and across Eurasia.

Premier Li's visit to Russia showed that the China-Russia relationship is at its best in history, said Chen.

Bilateral ties will continue to maintain high level as long as the two sides adopt a pragmatic, cooperative approach with mutual benefits, he said.
MANILA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' exports recovered in September, posting 5.1 percent increase year-on-year to 5.211 billion U.S. dollars after 17 months of decline, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Thursday.

Export sales in September last year amounted to 4.960 billion U.S. dollars.

PSA said the increase was attributed to eight major commodities out of the top 10 export commodities for the month. These include other mineral products, electronic equipment and parts, metal components, chemicals, articles of apparel and clothing accessories, ignition wiring set and other wiring sets used in vehicles, aircrafts and ships, electronic products, and other manufactures.

Total merchandise exports from January to September, however, registered a 6.2 percent decrease to 41.691 billion U.S. dollars from 44.460 billion U.S. dollars in the same period of 2015, PSA said.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia expressed optimism that export performance will continue to improve.

"Exports of manufactured products may continue to firm-up in the near term, possibly riding on the growth of the global industry sector, " said Pernia, also director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) which has jurisdiction over PSA.

Most Asian countries also posted positive gains in exports for September, pointing to a recovery in global trade, he noted.

"Recent developments in China and Japan, which are the Philippine's largest trading partners in Asia, provide good prospects for merchandise trade. The steady growth of China's economy is a welcome development, and the Japanese government also appears to be on track in reviving its economy," he added.

Pernia also said that aside from lifting the ban on bananas, China has also announced its intention to buy more high-value commercial crops from the Philippines, like mangoes and coconut, as well as high-end fishery products like lapu-lapu, crabs and tuna.

China ranked the third with 633.36 million U.S. dollars or 12.2 percent share of the total exports in September, next to Japan and the United States, according to PSA.
WELLINGTON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Conservation officials Thursday welcomed the jailing of a U.S. man convicted of illegally trafficking elephant ivory to New Zealand.

Shahram Roohparvar, 61, pleaded guilty in California to falsifying documents to illegally sell and ship elephant ivory to New Zealand man Patrick Cooper.

Roohparvar was sentenced to three months in prison.

Cooper, a natural therapist and carver, admitted five charges, laid by New Zealand's Department of Conservation (DOC), of importing African elephant ivory without a permit.

Cooper was fined 8,000 NZ dollars (5,812 U.S. dollars) in the Napier District Court, on the east of the North Island, in December last year.

Cooper came to the attention of authorities in 2012, when a carved elephant tusk addressed to him was seized at the International Mail Centre in Auckland, said a DOC statement.

DOC and Ministry of Primary Industries staff executed a search warrant at his Napier home and seized further illegally imported pieces of ivory.

The seized ivory was sent to Cooper by Roohparvar, who lives in Saratoga in California.

Roohparvar admitted owning and operating a website through which he sold ivory and other items of protected wildlife, including red coral and leopard skin, to buyers overseas.

DOC senior investigator Dylan Swain, who was involved in prosecuting Cooper, welcomed the sentence imposed on Roohparvar.

"The successful prosecutions of Cooper in New Zealand and Roohparvar in the United States are the result of agencies in both countries working together to police the illegal trade in endangered species," Swain said in the statement.

"New Zealand has a responsibility to help protect threatened wildlife in other countries because we rely on international support to protect our endangered species from being exploited."

Cooper is the second person to be convicted for illegally importing ivory into New Zealand, following a conviction in Auckland in 2013.
NEW YORK, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- As many as 5,000 people gathered Wednesday night in front of Trump Tower in New York City to protest the billionaire's election as president.

The demonstration started at 4 p.m. (2100 GMT) with only a dozen protesters in front of the Trump Tower, residence and campaign headquarters of the president-elect.

In just a couple of hours, the small gathering snowballed into a massive demonstration that filled the Fifth Avenue stretching several blocks.

Holding such signs as "Not my president," "Our city does not support hate," and chanting "We reject the president-elect," the protesters, mostly young people, were visibly angry and upset.

"I felt agony, betrayed and despair," Sarah Curry described her feelings after learning that Trump has won the election.

"I don't know the future of our country and it terrifies me," Curry said.

Protesters had also raised many issues against Trump, including immigration, health care and women's rights. Many also questioned the country's electoral system that allowed Trump to snatch the presidency without winning the popular vote.

The city's police force was on high alert during the demonstration that dragged into the next morning. Traffic was cut off around the premises, and several street-cleaning trucks were deployed in front of the entrance of the building to prevent protesters from rushing in.

As a traditional Democratic stronghold, nearly 58 percent of voters in the State of New York cast ballots for Hillary Clinton, compared with 37 percent for Trump, according to official figures.

New York City leans blue in a more dramatic fashion. In New York County where the Trump Tower is located, an overwhelming 86 percent of the votes went to Clinton.
SEOUL, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Samsung BioLogics, a biopharmaceutical unit of Samsung Group, South Korea's biggest family-run conglomerate, made its successful debut in local bourse on Thursday as Donald Trump's presidential win removed uncertainties in the U.S. healthcare policy.

BioLogics shares closed at 144,000 won (125 U.S. dollars) in their first trading day. It was 5.9 percent higher than the initial public offering (IPO) price of 136,000 won. The benchmark KOSPI index was up 2.3 percent.

The contract manufacturer of biological drugs was launched in April 2011 by Samsung Group which is struggling to make a foray into the healthcare industry.

As part of its efforts to push for biotech drugs, Samsung Bioepis was established in 2012 to develop biosimilars, or copycats of biological medicine.

Samsung Electronics, the group's crown jewel unit, has been struggling to find new growth engine amid stiff competition in the global smartphone market that helped the tech behemoth generate at least half of its revenue.

The tech company discontinued Galaxy Note 7 smartphones on reported devices catching fire and heating up, damaging the South Korean company's brand image and reputation.

Samsung BioLogics is 31.49 percent owned by Samsung Electronics and 43.44 percent by Samsung C&T, the de-facto holding company of Samsung Group.

The successful market debut of BioLogics came as uncertainties were removed after Trump was elected U.S. president. Defeated Hilary Clinton had argued for lower drug prices in the United States, helping the pharmaceutical sector fall in stock prices recently.

Overall pharmaceutical stocks gained ground. Hanmi Pharm, former biggest pharm stock in the KOSPI before BioLogics' listing, jumped 12.2 percent. The KOSDAQ's bellwether Celltrion, which develops biosimilars, advanced 4.6 percent.
WELLINGTON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand physicists on Thursday welcomed news that German scientists had confirmed their pioneering theoretical work on gas "droplets," saying it would lead to further scientific breakthroughs.

University of Otago physics researchers earlier this year published the theory that under certain conditions gases could form into stable droplets - as liquids do - and that had now been confirmed experimentally by scientists in Germany.

The new ability to produce gas droplets was exciting as it opened the door to a range of potential applications, said Professor Blair Blakie, who led the team developing the theory.

"These droplets could, for example, form pristine nano-laboratories for performing chemistry reactions or making highly precise measurements of magnetic fields," Blakie said in a statement.

It had been a longstanding question as to whether it is possible to make a gas self-bind in the same way that water molecules coalesced into stable droplets, he said.

Blakie's team had determined that an extremely cold gas of highly magnetic atoms would self-bind into gas droplets that stabilized themselves, even in a vacuum.

Their predictions were made using quantum calculations on high performance computing facilities.

The gas needs to be prepared under very specific conditions to observe the formation of droplets, he said.

"We worked out that it had to be at a temperature of a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, a density more than a billion times lower than liquid water (about 100,000 times lower than air), and in a suitably adjusted magnetic field," he said.

Under these conditions, the gas would spontaneously develop into filament-shaped droplets of micrometer dimensions, which persisted as stable packages even after the gas was released from its container.
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of people poured into the streets of Los Angeles, California, on Wednesday night after Donald Trump was declared the 45th president of the United States, shutting down freeways in the downtown area.

The rally began at about 7 p.m.(0300 GMT) outside Los Angeles City Hall and drew an ethnically diverse crowd of more than 5,000, local media reported.

Up to 300 people had marched onto the northbound 101 Freeway near Alameda Street, bringing the busy highway to a standstill.

Videos from the scene showed protesters having shut down the Hollywood (101) Freeway in downtown Los Angeles.

Two protests in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday over Trump's election as president drew thousands of people, many of whom were young adults, with a large portion appearing to be students.

Around noon, more than 300 teenagers and young adults rallied outside Los Angeles City Hall to protest Trump's election victory.

Some property was defaced, including a fence scrawled with graffiti insulting Trump. Some demonstrators chanted "Not my president," and at least one had a sign that stated: "Trump Equals Death", according to City News Service.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese prosecutors have indicted Gai Ruyin, former deputy head of the Standing Committee of Heilongjiang Provincial People's Congress, accusing him of bribery.

Gai abused his power to seek benefits for others and accepted "a huge amount of goods and money from others" while he held major posts in the province, according to the indictment from Tianjin municipal people's procuratorate.

The procuratorate filed the case to the First Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin.
QINGDAO, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Xu Xiang, general manager of the Shanghai-based company Zexi Investment, has been indicted for allegedly manipulating the securities market, the People's Procuratorate of Qingdao City said Thursday.

The prosecutors filed the case, involving Xu, several others and chairpersons of the board of directors of relevant listed companies, in the city's Intermediate People's Court.

The Ministry of Public Security announced Xu was under investigation in November last year.
HANGZHOU, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Attracted by the slogan "with just one room and a computer, you can have your own online store," a young woman surnamed Xu went to Qingyanliu Village in east China's Zhejiang province to seek her fortune.

The "No.1 Taobao village in China," has become the model for over 1,300 villages across the country.

Xu, in her twenties, arrived with high hopes, but she soon got frustrated. "I never thought running an online store would be such torture," she sighed.

BIG PLAYER GAME

In Qingyanliu, small retailers used to collaborate in placing orders to reduce costs, but the system collapsed when more successful stores became big online merchants, with the clout to sign contracts directly with suppliers.

Small shops were left behind and many were unable to survive without the discounts of bulk buying. Likewise, with fewer orders, delivery companies are not interested in giving discounts.

It all came as a surprise to naive young entrepreneurs like Xu.

The legend of Qingyanliu village began in 2008, when the world was struggling through the financial crisis. Qingyanliu is a suburb of Yiwu City, China's largest small commodity wholesale market. With 200 plus newly-built flats available for lease, students from Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College, one of the first colleges to offer e-commerce classes, smelled an opportunity. Qingyanliu was soon an e-commerce base, dubbed "the first Taobao village," just over a year later.

Once home then to 1,700 residents, the village now has a population of over ten thousand, with 2,800 online shops bringing in over one billion yuan (150 million U.S. dollars) every year. Alibaba claims that China now has over 1,300 "Taobao villages," with more than 840,000 jobs created.

RISING COST

The average annual rent of a three-room house, a standard "office" in Qingyanliu, has risen from 5,000 yuan in 2008 to 16,000 yuan today.

Widespread fraud on e-commerce platforms has pushed up operational cost and reduced credibility.

"An online store relies on its reputation, but many turn to fruad to attract buyers. If notstopped, the whole online market will become a mess," said a 30 year-old Taobao store owner who has been in the business for five years.

Fake goods, unreliable delivery and lack of certification has forced many consider leaving the villages.

"I have been running a Taobao shop for three years, and kept facing new challenges in the process," said Wang Mingqiang, who owns an online shop in Longxi village in Zhejiang.

"Sometimes we're unable to maintain stable supplies for surging sales. Sometimes we receive complaints from consumers for selling slow-moving produces without quality certification. We also face fierce competition as the products everyone sells are quite similar," he said.

UPGRADE NEEDED

Lack of staff is another big issue. The first round of e-commerce craze in villages was led by fresh graduates with business sense, but the rural villagers who followed had seldom even set foot in a city.

Price wars is not good for Taobao villages.

"Low prices can't be the only business strategy. We must offer quality products," said Ren Mei, who runs an online store and said her profit margin is shrinking year by year.

"Rural areas should upgrade their entrepreneurship environment, with infrastructure, logistics, and better financial support," said Sun Lijun, vice-president of Alibaba.
CHICAGO, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of people took to the streets in downtown Chicago on Wednesday night to protest the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.

Protesters held signs reading "No to Trump, No to Racism and Sexism," "Not my America, Not my President," "Dump Trump," "Hate won't make America great," and zigzagged through the bustling South Michigan Avenue, Lakeshore Drive and the Magnificent Mile before returning to the rally site opposite Trump Tower across the Chicago River and staged a sit-in.

Police officers deployed barricades and formed lines to keep order, urging those who stopped to take photos to keep moving.

Protesters chanted anti-Trump slogans the whole way. Traffic was halted wherever they went. On Lakeshore Drive, several hundred vehicles came to a stop. Some drivers blew horns while others came out to have high-fives with protesters. More than a dozen protesters climbed onto a bus, chanting atop.

Most protesters are young people. The protest was generally peaceful though a lot of protesters were visibly upset.
Top Communist Party of China (CPC) and state leaders attend the Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, in Beijing, China. The meeting was held from Oct. 24 to 27 in Beijing. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

MOSCOW, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China (CPC) highlighting the need for strengthening intra-party discipline was absolutely timely under changing and not always favorable conditions, a Russian scholar said.

Held on Oct. 24 to Oct. 27, the sixth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee adopted decisions on further strengthening intra-party discipline.

"In the new situation, the role of the ruling party as a generator of strategic development plans and a managing force of the giant country increases," Yuri Tavrovsky, a professor with the People's Friendship University of Russia, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

The situation is changing in the Chinese economy, in the world markets, as well as in the world as a whole.

While achieving unprecedented success in the process of "reform and opening up," some party functionaries established corrupt connections with business structures under their control, Tavrovsky said.

Such relations are unacceptable, the expert believes, as they hamper the transformation of the economy, and poison the environment in the society.

In a global market, a growing number of China's competitors have increased output of cheaper products which require less expensive technologies, he said.

He cited the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as an example, saying this is "an ambitious and potentially dangerous plan" for China as it aims for the reorientation of financial and trade flows.

On the borders of China, military provocations in the South China Sea have been taking a systemic nature, with the United States expanding its military presence on the Korean peninsula and Japan exploring new areas closer to China.

"These new situations require efficient work of the ruling party of China," he noted.

Today, the role of the CPC is that of "the brain of the nation and its nervous system," the Russian expert said. "The brain of the party should work impeccably, while the nervous system has to react to the signals sent by brain instantly and accurately."

The lack of discipline and, especially, corruption at any point in any component of the party organism is fraught with the most serious consequences, Tavrovsky said

Therefore, the decisions of the plenary session on strengthening the party discipline and improving the system of inner-Party supervision, as well as on systemic fight against corruption, are absolutely timely and necessary, he concluded.
HANOI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- In a suddenly-adjusted agenda, Vietnamese lawmakers on Thursday discussed a proposal on reviewing to halt the project of Vietnam's first nuclear power plant in southern coastal Ninh Thuan province.

The proposal sparked lively debates across the country among officials, experts as well as netizens.

Speaking on local Tuoi Tre (Youth) online newspaper on Thursday, Duong Quang Thanh, chairman of the Member Council of Vietnam's power monopoly EVN, cited the national electricity planning recently approved by Vietnamese government as saying that from now till 2030, there will be no nuclear power plant. Instead, many power sources will be developed to meet up with power demand of Vietnam, said Thanh.

According to new calculation, Vietnam's annual electricity demand growth will stand at around 11 percent during 2016-2020 period and at 7 to 8 percent during 2021 to 2030 period, much lower than that of 17 to 20 percent as calculated in 2009, when the policy of Ninh Thuan nuclear power plant project was adopted, said Thanh.

At present, the country's electricity demand growth remains low, while the total supply by domestic and import sources are enough to ensure socio-economic development. As a result, the costly investment into nuclear power will make it unable to compete with other energy sources in economic term, Thanh explained.

In an interview with local VNExpress online newspaper on Thursday, Le Hong Tinh, vice chairman of Vietnam's National Assembly (NA) Committee on Science-Technology and Environment said reviewing to halt the project at the moment is "timely and necessary."

According to Tinh, the nuclear power project is no longer feasible. Following an earlier plan, the electricity price would be around 4.9 U.S. cents each kWh while it has risen to over 8 U.S. cents each kWh now, said Tinh.

"In addition, in the context that Vietnam's public debts are approaching the ceiling, if we continue to invest into a big project, there is a possibility that the public debts will keep increasing. It's better to stop now rather than stop after implementation," Tinh told VNexpress.

Echoing Tinh, Nguyen Minh Due, standing member of the Executive Committee for the Vietnam Energy Association and vice president of Energy Science Council, said "Nuclear power plant not only requires big investment but also is quite sensitive to the environment. The project has been in pre-feasibility stage with not much investment, so halting it at the moment is reasonable."

However, the insider said stopping the project may affect future electricity supply. He urged the government to develop other power plants that can make up the loss, as well as boost the development of renewable energy such as wind power to create more supply sources.

Local netizens seem to be more divided than officials and experts about the possible halt. Some showed happiness and welcome the proposal while others were more skeptical.

A reader called Truong Xuan hailed the proposal on Youth online newspaper on Thursday by writing "The proposal will be a right and timely decision. Vietnam needs to develop clean and safe energy sources."

Being more cautious, reader called Huynh Le Thanh Hai wrote "It is unclear whether the stop will be good or bad. Everything has two faces. Hydropower and thermal power plants, despite offering cheaper construction price, use limited natural resources to run. In the coming time, when oil is depleted, what will be alternative supply for such power plants? Meanwhile, despite clean, wind power, solar power or tidal power, all require big investment and contribute humble proportion to energy consumption."

Hai then proposed "a pause" not "a stop" to have better insights into nuclear power plant project, improve safety standards and get more careful preparation.

In November 2009, some 77.48 percent of then Vietnamese legislators agreed on policy of investing Ninh Thuan nuclear power project. The project included two plants with capacity of around 2,000 megawatt each.

After group and hall discussions, Vietnamese NA is expected to adopt a resolution on stop the project on Nov. 22.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Bilateral ties between China and Ecuador will be strengthened by Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit next week, Jose Maria Borja, the Ecuadorian Ambassador to China, said in an interview with Xinhua.

Xi will be the first Chinese President to visit Ecuador since diplomatic relations were established in 1980.

"It's a historic visit, which will further cement bilateral ties," Borja said.

Cooperation on technology, investment and infrastructure construction has grown rapidly in recent years. China's non-financial investment in Ecuador reached 6 billion U.S. dollars at the end of March. Ecuador invested in 42 projects in China, with combined investment of 8.63 million dollars.

Borja spoke highly of China's contribution to Ecuador's development. Like many Latin American nations, Ecuador used to be faced with power shortages. Nine hydropower stations have been built or are under construction since President Rafael Correa took office in 2007. Of them, eight were built by Chinese companies. Ecuador now not only meets its domestic electricity demand, but has surplus power to export.

Borja said China's Belt and Road Initiative will bring great opportunities for Latin American nations to build trade and economic ties with Central Asia.

China's presence in Ecuador is palpable and useful, Borja said, speaking of China's humanitarian aid to the country in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated towns along the northern coast in April, leaving over 600 people dead and nearly 30,000 homeless.

Personal exchanges between China and Ecuador go back a long way, he said. In the 19th century, Chinese laborers went to Latin America for work. Currently, around 70,000 ethnic Chinese live in Ecuador, while 500 Ecuadorian students study in China.

Borja also hoped more Chinese would visit his home country to experience its variety of climates, biodiversity and breathtaking landscape.

He expects the number of Chinese tourists to exceed 18,000 this year, up from 16,000 in 2015.
CHONGQING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Japan's former prime minister Yukio Hatoyama apologized for his country's bombardment of southwest China's Chongqing during World War II at the 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference Thursday.

Hatoyama made the apology at the opening of the conference in Chongqing, the wartime capital of the Kuomintang government, where Japanese air-strikes from 1939 to 1941 left more than 30,000 people dead or injured.

In his speech, Hatoyama criticized Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for inflating the "China threat", noting that such remarks will bring tension to the region. He said that an East Asian Community with China, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN at the center would reduce nationalism.

Friendship cities are important in communication between countries, he said, adding that political, economic and cultural exchanges alleviate conflict and promote integration.

Over 700 representatives from around the world joined this year's conference.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's scheduled attendance at the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economic leaders' meeting will boost regional economic integration, senior officials said here on Thursday.

Xi will attend the APEC meeting with the theme "Quality growth and human development," in Lima Peru from Nov. 19 to 20, vice foreign minister Li Baodong told a press briefing.

Li said Xi's attendance at the Lima meeting shows the importance China has attached to regional cooperation.

"China has been an APEC contributor and supporter since it joined the mechanism 25 years ago and has played a significant role in building the Asian Pacific family," Li said.

During the meeting, Xi is expected to deliver a speech to the APEC CEO summit, meet representatives of the APEC business advisory council, attend two phases of the economic leaders' meeting and have meetings with some leaders.

China expects positive outcomes of the meeting, said Zhang Xiangchen, deputy China international trade representative, at the briefing.

He said the first should be completing collective strategic research on the Asian-Pacific free-trade zone on schedule.

China also hopes for implementation of the Beijing APEC meeting outcomes, Zhang said.

He added that China expects that the Lima meeting to support inclusive growth in the Asian Pacific region and new cooperation in service industries and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Related:

Chinese president to visit Latin America, attend APEC summit

BEIJING, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping will pay a week-long visit to Latin America starting next week, China's Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday.
DHAKA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China has renovated Bangladesh's largest multi-purpose convention center which Beijing built as a token of friendship between China and Bangladesh about 15 years ago.

The renovation specially aimed at installing simultaneous interpretation equipment at the center ahead of a global summit scheduled to be held in Dhaka next month.

Ma Mingqiang, Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh, Thursday handed over the newly renovated center to Md Shahidullah Khandaker, secretary of Bangladesh's Ministry of Housing and Public Works, at a ceremony.

The renovation started in June shortly after Bangladesh's Ministry of Housing and Public Works signed an agreement in this connection with the Chinese Embassy.

The Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC), also known as Bangladesh China Friendship Conference Center situated at Dhaka's Sher-e-Bangla, a busy commercial and central neighborhood, is still considered the only international conference center of Bangladesh.

The Bangladeshi government has highly appreciated China for the entire renovation and up-gradation in scheduled time, supporting Dhaka's efforts to better arrange the Global Forum on Migration Development (GFMD) in the center, which has never seen such work in its system since its establishment in 2001.

Khandaker said China had completed the task in a shortest possible time. "We've long been getting Chinese support in all Bangladesh development works," he added.

Speaking at the ceremony, Khorshed Alam, acting secretary of Bangladesh's Foreign Ministry, said Bangladesh's relationship with China is deep-rooted.

Chinese Ambassador Ma Mingqiang said the relations between Bangladesh and China are now at the best stage. "We consider Bangladesh as very best friend, as development partner and as our good neighbor," he said.
JINAN, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Sun Hongzhi, former vice minister of the State Administration for Industry & Commerce, stood trial on Thursday for taking bribes, embezzlement of public funds and holding a huge amount of property with unidentified sources.

Sun was accused of taking advantage of his various official posts from 2002 to 2014 to seek benefits for 25 entities and individuals in obtaining contracts and promotions.

Sun accepted bribes of over 14.2 million yuan (around 2.1 million U.S. dollars), either himself or through his wife, according to the indictment from the People's Procuratorate of Taian City in east China's Shandong Province.

When he served as mayor of Songyuan City in northeast China's Jilin Province from 2009 to November 2014, Sun abused his power to embezzle public funds of over 1.64 million yuan, the indictment reads.

He is also accused of holding property worth more than 9.53 million yuan with unidentified sources.

The procuratorate filed the charges with Taian Intermediate People's Court.

Sun confessed to the crimes, and expressed remorse in court.

The ruling will be announced at a later date.

More than 80 people, including journalists and members of the public, attended Thursday's hearing.
KIGALI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- An international course on the protection of civilians opened Wednesday at Rwanda Peace Academy in Musanze district, northern Rwanda.

Speaking at the opening, Rwanda's Justice Minister Johnston Busingye called on nations to seek lasting peace on the continent.

"The contemporary operating environment of peacekeeping is becoming more complicated," he said.

"Civilians have deliberately been targeted in armed conflicts. New and emerging threats call for peacekeepers to perform while at the same time remaining credible, impartial and professional," he said.

The week-long course drew participants from 14 countries on the continent and beyond, including military, police officers and civilians.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The EU's proposed anti-dumping regulations do not conform to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, according to a Ministry of Commerce official.

China appreciated the European Commission's proposal to abolish its "non-market economy" list but was disappointed it had introduced a "market distortions" clause, which is another way to extend current "analogue country" methodology, Ministry of Commerce spokesman Shen Danyang said at a press conference Thursday.

Shen's comments came after the European Commission proposed new methodology to determine whether manufacturers from countries including China, are dumping products.

The move comes one month before the expiration of some provisions under Article 15 of the Protocol on China's accession to the WTO, due on December 11.

The expiration would require WTO members to end the so-called "analogue country" methodology under which price data in a third country is used to calculate the value of products from a non-market economy country.

Shen urged the EU to completely end the "analogue country" methodology and ensure that its new standards are "fair, reasonable and transparent."
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Two groups of protesters took to the street in San Francisco on Wednesday night against Donald Trump, who was elected a day earlier to be the next U.S. president.

The first group, of about 60 young people, gathered in front of City Hall while about a dozen police officers lined up on the steps leading to the historic building housing the San Francisco county and city government.

While at least two girls talked about being "scared" by what Trump said during the campaign about women and about ethnic minorities, allegedly with sexist and racist tones, a dozen protesters took turns speaking against the president-elect.

Less than half an hour after the first group left the scene, hundreds of young people of various ethnicities walked along a main street and converged at the same location.

Organized by a coalition known as ANSWER, they chanted in unison to the beat of drums for racial equality and women's rights and against the discrimination they said was emboldened by Trump's rhetoric along the campaign trail.

ANSWER, for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, called for "emergency protests" on Wednesday in six U.S. cities, including at Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, and other locations in New York and Los Angeles, in response to the "shock result" of the presidential race.

A speaker of the coalition said it was the first step against the president-elect's "bigoted, extreme right wing agenda" and more would follow in the coming days.

Both protests in the northern Californian city ended without incidents. However, in the neighboring San Francisco Bay city of Oakland tear gas was deployed by police as protests entered into the second night. The crowd reportedly grew to some 7,000 people at one point on Wednesday and several buildings were vandalized; bonfires were set on at least one street.

Students at several schools in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley and San Jose, and in Contra Costa County earlier in the day walked out of class along with their teachers. At Berkeley High School, 1,500 students walked to downtown Berkeley in the morning and staged a silent sit-in at a plaza.

In Los Angeles, protesters blocked a section of Highway 101 for hours on Wednesday night.

A majority of voters in California, the largest state in the country, voted for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton rather than her Republican counterpart Trump.

Up north in the state of Oregon, about 300 people marched through downtown Portland and dozens of them blocked traffic in the city and enforced a delay for trains on two light-rail lines. A crowd of much smaller size showed up in downtown Seattle in the state of Washington, and four males and one female were injured in an unrelated shooting incident nearby.

Throughout the country, protesters were mainly young adults, and statistics show 55 percent of people in the group aged 18 through 29 voted on Tuesday for Clinton, and 37 percent of those in the same group voted for Trump.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), speaks at a CMC meeting on logistics, in Beijing, capital of China. The meeting was held from Wednesday to Thursday in Beijing. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has called for strong and modern logistic forces in the army to boost army.

Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks at a CMC meeting on logistics held from Wednesday to Thursday.
PHNOM PENH, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Eleven tourists from China's Taiwan region got injured with four in serious condition in a road accident in central Cambodia's Kampong Thom province at noon on Thursday, local police chief said.

The bus carrying the tourists skidded and overturned after it attempted to avoid a motorcyclist crossing the road, said Nhem Chhunly, police chief of Stung Sen town where the accident took place.

He said that the bus was traveling from northwestern Siem Reap province to Phnom Penh City when the accident occurred.

"All 11 tourists from China's Taiwan region were wounded, including four in serious condition in the accident," he told Xinhua, adding that eight of the victims were women.

Chhunly said that the seriously-injured tourists had been sent to a hospital in Phnom Penh for treatment.

He said the Cambodian bus driver had escaped the scene soon after the crash.
MADRID, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Spanish Interior Ministry on Thursday announced that 56 men, the majority of them between 40 and 60 years of age, have been detained during a massive nationwide operation against child pornography.

The operation saw the police raid 39 homes throughout Spain, confiscating 173 hard drives as well as 614 compact discs and DVD's filled with pornographic images of young boys and girls.

Meanwhile, one search in the city of Murcia, southeast Spain, also led to the discovery of two revolvers.

Over 150 police officers took part in the operation, which was organized among 33 territorial units and different departments of the Spanish National Police, including the Child Protection Unit and the Unit for Technological Investigation. Meanwhile, the operation was supervised by 46 different regional courts.

Those arrested are facing charges of the production of child pornography, although the police are also investigating to see if they can press charges of sexual abuse in some cases, while also trying to determine the connections between those arrested and other pedophiles, who have so far escaped detection.

The National Police said the detainees shared their files through Peer to Peer (P2P) networks and that the operation had been in development since early 2015 when the police began searching a P2P network to identify users who were using the network to distribute child pornography.

This search identified 73 users, some of whom had been arrested prior to Thursday's operation.
NAIROBI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Canada has called on Kenya to continue supporting peace initiatives, saying the country's participation in many of the UN peacekeeping missions has significantly contributed to global peace, security and stability.

Visiting Canadian Foreign Minister Stephan Dion also hailed Kenya for its role in peacekeeping missions in the world, saying his country would want to partner with Nairobi in spearheading peace initiatives across the world.

"We are seriously considering embarking on peacekeeping missions in countries facing instability challenges including Africa. I am sure we will have an opportunity to work closely with you," Dion said when he held talks with President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi on Wednesday evening.

A statement issued on Thursday revealed that the Canadian minister said his country was also keen on scaling up its bilateral relations with Kenya, especially in peace and security initiatives.

The East African nation is the world's 29th largest contributor of military and police personnel to UN peacekeeping.

Nairobi currently deploys several military and police personnel to the UN operations in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Liberia, Mali, Sudan and South Sudan.

Speaking during the meeting, Kenyatta affirmed Kenya's commitment to regional and global peace but emphasized the need to restructure the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan. (UNMISS).

Kenyatta said Kenya would not accept to be a scapegoat for structural failures of the UN mission to South Sudan.

He said the government made a decision to withdraw its troops from South Sudan because it was not consulted by the UN on the sacking of Lt-Gen Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki.

The president observed that Lt-Gen Ondieki had barely settled into the new role before the eruption of the recent skirmishes in South Sudan.

President Kenyatta reiterated that the structural failures of the mission should not be blamed on the Kenyan General.

"Even if there were problems, it would have been courteous for the UN to consult IGAD (Inter-Governmental Authority on Development) member states before taking the drastic decision," Kenyatta said.

He said Kenya has communicated its decision and forwarded its complains to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, noting that Kenya would appreciate working with Canada in peace initiatives.

The sacking of the Kenyan General prompted Kenyatta to order withdrawal of about 1,000 soldiers who were part of the UNMISS. The first batch of 100 soldiers arrived in Nairobi on Wednesday.
SHANGHAI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Asian Development Bank (ADB) has provided 34 billion U.S. dollars in loans to China since the country became an ADB member in 1986, bank president Takehiko Nakao said Thursday.

The loans comprised 31 billion dollars for the public sector and 3 billion dollars for the private sector, Nakao said at a symposium in Shanghai to commemorate the 30 years of China's ADB membership.

ADB also supported China with 430 million dollars in technical assistance grants.

"China has made an example of how an economy can achieve very rapid growth drawing on market systems and open trade and investment relations with partner countries," Nakao said.

Chen Shixin, director-general of the department of international economic and financial cooperation at the Ministry of Finance, said China has an all-round mutually beneficial cooperative partnership with ADB, and ADB has played an important role in poverty-reduction, economic and social development.

Chen said under the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, multilateral organizations need to work with the developing members, especially by investing in infrastructure.

"ADB is ready to help China's further transformation and address economic, social and demographic challenges through our finance and knowledge work," Nakao promised.

He stressed ADB's readiness to support China in reducing CO2 emissions.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to three Latin American countries will boost the comprehensive partnership of cooperation between China and Latin America, senior officials said Thursday.

Xi will pay a week-long state visit to Ecuador, Peru and Chile from Nov.17 to 23 and attend the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting from Nov. 19 to 20 in Lima, capital city of Peru.

This is Xi's third visit to Latin America since he took office in 2013, said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Chao at a press conference held Thursday morning, hailing the flourishing momentum of the development of China-Latin America ties in past years.

Wang said the visit will further consolidate the traditional friendship between China and the three countries and lift mutual trust and substantial cooperation.

It will also help push forward development of the China-Latin America all-round partnership of cooperation and contribute to addressing the challenges facing developing countries, including China and Latin American countries, and to promoting common development and building a community of shared destiny, he said.

According to Wang, during his stay in Ecuador, Xi is expected to exchange views with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on bilateral ties. The two presidents will also witness the signing of a series of deals, meet with the press and attend a launch ceremony of an assistance program together.

Xi will meet with Ecuadorian President of the National Assembly Gabriela Rivadeneira. The two countries are slated to issue a joint statement, said Wang.

During his stay in Peru, Xi is expected to hold talks with his Peruvian counterpart, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, meet with Peruvian President of Congress Luz Salgado and deliver a speech at the congress, Wang said.

The two presidents will also attend the closing ceremony of the 2016 China-Latin America Cultural Exchange Year, he said.

During his stay in Chile, Xi is scheduled to hold talks with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, attend a signing ceremony for agreements and meet with the press, Wang said, adding that a joint statement will be issued.

All three countries have distinct features in the region and share traditional friendship with China, the vice foreign minister said.

According to Zhang Xiangchen, deputy China international trade representative, the three countries are China's major economic and trade partners in Latin America.

During Xi's visit, China will focus on discussing optimizing bilateral free trade arrangements and conducting cooperation in areas of e-commerce, production capacity, industrial parks and infrastructure construction under the principles of mutual trust, mutual benefit and mutual learning, said Zhang at the press conference.

A series of cooperative agreements are expected to be signed, and fruitful results will be achieved, Zhang said.

Official statistics show that the trade volume between China and Latin America rose more than twentyfold during the past decade to reach 236.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.

Currently, China is the second largest trade partner and third largest investment source country of Latin-America, while Latin America is China's seventh largest trade partner.

"China looks forward to deepening cooperation with Latin America so as to promote the economic recovery and prosperity of the world," Zhang added.
CHONGQING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Following is the full text of the keynote speech by Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao at the opening ceremony of the 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference on Thursday.

Work Together to Build the Bridge of Friendship and Mutually Beneficial Cooperation

Keynote Speech by H.E. Li Yuanchao

Vice President of the People's Republic of China

At the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference

10 November 2016, Chongqing

The 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference is now open in the mountainous city of Chongqing. On behalf of the Chinese government, let me extend my warm congratulations on the opening of the conference and sincere welcome to all the distinguished guests and friends!

We are living in a fast-changing era and a colorful world. In this global village, countries need greater exchanges and understanding and cities should have more bridges of communication and friendship.

President Xi Jinping pointed out that we need to enhance friendship between Chinese and foreign cities through more exchanges between local governments, so that they can share resources, complement each other with their respective strengths and achieve win-win cooperation. In that connection and under the theme of this conference "Innovation for Development and Cooperation for Sharing", I wish to make the following suggestions:

First, increase exchanges among friendship cities and deepen people's friendship. Amity between the people is the cornerstone of friendship among countries and world peace, and exchange among friendship cities is an important channel for amity between the people. Over the past 40 years of international friendship cities activities, China has established 2,340 pairs of friendship city relations with more than 130 countries. Changsha city of Hunan province and the city of Entebbe in Uganda have had vibrant education and culture exchanges, and built together the "Entebbe-Changsha Demonstration Primary School". Nanjing city of Jiangsu province and Aichi prefecture of Japan have deepened their friendship through youth and art troupe exchanges. Ruili city in Yunnan province and City of Muse of Myanmar organize the "China-Myanmar Pauk-Phaw Carnival" during China's National Day holiday week each year, which is quite popular among the local communities. The development of state to state relations is rooted in the people and invigorated by exchanges. I hope that international friendship cities can expand the fields of exchanges, engage in more forms of interactions so as to deepen mutual understanding and friendship between the people.

Second, share experience in urban planning and promote innovative development of cities. Urbanization is an important part of modernization. Cities have become the center of our political, economic, cultural and social activities. Now 54% of the world's population lives in cities. There are 28 mega-cities with a population of over 10 million, and six of them are in China, including Chongqing. Since the start of reform and opening up, China has experienced the largest and fastest urbanization in world history. Now 750 million Chinese people live in cities. Cities have improved the quality of life, but they are also increasingly troubled by such "urban diseases" as backward infrastructure, traffic congestion, environmental pollution. In recent years, China has pursued the new vision of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development. We have put people first in our development and worked hard to build harmonious, livable and dynamic modern cities with unique characteristics, contributing China's wisdom to urbanization in the world. Activities of international friendship cities are aimed at transforming development model of cities and better governance of cities. Guangzhou, Auckland of New Zealand and Los Angeles of the United States have founded the "Tripartite Economic Alliance"; Fujian province and Liege of Belgium have jointly developed the smart urban management system of "integrating water, electricity and gas services with one card"; Zhenjiang city of Jiangsu province and the city of Mannheim of Germany have carried out exchanges and cooperation on low-carbon commute and building eco cities. I hope that international friendship cities can learn from each other, work together to make urban planning more rational and forward-looking, make cities more livable and sustainable, modernize and refine urban management so that people will live a more comfortable and convenient life in cities.

Third, expand win-win cooperation and share fruits of urban civilization. Cities, with the highest concentration of resources, are the locomotive of development. International friendship city activities serve as important platforms for Chinese and foreign cities to have equal-footed and mutually beneficial cooperation. Deepened cooperation between Chongqing city and Dusseldorf of Germany have contributed to the opening of the Chongqing -Xinjiang-Europe International Railway, which has become a golden pathway on "the Belt and Road". The ancient European business camel team would need a year or two to reach China, but now the train ride takes only 13 days. Xi'an city and Groningen of the Netherlands strengthened their cooperation through friendship city relations. A "Groningen Day" event was included in the East-West Cooperation and Investment Trade Fair& The Silk Road International Exhibition in Xi'an. Xi'an municipal government has organized several trips by businessmen to business promotion events in Groningen in norther Netherlands. Cities are important carriers of modern civilization and urban civilization should be shared by all peoples. I hope that international friendship cities will promote practical cooperation in various fields and produce more win-win outcomes.

China's economy is growing rapidly and steadily. In 2015, China's GDP grew by 6.9%, contributing over 25% to world economic growth. In the first three quarters of this year, China's economy grew by 6.7%, one of the highest among major economies in the world. We are confident that China's economy will maintain a sound momentum in the long run with better quality and efficiency and innovative development, and bring more opportunities to the world.

The Chinese people are now working hard to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all aspects and realizing the Chinese dream of the great national renewal. The Chinese dream is interconnected with the beautiful dream of a happy life of all peoples. Holding high the banner of peace, development and win-win cooperation, China is pursuing friendly exchanges with other countries. Through international friendship cities exchanges , we hope to build together with other countries a bridge of friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation and the community of shared future for mankind, and contribute to world peace and development.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A cross-Strait forum to commemorate the 150th birthday of Sun Yat-sen was held in Beijing Thursday.

The forum, jointly sponsored by the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang and the Alumni Association of the Huangpu Military Academy, was attended by 180 people including Huangpu alumni and their relatives from all over the world.

Participants at the forum called on Huangpu alumni and their families to carry forward the spirit of Sun and jointly contribute to the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The Huangpu (Whampoa) Military Academy opened in south China's Guangzhou in 1924. The first lessons were delivered on June 16 of that year by Dr. Sun, founder of the Kuomintang Party, and a revered revolutionary leader who played a pivotal role in overthrowing imperial rule in China.
Young boys, children soldiers sit on February 10, 2015 with their rifles at a ceremony of the child soldiers disarmament, demobilization and reintegration in Pibor oversawn by UNICEF and partners. (AFP/Charles Lomodong)

JUBA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has said there are still over 16,000 South Sudanese children involved in active combat among the various armed groups in the war-torn country despite the release of about 2,000 children since 2013.

UNICEF South Sudan spokesman Timothy Irwin told Xinhua in an interview on Wednesday in Juba that they estimate more than 800 children have been recruited by armed groups in 2016.

Photo taken on February 10, 2015 shows young boys, child soldiers sitting on with their rifles at a ceremony of the child soldiers disarmament, demobilization and reintegration in Pibor oversawn by UNICEF and partners. (AFP/Charles Lomodong)

"We estimate that there are still more than 16,000 children associated with armed groups in South Sudan. We estimate that more than 800 children have been recruited by armed groups in 2016," Irwin revealed.

The South Sudan conflict has been raging on since outbreak in December 2013 between Sudan People's Liberation Army-in opposition led by ousted First Vice President Riek Machar and troops loyal to President Salva Kiir.

"Since 2013, around 2,000 children have been released. The largest group was early last year also in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area when 1,775 children were released," he added.

As the violent fighting in the oil-rich impoverished country seemed to subside after formation of the transitional unity government in mid-April, it again intensified in July between warring parties in Juba, characterized by rape, child abductions and looting of cattle in the mainly cattle keeping northern region of the country.

Irwin disclosed that upon release from the armed forces and armed groups, the National Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration Commission (NDDRC) screens and registers the released children.

"The specific needs and vulnerabilities of all children, especially girls are assessed. The children are then placed in interim care facilities, where the priority is to provide immediate psychosocial support and family reunification services," he said.

He also added that these children stay in the facility for the shortest time possible, where they receive assistance including clothes, psychosocial support and health services.

"Further reintegration services including education, vocational training and income-generation activities such as livestock and agricultural training, are provided to ensure that returning children are able to support themselves and their families and are not perceived as a burden," he revealed.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Natural disasters left 14 people dead nationwide last month, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the China National Commission for Disaster Reduction Thursday.

The most notable disasters last month included typhoons and floods, the ministry said, adding that drought, hail, earthquakes, low temperatures, snowstorms, landslides and forest fires were also reported.

Natural disasters caused a total of 11.7 billion yuan (about 1.7 billion U.S. dollars) in direct economic losses, affected nearly 6.9 million and forced relocation of about 684,000 people.

In addition, over 2,000 houses were destroyed and another 10,000 were damaged to varying degrees. The disasters affected about 980,000 hectares of farmland, with more than 77,000 hectares destroyed.
HANOI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A boiler in an electric pole production company in northern Vietnam exploded on Thursday afternoon, killing two local workers instantly and injuring six others.

The explosion at the Thai Nguyen Construction and Material Production Company in Thai Nguyen city, Thai Nguyen province badly damaged the firm's electric pole workshop and three nearby houses, the municipal authorities said.

In the first 10 months of this year, Vietnam suffered 2,501 fires and explosions, which left 75 people dead and 262 others injured, and caused losses of 853.3 billion Vietnamese dong (nearly 38.3 million U.S. dollars), according to the country's Fire Prevention and Fight Department.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China on Thursday urged the European Union to fulfill its World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations.

The EU has proposed changing its anti-dumping legislation in response to the coming expiration of the "surrogate country system."

The European Commission on Wednesday presented a proposal introducing changes to EU anti-dumping and anti-subsidy legislation, allowing the use of "international" prices as cost reference.

"Using the concept of 'market distortion' as a substitute for 'non-market' economy is merely extending the former practice, instead of fundamentally ending the surrogate country system," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said at a daily press briefing.

China will be automatically switched to market economy status when the surrogate country approach expires on Dec. 11, according to the Article 15 of the Protocol on China's accession to the WTO in 2001.

While recognizing abolition of the country list of "non-market economies," Lu said that that China regrets that the EU is not ending the surrogate system once and for all.

He urged the EU to fulfill its WTO obligations by allowing Article 15 to take full effect. New standards and approaches should be justified, reasonable, and transparent, and must not lead to new discrimination.

"China reserves the right to take any necessary steps to defend its own legitimate interests," Lu said.

China hopes the EU, as a core member of the World Trade Organization, will honor its commitments, safeguard international trade order and maintain sound China-EU trade and economic ties, he said.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China's media administrator on Thursday criticized six newspapers for running false news reports, warning all news outlets to improve their systems.

The six newspapers, including Xin'an Evening, Guangzhou Daily and Legal Weekly, have all been given punishments ranging from warning to a fine of 30,000 yuan (4,400 U.S. dollars), according to the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT).

Journalists and editors involved in the false reports were also warned, suspended from their posts or fined.

In one case, the Xin'an Evening newspaper carried an article "where is my right kidney" in May, reporting that a man lost one of his kidneys after a surgery in a hospital in Xuzhou. The man was injured after falling on his bicycle. The report stirred up public debate, with many speculating that the hospital had stolen patients' kidney.

Final investigations found the patient's kidney was still there but atrophied. The reporter had not understood the medical language and failed to make a thorough investigation.

"These false reports have brought adverse social impact and seriously damaged news media's credibility and the journalists' image," the SAPPRFT said in a statement.

The administration asked news outlets not to release unconfirmed information from Internet sources.
NICOSIA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Cypriot authorities rescued overnight around 132 refugees from a boat drifting in stormy seas off the northern coast of the eastern Mediterranean island, the police said on Thursday.

They said there were 51 minors, including a newly born baby and 20 women among the Syrian refugees, who left from the port of Mersin in south Turkey on a fishing boat. The baby and the mother were taken to a hospital.

The police said the boat was spotted by a helicopter on Wednesday night about six nautical miles northwest Kato Pyrgos, a fishing and tourist resort about 70 kilometers northwest of the capital Nicosia, following an anonymous telephone call to the Cypriot Search and Rescue Center.

An official said the call was made from a mobile with a foreign number, probably by the trafficker who left the boat on a jet ski after it entered Cypriot territorial waters.

He said that the refugees were so tightly crammed in the tiny boat that officials could not accurately count the people on board.

The drifting boat was towed into the marina port of Latsi, a tourist resort in the northwestern region of Cyprus.

The Ministry of Interior said the refugees are being processed before being taken to a refugee center near the capital Nicosia.

Ministry sources said the new boatload of refugees seems to be part of a pattern established by Turkish traffickers since early this year.

There have been at least five cases of Syrian refugees arriving in Cyprus after sailing from Mersin where authorities say about 400 of them have been massed waiting for an opportunity to travel to Cyprus.

The refugees told the police that they paid 2,000 dollars each or 5,000 dollars for every family for the 250-km trip.
SHIJIAZHUANG, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A direct sea and rail freight service between the Republic of Korea (ROK), China and Mongolia was launched Wednesday, cutting transport time by nearly half.

On Wednesday morning, a train carrying 100 containers departed from Qinhuangdao Port in north China's Hebei Province for Ulan Bator, capital of Mongolia, marking the opening of the new route, according to local customs.

Previously, containers from the ROK were transported by ships to Qinhuangdao Port, and then went through several train transfers before arriving in Ulan Bator. The new service allows the trains to travel directly to Ulan Bator, reducing the route by four days.

The train, with a designed volume of 100 standard containers, is scheduled to depart every Wednesday.
ANKARA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Ankara and Washington may have dissenting policies regarding the Middle East during the term of Donald Trump, president-elect of the United States, but if the presidents of Turkey and the U.S. build close ties, they can forge a common course in the region, Turkish experts say.

"I think Trump will practice more reconciliatory policies in the Middle East," Prof. Dr. Korkut Boratav told Xinhua, stressing that the new president of the U.S. will not pursue an "interfering policy" in the Middle East, particularly in Syria.

Elaborating on bilateral ties with Turkey, Boratav said that a safe haven in northern Syria will not be on the agenda of Trump; therefore Turkish leaders will be dissatisfied with the new U.S. president's policies in its neighboring country.

Turkey has long been demanding a declaration of no-fly zone in order to protect a safe haven in northern Syria, which would have been in line with Hillary Clinton's perspective in the war-torn country, but Trump is not likely to support such a move, he said.

Toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not a priority for Trump, even a Syria governed by Assad, which Turkey strictly rejects, seems acceptable for the new U.S. president, Boratav noted. Turkey insists the Syrian leader should step down for a solution in the war-torn country.

Acting with deliberation on U.S. soldiers' presence in Syria, Trump will not plan more than airstrikes against the Islamic State (IS) militants in this country, moreover, he will probably end arms support to Syrian rebels, Boratav stated.

The new U.S. president also vowed that he would build closer relations with Russia.

"I guess Trump will not lean towards a division of Syria among jihadist groups," the expert said, adding that Trump would likely pursue more "peaceful" policies in the Middle East.

Assessing bilateral ties between Ankara and Washington, Boratav underlined Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's persona saying he is in favor of powerful leadership image such as Trump and recalled Erdogan's close relations with another "strongman" Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to Boratav, the new administration in Washington might consider extradition of Fethullah Gulen, the self-exiled Islamic cleric in the U.S., who Ankara accuses of orchestrating the July 15 failed coup attempt, a charge he denies.

"Trump will be more open to the extradition of Gulen. He may use his presidential authorities in favor of extradition of the Islamic cleric," Boratav said. "We know that the new U.S. president does not take kindly to Islamic movements."

Turkey has repeatedly demanded Gulen's extradition following the attempted coup, with U.S. officials insisting that they can only extradite him if Turkey presents proof regarding his direct involvement in the coup.

Turkish Justice Ministry had already sent dossiers to the U.S. Justice Department which it said contained evidence of Gulen's involvement in the coup attempt.

In his statement on Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim urged Trump to extradite Gulen when congratulating him on winning the U.S. presidency.

Yildirim noted that "a new page" would be opened in U.S.-Turkey relations if Gulen is extradited to Turkey.

Ilnur Cevik, an adviser to President Erdogan, said with the leadership of Trump, the U.S. may pursue a joint agenda in the Middle East with Turkey and Russia.

"Meanwhile, the dynamics of the Middle East will also be pressing the new U.S. president to tend to the region. If Mr. Trump plays his cards right he can forge close relations with Russian President Putin and also with his Turkish counterpart Erdogan to forge a new course not only for the region but also to ease the tensions between Trump's Western allies and Russia," Cevik wrote in his column in Daily Sabah.

"Turkey and Russia are already moving strongly in this direction. President Trump would make a strong trio," he added.
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Philippines will allow Malaysian authorities to enter its waters to chase kidnappers and militants, part of the outcome of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's bilateral talk with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday.

Kidnappings off the Malaysian state of Sabah has been a perennial problem in the relations between the two countries. Days before Duterte's visit, a German couple were abducted off Sabah waters by Abu Sayaf, a military group based in southern Philippines and the wife was killed, according to Philippine military.

At a press conference after the bilateral talk, Najib said maritime forces had to stop at the Philippine boundaries when chasing bad guys, which would let them get away.

With this agreement, "the Philippines will be notified that we will enter Philippine waters and they will assist us," said Najib.

According to Najib, 10 Malaysian people have been kidnapped by militant groups this year, and five of them are still in captivity.

Najib also noted that defense ministers of the two countries and from Indonesia will meet to sort out legal requirements for such operations.

Najib also revealed his discussion with Duterte on the implementation of the Mindanao Peace Agreements, signed between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Philippines' largest Muslim rebel group.

"I welcome President Duterte's signing of the Executive Order enabling the reconstitution of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission. This will, in turn, lead to the drafting of an enabling law for the eventual formation of a Bangsamoro Government," he said.
File photo taken on Oct. 19, 2016 shows Donald Trump participating in the third and final presidential debate at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) in Las Vegas, Nevada, the United States.(Xinhua photo)

ANKARA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Ankara and Washington may have dissenting policies regarding the Middle East during the term of Donald Trump, president-elect of the United States, but if the presidents of Turkey and the U.S. build close ties, they can forge a common course in the region, Turkish experts say.

"I think Trump will practice more reconciliatory policies in the Middle East," Prof. Dr. Korkut Boratav told Xinhua, stressing that the new president of the U.S. will not pursue an "interfering policy" in the Middle East, particularly in Syria.

Elaborating on bilateral ties with Turkey, Boratav said that a safe haven in northern Syria will not be on the agenda of Trump; therefore Turkish leaders will be dissatisfied with the new U.S. president's policies in its neighboring country.

Turkey has long been demanding a declaration of no-fly zone in order to protect a safe haven in northern Syria, which would have been in line with Hillary Clinton's perspective in the war-torn country, but Trump is not likely to support such a move, he said.

Toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not a priority for Trump, even a Syria governed by Assad, which Turkey strictly rejects, seems acceptable for the new U.S. president, Boratav noted. Turkey insists the Syrian leader should step down for a solution in the war-torn country.

Acting with deliberation on U.S. soldiers' presence in Syria, Trump will not plan more than airstrikes against the Islamic State (IS) militants in this country, moreover, he will probably end arms support to Syrian rebels, Boratav stated.

The new U.S. president also vowed that he would build closer relations with Russia.

"I guess Trump will not lean towards a division of Syria among jihadist groups," the expert said, adding that Trump would likely pursue more "peaceful" policies in the Middle East.

Assessing bilateral ties between Ankara and Washington, Boratav underlined Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's persona saying he is in favor of powerful leadership image such as Trump and recalled Erdogan's close relations with another "strongman" Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to Boratav, the new administration in Washington might consider extradition of Fethullah Gulen, the self-exiled Islamic cleric in the U.S., who Ankara accuses of orchestrating the July 15 failed coup attempt, a charge he denies.

"Trump will be more open to the extradition of Gulen. He may use his presidential authorities in favor of extradition of the Islamic cleric," Boratav said. "We know that the new U.S. president does not take kindly to Islamic movements."

Turkey has repeatedly demanded Gulen's extradition following the attempted coup, with U.S. officials insisting that they can only extradite him if Turkey presents proof regarding his direct involvement in the coup.

Turkish Justice Ministry had already sent dossiers to the U.S. Justice Department which it said contained evidence of Gulen's involvement in the coup attempt.

In his statement on Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim urged Trump to extradite Gulen when congratulating him on winning the U.S. presidency.

Yildirim noted that "a new page" would be opened in U.S.-Turkey relations if Gulen is extradited to Turkey.

Ilnur Cevik, an adviser to President Erdogan, said with the leadership of Trump, the U.S. may pursue a joint agenda in the Middle East with Turkey and Russia.

"Meanwhile, the dynamics of the Middle East will also be pressing the new U.S. president to tend to the region. If Mr. Trump plays his cards right he can forge close relations with Russian President Putin and also with his Turkish counterpart Erdogan to forge a new course not only for the region but also to ease the tensions between Trump's Western allies and Russia," Cevik wrote in his column in Daily Sabah.

"Turkey and Russia are already moving strongly in this direction. President Trump would make a strong trio," he added.
PARIS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A refugee centre opened in Paris on Thursday to welcome hundreds of refugees as part of a plan to better take in thousands of asylum seekers who have been camping for months in French capital streets, Paris city hall announced.

With an initial capacity of 400 people, the refugees shelter is located in an unused railway yard in the 18th district of Paris, it said in a statement.

The centre is reserved for men and will receive 80 people a day, according to local authorities.

The shelter opening came a week after police transferred 3,852 refugees who have been camping outside Stalingrad Metro Station, north Paris.

A second centre will welcome 350 women, children and vulnerable individuals. It will be opened by the year-end in the southern Paris suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine.

The French government pledged that 9,000 places will be made available at 460 reception and orientation centres for refugees. They will be dispersed into groups of 40 to 50 people for a limited period between three and four months.

The migrants who fit the asylum criteria will stay in France while those who do not will be repatriate.

Wars, political instability and poverty in many Mideast and African countries forced thousands of people to displace and seek better life in Europe, leading to an unprecedented migrant crisis.
WINDHOEK, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Agreements were signed with foreign businesses during a two-day conference meant to attract foreign investors into partnerships with Namibian entities in the fields of energy, agriculture, tourism, water and road infrastructure.

The Invest in Namibia conference that opened Tuesday and ended Wednesday was attended by more than 1,700 delegates from more than 20 countries including the United States, China and Germany.

During the conference, ministers responsible for industrialization, agriculture, finance and environment had meetings with various business delegations and discussed potential projects, prospects and policy matters.

A communique issued by the trade ministry and seen by Xinhua Thursday, showed that the China Sun Group is exploring opportunities with the City of Windhoek and Rundu Town Council on servicing land and building low-cost houses.

MK International, a South Korean company, signed a joint venture agreement with Otavi Rebar Manufacturing, a public private partnership for Otavi Town Council, for setting up a reinforcing steel manufacturing plant.

The plant will be strategically located on the SADC Walvis Bay Corridor Network in Otavi, about 360 kilometers north of Windhoek.

According to the communique, the product range will include but not be limited to rebars and steel products in a variety of profiles, allowing Namibia to reduce its dependence on imported construction material.

The initial production capacity of the plant will be 580,000 tons per annum and the projected investment is estimated at 250 million U.S. dollars. More than 800 skilled and 700 semi-skilled jobs will be created.

The German company, Polycare, has agreed to set up shop at Okahandja, about 60 kilometers from Windhoek, for developing low-cost houses made of desert sand and polyster resin.

The company said it takes two days to build the type of houses using building blocks that are 87 percent desert sand and 13 percent polyster resin.

Polycare has indicated that they would set up a production facility within the next six to eight months.

Polycare, according to the communique, has held talks with the City of Windhoek exploring the possibility of working together in constructing low-cost housing to tackle the housing backlog.

"The proposed homes will integrate renewable energy applications in order to address the problem lack of electricity in the informal settlements," the communique said.

The Namibia Investment Centre, Namibia's official investment promotion and facilitation agency, signed an agreement on the Establishment of the Turkey-Namibia Business Council with the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey (DEIK).

The purpose of the Turkey-Namibia Business Council will be to promote trade and cross-border investment between the two countries, contribute to the industrial and technological collaboration between Namibian and Turkish companies and institutions, and facilitate the participation in trade fairs and exhibition.

The Head of the Economic Development Agency of Cuxhaven, one of the key fishing regions in Germany, has committed to lead a business delegation to Namibia in the first quarter next year.

Cuxhaven is the home of more than 30 innovative companies of the fishing industry who employ more than 1,000 staff that work in fish production, processing and logistics.

The delegation will include the company Biocerval, which has expressed interest in setting up a production facility for fish meal and fish oil at Walvis Bay.

Another German entity, Land Rover Experience is in the process of setting a centre in Namibia that will service an exclusive clientele flown into the country by Air Namibia.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese experts have stated that criticisms of the recent interpretation of the Basic Law of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) are totally unfounded.

The interpretation by the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, which is expected to ensure the proper implementation of the "one country, two systems" principle and the rule of law in Hong Kong, will only do good, not harm, to the SAR, according to the experts.

China's top legislature on Monday adopted an interpretation of Article 104 of the Basic Law of Hong Kong SAR, clarifying the implications and requirements of the oaths taken by legislators-elect.

The interpretation was issued following the behavior of a handful of legislators-elect during the election of Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo) and the subsequent swearing-in ceremony. These individuals had publicly voiced support for "Hong Kong independence," intentionally violated the oath and insulted the Chinese nation.

In response to some comments doubting that the interpretation would harm the high degree of autonomy and judicial independence in Hong Kong, Qiang Shigong, a professor with Peking University, noted that such opinions treat the "one country" and "two systems" of the principle in a separate manner.

While "one country" should be the basis for "two systems," such criticisms try to make the "two systems" part override, or even deny, the "one country" basis, Qiang said, adding that such "selective understanding" of the principle is "obviously wrong."

"The 'one country, two systems' principle is an integrated concept, and the authorization from the central authorities is the only source of the high degree of autonomy in Hong Kong," Qiang said.

The high degree of autonomy and judicial independence should be subject to the authority of the central authorities, which is represented in the top legislature's interpretation, Qiang said.

Zou Pingxue, a Hong Kong Basic Law expert with Shenzhen University, explained that legislative bodies' amendments and interpretations to law are common in legal practice.

The experts also refuted some reproaches that view the interpretation as a "political intervention," noting that the "one country" basis must not be compromised, and the undermining of this basis has caused the current problems in Hong Kong.

The separatist claims preached by "Hong Kong independence" forces are matters that concern China's national sovereignty and security, as well as stability of the Hong Kong SAR.

Such claims have encroached on the fundamental interests of the country, according to Qiang.

The top legislature's interpretation is to ensure the faithful implementation of the Basic Law and protect the country's fundamental interests and long-term stability in Hong Kong, Qiang said.

Guo Tianwu, a law professor with Sun Yat-sen University, refuted claims that the interpretation violated free speech, saying that the freedom should be subject to the limits and boundaries of law, national security, social order and other people's legal rights and interests.

Separatist remarks by "Hong Kong independence" forces, which have seriously violated the country's Constitution and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR, and damaged Hong Kong's public interest, should not be protected under the freedom of speech, Guo said.

Rao Geping, a law professor at Peking University, agreed, stressing that free speech should be based on certain conditions.

Rao also noted that the national self-determination rule in international law should not be applied to "Hong Kong independence" claims, which go against China's history, common sense, law and public opinion.

The professor called on Hong Kong society, especially the LegCo, to fully understand the significance of the interpretation, reach consensus and judge and regulate its members' words and acts by the law to safeguard the rule of law.

"If 'Hong Kong independence' remarks are left unchecked, the authority and credibility of the LegCo will be damaged and Hong Kong society and the immediate interests of Hong Kong citizens will be jeopardized," Rao said.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China support the work of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and do more to work with member to combat cross-border crime.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the remark at a routine news briefing when commenting on Chinese vice minister for public security Meng Hongwei's election as new Interpol president.

Meng was elected on Thursday at the closing ceremony of Interpol's 85th General Assembly in Bali, Indonesia. He is the first Chinese official to hold the post.

Extending congratulations to Meng, Lu said China attaches great importance to Interpol's role, and is ready to take more responsibility and make a greater contribution to global law enforcement and security cooperation.

Lu promised joint efforts with various countries to create a sound and safety environment for prosperous development.

Meng takes over from Mireille Ballestrazzi of France for a four-year term.

Now headquartered in Lyon, France, Interpol is the second largest international organization after the United Nations with 190 members. China joined Interpol in 1984.
Photo taken on Oct. 16, 2016 shows South Sudan's government troops on a military truck preparing a journey to the frontline in Malakal, South Sudan. Fresh clashes between government and opposition forces near the northern town of Malakal have killed at least 56 over the weekend, a military spokesman said late Sunday. (Xinhua/Gale Julius)

JUBA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 12 people were killed and two others were injured in an attack by rebel forces in Kaya, a busy South Sudanese commercial center on the border with Uganda, an official said on Thursday.

Stephen Lado Onisimo, Information Minister of Yei River State, told Xinhua by phone that rebel fighters attacked a police post Wednesday, leading to the killing of 12 people on both sides.

Onisimo said two police officers died and 10 rebels were also killed.

Photo taken on Oct. 16, 2016 shows South Sudan's government troops patrolling in Malakal town,South Sudan. Fresh clashes between government and opposition forces near the northern town of Malakal have killed at least 56 over the weekend, a military spokesman said late Sunday. (Xinhua/Gale Julius)

"Opposition forces attacked Kaya at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday and killed two police officers and injured two others," Onisimo said.

"Ten died on the rebel side. There are no civilian casualties because civilians have all crossed to the Ugandan side of the border," Onisimo said.

Kaya town, approximately 221 km from the capital Juba, was a busy commercial hub that attracted traders from Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo before the renewed fighting devastated the town in August.

Unknown gunmen last month ambushed a convoy of vehicles carrying civilians fleeing insecurity in the same region, killing over 20 people, including women and children.
Yu Zhengsheng(R), chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, meets with visiting president of the First Chamber of the Dutch parliament Ankie Broekers-Knol in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 10, 2016. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling)

BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng held a meeting with visiting president of the First Chamber of the Dutch parliament Ankie Broekers-Knol here on Thursday to promote bilateral understanding.

Yu, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), told the Dutch guests that China attaches high importance to relations with the Netherlands and is ready to enhance exchanges with the country in various fields.

The Netherlands is an important partner of China in the European Union, Yu said, noting bilateral cooperation has strong growth.

Yu called on the CPPCC and the First Chamber of the Dutch parliament to further mutual contact and understanding in order to promote greater development of Sino-Dutch ties, according to an official press release.

Impressed by her China tour, Broekers-Knol said she is willing to promote ties between the First Chamber of the Dutch parliament and the CPPCC so as to maintain the common interests of the Netherlands and China and, jointly deal with challenges.

Top legislator Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), held a meeting with Broekers-Knol on Monday.
KIEV, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian Defense Ministry on Thursday denied a statement by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on the detention of Ukrainian saboteurs in Crimea.

"It is another story faked by Russian special services aimed at hiding their own intolerable actions against residents of the peninsula and at discrediting Ukraine in the eyes of the international community," said a statement on the ministry's website.

Earlier in the day, the FSB said in a statement that on Wednesday it has detained a group of armed saboteurs in the southwestern Crimean city of Sevastopol, who allegedly were members of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's intelligence forces.

The armed men, who were arrested with weapons and explosive devices, were plotting terror attacks on the peninsula's military infrastructure and utility facilities, the FSB said.

The incident marked another row between Kiev and Moscow over the detention of the alleged saboteurs.

In August, Russia said it had prevented several groups of Ukrainian intelligence officers from invading Crimea, a claim which Kiev denied.

The autonomous republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol were absorbed into Russia in March 2014 following a referendum, which was recognized by Moscow but rejected by Kiev.
NAIROBI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of youth from South Sudan and Uganda have benefited from a skills development initiative funded by international charities to help reclaim their lives and involve them in peace and reconciliation processes.

The Qatar Royal family and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) special envoy for peace and development, Forest Whitaker, have financed this education and mentorship program to help rebuild lives of youth from conflict zones.

A statement issued in Nairobi on Thursday said the new skills development initiative for Ugandan and South Sudanese youth is supported by Her Highness Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser of Qatar's Education Above All (EAA) foundation in partnership with UNESCO special envoy and American Hollywood actor Forest Whitaker.

It added that the partnership aims to create a large pool of skilled and patriotic youth from the two eastern African nations that are grappling with poverty, natural disasters and sporadic conflicts.

"We are delighted to enable young people to share their knowledge and equip others with the skills they need to rebuild their communities jeopardized by war, poverty and conflicts," said the statement

It added that youths who have benefited from the skills development initiative have contributed immensely to peace and development in their respective communities.

Whitaker hailed the potential of education and mentorship to transform lives of youth from post conflict zones.

"We are helping young people from Uganda and South Sudan become a force for peace in their communities. We want them to amplify the message that education is a gateway to peace and prosperity," Whitaker said.

He revealed that hundreds of youth from South Sudan's eastern Equatorial region and Northern Uganda who have benefited from the education initiative are now involved in a range of peace building activities in their native countries.

Hidita Scovia, a South Sudan youth who has benefited from the skills development initiative said education can be a vehicle for fostering cohesion and peace.

"By acquiring education, it will be possible for children and youth to engage in productive activities rather than anti social behavior like war and crime," Scovia said.

She vowed to utilize vocational skills to contribute to her country's rebuilding.
DAMASCUS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian government and various opposition parties have expressed different opinions over the winning of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election, with each having different wishes from the new U.S. president.

For the Syrian government, wishes were that the United States under Trump's administration could be an "effective member" in the battle on terrorism, as Damascus deems all armed insurgents and the political opposition supporting them as terrorists.

"Syria doesn't interfere in the results of the U.S. elections, and what matters to the Syrians is the policy adopted by the new president," Bouthaina Shaaban, a senior advisor to Syrian President Bashar Assad, said in the first official Syrian response to the election of Trump, cited by pro-government al-Watan TV on Thursday.

Shaaban further remarked that Damascus is ready to cooperate with Washington if Trump's policies "were in harmony with our aspirations."

Shaaban's cautious wishes came as several segments of the Syrian society, mainly those supporting President Assad, expressed relative reliefs with U.S. Republican Trump winning the U.S. presidential election.

Big part of the relief is due to Trump's previous remarks about his will to cooperate with Russia in the war on terrorism, and thus a possible cooperation with the government of President Assad.

"When you think about it, wouldn't it be nice if we got along with Russia?" Trump said in July. "Wouldn't it be nice if we got together with Russia and knocked the hell out of IS (the Islamic State)?"

Another aspect that encourages the Syrians to feel good about Trump's winning is his desire not to interfere in other countries' internal affairs.

The Syrian government has always complained of the U.S. foreign policy toward Syria and regional issues, as President Barack Obama and even Hillary Clinton always showed a tendency toward backing the rebels in Syria against the Syrian government, with repeated calls for the ouster of Assad.

In her recent remarks, Shaaban said that "if his (Trump) policy was in line with the aspirations of Damascus, Syria is open to any cooperation with the United States and other countries that respect the sovereignty of nations and take into account the interest of the people."

Shaaban added that the U.S. interference in other countries' affairs has brought nothing but catastrophes, adding that Washington must adopt the policy of cooperation with other countries.

For his part, Muhammad Kheir, a Syrian parliamentarian, told al-Watan newspaper that the winning of Trump is much better than the would-be win of Clinton.

"If she had won, the situation in the region would be much worse in terms of the wars currently raging," he said, referring to the previous remarks by Clinton, who demanded a no-fly zone in Syria, which is seen by government loyalists as a plan to empower the rebels against the Syrian regime.

For the Assad loyalists, Trump had given positive vibes, when he expressed skepticism about the nature of the Syrian oppositions supported by Washington, while warning that the representatives of such oppositions may have been allied with the IS group.

Syrian political opposition parties reportedly congratulated Trump, with some members expressing their fears with Trump in the White House, following his positive remarks on Russia and the Syrian government.

Nasr al-Hariri, a member in the Saudi-backed Syrian National Coalition, said that remarks of Trump were "unacceptable," expressing fear of what could Trump do next.

Trump made it clear that one of his decisions when he becomes a president is to ban Muslims from entering the United States. He defended his stance as to protect Americans, not a religious discrimination.

Such remarks were not received at ease from the Syrian opposition which has been eager to topple Assad by all possible means, which explains their repetitive requests from Washington for more military aid to the rebels on ground.

Still, other Syrian opposition figures chose to be a bit more wishful.

Riad Hijab, a breakaway Syrian prime minister who became the central coordinator of the Western-backed High Negotiations Committee opposition, was said to have sent a letter of congratulation to Trump.

In his letter, Hijab said he was looking forward to more cooperation between the U.S. and the Syrian opposition to bring peace to the region and find "just and quick solutions to the suffering of the Syrian people."

For his part, Anas al-Abdah, the president of the Syrian National Coalition, wished that Trump could prove his critics wrong and play a more leading role than that of his predecessor by "undertaking a new and inclusive approach that primarily focuses on taking tangible steps to protect the Syrian civilians."

That was the case for the exiled opposition, which has taken a more radical approach in dealing with the Assad administration, by urging the United States and other Western powers for more military support to bring down Assad.

Unlike the exiled opposition, the home-based groups saw a glimpse of light with the election of Trump, in terms of cooperating with Russia to resolve the Syrian crisis politically.

Hasan Abdul-Azim, the general coordinator of the National Coordination Body, the largest Damascus-based political opposition group, told Xinhua that he wasn't expecting a great shift in the foreign policies of the United States with the advent of Trump.

However, he wished that Trump could do a change, even a little, in terms of "deepening the relations between Washington and Moscow to revive the political tracks for resolving the Syrian crisis."

Anas Joudeh, the head of the oppositional Damascus-based Nation Building Movement, agreed with Abdul-Azim that the foreign policies of the United States could still be relatively the same.

"Initially, the United States is governed by strategies, not the persons who come to the presidency, and such strategies are fixed and unchangeable, but every president can deal with it slightly differently," Joudeh said.

"The winning of Trump alone is not enough to see a big detente in terms of resolving the Syrian crisis, unless he cooperates with Russia, and if that happened, we could see a long-lasting ceasefire that constitutes the beginning of a political solution," he added.

Even Russia expressed optimism with the advent of Trump, with President Vladimir saying he would do everything he could to repair ties between the two countries.

"Russia is ready and wants to restore full-scale relations with the U.S.," Putin said. "We understand it will be a difficult path, but we are ready to play our part."
Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds a welcoming ceremony for Ecuador President Rafael Correa Delgado before their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 7, 2015. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

QUITO, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Bilateral ties between China and Ecuador have seen notable growth within the framework of their strategic partnership, and Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to the country will further boost the development of the relations.

At the invitation of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, Peruvian President Pablo Kuczynski and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Xi will pay state visits to the three countries from Nov. 17 to Nov. 23.

During the tour, Xi will also attend the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting from Nov. 19 to Nov. 20 in Peru.

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Guillaume Long told Xinhua, "It is a historic visit, the first time that a president from China visits us, so we are very excited. They (Correa and Xi) met in China, and now, on Ecuadorian soil. It is an honor for us."

Ecuador "hopes the historic visit by a Chinese president...leads to strengthening strategic ties," Long said, adding that "the ties with China in recent years have been very fruitful, very significant."

Ecuador and China established diplomatic ties in 1980. Since Correa came to power in 2007, the South American country has focused on deepening ties with the Asian country.

Correa's first official trip to Beijing took place in the same year, to bolster cooperation in different fields, from energy, science and technology, to economy, trade and education.

In 2015, on his second visit, Correa and Xi agreed to elevate the ties to the level of strategic partnership, signing 14 bilateral agreements in diverse areas.

"The establishment of strategic partnership precisely reflects the level of China-Ecuador relations and will boost the development of the ties," Xi said at the time. Correa has said the relationship "is at its peak."

Such an assessment was echoed by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, when he met Correa in Quito in October.

Wang said that China and Ecuador, with mutual trust and support, have entered a new stage of development and achieved fruitful results in all fields.

An Ecuadorian national flag waves over a tent donated by China after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Pedernales, Manabi province, Ecuador, on May 16, 2016. (Xinhua/Str)

China is willing to further enhance the all-round and in-depth development of bilateral relations, he said.

Long said Xi's trip to Quito next week will further cement the ties.

Katalina Barreiro, an expert on international relations at Ecuador's Institute of Advanced National Studies, said that "traditionally, we have been more familiar with Western powers than Eastern powers, but China is a strategic partner at this historic point in time for Latin America and for Ecuador."

China's presence in Ecuador "is palpable and highly useful," Barreiro told Xinhua, speaking highly of "China's successful cooperation" in the aftermath of the powerful earthquake that devastated towns along Ecuador's northern coast on April 16, killing 673 people.

"The most effective cooperation came from China," said Barreiro, referring to the humanitarian aid, including tents, foldaway beds and water purifiers that China donated for the homeless.

The bilateral ties have been propelled forward not just by the exchanges of high-level visits, but also by mutual respect for the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention in domestic affairs.

Milton Reyes, a professor and researcher of Asia-Pacific affairs at the Latin American Integration Association (Aladi), said the two countries "have shared values on the matter of sovereignty," which allows Ecuador to "make its own decisions."

That has also encouraged Correa's government "to seek to elevate the bilateral ties and explore the potential to expand cooperation, access to financial resources, direct investment and the entry of (Ecuadorian) products into the Chinese market," Reyes said.
RAMALLAH, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday that the investigation into the death of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has "made good progress."

Abbas said during a festival commemorating the 12th anniversary of the passing of Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah that "the investigation into the martyrdom of Brother Abu Ammar (Arafat) is still ongoing and the Palestinian investigation committee is still working with the case, and we have made good progress in approaching the truth."

He added "when this committee reaches its conclusions, they will be presented to the people in the soonest chance."

"We will continue to look for who did it, and if you ask me, I know, but my testimony is not enough, and the investigation committee shall continue and prove the motives and in the soonest chance, the conclusions will be announced and you will be surprised by the perpetrators," continued Abbas.

Arafat died in Nov. 11, 2004, aged 75, in a hospital in France due to an unknown illness, amidst Palestinian accusations that Israel poisoned him.

Israel denies the accusations. Arafat is the former president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since 1969 and the first president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) since its establishment in accordance with the interim Oslo Accords in 1993.

President Abbas also said that the year 2017 "is the year to end the Israeli occupation with all the tools available," vowing not to make any concessions on the Palestinian national standards, until the end of his life.

"We have called for holding an international peace conference and France, thankfully, took the initiative towards adopting this idea that we hope to hold the conference before the end of the year," said Abbas.

He mentioned that the conference will, hopefully, "put a timeframe to end the occupation and find working and monitoring mechanisms to overlook what has been agreed upon in order to enable our people to live in freedom and dignity."

Peace talks between Israel and Palestine have been stalled since April 2014 after the U.S.-sponsored nine-month-long talks achieved no tangible results.
GENEVA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Senior Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Jan Egeland, warned Thursday that the lives and wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians are at risk as winter sets in amid unabated fighting between warring factions.

"There is no doubt it will be the worst in this cruel war and I fear that it will be a real killer in many places," he told press after a weekly humanitarian taskforce meeting here.

"No place are we so worried at this time as for the quarter of a million civilians in east Aleppo," he added.

The last time aid reached eastern districts of what was once Syria's economic hub and largest city was in July this year.

The scene of intense ground fighting pitching forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against rebel factions seeking to oust him, east Aleppo is also running low on food.

"The last food rations are being distributed as we speak. There will not be more to distribute next week," Egeland warned.

Compounding this is the alarming medical situation, with an estimated 300 patients in urgent need of evacuation to receive treatment.

Egeland revealed that the UN launched last week a four-thronged proposal in a bid to assist as comprehensively as possible east Aleppo's civilian population.

Contingent on all parties to the conflict giving the green light, the UN hopes to provide much-needed medical supplies, conduct medical evacuations, deliver food and other critical supplies while sending more medical personnel to east Aleppo.

"It's a big operation to feed a quarter of a million people and also to do complex evacuations," Egeland cautioned.

If warring factions give the go-ahead, relief teams on the ground would need 72 hours to prepare operations and a few days and nights to carry out their objectives, he explained.

The Norwegian diplomat also reminded that conditions in other besieged and hard-to-reach areas in Syria are extremely concerning as a result of the conflict which kicked off in March 2011.

Some 400,000 people have died during the five-year war while millions more have been displaced by fighting and reigning insecurity.
BISHKEK, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev on Thursday praised the opening of a road section built by a Chinese company in southern Kyrgyzstan, saying it was a great event for the region and the whole country, according to the Kyrgyz presidential press service.

"The day has come, which we all have waited for. After all, when we started the construction work, many did not believe that this road would be built," he said at the opening ceremony of the section on the Osh-Batken-Isfana Road in the town of Isfana.

The road section was rehabilitated by China Road and Bridge Corporation and financed by the Export-Import Bank of China, the presidential press service said.

Atambayev said that Kyrgyzstan has found the way to development, and should not leave it.

The Kyrgyz leader expressed gratitude to the Chinese partners for their help in the construction of the highway.

Chinese Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Xiao Qinghua said at the opening ceremony that the opening of the section of the road is another example of Chinese-Kyrgyz cooperation.

"This road will not only contribute to the development of the area, but will also be an important transport corridor in the region," Xiao said.

"As a good neighbor and a strategic partner, China is happy about the achievements of its friend Kyrgyzstan and will continue to consistently provide all possible assistance to Kyrgyzstan during its economic development and improving people's well-being," Xiao said.

The rehabilitation of the road section started in 2013. The complete rehabilitation of the road is scheduled for October 2017.
PARIS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The French embassy in central Athens has been the target of a hand grenade, early on Thursday, French foreign ministry spokesman Roman Nadal confirmed.

"We are following the investigation in close cooperation with Greek authorities, which are fully mobilized (to identify the attackers)," Nadal said at daily e-briefing.

All security measures have been taken to ensure the security of French envoy in Greece, he added.

Two perpetrators on a motorcycle threw a grenade at the French embassy early in the day, injuring slightly a Greek police officer.

No group has claimed responsibility yet.
Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto(1st R), China's Ambassador to Hungary Duan Jielong (2nd L) and other guests unveil the new plate of the Hungarian-Chinese Bilingual Primary and Secondary School in Budapest, Hungary on Nov. 10, 2016. Hungarian and Chinese officials gathered at the Hungarian-Chinese Bilingual Primary and Secondary School here on Thursday to launch a bilingual secondary school enabling education up to Chinese K-12 level. (Xinhua/Attila Volgyi)

BUDAPEST, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian and Chinese officials gathered at the Hungarian-Chinese Bilingual Primary and Secondary School here on Thursday to launch a bilingual secondary school enabling education up to Chinese K-12 level.

Scholarships being offered by the Chinese embassy were also announced at the event.

Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said Hungary aimed to build more strategic cooperation with China.

Hungarians are especially interested in China, including Chinese culture and the language, which is why the government has been boosting ties with China in education and culture, he added.

Under an agreement signed between the two governments in October, China will supply grammar books and other textbooks to the school, send guest lecturers and receive Hungarian teachers for placements in China, and will organize Chinese camps for students.

At the same time, students at Budapest's Eotvos Lorand University attending masters' courses in teaching Chinese and students at Beijing Foreign Studies University studying Hungarian will both be able to teach in this school for their work placements, Szijjarto said.

China's Ambassador to Hungary Duan Jielong said the school symbolized Chinese-Hungarian friendship. The Chinese government and the Chinese Embassy in Hungary will continue to support the bilingual school, he added.

The Chinese embassy and the school also signed a scholarship accord based on Hungary's "Opening to the East" policy and China's Belt and Road Initiative, offering up to eight scholarships of 200,000 forints (710 U.S. dollars) each to outstanding students every year.

In 2004, the governments of China and Hungary built the bilingual school together, a full-time school that teaches Chinese and local languages in Central and Eastern Europe. Currently, the school has nine grades and more than 390 students, with more than two thirds of them being local and nearly one third Chinese.
MANAMA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A new British naval facility to support maritime operations in the region was opened on Thursday by The Prince of Wales.

The British Naval Support Facility's Welfare Block was opened by Prince Charles in the presence of Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister.

"HRH the Prince of Wales is opening the new Welfare Block at Mina Salman," the British Embassy in Bahrain posted on its Twitter account with series of photographs showing Prince Charles interacting with Royal Navy personnel on Thursday.

The new block is part of the under-construction naval facility that is expected to be opened by next year.

Work has been ongoing since the ground-breaking ceremony was held at the base in November last year by former British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond and his Bahraini counterpart Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa.

The Prince of Wales office in a statement on Nov. 1 said that as the first major British base east of the Gulf of Suez since 1971, HMS Juffair makes a major contribution to security in the region.

The Prince of Wales and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, are on a visit to Bahrain to take part in events marking the 200th anniversary of ties between Bahrain and Britain.
Chinese PresidentXi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), speaks at a CMC meeting on logistics, in Beijing, capital of China. The meeting was held from Wednesday to Thursday in Beijing. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has called for the building of strong and modern logistics forces that will guarantee the realization of the Chinese dream as well as the dream of a strong army.

Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks at a CMC meeting on logistics held from Wednesday to Thursday.

Xi praised the logistics forces' contributions to the country's revolution, construction and reform periods, urging logistics staff to strengthen a sense of responsibility to achieve "leapfrog development" and secure a foundation for the construction of a leading military.

"As the international military competition situation experiences profound changes, and national interests and military missions develop, logistical construction is becoming an increasingly crucial factor that affects wins or losses in battle... and occupies a key place in the development of the Party, the country and the military," Xi noted.

"We must build a logistics force in which everything exists for fighting a war. It must always remain true to the fundamental purpose of helping win a war," Xi said.

Stressing strategic planning and guidance, Xi called for more efforts to research logistics theories and innovation while solving problems that hold back logistics development.

The president urged Party committees and military commanders at all levels to attach great importance to military logistics work, with a focus on the reform of logistics policies and optimization of structures and distribution.

Xi called for scientific and economic management of logistics work, urging military funds and resources to be subjected to centralized and unified management, allocation and use.

According to Xi, more efforts should be made to use state-level resources and enlist the help of local governments as well as social groups and individuals to develop a series of innovation projects that cater to both military and civilian uses.

Since the CPC's 18th National Congress in late 2012, Xi has attached great importance to logistics work. Xi met with attendees of a PLA meeting on logistics in November 2013. In September 2016, Xi conferred flags to joint logistics units as the CMC established a joint logistics support force.

Xi asked logistics staff to push forward their work in line with the requirements of comprehensive and strict Party governance.

Xi also called for efforts to prioritize ideological and political construction and remain determined in fighting corruption in the army and clearing up the bad influence of Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou.

The president urged the military to stay clear-minded and safeguard the authority of the CPC Central Committee and the command of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC, asking them to strengthen intra-Party supervision.

Xi also urged efforts to build strong logistics forces by fostering high-quality talent.

CMC vice chairmen Fan Changlong and Xu Qiliang attended the meeting.
JERUSALEM, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli hi-tech company said on Thursday that it has developed a technology that will "revolutionize" the international diamond industry by automatically evaluating the clarity grade and the price of diamonds.

Sarine Technologies, based in Ramat Gan city outside Tel Aviv, said in a statement that it is the first time a technology allows an "automated, objective and consistent clarity and color measurement and grading systems" for diamonds.

Figures show that incorrect grading of diamonds is common, with a general error rate of up to 20 percent.

The diamonds industry saw a growing mistrust by consumers due to wrong grading of gems and even artificial diamonds sold as natural stones.

"Customers are looking for a way that a diamond is graded based on facts objectively and accurately," said Uzi Levami, CEO of Sarine Technologies.

In a press conference on Thursday, Sarine said that commercialization of the new method is expected in mid 2017, after it will conclude its current large-scale testing in India.
The first batch of KenyaDefence Forces (KDF) soldiers who had served in the United Nationspeacekeeping mission in South Sudan arrive at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, Nov. 9, 2016. The move comes after Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said Kenya's decision to withdraw from the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan was a protest against the violation of the dignity of Kenya's soldiers. About 900 more soldiers are expected back to the country. (Xinhua/Nyalwash)

NAIROBI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Canada has called on Kenya to continue supporting peace initiatives, saying the country's participation in many of the UN peacekeeping missions has significantly contributed to global peace, security and stability.

Visiting Canadian Foreign Minister Stephan Dion also hailed Kenya for its role in peacekeeping missions in the world, saying his country would want to partner with Nairobi in spearheading peace initiatives across the world.

The first batch of KenyaDefence Forces (KDF) soldiers who had served in the United Nationspeacekeeping mission in South Sudan arrive at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, Nov. 9, 2016. (Xinhua/Nyalwash)

"We are seriously considering embarking on peacekeeping missions in countries facing instability challenges including Africa. I am sure we will have an opportunity to work closely with you," Dion said when he held talks with President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi on Wednesday evening.

A statement issued on Thursday revealed that the Canadian minister said his country was also keen on scaling up its bilateral relations with Kenya, especially in peace and security initiatives.

The East African nation is the world's 29th largest contributor of military and police personnel to UN peacekeeping.

Nairobi currently deploys several military and police personnel to the UN operations in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Liberia, Mali, Sudan and South Sudan.

Speaking during the meeting, Kenyatta affirmed Kenya's commitment to regional and global peace but emphasized the need to restructure the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan. (UNMISS).

Kenyatta said Kenya would not accept to be a scapegoat for structural failures of the UN mission to South Sudan.

He said the government made a decision to withdraw its troops from South Sudan because it was not consulted by the UN on the sacking of Lt-Gen Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki.

The president observed that Lt-Gen Ondieki had barely settled into the new role before the eruption of the recent skirmishes in South Sudan.

President Kenyatta reiterated that the structural failures of the mission should not be blamed on the Kenyan General.

"Even if there were problems, it would have been courteous for the UN to consult IGAD (Inter-Governmental Authority on Development) member states before taking the drastic decision," Kenyatta said.

He said Kenya has communicated its decision and forwarded its complains to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, noting that Kenya would appreciate working with Canada in peace initiatives.

The sacking of the Kenyan General prompted Kenyatta to order withdrawal of about 1,000 soldiers who were part of the UNMISS. The first batch of 100 soldiers arrived in Nairobi on Wednesday.
Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang, who is also head of the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, attends a plenary session of the leading group in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 10, 2016. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang on Thursday urged local governments to solve major problems unveiled in the latest round of poverty-relief inspections.

Wang, also head of the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, was briefed on the nationwide inspection, which started last month to find both good practices and problems in poverty relief.

Replicable measures adopted by local governments should be summarized and rolled out around the country, he said.

Meanwhile, the country must strive to find a solution to major problems found during the inspection, including formalism, inaccuracy and the inability of some poor people to support themselves, Wang said.

The government should pressure local governments, which should take responsibility to ensure earnest implementation of the country's poverty-relief measures, he said.

As of the end of 2015, China still had 55.75 million people living in poverty. It plans to lift all of its poor out of poverty by 2020.
TBILISI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The NATO-Georgia Exercise 2016 kicked off at the Joint Training and Evaluation Center in Georgia's Krtsanisi near Tbilisi on Thursday.

According to the Georgian Defense Ministry, along with Georgian soldiers, servicemen from 11 NATO member states, namely Turkey, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Belgium, Slovenia, Britain and the United States and two NATO parter states, Ukraine and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, will participate in the drills.

The exercise aims to enhance the interoperability of Georgia and its NATO partners, as well as command and control capabilities, said the ministry.

"I welcome the start of the joint drills, the second NATO-Georgia exercise, which runs from Nov. 10 to 21, another milestone in the long-standing, deep cooperation between NATO and Georgia and further recognition of Georgia's commitment to strong defense," NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia James Appathurai said on his Facebook page.

It is the second NATO-involved military exercise launched in Georgia this year.

In May, Georgia, together with the United States and Britain, launched a three-week long joint military drill named "Noble Partner 2016" at Vaziani base near Tbilisi.
Xie Ji, the deputy chief of Chinese delegation to COP22, speaks during a press conference in Marrakech, Morocco, Nov. 10, 2016. China is taking much stronger actions on climate change than before, affirmed Xie Ji, deputy chief of Chinese delegation to COP22 in Marrakech of Morocco on Thursday. (Xinhua/Meng Tao)

MARRAKECH, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China is taking much stronger actions on climate change than before, affirmed Xie Ji, deputy chief of Chinese delegation to COP22 in Marrakech of Morocco on Thursday.

During a press conference in COP22, Xie said that China has set up an ambitious target to reach the peaking of CO2 emission around 2030.

"Many cities promised they can reach their peaking before 2030, and a few cities try to achieve the target around 2020," explained Xie, adding that many industries, especially the energy intensive industries, were asked to control CO2 emission and try to reach the peaking around 2020.

On Wednesday, another deputy chief of Chinese delegation to COP22 Gou Haibo confirmed that China would continue to uphold a development concept highlighting innovation, coordination, greenness, openness and sharing.

He underlined that China would act positively and forcefully in maintaining the international mechanism, promoting international cooperation and combating climate change.
SHENZHEN, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong called for enhanced international exchange and cooperation in museums.

Liu made the remarks on Thursday at the opening ceremony of an international museum forum held in Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong Province.

President Xi Jinping has sent a congratulatory letter to the forum.

Liu said China has made museum development a national cultural strategy, and so far a comprehensive and diverse museum system with multiple levels has been established in China.

These museums host more than 20,000 exhibitions, attracting 700 million visitors each year, and have played an active role in social and economic development, Liu said.

Liu said it is a common task for all countries to properly build, protect and use museums, which can help spread culture.

The forum is co-hosted by UNESCO, the National Commission of the People's Republic of China for UNESCO, the State Cultural Relics Bureau and Shenzhen Municipal Government. It was attended by more than 200 world-renowned museum experts.
Rescuers work at the rescue site in Zhongmengchang Village of Lixian County in Baoding, north China's Hebei Province, Nov. 10, 2016. A boy fell into a dried well in Baoding on Nov. 6 and was finally found dead on the night of Nov. 10 after over 100 hours of desperate rescue.(Source: CNTV.com)

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SHIJIAZHUANG, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese boy was finally found dead in an abandoned well in north China's Hebei Province on Thursday night after over 100 hours of desperate rescue.

Wu Sujie, a rescue official, said the boy was found without signs of life.

The boy, 6, fell down the 80-meter-deep dry well in Lixian County, Baoding City, on Sunday morning, when helping harvest vegetables with his father. His father put out a call for help on the social-networking app Wechat and rescuers and the public rushed to the scene to help in any way they could.

Over 500 rescuers and some one hundred excavators were involved in the rescue operation.

As the 30 centimeter-diameter well was too narrow for any adult to climb into, rescuers dug out the well to try and reach the boy.

The rescue had been hampered by the soft sandy soil, which is prone to collapse. Measures were taken to support the shaft during the excavation.

During the past days, many members of the public have volunteered to help the rescue by donating food and money. Locals also rushed to the scene to prepare food for the rescue team.

The story is being widely shared and discussed across the Internet, and live-broadcasts from the scene are also being streamed.
HARARE, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Zimbabwean government has given more than 19,600 farmers agricultural inputs under a command agriculture facility designed to boost food security.

Home Affairs Minister Ignatius Chombo told journalists after a meeting of the ruling Zanu-PF's politburo Wednesday evening that at least 163,865 hectares of both irrigable and dry land had been put under contract with 75 percent already tilled.

The government this year launched the command agriculture initiative through which selected farmers are given inputs and irrigation and mechanized equipment under a three-year 500-million-U.S.-dollar program.

The program offers tillage and production inputs such as fertilizers, seed and chemicals on a cost recovery basis.

Participating farmers are required to produce more than 5 tonnes of maize per hectare on 400,000 hectares under strict supervision from government agricultural experts.

Generally, the average maize yield per hectare is 0.8 tonnes on about 1.2 million hectares.

Chombo told The Herald newspaper that 19,608 farmers had benefited from the program.

"Under this program, 2,658 agricultural extension workers and 91,000 farmers were trained with a total of 1,229 learning centers having been established," he said.

Government expects the farmers to supply the initial 5 tonnes per hectare to state grain procurer the Grain Marketing Board as repayment for the inputs and retain the surplus for personal use.

The Office of the President and the Cabinet initiated the program to curb food insecurity which had risen from 12 percent in 2011 to 42 percent in 2016.

About 4 million Zimbabweans need food assistance this year as a result of the El Nino-induced drought.

One agriculture expert who declined to be named said if the program was done properly, it would be the solution to Zimbabwe's perennial food deficit.

He was worried however that time was running out as the agricultural season was fast approaching, yet more farmers still had to be brought on board to meet the 400,000-hectare target.

Zimbabwe's planting season usually starts in November and extends to early January depending on the earliness of the rains.

The country requires about 2 million tonnes annually for both human and livestock consumption but has been failing to meet its requirements for more than a decade following poor harvests caused by various factors.

These include farm disruptions, which took place during the land reform period when white commercial farmers were removed to make way for landless blacks, lack of inputs, production inefficiencies, erratic rains and diversification by many farmers from maize to cash crops, especially tobacco.

Traditionally Zimbabwean farmers grow maize on 1.2 million hectares, and if they could achieve just 2 tonnes per hectare, the country would be food sufficient.

Economist Clemence Machadu said in a recent interview with Xinhua that the command agriculture facility was "good in principle" but urged the implementers to shun corruption and avoid past misdemeanors where connected individuals benefited ahead of more deserving cases.

"The money translates to 1,250 dollars per hectare, which is adequate, given how maize production requires an average of 1,200 dollars per hectare in Zimbabwe.

"But it is ambitious in terms of its targets and we can not rule out corruption and partisanship along the lines of distribution. There is a good chance of intermediate beneficiaries, if we are to judge on the basis of history," he said.

He added that there was also need for concrete real-time monitoring mechanisms during implementation to ensure that the beneficiaries do not sell the inputs as had happened before.

Machadu also suggested technical assistance from partners with more sophisticated farming practices like China.

For instance, the China-Aid Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center at Gwebi Agricultural College 27 km northwest of Harare has been teaching locals how to improve their yields and produces more than 10 tonnes of maize per hectare.
SKOPJE, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Macedonian Ministry of Interior has prevented a terror attack that was planned to take place in Macedonia, director of the public security bureau Mitko Cavkov said Thursday.

Two persons aged 23 and 24 were arrested as part of a wider regional operative action aimed at fighting terrorism after the Macedonian intelligence service had information that they were preparing attacks in Macedonia, the Interior Ministry informed.

According to Cavkov at a press conference, the two arrested were in contact with former fighters in the Islamic State (IS) of Iraq and Syria.

The Interior Ministry conducted searches in Skopje and in Aracinovo on Nov. 4. During the search, one 24 year old person from Aracinovo was detained, and the other was detained in Kosovo. Their goal was carrying out terror acts in Macedonia, Cavkov declared.

He explained that during the raids, police seized computers and mobile phones owned by the two persons which will be taken as evidence for further investigation.

According to Macedonian interior ministry sources, over 150 Macedonian citizens have gone to fight in the Middle East, joining radical groups there.
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Jan Egeland, the UN special adviser on Syria, on Thursday said that he feels that "this will be the worst winter in the five-year war" in Syria as food rations are about to run out in east Aleppo, a city in north Syria, a UN spokesman told reporters here.

"Some of the areas are freezing cold, and people will be in need of digging themselves down in the ground in extreme cases because they cannot be reached to receive humanitarian aid," Egeland was quoted by UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric as saying at a daily news briefing here.

The special adviser said that "the reports we have now from within east Aleppo is that the last food rations are being distributed, and there will be nothing more to distribute next week."

He said that "we have a UN initiative for east Aleppo that has four parts, involving medical supplies into the medical facilities in east Aleppo; medical evacuations out of east Aleppo for the estimated 300 or so patients that are in urgent need of medical evacuation, the delivery of food and other urgent supplies to east Aleppo, and the deployment of more medical personnel to provide relief in east Aleppo."

Egeland, a senior Norwegian diplomat, was the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator from June 2003 to December 2006.

"There is no doubt it will be the worst in this cruel war and I fear that it will be a real killer in many places," he said. "No place are we so worried at this time as for the quarter of a million civilians in east Aleppo."

The last time aid reached eastern districts of what was once Syria's economic hub and largest city was in July this year.

The scene of intense ground fighting pitching forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against rebel factions seeking to oust him, east Aleppo is also running low on food.

If warring factions give the go-ahead, relief teams on the ground would need 72 hours to prepare operations and a few days and nights to carry out their objectives, he said.

Meanwhile, Egeland also reminded that conditions in other besieged and hard-to-reach areas in Syria are extremely concerning as a result of the conflict which broke out in March 2011.

Some 400,000 people have died during the five-year war while millions more have been displaced by fighting and reigning insecurity.
KABUL, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least two persons were killed and more than two dozens injured in an overnight Taliban car bombing against German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, local officials said Friday.

"One terrorist detonated a car bomb near the gate of German Consulate office late Thursday night, killing himself and one other person and injuring 28 others," a security source told Xinhua anonymously.

Further details about the incident are still forthcoming amid the absence of official statement while UN official sources put the number of the injured at 90 by the powerful explosion which occurred roughly at 11:15 p.m. (local time) Thursday.

"The injured were residents who suffer injuries by the bomb shrapnel and flying glasses as the blast damaged several buildings near the site," the source said, adding an investigation was launched into the incident and further details will be released after wards.

The death toll is likely to rise as some injured remained in critical condition, he said. Security forces have cordoned off the area for precautionary measures.

The Taliban militant group claimed responsibility for the attack shortly after the blast.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a purported Taliban spokesman, told local media that the bombing was a revenge attack against killing of civilians by "invaders" in northern Kunduz province earlier this month.

On November 3, a series of air strikes were carried out by NATO-led forces on outskirts of provincial capital Kunduz city, following ground operations conducted by foreign and Afghan security forces there.

Two U.S. soldiers and four Afghan troops were also killed by the clashes but the air strikes besides inflecting casualties on militants also claimed the lives of some 32 civilians and injured 19 civilians.
Source: Xinhua| 2016-11-09 09:59:58|Editor: Song Lifang

A police car is seen near the site of a shooting near a polling station in Asuza, California, the United States, on Nov. 8, 2016. One people was killed and two others were critically injured in a shooting outside a polling location in Asuza, California, police said. (Xinhua/Huang Chao)
Suriname to ship fresh water to Barbados

Scheduled to depart the South American nation around November 25, the shipment of a maximum of two million litres of surface water in a flextank was made possible by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Government of Barbados and Amazone Resources (AR); a Dutch- Suriname company, in April 2015.

The announcement, some 18 months later, that a trial shipment would be sent to Barbados, was made by ARs Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Auke Piek, on Tuesday (October 25) during a press conference on the sidelines of the 2016 edition of the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association (CWWA) Conference and Exhibition, October 24 - 28, at Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain.

We would like to have the launch of the flexbag on November 21 or 22 and after that, it will be sent to Barbados with (drinkable) surface water from the rivers. The journey should take four to five days, using a tugboat to pull the floating flexbag/flextank...We will test, through our trial, how does the water behave during transportation.

Piek said the MOU allowed AR to organise the first test trial with fresh Suriname water and from there, we will grow our business model.

We (humans) need water to survive, we need water to grow our vegetables, to (run) our industries. Because the population is growing, we need to have this commodity. AR had an independent consultant company test the water in many, many places in Suriname, including the Suriname River and the Coppename River, and according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), water thats at a depth of two metres is drinkable already.

Piek explained that because fresh water floats on salt water, the flexbag or flextank (he used both terms) will be about ten to 12 centimetres above the surface of the water.

Each bag can hold 40 million litres or 10.5 million gallons, is 600 metres in length and, as Piek put it, is like an iceberg which means in the event of a hurricane, the flexbag, like an iceberg, will move with a hurricane. It will not really be disturbed.

The bags will also be equipped with GPS signals for tracking purposes as well as for constant monitoring of the water quality en route to Barbados.

This is something I hope you would see, in a few years, plenty of (flextanks) cruising around the Caribbean waters providing fresh water to us all, Piek said with a smile, as he shared his passion for the long-term sustainable supply of potable water.

Although Barbados has agreed to accept this first shipment, Piek could not say how the water would be used since this is a test run. He did note that following a sustained period of drought on the island, there is an urgent need of fresh water, both for agricultural and industry but also for human beings.

Once the water arrives in Barbados, it can either be left in the flextank; which would serve as an offshore storage device, the water can be transferred to the utility companys storage tanks or even sent to end-users.

At this moment, all options are open. We can leave the flextank offshore of Barbados... as a storage tank because its our plan not only to have one bag but maybe 400 or 600 bags in the future. So we can use the bags as a storage facility...it just needs enough space to be connected to the floating bouy systems, Piek stated.

Surinames Minister of Natural Resources, Regilio J Dodson, was also in attendance at Tuesdays presentation. He explained that his governments role is to facilitate government to government arrangements, following which AR can enter into supply arrangements with State and/or private entities.

What we want to do, as a government, is set up the government to government structure to get this going, to get the idea across (about) the potential water supply, Dodson stated
Survival may depend on experimentation

This was one of the main messages from Vivian Schiller, Editor-in- Chief and head of North America for Weber Shandwicks Mediaco practice, during her presentation on The Rise of Digital Media and its Impact on Mainstream Journalism at a media workshop hosted by the Unit Trust Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UTC) at its Independence Square, Port-of-Spain head office this past Tuesday (November 8).

The best thing that any manager could do, while you cant necessarily give your newsroom everything that they want, is to allow room for experimentation where you can, even while were meeting deadlines. You cant just turn your business model topsy-turvy but allow space for experimentation and celebrate those that are willing to take risks and give them that safe space to do that.

Beyond that, its tough for me to say because resources are limited. Thats why I suggest, if youre going to cut (staff), the (way) to cut is not a little bit, a little bit and certainly dont cut from innovation. Pick an entire area to stop doing and re-invest in other areas. The worst thing you could do is just sort of nickel and dime your entire news organisation, Schiller advised.

Media owners and managers the world over are struggling to answer the question, How do you pay for good journalism?

Noting that good journalism costs money, Schiller didnt mince words as she told local media practitioners that there is no one singular answer.

She did however say that the savviest thing you could do with your news organisation is to experiment with different forms of revenue.

Encouraging the audience to try different things, Schiller said a lot of organisations are experimenting with community events that someone pays for or that a sponsor wants to participate in - it doesnt control the content but can participate in terms of the branding of (event).

Others are experimenting with creating branding content newsroom. Schiller explained that this involves the establishment of an organisation, separate from the journalism newsroom, that creates very compelling content for brands.

Who better than a news organisation at telling stories? You can tell stories with careful labelling to make sure that people dont confuse what youve done for an advertiser with your proper journalism.

Schiller also said donations or pledges, while not necessarily a big revenue source, can add up to some money. So, diversifying your revenue stream is very, very important.

Prior to joining Mediaco, Schiller was Global Chair of News at Twitter. In this role, she led the companys strategy for news and partnership with journalism organisations and the news publishing ecosystem. Before that, she served as Senior VP and Chief Digital Officer for NBC News where she had strategic and operational oversight of the networks presence on the web, mobile devices and social media. Schiller also previously served as President and CEO of National Public Radio (NPR) in the USA, leading all of its worldwide media operations.

Drawing upon her past work experience, Schiller has come up with an eight-point To Do list entitled, Waking Up to Digital Reality:

1) Live where your audience lives;

2) Integrate your newsroom;

3) Put audience engagement at the centre;

4) Think about your brand experience off platform;

5) Experiment with different kinds of storytelling;

6) Diversify revenue streams;

7) Do what you do best and link to the rest; and

8) Always stay true to your mission.

Regarding point seven, Schiller said this is actually a quote from media commentator, Jeff Jarvis and that her interpretation of it is, Dont try to be all things to all people.

As budgets shrink, as you worry about resources, the idea is, What can you cover? What can your news organisations cover uniquely, that you can own, that youll become famous for? That people will come to you and seek you out because they know you cover this better than anybody else? In terms of all the other news, link to, God forbid, your competitor, link to another news organisation or dont include it at all.

Point eight, Always stay true to your mission, speaks to the core role of journalists/traditional media - informing the public about events so that people can make important decisions about their lives...based on facts while listening to what your audience/the public has to say.

Schiller also advised media houses to brand themselves, since data shows more and more people get their news from social media, so that consumers know to turn to X newspaper/TV/radio station for coverage of a particular issue, community et cetera.

Theres not a lot of data on news institutions here in TT, so its really hard for me to say, because an impression based on consuming your media for a short period of time is probably not very useful. I will say that I think theres an advantage here in that its a small handful of news organisations and the country is small enough that its almost, in many ways, like a major city in the United States.

Schiller added that in some ways, local news organisations in the US have the advantage because people really want to understand and feel connected to their community as opposed to (say) the NY Times. (So) keep pressing the local...become indispensable to your community. Become indispensable. All paths lead from there.

Another of the questions posed to the Editor-in-Chief and head of North America for Weber Shandwicks Mediaco, concerned the importance of mobile web versus an application (app).

The conventional wisdom is, mobile web is good for reach while mobile app is good for engagement - meaning, if you want to bring in new audiences, its important that your website is optimised for mobile, really effective, readable but if you want to bring people deep into your site and you want to engender loyalty, you need to have an app.

Schiller disagrees with this, pointing out that much of this is based on data that shows how much time people spend on their phones on apps when in reality, the apps that theyre spending a lot of the time on...are not news apps.

Its Facebook, Twitter, Whats App and (this) is skewing the data to make it look like apps are a good idea. The fact is, people download lots and lots of apps but the ones they actually use, you can usually count on one hand. So I am a believer that unless you have lots and lots of money that you dont know what to do with, that you dont need an app. You need a really, really well-optimised website.

Schiller noted that having a well-optimised mobile web experience is not just about responsive design. While thats absolutely critical, she said media houses must also look very carefully at the data.

Thinking about size, thinking about testing how people go from one story to another, making sure that youre constantly making your app navigation as effective as possible.

Earlier in the proceedings, UTCs Executive Director, Ian Chinapoo, explained why the company thought it important to sponsor such a workshop.

The rise of digital media has quickly emerged as the primary communication medium and this dramatic shift has transformed how media houses operate. What it means is that people now have a choice: Do I continue to access traditional media or just go fully digital? Most surveys will show what the Millennials (the generation born between 1982 and 2004) want, and they are strident in how they want it delivered and packaged. Its a whole new world out there. Breaking news and information are now just a click away and this trend has enabled our society to become involved and active in discussions. Digital media in an instant encourages comments, fuels debate and provokes opinions and dialogue, both healthy and unhealthy.

Chinapoo asked what this means for mainstream journalists, before going on to provide an answer.

Your key role as media remains to deliver accurate and unbiased news, to ferret out information, to probe, to investigate, to create and shape public opinion while strengthening of society. All this while maintaining your credibility. Media is a vital part of our democracy and acts as watchdog to protect the public interest. However, the challenges you face in strategising for the rise of digital media means you have to adapt. We are all part of this new digital phenomena and we all have to adapt or our very survival will be at stake.

The media is a vital and influential aspect of this digital age and must evolve to remain relevant. We are past the point of no return, Chinapoo declared.
Imbert asks for IMF help with Plan B

Speaking with journalists on November 2, following the close of the 2016 High Level Caribbean Forum held at the Hyatt Regency, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, Imbert said he had asked the IMF to provide technical advice to this country in dealing with the threat of the loss of correspondent banking relationships between local banks and their international counterparts, particularly in developing a Plan B as to how the country should deal with the loss of such relationships. Imbert said that as far as he knew no local bank had as yet suffered such a loss. He said he had been asked to make the same request on behalf of the entire Caribbean.

The threatened loss of correspondent banking relationships was one of the issues which dominated the forum which brought together several regional prime ministers, finance ministers and Central Bank Governors as well as leaders from the private sector. Also on the agenda was the question of how the region should respond to reduced commodity prices; a slower than expected recovery in the economy of the United States and the warming relations between Cuba and the United States, particularly the implications this is likely to have for Cubas emergence as a major tourist destination in the region and how that would affect those territories which are heavily dependent on tourism. Entitled Shifting Tides: Challenges and Opportunities, the forum was organised jointly by the International Monetary Fund and the Trinidad and Tobago government.

Imbert said one of the clear conclusions of the conference was the need for a structured regional approach to the threat of regional banks losing their correspondent banking relationships. He said the meeting recognised that this is all happening very quickly and governments have to move very fast to deal with it and it requires action at the highest political level otherwise these large banks may simply proceed and cut off links with the Caribbean. He said there was no doubt at the meeting that this is a serious issue which calls for intervention at the very highest level. During a news conference afterward, Imbert said the matter had to be dealt with at the highest political level, because we need to approach the international organisations that are involved in this movement and that would be the Financial Action Task Force. He said the matter could not be left to technocrats because they do not have the responsibility of running their countries.

He said ministers of finance will have to meet urgently to discuss the matter, pointing out that such a meeting had been held from October 27-28 in Antigua at the request of the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, who has been appointed chairman of the Committee of Caricom Finance Ministers on Correspondent Banking set up to deal with this issue. Imbert said the invitations to the meeting were issued at short notice and not everyone could attend but it was a very well attended meeting and there were people there from the IMF.

The threat to regional banks of the loss of correspondent relationships with big international banks based in the United States; the United Kingdom; Canada and other first world countries has come up because of the increasing focus on anti-money laundering legislation and the tightening of regulations to prevent financing of international terrorism. The big global banks are trying to manage their risk, a practice which over the last couple of years has come to be known as de-risking, by cutting links with banks in the Caribbean which they believe are not sufficiently compliant with Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations. They consider that the risks  huge fines which could be imposed on them by the regulators - if the smaller banks are found guilty of some improper conduct, far outweighs the benefits to be gained from doing business with local and regional banks.
Tackling tax compliance

Over the years, the Government has opted to provide a battery of tax amnesties  in 2001, 2006, 2009, 2014 and 2016. Additionally, they have widened the tax base as opposed to executing initiatives which would reduce the occurrence of non-compliance.

The Revenue Authority was first proposed as a blanket solution to tackling the issue of non-compliance. But in 2010 a combination of industrial relations complications and the inability to attain a special majority led to a lapse of the Bill.

Furthermore, the tax amnesties provided had the effect of, in essence, rewarding taxpayers for their non-compliance. During periods of amnesty, the interest or penalties levied against non-compliant citizens are waived, thereby fostering a culture of evasion.

The Government has sought to widen the tax base by reimplementing the Property Tax as well as introducing a new tax bracket for both high-income earners and companies. Beginning in 2017, there will be a 30% tax on chargeable income on companies with chargeable profits in excess of $1 million per annum. While this measure can potentially increase tax revenues by an additional $560 million, it also places a heavier burden on the compliant members of society.

In the case of the business community, slowing consumer demand alongside the shortages in foreign exchange has made it increasingly difficult for businesses to thrive. Increases in both the Business and Green Fund levies in 2016, from 0.2% to 0.6% and 0.1% to 0.3%, respectively, has further compounded this burden. Ironically, the added strain on SMEs may well lower the governments tax pool should those small and medium-sized entities be unable to continue their business operations. This counteractive measure does little to support economic growth and employment opportunities which are already in short supply in this current recession.

As it stands, we cannot continue with the existing framework which allows for a high level of non-compliance and evasion.

The T&T Chamber acknowledges that there are likely to be challenges with the implementation of a Revenue Authority, given current structures and legislation. As such, the Chamber remains open to suitable alternatives which will positively contribute towards tax compliance and improved tax collection, which need not require a special majority to be implemented.
Wage policy and negotiation

It certainly can be argued a Finance Minister needs to convey the economic reality to the population, which simply answers the question are there enough revenues to sustain an increase in wages? He must also assess the economic impact of the wage demands on the economy. Over the three-year period he has to convey what the expectations are for economic recovery, what are the down side risks to the economy; would we have to borrow to pay for increased wages in the public sector? He must ask also what will happen to the external accounts if there are salary increases and if the anticipated increase in the prices of our hydrocarbons does not materialize. What will happen to the exchange rate if aggregate demand increases and imports rise without the commensurate increase in exports? Does the Minister run the risks of increasing the likelihood of a down grade if aggregate demand is not curbed and the foreign exchange decreases at too rapid a rate?

The Minister must also be concerned about the increasing unemployment rate and the impact increased wages can have on employment in a recession. What is the priority preserving jobs or gaining political popularity through wage increases? The Minster must separate the demands which he has no intention of fulfilling or giving, either on a question of principle or due to economic incapacity.

If we are honest we can identify the factors or criteria which have influenced pay increases through collective bargaining to include enterprise profit, job evaluation, seniority, cost of living, manpower shortage or surplus, the negotiating strength and skills of the parties. Admittedly we have never given priority to performance measures such as productivity or profit related to groups or individuals in collective bargaining, or have we?

A critical aspect of wage negotiations is good faith. The ILO has argued that collective bargaining is workable only if the parties bargain in good faith. If not, there will be bargaining without a possible agreement. The ILO has stated that good faith is most possible when certain attitudes are shared among employers, workers and their organisations eg a belief and faith in the value of compromise through dialogue, in the process of collective bargaining, and in the productive nature of the relationship collective bargaining requires and develops. It appears that unions may with some justification believe that there is a lack of good faith displayed by the Minister hence the need for an intervention by the Prime Minister. Let us not damage beyond repair dialogue among two key stakeholders during a difficult economic time. We have entered the realm of political economy which is as much a science as it is an art
Customs Officers under probe

On Tuesday, between 6 pm and 10 pm, over 25 officers from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the TT Police Service led by Sgt Marcelle and Customs and Excise officer Murray went to the Santa Cruz home of a 36-year-old contractor and carried out a four-hour long search. Although the businessman was not present his relatives were told the police and Customs are probing the use of false documents to clear containers. The businessmans name is on the false documents.

Well placed sources reveal that during the high profile investigation which began on Sunday customs and excise discovered a quantity of duplicate bogus documents which were used to clear containers during a period of time. This led to four searches thus far. Investigators believe that they may be able to make a major breakthrough in this investigation shortly.

Last Friday, officers went to the Port in Pt Lisas where a freight container was identified. Officers searched the container which was found to contain a quantity of plywood, some bogus documents and they also found two blue crocus bags containing over the US cash which is believed to have originated from the US Virgin Isles.
Accident victim identified

Ramsumir was picked up by taxi driver, Wayne Paul, at her home and was on her way to the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commissions Customer Service Centre on Cipero Street to pay her latest bill. But while driving along the M2 Ring Road, Pauls Nissan Almera crashed into a pickup van and Ramsumir was killed. Paul and the driver of the pick up truck sustained minor injuries.

According to Ramsumirs sister, Snowie Bharath, she got news of her sisters passing from a neighbour whose husband worked for the wrecking company that removed the crashed cars from the scene of the accident.

She came and tell me that my sister died. I was so shocked.

I could not believe that my sister had passed away. Bharath said that her sister was the youngest of a clan of five who all grew up on GP Road together. Two of our brothers passed already, so now is me and my next sister upstairs. Ramsumir was remembered by Bharath as a very kind person who was very faithful in the Lord. She was always going to church right down the road in the Christ Recruiter Assembly Church. According to Bharath, Ramsumir lived alone and survived on social welfare.
Nigerian fined for illegal entry

Chukwanoso Fabian Chigata, appeared in the First Court and pleaded guilty to the charge.

Court prosecutor Cleydon Seedan told the court that on October 26, at about 3 pm, officers of the Fyzabad Police Station detained the foreigner during a roadblock exercise. They subsequently handed him over to the Immigration Department and investigations revealed that Chigata entered Trinidad illegally in August at an unknown beach.

WPC Hema Singh of the Immigration Department, San Fernando laid the charge.

Unrepresented by counsel yesterday, Chigata told the court only that his family needs help and admitted that he entered Trinidad illegally.

You cannot come into a country just so. That is not how it works, Forde-John said.

Forde-John fined Chigata $8,000 to be paid in 30 days, failing which he will serve 30 months in jail.
$10,000 fine for gun possession

Williams reappeared in the Second Court before Magistrate Brahmanand Dubay who fined him $10,000 for the offence committed.

PC Maraj, formerly of the Gasparillo Police Station, together with other officers, arrested Williams on July 29, at Harmony Hall Road, Gasparillo.

Court prosecutor, Sgt Dianath Harricharan, told the court that the officers observed Williams, in the drivers seat of a car, showing the weapon to another occupant.

Police intercepted the vehicle, searched it and found the illegal weapon (without ammunition) under the drivers seat.

Maraj jointly charged Williams and the occupant for the offence. The occupant is currently on bail, having pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Williams claimed to have found the gun and was thinking about what to do with it.

The magistrate yesterday fined Williams $10,000 or in default serve 18 months with hard labour in jail.

Attorney Annalee Girwar represented Williams.
MAD RUSH HOME

You are going to witness a return of larger and larger numbers of Caribbean peoples back to the region, and significant numbers of Hispanics back to Latin America.

In the context of a massive migration out of Eastern Europe into the US, we are going to witness in the next year or two the changing demographics there, Sir Hilary said.

This will have an adverse impact on the global economy, he added, saying, We are going to see the deepening of the world recession, because three quarters of humanity will assume that the US no longer possess the moral authority to direct the world. Addressing a online forum yesterday on, The Caribbean say on the US today at the UWI Regional Headquarters in Mona, Jamaica in the wake of Trumps victory, Sir Hilary said that based on history, Trumps victory was entirely predictable and expected. As a humanist, an idealist...it was fearful. On some important lessons to learn from the election result, Sir Hilary said, I have no doubt we are going to see a political strategy that imagines North America as a centre of a reconstructed White global supremacy ideal. The foundation has already been laid for a massive migration out of Europe into the US and North America, and with Trumps migration policy, the re-migration of Non-Whites to their original homeland, he said. In modern history, Beckles said that this will be the third phase of such a migration, the first phase being that which led to the first phase, the construction of Plantation America. After the second phase, the emancipation of slavery during the middle of the 19th century, Sir Hilary said, the black community was on par to become a significant part of the society in terms of demographics.

At emancipation the black community was about 40 to 50 percent of the overall population, but a massive migration out of Europe to North America pushed back the Black community from a 50/50 potential to a ten percent of the population.

The millions of Europeans who went into North America after emancipation, he said, created the kind of structure that led to the Ku Klux Klan, the forcing of Black and native Americans off their lands, and the marginalisation of their communities that led to the rise of White supremacy in phase two.

Phase three is going to come where we will see an even massive majority of migrants coming out of Europe driving the so-called Brown/Black alliance into an even smaller minority position, he said.

A similar situation, he said, occurred when former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took office in 1979. That was the beginning of a net migration of Caribbean citizens out of Britain. I was one of those who left on a one-way ticket, he said.

What the US elections has shown, Sir Hilary said, was that a large white unskilled working class, excluded by globalisation due to the rise of technology, responding to Trumps rhetoric through ethnic solidarity. They have responded to global exclusion through ethnic solidarity, the identical process has happened in Britain. The exact process has happened across Europe.

If you place Brexit and the US circumstances in the same context, you will see there is a preference for the past, he said.

An 18-month bitter and acrimonious election campaign culminated in a shocking, resounding victory by Trump over pre-election favourite and former Secretary of State in the Obama Presidency, Hillary Clinton - the Democratic candidate.
Imbert says he is sorry

During a High-Level Caribbean Forum, co-hosted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, last Wednesday, Imbert drew the ire of trade unionists and public sector workers when he said the Government removed the fuel subsidy by 15 percent three times since being elected into office, and there was no riot as yet. He added that because of this, he may very well remove the subsidy by another 15 percent.

Speaking in the Parliament, yesterday, during a motion to confirm the Provision of Taxes Order in the 2016 Budget, the minister referred to the widespread fallout from his comments, saying he unreservedly apologised for the indiscretion.

Perhaps, Madam Speaker, before I go any further, this might be an opportune time, he said in his preface to the debate on the motion.

There a conference in Trinidad and Tobago last week designed to deal with the challenges facing Trinidad and Tobago and the economies of the Caribbean. During that conference, Madam Speaker, I made certain statements and on reflection and having reviewed and looked at the tape of the comments that I made and the manner in which I made them, I realised that this would have upset a lot of people and, therefore, I take this opportunity to unreservedly apologise to all affected, Imbert told the House.

His apology elicited loud desk-thumping from members of the Opposition which caused the Speaker to intervene. House Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George first took aim at San Juan/Barataria MP Dr Fuad Khan, saying: Member for San Juan/Barataria, I am on my legs. I just want to advise members that while desk-thumping is allowed, if it is excessively loud or excessively noisy, I can consider it disorderly. Please be guided accordingly. Minutes later, following continued desk-thumping over Imberts apology, the Speaker again intervened.

Members, just to advise that the Standing orders are going to be strictly enforced. We are here over a year now and everyone is supposed to understand the Standing Orders. Imberts apology came as he dealt with several procedural matters arising out of the Budget, including confirmation of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Order, Customs Duty- Caribbean Common Market Amendment Order, Excise Duty (Alcoholic Beverages) Order and Excise Duty (Tobacco Products) Order.

He said the measures imposed in the Budget were meant to generate much-needed revenue as the Government grappled with an uncertain economic future. Imbert predicted that the Donald Trump ascent to the Presidency of the United States, which he regarded as an unexpected development, may do little to ease the situation.
Naked grannys head bashed in

Her head was bashed in. A man came and told her son that they saw a body in a track. They went but couldnt make her out because of the way the head was bashed in. They make her out by the body and run and get a sheet to cover her up because she was naked. It look like they even slit her throat, Ragoobar said.

An autopsy was expected to be performed yesterday at the Forensic Science Centre, St James to determine the exact cause of death and whether or not the woman had been sexually assaulted.

Police investigating what is the nations 398th murder for this year, said they have seized a blood-stained piece of wood and a 37-year-old unemployed deportee remains in custody. The man, who relatives said grew up with Balgobin, was captured by villagers and held until police officers arrived.

According to a report, at about 5 am yesterday, Balgobin was making her way through a track near Walcott Street when she was approached by a man she knew.

Reports are that he attempted to rob her and a fight ensued during which time Balgobin was struck several times in the head.

Her body was discovered a short while later by a villager and an alarm was raised. Speaking to Newsday yesterday, a grieving Justin Balgobin, 19, of Ravine Sable, Longdenville said his mother did not deserve such a death.

She never did anyone anything, the teenager cried. Only two days ago she told me she loved me. We didnt live with her but she always visited us. Justin said his mothers death hurts him even more as the suspect, after allegedly committing the crime, returned to his home a short distance away and sat and ate a meal consisting of roti and pumpkin.

He added, He was laughing and talking like normal. Imagine all the blood still on his clothes and he sit down on the steps of his home eating roti and pumpkin.

Is family members and other neighbours who confronted him and held him till the police came. Justin said the suspect put up a fight with them but he couldnt get away. Investigations are continuing.
Girl, 15, is 21 weeks pregnant

During the examination doctors told the stunned mother that her daughter was 21 weeks pregnant.

The doctors advised the woman to take her daughter to the police.

On a report being filed with the police, officers alerted the Child Protection Unit and officers from that unit visited the police station and interviewed the child. Police and officers of the Child Protection Unit have been given the name of the man who is believed to be having sexual relations with the teen and a search is on for his arrest. Investigations are continuing.
TT can expect more showers

The Met Office is projecting as much as 25 mm of rainfall according to a weather bulletin issued at 10 am on Tuesday. Chief Meteorologist Shakeer Baig explained that during last Saturday night into Sunday morning, Trinidad experienced a large amount of rainfall and the Met Office measured in excess of 75 mm of rainfall.

As a result of the rainfall some of the rivers became really swollen and some low lying areas in Central Trinidad, the streams and drains were filled. We saw a system this morning called a Trough and we issued the bulletin because the grounds are already saturated. The rivers are already high and with any additional rainfall there would be a quick run off and possibly more flooding in the country, Baig said.

He also noted that over the next four to eight hours (on Tuesday) Trinidad and Tobago was expected to experience cloudy conditions with periods of rain, heavy showers and thundershowers. In a release, the met office stated that the activity is related to a low-level trough system. Although the occurrence of heavy showers and thundershowers will be localized to some areas, rainfall accumulations could be in excess of 25mm. Numerical Weather Prediction Models indicate that heavy rainfall events are not expected to be widespread. The release further stated that, The additional rainfall expected today (yesterday), brings with it the possibility of additional surface run-off to already high water levels in the Caroni and other river Basins in central Trinidad. The met office encouraged citizens in general, especially those residing along the Caroni River Basin and other flood prone areas are advised to be vigilant and cautious as they conduct their activities.

The release added, Citizens can also pay attention to the media or visit our website at www.metoffice.

gov.tt/forecast for daily weather updates at 6am, 10am, 3pm and 6pm. However, the release indicated that Trinidad and Tobago is not under any Tropical Storm threat, Watch or Warning, and will continue to closely monitor this weather event and will issue another bulletin if the situation warrants.
Minister Dillon: We will be ready

If that is the case, then we have to put measures in place for deportees coming to Trinidad and Tobago, he told reporters. It is up to us as a country to take the necessary action and put the measures in place to treat with them when they come into Trinidad and Tobago. Trump, in the run up to the campaign, has taken a tough stand on immigrants, promising to bring measures to stem the flow to the US.

Dillon said the Government was already receiving advanced notice on the arrival of criminal deportees into the country. We are getting advanced notice as to deportees from the United States. So, we know when they are coming and we do have some idea as to their records. he said. The minister said information on deportees, generally, also was available.

So, far, we get advanced notice.

But, we will seek to continue that kind of dialogue with the United States because it is important for us to be aware who has been deported and some idea of their records in Trinidad and not only with the US but Canada and the UK, whichever country of origin, he said.

Dillon said the Government was adopting a wait-and-see approach to Trumps impending stewardship as US President, particularly in relation to national security matters.

We will look at the policies that would be enunciated by the new US Government in so far as not only their policies with respect to Trinidad and Tobago but I believe the wider Caribbean, he said. We had the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative under the last administration so that whether or not, we will continue along that vein or new initiatives. Dillon said he did not expect the relationship between T&T and the US to change drastically over Trumps four-year term. Historically, we have always had that kind of relationship with the United States and from where I stand, I dont see any reason why it should be curtailed, whatsoever, but again, we have to wait and see what the new Governments policy will be like to see if there are any changes, he said.
Young: $1B recovered in highway project

After making this announcement during debate on the Finance Bill and four related motions, Young said, So in total we have recovered just short of $1 billion. Observing that former works minister Dr Suruj Rambachan seemed amused by the announcement, Young said while there were standing orders in place under the former Peoples Partnership (PP) government, a number of the international financial institutions when the standing orders were demanded ... did not pay as they were supposed to pay ... they refused. He opined, Maybe another government who signed Contract Addendum Number 2 on the eve of an election ... waiving our rights to terminate a contract on the basis of bankruptcy ... and gave that away ... would have said well ...

were not doing it. Young said the Governments legal team pursued the matter vigorously in the Commercial High Court in London and the court dismissed the argument by Banco Santander for an appeal or a stay.

That would not have taken place if there was not a proper management and a proper performance by the Government, he added.

Declaring the Opposition is speaking with a forked tongue on economic issues, Young disclosed that between June and September 7, 2015, there was a massive increase in short-term borrowings which the country has not been told about. He said the Estate Management Business Development Corporation (EMBD) was forced by Cabinet to borrow $400 million in August 2015 and told who to give that money to, in the form of ten contractors. After indicating shortterm loans of $1.6 billion and $1 billion were taken out by TTEC and WASA respectively under the PP, Young said together with EMBD those are just three examples totalling just over $3 billion in debt which cannot be repaid. While the PP boasted of no taxes during its five years in office, Young said it got revenue by taking $10 billion from the coffers of NGC (National Gas Company).

Finance Minister Colm Imbert remarked, Oh Lord as Young said the country will known what is the true story with the Beetham Wastewater Plant. Young also said the PP borrowed money to insert into the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund. He then reminded MPs that it was the PP that offered the Oilfields Workers Trade Union (OWTU) zero, zero, zero for the period 2011 to 2014 and refused to budge.
Suruj: PNM heading for defeat too

He predicted the same thing would happen when the PNM returns to the polls in 2020 because the people are getting angry with the Government. Rambachan noted Trumps victory also happened in the year marking the 70th anniversary of adult suffrage in TT. Responding to an earlier contribution by acting Attorney General Stuart Young, Rambachan claimed the Government would not have been able to recover the $256 million Young spoke about if proper contractual arrangements were not left in place by the former Peoples Partnership government. Bolt of lightning, quipped Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal.

After describing the online tax on goods which enter the country by air freight as discriminatory, Rambachan highlighted what he said was a case where one business in his constituency paid $60,000 in taxes for gaming machines while another paid only $3,000.

Rambachan said he was also alarmed to learn that young children were being encouraged to gamble by machines being advertised in certain places as for amusement only. Opposition MPs thumped their desks as Rambachan insisted that the Gaming Bill must be passed. Finance Minister Colm Imbert and Young asked whether the Government could count on the Opposition when the Bill comes to Parliament. Rambachan replied that the matter cut across political lines and the United National Congress is a responsible Opposition.
Kamla sends congrats

Persad-Bissessar added that as Opposition Leader and Prime Minister she had worked with the US Government to pursue these initiatives and she now looks forward to continued progress in the development of common goals. Allow me to take this opportunity as well to congratulate the American people for their expressed and demonstrated commitment to the principles of self-governance and the democratic electoral process in the recently concluded elections, she said. I pray that God will continue to bless the United States of America and the continued friendship between our two great nations.

On Election Day, Persad-Bissessar in a Facebook statement had favoured Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. As Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar had hosted the former US Secretary of State.

Congratulations Hillary on a dignified and positive campaign that has energised women everywhere who look forward tonight with great anticipation that you will shatter the toughest glass ceiling to become the first female President of the United States, Persad-Bissessar had said. You have inspired and empowered millions of girls and women across our planet.
Leaked emails to Clinton campaign chairman unveil invites to occult ritual featuring Spirit Cooking

Thanks to Wikileaks, it was discovered that John Podesta, the campaign chair for Hillary Clinton, was invited to a meal called spirit cooking hosted by provocative and award winning performance artist Maria Abramovic. This type of dinner, according to Infowars.com, is more akin to an occult ceremony that originated from a sacrament in the religion of Thelema, which was founded by Aleister Crowley.

Spirit cooking includes live paintings made by Ms. Abramovic using urine, sperm, breast milk and blood. Originally from Serbia, Ms. Abramovic has a long history of using her body as an art project. She cuts herself with knives, has drawn pentagrams on her belly and allowed those viewing to do whatever they want to her body.

Aleister Crowley, as reported by Listverse.com, is named the Wickedest Man in the World by the British press. Whether one considers him as a poet, drug addict, occultist or mystic, Crowleys influence and deviant behavior is either popularly accepted or shunned in todays divided social construct.

The connection of the Clinton regime to an event channeled by Aleister Crowley and performed by the controversial Maria Abramovic may be just the surface of much deeper and nefarious behavior, says Wearechange.org. Other leaked Podesta emails, which contain strange talk about food, could represent code words that hide child trafficking and sex rings. The word pizza, for example, could mean girl. The word pasta may represent boy. When a leaked email asks Podesta how he enjoyed his walnut sauce, that could be a code word for a person of color.

Bill Clintons six flights  without any security detail  to a private island on the private jet named The Lolita Express owned by convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, also adds fuel to speculations about the dark side of the Clinton regime. Anthony Weiners sexting also weighs in, as well as the Clintons association with Laura Sibley, who was found guilty in Haiti for child trafficking in 2010 with others who were pardoned by the Clintons.

According to this report by Gary Franchi, the NYPD has discovered information on Anthony Weiners laptop related to child trafficking and sex crimes that could put Hillary Clinton away for life.

Maria Abramovic, the artist who invited Podesta to the spirit cooking event, says the link to Satanism is completely out of context, according to Artnews.com. Abramovic and the art world believe, much like Hillary Clinton, that any speculation about darker links are merely right -wing attacks and disinformation.

Sources:

InfoWars.com

YouTube.com

ListVerse.com

YouTube.com

WeArechange.org

YouTube.com

ArtNews.com

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Dalai Lama congratulates US President-elect

Himachal Pradesh,National,Politics,Religion,Diplomacy, Thu, 10 Nov 2016 IANS

Dharamsala, Nov 10 (IANS) Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has congratulated America's President-elect Donald Trump, saying the world places great hope in the democratic vision and leadership of the US.

In a congratulatory letter sent to Trump on Wednesday, he said the Tibetan people and himself were honoured with the support received by respective US Presidents and fellow Americans in the Tibetan people's endeavour to protect and preserve ancient Buddhist culture.

He wished him prayers and good wishes for every success in the many challenges that lay ahead.

In a separate message, Tibetan Prime Minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay also congratulated Trump on his election victory.

"I am grateful for the people and government of the US for hosting the Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama, at the White House on many occasions," he said.

Sangay added that the Tibetan people are immensely grateful to the US for applauding and supporting amiddle-way' approach and encouraging dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Chinese authorities to lower tensions and resolve our differences.

The Dalai Lama has lived in India since fleeing his homeland in 1959. The Tibetan exile administration is based here.

--IANS

vg/ksk
Kanisha Malhotra joins Nikkhil Advani's 'P.O.W.'

Maharashtra,Cinema/Showbiz, Thu, 10 Nov 2016 IANS

Mumbai, Nov 10 (IANS) Actress Kanisha Malhotra, who has previously appeared in shows like "Jai Jai Jai Bajrang Bali", "Gumrah" and "Yeh Hai Mohabbatein", will next be seen in filmmaker Nikkhil Advanis finite TV series "P.O.W. Bandi Yuddh Ke".

In the show, Kanisha will be seen as Ananya, a news producer who works with a channel that shows updates about events around the border.

"I am very excited regarding the role since it's Nikkhil Advani's show, and working with film directors is a different experience altogether, with such vast star cast," Kanisha said in a statement.

The Star Plus show features names like Purab Kohli, Sandhya Mridul, Amrita Puri, Satyadeep Dubey and Rasika Dugal.

"My entry in the show takes place while producing news about Nazneen's (Sandhya) new cook book and moving on to bigger events which I cannot reveal much about," she added.

An Indian adaptation of the Israeli TV drama "Hatufim", "P.O.W. Bandi Yuddh Ke" tells the story of two missing-in-action soldiers who return home after 17 years.

--IANS

sas/rb/bg
Israeli President's visit: Agriculture, education accords likely

Delhi,National,Diplomacy, Thu, 10 Nov 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Nov 10 (IANS) A number of agreements spanning various sectors, including agriculture and education, are likely to be signed during Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's official visit to India next week, Israeli Ambassador Daniel Carmon said here on Thursday.

Rivlin will be visiting India from November 14 to 21 and will hold bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 15.

"We are, together with our Indian colleagues, contemplating the final stages of preparation of agreements on water, energy, agriculture, R&D, and education," Carmon said at a media briefing here.

"Not everything is finalised yet, but most of it is," he said.

Carmon said that there will be a "unique academic event" during which chancellors of universities of both India and Israel would meet and sign 15 or more agreements.

"When I talk about universities in Israel, I talk about the top leading universities in Israel which are world renowned, like Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, Technion University, Bersheeva University," he stated.

The Ambassador also flagged cooperation in defence production as another important area of the bilateral relationship.

"India and Israel enjoy a very special and unique relationship in the field of defence," he said.

Stating that it was an industrial type of cooperation, he said that it involved research and development between the two sides.

"It is beyond the buyer and seller prospects, military-to-military and beyond that," he said, adding that it was a "special and deep" relationship.

Apart from New Delhi, President Rivlin, accompanied by a large business delegation, will also visit Agra, Karnal in Haryana, Chandigarh, and Mumbai.

In Agra, besides visiting the Taj Mahal, he will take a look at an adjacent Israeli water treatment plant called "Aqwise".

In Karnal, Rivlin will visit the Centre of Excellence in Agriculture set up with Israeli assistance.

In Chandigarh, he along with President Pranab Mukherjee will jointly inaugurate Agro Tech 2016 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Rivlin will visit Mumbai on the last day of his India tour on his way back to Israel. He will attend a commemorative function in memory of the victims of the 26/11 terror attacks.

He will also meet members of the Jewish community.

This will be the first Israeli Presidential visit to India in nearly 20 years since Ezer Weizman came in January 1997.

--IANS

ab/vt
SC to hear plea against demonetisation of currency notes

Delhi,National,Immigration/Law/Rights,Business/Economy, Thu, 10 Nov 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Nov 10 (IANS) The Supreme Court is likely to hear on November 15 a plea by an Uttar Pradesh based lawyer challenging the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination currency notes by the central government saying it has caused hardship to the common man.

The bench of Justice Anil R. Dave, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar said the plea would be listed on November 15 as lawyer Sangam Lal Pandey told the bench that lakhs of people were unable to avail treatment at private hospitals or buy medicines in the absence of exchangeable currency notes.

However, the bench made it clear that hearing of the plea on November 15 would be subject to the numbering of the petition by the court registry.

Government counsel R. Bala Subramaniam told the bench that they should be served with the copy of the petition as the Centre has filed a caveat.

Seeking the quashing of the decision, the petitioner has described demonetisation as "Tughlaki Farman" as lakhs of people are suffering because private hospitals, medical shops, public and private transport including the Delhi Metro were refusing to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.

A number of people who have withdrawn large sums for the marriage of their sons and daughters are now in a quandary as the money cannot be utilised for the intended purposes.

He said there are now problems for the thousands of marriages slated to take place in a couple of days because of the government's decision.

--IANS

pk/pgh/bg
Government can't end toll tax, says Gadkari

Delhi,National,Politics,Business/Economy, Thu, 10 Nov 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Nov 10 (IANS) Union Road, Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday that to provide good services on national highways, it is necessary for the government to collect toll tax and it cannot put an end to it.

He also said that his ministry is striving to achieve the target of constructing 42 km roads per day.

"To provide good services, toll is necessary. If you need good road network, toll is must. We can not put an end to it. Without toll, we won't be able to develop highways," Gadkari said while addressing Economic Editors conference

The minister said that the massive work has led to construction of 22 km of roads per day whereas the ministry is striving to achieve the target of 42 km roads per day.

Gadkari said that after coming to power at centre in 2014, his ministry has so far constructed 14,594 km of roads and highways while it has awarded projects for construction of 21,247 km.

He said that his ministry had set the target of 15,000 km road construction for the financial year 2016-17 but till October, it could construct only 3,591 km at the speed of 22 km per day.

The ministry has awarded only 4,433 kms of roads as against the target of 25,000 km during the current financial year, the minister said, adding that on an average, project clearances takes about one and one-and-a-half year, and this delays the award process.

Over the construction of 5.575-km-long Mahatma Gandhi Setu (bridge) over the Ganga River in Patna, the minister said that work will begin by December end.

"Yesterday, there was a presentation in the ministry regarding this project. They were seeking more than 4 years time to complete the project but I have asked them to complete it in one and half years," Gadkari said.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had approved the repair and reconstruction of the bridge in June this year.

The bridge will be constructed after dismantling the damaged pre-stressed cantilever arms superstructure and subsequent re-decking by steel truss at a cost of Rs 1,742.01 crore.

--IANS

bns/vd
Pollution level dips in Delhi, but still many times over safe levels

Delhi,National,Environment/Wildlife,Health/Medicine, Thu, 10 Nov 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Nov 10 (IANS) After around two weeks of severe air quality across the national capital, pollution levels came down on Thursday although still remaining three to four times above the prescribed limits, said official agencies/

Pollution measuring stations at Pitampura, Dhirpur, Pusa, and Airport Terminal 3 showed levels of PM (particulate matter) 2.5 and PM 10 below 400 for the first time this month.

According to System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting & Research (SAFAR), the pollution level at these stations came down to "very poor" level from "severe".

At Lodhi Road in south Delhi, level of PM 10 came even below 300 and was recorded at 288 micrograms per cubic metre in the evening, categorised as "poor". Level of PM 2.5 at Lodhi Road was 339 categorised as "very poor".

However, at Delhi University station in north Delhi, air quality continued to be severe with level of both pollutants breaching the 400 mark.

According to the US Embassy's air pollution monitor, which covers the area of Chanakyapuri or the diplomatic enclave in New Delhi, the Air Quality Index (AQI) was 238 at 7 p.m. was categorised as "very unhealthy". Throughout the first week of November, the monitor showed AQI exceeding 400, even beyond the "hazardous" level.

However, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the AQI for Delhi remained "severe" with the index value 411, however slightly improved from Wednesday's 424.

The weather experts have predicted hazy days from Friday.

Mahesh Palawat, Director of private weather forecaster Skymet, said that a short spell of hazy days would return on Friday due to western disturbance.

"The current dry north-westerly winds will be replaced by the easterly and south-easterly winds. This will increase humidity in the region that will bring haziness in the atmosphere and give rise to pollution," he said.

He, however, said that this situation will last only for a couple of days.

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) fellow Sumit Sharma said that while pollution levels have gone down compared to first week of November, but PM 2.5 levels are still three to four times above the prescribed limits.

"Emission cuts are required rather than dependency on favourable meteorology for achieving breathable air quality levels," he said.

The prescribed limits for PM 2.5 and PM 10 are 60 and 100 micrograms per cubic metre respectively.

--IANS

vv/vd
Congress' Punjab, Haryana leaders at loggerheads on SC order

Delhi,National,Politics, Thu, 10 Nov 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Nov 10 (IANS) Congress leaders from Punjab and Haryana were at loggerheads on Thursday as the Supreme Court struck down the Punjab law scrapping all water-sharing agreements with other states, while the party itself held that the issue must be settled amicably between the two states.

While Punjab Congress chief and Lok Sabha member from Amritsar Captain Amarinder Singh resigned from parliament as a mark of protest, Congress leader from Haryana Randeep Singh Surjewala called it a "historic and pathbreaking" verdict.

"A historic & path breaking verdict by Supreme Court upholds Haryana's claim on SYL. Victory for people, justice for Haryana. Satyamev Jayate!" Surjewala tweeted.

Amarinder Singh wrote in his resignation letter addressed to the Lok Sabha Speaker that he is resigning as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of the state of the Sutlej river water.

"I have quit, all the Congress MLAs will quit tomorrow (Friday) and we'll go to the people now," Singh told reporters.

Surjewala, in a series of tweets, said: "It's a victory of justice and truth. victory of the Constitution. In the interest of the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji immediately implement the court order on Sutlej-Yamuna canal."

"Modji, Supreme Court has given the responsibility to the centre to build the canal and to give water to Haryana. BJP government is there in the centre, Punjab and Haryana.

"Now, ball is in Modiji's court. The 2.5 crore people of Haryana don't want charity, they want their rights."

Meanwhile, the official line of Congress is that the issue must be resolved amicably between the two states.

"The issue must be resolved keeping in mind the aspirations of the people of both the states. It must be resolved amicably and in a fair manner," Congress spokesperson Ajoy Kumar told IANS.

--IANS

ps-sid/vd
Trump in Washington, meets Obama

United States,Politics, Thu, 10 Nov 2016 IANS

Washington, Nov 10 (IANS) A day after his shock victory in the US presidential elections, Donald Trump reached the White House on Thursday to meet President Barack Obama.

Trump's first visit to Washington as the President-elect began around 10.30 a.m. when the plane emblazoned with his last name landed at Reagan National Airport, reported CNN.

During his visit, Trump is also scheduled to meet with senior Republican leaders including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is accompanying him, will meet Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump and Obama had frequently attacked each other for years, but in the aftermath of the election results where Trump beat Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton convincingly, Obama acknowledged Trump's victory, and stressed ensuring a peaceful transition of power.

--IANS

vd
Never send a cop to do a man's job


WHIZ KIDS: The winning teams celebrate their victory at the Eastern Cape Nickelodeon Genius heat held at the Nelson Mandela Bay Science and Technology Centre in Uitenhage. The teams are headed to the next leg of the TV quiz show.

Africa: The Eastern Cape's smartest kids went head-to-head in the regional heats ofquiz show, brought to you by ABSA!After a gruelling two days of maths quizzes, science experiments and problem-solving tasks, teams from Grey High School and DF Malherbe in Port Elizabeth made it through to the next leg of the TV quiz show.Heading onto the next phase ofare Ethan John, James Smith and Christian Davidson from Grey Primary School and Brad Spies, Gareth Pienaar and Daniella Recchia from DF Malherbe High School.Each team has won a R50 000 ABSA MegaU bank account as well as a donation from Cambridge Publishing of R10 000 worth of books for their schools.The two qualifying teams from the Eastern Cape next appear in theTV game show, where they will square up against teams from all over South Africa.A total of 36 kids aged between 11 and 16 from schools throughout the region gathered at the Nelson Mandela Science Centre in Uitenhage on October 27 and 28 to take part in the Genius workshop and quiz knockout, designed to test their maths and science know-how to the limit as part of the joint initiative between Nickelodeon and ABSA.All the kids in EC showed resilience and spirit. The competition was very tight, but our two finalists really knew their stuff and 100 percent deserved to get through," said Tasania Parsadh, Channel Director for Nickelodeon, Africa. "Although only two teams could be selected, every child who took part should be extremely proud of themselves. We are super-stoked for the winning teams and cannot wait to see them take part in the finals."is powered by ABSA MegaU and supported by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST).The winners of the competition will receive an amazing prize: a R100 000 ABSA MegaU account for each member of the winning team and an unforgettable visit to NASAs Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, USA, where the winners will eat lunch with an astronaut and a trip to Universal Studios.The winning schools will receive books and educational material worth R30 000, courtesy of Cambridge Publishing.For more information on the Genius quiz show, log on to www.nickelodeonafrica.com , like Nickelodeon on Facebook or follow Nickelodeon on Twitter @NickAfrica using the hashtag #NickGenius.is a fun science and maths quiz from kids and family experts Nickelodeon designed to engage school age kids in Maths and Science. The first season oftook place on 2013 and was won by Rameez Chicktay (13), Amin Banderker (13) and Kayur Ranchod (13) from The Grove Primary School in Grove Park, Western Cape.
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In preparation for the adoption on November 14 of the Marrakech Declaration: Forging Sustainability, Stability and Security in Africa, the COP22 Moroccan pavilion hosted on Wednesday a side event bringing together renowned experts who shared views on the means to address the multidimensional climate change risks on the continent.

Speaking at the opening of this side event, Senegals Prime Minister Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne stressed the need for gearing action during COP22 towards addressing climate change as a root-cause of the threats to sustainability, stability and security in Africa.

He said that the Marrakech Declaration: Forging Sustainability, Stability and Security in Africa and its Action Plan will be conducive to the efforts aiming at helping the continent move from climate change vulnerability to resilience.

In this regard, the action plan, dubbed 3S Action Plan for Africa, which will be adopted along with the declaration at an African ministerial conference on November 14, aims, inter alia, to stabilize areas prone to migration and radicalization by preventing environmental degradation as well as to fight the influence of terrorist groups and human traffickers by strengthening monitoring and management of abandoned natural resources.

The panel was organised by the Senegalese and the Moroccan governments and the United Nations Convention to Fight Desertification (UNCFD) in partnership with World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the New Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD), the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

This event was held as part of the third day of the Moroccan pavilion on the theme of migration, resilience and health. Throughout COP22, which runs until November 18, the Moroccan pavilion will feature side events under various themes including industry and the coast; transport and innovation, territories and oceans, heritage and security, gender and health in addition to finance and energy.

The side events in the Moroccan pavilion can be followed in different languages thanks to the availability of an interpreting service.
Fears that the US may scale back on the Paris Agreement are dominating the climate summit COP22 on the third day of the event in Marrakech, after Trump won presidential elections.

Trumps victory is no good news for the climate advocates attending COP22 (November 7-18), a summit meant to ponder on the means to ensure that states commit to their nationally determined contributions to achieve the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

Climate change activists fear that Trumps view that global warming is a hoax might lead other nations to scale back ambitions under the Paris Agreement.

In a tweet on November 2012, Trump said the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.

Trump also promised to backtrack on commitment under the Paris agreement if elected, though withdrawing process may take up to four years.

In a letter following Trumps win, COP22 President, Salaheddine Mezouar, congratulated the new US President, adding that he sees no turning back in the momentum towards implementing the Paris Agreement.

Now that the Paris Agreement has entered into force, all countries and non-state actors, have the shared responsibility to continue the great progress achieved to date.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) put forward the CPP as a selected vehicle for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by nearly a third below 2005 by 2030.

Yet, the achievement of this goal is left in the hands of each state. Twenty-four states refused to implement the Plan and filed the case against the EPA.

The plan is currently frozen after last February the Supreme Court voted to delay implementation until the appeals process could play out.

The outcome of this litigation will impact whether or not the United States can meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement. If the US rescinds on the CPP, this will encourage other nations to not take their commitments seriously.
The Moroccan and Senegalese private sectors are willingly joining hands with governmental officials and institutions to enhance the two countries multidimensional cooperation.

In this vein, the Moroccan-Senegalese Economic Impetus Group presented Wednesday at a ceremony, co-chaired by King Mohammed VI, who is carrying on his official visit to Senegal, and President Macky Sall, a report on its activities with focus on the meeting the group members held on Tuesday in Dakar.

During this meeting, the groups two sides agreed to sign four partnership agreements on tourism promotion and development through joint actions by the Moroccan Tourism Office and the Senegalese Agency for Tourism Promotion; an agreement instituting a periodic exhibition on social and solidarity-based economy and handicraft, the aim being to share good practices of the National Human Development Initiative (INDH) and the community development urgency program.

The two parties also agreed to ink a partnership agreement to set up a center for digital competences in Senegal and a draft agreement on a joint venture between Moroccan logistics group La Voie Express and Senegalese company Tex Courrier.

The Chairpersons of the Moroccan and Senegalese employers union, Miriem Bensalah Cheqroun and Baidy Agne, renewed, before the two heads of state, the group members commitment to establish a win-win partnership between the two countries private sectors.

They also expressed the groups resolve to implement the objectives it set, namely multiplying investment, contributing to the emergence of regional economic stakeholders for job creation and encouraging regional economic integration.

The group was set up during the Kings visit to Dakar in May 2015 in a bid to encourage partnership between the two countries private sectors and monitor the implementation of private-private and public-private agreements.

During his current official visit to Dakar, King Mohammed VI co-chaired with the Senegalese President several activities, including the signing of several cooperation agreements.

Also, during this visit, the Sovereign added a new milestone to Moroccan-Senegalese relations with the speech he delivered in Senegals capital, Dakar, to mark the 41st anniversary of the Green March and in which he highlighted the centuries-old ties between the two countries as well as his keen interest in Africa.
The international league for Moroccan expatriates freedom and rights has drawn the attention of Spanish legal authorities specialized in crime against humanity cases on the need to arrest the Front Polisario Chief Brahim Ghali who may visit Spain very soon though he has been sued in Spanish courts for crime against humanity.

The leagues legal experts have reportedly sent correspondences to Spanish political leaders and legal authorities that Ghali has been named in crime against humanity cases involving several victims among whom Spanish citizens.

The leader of the separatist movement is expected to attend a conference in the Catalonia region, the league reminded Spanish authorities.

In September, the association of victims of the Polisario Front, who suffered from torture practices and human rights abuses in Tindouf camp, in Algeria, called on Canary Islands authorities to help justice prevail and bring members of the separatist movement wandering in the archipelago to the book.

Ghali has been cited in a group of 29 members of the separatist movement accused by their victims of genocide, torture and serious human rights abuses committed in the camp.

A statement by the league also urged all the related institutions to take action so that the former representative of the Front in Spain is arrested and tried also for war crimes.
Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), said in a briefing before the UN Security Council (UNSC) that Libya is high on her Offices agenda.

My commitment to make Libya a priority situation in 2017 is compelled by a number of factors such as widespread violence, lawlessness and impunity in the country, a desire to provide justice for victims of Rome Statute crimes, and alleviate the suffering of those civilians, and the opportunities for further investigation, she said.

Bensouda revealed plans to apply for new arrest warrants under seal as soon as practicable and have them served in the near future but she didnt say those who could be targeted although she hinted of feasibility studies to determine the opening investigation into alleged criminal acts against refugees and migrants in Libya.

She stressed that the timely execution of the warrants will be crucial as she urged for the support of States and members of the Security Council because Libyans deserve no less.

The ICC prosecutor reminded the UNSC that the Libyan situation refereed to her office carries great responsibility to seek justice for the countless civilians who have been victims of widespread crimes since February 2011 when the uprising against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi began.

Bensouda appealed for the collective responsibility of the members of the Security Council and support in the investigations.

Since the end of Gaddafis regime, Libya has been battling with instability and several militia groups that emerged in the fight against Ghaddafis army have refused to recognize other authorities.

Bensouda reassured the Security Council that reports of Said al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi, being released by the Zintani militia on amnesty grounds are false. She also stated that her office is waiting for the full report of the UN Support Mission in Libya, regarding the trial of Abdullah Al-Senussi, former Libyan intelligence chief.

Meanwhile, the Head of UNSMIL, Martin Kobler, has a new deputy in the person of Maria do Valle Ribeiro who will take over from Jordanian Ali H. Al-Zatari.
I am not a sheep, I have my own mind

I have had enough of being told what and how to think

Whilst we are still allowed the remnants of free speech,

I will speak out.



I also reserve the right to discuss less controversial matters should I feel the urge.
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Streets of rage. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

American cities from coast to coast erupted in protest following the news that Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States. Thousands have taken to the streets, and in many places they show no sign of giving up anytime soon.

Heres a look at what happened across the country.

New York

After a lackluster start, thousands converged on Trump Tower on Wednesday evening. Protestors gathered in Union Square at 6 p.m. and their ranks steadily grew as they moved uptown.

#AntiTrump protest in Union Square, New York pic.twitter.com/UutwKaqkDP  Mary Mc Intyre (@Mc1988) November 9, 2016

Protestors remained peaceful, but played drums, shouted slogans, and carried signs in support of women and Americas trans, immigrant, Muslim, and LGBT communities, as well as its communities of color  all groups which Trump is widely seen as being opposed to.

Crowds managed to shut down Fifth Avenue as police helicopters kept watch overhead.

Lady Gaga even joined the crowd at Trump Tower, wearing a T-shirt spray-painted with the phrase Love Trumps Hate.

Lady Gaga on her way to the protest outside of Trump Tower New York #TrumpProtest pic.twitter.com/BJvF1ygbYZ  techHAUS (@techhausinc) November 10, 2016

Oakland, California

Protests entered their second night in Oakland on Wednesday. About 250 people began marching through Downtown Oakland on Tuesday night and the crowd quickly swelled to more than 3,000.

Some protestors vandalized local businesses. One woman was reported injured after being hit by a car when protestors tried to stop traffic on Highway 24. Police say the driver tried to pull over and help, but her car was set upon by protestors and her back window was broken.

Multiple fires were also set along Telegraph Avenue, one of Oaklands major thoroughfares, but the unrest had mostly subsided by early Wednesday morning.

It's a dumpster fire on Broadway from 20th to 14th in #Oakland. Anti-Trump protest pic.twitter.com/ngwSUQs1hp  David DeBolt (@daviddebolt) November 9, 2016

On Wednesday night, protestors were back on the street en masse, with thousands joining the demonstration and venting their frustration and rage.

#NotMyPresident protest in Oakland. Tons of people gathering in Oscar Grant Plaza before march thru city. Trump can go fuck himself. #Antifa pic.twitter.com/D2HqluRTeY  Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) November 10, 2016

Thousands and thousands are out here in Oakland protesting Trump. (I can't tell how many because I can't see the end in either direction) pic.twitter.com/yYHzxPuUwR  Ellen Cushing (@elcush) November 10, 2016

There have been reports that police have started using tear gas on protestors.

Tear gas has been deployed by OPD during protest in #Oakland  Joel Angel Juarez (@jajuarezphoto) November 10, 2016

"BLACK POWER MATTERS" in Oakland pic.twitter.com/EPjgz8JMjK  Ellen Cushing (@elcush) November 10, 2016

Chicago

Thousands of protestors gathered in Chicago on Wednesday night, blocking the entrance of Trump Tower  yes, they have one, too  before marching downtown and blocking traffic on the citys storied Lakeshore Drive.

#Trump protest #Chicago just finished shutting Michigan Ave down, now shut down Wacker pic.twitter.com/cxoOuh67Rc  Jordan (@MrTypeA) November 10, 2016

Angry protestors chanted No Trump, No KKK, No Fascists USA as they crowded onto Michigan Avenue, managing at one point to block all six lanes of the road.

There was tension between police and protestors  one officer reportedly wore a large pro-Trump button on his hat  but the clashes were only verbal.

She gave her a flower & they hugged.A beautiful moment from the #NotMyPresident #Chicago protest pic.twitter.com/9VaErUOpde  Curvatude (@Curvatude) November 10, 2016

Birgitt Peterson - who was photographed giving a Nazi-like salute after a Trump rally earlier this year - still supports her candidate. pic.twitter.com/Ysb2S171Kx  Stacy St. Clair (@StacyStClair) November 9, 2016

Philadelphia

Hundreds turned out to march through Philadelphia, and ABC reported that their chants of Enough! Enough! could be heard blocks away.

View from my room of the Philadelphia #NotMyPresident protest. pic.twitter.com/w2LBGDi8mN  Maha (@mahawestt) November 10, 2016

Protestors met at City Hall at 7 p.m. before marching through the cold, rainy night for hours across the downtown area.

Anti-Trump protest in Philadelphia continues - https://t.co/oVqn0mTKTN pic.twitter.com/cp7w29SSg9  Action News on 6abc (@6abc) November 10, 2016

Police were out in force, but have said that there were no arrests during the peaceful demonstration. One of the protestors who spoke to ABC said, To see the number of people who wont stand for it, it gives you a sense of security in a very turbulent time.

Students from the University of Pennsylvania also took to the streets in a separate solidarity march, and around 500 students attended anti-Trump events on campus.

Boston

Crowds of more than 4,000 descended on the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common before marching through downtown to City Hall.

Despite the size of the rally, Boston police have said it was peaceful and no arrests were made.

Few thousand chanting #notmypresident on #BostonCommon while police helicopter circles overhead pic.twitter.com/is9dVCZeH8  Brian Lavery (@lav) November 10, 2016

Delivery truck driver (who couldn't go anywhere if he tried) blowing his horn to cheering crowd, pumping fist pic.twitter.com/8IE9cKGHqe  Steve Annear (@steveannear) November 10, 2016

Protests going on right now on the #BostonCommon against President- Elect @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/o6KQv5o6YZ  C O R A L L Y S (@p_syllaroc) November 10, 2016

It's going to be a crazy 4 years. And we don't have to take it lying down. #BostonCommon #TrumpProtest pic.twitter.com/3k73Hgdcex  Q. Allan Brocka (@allanbrocka) November 10, 2016

Watching this all go down from my bedroom window #BostonCommon pic.twitter.com/4ogEkmlpyd  ang garibaldi (@anggaribaldi) November 10, 2016

Austin, Texas

A smaller protest of about 150 students at the University of Texas at Austin swelled to more than 500 by the evenings end, when crowds of marchers made their way through town to city hall.

Protestors shut down traffic as they went, and while many carried effigies and pinatas of Trump, they remained peaceful.

APD assisting as a group of ~150 protestors march SB on Guadalupe toward Congress Ave bridge. Peaceful protest, no incidents. #ATXtraffic  Austin Police Dept (@Austin_Police) November 9, 2016

We serve the State Capital & always strive to help ALL exercise their First Amendment Right peacefully & safely.  Chief Art Acevedo (@ArtAcevedo) November 9, 2016

This includes pro 2nd Amendment & gun policy, Pro-life/Choice@protests, etc. our moto for all has been "Protect the First".  Chief Art Acevedo (@ArtAcevedo) November 9, 2016

UT Austin students currently in a protest at downtown Austin, walking through traffic. Police officers on site pic.twitter.com/g5kyPsZjxg  Elena (@elenamejialutz) November 9, 2016

Anti-Trump protest blocks Austin's Drake (First Street) Bridge. pic.twitter.com/70RLxdwFM6  John Bridges (@JohnBridges) November 9, 2016

Aerial view of UT students walking streets of Austin in protest Donald #Trump election. Sent in by Darlene Plyler https://t.co/xZT2d9kzyO pic.twitter.com/rBgHb71i6u  KXAN News (@KXAN_News) November 9, 2016

Washington, D.C.

In Washington, D.C., what began as a vigil at the White House turned into a march as crowds of people made their way to the Trump International Hotel. There they chanted slogans  No racist USA! No Trump! No KKK!  and in at least one instance lit a flag on fire. Someone also threw paint onto one of the hotels windows.

Earlier in the day, another group of protestors burned a flag on the campus of American University.

Seattle

Several thousand people took part in a march through downtown Seattle on Wednesday night, chanting anti-Trump slogans and shutting down traffic as they went.

The march kicked off with a speech from Seattle councilmember Kshama Sawant, who called on the marchers to also attend the presidential inauguration in January and shut it down.

Though many police lined the streets, the protest remained peaceful. One protestor, speaking to the local NBC affiliate, said: We dont want to bring hate with more hate. We want to bring love. We want to unite. We want to bring peace here.

A mass shooting near the march earlier in the evening turned out not to be related to the protests or election at all.

Nearly 200 West Seattle High School Students Walk Out in Protest of Presidential Election Results https://t.co/WnTCKFnYyp by @SarahToce pic.twitter.com/eyV5LYpJho  Jennifer Arlem Molina (@arlemJM) November 9, 2016

Hundreds of people are at this protest against President-elect Trump #WestlakePark #Seattle pic.twitter.com/NJoEFF69RE  Natalie Swaby (@NSwabyKing5) November 10, 2016

Portland, Oregon

In Portland, hundreds of protesters marched through the city before successfully shutting down the interstate. Activists disrupted rush-hour traffic across downtown and even managed to disrupt some trains during the nightly commute.

The protests were mostly peaceful, with scattered reports of vandalism, small fires, and fireworks. Unlike other cities where protests took place, the march in Portland was marked by a relatively light police presence.

Similar protests took place the night before in Portland and elsewhere in the state.

Hundreds of #Portland citizens descend on city hall in 5+ block long march to protest Trump #PDX pic.twitter.com/q0DIGdTSrs  Michael Downey  (@downey) November 10, 2016

San Francisco

On Wednesday, San Francisco entered its second night of protests; hundreds showed up to a march organized by the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition, but their numbers swelled to the thousands as the march progressed through the city.

In Berkeley High School in neighboring Berkeley, 1,500 students  half of the entire student body  walked out of class in the morning in protest.

Los Angeles

More than 1,000 angry citizens gathered on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall on Wednesday to vent their rage and burn a giant papier-mache Donald Trump head in effigy before also blocking traffic on some of the citys infamously busy streets.

Burning Trump's head in effigy: Thousands protest president-elect in downtown L.A. https://t.co/m6F27S0EyT pic.twitter.com/Rnanoo8siz  Los Angeles Times (@latimes) November 10, 2016

Thousands protest Donald Trump in downtown Los Angeles pic.twitter.com/JrFjjaT2rT  Joselito Laudencia (@joselitol) November 10, 2016

Hundreds chant "not my president" as they take to the streets of Los Angeles in protest of a Donald Trump presidency. #elections2016 #dtla pic.twitter.com/amJbgYVIl8  Rick Loomis (@RickLoomis) November 9, 2016

Later, thousands came out, and what began as a relatively quiet affair quickly grew more raucous, with huge crowds surging onto the freeway and even shutting down the 101, a vital artery in Los Angeles.

WATCH LIVE: Crowd in protest of Trump election march on freeway in Downtown LA. https://t.co/YlTlULWxvj pic.twitter.com/8j60ag5KSM  CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) November 10, 2016

#BreakingNews Massive Trump Protest In Progress In Downtown Los Angeles https://t.co/vLBHuPPGxA pic.twitter.com/Ddi6CSrSsd  CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) November 10, 2016

Wednesdays protests followed other large-scale actions from the night before, when more than 2,000 people gathered on UCLAs campus around midnight as it became clear that Trump would take the White House.

STUDENTS FROM SCHOOLS ALL OVER LOS ANGELES GATHERED TO PROTEST AGAINST THE HEINOUS, SOON TO BE PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP. pic.twitter.com/GO8z9wwSD8  rogie (@rxgelix) November 10, 2016

Elsewhere, 30 Trump supporters gathered around Trumps star on the Walk of Fame in a jubilant counter-demonstration.

Still, there have been no reports of violence.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

At the moment, everyone is trying to figure out exactly how scared to be of the imminent Donald Trump presidency. In part, this comes down to the question of how seriously to take some of his more radical proposals and rhetoric pertaining to minority groups, as well as his flirtation with anti-Semitic tropes and imagery.

For those hoping for a best-case scenario in which Trump is just another Republican president, heres a less-than-encouraging data point:

Steve Bannon of Breitbart being considered for WH chief of staff --  Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 10, 2016

Until he left in August to work for Trump during the campaigns closing months, Bannon was the executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News. Over the last couple of years, Breitbart has not only chummed the internets waters with endless fodder for racists, but has also explicitly worked to normalize a set of white-nationalist and anti-Semitic ideas.

Perhaps the most infamous example of this came in March, when Milo Yiannopoulos  last seen bathing in pigs blood to protest Islam  and Allum Bokhari published An Establishment Conservatives Guide to the Alt-Right, an article that went out of its way to soft-peddle a wide range of racist and anti-Semitic figures and ideas, presenting them in an extremely sympathetic light. The alt-rights intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race, noted Yiannopoulos and Bokhari at one point. The alt-right believe that some degree of separation between peoples is necessary for a culture to be preserved. A Mosque next to an English street full of houses bearing the flag of St. George, according to alt-righters, is neither an English street nor a Muslim street  separation is necessary for distinctiveness.

That article earned a rebuke from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which put it in the broader context of Breitbarts trajectory:

Over the past year the media outlet has been openly promoting the core issues of the Alt-Right, introducing these racist ideas to its readership  much to the delight of many in the white nationalist world who could never dream of reaching such a vast number of people.



Breitbart has always given a platform to parts of the radical right, most notably elements of the organized anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant movements. Breitbart has also organized conferences featuring nativist speakers and published op-eds and interviews with movement leaders. But since 2015, Breitbart began publishing more overtly racist diatribes about Muslims and immigrants.



Again, this publication took its current shape under the man who could be the next White House chief of staff.
Rare sighting: a happy Democrat on Election Night. Photo: Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Wednesday evening brought a rare bit of good news for the Democrats when New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte conceded in one of the nations tightest races. Come January, she will hand her hard-fought Senate seat over to New Hampshires Democratic governor Maggie Hassan.

In the end, Hassan carried the day by only the thinnest of margins; just 1,023 votes separated the two women.

After conceding, Ayotte called her opponent to congratulate her. The senator also released a statement saying, I wish Governor Hassan, her husband Tom, and their children Ben and Meg the very best.

The race in New Hampshire was one of the most closely contested in the country and both parties poured huge sums of money into the state. In total, the senatorial race there cost around $120 million, an astronomical sum for a small state race.

Ayotte is probably best known to Americans outside of New Hampshire for her constantly shifting position on Donald Trump. During a debate she called him a role model one moment, then changed her tune saying neither candidate had set a good example and that she wouldnt vote for him.

Hassans triumph is a big win for the Democratic Party, but not enough to hand them a majority in the Senate. During the campaign, pundits speculated that the Democrats might be able to gain majority control of both the House and the Senate, but in the end neither came to fruition. Ayottes seat is only the second new Senate seat the Democrats were able to pick up, the other being a Senate seat from Illinois, which will go to Tammy Duckworth.

Republicans now hold 51 seats in the Senate, the bare minimum to constitute a majority, while the Democrats can claim 48. In the House, the numbers are even more grim for the Democrats. Republicans hold 239 House seats  well over the 218 needed for a majority  to the Democrats 192.
Judge Curiel.

Before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States in January, he might have to testify in a Trump University fraud lawsuit thats scheduled to begin November 28.

U.S. district judge Gonzalo Curiel, whose name might sound familiar, is holding a hearing on Thursday  the same day Trump will meet with President Barack Obama in the White House  on that class-action suit that alleges the program defrauded its students of thousands of dollars by enrolling them in bogus real-estate classes. Among the issues that Curiel will hear Thursday: a request from Trumps attorneys to exclude any and all campaign rhetoric from the trial, reports The Guardian. That includes any comments made about or by Trump before Election Day, including the then-candidates assertion that Curiel had an absolute conflict because of his Mexican heritage. Attorneys are petitioning to keep out everything from Trumps Twitter rants to sexual-assault allegations because, per Trump attorney Daniel Petrocelli, its irrelevant to the civil case at hand and could prejudice the jury.

According to Politico, Trumps lawyers have tried to push back the trial date, but Curiel has so far denied those requests. Trump doesnt have to be present for these hearings  he does have that White House meeting, anyway  but he may be called to testify by both the plaintiffs and the defense once the trial starts.

Once sworn in as president, Trump could still face litigation, thanks to a 1997 Supreme Court ruling over Paula Joness sexual-harassment suit against Bill Clinton. In a unanimous decision, the justices said presidents werent immune from civil litigation over events that took place before they assumed office. And it seems President Trump probably will either have to fight it out in trial or settle. By USA Todays account, Trump has about 75 lawsuits pending, which includes a few where Trump is suing. Some of these are ludicrous and will almost definitely be dismissed, but a few are weaving their way through the court system. The Trump University cases  there is another federal suit, and New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman is also investigating, along with another probe into the Trump Foundation  are the most serious because of the fraud allegations.

Law professor Christopher Peterson told USA Today that these cases could reverberate to the Oval Office. If the fraud and racketeering allegations against President-elect Trump are true, he is legally impeachable for high crimes or misdemeanors, Peterson said. Whether he is politically impeachable is another matter.
Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

This isnt the story we were supposed to be writing.

The story was supposed to be that the Republican Party had become a failed state consumed by civil war: Donald Trump had heightened the contradictions between its base and elite, hastened the onset of the partys demographic doom, and helped elect another President Clinton. Now Paul Ryan must scramble to stave off a coup, while Trump foments insurrection from his own far-right news network, and millions of socially moderate white suburbanites stare into their bathroom mirrors and sigh, I guess Im a Democrat now.

But Trump won.

And without the immense power (and glamour) that comes with the White House, Democrats no longer have any distraction from their fundamental weakness at all other levels of government.

Since President Obama took office, more than 900 Democratic state legislators have been ousted. In January 2009, the party occupied 29 governors mansions. Today, it lays claim to 15. The GOP  the party that was supposed to be headed for a great crack-up  holds 33.

In 24 states, Republicans control the Executive branch and both legislative houses. Of course, they now enjoy the same trifecta in Washington, D.C.

But Democrats have lost more than power. Theyve also lost their faith in demographic destiny.

If the Trump campaigns only goal had been to poison the GOPs brand with as many nonwhite voters as possible, its hard to see what they would have done differently. And yet, Tuesday night, Trump did marginally better than Mitt Romney with African-Americans and Latinos. Meanwhile, without the charismatic first black president on the ballot, turnout among black and millennial voters fell to a point where it was unable to overwhelm the GOPs gains among working-class whites in the Midwest.

And the party has lost its leadership. The Clintons have been forced to the sidelines. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will soon join them in civilian life. No one has ever used the words soul of the Democratic Party and Chuck Schumer in the same sentence.



Finally, the Democrats have lost their playbook for responding to these kinds of losses. Since at least the Reagan Revolution, the party has reacted to national rebuke by moving to the center. But in Trumps America, the center does not exist  and perhaps, it never did.

Trump didnt run against big government. He ran against corrupt elites, corporate-driven trade deals, political correctness, and nonwhite immigrants. While his fiscal agenda  beyond a massive infrastructure package  is supply-side boilerplate, he spent much of the campaign suggesting that he planned to raise taxes on the rich, provide universal health care, and get special-interest money out of politics.

Can anyone maintain a straight face while arguing that Hillary Clinton lost because she distanced herself too much from Wall Street, didnt offer a comprehensive plan for getting serious about the debt, and failed to embrace market-driven solutions to social problems?

Well, other than Matt Bennett, co-founder of the shockingly still existent Third Way think tank, who told USA Today that Trumps election proved voters dont care about inequality because, If they cared, they would not have elected the guy with the gold-plated plane.

In fact, 27 percent of white voters who backed Trump hope he will pursue more liberal policies than Barack Obama did, according to exit polls.

So, there doesnt seem to be much basis for the idea that Democrats can find political salvation by moving right on fiscal policy. But clearly, theyve isolated themselves from the silent majority on immigration, right?

Wrong, per CBS News:

Exit poll voters were asked whether most illegal immigrants working in the U.S. should be offered a chance to apply for legal status or deported to the country they came from. Fully 7 of 10 voters said they should be allowed to apply for legal status  Among those who favored giving illegal immigrants a chance to apply for legal status, one in three voted for Trump.

Trump also won 35 percent of voters who believe international trade creates jobs.

In the face of these befuddling facts, the only people in the Democratic Party with a coherent narrative of how to move forward  and a national base of support  are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Their story of what went wrong is simple: Trump, per Sanders, tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. But instead of channeling that anger toward real, progressive solutions for the middle (and working) classs legitimate problems, Trump directed it toward the most vulnerable people in our society, as right-wing populists always have.

Clinton failed to counter this appeal, because she refused to embrace populist, class politics. While she adopted an economically progressive platform, she didnt center her campaign on an economically progressive message.

She lost the Midwest because she failed to energize younger voters and win a significant share of the white working class  precisely the demographics that responded most enthusiastically to Sanderss message during the primary.

In an era of widespread distrust in Americas governing institutions  and widespread disdain for the financial industry  Democrats path to power cuts away from Wall Street and toward a populist grassroots movement. They dont need to compromise on social liberalism. But they do need to reclaim their identity as the party of the working man and woman, and center their message on economic populism.

There are no small number of quibbles one could have with this narrative. (Trump did, ultimately, cop to wanting to cut taxes on the rich and won anyway; his supporters were better off than Clintons, and sociological research suggests they were motivated primarily by cultural resentments; Clinton still won the popular vote, and very well could have won the Electoral College if shed concentrated her resources in the Midwest, instead of trying to expand the map into Arizona; its hard to draw any sweeping conclusions from a race as idiosyncratic as that between a woman under FBI investigation and a famous reality star, etc  ).

But, for the moment, its the only coherent story Democrats have about what went wrong  both with the Trump race, and with the partys broader, state-level decline  and how everything can be made right, again.

Per Politico:

No party leader calls have been set to map out a plan ahead, and no signal has come from the White House or from Clintons team about what comes next. The phone lines were silent, only slowly picking up, and escalating to a fever pitch as the defeated nominee prepared her morning speech and interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile sat on the silent 9:00 Acela from New York to Washington.



I dont know whos in charge. Who would email me? said one state party chairman when asked if hed heard from other party leaders.

The upcoming DNC leadership election is expected to be cast as a struggle for control of the partys future. For now, the partys Sanders-Warren wing appears best positioned to win that civil war.
All yours. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Speaking in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that he has instructed the State Department to work with President-elect Donald Trump.

And we will do everything in our power, as I have instructed our team, to work with the incoming administration as fully and openly as possible, to be as helpful as possible, he told the gathered reporters, so that the transfer of power will be as smooth as it possibly can without missing a beat on the important issues before us.

One of the beautiful things of democracy, and we particularly pride ourselves in the United States, is that we have this amazing peaceful transfer of power, he explained while standing in another democracy with hundreds of years of peaceful transfers of power.

Kerrys words were just the latest in a series of statements from government officials looking to assure Americans that there will be a peaceful transition. Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Josh Earnest confirmed that President Obama has directed that the Presidents Daily Briefings  known as the book  be made available to Trump, to the vice-president-elect, Mike Pence, and to Trumps advisers.

Security officials also confirmed that they would begin giving Trump top-secret security briefings within a matter of days.

While Trump and his inner circle were given two general briefings on national threats and foreign-policy concerns after he secured the nomination, that briefing did not contain any information about ongoing secret operations being conducted by the United States. These new briefings will be the same as what President Obama now receives and will contain information on all of the countrys covert operations, foreign and domestic.

I have seen the transformation that occurs when candidates become presidents and realize the awesome responsibility that rests on them, John McLaughlin, a former deputy director of the CIA, told Reuters. We can only hope it happens again.
Photo: Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Throughout his administration, President Obama used executive actions to enact policy when efforts to get legislation through Congress failed. It was widely understood that these actions could be easily undone by the next president, and part of Obamas case for Hillary Clinton was the need for another Democratic president to shore up his legacy.

Now the future of those policies may come down to a lunch with President-elect Donald Trump. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that Obama would use his meeting with Trump on Thursday to attempt to convince him to keep some of those policies. There is a tradition, particularly with regard to executive agreements of successive presidents preserving some element of continuity, Earnest said.

But shattering traditions is what Trump is all about, and in an outline of his first 100 days in office released last month, he said one of his first actions as president would be to cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.

Back in September, Trump campaign adviser Stephen Moore told The New Yorker that aides were already working to identify those policies. Trump spends several hours signing papers  and erases the Obama presidency, he said. If you govern by executive orders, then the next president can come in and overturn them.



Heres what could be the first to go.

Immigration

The most immediate risk is to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which temporarily shielded people brought to the U.S. illegally as children from deportation. It was enacted via a policy memo from former Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano, and President Trump could easily rescind it.

In the past four years, more than 700,000 people were approved for a two-year renewable authorization to remain in the U.S. under DACA. Now the policy that protected them from deportation could be used to send them back to a country they may not even remember. John Sandweg, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told the Washington Post that federal deportation agents could absolutely use the information provided to the government to target young, undocumented immigrants.

President Obama has already directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to focus on deporting people with criminal records, not law-abiding families. Trump famously said that he would focus on getting rid of the bad hombres, but over the course of the campaign he contradicted himself repeatedly on what, exactly, would happen to the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. I would expect a sea change in the enforcement landscape, said Sandweg.

Two immigration promises Trump cant make good on in the short-term: actually rounding up 11 million people, or building his beautiful southern border wall. Both tasks present many legal and logistical obstacles, and would require funding from Congress.

Health Care

Trump cant undo Obamacare on his own, but congressional Republicans have indicated that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act is one of their top priorities. While a full repeal would require overcoming a filibuster in the Senate, they already demonstrated that they can partially roll back the law. In January, they used the reconciliation process to send Obama a bill that would have repealed the laws tax increase, insurance exchange subsidies, and Medicaid expansion.



That bill included a two-year transition period, so Republicans would need to implement their Obamacare replacement during that time to prevent millions of people from losing their health coverage, but theyve never presented a detailed plan for a replacement.

Climate Change

Trump has said he believes climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, and he could single-handedly undo years of progress toward reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Hes said hell cancel or renegotiate the Paris Agreement, the international treaty to reduce global warming. Formally withdrawing from the treaty would take at least three years, and obviously Trump cant unilaterally renegotiate a treaty signed by 190 nations that took years to hammer out. However, since the United States commitment to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 is non-binding, he could simply refuse to comply  and that could enable other countries to ignore their commitments too.

The Trump administration could block EPA regulations that havent been finalized, but undoing existing regulations (or abolishing the agency altogether) would require cooperation from Congress (and a lengthy legal battle).

Trade

Trump said he will immediately announce my intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205. According to CNN Money, that article says any party can withdraw from the trade deal six months after providing written notice. The U.S. has not withdrawn from a trade agreement since 1866, and its unclear what would happen. Experts say it could increase prices for American consumers and probably wouldnt bring back jobs, but Trump disagrees. Were better off paying a little bit more and having jobs, he said in June. Its a much better system. The way it used to be.

Plus, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead. Trump has called the deal a disaster and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, Its certainly not going to be brought up for a vote before Trump takes office.

Trump said he will immediately direct his secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator, and hes called for a tariff of up to 45 percent on goods from China. As Vox explains:

He might face some resistance from Republicans in Congress on this point, but luckily for him, the president has a surprising amount of authority to unilaterally impose duties, by bringing safeguard or market disruption cases against imports from China or Mexico. He could bring a trade war upon America, whether Congress wants him to or not.

Terrorism

There will likely be a new battle over torture under a Trump administration. President Obama signed an executive order directing the CIA to stop using certain interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. During a debate in March, Trump said he would reauthorize waterboarding for suspected terrorists, as well as things that are a hell of a lot worse, like killing terrorists family members.

Former CIA director Michael Hayden said the military would refuse those orders, because they constitute war crimes under international law. Trump initially said he would make military leaders obey. If I say do it, theyre going to do it. Thats what leadership is all about, he said. Later he said he would merely use every legal power that I have to stop these terrorist enemies.

Its unclear if Trump still thinks the U.S. needs a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until we can figure out what is going on. He stopped mentioning the policy in recent weeks, and on Wednesday his statement on the matter disappeared from his website. But Trump could pull off a ban, though there would be a massive backlash and legal challenge.

As the Detroit Free Press notes, presidents regularly invoke Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which says, Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States the president can keep them out for such period as he shall deem necessary. Trump could ban immigration from specific countries that he says pose a threat owing to radical Islamic terrorism.

Foreign Policy

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani told his cabinet on Wednesday that the deal struck between Iran and six other nations to curtail its nuclear development cannot be overturned by one governments decision.

However, Trump could probably make good on his promise to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran. The other nations would not be up for renegotiating the deal, but its a political agreement, not a binding treaty. As Vox explains, Trump could tank the deal by failing to make good on the United States pledge:

President Trump, using his executive authority, could undo the Iran deal by reimposing those US sanctions on Iran. To do this, all Trump would essentially need to do is issue an Executive Order telling the US Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to reimpose the various economic sanctions on Irans government, financial institutions, and businesses that were lifted as part of the Iran deal.

While Trump previously supported reopening diplomatic relations with Cuba, in September he pledged to reverse President Obamas actions until he could strike a better deal. All of the concessions that Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done with executive order, which means the next president can reverse them. And that is what I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands, Trump said. Those demands will include religious and political freedom for the Cuban people and the freeing of political prisoners.

LGBT Equality

The Obama administration issued regulations that protect LGBT people from discrimination in housing and health coverage, extend family-leave benefits to married same-sex couples, and direct public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom they choose (the Supreme Court will soon take up that case). While Trump is more liberal on LGBT issues than most Republicans, his vice-president, Mike Pence, is the exact opposite. In an interview last month, Pence said he would make sure his running mate reverses some of those measures.

Technology

In 2015, the FCC implemented the Open Internet Order, a set of rules meant to protect net neutrality. Trump hasnt commented on the issue recently, but in a 2014 tweet he said: Obamas attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media.

Its unclear what this means, as the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated in 1987, and net neutrality has nothing to do with targeting conservative media. Lets just say hes not a fan of net neutrality, like many Republicans in Congress. Forbes lays out how President Trump could roll back the policy:

Trump is likely to appoint Jeffrey Eisenach the new FCC chairman, according to Politico. A fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, he has been an open and public critic of Chairman Wheeler and his policies. So, step one under the new FCC could be rolling back or undermining the Open Internet Order. It could mean the Internet will no longer be classified as a utility, and ISPs will have the option, say, to make consumers pay more for high-speed access to Netflix. This will have a huge effect on streaming services in particular.

If youre planning to ride out the Trump administration by binge-watching Netflix and pretending it isnt happening, its going to cost you.
Photo: Buck Squibb

I am 35 years old, and Ive taken so very much for granted. On Tuesday morning, my husband and I spent an hour in line at PS234 to vote with our 3-year-old son and 18-month-old daughter. Remember this day, and remember this name, I said, and my son duly repeated it: Hillary Clinton.

Later, under an autumn sun so transcendent it now seems ominous, I was driving up the West Side Highway with two fellow Wellesley alums, bound for what was supposed to be a celebration at our campus, what is affectionately known as the Mothership. At that time, of course, we had the luxury of discussing some our hopes for the next four years  a more sustainable environment, immigration reform, equality and fairness, the next wave of feminism.

Wasnt it great, we recalled, that, at Wellesley, the future was always female? We were first-years, not freshmen. The unusually long and shallow steps to the Colleges Science Center were designed with our biological proportions in mind. In my memory, every class, from Native American History to Introduction to Statistics, included an element of womens studies. I remember debating why the ERA failed in Poli Sci 101! said my classmate Teal Pennebaker. Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton were always coming to give talks on campus, and we assumed they were just the beginning.

After my graduation in 2004, I joined the ranks of the fashion media and have been mentored by generous, entrepreneurial women  one in particular, for nearly nine years now. And so Ive been lumbering along, believing that feminism is, for most conscientious people, deeply held and irrevocable.

For entirely too many reasons, this election has suggested otherwise. I should have been fighting this good fight every day, like so many women have done for decades. On Election Night, I arrived at Wellesleys watch party at the Dorothy Towne Fieldhouse and was greeted by general jubilation  buttons and flags disseminated with abandon, ample food and bev, selfie stations flanked by cardboard cutouts of Kaine and Clinton. Someone was passing around plastic hammers  a nod to the shattering of the glass ceiling  and one womans handmade Plexiglass hat was already starting to crack.

Alicia Fitch, a lawyer from the class of 88, was dressed as a suffragette in a floor-grazing black skirt and jacket, proudly sporting a sash. The past is prologue, she said, as her pantsuit-clad 6-year-old studied the CNN screen. I was talking to Gwendolen in the car on the way over here, and its my hope that as we continue, she will not have to endure a lot of the indignities and unfairness that even my generation has had to endure, not to mention the generations before me.

Kitty Bartholomew and Sandy Mason, best friends and members of the class of 80, had dinner together before heading to campus. Bartholomew sported a red beanie that belonged to her mother, a member of the class of 48. My mom died eight months ago and was very much aware of what was going on and believed in Hillary, she said, showing me a tag she made for the hat that said in honor of Mom, Wellesley, and Hillary. Right now, its a little tense, but its all about moving forward, wherever we end up at the end of the night.

When Florida was still too close to call, Albright Skyped in from the Javits Center. She said something we really needed to hear: Dont worry, weve still got this, and many of us got back to anxious attempts at normalcy  waiting in line for some water, asking a stranger, So, where are you from? When California was called, the crowd that remained went bananas, but many of the alums had quietly trickled out, sensing the outcome. Were children of the 60s and 70s, so we know what its like to have our hopes up and have them dashed, said Chris Santos 74.

The air began to leach out of the room; one woman went outside to cry. Most looked glumly at CNN, many put their arms around their classmates. Around 11:30, when Pennsylvania went red, my friend Amy said, Its done. I cant sleep here tonight, so we embarked on the dark drive back to New York. The text messages that had been dinging merrily for much of the night had stopped. There were only a handful of cars on 95. I woke up the next morning, nuzzled my babies, and cried. I cried openly on the uptown 2 train. I cried discreetly during a meeting at my kids preschool. I dry-heaved at my desk during Clintons beautiful concession speech.

And yet the future is still so bright. It has to be! Now, Im marveling at the fully badass students I met at Wellesley, like Aliza Alin from Lahore, Pakistan, who plans to double-major in English and math. Its my first semester, so Im taking basic stuff like critical interpretation, Arabic, calculus, and South Asian studies, she told me last night, totally sans irony. And then theres Sama Mundlay, another first-year from Mumbai, who landed in Massachusetts all of three months ago but is already able to make hyperintelligent arguments about Americas foreign-policy positions  And I really like what [Hillary] said about reducing the economic stress of child care, she added. Biochemistry and music student Mia Tuccillo wasnt able to vote  shes only 17  but she promised, Ive done a lot of canvassing to try to make up for it. As this election cycle has proved irrevocably, young women in America are informed, savvy, and above all energized  surely whats to come wont be as dire as some have feared. Hillary Clinton is already back to doing her thing  leading. Has her message of grace, dignity, and unity ever been more inspiring? My children will always remember this moment. And we will always remember her name.
Photo: Paras Griffin/Getty Images

Last night, CNN commentator Van Jones got heated in an exchange with Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany. After Jones spoke about how Latinos, Muslims, African-Americans, and other minority groups are fearful of Trumps presidency, McEnany accused him of stoking fears.

You should correct that fear, said McEnany. Donald Trump has never proposed internment camps.

Pointing out that he never mentioned interment camps, Jones shot McEnany down:

You need to back off. You need to have a little bit of empathy and understanding for people who are afraid because your candidate has been one of the most explosively provocative candidates in the history of our country. And theres a price to be paid for that.

When McEnany tried to interrupt, Anderson Cooper urged her to let him speak. I am not finished, Jones said angrily. I am not going to be talked over tonight, I am not. You have people who are terrified, and you have to take some responsibility for it. I am not spreading the terror. I am trying to damp it down.
No to that People cover.

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about to cancel my people

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tbh, they probably had a Hillary one ready to go in case she won.

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i know i'm just upset.

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They've been pretty supportive towards Hillary this whole election, and refused to refute their story about one of their journalists being sexually assaulted by Trump. They have to be "non-bias" as media, but I think they've done a good job of showing his ass.

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so she's really gonna go to jail now?

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Fuck People. And fuck white people.

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Fuck off Enquirer

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Fuck People!

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I like how a couple of weeks ago someone worked for People wrote they were sexual assaulted by Trump but now People have him on their cover.



People magazine have been a shit magazine for awhile so even this can't be surprising [him on the cover] even though I would hope that they wouldn't have him on a cover.



Edited at 2016-11-10 12:08 am (UTC)

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They still maintain that story. They're going to cover the election, regardless of who won because they are such a big media presence, but I think they've made it clear they were pro-Hillary.

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People is gross.



I saw a damn billboard congratulating Asshole Trump and two different cars. I was ready to smash my car into theirs and cry at the same time.

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Glad my People subscription just ended before that cover. Yikes.







Trying to find some brightness in this dark mess: I won an award for my company!

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congrats, its the little things rn

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congrats

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Congratulations! It's always exciting to be acknowledged in your career.

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EW at that Trump cover.



All day my students have been asking me what I think and I've been honest and I've been talking about THIS IS WHY YOU NEED EDUCATION.



Basically, uneducated working class white people believing his lies about getting their jobs back is what happened (and obvs racists and sexists) so I've been telling the kids that this is why Language Analysis, critical thinking and Research skills are taught in schools. So that they don't take anything at face value.



I've been proud to say that today so far, all my students have been listening to me and learning and doing their work because they see what a lack of such education leads to. Even the ones that joked about it were rapt with attention during my spiels today. Kids I didn't even expect to be sensitive to the plights of minorities surprised me by saying 'that's fucked up' when I mentioned that he proposed having Muslims wear identification. I'm proud today to be teaching these kids.



I'm also writing to my MP and Prime Minister to urge them to alter foreign policy to distance us a bit from our US alliance.

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You're a good teacher :)



That sounds like a good idea to write to the local member and PM about moving away from our alliance with the US. I haven't read up on Australia's alliance with China but that is probably the better option

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We have VERY strong trade relations with China which is potentially under threat because of our strong military and diplomatic relationship with the USA now that Trump is President.



I think we need to reaffirm and strengthen our relationships with all our Asian allies and distance ourselves from America. Not sever completely, but just distance. I don't want us getting into a war because of his shit and I'd rather we stay out of it.



At the same time, I'm like 'Siri, how far into the Red Centre do I have to do to avoid a nuclear blast but still live off the land?'

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this is a living nightmare

we are in hell

make it stop

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A few weeks ago, People Magazine published a story about one of their own writers being sexually assaulted by Donald Trump. And now: https://t.co/2krKbqPNOM  Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) November 9, 2016





Media and brands go where the tide is. So I suspect they'll continue to normalize Trump. jfc it's going to be a long 4 years. I don't even want to think about 8.



At this point it might not have even helped bc this country is trash but fuck Mark Burnett while we're at it.



Edited at 2016-11-09 11:57 pm (UTC) Media and brands go where the tide is. So I suspect they'll continue to normalize Trump. jfc it's going to be a long 4 years. I don't even want to think about 8.At this point it might not have even helped bc this country is trash but fuck Mark Burnett while we're at it.

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I would cancel my subscription.



If this was 1992 and People was still relevant and I had one.

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I feel this

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I wonder if Trump's petty ass is gonna try to come for Alec Baldwin.

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You know he will



I can't even imagine what Rosie O'Donnel is doing rn

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Speaking of gossip, I'm surprised there is no Brad Pitt topic yet. I'd make it but I'm not home...

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Oh yea, just saw on my CNN feed he got cleared and the case is closed. I would post it but I've never made a post before on ontd lol

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I can't even imagine what they are going through. Praying he beats it as quickly as possible.

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isn't liver cancer the super bad one that has a low survival rate?

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If it's just in the liver it like 65% survival rate. If it spreads it drops to 20%.

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assuming it's in an early stage and hasn't spread the survival rate of kids is about 65% :-(

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You're probably thinking of pancreatic cancer. Liver cancer can be fairly treatable.

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pancreas cancer has a really low survival rate

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I think you're thinking of pancreatic. My mom died from that only a month after being diagnosed, and it most often spreads to the liver once it starts to metastasize

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liver cancer in kids is totally different from the ones adults get, so it's not really comparable. adults get hepatocellular carcinoma, kids get hepatoblastoma. the prognosis in kids is not that bad, but depends on the cancer's stage.

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that's pancreatic cancer

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Poor little guy. Best of wishes.

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I read that his son has been given a 90% chance of beating it, so atleast the prognosis looks good!

Hopefully he will handle the chemo as well as he can and recover well..

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So sad. :,(( Poor little guy, wishing him the best of luck in the world.



Fuck cancer indeed

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My heart is breaking for them.

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oh my god that is heartbreaking :'(((((((



I hope he beats it <3 god be with them

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oh god, this is awful

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I can't even imagine. My husband treats a lot of people with liver cancer and it bums him out when they're in their 30s because that's "young" for the disease.

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Children should never be able to even get cancer. They just shouldn't. Not that anyone "deserves" it, but children especially should be immune.

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This. It's horrifying enough when adults have it, it's godawful for children. Fuck cancer.

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I hope the best for them

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Fuck cancer. It is the absolute worst.



Prayers and hope to their family. Nobody should have to see their loved one go through that, especially their own child.

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my heart goes out to him and his family <33



seriously, fuck cancer.

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I don't accept it either and it made me sick to my stomach to see Hillary and Obama up there telling us to give President Moldy Cheeto a "fair chance." Go fuck yourselves quite honestly if you want to give that fool any chance at all.

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ita

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I fucking hate that democrats have to take the "high road" when there's not a shot in hell it would have happened the other way around.

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especially since republicans were frothing at the mouth to block dems from doing anything when it was favoured for her to win

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Bernie's psuedo-unity statement was also disappointing

I can't find within me to support or accept any molecule of this, i'll resist as much as i can

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the fact that they have to say it for pr purposes is sad....

they both know we're fucked.

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That's why Democrats are not winning. They need to be more aggressive. When Obama won in 2008, the Republicans were VERY open about making sure he would be a 1 term president and that they would oppose him at every turn.

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They are saying that for the stability of the world.



They are trying to be "nice" so that he won't retaliate with laws that effect the people.



Hillary and Obama know the damage he can do they are doing their very best to temper it.

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That's what is pissing me off the fucking most. No, I will fucking not give that piece of shit a chance. No I will not unite with the white demons and delusional others that put him in place. Fuck them, Fuck him, and Fuck you for asking me to do that.

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MTE! I don't accept this. I'll never accept this. And I don't like all these people telling me I should.

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democrats have no fucking backbone i'm tired of this shit

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Moldy Cheeto and his supporters don't deserve shit. I've been arguing most of the morning with Trump supporters that the KKK isn't anywhere near comparable to the Black Lives Matter movement. They truly can't comprehend the hate crimes that have happened so far, and why I'm so terrified for our future.

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Exactly! I'm sick of us Democrats always having to reason with others and be the big brother. FUCK that, let me throw my tantrum. I'm not accepting him. Kiss my ass.

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I know it sucked :( I guess they have to do it for PR purposes and in obama's case, his reaction would go down in history (though I wanted a sassy remark so bad ). But it just sucks. Like I want them to be sad and mad and angry and they have to put on a friendly face.

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Yeah, but he has to stay dignified in all of this. It's his job to stabilize the nation in times of trouble, and he's doing it to the bitter end. However, if there were ever a time when he needed his Anger Interpreter . . .

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Not sure why but I read "Princess Moldy Cheeto".

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me 2, joe

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I was crying during his speech until I saw this and then the little hug Biden gave Obama. Love them so much

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mte uncle joe and I'm not even practicing catholic

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mte joe

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Joe <3

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Amen, Uncle Joe. Amen.

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fuck, I'm going to miss them so much :(

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LMAO. I'm sure Joe Biden is going to be a very vocal voice these next few years.

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lmao me too joe, me too. and i ain't catholic.

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lmao as an atheist I agree

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Same

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where's your god now

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lmao same joe

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Protestant me agrees, Joe.

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https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-electors-electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19



Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President on December 19 Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President on December 19

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signed

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I just signed and left my reason why:



I'm signing because the Electoral college is in place not only to honor the wishes of the country--Hillary Clinton won the popular vote--but also to make sure that the President of the United States is fit to the leader of the free world. Donald Trump is not. Hillary Clinton is. Were this a normal election, were Trump a candidate who had experience, were he not someone who has shown the very-too-real possibility of a temperament that could easily send our country into war over an insult, I would never even consider doing this, but this is not a normal election, and Donald J. Trump is NOT fit to be the President of the United States. The Electoral College NEEDS to use the power that our Founding Fathers provided them with to save our country from a disastrous upcoming four years that could potentially destroy it.



Edited at 2016-11-10 08:51 pm (UTC)

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me too, it still feels like a nightmare ):

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I'm there. Every morning when I first wake up, I forget for just a moment. Then I remember. And then that sick, sad, horrible feeling returns.

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I know, bb. Anytime it gets too overwhelming, I remind myself that she not only won the popular vote, but now, the left is as galvanized as ever to take back our government. If the far right could mobilize like that and get this asshat elected, then our coalition of minorities which add up to A MAJORITY can do the same with a way more likeable, less messy candidate than Drumpf.

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did anyone watch the vid of their meeting just now? having to watch obama sit next to that fucking monster and play nice was painful.

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I couldn't. I would have vomited.

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omg your icon! NOW BACK TO THE GOOD PART

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THIS IS THE TALE

OF TONY MONTANAAAA

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I refuse to watch it. I refuse.

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It was painful. This whole thing is such a tragic farce

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I swear to god I will never willingly watch anything that sack of shit is involved with.

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seeing the pictures was bad enough

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no. and i still haven't watched trump's victory speech. i refuse. i'm done.

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I didn't watch it.



Apparently it went incredibly well. I hope Obama sat there with him and was like, 'before we go any further you are going to fucking apologize for all the shit you said to me. Fuck you, asshole."



Or that between now and when he has to leave the White House he's going to set up booby traps and Trump had better watch his back.

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Even they shook hands. Repulsive

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it honestly made me sick. the racist who lead the whole birther thing sitting with obama... about to take his place. it's horrifying

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i just saw a picture and honestly that was enough to make me nauseous

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I saw pictures and I wanted to cry.



The indignity of Obama having to shake that man's hand.

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It was painful to watch, but it just reminded me how awesome Obama is. He hates this cheeto, but doing everything he can to leave the office with dignity. Maybe in his future book we'll know why Trump looked all pissed sitting there.

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https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-electors-electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19



Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President on December 19 Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President on December 19

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this is delusional

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Except that a President-Elect like Donald Trump is EXACTLY why the Founding Fathers set up this system is place.

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Yeah but it doesnt hurt to try so sign hoe

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this is dumb and people need to stop sharing it

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lmao come on now

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I think the electoral college is bullshit and that we need to abolish it in the future, but if faithless electors gave the presidency to Hillary at this point? I genuinely believe it would spark a second civil war.

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I've moved on to a stage where I'm angry as fuck about the existence of the electoral college. It allows dumbfucks in Wyoming to have more of a say than me in California. It means that people who actually reflect a minority opinion in the US are holding us back.

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I totally agree that Election Day should be a national holiday. And as liberals we need to fight back on voter suppression.



Idk if we will get rid of electoral college. It seems like a pipe dream. :(

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you don't even need a holiday, just do it on a sunday like most of europe.

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and it disenfranchises the people in US territories like Guam and Puerto Rico.

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no it doesn't. CA has both a population ten times greater than wyoming and damn near 10 times the electoral ballots. i think the EC needs to be reexamined and if it's decided to be done away with fine, but don't let anyone make that a mark of complacency in voter turn out expecting California and NY to always go blue. it'll galvanize the republicans even more to shut down the so called CA and NY "elites".

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does it though? I don't understand how it works fully but doesn't California have 55 electoral votes and Wyoming like 3 or 4? Your system is confusing tbh D:

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I don't accept it either. I will never accept this. We will stop having a president the moment Obama leaves, and start having one again four years.

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in the yahoo comments (yeah, i know, never look) there are so many people responding and saying horrible things about her as if she's a real person

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aww, just like Dan Quayle vs. Murphy Brown

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This was....I don't wanna say comforting, I don't know that anything will truly be comforting for now, but it was nice - it made me smile.

Very well put



Edited at 2016-11-10 06:55 pm (UTC)

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Its honestly what i needed. I read in the bathoom at work and cried alot. I've been watching a lot of Parks and Rec in the last few days and its helped just a little.



I'm still hurt and angry, but its helped me pull myseld together to start organizing

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same

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I hope Democrats are just acting nice right now but will go out of their way to obstruct this fuckhead when he's in office. This isn't okay and I want no one to work with him on anything.

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i've been saying this up and down these election posts but i really hope the dems make an effort to be as much of a pain in the ass for him as the repubs were for obama

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I'd like to tell my all-woman, all-democrat congressional delegation to give that fucker hell. give them all hell.

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where is this???

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fuck it up, NH!

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Honestly though? I want dems to compromise and get things done... I want them to show republicans what a government FOR the people actually does- show up and do their god damn job. Of course obstruct any of his racist fantasies.

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I pray to a god I dont believe in that democrats finally step up and stop being so amicable and complacent with republicans, to stop giving them every damn thing they want, and obstruct this tyrannical piece of shit like they should. We elect these people to do their fucking jobs, not stand aside so republicans can do theirs.



Please dems. Stop being so weak.

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I 100% believe that's what's going to happen.



They have to be nice for the peaceful transfer of power but they are fucking mad.

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How? We don't even have a majority in congress? Filibustering doesn't do anything. Dems won't risk shutting the government down? And you need 60 votes to even pass anything. I'm sorry I sound like a nihilist, but this looks like a really crappy 4 years.

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The Democrats need to be a pain in the ass. NO MORE FUCKING NICE DEMOCRATS REACHING ACROSS THE AISLE BS.



THE DNC NEEDS TO FIGHT.

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I don't accept it either and I'm not giving him a damn chance. I'm going to borrow from the GOP playbook and protest this asshole just like they did with Obama. I hope Dems obstruct the fuck out of any dangerous legislation a Trump presidency tries to pass. And I'll do everything I can to make people care about 2018 in my community. Dems in DC often play far too nice.



It's kind of fucked up to think about the fact that Clinton did get the popular vote. Fairly meaningless rn even with the well-intentioned petitions but it's important to remember that many people did reject his ideas. But as for the deplorables who voted for him? You don't get my unity or empathy.



And lol @ his supporters loving Trump the outsider and ~draining the swamp~ as his cabinet is looking like establishment lifers and floating Jamie Dimon for treasury. Your wall won't happen either, folks.

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GOP already talking about eliminating the filibuster so Dems can't obstruct them right back. I am terrified.

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Yup that motherfucker Scott Walker already demanding to end it. It's going to be a nightmare. Trump and the GOP have the revenge/power people dream about. I think a lot of R's would regret not having the filibuster down the road but they'll do anything for Trump.

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I wanted to punch a wall when I read that. These people have no fucking shame



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I told my mom that these next four years we're gonna become very politically active, far more active than we've ever been.

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she won by such a small margin that it's no comfort at all to me. if this country was worth anything it should've been an absolute blowout.

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omg this picture is making me so mad. his fucking smile ugh.

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demonic oompa loompa

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Nope! Nope. Take it back.

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it just sunk that michelle will have to show melania around the white house.

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I just added word replacer II to my work computer and I put under any mention of "Melania," - Not Michelle Obama.

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I'm disgusted that our first black POTUS has to pass the keys to a white supremacist who questioned his citizenship and legitimacy. I suppose it makes sense given the history of this country.

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barrack looks like he wants to kill him in the last picture.

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I can't imagine the composure he had. To realize this man gained his platform after some racist conspiracy about you and now he's about to undo the progress you've done.





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Obama looks like he wants to die inside.

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You should spoiler cut these NSFL images tbh.

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These next four years are not only going to be awful, but tacky as hell too. Jesus, he's a fucking oompa loompa.

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Disgusting

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He looks misplaced in every possible way.

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the body language tho oml. Trump barely looked at obama while he was talking

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Ugh this should be behind s cut because I'm legit going to throw up rn

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I hate that Obama is basically forced to be nice to him. He knows he is the man who is going to destroy his legacy as president

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SO AWKWARD.

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so fucking forced. what a farce.

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i want erased trump from humanity. god dammit i hate him

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It's so fucking disgusting that a black man has to be polite and cordial to a white man that has done nothing but publicly insult and demean him for 4 years

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All I can say is that I really hope the Democratic party learns from their mistakes this time.



Also, feminist frequency sent out a really nice statement. I understand why Hillary and Obama feel the need to be ~unifying right now, but we really need a leader to tap into people's anger before it turns into apathy and disconnection. If we want to build momentum to carry into 2018 and beyond we need to start now.



Edited at 2016-11-10 07:04 pm (UTC)

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i hate this fucking "when they go low, we go high!" attitude that's led us here

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I have done this my entire life , and I can tell you it get you no where just being fucked over

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I liked that idea at first but I realized by the second debate that that shit was going to bite us in the ass, because it let lies stand in place of correction and that's where we started losing people. Because they think 'if you don't deny it, it must be true.' There were other factors at work, but I don't think that helped matters.

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how about "when they go low, we chop their fucking heads off while they are down there"



Edited at 2016-11-10 09:39 pm (UTC)

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Same. This cannot become apathy. We have to fuel the fire now.

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Mte 

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but we really need a leader to tap into people's anger before it turns into apathy and disconnection. If we want to build momentum to carry into 2018 and beyond we need to start now.



Yeah, but who? Idk. We desperately need a leader to step up but I don't know who it could be.

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sick of all these white tears. hillary really brought out the white victim party. and don't tell me to be anything, jennifer

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58% of white people voted for him......shiiiiit. I thought racists made up 20% of the country MAX. Never have faith in people.

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yesss. i don't buy this shit.

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this. At the end of the day she still rich and white don't call on us for shit why don't you be loud too??? your voice is more important than ours/ given more attention



Edited at 2016-11-10 09:18 pm (UTC)

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Mte

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MTE. Fuck right the hell off with this bullshit.

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"White devil bitch"? ONTD is full of bigots these days.

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Right? Take that corny shit somewhere else

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mte. Mealy mouthed liberal bullshit tbh. People wonder why shit keeps getting worse. It's because people like JLaw are more concerned with "being nice" than with standing up to fascists.

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lol ikr i was gonna give her a chance but then i read this. nope bye

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mte fuck off

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comment twins <3



how are people supposed to be "loud" if they don't protest?

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ikr nhft

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Umm, thanks but no thanks. I am not going ever going to stop blaming white people who flipped from obama to trump in FL or those that didn't show up in NC. I am not going to stop blaming the whites who effectively suppressed votes in NC. I cannot believe there was fucking drive to raise money for these flaming piles of shit. But I will agree about the other stuff, we will stay angry and we will make sure he is a one term president.



And any Democrat who tries to cooperate with this administration should be fucking made an example of. Treat him the way Republicans treated Obama for the last 8 years. Obstruct everything because let's be clear based on his rumored appointments it's going to be a clusterfuck.



Edited at 2016-11-10 07:57 pm (UTC)

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christie or sheriff clarke for dept of homeland security is so fucked up

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I am just seething looking at the appointments and people go around claiming that democrats and republicans are the same. He just hired a guy with very fiercely anti-immigrant views onto his transition team. This will not be pretty. The Democrats better grow a pair.



Also, he just reiterated his plan to ban Muslim immigration. I know people in the Indian community who were keen on this part of his policy. This is so fucked up.



Edited at 2016-11-10 08:08 pm (UTC)

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"we shouldn't riot in the streets"





hmmmm. okay thnx jlaw. that sounds easy 2 say when you're a wealthy white woman whose fundamental rights aren't being threatened.

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Yeah tbh I don't like that phrasing at all. No one was rioting last night. People should be encouraged to protest.

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said this in the other post but what the heck:



"If you are an immigrant, if you are a person of color, if you are LGBTQ+, if you are a womandon't be afraid, be loud!"



idk i think it's pretty dismissive for a rich white woman to tell POC/immigrants/LGBTQ people to not be afraid. people have very good reason to be afraid; has she not heard of the spike in hate crimes and nazi graffiti in the wake of trump's victory? she might be sheltered from that reality, but not everyone is so lucky.



If you're worried about racial violence love your neighbor more than you've ever tried to beforeno matter what they believe or who they voted for.



fuck this unity bullshit, i'm not going to love my neighbor who wants to deny me my full humanity.

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oh what's that? you're a minority who's worried about racial violence and your neighbor voted 4 someone inciting that violence??? UMMM LOVE THEM I GUESS!!!! LOVE THEM SO HARD THEIR EYEBALLS BURST OUT OF THEIR SOCKETS!!!

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mfte

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It's like the people saying "we survived Reagan and Crowe we can survive Trump." A nice sentiment, but a lot of lgbtq and poc did not survive those times.



Clinton winning wasn't going to magically fix America's problems obviously, but people are going to die at a faster rate specifically because Trump was elected.

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A nice sentiment, but a lot of lgbtq and poc did not survive those times.



right? let's just forget all the gay men who died under Reagan's administration thanks to AIDS because "lol gays"

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I'm over the unity shit, too. A lot of the changes won't personally affect me on a large scale. But it will cause a lot of problems for people I love and care about. So no, I'm not gonna hold hands and hope for the best. Fuck that noise. I'm going seethe in utter rage on their behalf because other whites can't figure out how to unstick their thumbs from their asses.

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I really fucking hate the "kill them with kindness" bullshit, especially when it's about people who actually want you dead.

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I never liked her before, and I hate her now. She might've voted Dem, but she's part of the fucking problem. The problem being white and clueless.



Loving my neighbor isn't going to keep me alive, not assaulted, etc. Not to mention the fact that most of my POC friends feel fucking traumatized, which I'm sure is impacting our work which we all desperately need to keep our jobs because we're not multimillionaire Hollywood favs.

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as a canadian non-black poc i am tired of having to love my white oppressors and be the bigger person and show white people how to behave like a human being. i can't imagine what it would be like for a black american. fuck that, i won't blame poc americans especially black americans for saying fuck this and fuck you and spitting in their damn faces. white people deserve whatever shit trump will bring them but let's be real, poc especially black people will feel the impact first, shielding much of it from white people and it is those people (poc americans) i am worried about the most. as much as i want it all to implode for white americans, i know poc will suffer the most and i do not want that for them. it's time the white community takes responsibility for themselves like we have been asked to do for hundreds of years. it's time they monitor their own damn community and report on each other like we've had to and stop expecting poc to shoulder all the responsibility and to save them from themselves. white people have no one to blame for this mess but themselves.

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mte. she doesn't understand fully what this means for other people and this attitude above it all, it's not gonna cut it. she should have keep quiet this time if this was only what she had to say

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agreed completely. I'm sick of this "it's gonna be fiiiiiiine" bullshit. super patronizing and diminishes people's pain and experiences.

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don't be afraid, be loud



Be safe, things got a lot more dangerous in the past 36 hours.

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it's ramping up for sure, as are the Twitter trolls, right on time like vultures.

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be loud but don't protest? should we just be thinking loudly instead?

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maybe show how angry you are on twitter or something

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lol

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And Trump supporters think this is riot this is threatening them.

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lmao

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be loud but be NICE~ about it

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I wish @cnn and other news outlets would discuss the real issue we have in this country. Half of the population is in a state of fear.  #CountryOfKindness (@ladygaga) 10. November 2016



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legit

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Gaga can be ridiculous most of the time, but she really impressed me in this election

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Van Jones tried to talk about this, bless him.

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yup

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gurl is stepping up her political activism game after she kind of let it flounder tbh

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im loving her lately

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Yup. His win made his supporters more confident and emboldened to be full out bigots. At a high school about an hour away from where I grew up in PA, parents were pulling their kids out of school. White students were marching the hallways with Trump signs shouting "white power," spitting in kids' faces, yelling slurs. It's awful and the media isn't covering it.



Edited at 2016-11-10 08:06 pm (UTC)

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Van Jones is the only sane person left on CNN.

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agreed. like, i really, legitimately don't understand how and why the news outlets aren't reporting this. this nation is fucked. the nation is angered! on the whole! you look up anything about this election and its results, and it's a collective "how the fuck did this happen??" everyone is battered by this. i just don't understand.

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this. i had to explain to two "friends' who voted for trump today why i am fucking petrified and they were literally shocked and appalled that trump/pence had that particular stance. like DID YOU NOT READ A FUCKING NEWSPAPER OR ARTICLE IN THE PAST TWO YEARS. I'm glad i was able to look them in the eye and show them the face of somebody they "love" whose life could be ruined under a tremp/pence rule. they were deeply deeply shamed.

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yup. what the fuck is going on.



the problem is, White America will not acknowledge this is real. the Twitter trolls are already claiming these stories are "fake" or "overdramatic"

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I think she did a good job of showing how minorities are the most affected, with women being so affected as well. She's clearly in a privileged spot in life but she's still a woman and this has shaken all of us to the core.

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Nah. I absoutely blame white people for this mess and I AM white. And I don't think people are rioting in the streets? Peaceful and very justified protests are not riots.

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and i'm all for riots anyway

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mte. Fuck your property. People's lives are endangered by the likes of Dump.

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agreed. fuck property, people's lives are at stake.

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anytime poc peacefully rally up, it's always "rioting" but when white people trash businesses and set fire to the streets, they're just "passionate" and it'll be for lesser reasons

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i think maybe she was talking about the non peaceful ones? cars being put on fire and vandalism?

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Right? I have unfollowed and blocked a few people in this mess because fuck that noise. And what absolutely kills me that some of those white voters? Live in pretty poverty driven areas, like Kentucky, and they still think Rand Paul is smart.



Fuck 'em. I don't care how good of friends I thought we were. You voted to suppress people for the sake of purity. Fuck off and take that long walk into a Dante's Peaked lake.

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we have to take the blame (white people, I mean), this is our fault and people have to let go of their useless damn pride and realize it, if people riot or protest, let them have their voices be heard, they're not being heard any other way

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I am white and i've been dragging whitey the whole time. i don't have any chill right now.

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agreed.



also, there was video on my fb feed of ppl burning the flag in DC last night so maybe that's what she is referring to? even though burning the flag is protected under the constitution.....

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We should be loud as long as being loud doesn't include blaming people and rioting in the streets? OK. It's OK to admit things are out of your depth. Many parts of this are out of my depth and it's obvious the same thing is going on with Jennifer. I like her and all, but she's missing the mark here. If she really wanted to write an open letter it should be directed towards her people instead of instructing PoC on what to do.

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.......I think this is the most tone deaf thing i've read this year.

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i'm sure she has good intentions, but i'm already exhausted of this "you have to fight harder" narrative. minorities (immigrants/lgbt+, poc) have felt like a burden for CENTURIES and yeah, while we will keep going, we also need y'all to stop relying on us to be the only voices, then echoing us only when it's to your advantage



i'm so tired. just so tired.

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This is my thing... The minorities DID fight harder. The majority of them did vote Clinton. I have no issues saying that it was WHITE PEOPLE who fucked up. We are the ones that didn't fight hard enough. Even the majority of white women voted Trump. What the actual fuck?! We did this. And the shitty thing, we're not the ones who will suffer the most because of our terrible action (or inaction as it may be). Yes, my rights as a woman are fucked, but because of the color of my skin I'm not nearly as fucked as so many others.



We (being white women) need to do better. We need to get our heads out of our asses. We need to fucking practice what we so very much like to preach. Maybe I'm naive, but I really believe that if all the white women who said they were voting Clinton actually did, Trump wouldn't have won.

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'we're not the ones who will suffer the most because of our terrible action'



Of course not, white people majority voted for Trump because essentially voting for equality and progression will be detrimental to our white power. It's fucking disgusting.



And yeah we need to do better and not only practice what we preach but also call other white people out on their bullshit, none of this I don't agree with what you're saying but it would be uncomfortable for me to call you on it.







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Exactly we are tired, ppl hated not your mule but it had a point

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yes, exactly, it's patronizing and honestly offensive as fuck.

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this. any civil rights gain in american history we owe to African Americans/LGBTQ+/minority activism. clean up your own fucking mess for once.

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i dont know if im going crazy but i think white liberals should go talk with their racist relatives. so many of y'all complain about how you don't want to spend holidays with your folks and so you shielded yourself with a liberal bubble with POC and now that bubble has burst



everything just sucks right now. i fear for my relatives who are immigrants in vermont. and now im scared to join them in america because i feel so unwelcome

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Yup!



Placing this at the feet of white liberals who always complained to their poc friends but couldn't be bothered to actually engage in discussion with their racist white relatives.

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Exactly!! A white person is always going to be more receptive & actually process what another white has to say about racism than any poc ever will do white "allies" need to collect their own

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I have tried so damn hard to talk to my relatives and none of them want to fucking listen. I really wish I knew how to get through to them but some people just want to stay ignorant.

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thank u so much i hope you never get tired

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Exactly. You can talk and talk and talk, but that doesn't mean a relative is willing to listen. I had my dad, a white man, tell my fiance, a white man, that anyone not born American doesn't deserve rights. Like that Gitmo was a-okay in his book. I did the only thing I could do: I walked out of the Christmas party and made it clear. But I can't convince him to look beyond Crazytown USA because he's not willing. The older he gets, the more batshit he gets. About a year after Ruby Ridge happened, I noticed a shift in his politics. Before that, he'd been pretty liberal. I don't know what changed him, but it did. I'm just glad I had a really liberal godmom who forced me to walk outside my bubble. And she didn't get really liberal until after Ford.

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Same here. I've shown them how wrong they are about Trump being this "wealthy" man that has had so many "successful" businesses, or how his views will negatively affect minorities, women, and the working class. They just tell me to shut up and/or how this is just, "your opinion!" I want to fucking scream and pull out my hair because I have lost all patience for these pasty ass relatives of mine.

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I know what you mean. They don't believe in climate change, they think all gay people need to just "get over themselves," all Muslims are terrorists ... When my grandpa asked my aunt if she was celebrating Trump's win, my aunt said no, not at all, and explained that he was openly racist, that he flaunts sexually aggressive behavior, that he's an accused rapist, that Muslims and LGBT and POC are terrified right now that their basic rights are going to be taken away, and my grandpa just said, "Well WE'RE happy about it," and hung up the phone on her. You can talk and explain and try to get them to emphasize, but at a certain point, they're just too fucking stupid.

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Same. They just dismiss me because I'm "young." I'm fucking 27. I'm an adult.

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Exactly. So many people learned about this, and get it, but now they see how scary the world is, so they think "If I just KNOW the information and PRIVATELY do my part by reblogging a post, then I can live in the best of both worlds."



They don't have the guts.

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This, so much.

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true

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People of color didn't even go out and vote, that's kind of the problem.

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Your icon is the first thing to make me laugh out loud since Tuesday night. Love it. Thanks, bb!

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I think I've at least made some progress with my mom. She was one of those people who wasn't like... explicitly racist but just blindly bought into everything the GOP was selling. This election has been a wakeup call for her. We've been able to have some conversations about Trump's explicit racism and how the GOP has been too spineless to stand up to him and now that he's won, they'll just go along with him. She hates Trump and I think now is starting to have her eyes opened as to how this show that the entire party is rotten.

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IA, and that's what I understand all the calls for "unity" to be. A lot of Trump supporters are vile racists and he validated a lot of very ugly things in our society. I get that. At the same time, Democrats can't win elections as the party of educated urbanites alone. We should never stoop to racism and bigotry and we shouldn't roll over and let the GOP pass any fucked up legislation we want but we have to do a better job of reaching out to working class white voters (who were once a cornerstone of our coalition) if we don't want to segregate ourselves jnto irrelevance.



I left the Rust Belt for a knowledge-based job in a big city, I know plenty of others who've done the same. It's on us (and especially the white us) to explain to the people back home what we can do to improve their lives rather than just writing them off as hopeless rednecks.

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I agree. You might not change their minds but it never hurts to know what you're up against. Months ago I was saying things like, "I'm going to vote for Hillary but you all should be aware of how blue-collar people are feeling." Like you don't have to AGREE with those people, but you should maybe not act like people are liars when they tell you something you don't want to hear?



And seriously, I'm not here being all "I told you so" but there are a lot of us who saw the possibility of this happening and were silenced, and are now seeing people say, "OMG how could this have happened?" We told you how it could happen months ago and we were called liars or, alternately, republicans.

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https://twitter.com/polotek/status/796356980344397825



https://twitter.com/pwthornton/status/796355506759671808 I suggest reading both of these twitter threads. I think there's a lot of truth in both of them.

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Sorry, but a lot of white racists are never going to stop being racists. It's only getting worse with alt-right news sources. There is no counter-argument that can change the way they think. It's engrained in them. It surrounds them. You could talk till your face turns blue and they'll never stop thinking their hateful ways. Liberals mental health is more important than enduring thanksgiving dinner hearing about how they're going to hell because they are gay, or a traitor to their race because they married a poc. Sorry, but a lot of white racists are never going to stop being racists. It's only getting worse with alt-right news sources. There is no counter-argument that can change the way they think. It's engrained in them. It surrounds them. You could talk till your face turns blue and they'll never stop thinking their hateful ways. Liberals mental health is more important than enduring thanksgiving dinner hearing about how they're going to hell because they are gay, or a traitor to their race because they married a poc.

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basically everyone in my family knows i'm progressive and unless they agree with me they don't say a word.



last big fight i got into with my grandfather about all this shit and i basically drove home thinking "when will he just die"



which sucks to think about an otherwise very generous person to me, but dear god it is EXHAUSTING

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i think white liberals should go talk with their racist relatives



I did that and now my mother's side of the family won't talk to me and my mother has labelled me a drama queen and "shit starter". I haven't spoken to her since March. It sucks being excommunicated from 1/2 of your family but it is what it is, right?

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im so glad the one nutty one in my family isnt alive anymore, as horrible as that sounds. he was one of 'they just need to die' ppl.



i am def trying. it's upsetting the white ppl i know and ppl are telling me that i hate myself for being white. it doesnt help that they still literally live in a white bubble town where there are like 5 poc. some of them start to see it and others just refuse to see it. and since trump started campaigning i have been more upfront with calling ppl out on it when i witness things in person.

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Oh man, I try. Most of my family is fairly liberal but some of these assholes are just beyond hope. Still, I never agree with them or let them think they're right.

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Serious question: do white women who don't want to engage in conversations with racist white women expect men to talk to other men in order to combat rape culture and sexism?





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For those who are looking for hope in these dark times: "The 2018 United States elections will be held (for the most part) on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. During this mid-term election year, all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate will be contested"



Trump wants to "drain the swamp"? I'm happy to help. Democrats need to SHOW UP in the midterm elections and take back the House and hopefully the Senate, so that the checks and balances system is restored and we can block some of the most harmful policies that will likely come from his presidency. This is the next step and is especially important considering that congress will be re-districting again after the census in 2020 and can hopefully eliminate the bullshit gerrymandering that is helping Republicans keep the House even though most of the electorate disagree with him.



tl;dr: Yes, the next few years are going to be hard but keep showing up, keep hoping, keep fighting and we WILL turn this around. You're outraged, and you should be. Use that anger to get involved and make sure this doesn't happen again.





Edited at 2016-11-10 08:40 pm (UTC)

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Yes, the next four years do not have to be bleak. We can fix it in 2018. We need to be involved. But Democrats just don't show up during mid-terms.

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Well in the same exact way diarrhea incarnate was shoved down our throats for two consecutive years , we are going to shout "nov 6 2018" until that day comes

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"But Democrats just don't show up during mid-terms"



You're right and it's time to change that. With the amount of anger, fear and rage I'm seeing as a result of this election, I think we can make a difference in 2018. We need to completely rebuild the party so we can come out strong in 2018 and we need to start now.

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while mid-term elections are of course extremely important right now, Trump with a majority Congress can do enough damage in the next two years to last us DECADES.

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I've showed up in the damn midterms. I wonder if I make an app in which registered Democrats remind them how many days till each voting cycle happens I'll do it. If that will get voters out. FUCK HAS ANYBODY DONE THIS BECAUSE IF THEY HAVEN'T I'LL DO IT?!

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Join the fight to block Trumps hate agenda through DEEDS not words. Sign up & Ill give you direct ACTIONS to take: https://t.co/Oz97MyZD3o  Wendy Davis (@wendydavis) November 10, 2016



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Yep











Edited at 2016-11-10 09:29 pm (UTC)

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As someone who feels stuck in the Midwest... you are right. I'm in Illinois but I'm downstate. Everyone is horrible.

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I'm in Chicago. I'm in a sea of red. T_T

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Hey now, Chicago has been the beacon of democrat blue in a sea of red. Don't get rid of us. We gave you the Obamas.

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Only Minnesota has showed its all less times than any other state.





Minnesota was the only state that stayed blue, all you other assholes decided to vote for Reagan.









leave my state ALONE.

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And leave a lot of good people in the poorest states without Federal funding? Let's not joke about that. :/

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You realize that the only reason poc in the south have rights of any type is because they're federally mandated, right

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As a Wisconsinite, we deserve it. We were at one time a fucking progressive and democratic socialist bastion and now all these shitty racists are making me hate this state i love so fucking much.

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So much white.

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I just spit coffee on white pants thanks to you lmao!!!

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I mean would anyone miss them?

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Which ep was that?

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I like that one, had a good ending.

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Barf

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I want to shove something really sharp in that doughfaced racist's mouth

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they look like the biggest fuckbois

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I hope they die alone.

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Excuse you but these people are just disaffected. Globalisation has failed them doncha know.

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FINALLY men's rights are being restored!

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so much economic anxiety

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Weak jawline having ugly slobs

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rats

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white devils

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vomit

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look at those working poor disenfranchised youth....... what choice did they have rly? #makesyouthink

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I wanna throw up

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all of his rallies were like that except the token poc they put behind the podium. you know they were like "you can't stand in the crowd, you have to sit here!!!!!!" when they came to the rally.

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These are the people who wanted "change"? Because America just wasn't working out for rich white men???

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Aryan Nation realness

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Fuck them all.

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It's always the ones that sunburn in a heartbeat.

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They all have the most punchable faces.

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This makes me so angry. More than i am. UGHHHHHHH. I can feel a civil war will start next year.





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they've hurt animals before. they have that look.

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Vile pigs, every one of them.

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Bunch of Brock Turners

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Take those jars of mayo away from me.

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this is so frightening.

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Nightmare fuel, drier than the Sahara etc.

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They need to catch fire.

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they all look like they'd have tiny chubby little dicks

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The stuff of nightmares.





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Too much white penis



Disgusted.

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woodstock '99 all over again.

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hope they all die soon

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All of these morons look like they've never had an intelligent thought in their lives.



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ain't y'all going through a drought

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http://www.yescalifornia.org/



according to the pdf, they assume that they'll manage the snowpack from the sierra nevada in a way that's more efficient & increases water supply, which idk according to the pdf, they assume that they'll manage the snowpack from the sierra nevada in a way that's more efficient & increases water supply, which idk

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Yes! The nation of Pacifica!

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I'm down for taking Oregon with us. Most of my friends live there.

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Yes. It's been going on for the past five years. However, the last rain season was pretty good, so all of the restrictions on water usage have been mostly lifted. The drought isn't over, but it's not as dire as it was in previous years.

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if they secede then they can kick Nestle the fuck out lol

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we don't deserve it after we voted to keep the death penalty

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this

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bb 

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Fucking seriously. WTF people?!

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woah, another disappointment :(

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that and plus prop 61! The few of the biggest disappointments from the election day for me tbh.

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It seems to go back and forth a lot in California, they got rid of it and everyone (like Charles Manson) who was sentenced to death had their sentences commuted to life in prison, but then they brought it back and none of those people were moved back to death row. It just seems very all over the place, I don't get the logic.

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Yep I was really disappointed in this. I wonder if the two props confused people.

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This.



Also after Obama got re-elected Texas wanted to secede. Like be reasonable. You ain't as special as Scotland.

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Yeah, we do. Because otherwise we'll be fighting to get rights back that we won years ago instead of trying to fix what's wrong right now. God knows California has tons of things that need attention.

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I AM SO UPSET OVER THIS! fuck. i pushed so hard for everyone i knew to stop the death penalty and now they are back on and faster than ever.

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We didn't, idiots did. They can stay behind >:( The rest of us deserve something better.

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No, because we're still not getting enough rain and it would be reallyyy bad if other states can't help us out in that regard

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the large scale version of your roommate moving out but then calling to ask why you changed the Netflix password





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Take Minnesota with you. we have a ton of water/



10,000 lakes worth.

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please join us, more than welcome the more of us the better, tbh

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So, take Oregon and Washington, too. We got record rains this summer!

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Take Colorado~! We have snow.

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Literally "Who?" at everyone except Takei.

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God this seemed to be in the soundtrack of every 2000's teen drama.

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I was pleasantly surprised to see Liz Phair included and then this comment.. lol

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That's not going to happen. What can happen however is improved turn out for the mid-term elections. The Republicans sent a very strong message in the 2010. We need to do the same.

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I'm definitely going to try and vote from now on, especially in the midterm elections (I'm in a blue state, NY, but that's good, right?)

I don't know how I'm gonna handle these four years of an all red DC.

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When it comes to the state reps even the blue states can produce doozies. But yes, please vote.

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I'm Totally for this! #Pacifica pic.twitter.com/USfv1dirJC  Carl Silva (@CSilva44) 20161110





the calexit thing actually has some silicon valley vc & the path founder offering to fund a campaign for it though this was making the rounds toothe calexit thing actually has some silicon valley vc & the path founder offering to fund a campaign for it though

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no

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You know what. I'm seeing that the Mormon church is slowly moving towards supporting Sam sex unions within their ranks. I give it 10 years of strategic "revelations". We might as well Hedge on it!! And we should take Utah and Colorado also!!

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mte, we were blue!!

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Nah fuck y'all! My family from Boulder are the crunchiest white feminists

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I like this!

But call it Cascadia, it sounds prettier.

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lol @ people forgetting about the Northwest Territorial Imperative. the PNW has some of the biggest, scariest, worst white nationalist groups ever.



Edited at 2016-11-10 08:49 pm (UTC)

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lmao the name will confuse me since my relatives live in the city of pacifica, ca

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we'd lose a lot in the gr8 earthquake tho. expand to the rockys tbh, the idapotathos can f off to wyoming. idk the plan for the mormons.

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I see people don't realize what the eastern part of Washington state is really like. It's really Seattle being extremely liberal that makes us so blue. We keep Eastern Washington around for the wine.



Edited at 2016-11-10 09:10 pm (UTC)

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I just wish they'd call it Ecotopia

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oh my god i wish. in a perfect world.

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lol we made sure to keep Vegas

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The superior us

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amazing how trump has no pressure to reach out to hillary supporters



if the shoe was on the other foot and hillary had lost the popular vote but won the ec, the media would be full of handwringing and like 'what will hillary do to appease trump voters!!"

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That can change with the mid-term elections. We can make that happen but we need to vote in good numbers.

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right, because women have to be ~~ accommodating~~~ but trump can stomp around like JULIUS CAESAR >:O

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Like Voldemort more like it

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try Caligula for sheer assholery

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the >:O is killing me

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sf true

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some californians are doing a bit too much to act like the state is some perfect liberal utopia though. like this was a statement released by two politicians:



California was not a part of this nation when its history began, but we are clearly now the keeper of its future.



lol come on. this is the state that passed prop 8, remember that? i realize that there were a lot of complicated factors re prop 8 (e.g. confusing wording, heavy propaganda by the mormons, etc.) but the fact is that california has a hotbed of conservatism that too many people in the coastal areas want to pretend doesn't exist. fortunately the blue neighborhoods are numerous enough that they're not held hostage to red conservatism the way blue neighborhoods in texas are, but i'd like it if california could stop acting like it's the vanguard of progression when ignoring conservative areas has screwed them over in the past.

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IA, I love my homestate, but we need to stop acting smug lately, lol

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not from california and yeah they are definitely progressive in many areas, but I just saw a photo of a house with the nazi flag and that was in san francisco and not to mention, the fact that they kept the death penalty.



I get the sentiment behind it and lord knows if I could, I'd break away from a country run by trump, but I keep thinking about the many who are going to be even more screwed by that, that have zero protection



Edited at 2016-11-10 08:52 pm (UTC)

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The dumbass who hung the nazi flag is actually against Trump and that's why he hung it supposedly. He took it down already and put up a rainbow flag. Also, smh at us keeping the death penalty.

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lol well said

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True and I'm from the central valley where most conservatives are. Fucking hate it.

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You're not lying, go to Fresno, Stockton, San Bernardino, Merced Bakersfield there's plenty of shit holes in this state

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California was not a part of this nation



IT WAS OURS (MEXICO), THE JOKE'S ON YOU AHAHA.



We'll gladly take it back.

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Everyone always forgets central California exists, lol

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Up north too, like by Shasta

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there are, but the same could be said about basically any state. I'm in NY, which is super liberal in the city, but parts upstate and on LI (where I live) is pretty conservative.



Edited at 2016-11-10 08:48 pm (UTC)

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honestly this can be said about most states, the major cities are usually very liberal and the rural areas are very conservative. My state goes super red in elections but the two major areas are overwhelmingly blue

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I just got back from driving through California. and I saw more pro-trump signs from LA to the Bay, farm land, than i did in my state which is 99 percent farmers. a whole lotta califnornians voted for trump.

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What happened with that measure about the homeless?

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Well yeah, look at Texas. Red state with pockets of liberal hubs like Dallas. It's like that everywhere including other countries.

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Most people here A) don't understand why the electoral college exists. and B) That this is also largely a Rural vs Urban division.

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Welcome to Panem y'all

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seriously, especially since a lot of silicon valley tech bro types are pushing for this

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I wonder if they are making money from Trump being president.

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they would; keep that money all to themselves i guess

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can New England also become its own country along with NY?

be New Yorkland

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East Coast and Cali/PNW need to form up with Canada. Boom done.

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HOW CAN YOU FORGET CHICAGO?!

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Don't forget Minneapolis/St. Paul too!

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bring new jersey with you please

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MTE.....NYC<3 AND of course upstate New York

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i bet sxephil voted Trump, pigs can wallow in mud together.

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He seems like one of those liberal bros who voted Hillary but also doesn't care if Trump is president because he'll be personally unaffected.

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i think he's even worse, those liberal dudes who act liberal but then vote Trump bc they think that's the liberal thing to do. the anti-PC crowd if you will.

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The fact that Dem's didn't make it their life goal to abolish the electoral college after 2000 speaks volumes to me. Surely we all knew this could happen again? And at a critical moment in history too. Tsk tsk.

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lol that face

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lmaooooooo

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we failed you bruh

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Lol irl.

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lmao nnn



god bill's first lady and his vp



what a fucking curse

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I know right, Im surprised they were so complacent/ok with it

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Right? That was such a shit show, Jfc.

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yeah, i'm just still so stunned by so many things.

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The fact that we didn't abolish 3rd party candidates after 2000 speaks volumes MORE.

This is Ralph Nader all over again.

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yeah

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...Do you know how hard a constitutional amendment is? Waste of political capital in 2000 and 2004, and too late to do by 2010. And not even in 2008 and 2009 did Dem have the super-majority enough to pass it. Come on.

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BB I admire you. You are in the trenches doing the dirty work, mobilizing people, getting involved, educating. The DNC ain't shit. They didn't change this because it could benefit them too. Now here we are. I say we Progressives break and form a new party that actually isn't corrupt af and cares about the people.

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Every presidential election, I have to research why the electoral college exists, and I'm still not 100% sure I know why.

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One person should equal one vote.

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Exactly. Like how are they not making it this simple.

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Their reasoning for keeping it around is to keep one largely populated state from always deciding the election. But idk if that makes sense to me.

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It makes campaigning much more difficult, because you can't target the areas that matter. It also always tends to favor one party and when it does, they're not in a position to want to change it once they have the power to do so. In 2012, the electoral college favored the Dems.

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Fucking exactly. Like I don't fucking get this, if more people wanted Hillary to be president, how the hell isn't she president elected now?



Now we are stuck with Donald fucking trump because a group of people (Florida) decided to vote for trump



I'm so fucking pissed and depressed rn







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rural voters want to feel important and have more power. as far as i'm concerned, they can all fuck off.

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we should have a direct democracy.

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the electoral college was made SO THAT the little states weren't trumped (ew) by the big states. so that candidates don't only campaign on the coasts, and fuck/forget about the rest of the country.



sadly, hil didn't even bother to campaign in these states, as she felt it was in the bag with primaries.



doesn't work like that.

this was a populist election up and down.



it's gonna take a LOT of work to pass a constitutional amendment that would do away with the college. esp w repub backed senate and house lol



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mte. I just don't get the idea behind it. This way a state is still dictating the outcome. If every person votes for themselves then they are represented. What's the point in voting Democrat but then it's ignored because your state chooses Republican???



Idg American politics. Australia isn't any better but I feel it's structured slightly better.

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I like this little spark of hope we have. Hopefully Trump supporters will be passed out on moonshine for the next seventy days and they won't catch wind.



And if we fail? I'll get my schadenfreude seeing the slow realization from its supporters that Trump didn't help them at all. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of everyone else.

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I feel like I've taken crazy pills. Every time I go on FB I see people saying "well nothing we can do now, just be respectful and keep your head up" and I want to scream. This is not okay! I am NOT going to respect that naranja!

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The best thing I've seen on Twitter is someone who tweeted like "Now that the election is over blah blah you have to respect the decision blah blah" and someone RTing it saying "RT if you don't gotta do shit." It was beautiful and got a ton of RTs.

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Lmao I love that RT quote.

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LOL

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I think it really depends on your part of the country and the kinds of people you grew up with. for the past few two days, my feed has been this constant heartbreaking stream of "I no longer feel safe in this country," because practically everyone I grew up with is a non-white immigrant. it's actually getting to be a bit too much for me. it makes me feel so hopeless

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That is what the non racist Germans did.

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My replies to those always are



"I will treat President Trump the way you all treated President Obama but with way less LIKE WAY LESS racial slurs"

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Trumps win means that white nationalism is at the center of our politics, and that people on the right and left will try to accommodate it.  Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) November 10, 2016

exactly, compromise only favors those who already own the mechanisms of power

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my mom said the same thing

and she yelled at me because of me being depressed about this

i will never respect orange shitpile

never

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any time, i see a "don't lose friends over this" or any passive aggressive comment silencing people's anger, i delete them. i don't need "friends" who're indifferent to the very real ramifications of this election.

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I refuse to coddle white supremacists. We cannot allow this to be a mainstay in our current politics. Absolutely cannot. Obstruct.

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People being complacent like that are dangerous. Seeing the media and politicians doing it is so frustrating.



At the very least Americans need to let it be known that what happened isnt okay.

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NEVER. i plan to fight. he will never be legitimate in my eyes.

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whaaat the hell, screw those people

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no insultes las naranjas ok

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lol that naranja.

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For the first time in a long time, I feel powerless. I am a white woman in Florida who has racist-ass family on both sides, both in Florida and Louisiana, and nothing I do or say gets through to them. I've had family stop talking to me over my views. I don't know what to do anymore except keep talking to them and listening to people whose lives are affected.

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sending love to you. you are brave and strong for holding onto your beliefs even in a system and family that supports racism.

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I honestly feel for normal-ish white people like yourself. The conversations that minorities are going to have with each other and our loved ones are going to be outrage and sadness across the board. You guys have to deal with racist loved ones, coworkers, and friends who expect you to have those same beliefs. White people won't listen to us, and that was proven in the election. But they will listen to you.



A friend of mine on Facebook expressed disappointment in the election and asked how was she going to teach her daughters about being respected when someone like Trump is in office. Her friends and family jumped all over her, and she stood her ground.



In any case, we need our allies to help us more than even. We need to help educate and prepare for 2018. Please stay strong. Please don't be quiet.

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This is why I'm still going. If this election has proven anything, it's that white women have the most power to build the bridge leading from white men to every fucking body else, and we didn't do it. Like an article on the Slate that I read earlier said, we basically chose to be a guy's girl instead of a woman. And I'm not going to be quiet, no matter what my family says or does. I can't. They can all unadd me, they can not come to my house. I really don't give a fuck anymore.

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I love that even after the backlash you keep pushing for what you feel is right!

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I live in Florida too but instead of white Americans it's white CUBANS

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I'm also a white woman in Florida but luckily my family down here shares my views, but almost nobody at my job does. We've had the news on in the breakroom pretty much since the primaries and every time Hillary is on tv someone shouts out "criminal" like they're clever, this dude came in on his day off wearing a Trump shirt, some old fuckin lady came to work yesterday morning in a MAGA hat. I'm so conflicted because on one hand I don't want to rock the boat at my job but it is so, so hard to listen to all of this.



I really don't know what I could have done though. My (south Florida) county went red for the first time since I'm not even sure when and I feel so just, idk, defeated over it. I wish I had gotten more involved with the campaign besides just donating money but even then I'm not sure what it would have accomplished. I'm definitely taking a hard lesson from this though, I'm not going to be quiet anymore and I'm going to do everything I can to get people out to vote in the midterms. This is too important.

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Yep. I'm from New York not Florida but I feel like i'm in the trenches or something on facebook but I can't stop. My heart broke a few times with things people said to me. I've cried a lot. The first time i've even felt sort of better was when I saw the protester on tv.



We just have to keep going and give it everything we have.





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I saw. NEED THE VOTER RIGHTS ACT ENABLED AGAIN.

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This is supposed to start feeling better by now but it's not, it's feeling worse, I'm getting WORSE.

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That's how I felt this morning. Do something you enjoy or relaxes you for awhile. I went for a run then watched a few episodes of Archer...it wasn't a cure all for all the feels (that will take time), but it's a good place to start ((((HUGS)))

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same

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Same. The shock is starting to wear off, and it's like every time I turn around I realize another way that I or someone I care about is fucked somehow.

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Gaga has been everything during this election. I take back anything nasty i ever said she's amazing truly

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Agree! I even gave Joanne a chance this morning. Still not my cup of tea but I'm buying it. She is out there campaigning and being proactive. She understands what this means for many people. I'm so proud f her. Sad other popstars like Beyonce hasnt said anything yet.

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lol same



I bought Joanne bc of how Gaga has been after this election.

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Beyonce at least endorsed Hillary. Taylor Swift hasn't said a single thing related to this election or BLM.

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lmao sis where have you been!?? bey had a damn benefit concert for hillary

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MTE. The Madonna stan(s) who tried to drag her in that last post are fucked in the head.

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MTE

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She's truly amazing in her racism.

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And I watched him sit down, strap on the rollerblades and look up.



And when I saw his face, I knew for sure that dude couldn't rollerblade. pic.twitter.com/jim9aEDlTO  Erin Burr, sir (@erinscafe) 10. November 2016



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LMAO

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nnn too accurate

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lets be real, he's gonna take 50 vacations a year for "health" and leave pence in charge. Everything is terrifying every way you look at it.



Edited at 2016-11-10 09:43 pm (UTC)

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He's gonna go golfing every other day - but unlike Obama, he'll never get dragged for it.

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he's not gonna do shit, you're right

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IA, Pence will absolutely be running this country behind the scenes

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B-b-but I thought he had THE STAMINA!! He said he's the healthiest man EVER!! His fake doctor's note said so!!

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this will likely be a pence administration, no doubt.



wasn't there a report earlier this year that claimed pence was offered the running mate position with the bribe that he's be "the most powerful vice president in history" ?

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lmao every time i see a photo of trump from this meeting i start laughing in disbelief

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He has no idea what he's doing. I don't even think he knows how a bill passes. What's worse is his cabinet will be scary. And his supporters wanted to ~drain the swamp~ and yet virtually every person's name who is floating around for cabinet positions is an establishment lifer. I can't.

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lmfao

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lol some much needed laughter right now

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LMAOOO

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lmao

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I saw this picture on my FB feed but Obama was in it. My first thoughts were "Wow he looks like a child (Trump) in the presence of authority and charisma (Obama)". Then I realised that this man has absolutely no idea wtf is about to happen, he's shitting himself. We know he'll do absolutely fuck all, it'll be his cabinet (British terminology, not sure of the American terminology) he is surrounded by.

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Honestly, Cheeto Benito has no fucking clue what he's doing and I still maintain he never expected/wanted to actually BE president. He's in for a world of misery, the shitbag.

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jesus. i almost pity him in this picture

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lmfao

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i know people were deriding that petition but i think fighting for any glimmer of hope is so great. at least it exposes how fucked up the voting system is

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i agree...even though i don't think these petitions are going to get anywhere..it made me feel a little bit better signing them and having SOME outlet to direct my anger towards.

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the media can set the tone (as we've unfortunately seen this election), so idk why they aren't treating this like a real possibility



they could give this idea real momentum at this perilous moment in history - the ideal time to break with precedent - but they're choosing to legitimize the misogynist, racist, unqualified, democracy-torpedoing demagogue who lost the popular vote instead.



all our institutions have been utterly failing us, i'm so enraged.

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I think if they make some sort of change, it would affect future elections, not this one. This is also I think the 5th time the candidate that won the popular vote lost the election, and that's never motivated them enough to change it before. People complained in 2000, but nothing has changed since.



I personally believe that the Federal government should only have the powers given to them in the Constitution, because it says that anything not listed is a state's right by default - so things like health care, marriage, and so forth I think should be state issues and I think people should start caring more about their local/state government and making the changes they want there rather than at the national level.



Edited at 2016-11-10 09:37 pm (UTC)

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But what do you do when so many states need to be dragged into the 21st century?

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I love you Michelle Obama , love you soo much, but I will not go high until 2020 elects a progressive in line with the the majority of America and the world. I

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:( I wish there was something I could say but I am right there with you..

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if ever the electoral college was going to actually fulfill its function of acting as a barrier to nonsense candidates, this is the time. otherwise it's totally fucking useless and needs to get the fuck out.

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"it's totally fucking useless and needs to get the fuck out."





The working title of every US History book.

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yep

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for real

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yeah this is WHY it exists, when the voters done goofed

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that's the sad part. the voters didn't goof. the majority of voters spoke for hillary.



hopefully the electors are hearing the outrage and taking it into consideration. :/

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I don't dare get my hopes up, having them crushed again would be too much I already know the next four years are going to be absolute hell. Everyone has already lost their damn minds.

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I guess I should know this but why don't we just go with the popular vote? What is the logic behind the electoral college?

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lmao that shit sure backfired on us.

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Wow a true reverse warholian expedition

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People argue that since the population is concentrated on both coasts candidates would just spend all of their time in California, New York, Texas, Florida, ect. and "ignore" the middle of the country who would in turn feel like their votes don't matter.

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It's supposed to give areas with smaller population an equal vote to those with larger one.

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America seems hung up on ideas they had centuries ago.

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Its common knowledge that most of the worlds oil is transported internationally by tankers. What might not be so commonly known is the fact that almost half of the crude shipped around the world passes through waters where piracy, the danger of terrorist attacks, or the possibility of local governments shutting down the waterway are all too real.

Business Insider has used new visualization tech to map the seven main chokepoints of the global crude oil routes. The map highlights the fact that four of these chokepoints  the biggest ones, at that  are in politically unstable or otherwise unfavorable regions, which could potentially threaten crude oil supplies around the world.

17 Million bpd Through the Strait of Hormuz.

(Click to enlarge)

FleetMon

The biggest chokepoint for tanker shipments is the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, between Oman and Iran. The Iran-controlled passage is where 17 million barrels of crude pass through on a daily basis. One of the biggest risks with this route is Irans threat wielding regarding it.

Four years ago, Tehran threatened to close the passage, and it did so again earlier this year. In neither case, however, did the country act on its threats, but it does not mean that it wont wave that weapon again, and wont act on it next time, should the antagonizing between Tehran, Riyadh, and Washington continue.

The strait is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, but is wide and deep enough to handle even the worlds largest tankers. Alternate routes for oil normally going through this strait are several pipelines, but capacity is limited. Most of the oil exports traveling through this strait are bound for Asian markets.

15.2 Million bpd Through the Strait of Malacca.

(Click to enlarge)

FleetMon Related: Catching A Falling Knife: A Deepwater Buyout

Second from the top in terms of millions of barrels shipped is the Strait of Malacca, between Indonesia and Malaysia, where 15.2 million barrels are shipped daily. The place is dangerous geographically, what with the shallow waters. Its also dangerous because of the sheer number of vessels that pass through it: up to 80,000 annually. Piracy is also rife in the area, causing additional concerns.

Malacca remains the shortest route between the Middle East and the Asian Markets.

4.6 Million bpd Through the Suez Canal.

(Click to enlarge)

FleetMon

The Suez Canal in Egypt is where 4.6 million barrels of crude pass through every day. Egypt is still a politically unstable country following the Arab Spring revolution, and there is the ever-present problem of possible terrorist attacks on the infrastructure. And although its possible, its highly unlikely that Egypt, no matter how strained its relations with Saudi Arabia get, would close such a lucrative asset: this year, Egypt expects to get some US$5.7 billion in revenue from vessels using the freshly expanded waterway this year. Related: Why $25 NatGas Is Possible This Winter

3.8 Million bpd Through Bab el-Mandeb.

(Click to enlarge)



FleetMon

South of the Suez Canal is Bab el-Mandeb, another passage that accounts for 3.8 million barrels of crude daily. Since it passes between Yemen on the one side, and Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia on the other, shipments via Bab el-Mandeb are under constant threat from pirates and other militant groups operating in the area.

The four waterways above account for a combined 40.6 million barrels of crude every day. The rest of the chokepoints are not exactly in safe waters either, but much safer waters, perhaps except for the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles in Turkey, which account for around 2.9 million bpd of global oil shipments. Due to the nature of the current Turkish government with Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the helm, closing off the straits on a whim or as a demonstration of power to any of his many allies is never off the table.

The rest of the maritime world oil goes through the Danish Straits (3.3 million bpd)mostly Russian crude for Europeand the Panama Canal, which is the smallest of the seven, transporting 800,000 bpd on average. Some 4.9 million barrels of crude are also shipped by Cape of Good Hope by those who would rather avoid the chokepoints of Suez and Bab el-Mandeb.

The world this year will consume 95.33 million barrels daily, according to the Energy Information Administration. Of this, 52.6 million barrels will be shipped by sea. Any trouble at any of these chokepoints would easily push up international prices.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Desperate times call for desperate measures. And when things no longer work, you throw them out. OPEC may be just that desperate, and perhaps it is now willing to throw out its tried and trusted strategies of yesteryear when the oil industry was merrily rolling along.

With its member economies reeling from the lower-for-longer oil prices, OPEC has been publicly trying to get its members all on the same page on just how to lift crude prices, and even lobbying for support from non-OPEC producers to join the efforts to stabilize the oil markets. But with some OPEC members reluctant to participate, is the old OPEC go-to solution to have Saudi Arabia do all the cutting still on the table for consideration?

Just three weeks before the November 30 meeting, where members are expected to discuss the details of a production freeze or cut, OPEC published its 2016 World Oil Outlook in which it sees the total OPEC supply of crude oil and natural gas liquids at 40.6 million bpd in 2020.

This figure is projected to account for 41 percent of global liquids supplies, compared to the 37 percent market share for 2020 that OPEC had expected in its 2014 World Oil Outlook, according to figures crunched by Bloomberg. Last year, OPECs share of the world liquids supplies was 40 percent, higher than the 38-percent projection from 2014.

Back in 2014, OPEC, at the likely behest of its de facto leader Saudi Arabia, embarked on the mission to raise its market share, adopting a pump-at-will policy to that end. So far, that strategys most evident result has been the oil price crash stemming from the oil supply glut it helped to create.

Now it seems thatas far as vying for higher market share is concerned the no-limits pumping policy has finally worked.

So, Ali Al-Naimi, former long-standing Saudi oil minister and the architect of that strategy, is seeing his efforts to preserve and raise market shares pay off. In a book Al-Naimi is launching this month, he stands by his policy. Related: Breaking The Pattern: Trump Wins, Oil Jumps

But Al-Naimis successor, Khalid al-Falih, who rose to power in May of this year, has been working on a different strategy for Saudi Arabia and OPEC, after seeing how the no-limits production backfired spectacularly on OPEC economies, including Saudi Arabias, while U.S. shale proved to be more resilient in the lower price environment than initially thought.

Oil prices crashing from US$100 a barrel in 2014 to below US$30 in February of this year, and now around US$45, drained the budgets of oil-dependent economies, caused governments to slash costs and costly projects, raised budget deficits, reduced government spending and consumers purchasing powers, and slowed down economic growth.

Saudi Arabia alone is canceling US$266.7 billion in projects and is cutting pay and perks for public servants.

Nigeria and Venezuela are also seeing their highly oil-dependent economies battered by the low oil prices, additionally aggravated by the Niger Delta militant violence, and the agenda of Socialist President Nicolas Maduro to seize all powers on his road to dictatorship, respectively.

So, OPECs market-share-seizure strategy came at a cost, and what a cost it has been. According to Bloomberg calculations based on OPEC data, the cartels crude oil sales would be worth around US$365 billion less in 2020 with the lower oil prices.

The low oil revenue is the other side of the market-share coin. This time around, it seems that the Saudisand their new oilmanmay be willing to manipulate production to prop up prices and save OPEC economies from even further slowdown.

Last week, Al-Naimi shed some light on the November 2014 talks about OPEC possibly cutting production. The former Saudi oil minister had then asked each OPEC oil minister individually if they would cut production.

All the answers were no. The expectation was: Traditionally youSaudi Arabiacut. [I said] we wont do that anymore, thats it, Al-Naimi said last week in London, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. Related: Money Managers Slash Long Positions On Crude Amid OPEC Disputes

Traditions are not what they used to be, and the Saudis may be unwilling to cut if others do not follow suit. The Saudis are reluctant to back down on this issue because a unilateral cut (impossible as it seems) could undermine their position of leading the cartel, and give a free pass to Iran to reach its desired pre-sanctions market share, and the Saudis wont have it.

The cartel, however, has seen in less than two months bitter infighting over which data to use to set limits; who would, should or could be exempt from cuts; and the background has always been who is most or least desperate to have oil prices higher.

Still, even if OPEC were to somehow cut a deal on output cuts, most analysts and industry officials believe that OPEC alone would do little to lift oil prices. So will non-OPEC Russia or other non-cartel producers carry the torch and do more than just vaguely commit to joining efforts to stabilize the market?

If so, would a possible deal even hold, given OPECs poor track record of sticking to pledges? And finally, would an OPEC agreement even matter given that president-elect Donald Trump has promised an energy program to make U.S. fossil fuels great again?

By Tsvetana Paraskova

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Donald Trumps victory could ultimately lead to a lot more oil pipelines moving forward, one sector of the fossil fuel industry specifically targeted by environmentalists

The most controversial project right now, the Dakota Access Pipeline, received a jolt from Tuesdays result. The more than 1,100-mile pipeline, valued at $3.7 billion, would carry oil from North Dakota to refineries in Illinois. The Obama administration has requested a temporary halt to construction, although the company behind the project, Energy Transfer Partners, has pressed forward, ignoring the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps reiterated a request for a stoppage this week, but the outcome is up in the air.

The Dakota Access Pipeline has been reeling from protests, work stoppages, bad press and a federal government willing to listen to the grievances from the Native American community affected. Trump has shown little inclination of being as accommodating, so the Dakota Access Pipeline has gone from being a project on the ropes to one with a great deal of momentum. Unless the Corps rescinds a permit in the next few months, the project will move forward. Even if it is blocked, however, it would likely be revived under a Trump administration. Energy Transfer Partners stock price surged as much as 9 percent on Wednesday and was up more than 3 percent on Thursday. The company hopes to complete construction by the first quarter of 2017.

And Dakota Access predecessor, at least in terms of a national flashpoint, could also be coming back from the dead. TransCanada issued a statement on Wednesday, telegraphing the companys interest in reviving the defunct Keystone XL Pipeline, which would take Alberta tar sands to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. TransCanada remains fully committed to building Keystone XL, spokesman Mark Cooper said in the post-election statement. We are evaluating ways to engage the new administration on the benefits, the jobs and the tax revenues this project brings to the table. TransCanadas stock price jumped more than 2 percent on Wednesday. Related: Death By A Thousand Cuts: Can Trump Save U.S. Pipelines?

During the campaign Trump said that he supported the pipeline, but wanted the U.S. to get a better deal. His words are often conflicting and contradictory  he has also said that he is for an America First energy plan that would remove all barriers to responsible energy production. So there is no reason to think that he wouldnt simply revive the project as is, especially given that he is surrounding himself with advisors from the oil and gas industry.

Beyond these two projects, the oil industry is hoping for broader easing of permitting and regulations on pipeline construction. The Army Corps under Trump could clear the way for energy infrastructure, downgrading its scrutiny of the effects on rivers and lakes from oil pipelines. "We're hopeful the pipeline approval process will now be allowed to work without political interference," John Stoody, vice president of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, told E&E News. And with plans to dismantle much of the EPA, the ability to break ground and lay down pipeline could get a whole lot easier.

While Trump supports the Keystone XL Pipeline, his presidency complicates things for Canada a bit. For one, he wants to renegotiate NAFTA. But leaving that aside, the resuscitation of Keystone XL could create problems for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was thought to be nearing an approval for the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, which would take Alberta oil to the Pacific Coast. It is not obvious that both the Keystone XL Pipeline and Kinder Morgans Trans Mountain Pipeline both need to be built. Related: Money Managers Slash Long Positions On Crude Amid OPEC Disputes

Albertas Premier is not ready to put all her eggs in one basket by trusting that the pathway to Canadas south for oil will be cleared up. "We must continue to work to diversity Canada's energy markets, and to build trading relationships with more than one buyer," Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said in a statement following Trumps victory. "For that reason, a Canadian pipeline to tidewater remains an important priority for Alberta."

Finally, the environmental movement has been left shocked and terrified over what a Trump administration would mean for the environment, but they have vowed not to give an inch. "I think they will greenlight lots of fossil fuel projects," Jane Kleeb, a key activist fighting the Keystone XL Pipeline in Nebraska, told E&E News. "And we'll fight all of them."

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
While the fame of Gilles, Leons, Kopps and Culvers endures  and their legendary status continues to be further cemented in the Milwaukee psyche  through the years, dozens of other custard stands have come and gone.

While some shimmered ever so briefly, others were pioneers that endured for decades, searing themselves into the memories of those who experienced them.

On the eve of National Frozen Custard Day, celebrated annually on Aug. 8, here is a sampling of some of those places, adapted from the book, "Milwaukee Frozen Custard," written by Kathleen McCann and me and published by The History Press and available from all booksellers.

1. Als/Jessicas Frozen Custard

Al Lach, who got his start working at Leons, opened Als Frozen Custard at 524 E. Layton Ave., across from the airport on Aug. 3, 1946. Sometimes in advertisements, Als would claim to be the "Home of the Original Butter Burger," but thats hard to verify, considering the number of long-lived Milwaukee institutions that serve butter-slathered hamburgers.

A classic drive-in, Als boasted carhops and a variety of sandwiches, including cheese steak and the Starkey Special. Named in honor of 42-year South Milwaukee High School teacher Archie Starkey, it was a cheeseburger topped with a fried egg.

Although t it had remained popular for decades, renowned for its focus on creating a delectable vanilla custard, Als was renamed Jessicas when Lachs wife took over in 1990. Jessicas  which called itself the "Wizard of Ahhs"  closed at the dawn of the 21st century and was replaced by a used car dealership and, later, a staffing service.

2. Bellas Fat Cat



(PHOTO: Andy Tarnoff)

Kim and Michael Schmidt  who learned the business during two stints working at Kalts  opened Bellas Fat Cat at 1233 E. Brady St. at the start of the new millennium, and the sleek new custard and burger stand quickly grew in popularity. Within a few years, the Schmidts had opened new locations on Kinnickinnic Avenue in Bay View (2004) and on Oakland Avenue, near the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2005).

In addition to classic burger fare, the Schmidts also catered to more health-conscious diners. "The stuff we use is fresh and not processed," Mike told OnMilwaukee. "We do offer healthful selections like whole wheat bread, veggie dogs and veggie burgers. We dont try to slather on a pound of butter, just use fresh ingredients to make it [as] tasty as possible without overdoing it."

The Schmidts also worked to create their own custard style. "We put a lot of pride in our food and try to be unique with our custard flavors. Custard tastes a little different everywhere you go. Thats what makes it so great, and thats why Wisconsinites love it."

Sadly, the Brady Street location closed in 2008, and within a couple years, the other stands were gone, too.

3. Clarks Frozen Custard/Dutchland Dairy

(PHOTO: Dutchland Dairy Facebook)

Legend says that Joe Clark tasted frozen custard at the A Century of Progress worlds fair in Chicago in 1933-34. From there, he opened his first Clarks Frozen Custard Stand at 2020 W. Capitol Dr. in 1935. Clark was among the earliest and surely the most influential of the early custard purveyors here.

By 1938, a second Clarks location was open at 6032 W. Bluemound Rd. Clark was soon joined in the custard game by his former employee Paul Gilles, who opened Gilles Frozen Custard at 75th and Bluemound, and by Eat Mohr Frozen Custard Stand at 18th Street and Forest Home Avenue on the South Side.

Within two years, Clark opened a short-lived third location at 5408 W. Center St., which was closed by 1942. But by then, Clark had also opened a dairy store at 3905 W. National Ave. that, within a few years, would be renamed Dutchland Dairy. By 1949, a second Dutchland location was open at 208 E. Capitol Dr.

Dutchland also operated the Fiesta Drive-In on Highway 100 at Wisconsin Avenue in the 1950s and 60s (another Fiesta later operated for about five years out west on Bluemound Road), which was known for its innovative features. In 1955, Fiesta was the first in the country to install heat lamps over its 50 drive-in bays, allowing it to operate year-round. A decade later, Fiesta toyed with the idea of going fully automated, with machines for automatic ordering and conveyor belts to deliver orders directly to customers.

It is for the beloved Dutchland Dairy chain of sit-down and carry-out restaurants  with attached dairy stores  that Clark is best remembered. But Dutchland Dairy also sold its own branded dairy products, including milk in distinctive brown bottles, eggs, ice cream and even goats milk, along with a variety of foods, most notably buckets of fried chicken. Advertisements boasted that Dutchlands chicken was "so good and so tender you can even EAT THE BONES!"

In 1968, Clark sold Dutchland Dairy to B-G Foods Inc., of Chicago, and the following year he and his son, Jay, launched Little Angus Restaurants  which a company classified ad described as a "self-service restaurant specializing in sandwich menu and carry-out foods."

In 1970, B-G Foods Dutchland Dairy tried a carry-out only location on 16th Street and Forest Home Avenue on the South Side. But the chain had entered its waning years, and the stores, indebted and in financial straits, were closed by the beginning of 1977.

On an interesting side note: Clark was married to Lenore Normoyle, whose younger brother Bob opened the Pig'n Whistle!

4. Kalts

During the 1980s and 90s, Steve Kalt operated his own eponymous custard stand in a former Boy Blue on the citys northwest side  at 5653 N. 76th St.  after having learned the business from nearly two decades working at Kopps.

Kalts continued the tradition of training other stand owners when he employed Michael Schmidt, who would go on to open Bellas Fat Cat. Schmidt  whose wife and business partner, Kim, grew up patronizing Kalts  even hired four fellow Kalts alumni to work at Bellas.

In 1998, Kalt sold the stand, which was reopened as Daves Frozen Custard. After a few years, however, Daves moved up 76th Street into the former Sweets Frozen Custard stand at 6309 N. 76th St. The old Kalts place is still recognizable as a custard stand and is home to a fried fish and chicken restaurant called Sharks.

5. Larrys Lunch-ette

Specializing in southern fried chicken, jumbo burgers and hot lunches, Larrys Lunch-ette was, as an ad proclaimed, "Where chicken is king and frozen custard queen."

Larrys, 619 W. Walnut St., as it was known in 1950, was one of many restaurants along the main street of the citys busy African-American Bronzeville neighborhood and one of a few places  along with Williamsons Frozen Custard  that sold frozen custard there.

Larry Hills restaurant appears to have changed names a few times, later becoming perhaps best known as Larrys Chicken Shack, but it never stopped serving as a neighborhood anchor.

Raised in Des Moines, Hill arrived in Milwaukee fresh from the navy after World War II, and with $300 borrowed from a barber, he opened his restaurant with just four green-and-maroon vinyl-covered booths.

His food became so popular that, according to an obituary published when Hill died at age 90 in February 2002, "folks would line up for a block for his cooking, burgers and fixings, especially that chicken. 'It was tremendous,'" Hill told the Journal Sentinel in 1998. "'I had as many as six large cookers, and they were full all the time.'"

Veteran newspaperman Richard Carter remembered Larrys as the place to be for neighborhood teens.

"Moving on toward 7th [Street], there was Larrys Frozen Custard, home of the delicious Orange Blossom," Carter wrote in his Milwaukee Journal column in 1987. "Although Larrys offered a number of eating delights, it mainly served as a meeting place for teenagers and young adults seeking nonbinding, close relationships. And, as someone observed, youd have to be a monk to strike out.

"The sidewalk outside Larrys was perhaps the spot to hang out on the set. Just about anybody was liable to show up. For example, I recall the night Joe Louis was there explaining how he demolished all those clowns in the ring. And then there was the time a vocal group called The Five Notes sang a cappella for hours, and you thought you were hearing the Moonglows."

Larrys Chicken Shack, the kingdom where custard was queen, fell  like so much of Bronzeville  to the wrecking ball when the freeway came through in 1959.

6. Lixx

Lixx, next to the Downer Theater at 2597 N. Downer Ave., was an East Side institution, drawing big crowds in summer, especially on weekend evenings, for frozen custard, ice cream and froyo. It was a popular meet-up place and after-film destination.

The shop was opened in 1990 by Daniel Katz, a real estate developer who owned a large portion of the commercial property on Downer Avenue at the time. In 2005, Lixx was denied a liquor license, and the following year, Katz sold a chunk of his holdings on the block, including the building in which the custard shop was located. In 2009, Lixx closed.

Jake Provan opened Jakes Big Dog Frozen Custard at the location in 2010, selling hot dogs and three kinds of custard: vanilla, chocolate and a flavor of the day, but it proved short-lived, and the space is now occupied by Pizza Man.

7. The Milky Way



(PHOTO: Courtesy of John Eastberg)

One of three Milky Way restaurants opened by Arthur Richter, the Port Washington Road Milky Way is the only one that has something of an international profile. Thats because Tom Miller, who graduated from nearby Nicolet High School in 1958, was a regular at the drive-in. And when "Happy Days," the TV show that Miller created, launched on ABC-TV in January 1974, it brought Arnolds (later Als) Drive-In into homes across the world.

Though some in Milwaukee claim Leons was the inspiration for Arnolds, others say it was the Pign Whistle. Both are wrong. The Milwaukee Journal of Jan. 12, 1986, settled the matter:

"According to Miller, it was the Milky-Way (sic), and only the Milky-Way. And thats only logical, because the Milky-Way was the place where all the North Shore 'kaleeges' (high schoolers bound for college) congregated. Miller was one of them. Across the street next to the old Clark station was the Redwood, where the 'hoods,' the ducktailed, leather-jacketed guys, hung out."

That was the social atmosphere in which Miller spent his teen years, and it was those experiences that he drew upon when he concepted "Happy Days."

"Arnolds is really a compilation of everybodys recollections of the drive- in of the 50s," Miller told the Journal in 1977. "Its just that the Milky Way was closest to me when I grew up on Bay Ridge (Avenue)."

At the dawn of the 1940s, Richter was working as a machinist and living on West Capitol Drive. He also briefly ran a candy shop on 37th and Vliet called Richter's Marzipan and candy.

By 1943, hed opened the Milky Way roadside stand next door to his home, at 6317 W. Capitol Dr., and within five years, he had added the location that would later inspire the Fonzs hangout. The original location appears to have closed by around 1956. Karl Kopp says his mom, Elsa, got her start in custard working at the Milky Way and, for a time, running the Capitol Drive shop, before she opened her own place in 1950.

A third location, at 418 N. Lovers Lane Rd. in Wauwatosa  now the intersection of Bluemound and Mayfair Roads  operated until about 1958.

One of the Milky Ways most beloved concoctions was the Dusty Twin, a double-barreled version of the malty dusty road: two scoops of vanilla custard in a reusable turquoise plastic boat, with hot fudge and malt powder, with two generous dollops of whipped cream and a pair of cherries (one atop each dollop).

In 1959, Richters son-in-law, Dick Chiappa, took over the business. The Milky Ways run ended in November 1977, and immediately after, Kopps moved in and started building a new custard legacy on the site that continues today.

8. The Pign Whistle

Few Milwaukee places had a more enduring reputation as a beloved youth hangout than the former Pign Whistle, at 1111 E. Capitol Dr. in Shorewood. Bob Normoyle opened it in 1938 (perhaps with the assistance or at the urging of his brother-in-law Joe Clark) as a drive-in, and in the early days, customers drove up, ordered through a speaker and a carhop delivered the food to the car.

The stand drew college kids from UWM, suburban kids from nearby Shorewood High and city kids from neighborhoods near and far. Distance wasnt a deterrent for many, including the many cruisers who flooded the parking lot in search of cheap food, girls and custard.

By the 1940s  when the dancing pig sign was atop a drive-in that still had no dining room  the Pign Whistle was known for its variety of trademark sundaes. The Campus Beauty had pineapple, marshmallow, crushed nuts and cherries; the College Favorite mixed fresh strawberries, cold fudge, sliced bananas, pecans and cherries; and the Clover-Leaf Special topped three dips of custard with fresh fruit salad, marshmallows, pecans and cherries.

Sam Kallas and Michael Weidenbaum bought the Pign Whistle from owner George Panos in 1988.

Within a few years of purchasing the restaurant, Weidenbaum and his wife  and by then co-owner  Marietta announced that the Pign Whistle would close on March 1, 1992, and reopen in Mequon on May 1.

The Weidenbaums had hoped to reopen the Pign Whistle in the vacant former home of the Nantucket Restaurant, 12800 N. Port Washington Rd., in Mequon, but were met with resistance from neighbors, who feared an accompanying increase in traffic. On June 15, 1992, the Mequon Planning Committee shot down the Weidenbaums plan.

In the meantime, Panos renovated the old Pign Whistle space and opened the Riverbrook Family Restaurant, which was a popular breakfast spot that also offered Greek specialties in its broad breakfast, lunch and dinner menu. But Riverbrook closed a few years ago, and the building was demolished to make room for an assisted-living complex.

9. Town Pride



(PHOTO: Mr. Underhill's Photos)

Harry Schwemmer had a Town Pride custard stand at 5207 N. Teutonia Ave.  which had earlier operated as Winters Frozen Custard  when, in 1952, 15-year-old Joe Bastian walked through the door. "I stopped in to buy a nickel cone and a nickel root beer," Bastian told the Milwaukee Journal in 1987. While he was there, Bastian asked Schwemmer for a job.

Later, Bastian opened a Town Pride stand at 6030 W. Villard Ave., and in 1964, he bought the Teutonia stand and ran it for decades.

In the meantime, the Villard stand changed hands a few times. Robert and Millie Grady ran it for a while in the 1960s, where her kids were part of the business. "How many people today know the difference between ice cream, ice milk and real frozen custard," she asked Buck Herzog of the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1968. "And how many youngsters ever had an old fashioned malt whipped up on a spindle instead of from a shake machine?" She went on to say that her 5-year-old son was raised on custard and knew the difference. The kid wouldnt eat ice cream because, she said. According to him, "it tastes funny."

In 1977, former grocer Rudolph Chop bought the Villard stand, telling the Journal that he got the inspiration to run a custard stand from the original Kopps on Appleton Avenue, which was near his grocery store.

"I thought this was the sweetest business around," he said. "In the grocery business, everybody complained about the prices. In this business, people come in with a smile."

In 1980, Jim and Kathy Randall opened a Town Pride in the former Bakula/Red Onion stand at 5130 W. Hampton Ave. and operated it until 1988 when Best Gyros moved in.

In the early 1980s, Town Pride sold vanilla and chocolate and rotated a third flavor every four days. One of the highlights of the menu was the four-scoop Boomba sundae.
Last week, the Milwaukee Public Schools unveiled a multifaceted reform plan that, if implemented, would upend two decades of anti-public school sentiment among Wisconsin legislators. It would also put several changes in place that would, from this MPS teacher's point of view, result in significant student growth.

Some of the ideas, from school uniforms to changes for some of the lowest performing schools in the district, can be done by the MPS Board of School Directors and superintendent Dr. Darienne Driver, and may well be in place soon for the next school year.

Others, like an earlier school-year start date and takeover authority over some of the city's other low-performing schools, face likely roadblocks in the state legislature and may never be enacted.

Still, almost without exception, the plans are both ambitious and sound and should be considered seriously.

Changing the start date from Sept. 1 to early August, for instance, is a no-brainer. If you've been reading this space for any amount of time, you have heard me suggest exactly that. Given students in MPS are, on average, well behind their suburban peers in achievement, it makes sense for MPS students to have a bit of a head start.

As an Advanced Placement teacher, I would love to have three extra weeks to prepare my students for the May exam. My students not only lack the advantages kids in many other districts have  parents with disposable income to buy study aids and private tutoring, for example  but they also have to overcome those deficits in a shorter time frame.

The district's International Baccalaureate high schools already follow this schedule, as the state Department of Public Instruction grants a waivers for those schools to start before the state-mandated Sept. 1 date. That means schools like mine, with AP offerings rather than IB, are also at a disadvantage compared to schools in our own district.

And, notably, many of the city's private schools participating the state's taxpayer-funded voucher plan also have August start dates; that's just one of the state rules voucher schools need not play by that may be meaningful to parents who otherwise would send children to MPS.

Driver says as well that the start date change will save money by putting all schools on the same calendar, with both the district's traditional schools and its year-round schools moving to the new unified calendar.

More important, though, is the complementary plan to include what they're calling the "J-term," a session in June for students who need additional learning time. This, more than anything, is the real advantage an early start date actually confers: an opportunity to extend the school year for students who are behind. It's really hard to come back from behind and be successful (the recent World Series win by the Cubs notwithstanding) without taking additional time or investing additional resources.

As I have written here before, I would already gladly trade 10 or 15 minutes a day  two or three minutes per class period  for an extra couple of weeks of instructional days. I can't do much in two minutes a day, but I could do so much in 10 extra days.

The "J-term" solves this problem without changing the 180-day calendar for students who don't need the time to catch up. Even more excitingly, the school year plus the "J-term" plus summer school gets incredibly close to true year-round schooling for our students who need it the most.

And let's be clear: Our students do need it. The data has been unambiguous for a long time that the "summer slide" among non-white and poor students is real and large. Less time away from school for Milwaukee's children could mean big gains in achievement.

There are challenges here. For one, where will the funding come from for this "J-term"? The unified calendar isn't going to save enough money to pay hundreds, maybe thousands, of teachers for an extra four weeks teaching tens of thousands of students in June.

And besides, many MPS teachers, on Facebook and elsewhere, are agitating to spend any savings on "infrastructure investments." By which they mean air conditioning. As a teacher in a 100-year-old building whose classroom stayed above 80 degrees in September this year, I can't say AC a bad idea. But that's the sort of thing MPS, a poor district with declining enrollment and ridiculous state-imposed revenue limits, prioritizes below other things, like books and teacher salaries.

It's a good example of one thing John Oliver talked about on his show "Last Week Tonight" a couple weeks ago: Segregated schools with high non-white enrollment all over the country face significant infrastructure deficits in addition to achievement gaps.

That's part of why I suggested the lawsuit, though; there's still time to make that happen, people! Get on it!

Besides the start date, the proposal getting the most attention is the one that consolidates more Milwaukee schools under the banner of MPS. This starts with giving MPS the sole chartering authority in the city, an authority it currently shares with UWM and the city (and technically MATC, though it has chartered no schools). Driver also proposed unified oversight of all struggling Milwaukee schools, public and private, under a single turnaround authority.

What's good for the goose, MPS is saying here to legislators who routinely try to wrest local control away from the district, is good for the gander. What we are accountable for should also be what they are accountable for.

I like this, particularly the change in chartering authority, because it embraces something else I routinely harp upon: Undermining school systems through competition and reduced enrollment is a terrible way to force districts to change. You can't build a healthy school system on an unhealthy budget and structural disadvantages. Every student taken from MPS makes a serious impact on the remaining students.

Earlier I said I liked Driver's proposals almost without exception, and here is the exception: Driver wants to make changes in how struggling schools are staffed. The devil will be in the details, and what few details we do have don't make me completely pessimistic on this point yet, but I do want to offer a caution.

I support, for example, the idea of giving struggling schools an early hiring window for new staff. MPS already struggles to find good teaching candidates in the post-Act 10 teacher "marketplace." In the same way we can't afford to retrofit our buildings with air conditioning, we can't afford to pay five-digit signing bonuses or fat retention incentives to attract or keep the area's best teachers in the area's neediest classrooms. However, giving those needy schools first crack at new hires and current employees looking to change schools could mean being better able to meet those students' needs.

But I worry about the continued subtext of any platform plank such as this, which is the misperception that MPS students' low achievement, poor attendance, discipline issues and failure rates are solely or largely the fault of their teachers. While the research consensus is that teachers are the biggest in-school factor affecting achievement, teachers account for a fraction of student achievement overall.

Yet almost all "school reform" movements rely, in one way or another, on changing who teaches students in the hopes all struggling students end up with Superman  to borrow from the titular metaphor from a popular pro-school reform documentary  teaching them fractions and geography. The most recent reform plan state legislators attempted to force upon MPS explicitly called, in the language of the law, for every teacher in failing MPS schools to be fired.

The implication of this plan, that Driver and MPS are blaming its teachers for low achievement, is worrisome. I hope that the rest of the details, when they come out, do not end up with the kind of mass staff turnover demanded by reformers and state legislators.

In the end, I really like this plan as a whole, in no small part because its focus is not simply the classroom and its teacher, but the entire community. I didn't even get into, for example, Driver's demand for more investment in quality early-childhood options, nor have I mentioned changes already in place under her leadership including a community schools initiative and giving parents more of what they demand, like language immersion, Montessori and IB.

The plan shows that Driver is not just any old MPS superintendent.

I have written previously that Driver, as the district's biggest cheerleader, has changed the tone and the conversation in and around our schools. Her brand of activism and energy is very different from the superintendents of the recent past.

I attribute a lot of that to Driver's being our first Generation-Y or millennial superintendent. When she was hired, I despaired at being older not only than my principal at the time but also the superintendent. But I think this generational shift at the top of MPS has been a significant driver of change in how MPS leadership thinks about and talks about change.

An obvious example is the "Black Lives Matter" line in the last MPS budget. No, Driver didn't plan to financially support the national movement by that name; the plan was to expand restorative practices and culturally responsive teaching in the district. She has been, however, deeply influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement and, unlike superintendents of previous generations, engages the community and lawmakers with both confidence and humility.

That is, she knows she's right and holds her ground, but she wants you to be a partner in her vision, not an adversary.

I ran this theory by historian  and MPS history teacher  James K. Nelsen, author of the 2015 book "Educating Milwaukee: How One Citys History of Segregation and Struggle Shaped Its Schools." He agreed.

"What I see in Driver," he told me, "is someone who believes more in the 'it takes a whole village to raise a child' strategy. She wants to bring the entire community together and is personable and savvy in ways" her predecessors did not. Though Milwaukee has a history  though not a long or extensive enough one  of African-American superintendents, Driver's Black Lives Matter style is a far cry from, for example, the black nationalism of former Black Panther Howard Fuller.

"Fuller essentially wanted to breakup the system," Nelsen said. "Driver wants to leave it intact but reform it through community involvement and careful policy analysis. She does not just throw money at the problem as Fuller did  she puts carefully systems in place and funds them appropriately. She does a lot of listening. Fuller did a lot of yelling."

Indeed, this week MPS starts listening sessions around the proposals and has an online survey seeking community input. Driver did the same in 2015 with her seven "Big Ideas" around improving MPS overall.

Her relationship with both the board and the teachers union too, as I have noted repeatedly, is cooperative and focused on student achievement rather than turf wars. She doesn't get sole credit for that; the current board and union leadership are also different, and of a different generation, than in years past.

I find it exciting to be in this version of MPS, the version with boldness and confidence and an eye toward a healthy system of schools in Milwaukee for all our children. Sadly, the state legislature is unlikely to agree. But that's a column for another time. For now, I urge everyone to support Driver and this plan however you can.
In the early morning hours of April 7, 2001, Timothy Thomas, a 19-year-old African-American man, was shot and killed by a Cincinnati police officer. The shooting, the 15th police killing of a black man in the city since 1995, set off five days of riots.

Shortly before Thomas killing, the Cincinnati Black United Front and ACLU, with the assistance of civil rights attorney Al Gerhardstein, had filed a class action lawsuit in federal court against the City of Cincinnati alleging 30 years of racial discrimination by police against African-Americans.

"The community had been simmering," said Iris Roley, project manager at the Cincinnati Black United Front, a coalition of activists and clergy that was formed in early 2001 to combat racial discrimination. "We were trying to save our people; we were trying to stop the bleeding. We didnt want any more police-involved shootings. And whatever it took to make that happen, thats what we were going to do."

The suit, backed by hundreds of personal accounts, resulted in a court-mandated collaborative agreement in early 2002 that the independent monitors final report called "one of the most successful police reform efforts ever undertaken."

Recently, Roley, Gerhardstein and former Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President Kathy Harrell discussed the collaborative, its formation and results at an event hosted by the Community Coalition for Quality Policing (CC4QP), a Milwaukee group that includes more than 20 faith-based, community and civil rights organizations. The purpose of the event was to educate the public on the Community Problem-Oriented Policing model, a strategy meant to more proactively and effectively reduce crime.

Cincinnati adopted the model as part of the collaborative agreement, also instituting bias-free police training, use-of-force reform and accountability measures, including an early-warning system to detect troubled officers and the creation of an independent Citizen Complaint Authority. Heightened transparency practices for officer-involved shootings were also adopted. Since then, use-of-force incidents, citizen complaints, violent crimes and misdemeanor arrests in Cincinnati have dropped dramatically.

"It was about changing the mindset and changing their vision of what it meant to be a police officer," said Gerhardstein.

The purpose, according to Gerhardstein, was to address the root causes of crime instead of making arrests. "Its counterproductive to do those types of arrests that only happen in the black community, that only piss off the black community and that dont lower crime  they just make criminals out of ordinary citizens, and make suspects out of people who are just going to work," he said.

Change did not happen immediately, however. Harrell, who was an officer at the time of the riots, said police felt like they were being unfairly attacked. Initially, she voted against the police union engaging in the reform process. But after becoming FOP president, as part of the reform board, Harrell saw that officers wanted reform, despite the police administrations resistance, and her view changed.

"It was a change that was needed," she said of the collaborative and the switch to a problem-oriented strategy. "It was important to be at that table, and I think that were a better police department because of it. And I think that were going to continue to be one of the best police departments because this is not done  its not over."

Roley, Gerhardstein and Harrell all stressed that the progress so far has not been easy. Especially in the beginning, there was resistance from the police chief and conflict within the reform board.

"This is real stuff," Roley said. "Its not easy, because were humans, and we all think we know whats best. But were telling you that it worked, and its still working because were still engaged."

She added, "It was bigger than us. It was bigger than the people who were at the table; it was bigger than small, petty disagreements."

Gerhardstein said communities around the country are calling for these reforms and others, including requiring de-escalation in any encounter that may lead to use of force, a move he called "common sense" and "good policing."

"Im excited that the pressure by the public is helping raise the bar for policing across the country," he said. "Because of the drumbeat, and the footsteps, and the voices of the community, policing is advancing well above the constitutional floor."

In Milwaukee, high profile killings of black men have put policing tactics squarely in the spotlight. Dontre Hamilton, a 32-year-old man with mental illness, was shot 14 times by an officer in 2014, after an altercation in a Downtown park. Most recently, Sylville Smiths shooting in August sparked two days of sometimes-violent demonstrations in Sherman Park.

"Enough is enough," said Darryl Morin, former director of Wisconsins League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a CC4QP member. "If Milwaukee is going to become the city we know it can be, for everyone, we need to change the way were doing things."

Wisconsin leads the nation in the incarceration of black males. In Milwaukee County, more than half of African-American men in their 30s have served time in state prison. One in eight black men in the county, which is home to almost 70 percent of the states African-American population, are currently incarcerated.

"These issues are issues that most urban places experience, but whats different in each of these places is how closely the police and community work together, and what they do when they work together," said Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) Assistant Police Chief James Harpole.

Harpole said MPD is committed to finding solutions other than arrest for offenders and to working with the coalition, acknowledging that different communities have different experiences with police, some of them negative. He said its important for MPD to work with residents, "so that we can become the police department that you want us to be, so that were policing in this city the way the community wants us to police."

Sherman Park resident Barry Givens said for that to happen there has to be "a genuine effort and a willingness to sit down at the table, establish dialogue and keep that going."

Andra Williams, a police captain in District 4 who attended the discussion while off duty, agreed, saying dialogue between groups is essential to create understanding. "When people are in isolation and they get into their own groups, they start to hear their own messages  over and over again."

Milwaukee NAACP President Fred Royal said the coalition, which has already met with MPD Chief Ed Flynn and his three assistant chiefs, hopes the Department of Justice collaborative reform process that is currently underway results in more dialogue and concrete commitments from MPD.

Roley said it is important to "remove blame" to find solutions. She noted that the Black United Fronts greatest accomplishment has been to increase the publics knowledge and engagement around safety, and what they want that to look like.

"Its not just about policing," she said. "It is about safety; it is about education; it is about engagement; it is about respect; it is about acknowledging what has happened in the past so that you can move forward."

Givens added, "There are so many things that get pushed to the side because we focus too much on the police. And if we turn our attention to some of these other, deep-seated problems, then I think we can start to make some headway."
From any secular or atheist world view, the word "jihad" can certainly invoke fear. We hear it used all the time, on the news, usually related to a terrorist attack, a terrorist organization plotting attacks, or when the news is describing the motivations of a terrorist that has murdered a group of people in the name of Islam. If you are not a Muslim and have only heard this word in reference to situations such as these, it can cast a dark shadow over the Muslim faith. Whenever there is fear, it is always best to curb that fear with understanding. Shining light onto darkness relieves anxiousness, and understanding the history and proper context of the word "jihad" should have the same effect. This history may not entirely cure your angst, or change its present use in our media, but it will arm you with a little more understanding of where it comes from. Understanding what a jihad is, from a secular, historical viewpoint (I am an atheist and a secular historian), will also take some of the power away from those that try exploit the concept by using it as an excuse for killing civilians, when there is no actual justification for this in its original context.

The concept of jihad began in an era defined by the inception of organized military force and quickly evolving religious thought. The mixing of these two powerful social forces was inevitable at that time and the concept of jihad was a product of this amalgamation. There was a language developed by the military and holy men of the Arabian Peninsula, and this rhetoric was utilized for social control. Spiritual leaders needed to guide audiences and their behaviours, as did the military leaders, and simple commands were used to cultivate that order. From this social dynamic, a word was formed that became known as "jihad," or, loosely translated into English, "striving." This word became a doctrine for both righteous living and a virtuous means to wage war, depending on which of its sources you followed--the holy man or the military commander. Its meaning has also morphed through sociological processes and geopolitical circumstances in the Middle East and throughout the world in the centuries following its origins, to form a more coordinated meaning that has infused one source with the next.

The word "jihad" is a noun that has been formed from two separate Arabic words: "jahd" and "juhd." Based on Arabic principles of meaning in word formations, this combination can only be defined as "striving to exert one's utmost power, influence, efforts, endeavours or abilities (in contending with an object of disapprobation)." In the framework of this noun, there must be a force that is striving or exerting power against you. For example, an army cannot wage jihad against a submissive enemy, or a civilian, as there would be no reciprocating force. In an English context, this mistake would be like telling someone you were chasing an attacking bear. The word would just not fit into this context. The concept of jihad, formed from these two words, is a reconfigured philosophy regarding the rules of inter-tribal warfare that came from the pre-Islamic tribes of the Northern Arabian Peninsula in the 1st to 6th centuries. Since raiding the surrounding territories and tribes for resources was a common and often necessary way of life, some rules of engagement developed for the good of all. These rules were formed through a mixing of the spiritual values with the values of the military leaders of this area.

Jihad has two separate, yet intertwined, meanings. There is the greater jihad (al-jihad al-akbar) and the lesser jihad (al-jihad al asghar). The greater jihad is defined as the internal struggle against evil thoughts and behaviours while the lesser jihad refers to warring in a manner that is righteous in the eyes of God. As the latter is the original meaning of the consolidated words, Jahd and Juhd, words brought together by the military leadership first, and then utilized by the holy men, the circumstances in war it refers to are its primary context. It is this denotation that led to it having a much larger significance during the early years of Islamic thought.

Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was born into a clan that was part of the Quraysh, a loose affiliation of Arabs that dominated Medina, Mecca and the surrounding area. After being persecuted by the Quraysh for advocating a rejection of idol worship, Muhammad sought refuge in Medina, only to be followed by an army, sent there by the Quraysh to apprehend or kill him. Muhammad stood his ground at the well of Badr and defeated an attacking army three times the size of his own army. Muhammad's writing on this battle credits his righteous struggle against tyranny as the cause of his success. Here, in Islam, there is a claim to the origin of the concept of the lesser Jihad. If a Muslim faces violent domination by a wicked enemy, then that Muslim will be assisted through divine measures. In the case of Muhammad's battle at the well of Badr, myth has it that he was assisted by angels wearing white robes. Simply stated, in the battle of good over evil, God will assist if the warrior is pious and adheres to the doctrine of Islam. This idea of righteous battle, however, does predate Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, by many centuries. What changed was who was righteous, and why.

Antarah ibn Shaddad is a pre-Islamic, heroic figure from the Arabian Peninsula in the 6th century. This Arabian poet and warrior was the perfect archetype of the Bedouin hero, as emulated by Muhammad nearly a hundred years after Shaddad's death. The legends surrounding this 'Black Knight' precede western literature regarding any tales of chivalrous Knights of the Round Table by more than a thousand years. The stories describing the exploits of Shaddad developed throughout the Middle East in different ways, contingent on the geopolitical context of the region the story came from. In reality, the stories of multiple Bedouin heroes have been amalgamated into Shaddad's storyline. Regardless, Shaddad represented qualities of the Bedouin warrior that affected the ethos of the military leaders of the entire region, from the 6th century onwards. Shaddad is represented as a heroic warrior born from an Ethiopian slave. He is characterized as wearing black armour and often battles white-skinned oppressors, with phenomenal success. His victories are attributed to his faith in God and the righteousness of his cause.

Shaddad is rewritten and represented in Islamic writing has having prepared the region for the triumphs of Muhammad and Islam a century after him, and has even been called the "perfect Muslim," even though the religion did not exist at the time of Shaddad's life. Shaddad clearly demonstrates the prominence of a pious, heroic archetype in Arabic culture that predates Islam and promotes the idea of overcoming oppression and gaining adeptness at battle through strict adherence to values and beliefs. This code of ethics for warriors was proliferated throughout the Middle East in the form of storytelling and poetry, the latter having much cultural influence in the Umayyad Period, which runs from 132 A.D. to 749 A.D. Poets would be hired by Umayyad caliph to write poetry that celebrated the magnificence of battles won against rivals, such as the Shi'ites or the Zubayrites, using hyperbolic language that glorified the caliph and justified their success by their adherence to proper Islamic values. As the languages of the Arabian Peninsula were very similar throughout the region, these stories proliferated easily in both urban and rural settings. The archetype that began with Shaddad was superimposed on Umayyad caliph and the assumed ethos acted to secure respect from the Arab patrons of newly-conquered lands. The righteous values shown in battle, and the courtesy and restraint shown in dealing with enemies following their surrender, were qualities of Shaddad that would be described with the words of the holy men and military leaders of his day. Shaddad lived and fought a jihad long before Islam.

Following Muhammad's success at Badr, certain lessons began to form around the principles of jihad. The most important of these lessons was the bargain the Muslim warrior could expect from Allah. As all victories and defeats during battles were explained to be part of Allah's plan, neither was to be celebrated or lamented. What was important was a continuation of the struggle against Islam's active oppressors. If the warrior continued this struggle, while adhering to the principles of Islam as espoused by Muhammad, success would be inevitable in life or in death. If the principles of jihad were not forsaken, the warrior could expect paradise in the after-world.

A short time after the defeat of the Quraysh at Badr, a second army was formed under Abu Sufyan to take back Medina from Muhammad and his coalition of Jews, Pagans and Muslims. Leading a force of 3000 men, Sufyan employed the rhetoric of the Quraysh poet, Kab ibn al-Ashraf to his inspire his men to victory. Sufyan also worked behind the scenes to conspire with a Jewish tribe, the Bani Nadir, to ensure he would not have to face a united Medina. Encouraged by the outcome at Badr, 700 men, under Muhammad, faced their enemy with unalterable resolve. This proved to be their undoing. After having much success in the first phase of the battle, the archers at the rear of Muhammad's army broke loose to chase down their enemy, a move Muhammad had directly forbidden. Sufyan took advantage of this and encircled Muhammad's army with his cavalry and defeated them soundly. Muhammad is said to have lost a tooth in this battle, but managed to escape with many his 700 men. This battle, the battle at Uhud, became a lesson for Muslims fighting a jihad. Muhammad's men had disobeyed him, thus breaking the covenant with Allah, and they believed this was why they had lost.

The Quraysh may have won the battle, but they had failed in their primary goal, which was killing Muhammad. Regardless of their success, this left them feeling humiliated. Their reaction gave Muhammad's followers the impression that Allah had a plan for them all along, even though they had lost the battle. The Quraysh were humiliated and Muhammad was still alive. This insight into their predicament reinforced the idea that Allah's plan was always perfect. This directive was then framed by Muhammad in his writings that would later become a significant part of the Quran, furthering the context of the lesser jihad, describing the legitimacy of defending the ideology of Islam, regardless of the outcome, so long as the fight was honourable and righteous.

Jihad then became closely tied to the idea of defending the practice of worshipping Allah, especially when that worship faces opposition by force. Jihad also could mean the defence of other religious institutions within a Muslim society, as Muhammad originally showed a high tolerance for the plurality of religious thought and worship. As Muhammad employed an army made up of multiple religious backgrounds, the political reasoning for a directive that advocated the defence of more than just Islam made sense. A policy of inclusion ensured collaboration by the religious sects willing to oppose the military campaigns against them. While later directives given by Muhammad have different justifications for violence and who is to be defended in the case of war, this original directive exhibits the original goal of lesser jihad during Muhammad's initial time defending his coalition in Medina.

This initial doctrine of defence underwent a theoretical modification during the next major battle that Muhammad and his followers fought on March 21st, 627 A.D. In this, the Battle of Khandaq, Muhammad faced a coalition of Arab and Jewish attackers whose goal was also to extricate Muhammad and his followers from Medina. Drastically outnumbered, Muhammad opted to dig a trench for his army to fight from, making the cavalry of his enemies useless. This tactical manoeuvre, combined with diplomatic endeavours that split the loyalties of his attackers, resulted in another victory for the Muslim fighters. This time, Muhammad had mainly employed a contingent of Muslims, as opposed to the coalition of various religious followers utilized in his previous battles. This empowered Muhammad to modify his rhetoric, and jihad, to be more specific to the goals of Islam, rather than pandering to the multiple religious sects that had assisted him in previous battles, some of which had turned against him and joined the coalition he fought during the Battle of Khandaq.

Verses in the Quran that refer to this battle and the battle for Mecca three years later are inscribed with much more militant rhetoric. They are the only sura of the Quran that is not preceded by the phrase "In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful." Moreover, this is also where the initial bargain with Allah is expanded to offer a specific place in paradise, complete with a company of virgins, for those who fight and die in the name of Allah. This is an essential component of the lesser jihad, as Muhammad guarantees victory here, regardless of the outcome of any battle, so long as the warrior is fighting for the righteous defence of Islam, and doing so in a proper manner, which means following his directives exactly, honorably, and against an opposing force that means to destroy Islam and its followers.

While the rhetoric displayed in Muhammad's writings conveyed a message of fighting only in the defence of Islam, all of the military actions of the original Muslim armies under Muhammad's command cannot be accurately defined as defensive. The Battle at Badr and the Battle of Khandaq are exceptions in Muhammad's military career. A more appropriate reading for the justifications of Muhammad's choices for armed conflict would be a policy of pre-emptive strikes when he felt the security of his domain was threatened. On his path to capture Mecca, Muhammad was made aware that the Bedouin tribe of Hawazin had presumably planned to intercept him when he laid siege to Mecca. Altering his route, Muhammad moved in the assumed direction of this army to engage them, only to be ambushed on the course of this trek. Muhammad soundly defeated this military force, showing the rest of the surrounding tribal leaders he was a force to be reckoned with. Before Muhammad attempted to convert the remaining tribal leaders in the north-east portions of the Arabian Peninsula, leaders began sending delegations to Medina to converse with Muhammad about what would be required to ensure peace. While Muhammad's doctrine of righteous military behaviour, the principles of jihad established in his rhetoric and actions, contained a message of only fighting to defend the name of Allah, there was certainly an aggressive, expansionist element to his actual methodology.

Further clarification on the rules of jihad began to surface shortly after Muhammad's death and these clarifications were based on interpretations of Muhammad's supposed words and actions. Malik ibn Anas was a religious scholar, born in Medina in 710 A.D., sixty-eight years after Muhammad had died. Anas offers the oldest known works on Islamic jurisprudence and his goal was to codify and structure Muhammad's teachings for practical application in Islamic society. Amongst other elucidations, Anas pontificated on the role of the martyr during a jihad and what was to be expected of the Muslim warrior in the course of his military duties. Foremost in Anas' directives was the imperative that Muslim combatants must fight for the good of Islam, not the desire for spoils following a successful campaign. In this manner of conducting himself, the warrior who dies during a jihad will be guaranteed a successful passage into the paradise offered by Muhammad to his soldiers at the Battle of Khandaq. The codification of this principle, and its subsequent proliferation throughout Muslim lands, further reinforced the idea of Muhammad's bargain amongst the Muslim population. Moreover, Anas' work began a long line of scholarly work on Islamic jurisprudence that has continued in Islam up until the present day.

Another significant Islamic scholar to clarify the rules of jihad was Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd, a lawyer born in the Arabic town of Cordoba in 1126 A.D. In his work, Bidayat al-Mujtahid wa-Nihayat al-Muqtasid, he clarifies the details of the rules of jihad, including who is obliged to take part in a jihad, who may be considered an enemy, the damage that is allowed to be inflicted upon an enemy during a war, the prerequisites for entering into a state of war, the maximum number of enemies one is obliged to stand one's ground against, how a truce may be applied, and all the goals of war in general. Rushd draws from all previous scholarly work on these subjects to create a precise handbook for initiating, fighting and completing jihad according to the principles advocated by Muhammad in his writing. Careful consideration is given to the idea that an enemy may submit to the Muslim attacker and then they may become subjects of the latter. Furthermore, courage and righteous behaviour of Muslim men during a jihad is of utmost importance. Wars with Ethiopians or Turks are to be avoided if possible and the rules for proper handling of slaves are debated with varying conclusions.

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From The Nation

"Sorry to keep you waiting. Complicated business. Complicated. Thank you very much." --Donald Trump's opening remarks in his victory speech

Complicated? Americans just elected to the presidency a candidate whom the vast majority don't like and consider dishonest, lacking the temperament and the experience to lead the country. They chose him even as broad majorities oppose his signature policies from building a wall to mass deportations to tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Complicated doesn't begin to describe it. Here are some commonsense reflections on this political tsunami.

Trump won with the endorsement of one major newspaper; his party establishment disavowed him, and many of its billionaires sat out the race; his campaign was out-spent and out-organized; his tax dodges were exposed; and a video documented his predatory sexist boasts reinforced by testimonies of several of his victims.

He won solely because of the choice: He promised change to a country desperate for it. Hillary Clinton personified the establishment, and campaigned on continuity. Trump trumpeted his independence and promised to clean out the swamp. Clinton was indelibly marked by the corruptions of our politics. Trump, the billionaire buffoon, presented himself as the quintessential outsider. Clinton, unable or unwilling to put forth a compelling vision of fundamental change, wrapped herself in Obama. For the 39 percent of voters who considered change the most important quality of a candidate, Trump led 83-14 percent in the CNN exit polling.

This was a class act. Clinton fared better among college graduates than Obama in 2012 and far worse among high-school grads or less. The populist temper of the times, reflected in the Sanders surge in the Democratic primaries and Trump's victory, is a revolt against political elites -- "Washington," "Wall Street" -- that have failed most Americans.

This isn't about gridlock. It is about the policies that have been supported by both parties -- global trade and tax deals of, by, and for the corporations, financialization and Wall Street bailouts, big-money politics and crony capitalism, decades of promises not kept.

In the "blue firewall" state of Michigan, half of all voters thought trade cost jobs. They voted Trump 57-36. One third thought it created jobs; they voted Clinton over two to one. The same was true in Ohio and Pennsylvania. This isn't simply about what Republicans obstructed. It is about what elites in both parties have done or accepted that corrupted our politics and rigged our economy.

Race, America's great divide, still matters. Van Jones called the vote a "whitelash." Trump's right-wing populism mobilized the people not just against corrupted elites but against corrupted elites who favored "those people." The modern-media master mobilized all the symbols -- the wall, Mexican rapists, law and order, guns and more. He ran a blatantly racist, sexist, misogynist, nativist campaign. Most Americans hated the campaign and disliked the man. Seventy-one percent didn't approve of his treatment of women. The poisoned chalice of populism has always been right-wing variants that play on anger against minorities or outsiders or women. Clinton played foil to the confidence man, talking about removing barriers, with constituency-specific agendas, rather than focusing on a populist economic message that would lift all.

Trump and the evangelical conservatives who rallied to Trump's transparently secular banner are likely to misinterpret this election. Americans did not vote to build the wall, deport millions, put gays back in the closet or women back in the kitchen. They do not support stripping African Americans of the right to vote or women of the right to choose. The majorities that twice elected Barack Hussein Obama have not disappeared.

This morning, many will awake rightfully terrified about the country they are in. Progressives must reach out to stand with people of color, women, immigrant communities, Muslims. We are headed into four years of fierce battles over reactionary policies and choices on immigration, on Supreme Court justices, on voting rights and more. But the answer to Trump's whitelash isn't to retreat on social liberalism; it is to double down on a real economics that speaks to working and poor people.

What happened to Obama's majority coalition? Turnout wasn't really the problem. Whites, 72 percent of the vote in 2012, were 70 percent in 2016. Blacks ticked down a point from 13 percent of voters to 12 percent; Hispanics ticked up from 10 to 11 percent. Young people 18 -- 29 remained 19 percent of voters. Single women remained 23 percent.

Clinton, however, fared marginally worse in each constituency than Obama in 2012. He won 96 percent of the black vote; she, 88 percent. He won 71 percent of Hispanics; she, only 65 percent. He won 60 percent of young voters; she, only 55 percent. He won 67 percent of unmarried women; she won 62 percent.

These are still remarkable margins among what will continue to be a rising majority share of the electorate. But 2016 should be a caution to Democrats. The Obama coalition works only if Democrats don't throw white working people out of the boat. Obama won majorities of those who were not college graduates; Clinton did not.

Republicans held the Senate, losing only one seat, and the House, losing only seven seats. They gained three more governorships, and now lead 33 to 14. Even as divided as they were in this election, at war with themselves, they are the majority party in the country, despite a reform majority still ready to be forged.

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Quick reflections on the November 2016 elections let us lick our wounds and reflect on the future. This election result was one that more of us should have anticipated as a real possibility. In either case, that the results were so close and that we did not have the ideal candidate to represent the new majority emerging in the USA remains for me a source of immense hope. The struggle certainly continues. Thursday, November 10, 2016let us lick our wounds and reflect on the future. This election result was one that more of us should have anticipated as a real possibility. In either case, that the results were so close and that we did not have the ideal candidate to represent the new majority emerging in the USA remains for me a source of immense hope. The struggle certainly continues.

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Responding To Supreme Court's Affirmative Action Decision Affirmative action has been under attack since the 1970s. And since then, the objective of the political Right has been to steadily weaken it, in part through an ideological assault suggesting that it is really not necessary. To conclude that affirmative action is no longer necessary one must be looking at a different United States of America. Tuesday, June 25, 2013Affirmative action has been under attack since the 1970s. And since then, the objective of the political Right has been to steadily weaken it, in part through an ideological assault suggesting that it is really not necessary. To conclude that affirmative action is no longer necessary one must be looking at a different United States of America.

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Romney and the Right: They Hate him...But They Hate Obama More The strategy of the political Right that is quite noteworthy. Their aim is to destroy the Obama presidency, but more importantly, to destroy the possibility of a two-party system. Their attitude towards Romney, therefore, is an alliance of convenience rather than an alliance of trust and respect. He serves as their battering ram. Saturday, June 16, 2012The strategy of the political Right that is quite noteworthy. Their aim is to destroy the Obama presidency, but more importantly, to destroy the possibility of a two-party system. Their attitude towards Romney, therefore, is an alliance of convenience rather than an alliance of trust and respect. He serves as their battering ram.

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The GOP's Warmongering on Iran While it appears that President Obama is not interested in, at least for now, a war with Iran, he has fallen over himself to demonstrate his loyalty and support for Israel. This is unsettling; US foreign policy should not be based upon supporting Israel on everything that they do. Saturday, March 17, 2012While it appears that President Obama is not interested in, at least for now, a war with Iran, he has fallen over himself to demonstrate his loyalty and support for Israel. This is unsettling; US foreign policy should not be based upon supporting Israel on everything that they do.

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NATO Demonstrates Why It Needs to Stay Out of Libya The only thing that will stop the NATO aggression is an aroused populace in NATO countries that understands the airstrikes underway in Libya have nothing to do with aiding the cause of democracy, human rights or the protection of civilians. The murder of Qaddafi's son and grandchildren cannot be addressed through a heartfelt apology by President Obama or any other leader of the NATO gang. Saturday, May 14, 2011The only thing that will stop the NATO aggression is an aroused populace in NATO countries that understands the airstrikes underway in Libya have nothing to do with aiding the cause of democracy, human rights or the protection of civilians. The murder of Qaddafi's son and grandchildren cannot be addressed through a heartfelt apology by President Obama or any other leader of the NATO gang.

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A Spark Becomes A Flame: Uprisings Shake The Arab World! This is a time to celebrate the courage and determination of those who have marched day after day for progressive change. It is also a time to ensure that the Arab World is able to exercise its own direction without imperial influence. Saturday, February 5, 2011This is a time to celebrate the courage and determination of those who have marched day after day for progressive change. It is also a time to ensure that the Arab World is able to exercise its own direction without imperial influence.
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...


"challenging fun"

- Entertainment Weekly

Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy offor seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchildren. Thanks! Tom
Some traditional leaders in the western region have started lobbying for appointments in the next NPP government following their conviction that the December 7 general election is a done deal for the opposition party.



These smart chiefs, who took advantage of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addos recent tour in the region to push forward their agenda, are also lobbying for NPP parliamentary candidates in their respective traditional areas to be made ministers of state.



One of such chiefs is Awulae Kweku Achirensu, Omanhene of Apataim in the Evalue-Ajomoro-Gwira constituency.



Speaking at a brief meeting between the NPP presidential candidate and chiefs at Axim, Sunday, the 75-year old Apataim chief did not mince words in asking Nana Addo to appoint him as Member of Council of State next year.



According to Awulae, he, together with all members of his family are die-hard supporters of the opposition NPP and should therefore be honoured when the party comes into power.



Mentioning the partys parliamentary candidate for Jomoro, Paul Essien as his grandson, Awulae Achirensu said it would not be out of place if the PC is also made a minister of state.



The queen mother of Bewie community in Upper Axim traditional area, Nana Manzaba, also appealed to the NPP flag bearer not to forget Catherine Afeku when nominating his ministers. She described the Evalue-Ajomore Gwira Parliamentary Candidate as a dynamic woman who can help bring the needed change to the area when given a ministerial appointment.



A similar concern was raised by Nana Kwesi Ketewa, the chief of Nkroful, during the campaign launch of the Ellembele constituency of the NPP when Bonzo K was officially introduced as the PC.



Besides the PC, the chief urged Nana Addo to offer other opinion leaders in the constituency appointments to enable them team up with Bonzo K to develop the constituency, particularly Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumahs birth place which is desperately crying for a face-lift.



The lobbying business was started by Oberempong Hema Dekyi XIV, Omanhene of Upper Dexcove, when Nana Addo met the two paramount chiefs in the Dixcove community Saturday.



After a very brilliant speech in which the young Hema Dekyi described Nana Addo as an honest man and a mentor to both present and future generations, he asked the NPP flag bearer to offer Kojo Kum a ministerial appointment. The chief expressed optimism in the Ahanta West PCs ability to deliver when given that opportunity to serve in the impending Akufo-Addo-led government.



This claim was strongly supported by his counterpart from Lower Dixcove, Nana Kwesi Agyeman. But responding to these requests, the NPP presidential candidate said when we reach the bridge, we would surely cross it.





Source: The New Statesman









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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



























Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



OZ1



OZ2



OZ3



OZ4



Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



























La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



Capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas...



Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!


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YOUR INQUIRIES ARE ALL WELCOME
A ferry heads toward Sydney's Circular Quay as the city is shrouded in smoke

Australia ratified the Paris climate agreement on Thursday, amid fears US president-elect Donald Trump could follow through on his pledge to "cancel" the landmark pact aimed at tackling global warming.

More than 100 nations representing 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions have inked the historic Paris Agreement, the world's first universal climate pact, which came into force in early November.

Australia's approval of the binding deal was delayed by national elections in July and its announcement Thursday came ahead of the departure of the country's foreign and environment ministers for UN climate talks in Marrakesh.

"Ratification of the agreement confirms Australia's ambitious and responsible target to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2030," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in a joint statement with the two ministers.

"We are on track to meet and indeed beat our 2020 targets... and are committed to meeting our 2030 targets under the agreement."

With its heavy use of coal-fired power and relatively small population of 24 million, Australia is considered one of the world's worst per capita greenhouse gas polluters.

When asked if Canberra would follow the United States if it exited the treaty, the prime minister stressed Australia's commitment to the "watershed" agreement.

"We have ratified the agreement. It willit takes four years to withdrawif a country sought to withdraw from the agreement it takes four years," he told reporters.

"Secondly, this is a global agreement. When Australia makes a commitment to a global agreement, we follow through and that is exactly what we are doing."

Environmental groups welcomed the ratification but said Australia needed to do more.

"There's no way Australia can continue to approve new fossil fuel projects and keep the commitments it has just made," Greenpeace Australia's Pacific climate and energy campaigner Shani Tager said in a statement.

"As the world's largest exporter of coal, the world's most dangerous fossil fuel, Australia's first step to meeting this promise must be a ban on new coal mines."

Climate change denier Trump, who has made no secret of his disregard for the United Nations, pledged earlier this year to withdraw from the Paris climate deal. In contrast, current US President Barack Obama has been a champion of the pact.

The US is the world's second-largest greenhouse gas polluter after China, producing 13 percent of global emissions.

France's environment minister and outgoing head of the UN climate forum Segolene Royal said Wednesday that Trump "cannot prevent the implementation" of the pact.

"He cannotcontrary to his assertionsundo the Paris Agreement," she told French radio station RTL.

 2016 AFP
Plant breeders pollinate male and female plants in a plot of a heat-tolerant hybrid maize growing at the Chiredzi Research Station, on October 24 2016

Under the scorching Zimbabwean sun, cattle seek shade among stunted thorn bushes in the drought-prone district of Zaka, where crops wither due to increasing temperatures and changing weather patterns.

Severe lack of rain across southern Africa has hit the country hard, with government officials saying a quarter of the population faces starvation. Many villagers are forced to survive on wild fruit.

Maize, the country's traditional staple crop, has suffered a series of poor harvests.

Late rains this year again wrecked the planting season, and the little that is growing has often been destroyed by heat.

It may not help the immediate crisis, but science is providing a glimmer of hope for smallholder maize farmers in Zimbabwe.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centerknown by its Spanish acronym CIMMYTis conducting trials in Zaka on hybrid maize seeds adapted to tackle drought and high temperatures.

The seeds are developed to survive dry conditions with 60 percent less water than normal and in temperatures of up to 35 degrees C (95 degrees F), according to CIMMYT researchers.

"If we get these new maize seed varieties that will help us a lot," said Ceaser Chavizha, a small smallholder in Zaka, located in Masvingo province, south of the capital Harare.

A woman shows a drought and heat tolerant maize from her dry field in the Zaka Masvingo province, on October 24 2016

'Improve yields'

Like many farmers in the region who rely on maize produce, Chavizha has been forced to survive on food handouts as his crops have been reduced to dried husks.

"We cannot continue with handouts as we have fields that we can work on to produce food for our own, so we hope the new maize seeds will help us improve our yields," he told AFP.

Maize meal crops are ground and turned into mealie meal, used to make porridge and other food, but the El Nino-induced drought has wrecked arable fields, grazing pastures and water sources.

The drought scourge is high on the agenda at UN COP22 climate talks in Morocco, where world leaders and experts are discussing how to implement the landmark Paris Agreement that was signed last year.

The pact aims to cap global warming at below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F), compared with pre-industrial levels.

A technician holds a drone used to scout a plot of a heat-tolerant hybrid maize growing at the Chiredzi Research Station, on October 24 2016

A country in need

Once referred to as the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe used to be an exporter of maize, but now aid organisations say the country requires about two million metric tonnes a year to feed itself.

Cosmos Magorokosho, a senior scientist and maize breeder at CIMMYT, said the ultimate goal of hybrids was to help farmers develop long-term sustainable agriculture.

"Basically it means transferring genes from one plant to another type so that you create a new type that has the characteristics that you want," he said.

He said CIMMYT had received $500,000 funding from USAID to develop the new maize variety for drought-prone areas in east, central and southern Africa.

Magorokosho stressed that more funds were needed to extend the project, and criticised the Zimbabwe government's delay in adopting new maize hybrids.

"There is a layer of testing that is required by the authorities which is a little bit long... we would wish it is shortened so that the varieties can get quickly to the farmers," Magorokosho said.

Fillies Muromo holds a basket full of drought and heat tolerant maize from her dry field in the Zaka Masvingo province, on October 24 2016

CIMMYT, a non-profit research project headquartered in Mexico, is also working on a vitamin A-rich maize variety which is already in production in other parts of Africa and Latin America.

This year, Zimbabwe's cash-strapped government declared a "state of disaster" in most rural areas, with at least 2.4 million people in urgent need of food aid.

Sekai Makonese, another small-scale farmer in Zaka, welcomed the potential impact of scientific intervention, saying she was counting on hybrids becoming widespread as soon as possible.

"Long ago, we used to farm maize with no problems but now we have a problem with climate change and now our crops fail before we harvest," she said.

The Zimbabwe government is yet to approve the mass distribution of the seeds, but the product is already available at some agricultural outlets.

 2016 AFP
Researchers at Lehigh University are exploring how an integration of distributed renewable energy capture can be aggregated for higher overall utilization -- and associated decreased consumption of fossil-fuel-based sources. Credit: Lehigh University, P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science

Recent years have witnessed the rise of an economic revolutionthe so-called sharing economy. Businesses such as Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb have created a new kind of marketplace, in essence, by relying on the investments of others.

Could the electricity marketplace be next?

Boris Defourny, assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering at Lehigh University and member of its Integrated Networks for Electricity (INE) research cluster, seeks to understand how this could take shape. He's recently won a grant from the National Science Foundation to analyze associated market models and develop theory and algorithmic strategies to help optimize the integration of renewable energy for usage across the power grid.

A 'network effect' boost to our environment

Defourny believes the distributed nature of renewable energy capture, which can reasonably be undertaken by everyone from individual households to major corporations and government agencies, makes it ripe for a similar economic disruption.

"Renewables are on the rise," he says. "Currently, about 10 percent of U.S. electric power comes from renewable energy systems. In some countries this can be as much as 20 percent, thanks to interconnections with neighbors. Yet in terms of instantaneous production levels, wind and solar are inherently volatile, and as such cannot be relied upon and fully utilized. This variability gives rise to the idea that a better coordination of these smaller, diverse, distributed power sources, coupled with an expansion of distributed energy storage resources, would allow for greater overall utilization of clean, renewable energy."

Defourny sees a day in the not-so-distant future where small energy producers and residential consumers who have invested in renewable energy technologies will be incentivized to become suppliers of clean energy. Load aggregators and utility firms will be able to leverage that clean power for other customers in real-time, even as its supply, and overall demand, fluctuates.

At the moment, he says, contractual and operational issues stand in the way. Yet the fact remainsthe ability to seamlessly integrate more clean energy into the grid would, by definition, drastically reduce reliance on fossil fuels as well as associated environmental impact.

"Today, anyone can sell energy 'back' to the grid, but the risks are economically prohibitive," he says."And under the current approach, power companies are operationally constrained from relying upon and distributing this power."

Defourny is looking to develop business and technology models that would create mutually-agreeable conditions for both the consumer/supplier and the utility firms. His goal is to better understand issues such as the sharing of associated economic risk, required payment mechanisms, and incentives that would support widescale adoption and participation.

"It is a classic network effect," he says. "Greater participation yields greater individual and societal benefit. It needs a critical mass to really take off, and hopefully we can build some tools to help move the market in that direction."

In his research, Defourny will study control mechanisms, contracts, and transaction environments that will enable optimal pooling of clean energy. Hopefully, this leads to a power grid based upon short-term, "on demand" transactions. "If a windmill farm is capturing far more power than its owner predicted," he explains, "the sudden bursts of power should ideally be sent through the grid to the load centers where it is useful, thus easing the burden on traditional generation methods. This feat can be enabled by having more distributed devices plugged into the grid and willing to provide balancing services. Those who share capacity or provide flexibility for this purpose should be fairly compensated."

Defourny earned his doctorate and master's degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Liege in Belgium. He also studied piano at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Liege, and Japanese at the Centre d'Etudes Japonaises de l'Universite de Liege.

Before joining Lehigh's faculty, Defourny served as associate professional specialist with the Princeton Laboratory for Energy Analysis (PENSA) in the Operations Research and Financial Engineering Department at Princeton University. His research interests include stochastic optimization, robust optimization, machine learning, modeling and approximation, energy systems analysis, electricity markets, and operations planning.

Electrifying innovation at Lehigh

Defourny is a key player in Lehigh's INE research clustera collaborative, multi-faceted team of Lehigh researchers focused upon the interdependent flow of electricity, information, and money needed to operate what's popularly known as the 'smart grid'a term that represents broad efforts across industry, academia, and government to incorporate and leverage modern technologies across power infrastructures.

The team's overarching goal: to meet global energy demand while protecting the environment for future generations. "In a research area where focus tends to be dominated by traditional fields and perspectives, few academic research centers can do what Lehigh does," says Rick Blum, the Robert W. Wieseman Professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the INE. "Boris' systems-level perspective on the business case for shared renewables is yet another great example."
Diamond-anvil cell. Credit: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences

Water and aqueous solutions can behave strangely under pressure. Experiments carried out at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences using Raman spectroscopy and a diamond anvil cell showed that magnesium sulfate dissolved in water was separated less than expected in magnesium and sulfate ions above a pressure of 0.2 Gigapascal, which equals 2,000 times the normal air pressure. Moreover, ion pairing even increased with pressure above about 0.5 Gigapascal.

This is the opposite of the predicted trend that salt solutions become more dissociated with increasing pressure. However, the previously unknown anomaly was only observed at comparably low temperatures. Already at 50 C, the solutions behaved as expected. "That's why this effect does not occur in the Earth's interior", says Christian Schmidt of the GFZ, "as the pressure in our oceans is not high enough even in the deep-sea trenches, and the temperature is too high in the Earth's crust and mantle."

Still, the anomaly is relevant for studies on cold planetary bodies with deep oceans. Christian Schmidt and Craig Manning of the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) published their findings in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters.

Their results may help in studies of the oceans that are probably hidden under thick icy shells in Pluto and in the moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Titan. It is very likely that magnesium sulfate is the major or among the most abundant solutes in these oceans, because it is generated by weathering of magnesium silicates in ocean floors. If more ion pairs form, magnesium silicate weathering is enhanced. "This means that the oceans in these icy worlds are probably saltier than currently thought", says Christian Schmidt. As the ion concentration determines the electrical conductivity of aqueous solutions, the finding will help to better interpret magnetometric data obtained by spacecrafts.

The experiments were carried out at the GFZ's section "Chemistry and Physics of Earth Materials". The scientists explain the observed anomaly with a change in the dynamic structure of water that is generated by hydrogen bonds between water molecules.

More information: C. Schmidt et al, Pressure-induced ion pairing in MgSO4 solutions: Implications for the oceans of icy worlds, Geochemical Perspectives Letters (2017). DOI: 10.7185/geochemlet.1707
Fangcao Xu, a Ph.D. candidate in geography, explores the dormant Iceland volcano, Thrihnukagigur, using a virtual reality head-mounted display and controllers. Credit: Penn State

Any Trekkie (a fan of Star Trek) knows what the fictional holodeck is: a virtual reality space where people can experience representations of real or imaginary environments and situations for recreation, training, or solving problems. At Penn State, researchers are offering prototype versions of immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) lessons in three courses this fall and spring to engage students in the advantages and promises that such learning offers.

A multi-disciplinary research team, led by Alexander Klippel, associate professor of geography, and including members from the departments of Geography and Geosciences, the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, and the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute, received a Research Initiation Grant from Penn State's Center for Online Innovation in Learning (COIL). Their proposal is titled "Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR): The Printing Press of the 21st Century and How Learning About Place and Space will Never be the Same."

"iVR means a reality you can create," Klippel explained. "It allows you to be present in a scene perceptible by the senses. Head-mounted displays such as the Rift by Oculus or the Vive by HTC allow for a fully immersive experience including vision, sound, touch (with special controllers and gloves), and even smell, in some cases."

Here's how it works: You slip on the display goggles and enter a virtual launching chamber, defined by a blue grid. Say you're going to explore the dormant Iceland volcano, Thrihnukagigur,in a project developed by co-PI Peter La Femina, associate professor of geosciences. First, you can walk around a miniature three-dimensional scale model. Next, it expands to a full-size replica of the 700-foot-deep magma chambera little more than twice the height of the Statue of Liberty. This replica shows the true three-dimensional structure of the volcano, as measured using a Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS). Look and move up, down, sideways. Crawl into a side conduit. Thanks to the millimeter precision of TLS, you can explore and experience every surface and perspective, essentially as if you were there. You can even activate tools that measure diameters of the structures and volumes of the spaces you see.

Research has shown that psychologically, virtual experiences feel very real to users. For example, even though you know you are standing on a floor inside a room, when you see a virtual cliff in front of you, you won't step off the edge, and you will duck to avoid being hit by anything that appears to come flying at you.

iVR allows for learning experiences without traveling to places like Iceland or Brazil and without incurring the costs associated with such trips. Despite the University's emphasis on internationalizing education, only about two percent of students actually travel each year on study abroad. Even when cost or time are not barriers, safety concerns can be, Klippel said.

"This project will show how we can use iVR for specific lessons in three different types of courses," Klippel said. The first three courses are GEOG 498 Island Sustainability, taught by Neil Brown; GEOSC 597 GeoVision in the Earth Sciences, taught by Peter La Femina and colleagues Roman DiBiase and Ken Mankoff; and ARCH 536 Joint Architecture and Landscape Architecture Design Studio, taught by Jose Duarte and Tim Baird. Another course in planning is GEOSC 434 Volcanology, also taught by La Femina. The different types of courses allow for demonstrating the advantages from integrating iVR into online, hybrid, and residential learning. "We will be able to show both the use of different technologies that only recently have become available, such as 360 video cameras and LiDAR equipped drones, and different subjects from social, to urban, to physical applications."

"We are incredibly excited to support this project and about its potential for improving the learning experiences of students at Penn State," said Brad Zdenek, Innovation Strategist for COIL. "Alex and his team are actively expanding access to engaging educational experiences for all students and providing new ways of seeing and interacting with their world."

Island Sustainability is a hybrid online and in-field course focused on islands and the relationships between global drivers of change and the local implications and associated adaptations. GeoVision in the Earth Sciences is an exploratory course that addresses questions of how advanced visualizations can improve research and education in the earth sciences. The third course is a joint architecture and landscape architecture design studio offered to fifth-year and masters students. The focus of the design studio is to work remotely with a collaborating studio in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to study and understand the design of a favela, or slum, located there.

This past summer, Duarte visited his field site in Brazil and collected 360-degree video data and coordinated with local collaborators for additional data. The volcano data for La Femina's project is already accessible through iVR experiences, so the team is engaged in tool development and refinements. This fall and spring, the courses that are part of this proposal are being offered. For each course, there will be a course module using course specific data, curated learning modules, and the custom-made iVR app. Each module will be evaluated and experiences gained will inform improvement for sequential courses, Klippel said.

More information: You can learn more about the project at sites.psu.edu/vreducation
(Left) A graph charting the depth of the Hellas depression at different points, and a topographic map of the depression. (Right) A graph charting the depth of the Galaxias Fossae depression at different points, and a topographic map of the depression. Credit: Joseph Levy/NASA

A strangely shaped depression on Mars could be a new place to look for signs of life on the Red Planet, according to a University of Texas at Austin-led study. The depression was probably formed by a volcano beneath a glacier and could have been a warm, chemical-rich environment well suited for microbial life.

The findings were published this month in Icarus, the International Journal of Solar System Studies.

"We were drawn to this site because it looked like it could host some of the key ingredients for habitabilitywater, heat and nutrients," said lead author Joseph Levy, a research associate at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, a research unit of the Jackson School of Geosciences.

The depression is inside a crater perched on the rim of the Hellas basin on Mars and surrounded by ancient glacial deposits. It first caught Levy's attention in 2009, when he noticed crack-like features on pictures of depressions taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that looked similar to "ice cauldrons" on Earth, formations found in Iceland and Greenland made by volcanos erupting under an ice sheet. Another depression in the Galaxias Fossae region of Mars had a similar appearance.

"These landforms caught our eye because they're weird looking. They're concentrically fractured so they look like a bulls-eye. That can be a very diagnostic pattern you see in Earth materials," said Levy, who was a postdoctoral researcher at Portland State University when he first saw the photos of the depressions.

Volcanic eruptions beneath ice can create surface formations called 'ice cauldrons,' such as this one that formed in Iceland's Vatnajokull ice cap. The research suggests that a strangely-shaped depression on Mars could be an ice cauldron. Credit: Oddur Sigursson/Icelandic Meteorological Office

But it wasn't until this year that he and his research team were able to more thoroughly analyze the depressions using stereoscopic images to investigate whether the depressions were made by underground volcanic activity that melted away surface ice or by an impact from an asteroid. Study collaborator Timothy Goudge, a postdoctoral fellow at the institute, used pairs of high-resolution images to create digital elevation models of the depressions that enabled in-depth analysis of their shape and structure in 3-D. Researchers from Brown University and Mount Holyoke College also participated in the study.

"The big contribution of the study was that we were able to measure not just their shape and appearance, but also how much material was lost to form the depressions. That 3-D view lets us test this idea of volcanic or impact," Levy said.

The analysis revealed that both depressions shared an unusual funnel shape, with a broad perimeter that gradually narrowed with depth.

"That surprised us and led to a lot of thinking about whether it meant there was melting concentrated in the center that removed ice and allowed stuff to pour in from the sides. Or if you had an impact crater, did you start with a much smaller crater in the past, and by sublimating away ice, you've expanded the apparent size of the crater," Levy said.

A depression located inside a crater on the edge of the Hellas basin region of Mars. New research suggests that the depression was formed by volcanic activity beneath an ice sheet -- an environment that could be suitable for microbial life. Credit: Joseph Levy/NASA

After testing formation scenarios for the two depressions, researchers found that they probably formed in different ways. The debris spread around the Galaxias Fossae depression suggests that it was the result of an impactbut the known volcanic history of the area still doesn't rule out volcanic origins, Levy said. In contrast, the Hellas depression has many signs of volcanic origins. It lacks the surrounding debris of an impact and has a fracture pattern associated with concentrated removal of ice by melting or sublimation.

The interaction of lava and ice to form a depression would be an exciting find, Levy said, because it could create an environment with liquid water and chemical nutrients, both ingredients required for life on Earth. He said that the Hellas depression and, to a lesser extent, the Galaxias Fossae depression, should be kept in mind when looking for habitats on Mars.

Gro Pedersen, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland who was not involved with the study, agrees that the depressions are promising sites for future research.

"These features do really resemble ice cauldrons known from Earth, and just from that perspective they should be of great interest," Pedersen said. "Both because their existence may provide information on the properties of subsurface materialthe potential existence of iceand because of the potential for revealing ice-volcano interactions."

More information: Joseph S. Levy et al, Candidate volcanic and impact-induced ice depressions on Mars, Icarus (2016). DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2016.10.021 Journal information: Icarus
Over the years, we have had a number of our kids hang out in the newsroom on Election night as the returns come in.

We often gave them the job of running numbers between desks to make them feel important. More often than not, their interest had more to do with the excitement of choosing a new president than what we did in the newsroom.

Most of our kids are grown now and it was just us adults in the newsroom Tuesday night.

I was probably the least busy of all the reporters and editors this year. Without many local races, this was a light year for us.

I mostly monitored the presidential race where I would have final say on the final front-page headline. I was hoping that Florida would go to Hillary Clinton early because that would mean an early and easier night for us. Thats the pragmatic side of me.

Our deadline for last copy was 12:30 a.m. But as we closed in on midnight, it looked increasingly like we would not know the result.

I crafted three headlines:

Trump, Clinton

battle to wire

Trump triumph

shocks world

Trump closing

in on victory

As I monitored the vote counting, relying primarily on the Washington Posts 538 website and the New York Times voting site, it became increasingly obvious that Hillary Clintons firewall in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania was crumbling.

At about 12:20 a.m., I let the copy desk know that the third headline Trump closing in on victory was our bet. The race was not called until about 2:30 a.m., but I thought it was best possible call for 12:30.

In 2000, we ran a headline that George W. Bush had won the presidency. I remind people that, historically, it is accurate, but it didnt look so good the next day.

In this case, we were right on the money.
QUEENSBURY  Democrat Family Court judge candidate Rob Smith said he does not plan to concede until all the absentee ballots are counted.

Republican Ted Wilson declared victory Tuesday night after receiving 13,778 machine votes compared with 12,401 for Smith.

Warren County election officials began counting absentee ballots on Wednesday and they said it could take a week to complete the process.

A total of 3,470 absentee ballots had been mailed out and around 3,100 had been received as of Wednesday.

Absentee ballots usually break the same way as the machine vote proportions. To win, Smith would have to capture around 60 percent of the absentee votes.

Wilson declared victory on Tuesday night at The Queensbury Hotel. Smith said late Wednesday that he is holding off on conceding.

Although the odds dont look good I am waiting for the absentees to be counted before I make a concession. I believe that I owe that to my friends, family and supporters, he said. Regardless of the final determination I wish to thank everyone who took an interest in my campaign, to all of the voters and most importantly to my beautiful wife, my two boys and my friends and family. I am incredibly proud of the honest and clean campaign that we ran despite some pretty egregious accusations.

The campaign had become contentious. Smith said among the accusations is that his campaign planted negative stories about Wilson.

Attorney Melody Mackenzie, who supported Smith, had come forward to tell the media that she had made a complaint against Wilson. She said that Wilson lost his temper and verbally berated her during a contentious divorce case.

The candidates also clashed over experience, over who handled more Family Court cases.

The winning candidate will replace J. Timothy Breen, who died last January from cancer.

Also undecided is the race for Supreme Court justice in the Fourth Judicial District, which includes Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Montgomery, Saratoga, Schenectady, St. Lawrence, Warren and Washington counties.

Mark Powers, who has the Democratic and Conservative Party lines had 160,479 votes compared with 159,064 for Republican Timothy Lawliss.

There are at least 21,000 absentee ballots to be counted that have been returned so far, according to figures from the county clerks offices. More could still come in, as ballots are valid as long as they were postmarked by Monday.

Powers has been Family Court judge in Schenectady County for the last 11 years and an Acting Supreme Court justice since 2004.

Lawliss is a Clinton County Family Court judge and an acting Supreme Court justice, handling a variety of matrimonial, prisoner litigation and civil lawsuits in Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties, according to his website.
EASTON  Four people were transported to the hospital following a head-on car collision Wednesday evening on Route 29.

The accident happened at around 5 p.m. near Route 113. Jason E. Geraghty, 37, of North Road in Greenwich was traveling east from Schuylerville on Route 29, when he struck a 2007 Chevrolet pickup truck traveling west driven by 25-year-old Austin M. Brown, of John Street in Greenwich, according to a news release.

Also involved in the crash was a third vehicle traveling west, which was driven by 26-year-old Justin T. Marcellus, of Spier Falls Road in Greenfield Center.

Geraghty was transported to the Albany Medical Center with leg and shoulder injuries, according to police. Brown was also transported to the Albany Medical Center with apparent serious leg injuries.

Two passengers in Browns vehicle, 24-year-old Desiree Williams, 24, also of Greenwich, a 2- year-old-child were taken to the Albany Medical Center for evaluation.

Marcellus was evaluated by EMS at the scene, but was not transported to the hospital.

Police are still investigating the circumstances surrounding the accident. The Washington County Sheriffs Office was assisted on scene with an accident reconstruction team from the Saratoga County Sheriffs Office. Members from Schuylerville and Middle Falls Fire; and Easton-Greenwich, Schuylerville, Cambridge and Malta-Stillwater EMS also responded to the scene.
DAY  A father and son who both worked for the town of Day have been charged with felony assault for allegedly beating a co-worker in his 70s so severely that it fractured an eye socket.

Hadley residents Leo Dugan, 49, and his 24-year-old son, Brendon Dugan, are accused of assaulting the employee on the morning of Halloween in the town highway garage, according to Saratoga County Sheriffs Lt. Jeffrey Brown.

They got into an argument at work. It turned physical, he said.

The police report did not specify the nature of the argument.

Brown said the victim, who police did not identify, required surgery after his orbital eye socket was fractured.

Both men were charged with felony second-degree assault.

They were arraigned in Day Town Court last week and returned for a second appearance Wednesday.

Town Supervisor Preston Allen confirmed Thursday that both employees were terminated on Nov. 2 because of the Oct. 31 incident. Leo Dugan was a maintenance worker and Brendon Dugan was a recycling pickup attendant. Both men had worked for the town for about two years.

Allen also would not identify the victim. He said he does not know the nature of the argument.

Highway Superintendent Ron Ladd said he also did not know what lead to the argument since he was inside when it happened.

It happened outside amongst the garbage guys. All I know is they got into fisticuffs, he said.

Ladd said there had been ongoing friction.

Theyve been arguing back and forth all summer, he said.

Attorney Lee Kindlon is representing Leo Dugan. Kindlon said in an email that his client had no comment. The case was adjourned until Dec. 7.

It was not known if Brendon Dugan had an attorney.

Both men also have connections to local EMS. Leo Dugans Facebook page said he is a member of the Jessups Landing EMS, the informal name for the Corinth EMS. Brendons Facebook page lists that he is a member of Empire Ambulance of Troy.
FORT EDWARD  The Board of Supervisors nipped and trimmed the proposed Washington County budget, but were only able to cut a fourth of what they wanted to remove.

Their goal had been a 1 percent tax increase. The proposed budget had a 2 percent tax increase. After hours of work Thursday morning, the final draft had a 1.75 percent tax increase. The board will hold a public hearing and vote Nov. 18 at 10 a.m.

Most of the proposals for cuts came from Hartford Supervisor Dana Haff. But he withdrew many of his ideas when he learned that the budget figures were accurately based on previous years spending.

The biggest change was a plan to add two secretaries  one for the county administrator and one for the superintendent of Public Works.

Haff persuaded the supervisors to fund one shared position instead.

Budget Officer and Hebron Supervisor Brian Campbell tried to keep both positions, saying that Superintendent Steve Haskins needed his own secretary. Refusing the request would cut his legs off, he said, adding that Haskins needed support.

We brought in a DPW chief to make a lot of changes, he said.

Administrator Chris DeBolt and Salem Supervisor Seth Pitts agreed.

I think Steve needs another ally in that office, DeBolt said.

But supervisors asked Haskins about a secretary last year, when he asked for a deputy superintendent. At the time, he said hed rather have a deputy. A year later, they werent pleased to be asked for a secretary as well.

Its the opposite of being efficient, Haff said. Were growing.

Still, Greenwich Supervisor Sara Idleman said the county might not be getting the full benefit of the deputy without a secretary,

Its a waste of the deputy to do clerical work, she said.

Eventually, supervisors narrowly agreed on a shared secretary for Haskins and DeBolt, which DeBolt said would probably work.

We can make it work, he said. Were both very willing to try.

Haff also proposed increasing some revenue projections in the 2017 budget, but other supervisors wouldnt let him take the risk of hoping the county would collect more money than it collected this year.

Youre not being realistic, Easton Supervisor Dan Shaw shouted at Haff at one point.

Haff shot back, Tell that to your residents who have a for sale sign on their property because they cant pay the taxes.

But he willingly dropped the unrealistic proposals, and Shaw supported his other ideas.

Those included rejecting a plan to replace 200 chairs at the county offices next year, at a cost of $10,000. Haff proposed replacing just a third of the chairs next year.

I love it, Shaw said. Secondly, I dont think we have 200 bad chairs.

Haff added that replacing all the county chairs at once was not a good business decision.

How would you do this if you were running a business? he said. You wouldnt be replacing all 200 chairs at once.
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In what appears a well-thought-out aesthetics, he has collaged a set of photos into an image of a royal African setting.

The final product displays a scene of a lively sitting of a Queen mother flanked by guards, attended to by palace lads and maids, and graced by the rapper who apparently assumes his position as linguist.

The presence of rich Pan-African artifacts; the fontomfrom, the Adinkra symbols plated in gold, the expensive clothing (paralleled with Western outfits), exposes a rich, enviable African heritage.

The concept is also an illustration of the matrilineal system of the Akan tradition where authority is vested in the Queen. Here, there is a perfect representation of the indispensability of the woman in our everyday life. She is positioned as a central pivot of any institution.
On Saturday, October 29, rap star and activist X.O Senavoe, with the help of various health organizations and individuals, organized a very well-attended and hugely successful Breast Cancer Awareness Walk and Free Screening for the general public in Accra. Under the theme "Breast Cancer - Let's Fight Together!", the event saw several hundred people take to the streets with song and dance to spread awareness on Breast Cancer. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in Ghana, with almost 3,000 diagnosed annually."Beating breast cancer has always been a passion of mine," said the award-winning artist who shot to fame with his debut recording, Taxi Music. "This year has been very eventful and has emphasised my knowledge of the fact that the most important things are God's love and our love for Him and humanity. I have decided to use the rest of my life, whatever God gives me, to fight for the rights of others, beginning with this." The walk, which took place on the major streets of Accra, began from Westlands and ended at the Haatso Yam Market. At the market, the general public was given free health screening by nurses from neighboring hospitals and supporting medical personnel.Speaking to the gathering, X.O Senavoe said: "We have taken the first step in a long journey today. This is a journey that begins with us, out here, marching, educating and spreading the word about breast cancer. It's a small and modest start that I hope and know will grow to save many lives through early detection, education, and empowering women especially and men to beat the disease, and any stigma that comes with it, as we all work together."X.O Senavoe, who lost his mother to breast cancer, added that throughout the year, there will be more free screening, educational and fund-raising events, and donations will go to support hospital wards and individuals affected by breast cancer."My focus is on early detection, and education about the deadly disease, as well as support for those who have unfortunately been afflicted by it", he added. "And I ask all Ghanaians today to join us in this fight!"
Opening at 7:00pm, the Back to the 90s School Jam will bring Old students from various second cycle schools in the country together to have fun, reminisce on old school days and network, all in an ambience marked by music, dance and fanfare.

Put together specifically to generate funds for the schools e-library, the organizers - the 1993/95 Year Group of the Presec Old Boys Association - describe the experience as Jamming with a purpose and said the evening will feature rare showmanship from some of Ghanas finest DJs including the indefatigable DJ Blow, the Atongo Man Sami B, DJ Koshe and DJ Mac Tontoh.

Indeed among the highlights of the evening will be will be an inter-schools DJ contest and a special auction and raffle which will offer amazing prizes, said the President of the 1993/95 Year Group of the Presec Old Students Association.

The Back to the 90s jam is set to become an annual affair where Presecans and their friends from Abugiss, Agiss, St. Marys, Achimota, Wesley Girls, Mfantsipim, Accra Aca, Adisadel, St. Augustines and schools nationwide, can meet and fraternize in the spirit of togetherness and for old times sake! Mr. Frank Ankamah, President of the Odade3 (Presec Old Boys Association) 93/95 Year Group said.
They have been officially charged for causing physical abuse, contrary to section 4 of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) Act.

The case was adjourned to 24 November 2016.

The controversial pastor who was angered by the couples amorous activity which has led to a pregnancy took the law into his hands and lashed the young man on his bare back before turning to the girl flogging her mercilessly with a belt in the full glare of his congregation.

Throughout the punishment, Obinim is heard questioning the jobless youngman why he got the girl pregnant when he has no finances for her upkeep and the upbringing of the unborn child.

The girl who was unable to stand the flogging attempts to escape, but she was held by henchmen of the Bishop to enable the bishop mete out more beatings.

After subjecting the two to severe flogging for several minutes, Obinim orders his junior pastors to remove their belts and subject the couple to more flogging.

The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection reported the act of Obinim to DOVVSU.
The tight job market in the country has reportedly sparked an entrepreneurial revolution among young graduates many of whom have turned to self-employment to drive innovation and help to solve one of the countrys major social challenges: unemployment.

BANKS CRAVE MORE LOAN RESTRUCTURING DEALS

Governments decision to restructure VRAs debts has been well received by banks in the country which are hoping such arrangements will be made for other state-owned enterprises whose indebtedness have suffocated the operations of the financial institutions, the Bank of Ghana has said.

COURIER INDUSTRY NAGS REGULATOR OVER ILLEGAL OPERATORS

BoG UNDER IMF PRESSURE

The Bank of Ghana has three months to come out with its recapitalization plan for banks in Ghana to avert a deepening of the current instability in the countrys financial sector, Business Finder can reveal.

REDUCE TAX BURDEN  AGI, ICU CRY OUT

The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) and the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) have intensified calls on the government to reduce the tax burden on their members.

EC approves 3 and axes Ayariga, Akua Donkor, etc

Supreme Court rebukes EC

Man charged with raping, strangling girl

EC OKAYS 7 DROPS 8 PRESIDENTIAL RACE

The EC has given the green light to seven presidential candidates to contest in the December election.

NDC BOYS ON RAMPAGE AT ODODODIODIOO

Angry members of the NPP in the Odododiodioo constituency in Accra yesterday besieged the Jamestown Police Station demanding the immediate release of three of their members  Teddy Moore, Nii Koodi and another young man whose name was only given as Prince.

TRUMP STUNS WORLD

The world was in denial of Donald Trump presidency in the United States. Many thought his race for the White House was a joke, but 2a.m. yesterday, that dream had become a reality.

7 ON BALLOT AFTER EC CLEARED 3 MORE

Another major hurdle has been cleared for the conduct of the December 7 elections as the seven qualified presidential candidates yesterday picked their positions on the presidential ballot paper.

PURC BLAMES POWER COMPANIES FOR OUTAGES
This led to a number of legal suits by some of the disqualified parties. After an Accra High Court ruled in favour of the Progressive Peoples Party, the EC filed a suit at the Supreme Court to quash the ruling of the High Court. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the PPP.

But speaking at a programme dubbed A Conversation on Leadership and the Future of Africa at his residence yesterday [Wednesday], Kufuor we neednt have gone to court if everybody had been mindful, including the Electoral Commission (EC), the Peace Council, government, perhaps the method of resolution should have been one of the alternative dispute resolutions.
She was speaking at an editors forum in Accra. She explained that this move was to ensure a transparent election.

In times past a number of representatives from each contesting political party were at the collation centre and relayed the results to their various parties before the EC made the formal declaration. No cameras were allowed at the centre.

This has sometimes led to false predictions in the public and media space.
According to Mr Amewu, some Togolese have illegally found their way into Ghanas electoral roll to enable them to vote for a particular party.

The NPP, as law-abiding citizens, do not intend to stop genuine Ghanaians who reside in Togo coming to Ghana to exercise their democratic right to vote. Instead, we are trying to build collaboration between the leaders of the border towns and educate them in understanding the criminal implications and trivialities of the actions of those who are not entitled to vote trying to do so, he said.

On his part, Mr Rawlings said that he would make their complaints known to the relevant institutions for the necessary action.

He, however, urged all parties contesting in the forthcoming 7 December polls to ensure that should their party come out victorious, members of the losing parties would have no reason to feel insecure.
The former first lady who has made history as the first female presidential candidate in Ghana said she believes this historic feat will encourage other women to aim higher.

Speaking on Accra-based Joy FM she said

Nana Konadu missed the opportunity to contest in the 2012 election. This almost repeated itself in 2016. She was however cleared to contest after the Supreme Court ruled that the nomination date be extended.

She expressed optimism that this election will give the party an opportunity to showcase what we have as NDP." She promised a robust economy if effort into power after the December 7 polls.
The President is going all over the world talking about Ghana, talking about peace and talking about democracy. And in his cabinet, around the cabinet table at which he is presiding, are people who instigate violence  purveyors of violence, sitting around his cabinet table. He doesnt care.

"He doesnt have the strength of character to reprimand them and tell them to stop what they are doing. He is simply looking on unconcerned. Does this mean he endorses this kind of conduct? Nana Addo asked.

His comments come on the back of attacks against NPP members in Asutifi South being allegedly perpetrated by Hon. Collins Dauda, MP for the constituency and Minister for Local Government, and, also, following the recent assault of NPP members in Odododiodioo which was said to be led by MP for the constituency and Minister for Youth and Sports, Nii Lante Vanderpuije.

According to Nana Akufo-Addo, this kind of leadership, being displayed by President Mahama will not augur well for the countrys growth and prosperity.

No one should see himself or herself above the law. We dont want any trouble in Ghana. Those who think that violence, through the use of guns and machetes, is the only path to which they can succeed should have a good rethink because it will not succeed, he said.

You (Collins Dauda) are contesting a woman, and youre having to employ guns, harmful weapons and the use of macho men in order to win? It is a shame and a disgrace. What kind of a man are you then? You are employing all of these shameful tactics, not against a fellow man, but, against a woman. This is a disgrace. When such things happen, it means you have already lost, he added.

Nana Akufo-Addo further expressed optimism that in spite of these shameful tactics being employed by Hon. Collins Dauda, residents of Hwidiem and Asutifi South will vote out the NDC in the December 7 polls.

He said: the people of Asutifi South will not allow themselves to be cowed by violence, nor will they allow violent people to superintend over them. No one can be kept away from voting. Everybody is going to have the chance to cast their vote in this election.

Nana Akufo-Addo, however, urged the electorate not to be complacent, in the belief that the NPP has already won the election.
Speaking to the media, Odike said his decision to withdraw his nomination was a personal matter.

Mr Odike was among the 13 presidential aspirants the Electoral Commission disqualified.

However, Odike in an interview with Accra-based Onua FM has endorsed the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo.

He said "We need the one who can help us move Ghana forward so all the other parties must came together to vote out NDC in December."
Nii Lante Vanderpuye, the incumbent MP, has been accused of punching his closest rival, Nii Lantey Bannerman, in the face after tailgating him. According to Afia Tenge, the public relations officer of the police in Accra, this allegation by Bannerman has been received with investigations following.

This fracas follows clashes on Tuesday night between supporters of Vanderpuye (representing the governing National Democratic Congress) and Bannerman (representing the New Patriotic Party) after the later held a large rally in the constituency.

Three supporters of the NPP were arrested by the police and the police sent reinforcement to the area after a crowd besieged the police station demanding their release.
She said this can only be achieved if all the stakeholders involved in the electoral process, particularly the media, put the nation first in all their activities.

She said: This years elections will even be more transparent, and even more credible and be accepted by all than the 2012 elections. And we keep making sure that every election sees improvement beyond the last elections.

...As you are all aware, we are just days away from probably the most important event in our nations calendar this year  the presidential and parliamentary elections. This is the time when we as a people get to decide who leads the country and who represents us in parliament. This is a very critical decision, and to do that as the institution that is mandated to organise the elections, it is impossible for us to do our work effectively without the media, she said.

Can we have successful elections without the media? No. So the same way that the Electoral Commission has a responsibility, so does the media. To have a peaceful election, we need an Electoral Commission that is strong, that is independent, and that is subject only to the laws of Ghana, whether as passed by the legislature or as pronounced by the Judiciary, Mrs Osei added.

She said the country needs a media that is  just as strong, just as independent as the Electoral Commission and a media that is subject only to the national interest and not personal or parties interests.

We need civil society support; we need a mutual, balanced civil society to make sure that the process is successful and not to promote the views of any one side of the electoral process, she added.

The Electoral Commission under the leadership of Charlotte Osei has been dragged to court over twelve times.

Some Ghanaians believe that the many law suits will make the EC lose focus for the December 7 polls, and have therefore advocated for dialogue among the aggrieved parties.

But the EC had recently stated that it is happy that aggrieved persons and political parties have resorted to the law courts to resolve any grievances instead of hitting on the streets.
This list primarily consists of tech solutions made by Ghanaians or have Ghanaians on their founding team. Although some were not made in 2016, they are included because this is the year they become most relevant.

1. Just Elect

Styled as just elect, this election platform can be used for all kinds of elections. While Ghana is a long way from deploying any form of modern technology in its voting process, just elect can be used in smaller polls such as school elections, board room elections, professional bodies and dare I say party primaries. The results can be seen in real time and the voting can be done in anywhere on any device. Just Elect is made by Nasara Tech and led by one of Ghanas emerging female techpreneur Rasheeda Mandeeya Yehuza.

2. TransGov

TransGov is a web-based platform to track the progress of government projects has been launched in Accra. Developed by a group of young Ghanaians, it makes it easy for ordinary citizens to follow keenly government projects in their localities. When citizens visit the website (http://www.transgovgh.org/), they will be able to browse a host of government's developmental projects, such as schools, hospitals and roads, their dates of commencement, the budget allocated, geo-location and other relevant information. The mobile app will be out soon.

3. Promolante

All the mobile networks are promising one promotion or another and it can be difficult to decide which one best fits you. This app curates all the best telecom network deals for its users so that they can settle on the one that best fits. Its developers hope to expand into the rest of the continent soon. In August, it recorded its 200,000th download.

4. Tress

Just like telco promos, hairstyles abound. However it is a hurdle for women of African origin particularly to find hairstyles that the nature of their hair can support. Developed by an international team, made up of three young women from Ghana and Nigeria, Tress curates hairstyles from its users making it possible for other women to find hair inspiration. Women across the world can share, discover new hairstyle and even detailed hairstyle information including the salon where the magic happened.

5. AF Radio

AF Radio is the latest kid on the block; having been launched in October. It makes this list because of the strong potential it shows. It is a free app that allows audiences to stream and most crucially playback their favourite radio shows. The aim of AF Radio is to bring convenience to the Ghanaian audience so that they can catch up with their favourite radio programmes when they cant listen live.

6. MoGo

MoGo is a ridesharing app that allows users to hitch a ride with someone going in the same direction as they are. The app won the TroTro Apps Challenge, a hackathon to provide technological solutions to Accras transportation problems. Their launch this year coincided with the start of operations of Uber, the popular online transport network.

7. Shypmate
On Wednesday, November 9, 2016, the House of Representatives called on law enforcement to crack down on "promoters of a questionable investment scheme popularly known as MMM.

ALSO READ: The dark history of this popular Ponzi scheme

MMM prides itself as a "global social financial network" which "offers you a technical platform helping millions of participants worldwide to connect those who need help to those who are ready to provide help, for free".

The organisation also says it is "a community of people providing each other financial help on the principle of gratuitousness, reciprocity and benevolence".

However, critics of the organisation have begged to differ.

MMM's reputation as a Ponzi scheme precedes it, its critics say.

The organisation commenced operations in Russia but was forced to close shop in that European country in the '90s following concerns about its business model.

MMM was also called out for scamming its customers in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Financial analysts say MMM relocated to Nigeria after it failed in other countries in a bid to continue its exploitation game in Africa's biggest market.

But MMM advocates in Nigeria have told Pulse that the "noble" organisation is suffering from a gang up from the banks and the regulator--Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

"Stop witch-hunting MMM!", a gentleman who is a depositor with the 'wonder bank' warned Pulse, adding that "MMM is sincere and honest enough to those that are not greedy and money mongers.

"No one is cheating another. You contribute to make others smile, which also will be done onto you. The banks are just jealous because MMM has been taking away their customers", said the gentleman.

The MMM deposit money scheme promises a 30 percent monthly interest on investment for its customers.

The CBN has warned Nigerians to be wary of MMM's devices, but only few are listening.

"If the people involved in Naira bet open shops publicly, go to media houses and are not criminalised, why should our mutual help become their headache? Haba, this is wickedness! Let them return the money they donated for themselves to become President and we will stop helping ourselves", one MMM disciple wrote to Pulse via E-mail.

However, in a resolution during plenary today, the House of Reps asked its committees on Banking, Currency and Financial Crimes to investigate the scheme.

MMM isn't registered with regulatory agencies and isn't on the books of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

"It is a rob Peter to pay Paul scheme", said Hon Akinlade Fijabi from Oyo State.

ALSO READ: MMM Nigeria and Our love for easy money

Hon Dennis Amadi from Enugu State urged the House to act fast in the nation's interest before MMM goes burst with investor funds like everyone expects it to.

"The House will not wait until these crooks defraud Nigerians of billions of Naira or until people start committing suicide, Amadi said.

The House committees charged with investigating the activities of MMM will report to Speaker Yakubu Dogara and the rest of the lawmakers in another month.

MMM customers won't let Lawmakers have their way, however.

"Those antagonising us are exhibiting ignorance. When Jonathan and Buhari were running for Presidency, it was not a crime to gather Nigerians to donate for them....it is now an offence for poor masses to come together to assist one another", an MMM surrogate told Pulse.

A group of MMM choristers went as far as putting together a song which earned a spot on the viral charts last week.
Charly Boy, who is the National Coordinator of the group, said that corruption would be tackled more effectively and efficiently if it is made a treasonable offence.

He said, corrupt leadership has been killing ordinary Nigerians slowly and steadily over the years.

It is time to properly define it as murder in disguise, and treat as treasonable offence against our dear country.

Over 180 million people are surviving at the mercy of few politicians who have mastered the art of creating division among her own people through religion, ethnicity, corruption, and frivolous issues.

Charly Boy added that the death penalty should be introduced for all politically-corrupt persons in Nigeria if the nation is to be freed from the economic hardship it is facing.

The social activist noted that countries such as China and Pakistan were striving better because of their decision to tackle corruption as a crime that deserved capital punishment.

NAN reports that he advised that the immunity clause in the Nigerian constitution be reviewed.

Charly Boy further explained that the Occupy Unlimited Group will be staging a peaceful protest on November 15 in the Federal Capital Territory against corruption.

ALSO READ: Entertainer plans to lead revolution against corrupt politicians

He also emphasised that the protest was to remind political leaders at all levels that they must be accountable and selfless in their service to the country.

This is a process of holding politicians accountable not only to their promises but in their service to the Nigerian nation.

The mass protest will begin at the Unity Fountain in Abuja down to the National Assembly.

We are a coalition of ordinary Nigerians from different parts of the country, with no political affiliations; we believe in the interest of our country.
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News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that the order was handed down on the suspect by the Magistrate, Mrs E.E. Edokpayi, who frowned at the accused persons act and vowed not to grant him bail.

The Magistrate reasoned that if he was granted bail, he would go back home and continue the same act or even kill his parents.

The prosecutor in the case, Violet Soyemi had earlier told the court that the accused committed the offence on November 4, 2016, at Agbanbe Street, Evbotubo Quarters, Benin.

The accused who pleaded not guilty to the two-count charge leveled against him, was however happy that he was going to prison as he was heard telling his girlfriend who accompanied him to the court:

I am happy going to the prison and will see you on the next adjourned date.
The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr Ebere Amaraizu, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Thursday, November 10, that the police recovered two single-barrel locally-made guns, a rubber pistol, five live cartridges, some other deadly weapons and an expended cartridge from the robbers.

The two suspected armed robbers who were apprehended in Nsukka, reportedly specialised in robbing people and boggling homes.

NAN reports that other items recovered by the police include three cell-phones, one Cy 90 lady motorcycle, two generators, one television, one standing fan and cooking utensils.

Amaraizu said that the suspects were arrested on Wednesday, November 9, at about 8.00 a.m. following a distress call received by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) Nsukka Zone.

The suspects are Chinedu Omeje, 25, and Onyebuchi Ezema, 22, an ex-convict that recently regained freedom after serving a jail term over his nefarious activities ranging from stealing and robbery.

The duo was nabbed by the operatives following a distress call.

Following their arrest and revelations made by them, some of the burgled and stolen items were recovered, some from them and a receiver of the stolen items identified as one Ifeoma Ugwu, a 36-year-old widow.

They are already helping the police in the investigation, he said.

ALSO READ: 3 Catholic catechists arraigned for arms possession

The suspects reportedly blamed their criminal acts on the devil during their separate confessions and pleaded for forgiveness.
Punch reports that the unfortunate petty thief identified as Kaduna Enatimi was arrested by the Igbogene Vigilance Committee in Yenagoa Local Government Area of state with a pot of soup, 12 wraps of fufu and a half basin of garri flour.

The 35-year-old father of two, an indigene of Akassa community of Brass Local Government Area, was reportedly arrested by the vigilantes about 2am on Thursday, November 10, 2016, while consuming some of the stolen wraps of fufu and the soup.

The Head of the Vigilance Committee, Chief MoneySweet Asomo, narrated that the suspect was caught red-handed with the food items stolen from a cafeteria owned by an Akwa Ibom State woman in the area.

After Enatimi was taken to the Paramount Ruler of the area, the Obenibe X1 of Epie Kingdom, King Hope Adike, he was said to have confessed that hunger and economic hardship led him to steal the pot of soup and the other food items.

Asomo said:

We were on patrol at about 2am on Thursday. When we got to the Timida School area, we saw a man at a local food joint eating.

The food kiosk is owned by an Akwa Ibom State indigene popularly called . We questioned Enatimi and he confessed to have stolen the pot of soup, some wraps of fufu and half basin of garri.

He claimed it was the economic hardship that led him to the crime.
No matter how hard any government or society tries to eradicate or even curb it, the trade will never cease to exist due to the fact that the men who patronize them will always find a way of rolling with them.

In Nigeria, they are identified with different names like '', 'Akunna-Kunna', 'Karuwa', 'Akpara', or '', and other derogatory names but the fact remains that without the male customers, they would not be in business.

Men who patronize these commercial sex workers, either married or single, have their reasons for doing so. Some of them range from the hilarious to the most absurd.

Pulse List take a look at some reasons men sleep with prostitutes.

1. Adventure

Most men feel a sense of adventure when they get down with a strange woman who is not their wife or steady girlfriend.

The same feeling is what they crave for what drives them to meet prostitutes because that is the only time they try out many sexual fantasies and fetishes they have been dreaming of and too scared to try with their wives.

2. No Stress

Prostitutes are in the business for money and as long as you can pay what you have negotiated with her, she will not give you any hassle or stress.

Unlike a wife or girlfriend who wants to be courted, given a treat, dinner, cinemas and all that stuff, a prostitute does not care for these because for her, a man is just another client and therefore, there is no room for unnecessary demands.

3. Experiment

Most men who patronize prostitutes agree that they do it to get the experience a commercial sex worker serves and see what draws men to them.

They may have the most beautiful wives and girlfriends at home but the lure of sneaking to the brothels to have a quick one with a prostitute make some men try it out and see what they feel like.

4. Danger

Some men are naturally wired to thrive where there is a danger, so they see sneaking into a brothel as an exciting danger and a challenge they need to conquer. The sense of walking into a brothel, negotiating a price and actually having sex with a strange woman further adds to their excitement.

5. Sexual Starvation

Sexual starvation is one of the major reasons men patronize commercial sex workers, especially when they have been starved of sex for a long time.

Unlike women, the average man cannot go without sex for a very long time and when such happens, the tendency is for them to go to these 'Ashewos' to quench their sexual thirsts.

6. Fantasy

Men naturally love living in a world of fantasy and one of such is a sexual fantasy. Most men live and relive such fantasies in their heads and over time, it becomes a part of them.

Some of the fantasies would be seen as absolute madness by their wives and girlfriends but a prostitute does not care about them because her job is to satisfy her customer and get paid.

Trying new things matter to men and when sex is concerned, they will rather go to the prostitute who will not see them as freaks that need to be born-again or rot in hell.

7. Loneliness

Loneliness leads many into loads of temptation and sex is surely the number one key to temptation for men.

Research has shown that 85% of men who patronize prostitutes are either lonely or they are not happy in the relationships, so the best way for them to let off steam is to seek out these ladies of the night for some moments of intimacy.

8. Quick Sex

Most men do not like complications when it comes to sex. They feel that is not the right time to remind them of junior's school fees or the 'Aso Ebi' that was promised months ago.

A prostitute comes with no strings attached and as long as you pay the agreed price, you are good to go and so, these men prefer paying for quick sex instead of being put through a military drill just to have one.

9. Insatiable Libido

Some men do have an excessive sexual libido and no matter how hard the wife or girlfriend tries to satisfy him, he still seeks that extra pleasure elsewhere.

And where is he likely to have it? With a prostitute of course. So instead of pestering the wife or girlfriend, only to be met with rejection or complaints, they prefer to go for a prostitute who will not ask any question.

10. Men Like Variety

This may sound quite sarcastic but some men love the variety in every thing they do. These set of men are quick to tell you that it would be abnormal to eat the same kind of soup every day of the year, so the best thing for them is to patronize commercial sex workers to get something different from what they get at home.

When it comes to sex, a prostitute is willing to try anything and the sex style the madam at home abhors could be the one that gives the man the most pleasure.
The accused, Ebere Okeke, who resides at A19, Kajola St., Governor Road, Ikotun, a suburb of Lagos, was brought before the court on Thursday, November 10, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

ALSO READ: Banker gets 195 yrs in prison for stealing N21m

The court heard that Okeke, committed the offence from August 2015 to February 2016, at SMC Co-operative Bank, Ikeja.

The prosecutor, Sgt. Donjor Perezi said,

The accused works as a credit officer and her assignment is to give customers loans and collect them back on weekly basis.

It was during an investigation that the bank got to know that the accused had collected N810,000 back from a customer she gave a loan but did not remit it, he said.

According to Perezi, the offence contravenes Section 285 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

However, NAN reports that the accused pleaded not guilty to the charge.

ALSO READ: Top banker bags 6 months jail term for N28m fraud

The Chief Magistrate, Mrs O. A Layinka, granted the accused bail in the sum of N200,000 with two sureties in like sum.
Punch reports that Tajudeen was stabbed to death by one Abeeb, a notorious hoodlum in Ilaje Otumara, in the Iponri area of Lagos State, on Monday, November 7, 2016, after the assailant alleged that he (Tajudeen) had gate crashed a party the previous Saturday without being invited.

It was learned that the Ilorin, Kwara State-born Tajudeen, was trailed to his house by Abeeb and other hoodlums who wanted to punished him for daring to gatecrash their party.

The incident, it was also learned, created serious tension in the area as the hoodlums also injured two other youths before fleeing the community while the matter was reported at the Iponri Police Division who has declared the runaway Abeeb.

His parents are also said to have fled the area to evade arrest by the police.

A resident narrated that Tajudeen's offense was that he attended a birthday party in a gangsters area.

The party Akeem and his friends went for was on Saturday in Olokodana. At the party, Abeeb, one Austin and other hoodlums challenged them for attending the birthday party, but they settled it and left.

But on Monday, the same Abeeb went to Ilaje Otumara and started a fight with some boys.

Akeem was spotted and Abeeb stabbed him with a knife in the chest, saying he gate crashed their party on Saturday. The boy slumped and was left in a pool of blood.

We tried to arrest Abeeb, but he stabbed two other youths before he escaped. When policemen from Iponri came, Abeeb and his gang members had escaped from the scene. His parents have also relocated due to fear of arrest.
The Winnipeg Police Service reports that the 26-year-old Nigerian, Michael Ose Odine, has been running a marketing scam that was targeting people on the Internet through false advertisements.

A statement by Constable Jason Michalyshen of the WPS reads:

He would go online, he would respond to ads. He would place ads, where individuals would respond to him. WPS's investigations revealed that the suspects communication typically occurred by email and text messages."

Constable Michalyshen explained further that the online advertisements were about romance, employment and rental scams and the victims were from a number of places across Canada, the United States, and Europe, and were defrauded of more than $230,000 by Odine.
Mr Ifeanyi Kenechukwu, the state coordinator of the organisation, made the plea on Thursday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Birnin Kebbi.

Kenechukwu said that the NGO was a volunteer group educating school children on the importance of handwashing before and after meal as well as after going to the toilet.

He said inculcating such habit in school children would promote their health and improve hygienic condition, adding that the campaign would be taken to all schools in the state.

Kenechukwu said that the network was determined to enable the schools and agencies to take preventive measures against infectious diseases.

He called on parents to compliment the efforts of the organisation by teaching their children on the importance of washing their hands at short intervals.

Kenechukwu said that the network would procure handwashing chemicals for distribution to schools in order to promote the health of children.

He called for the support of the state government to actualise the dream of the organisation.
Dabiri-Erewa made the comments via a statement released by her media aide, Abdur-Rahman Balogun.

The statement reads:

It has come to the attention of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa that some fake `Facebook accounts have been opened in her name.

It was also brought to our notice that these hackers opened 11 different accounts of Facebook in Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewas name and was using the various accounts to dupe their unsuspecting and innocent Nigerians.

For the avoidance of doubts, some of the fake accounts says Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa of the House of Senate, National Assembly.

Another one says: she is of Nigerian House of Representatives, She is `Special assistance to President Muhammadu Buhari, she is of Maryland Comprehensive Secondary school, Aso Villa Abuja, Nigeria with her various pictures adorning all the pages with minimum of 7,025 likes to 62,176 likes.

All of these are fake and not from Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa. The Hon. Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora is always available and members of the public can reach her on: ssa@diaspora.gov.ng on issues pertaining to her office.

It must be noted that while Hon. Dabiri-Erewa has reported severally to Facebook, fake accounts keep popping up in her name again, urging Facebook to look into such easy method of cloning peoples identity.
Abubakar made the statement on Thursday in Girei at the commencement of the construction of the 27.5km Girei-Pariya-Wuro Boki road in Adamawa.

He said that road project would boost the economy of the state.

He said that the level of development witnessed in the state during the administration of Gov. Bindow was unprecedented.

The former Vice president pledged that he would continue to support the administration to achieve its vision of transforming the state.

He said that the former governor of the state, Mr Boni Haruna also did his best, saying he completed most of the uncompleted projects he initiated from the military government.

In his remarks at the occasion, Bindow urged politicians in the state not to distract his administration with insults.

He said that his administration was determined to serve the state irrespective of socio-political and cultural differences.

He commended the former vice president for always encouraging him in his efforts to develop the state.

Earlier in her remarks, the Commissioner for Works, Mrs Lilian Stephen, said the road contract was divided into two phases.
Instead, he said in a statement in Abuja by his media office, such money should be channelled to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in the North-East.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the former vice president would turn 70 on Nov. 25.

Besides the IDPs camps, Atiku said that such resources should also be spent to other charitable causes.

He urged his friends to celebrate him in the service of humanity instead of devoting money to adulatory and self-glorifying advert messages.

God has been wonderfully kind to him for sustaining his life and keeping him in good health to witness yet another birthday event.

Giving back to humanity has been his passion; his friends and associates can honour him better if they spend their resources on charitable causes to celebrate his special day, the statement said.

It added that the former president`s birthday, besides being a special day to him, was one for reflection, thanksgiving, prayers and inestimable gratitude to God.

The statement quoted him as saying touching lives of others is the best expression of gratitude to God for His boundless favours and blessings.
The Acting Director Information, Defence Headquarters, Brig. Gen. Rabe Abubakar, made this known on Thursday in Yola during a meeting with media executives.

Abubakar called for more collaboration between the media and military, particularly now that the fight was at its last lap.

He said we appreciate the critical role of the media in this fight and seek for more collaboration, partnership and understanding.

As we all know, security requires everybodys support; we are in a national crisis and need to work together.

The director, who reiterated the commitment of the military to continue to operate according to rules of engagement, said that currently, the military were operating in 16 places across the country to contain security threats.

He explained that some of the operations were jointly conducted with other security agencies.

The defence spokesman announced plans by the military to launch Operation Safe Corridor for the rehabilitation of repentant Boko Haram members to make them useful to themselves, the society and Nigeria as a whole.

He said we also have Operation Accord to check the problem of criminal herdsmen.

The Adamawa Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Malam Ahmad Sajoh, lauded the move by the military for more partnership with the media.

He added that the Adamawa Government on its part had conducted series of security enlightenment to mobilise the people on security consciousness and the need for maximum support to the military and other security agencies.

Sajoh urged the military to continue to reach out for the support of the public on internal security challenges such as Boko Haram.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report that highlights of the meeting was the presentation of enlightenment materials by the defence spokesman for the media in Adamawa.
This is coming after Nigerians condemned the killing of Lt. Col Abu Ali and his men by the terror group in an ambush.

Dan-Ali, who also told newsmen that Boko Haram has been dismantled, called for understanding from Nigerians.

The minister said Give us additional time, recall that recently we lost one of our officers and soldiers. Insurgency is something that you cannot eradicate within a day.

Remember Tamil Tigers, remember Kashmir and other places of the world where insurgency is ongoing.

However, within the last one year, I can assure you that almost 95 percent of the security challenges of this nation had been eradicated.

ALSO READ:Soldiers kill 13 terrorists in Borno

If you can remember, before the coming of this administration, we had a lot of security challenges. I am not saying that it has been eradicated within one year, but as I am talking to you, I am proud to say that things happening in the past in the north east and other regions of this country have tremendously gone down.
Rumourmongers immediately began to say that Boko Haram terrorists had bombed Jabi Lake Mall, the building which houses several stores including Shoprite.

When correspondent arrived the mall, the area was calm, with people going about their normal businesses.

But Police officers at a bridge few steps from the mall where the bomb was said to have been dropped were agitated.

"It was God that saved our lives here today," said a police officer who craved anonymity.

"We saw bomb at this particular spot. This one is not that somebody told me, I saw it with my two naked eyes," the Police officer added.

Just as the police officer was narrating his experience, officials of the FCT Water Board arrived the scene to carry out an inspection of one of the Water Reader Devices they had installed at the same location on Wednesday night.

What the security personnel had 'mistaken' for a bomb was a device used by the Water Board to measure the volume of water been consumed by residents of the area.

"We planted the device here and one other location in Jabi. It is a water meter reader, not an explosive device," said an official of the FCT Water Board

"We planted the device to measure the volume of water been consumed by residents in the area. The same device was planted last night within Jabi for the same purpose.

Some overzealous police officers just came, pick the device and took it to their office," he added.

ALSO READ: Soldiers prevent bomb attack on IDPs Camp

But the police officer insisted that it was a bomb which had been dropped by some suspected Boko Haram terrorists.

"It was a bomb, forget what these Water Board people are saying. Our EOD department have come to evaluate the device," the officer maintained.

Officials of the Water Board led our reporter to another location where a similar device had been installed.
Egbon, a supporter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), registered in Ward 7, Oredo Local Government Area of Edo.

She said she had longed to meet the President to show her admiration for his quality of leadership.

NAN reports that a window of opportunity opened to Egbon when the President was scheduled to commission the ultra-modern Samuel Ogbemudia College in Benin City, during his just concluded two-day working visit to Edo.

She braced the odds and came all the way with her surprise gift to the President which she had kept for the special occasion.

She tore through the thick crowd, making her way straight to the President who at the time had finished the official engagement and was heading for his waiting car.

Many in the crowd got emotional seeing the elderly lady pull through the crowd with the goat, determined to make a presentation to the President.

Gov. Oshiomhole, who noticed the security cordon between the lady and the President, came to her rescue.

He (Oshiomhole) alighted from the Presidents convoy to receive the goat on behalf of the President, a protocol official at the scene of the incident told NAN.

She thanked the President for accepting the gift which was handed over to protocol officials.
Trump shocked the world on Wednesday, November 9, when he emerged winner of the presidential elections defeating former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

Ogbeh made the comments on Wednesday after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja.

Im in a bit of shock, but were witnessing some very dramatic changes in the world, and I think some of these things began many years ago, he said according to The Cable.

The current economic theory ravaging the world is now reaching the poor and the ordinary people. Its causing a lot of stress. Brexit happened, America has done this now. Many other countries are going to have near extremism ruling the minds of people.

The rest of the world will have to then carefully watch and see the impact first. He made comments about Nigerians when he was campaigning that they had stolen money, they should go back to their country and live.

He has a very low opinion of the blacks and Hispanics. We hope hell become a president now for all, including Nigerians and others, resident in the US.But if he doesnt, it means well have to re-tune and re-tool our foreign policy to begin to find a situation where we may have to be welcoming some of our people if they come under extreme pressure. We hope it doesnt happen.

Trump himself is one of those capitalists who have managed to exploit the system, but have now turned around to bring down that system. I do hope that he can manage the US without falling into the trap he thinks he has freed the others from.

Because eventually when he gets to Washington and begins to feel the pressure of the White House, he may not be as calm as he was this morning when he was accepting the victory, I can assure you. Those jobs exert a lot of pressure, he added.

ALSO READ:Donald Trump wins 2016 US presidential poll
Image Group LA/ABCThe Global Citizen Festival is heading to India. The annual concert event -- which has taken place in New York since 2012 -- will take place in Mumbai on November 19, with Coldplay, Demi Lovato and Jay Z as the headliners.



The festival marks the first time Coldplay and Jay Z have played in India. Various Indian musicians are also scheduled to perform.



Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is currently in the midst of a 15-year stint as curator of the Global Citizen Festival. Jay Z headlined the New York version of the festival in 2014, Coldplay headlined in 2015 and Demi played this years concert in September.



Free tickets will be offered to people who pledge to take action against extreme poverty. The show will also raise money for childrens homes in India.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
El-Rufai made the call in Kaduna on Thursday when he paid a condolence visit to the widow and children of the late Lt.-Col. Abu Ali, who lost his life along with other soldiers in Malam Fatori area of Borno.

He said: I am here to condole with the wife and children of our gallant and courageous military officer, Lt.-Col. Muhammad Abu Ali and other soldiers, who paid the supreme sacrifice for the sovereignty and integrity of the Nigerian State.

From what we have been hearing about Muhammad Abu Ali from his colleagues and Nigerians, it is a confirmation, that Muhammad was a patriot, a gentleman, a man of humility, who lived and died for Nigeria and humanity.

And may Almighty God grant his soul eternal rest.

I am using this opportunity to appeal to Nigerians to support families of our heroes; they need our prayers, support and care.

We should always identify with them and show them love.

According to him, they need the inspiration and compassion of well-meaning Nigerians in view of the sacrifices their breadwinners made for the survival of the country.
Fani Kayode appeared before the court on Thursday, November 10, 2016, on money laundering charges brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

He will be required to provide a surety in like sum as part of the bail requirements.

Fani-Kayode was taken into custody by EFCC agents on Friday, October 21, outside the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos, Punch reports.

He had visited the court for a continuation of his trial on fraud charges brought against him by the EFCC.

Fani-Kayode had said, on Thursday, October 20, that the EFCC was planning to re-arrest him on politically motivated charges.

I have been reliably informed by my sources within the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that they are planning to re-arrest and detain me for as long as possible once again even though I have been granted bail by the Federal High Court in Lagos. Fresh charges were filed against me by the EFCC at the Federal High Court in Abuja on July 7th," he said.

The allegations border on a baseless allegation and false claim that I received twenty six million naira from the NSA's office in 2014. These are politically-motivated charges and there is no truth in or substance to them whatsoever.

Because of that the matter is now seized of the court yet the EFCC are still planning to arrest me probably at the premises of the Federal High Court in Lagos after I appear there on Friday 21st October to attend my trial on the trumped up and, again, politically-motivated charges concerning the presidential campaign funds.

If they do not arrest me then they will arrest me and seek to detain me for as long as possible soon after that. Whichever way they will come and I am ready for them. I am not running. The truth is that the EFCC are a ready, willing and able tool in the hands of the hawks and hardliners in the Buhari administration and they are apparently acting on orders," he added.

Fani-Kayode was initially arrested in May after being accused of money laundering by the EFCC.
Mohammed also revealed that Supreme Court judges are the most over-worked in the world.

According to him, Permit me to re-iterate my comments made during the opening of the 2016-2017 Legal Year when I opined that our Supreme Court is arguably the most overworked in the World.

In the 2014-2015 Legal Year, the Supreme Court heard 1578 matters, consisting of 1000 motions and 569 substantive appeals, delivering 262 judgments.

In 2015-2016 Legal Year, the court heard 1489 matters, consisting of 908 motions and 581 substantive appeals, delivering 268 judgments in that period.

ALSO READ: Chief Justice says NJC has no power to dismiss any judge

He said The log-jams are the result of a free-for-all appeals process, which has been given the imprimatur of our constitution. It was obvious that urgent action was required."

Revealing measures he took to reduce the stress on the Supreme Court, the outgoing CJN said This additional Panel was a first in the history of the court and has certainly had a significant impact on the case disposal rate of the court.

I will not take full credit for this success, as My Brother Justices rose to the challenge, but I recognise that this was a necessary response to the yearnings of all Nigerians for justice.

Justice Mohammed retired on Wednesday, November 9, 2016, after attaining the mandatory retirement age of 70 years.
The group reacted to Trumps victory via a statement released by spokesperson, Brigadier General Mudoch Agbinibo.

The statement reads:

Your hard fought victory against world establishments is hope for us, the over 30 million oppressed minorities of the Niger  Delta that have being continuously raped and economically colonized because of our God-given resources, over the last six decades, by the Nigerian state and Islamic fundamentalists in power.

Mr. President elect of the United States of America sir, we are hoping for a new perfect economic order and relations as it concerns the United States critical assets and interest in the Niger Delta.

Lead the world to a real change not the President Barack Obama change that manipulated a clueless puppet in General Muhammadu Buhari on the people of Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose has said that a Trump presidency will save Nigeria from hopelessness.
Lt.-Col. Olaolu Daudu, the spokesman of Joint Military Force in the Niger Delta confirmed the development to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Yenagoa.

Daudu said that the terms of the surrender were being worked out by Cross River Command of Department of State Security Services and Cross River government.

He said that the militant group had turned in one General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) and an AK 47 rifle as a show of good faith towards the peace deal.

Available information from Sector 4 in Cross River State indicates that Bakassi Strike Force (BSF) militants led by one Mr Benjamin Ene have expressed unreserved willingness to lay down their arms.

They have contacted the Department of State Service in Cross River State through the State Governments appointed rappoteur on amnesty to signify their readiness to hold talks on amnesty with the relevant authorities.

To buttress this demonstration of goodwill, BSF turned in one General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) and an AK 47 rifle.

The Department of State Service representatives and representatives of the rappoteur have since recovered the arms as talks are ongoing on modalities to surrender their remaining arms, Daudu said.

It will be recalled that the leader of the group, Mr Benjamin Ene, aka Humble Lion G1 had on Nov. 1 expressed the desire to surrender in a telephone interview with NAN in Yenagoa.

Ene said that the group was not out to vandalise national assets but for the well-being of his people who resided in Bakassi, now ceded to Cameroon.

The leader, who spoke from his camp in the creeks of southern Cross River, said that unlike other militant groups, it had no record of oil installation destruction or molestation of the citizens.

Daudu said that the Acting Commander the Joint Military Force deployed to the Niger Delta, Operation Delta Safe, Brig.-Gen Kevin Aligbe had applauded the move by the militant group to surrender and embrace peace.

Aligbe maintained that the military has zero tolerance for militancy and related crimes in the Joint Operations Area and urged other aggrieved groups to emulate the BSF by laying down their arms.

According Daudu, the Commander advised the other Niger Delta militants groups to embrace the reconciliatory channels open at both state and federal levels.

The spokesman also said that troops of Sector 3, following a tip off, on Wednesday swiftly reacted and swooped on suspected sea robbers around Kumfari Community near Idama in Rivers State.

During the encounter one suspected sea robber was killed, two were wounded and seven others apprehended while one locally made pistol and machete were recovered.
They also called on the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) evacuate the Niger Delta.

According to Daily Post, the President of NUPENG, Igwe Achese, told the Federal Government to engage ex-militants as security consultants to ensure the safety of crude oil pipelines in the region.

The militant group also vowed to attack NUPENG staff, adding that Achese insulted them with his comment.

The groups spokesman, Edmos Ayayeibo said We want all Nigerians to know how we will surprise the President of the Nigeria union of petroleum and Natural gas workers (NUPENG) Mr, Igwe Achese on how he want to cause crisis in the Niger Delta region.

By asking the Federal government of Nigeria to engage the service of a security outfit managed by some ex-militants in the Niger Delta for the security of crude oil facilities in region, his words is a slap to the the Niger Delta Agitators.

We shall let him know that the Niger Delta is not a place for him to set fire. Rather we will go after the lives of his workers and the so called oil installations in the region. This is a sound warning to all multinational oil companies operating in region to the region for their own interest for now, until matters are resolved in the region.

ALSO READ: Niger Delta Avengers congratulates Donald Trump

Failure to adhere to this warning we will go on rampage for the total destruction of workers and oil installations they will have their selves to be blamed.
Obasanjo also pledged to work with Trump to attain a fairer world.

The former Nigerian president made the comments via a letter dated November 9.

The letter reads:

I felicitate with you, your family and everybody in your campaign for winning the presidential elections to become the 45th President of the United States of America.

Let me assure you that most of us in Africa who believe in equitability in the global affairs will work with you for a fairer world and more so, those of us in Nigeria.

While congratulating you once again, please accept the assurances of my highest consideration.

President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier also congratulated Trump and promised to work with him to strengthen ties between the US and Nigeria.

ALSO READ:Donald Trump wins 2016 US presidential poll
The information is in a statement by Mr Femi Adesina, the Presidents Special Adviser on Media and Publicity in Abuja on Thursday.

Adesina said President Buhari made the commendation when he received outgoing Archbishop Augustine Kasujja, Apostolic Nuncio (Ambassador of the Holy See), at State House, Abuja, on Thursday.

Buhari acknowledged the efforts of the Pope for peace, especially in Syria, which he described as `inspiring and impressive.

He enjoined the outgoing ambassador to convey Nigerias gratitude to the Pope.

He said we thank the Vatican for supporting Nigerias efforts. You have spent over six years here. We hope you will keep in touch.

Archbishop Kasujja extolled what he called the courage of Nigerians, especially as exhibited by the unbowed heads of people in the North-east, despite the devastation visited on them by years of insurgency.

He said he had visited all parts of the country in his almost seven years stay.

He added that if you permit me, I will love to be an ambassador of Nigeria wherever I go.
For today, November 10 2016:

THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER

Obama, Trump, Clinton unite for peaceful power transfer

It was a vote for national interest yesterday as Democrat Hillary Clinton congratulated victorious Republican Donald Trump and pledged to work with the president-elect to lift the United States.

Senate steps down bills on grazing, cites constitutional limitations

The Senate yesterday stepped down three bills on the controversial issue of grazing in the country.

Global agency faults Nigerian doctors on malaria treatment

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) yesterday expressed dismay that Nigerian doctors were treating malaria without carrying out key tests.

THE VANGUARD NEWSPAPER

FG invites experts to fine-tune 3-year Economic Plan

Apparently alarmed at the state of the economy, the Federal Government has invited experts to make vital inputs into its Medium Term National Economic Plan.

How Trumps victoryll affect Nigeria  Experts

THE election of Mr. Donald Trump of the Republican Party as the 45th President of the United States of America, yesterday, provoked an avalanche of questions from local and foreign experts.

Avengers attack Forcados export pipeline

Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, Tuesday night, attacked the Forcados Export Pipeline in Delta State, the third onslaught on the facility by militants since Niger Delta leaders met with President Muhammadu Buhari on November 1, in Abuja.

THE NATION NEWSPAPER

Stop campaign of calumny against Tinubu

Associates of All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, have raised the alarm over plans by spin doctors to fabricate lies to portray him in bad light before the Presidency and top party leaders.

Trump shocks the world

Shock swept through the world yesterday after the unexpected election of Republican Donald Trump as United States 45th President.

Markets slump after Trump victory

United Kingdom (UK) and European markets were taking stock yesterday after sharp initial falls following Donald Trumps victory.

THE PUNCH NEWSPAPER

Makarfi faction wooing aggrieved APC chiefs for new party Sheriff

The crisis within the Peoples Democratic Party appears not to be abating as the faction under the leadership of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff has accused the Senator Ahmed Makarfi group of wooing aggrieved stalwarts of the All Progressives Congress to form a new political party.

Buhari to inaugurate Onnoghen as acting CJN today

President Muhammadu Buhari will on Thursday (today) inaugurate Justice Walter Onnoghen as the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, The PUNCH has learnt.

$2.1bn arms scam: EFCC arraigns Fani-Kayode today
A statement issued by Malam Imam Imam, Tambuwals spokesman, quoted the governor as making the remark at a two-day National Conference on the `Dynamics of Democratic Practice in Nigeria.

The statement was made available to newsmen on Thursday in Sokoto.

It said the conference was held at the Centre for Democratic Research and Training, Bayero University Kano.

The statement quoted Tambuwal as saying the APC places the interest of the common man above any other consideration.

He stressed the need for Nigerians to be carried along, consulted and their views incorporated in all decisions taken by the government.

The governor said that political power belonged to the people, adding that elected political office holders were mere caretakers of the estate whose true owners are the people.

He said it was right for the people to be kept abreast of government policies and programmes.

He urged the people to always demand explanations `for anything they do not understand from those in government

It is the right of citizens in a democracy to express their views and to make the leaders accountable.

There is no power like peoples`power and once the people unite behind a cause, there is no problem they cannot surmount the statement quoted the governor as saying.

He added that it was the support of the people that led to the victory of APC in the 2015 general elections.

He said the election of Donald Trump as America`s President-elect, was a clear evidence of democratic dynamism.

What we thought will be the outcome of Americas presidential election was not what we woke up to hear.

This has clearly shown to all the level of dynamism inherent in a democratic system of government, Tambuwal said.

ALSO READ:Sokoto Governor to ban street begging

The statement said Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, stressed the need to accord respect to the indices of genuine democracy.
According to Punch, the party also decried the high cost of foodstuff in the market, adding that the economy has nose dived.

The PDP North-East Chairman of the Ali Modu Sheriff faction, Emmanuel Njiwah also said Nigeria has become a nation of story under the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Njiwah added that Anybody with a plan for Nigeria cannot come into power and within the spate of a year, plunge the largest economy on the continent into recession.

They have actually devastated the economy of Nigeria but they kept blaming the PDP. But the fact remains that as of May 29, 2015, Nigeria was the largest economy in Africa and as of May 2016, we have become a nation of sorrow.

He also expressed shock that Buharis administration led Nigerias economy to a recession, just in the first year of its existence.

While assuring PDP members that the crisis rocking the party will be resolved, Njiwah said The PDP needs to come back. Is there anybody who is not suffering here? Those who voted them in and even we that didnt vote them are suffering too. Our markets are not different. Our filling stations are not different. We are buying from the same markets.

We want to buy a bag of rice for N7,000. We want to buy fuel at N87 per litre.
This is contained in a statement issued by the partys Chairman in the state, Chief Davies Ikanya, in Port Harcourt.

The News Agency of Nigeria [NAN] recalls that the police had on Saturday arrested some individuals allegedly involved in printing the fake result sheets, few days after the national electoral commission fixed Dec. 10 for legislative re-run elections in the state.

Gov. Wike was reported to have accused the police of plotting to cover-up the matter by transferring the case to its Zone 6 headquarters in Calabar, Cross Rivers, for investigation.

The APC described Wikes position as misleading.

APCs attention has been drawn to recent utterances by Gov. Nyesom Wike aimed at interfering with police investigation concerning arrest of persons allegedly involved in printing of sensitive INEC materials.

Particularly, the APC vehemently rejects attempts by Wike to dictate how the police will go about performing its duties.

The governors statement amounts to undue interference and unbridled attempts to force the hands of the police in the direction of the governors choosing  of which we condemn in its entirety.

We call on Wike, as an interested party, to desist from ongoing campaign to intimidate the Police; twist facts and mislead the public, it said.

The APC urged the governor to stop overheating the polity, especially as the state prepares for the re-run national and state legislative elections.
"The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into a extreme vetting. People are coming into our country like we have no idea who they are. Where they are from. What their feeling about our country is and she wants 550 percent more. This is going to be the great Trojan horse of all time. I believe in building safe zones ... We know nothing about their values and we know nothing about their love for our country," Trump said during the second presidential debate.
Oloyede made the statement on Wednesday, November 9, in Abuja during a visit from the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and Tertiary Education Fund, led by its Chairman, Senator Jibrin Barau, Punch reports.

ALSO READ: JAMB reveals plans for university candidates

According to the reports, the organisation blamed the inability to fill the quota on the Federal Government's insistence that institutions comply with uniformity of cut-off marks.

Punch reports that Oloyede said the adoption of 180 as the cut-off mark for admission into tertiary institutions has continued to frustrate candidates, who may be qualified but have lesser cut-off points.

Oloyede said that tertiary institutions should be allowed to decide on their cut-off points based on the number of candidates who applied to the institution for admission.

Oloyede said, Every year, we do not meet 70 per cent of the quota, contrary to what people think that there are more people than the existing places. We have in the last five years not filled 70 per cent of the quota. We need to ask a question: why? The simple answer is a mismatch.

I can say it without any doubt that it has never been obeyed. It is only obeyed on papers. When you talk about the practice of it, there are hundreds of people in our universities, polytechnics and colleges of education that have not gone through JAMB.

The reason is that we are setting standards that cannot be obeyed. They will now go through the back door and recruit people with 160, 150, 140 and some who did not take JAMB at all because you have made 180 the minimum.

I went to colleges of education in Kano and Jigawa; all the institutions, when I toured the place to have a first-hand information, they told me: look, we know you; you will say obey the rules. This is the rule, the rule cannot be obeyed.

Why? If you obey 180, 70 per cent of our Colleges of Education will be out of duty because they will have no student. What they do is that they recruit with 140, 130 and they just say let JAMB be doing what JAMB is doing.

Earlier, Oloyede lamented that inadequate funding is posing a threat to the conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.
Mr Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, Googles Communications and Public Affairs Manager, Anglophone West Africa, made the disclosure in a statement in Lagos, saying that the search was between Nov. 2 and Nov. 9.

Google search trend this week moved between the tension-filled U.S. elections to Linda Ikeji social, the newly launched social networking site of famous gossip blogger.

The awoof buying spree on Jumia online store along with some other exciting news also got peoples attention online, Kola-Ogunlade said.

Ikeji goes Social this week witnessed the announcement of the latest competition to Facebook in Nigeria, the Google manager said.

Top Nigerian blogger, Ikeji launched her new social network and hit 50, 000 sign-ups on the first day.

Linda, who runs a blog that is widely known as a top gossip site, says she plans to pay users to gain more followers on the site, he said.

According to Kola-Ogunlade, with a few hours remaining to the Nov. 8 elections, search for updates on the blood pumping US elections shot up on Google.

Internet users wanted to know things like the latest forecasts, what time winners would be announced, and even the newest gaffes from either of the two contestants, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Up until the day of elections, citizens wanted to know who was likely to become the US President, he said.

The Google manager said that folks went into frenzy search on Google when the Awoof buying on Jumia Black Friday sales dates was announced by the online retail giant Jumia Nigeria.

He said that they offered buyers amazing discounts on the Website for quality products ranging from electronics, beauty and more.

Jumia announced that this years Black Friday will start on Nov. 14 and end on the 25th and customers who spend 10,000 and above will win mouth-watering prizes, he said.

He said that to calm the rumour, which went around over the weekend on the demise of Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, the state government sent out a statement refuting the death.

He said that the Director General, Media and Publicity, Mr Kingsley Fanwo, disclosed that the governor was on a two-week break outside the country approved by the state House of Assembly.

He said that in some other reports, the governor was said to be in Germany for an eye surgery.

Several people went scampering for news on Kwara Poly all over the internet to know if indeed the polytechnic had increased its school fees," Kola-Ogunlade said.
Introduced through a series of themed panels and keynote presentations, this years ATS discussions will identify and explore the key players and innovations sweeping the continent.

Africa is fast becoming a destination for top technology companies and players. Global brands and personalities like Mark Zuckerberg and Y Combinator have visited and invested in the continent in recent months, and Lagos, in particular, is on its way to becoming an influential stage in the global tech space.

"Were especially excited to host ATS in a city and a country that we believe is really going to take off, says MEST founder Jorn Lyseggen.

Speakers include some of the biggest names in the tech and mobile space, including representatives from Google, Uber, Vodacom and Samsung, as well as a range of African entrepreneurs from leading companies Interswitch, Iroko, MainOne and much more.

MEST places a strong emphasis on curating the right crowd. ATS attracts an impressive list of attendees across from telcos, banks, multinational tech giants, entrepreneurs, investors and media.

"This years summit promises attendees the opportunity to drive forward new ideas and forge relationships with the some of the brightest minds in the field, says Katie Sarro, Managing Director of MEST.

New to this years program is a MEST Demo Day on December 7 where MESTs top portfolio companies will pitch in front of a range of investors.

ATS also coincides with MESTs recent launch of its Lagos Incubator, which currently has a portfolio of five startups sitting in Nigeria.

Im thrilled about the opportunity to highlight Nigerias vibrant tech scene as well as comparing and learning from others across the region.

"ATS is a great venue for bringing the different pockets of Sub-Saharan Africa together in one place, under one roof, for two days of exchanging ideas, says MEST Lagos Incubator General Manager Neku Atawodi.

This years panel topics include: comparing tech landscapes across regions, building the infrastructure to support Africa's ambitions, leaders in fintech, developments in agritech, corporate venture capitalism, investing in African tech, and finally a MEST Startup Demo Day.

Some of the speakers confirmed thus far include:

- Mitchell Elegbe, Founder & CEO, Interswitch

- Funke Opeke, Founder, MainOne

- Omobola Johnson, Chairperson, Global Alliance for Affordable Internet

- Jason Njoku, Founder, Spark & Founder & CEO, Iroko

- Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, Country Manager, Nigeria, Google

- Ebi Atawodi, General Manager, West Africa, Uber

- Wale Ayeni, Senior Investment Officer, IFC World Bank Group

- Sam Ajadi, Insights Manager - Ecosystem Accelerator, GSMA

- Tayo Oviosu, Founder & CEO, Pagatech

- Chika Nwobi, Partner, Rise Capital & Founder/CEO, Level 5 Lab
Defeating an apparently more-popular Hillary Clinton in the recent USA elections ensured that his name became well and truly known by those who (surprisingly) did not hear of him as the Billionaire.

Come January 2017, he will be sworn in as America's 45th President, and standing beside him as the new first Lady, will be Melania Trump, the former model that he married in 2005.

That wedding ceremony was as grand as grand weddings come, and here are 7 things that prove it.

12 Karat, $1.5M proposal ring

Yep! You read that absolutely right.

To Melania, who, by the way, is his third wife, he gave a 12 karat, emerald-cut Graff ring that was worth $1.5 million!

In case you did not know, Donald Trump could easily be the richest man that ever became Americas president, as portrayed by the astoundingly beautiful jewel he got to back up his proposal speech.

The brides dress covered Vogue magazine!

Even before the wedding proper, popular fashion magazine, Vogue, could just not wait to get Melanias bridal gown on the cover of their mag!

And that gown, ladies and gentlemen, cost more than $100,000.

It was a white satin Duchess gown from the House of Christian Dior, and had 300 feet of material, as well as being embellished with 1500 rhinestones and pearls.

The reception held in a $35M house!

After being joined at The Episcopal Church in Palm Beach, Florida, the couple and guests headed to Trumps luxurious Mar-a-Lago estates Versailles-like ballroom which is in one of his mansions.

Worth of the said house? A massive 35 million dollars!

The decor was just divine

The bride Melania Trump hired New York event designer, Preston Bailey and in her words, asked him to create a very classic, very white wedding.

Earn the Necklace reports that wedding chairs and tables were swathed in white lace and satin fabrics, and Bailey created five-foot tall floral centerpiece candelabras.

The event designer did such an impressive job that the Trumps hired him for and wedding, as well as wedding to Lara Yunaska.

The cake

It was a splendid seven-tier wonder that took the cake maker about 60 days to design!

Hillary and Bill Clinton were guests

From the way Hillary and Trump kept going at each other during the campaign, would you have thought it?

But she was there at that ceremony in 2005, Hillary Clinton, alongsideher husband and former USA president, Bill.

Other high-profile guests include Heidi Klum, P. Diddy, and Shaquille ONeal.
He said he hoped for "continuing support of the US... in Ukraine's fight against Russian aggression, for freedom, independence and restoration of sovereignty and territorial integrity," referring to the pro-Russian separatist regions in the east.

Nearly 10,000 people have been killed since the Ukraine conflict began in 2014, pitting pro-Russian rebels against government troops.

Some in Ukraine have expressed worry that Trump, who praised Russian President Vladimir Putin during the campaign, would sacrifice Ukraine to improve relations with Moscow.

Trump's campaign reportedly snubbed Poroshenko when the Ukrainian leader reached out to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this year, though he was able to meet with Clinton.

Trump has given muddled statements on Ukraine, calling it "a mess" and saying the people of Crimea have chosen to be with Russia, in an apparent reference to the controversial referendum that Moscow used to justify its annexation of the peninsula in 2014.
The suspects were arrested in two dozen raids, adding to 10 others already taken into custody over the course of the investigation, Security Minister Gustavo Mata said in a news conference alongside President Luis Guillermo Solis.

Since 2014, police have seized three tonnes of cocaine and $1.7 million from the organization, which smuggled drugs by land, sea and air from Ecuador and Colombia mainly to Mexico, he said.

Solis called the operation a "fundamental blow" to the gang, which he said owned a large number of properties, vehicles, boats and other assets.

In April a plane allegedly used by the ring crashed in northwestern Costa Rica with 250 kilograms of cocaine and $45,000 on board. The two occupants, both Mexicans, were killed.

Last week, police raided a farm belonging to the suspected members of the organization and found 432 kilograms of cocaine and $1.6 million dollars in cash.
The centrist Centre party, leftist Social Democrat SDE, and conservative IRL began formal coalition talks on Wednesday after embattled Prime Minister Taavi Roivas, leader of the centre-right Reform party, lost a confidence vote in parliament.

The trio that will command a comfortable 56-seat majority in Estonia's 101-seat parliament moved quickly to ensure stability as the country gears up to assume the EU's rotating presidency in the second half of 2017.

"We will adhere unconditionally to the current principles of security and foreign policy; our membership in NATO and the EU is the paramount guarantee for our security," the parties said in the joint statement confirming their cooperation.

They also vowed to spend the NATO recommended amount of at least 2.0 percent of GDP on defence, a point that US president-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign he would press with NATO allies.

"Our parties are responsible for establishing a government which has to put an end to the economic stagnation in Estonia, guard our security, increase social well-being and boost up population numbers," they added.

President Kersti Kaljulaid must designate a prime minister within two weeks, after which the new leader will face a confidence vote.

Centre party leader Juri Ratas, 38, is tipped for the job.

The respected deputy speaker of parliament became the party's new leader last weekend replacing Edgar Savisaar, 66, whose perceived ties to Russia had scared off potential coalition partners amid heightened tensions with Moscow.

Cooperation 'frozen'

Ratas has been at pains to stress that a memorandum of understanding signed by Savissar with Russian President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party "never set off cooperation between the two parties."

"Since relations with Russia are very difficult and complex, the protocol has been frozen for many years," Ratas told AFP via email, adding that his party supports the EU sanctions on Russia triggered by its 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

Analysts in Tallinn however suggest that tearing up the memorandum would risk alienating the Centre Party's ethnic Russian supporters.

The new coalition's other priorities include measures to boost economic and population growth in order to avert a demographic crisis.

Their joint statement called for "serious measures to improve the business and economic environment in order to put an end to economic stagnation," and also said that measures designed to raise the birth rate were a top priority.

Long a paragon of fiscal responsibility in the EU, which it joined in 2004, Estonia posted 1.2 percent economic growth in 2015, with a 1.8 percent expansion expected this year, according to OECD estimates. Joblessness hovers around seven percent.

Deep reforms and years of painful austerity paved the way to Estonia's 2011 eurozone entry.

Roivas's three-party government collapsed on Monday after his SDE and IRL junior coalition partners demanded he resign as prime minister over poor leadership on the economy, while also accusing him of seeking a backroom political alliance with the popular Ratas.
According to military officials and former pilots on Thursday, the call has largely gone unanswered, as the deep divisions exposed by the coup attempt in Turkeys military and other institutions remain unhealed.

Only one said he would re-register to help replace dismissed colleagues whom the government blames for being part of a network that planned the failed July 15 coup.

Air force pilots played a major role in the abortive putsch, commandeering jets and helicopters that bombed parliament and threatened the aircraft of President Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkish media have reported that only a tiny proportion of the several hundred pilots who left the force between 2010 and 2015 and would be eligible to return have actually re-registered.

The numbers are below expectations, a military source who is not authorised to speak publicly, said.

The depletion in air-force resources comes at a delicate time for Turkey, the second-most militarised member of NATO.

Ankara is pursuing military incursions against Islamic State in Syria and battling Kurdish PKK militants in Turkey and northern Iraq.

The former air force pilots said they felt betrayed by a military which had failed to protect them from followers within the ranks of Fethullah Gulen.
Severe lack of rain across southern Africa has hit the country hard, with government officials saying a quarter of the population faces starvation. Many villagers are forced to survive on wild fruit.

Maize, the country's traditional staple crop, has suffered a series of poor harvests.

It may not help the immediate crisis, but science is providing a glimmer of hope for smallholder maize farmers in Zimbabwe.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center -- known by its Spanish acronym CIMMYT -- is conducting trials in Zaka on hybrid maize seeds adapted to tackle drought and high temperatures.

The seeds are developed to survive dry conditions with 60 percent less water than normal and in temperatures of up to 35 degrees C (95 degrees F), according to CIMMYT researchers.

"If we get these new maize seed varieties that will help us a lot," said Ceaser Chavizha, a small smallholder in Zaka, located in Masvingo province, south of the capital Harare.

'Improve yields'

Like many farmers in the region who rely on maize produce, Chavizha has been forced to survive on food handouts as his crops have been reduced to dried husks.

"We cannot continue with handouts as we have fields that we can work on to produce food for our own, so we hope the new maize seeds will help us improve our yields," he told AFP.

Maize meal crops are ground and turned into mealie meal, used to make porridge and other food, but the El Nino-induced drought has wrecked arable fields, grazing pastures and water sources.

The drought scourge is high on the agenda at UN COP22 climate talks in Morocco, where world leaders and experts are discussing how to implement the landmark Paris Agreement that was signed last year.

The pact aims to cap global warming at below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F), compared with pre-industrial levels.

A country in need

Once referred to as the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe used to be an exporter of maize, but now aid organisations say the country requires about two million metric tonnes a year to feed itself.

Cosmos Magorokosho, a senior scientist and maize breeder at CIMMYT, said the ultimate goal of hybrids was to help farmers develop long-term sustainable agriculture.

"Basically it means transferring genes from one plant to another type so that you create a new type that has the characteristics that you want," he said.

He said CIMMYT had received $500,000 funding from USAID to develop the new maize variety for drought-prone areas in east, central and southern Africa.

Magorokosho stressed that more funds were needed to extend the project, and criticised the Zimbabwe government's delay in adopting new maize hybrids.

"There is a layer of testing that is required by the authorities which is a little bit long... we would wish it is shortened so that the varieties can get quickly to the farmers," Magorokosho said.

CIMMYT, a non-profit research project headquartered in Mexico, is also working on a vitamin A-rich maize variety which is already in production in other parts of Africa and Latin America.

This year, Zimbabwe's cash-strapped government declared a "state of disaster" in most rural areas, with at least 2.4 million people in urgent need of food aid.

jpegMpeg4-1280x720Sekai Makonese, another small-scale farmer in Zaka, welcomed the potential impact of scientific intervention, saying she was counting on hybrids becoming widespread as soon as possible.

"Long ago, we used to farm maize with no problems but now we have a problem with climate change and now our crops fail before we harvest," she said.
Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei was chosen as the new head of the global police organisation at its annual general assembly on the Indonesian island of Bali, France-headquartered Interpol announced.

He is the first Chinese official to hold the post, China's official Xinhua news agency said, and takes over from Frenchwoman Mireille Ballestrazzi.

While it could provide a boost to China's campaign to hunt alleged economic criminals abroad as part of a much-publicised anti-graft drive, rights groups raised concerns that Beijing's intentions may be more sinister.

"It's worrying in the sense that for a long time, China has been using... Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad," William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, told AFP.

"We have looked at cases in the past where it seems that China has abused Interpol's system to target particularly Uighur dissidents who, as far as we know, have committed no crime under international standards.

"That?s a worrying precedent that might be used towards people from other walks of life."

The mostly Muslim Uighur minority in the Chinese region of Xinjiang have long complained of religious and cultural repression. Many have fled the northwestern region in recent years, often heading to Central or Southeast Asia.

Targeting fugitives abroad

China has been seeking international help for its secretive campaign to track down alleged white-collar criminals abroad, including corrupt officials. Known as "Operation Fox Hunt", it has netted large numbers of fugitives.

However the drive has also proved controversial in some countries that say Chinese law enforcement agents have been operating covertly on their soil without the approval or consent of local authorities.

But he expressed concerns that the drive was being carried out through the Communist Party's feared internal watchdog, and with the use of its own investigative system that operates without judicial oversight.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang congratulated Meng on his appointment, noting China enjoyed "close communication and cooperation with Interpol and its member states.

"We attach high importance to the role played by Interpol, and would like to shoulder more responsibility and contribute more in the field of law enforcement and security."

After taking power in 2012, Xi launched a massive anti-corruption drive that has led to the punishment of over a million officials, although it has raised questions about whether the president is a reformer or is carrying out a ruthless political purge.
A statement issued on Thursday by the presidents office in Seoul said Trump made the declaration during a telephone conversation with South Korean President, Park Hye.

The United States will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with the ROK to protect against the instability in North Korea.

We are with you all the way and we will not waver, Trump said.

Hye stressed that North Koreas nuclear programme was the biggest threat currently facing South Korea and the U.S.
The fear is that Trump embodies an isolationist tradition -- "avoid entangling alliances" -- which will add to uncertainties as Europe faces challenges new and old from the east, the Middle East and North Africa.

"A Trump administration will increase US isolationist tendencies, which is a further blow to (its global) leadership role," said Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive at the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

The United States set up NATO to protect post-war Europe from the Soviet Union and its "all for one, one for all" collective defence guarantee has stood the test of time.

But for many years Washington, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of combined NATO defence spending, has demanded that its 27 allies do more to share the burden.

Trump's harking on this issue during the campaign caused such fears in the Baltic states and former Soviet-ruled eastern European NATO members that US Vice President Joe Biden was sent on a reassurance mission.

"Don't listen to that other fellow -- he knows not of what he speaks. America will never fail to defend our allies," Biden told them.

Now that "other fellow" is set to be the 45th President of the United States of America.

NATO in shock

The shock in Europe Wednesday was palpable.

In an unusual series of public statements shortly after Trump's victory was confirmed, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg stressed the continued importance of US global leadership.

"Our alliance has brought together America's closest friends in times of peace and of conflict for almost 70 years. A strong NATO is good for the United States and good for Europe," he said.

Poland's President Andrzej Duda urged Trump to stick by commitments to boost NATO's presence on its eastern flank to ensure allies would not be left in the lurch if Russia attempted another Ukraine-style adventure.

"We sincerely hope that your leadership will open new opportunities for our cooperation based on mutual commitment," Duda said.

The Polish deployment is led by a US battalion and so is especially emblematic.

European Council head Donald Tusk, a former Polish premier, weighed in with a plea that the European Union -- of whose 28 members 22 also belong to NATO -- and the United States work together in defence of shared values.

"I do not believe that any country today can be great in isolation," he added, alluding to Trump's campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."

EU defence opportunity?

For some analysts, the fear factor may be overdone -- foreign policy was not a major issue in the election, Trump's focus is domestic and it is much too early to say what he will actually do as president.

Ian Lesser, senior director with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels, said the new president "is not so much an isolationist as a rigourous unilateralist ... who may demand a great deal from the allies."

"For him, foreign policy starts with homeland security and works out from there," Lesser said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin cited those promises when congratulating Trump, insisting: "Russia is ready and wants to restore fully-fledged relations with the US."

Where that would leave Europe, and especially NATO's eastern allies, is a major uncertainty.

But it is perhaps also an opportunity, in the same way that Britain's shock vote to quit the EU has cleared the way for France and Germany to press the sort of increased military cooperation London has resisted for years.
"To the degree that Mr Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him," added Sanders, the left-leaning independent who called for a political revolution during his surprisingly strong but ultimately failed populist primary challenge to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Like Sanders -- who denounced what he called the corrupt influence of the country's wealthy elites on politics, and advocated free public college education and universal health care -- Trump honed a populist appeal to Americans who feel left behind by economic globalization and mounting inequity.

Unlike Sanders, however, Trump proposes slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and has said that schemes to avoid paying millions of dollars in personal income tax proves he is "smart."

After his primary loss, Sanders called on his supporters to rally behind Clinton, campaigning against Trump, whom he called a "danger" and a "demagogue."

The other main voice of left-wing Democrats, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren -- who waged a bitter personal war of words against Trump during the campaign -- said Wednesday that she is "intensely frustrated" by his victory.

However, she also offered the Republican an olive branch.
Beyond a few broad isolationist and protectionist strokes, President-elect Donald Trump has not painted a detailed picture of his foreign policy.

Now, with just ten weeks until he takes command of the world's sole superpower, Washington's friends and foes are seeking clues to his agenda.

And if it seems vague, perhaps that's intentional. In speech after campaign speech, Trump insisted on the virtue of "the element of surprise."

In January, Trump was asked whether as president he would bomb Iran's nuclear sites instead of relying on a negotiated deal to keep them mothballed.

"I want to be unpredictable," Trump protesting, insisting that US voters' would support -- as they eventually did -- his shoot-from-the-hip style.

In the closing stages of his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly mocked the ongoing US-backed Iraqi campaign to liberate the city of Mosul.

Why had President Barack Obama's generals flagged up the siege four months in advance, giving the Islamic State group warning on the assault?

"What a group of losers we have," he said on Saturday, as Iraqi and Kurdish forces backed by US advisers and air power closed in on the city.

"We need different thinking in this country, folks. They should have kept their mouths shut."

Generals might argue that building a coalition while preparing supply lines and refugee reception areas could not have been carried out in the dark.

Hardline rhetoric

But Trump is adamant -- citing his experience negotiating property deals and luxury branding -- that being unpredictable can be a plus.

"He doesn't have a foreign policy track-record to explore," wrote former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden wrote for online journal The Cipher Brief.

"So that leaves pretty much the campaign rhetoric to rely on. And campaign rhetoric historically gets softened by the realities of office."

Trump's rhetoric is certainly aggressive.

This time last year, his prescription for the Islamic States was simple: "I would bomb the shit out of them. I'd just bomb those suckers."

But he is not a neoconservative, with grand plans to remake the world in America's image through military adventurism and coercive diplomacy.

Despite evidence that he supported it at the time, Trump insists that former president George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake.

He has touted a form of great power politics, "making deals" with US rivals to unite against threats like "radical Islamic extremism."

"Wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with Russia and China and all these countries?" Trump said in January. "Wouldn't it be nice?"

Allies like Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and European NATO members will have to pay their way, however, Trump has no time for free riders.

Climate 'hoax'

jpegMpeg4-1280x720Trump's presidency will apparently be much more skeptical of free trade, believing export powers like China are stealing American jobs and capital.

He has threatened to tear up existing deals like the North American Free Trade Area, forcing Mexico to pay export tariffs to pay for his border wall.

He would drive a hard bargain in talks on trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific trade deals, and take China to task for alleged currency manipulation.

Trump has also made noises about reauthorizing US agents to use torture that have spread concern among allies and intelligence leaders themselves.

Last year, the United States and around 180 countries signed a landmark deal to slow climate change -- an idea Trump has dubbed "a hoax."

Iran has expressed concern that he would would try to make good on a threat to rip up the nuclear agreement it signed last year with six world powers.

jpegMpeg4-1280x720And Syrian refugees may no longer find safe haven in the United States, Trump having deemed them too great a risk of extremist violence.

In short, almost all of Nobel peace laureate Obama's foreign policy legacy is at risk, even his successful effort to normalize ties with communist Cuba.

But, once in the White House and advised by the National Security Council, State Department and US Trade Representative will Trump follow through?
In New York, thousands of protesters filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, Trump's gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted "Not my president."

Protesters threw objects at police in riot gear and smashed windows at a CVS drug store in Oakland, California. Police responded by throwing chemical irritants at the protesters, according to a Reuters witness.

In downtown Chicago, an estimated 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA."

Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators' path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there.

"I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."

In Seattle, police responded to a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of anti-Trump protests. Police said the shooting was unrelated to the demonstrations.

Protesters railed against Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally.

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston and Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday evening, and organizers planned rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland, California.

In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said.

A representative of the Trump campaign did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the protests. Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans, saying: "It is time for us to come together as one united people."

Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that "Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form."

"DREAMERS" FEAR DEPORTATION

Earlier on Wednesday, some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, in a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other Bay Area cities - Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito.
Joni Ernst isn't messing around.

The U.S. senator from Iowa, herself a veteran, penned a sharply worded letter to the VA on Thursday, demanding an update in the investigation into events leading up to the death of Brandon Ketchum.

Brandon, a 33-year-old combat veteran from Davenport, took his own life on July 8, the day after he asked to be admitted to a psychiatric unit at the Iowa City VA and was turned away.

A PTSD sufferer, Brandon's medical records from the VA, obtained by the Quad-City Times through an open records request, confirmed what he wrote on Facebook the morning he died: He was told there was no room for him.

"As you know, I wrote to you in July of this year, requesting that this issue be addressed immediately," Ernst wrote in her letter to VA Inspector General Michael J. Missal. "Since writing you with my initial request for a thorough investigation, I have also joined with other Senators who are demanding answers. I continue to be dismayed that Mr. Ketchums request to be admitted for inpatient services was not taken seriously, and believe that his death was an unnecessary casualty of a VA system that still allows our veterans seeking help to slip through the cracks."

She then noted that 118 days have passed since she and other lawmakers asked for the investigation.

"We simply cannot continue to operate with a business as usual attitude when 20 of our brave service men and women are committing suicide every single day," Ernst continued. "Therefore, I again write to you requesting an update and prompt response regarding the investigation of the Iowa City VA Medical Centers apparent failure or refusal to properly treat Mr. Ketchum.

"While the VA has informally updated my staff that the case is progressing, we have received no official timeline or expectation of a report. Again, I want to reiterate that in addition to the results of your thorough investigation, I expect a written response from your office detailing concrete steps that will be taken to prevent tragedies such as Mr. Ketchums from ever happening again.

"I speak for all Iowans when I say that our veterans deserve better."

Go, Joni!

According to the notes from Brandon's July 7 appointment in Iowa City with Dr. Anthony Miller, "(Brandon) wants to know if he can go to 9W (psychiatric unit) ..." And, "(Brandon) States that he can't do it outpatient."

Brandon also said he expected to go into withdrawal that afternoon if he did not use heroin, which he started abusing after getting hooked on pain pills.

Early the next morning, shortly after 2 a.m., he posted his frustration on Facebook, asking, "Why even try anymore?"

In addition to acknowledging to VA staff his increasing struggle with PTSD-related depression, Brandon called the VA's crisis line repeatedly.

None of it was enough.
It's always a long, painful wait.

The tediousness of election night is one reason those of us in news are plied with free pizza. It tames the savage beast.

By midnight Tuesday, some of us needed more taming. (And the pizza no longer was up to it).

In Iowa, the polls closed at 9 p.m.

An hour and 20 minutes later, at 10:20 p.m., Scott County Auditor Roxanna Moritz "delivered" her election.

"My goal was actually 10:15," she said Wednesday. "I delivered the election at 10:30 last time, so I was trying to improve upon my record."

Most excellent. But where were the Rock Island County results?

County Clerk Karen Kinney, the Illinois-side equivalent to Moritz, had a two-hour head start. Her team's polls closed at 7 p.m. But there we sat at 11:30 p.m., waiting for Rock Island County's final numbers.

I hopped in the car and over the bridge and found an unlocked door at the County Building in Rock Island. At midnight on election night, I found a dozen people, gathered in a back office on the second floor  hand-feeding ballots into a tabulator.

I was eager, of course, to see who won: Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter.

You'll pardon the sarcasm, but it now was five hours after the polls closed in the Year of our Lord, 2016, and we were without county election results.

A bleary-eyed Kinney pressed past the group that was staring down the tabulator and tried to smile.

"Moline (precincts) one, two and six had a memory card die," she said.

I offered my sympathy. I didn't know the memory card had been ill.

"We have to get everything to balance," she continued. "That's what's taking so long."

Well, it was one thing that was taking so long. When election judges at United Township High School in East Moline realized the battery was dead in one of their memory cards, a courier was sent to collect it. But he failed to bring the ballots back to the County Building, which Kinney needed in order to get an accurate count.

So, another trip back and forth from downtown Rock Island to East Moline ate up another hour.

Human error and technical error make belated bedfellows  even when you think you've got it all covered.

"We test the memory cards," Kinney assured. "We test everything. It's not like we just plop things in and hope they work. The cards were pretty new. We used them for the first time in the primary, and you should get a few elections out of them.

"We did everything we're supposed to do. The integrity of the vote was not compromised. That's what we think is important."

And Moritz gets it. No one could sympathize with Kinney more on Wednesday than Moritz.

"On Election Day, you start at 4 a.m. or 4:30," she said. "And this is after a couple weeks of 12-hour days. By the end of election night, you've had it."

Plus, she can relate to the particular snag that delayed Rock Island County this time around.

"We were having a lot of memory-card failures about four years ago," Moritz said. "I found a company in Canada that makes a different kind, and I was able to get $30,000 budgeted for them. I figured they would buy us five years before we have to make any more investments, and I think they're doing well."

Many counties are experiencing the same set of troubles. Much of the whole country's election equipment was paid for a dozen years ago with federal grants (Help America Vote Act) that were set aside specifically to upgrade the systems. It would appear we are ready for another upgrade.

The likes of Kinney and Moritz have enough to navigate through the election without worrying whether a memory card battery is going to lose its juice in the 11th hour.

For example, in Kinney's case, she had to convince a woman that a polling place is not the proper place to peddle popcorn for her son's Boy Scout troop.

"Next thing you know, the Girl Scouts will want to sell their cookies, and the ladies from church will want to sell their quilts," she said Wednesday, exasperated. "It's not a flea market."

Of course not. They keep better hours.
Trivia Night in LeClaire

Test your trivia skills to benefit the LeClaire Christman decoration fund at 7 p.m. Nov. 19 at the LeClaire Civic Center 127 S. Cody Road. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets cost $10 each for a table of 8. Mulligans and refreshments will be available for purchase. Participants may bring snacks, wine, beer and soft drinks, and there will be door prizes and a 50-50 raffle. To reserve, call 563-349-4403 or email smith5grand@gmail.com.

Mother/Son Fun Night

The Friends of the Bettendorf Park Foundation will host a Mother/Son Fun Night at the Life Fitness Center from 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Nov. 20. Moms and sons will have a night out full of games and activities while raising funds for The Friends of Bettendorf Parks Foundation.

Tickets cost $30 for mom and one son and $5 for additional sons. Register at bettendorf.org/register.

Annual Holiday Open House

The Bettendorf Discovery Shop in Cumberland Square will host its Annual Holiday Open House from noon-4 p.m., Nov. 20.

The Discovery Shop is an upscale resale shop operated with the help of more than 70 volunteers, with proceeds supporting American Cancer Society.

The event is an opportunity to browse a selection of holiday clothing, Department 56 village pieces, ornaments, holiday dishes, collectibles and more. For more information, visit facebook.com/QCdiscoveryshop.

Bettendorf seniors invited to play cards

Bettendorf seniors age 50 or older are invited to meet Tuesday and Thursday at 12:30 p.m. at the Herbert Goettsch Community Center, 2204 Grant St., to play 500 or pinochle. A potluck will be held every second Tuesday of the month at noon. Birthday celebrations are held every third Tuesday after the card games.

Annual membership dues are $12. For more information, call 563-344-4112.

Meals for Seniors at church

Meals for Seniors at the First Presbyterian Church, 200 S. 12th St., LeClaire, serves as a Meals for Seniors site every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at noon. Reservations are required two days in advance by calling 563-289-3646.

Churches United receives grant

Churches United of the Quad City Area has received $2,500 from The Theisens More For Your Community Grant Program to support Winnies Place. For 10 years, the emergency shelter has served women (with or without children) who are homeless and/or victims of domestic violence in the Quad City area. Churches United has a 55-year history of reaching out to the community via its 136 member churches representing 50,000 people from the Quad City area. Along with Winnies Place, Churches United also operates 25 food pantries and three hot meal sites. For more information, call 563-332-5002, or visit CUQCA.org.

Nominations sought for Iowa Volunteer Hall of Fame

Volunteer Iowa is seeking nominations for its 2017 Iowa Volunteer Hall of Fame and Excellence in Mentoring Awards. Induction into the Iowa Volunteer Hall of Fame is the highest state-level honor volunteers can receive; the people selected have changed the community, the state, the nation, or the world through the gifts of their time and talent.

The Excellence in Mentoring Award is the most prestigious honor a youth mentor in Iowa can receive. The people honored exemplify both the spirit and positive benefits of mentoring.

Any Iowa individual, national service member (current or alum), family, group, organization, nonprofit, business, or corporation, who has made a long-lasting positive and meaningful difference in the lives of people through their volunteer service activities may be nominated for the Iowa Volunteer Hall of Fame.

Mentoring programs  currently certified by the Iowa Mentoring Partnership  may nominate a mentor who has been mentoring for at least two years for the Excellence in Mentoring Award. Qualified nominees possess a compelling mentoring story that illustrates how positive experiences alter the life of a young person for the better.

Nominations must be submitted online or postmarked by January 16; honorees will be recognized during National Volunteer Week next April. For more information, call 800-308-5987, email icvs@iowa.gov or visit volunteeriowa.org.

Scholarships

Iowa Arts Council

Iowa high school students who will attend an Iowa college or university next fall with a major in an arts discipline may apply for the Iowa Arts Councils 2016-2017 Iowa Scholarship for the Arts by Feb. 1.

Students must be full-time undergraduates at fully accredited Iowa colleges or universities and pursue majors in dance, literature, music, theater, traditional arts or visual arts. This years recipients will each receive $1,500 toward their 2017-2018 academic year expenses.

Applications are available at iowaartscouncil.slideroom.com, and students must write an essay about their artistic vision and the role of art in their lives, and provide work samples and one letter of recommendation from a teacher or professional. For more information, contact Veronica OHern at veronica.ohern@iowa.gov.

Ascentra Credit Union

Ascentra Credit Union will award 10 scholarships totaling $10,000 to credit union members planning to further their education in the 2017-2018 school year. Five $1,000 scholarships will be given to high school students planning to enter college and five $1,000 scholarships will be awarded to members age 19 or older who are considered non-traditional or continuing education students.

Applications are available at branches or at ascentra.org/scholarships. The application includes a 500-word essay on the topic, How do credit unions distinguish themselves from other financial institutions?

Entries will be judged on the essay, student resume, awards, extracurricular activities, volunteer services and work experience. The deadline is March 1.

Iowa Financial Know-How Challenge: Senior Scholarship

Iowa high school seniors can apply for $2,000 scholarships for learning important financial literacy skills. In addition, each recipients high school will receive a corresponding $500 award to be used toward scholarship and financial literacy programs.

The students must complete two online financial literacy tutorials and the 30 who score highest on a related assessment will be awarded the scholarships. Registered students also will receive emails highlighting financial literacy tips, such as the importance of early career and college planning and ways to reduce student loan indebtedness.

Rebecca Fuhrmeister, a 2016 Pleasant Valley High School graduate and recipient of a 20152016 Senior Scholarship, said, This process was very eye-opening. I had always heard about how we need to borrow responsibly in college ... and I never knew how much was too much to borrow.

The scholarship is open to legal U.S. citizens who are permanent residents of Iowa; are seniors at an Iowa high school during the 20162017 school year; and attend college in fall 2017. For more information, visit IowaStudentLoan.org/SeniorScholarship.

Quad-City Engineering and Science Council scholarship

The Quad City Engineering and Science Council with its member societies, local businesses, and regional universities annual provide one-time scholarships to high school seniors studying science, technology, engineering or mathematics at an accredited four-year college or university. Applicants must be a Quad-City area resident in the Illinois Counties of Carroll, Henry, Knox, Lee, Mercer, Rock Island or Whiteside, or in the Iowa Counties of Clinton, Scott, Muscatine or Louisa.

For more information, visit qcesc.org/qcesc_students.html#Scholarships.
Iowas influenza season typically starts in November and peaks in January or February. The Iowa Department of Public Health urges residents to get their annual flu vaccination now if they have not already done so. Since it takes up to two weeks after vaccination for the body to develop full protection against the flu virus, being vaccinated now means youll be protected before the flu starts spreading and for the rest of the flu season, said Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, IDPH medical director.

Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports out of the 150 flu viruses collected by U.S. laboratories, 92 percent were shown to match one of the four strains included in this years seasonal influenza vaccine.

What that means for Iowans is that if you get a flu shot this year, youll be protected from almost all of the flu strains going around this season, said Quinlisk.

IPH recommends every Iowan over 6 months of age should receive the flu vaccine, especially if they are in a group with a higher risk of developing serious complications, like pneumonia, if they get sick with the flu. These groups include:

 Pregnant women

 Children, especially those younger than 2 years of age

 Older adults, especially those ages 65 years or older

 People who have certain medical conditions like asthma, diabetes and chronic lung disease

The flu is a respiratory illness caused by viruses. Illness typically lasts two to seven days. The flu comes on suddenly and may cause severe illness or even death, even in healthy individuals. The stomach bug, which causes diarrhea and vomiting, is not caused by the influenza virus but usually by a different virus, norovirus; thus, the flu vaccine will not protect you against this illness.

For more information about Iowa influenza tracking and monitoring, visit idph.iowa.gov/influenza/reports.
A Davenport man pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court, Davenport, to robbing two banks in April.

Shawn E. Lee, 38, pleaded guilty to two counts of bank robbery, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. He will be sentenced March 9.

Court documents say Lee robbed Northwest Bank & Trust, 1454 W. Locust St., on April 25 and US Bank, 3624 N. Division St., on April 27.

In both robberies, Lee handed the teller a note and demanded money, prosecutors claim.

Lee was arrested the same day as the US Bank robbery.

State charges were dismissed when federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint on June 1.
When Clinton High School students brought in almost 230 pounds of candy for the U.S. military, Army veteran Andrew Carbajal was so happy and pleased, he almost was in tears.

Carbajal, a Clinton teacher as well as veteran, led the candy drive between high school classes in partnership with the school's librarian, Emma Folland.

When the tally was made last week, the freshman class beat out the sophomores, juniors and seniors.

The candy, Carbajal said, will be sent to help, emotionally, enlisted men and women.

"It helps lift their spirits," he said. "Candy might be bad for you, but when you are over there, times get rough and you need a positive boost to maybe stay up a little longer to get yourself through the night."

Carbajal is a 2005 graduate of Camanche High School who enlisted in the Army out of Fort Drum, N.Y. He served in Iraq.

He now teaches in the Castle program, which is an inclusive classroom for students with communication disorders, Asperger's syndrome and those on the autism spectrum.

He also is Clinton's head tennis coach.

Carbajal said his goal was to come up with a project to help the military in a collaborative manner.

There were four drop-off points in the competition, and the two organizers used school announcements, Twitter and Facebook to send out information. In the end, here's what was collected:

 Ninth grade: 176.5 pounds.

 Tenth grade: 41.16 pounds.

 Eleventh grade: 57.04 pounds.

 Twelfth grade: 53.51 pounds.

The total was 328.21 pounds, and Carbajal said the next step is to divide the candy into what is chocolate and what is not. Then it will be shipped to Operation Gratitude, to be shipped to the troops.

"I'm happy to be back in one piece," he said of his military service, and the project helped give the students an idea of how it is in the active military.

In addition to winning, he said the freshmen received a trophy that was built and designed like a Big Ten trophy.

The effort was appreciated by the building principal, J.R. Kuch.

"The Treats for Troops drive was a wonderful way to help honor our troops and hopefully bring a smile to their faces," Kuch said.
Active members of the U.S. Army arrived at All Saints Catholic School in Davenport and conquered the hearts of students during a Veterans Day celebration.

The enlisted personnel, as well as veterans of all branches of the nation's military, were honored Thursday with a lunch, live music from the school's band and choir and a special patriotic program.

Visiting Adam Tucker's fifth-grade class were Command Sgt. Maj. Myris Dixon and Command Sgt. Maj. Anthony Bryant, who were joined by 1st Sgt. Joseph Wertz. All three are part of the Army Sustainment Command at the Rock Island Arsenal.

The trio was peppered with questions by the students, who were impressed with the formal uniforms they wore.

Bryant has been in the Army for 30 years and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dixon enlisted out of high school and served in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ty Harmsen, 11, wondered how long it took to put on the uniforms, and the soldiers agreed, "not long." The hardest thing to do is to lace up the special boots they wear.

The soldiers' training regime was on the mind of Evan Boldt, 11. Bryant now has more of an office job, but he said he used to get up early in the morning, run four to five miles and practice shooting his gun.

The soldiers stumped the class when they asked why Thursday, Nov. 10, was a special day; Dixon finally disclosed it was the 241st birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps, and the Rock Island Arsenal will host a ball to celebrate it.

When the students wondered about the weapons they used, Bryant listed the 9mm pistol, M4 carbine rifle and a machine gun, while Dixon was most familiar with a M-16 rifle.

She suggested a field trip to the Arsenal Island as the Army weapons are a featured exhibit in the military museum there.

The trio from the Army told the students how they came to enlist. Each of them were from challenging backgrounds in low-income households.

"But I did do good in school," Wertz said. He entered the Army and went on to become a U.S. Army Ranger.

"Never quit," he said. "Just keep moving up in life."

"If you get a chance, take it," Bryant said.

"Be courageous," Dixon said.

Elijah King, 11, introduced Anthony Brodnax of Davenport, who is a U.S. Navy veteran. Brodnax had fabricated parts for engines of a ship, the USS La Salle, which was based in Bahrain.

He entered the Navy because he wanted to avoid bad choices he saw while growing up.

"I wanted to learn to live the right way," he said.

Brodnax used his Navy wages and benefits to pay for Black Hawk College, where he earned a degree. He ended up working at the Rock Island Arsenal for $26 an hour.

Brodnax was the first in his family to graduate high school and college and to find a good-paying job.

"If you have a chance to be first at something, go ahead and be the first," he told the class.
The Rock Island Arsenal Museum Gift Shop will have a going-out-of-business sale beginning Friday and will close around the end of the month because declining sales have made it no longer profitable, its owner said.

Meanwhile, Dan Carlson, public affairs officer for the Army Sustainment Command, said there should be some news "in the coming weeks" concerning the future of the museum itself.

The gift shop is operated independently from the government by Lawrence Ventures Inc., a private company owned by Terry and Tom Lawrence, who have had the contract for the past 17 years. The gift shop has been in existence for 35 years, Terry Lawrence, of Moline, said.

Increased security measures on Arsenal Island and reduced hours for the museum caused a reduction in visitors to the museum and corresponding declining sales, he said.

A portion of the company's proceeds went to the Rock Island Arsenal Historical Society, whose members are hoping to get some kind of a replacement, as a gift shop is a nice amenity that the public expects at a museum, Jim Jochum, society president, said.

"It rounds out the experience," Jochum said of a gift shop. "People like a souvenir or memento."

Items sold in the gift shop include T-shirts, sweatshirts, coffee mugs, key chains, decals and magnets with the Rock Island Arsenal insignia. Civil War-related items, books, postcards, military caps, toys and items with a patriotic theme also are sold.

Hours at the gift shop are the same as those of the museum, noon to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.

As for the museum itself, its future has been in doubt since early this year when hours and staff were cut and word spread that about 25 percent of the museum's collection of 13,000 artifacts had been shipped to an Army museum support facility in Anniston, Alabama.

The overall question arises from a decision to put all 57 Army museums under the direction of the Center of Military History, headquartered in Washington, D.C., for more efficiency and for centralized funding and personnel.

Charles Bowery Jr., executive director of the center, visited the arsenal for a public meeting in late April. He returned in mid-October to meet privately with both the garrison commander and Army Sustainment Command leader/senior mission commander because they all had changed since April.

Bowery previously said that he expected to make a recommendation on the museum in the "October-November" time period and that he would return to the Quad-Cities in late summer for another public meeting.

Bowery told the 100 to 125 people who attended the public meeting in April that "the way we've done business all these years is not sustainable. The Army is shrinking. Really, really difficult decisions are being made. We're making decisions in an era of declining resources and declining force strength."

Bowery also said in April that he would not recommend closing the museum but left open the possibility that the space could be repurposed into something else, such as a heritage display.

Once Bowery makes his decision or recommendation, it will go to the Secretary of the Army for final approval.
CEDAR RAPIDS  He didnt get their first vote, but president-elect Donald Trump will get the final votes of a handful of Iowans who have one more vote to cast.

Nothing theyve seen or heard since the Feb. 1 first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses and nothing they are likely to hear between now and Dec. 19 when Electoral College electors meet will dissuade Iowas six GOP electors from voting for their partys presidential nominee.

I certainly do not want the alternative, said James Whitmer of Waterloo, who describes himself as a rock-ribbed conservative backing GOP nominee Donald Trump.

The passion runs as deeply among Democratic electors who can only watch and consider what might have been.

Absolutely and without reservation, said Joan Peck of rural Benton County, about her hope to cast an Electoral College vote for Hillary Clinton.

Whitmer and Peck are polar opposites on the political spectrum, but they watched Tuesdays election results with heightened anticipation as members of their respective parties slates of Electoral College electors. The electors, selected by the parties, will cast the states six Electoral College votes.

For them, the election didnt end Nov. 8, but merely entered another phase. It might not seem possible, but Remsen pork producer Don Kass predicts it could get crazier.

Kass, a member of the Plymouth County Board, was a Republican elector in 2004 and you wouldnt believe the bizarre mail I would get from people asking me to change my vote to John Kerry rather than President George W. Bush.

Kass wouldnt say who he supported in the caucuses, but none of the GOP electors said they backed Trump. Whitmer and Alan Braun, a Norwalk physician, backed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Polly Granzow, a former state representative from Eldora, and Dylan Keller, a University of Norther Iowa student from Donnellson, backed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Retired OBrien County recorder Kurt Brown of Primghar was a Ben Carson supporter. Dylan Keller did not respond to questions.

Unlike 23 other states, electors in Iowa arent bound to vote for their partys candidates. But theres little likelihood any one of Iowas electors will cross party lines.

I dont want people to find my name if they Google every elector who ever went against their pledge, Braun said.

Like everyone else, Im not happy with everything, Granzow said, but I agree with the policies hes presenting.

Keller, who describes himself as a Japanese, Mennonite, Republican from southeastern Iowa, will be faithful to his pledge to vote for the GOP nominee, but my electoral vote is in no way for Trump, the man, but for the Republican Partys nominee that so happens to be Donald Trump.

Democratic electors also said they would have cast their Electoral College ballots for their partys nominee, Hillary Clinton, if they had the chance.

Ive supported Clinton since 2007 and I gave my promise to vote for her and I plan to stand by it, said Carrie Tedore of Dubuque, who calls politics her hobby.

Theres no way I could ever cast a vote for him, AFSCME Local 61 President Danny Homan said about Trump.

Tedore, Homan, Peck and elector Randal Black of Mason City backed Clinton in the caucuses.

For the other two Democratic electors, its not a question of voting for Trump, but whether they might have voted for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who they backed in the caucuses.

A few Sanders delegates approached me and said, You know, you can vote for whoever you want, said Jack Schuler, a Des Moines high school English teacher. He said he would not because it goes back to representing the person chosen by the people.

Although he believes there are many Democratic politicians who would have been a better nominee than Clinton, Nick Kruse, an accounting major at the University of Iowa, agrees with Sanders when he says that Clinton is 100 times better than Trump.

This vote does not just belong to me, Kruse said.

Being an elector isnt a high-profile job  until Dec. 19 when they cast their ballots. Most electors said only friends and people who follow the process closely know their role.

Some people have talked to her about the responsibility of being an elector, Tedore said, but mostly because I bring it up because Im so proud to do it.

Likewise, Peck considers it an honor and privilege to have been selected to represent the party.

Not getting the opportunity to cast an electoral vote is disappointing.

After casting one of the first-in-the-nation votes for president in the Iowa caucuses, Peck says she hoped to be able to cast one of the last-in-the-nation votes as an elector.
DES MOINES  A northwest Iowa senator who dropped his Republican Party affiliation over disagreements with Donald Trump called Tuesdays presidential outcome incredible but said he will retain his independent status and not rejoin the new GOP majority in the Iowa Senate.

Sen. David Johnson, 65, an 18-year legislator from Ocheyedan who is midway in his fourth Senate term, shocked his GOP colleagues in June when he broke ranks and espoused no political party affiliation in protest of what he called Trumps racist remarks and judicial jihad regarding a federal judge of Mexican heritage who was born in Indiana and presided in a legal case dealing with the now-defunct Trump University  a business owned by Trump.

Johnson said he respects the peoples voice which called for a dramatic change in direction for the nation by electing Trump the 45th president of the United States in surprising fashion over Democrat Hillary Clinton  another presidential candidate he did not support.

But he added that Trumps success in solidifying his role as leader of the Republican Party did not change his mind because he remained convince Trump was morally bankrupt and had tossed character, trustworthiness and truth into the dust bin of history.

I believe that the country still has no direction. It certainly wasnt revealed during the campaign, Johnson said in an interview Wednesday. The voters want change and theyre willing to put a morally bankrupt man into the White House.

Johnson said he intends to maintain his independent status in the 85th General Assembly even through Republicans scored crushing victories in Tuesdays election to grow their new majority to at least 29 members with a special election slated in Davenport next month to fill a vacancy created by the death of Sen. Joe Seng earlier this year.
CEDAR RAPIDS  Fame is fleeting. Just ask Sen. Chuck Grassley.

A day after the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman was re-elected to a seventh term by a 25-percentage point margin, Grassley was back on his New Hartford farm washing windows Wednesday afternoon. That had him looking forward to getting on a tractor and spending time chisel plowing.

The election results made darn to clear he tapped into resentment to Washington, Grassley said about GOP nominee Donald Trumps victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

He heard the voice of the grass roots and it was a voice of discontent, Grassley said. The resentment is not limited to just elected officials, but Wall Street and the media, general. People dont feel they are getting ahead.

Despite that disenchantment with Washington, Iowa voters gave Grassley, who has been in Congress for 42 years, a 60 percent to 35 percent victory over his Democratic challenger Patty Judge.

Some people would say Im part of the establishment, but I dont feel Im part of the establishment, Grassley said. He credits his access to Iowa  visiting 99 counties each of the 36 years hes been in the Senate  as well as his constituent service and oversight of federal agencies.

Im will to battle with Democratic and Republican presidents. That sets me apart, Grassley said to explain why the broad brush voters applied to other insiders and Washington elites didnt sweep him out of office.

In addition to chairing Judiciary Committee hearings in January on filling a Supreme Court vacancy, Grassley wants to work with the Finance Committee on tax reform as well as replacing the Affordable Care Act.

He believes that in the broad sense there is an understanding of what should replace Obamacare, but more detail is needed. Among the components are removing the individual mandate, allowing the sale of health insurance across state lines and increasing the use of health savings accounts as part of a new health care plan.

Republicans, he said, are ready to accept the responsibility of controlling the U.S. House and Senate and White House.

It doesnt matter whether were ready or not because the public expects us to accept it, Grassley said.
DES MOINES  Leaders of Iowa's largest state employees union Wednesday requested a yearly pay boost of 3.25 percent as part of a new collective bargaining contract that would take effect July 1.

Danny Homan, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 61, presented a 36-page proposal to negotiators for the state of Iowa that sought a 2.25 percent raise on July 1, 2017, a 2 percent increase on Jan. 1, 2018, another 2.25 percent raise on July 1, 2018, and a 2 percent increase on Jan. 1, 2019.

Homan said the compounding effect of the proposed incremental pay increase would have the effect of increasing base salaries for the union's roughly 18,500 members by more than 8.5 percent over the span from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2019. The union also requested annual "step" increases of 4.5 percent for covered employees who have not reached their maximum pay levels.

The AFSCME leader said the union was requesting a status-quo provision for health insurance  which was a major sticking point during the last bargaining session when the issue went to binding arbitration and ended with AFSCME members paying, for the first time, a share of their monthly health insurance premiums either at 15 percent or $20 per month depending on their plan, plus deductibles.

"We appreciate their proposals," said Janet Phipps, director of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services who will present the state's response at a Nov. 23 meeting. "I know they're looking out for their folks and we're going to engage in good-faith bargaining."

DAS spokeswoman Tami Wiencek said her agency's preliminary estimate of the AFSCME proposal for across-the-board increases was about $111 million.

Speaking to reporters at a separate event Wednesday, Gov. Terry Branstad said the state is facing a challenging budget year because state revenues are lagging below estimates and farm prices are below the cost of production.

"It's going to be difficult," the governor said. "It's going to be a tight budgeting year and we're going to have to make some difficult decisions."

Earlier this week, the union representing about 600 state law enforcement officers requested a 3 percent across-the-board pay increase for each of the next two years in initial contract talks with the state. The new collective bargaining agreements would begin July 1, 2017, and run through June 30, 2019.
A roundup of state government and Capitol news items for Thursday:

MHI CLOSURES UPHELD: The Iowa Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Gov. Terry Branstad was within his authority when he closed two state mental hospitals in Mount Pleasant and Clarinda in 2015. The justices said the governor had the authority to veto money to operate the facilities and noted that lawmakers never stipulated that the mental health institutes had to stay open when they approved funding in a budget bill subject to item veto. Iowas largest public employee labor union and a group of state lawmakers sued the governor over the closure of two state-run mental health care facilities. Branstad said he decided to close two of Iowas four facilities because the state needed to shift toward community-based mental health care services and away from institutions. Ben Hammes, Branstads communications director, issued a statement saying the courts unanimous decision on Thursday affirms the governors action by allowing more Iowans to have access to quality mental health care and substance abuse treatment than ever before. The states mental health care redesign allows Iowans to access treatment in a community-based setting and through more modern means. He added that the governor is committed to putting patients first, improving care, increasing access and modernizing the delivery of mental health services.

VETERAN PROTECTIONS: Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller announced a series of special consumer protection efforts Thursday designed to assist Iowans who are active duty service members or veterans, including complaint form and website enhancements. Miller issued a statement Thursday noting that his office was strengthening its year-round consumer protection efforts for Iowans who serve or have served in the military, as they can be specially targeted by scammers and businesses that engage in deceptive practices. Scammers and dishonest businesses may target veterans and service members because of their steady income and benefits. For example, scams targeting veterans include solicitations for deceptive military benefits services and attempts at collecting personal information. Active duty service members may be solicited by predatory lenders. Consumer Protection Division complaint forms now include a check box for consumers to identify themselves as active duty service members or veterans, he said.

REYNOLDS TO VISIT SCHOOLS: Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds announced Thursday that she will visit three schools next week to discuss the importance of computer science education. As co-chair of the Governors STEM Advisory Council and the Future Ready Iowa Alliance, Reynolds said she has led the way in emphasizing the importance of students having opportunities for computer science education and what it means for the workforce of the future. Specifically, she said, computer science education is a key component of reaching the states Future Ready Iowa goal of having 70 percent of the Iowa workforce with education or training by the year 2025. On Monday, Reynolds will be at the Brookview Elementary School in West Des Moines. On Tuesday, she plans visits to the Kirkwood Regional Center in Coralville and the Central City Community School District.

INMATE DEATH: Danny Homan, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 61, issued a statement Thursday regarding an inmates death announcement made by the Iowa Department of Corrections. Homan said union officials were saddened to hear about the death of Michael Whitworth, an inmate at the Iowa State Penitentiary. Even more so, he said in a statement, I was surprised to read yesterday afternoons press release from the Iowa Department of Corrections announcing his death nine days after the fact, coincidentally on Election Day. There is a clear attempt for offender Whitworths death at the hands of a fellow inmate to be drowned out by political coverage. It seems as though the DOC hopes that their inability to protect staff, fellow inmates, and the public will go unnoticed. For our collective safety, I hope that Gov. Branstad and members of the media will, in fact, notice. Fred Scaletta, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said the agency declined to comment.

HEATING OIL, NATURAL GAS PRICES: With colder weather approaching, officials at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship who issue a weekly fuel price report noted that heating oil prices in Iowa dropped nine cents this week, recording a price of $1.88. Natural gas prices also fell by 21 cents to $2.32/MMbtu. Turning to motor fuels, the price of regular unleaded gasoline averaged $2.13 a gallon across Iowa as of Tuesday, according to AAA, a drop of 3 cents from one week ago and 19 cents lower than one year ago. The national average on Tuesday was $2.20, down a penny from last weeks price. Retail diesel fuel prices in Iowa were down 2 cents from last weeks price with a statewide average of $2.41 per gallon.

 Times Bureau
As Iowa Republicans rejoiced Wednesday over their convincing victories, the state's Democrats who woke up despondent over a Donald Trump presidency and the loss of the state Senate, struggled with how to get off the mat.

Trump's 148,000 vote win and the Republicans' victories over six incumbent Democrats  not to mention the loss of Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal  hit Democrats hard in a year they'd hoped would be a rebound from disappointing 2014 losses.

I dont think anybody with a straight face could call last night in Iowa anything but an unmitigated disaster, said Pete DAlessandro, who led Bernie Sanders caucus campaign in Iowa and worked for him several other states.

Not only did Trump beat Mitt Romney's 2012 total in the state by 68,000 votes, but Hillary Clinton got fewer votes than any Democratic presidential candidate has in Iowa since Al Gore in 2000. Her roughly 650,000 votes was 172,000 short of Obama's total.

The Republicans' wins were especially notable in eastern Iowa, where Democrats typically bank on healthy winning margins to make up for losses in rural parts of the state.

This year, the map was a wave of red flowing from the Missouri River to the Mississippi. Trump won 93 counties, compared with six for Clinton. In many of those places, particularly those with historically blue-collar work forces, the drop in Democratic support from 2012 was striking.

In Scott County, while Clinton defeated Trump by about 1,200 votes, the margin of victory was only a tenth of what it was for Barack Obama four years ago. In fact, while Trump did outperform the GOPs 2012 Mitt Romney in the county, it was by fewer than 1,000 votes. Clinton, on the other hand, got 10,000 fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.

In Linn County, Democrats also saw an erosion of about 10,000 votes at the top of the ticket from four years ago. In Black Hawk County, it was about 8,000. Again, Trump improved Republican performance, but not by much.

In many eastern Iowa counties, Trump won in places that a Republican hadn't in years. In fact, in Dubuque County, where a Republican hadnt won a presidential election since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, Trump emerged a narrow winner.

"Weve been talking about an enthusiasm gap. And again, youve been hearing two different stories on that. I think you now know who was spinning and who wasnt," an ebullient Republican Party of Iowa chairman Jeff Kaufmann told reporters on a conference call on Wednesday.

Top Iowa Democratic Party officials could not be reached for an interview Wednesday, but in a statement late Tuesday, the party chair, Andy McGuire, said we are obviously disappointed by tonights results." She said our Democratic lawmakers will not abandon their priorities.

The party already faces controversy over its running of the Feb. 1 caucuses, which Clinton won by a narrow margin. A committee is studying the matter.

Dave Nagle, the former congressman from Waterloo who leads that committee, says the party now needs to retool for the next election and reclaim its mantle as the party of working people.

"We lost an election. We didn't lose our soul," he said.

How the party recovers will be the topic of much soul-searching. D'Alessandro says he believes the key is to clean house. "You rebuild the thing with new voices and new energy," he said, urging Sanders supporters to get involved at every level.

It wasn't all that long ago that Republicans were in much the same spot as Democrats. Defeated at the polls, and with internal problems, too. However, Kaufmann said Wednesday that he believes much of the Iowa GOP's success Tuesday stemmed not only from the changes made in leadership but how the party dealt with divisions that arose after a 17-way primary process that chose as a nominee a man who repulsed many in the party.

"What you saw in Iowa, I am told, is unique throughout the entire country, where you had the party structure, all of the statewide officials all working together toward a common goal. There is safety in numbers. There is strength in numbers and I think we showed that," he said.

(Erin Murphy contributed to this report.)
After spending 12 years as Moline's city administrator, Lewis Steinbrecher has announced he is retiring.

Steinbrecher, who has spent 42 years in public service, said Wednesday in a news release that since his contract expires at the end of the month, this is the right time to retire.

Before coming to Moline in 2004, Steinbrecher was city administrator of Kent, Ohio.

The City Council will begin a search for a new city administrator immediately. No interim administrator has been named.

Alderman Mike Waldron will be handling inquiries and acting as a liaison between staff and the council. Waldron recently retired as the city's public works director and has more than 37 years experience with the city.
The man synonymous with Thanksgiving dinner in the Quad-Cities is back and shows no signs of slowing down.

Bob Vogelbaugh, aka "Mr. Thanksgiving," is hosting his 46th annual community dinner from 4-6 p.m. Nov. 24 at the SouthPark Mall in Moline.

In making the announcement Thursday morning from the Arby's located in the mall's parking lot, Vogelbaugh pulled out a thank you card from 2013 and said the sentiments expressed were why he continues to hold the annual event.

"It was our first time since we had no family members to be with this year," the card read. "It was such a pleasant surprise to be surrounded by so many friendly and helpful people. It felt like the big family gatherings we used to have."

Vogelbaugh vowed to continue the dinners, which he said serve 2,000 to 2,500 guests, as long as he continues to receive support from Quad-City residents.

"What is the nicest thing about living in the Quad-Cities is that when there is a need, the people come through and everybody is absolutely wonderful no matter what part they play in this," Vogelbaugh said.

Vogelbaugh said the dinner usually has about 400 volunteers, including students and others from Moline High School, Coolidge School, Camelot School and Seton Catholic School.

Those interested in volunteering don't need to call, but can just show up.

Without all the help and donations, Vogelbaugh said the event would not have been able to continue all these years.

Supervisors and drivers from MetroLINK are even volunteering their time for pick-ups and drop-offs along routes in Illinois.

Vogelbaugh estimated the dinner, which is catered by Hy-Vee, would cost around $15,000.

Two weeks out, he has received a few thousand dollars in donations.

Vogelbaugh said the event was not a charity dinner, encouraging people who want to donate on Thanksgiving Day to give to other charities, and said this was about fellowship.

"It's like one large family," Vogelbaugh said. "From the volunteers making people feel welcome, people sitting next to strangers, and all of a sudden, they're talking. That's what it's all about."
Laurie Hergert was in the shower when her home in the Fyre Lake area near Sherrard began to fill with smoke. And its likely the malfunction of a simple household appliance left her home in shambles.

Hergert, who works for Green Chevrolet, remembers the afternoon of Oct. 8 all too well: She got out of the shower and her smoke alarm was going off. Black smoke started to fill her house. In 5 minutes, you couldnt even see through a window in the house, she said.

Meanwhile, a member of a road crew working nearby saw the smoke and called emergency responders to the scene.

Ultimately, Everything was smoke-damaged beyond keeping it by the time the fire was out, she said.

The blaze resulted in about $230,000 in structural damage to the home, she said. Thats not to mention lost keepsakes from her son, Craig, who died 11 years ago. All the furniture and appliances were lost, too.

A Sherrard firefighter told her that the familys SoleusAir dehumidifier probably started the blaze, and a fire inspector confirmed that, she said. Sherrard fire officials declined comment, saying the fire was still under investigation.

Now, while she and her husband, Dale, are living at a neighbors home during the repair of their house, she wants to warn anyone with a dehumidifier to check whether their machines have been recalled.

The manufacturer, Gree Electric Appliances of China, in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada, announced a recall in 2013 on dehumidifiers manufactured by the company and sold from January 2005 through August 2013. This recall involves various sizes of dehumidifiers with the brand names Danby, De'Longhi, Fedders, Fellini, Frigidaire, GE, Gree, Kenmore, Norpole, Premiere, Seabreeze, SoleusAir and SuperClima.

To determine whether your dehumidifier is part of that recall, visit greedehumidifierrecall.com/ProductEntry.aspx, or call 866-853-2802.

Similarly, on Nov. 2, about 3.4 million dehumidifiers were recalled, including these brand names: Airworks, Alen, Arctic King, Arcticaire, Beaumark, Comfort Star, ComfortAire, Continental Electric, Coolworks, Crosley, Daewoo, Danby, Danby Designer, Dayton, Degree, Diplomat, Edgestar, Excell, Fellini, Forest Air, Frigidaire, GE, Grunaire, Hanover, Homestyles, Honeywell, Hyundai, Ideal Air, Kenmore, Keystone, Kul, Midea, Nantucket, Ocean Breeze, Pelonis, Perfect Aire, Perfect Home, Polar Wind, Premiere, Professional Series, Royal Sovereign, Simplicity, SPT, Sunbeam, Sylvania, TGM, Touch Point, Trutemp, Uberhaus, Westpointe, Winix and Winixl.

To register and determine whether you are eligible for a replacement unit or partial refund, enter your unit's brand, model, and serial number into the tool at the bottom of this page: recallrtr.com/dehumidifier. Manufacturing dates are on the backs of the units.

Both recalls occurred because the humidifiers involved are fire and burn hazards.

Im trying to tell everybody I know about the recalls, Hergert said. Three people I spoke to in the last week  their (dehumidifiers) were involved in the recall, too.

While she and her husband rebuild, they are considering a whole-house dehumidifier, instead of a standalone, for their home. It will be another five to six months before they can move back in, she said.
Variety the Childrens Charity granted $32,366 to three Quad-Cities childrens charities through its 2016 grant program. Recipients are, River Bend Food Bank, Friendly House and the YWCA, Clinton. The Food Bank will provide weekend meals to children who are food insecure, Friendly House will purchase soft, age appropriate seating for its K-5 recreation room and the YMCA was awarded a 15-passenger van, which will transport children to special outings or activities. Variety is dedicated to improving the lives of underprivileged, at-risk and special needs children throughout Iowa. Funding is provided to programs and initiatives that directly impact the well-being of children in the community. For more information, visit varietyiowa.com.
With the centenary marking World War I in full swing, the Western Front in Flanders, Belgium, has become a draw for Americans with a travel bug for history.

War tourism is thriving a century later in Ieper and the quaint towns that surround it.

The Belgian town was rebuilt from the ground up since the destruction of World War I, with much of the ancient Flemish style preserved brick by brick.

After the population was evacuated to safer territory, the worst stone in the shoe of the German Imperial Army was reduced to ashes and rubble in three extended, pitched battles over the course of the war, but Germans never held it.

Walkable and beautiful in that cobbled, Old World way, with striking architecture and a venerable cathedral and cloth hall (now the In Flanders Fields museum and research centre), Ieper feels like 1913 has come to life as a town-sized museum.

A well-development map of activities and museums immerses visitors in the Ypres Salient.

Between Belgium, France and England, there are 29,265 known burial sites, 1,656 unknown (not identified) American war graves, and 4,452 missing commemorated. Total combat death toll in WWI for America is set at 53,402.

MUSEUMS

THE FLANDERS FIELD AMERICAN CEMETERY AND MEMORIAL: Waregem, Belgium  Located on the battlefield where the U.S. 91st Division suffered many casualties near the wars end securing Spitaals Bosschen woods between Oct. 31 and Nov. 10, 1918  one day before armistice. It bears the insignia of the four American divisions that fought in Belgium (27th, 30th, 37th and 91st) and is the only American World War I cemetery in Belgium. There are 368 graves, 21 of them belonging to unknown soldiers. On May 30, 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew over this memorial to salute his fellow countrymen, and dropped poppies, nine days after his historic solo flight. Theres also a American memorial in Oudenarde, Belgium, and more in Kemmel and St. Mihiel, France. Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. A staff member is on duty in the visitor building during open hours to answer questions and escort relatives to grave and memorial sites, and can help find graves of American soldiers who died in World War I who are buried in other graveyards.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS MUSEUM: The ancient cloth hall of Ieper dates back to 1304. Once the center of an international textile industry, Ieper saw trade from as far away as Novgorod. Transformed into a museum about the Ypres Salient, the museum tells the stories of the front. It features interactive exhibits, including digital records to look up Commonwealth soldiers. Actual gear and kit of American soldiers and other militaries preserved on site.

LIJSSENTHOEK: At Lijssenthoek, a self-guided interactive museum documents the Commonwealth regional military hospital that operated from 1915 past the end of the war at the site of a farm belonging to a widow with seven children. Unlike battlefield cemeteries like Passchendaele where only some of the graves are identified with the bones that lie beneath them, at Lijssenthoek, almost everyone is identified, because before they were corpses, they were patients in varying states of triage.

Check out the unique fence, where each picket represents a day, and is engraved with notches for the number of soldiers that were buried there.

This cemetery reads as a block calendar of the Great War. For every day of the year, somebody is buried in the cemetery, said history buff and battlefield tour guide Luc Dequidt.

MEMORIAL MUSEUM PASSCHENDAELE  MMP17: In just 100 days in 1917, half a million soldiers died over the most contested patch of ground. On a small pond in Zonnebeke, Belgium, the original grand farmhouse has been refurbished and filled with memorabilia and exhibits where you can wear a Commonwealth soldiers helmet, try to hoist protective armour, or even smell the harmless versions of the lethal gases first employed on unsuspecting Allied troops at the Western Front. The museums impressive underground dugout route extends 600 meters, with meticulous reproduction trenches that give an eerie sensation of being in the war, complete with sandbagged outdoors trenches and cave-like tunnel trenches populated with mannequin soldiers. (Closed from Dec. 16 to Jan. 31 each year).

TALBOT HOUSE: Billed as an oasis of serenity in a world gone mad, Talbot House combined a retreat atmosphere with the USO, church, even Vaudeville in an hospitable effort to provide respite to the Commonwealth soldiers desperately in need of R&R and a shower and a shave in Poperinge, Belgium. Remarkably, during the German occupation of World War II, the facility was left mostly undamaged. Separately, the quarters are also a bed-and-breakfast.

THE LAST POST AT MENIN GATE: Every evening at 8 p.m., the "Last Post" has been sounded since 1928 (except during World War II) under the imposing arches of the Menin Gate. Shaped like a Roman triumphal arch, it displays the names of 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers went missing in action around the Ypres Salient in the Great War through Aug. 15, 1917. (Those 34,984 missing after Aug. 16 are carved into the Tyne Cot Cemetery at Passendale. The Last Post ceremony, which attracts thousands every night, rain, snow or hail, is deeply moving.

ESSEX FARM CEMETERY: The Advanced Dressing Station where Dr. John MacCrae triaged soldiers at the front and wrote the most famous war poem ever can still be visited in its bunker. The ceiling has sunk a bit with weathering, but the small rooms are intact. Visitors can see where soldiers were brought for treatment (on stretchers if they couldnt walk).
Tuesdays turnout within the county was 68.2 percent of registered voters. That is lower than any previous presidential election year in the county through at least 1992, the earliest year of county-level turnout data that is readily available on the secretary of states website. The highest turnout for Pennington County during that time span was 79.2 percent in 2004.
Former mayor Clark Sowers writes that the pot still is stirred on the eviction of NeighborWorks and the Belle Fourche Development Corporation from City Hall. This resulted from a letter signed by four council members that was not disclosed to the public until the meeting Oct. 17 and the eviction vote of 5-3.

Any cook knows the pot must be stirred occasionally or supper is burned on the stove.

The action that caused it, is the way the four council members, and perhaps someone else, wrote the letter in secret to spring on the rest of the council and the citys voters.

The other three council members were shocked at the letter and how actions obviously were strategically planned without full council discussion.

Thats the sort of behind-the-scenes activity that the press cant cover until something reveals it.

Also, the $1.5 million figure on the rail siding is misleading. The project was about $1.3 million. BFDC covered about a third of that by capturing $400,000 in grant money. Its a long-term city advantage that will remain for decades.

Mayor Landphere stated that a new city administrator and staff could use the office space in City Hall.

Again, the decision for that major change was not aired in public nor supported by a public vote.

Its an interesting price tag, too.

The Sturgis city manager told folks at a March CONBA lunch it would cost about $70,000 for a city administrator with experience.

Add public information officer as in his Sturgis office and clerk-secretary paychecks, and the price tag approaches $150,000  roughly what Mayor Landphere ordered city department heads to cut from their 2017 budgets.

Now she says the city may hire a city administrator.

Yes, its legal without a city election.

Why were those nonprofits offered space in city hall?

Both brought in significant grants from the state for the city of Belle Fourche. The state-certified Site Ready Industrial Rail Park already has two significant land purchasers to pay real estate taxes on the land. Theyll be paying more each year for five years on their buildings by state law.

NeighborWorks was offered an office in response to the housing study the council commissioned in 2013. It showed significant need for housing for families headed by people in the 25-44 year age group.

BFDC received a $175,200 grant from the South Dakota Department of Labor in January of 2015 toward workforce housing. That stays in the community too.

"The reason for NeighborWorks is down payment needs and gap coverage to enable financing," current City Council member Kayla Kinard said to explain the citys former cooperation in workforce housing. "Most people in workforce employment don't usually have the funds for a down payment or closing costs."

Bottom line? Well over half a million in grants came to Belle Fourche by and for the two offices. Its new money that increases the communitys tax base far more than the grants dollar value.

Former Mayor Sowers lost his bid for election for a council seat this year. He was the only candidate at the pre-election forum promoting a city administrator.

The press isnt the only place where questions are asked.

Shoot the messenger instead of the action that caused it?

Reporting on the councils secret activity is the message, and the messenger is the press.

Otherwise voters wouldnt have a clue of what their ballots really supported.

Now they know.

Excluding Mr. Sowers unsuccessful run, did voters in the past two city elections know they were voting for a major city government change?

Nobody else in the past two years elections told voters they would change city government without a special city election to make the change.

But now all that is needed is an evenings agenda for the same council members who apparently drafted the secret letter and plan.

Voters didnt have a clue.

Did some candidates have a hidden agenda to hire a city administrator that would require deep cuts to city department budgets, whether beneficial or damaging to city services.

Did other candidates tell voters until a secret letter nobody admits to writing, and that makes its case on undocumented accusations as Mr. Sowers continues to do?

Sturgis, incidentally, has a Sturgis Economic Development Corp.

According to its website, SEDS is funded through property sales and rentals, revolving loan interest, the City of Sturgis, Meade County, Municipal Utility Board, business and individual investors and grants. The Sturgis corporation was formed in 1973 to seek grants for an industrial park. After more than 40 years, their park has 45 acres, 25 businesses and over 200 employees.

It still lacks rail service.

In less than 5 years, the Industrial Rail Park has a workers and a property taxpayer at Permian Tank in its industry-leading $10 million investment.

The new BLM building at the site-ready park means property tax revenue increasing annually. We also keep good-paying federal BLM jobs, their families and purchasing here. The available site-ready park played a role in keeping Belle Fourche the most attractive location.

BFDC contracts with the city are open public record.

BFDC meetings are public except negotiations with prospects. But corporate filings of NeighborWorks and BFDC are also public records.

Secret council decisions? No public record.

What voters guessed their ballot supported city service cutbacks to hire a $70,000 a year "administrator" and staff without a vote of the people?

Thats the question.
In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, creating the interstate highway system. Along with 41,000 miles of roadway came construction of interstate rest areas, which served a dual purpose: to provide basic services for motorists and give travelers a place to get out, stretch their legs and rest.

South Dakota currently has 21 rest areas, some of which were constructed as long ago as 1969. Due to age, several of these facilities are in dire need of major maintenance, renovation or complete reconstruction. Additionally, the availability of information over mobile devices is changing the way that visitors plan their travels and access information about our state. To address these challenges, I asked staff from the departments of Tourism and Transportation to develop a revitalization plan for our rest areas.

After nearly a year of review, analysis, research and discussion, this work group developed a plan which addresses the needs and expectations of todays motorists. Over the next few years, this plan will bring our rest areas into the modern era of travel and help us prepare for the future. Upon completion, South Dakota will offer five staffed welcome centers at our states borders and at Chamberlain, along with 12 additional rest areas along interstates 29 and 90.

The plan includes construction of two new welcome centers near Vermillion and on the Minnesota border, as well as an expanded and remodeled welcome center at Wilmot. These centers will be staffed during the summer months and, in addition to providing a safe place for travelers to stop, serve as South Dakotas front door for vacationers seeking tourism information.

The welcome centers will be more extensive than our current rest areas. They will contain enhanced displays and exhibits as well as modern stations for travel-related information, such as road closures, weather conditions and construction. The welcome centers will provide a great first impression for our visitors, and I know South Dakotans will be proud of how well they represent our Great Faces and Great Places. For more information go to sd.gov and type interstate or rest area into the search engine.

Challenges very often lead to great opportunities. Through the changes outlined in the rest area revitalization plan, we will continue to meet the needs of our travelers and we will make South Dakota even more enticing to visitors. Its a plan that will benefit our state well into the future.
The election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th American president on Tuesday was still top of mind for many Black Hills residents on Wednesday, some feeling optimistic but others expressing outright fear over what the future may hold.

The Journal on Wednesday surveyed people around Rapid City and asked them: If you could say anything directly to Trump today, what would it be? Some gave their names while others wished to remain anonymous; here are their answers.

 A Black Hills resident who didn't want to give her name urged Trump to behave while in office.

"Use self-control.

 Derek, 31, a young business professional from Rapid City, was excited to see Trump elected, and had this urging for the president-elect.

"Make America great again like you promised."

Derek said that even though he voted for Trump, he was surprised the nation elected him. "It's definitely concerning and maybe a bit scary as to what we might see the next few years, but it's change. It's change, so Im excited."

 Eirik Valseth, 28, a Norwegian doctoral student at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, had a different message to Trump.

Dont deport us."

He went on to add: "I dont feel welcome in this country anymore and I'm white. That says a lot."

 A middle-age woman who did not want to give her name had this advice for Trump.

"Not to shoot so much from the hip all the time. Think before you open your yap."

She later added: "He should surround himself, his Cabinet, they need to be well-enabled people not necessarily in the government establishment already, but those that are smart and know what the heck theyre doing."

 Another woman who did not want to be named had this to say.

"Good luck and do us proud."

She stated further: "Pray for the country for the next four years."

 Elizabeth Plautz, 67, of Hermosa, who is a receptionist at a local bank, said prayer may be needed to help the Republican president-elect do a good job.

"I think that if he gets a good cabinet in his office, which I think he will, and I think people have to have faith and pray that the country is going to do very well under his leadership."

 Ian Peterson, 25, a carpenter in Rapid City, had this simple advice for Trump.

"Be smart."

He added: "This countrys on edge as it is, both financially and just the state of the union. And it probably won't take that many dumb decisions to screw this country up beyond what can be fixed.

 Walter Vaughan, a 23-year-old student at Mines, wants Trump to be humble.

You didnt win the popular vote. Keep that in mind."

 Lacey Magnuson, 32, of Alliance, Neb., tried to pump up the future president.

"I hope you make great decisions and I hope that you listen to America and our decisions and hopefully you just stand behind us and everything America decides."

She added: "He needs to understand that its not just him that rules this country, it's everybody, it's society. I think you will do a good job; just have to learn to listen to people."

 Kris Monroe, 25, of Rapid City, provided this sound advice.

"Listen to your advisors. Be patient. Think before you talk and act."

 A young woman who wished to remain anonymous shared this basic concern.

"Just continue to support our military, I guess."

 Leslie Valega, a 46-year-old business owner, provided perhaps the most basic urging to Trump.

"Dont let us down."
NEW UNDERWOOD | Authorities say a Rapid City man has died of injuries from a one-vehicle crash near New Underwood last month.

Douglas Wilson, 22, died Thursday in a Colorado hospital, according to a news release from the South Dakota Department of Public Safety. Wilson had suffered life-threatening injuries in the Oct. 31 crash.

Wilson was driving a 2006 Saturn Vue east on Interstate 90, about four miles west of New Underwood, when authorities say he lost control. The vehicle went into the grassy median, back across both eastbound lanes and into the south ditch where it rolled several times.

There were three passengers in the vehicle: An unidentified 17-year-old male, of Rapid City; 21-year-old Winnona Long, of Nemo; and 23-year-old Evan Sanchez, also of Nemo.

The 17-year-old male and Sanchez suffered serious, non-life threatening injuries in the crash. Long suffered minor injuries. Sanchez was the only vehicle occupant wearing a seat belt, according to authorities.

The South Dakota Highway Patrol investigated the crash. Other agencies on scene were the Pennington County Sheriffs Office, Black Hills Life Flight, Pennington County Search and Rescue, New Underwood Fire Department and Rapid City Fire EMS.
Gazprom appeals against ruling in dispute over access to Sakhalin-II pipeline

MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI)  Russias oil giant Gazprom appealed the Supreme Courts refusal to reconsider a lower courts ruling ordering Sakhalin Energy to give Rosneft access to Sakhalin-II pipeline, according to court records.

Earlier, a similar appeal was filed by Sakhalin Energy, an operator of the Sakhalin-II oil and gas project in the Russian Far East controlled by Gazprom.

Rosneft wants to get access to the pipeline to reduce spending on the liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which it is implementing jointly with ExxonMobil. Gazprom turned down the request, saying that it planned to expand its own LNG plant within the Sakhalin-II project.

Rosneft said it needed access to the pipeline to transport up to 8 billion cubic meters of gas annually from its fields in northern Sakhalin to an LNG plant it planned to build jointly with its partners on the south of the island. Sakhalin Energy rejected the request on the grounds that it lacked the extra capacity.

In February 2015, the Commercial Court of the Sakhalin region dismissed a lawsuit which had been filed by Rosneft against Sakhalin Energy. However, the ruling was overturned in September by the Far East District Commercial Court. The court said that while Sakhalin Energy is not obliged to transport 8 billion cubic meters of gas, it should provide Rosneft an access to its pipeline that would allow transportation of 2 billion cubic meters of gas.

In December 2015, the Supreme Court dismissed appeals by Gazprom and Sakhalin Energy against the ruling of the Far East District Commercial Court.

Sakhalin-II is one of the world's largest integrated oil and gas projects. It includes the Piltun-Astokhskoye oilfield and the Lunskoye natural gas field off Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Okhotsk and onshore infrastructure.
Dismissal of UK software companys $1 mln claim against Russian MTS Bank upheld

MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI)  Russias Intellectual Property Court (IP Court) affirmed on Thursday the dismissal of a claim which had been brought by Colvir Software Solution Ltd. seeking $1.1 million from MTS Bank, RAPSI learnt in the court on Thursday.

Colvir Software Solution Ltd. and MTS Bank entered in 2008 into a software license agreement.

Colvir Software Solution Ltd. alleges that MTS Bank failed to meet the terms of the agreement and claims over $1 million in damages.

The Moscow Commercial Court dismissed the suit in April 2015. The ruling was later upheld by the Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals.

After examining the case, the courts ruled the claim ungrounded, as Colvir Software Solution Ltd. did not provide required elements of the licensed software.

According to the companys website, Colvir Software Solutions Ltd. was established in Great Britain as a software company with its business focus in the development, implementation and support of end-to-end integrated solutions designed to automate the core business, financial and administration activities of banks, post offices, other businesses and public finance institutions.
Six alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir members detained by St. Petersburg court

ST. PETERSBURG, November 10 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov)  The Kirovsky District Court in St. Petersburg has ruled to put six men, charged with organizing and a branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir terrorist organization banned in Russia and participation in its activities, in detention until November 30, the courts press office told RAPSI on Thursday.

According to case papers, the group has been operating in St. Petersburg and Leningrad region since November 2013. Investigators claim that suspects have intentionally provided conditions for the terrorist organizations development and activity in the region.

All defendants including three Dagestan natives, two residents of St. Petersburg and a Tajik national were arrested on November 8.

Data storage devices and prohibited literature have been seized during searches conducted at their premises.

Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Islamic Liberation), founded in Jerusalem in 1953, is banned in several Arab and Central Asian countries. Russia's Supreme Court banned the group from operating on the territory of the country in 2003, describing it as a terrorist organization.

Hizb ut-Tahrir members are regularly arrested by the police across Russia, mainly in big cities in central Russia, the Volga region and Siberia. Also, there are many supporters in Crimea, which rejoined Russia in 2014.
LinkedIn to be blocked in Russia

MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI)  The Moscow City Court upheld a lower courts ruling to block access to LinkedIn which boasts to be the world's largest business network, RAPSI learnt in the court on Thursday.

The ruling is final. Access to LinkedIn will be blocked within 3 days after the company receives the judgment.

Moscows Tagansky District Court granted earlier a motion filed by Russias communications regulator Roskomnadzor seeking to block access to LinkedIn in Russia.

Roskomnadzor claimed that the social network violated the law on personal data storage.

LinkedIn said that Roskomnadzor had lodged the claim unreasonably. If personal data owners consider that their rights have been violated, they are to turn to court and apply to Roskomnadzor. In this case, the regulator has turned to court advocating for indefinite range of persons, the companys representative said in court.

The federal law 526-FZ requiring that data operators must store personal data of Russian citizens on servers located within the territory of the Russian Federation became effective on September 1, 2015. The law affects all businesses operating in Russia to the extent that they collect, record, systematize, accumulate, store, correct (update, change), extract personal data on citizens of the Russian Federation, and those dealing with clients from Russia. Compliance monitoring is vested with Russias Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor), which would ask a Russian court to block access to sites operating in violation of the law.

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network with more than 450 million members in over 200 countries and territories, according to its website.
Tax-free bill to be submitted to Russian government for consideration in December

MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI)  First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov ordered the Finance Ministry to submit a bill for consideration introducing tax-free system in Russia, Shuvalov's secretariat told journalists.

VAT refund for visitors to Russia will increase the flow of tourists and enhance goods turnover, according to Shuvalov.

The Finance Ministry has already included the use of tax-free mechanism in draft guidelines of tax policy.

Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said the project would be experimentally set up in Moscow, Moscow region and Sochi next year.

The issue of introduction of tax-free system in Russia was first raised yet in October 2013, when Shuvalov supported the idea to develop a mechanism permitting to return VAT to foreigners leaving Russia. However, at that time the Ministry of Economic Development presented its objections to this plan. Later, in September 2014, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev gave the same instructions to the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Economic Development, but at that time the Finance Ministry said that the scheme was not suitable for Russia and could result in budget losses.
Russian policeman becomes Interpol Vice-President

MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI)  Alexander Prokopchuk, the Head of the Interpol National Central Bureau (NCB) for Russia, sometimes also referred to as Interpol Moscow, has been elected the Interpol Vice-President for Europe by the agencys General Assembly held in Bali, Indonesia, from November 7 to 10, the Russian Interior Ministry informs on its website on Thursday.

The Ministry notes that a Russian national has been elected to this post for the first time since Russia had become an Interpol member and believes that this election signifies recognition of the countrys contribution in the fight against international crime.

Hongwei Meng, Vice-Minister of Public Security from China, has been elected the Interpol President.

Heads of national law enforcement bodies from 164 Interpol member states and representatives of leading international organizations took part in the work of the 85th Interpol General Assembly.

The Assembly focused on the problems relating to further improvement of the agencys activities, in particular those concerning the fight against terrorism, organized crime, cybercrime, reforming of the Commission for the Control of Files (CCF), appointment of an advisor to conduct a study and make recommendations on the process for membership of Interpol, and optimization of the agencys financing.

The next Interpol General Assembly is to be held in Peking in 2017.
Missoula county

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 18,016

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 25,555

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 126

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 2,549

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 1,220

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 19,411

Rick Breckenridge (L) 1,318

Denise Juneau (D) 27,953

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 15,480

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 31,836

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 1,563

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 19,113

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 26,968

Roger Roots (L) 1,754

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 22,166

Tim Fox (R) 24,790

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 17,507

Jesse Laslovich (D) 29,098

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 29,923

Elsie Arntzen (R) 17,015

Public Service Commissioner District 4

Gail Gutsche (D) 26,798

Bob Lake (R) 19,557

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 36,346

No 7,196

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 28,990

Kristen Juras 15,741

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 35,192

No 7,224

Shall Judge Leslie Halligan of District 4, Dept. 1 of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 34,662

No 6,616

Shall Judge Karen S. Townsend of District 4, Dept. 4 of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 35,191

No 7,870

State Senator District 7

Jennifer Fielder (R) 217

Mark Sheets (D) 132

(Total from four counties)

Jennifer Fielder (R) 6,686

Mark Sheets (D) 3,268

State Senator District 45

Dick Barrett (D) 5,137

Sashin Hume (R) 2,727

State Senator District 46

Sue Malek (D) 5,790

Adam S. Pummill (R) 3,243

State Senator District 47

Tom France (D) 2,114

Daniel R. Salomon (R) 1,926

State Representative District 14

Bryan Foster (D) 105

Denley M. Loge (R) 243

(Total from three counties)

Bryan Foster (D) 1,035

Denley M. Loge (R) 3,605

State Representative District 89

Nate McConnell (D) 2,262

Alex Krigsvold (R) 1,423

State Representative District 90

Bill Murray (R) 1,666

Ellie Hill Smith (D) 2,538

State Representative District 92

Mike Hopkins (R) 2,152

Addrien Marx (D) 2,032

State Representative District 94

Lance Cox (R) 1,901

Kimberly P. Dudik (D) 2,131

State Representative District 95

Cyndi Kenck (R) 872

Shane A. Morigeau (D) 2,520

State Representative District 96

Adam Hertz (R) 2,188

Andrew Person (D) 2,044

State Representative District 97

Nick Davis (D) 1,689

Brad Tschida (R) 2,495

State Representative District 98

Willis Curdy (D) 2,381

Michael Ellsworth (R) 1,596

State Representative District 99

Susan Cundiff (R) 1,701

Marilyn Ryan (D) 2,632

State Representative District 100

David "Doc" Moore (R) 846

Andrea Olsen (D) 3,370

County Commissioner District 2

Dave Strohmaier (D) 25,978

Todd James Geery (R) 19,470

Justice of the Peace Dept. 2

Kari Wells 9,303

Robert J. Greenwell 3,805

Landee N. Holloway 12,915

Jack Metcalf 10,441

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims' rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 30,402

No 16,523

Initiative No. 177

Banning the trapping of animals on public lands

Yes 24,190

No 23,587

Initiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 20,763

No 26,200

Initiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 33,119

No 15,867

Missoula Public Library bond ($30,000,000)

Yes 28,146

No 20,445

Shall the Board of Trustees of School District 1 be authorized to acquire approximately 8 acres of land for the purpose of building a new Cold Springs School and associated improvements?

Yes 21,510

No 7,340

Flathead County

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 30,079

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 13,233

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 106

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 2,182

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 650

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 30,622

Rick Breckenridge (L) 1,628

Denise Juneau (D) 14,958

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 26,254

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 19,117

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 1,853

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 30,429

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 14,344

Roger Roots (L) 1,658

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 12,023

Tim Fox (R) 33,675

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 29,093

Jesse Laslovich (D) 16,192

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 17,105

Elsie Arntzen (R) 28,399

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 33,540

No 8,215

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 22,946

Kristen Juras 18,254

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 32,360

No 8,005

Shall Judge Amy Eddy of District 11, Dept. 1 be retained for another term?

Yes 32,404

No 7,432

State Senator District 3

Melissa L. Hartman (D) 4,921

Keith Regier (R) 6,480

State Senator District 6

Rolf Harmsen (D) 972

Albert D. Olszewski (R) 4,049

(Total from two counties)

Rolf Harmsen (D) 2,829

Albert D. Olszewski (R) 7,332

State Senator District 7

Jennifer Fielder (R) 1,433

Mark Sheets (D) 343

(Total from four counties)

Jennifer Fielder (R) 6,686

Mark Sheets (D) 3,268

State Representative District 10

Mark Ray Noland (R) 3,262

James H. Swanson (I) 1,137

(Total from two counties)

Mark Ray Noland (R) 4,081

James H. Swanson (I) 1,510

State Representative District 11

Eileen Bach Bech (D) 1,303

Derek Skees (R) 3,743

State Representative District 13

Debra J. Achatz (D) 334

Bob Brown (R) 1,429

State Representative District 3

Zac Perry (D)2,464

Taylor Rose (R) 2,186

State Representative District 4

Deborah Gentry (D) 1,169

Matt Regier (R) 3,938

State Representative District 5

Chet Billi (R) 2,470

Dave Fern (D) 3,241

State Representative District 6

Carl Glimm (R) 3,754

Lisa Morrow (D) 1,606

Ian Wheeler (L) 311

State Representative District 7

Frank Garner (R) 2,585

Lynn Stanley (D) 1,383

State Representative District 8

Steve Lavin (R) 3,642

C. Paige Rappleye (D) 1,110

State Representative District 9

Randy Brodehl (R) 2,790

Brittany Maclean (D) 1,047

County Commissioner District 2

Pamela J. Holmquist (R) 31,066

Eileen Lowery (D) 14,036

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims' rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 31,348

No 14,526

Initiative No. 177

Allowing the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use certain traps on public land when necessary if nonlethal methods have been tried and found ineffective.

Yes 17,338

No 28,921

Initiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 16,352

No 29,218

Initiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 26,461

No 20,211

Granite County

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 1,185

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 469

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 3

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 83

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 25

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 1,181

Rick Breckenridge (L) 58

Denise Juneau (D) 572

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 973

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 786

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 55

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 1,146

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 570

Roger Roots (L) 59

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 446

Tim Fox (R) 1,307

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 910

Jesse Laslovich (D) 846

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 722

Elsie Arntzen (R) 1,011

Public Service Commissioner District 4

Gail Gutsche (D) 545

Bob Lake (R) 1,150

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 1,315

No 311

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 967

Kristen Juras 616

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 1,242

No 336

State Senator District 39

Dick Motta (L) 135

Suzann Nordwick (R) 995

Gene Vuckovich (D) 618

(Total from two counties)

Dick Motta (L) 260

Suzzann Nordwick (R) 1,965

Gene Vuckovich (D) 1,307

State Representative District 77

Kerry Graybeal (R) 1,263

Kathey Swanson (D) 498

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims' rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 1,128

No 615

Initiative No. 177

Allowing the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use certain traps on public land when necessary if nonlethal methods have been tried and found ineffective.

Yes 454

No 1,330

Initiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 652

No 1,099

Initiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 951

No 850

Lake County

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 7,453

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 4,703

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 41

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 525

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 217

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 7,257

Rick Breckenridge (L) 437

Denise Juneau (D) 5,521

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 6,304

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 6,457

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 513

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 7,335

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 5,367

Roger Roots (L) 401

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 4,227

Tim Fox (R) 8,617

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 6,892

Jesse Laslovich (D) 5,842

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 6,053

Elsie Arntzen (R) 6,741

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 9,391

No 2,615

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 6,736

Kristen Juras 5,154

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 9,125

No 2,589

State Senator District 6

Rolf Harmsen (D) 1,857

Albert D. Olszewski (R) 3,283

(Total from two counties)

Rolf Harmsen (D) 2,829

Albert D. Olszewski (R) 7,332

State Senator District 47

Daniel R. Salomon (R) 2,503

Tom France (D) 1,736

State Representative District 10

Mark Ray Noland (R) 819

James H. Swanson (I) 373

(Total from two counties)

Mark Ray Noland (R) 4,081

James H. Swanson (I) 1,510

State Representative District 12

Susan Evans (D) 1,852

Greg Hertz (R) 3,372

State Representative District 93

John Fleming (D) 2,355

Johanna Clark (R) 1,982

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims' rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 8,770

No 4,063

Intitiative No. 177

Allowing the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use certain traps on public land when necessary if nonlethal methods have been tried and found ineffective.

Yes 4,917

No 8,052

Intitiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 4,720

No 7,997

Intitiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 7,940

No 5,156

City of Ronan Public Safety $85,000 mill levy

For 301

Against 303

St. Ignatius K-12 School District 28 $5,600,000 Bond

For 574

Against 712

Lincoln County

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 6,720

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 2,040

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 22

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 395

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 95

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 6,522

Rick Breckenridge (L) 438

Denise Juneau (D) 2,443

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 5,722

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 3,303

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 406

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 6,259

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 2,503

Roger Roots (L) 426

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 2,895

Tim Fox (R) 6,211

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 5,817

Jesse Laslovich (D) 3,177

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 3,358

Elsie Arntzen (R) 5,658

Public Service Commissioner District 4

Gail Gutsche (D) 3,115

Bob Lake (R) 5,806

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 6,220

No 2,101

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 4,093

Kristen Juras 3,925

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 6,061

No 2,066

District Court Judge District 19, Dept. 1

William L. Managhan 3,429

Matthew J. Cuffe 5,278

State Representative District 1

Steve Gunderson (R) 3,043

Steve Haarstick (D) 1,154

State Representative District 2

David B. McGarry (D) 1,034

Mike Cuffe (R) 3,823

Clerk of District Court

Cyndi Miller 4,164

Tricia Brooks 4,331

County Commissioner District 2

Rhoda Cargill 3,240

Jerry Bennett 5,222

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims' rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 5,973

No 3,186

Intitiative No. 177

Allowing the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use certain traps on public land when necessary if nonlethal methods have been tried and found ineffective.

Yes 2,412

No 6,878

Intitiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 3,232

No 5,822

Intitiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 5,143

No 4,160

Mineral County

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 1,322

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 515

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 11

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 102

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 35

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 1,274

Rick Breckenridge (L) 100

Denise Juneau (D) 663

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 1,063

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 869

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 218

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 1,291

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 602

Roger Roots (L) 94

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 457

Tim Fox (R) 1,503

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 1,215

Jesse Laslovich (D) 814

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 775

Elsie Arntzen (R) 1,173

Public Service Commissioner District 4

Bob Lake (R) 1,332

Gail Gutsche (D) 579

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 1,428

No 420

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 977

Kristen Juras 823

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 1,421

No 405

Shall Judge Karen S. Townsend of District 4, Dept. 4 of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 1,431

No 394

Shall Judge Leslie Halligan of District 4, Dept. 1 of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 1,355

No 386

State Senator District 7

Mark Sheets (D) 666

Jennifer Fielder (R) 1,277

(Total from four counties)

Jennifer Fielder (R) 6,686

Mark Sheets (D) 3,268

State Representative District 14

Denley M. Loge (R) 1,618

Bryan Foster (D) 355

(Total from three counties)

Bryan Foster (D) 1,035

Denley M. Loge (R) 3,605

County Commissioner East End District

Roman Zylawy (R) 1,348

Michael J. Curtin (I) 594

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims' rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 1,250

No 738

Initiative No. 177

Allowing the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use certain traps on public land when necessary if nonlethal methods have been tried and found ineffective.

Yes 554

No 1,478

Initiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 765

No 1,322

Initiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 1,168

No 878

Powell County

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 2,017

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 549

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 10

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 162

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 40

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 1,946

Rick Breckenridge (L) 108

Denise Juneau (D) 779

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 1,630

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 1,098

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 104

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 1,896

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 800

Roger Roots (L) 87

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 844

Tim Fox (R) 1,874

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 1,559

Jesse Laslovich (D) 1,206

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 1,046

Elsie Arntzen (R) 1,689

Public Service Commissioner District 4

Bob Lake (R) 1,930

Gail Gutsche (D) 753

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 2,093

No 510

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 1,367

Kristen Juras 1,137

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 2,045

No 494

State Senator District 39

Dick Motta (L) 125

Suzzann Nordwick (R) 970

Gene Vuckovich (D) 689

(Total from two counties)

Dick Motta (L) 260

Suzzann Nordwick (R) 1,965

Gene Vuckovich (D) 1,307

State Senator District 40

Hal Jacobson (D) 202

Terry J. Gauthier (R) 751

State Representative District 78

Gordon Pierson Jr. (D) 979

Dean K. Desilva (R) 832

State Representative District 80

Becky Beard (R) 785

Elizabeth Cain (D) 116

Valerie Clague (I) 49

County Commissioner District 2

Ralph E. (Rem) Mannix (R) 2,340

County Commissioner District 3

Douglas R. Crachy (R) 2,349

County Treasurer

Pam Reighard (R) 2,421

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims' rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 1,719

No 1,041

Initiative No. 177

Allowing the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use certain traps on public land when necessary if nonlethal methods have been tried and found ineffective.

Yes 659

No 2,120

Initiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 1,100

No 1,613

Initiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 1,435

No 1,357

Official ballot

For keeping the existing form (commission form) of government in Powell County 1,861

For adoption of the charter form of government in Powell County 745

$59,878 weed levy

For 1,307

Against 1,448

Ravalli County

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 14,673

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 6,166

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 59

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 969

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 255

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 14,843

Rick Breckenridge (L) 778

Denise Juneau (D) 7,108

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 12,595

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 9,363

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 821

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 14,758

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 6,925

Roger Roots (L) 764

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 5,430

Tim Fox (R) 16,747

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 13,917

Jesse Laslovich (D) 8,040

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 8,295

Elsie Arntzen (R) 13,682

Public Service Commissioner District 4

Bob Lake (R) 15,285

Gail Gutsche (D) 6,679

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 15,626

No 4,591

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 11,088

Kristen Juras

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 15,233

No 4,577

District Court Judge District 21, Dept. 1

Jeff Langton 12,601

Robert Myers 8,104

State Senator District 44

James R. Olsen (D) 3,226

Fred Thomas (R) 7,531

State Representative District 85

Theresa Manzella (R) 4,298

A. Jo Young (D) 1,582

State Representative District 86

Ron Ehli (R) 3,542

Nancy A. Neal (D) 1,861

State Representative District 88

Margaret J. Gorski (D) 1,798

Ed Greef (R) 3,598

County Commissioner District 2

Greg Chilcott (R) 14,399

David A. Smith (D) 7,570

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims' rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 13,816

No 8,358

Initiative No. 177

Allowing the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use certain traps on public land when necessary if nonlethal methods have been tried and found ineffective.

Yes 7,766

No 14,708

Initiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 7,202

No 14,808

Initiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 11,966

No 10,543

Stevensville Elementary School Technology levy ($50,000)

For 2,088

Against 1,715

Stevensville Elementary School Technology levy ($50,000)

For 3,049

Against 2,472

Sanders County

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 4,268

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 1,211

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 13

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 298

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 94

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 4,063

Rick Breckenridge (L) 295

Denise Juneau (D) 1,615

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 3,458

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 2,255

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 300

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 4,096

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 1,520

Roger Roots (L) 272

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 1,169

Tim Fox (R) 4,620

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 3,874

Jesse Laslovich (D) 1,836

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 1,935

Elsie Arntzen (R) 3,823

Public Service Commissioner

Bob Lake (R) 4,151

Gail Gutsche (D) 1,524

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 4,060

No 1,291

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 2,981

Kristen Juras 2,226

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 3,928

No 1,273

State Senator District 7

Mark Sheets (D) 2,127

Jennifer Fielder (R) 3,759

(Total from four counties)

Jennifer Fielder (R) 6,686

Mark Sheets (D) 3,268

State Representative District 13

Bob Brown (R) 2,505

Debra J. Achatz (D) 953

State Representative District 14

Bryan Foster (D) 575

Denley M. Loge (R) 1,744

(Total from three counties)

Bryan Foster (D) 1,035

Denley M. Loge (R) 3,605

County Commissioner District 2

Glen E. Magera 2,953

Judy Woolley 2,607

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims' rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 3,642

No 2,212

Initiative No. 177

Allowing the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use certain traps on public land when necessary if nonlethal methods have been tried and found ineffective.

Yes 1,448

No 4,485

Initiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 1,770

No 4,012

Initiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 3,064

No 2,867

Sanders County Ambulance Services $150,700 levy

For 4,122

Against 1,824

Preston Hot Springs Town-County Public Library District levy

For 404

Against 232

Montana

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 263,529

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 162,694

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 1,431

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 25,324

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 6,943

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 268,870

Rick Breckenridge (L) 14,967

Denise Juneau (D) 188,378

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 222,621

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 235,175

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 15,841

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 260,972

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 188,619

Roger Roots (L) 15,747

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 145,472

Tim Fox (R) 312,278

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 245,626

Jesse Laslovich (D) 207,911

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 219,149

Elsie Arntzen (R) 238,388

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 350,934

No 78,689

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 237,385

Kristen Juras 186,019

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 340,745

No 77,665

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 318,434

No 164,684

Initiative No. 177

Allowing the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use certain traps on public land when necessary if nonlethal methods have been tried and found ineffective.

Yes 181,632

No 306,576

Initiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 202,976

No 276,361

Initiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 284,029

No 208,805
Compassion and a desire to help people in need describe Fidelis Temukum, the new social service coordinator for The Salvation Army office in downtown Hamilton.

The Salvation Army is the right fit for me because what they do is what Ive been doing, Temukum said. Im aware of helping people, having compassion and having the opportunity to share the love of God; not just by telling people Jesus died for you but by meeting their physical needs.

Temukum grew up impoverished in Cameroon, Africa, and said that motivates him to help others.

God brought me here. I didnt plan to come but the situation in my country forced me to leave, he said.

Temukum is a minister with a bachelors degree in theology and when a missionary came to his country, he took Temukums family to safety in America.

I could not leave the church and work (an orphanage and mobile medical facility) but a few weeks later it became clear that I needed to leave Africa, Temukum said. I went through Nigeria and came here.

Temukum said that in Cameroon if you are sick you must pay cash before receiving treatment.

Thats why a lot of people die, he said. Weve been helping a lot of orphans. Weve adopted one and we are helping more. God is saying you went through the situation you know exactly what they are going through right now. Thats why we focus on helping people.

Sandy McCain is the assistant service extension and disaster services director for the area from Seattle to Havre and is Temukums direct supervisor.

He really has a heart for helping people here, McCain said. His heart is in Africa with the children going through the circumstances they are, but he very much cares about what is going on here as well.

The Salvation Army is gearing up for their big fundraising event of the year, the Kettle Program that takes place during the Christmas season. All the money raised stays local.

Volunteers and workers will wear aprons and ring bells seeking donations for the kettles from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 25  Dec. 24 throughout the valley. Look for the kettles in front of Hamilton Market Place, Super One in Hamilton and Stevensville, Kmart, Bob Wards, Walgreens, Gary and Leos Fresh Foods in Florence, Safeway, Albertsons and (possibly) Darby.

Hamilton Rotary will step in from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Hamilton Market Place, Super one in Hamilton and Kmart on Nov. 26, Dec. 3, 10 and 17.

We welcome Temukum. Hes been learning so fast, McCain said. He has a heart for this work; he loves to help people and has discernment. We are really excited to move forward and serve Ravalli County.

The Salvation Army office, at 126 Main Street in Hamilton, is open Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (except for meetings and lunch). For more information, call 406-210-1453.
Almost 77 percent of registered voters in Ravalli County took the time to cast a ballot in Tuesdays election.

A record number of those opted to vote absentee this year.

It was really a great election, said Ravalli County Clerk and Recorder Regina Plettenberg. The number of absentee voters was amazing.

A total of 23,121 Ravalli County residents voted in the election.

The county sent out 13,699 absentee ballots this year and received 12,993 of those back.

Thats a 95 percent return. Plettenberg said. It set a new record for absentee ballots in the county.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the county election office still had about 250 provisional and military ballots to count. Plettenberg said those ballots wont be enough to change the outcome of any race.

Ravalli County voters re-elected incumbents in all of the state and local races.

Republican Ravalli County Commissioner Greg Chilcott defeated Democrat David Smith by a vote of 14,399 to 7,570.

I appreciate the support that I enjoy from the community, but this election wasnt so much about me as a candidate, but about us as a board, Chilcott said. I believe people see that we are doing an effective job.

Chilcott said its been nice to work with a board that shares common values, interests and direction.

With the shakeup in Washington, D.C., Chilcott said it will be interesting to see what happens with federal funding from PILT and Secure Rural Schools.

I think active forest management will get some more traction, he said. When you look at the national election, I think its a referendum on the frustration people have with Washingtons efficiency.

I think were fortunate here that things are going pretty well considering all the external factors on the economy of world and national markets, he said. People here seem to feel that were holding a pretty steady course.

All four of the Republican legislative seats up for grabs in Ravalli County went to incumbents.

Two of those incumbents will be serving their fourth and final terms in the House.

One of those  Rep. Ron Ehli, R-Hamilton  will be on the short list for majority leader of the House when Republicans meet next week in Helena.

Ehli defeated his Democrat challenger, Nancy A Neal, 3,542 to 1,861. That 65 percent margin was the largest Ehli has received in his four election cycles.

Ehli said he believes that support reflects the legislation that hes moved forward and his ability to work in a bipartisan fashion to get things accomplished.

Many of his legislative efforts have focused on issues pertaining to Health and Human Services involving children, family and mental health.

Im really pleased that people have noticed, Ehli said. It gives me some confidence that Im on the right track.

The other fourth year House incumbent elected Tuesday was Ed Greef, R-Florence. Greef defeated Margaret Gorski 3,598 to 1,798.

Greef said he was pleased with the experienced legislative group that Ravalli County will send to Helena for the next session, as well as the overall makeup of the House.

It looks to me like well have pretty much the same number of Republicans on the House side as we did during the last session, Greef said. We have the potential of having some outstanding leaders. There are nine or 10 in their fourth term.

Republicans probably wont have the number to override any vetoes, which Greef said means that legislators will have to work together with the governor to pass legislation.

Sen. Fred Thomas, R-Stevensville, was elected to his eighth term in the Montana Legislature. He has served three terms in the Montana House and four in the Senate.

Thomas defeated challenger James R. Olsen of Hamilton 7,531 to 3,226.

Ravalli County voters have always been good to me, Thomas said. Here in the county, voters were very gracious to all of the Republicans running.

I think what that says is that people are happy with the way things are going, Thomas said. In general, people want less government, less taxes, less regulations. But on top of that, they want honesty and integrity in government. Thats why this county voted for Gianforte and Trump.

The fact that Montana voters also selected Republicans for secretary of state, attorney general, superintendent of schools and auditor is telltale for the future of the state, Thomas said. It tips the balance of power in the state.

Rep. Theresa Manzella, R-Darby, agreed that the election of Republicans to fill the landlord positions is important for future policy decisions.

Of course, Im thrilled that voters have allowed me the privilege of representing Darby again, Manzella said.

Manzella defeated Democrat A. Jo Young 4,298 to 1,582.

Our legislative team made a clean sweep, Manzella said. Thats a reflection of a lot of peoples efforts, including the Ravalli County Republican Central Committee, Ravalli County Republican Women and the Pachyderms. They help to carry the message forward.

Montanas longest serving district judge, Jeff Langton, easily defeated challenger Robert Myers 12,601 to 8,104.

Langton will begin his fifth six-year term in January. He said it will be his last as district judge.

In all his years as a judge, Langton said he has never seen anything remotely like the smear campaign that Myers mounted this year. Im grateful that the voters saw through the bizarre accusations that he was making.

Ravalli County election results

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 14,673

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 6,166

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 59

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 969

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 255

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 14,843

Rick Breckenridge (L) 778

Denise Juneau (D) 7,108

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 12,595

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 9,363

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 821

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 14,758

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 6,925

Roger Roots (L) 764

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 5,430

Tim Fox (R) 16,747

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 13,917

Jesse Laslovich (D) 8,040

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 8,295

Elsie Arntzen (R) 13,682

Public Service Commissioner District 4

Bob Lake (R) 15,285

Gail Gutsche (D) 6,679

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 15,626

No 4,591

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 11,088

Kristen Juras

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 15,233

No 4,577

District Court Judge District 21, Dept. 1

Jeff Langton 12,601

Robert Myers 8,104

State Senator District 44

James R. Olsen (D) 3,226

Fred Thomas (R) 7,531

State Representative District 85

Theresa Manzella (R) 4,298

A. Jo Young (D) 1,582

State Representative District 86

Ron Ehli (R) 3,542

Nancy A. Neal (D) 1,861

State Representative District 88

Margaret J. Gorski (D) 1,798

Ed Greef (R) 3,598

County Commissioner District 2

Greg Chilcott (R) 14,399

David A. Smith (D) 7,570

Constitutional Initiative No. 116

Guaranteeing crime victims rights to restitution, privacy, to confer with the prosecuting attorney and to be informed of their rights.

Yes 13,816

No 8,358

Initiative No. 177

Allowing the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use certain traps on public land when necessary if nonlethal methods have been tried and found ineffective.

Yes 7,766

No 14,708

Initiative No. 181

Establishing the Montana Biomedical Research Authority to oversee and review grant applications for the purpose of promoting the development of therapies and cures for brain diseases and injuries and mental illnesses.

Yes 7,202

No 14,808

Initiative No. 182

Renaming the Montana Marijuana Act to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act and repeal the limit of three patients for each licensed provider and allows providers to hire employees to cultivate, dispense and transport medical marijuana.

Yes 11,966

No 10,543

Stevensville Elementary School Technology levy ($50,000)

For 2,088

Against 1,715

Stevensville Elementary School Technology levy ($50,000)

For 3,049

Against 2,472

Montana election results

President/vice president

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (R) 263,529

Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (D) 162,694

Rocky Roque De la Fuente/Michael Steinberg (American Delta) 1,431

Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (L) 25,324

Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka (G) 6,943

U.S. Representative

Ryan Zinke (R) 268,870

Rick Breckenridge (L) 14,967

Denise Juneau (D) 188,378

Governor and Lt. Governor

Greg Gianforte/Lesley Robinson (R) 222,621

Steve Bullock/Mike Cooney (D) 235,175

Ted Dunlap/Ron Vandevender (L) 15,841

Secretary of State

Corey Stapleton (R) 260,972

Monica J. Lindeen (D) 188,619

Roger Roots (L) 15,747

Attorney General

Larry Jent (D) 145,472

Tim Fox (R) 312,278

State Auditor

Matt Rosendale (R) 245,626

Jesse Laslovich (D) 207,911

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Melissa Romano (D) 219,149

Elsie Arntzen (R) 238,388

Shall Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Supreme court of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 350,934

No 78,689

Supreme Court Justice 3

Dirk Sandefur 237,385

Kristen Juras 186,019

Shall Justice Jim Shea of the Supreme Court of the state of Montana be retained in office for another term?

Yes 340,745

No 77,665
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November 9, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

In the Name of Humanity,

We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America

Rise Up... Get Into The Streets... Unite With People Everywhere

to Build Up Resistance in Every Way You Can

Dont Stop: Dont Conciliate... Dont Accommodate...Dont Collaborate

Donald Trump has now won the presidency. Under the slogan Make America Great Again, he has viciously attacked Mexicans and Muslims, threatened to deport millions and boasted that he will build walls and close borders. He incites people to fear and hate those who are different, or who come from other countries or nationalities, or practice different religions. He crudely demeans and degrades women, and openly boasts about molesting them. Hes a champion of white supremacy who has insulted and threatened Black people, and whipped up a racist lynch-mob mentality. Trump has mocked the disabled. He is an aggressive and unapologetic militarist, who threatens to use nuclear weapons and will have his fingers on the nuclear codes. He openly advocates war crimes and crimes against humanityincluding torture and killing the families of people accused of terrorism. He plans to pack the Supreme Court with justices who will gut and reverse the right to abortion, gay rights, and other important legal rights. He calls climate change a hoax and his policies will wreak further devastation on the environment. He has attacked and threatened the press and stirred up his supporters to do the same. Trump has utter contempt for facts and the truth, and consistently lies to advance his agenda. As for the rule of law, Trump went so far as to openly threaten his opponent, Hillary Clinton, not only with jail, but even assassination. Donald Trump is an outright fascist. And he is now the president-elect.

Fascism is a very serious thing. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, and the aggressive reinstitution of oppressive traditional values. Fascism feeds on and encourages the threat and use of violence to build a movement and come to power. Fascism, once in power, essentially eliminates traditional democratic rights. Fascism attacks, jails, and executes its opponents, and launches violent mob attacks on minorities. In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 40s, under Hitler, fascism did all these things. They imprisoned millions in concentration camps and exterminated millions of Jews, Roma people (Gypsies), and other undesirables. And Hitler did almost all of this through the established institutions and the rule of law. This is where this goes. And yes, Hitler himself could talk graciously when he felt it would serve his interests and lull his opponents.

Trump did not even win the popular vote, (even though he did win the electoral college which decides elections in the U.S.). Hitler himself came to power through democratic procedures, including through the process of elections. Should people have accepted Hitler?! Unfortunately, they did, at a horrific cost to humanity. Today, with nuclear weapons, that cost could be far higher.

In the name of humanity, we must refuse to accept a fascist America!

The fact that Trump won as many votes as he did must be understood. The fact that he got more than even 10 percent of the vote is disgraceful and reveals some very ugly things about America. So why did this happen? The world today is turbulent, full of changes. Those who supported Trumps fascist program were overwhelmingly sections of white people, especially but not only white men, who yearn for the days of open white supremacy and American global domination, and the blatant subjugation of women. A significant minority of white people did oppose him, but we have to confront how deep the racism, the national chauvinism, and the hatred of women is woven into this society... and not give in to this, but vigorously challenge and fiercely oppose it.

But even more than this, Trump was backed by powerful forces in this society. Beyond those who directly supported him, the media, the Democratic Party, and others treated him as a legitimate candidate, refused to call him out as the fascist he is, and now call on everyone to accept his ascension to power. All the major powerful forces in this society bear the responsibilityit is they who have, over decades, either built up this fascist force or have enabled it.

You cannot try to wait things out with fascists. Those who lived through Hitlers Germany and sat on the sidelines, looking on as Hitler rounded up one group after another, became shameful collaborators with monstrous crimes against humanity. Trump and his regime must be resisted and defied, beginning now, in many different ways and in every corner of society.

Reconciliation and collaboration would be nothing less than criminal and deadly. Literally. Come together... resist... and let the whole world know that we will not allow this to stand!

revcom.us

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LOS ANGELES, Nov 9: Film star Brad Pitt has been cleared of abuse allegations in a child welfare investigation and has asked a court to grant him shared custody of his six children with his estranged wife, actress Angelina Jolie, a source close to the matter said on Wednesday.

Pitt, 52, fully cooperated in a comprehensive inquiry conducted by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, which found no wrongdoing on his part, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Hollywood power couple, dubbed "Brangelina" during their decade-long romance, split following an incident on a private plane in which Pitt was reported to have lost his temper in front of one or more of the children.

According to celebrity news website TMZ.com, Jolie accused Pitt of striking their eldest son, Maddox.

Jolie, 41, filed for divorce from the actor, her husband of two years and romantic partner since 2005, in September, citing irreconcilable differences and seeking full physical custody of their children, ages 8 to 15.

At the time, the Oscar-winning actress said her decision to end the marriage "was made for the health of the family."

Their children include two adopted sons, Maddox from Cambodia and Pax from Vietnam, an adopted daughter from Ethiopia, Zahara, and three biological children, Shiloh Nouvel and twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.

Having been cleared by the child welfare agency of abuse, Pitt went to court last Friday and filed for joint custody of all six youngsters, according to the source.

The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) declined to comment on the matter to Reuters, citing confidentiality laws.

A representative for Jolie said on Wednesday she was "relieved that after their 8-week involvement, the DCFS is now satisfied the safeguards are put in place that will allow the children to heal."

In September, Pitt agreed to submit to drug and alcohol testing under a temporary agreement with Jolie allowing him visits with their children, two people familiar with that agreement said then. The estranged couple also agreed to undergo individual counseling at the time.

Both stars have kept a generally low profile since the announcement of their divorce. But on Wednesday night, Pitt resumed press obligations for his upcoming film, "Allied," attending a screening of the movie in Los Angeles.
Guwahati, November 9 : Assam governor, Chief Minister and several organizations had welcomed the Centre's decision of scraping Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

In a statement, Assam governor Banwarilal Purohit welcomed the bold step of the Centre's NDA government led by Narendra Modi and said that the announcement on demonetization of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes will propel the economic growth of the Nation to a new trajectory.

The Assam governor further said that the decision would also help in checking black money, fake currency and corruption.

Terming the Centre's move as a deadly blow to insurgency, terrorism and other anti-social activities, Purohit said that this move will even fortifygovernment's resolve to fight against the menace of black money and other related evils and expedite the development of all sections of the people of the country.

On the other hand, Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his decision of scrapping Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 notes with immediate effect and said that the move will lead to an accelerated economic development of the Nation.

I welcome the bold decision taken by the Prime Minister in demonetization of notes with Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 denomination which will definitely a step towards making corruption free society. Black money posed a serious threat to our society and the announcement on scrapping Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 notes will not only eliminate the menace of black money, it will also act as a deterrent against fake currency and corruption, Sonowal said.

Hailing the decision of the Prime Minister Sonowal said that the decision has been taken in the larger interests of the people of the country which would also go against insurgency and other illegal trades being perpetrated against the interest of the Nation.

The Assam CM urged the people of the state 'to exercise restraint' as the move might cause initial inconveniences to the people.

'The decision has the potential of expediting the economic development of the country and will ensure economic wellbeing to all sections of the people,' Sonowal said.

All Assam Students Union (AASU), Axom Sahitya Sabha, Asomiya Yuba Mancha had welcomed the Centre's decision against the black money, fake currency, to checked terrorism.

'Centre's decision will help the country's economic growth and to check black money, fake currency, terrorism, Hawala etc illegal activities,'A AASU Advisor Dr Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharya said.

On the other hand, people of the state had gone panic after Centre's announcement on demonetization of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes effected from midnight last.

Long queue were seen in front of ATM's in different areas of the state last night.

Meanwhile, the officials of SBI Guwahati Regional office appealed the people to exercise restraint and said that no need to panic about the Centre's decision.

'People can exchanged the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes at any bank and post office branch with valid ID from November 10. Rs 100 notes will available in all SBI ATM's in the state from November 11. So people can easily exchange the older currency,'A a top SBI official said.
Guwahati, November 9 : Assam Industries and Commerce Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary held an interactive session with various investors of Assam at a city hotel on Wednesday.

The meeting was convened to assure the investors of full support, discuss their issues and address the problems and dispel their doubts and uncertainties.

Around 27 companies ranging from Asian Paints, Ajanta Pharma, Sun Pharma, Britannia Industries, Berger Paints, Dabur India, EMAMI, Hindustan Unilever, Havells, Asian Brahmaputra Hospital & Healthcare, Abdos Lamitubes Pvt. Ltd. etc participated in today's interactive meet.

The accumulated investment of these 27 companies was worth Rs. 4,781 crore which would generate employment of over 5,000 people.

Addressing the gathering, Patowary lauded the initiative of the investors to invest in Assam in spite of many misgivings regarding the state.

'We treat you all as our guests, not as industrialists. Thus, it is our duty to extend all help and assistance for promotion of industrial growth in the state,'A the Minister said.

The meet also discussed issues relating to power availability, law & order, North East Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy (NEIIPP), 2007, land registration and 'mega status' of projects etc.

The Assam minister added that the atmosphere is congenial for investment and called upon the investors to generate employment for the unemployed youth of the state.

He said that, Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, in a recent communiquA stated that the Centre is formulating a new policy for the North-East after the suspension of NEIPP.

Dispelling doubts of the industrialists, the minister stated that the new state industrial policy, under GST, would give a further boost to investors.

Patowary said that with the dredging of the Brahmaputra, signing of MoU for enhancement of air connectivity, building of new highways, the state is well-poised for an industrial linkage to South EastAsia.

Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce Department, Ravi Capoor, said that the Investment Cell would be further strengthened to facilitate industrialization in Assam.

The meeting was attended by Commissioner, Industries and Commerce, Dr. KK Dwivedi, MD, AIDC, HK Sharma and MD, APDCL, Puru Gupta.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati : Assam government will award Rs. 5 lakh ex-gratia to the families of martyrs of Assam Agitation in a programme to be held at Khanapara Veterinary College Playground on December 10, 2016.

This was decided in a meeting held on Wednesday in the office chamber of the Chief Secretary to the Assam government between senior officials of state government and representatives of All Assam Students Union (AASU).

Chief Minister's Media Adviser Hrishikesh Goswami, Chief Secretary VK Pipersenia, Principal Secretary Hemanta Narzary, Commissioner (Revenue) Pramod Tiwari, Commissioner & Secretary (Home) LS Changsan, Chief Adviser of AASU Samujjal Bhattacharjya, General Secretary of AASU Lurinjyoti Gogoi, SAKP President Basav Kalita and Swahid Nirjyatita Nyas President Debeswar Bhatta were present in the meeting.

The list for awarding the ex-gratia payment will be prepared by AASU and Swahid Nirjyatita Nyas and will be finalized in consultation with the state Government.

The meeting also decided for setting up of a separate office under the Assam Accord Implementation Department to ensure smooth implementation of various provisions of the Accord.

Further, the contributions of the martyrs were also discussed in the meeting and it was agreed that some permanent initiative should be taken to make the new generation aware about the sacrifices of the martyrs.

It was decided that the Govt. will erect a Memorial in the city reflecting the invaluable contribution of the martyrs with modern facilities to attract tourists and the young generation.

Another meeting was also held in the Conference Hall of Chief Secretary's office today between the state government and ABSU representatives.

Various issues raised by ABSU were discussed in the meeting.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Already recognised as one of the world's leading purveyors of Rock n Roll, Stoner, Doom and Heavy Psych, Ripple Music upped the ante in 2015 with the arrival of one of the years most ambitious projects, The Second Coming Of Heavy Series.





Serving as an ongoing showcase for some of the best and heaviest bands emerging from the underground, each instalment shines a light on those worthy of your attention. Consisting of one, 12 slab of multicoloured vinyl with full colour sleeves and inserts, the series is designed to be saved and treasured, like a fine anthology of books. So much so when the albums are filed next to each other, the complete collection of aligned spines form a mind-blowing image direct from the underground.





Following on from the series first instalment released in 2015 featuring Geezer and Borracho; Chapter IIs split between Supervoid and Red Desert earlier this year and last Junes BoneHawk and Kingnomad offering, the latest instalment brings you brand new music from Albuquerque trio Red Mesa and Ann Arbor quartet Blue Snaggletooth.





RED MESA  Coming at you from yonder, down the mountain atop the deserted mesas of New Mexico, like their name suggests Red Mesa instill a sense of desert haze. Touting a varied psychedelic-stoner sound that begs for maximum volume with a high octane, pedal to the metal attitude, the Albuquerque trio  consisting of vocalist/guitarist Brad Frye, bassist Shawn Wright and drummer Duane Gasper  will take you on a vivid journey. Utilizing elements of doom, punk rock and psychedelic fuzz, Red Mesa are the living embodiment of hard riffing hallucinogens.





Facebook Red Mesa on Bandcamp





BLUE SNAGGLETOOTH  If anyone is proving that you can honor hard rocks past while pumping fresh blood into its future, its Blue Snaggletooth. Billing themselves as purveyors of Psychedelic D&D Rock & Roll, the Ann Arbor, Michigan quartet combine elements of hard rock, heavy metal, and psychedelia (all pre-1975), and fuse those styles with lyrics inspired by classic sci-fi and fantasy. While the results are likely to please anyone into stoner rock, Blue Snaggletooth have no truck with irony or tongue-in-cheek glances at the past, and instead embrace their classic influences to build a sound thats physically powerful but with plenty of sinewy groove.





Twitter | Instagram | Soundcloud Blue Snaggletooth on Web





The Second Coming Of Heavy; Chapter IV will get an official vinyl release on 9th December 2016 and is limited to 300 copies in three alternative versions (100 of each)  The Resurrection Edition, The Risen OBI and The Ascension Edition.





Stream Red Mesas Cactus Highway and Blue Snaggletooths Mystic Waters

(For the full track listing see below)





Track Listing:





1. 'Cactus Highway' by Red Mesa

2. 'Low And Slow' by Red Mesa

3. 'Goin' To The Desert' by Red Mesa

4. 'Utopia' by Red Mesa

5. 'Sand Witch' by Blue Snaggletooth

6. 'Crystal's Gaze' by Blue Snaggletooth

7. 'Mystic Waters' by Blue Snaggletooth
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What will President-elect Donald Trumps defense policy in Asia look like? The short answer is: We simply dont know. Should he indeed embrace an isolationist stance of non-involvement in Asian conflicts and non-entanglement in Asian affairs, we may see an increase in regional tensions in the near future fueled by South Korean and Japanese nuclear armament, Chinese militarization of the South and East China Seas, a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, the possible collapse of Pakistan, and the continuous spread of Islamic extremism in the region, to name a few.

The more likely course of U.S. defense policy in Asia under President Trump, however, will be a variation of the old dictum of peace through strength, predicated upon a buildup of U.S. military power in the region, perhaps based on some variant of the of the so-called concept of offshore balancing , i.e. the use of regional allies to manage the rise of great powers, while relying on a large (offshore) U.S. naval presence in the Asia-Pacific region to deter agression. (It should be noted, though, that most political scientists think that Asian regional powers will not be able to manage Chinas rise in the region without substantial U.S. backing.) Where is this idea coming from?

Two of Donald Trumps policy advisers (one of whom was an aide to the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee Randy Forbes) laid out this case in a Foreign Policy article this week, albeit without going into many details. Nevertheless, one thing appears to be clear: The pivot of Donald Trumps U.S. defense policy in Asia will be the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Navy is perhaps the greatest source of regional stability in Asia, the authors write. In the article, Trumps advisers advocate for a massive U.S. naval buildup in the region. (Randy Forbes, who lost the primary race to retain his congressional seat earler this year, has been an avid supporter of U.S. naval buildup and modernization to check Chinese ambitions. Could he be a canidate for U.S. secretary of the navy?)

The U.S. Navy currently operates 274 ships  the largest and most powerful naval force in the world  structured around its 10 aircraft carrier strike groups. The number of deployable warships will increase to 308 in the years ahead, according to the latest U.S. Navy shipbuilding plan. However, these numbers do not satisfy Trumps advisers. Trumps goal is 350 ships, a fleet in line with the up to 346 ships endorsed by the bipartisan National Defense Panel, they write. According to the authors, it was the small size of the U.S. Navy that doomed the so-called U.S. rebalance to Asia strategy first announced in 2011.

Judging from the Foreign Policy article, it appears that Donald Trumps defense policy in Asia will be first and foremost built around affirming the United States ability to deliver on its defense commitments in the region, with the U.S. Navy as Trumps offshore messenger. To be fair, for some time there has been a simmering feeling among some Asian allies and U.S. policymakers , whether true or not, that the U.S. rebalance to Asia strategy  particulary its miliary component  was only halfheartedly executed under the presidency of Barack Obama.

Trump, unless he yields to isolationist impulses, is likely to continue this strategy in principle, (over)emphasizing its military component. The president-elect will first and foremost have to find a means to reinvigorate the Asia rebalance to combat the perception that the Obama administration had over-promised and under-delivered on the strategy. U.S. defense policy in Asia in the next four years  save for black swans that could include the new presidents unpredictable temperament  will with a large degree of certainty be heavily influenced by this rebalance strategy in one aspect or the other (although to this date no official U.S. government document exists to explain this strategy and all its diffuse elements  and thats without accounting for Donald Trumps contradictory foreign policy statements in general).

It is likely that the overarching de-facto theme for U.S. defense policy in Asia, influenced by an updated rebalance strategy, will be containment in particular when it comes to two Asian nations. On the one hand, the United States will try to contain North Korean nuclear aggression by threatening massive military retaliation in the event of war in combination with quiet diplomatic efforts. On the other hand, Washington will attempt to influence China to become a responsible stakeholder in a U.S.-led rule-based world order through subtle containment. (21st century containment differs from the United States Cold War containment strategy, since Washington, no matter what administration is in charge, has a vested interest in a prosperous and strong China.)

Consequently, checking Chinese and North Korean military expansion will be the most important task of U.S. defense policy in Asia in the next four years. (Containing Islamic extremism and continuing to support the Afghan governments fight against the Taliban insurgency will remain important for a Trump White House, but  again, save the occurrence of black swans  will not have as big of an impact on U.S. defense policy as China and North Korea, in my opinion.) Consequently, U.S. defense policy in Asia will be built around merging offshore balancing with a de-facto China and North Korean containment strategy.

In concrete terms this means, a Trump White House could push for an increase in U.S. naval activity in the South China Sea, including patrols challenging excessive maritime claims as part of freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) ; a more rigorous push for ballistic missile defense including the deployment of additional Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems in the region, notably South Korea; improving military cooperation with critical U.S. allies such as Japan by, for example, establishing a U.S.-Japanese Joint Operations Command (which also sends a strong political message to Beijing and Pyongyang); the maintenance and possible expansion of the U.S. drone strike program in Pakistan; and the sale o f U.S. submarines to Taiwan , to name a few. At the same time, the U.S. Navy will continue and step up its participation in bilateral and multilateral military exercises such as COBRA Gold and the Malabar Exercise Series with key allies.

Furthermore, we can expect a concerted effort to build up underfunded navies of U.S. allies and partners in Southeast Asia; a large increase in the U.S. surface fleet presence in the region (perhaps by permanently deploying an additional carrier strike group or amphibious ready group to the region); an increase of U.S. deterrence aerial patrols near the North Korean border, closer naval cooperation with India in the Indian Ocean and support in building up Indian naval capacity (e.g., helping design and build the countrys first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier); the dispatch of additional counterterrorism and counter-insurgency advisers to Pakistan; and a more rigorous push toward developing norms and rules of the road for military operations in cyberspace with allies and partners, among a host of other issues. The United States could also offer technical advice to Japan and South Korea on the development of nuclear weapons  admittedly a far-fetched scenario.

While under a Clinton White House all of this would likely be accompanied by concerted diplomatic efforts, the Trump administration has not made any mention of specific diplomatic efforts in support of its Reaganesque peace through strength Asia-Pacific defense strategy. For example, in order to assuage fears of the U.S. naval buildup in the region, an attempt would have to be made to deepen U.S.-China dialogues on a host of issues including North Korea, cybersecurity, maritime disputes, and the nuclear and space arms races. President Trump would also need to push for better crisis management mechanisms in order to more easily defuse future conflict. More rigorous engagement with China, including continuing Chinese military participation in joint drills such as RIMPAC and various other confidence-building measures including cyber tabletop exercises, would also be required  an unlikely proposition under Trump.

In the end, Donald Trumps defense policy in Asia  should he listen to his advisors  will likely be an extension of the rebalance strategy as outlined in 2011, accentuating, however, the military aspect of it  particularly building up the U.S. Navy in the region. Then again, we have to admit that there remain too many known unknowns to make an accurate prediction of Trumps future defense policy in Asia  and that, to use one of Trumps favorite words, is a huge problem.
The President-Elect has vowed to get tough on trade.

U.S.-China relations, doubtlessly the worlds most important bilateral ties, are about to get a stress test.

Among many potential foreign policy challenges facing the administration of president-elect Donald Trump, a rapid deterioration in the relations between Washington and Beijing will have profound  and decidedly negative  consequences for global peace and prosperity. The most immediate trigger of a downward spiral of U.S.-China relations, which have been carefully nurtured by both Republican and Democratic administrations over decades, is almost certain to be a trade war with China. A centerpiece of Trumps winning campaign strategy is trade protectionism. To gain the support from blue-collar manufacturing workers in the American heartland, Trump has vowed, among other things, to abrogate trade agreements and impose unilateral tariffs. In the case of China, he has floated the idea of slapping tariffs as high as 45% on imports from China.

If Trump carries out his campaign pledge, Chinas exports to the U.S., worth $483 billion in 2015, could collapse. Needless to say, American exports to China, estimated at $116 billion as of 2015, will plunge as China retaliates. The economic consequences of such a trade war will not be restricted only to the U.S. and the Chinese economy. Since 35% of Chinas exports in 2015 was processing trade (China imports components from other countries and then assembles them for exports), $169 billion of Chinese exports to the U.S. in 2015 actually represented imports from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and others. Obviously, these economies, all critical trading partners of the U.S., will be collateral damage.

Besides a potential trade war, U.S.-China economic relations could suffer another blow during a Trump administration: more restrictions imposed on Chinese investments in the U.S. Trade protectionism is likely to be extended to restrictions on Chinese acquisition of American technologies and companies because of fear that they could endanger American jobs. The prospect of concluding a U.S.-China bilateral investment treaty (BIT) now looks very dim.

As trade and investment constitute the most important foundation of U.S.-China relations, the dismantling of this foundation will cause spillover effects in other areas, most critically East Asian security.

Despite its recent muscle-flexing in the South China Sea, Beijings security policy in East Asia has always been constrained by its economic interdependence with the U.S. As the mutual bond of commerce unravels under a Trump administration, China could be much less restrained in challenging American security interests in East Asia.

Should Chinese leaders decide to do so, they would be encouraged by Trumps campaign rhetoric about reducing American security commitments to its allies in Asia. In all likelihood, Beijing may want to test whether a Trump administration will honor long-standing American security guarantees to its friends and allies in East Asia. In light of the near certainty that Trump will scrap President Barack Obamas strategic pivot to Asia (which includes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, as its economic pillar), Chinese leaders will be especially emboldened to challenge American presence in Asia.

Of the potential regional flash points that could bring U.S. and China face to face in a dangerous military confrontation, two stand out  the South China Sea and Taiwan.

Under President Barack Obamas administration, the U.S. has consistently opposed Chinas unilateral claims to sovereignty over much of the South China Sea. If Trump believes that the South China Sea is none of Washingtons business, Beijing will likely further escalate its activities, such as building military facilities and drilling for oil, thus escalating risks of conflict with Vietnam and the Philippines. As more than $5 trillion worth of commerce transits through the South China Sea each other, a military conflict or acceptance of Chinas de facto control of the area will gravely undermine American security interests.

The other flash point is Taiwan. In January this year, the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party decisively won the presidency and the legislature of the self-governing island, which China also claims. Relations between Taiwan and China are deteriorating. Washington maintains a delicate One-China policy, which maintains official ties with Beijing but also honors its commitments to Taiwans security. One obvious danger is that Trump, who has no knowledge or experience in this area, could say or do something that Beijing perceives as reflecting a fundamental policy shift. In particular, Trumps aversion to maintaining American security commitments in East Asia could be interpreted by China as his willingness to abandon Taiwan.

Such a reading could encourage Beijing to engage in military intimidation against Taiwan to test Trumps resolve, thus precipitating a crisis.

Before Trumps stunning victory on Wednesday, the conventional wisdom was that Hillary Clinton would take a tougher policy toward Beijing than Trump. Now that Trump is headed for the White House, it is worth noting that his China policy, to the extent there is such a thing, consists of trade protectionism on the one hand and abandonment of long-standing security commitments on the other. If anything, this is a recipe for conflict.
Australias security and prosperity is dependent on the maintenance of a particular type of world order. We know this because it has been clearly articulated in Australian defence strategy since the end of the second world war and evidenced by our support for the institutions of global governance. Its also clear from the military forces that weve committed alongside the US in wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 2016 Defence White Paper elevated the importance of protecting a rules based order and backed this up with an unprecedented peacetime expansion in defence spending. It may be that Canberra, like other regional capitals, has been getting jittery about the depth of US engagement with our region. Buying joint strike fighters and submarines is one way of enhancing self-reliance while also demonstrating a commitment to the alliance.

This concern is not surprising given President Barack Obamas seeming reluctance to project American military power abroad. When it comes to Asia, the Obama administration will be best remembered for being outmanoeuvred regionally and globally while presiding over Chinas expansionism in the South China Sea. For all its power and global reach it will be seen to have focused on the hot wars in the Middle East at the expense of the new cold war in Asia.

This is nothing new, as there has been concern about keeping the US engaged every decade since the Vietnam War in the 1970s. Obamas pivot to Asia was seen as reaffirming that commitment, and the concentration of US naval forces in the region was read as a clear sign that the US-Australia alliance would be strengthened. It quickly became apparent, though, that the pivot was lacking in substance. The US response to China in the South China Sea dispute has only reinforced those concerns, and demonstrated just how shallow the diplomatic pivot was.

Donald Trump is about as different to Obama as one could be. We know very little about what Trumps foreign policy will look like, and less about what it will mean for Australian foreign policy interests. What we do know is that Trump has prioritised standing up to China economically. The prospect of a trade war and increased tensions between the US and China is a worrying possibility. For all of Trumps bombastic statements about China being to blame for Americas economic woes, once hes in the Oval Office he could face significant obstacles to many of his policy prescriptions. It is unlikely that he would be able to impose high tariffs on Chinese imports without also severely hurting the US.

The constraints on international trade mean that he may come to quickly understand the value of other foreign policy tools to boost his economic interests. Despite his lack of focus on international security issues in the campaign, it may be that the new administration uses the South China Sea dispute to symbolise its differences with its predecessor and as leverage against the Chinese government.

If so, a more assertive (and aggressive) US would quickly change perceptions in regional capitals. It would never be publicly recognised that Chinas gains may not be reversed, but if stability was restored and backed by US force, the region might get back to the business of business.

Trump has been highly critical of NATO, but supportive of the US alliance with Australia. If the US is to be more assertive in the region, Australia is a natural ally. It will be for our politicians to position Australia in a way that takes advantage of this opportunity. To date there has been pressure from within and outside government to undertake a freedom of navigation exercise in the South China Sea. We may see one soon.

The orthodox view has been that stability and predictability are what is needed most. Trump has ripped this approach apart, but it may not be against Australias interests. That said, strategic miscalculation is always just over the horizon, and we dont yet know how China, or North Korea for that matter, is going to react.

A more muscular foreign policy in the region would carry definite risks. But it could also reassure allies such as Australia, Japan and South Korea that America still has their interests at heart. It would send a clear signal to Beijing to tread carefully. Trump would gain a negotiating wedge with China, and Australia would gain what it craves most: a US engaged in maintaining the strategic stability of the region and the rules based order.

Long-standing US allies like Australia, as well as allies with long standing suspicion of China such as Japan and South Korea, are all looking for the US to reaffirm the nature of its commitment to the region. A more assertive US President might be just whats needed to smooth the waves of discontent in Asia over the rise of China and its revisionist behaviour in the South China Sea. This means that for all the speculation about Trumps foreign policy, Australia could be well placed to strengthen its relations with the US.
A new community swimming pool  actually, what will become two pools  for the entire Santa Ynez Valley is sitting in a storage unit in Nebras
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All hail our new synthesizer overlords in Nightsatan! It was just a few weeks ago that we shared the short film Nightsatan And The Loops Of Doom from director CHRZU and featuring the actual Finnish synthesizer band as themselves in a stupendously odd vision of a post apocalyptic future. But as weird as that short film is (which is very) it doesn't even hold a candle to the brain melting madness that is the brand new proof of concept trailer for the upcoming Nightsatan feature film.

This thing may only run two minutes, but what a two minutes. Cannibalizism, techno witches, digital zombies, battle mecha constructed out of autonomous speakers ... there's more madness per minute here than should be legally allowed and it's all absolutely brilliant.

This is, as mentioned, a proof of concept for a feature film that has just launched a crowdfunding campaign here and I do recommend that you throw a few bucks into the pot after watching the trailer and the pitch videos below. I already have.
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 "Revitalizing the Clemency Process" | Main | Reading closely the main criminal justice elements of "Donald Trumps Contract with the American Voter" 

November 10, 2016

Which possible SCOTUS pick from the Trump list should sentencing reformers be rooting for?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by my strong belief that Prez-Elect Trump is very likely to keep his campaign promise to pick a SCOTUS nominee from his list of 21 possibilities released during his campaign. Ed Whelan has this helpful new post over at Bench Memos that sets out all the 21 names and their current positions as well as a reminder that Trump said this list "is definitive and [that he] will choose only from it in picking future justices of the United States Supreme Court."

As a fan and follower of federal sentencing law and policy, there are three names on the Trump lists that jump out to me immediately:

Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah

William Pryor, Eleventh Circuit

Amul Thapar, Eastern District of Kentucky

For complicated reasons that I do not think can be adequately and effectively explained in this forum, I am cautiously optimistic that the appointment of any of these gentleman could be a relatively positive development for the future of SCOTUS sentencing jurisprudence. ( Critical disclosure : my views here, at least for the two jurists above, are significantly influenced by my own personal and professional interactions. Judge Pryor and I have exchanged emails a few times (both before and since he became a member of the US Sentencing Commission), and Judge Thapar and I have met and spoken more than a few times (and he hired a former student of mine as an intern and also solicited me to write an amicus brief in a fascinating sentencing case a few years ago).)

Sadly, other than this trio, I am unfamiliar with the sentencing views and record of any of the other 18 persons on Prez-Elect Trump's SCOTUS (not-so-)short list. Ergo, I am uncertain about whether to be cautiously optimistic or pessimistic about what any other nomination could mean for the future of SCOTUS sentencing jurisprudence. I am certain, though, that a whole bunch of journalists and lawyers and advocates are now starting the hard work of investigating (and perhaps formally vetting) every person on the Trump SCOTUS list.

I am hopeful that anyone with any relevant sentencing-related information about these folks will share that information in the comments here or via email/links. I suspect Prez-Elect Trump will nominate a replacement for Justice Scalia within his first few days as president, and so I do not think it is too early to start gearing up for what should be an interesting and dynamic confirmation process.

November 10, 2016 at 01:40 PM | Permalink

Comments

I look at this from the vantage point of their views as a whole.

Posted by: Joe | Nov 10, 2016 1:45:23 PM

Let's hope each and every one of them would vote to overrule Zavydas v. Davis, a court decision that has led to a lot of victimization here in the USA.

Pryor would be a poke in the eye. Remember his SJC hearing where the 'rats tried to bust his chops over not wanting to take his kids to Disney?

Posted by: federalist | Nov 10, 2016 2:16:46 PM

Judge Pryor is reported as having said that Roe v. Wade was the "worst abomination in the history of constitutional law."

Posted by: Dave from Texas | Nov 10, 2016 2:24:15 PM

With respect to Senator Mike Lee has said, at a May 2016 event, he stated that it "has long been obvious that the Democratic Partys assertion that the science of climate change is settled is little more than a cheap public-relations ploy masquerading as a monopoly on scientific knowledge.

Posted by: Dave from Texas | Nov 10, 2016 2:27:37 PM

Senator Mike Lee (and most other Republicans), as well as President-Elect Trump (gasp!) believe that climate change is vastly overblown or even a hoax. They are wrong. Below are some of the impacts that are currently visible throughout the U.S. and will continue to affect these regions, according to the Third National Climate Assessment Report2, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program:

The Arctic Ocean is expected to become essentially ice free in summer before mid-century.

Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours and sea level rise pose growing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning.

Northwest. Changes in the timing of streamflow reduce water supplies for competing demands. Sea level rise, erosion, inundation, risks to infrastructure and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire, insect outbreaks and tree diseases are causing widespread tree die-off.

Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to the regions economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts.

Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also exacerbate a range of risks to the Great Lakes.

Southwest. Increased heat, drought and insect outbreaks, all linked to climate change, have increased wildfires. Declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns.

Posted by: Emily | Nov 10, 2016 2:45:54 PM



Judge William Pryor has a record of extreme opposition to abortion and the separation of religion and state. Pryor is fervently anti-choice. He has called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history." "Abortion is murder," he told a survey of state attorneys...I support the right to life of every unborn child." Pryor is an activist against choice, addressing rallies and working against choice in the courts.

Pryor has also campaigned to put religion into public life, including the public schools. He vigorously defends posting the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court building and referred in one article to the "so-called wall of separation between church and state."

Addressing a rally in support of a judge sued for praying and displaying the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, Pryor asserted that "God has chosen, through his son Jesus Christ, this time and this place for all Christians...to save our country and save our courts." He called the day Roe was decided "the day seven members of our highest court ripped the Constitution and ripped out the life of millions of unborn children." And he ended one speech with the prayer, "Please God, no more Souters."

Posted by: anon3 | Nov 10, 2016 2:52:53 PM

Of course I vote for Mike Lee. How could anyone know what the new administration will do? It's all been so contradictory and over the years he's espoused distinctly opposite views on so many issues.

As for his comment about the settled science of climate change, the phrase "settled science" has always bothered me. It is especially bothersome when it is the constant mantra of celebrities. Science is never settled, scientific theories or discoveries are always building blocks to knowledge and repeatedly challenged and tested to get to the next level.

Posted by: beth | Nov 10, 2016 3:05:50 PM

I wasn't clear. I meant to say Lee's comment about climate change.

Posted by: beth | Nov 10, 2016 3:07:02 PM

Emily, I have a question for you--how quickly is CO2 removed from the atmosphere via natural processes?

Posted by: federalist | Nov 10, 2016 3:17:43 PM

Federalist, I don't know the answer to your question. But the answer may be in the following report:

"There are various ways in which experts propose to remove CO2. According to scientists, about one percent of the CO2 emissions can be used as raw material, rather than being emitted into the atmosphere and some pilot projects already exist.

Car manufacturer Audi uses CO2 to create so-called 'e-gas', an alternative to regular fuel. CO2 is reacted with hydrogen to produce synthetic methane, or 'Audi e-gas'. Methane is considered a greenhouse gas, but as the production of synthetic methane removes CO2 from the atmosphere, this e-gas is seen as an eco-friendly way of producing fuel.

CO2 is also being used in the chemical industry. Chemical company Bayer Material Science uses CO2 from coal-fired power plants for the production of plastic polyurethane, which is used to make the foam for mattresses.

Storing CO2

Another way of removing CO2 from the atmosphere is a process called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Compressed CO2, usually waste from power plants or industry, is stored deep within the earth. Natural geological foundations, depleted oil or gas bearings can serve as storage sites. Still, storing CO2 permanently to mitigate emissions is a relatively new concept.

Norwegian oil company Statoil is a pioneer in this field. Kristof Hofer, a carbon capture storage expert at Statoil, says that in order for the technology to be used globally, the price of CO2 should not be lower than 40 to 50 euros per ton. "We need a high and stable price - that's the main requirement," he says.

One potential of the CCS technology is to capture emissions at power plants. Coal power plants usually emit CO2 into the atmosphere. When making use of the CCS process, instead of being released CO2 would be compressed and stored in the ground. However, this procedure increases the costs of the power plant drastically. This means the technology could not compete with renewable energy.

Nevertheless, IPCC-author and CCS-expert Manfred Fischedick recommends developing the technology further. One day we might have to retrofit existing plants with new technology to combat CO2 emissions, he tells DW.

As with power plants, CCS could also be used at biogas plants. Plants use CO2 to grow, and store it as carbon. As plants are burned in biogas plants, the CO2 they captured is released into the atmosphere. But when using CCS, instead of releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere, it is put into the ground. Researchers at PIK see potential in this technology, but say it won't be enough to solve the CO2 issue.

Binding CO2 in soil

HTC Biokohle vom Feld

Could hydrochar save the planet?

Other methods of removing CO2 from the atmosphere include imitating natural processes, for example, through reforestation. Just like any other plant, trees capture CO2 and store it as carbon. This means that replanting trees will remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Another natural process is the formation of humus  organic matter in soil. Created from dead carbon-storing plants, humus has the ability to store carbon.

Humus formation is a slow natural process, and one that can be accelerated and enhanced through a process called hydrothermal carbonization. During this process, plant residues and biowaste are processed using pressure and high temperatures. The end product is called 'hydrochar', which is rich in stable organic carbon, and can be used as soil amendment.

Hans-Josef Fell, a member of Germany's Green Party, sees great potential in this method. "Soil becomes more fertile and we can revegetate dry areas," says Fell. A couple of pilot projects already exist.

Fell promotes research and development in this sector. He sees the possibility to remove 200 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere within 30 years. "It would take about eight million hydrothermal carbonization plants in the larger industrial style," he says. "Within 30 years, we could then remove this amount of CO2 from the atmosphere and safely deposit it in the upper soil layers."

The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) has also done research with hydrochar and sees its potential for saving the climate. However, research is still in the fledgling stages.

Still, despite these times of great innovative research, experts agree that the best strategy to stop global warming is not to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but to avoid putting it out there in the first place. And they agree that using one of the new technologies won't be enough. There isn't a single silver bullet that will solve the problem."

Posted by: Emily | Nov 10, 2016 4:42:34 PM

my question was directed around natural processes---the answer--prodigious amounts--and the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the quicker it is removed (a natural buffer).

The bottom line--the models don't work--the hockey stick is hokum (um, it doesn't account for the LIE or the MWP). So, we don't even know: (1) how much AGCC is happening, (2) whether it's a net positive or negative, (3) whether humans can act effectively to stop it and (4) whether such actions would cause more harm than good and (5) whether the costs of doing something outweigh the costs of non-activity.

Doug, was Emily trolling?

Posted by: federalist | Nov 10, 2016 5:04:29 PM

Federalist, you and Mike Lee have much in common.

Here are the facts:

The current episode of global warming is attributed to increasing emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into Earth's atmosphere. The global annual mean concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by more than 40% since the start of the Industrial Revolution, from 280 ppm, the level it had for the last 10,000 years leading up to the mid-18th century,to 399 ppm as of 2015. The present concentration is the highest in at least the past 800,000 years[6] and likely the highest in the past 20 million years.[7] The increase has been caused by anthropogenic sources, particularly the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. The daily average concentration of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa Observatory first exceeded 400 ppm on 10 May 2013. It is currently rising at a rate of approximately 2 ppm/year and accelerating.1] An estimated 3040% of the CO2 released by humans into the atmosphere dissolves into oceans, rivers and lakes,[12][13] which contributes to ocean acidification.

Posted by: Dave from Texas | Nov 10, 2016 5:29:38 PM

Federalist,

"Burning fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum is the leading cause of increased anthropogenic CO2; deforestation is the second major cause. In 2010, 9.14 gigatonnes of carbon (33.5 gigatonnes of CO2) were released from fossil fuels and cement production worldwide, compared to 6.15 gigatonnes in 1990.[73] In addition, land use change contributed 0.87 gigatonnes in 2010, compared to 1.45 gigatonnes in 1990.[73] In 1997, human-caused Indonesian peat fires were estimated to have released between 13% and 40% of the average carbon emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels around the world in a single year.[74][75][76] In the period 1751 to 1900, about 12 gigatonnes of carbon were released as carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from burning of fossil fuels, whereas from 1901 to 2008 the figure was about 334 gigatonnes.[77]

CO2 in Earth's atmosphere if half of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are not absorbed.[78][79][80][81]

(NASA computer simulation).

This addition, about 3% of annual natural emissions, as of 1997, is sufficient to exceed the balancing effect of sinks.[82] As a result, carbon dioxide has gradually accumulated in the atmosphere, and as of 2013, its concentration is almost 43% above pre-industrial levels.[9][19] Various techniques have been proposed for removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in carbon dioxide sinks.

Carbon dioxide has unique long-term effects on climate change that are largely "irreversible" for one thousand years after emissions stop (zero further emissions) even though carbon dioxide tends toward equilibrium with the ocean on a scale of 100 years. The greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide do not persist over time in the same way as carbon dioxide. Even if human carbon dioxide emissions were to completely cease, atmospheric temperatures are not expected to decrease significantly in the short term.[83][84][85][86]

On 12 November 2015, NASA scientists reported that human-made carbon dioxide (CO2) continues to increase above levels not seen in hundreds of thousands of years: currently, about half of the carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels remains in the atmosphere and is not absorbed by vegetation and the oceans."



Federalist, do you believe in gravity?

Posted by: Peter | Nov 10, 2016 5:32:36 PM

Federalist, you are a smart guy. What do you make of the following:

"Climate change has already touched almost all life on the planet, even under moderate rates of global warming, according to a report published Thursday in the journal Science.

An international team of researchers found 82 percent of key biological processes necessary for healthy ecosystems had been impacted by the phenomenon. The changes have been felt even though the world is just 1 degree Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels.

Were already seeing salamanders shrink in size, were seeing migratory birds change their migratory routes, were seeing species interbreeding now, because of just a small degree of warming, said James Watson, a professor at the University of Queensland and senior author of the report.

Scientists are currently gathered in Marrakech, Morocco, to work out details of the landmark Paris climate agreement, which aims to keep the world from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius. Anything hotter than that will likely cause a slew of troubling events: melting glaciers, rising seas, extreme weather and an uptick in disease.

But aside from severe impacts for humanity, those shifts will drastically change worldwide biology.

Its not just polar bears that are being affected by climate change.

The fact is, its not one or two species in one or two places, Watson said. Its entire systems and entire processes. All the things which live in those systems are almost certainly changing their behavior, the way they breathe, the way they move.

...

Leading environmental groups have stressed the need for urgency in curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The climate crisis is already having very serious consequences for life on the planet, said Jean Su, associate conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The 1-degree Celsius rise in temperature already has the world spinning out of control in terms of the widespread harms to species, and also people ... The need for strong climate action couldnt be clearer or as necessary as right now.

...

Watson said the report was not just doom and gloom, noting there was still time, albeit limited, to act on low-hanging fruit like environmental protection and investment in renewable energy. But ecosystems will only tolerate so much.

Theres no doubt were in for dramatic warming still, he said. Were literally going into climatic spaces that are beyond the norm. With another degree, itll almost certainly be 100 percent of species affected. What we dont know is how those species are going to react.

Posted by: anon1 | Nov 10, 2016 5:40:09 PM

How the hell did we get to talking about global warming on a sentencing blog?

Posted by: Fat Bastard | Nov 10, 2016 5:56:32 PM

Exactly the question I was thinking, Fat Bastard, and I have let the thread unfold to see how long it would take for someone to wonder this out loud. Relatedly, the abortion discussion also revealed that I may be the only one who will react to the SCOTUS nomination with sentencing issues in mind.

That all said, I suppose I should be gratified to discover at this point that nobody has anything bad to say about Judge Thapar, who would be my first choice based on his experiences as a trial judge (as well as his diverse background).

Posted by: Doug B. | Nov 10, 2016 6:26:02 PM

Wasn't it warmer on earth during MWP? And what if upward pressure on temps is mitigated by what would be a natural cooling trend (we are in the middle of ice ages)?

As for CO2 from atmosphere--um, guys, how much natural CO2 is put into the atmosphere each year, and somehow co2 concentrations are in the ppm? Prodigious amounts of CO2 are removed from the atmosphere by natural processes.

Maybe you guys should answer my five questions . . . .

Posted by: federalist | Nov 10, 2016 7:11:57 PM

The thread makes sense because we aren't merely concerned with choosing a judge to the Sentencing Court or something. We are picking a key vote that will decide a range of issues. I stick by my first comment & would choose a true libertarian of the sort that doesn't think basic control of one's body is horrible. And, yeah, science is relevant there, since that issue will come up in various ways. etc.

Posted by: Joe | Nov 10, 2016 7:15:34 PM

As the vote stands now, Hillary has almost 300,000 more votes than Trump. The Republicans have said that the "people should have the final voice on who gets to choose". Well the people have spoken: Hillary has by far the most votes. But since she can't nominate anyone, we have to wait (as the Repbulicans have said) until the next election.

Posted by: anon | Nov 10, 2016 8:25:21 PM

I agree with Beth and federalist on this issue. Climate change is happening because duh climate change is happening all the time. The crucial question is: what is man's role in the affair and is he making it worse or better? That question is, as Beth correctly points out, by no means "settled." Moreover sentences like this make no scientific sense: "The current episode of global warming is attributed to increasing emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into Earth's atmosphere." Attribution is not a scientific concept. Scientists speak in terms of causation and/or correlation. So which one is it? If it is just correlation well then correlation is not causation. And it can't be causation because there are no double-blind experiments performed with the world's weather.

So the only foundation for making claims about climate change is modeling yet I can take a model and massage it parameters to produce any outcome I want. So tend to agree with Lee that climate change is mostly a scam.

Posted by: Daniel | Nov 11, 2016 11:40:50 AM



Daniel and Federalist, Greetings!. Interesting digression on this sentencing blog. Thought Id way in in light of Daniels assertion that climate change appears to be a scam. Its true that correlation does not mean causation. But if we wait for a double blind test (as with new drugs), Im afraid well wait forever. Im getting old enough now so that any climate change worst case scenarios wont affect me. I am concerned, however, about the world that my daughter and her children will face. In any event, I went to the NASA website at http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ and found the following points that do seem to support the reality of climate change and of man's contribution to it. Welcome your thoughts.

1. Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century.

2. All three major global surface temperature reconstructions show that Earth has warmed since 1880. Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years.6 Even though the 2000s witnessed a solar output decline resulting in an unusually deep solar minimum in 2007-2009, surface temperatures continue to increase

3. The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of 0.302 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969.

4. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost 150 to 250 cubic kilometers (36 to 60 cubic miles) of ice per year between 2002 and 2006, while Antarctica lost about 152 cubic kilometers (36 cubic miles) of ice between 2002 and 2005.

5. Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades.

6. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world  including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa

7. The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events.



8. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30 percent. This increase is the result of humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence more being absorbed into the oceans. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the upper layer of the oceans is increasing by about 2 billion tons per year

9. Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and that the snow is melting earlier





Posted by: Michael R. Levine | Nov 11, 2016 1:13:05 PM

I won't try to weigh in on the science but various of the policies that would help assumed global warming seems to me useful at any rate. Less reliance on fossil fuels, reduction of pollution generally etc. has value here with or without global warming.

The specific issue is a not THAT germane though I do think some basic understanding of science would be helpful when judging in the 21st Century as Breyer notes in regard to the separate issue of foreign affairs of various types (see, e.g., his recent book).

Posted by: Joe | Nov 11, 2016 2:02:58 PM

@Mr. Levine

"Its true that correlation does not mean causation. But if we wait for a double blind test (as with new drugs), Im afraid well wait forever."

I concur. The scam part about global warming isn't the policies that are proposed to solve it, the scam part is trying to give a gloss of scientific certainty to something that isn't certain. I am sympathetic to the line of argument that your propose that it is simply too risky and that it would be a terrible result if we found out 100 years down the line there were things we could have done to prevent global warming and didn't. I understand the power of what psychologists call "regret avoidance". So I am not saying that as a matter of public policy we should do nothing, I am saying we should stop demonizing people who disagree with certain environmental policies because they have a different risk/reward profile.

As to the data points you elucidate my response is that they produce a scattergram. A scattergram with a trend line is not causation. Moreover, it is correlation over what in climatic terms is a minute time period. This leads us right back into a discussion about risk.

You know, in the recent election Nate Silver kept reminding people that the large number of undecided voters in the electorate so close to the election date significantly increased the amount of uncertainty in the election. No one wanted to hear that--they laughed at him. Then Trump won and they all had egg on their face. It's the same with climate science--people don't like to think in terms of risk, they like to think in terms of certainty. And so some environmental groups give them what they want and pretend that there is no uncertainty in the system. Rubbish. That's just not how science works.





Posted by: Daniel | Nov 12, 2016 4:58:03 PM

Post a comment


In the midst of Tuesday's chaos, a news item slipped through pertaining to Airbnb and San Francisco's latest attempt to crack down on scofflaw hosts. A federal judge ruled against a preliminary injunction sought by Airbnb to halt the implementation of an SF ordinance that penalizes them (and competitor Homeaway) for the illegal behavior of those who use their platform. As the Chronicle reports, the 18-page decision by U.S. District Judge James Donato isn't final, and another hearing is set for November 17, but it is looking likely that Airbnb is going to lose this pivotal battle.

You'll recall that Airbnb filed suit against the city back in June over what they see as an unfair burden on their platform  namely the supervisor-approved ordinance fining the company $1000 per day per illegal listing, which would include listings of units that are not a host's primary residence, entire units rented for more than the legal 90 days per year, and units that are not registered with the city's Office of Short-Term Rentals.

Airbnb argues that under the 1996 Communications Decency Act, "local governments [can not hold] websites responsible for content published by their users." And they've argued further that given the disorganization of the city's short-term rental office and the cumbersomeness of the registration process, they can't be expected to hold hosts responsible for adhering to the letter of the law either. Further, they argued in their filing, "The new law also violates the federal Stored Communications Act, which creates uniform privacy protections for internet users and prevents cities from simply demanding that platforms turn over user information without a subpoena or other legal process."

But Judge Donato wasn't having it, and in a hearing in early October said to the company, "Im struggling with how this ordinance can be described as content-based," noting that Airbnb would only be fined if they processed a transaction with a scofflaw host, not when said host posted their listing.

Donato has instructed Airbnb and the city to try to come up with a joint proposal for how better to track legal and illegal postings, and to enforce the law, after which he will give his final ruling.

As Bloomberg now reports, the initial ruling, while local and seemingly narrow, could have far broader implications for the company, which is waging similar battles in other cities with tight housing markets.

Also, they note, "Had the worlds fourth-most valuable startup succeeded in its early attempt to block the ordinance enacted in June by its hometown, the strategy might have served as a template for other gig economy firms challenging regulations across the U.S."

Airbnb spokesperson Nick Papas issued a statement saying, "While we appreciate that the judge has acknowledged our concerns about the inadequacy of the screening obligations in the new law and has continued to postpone enforcement of these rules as a result, we respectfully disagree with the remainder of his ruling."

If the ruling is made final, Airbnb could be on the hook for quite a lot of money if they don't get hosts registered and abiding the law. As the Business Times points out, since the original "Airbnb Law" took effect in February 2015, only about 1,700 hosts out of about 8,000 to 10,000 SF rental listings have registered with the city.

Supervisor David Campos, who spearheaded the effort to tighten regulations on short-term rental platforms, issued a statement after the ruling saying, "Airbnb has had opportunity after opportunity to work with San Francisco's city hall to craft regulations that actually protect our neighborhoods while still allowing these companies to make billions. But instead they've employed an all-or-nothing strategy that has wasted San Francisco's time and money. Its getting a little hard to swallow all of Airbnb's talk about 'sharing' and 'community' when they're suing every city that passes common sense regulations."

City Attorney Dennis Herrera also applauded the ruling, saying, "I am grateful for Judge Donatos thoughtful ruling recognizing that just because Airbnb and Homeway conduct their business online, they are not exempt from any regulation of their commercial transactions."

Previously: Judge Grills Airbnb At Hearing Over SF Host Registration Law
Part of the Civic Center's UN Plaza was shut down this morning following a car crash into the side of an Art Institute campus building. Hoodline reports that details are few, but that police had cordoned off the area near the campus and adjacent to the big concrete fountains that mark the pedestrian-only area.

The address of the building on the receiving end of the car is 10 United Nations Plaza, which anyone familiar with San Francisco will know is right on the edge of the bustling Civic Center farmers' market. The farmer's market is scheduled to run every Wednesday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., but it is unclear when exactly this wreck occurred. How a car even got there in the first place is a bit of a mystery  the driver would have had to drive for some time through UN Plaza or perhaps down Leavenworth Street before wrecking into the side of the building. Maybe he or she drove onto the sidewalk from Market Street?

We reached out directly to SFPD for some clarification, but the department's media spokesperson only had extremely basic information. "The vehicle was a suspicious vehicle," the spokesperson told us. "The vehicle took off on the officers [but] it was not a pursuit." She was unable to provide us any further clarification, such as whether or not the car was parked when officers spotted it. This leaves us with a huge host of questions: Was anyone  driver or pedestrian  injured? Was the driver intoxicated? Was the driver distraught over the election of Donald Trump? At present, these questions remain unanswered.

The one thing we know for sure is that you should watch out for careening cars while shopping for your vegetables.

This post has been updated to include information from the SFPD.

Related: Three Seriously Injured After Taxi Jumps Curb In FiDi
San Franciscans are reminded this morning that ours is a city in a bubble, and not just the real estate/tech one usually invoked here, but a bubble of the liberal kind we too rarely acknowledge. That reminder came in the form of general election results that were so wildly at odds with (most of) our own votes. But just a bit farther down the ballot was an alphabet of local propositions whose results are pertinent to our bubble today. With all 597 precincts reporting as of 2 a.m. this morning and a local turnout of 513,573 people with 114,000 mail-in and provisional ballots still to be counted by the Department of Elections, here are the results of those.

Proposition A passed, giving the San Francisco Unified School District a $744 million facilities bond. $100 million is slated to be spent on building perhaps two schools in Mission Bay and the Bayview, the Examiner reminds us, and $100 million of it will go toward moving Ruth Asawa School of the Arts to the Civic Center area. Prop A got 79 percent of the vote and needed 55 percent to pass.

Measure B also passed, renewing the existing parcel tax for City College. That's $99 per parcel for 15 years with annual audits and oversight, and it won the two-thirds vote it needed with nearly 80 percent of the vote.

Prop C passed, meaning that $261 million will go toward acquiring and updating at-risk multi-unit housing to create affordable units. Prop C amends a 1992 ballot measure to basically transfer unused bond money from an earthquake-related fund. It needed a two-third majority to pass and got nearly 76 percent of the vote.

The progressive bloc of the Board of Supervisors narrowly lost out with Prop D, which received a "no" vote on changing how the mayor could appoint supervisors to vacant positions. The measure asked if mayoral appointees to the board should just serve as placeholders, not allowed to run for reelection as incumbents. This was one of the measures that moderate board members and former mayors warned of. The decision on D came down to a difference of just a few thousand votes, with about 53% voting "no," meeting the necessary simple majority.

The city will once again be responsible for maintaining trees and sidewalks with the passage of Measure E. That responsibility had shifted from the Department of Public Works to local property owners in 2011, but trees will be spoken for by the city by July, with $19 million set aside by the measure. This won't affect taxes and was unanimously supported by supervisors and essentially across the board  including with voters, 79 percent of whom said yes to the transfer.

Youth voting in local elections lost as San Franciscans rejected Local Measure F. Apparently people think 16- and 17-year-olds, who had organized to ask for the right, shouldn't vote, because people over the age of 18 are smart and know better than children, having just demonstrated our capacity for reason beyond repute. The "no vote" came narrowly with about 53 percent of the vote. Prop F's goal was to foster a new generation of voters, instilling in them good civic habits and encouraging participation, but like, whatever.

Meet the new Department of Police Accountability (DPA), everybody: measure G passed, renaming the Office of Citizens Complaints and then some. It's not the world's biggest reform, but with nearly 80 percent of voters in favor, it will allow the DPA complete independence from the Police Department to audit and review SFPD policy. The Mayor gets the authority to set the group's budget. The Examiner recalls that the Office of Citizens Complaints has investigated police misconduct for nearly 40 years and was mandated by voters last June to investigate every fatal police shooting in the city.

It was a close call, but we won't be getting a Public Advocate, as voters rejected Local Measure H. The position was proposed by Supervisor Campos and was to be modeled on similar jobs in cities like New York and Seattle. It would have come with an office of 25 people, and it was roundly opposed by the political establishment as the main thrust of a progressive effort to sap power from the Mayor's office. 53 percent of San Francisco voters said "no, thanks" to Prop H, preferring that our existing public advocates just do their jobs, or maybe redouble their efforts to do them.

Local Measure I was passed to set aside $38 million annually from the city's General Fund until 2037 for assistance to seniors and people with disabilities. That's a pretty serious chunk of change, and the Chronicle opposed the proposition, writing that "the money is an untouchable sum that will be cemented into the city charter with yearly adjustments... It limits future financial decisions, should the city want to adjust priorities." 66 percent of voters passed the measure.

Prop J passed, amending the City Charter to give us a Homeless Housing and Services Fund with $50 million per year for 24 years and Transportation Improvement Fund with $101.6 million per year for 24 years. 66 percent of voters who've been counted gave the measure their approval.

That said, Prop J was sorta counting on a boost it won't be getting from Local measure K, which was rejected by voters who didn't want to raise sales taxes. K would have increased those by 0.75 percent to 9.25 percent and buoyed the city's General Fund. It was endorsed by a majority of supervisors and the Chronicle, who point out that our 8.75 percent tax is among the Bay Area's lowest, and would have still been that way even with the modest increase.

MTA appointments and budgets will remain unchanged: Voters rejected Prop L. The Examiner explains that this is a win for the mayor's office, who currently makes all seven appointments to the SFMTA's board. L would have split those appointments, giving some to the Board of Supervisors (another progressive play) and demanded supervisorial approval for others. "No" on L had 55 percent of the votes that have been tallied, leaving the status quo on the SFMTA's board of directors and also not tinkering with voting and budget systems for the SFMTA.

There will be no new Housing and Development Commission thanks to a rejection by voters of the proposed Measure M, a charter amendment. That would have governed two other new commissions, a Department of Economic and Workforce Development and a Department of Housing and Community Development, but like, now it won't though. Progressives wanted it, the Guardian and the Examiner did too, but the Chronicle endorsed a "no" vote, with which 56 percent of voters agreed.

With the passage of Prop N, non-citizen parents and guardians can vote in School Board Elections, even if their 16- and 17-year old kids can't. 52 percent of voters said "yes" on N, which some critics worry isn't on firm legal ground and could wind up in court.

Prop O passed to exempt Candlestick Point/Navy Shipyard office space from existing city limits. In the Chronicle's editorial, the paper writes that "Prop. O is less a reflection of the shipyard project than it is a reflection of how tangled San Franciscos development policies are," calling the office space "once-in-a-lifetime," meaning it should be spared the usual annual limit on ew office space, which is 950,000 square feet. This is all part of a plan for a new Bayview neighborhood, and with 52 percent approval for the office development exemption at Candlestick Point/Hunters Point, it looks closer to reality.

A 67 percent "no" vote means that Prop P has failed, and the city won't be forced to get at least three proposals for affordable housing projects on City property. The SF Tenants Union and the SF Democratic Party led the opposition to Measure P, which was supported by Supervisors Farrell and Tang and backed by a realtor PAC  the idea there being that realtors might benefit from a system that put up more barriers to affordable housing, which would incentivize market-rate and luxury construction projects. Shady, and shot down.

San Francisco will expressly prohibit tents on sidewalks, providing for their removal with 24-hour notice and an offer of shelter: Prop Q passed, a highly politicized take on the city's homeless epidemic. The proposition was criticized as cruel and unfair by homeless advocates, who  far from condoning tents on streets  saw the measure as redundant with existing sit-lie laws and an effort to criminalize homeless people's attempts to shelter themselves. Backed by wealthy tech interests in an effort to promote Prop Q's proponent Supervisor Farrell, Prop Q was also backed by Supervisors Cohen, Farrell, Tang, and Wiener. Capitalizing on citizens who are concerned by the recent visibility of tent encampments, Measure Q appears to have won with a 53 percent majority.

Prop R failed, meaning that there won't be a Neighborhood Crime Unit which was proposed by Supes Wiener, Cohen, Tang, and Farrell to create a single command with a mandatory minimum staff to investigate low-level crimes like vandalism and car break-ins. Such duties are currently split across multiple SFPD units, and they'll stay that way because voter's shot down Measure R with a 54 percent "no" vote.

62 percent of voters indicated their support for Measure S, which passed would channel our 8 percent base tax on hotel room rentals toward arts programs and homeless services. Correction: Measure S failed to meet the two-thirds threshold it needed, so it didn't pass. The Chronicle counseled voters against S, specifically dedicating some of the annual millions from our overall 14 percent hotel tax, writing that "Given the other San Francisco ballot measures seeking to dedicate revenue to homeless services  Proposition J, a $50 million homeless service set-aside for 24 years, and Proposition K, the sales tax increase that proponents say will be partly invested in homeless housing  yet another dedicated revenue stream is unwarranted, especially when the city is in the process of an overall assessment of its homeless programs." Well, Prop K failed, sooo....

T passed, restricting gifts and campaign contributions from lobbyists. Lobbyists, you're on notice  87 percent of voters wanted to impose limits on y'all, meaning that you can't make campaign contributions to local elected officials or bundle those contributions somehow.

Prop U failed  The amount of income people can make and still qualify for subsidized housing won't change. The income eligibility limit for rental units in affordable housing units in market-rate development projects would have been upped to 110 percent of area median income under Prop U, which was backed by the Board of Realtors. The Chronicle cautioned in an editorial that Measure U "will only worsen tensions because a larger pool of housing hunters will be competing for a very limited supply" while more units won't necessarily be created, and voters agreed, rejecting U with a roughly 65 percent "no" vote.

Soda and sugary beverages will be taxed at one cent per ounce because Prop V passed. About 62 percent of voters in San Francisco approved the measure, smeared by the soda industry as a "grocery tax." It's a rebuke to the massive spending Coke, Pepsi, et al. pumped into this election, and with Oakland also joining Berkeley in its soda tax, the Bay Area just delivered a serious blow to sugar-peddlers.

Prop W passed, so the city will increase the transfer tax rate for sale of property, especially on high-end homes, ensuring that city college will be free. It's a tiered system and ups taxes according to properties' worth. The revenue goes to the city's general fund, although supporters intend for the money to go to free City College tuition for all residents. The Examiner calls this a big win after a three-decades long fight to make the college free, and writes that Prop W could bring in $45 million a year. It passed with 61 percent of the vote.

X won, requiring some Mission and SoMa neighborhood developments to preserve neighborhood arts, business, and community services. Developers will have to replace certain types of zoned spaces if they're demolished for new development, as 60 percent of local voters mandated by voting yes on X.

Related: SF Candidate Races: Ronen Crushes Arce In D9, Other VIctories Far Tighter
Not waiting for anyone's marching orders, many East Bay residents began protesting the election of Donald Trump virtually right away, with others including high schoolers taking today to leave their classrooms in unison, registering their anger and disappointment with a walkout. KQED reports that about 1,500 Berkeley High School students staged the protest, leaving their classes at about 8:20 a.m.

"We're all mad about Trump's election. He doesn't represent us" says 15 yr old Berkeley High student on walkout. pic.twitter.com/GYtC9juW6O  Berkeleyside (@berkeleyside) November 9, 2016

The district prefers that its students are in class and participating, District spokesman Charles Burress, who estimated that about half of the school's students participated in the walkout, told KQED. However, we do understand their concern and we take it very seriously when they feel passionate about political issues. Were doing everything we can to support them.

A 17-year-old Berkeley junior, Jeffrey Blair, told the Chronicle that, "Were sending a message that this is not a man we want in the White House," adding "The only thing he stands for is bigoted ideas and hate.

The high schoolers marched to UC Berkeley's campus, where they marched, congregated, and were joined by Cal students. As Berkeley High School principal Sam Pasarow told the Chron, This is a really intense learning experience for the students. He might not stop them even if he could, Pasarow said.

These high school freshmen walked out of school today. pic.twitter.com/8uRxlLNCQk  Ellen Cushing (@elcush) November 9, 2016 Thousands of high school students marching through Berkeley pic.twitter.com/zUUSE45xWS  Ellen Cushing (@elcush) November 9, 2016

Protests were also held at Oakland Technical and Albany High School.

Many #AlbanyHigh students walked from their campus to join the #BerkeleyHigh election walkout. Now marching in downtown Berkeley. pic.twitter.com/QySyQobUmH  Berkeleyside (@berkeleyside) November 9, 2016

There was also action in San Leandro:

THIS is San Leandro High. THIS is what a community looks like. Yeah, we did this #projectnotmypresidentslhs pic.twitter.com/4GF4LmblvC  #KeyClubWeek+RIP USA (@ivanmoomoo) November 10, 2016

The East Bay Times took in the scene last night in Oakland, where hundreds were on the streets as well. There was one reported injury when a pedestrian was hit by a car on Highway 24. That occurred at around 12:20 a.m. according to a CHP official, and the Chronicle writes that the victim was a 20-year-old-woman who was seriously injured when hit by an SUV. She was among about 200 people who took to the highway in an attempt to block it.

Here in San Francisco last night, some congregated on Market Street as the results came in. Demonstrations are set to occur in earnest there again tonight. The Golden Gate Xpress of SF State adds that students there began rallying last night, with about 200 of them marching down 19th avenue. There's more to come.

Related: Trump Protests Planned For Downtown SF, Oakland Tonight, Candlelight Vigil In The Castro
While you and I are busy maintaining our thousand-yard stares off toward the orange-tinted collective doom looming on the horizon, big names in the world of Silicon Valley tech have commenced full on freakout about yesterday's election. Recode caught the beginning stages of the meltdown visible at the annual Web Summit conference happening right now in Lisbon, Portugal. Let's just say the news was not taken in stride.

If youre not fucking pissed right now, what is wrong with you? speaker Dave McClure, founder of Silicon Valley-based VC firm 500 Startups, yelled at the audience after learning of the results. Im pissed off, Im sad, Im ashamed, Im angry.

"This shit will not stand," he added, "and you got to fight for your rights."

Video of the man trying to come to terms with president-elect Trump in real time is quite a thing to behold.

Wow, @davemcclure has a MELTDOWN on #WebSummit stage over Donald Trump election pic.twitter.com/aRJmFpYyQA  Adrian Weckler (@adrianweckler) November 9, 2016

McClure of course isn't the only player in Silicon Valley who is likely in shock today. "[I'd] like to wake up now please," tweeted Y Combinator head and Peter Thiel-apologist Sam Altman. "[I've] never felt as alone in a room full of people as [I] do right now," he added.

BuzzFeed caught up with Keith Rabois, a partner at Khosla Ventures, who tried to sum up the mood in the tech circles in which he runs. Just look at your Twitter feed or look at my Twitter feed, which is mostly Silicon Valley people," he told the publication. "It was totally divorced from reality. Everyone I know in Silicon Valley is in shock.

Elizabeth Yin, a partner at 500 Startups, attempted to calmly express a similar concern. "Contrary to what many say, our recent election doesnt alter Americas long-term prospects," she wrote in a blog post today. "But in the near term we are in trouble. Regardless of your politics, Donald Trumps ethical and moral deficiencies are concerning and disappointing. My fear is that this country will devolve  that this country will somehow see Donald Trump as a role model and think that it is ok to screw over people, be divisive, and sexually assault others."

Others within the Valley fall somewhere else in the five stages of election grief. Noted investor Chris Sacca seems to have skipped right over "denial" and "anger," landing squarely on "bargaining."

We in the tech community are willing to work with President-Elect Trump to help those Americans who need it most. The door is open.  Chris Sacca (@sacca) November 9, 2016

Noted Trump supporter Peter Thiel, meanwhile, is possibly celebrating last night's election outcome by toasting Trump with a glass of young-human blood. #Calexit, here we come.

Related: Nearly Ten Percent Of San Francisco Voted For Trump
Interpreting the election of Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence as a direct attack on the liberal values and diversity the Bay Area represents, local protestors are likely to make themselves heard tonight at several rallies already picking up viral steam in the form of Facebook events. Plenty of people took to the streets last night, but now, in the light of day, the activist network forged by the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements appears to be energizing efforts in Oakland and downtown San Francisco. Still others have planned a candlelit vigil for the Castro neighborhood.

"Join us in the streets to demonstrate mass opposition to Trump and his agenda!" ask organizers of "Protest Trump in Oakland!," who are groups including Bay Area for the 99 Percent, a Bernie Sanders-supporting group. "Build a movement to fight racism, sexism, homophobia, and Islamophobia!" On the Facebook event, there were 3.2 thousand people (and perhaps several of your friends, if you're like me) who had indicated they would attend as of 1 p.m. today. That's scheduled for 5 p.m. at Frank Ogawa Plaza, referred to here as Oscar Grant plaza to commemorate his killing in 2009.

Another protest at 5 p.m. is also capturing attention, this one organized by the ANSWER Coalition (or Act now to Stop War and End Racism), the group behind many Bay Area Black Lives Matter marches. That's on Facebook as "Emergency Protest: Trump Says Go Back, We Say Fight Back!" The meeting place is indicated as the Powell and Market cable car turnaround.





A third event is likelier to strike a somber tone: Activists in the Castro are planning a vigil to be held at Harvey Milk Plaza. That's on Facebook for 5:30 p.m.  yes, it will be appropriately dark by then. Individual organizers have it as "Election Response!- Candlelight Gathering/Rally at Castro/Market." It's likely to be a space, in particular, for queer people of all stripes, many of whom are devastated by the reversal of progress the election can be seen to represent for the LGBT community. And, as often happens with such events, it could lead to a march down Market Street as well.

There's likely to be overlap with other efforts in all these events, which the Oakland protest acknowledges. "If someone else has organized a similar protest," they write, "let us know so we can join forces." An organizer for the event in the Castro writes in agreement that "there will be many parallel events. The one in the Castro may be smaller, but the plan is to also be reflecting." For the many who treasure the Bay Area for its strength and diversity, there sure is a lot to reflect on, and a lot to do.

Related: San Francisco Bay Area Mourns, Immediately Protests Trump Victory


Walgreens is suing the embattled health startup Theranos over claims that the company breached its contract with the pharmacy chain after it was forced to void years worth of blood tests and give up testing altogether. That abandoning of Theranos's core product offering came after a ban by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and reports that the company's services didn't work as advertised. Consumerist reports that Walgreens is seeking $140 million.

A Walgreens spokesperson would not comment to the Business Times on the sealed lawsuit, but a Theranos spokesperson was less tight-lipped. We are disappointed that Walgreens filed this lawsuit," Theranos said in a statement. "Over the years, Walgreens consistently failed to meet its commitments to Theranos. Through its mishandling of our partnership and now this lawsuit, Walgreens has caused Theranos and its investors significant harm. We will respond vigorously to Walgreens unfounded allegations, and will seek to hold Walgreens responsible for the damage it has caused to Theranos and its investors.

Walgreens and Theranos began working together in 2010 with the goal of placing the startup's proprietary Edison blood-testing machines in pharmacies around the county. The resulting "wellness centers" popped up in 40 Walgreens before they were discontinued.

This is just the latest bit of bad news for Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, who in early October announced that she would layoff hundreds of employees. That was quickly followed by the news that a major investor in the company, San Francisco's Partner Fund Management, was also suing Theranos in an attempt to get back some of the $96.1 million they invested.

A Theranos spokesperson said the company would fight that suit as well, noting that the suit is without merit and Theranos will fight it vigorously. The company is very appreciative of its strong investor base that understands and continues to support the companys mission.

According to Forbes, Elizabeth Holmes net worth is now zero dollars. At its height, Theranos was valued at $9 billion. This summer Forbes said a more accurate number was probably about $800 million  time will tell if the latest effort to claw some cash back from the company will change that.

All Theranos coverage on SFist.
Mission High School students walked out and protested Donald Trump this morning pic.twitter.com/dTsuDTHcRC  Mission Local (@MLNow) November 10, 2016 More from today's daytime march against Donald Trump in SF, high school students walk out of class in protest #NowThatTrumpIsPresident pic.twitter.com/8rezAJx4yo  Habitforming  (@habitforming) November 10, 2016

It's no secret that young people skew liberal: You've seen the bright blue map of America that asks "what would the election look like if only people 18-29 voted." Here in the left-leaning Bay Area, youth are likely to be even more liberal than their counterparts elsewhere, and as such, many high school students from San Francisco and other Bay Area cities  most of them below voting age  are registering their voices today with student walk-outs. Update: There are now thousands of students in the Civic Center area and on Market Street.

Thousands of SF High School students shut down and take over Market Street chanting "We Reject The President Elect!" #dumptrump #SFC pic.twitter.com/PAARsLvkxG  Laida Magtalas 2.0 (@kilig2thebones) November 10, 2016

East Bay students from several schools including Berkeley High mounted similar protests yesterday, acts intended to signal their concern and anger at the election of a president who has repeatedly vowed to deport undocumented immigrants, bar religious groups from entering the country or force them to leave, and more.

A few hundred students have walked out of Mission High School and are protesting in San Francisco. #TrumpProtest pic.twitter.com/LM7z89ms6x  Natalie DiBlasio (@ndiblasio) November 10, 2016

Further, for many female students, the election of Donald Trump, a man who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and been accused of sexual assault, rather than the election of his opponent  Hillary Clinton, the first woman presidential nominee from a major political party  is another stinging form of rebuke.

Suzanne Shimek, a teacher at Lick-Wilmerding High School, wrote to SFist to say that her students have plans to leave classes and march to City Hall this morning, where they will meet with other high school student protesters. "The students  and especially the girls  were so upset yesterday that we spent hours meeting and talking about our dismay, outrage, fear, depression, confusion, plans for action," Shimek wrote.

As one of her students put it to her, "[A] lot of the responsibility to enact change has fallen on our generation and the more we do sooner the more likely we will be to succeed."

KRON 4 reports that other schools are engaging in walk outs today: Those include Napa High, several schools in Hayward, Pittsburg High School, and others.

Related: Berkeley High School Students Walk Out, More East Bay Protests In Wake Of Trump's Election
Time to get real, people, and own up to Thanksgivings dirty little secret.

That 20-pound bird you spend so much time fretting over and slave to get in the oven? Um, nobody loves it.

Your family might like it well enough to eat it at your holiday dinner, so long as theres a boat full of gravy within reaching distance or a big jar of mayo in the fridge for the next days sandwiches.

Well, maybe not everyone hates it. Theres always a weirdo or two at the table willing to eat anything simply because its set in front of him.

But do your dinner guests love turkey in the same way they adore stuffing, which never makes it to leftover status? Does it rival Grandmas candied sweet potatoes? Elicit the same excitement as the homemade corn pudding, or green bean casserole with its irresistible crunchy Frenchs fried onion topping?

Or are your dinner guests simply being polite about this turkey of an entree so that they wont feel guilty scarfing down the pumpkin pie served for dessert?

Turkey isnt necessarily hard to cook (just stuff, grease it up and roast it), but it does take a deft touch to assure the white and dark meat finish cooking at the same time. And what about the headaches that go with figuring out how to thaw the frozen bird?

This year, why not flout tradition and instead make your Thanksgiving centerpiece something your guests will really enjoy  a fat, juicy chicken. Its just as impressive on a platter, and tasty, but takes a lot less time to make. Whereas turkey so often cooks up dry and flavorless, a good roast chicken will never let you down.

Spend extra money on a good-quality bird for the holiday.

How delicious can a good chicken be? Good enough to prompt an offer of marriage, if 2011s 100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know: Engagement Chicken and 99 Other Fabulous Dishes to Get You Everything You Want in Life is to be believed.

This recipe from Kevin Dundons The Raglan Road Cookbook, which calls for cooking the bird with an initial blast of high heat, followed by roasting at a lower temperature, doesnt make such elaborate claims. But it could. Wonderfully aromatic and a breeze to prepare, the dish delivers everything you expected from a good roast chicken  crispy skin, tender breast meat and dense, flavorful dark meat.

In short, its glorious and a great way to kick off a new Thanksgiving tradition.
BOSTON  For more than 40 years, paraplegic hunters have gathered in the predawn darkness around Massachusetts for an opportunity that would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible.

The specialized deer hunt brings together sportsmen and women, volunteers and workers from the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife for three days every fall.

John Pelletier broke his back when he fell out of a tree stand while hunting in 2004, and the program has allowed him to continue what he calls his passion. He now takes his .50-caliber muzzle-loader to the Massachusetts Military Reservation on Cape Cod to hunt every year.

"Some guys get a mistress when they hit 40; I started hunting," said a laughing Pelletier, 57, of Westport, who uses a specialized wheelchair with what he describes as mountain bike tires that give him better maneuverability in the wild. "These hunts really afford me the opportunity to get back in the woods like I did before."

Most states make accommodations for disabled hunters, said Bill Fertig, director of the resource center at the United Spinal Association, a New York-based organization that advocates for improving the quality of life of people living with spinal cord injuries.

But Massachusetts is among fewer than a dozen states that set aside special seasons and specific hunting areas for the disabled. Many offer waived or reduced fees for disabled hunters, allow them to hunt from their vehicles or allow the use of specialized equipment which hunters who have full use of their legs are not allowed to use.

"Being able to do what you used to do, or what everybody else can do, especially if it's your passion, is part of what makes you who you are," Fertig said.

Trina Morruzi, a wildlife biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife who has been coordinating the program for 16 years, said it started in 1972 when a group of paraplegic sportsmen went to state legislators and got a statute passed establishing the three-day hunt, held Thursday, Friday and Saturday this year.

The number of sites where the hunt is offered has grown over the years, giving more people the opportunity to participate.

This year it was held in five spots  in Williamstown and Mount Washington in the Berkshire Mountains; in a wildlife area near the Quabbin Reservoir, the state's largest body of water; at the former Fort Devens army base; and on Cape Cod, a site added in 2011.

About 25 to 30 disabled hunters participate every year, along with dozens of volunteers and state workers. The state allows anyone who doesn't have use of their legs to participate, Moruzzi said. In the past, at least two quadriplegic hunters have participated with highly specialized equipment, although there were none this year, she said.

Volunteers scout out the woods in the days before the hunt, looking for the best places to set up blinds, said Dave Esielionis, 71, of Shirley, a volunteer at the Devens location. They place plywood in the woods so wheelchairs don't get stuck in mud.

They meet before dawn on hunt days, helping hunters out of their vehicles and escorting them to the sites. They check on them during the day, and if they get a deer, they help them haul their game out of the woods.

The harvest rate for the paraplegic hunt is about the same as the as the harvest rate for all hunters, Moruzzi said.
SIOUX CITY | An unidentified woman was rushed to the hospital after she was hit by a vehicle on Hamilton Boulevard Wednesday.

Sioux City Police Sgt. Jay Hoogendyk said that around 8:30 p.m., the woman was on West Third Street crossing Hamilton Boulevard eastbound when she was struck by a vehicle traveling northbound.

Hoogendyk said the victim was rushed to Mercy Medical Center-- Sioux City for non-life threatening injuries, but she was unconscious at the scene.

He said that judging by where the victim was lying in the roadway and where the vehicle was, she may have flown 8 to 10 feet from the collision. The windshield on the vehicle was partially shattered

"The pedestrian was crossing where there was not a crosswalk, and was also crossing against the light," he said. "Therefore, that is the cause of the accident."

The vehicle involved was occupied by two uninjured women, he said.
SIOUX CITY | The Iowa Finance Authority on Thursday named a Sioux City organization a recipient of grant funding to assist with costs for providing services and emergency shelter operations.

The Council on Sexual Assault & Domestic Violence in Sioux City was awarded $47,500 from the Iowa Finance Authority.

The grant was part of $730,680 in awards given to 16 homeless and domestic violence shelters.

A panel of judges scored the applications based on criteria, including project design, experience and capacity, community partnerships, budget, performance and more.
SIOUX CITY | For the first time in 34 years, Republicans control a majority of seats on the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors.

Two GOP candidates, Keith Radig and Rocky De Witt, surged to victories in Tuesday's election as a red wave washed over Iowa's fifth largest county. In January, they will join holder Republican supervisors Jeremy Taylor and Matthew Ung.

Republicans nearly made it a clean sweep, as a third candidate, Brian Miller, narrowly lost Tuesday to Democrat Marty Pottebaum by 355 votes.

The results Tuesday also marked a complete turnover of the board over the last two election cycles. Two incumbents, Mark Monson and Jackie Smith, lost their re-election bids Tuesday, as did a third veteran incumbent, George Boykin, in 2014.

Come January, the longest-serving board member, Larry Clausen, also will be gone.

Clausen, who opted not to seek another term after 24 years in office, was first elected in 1982, one of three Democrats to unseat Republican incumbents that year.

Before then, Republicans had held all five seats. The board seated in January will have the most GOP members since then.

With all the changes the last two years, the five county supervisors will have a combined four years of service as 2017 begins. Ung said that is a swift change in tenure, from the five current members who combined for 58 years of experience.

The last two years have seen a series of changes that Taylor and Ung have said improve the transparency of decision-making and heighten the defense of taxpayers. The two Republicans formed a voting block with Monson, a Democrat who ran as an independent Tuesday after losing in the June Democratic primary to Pottebaum.

"I am very pleased. I've said for a long time that this election would decide if the last two years would be a flash of sanity or built upon," Ung said Wednesday.

Pottebaum defeated Miller 17,588 to 17,233 in District 3, Tuesday. Monson received 6,630 votes. Some local GOP officials believe Monson's candidacy may have cost Miller the election and the party a fifth seat on the board.

In District 1, Radig unseated Smith 22,576 to 18,713. In District 5, now represented by Clausen, De Witt won a three-man race with 20,125 votes to 14,704 for Democrat Bruce Garbe and 13,966 for Gary Niles, who ran as an independent.

Many of the candidates and supervisors have said partisan politics don't factor into decisions at the county level, but the new composition of the board means that if Republicans want to push an agenda in Woodbury County, they have more than enough votes.

Republican county supervisors said Wednesday they see actions ahead that boost economic development, keep property taxes low and increase cooperation with the city of Sioux City.

"Getting property taxes reduced as soon as possible needs immediate attention," said De Witt, a Woodbury County Sheriff's deputy who handles security in the Woodbury County Courthouse.

De Witt also said county officials have reduced jail overcrowding in the short term, but "that issue may require a long-term solution, so planning for that should be a priority."

"I expect a renewed commitment to economic development and working with our partners in governments and the private sector to grow Woodbury County," Radig said.

Ung said he believes 2017 will include "further collaboration with Sioux City on major economic development projects," aided by the addition of Radig, who will step down from the council after seven years.
Saltzman has five locations, four in Sioux City and one in South Sioux City. He recently completed an extensive remodeling of the Hamilton Boulevard location and opened a Burger King inside the Pilot Travel Center along Singing Hills Boulevard. The other local locations are on Lakeport Road, Pierce Street, and Cornhusker Drive in South Sioux City. The locations employ 155 people.

Burger Kings that participate in the Franchisee of the Year contest must achieve various levels of success in their group. Groups are split into three: 1-6 restaurants; 7-15 restaurants; and 16 or more restaurants. The candidates must also present their business plan and successes during a four-hour-long interview with members of the Burger King Corp. They must be leaders in Brand Standards, Food Safety, Guest Service, with a focus on quality, accuracy and speed of service. Once the interviews are complete, Burger King decides who the top three franchisees are for each group and announces the winners during the convention.
District Judge John Ackerman also ordered Mackeller to serve a special sex offender sentence, in which he will be on lifetime parole after completing his prison sentence. If he were to violate terms of the special sentence, he could be sent to prison. He also must register with the Iowa Sex Offender Registry for the rest of his life.
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City woman charged with biting her husband has pleaded guilty to domestic abuse assault.

Carol Smith, 60, entered her plea Tuesday in Woodbury County District Court.

District Judge Edward Jacobson suspended all but 60 days of a 365-day jail sentence. He ruled that Smith may serve 120 days on an electronic monitoring device in lieu of serving the jail time. He also fined her $315.

A charge of willful injury was dismissed.

According to court documents, Smith bit her husband's lower lip inside their home on May 24, 2015. While her husband thought Smith was approaching him for a kiss, she bit his lip, causing a severe tear and permanent disfigurement that required plastic surgery, court documents said.
SIOUX CITY | Heaven Zevenbergen asked that she be given another chance to successfully complete her probation rather than be sent back to prison.

On probation for teaming with a friend to stage a bank robbery, Zevenbergen admitted she both smoked and possessed marijuana in August and had also quit her job for two months, all violations of her probation.

"I made a mistake, but I want another chance," she said Thursday in Woodbury County District Court. "I am very motivated to successfully complete probation."

District Judge John Ackerman didn't revoke Zevenbergen's probation or send her back to prison, but gave her a 30-day jail sentence and warned her about the consequences of future violations.

"I hope you spend that time and think about what it would be like to go back to prison. If you violate again, that's probably where you're going," Ackerman said.

Zevenbergen, 19, of Holstein, Iowa, and Angelica Perez, of Sioux City, both were sentenced to five years in prison in February for second-degree theft for staging a robbery at the Security National Bank branch at the Hy-Vee store on Hamilton Boulevard. She and Perez pleaded guilty to the August 2015 incident in which Perez went to the bank in disguise and passed Zevenbergen, who was a bank employee, a note demanding cash and saying she was armed. Zevenbergen then gave Perez $10,000, most of which was never recovered.

In May, District Judge Jeffrey Neary reconsidered their sentences. He ordered them released from prison and placed them on probation for five years.

After her August arrest for drug possession, Zevenbergen was sentenced in Ida County to two days in jail, and the Woodbury County Drug Court treatment program in which she participates required her to serve an additional three days.

Zevenbergen faced a return to prison for her violations.

She said she relapsed after being hospitalized in July and she had stopped taking her medication for depression. Since her arrest, she has gotten married and resumed taking her medication, Zevenbergen said.

"I've been very, very happy," she said.

Her attorney, Brian Buckmeier, said Zevenbergen has paid more than $3,700 toward her restitution, has resumed working and has a husband and several family members who support her.

"I think she could complete her probation successfully if given another chance," Buckmeier said.

Probation officer Jared Nobbe testified that Zevenbergen had not attended substance abuse treatment sessions since late September.

"Her attitude seems like she wants to participate in treatment. However, she lacks the follow through," Nobbe said. "It doesn't appear that she wants to make the necessary changes."

Once Zevenbergen completes her jail sentence, she will continue with her probation.
The presidential election in United States will not affect the policies of Washington in Afghanistan and the bilateral pacts available between the two countries.





The US Ambassador to Afghanistan Michael McKinley made the remarks earlier this morning as the US Embassy hosted several Afghan journalists as the American nation started voting for the next US President.





Today I was asked many times what the impacts of these elections would be on US-Afghanistan relations and my answer is always the same, Americas long term commitment to our partnership with Afghanistan was renewed this year in Warsaw and Brussels. The US Afghan relationship will remain strong and and close because it is based not anyone election, leader or party on our common interests, our people to people ties, our shared values that so deeply rooted, Ambassador McKinely said. - Read More,




NORTH SIOUX CITY | The North Sioux City Council has set a Dec. 13 deadline for a local pet food plant to rectify ongoing odor problems at its facility or face penalties.

The council on Monday decided to give Royal Canin until that date to stop the odors, which city administrator Ted Cherry says are coming from a wastewater pre-treatment facility next to the plant at 630 N. Derby Lane.

After that, the city could opt to go through the process of declaring the facility a nuisance, a move that could carry hefty fines.

"Royal Canin has been pretty up-front with their timeline with us about what they're trying to do," Cherry said. "Were trying to work together to get this resolved."

Cherry said the odors have been on and off for the past three years but have intensified since the summer, when there was a change of a filter that typically helps with the smell at the facility. He said the odors are those of a "fermenting byproduct."

"It's stronger near the plant," Cherry said. "But it's very dependent on which way the wind is blowing and the humidity in the air."

In a statement, Royal Canin site director Daniel T. Klapuch says the odors are currently a "top priority" for the company, and the plant appreciates "the determination of our city's leaders" to fix the issue.

"We continue to share the communitys concern with odors in our area, and remain committed to finding solutions that will help ensure that our plant is not contributing to the problem," the statement says. "Our engineers and plant management team continue to invest in new technologies to improve our processes, and are making progress."

Royal Canin, a subsidiary of Mars Inc., completed construction on its $5 million, 8,000-square-foot wastewater pre-treatment facility just over three years ago to cut down on the amount of solids in the wastewater that the facility sends to Sioux City's wastewater treatment plant.

The company's 130,000-square-foot plant employs about 185 workers.

Royal Canin broke ground on a new $120 million North Sioux City plant in June. Executives at the time said it's expected to go online in 2019.

The company specializes in dog and cat foods distributed primarily through veterinarian's offices, breeders, and specialty retailers such as PetSmart and Petco.
SIOUX CITY | This year will be the first time Pete Utthachoo has ever taken an entire week off for a Thanksgiving break.

"Thanksgiving is the only holiday when we close but normally we close for one day," said Utthachoo, owner of Diamond Thai Cuisine. "This year, I'll be out of town so we'll be closed a bit longer."

Utthachoo figured he's earned the vacation. He considers being Diamond Thai's owner a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job.

"Even when I'm at home, my mind is still on the restaurant," he said.

It's a seven-day-a-week job

Christina Bautista can identify with Utthachoo's predicament.

The owner of La Juanita, Bautista handles her multiple roles of hostess, cashier and expediter with aplomb.

"I'm at the restaurant more than I am at home," she said. "It gets tiring a times."

That's especially true when you realize this has been Bautista's life for years.

Born into a restaurant family, Bautista began working in a lunch truck restaurant in California back in the 70s. Moving to Sioux City in 1997, Bautista kept her sister's name as well as her concept of a mobile restaurant.

"Our first year in Sioux City, we'd set up shop at parking lots around the city, feeding workers during their lunch break," she said. "Business became so good that we decided to open our own restaurant in 1998."

Over the past two decades, La Juanita has earned raves from Esquire Magazine, the New York Times as well as visiting politicians who make their way to Sioux City during the Iowa Caucuses.

But most of the restaurant's fan base is homegrown.

"We're so busy around the holidays," Batista noted. "People who used to live in Sioux City come back home. And when they're home, they get their burritos from us.

"Hey, everybody needs their La Wah, I guess," Bautista said, smiling.

This also means La Juanita will be open during the day on Nov. 24.

"In order to give ourselves some time off, we close early on Thanksgiving," she said.

A chef's day off

So, what does Bautista do on Thanksgiving? To be honest, she'll be doing plenty of cooking.

"Thanksgiving is time for family," the Jalisco, Mexico, native said. "My mother usually prepares the turkey and my sister and I alternate between making the ham."

That's sounds pretty traditional. Does Bautista do anything unusual on Turkey Day?

Well, she does make sure to bring two to three burritos from her restaurant.

"We have out-of-town relatives who insist on having our burritos, even on Thanksgiving," Bautista said. "But to be honest, I eat our burritos every day as well. If I don't have one, I feel deprived."

Just like La Juanita's Bautista, Diamond Thai's Utthachoo cooks for extended family and friends on Thanksgiving.

Only don't expect him to be roasting the traditional bird.

"People seldom eat turkey in Thailand," Utthachoo said. "We eat chicken and pretend it's like a miniature turkey."

Think Utthachoo is kidding? Well, he's not.

The Thai native masterfully debones a Thanksgiving chicken, filling it with a stuffing that reflects his homeland.

"I never use bread in my stuffing, only rice," Utthachoo said. "Rice is more Asian."

Fried rice is also used for a lemongrass-roasted chicken that is served with mixed veggies.

"That's a nice day-after meal," Utthachoo said.

Still, his favorite Thanksgiving dish has no poultry whatsoever.

"I like my Thai beef salad with grilled vegetables and cilantro," Utthachoo said. "It's delicious."

Giving thanks to their adopted community

It's been nearly 10 years since Utthachoo opened Diamond Thai at 515 W. Seventh St.

"Things are good now but that hasn't always been the case," he said. "I keep on smiling because I don't want anyone to see me cry."

What has kept Utthachoo going through the lean years is his appreciative customer base.

"They first came in as customers," he said. "Then, they leave as friends."

Across town, La Juanita's Bautista feels the same way.

"We've catered graduations, wedding receptions, even funerals," she said. "That's how you know you've made an impression in somebody's life. They crave your food in good times and in bad times."

This is exactly what Bautista wanted.

"La Juanita is all about family," she said. "Today, our family is the people we're related to. But they're also the people who walk through our door, day after day, year after year."

"This is a very nice feeling," Bautista said.
Caroline Rivera has intuition. Call it a gut reaction or an instinctual answer to a higher calling -- call it whatever you want. Shes not the person to ask, Why?

She doesnt know why she became a yoga teacher; she just felt called upon to do it. She doesnt know why she became a doula; she just felt called upon to do it.

At this moment Rivera doesnt fully understand why shes being called upon to visit Sacred Stone Camp and help those protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. But it doesnt matter, because shes already made up her mind. Shes going.

I cant ignore whats happening there, she said.

But Rivera isnt going unprepared.

Last Tuesday, Rivera and the folks over at Evolve Yoga and Wellness Center hosted a class called the 4 Directions Flow for Standing Rock in order to gather materials and financial support for the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as the maintenance of the Camp of the Sacred Stones.

The class was donation-based. Those who wished to support the cause brought generators, lanterns, blankets, rope, wood, tools, first aid kits and more in lieu of paying for the class.

Afterwards, Evolve Yoga and Wellness Center teachers would make the drive to North Dakota to support the people on the front lines protesting the proposed pipeline, which many believe is a violation of the National Historic Preservation Act.

Rivera said common themes of Evolve Yoga and Wellness Center is a reconnection to Earth and healing. So it only seems proper that its teachers take part in the protest. The yoga studio held a supply drive more than a month ago and collected various items. The yoga teachers at the Pearl Street center decided to throw an even bigger supply drive and personally deliver the items to those at Sacred Stone Camp.

Rivera said she and the teachers are scheduled to visit North Dakota on Friday (Nov. 11) in order to transport the items and send positive vibrations to those involved in the protests.

Sacred Stone Camp, described by Rivera, is ground zero for the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline and serves as a base camp. The organizers of the camp are providing supplies for the protesters. Rivera hopes that the teachers of Evolve Yoga and Wellness Center can offer their strength and energy.

Were being called to offer our energy and our resources in an effort to protect our Earth, said Rivera. Our most noble cause is to protect our mother. This is all weve got.
Two-fer Tuesday

ROCK VALLEY, Iowa | You know that feeling where you forgot to buy something at the store after just getting home and have to take another trip? Yeah, this is kind of like that.

Sioux County sheriff's deputies arrested the same Rock Valley man twice in one day Tuesday.

Michael Smit, 58, faces misdemeanor charges of violating a protection order and possession of controlled substances and drug paraphernalia.

A release by the Sioux County Sheriff's Office said Smit was arrested at 12:03 a.m. for violating a court-ordered protection order.

Authorities were later notified that Smit had drugs in his vehicle. A search warrant was executed by deputies and illegal drugs were discovered. Smit returned to his residence after being released from jail for the first arrest and was arrested again at 1:38 p.m. for the drug charges.

Sign thefts are a campaign in the butt

STORM LAKE | And they say today's youth are uninterested in politics.

Police arrested seven juveniles late Tuesday in connection to thefts of Donald Trump campaign signs in Storm Lake.

According to a news release from the Storm Lake Police Department, a police officer on patrol around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday saw several juveniles trying to steal campaign signs near 5991 Highway 110. Police detained seven juveniles believed to have been stealing Donald Trump campaign signs from a fence line.

Police say the juveniles had a Trump sign in their possession stolen from a yard in the 500 block of Grand Street earlier that evening.

Following an investigation, police charged four females and three males, all between the ages of 11 and 13, with fifth-degree theft.

All were released to a parent or guardian pending a court date, and the case has been forwarded to the juvenile court authority, police said.

Storm Lake police reported that several campaign signs have been stolen over the past several weeks.
The free public event will be in room W108 of the Dr. Robert E. Dunker student center. The nearest entrance is 12 at parking lot 3.

The event will include a Presentation of the Colors by the 185th Air Refueling Wing, Iowa Air National Guard, a guest speaker, and free lunch while supplies last. WITCC employees who are currently deployed will also be tuning in via live video feed.
10 hours ago

Its Still Not Too Late To Get Into Energy Stocks

If you are wondering if it's too late to get into energy stocks the best answer is no. Energy prices are down from their peak and there is a potential slowdown in demand on the way but, for now, the underlying fundamentals are highly in favor of higher share prices.

Read Article
Labour, Public Goods  November 10, 2016  Henry Heller

The University of Manitoba is on strike. Since 1st November, more than 1,200 faculty members took to the picket line to protest the lack of funding for education, a need for workload protection and safeguarding for fairer tenure and promotion procedures, in addition to addressing several job security issues for instructors and librarians. Author of The Capitalist University , Henry Heller is a professor of History at the University of Manitoba, he writes here of the strike and how the walkout resonates with the themes of his book.

Authors dont often get to live out the denouement of their books. Yet that is what is happening to me as I blog. On 20 October Pluto published The Capitalist University: The Transformations of Higher Education in the United States, 1945-2016. Its last chapter deals with the development of the neoliberal university and the growing resistance to it on the part of faculty and students and other workers. Two weeks have gone by and I find myself on a picket line at the University of Manitoba on a faculty strike against the neoliberal university. As we stand vigil at the gates of the University the days are rapidly shortening and getting colder. Overhead the geese are quickly and excitedly fleeing to the south. But each morning since 1 November I find myself on the morning shift defying the universitys attempt to impose total control over the work of professors and librarians at our university. We are an important part of a rising tide of class struggle developing both inside and outside of universities across the globe against the ravages of neoliberal capitalism.

The heyday of the universities came between 1945-80 at the height of the Cold War and was marked by massive support from government including the military for universities. Universities defined their mission as directed to public service and strove to create knowledge which had both practical as well as theoretical aspects. In the humanities and social sciences a few scholars even pursued a critical knowledge which sought disinterested truth in the analysis of ideas and society. The climax of this era came in the 1960s when unprecedented student protests over civil rights, the U.S. war in Vietnam and bureaucratic domination over university life spilled over into society at large and led to challenges to the capitalist order.

But from the 1980s onward so-called academic capitalism took hold and universities not only more and more redefined their mission as serving private business and themselves becoming as far as possible profit-orientated in their mode of operation and objectives. In the light of this academic capitalism new faculty, administrative and business networks sought to promote a cognitive capitalism, creating new forms of knowledge which could be more or less immediately commodified as intellectual property.

These changes are central to the emergence of the neoliberal university marked by the decline of the humanities and social sciences, cuts in public financing, enfeeblement of faculty and student roles in governance, increases in tuition, growing student debt and a fall in the number of tenured faculty and increasing use of adjunct professors. These changes have been accompanied by dramatic increases in the number and salaries of administrators, centralization of management in the hands of presidents and boards of governors based on total quality management, preoccupation with endowments, predatory financing of growing student debt, research parks, real estate deals and globalized university ranking systems.

The influence of big business already great became overwhelming. Capping off these changes are the growth of for-profit universities like Phoenix University and the growth of mainly business-backed Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) which augur a decline in the need for permanent faculty and investments in fixed capital. These developments which follow from the logic of neoliberal economics which continues regnant in the operation of universities suggest the eventual extinction of the modern university and its replacement by new kinds of market-driven institutions of higher learning  a depressing prospect for most people that can bring a smile only to the lips of a University of Chicago economics professor.

But in The Capitalist University I show that these trends toward privatizing knowledge far from auguring well for capitalism inhibit its functioning and put into question its legitimacy and reflect the depth of capitalisms crisis in which it seeks to parasitize and undermine those practices and institutions which once helped to sustain it economically and ideologically.

Historical Amnesia

A conservative tendency emerged on campuses, beginning with the election of Reagan in 1980. Followed by a widespread abandonment of Marxism and depoliticization, linked to the emergence of postmodernism, the cultural turn and neoliberal economics. All three intellectual currents were marked to a greater or lesser degree by a turning away from history in a way which is reminiscent of the historical amnesia in the humanities and social sciences during the 1950s. At the same time all three saw a further opening of American academic life to cosmopolitan influence. Reinforced by the scientism and reifications of neoliberal economics these decades saw the step-by-step offensive of academic and cognitive capitalism and reorganization of the universities into neoliberal institutions. Seemingly in isolation, Marxist literary critic and philosopher Fredric Jameson towered above American scholarship as the interpreter of this dark period.

The onset of financial and economic crisis in 2008 brought with it widespread revival of interest in Marxism, the growth of union militancy on campus and the revival of political movements like Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and the Bernie Sanders primary election campaign in which students played leading roles. As in the 1960s, universities proved to be springboards to campaigns aimed at the transformation of American society. Moreover, as key sites of training, research and economic development, universities have become central locations within the structures of contemporary capitalism for which knowledge industries closely inter-connected to universities are the leading edge. The labour force within academic institutions and these enterprises including most teachers and researchers are of course already made up of wage workers who are already involved in productive, i.e. profitable labour or soon will be. Tenured faculty themselves are losing control of their work. In the face of these currents imposed from above the obvious rejoinder is struggle from below which in the form of the development of unions is only in its early stages. Knowledge workers, who by definition have high levels of skill, work at strategic productive locations and need to cooperate with one another in an increasingly dependent work process, are in a position to struggle effectively against academic capitalism.

Driven by the need for revenue and for reasons of prestige, universities have become deeply enmeshed in seeking intellectual property rights or monopolistic control of patents, inventions, copyrights and even trademarks. The number of patents applied for by universities has multiplied from a few score in the 1970s to over 5000 at the turn of the millennium. In an early phase of capitalism such rights undoubtedly helped innovation. Today, the dominant economic view is that protection of such intellectual property rights is key to economic innovation. Indeed, the contention is that the privatization of new knowledge in this way is creating new links on a national and global level with private industry. The economic progress of the recent past was due not to intellectual property rights but was the fruit of earlier public investment in science and technology, rather than facilitating the spread and application of knowledge such claims are creating an atmosphere of exclusivity and secrecy; litigation is becoming more important than creativity and the spread of intellectual property rights will obstruct future progress by promoting fragmentation of information, unnecessary duplication of effort, secrecy and lawsuits. Historically science has been a collaborative process in which large numbers of individuals contribute a part to a cumulative and collective process. This ethos is at antipodes to the neoliberal system of intellectual property which depends on a single agent claiming credit for the entire process.

This returns us to the fundamental questions raised by the students in the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley fifty years ago. While university administrators, politicians, businessmen and neoliberal economists seek to turn knowledge into exchange value, it proves difficult to do so. Indeed, the creation and dissemination of knowledge is being held captive by the fetters of academic capitalism. The incredible accumulation of academic knowledge begs to be set free as a use-value as part of a general intellect or mass democratic consciousness which almost certainly will assume political and social control over society. At the same time, the continuing attack on the idea that the universities should serve the public good and the undermining of the place of the humanities and social sciences in universities is among other factors helping to undermine the political legitimacy of capitalism.

Right now faculty at the University of Manitoba are holding firm on the picket lines. Talks with management continue. To settle this strike we are demanding minimal protection against arbitrary workload increases, fair assessment practices and job security. Yet as I walk the line in the bitter cold talking with chemists, social workers, sociologists, accounting professors it occurs to me that we are in the end the university and that management is in the end the product of an ongoing usurpation of both labour and knowledge. Next week I will lecture on this in an improvised teach-in on the picket line. Learning must go on. 
Judicial candidates Andrea Ruth Gundersen and Kim Theresa Mollica spent much of Tuesday greeting voters at the Herb Skolnick Center in Pompano Beach. Both women won their respective races.

Gundersen defeated Lea P. Krauss, former chair of the Gay & Lesbian Lawyers Network, for the bench in circuit court 17, group 9.

Gundersen, a Massachusetts native, has practiced law for 27 years, including 23 years in Broward County. She has appeared in several events at the Pride Center and told SFGN her expertise is in the field of family law.

When asked how she would judge LGBT people, Gundersen said, All people are equal and I will follow the law.

Gundersen collected 334,337 votes (57 percent) to 255,996 (43 percent) for Krauss. The margin was somewhat surprising after Krauss got the most votes in the August primary election. Previously, in a three-way contest, Krauss got 59,473 votes to 50,988 for Gunderson with Maxine K. Streeter pulling 47,541 votes.

While the results were not as Id hoped, Im very proud of our hard work and thankful to everyone who supported my campaign, Krauss said. Every judicial candidate listed second on the ballot in all five races lost. I am disappointed but I believe everything happens for a reason.

A native of Long Island, N.Y., Krauss has practiced law in Florida for 16 years, working for the State Attorneys Office and also as a criminal defense attorney. She serves as a Guardian Ad Litem and Florida Supreme Court certified family mediator.

Krauss married her spouse, April Halle, last year.

I am looking forward to getting back into the courtroom and advocating for my clients, Krauss said. My phone has actually not stopped ringing with well wishes and new client calls. I am grateful for the journey.

In the race for county judge group 14, Mollica collected 341,146 votes (59 percent) to defeat Brad A. Peterson who tallied 237, 552 votes (41 percent).

Barbara Roseann Duffy won the judicial post in circuit court 17, group 15, defeating Abbe Sheila Rifkin, 61 percent to 39 percent. Florence Taylor Barner was elected county judge in group three, defeating Rhoda Sokoloff, 60 percent to 40 percent. In county court, group seven, Nina Weatherly Pietro edged out Ian Richards, 51 percent to 48 percent.
Gay Republicans woke up Wednesday to a dream that became reality.

Donald J. Trump is the 45th President-Elect of the United States of America.

Trump spoke to the American people and addressed their concerns, said Eric Gilbert, a Boca Raton financial advisor. Rather than saying I am with her, Trumps message was, I am going to be working for you.

Trump worked his way through 16 other Republicans to capture the partys nomination. The New York businessman then defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the general election, with, at last count, 279 Electoral College votes.

Tonight, America chose change over the status quo, the future over the past, and conservative solutions over empty liberal promises  America chose Donald J. Trump. Log Cabin Republicans extends our hearty congratulations to the President-Elect of the United States! reads a news release from Log Cabin Republicans.

The national organization for Americas premiere gay political conservative organization did not endorse Trump during the election, but quickly reversed course in Tuesdays aftermath.

Weve had our occasional differences with Mr. Trump throughout his unique campaign for our nations highest office, but Log Cabin Republicans never hesitated to offer praise when it was due, the news release reads. Mr. Trumps unprecedented and repeated overtures to the LGBTQ community were invariably lauded by our organization and we look forward to seeing those words turn into action in a Trump administration. We likewise stand firm in our unwavering commitment to working with our countrys President-Elect to ensure the historic advances in LGBT freedom we have fought for and secured will continue.

Trumps path to the White House was aided immensely by winning Florida and its 29 electoral college votes. Trump edged Clinton by 119,770 votes in Florida, winning 58 of the states 67 counties.

In Democratic heavy Broward, Trump was able to cut into the margin enough with the help of the local chapter of Log Cabin Republicans.

Andy Eddy, a longtime Log Cabin member, was humble in victory, telling SFGN, we are neither winners nor losers but patriots in a very unique and diverse family of inspired volunteers focused on creating positive change for all who see a vision of making America greater than ever regardless of who we are and where we live.

Another Broward LCR member, James Driscoll, echoed Eddys comments and said he looks forward to Trump following through on his campaign promises.

Yes, Donald Trump will build that wall, and he will tear down Obamacare, said Driscoll. Our first priority must be to protect and improve access to HIV care and treatment in the coming re-organization of our healthcare system.

Driscoll said he has supported Trumps candidacy from day one.

For the first time America will have a President committed to defending the rights of women and gays wherever they live on this planet. Universal human rights, no exceptions for medieval theocracies, Driscoll said.

For Gilbert, Trumps ability to recognize the pain of every day Americans was the key to his success.

How often do we talk about ourselves rather than listen to what the other person needs, Gilbert said. It is time we become united as a country. Lets pray Trump will be able to move manufacturing back to the U.S. and lower taxes on corporations so they dont move abroad again.


Check out news from around the world!

US Pastor to Ask Judge to Reject Uganda Anti-Gay Lawsuit

(AP) A Massachusetts evangelist will ask a federal judge to reject a lawsuit that accuses him of waging a long campaign to persecute gays in Uganda.



An East African gay advocacy group filed the lawsuit in 2012 against minister Scott Lively under a statute that allows non-citizens to file U.S. court actions for violations of international law.



Lively's Springfield church is known as Redemption Gate Mission Society. He has called the lawsuit "absurd" and "completely frivolous."



Lively said he has preached against homosexuality, but advised therapy, not punishment.



The New York-based group Center for Constitutional Rights filed the suit on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda.



A hearing will be held Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Springfield on Lively's request for summary judgment to keep the case from going to trial.

African Nations Seek to Get Rid of 1st UN LGBT Expert

(AP) African nations are seeking to initially suspend and then get rid of the first U.N. independent expert charged with investigating violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Botswana's U.N. Ambassador Charles Ntwaagae said Friday that African nations want the General Assembly to delay consideration of a Human Rights Council resolution adopted on June 30 that authorized the appointment of an expert to monitor LGBT rights in order to discuss "the legality of the creation of this mandate."

Ntwaagae told the 193-member world body that a General Assembly resolution introduced by African nations seeking a delay also calls for suspending the activities of the first expert, Vitit Muntarbhorn of Thailand, who was appointed on Sept. 30, pending a determination of the legality.

The assembly is expected to vote on the African resolution on Tuesday.

The Human Rights Council resolution establishing the LGBT expert was adopted by a vote of 23-18 with 6 abstentions, reflecting the deep divisions internationally on gay rights.

The U.N. has worked to improve the rights of the LGBT community in recent years but has repeatedly run into opposition from some member states - especially from countries in the Middle East and Africa as well as China and Russia. According to a U.N. human rights report last year, at least 76 countries retain laws used to criminalize and harass people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, including laws criminalizing consensual same-sex relationships among adults.

Ntwaagae said African nations "are alarmed" that the Human Rights Council is delving into national matters and attempting to focus on people "on the grounds of their sexual interests and behaviors, while ignoring that intolerance and discrimination regrettably exist in various parts of the world, be it on the basis of color, race, sex or religion, to mention only a few."

Romania: Political Dispute Over Anti-Gay-Marriage Referendum

(AP) The leader of Romania's biggest party has asked two colleagues to withdraw a bill calling for an anti-gay-marriage referendum to be organized on the same day as parliamentary elections.



Two Social Democratic Party senators submitted a draft bill to Senate Thursday, calling for a referendum on changing the constitution to specify that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. The initiative is backed by a petition signed by almost 3 million people who fear Romania may legalize same-sex marriage.



Liviu Dragnea, chairman of the Social Democrats, said Friday the two issues should not be mixed.



If Parliament approves the bill in 2 weeks, there will be a referendum on Dec. 11, together with parliamentary elections. The current constitution says marriage is an act between spouses.
Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme  La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza.



Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres.




Planet FOrming Discs Circling Stars ESO

Three teams of astronomers have made use of SPHERE, an advanced exoplanet-hunting instrument on the Very Large Telescope at ESOs Paranal Observatory, in order to shed light on the enigmatic evolution of fledgling planetary systems.

The explosion in the number of known exoplanets in recent years has made the study of them one of the most dynamic fields in modern astronomy.

Today it is known that planets form from vast discs of gas and dust encircling newborn stars, known as protoplanetary discs. These can extend for thousands of millions of kilometres. Over time, the particles in these protoplanetary discs collide, combine and eventually build up into planet-sized bodies. However, the finer details of the evolution of these planet-forming discs remain mysterious.

SPHERE is a recent addition to the VLTs array of instruments and with its combination of novel technologies, it provides a powerful method to directly image the fine details of protoplanetary discs [1]. The interaction between protoplanetary discs and growing planets can shape the discs into various forms: vast rings, spiral arms or shadowed voids. These are of special interest as an unambiguous link between these structures and the sculpting planets is yet to be found; a mystery astronomers are keen to solve. Fortunately, SPHEREs specialised capabilities make it possible for research teams to observe these striking features of protoplanetary discs directly.

For example, RX J1615 is a young star, which lies in the constellation of Scorpius, 600 light-years from Earth. A team led by the Jos de Boer, of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, found a complex system of concentric rings surrounding the young star, forming a shape resembling a titanic version of the rings that encircle Saturn. Such an intricate sculpting of rings in a protoplanetary disc has only been imaged a handful of times before, and even more excitingly, the entire system seems to be only 1.8 million years old. The disc shows hints of being shaped by planets still in the process of formation.

The age of the newly detected protoplanetary disc makes RX J1615 an outstanding system, as most other examples of protoplanetary discs detected so far are relatively old or evolved. De Boers unexpected result was quickly echoed by the findings of a team led by Christian Ginski, also of Leiden Observatory. They observed the young star HD 97048, located in the constellation of Chamaeleon, about 500 light-years from Earth. Through painstaking analysis, they found that the juvenile disc around this star has also formed into concentric rings. The symmetry of these two systems is a surprising result, as most protoplanetary systems contain a multitude of asymmetrical spiral arms, voids and vortexes. These discoveries significantly raise the number of known systems with multiple highly symmetrical rings.

A particularly spectacular example of the more common asymmetric disc was captured by a group of astronomers led by Tomas Stolker of the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, the Netherlands. This disc surrounds the star HD 135344B, about 450 light-years away. Although this star has been well-studied in the past, SPHERE allowed the team to see the stars protoplanetary disc in more detail than ever before. The large central cavity and two prominent spiral arm-like structures are thought to have been created by one or multiple massive protoplanets, destined to become Jupiter-like worlds.

In addition, four dark streaks, apparently shadows thrown by the movement of material within HD 135344Bs disc, were observed. Remarkably, one of the streaks noticeably changed in the months between observing periods: a rare example of observing planetary evolution occur in real time, hinting at changes occurring in the inner disc regions that can not be directly detected by SPHERE. As well as producing beautiful images, these flickering shadows provide a unique way of probing the dynamics of innermost disc regions.

As with the concentric rings found by de Boer and Ginski, these observations by Stolkers team prove that the complex and changing environment of the discs surrounding young stars are still capable of producing surprising new discoveries. By building an impressive body of knowledge about these protoplanetary discs, these teams are stepping closer to understanding how planets shape the discs that form them  and therefore understanding planet formation itself.

Notes

[1] SPHERE had first light in June 2014. The instrument uses advanced adaptive optics SPHERE had first light in June 2014 to remove atmospheric distortion, a coronagraph to block most of the light from the central star and a combination of differential imaging and polarimetry to isolate the light from features in the disc.

More information

The research of de Boer, Ginski and Stolker and their colleagues in the SPHERE consortium is now accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Their papers are entitled: Direct detection of scattered light gaps in the transitional disk around HD 97048 with VLT/SPHERE; Shadows cast on the transition disk of HD 135344B: Multi-wavelength VLT/SPHERE polarimetric differential imaging, and Multiple rings in the transition disk and companion candidates around RX J1615.3-3255: High contrast imaging with VLT/SPHERE. All three of papers have been created in the framework of the SPHERE GTO program, led by Carsten Dominik, University of Amsterdam.

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the worlds most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the worlds most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the worlds largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre European Extremely Large Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become the worlds biggest eye on the sky.

Links

* Research paper by Jos de Boer et al.  http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1640/eso1640a.pdf

* Research paper by Christian Ginski et al.  http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1640/eso1640b.pdf

* Research paper by Tomas Stolker et al.  http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1640/eso1640c.pdf
Wed, 26.10.22 - 12:09

Another blast of heat at the end of the month is likely to break the record in Spain With only a few days left in...
The yearling sale portion of the 2016 Standardbred Horse Sale at the PA Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania wrapped up on Wednesday, Nov. 9 with Ontario buyers purchasing the third day's sale toppers.

Alarm Detector, Hip 769, was the highest priced yearling of the third session with Ben Baillargeon of Guelph, Ont. placing the winning six-figure bid of $110,000. Consigned by Concord Stud Farm, the Chapter Seven colt is the third foal out of the Yankee Glide mare Final Countdown, a full-sister to sires Ken Warkentin ($1,066,946 - 1:52.3) and Holiday Road ($426,200 - 1:52.4).

I like the whole package, said Baillargeon. Theres a guy [Bryan Montgomery] who put me on to him. He said, Ben, this is a very nice looking colt, you should go take a look at him. He knows Im a trotting man. I buy mostly trotters all the time. He said you should go take a look at this horse.

Bryan saw him raised, really, because he lives locally, near the farm [Concord Stud Farm, consignor for Order By Stable]. He said hed seen the horse grow up and he was a nice horse. So I looked at the horse, I looked at the video and he had a beautiful way of going and I said, Well, lets try to buy him.

I know all these horses [in his pedigree], its a good family. Trotters have been good to me; theyve been bread and butter to me. I buy and race a lot of trotters, its good fit for me.

He will head north, in Canada, no Florida for me. Im at Ideal Training Center, about half an hour north of Mohawk. He will have the harness on him Monday.

Western Passage, Hip 765, was the second-most expensive yearling of the session, purchased for $80,000 by Casie Coleman of Cambridge, Ont. Bred by Winbak Farm, the Sportswriter-Ever Western colt is a half-sibling to the $355,000-earner McEver.

One of two Hanover Shoe Farms yearlings selling for $65,000 during the third session was Everyone Hanover, Hip 759. The Sportswriter colt out of the Grand Circuit stakes-winning mare Edra Hanover was purchased by Mark Steacy of Lansdowne, Ont. The colt's siblings include the two-year-old stakes-winning son of Dragon Again, Eddard Hanover ($119,941 - 1:52).

The Explosive Matter-Phaeton filly Photobomb Hanover, Hip 515, was also purchased for $65,000 by New York's Purple Haze Stable.

Wednesday's session was comprised of 389 yearlings, which sold for more than $7.97 million, with an average price of approximately $20,492. The average price for 72 Ontario-eligible yearlings, which sold for almost $17.8 million, was approximately $24,715.

The overall yearling sale topper was Story Time Hanover, Hip 21, with a $410,000 price tag during the first session on Monday. Jimmy Takter, acting as agent, purchased the Muscle Hill colt, who is the first foal of Hanover Shoe Farms' broodmare Shared Past, a multiple stakes-winning daughter of Chocolatier and a three-quarter sister to millionaire Dejarmbro. The family also includes stakes winners Manofmanymissions and the Takter-trained Armbro Vanquish.

Overall, 868 yearlings were sold over the three days for total sales of $33,511,501 and an average price of $38,608. In comparison to last year, 1,010 yearlings were sold over the 2015 three-day yearling sale for $31,143,500, producing an average of $30,835.

The 119 Ontario-eligible yearlings at this year's sale averaged $35,458, with total sales of $4,219,500.

It was the second-best average we ever had, said Russell Williams, Chairman of the Standardbred Horse Sale. Very satisfying, particularly when you think of all the work that goes into raising these horses. Its really great that our consignors can have a pay day.

The mixed sale portion begins tomorrow (Thursday, Nov. 10) at 10 a.m. EST, featuring Hips 920-1251, and concludes with another 10 a.m. session on Friday. The mixed sale has a total of 768 entries, including 197 broodmares and broodmare prospects, 24 weanlings, 32 yearlings, 58 stallion shares, and 457 racehorses.

(With quotes from HRC)

Important Links:
Standardbred Canada is seeking submissions for its 2016 Media Excellence Awards, to be presented at the O'Brien Awards ceremony on January 28, 2017.

There are three awards: Outstanding Written Work, Outstanding Video, Film or Broadcast, and Outstanding Photograph.

Submissions for award consideration must pertain to some aspect of the Canadian Standardbred racing industry. Submissions for 2016 must have been published or broadcasted for the first time, between November 1, 2015 and October 31, 2016.

The program is aimed at honouring those who have, through one piece of exceptional work, covered Canadian harness racing in a manner that is extraordinary and of broad national appeal.

The deadline for all submissions is Thursday, December 1, 2016 at 5:00 p.m. (EST) All submissions and inquiries should be directed to:

Kathy Wade Vlaar

Industry Marketing

Standardbred Canada

2150 Meadowvale Blvd.

Mississauga, ON

L5N 6R6

[email protected]

905-858-3077 (Ext. 207)

For more details on the criteria for the awards, click here.

To see a list of past winners of the Media Excellence Awards, click here.

You can check out last years winners here:

Outstanding Written Work

Been There, Bought the T-Shirt: The Relevance of Trademark Race Calls was published in Trot Magazines February 2015 issue, and written by Melissa Keith, of Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia. The story is about race announcers, their trademark race calls and memorable race calls.

Outstanding Video, Film or Broadcast

ErinoakKids and video production partner Fresh Sox produced Sydneys Story, a feature about harness racing fan and owner Sydney Weaver, an ErinoakKids client, who was honoured at their annual Pride & Joy Awards in October. The Pride & Joy Awards celebrate the achievement, determination and legacy of the extraordinary children and youth that they serve. Sydney was selected as the Centres "Branching Out" recipient because of her advancement in extra-curricular activities -- namely harness racing and writing, and this video was created to tell Sydneys story at the awards.

Outstanding Photography

Frances Lunds photo of a horse in the driving rain in the Gold Cup and Saucer Post Parade at Red Shores Racetrack & Casino at Charlottetown Driving Park was taken on August 22, 2015. The rain and lightening threatened all night and Frankie, a resident of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, captured this shot of Brad Forward and Crombie A as they were introduced under the spotlight in the record downpour (the race had to be rescheduled for the following afternoon). This image was later published in Atlantic Post Calls on September 11, 2015.
100,000 Children in the USA to Learn the True Meaning of Christmas

Contact: Moises Esteves, VP of Communications and Marketing, Child Evangelism Fellowship , 636-456-4321 ext 1311WARRENTON, Mo., Nov. 10, 2016 / Standard Newswire / -- Child Evangelism Fellowship will kick off their second annual Christmas Across America SM program this month with the goal of helping 100,000 children learn about and celebrate the birth of Jesus.The program works by providing exceptional kits and helpful training to families, churches or other groups who will host a 90-minute party club to reach unchurched children."In our post-Christian culture, the beloved story of the Baby of Bethlehem, the angels, shepherds and wise men is one many children simply have never heard," said Ron Tant, Vice-President of USA Ministries. "That is what we are out to change."Last year CEF held 2,559 Christmas Party Clubs all over the nation in homes, churches, hospitals, refugee camps, restaurants, libraries, daycares and even a car wash. Each evangelistic outreach included a Bible lesson, songs, snacks and games.Altogether, 60,492 children attended CAA parties, each hearing a clear presentation of the Gospel. Of that number, 6,017 trusted Christ as Savior. Adults were also impacted. Over 4,000 parents and grandparents stayed for the parties, and 207 of them put their faith in Christ. Many of these party clubs are followed up with weekly Good News Clubs in public elementary schools all over the USA.Christmas Across America provides an effective opportunity for churches to connect with and follow up on families in their communities, and pastors noted that hosting a party is made simple by CEF providing the needed free materials."It was truly a blessing to have a tool to reach so many at the same time. None of the children who came knew that Christmas has anything to do with Jesus. Thank you for making the Christmas Across America kit available and allowing our disciples to make more disciples," said one pastor.The kits, available in English and Spanish, provide a Bible lesson with large, beautiful flashcards, visualized songs, a music CD, DVDs with training sessions and demonstrations, and promotional items. Kits also includes The Story of Jesus for Children DVDs and 30-page colorful booklets for the children. The kits are valued at $125, but are free to those who commit to hosting a party, being trained and completing background checks.For more information about Christmas Across America program, go to www.christmasacrossamerica.com
The essential component of totalitarian propaganda is artifice (het toepassen van kunstgrepen. svh) . The ruling elites, like celebritie...
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Play at the new site will be free and first come, first served through the year's end.
Clatskanie Mayor Diane Pohl had no challenger on Tuesdays general election ballot, but Wednesday she conceded the election to write-in candidate Bob Brajcich before the final vote was even tallied.

On Tuesday, Pohl received 214 votes, less than half the number of write-in votes in the race, 481. Election and city officials still have not determined how many of those write-ins were cast for Brajcich, a retired mechanic.

Pohl, who has dealt with recent scandals in both public and private life, said she conceded out of respect for the will of the people. Her term expires Dec. 31.

I believe in our country. I believe in our system. I believe in the people voting for who they believe is the best candidate. Thats our American way, she said Wednesday.

Its been a tough few years for Pohl, who survived a recall petition last year. Critics launched the recall after she accepted the resignation of former Clatskanie Police Chief Marvin Hoover before the states investigation into his alleged misconduct had finished. Hoover left last August over complaints by two of his officers that he made racist remarks.

Pohls husband, former city planning commissioner Ray Pohl, was arrested in September 2015 on allegations that he exposed his genitals at a female drive-thru coffee stand worker over the course of two and a half years. He was given three years of probation, ordered to complete a sex offender treatment program and pay $11,100 to the woman.

And though the city government and mayor had nothing to do with it, the community also witnessed a high school principal ousted in a sextortion scandal and a $1.3 million settlement from the PUD in a sexual harassment case.

I think people got wary of the constant attention to that, whether it was bogus or it was real, she said of her husbands arrest and the controversy over Hoovers resignation. I think people kind of got tired of it. Ive been mayor 10 years. A lot of times, as a public servant you need to be aware that theres a life cycle in serving. Its good to have that turnover.

Pohl said its been an honor to serve the community. In 2006, she ran on an anti-drugs platform after her friend, retired Clatsop County Sheriff Al Eastman, died in 2004 after a gunfight with a man running from police. She said she also is proud of starting an emergency response team, starting a canine drug program and moving City Hall into its new home.

It wont be certain who won the election until City Council ratifies the votes at its meeting Dec. 7. Clatskanie Elections Clerk Don Clack said staff have yet to validate the write-in votes. So far, they only know the number of write-in votes.

Brajcich, a 63-year-old retired mechanic, said he ran against Pohl because he didnt want to see her unopposed.

I think its sad when you have offices unopposed. It looks like no one cares, he said, adding that he wants to give back to his community.

This is his second attempt running against Pohl. He also ran two years ago.

Im excited, looking forward to it. Im retired, so it gives me a chance to serve the community, said Brajcich, whos lived in Clatskanie for 53 years.

He said he had no big plans for the mayors office.

I like playing everything by the rules. There always seems to be controversy in Clatskanie. I like things nice and smooth, he said, adding that hed like to help recruit more business to the town. I just want to try to do a good job and not let those people down.
Cowlitz County has been drifting to the political right for decades, but Tuesdays election results were more of a sudden lurch in that direction.

According to unofficial returns, Republican Donald Trump narrowly won the presidential vote in the county, tallying a 50.7 percent majority and outpolling Democrat Hillary Clinton by 2,400 votes. It was the first time the county voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Analysts and local candidates say the enthusiasm for the unorthodox GOP candidate had conservatives reaping votes at the local, state and federal levels. Theyre not sure, however, whether the GOP tide will continue. Trump after all is not completely in step with the current Republican agenda.

He may well have drawn some people to the polls who were not regular voters, said Mark Smith, University of Washington political science professor.

Toby Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government and a former Republican state legislator, said Trumps coattail effect extended down the ballot.

The voters there have always been in that kind of frame of mind, Nixon said. This time around that messaging especially at the national level was a lot more stark. ... The Republicans were more closely aligned with what they were feeling.

In addition to giving its nod to Trump, Cowlitz County voters also elected Republican Arne Mortensen, giving him an upset victory over incumbent Mike Karnofski. Karnofski, who has been county commissioner for the past six years and board chairman for four, attributed his loss to the enthusiasm behind the presidential candidate.

I actually had told my son and daughter-in-law (Monday) that if Clinton won Cowlitz County, Id have a really good chance of winning, he said Tuesday night. If you look at the rest of the races ... it looks like pretty strong Republican results.

Cowlitz County also strongly favored Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Bryant, who got 55 percent of the Cowlitz vote but tallied only 44 percent of the statewide vote.

Smith pointed to demographics here that would indicate Trump to have a large support base in the county: Its overwhelmingly white and has a high percentage of blue-collar men without college degrees. Nationwide, 73 percent of those voters supported Trump. His supporters were also rural, and exit polls showed he uniquely appealed to union households, which traditionally have leaned Democratic.

People worried about their economic futures, Smith said. He added that Trumps anti-trade rhetoric also helped. If Bernie Sanders had been the Democratic nominee ... Sanders wouldve offset that issue in the way that Hillary Clinton didnt.

Cowlitz County voters have historically voted for Democratic candidates yet vote more conservatively on ballot measures. This year Initiative 1491, which limits high-risk individuals from obtaining firearms, passed even in Cowlitz County, which is strong Second Amendment territory.

Still, the 1491 vote here was not surprising, analysts, say. Statewide the initiative got 71 percent support, well above the 54.2 level of support here. Political analysts said it was an initiative that was difficult to reject.

I think in this case even people who are strong supporters of gun rights think that there needs to be a way to get the guns out of the hands of people who are mentally ill and a threat to others, Nixon said. I think 1491 provided that.

Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha said gun violence has been on peoples minds.

I think nationwide, people see it as an issue, Duscha said. This is something they can vote on locally.

Even the Democrat friendly 19th District, which hasnt had a Republican lawmaker in decades, showed tints of red this year.

Incumbent state Sen. Dean Takko, D-Longview has been a state legislator since 2005. He won in the county with 58.2 percent of the votes, and 56.9 percent districtwide. But two years ago Takko won his 19th District House seat with 66.9 percent, and in 2012 he grabbed 61.6 percent.

Takko said there has always been a fight for the independents in the county who arent dedicated to either party. He said the urban and rural divide was specially stark in this race.

I dont think its changed a whole lot, Takko said. Theres a lot of people, especially in the rural areas, who are just frustrated that the Puget Sound area is doing well. ... Were sitting down here struggling.
Theres at least one position open on the Kelso School Board, and come December, there might be two.

Board member Robert Gibbs announced his resignation on Monday, which will become effective Jan 10. in addition, board president Patricia Wood is running for election to the Washington State Board of Education. Wood announced that if elected to the state board, she will resign her seat on the Kelso School Board.

Gibbs attendance has been spotty at recent board meetings, and he is resigning for family reasons, he said. His term expires at the end of 2019. Woods term ends a year from now.

The results of the state board election will be known in about a month.

Kelso is inviting district residents to apply for the two positions, even though it may only have to fill one.

Applications may be picked up in the Superintendents Office, 601 Crawford St. in Kelso. Completed applications must be received by 5 p.m. on Dec. 5 at the same location. The district expects to conduct interviews Dec. 15 and make selections shortly thereafter.

Appointees would have to run in next Novembers general election to continue in the positions.
Women in contradiction of men have higher possibilities of budding Alzheimers disease. But till now, there are little facts have discovered about how the embryonic of Alzheimer can impinge on brain function and changes in midlife of women. Recently, a medical testimony has suggested women consider HRT or Harmon Replacement Treatment to trim down the risks of developing Alzheimers, disease.

Through the new report, the experts claim that women are likely to have twice-fold risks of developing Alzheimers disease than men. The US researchers, in their new study, have found that the issues like memory loss triggered commence of Dementia which may be activated by the menopause when levels of the hormone oestrogens fall and by taking HRT, the risks can be chopped down.

As per the new reports, women have a sharper memory than of mens. However, the memory of women is likely to blur as the level of oestrogen  female sex hormones  turn down as women pierce into the menopause transition phase. All most every previously held study suggested the memory loss among women to be caused by the ageing process. Researchers, in the recently held study published online in the Academic journal Menopause, represented that as women enter the post-menopause period, the possibilities of forgetfulness and brain fog started going on. Researchers, while publicising the new reports, said that the significance of oestrogen in the brain might shore up the belief that female should think about taking HRT to restore the hormone.

On this purpose, the senior author of the study, Dr Jill Goldstein, of Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said maintaining the echelon of Oestradiol  the kind of oestrogen that has the maximum upshot on the intellect  plays the most pivotal role in the functionality of memory and may be imperative in restricting the risks of Alzheimers among women.

The group of scientists along with an expert of Alzheimer at Brigham and Womens Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts, examined 212 middle-aged men and women and discovered that the female participants have sharper memory level in comparison to the men candidates. The researchers, throughout the study, also found that the level of intellect among women after entering into the post-menopause stage start dropping down and eventually reached at the similar level of men, to learn and retrieve information.
hidden

By Narayanan Madhavan

Dilemmas over how to handle outsourcing of work and work permit visas are not new to the US, which like Shakespeare's Hamlet, is frequently confused over how many workers it should allow into the famed Land of Opportunities. As Congress leader Jairam Ramesh once, put it, "To H1B or not to H1B, that is the question."

As Donald Trump gets set to enter the White House as the 45th President of the United States, the dilemma is staring at India's information technology sector all over again. Is this time any different?

It would outwardly seem so, given Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric in general and explicit remarks about ending the "abuse" of the H1B work permit visas for foreigners, in which Indians have been among the biggest beneficiaries. But it would seem the God/Devil is in the details.

Let's face it. Trump is politically not a friend of the Silicon Valley, and vice versa. Chants by school students in the famed University of Berkeley, "Not my President" against the President-elect have fanned talk of a "CalExit"  California's secession from the US  along the lines of Britain's Brexit from the European Union, but there is more to the business of technology than the rhetorical appeal of Trump or the slogans of liberal students primarily worried about diversity, gay rights and racism. From all indications, Trump may play ball in a manner that helps India more than hinders it. Here are some reasons why.

India is a strategic ally

Trump's big problem would be in dealing with China, which has been taking away manufacturing jobs from the US due to its low-cost advantage built up over the past three decades. US has a 300-billion-dollar trade deficit with China. That should worry the new president more than H1B visas and checks on the technology industry. In both containing Pakistan-centric terrorism and promoting democratic values, ties between India and US are strategic.

Technology gives US the big edge

Indian engineers in the Silicon Valley and Indian companies that carry out outsourced work in software, design and research and development work hard to help create patents and algorithms that give the US a long-term strategic advantage in a competitive world. Trump will not want to erode the edge if he wants "to make America great again" as he says. California is a rich state and "CalExit" talk will at least mean Trump and his aides will talk business with the most influential among techies. Remember, Adobe, Microsoft and Google have Indian-born CEOs now. And giants such as Cisco and IBM have a big stake in Digital India initiatives.

The Rust Belt is hardly affected by India

Trump's victory is largely attributed to white workers who have never been to college and the working class in America's manufacturing-centred "Rust Belt" that has previously voted for Obama. Indians have not taken away blue-collar Rust Belt jobs, by and large. On the other hand, the B Techs, MCAs, PhDs and MBAs from India who people the technology sector help small business voters who backed Trump.

Trump can't control outsourcing-driven job transfers much

The new president may talk much against outsourcing, but offshore outsourcing is not easy to check. Trump[ may have ranted against IBM for allegedly firing Minneapolis workers and transferring the jobs to India, but there is not much he can do. Government contracts may face scrutiny on job losses in America, but that has happened before as well. Tax-related policies cannot undercut the basic advantages in costs and innovation that offshoring offers to many private sector companies. Business process management (BPM) jobs may be more dear for Trump to save for Americans but most of these fall under the offshore category mostly outside government control.

Trump is a fan of "Hindu"

"Ab Ki Bar, Trump Sarkar" is a slogan he mouthed as he gauchely announced he is a "fan of Hindu". Trump's friendly vibes with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the anticipated chemistry between two leaders may give India a negotiating advantage on visas or any other trade issue.

As Infosys founder Narayana Murthy says, if Indians are seen as "very critical" to the success of US industry, decisions can be influenced suitably.

Having said that, it would be foolish not to expect fireworks in the US Congress as Republicans who dominate the country's parliament worry about job losses in each constituency. And Trump, before anything else, is a real estate deal maker who by his own admission loves deal-making.

Expect his administration to ask India some tough questions. And expect tough negotiations for India. Er, how many dollars per square foot is an H1B visa?

The writer is a senior editor and journalist who has worked for Reuters, The Economic Times, Hindustan Times and Reuters. He tweets as @madversity
Aditya Madanapalle

On 9 November last year, Google open sourced its machine learning framework, TensorFlow. Over the course of the year, Google added distributed computing features to TensorFlow and updated the framework with iOS support.

TensorFlow is now the most popular machine learning project posted on GitHub, with more than 3000 related repositories. Google uses TensorFlow to power many of its projects, including cutting edge natural language processing capabilities. TensorFlow is available as a cloud service on Google Cloud Platform.

Project Magenta by Google is an initiative to enable machines to create art. The eventual aim of project Magenta is to generate original video content, but for now the project is focusing on creating music. The DeepMind Artificial Intelligence by Google is powered by TensorFlow. After defeating world champion Go player, DeepMind is now learning to play Starcraft. In what could be baby steps towards an artificial general intelligence, DeepMind can learn things on its own.

TensorFlow works on Tensor Processing Units, specialised hardware created by Google specifically for TensorFlow to accelerate computing. At the Made By Google event, CEO Sundar Pichai heralded artificial intelligence as the most disruptive technological transformation for the decade ahead. After desktop computers, the internet, smartphones, it is now time for the advent of machine learning, and TensorFlow is at the heart of the machine learning capabilities by Google.

Ever since TensorFlow became open source, people around the world are finding innovative ways to use the framework. Australian marine biologists are using TensorFlow to monitor the population levels of the threatened Sea Cows. Originally, the population levels were monitored by humans in Sea Planes, a cumbersome process. Drones taking photos reduced the time needed, but required researchers to scan through thousands of photos to identify the sea cows. This is where TensorFlow was used to simplify the operations much further. A TensorFlow implementation was used to track Sea Cows that appear as small specs in a body of water.

A cucumber farmer named Makoto Koike from Japan inspired by how well DeepMind managed to play Go, used TensorFlow to sort the cucumbers into different categories in his cucumber farm. Sorting is a time-consuming process, time that could be used more productively elsewhere on the farm. Makoto's mother would sort the cucumbers by hand before the AI-based sorting system was developed. Makoto says, "Farmers want to focus and spend their time on growing delicious vegetables. I'd like to automate the sorting tasks before taking the farm business over from my parents."

Data scientists in Silicon Valley hacked together a camera, a microphone, a Raspberry Pi and TensorFlow to physically track the erratic Caltrain. The device finds out when the train is passing, and at what speed and direction it is moving in. Radiologists have adapted TensorFlow to automate the detection of Parkinson's disease in medical scans.

TensorFlow is one of those projects that keeps getting better with time. There have been 10,000 code commits on GitHub after just a year of being open source. The Machine Learning community is contributing directly to the codebase. TensorFlow is available for use in everything from standalone products, to startups, to research initiatives, to school projects.
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The Information Technology companies in this tech hub feel that Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election will not affect the sector. They hope that President-elect Trump will adopt a balanced approach to high-skilled visas and contribution of India's IT sector to the US economy. "We look forward to working with him and his administration to advance our two nations' shared interests," B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, former chairman of NASSCOM and founder and Executive Chairman of Cyient, said.

"Contrary to some misperceptions and political rhetoric, India's IT sector has long contributed to the US economy in more ways than one," he added. Reddy pointed out that besides making US companies more efficient and competitive, Indian IT companies time and again helped them develop new technologies and new products, significantly benefiting those companies, their customers, American job growth and the US economy.

"Thus we hope that, as the rhetoric of the presidential contest fades into the past, the Trump administration will make mutually beneficial trade with India a high priority, and will take a balanced approach to high-skilled visas and the contribution of India's IT sector to the US economy," he added. "Even as there was no upfront indication of the outcome, and thus a surprise, personally I don't think this will affect the IT industry in anyway. US has always been a business friendly country, and more so the Republican Party," said Ramesh Loganathan, Vice-President, Products, and Managing Director, Progress Software India.

"Businesses in the US significantly benefit from engaging with the Indian IT industry. Added to that, in recent years the industry has been steadily working towards higher value services, IP creation and products. This also helps in ensuring continued engagement," he said. Ajay Kolla, founder and CEO of leading job portal Wisdomjobs.com, feels the election result won't have any significant impact on hiring in the Indian IT industry in the short term.

"While there were certain promises made by Trump during the election campaign, it remains to be evaluated as to how many will be implemented," he said. Kolla said, "In any case, three things that go in favour of the Indian IT industry is its cost effectiveness, superior domain knowledge and availability of quality talent. Considering these, it won't be an easy decision for companies in the US to ignore the value which the Indian IT industry brings to them."

IANS
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Jay Y. Lee, de facto head of South Korea's sprawling Samsung Group, accelerated taking a board seat at flagship unit Samsung Electronics partly because of investor pressure to improve governance, two people familiar with the matter said. Samsung Group narrowly survived a bid by U.S. activist hedge fund Elliott Management last year to block a controversial merger of two group businesses, Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries. The deal sparked criticism that the Lee family put its interests ahead of those of shareholders.

In its latest campaign, Elliott, which owns 0.62 percent of Samsung Electronics, is calling for the world's biggest smartphone maker to be split in two, and for shareholders to be handed a 30 trillion won ($26 billion) dividend.

"Over the past couple of years, there were repeated requests from internal and external board members for Lee to join the board, which he had persistently resisted," said one of the people, declining to be named as he is not authorized to speak publicly. "But the (2015) attack from Elliott was one of the triggers that prompted him to take a board seat earlier than planned, and consider governance issues more seriously."

Samsung Electronics said in October it will respond to Elliott's latest proposals by the end of this month. Lee, 48, the conglomerate's unassuming heir-apparent had previously orchestrated operations from behind the scenes after his father Lee Kun-hee was hospitalized in 2014 following a heart attack. He had finally been persuaded to stand for a seat on Samsung Electronics' board at next year's March shareholder meeting, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

But the sale of the company's printer business to HP Inc required investor approval, triggering a shareholder meeting last month, and a chance to get Lee on to the board ahead of schedule. "He felt it was time and he was ready," said the second person familiar with the issue.

Samsung Electronics said Lee was nominated for the October meeting rather than March so he could participate more actively in important decisions such as the composition of the management team and acquisitions. The board seat also gives Lee formal responsibility for the company's management, it said.

In a nod to the chorus for more transparency and shareholder handouts, Samsung has been streamlining its complex group ownership structure and boosting payouts. Samsung Electronics has bought back 11.4 trillion won ($9.9 billion) worth of its own shares since last year and may repurchase more to appease investors after the expensive collapse of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.

"It shows that he wants to have a more global standard of board governance," said another person familiar with the matter, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of issue, adding Lee wants the board to be the key decision-making body. "I imagine there will be more happening in board empowerment."

Re-Election Risk

By taking a seat on the board of the group's crown jewel, Lee is signaling to investors he is ready to be put in the spotlight, and for them to judge his performance. As a director, Lee will have to stand for re-election in three years, making him accountable to shareholders for the company's performance. Those votes will be litmus tests on how confident investors are in his business acumen.

"So far, he wasn't in a position to officially display his leadership, but he's now finished his lesson," said a fourth person familiar with the matter. "He now has greater official responsibility." With Lee previously calling the shots as non-executive vice chairman, Samsung has accelerated its restructuring; selling non-core chemicals and defense assets in a marked departure from his father's regime. Samsung Electronics has more aggressively chased businesses as it looks for new growth drivers.

Investors will be watching Lee as he steers Samsung Electronics through the Note 7 debacle, with some expecting sweeping managerial changes. He also now has to manage allegations the company may have been involved in a broad influence-peddling scandal that has gripped South Korea. Prosecutors raided Samsung Electronics offices on Tuesday as part of their investigations.

Kim Hyun-su, a fund manager at IBK Asset Management, said Lee's biggest challenge will be to turn around the smartphone business next year. He said the Note 7 crisis is a chance for Lee to prove his mettle. "Regardless of whether people change or not, the (next generation) Galaxy S8 needs to hit the market for Samsung to get beyond the crisis. The company will put all its efforts behind the product to regain consumer trust," he said.

"It doesn't matter how much Lee holds in the company, in the end what's important is good management." Lee is said to have maintained his low profile at his first board meeting last week. "He did not make any notable remarks," said one of those familiar with the matter.

Reuters
Naina Khedekar

We've heard about tech CEOs meeting top Republicans at a secret meeting on an island to discuss how to stop Donald Trump. However, for many, their worst fears have come true. Donald Trump has been elected as the President of the United States of America. And, this leaves the Silicon Valley with many unanswered questions with a dash of uncertainty over several important issues, which not only affects the country, but extends to the rest of the world. Let's quickly take a look at some of the key factors in technology as uncertainty looms.

Net neutrality

Suddenly, the future of net neutrality appears to be bleak. Rules laid down by the FCC on net neutrality had suggested a progressive wave back in 2015. The rules meant  no faster, paid Internet or throttling of speed. Obama has stressed on how it will help with a level-playing field. While many mock Trump for not even knowing what net neutrality actually means, he has made some statements in the past that clearly indicate how he has been against it.

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/532608358508167168?lang=en

Back in 2014, Ted Cuz also called it the Obamacare for Internet. Moreover, The Verge points out that Jeffrey Eisenach, a longtime critic of FCC regulation, has been roped in Trumps presidential transition team.

https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/531834493922189313

Many have already begun expressing concerns over weakened net neutrality rules. There has been fear of reversal of the 2015 policy that brought users net neutrality. "Under Trump, the FCC could open a new rulemaking that would reverse its 2015 decision to reclassify the internet as a utility. This would undermine the FCCs net neutrality rules that prohibit internet providers from speeding up or slowing down access to certain websites and other discriminatory practices," according to Recode.

https://twitter.com/shalini/status/796413400867864584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%20

Is it time for open Internet activists and regulatory bodies to brace themselves for a bigger battle ahead?

Broadband and set-top boxes

It is believed that Trump administration could also mean limiting the expansion of broadband in America. An Engadget report points out that his plans for high-speed Internet with price-cuts for low income group in rural areas are 'vague at best'. "Efforts like these largely rely on regulations, tax breaks and government programs to incentivise businesses to build out infrastructure and subsidise costs for the poor," the report adds.

Now, programs like Connect America, and Broadband Technology Opportunities among others aimed at bringing broadband to 100 percent households by 2020 seem to have an uncertain future, according to the report. However, Trump did mention to invest in infrastructure, though it was never specific to broadband.

Moreover, there is said to be the possibility of Trump administration going easy on regulatory rules, and also offering tax incentives to attract companies to build broadband in rural areas. However, the report adds that the move may not necessarily reduce cost, and rather providers could be in a position to charge higher fees to consumers and show the level-playing field a backdoor with the possibly weakened net neutrality rules.

FCC has been working on set-top box regulation, which haven't gone as planned. Under Trump, its is quite possible that the enforcement of app-based rollout of pay-tv feeds could be thrown out of the window altogether.

Tax policy

Trump has promised slashing the tax rate to 10 percent to bring back money to US for investment locally. "More than $1.2tn of US corporate earnings kept overseas by companies such as Microsoft, Apple and Google to avoid significant tax deductions could be brought home, under plans by Donald Trump for a tax cut on repatriated profits," Financial Times writes. Apple alone is believed to have $200bn stashed overseas. Though Apple may hate Trump for his outcry at banning Apple products, the company may sure agree with his tax reform that could led to it paying only 10 percent tax to repatriate overseas profits.

Make in America!

As we know, Trump wants to boost the country's economy by asking companies to build their products back home. In a speech earlier this year, he said how he will make Apple build its 'damn computers and other things' in the US, instead of elsewhere.

We have such amazing people in this country: smart, sharp, energetic, theyre amazing. Were gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries, Trump had said.

China offers worlds most sophisticated manufacturing infrastructure, and reports argue how manufacturing won't be of great importance to the US economy, but rather may make things expensive for middle-class Americans. Meanwhile, he has been quite vocal about blaming India and China over 'job theft'. In the past, Silicon Valley has pushed for more H1-B visas that allow foreign workers entry into the country, but Trump argues that visas bring cheap labor into the country, eventually denying jobs to qualified Americans. So, his plan is essentially to make companies pay H1-B employees higher. He has publicly criticised Zuckerberg over foreign visas. And, let's not forget him mimicking the Indian call centre during the campaign.
tech2 News Staff

In March, we heard about what sounded like a dramatic plot from a movie with words like secret meeting, isolated island and assorted billionaires strewn around. Add to that Republican senators, biggest tech companies and Donald trump, and it could get all the more interesting. The meeting reportedly included Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Sean Parker, and Elon Musk, among others. The closed meeting reportedly had dignitaries discuss how to stop Donald Trump from getting nominated. We soon heard about the open letter in which over 100 tech entrepreneurs had made their intentions quite clear on how they stand against Donald Trumps divisive candidacy calling him a disaster to innovations.

In the past one year during the run-up for US presidential elections, one thing we know for sure is that Silicon Valley doesnt want to see Trump in office. Now, a day after the presidential elections, with Trump being elected as the President, here's what tech companies have to say.

Let's begin with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg who was called out by Trump for pushing for more H1-B visas. He has penned down a post post elections that says how everyone needs to work harder towards 'curing all disease, improving education, connecting everyone and promoting equal opportunity'.

It was in the Obama era that we saw some serious technological advancements and growth, with smartphone and social media becoming important as other lucrative fields such as automobiles. And, many are uncertain yet hopeful that things could better. Microsofts Indian-born CEO Satya Nadella has also said that he looks forward to working with all those elected.

In a post on LinkedIN, Nadella said, We witnessed the democratic process in action here in the US. The results are of importance around the world, and I know that interest is shared among Microsoft employees. We congratulate the president-elect and look forward to working with all those elected yesterday. Our commitment to our mission and values are steadfast, and in particular fostering a diverse and inclusive culture."

The Verge, points out Nadella may be congratulating President-elect, but hes also crossing his fingers that Trump doesnt follow through on some of his tech-adverse campaign promises.

Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley investor and one of the very few voices supporting Trump said "Congratulations to President-elect Donald Trump. He has an awesomely difficult task, since it is long past time for us to face up to our country's problems. We're going to need all hands on deck. A page in the book of history has turned, and there is an opening to think about some of our problems from a new perspective. I'll try to help the president in any way I can."

Salesforce CEO tweeted out congratulatory message that reads, "Congratulations President Trump. This is what makes America great---our democracy. Now is the time for us to come together as one country."

https://twitter.com/Benioff/status/796386276991610880

AOL co-founder Steve Case has clearly voiced his disappointment on the win.

https://twitter.com/SteveCase/status/796326877388537856

Jack Dorsey seems to be one of the most outspoken.

https://twitter.com/jack/status/796571292660944896

However, Tim Cook did pen down a letter to Apple employees on 'moving forward together'. "We have a very diverse team of employees, including supporters of each of the candidates. Regardless of which candidate each of us supported as individuals, the only way to move forward is to move forward together," he wrote in the letter.

"While there is discussion today about uncertainties ahead, you can be confident that Apples North Star hasnt changed. Our products connect people everywhere, and they provide the tools for our customers to do great things to improve their lives and the world at large. Our company is open to all, and we celebrate the diversity of our team here in the United States and around the world  regardless of what they look like, where they come from, how they worship or who they love," the letter further reads.

Trump had once called to boycott Apple products, while he spoke off anti-trust problems with Amazon. There has no word from like Tesla, Amazon yet.
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Congratulating Donald Trump for becoming the 45th US President, Microsoft's Indian-born CEO Satya Nadella said he looks forward to working with all those elected. "We witnessed the democratic process in action here in the US. The results are of importance around the world, and I know that interest is shared among Microsoft employees," Nadella said in a statement posted on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn on Wednesday."We congratulate the president-elect and look forward to working with all those elected yesterday. Our commitment to our mission and values are steadfast, and in particular fostering a diverse and inclusive culture," Nadella added.

"We congratulate the president-elect, and look forward to working with all those elected yesterday. Our commitment to our mission and values are steadfast, and in particular fostering a diverse and inclusive culture," Nadella added. According to The Verge, "Nadella may be congratulating President-elect, but he's also crossing his fingers that Trump doesn't follow through on some of his tech-adverse campaign promises."

The statement was extremely carefully worded to ensure that it did nod offend any political side during a time when the dependence and relationship between the Technology industry and White House is straining. These strains are the result of constant debates and court battles on important issues like encryption and user privacy. It is evident that Microsoft like all other tech companies is worried by this straining relationship and instead wants to work with the White House to continue the ties.

With inputs from IANS
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Donald Trump's surprise election victory has alarmed technology companies and civil libertarians fearful that a self-described 'law and order' president will attempt to expand surveillance programs and rejoin a long-running battle over government access to encrypted information. Trump's campaign featured numerous broadsides against the tech sector, including calls for closing off parts of the internet to limit militant Islamist propaganda and urging a boycott of Apple Inc products over the company's refusal to help the FBI unlock an iPhone associated with last years San Bernardino, California shootings.

Trump has also threatened antitrust action against Amazon.com Inc and demanded that tech companies such as Apple build their products in the United States. The battle over encryption, which dates to the 1990s, could heat up quickly with Trump's win and the reelection of Republican Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. Burr spearheaded a failed effort last year to pass legislation requiring that companies build 'back doors' into their products that would allow government agents to bypass encryption and other forms of data protection.

Such requirements are fiercely opposed by the tech industry, which argues that back doors weaken security for everyone and that the government has no business mandating tech product design. I imagine (Trump) is going to be a guy who is probably going to mandate back doors, said Hank Thomas, chief operating officer at Strategic Cyber Ventures and a veteran of the National Security Agency. I dont think hes ultimately going to be a friend to privacy, and the fearful side of me says he will get intelligence agencies more involved in domestic law enforcement.

Jan Koum, co-founder of the WhatsApp messaging service, owned by Facebook Inc, told Reuters that WhatsApp would be "extremely vocal" against any such effort, as it "would damage the reputation of American companies in the global arena." WhatsApp rolled out encrypted messages and phone calls on the service earlier this year. Burr will likely reintroduce his encryption legislation next year, this time with White House support, according to a technology company staffer who works on policy issues and spoke on condition his company not be named.

Trump will enjoy Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. That one-party dominance makes efforts to enact any legislation in Washington more likely, though a broad coalition of Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans in the House of Representatives has repeatedly acted as a bulwark against efforts to expand surveillance or undermine digital security. A Trump campaign spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment about the President-elect's encryption or surveillance policies.

Now there is a reckoning

Little is known about who is advising Trump on technology policy, but he is expected to lean heavily on former Defense Intelligence Agency director Michael Flynn. He could be tapped as Director of National Intelligence or head of the NSA, said Thomas, who knows Flynn. Former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers and retired lieutenant general Ronald Burgess are part of Trump's transition team and are focusing on intelligence and security matters, according to a Trump team document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

Trumps ability to expand surveillance operations at the NSA is especially troubling to some privacy advocates because of the level of secrecy that shrouds the programs, said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justices Liberty and National Security Program. The President-elect has said that he may want to place some mosques in the U.S. under surveillance and suggested he may want to maintain a national database of Muslims. A key revelation from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden was that few checks and balances were in place to prevent abuses of secret surveillance programs, Goitein said.

You always have to ask yourself, can you trust the next administration, and the one after that? she said. And now there is a reckoning. Are people comfortable with a president Trump that has quite broad powers to conduct surveillance on Americans who are not suspected of any wrongdoing?

Reuters
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As Republican Donald Trump won the US presidential election, reactions on Twitter ranged from shock and disgust to congratulatory messages. "I am in complete and utter shock right now..." Naila Ahmad tweeted. "'Tremendous...tremendous!' Yep, we're all sitting in a tremendous pile of $@!t right now," another tweet from the user read.

"Donald trump won I'm disappointed in this country to have this buffoon as our president," a user by the name David wrote. Trump was on Wednesday elected the new US President, defeating forecasters who had predicted a Hillary Clinton win in one of the most bitterly fought Presidential battles.

"Cannot believe i live in a country where Donald Trump actually was voted for & won. This is disgusting," read another tweet. Many even said they would not accept Trump as their President. "Woke up and saw that Donald Trump won the election, That man is not MY PRESIDENT," a user from Maryland said.

A female user who vowed to shave her head if Trump wins, said, "I will never respect Donald Trump. I hope one day all of you who voted for him realise what a mistake you've made." "Missing Obama already. Scared to witness #DonaldTrump as the next President," an "explorer of human consciousness" tweeted.

Another user from South Africa went to the extent of comparing the consequences of Trump's win with that of the disastrous September 11 terrorist attack on the American soil. "Date: 09/11 Event: #DonaldTrump becomes the New #USPresident," DJ Busang tweeted. "And America decided to let go halloween for the next four years. Congratulations America," Vishal Gaurav from India said in a tweet laced with sarcasm.

"In 2011, Trump said, 'All Americans are idiot', now they proved it!" another user from India mocked. The 2016 presidential race saw the Republican nominee confronting the conventional media at several points of time and President Barack Obama accusing social network sites of spreading lies about the election.

With 35 million tweets on the US election day, Twitter on Wednesday broke its earlier record set in 2012 election day of more than 31 million tweets. Some users even expressed fear at the prospects of a Trump presidency becoming a reality. "People who voted for Trump better not complain when world war 3 starts. They asked for this joke of a person to run this country," a tweet read.

"I'm only hoping he doesn't blast a nuclear weapon to celebrate the victory," Nikhil Sapre from Britain noted. Comparing the newly-elected US president to Adolf Hitler, another user said, "Well done America. You just elected Hitler the second. Make america RACIST again!" All the messages on Twitter, however, were not hostile to the newly elected President of the US.

"#DonaldTrump Congratulations! Thank you, master!" Gustavo Conforti tweeted. "I'm not going to hear the end of the liberals whining about how the country is ruined and that we're all going to die...", a user with the name The Average Voter tweeted. "Congrats to Donald Trump on beating SATAN, No more puppets!," another user wrote on the micro-blogging site.

"Donald Trump is a strong representation of America in 2016. This was no mistake," another tweet read. The 70-year-old will be the 45th President of the US. Clinton immediately called Trump to concede the election defeat and congratulate him.

IANS
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U.S. corporate dealmakers were likely to put major merger plans on hold as they assess whether U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will follow through on his populist promises and a threat to block AT&T Inc's purchase of Time Warner Inc, or act more like traditional business-friendly Republican administrations. Trump's rhetoric and the personal nature of the campaign, which included little discussion of policy, left many uncertain about the new U.S. leader's plans, including how his administration will handle mega-mergers.

Wall Street braced for a drop in deals, with Goldman Sachs on Wednesday projecting a 20 to 30 percent downside for earnings of banks that focus on merger and acquisition advice, and Jefferies saying that uncertainty about Trump's policy on trade, healthcare, taxes and energy could hamper underwriting activity and M&A globally.

"I think a lot of deals will hit the pause button for a bit until we get some clarity on whether President Trump will moderate or be as disruptive as some expect," said a senior Wall Street banker who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak with the media. "It's going to be a tough environment for everything until we see how [Trump] behaves as a leader," the banker added.

Trump said in October that AT&T's proposed $85 billion acquisition of the owner of HBO, CNN and the Warner Bros film studio was an example of a "power structure" rigged against him and voters, and that he would block a deal.

The gap between Time Warner shares and the implied value of AT&Ts cash and stock bid was over 23 percent in afternoon trading on Wednesday, compared to around 22 percent at Tuesday's close, indicating greater investor skepticism that the companies will be able to complete the transaction.

Still, some investors believed the man who considers himself business friendly would take a more moderate tone than in the campaign once he assumes office, as he did on Tuesday night in his acceptance speech. "We think Trump will be pretty good for merger and acquisition activity. As a general proposition, he is pro-business and pro-free market," said Roy Behren, portfolio manager at Westchester Capital Management.

Other big pending U.S. deals also did not see sharp changes in their spreads on Wednesday morning, and the spreads of three pharmaceutical or health care-related deals that have encountered antitrust troubles, Aetna-Humana, Anthem-Cigna and Walgreens-Rite Aid, actually narrowed, signaling investors may think they are more likely to close under a Trump administration.

The president does not directly decide if a merger is illegal under antitrust law and the job is done by the U.S. Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission, which divide up the work of assessing mergers. If one of the agencies decides to stop a deal, it must convince a judge to agree.

AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens on Wednesday said his company was looking forward to working with Trump and "optimistic" regulators would approve the deal. Trump's policies and discussions "about infrastructure investment, economic development, and American innovation all fit right in with AT&T's goals," Stephens said at the Wells Fargo technology, media and telecoms conference in New York.

Time Warner's shares were last down 1 percent to $86.71, after trading as low as $85.60, while AT&T shares were up just under 1 percent at $37.24. The Dow and S&P 500 were both over 1 percent higher in late afternoon trading. The election results mean "increased risks" for the AT&T-Time Warner deal, Angelo Zino, analyst at CFRA Research, said.

"At the very least, there are going to be individuals put in place (by a Trump administration) that are going to make the deal a lot more challenging to complete," he added. Trump's protectionist stance also raises the risk that some foreign corporations, including from China, may face higher hurdles in trying to take over American companies, dealmakers said.

"If you were thinking about doing a cross-border deal six months ago you weren't considering things like potential trade barriers, protectionism and tariffs. These are things you have to at least develop a view on and factor into the risk assessment of doing an overseas deal now," said Johs Worsoe, MUFGs head of investment banking & markets in the Americas.

Reuters
Naina Khedekar

After uncertainty over a host of Google projects like Nest, Verily, autonomous cars and the eventual wipe out of Glass, it's ambitious delivery-drone Project Wing (that targets Amazon's Prime Air) seems to be next in line. There are ugly reports floating online about how hiring at Project Wing has been frozen and managers have been shown the door, fueling rumours about how yet another Google X project will be lost in the wild, or probably die sooner than expected.

Google has its hands in too many pots or pies or whatever you'd like to call it. But, clearly, Google's desire to be omnipresent isn't really working well for the company.

Failing Google X projects

The moonshots have fired back! Those who have been following the smart home segment closely won't forget the drama that unfolded when Google-acquired Nest. From failing to build new products, controversy surrounding employees to eventually Tony Fadell stepping down, we've seen it all. The Dropcam founder even went on to say that selling his company to Nest was a big mistake, when Fadell started blaming inefficiency of employees for the failure. All in all, the ambitious smart home project, without a flagship product has lost its way, at least for now.

It was soon followed by uncertainty of the final product at Verily. So, remember the famous Google smart lenses? Verily is the new name given to the project by the research and development unit. The smart lenses will measure glucose levels in diabetics by analysing their tears and were believed to make way into the market before 2019. But, Health and medicine publication, Stat, said that the glucose-detecting smart contact lens for diabetics may not be a reality anytime soon. But that's a point of view of the outsiders. It's worrisome when the people within the team aren't convinced. The report also said that former employees arent even sure if it will ever see the light of day. Chief Andrew Conrad is said to believe in working at unimaginable things, and some term it 'faith-based science' that could get very expensive at some point.

Google also suspended Project Ara, the ambitious modular phone project. The move was said to be an attempt to streamline Googles hardware offerings and came around the same time it decided to kill the once-affordable Nexus lineup for Pixel. This reminds us of the time when Google announced the $2.9 billion sale of Google-owned Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, it didn't include the Advanced Technology and Projects group that included the Project Ara modular phone concept. Then, there was Google Glass. The last we heard was how the company is erasing all data related to Google Glass from social channels. Google stopped selling the $1,500 Glass device last year. But the company is said to be working on another eye-wear project dubbed Project Aura.

Driverless cars seem to be the most sensible among its Google X projects. But, many people don't see a future for autonomous cars until 2025. Moreover, cars are usually associated with brands, and tech companies like Apple (except Tesla) seem to be slowing down in their approach towards this segment. Internally, things aren't well for Google too. Chris Urmson, the man who made the project go from 100,000 miles of self-driving to 1.8 million miles, which does include a few accidents here and there, has quit the company.

Knowing your online users

Google has its roots deep into search, keeping people informed and connecting people, something that its advertisements ride on. But, we have entered the mobile age, and a company that dominates the world with its Android OS should know it better. When it comes to mobile advertisements, Google has the major chunk with its booming mobile business at 32 percent. Facebook is following at 19 percent, a comparatively smaller but substantial number. However, the latter has been inching forward and closing the gap and the numbers are only expected to grow. At the same time, Google seems to be reaching a stagnancy. Facebook's focus has been mobile ads and increasing numbers, but Google has its foot all over the place with the numerous subsidiaries that are a part of Alphabet.

It was back in 2013 that reports claimed that Google and Yahoo could learn a thing or two from Facebook when it comes to mobile ad growth. Fast forward to January 2016 and Facebook hasn't disappointed. Facebook has potential to introduce business to their customers with a very targeted approach (something many may not like), and Google hasn't been able to deliver on that front. Facebook is striving to become the go-to place for your searches. After all, don't we consume most of the news on social channels? Facebook Live is an instant hit and Google's YouTube, which had great potential for pioneering live streams, hasn't really made great strides on that front.

Back to basics

Google, unlike Facebook or any other company, is more seasoned. It is responsible for setting a work culture that many outside Google envy. Taking a risk into other popular segments has also paid off for it in the past. However, it now seems to be busy drying its coffers testing waters in almost every other sphere that may simply fade off to attain the dream of a sci-fi like future. Google should focus on its strengths  mobile, search and advertising. Innovation is the way to evolution, but only when the major focus is your core strength.

With saturating developed markets, companies have begun looking at emerging markets like India and China. An autonomous car or a smart lens may be of little to no significance to the emerging markets, at least right now. So, a rather low focus on such aspects and a better way to re-introduce projects like Android One or nifty software services could do better for the company.
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Yahoo provided more details on Wednesday about an epic hack of its services, including that the culprits may have planted software "cookies" for ongoing access to users' accounts. In revelations that could jeopardize the company's pending $4.8 billion acquisition by US telecom giant Verizon, the internet pioneer said it was trying to pin down when it first knew its system had been breached and whether hackers gave themselves a way to get back into accounts whenever they wished.

"Forensic experts are currently investigating certain evidence and activity that indicates an intruder, believed to be the same state-sponsored actor responsible for the security Incident, created cookies that could have enabled such intruder to bypass the need for a password to access certain users' accounts or account information," Yahoo said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

There is no evidence the state-sponsored actor is still active in the California-based company's network, Yahoo told regulators. Investigators are also trying to figure out how much people at Yahoo knew about the hack in late 2014, when the breach took place, according to the filing. Yahoo announced the breach in September, saying it affected at least 500 million customers.

Stolen user information included names, email addresses and answers to security questions, but did not include payment card data or unscrambled passwords, according to Yahoo. The company warned users after checking into a hacker's claim of having stolen data.Yahoo said in the SEC filing that law enforcement officials this week shared more data that a hacker claimed was pilfered from Yahoo, saying it was checking the authenticity.

There have been 23 lawsuits filed on behalf of Yahoo users claiming they were harmed by the hack, according to the filing. A Verizon executive overseeing the purchase of Yahoo said last month that the deal was moving ahead pending the outcome of an investigation into the hack. "We are not going to jump off a cliff blindly, but strategically the deal still does make sense to us," Verizon executive vice president Marni Walden said at a technologyconference in California.

"What we have to be careful about is what we don't know." He declined to comment on what information or circumstances might cause Verizon to walk away from the deal inked in July. The company said earlier this month that the breach affecting Yahoo customers could have a "material" effect on the acquisition. Yahoo also warned of the possibility in its filing.

The use of the term "material" suggests a substantive change in Yahoo's value that was not previously known, and which could allow the telecom group to lower its offer or scrap the deal.

AFP
Today, during the visit to India, Mr. John McCallum, Honourable Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Canada visited DataWind Innovations manufacturing facility in Amritsar. To commemorate the visit, DataWind signed two Memorandums of Understanding, one with A K Education Pvt. Ltd and the other with Carleton University in the presence of the Canadian Minister.

Mr. John McCallum, Honourable Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Canada visited the DataWind Factoryand said My mission to India is an ideal opportunity for us to share knowledge and expertise in key areas, including technology and education. We are proud that Canada based company DataWind, has become Indias largest tablet player and is contributing immensely in the field of education by offering rich content to the Indian student community. Their reach and focus on creating access to education and quality content will help in lifting the Education sector in India. I am happy to visit DataWinds facility in Amritsar, the divine city of Golden Temple.

Mr. Suneet Singh Tuli, President and CEO, DataWind Inc. said, I and the entire team of DataWind are extremely humbled by the presence of Honourable Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, from Canada- Mr. John McCallum who has taken his time out to visit our Amritsar facility. On behalf of all of us at DataWind, I sincerely thank the Honourable Minister and members of his delegation for their presence here. I am sure this visit of the Honourable Minister would strengthen ties between India and Canada. We would come closer to meeting the objective of bridging the digital divide, with which DataWind had come to India.

To mark the visit of Mr John MsCallum, Datawind Inc. signed an MoU withA K Education Pvt. Ltd. From DataWind Inc. MoU was signed by Mr Suneet Singh Tuli, President and CEO and from AK Education it was signed by its Director Mr. Kamaljit Singh. The MoU was signed for testing of DataWinds patented technology, software solutions and products across India.A K Education Pvt. Ltd. has further tied up with Chandigarh Group of Colleges of Engineering for analytical reports and testing of the software.

DataWind Innovations also signed an MoU with Canada India Centre of Excellence at Carleton University, Ottawa at the occasion.The Memorandum is to facilitate and promote co-operation between Datawind Innovations and the Carleton University, with a view to supporting and imparting knowledge through Technology, research collaboration, and other forms of academic partnerships.

Talking about the MoUs Mr Suneet Singh Tuli said, We aim to bring a PC Tablet for every student in India, but the hardware itself is not enough to serve the purpose of empowerment. These partnerships will allow Datawind users to access high quality, interactive and engaging educational content for free. DataWind is pleased to be in the company of like-minded organizations and initiatives such as A K Education Pvt. Ltd. and Carleton University that are working towards a common goal of delivering high quality education to the students and empowering individuals and communities in India and globally.

To meet the educational challenges in India, DataWind is constantly working towards addressing the key demands of a large population, whose poor communities often face disproportionally high illiteracy rates. The company is focused on expanding the roll-out of its tablets for the students, which are

designed to be affordable, deliver high quality educational content and free apps, and also to provide internet access at the lowest cost or for free, where possible.

Mr. Suneet Singh Tuli further addedEducation is the only veritable way that we can help deliver on the Digital India programme as it also contributes in a meaningful manner towards our goal of bridging the digital divide. Ever since our first launch, we have focused on three objectives  1) make devices more and more affordable 2) getting the best empowering content together on our tablets and 3) delivering free or almost free internet. The tie-up with Carleton University for imparting knowledge through Technology directly links into our second objective.

Unlike other available educational content and software, we have worked very hard to ensure that the price is low, just so that good quality learning resources are most accessible and that learners are not challenged by the affordability barrier, Mr Tuli said.

@Technuter.com News Service
Dedicated to the Restoration of Progressive Democracy
President, PM greet Trump

Staff Reporter :

President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday congratulated United States of America (USA) President-elect Donald Trump on his victory in the Presidential polls.

Republican candidate Donald Trump defeated Democratic Party rival Hillary Clinton to become the 45th US President for next four years.

In separate messages, they extended their heartiest congratulations on his victory and invited him and First Lady Melania Trump to visit Bangladesh to see the phenomenal development that is taking place in Bangladesh.

President Abdul Hamid in his message said the US will march forward further on the path of progress and peace under the leadership of Donald Trump.

"The existing relations of Bangladesh with the USA during the tenure of Donald Trump would be expanded further," he hoped.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a letter, hours after the victory of the new President, hoped of boosting ties with US under his leadership and invited Trump and his wife to visit Bangladesh.

"I am confident that under your leadership, the existing bilateral relation between our two friendly nations would be further strengthened," she said in the letter. "I look forward to working closely with you for advancing our bilateral and multilateral interests and contributing to create a safe and secured world, where our coming generations could live and continue to prosper peacefully."

In this connection, Bangladesh Premier expressed her confidence that under the leadership of Donald Trump, the existing bilateral relations between Bangladesh and the USA would be further strengthened in the days to come.

"I cordially invite you and Mrs Melania Trump to visit Bangladesh at a mutually convenient time and see for yourself the phenomenal development that took place in Bangladesh in the recent years." In a congratulatory letter sent to the President-elect of the USA, the Prime Minister termed the victory of Donald Trump as a testimony to his extra-ordinary leadership quality to serving the American people and also the global humanity.

Sheikh Hasina also wished good health, long life and happiness of Donald Trump and his family and continued peace, progress and prosperity of the people of the USA.
Army Chief makes courtesy call on President



Chief of Army Staff General Abu Belal Muhammad Shafiul Huq made a courtesy call on President Abdul Hamid at Bangabhaban on Thursday afternoon.

During the meeting, the Army Chief apprised the President of the overall development activities of Bangladesh Army.

The President's press secretary Joynal Abedin briefed reporters after the meeting.

General Abu Belal Muhammad Shafiul Huq invited President Hamid to attend the re-union of Ordnance Corps at Rajendrapur Cantonment in Gazipur to be held on November 24.

Abdul Hamid expressed satisfaction over the overall activities of the army.

He directed the Army Chief to complete the development activities in due time.

Secretaries concerned to the President were present.




`Unpredictable` Trump foreign policy leaves world guessing

Donald Trump\'s presidency will apparently be much more skeptical of free trade.

Reuters, London :

World leaders reacted to Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election with offers to work with him tinged with anxiety over how he would deal with a host of problems, from the Middle East to an assertive Russia.

Several authoritarian and right-wing leaders commended the billionaire businessman and reality TV star who against the odds won the leadership of the world's most powerful country.

Trump, who has no previous political or military experience, sent conciliatory signals after his upset of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, pledging to seek common ground, not conflict, with the United States' allies.

During his election campaign, Trump expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, questioned central tenets of the NATO military alliance and suggested Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons to shoulder their own defense burden.

Putin was among the first to send congratulations after Trump declared victory.

Ties between Washington and Moscow have become strained over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, and allegations of Russian cyber attacks featured in the U.S. election campaign.

"We heard the campaign statements of the future U.S. presidential candidate about the restoration of relations between Russia and the United States," Putin said.

"It is not an easy path, but we are ready to do our part and do everything to return Russian and American relations to a stable path of development."

Among other issues causing concern among allies are Trump's vows to undo a global agreement on climate change, ditch trade deals he says have been bad for U.S. workers and renegotiate the nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers which has led to an easing of sanctions on Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif urged Trump to stay committed to the Iran deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the election result would have no effect on Tehran's policies and the nuclear accord with six world powers could not be dismissed by one government.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, who had a poor relationship with President Barack Obama, said he hoped to reach "new heights" in bilateral ties under Trump.

Obama and Netanyahu sparred over the issue of Israeli settlements, while Trump has said they should expand.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also congratulated Trump, but analysts said his rule may be profoundly negative for Palestinian aspirations.

And despite Trump's negative rhetoric about Muslims during his campaign, including threats to ban them from the United States, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he hoped the business magnate's election would breathe new life into U.S.-Egyptian ties.

In Britain, where Trump's victory had echoes of last June's referendum in which voters showed dissatisfaction with the political establishment by voting to leave European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May said the "enduring and special relationship" between the two countries would remain intact.

Nigel Farage, a leader of the Brexit campaign who spoke at a Trump rally during the election campaign, tweeted: "I hand over the mantle to @RealDonaldTrump! Many congratulations. You have fought a brave campaign."




Trump arouses Syrian rebel concern, `cautious` optimism in Damascus

Coalition strike `kills 20 civilians` near IS-held Raqa

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter stands with his weapon on the rubble of a destroyed building, north of Raqa city, Syria

Reuters, Beirut :

Donald Trump's election as U.S. president on Wednesday aroused concern among Syrian rebels and a degree of optimism in Damascus, where his victory was seen as a better outcome than a Hillary Clinton win.

Syrian rebels have long been fiercely critical of what they perceive as the Barack Obama administration's inadequate backing for their fight against President Bashar al-Assad, though Washington has been an important sponsor of the uprising.

While some in the Syrian opposition said Trump had yet to articulate a clear Syria policy, his statements, and his more open-minded stance toward Assad's ally Russia, have fueled rebel concern about the stance he may adopt on the war, in which Russia's air force has been bombing insurgents.

"I think things will become difficult because of Trump's statements and his relationship with Putin and Russia. I imagine this is not good for the Syrian issue," Zakaria Malahifji, head of the political office of an Aleppo-based rebel group, told Reuters.

Trump said in an Oct. 25 interview with Reuters that defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down, and warned that Clinton could drag the United States into a new world war over the Syria conflict.

In one of his debates with Clinton, Trump said he did "not like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS" with Russia and Iran.

The Syrian civil war, now in its sixth year, has killed hundreds of thousands of people, allowed the rise of Islamic State and created the world's worst refugee crisis.

Russia and Iran have provided direct military support to Assad while countries that want to see him gone from power, including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, have provided rebels with backing including military support.

Meanwhile, US-backed forces pressed offensives on the Islamic State group's strongholds in Syria and Iraq, as an air strike by the American-led coalition reportedly killed 20 civilians near the Syrian city of Raqa.

Supported by coalition air raids, Iraqi forces have pushed into IS's Mosul stronghold and a Kurdish-Arab militia alliance has been advancing on the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital Raqa.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday that a coalition strike overnight had hit the IS-held village of Al-Heisha, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Raqa.

Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring group, said nine women and two children were among the 20 civilians killed and that 32 others had been wounded.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the militia alliance that Washington is supporting in the assault, denied the civilian deaths.
EU invites Trump to summit, warns against `isolation`

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg addresses a news conference during a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

AFP, Brussels :

The EU's top leaders on Wednesday invited US President-elect Donald Trump to a summit as soon as possible as they warned of uncertainty in relations and a need to respect democratic values.

"I do not believe that any country today can be great in isolation," European Council chief Donald Tusk told reporters in Brussels, referring to Trump's campaign slogan of "Make America Great Again".

"Europe and the United States simply have no option but to cooperate as closely as possible."

Tusk and European Commission boss Jean-Claude Juncker said in a letter that they wanted to discuss "unprecedented challenges" including the Islamic State jihadist group, the conflict in Ukraine, and a troubled EU-US trade deal under negotiation.

"We would take this opportunity to invite you to visit Europe for an EU-US summit at your earliest convenience. This conversation would allow for us to chart the course of our relations for the next four years," they said in a letter of congratulations to Trump.

But former Polish prime minister Tusk struck a more sober tone in a statement to journalists at the 28-nation European Union's headquarters as he recalled that "Italians, Irish, Poles, Germans, Spanish" had helped build America.

"While respecting the democratic choice of the American people, we are at the same time aware of the new challenges that these results bring. One of them is this moment of uncertainty over the future of our transatlantic relations," he said.

With the EU still reeling from the shock of Britain's recent vote to leave, Tusk added: "The events of the last months and days should be treated as a warning sign for all who believe in liberal democracy."

Juncker later said in a speech in Berlin that the EU should not "upend its relations with the United States" out of "annoyance" with the shock outcome of the presidential election.

"We remain partners because the world needs the United States and the European continent working side-by-side. That is why I strongly urge us to seek common ground," he said.

Following Trump's victory, EU foreign ministers will hold a special meeting in Brussels on Sunday at the invitation of the bloc's foreign policy supremo Federica Mogherini.

They will have an "informal dinner to exchange views on the way forward in EU-US relations following the US elections," a spokeswoman for Mogherini said.

Separately Martin Schulz, the head of the European Parliament, urged Trump to show "responsibility" after a divisive campaign, adding that he had "managed to become the standard-bearer of the angst and fears of millions of Americans."
JHENAIDAH: Abdul Hyee MP briefing media men at Jhenaidah Press Club on Wednesday afternoon about his innocence on the attack of Awami League leader Mokter Mridha at Sailkupa.
Dhaka, Colombo to ink FTA

Economic Reporter :

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have agreed to sign free trade agreement (FTA) to boost bilateral trade.

The decision came from the fifth meeting of Bangladesh-Sri Lanka Joint Economic Commission (JEC) held at Colombo Nov 9, said an official release received here on Thursday.

Speaking on the issue, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said bilateral trade between the two countries would enter a new era after signing of the FTA.

"Bangladesh-Sri Lanka trade didn't get the expected momentum only for FTA despite having huge potential. This decision would eliminate all barriers," he said.

Announcing the decision of signing the FTA at the end of the 5th JEC, Tofail Ahmed said Sri Lanka could import RMG, pharmaceuticals, cement, paper and other products at low price after the FTA.

Tofail Ahmed and Sri Lankan Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen signed the working paper of the JEC.

Both the South Asian countries have realized that the trade volume did not increase as expected and this realization has prompted them to consider effective measures including FTA. In FY16, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had $ 76 million trade, of which Bangladeshi export volume was $ 30.45 million against import figure of $ 45 million.




CANBERRA - Australia's Foreign Minister said the country will turn its focus towards an economic partnership with China and other Asian countries in place of a free-trade agreement with the United States after Donald Trump's election win.

Julie Bishop, Australia's Foreign Minister, said if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation regional free trade agreement, should fail then Australia would turn its attention to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Bishop said Trump's approach to world affairs resembled that of a "classic isolationist or protectionist" at a time when Asia-Pacific nations were looking for greater US leadership.

"We are hopeful that the Obama administration, through President Obama, can pass the TPP (before Trump takes office in January)," Bishop told News Limited on Thursday.

"We see the TPP as an important economic manifestation of the United States' presence in our region.

"Should the TPP not go ahead, then the vacuum that would be created is most likely to be filled by RCEP, the free-trade agreement that comprises ASEAN countries, China, Australia and others at its core."

Australian trade experts have conceded that it is increasingly unlikely that incumbent President Barack Obama will be able to pass the TPP through Congress before he vacates the White House.

Opposition to the TPP, which took seven years to negotiate, was a centerpiece of Trump's campaign.

Bob Carr, Australia's former Foreign Minister, said any hope of Obama pushing the legislation through in the "lame duck" sitting of Congress before Trump is swore in was "doomed."

Former Australian ambassador to Washington, Michael Thawley, said the world was "at the end of an era" in managing global strategic stability and urged Australia to play a more purposeful and muscular role in international relations.

"It might be a rockier period with (Donald) Trump ... but a major transition is inevitable," Thawley told News Limited.

"We should not get hysterical, just decide how best Australia can encourage and help the US maintain the global balance. That balance will continue to be the decisive underpinning of economic growth in our region especially."
Trump rode to power in the role of the common man

Alexander Burns :

Donald John Trump defied the skeptics who said he would never run, and the political veterans who scoffed at his slapdash campaign.

He attacked the norms of American politics, singling out groups for derision on the basis of race and religion and attacking the legitimacy of the political process.

He ignored conventions of common decency, employing casual vulgarity and raining personal humiliation on his political opponents and critics in the media.

And in the ultimate act of defiance, Mr. Trump emerged victorious, summoning a tidal wave of support from less educated whites displaced by changes in the economy and deeply resistant to the country's shifting cultural and racial tones. In his triumph, Mr. Trump has delivered perhaps the greatest shock to the American political system in modern times and opened the door to an era of extraordinary political uncertainty at home and around the globe.

The son of a wealthy real estate developer in Queens, Mr. Trump, 70, spent decades pursuing social acceptance in upscale Manhattan and seeking, at times desperately, to persuade the wider world to see him as a great man of affairs. But Mr. Trump was often met with scoffing disdain by wealthy elites and mainstream civic leaders, culminating in a mortifying roast by President Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011.

So Mr. Trump fashioned himself instead as a proudly garish champion of the common man - a person of unsophisticated tastes but distinctive popular appeal - and acted the part in extravagant fashion, first in the New York tabloids and then on national television. He became a pundit of sorts, fulminating against crime in New York City and international trade and Mr. Obama's legitimacy as president, often in racially incendiary terms.

His candidacy unfolded in much the same way: as the rampage of an aggrieved outsider, aligned more with the cultural sensibilities of blue-collar whites than with his peers in society.

On the first day of his run - June 16, 2015 - Mr. Trump drew a direct parallel between his determined quest for success in New York and his entry into the political arena.

Addressing a crowd made up largely of reporters in the atrium of Trump Tower, Mr. Trump noted that political seers had predicted, "He'll never run." Seconds later, he mused that his father, Fred Trump, had urged him never to compete in "the big leagues" of Manhattan.

"'We don't know anything about that. Don't do it,'" Mr. Trump quoted his father as saying. "I said, 'I've got to go into Manhattan. I've got to build those big buildings. I've got to do it, Dad. I've got to do it.'"

Powered by that same grasping ambition, Mr. Trump's candidacy was marked by countless missteps and grievous errors, from the crude and meandering speeches he delivered daily, to the allegations of sexual assault that appeared to cripple him in the final weeks of the race. No other presidential candidate in memory has given offense so freely and been so battered by scandal, and lived to fight on and win.

Amid all his innumerable blunders, however, Mr. Trump got one or two things right that mattered more than all the rest. On a visceral level, he grasped dynamics that the political leadership of both parties missed or ignored - most of all, the raw frustration of blue-collar and middle-class white voters who rallied to his candidacy with decisive force.

Mr. Trump rallied them less with policy promises than with gut-level pronouncements - against foreign trade, foreign wars and foreign workers. He left his Republican primary opponents agog at his dismissals of mainstream policy, and exposed a yawning breach between the program of tax cuts and fiscal austerity favored by traditional conservatives, and the preoccupations of the party's rank and file.

Ridiculed by critics on the right and left, shunned by the most respected figures in American politics, including every living former president, Mr. Trump equated his own outcast status with the resentments of the white class.

Even the invective and incivility that appalled the traditional guardians of political discourse seemed only to forge a tighter bond between Mr. Trump and his inflamed following. He dismissed American social norms as mere "political correctness," mocking the physical appearance of an opponent's wife, savaging Hillary Clinton's marriage and wielding stereotypes of racial minorities - all to the applause of his base.

In sum, Mr. Trump offered himself to the country as a tribune of white populist rage, and pledged at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland to defend "the laid-off factory workers and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals." "These are the forgotten men and women of our country," Mr. Trump said. "People who work hard but no longer have a voice."

He pledged: "I am your voice."

The message resonated especially in the Midwest, where a stunning victory in Ohio helped give Mr. Trump the Electoral College votes he needed to win. But his ultimate triumph was driven less by region than by race and class. His winning coalition consisted of restive whites and scarcely anyone else.

Mr. Trump's winding path to the presidency began 10 miles east of the spot where he would build Trump Tower, in the wealthy Queens enclave of Jamaica Estates, where his father's self-made real estate empire granted Mr. Trump an easy entry into the world of construction and development. He showed little interest in politics as a young man, obtaining deferments to avoid fighting in the Vietnam War but declining to participate in the protest movements of that era.

He found his way into the political arena by way of his commercial interests and social aspirations: Under the tutelage of Roy Cohn, the legendary and infamous former adviser to Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, Mr. Trump made himself a presence at fund-raising events and political conventions. As early as the 1980s, he insinuated himself into the company of leaders in both parties, giving money to Ronald Reagan as readily as to Mario M. Cuomo, the liberal governor of New York.

But while Mr. Trump earned headlines at that stage mainly for his romantic escapades and business failures - a lurid divorce from his first wife, Ivana, and a series of corporate bankruptcies - even then he gave hints of loftier political goals. In the run-up to the 1988 presidential campaign, he traveled to New Hampshire to give a speech warning of foreign threats to American economic power.

The next year, Mr. Trump stirred fierce controversy in New York by calling loudly for the institution of the death penalty, in the aftermath of a brutal assault and rape in Central Park, though the five young men charged with the crime were later exonerated.

Democrats, too, who viewed Mr. Trump as plainly unelectable from the start, acknowledged at times that they might have been wrong to sneer at him early on.

Hillary Clinton, appearing on NBC's "Late Night with Seth Myers" last winter, noted that Mr. Trump had initially provoked "hysterical laughter," before his call for a crackdown on Muslims.

"I no longer think he's funny," Mrs. Clinton said.
Noor Hossain Day observed

Marking the Noor Hossain Day various socio-political organisations paid tributes to Shaheed Noor Hossain by placing wreaths at the Noor Hossain Square on Thursday.

Shaheed Noor Hossain Day, commemorating the martyrdom of a young pro-democracy activist during the anti-Ershad movement in the late 80s, was observed on Thursday.

Different socio-political organisations marked the day amid various programmes.

Leaders and activists of different political parties, including Awami League and BNP, their associate bodies, paid tributes to the martyr placing wreaths at Noor Hossain Square, in the morning. Noor Hossain's elder brother Ali Hossain also placed wreaths at Noor Hossain Square in the morning. He later went to his brother's Jurain graveyard and offered fateha there.

Noor Hossain Smrity Sangsad organised a discussion at the Jatiya Press Club. Food Minister Quamrul Islam attended it as the chief guest. Youth Form, a pro-BNP platform, arranged another discussion at the Jatiya Press Club in observance of the day. Noor Hossain Foundation also observed the day with various programmes, including placing wreaths at his grave.

On November 10, 1987, Noor Hossain, a leader of Awami Juba League, was killed in police firing when he had staged protest against the then autocratic rule of Lt Gen HM Ershad at the capital's zero point near Gulistan.

The 26-year-old took to the streets with the slogan 'Swairachar Nipat Jak, Gonotantra Mukti Pak' (down with autocracy, let democracy be freed) inscribed in white on his chest and back. His death sparked a mass uprising that finally overthrew the Ershad regime.
Two police officers ambushed and shot in Pennsylvania: 1 killed

ABC News :

A manhunt is underway in western Pennsylvania for the person who shot two police officers-killing one of them-in an early morning ambush-style attack, state police said.

The shooting happened in the town of Canonsburg, about 18 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, after the officers responded to a call about a domestic incident at 3:14 a.m. The officers were ambushed upon arrival "as soon as they approached the front of the residence," a Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson said at a press conference yesterday morning. The injured officers were transported to local hospitals, and one of them has since died, according to state police. Their names have not been released.

State police described the incident as "an active situation" and did not provide any details on a possible suspect or whether anyone has been arrested. Some residents in the neighborhood have been asked to vacate their homes, while others have been ordered to stay inside. Canon-McMillan School District is closed for the day, and another local school has a delayed opening due to the shooting, according to state police.

Authorities said there was an "active PFA" or protection from abuse order at the residence where the officers were dispatched. It was not immediately known what led to the shooting. The investigation is ongoing.
Migrant issue, trade ties won`t be affected: AL

Sagar Biswas :

The ruling Awami League leaders and ministers have expressed hope that Donald Trump's victory will not create any adverse impact on the bilateral relations between Bangladesh and USA, especially on migrant issue.

At present, the Bangladeshi migrants and Bangladesh-born nationals are playing an important role in different sectors, including education, politics and economics, in the USA. So, there is no reason for anxiety on migrant issue, the ruling party leaders said.

They said diplomatic relation does not depend on any personal relation rather it's a state-to-state relation. As Donald Trump himself is a businessman, the international and inter-country trades would accelerate during the tenure of the newly elected President.

AL joint general secretary and former foreign minister Dr Dipu Moni on Thursday said: "There is no dispute between Bangladesh and USA over the issue of legal migrants. What newly elected US President Donald Trump had said before election it was all about the illegal migrants."

"Even if there is any problem, it will be solved through diplomatic channal. The present AL government believes in legal migration. However, if there is any illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the USA, the government will take step to protect their interest through negotiation," Dipu Moni said while addressing a press conference at party president's Dhanmondi political office in the city.

Dipu Moni, who is also chairman of parliamentary standing committee on Foreign Ministry, said: "We don't know how many illegal Bangladeshi migrants are staying in America. There are huge illegal migrants [of different countries] in the USA. In that case, we'll have to see in which way they [US government] will proceed to solve the issue."

Echoing the same, another AL joint general secretary Mahabubul Alam Hanif said the relation between Bangladesh and America would be stronger and trade between the countries would increase in the coming days following the victory of Donald Trump.

"We think, there will be no problem with USA over migrant issue. Every country has its own policy to run the state. In that case, personal observation doesn't get importance," Hanif further said.

Not only that, Finance Minister AMA Muhith also had hoped that it would not create any adverse impact on investment and trade between Bangladesh and America after Donald Trump's victory.

"We'll urge the new US government to give back our GSP facility again," he said after meeting with economic affairs committee on Wednesday.

It is to be noted that, Donald Trump in his winning speech laid emphasis on establishing good relations in the international arena. Analysts think that, it's a positive approach and Dhaka would get fruitful result from this new outlook of Donald Trump.


Prime suspect of ex-Brig Gen Wajih murder held

Staff Reporter :

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) claimed to have arrested of the mastermind of Brigadier General (retd) Wajih Ahmed Chowdhury murder from the city's Pallabi area on Wednesday night.

The accused has been identified as Ahad Ali, 35, RAB official said.

RAB-4 Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Aziz Bin Jalil said that 35-year-old Ahad Ali had been picked up from a house in Pallabi on Wednesday night.The elite force official labelled him as the 'mastermind' of the murder, adding that Ahad was being interrogated, the RAB official said.

Brigadier General Wajih was found dead in his house of the Defence Officers' Housing Society (DOHS) in the capital's Mohakhali area on October 7. The 76-year-old, who hailed from Sylhet's Golapganj, retired from the army in 1992.

Autopsy reports released by the Dhaka Medical College Hospital concluded that he was strangled to death.
Khaleda's self-defense on Nov 24

Court Correspondent :

The Third Special Judge Court of Dhaka yesterday (Thursday) fixed November 24 to hear the statement of BNP Chief Begum Khaleda Zia in the Zia Charitable Trust graft case. Judge Abu Ahmed Jamadar also asked the BNP Chairperson to appear in the court on that day.

Besides, the makeshift court of Bakshibazar fixed November 17 to record the depositions of Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Deputy Director Harun-Ar-Rashid in the

Zia Orphanage Trust Graft Case.

Khaleda Zia appeared at the court at 10.45 am.

The Anti Corruption Commission filed the graft case on July 3, 2008 with Ramna Model Police Station accusing Khaleda, her son Tarique Rahman and four others of misappropriating over Tk 2.10 crore, which was received as grants from a foreign bank for orphans.

Other accused persons are former BNP lawmaker Kazi Saleemul Haque, businessperson Sharfuddin Ahmed, Khaleda's former Principal Secretary Kamal Uddin Siddiqui and Momenur Rahman.

On August 8, 2011, ACC filed the Zia Charitable Trust graft case with Tejgaon Police Station accusing four persons including Khaleda Zia, of abusing power in raising funds for the trust from unknown sources.

The other accused in the case are Harris Chowdhury, Ziaul Islam Munna, assistant private secretary (APS) to Harris, Monirul Islam Khan and APS to Sadeque Hossain Khoka, mayor of the erstwhile Dhaka City Corporation.


Patients from BD in serious trouble

Staff Reporter :

Indian government's sudden announcement of banning Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes has pushed the Bangladesh travellers, especially patients and their relatives, into serious difficulties.

As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes with effect from midnight on that day, a section of foreign currency exchange traders at Benapole Border Check Post, are reportedly buying taka from the India going Bangladesh nationals at a cost of half of value of the note.

A large number of Bangladeshis now in India for medical treatment, routine pathological tests as well as tour are worst affected. Of them, many people along with their ailing relatives have already been compelled to return home failing to avail medical care.

It is notified that the house and hotel owners would not to take Rs 500 and RS 1000 currency notes from anyone. The Indian government hospitals, pharmacies in government hospitals, airline ticket counters, bus ticket counters, railway ticket counters and petrol pumps will, however, accept old notes for the next 72 hours, till tonight (Friday midnight.

Nikhil Chandra, a Bangladesh national who returned home on Tuesday from Kolkata, said Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes are not being accepted anywhere in India.

"Like me many Bangladesh nationals now traveling India, are being harassed in many ways as Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes are not being taken anywhere. Even when I went to a medical shop for purchasing medicines, I was refused," he told journalists

As a result, many Bangladesh national are being compelled to return home with empty hand.

Hasina Akhter, a resident of city's Malibagh area along with her ailing son has been staying at a rented house in Kolkata for treatment for about two months, said her house owner made clear that he would not receive any banned money as payment.

"Even, when I went to the hospital for paying Rs 45,000 as treatment expenditure, the hospital authority refused to accept the payment," she said.


Anti-Trump protests rock major US cities

The telegraph :

Protests against the election of Donald Trump as president have swept across the US, with demonstrators burning an orange-haired Trump head in effigy, lighting bonfires and blocking traffic late on Wednesday.



From New York to Los Angeles, thousands of people marched, rallied and chanted in around 10 cities against the billionaire president-elect a day after his stunning upset win, some carrying signs with slogans such as "Not our President" and "Love trumps hate." Most of the rallies were peaceful.



A bitter election campaign has left a nation divided. The popular vote is split almost exactly between the two candidates. And although both Mr Trump and Hillary Clinton have appealed for unity, many fear that the forces unleashed by the president-elect's bombastic rhetoric could have explosive results.



In New York, hundreds of people assembled in light rain as darkness fell with banners reading "Not our president" and "If he builds a wall we will tear it down". The protesters blocked New York's Fifth Avenue as they descended on the Trump Tower, where the president-elect was lying low.



There were reports of multiple arrests being made and a heavy police presence as units from the NYPD moved in to contain the demonstrators.



In Oakland, California, protesters lit fires in the street and stood around them chanting, news reports said. Some threw bottles and firecrackers at police, KPIX TV reported. In Los Angeles, demonstrators outside City Hall held aloft a burning, box-shaped likeness of Trump's head, topped with bright orange hair.



Ethan Miller, of the workers' rights group Jobs with Justice, said organisers held a vigil in Washington to show that civil society was resilient. "It's a hard time for a lot of Americans," he said. "We saw a campaign that was filled with racism and misogyny and whole host of other terrible tactics that ultimately were successful for winning the electoral college." "But we're not going to let a Donald Trump presidency stop the progress in this country," he added. In London anti-racist protesters gathered outside the US Embassy and there were reports of confrontations with members of a right-wing group, although Scotland Yard said no arrests were made.
Saima elected chairman of Jury Board of Unesco prize

UNB, Dhaka :

Saima Wazed, Chairperson of the National Advisory Committee on Autism, has been elected chairperson of Unesco International Jury Board on Emir Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah Prize.

The international Jury will be assessing the nominations submitted for the individual and organization categories of the Unesco/Emir Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah Prize for the digital empowerment of persons with disabilities. Unesco appoints international Jury of the Unesco/Emir Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah Prize for digital empowerment of persons with disabilities.

The prize, introduced with financial support from Kuwait, consists of two awards-one for an individual and one for an organisation - of $20,000 each. Saima Wazed has been elected head of the board for the next two years, the Bangladesh Embassy in Paris said in a statement.

The four other members are- Catalina Devandas Aguilar, Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, United Nations Human Rights Council (Costa Rica); May Chidiac, Founder of the May Chidiac Foundation, Lebanese journalist and winner of the Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2006 (Lebanon); Klaus Miesenberger, Professor, Institut Integriert Studieren, Johannes Kepler Universitat Linz and International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs, ICCHP (Austria); Martin Babu Mwesigwa, Member and Rapporteur of the Committee of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and former Program Manager for the National Union of Disabled Persons in Uganda (Uganda).
Law enforcers must show identity before arrest

SC releases full verdict on sections 54 and 167

Staff Reporter :

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Thursday released its full verdict that upheld an earlier High Court order for the reform of the provisions of arrest without warrant and interrogation on remand under sections 54 and 167 of the CrPC.



The 396-page copy of the full text verdict signed by a Four-member Bench of the Appellate Division, headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, was released with 10 guidelines.



The verdict said, "A law enforcing officer shall disclose his identity if demanded and shall show his identity card to the person arrested and to the persons present at the time of arrest.



A member of law enforcing officer making the arrest of any person shall prepare a Memorandum of Arrest immediately after the arrest and such officer shall obtain the signature of the arrestee with the date and time of arrest in the said Memorandum. No law enforcing officer shall arrest a person under section 54 of the code for the purpose of detaining him under section 3 of the Special Power act, 1974.



If the person is not arrested from his residence or place of business, the law enforcing officer shall inform the nearest relation of the person in writing within 12 hours of bringing the arrestee in the police station."



It also asked the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and DG of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) to issue a circular with the 10 guidelines for their respective units and all police stations across the country.



Earlier on May 24, the Supreme Court upheld a High Court order that asked for the reform of the provisions of arrest without warrant and interrogation on remand under sections 54 and 167 of the CrPC.



With the SC judgment, the HC directives will have to be followed while arresting anyone under section 54 and putting anyone on remand under section 167.



On May 17, observing that any arrest by law enforcers in plainclothes is alarming, the Supreme Court said the law enforcers will have to be in uniform while arresting anyone.



The Supreme Court started hearing the petition filed by the State against the HC order on March 22.



On January 20, the Appellate Division asked the government what steps had been taken regarding the HC guideline. The SC directed the government to submit a progress report in this regard.



In 1998, Assistant Commissioner Akram Hossain of the Detective Branch (DB) of police arrested Shamim Reza, a student of Independent University, under section 54 of the CrPC. The student died in police custody later.



A Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust filed a writ petition with the HC in 2003. Then the HC asked the government to take steps to amend the relevant sections of the CrPC in its verdict. The court also gave 10 directives for amending it. In 2004, the then four-party alliance government filed an appeal against the HC verdict.


5 get life term for murder in Jessore

UNB, Benapole :

A court here on Thursday convicted five people, including a local BNP leader, and sentenced them to life term imprisonment for killing a man in Jhikargachha upazila of Jessore district in 1997.

The convicts are-Amir Hossain, BNP president of Nirbashankhola union, Tarikul Islam, Sadek, son of Karim Box Morol of Balla village, Shamsul, son of Ali Maji of Monirampur upazila and Ismail Hossain, son of Iman Ali of Rudropur village in Sadar upazila. The court also fined them Tk 20,000 each, they will have to suffer 2

years more rigorous imprisonment if they fail to pay the fine.

According to prosecution, Sirajul Islam, a resident of Sadipur village, was stabbed and shot dead by the convicts during an arbitration at the village on January 12 in 1997.

Later, victim's brother Jahidul Islam filed a murder case with Jhikargachha police station against 7 named people and 7/8 unnamed people. Sub-Inspector Aslam Khan, also investigation officer of the case, submitted chargesheet against 15 people. After examining all the records and witnesses, Nitai Chandra Saha, judge of District Special Judge court handed down the verdict acquitting eight accused.
Land official caught while taking bribe

UNB, Dhaka :

The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) on Thursday caught a land official in Tangail red-handed while taking bribe.

An eight-member ACC team, led by its director Nasim Anwar, arrested assistant land officer of Bhuapur Upazila Land Office Md Ansar Ali from his office, ACC public relations officer Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya told UNB. Md Abdul Karim, a villager, recently went to the local land office for mutation of his land, but Ansar Ali demanded Tk 10,000

for his job. Later, he agreed to do so at Tk 5,000. The victim then submitted a written compliant against the land official with the Commission.

In consultation with the ACC officials, the plaintiff went to the land office again on Thursday afternoon to give Ansar Ali Tk 5,000 in bribe. While receiving the money, the ACC team caught him red-handed.

Later in the day, ACC assistant director Ramprasad Mondal of Tangail zila office filed a case against the land official with Bhuapur Police Station in connection with the incident.
"The writ of execution that the money be handed back to Bangladesh has already been done by the court," Gomes told Reuters. "The good thing is now that the process on this $15 Million is more or less completed, we will go for the rest."

Part of the $81 Million stolen from Bangladesh bank's New York Federal Reserve account earlier this year in the wake of the major malware attack on the SWIFT interbank transfer network has been tracked down to a casino in the Philippines.SWIFT, or Society for Worldwide Interbank Telecommunication, is a global financial messaging system that thousands of banks and organizations around the world use to transfer billions of dollars every day.In February, hackers dropped a piece of malware on a SWIFT terminal employed by Bangladesh's central bank, obtained credentials needed for payment transfers from the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and then transferred large amount to fraudulent accounts based in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.In March, the investigation revealed that the stolen money was then sold to a black market foreign exchange broker and later transferred to at least 3 local casinos in the Philippines.In September, Philippine court ordered the return of $15 Million surrendered by a junket operator atto Bangladesh Bank, reports Reuters On Monday, a team of Bangladesh central bank arrived in Manila to take back its $15 Million of the $81 Million stolen funds surrendered by Chinese-born, casino's junket operator of Eastern Hawaii Leisure Company.Wong, who returned $4.63 Million and 488.28 Million pesos (around $10.05 Million) to Philippine authorities, said the stolen money came from two Chinese high-rollers, Gao Shu Hua from Beijing and Ding Zhi Ze from Macau.However, Wong denied any role in one of the world's biggest bank heists The recovered $15 Million amount is now secure in the vaults of the Philippine central bank, said Bangladesh's Ambassador to the Philippines, adding that there's more to come.Bangladesh was not the first bank which became the victim of SWIFT malware. This year, some unknown hackers targeted banks across the world by gaining access to SWIFT that is being used to transfer Billions of dollars every day.Investigators also revealed that the malware used in the Bangladesh cyber heist was almost identical to one used to infiltrate banks in Ecuador Vietnam , and the Philippines
She most recently worked for the U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana, where she served as a law clerk to Magistrate Judge Carol Whitehurst.

Lisa Hanchey

Lisa Hanchey has joined the Lafayette office of Ogletree, Deakins, a labor and employment law firm representing management. She is serving as of counsel.

Located in River Ranch, the Lafayette office is a satellite of the firms New Orleans operations.

Hanchey most recently worked for the U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana, where she served as a law clerk to Magistrate Judge Carol Whitehurst. Hanchey has almost a decade of litigation experience, and her practice will expand across all aspects of labor and employment law to strengthen the firms Lafayette presence.

Hanchey is very active in the legal community. She is a participant in local and statewide professional groups, including the Inn of Court of Acadiana, the Louisiana Bar Foundation and the Lafayette Bar Association. A former journalist, she has written numerous articles on business, medicine, travel and food and has received two Louisiana Press Association Awards.

Hanchey earned her juris doctor from the LSU Law Center and a bachelor's degree in journalism from LSU.
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:
MARION  Despite the upsets for incumbents in the region, voters in Williamson County favored Democratic incumbent Brent Gentry as a Commissioner on the Williamson County Board and Democratic incumbent Angie Kochan for Circuit Clerk.

Gentry said that he is grateful for the turnout and plans to continue his efforts of providing a public service for residents of Williamson County.

"I think that my record speaks for itself," he said. "There's nothing that I regret voting on or doing here."

Kochan said she is honored that the race was in her favor, and thanked her family and voters for their support.

"I am excited and honored to have received the election and I appreciate my family, the supporters, volunteers and voters for placing their trust in me," she said.

Kochan will serve a four-year term and Gentry will serve a third six-year term.

Amid a strong movement for a shift in the presidency, Gentry said he felt votes could have gone either way.

"You know people had a movement going on for the presidency and if you get caught in that movement it is like a hurricane effect, and it took a hurricane effect," he said. "People were basically saying if you're an incumbent you're out."

His success over Republican challenger David Milburn makes him the longest standing commissioner on the Williamson County Board.

One action that Gentry listed as a significant part of the 12 years that he has served was his push for a lawsuit against the state.

"Last year, I had the States Attorney sue the state of Illinois, which was a tall task about the Williamson County Housing Authority scandal years ago that took to a lot of people," he said. "There was a lot of wrongdoing and mishandling of funds, and as it turned out HUD agreed that we did the right thing."

In addition to a follow up for the lawsuit, Gentry said he hopes to take part in the board's efforts to resolve issues with worker's compensation.

"Worker's compensation is a two-part situation that involves state laws that are not in our favor," he said. "We had already been working with an insurance company addressing these issues and talking to the union to explain where we're coming from to get this under control."

Despite the tightness of each race, Kochan said she enjoyed meeting new people through her campaign.

"I've enjoyed the campaign and going out and meeting new people and saying hi to old friends," she said. "I've been working hard in the office making substantial improvements and I will continue to make those improvements over the next four years."
In some Southern Illinois counties, voters turned out in record numbers.

Saline County Clerk was one of those record-setting counties. Of the 16,679 registered voters in the county, 11,572 cast ballots in the General Election on Tuesday.

Ive been here six years and my election deputy has been here 26 years. It is the highest shes seen in 26 years, said Saline County Clerk Kim Buchanan.

She believes the president race is responsible for the increase. Saline County voters also decided who would fill seven of 13 county board seats and the states attorney.

Buchanan also said the county still has absentee ballots that were not returned, and the results will not be complete until 4:01 p.m. Nov. 22.

There is a lot that goes into that, and a panel of judges will decide that.

According to Johnson County Clerk Robin Harper-Whitehead, Johnson County also has record turnout.

We had a higher voter turnout than weve ever had since I was elected to office, she said. Harper-Whitehead was elected in 1994.

This year, 6,153 ballots were cast in Johnson County, or 72 percent of the 8,539 registered voters in the county cast their votes.

We had more voters than weve ever had, so we did beat our 2008 record, Harper-Whitehead said.

In 2008, the year Barack Obama was elected president for the first time, 5,598 ballots were cast, slightly more than 73 percent of the 7,583 registered voted.

Harper-Whitehead said she is focusing on numbers, not percentages. Even though fewer people voted in the county in 2008, a higher percentage of registered voters came to the polls. She is celebrating the fact that more people eligible to vote are registered.

In other counties, turnout was slightly more than an average presidential election year.

Jackson County voters cast 25,405 ballots cast, 60.74 percent of the countys 41,829 registered voters. Fifty-seven percent of the countys voters cast 24,307 ballots in 2012 and 25,795 ballots in 2008.

Seventy percent of Williamson County voters cast ballots on Tuesday, for a total of 32,068 votes from the countys 45,930 registered voters. Williamson County voters cast 30,519 votes, with 43,676 registered voters. In 2012, 29,519 of 43,614 registered voters cast ballots.

More than 700 Jackson County residents register to vote on Election Day

Some 705 people who might not have voted during Tuesday's election were able to do so by taking advantage of the state's Election Day grace period registration, Jackson County Clerk Larry Reinhardt said.

Reinhardt said those were people who either needed to change their address or complete a registration. Those changes were made at the Jackson County court and, for the first time, on the campus of Southern Illinois University.

Grace period registration is an extension of the regular registration deadline, and allows for the change of address, through Election Day, and is only available "in-person" at designated sites, according to the state Board of Elections.

"Too many people dont realize that their registration is tied to their address and not their body, Reinhardt said. Fortunately, with the new law now, its correctable.

"Most people need to realize that their voter registration is tied to their address. It is only good as long as they are at a specific address; it does not follow them from location to location.

Reinhardt said this issue is a typical one he sees during elections, particularly being in a county with a significant mobile student-based population.

Reinhardt said he did not hear about any instances of college groups that collected registration information, but then not turn that data over to the county on time. But, he said, things like this are occasionally an issue.

He said he did talk to a few people who said that they registered on some website, from which the Jackson County clerks office did not appear to have received any registration information.

Reinhardt said he always warns people against giving out personal registration information to random groups, either in person or on websites not directly provided by the State Board of Elections.
MURPHYSBORO  A virtual newcomer to politics, Republican Jose Mendoza Jr. edged out a Democratic incumbent who was getting settled in some deep issues of the board.

In Tuesday's election, newcomer Jose Mendoza beat Brian Chapman, 2,096 votes to 1,637.

Chapman was appointed to fill the District 1 vacancy made when Will Alstat went on to join the John A. Logan College board. Alstat died in August.

Chapman, who holds a master's degree in Public Administration, and a Ph.D. in Political Science/Public Administration, has training as a city manager and county administrator.

Since joining the board, he had supported a prevailing wage initiative; supported not maximizing the county's tax levy in an effort to reduce property taxes and provide a bit of financial relief to taxpayers; worked to help update a Human Resources policy for the county; and worked to lead an economic development plan for the county.

Board chairman John Rendleman said he didn't know Mendoza, but expected that he would continue work that had been begun by Chapman.

Well have to see what kind of impact there is on the work of the county board, Rendleman said. Obviously, the things that Mr. Chapman was doing have to continue to be done, but the loss of Chapman is its going to (be felt). Chapman was one of the hardest-working board members that we had, and he was experienced and had a lot of background in public policy.

"His work was always very thoughtful and very good, so its a loss for the board to lose someone of his character and abilities. I dont know Mr. Mendoza, but he won and will become part of the board and well be happy to see him pick up where perhaps Dr. Chapman left out.

Board member Steven Bost said Chapman understood the value of communicating and team-building in problem-solving. He said he hoped Chapman wasn't voted out because of his questions about zoning.

"He ultimately concluded that zoning wasn't a good fit in Jackson County, but he worked to collect the data to come to an informed conclusion instead of a knee-jerk reaction," Bost said. "It is worrisome if voters don't want their representatives to explore issues and make informed decisions. That being said, I know Jose will work as hard to be informed as Brian did, and he will continue the work that Brian and other Republicans and Democrats have started to bring property tax relief to Jackson County."

Mendoza said, "This election to me means that people in District 1 and all over are thinking for themselves, instead of allowing themselves to be given their opinions for them. That to me is a good sign of a more positive future for all of us."

He also said he was looking forward to finding out about the various groups in Southern Illinois with which he could establish common ground to improve conditions for Southern Illinoisans.

Joining Bost and Mendoza on the new board will be incumbents who were re-elected: Daniel Bost (District 2); Tamiko C. Mueller (District 4 for four years); and Julie Peterson (District 5).

Returning to the board from uncontested races are Cheryl Endres in District 4; Elizabeth Hunter in District 6 for a four-year term; and Keith Larkin in District 7. Scott Comparato, who was filling out a term left open by the retirement of Ted Redmond, was elected to represent District 6 for the remainder of that two-year term.
SPRINGFIELD  At the end of a long, blistering and unprecedentedly expensive campaign season, the results of Tuesdays races for the Illinois General Assembly did little to alter the political stalemate that has led to the states historic budget impasse.

Republicans gained four seats in the state House and two in the state Senate, but Democrats retained control of both chambers, which means Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner still needs their cooperation to pass any portion of his pro-business, union-weakening turnaround agenda. Hes made that a prerequisite for signing off on any tax increases to balance the budget.

The state hasnt had a complete budget since he took office in early 2015 and is currently running on a stopgap spending plan thats set to expire after Dec. 31.

Nothing has changed in the basic dynamics of the conflict, said Chris Mooney, director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois. Both sides can say they had some wins.

As a bright spot for Democrats, Mooney pointed to Susana Mendozas victory over appointed Republican Comptroller Leslie Munger in the race for the office that controls Illinois checkbook.

However, the loss of four House seats means Democrats no longer have a 71-member, veto-proof majority in the 118-seat chamber. But because theyve had the minimum number of votes needed for an override, Democrats have had to vote as unified front to block Rauners vetoes, something theyve failed to do on several high-profile occasions.

Riding a dual wave of campaign cash from Rauner and a handful of wealth allies and strong downstate support for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, Republicans defeated four House incumbents in southern and north-central Illinois and the Quad Cities.

Democratic state Reps. John Bradley of Marion and Mike Smiddy of Hillsdale were among the incumbents who went down to defeat, losing to Benton businessman Dave Severin and Savanna Mayor Tony McCombie, respectively.

Republicans saw one of their own incumbents, Rep. Dwight Kay of Glen Carbon, defeated, but that loss was offset by picking up the seat held by retiring Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, who was often a weak link in the House Democrats supermajority.

While Democrats maintained their supermajority in the Senate, they lost two seats to Republicans, cutting their membership to 37 in the 59-seat chamber.

Sen. Gary Forby, D-Benton, was the lone Senate incumbent to see defeat, losing to Dale Fowler, the Republican mayor of Harrisburg. Republicans also picked up the seat long held by Sen. John Sullivan, D-Rushville, who didnt run for re-election. Jil Tracy, a Republican former state representative from Quincy, ran unopposed.

Unsurprisingly, each party had its own interpretation of Tuesdays results.

House Speaker Michael Madigan of Chicago, who also leads the state Democratic Party, put out a statement late on election night saying that the unprecedented millions Rauner and a handful of allies spent to bankroll the GOPs campaign efforts and the popularity of Trump outside the Chicago area created a difficult environment for many Democratic candidates.

Voters stated clearly that they wish to maintain a wide Democratic majority in the Illinois House of Representatives and maintain a strong check on Bruce Rauner and his anti-middle class agenda, said Madigan, who was the target of Republican campaign attacks across the state.

Democrats value the voters trust and we will continue to protect the middle class and those who dont have access to billionaires and lobbyists, Madigan added.

His Republican counterpart, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs, read the results differently.

By handily breaking the supermajority, Illinois voters sent a strong message that it is time for Democrats to join Governor Rauner and legislative Republicans in enacting reforms to lower property taxes, create more jobs, address the pension crisis and place term limits on the career politicians alongside a balanced budget, Durkin said Tuesday night in a prepared statement.

The state Republican Party said in an election night memo that the financial backing of Rauner and his allies and the partys unified anti-Madigan message helped level the playing field in a year that should have favored Democrats.

Meanwhile, Rauner, who has been out of the public eye in recent days, attempted to stay above the political fray.

This has been a long, grueling campaign cycle, both nationally and locally, the governor said Wednesday in a written statement. For the good of the people of Illinois, lets put the election behind us. Lets come together and focus on the future and improving the quality of life for every family in our state.

The first opportunity to do that will be next week, when lawmakers return to the Capitol for the start of their fall veto session.
Several local Republicans rode a GOP wave to victory on Tuesday night. While its yet to be seen the degree to which this represents shifting voting patterns, signs point to political allegiances in Southern Illinois moving deeper into the red.

We seem to be ambitious to become Mississippi without the warm weather and the magnolias in the summertime, said John Jackson, a longtime political observer.

In Southern Illinois, only Jackson County favored Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, the Republican president elect, and only narrowly.

Jackson, also a visiting professor at the SIU Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, said it seems Southern Illinois "has turned or is certainly turning rapidly into a Republican stronghold." That represents a sea change from the traditional large voting bloc of socially conservative, pro-labor Democrats that has dominated the region. It appears many of more recent generations have traded allegiances for the Republican Party, Jackson said.

Realigning politics

In that way, Southern Illinois is following in the footsteps of southern states such as Arkansas and Mississippi that have flipped party control, he said.

Weve completely realigned our politics over the last generation or so and I dont see much hope for a Democratic comeback in Southern Illinois anytime soon," he added.

Jackson pointed to Franklin County, which went 69 percent for Trump, in backing up his theory there's been a voting shift across the region.

Thirty years ago, Franklin County, then a coal mining bedrock, could always be counted on to vote overwhelmingly Democratic, a party stronghold rivaling Cook County, Jackson said.

But thats no longer the case and hasn't been for some time. The county still tends Democratic at the courthouse level, but Republicans made further inroads this year, building on past successes.

On Tuesday, Franklin County voters favored Republicans up and down the ticket with the only exception being the countywide races and county board seats where Democrats were uncontested.

There also were numerous factors moving in the Republican's favor on Tuesday, making it hard to differentiate how much of the shift reflected more permanent philosophical shifts and how much of it could be attributed to unique 2016 campaign forces.

Kristen Poshard, a Democratic Party organizer and the daughter of former Congressman Glenn Poshard, said she does not read this as the end of an era in Southern Illinois politics.

She said what it seemed to her is that many people in the region have suffered at the hands of corporations and trade policies and the votes this cycle represented "the big middle finger to the past 60 years."

"Those Baby Boomers I know, those people sitting in the row beside me at the Carterville First Baptist Church that went from Maytag salaries to bus tokens in their back pockets, they have no power but to stand in a line and punish the names they have heard here and there.

"I think these votes were mostly about emotions and not facts," she said.

Factors drawing out Republican support on Tuesday include Trump's popularity with the anti-establishment crowd, Gov. Bruce Rauners deep pockets funneling unprecedented amounts of cash into downstate legislative races, House Speaker Michael Madigans unpopularity rubbing off on Democratic candidates for the House and Senate, and other hyper-local factors that accompany any particular local races. And to Poshard's point, the general angst permeating rural America also was at play.

Regardless, it was a big night for the GOP in Southern Illinois, and at least some of that likely represents a longer term move to the right.

Regional races

In other races, Franklin County voted for Republican challenger Dave Severin of Benton over incumbent Democrat John Bradley of Marion 52 percent to 45 percent. And perhaps most surprising of the results, Democrat Sen. Gary Forby of Benton went down in his home county by a vote of 48 percent to Republican challenger Dale Fowlers 50 percent.

Fowler, the mayor of Harrisburg, and Severin, a business owner, both cinched overall victories in those district races that spanned multiple counties.

In the only contested Franklin County Board race, Republican Robert Pierce narrowly edged Democrat Richard McFadden, and in the only other contested countywide race for Circuit Clerk, Republican Jim Muir unseated incumbent Democrat Nancy Hobbs 56 to 41 percent.

Yet, Democrats still claimed a number of local victories in Franklin County. In uncontested races where Republicans fronted no challengers, five Democrats were elected to six open county board seats, and Democrats Evan Owens and Marty Leffler, neither of whom were challenged, were reelected states attorney and coroner, respectively.

Alexander County, which also traditionally has gone blue, voted 53 percent in favor of Donald Trump. And in Jackson County, which also traditionally leans left, Republican Jose Mendoza Jr.'s picking off of incumbent Democratic Jackson County Board member Brian Chapman also raised eyebrows in both parties.

The sense of loss among Southern Illinois Democrats was palpable.

For example, Sesser Mayor Jason Ashmore, who is highly active in regional Democratic politics, asked voters prior to the election to join him in supporting a slate of Democratic candidates he endorsed, and then threatened to resign Tuesday night in a Facebook post as those races slid the way of Republicans.

On Wednesday, also on Facebook, he apologized for letting his emotions overtake him and said he would remain in office.

As for the Republicans, they were somewhat like the dog who actually caught the car after a years-long chase. While hoping for success in Southern Illinois, the degree to which they enjoyed a blowout at all levels Tuesday came as a shock to even many GOP loyalists.

In another House race, Jonesboro teacher Marsha Griffin was unable to pick off freshman Republican Rep. Terri Bryant of Murphysboro, and in the race to replace Republican Dave Luechtefeld, Paul Schimpf of Waterloo, a Republican, handily defeated Democratic opponent Sheila Simon of Carbondale.

By the numbers

Tuesday nights results leave only two Democrats in the six-member Southern Illinois delegation to be seated in Springfield in January: Rep. Brandon Phelps of Harrisburg and Rep. Jerry Cotsello II of Red Bud. Presently, the makeup of the delegation is the opposite: four Democrats and two Republicans.

The Republicans did not field a candidate to run against Costello, who is the son of former long serving and popular congressman Jerry Costello. Phelps had an opponent in Republican Jason Kasiar, a pharmacist and pharmacy owner, of Eldorado, but the Republican Party declined to provide funds to support Kasiars campaign, and according to Kaiser, GOP leaders asked him to drop out of the race after his wife filed for divorce. He refused to do so.

Phelps said hes still analyzing the numbers in his race and others regionally to better understand voter sentiment. I think it was a huge Republican turnout with Trump, Phelps said. To be honest with you, you know me, I dont have that much difference with what Trump believes in: Im pro-second amendment, pro-coal. Phelps declined to say whether he voted for Trump or Clinton, who shares his party.

I had my own race to run, he said. I didnt really go for either of them. But Phelps said he was very honored to receive support from Democrats and Republicans in a night where several Southern Illinois Democrats fell.

Serving in the Illinois House since 2003, Phelps will have the most seniority of any Southern Illinois lawmaker in Springfield next year with Luechtefeld's retirement and Forbys defeat.

Marion Mayor Bob Butler, who turns 90 in January and was elected mayor the year John F. Kennedy was assassinated, said hes seen the pendulum swing back and forth over the years, and believes that even though Republicans swept up locally on Tuesday, the Democrats could have their day again.

Butler, a Republican, backed Democrat Bradley in that House race, noting the funds he has been able to bring home to Marion because of his leadership roles. Bradley is chairman of the House Revenue and Finance Committee and serves as assistant majority leader under Madigan.

When we talk about a shift in voting patterns, I think a whole lot depends on No. 1, the candidate, and No. 2 on the policies, on what has been going on, what people want or expect in the future," Butler said. "I think overall people in this country were looking for a change. They did not like the way we were tending to go.
CARBONDALE  Carbondale Community Arts is hosting its fourth annual Carbondale Community Arts University.

CCAU IV: Confluence Arts and Water seeks to present a broad range of information and ideas to the community on the topic of water through the months of November and December 2016.

The program will start with a reception for a photography exhibit from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12.

The exhibit, "Watercourse," by renowned photographer Dan Overturf and award-winning journalist Gary Marx tells the "stories of the people living along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers in Southern Illinois," according to a news release from CCA.

"This innovative collaboration ... is a continuation of the project that produced the book 'A River Through Illinois,' published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2008. The book carries readers down the 330-mile Illinois Waterway, from the urban landscape of Chicago to the states most rural areas," the release says.

In "A River Through Illinois," Marx wrote, "The river has always been a blessed curse. It rises and kills as it gives sustenance. It births civilizations. It is one thing today and another tomorrow. Weve tried to control it, but it slips its bonds, and then it shrinks away. The most we can trust is the river this moment. The one caught on film, the one burned into memory."

"Watercourse" will be on display from Saturday, Nov. 12, through Friday, Dec. 2. The event is free and open to the public.

Visitors to Artspace 304 will also have the opportunity to experience an interactive exhibit, "River Hydrology" by Steve Gough and Little River Research and Design. It features the company's Emriver model, which is an interactive laboratory to engage students and researchers in river science, engineering, and the geosciences, the release says. It also runs through Friday, Dec. 2.

CCAs Artspace 304 is located at 304 W. Walnut St. in downtown Carbondale. Carbondale Community Arts gallery at Artspace 304 is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, by appointment, and during all CCA public events. For more information about Carbondale Community Arts programs and events art Artspace 304, contact 618-457-5100, info@carbondalearts.org or visit carbondalearts.org.
Later this month, Southern Illinoisans will get a chance to explore the home studios of over a dozen working artists and craftsmen.

The Art Alliance of Southern Illinois, previously known as I-57/64 Artists, will host an open house event at artisans home studios and workshops in the Mount Vernon and Benton areas. The tour will take place on Saturday, Nov. 19 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and on Sunday, Nov. 20 from noon to 5 p.m.

The event features 12 different locations and 19 individual artists, from painters to metalworkers to ceramicists.

Art Alliance President Carrie Gibbs said the annual holiday tour began with just a small handful of artists and has grown steadily over the past few years.

Surprisingly, there are many artists that live in our Southern Illinois region that have really unique workshops in their home setting, Gibbs said. The idea was for us to come together and pool our resources, to cross-promote each other and pool financial resources and advertising, and that effort has grown into an entire arts organization.

The event is free, and people can move at their own pace and can hit as many of the studios as theyd like, Gibbs said.

We encourage people to think about making a day of it with your family, or make a girls day out or something like that, and since its two days, you can easily visit all of our studios in that amount of time. Some people will start in the morning at one end of town, stop for lunch and then go to the other end of town, she said.

Some artists will be doing live demonstrations in their workspaces. Carol Wilkinson of Mount Vernon will be demonstrating how to create glass fusions, and John Lovins of Auxier Creek Forge in Belle Rive will be hand-hammering metal.

Gibbs, a ceramic artist, said she will have a variety of functional pottery items for sale, such as small dishes, trays and refrigerator magnets.

Most of the artists in our group are working on that similar level  we create art that is collectible, more expensive and one-of-a-kind, but we also create items that were able to do in quicker fashion in gift-giving price range, she said.

The tour offers residents a chance to shop locally for unique household items, and people will get an opportunity to meet and connect with the artists who have created the work.

In galleries and artisan gift shops, you may see something you like, but youre not meeting face-to-face with the person whose hands touched it, so youre not going to have an association and a memory of that person, Gibbs said. Theres an education that comes with learning what it takes to make that work  something like a cup might be $20, but you see what it took to make that work. It gives you an appreciation for it as well as their ideas, the things that inspire them.
CARBONDALE  A Facebook post showing an SIU student in blackface, standing in front of a Confederate flag, is creating a stir locally and nationally.

The post shows a woman and a man, each with their face covered in a black substance, standing in front of a Confederate flag. The woman is an SIU student but the young man is not, according to Tom Woolf, associate director of university communications and marketing.

The post in question started to trend nationally after Shaun King, a senior justice writer for the New York Daily News, tweeted it.

Woolf said the university could not identify the student or say what actions she might be subjected to.

"We're somewhat limited about what we can say when it involves students," Woolf said.

The university's interim chancellor responded to the post, encouraging students who feel threatened or at risk to call 911 or report incidents to the Dean of Students Office at 618-453-2461. He also noted that the university's Counseling and Psychological Services staff is available  at 618-453-5371  to assist students needing help.

Painting one's face with black or dark paint in order to portray a person of African-American descent is considered an attempt to demean people and can be perceived as an extreme form of stereotyping and caricature of blacks, according to the DoSomething.Org website. The practice has its roots in 1920s vaudeville performances, like that popularized by Al Jolson.

Though some say the Confederate flag represents white or Southern pride, others say it is a symbol of racism, as it was the flag flown by southern states that supported slavery. The Confederate flag was removed from the South Carolina State House grounds after the murder of nine African-American people inside a Charleston, South Carolina, church by Dylan Roof, who allegedly adhered to it as a symbol of white supremacy.

SIU's Interim Chancellor Brad Cowell posted this response today on the university's Facebook page:

"To the Campus Community:

"This weeks presidential election was extremely divisive and emotions are running high. A number of people have contacted my office regarding offensive behavior and comments, including social media posts. While federal law prohibits us from discussing issues related to specific students, please know that we deeply share your concerns. We are reviewing every incident and will take appropriate action.

"I urge every member of our community to help create a respectful, safe and welcoming environment. We expect students to abide by the Saluki Creed: 'As a Saluki, I pledge to forward ideas and ideals. I will discourage bigotry and celebrate diversity by striving to learn from differences in peoples ideas, and opinions. I will embrace the ideals of freedom of civilized expression, intellectual inquiry, and respect for others.'

To read the rest of Colwell's post, click here.

This post has been corrected. An earlier version incorrectly said the controversial post was first reposted on SIU's Facebook page on Oct. 25.
SESSER  In an official statement made on his personal Facebook page, Sesser Mayor Jason Ashmore has apologized announcing his resignation last night.

"I let my emotions get the most of me. I was exhausted & upset which is no excuse," Ashmore wrote in his post. In a statement to The Southern, Ashmore said he was going through a lot of ups and downs election night and was disappointed to see his friends leave office.

"I have a very good working relationship with the people that were in office and we've been able to get a lot done. It has nothing to do with the people that won. It's just I have to start building relations again," he said.

In a post made to Facebook Tuesday night, Ashmore said the election did not come out in his office's favor and that he planned to resign from his position. However, his office said he has not formally filed paperwork to step down.

Council members declined comment for this story.
On Wednesday, voters across Southern Illinois tried to determine what electing Donald J. Trump president would mean.

Members of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) quickly organized a service of lament and solidarity for Wednesday evening, posting an invitation to Facebook and inviting others by email.

The invitation read: The election has left many of upset and confused. We are fearful of what this means for all of us, but especially for our neighbors of color, women, our LGBTQ community, immigrants, those with disabilities, our Muslim and Jewish friends, and those facing the loss of health care. We will gather to hold a brief service of word and song to mourn together and to pledge our solidarity to one another for the work of reconciliation and care that lies ahead.

Marleen Shepherd, a seminarian with the congregation, led the service for around 20 people who showed up to pray and share their feelings on the election. After a few comment and a prayer, Shepherd gave others a chance to share. One woman read the Peace Prayer of St. Francis. Another suggested the group sing Let There be Peace On Earth. A candle lighting ceremony was followed by discussion in the church fellowship hall.

Savannah Watts of Herrin has a daughter who was born with spina bifida. She will turn 3 years old in December. She quit her full-time job to take care of her daughter.

Im not a stay-at-home mom by choice, but by necessity, Watts said.

She worries about losing medical coverage and Social Security that pays for her daughters medical care. She said she wonders how people can vote for a man who violated the Americans with Disabilities Act like Trump has.

They (Trump supporters) dont care that millions of people are going to be hurting, Watts said.

Sarah Ritcheson of McLeansboro drove to Carbondale to attend the service, saying she needed to be with people who were on the same page.

Weve had a reasonable president, so hopefully, we will take this to activism, Ritcheson said.

The group talked about womens rights, issues surrounding race and LGBTQ. They also talked about a populace that is seemingly disconnected from facts.

You used to be entitled to your own opinion, now you are entitled to your own facts, Shannon Abel of Carbondale said.

If I have not experienced this kind of discrimination, it doesnt exist, Monica Tichenor said.

Shepherd invited everyone to attend the Interfaith Community Thanksgiving Service at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Bethel AME Church in Carbondale.

Trump supporters also are waiting to see what a new President Trump would mean for them.

Vickie Hellman of Carterville and her husband Darren voted for Trump.

I think he might do some good for our country  we need it right now, Hellman said.

The couple supported Trump because of his stand on immigration, gun rights and energy. She worries about her husbands job as a coal miner, saying Hillary Clinton was going to shut the coal mines down.

You didnt have much of a choice between the two, Hellman said.

James and Joyce Patrick of Crainville also voted for Trump.

You need to read the two platforms. Theres an unbelievable difference between them, James Patrick said.

Patrick added that he is pro-life, pro-gun, pro-family.

I support the Constitution, and I believe human life is sacred, Patrick said.

Patrick wants good government and says you cannot have good government without good people. He says Trump is a good person.

Patrick said we have laws in place for immigration, but we are not enforcing them. He also is in favor of replacing the Affordable Care Act.

It is a matter of what I think is right and good for the people of the United States, Patrick said.
When I first moved to Carbondale, I remember people speaking about PKs as a dirty little dive bar that attracted all kinds of interesting and frightening people.

What I found when I went inside was a quirky, hometown watering hole: A place where all different kinds of people mix, from wide-eyed college students to lifelong locals, freaks and geeks, princesses and politicians, music-lovers, pool-players and plain old barflies.

Ive spent a lot of time there in my few years here  surrounded by friends and solo. I have always felt safe there. The bartenders dont take any crap. Sticky situations  inevitable in a place where alcohol is served  are resolved quickly.

A new sign in the womens bathroom aims to extend that feeling of safety. And for me, it makes the dive feel even more like home.

Need a safe exit strategy? it reads. On a date that isnt working out? Do you feel uncomfortable, and feel youre in an unsafe situation? Cant find your friends, stranded, and in a bad situation?  If you need help to get to safety, go to the bar, a bouncer, or any staff member, and ask for Dana. They will know to call you a taxi or help you leave discreetly.

Andriana Bicanin, a third-year law student and community organizer, made the sign last week and asked PKs manager Curtis Conley if she could hang it in the bar.

Bicanin said she wants women and men to feel relief and comfort in knowing that if they need help, they can go to a bar staff member, and theyll get it.

Bicanin, who has been a PKs patron since shes lived in Carbondale on-and-off since 2003, said she knows what its like to be a woman in a bar.

No matter what, were going to be on our guard, she said. It would make me feel more at ease to know the people working at that bar would be receptive to asking for help.

Conley, who also bartends at PKs, said he has acquired a sixth sense for trouble  his years of experience in a job that sometimes requires him to get intimate with patrons has taught him to spot red flags. But sometimes it can be difficult to communicate with someone he thinks may be in trouble, he said. And he wants people to feel safe at PKs. He said the sign, while giving patrons a clever way to communicate with staff, also tells patrons they have a friend behind the bar.

Its a discreet way to ask for help when it can be difficult to do so.

Bicanin said she was inspired by a story she saw about similar signs that are going up in establishments around a community in the UK. The #NoMore campaign in Lincolnshire urges patrons to ask for Angela when theyre in trouble. Last month, a photo of a Lincolnshire sign went viral after it was shared on Twitter, with more than 30,000 people retweeting it.

Bicanin saw a story about it come up in her Facebook newsfeed, and noticed a wealth of comments expressing admiration and appreciation for the idea. She noticed commenters asking, why arent all towns doing this?

So she decided to do it. She said it took her less than an hour to make her own sign and secure permission from Conley to hang it in the PKs bathroom.

When you see these articles and you think, Thats so awesome, be that person that brings that here, she said.

It doesnt stop with this one sign, she said. She plans to make a more permanent version for PKs that can stand the test of a bar bathroom. She is also hoping to hang the signs in more bars and restaurants around Carbondale. And she hopes a dialogue with bar staff about how to handle potentially dangerous situations arises as a result.

It means a lot to walk into a bar and know the staff wants to create a safe and welcoming environment for all its patrons. I hope to see the signs crop up in more places. Whether you ever need to ask for Dana or not, knowing the people serving you drinks are looking out for your health and safety is more comforting than a nightcap after a long day.
Rita Fleming of Orangeburg is a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and, yes, an adrenaline junkie.

A few years ago for her 77th birthday, she went skydiving.

We were going for my daughters birthday, and they made a date for me, too, and didnt tell me until I got there, she said.

Fleming is not new to thrill-seeking, though. She has also been parasailing in the Bahamas and scuba diving in Florida.

That was a little scary because you want to be sure youre breathing properly, she said.

This time, Fleming made the request to go ziplining  something that had always been in the back of her mind.

So I said for Mothers Day, this is what I want to do, Fleming said.

Her family took her to the Canaan Zip Line Canopy Tour in Rock Hill.

I had never done anything like that, Fleming said.

She said she felt very safe while there, adding it was nice to know people don't actually hook themselves onto the zipline.

They have a little test line before you even go out there, Fleming said. Youre in this harness, but when you sit down on it to slide, its like sitting in a lounge chair. Its not uncomfortable at all.

She was able to go on about eight lines that went up 100 feet before a storm came in and they had to stop. Fleming said she would do it again.

That stuff doesnt bother me, she said. I always do crazy things like that. Id like to go somewhere else and try a change of scenery."

Out of all her adventures with her children, Fleming says she cant choose a favorite.

My kids encourage me to do whatever I want and they make sure I do it, she said.

The highlight of my life right now are all my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Fleming said.

She has four children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

It gets expensive at Christmas, she joked.

Flemings children live in Gilbert, Anderson and Charlotte, and she has a daughter in Oregon. She flies out to visit her twice a year.

Im going there in a couple of weeks and Im going paddleboarding, Fleming said.

She says she has always been very active and doesnt plan on stopping any of her adventures until she's physically unable to continue.

Itll have to be something physical to hold me back, Fleming said.

She said she slipped and injured her shoulder about five years ago. When the surgeon told her she probably wouldnt be able to swim freestyle anymore, Fleming said she told him, Ill challenge you to 50 meters.

He was totally wrong because I can still swim, she said, laughing.

Fleming said she doesnt allow nervousness to get in her way and encourages others to live life to the fullest.

Just go ahead and do it, she says.
Claflin University sanitation workers discovered a nearly 6-pound newborn boy alive after he was allegedly double-bagged and placed in the trash by his mother on Wednesday.

The Orangeburg Department of Public Safety has obtained warrants accusing Claflin University student Amber Brianna Fulton of attempted murder and unlawful neglect of a child.

The 19-year-old Kingstree resident is currently receiving medical care at the Regional Medical Center.

ODPS Capt. Alfred Alexander said that both the newborn and Fulton are in good condition.

Once RMC clears Fulton, shell formally face charges, Alexander said.

Two custodians discovered the full-term newborn at 8:55 a.m. as they were unloading the trash collected at the Claflin University Commons dormitory on Magnolia Avenue.

According to an ODPS incident report, the custodians were placing the trash into a dumpster on Goff Avenue when they heard a noise. One of the custodians thought the noise may have been a cat or a radio.

The custodians determined that the sound was a baby crying.

They found the bag and tore it open so the baby could breathe, the incident report states.

The baby was not wearing any clothes or a diaper when he was discovered, Alexander said.

The custodians called campus security and Orangeburg County EMS to the dumpsters.

Medics transported the 5-pound 7-ounce newborn to RMC and investigators began to search for the babys mother.

Investigators searched Claflin University Commons and made contact with Fulton, who allegedly admitted to giving birth to her son about 4 a.m. Officials say she used a pair of scissors to cut the umbilical cord.

According to warrants, she placed the baby in a plastic bag and put the bag into a large black trash bag and tied the bag with a loose knot.

Ms. Fulton proceeded to walk to the trash dumpster located at the student residential center North, behind the Claflin dining facility, and placed the bag containing the live baby into the trash dumpster, the warrant alleges.

The warrant alleges that Fulton gave a signed statement to investigators admitting what she did.

The incident report states that Fulton told investigators she was trying to hide her pregnancy from family and friends.

Alexander said many mothers-to-be may not be aware of Daniels Law, which allows a parent to give up their unharmed baby to an employee of a safe haven.

In South Carolina, parents are protected from prosecution if they give up their unharmed child at a safe haven, such as hospitals, hospital outpatient facilities, law enforcement agencies, fire stations, emergency medical services stations or houses of worship.

Daniels Law was updated this year to protect parents who give up babies up to 60 days old.

The law is an important safety net for people who for whatever reason need to leave an infant, because you dont want someone leaving a baby in a dangerous place, Childrens Trust of South Carolina Chief Communications Officer Bett Williams said.

A lot of times, you dont know the circumstances of the birth mother, or even the father, so this might also be a way to help them, she said.

A similar incident, with a tragic ending, took place at Claflin University on Oct. 24, 1996.

A 22-year-old senior gave birth to a baby inside Corson Hall dormitory and investigators found her deceased newborn in a gym bag under her bed.

An autopsy indicated that the newborn was alive when the mother gave birth.

The mother of that newborn pleaded guilty to unlawful neglect of a child and was given a probationary sentence.

* This story has been changed from its original version.
John McIver voted for Donald Trump but was amazed when he won Tuesdays presidential election.

It was miraculous, McIver said.

The reason I voted for him was because people are sick of politicians, he said. I believe Mr. Trump will bring things together  stop politicking and good buddy relationships.

Orangeburg Countys voters, like those across the nation, were divided in the presidential race. More than 60 percent of the countys voters supported Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, over the Republican Trump.

But Republicans and Democrats said the 45th president should be given a chance to prove himself.

McIver thinks Trumps lack of political experience is a plus. That means hes not obligated to politicians, so he doesnt have to scratch anybodys back.

McIver said another reason he supported Trump is the president-elect's position on immigration.

I think hes got a pretty good stand on the illegals coming into the country. We hope to nip that in the bud, he said.

But McIver also hopes Trump will do what he said hes going to in taking care of the poor and the people on the streets.

McIver says Trump needs to clean up his vocabulary.

The only thing I didnt like was his use of language, McIver said. Im a Christian and Im highly offended by anybody that will get up and use the 'f' word on national television.

Wallace Smith and his wife, Orangeburg County Councilwoman Janie Cooper-Smith, voted for Clinton.

I didnt like Hillary or Trump, but she was the lesser of two evils, Wallace Smith said. I wanted Bernie (Sanders)."

His problems with Trump include comments he made about liking the president of Russia and showing disrespect for women.

He said so many things, it was hard to keep up with all he said, Smith said.

Another concern is Trumps stand on immigration.

Smith agrees immigration is a big problem, but I dont think you can just pick up people who have been here years and years and years and send them back where they came from.

But I do think they should have to go through the legal things to stay here.

Cooper-Smith said she was disappointed when she got up Wednesday morning and learned her candidate lost.

But I said, Well, were still one nation under God. This is still the land of the free and the home of the brave, she said.

Her advice to Trump is to realize hes running a whole country instead of a business, she said. He cant be that Donald Trump, the campaign person. He must now be Donald Trump, the president of the United States ... the commander in chief.

But give him a chance, she said. Dont crucify him before hes had a chance. He might do a whole lot better than a whole lot of people think he will because hes new.

Like the Smiths, Betty Cokely voted for Clinton. Trumps election was a shock, she said.

She looks at it like this is another stumbling block," but shell accept him as president and give him a chance to prove himself.

We dont have another choice, she said. Weve got to live with this. Weve lived with a lot of other stuff, so well live with this. We only have to wait four years."

Cokely said shes concerned that food stamps and Medicare might be stopped under Trumps leadership.

And we might not get raises in Social Security for the next four years," she said.

She also has concerns that Trump might lead the country into bankruptcy and about his attitude toward Russia, his views on women and his bad language.

And I dont know what hes going to do and thats a problem. He never did show me what kinds of plans he had. It was always what somebody else thought or said or whatever, she said.

Danny and Linda Phillips from Pine Hill voted for Trump.

He voted for Trump because I like what he stands for and the way he thinks about things.

I want to see him do something about Social Security. We havent had a raise in two years.

Phillips said he also thinks Trump will do something to help veterans.

Linda Phillips objects to Trump's language, but supported him because she thinks hes going to make a change in everything. I just hope they dont cut out Social Security.

Daryl Moorer, who voted a straight Democratic ticket, said his main concern with Trump is his lack of governing experience.

He hopes Trump is going to do what he promised, like coming up with more jobs. Hes also hoping Trump will protect Medicare and do something about rising gas prices.

I just hope he handles our money as well as he does his money, Moorer said.
A Claflin University student will be charged with attempted murder and unlawful conduct toward a child after a baby was found by a dumpster on the campus, according to the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety.

ODPS identified Amber Brianna Fulton, 19, of Kingstree as the mother of the child.

She was transported to the Regional Medical Center to be evaluated by medical staff.

The newborn boy was found on Wednesday morning, according to Orangeburg Department of Public Safety Capt. Alfred Alexander

Alexander said university employees who were gathering trash by one of the dorms and transferring the trash to a large dumpster thought they heard something that sounded like a baby.

Those employees opened a trash bag and discovered a baby boy inside.

They immediately contacted 911 and Orangeburg County EMS responded, transporting the baby to the Regional Medical Center. The baby is well and still at RMC.

In South Carolina, parents are protected from prosecution if they give up their unharmed baby to an employee of a safe haven. Safe havens include hospitals, hospital outpatient facilities, law enforcement agencies, fire stations, emergency medical services stations or houses of worship.

Daniels Law was updated this year to protect parents who give up babies up to 60 days old.

The law is an important safety net for people who for whatever reason need to leave an infant, because you dont want someone Leaving a baby in a dangerous place, Childrens Trust of South Carolina Chief Communications Officer Bett Williams.

A lot of times, you dont know the circumstances of the birth mother, or even the father, so this might also be a way to help them, she said.

* This story has been changed from its original version.
Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office

A Norway man was taken to the hospital Wednesday after reporting that demons were trying to rob him, according to a sheriffs office incident report.

Deputies arrived at a Norway Road residence at 5:15 a.m. Dispatchers told deputies that the man left the residence and ran behind a church.

Moments later, deputies found the man yelling for help on 7th Street.

Upon making contact, the man told deputies that demons were on him and trying to rob him.

He also told deputies that he took several narcotics in an attempt to commit suicide, the report said.

Orangeburg County EMS arrived and transported the man to the Regional Medical Center.
Many local politicians say theyre disappointed that Donald Trump won Tuesday nights presidential election, but theyre willing to set aside their differences and work toward common goals.

Im disappointed though not surprised by the election results, 6th District Congressman James Clyburn said. Secretary Clintons strength in the policy arena didnt produce the political intensity necessary to win amid the distraction of the actions by the FBI director.

Clyburn, a Democrat, said it remains to be seen how the president-elect will conduct himself and what action congressional Republicans will take regarding the Affordable Care Act.

I hope they will take seriously the responsibility to serve all of the American people in the performance of the task of governing the country we love, he said.

Trump, a Republican, won a surprising victory Tuesday over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Clinton won Orangeburg and Bamberg counties, but Trump won Calhoun County.

Republican Congressman Joe Wilson said he is ready to work with newly elected officials.

I look forward to working with the president-elect, vice president-elect, the Republican Senate and the Republican House to advance positive legislation that will create jobs and protect American families by restoring our military to promote peace through strength, Wilson said in a release.

State Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg, said Wednesday, I wanted Hillary to win and right now Im still soaking in the fact that Donald Trump won the presidency.

Bamberg noted the election brought out an awakening in certain groups that have not participated in politics and this signifies a new day in American politics.

He believes an effort will be made to destroy the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare.

The question then becomes what is the alternative going to be, he said. Its a lingering question that Im going to have.

Despite his concerns, Bamberg does not have any worries about the Trump presidency.

Donald Trump may be president but hes not God and the God that I believe in has a way of working things out, Bamberg said. I just have this firm belief inside of myself that things always work out in the end.

Former state representative Bakari Sellers, a Democrat, said he is concerned about Trumps impact on health care, immigration and the Voting Rights Act.

Im definitely scared, Sellers said.

Sellers is worried struggling hospitals may close if the Affordable Care Act is repealed.

He said the Trump victory could have been due to a lack of Democratic support.

Democrats didnt show up to vote, he said. I think there just wasnt enough.

He said, Im going to pray and do everything I can to help Donald Trump make this a more perfect union.

Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said he was disappointed but the president-elect deserves a chance.

We will all work together, he said.

Hutto hopes Trumps business experience will be able to lead him to a successful presidency but worries about his temperament.

He said Trump should surround himself with people that have experience to advise him. He must also be willing to listen.

President-elect Trump will learn hopefully the difference between campaigning and governing, said Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg. I hope for the sake of the country that he will surround himself with people who understand the difference.

Cobb-Hunter the issue of race relations needs to be addressed.

It is sad to me that the first black president will be turning over the White House to a man endorsed by the KKK, she said.

Cobb-Hunter believes a large amount of healing will be necessary following the election.

Rep. Jerry Govan said, Considering the rancor and the negativity of the campaign, a lot of us were relieved that its over but having said that, its not the outcome that a lot of people wanted.

The Orangeburg Democrat believes the election was a result of American citizens wanting change.

Clearly, what resonated was that they didnt care who it was, he said. He just represented a lightning rod for change.

Govan said the election has shown that the nation is very divided.

You see people being discriminated against because of their religion and/or because of their heritage, he said. Theres still so much work to be done.

Govan is hopeful that the president-elects words during the campaign season will not reflect his true actions.

The day after the polls close and a winner is declared, you no longer represent a particular party, you represent your constituents regardless of if they supported you or not, he said.

Govan said he wants to see Trump serve the people with the same kind of vigor and strength he showed during the campaign.

In the final analysis, he has the unique opportunity, particularly in the way he won the election, to really set the tone, Govan said. For many of us, well just have to wait and see.

Orangeburg Mayor Michael Butler said he was hopeful Clinton would win.

I was a little disappointed, Butler said. Im concerned just like everybody else because I watched his campaign.

He said he accepts the outcome of the election and hopes to see the country grow and thrive.
SPRINGFIELD -- A program posthumously honoring the only resident of the town of Springfield killed in action in the Vietnam War will be held on Veterans Day, Friday, Nov. 11.

The program honoring late U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Shuler A. Hoffman will be held at 10 a.m. at the Orangeburg County Military Museum on the second floor of the Springfield Museum, 210 Brodie St. All veterans will also be honored. A luncheon will follow.

Those attending will have the opportunity to view items presented to the museum in honor of Hoffman, along with other military exhibits.

In February 1968, Hoffman was posthumously awarded The Gallantry Cross with palm for valor, the Vietnamese Military Merit Medal, the Purple Heart and the National Defense Medal. The 1967 graduate of Springfield High School was killed by enemy gunfire while on patrol near Quang Tri, Vietnam. He served with Unit E Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines.

Don Williams, a Springfield native, Navy veteran and classmate of Shulers who now lives in Florida, along with his wife Patty, identified, researched and purchased the medals awarded to Hoffman and placed them in a handcrafted shadow box for permanent display in the Orangeburg County Military Museum, which helped fund the project.

Members of Hoffmans family are expected to attend the program.

Also on display will be a P.O.W.-M.I.A. flag honoring Sgt. 1st Class Ricardo Gonzales Davis, U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret), who was listed as missing in action in Laos. The flag was presented to the museum for display by Davis' daughter, Regina Marroquin, and her husband, Angel Marroquin, of Jacksonville, Florida, said Sylvia Hiers, chair of the Springfield School Oversight and Use Board.

A meal for the special guests will be served following the program.

The Springfield Museum, located in the Springfield School, recently installed a new outdoor sign that reads: Orangeburg County Military Museum at Springfield. The sign expresses appreciation to all those who are serving and have served in the military, with a list of all the branches of service at the bottom.

The staff encourages county residents to think of the museum as their own and visit it often and also to place artifacts from their own family histories in the museum.

For more information, call 803-258-3764.
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The Bank of China says its London trading center, which opened one year ago, has ushered in a "golden era" of its own, thanks to deepening cooperation between China and the United Kingdom and the renminbi's internationalization.

The London trading center has reported that its combined transaction volume has exceeded $70 billion, since it was launched last October, during President Xi Jinping's official visit to the UK.

The new center, which is well-placed for seamless connection between Beijing, Hong Kong and New York, provides quotation and trading services, as well as a range of products - including fixed income, commodities, foreign exchange and other derivatives contracts.

"The establishment of the London trading center makes BOC the first Chinese bank to offer round-the-clock and continuous quotation and trading services," said the company's spokesman."It is an important step in BOC implementing its globalization strategy."

The success came at a time when the UK voted in the June referendum, by 52 percent to 48, to leave the European Union.

"During those periods of elevated market volatility, the London trading center provided continuous quotation, trading and risk-hedging services to clients, and ran the business soundly and orderly," he said.

The London center also leveraged its advantages to deliver timely market insights, the bank added.

The commitment comes as London has become the world's second-largest of shore RMB center, after Hong Kong.

"The London trading center has been playing an active role in marketing RMB products and facilitating of shore renminbi transactions," added the spokesman.

He noted that the Bank of China will look to further cater to the needs of corporate clients and investors across the world with its expertise and resources.
By Azernews





By Nigar Abbasova

Hungarys three major travel companies are keen to enter the Azerbaijani market.

Hungarian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Imre Laszloczki told Trend that three leading travel companies, including 1000 ut, Robinson Tours, and Vedi Tour consider mutual revival of tourist relations between the two countries.

The Hungarian Economy Ministry and Culture and Tourism Ministry of Azerbaijan signed an agreement on cooperation in November 2014.

Moscow branch of the Hungarian Tourism Agency is currently responsible for tourism development with Azerbaijan. However, Hungarian companies showed interest to the Azerbaijani market after Hungarian Wizz Air launched operation of Baku-Budapest direct flights in March 2016.

The envoy said that the large presentation of the Vishegrad Four (V4) countries in Baku in April 2016 is among the factors that triggered the interest of Hungarian tourism organizations.

The V4 also known as Visegrad Group is an alliance of four Central European countries, including Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

The envoy mentioned that Azerbaijani tourism companies were earlier offering tours to Budapest and Lake Balaton region. However, combined tours to several countries, (such as Budapest-Vienna), and medical tours to Hungarian thermal water clinics are gaining popularity.

He mentioned that Azerbaijan is also turning into alluring destination for Hungarian travelers.

BLS International Services, a specialist provider for outsourcing of visa, passport and attestation services opened a visa centre in Baku in January 2016, on the initiative of the Hungarian embassy.

The decision to open the center was made by Hungary in order to strengthen relations between the two countries, establish direct relations between the citizens of Azerbaijan and Hungary, as well as develop tourist relations and meet the needs of the increased tourist and businessmen flow thanks to the direct flights of Wizz Air Company.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

The Armenian leadership hampers the solution of Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenian journalist and social activist Susan Jaghinyan, said at a press conference in Baku on November 9.

She, together with two other Armenian human rights activists, joined the Baku conference on Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: main obstacles and prospects for conflict settlement. The look from Armenia and Azerbaijan" to have an exchnage of opinion over the conflict in a bid to contribute to its settlement.

The Armenian people had their share of grief. Only occupiers [Armenian authorities] benefited from the conflict, Jaghinyan stressed.

She underlined that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be resolved, saying that both Azerbaijan and Armenia suffer from the conflict.

The purpose of my visit to Baku is to contribute to the conflict settlement, the journalist said. If the perpetrators of the conflict and those who are currently in power in Armenia remain unpunished, there will be no nation as Armenia after 20 years."

Jaghinyan also emphasized that the Armenian government is inadequate. My visit to Baku is a slap in the face for the Armenian leadership, she said, by calling Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan "occupier", who came to power through murders. President Sargsyan robs his people.

The journalist added that after her publications appeared in the Azerbaijani media, President Sargsyan instructed the Armenian officials to declare the journalist "dead". The only way for the Armenian leadership to solve the problem with such people like me is assasination, she said.

Vahe Avetyan, Armenian human rights activist, also attended the press conference. Armenia cannot always ignore international law, he said. It must respect the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

The activist added that the fundamental basis was created for the work on all points: policy, peacekeeping activity and others in the framework of the Baku conference held on November 8.

The entire situation with the so-called public movement in Armenia, voicing the position of the countrys authorities, is aimed at disrupting the process that we are carrying out with our Azerbaijani colleagues, Avetyan stressed.

Vahan Martirosyan, Armenian human rights activist, for his part also emphasized that the change of power in Armenia can speed up the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. However, he said that Armenia's current authorities will never resign without a coup.

Martirosyan added that issuing Nagorno-Karabakh with an autonomy status is a reasonable decision. Nobody is going to evict Armenians from there, he said. Two peoples will be able to coexist peacefully there.

The activist also stressed that it is necessary to wirthdraw troops from seven districts around Nagorno-Karabakh and return them back to Azerbaijan.

Martirosyan said that he together with Jaghinyan and Avetyan visited one Armenian family in Baku without journalists, and the members of that family said that they have no problems of living in Azerbaijan. Armenian names and surnames are indicated in their documents. Unfortunately, such a case is not observed in Armenia, he regretted.

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. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

Recent reports on the intention to rename the status of Nagorno-Karabakh will not affect Russias position on the settlement to the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told APA on November 9.

She made a comment in response to next provocation by the Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh on their intention to rename the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory under Armenia's occupation.

Russia and other OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries, as well as Armenia itself, do not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state, Zakharova stressed. The status of Nagorno-Karabakh must be determined during negotiations.

The spokeswoman also touched on whether the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict issue will be discussed at the OSCE Ministerial Council in Hamburg on December 8-9.

The Nagorno-Karabakh settlement will be discussed at the Vienna meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on November 10, and also at a meeting of the OSCE Minsk Group. We believe that this work will continue at the Hamburg meeting of OSCE foreign ministers, the spokeswoman said.

The Azerbaijani side has already given its consent for the meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister in the framework of the OSCE Ministerial Council in December.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with the signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Since the war, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign State with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years.

Armenia ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry has excluded a Bulgarian traveler from the list of foreigners, who are persona non-grata in the country.

Bulgarian citizen Valentin Dreharski, an employee of "Besttechnia" company and a traveler, has been removed from the list of undesirable people, who illegally visited the Azerbaijani lands occupied by Armenia, the Foreign Ministry told Trend on November 10.

Dreharski sent a letter to the ministry, in which he expressed respect for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and inviolability of internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. The traveler noted that he was unaware of the illegality of his trip.

In his letter, Dreharski apologized to the Azerbaijani people and added that his visit wasnt aimed at promoting the illegal regime in Azerbaijans occupied territories.

His letter was thoroughly considered and a decision was made to remove his name from the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys black list .

Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly one million were displaced as a result of the war. Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions are temporarily out of the control of Azerbaijan as a result of Armenias aggression.

Unauthorized visits to Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied regions of Azerbaijan are considered illegal and individuals who pay such visits are included in the ministrys black list.

The list of persona non grata banned from visiting Azerbaijan includes MPs, media persons, businessmen, entertainers, and others, who violated Azerbaijans borders and showed disrespect to the sovereignty and territorial unity of the country.








By Azernews





By Nigar Abbasova

The upcoming meeting of OPEC is still one of the most anticipated events for the world energy market. While investors are still cautious and doubtful about the possible outcome of the meeting, Russia, one of the essential players of the market,said it might consider a freeze of oil production.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on November 10 that global crude oil output could be frozen at November levels should the world's leading oil producers manage to reach an agreement.

This will be discussed depending on when our OPEC colleagues will come to a common understanding. If the decision is made on November 30, then the month of November will be taken as the basis, he said.

Novak reiterated the importance of the agreement on output, mentioning higher chances of reaching the agreement than before.

The oil market is still heavily oversupplied, while a number of hindrances, including the internal disagreements within the cartel, and the fact that many producers seek exemptions from the preliminary deal complicate the agreement.

Most analyst says the failure in reaching the consensus may deteriorate the situation greatly and push the prices back.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its recent report that the market will remain in surplus throughout the year, with little prospect of oil prices rising significantly higher should no agreement is reached.

OPEC member states agreed to cut cartel-wide oil production to 32.5-33 million barrels per day without placing exact limits for individual countries. The producers are set to finalize the agreement on an oil output freeze at the OPEC summit in Vienna on November 30.
By Azernews





By Gunay Hasanova

The result of the U.S. presidential election has no impact on the Islamic Republics policy, Irans President Hassan Rouhani said.

Rouhani made the remarks commenting on Republican Donald Trump's victory at the U.S. presidential election, Irans state-run IRINN TV reported on November 9.

Rouhani further said that the nuclear deal is independent of the administrations decision and cannot be overturned by the governments change.

Irans sagacity was in having the nuclear deal endorsed as a resolution by the UN Security Council and not just an agreement with a single country or administration, so it cannot be changed by decisions of one government, Rouhani said.

The P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the UK, the U.S. as well as Germany) reached a historic deal with Iran last year to curb the Islamic Republics nuclear program in return for lifting the nuclear-related sanctions. The deal came into force in January.

Trump has severely criticized the nuclear deal during his presidential campaign.

He has said that would rip up the Iran nuclear deal, which was aimed at curbing the nation's ability to acquire nuclear arms.

"The nuclear deal puts Iran, the number one state sponsor of radical Islamic terrorism, on a path to nuclear weapons," Trump said in one of his convention speeches.

In turn, experts hold controversial views regarding the fate of nuclear deal and Trumps upcoming policy about Iran.

"With regard to Iran, Trump has talked about hard power and put on agenda the confrontation with Iran," Mehdi Motaharnia, futurist and political science professor at Tehran Islamic Azad University told Trend. "He has pledged to Americans that if U.S. warships are threatened by Iranian fast boats, he will order an attack on them. He also said he will tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This resembles campaign talk rather than policy that Trump would be able to carry out.

Dr. Motaharnia believes that the victory of Trump today creates some populism is America, populism that Iran tacitly took as deconstruction in the U.S., Iranian leaders having endorsed his statements. "But it was not kept out of mind that what happens in the U.S. is a democratic system which even provides its de-constructers with the chance to become president," he underlined.

Regarding Trumps pledged foreign policy;, he said that the new U.S. president will be able to develop grounds for convergence with Moscow and work toward closer positions on global conflicts.

Russia is Irans ally in such regional conflicts as Syrias, which has turned into a hot issue of debate between Iran and the U.S.

Russia also backed Iran during its long talks with the world powers to reach a nuclear deal.

Meanwhile, some experts think that Trumps statements can be more than just a campaign talk and lead to more tensions in the world.

Some officials believe that if Trump adopts hostile policies towards Iran, this will empower hardliners in Iran and unite their supporters, which in fact hints at more political pressure and aggressive regional policy.

During the election campaign, Trump described Iran as the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism and dismissed the nuclear accord as "one of the worst deals I've ever seen negotiated."

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif urged him to stay committed to the Iran deal.

Although President Hassan Rouhani said the election result would not affect Iran's policies and the nuclear accord could not be dismissed by one government, there are experts who consider Trumps victory to affect the new presidential elections results in Iran, as well as, Irans economy.

"Now with Trump's victory, even the European companies will be reluctant to invest in Iran ... in the best-case scenario they will adopt the policy of 'wait and see'," said a senior Economy Ministry official to Reuters.

The official also stressed that this would "harm the credibility of Rouhani and his economic plans."

Iran, which has a population of 80 million, was the biggest economy to rejoin the global trading and financial system since the Soviet break-up in 1991.

However, many foreign investors are put off by obstacles to doing business in Iran such as the poor state of banks that were long outside the international financial system, the state's big role in the economy and a lack of clarity about the legal system.

Europe's largest banks have been reluctant to finance deals because they fear they could run incur financial penalties by violating U.S. sanctions that remain in force.

"With Trump's victory, major and even medium-sized foreign companies, banks and other investors will be more cautious ... to invest in Iran," said Tehran-based businessman Reza Sardari.

"This will harm the economy just when we were hoping to attract foreign investors."

So, given multiple approaches to the president-elect Trumps future foreign policy, it is only the time to show the end of affairs.
Happy almost-weekend guys! I know this has been a tough week so far for a lot of people so lets continue going to happier mental places, shall we? LikeItaly! Our #tvobtakesitaly adventure was literally one of the most incredible trips of my entire life and thats saying something because Ive been really lucky to have some truly special travels the past few years.

My three weeks in Italy were truly life changing though and getting to visit this beautiful country was honestly one of the biggest bucket list items Ive ever checked off.

But as I mentioned in my Italy general tips post, Italy had for many years really intimidated me  it just seemed like such a densely packed country (and it is!) and deciding what to see and in which order really overwhelmed me. Fortunately, after a lot of research we managed a 3-week trip throughout a huge part of the country that really not only gave us so much insight into the country and really allowed us to explore it, but took us through some really different facets of Italian culture. So without further ado

Rome (suggested stay: 5 days)

Before we took off, a lot of people urged us to just stay in Rome for just over a weekend. With so much to see elsewhere in the country, we were tempted for a bit to shorten our stay there and just catch the main sights (as we did for Athens when we were in Greece  3 days there gave us the chance to explore it decently well). But after we mapped out exactly what we wanted to do, we realized we needed more time in Roma.

In the end, we were so grateful we dedicated more time to the city because it ended up being our indisputable favourite. You could honestly spend years in Rome and never see it fully and the 5 days we spent there made us both fall in love with this beautiful place.

Its just such a special city  will be sharing so much more about our time there soon but if youre pencilling time in for your trip now, would really urge you to spend the most time there!

Tuscan Countryside (suggested stay: 4 days)

I found a pin of Montepulciano (pictured here) and something about it just set me off on a full-blown obsession. We split our time between this magical historic village (which completely lived up to my dreams) and Siena, spending some serious time exploring other villages around the area. Tuscany is such an incredibly beautiful place with a rich culture, amazing traditions and the foodgah, the food! I salivate just thinking about it (gross). Its just a must.

You could spend all your time in Tuscany and be a happy clam. But despite loving it so much right off the bat, we knew wed be returning to see more of Tuscany in Florence so in the end, 4 days was definitely a good amount of time for us in the beautiful Tuscan countryside. If youre concerned about getting around, I cant stress enough that we had a really great experience driving out of Rome (we went around 11AM) to Tuscany, and having the car to explore the countryside was absolutely key. We carried on with the car until we dropped it off in La Spezia before taking the train to our stay in Riomaggiore in Cinque Terre and then it was trains the rest of the way!

Cinque Terre (suggested stay: 4 days)

This is a bit of a statement but Im just gonna go ahead and declare that Cinque Terre is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places you could ever visit in your life.

PS Cinque Terre refers to the five towns (i.e. five lands), which include Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare, all beautiful, all so easy to see once youve got a base at one of the five!. Its like a dream visiting the villages there  even with an uptake in tourism, you can imagine life in a simpler time, and the Ligurian traditions and culture is (similar to all the Italian regions) so rich and beautiful to discover. I feel as if as part of a longer trip when youre trying to cover a lot of ground, 4 days is definitely enough time for Cinque Terre  having said that, Im already planning an extended trip just to Cinque Terre with my girlfriends in the summer to really absorb life here more.

Florence (suggested stay: 4 days)

Florence was one of our absolute favourite places. Its history is unreal as is its overall contribution to the world (the Duomo, Michelangelo, etc, etc). It is unbelievably beautiful. The people are so kind. The food is fantastic (in fact, probably our favourite meal of the whole trip was in a tiny trattoria just underneath our Airbnb). Its not just that you need to spend a decent amount of time in the city itself because it deserves it, but theres so much to see in the surrounding areas. Definitely a great city to choose as a base to explore surrounding Tuscany. We couldve spent weeks here!

Verona (suggested stay: 3 days)

We honestly had no idea what to expect with Verona  we really just picked it because Im a lit geek and liked the romantic notion of visiting somewhere that supposedly inspired Shakespeare so much. We hadnt even really looked at pictures! But we were so pleasantly surprised to pull into this stunning town  we honestly could not have picked a better spot to have rolled into at the later leg of our trip when we were both starting to feel a little bit worn down.

Oddly, we both immediately thought of our university town Victoria (it also reminded me of Cork, Ireland, another uni town!) and were overwhelmed with a sense of the familiar  so weird but in looking at the similarities between all three towns, it makes sense! Verona is clean, elegant, laid-back, beautiful, relaxed. It was such a treat to take it a bit easier and to also get to be treated to such a truly stunning town, with so much more history and things to see than we expected. Lake Garda is also nearby and apparently a great day trip from the town, but sadly I was starting to get sick at this point and we had bad weather so decided to opt out of it! A reason to return though (which is what I always tell myself when I inevitably dont get to see everything I wanted to).

Venice (suggested stay: 3-4 days)

Venice is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of place, not only because it is quite literally like nowhere else in the world, but because there may be some legislation soon to limit the amount of tourists visiting so worth going while you can easily!

Also, with agua alta (its famous floods) on the literal rise, its possible the city wont always be so accessible. But a sense of urgency aside, the city is beautiful and truly romantic (in what I found a slightly eery way!), with some of the most interesting history we got to uncover on our whole trip. Its also a great place to set up camp at in order to visit the surrounding islands (like Burano or Murano), so all in all, it really warrants a proper visit.

And there you have it! Our whole Italy trip! As you can probably see from some quick addition of my suggested dates here, our trip was a few days over three weeks so if you literally have a 3-week, 21-day cap, my suggestion would be to cut a day from the Tuscan countryside, a day from Cinque Terre and a day from Verona.

This is actually not based at all on personal preferences (Cinque Terre in particular I could spend forever in) but because the other destinations act as better bases to see surrounding areas if you cant stay in each spot we have listed here (for instance, a lot of people visit Verona from Venice, visit Cinque Terre from Florence, do day tours of the Tuscan countryside from Florence or Rome, etc). But hopefully you have a few more days to come in just over 3-weeks because if I have to be totally honest, I wouldnt have changed a single thing on our trip.

3 WEEKS IN ITALY: A SAMPLE ITINERARY 5 DAYS IN ROME 4 DAYS IN THE TUSCAN COUNTRYSIDE 4 DAYS IN CINQUE TERRE 4 DAYS IN FLORENCE 3 DAYS IN VERONA 3-4 DAYS IN VENICE

PIN ME

Anyway, this is honestly just the beginning  I have multiple city guides coming for each and every one of our destinations and so many more general guides (packing lists etc) to get you set up for your next Italy trip, but hopefully if youre thinking of taking off soon, this helps you map it out! I have this graphic above for you to quickly refer to  feel free to pin it, save it, etc!
Gulftainer, the worlds largest privately owned terminal operating and logistics company, has won the Port Terminal Operator Award at the Seatrade Maritime Awards Middle East, Indian Subcontinent & Africa Awards 2016.



Iain Rawlinson, group commercial director at Gulftainer, received the award on behalf of the company at a special ceremony held at Atlantis, The Palm in Dubai.



Rawlinson said: Gulftainer is proud to be recognized as the best Port Terminal Operator in the region at the 2016 Seatrade Maritime Awards. This distinction is particularly special as it comes at a significant period in global trade, when the industry as a whole is evolving under the influence of fast-changing commercial and technological dynamics. At Gulftainer, we are determined to stay ahead of these trends through effective operational enhancements that keep us a cut above the rest.



Gulftainer was among five other terminal operators that were nominated for the Port Terminal Operator Award.



The various criteria evaluated by the expert panel of judges included quality, tangible examples of innovation, improved efficiency, profitability and successful investment in port operations. A highly regarded accolade for the shipping industry, the judging panel also factored in evidence of sustained commitment to customer service, cost efficiency and operational leadership, and an outstanding safety and environment record.



Currently in its 14th year, the Seatrade Maritime Awards acknowledges industry best-practices, and convenes the most prominent and senior industry professionals in the shipping and maritime industry to network and share insights.



Flemming Dalgaard, CEO, Gulftainer, said: The Port Terminal Operator Award from Seatrade Maritime is a prestigious honour that highlights our track-record in delivering quality across all aspects of our operations, and reinforces our commitment to upholding impeccable service and safety standards.



We consider it a tribute to the efforts of Gulftainer and to our qualified and professional colleagues who work relentlessly to ensure the highest levels of operational efficiency. We have been investing in building our infrastructure and expanding our footprint globally, and this recognition validates our efforts at delivering industry-leading services to our clients across the board.



Gulftainers current portfolio covers its UAE-wide operations in Khorfakkan Port and Port Khalid in Sharjah, as well as at terminals in Iraq. The operator is also engaged in maritime activities at Recife in Brazil, Tripoli in Lebanon, Jeddah and Jubail in Saudi Arabia, as well as Canaveral in Florida, USA.  TradeArabia News Service
Agility, a leading global logistics provider, has reported reported a net profit of KD15.17 million ($50.10 million) for the third quarter of 2016, an increase of 11 per cent compared to the third quarter of 2015.



Earnings-per-share stood at 13.19 fils, and EBITDA stood at KD28.90 million ($95.45 million), a 19 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2015. Revenues are at KD312 million ($1.03 billion) for the quarter, a 7 per cent decrease over Q3 last year, said a statement from the company.



Tarek Sultan, CEO of Agility, said: We have now been seeing continuous underlying increase in the profitability of the business. This is driven by steady progress in turning around our Global Integrated Logistics business, as well as by continued financial performance and growth in our Infrastructure group of companies.



We continue to make gains in the face of a challenging business context: from sluggish economic and trade growth in key regions to political uncertainty in others. I attribute our companys gains to sharper strategic focus and ongoing commitment to financial discipline, even as we invest in the markets, products, and technologies that will transform our business and help us continue to lead in the future, he added.



Revenue for Agility Global Integrated Logistics (GIL) stands at KD228.65 million ($755.18 million) in Q3 2016, an 8 per cent decline from Q3 of 2015. Net revenues were marginally lower in this quarter relative to the same period in 2015 with margins expanding from 25 per cent to 26 per cent in Q3 2016.



Sultan added: In this quarter, GIL continued to see growth in demand for contract logistics in emerging markets, as well as strong performance in ocean freight, both in terms of volume and yield, whereas in air freight the business grew considerably in terms of volume with a tougher yield compared to the prior year quarter, resulting in flat net revenue.



The main impact to net revenue shortfall remains in the general slowdown in our Project Logistics business as a result of the slowdown in the Oil and Gas market, he concluded.



GILs road map remains consistent. First, continue to drive commercial improvement through a trade lane management approach and focus on high growth markets and industries. Second, continue transforming the underlying business through ongoing technology, process and management improvements. Third, maintain financial discipline and a lean and agile structure that is in-line with business needs, it stated.



Agilitys Infrastructure companies contributed KD85.91 million ($283.7 million) to third quarter 2016 revenues. Agility Infrastructures group of companies continues to be the largest contributors to Agilitys profitability.



Agility Real Estate, the largest contributor in the group, grew its revenues by 7 per cent in Q3 2016, compared to the same period in 2015. Agility opened its first logistics distribution park in Ghana this quarter, the first of a series of planned distribution parks connecting African countries to each other and to the world.



Other Infrastructure companies have also reported a healthy growth in this quarter and are making progress in new customer acquisition and geographic expansion. Tristar, Agilitys fuel logistics business, won a three-year, $165 million contract to support the United Nations.



Agilitys subsidiary NAS, the fastest growing ground-handling and aviation services company in emerging markets, won a 10-year concession to operate lounges in nine airports in Morocco, it added.  TradeArabia News Service
Tourism ministers, bloggers and party goers turned the final day of the revamped three-day WTM London into a festival of business and fun.



The UNWTO & WTM Ministers' Summit is one of the highest-profile sessions of the entire event. Now in its 10th year, more than 100 tourism ministers and their aides from around the world were joined by board-level representatives from some of the biggest travel companies.

This year's Summit called on the industry and governments to work together to help destinations cope with the threat of terrorism, which UNWTO secretary-general Dr Taleb Rifai described as "forces of darkness."



Mohamed Yehia Rashed, Tourism Minister Egypt, assured delegates that his country has the technology and security measures in place to protect tourists and urged for standard security measures to be introduced globally. Vinod Zutshi, secretary of Tourism in the government of India  WTM Londons Official Premier Partner  said countries needed to be more responsible when issuing travel advisories as perception of safety in destinations is a key factor.



Zutshi's call was echoed by Fritz Joussen, chief executive TUI Group, who noted peoples perceptions often compound the problems of terrorism. The probability of being killed by a terrorist is lower than having car accident on the way to the airport, he said.



As the leading global event for the travel industry, WTM London welcomes all levels of participants in the business, from ministers to bloggers. At a dedicated Speed Networking event, 100 bloggers from 15 different countries talked to exhibitors interested in using this increasingly important channel.



Valentina Correa, based in Germany but originally from Colombia, runs www.unpocodesur.com, an adventure blog. "We have relationships with tour operators but WTM is a fantastic chance to talk to tourist boards and hotels as we look to widen our coverage. It is a great chance too to educate some of the exhibitors about the benefits of working with bloggers."



WTM London is now applying its highly successful Speed Networking concept to new verticals, with a dedicated Wellness session also taking place today. Lisa Wakefield Programme Leader University of Derby said: "We run International Tourism and Spa Management degrees and courses in hospitality, the culinary arts and event management and I've managed to talk to lots of businesses about taking our students on placement."



While spa speed networking is new, Richard Cope, Senior Trends Consultant Mintel, is a WTM London regular. Attendees at his well-attended session were given first access to its 2017 consumer trends analysis, getting advance notice on wearables as a payments device, travel brands sponsoring the restoration of iconic monuments across Europe, chatbots and AI becoming a mainstream customer service channel and the potential time-limited offers and promotions.



Elsewhere Mexico City Tourism Trust Director Magdalena Sanchez noted that Donald Trump's victory in the US election came on the 27th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall came down. The most important thing is to say Mexico is open for business to the world. As a tourist service we are working to strengthen our markets, this is why we are here,



Simon Press, senior director, WTM London 2016, said: "Our decision to revamp WTM London as a three-day event was in response to our listening and responding to our core audience of buyers, exhibitors and visitors. We are confident we have, yet again, delivered a best-in-class event which reconfirms our status as the leading global event for the travel industry." - TradeArabia News Service
In October, Donald Trump visited the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg to explain his plans for his first 100 days in the White House.

Trump, now the president-elect, told the Pennsylvania crowd that he would work to bring back jobs in the energy industry.

I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal, he said.

Wyomings energy economy has been shaken in recent years by a triple bust in oil, gas and coal.

Those working in the states energy sector, from coal miners to oil company executives, have largely supported the Republican on the premise that he would repeal restrictions on development, including the Clean Power Plan, the coal moratorium on federal lands and environmental regulations on drilling for oil and gas.

Most agree that some, though not all, of those promises are possible. What analysts and experts differ on is the impact those changes will have on the economy.

A Trump presidency could encourage the oil market to be a competitor on a global scale, said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.

There is an old joke around here that under President Obama we lifted restrictions on Iranian oil production, but we put restrictions on our own, he said, referring to the end of sanctions on Iran under the Obama administration.

Wyoming has struggled in part because of oils low prices, but the industry overall has struggled because of restrictions, he said.

It doesnt have to be that way, and it likely wont be under Trump, he said.

Everybody acknowledges that regulations are good, but some of them becomes so burdensome that its made it almost impossible to do business, he said. I think being able to work better with the federal government will allow the energy companies to do what they do best and create energy, drill for energy.

However, though the volatile oil markets respond quickly to geopolitics, there are other commodities of importance to Wyoming that may not experience a direct boost due to Trump.

Stepping back regulation will be a relief to coal producers navigating a difficult market, said Jim Thompson, who leads North American coal research at IHS Energy, a consulting firm.

I think [producers] are hopeful that they might get a little easier regulatory climate, maybe stop some of the bleeding, some of the policies that are adverse to coal, he said.

Its a reach to say that a Trump presidency, or any presidency, can single-handedly save the coal industry.

I dont think anyone sees it as a panacea or an instant cure for problems that have been difficult for coal, Thompson said. Certainly it suggests the possibility of a friendlier environment, and that could translate towards increased investment  it certainly will be seen as an opportunity to get some relief.

But regulations are only part of the story of beleaguered coal.

Chuck Mason is an energy economics professor at the University of Wyoming. He agreed with Thompsons cautious assessment of how Trumps win will affect conditions for coal.

The market will remain under pressure with or without large federal regulations such as the Clean Power Plan, Mason said.

The issue is an economic one, he added. Technologies such as fracking made natural gas more accessible. That brought down the price and elbowed out coal as the sole cheap source of electricity in the U.S.

There might be a little bit of effect related to regulations, but I dont think thats a big deal, he said. I think the important thing is that a number of political utilities over the course of five to 10 years have switched to using natural gas as their primary fuel.

For coal to suddenly bloom to its former glory, something would have to make natural gas less competitive. There are no signs of market factors achieving that, he said.

Nothing would seem to me to suggest a major contraction in natural gas, he said.

Regulations are bound to change under the next president, and in some ways they will appear to affect markets. But those who believe federal regulation makes or breaks Wyomings energy industries are likely wrong, Mason said.

I think those people who are optimistic might find themselves disappointed going forward, he said.
Wyoming regulators are doubling down on conclusions that natural gas operations were likely not responsible for polluted drinking water in the small town of Pavillion.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality released an 80,000-page report Thursday mirroring findings from earlier studies, despite recent criticism from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Evidence could not tie water pollution to hydraulic fracturing in the gas fields near Pavillion, but further monitoring is recommended, according to the state. Contaminants found in 13 water supply wells sampled by Wyoming regulators in 2014 were likely naturally occurring, the report stated.

A pesticide and a plastics contaminant were discovered in samples. The state said that though inorganic compounds were found in excess of drinking water standards, they were commonly linked to naturally occurring salts, metals and radionuclides. Some common radionuclides are fluorine and chlorine. Oil and gas drilling mud also contains some of the found compounds, according to the state.

The report noted a number of other potential problems for water quality, including pressure building in gas wells, but then said no evidence was found indicating that the problems actually caused water issues.

Gas migration is a common result of some drilling, which creates an avenue for natural gas to escape from the high-pressure bedrock or soil where it was contained to lower-pressure environments above. Some critics of hydraulic fracturing have claimed that increased gas migration is a result of fracking.

Wyoming regulators concluded that bacteria in water supply wells was likely the cause of taste and odor complaints in the Pavillion area.

In addition to its own sampling, the state relied on the Pavillion study conducted by the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, completed in 2014.

Thursdays report does not deviate substantially from the draft released by Wyoming regulators in December. However, the states findings at that time have been criticized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which originally investigated Pavillions water.

In March, the EPA penned a blistering review of Wyomings report, saying the state downplayed health risks and failed to provide evidence to support its findings on the source of water contaminants.

Federal regulators noted that Wyoming failed to provide proof of its claim that the Pavillion fields gas wells were stimulated with small amounts of fracking fluid, nor did they address whether fluids could have escaped gaps in the protective layers around the fields gas wells.

Though they have not retracted their earlier conclusions, state regulators acknowledged they had a difficult time determining how much seepage was due to gas wells because of natural movement of gas in the Wind River Formation.

***

Some Pavillion residents and environmentalists immediately responded to Thursdays report expressing alarm and frustration with the states action.

John Fenton has a farm in the area and has been fighting for answers for years. Hes the chairman of Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens.

I had no expectation that anything would really change, he said. Were back to whats always been industrys talking points: that there is nothing going on, and its bacterial problems.

The whole approach of the states investigation has caused doubt for residents like Fenton. During the original federal study of Pavillions water, there were numerous opportunities for the locals to attend public meetings. When the state took over in 2013, it didnt offer that civic engagement, he said.

We would have to call and beg for information, he said. I think in cases like this, when its such a hot topic, transparency is one of the most important tools you have, and that was the first tool they put away.

The company that operates the gas field, Encana, contributed $1.5 million to the states study. That troubled some in Pavillion, Fenton said.

You have the very people potentially being investigated paying for part of the study, Fenton said. If you were just a lay person looking at it, that seems dishonest and not how you want to conduct it yourself.

Fenton said he wasnt sure what the next step in fighting on the issue would be, except to go through the states study and analyze its findings.

The Powder River Basin Resource Council denounced the states report as inadequate and called on the state and Encana to clean up groundwater contamination.

***

However, others championed the states report as a blow to anti-fracking movements.

Todays announcement from the Wyoming DEQ doesnt just close the case on Pavillion  its a knockout blow for activists who have tried to use Pavillion as a key talking point for their ban-fracking agenda, said Randy Hildreth, the Colorado director of Energy In Depth, the media and community outreach arm of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

Gov. Matt Mead commended the states efforts in a statement after the Pavillion report was released. The state has spent close to $1 million installing water cisterns to qualifying Pavillion landowners. It has also provided a bottled water delivery service to 11 homes for two years. That service will be discontinued in March.

Pavillions drinking water was originally investigated by the EPA, which released a study in 2011 linking fracking to contaminated drinking water. The studys findings spread rapidly, and the small Wyoming town became a poster child for the anti-fracking movement.

Industry leaders, politicians and state regulators criticized the federal findings.

Two years after it released its shocking report, the EPA handed over control of further study to Wyoming. A Star-Tribune investigation revealed that the federal regulators did so fearing pushback on their findings.

Dominic DiGiulio, the former lead investigator on the EPAs investigation of Pavillion, also criticized the state. In an article released in March, DiGiulio defended the EPAs original findings. That article came out after the states official comment period on the December draft, so a response to its contents is not included in Thursdays final report from the DEQ.

State regulators will hold a public meeting in Riverton in early December. Their report includes a recommendation that the EPA plug its monitoring wells in the field. Though a number of recommendations and considerations are noted in the states final report, a timeline was not provided Thursday morning.
Voter turnout in Natrona County and across the state in Tuesdays election was about the same as the last presidential contest.

Despite an uptick in early voting, only a few more thousand Wyomingites cast ballots this year compared with the 2012 contest between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

In Natrona County, 33,311 people voted in this years race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. That was down about 300 votes from four years ago.

Trump won 70 percent of the vote in Wyoming, the highest ratio in the country.

Statewide, 258,725 ballots were cast for president, about 8,000 more than in 2012.

The vote-counting in Natrona County was delayed due to a new team operating the central counting machine, County Clerk Renea Vitto said.

Results did not come in until 10:38 p.m., about three and a half hours after polls closed. Vitto said two factors led to the delay.

First, a problem with the way some voters filled out absentee ballots slowed the count.

Vitto said that rather than filling in the ovals on the ballot, about 150 voters made check marks or put a dot. The machine cant read those marks, so a poll worker must duplicate the ballot by filling out a fresh one based on the marks made on the unreadable original.

If people would learn to read instructions and vote properly, that would help a lot, Vitto said.

About 11,100 early voting or absentee ballots were submitted in Natrona County, Vitto said.

Second, Vitto said, the team operating the counting machine was new this year. The former operator had taken a new job and was barred from assisting the current workers due to a conflict of interest.

She said the election team spent hours on the phone with tech support trying to determine the most efficient way to tally the vote totals submitted by each precinct. Those ballots are tallied at the individual precincts and submitted to the central county center on a memory card. But if the digital files do not match the total number of ballots submitted, workers must sort through them by hand.

Vitto said the elections staff unintentionally chose a tallying system that meant more ballots needed to be recounted than necessary.

Its just a live and learn, she said.
Attorneys representing a Casper man suspected of fatally stabbing his roommate last year will not be able to use mental illness as a defense when his trial begins Monday.

Don Johns was charged with first-degree murder in August 2015 on suspicion of stabbing his roommate, Don Wickersham, to death after an argument. He has undergone two mental health examinations since he was arrested, and both have found him competent to stand trial.

Prosecutors argued at a hearing Wednesday that Johns could not use mental illness or his mental state at the time of the alleged attack as a defense because he previously pleaded not guilty, instead of not guilty by reason of mental deficiency. Johns attorneys agreed to the prosecutors request.

Its our opinion that Mr. Johns is competent, said Robert Oldham, one of Johns attorneys.

Johns previous attorney, Tim Cotton, did not agree with the results of the first evaluation by the Wyoming State Hospital and ordered a second test to be completed by an independent psychologist. Cotton believed Johns had a mental deficiency.

Officers found Wickershams body in the Jackson Street apartment the two men shared after a neighbor reported discovering the bloody body. Neighbors said they often heard the roommates fighting but that the noise that night had been more intense, according to court documents.

Johns later called police and asked to be picked up. When officers arrived at the spot on Lathrop Street, they found Johns on his knees and with his hands on his head. They then searched the property and found bloody clothing, including a pair of shorts that others had said he was wearing the night Wickersham died.

Through the hourlong hearing Wednesday, Johns sat in bright green jail scrubs and watched with a furrowed brow as the attorneys presented their arguments. Every so often he would lean forward and grab his glass of water with his mouth, drinking from it without using his hands.

Johns attorneys also requested that the trial be moved to a different county because incorrect information in a news article would prejudice jury members against him. Hucke cited a news story that stated Johns had previously been convicted of felonies, when in fact he had not.

He doesnt feel he would receive a fair and impartial trial in this county, said Tracy Hucke, one of Johns attorneys.

Natrona County District Court Judge Catherine Wilking denied the request.

Prosecutors also argued that Johns attorneys should not be able to argue that somebody else killed Wickersham without presenting the evidence used to make the allegations to both the judge and prosecutors.

Wilking ordered that the defense attorneys could insinuate that other suspects should be considered, but the attorneys will not be able to name specific people as potential suspects without prior conversation with the judge.

Johns trial was scheduled to begin Monday morning and last about seven days. Prosecutors previously said they will not seek the death penalty.
The states utility regulatory board will remain an all-Republican panel, barring a sudden shift from uncounted ballots.

Unofficial results Wednesday showed incumbents Bob Burns and Andy Tobin handily winning new four-year terms to the Arizona Corporation Commission. Burns was first elected in 2012; Tobin was appointed earlier this year by Gov. Doug Ducey after the resignation of Susan Bitter Smith, also a Republican.

Republican Boyd Dunn, hoping to replace retiring regulator Bob Stump, was maintaining a lead of more than 25,000 votes over his closest competitor, Democrat Bill Mundell. Democrat Tom Chabin was trailing further back.

The election results, if they hold, are a victory for Pinnacle West Capitol Corp., the parent company of Arizona Public Service. It put more than $4.1 million into an extensive media campaign to promote the three Republicans as Arizonas sustainable solar team.

APSs interest was in defeating the two Democrats, who were more supportive of the positions taken by companies like SolarCity to require utilities to keep policies that make the purchase and lease of rooftop solar units more financially attractive. That includes utilities giving a kilowatt-for-kilowatt credit for excess power produced by homeowners.

Yet Save Our AZ Solar, which spent $2.4 million in funds from SolarCity, also was financially supportive of Burns, believing he would be friendly to the companys views. It didnt hurt that Burns is involved in a lawsuit with Pinnacle West over his demand the company turn over its books so he can see whether it secretly funneled money into electing Republicans to the commission two years ago.

It will be the new commission that acts on rate proposals by not just APS but also Tucson Electric Power and several other utilities.

There are several common threads to what companies want.

Aside from higher bills, one is a change in how much utilities have to credit their customers for the excess power they produce. Companies want a system where the amount it closer to what they would have to pay for replacement electrons from a commercial source, a rate much lower than retail.

There also is the controversial question of whether residential customers should incur a demand charge.

Current bills are computed on a base charge for service plus charges based on the number of kilowatt-hours used. Some utilities offer time-of-day rates designed to encourage customers to shift usage of optional things like dryers and pool pumps to hours when there is less demand on the system.

A demand charge would add another factor based on the highest one-hour use in any given month. So even if customers keep overall use low, they would be assessed an additional fee if several appliances were running all at the same time.
Getting kids to like opera is like asking them to take a second serving of vegetables instead of ice cream.

But what if you served them opera in bite-sized, kid-friendly chunks? And what if you dressed it up in a familiar fairytale  like Beauty and the Beast?

Thats what the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music is doing this weekend.

The schools UA Opera Theatre is serving up two short operas on one program that even kids will love: Gianninis Beauty and the Beast and Ravels LEnfant et les Sortileges.

Both clock in under an hour apiece and both are fairytales: Gianninis is based on the popular story of Beauty and the hideous Beast who turns into a handsome prince; Ravels LEnfant retraces a boys nightmare of everything including his toys and the chair hes sitting on turning against him after he misbehaves.

Beauty is sung in English, while LEnfant is in French with supertitles.

The fact that both are so short offers an easy entry point for folks who might be turned off by the notion of spending three or four hours in a theater watching opera for the first time.

Its still really vital and exciting and it gives audiences an opportunity to enter into this beautiful, beautiful world, said guest director Cynthia Stokes, making her Tucson debut with this weekends performance. The students and Arizona Symphony, under the baton of Thomas Cockrell, will perform four times from Thursday, Nov. 10, through Sunday, Nov. 13.

Stokes knows all about creating inviting entry points for new opera audiences.

The San Diego, California, resident two years ago launched the innovative City Opera, a company that mounts contemporary works in English in unique spaces that have included abandoned warehouses and factories.

Its wackadoo, Stokes admitted, but what I like about it and what I think is really important about what is happening in the world of opera now is were rethinking the model from the way performers look to the ways artists communicate on stage and the stages they communicate on.

Beauty and the Beast will strike a chord with younger audiences, most of whom are familiar with the story from watching Disneys animated version.

And LEnfant et les Sortileges will strike a chord with parents as well. The story takes place in the imagination of a young boy whose mother sends him to timeout when he acts up.

He sits on the chair and imagines/dreams that everything and everyone is mad at him, from the books he scribbled in to the toys he destroyed. And they are all out to get him.

Weve all been there, right? said Stokes, the mother of two boys who said that the beautifully crafted libretto by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette has a happy ending.

He falls asleep and takes a nap and his mom is there when he wakes up, she said.

More than two dozen UA vocal students will participate in the production at Crowder Hall.

These kids are great. I was blown away hearing them sing, Stokes said.

I was impressed.
Sometimes, a run for the border (yeah, were looking at you, Taco Bell) just aint gonna cut it.

Its late and you want food, and rolling through a drive-through just doesnt feel  right. You want to cap off a special night out after a show or concert with an equally special meal.

Well guess what? You dont have to settle for scattered, smothered and covered.

Not all eateries pull down the shades at 9 p.m. For your consideration, some late-night dining spots
PHOENIX  A 2011 state law requiring employees to pay more into their retirement plans is unconstitutional, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled today, potentially blowing a big hole in the budgets of state and local governments.

In a divided ruling, the justices said that when judges took the bench they were told they would have to contribute just 7 percent of the earnings to the Elected Officials Retirement Plan. Acting Supreme Court Justice Randall Howe, writing for the majority, said that became part of their contract with the state.

What that means, Howe said, is that the state could then not unilaterally boost the judges' contribution to 11 percent, even if lawmakers said that was necessary to maintain the financial stability of the pension fund.

On paper, the case affects only those judges who were on the bench as of 2011, when the law changed.
One of President-elect Donald Trumps signature campaign promises was building an impenetrable wall on the U.S.-Mexico border  and making Mexico pay for it.

The proposal took several forms over the course of Trumps campaign, but most commonly he proposed a solid wall dozens of feet high, stretching about 1,000 miles along the international boundary.

In Arizona and California, much of the border already has some sort of fencing.

Urban areas tend to have pedestrian fencing, where 20-foot steel poles separate places like Nogales and San Diego from their sister cities in Mexico. As their name implies, they're designed to stop people on foot.

Remote areas, where crossers often are in cars, have chest-high vehicle barriers, rail-and-post fencing, or barbed wire.

Arizona has about 120 miles of pedestrian fencing and 180 miles of vehicle barriers along its border with Mexico. Along the remaining 66 miles, the only barrier is barbed wire or mountains.

Border Patrol officials say fences are tools to slow down illegal border crossings and give agents time to make an apprehension, rather than stopping crossings altogether. Trump's proposed wall would be designed to stop all crossings outside of legal ports of entry.

About 1,200 miles of the border have no fencing of any kind, but most of those stretches have canyons or mountains that act as natural deterrents  and where the terrain makes building a fence or wall difficult. In Texas, most of the border is along the Rio Grande, which serves as a natural barrier, or is privately owned.

Trump has said he does not plan to build the wall along stretches where natural barriers suffice.

Fenced or not, the borderlands are protected by Border Patrol agents. Large swaths also are guarded by sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment.

The estimated costs of walling the rest vary, but range from a few billion dollars to as much as $40 billion.

Trump consistently said he would make the Mexican government pay that bill. But Mexican officials voiced stiff opposition to that idea. Whether a fiscally conservative, Republican-controlled Congress will approve spending billions of dollars on such a project might be the biggest question of all.
The Southern Arizona Council for International Visitors is hosting a diversity summit from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday in the Amethyst Room at Pima Community Colleges downtown campus, 1255 N. Stone Ave.

The summit is free and open to the first 70 to attend.

Our objective is to broaden the scope of understanding on the culture differences that surround Southern Arizona, said Pat Watson, the councils executive director.

Diversity here impacts peoples lives in a many ways, she said.

Hopefully, this can bring about more understanding and compassion, she said.

The speakers will include Ricardo Pineda Albarran of the Consulate of Mexico in Tucson, who will discuss partnerships developing between Mexico and Arizona.

Topics by other speakers will include tribal living and related laws as well as diversity in the courtroom and how interpreters help people with different languages understand the process.

For more information, visit sazciv.org.
With nearly 30 years of experience in law enforcement, Mark Napier said hes ready to get back to work in the field and help improve the state of the Pima County Sheriffs Department.

The Republican challenger defeated Sheriff Chris Nanos in what became one of Tucsons more heated races. Napier prevailed over the Democrat Nanos, 56 percent to 44 percent in Tuesdays election.

After a contentious election cycle, Napier, a retired Tucson police captain, said his first priority is to restore department morale among many front-line employees whove felt overlooked, bullied or unappreciated.

Im going to treat them in a manner thats more respectful, more open and more in the vein of (service) and leadership, he said. I acknowledge the fact that as a boss, your job is to help people to do their jobs.

During the campaign, Napier talked about the department being top-heavy, specifically the top two positions. After the suicide of Chief of Staff Brad Gagnepain and the indictment of Chief Deputy Chris Radtke on federal charges of misuse of public funds, both positions are vacant.

I certainly dont see any merit at the current time to restore either position, Napier said. Ill also be looking at bureau chiefs for other opportunities to maybe do some consolidation or scale back some senior command positions.

Overpopulation in the county jail came into discussion during the election cycle, and Napier said hes ready to start working on a solution.

There should be more community-based alternatives than there are, he said. There are ways to redirect people who are nonviolent offenders and dont pose a risk to the community to some alternatives that will be less expensive and more effective.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Napier had already spoken to law enforcement leaders across Southern Arizona, and discussions of collaboration are already in the works.

I think (Tucson Police Chief) Chris Magnus and I working together can bring our agencies together and talk about best practices in each department, he said.

He expressed appreciation to all his supporters, but added a special thanks to Pima County Democrats, saying he wouldnt have had as strong a showing as we did if voters hadnt been willing to cross party lines and lay aside partisanship.

Napiers term begins Jan. 1. He will be sworn-in by the board of supervisors later that month.

Nanos was appointed to the position by the Board of Supervisors in July 2015 to complete the term of longtime Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.

Over the past several months, Nanos campaign was clouded with allegations of the FBI investigation into alleged misuse of funds intended for crime fighting, which culminated in the indictment of Radtke in late September.

Nanos did not return the Stars calls for comment Tuesday night, but he conceded to Napier and announced his retirement in a post on his personal Facebook page.

Thank you ALL for your support. You have no worries as the PCSD will ALWAYS keep you safe, Nanos wrote in the post. It was an honor to work alongside so many talented and caring individuals, just as it has been an honor to serve you and this great community.
Phoenix and Tucson have reached another water-sharing agreement: to store a substantial amount of Phoenixs Colorado River supply in the Tucson area next year even as Tucson leaves a substantial portion of its supply in ailing Lake Mead.

Tucson will leave nearly 20 percent of its Central Arizona Project water supply in Mead next year, in hopes of propping up the declining lake and pushing back the date of shortages that would cut deliveries, particularly to cities.

Tucson and Phoenix also have agreed to have Phoenix store much more of its CAP supply in a Tucson-area underground aquifer next year than planned. The upshot of the deal is that even though Tucson will leave a lot of water in Lake Mead, it will still put even more CAP into its Avra Valley recharge basins next year than it normally does.

But when a future Colorado River shortage occurs, Phoenix would get to make use of the same amount of Tucsons share of CAP water as its now getting ready to store in Tucson. Its a trade-off that pleases water leaders in both cities, as well as Arizonas top water official.

The actions like that which are taken by water users to conserve water in Lake Mead is a very positive thing, said Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke. I havent heard from anyone else interested in doing what Tucson is doing, but maybe when they hear Tucson is doing that, other folks will step forward.

Tucsons mayor and City Council strongly support Tucson Waters action, but several members are frustrated that the utility acted unilaterally. Tucson Water Director Timothy Thomure said that was because City Manager Michael Ortega had to place a CAP order for next year by Oct. 3, and the negotiations with water project officials and others involved in this deal werent wrapped up until Sept. 29. For various reasons, the issue wasnt brought to the council until this week.

Mayor Jonathan Rothschid and council members Steve Kozachik, Paul Cunningham and Karin Uhlich said this isnt acceptable and that they want to be involved earlier in such negotiations in the future.

This is about our future, Cunningham said. Without water there is no Tucson left.

While its constructive for Tucson to collaborate with cities such as Phoenix, that does not mean the decisions should start getting made by a handful of staff members, Uhlich said. Water is worth more than gold here. Its life.

Specifically, the Tucson-Phoenix arrangement works like this:

Next year, Tucson will leave 26,000 feet of its 144,000 acre-foot CAP supply in Lake Mead. Typically, Tucson Water takes all the water, but stores nearly one-third in Avra Valley recharge basins for when its needed in times of shortage. It usually puts the rest of that water into the same basins and pumps it out over the course of a year.

Phoenix will store 36,500 acre-feet in the Avra Valley basins next year, and put an additional 3,500 acre-feet in another recharge basin for Metro Waters future use. Typically, Phoenix uses about two-thirds of its total CAP supply, and the rest goes to other, Arizona-based CAP users such as farmers and the Arizona Water Bank. The bank stores it in its recharge basins for future use.

When a Colorado River shortage occurs thats severe enough to affect cities, Tucson could pump the Phoenix-stored water for its use. Phoenix, in turn, could pull a similar amount of Tucsons CAP supply in the same year as the water heads down the projects concrete canal to one of two Phoenix-area CAP treatment plants.

This arrangement saves Tucson $5.3 million next year. Thats $1.8 million in payments from Phoenix for storing its water down here, and the $3.5 million it saves in payments to CAP for unordered water.

While this arrangement is now only for next year, Phoenix Water Director Katherine Sorensen said she hopes it will become a long-term arrangement. Thomure said its possible that Tucson Water will come to the council about extending this setup for three to five years.

This is the second time the two cities have agreed to increase the scope of their water-sharing agreement since they first signed it in 2014.

This agreement comes as water officials around the Southwest are negotiating a three-state agreement to reduce their use of Colorado River water in hopes of reducing if not arresting Lake Meads continued decline. The lake is expected to end 2017 barely 3 feet above 1,075 feet. Below that level, an initial shortage would be declared, slashing water deliveries to Arizona farmers and the water bank.

The bigger concern is that if additional steps arent taken to keep more water in Mead, in 10 percent of all possible future scenarios Mead would drop to 1,025 feet by 2019, according to computer models. At that level, Arizona cities would face CAP shortages, Thomure said. But with the water use cuts now being considered by the three states, plus Tucsons reduction, the odds of the lake hitting 1,025 feet would be reduced to less than 10 percent in most years through 2026, he said.

Now, with five years worth of CAP water stored underground in the utilitys basins and others run by the water bank, we are rich with water, Thomure said.

We can build a fence around Tucson and say that were resilient and we dont need to participate in discussions with other cities, but were at risk if we do so, he said. Were better off if we work collectively, in a much better position for the long term.

Its in Phoenixs best interest to store as much CAP in Tucson-area aquifers as it can, water director Sorensen added. Currently, Phoenixs ability to store its CAP water in underground aquifers in its area is limited because it abandoned most wellfields back in the 1980s when it switched to CAP, Sorensen said.

Phoenix can meet only 5 percent of its total demand with groundwater, which is very concerning to us, she said.
Bird lovers, rejoice! Sandhill cranes have returned to their Southern Arizona wintering grounds at the Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department has trained it's live-streaming camera on the birds, making it one of only two in the country that offers viewers a chance to observe the cranes in their "wintering habits."

Watch the birds live here.

The best time to watch is 30 minutes before and up to 30 minutes after sunrise, just before they leave the roost to feed for the morning. They return to Whitewater Draw in the late morning and remain there for the rest of the day.

The live stream will be trained on the wintering grounds through March or April, when the birds will migrate north.
PHOENIX  Voters in several states across the nation decided their residents should have more access to marijuana  except Arizona.

Unofficial totals from Tuesdays election show Proposition 205 failing by more than 80,000 votes out of more than 1.9 million ballots cast.

Yet similar measures to allow adults to buy and use marijuana for strictly recreational use were approved in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada. And voters in Florida, Arkansas and North Dakota agreed to allow marijuana for medical use, something Arizona has had since 2010.

So what went wrong here?

Pro-205 spokesman Barrett Marson was not answering questions, insisting there are enough uncounted votes  close to 630,000 statewide as of Wednesday afternoon  to potentially push the measure over the top. But with the margin between supporters and foes having remained relatively static throughout the counting, Marson conceded its a tough hill to climb.

At the national Marijuana Policy Project, which provided the largest donation to the Arizona effort, the focus was on regrouping for another fight

The strategy in Arizona is certainly to try again, said Rod Kampia, the organizations executive director. What that looks like hasnt been determined.

Ditto when that will happen.

Kampia said it could be as soon as 2018. But he said 2020 might be more favorable, what with a generally higher turnout in presidential election years.

As to what happened Tuesday, Kampia said the loss here came down to resources.

Money matters in politics, he said. The governor of Arizona raised a wall of money in a way we have not seen in other states.

Kampia said the estimated $6.1 million spent to kill Proposition 205 exceeds the tally of spending on anti-marijuana measures in Nevada, Massachusetts and Maine combined.

Granted, we did raise a lot of money on our side out of necessity, Kampia said. We were still outspent.

Donations reviewed by Capitol Media Services totaled $6.6 million. But much of that had to be spent in hiring paid circulators to get the signatures to put the measure on the ballot in the first place, an expense the other side did not need to match.

There may be another factor.

Nicholas Vita, chief executive of Columbia Care which operates medical marijuana dispensaries in Prescott, Tempe and elsewhere across the country, said the fact that Arizona already allows patients who need marijuana to buy and use it may have impacted the decision by voters not to expand the program to recreational use.

When youre dealing with a compassionate debate where somebody can really benefit and improve the quality of their life, thats something that I think people feel very strongly about, Vita said. Recreational, its not as easy to get the same level of connection.

Foes played on that point, saying those who need the drug can get it.

Existing law permits those with specified medical conditions and a doctors recommendation to obtain up to 2 ounces of the drug every two weeks. More than 108,000 Arizonans are medical marijuana patients.

But much of the campaign against Proposition 205 was based instead on statements from officials in Colorado who legalized the drug for recreational use four years ago. While none claimed that Colorado voters are ready to repeal their law, they urged Arizonans to consider the detrimental effects of legalizing the drug and, if nothing else, wait a few more years to see how legalization is working out there.

Then there was the opposition of Gov. Doug Ducey who criticized the measure not only in public but at private events to raise money for the anti-205 cause.

I dont think that any state became stronger by being stoned, Ducey said.

Another issue raised by foes of Proposition 205 is that the owners of medical marijuana dispensaries would have gotten priority for the limited number of licenses for recreational retail outlets. But Vita, who supported the initiative, said that preference made sense.

You have people who are familiar with the business, he said, and who know how to operate within the confines of the law.

Going forward, there also is the chance that there may be less need for a state-by-state effort.

Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, a supporter of legalized marijuana who campaigned for Proposition 205 here, said the fact that so many states now allow some form of legal use of the drug will put pressure on his colleagues to act at a federal level.
Trump Election Protest Connecticut

Joseline Tlacomulco leads several hundred people in a march on the University of Connecticut campus, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in Storrs, Conn., protesting the election of Donald Trump as president. Tlacomula, a sophomore who lives in New Haven, said she was born in Mexico and came with her family to Connecticut when she was 8-months old. She fears her family may face deportation under a Trump administration. (AP Photo/Pat Eaton-Robb)
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.  A Mexican man has been arrested in last year's hit-and-run death of a Phoenix doctor.

Scottsdale police say 26-year-old Ruben Santiago-Lopez turned himself in Monday at the Nogales port of entry.

Dr. Robert Arceci died at the scene after a landscape truck turned in front of him while he was riding his motorcycle in Scottsdale.

At the time of his death, the 65-year-old Arceci was hematology/oncology division chief at Phoenix Children's Hospital.

Police say the truck that hit Arceci pulled over and remained on scene with two occupants, but the driver identified as Santiago-Lopez ran away and fled to Mexico.
Kari Lake claimed in an interview on Sunday that new abortion restrictions could lead to locking up a lot more rapists. But exactly how that would happen is unclear, and critics say the idea is utter hogwash. Lake, the Republican nominee for governor, made the assertion during a televised interview by KTAR radio host Mike []

The post Kari Lake says Arizonas strict abortion laws will put more rapists in jail. Critics say thats nonsense. appeared first on Arizona Mirror.
On July 27, Rijiju said in the Lok Sabha that the BJPs ideology on the uniform civil code should be taken as the country's ideology on the same. Basil Islam | TwoCircles.net NEW DELHI  Union Minister Kiren Rijijus recent remarks on implementing the uniform civil code have re-ignited the debate on the viability of a uniform civil code and its possible...
Youll probably use Google, Facebook and YouTube every day to share and research information. However, in some countries such as China, people dont have access to these, and it means they only rarely have a chance to tell the rest of the world about their lives in China.

Ive been asked a few times about Chinese feminism in China; and I realised, as a movement, it is only rarely talked about outside of our borders. But the movement for womens rights has played an important role in the lives of women over the past 100 years, and things have changed slowly over here too.

Slow close in gender gap in China

There are various reasons why the gender gap started to close slowly. The Females Anti-Foot Binding and Female School Establishing Movement contribute a lot to the rise of womens social status. However, peoples mindset is hard to change; they still remain conservative due to years and years of common practice in China. For instance, the concept of patriarchy still sounds common. Thus, there is still a long way to go until inequality will be fully eliminated.

First Flower of Spring

Generally speaking, the level of education of women has improved when compared with the past. With advanced knowledge, more women are employed to work in high skills professions, such as lawyers, or even jobs at higher management level.

Holders of such positions tend to be more financially independent. The gender inequality began to narrow down at this stage. Education has been the driving force for change.

In political terms, the social status of women was liberalised from feudalism. The representation of women in the first Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference was at 11.9 percent in 1954 and increased to 12.3 percent in 1959.

It brought a new image of Chinese women to the world, they were no longer serving their family only, but also started playing a role in broader societal life.

Under the rule of the Republic of China, the government abolished the system of plural marriage. In 1949, the traditional belief and mindset were highly criticised; instead,the concept of love as the foundation of marriage started to be promoted.

Time after time, the advancement of womens educational level and financial independence also empowered women in terms marriage decision.

Alarm bells ringing

An example for persisting gender inequality is, for instance, in Foxconn, where female workers have to undergo long working hours, suffer from poor working conditions, and receive low wages. Besides, arranged marriage is still a common practice in rural areas in China, where millions of women are dominated by men.Whats more, women still participate less in political decision-making processes than men. Until today, the ratio of female representatives in Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference only accounts for 21-22 percent.

It was the best of time, it was the worst of time

Charles Dickens said: It was the best of time, it was the worst of time. Despite all fact that there is still a lot to be done, it is the best time for China to further develop the political system and change the conservative mindset which is one of the biggest challenges. The mindset can be inspired by the practice of countries that are more advanced when it comes to gender equality. The political system, however, has to be improved through bit by bit every day. For instance, through academic discussion.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

George Orwell pointed out that people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. We should stand up for what we believe in, especially for people who cannot stand up for themselves.Realising womens' empowerment in Chinese rural areas may be difficult and challenging, but gender equality is what we believe in so we should stand up for those who are suffering. To conclude with the wise words of Alfred Tennyson: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
f you can't make it to PastForward 2016 next week, join us as a virtual attendee

Live streaming at PastForward is FREE and can be done in the comfort of your home or the convenience of your office. While we want everyone to register as a full conference attendee and participate in all the programming, networking events, and conference experiences in Houston, we want to make sure even more people can take part in the important discussions that take place at PastForward.

This year's virtual programming features:

Theaster Gates, founder and executive director of Rebuild Foundation

Rick Lowe, community activist and artist, founder of Project Row Houses

Stephanie K. Meeks, president and chief executive officer, National Trust for Historic Preservation

Nina Simon, executive director, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History

John Valadez, documentary filmmaker

Note: There is still time to register for the 2016 PastForward Conference . Online registration closes Fri., November 11.

For those of us who aren't able to attend this year's conference, the National Trust is live webstreaming a number of presentations, which is a great service.I haven't been to Houston for many years, but I always admired the energy and activity there. It can also be incredibly green, which isn't something that we normally associate with what we are taught about Texas. Granted, I think their "success because of no zoning" story is way overplayed (2014 blog entry, " A follow up on an earlier point about Houston and extractive economies ," " Office Pileup Gets Worse in Houston ,"), especially now as the WSJ reports that the office market is approaching a 30% office vacancy rate as a result of the drop in oil and gas prices and the concomitant impact on business.Besides the Galleria, one of the first "mixed use" developments by the Hines Interests, there is a great museum district, a variety of historic preservation assets, the area around Rice University, light rail transit expansion, the Houston Medical Center and the multiple graduate and professional education centers there, etc.

Labels: historic preservation
Salvage Robotic Assisted Radical Prostatectomy (sRARP) is increasingly accepted as a treatment option in radio-recurrent prostate cancer. However, there are only a few published series outlining the technical aspects and outcomes after this procedure. The daVinci robot with its endo-wrist technology and vision magnification has facilitated the approach to complex urological procedures; it has permitted technical modifications allowing surgeons to take on more challenging cases such as sRARP. This systematic review compiles all the published series to date presenting data on sRARP and thus provides an important update for this procedure.The studyincludes 197 men from ten series between 2008 and 2016 who had disease relapse after receiving either radiotherapy, brachytherapy, protein beam therapy or a combination of these modalities. Perioperative details (including operative time, estimated blood loss, catheter time and length of stay) were systematically recorded along with surgical outcomes (perioperative complications including specifically rectal injury, anastomotic stricture, continence and potency) and oncological outcomes (positive surgical margin, lymph node positivity and biochemical relapse).Mean operative time for the combined data was not much longer than published non-salvage series at 178 minutes, catheters stayed in for a mean of 11.3 days and men stayed in hospital for 2.3 days. Estimated blood loss was only 153mls. Median follow up across the series was fairly short at 18.6 months (range 3-36 months). In terms of functional outcomes, 60% were continent at the time of follow-up, while 26% of those who had some form of nerve-sparing were potent. For oncological outcomes, 71% were cancer free at follow up. As for complications, a real concern for this type of surgery is damage to the rectum due to scarring and adherence during dissection around the posterior prostatic planes. Despite this, only two men in these series were reported to have had rectal injuries, which is encouraging. Overall, 16% of men had complications requiring intervention (Clavien Dindo >II), including 16 bladder neck stenosis/anastomotic strictures requiring intervention..These combined results present an encouraging picture for sRARP in terms of cancer outcomes although longer term follow up is needed to truly assess the durability of cancer control. Functional outcomes are certainly challenging. While low potency might be expected after multimodal therapy, continence rates here are markedly lower than published non-salvage seriesand present a hurdle to acceptance of this approach.Looking forwards, a larger multicentre European series is being prepared with contributions from Melbourne and other international sites. This will incorporate prospectively collected data and longer-term follow up and we anticipate will further cement sRARP as a viable option for men with radio-recurrent disease. Watch this space.Written by: Alastair D Lamb, Homayoun Zargar, Declan G MurphyDivision of Cancer Surgery, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, AustraliaDepartment of Surgery, Division of Urology, Royal Melbourne Hospital and University of Melbourne, 300 Grattan St, Parkville 3052, Victoria, AustraliaAustralian Prostate Cancer Research Centre, Epworth Healthcare, Richmond, AustraliaReferences:1. Zargar H, Lamb AD, Rocco B, Porpiglia F, Liatsikos E, Davis J, et al. Salvage robotic prostatectomy for radio recurrent prostate cancer: technical challenges and outcome analysis.2016.2. Gnanapragasam VJ, Thurtle D, Srinivasan A, Volanis D, George A, Lophatananon A, et al. Evolution and oncological outcomes of a contemporary radical prostatectomy practice in a UK regional tertiary referral centre.2016.3. Basto MY, Vidyasagar C, te Marvelde L, Freeborn H, Birch E, Landau A, et al. Early urinary continence recovery after robot-assisted radical prostatectomy in older Australian men.2014;114 Suppl 1:29-33.
Kiev to boost agricultural trade with China Updated: 2016-11-10 10:21 (Xinhua)

KIEV - Kiev is stepping up its efforts to fully join the Belt-and-Road Initiative, viewing it as a great opportunity to boost agricultural trade between Asia and Europe, especially between China and Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official told Xinhua.

"It is very important for us to take the advantage as a Silk Road country and let agricultural producers to reap benefits from it," Vladyslava Rutytska, an advisor to Ukrainian Agriculture Minister, told Xinhua in a recent exclusive interview.

Next year, Ukraine plans to open a cargo train route to China via the rail-sea Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) -- an international corridor, which is part of China's Belt-and-Road Initiative.

According to Rutytska, the main advantage of the new train service is allowing a faster transfer of agricultural products from Ukraine to China.

"The Silk Road is an essential trade tool, because the goods could be delivered to consumers within 12 to 14 days, while their transportation on the traditional maritime routes takes between 28 and 30 days. It is of great significance for the producers of short-lived commodities," Rutytska said.

Although China became Ukraine's largest trading partner in agriculture and food products last year, accounting for 7.2 percent of the total trade, the East European country estimates that the potential of bilateral sales between the two sides is untapped.

According to Rutytska, opening a new route for transferring the goods would allow China and Ukraine to boost and diversify their agricultural merchandising.

"For our manufacturers, the Belt-and-Road Initiative means increased trade in dairy products and organic products, our traditionally strong sectors. Also, we are working with China on the opening of the berries and fruits markets," she said.

Apart from boosting its commercial cooperation with China, Ukraine is also willing to explore new trade opportunities with other countries encompassed in the TITR corridor, Rutytska noted.

"For the agricultural sector, it is very important to establish cooperation with all the countries on this route, namely Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and other states," she said.

According to the official, Ukraine views the establishment of the new logistic link not only as a tool to boost its exports, but also as an instrument to import more goods from Asian countries.

Speaking about the prospects to extend the route via Ukraine to Europe, the official said that many European Union countries welcome this initiative.

"Northern European counties are keen to export their products to China and the transit link through Ukraine is a good opportunity for them, Rutytska said.

For Ukraine, the Silk Road is a step towards an increased trade and prosperity of the business, and the country is doing its utmost to join the initiative, she said.
President greets orbiting astronauts in milestone video call Updated: 2016-11-10 03:51 By CHENG YINGQI(China Daily)

President Xi Jinping greets two Chinese astronauts aboard the Tiangong II space lab during a video call on Wednesday afternoon. [Photo/Xinhua]

President Xi Jinping greeted two Chinese astronauts aboard the Tiangong II space lab during a video call on Wednesday afternoon.

Xi asked about the physical condition, living conditions and work progress of Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong during the half-month they have been in space so far. The mission will last a month.

"We are in good health. And our work is going smoothly," Jing said. "We can even watch live broadcasting of Xinwen Lianbo (CCTV's flagship news program at 7 pm) on the spaceship with a smooth and clear picture."

He said the two are enjoying better working and living conditions aboard the space module, which is linked to the Shenzhou XI spacecraft, than their predecessors, adding, "We feel so proud of our country."

Xi encouraged the astronauts to redouble their efforts and cooperate with each other closely to complete the mission successfully.

The Shenzhou XI space mission is China's sixth manned space mission. In the course of these missions, technology for ground-to-space calls has developed rapidly.

Yang Yu, a CCTV commentator, said, "For the audience, the most impressive part about the space-ground calls is the emotional communication that was supported by technological breakthroughs."

chengyingqi@chinadaily.com.cn
Tech agreements abound at matchmaking event Updated: 2016-11-10 08:28 By Song Mengxing in Chengdu(China Daily)

A high-profile innovation and startup forum is held during the 11th EU-China Business and Technology Cooperation Fair in Chengdu earlier this month. [Photo/China Daily]

A matchmaking event at the 11th EU-China Business and Technology Cooperation Fair helped Chinese and European organizations to more efficiently communicate and find partners for cooperation, the event's organizers said.

The negotiation event held on Nov 4 in Chengdu saw the signing of five cooperation memorandums.

The scientific and technological bureau at Chengdu Hitech Industrial Development Zone signed an agreement with the National Research Council of Italy.

According to the agreement, the Italian organization will set up their representative office, the first one in China, in the Chengdu high-tech zone to promote innovation cooperation with small and medium-sized enterprises.

Two of the five memorandums will take effect within the cooperation framework of the Enterprise Europe Network, which has a presence in 54 countries and aims to provide SMEs with services involving technological innovation and trade support. The network set up its western China headquarters in Chengdu in 2011.

The negotiation activity attracted more than 150 enterprises from 14 European countries, as well as some 400 companies from Chengdu and other regions in Sichuan province.

The businesses covered fields ranging from energy conservation and environmental protection, new energy and materials, to mechanical manufacturing, agriculture and tourism.

A Polish company promoted its wind power-generating equipment at the event. Krzysztof Janowski, chief engineer of the company, said use of the equipment is not limited by geographical conditions and it can realize effective wind energy conversion even in areas that do not have strong wind force.

The engineer said the equipment drew attention from some Chinese electric power companies who said they want to cooperate with the Polish company and would discuss technological problems in the near future.

Many excellent companies from Chengdu Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone attracted European counterparts. Among them was Sichuan Methyrr Co, which deals with environmental protection-related science and technology.

Methyrr Co developed a process to turn straw and process them into a new material, of which straw composes more than 70 percent, for producing furniture.

The new material technology may help to reduce straw incineration and deforestation, the company's representative said.

A Russian company interested in the new material and its representative, Anton Kirillov, said that if the technology is exported to Russia, it will help to effectively use the country's abundant straw resources and export products to some regions in Central Asia that lack timber.

It would be a step toward realizing a multinational ecological and environmental protection system, the Russian representative said.

It is said that six European companies wanted to cooperate with the Chengdu-based material company and are expected to come to an agreement soon on how to transfer technology and cooperate.

In addition, at the EU-China fair's Europe-China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Cooperation Dialogue, also held on Nov 4 in Chengdu, representatives from technology incubators, investment organizations, scientific and technological parks and companies discussed topics such as how to foster SMEs and improve financing services.

A representative from the zone said the zone is integrating into the Belt and Road Initiative, which was proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013.

The initiative aims to boost connectivity and trade across Asia, Europe and Africa.

The zone will help set up a technological transfer fund to promote Chinese and European companies' cooperation in capital, brand operations, market expansion, transnational technological transfer and project development.
Deals expected on Xi's trip to Latin America Updated: 2016-11-10 19:07 By An Baijie(chinadaily.com.cn)

China and Ecuador, Peru and Chile will sign a number of agreements covering areas including trade, investment, finance and nuclear power during President Xi Jinping's third trip to Latin America next week, according to China's Foreign Ministry.

China has attached great importance to the development potential in Latin America despite the region's economic growth slowed down in recent years under the background of global sluggishness, Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Chao told a news conference on Thursday.

Xi will visit the three countries from next Thursday. He will also attend APEC leaders meetings in Lima, Peru as part of the week-long trip.

While in Ecuador, Xi will talk with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, meet reporters, attend the launch ceremony of Chinese-aided projects and witness the signing of agreements, Wang said. It would be the first time that a Chinese president visits Ecuador since the diplomatic ties established 36 years ago.

Zhang Xiangchen, a Ministry of Commerce senior official, said that China will announce assistance plans and issue loans to Ecuador during the president's visit.

China will offer help for the rebuilding works including the construction of hospitals, houses and roads in Ecuador, which was hit by a strong earthquake in April, he said, adding that China has already provided Ecuador $2 million cash and $60 million in materials for earthquake rescue efforts.

Xi will speak at Peru's parliament to describe China's policies toward the Latin American region. He will also have bilateral talks with some leaders of the APEC members during the summit, according to Wang, the vice-foreign minister.

China will also initiate negotiations with Chile over the deepening of the free trade agreement that was signed 11 years ago, he said.

After becoming the Chinese president in March 2013, Xi has already visited Latin America twice, after going to Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Mexico in 2013, and to Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba in July the following year.

China is Peru and Chile's largest trade partner, and the third largest for Ecuador. China is also the main investment source for the three countries. Last year, China's direct investment to the Latin America region reached $126.3 billion, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
Chinese-American voters sense ranks rising Updated: 2016-11-11 00:33 By WANG LINYAN in New York and JUNE CHANG in San Francisco(China Daily)

While many people woke up on Wednesday to the stunning fact that Republican Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the US, Daniel Lou, co-founder of the Chinese American Alliance for Trump in New York, wasn't surprised.

"I knew he would win a month ago," said Lou, a Trump supporter who has helped organize several Trump rallies in New York. Lou said before Election Day that he knew many people backing Trump.

Don Sun, president of the Silicon Valley chapter of the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs, said: "Neither Clinton nor Trump lives up to my expectation of a president." Sun said he wrote "Bernie Sanders" on his ballot.

But what comforted him, said Sun, is that he saw a rising voter turnout among Asian Americans, especially Chinese Americans in Cupertino, California, where the population of Asian ancestry takes up 63 percent of the city's total.

"Many of them were first-time voters. They said this year's election was too important to miss," said Sun, also an election officer in Cupertino.

Some Chinese-American voters also tried to influence as many voters as possible.

Liu Min, a former engineer at an IT company in Silicon Valley, voted for Clinton. She gathered her Tsinghua alumni in San Francisco and beyond and people of similar values across the US by binding them into WeChat groups and shared phone bank tips and lobbying tactics.

"Try those small restaurants and grocery stores; those owners are inclined to vote for Clinton and you just leave them the voting guide packet," said Liu in one of her messages. "That usually will work."

For Tian Wang, founder of Chinese Americans for Trump, who has organized fundraisers and many rallies, the next step is a larger plan now that Trump is elected.

"We will continue to gather more people in all states with the current 8,000 registered (members) at CAFT," Wang said. "We will form a national voter bloc in which we will have state chapters in charge of state-level voter registration and voter bloc forming."

Cliff Li, adviser to the Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee for the Trump campaign and executive director of the National Committee of Asian American Republicans, said Trump successfully defined Clinton as part of the establishment even though she repeatedly said she would tax the richest 1 percent.

Almost 70 percent of working-class whites with less than a college degree supported Trump because he became their voice, Li said. He said they used to support Democratic Party.

"Blue-collar workers in Rust Belt states feel their job opportunities have been slighted. They feel they are not protected," Li explained.

Li said data show that 65 percent of Asian Americans voted for Clinton, compared with 73 percent four years ago. Conversely, 29 percent voted for Trump compared with 25 percent four years ago.

"I guess among the 65 percent of Asian American voters for Clinton, Chinese-American voters make 55-60 percent," Li said. "My personal observation is that Chinese-American voters are turning a bit to the right compared with four years ago."

Li said President-elect Trump has a lot on his plate, but he needs to "deliver his first 100-day contract".

Lia Zhu in San Francisco contributed to this story.
US-led coalition says Mosul battle ahead of schedule Updated: 2016-11-07 15:54 (Xinhua)

Brett McGurk, US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter IS, addresses a press conference at the US embassy in Amman, Jordan, on Nov. 6, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

AMMAN -- The military operation against the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq's Mosul is ahead of schedule, said US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter IS here Sunday.

The envoy, Brett McGurk, told a press conference that it is the third week of the operation and "everything is ahead of schedule."

Iraqi security forces, along with Shiite and Kurdish militia with the support of the US-led coalition started an offensive on Mosul in October to retake the city, which fell to IS group in 2014.

McGurk said the coalition is also providing support to the Syrian Democratic Forces in an operation to retake Syria's Raqqa from IS, stressing that there is no coordination with the Syrian regime or the Russians regarding the operation.

He stressed during the press conference at the US embassy in Amman that days of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the IS leader, are numbered, saying that it is only a matter of time to eliminate him and his movement.

The US official said the coalition will also make sure that IS does not move to the south of Syria to represent a threat to the neighboring Jordan.

Earlier in the day, King Abdullah II of Jordan met with McGurk to discuss cooperation and progress in the fight against terrorism.
EU urges members to do more as report shows slower migrant relocation Updated: 2016-11-10 09:25 (Xinhua)

A migrant passes by a French riot policeman guarding next to tents of a dismantled makeshift camp in a street near Stalingrad metro station in Paris after the evacuation of thousands of migrants and their transfer by French authorities to reception centres across the country, France, November 4, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

BRUSSELS - The European Commission on Wednesday adopted its latest progress report on the bloc's emergency relocation and resettlement schemes, urging member states to step up efforts to deliver on their commitments and comply with their obligations.

Assessing actions taken since Sept 28, the report said that an additional 1,157 persons have been resettled with an additional 1,212 relocated during the reporting period.

However, the two figures are smaller than that in the previous reporting period, demonstrating that further efforts are still needed from the bloc's member states to sustain the positive trend reached until now, the report noted.

"After the positive trends we have seen on both relocation and resettlement following summer, now is the moment to sustain them," said Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs, and Citizenship.

"I welcome the work done by member states in their collective efforts on relocation and resettlement so far. I would like to see a stable number of pledges, swift procedures and a stable number of relocations every week," the commissioner added.

"After one year into the schemes, we expect member states to step up their efforts to deliver on their commitment and to fully comply with their obligations," he noted.

There are currently around 24,000 migrants eligible for relocation in Greece and around 20,400 eligible for relocation that have arrived in Italy since January 2016.

If relocation efforts are stepped up, it should be possible to relocate all those eligible within the relocating period (until September 2017), said the report.

"More needs to be done, and swiftly, to address the increasing arrivals in Italy and the many thousands stuck in Greece," said Avramopoulos.

The temporary emergency relocation scheme was established in two EU Council decisions in September 2015, in which member states committed to relocating up to 160,000 people from Italy.
Hundreds of business and government officials come together to discuss expectations and deals

Chengdu Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone announces a deal with Sophia Antipolis, its sister park in France, to initiate a mentor program to boost business and investment opportunities. [Photo/China Daily]

The 11th EU-China Business and Technology Cooperation Fair aimed to promote communication and trade cooperation between China and European countries in fields such as science and technology, the event's organizers said.

The first phase of the fair, which took place from Nov 2-6 in Chengdu, focused on strategic emerging industries including new energy and materials, information and communication technology, modern agriculture and biological medicine.

More than 200 officials from 14 European countries including Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Russia, foreign envoys in China, international organizations and European companies attended the first phase.

Activities organized during the fair in Chengdu included the Theme Forum: the EU-China Cooperation on Green Economy Development, the EU-China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Cooperation Dialogue, promotional conferences for European tourism resources as well as a European technology and product exhibition.

Face-to-face and one-on-one business negotiations remained a distinctive and important event during the first phase of the fair, according to its organizers.

Nearly 500 people, including important representatives from the China Chamber of International Commerce, governments of Southwest China's Sichuan province and Chengdu, the province's capital, and high-ranking officials from Hungary, Finland and Italy attended the fair's opening ceremony on Nov 3.

Several EU member states showcased and promoted their products, technologies and projects in a convention and exhibition center in southern Chengdu.

European exhibitors told China Daily they believe Chengdu offers many opportunities for them to develop business.

Allaga Tamas, director at the Smart Region Innovation Cluster in Hungary, said: "I see a lot of good opportunities in Chengdu, which is very open to foreign innovation and technology."

The cluster represented its 25 members including small and medium-sized enterprises at fair. Allaga said he met with many companies at the event interested in the cluster's business and that he was hopeful about developing business in Chengdu.

Italian wine businessman Vito Lo Castro said Chengdu, where he founded a wine import company in 2013, is developing faster than many other regions in China and offers more space in which to develop business.




Iraqi forces clear areas freed from IS in eastern Mosul Updated: 2016-11-10 09:52 (Xinhua)

An Iraqi girl, who was displaced by fighting in Mosul, looks out of her window at a camp for internally displaced people, in Hassan Sham, east of Mosul, Iraq, Wednesday, Nov 9, 2016. The United Nations says over 34,000 people have been displaced from Mosul, with about three quarters settled in camps and the rest in host communities. [Photo/IC]

MOSUL, Iraq - Iraqi security forces on Wednesday completely cleared the districts freed earlier in the week from the Islamic State (IS) militants in eastern Mosul, a security source said.

The commandos of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) have ended operations to clear the districts of al-Zahraa, al-Samah, Kirkukli, al-Intisar, Malayin and Khdraa in eastern Mosul after several days of fierce clashes with IS militants, killing dozens of them and destroying many of the vehicles, the source from the CTS told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The IS militants were using a complex network of tunnels dug earlier under the city, the source said, adding that the extremist militants also used the civilians as human shields as they prevent them from moving from the battleground.

In the coming days, the troops will push further into the eastern districts of the city, including al-Tahrir and al-Salam, the source said.

Earlier in the month, hundreds of the CTS commandos and Iraqi army made a significant progress at the eastern side of Mosul, and managed to seize six districts.

The advance unleashed the most intense street battles against IS militants since the offensive to retake the city began more than three weeks ago.

The battles inside Mosul pushed the number of civilians who were displaced from their homes to around 34,860 since the start of the military offensive earlier this month, according to the recent report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

On Oct 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city.

Since then, the Iraqi security forces have inched to the eastern fringes of Mosul and made progress on other routes around the city, preparing for a major battle to storm the city and drive out IS militants.

Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
S.Africa wants to work with US in promoting peace: Zuma Updated: 2016-11-10 11:00 (Xinhua)

President Jacob Zuma answers questions at Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, March 17, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

CAPE TOWN - South Africa looks forward to working closely with the new administration in the United States in promoting peace, security and prosperity around the world, especially on the African continent, President Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday.

Zuma made the remarks while congratulating US President-elect Donald Trump on winning the presidential elections, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) said.

Zuma conveyed his best wishes to Trump and looked forward to working with the president-elect to build on the strong relations that exist between the two countries, DIRCO said.

"President Jacob Zuma has today, on behalf of the Government and the people of South Africa, congratulated President-elect Donald Trump on winning the presidential elections that were held in the United States on Nov. 8, 2016," DIRCO said in a statement.

During the election campaign, Trump described South Africa on Twitter as "a crime ridden mess that is just waiting to explode -- not a good situation for the people!"

Fears grew in the South African business circle that Trump's victory could inevitably impact on the future of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), among others.

AGOA, a legislation approved by the US Congress in 2000, gives preferential treatment to 39 African countries by waiving import levies on more than 7,000 wide-ranging products.

Trump's victory ushers in a fresh set of uncertainties into a world already reeling from the Brexit vote, South African political analyst Daniel Silke told Fin24, a local news outlet.

In South Africa's case, AGOA, which was already difficult to renegotiate under the Obama presidency, could possibly be even more problematic with Trump in the White House as the United States would become more protectionist, Silke said.
Abe may hold first meeting with Trump on Nov 17: Japanese official Updated: 2016-11-10 16:06 (Xinhua)

TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President-elect Donald Trump may look to hold their first meeting on Nov. 17 in New York, government officials said Thursday.

Following a 20-minute telephone conversation between Abe and Trump, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda told a press briefing that the pair had agreed to the meeting and to work together on a number of issues.

The proposed meeting between Abe and Trump would come ahead of Abe's planned attendance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum leaders' summit slated for Nov 19-20 in Peru.
Scotland open for business, despite stalled deal Updated: 2016-11-10 19:36 By BO LEUNG(China Daily UK)

The Scottish government insists it is open for business with China, despite a domestic political controversy dubbed the "Scottish shambles" that froze an investment pact with two Chinese companies that was worth 10 billion pounds ($12.4 billion).

Back in March, China's State-owned SinoFortone Group and the China Railway No 3 Engineering Group signed a memorandum of understanding with Scotland's first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, related to investment in clean energy, transport and affordable housing.

Once revealed, the arrangement provoked a backlash from opposition parties that claimed they had not been informed about the "backdoor deal" before the Scottish Parliament was dissolved ahead of elections on May 5.

With Labour and Conservative opponents of Sturgeon's Scottish National Party blasting her government for its handling of the affair, by August, reports said the deal was dead.

However, SinoFortone managing director Peter Zhang told China Daily this week the group has not pulled out of the deal and said no agreement with Edinburgh has been cancelled.

"The deal is actually on hold," Zhang said, citing a slowdown on the Scottish side as the reason.

The Scottish government said it remains open for business and blamed opposition parties for fuelling uncertainty.

"We were aware that Sino-Fortone felt they could not move ahead at that time in the climate of hostility they faced from other parties," it said in a statement to China Daily. "The memorandum of understanding is about building relationships with a view to investment and we remain committed to it."

SinoFortune's Zhang said the Chinese side wanted the Scots to put together an advisory team to focus on the agreement, "but that hasn't happened yet and unfortunately everything has come to a standstill".

"We want to see more commitment from Scotland. We don't want to pull out or cancel the agreement, as we have done a lot of groundwork before we signed the pact. At the moment, SinoFortone has other business to oversee, so the ball is in Scotland's court."

The controversy in Scotland appears to have been further fuelled by local newspaper reports that raised human rights concerns in relation to the agreement. However, one of the Scottish government's critics, Conservative Dean Lockhart, expressed optimism about the future of economic ties with China.

"We need a calm assessment of all this to see if a potentially lucrative deal with China can be reached," Lockhart said at the height of the debate. "These things can't be allowed to fall through because of SNP bungling."
Looking ahead - Nov 10 Updated: 2016-11-10 20:07 (chinadaily.com.cn)

Events and stories coming up in the next few days

Talk illustrates Hong Kong WWII breakout

The Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding and the Meridian Society are hosting an illustrated talk on Monday about the defense of Hong Kong against Japanese invaders during World War II. The campaign, in December 1941, marked the first time British and Chinese soldiers fought alongside. When the Japanese overran Hong Kong, some British and Chinese combatants escaped in a naval operation led by a Chinese navy admiral. Tim Luard, a former BBC China correspondent, will present the talk at Ernst& Young, 1 More London Place, London.

Poetry displayed on ceramics appreciated

The China Exchange is hosting the interactive workshop Words in Clay: The Art of Poetry on Chinese Ceramics on Saturday at 32a Gerrard Street, London. Poetry, either whole pieces or fragments, appear frequently on Tang-dynasty Changsha wares, Song-dynasty Cizhou pieces, later blue-and-white and enameled porcelain and Yixing teapots. The lecture will look at examples of such poetry. The lecture will be presented by Luk Yu-ping, curator of Chinese collections in the Asian department at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Film tunes in to modern musical trend

The School of Oriental and African Studies is presenting a screening on Thursday of the film Chasing the China Wind: A Musical Journey. The showing will be followed by a presentation by the film's director Lin Chenyu. The screening is set for room L67 of the College Buildings in London's Russell Square. Lin's movie is about a patriotic type of music that is popular in China among the post-90s generation that incorporates aspects of traditional music mixed with modern sounds.
Chinese, UK officials discuss intensifying bilateral trade, economic ties Updated: 2016-11-10 22:15 By Cecily Liu and Li Wensha in London(chinadaily.com.cn)

Top Chinese and UK officials discussed the next step for intensifying the economic and trade relations at a high level dialogue in London on Thursday.

The eighth UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue brought the most senior Chinese delegation to Britain this year and involved a series of events, including discussions on trade, financial services, infrastructure and energy. Billions of pounds of projects were showcased, while this year's dialogue has a strong focus on infrastructure investment, trade and financial services.

Chinese Vice-Premier Ma Kai and British Prime Minister Theresa May affirmed the desire of both sides to strengthen the "golden era" of relations as they met on Wednesday, ahead of the dialogue.

Ma passed on the best wishes from President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang to May. He said that the meeting between Xi and May at the G20 Leaders Summit in Hangzhou in September was another affirmation of China and the UK's "golden era" of relations.

The term 'golden era' was coined by Xi and former UK Prime Minister David Cameron last year during Xi's state visit to the UK, when almost 40 billion pounds worth of deals between the two countries were agreed.

May said that she was very glad to meet President Xi in Hangzhou, and said she wanted China to know that Britain was "open for business" as it prepares for life outside the European Union.

"As we take the next step in this golden era of relations between the UK and China, I am excited about the opportunities for expanding trade and investment between our two countries," said May.

Ma said it is obligatory for World Trade Organization members to observe Article 15 of the Protocol on China's accession to the WTO. China strongly opposes any practice to continue comparing the cost of China's exports with that of a surrogate country.

According to Article 15 of the Accession Protocol of China to the WTO, other WTO members are allowed, in anti-dumping cases, to compare the cost of China's exports with that of a surrogate country (third country). However, this practice was only to be maintained for 15 years, meaning it is coming to an end in 2016.

Ma said China expects the UK to maintain objectivity on this matter, and fulfill its obligations in due time and in a comprehensive and thorough way.

Britain has said it backs backed China's aim of gaining market economy status by December this year.

May said the dialogue is an important part of the golden era of relations and she expects more Chinese investment to the UK.

A series of announcements on infrastructure is expected to make during the dialogue. CITIC and Chinese Developer ABP together are investing 320 million pounds in the 1.7 billion pound London Royal Albert Docks project. CITIC Construction will also establish its UK HQ at Royal Albert Dock. When complete, the project is expected to create 30,000 jobs and become a commercial hub of a comparable scale to the City of London and Canary Wharf.

UK exports to China have grown rapidly and Britain is home to more Chinese investment than any other European country.

To contact the reporter: Cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com
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Delegations from the biomedical industry in Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia state have said they would like to promote further cooperation with similar enterprises in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Christoph Block, head of operations at Cluster Biotechnology NRW, said the cooperation with biomedical enterprises in Chengdu's Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone will help the two sides achieve complementary advantages and win-win development.

Block made the comments on Nov 4 at a seminar introducing the NRW bio-pharmaceutical industry. About 10 outstanding Chinese enterprises in the biomedical sector gathered at the meeting in Chengdu, part of the 11th EU-China Business and Technology Cooperation Fair.

Chengdu's high-tech zone has formed a key cluster of biopharma companies, with leading names such as Diao Group, Sichuan Dikang Sci&Tech Pharmaceutical Industry Co, Chengdu Hengrui Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, and Brilliant Pharmaceutical Group attracted to the region. High-tech enterprises such as Alltech Medical Systems and Ultimedical Inc, which focus on medical equipment research, also call the zone home.

Gu Kaifeng, head of the Bio-Pharmaceuticals Industry Department of EU Project Innovation Center in Chengdu, said at the meeting that the Chinese biomedical industry has developed quickly in recent years.

The improving environment in Chengdu and the biomedical business' favorable outlook in the region have appealed to overseas partners, including the NRW cluster from Germany.

"The seminar will form a platform to promote cooperation among biomedical enterprises from Europe and China," Gu said. "NRW is the center of Europe's biomedical innovation," said Fu Qiang, head of Service Center Greater China, NRW.INVEST, the investment promotion agency for the German state.

It has accumulated 443 companies in the life sciences industry, among which 95 are engaged in biotech innovation. In addition, NRW also has 59 higher education institutions and 65 technological centers, which provide incubation service to new startups and help them to form development networks.

"Bio-pharmaceuticals have become a driving force in Germany's innovative economy," said Block, adding that the NRW cluster promotes domestic and international cooperation among researchers, enterprisers, investors and governments.

Chengdu's high-tech zone is on its way to build its own biomedical industrial cluster. In cooperation with the city's Shuangliu district, the high-tech zone built up Tianfu International Biological City in March, which has planned 180 projects so far.

Tianfu also intends to cooperate with biomedical companies from Cuba, the United States and Europe to explore innovative development in the future.
Processing fish for export at a seafood company__Photo: Internet

Vietnam Law and Legal Forum (VLLF) spoke to Dharmendra N. Choudhary, a well-known anti-dumping lawyer in Washington DC. Mr. Choudhary is a reputed surrogate value expert. Since the US government considers Vietnam a non-market economy, it applies a complex and unpredictable surrogate country and surrogate value methodology in anti-dumping proceedings against Vietnamese exporters. Mr. Choudhary succinctly explains the impact of the recent US trade legislations on Vietnamese exporters that nullifies future benefits to such exporters when Vietnam is finally elevated to a market economy status. He also offers some strategic tips to mitigate the prejudicial impact of the recent legislation.In anti-dumping proceedings, the US Commerce Department treats Vietnam as a Non-Market Economy (NME). As a result, for purposes of determining the fair market value of exported goods, Commerce rejects all cost and price data from Vietnam. Instead, Commerce determines the fair market value of Vietnamese goods based on the price data prevailing in a third country that is economically comparable to Vietnam. Commerce typically determines the economic comparability of a country based on its per capita Gross National Income (GNI) data. The per capita GNI of Vietnam as well as other countries varies from one year to next. The rate of variation is not the same across all the countries. As such, the choice of surrogate country is in a constant state of flux.These days, in most cases, Commerce picks India as the surrogate country to Vietnam but sometimes, it also selects other countries, such as Bangladesh, Indonesia etc. To complicate matters further, Commerce has recently indicated that it is no longer bound to limit its choice to economically comparable countries. As such, Commerce has injected further uncertainty into this process, by opening the door to select any country as a surrogate to Vietnam.Another important point is that Commerce requires surrogate values for all inputs utilized in producing a finished good and aggregates them to determine the fair value of finished goods. For any given input, even within a given surrogate country, there are several available choices and, therefore, the selection of surrogate value also is contentious.Due to a perpetual uncertainty surrounding the selection of a surrogate country and thereafter choice of surrogate values from that third country, the outcome in Vietnamese anti-dumping proceedings is unpredictable.Whether Vietnam will be allowed to graduate to market economy status on January 1, 2019, is unclear at this stage. In this regard, Chinas situation offers a guidepost. China, as we know, is also treated as a Non-Market Economy country. Today, the issue of Chinas transition from Non Market Economy (NME) to Market Economy (ME) status is a hotly debated issue. Of late, the US domestic industries have been waging a high voltage campaign in order to deny China this transition to ME status, which is stipulated under Article 15 of Chinas WTO Accession Protocol. Attorneys representing US domestic petitioners have conjured some very creative interpretations of Article 15, suggesting that there was never an agreement to automatically award ME status to China by December 11, 2016. This interpretation, in my view, is disingenuous and does not bode well for any future trade agreements.Unfortunately, Vietnams WTO Accession Protocol is a carbon copy of Chinas Accession protocol and contains identical provisions and, therefore, is subject to the same type of creative misinterpretations. This could lead to a long delay in the transfer over to ME status for Vietnam.Indeed, these new enforcement laws impact all US trading partners, including Vietnam. Most critically, the new regulations tighten the scrutiny of imports covered by Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duty (CVD) cases into the US and stringent origin and value added tests will be applied. Vietnamese goods are particularly subject to these new provisions due to the temptation to transship Chinese products covered by ADD and CVD actions through Vietnam. Vietnamese exporters must be very careful not to run afoul of these new provisions.Notably, there is one particular aspect in these amendments that is especially directed to NME countries like Vietnam. The US understands that sooner or later it will have to grant ME status to Vietnam. In anticipation of this possibility, the US has amended its anti-dumping laws that are applicable to ME countries. Now, citing the presence of a so-called particular market situation, Commerce will be able to apply the surrogate country methodology to even ME cases. The timing of this amendment suggests that it is essentially meant to deny de facto benefits of ME status to Vietnam and China, in the event these two countries succeed in achieving this status.First of all, beginning sometime in 2018, all Vietnamese exporters should begin arguing for market economy status and in support of that they should provide all necessary evidence showing as to how they are functioning independent of their government in all respects, such as, no operational control being exercised by the Vietnamese government through shareholding, independence in setting up of export prices and disposition of profits, independent investment decisions as well as procurement and allocation of resources, independence in appointment of management, and wage fixation based on market principles.Beyond that, they should continue to plan for the worst case scenario assuming continued application of the surrogate country methodology. To that end, they should work closely with their legal counsel, mapping out alternative surrogate country-surrogate value scenarios, in order to establish a safe threshold US export price that would protect from a high anti-dumping levy.From the perspective of legal counsels to Vietnamese clients, there are several tricky issues to be navigated in order to obtain a favorable result in a US anti-dumping case against Vietnamese goods. Conversely, legal counsels representing US domestic petitioners need to prevail on no more than one or two big issues to achieve a high anti-dumping margin.Of all the issues, the surrogate country-surrogate value methodology is the most contentious and problematic. I am kept busy all the year long, travelling through several countries in search of the best quality price data and information. I interact extensively with officials in international and domestic organizations, industry associations and other private entities. Aside from obtaining favorable price data for our clients, I also work extensively to rebut the unfavorable price data submitted by the US domestic petitioners. With Commerce now further liberalizing the choice of surrogate country, these issues have become even more challenging. Since we have been focusing on this key issue for the last several years, building up an extensive network of resources in the process, we are one step ahead in handling this challenge even under the new legal environment. Even so, every case is unique and calls for a fresh approach  there are no set templates to follow. Therefore, we continue to invest maximum efforts and resources in the surrogate value research and data analysis.- (
Over the past five years, Singapores investments in Viet Nam have nearly doubled. Singapores Trade and Industry Minister, Lim Hng Kiang, emphasises the development of longstanding economic relations between Singapore and Viet Nam, which have yielded concrete outcomes, including creation of the Viet Nam-Singapore Industrial Parks (VSIPs). Oxford Business Group talks to Minister Lim about these economic relations.

Ten years after its implementation, how do you assess the Singapore-Viet Nam Connectivity Framework agreement?

The Connectivity Framework Agreement has helped to deepen the longstanding economic relations between Singapore and Viet Nam, and has yielded concrete outcomes, including the Viet Nam-Singapore Industrial Parks (VSIPs). Bilateral trade between Singapore and Viet Nam grew steadily over the past decade, from S$11.3 billion (US$8.1 billion) in 2006 to S$21.6 billion in 2015. Over the past five years, Singapores investments in Viet Nam have also grown from approximately S$24.5 billion to S$46.8 billion in 2014. Viet Nam is now Singapores 11th largest trading partner, while Singapore is Viet Nams 6th largest trading partner. Our people-to-people links have also been strengthened through the growing numbers of visitors from Singapore to Viet Nam, and vice versa. The Connectivity Framework Agreement has also enabled both sides to make good progress and exchange updates on areas of economic cooperation and ongoing initiatives, and to discuss and resolve economic or trade-related issues that arise. Singapore appreciates Viet Nams commitment and support on the issues that have been raised, which has helped to facilitate a more conducive environment for foreign investments into Viet Nam. Singapore and Viet Nam have held 12 Connectivity Ministerial Meetings, to date, and we look forward to Viet Nam hosting the 13th Connectivity Ministerial Meeting in 2017.

How is the Viet Nam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) model being carried out at other Vietnamese localities?

The first VSIP, launched in 1996 in Binh Duong province, was based on a traditional industrial park model. It comprised a self-contained industrial park with modern facilities, such as ready-built factories and full infrastructure facilities, including electricity, treated water, sewage treatment and telecommunications. Following the success of the first VSIP, more VSIPs have been developed across Viet Nam, such as in Bac Ninh, Hai Phong, Quang Ngai, Hai Duong, and Nghe An provinces, by Sembcorp and its joint venture partner Becamex IDC Corporation. The VSIPs have contributed to Viet Nams growth and development by creating more than 170,000 jobs in Viet Nam and generating an estimated total investment capital of US$9 billion from 23 countries. The newer VSIPs are based on an integrated industrial township model, offering mixed-use development concepts that incorporate quality "work, live and play" elements to suit the demands of Viet Nams rapid urbanisation in environmentally sustainable ways. From traditional industrial parks, the VSIPs have become integrated townships attracting higher value-added industries, such as pharmaceuticals, consumer products, and precision engineering, to keep pace with Viet Nams aspirations to transform its economy to move up the value-chain. Today, there are seven VSIP projects across the southern, central, and northern provinces of Viet Nam. I was honoured to attend the ground-breaking ceremony of the 7th VSIP in Nghe An in September 2015. SembCorp also commemorated the 20th anniversary of the VSIPs in September 2016, in conjunction with Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Heans visit to Viet Nam. Strong investment flows and interest from companies from a diverse range of industries have seen the VSIPs flourish and expand. The VSIPs remain a strong symbol of our bilateral economic ties, and serve as a testament to the enduring success of this signature initiative between Singapore and Viet Nam.

What reforms would enhance foreign direct investment (FDI) in Viet Nam?

Viet Nams economic outlook is positive. Viet Nam is also expected to see good FDI growth in the near-to-medium term, driven by a number of new Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), as well as Viet Nams bilateral FTAs with the Republic of Korea and the European Union.

Viet Nam has taken positive steps to improve its business environment and Singapore welcomes initiatives, such as the revision of Viet Nams Foreign Investment laws, allowing greater participation in state-owned sectors, and promoting infrastructure development in Viet Nam through Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), among others. These initiatives will help to address obstacles that enterprises face when operating in Viet Nam and improve the business environment for foreign investors.

Singapore businesses take a long-term view when investing abroad, and look beyond the immediate challenges to assess the potential of the market in the long-run. Our companies recognise that Viet Nam is a country with strong economic fundamentals, including a demographic advantage in its young working population, and availability of resources, such as agricultural land, minerals, oil and gas.

In what ways can Singapore companies contribute to the expansion of Viet Nams financial services?

Singapore is a recognised international financial hub. Over 200 banks have a presence in Singapore to service their corporate clients international activities. Singapore also hosts many international wealth management and insurance companies, as well as other financial institutions.

Singapore banks also have strong global networks, especially in Asia. For example, UOB has more than 500 offices in 19 countries, spread throughout Asia, Western Europe and North America. DBS and UOB have also set up in Viet Nam to service global clients who have invested in Viet Nam.

Viet Nams big corporations, such as PetroVietnam, Viettel Group and C.T. Group, have entered into overseas markets, such as Russia, Peru and Myanmar. Meeting the needs of corporate clients in relatively unknown markets may be challenging for Vietnamese banks. Such corporate clients will also usually require more sophisticated banking services.

Viet Nams banks can partner with our Singapore banks and financial institutions with a presence in these markets. Besides tapping into the Singapore banks market knowledge, their clients can also make use of the ready services offered by these banks in those markets. This will be a win-win situation for all parties.
Lack of capital and access to credit remain the most serious obstacles to the success of Viet Nams small and medium enterprises (SMEs).  Photo vnexpress.net

HA NOI  Lack of capital and access to credit remain the most serious obstacles to the success of Viet Nams small and medium enterprises (SMEs), a report by the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) said.

The report, released in Ha Noi yesterday, and which reviewed Viet Nams business environment in 2015, is the result of a survey conducted by CIEM. More than 2,600 SMEs from ten cities and provinces including Ha Noi, HCM City and Hai Phong participated in the survey.

The survey showed that 83 per cent of businesses said they were facing obstacles in business development, including lack of capital and land for business and production, fierce competition and limits on consumption of products.

This figure remains unchanged when compared with the survey in 2013.

But the rate of businesses facing difficulty accessing credit has reduced, said University of Copenhagen economist Dr John Rand, who is a member of the surveys researchers.

It had decreased from 45 per cent in 2011 to 30 per cent in 2013, and to 24 per cent in 2015, John said.

The limit on consumption of products is the second most serious obstacle, but the survey had seen a reduction in the number of cases. It went down from 27 per cent in 2013 to 21 per cent in 2015.

Nearly 17 per cent of businesses said they were dealing with the pressure of competition. This figure is similar to that of surveys conducted in 2011 and 2013.

The figures are good signals as the business conditions seem to have been improved a little bit, but the order of obstacles still remains unchanged, said John.

At the seminar, participants agreed that the business environment has been better, meaning that the governments policies to support SMEs have been on the right path. However, there are barriers existing that need to be wiped out.

Deputy Director of CIEM Phan uc Hieu compared the business environment to a fish tank, in which each business was a fish. The fish was viable and could develop or not  it depended on the tanks environment.

Sharing the opinion of Hieu, Dr. Finn Tarp from United Nations University said that building a tank was good but it was better to help the fish to be viable and grow. It was necessary to understand the business environment as well as obstacles facing them and their opportunities in order to offer advantageous policies for a sustainable growth.

The survey revealed that nearly 98 per cent of businesses still preferred to remain in the formal sector in 2015. There were a small number of businesses in the informal sector.

As many as 70 per cent of businesses said they had to pay informal charges for accessing public services when they wanted to obtain licences, solve problems related to taxes, taxman and customs, reach contracts or negotiation with customers and for other informal reasons.

The businesses said that they would continue informal payments in the future to deal with difficulties in complying with the State regulations and catching up with the competition in the market.

Finn said the informal payment was still a serious problem, which was damaging the competitiveness of businesses. The Government needed to play an important role in helping businesses get rid of informal payments.

When everything is explicit, the informal payments will certainly reduce, Finn said.  VNS
Vietnamese businesses need to better understand Chinas trade procedures and market to achieve higher export turnover, heard a conference yesterday in Ha Noi.  Photo vnexpress.net

HA NOI  Vietnamese businesses need to better understand Chinas trade procedures and market to achieve higher export turnover, heard a conference yesterday in Ha Noi.

Not only did the conference bring information on the Chinese market and opportunities for major Vietnamese products to China such as rice or coffee, it also helped answer domestic businesses questions on export procedures into China, said o Kim Lang, Deputy Director General of the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade) at the conference.

Vietrade and the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) held the conference in collaboration with the Viet Nams trade promotion office in Chongqing, China, focusing on export opportunities into Chinese market.

The conference centred on Chinas market information and export opportunities for Vietnamese firms, aiming to increase Viet Nams exports into China and attract investment from China to Viet Nam.

According to ao Viet Anh, Viet Nams Trade Promotion Chief Representative Officer in Chongqing, China is one of Viet Nams major importers, with many favourable circumstances allowing for trade between the two countries as China has a large demand for Vietnamese products such as rice, tapioca, rubber, fruits, tea leaves and seafood.

However, Vietnamese goods have long encountered difficulties getting into China due to problems in customs procedures, quarantine, lack of information and connection.

Anh reminded Vietnamese businesses operating in China to go through proper channels such as trade representatives and trade promotion offices, validate Chinese partners actuality and credibility, and to use internationally recognised contracts and practices.

Businesses should also have a deeper understanding of the Chinese Governments rules on imports and market regulations on products quality as well as customers demand. They should also participate in trade promotion activities.

In 2015, according to Viet Nams General Department of Customs, total export and import turnover between Viet Nam and China reached US$66.6 billion, having increased by 13.4 per cent compared to 2014. Of which, Viet Nams exports to China accounted for $17.1 billion with an increase of 14.8 per cent, while importing $49.5 billion with an increase of 13.3 per cent.

While Chinas imports from other ASEAN nations have dropped, import turnover from Viet Nam continued to be strong. At the end of July 2016, Viet Nam has become Chinas largest trade partner in ASEAN with total bilateral trade volume at $52.26 billion, though down by 1.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2015.  VNS
HA NOI  Electronic of Viet Nam (EVN) has so far this year achieved good financial results although it incurred losses in the first six months of this year, an EVN official said.

inh Quang Tri, EVN deputy general director, said according to the governments regulations, the company recently made public a financial statement of the parent, which is EVN, and a consolidated financial statement, including the statements of the parent, three power generator corporations, the National Power Transmission Corporation and five power corporations nationwide.

On its own, the financial statement of EVN, the parent company, posted profit of VN115 billion in the first half of this year, while the consolidated financial statement showed that EVN incurred a loss of VN700 billion, Tri told a Vietnam News Agency correspondent on November 8.

There were two reasons for the loss, he said. Firstly, the first half of the year was the dry season, so there was not much water to run hydroelectric plants. EVN, therefore, had to spend more money to buy expensive electricity from power plants which were run on other fuels such as coal and gas. As a result, production cost of the group increased in the first half of this year.

Secondly, the group also had to pay VN6 trillion as exchange difference between the Vietnamese ong and US dollar in the first half this year, leading to losses of VN700 billion in total in the consolidated financial statement. The losses mainly came from the power generation companies.

Tri said in the first nine months of this year, parent company EVN posted profit of VN1 trillion, while the whole group, including the parent company and its subsidiaries, was expected to have a larger profit.

The group saw positive business results in the first nine months due to the growth of electric output at hydroelectric plants in the third quarter and reduction in payment for buying electricity from plants that had high selling prices. Power output of Son La, Hoa Binh and Lai Chau hydropower plants was also higher than expectation.

For this whole year, EVN is estimated to post profit of VN650-700 billion for the parent company and VN2-3 trillion for the whole group, including the parent company and subsidiaries, according to Tri.

At present, EVN has restructured loans and also withdrawn capital from non-core businesses according to its restructuring plan for 2012-15, approved by the prime minister, he said.

It has collected VN2 trillion by withdrawing its capital at banking, financial, real estate, insurance and securities sectors to put into electric projects.  VNS
HA NOI  Masan Consumer Corporation will close its final list of shareholders on November 14 to prepare for its stock market debut on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM).

After closing the list, Masan Consumer, Viet Nams largest food and beverages producer, will undertake other required procedures, such as depositing shares and filing the listing application on the UPCoM.

The company will put off all share transfers until its shares are officially trading on the UPCoM, it said in a statement.

UPCoM, which went live in June 2010, is a market for unlisted or delisted public companies under the management of the Ha Noi Stock Exchange. It now has 366 stocks with a total market capitalisation of around VN170 trillion (US$7.6 billion).

Masan Consumer has a charter capital of around VN5.4 trillion ($242 million), equivalent to 538.2 million shares. Its parent company, Masan Consumer Holdings, holds 499.9 million shares, or 96.1 per cent of its voting shares. Masan Consumer itself has 18 million shares as treasury stocks. The remaining 20 million shares are freely transferable in the market.

In January 2016, Masan Consumer Holdings paid around $780 million to purchase 97.7 million shares of Masan Consumer at VN179,000 per share.

If the company debuts shares on the UPCoM at this price, its market capitalisation will hit VN93 trillion ($4.2 billion), which is three times higher than the market value of Ha Noi Beer Alcohol and Beverage Joint Stock Corporation (Habeco), the biggest listed stock on the UPCoM at VN29 trillion.

Masan Consumer is one of the largest local fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies. It manufactures and distributes a wide range of food and beverage products, including soya sauce, fish sauce, chilli sauce, instant noodles, instant coffee and popular bottled beverages such as Chin-su, Nam Ngu, Tam Thai Tu, Omachi, Kokomi, Vinacafe and Vinh Hao.

The company exports to the United States, Canada, France, Russia, Germany, China, Middle East and other Asian countries.

In the first nine months of this year, Masan Consumer earned VN9.1 trillion in total revenue and VN1.65 trillion in net profit, up 6 per cent year-on-year in revenues but down 4 per cent year-on-year in profits.

Many companies have recently opted to list their shares on the UPCoM because of the advantages of a central and transparent trading platform, but with lower listing standards compared to the HCM Stock Exchange and Ha Noi Stock Exchange.

Four companies  ong Nai Material & Building Investment Joint Stock Company (DND), Central Plant Protection Joint Stock Company No.1 (BT1), Quang Binh Railway Joint Stock Company (QBR) and Tra Vinh Urban Project Joint Stock Company (TVU)  debuted shares on the UPCoM on Thursday, with a total listing of nearly 18 million shares.  VNS
BA RIA-VUNG TAU  The Peoples Committee of this southern province has asked local authorities to inspect all farms in the province to ensure they were equipped with standard waste water treatment system.

Those who were found to be discharging waste water into the environment would be forced to close down.

Le Tuan Quoc, Vice Chairman of the committee, made the request at a working session with Xuyen Moc Districts Peoples Committee on Wednesday.

Currently, Xuyen Moc has the most number of farms in the province.

Figures from the districts Department of Natural Resources and Environment revealed there were 59 farms in the province, of which, 35 were pig farms and 24 were chicken farms.

All the farms were licensed to operate by the provincial Peoples Committee. However, some large-scale farms, such as those with more than 3,000 pigs, polluted the environment by discharging untreated waste water into the river, affecting water quality and locals health.

At the working session, the inspection team said they conducted an unscheduled inspection on four pig farms in Hoa Hoi and Xuyen Moc communes and found two farms discharging waste into the environment.

A farm of ang Thi Yen in Hoa Hoi Commune, with capacity of 3,000 pigs, discharged some 30cu.m. of waste water and 1.2 tonnes of solid waste. The farm was only some 5km away from the Song Hoa Reservoir, which, according to plans, will supply water to residents in Xuyen Moc District for the next several months.

In another farm of Nhan Hoa Breeding Co. Ltd in Xuyen Moc Commune, with capacity of 5,200 pigs, the biogas was out of order. All waste was being discharged into the Cat Spring connected to the Song Hoa Reservoir.

The team has taken samples from the two farms for testing.

Quoc asked the departments of natural resources and environment, agriculture and rural development, environmental police and local authorities to inspect the building/repair of the waste treatment system before allowing it to resume operation.

He also directed relevant authorities to revise the planning of farms in the province and stop permitting farms to be located near residential areas.  VNS
HA NOI  Musicians from nine countries will celebrate the 15th European Music Festival in Ha Noi and HCM City from November 18 to December 3.

In this 15th edition of the festival, Vietnamese audiences will once again have the opportunity to enjoy concerts by musicians from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden.

"The music festival is a bridge linking people, across the board," said the European Union Delegation to Viet Nams First Counsellor Delphine Malard at the press conference held in Ha Noi yesterday.

"It contributes to enhancing the reciprocal knowledge and mutual understanding among the people of the EU and Viet Nam".

This year, the renowned Hungarian violinist Katica Illenyi will be on stage opening the festival at Viet Nam National Academy of Musics Great Hall. She will be accompanied by the Viet Nam National Symphony and Orchestra. The festival will be opened by a German and Italian Jazz Trio at the HCM City Conservatory of Music on the same day.

Violinist Illenyi is a multi-talented Hungarian artist who plays the violin and theremin, sings and dances. She introduced the theremin to her audience in 2014, and is the only Hungarian artist currently playing the mysterious instrument in concert. The theremin is known as the untouchable instrument, as it does not need to be touched to produce a sound.

From Belgium, duo Barbara Wiernik and Nicola Andrioli will present the Complicity album. They will also perform the Vietnamese folk song Beo Dat May Troi (Floating Water Lily and Wandering Cloud) with Vietnamese an bau artist Nguyen Quoc Hung.

With a total of 16 concerts in Ha Noi and HCM City audiences will be fascinated by melodious and delicate tunes of different musical genres, such as classical, jazz, indie pop, blues and rock at the festival.

The festival will draw to a close in HCM City on December 1 with a classical concert by virtuoso Polish pianist Maciej Grzybowski, and in Ha Noi on December 3 with driving rock beats by the Grand Blanc band from France.

The annual music festival is jointly organised by the EU to Viet Nam, the Embassies of EU member states and the European Cultural Institutes. Bringing together musical talents from the European Union, the festival aims at reaching a diverse audience with varied repertoires to celebrate the richness and diversity of European culture.

Admission to the concerts is free of charge. Tickets can be reserved and obtained from November 15 at Goethe Institute, 56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street; LEspace, 24 Trang Tien Street in Ha Noi. In HCM City, they are provided at 18 Road, No 1 Cu Xa o Thanh, Ward 4, District 3; and IDECAF, 31 Thai Van Lung Street, District 1, HCM City.  VNS
HA NOI  Today, at 6pm, LEspace will open the installation exhibition Introspect 1996-2006  Just An Impression by Laurent Barnavon, who won the Ferro Insight 2000 Alfred Bullerman Prize for metallurgical artists.

In 1996, considered a boom year for digital photography, images began to land in reality. The metaphysical revolution took Barnavon to an analysis of contemporary images. Inspired by pleats and geometry, the artist developed a unique technique for his work.

This year, he chose Ha Noi to present the project that he has been pursuing over the last 15 years.

Barnavon was attracted by the techniques of Asian artists that he encountered during his childhood, when he was living with a Vietnamese family in France. After graduating from the conceptual art institution Villa Arson, he spent six years experiencing both Asia and Europe.

His free entrance exhibition will open until December 11. LEspace is at 24 Trang Tien Street.  VNS
HA NOI  On Sunday, the Friends of Vietnam Heritage (FVH) will host a city walk to discover the back alleys of Hang Da Market area.

Hidden pagodas, small communal houses dedicated to patrons of craft guilds, narrow streets full of local life, Chinese merchant mansions, legends you havent heard before, bits of the old citadel, and more characterise this charming walk through the small streets and alleys surrounding the old leather market.

The group, which is limited to 10 people, will gather at 51 uong Thanh Street, in front of Hong Ha Theatre.

The two-and-a-half hour English-speaking tour will start at 9.30am. Cost: VN70,000. Registration: contact Loan at phuongloan2704@gmail.com.  VNS
by Chi Lan

The global stock market, with the exception of Russia, woke up on Wednesday shaded a volatile red.

The Mexican peso slumped to a record low against the US dollar.

In Canada, the immigration website crashed, overloaded with a steep spike in people looking for exit options as a Trump presidency loomed large.

These are not good omens for the 45th President of the United States.

After a long, ugly, messy election campaign that had both Americans and the rest of the world on edge, the shocking, jaw-dropping defeat of Hillary Clinton put the suspense to rest.

Americans have made their final choice, and the world now has to figure out how to work with a new US Commander in Chief with no prior experience in foreign affairs, one who has adopted a controversial position on most global issues like international trade, immigration and counter-terrorism.

During his presidential campaign, Viet Nam, among other Asian nations like Japan, India and China, had the honour of being named as countries whod ripped off America.

Trumps nationalistic approach to global trade apparently won over voters seeking protectionist policies that will help stop outsourcing and keep jobs and business in America.

However, apart from repeating the campaign slogan of making America great again, Trump has revealed nothing about how he plans to deliver on this promise. If he puts protectionist trade measures in place, particularly heavier tariffs, Viet Nams trade outlook will suffer. The US is a key export market for its agricultural produce, seafood, apparel and footwear.

Then there is Trumps firm rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, the historic deal signed early this year. The more optimistic among Vietnamese officials believed that the National Assembly could pass the bill this year itself. The American Chamber of Commerce in Viet Nam assured Ha Noi that the US would finally approve the agreement despite all the opposing voices in Congress.

This US election result has changed everything.

The last meeting session of the National Assembly this year is almost over, and it looks certain that TPP will not be on the agenda. The prospect of America not passing the bill has forced several TPP nations, including Viet Nam, to take a cautious approach. None of the 12 nations has ratified the TPP so far.

The latest resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party on global economic integration, released just three days before the big day in the US, reaffirmed that Viet Nam would ratify the deal at an appropriate time.

Power vacuum?

Security on the fragile East Asia depends on the balance of power between a rising China and the US, whose influence is waning in the region. Despite the Asia pivot announced by the Obama presidency with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the policys salient architect, many believed that the US presence in the East Asia was far from sufficient to address potential conflicts, particularly the East Sea (South China Sea) dispute.

President Trump is likely to strengthen that feeling. Though he failed to present a clear foreign policy during the election campaign, he stated that the USs close allies in Asia, like Japan and South Korea, should develop nuclear weapon to protect their own. The question now is whether the Trump presidency will actually abandon its allies, and to what extent.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop lost no time in urging the new US President to ensure it focuses on our region and the importance of US leadership and a US presence in the Asia-Pacific.

The uncertainty and unpredictability in Trumps foreign policy has certainly sparked some anxiety across the board.

An American pullback from Asia cannot be ruled out, although the continent is fundamental to Americas development; and this can lead to a short-term power vacuum in the East Asia region, which China will gladly fill with no one to object except Japan and India.

The recent China pivot by Philippines President Duterte, apparently followed by Malaysia, might be signs that a new regional order is in the making.

Viet Nam this year has already had two high-official visits to Beijing, including one by new Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. Chinas Permanent Politburo Member and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress Zhang Dejiang, is the highest ranking official to visit Viet Nam this year, and he was in Ha Noi right on the US election day. These bilateral visits acquire added significance now.

New opportunity?

Yet a future dearth of US presence in the region might offer an opportunity for Southeast Asian nations to get closer together to provide a counter balance to China, instead of looking to the US to fulfill that role. Some ASEAN differences have come to the fore in dealing with Beijing on the East Sea issue, but these should be addressed and fixed as soon as possible before a new regional order is set.

While there is some sort of global panic over the unexpected Trump presidency, the situation might not be all that dour. Trump is yet an unknown quantity, and can be given the benefit of doubt until such time he chooses to prove others right or wrong.  VNS
President Tran ai Quang (R) receives Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Chinese National Peoples Congress, in Ha Noi yesterday.  VNA/VNSPhoto Nhan Sang

HA NOI  President Tran ai Quang has reiterated that Viet Nam attaches great importance to developing stable, healthy and sustainable relations with China, and thanked the Chinese Party, State and people for their assistance during the countrys revolutionary stages.

President Quang made the remarks while receiving Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Chinese National Peoples Congress, in Ha Noi yesterday.

Zhang conveyed Chinese Party General Secretary and State President Xi Jinpings greetings and invitation to President Quang to visit China.

The President welcomed Zhangs official friendship visit to Viet Nam, considering it an important event to strengthen bilateral friendship and co-operation. He congratulated China on the successful organisation of the sixth session of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Zhang said his visit aims to co-ordinate with the Vietnamese Party, State and National Assembly to carry out agreements reached between senior leaders of the two nations.

Accordingly, both sides are expected to exert efforts to realise their comprehensive strategic co-operative partnership in a result-oriented and effective way; maintain meetings at all levels, to exchange opinions on important issues, and pay heed to development co-operation plans and projects that benefit both nations.

President Quang said the continuous enhancement of the friendship and mutually beneficial co-operation between the two Parties, States and people is crucial to the development of both countries, as well as to peace, stability and development in the region and around the world.

The President highlighted the special importance of regular discussions and meetings between Vietnamese and Chinese senior leaders, and the timely instructions for the settlement of emerging problems.

Vietnamese and Chinese agencies and authorities at all levels should work harder to realise co-operation agreements, programmes and projects while fostering a balanced, stable and effective bilateral trade, he said.

With regard to the East Sea (South China Sea) situation, President Quang emphasised the significance of mutual respect for each others legitimate interests in line with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and joint efforts to maintain stability at sea and a peaceful environment for development.

He asked Vietnamese and Chinese agencies and authorities to seriously implement the agreements and common perceptions reached by their senior leaders, not have any actions that complicate the situation, persistently resolve disputes by peaceful measures in conformity with international law, including UNCLOS, fully implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), and work with ASEAN member nations to soon finalise a Code of Conduct (COC) in the waters.

President Quang invited his counterpart Xi Jinping to pay an official visit to Viet Nam and attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit in 2017.  VNS
HA NOI  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc called on Viet Nam and Portugal to employ more solutions to raising their bilateral trade from nearly US$400 million in 2015 to $500 million by 2020.

At a meeting with Portuguese Ambassador Francisco de Assis Morais e Cunha Vaz Patto in Ha Noi today, the PM suggested Portugal soon sign the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and the Vietnam-Portugal agreement on double taxation avoidance.

He and the ambassador shared the view that Viet Nam and Portugal should enhance their collaboration in tourism, sports, and culture, thus promoting their economic and trade ties, as well as people-to-people exchange.

PM Phuc congratulated Portugal on former PM Antonio Guterress election as UN Secretary General for the five-year tenure, starting from January 1, 2017.

The ambassador stated that Portugal backs the EVFTA and will make every effort to swiftly reach the pact.

Portugal also supports and will soon seal the agreement on double taxation avoidance between the two countries, he added.

To boost its cultural exchanges with Viet Nam, Portugal hopes to organise an exhibition on Portuguese arts and other activities in the country in the coming time, the diplomat said.  VNS
HA NOI  President Tran ai Quang had separate meetings with newly-accredited ambassadors following their presentation of credentials to the Vietnamese leader yesterday.

Receiving Moroccan Ambassador Azzeddiine Farhane, he voiced his belief that the country would obtain significant achievements in national development under the leadership of King Mohammed VI and the new government.

Wishing Morocco success in organising the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, he said Viet Nam wanted to join the international community in strengthening cooperation to mitigate natural disaster risks and cope with climate change.

He hailed Morocco as one of the first African and Arabian nations to ink the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) with ASEAN.

He thanked the country for supporting Viet Nam at international forums, asking both sides to continue close coordination at international and regional forums, especially within the framework of the UN, the International Organisation of La Francophonie, and the Non-Aligned Movement.

President Quang said he hopes Morocco will advocate Viet Nams candidacy for the post of UNESCO Director General in the 2017-2021 tenure.

Regarding economic, trade and investment partnerships, he asked the new ambassador to enhance information exchange between the two business circles, work towards the formation of a joint business council, increase financial and banking cooperation, and step up trilateral cooperation mechanisms.

For his part, Azzeddiine Farhane said there remained huge cooperation potential for the two countries. He believed Viet Nam and Morocco could become gateways for each other to expand collaboration with Southeast Asian and African nations.

He vowed utmost efforts to develop bilateral ties while emphasising Moroccos support to Viet Nam at international forums and organisations such as the candidacy for the post of UNESCO Director General and the non-permanent membership at the UN Security Council for the 2020-2121 tenure.

At a meeting with Japanese Ambassador Kunio Umeda, the Vietnamese leader said the two countries extensive strategic partnership was growing strongly, comprehensively and substantively, as seen through the high political trust and increasing cooperation in economics, security-defence, agriculture, and between localities.

He hoped with his experience, the diplomat would help bolster bilateral ties in all spheres, thereby benefiting both countries and contributing to regional peace, stability, cooperation and development.

He wanted the ambassador to pay attention to enhancing ODA provision to Viet Nam, and the implementation of action programmes of the six prioritised sectors in Viet Nams industrialisation strategy as part of the Viet Nam-Japan cooperation framework.

He hoped Kunio Umeda would work to beef up cooperation and mutual support in issues of common concern and at regional and international forums, and to popularise images of each countrys people, culture and arts.

The newly-accredited ambassador said the Japanese Emperor and Queen wanted to strengthen relations with Viet Nam. He added Japan was ready to coordinate with the Southeast Asian nation to successfully organise the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in 2017.

Meanwhile, President Quang underlined his countrys consistent policy of treasuring the traditional friendship with Serbia while talking to Serbian Ambassador Slobodan Marinkovic.

The two sides should conduct high-ranking delegation exchanges and direct consultations between their ministries and sectors to seek ways to reinforce bilateral relations, he said, asking Serbia to support Viet Nams candidacy for the post of UNESCO Director General in the 2017-2021 term.

He believed the ambassador would actively contribute to the Vietnamese-Serbian relationship and foster bilateral cooperation substantively, for the sake of the two peoples.

Marinkovic noted Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic looked forwards to the Vietnamese Presidents visit in 2017 on the occasion of the 60th founding anniversary of bilateral ties. Marinkovic also promised to do his best to ensure that the countries relations will develop substantively and effectively.

Speaking to Tajikistani Ambassador Parviz Davlatzoda, President Quang voiced his delight at the countrys enormous attainments over the past 25 years since its independence. He urged Vietnamese and Tajikistani ministries and sectors to push ahead with implementing the agreements reached between their senior leaders.

Viet Nam is willing to cooperate with Tajikistan in hydropower and economics-trade. It wants to export its strong commodities such as agricultural and aquatic products, construction materials, garment and footwear to Tajikistan, and import cotton products and silk from this nation.

The two sides should encourage their localities and businesses to engage in direct talks and update information about each others policies and markets, the President said.

Davlatzoda said the Tajikistani people admired the Vietnamese people and considered the ASEAN country as an important economic and trade partner.

He conveyed President Emomali Rahmons invitation to visit Tajikistan to the Vietnamese leader, adding that 2017 will mark 25 years of their diplomatic ties.

At the meeting with Lithuanian Ambassador Ina Marciulionyte, the President proposed Lithuania continue backing Viet Nam and promoting the Viet Nam-EU relations, including the early signing and ratifying of the Viet Nam-EU Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

Marciulionyte spoke highly of Viet Nams renewal policies which, she said, brought great achievements to the country in recent times.

Lithuania was keen on boosting cooperation with Viet Nam in politics, economics and diplomacy, she said, adding that with its strength of high technology, her country was ready to cooperate with Viet Nam in implementing e-government, and wanted to export dairy products and meat to Viet Nam.

Welcoming Fijian Ambassador Isikeli Mataitoga, the Vietnamese leader said the countries needed to increase delegation exchange and people-to-people exchange.

He suggested establishing cooperation and negotiation mechanisms, work towards the signing of agreements on investment encouragement and protection, double taxation avoidance, technical cooperation, agricultural development and food safety, infrastructure construction, tourism and health care.

He thanked countries, including Fiji, for their support to Viet Nams candidacy to the UN International Law Committee for the 2017-2020 tenure, and asked Fiji to back Viet Nams bid for the non-permanent membership at the UN Council Security for the 2020-21 tenure.

Mataitoga said since 2007, the Fijian government has implemented its external policy, in which Viet Nam plays an important role in Fijis efforts to expand cooperation on the international arena.

Fiji is willing to work with Viet Nam in all fields, especially at the UN, and supports Viet Nams effort for the non-permanent member at the UN Security Council as well as positions at other international organisations.

At the reception for Mauritian Ambassador Issop Patel, President Quang suggested increasing exchange of delegations and experiences in economic development between the two countries.

The sides need to soon conclude negotiations and sign cooperation documents such as agreements on double taxation avoidance, investment encouragement and protection, and aviation, creating a legal framework for bilateral collaboration.

Patel affirmed that Mauritius would support Viet Nams candidacy for the post of UNESCO Director General for the 2017-2021 tenure.

He pledged to do his utmost to connect Viet Nam with Africa, especially in the field of aviation, facilitating the exchange and travel of people of Mauritius and Viet Nam.

Receiving Portuguese Ambassador Francisco de Assis Morais e Cunha Vaz Patto, the President thanked Portugal for its support to Viet Nam in promoting relations with the EU, including the ratification of the Viet Nam-EU Partnership and Cooperation Agreement.

He asked for Portugals continued support for the early signing and implementation of the EVFTA and recognition of Viet Nam as the economic market, helping boost economic-trade ties between the two countries.

The President wished Portuguese investors interest in the Viet Nam market, especially cooperation in maritime economy, tourism, energy and tripartite cooperation with Portuguese speaking countries.

He suggested the two sides continue close coordination at the UN, ASEAN-EU, ASEM, and asked Portugal to back Viet Nams effort for the non-permanent membership at the UN Security Council for 2020-21 tenure.

The Ambassador expressed his wish that the two countries would work closely in the fields of economics, and trade to match their potential and desire.

Talking with Estonian Ambassador Martin Kokk, the President suggested the two countries increase exchange and facilitate their businesses to join trade promotion activities in order to raise bilateral trade and increase investment.

He affirmed Viet Nam was ready to act as a bridge to support Estonia to increase ties with ASEAN member countries.

Kokk highly valued Viet Nams achievements in recent times, especially high economic growth. He said boosting economic and trade cooperation between the two countries would be the top priority during his term.

Estonia would support Viet Nams bid for the post of UNESCO General Director for 2017-2021 tenure.  VNS
HCM CITY  In HCM City, there are 474 severely degraded apartment buildings that threaten the lives and properties of their occupants, authorities said.

Many old apartments, which were built before 1975, when the city was liberated from the US-backed administration, are in disrepair and in urgent need of renovation or replacement, Le Van Khoa, deputy chairman of the city Peoples Council, said in a talk show on Old apartments renovation on HCM City Television on Monday.

The 474 apartment blocks were assessed for quality, with all measuring below 55 per cent, and listed as dangerous.

Most of them could collapse any time, Huynh Quang Tam of the citys Fire Fighting and Prevention Police Department said.

There are no emergency exits or fire safety equipment.

Districts 5 and 10 account for the highest number of these buildings, most of them located in populous areas.

In District 5, 206 buildings built before 1975 remain in use, some of them as old as 60 years.

Le Quoc Tuan, deputy chairman of the district Peoples Committee, said, 93 of them have been examined and the remaining will be assessed later this year.

District 10 has 40 apartments in serious disrepair, including ones built in the early 1970s like Ngo Gia Tu, An Quang and Nguyen Kim.

District 1 has 86, including Co Giang with four blocks and 750 units, which was built in 1964 and is now in imminent danger of collapse.

The city Peoples Committee has agreed to renovate four old apartment buildings, so in District 1 we still have 82 apartments with 24,167 people", oan Ngoc Hai, deputy chairman of the district Peoples Committee, said.

Authorities have studied and decided which apartments need to be rebuilt first and are looking for investors.

Tuan said there are plans to offer occupants apartments elsewhere and replace the razed buildings with modern apartment towers.

Tran Trong Tuan, director of the city Department of Construction, said the city targets to rebuild 50 per cent of the 474 decrepit apartments by 2020.

This year the city will finish assessing old apartments and subsequently local authorities will draw up plans to upgrade and rebuild.

To resolve the issue, the city has come up with many policies like giving district authorities greater rights to grant construction licences, publicly announce transparent ground clearance and compensation processes and offer alternate housing to resettle residents.

If occupants do not have enough money to buy a new apartment, they will be offered social housing, Khoa said.

He said the programme needs to be carried out carefully with detailed plans and public support.

So far the city has razed 32 old buildings with 208,000sq.m of housing space and built 39 apartment buildings elsewhere with 470,000sq.m to resettle their occupants.

But they met only a small part of what was needed, Khoa said.

Challenges

The compensation policies have shortcomings that need to be addressed, Truong Trung Kien, head of the Peoples Councils urban department, said.

It is not easy to uproot people from their old homes and relocate them elsewhere to start life from scratch.

Most people living in old apartment buildings are poor and earn a living in nearby areas, and consigning them to the suburbs would cause them inconvenience, he said.

Kien said the regulations for evacuating crumbling apartment buildings are not comprehensive and need to be revised to protect the rights of their occupants.

Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the HCM City Real Estate Association, said the city must show how investors  who rebuild apartment buildings -- can benefit.

The city never takes up this task itself.

Now most residents have extended their units and added more rooms, a factor that has also driven investors away, Chau said.

To speed up replacement of old buildings, he said there should be specific measures to attract investors.

These could be incentives which would make the projects feasible in their eyes, he said.

For years resettlement has remained a tricky issue with residents refusing to evacuate and investors not showing interest in rebuilding old buildings due to the slow nature of the task and low profits.

Negotiations for compensation are usually the main problem for investors.

Policies to encourage residents to move out are not effective and it usually takes many years to evacuate crumbling apartment buildings. Authorities face severe resistance while attempting to move out residents who are generally dissatisfied with the compensation.  VNS
HCM CITY  The HCM City Department of Transport has urged relevant agencies to hasten land payments to speed up projects to prevent landslides, especially in Binh Thanh District.

Le Hoang Minh, deputy director of the department, said, The most pressing issue at most landslide-control projects in the city is the tardiness in [paying] compensation.

To resolve the problem, local authorities must work closely with affected residents to make payments, he said.

Many projects in Binh Thanh District have been delayed for a long time due to delays in acquiring land, he said.

Some projects are 10 years old but yet to be completed, he pointed out.

For instance, work to shore up the banks of the Sai Gon River in Thanh a in Ward 27 began in 2012, but only a 220-metre section has been completed, with work on the rest (447 metres) not even begun yet.

An official from the Domestic Waterway Management Agency, who asked not to be named, said this project has been suspended for three years because of difficulties in acquiring land.

Out of 133 households there, 28 have not handed over their lands due to disagreement over compensation rates, he said, adding he is not sure when the problem would be resolved.

A project near Phuoc Kieng Bridge in Nha Be District has been delayed for 10 years, with a 220-metre-long embankment yet to be built.

The project was approved by the department in 2006 and the investor signed a contract a year later with the Site Clearance Compensation Board of Nha Be District to compensate 18 households.

But it has stalled due to a regulation stipulating that people owning a second house that is not affected by landslides will not be compensated. Unsurprisingly, the affected households have not handed over their lands.

Earlier this year the city planned to allocate VN4 billion (US$179,080) out of the required VN21.3 billion ($953,601) for this project, but the amount awaits disbursement because of the tardiness in site clearance.

Another project delayed by 10 years, again due to tardy compensation payment, is near Phuoc Loc Bridge in Nha Be District.

Nha Be authorities said compensation payment has been delayed since this project is close to the proposed Phuoc Loc Bridge to be built by the Urban Traffic Management Board No 4, meaning the final decision on how to do it must be approved by the city.

Huge losses

Most of the landslide-control projects, which were approved 10 years ago, are expected to see cost overruns because the minimum wage has increased from VN350,000 per month ($15.7) in 2006 to VN1,210,000 ($54.2) now.

An official from the Domestic Waterway Management Agencys planning and investment division, who asked for anonymity, said: The cost of the projects is expected to increase 2.5 times from the original amount.

The official said the contractor of the Thanh a project suspended the work nearly three years ago and asked to pull out.

But the agency is trying to persuade the contractor to continue because it is aware a new bid would be time-consuming, the official said.

The agency has also sought the Department of Transports help to encourage people to move out of landslide-prone areas for safety reasons.  VNS
QUANG NINH  The Peoples Committee of northern Quang Ninh Province has officially launched self-driven tours from Mong Cai City to bordering Donxing in China through the Mong Cai International Border Gate.

Vu Van Kinh, vice secretary of the Party Committee of Mong Cai City, said the model would promote cross-border tourism between Viet Nam and China and boost the development of the two localities.

Some 40 tourist cars, of which 20 were from Viet Nam and the rest from China, underwent entrance and exit procedures at the Mong Cai International Border Gate on the first day of the launch (November 9).

Cars under nine seats owned by Vietnamese and Chinese individuals and enterprises will be allowed to enter and stay for no more than three days. The number of cars cannot exceed 100 per day.

In Viet Nam, self-driven cars of Chinese tourists will only be allowed to travel in the area of Mong Cai City, not crossing the Control Complex Station of Km15-Dan Tien Pier. The vehicles are also not permitted to run on National Highway 18C (the border belt road) and military areas.

The Chinese city will set its own regulations.

Hong Gai Tourism and Services JSC has been assigned to operate the service. The provincial Peoples Committee will be in charge of monitoring the execution.

The pilot period will end on January 11, 2017.

The committee will report the results of the pilot service to the government when the period ends.  VNS
THUA THIEN - HUE  Rangers in Thua Thien-Hue Provinces preventive forest have discovered a population of some 78 red-shanked doucs (Pygathrix nemaeus), listed as endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

According to Tran Van Loc, director of the North Hai Van preventive forest unit, his rangers, at first, discovered a group of eight mammals and later found 70 other creatures following their investigation trips into the forest.

The unit is preparing a plan for protecting the animal in the 3,258ha forest. The forest is part of the Hai Van Mountain, which serves as a landmark, separating the province and neighbouring a Nang City.

The forest is highly vulnerable due to traffic, including the Hai Van Tunnel roadway and several smaller tunnels used by the railways. Industrial development by a Nang on the mountains southern side has also threatened the habitat of the animals.

During the summer, the forest is prone to fires, which are hard to extinguish due to the mountainous topography.  VNS
THUA THIEN - HUE  Traffic police in central Thua Thien-Hue Province this morning stopped a passenger bus travelling on National Highway 1A and found two big boxes containing internal organs of cows on board.

Policemen said the cow viscera looked stale and produced a foul odour.

The bus departed from a Nang City and was heading to Laoss Vientiane. Bus driver Nguyen Huu Hiep told the police he was hired to carry those boxes. He, however, failed to show documents of the boxes origin and hygiene condition.

Police seized the boxes and transferred them to the local environmental police unit for investigation. Vietnamese use cattle viscera as an ingredient in a number of dishes. There are many Vietnamese who live as temporary workers in Lao provinces near the border.  VNS
KINSHASA - Five students have been shot and seriously hurt and 18 others injured during clashes with police in DR Congos capital Kinshasa during protests over tuition fees, a doctor said.

The protests at the Higher Institute of Applied Technology (ISTA) university came on Wednesday after administrators decided to alter the exchange rate applied to student fee payments, significantly increasing costs - a decision that was swiftly reversed.

"We received 23 injured students of whom five had serious gunshot wounds and were transferred to the Kokolo military hospital," said a doctor at the universitys medical centre.

An AFP correspondent saw seven students - including a woman who had lost consciousness - under observation at the university medical centre.

Kinshasa police chief told reporters later that "the police only used non-lethal weapons".

More than 100 police officers surrounded the university site and fired tear gas at classrooms.

"We are protesting against the application of an increased (exchange) rate decided by the academic authorities," said Patrick Makonzo, vice-president of ISTAs student union.

Administrators had moved to change the Congolese franc exchange rate applied to student fee payments, which are fixed at $300 for the year, and would have resulted in a real-terms fee increase of around 16 percent.

"In the interests of social harmony at ISTA we have decided to revise the exchange rate (back)," said ISTA director general Kasengedia Mutumbe.

Higher Education Minister Theophile Mbemba, said on public television late Wednesday that Mutumbe had been suspended from his duties pending an enquiry.

Anger at the universitys initial decision led to several incidents including the burning of two vehicles and attacks on some nearby shopfronts.

"The police were called to re-establish order, disturbed by the students," said the officer in charge of the operation.  AFP
LONDON  At least seven people were killed and around 50 injured on Wednesday when a London tram came off the tracks and tipped over.

One survivor recounted how a woman landed on top of him, adding that there was "blood everywhere" after the tram appeared to speed up before coming off the rails.

The incident happened on Wednesday before dawn at around 6:10am outside Croydon in south London as it negotiated a bend in the track.

The 42-year-old driver had been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter, British Transport Police said.

"Everyone just literally went flying," said Martin Bamford, 30, from Croydon, who was on the tram and recalled it "speeding up" before it derailed.

"There was a woman that was on top of me... I dont think she made it at all. She wasnt responsive."

Asked about the driver, Bamford said: "I asked him if he was okay. He said yeah. I said to him what happened? He said he thinks he blacked out."

Bamford was speaking outside Croydon University Hospital, where he was being treated for fractured or broken ribs.

Probes were under way to determine what caused the 300-tonne, two-car tram to derail and tip over onto its side.

The Rail Accident Investigations Branch said the tram derailed as it was negotiating a "sharp, left-hand curve" with a speed limit of 19 kilometres per hour.

A spokesman said: "Initial indications suggest that the tram was travelling at a significantly higher speed than is permitted."

Loud bang

Deputy Chief Constable Adrian Hanstock of the British Transport Police (BTP) indicated that the death toll could rise further.

"At least seven people have lost their lives as a result of this incident," he said in a statement.

"Our officers will continue to work tirelessly throughout the evening to formally identify them and provide care and support for their families.

"We expect to be at the scene for at least the next 24 hours, continuing searches and carrying out forensic examinations."

Local residents described hearing a loud bang and seeing the wounded being carried away on stretchers.

The London Ambulance Service said 51 patients had been taken to two local hospitals.

Several people were treated for minor injuries such as cuts and bruises at the scene.

Doctor Phil Moss, the clinical director of the emergency department at St Georges Hospital, said they treated 20 patients.

"The patients who have gone to the operating theatre will certainly be kept overnight if not for several days or even weeks," he said.

London Fire Brigade said it had been working to free several trapped people.

Londons only tram system, which opened in 2000, links several south London suburbs along 28 kilometres of track.

More than 27 million passengers used the service in 2015-16.  AFP
00:27 Aged care system not ready for influx of ageing baby boomers Aged Care Minister Anika Wells says the country's aged care system could buckle under the influx of ageing baby boomers.

Taronga Zoo lions back in their enclosure after escaping 02:22 Reports have surfaced five lions which escaped from their enclosures at Taronga Zoo have now been recaptured.

Five lions found outside their enclosure at Sydneys Taronga Zoo Sydney's Taronga Zoo went into lockdown on Wednesday morning after five lions were found outside their enclosure as zookeepers arrived for work.

IS families may not return to Victoria until after state election Details surrounding the return of wives and children of former Islamic State fighters to Victoria remains unclear, with suggestions a second group reportedly unlikely arrive until after the state election due to complexities of the cases.
WATERLOO  When audiences enter the Hope Martin Theatre, it will be as if they, too, are stepping through a magical wardrobe to visit the land of Narnia.

We want kids and adults to suspend their sense of disbelief and take part in the adventure, says Waterloo Community Playhouse Artistic Director Greg Holt. He is directing the Black Hawk Childrens Theatre production opening Friday, having switched roles with Anita Ross, who is undertaking the annual holiday show.

In the story, four children are sent into the country to escape the London blitz during World War II. They find themselves living with a professor, and discovering a magical wardrobe. Stepping through the portal into Narnia, they explore a land of talking animals, unusual creatures and the White Witch, all celebrated in the C.S. Lewis beloved classic, the best known and most accessible of the seven novels in the Chronicles of Narnia series.

There are 15 kids and seven adults in the show. Whats so appealing is that theres more of a teaching element that goes into working with young actors. Were able to use them as the ever-changing background  some go from being trees to playing sides of a house to being a fire or a tea kettle, Holt explains.

The director created a series of theater games to give children the freedom to play a variety of roles, including playing the queens sleigh. Theyve totally thrown themselves into it, and Im very impressed with how dedicated they are to their tasks. Its nice to see their commitment to a different way of working.

The stage set features several levels with forest backops, dramatic lighting and sound effects and costumes.

As the story unfolds, Aslan, a great lion  an amazing costume that will awe the audience  and the rightful King of Narnia, must battle the White Witch, who has ruled the land, using magic to keep it in unending winter. Its a wonderful battle scene behind a scrim, like a shadow play that makes it very theatrical, fun and rewarding to see.

After the battle, the children become rulers in Narnia, but eventually find their way back through the wardrobe back into the professors house where no real time has passed, in spite of the imaginary years spent in Narnia.

Its completely allegorical, and themes of good and evil and redemption running through it. And its just a wonderful, imaginative show, Holt adds.
TAMA  Authorities have labeled a 16-year-old missing persons case as a homicide.

Cora Ann Okonski was last seen April 16, 2000, when she told her boyfriend she was stepping out to buy cigarettes. She never returned, and the boyfriend reported her missing two days later.

Okonski was 23 years old and left behind a son, a toddler at the time.

On Thursday, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation said it has classified her disappearance as a homicide. The move came after DCI investigators conferred with the Iowa Attorney Generals Office, the Tama County Sheriffs Office, Tama Police and the Tama County Attorneys Office.

DCI officials declined to comment further.

According to Courier archives, Okonski had recently moved to Iowa from Illinois and had planned to marry her boyfriend, Tait Otis Purk. Court records show Purk was arrested for allegedly assaulting Okonski in December 1999, but the charge was dropped in March 2000, about a month before the disappearance.

Purk and his nephew, Jeremy Charles Purk, were indicted on federal drug charges in August 2003. Court records allege they were involved with methamphetamine in May and June 2003, and Tait Purk allegedly possessed pseudoephedrine pills and a .22-caliber revolver and ammunition in June 2003.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and manufacture meth and felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition and was sentenced to 15 1/2 years in prison.

A month after the indictment, investigators searched property that belonged to Purks relatives in rural Tama County near Irving. It turned up bones that were later determined to have come from animals.

Jeremy Purk was released from prison in February 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Tait Purk, now 50, remains incarcerated at the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., with a projected release date in 2017.

In November 2015, Tait Purk challenged his prison sentence, arguing the court had improperly enhanced his sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act and career offender statutes. His attorney argued Purks prior burglary convictions cant be used to back the Armed Career Criminal designation because Iowa burglary statute is overly broad.

Anyone with information on Okonskis disappearance is asked to call Iowa DPS Communications at (515) 323-4360 or email dciinfo@dps.state.ia.us.
ELK RUN HEIGHTS  A proposal to install speed cameras has been tabled indefinitely by the City Council.

Instead, Elk Run Heights Mayor Tim Swope said, the city will look at alternatives such as stop signs and speed bumps.

The council a month ago approved the cameras. However, city legal council recommended against a contract with Redflex Traffic Systems of Glendale, Ariz. to install and operate the cameras for five years. Swope cited concerns the city would have been liable in the event of a lawsuit against the company.

Swope said a majority of the council now opposes cameras after citizens expressed opposition at council meetings and individually to members.

Council member Rich Heth said he was the swing vote that caused the matter to be tabled.

I was ready not to go forward at this point. Im not ruling it out in the future. My thing was we try other tactics, Heth said.

That could include police enforcement during times of heavy traffic. Evansdale police took over law enforcement in the city July 1. Heth said before the city spends money hed like to use tools already available.

Swope was pleased the matter was tabled.

I just dont think cameras are what we need right now. Try some cheaper alternative, he said.

Redflex would have charged the city $18.25 per ticket  roughly 20 percent of the fine  and $240,000 to install and operate the equipment. The city would use its share of fine revenue to pay off the $240,000. Any additional amount collected would be revenue for the city. However, camera proponents said their main concern was safety.

Swope also was concerned the cameras would drive away through traffic and hurt businesses.

Instead, Swope said, the council will discuss installing an all-way stop at Gilbertville Road and Marie Avenue, which could deter truck traffic. Speed bumps would be considered at locations yet to be determined.

Elk Run Heights would have been the first city in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metro area to install speed cameras. Iowa communities with speed-enforcement cameras include Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Davenport, Des Moines, Fort Dodge, Ottumwa, Polk County and Sioux City. Most are significantly larger than Elk Run Heights.
DES MOINES -- The Iowa Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Gov. Terry Branstad was within his authority when he closed two state mental hospitals in Mount Pleasant and Clarinda in 2015.

The justices said the governor had the authority to veto money to operate the facilities and noted that lawmakers never stipulated that the MHIs had to stay open when they approved funding in a budget bill subject to item veto. Iowas largest public employee labor union and a group of state lawmakers sued the governor over the closure of two state-run mental health care facilities.

Branstad said he decided to close two of Iowas four MHIs because the state needed to shift toward community-based mental health care services and away from institutions.

Ben Hammes, Branstads communications director, issued a statement saying the courts unanimous decision on Thursday affirms the governors action by allowing more Iowans to have access to quality mental health care and substance abuse treatment than ever before. The states mental health care redesign allows Iowans to access treatment in a community-based setting and through more modern means.

He added that the governor is committed to putting patients first, improving care, increasing access and modernizing the delivery of mental health services.

Veteran protections

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller announced a series of special consumer protection efforts Thursday designed to assist Iowans who are active duty service members or veterans which included complaint form and website enhancements.

Miller issued a statement Thursday noting that his office was strengthening its year-round consumer protection efforts for Iowans who serve or have served in the military, as they can be specially targeted by scammers and businesses that engage in deceptive practices.

Scammers and dishonest businesses may target veterans and service members because of their steady income and benefits. For example, scams targeting veterans include solicitations for deceptive military benefits services, and attempts at collecting personal information.

Active duty service members may be solicited by predatory lenders. Complaint forms now identify service members and veterans: Consumer Protection Division complaint forms now include a check box for consumers to identify themselves as active duty service members or veterans, he said.

Reynolds

Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds announced Thursday that she will visit three schools next week to discuss the importance of computer science education. As co-chair of the Governors STEM Advisory Council and the Future Ready Iowa Alliance, Reynolds said she has led the way in emphasizing the importance of students having opportunities for computer science education and what it means for the workforce of the future.

Specifically, she said, computer science education is a key component of reaching the states Future Ready Iowa goal of having 70 percent of our Iowa workforce with education or training by the year 2025.

On Monday, Reynolds will be at the Brookview Elementary School in West Des Moines. On Tuesday, she plans visits to the Kirkwood Regional Center in Coralville and the Central City Community School District.

Gas prices

With colder weather approaching, officials at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship who issue a weekly fuel price report noted that heating oil prices in Iowa dropped nine cents this week, recording a price of $1.88. Natural gas prices also fell by 21 cents to $2.32/MMbtu. Turning to motor fuels, the price of regular unleaded gasoline averaged $2.13 a gallon across Iowa as of Tuesday according to AAA  a drop of three cents from one week ago and 19 cents lower than one year ago.

The national average on Tuesday was $2.20, down a penny from last weeks price. Retail diesel fuel prices in Iowa were down two cents from last weeks price with a statewide average of $2.41 per gallon.
WATERLOO  In a divisive presidential election, Yvonne Everton didnt choose sides.

I had a write-in candidate I liked, the Cedar Falls woman said Wednesday while having breakfast with a group of retired friends at Panera restaurant. Im OK with the outcome. I didnt like either choice.

That disgust with the options of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was a common sentiment among those across the Cedar Valley who spoke to The Courier about Tuesdays election. There were numerous theories, though, about what ultimately helped Trump claim victory in the race.

Im tired of the Clinton machine, but I think a lot of people are, said Everton, referencing donations to the Clinton Foundation while she was secretary of state that raised ethical questions. I just think its inappropriate to have the Clinton Foundation.

Others mentioned controversy around Clintons use of a private email server and what was revealed in emails stolen by computer hackers.

I know she has some baggage, the whole family does, said table mate and Clinton supporter Chuck Koontz of Waterloo. But, he noted, Trump has insulted virtually every group in this country.

What gave him Trump edge?

I think its because of the promises he made to drain the swamp and shake up Washington, said Koontz, referencing Trumps attacks on political insiders in Congress. As a result, most voters were willing to overlook Trumps faults regardless of what hes done.

I think its an anti-Washington establishment vote, agreed Cedar Rapids resident Bob Butikofer, formerly of Cedar Falls, who was also at the table. He called it a sad commentary that these are the two candidates we have. I am a registered Republican, but I didnt vote for him.

Butikofer added, I hope for the best. I hope Donald Trump can do some of what he talked about this morning (in his early Wednesday acceptance speech), but Ill have to see that proven.

Clinton supporters Sydney Kunz and Sabrina Bumpke voiced greater concern while eating lunch at the University of Northern Iowas Maucker Union in Cedar Falls. Im not sure exactly why Trump won, said Kunz, a 23-year-old senior who admitted being worried about the future.

Bumpke, 23 and a junior, suggested it points to getting his Make America Great Again message across to voters. She believes, though, that many embraced it while not knowing what it meant due to the lack of policy details. I dont know who to be more worried about, Trump or Pence, she added, referring to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the vice president-elect.

Kunz said her worries are about not knowing what the future brings, especially with his promise to undo a lot. Trump has pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, renegotiate trade deals and end a recent nuclear agreement with Iran. All are positions that put him on the same page as many congressional Republicans, who will have a majority in both houses of Congress the next two years.

Across the room, Trump voter Austin Brase was putting his faith in the nations lawmakers to check the brash president-elect when needed. People (in Congress) will keep him in line, and that will be good.

Still, the 20-year-old junior was generally upbeat about Trumps election. I think a lot of people see hope in the country now that he possibly can be the change that we need, said Brase.

Clayton Burkle, also 20 and a junior, expects the disappearance of much Washington gridlock that stops everything from budget approvals to Supreme Court nominees. I think things are going to get done, said the Clinton voter, who was eating lunch with Brase. Theres really no stopping them now.

I think (Trump) captured a lot of the palpable fear in the United States. I think he tapped into it. Its a powerful force, Burkle said, which also propelled the referendum behind Britain leaving the European Union.

Burkle started as a supporter of Clintons primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and blamed the Democratic National Committee for rigging state contests against the candidate  an accusation that emerged out of hacked DNC emails. They kind of got what they deserve, he said.
WATERLOO  Republicans will control both chambers at the Statehouse in the 2017 legislative session, and their victories Tuesday were due in part to their partys successes in Iowas Democrat-leaning 1st Congressional District.

Three of the six seats Republicans gained in the Senate came from Northeast Iowa. Republicans are expected to control the chamber 29-19, with one independent and one vacancy due to the passing of Davenport Sen. Joe Seng that will be filled before the next session gets underway.

Heres a look at the races that flipped in Northeast Iowa:

Senate District 36

Incumbent Sen. Steve Sodders, D-State Center, came closest to retaining his seat. According to unofficial results, Republican challenger Jeff Edler bested Sodders 14,704 votes to 13,070, or 52.9 percent to 47 percent. There were 33 write-in votes.

I think theres just an overwhelming urge to take some common sense back to how we do things, Edler said Wednesday as he picked up yard signs in the district.

Edler, a farmer from State Center, attributes his success to hard work, particularly knocking on 21,657 doors to deliver his message.

Sodders, a deputy sheriff in Marshall County, said in a statement serving in the Senate has been one of the best times of my life. He offered his congratulations to Edler and offered to help him with the transition. Sodders has been serving the district, which covers Marshall and Tama counties and the southern part of Black Hawk County, since 2008.

Edler said hes excited for the opportunity to serve the people of the district.

Im rarin to go, he said.

Senate District 32

Sen. Brian Schoenjahn, D-Arlington, first elected in 2004, lost to Republican challenger Craig Johnson, who previously lost a close bid for an Iowa House seat in 2014.

His victory Tuesday night left him thrilled.

Johnson won with 18,605 votes, or 59.9 percent, according to unofficial results. Schoenjahn received 12,408 votes, or 40 percent. There were 29 write-in votes.

What went on yesterday was amazing. The people spoke, and were ready to go to work, Johnson said. This is just amazing.

Like Edler, Johnson is ready to get to work. Johnson, executive director of Heartland Acres in Independence, said his top priorities will be jobs, education and the budget.

Schoenjahn said it has been one of the great honors of my life to be your voice in the Senate. He offered his congratulations to Johnson and also offered to do everything he could to make the transition easier.

The district covers Bremer County and parts of Buchanan, Fayette and Black Hawk counties.

It was an exciting night, said Johnson, who celebrated his victory at home surrounded by family and friends.

I dont know where I start. Its an honor, a pleasure. Its been a long process, and were ready to serve.

Senate District 26

Republican Waylon Brown won a decisive victory in Senate District 26, which covers Worth, Mitchell, Howard, Floyd, Chickasaw, and parts of Cerro Gordo and Winneshiek counties. He bested incumbent Sen. Mary Jo Wilhelm, D-Cresco.

Brown received 19,127 votes, or 62.3 percent, according to unofficial results. Wilhelm received 11,531 votes, or 37.6 percent. There were 28 write-in votes.

Brown, of St. Ansgar, who owns and operates a construction company and farm, said the area has potential.

I think it is my responsibility to share the successes and struggles of our district and show legislators from our more urban districts why a strong rural Iowa supports growth in their districts, Brown said.

Wilhelm has served for two terms and also works as a residential real estate appraiser.
WATERLOO  The citys yard waste dump has survived an emergency transplant.

A steady stream of residents was flowing into the free leaf and brush disposal site at 2739 Independence Ave. on Wednesday afternoon, dumping truck and trailer loads of material into piles and neatly arranged wind rows.

City sanitation officials opened the site in September when the 14-year-old brush dump on the other side of the city was forced to close abruptly. The previous location jeopardized the citys flood control system certification because it was in a Cedar River overflow channel.

People are finding it, and it seems to be working out great, said Waterloo Sanitation Foreman Sam Barrett. I cant believe the amount of people that come during the day, during a weekday, just a constant flow of people coming in there.

Larry and Marilyn Cavanaugh visited the new site Wednesday to unload a truckload of leaves.

This is the first time weve been here, Marilyn Cavanaugh said. They have a lot more room.

Larry Cavanaugh said the new location is much farther from their west Waterloo home than the former site. But at least weve got a place to go, he added.

But the new site was more convenient for John Dunn, who was unloading a small trailer of brush.

It seems like its going to work out, Dunn said. Its a lot closer for me.

Traffic Operations Superintendent Sandie Greco said the city has more room at the new site, which allows for a more orderly operation and the chance to increase composting capabilities.

Its not just a free for all now, Greco said.

Barrett said the new site is staffed to ensure users are Waterloo residents and not commercial businesses. The new site has seen a reduction in illegal dumping and trash.

Our security is doing a better job of keeping the place neat and tidy, so we dont wind up in the same position we were in the past, he said.

Barrett said material deposited at the site this fall will be turned into compost available at no cost to the public later next year. Compost from the former site is being hauled to the new site as time allows.

Meanwhile, city crews are nearly finished cleaning up the old site, using bulldozers to level what had been a mountain of yard waste.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to inspect the site next week to ensure the remaining material is not blocking the flood overflow channel.

The new disposal and compost site is up from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily until closing for the winter Dec. 1. City officials remind users to cover their loads when hauling material to the site.
WATERLOO  Weeks ago, when Donald Trump was spray-painted by vandals on the side of the Masjid Al-Noor Islamic Center, Dema Kazkaz saw an outpouring of support from people of all religious backgrounds in the Cedar Valley.

So hours after Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to ban Muslim immigrants, was elected the next U.S. president, Kazkaz was cautiously optimistic that  locally, at least  the wider community would continue to support Muslims.

Yes, we are nervous, but we are calling on (Trump) supporters to respect and defend the rights of all Americans  the rights the Constitution has granted us, said Kazkaz, the president of Masjid Al-Noor. We are all one big community, one nation.

That doesnt mean, however, Kazkaz isnt wary of what a Trump presidency  or his emboldened supporters  will bring.

At this point its very scary, because we dont know what to expect, but this is the will of God and we have great faith in God, she said.

Ibrahim Shehata, president of the Islamic Foundation of Iowa in Waterloo, agreed his faith kept him grounded, regardless of political events.

Im not worried about anything, for just a simple reason: As a Muslim, nothing is going to happen without the will of Allah, Shehata said.

Shehata has watched the political pendulum swing from Republicans to Democrats and back over the years. In the meantime, thousands of Muslims have lived alongside others of different faiths in Waterloo since the 1990s, when the first wave of Bosnian Muslims were resettled in the city.

Its becoming a tradition now for both parties  the easy targets for them are to attack us, so they can get some votes and get some people to support them, and spread all the rumors and false information about Muslims, about Islam, he said.

Shehata said the fact Muslims are well-established in the Cedar Valley helps to insulate his community from such remarks  to a degree.

We have seen the ignorance in Trump supporters  the Masjid Al-Noor vandalism  they do exist, but they are very isolated instances, he said. And I hope we are doing our job in clarifying the false information and the facts.

Kazkaz was more worried for Muslim youths, who she says are susceptible to social media and in-school bullying because of their faith.

We are concerned about how kids will function  the mental health of these young Muslims, she said. They need to be banned. Go back to your country. But this is their only country; they are born here.

Nonetheless, she said she was confident the U.S. would find a way to unite again.

Unfortunately, this election has broken the community into parts, Kazkaz said. Im very confident that Americans will come together and heal.

Shehata also encouraged those who were despondent over the election result to take the long view.

One has to win and one has to lose; four years, and he may be changed, he said.

Still, he said, he would remain vigilant.

The only thing that we want to make 100 percent sure  we want accountability on our other citizens, Shehata said. We should not be putting them down or endangering them or belittling them.

Miriam Amer, executive director with the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Iowa, added this message: "We accept the results and we hope that President-elect Trump will be willing to forgo his rhetoric from the election and work with everyone and treat everyone fairly, and we would be willing to overlook all of that rhetoric and proceed forward for the good of the country."

This story was updated Nov. 10 with Miriam Amer's remarks.
War broadcast

event at museum

WATERLOO  Radio station KXEL will sponsor a program, From the Battlefront to the Homefront: Iowa Broadcasters Go To War at 2 p.m. Friday at the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum.

An award-winning video featuring 50 years of classic Iowa radio and TV broadcasts will be hosted by KXEL news director Jeff Stein.

Admission is free, but attendees are invited to make a donation to support Cedar Valley Honor Flight. Other sponsors are the Grout Museum District, Hy-Vee and Humanities Iowa.

Hawkeye to host

1964 gold medalist

WATERLOO  Hawkeye Community College will host U.S. Olympian and 10,000 meter gold medalist Billy Mills on Monday.

His noon presentation, The Pursuit of Excellence, will be at Tama Hall and is free and open to the public.

The only U.S. Olympian to have won gold in the 10,000 meters, Mills is a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe who grew up impoverished and orphaned on the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation in South Dakota.

His story and victory in Tokyo were made into the film Running Brave in 1983, and in 2012 he received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Barack Obama. This presentation is in conjunction with Native American Heritage Month.

Deere to honor veterans Friday

WATERLOO  John Deere in Waterloo will honor all employees who are on active duty, Reserve or veterans with flag raising ceremonies on Veterans Day Friday at the following locations:

Drivetrain Operations, 9 a.m., outside building Z3 lobby.

Foundry, 7:30 a.m. at Foundry flagpole.

Product Engineering Center, Cedar Falls, 7 a.m. at the PEC circle drive.

Tractor Cab Assembly Operations, 9 a.m. at TCAO circle drive on East Donald Street.

Additionally, the John Deere Tractor & Engine Museum will offer free admission for all veterans as well as active duty, Reserve and National Guard service members on Veterans Day.
As the reality of President-elect Donald Trump settled in early Wednesday, MSNBCs Chris Hayes summed up an explanation common to many on the left: The Republican nominee pulled ahead thanks to old-fashioned American racism.

But the attempt to make Trumps victory about racism appears to be at odds with what actually happened on Election Day.

Twenty-nine percent of Latinos voted for Trump, per exit polls.

Meanwhile, African-Americans did not turn out to vote against Trump. In fact, Trump received a higher percentage of African-American votes than Romney did.

The most important divide in this election was not between whites and non-whites. It was between those who are often referred to as educated voters and those who are described as working class voters.

The reality is six in 10 Americans do not have a college degree and they elected Donald Trump. College-educated people didnt just fail to see this coming  they have struggled to display even a rudimentary understanding of the worldviews of those who voted for Trump. This is an indictment of the monolithic, insulated political culture in the vast majority our colleges and universities.

As a college professor, I know there are many ways in which college graduates simply know more about the world than those who do not have such degrees. This is especially true  with some exceptions, of course  when it comes to hard facts learned in science, history and sociology courses.

But I also know those with college degrees  again, with some significant exceptions  dont necessarily know philosophy or theology. And they have especially paltry knowledge about the foundational role different philosophical or theological claims play in public thought compared with what is common to college campuses. In my experience, many professors and college students dont even realize their views on political issues rely on a particular philosophical or theological stance.

Higher education in the United States, after all, is woefully monolithic in its range of worldviews. In 2014, some 60 percent of college professors identified as either liberal or far-left, an increase from 42 percent identifying as such in 1990. And while liberal college professors outnumber conservatives 5-to-1, conservatives are considerably more common within the general public.While some of the political differences between educated and working-class voters is based on a dispute over hard facts, the much broader and more foundational disagreements are about norms and values. They turn on first principles grounded in the very different intuitions and stories which animate very different political cultures. Such disagreements cannot be explained by the fact college-educated voters know some facts which non-college educated voters do not. They are about something far more fundamental.

Think about the sets of issues that are often at the core of the identity of the working-class folks who elected Trump: religion, personal liberties, relationship with government, gender, marriage, sexuality, prenatal life and gun rights. Intuition and stories guide most working-class communities on these issues. With some exceptions, those professorial sorts who form the cultures of our colleges and universities have very different intuition and stories. And the result of this divide has been to produce an educated class with an isolated, insular political culture.

Religion in most secular institutions, for instance, is at best thought of as an important sociological phenomenon to understand but is very often criticized as an inherently violent, backward force in our culture akin to belief in fairies and dragons. Professors are less religious than the population as a whole. Most campus cultures have strictly (if not formally) enforced dogmatic views about the nature of gender, sexual orientation, a womans right to choose abortion, guns and the role of the state as primary agent of social change. If anyone disagrees with these dogmatic positions they risk being marginalized as ignorant, bigoted, fanatical or some other dismissive label.

Thus todays college graduates are formed by a campus culture that leaves them unable to understand people with unfamiliar or heterodox views on guns, abortion, religion, marriage, gender and privilege. And that same culture leads such educated people to either label those with whom they disagree as bad people or reduce their stated views on these issues as actually being about something. Most college grads in this culture are simply never forced to engage with or seriously consider professors or texts which could provide a genuine, compelling alternative view.

For decades now, U.S. colleges and universities have quite rightly been trying to become more diverse when it comes to race and gender. But this election highlights the fact our institutions of higher education should use similar methods to cultivate philosophical, theological and political diversity.

These institutions should consider using quotas in hiring that help faculties and administrations more accurately reflect the wide range of norms and values present in the American people. There should be systemwide attempts to have texts assigned in classes written by people from intellectually underrepresented groups. There should be concerted efforts to protect political minorities from discrimination and marginalization.

The goal of such changes would not be to convince students their political approaches are either correct or incorrect. The goal would instead be educational: to identify and understand the norms, values, first principles, intuitions and stories which have been traditionally underrepresented in higher education. This would better equip college graduates to engage with the world.

The alternative, a reduction of all disagreement to racism, bigotry and ignorance will simply make the disagreement far more personal, entrenched and vitriolic. And it wont make liberal values more persuasive to the less educated as a Trump victory demonstrates.

It is time to do the hard work of forging the kind of understanding that moves beyond mere dismissal to actual argument.

Todays election results indicate our colleges and universities are places where this hard work is particularly necessary.
With his penchant for conspiracy theories, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump took considerable heat for his contention the election was rigged when polls showed him badly trailing. Indeed, his failure to commit to a concession speech was the talking point following the third debate.

But President-elect Trump, soon to become the nations 45th chief executive, had it right. The pollsters were, in fact, as clueless as they had been in the GOP primaries when Trump dispatched 16 opponents. This time Trump raided the Democrats former base of working-class voters to deny Hillary Clinton the opportunity to become the first female president in a stunning upset.

Republicans will have control of the White House, Congress and, in essence, the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, they have broadened their reach of statehouses, adding the Iowa Senate to their domain.

Trump, who has criticized the Electoral College as undemocratic, was behind in the popular vote to Clinton, which George W. Bush lost to Al Gore in 2000.

Democrats counted on changing demographics with a burgeoning nonwhite population to maintain the presidency. But Trump rallied far more whites to the polls than Mitt Romney had in 2012  another really rich guy but with far less working-class appeal.

Trump received support from 60 percent of white men and 52 percent of white women, according to exit polls. If the Republican coalition was splintering, it didnt show. He won 88 percent of Republican votes and 78 percent of ballots cast by white evangelicals. His margin among voters with little or no college education was huge  39 points, an increase of 14 points more than what Romney had done.

In doing so, Trump flipped four critical Rust Belt states Barack Obama had carried  Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), Ohio (18), Wisconsin (10) and Iowa (six). The Clinton campaign was so overconfident it never touched down in Wisconsin during the general election.

Clinton supporters were primarily those with a college education and nonwhites.

The election marked a strange juxtaposition for the Democratic Party whose base had been labor unions and the working class since President Franklin Roosevelt. But the decline of union strength and the loss of higher-paying jobs led to a backlash against trade agreements, although most studies show their outcomes to be neutral.

That outrage, though, isnt limited to the United States. It was evident earlier this year in the surprise victory of Brexit  the British referendum to leave the European Union  and the rise of far-right parties on the backs of economic nationalism and anti-immigration sentiment in Germany and France.

Yet it was the billionaire Trump who addressed those fears while alienating many in his party on free-trade issues. Clinton, meanwhile, ran an incredibly desultory campaign without addressing economic concerns, instead focusing on women, children and Trumps behavior.

In 72 days, Trump will be inaugurated and can begin to implement some of his promises. Whether he can soothe over differences with members of his party in Congress who refused to endorse him and mocked him (Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina among others) or those who were cool to him (Rep. Paul Ryan), only time will tell.

Will he push to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and deport all illegal immigrants? Only 25 percent of voters in exit polls backed deporting everyone in the country illegally.

How quickly will he make good on his pledge to rip up existing trade agreements?

Will he and the Republicans agree to a tax cut measure that tilts heavily toward the wealthy, while approving a huge  and long overdue  investment in infrastructure that combined could make for a massive increase in the debt?

We expect the coming dismantlement of the Affordable Healthcare Act but hope an alternative will provide all Americans access to health care at a reasonable cost.

We also expect the climate change policies implemented under Obama will be reversed no matter the scientific evidence supporting them.

While wrongheaded pundits predicted this election would be the death knell for the Republican Party because of the civil war between the alt. right/tea party insurgents Trump represents and the mainstream, it is now the Democrats who must reassess their destiny. Perhaps this is the comeuppance the party needed to replace the lackluster leadership of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer.

What has to be most discouraging for Democrats is Clinton and her political action committee supporters spent nearly twice as much as Trump with nothing to show for it in an aimless campaign.

Whatever soul-searching they do must happen quickly. Republicans have been shown to be more passionate about issues than Democrats and more likely to go to the polls in midterm elections, which would mean further consolidating their grip on power in 2018.

Until they regain some modicum of power, theyre just part of the audience on The Donald Trump Show.
OSAGE -- Shannon Henaman, 42, of Osage, pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide by way of reckless driving, a Class C felony.

Henaman entered the guilty plea during a plea hearing Tuesday at the Mitchell County Courthouse.

According to officials, Henaman was the driver in a single-vehicle accident that took place at 3:19 a.m. March 4 at the intersection of Kirkwood Avenue and 370th Street.

Theodore McPhail, 50, of Osage, a passenger in the vehicle, was killed when he was thrown out of the vehicle when Henaman drove it into the ditch.

According to the Mitchell County Sheriff's report, alcohol played a factor in the accident. Court records state a breath test following the crash showed a .170 blood-alcohol level.

Vehicular homicide by way of reckless driving is a Class C felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Henaman will be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. Jan. 24.

Man is charged

with fake papers

WATERLOO -- A Waterloo man who was arrested for injuring a baby last month now faces federal charges for allegedly using bogus identification papers.

An agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids seeking to charge Benjamin Aguilar-Ramirez with misuse of a Social Security number and unlawful use of an identification document Wednesday.

Waterloo police arrested Aguilar, 34, in October for felony child endangerment resulting in bodily injury after doctors discovered bruises and other wounds on a 6-month-old girl.

During the investigation, immigration agents determined Aguilar was a citizen of Guatemala, but they were not able to find any record of him legally entering the United States, court records state.

Agents obtained copies of a Social Security card, an I-551 permanent resident card and an I-9 employment eligibility form from his employer and determined the card was counterfeit with a number belonging to another person. The number of one resident card had never been issued, and the alien registration number on the documents were issued to another person, court records state.

Gunfire reported

in Waterloo

WATERLOO -- Police are investigating gunfire that broke out in a Waterloo neighborhood Wednesday afternoon.

Neighbors called 911 around 2:30 p.m. after hearing gunshots in the 300 block of State Street.

There were no injuries, but there was property damage, according to authorities. Further details werent available.

No arrests have been made.

Waterloo man

faces drug charge

WATERLOO -- A court date has been scheduled for a Waterloo man charged in a heroin investigation.

A federal grand jury indicted Arvester Vest Edwards Sr., 60, on a charge of possession of heroin with intent to distribute in connection with a February search at his home.

Trial is tentatively set for Nov. 28 in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids.

At the time of the search, Edwards was on supervised release after serving three years in prison following a guilty plea to drug charges in a heroin conspiracy that ran from 2007 until 2011 and led to the arrests of seven others.

In the new case, officers with the Tri-County Drug Task Force obtained information about heroin distribution in Waterloo in January 2016, and the investigation led to a controlled purchase and the search of Edwardss home at 838 Linden Ave. on Feb. 4, court records state. Officers found heroin wrapped in foil in a coat pocket and two boxes of .22-caliber ammunition behind a dresser door, records state.

The court found he had violated his supervised release by possessing ammo, associating with people involved in criminal activity and using drugs and alcohol, and he was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

In June, the grand jury returned its indictment for new charges in the February search, but the case wasnt unsealed until Sept. 27 when Edwards was formally served.

Man arrested

in gun assault

WATERLOO -- An Arizona man has been arrested for allegedly striking a woman with a gun in August.

Orlando Antwon Stokes, 54, of Glendale, was arrested Oct. 27 for willful injury causing serious injury. He remains at the Black Hawk County Jail with bond set at $25,000.

Court records allege Stokes struck Kimberly Ellis twice in the face with a handgun during an argument at a home at 56 Lafayette St. on Aug. 14. She suffered a broken orbital bone, according to court records.

Man gets 20 days

for stealing badge

CHARLES CITY (AP) -- A man accused of stealing a police badge from a plaque in the lobby of the Charles City Police Department has been given 20 days in jail.

Online court records say Isaia Weber was sentenced Monday. He'd pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of theft and criminal mischief.

Police say officers found the badge among guns, drugs and drug-related items seized during a search of a Charles City home.
This is my 5,277th and final blog post. This blog has been tremendous fun, but I've found that I am consistently choosing to spend my ti...
Ballot proposal asks Kentucky voters whether there's a right to an abortion
TWH  In the wake of Tuesdays U.S. Presidential election, talk of racism, bigotry, misogyny and hatred has been sweeping conversations, both public and private. In some circles, the rise of President Elect Donald Trump has been compared to the rise of Hitler, and the phenomenon of his success has been compared to that of the Nazi party of the 1930s. With this energy feeding public discourse around the world, Pagans and practitioners of similar earth-based paths are preparing to deal with the possible changes that could come from such a seemingly dramatic shift within the government of the worlds leading superpower.

As a response to the increasing frequency of hate and hate crimes in North America, the New Mexico-based Ardantane Pagan Learning Center invited Canadian Pagan Kerr Cuhulain, to deliver a two-part online class, Dealing With Hate Crimes.

Cuhulain lives on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada. He is a regular member of the Ardantane faculty and offers various classes via the internet to Ardantane students across North America. He is a retired police officer and dispatcher, who has been a Wiccan for 48 years. During his professional career, he was deeply involved in anti-defamation activism and hate crimes investigations on behalf of Pagan community.

Despite being retired now from the Vancouver Police Department, Cuhulain still takes an active interest in fighting back against intolerant anti-Pagan propaganda. Cuhulain is also the author of a number of Pagan books, including Law Enforcement Guide to Wicca, Pagan Religions: A Handbook for Diversity Training, Witch Hunts and The Wizard: The Story of the First Wiccan Cop to go Public About His Pagan Beliefs.

The relationship between Canada and the U.S. is a close one. On the night of the U.S. presidential election, citizens on both sides of the worlds longest unprotected border sat and watched as the results were reported. In Canada, American politics often outshine domestic ones, dominating the media we share and possessing more scandal and intrigue than domestic news.

For Cuhulain, who is married to an American, this election had some personal overtones. Many of the messages and patterns seen in the media coverage were, he said, familiar to his previous investigations. What happened back in the 80s and 90s is this thing they called the Satanic Panic, which was an urban legend, or series of urban legends that were launched and sent through the communities in an attempt to create the illusion that there is a problem out there, so that the people putting the information out there could present themselves as the solution, he explained.

In his online class, he laid out the history of the Satanic Panic, and the strategies used to persecute those deemed Satanists, which also included many people of minority faiths  Wiccans being one of the most named. Cuhulain went on to say, Now there is a new generation out there who isnt familiar with this history and now it could happen again. I am starting to get requests again, about this stuff, so obviously people are starting to try to do it again. Im retired, but I have this information and I dont have a problem putting it out there, so people can see how (hate crimes) happened and recognize these things when they happen again. 

Throughout his career, Trump has been quoted as reportedly making many uninformed, bigoted, and racist remarks. Cuhulain warns that such rhetoric can lead to copycat behavior in the general public. Weve got a red-haired political candidate running for president in the States who is a narcissistic personality disorder, Cuhulain said. And, he is putting out all kinds of misinformation and this encourages other people to do the same. They figure that if someone at that level can get away with it, I ought to be able to do it on my level. 

During Cuhulains presentation, one point he stressed is that the projected hate is typically instigated by a very small number of bigoted people, who use various tactics and techniques to make it appear that their opinion is shared by the majority. This can cause the us against them sentiment witnessed in Trumps campaign. By manipulating the media and fears of the people, the few make themselves appear larger than they really are.

Many are now worried that the Trump victory will contribute to what already appears to be an increase in hate crimes. When asked his opinion, Cuhulain said that he wouldnt rule that out. It is a possibility that has certainly occurred to me. We are seeing it  were seeing people intimidating voting groups that they dont want to see come to the polls; we are seeing vandalism and all kinds of violent things happening.

Its encouraging people to be paranoid, he went on to explain. That is what the Satanic Panic was about; this paranoia that there is the problem, and if we only get rid of THEM, then well be OK. When the political discourse of America includes proposing a wall to keep out Mexicans, or halting immigration from certain religious or ethnic groups, we see the instilling of the same sort of paranoia.

Alongside this current of fear, there has also been a spirit of defiance, and a proactive approach by religious and spiritual groups to build a capacity to uncover and combat hate crimes. Ardantane Pagan Learning Centers offering of Cuhulains class is only one example; other individuals and religious groups are also reaching out to Cuhulain, in order to take advantage of his expertise and long history of investigating these cases.

Yesterday I had a request from a professor in the department of sociology at Chapman University, which is a Christian university in Orange, California, asking for all of the information I may have on Cavalcade Productions, who was one of the supporters of the Satanic Panic, and put out many films and videos and publications, he said.

They are starting to teach courses on how people did these hate crimes and how they used them to create these pop therapies, and obviously they see it as an issue too, at this university, that within their community, this is a problem. I am glad to see them taking this approach. When I was doing this work, allot of the people investigating were not just pagans like myself, but Christians who were concerned about the perception that people were going to have about their community, because of this vocal minority using hate to gain power, money and influence.

The definitions of what constitutes a hate crime will vary by country, state, or region. A general definition, which is given by researchers Garofalo and Martin, states that a hate crime is:

A bias-motivated crime is a crime in which the offender is motivated by a characteristic of the victim that identifies the victim as a member of some group towards which the offender feels some animosity.

If you are the victim of something you suspect may qualify as a hate crime, Cuhulain suggests that you do some research to see if your experience falls within the definition of your community. You can send an email or phone a reputable faculty of theology, look online at law, or reach out to local government or law enforcement to understand the definitions of what constitutes a hate crime.

Ardantane is planning to schedule another session of Dealing With Hate Crimes early in the New Year. This will once again be an online class, presented in two, one-hour sessions.
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In the 2016 elections, several Willamette Law graduates ran for positions in Oregon, Washington, and on the national level in Washington, D.C. Heres how they fared.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) JD85 was re-elected to the Senate with 44 percent of the vote. She defeated several opponents.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee JD76 ran for re-election and defeated Republican Bill Bryant with 56 percent of the vote.

State Rep. Ken Helm 87, JD93 ran for re-election to the Oregon House of Representatives in District 34, which serves the northern Beaverton area in the states northwest region. He defeated Independent Donald Hershiser to win the race.

State Rep. Daniel A. Rayfield JD06 ran for re-election to the Oregon House of Representatives in District 16, comprised of Corvallis and Philomath in the states western region. He defeated Republican Judson McClure, Progressive Sami Al-AbdRabbuh, and Libertarian Andrew Freborg.

Rich Vial JD81 ran for election to the Oregon House of Representatives in District 26, which serves the Clackamas County area in the states northwest region. He defeated Democrat Ray Lister. Vial will replace State Rep. John Davis, R-Wilsonville, who decided not to seek re-election.

Colm Willis JD15 received 43 percent of the vote but lost his race for the U.S. House of Representatives, Oregon District 5 seat. The district is comprised of Oregons central coast through Salem, north to the southern Portland suburbs, and east to the summit of Mount Hood. Incumbent Kurt Schrader won with 54 percent of the vote.

Councilman Jeffrey D. Goodwin JD/MBA12 campaigned for the Oregon House of Representatives in District 17, which serves the Linn County area in the states central region. He lost to incumbent Sherrie Sprenger. Goodwin currently serves on the city council of Sweet Home, Oregon.

About Willamette University College of Law

Opened in 1883, Willamette University College of Law is the first law school in the Pacific Northwest. The college has a long tradition at the forefront of legal education and is committed to the advancement of knowledge through excellent teaching, scholarship, mentoring and experience. Leading faculty, thriving externship and clinical law programs, ample practical skills courses, and a proactive career placement office prepare Willamette law students for today's legal job market. According to statistics compiled by the American Bar Association, Willamette ranks first in the Pacific Northwest for job placement for full-time, long-term, JD-preferred/JD-required jobs for the class of 2014 and first in Oregon for the classes of 2012, 2013 and 2014. Located across the street from the state capitol complex and the Oregon Supreme Court in downtown Salem, the college specializes in law and government, law and business, and dispute resolution.
Late last month, while searching for bears, woodpeckers and spirits of Greece, I deliberately avoided checking any news, especially from my home country. Every now and then, I need to cut the world off and clear my mind.

Nevertheless, only the most important news I did follow, those about the decision-making process on future sales of elephants and their ivory at a global wildlife summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, the first such meeting since 2013.

We are facing a plague of poaching that is again decimating the species. In Africa, one elephant is being killed every 15 minutes. The Great Elephant Census found that populations of Savanna Elephants Loxodonta africana have fallen by 30% between 2007 and 2014 (around 144,000 animals poached or population shrunk at a rate of 8% a year, a level higher than their reproduction rate; source https://peerj.com/articles/2354.pdf). Even worse is the situation with Forest Elephants Loxodonta cyclotis of jungles of Central and West Africa. A different research says, from 2002 to 2011 the known populations of forest elephants declined by 62%. Shrunk? Declined? One may say so. I say they were butchered, face-off. Literally.

Will the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) conference delegates up-list them to Appendix I of the Convention, forbidding any future sale over international borders? Or  not?

My adopted homeland of Botswanas delegate said, Poaching is so intense that although Botswana has previously supported the limited, legal ivory sales from countries that manage their elephant herds sustainably, we now recognise that we can no longer support these sales [we] now support a total, unambiguous and permanent international ban on the ivory trade. And it gave me a hope.

Yet, opposition to their full protection came from an unexpected side, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), whose Head of Delegation said: These proposals would [not] have offered elephant populations any greater protection from the poachers. Indeed, the proposal to up-list four southern African populations to Appendix I could well have opened a back door to illegal international trade.

But the illegal international trade is already there, killing  among other places  in Kruger (S. Africa), Hwange (Zimbabwe) and, recently, in Chobe national park in Botswana (the one that was considered so safe that the Clintons have visited it as a presidential couple)! If aforementioned illegal international traders could have had their delegates at the summit, I am sure they would completely endorse the WWF (and I am old/cynical enough  read however you like it, to think that in this form or another, they did have their representatives). To me, the WWFs stance is like, e.g. if you have a corrupted police and too many unsolved murder cases, in order to make police job easier, you should opt to decriminalise murder.

As I said, I do remember my elephants, especially the first one. It was July, fifteen years ago. I was down in the south of Africa, in the Limpopo River valley. With my guide Steven Makala behind the wheel, an open Land Cruiser veered around rocky kopjes and winded through mixed mopane woodland with acacia and baobab, not far from Baines Drift in the east Tuli Bock of Botswana.

There were a lot of elephant dung along the dirt tracks  an entire fortune, having in mid that a framed slice of it could be bought in curio shops for 8 Euros. Beside dung, we saw Chacma Baboons and Vervet Monkeys, Common Duikers and Klipspringers, Kudus and Waterbucks Common Ostrich ran across the road and soaring birds, the very epitome of African savannas, included African Harrier-Hawk, Bateleur, Black-breasted and Brown Snake-Eagles, Tawny and Verreauxs Eagles, African Hawk-Eagle, African Fish-Eagle, etc. Steven had no binoculars, but impressively sharp eyes and great knowledge of birds.

Mopane trees can grow up to 18 m / 60 ft and interlock their canopies. Unlike acacias with their tiny leaves, mopane  also known as the butterfly tree is a broad-leafed tree known for its odd, double shaped leaves that fold together at noon to expose the smallest possible surface area to the merciless sun and reduce evaporation. Yet, the trees around us formed thickets, not taller than 4 m / 13 ft and practically without canopies, only short stubby branches whose fresh offshoots after the rains were being eaten by elephants.

I hadnt seen anything, but Steven stopped the Cruiser and pointed towards something dusty-red moving without a sound through coppery leaves of a winter afternoon, a mere few metres from us, and said: Elephant.

That was my first Savanna Elephant in the wild. The animal slowly walked away from us, stopping every now and then to check on our behaviour. From some distance, trumpeting of the matriarch of the herd could be heard. Now they know that we are here and we will not surprise any other ellie. Which may be better. For them, at least.

Last month in Johannesburg, the vast majority of the elephant-range states (30) were for the up-listing and total ban on any international trade. Of those range states, opposed were South Africa, Namibia and, not surprisingly, Zimbabwe.

But the shocking voice that made the difference and prevented the full protection of elephants was even less expected than the WWFs stance  the EU vote. EU voted as a block of 28 votes against. The US followed and voted against, too, but one vote would not make a difference. Block of 28 votes did.

Soon, the WWF twitted of the victory at the conference: 182 member-countries were advised to prohibit all internal ivory sales (in-the-country, as opposed to international), at the same time leaving the gates open for possible controlled international sales. The way I see it, it is a cruel joke leading towards the extinction of a threatened species. Why? Because the advice, being non legally-binding is precisely  nothing. A laughing matter (Japan was first to laugh at it, saying it doesnt give a , well, not in those exact words).

But I do not feel amused by it. Nor will elephants, being intelligent as they are and soon to see that precisely nothing has changed and that it is still poaching as usual, be any more amused by it.

How much time did you need to read this blog? Perhaps 15 minutes? Another ellie is being killed as you read this line.

If you or your children face elephant extinction during your lifetime, do not accuse solely the rise of the middle classes in the Far East, fueling a new demand for ivory. Turn your eyes to the European Union which could have stopped it in 2016, but chose not to.

Cover photo (c) Daryl Balfour
China launched an X-ray pulsar navigation satellite on Thursday morning, according to the China Satellite Navigation Office.

The XPNAV-1, developed by the China Academy of Space Technology, was sent skyward at 7:42 am atop a Long March 11 solid-fueled rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, the office said in a press release.

The satellite operates in a Sun-synchronous orbit and will conduct in-orbit experiments using pulsar detectors to demonstrate new technologies, said the press release.

It weighs more than 200 kilograms and carries two detectors, according to China Academy of Space Technology.

Shuai Ping, chief designer of the satellite at the academy, said that X-ray pulsar navigation is an innovative navigation technology in which periodic X-ray signals emitted from pulsars are used to determine the location of a spacecraft in deep space.

During its mission, the satellite will test the detectors' functions in responding to the background noise of the universe, outline pulsar contours, and create a database for pulsar navigation, the academy said.

It added that X-ray pulsar navigation will help reduce the spacecraft's reliance on ground-based navigation methods and is expected to lead to autonomous spacecraft navigation in the future.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn
Nov 9, 2016 | By Tess

Even as a child, Belgian footwear designer Katrien Herdewyn was fascinated with shoes, and knew she wanted to be a shoe designer. What she might not have realized as a young child, however, is how crucial 3D printing would be in her future designing process. With a background in engineering, material sciences, and nanotechnology, the young designer is breaking down fashion boundaries and creating some truly remarkable footwear pieces with the help of traditional shoemaking techniques and 3D printing.

In 2014, Herdewyn founded her own shoe label, Elegnano, which has continually emphasized the use of 3D printing technologies and continued use of traditional Italian craftsmanship. As the designer points out, however, she is not simply interested in using 3D modeling and printing technologies for the sake of using them, but has found that they have allowed for new possibilities in terms of creative shoe designs.

In integrating 3D printing into her process, Herdewyn partnered with Belgian 3D printing company i.materialise, which helped the young designer learn about additive manufacturing and how it could help to realize her boundary-pushing shoes. As she explains, she did not know how to 3D model when she decided that she wanted to use 3D printing for her shoes, so she set out to find specialists to help her. The important part, she says, was to properly communicate her drawings and ideas to her 3D modeling partner so that they could transform her shoe concepts into a 3D model.

With my background in engineering, I try and combine new technologies with traditional craftsmanship, Herdewyn explained in an interview. I believe this is where the future lies. 3D printing offers so many possibilities; you can do anything you can imagine. But when it comes to shoes, a designer always has to take into account that you have to be able to wear and walk in the shoe. I want to design shoes that are high tech and high fashion at the same time.

Herdewyns Elegnano label features very elegantly designed but stunning shoes, described as determined, fashionable, and graceful all at once. The collection, which is aimed at a relatively exclusive commercial market (with prices ranging between 400 and 700 euros), is only one side of the designers work, as she is continually experimenting with new shoe structures and forms to try and come up with innovative and avant-garde styles.

Herdewyn works primarily out of her Belgian footwear studio, but also continues to work closely with i.materialise, which provides her with 3D printed prototypes and parts, and with Italian leather makers who supply all the quality leather used for her shoes.

Over the years, the young Belgian designer has seen her shoes featured in exhibitions and fashion shows around the world, including in Belgium, the Netherlands, London, and Paris. Herdewyn and Elegnano have both been recognized multiple times with various awards and accolades.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Nov 10, 2016 | By Alec

When you think of 3D printed fashion, the first things that come to mind are usually outrageously futuristic outfits that look fantastic but seem very impractical to wear. Just look at our list of top 15 favorite 3D printed dresses, and you quickly get the idea. But as Israeli student Ganit Goldstein from the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem is proving with her latest project, you dont have to look towards the future to 3D print fashion. Taking her work in the completely opposite direction, she recreated a lace bodice from a nineteenth century costume using 3D printing.

This gorgeous outfit was created by Goldstein for a second year project, as part of her jewelry and fashion studies at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. As part of the assignment, she had to recreate a historical outfit and provide her own contemporary interpretation.

This assignment quickly brought her onto the path of lace, which has been a truly revolutionary fabric since appearing in Venice in the early sixteenth century. Lace was soon to be known as punto in aria (stitches in the air). Lace allows designs to break free from geometric forms  a boundary imposed by working with fabric. Lace was all hand made from the best materials available at the time and was made especially for womens costumes, to emphasize the wearers status and wealth, she explains. I wanted my contemporary design to be a thematic opposite of the historical dress. I decided to replace the Sisyphean manual lacework with 3D printing technology.

All the designs were developed by Goldstein herself, using a special algorithm to generate 3D lacework designs  with this digital approach ensuring that no hands were used during the design and 3D printing process. The synthetic lace was subsequently 3D printed with the help of Professor Shlomo Magdassis laboratory at the Hebrew Universitys Casali Institute for Applied Chemistry and the 3D Functional and Printing Center at the Hebrew University Nanocenter. Solidworks software and a MakerBot 3D printer were used.

This piece of 3D printed art is made from ABS filament, 3D printed in hollow  and therefore flexible  shapes. My research revolved around discovering a new way of making lace. I 3D printed lace-like shapes that have the opposite characteristics from the traditional lace, the designer says. The changing of the shapes is endless- changing only numbers in the original algorithm to make a beautiful variety of shapes.

Fortunately, Goldstein was able to rely on the expertise of Dr. Michael Layani and PhD candidate Ido Coperstein during the 3D printing process. Simply put, we are the chemicals men, Dr. Layani said of the project. Our research team and lab is responsible for creating and developing materials and substances which do not occur naturally. We then look where we can apply those substances in the real world through 3D printing.

While normally focused on cosmetic and pharmaceutical 3D printing projects, the center was more than happy to help. Ganit came to us with her algorithm, and then together we figured out what kind of material was best for her needs and its real world applications, Dr. Layani recalled. We then aided the process, from the very creation of the nanoparticles used for the material to the final stage of printing out the completed object.

The final result is synthetic, sure  but also very practical. Flexible to wear, it can also withstand high temperatures and can be combined with other pieces of clothing. In this case, the bottom skirt is also inspired by the original costumes pleated skirt. It is also produced much quicker than actual lace outfits, and Goldstein believes that it thus illustrates where the future of clothing and jewelry is heading. This project illustrates the tension between the traditional craft and contemporary technology, Goldstein said. In a few years time, it will be cheaper to print clothing and jewelry; when that happens, will the art of handcraft disappear?

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Nov 10, 2016 | By Tess

One of the most exciting things on the 3D printing horizon is printing in silicone, a rubbery and extremely versatile polymer which has wide applications in virtually all industries. Many 3D printing and materials companies have been making headway within the field of 3D printing silicone, such as German companies WACKER and Keyence, for instance, though there is still much left to be accomplished, especially in the desktop 3D printing community.

That is why we were very excited to hear about an innovative new project realized by a team of students from the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, who have developed a 3D printer add-on that allows for silicone to be cast into a 3D printed shell during the printing process. While the new technology is not 3D printing silicone per se, it is a promising inroad into more accessible and customizable silicone casting.

The new method, which was presented at the Advanced Prototyping science fair of the universitys faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, is called UltiCast and essentially combines 3D printing with more traditional molding and casting techniques which are standard for silicone. In other words, the machine works by simultaneously 3D printing a plastic shell or mold and filling said shell with a two-component silicone mix.

The students have even created a specialized code which automatically slices the 3D printed mold and determines exactly how much silicone mix must be used to fill it. If youre wondering how to remove the silicone from the shell, the team has used PVA to 3D print the shells, a material which can easily be dissolved in water.

To develop the UltiCast technology, the team of students used an Ultimaker 3D printer, which they hacked and rebuilt almost entirely. With their modified device, they have proven that they can create complex molds for siliconenot entirely new itselfbut can also cast the silicone at the same time.

As the team suggests, their new method could have useful applications in the field of soft robotics, as it could allow for the quick and cheap manufacturing of soft actuators. As Rob Scharff, an UltiCast team member and soft robotics PhD candidate, explains, You get a lot of freedom to personalize the behavior of robots with geometry and materials. This includes making flexible robot limbs, and custom-designed grippers, which could allow for more versatile robotic movements. Using UltiCast it is even possible to 3D print a harder material inside the silicone, which could allow for even more complex parts and materials.

The new technology could also prove to be useful within the medical sector, where soft robotics have a role to play. More specifically, UltiCast could be a useful tool in the creation of movement aids, such as 3D printed gloves with soft robotic actuators which could help those suffering from debilitating conditions such as local paralysis, arthritis, or injuries. Reducing the cost of treatment and support utilities is a goal that inspires us all. Soft robotics could, in the long term, be a big player in the progress, the team commented.

Impressively, the UltiCast 3D printer add-on was developed on the cheap, as the current iteration of it was made for only about 3000. For what is essentially a rudimentary multi-material 3D printing system, that is a price to write home about. For now, however, UltiCast is more a proof of concept than anything, and is still far from being a commercially viable product. In fact, it is not clear whether the students will even pursue the development of the novel system.

Whether they do or not, UltiCast is still an interesting experiment within the field of multi-material 3D printing and soft robotics. As the student team has shown, 3D printing limits can easily be broken down, and innovation is never far away.

Posted in 3D Printer Accessories

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anonymous wrote at 11/10/2016 9:18:52 PM:Didn't Metamason pioneer this process years ago?




Fredrik deBoer in the Washington Post:

Donald Trumps stunning victory is less surprising when we remember a simple fact: Hillary Clinton is a deeply unpopular politician. She won a hotly contested primary victory against a uniquely popular candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders. In her place, could he have beaten Trump?

That Clinton has unusually high unfavorables has been true for decades. Indeed, it has been a steady fact of her political life. She has annually ranked among the least-liked politicians on the national stage since she was the first lady. In recent years, her low favorability rating was matched only by that of her opponent, animated hate Muppet Donald Trump. In contrast, Sanders enjoys very high popularity, ranking as the most popular senator for two years in a row. Nationally, his favorability rating is more than 10 points higher than Clintons, and his unfavorability rating is more than 15 points lower. This popularity would have been a real asset on the campaign trail.

Clintons inability to ever capture the approval of most Americans hurt her in a number of ways. Consider her performance in predominantly black, working-class counties in Michigan. These are precisely the kinds of areas that she was supposed to count on in the Rust Belt, the blue wall that would supposedly secure her victory even if she lost out in Florida and North Carolina.

More here.
*UPDATE Oct. 3, 2020: Yosemite National Park has reopened after closures due both to Covid-19 and wildfires. Day-use reservations will be required to enter the park until Nov. 1, 2020. Before your visit, please check nps.gov for the latest updates and possible closures. Be sure to bring your mask and keep distance from others. Also note that smoke from nearby fires may be causing poor quality; you can check current air quality index at iqair.com.



--

Fall in Yosemite, particularly past mid-October, offers a quieter, peaceful experience.



Fall is almost here and it's the perfect time for exploring the Yosemite Valley floor by bike. Tour the valley's iconic landmarks on your own time and without the stress of summer car traffic. If you're a climber, then you already know that fall is one of the best times to climb in the valley. Daytime temperatures are generally mild, and you won't encounter lines, as can sometimes happen in summer, to climb the valley classics.

By mid fall, even the odds of getting a campsite within Yosemite Valley without planning months in advance are in your favor. Upper Pines Campground, which remains open year round, typically has spots available upon arrival this time of year. Walk-in Camp 4 is less crowded, too. We'd still recommend stopping by the campground reservations office on the earlier side of the day to ensure you get a spot, but cold valley nights typically mean fewer Yosemite campers. Just make sure to bring plenty of firewood to keep warm.

A crew soaks up the view along the Four Mile Trail (Photo by Taylor Stitch)

Four Mile Trail to Glacier Point

Glacier Point via the Four Mile Trail undoubtedly ranks as one of the top day hikes beginning from Yosemite Valley. Climbing 3,200 feet from the valley floor to Yosemite's most famous viewpoint on the edge of the south rim, the trail provides inspiring views of Yosemite's most notable landmarks and an aerial vantage on the valley floor that culminates with the sweeping vista at Glacier Point.

PROS: Iconic Yosemite Valley and Half Dome views.

CONS: Glacier Point can draw a crowd.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: Moderate

PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: National Park Pass

TOTAL DISTANCE: 9.20 mi (14.81 km)

TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m)

NET ELEV. GAIN: 7,214 ft (2,199 m)

TRAIL USES:Hiking, Horseback

TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back

DOGS ALLOWED: No

A cyclist enjoys the towering view of El Cap on a Yosemite Valley bike lap (Photo by Aron Bosworth)

Yosemite Vally Bicycle Loop

Exploring Yosemite Valley by bicycle opens a world of possibilities that aren't afforded by car. In addition to having an endless supply of bike parking (you can pull off just about anywhere), you have the open air freedom to take in the scenery while cruising and can stop on a whim to tour an a magnificent meadow, gaze up at granite monoliths, or warm up in front of a fire at the historic Ahwahnee Hotel.

PROS: Great way to sightsee and cover the valley landmarks. Don't have to deal with parking.

PROS: Great way to sightsee and cover the valley landmarks. Don't have to deal with parking. CONS: Bike path network is limited. Must share roads with cars.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: Moderate

PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: National Park Pass

TOTAL DISTANCE: 20.50 mi (32.99 km)

TERRAIN DIFFICULTY: GREEN

TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m)

NET ELEV. GAIN: 50 ft (15 m)

TRAIL USES:Hiking, Biking

TRAIL TYPE: Loop

DOGS ALLOWED?: No

Nevada Falls (Aron Bosworth)

Nevada Falls via Giant Staircase Loop

Upon first viewing Yosemite's Giant Staircase, one can imagine how this section of the Merced River Canyon got its name. The Giant Staircase refers to a pair of immense granite steps that create a 2,000-foot drop between Little Yosemite Valley and the main Yosemite Valley floor. Adding to this dramatic landscape, the Merced River plummets over the ledges and creates two spectacular waterfalls: the lower 317-foot Vernal Fall and upper 594-foot Nevada Fall.

PROS: Multiple waterfalls. Phenomonal veiws of Yosemite's glacial domes.

PROS: Multiple waterfalls. Phenomonal veiws of Yosemite's glacial domes. CONS: Lower section of trail can get crowded.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: Moderate

PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass

TOTAL DISTANCE: 6.30 mi (10.14 km)

TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m)

NET ELEV. GAIN: 1,090 ft (332 m)

TRAIL USES:Hiking, HorsebackT

RAIL TYPE: There-and-back/Loop

DOGS ALLOWED: No

An elevated view of Yosemite Valley from Columbia Rock Photo by Tyson Gillard

Columbia Rock Hike

Departing from the north edge of Yosemite Valley, the hike up to Columbia Rock ends at the ideal location to sit, catch your breath, unwind from the day, and take in the impressive views of the valley at sunset.

PROS: Panoramic views of Yosemite Valley.

CONS: Arduous and steep switchback trail.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: High

PREFERABLE SEASON(S): Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: National Park Pass

TOTAL DISTANCE: 3.00 mi (4.83 km)

TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 3,967 ft (1,209 m)

NET ELEV. GAIN: 1,000 ft (305 m)

TRAIL USES: Hiking

TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back

DOGS ALLOWED: No





The Ahwahnee Hotel

The Ahwahnee Hotel (happily no longer called the Majestic Yosemite Hotel) in Yosemite National Park is often called the queen of national park lodges. Named after the Miwok Native Americans that inhabited Yosemite Valley ("Ahwahnee" means place of gaping mouth), the hotel is arguably the grandest representation of America's parkitecture style that is so pervasive among flagship national park structures built in the early 20th century. While the hotel itself is an architectural marvel, it is the combination of the hotel's majestic Yosemite setting and the nature-inspired architecture that set it apart.

PROS: Impressive lodge architecture. Lodging.

CONS: Difficult to parking during peak season.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: High

PREFERABLE SEASON(S): Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: National Park Pass

POINTS OF INTEREST: Historical landmark, Viewpoint

DOGS ALLOWED: No

Fall colors below Yosemite Falls Photo by Aron Bosworth

Lower Yosemite Falls

Lower Yosemite Falls makes up the final drop of the impressively massive Yosemite Falls, the tallest waterfall in the United States. While the upper portion of the waterfall, Upper Yosemite Falls, receives the majority of attention (understandably so with a drop of 1,430 feet), it's little brother is nothing to scoff at with a 320-foot plummet top to bottom.

PROS: Easy waterfall access. Impressive view of Half Dome from the base of the waterfall.

CONS: Crowds.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: High

PREFERABLE SEASON(S): Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: National Park Pass

POINTS OF INTEREST: Viewpoint, Old growth forest, Waterfall

DOGS ALLOWED: No





(Aron Bosworth)

Mirror Lake Loop

Located in the far eastern corner of Yosemite Valley near the mouth of Tenaya Canyon, Mirror Lake is formed by a shallow lake bed in which the waters of Tenaya Creek flow. The flat loop trail that circumnavigates the lake and continues east into Tenaya Canyon gives visitors an opportunity to explore this quiet and serene corner of the park.

PROS: Rich in wildlife. Flat hike.

PROS: Rich in wildlife. Flat hike. CONS: None.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: Moderate

PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass

TOTAL DISTANCE: 4.20 mi (6.76 km)

TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m)

NET ELEV. GAIN: 100 ft (30 m)

TRAIL USES:Hiking

TRAIL TYPE: Loop

DOGS ALLOWED: No





Upper Pines Campground

Upper Pines Campground is one of two campgrounds located in Yosemite Valley proper that remain open year-round. It is the only winter option that is open to car, trailer, and RV camping; Camp 4 is open through the winter, but it is a walk-in, tent-only campground. Upper Pines consists of 238 sites spread among six loops, all of which sit under a canopy of ponderosa pine and incense cedar. The trees are beautiful, but they do obstruct views of the stunning surrounding granite. The campground is located near to some of the valley's best hiking trails, and it is only a walk away from the Happy Isles Trailhead and access to Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall.

PROS: Open in winter. Within walking distance to multiple Yosemite trailheads.

CONS: Campsites are huddled close together.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: High

PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

CAMPING FEE: $20.00

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass

TENT/CAR SITES: 238

PICNIC TABLES: Yes

DOGS ALLOWED: Yes





(Aron Bosworth)

After Six

After Six is a six-pitch 5.7 Yosemite classic that has long been a favorite among the less time-committing group of free climbs in Yosemite Valley. Located on the western end of Manure Pile Buttress, the climb is popular with those looking for one of the easier Yosemite routes (it's a good introduction to Yosemite 5.7 multi-pitch traditional climbing) or for a climb that takes less than a full day's commitment. The route ascends 600 feet up the granite slabs of Manure Pile Buttress in a series of low angle cracks and face sections. Large belay ledges are frequent throughout and offer plenty of spots to break for a snack and enjoy the spectacular Yosemite Valley view.

PROS: Half-day 5.7 free climb. Easy walk-off descent.

CONS: Potential for line to form at base on crowded weekends.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: Moderate

PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass

TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m)

NET ELEV. GAIN: 600 ft (183 m)

TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back

DOGS ALLOWED: No

RECOMMENDED EQUIPMENT:Harness, Rope, Anchors, Other

MOST TECHNICAL PITCH: Class IV





Tunnel View

Perhaps made most famous by Ansel Adams*, the vantage of Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View is recognizable world round, regardless of whether you have ever stepped foot in Yosemite National Park.



PROS: Iconic Yosemite Valley viewpoint.

CONS: Crowds.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: High

PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass

POINTS OF INTEREST:Viewpoint

DOGS ALLOWED: Yes





Hiking below Nevada Falls. (Aron Bosworth)

Taft Point

With less notoriety and fewer visitors than nearby Glacier Point, Taft Point is the other vista precipice that sits on Yosemite's south rim. Rising 3,500 feet above the valley floor, Taft Point is actually 300 feet taller than Glacier Point. The absence of guardrails gives this granite promontory more of a wild and exposed feeling than its counterpart located a couple miles east down Glacier Point Road.



PROS: Hike along the edge of the south rim. The Fissures. Thrilling vista.

CONS: Exposure may be problematic for some.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: Moderate

PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass

TOTAL DISTANCE: 2.20 mi (3.54 km)

TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 7,740 ft (2,359 m)

NET ELEV. GAIN: 230 ft (70 m)

TRAIL USES:Hiking

TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back

DOGS ALLOWED: No





Glacier Point

Chances are you've heard of Glacier Point. It's one of the most photographed vistas and better known viewpoints in the country. President Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir had a famous photograph made from the point on the President's trip to Yosemite in 1903. This trip resulted in Yosemite Valley being incorporated from state control into the National Park system and receiving greater protection.



PROS: One of the best views of Half Dome and eastern Yosemite Valley. Easy access when the road is open. Family friendly.

PROS: One of the best views of Half Dome and eastern Yosemite Valley. Easy access when the road is open. Family friendly. CONS: Crowds.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: High

PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass

POINTS OF INTEREST:Viewpoint

DOGS ALLOWED: No





Sentinel Rock reflects in a clear Merced River. (Aron Bosworth)

Vernal Falls Hike via Mist Trail

The lower of the two steps that make up the Giant Staircase, Vernal Falls via the Mist Trail explores a stretch of the Merced River Canyon as it rises off of the valley floor and up to the top of Vernal Falls. The hike is a nice there-and-back option if you are limited on time or are interested in a warm-up prior to setting out on a higher elevation hike such as Glacier Point via the 4-Mile Trail and Yosemite Falls Trail.



PROS: Waterfalls. Can be combined with a longer loop hike to Nevada Falls.

CONS: Lots of people on the lower section of Mist Trail.

REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA

CONGESTION: High

PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall

DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass

TOTAL DISTANCE: 2.70 mi (4.35 km)

TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m)

NET ELEV. GAIN: 1,055 ft (322 m)

TRAIL USES:Hiking

TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back

DOGS ALLOWED: No
For the second night in a row, anti-Trump protestors took to the streets Wednesday night to share their dismay over a Trump administration.

Chants of "Dump Trump" and "Pussy grabs back" could be heard echoing from Market Street in San Francisco to downtown Oakland to Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, where organizers reminded the crowd that the rest of the United States relies on the Bay Area to let their voices be heard.





In Oakland, over 7,000 people congregated near Frank Ogawa Plaza (also referred to as Oscar Grant Plaza), and police officers deployed tear gas multiple times on the crowd to stop protestors from throwing bottles, rocks and firecrackers. Oakland police arrested 30 protesters and cited 11 others and extinguished about 40 fires at the end of the night. Three officers were also injured at the protest.





Oakland P.D. deployed tear gas on the protesting crowd last night. (Cirrus Wood)

In San Francisco, a smaller crowd of marchers started on Powell Street made their way through the Castro, then to the Mission District. At Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro, a quiet demonstration of people gathered with candles.





See some of the shots from last night in the slideshow below.
UC Berkeley's 'The House' is the first to provide financial support and offer 7,000 square feet of office space for all Berkeley-affiliated student, faculty, and alumni entrepreneurs.

Two such entrepreneurs, Cameron Baradar and Jeremy Fiance, founded The House, a one-stop shop for everything a fledgling start-up founder could need: mentorship, capital, networking opportunities, and a work space, which will primarily support companies who have just started receiving investments from venture capitalists. Fiance was inspired to start this project after writing a senior thesis about UC Berkeley startups and realizing that Cal had no fund despite ranking as #2 in the world for venture-backed start-ups . So far, The House has raised $6M to incubate student start-ups.





Some innovative start-ups working with The House this year:





Eko Core allows clinicians to share heart sounds in your electronic health record via a secure mobile app. (Courtesy of Eko Devices)

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide, but many forms can be treated or prevented with proper detection. That's why Eko Devices created the Eko Core, a digital stethoscope that allows clinicians to share heart sounds in your electronic health record (EHR) via a secure mobile app. Eko COO Jason Bellet says that this flexibility makes it possible for patients with complicated conditions in rural areas to get a second opinion from a specialist.







Dray

Many of us have experienced the frustrations of waiting for a shipment that never arrived. Dray , a transportation-technology provider, wants to fix that. The Dray team noticed inefficiencies in the shipping process, particularly unnecessary manual work and heavy human resources; now, they assist many dispatching operations by sharing package location, reporting delays, and uploading documents in real-time through apps. By streamlining delivery and saving time on check-calls, emails, and paperwork, shippers can ensure that your local grocery or retail store will be fully-stocked for all your everyday necessities.





To balance his busy schedule, CEO Anthony Sutardja especially enjoys the student panels organized by The House. "It's great for connection and exposure, networking and talking to founders. Sometimes Jeremy brings in people who have already built businesses, such as founders from Caviar, so we can gain insight on how they built their business. It's really important that we get the networking resources that we need."





The Indoor Reality backpack, uncovered, is comprised of a camera, LiDAR sensor and thermal camera. (Courtesy of Indoor Reality)

Indoor Reality

Want to know how that sofa will look in your home before a big purchase? Get ready to do some interior design for your future abode without even stepping inside. Indoor Reality is a platform that allows property owners to remotely visualize floor plans for buildings. By tracking real-time occupancy, they are able to virtually navigate inside a building by panning, zooming and measuring 3D points. Founder and Berkeley engineering professor Avideh Zakhor says, "The House has been able to provide me and Indoor Reality with game-changing support in building the foundations for this new business."





// For founders, mentors, or investors email: build@thehouse.fund




Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation

www.fallenpatriots.org

Founded in 2002, the foundation provides college scholarships and educational counseling to military children who have lost a parent in the line of duty. You can participate in the #DropAndGiveMe10 Challenge by posting a video of yourself doing push-ups in honor of fallen patriots and donating some amount to the foundation for every successful push-up  and then challenge three others to do the same. Or you can contribute panels to a charity knitting/crocheting project to raise awareness of the foundation's mission.



Disabled American Veterans

www.dav.org

Services offered to disabled veterans and their families since 1920 include help with disability assistance, VA pensions and job programs. While donations and gifts are needed, you can also help by volunteering at Veterans Affairs hospitals or serving as a driver to transport vets to their medical appointments.



Fisher House Foundation

www.fisherhouse.org

Fisher House operates a network of homes at major military and VA medical centers nationwide where military and veterans families can stay for free while a loved one is receiving medical treatment. It also operates a Hero Miles program and a Hotels for Heroes program that accept donated frequent flier airline miles and hotel points to help veterans family members travel to their bedside and stay at a hotel for free.



Hire Heroes USA

www.hireheroesusa.org

Hire Heroes USA provides job training for veterans from other vets who have business experience. If you own a business, you can become an employment partner. Or you can volunteer to assist with mock interviews, fundraising, career counseling or outreach to veterans and their spouses.
Tim Hetherington/Magnum Photos

En espanol | Your book Tribe talks about combat veterans who miss the intimate bonds of platoon life. How does that affect them?

Ten percent of the military is regularly engaged in combat and obviously in a position of being traumatized, as are war reporters and policemen and firefighters. Trauma is real. Soldiers who were in frontline combat have a transition problem and really struggle with depression when they get home.

How does that cause problems with reentering society?

It's the shock of going from a close-knit communal existence to the kind of individualized unconnected society that we have in modern America.

That's just psychologically hard on human beings. It's hard on civilians as well; they just don't realize it because they've never experienced the alternative.
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Havilah Resources Limited (ASX:HAV) is pleased to advise that it has placed $1.4 million of the shortfall shares pursuant to the 1:7 renounceable Rights Issue announced to the ASX on 5 October 2017 and which closed on 31 October 2017. Together with the $1.5 million raised in the Rights Issue, this means that Havilah has now raised ~54% of the $5.4 million originally sought.
Firms that are strapped for staff may want to bear in mind the changing demographics of the U.S., and start looking for employees in talent pools they havent tapped before.

For Best Firms to Work For like Castro & Co., Gelman, Rosenberg & Freidman, and KatzAbosch, all in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore area, that can mean recruiting at HBCUs, or historically black colleges and universities, and working with the National Association of Black Accountants. (http://www.nabainc.org/)

Atlantas Smith & Howard also recruits with NABA, and adds the Association of Latino Professionals for America (http://www.alpfa.org/) and Ascend (http://www.ascendleadership.org/), which focuses on Asian-Americans, to the mix. Whats more, the firm reported, We created a program  SHARP -- for minority metro Atlanta high school students to introduce students to a career in accounting and/or finance. We began the planning phase in 2015. The first conference will be held in 2016 where we will host approximately 20 students and introduce them to the different career paths available to them with an accounting and/or finance degree. In addition, we will present a scholarship to a junior and senior student to be used towards college expenses.

In addition to racial diversity, many of the Best Firms to Work For are working on gender diversity, as well, with efforts that range from making a point of mentoring rising female leaders to full-fledged womens initiatives, like the Women Empowering Women program at Ohios William Vaughan Co., which fosters the development of our women team members during each stage of their careers, the firm said. The program enables women at WVC to cultivate and enrich their vocation and improve their business development skills through professional activities, mentoring, networking and educational programs. By doing so, we create a positive work environment and thereby attract and retain women professionals.

Its worth bearing in mind that diversity isnt just about race or gender, and that you can draw great employees from a wide range of talent pools. Some firms are making a point of reaching out to retired staff members with part-time seasonal work. And Kearney & Co. reported that it has had relationships with the AARP, as well as the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services to create opportunities for elderly employees  and it has also put a strong focus on recruiting veterans.
BDO USA LLP has expanded into Jacksonville, Florida, by adding the LBA Group, the firms ninth location in the Sunshine State.

[IMGCAP(1)]The deal will add 102 staff, including 11 partners, from LBA, which ranked 14th on Accounting Todays Regional Leaders list for the Top Firms in the Gulf Coast region.

The firm dates back 50 years to 1966 and provides accounting and tax services to businesses, particularly in the health care, construction, real estate, manufacturing and nonprofit sectors. The deal also includes the LBA Healthcare Consulting and LBA Retirement Plan Services units.

The Jacksonville office will join BDO's existing offices in Coral Gables, Fort Lauderdale, Lakeland, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, West Palm Beach and Winter Haven, giving BDO more than 400 professionals in Florida. The deal is expected to close on November 16.

BDO USA has been going through a period of rapid expansion. This is the firms seventh M&A deal in the past year. Unlike some of the other deals, LBA wasnt part of the BDO Alliance. Instead, LBA was formerly a member of the Leading Edge Alliance and BKR International.

BDO saw Jacksonville as a desirable market for expansion. Its an area we had to expand in, said BDO USA CEO Wayne Berson. The Southeast region was an area we were looking to grow. This helps us considerably in terms of helping round out our Florida footprint. Weve been well established in Central and South Florida, and the addition of LBA allows us to stretch our footprint now to Northeast Florida.

Berson told Accounting Today his firm is always looking to gain critical mass in existing major markets, expanded geographic coverage in new strategic markets, and additional resources in an existing industry or service line. In LBA weve added respected and established professional resources in a new market, he added. Their industry practices at LBAhealth care, construction, real estateadd resources to existing BDO strengths.

[IMGCAP(2)]BDO was looking to gain some critical mass in North Florida, said LBA managing partner Neal Von Stein. They already have established practices down in South and Central Florida, but they wanted to stretch up to North Florida, and we provided them with that presence up here. For us BDO offered such a vast array of services we could offer our clients in a growing market that we needed to be able to enhance and leverage for our clients. It really is a good marriage of firms. Their culture and our culture are similar, so its exciting to see what we can do together.

LBA will add around $15 million in revenue to BDOs coffers. BDO USA finished last year with $1.3 billion in annual revenue, and Berson said the firm is on track to reach $1.4 billion in revenue this year.

In the past four years, BDO has expanded quickly, adding offices in 25 new cities and bulking up a dozen existing markets. Berson hopes to expand the firm further in areas like the West Coast, Texas and New York City.

We are getting contacted by a lot of firms and for us it becomes an issue of working through who makes the most sense, which firm do we want to work with, said Berson. So far I can say weve got some really very good firms coming in to us.
Association of Indian Magazines (AIM),yesterday, hosted the 10th edition of its annual marquee event - Indian Magazine Congress (IMC)- in Mumbai.

Themed on Incredible Magazines, the one day congress deliberated on various issues that concern the media at large including magazines.

Suresh Prabhu, Honourable Minister for Railways, Derek OBrien, Honourable Member of Parliament and Raghav Bahl, Entrepreneur, Business Leader and Writer, Manish Bhatt, Founder and Director, Scarecrow Communications, Dr. Bhaskar Das, President, Chief Growth and Innovation officer, Zee Unimedia Limited were one of the key note speakers.

Post the congress, the body unanimously elected R Rajmohan as the President of Association of Indian Magazines ( AIM). Rajmohan, Chief Marketing Officer ( North) & Head- Special Projects, Malayala Manorama Group, is a veteran in print media having worked with The Times of India, India Today, Hindustan Times, Outlook, Open Media Network etc and has been a Governing Council member of AIM since its inception.

B Srinivasan, Managing Director, Vikatan Group, is the new Vice President whereas Indranil Roy, Executive Director & Publisher, Outlook Group has been elected as the General Secretary. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman & Managing Director, CyberMedia, who is a former president of AIM, has been re-elected as the Treasurer.
Ginolis Ltd, a global desktop automation and liquid handling solutions provider, today announced the delivery of the first LFDA-3 to Suzhou Dingshi Medical Technology company in China. The revolutionary rapid test assembly solution provides manufacturers flexible production capacity within a desktop footprint.

The new modular compact LFDA-3 went beyond all our expectations. We are very happy with the system and the cooperation with Ginolis. states Dingshi CEO Alex Xi. They have been professional and accommodated all our needs. We are looking forward to going further with Ginolis.

The innovative lateral flow device assembly solution provides high volume production capacity with automated visual inspection and guidance ensuring the highest standard of quality control. The LFDA-3 solution is easily adaptable and can assemble different rapid tests with minimal product specific adjustments.

The first LFDA-3 system delivery was a great success. Dingshi has been a great partner and we look forward working with them in the future states VP Sales and Marketing, Jorma Venalainen. This is a very important step for us moving forward in the Asia Pacific market. We feel that there is huge growth potential for Ginolis solutions in Asia and this deal is a testament to that.

The total value of the deal is not disclosed.

The company will be showcasing the LFDA-3 at the Medica tradeshow in Dusseldorf, Germany on November 14  17, 2016. Visit Ginolis Ltd at Hall 1 stand B15.

About Ginolis:

Ginolis is a global systems supplier that specializes in production automation and high precision liquid handling solutions for the diagnostic and MedTech industries. The company is privately owned and headquartered in Oulu, Finland, with offices in Uppsala, Sweden, San Diego, USA and Suzhou, China.

www.ginolis.com

About Suzhou Dingshi Medical Technology

Dingshi is a forerunner in POCT industry with fully automated and efficient Fluorescence Quantitative Analyzer and Test kits. The company is established on year 2015, Suzhou China, capable with Sales network and R&D resource.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161109006471/en/

Ginolis Ltd.

Jorma Venalainen, +358 50 365 7186

VP Sales and Marketing

jorma.venalainen@ginolis.com

or

Ginolis Suzhou Representative Office

Wilson Zhou, +86 13862014112

Sales and Chief Representative

wilson.zhou@ginolis.com
Wine Enthusiast Magazine today announced that it will be honoring industry visionary and Central Coast wine pioneer Jerry Lohr as its American Wine Legend at the upcoming 17th annual Wine Star Awards. Lohr will be honored in Wine Enthusiasts special Best of Year issue, and at a black-tie gala in Miami on Monday, January 30, 2017. While the Wine Star Awards ceremony is an annual event, the American Wine Legend honor has only been awarded three times since 2000. As the founder of J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines, Lohr is widely recognized for helping to bring the wines of Paso Robles and Monterey County to global prominence. A past chair of Wine Institute and the founder of several leading trade and research organizations, he is also a tireless wine industry advocate who has played an integral role in advancing the American wine industry. In recognition of his accomplishments, Lohr is being honored by Wine Enthusiast for his energy, courage, groundbreaking vision and business acumen, and his invaluable contributions to the industry.

What Robert Mondavi was to Napa Valley, Jerry Lohr is to the Central Coast, leading and elevating an entire viticultural region from Monterey to Paso Robles with perseverance, dedication and a passion for quality, said Adam Strum, the chairman of Wine Enthusiast Companies and the editor and publisher of Wine Enthusiast.

In 1972, while Mondavi and others were shaping the wine landscape of Napa Valley, Jerry Lohr was one of a handful of early pioneers establishing a new outpost of winegrowing excellence on the Central Coast. The son of a hard-working South Dakota farming family, and an engineer by trade, Lohr understood early on that every crop excels under very specific growing conditions. Since planting his first Monterey County estate vineyards in 1972 and his original Paso Robles vineyards in 1988, Lohr has helped to define quality in Central Coast viticulture. At the same time, he has established J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines as one of the most respected and successful multigenerational family-run wineries of its size in the world, with more than 5,000 acres of estate vineyards in Paso Robles, Monterey County and Napa Valley.

In addition to building J. Lohr into an acclaimed brand that has introduced millions of wine drinkers in more than 40 countries around the globe to the wines of Monterey County and Paso Robles, Lohr has devoted much of the past 45 years of his life to the industry as a whole. As a leader, a consensus builder, and an advocate for change, experimentation, and sustainability, Jerrys influence has been wide-reaching. Among his accomplishments, he is the cofounder and a four-time chair of the Monterey Winegrowers Council, one of four founding members of Wine Vision, and a founding chairman and current director of the National Grape and Wine Initiative.

Lohr is also a major benefactor of research and education in viticulture and enology. In addition to being a two-time chair of the UC Davis Executive Leadership Board, and a former member of the UC Davis Chancellors Advisory Committee, Jerry was the second largest donor to the UC Davis LEED Platinum Research and Teaching Winery. He also made a million-dollar pledge towards building a new teaching and research winery at Cal Poly, and provided more than ten million dollars in endowments to his alma mater, South Dakota State University, including funding for the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering.

In addition to being named Wine Enthusiasts 2016 American Wine Legend, Lohr has earned numerous other accolades, including the New York Institute of Technology Professional Excellence in Enology Award, the California Association of Winegrape Growers Lifetime Achievement Award, the UC Davis Award of Distinction, and the American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV) Merit Award. Lohrs honor as an American Wine Legend is his second major Wine Star Award, with J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines previously being named Wine Enthusiasts 2010 American Winery of the Year. Wine Enthusiast also named Monterey County one of the Worlds Top Ten Wine Destinations in 2013, the same year the magazine named Paso Robles Wine Region of the Year at its annual Wine Star Awards.

About J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines (www.jlohr.com)

Founded more than four decades ago by Jerry Lohr and still family-owned and operated today, J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines crafts a full line of internationally recognized wines from its 5,000 acres of sustainably certified estate vineyards in Paso Robles, Monterey Countys Arroyo Seco and Santa Lucia Highlands appellations, and St. Helena in the Napa Valley. Offering an expressive range of styles, J. Lohr produces four tiers of signature wines showcasing its estate grapes: J. Lohr Estates, J. Lohr Vineyard Series, J. Lohr Cuvee Series and J. Lohr Gesture.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006128/en/

J.A.M. PR

Miriam Pitt, 415-495-1107

miriam@jam-pr.com
Air Force officials have selected 302 officers as the 2017 combat air forces squadron commander candidates.

Designees are the result of the CAF squadron command selection board held at the Air Force Personnel Center Sept. 13. Candidates are eligible for any worldwide command opening to include 365-day extended deployment command opportunities.

Wing and group hiring officials will use the candidate list to fill projected 2017 CAF squadron commander vacancies. Members appearing on this listing may also be considered for other command opportunities outside of the CAF.

Not all officers on the candidate lists will get command assignments, said Maj. Clint Carlisle, the AFPC assignments officer. The development teams typically select more qualified officers than there are projected vacancies to account for any unexpected events during the year.

The development teams reviewed all aspects of the candidates records, duty histories, demonstrated leadership ability, professional development and permanent change of station eligibility to identify the most qualified for command.

The selection process is highly competitive, Carlisle said. These candidates have demonstrated the leadership traits crucial for leading Airmen, setting goals and envisioning the future.

Furthermore, for the first time, the CAF candidate list includes an additional 68 CAF members previously selected by Air Education and Training Command who also appeared on the recent HAWK squadron commander candidate list.

Capt. Ana Ruiz, the CAF DT advisor at Air Combat Command, said this effort is groundbreaking.

CAF wing commanders will no longer have to search through two separate listings to seek out new squadron commanders, he said.

Ruiz recently took over as advisor to the ACC/A3 for all rated officer developmental matters.

Candidates will remain on the list if not selected for command until the list is superseded by the following years results, unless they are removed for one of a variety of reasons such as selection for another assignment opportunity.

The candidate list is posted to myPers. To view the list, select Active Duty Officer from the dropdown menu and search CAF Squadron.

For more information about Air Force personnel programs, go to myPers. Individuals who do not have a myPers account can request one by following these instructions.
Joint expeditionary Airmen bridge service gaps in todays fight

Trucks line up hood to bumper, resembling rush-hour traffic jams; pallets stacked with bags of rice or ammunition, sit in precise rows while armored vehicles wait to move to the flightline and join the fight. These sights may seem all too familiar for some aerial porters and loadmasters, but to one Airman, they tell a far greater story.



The story of a battle about to break out, or a conflict winding down are narrated by the type, amount, destination and urgency of cargo being processed and airlifted in and out of the aerial port terminal, said Tech Sgt. Ronald Gowen, a logistician assigned to the 387th Air Expeditionary Squadron.



Though hes performing a standard Air Force job ensuring supplies make it to the front line, Gowens deployed experience is different from many other Airmen. He is assigned specifically to support non-Air Force units. His unique skills as an Airman are in high demand by sister service elements engaged in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.



Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein recently outlined his vision for a future where Airmen are called upon more and more often to work in joint environments.



It is essential we strengthen the development of Airmen who are not only steeped in the business of Airpower, but also knowledgeable in how to optimize every component as part of a Joint Task Force, Goldfein wrote in a letter to Airmen published earlier this year.



When highly specialized Airmen like Gowen are assigned to joint units engaged in Operation Inherent Resolve, the 387th AES is there to provide for their administrative care and feeding, ensuring units have a direct line back to their home service. The squadron is responsible for more than 300 joint Airmen deployed in 10 to 12 different countries, said Lt. Col. Sang Kim, the 387th AES commander.



Over the years, I think the Air Force has been doing very well and continues to grow in joint environments, providing these critical skill sets to really make an impact in the fight, Kim said. Our efforts supporting Combined Joint Task Force  Operation Inherent Resolve is a prime example of our joint Airmen doing that mission.



For Airmen, working with other services can bring unique challenges. There are often miscommunications and difficulties as a result of the different cultures and languages that exist within each branch.



The 387th AES helps mitigate these cultural differences by opening the lines of communication. They make it a priority to regularly meet with their Airmens tactical supervisors from other services in order to forge partnerships and assist with managing their personnel, explained Kim.



Providing support to joint units isnt new to many Airmen like Gowen, who has years of experience operating with other services.



Throughout my other four deployments, working alongside other sister services or allied nations was the norm, Gowen said. I have worked closely with the Army at a Joint Mobility Operations Center as we directed rotary wing airflow, and coordinated the fixed wing ramp operations simultaneously. I have also been a part of a seven-person team of aerial porters that deployed to Forward Operating Base Farah, Afghanistan, under Navy command to orchestrate air transport and advisory in expediting the redeployment of the Navy, Marine Corps and Army units along with the Italian Brigade personnel and equipment for base closure.



Much like the process aerial porters go through getting supplies from point A to B, the Air Force must also continue to manage joint Airmen sent to various locations, Kim said. Maintaining communication with Air Force personnel assigned to joint units around the region remains a primary focus of his unit.



We provide (our Airmen) with operational and administrative control at their geographically separated locations and ensure open communication with our team members and their joint chain of command, Kim said. Finally, we conduct battlefield circulations into multiple regions of the combined joint operations area to strengthen relationships and check on our (Airmen) supporting OIRs primary mission to defeat (ISIL).
The raw divisions exposed by the presidential race were on full display across America on Wednesday, as protesters flooded city streets to condemn Donald Trumps election in demonstrations that police said were mostly peaceful.

From New England to heartland cities like Kansas City and along the West Coast, demonstrators carried flags and anti-Trump signs, disrupting traffic and declaring that they refused to accept Trumps triumph.

In Chicago, where thousands had recently poured into the streets to celebrate the Chicago Cubs first World Series victory in over a century, several thousand people marched through the Loop. They gathered outside Trump Tower, chanting Not my president! Chicago resident Michael Burke said he believes the president-elect will divide the country and stir up hatred.

He added there was a constitutional duty not to accept that outcome.

A similar protest in Manhattan drew about 1,000 people. Outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in midtown, police installed barricades to keep the demonstrators at bay.

Hundreds of protesters gathered near Philadelphias City Hall despite chilly, wet weather. Participants  who included both supporters of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost to Clinton in the primary  expressed anger at both Republicans and Democrats over the elections outcome.

In Boston, thousands of anti-Trump protesters streamed through downtown, chanting Trumps a racist and carrying signs that said Impeach Trump and Abolish Electoral College. Clinton appears to be on pace to win the popular vote, despite losing the electoral count that decides the presidential race.

The protesters gathered on Boston Common before marching toward the Massachusetts Statehouse, with beefed-up security including extra police officers.

Protests flared at universities in California and Connecticut, while several hundred people marched in San Francisco and others gathered outside City Hall in Los Angeles. And they spread south to Richmond, Virginia, and to middle American cities like Kansas City and Omaha, Nebraska.

Hundreds of University of Texas students spilled out of classrooms to march through downtown Austin. They marched along streets near the Texas Capitol, then briefly blocked a crowded traffic bridge.

Marchers protesting Trumps election as president chanted and carried signs in front of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Media outlets broadcast video Wednesday night showing a peaceful crowd in front of the new downtown hotel. Many chanted No racist USA, no Trump, no KKK. Another group stood outside the White House. They held candles, listened to speeches and sang songs. Earlier Wednesday, protesters at American University burned U.S. flags on campus.
Today it has become difficult to search a job in our country. Our main objective is to study and get a good job. But in todays competitive world no education is enough to make you land your dream job. Right from our childhood we are asked to study hard and acquire the best of degrees. Education sector in our country is a prime market for many institutions to earn money. Many a time counselor hired to create awareness about a course is less qualified for the job done by her. Even if we Indians have a culture of education imbibed within us only 4 per cent of the total population of India is graduate and if we are talking about women empowerment only 2.5 % of them possess bachelors degree. Further we have an illusion that people residing in cities are well versed with English language. However, only 3% of the population is fluent with the language and have good command over grammar.

In short everybody keeps talking about education but nobody takes any initiative to make it available for the poorest of the poor living in remote areas of the country. We are sure that digitization will enable us to achieve this objective and keep us abreast about the latest incidents happening in the world. The government has announced that only courses approved by AICTE will be recognized. Despite this many people join private institutes sans affiliation and make a hue and cry when the degree is not considered for employment. This problem can be addressed through digitization of education and it will become easier for people living in rural areas to enroll for a course and acquire degrees.

Of-course we also come across reports about wi-fi services being misused for watching obscene content. However the initiative taken by Google CEO Sundar Pichai to make internet accessible for everyone should be appreciated. Nowadays many applications are available online enabling us to learn new languages and stay updated about current issues. Today internet is the only thing which can be said to match the speed of light. All we need is a bit of awareness about technology and groom more engineers.

If we need to focus on educating ourselves everyday with something new then digitization can be safest mode to achieve it. Since India is a heavily populated country and people are struggling for improving their lives we do need to remain hopeful and aware about technology to explore it to the fullest.

Long time back a reputed telecom company had released an advertisement pertaining to making education available in the remote regions through mobile technology. Maybe our future lives will remain completely dependent on the mobile technology but we need to make sure that it is used for promoting education and not misused. Its a long way to go but at least a beginning has been made.

Gayatri Pawar

(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
Shiva Sena on Thursday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, saying ever since the surgical strikes, ceasefire violations are on and time will tell whether the second one now on black money will be successful.

The BJP ally in the state government said one will have to adopt a wait and watch approach to see how far does Modis second strike against black money goes to curb illicit trade of funds.

It said corruption is a mindset and until that changes, the disease of black money cannot be checked completely.

Modi had last month conducted a sudden surgical strike against Pakistani terror launch pads and now this strike against black money. The second strike has caused chaos among the masses as this strike too was sudden, Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana.

It said that attempts to stop illicit trade flow have been made in the past as well, but what was derived from it was a question that remained answered in the past and there are no answers today as well.

Sena said questions are being raised about Modis poll promise of bringing back black money stashed abroad and depositing Rs. 15 lakh in bank accounts of Indians.

How far has the government been successful in bringing back black money from abroad is what people are asking, it said.

Modi answered the question in his style by demonetising Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes. Only time will tell if the government is able to achieve its objectives by doing so. The truth is that this decision will have far-reaching effects on the Indian economy, it added.

It was being said that the surgical strike against Pakistan was meant to tighten our grip over the neighbouring nation. But, firing, ceasefire violations are on at the borders ever since the strike. Demonetising currency was the second strike but if it actually pays dividends, only time will tell, the editorial said.
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, bullion dealers expect gold jewellery demand to go up for a few days and cash business of jewellers may increase. Jewellers could show backdated cash sales. Those who have cash in hand on their books could also buy such notes with a cut margin and deposit it in banks later on. This move has potentially created a surge in demand for gold jewellery for the next few days. This attempt at curbing black money may not really be able to stop the creation of another such parallel economy with the new notes. Religious places, NGOs and gold jewellers have become money laundering centres. At many places, even the retail shops have become money exchange centres, they are giving Rs. 400 in exchange of Rs. 500 notes. NGOs collection boxes and religious places always receive anonymous funds, tracking the source of these donations is just impossible, such centres are accepting huge money while promising them to return the same by keeping their cut. Bank managers are getting offer of 20 per cent cut. Frankly speaking, demonetisation has given new direction to the business of black money. Money laundering is the process of transforming the proceeds of crime and corruption into ostensibly legitimate assets.

However, by this demonetisation process, common men are the immediate sufferer who lives on daily earn and eat routine. How will they exchange notes? How does one pay daily or weekly wages to labourers in the coming days when the process is slow and amount to be withdrawn from ATM is meagre and small? There should have been prior information so that genuine exchanges and withdrawal could take place with a ceiling amount and time bound.

In the recent past, many religious places came under scanner for their massive collection of wealth let it be churches, mosques or temples. All religious places in India are rich and there is no accountability from where and how they are receiving funds. Many Temple Trusts were accused of mismanaging donations. Moreover, most of the members of the trusts are politically influential people. Charitable organisations collect a substantial proportion of funds through donors who prefer not to reveal their identitiesthe governments ban is eliminating their sources for finance.

Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have been crying out against the governments diktat on taxing anonymous donations for some time now. The finance ministry had clamped down on anonymous donations to (non-religious) charitable organisations to prevent money laundering. However, a number of NGOs say that because of a few isolated incidents, many charitable entities have been affected. Section 115BBC was introduced for the first time in the Finance Act, 2006, to tax anonymous donations to charitable organisations at the maximum marginal rate of 30%. Subsequently, a degree of relief was granted under the Finance (No 2) Act, 2009, that such anonymous donations aggregating up to five years of the total income of an organisation or a sum of Rs.1,00,000 whichever is higher will not be taxed. However, there are many ways through which people are making black money white.

Several leading charitable organisations mobilise their funds by placing their donations in collection boxes at shopping malls, airports, hotels and other public places where ordinary citizens feel motivated to contribute money for a good charitable cause, be it for senior citizens, the visually-impaired, impoverished street children or cancer patients. No one knows who the donor is and how much amount they have collected through this. Its up to the NGO what amount they prefer to show for tax purpose. In such circumstances, many business men who are politically influenced find such organisation as a heaven. Besides, most of the NGOs are belonging to influential people in this country.

Schools and colleges also raise money for various charitable causes with students going from door to door or requesting ordinary citizens in the streets to deposit money in collection boxes. Actually, you cannot prove how much money can be collected from such donations. Leading schools and NGOs collect lakhs of rupees annually through such collection boxes as they receive more anonymous donations, while their smaller counterparts may not be able to do so.

Now coming back to Gold purchase, many buyers are splitting their purchases into smaller value bills to avoid declaring their purchases to the Income tax authorities. This panic buying began on Tuesday evening as soon as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes through television. Many jewellers stayed open till midnight as word spread of the demonetisation drive. Most buyers at Zaveri Bazaar on Tuesday and even early Wednesday hailed from the Gujarati and Marwadi communities remained in the shop 24/7. Meanwhile, official prices of gold went up to a three-year high of Rs. 40,000 per ten grams overnight. Using demonetisation to attack black money is definitely a great idea; and the manner in which it has been executed by the government is little suspicious. However, when implementing this grand design, care would have been taken to ensure that all the pieces are together, because if they are not, it would result in chaos. When it is believed that high denomination notes leads to generation of a parallel economy or black money, introducing new ones with higher denomination will be met with suspicion by the public. There can always be a repetition of such an act in future, and no one would like to be left holding such notes. Further, terming Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes as high value can be debated as one cant buy many commodities using Rs. 500 note from the marketa single can of edible oil for a family of four costs more than this amount. Similarly, Rs.1000 note is not enough to pay milk bill for a month.

The other issue of demonetisation is the timing. There is compelling reason to do it immediately as this does not give time to anyone for disposing these notes. The success of this scheme will hinge heavily on whether our systems are prepared to face this challenge. Our banks need to be geared up to make such provisions and in the past it has been observed that ATMs have tended to run out of money on long holiday weekends. With volumes increasing, the banks across the country need to ensure that all branches across the country are equipped for the same. Even prior to this move, banks were never able to provide Rs. 100 notes to customers in sufficient quantities. Hopefully, this issue has been addressed appropriately otherwise it could lead to substantial unrest. In particular, households are facing the challenge of keeping money for emergencies. Emergency money is normally locked in the denomination of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000. Hence, the next few months would be hectic as they strive to restore balance.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
Allowing foreign institutional investors (FIIs) in commodity trading is under consideration, but no decision has been taken, the finance ministry said.

Many suggestions have come with regard to permitting FIIs into commodity trading, but no decision has been taken. The matter is under consideration. The matter is also under consideration of Sebi, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said at the Economic Editors Conference.

If the Sebi board after taking a view makes recommendation as a regulator, if they permit If it requires government permission, we will see. But so far, no decision has been taken, he said.

FIIs are also known as foreign portfolio investors.

Banks, mutual funds and FIIs are not allowed to participate in the commodity trading like the stock market.

However, commodity trading like stocks is also entirely on non-cash transactions.

Its the governments effort to promote all these trading through non-cash means, he said.

In 2014, a five-member committee had said high-cost transactions in commodity futures caused a hindrance to the market and suggested this could be reduced if banks and FIIs were allowed to participate in the commodity market.

The committee had told the government in the report that high transaction costs in the futures market were an impediment to arbitrage.

These, the panel had said, could be reduced by allowing banks and financial institutions, including FIIs, to participate in commodity futures trading.

Policy and regulatory hurdles currently restrict banks and financial institutions from participating in the commodity market.

Banks are also restricted under the Banking Regulation Act. The committee suggested that these needed to be removed to widen participation.
The Centre has accepted Maharashtra governments request to allow Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 bills for payment of electricity bill, water bill, property tax or any kind of government dues, thus easing troubles of the common man in wake of the demonetisation of high denomination notes.

One more step by the state government for citizens convenience. The Government of India accepts the state governments request to further help citizens by allowing Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 notes for payment of electricity bill, water bill, property tax or any kind of government dues, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in a tweet.

He said this will be implemented with immediate effect and remain in force till Nov 11 midnight.

On Wednesday too, the chief minister in a bid to soothe the people, had tweeted urging them not to panic as they can get the currency notes, discontinued by the government, replaced when banks reopen on Friday.

There is a time period given, so dont panic and crowd the ATMs and bank branches, he had said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modis decision is revolutionary. There is no reason to panic. Lets all together fight this war against corruption and black money, the CM had said.

He had also asked the people to continue with their daily routine and said that common man need not worry as the money earned through legal means is safe.
Good news for Virginians, from Richmond.com.



The General Assemblys Joint Commission on Health Care on Wednesday recommended making no changes to the states regulations on possible exemptions, including religious reasons, for otherwise-mandatory school vaccinations.

The decision came after the commission received more than 700 comments on the subject, the majority of which were in favor of taking no action.

The issue was brought before the commission at the bequest of Dels. Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, and Christopher P. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, who introduced a bill during the most recent General Assembly session that would have removed religious exemptions as a valid reason not to have a child vaccinated.

Filler-Corn and Stolle struck the bill and requested the commission research whether non-medical exemptions should be tightened.

The bill received a great deal of attention from those against mandatory vaccinations, most of whom wore red to Wednesdays meeting, which was held at the General Assembly building in downtown Richmond. Some in red wore T-shirts and hats supporting President-elect Donald Trump.

Most brought their children with them, and one young boy held a sign that said: Vote No to Mandatory Vaccines. When the commission recommended taking no action, the crowd cheered.



Read more here.








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In Canada, can someone seize control of a disabled person and literally lock them up in a house and ignore all rights of that disabled person?



Apparently, so -- Just ask Horace Carby-Samuels



In February 2016, Ottawa police officers arrived at his home at 30 Jarlan Terrace, in Kanata, Ontario to enforce a court Order issued by Justice Patrick Smith on 11 February 2016.



Dezrin, his wife, having been abused and neglected by Horace since later April 2015, was no longer able to write, talk or walk.



Horace is a violent man. Just a couple years before, he held a kitchen knife to his son's stomach and his son grabbing it to save his own life ended up almost severing one of his fingers off, which sent Raymond in an ambulance for emergency reconstructive surgery.



When Horace opened his door at his Kanata home to these police that has been also co-owned by Dezrin, his wife, guess what Horace did?



Horace, simply told the police to basically "f-uck off" - "NO", and neither the police nor Raymond, Dezrin's son, would be allowed to see how abused and neglected Dezrin was.



Police states that they did not have the authority to force themselves onto his 'property' without any signs of imminent danger and with the ability to speak or run to the door, Dezrin has continued to remain his de facto prisoner.



If anyone sees Horace, you might wish to ask him, what right does he have to treat Dezrin this way?



Watch the above video of what happened when police arrived at 30 Jarlan Terrace.



So, you see, in Canada, it is apparently possible to take disabled people hostage and force them into a life of abuse, neglect and overall torture.



We, at The Canadian, hope that Canadians will rally to support Dezrin from being subject to the oppression of her human rights for 514 days and counting!



Do you agree that Dezrin has been living a Hell? Help support her civil and human rights not to be controlled by an abuser.



Support an online petition against her abusive husband.



http://www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/takeaction/865/478/452/



Or, make a donation here -



https://www.generosity.com/emergencies-fundraising/liberate-dezrin-from-spousal-abuse-legal-fund



Look at the above video to see Raymond being blocked from seeing his Mom having received a court Order on 11 February 2016.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 - The 2016 presidential election presented a clear choice on climate and energy. One candidate, Hillary Clinton, pledged to expand the Obama administrations policies designed to combat climate change and to accelerate the nations shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The other major candidate, Republican Donald Trump, promised to promote more traditional energy sources like coal, oil and natural gas and withdraw from international climate change agreements.

This stark contrast at the top of the ticket virtually guarantees that the high-stakes battle over climate and energy policies will continue. Regardless of White House actions over the next four years, Congress is likely to reflect the divided electorate and remain gridlocked, forcing the White House to follow the examples set by presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in relying heavily on controversial and reversible executive orders.

Deep ideological divisions within Congress and the Supreme Court are likely to continue and to limit the ability of either the White House or Congress to implement consistent climate and energy policies. As a direct result of the prospect that division and uncertainty will continue at the federal level, policies set by individual states could become increasingly important.

One example of a state aggressively leading the way on energy and climate issues comes from North Carolina, the only state mandating that utilities include electricity generated from animal wastes in their energy mix.

Every year since 1997 when North Carolina set stringent environmental requirements for any new or expanded swine operations with more than 250 hogs, opponents have tried unsuccessfully to repeal or at least amend the requirements. Yet after repeated year-to-year renewals, North Carolinas Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (REPS) became permanent law in 2007, providing strong carrot-and-stick incentives to turn animal waste into renewable energy.

The REPS law, the first renewable energy portfolio standard in the Southeast, requires that all electric power suppliers in North Carolina must meet an increasing amount of their retail customers energy needs by a combination of renewable energy resources (such as solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal and biomass) and reduced energy consumption. This mandate includes a specific requirement that utilities use swine waste biogas as the source for a small but increasing share of the electricity they deliver each year.

North Carolina remains a distant second to Iowa in pig production. But the Tar Heel State ranks No. 1 in its so-far unmatched mandate that its 9.1 million pigs on 2,100 permitted hog farms become better neighbors by turning their odiferous waste disposal problem into an energy success story. To make this waste-to-energy process work, Revolution Energy Solutions (RES) has built custom-tailored anaerobic digester systems in North Carolina and Oregon to generate electricity from biogas methane and co-generate the heat needed to operate the digesters most efficiently.

In Magnolia, North Carolina, waste from hog barns shown on the left go to 10 anaerobic digesters to fill the inflatable biosphere with biogas methane which powers the electric generator housed in the on-farm combined heat and power (CHP) plant on the right.

Alan Tank, RES founder and managing partner, tells Agri-Pulse that the U.S. lags far behind Germany in building waste-to-energy systems because the U.S. lacks Germanys consistently supportive federal policies. He says the result is the disparity between some 175 digesters on livestock farms across the U.S. versus over 9,000 in Germany.

Tank says RES built the systems in North Carolina and Oregon thanks to supportive state policies. But he says the company abandoned its plans for additional facilities in Oregon after the state eliminated its tax break for biomass energy from dairy farms.

RES also considered investing in both California and New York, adding value to the states large dairy industries, but found both states had regulations that presented more barriers than support for biomass energy.

In the case of California with the nations largest dairy industry, Tank says, it was very difficult to get an air permit to be able to operate a CHP (combined heat and power) unit.

Tank considers North Carolina the best location currently for new waste-to-energy investment thanks to favorable state policies and strong support from a major power company, North Carolina-based Duke Energy. He praises Dukes willingness to lead, to participate, and to find solutions. But even in supportive North Carolina, he points out that the state, by recently ending a tax credit, has made it more difficult for biomass energy projects to pencil out.

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To take full advantage of the vast untapped potential for biogas power from animal waste, Tank insists that its time to catch up with Germany and replace the current unstable patchwork of inconsistent regulations with a stable national renewable energy portfolio standard. He says this national approach should be designed to incentivize and de-risk taking a waste stream and converting it into energy. He sees consistent national policies as the only way to attract far greater investment and to level the playing field with the petroleum industry that, he points out, still enjoys significant financial support at the federal level.

We should go through a process in this country of really understanding our entire energy system, everything from a renewables portfolio standard to the actual grid itself, to all the other dynamics in the marketplace affecting energy, Tank says. He calls for replacing todays patchwork of state regulations, where in some places there is little assistance, and others where it is working very well like Iowa in the context of wind and ethanol. Regretting that his home state of Iowa hasnt followed North Carolinas biomass energy example, hed like to see Iowa and the nation as a whole generating energy from livestock waste rather than continuing to rely so heavily on fossil fuels.

Calling for using the full range of available organics including manure, food processing wastes, and cellulosic materials, Tank insists that We need to be thinking about a comprehensive strategy that results in a federal policy for producing energy from agricultural and food sources to create value while improving waste management, nutrient management, water quality, and air quality.

The North Carolina Pork Councils Policy Development Director Angie Maier tells Agri-Pulse that thanks to steady support from the pork industry and Duke Energy, North Carolina now has six major waste-to-energy operations turning hog manure into biogas and electricity. She adds that additional facilities are being built, as confirmed recently by Duke Energy and Carbon Cycle Energy joining forces to turn hog waste biogas into renewable electricity at four of Dukes North Carolina power stations.

In a win-win for both hog farmers and the utilitys electricity customers, David Fountain, Duke Energy president for North Carolina, said in announcing the new biogas project that It is encouraging to see the technological advances that allow waste-to-energy projects in North Carolina to be done in an environmentally responsible and cost-effective manner for our customers.

Alan Tank, meanwhile, looks forward to the day when consistent federal policies trigger a surge of such waste-to-energy projects nationwide rather than just in North Carolina.

#30

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 - The head of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is asking the Army Corps of Engineers to rethink its conclusion that the Dakota Access Pipeline does not pose a risk to the waters of Lake Oahe in North Dakota and to tribal members, who draw their drinking water from the lake.

In a letter to Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary for the Army for public works, tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II cited a new tribe-funded study on the potential impact of the pipeline.

This underscores one of the fundamental deficiencies of the Final EA (Environmental Assessment)  it assumes, without foundation, that placing a massive oil pipeline just upstream from the reservation presents no risk to the Tribe, Archambault said in his letter to Darcy.

The report, prepared by Richard Kuprewicz of Accufacts Inc., analyzed the governments EA and concluded that it failed to address pipeline safety, calling the assessment seriously deficient, and saying that potential risks and impacts to the federal areas and waters have not been adequately presented nor evaluated.

Kuprewicz contends that additional information, not provided in the governments assessment, is needed to prudently assess the pipeline proposal  as well as to evaluate various key assumptions and claims that the Corps relies upon in their incomplete mitigation approaches and finding.

Mr. Kuprewiczs findings reflect the common-sense point that was somehow lost in the Final EA  that pipelines leak, and that when they do so there are often devastating consequences, particularly when the leak contaminates water, Archambault continued in his letter. The public record is filled with examples which further substantiate this point.

Jan Hasselman, who represents the Tribe in a lawsuit filed against the Corps, says the failure of the Corps to adequately assess oil spill risks from the pipeline also brings into question the legality of the Corps review.

The law requires a full and transparent analysis of risks like oil spills prior to issuance of a federal permit. Its clear that never happened here, Hasselman says. We expect the Corps to give this new report close consideration as it determines whether to move ahead with the permits needed to cross the Missouri River  permits that Dakota Access didnt have before starting construction of the pipeline.

Craig Stevens of the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, a supporter of DAPL whose members include the South Dakota Corn Growers and the South Dakota Grain and Feed Association, rejected Kuprewiczs findings, asserting that the report should not be given the same value as the Corps assessment.

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That an activist-funded, back-of-the-envelope commentary is even mentioned in the same breath as the Corps analysis  which considered independent research and study, public input, and impact mitigation plans  is not only ludicrous but also insulting to the dozens of Army Corps of Engineers and civil servants who toiled more than two years to ensure this pipeline project adhered to our nation's rigorous regulatory requirements, Stevens said in a statement to Agri-Pulse.

Protests by native Americans and their supporters have delayed completion of the 1,170-mile long Dakota Access Pipeline. The $3.8 billion project, which is about three-quarters complete, is designed to carry as much as 570,000 barrels a day of shale oil from North Dakotas Bakken field to the pipeline networks and refineries of Illinois. Much of the Bakken oil produced now travels by train and the pipeline would lower costs.

Pipeline supporters point out that, while the Dakota Access pipeline has been heavily criticized by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, they did not express similar concerns when a natural gas pipeline was built across roughly the same area in 1982. The Northern Border pipeline is illustrated in blue on the map at left and crosses Lake Oahe near the same location as the Dakota Access pipeline.

President Obama said recently that the Army Corps was considering ways to reroute the pipeline. Were going to let it play out for several more weeks and determine whether or not this can be resolved in a way that I think is properly attentive to the traditions of First Americans, he said.

A Corps spokesman said the agency cannot comment on the easement process while it is being reviewed at the national level.

#30

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They risked their lives for the United States.

Many would like to come to America, but they are stranded and in danger.

So notes Smithsonian magazine, which has published a remarkable story in its November issue focusing on the interpreters employed by the US military in Afghanistan during its 
Aiken, SC (29801)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 54F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 54F. Winds light and variable.
Separate Assyrian Churches From State, Says Assyrian Confederation of Europe

The Assyrian Confederation of Europe is concerned by the growing in?uence of churches in Assyrian politics in Iraq, which has been revealed in recent developments.
QINGDAO -- Xu Xiang, general manager of the Shanghai-based company Zexi Investment, has been indicted for allegedly manipulating the securities market, the People's Procuratorate of Qingdao City said Thursday.

The prosecutors filed the case, involving Xu, several others and chairpersons of the board of directors of relevant listed companies, in the city's Intermediate People's Court.

The Ministry of Public Security announced Xu was under investigation in November last year.
Senator International has launched a Boeing 747-400 freighter that will serve the US South Carolina hub of Greenville Spartanburg (GSP) with flights out of Munich and Frankfurt-Hahn airports in Germany.

The Germany-based logistics operator said that its Atlantic Bridge will use an Air Atlanta Icelandic freighter, with Globe Air Cargo responsible for the marketing of available cargo space.

Senator said that a neutral processing of shipments is guaranteed.

The logistics operator added in a statement on its website: We are pleased that this product is being well accepted in the market which has been reflected by the amount of bookings we have received thus far.

Between flight days the aircraft will also be available for charter flights, which is a service that the company Chapman Freeborn, specialized in aircraft chartering, will be marketing.

We would like to thank everyone who supports this new connection. Special thanks go to the representatives of Munich Airport, LUG in Munich, Hahn Airport, VG Cargo at Hahn Airport, Chapman Freeborn, Globe Air Cargo and Greenville Spartanburg Airport.

Welcoming the freighter call, Frankfurt-Hahn Airport management said: The aircraft will be furthermore marketed for Ad-hoc charter flights  which offers potential for further freight orders from the Rhein-Main area.

The airports senior vice president cargo, Roger Scheifele, said: Many companies of the automobile industry are located in the area around South and North Carolina, they will be using this service. Another weekly direct connection is set up between Munich Airport and the US.

For the remaining time  exactly three days a week  the Boeing 747-400F will remain stationed at Hahn and be marketed exclusively by the charter broker Chapman Freeborn."

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November 9, 2016

Human rights is a touchy subject in Egypt, but even more so since recent parliamentary elections produced what some fear is a fox in the henhouse.

Alaa Abed, chairman of the Free Egyptian Party's parliamentary bloc, recently became chairman of the Human Rights Committee in the House of Representatives. This has stirred widespread controversy, given his previous work as a police officer and accusations  which he denies  that he was complicit in torture during his tenure at the Ministry of Interior.

The way he was elected  by default  also created quite a conflict. All the other candidates for the position withdrew in protest after, they said, Abed recruited 34 handpicked parliament members to join the Human Rights Committee specifically to vote for him.

Also, parliament member Akmal Qortam, head of the Conservative Party, resigned from parliament because he opposed the way the Oct. 17 committee chair elections were conducted.

Adding to the tension, parliament member Muhammad al-Ghoul, another former police officer, won the position of deputy chair for the committee.

Many believe these developments create a stark contradiction between the Human Rights Committees mission and its membership. The committee is supposed to safeguard rights by collaborating with the National Council for Human Rights and to oversee how individual and collective human rights complaints are handled. In addition, the committee inspects prisons and police precincts to monitor for any violations of individual rights. Many politicians, activists and lawyers now doubt the committees ability to discharge its duties.

The committee also witnessed a number of conflicts in its previous session. Former committee Chairman Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat tendered his resignation in August because, he said, parliament leaders and the government in general had failed to respond to citizens complaints. He also cited parliaments failure to communicate with the outside world over implementing Egypt's international commitments and defending its image abroad.

Parliament member Samir Ghattas, one of those who withdrew from the elections, said in exclusive statements to Al-Monitor that Abed has a bad personal history and he faces a good deal of suspicion that he was involved in cases of torture as well as other cases which render him unfit for this post.

The second issue is his dishonest claim that he was a major general, despite the fact that when he retired from the police he ranked no higher than a colonel. The fact that he would pretend to possess a more senior rank while he sought the committee chairmanship is a bad thing, Ghattas said.

The Human Rights Committee in its first session was not permitted to visit the prisons and police precincts, which drove the committee chairman [Sadat] to tender his resignation. The committee took [critical] positions that embarrassed the Ministry of Interior.

Therefore, the security services cooperated with the parties and the large, pro-government Coalition to Support Egypt in a bid to take control of the committee, he said.

This came to fruition in the elections for committee chair, where the committee rolls suddenly swelled to 64. This sort of behavior has precedents in the parliaments history. [But] it amounts to an invasion of the committee.

Ghattas concluded, I put forward my candidacy to chair the committee with one goal: unmasking their intentions and exposing their mistaken tactics in parliament. Concerning the committees future in its new form, he said, The Interior Ministry will permit [members] to visit prisons and police precincts, but without tangible results that advance the cause of human rights.

Akram al-Alfi, a veteran observer of parliamentary affairs, told Al-Monitor that Abeds victory harms the parliament and the state on the international level.

When Abed represents Egypt in international forums, he will not have a history in the field of human rights as a former police officer. In addition, he will face suspicions that he was complicit in the torture of Egyptians. Certainly, this is not in the interest of the state, and it will cost its credibility in the realm of human rights.

Alfi concluded, The security mindset is still in control as regards politics. [Those behind that mindset are] managing affairs in a primitive way: They eliminated politics and deployed their men in parliament, whether major-generals or former policemen. It rejected even those who support the current regime as potential chairmen of the Human Rights Committee  men like Akmal Qortam  all of whose statements support the state and the stances it has taken.

As the new committee chairman, Abed denied in press statements the accusations that he was complicit in torture. In his words, At present, I work as a lawyer. And a lawyer is someone who specializes in the defense of individual rights. I have been working in the realm of human rights since 2008, through the Regional Center for Human Rights. I was also honored to be its president, and I am interested in everything pertaining to human rights. As a police officer, this is a great honor.

He concluded, I have not been involved in any case of torture. This accusation is not true.  Whoever has any evidence substantiating this claim, let him bring it forward.

Abed also commented on his priorities for the committee. The ordinary citizen is at the top of this committees concerns. He must feel that he is in full possession of his rights, particularly since he is subjected to pressures. The committee will work to eliminate the many barriers which separate average Egyptians and members of the police, particularly since the recent past has witnessed many [human rights] violations, whether from some civilians or some policemen, or from some [political] movements.

He stressed that he does not look at human rights through the prism of security alone, but in its broader understanding that pertains to life as a whole.
November 8, 2016

Cyrus the Great is probably one of the most well-known historical figures to Iranians: an ancient king who has been praised for his wise and fair rule (559-530 B.C.). His achievements  as shown in the ancient Cyrus Cylinder, which Iranians refer to as the first human rights charter  are a great source of pride for the people of Iran.

Yet the flocking of ordinary Iranians in an unprecedented manner to the Tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadae on Oct. 28, to mark what has become known as the international day of Cyrus the Great, prompted a backlash by some Iranian clerics.

On Oct. 30, Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani criticized the gathering that took place around the tomb of the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, saying, People rose up and brought about the [1979 Islamic] Revolution and allowed the emergence of a true Islamic system. The Shah used to say, O Cyrus, sleep in peace as we are awake. Now, a group of people have gathered around the Tomb of Cyrus and they are circumambulating it and have taken their handkerchiefs out and cry [as they do for Shiite Imam Hussein].  They are counter-revolutionaries. I am amazed that these people get together around the Tomb of Cyrus, shouting the same slogans for him that we shout in support of the supreme leader, and yet we are sitting here, alive and well, and just watching this.

Given these widely reported remarks, one may think that this is the sole position of the Shiite clergy in Iran  especially given that Nouri Hamedanis comments were not immediately and publicly challenged by his peers.

However, the reality is that more often than not, the Qom seminary is home to controversy and debate. At one point, even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, was proclaimed a heretic by an ayatollah in the holy city merely for teaching philosophy. These rigid currents in Irans seminaries are still alive and well. In fact, special summits are held to this day for the sole purpose of cursing Ayatollah Morteza Motahari, a philosopher and prominent theoretician of the Islamic Republic who was assassinated by leftist Islamists soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Qom seminary is divided on the matter of Cyrus the Great, too. Clerics such as Hamedani regard the popularity of Cyrus as equivalent to the rise of archaism, namely nationalism that emphasizes Irans pre-Islamic past. In the eyes of some Shiite clerics, rising archaism, which was heavily emphasized by the Pahlavi dynasty prior to the Islamic Revolution, equals the weakening of Islam in Iranian society. Thus, their view is that such forms of nationalism should be rejected.

One of the reasons why conservatives and the clergy turned against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the archaism espoused and initiated by his closest aide, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. Indeed, Mashaei and those around him were labeled as the deviant current. Meanwhile, many moderate and Reformist analysts at that time opined that Ahmadinejad and Mashaeis discourse on Cyrus the Great was merely a political tool to shore up support by stirring up nationalist sentiment.

Amid all this, it should not be overlooked that there is a group of intellectual clerics who, while opposing Pahlavist archaism, also express pride in Irans ancient past. They believe that rejecting national symbols and beliefs will lead to the damaging of the pillars of national unity in Iran, and thus make the country vulnerable to various threats.

For instance, Motahari, one of the founders of the Islamic Republic, viewed Iran and Islam as bound together, and posited that Islam and nationalism fundamentally play complementary roles for each other. In his book, The mutual services of Iran and Islam [to each other], Motahari wrote that as Islam freed Iran and entered a new spirit in the body of Iran, Iran in turn helped the young and glorious Islamic civilization greatly.

In an interview with Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, a Shiite scholar and cleric who has been teaching at the Qom seminary for the past two decades said, Islam doesnt seek to take away national pride from people. What is currently happening is a political issue. He added, The seminary and religion do not dismiss Cyrus and the ancient history of Iran at all. Some who are expressing their opposition to Cyrus arent speaking on behalf of the whole seminary. I should say that even those who have voiced their opposition regarding this issue do not hold an opinion against Cyrus. For instance, Ayatollah Nouri Hamedani criticized the tears the crowd there [in Pasargadae on Oct. 28] shed, not Cyrus himself.

The Qom-based scholar concluded his interview with Al-Monitor by saying, I believe enemies of Iran are seeking to destroy Iranian society by creating such issues and polarizing the country. Prolonging these issues and tensions arent in the interest of the country and our national security. In fact, our religion and nationalism are tied together.

In this vein, while slamming the archaism of Ahmadinejad and Mashaei, Grand Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli, a senior cleric in Qom, said on Oct. 8, 2012, Iran has had a monotheist identity since ancient history.  Iran is our homeland, and we love this homeland. Loving the homeland is rooted in belief [in God], and it behooves us to defend this land, and if anyone is killed in the way of defending this country, [he] is a martyr. And it is our religion which is telling [us] this, but an Iran without Islam will face many dangers.

Of further note, Cyrus is specifically subject to debate among Islamic scholars, as some believe he is extolled in Islams holy book. In verses 83 and 98 of the chapter Kahf, the Quran narrates a story revolving around an individual named Dhul-Qarnayn, who is praised as a believer and ruler: Indeed, we established him upon the earth, and we gave him to everything a way. Allameh Muhammad Hossein Tabatabai, one of the most prominent thinkers of philosophy and contemporary Shiite Islam, cautiously identifies Cyrus as Dhul-Qarnayn in his 20-volume work of Quranic exigesis, the "Tafsir al-Mizan." Other scholars engaged in Quranic exigesis, such as Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi  one of the most senior clerics in Qom  have also described Cyrus as Dhul-Qarnayn.

As such, while there is a strong undercurrent in the Iranian Shiite clergy that rejects nationalism along the lines of the archaism of the Pahlavi era  and its contemporary successors  this opposition to archaism should not be conflated with a rejection of Irans pre-Islamic past, let alone Cyrus the Great. If anything, the philosophical and scholarly debates in the Iranian seminaries in recent decades show an appreciation of Irans ancient past while emphasizing the countrys Islamic identity. Thus, in this Islamic-Iranian reading of Iranian identity, Cyrus is in effect a source of pride and strength rather than a potential threat.
November 10, 2016

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag fiercely denied widespread allegations of abuse of detainees Nov. 10 amid mounting criticism from Western governments and rights groups. Let me be clear, we will never allow ill-treatment or torture in Turkish prisons, Bozdag told the semi-official Anatolian news agency.

Bozdag was responding to the European Commissions annual progress report concerning Turkeys increasingly unlikely membership in the European Union (EU). The report, one of the most critical in recent years, stated, There were reports of serious human rights violations, including alleged widespread ill treatment and torture of detainees. The crackdown has continued since and has been broadened to pro-Kurdish and other opposition voices.

Bozdag lashed out at the EU for not backing up its claims with the names of the alleged perpetrators and details on where the abuses occurred. When I speak to these foreigners, I say give me addresses; they dont provide addresses, he complained.

The Turkish press is scarcely documenting the alarming spike in allegations of ill-treatment, as most critical outlets have been shuttered, and many critical journalists locked up on the flimsiest of terror charges. Yet, if Bozdag were to glance at the stream of allegations circulated via Facebook and Twitter or thumb through Human Rights Watchs most recent report on the subject, he might revise his opinion that There is no torture in Turkish prisons. The New York-based watchdog cites at least 13 credible cases of torture since the attempted coup.

He might also take a look at a recent Wall Street Journal article that highlights abuses against political prisoners convicted of crimes linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party. The abuses are said to have occurred at the Odemis Correctional Facility, in Izmir, the Silivri prison, near Istanbul, and other facilities. The newspaper reported, One civilian detained outside Ankara the day after the coup told his family that he and dozens of others were held in their underwear on a cement plaza in an open-air detention center for three days. When they complained of thirst, exacerbated by the hot summer sun, their guards sprayed a hose onto the ground and told them to lick up the water.

Emergency rule imposed after the July 15 coup attempt has hardened the climate of official impunity. It was already in evidence in the mainly Kurdish southeast, where security forces were accused of having killed scores of civilians in Cizre during a prolonged siege of the town last year. Human rights defenders were barred from investigating the claims.

Yet while much attention is focused on the plight of left-wing and Kurdish detainees, there appears to be less sympathy for the estimated 36,000 people arrested over alleged links to Fethullah Gulen, the exiled cleric the government says orchestrated the coup. For instance, news that Mehmet Baransu, an imprisoned journalist loyal to Gulen, being denied food and water for hours before his courtroom appearance Nov. 9 received scant attention.

The same holds for the story of Buket Buyukcelebi, a researcher at Kilis University who was sacked and jailed three months ago under an emergency decree, most likely over alleged links to Gulen. Buyukcelebi, who is pregnant, is being held in Gaziantep prison with her 13-month-old son, Mert, in a cold and overcrowded cell. One is filled with shame. A six-months-pregnant academic is imprisoned with her 13-month-old baby; is this your justice Republic of Turkey? tweeted Tugba Tekerek, a prominent Turkish reporter who confirmed Buyukcelebis situation.

The Gulenists, for their part, question why the deaths of some 20 people who were said to have committed suicide after being accused of supporting their network have not been properly investigated. Burak Acikalin, an engineer accused of leaking state secrets on behalf of Gulen, was found dead in his cell in Kirklareli prison Nov. 10. The Turkish press reported the death as another suicide.
November 10, 2016

Last week, Turkeys government appointed the head of the Privatization Administration, Mehmet Bostan, as director general and board chairman of a newly established public company, the Turkish Sovereign Wealth Fund, moving a step closer to the creation of a sovereign wealth fund. The plan was first brought up in late July and hastily passed through parliament the following month.

The world's largest sovereign wealth funds include Norways Government Pension Fund, the United Arab Emirates Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the China Investment Corporation, the Kuwait Investment Authority and the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agencys holdings. Generally, their revenues come from budgetary surpluses. In other words, sovereign wealth funds are created by countries that have current account surpluses and possess some natural riches, mostly oil and natural gas.

What about Turkeys? Other than its name, the Turkish fund has little in common with the conventional ones, for Turkey is not a country with current account and budgetary surpluses. Rather, as Ankaras medium-term economic program indicates, domestic savings amount to only 14% of gross domestic product (GDP), meaning that Turkey relies heavily on external financing.

Growing economic, political and geopolitical risks have curbed the flow of foreign capital to Turkey, resulting in a slowdown in economic growth. Ankaras growth target for 2016 was 4%, but earlier this month the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected the year-end rate would be 2.9%, stressing that external financing needs remain large and limit fiscal space. All this is another confirmation that the Turkish economy is going through a period of financial bottlenecks.

In such times, public finances play the role of a firefighter against economic blazes. Hence, the central government budget deficit for 2017 was extended to 1.9% of GDP, meaning that public finances would be used more in intervening against possible contractions. In other words, measures such as lavish public spending, tax reductions and loan supports would be applied to prop up troubled sectors at the expense of a bigger budget deficit. Thats how Turkey had weathered the 2008-2009 financial crisis, extending the budget deficit-to-GDP ratio to up to 5%. Today, Ankara is adding a second firefighting instrument to its toolbox  the wealth fund.

The Turkish Sovereign Wealth Fund was created as a company with 50 million Turkish liras ($15.6 million) in startup capital, financed from the Privatization Administration. Hence, the Privatization Administrations chairman became its chief manager. The company will now draft an internal statute for a Turkish Sovereign Wealth Fund and eventually create the fund. It would be entitled to create various sub-funds as well.

And where will the funds revenues come from? The related law lists the Privatization Administration in first place, describing entities and assets in the scope and program of privatization that the Higher Privatization Board decides to hand over to the wealth fund and the cash surplus to be transferred from the Privatization Fund to the Turkish Sovereign Wealth Fund. And what does this mean in numbers?

Essentially, most of Turkeys sellable public assets have been already privatized, most of them in the past decade under the rule of the Justice and Development Party. According to Privatization Administration data, 267 public entities have been the subject of some sort of privatization, including 257 in which no public share is left. From 1986 to July 2016, Turkey generated $68 billion from privatization. The money transferred from the Privatization Fund to the Treasury from 1995 to July 2016 amounts to $45.1 billion.

The medium-term economic program states that the flow of privatization revenues to the budget has declined in recent years. The figure, which stood at $4.3 billion in 2015, is estimated to be $3.5 billion this year. The target for 2017 is more ambitious  $5.3 billion. But then, if privatization revenues are funneled to the wealth fund, this would mean less revenues for the central government budget.

Here, the Unemployment Insurance Fund emerges as the main target of revenue-generation for the wealth fund. Half of the revenues of the Unemployment Insurance Fund comes from monthly reducations from salaries, met jointly by the employer, the employee and the state, while the other half comes from the yields of bank deposits and treasury bonds in which the fund invests. As of September, the fund had accumulated assets of more than 100 billion Turkish liras ($33 billion).

In the wealth fund law, another source of revenue is described as the redundant revenues, resources and assets at the disposal of public institutions and entities, which the Council of Ministers decides to transfer to the Turkey Wealth Fund or put under the management of the company. What those assets will be remains to be seen.

A major point of criticism is the wealth funds exemption from the auditing of the Court of Accounts despite being a public entity using public funds. Instead, the fund and any future sub-funds will be subject to independent auditing under the Capital Market Law. The fund, the fund management company and any sub-funds and companies to be created in the future will enjoy also a series of tax exemptions.

The giant construction projects, which the government has launched with much fanfare in recent years, figure among the investments in which the wealth fund will put money. The so-called megaprojects, based on the public-private partnership model, have emerged as a black hole risk for the Turkish economy. In the preamble of the wealth fund bill, the government described one of the objectives as securing financing for large infrastructure projects, such as motorways, Canal Istanbul, the third bridge [over the Bosporus], the third airport [in Istanbul] and the nuclear plant, without increasing public debt. The preamble spoke also of developing the defense industry sector, which suggests the Defense Industry Support Fund might be also placed into the wealth funds scope.

Marked by obscurities and dubious practices, funds and budgets outside the central budget and the scope of public auditing have long been an issue of concern  both for domestic critics and international institutions such as the IMF and credit-rating agencies. History is full of bitter lessons on how the mismanagement of public finances might end, including Turkeys financial crisis in 2001 and, more recently, the grave debt crisis in neighboring Greece. Will anyone remember?
November 9, 2016

The Association of Judges and Prosecutors (YARSAV), the first nongovernmental organization of judiciary members in Turkey, was dissolved and its chairman landed behind bars after the July 15 coup attempt. Following the closure order, part of the first emergency-rule decree issued soon after the putsch, the Justice Ministry sent letters of the international bodies to which YARSAV was a member, asking them to admit as its replacement a group with ties to the government. The move is yet another example of Ankaras tactic of disabling critical institutions and replacing them with pro-government ones.

YARSAVs case is especially ironic in light of how the association was founded and functioned. It was created in 2006, at a time when followers of Fethullah Gulen, the accused mastermind of the putsch, were increasingly taking hold of senior positions in the judiciary, taking advantage of the then-close alliance between Gulen and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The 500 founding judges and prosecutors sought to get organized precisely against this trend of partisan staffing. YARSAV filed numerous lawsuits against appointments by the Justice Ministry, secured the cancelation of several regulations and guidelines on the grounds that they facilitated partisan staffing, and ensured that job interviews were recorded on camera. It was among the first vocal critics of mass probes and trials targeting mainly soldiers but also intellectuals and politicians over an alleged plot to unseat the government that the AKP would later admit was a setup by Gulenist police and judicial members to defang the military.

YARSAV was also among the first to speak up internationally about the threats to judicial independence in Turkey, and was soon admitted to the International Association of Judges and the European Magistrates for Democracy and Liberty (MEDEL). That was when its troubles started. YARSAV faced investigations and lawsuits seeking its closure, while founding Chairman Omer Faruk Eminagaoglu was removed from his post at the Court of Appeals and demoted to a provincial office amid judicial and disciplinary probes. Other founders came under similar pressures.

In short, YARSAV paid dearly for standing up against the Gulenist entrenchment in the judiciary, but ended up being closed for links with what Ankara now calls the Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization (FETO). In remarks to Al-Monitor, Eminagaoglu conceded that Gulenist jurists might have infiltrated YARSAV, apparently after Gulen and the AKP fell out in 2013, but stressed that the wholesale closure of the association spoke of other motives.

A fourth of the judges and prosecutors expelled after the coup are said to be YARSAV members. Like all other institutions, YARSAV might have been infiltrated too, he said, pointing out that many Gulenists used to conceal their affiliation. Yet, at other public and private institutions, the measures have targeted the infiltrators [individually], and the same had to be applied to YARSAV. Otherwise, one is supposed to shut down the Justice Ministry as well.  The closure of YARSAV is a move that goes beyond the purpose of the struggle against FETO, he added.

The closure was followed by the arrest of Murat Arslan, YARSAV's chairman, in late October. The reasons justifying the arrest include a charge that he had downloaded the ByLock messaging application, which Gulenists allegedly used to communicate. In his testimony to prosecutors, obtained by Al-Monitor, Arslan denied ever using the application. In another mind-boggling detail, no backup was made of the original software and data found on Arslans mobile phone, as the procedure usually goes in such cases. Asked whether he was aware that Gulenists were involved in illegal activities, Arslan told the prosecutor, Ive been aware that this is an illegal entity since the day YARSAV was established. Ive been involved in active efforts against them since the Ergenekon case.

Then there is the testimony of a secret witness who alleges that Arslan was the judiciarys imam, or the top Gulenist operative in this realm. Lawyer Selcuk Kozagacli, the head of the Contemporary Jurists Association who was present at Arslans interrogation, told the press that the claims of the secret witness contained no specifics of dates and places. This is called calumniation, he said. It can never serve as a basis for any criminal proceeding or an arrest.

Arslan, who was in Great Britain on the day of the putsch and returned home two days later, was imprisoned pending trial after the court found him a flight risk. In the meantime, he lost his position as rapporteur at the Constitutional Court, and his family was ordered to leave the public lodgings where they resided.

YARSAV was the only Turkish group that the International Association of Judges and MEDEL had admitted. Its closure also meant an end to its active international efforts to explain how Ankara sought to control the judiciary and draw attention to the dangers of partisan staffing.

Following YARSAVs closure, the Justice Ministry wrote to the International Association of Judges, informing them of the move and requesting the admission of the pro-government Platform for Unity in the Judiciary as a replacement, Eminagaoglu told Al-Monitor. The International Association of Judges rejected the request, saying it admits only independent organizations, he said. The move was an attempt to ensure that groups praising the government and not those criticizing it are represented in international organizations. Its what the government always does  dissolving opponent bodies and filling their places with pro-government ones. This is true not only for the judiciary, but also for the media and public service."
November 9, 2016

The US State Department has ordered the families of its consulate staff in Istanbul to leave the country. Now, Turks fear for the worst.

In an Oct. 29 order, the US government cited the increasing possibility of terror attacks against US citizens in Istanbul. The State Department has frequently issued short-term travel alerts to its citizens in Turkey in the past two years, but those typically involved visits to southeast Turkey and near the Syrian border. The new order applies specifically to diplomatic families in Istanbul.

The order noted that the consulate will remain open and fully functional. It did not apply to other posts, although the US Consulate in Adana province issued a warning Nov. 4 that terror organizations in the city might target US citizens and warned them to be vigilant.

The pro-government media reported the news of the Istanbul consulate warning briefly and calmly. Members of the Turkish public, however  particularly middle- and upper-middle-class Turks  were not so calm. To gauge reactions, Al-Monitor informally surveyed groups of college-educated Istanbul residents and monitored social media sites such as Twitter and Eksi Sozluk. The responses fall into two basic categories. The first was the "sour grape" group, which expressed bitter anger over the US decision to save only its own personnel's families. The group suggested the move might be an omen to impending US-led chaos in Turkey. Some went so far as to suggest that the United States will be responsible for any terror attacks that might take place in Turkey as the consulate families are evacuated.

The second group worried that the Americans would alert and protect their own, but leave the Turks in the dark. Some joked, asking if Americans would take them along, while others asked what would become of those left behind.

Evacuations are complex. In March, the Department of Defense ordered its personnel's dependents to leave Turkey. Departures of family members, sometimes with their pets, is a cumbersome arrangement, not to be undertaken lightly.

Al-Monitor spoke with a former State Department official who asked to remain anonymous. The official explained that decisions of this scale are never haphazard. He refrained from detailing the specific causes for evacuation, but noted such decisions "are always based on a serious security threat  not [just] the usual chatter that is picked up by security services."

"It means that a threat to attack Americans has progressed from the typical boasting, posturing and threatening to actual planning. It does not necessarily mean that a specific terrorist plan was discovered, but rather that a credible risk exists from terrorists, in this case probably [the Islamic State (IS)], which has the means and the intention of carrying out an attack. The US government, via the State Department, always attempts to advise US citizens living and traveling abroad of heightened security risks," he said.

When asked why the decision could not be carried out more quietly, he said, "The State Department does not keep track of American citizens living in or visiting Turkey, and of course has no idea which Americans might be planning travel to Turkey in the coming months, so such travel warnings must be done publicly. An evacuation of embassy or consulate personnel could not be kept secret for long, and it is independent of the general travel advisory to American citizens, in any case."

Indeed, data from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism shows that in 2015-16, the number of Americans traveling to Turkey has decreased 42.3%.

So, is this warning and others part of a greater plan to hurt Turkey? The former State Department official answered Al-Monitor's questions in detail: "Such precautions do not happen in a vacuum. Under the terms of the Vienna Convention, responsibility for security of embassies and consulates rests solely with the host country. US Embassy personnel and host country government officials work closely together on a daily basis to share information and discuss potential security threats. The decision to evacuate the families of consular personnel is almost always taken with the full knowledge, advice and cooperation of the host nation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

Al-Monitor asked if evacuating family members from foreign missions is common practice. "Such an action is rare. The only other recent case I can think of is the Congo. It is expensive, certainly several hundred thousand dollars, to get the family members and enough of their personal belongings to live on indefinitely out of the country, and probably a million dollars a month to support them until their eventual return," he said.

"On a human level, an evacuation causes an extraordinary amount of disruption in the lives of embassy and consulate families. Many have school-age children who now must be taken out of school in the host country and placed in new schools in the middle of the school year in the United States. Many spouses work in the host country, and those jobs and incomes are lost, perhaps permanently. The financial support provided by the State Department for separate housing [normally somewhere in the United States] and per diem [expenses] only covers a fraction of the actual cost of maintaining a second, separate household in the United States for the families, so significant financial hardship is always involved. The decision to evacuate is never a 'political message.'"

What these warnings tell us is that the Turkish government does not want, or is simply unable, to seriously tackle the growing security deficit. Even the declared state of emergency and increasing militarization has not been able to prevent the drastic rise in terrorism or organized crime.

Quality of life has decreased significantly in the last couple of years in Turkey, particularly as a result of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's adventurist policies in Syria. This is obvious from the changes in hazardous duty pay percentages calculated by the State Department for its Foreign Service personnel. Personnel in Turkey didn't receive hazard pay until September 2015, when those serving in the southeastern border province of Gaziantep were added. But since April 3, workers in several Turkish cities have been added, including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

It is not just the data applicable to the US Department of State or the Department of Defense that indicate there is a growing security problem in Turkey. The number of applications for asylum to various Western countries has skyrocketed in the last year. Applications to Germany from Turkish citizens have doubled.

Given the growing unrest in Turkey, it is safe to predict that ordered departures from US and other countries' missions will only increase in the coming months. Erdogan's lack of concern about US actions can be predicted from what he said Oct. 14 about capital punishment: "I will approve the death penalty; the West cannot comment." On Nov. 6, he ridiculed the German press for calling him a dictator, adding that he didn't care. It seems the feeling is mutual, that the West does not care for Erdogan. In other words, the importance of Western views for Turkish policymakers is decreasing as security deteriorates and foreign missions and globally connected Turks leave the country.
November 9, 2016

Advocates of the nuclear deal with Iran are convinced the pact is in mortal danger following Republican Donald Trumps upset election.

Deal skeptics on Capitol Hill have already prepared a raft of bills that have a far better chance of making it into law with the threat of a White House veto now out of the way. But the president-elect himself can just as easily send what hes called a disastrous deal to the dustbin of history by simply refusing to sign off on sanctions relief.

Thats why I find it so hard to believe that the deal survives, said Richard Nephew, a former State Department sanctions official who now heads the program on Economic Statecraft, Sanctions and Energy Markets at Columbia University. At some point, [Trump] will have to make an affirmative decision to support its implementation.

Under the deal, the United States isnt scheduled to provide additional sanctions relief until October 2023, well into a second Trump term. But the deal does require the president to periodically extend waivers on sanctions that remain on the books, as long as Iran abides by its obligations under the deal.

Iranian officials rushed to reassure the world that they remain wedded to the deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told his Cabinet after Trumps election that the deal cannot be overturned by one governments decision.

But skeptics abound.

Tyler Cullis, a policy associate with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said Tehran is all but certain to test an incoming Trump administration.

You cant forget that Iran tends to do dumb things that ignite political firestorms here in Washington, Cullis said.

Indeed, just hours after Hillary Clinton conceded defeat, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that Iran had exceeded its threshold for heavy water allowed under the deal. While relatively minor, such a violation could imperil the deal if a Trump administration dismantles the State Department and National Security Council teams that were put in place to prevent disagreements between the two longtime foes from spiraling out of control.

As much as I hear people say, Well, [Trump] wont kill the deal on Day One, can anyone seriously think that hes going to allow his Treasury secretary or his secretary of state to issue those waivers? Nephew told Al-Monitor. And think about who those people will be. Can anyone seriously think theyre going to do it?

A Trump administration is also unlikely to reassure foreign banks that they can do some business with Iran without falling short of the deal. Already, Iran has been complaining that it is not seeing the promised benefits from the deal because the international financial system is wary of US regulators.

Then theres Congress.

Lawmakers have introduced a rash of Iran sanctions bills ahead of the election, both to score points with voters back home and to put political pressure on the Obama administration not to go too far with sanctions relief. Cullis said he now expects the incoming, Republican-controlled Congress to introduce less extreme legislation that may not blatantly violate the deal but could irretrievably harm it.

The pro-Israel lobby AIPAC will thread that needle, Cullis predicted. And then youre going to have a bill thats going to be very tough for Democrats to vote against.

Theoretically, the defeat of deal foes Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., helps provide Democrats with a firewall to defeat problematic Iran bills (most bills need 60 votes to pass, and the Republicans will have 52 Senate seats if they win a Dec. 9 run-off in Louisiana). On the flip side, deal opponent Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is taking over as minority leader, adding to advocates distress.

I think youre going to see a much more measured approach from Republicans to knock a hole in it, Cullis said. And if a bill like that passes, its certainly the case that a President Trump will not spurn it, and he will sign it. It will cause immense damage to the sustainability of the nuclear deal.

One such bill is S. 3267 from Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., which has garnered seven co-sponsors, including Democrats Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. AIPAC has lobbied for the bill, which would notably grant the incoming administration new power to designate Iranian entities and individuals for cyber, ballistic missile and other non-nuclear sanctions.

A Trump administration will be less reluctant to utilize those authorities, Cullis said. Its a strange thing to say, but I think Donald Trump will be one of the more sane voices in a Trump Cabinet.

Potential candidates for the secretary of state post include former Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, who publicly advocated bombing Irans nuclear installations during last years negotiations. Cullis sees Trump outsourcing much of his administrations Iran policy to his Cabinet, potentially empowering such hard-liners.

Iran's behavior has become significantly worse since the #IranDeal, Bolton tweeted last week, adding, "Another reason why we can't have a third term of Obama's administration.

While the Trump administration will likely put pressure on Congress to pass more sanctions bills, Nephew predicted the reverse will also happen: Lawmakers touting their freshly passed bills to their constituents will likely demand that the Republican president use new powers given to him against Iran.

Ironically, deal advocates are latching on to Trumps past inconsistencies for slight comfort.

In a CNN interview last summer, he lamented the stupidity of the nuclear pact and said the United States should double up and triple up the sanctions and have them come to us. In a September 2015 interview, however, he clarified that he would not rip up the pact upon taking office. We have a horrible contract, but we do have a contract, he told MSNBC.

In that same interview, the president-elect took issue with US businesses being shut out of the Iranian market under the deal.

You see Russia selling missiles, and Germanys involved, Trump said at the time. Everybodys involved now with Iran selling them stuff. Were probably [going to] be the only ones that wont be selling them anything.

Cullis said NIAC and others have floated the idea of trying to get Obama to open up Iran to US businesses during his last days in office as a way to appeal to Trump the businessman. But Nephew said doing so would take too long and not be in keeping with Obamas stated desire for an orderly transition.

Nephew said the election offers Trump and Republicans a chance to prove they could have negotiated a better deal. But he predicted that the more likely scenario will see the United States and Iran revert to a dangerous game of chicken rather than getting Iran to give up its nuclear program.

Rouhani is supposed to be elected in May, Nephew said. If he were to agree to that, he would not just not be elected, he would probably be shot.
Here are the top stories in Alabama business for Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. Follow all of Alabama's business news here anytime.

President-Elect Donald J. Trump's victory Tuesday may be good for Alabama's defense and aerospace industries, but experts say Trump will face the same challenge that ties today's Washington in knots.

Mobile's cruise terminal officially opened for business Wednesday morning, with a cruise ship at the dock and cruisers at the gate - Not to mention Azalea Trail maids, Chief Slac and a host of elected officials.

Vulcan Material Co. (NYSE: VMC)'s stock price was up Wednesday morning after Donald Trump's election, and it wasn't just all that talk about building a wall.

Black Friday 2016 is a little more than two weeks away and we're starting to see some of the best deals and offers coming from merchants this year.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation is hosting the "Hiring Our Heroes - Huntsville" job fair for veterans and military spouses.

Three new miniature Vulcan statues were unveiled at Vulcan Park Wednesday as part of the "Vulcans on Parade" community art project.
By 2006, Jay Grinney had gotten used to constantly putting out fires at HealthSouth. The depths of the problem with HealthSouth's corporate office were far greater than he had anticipated. That's the nature of accounting fraud: It's difficult to know which numbers to trust, and which numbers are fabricated.

Today's HealthSouth is largely unrecognizable from its past. Grinney is only the company's second CEO, and he announced last month that at 65, he will retire at the end of this year. The company has returned to normal - a feat that, when Grinney entered the picture, very few thought was possible.

Grinney had left his job at competing Hospital Corporation of America in Nashville in 2004. He was President of the healthcare company's Eastern Group, managing some 100 hospitals. He knew of HealthSouth's problems: in 2003, the company's founder and CEO Richard Scrushy had been fired after regulators had charged him with sweeping accounting fraud.

HealthSouth was among the largest publicly traded healthcare companies in the country at the time, and while working for a direct competitor he saw that HealthSouth's hospitals were really very good. So he saw the company as fixable: the problems were isolated to the corporate headquarters. There was a product worth saving.

But upon starting work at HealthSouth, Grinney learned that the problems at the headquarters ran far beyond fraud - the company that had grown largely through acquisitions had never been streamlined into a company that could run well, and it largely lacked any disciplinary controls.

He was living in temporary housing in Inverness, and was working so much he rarely saw any part of Birmingham that wasn't in that three-mile stretch of U.S. 280.

He was having problems with his then-wife - the pair divorced in 2005.

In 2006, he was diagnosed with cancer.

A 'Herculean' task

The cancer isn't what Grinney remembers most about 2006. In fact, he recalls only missing maybe two days of work as a result of it. He had surgery to remove the tumor, and was advised to do radiation and possibly chemotherapy. He chose instead to only get the surgery and rigorously monitor for resurgences, which never came.

"It never really occurred to me that it would be worse than that," Grinney said. "There was a lot going on and I didn't really have time to think about it, I guess."

HealthSouth was still in crisis, and he didn't have the energy to spare for chemotherapy.

That same year, Grinney had just achieved what he had called a "Herculean" task - HealthSouth had fixed problems discovered as a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, a federal act designed to prevent accounting fraud passed largely in response to recent accounting scandals at companies like Enron and Worldcom. The law required publicly traded companies to do assessments of internal controls and look for any weaknesses, the most severe of which was called a "material weakness." Grinney expected to find several such weaknesses at HealthSouth in 2004, especially within the accounting department.

Grinney did not expect to find several dozen material weaknesses, many of which were completely unrelated to fraud. Most companies only had two or three of these weakness, many had none at all.

"We had more material weaknesses than any other company I had heard of," Grinney said. "We had dozens and dozens."

Fixing those weaknesses went largely unnoticed by shareholders at the time, Grinney said. In some ways that makes sense - HealthSouth was dealing with many higher profile issues, like paying down the $4.2 billion in debt. Most of that debt was taken out under Scrushy to pay for expansions, and federal prosecutors said those expansions were really a ruse to hide accounting fraud. Grinney lists fixing those material weaknesses as among his proudest achievements in his 12 years as CEO.

It was earlier this year that Grinney was told he no longer had to have his annual evaluations to see if the cancer has returned; he's as in the clear as one can be as a cancer survivor.

Declining to declare

If you ask Grinney what he's proudest of in his 12-year tenure at HealthSouth, he'll tell you it's the team he put together.

Birmingham attorney John Somerville represented HealthSouth shareholders in a derivative suit and won a $2.8 billion judgment against Scrushy on behalf of the company. Somerville worked closely with Grinney in that suit, and he'll tell you Grinney leaves behind a legacy far greater than just his staff.

"The survival of HealthSouth is Jay Grinney's legacy," Somerville said.

Somerville also represented Sterne Agee's former Chief Financial Officer in an unrelated lawsuit against the financial company and its CEO James Holbrook Jr., alleging fraud, breach of contract, conversion and defamation. Somerville's client was fired in 2012 for what Sterne Agee called accounting mistakes, while his client holds that it was because he attempted to stop Holbrook's fraud; in 2014, it was reported that the U.S. Department of the Treasury was investigating Holbrook for fraud.

Sterne Agee, which was headquartered in Birmingham and was one of the nation's largest and oldest privately-owned financial services companies outside Wall Street, announced in early 2015 it would be sold to Stifel, a St. Louis-based company. And that provides a perfect example of what could have happened to HealthSouth, Somerville said.

"Frequently, what's best for the company and the employees and what's best for the shareholders may be the hardest route. An easy way out would have been to declare bankruptcy or to sell at some discounted price. Honestly, in my opinion, we have an example of that very recently with Sterne Agee," Somerville said. "The [HealthSouth] board of directors, to its credit, picked someone who was equal to the task of taking the hard way for the benefits of the employees, the shareholders, and the community - for that, we owe a debt of gratitude to Jay Grinney. He did it, and he defied the odds."

What happened at HealthSouth was not an isolated incident. It followed the Enron scandal of 2001, where shareholders lost $74 billion, thousands of employees lost their retirement funds, and the company filed for bankruptcy. Then in 2002, it came out that WorldCom had inflated its assets by $11 billion, leading it to file what was at the time the largest bankruptcy in the country's history.

HealthSouth's story had a lot in common with these predecessors. The main difference being that it survived. Protective Life's CEO Johnny Johns said he expected HealthSouth to declare bankruptcy in the early 2000s, and that largely everyone in the Birmingham community did.

If it had declared bankruptcy, Birmingham would have moved on, just as Houston did after Enron. But it would have remained a black spot on the city's reputation, another Larry Langford cautionary tale. Instead, HealthSouth is today a pride of Birmingham, said Johns, who is a close personal friend of Grinney's.

Falling for Birmingham

You can imagine a Birmingham without HealthSouth. You can imagine the jobs that aren't there, the ghosts would inhabit the 200,000-square-foot headquarters Scrushy built off of U.S. 280.

But it's hard to account for all the small ways having a publicly traded company affects the community, said Ralph Smith, a Birmingham attorney who taught a class at the University of Alabama School of Law on the accounting scandals of the early 2000s, including HealthSouth.

"Having a corporate headquarters of a successful company is an important ingredient in the success of a community. You have corporate citizenship opportunities when you have a Regions headquartered here, or a Protective Life Insurance headquartered here, even though Protective is now owned in Japan, their U.S. operations are headquartered right here and they're an important part of the corporate culture," Smith said. "Birmingham has benefited from great corporate leadership and also from time to time has suffered from the absentee ownership syndrome. I'm just so pleased that HealthSouth has remained, remained strong, and continues to grow."

Grinney shaped more than just HealthSouth. He serves on the boards of major Birmingham companies like Coca-Cola Bottling Company UNITED and Energen Corp., and has served in the past on the board for staples like the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. He was active in forming Blueprint Birmingham, the Birmingham Business Alliance's comprehensive economic development plan.

Today, HealthSouth is one of only three Fortune 1000 companies that remain in the state, along with Regions Financial Corp. and Vulcan Materials.

After Scrushy was fired, there was doubt about whether HealthSouth would survive. But even when it became clear that HealthSouth would survive the scandal, many worried the company could still leave Birmingham - including Johns.

Grinney said HealthSouth never seriously entertained the idea of leaving Birmingham. But plenty outside of the community wanted it to. Executives and economic development agencies courted Grinney to encourage him to move HealthSouth's corporate headquarters to Charlotte, Richmond, and especially Nashville, he said.

"There certainly was a full-court press applied to me by the people in the Nashville business community and the Nashville Chamber of Commerce," Grinney said. "You're in a crisis mode, and there's something to be said about new beginnings. My thought, on the other hand, was because we were in a crisis, to ask so many people to relocate would be an undue and unnecessary burden to place on people you were depending on to get help get the company turned around."

Johns' anxiety wasn't unfounded. To raise money to pay down its massive debt, HealthSouth sold Surgical Care Affiliates in 2007 for $920 million. That company's corporate headquarters is now in Illinois.

Johns' anxieties were eased in 2009, when Grinney married Melanie Parker. A Birmingham native, Parker had travelled around the world to places like New York, London and Paris before returning home, where she worked for a while as the Director of Marketing for the Birmingham Museum of Art. Johns knew, when they married, Grinney wasn't going anywhere. The couple now lives in Mountain Brook.

"I started to really enjoy being here and fell in love with the city," Grinney said. "It wasn't soon thereafter that I concluded I would never want to relocate the corporate office."

HealthSouth, all grown up

By 2007, the company had completed its turnaround: it had settled all the outstanding litigation and paid all of its settlements.

"That's when we really started thinking about what we wanted to be when we grew up," Grinney said.

The company began an aggressive growth strategy that led to more than 40 acquisitions, including the massive $730 million purchase of Reliant Hospital Partners and the $170 million purchase of Georgia's CareSouth.

On Monday, HealthSouth broke ground on its new corporate headquarters on 20 acres of land in Liberty Park.

The lease on the current building ends in 2018. HealthSouth used to own the corporate campus, but sold it for $60 million in 2007 to help pay down the debt.

Grinney has said in the past the lease ending provided HealthSouth with the opportunity to move into a building that better suited with what the company is now: open and collaborative. The old building, he has said, was overbuilt, with a layout created to keep departments from interacting with one another.

The new space, he said, will be open, with natural sunlight hitting the offices. It will have common areas the current campus lacks that will encourage different departments to work together and communicate.

Grinney will never work out of the new building. His last day as CEO is Dec. 31, though he'll stay on as a consultant through the spring of next year.

Chief Operating Officer Mark Tarr, who has been second in command for nearly a decade of his 23 year career at the company, will succeed Grinney.

HealthSouth announced his retirement the same day the company announced something that seemed impossibly far away at the time he was hired: a strong third quarter, with revenues topping $926 million.

"I cannot envision a better scenario to step aside from," Grinney said.
Bill and Audrey Cowley.JPG

Bill and Audrey Cowley were missionaries to Jos, Nigeria in 1966, when tribal genocide killed 30,000 people over a few days.

(Baptist Center for Ethics)

A new documentary called "The Disturbances," produced by the Baptist Center for Ethics, recalls the mass killing of 30,000 people in tribal warfare over three days in Nigeria in 1966.

The film features interviews with U.S. missionaries who were working in Jos, Nigeria at the time, including Bill and Audrey Cowley of Vestavia Hills.

"The worst thing I saw were the bodies, the corpses of those that had been beaten to death," said Bill Cowley, who was the principal of Baptist High School in Jos, Nigeria from 1960-73.

"The weapons were clubs and machetes," Cowley recalled in an interview with AL.com. "The days of the actual killing were two to three full days, with episodes popping up here and there. In our city and 10 miles down the road, we estimated 10,000 were killed."

Across Nigeria, at least 30,000 and as many as 50,000 were killed. "When they killed someone, they let them lie where they fell," Cowley said. "Several days later a detail was organized to collect them and bury them in a mass grave."

Missionaries from various denominations helped members of the Igbo tribe -- who were targeted for killings by members of the Hausa and Fulani tribes -- go into hiding, find safe areas and leave the area. They also volunteered to provide medical assistance for the victims.

"Missionaries would go and bind up wounds and provide food," Cowley said.

"After the fighting stopped, we were trying to get life back to normal," he said. "You just did what you saw was needed. We don't want to claim to be heroes in any sense."

He recalled driving his two daughters, Carol and Karen, to the Hillcrest School for missionary kids, while there were dead bodies lying in the roads.

He never personally witnessed the killings.

"So much of it took place at night," Cowley said. "We were located five miles out of the city."

Nigeria achieved independence from Great Britain in 1960. The nation of 50 million people had 250 tribes. The Igbo tribe from the south achieved a high level of education from Christian missionaries and Igbo began to move north and take jobs in areas that were dominated by other tribes. That led to resentment, which boiled over after a January 1966 coup against the Nigerian government led by Igbo members of the military.

In retaliation for the coup, Hausa-Fulani soldiers and civilians targeted Igbo living in northern Nigeria. While the Hausa and Fulani tended to be Muslim and the Igbo were Christians, religion was not a major factor in the killings, according to the film. Tribal displacement, differences in education and resentment were contributing factors.

"Jos was an interesting place and that's what made it the epicenter of this event," Cowley said. "It had a dividing point between northern and southern tribes. The Igbo people migrated into the north. Over a period of a number of years, they began to take jobs and take prominent positions. The northern people then began to see them as a threat. It was a matter of driving them out."

The Cowleys had arrived in Nigeria as missionaries in 1955. They left in 1976 and settled in Birmingham, where both their daughters would graduate from Samford University.

Bill Cowley, now 85, became a professor of speech and religion at Samford, teaching from 1977-93.

Samford University hosted a showing of "The Disturbances" Thursday night.

The Cowleys are members of Shades Crest Baptist Church in Bluff Park, which will host a showing of the film on Sunday, Nov. 13, at 3 p.m.

It will also be shown at McElwain Baptist Church in Birmingham on Dec. 6 at 10 a.m.

"This documentary has been well-received," Cowley said.

He's glad it's bringing light to a horrible period that has faded into history.

"It was very much overlooked," Cowley said. "We just didn't talk about it. It was very painful to remember. We didn't want to be perceived as taking sides. That could have been interpreted as being involved politically. That's not why were there."

The film was written, produced and directed by Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, who was the son of missionaries stationed in Jos, Nigeria in 1966; and veteran documentary-filmmaker Cliff Vaughn of Red Clay Pictures, whose previous films include "Brother Joseph and the Grotto," about the Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman.
nyoka fb card.jpg

On Wednesday morning, 12-year-old Lindsey Dixon woke up and checked her phone to see who won the presidential election.

"I got up screaming and I ran into my mom's room and yelled, 'Donald Trump won!'" she recalled. Dixon is a sixth-grader who lives in Birmingham and is an ardent supporter of Trump. "I was really excited, I was really happy, running up and down the halls."

A hundred miles north in Huntsville, 11-year-old Nyoka Holmes was also waking up on Wednesday morning. Her mom, Kim, came into her room.

"She woke me up and I could tell by the tone in her voice that it wasn't Hillary Clinton who won, so I was really upset," said Holmes, a fifth-grader. "But last night my mom said that no matter who wins, we have to try and make a difference in the world."

In her concession speech Wednesday, Hillary Clinton spoke directly to young women in America: "To all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and to achieve your own dreams."

Girls have been a focus of this campaign season and also a focus at AL.com. Through our Southern Girls Project, we have made it a point this year to highlight girls across the south who are athletes, entrepreneurs and dreamers working to make their corners of the world better and brighter.

We talked with nine Alabama girls, ages 7-17 to find out what they thought about the 2016 presidential campaign and this week's election.

They are informed, passionate and care a great deal about how the election affects their communities. Read on for their thoughts and share your own in the comments.

Nyoka Holmes, 11

Nyoka Holmes, age 11

Holmes supported Hillary Clinton because she likes President Barack Obama and feels strongly about supporting rights for the LGBT community. She worries what Trump will do once he's president.

"I don't know about other girls, but I care about women's rights and LGBT rights especially, so everybody can be free to marry who they want to marry," she said.

During the campaign season, Holmes enjoyed learning about the election and debating campaign issues with classmates in her gifted class at school. She said she loves politics and hopes to see a woman president sooner rather than later.

"I think Hillary Clinton was an inspiration to a lot of other women who were kind of scared to run for president, so I'm hoping that when Trump's term ends that other women would want to run for president," she said.

Lindsey Dixon, 12

Lindsey Dixon, age 12

Dixon also enjoyed discussing politics and the election in her gifted class, where they made campaign posters and bumper stickers, and researched the candidates. They held a mock election.

"A lot of my friends are really happy," about the outcome of the election, she said. "Some of the boys argue about it, about how Trump or Hillary is better" but most of the girls have political discussions without fighting, she said.

"I think kids our age pay more attention to politics than adults think we do," said Dixon. "A lot of us, the first thing we do at school every single morning is walk in and talk about what we thought" about the election.

Cleo Moore, 10

Cleo Moore, age 11

Cleo Moore said she feels nervous now that Donald Trump has been elected.

"I have some friends that I'm worried and scared about," she said. "Their parents don't have American citizenships yet. They're Muslims. My friend talked to them (Wednesday) morning and they're worried."

Moore said she and her friends who supported Clinton are trying to stay positive, but sometimes, "I just want to pretend like it didn't happen."

She said she hopes Trump won't build a wall on the Mexican border, but will instead make good on other campaign promises that benefit more people, like improving the economy.

Cailet Hardtmann-Huckabee, 17

Cailet Hardtmann-Huckabee, age 17

Cailet Hardtmann-Huckabee is a freshman at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, double-majoring in biochemistry and public health.

"I was in support of Hillary because I really liked her policies on LGBTQ rights and women's rights, as well as her openness and she accepted diversity," said Hardtmann-Huckabee. "She wasn't rude."

Last spring, Hardtmann-Huckabee was a senior at a Birmingham-area high school where most of the students were Trump supporters. Now that she's in college, she said she's found many more classmates who share her views and values.

Her Facebook and Twitter feeds are full this week of friends from high school and college posting about the election with drastically different views.

She said she's worried about the direction the country will take under a President Trump.

"I'm so scared, honestly," she said. "I have a lot of friends in the LGBTQ community and the'yre very worried about their future. I have friends here (at school) working on getting their citizenship but they don't have it yet and they're afraid they're going to be deported.

"It's scary for me to see them and not be able to do anything about it."

Hardtmann said she hopes Trump will "mature some and realize the way he's been acting is not the way to run a country."

She wants the future president to know about girls her age "That we are not objects and we do not like to be grabbed. The way he speaks about women is very rape culture and there comes a point where the bottom line is, it's not OK and not going to be OK. I wish someone had explained that to him."

Ella Dickerson, 11

Ella Dickerson, age 11

Ella Dickerson said Trump's win was "kind of surprising. I thought Hillary would win. When I found out it was Trump, I was like, 'Wow, mind blown.'"

Dickerson is a sixth-grade homeschooled student in Madison. She supports Donald Trump and thinks Clinton is dishonest.

Most of her friends are Trump supporters, she said. "I think they don't like how Clinton lies and how she wants everyone to share everything instead of everyone to have their own amount."

Dickerson did get to watch Trump's acceptance speech the morning after the election and was impressed.

"He did a pretty good job and it was really bringing people together," she said. "It sounded very presidential."

Cortney Glover, 11

Cortney Glover, age 11

Cortney Glover watched campaign season coverage on a student news channel in her history class, where she and classmates discussed the presidential debates and polls.

Glover said she is one of only a handful of kids in her sixth-grade class who supported Hillary Clinton and voted for her in a mock election.

"I kind of kept it to myself so I wouldn't start anything," she said, "but a lot of people in my class were shouting out they voted for Donald Trump."

Glover talks about a variety of national issues, from tax rates to international trade to abortion.

"I'm not sure about every single thing in politics, but of the things I do know, if I could vote I would vote for Hillary Clinton," she said. "I was kind of sad she didn't win, but I wasn't thinking that 'we're all going to die, oh no.' I was thinking as long as I'm safe with my family, then I'm OK with it."

Mary Newton Maxwell, 8

Mary Newton Maxwell, age 8

Mary Newton Maxwell was originally a supporter of Republican candidate Marco Rubio, but switched to Trump after he received the party nomination.

She watched the election results come in and "I thought it was nervewracking" but is happy Trump won.

She hopes he will make good decisions and be a good president.

Her friends and classmates have discussed the election.

"Some were happy Trump won, but some said it was the end of the world that he won," she said. "My teacher said we didn't need to talk about it."

Alya Landingham, 9

Alya Landingham, age 9

Alya Landingham, a home-schooled fourth-grader in Madison, said she supported Hillary Clinton because "She was a sensible candidate. I just felt like I wanted to support her."

She was surprised how disappointed she felt when she found out Trump won the election. She talked about it with her parents and brother.

"I was kind of scared he would actually deport some families like he said," she said. Landingham said she hopes more democrats may be elected to Congress in a couple of years and would like to see Clinton run for president again in the future.

Rainey Gray, 14

Rainey Gray, age 14

Rainey Gray, a ninth-grader in the Huntsville area, called Tuesday's election coverage "insane."

Once a Rubio supporter, Gray said she was happy when Trump won and she likes that Trump stands firm on his beliefs.

"I hope he will be able to bring more jobs to the U.S., improve immigration issues and make our military stronger because of terrorist threats," she said.

What should the future president know about girls her age?

"We are important, and we are the future of this country."
Craig Pouncey for slideshow.jpg

Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Craig Pouncey is interviewed by the state Board of Education in August. Pouncey was one of six finalists for state superintendent.

(Mike Cason/mcason@al.com)

A legislative committee today resumes its effort to learn more about what some say was an effort to prevent Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Craig Pouncey from becoming state superintendent.

State Board of Education members received envelopes containing an anonymous complaint about Pouncey in July.

At the time, the BOE was considering Pouncey and five other finalists for state superintendent.

Pouncey has said the complaint was baseless and intended to hurt his chances of getting the job.

Several state board members who spoke to the committee last week agreed.

Sens. Gerald Dial, R-Lineville and Quinton Ross, D-Montgomery, sponsored a resolution creating the committee.

Last week, they questioned board members and Department of Education officials about how the complaint was handled and why and how it why it was sent to the Ethics Commission, which does not investigate anonymous complaints.

Dial said he believes the complaint could have cost Pouncey the superintendent's job. Ross said he believes the complaint was mishandled and that the BOE should have considered postponing a decision until it cleared the air on the complaint.

In August, the BOE voted to hire former Massachusetts education secretary Michael Sentance over Pouncey and the other finalists.

Sentance received five votes from the nine-member board, one more than Pouncey.

Last month, the BOE passed a resolution asking for an investigation into the complaint.
While there were a number of close races, Democrats are poised to sweep the 14 circuit and district judicial races and two district attorney races in Jefferson County once the final vote is tallied next week.

It continues a trend that leaves only two Republican judges remaining on the 39 circuit and district courts in Jefferson County.

One race Tuesday - the one for district attorney in Bessemer - is close enough so far to qualify for a statutory recount.

Late Tuesday election officials in Jefferson County finished counting absentee ballots. With those votes, 99.4 percent of the unofficial vote has been tallied.

The race for district attorney in Bessemer is close, with 223 votes separating Republican Bill Veitch and Democrat Lynneice Olive-Washington out of more than 36,000 votes cast for each candidate.

Veitch issued this statement late Tuesday about a possible recount:

"This election is far too close to call. There are still ballots to be counted. Anything under a half of 1 percent difference triggers a statutory recall. At this time we are going to wait until every vote is counted to ensure that the will of the people is realized," Veitch stated.

Efforts to reach Washington, who could become the first woman and first black to hold the office of district attorney in Jefferson County, were unsuccessful.

Wow! Thank you to the wonderful voters in the Bessemer Cutoff for your prayers, support and vote! Thank you as well for... Posted by Lynneice Washington on Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Next Tuesday ballots cast by those overseas or in the military, along with provisional votes cast at the polls, will be counted, said Jefferson County Probate Judge Alan King.

King said they had more absentee ballots than ever before - more than 8,000 in the Birmingham division alone. Counting the absentees for the Birmingham division took longer than usual because a large number of the ballots were kicked out of the high speed reader, he said.

The absentee ballots often will get kicked out of the electronic reader because they've been folded or smudged and those have to be counted by hand, King said. By late afternoon on Wednesday those had been counted and added into the totals.

Provisional ballots are mainly those cast by voters who showed up at the poll with no photo identification, King said. Those voters have to come back by the voter registrar office this week and show their identification in order for their votes to count, he said.

Overseas and military ballots had to be postmarked by Nov. 8.

The votes still to be added, however, are not likely enough to turn around any of the races, officials said. Candidate have 20 days to contest results once they are official, which will be a week from Friday.

Any recount would be on Nov. 21.

No surprise

The fact that Democrats are leading the all the judicial and district attorney races isn't a surprise, one local political scientist said.

"Jefferson County has been a blue county for some time, so it would be unusual if the Democratic candidates did not sweep," said Natalie Davis, professor of political science at Birmingham-Southern College.

While Democrats are not organized at a state level, Davis said, they are organized at the county level in Jefferson County.

Democrats at the county level start with a solid base of 35 percent to 40 percent black voters and then all the Democrats need then is to get 20 percent of the white vote and they've got what they need to win, Davis said.

If a judge retires and the governor appoints a Republican to the bench, "that can be a very short-lived term," Davis said.

Circuit judges Bentley Patrick and Pat Thetford, two Republicans appointed in the past two years by Republican Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, lost their bids for election on Tuesday.

For Democrats to begin winning again at a statewide level (no Democrat currently holds a statewide elected position), they need a "real attractive" candidate. She suggested that if Nick Saban were to decide to run as a Democrat that might do it.

Democrats have dominated judicial races, which are county-wide seats, in Jefferson County since at least 2008.

After this week's election it appears there will be only two Republicans remaining on the bench among the 27 circuit court judgeships in Jefferson County - judges Bill Cole and Teresa Pulliam who were not up for election this year. Republicans do not hold any of the 12 district court judgeships in the county.

Democrats were also leading in both the district attorney races against the Republicans that now hold the jobs.

Turnout

Ralph Young, voter analyst for the Jefferson County Democratic Party, said voter turnout among both parties was down this year - but more so for the Republicans - compared to the last time there was an open seat for the presidency in 2008 when Barack Obama won, Young said.

In 2008 there were 414,002 registered voters in Jefferson County, Young said. By October 2016 that had reached 449,668 voters, he said.

Obama got 166,121 votes in Jefferson County in 2008 while Democrat Hillary Clinton got 152,400 this year in the county - an 8 percent drop. Meanwhile Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008 got 149,921 votes, compared to 131,520 votes for Donald Trump this year - a 12 percent drop from 2008.

Joel Blankenship, vice chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party, said they are still analyzing the vote in the county. "We don't know if there is a surge of Democratic voters or a loss of Republican voters," he said.

But Blankenship said straight-ticket voting is one of the single biggest factors in the election results.

There were 115,541 straight ticket votes for Democrats and 81,784 for Republicans among Jefferson County voters on Tuesday.

Nine of the 14 Republican judicial candidates received more votes than Donald Trump (134,498) did in the county-wide vote, Blankenship noted. "It does show that there is a degree of cross over at least for our candidates," he said.

"It shows that Republicans came out that may not have been comfortable with Trump but recognized the importance of judicial races," Blankenship said.

Takeover

Since the 2008 election Democrats have increasingly taken judgeships away from Republicans.

During presidential elections the Republicans have not been able to keep or add new judicial seats in contested races in Jefferson County.

Democrats swept the two contested judicial races in Jefferson County in 2008, one of which led to a Republican losing his district court judgeship.

Democratic judicial candidates also swept their contested races in the 2012 presidential election in Jefferson County. Four other Republicans lost three circuit seats and one district seat in Jefferson County. Pulliam was unopposed for her re-election in 2012.

During the interim election year of 2010 Republicans lost one seat gained another and were able to hang on to some of the seats they already held. The one seat they gained was that of Republican Circuit Judge Dorothea Batiste. She, however, lost her bid for re-election this year.

In 2014, Republicans took back one seat.

Cole, who lost re-election in 2012, was appointed by Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley to the unexpired seat of retiring Judge Alfred Bahakel, a Republican who had won re-election in 2010. Cole then was elected to that seat in 2014 over a Democratic opponent.

Here is the unofficial count as of late Tuesday with 99.4 percent of the votes tallied in the judicial and district attorney races in Jefferson County (write-in votes make up the remainder):

CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, PLACE 4

Javan Joielle Patton (DEM) - 151,670 (51.85 percent)

Bobby Lott Jr. (REP) - 140,574 (48.06 percent)

CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, PLACE 11

Brendette Brown Green RENDETTE BROWN GREEN (DEM) 147,496 (50.24 percent)

Pat Thetford(REP) - 145,900 (49.69 percent)

CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, PLACE 14

Clyde Jones(DEM) (I) - 157,109 (53.78 percent)

Michael Jonathan Glover Jr. (REP) 134,761 (46.13 percent)

CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, PLACE 17

Elisabeth French (DEM) (I) - 167,635 (56.89 percent)

James C. Whitfield (REP) - 126,467 (42.92 percent)

CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, PLACE 20

Nakita "Niki" Perryman Blocton (DEM) - 149,125, (50.88 percent)

Julie A. Palmer (REP) (I) - 143,803 (49.06 percent)

CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, PLACE 22

Tamara Harris Johnson (DEM) - 149,573 (51.10 percent)

BENTLEY PATRICK (REP) - 142,964 (48.84 percent)

CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, PLACE 23

Agnes Chappell (DEM) - 158,879 (54.51 percent)

Dorothea Batiste (REP)(I) - 132,312 (45.40 percent)

CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, PLACE 25

Reginald L. Jeter (DEM) - 153,393 (52.68 percent)

John Tindle (REP) - 137,641 (47.27 percent)

CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, PLACE 26

Michael Streety(DEM) - 154,449 (52.81 percent)

Gloria Bahakel (REP) - 137,832 (47.13)

DISTRICT COURT JUDGE, 10TH JUDICIAL, PLACE 4

William A. "Tony" Bell Jr. (DEM)- 152,254 (52.55 percent)

Riggs Walker (REP) - 137,213 (47.36 percent)

DISTRICT COURT JUDGE, 10TH JUDICIAL, PLACE 5

Shera Craig Grant(DEM) - 155,666 (53.90 percent)

Lee Cleveland(REP) - 132,929 (46.03 percent)

DISTRICT COURT JUDGE, 10TH JUDICIAL, PLACE 7

Robert P. Bynon Jr.(DEM)(I) - 157,229 (54.20 percent)

Virginia P. Meigs (REP) - 132,652 (45.73 percent)

DISTRICT COURT JUDGE, 10TH JUDICIAL, PLACE 10

DEBRA BENNETT WINSTON (DEM) . . . . 150,309 51.99

TERESA HESTER (REP) . . . . . . . 138,621 47.94

DISTRICT COURT JUDGE, 10TH JUDICIAL, PLACE 11

ERIC M. FANCHER, SR. (DEM). . . . . 157,059 54.18

CYNTHIA VINES BUTLER (REP). . . . . 132,627 45.75

DISTRICT ATTORNEY BIRMINGHAM DIVISION

Charles Todd Henderson (DEM)- 148,454 (50.83 percent)

Brandon K. Falls(REP)(I) - 143,434 (49.11 percent)

DISTRICT ATTORNEY BESSEMER DIVISION

Lynneice Olive-Washington (DEM) - 36,651 (50.13 percent)

Bill Veitch (REP) - 36,428 (49.82 percent)
state house mug by julie.JPG

(Julie Bennett/jbennett@al.com)

Some Republican state lawmakers expressed initial optimism about how the Donald Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress could affect one of Alabama's thorniest problems - how to pay for Medicaid.

The Trump campaign called for block grant programs for Medicaid to allow states to be more innovative, although many details would have to be determined.

A block grant could give Alabama more control over Medicaid. The state has struggled to pay its share of Medicaid costs, even though federal funds pay for most of the program, which covers about one million Alabamians.

State officials have cited a lack of autonomy as one of the difficulties in putting the brakes on rising costs.

Senate Majority Leader Greg Reed, R-Jasper, who has been involved in Medicaid reform efforts, said he is generally supportive of the block grant concept.

"If we get more control at the state level, then the goal would be that we use the knowledge, wisdom and ingenuity that we have in Alabama to be able to better supply services in a more effective and efficient way than what the federal government says we have to do now," Reed said.

In 2013, Reed sponsored the legislation to convert much of Medicaid to managed care. The plan is to make regional care organizations, called RCOs, responsible for treating patients in exchange for a set payment per Medicaid enrollee.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved a waiver for Alabama's conversion to RCOs, which is intended, in part, to slow the growth in costs.

The conversion has lagged because of uncertainty over state funding. The RCOs were scheduled to begin operating Oct. 1, but that was delayed. Three of the 11 provisional RCOs have now backed out.

Gov. Robert Bentley, who has advocated for the change to managed care, told the Decatur Daily today he was uncertain for the outlook for the RCO conversion. Bentley said he planned to talk to Medicaid Commissioner Stephanie Azar later this week.

Last week, Azar encouraged a legislative committee to stick with the plan to change to RCOs and reminded lawmakers that the conversion is mandated by the 2013 law. Under the CMS waiver, the state could receive up to $748 million in federal funds over five years to help with the transition.

Reed, while acknowledging the uncertainty of what might change under a Trump administration and a Republican-led Congress, said the state should proceed with the RCO conversion because it could fit well with block grants.

"The RCOs will be fiscally responsible for the patients in their care and we will know that we've got a specific amount of money coming from the federal government under a block grant annually so that we can appropriately plan for that," Reed said.

"So there would be a place where it could all work very well together. But again, we're talking about something that is 24 hours old as far as the possibilities and we don't really know a lot about the details."

Kimble Forrister, executive director for Alabama Arise, which advocates for policies to help low-income families, like those who depend on Medicaid, said Alabama would probably not benefit from a block grant program applied to Medicaid.

"We don't have details but the way a block grant usually works is that a state becomes responsible for the cost increases of a program," Forrister said. "That would shift the budget challenges from a national-state partnership to the state by itself.

"And in the case of a state like Alabama with a lot of children in poverty, seniors in poverty, and people with disabilities, we would be giving the nation a pass on their responsibility for the challenges of high poverty. So it would not be a good deal for us."

House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, R-Monrovia, said he liked the concept of a block grant.

"Alabama is unique," McCutcheon said. "If we can just work and have the opportunity to manage our own sysem, I think it would help us tremendously."

Overall, McCutcheon said he thinks a Trump administration and a Republican-led Congress can help Alabama's economy, partly by reducing federal regulations and fixing problems he said were caused by the Affordable Care Act, including increased health insurance premiums and deductibles.

"This was a historic election," McCutcheon said. "I think President-elect Trump is going to bring a freshness to the system up there. It's not status quo and he's got a lot of good ideas.

"He's got some good people around him. Sen. (Jeff) Sessions has been a valued supporter."

Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston, said he has long believed that Alabama could better manage Medicaid with a block grant.

Marsh said he's planning to meet with Bentley and legislative leaders to discuss Medicaid in a few days.

"Anytime we give the state more flexibility and control, I think that's a good thing," Marsh said. "It sounds like that may be an option, and I think if it is we can much better control Medicaid if we have that ability."

Marsh said people in Alabama and across the country sent a message Tuesday.

"They want attention given to economic issues and job creation and not sitting idle," Marsh said. "And I'm optimistic that our delegation working with that Republican majority will have gotten that message and will move forward to create a better economic environment for this whole country."
A jury weighing murder charges against a Georgia man whose toddler son died in a hot car has adjourned for a long weekend.

Jurors in the trial of Justin Ross Harris ended their third day of deliberations Thursday without reaching a verdict. Harris is charged with murder in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper, who died after being left for hours in the back seat of his father's SUV.

Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark ordered the jury to resume its deliberations Monday morning. The courthouse will be closed Friday for Veterans Day.

Prosecutors say Harris, who moved to Georgia from Alabama in 2012, intentionally killed his son. Defense attorneys say Harris loved his son and that the death was a tragic accident.
southside storage container body

(Carol Robinson | crobinson@al.com)

A man convicted of killing a 61-year-old woman and then stuffing her body in a storage tub was sentenced this week.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Bill Cole sentenced Charles Jordan to 26 years in prison.

Jordan, 40, admitted to police that he strangled Patricia McCain, of Morris, after an altercation in 2014.

Police said Jordan and McCain were acquaintances who both engaged in heavy drug use.

After strangling McCain on March 7, 2014, he hid her body in a storage container. He kept the container in his apartment at 1540 15th Street South, which he was renting from his cousin. In April, he asked a relative to throw out the storage tub. When the relative dumped the tub near a Southside dumpster, he discovered the body inside.

Jordan was found guilty of murder by a jury in September.

"Deputy District Attorney Lauren Breland and I are very pleased with the verdict by the jury," Deputy District Attorney Joe Roberts said. "We recognize that it was not an easy case and the jury worked very hard and considered all the issues and reached a just verdict."

One of McCain's daughters, Brandie McCain, watched the trial. "Nobody wins. It's a sad situation on both sides," she said.
In a cordial beginning to their transfer of power, President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump met at the White House Thursday. Obama called the 90-minute meeting "excellent," and his successor said he looked forward to receiving the outgoing president's "counsel."



At the close of the Oval Office sit-down, Obama said to Trump, "We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds."

The two men, who have been harshly critical of each other for years, were meeting for the first time, Trump said. The Republican called Obama a "very good man" and said he looked forward "to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel."





Obama blasted Trump throughout the campaign as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, falsely suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States.



But at least publicly, the two men appeared to put aside their animosity. As the meeting concluded and journalists scrambled out of the Oval Office, Obama smiled at his successor and explained the unfolding scene.







If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he'll wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.



First lady Michelle Obama also met privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.



Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.



From the White House, Trump headed to Capitol Hill for meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.



As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Obama and Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.



The show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."



Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.



"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.



In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought."



Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."



In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.



According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.



Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.



As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama -- one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.








Truck1.jpg

Aaron Mims, an escaped Alabama inmate, crashed this Limestone County truck near U.S. 72 and Zehner Road on Wednesday.

(Limestone County Sheriff's Office)

Limestone County Commissioner Jason Black was "in shock" when Alabama inmate Aaron Tyrone Mims drove away from a work site and crashed a county vehicle on Wednesday.

Aaron Tyrone Mims

"I couldn't believe it," said Black, commissioner for District 3 where Mims was assigned to work release through the Decatur Work Release Center. "I'd had him working for me for almost eight months and never had any trouble with him."

Mims, 34, was about 13 years into a 35-year-sentence in state prison for a 2003 attempted murder conviction in Lee County, said Bob Horton, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections. But, it's unclear how much additional time he will serve after Wednesday's escape. The DOC is charging Mims with escape, but any additional charges for theft will be handled in Limestone.

"They had just come in from a job, and he was helping fuel heavy equipment when it happened," Black said. "We actually had two employees within 15 feet of him. He just seized the opportunity to jump in the truck, and the next thing they knew was sideways in the parking lot leaving."

Black was driving on U.S. 72 near the District 3 work shop on Zehner Road, where Mims left in the truck, when he got a call about the incident.

"I turned toward where it happened, and I saw the dust rolling when he wrecked," Black said. "He flipped numerous times, and he was crawling out when I got up there.

"He made us take him to the ground and wrestle him to get the handcuffs on," the commissioner continued. "We were covered in blood. I had blood all over my glasses, all over my face."

Mims was captured by the Limestone County Sheriff's Office to be taken into state custody. He was transported to a local hospital where he is being treated for injuries that are not life-threatening, Horton said this morning.

"He had to have gone about 15-20 feet off the ground when the truck flipped because there were tree branches embedded in the bumper," said sheriff's spokesman Stephen Young, who also was at the scene of the crash. "I found a piece of equipment that had been in the back of the truck laying on the ground about 70-80 feet away."

An escaped Alabama inmate crashed a Limestone County truck that he used to flee a work-release assignment on Wednesday.

Black said the county planned on selling the truck, which was totaled in the crash, because a new one recently had been purchased.

"More than likely, he'll have to pay restitution at some point if he gets out or gets assigned to another job," Black said, adding he's doubtful Mims will be allowed work release privileges again.

Despite the damage done by the escape, Black said he's thankful for the work-release program.

"This could happen anywhere," Black said. "And it's still a good program for the cities and counties to get workers. They're human beings, even though they're in prison. They're just as much one of my employees as the paid ones.

"When he found out he was not going to get paroled, he just planned this out," Black continued. "He was wanting to see his mama."
For the third straight year, students showed progress in math and reading on the ACT Aspire test, according to statewide results released in Montgomery today.

State Superintendent Michael Sentance told board members he is pleased with the progress, but said there is work to do.

Sentance said this year's results align with his expectations, and incremental increases are all that can be expected at this point. Large improvements can be made, Sentance said, when substantial changes are made in the way education is delivered to students.

The ACT Aspire is a standardized test given each spring to students in grades three through eight, and also in tenth grade to measure achievement in math and reading. It replaced the Alabama Reading and Mathematics Test in 2014.

Sentance today said he is concerned about the drop in proficiency between the sixth and seventh grades, particularly in math.

Tenth-graders took the ACT Aspire for the first time in 2016. In math, just 18 percent of tenth-graders were proficient. And 32 of Alabama tenth-graders percent were proficient in reading.

Only grades five, seven, and ten take the science portion of the exam.

Sentance said the percentage of students proficient on the ACT Aspire is similar to the percentage of students proficient on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a sign that the ACT Aspire is honestly portraying the percentage of students who are proficient, even though the two tests are not aligned.

Sentance high-lighted not only the highest scoring school districts, but also the top ten school districts whose students had made the largest gains from last year in both fourth and eighth grade math.

Mountain Brook City schools had the highest percentage of students proficient in fourth grade math, but Haleyville City schools had the highest growth in the percentage of students scoring at proficient.

He did the same for individual schools, showing for fourth grade math, the school with the highest achievement, Crestline Elementary School in Mountain Brook, and the highest growth, Ruhuma Junior High School in DeKalb County.

For eighth grade math, Mountain Brook City school district once again had the highest proficiency, and Winfield City saw the most improvement.

Mountain Brook Junior High School had the highest eighth grade math proficiency, while Calloway Smith Middle School in Mobile County made the most growth.

Sentance said it is important to show those high-growth schools and districts to show that scores can improve.

"A lot of times people think things are what they are," Sentance said, "and I want people to understand that change and growth is possible and it's very real, and it's measurable."

Full results will be posted on the Alabama State Department of Education web site.

ACT Aspire Update 2016 by Trisha Powell Crain on Scribd
A judge says a potential change in prosecutors won't delay the scheduled capital murder trial of a man awaiting his day in court for more than nine years.

The Dothan Eagle reports that Kharon Davis is scheduled to go to trial in September 2017 in the 2007 slaying of 30-year-old Pete Reaves.

District Attorney Doug Valeska will be replaced by DA-elect Pat Jones in January. Jones says a conflict may prevent him from serving as prosecutor in the case, meaning the Alabama Attorney General's office would appoint a prosecutor to the case. The office could appoint Valeska, who has served as the case prosecutor since Davis' arrest.

Circuit Judge Kevin Moulton said Wednesday that the scheduled trial date won't be changed regardless of the prosecutor's identity.
Can Zuma hang on to power with looming vote of no confidence and a fractured ANC?

While South African President Jacob Zuma faces a motion and vote of no confidence in the South African National Assembly in a few hours, he also faces a much more serious lack of support. Prominent figures from the African National Congress, South Africas governing social democratic political party, are turning their backs on Zuma, and are doing so loudly.

He must go, Ben Toruk, a former anti-apartheid activist and ANC parliamentarian, told Al Jazeera.

The National Assembly motion has been put forward by John Steenhuisen, chief whip of main opposition party Democratic Alliance, expressing widespread dissatisfaction with president Zuma.

While ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has labelled the calls for Zumas exit premature and unfounded, the opposition has unexpected backing from the so-called stalwarts of the party itself, ANC veterans and heroes.

One hundred and one ANC veterans have signed a document expressing serious concerns about the state of the country. One of these individuals, Frank Chikane, former director general of the Presidency of South Africa under Nelson Mandelas successor, Thabo Mbeki, told Al Jazeera that not only must Zuma go, the entire ANC leadership must be replaced.





What we need is a total change and cleaning up of the system, ridding the corruption in ANC. If the president responded to the call for him to resign, it would help a great deal, but not solve the whole problem, Chikane said.

Report released

The latest turmoil erupted last week, as angry South Africans took to the streets of the countrys capital Pretoria, upon the release of a report from the Public Protector Thuli Mandonsela on state capture.

The long-awaited report reveals possible corruption, suggesting that a wealthy Indian family  the Guptas  have been affecting government decisions such as ministerial appointments.

It is an indication that our leadership has been captured, Chikane said.

According to Dr Fazel Randera, a former Truth and Reconciliation commissioner, the disenchanted ANC leaders are reflecting the sentiments of a disenchanted public.

It is about the values and principles we fought for in 1994. Can we say 22 years later that we are still living up to these values when we are charged with corruption and all these other things? he asked during an interview with Al Jazeera.

Randera referred to the constitutional court ruling in July, establishing that President Jacob Zuma spent taxpayers money to improve his private estate, as well as to the latest allegations made in Madonselas report. The allegations add to a growing list of disasters for President Zuma and the ANC.

There has been one story after another, like a civilian aircraft  the Guptas  being allowed to land on an air force base, the building of Zumas private home using taxpayers money, the position taken by the president and parliament on the report on state capture. It speaks to the manner in which the ANC government projects itself, and rules, said Randera.

Ben Turok, the former anti-apartheid activist, also added to the criticism of Zuma. He is a disgrace to the country. He is dishonest, and he has deployed his cronies in key positions, grossly undermining the democratic nature and integrity of the State.

READ MORE: South Africas Jabob Zuma  I do not fear prison

While demonstrations and political uproar are not rare in South Africa, this time Jacob Zuma faces criticism from former allies. ANC veterans had been demanding Zumas departure even before the report was released, and intensifying their campaigning after the publication of Mandonselas state capture report.

In the report, Mandonsela recommended that a state capture commission be appointed, to which ANC has agreed. Although one recommendation, that Zuma himself, rather than the Chief Justice, must appoint the judge, has attracted scrutiny.

To Zumas critics such as Turok, this statement is absurd. Frank Chikane agreed. You cannot have the person alleged of violating executive ethics appointing a commission that is going to investigate himself. It does not make sense to me, he said.

The state capture report released by Mandonsela, whose term as public protector ended in October, states that the Chief Justice should decide who is going to be judge. This could turn out to be very bad news for Jacob Zuma, but it might be exactly what the country needs, said Chikane.

It is a matter of confidence in the state, that is at stake, according to Chikane. We need to build confidence, not manipulate outcomes.

The last drop

For many South Africans, a ministerial chaos in December last year, caused by the short-lived appointment of the inexperienced parliamentarian David van Rooyen, serving as one of three finance ministers in only four days, was the straw that broke camels back.

In this case, it broke the trust in Zuma.

The chaos was initiated by Zumas sacking of the finance minister at the time who had criticised government spending, the popular Nhlanha Nene. The following appointment of Van Rooyen, and the fact that the Gupta family allegedly knew about this appointment before it was made public by the president, was, in Madonselas report, labelled as worrying.

The compelling evidence in the report suggests that Van Rooyen visited the Gupta family estate seven times in the days leading up to his surprising appointment as finance minister.

The report also includes testimony given by Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas, claiming that the Gupta family, represented by Ajay Gupta, offered him the finance minister job, in exchange for 600 million rand ($45m), and favours to the Gupta family business.





The allegations, combined with the testimony given by Deputy Minister Jonas, are more than enough to remove Zuma from office, according to Turok.

What more do we want? Mcebisi Jonas says that he was affected by a Gupta. He has not been challenged or prosecuted for lying, therefore we must accept that he was telling the truth, Turok said. The Gupta family has denied the allegations.

In Turoks opinion, South Africa can no longer tolerate Jacob Zuma as president.

We are faced with so many bad and wrong decisions that we cannot tolerate it any further, Turok said, referring not only to the disenchanted public, but also to the halting economy.

During the fatal four days of ministerial mayhem in December 2015, which ended with the current and very popular Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan taking office, South Africas struggling economy suffered a substantial blow.

The episode led to the rand dropping 5 percent in only four days, wiping billions of rands off the South African stock market.

Some refer to the present situation in South Africa as Zumas final days of power, the closest ally of Zuma to abandon ship in recent days, ANC Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu, told a local newspaper that the governing party with its current leadership is worse than its apartheid predecessors.

For Turok, the pressure on Jacob Zuma is unprecedented. There is so much discomfort with Zuma, that it cannot continue. Everyone: media, business, students, labour unions, are calling for his departure, he said.

READ MORE: South Africa court reserves ruling on Zumas home renovation

For the good of the country

Chikane agrees that the situation is worse than ever, and that it could be the end of ANC.

The ANC needs to take radical measures. The party needs to get on the side of the people, otherwise we can kiss the ANC goodbye. ANC will lose the 2019 election, if it does not take a stand now, he warned.

Chikane has some advice for Zuma. One can step aside, despite believing that you are innocent, for the good of the future of the country. That is what a leader would do, he said.

Turok thinks the crisis will worsen if Zuma is set on fighting to the bitter end.

Zuma is a master tactician; he is superb at that. But if he puts in place more and more people who do his bidding, not there because of competence, it is a path that is extremely dangerous.

Chikane has hope, but demands immediate action, as well as a change of course from the leadership in ANC in the moment he describes as a low-point in the partys history.

The alternative is too ghastly to imagine, he said, underlining the need to restore confidence in ANC. It must be now. Not in 2017, not in 2019 during the election, it is now. If they maintain the current trajectory, ANC will not survive.

Should Zuma survive the no-confidence vote today, he and the ANC still have to survive the lack of confidence shown by ANC icons, and the disenchanted people of South Africa.
53 percent of white women cast their ballot for Trump  a disturbing realisation to many in womens rights movement.

Washington DC, United States  It was a shocking outcome for many, an uncomfortably close race.

As results came in, one state after another turning red, the optimism of Hillary Clintons supporters soon faded and the realisation set in  that Donald J Trump was now president-elect and that the dream of America having its first female president had swiftly dissipated.

The nearly two-year-long election season that led to the surprising announcement early on Wednesday morning has been one of the most volatile, controversial and bitterly contested ever to take place, with many women now left mourning over the loss of a potential landmark in feminism and fearing what a Trump presidency means for them.

READ MORE: What powers will Donald Trump have as president?

Reactions of grief poured in on social media:

Whats even more demoralising is knowing how hard Hillarys worked and how qualified she is, and yet  And every woman knows this feeling, said writer and columnist Anne Donahue on Twitter.

In a similar sentiment, feminist writer Jessica Valenti tweeted that this is what backlash looks like  to womens rights, to racial progress, to a cultural shift that doesnt centre white men.

It is not just the Trump win but the fact that Republicans now control Congress that bodes ill for progressive politics by Sujata Moorti, Feminist Studies Professor at Vermont's Middlebury College

Many women are now left wondering how a Trump presidency will impact policies affecting them.

It is not just the Trump win but the fact that Republicans now control Congress that bodes ill for progressive politics reproductive rights, minimum wage  policies against sexual assault, marriage equality  healthcare  all are likely to be overturned, said Sujata Moorti, feminist studies professor at Vermonts Middlebury College.

As for womens rights, Trumps victory has in effect legitimised misogyny  the sexism, particularly the violent imagery directed at Clinton, racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia that characterised so many Republican campaigns have now been authorised by voters, she said.

Feminist writer, Amy Richards shared similar concerns. What [Trump] has indicated by who he has chosen as his closest advisers is that he will hold true on rolling back access to healthcare, access to abortion, access to equal pay, affordable access to higher education  and by that women will suffer greatly, she said.

Gender at the forefront

The 2016 election cycle was like no other America had seen and one where gender was often at the forefront.

When Donald Trump called on Clintons femaleness, she hit back, creating national slogans and prompting a feminist call to arms.

In April, Trump accused Clinton of playing the woman card, pushing Clinton to retaliate: If fighting for womens healthcare and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in!

During the final presidential debate, Trumps branding of Clinton as a nasty woman became a feminist badge of honour.

The term started trending on Twitter; T-shirts with the label became available; and during a campaign speech in New Hampshire, Senator Elizabeth Warren said: Get this Donald  on November 8, we nasty women are going to march our nasty feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of our lives forever. She was met with a rapturous applause.

This was after one of the biggest scandals of the 2016 race: The Washington Posts publication of a 2005 audio recording in which Trump speaks in vulgar and crass terms about women. What he branded as locker-room talk Clinton labelled as horrific.

Yet Trumps sentiments were not enough to prevent his victory. Moreover, according to latest exit polls, 53 percent of white women voters cast their ballot for Donald Trump  a disturbing realisation to many in the womens rights movement.

Im in total shock, said Terry ONeill, President of the National Organisation for Women. Quite honestly, I feel that Ive failed  the womens movement was clearly not able to breakthrough to women nationally.

READ MORE: Shock and euphoria as Trump wins White House

The dream of a female presidency

Women in America have been fighting for greater political participation since the early 19th century.

The emergence of Americas womens rights movement in 1848 was followed by decades of forceful campaigning, resilient advocacy and undeterred protest.

But, it would not be until more than 70 years later in 1920, when the 19th amendment to the US constitution would finally grant women their suffrage.

To all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams. by Hillary Clinton

From the early 20th century, women would come to have a greater presence in the United States Congress, and in politics more broadly.

However, until Hillary Clinton, only two women had ever been selected to be part of a major partys presidential campaign team, both as vice presidents  Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Republican Sarah Palin in 2008.

Yet the dream of a female presidency, often seen at the pinnacle of the feminist movement, would not materialise.

For Hillary Clinton, it was a aim that she set out to achieve eight years ago when she ran against President Obama in the democratic primaries.

Though she lost then, Clinton succeeded in 2016  becoming Americas first event female presidential candidate. During her speech at the Democratic National Convention in July, she acknowledged the significance for women.

Tonight, weve reached a milestone in our nations march toward a more perfect union: the first time that a major party has nominated a woman for president, she told the crowd.

However, on the cold Wednesday morning in New York, as the dust settled, Clintons concession speech took an emotional tone.

This is not the outcome we wanted, or that we hoped for, she said. This is painful and it will be for a long time.

To all the women, especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion. Now, I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday someone will and hopefully sooner than we might think now.

Becoming visibly emotional, Clinton continued:

And to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.

READ MORE: Hillary Clinton and the woman card

Clinton will continue to influence women said feminist writer Amy Richards, although she did not win.

We have to remember that while the US system has elected Donald Trump to the presidency, the majority of the American public are with Hillary Clinton. She has inspired America and in particular American women and that remains unchanged.

Furthermore, Richards said, the personal empowerment that Clinton inspired, will carry us through. What will happen to American women remains to be seen. Trump has no voting record and many promises to fulfil, so what he actual does is a mystery.

For ONeill, the future was unclear.

I dont know the path forward  but we need to find a way together, we need to get serious about solidarity.
Before the November 8 presidential vote, nearly all pollsters were convinced Hillary Clinton would win.

New York, United States  To borrow a phrase from US president-elect Donald Trump, the pollsters were wrong, big league.

Before the November 8 presidential vote, the Republican candidate was some 4 percentage points behind his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, according to the last pre-election poll by Fox News, a right-leaning network, and others.

The RealClearPolitics website, which aggregates polls, consistently put Clinton ahead of the businessman.

The FiveThirtyEight site of Nate Silver, a venerated pollster, gave Clinton a 71.4 percent chance of sauntering back into the White House in January 2017.

The New York Times Upshot gave Trump even worse odds on becoming the 45th president.

But, reminiscent of Britains Brexit vote in June and Colombias peace-deal snub in October, Americans had other plans with many more voters backing the anti-establishment candidate than pollsters foresaw.

Trump had secured momentous upset victories in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin  critical battleground states where most public polls and private projections had put Clinton ahead.

As analysts tried to work out what a Trump presidency means for the world economy, trade deals, immigration and even the war in Syria, number crunchers went back to their spreadsheets to assess where the data models went wrong.

Brexit effect

There was indeed a Brexit effect, Allan Rivlin, of Zen Political Research, a consultancy, told Al Jazeera.

There were un-modelled Trump voters. If you had asked them, they would have happily told you they were supporting Trump. But nobody asked them because they werent in the model because they hadnt voted in recent elections.

Pollsters survey for two basic variables  the demographic make-up of voters, and how each sub-group is expected to ballot.

Some groups, such as young black men, are less likely to vote than others, such as old white women. Pollsters attach different weight to various categories and, according to Rivlin, they under-valued whites who had not voted in recent elections.

Trumps surprise victories were in states with declining industries, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where pollsters underestimated how many disaffected whites would vote because of their track record in skipping polling days, he added.

There were more Republican voters in the key states and Republicans did a better job of identifying those key states, Rivlin said.

There was a failure of imagination on the part of the Democrats to see the anger at Washington and economic discontent among white working-class voters in the suburbs and exurbs of the Great Lakes states.

Hidden Trump voters

Some analysts point to other hidden Trump voters who were embarrassed to admit support for the truculent property magnate when speaking with flesh-and-blood pollsters, as opposed to the automated systems used by some firms.

The Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California tracking poll consistently pegged Trump as the leader throughout the final months of the campaign. Many rival pollsters derided its seemingly out-of-step forecast.

That poll is based on an internet survey rather than a telephone questionnaire. It may have been more accurate because online respondents were more likely to reveal their support for Trump than when speaking with a human.

This raises other issues about data-collection. Polls vary in many ways and differ in their sample sizes and whether respondents are randomly selected from telephone directories or pulled from voter rolls from previous elections.

Even conducting surveys via mobile phones, as opposed to land lines, can skew results.

All polls are not equal. They dont use the same methodology. Using robo-calls as opposed to human beings is faster and easier and you get a lot more bang for your buck, Peter Brown assistant director of Quinnipiac University Poll, told Al Jazeera. Some are better than others.

Badly run and misleading polling firms may create false impressions, said Brown.

Tell me, do you know who these organisations are. Have you heard of them? Have you dealt with them? Do you know their backgrounds? Are they part of a political consulting firm that works either for one party or the other? asked Brown.

As results came in, FiveThirtyEights Jody Avirgan spoke of the need to piece together what we know about this big, complicated moment in American history. A post mortem is expected later.

In The New York Times, media columnist Jim Rutenberg acknowledged that something was fundamentally broken in journalism and probed whether the media had been too cosy with Clintons camp.

Popular vote for Clinton

While pollsters got the outcome wrong, they may not have been too far off, said Matt Barreto, cofounder of polling firm Latino Decisions. Clinton is still on track to win the popular national vote and secured big margins in such populous states as California and New York.

Some ballots have yet to be counted, but Clintons 59.7 million votes amounted to 48 percent of the popular vote, compared to Trumps 59.5 million (47 percent). In the Electoral College that determines the winner, however, Trumps 279 votes beats Clintons 228 current tally.

But Trump turned out a small yet decisive number of disaffected white voters in small pockets of a few swing states like Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin that pushed him above the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win, he added.

The states that he won, he did not win by a lot, Barreto said.

Trump has his own theories. Before polling day, he said pollsters did a bad job and released phony numbers. In his acceptance speech in the early hours of Wednesday, he praised the groundswell of popular support that carried him to victory.

Ours was not a campaign, but rather an incredible and great movement made up of millions of hard-working men and women who love their country and want a better, brighter future for themselves and for their families, he told the crowd in New York.
White America may be shocked by the election of Donald Trump, but black and brown America smelt it coming.

Throughout this summer and autumn, I have interviewed fellow minorities, asking them about their feelings and experiences regarding this presidential election. In all of these interviews, one thing was clear: We knew this was coming.

To some of us, it hung like a foul smell in the air. The acrid stench that generations before somehow learned to live with, though it choked them. Many of us coughed and spluttered when that suffocating air filled our lungs. Some of us cried out in warning.

But when those of us who spoke up were heard at all, we were greeted with disbelief, or with laughter. Like some others, I wrote about that laughter.

We were given the assurance that yes, there were some for whom that acrid stench was a breath of fresh air, but those foolish people were few and unimportant. We were told the smell would go away on its own. It went nowhere. It lingered. And it got stronger.

READ MORE: Inside Owsley  Americas poorest white county

And for some of us, it was more than a smell. For some unlucky ones such as Kozen Sampson, it became a physical assault.

In February, Kozen parked his car in my beloved town of Hood River, Oregon, to take his dog for a walk. As Kozen told the towns newspaper, I started to get out of the car, and heard someone yell, Hey,  The car door smacked my head and then my head hit the door frame  I lost part of my memory for about 15 minutes.

When news of the assault hit our small town, it shocked us all. We had a hard time believing it, especially when Kozen reported that the only other words he heard were F****** Muslim. Kozen, you see, is not a Muslim, he is a Buddhist monk and, in typical Buddhist monk fashion, his response was filled with compassion.

I am happy it happened to me and not to a Muslim, he said.

 I cant feel safe in a third of my own country

In my church, we spoke at length about the assault and what it meant. By February, we had already seen that racism and white nationalism were on the rise. The fact that an innocent Buddhist monk was attacked at all was shocking, but that he was attacked for being something he wasnt, for being nothing more than probably not white was what really smelled.

Still, my town assumed it was isolated. We assumed there was a small minority of people filled with hate.

We assumed that the smell would go away on its own.

For months, news stories abounded about white people verbally or physically attacking minorities, LGBT people, and people with disabilities. Still, many people  mostly white allies  thought that it was rare. Not something to worry about.

Miguel Carlos didnt believe that for a minute.

Miguel is a black designer who was living in Philadelphia in July, but was returning to his native San Francisco. My white girlfriend and I are moving back to California this summer, he told me then.

I was jokingly worried about being 'a big, opinionated negro' in the south before this summer. But now? It's untenable by Miguel Carlos, designer

We had originally planned to drive across the country and stop in Atlanta, New Orleans, Austin, and Phoenix. Needless to say, were not doing that any more. Miguel and his girlfriend took an plane instead. Too many stories of white backlash attacks in too many disparate places made them cancel their trip.

I was jokingly worried about being a big, opinionated negro in the south before this summer, he said. But now? Its untenable. Its incredibly sad that in 2016, I cant feel safe in a third of my own country.

Miguel is not alone. By spring, many minority people in America had already changed their behaviour and outlook. Marina (name changed), an Asian artist from Los Angeles, began to avoid eye contact with people on the metro when someone looked at her and said, Chinese people are so filthy.

These experiences with remarks, actions and violence have existed before but havent gotten the attention theyre getting now. Also, social media makes sharing these experiences easier than ever before, so things Ive encountered Ive kept to myself, but with Facebook and Twitter Im talking about it.

Talking with people throughout the summer, I saw this pattern repeated. Minority people of various ethnic, religious, and racial groups were all doing the same things.

They were talking about the foul smell in the air, pointing out the real danger to anyone who would listen, and they were all being more cautious around white people. Many of them changed their behaviour in small, subtle ways. I wear headphones more at work now, said Deborah (name changed), a white lesbian woman who wants to remain anonymous for fear of a backlash at the legal practice where she works outside Portland, Oregon.

Because I just want to avoid the chance of getting into that interaction again.

That interaction was being verbally assaulted and called evil because she spoke about wanting to marry her partner. Even in Portland, national symbol of quirkiness, a lesbian woman felt afraid to argue for her right to a marriage that the state had already given her.

OPINION: Racism in the US  the melting pot is boiling

William James, a black writer and actor in Orlando, Florida, who did not want his real name used, had a somewhat similar take on avoiding arguments when he talked about the police. The goal is not to win the argument, he told me. The goal is to get home alive. William happens to be 4ft tall and his car is fitted with special gearing to allow him to drive only with his hands. It is a car that only someone his size can operate.

But a white cop pulls me over one day, he told me, and is looking me up and down, looking at my insurance and my registration, and he asks me Is this your car? I mean, what is that question supposed to mean? We all know what its supposed to mean. Youre looking at my registration, and I have a car only I can drive. I know why youre asking that question, but Im not going to say that, because the goal is to get home alive, so I just say Yes, sir. It is.

This is America, 2016.

 White men are taking America back  to the 1850s

I heard similar responses throughout the summer and autumn: Minority people universally spoke of this election as a threat, they spoke of being scared. White people universally saw it as comical, an accidental event that would just disappear, that couldnt really happen here.

Sarah Kendzior warned us of exactly that sentiment. A political writer who studied fascism, Sarah has written of the seriousness of this election in numerous essays, telling us that it cant happen here is exactly how fascism happens. Her essays are like a plan for how to avoid a catastrophe, yet it seems that no one wanted to bring her map on this journey.

In August, I warned us too, writing that we are on the cusp of a historic decision in the US. We can make history and transition from the first black to the first female president. The alternative is to make history by electing our first fascist demagogue. America has made our choice.

Some of us knew this was coming.

OPINION: Trump is a symptom not the disease

Rebecca Romani, an adjunct professor of ESL (English as a second language) and Media Studies at San Diego State University, has seen this in other countries and has been deeply appalled and offended that we are heading down the slippery slope to racially  and economically  inspired fascism.

My grandparents were enemy aliens in World War II, we were almost in internment again in 2003, and I feel the icy breath of the ghost of E0 9066 rising for me, some of my friends and extended family. Executive Order 9066 was the presidential authorisation for Japanese internment during World War II.

I fear a return to some dystopian 1950s idyll where women and others knew their place.

Miguel, now returned to his native San Francisco, put it more bluntly: Ive been saying all along that Id wake up this morning still black in America, no matter who won. The south is unsafe for me because of the people there and their politics, not because of whos president.

William had been expecting it as well. As people of colour weve known that racism has always been out there, but its been somewhat under wraps. Now its been given a voice and subsequent free reign.

Im just so very sad, he continued, that Obama has to hand over the keys to the very man who called his humanity into question. Just like those mothers of the movement, he doesnt get the luxury of voicing his anger. He has to be the role model.

That a white millionaire huckster won the presidency on the back of racism, misogyny, breaking of treaties with natives, and media trickery is the most American thing to ever happen in America by Miguel Carlos, designer

Some people feel sad, some are angry, many are just more scared than they were before. This summer, such an outcome was only a possibility; now, it is a reality.

The day after the election, William and I talked about our outlook and about the older generation of black people who are now speaking words like Hold your tongue and Be careful, words they used in the days before and during the Civil Rights Movement.

Being a part of that older generation, he said, I have to agree with them. [White men] are taking America back  to the 1850s. The landscape is changing. Those in power who have a similar point of view as yourself may not be in power tomorrow. And lets not forget the promised bald-faced retribution.

William told me to be careful of that retribution when I write. You cant afford to go full bore. But that is the silence that allows fascism to rise. That fear causes the silence Sarah Kendzior warns us about. She noted on Twitter that researchers pitched a story about how white nationalists were radicalised online, but the story was refused because the media was afraid to run it .

The New York Times reported that The American Bar Association refused to publish a report about the presidential candidate citing the threat of being sued. Let that sink in: The governing body of Americas lawyers is afraid of being sued.

They were scared into silence by our (now) president elect. This is the silence that allows fascism to rise.

Silence is what hog-tied the Republican Party, fear of retribution caused them to accept their fate. The silence of Liberal America allowed a demagogue to rise as they laughed at him and his followers.

And then theres the silence of the Democratic Party. A silence of short-term economic goals and the knowledge that they didnt have to actually perform for marginalised communities in order to be owed their votes.

Many of us know that the Democratic Party was no small part of what was to come.

This has been brewing since the neo-liberals took over Congress, increasingly gutting anti-trust regulations, workers protections, promoting violent policies towards other nations in our national interests, and ever moving the party towards the right.

The appearance of Democrats as disconnected and the educated elite was bolstered by the fact that, by and large, the national party turned its back on both actual peace in the rest of the world and on the survival of the working-class whites who should have been part of its base.

READ MORE: A look into Americas NSM neo-Nazis

Today working-class whites cant look to the Democrats for real support, and minority people are increasingly angered that their vote never results in substantive change for the better. Is it any surprise that the minority vote was apathetic and the white vote was against them?

And yet, still, many people were surprised.

There is nothing at all surprising here. This is a trend that has been nearly a century in the making. Minority people across America  especially black women  have been warning us about it while Liberal America laughed at John Olivers jokes.

Now Liberal America is reeling. Hamid Dabashi wrote in Al Jazeera that Liberal America is now scared that [he] will do to America what America has done to the world.

 For the world at large, Dabashi wrote, and at the receiving end of American military might, [he] is the very quintessence of America because [he] is what America does to the world, and now it has come dangerously close to do unto itself what it has habitually done unto others.

This is certainly true, but its not the entire truth. The truth is that America is dangerously close to doing unto its white self what it has habitually done to others. America, as a whole, has never had much of a problem doing exactly that to its black and brown citizens.

Ask black and Latino people who have lived for generations with an increasingly militarised police force if things will suddenly be different for them in America. Ask the Native people protesting for water security at Standing Rock if life will suddenly be different for them in America.

When has America not been a colonial power to its black and brown people? At its best, America holds a grudging tolerance for us  giving us access to the legal system, yes, but modifying it for white convenience and safety. At its worst, America attacks black and brown citizens with laws designed to deny black agency and meets black freedom with military force. Even now, America gasses indigenous brown people on their native land in favour of a corporate entity.

The truth is that for many minority people America has always treated them the way that it has treated the world. The only thing that has changed is that now America is about to turn on its white citizens too.

READ MORE: Whites projected to become a US minority

This is what Jean-Paul Voilleque, a straight, white lawyer in Portland, found the day after the election. He was dressed in his business casual jeans and a bright blue shirt, and was met on his way to work by the new regime. Crossing a footbridge over the Willamette River, a white man in well-worn clothes shouted that he was a faggot. Another white woman, wearing a scarf to cover her head from the chill, was told to go back to her own country.

Martha, a white public school teacher is furious at myself, a middle-class heterosexual white woman, for being a part of what got this country to last nights horror show. My heart was shredded last night for those in our country whose lives have been pushed even further to the margins by their fellow Americans.

But this isnt about the historically marginalised any more. As of this election, even straight, white Americans will be pushed to the margins. We have not only emboldened a white racist backlash against black and brown people, we have emboldened a backlash against anyone who is not white in the right way.

This is what we have become. This is what decades of Democratic complacency and Republican racism have led to. This is what decades of liberals silent acceptance of racism and misogyny have led to. This backlash is what comes from liberal talk of post-racial America simply because we had a black president.

Its disheartening, but its not surprising. Many of us knew this was coming. We have choked on the foul stench of white supremacy for a very long time. In many ways, it was what we expected to happen.

Miguel put it best: That a white millionaire huckster won the presidency on the back of racism, misogyny, breaking of treaties with natives, and media trickery is the most American thing to ever happen in America.

White America may be surprised by this elections result, but black and brown people have warned of this for a long time. Its just that white America doesnt seem able to listen to a black voice.

John Metta has worked as a cook, groundskeeper, store clerk, park ranger, Navy submariner, Army wartime medic, hydrologist, school teacher, software developer, mathematical modeller, and underwater archaeologist. Before any of these jobs, and during them all, he was writing. Always writing.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
She was rated by Americans for 20 years as the most admired woman in the world, yet failed to win the presidency.

It was the sector of America that Hillary Clinton had made her special cause: the female 50 percent.

She was to be the one bringing to the White House the sensibilities and sensitivities of her gender that had never been truly appreciated.

And in a contest pitting her against the first presidential candidate who had been openly quoted as treating women as sex objects, Clintons advantage seemed to be secure.

But in the end, her following never delivered at the polls.

True, she captured 54 percent of the total female vote, according to ABC News exit polls.

But among white women, Donald Trump won 53 percent versus 43 percent for Hillary.

Her share of the total female vote was one point less than Barack Obama received four years ago.

Years after Hillary Rodham yielded to convention and became better known to the world by her married name, she said: I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfil my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.

By that time  1992  Bill Clinton was running for president and Hillary had emerged as a public figure in her own right, though still in her husbands shadow.

That shadow became both a boon and a burden in her bid to attain the presidency herself.

But Hillary had to deal with two paradoxical realities: rated by Americans for 20 straight years as the most admired woman in the world, yet drawing the disapproval of six in every 10 voters.

Her standing reflects the polarisation of Americas political landscape but also the choices made by the woman who has climbed higher than any other up the greasy pole of power.

Along the way, Hillary assumed a long list of contentious roles.

Growing up in suburban Chicago with a conservative father and a homemaker mother who had been given up by her own parents, Hillary was bred as a Young Republican avid for Barry Goldwater, the partys 1964 presidential candidate.

But the war in Vietnam and the civil rights movement transformed her into a dissenting Democrat by the time she graduated from Wellesley College.

Her politely defiant college commencement speech coincided with rising campus unrest across the country and gained her first national media attention.

It was at Yale Law School that she met Bill Clinton, who shared her interest in politics and eventually persuaded her to leave Washington, where she had worked on the congressional staff investigating disgraced President Richard Nixon.

She joined Bill in his native state of Arkansas, and after a failed run for Congress, he served 11 years as governor.

He appointed her to head a public education reform panel, Hillarys first high-profile political position that won her wider recognition as a leader.

At the same time, Hillary became the primary family breadwinner, at times earning four times her husbands salary as a lawyer representing big corporations and serving on their boards.

During his winning 1992 presidential campaign, Bill touted Hillary as a prime asset, saying: You can get two for the price of one.

But once in the White House, the job she was given ended in glaring failure.

Her mission was to come up with a formula to assure healthcare security to every American, a plan that could win the support of labour, employers and the health insurance industry.

It was met instead with a lethal barrage of resistance, including opposition from many fellow Democrats.

The secret proceedings of her healthcare task force also contributed to an image of evasiveness that her foes have seized upon ever since.

They were eager to see her caught up in controversies involving the handling of the White House staff and a murky Arkansas property deal which lost the First Couple their investment but ultimately landed several of their old associates in prison.

Some even blamed her for the suicide of a former law firm colleague.

Along the way, Hillary was forced to testify before a grand jury over property investments, an appearance never made by a first lady before or since.

Many of Bill Clintons predecessors indulged in extra-marital affairs, but Hillary was the only presidential spouse to bear the public embarrassment.

She described herself as dumbfounded, heartbroken and outraged when he confessed to his affair with a White House intern.

Yet even after his admission, Hillary defended his conduct as a mistake brought on by pressures from ugly forces who conspired against the president.

The scandal, capped by the first presidential impeachment in more than a century, did Hillary no harm when she won her first election campaign handily in 2000.

Clintons eight years as a conscientious US senator from her adopted state of New York kept her in the headlines but never produced a major legislative accomplishment.

They did, however, serve as a springboard for her first presidential run in 2008.

In a pack of eight Democratic candidates, Hillary found Barack Obama emerge as her only serious opponent, one who capitalised on her Senate vote endorsing George W Bushs decision to invade Iraq.

Her narrow loss of the nomination would have returned Clinton to the Senate but Obamas offer to be his secretary of state thrust her on to a world stage.

In one of her memoirs, Clinton said her prime objective had been to reshape US foreign policy around smart power  a combination of military, political and economic tools in pursuit of human rights, grassroots democracy, womens empowerment and open internet access.

But after leaving office she made some of her differences with Obama clear, especially over his cautious approach to Syria.

The failure, she wrote, to build up rebel forces against the Assad regime left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.

And she belittled Obamas slogan of dont do stupid stuff: that, she said, was not an organising principle for great nations.

While she and Bill cultivated friends and donors for their charitable ventures, the couple also built a sizeable nest egg of their own by earning an estimated $230m since leaving the White House, mostly from speaking fees and book contracts. Their combined net worth is at least $50m.

But American voters have rarely begrudged politicians for their personal wealth.

Bernie Sanders, the man Hillary defeated for the Democratic nomination, may have questioned her ethics for accepting $250,000 or more for a speech to Wall Street bankers but never accused Clinton of corruption.

Unlike Donald Trump, who called Clinton corrupt over her handling of state department emails, for which she apologised as a mistake but not a criminal one.

Some of her admirers joined Clintons detractors in complaining that her penchant for excessive secrecy, however justified, would prove to be her Achilles heel.

That was certainly a major factor in her undoing.

But in her concession speech, Hillary made no mention of the reasons that so many American women saw in her an unacceptable champion.

Instead she looked to a time, hopefully sooner than we might think right now, when another woman would achieve what she never would.
The comfort zone of liberal fantasies of peace at home and warmongering abroad is now completely erased.

William Faulkner, in his banquet speech at the City Hall in Stockholm, on December 10, 1950, on receiving the Nobel Prize in literature, said: Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up?

What in the world did he mean? Blown up by what? How?

If you lived through the endless night linking the fears of Tuesday evening, November 8, to the terror of the following morning, wondering how to explain Donald Trumps victory to your children, you have a glimpse of what frightened Faulkner so many years ago so far from his homeland. But can we still ask serious, even frightening, questions, as Faulkner did, any more?

Does America deserve to survive? Faulkner asked in 1955 at the news of a vicious murder and mutilation of a young black boy.

Just before this nightmare descended upon us I read that a European philosopher had said that if he were an American he would have voted for Trump. It will be a kind of big awakening, he had said. New political processes will be set in motion.

Perhaps, I thought to myself, but this man for sure does not live in the United States. He does not have a child who goes to public school in New York. He has not struggled to calm the raw nerves of an eight-year-old boy who is scared that all his Mexican friends will be rounded up and deported from the US.

The angry liberals

So where would we stand between the gaudy and juvenile Stalinism of what today passes as the European left and the delusional liberalism now publicly stunned by Trumps victory in the US?

Liberal America is right now flabbergasted, incredulous, violent, recriminatory. It now openly fears that it might be ruled as Chile was ruled by Augusto Pinochet, Iran by the Shah and the Ayatollahs, Egypt by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Russia by Vladimir Putin, Turkey by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Palestine by Benjamin Netanyahu. How dare history even think about doing to liberal America what liberal America has done to the world?

Recrimination, finger-wagging, and continuing to be deaf and blind to reason and logic have resumed apace among these angry liberals.

Diehard Clinton supporters are accusing those who as a matter of principle opposed her record of corruption and warmongering of having paved the way for Trump.

Many Bernie Sanders supporters, myself included, made a strategic choice not to vote for Clinton if we live in safe states such as New York, where I live, and where she won, and vote for her in swing states such as Florida or Ohio, which they did and yet she still lost.

We the first targets of Trump's xenophobic thuggery and dangerous delusions, we the Muslims, the Mexicans, the African-Americans, women, we are here at the forefront of defying Trump's ignominy. by

Liberal America refuses to recognise its dangerously delusional blinkers. The anger and violence they wanted safely deposited in Clintons White House to unleash on other countries is now launched on Sanders and Steins supporters who they falsely and conveniently blame for having denied them that treacherous peace of mind.

Their beloved Barack Obama gifted the Zionist settler colony $38bn in military expenditure over the next 10 years in a lovely liberal gesture to maim and murder more Palestinians, as would have Clinton in even more generous terms, were she to be elected.

OPINION: Why I will not vote in this US presidential election

That they dont mind. But having Trump preside over their national destiny, that they will not tolerate.

The vulgarity of such accusations, however, is a diversionary tactic, consciously or unconsciously launched to pre-empt a far deeper soul-searching now necessary to hold and heal the soul of this nation.

Sanders and his supporters had been continuously warning against this outcome for months, when Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile, and the entire leadership of the Democratic Party came together to dismantle and sabotage his campaign, and send a deeply flawed candidate to face the monstrosity of Trump.

Bringing the US in the fold of humanity

But such recriminations, left or right, are at this point a waste of time and a distraction. Soul-searching yes, witch-hunt no.

There should be rethinking of the politics of race and gender, but not at the expense of suspending critical judgment on the global warmongering which Obama inherited from George W Bush and institutionalised chapter and verse, and which Clinton would have widely exacerbated.

There is no mystery to this result of choosing Trump over Clinton: This is almost the same population that over the past eight years twice elected an African-American to the White House.

What happened this year? In its jeremiad mourning for its favourite candidate even The New York Times had to admit what happened: Democratic Party  attempted a Clinton restoration at a moment when the nation was impatient to escape the status quo.

Sanders was the ready and riding answer to that historic call. But what did the Democratic establishment, The New York Times and The Washington Post included, do to Sanders?

Trump is rightly seen as a twisted caricature of every rotten reflex of the radical right. But to fight this banality, we need to go far beyond useless recriminations and reach much deeper into the troubled heart of America itself: a racist, misogynist, ignorant, paranoid, xenophobic, white supremacist America. No liberal sugar-coating of these facts will wish them away.

OPINION: Donald Trump  The Islamophobia president

Faulkner thought the basest of all things is to be afraid. Then he daringly, defiantly and triumphantly declared: I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.

But how is that prevailing to occur? First and foremost, by collapsing the false binary between the safe inside and the troubled outside. The US militarism has just gone through two successive phases of two terms of Bushs neoconservative and Obamas neoliberal imperialism. It has left the earth in shattered chards.

The US will now need its most recent immigrants more than ever to help it learn how to survive this Trumpian calamity. We have been there: at the receiving end of the US-made Donald Trumps of the world.

We the tyrannised, we the abused, the dispossessed, the forsaken, we in need of US humanitarian interventions, we the refugees of wars US liberal imperialism has caused around the world, we the Palestinians, the Libyans, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Latin Americans, the Africans, we are all here: Trumps worse nightmare and battle-tested in fighting the bullies of the world.

We the first targets of Trumps xenophobic thuggery and dangerous delusions, we the Muslims, the Mexicans, the African-Americans, women, we are here at the forefront of defying Trumps ignominy.

Along with millions of other Americans, we the most recent immigrants are now safely home at the dangerous delusions of an angry mob of white supremacist zombies shielding its wild fantasies behind democratic politics.

The comfort zone of liberal fantasies of peace at home and warmongering abroad is now completely erased.

The underbelly of the US is exposed for the whole world to see. Let the calamity of Trump do for the US at large what 9/11 failed to do: to bring Americans back to the fold of humanity  with fear and trembling like everyone else, with insecurity fighting the indignity of an ignorant tyrant, seeking to secure a modicum of self-respect in the bewildered belly of this warring beast.

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policies.
The reactions of many Americans to the Trump victory is a symptom of their political immaturity.

Many Americans woke up on November 9 (or didnt sleep to begin with) panicking about the future of the United States.

Citizens of other countries, particularly in the Arab world, were probably observing this mass panic with a smirk, thinking, and now its their turn. Certainly, not out of spite, but in the hope that Americans would finally understand where they were coming from.





The reality is, citizens of the US  minorities or otherwise  do have reasons to feel fear and disgust under a Trump presidency, not only from his proposed policies of alienation and repression, but also from those supporters of his, whose white power aspirations have now been made official.

However, it is also true that citizens of the US, particularly Arabs and Muslims, must not allow this election result to force them to act as frightened children.

Murmurs of migrating to Canada if Trump won apparently translated into reality, with the Canadian immigration website reportedly crashing as it became clear the electoral college votes were in his favour.

These reactions make one pause and wonder how long these same people would last under the Arab and African dictatorships and occupiers the US has propped up and maintained positive ties with over the years.

We now have a version of a dictator-elect in the US, and rather than promising to fight the changes he has threatened to implement, the initial reaction of many Americans has been to plot ways to flee.

Honestly, the arrogance of Americans who are threatening to flee is breathtaking. They assume that the world will now welcome them with open arms because in a few months, they will be ruled by a less-than-desirable leader. One which, the world will be quick to mention, was actually chosen by Americans and not imposed on them by occupation or intervention.

Political immaturity

As young elementary school pupils in the US, we are programmed during our social studies classes to hold our civic duties, such as voting and obeying laws, near and dear.

In middle and high school and even college, we run for political office, setting up small governments within our schools that give us an illusion of holding power.

Schools hold mock voting days and colleges invite political officials to come and encourage American students  young and old  to be active participants in the political process.

Even naturalised citizens of the US go through a political socialisation process; one that details their rights and responsibilities as a citizen of the US and reminds them that citizenship is a promise to commit to the US and its form of government.

Yet, all of this political socialisation has apparently left us unprepared to deal with the sometimes unexpected and undesirable outcomes of the US version of democracy.

In fact, our reactions to the results of the 2016 election have shown us exactly how our political socialisation has failed us and made us complacent and passive rather than proactive members of our political system. But this is only one small symptom of our political immaturity and decay in the US.

Ignorant of suffering

Contrary to what we may believe, we Americans arent the centre of the universe. Our countrys policymakers are often the cause of suffering overseas  the very suffering we are fearful of at the hands of Trump  but, as citizens, we tend to take one of two paths.

We either shy away from taking responsibility, blaming it on elected officials and claiming we arent responsible for their missteps in the Middle East and North Africa region, or we dont even have a clue about the kind of suffering our policies contribute to.

Worse than that, we are quick to judge what Arabs and Africans should and should not do while living under dictatorships as we are sitting comfortably in the democracy we love to shove down other countries throats.

OPINION: A dismal day for human rights in the US

Americans have a hard time fathoming why Syrians would abandon their country and run from barrel bombs or why Egyptians would run from the threat of forced disappearances. We accuse refugees of putting the lives of their children at risk by getting into overflowing boats to escape extremism of all kinds  Islamic or otherwise -judging them harshly for these choices.

Yet, one little brush with a leader who might put us in a position even remotely close to citizens living under Bashar al-Assad, or Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and we want the entire world to not only understand our urge to flee but also to coddle us and be concerned about our feelings.

Not unexpected

A US under Trump is not going to be pleasant, on that we can agree. However, it is not the first time minorities were targeted and unwanted in the US.





African-Americans at some point in history were denied citizenship and their movements restricted. Japanese-Americans were actually placed in internment camps on US soil.

Even ideology has been a target of US government  for example, the First Red Scare. Yet, despite this, members of these groups did not flee the US in droves.

We have had months to digest that Trump had a chance at this race. We knew minorities would be facing some type of backlash. For some reason, however, we continued to arrogantly think that a Trump presidency couldnt happen to us here in the US.

But it did, and perhaps that is what will finally force us to address and understand what it is about our political system that finally brought our aggression abroad to haunt us right here at home.

Malak Chabkoun is an independent Middle East researcher and writer based in the US.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
South Africas ruling ANC votes against motion to remove Zuma as opposition increases calls for him to leave office.

South Africas President Jacob Zuma easily survived a third no-confidence vote in parliament in less than a year, as politicians from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) ignored opposition calls for his removal from office.

Zuma, who has faced mounting criticism from within his own party, came under further pressure last week after a corruption probe raised fresh allegations of misconduct.

But the ANCs parliamentary majority delivered a resounding signal of support on Thursday, with 214 MPs voting against the oppositions motion of no-confidence and 126 backing it. The abstentions totalled 59.

READ MORE: ANC icons demand Jacob Zumas resignation ahead of vote

Zumas victory was expected, despite Mmusi Maimane, the leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) opposition party, appealing to ANC members to vote against their leader.





To put it plainly, we can choose Jacob Zuma, or we can choose South Africa, Maimane told parliament during a fiery debate.

Many of you have been speaking out against him in recent weeks  I know that there are men and women in these ANC benches who want to do the right thing.

But Zuma, 74, who came to power in 2009, retains strong loyalty among ANC politicians and many party members.

The governing ANC had said it was united heading into this motion of no-confidence in President Zuma, and then in the end it followed through with actions, Al Jazeeras Tania Page, reporting from Cape Town, said.

READ MORE: Has Zuma lost his grip on South Africa?

The no-confidence vote was the third in under a year, with the first two also defeated by wide margins.

The corruption report by the countrys top watchdog raised accusations of possible criminal activity in Zumas relationship with the Guptas, a business family accused of wielding undue political influence.

Increasing numbers of anti-apartheid veterans, ANC activists, trade unions, civil groups and business leaders have called for Zuma to resign in recent months.

Zumas second term in office ends in 2019 and he is not eligible to run for president again.

But the ANC is due to elect a new party leader at the end of next year, and could then decide to replace him as head of state.

South Africas highest court this year found the president guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers money used to refurbish his private rural house n Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal province.

Following the ruling, Zuma paid back more than $500,000 in September.
As AI helps scientists improve tasks like speech recognition, others caution about its potential future threats.

Lisbon, Portugal  Artificial intelligence, or AI, has become a commonplace technology, helping researchers make improvements to computerised tasks such as speech recognition and robotics.

Machine learning, a branch of AI, allows the flood of data collected from devices to be organised, analysed and visualised in an intelligent fashion.

These powerful insights make products such as fitness trackers and climate sensors more appealing.

But as the technology evolves, experts are cautioning about the potential threats AI could pose in the future.

AI could be used to deal with particular issues around privacy and surveillance and things like this, Antoine Blondeau, chief executive of Sentient Technologies, told Al Jazeera at the Web Summit in Lisbon.

Watch Inside Story: How can we make the most of artificial intelligence?

That would bother me a lot and it would bother others.

So yes, it can be used for bad outcomes. Its incumbent on us to make sure its not concentrated in the hands of people who can implement this without checks and balances.

Stephen Hawking, Nobel Prize winner and world-renowned physicist, drew attention to the dark side of AI last month.

Alongside the benefits, AI will also bring dangers like powerful autonomous weapons and new ways for the few to oppress the many, Hawking said.

It will bring great disruption to our economy and in the future AI could develop a will of its own.

For the moment artificial intelligence poses no immediate or obvious threat, but experts say it is a matter of time and work needs to be done now.
Rights groups criticise Meng Hongweis appointment given countrys practice of using Interpol to arrest dissidents.

A high-level Chinese police official has been elected president of Interpol, the international police organisation, angering rights advocates concerned over abuses and lack of transparency within Chinas legal system.

Meng Hongwei, vice public security minister, was named on Thursday as the first Chinese to hold the post at the Interpol general assembly on the Indonesian island of Bali.

Interpol made the announcement via its official Twitter feed.

Mengs election comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping is seeking to give new momentum to his four-year-old campaign against corruption, including a push to seek the return of former officials and other suspects who had fled abroad.

China filed a list of 100 of its most-wanted suspects with Interpol in April 2014, about one third of whom have since been repatriated to face justice at home.

The anti-corruption drive is led by the Communist Partys internal watchdog body, the highly secretive Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, rather than the police, prompting questions about its transparency and fairness.

More than one million officials have been handed various types of punishments.

While authorities deny their targets are selected for political purposes, several of the more prominent suspects have been associated with Xis predecessor Hu Jintao and other rivals.

More generally, Chinas police and judicial systems have been routinely criticised for abuses, including confessions under torture, arbitrary travel bans and the disappearance and detention without charges of political dissidents and their family members.

That has prompted reluctance among many Western nations to sign extradition treaties with China or return suspects wanted for non-violent crimes.

Corruption suspects

US officials have complained that China has asked for the return of corruption suspects while providing little or no information about the allegations against them.

Given those circumstances, Mengs election is an alarming prospect, said Maya Wang, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Human Rights Watch, the US-based watchdog group.

While we think its important to fight corruption, the campaign has been politicised and undermines judicial independence.





Mengs election will probably embolden and encourage abuses in the system, she said, citing recent reports of Russias use of Interpol to attack President Vladimir Putins political opponents.

This is extraordinarily worrying given Chinas long-standing practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad, Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty Internationals regional director for East Asia, said on Twitter.

White-collar crime

At the same time, Chinas three-decade-old economic boom has produced waves of embezzlement, bribery, corruption and other forms of white-collar crime that have forced the government to spread a wide net to track down suspects and their illicit earnings.

Meng will head Interpols executive committee in Lyon, France, that is responsible for providing guidance and direction to the organisation and implementing decisions made by its general assembly.

Jurgen Stock, Interpol secretary-general, is the organisations chief full-time official responsible for implementing decisions made by the general assembly and executive committee.

Meng takes over from Mireille Ballestrazzi of France for a four-year term. China joined Interpol in 1984.
Derik governor reportedly among the wounded in explosion in building in Mardin province near the border with Syria.

An attack on a government building in southeastern Turkey has wounded several people including a district governor, according to officials and state media.

The office of the Derik districts governor in Mardin province, near the border with Syria, was attacked with an improvised explosive device, a local government statement said on Wednesday.

Fatih Safiturk, the district governor, was wounded in the attack, officials said.





There was no immediate official information on his condition, but national Haber Turk television station said he was slightly wounded.

State-run Anadolu agency said the attack was carried out by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The PKK, however, have not immediately claimed responsibility.

The security forces launched an operation to catch the assailants, the agency said, without providing details.

A fragile peace process between the government and the PKK broke down last year, leading to renewed violence in Turkeys mainly Kurdish southeast region.

At least 700 state security personnel and thousands of Kurdish fighters have been killed since then, according to Anadolu news agency.

Turkey has been rocked by a series of deadly bomb attacks in the past 18 months, carried out by the PKK or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
Thousands of people opposing president-elect Donald Trump march in Chicago and New York, chanting not my president.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in several US cities to protest against Republican Donald Trumps surprise victory in the presidential election, condemning his campaign rhetoric around immigrants, Muslims and other groups.





On Wednesday evening, thousands of protesters thronged streets in midtown Manhattan, New York City. Some burned a US flag as they reached the Trump Tower while others chanted: Not my president.

In Chicago, roughly 1,000 people attempted to gather outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower downtown while chanting phrases such as No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA.

Chicago police closed roads in the area, blocking the demonstrators path.

Protesters condemned Trumps campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep out undocumented immigrants and other policies perceived as affecting people of colour.

Should US President-elect Donald Trump's opponents be protesting against the election result? #TrumpProtest  Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 10, 2016

In his victory speech, however, Trump said he would be president for all Americans, saying: It is time for us to come together as one united people.

In Chicago, Angie Victoria, 27, told Al Jazeera: I think [Trump] getting elected is an atrocity. Theres no way hes qualified to be president, hes so erratic. Theres no platform; he just appealed to people stewing in bigotry and racism.

Izzy Mosser, 19, said: A presidency under Trump is  scary. The only good thing is that people are coming together to stop him. Its dividing and uniting at the same time.

In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people staged a march through the citys streets, police said.

Other protests were organised in Washington DC, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Tennessee and other cities.

Earlier in the day, some 1,500 California students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its progressive politics, before marching towards the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hundreds of high school and college students walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other cities in the Bay Area, Richmond, El Cerrito and Oakland.





A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday morning in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but energetic rally.

Chanting in Spanish, The people united will never be defeated, the group held signs with slogans such as Not Supporting Racism, Not My President and Immigrants Make America Great.

Many of those students were members of the Dreamers generation, children whose parents entered the US with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration.

Wednesdays demonstrations followed a night of protests around the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trumps political upset.

In heavily Democrat Washington DC, hundreds of Trump opponents and a few of his supporters gathered by the White House, chanting in support of immigrants and against the president-elect.

Demonstrators attacked storefront windows and set garbage and tyres ablaze late on Tuesday in the business district of Oakland, California.
After 90-minute meeting with his successor at the White House, Obama says he and Trump had an excellent discussion.

US President Barack Obama and his successor, Donald Trump, have met at the White House, a day after the New York businessman was declared the winner of the countrys election.

Obama called Thursdays 90-minute meeting in the Oval Office excellent, while Trump said he looked forward to receiving the outgoing presidents counsel.

We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed, the country succeeds, Obama told Trump.

The two men, who have been harshly critical of each other for years, were meeting for the first time, Trump said.

READ MORE: What powers will Trump have as president?

I have great respect [for Obama], he said. The meeting could have, as far as Im concerned, gone a lot longer.

We discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful, and some difficulties.

Trump said he looked forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel and meeting with Obama many, many more times.

Al Jazeeras Patty Culhane at the White House This meeting was important for two reasons. The big question everyone has been asking was whether the Donald Trump of the campaign trail is going to be the same Donald Trump in the White House. This meeting is our first indication. Donald Trump is not a man who lets go of grudges. It really got under his skin during the campaign trail that President Obama was campaigning for Hillary Clinton. He called him completely unfit for the Oval Office, so people were asking: Is Donald Trump going to hit back? It turns out, no. He called Obama a very good man. He said he is going to ask him for advice in the future. That was very important, to see how Donald Trump would behave in the Office. The next important thing came from President Obama. Huge portions of this country are frightened. Trump supporters are obviously really excited but [some of] those who were against Trump  are expressing actual fear. There are protests in the major cities all across the country. So President Obama is trying to send a message. Not only as the head of the Democratic Party, but as a very popular president to his followers, that it is over. It is time to try to help Donald Trump.

Throughout the election campaign, Obama had criticised Trump as unfit to serve as commander-in-chief.

Trump, on the other hand, spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obamas presidency, falsely suggesting that he may have been born outside the US.

But at least publicly, the two men appeared to put aside their animosity.

As the meeting concluded and journalists scrambled out of the Oval Office, Obama smiled at his successor and explained the unfolding scene.

Heres a good rule: Dont answer the questions when they [reporters] just start yelling, Obama jokingly said.

Later on Thursday, Josh Earnest, White House spokesperson, said: President Obama came away from the meeting with renewed confidence in the commitment of the president-elect to engage in an effective, smooth transition.

Trump and Obama did not resolve their differences, Earnest said, but based on their agreement on the need for an effective transition, the meeting might have been at least a little less awkward than some might have expected.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he will wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office.

Trump, who will govern with Congress fully under Republican control, has pledged to repeal Obamas signature health-care law and dismantle the nuclear accord with Iran.

First Lady Michelle Obama also met privately in the White House residence Trumps wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later on Thursday.

The anticipated show of civility at the White House contrasted with post-election scenes of rallies across a politically divided country, as thousands of people took to the streets in several US cities on Wednesday to protest against Trumps surprise victory.

Demonstrators in several US cities vented against the elections winner, chanting Not my president, burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said Impeach Trump.

Similar protests and vigils were planned for Thursday.

Trump also met House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday. After the meeting with his fellow Republican, with whom he was at odds during his campaign, he said that after his inauguration he will work very rapidly on issues like healthcare and immigration.

READ MORE: Trump victory  What now for the far-right movement?

Speaking in Ryans office, Trump said: We are going to lower taxes, as you know.

He went to say: I think we are going to do some absolutely spectacular things for the American people.

Trump travelled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House.

Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organisations from his events.
Iraqi authorities deny Amnesty allegations that their forces tortured and killed six civilians during the Mosul push.

Men wearing federal police uniforms tortured and executed civilians in villages south of Mosul during an ongoing operation to retake the city from ISIL, according to a rights group, an allegation denied by Iraqs authorities.

In a report published on Thursday, Amnesty International said its researchers had gathered evidence that up to six people were extrajudicially executed last month in the al-Shura and al-Qayyarah sub-districts over suspected ties to ISIL, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIS.

Three of the victims were part of a group of around 10 men and one 16-year-old boy who handed themselves over to men wearing federal police uniforms on October 21, the rights group said.

The men had waved a white cloth and lifted their shirts to show they were not wearing explosive belts, Amnesty said, but were taken to an open desert area and brutally beaten. One mans beard was set alight.

On the same day, another victim was led away by men in police uniforms, only for his body to be found a week later, according to Amnesty, which said that its researchers had visited several villages in Shura and Qayyarah.

IN PICTURES: Life after ISIL on the outskirts of Mosul

Again on October 21, another man was reportedly shot as he ran towards men in police uniform, pulling at his clothes to show he was not wearing a bomb.





And the body of a sixth man, who had defied ISILs attempt to remove civilians for use as human shields and stayed in the Shura area, was found with bullet wounds to the chest and chin after government forces moved in, according to the UK-based rights group.

Amnesty said that forces operating in the area were apparently presuming that only ISIL fighters had remained behind, but that the extrajudicial executions were in any case unlawful.

Men in federal police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul, said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnestys Beirut office.

OPINION: Is it wrong to call Mosul battle a liberation?

Deliberately killing captives and other defenceless individuals is prohibited by international humanitarian law and is a war crime, she added.





In an interview with Al Jazeera, Maalouf also called Iraqs authorities to urgently conduct proper investigations.

It is crucial at this point, as the operation is ongoing, and Iraqi authorities are effectively taking control of these areas, to ensure that trust is maintained in the civilian population, and one of the ways to do that is to investigate these kinds of reports.

Iraqi denial

Later on Thursday, Iraqs federal police issued a statement denying its forces had been involved in extrajudicial killings.

A spokesman for the federal police said that its officers respected the human values and principles of civilians and their property, as well as providing all possible assistance to them during the operation to retake Mosul.

READ MORE: Messages from ISIL territory ask forgiveness for murder

The federal police had been providing humanitarian aid, he said, adding that its forces had managed to rescue and evacuate more than 10,000 families who were being held by ISIL fighters as human shields.

A spokesman for Iraqs interior ministry also denied there had been any violations and said Iraqi forces respect human rights and international law.

Unknown facilities

The Mosul operation, involving a 100,000-strong alliance of troops, security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia militias and backed by US-led coalition air strikes, has entered its fourth week but is facing fierce resistance for ISIL fighters.

As Iraqi forces struggle to solidify gains in neighbourhoods in eastern Mosul, more and more civilians are fleeing the city and its surrounding areas.

Also on Thursday, rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 37 men suspected of being affiliated with ISIL had been detained by Iraqi and Kurdish forces from checkpoints, villages, screening centres and camps for displaced people around Mosul and Hawija, further south.

"Disappearing" 37 men is no way for Iraqi Kurdish forces to deal with suspected ISIS members: @HRW. https://t.co/8sBuV5E18c pic.twitter.com/VuJVvWBkpB  Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) November 10, 2016

Relatives said they did not know where most of the men were being held and had not been able to contact any of them while in detention, according to HRWs report.

The group also warned that such conduct significantly increases the risk of other violations, including torture.

A spokesman for the Kurdish regional government denied the HRW report, saying any delays in informing families were limited and due to limited resources.

Nobody has been kept in unknown facilities. They are kept in identified facilities, Dindar Zebari told Reuters news agency.
Israeli PM says he will not allow Iran to turn neighbouring Syria into a base of military operations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will not allow Iran to turn neighbouring Syria into a base of military operations and vowed to limit the Islamic Republics influence in the war-ravaged country.





We are determined to  prevent Iran  from establishing itself militarily in Syria, on the ground, in the air or at sea, Netanyahu said as he held talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Jerusalem on Thursday.

We are also determined to prevent it from bringing about the establishment of Shia militias, which it is organising, and of course, the arming of [Lebanese] Hezbollah with dangerous weapons aimed at us.

Thousands of Iranians and members of the Shia armed movement Hezbollah are in Syria fighting alongside government troops against Sunni rebels.

They have provided crucial support to President Bashar al-Assads overstretched and exhausted army, and have played a significant role in the latest battle for eastern Aleppo.

In April, Netanyahu publicly admitted that dozens of convoys transporting weapons to Hezbollah had been attacked.

Last year, Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to set up a hotline to avoid accidental clashes.

Fighting terrorism

Netanyahu also called Israel and Russia partners in the war on radical Islamic terror and noted that the two countries along with the United States and others share the goal of eliminating the Islamic State jihadist group.

Medvedev agreed that Russia and Israel were facing the common challenge of terrorism, adding that we must stand together against it.

The Syrian civil war started as a largely peaceful uprising against President Assad in March 2011, but quickly developed into a full-scale war.

Russia launched an air campaign in support of Syrian government forces last year, which has been widely credited with helping turn the balance of power in favour of Assad.

Since then, at least 9,364 people have been killed and a further 20,000 civilians have been wounded.

Earlier this year, the UN special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, estimated that at least 400,000 people had died over the past five years.

Medvedev began his trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories on Wednesday. He is due to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Jericho on Friday.

In September, Russia had expressed a willingness to host Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, though no date was officially agreed on by all of the parties involved.

In light of cooled relations with the US and the European Union, Israel has increasingly turned towards forging bonds with Russia.
Gary Ernst, who died of natural causes on September 23, is elected as treasurer for the city, official results show.

US voters in Oceanside city, California, have elected a dead man to office, according to official results.

Gary Ernst, who died of natural causes on September 23, was re-elected as treasurer for the city of Oceanside by earning 17,659 votes and beating challenger Nadine Scott by about six percentage points.

The city council did not remove Ernsts name from the ballot after he died from diabetes complications.

The council said on Thursday that since Ernst could not take office, the seat would remain vacant until a decision is made on appointing someone to fill out the term or calling for a special election.

Although uncommon, this is not the first time American voters have cast their ballots for a deceased person.

In 2000, the state of Missouri famously elected Governor Mel Carnahan to the Senate  38 days after he had been killed in a plane crash that also claimed the lives of his son and a campaign adviser.

Scott told San Diegos KNSD-TV that she would like to be appointed to the post to honour the more than 15,000 people who voted for her.

She said she did not think that voters knew Ernst was dead.
After pulling off one of the most improbable political upsets in US history, Donald Trump has now become the countrys president-elect.





Though he will face a sharply divided nation after he is sworn in as the countrys 45th president on January 20, 2017, he immediately takes over a number of key powers enumerated to him by the US constitution, US laws, and precedent.

While the US system of government is divided among three branches  the executive, the legislative, and the judicial  intended as a structural system of checks-and-balances, Trumps presidential power will be vastly strengthened because his fellow Republicans retained control of the two houses of the US Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Supreme Court

With two branches of government under Republican control, Trump will be looking immediately to the US Supreme Court, which has been operating a person short of its nine members since the February 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

While President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to replace him shortly thereafter, Republicans have refused to hold hearings on his confirmation for more than 230 days, an act of Congressional obstruction without precedent in its length (under the constitution, the Senate must confirm a presidents Supreme Court nomination).

READ MORE: Trump victory  What now for the far-right movement?

Garland is almost guaranteed not to receive a hearing in the next two months, and it will then fall upon Trump to nominate someone new.

His past suggestions have included staunchly conservative jurists, and if he were able to get a pick confirmed in the Senate, it would see a court split between a reliably conservative wing, a reliably liberal wing, and the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy (Scalia was a reliable part of the courts conservative wing).

The retirement or death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal stalwart who is 83, or Kennedy, who is 80, could allow Trump to significantly remake the court, with potentially major implications for issues including abortion rights, labour rights, voting rights, and more.

Legislative priorities

Among Trumps legislative priorities are the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act (the healthcare law commonly known as Obamacare), a massive programme of tax cuts, the renegotiation of trade deals, an increase in defence spending, entitlement reforms, and much more.

While it is unclear how many legislative priorities Trump would be able to enact, Congressional Republican majorities make it much easier for him.

However, Democrats still retain a potent trump card on Trump with the Senate filibuster tactic, which means on legislation they choose to prevent voting on through unending floor debate, Republicans would have to reach a threshold of 60 votes to pass a bill, which is more than the 51 Senate votes they will now have.

READ MORE: Obama on Trump  We are all now rooting for his success

But even then, Republicans have other parliamentary tactics available to them that could see them minimise Democratic opposition methods.

For one, they could eliminate the filibuster altogether, a process that former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took small steps to begin when he changed Senate rules to restrict filibustering in some judicial appointments (excluding the Supreme Court).

Congressional Republicans can also do an end round outside of the filibuster altogether in a process known as budget reconciliation, which Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has suggested he would embrace to enact wide-ranging legislative goals including a massive reduction in government programmes and social safety nets.

All of that together creates a context for Trump similar to the great power Obama wielded in his first two years in office, when he signed Obamacare, a massive government stimulus spending programme, and the watershed Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.

All of those things are now at risk of being overturned or extensively altered by a Trump administration, at least until mid-term elections are held in 2018, which often favours the party out of power.

Executive orders

Because Obama only had Congressional majorities for his first two years in office, the rates of legislation his administration wanted passed slowed down significantly in his remaining six years.

As a result, many of Obamas achievements were either in the realm of foreign policy, where presidents are given more legal latitude to operate independently of Congress, or through so-called executive orders, whereby a president uses his or her discretion to execute or enact existing legislation.

READ MORE: How did the world react to Donald Trumps triumph?

Executive orders have been standard practice embraced by presidents from both parties over the years, but many Republican critics of Obama, including Trump, have decried his use of them, and courts sometimes have ruled that certain executive orders exceeded their legal authority.

On day one of a Trump presidency, he would be able to begin the process of unwinding any number of Obamas orders, including: mandating higher emissions standards; shielding children of illegal immigrants from deportation; giving higher wages for government contractors; and outlawing the use of torture by US intelligence officials.

According to a New Yorker interview in September with one of Trumps key advisers, Stephen Moore, Trumps team is aiming for a First Day Project.

As Moore said: Trump spends several hours signing papers  and erases the Obama presidency.

He added: We want to identify maybe 25 executive orders that Trump could sign literally the first day in office.

In addition to overturning executive orders, a Trump administration could also put at risk several of Obamas signature agreements he negotiated on behalf of the US as commander-in-chief.

Among these deals are the landmark nuclear non-proliferation deal negotiated between Iran, the US, and six world powers, and the historic global climate accord signed in Paris in December 2015.

Trump has decried both policies and vowed to cancel both agreements, something consistent with a presidents power in foreign affairs.

Trump has also decried international alliances such as NATO, and suggested he might instruct the government to stop paying UN dues.
At least four people killed and 120 wounded as suicide car bomber rams his vehicle into the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif.

A suicide car bomber has struck the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing at least four people and wounding 120 others, according to police sources.

The bombing on Thursday was claimed by the Taliban, which called it a revenge attack for a US air strike in the province of Kunduz earlier this month that left up to 32 civilians dead.

US forces admitted last week that its air strikes very likely resulted in civilian killings in Kunduz, pledging a full investigation into the incident.





According to Mazar-i-Sharif police: The suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the wall of German consulate in the city.

The blast was too loud and powerful, which shattered windows, and many civilians were wounded inside their homes, Abdul Raziq Qaderi, head of security for Balkh province where Mazar-i-Sharif is located, said.

A German military spokesperson told Reuters news agency that shots were also heard outside the consulate and that NATO troops were on the site.

The number of attackers remains unclear.

Afghan police said that they found a second attacker hidden or buried under rubble on Friday morning, having spoken of only one attacker during the night.

A Taliban spokesman told Al Jazeera that several fighters had entered the building and that clashes were ongoing.

The government source, however, did not confirm if fighting was still ongoing.

German presence

Germany has 938 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh, as part of NATOs Resolute Support mission.

The Taliban, who seized power and ruled Afghanistan from 1996, were toppled by a US-led invasion after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Almost 15 years later, about 13,000 troops from a US-NATO coalition remain in the country.

In the past year alone, the Talibans armed campaign has killed or wounded about 11,000 civilians, as well as 5,500 government troops and police officers.
With three simultaneous wars raging in the Middle East, a more assertive Russia, a fruitless negotiation process between the Palestinians and the Israelis, President-elect Donald Trump is likely to face colossal foreign policy challenges.

Four Arab scholars offer policy recommendations on how best to address a legacy of mistrust and decades of failed policies.

Diana Buttu, human rights lawyer and former legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team



End Israels military rule

As you absorb the results of your hard-fought election victory, your mind will now undoubtedly turn to what needs to be done as the next US President. Needless to say, there is much on your plate that you will need to tackle, both domestically and internationally.

As someone who worked on the negotiations for years, I can attest to the futility of demanding that a people under occupation negotiate with their occupier and oppressor.

One would hope that Palestine and the now nearly 50-year Israeli denial of Palestinian freedom would be among those issues.

While your predecessors wasted years focusing on conflict management through a fruitless negotiation process, today, we are no closer to Palestinian freedom than when this farcical peace process started.

Palestine is now riddled with nearly 750,000 Israeli settlers, four times more than when this process began in 1993. Today in Israel, a right-wing, fascist government prevails that consists of ministers who are illegal settlers, those who have called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and who have declared that Palestinians in Israel should have their heads chopped off for challenging Israeli policy.

At the same time, Palestinians are saddled with a leadership and government whose term expired several years ago. With these grim realities, it may be easy to do as your predecessor and bury your head in the sand, ignoring the Middle East.

Yet, what the Middle East needs now is to do something different so as to end Israels military rule over Palestine.

Here is what can be done:

A) Abandon the idea that Palestinian freedom can only come through bilateral negotiations. We should not be forced to negotiate our freedom, nor should we be required to continue to serve as Israels security subcontractor. As someone who worked on the negotiations for years, I can attest to the futility of demanding that a people under occupation negotiate with their occupier and oppressor.

B) Support the growing Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, rather than block global grassroots efforts to hold Israel accountable. Impose sanctions on Israel for its continued denial of Palestinian freedom, its siege on Gaza and its continued colonisation of Palestinian land.

Israel should not be allowed to continue to benefit from its continued occupation. And, just as the world community has expressed concerns over Palestinian leaders, so too should you start boycotting this right-wing government that believes it is perfectly acceptable to pass discriminatory laws, call Palestinians snakes and support ethnic cleansing.

C) Press for Palestinian elections for legitimate leaders. Leaving aside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbass major shortcomings and failures as a leader, he is also now illegitimate. Our democracy should not be held hostage any longer. Palestinians need to elect a leadership that is reflective of our young population and not remain saddled by this illegitimate and octogenarian leadership.

By pressing for these issues you will go down in history as US first president to win such an unprecedented victory but also as one who ended Israels military rule by going against the standard operating protocol on Palestine.

If you do not, you will go down in history as just another president who failed to deliver.

Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East Programme at George Mason and co-editor of Jadaliyya

US can still do a lot more, but in the direction of International law and human rights

Providing recommendations on the Middle East to US policymakers or the president-elect is a bit of a delusional act if you consider the different metrics some of us proceed from.

Despite an abundance of good minds, US policy over the past five to six decades has been devastating for the people of the region, and pretty good for Arab autocrats and economic elites alike, as well as for the apartheid state of Israel.

US policy over the past five to six decades has been devastating for the people of the region, and pretty good for Arab autocrats and economic elites alike, as well as for the apartheid state of Israel.

The policy inputs are not likely to change soon and in this election might not even budge, or worse yet, might deteriorate with a choice between a neo-conservatives poster child war-hawk candidate and  what can one say any more about Trump, really  a candidate who often scares his allies more than his enemies.

This was both a critical domestic election, as well as the first time a new administration will be voted in during (a) the post-euphoric Arab uprisings, (b) a more assertive and involved Russia, and (b) three simultaneous Middle Eastern wars in which the US is heavily involved or leading from behind (Syria, Yemen, Iraq).

US foreign policy is usually a balancing act based on concerns and risks in both the domestic and international arenas. As critical as the international and Middle East scenes might be for voters, this election turns on domestic concerns and risks.

In the minds of most citizens and pundits the Syrian war is about a limited debate of the US doing less or more, presumably to save lives and fight terrorism, though policymakers may have this as a by-product concern not a point of departure for calculating risk across options.

As to the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Mosul and beyond, the concerns are subsiding as perceptions of a degraded ISIL proliferate, while the actual risks are being taken by non-US foot-soldiers  notwithstanding the anticipated backlash in the region and beyond by ISIL and ISIL-inspired actors.

As to the Saudi-led war in Yemen, with direct US support, well, for most voters, it almost does not exist, judging from mainstream media coverage and government (non-)pronouncements.

President Obama is wrongfully accused of doing little. The truth is, the US can still do a lot more, but in the direction of International law and human rights. While this might sound naive, the time is actually approaching when realpolitik concerns that make the US support of unsavory actors and processes in the Middle East no longer comport with what is really best even for non-ordinary Americans.

Before any serious change in US Middle East policy is on the table, there is much to do here at home to reclaim democracy, by making US policymakers responsive to their citizens concerns at the domestic level in the first place.

Bassam Haddad is author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience

Maha Yahya, director and senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut

Act immediately to end genocide and population transfers

The 45th United States president inherits a fractured and splintering Middle East, presenting extraordinary foreign policy challenges. The world he inherits is defined by shifting boundaries, changing alliances, as well as heightened global and regional tensions fuelling interrelated sectarian and proxy conflicts across the Middle East.

A revised US policy can embrace key Gulf allies who feel side-lined by the US apparent change in regional priorities.

It is also characterised by the gargantuan distrust of Arab citizens who believe the US has not only abandoned them, but has actively obstructed their quest for a better future whether in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Egypt or Palestine.

The de-escalation of the regional proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and by extension the rest of the region, is central to addressing the challenges of civil conflict and state failure across the Middle East.

Without it, negotiated settlements to end ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya will be difficult if not impossible. To do so, the newly elected president must work to convince regional actors of the advantages of moving away from the current zero-sum game wreaking havoc in the region, towards a stable order that can engage with multiple and often conflicting interests.

The success of the Iran deal is a case in point of the advantages of such a policy shift for some countries. This is a tall yet fundamentally critical order for global stability. In the short run, a revised US policy can embrace key Gulf allies who feel sidelined by the US apparent change in regional priorities, working towards a more coherent approach to ongoing proxy wars in Syria and Iraq.

To address the massive gap in citizen trust, the new US president also needs to shift American policy towards the Middle East from a predominantly security perspective focused on the fight against ISIL to one that engages with larger socioeconomic triggers for instability.

Five areas through which a revamped US policy can begin to rebuild this trust are: 1) to act immediately to end genocide and population transfers and ensure accountability for those atrocities whether by state or non-state actors by supporting international justice mechanisms; 2) leverage US support to regional governments to ensure fundamental rights; 3) support policies that uphold the rights of refugees and asylum seekers including Palestinian refugees; 4) re-engage with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process on the basis of international norms and conventions and 5) support policies that both guard fundamental rights and protect from terrorism.

It is in the interests of the United States to have a stable Middle East. Without addressing these fundamental imbalances, the fissures developing across the region will extend far beyond the region and to the rest of the world.

Abdullah Al-Arian, assistant professor of history at Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service in Qatar

US policy in the Middle East bears considerable responsibility for getting us here

Less than six months into his first term as president, Barack Obama travelled to Cairo where he delivered a monumental address, seeking a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect.

In his remarks, Obama also recognised the legacy of distrust and enmity left by the colonial experience and the Cold War tendency to treat Muslim countries as mere proxies in a global conflict. That sense of self-awareness was unprecedented in an American leader, and caused many across the Middle East and beyond to have high hopes for Obamas presidency.

The coming four years will simply yield more failed policies and entrenched grievances for which a future president will one day atone in a flowery speech before a hopeful crowd.

Instead, US foreign policy over the past eight years has been little more than business as usual. Obama failed to uphold a key campaign promise when he could not close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and in fact stepped up the use of drone attacks across several countries, resulting in frequent civilian deaths.

His administration has also undermined popular calls for freedom by continuing to back repressive dictatorships and illegal occupations, and remained the chief arms dealer to a region that has suffered enough death and destruction.

Despite this legacy, the US medias take on Obama depicts a president who withdrew from the Middle East and hesitated to act when necessary. According to these critics, the next president must be more decisive and confrontational in dealing with this volatile region.

While there is little reason to hope that the next administration will abandon US militarism and support for authoritarianism, it nonetheless merits recalling that US policy towards the Middle East over the past several decades bears considerable responsibility for getting us here.

There is no reason to assume that more of the same will somehow eradicate the threat of terrorism, secure American interests, or engender goodwill among the people of the region.

It is a tragically ironic that the US agreement with Iran, Obamas chief foreign policy achievement and a reversal of a long-standing policy, was roundly criticized by both presidential campaigns.

In fact, the success of the Iran deal in overcoming years of mutual hostility and avoiding another destructive war should serve as a model for the next administration to think beyond the cycle of mistrust and find alternative modes of resolving deep-seated conflicts.

Otherwise, the coming four years will simply yield more failed policies and entrenched grievances for which a future president will one day atone in a flowery speech before a hopeful crowd.

Abdullah Al-Arian is author of Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadats Egypt.
A UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences assistant professor will use grant funding to educate small-scale farmers about food safety this spring.

Soohyoun Ahn, who works in UFs food science and human nutrition department, recently received a $163,284 grant given by the U.S. Department of Agricultures National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The money was a part of a $4.7 million grant to educate farmers in preventing food contamination.

To teach others, Ahn will expand her education program in April. Shes been working with small-scale farmers for the past three years, she said.

In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration passed the Food Safety Modernization Act, the biggest reform in food safety laws in more than 70 years. According to the FDA, the law allows the administration to mandatorily recall food.

The legislation went into effect this year, Ahn said.

Ahn said she hopes to teach small-business owners how to develop food-safety plans and how to identify and prevent hazards in food manufacturing so they can comply with these new requirements.

Most small-business owners arent prepared for this, Ahn said. At a certain point, it becomes overwhelming.

Jodi Williams, the national program leader for food safety at NIFA, said Ahn was awarded the grant because she addressed both preventing food from being unsafe and helping those who grow and produce food, while most applicants focused on produce safety itself.

The ultimate goal is to provide education, training and outreach to individuals who will address the new legislation, Williams said.

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UF professor Sean Trainor walked into his classroom Wednesday morning dressed in black.

He tore up his original plans for his American History to 1877 class and decided instead to make a slideshow of Martin Luther King Jr. quotes and photos of influential African-Americans including Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

After about 10 minutes, he told his students they could leave.

When no one stood up, Trainor asked students for their thoughts on the presidential election and the fact that Donald Trump will be the next U.S. president. A tense discussion among Trump supporters and Hillary Clinton supporters ensued.

I really just dont know how I feel about it, Trainor said afterward.

While some students, faculty members and residents woke up excited about the prospect of a President Trump, others  including members of the Muslim and LGBTQ+ communities  felt disappointed or angry.

Debbie Weiss, a mental health counselor at the UF Counseling & Wellness Center, said the center received a handful of calls and some in-person visits on Election Day and the morning after from concerned students.

I think its present for a lot of people, she said. Its even affecting the staff. People are scared.

Ernesto Escoto, the director of the center, said he spoke with students throughout the day who said they were shocked and grieving, unable to understand how Trump was elected.

Thats a reflection also of how distant we are from each other, he said.

Ronnie Sartain woke up Wednesday morning and started wiping the purple swastika off of his garage door.

The symbols, spray-painted on his garage, walkway and Trump-Pence lawn signs, appeared about two weeks ago. Though Sartain said he would leave his garage vandalized until after Trump became president  as a way to show passersby just how polarizing the election became  he didnt expect Trump would win the election.

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Elsewhere, on the 34th Street Wall, motorists could see a mural of Trump painted in the likeness of Adolf Hitler, with an infamous Nazi slogan that translated to One People, One Nation, One Leader.

Admitting he is not sure what Trump will actually do as commander in chief, Sartain said he hopes Trumps presidency brings about change in the country, with congressional term limits and an affordable health care system that doesnt hurt doctors.

The question now is, What is Trump going to do? he said. I dont see a platform. I see an opportunity for change.

With Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who as Indianas Governor once proposed funding homosexual-conversion therapy, members of the LGBTQ+ community have reason to worry, but they must be proactive, said Terry Fleming, the president of the Florida LGBTA Democratic Caucus.

A Gainesville resident, Fleming said Trumps selection of a homophobe is very telling of how he views the nations LGBTQ+ population. He said the caucus would continue vying for pro-LGBTQ+ candidates locally and nationally.

We encourage members of the community to get involved, to make a difference, to make sure our rights continue to be represented, he said.

For Laura Goodhue, the vice president of public policy for Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida, the prospect of Trump defunding its system of womens health clinics  including one in Gainesville  is nothing new.

Planned Parenthood has been (in the U.S.) for 100 years, and one thing is clear: We will never back down, she wrote in a statement issued Wednesday.

Maryam Akinyode wore her hijab proudly Wednesday, despite other Muslim women deciding not to wear them after learning of Trumps victory.

Akinyode, the vice president of external affairs for Islam on Campus, said she was angry and sad that Trump, who once argued for a ban on Muslim immigration, would soon become her president. She said she was speaking on behalf of herself, not the organization.

As minorities, we work so hard to be accepted by this society, the 21-year-old UF international studies and political science senior said. But theres still such a large amount of hatred toward us.

Rod Gonzalez, the vice president of the Gainesville Tea Party, said he voted for Trump in part because of his immigration policy.

Gonzalez, who emigrated from Venezuela and has been a U.S. citizen for 20 years, said the U.S. cant afford the number of immigrants presently coming into the country.

While he said his beliefs dont entirely align with the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, Gonzalez hopes Trump will support small-business owners by cutting the number of regulations and lowering taxes.

We saw Mr. Trump as really the only alternative to change, he said. Will we regret it down the road? Who knows.

Chelsea MacKenzie, a 26-year-old Clinton supporter, looks up at the TV in shock as the election results become more evident at First Magnitude Brewing Company on Tuesday evening. About 250 people attended the watch party, hosted by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.  Thomas Jefferson

The morning Donald Trump officially became President-elect Trump, the sky, similar to how we felt, was gloomy. Gray clouds hovered above us, literally and metaphorically. Despite this, dogs panted happily as they were walked, children giggled innocently as they jumped up and down in a bounce-house in front of the stadium and the line at the Chipotle on University Avenue was still unreasonably long. While everything looked fine on the surface, only the naive could ignore that the tension in the atmosphere Tuesday was so thick, it could be cut with a knife.

Dear reader, were here to tell you today there is, in fact, a light at the end of this tunnel. We will get through this. It will not be easy. We remember how much of an uphill battle the last eight years have been. The next four, possibly eight, will be even tougher. We will need all hands on deck to make sure the progress weve made under President Barack Obama is not undone.

Why will it be even tougher? To the victor belongs the spoils, the adage goes. When President-elect Trump is inaugurated in January, he will take office with the support of a U.S. House of Representatives and a U.S. Senate that are both dominated by Republicans. Moreover, Trump will have the authority to nominate a new Supreme Court justice, who will likely be confirmed, which will leave the court leaning right with five conservative justices and four liberal justices. That being said, the entirety of our government will be occupied by the totally unorganized Republican Party that Trump left in his wake. Republicans are going to have a lot of authority.

The means by which they seized this authority is questionable, but it is legal. The fact of the matter is the majority of America has spoken, and they wanted Hillary Clinton to be our new POTUS. But in the end, Trump received more electoral votes, and he will get the job. While we dont have to be happy about it, and we can do everything in our God- and constitutionally given rights to stop the policies we dont agree with, we ought to respect his presidency.

We understand why youre afraid and why youre angry. But this isnt the first time a man of extremely questionable experience will serve in the Oval Office. This isnt the first time a man with a vile temperament will sit behind that desk. While most of us disagree with him on many facets of life, political or not, we are now forced to stand behind him and hope his decisions lead us to a safer, more prosperous and morally sound future.

So lets forgive those of us who knew not what theyve done. We all go into that voting booth with our own knowledge, our own experiences and our own reasons. Few people go into that booth and vote ironically. So remember, dear reader, when they go low, we go high. Instead of blaming, shaming and pointing fingers, lets forgive those of us who, in good faith, misplaced our trust. We all want the same thing: a better tomorrow. Lets stay true to our personal principles and remain faithful to the American principle of compromise.

Dont move to Canada. Dont move to Europe. Dont move to Australia, to Israel or to wherever you were planning to go. Right now, you must plant your feet in this plentiful American soil, and stand like the rock our Founding Fathers would have wanted you to.
Gainesville will host its first annual Fall Festival this Saturday.

The festival will be held in the newly renovated Bo Diddley Community Plaza from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., and it will feature local craft businesses and direct sellers from the community, said Virginia Lynn-Brinson, the coordinator of the event.

I wanted to do some events that would bring people to the downtown area in the evenings, she said.

Although there are similar festivals going on in Florida during this time of year in Melrose, Newberry and Alachua, Lynn-Brinson said she thought it was time Gainesville had one of its own.

She said many home-based businesses in the community dont get much exposure at local events. While Gainesville does have local arts and crafts shows during this time of the year, Lynn-Brinson said some of the local businesses she promotes are not allowed to participate in these events because their products are not handmade.

She said she started her event planning business, Virginia Lynn Enterprises, to promote those small businesses.

One of these small-business owners is Joy Hampson, a team leader with the direct-sales company Pampered Chef. She will celebrate her three-year anniversary with the company in two weeks.

Working for a direct-sales company is different from brick-and-mortar stores, Hampson said. By working from home, she said she can pick her kids up from school and go to the park with them while still earning an income for her family.

I can kind of work my business around my life and not the other way around, which is really nice, she said.

She said her ultimate goal is meeting people at the festival this weekend, because everything is word-of-mouth-centered for direct sellers. Having an event to network, pass out business cards and meet people is a great opportunity for any business, she said.

Lynn-Brinson is a small business owner, too. She runs her event-planning company, and she also promotes her own invention: a reusable, multipurpose pouch thats the size of a sandwich bag and has an extra pocket on the front.

She said she invented it when her daughters were younger, because she would always have to hide their lunch money when they went to school.

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There are products like it on the market, they just dont have a pocket, she said.

The Fall Festival will feature live music and food vendors. Of the 56 vendors at the festival, some will be businesses that make their own jewelry, soap and clothing, along with the direct sellers.

Lynn-Brinson said a few nonprofit companies will also be at the event. She said the event will be kid-friendly, featuring a childrens corner with face painting, vendors selling books, a craft table and a cakewalk.

Being a family person, Lynn-Brinson said she wanted the event to be something parents could take their children to on a Saturday night. Even more, she said she wants to help those parents like Hampson who are running small businesses and running after children at the same time.

Im a mom, she said. I know how important it was when my kids were younger to be able to provide a living for them.
Thanks to the 1999 Rave Law put into effect by the city of Gainesville, every bar in town must close its doors at 2 a.m. Its a strange phenomenon, being anywhere in town that late. Closing time rolls around, and streets in Midtown and downtown are awash with drunken students looking for something to treat their munchies. As a Gainesville newcomer, Ive experienced the quandary of trying to find somewhere to eat this late at night (or early in the morning) several times. After making my rounds around our little city for a few months, I have compiled a brief list of the best restaurants that will serve you quality food later than anywhere else in Gainesville.

Boca Fiesta

For a place that hosts high-energy punk rock shows in its backyard, Boca Fiesta is a surprisingly upscale Southwestern restaurant once you step inside. There is no greasy counter where you place your order. The waiters dont wear T-shirts, and the restaurants lighting is dim, but in a fancy way.

Boca Fiesta is open until 2 a.m. on every night except for Sundays, when the restaurant closes at 11 p.m. Boca boasts a diverse menu, offering original options like alligator burritos, fried mac-and-cheese balls and a series of specials called weird meat of the month. Last I checked it was fried rattlesnake. While Bocas varied selection of meats is enticing, the menu also includes plenty of vegetarian and vegan options. Boca even has a dairy-free version of those fried mac-and-cheese balls.

Boca Fiesta is not perfect, though. With that fancy atmosphere comes fancy prices. Burritos cost $8 and come with no sides, and service is not the fastest. Last time I was at Boca, I had a server wait 15 minutes before getting to me, presumably because I sat down at 9:45 p.m., and the restaurant stop giving out free chips and salsa at 10 p.m.

Gator Baked

I guess you could call Gator Baked American food because almost everything on the menu is fried. Unlike Boca Fiesta, Gator Baked makes you order your food at a greasy counter, the employees are all wearing T-shirts and the decor is, well, perplexing. There is one wall decorated with a collage of random images, including movie stars like Jack Nicholson.

Still, this is the only place downtown that will serve you a hot, freshly made doughnut after midnight. The shop also offers hard-to-find fried sides like tater tots and onion rings. Last time I was here, I paid $3.50 for a piping hot maple-bacon doughnut and two super greasy McDonalds-style hash browns. Gator Baked is open until 3 a.m. every night and is located downtown in a small brick building next to Cowboys Saloon.

Flacos Cuban Bakery

Unfortunately for Midtown dwellers, the past two restaurants mentioned are located downtown. But never fear! Flacos Cuban Bakery has both a Midtown location and a downtown location. Though advertised as a Cuban bakery, Flacos also offers cheap and delicious burritos. For $6 you can buy a warm and cheesy pressed tortilla packed tight with rice, beans, meat, salsa and sour cream.

Flacos also offers tempeh, plantains, lentils and a signature sunshine veggie mix for vegetarians. Besides the Southwestern fare, Flacos offers a variety of Cuban sandwiches, arepas, rice bowls and Cuban pastries. I recommend trying something with pork in it if youre a meat eater and the sunshine if youre not. Flacos also has cheap Cuban coffee, which is super sugary and caffeinated.

The restaurants bare interior makes it obvious that Flacos emphasis is on the food, not on the atmosphere. Still, the artwork displayed inside of both locations has a lot of character.

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Of course, there are a few caveats to keep in mind with Flacos. Though the bakery is open until 2:30 a.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, Flacos isnt open at all on Sundays or Mondays. Also, the downtown location of Flacos offers burritos at a separate part of the restaurant, behind the main dining room. This extension, or rather, burrito bar, is cash only. So if youre trying to eat one of Flacos famous $6 burritos downtown, make sure you dont spend all of your cash on cover.










English News Great Expectations: Building a shared vision for the Belt and Road Initiative

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 10 Novembre 2016



the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), potentially the worlds largest economic corridor, is part of a new trend and an innovative contribution to global governance. It represents an opportunity to build a shared vision for common prosperity through regional cooperation, and could act as an accelerator for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

By Nicholas Rosellini We live in a world of increasing interdependency and complexity, where international cooperation is necessary, however increasingly multifaceted and complicated. Global challenges such as climate change, global health and security issues require ever higher degrees of global effort and collaboration if they are to be overcome. This calls for new ideas on how to make global governance work better for all countries and people.

In light of this, the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), potentially the worlds largest economic corridor, is part of a new trend and an innovative contribution to global governance. It represents an opportunity to build a shared vision for common prosperity through regional cooperation, and could act as an accelerator for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The BRI covers a vast population of 4.4 billion and an economic output of $21 trillion in more than 70 countries in the Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Africa. The majority of them are emerging and developing countries. Through connectivity, it aims to foster trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bonds, while promoting inclusiveness and win-win cooperation - hence reshaping the landscape of international cooperation.

In todays globalized world, economic and social linkages inevitably transcend borders, as does environmental sustainability. A key strength of the BRI is that it strategically targets recipient countries development gaps. According to the ADB-ESCAP-UNDP joint study (Making it Happen, 2015), in the Asia Pacific Region alone total financing requirement for infrastructure is at US$8.3 trillion between 2010 and 2020, or US$750 billion per year. While the majority of financing is expected from government revenues, FDI will play an increasingly important role making the BRI a powerful framework for facilitating its flow.

Some countries are already fully engaged and investment and trade are expanding rapidly. Outbound direct investment made by Chinese companies to BRI countries reached $12 billion in the first three quarters of 2015, growing by 66% from same period a year earlier. For example in Pakistan, where the Pakistan Economic Corridor has been initiated, this will amount up to US$46 billion mainly for the energy and logistics sector. Similarly, in the case of Indonesia, financing frameworks are set for around 52 planned projects, to be funded by the China Development Bank and local Indonesian financing institutions.

The question is how these investments can be a new wave that bring not only economic development, but human development benefits along the way. The BRI will contribute to improved infrastructure and industrialization, but it should not stop there, and must also transform local communities and bring about poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and inclusive social development, contributing to the achievement of Agenda 2030.

Highlighting sustainability is a critical aspect of the BRIs credibility, and the synergies and complementarities between BRI and SDGs can help create a win-win outcome. The BRI is intended primarily to be driven by commercial and economic priorities, relying heavily on the private sector, guided by market rules and international laws. Yet, its success will critically depend on the ability to contribute to national and local development objectives, and inter alia improving the livelihoods of local communities, through for example creating decent jobs, increasing capacities and overall living standards. Social cohesion should also be strengthened by the BRI through including the most vulnerable, hence address issues of equity, positively impacting migration flows and demographic changes. At the level of policies, the BRI should equally target policy harmonization to further facilitate investments with lowered risks and transaction costs.

The broader UN system, including agencies, such as UNDP, UNICEF and UNIDO, is ready to play a facilitating role to ensure alignment of the BRI with the SDGs. UNDP recently signed an agreement with the Government of China, aiming to support China and the other Belt and Road countries in achieving their development aspirations, building more consensus, providing analytical basis for policy makers to engage on the BRI, and identifying practical projects coupled with investments to ensure that common economic prosperity will go hand-in-hand with inclusive social and environmental gains.

This is just the beginning. We have a long road ahead of us, but we at UNDP truly believe that development can be achieved only through a broader vision bringing together ideas, resources and partners with capacity to reach the common goal of shared prosperity for sustainable development.

(The author is UN resident coordinator and UNDP resident representative in China)



(Source: Peoples Daily)



Dans la meme rubrique : < > More robots entering people's daily life China sees accelerated development of express delivery sector in rural areas China's FAST discovers largest atomic cloud in universe Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)
President-elect Donald Trump's well-publicized plan to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it could have significant ramifications for a major sector of the payments industry.

Trump has stated that the U.S. would suspend remittances to Mexico if it did not agree to cover the estimated $10 billion cost of building the wall. That is no small threat; Mexico is the fourth largest recipient of remittances globally, about $28 billion in 2016, according to the World Bank. Some $24 billion of that comes from the U.S., according to Aite Group, which estimates the total remittance market in 2015 was $582 billion.

Remittance is big business for the U.S., too. The United States is the world's biggest sender of remittances worldwide, with nearly $135 billion flowing to other countries each year, according to Brion Nazzaro, group compliance director for WorldRemit Corp.

"Millions of people from abroad work hard in the U.S. and contribute to the economy, sending money to support family and friends overseas," Nazzaro said in an email. "Likewise families all over the world rely on these remittance payments from people working in the U.S."

The use of remittance as a bargaining tool would take an immediate chunk out of Mexico's economy, potentially damage U.S. companies and unintentionally rearrange how digital technology executes payments.

There's a question of whether Trump can cut off remittance to Mexico, either politically or logistically (Trump's office did not return a request for comment on the remittance policy by deadline).

The remittance industry is complex, and it would be difficult to sever any one country, Nazzaro said, though Trump could make use of anti-money laundering regulations to warn banks away from doing business with firms in Mexico.

The logistical challenges involve how funds are transferred. For Western Union or MoneyGram remittances, in which someone wires money via brick and mortar stores, the trail is easier to follow and theoretically easier to shut off because there's a location on each side of the border. But lots of payments are now made through mobile apps, where the origination and destination of the account is less easy to discern.

"What could be classified as a remittance for being cut off is very hard to define," said Richard Crone, a payments consultant. Many digital P-to-P transfers aren't categorized as cross-border transfers because they can involve two U.S. accounts, with one person just happening to be in Mexico. "Does PayPal or Venmo fall in? Does Xoom?," Crone said.

That confusion could actually be good for some companies, Crone said. The impact of "squeezing" one part of the remittance balloon could be explosive for another part of the market, Crone said.

"For the traditional guys in the business, I'd watch out," Crone said. MoneyGram has more than 16,000 locations in Mexico, while Western Union has more than 10,000.

Western Union, MoneyGram and PayPal, which owns Xoom and Venmo and operates its own P-to-P service, did not return requests for comment by deadline.

Trump's proposal earlier this year was met with widespread opposition, including from The Financial Services Roundtable, which blasted the concept in an interview with American Banker. The Roundtable did not return a request for comment for this article.

It's unclear if the president could unilaterally order a remittance portal shutdown, due to the severity of the move, said Talie Baker, an analyst with Aite Group's retail payments and banking practice.

"I question if a U.S. president could make such a change without going through the democratic process to be able to do so," Baker said, adding it's questionable that a Republican House and Senate would allow the president to meddle with American business in this way.

"Not only would the world economy be impacted, but the U.S. would also be impacted as far as all the jobs that the remittance industry provides," Baker said.

U.S. regulators such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may also want to weigh in, Crone said. "This is a lifeline for so many consumers."
President-elect Trump has shown little interest in technology beyond social media, but several of his policies could significantly affect the decisions banks and their tech vendors make about tech.

There are a few positives and several downsides, especially for those who care about data privacy. Here is a quick rundown.

Tech costs could fall under the Trump administration's tax policies. Some Republicans want to let companies fully expense tech purchases in the first year.

"So if you're a bank and you buy a new computer or ATM machine, you write that off in the first year," explained Robert Atkinson, founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank in Washington. "We think that's the better position for spurring investment and Trump has endorsed that."

Trump's plan for reducing taxation of foreign-source income will benefit larger and older tech companies that banks buy from.

"The Apples, Googles, and Facebooks of the world have a lot of money parked overseas because if they bring it back, it's taxed at 35%," Atkinson said. "Trump and the Republicans support taxing that income at a 15% rate with no deferral. On net, that would be a good thing for tech industry." Tech companies would also gain from Trump's proposed 15% corporate tax rate, though Democrats are likely to fight that. "It's possible to get a rate down to the low to mid 20s," Atkinson said.

Trump's support for government surveillance will conflict with efforts to protect data privacy. Trump has said he would have favored the FBI in its battle with Apple over unlocking the smartphone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. "I assume when I pick up my telephone, people are listening to my conversations anyway, if you want to know the truth," he has said. "It's pretty sad commentary, but I err on the side of security."

Trump has also stated that he wants to fully restore the Patriot Act, including more support for government surveillance. Many in Congress, including Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, will push back, Atkinson said. "I think Trump wants it but won't get it," he said.

The president-elect has also indicated support for the Burr-Feinstein bill that mandates that tech companies provide so-called back doors to their products, giving law enforcement access. However, here again, civil liberties stalwarts like Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will fight back.

This will to allow government agencies to spy on citizens  and Trump's control over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts that make decisions in secret  puts at risk tech companies' and, for that matter, banks' ability to protect their customers' data.

David Weiss, senior analyst at Aite Group, said that banks and other companies don't want to be put in the middle between government agencies and customer data. But he also expects more pushback from companies like Apple. "I wouldn't be surprised if somebody makes an argument that encryption itself is freedom of speech," he said.

Financial tech companies will get even less federal funding than they do today.Trump has said he wants to direct funding to current challenges, such as infrastructure, rather than future-oriented research.

Tech companies don't receive a lot of federal funding today, but they do get some. Some fintech startups get Small Business Innovation Research grants. In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm based in Arlington, Va., that invests on behalf of the CIA, backs some Silicon Valley startups and early stage companies. This money could be at risk.

But the bigger effect would come through academia. Many tech startups spin off from or rely on technology that comes out of universities like Stanford.

"If there are cuts in federal support for research and engineering, which I believe there will be, you'll see less funding from the federal government for that," Atkinson said. "That will take a while to work its way through the system. We're not going to notice it for three or four years -'hey, how come there are fewer tech startups? What's going on here?'"

On the other hand, some hope that Trump's interest in helping businesses will extend to fintech startups.

"Even now, the U.S. government could be doing more to support the fintech ecosystem, especially compared to some of the more progressive trade bodies and regulators of the U.K., Singapore, Canada, Hong Kong, and others," said Jon Zanoff, founder of Empire Startups, a fintech startup community in New York and San Francisco. "The new administration must recognize that collaboration is critical to innovation, and any shift to become more insular would significantly impede U.S. entrepreneurs."

There are signs that Washington is moving in a more fintech-friendly direction. Republicans in both chambers are already pushing bills that would modify the regulatory structure to help new fintech firms gain ground.

Trump's anti-regulation stance could put a damper on the burgeoning "regtech" market. Trump vowed during his campaign to "undo" the Dodd-Frank Act. His business-friendly, regulation-lightening platform could slow growth for the recently anointed "regtech" sector that provides compliance solutions to banks, often based on artificial intelligence. This niche includes young tech firms (Palantir, Digital Reasoning) and household names (IBM with Watson).

"He's talking about getting out of the way, he's anti-regulation," Weiss said. "Dodd-Frank regulations cost money and take real technology, and it's not all open-source. So if you pull out a driver like regulation, will demand be there the way it was? I question that."

Banks and tech vendors could be blocked from shipping software development and operations jobs overseas. Trump has said many times he wants to bring jobs back home, for instance, by forcing Apple to build iPhones in the U.S.

This could affect the ongoing efforts of large banks and tech vendors to cut costs by laying off local workers and sending operations and development jobs to India, the Philippines and other countries where the pay is lower.

"If you take him at his word  and he's really campaigned on this  he doesn't want offshoring," Weiss said. "If you have manufacturing facilities outside the U.S. for your non-U.S. customers, I can't see how he has a problem with that. If you've been engaging in labor arbitrage, he does seem to have a problem with that."

Atkinson said he doubted the Trump administration would block or restrict offshoring.

"What I think could happen is Trump could use the bully pulpit," he said. If a large company moved jobs to India, Trump might publicly berate its managers. "That matters," Atkinson said. "If you're a consumer-facing company you have to pay attention to that. You don't want to look like you're a Benedict Arnold company."

Trump and Congress could dismantle net neutrality. The law President Obama pushed through in 2015 that requires communications service providers to provide equal internet access to all companies and not charge extra for high-speed service could be knocked down by a Republican Congress and President. This is controversial in part because charging a premium for the fast lane would put shallow-pocketed companies such as startups at a disadvantage.

"It's always been [Trump's] complaint that net neutrality allows free rides," Weiss said. "His residual complaint is that bandwidth is not free, people build those pipes" and therefore should have the right to charge what they want for them.

Atkinson sees net neutrality as a nonissue. "The whole net neutrality thing as a risk to Silicon Valley is dramatically overblown, demagogued and distorted," he said. "There's the issue of, 'could an ISP just block or degrade issuers?' They simply don't do that. They'd be stupid to do that. They'd lose business. With the exception of one ISP that eight years ago that blocked a customer using Skype, nobody's done that."

As far as internet service providers offering better service for higher fees, Atkinson said, "The rule or standard or the norm is going to be, 'you can't degrade best efforts internet, nor can you charge for bet efforts internet.' In other words, a small startup will get the same experience to their customers as they get today. That will never change."

Cybersecurity is a wild card. Trump made vague references to strengthening cybersecurity during his campaign. During the second presidential debate, he said, "The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe, it's hardly doable. But I will say we are not doing the job we should be doing."

The president-elect's first cybersecurity briefing will be eye-opening, Weiss said, and will shape his policies. "My guess is anybody running for president, except for a retired general, will be gobsmacked by what they're hit with in this thing," he said.

Republicans have conflicting tendencies on cybersecurity, Atkinson noted.

"They're very much a deregulation party, the idea of them having strong regulations on business goes against their grain," he said. "At the same time, you have a national security wing of the party, which Trump is part of, that says this is about national security and integrity, we're going to have stricter regulations. There's tension in the party, I don't know how that will play out." It might depend on what kind of security fiascos occur.

The positives may slightly outweigh the negatives for tech companies and their customers.

"I keep waiting for the political party and the candidate that gets it right on all these different fronts," Atkinson said. "But on net, you could imagine the tech industry being modestly better off."

This would depend on two things. One is that the administration is run in a highly professional way. The other is that it handles relationships with other countries well.

"If Trump alienates foreign partners and adversaries and makes America look bad and isolates us, that will hurt the tech industry more than anything else," Atkinson said. "It's one thing to be strong and push back against countries like China that need pushing back against, but you have to be careful how you do it and America can't look like a bully or a laughingstock. That's a risk."

Editor at Large Penny Crosman welcomes feedback atpenny.crosman@sourcemedia.com.
Syrians have a lot of riding on the election of Donald J. Trump as president, owing to the dark legacy of death, destruction and terror left by Secretary Clinton in their beloved country. There is indeed reason to be hopeful. In his election night victory speech, Trump committed to building good relations with other nations and to refraining from the warmongering that had characterized previous presidencies. In his extensive nomination acceptance speech back in July, he also vowed to address the growing threat of terrorism and defeat the barbarians of ISIS, and to abandon the failed policy of nation-building and regime change that Hillary Clinton had pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria.

It would be useful at this time of transition to take a step back to review the Obama Administrations Mideast policy in greater detail, for a straightforward assessment of the mess left for President Trump to clean up.

To be sure, one has first to agree with Trump that the world is far less stable than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America's foreign policy. 

In Syria, it was Secretary Clinton who organized the effort to fuel the armed insurgency, initially through Libya. Many islamist fighters who had fought with NATO to bring down Gaddafi in 2011 were subsequently transferred from Libya to Syria to combat the Syrian government. The CIA, with the approval of President Obama, organized weapons shipments into Syria via Turkey and Jordan, with Saudi Arabia footing the bill for that clandestine operation.

From 2012, Secretary Clinton took the lead role in a Friends of Syria  Group that she mobilized for the stated purpose of rallying friends of democratic Syria against President Bashar Al-Assads regime. The group brought together NATO, Arab League members and the Syrian Opposition -- a hand-picked puppet government-in-exile called the Syrian National Council.

The Friends engaged in the usual panoply of honorable pursuits, cease fires, peace plans, the building of democracy and the protection of human rights in rounds of meetings held around the globe. But behind the noble proclamations, several Friends were vying for a piece of Syria -- chief among them Qatar and Turkey, angered to have been cut out of a juicy gas deal with Assad. They were conspiring to arm militants to advance their respective agendas and to overthrow the Assad government that stood in their way.

As for Clinton, she was, according to diplomatic accounts, the obstacle to the ceasefire being negotiated by UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan in 2012, through her unbending insistence that a US-led regime change should precede or at least accompany a ceasefire. As such, she bears heavy responsibility for the Syrian bloodbath.

Clintons role was also pivotal in giving political legitimacy to the moderate rebels, as she insisted on calling the terrorists, and in raising money from her Gulf partners for the training and arming of those vetted moderate rebels in the war effort against the Syrian President.

But she did not stop at funding the moderate rebels, she also funded ISIS - or allowed ISIS to be funded by her allies, which amounts to the same thing. In a recently released 2014 WikiLeaks email, Clinton openly discussed with John Podesta, her campaign chair and President Obamas former White House advisor, their common knowledge that the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar were funding ISIS terrorists:

We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region, Clinton wrote.

With respect to that email, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange explained the following in his recent interview with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and filmmaker John Pilger:

All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some rogue princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.

Thus, it can be said that ISIS was largely created with money from the people who were also giving money to the Clinton Foundation. And Hillary knew that these countries were supporting ISIS, supposedly a US enemy, but she knowingly accepted millions of dollars in charitable donations for her family Foundation from the same Gulf states which were funding ISIS, Al Nusra (the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda) and others.

President Obama was also doing his bit to support ISIS by selling more weapons to Saudi Arabia than any other President. His arms sales to the Kingdom topped $115 billion, more than any U.S. administration during the 71-year U.S.-Saudi alliance. If Obama and Clinton knew that the Saudis were funding ISIS, didnt they also know that they were actually helping terrorism instead of defeating it?

An August 2012 DIA classified memo, released in April 2015 and published by Judicial Watch, revealed that this was no blunder but deliberate policy. That piece of classified intelligence stated that Obama was supporting AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq, the group that changed its name into ISIS). The plan was in fact to support the terrorist group until it overthrew Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

That same report was received by Hillary Clinton, as seen from the recipient marking: RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHINGTON DC.

Para 8-C stated that 'If the situation unravels, there is the possibly of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in Eastern Syria', and that 'this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition (read: 'the Obama coalition') want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

Para 8-D-1 was equally explicit: 'This will provide a new momentum under the presumption of unifying the Jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world, against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria.

The report admitted at the outset, under 'THE GENERAL SITUATION', that:

A. The Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.

And in section B that:

B. AQI supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media.

This declassified report established that Obama and Hillary were indeed made aware of the risks in 2012 - before ISIS morphed into a Caliphate in June 2014 - but were unmoved and went ahead with their policies. General Michael Flynn confirmed as much in September 2015, in an interview to Al-Jazeera, saying that the Obama Administration willfully allowed ISIS to be born. See here for General Flynns interview and here for a former senior Pentagon officials analysis.Accordingly, Clinton and Obama absolutely can be said to have been enablers in the creation of ISIS.

And then, there was the problem of the Clinton Foundation, to which Qatar donated between $1million and $5 million, and the Saudis up to $25 million overall. The Kingdoms government donated $10 million to $25 million - donations came in as late as 2014 as Hillary prepared her presidential run. This was supplemented by an additional amount of between $1million and $5 million, given by a group called Friends of Saudi Arabia, co-founded by a Saudi Prince. And the Kingdom also funded 20% of Hillarys presidential campaign.

Trump was apparently aware of all those underhanded tactics and he consistently lashed out against the political system that sold out to corporate lobbies for cash, and the powerful special interests that rigged it for their exclusive benefit. He accused major donors of lining up behind Hillary and throwing money at her because they had total control over their puppet.

This blood money has caused untold suffering to civilians and still does to this day. The terror in Syria is still fueled by tens of thousands of mostly foreign militants, who form a myriad Takfiri terrorist groups - ISIS (called Daesh in the Mideast and Europe), Al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham, Nour al-Din al-Zenki, Jaish al-Fatah, and many others. They occupy strategic civilian areas throughout Syria - including East Aleppo, which has lately been the focus of much Western attention and where the civilian population is used as human shields.

On this particular point, see here a leaked video from East Aleppo, where locals say that militants demanded 150,000 Syrian Pounds ($300 US, an exorbitant amount for them) to let them leave their besieged neighborhoods. Also, this report from Pierre Le Corf, a courageous and selfless 27-year old Frenchman, who left the comfort of his life in France and sold his worldly possessions to move to Syria and help there.

Also see here a recent photo reportage on West Aleppo by the brave Eva Bartlett, an independent Canadian journalist, which allows us a glimpse into what media coverage consistently omits. And to get an idea of the horrors to which ISIS and other terror groups subject targeted communities in Syria, here is a video from Yvette Isaac, the founder of Roads to Success, a non-profit organization for the defense of human rights in the Middle East. The story was picked up by a Christian publication, which added some text but replaced the video by a photo.

According to one ISIS survivor in Syria whose son had perished, ISIS terrorists took over the towns bakery, rounded up the six bakers working there and baked them in their own ovens. Then they gathered Christian children inside the bakery, at which point local soldiers attempted to rescue the kids, so to deter the soldiers, the terrorists started throwing children off nearby balconies. The horrifying tactic worked and allowed the terrorists to kill 250 kids by kneading them into the bakerys dough machine.

Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart, the Melkite Metropolitan Archbishop of Aleppo, made a poignant appeal in his October newsletter that can be fittingly addressed to the new President-elect of the United States and to the American people at such a momentous time:

For five years, the terrorists imposed their law wherever government authorities were not present. They spread terror everywhere, killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, women, clerics, priests, even bishops. They destroyed thousands of factories, businesses and public service institutions, reduced houses to rubble, and shamelessly robbed the people and the country. Can this mayhem ever be stopped? We long for it and count on Gods grace, which alone could awaken the conscience of the world decision-makers.

We ask all men and women who care about human dignity and freedom to pray for us so that we may be spared the subjugation of a fundamentalist regime. Have mercy, and help us continue to live in dignity in the land where we were born and raised!

Will that yearning crystallize into tangible reality under Trumps presidency? There are indications that it may well do. It will not be easy, because the ISIS cancer has spread so far throughout the region and beyond. But Trump seems sincere, and he said that he had no patience for injustice, that when innocents suffered, he was not able to look the other way. In contrast, one remembers how Secretary Clinton had burst out laughing when watching footage of the ruthless lynching of Libyas leader Gaddafi.

Trump also declared his intolerance for the lies and duplicity that were the hallmarks of his predecessor and that he would honor the American people with the truth and nothing else. He further stated his aversion to a political system based on bribery and corruption, putting his money where his mouth was by financing his campaign partially from his own funds.

Empathy, truthfulness, integrity are the three qualities that have been conspicuously absent in the current administration, but which Trump appears to be bringing to the table, This is as auspicious a beginning as can be - for America, and for Syria.
Everyone except barbaric jihadists will greet with delight the news that Iraqi military forces, helped by U.S. training, and allies are approaching to liberate the city of Mosul, the largest Sunni center in Iraq, that had been captured by a few thousand ISIS militants in June 2014, and been part of the Islamic Caliphate imposed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The intense fighting for the city illustrates the pivotal Middle East problem, the competing interests, the mosaic of warring religious sects and ethnic and tribal groups. Shiites from Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units) are linked with Sunni jihadists, Kurdish peshmerga, and the Iraqi army against the ISIS force, now seemingly divided into foreign and local contingents.

Who are the true messengers? The Sunni Arab Nineveh Guards from the northern Iraqi province are trained and supported by Turkey, which sees Mosul as part of its historic zone of influence. The Christian community is divided: some Christians are linked to Iraq to fight ISIS; others are linked to Kurdish forces. Members of the Yazidi minority have ties to almost all other groups in the fighting.

Fashionable talk of a homogeneous Arab population requires suspension of disbelief. It is an arguable proposition that there is a clash of civilization between the Arab and Muslim world and Western democracies based on religious and cultural identities. But more certain is the existence of continuing relentless internal war within the Arab civilization, divided as it is, and has long been, on issues of religious and ethnic identity as well as political rivalries and struggles for supremacy.

This ought to be the first recognition of reality for the new U.S. president who must end the Obama passivity concerning Middle East issues and not be a party to the blame game. The area is vital for U.S. interests and for solutions to current problems, Islamist terrorism, human rights abuses, migration from Arab countries, nuclear proliferation, and Iran.

The U.S. role is crucial despite the assertion that the present disarray and turmoil in the area is due to Western imperialism or colonialism. This assertion became prominent on the hundreth anniversary of the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement signed in May 16, 1916 and made known by the Bolsheviks in the revolution on November 23, 1917. The Agreement is blamed by Arabs for causing the ills of the area and pointed to as the illustration of Western arrogance, imperialism, and great power politics.

Sykes-Picot (S-P) was an agreement between Sir Mark Sykes, British diplomat and Conservative M.P., and a junior French diplomat Francois Georges-Picot. Contemplating during World War I and anticipating the fall of the Ottoman Empire after the War, they envisaged it should be replaced by creating a number of states with coherent borders. The two powers would therefore split the Middle East into spheres of influence.

S-P in hindsight has been criticized for ignoring the multiple realities and rivalries in the area. It drew a line between north and south, from the "e" in Acre (now in Israel) to the last "K" in Kirkuk in Iraq. One part of the area, the north, or Levant, which was to include Lebanon, the Syrian coast, and part of Turkey would be under French control, while the south, first called Mesopotamia before becoming Iraq and Palestine, would be under British control.

About the Arab resentment, envy, and rancor, three points can be made. S-P was not the villain in imposing territorial arrangements to replace the Ottoman Empire in a new Middle East. It certainly proposed but did not impose the creation of states with particular boundaries. This was done by international conferences, especially the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, and the Mandate System of the League of Nations.

The city of Mosul itself is an interesting example of deference to political rivalries. At first in the British-French formula it was allocated to the new Iraq that was envisaged. Then, because of nearby oil discoveries, it became part of Syria. The problem remains even today. Turkish President Erdogan asserts, incorrectly, that Mosul has historically belonged to Turkey, and therefore his country should play a role in its future.

Two more important general criticisms arise from S-P. One is the rejection of the right of Western powers to impose borders on the Arab world or to interfere to prevent chaos. In this regard S-P did not stand alone. In addition, there were the Constantinople Agreement of March 1915 between UK, France, and Russia to give Constantinople to Russia, and the Treaty of Saint-Jean-de-Maurianne of August 1917 by which Italy and France would share control of West Anatolia.

The second crucial issue was the criticism of Western initiatives to create homogeneous countries in an area full of Shias, Sunni, Arabs, Kurds, Christians, Druze, and Alawites in the post-Ottoman Middle East. After all, the Ottoman Empire had given autonomy to the ethnic and religious groups within it. S-P and other were accused of destroying autonomy in attempts to deal with the problem of the areas under Ottoman rule. Three provinces, Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul, would correspond to boundaries of Iraq. Four others, Damascus, Beirut, Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor, correspond to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and a strip of southern Turkey.

It cannot be denied that the two great powers in the post-World War I world were conscious of their own economic and security interests in the Middle East. But it also true that local Arab elites played a significant role in the ruling process. Local figures and forces were responsible for political development of the region.

Key figures in this were members of the Hashemite family, headed by Hussein bin Ali, Grand Sharif and Emir of Mecca. As a result of pressure, two of his sons were given prominent positions. Emir Faisal, born in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) became king of Iraq, 1921-33. Abdullah became the ruler, at first emir, of Transjordan, a territory that was originally to be part of the Jewish National Home but was hived off as a separate entity by Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, in 1921. No Jews would be allowed in Transjordan, which became Jordan in 1946. Abdulla ruled there as king until 1951, when he was assassinated.

The U.S. president, even when accounting for mistakes in policy, should forgo apologies. The ongoing war in Syria and Iraq indicates that international arrangements such as the 100-year-old S-P have little to do with today's problems, and the crisis of legitimacy in the area. In playing a role, the West should not be blamed for local deficiencies nor for the repressive and corrupt regimes that have been supported by abundant oil money. Instead, it should encourage Arab societies to be more open and follow the kind of reforms beginning in Tunisia and Morocco.

The new president can suggest that Kurds, deprived of a state of their own after World War I, should be given one. Above all, Western leaders should make clear that political stability in the Middle East should not depend on oppressive or arbitrary government, and that religious liberty and rights of minorities should be advanced.
As someone who started in political communications by fighting the Clintons way back in 1992, I'll be forever grateful for every single person who voted for Donald Trump in 2016. It matters not to me whether they were early adapting, pedal to the metal Trumpers -- or lukewarm reluctant Trumpers -- or even late-converting Never Trumpers. Each vote counted as one, and Trump needed almost all of them to once and for all rid us of the Clinton machine.

Amen and pass the plate!

Moreover, the future of the Supreme Court, not to mention the nation, is radically more optimistic today, as are the prospects of securing the border, and of ridding us of the cancer of ObamaCare. This is all very good.

For the record, I fit into category B in the scenario above, not joining the Never Trump movement (though I was tempted twice), while never claiming that Trump could not win. I always maintained that Hillary Clinton was capable of losing to anyone, often stating that the IBD/TIPP poll was worth watching, and that the LA Times Daybreak poll's new paradigm was very interesting as well.

And let's be honest, Hillary Clinton losing is precisely what happened, and the numbers back this up. While some were predicting this big tidal wave of 70 million plus Trump supporters, swelling total turnout to something like 140 million voters, that is not at all what took place. Not even close.

So before I get to some effusive praise of Trump, consider this:

2016 ended up as a typical low turnout Republican unity win in many ways. The total vote count now is just under 120 million, though more votes will trickle in. Trump will lose the popular vote to Clinton by a tiny bit, but more significantly, he will not come close to either of Barack Obama's totals. In fact, and read this carefully, Trump will receive a lower percentage of registered voters than either Mitt Romney or John McCain, and may even fall shy of Mitt's raw total.

Trump praise is coming, I promise, but first some more hard math:

Trump underperformed Richard Burr in NC, Marco Rubio in Florida, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, and Johnny Isakson in Georgia. Trump way underpolled anti-Trumper Rob Portman in Ohio, winning Ohio by 9 (which is amazing), while Portman won by almost twice that.

Wisconsin's Republican machine of Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, Johnson, and even Reince Preibus was instrumental in Trump winning Wisky. Trump's most gushing comments in his victory speech were in fact reserved for Preibus. It was stunning. So much for being a wrecking ball to the establishment.

So what does all this tell us? First, it tells us that Trump needed the normal Republican turnout as much as normal Republicans needed Trump. This is not a bad thing, and is exactly what those of us in the "reluctant Trump" camp always maintained. It was Trump's propensity to run harder against his own party than against Hillary, that bothered us in the first place. Our fates were always tied together, as they always are in general elections. It is what it is.

Trump's continued attacks on Ryan, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich, long after the primaries ended, was just as morally reprehensible as what Mitch McConnell, Haley Barbour, and Thad Cochran pulled in Mississippi against Chris McDaniel. And it had the possibility of being far more devastating, given that it happened in the general election for president.

The Turning Point

But to Trump's credit, and to that of Mike Pence, Preibus, Cruz, Ryan and even the repugnant McConnell, they all put this behind them the week of October 22nd through the 28th. That was the week that salvaged the election for Trump, along with the Senate, and maybe even the House.

While that period ended with James Comey's devastating (if temporary) shot across the bow of Hillary Clinton, Trump could not have taken advantage had he not already been on a bit of a roll. This roll started on the 22nd, at Gettysburg no less, as Trump unveiled his mostly conservative "Contract with the American Voter."

Meanwhile, he and Pence sharpened their message against ObamaCare, which was timely since Obama whined on the 24th that he was not to blame for skyrocketing premiums. (Insurance premiums coming out at election time is proof of a loving God.) Pence was also at the time working behind the scenes with Ryan and Preibus to get everyone on the message that we needed to win everything from president to dog-catcher.

Then on the 26th, Trump pulled his coolest maneuver of the campaign, neatly rolling an astonishing political speech into the ribbon cutting ceremony of a hotel. His "under budget, ahead of schedule" line was nothing short of dazzling, and he no doubt knew that opening a business in the late stages of a campaign would send the perfect message for 2016. Once again, he owned the mainstream media.

I maintain, without fear of contradiction, that this kind of campaign would have never engendered a Never Trump movement to start with. This was damned good stuff, and the entire week was a real turning point. (Does anything smack the Washington Cartel like "under budget, ahead of schedule?" Love it.)

Meanwhile, Wikileaks was continuing their drip drip drip of damning information about the Clinton Crime Family Foundation. This was this week that the "Clinton INC" info about Doug Band was dropped, information that really clarified the RICO style business plan.

So when Comey dropped his bombshell on Hillary on October 28th, Trump (and all Republicans) already had a full week of momentum working in their favor. It was enough, but not by much, to put Trump, and the Senate, over the top. Their late unity play, and Trump's late discipline, brought it all together.

Now Republicans have the White House, the Senate, and the House. They needed the new Trump wing, the party establishment, and the Tea Party-Reagan base voters who are suspicious of Trump to make it happen. We'll need all three to secure the border, repeal ObamaCare, and save the Court as well.

Edmund Wright is a contributor at American Thinker, Breitbart, Newsmax TV and Talk Radio Network. He is author of WTF? How Karl Rove and the Establishment Lost Again
The striking thing about the series of American Muslim viewpoint articles published recently is that we see Muslims complaining vociferously about the election of Donald Trump while at the same time being completely silent about the dangers of radical Islam. It causes me to think that too many American Muslims have a bigger problem with Donald Trump than they do with radicalized Islam.

On Slate, one Muslim proudly announces that he is not shaving his beard and that his hijabi wife will continue to comply with sharia law, even though Donald Trump has never asked him to shave anything.

Tuesday was a slow-dawning personalization of the election for me. First came a wave of anxiety at the thought of Trump in the Oval Office. Then came the nausea, realizing what it means for our nations moral compass.

What about the moral compass of Islam? The writer talks about fictionally being forced to shave his beard and remove the hijab. Does he realize that in many Muslim countries, people are killed for not wearing a beard, for not wearing a hijab? Does he realize how he sounds?

... we have someone who has made it abundantly clear that he believes Islam is at war with the United States and that regarding your neighbor with suspicion (and perhaps even hostility) is not just a protected right but a moral imperative. Why wouldnt his supporters lash out at us? Who is protecting us?

Radical Islamists are massacring Americans, and this arrogant, self-absorbed Muslim is worried about himself. Last I checked, no Muslims were being killed in America for being Muslim.

You can read the same thing in the New York Times, where another Muslim fears for his safety now that Trump has been elected president.

As Mr. Trumps base rejoices, American Muslim parents are furiously WhatsApping and texting one another about how theyre terrified for their childrens safety. Does my 2-year-old son, Ibrahim, and 3-month-old baby girl, Nusayba, deserve to be bullied at school for simply having a Muslim name? Do their mosques deserves to be vandalized?

Hate crimes against Muslims are quite rare in America  actually, four times rarer than hate crimes against Jewish people. The writer of the Times piece worries about his baby girl being bullied in school, but he doesn't have anything to say about the fate of baby girls in Islam  the child marriages, the rape, the clitorectomies. This double standard makes me wonder if the writer is not only hostile toward Trump, but sympathetic to sharia law and radical Islam.

In the WaPo, another Islamic writer states:

In addition to his blatant misogyny and anti-immigrant xenophobia during his presidential campaign, we have also seen Donald Trumps political campaign successfully normalize Islamophobia as part of the current national Republican Party platform as it exists today.

How can Donald Trump be Islamophobic? To have a phobia is to have an irrational fear. But people acting in the name of Islam have been murdering tens of thousands of people every year, all over the world. That's not a phobia; that's reality. The writer of the WaPo article didn't stop to examine the causes of Donald Trump's concerns about Islam, because then he would have to address all the horrors of radical Islam. His failure to address such an obvious point makes me wonder if he is sympathetic to it.

Lastly, on Vox, Farhar Tahir, a "foreign policy professional" (whatever that is) in Washington D.C., says:

For the first time in my very privileged life, I felt a deep sense of fear for myself as a scarf-clad American Muslim woman and the many I love, whether they're Muslims ...

"Scarf-clad" (funny she didn't use the word hijab) people have nothing to fear in the United States, but they do fear being sold as sex slaves in Muslim countries. It is curious that Farhar would choose to live in a country where she has such fear rather than living in the safe Islamic country she came from.

Sarina Bajwa, another Muslim quoted in Vox, states:

As a Muslim, I am hurt and in fear for my physical safety and for that of my loved ones. As a woman, I am horrified that the first woman candidate has conceded to a man that embodies everything that has hindered women throughout history.

Where do you think Muslim women have greater cause to fear their safety: in America or in the slave markets of Raqqa? In the United States or in the execution platforms of Mosul? Where are Muslim women "hindered" more throughout history: America or Muslim countries, where they can't even walk outside without permission?

When I repeatedly read about American Muslims condemning those of us legitimately concerned about radical Islam while staying completely silent about radical Islam themselves, it puts the American Muslim community in an unattractive light. If a rogue group of Baptists were murdering people, you wouldn't see most Baptists being silent about it. If a movement of evangelicals were committing mass murder, you wouldn't see most evangelicals blaming people for wanting evangelicals under closer scrutiny.

But American Muslims are different. Their attitude of victimhood and entitlement makes them less sympathetic.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
The roots of Donald Trump's historic presidential victory go back eight years to the 2008 presidential contest and the V.P. candidacy of Sarah Palin. Palin, or more properly Palinism, had many of the same characteristics as the Trump ascendancy: a robust patriotic populism driven by intense love of country and rejection of big-government internationalism embodied by Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton. Palinism also introduced Americans to the political struggle not as Left vs. Right, but as Country Class vs. Ruling Class, Bluebloods vs. Commoners, Ivy League vs. College of Hard Knocks, Urban Elite vs. Middle and Rural Working Class.

In this respect, then, Sarah Palin was the pioneer, with the arrows in her back to prove it, who enabled Donald Trump's amazing success.

This is not to take anything away from The Donald. Unlike Palin, who was somewhat of a political insider, having governed a red state (Alaska) and having been plucked from obscurity by veteran insider John McCain for his V.P. slot, Trump was a pure outsider. Trump wore his outsider credentials and lack of political chops like a badge of honor, successfully arguing that Barack Hussein Obama had less experience than he when Obama won the presidency in 2008. Trump, also, did not do battle with the mainstream media as Palin did, but instead sought, successfully, to mold and to manipulate it to his advantage, playing the MSM like a fiddle. Trump also had a knack for putting his political opponents on the defensive with character bottles that they could not escape. Thus, the moniker "crooked Hillary" may become HRC's enduring legacy...and deservedly so.

Donald Trump won a historic victory on November 8, yes, but the person who above all made it possible was Sarah Palin. Sarah, we love you. We will remember and revere your profound contributions to America's greatness forever...and may you soon enjoy the political vindication you so richly deserve.
On election night, I was the GOP analyst in the coverage for Telemundo Dallas.

I was not a Trump supporter in the primaries. However, he did something rather amazing on election day. It was truly awesome. He deserves full credit and now total support from the GOP.

Hillary Clinton was a horrible and corrupt candidate. The Democrats sold their soul to the Clintons, and this is what they got. How did they nominate a woman who used a private server to carry out secret diplomatic business? Are you kidding me?

Hispanic Democrat leaders thought they would win by simply calling Trump a monster. Instead, Hispanics actually wanted to hear about Obamacare, the lousy Obama economy, and the public schools that most elected Hispanic legislators do not send their kids to. In other words, calling Trump a monster had a limited value, because Obamacare premium notices were more important.

Blacks did not really show up, as some warned us days ago. It's time for Democrats to stop calling everyone a racist and listen to what is happening in the inner city. The Democrats have failed the black community big time.

Obama was also defeated last night because his coalition did not show up. His legacy got blown up on election day. He was on the ballot, and an Obama third term did not happen. Obamacare's numbers do not add up, and Democrats running for re-election in 2018 will do everything possible to disconnect from it. The Iran nuclear deal is an open question. The economy just never got "stimulated" as they promised in 2009.

We face huge problems. and we are divided. Trump will be tested early, and time will tell whether or not he can meet them.

My sense is that a lot of Americans last night said some of these things:

1) Stop calling me a racist because I disagree with Obama.

2) Stop calling me a homophobe because I believe that marriage is a state issue.

3) Stop saying white policemen target black young men.

It was a very bad night for Democrats. The party has actually been devastated by eight years of Obama. There are no leaders in the horizon. It's the Democrats who will now have a civil war.

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
To get a sense of what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had been elected instead of Donald Trump, here are twenty-three calamities that would have befallen us. American Thinker readers should feel free to add to the list.

1. A Supreme Court packed with liberals and a domino effect on the federal bench, further limiting our constitutional rights especially Second Amendment rights.

2. A significant expansion of federal spending resulting in a massive increase in our already bloated national debt.

3. New regulations designed to hamstring if not outright eliminate industries liberals consider "environmental evils" such as coal, oil exploration, and fracking.

4. Weakening our military readiness even further by cutting defense spending to pay for "entitlement" programs, which are effectively vote-buying schemes.

5. Increased Russian influence in Europe and Chinese influence in Asia.

6. Government subsidies introduced to bail out health insurance companies hurt by the collapse of Obamacare, forcing a single-payer system.

7. The media becoming an overt vehicle of government propaganda to exercise strict control over public discourse, following Nazi and Soviet models.

8. Accelerating the process of secularizing America by encouraging the application of a religious litmus test in government and academic hiring.

9. Expanding the use of IRS and Department of Justice resources to crush dissent and punish conservative organizations.

10. Pressuring Israel into accepting a Palestinian state and introducing economic sanctions coupled with decreased foreign aid if Israel refuses.

11. Continuing to support United Nations programs and initiatives that frustrate our foreign policy and punish Israel.

12. A judiciary directed to eliminate voter ID laws and other measures states currently use to protect the integrity of elections.

13. An open borders approach to immigration adopted to ensure a steady stream of Democrat voters for decades to come.

14. Expanding the number of sanctuary cities nationwide and creating clandestine funding mechanisms to pay for them.

15. Crony capitalism measures to promote kickbacks to the Clinton Foundation and its "initiatives."

16. Even greater use of Obama-style "pen and phone" executive orders to circumvent Republican opposition in Congress.

17. Undermining the State Department's Foreign Service by nominating ambassadors strictly on the basis of loyalty to the Clintons and their allies.

18. Similarly, appointing heads and senior managers of federal agencies strictly on the basis of loyalty to the Clintons and their allies.

19. Affirmative action programs that blatantly discriminate against white males without fear of being overturned by a liberal-left Supreme Court.

20. Ensuring that abortion mills such as Planned Parenthood continue to receive government funding and not enforcing laws designed to control gruesome PP practices.

21. Giving federal agencies even greater power to control private-sector initiatives and coercing compliance with liberal policies, practices, and mindsets as necessary.

22. Turning the White House into a Versailles-style court ruled by Queen Hillary, her elderly roue consort Prince Bubba, and a coterie of corrupt gatekeepers.

23. Finally, an America that is even more of a laughing stock around the world for having elected someone who belongs in jail or in a banana republic.
Shock and horror is the reaction of the German people to the victory of Donald Trump. In the U.K. also, with some people even going so far as to say, in private, that they felt physically sick at the result.

Well, I am one Englishman who wishes to salute Donald Trump. What he accomplished last night was simply phenomenal. I did kip for two hours between 3 AM and 5 AM. Before I retired, Florida was still in the balance, and so was Iowa. When I put my TV on again shortly after 5 AM, Florida and Iowa had been won, and Pennsylvania was to follow. At about 7.30 A.M., the followers of Hillary Clinton were advised to go home, but the battle was not finished.

Some 10 minutes later, news filtered through that Hillary Clinton had phoned Donald Trump and conceded victory. At that time, Donald Trump had still not cleared the finishing line, but not soon after, he did.

Shock and horror! Well, it may have been shock and horror for some, but for me it was double Brexit. On June 23, Britain achieved independence from the EU. On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump brought off a political coup detat the likes of which we are never likely to see again.

He brought it off against overwhelming odds. A billionaire, with no previous political experience, had first to battle with his own party of Republicans. He had to continue without the support of many bigwigs in his own party, who sort of held their noses in disdain, and then he battled against the odds with an experienced politician, a lady who was still married to a former president, President Clinton.

The odds against his winning were enormously high, added to which the American system itself was stacked against him.

I have heard some of my fellow countrymen suggest that Americans must have been uneducated to have voted for such a brash fellow. Even now, in the U.K., I hear the same argument employed. We have Brexit only because of a few uneducated Northerners, Labour supporters, who did not even know their own partys manifesto.

Such a disdainful argument, such affected superiority, is an insult to our Brexiteers and equally an insult to the American people. It suggests that all those on the right are somewhat more dim-witted than those on the left. Glory be!

Not only has Donald Trump become president-elect, but he has also ushered in a Republican majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Hopefully he will stop spending millions of U.S. dollars in trying to prevent the natural evolution of the planet  which is called, by some, fighting climate change. If ever there was a stupid waste of money and resources, that one takes the biscuit. If this is an English expression, I am confident that readers of American Thinker will get the meaning. At this very moment, some 20,000 climate fanatics are camped out in Marrakech, North Africa, intent on ruining world economies. Donald Trump will not be hoaxed! What a relief!

He has more or less singlehandedly taken on a great nation and won. That is some achievement. If I were alone, let this one Englishman applaud him. I believe he will grow in stature  I believe that he will become a great president of the United States of America.
Sadness reigns in progressives' America  a grief so profound as to provoke outbreaks of acute liberal insanity. But the grief, anxiety, and outright fear affecting progressive America for the moment must surely pale against those same emotions within Clinton, Incorporated, whose future fortunes have done a disastrous one-eighty since early Wednesday morning.

Think about it for a moment: with no more promise of future access to the presidential inner circle, what third-world government or major global enterprise truly wants to pay a cool half-mil to a now not so cool Bill for his special insights? Do you suppose that all those Wall Street swells are breathlessly waiting to hear the unique perspectives of a now not the first female president at a tidy 250 grand a pop? Sure they are.

But of course, the influence-peddling speeches were just chump change, mere walking around money for high rollers like Hill and Bill. The real cash, the huge multi-million-dollar payoffs that even bought pre-presidential secretary of state access, has until now come in the form of donations to the various non-profit entities the Clintons created to funnel their filthy lucre into  huge amounts of cash that could be washed, rinsed, dried, possibly even nationally dyed before being made available to maintain their one-percent lifestyle. It occurs to me that perhaps there is no longer a waiting list of sheiks and Middle Eastern potentates eager to pony up petro-dollars to ensure that a Clinton presidency maintains a firm grip on the now closed tap of federal petroleum resources, as the current occupant of the Oval Office long has.

In six months or so, when the new U.S. attorney general appoints a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton Foundation and all its related entities, does any of us really believe that Fortune 500 companies are going to be as keen as they once were to have themselves listed as donors to anything that has the Clinton brand on it? Without the family-White House link, will billionaires feel so warmly inclined toward neophyte investor and Clinton son-in-law Mark Mezvinsky, whose now defunct Greek hedge fund apparently "lost" huge sums of its investments? Ever wonder just where "lost" investments end up?

What could be even more disastrous for the Clintons would be if many of the major donors to their charities should decide they've been sold a bill of goods and demand refunds of very substantial quids, for which there will not now, nor ever, be the much anticipated quos. With reports that very little of the Clinton charitable donations have actually been applied to charitable deeds, such donors would seem to have a reasonably credible motive for demanding that their donations be returned. Just a few demands could trigger a financial run on the charity itself and multiple lawsuits against other associated Clinton business enterprises, for profit or not. How could the Clintons defend against such claims, with the response that the donations were actually made to obtain political favor?

With new donations dwindling and donors demanding refunds, lawsuits piling up, and an aggressive special prosecutor seeking evidence of ongoing crimes, it's quite likely that the future is not going to be quite as rosy as the Clintons had pictured it prior to Tuesday. It is even more likely that it's going to end in a way that at least half of America is going to find extremely gratifying.

It's my opinion that the idea of Crooked Hillary escaping justice was a hugely motivating factor for voting against her, even by those who didn't like Trump. They were adamant they did not want to see the Democrats reward her for her corruption.

And for those of you who will be quick to respond that Obama will simply pardon the Clintons, you will only be partially correct. He can pardon them for federal offenses. However, he has no authority to pardon them for future federal offenses, from state offenses, or from civil lawsuits arising from their corrupt behaviors. That reality leaves a lot of prosecutorial and litigation doors open to a pair of grifters with a long list of political enemies.
After renting the Javits Center for the largest loser's convention in history, Hillary Clinton finally gave a concession speech the following day. I just wish I knew what her tears tasted like.

Last night I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country.

Hillary wants to work with Trump? Donald Trump wants to prosecute her! Do you think she will "work with" investigators who want to find out how she obstructed justice and destroyed government evidence? Will she "work with" Bill to find out what was offered to Loretta Lynch at that private meeting on her plane?

I feel pride and gratitude for this wonderful campaign that we built together.

Together? A funny choice of words, for a campaign built on hate and division  resentment of taxpayers, resentment of citizens against illegal immigration, labeling those concerned about Muslim refugees as Islamophobes, and so on.

Our campaign was never about one person ...

Of course it was. Hillary's slogan was "I'm with HER." It was all about electing her, and electing her just because she was a woman. If you were against her, you must be against women. Her very slogan smacked of division. I didn't see Donald Trump using the slogan "I'm with HIM."

It was about the country we love and building an America that is hopeful, inclusive, and big-hearted.

Inclusive is code for altering the demographics of the country on a large scale with massive illegal immigration. Big-hearted is code for welfare for said immigrants.

Our constitutional democracy ... enshrines the rule of law.

Really? Hillary didn't show that when she repeatedly broke the law, letting her maid print out classified emails, and engaging in a cover-up afterward. She didn't have a problem with Obama repeatedly breaking the law, be it changing Obamacare without legislation or legalizing illegal aliens without an act of Congress or mass pardons of criminals from jails. By the way, I think this is the first time during the campaign that Hillary has mentioned the word "Constitution."

... we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression ...

Really? Because Hillary wants to force bakers and caterers to participate in gay weddings. She wants to force girls to share bathrooms with mentally ill boys. And I don't see the dignity in a baby about to be born having his brain drilled out.

... the American dream is big enough for everyone ... [f]or people of all races, and religions, for men and women, for immigrants, for LGBT people, and people with disabilities.

For everyone? Does that include legal citizens, heterosexuals, and people without disabilities? Because Hillary never, ever seems to talk about those.

... to all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me: I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion.

And Hillary's comment to the men who put their faith in her? Silence as always. You could put your private parts in a coffee grinder for all she cares.

Now, I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling ...

Is Hillary talking about prison?

You know, scripture tells us, let us not grow weary of doing good, for in good season we shall reap. May God bless you and may God bless the United States of America.

Here's a riddle: how do you know if a Democrat has just lost an election? The answer: If she gives a speech mentioning God. Because you'll never hear the word come out of her lips at any other time.

Even in defeat, Hillary is as duplicitous as ever. Instead of being the first female president, she will be remembered as the first female candidate for president while under criminal investigation who lost. Thankfully, we have finally seen the last of the queen of the Sisterhood of the Presidential Pantsuit.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
Surely, youve heard of that vast wasteland encompassing the interior of the United States that exists between the East and West Coasts known as flyover country. This map first graced the cover of the New Yorker magazine in 1979, but somehow that image seems to perfectly describe what happened in America on November 8, 2016.

In case a copy of this illustrious publication doesnt land on your doorstep each week, inquiring minds might want to know that it is an erudite periodical, a virtual paragon of the au courant. In the forefront of this famous image stands Manhattans 9th and 10th Avenues in full color and detail. But just beyond the Hudson River lies the rest of America. Flyover country portrays everything past New York as nothing more than a dull, empty brown patch of weeds stretching all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Now, can you imagine for a moment just who might inhabit this nasty brown patch of weeds? Sure you can.

It is none other than that ghastly, crude populace who just placed the next president of the United States in the Oval Office.

These little people in the brown patch (and theres seems to be a lot of them in those weeds) have taken a good deal of heat this last year. Many have called it a bloodless revolution. Except that it wasnt. On April 29 in Costa Mesa, California, a Trump supporter was brutally attacked as he left the event wearing a Trump T-shirt. Paramedics had to wrap his bleeding head in gauze and carry him away on a stretcher. On September 28 in El Cajon, California, another Trump supporter was assaulted, beaten, and kicked to the ground. One could go on and on about these little known acts of brutality, but thanks to the corrupt MSM, they were rarely written about or seen. And while we undoubtedly should forgive and move on  we must never forget these brave patriots.

Thanks to the heroism of Project Veritas Action, these and other Democratic dirty tricks were recorded for posterity. If you want to watch what the Clinton operative said while planning these organized assaults, just search it on the internet. But please make sure your kids arent around to hear their filthy language.

You see, its incumbent upon all of us weeds in flyover country to remember that revolution doesnt become reality without sacrifice. It was not bloodless. It was fierce, cruel, and at times even brutal. Of course, we should work to bind up the wounds of the nation, as our president-elect so graciously stated in his victory speech after vanquishing a corrupt and malevolent opponent. We must turn the other cheek, as the Bible tells us so well. But in any battle, the victor must tend to his own wounded first.

So, all you little people in flyover country, please dont let anyone tell you this was a bloodless revolution. A righteous victory always carries a high and mighty cost. And it may be that since you live in an area ideal for landing a plane, you can load up a 747 with all those Hollywood celebrities wishing to leave this great country. Wouldnt that be nice?

Just as weve resurrected this country from the precipice of destruction with the election of Donald J. Trump, perhaps now is the time for those of us in flyover country to resurrect an old but effective clarion call. You know it. Its the one from the 1960s when young people began a rebellion against what they perceived as oppression from the establishment. The phrase made famous by, of all people, the Black Panthers.

Power to the people.
One of the standard mantras of those pushing their superior knowledge of Earths future climate  including those who politicize science to sway the electorate  is the talking point that says climate scientists were not all that concerned about a coming ice age back in the 1960s and 70s.

But its funny what you can run into when rummaging through old files.

Ive done a lot of teaching since the mid-1980s and so have amassed a huge collection of class materials. Of course, at some point, those materials need to be sorted; consolidated; and, in many cases, discarded.

So, when reviewing documentation from the late 80s, I happened upon a rejection letter dated 3 April 1989 from the then editor John Maddox of the prestigious journal Nature (still one of the leading science magazines in the world). I had sent Nature a letter regarding a 1977 paperback book titled Our Changing Weather: Forecast of Disaster? by Claude Rose. My letter noted the teaser on the back cover of the book that claimed: Northern hemisphere temperatures have been falling steadily since the 1940s. Glaciers are advancing once again. Scientists no longer debate the coming of a new ice age: the question now is when?

Editor John Maddoxs correspondence stated that the magazine could not publish my letter because [t]he difficulty is that it is well-known in the scientific community that as recently as 15 years ago climatologists were more worried about the prospect of the ice age returning than by the greenhouse effect. (Of course, the greenhouse effect was the popular designation at the time for what has since morphed into global warming, then climate change.) Maddox went on to point out how Professor Hubert Lamb [a top climate scientist of the time], recently retired from the University of East Anglia [where Lamb founded the Climatic Research Unit], wrote a whole book on the subject.

We also know that the popular press, such as Time, Newsweek, and National Geographic, during the period was picking up on the scientific sense that an ice age was looming.

With my own witness in meteorology classes at Penn State in the mid-70s of assertions concerning the coming of the next ice age, not a sweltering globe, the claim that climate scientists were not all that concerned about a coming ice age back then should be debunked.

That claim should be a lesson to settled science, and the only settling that claim should do is at the bottom of a circular file.

Anthony J. Sadar is a certified consulting meteorologist and author of In Global Warming We Trust: Too Big to Fail (Stairway Press, 2016).
Trump should move quickly with the Republican Congress to implement the major points of his agenda.

One: The House must pass a bill to repeal Obamacare, send it to the Senate, and then send it to Trump for his signature. After repeal, Trump can submit his proposal for health insurance, to allow consumers to select the type of coverage they want. For example, you can choose what coverage you want for your auto and home, the deductibles, the items covered, and the extent of insurance. Similarly, for health insurance, you should be able to choose what medical care you want, such as rejecting maternal care, chiropractic care, physical and mental therapy, and others that may not be appropriate for you.

Second, Trump should send his tax reform bill to reduce tax rates for individuals and corporations.

Third, Trump should announce his nominee to replace Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court.

These are important and require immediate attention by Congress. Congress is usually more agreeable during the first few months of a presidency, and Trump must seize the moment to move the health insurance and tax legislation and the Supreme Court nominee.

The other aspects of his agenda Trump can achieve by agency regulations and executive orders. He can rescind the Iran nuclear deal and tell Iran we start negotiations anew. He can rescind many of the Obama executive orders he disagrees with. He can immediately order the IRS and the Justice Department to stop the lawsuits with the Little Sisters of the Poor over providing contraception and abortion coverage.

Trump should start construction of the border wall, with electronic monitoring, as soon as possible; order enforcement of our immigration laws to deport illegals who have committed crimes and overstayed their visas; and stop federal aid to "sanctuary cities."

There is then the issue of the investigation of Hillary Clinton. Obama will probably pardon her for all crimes she committed or may have committed regarding the emails. He may not pardon her for the Clinton Foundation. If Obama does not pardon, then there may be pressure on Trump to appoint a special prosecutor.

Trump should move on the tax reform and Obamacare repeal and Supreme Court nominee before he deals with a special prosecutor. Obama could do Trump a favor by pardoning Hillary, because it would remove this issue from Trump, and the blame would be on Obama and Hillary.

It appears that Hillary will be very friendly and "bipartisan" to dissuade Trump from appointing a special prosecutor if Obama does not pardon her.

In summary, Trump should focus during the first 100 days on the important long-term issues of repealing Obamacare, reducing tax rates, appointing a Supreme Court justice, and then dealing with illegal immigration and the free trade issues.
BEIJING -- Bilateral ties between China and Ecuador will be strengthened by Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit next week, Jose Maria Borja, the Ecuadorian Ambassador to China, said in an interview with Xinhua.

Xi will be the first Chinese President to visit Ecuador since diplomatic relations were established in 1980.

"It's a historic visit, which will further cement bilateral ties," Borja said.

Cooperation on technology, investment and infrastructure construction has grown rapidly in recent years. China's non-financial investment in Ecuador reached 6 billion U.S. dollars at the end of March. Ecuador invested in 42 projects in China, with combined investment of 8.63 million dollars.

Borja spoke highly of China's contribution to Ecuador's development. Like many Latin American nations, Ecuador used to be faced with power shortages. Nine hydropower stations have been built or are under construction since President Rafael Correa took office in 2007. Of them, eight were built by Chinese companies. Ecuador now not only meets its domestic electricity demand, but has surplus power to export.

Borja said China's Belt and Road Initiative will bring great opportunities for Latin American nations to build trade and economic ties with Central Asia.

China's presence in Ecuador is palpable and useful, Borja said, speaking of China's humanitarian aid to the country in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated towns along the northern coast in April, leaving over 600 people dead and nearly 30,000 homeless.

Personal exchanges between China and Ecuador go back a long way, he said. In the 19th century, Chinese laborers went to Latin America for work. Currently, around 70,000 ethnic Chinese live in Ecuador, while 500 Ecuadorian students study in China.

Borja also hoped more Chinese would visit his home country to experience its variety of climates, biodiversity and breathtaking landscape.

He expects the number of Chinese tourists to exceed 18,000 this year, up from 16,000 in 2015.
For many years it was pretty easy to say what sort of companies Amazon and Google are, the former is a shopping giant and the latter a technology company. Over the last five years though, the lines between the two different companies have started to blur. Google is of course still the technology company it always has been, but Amazon has become more of a technology company themselves over the years, and with the launch of the Amazon Fire tablets, and the ill-fated Fire Phone, itd be easy to call them a tech company as well. Especially as they offer their Amazon AWS service which a lot of companies  such as Netflix  use to manage their online businesses and such. Google, meanwhile, have been targeting more mainstream users, and in parts of the Unite States they even offer same-day delivery services of goods using Google Shopping. Now, with Google Home and the Echo, as well as their respective assistants, the two companies are going to war over our homes.

On Amazons part, the firm has been working on hard on Alexa, their own virtual assistant, and through a fairly open way of doing things, have allowed more and more services and products to connect with it. This means that the Echo line of speakers  which are now cheaper than before  can control a lot more around the home than you might first think. The Google Home meanwhile, has only just launched with the Google Assistant creeping into peoples homes under the guise of a new speaker that has a few tricks up its sleeves. The smart home is of course where the majority of this war is going to be fought, but for Google, it looks like they might be taking on Amazon on with their home services. According to ClickZ, some ads for Google Home Services have been spotted in beta testing, with reports of services like plumbing and building work.

If Google were to not only offer a smart and connected solution for the home as well as a way to vet and even guarantee these workers for home services, then Amazon could have a lot to worry about. Amazon has made a name for themselves as a home brand, and while Google is still thought of as something of a tech brand, the Internet giant is slowly, but surely creeping into our homes, and Amazon cant be happy about it. In the end though, with better products and services from both parties, its ultimately us, the consumer, that will benefit.
A COO plays an important role in companies with the kind of scale where one is needed. In Twitters case, COO Adam Bain is in charge of the nuts and bolts of everyday operations all the way down to ground level, helping founder and CEO Jack Dorsey to deliver on his visions and promises. That will change in the very near future, when Bain walks out the door. Reportedly, the departing COO is hoping to explore other opportunities out in the wide world, though the possible deeper reasons for leaving could be just about anything, from internal strife to a misalignment of mission and values. In any case, the fact that he will be replaced by CFO Anthony Noto, given the way that infighting over a possible sale of the company has been playing out, is interesting to say the least.

In recent months, the stagnant user growth and flailing about to find a niche to reverse that trend have led to numerous parties calling for Twitter to sell themselves to the highest bidder in order to secure some capital and some backup. Some parties within the company are all for it, while some, like CEO Jack Dorsey, oppose the move whole-heartedly. The battle for Twitters independence is very much still on, and CFO Anthony Noto has not made it known which side he is on, but has managed to become a de facto second in command at Twitter. This means that his move into the COO role makes a lot of sense, since most of the questions that would normally be fielded by Dorsey within the company have fallen within Notos wheelhouse while Dorsey has been otherwise occupied.

Thus far, Twitter has seen a number of would-be buyers decide to back away, and the turmoil over a possible sale has only intensified from the inside out. The loss of suitors has not changed the fact that Twitter is trying to make a recovery while cutting the fat, as shown with their recent shutting down of Vine, with possible intent to sell in the near future. With Noto now having the authority on an official level that he has mostly wielded behind the scenes for a while now, its anybodys guess what changes Twitter may make in its last-ditch efforts to stay relevant and independent.
Despite the recent figures that Apple appears to be making all the money in the smartphone world, its important for the likes of Samsung, Sony, LG and Lenovo to keep up appearances and to keep on releasing smartphones. In the case of flagship devices like the Galaxy S7 Edge, LG V20 and Lenovo Moto Z, these releases represent more than just keeping up with the Joneses. Instead, these are devices that are meant to get their brand out there, to compete with the iPhone not only in price, but also in terms of features as well as value for money. These are devices that manufacturers should be working hard on to make as best they can do, but for every Galaxy S7 Edge out there, there appears to be a different storage version, or a Play version of another phone. Not only do these different variants of the same model of phone look ridiculous, but its become confusing for consumers as well, and its about time that companies gave us a break.

To get a feel for what Im talking about, we only need to consider Lenovos strategy for their 2016 lineup of Moto devices. Traditionally, weve seen Motorola release a Moto G, Moto X and Moto E device for the year. Each of which targets a different part of the market and a different price sector, and for a while this was a great strategy on their part. It drew definitive lines in the sand that made it clear who each device was for. Then Lenovo came along. Since then, weve seen the Moto G and Moto X spawn Play and Plus editions, and even this years excellent Moto Z was subject to this same treatment. In one year alone, the Moto Z has launched in the following variants; the Moto Z, the Moto Z Play, the Moto Z Droid, the Moto Z Force Droid and Moto Z Play Droid. We all know the story behind the Droid variants, being the devices that Motorola is contractually-obligated to provide Verizon with each and every year, but why do we even have the Moto Z, Moto Z Force and Moto Z Play to begin with. Its easy to argue that the $449.99 Moto Z Play gives users an easy choice between it and the $699.00 Moto Z, but the Moto Z Force is only really a bigger battery and 21-megapixel camera away from being the Moto Z, so what gives? Its clear that Lenovo is trying to hit as many pockets as they can with the new Moto Z line, and given its flexibility, this is admirable, but its gone too far.

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Users realistically only want to choose between two different types of devices; those that are cheaper, and those that are better. Choosing the former is a great option or the average user, and those that are unsure of what the better specifications and extra features will really mean to them in the long run, while the latter is of course for people like us, as well as those that want to feel a little superior to those that chose the former. Having four, five or even six different variants of a device is crazy, and its become very, very confusing. Speaking of those looking for the lower-priced option, that used to be the Moto G, which used to come in either 3G or 4G versions. Now, it comes in a Moto G4, Moto G4 Play and Moto G4 Plus, each of which is only separated by a price gap of $50. Why cant there be just one Moto G4? The Moto G4 Plus is a larger device that also has a fingerprint sensor, a feature usually left for higher-cost devices. Sure, its nice for such a feature to make its way down to this end of the market, but surely, this is something that the average user could do without, and something that if they really wanted could find on the Moto Z.

Enough of Motorola, how about we look at companies that get it right? One of which is of course, OnePlus. Depending on your outlook, it might be strange to imagine OnePlus doing anything right  especially with the OnePlus 3T on the way  but right from the beginning the firm has kept their lineup simple. The original OnePlus One came in either Sandstone or Silk White, and that was about it. The OnePlus 2 originally launched with a 16GB variant, but soon they cut this and sold only the 64GB model with 4GB of RAM in the one color, they then left it up to the user to choose whether they wanted a different color or case afterwards. This is a great way of selling a phone, and the OnePlus 3 is the same, available in just one model with 64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM. Even though the OnePlus 3T is around the corner, it is likely that the firm will simply phase out the original OnePlus 3 and continue to sell just the one option. Its the right way to do things, and when someone says Buy a OnePlus 3, theres rarely a which one? follow-up question.

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When thinking of OnePlus, its hard not to think of price, and another recent release that has people thinking of price is of course the new Pixel lineup. The Pixel starts at $649, and given the reviews that its been getting, is arguably worth the asking price, but then there are two variants of each the Pixel and the Pixel XL, giving users the choice between either 32GB or 128GB of storage. Considering that neither come with a microSD card slot, it is nice to see a larger version available, but wouldnt it be better to just have one 128GB Pixel and one 128GB Pixel XL? It would make the device even easier to sell, and make the base option feel more worth it if only because theres nothing else to compare it to in the store.

Im a Galaxy S7 Edge owner, and while it appears Samsung doesnt offer the same myriad of different models, this isnt the case. As I live in the UK, I have the SM-G935F version of the device, which is standard across much of Europe, but then theres the SM-G935V for Verizon in the US, the SM-G935T for T-Mobile, the SM-G935L, S and K models for South Korea and the SM-G9350 for China. We could forgive Samsung here, as any manufacturer that releases devices in as many markets as Samsung and at that sort of scale will need to keep track of their device models and capabilities, but Samsung has been doing for this years, and its not only confusing, but a little annoying, too. Updates will launch for a version the Snapdragon 820 that arent compatible with my Exynos 8890 version and vice-versa, different models will get different updates at different times, and it all becomes confusing, without ever needing to be that confusing. After all, if Apple can get by with just a few model numbers denoting little more than storage, then why cant Samsung?

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Choice is of course one of the biggest strengths that Android has, and its an easy sell, too, but there is always such a thing as a too much of a good thing. Were so lucky that we can choose from phones from ASUS, BLU, Lenovo, Motorola, LG, Samsung, Sony, Google, HTC, Xiaomi, Meizu, ZTE, Huawei, BlackBerry, Alcatel, the list goes on and on. Its great that we have so much choice, but then to give us even more choice like the Play and Plus models of each phone becomes tiring. There is a reason that OnePlus has become far more successful than anyone thought they could be, and its because their offerings are simple, easy-to-understand and you can buy their one phone online and have it delivered to you no matter where in the world you are. The same could be said of Samsung, while they have different variants of the Galaxy S7 Edge for regional reasons, theres only one Galaxy S7 Edge, theres not a Plus or Pro version of the device, its easy to sell and easy to understand for buyers. Its time for manufacturers and brands all over the world to cut down on the amount of different storage versions of a phone they sell, as well as how many different options they have for different price points. In doing so, they will not only have less devices to explain to buyers, but they will have less stock lying around, and might even find that they make more money as result,
The Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones were introduced last month as the first ever devices that were made by Google both in terms of software and hardware. HTC is manufacturing these handsets for Google, but the Mountain View giant has had full control over what HTC is making. That being said, the Google Pixel and Pixel XL are really great devices, presuming you have the money to purchase them, of course, as theyre quite pricey. Now, these two devices do cost a lot, so you definitely dont want to break them, but what happens if you do? You just take them back to get repaired, right? Well, of course, but it seems like one consumer had a negative experience in the UK, read on.

Weve received a word from Mr. Chris Gordon quite recently, who is located in the UK, and had purchased the Google Pixel recently. Well, Mr. Gordon had managed to break the display on his Google Pixel, though we dont know how that happened, as he did not explain it to us, besides, thats not the point. The point is that he had, allegedly, contacted Google, and the company advised him to take it to a mobile repair agent in the UK called SBE. Now, Mr. Gordon claims that SBE UK is contracted by Google as their official Pixel repair agent in the UK, but were unable to confirm that at the moment, as Googles Nexus devices were usually shipped directly to the company before. In any case, Mr. Gordon was expecting SBE to fix his Pixel smartphone, but the company said that they cannot do that for 8 weeks or so because they dont have a spare screen lying around, which is, of course, a problem. Now, needless to say, SBE should have a spare screen for the Google Pixel devices if theyre contracted by Google, and were sure that Mr. Gordon is not the only person who has managed to break Google Pixels display, such things happen and were hoping that the situation will be resolved in the near future.

Considering SBE UK told Mr. Gordon that the replacement screen unit wont be available for 8 weeks, were presuming that Google is facing shortages on that front, which would not be that surprising considering this is an OLED panel were talking about, in both Google Pixel and Google Pixel XLs case, only the resolution is different. As some of you probably know, OnePlus is having some issues keeping up with the demand for the OnePlus 3 due to the inclusion of the OLED panel, so its no wonder Google is in the same boat considering the demand. Needless to say, take this info with a grain of salt as none of this info has been confirmed by the company, as weve already mentioned.
For Samsung, its safe to say that this Fall season has not gone to plan for them, as the Galaxy Note 7 hit shelves, was then recalled from shelves and then once again recalled. Now, the Galaxy Note 7 is no more, as the South Korean giant has taken the phone off of shelves entirely, but when a company like Samsung, that launches phones in such volume and scale all over the world, it can be a lot more difficult than you think to make a smartphone simply go away. Even after Samsung continues to warn customers about the dangers of using the device, theres a large number of people out there risking it. This has prompted Samsung to release numerous different updates to effectively neuter the phone, even shutting it down entirely in places such as New Zealand. In China, however, someone that wanted a Galaxy Note 7 for their own  and didnt feel like paying for it  effectively got what was coming to him.

In China, there are some independent stores that are still selling the Galaxy Note 7 at a reduced price in a bid to make back some of the money they spent purchasing the devices on their own. An Internet Cafe in Anhui province, China, was the recent scene of a smartphone theft, with the phone in question being a Galaxy Note 7. Its unclear as to whether or not the phone was on sale there or just in the possessions of one of the patrons, but shortly after the thief stole the phone, it exploded in their possession. The China Times report doesnt do all that good a job of explaining whether or not the phone was on sale, but it appears as though it was just a user reluctant to give up their phone as part of the recall. Some had joked that the thief hadnt been watching the news and was thus pretty uninformed regarding the problems with the Galaxy Note 7, while others had said that it could be a new anti-thief mechanism from Samsung themselves.

Whatever the cause of the theft, this report is yet another reminder that Samsung will struggle to completely get rid of the problems surrounding the Galaxy Note 7 and its recall problems. With other models of Samsung phone also reportedly catching fire and exploding, its not a good time of year for Samsung, but as rumors have suggested, the South Korean firm is looking ahead to 2017 and the Galaxy S8, rather than focus on the Galaxy Note 7.
(ANSA) - Cairo, November 10 - Egyptian authorities have released two Italian fishing vessels that were seized by the Egyptian Navy last night while fishing some 28 nautical miles off the coast of the North African country, well-informed sources told ANSA on Thursday. Ship owner Domenico Asaro confirmed the two vessels based in the Sicily port town of Mazara del Vallo, named Ghibli I and Giulia PG, have been released.

Both boats were in international waters when they were seized around 22:00 last night, Italian fishing officials said earlier in the day.

Neither vessel is a stranger to such events. The Ghibli I was seized by Egyptian authorities approximately four years ago along with three other fishing vessels, and immediately released.

In October 2013, the Giulia PG was seized by militia from Benghazi, in Libya, along with another boat called the Daniela L. some 40 miles off the Libyan coast.

The owner got the Giulia PG back after two trials and a ransom payment.

The Daniela L. is still being held by the Libyans.


Migrants: stop humanitarian catastrophe in Niger, Italian FM Joint Italy-EU mission for 'migration compact'

(ANSAmed) - NIAMEY, NOVEMBER 10 - Italian foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni spoke about migration issues with the president of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, on Thursday during a visit to the African country.



''Illegal immigration comes to Italy across the Mediterranean through Niger, crossing the desert. This is a phenomenon that causes victims and that we can no longer leave in the hands of trafficking organizations. We must work together - the Italian government and the Niger and EU governments - to respond to this humanitarian catastrophe,'' he said after the meeting. The mission is the first joint Italy-EU one of the 'Migration Compact', which at the moment foresees a series of agreements with five African countries to reduce the flow of irregular migrants. Europe has opted to allocate 500 million euros for this, while Italy will finance an additional fund of 200 million euros. ''We have a very ambitious program that must be transformed into cooperation with the Niger authorities to help them be better equipped and have greater border management and humanitarian assistance capacity,'' the minister said, also announcing that an Italian embassy will open in Niamey in the spring. Gentiloni, who will also make a stop in Mali and on Friday in Senegal, is accompanied by the undersecretary of internal affairs, Domenico Manzione, and a delegation from the cabinet of the EU Commissioner for Immigration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, who was initially supposed to take part in person but was forced to stay in Brussels due to health conditions. (ANSAmed).




Italy marks 10th anniversary of Lebanon operation Over 1,000 Italian blue helmets on Israeli border under UNIFIL

(ANSAmed) - Beirut, November 10 - Italian blue helmets in Lebanon on Thursday commemorated the tenth anniversary of the start of operation Leonte under the auspices of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the Middle Eastern country. General Paolo Gerometta took command of UNIFIL's Sector West on November 8, 2006, soon after the UN Security Council established the peacekeeping force under resolution 1701 following the Israel-Hezbollah war. Current defence chief of staff General Claudio Graziano took command of the entire peacekeeping mission shortly thereafter. In ten years the over 1,000 Italian soldiers on the ground have carried out over 231,000 operational activities, participated in over 750 cooperation projects and conducted over 1,100 mine and explosives clearance operations. "We will continue to work in this land with constancy to give the Lebanese people the tranquillity they deserve," said current Sector West commander General Ugo Cillo. (ANSAmed)
- Istanbul - Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Turkey on Thursday to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the death of the founder of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.



Sirens sounded throughout the country at 9.05 local time to announce a minute's silence to coincide with the exact moment in 1938 when the president was pronounced dead in Istanbul aged 57.



A state ceremony was also held in the Ataturk mausoleum in the capital Ankara, attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and military leaders. "The veteran Mustafa Kemal is one of the shared values of this country and of our nation," Erdogan said in a message to the population. Commemorative events were also held in various parts of Istanbul.
19 PKK rebels killed in Turkish air strikes Operation against Kurdish rebels before winter

(ANSAmed) - Istanbul, November 10 - At least 19 Kurdish PKK militants have been killed in air strikes by drones conducted by the Turkish army in the south-eastern province of Sirnak near the border with Iraq, military sources said on Thursday. The operation in the Bestler-Dereler region aimed to target the Kurdish rebels before the easing of hostilities due to difficult winter environmental conditions. (ANSAmed)
JERUSALEM - A museum dedicated to the memory of Yasser Arafat will ''preserve his legacy of the battle and resistance of a great man'', Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday. He was speaking at the official opening of the museum in Ramallah, inaugurated 12 years after Arafat's death in Paris on November 11, 2004. Abbas went on to say that the museum is a ''gift for future generations, for them to know about the history of one of the most important men in Palestine and the world in the 20th and 21st centuries''.

The museum covers a surface area of 1,350 square meters out of a total of 2,600, with a specialized library, an exhibition hall and an auditorium. It cost 7 million dollars and is located inside the presidential residence known as the Muqtada, behind the mausoleum where Arafat is buried. The museum includes 4 ramps that go up to a bridge connecting the new museum building with Arafat's old office, where the leader - as the media was told at a conference presenting it in late October - ''was built during the 34 months under siege by the Israeli army'' in early 2000. ''A zone,'' the media were told, ''left intact to enable visitors to better visualize the conditions'' of that historic period.

The museum tells the story of Palestine as well and a part of the leader's archive is kept within it, including some of his notebooks and other belongings including: sunglasses worn during Arafat's speech to the UN in 1974, some of his black-and-white keffiyahs, his pistol and Palestinian passport, Arab League secretary Ahmed Aboul Gheit and his predecessor, Amr Moussa, took part in the ceremony, as did some members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
- TEL AVIV - One of president-elect Donald Trump's closest advisors, Jason Greenblatt, on Thursday told Israeli military radio that Trump did not see Israeli settlements as an obstacle to peace.



Greenblatt - who some say Trump is likely to appoint as his envoy to the Middle East - went on to confirm that the US embassy will be moved to Jerusalem, as the president-elect had announced during his election campaign.
Italy foreign ministry confirms Egypt boats release Egyptian Navy seized the two vessels last night

(ANSAmed) - ROME, NOVEMBER 10 - Italy's foreign ministry on Thursday confirmed Egypt has released two Italian fishing vessels that were seized last night while fishing some 28 nautical miles off the coast of the North African country.



"Thanks to the intervention of our embassy in Cairo, the two fishing vessels have cast off and are heading towards the open sea," the ministry said in a statement. (ANSAmed).




NIAMEY - Italian foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni spoke about migration issues with the president of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, on Thursday during a visit to the African country.

''Illegal immigration comes to Italy across the Mediterranean through Niger, crossing the desert. This is a phenomenon that causes victims and that we can no longer leave in the hands of trafficking organizations. We must work together - the Italian government and the Niger and EU governments - to respond to this humanitarian catastrophe,'' he said after the meeting.

The mission is the first joint Italy-EU one of the 'Migration Compact', which at the moment foresees a series of agreements with five African countries to reduce the flow of irregular migrants. Europe has opted to allocate 500 million euros for this, while Italy will finance an additional fund of 200 million euros. ''We have a very ambitious program that must be transformed into cooperation with the Niger authorities to help them be better equipped and have greater border management and humanitarian assistance capacity,'' the minister said, also announcing that an Italian embassy will open in Niamey in the spring.

Gentiloni, who will also make a stop in Mali and on Friday in Senegal, is accompanied by the undersecretary of internal affairs, Domenico Manzione, and a delegation from the cabinet of the EU Commissioner for Immigration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, who was initially supposed to take part in person but was forced to stay in Brussels due to health conditions.


If youre considering a subscription to the Disney Plus streaming service, you may be wondering how much it costs. The service is available on both
Emirates recently retired A6-EAK from operational service. The aircraft was the last of the 29 Airbus A330 aircraft that had been operating as part of its fleet. A6-EAK joined Emirates in 2002 and had flown for over 60,000 hours travelling close to 45 million kilometres in 14.5 years. That distance is equivalent to almost 60 return journeys between the Earth and the Moon. Emirates has also phased out A6-ERN, the last serving Airbus A340 in the fleet which had joined the airline in 2004, originally manufactured in 1999.

Since January 2015, Emirates has retired 18 A330 and 5 A340 aircraft from its fleet. The average age of the Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft phased out from the fleet is 16.5 years- a figure which is well below the industry standard retirement age of 25 years. In addition to the aircraft that have been retired from active service since January 2015, Emirates plans to further phase out some 25 aircraft over the course of 2017 and 2018 to ensure that the operating fleet remains modern and efficient while offering customers a higher level of comfort and safety.

The retirement of older aircraft is balanced by the induction of younger, more modern aircraft into the fleet. This has resulted in Emirates operating one of the youngest fleets in the industry with an average age of 5.2 years. The two youngest aircraft in the fleet- Emirates 85th A380- the first of the new generation A380 aircraft delivered in October 2016 and Emirates 125th Boeing 777-300ER- are less than 2 weeks old.

Emirates fleet of all Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 aircraft will also have a smaller environmental impact as both aircraft types have better fuel efficiency and emissions performance than the retired aircraft.

For the calendar year 2016 Emirates will have taken delivery of 36 new aircraft - 20 Airbus A380s and 16 Boeing 777. This also includes the next generation Boeing 777-300ER aircraft - with upgraded business class seats and other features including a lower fuel burn ratio - to be delivered from November 2016.

Analyst Saj Ahmad commented: Emirates fleet homogenisation around the A380 and 777 fleets has helped the airline to benefit from fuel cost reduction through bigger economies of scale. This comes despite the relentless organic expansion the airline continues to embark upon and the removal of ageing, less fuel efficient jets like the A330 and A340 means that Emirates can tap into a new pool of crew and technicians that will support the existing fleet growth through re-training onto the 777 and A380.

With the planned move to Dubai World Central in full swing, Emirates is also likely to follow up with a rumoured big order for 787s, matching GCC operators like Etihad, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian and Saudia.

Ahmad added: Having cancelled the A350 orders back in 2014, Emirates has never re-ordered a jet that it has nixed - this puts Boeing at the front of the queue for Emirates' next phase of growth, particularly as the airline counts down to the arrival of its first 777X due in 2020.Emirates is likely to make that order announcement at the 2017 Dubai Air Show.
Emirates Skywards is the only frequent flyer programme to offer both accrual and redemption opportunities with the regions leading car booking app.

The exclusive partnership provides Emirates Skywards members with even more affordable redemption opportunities within the travel space. Careem is one of the fastest growing companies in the region and is currently available in 9 countries. Members can accrue or redeem Skywards Miles when using Careem services in the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, Kuwait and Morocco.

Members can pre-book or request a car instantly via the Careem mobile app. To earn Skywards Miles, members must add their Emirates Skywards membership number to their Careem account, using the same name as their Emirates Skywards account. 1 Mile will be earned for every US$ 2 spent on Careem.
The airline its attendance at the event is in line with its longstanding mission and continuous efforts to promote the Kingdom of Bahrain to an international audience as a tourist and business destination.
As part of his role, Smith will play a key role in the development of proposals and pricing strategies and continue AJW's extension of its Senior Executive Team of experienced industry experts. Daniel Watson, chief commercial officer of AJW Group, said: Since joining AJW earlier this year, Ian has impressed us with the strong relationships he has established with our airline customers. He combines tremendous engineering knowledge, commercial acumen and relationship management skills, all of which made him ideal for his new role.
As Oman gears up for the celebrations on 18 November, Oman Air is welcoming photo submissions via its Facebook page (www.facebook.com/omanair/) that demonstrate the My Oman National Day theme of celebrations, decorations, costumes, the Omani national flag, community gatherings and special events.

Winners will be selected by Oman Air according to criteria such as how well the photo fits the contest theme of My Oman National Day, how creative the photograph is, the extent to which the photograph is inspirational and the quality of the photo.

The first prize winner will receive two return tickets from Muscat to any European destination on the Oman Air network, the second prize winner will receive a return ticket from Muscat to any of Oman Airs 11 destinations in India and the third prize winner will receive one return ticket from Muscat to any of Oman Airs 11 destinations in the GCC.

Mohammed Al Shikely, vice president marketing for Oman Air said: It is an indescribable honor and privilege to be joining the rest of the country in celebrating the foresight and inspirational leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, may The Almighty protect him and grant him a long and healthy life. To mark this incredible day of the 46th National Day of Oman, we will be launching a number of initiatives which will be announced.
Courts in Tianjin Municipality sentenced 24 company managers and staff and 25 government officials for crimes related to the August 2015 warehouse explosion that killed at least 165 people and caused $1 billion in damage, according to media reports.



Chinese courts this week sentenced 49 people to prison for crimes related to the deadly August 2015 warehouse explosion in the northern port city of Tianjin, according to multiple media reports.

The blasts ripped through a Ruihai Logistics Co. chemical storage warehouse in Tianjin port late at night on Aug. 12, 2015, leaving 165 people dead, eight missing and 798 injured, and damaging over 300 buildings, 12,000 vehicles, and 7,500 cargo containers. An article from the state-run Xinhua news agency pegged the economic losses resulting from the explosions at 6.87 billion yuan renminbi (U.S. $ 1.01 billion at todays exchange rate).

A government investigation into the incident released in February found the explosion was caused by improper storage of flammable chemicals, which self-ignited in the August heat.

Defendants in the case, which included 24 Ruihai managers and staff, as well as 25 government officials, were tried in the Second Intermediate Peoples Court of Tianjin and nine other grass-roots courts from Nov. 7 to Nov. 9, Xinhua said.

In addition, the court convicted Ruihai Logistics Chairman Yu Xuewei of bribing Tianjin port officials with cash and goods valued at 157,500 yuan in exchange for a hazardous materials handling certificate, as well as illegal storage of hazardous materials and illegal business operations causing incidents involving hazardous materials.

Yu was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, according to Xinhua, but the Associated Press said these sentences are often commuted to life in prison.

The courts sentenced the deputy chairman and general manager of Ruihai Logistics and three other employees of the company to prison terms ranging from 15 years to life, and seven other staff members responsible for the incident to between three and 10 years in prison. Eleven people with a safety evaluation company that was found to have provided Ruihai Logistics with counterfeit safety reports were also handed jail time.

The head of the Tianjin Municipal Transportation Commission, Wu Dai, along with 24 other government officials, were sentenced to prison terms lasting from three to seven years for dereliction of duty, abuse of power, and accepting bribes.
The event represented over 1100 delegates, from over 220 airlines and representatives of over 70 scheduled-facilitated or fully coordinated airports, this semi-annual meeting is one of IATA's largest events.

The goal of the conference is for airlines and airports to obtain the slots that will give them the best possible schedule to offer their customers (IATA.org). For the second year in a row, Oman Airports Commercial Airline Marketing team attends IATA Slot Conference hoping to meet with existing and potential airline representatives to discuss slot availability and future routes to the Sultanate of Oman.

The commercial operation team booked important meetings with promising targeted airlines and network managers, discussing potential possibilities in adding new frequencies or implementing new routes to Oman Airports, including Muscat, Salalah, Sohar and Duqm airports.



Dagmo Ahmed, airline marketing manager, stated that the long-term goal is to connect Asia and Africa (specifically China) as well as Asia and Europe. We are concentrating in African and Asian continents to which includes some commercial airiness form that part of the world.



The number of passengers at Muscat International Airport exceeded 10 million passengers, and Salalah Airport broke its record to over 1, 0 million passengers to the newly opened state of the art airport; resulting in an increase in both domestic and international travel.



Oman Airports aims to have a couple of new airlines to start operating to MCT during this year, and more is planned to commence in 2017. Both Oman Airports and Oman Air are working together to strengthen the transfer traffic via Muscat hub. The last conference at World Routes, Chengdu; opened doors to develop, initiate, and progress new networking chances- making it accessible to reaching Oman Airport's target goal.
Pegasus Airlines achieved an EBITDAR (earnings before tax, interest, amortization and rental costs) of 540.44 million TL in the first nine months of 2016 with an EBITDAR margin of 18.9pc. Pegasus profit for the first nine month period was 43,278,777 TL.



In the first nine months of 2016 Pegasus achieved 7.4% year-on-year growth in its total number of guests carried on domestic and international routes combined, flying a total of 18.08 million guests during this period. The number of Pegasus guests flying on Turkish domestic routes increased by 10.9% to reach 11.42 million while the number of guests flying on international routes witnessed a 1.9% increase with a total of 6.66 million guests flown. Pegasus also increased the number of flights it operated in the first nine months of 2016 by 10% to a total of 125,470 flights. Pegasus now flies a scheduled service to 33 destinations in Turkey and 69 in the rest of the world, bringing its total network to 102 destinations in 40 countries.

In the first nine months of 2016 Pegasus grew its ancillary revenue by 25pc to reach 610,912,864 TL. Ancillary revenue per person saw a 16pc increase to reach 33.8TL.
Gabina VOA is designed to be an infotainment youth radio show broadcasting to Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Amharic language. The show brings varied perspectives on issues concerning young people in the Horn of Africa region. Gabina in the Amharic language is a front row taxi ridesymbolic of the shows content as a fun ride that takes audiences from point A to point B. Gabina VOAs main goal is Enlightening young people, introducing them to cutting-edge technological innovations, exposing them to new processes and ideas so they can be productive, informed and self-governing citizens.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament Galust Sahakyan received on November 10 Nikolai Ryzhkov  co-chairman of the inter-parliamentary committee of cooperation between the Armenian Parliament and Russias Federation Assembly, and members of the delegation.

Sahakyan highlighted the holding of the 28th session of the committee, and said it once again proves the mutual willingness of strengthening and developing cooperation.

Speaker Sahakyan noted with satisfaction that the Armenian-Russian friendly relations have a rich and centuries old history, which is a solid basis for the strategic mutual cooperation of the two countries.

By valuing the role of inter-parliamentary ties in the development of inter-governmental relations, Sahakyan noted that the Inter-Parliamentary Committee has a significant contribution in this work, which in its turn is effectively coordinating the mutual relations of the Armenian Parliament and Russian Federation Assembly.

Galust Sahakyan highlighted Armenias membership in the Eurasian Economic Union, which has created wide opportunities for the development of mutual trade-economic relations.

Nikolai Ryzhkov expressed gratitude for the warm reception and highly praised the present friendship, inter-parliamentary cooperation between Armenia and Russia.

Sahakyan and Ryzhkov expressed confidence that the discussions of the session will be productive and will be corresponding to the allied mutual partnership between Armenia and Russia.

At the end of the meeting, Galust Sahakyan bestowed the Medal of Honor of the Armenian Parliament to MP, deputy chairman of the inter-parliamentary committee of cooperation between Armenia and Russia Mr. Volodya Badalyan  for contribution to the public and political life, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Armenian Independence.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Moscow hopes that its relations with Washington will be mended and become normal after the US presidential election, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on November 10, reports TASS.

He recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the US election speaking at the ceremony of presenting credentials in the Kremlin on Wednesday.

"We respect the American peoples choice, as it would be the case irrespective of the results of the election", the minister said. "We hope that relations between Russia and the US, which are currently not at their best, will be mended and become normal, which meets the interests of our peoples and the entire international community".
The mysterious 400-year-old canvas was only found by accident when the owners of a house near Toulouse went to fix a leak in the ceiling. The large, remarkably well-preserved canvas of the beheading of the general Holofernes by Judith, from the apocryphal Book of Judith, was painted between 1600 and 1610, specialists estimate. And many experts believe it could be a work by the Milan-born master, Caravaggio.
The University of Cape Town told the company to move out after students protested ballet as Eurocentric and colonial; the dancers claimed they were physically threatened. For now CTCB is using a studio at the back of its performance venue, but the executive director says theyll have to close entirely if they dont have a home by January.
When I asked South African playwright Athol Fugard his opinion of race relations in the United States, he replied:

Man! Its not as easy to identify the enemy here, as it is back home, which makes the struggle vastly more complicated. At home the enemy is immediately identifiable  simply because of the institutionalization of racism. Whereas in America the enemy wears many disguises.

That was more than 30 years ago. Well, the disguises have come off, and now a white racist ideology in the U.S. has been institutionalized  or as some might say, re-institutionalized.

Whoever thought the Ku Klux Klan would endorse a major-party candidate? says political historian Allan J. Lichtman, who correctly predicted the election of Donald Trump. Furthermore, with Trump headed to the White House, Lichtman reminds us:

If the Republicans control everything, it will almost be as if Obama didnt exist for eight years. They can wipe out every part of his legacy: climate policy, immigration reform, liberal jurisprudence, the Affordable Care Act.

But contrary to all the pundits, Lichtman adds,

Donald Trump won not because of Donald Trump and his campaign, but despite them. Hillary Clinton wasnt to blame for this loss. The Democrats are already a shattered party. They hold nothing. They would further undermine themselves and pulverize themselves if they blamed Hillary Clinton for this loss. She didnt do anything wrong. She won the three debates. But she was up against a bigger force.

What constitutes that bigger force? The usual suspects  fear of immigration, hostility to free trade, repudiation of elite Washington insiders, economic despair, so forth and so on. But lets not kid ourselves.

R-a-c-i-s-m tops my list of suspects. Its what underpins all those issues, in my humble opinion, and put the American personification of Brexit over the top.

Postscript: Columbia law professor Tim Wu thinks Trump won because, through the medias free advertising of campaign coverage, he was able to amplify his message like many fascist leaders in the past  not that his views are comparable to theirs, oh no, who could possibly think that? But like them he understood the best way to attract attention and inspire intensity in your audience is to make them afraid. He merely tapped into the unconscious fears and hatreds of his supporters by overstating the danger the United States is in, and creating enemies much greater than reality supports. I take the point, of course. Many others have made the same point. But those unconscious fears and hatreds certainly sound like r-a-c-i-s-m to me.

Crossposted at IT: International Times.

PPS: April 17, 2017  Analysis: Racism motivated Trump voters more than authoritarianism.
China and Ecuador, Peru and Chile will sign a number of agreements covering areas including trade, investment, finance and nuclear power during President Xi Jinping's third trip to Latin America next week, according to China's Foreign Ministry.

China has attached great importance to the development potential in Latin America despite the region's economic growth slowed down in recent years under the background of global sluggishness, Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Chao told a news conference on Thursday.

Xi will visit the three countries from next Thursday. He will also attend APEC leaders meetings in Lima, Peru as part of the week-long trip.

While in Ecuador, Xi will talk with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, meet reporters, attend the launch ceremony of Chinese-aided projects and witness the signing of agreements, Wang said. It would be the first time that a Chinese president visits Ecuador since the diplomatic ties established 36 years ago.

Zhang Xiangchen, a Ministry of Commerce senior official, said that China will announce assistance plans and issue loans to Ecuador during the president's visit.

China will offer help for the rebuilding works including the construction of hospitals, houses and roads in Ecuador, which was hit by a strong earthquake in April, he said, adding that China has already provided Ecuador $2 million cash and $60 million in materials for earthquake rescue efforts.

Xi will speak at Peru's parliament to describe China's policies toward the Latin American region. He will also have bilateral talks with some leaders of the APEC members during the summit, according to Wang, the vice-foreign minister.

China will also initiate negotiations with Chile over the deepening of the free trade agreement that was signed 11 years ago, he said.

After becoming the Chinese president in March 2013, Xi has already visited Latin America twice, after going to Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Mexico in 2013, and to Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba in July the following year.

China is Peru and Chile's largest trade partner, and the third largest for Ecuador. China is also the main investment source for the three countries. Last year, China's direct investment to the Latin America region reached $126.3 billion, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
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Top 10 African Authors of All Time The pace of present African literature is moving at a high-speed; more defiant in both style and tone than those of the great independence writers generation. Here, the subjects of taboo are widely explored. The emerging African authors of this generation are not afraid to go further afield for the literary fodder. Meanwhile, since the birth ...

Maina Kageni Biography  Daughter, Salary and Gay Rumors Maina Kageni is one of those Kenyans who has remained as interesting as ever in the eyes of the public. A strong Red devil fan and lover of football, the man is currently a Breakfast Show presenter with Mwalimu Kingangi on Nairobis Classic 105 Radio Station. Many questions have always emerged on the man in serious ...

Kalekye Mumo  Biography, Boyfriend and Salary Kalekye Mumo has been described as someone who is as vibrant as she is beautiful, a Kenyan radio queen, TV host and media personality, movie actress, Musician, businesswoman, and fashionista but what else is there to know about this Kenyan icon, Kalekye Mumo and her co-host Shaffie Weru have been among the most listened to radio presenters ...

Julie Gichuru Bio  Age, Husband & Children In Africa, women have a long history of bringing under control obstacles to keep their heads above the water. So, it comes as no surprise whenever African women are recognized and decorated across the continent and globe for performing brilliantly well in their various fields of endeavor. In Kenya for instance, a list of national ...

Jeff Koinange Biography  All About His Age, Wife  Shaila Koinange & Family Jeff Koinange is a well-known Kenyan journalist. He currently hosts Jeff Koinange Live on KTN. Koinange has served as a journalist in the United States and has also worked for a few U.S. broadcasters. He was born in Kenya but attended college in the United States, which may explain his accent. There are several interesting ...

Caroline Mutoko Biography  Age, Daughter & House Caroline Mutoko is a Kenyan radio presenter, famously known for hosting a morning breakfast show on Kiss 100 FM. The station is based in Nairobi and ranks among the highly-rated radio stations in Kenya with online streaming services as well. Learn more about the Kenyan-born journalist. Caroline Mutokos Age and Bio Born on January 4, 1973, Caroline is ...

The Most Stunning News Presenter In Kenya Discloses Her Real Age  You Would Not Believe It In modern African societies, it is often regarded as impolite or outright lack of disrespect to ask a woman of her age. We also have seen celebrities lie about how old they are when asked their age. People, mostly women have refused to let people know their real age, despite being public figures. The few ...

Demystifying Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Biography, Husband & Education Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian novelist, non-fiction writer, short story writer and actress. As a seasoned Nigerian writer, she has been called the most prominent of a procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors that is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature. She has been making Nigeria proud in the global scene ...

Wole Soyinka  Biography, Wife, Children, Family, Quick Facts Professor Wole Soyinka, a great and brilliant Nigerian writer and political activist, who was the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The name, Wole Soyinka, is a household name both in Africa and beyond especially in the field of literature. With over 50 pieces of work, his writing includes poems, novels, memoirs ...

5 Most Vulgar Kenyan Radio Presenters It appears being vulgar is the real deal nowadays especially for the fact that the world is becoming more exposed and civilized. Sadly, but true, young people are constantly being exposed to images, discussions, and content that most people would deem detrimental to the African culture and moral statutes. This is because most of us ...

6 Sexiest News Anchors In Kenya Some news anchors have been stealing eyes every time they appear on-screen. Most of us hardly concentrate on the programme they present as our entire focus is usually on their striking physique and beautiful faces. It is common knowledge that Kenyan women are amazingly beautiful. From the celebrities to the everyday woman, they are all in ...

Interesting Oprah Winfrey Quotes To Keep You Motivated Oprah Winfrey is one of the worlds most powerful women in the media and business sectors. Her life is the typical success story that motivates and lifts ones morale. One amazing thing about this media mogul is her sincerity about past hurts, mistakes, healing, and success. The renowned talk show host and media personality is the first ...

Chinua Albert Achebe Biography- Family, Net Worth & Death Chinua Albert Achebe, of blessed memory, was a Nigerian prolific author best known for his inventive style of writing and simplicity of expressions. Famed as one of the finest writers Nigeria has ever produced, Achebe lived and died an international hero and a literary giant, who left behind unforgettable legacies and footprints in the sands of ...

Steve Harvey  His Wife, Kids & Height Steve Harvey is an American comedian, actor, radio and TV show host, producer and an author of different relationship advice books. Steve Harveys Early Life Born in Welch, West Virginia, on January 17, 1957, as Broderick Stephen Harvey, Steve was the last of five children. His family relocated to Cleveland when he was young and there, he attended Glenville High School from ...

Intriguing Things You Should Know About Danny Kokers Rise to Fame and Who His Wife Is Danny Koker is popular as the star of the History Channel reality TV series, Counting Cars. Prior to him appearing on the show, the TV personality was a musician who had embarked on a number of national tours with his rock group, Counts 77. He and his group have released quite a number of songs ...

Fun Facts You Didnt Know About Andy Cohens Rise to Prominence and His Partner Andy Cohen is one of Americas top media personalities who gained prominence after helping to bring the Bravo network back to life. He also hosted a couple of shows on the network, including the popular nightly series Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. After rising to the position of head of production and development at ...

Tracing Isha Sesays Career Until CNN, Her Worth And Why She Divorce Her Husband As far as journalists of African origin go, Isha Sesay is one of the most famous on the continent  and by extension, the world. The Sierra Leonean and British journalist has had a successful career since she joined the industry in 1998. In that time, she has worked for a host of major media ...

Open Secrets of How Joanna Gaines Balances Her Career With Being a Wife and Mother Joanna Gaines is the co-founder of Magnolia Homes, a business she runs with one goal: converting houses to homes. She doubles as the lead designer of the company which she co-owns with her husband, Chip Gaines. Lady Gaines gained massive popularity when she became a co-star with her husband on the HGTVs show, Fixer Upper. ...

Juicy Details of Ayesha Currys Love Story With Stephen, Her Family Members and Recent Pursuits When your husband is one of the greatest basketballers that the NBA has ever seen, then it bestows on you the status of a celebrity wife  and may not even demand that you do anything extra to maintain that status. However, Ayesha Curry, the wife of multiple NBA champion, Steph Curry, is not one ...

What Is Tarek el Moussas Ethnicity, Why Did He Divorce His Wife and Who Is He Dating? Tarek El Moussa has made himself one of the most recognizable men on reality television, especially to fans of HGTV. Thanks to his expertise in the world of real estate, Tarek has become a national star. But even to his hardcore followers, there are questions about Tarek El Moussa that remain unanswered, such as his ...

Fun Facts About Natalie Beckers Lonely Childhood and Eventual Career Success Natalie Becker is an actress of South African descent who became famous for her appearance in films like The World Unseen and The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. A multitalented individual, Natalie is also a television/radio presenter. She is also a co-founder of the Thought Leader Global Media which she runs together with ...

Top 3 Female CNN News Anchors You Didnt Know Were Africans CNN is one of the leading news agencies in the world. The satellite and cable news network was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner and has been one of the best sources of news for a number of years. It also boasts of the best journalists and presenters all around in media broadcasting. The company is a ...

Channels That Aided Katie Pavlichs Growth as a Journalist and All About Her Marriage To Friedson If you have ever come across any Fast and Furious featuring Barack Obama, it is the handiwork of Katie Pavlich. The book which claims to have exposed Obamas bloodiest scandal and the shameless cover-up thereof, has been earning Pavlich much praise and fame ever since it was published in 2012. Nonetheless, Pavlich is more famed ...

Is Oprah Winfrey Married? Husband, Children, Biography, House, Facts Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire philanthropist, talk show icon, producer, actress, and writer. The media icon famously dubbed The Queen Of All Media owns and hosts the highest-rated television program in the media circle. Read more about the powerful television star below. Oprah Winfrey Biography Oprah was born as Orpah Gail Winfrey on January 29, 1954, to a ...

Who Is Arsenio Hall, What Happened To His Talk Show and Why Do Fans Think He Is Gay? He is one of the funniest beings to have graced the comedy constituent of the American entertainment industry. Arsenio Hall has a reputation for the rib-cracking disposition always portrayed in his comedy roles. He is not just a comedian; he is also an actor and a former talk show host for his popular show, The ...

What Is Woah Vicky Famous For and Who Are Her Family Members? Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Woah Vicky is one of those stars that have utilized the internet as a powerful tool to propel themselves to instant fame. The social media space, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc., offers lots of people the right opportunities and potentials to become superstars overnight. Not everyone achieves ...

Where Is Michael Strahan Since His Retirement From The NFL and Who Is His Partner? Michael Strahan is a retired American football player turned media personality. He played the defensive lineman position and holds the record for most sacks in a single NFL season. He also only played for the New York Giants throughout the entire 15-year professional career that saw him win a Super Bowl ring. In February 2014, ...

How Wendy Williams Went From Being a College DJ to Having Her Own Talk Show and More About Her Divorce Wendy Williams is a former radio personality, now talk show host, who is known for her outspokenness and brash no-nonsense attitude. She gained fame and notoriety for her on-air clashes with celebrities before moving on to host her own talk show. Since 2008, Williams has hosted the nationally syndicated television talk show, The Wendy Williams Show. ...

Who is Sunny Hostin? Her Husband, Family & Net Worth Sunny Hostin is no ordinary Latina  American lawyer but also a successful columnist, multi-platform journalist, and social commentator. A happily married woman and mother of two, Hostin is the Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News and co-host of ABCs popular morning talk show, The View. She is a legal expert popularly known as a former ...

Who Is Robert Costa and Is He Married, Who Is His Wife? Robert Costa is a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC who is regarded as being part of Americas next generation of journalists. The University of Notre Dame graduate, who is of Italian/Portuguese descent, has been lauded for his fresh political perspectives in an industry full of old heads. In addition to his work listed above, Costa ...

Team Valor Pokemon Go  7 Key Facts You Need To Know Team Valor Pokemon Go  The craze of the new game Pokemon Go is one that took the gaming world by storm sending teenagers and adults alike into a frenzy and one of its teams Team Valor, has proven to be instrumental in making it so. Before the game was created, Pokemon was a cartoon ...

Sheryl Underwood  Husband, Family & Net Worth She is known for her trademark smile which can be described as the brightest and broadest smile ever seen on planet earth. She is none other than Sheryl Underwood the comedian, actress, and TV host whose funny wits has left America in great awe. Although Sheryl has risen to become an important personality in the industry, ...

Team Mystic Pokemon Go: 7 Facts You Need To Know And Signs You Are One Team Mystic of the break out game Pokemon Go is a team that is full of sass and chivalry. With an enchanting monicker, Team Mystic stands out from the rest of its counterparts and deserves to take the crown as champion in the Pokemon gaming-verse. To be a member of this exceptional team of Pokemon battle ...

Exploring Guy Beahms Dr Disrespect Persona, Wife and Why He was Banned Permanently From Twitch Guy Beahm who is popularly known by his online alias  Dr DisRespect, is an award-winning Twitch.tv streamer. He has leveraged on the Twitch platform to become an internet personality that is quite widely known. His online success is just more proof that anyone who is good at what they do can attain celebrity status ...

Critical Facts About Lee Ann McAdoo  The Infowars Anchor Lee Ann Mcadoo is a conservative journalist and television host whose interests in conspiracies and astrology has established her as a famous American reporter. Often referred to as Wonder Woman, McAdoo is a reporter who works for InfoWars.com, a controversial right-wing website run by radio show host, Alex Jones. Who Is Lee Ann McAdoo? Lee Ann McAdoo was born on 7 ...

Millie Weaver  Age, Husband & Infowars Career Millie Weaver is an American model, journalist, political activist, and social commentator. The young and beautiful journalist rose to fame working as a reporter for a controversial right-wing website InfoWars.com. Also known as Millennial Millie, Weaver is a social media influencer with over 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and over 35,000 followers on Twitter. Who Is Millie Weaver and What Is ...

Is Jessica Tarlov Married? What Are Her Height & Weight? Jessica Tarlov is an American political consultant, strategist, and analyst whose influential and regular TV presence has made a popular figure. A good example of beauty with brains, Tarlov has appeared on various TV networks, mostly the FOX News Network where she is known for her liberal views on political analysis and insights. She is also the senior director ...

Who Is Kelly Rebecca Nichols  Alex Jones Ex-Wife? Kelly Rebecca Nichols is the ex-wife of controversial American radio show host, Alex Jones. She got nationwide attention following her divorce and subsequent custody battle with her estranged husband. Nichols, who worked with PETAs public relations department, was herself no stranger to controversies as she was involved in several publicity stunts of the non-profit animal rights ...

Who Is Bree Morgan  Cole Sprouse Ex-Girlfriend And What Is She Up To Now? Although Bree Morgan became famous through the Instagram, she also sapped some dose of popularity from Disneys sweetheart, Cole Sprouse of the Sprouse brothers. She is not only an Instagram star but also a YouTube vlogger whose popularity has long exceeded the ordinary level. Bree is conspicuously prominent on the internet and has her digital savviness ...

Does Vanna White Have Husband or Children, What Is Her Net Worth / Salary? For over three decades, Vanna White has been a household name, famous as the co-host and letter turner of the iconic NBC game show Wheel of Fortune. The talented and beautiful television personality is also an actress with several TV series and films to her credit. Since making her Wheel of Fortune debut in 1982, she has become one ...

Liz Wheeler  Biography, Husband & Net Worth Liz Wheeler is the kind of girl who sets the room on fire whenever she comes around. In this situation, however, she sets our screens on fire each time she appears as the host of One America News Tipping Point. She is, therefore, a presenter, publisher, consultant and a member of the Board of Zoning ...

Betty White  Net Worth, Children & Husband The entertainment industry will remain indebted to personalities like Betty White who brought something extra to the table and kept the world entertained for donkey years. The comedienne, actress, and writer graced the big screens in the early 50s as a show host and has been a delight since then. She is the queen of ...

Is Bill Nye (The Science Guy) Dead or Alive, What Are His Net Worth & Education? Everyone will always remember Bill Nye as the Science Guy. Besides his TV show Bill Nye the Science Guy, he is well-known for his Netflix show Bill Nye Saves the World which started airing in 2017 as well as his appearances in many famous media projects as a science educator. The star studied mechanical engineering ...

Is Cesar Millan Dead, Who Is The Wife & What Is His Net Worth? Cesar Millan is the famous dog whisperer who often stirs up mixed emotions. The Mexican-American is precisely speaking, a dog behaviorist; he has been in the game for over 25 years. His Emmy-nominated television series, Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan further pushed his method and tactics into the limelight. The series was produced from 2004 ...

Is Thomas Sanders Gay and Does He Have A Boyfriend? By the time Vine was shut down in January 2017, Thomas Sanders was already popular within and beyond the internet community for his heavy involvements on the online video hosting platform. After the tragic shutdown of Vine impacted on the growing career of the multi-talented personality, he immediately switched over to YouTube where he continued to upload ...

Is Shepard Smith Gay, Who Is The Boyfriend & What Is His Net Worth? There are only a few media personalities who are as bold and confident as Shepard Smith. Apart from his impressive stint at Fox News Channel which includes but not limited to his classic news delivery, upfront stance on virtually every issue and much more; he loves his job as much as he loves his personality. Smith ...

Is Milo Yiannopoulos Gay? His Husband and Net Worth Milo Yiannopoulos is a popular writer, journalist, polemicist, public speaker, and political commentator who is also known as the founder of The Kernel, an online blog. He has been said to be among the list of 100 weird and influential people in the United Kingdom. He appeared on this list as a result of personal beliefs and ...

Does Ryan Seacrest Have A Wife Or Girlfriend, What Is His Net Worth? From radio to television, Ryan Seacrest is a household name and a force to be reckoned with in showbiz. The radio personality, television host, and producer is best recognized as the host of the popular TV talent search contest American Idol. Heres how the media personality who always knew what his lifes ambition was and diligently pursued ...

Is Anderson Cooper Gay, Who is The Boyfriend or Husband? For many, the thought of becoming a millionaire by writing and talking about other people appears unachievable but this is the reality of the prominent American journalist Anderson Cooper who gathered millions of dollars for conducting accurate political analysis and other vital reports on TV. He is the main anchor of the CNN news show Anderson ...

Is David Muir Gay or Does He Have A Wife, What Is His Salary? David Muir is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who works for the ABC broadcast-television network and anchors the ABC World News Tonight with David Muir program while also co-anchoring the magazine program 20/20. The Ithaca College graduate, whose show has become the most-watched newscast in America, has covered stories from all across America and the world; reporting ...

Joel Osteen  Divorce Rumors, Net Worth & Family Members Joel Osteen is an American Televangelist, Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church based in Houston, Texas, a husband and a father of two. He is an author of many books, seven of which are New York Times Best Sellers and his televised sermons capture more than 7 million viewers per week and 20 million every month ...

Who Is Todd Chrisley? What To Know About His Children, Gay Rumors & Net Worth Premiered on the USA network in 2014, Chrisley Knows Best is one of the most watched family reality TV shows in the U.S. The series which is currently in its sixth season is centered around U.S real estate mogul Todd Chrisley and his family. The show reveals Todd the patriarch of the Chrisley family as a strict dad who rules ...

Who Is Shannon Bream Of Fox News? Her Husband, Children & Net Worth Shannon Bream who hosts the iconic primetime program started her journalism career in the late 1990s debuting as the evening and late-night news reporter for the CBS affiliate, WBTV. The beauty from America currently works for the Fox News Channel and she is best known for anchoring the primetime program. She also hosts Americas News ...

Is Troye Sivan Gay, Who Is His Boyfriend and What Is His Net Worth? Troye Sivan is an Australian singer and songwriter best known for songs like Happy Little Pill, Youth, Heaven (with Betty Who) and The Boyfriend Tag (with Tyler Oakley) which have all garnered him different awards and ranked on the Billboard Charts. Sivan, who was born in South Africa but now resides in the United States, is ...

Did iDubbbz Have Cancer, Is He Gay and Who Is His Girlfriend Now? iDubbbz is one YouTuber who has made a career out of courting controversy. Renowned for his absurdist channels and comedy video series, the Los Angeles based personality is the owner of two channels, iDubbzTV, and iDubbzTV2, as well as the brains behind comedy video series such as Content Cop, Kickstarter Crap, Gaming News Crap, and ...

Inside Greg Gutfelds Love Story With Wife Elena Moussa and Why Fans Thought He Was Gay Greg Gutfeld is a seasoned American television producer whose career in the media industry has spanned over a decade. He is a man of many talents who makes extra income through comedy, journalism, and editorial works. Gutfeld regularly appears on Fox News Channel as a panellist and co-host of the political talk show The Five ...

Works That Made Bo Burnham A Household Name and How Much He Is Worth Now One of YouTubes first viral stars and the worlds most exciting young comedian, Bo Burnham, has always amazed critics and comedy aficionados alike. Often regarded as the Justin Bieber of comedy, thanks to his fresh looks, floppy blond hair and hoodies, he has a multi-faceted career bigger than many comedians twice his age. It wouldnt ...

Is Louie Anderson Gay And What Is His Net Worth? Louie Anderson has one of the most abstract faces in the industry and equally knows how to use it to his advantage. He is not only a stand-up comedian but also an actor and television host who is known for his distinctive comic wits. Some of his notable projects include Family Feud, where he was ...

Is Don Lemon of CNN Gay, Who is His Partner and What Is His Salary? Don Lemon has risen to become one of the most recognizable faces on CNN over the past few years. The fiery journalist, who anchors CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, is liked and somewhat disliked for his strong and candid opinions on a variety of matters that do not just include politics but also race, significantly, matters that ...

Is Rachel Maddow Gay, Who is the Wife and How Much Does She Earn in Salary? Rachel Maddow is an award-winning American journalist, political commentator, and television news anchor. She is best known for hosting the popular nightly TV show The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Prior to this, she hosted a talk radio program on Air America Radio from 2005 to 2010. As of now, the TV sensation co-anchors MSNBCs ...

Demystifying Pokimane  Her Real Name, Ethnicity & Boyfriend Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Pokimane Thicc is one of those stars who took advantage of the internet to make a name for herself. Given the unlimited potentials which the social media space offers, many people have been instantly propelled to fame just by posting creative online contents. Not only has ...

A Breakdown of Kris Jenners Net Worth, Sources Of Income and Relationships Over The Years Standing outside and looking in, Kris Jenner looks like the oil that greases the wheels of the entire Kardashian/Jenner machine. She has been dubbed a momager and rightfully so because she seems to have had a part to play in the trajectory of each and every one of her daughters individually and the Kardashian brand ...

Pursuits That Brought Liza Koshys Fame To its Zenith and Her Love Life Since David Dobrik Liza Koshy is an American actress who has leveraged YouTube as a platform to promote her comedy while also serving as a television host on occasions. She is talented and funny and has gathered a lot of fans from around the world. Koshy started on Vine in high school and was able to get millions of ...

Alex Aiono Biography  Inside The Life Of The American Singer Not everyone who started from the streets has attained the heights where Alex Aiono is currently. His story could be referred to as the perfect definition of rising from Grass to Grace. He came into the limelight after he started out as a YouTuber, singer, and producer. One fascinating thing about the young YouTuber is ...

Virginia Vallejo Biography And Her Love Story With Pablo Escobar Virginia Vallejo can be referred to as one of the oldest whistleblowers in history after her involvement with Pablo Escobar which made her famous. Over the years, many questions have been raised about her relationship with the drug lord and why she endangered her life to be with him despite his notorious acts. The death ...

Princess Love Bio  Ethnicity, Real Name & Parents For many people, Princess Love is simply Ray Js wife but there is so much more to this feisty lady than meets the eye. She is a star in her own right and has many feathers on her cap. Princess Love is a reality TV star, a model, video vixen, and fashion designer. She and her ...

Who is Papa Franku Also Known As Filthy Frank or Joji, Where is He Now? The social media as we all know today has given people the opportunity to be creative and innovative and at the same time, make something of themselves. YouTube is one of the known social platforms we have today that makes it possible for people to express their God-given talents and post videos they created to ...

Who Is Molly Qerim, How Did She Become a Famous Sports Anchor and Who Is Her Husband? Molly Qerim is an American sports anchor popularly known for moderating First Take, a highly rated sports talk show, on ESPN. Prior to joining ESPN, Qerim hosted Fantasy Live and NFL AM on NFL Network. It is quite obvious that the widely acclaimed television personality is in a class of her own when it comes ...

Safiya Nygaard  Height, Parents & Net Worth Safiya Nygaard is an American YouTuber, writer, content producer, and director who is popular for posting makeup, beauty and fashion videos on YouTube. Her videos regularly top at least one million views, thanks to her lively character as well as her willingness to experiment with outrageous outfits and different beauty products. Here are the things to ...

The Rigors of Sunlen Serfatys Career Journey Until CNN and Fun Facts About Her Personal Life CNN correspondent, Sunlen Serfaty is an Emmy Award-winning journalist known for covering a broad range of breaking news stories, national news, and Washington politics. She has been able to garner widespread recognition for herself which even goes beyond the sphere of her work. Her profile also increased with the extensive work she did in covering ...

Demystifying Jazz Jennings Real Name, Boyfriend & Family Of One The Youngest Transgenders Jazz Jennings is an unusual personality who became famous as a transgender activist and was recorded as the youngest documented public figure to be seen as transgender. She is also a YouTube personality and spokesmodel for brands, her fans, and other transgenders. She fought for acceptance in her high school with her super supportive family for over ...

Inside Fred Armisens Life  Ethnicity, Romantic Relationships and Gay Rumors Fred Armisen is an award-winning American comedian, he is also a writer, an actor as well as a musician. He was a cast member of the legendary comedy show, Saturday Night Live for 13 years and also one of the brains behind the successful satirical show Portlandia. Find out more about this incredibly talented guy ...

Ed and Lorraine Warren Biography: Cases, Kids, and Family Life Have you ever woken up with fear you could not explain, or felt a strange presence that made the hair at your nape rise or even experienced strange occurrences around you? Well, these were some of the promptings that made the well-known paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren delve into trying to explain the ideas ...

Truth About Tony Romos Wife, Kids and Life Since His NFL Retirement Tony Romo grew from the field as a quarterback to the screens as an American Football Analyst. He was a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys in the richest football league in the world (NFL) before retiring. As a junior, he was honored as an All-Ohio Conference Member, an Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year and ...

Who is Brittany Venti, The Controversial Game Streamer and YouTuber? In recent times, many people live stream themselves playing video games. This has become a popular pastime on the internet and many highly skilled gamers have become internet celebrities through this means. However, some of them rather than becoming renowned for their gaming skills and great commentary, have become controversial and infamous. A good example ...

Rob Dyrdeks Family: His Kids And Relationship With Wife Bryiana Noelle Flores A multi-talented star and an elite pro skateboarder, Rob Dyrdeks success story began at a remarkably young age. Yet another proof that schooling doesnt always correlate with success, Rob has established himself not just as a phenomenal sportsman but also as a successful entrepreneur. Besides perfecting his skill as a natural talent on the board, ...

xChocobars  Biography and Everything You Should Know About Her Having distinguished herself and recorded massive successes in an industry notably dominated by men, it is very safe to say that Xchocobars deserves all the attention and cash she makes from her career. A household name on Twitch (a smart live streaming video platform), the online-gamer is popularly known for streaming classic games such as Stardew ...

Everything To Know About Mary Padian, Her Boyfriend and Net Worth Mary Padian is a famous American television reality personality best known for her involvements on the Reality show Storage Wars. She also has her own shop called Mary finds where she displays her antique collections. Since her childhood, Padian has been a creative learner. At the time, she used to create new items out of reusable ones and ...

Betsy Woodruffs Family Life: Is She Married or Related To Bob Woodruff? An old name in the world of journalism, Betsy Woodruff has warmed her way into the hearts of many with her impressive talents. Through hard work, Woodruff has carved a niche for herself in a very competitive field. Betsy has strong family and work values and is also an advocate for equal opportunities for everyone ...

Matpat (Matthew Patrick)  Wife, Height & Net Worth As far as internet business is concerned, Matpat remains one of the most dynamic and seasoned figures. He boasts a wealth of experience that has helped him in growing his business from one level of greatness to another. Like most successful people, MatPat started out small but today, he makes millions of dollars from his ...

Facts About Ricegum  His Girlfriend, Real Name & Net Worth Ricegum is an online gamer and YouTube sensation who ditched college; took advantage of the digital era, and made a name for himself on the internet. Though he began as a gaming YouTuber, Ricegum soon gained recognition as a controversial internet star following his many diss tracks. Here is everything you need to know about the youngster ...

Joy Taylor Once Married MLBs Richard Giannotti  Inside Look At Her Love Life and Family The erosion of the sexist idea that women have no business in sports broadcasting created a host of women celebrities who attained fame outside of modeling and acting. One of them, Joy Taylor, a radio personality and TV host for Fox Sports 1, has been in the industry since 2009, becoming one of the most ...

What To Know About Conan OBriens Wife, Kids & Family Today The name Conan OBrien is one that jumps right at you almost immediately you start talking about the most popular television hosts in the USA and this is no surprise because the man behind that name has risen to become one of the most admired men in the business. Known for hosting the late-night talk ...

David Letterman  Net Worth, Wife & Son In all of American, one man whose face has been seen frequently by late night TV talk show lovers is none but David Letterman. The comedian and TV show veteran has been hosting late night talk shows for more than three decades. His Late Night with David Letterman show began on February 1st, 1982 aired ...

Demystifying Sssniperwolfs Family Background And The Boyfriends Shes Had Since she launched her eponymously named channel in 2013, Sssniperwolf has been on the rise when it comes to video game influencers. She is one of the biggest names in the online gaming subgenre of YouTube videos. Real name Lia Shelesh, she started with Call of Duty: Black Ops II but has diversified with other ...

Lester Holt  Wife, Family & Net Worth Lester Holt is a multiple award-winning journalist, newscaster, reporter, and actor who has worked for notable media houses like WCBS TV, CBS, MSNBC and among others. His remarkable feat in journalism has endeared him to the hearts of many and earned him some awards and recognitions. Read on to get acquainted with his biography, ethnicity, ...

What Is Louis C.K. Doing Now, Where Are His Family And How Much Is His Net Worth? It is not easy to make it in comedy. It takes more than a funny bone and the ability to elicit a few giggles from a listening audience. For all the complexities that go into making a successful career in comedy, Louis C.K, the Washington D.C-born comedian, did it. For years, he was at the ...

The Progression of Hoda Kotbs Career, Her Ancestry and Family Life Hoda Kotb gained fame as a television host and news anchor for NBC. She anchors the shows signature show Today, and it has been an excellent vehicle for her skills in front of a camera. Kotb has won several awards, including Daytime Emmys and Peabody Awards. Simply put, she is one of the most successful ...

Jerry Seinfelds Family: All About The Amazing Comedians Wife and Kids Apparently one of the highly important entertainers in America, Jerry Seinfeld is a man of many talents. A very funny man, he is considered to be one of the most successful comedians in the USA who has been in the business as a professional rib-cracker for more than 40 years. As an actor, he has ...

The Rigors Of Sarah Silvermans Rise To Prominence And Rundown Of The Men She Has Dated A comedian, writer, and actress, Sarah Silvermans art and craft is as unique as you would ever find. Her poignant use of comedy to discuss social issues such as race, sexism, politics, and religion has gained her an impressive following. As unorthodox as her style is, so is her life experiences. She previously suffered from epiglottitis ...

Who Is Hannibal Buress, Does He Have A Wife or Girlfriend & Why Was He Arrested? Making people laugh when they are tense or not in the mood is a tough order and to ply the trade, it must indeed take some guts and expertise, this is what the humor maker, Hannibal Buress has been able to achieve and sustain after his inital teething process. The African-American is a screen writer, stand-up ...

The Success of John Mulaneys Career Efforts Since His Work On Saturday Night Live and Facts About His Wife John Mulaney had been working as a professional comedian for years before Saturday Night Live changed his status for life and like many who are now his fans, you probably did not know of him then. However, that changed when he joined the sketch comedy show in 2008. Since then, he has been one of ...

Jeff Dunham  Wife, Children and Net Worth Ventriloquism is a very subtle method of making an inanimate object (like a puppet, doll or dummy) appear to be saying words which are actually coming from the person (holding the inanimate object). In effect, the individual throws his/her voice to the puppet and can even appear to be having a conversation with it. Not ...

Ellen DeGeneres  Net Worth, Wife  Portia de Rossi & Parents Ellen DeGeneres is an American female standup comedian who has proven that whatever a man can do, a woman can also do. Since her journey as a standup comedian started in 1981, she has held swirl as one of the finest comedians America and the world at large has seen. She is often referred to ...

Revisiting Joan Rivers Death  The Daughter, Husband & Net Worth She Left Behind Joan Rivers was a renowned American comedian, TV host, writer, and actress. Her brand of comedy consisted of scathing one-liners and no individual or topic is spared. She hosted her own talk shows in the 80s and 90s and was a pioneer for women in stand up comedy. She was the first woman to host a late night ...

The Struggles of Margaret Chos Childhood, How It Influenced Her Career Growth and Love Life Margaret Cho is best described as a comic star who knows how to maneuver everything related to life into a rib-cracking joke. She is also known to criticize every social and political problem, especially those involving race and sexuality. Apart from her talents as a comic actress, she does amazingly well as a singer and ...

Where Is Eric Bolling Today? Who Is His Son & What Is His Net Worth? Eric Bolling who was once a notable figure on Fox News, is an American TV personality, an author, and versatile Journalist. As a political and financial analyst/commentator, he anchored discussions bothering on finance for Fox Business Channel. Here is everything there is to know about his career, family, and allegations that led to his exit ...

Who Is Chelsea Handler and Does She Have A Husband or Boyfriend? Chelsea Handler is one of Americas top female comedians. She is also an actress, writer, television host, producer, and activist. She is known to be very outspoken even with things that are very personal. In separate interviews with The New York Times, Handler revealed that she had an abortion twice when she was 16. She has authored five books ...

How Did Laura Lee Achieve Fame, How Much is She Worth and Who is Her Husband? Laura Lee is a popular American YouTuber, make-up artist and beauty blogger. From posting videos of her makeup routines on Instagram, Lee has transformed into a beauty influencer and a YouTube sensation. Today, her YouTube Channel has over 630 million views and 4.5 million subscribers. Asides having millions of followers across all social media platforms, ...

Madison Gesiotto Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Measurements Madison Gesiotto is no ordinary woman; although she excelled in quite a number of pageants and competitions while she was in school, it is her views on politics and issues in America that has made her name known to most people. She possesses beauty and intelligence in a seemingly equal measure and has been able ...

Who Is Lil Tay? Parents, Brother, Sister, Age, Net Worth, Ethnicity Child stardom is nothing new in the entertainment world. With the advent of social media, we have seen more stars made from the internet than ever before, and Lil Tay is one of them. Her uploaded rap videos trademark is cursing, swearing, cash-throwing, and use of obscene languages. Her fame went wild after she dropped ...

What To Know About Tig Notaros Wife, Kids and Family Today Tig Notaro is an American stand-up comic star, writer, actress, and radio analyst. Since she started her career in 2001, she has become one of Americas best comedians, particularly when it comes to observational comedy. One prominent aspect of her routine involves her family, which includes a wife and two children. Interestingly, Tig Notaro is part ...

Who Is Chantel Jeffries? What To Know About Her Age, Ethnicity & Net Worth Chantel Jeffries is a lady of many talents. Beyond being celebrated as a DJ, she has fared well as a model, an actress, musician, and as an artist. She first rose to fame on Instagram where she has a large following. However, in recent times, she has hit the spotlight for her rumored relationships with some ...

Is Ellen DeGeneres Married, Who Is The Brother  Vance DeGeneres and Family Members? Ellen DeGeneres is one of a kind celebrity in todays world as she has used her wealth for the greater good for many people. She has served a host of famous awards shows like the Grammy, Primetime Emmy and Academy Awards. Moreso, she is probably one of the most decorated entertainment personalities around the world and ...

Carli Bybel Bio  Height, Boyfriend & Net Worth Video blogging is now on the rise and YouTube is the place where most of it happens. If you are a lady who cares about her looks or a guy who likes to help his woman out with her looks, then one person whose name rings a bell when it comes to giving beauty tips ...

Who Is Lexy Panterra? What To Know About Her Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth Lexy Panterra is one of the YouTube personalities whose breakout came through the Twerk dance videos she posted on her social media handles and YouTube which has so far generated over 13 million views for her. From there on, she created her LexTwerkOut workout program in 2014. She is sure very talented as she as moved ...

Who Is AnneMunition? What Is Her Ethnicity & Does She Have A Girlfriend or Boyfriend? AnneMunition is a professional gamer and content creator of American origin. She is one of the most sought-after streamers on Twitch  a popular online platform for watching and streaming videos, especially video games. AnneMunition has almost half a million followers on Twitch and her channel has accumulated at least 13 million views. Her favorite games ...

Norm MacDonald  Former Wife, Son & Net Worth Recently, 59-year-old former Saturday Night Live stand-up comic Norm MacDonald caused a not-so-funny stir when he expressed his personal opinion about the #MeToo movement speaking in defense of Louis CK and Roseanne Barr. Following the backlash of his actions, he is diligently doing damage control for his questionable opinion by posting a public apology on ...

Inside Iliza Shlesingers Life With Husband and How Much She is Worth Now Witty, spontaneous, and truly humorous, Iliza Shlesinger is an American comedian who is clearly proving that the stereotypical claim that women are not really funny is not only incredibly wrong but completely outrageous. Having been in the game for more than 10 years, Shlesinger has grown bigger with each step, stunning fans with her incredible ...

Who Is Nessa Diab? Details of her Parents, Ethnicity & Relationship With Colin Kaepernick Nessa Diab has gained more fame as the girlfriend of different footballers than in her career. She is currently with the popular National Football League (NFL) player, Colin Kaepernick, and has stood by his side during his most trying times. Also known for her mononym, Nessa, she recently engaged in a tweet battle with the ...

Samantha Bee  Inside the Life of Full Frontal Comedian and Presenter We have over the decades seen various brands of humor and personalities who have walked the ropes. One of the formidable forces in the world of comedy is no other than the iconic Samantha Bee of the Daily Show who now runs her own television show on TBS channel. She is a Canadian-American political commentator, ...

What Happened To Jessica Williamss Boyfriend And Which Are Her Best Works? Jessica Williams is a woman who has a lot of feathers in her cap  and keeps acquiring more. The former senior political correspondent of the comic Daily Show, who is also a comedian and actress whose recent movie appearance include starring as a playwright just recovering from a recent split with her boyfriend, Damon, and ...

Who is Nicole Byer? Here are 5 Facts You Need To Know About The Comedian Nicole Byer, an American comedian, actress, and writer, made a name for herself after she played supporting roles on MTVs prank show Ladylike and the reality show Girl Code. The latter was a series that featured comedians who analyzed in minute details, all the issues that young women deal with daily, from period to dating, to weird friendship dynamics and questions about sex. Currently, ...

A Closer Look At Bart Kwans Ethnicity, Height & Personal Life Bart Kwan is one of few Asians who is known for being successful in the comic industry at an international level. His fame broke out after the YouTube channel which he created with his close pal Joe Jo garnered up massive followings. The talented duo has been running the channel since 2007 and their success ...

Heres How VanossGaming Achieved Fame Online, His Worth and Other Facts About The Gamer For many years, the decision to drop out of college to pursue an online career was considered to be foolish and self-destructive by conventional wisdom. It was no different when Evan Fong, popularly known as VanossGaming, dropped out of college to pursue a YouTube career. However, that radical move paid off, and he stands shoulder to ...

Desi Perkins  Ethnicity, Net Worth & Husband YouTube is littered with videos of makeup tutorials by different people but if you are interested in learning how to do your makeup like a pro, there is just one person on that platform who you must follow. She is none other than Desi Perkins! She is a popular make-up artist, Instagram star, and vlogger. Desi, ...

The Phases of Casey Neistats Pursuits and His Love Story With Candice Pool YouTuber, vlogger, filmmaker, and creator extraordinaire; these are just a few hats that Casey Neistat wears and the story of how he got here is incredible. A native of Connecticut, Neistat started out by making refreshingly-authentic short films and videos that featured content that was based on everyday life and called attention to serious issues. He ...

Connor Franta  Inside The Life of American YouTuber YouTube has produced a lot of young celebrities in modern times and Connor Franta happens to be one of them. Apart from being a YouTuber, the young American is also an entrepreneur, entertainer, and writer. His journey to fame began almost a decade ago when he started a self-named YouTube channel where he uploads content ranging ...

Rhett and Link  Bio, Who are Their Wives, Net Worth and Family Facts Rhett and Link refer to an American comedy duo who are very popular on YouTube. They are known for their comic songs, viral commercials, skits and the daily show, Good Mythical Morning. Good Mythical Morning is the most watched daily show online, averaging 100 million views in a month. The show has featured guests such ...

A Walk Through The Maze of Ryan Higas Career Pursuits And Relationship With Arden Cho Ryan Higa is not only celebrated as a YouTube star, but he is also famed for appearing on television screens as an actor and comedian. Nigahiga, his Youtube channel, has gathered over 20 million subscribers and billions of views with his different comic acts, short films, and music videos uploads. With the rise in his career, ...

What to Know About The Shows That Made Craig Ferguson a Star and His Family Ties Rising to the top of your profession can sometimes be a hard and difficult process. It requires days and nights of working consistently hard to be better than what you were yesterday. It requires not giving up when all of your experiences seem to be pushing you to quit. It is because of these challenges ...

David Dobrik Married Liza Koshy for One Month  Inside His Family and Relationships David Dobrik is a YouTube sensation who has garnered fame not just for his vlogs but his love life too. Given his career as a YouTuber, his channel is one place where he shares his romantic escapades. With a cute boyish look like his, this Slovakian young man is definitely a good catch, and not ...

Merrell Twins Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Boyfriend One of the beautiful things about modern life is social media. As rudimentary as it might seem, it could turn out to be the greatest thing that would be invented in the next 50 years because of its impact on human life. Very few tools have revolutionized human behavior and culture as much as social ...

Who Is Bunny Meyer, Is She Married & What Is Her Net Worth? Bunny Meyer is a YouTube celebrity who has amassed over 8.8 million subscribers with 1.5 million viewers on her channel. She is popularly known as Grav3yardgirl and is one of the highest-paid YouTubers in the world. She initially started out as a fashion designer and later chose the path of a YouTuber. Grav3yardgirl has used her knowledge on fashion, makeup, ...

Ninja  Inside The Life of The American YouTuber and Internet Personality Ninja is a talented video game player known for his mastery of Fortnite and other seemingly difficult games he plays with ease. The video gamer made a career out of what is ordinarily the hobby of many people and has since then amassed a huge online following. Find out about him here, including the controversies that ...

What Is Eva Gutowskis True Sexuality and How Did She Rise So Fast As an Influencer? Ever since Eva Gutowski joined YouTube in 2011, it has been an interesting journey for her, moving from one milestone to the other. Backed by an army of young women and teenage girl fans known as Evanators, she has risen to become one of the most-talked-about personalities in the digital stratosphere. She has also leveraged ...

Emma Chamberlain Biography  Age, Height & Net Worth Before now, people in the entertainment industry could only achieve popularity after many years of dedication and hard work but since social media came into the scene, massive success and overnight popularity became possible. That is the story of Emma Chamberlain who encountered fame as a fifteen-year-old. Emma is one of the many young people who became ...

Anna Akana  Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth There is a new crop of YouTubers known by their different contents with a very strong uniqueness that stands every one of them out, some upload video games, some fashion while some others have comedy video contents to showcase on their channels. Anna Akana has used her platform to showcase her comedy contents to the ...

Revealing Truths About Lilly Singhs Ethnic Background, Family and Her Relationship With Yousef Erakat Lilly Singh is an Indian-Canadian YouTube personality, actress, and comedian also known as Superwoman. She kicked off her YouTube career in 2010 with the launch of her channel IISuperwomanII and followed it up with a vlog channel in 2011. This paved the way for her fame and success which led to a world tour. The ...

Who Is Andrea Constand, Is She Married and What Is Her Connection With Bill Cosby? Many people got sexually molested but could not voice out due to the stigma victims suffer and what will become of them thereafter. Very few of the victims danm every consequence to seek justice and bring the perpetrator to the book, like Andrea Constand. She never got any media buzz, not until her friend cum molester; ...

Who Is Lazarbeam (Lannan Eacott)? Here Are Facts You Need To Know Lannan Eacott became a person of interest after his YouTube channel, LazarBeam pulled him to the limelight. Initially, he started with uploads of Madden Challenge videos before deciding to build his own channel in January 2015. Within the space of three years, his YouTube channel had gathered over 7 million loyal subscribers. Today, he has not ...

Puzzling Facts About Wengies YouTube Success and More About Her Fiance Among the many YouTubers who have succeeded in winning the hearts of millions of people is Wengie. She is a Chinese-Australian YouTube personality, vlogger, singer, and voice actress. Wengie is famous for a lot of things, from her simple life hacks, DIYs, craft ideas to fun experiments, tricks and pranks. Her content portfolio also includes hair tutorials, diet & fitness tips, lookbooks, ...

Is Jeffree Star A Billionaire and How Much Does He Make On YouTube? If looks can be deceptive then theres no other person who proves this maxim better than Jeffree Star. A quick look at Stars pictures would likely leave you wondering whether or not to tag him a male or female. But who says being controversial has to be a curse? For Star, his looks have caught ...

The Place of Rosanna Pansinos Career Hats In Her Rise To Fame and Facts About Her Personal Life There are a few phrases that could summarize Rosanna Pansinos rise to fame. None of them can do it better than the famous axiom, no knowledge is lost. Her popularity YouTube comes out of her foray into other professions, specifically acting. Although acting now occupies one of the major professional hats in Rosannas resume, it was ...

Muselk (Elliott Watkins) Biography  Age, Girlfriend and Net Worth The new and best in-thing in terms of career is video gaming and we have over time seen young men and women make massive income from an activity that was purportedly designed to serve as a hobby or a relaxation activity. One of such individuals is the Australian-born YouTube Celebrity and Twitch streamer, Muselk, whose ...

PopularMMOs Biography: 5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know We have over the years seen social media millionaires, especially on the YouTube social platform. These celebrities cum millionaires have made names for themselves after carving out niches on the internet, and a typical example of one of such exciting media personality on the YouTube is American Minecraft gamer and YouTube star, PopularMMOs whose channel ...

Jason Nash Once Married Marney Hochman  What To Know About His Ex-Wife and Kids The now-defunct video-sharing app Vine was the path that led Jason Nash to fame. With it, he built an audience of over two million followers, which he parlayed into a significant YouTube career. That move has seen him become one of the most popular personalities on the internet, with the cash income to go with ...

Where Does Dantdm Live? What Do We Know About His Net Worth, Wife and Brother? Most parents buy video games for their kids to occupy their time leisure, while other parents frown at their kids when they play video games. Despite the disparity, every parent would be proud of their child if he/she eventually turns a celebrity or millionaire through playing video games like Dantdm. Biography of Dantdm Dantdm was born Daniel ...

LaurDIY  Biography: 5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTuber LaurDIY is the YouTube channel of Lauren Riihimaki which she created on December 1, 2011, when she was still a college undergrad with the sole aim of giving Do It Yourself (DIY) as well as practical fashion and beauty tips to her followers. She has used the channel to establish herself as a YouTube personality ...

Lachlan Ross Power  Bio And Family Life Of Australian The YouTube Star It is amazing the varied sources of income that the internet has made possible in this day and age. Internet fame can get its holder a whole lot of monetary and social benefits, but it must be noted that it does not come easy or cheap. For those who desire fame, content is the sacrifice ...

Alfie Deyes  Bio and Net Worth: Everything You Need To Know Alfie Deyes is one internet personality you definitely would like to know about. He boasts of over 10 million subscribers on three of his YouTube channels and has three bestseller books to his name. He is probably the most renowned young personality on YouTube today and his vlogging empire continues to grow by the day. ...

Colleen Ballingers Love Story With Husband Erik Stocklin and How Much She Is Worth Now Colleen Ballinger is an American comedian and YouTuber who is a very funny, adventurous, and highly talented woman. She is also an actress, singer, and writer. Collen is widely known for her work on YouTube where she posts content on her channel, Miranda Sings. The comedian has gained many subscribers over the years and has ...

Who Are The Dude Perfect Members and How Much Are They Worth? Entertainment in the 21st century can be digested in many forms and with platforms like YouTube, the creators and purveyors of entertainment have been democratized. Today, one of the most popular platforms to exhibit ones creative talents is YouTube, even though there are other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, who suffer in comparison to YouTube because ...

Who Is Rudy Mancuso, What Is His Earning Power and What Do We Know About His Girlfriend? Rudy Mancuso started his internet journey on Vine. He would later transition to YouTube where he solidified his place among the internets most beloved comedic creators. He is now regarded as one of the renowned internet personalities in the world, with a presence in mainstream TV and film projects like Comedy Centrals Drunk History and ...

Vsauce (Michael Stevens) Biography and Net Worth: All You Need To Know The advent of YouTube and the internet as a whole revolutionized how human beings consume information. With each passing year, the percentage of learning that is done in a traditional classroom decrease as a seismic shift to internet-based learning happens in our education industry. From open courses online to YouTube classes and videos, there are ...

How did Jake Paul Make His YouTube Big Break and Who is His Wife? One of the most interesting Social Media personalities of the 21st century is the young and popular Jake Paul whose elder brother is the famed Vine star, Logan Paul. Jake has utilized the power of the internet to bring himself to the limelight with a channel named JakePaulProductions that has amassed up to six billion ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About Reaction Time (Tal Fishman)  The American YouTuber Before 2015, the leading meaning of reaction time was the amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus, until Tal Fishman started his channel, Reaction Time on YouTube and the dominant meaning changed. Today, a google search of Reaction Time would deliver Tal Fishmans videos and YouTube channel link with a few physics ...

Grace Helbig  Net Worth, Boyfriend and Family Life of The YouTuber Grace Helbig is an American internet personality, comedian, actress, and writer. She became popular due to her daily vlog series, DailyGrace, which ran on My Damn Channel from 2008 to 2013. Helbig is also popular for her own indie series on YouTube, ItsGrace, which she launched in 2014. Her vlogs which feature random stuff such as ...

Mark Wiens Bio  Ethnicity, Wife and Parents Food is a great way to connect with people. We all love to eat, if not for the pleasure of food, the satisfaction of quenching hunger, and the very process of providing and sharing that food is part of the strongest bonds that bind humanity together. Maybe it is our historical connection to food, where ...

Is Filthy Frank Dead, What Happened To Him and How Much Is He Worth? As George Kusunoki Miller, he was a nobody. However, as Filthy Frank, George was one of the most famous internet personalities on the planet. The Filthy Frank Show, a sketch series on his YouTube channel, TVFilthyFrank, was one of the platforms most influential creations. He is the reason a crazy dance song, Harlem Shake, made it ...

CaptainSparklez Bio  Net Worth, House and Cars of The Famous YouTuber Sometimes, what society wants from its citizens is quite different from what the citizens want for themselves. This is evident in the life and career of video blogger and American YouTube personality, Jordan Maron famous for his YouTube channel CaptainSparklez. He dropped out of school after discovering his talent in playing an online game called Minecraft. ...

Who is Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg)? Here are Facts You Must Know Canadian Youtube personality, Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg) originally started out polishing and designing nails even before it became a trendy culture in the social media. Simply Nailogica started out her showbiz career in her early days as a child actress, acting in commercials for game and toy companies. Aside from acting, she is blogger, vlogger, specializing ...

5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know About Huda Beauty In the world of entrepreneurship, it is interesting when an individual has a mentor who he/she looks up to, this yield more productivity on the part of the individual. The iconic and rich American beautician and makeup artist Huda Kattan nicknamed Heida is the founder of the Huda Beauty blog which is number one Instagram beauty blog ...

Is Dino MasterChef Gay? Details About His Ethnicity, Girlfriend, Where He Is Now Food, for the better part of the early years of human life, was nothing more than what we needed for survival. There was no artistry or curation to the method of cooking. The scarcity of food left no room for artistic expression until we figured out agriculture and we could make as much as we ...

Who Is Gabbie Hanna And How Did She Become Famous? As the world shifts to digital media and depends more and more on streaming services for its news and entertainment content, YouTubers have become one of the leading creators in the new media world. Their understanding of the online audience: how to create, maintain, and increase followers, are all handy skills that have primed them ...

Jacksepticeye  Height, Girlfriend & Net Worth Jacksepticeye is a YouTuber and actor who gained popularity with a series of gaming videos he uploads on his channel to the delight of millions of his subscribers. He is Known primarily for his comic video game series titled Lets Play and his vlogs. His channel was formerly ranked 46th in the list of most subscribed ...

Chris Heria Personal Details: About His Wife, Height & Ethnicity Background In this generation, keeping fit has become one of the major criteria for being hale and hearty. In fact, most occupations these days are majorly concerned with ones body mass, weight and looks. Unlike the past where most people have to register in a gym to keep fit, social media has made it quite easy ...

Everything You Need To Know About Game Grumps Gaming is becoming incredibly popular on YouTube these days with game vloggers make millions of dollars out of them yearly. One of the most popular up-coming gaming YouTube channels is Game Grumps. The Lets Play series was created in 2012 and celebrated its fifth anniversary on July 18th, 2017. In six years of its existence, the ...

Daithi De Nogla Biography, Girlfriend and Net Worth YouTube has created an avenue for many to make wealth and become famous from the comfort of their homes while having fun. Many have built a career out of the platform, uploading numerous videos that have earned them the admiration of viewers across the globe. For Daithi De Nogla, he is loved for his humorous commentary on ...

Does Phoebe Robinson Have A Boyfriend or Husband and What Do We Know About Her Family? Phoebe Robinson is a New York-based comedian, writer, and actress. She is best known as the co-creator and co-host of the WNYC Studios podcast 2 Dope Queens. Just like some other female comedians, she never had any original plans of becoming a stand-up comedian even though, according to her, she took a class on a whim at Carolines on Broadway. After ...

Who Are Lex and Alana from Listed Sisters? What Is Their Ethnicity & Is the Show Cancelled? America is a country built on diversity. Everywhere you look all over the country, a countless number of immigrants or children of immigrants have become an integral part of the fabric of the country. From entertainment to business, immigrants are creating a niche for themselves and climbing to the summit of their respective professions. One ...

Riveting Facts About Danielle Lombard And What She Is Best Known For The American entertainment industry is one that provides many avenues for aspiring hopefuls to express their talents and become famous. From films to television shows and game shows, there is no shortage of ways for men and women who desire fame to pursue and earn it in the United States of America. Another tested medium ...

Unearthing New Details About The YouTube Success And Personal Life of Alex Burriss of Wassabi Productions Wildly hilarious and truly audacious, Alex Wassabi is an American YouTuber who has become a very popular face on the video-sharing platform after having garnered millions of subscribers over the years by keeping people glued to his channel with his witty parody video releases. If you have always loved parody videos, there is every chance ...

Everything You Need To Know About H2O Delirious H2O Delirious whose full birth name is reported to be Jonathan Gormon Dennis has successfully kept himself mystified by hiding his face behind the masks leaving his loyal fans speculating who he really is for many years. The American YouTube star is easily identified by the Jason Mask Style with make-up which he wears on his ...

Who Is HolaSoyGerman and What Happened To Him? German Garmendia has certainly seen it all when it comes to internet success. His channels, HolaSoyGerman and JuegaGerman are in the top twenty most subscribed channel on YouTube. The Chilean YouTuber found a way to tap into one of the worlds greatest inventions and make a living from it. He has been able to build ...

Who Are Glenn Becks Family, What Is His Net Worth And What Happened To Him? The American political commentary space is filled with different personalities. A few of them, through their rhetoric, charisma, and resources have been able to build a large following of men and women who listen to them for insight and direction for various political and social issues in the United States. For Conservatives, the story is ...

Following Charissa Thompsons Rise Through The Ranks Of Sports Casting and All About Her Boyfriend Superstar TV host and sportscaster, Charissa Thompson, has been hailed as one of the highest-profile women journalists in America, and the reason is there for all to see. She has worked for popular establishments such as Versus, Yahoo! Sports, ESPN, GSN, and Big Ten Network. She currently hosts the popular pre-game show, Fox NFL Kickoff, ...

Is Chris Kattan Gay or Does He Have A Wife? What Is His Net Worth? Chris Kattan is a popular American comedian and actor. He has appeared in several comic movies and TV series such as The Middle, A Night at the Roxbury and Bunnicula. Kattan is, however, most popular for his six-year stint as a cast member of Saturday Night Live. During his time on the legendary show, he ...

Everything You Should Know About the Rise of Insta Star Claire Abbott and Why She Gave It All Up A lot of young Americans have shot into the limelight for uploading different kinds of videos on YouTube. Some of these young stars include Connor Franta, Desi Perkins, Emma Chamberlain, the Dolan Twins (Ethan and Grayson), and Claire Abbott. The latter became a social media celebrity for uploading sexy bikini pictures of herself on social media. Apart from ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTube Channel  h3h3Productions H3h3Productions is a YouTube channel that specializes on Comic responses or reactions of other contents or trendy stories. The celebrity couple that created the channel has over time racked up sizable views for their commentaries and contents. Even though they had their own fair share of copyright cases, thankfully they scored an unprecedented victory in all ...

Lilypichu Bio  Height, Brother and Love Story With Albert SleightlyMusical Chang Like most popular internet celebrities, Lilypichu is one of those Twitch streamers who spend their lives on camera. From daydreaming about the possibility of becoming a full-time professional streamer, she grew to live out her dreams on the popular live streaming platform where people play games, make crafts, and showcase their day-to-day activities. Given the rise of ...

KSI  What To Know About His Girlfriend, Brother  Deji Olatunji & Net Worth Assuredly, when Internet inventors Vint Cerf and Bob Khan created the technological masterpiece, they probably did not know how massive the creation will be harnessed by many for different purposes including as a platform for earning money through content creation. One of such person who smiles to the bank regularly today for spending time creating ...

The Interesting Progression and Highlights of Carrie Keagans Career as a Host and Actress Carrie Keagan has garnered huge fame through her various stints on television. She is not just your regular TV host but one with a difference. Keagan has hosted several high profile events and TV shows, including VH1s Big Morning Buzz Live and Fox News Channels Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld. However, not many know she ...

The Gist On Elise Jordans Marriages And Her Rise To Prominence Political commentaries tend to be boring when it is handled by someone who does not have a knack for it. However, when you see the likes of Elise Jordan run the same commentary, you will have a lot of reasons to look forward to watching her again as the journalist is well-versed in the field ...

What Is Timmy Thick Best Known For and How Successful Is The Star? Thanks to the internet, many people whose talents would have ordinarily gone unnoticed have become famous. A very good example of this modern-day internet celebrity is Timmy Thick, an American social media star. He became popular on Instagram due to his penchant for posting raunchy pictures of himself. He also often posted videos of himself ...

What Does Heather Storm Do For a Living and Who Is She Dating? Reality Television is a great way to make a name for oneself as well as amass a fortune. Heather Storm can attest to this as she is one of those who have made a name and earned a lot from reality TV. She made her name appearing on shows like Car Fanatics, Awesome Autos, and, ...

Matt Carriker Biography  Net Worth, Wife & Height Unlike your regular veterinary doctor next door, Matt Carriker chose to spice up his noble profession with the unusual. Though he is known to many as a medical practitioner, Carriker is better renowned as a YouTube star and an animal lover. Having recorded huge successes on his various YouTube channels, the vet doctors name and ...

Jillian Mele of Fox News Career Achievements, Husband & Measurements There are quite a good number of presenters on radio and television who listeners and viewers may never wish to miss any of their shows because of their sensational golden voice, beauty or the special way or artistry they anchor their shows. Jillian Mele is one of such. She has been at the top of ...

Who is Gillian Turner of Fox News? Her Fiance or Husband and Net Worth Gillian Turner is well-known as a news correspondent for Fox News Channel but before she became a TV personality, she built an intimidating resume working for different institutions, including the American government. She served in different capacities at the White House National Security Council during the administration of former US Presidents  George W. Bush and Barack Obama. ...

Gloria Govan Bio  Age, Ethnicity & Height Even as Gloria Govan is famous as an American actress, author, a TV host, and reality television star, shes more popular as the wife of the former NBA player, Matt Barnes. She became known after appearing on the Florida version of the reality television series, Basketball Wives and later, Basketball Wives: LA  after Matt was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Sadly, ...

Michael Fishmans Interesting Start as an Actor and Why He Divorced His Wife of Many Years When one door closes, another one opens. As silly as that axiom may seem, it is the story of the resurgence of Michael Fishman, who plays D.J Conner on the popular show, Roseanne. Having played the character for several years as a child actor into his teenage years; when the show originally ended, Michael did ...

Who Is October Gonzalez  Tony Gonzalezs Wife? All You Need To Know October Gonzalez is a popular American TV host and media personality. Additionally, she is also a model. Gonzalez has hosted several TV shows such as Beat Shazam, Entertainment Tonight, and Rachel Ray. She has also featured in several reality TV shows. Gonzalezs fame is not just due to her profession but also because of her ...

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The Progression of Gianna Tobonis Journalism Career and Details About Her Marriage to Kyle Buckley Gianna Toboni may not be your ideal newscaster but her unusual reporting is what made her a household name. The American journalist is renowned for her hard-hitting and authentic reportage. A motivator and activist for total press freedom, Gianna loves to explore pervasive cultural issues. Not only does this unique and ambitious journalist call for all ...

Dog The Bounty Hunters Family Including Details of His Late Wife and Kids Popularly known as Dog, a name which he got from the television series, Dog The Bounty Hunter, Duane Chapman, an American bounty hunter, and one-time bail bondsman, went from being convicted for a felony to being a reality TV star. He was brought to the limelight following the capture of the convicted criminal, Andrew Luster in 2003 and this eventually made ...

Vicky Karayiannis, Chris Cornells Wifes Bio, Children and Family The world of showbiz is made up of different people who serve different roles, and function in a variety of capacities, and one of the most important people are those in the background. Publicists are undoubtedly one of these background people yet they are vital to the life and fame of most of our favorite ...

Joe Rogan Has A Step-Daughter and 2 Other Kids With Wife Jessica Ditzel  Meet His Family Joe Rogan is a popular American stand-up comedian and TV host. His journey to stardom began in the late 80s and has seen him host several shows, the most popular is the game show titled Fear Factor. The exciting show dares contestants to face some of their greatest fears and embark on challenging stunts. The ...

Josh Gates and Wife Hallie Gnatovich Have 2 Kids But Who Has the Higher Net Worth? Best known for his explorations and adventures, Josh Gates, is a television presenter with a voracious appetite for seeing the world and the beauties in it. Some of that beauty, however, is in his home, in the form of two children he shares with his wife, Hallie Gnatovich. Not excluded is their marriage which has lasted ...

Holly Sonders Wiki, Plastic Surgery & Why She Divorced Her Husband  Erik Kuselias After trying everything within her capacity to have a low key wedding, Holly Sonders was drawn to the public because of her husbands controversy at his workplace. Well, the two are rumored to be divorced but the article below will give more light on how true these rumors are. Meanwhile, Holly Sonders is yet to ...

Nadeska Alexis Bio  Age, Boyfriend & Net Worth Journalism is one diverse profession that allows the practitioners to choose their area of specialty, build a career on it by reporting the truth and facts which in the long run will distinguish them as deserving commendation and recognition among their peers. Some choose to specialize in political journalism, while to others it is sports ...

Media Platforms Charlamagne Tha God Has Explored and All The Controversies He Has Courted Charlamagne Tha God is an American on-air personality, radio presenter, and more recently, author. He is popularly known as a co-host on New York radios nationally syndicated show, The Breakfast Club, a program he has been hosting alongside DJ Envy and Angela Yee since 2010. However, his early years had no connection to his current career ...

A Look At Jimmy Fallons Net Worth and Family Including His Wife & Kids Sometimes, a childs passion for something is a pointer to what he/she would become in the future. As a child, Jimmy Fallon was literally obsessed with watching the late-night comedy program, Saturday Night Live (SNL). Then, his parents would tape the clean parts for him to watch and later, he and his sister would re-enact sketches from the ...

Kay Adams Biography  Does The Sportscaster Have A Husband or Boyfriend? When you hear the phrase sports enthusiast, women are hardly the first group that comes to mind. Well, thats changing pretty fast. Especially with the rise of female sports analysts and broadcasters like Kay Adams who is famed for knowing more about sports than most men do. And why not, shes paid handsomely for it ...

Ben Shapiros Family  Meet His Wife, Kids and Sister Who is Popular for the Wrong Reasons A multi-talented man, Ben Shapiro is a man of controversial nature, an attribute that has made him an unusual public figure. An intellectual whose career path was clearly defined even before he became a man, the Jewish conservative commentator has always had his way with words. He became popular by sharing his critical and often ...

QVC Shawn Killinger Bio  Husband, Net Worth & Facts To Know Shawn Killinger is a prominent TV personality who has worked her way to the top. Though not initially a journalist by training, she defied the odds and today has established herself as a household name, as well as, worked alongside some industry legends. More than just being a reporter, newscaster, and anchor, heres all you ...

Liv Lo  Dissecting the Ethnicity, Parents and Personal Life of Henry Goldings Wife While many are aware that Liv Lo is the better half to Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding, only a few understand why his beautiful wife appears increasingly endearing to fans. A former model turned TV personality, and fitness star, Liv has an impressive resume which when combined with that of her statuesque spouse is considered a perfect ...

Stpeach Age, Husband and Other Facts About The Twitch Streamer Lisa Vannatta, famously known by her online alias, STPeach is a Canadian video game streamer cum vlogger who has garnered fame through her appearances on different video-sharing/social networking platforms such as Youtube, Instagram, Twitch, Reddit, and Twitter. The beautiful lady got her career to a start in August 2015 when she joined the live streaming video platform, Twitch. She rose to ...

Insights into Seth Meyers Wife, Family and What His Net Worth Is Celebrities are mostly remembered and known for the work they do. For Seth Meyers, his career as a comedian, writer, actor, TV host, and producer is his biggest identifier. He was on Saturday Night Live SNL show as a head writer and cast member for more than ten years during which he built a reputation ...

Who Is Jessica Gadsden  Age, Net Worth & All About Charlamagne tha Gods Wife Jessica Gadsden is an American fitness coach as well as a personal trainer. She is better known as the spouse of popular American media personality, Charlamagne Tha God. Charlamange Tha God is a well-known TV and radio personality in the U.S. He has featured in several shows (both on the radio and TV) and is ...

Who Is Collins Tuohy  Michael Ohers sister ? Her Wedding, Husband & Net Worth Collins Tuohy is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, blogger, and social media personality. She is also better known as the adoptive sister of NFL player, Michael Oher, whose life story inspired the Hollywood blockbuster The Blind Side. The Blind Side tells the true life story of Oher who grew up in an impoverished background consisting of a ...

Eye-Popping Facts About The Personal Life And Career Success Of Sportscaster Heidi Watney Heidi Watney is a media personality who has created a niche for herself as a sportscaster. Starting out as a radio presenter, the brilliant young lady has gone on to work for several prominent sports networks, and currently, she is with the MLB. The sportscaster is also known to have been an avid sports lady right ...

Marty Lagina Bio  Siblings (Martina and Rick Lagina), Net Worth and Wife Marty Lagina is an American engineer and businessman who has risen to fame as a reality TV star. This is thanks to his involvement in the adventure TV series, The Curse of Oak Island. The Curse of Oak Island is a long-running TV series which airs on the history channel. The show aims to solve ...

Is Jordan Schlansky Just A Character or a Real Life Person and What Does He Do? The world of late-night television is an interesting one. Shows during that time are geared towards giving viewers comedic relief from a long day at work through interviews and comedy sketches. The often charismatic host of this show requires the balancing talent of a producer whose primary job is to deliver great episodes. It is ...

Heres How Wealthy Jimmy Kimmel Is From All The Phases of His Career, Marriages and Sons Health Jimmy Kimmel is a renowned late-night talk show host known for his charm, wit, and the A-list guests he features on his show. As the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! On ABC, Jimmy has been serving comedy to television viewers for years which played a pivotal role in launching him into mainstream fame and enabled ...

Natasha Bertrand Biography  Is She Married? Who Is the Husband & What Is Her Age? Natasha Bertrand is not just a young prominent journalist but a first-rate investigative reporter. With her natural beauty and smile, Natashas sharp, insightful political commentary also makes her a thorough reporter. Her sound political perspective and coverage in the country have made her a force to be reckoned with in the profession. Renowned for her ...

What Happened to Shane Kilcher? His Injury Update, Net Worth and More Shane Kilcher is well-known thanks to the Discovery Channel series Alaska: The Last Frontier. It is a show that documents the daily lives of the extended Kilcher family, people who live without plumbing or modern heating. The episodes follow their routines as they rely on hunting and farming for their nutritional needs as well as ...

Is Stephanie Gosk Gay or Lesbian, Who is the Wife or Partner  Jenna Wolfe? In August 2013, NBCs Today viewers were greeted with two shocking news. Today weekend anchor, Jenna Wolfe, announced that she was as a lesbian, introducing her partner as NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk, and said the two are expecting their first child. A long time has passed since then and certainly, a lot of things ...

Nikki Mudarris  Bio and Net Worth: 5 Interesting Facts You Need to Know Nikki Mudarris, also known as Miss Nikki Baby, is a reality television star, model and fashionista. Shes best known for VH1s reality TV series Love & Hip-Hop: Hollywood. Her entrepreneurial skills enable her to create and run a successful lingerie line Nude by Nikki. Not only that, but Nikki has also successfully run the Las ...

5 Interesting Things You Need To Know About Kelly Nash Ever heard of the lady who gained national prominence for taking a selfie with a dangerous ball just a few inches away from hitting her? Its no other person than Kelly Nash, an American sports broadcaster currently working as host of The Rundown show which airs on MLB Network every weekday at 2 pm ET. ...

Understanding The Height of Fame John Oliver Achieved With The Daily Show and How He Met His Wife Without knowledge of who he is and his exemplary career, John Oliver cuts an unassuming figure of a regular man but he is one of the most influential personalities in America, especially on television. Since he began his career in 1998, he has been a loud and unapologetic agent of change, using his wit and ...

Why Did Big Chief Leave Street Outlaws, Where Is He Now And Why Did He Divorce His Wife? Justin Shearer, otherwise known by his professional name Big Chief is a famous street racer and television personality. He is famously known for being one of the main characters on the racing reality television series, Street Outlaws. Justin, who had been a significant part of the show since its premiere in 2013, appeared in a ...

Who is Josina Anderson of ESPN? Her Husband and Family Facts There has been a gradual paradigm shift in the world of sports which has today produced the likes of Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and other female athletes that are pulling great feats in different sporting fields. Their achievements have also been followed by the emergence of female sports journalists such as Jillian Mele, Eboni Williams, ...

Is Brittany Wagner Married, Who Is The Husband, How Old Is She? Brittany Wagner has been an inspiration to a lot of sports youngster. She has won the hearts of many athletic students with her role as a life coach and an academic counselor. She is well groomed in her career and has worked over a decade for The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and The National ...

Tati Westbrook Bio  Age, Husband & Net Worth With five videos dished out every week, alongside running her own brand, beauty guru, and YouTube superstar Tati Westbrook has proved to the world that theres utterly no impossibility or limit to whatever one is passionate about. Tati is best known for being the owner and manager of the worlds most-viewed beauty and lifestyle YouTube channel, ...

Cathy Areus Long Road to Becoming a Freelance Journalist and What to Know About Her Kids An American freelance journalist, news analyst, and author, Cathy Areu has built a lasting reputation for herself on cable television. Popular for her skillful and sassy presentation of professional views on varying topics including cultural and feminist issues, Cathy is an inspiration to many women across the globe. In addition to being a journalist, she ...

Tucker Carlsons Love Story With Wife Susan Andrews, their Children and Net Worth Today On the TV screens, Tucker Carlson is that fiery fellow who passionately dishes out his conservative and often controversial views on issues of national importance. Such brazenness has fetched him many enemies, especially on the left-wing, but it has also helped him cement a reputation as one of the foremost broadcast journalists in America. His ...

Paige Wyatts Net Worth, Boyfriend and Where She Is Now Paige Wyatt became popular after the Wyatt family began running the reality television show, American Guns. The Wyatt family comprises Rich Wyatt (father), Renee Wyatt (mother), Paige and Kurt Wyatt (children). Rich Wyatt originally ran a gun shop, the Gunsmoke Guns in Wheat Ridge, Colorado which is outside of Denver. The business which he ran together ...

The Progression of Howard Sterns Career As A Media Personality And Why He Divorced His First Wife Howard Stern is a legendary American radio host, who has also done some notable work as an actor, producer, author, as well as photographer. The radio personality achieved worldwide fame as a result of his self-titled radio program, The Howard Stern Show. As a professional radio personality, he has worked in different radio stations. Since 2006, ...

Lisa Joyners Biography  Ethnicity, Net Worth and Other Key Facts Lisa Joyner is an American Journalist, TV talk show host, and actress. Some of her well-known works are her correspondences for the Los Angeles based TV KCBS, inFANity show, Find My Family Show including her film and television appearances in Brimstone, American Sweetheart, The Bold and The Beautiful among others. Lisas passion for reconnecting people with their biological families ...

Amanda Balionis Rise Through the Ranks of Sportscasting and the Identity of Her Boyfriend Amanda Balionis is an American sportscaster currently working as a golf broadcaster for CBS Sports. Among so many of her works in the field of sports reporting, Amandas PGA Tour coverage seems to be the most popular so far. She covered the Super Bowl working with CBS Sports social media team in Atlanta, where she ...

Dissecting Charles Paynes Sexual Allegations, Its After Effects and More About His Wife Charles Payne had a respectable career as an analyst on Wall Street before he made the transition to television and became a contributor and later a host on Fox. In that time, his expertise has come under scrutiny, and he has been at the center of at least one major controversy. The major controversy in question ...

Erik Asla And Tryra Banks Split: Everything You Need To Know Tyra Banks and Erik Asla have called it quits! The couple, who began dating in 2013 and have a son named York Banks Asla, has decided to end what everybody taught was the perfect relationship. Neither person has come out to give a reason for the breakup, but what is obvious right now is that ...

What to Note About Dr Terry Dubrows Qualifications, TV Works and Marriage to Heather Kent In the realm of people that we expect to see regularly on our screens, medical doctors are closer to the bottom of the list. Aside from the fact that their work has little correlation with TV, they are presumably too busy to pursue life as TV personalities. Yet, a few of them have usurped this ...

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CNNs Chris Cuomo Biography  Wife, Family & Net worth Chris Cuomo needs no elaborate introduction as he has starred graced many prominent Television cable networks and his voice has been heard through acknowledged radio shows. He is a television journalist and Lawyer who has previously worked for ABC News as Chief law and justice correspondent as well as a co-anchor on 20/20. If you still ...

Neil deGrasse Tyson  Family, Religion & Net Worth Neil deGrasse Tyson is a distinguished American astrophysicist and author who has been able to achieve so much after falling in love with astronomy at the age of 9. He has since attended and become an alumnus of prestigious universities such as Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia, and also recorded numerous achievements in his field of ...

Is Simon Cowell Gay? Does He Have A Wife or Girlfriend and Why is He Famous? Simon Cowell is a well-known talent show judge, TV producer, entrepreneur and one of the most popular TV personalities that Britain has ever produced. In conjunction with his company, Syco, Cowell is the brain behind hugely successful talent hunt shows such as The X-Factor UK, The X-Factor US, Britains Got Talent, Americas Got Talent and ...

Everything To Know About Joanna Gaines Life With Chip Gaines, Their Business Pursuits and Kids Joanna Gaines and her husband Chip Gaines became celebrities after their television show Fixer Upper began airing back in 2013. The show which was about home renovation and decoration ran for about 6 seasons with a total of 79 episodes before the couple bade farewell to it in April 2018. Apart from their appearances on ...

Who Is Larry The Cable Guy? What To Know About His Wife And Net Worth Larry the Cable Guy is a self-professed country kid renowned for his trademark Southern accent and sensational catchphrase Git-R-Done! The famous comedian who talks about anything under the sun has gone on to become one of the most memorable characters in comedy history. Join us in unearthing lesser-known facts about the former on-air-personality, standup comedy superstar, movie ...

Who Is Patrick Starr, What Is His Net Worth and Gender? The make-up industry over the years has grown to become a billion dollar industry not just because there are probably more women wearing make-up but because a whole lot of men, especially the young ones, have become bold enough to wear it unlike before. A few of these men, like Patrick Starr, have even gone ...

How Did Chris Jansing Become a Senior Correspondent at MSNBC and Who Is Her Husband? An award-winning American television news reporter and journalist, Chris Jansing has succeeded in carving a spectacular niche for herself in the field of TV journalism. Outstanding for not just her excellence in journalism, Chris is also cherished for her incredibly gorgeous looks post 60! For close to four decades, Jansing has continued to soar in her ...

Jaclyn Glenn Biography  Age, Height & Ex-Boyfriend American Youtuber, Jaclyn Glenn, rose to prominence through her self-titled YouTube channel Jaclyn Glenn. She has remained an acclaimed atheist and continues to air her views on hot issues from politics, religion, animal rights, to atheism. During the heated 2016 US Presidential elections, Glenn featured in Hump Trump: Official Donald Trump Song. Her parallel acting career ...

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Istanbul (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Ankara's security forces have arrested a Turkish magistrate member of the judge council of the International Criminal Court, the United Nations judicial body for war crimes and genocide. Activists and legal experts denounce the detention, which took place in September - although news has only filtered through in the last few hours - in blatant violation of diplomatic immunity owed to the judge.



In the past, Judge Aydin Akay Sedaf was part of the bench called upon to rule on war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda, so far the UN international tribunal was involved in only two cases. He was arrested for (alleged) links to the authors of the (failed) coup in Turkey last July.



According to reports from Theodor Meron, president of the United Nations tribunal, the Turkish police arrested him on 21 September "in violation of diplomatic immunity" and "judicial independence". The UN Office for Legal Affairs, Meron added, "has already asked for his release," and "the cancellation of all pending proceedings against him."



Meanwhile, the Turkish authorities denied Meron permission to visit his jailed colleague.



The arrest of Aydin Akay Sedaf is the first case worldwide of its kind, in clear violation of immunity guaranteed by the UN. Furthermore, the detention of the Turkish judge has resulted in the interruption of the appeal process for war crimes against Augustin Ngirabatware, a politician in Rwanda in 2012 sentenced in first instance to 35 years for genocide.



His arrest is part of the massive campaign of repression promoted by the Turkish authorities, which in little more than three months led to the arrest of 35 thousand people and a total of approximately 82 thousand suspects. During the hectic night of the failed coup between 15 and 16 July 270 people were killed, thousands wounded.



Since then Ankara has launched a campaign of purges against intellectuals personalities, political, military and administrative authorities considered close to the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, in exile in the United States, who has always denied any involvement in the operations. The crackdown has also involved journalists, media close to the opposition, teachers and administrative staff. Critics say Erdogan has exploited the attempted coup to silence the opposition, marginalize parliament and establish a Presidential Republic.
Egypt rejects Saudi backed UN resolution against Syria. But the real reasons are economic: Riyadh is going through a serious crisis and is losing its sphere of influence in the region. Iran and Russia aid Egyptian coffers. Egyptian military advisers in Damascus.

Cairo (AsiaNews) - The relations between the two most influential Sunni countries in the Arab world, which seemed to have blossomed after the last official visit of the Saudi King to Egypt, have deteriorated rapidly in recent weeks, reaching levels of almost in open enmity.

Yet the recent meeting between the leaders of the two nations had been the encouraging given the multi-million dollar contracts signed, the supply of crude oil for five years and the definition of maritime boundaries between the two countries. This was also the setting for the controversial "transfer" (or "return", according to different views) of the two Egyptian islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia.

What happened in the space of just a few weeks? What was the reason for the deterioration of friendly and mutually supportive relations, crowned by a decades-long tradition of ties between Egypt and the countries of the Arab Gulf?

The Arab press points to the position adopted by Cairo at the UN Security Council where it voted against an anti-Syrian resolution sponsored by Riyadh. For Saudi Arabia this decision was a sort of betrayal. This reason might appear a valid one.

However, the truth lies elsewhere. The Gulf countries - and especially the once opulent Saudi Arabia - are going through a serious economic crisis; the coffers of the Saudi kingdom are emptying, given the exorbitant expenses incurred in financing wars and losing jihadist factions in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen.

In Yemen Riyadh is directly involved with troops on the ground and the allegations of war crimes - raised with increasing frequency - by international organizations, which in the past were much more permissive of the violations human rights committed by the Saudis.

With exhausted - or at least reduced - funding, Saudi diplomacy is losing enormous influence in the behind the scenes management of the internal affairs of some countries. And the recent election of Michel Aoun (archenemy of Riyadh) as President of Lebanon was the clearest proof od this.

The scandals in Riyadh are mounting and not a day goes by without dire news on the economic front: the latest in order of time, the disappearance of one trillion dollars from the coffers of the kingdom, the news was spread on social media last November 8 by sources close to the royal court.

No longer able to continue to inject rivers of cash into Egyptian coffers as in the past, Saudi Arabia therefore needed excuses to stop sending "aid." While Cairo, having an inkling of these decisions, has reversed course by choosing the current winning horse: Iran, Syria and its greatest "friend-enemy" of all time, Russia.

The Saudi oil company Aramco has suddenly suspended oil exports to Egypt; a "punitive" move, which is accompanied by the cut in funding to Cairo. Moves that forced Egypt to accept a $ 12 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), payable in three years. The decision which needs to be ratified by the IMF's top management at its meeting scheduled tomorrow, will require long-term and extreme conditions, which are detrimental. These include the subordination of the Egyptian pound to market conditions, the liberalization of the exchange rates and the reduction of state support for electricity supply and fuel costs (which are around 7.9% of public expenditure). These choices will have adverse effects on Egypt's civilian population, already at stretched to the limit. And discontent has begun to spread, so much so that tomorrow a sustained popular protest has been called by the Muslim Brotherhood.

However, Egyptian revenge was not long in coming: on November 8, the Administrative Court of Cairo rejected the agreement signed between the Egyptian president and the Saudi monarch Salman, on the return (or sale) of the two islands. It also sentenced Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi to pay a fine of 800 Egyptian pounds.

On the energy front, in recent days, the spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum Hamdi Abdel Aziz stated that it had remedied the problem and that the cessation of the supply of Aramco will have no effect in practice. All this, without specifying where Egypt will get the resources to cover its oil needs. In this regard, reports from trusted Egyptian environments speak of an agreement between Cairo and the Azerbaijani company Socar.

This gradual shift away from Cairo and Riyadh on the one hand, and between Egypt and Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on the other thus results in a rapprochement with Tehran and Moscow. On November 7, Cairo decided to reopen the Rafah border crossing with Gaza and not to send troops to Syria in support of the local government, while remaining faithful to the Egyptian tradition of nonintervention beyond national borders. However, support for Syria will materialize in the sending of military experts and advisors as Egypt already does with the Haftar army in Libya. (PB)
Yesterday, the government has eliminated 500 and 1000 rupees banknotes. The decision is part of the policy against corruption and money forgery. The banned banknotes accounted for 85% of money in circulation.

New Delhi (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Endless queues are forming outside banks nationwide as people race to exchange the 500 and 1000 rupees banknotes that the government recalled yesterday. In some areas it has created a bank rush to ensure the exchange of the banned notes and withdrawal of valid money.



Local newspapers report that India's population was taken by surprise by the decision promulgated yesterday. The initiative of the Narendra Modi government has not followed an effective and comprehensive communication on the amount of convertible currency, and many now fear not being able to exchange all the money in their possession within the deadline of 30 December.

This is part of the anti-corruption and anti-counterfeiting policies. The recalled 500 and 1000 rupees notes are the ones most used in daily transactions (around 85% of the money in circulation) and therefore more prone to forgery.



Citizens are facing long hours of waiting in frustration and irony. A Twitter user has listed what people need to bring: "Banknotes, identification, a packed lunch, playing cards, dinner, bed linens, and a lot of patience."
The young man was 20 and knew the Qur'an. Spared by the terrorists, he refused to leave his friends. For this reason, he paid the highest price any human being can pay". The prize was awarded by the Harmony Foundation, which was established in 2005.

Dhaka (AsiaNews/Agencies)  The Harmony Foundation bestowed the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award upon Faraaz Ayaaz Hossain, one of the brave victims of the Holey Artisan Bakery Cafe massacre in Dhaka on 1st July.

Five terrorists  all from well-to-do families  stormed the cafe frequented by foreigners and separated patrons into two groups: those who knew the Koran were spared, the others were kept as hostages (about 20 died, mostly Italians).

Faraaz, a young Muslim man, knew the verses of the Qur'an and so the attackers were willing to let him go. Instead of saving himself, he decided to stay with his friends and so was executed (pictured here with him) because he refused to leave them during the massacre.

"Faraaz courageously stood up to the terrorists, Foundation president Abraham Mathai said. He refused to let his Hindu friends bear the brunt of the terrorists ire [. . .] earning him the title of hero."

The 20-year-old Faraaz was "the obvious choice", Mathai added. The world needs heroes like him for his act of selflessness and choosing to lay down his life for his friends. [. . .] We consider it our most humble privilege to bestow this honour".

The Harmony Foundation was established in October 2005 to promote the ideals of peace, dialogue and help to communities without distinction of religion, caste, creed, gender, or ethnicity.

This is the first time in twelve editions that the award is conferred posthumously. Some of the past recipients include Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Dalai Lama, and Nobel Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai.

Faraaz's parents will be in Mumbai to receive the award on his behalf on 20 November.

Accepting the Harmony Foundation's decision, his family said: "On behalf of our son, it is an absolute honour and a privilege to have the opportunity to accept the award. Though in deep grief, we cling onto the immense pride with which Faraaz has filled our hearts. He stood up for what was right by paying the highest cost any human can pay and we hope every day that his sacrifice does not go in vain."
An editorial in Pyongyang's Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun addresses the new president. It reiterates that North Koreas position will not change, demanding an end to UN sanctions and stating that it will persist with its nuclear programme.

Pyongyang (AsiaNews)  An editorial in Pyongyang's Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun appears to be addressed to US president-elect Donald Trump.

Reiterating that North Korea would never stop its nuclear programme, the article states that a "United States that hopes for a denuclearized North Korea is living on a delusion of the old era".

To the new US president, Pyongyang touts its nuclear weapons and slams the policy of economic sanctions as a "choking-off scheme that cannot evade failure."

Since it launched its nuclear weapons programme, North Korea has been subject to heavy economic sanctions, including embargoes that were adopted at the United Nations Security Council last March in response to its nuclear test in January.

"The wretched fate of those in power in the United States, who are in a frenzy about crushing to death [North Korea] by sanctions, substantiates the hollow claims of their effectiveness," the editorial reads.

Going one step further, it compares the policy failures to a growing snowball that is now directly linked to the "survival of the United States."

President-elect Trump has not yet explained his view on North Korean policy, but during the campaign he did express willingness to talk with Pyongyang.
by Weena Kowitwanij

The inhabitants of Thailands mountainous regions remember the benefits of the project started by the late king in 1969. He was able to convert opium production into food crops, helping the tribal economy and health. Some 14,000 families have become involved in almost 40 years.

Bangkok (AsiaNews)  Chatchawan Taechalertwattana is a tribal Hmong living in the village of NongHoi, Chiang Mai Province. He is one of thousands of inhabitants in northern Thailands mountainous region whose life changed thanks King Bhumibol Adulyadej and his war on drugs in the late 1960s.

My wife and I used to grow opium, he explained. We were incredulous when we started to plant vegetables thanks to the project established by the king, and we have earned more, enough to send our children to school. Now we are very happy."

In 1969 the king, who passed away on 13 October at the age of 89 years, visited the opium fields of local tribal groups near his winter residence in Muand district.

After seeing the poverty in which the peasants lived, the king decided to establish a "tribal belt", a project to help the people of the mountains and limit excessive deforestation.

The first objective was to eliminate opium fields, which were not very profitable for farmers, and turn them over to food crops.

King Bhumibol understood that the drug trade favoured only a few people, yet threatened national security and undermined the health of tribal people.

For this reason, the sovereign provided subsidies for sustainable farming and irrigation, funded farmers training, and gave them precedence in the domestic market.

Over the past 40 years, about 295 villages have become involved in the project. This includes 14,000 families for a total of 85,000 people.

"In the past, all the tribes cultivated opium and people were considered criminals, Panya Saosri, a tribal Hmong, told AsiaNews. His Majesty King Bhumibol gave us a home and taught us how to make a living legally, without being a burden to others."

There's no mountain in northern Thailand "where the king has not set foot," says Surin Nateepraiwan, a tribal Karen. "Tribals learnt to grow opium from an early age. Every farmer was a drug addict and prices did not cover production costs. "

"I always encourage my students, says Apichai Jitwatin, a tribal teacher, because whenever we are discouraged, we must consider the burdens the king carried for us. He went everywhere to visit people and favoured them in terms of sustainable economy."

King Bhumibols work against drug trafficking has been recognised by the United Nations Programme for International Drug Control, which awarded the sovereign a gold medal in 1994. His project was the first in the world against opium cultivation.
RedTube Porn Viewership Drops Around The World On Election Day

Trending News: People Were Too Busy Watching The Trumpocalypse To Look At Porn

Long Story Short

People in Europe and North America pressed pause on porn for most of the day while Americans were voting, according to stats released by XXX site RedTube. Surprisingly, Portugal saw the largest traffic drop when the results were coming in

Long Story

From the World Series to Game of Thrones to the iPhone launch, porn viewership has been known to be impacted by major events  and the election was no different.

You might not be surprised to know that porn viewership dropped in the United States  people were watching the fate of their country be decided. You might be surprised, however, to know that porn viewership results dropped elsewhere, too.

Portugal, which is not a country you've probably ever heard in the same sentence as Donald Trump, saw a steep drop in viewership at around 7 p.m. EST when polls started closing. The Western European nation had a traffic drop of 26% on RedTube, which reported these election stats on its blog. Similarly, Belgium and France dropped 17% and 16% lower than usual rates at around the same time.

RedTube listed a few other countries, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico, which also experienced a hit to traffic, but to a lesser extent. Their rates were somewhere between 1% and 6% below an average Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Mexico and Brazil, whose economies may very well be impacted by a Trump presidency, actually started watching more porn when the results were coming in. Interesting.

Up in Canada, there was a drop off while awaiting the results, but it was porn-as-usual for most of the day.

In the United States, people weren't in much of a porn-watching mood. Traffic started to drop off as of 11 a.m. and didn't rise back up until early in the morning on November 9th.

What does all this mean? At least some things are more important than watching porn. But not many.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Why was Portugal so impacted by the vote?

Drop This Fact

RedTube gets receives most of its traffic from Millennials aged 18-34. Think that's neat? Check out RedTube's recent numbers showing how different generations watch porn.
Russian Kids Carry Axes To Fight Off Bears And Wolves On The Way To School

Trending News: Russian Kids Deal With Bears And Wolves On The Way To School

Long Story Short

Children in Russia as young as 11 are carrying weapons to fight against bears and wolves who are not only on the loose, but ready to attack them as prey on a daily basis.

Long Story



As if America couldnt get any crazier, right?



Everywhere you look, the post-election anxiety is at an all-time high, and you may be wondering whats next for your future. Meanwhile, in Russia, school children are carrying axes to avoid bear and wolf attacks on their way to school in the morning.

Yes, this is actually happening.

Russian officials have pledged to help schoolchildren who are carrying weapons such as axes on their way to school in order to fight off wolves and bears, according to a statement posted from the Prosecutors Office in the republic of Baskortostan. Not only do these kids have to worry about the difficulties of mathematics and experience their first ventures in attraction to the opposite sex, its like a real-life version of The Revenant for many of these kids.

In an online video, children as young as 11 march to school while armed with axes in Russias Burzyansky district, as they try to fend off these wild animals during a 10-kilometer walk to school. Authorities discovered five kids from the Verkhniy Nunush village had to make a traitorous journey through the forest to attend classes in the town of Galiakberova. While the children live with relatives in this town during the school week, these unfortunate warriors make the trip home on weekends in order to visit their parents.

Authorities from the Burzyansky district claim that the trip was often made using a sled, since buses are unable to travel in areas with heavy snowfall. One official has declared that these children have gone through the woods for the last time, pledging his allegiance to the war on wild animals.

In case you were wondering, the world is just as crazy no matter where you go.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Would the government intervene if this happened to school children in America?

Drop This Fact

Russia has the largest area of forests in the entire world.
Twitter Calls For President Kanye West In 2020

Trending News: Everyone Wants Kanye To Run For President In 2020

Long Story Short



After Donald J. Trump was elected as the next President of The United States, disappointed and bewildered Americans instantly began tweeting about the prospect of A Kanye West presidency in 4 years from now.

Long Story

What was once thought impossible was proven to be the exact opposite: Donald J. Trump was elected President of The United States. The position of leader of the free world is not one to gawk at. Worldwide, people of all nationalities dream of one day holding the most esteemed post of public office on the planet and in 2017, Donald Trump will assume the role of POTUS.

But while Rural America cheered itself to sleep last night, many technologically advanced Americans took to social media to dream of another individual as President, none other than Kanye West himself.

At the 2015 VMAs, West announced that in 2020 he will be running for President.

Kanye is known for his limitless abilities when it comes to art, creativity and batshit insanity, and in terms of being a public orator no one has more cojones than Yeezy. Yeezus is known for his blunt remark during a Hurricane Katrina telethon stating "George Bush doesn't like Black people," his silence while being filmed at Occupy Wall Street, and his ability to tell it however he sees it, no matter where he is, and on no time limit either.

Twitter erupted with #Kanye2020 tweets last night and this morning from both fans of the rapper and tweeters in awe of Trump's victory. Apparently to the twitterverse Trump's historic win of the presidency is grounds for hope that Yeezy can assume office in four years from now.

If Trump did it , Kanye can #Kanye2020  Jamar Hall (@jamar_hall) November 9, 2016

If Donald Trump wins this election, then we'll know that #kanye2020 might be an actual thing  Chris (@ChrisJDeCastro) November 9, 2016

My Beautifully Dark Twisted Presidency #Kanye2020  Yoseph Latif (@yosdef) November 9, 2016

Ain't nowhere to go from here but #Kanye2020.  Gramatik (@Gramatik) November 9, 2016

The photo of Kanye West sitting in the Oval Office in a classic red adidas track suit jacket with a shirt and tie on underneath can be seen plastered all over the Internet.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Since Donald Trump, a "successful" businessman, was elected as President will others who have always dreamed of being in the position finally get the courage to run in the future?

Drop This Fact

The most famous celebrity to ever assume office was Ronald Reagan, who was a Hollywood film star for three decades.
The Australian based global managing partner at King & Wood Mallesons is to step down from the role and return to fee-earning. Stuart Fuller was a key figure in the combination of legacy firms King & Wood and Mallesons; and the merger of KWM with legacy SJ Berwin. However, the global firms Europe, UK and Middle East business has faced some tough times recently including the departure of some leadership figures.Fuller is expected to step down by the end of this year following five years in the global role. He will continue to be based in the Sydney office.Two US-headquartered law firms are to combine to create a U$1 billion firm with 1,000 lawyers across four countries. Washington-based firm Arnold & Porter and New Yorks Kaye Scholer will officially merge on 1January 2017 to become Arnold & Porter Kaye Schole.The two firms headcount is mostly domestic with 400 in Washington, 325 in New York and 175 in California and smaller offices in Chicago, Denver, Houston and West Palm Beach. Its international locations are Shanghai, London and Frankfurt.Donald Trump may be called to appear in court in the coming weeks as a class action begins alleging his university did not deliver on its promise to teach real estate success.However, it could be an uneasy appearance before Judge Gonzalo Curiel, a man accused of bias by Trump during his election campaign. The judge has Mexican heritage.On Thursday lawyers for the next US president requested that none of the comments made by Trump during his fight for the White House should be excluded from the court case as being irrelevant to the charges and likely to cause prejudice from jurors.
The NSW government is proving it is committed to equitable briefing, producing a record-high proportion of female lawyers engaged in the past full year.According to the States Attorney-General, 40% of all government briefs for the 2015-2016 year were received by female senior counsel  a jump of almost 20%.Attorney-General Gabrielle Upton said that she has been actively working to close the gender gap between senior female barristers and male barristers when it comes to government work.A genuine commitment to equitable briefing is crucial to keeping women in the legal profession and creating a stronger Bar. More than half of the state's law graduates are female, but many of the brightest minds still face significant barriers during their career when vying for senior roles, she said.While pleased with the increasing proportion of female senior counsel briefed by the government, the Attorney-General indicated there is more to be achieved. Currently, around 90% of senior counsel at the NSW Bar are men.I am closely considering whether the new Policy is appropriate for adoption by NSW Government agencies, Upton said.Clearly cultural change is needed across the broader legal profession and in business to increase opportunity for gifted female practitioners, and I applaud the Law Society of NSW, NSW Bar Association and large law firms for their support of equitable briefing, she added.The NSW Government adopted the Law Council of Australia 's Equitable Briefing Policy for Female Barristers and Advocates in 2009 and Upton welcomed the Law Council's revised Policy released in June this year.While I am pleased with the progress we have made in relation to briefing Senior Counsel, we know much more needs to be done to achieve gender equality at the Bar, Upton said.I hope the NSW Government will continue to be part of the solution.
The job sounds great, the work on offer is interesting, you have relevant skills, the people seem nice and there is scope to move up. You feel you will fit in, and you are leaning towards accepting the role. But before you do, you ask yourself: what about the horror stories? Remember the story of that friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who accepted a similar role at a similar company, only to find all was not as promised: a tyrannical boss, crazy working hours, unfriendly colleagues and salary bonuses that never materialise. How can you be sure youre not making a mistake?



It is difficult to really know what a job will be like before starting. Below are some tips designed to arm you with information to best judge whether you are making the right decision for your career.



Know what youre looking for

Most importantly, you need be clear in your mind as to why you have left or want to leave your current employer. Communicate this at first interview stage, in addition to what you want from the new role and how your skills align with the requirements.



Good career choices happen when both parties (employer and employee) are transparent about their needs. Your potential employer needs to know what you are hoping to achieve in moving to a new role and what may make you leave a position. If youre honest and clear from the get-go, your future employer will be able to manage their expectations accordingly.



Dont take anything on trust

Research your new employer to understand their business, market position, developments in place, challenges they face in the market and their values and culture. You need to be aligned to the new employer, the business and what they stand for as a business. This is especially true of those moving in-house: are you excited about the product? For example, a vehement anti-smoker will never do well at a tobacco company, or even within a corporate law firm that acts for that company as a major client. If youre not aligned with the companys values as a brand, you are unlikely to stay.



In your research, go beyond the company website. Reach out to your network, and speak to people who are either working with the business currently or who left on amicable grounds. Are the realities of the role similar to what the advertisement promises?



If you dont have any contacts within the company, ask your recruitment consultant. Dont assume recruiters are simply trying to sell you roles and sweep any negatives under the rug. It is in recruiters interests to have an honest and open conversation with you about the role. We want you to succeed, and that means being honest about both the benefits and the downsides of the job.



Read the fine print

Most of the time, everything you need to know about the role will be in the job description. It is crucial that you are capable of performing the role: understand what they need from you. This requires you to analyse your skills, and honestly evaluate your ability to pick up new areas against the position requirements. It is important that you sell yourself at interview, but it will be disastrous for both your job performance and self-confidence if you talk your way into a role that you are not qualified for.



If you can, reach out to your potential new manager and any other stakeholders in the team to get an understanding of the job on a day-to-day basis; its challenges and attractions. In most cases, HR will facilitate this meeting during interview stages. While it is important to stay professional during these meetings, attempting a candid conversation will ensure there are no nasty surprises in wait should you be offered the position.



Listen to the signs

How an employer manages the recruitment of their staff and their induction is a good demonstration of their commitment to their employees and how they operate as a company. Have employees at the firm approached the interview process with professionalism? Is the process clear and timely? Are you kept fully informed of your progress? Are interviewers well prepared and, do they understand your resume? The recruitment process provides a good insight into how the business is managed, its culture and values.



I recently met a junior lawyer who reached the final stages of interview for an in-house position within a coveted industry. Throughout the process, much was made of the work/life balance and other lifestyle perks offered at the company. When she went into the office for the final interview, she witnessed her would-be-boss break down in tears due to stress. Needless to say, she did not accept the position.



Insist on a proper induction

Your engagement and success in the role will be greatly assisted by a good induction. Beyond the usual handbook, staff training and welcome pack, many employers will offer regular newsletters and opportunities for staff to meet, exchange ideas and socialise. Successful transitions are achieved when new employees are made to feel part of the team.





Lisa Gazis is the Managing Director of Mahlab NSW. Lisa manages Mahlabs NSW operations and conducts senior corporate and partner level search and recruitment campaigns. She provides strategic consulting services to corporations and law firms in Australia and abroad.


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Australia and the UK could have an even closer relationship as a result of the decision of Britain to leave the European Union, it is suggested.Alok Sharma, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Minister for Asia and the pacific, said that both countries are globally minded, flexible and dynamic and Brexit means that the UK is looking for new roles. He pointed out that there are 1.2 million British people living in Australia and another 665,000 visit each year while Australians make more than a million visits to the UK every year.Speaking in Australia as the first British minister to visit Australia since the EU referendum, he declared that the UK is open for business with Brexit presenting a golden opportunity to strengthen further the already close relationship between the UK and Australia.He explained that as Britain looks to negotiate her own trade agreements and making a positive and powerful case for free trade, Australia is the first country for the setting up a new trade working group.'Trade ties are one way of measuring the strength of our partnership. But, for me, an equally valuable measure is the ongoing sense of friendship between our people,' Sharma said.'It's the kind of friendship that comes from personal understanding of each other's countries, familiar cultures and the kind of fierce sporting rivalry you can only share with a good mate. Our familial ties bind us very closely together, as do our shared fundamental values: respect for democracy, human rights and the international rule of law,' he pointed out.He explained that this was very evident during the annual AUKMIN ministerial dialogue, held in London in September when Australian and British ministers discussed a joint approach on international security challenges, how to counter terrorism and extremism and how to protect the rules based international order.'As outward looking countries that trade and invest in overseas markets, Australia and Britain are well placed to identify risks, raise standards and promote a level playing field for all,' Sharma also pointed out.'This is just one more example of how Britain and Australia are working together to produce a better outcome, not just for the citizens of our own countries but for the world,' he added.
he will leave in the morning, just return to Australia on an evening flight

Hi,There have been countless posts re multiple entry tourist visas. My dad was granted a tourist visa (multiple entry for 3 years). He looks after my 6 month old son because I am doing my Masters (this being my final semester and I only have 2 weeks left to finish) and am currently on prac. Unfortunately he has to return home on 17/11.There are flights returning to Brisbane on the same afternoon, can he return into Australia on the same day? Or would this constitute an unbroken stay within Australia? Technically,. I basically just need him to return so that we can continue with our program (as is) and I can finish.Does anyone have any idea if this is allowed? We're okay with him travelling in and out because he has gone and spent a week or two previously - its just that this time, there isn't anyone available to look after my son and I can't break placement because it means that I will be late for the board (therefore being unable to graduate in December).Thanks in advance, for any helpful advice.
Despite numerous price hikes, Baleno still commands a seven-month waiting period.

Within a month of its launch in October 2015, Marutis aggressively priced premium hatchback, the Baleno, entered the top-10 sellers list in its category. At launch, the car was priced at Rs 4.99 lakh for the base variant, which was lower than its key rivals, the Hyundai i20 and the Honda Jazz.

Now a year later, the momentum is still on. Despite three subsequent price rises  by up to Rs 12,000 in January 2016; Rs 16,699 in March; and Rs 10,000 (all prices, ex-showroom, Delhi) last August, the hatchbacks popularity hasnt dimmed one bit. The Baleno sales have crossed one lakh units in the country, and Maruti has also exported 33,800 units to Japan and some European countries.

Due to this popularity, the car commanded long waiting periods right from the beginning; it was close to eight months at peak. Currently, the petrol and diesel manual models are available only after seven months of booking, while the Baleno CVT has a waiting period of around eight months.

However, the waiting period may reduce next year onwards when Maruti starts manufacturing it at its all-new Gujarat plant. The carmaker produces close to 12,000 units a month at its Manesar plant out of which some are for the export markets.

For now, the hatchback can be had with a 1.3-litre diesel and a 1.2-litre petrol. But early next year, a hot hatch variant, called the Baleno RS, with a 1.0-litre turbo petrol engine will be added to the line-up.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijani forces violated the ceasefire regime around 55 times in the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact, the Defense Ministry of NKR told ARMENPRESS.

The ministrys statement reads: Overnight November 9-10 Azerbaijani forces violated the ceasefire regime around 55 times in the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact, firing more than 570 shots at Armenian posts from various caliber small arms.

The Defense Army forces are in control of the tactical-strategic situation and confidently continue the military service.
TDI

The Czech brand , which is owned by the German corporation since the early 1990s, sells cars built on platforms shared with Volkswagen but is unknown in the USA Having Volkswagen platforms is essential to selling Skoda cars in North America, mainly because they could easily be adapted to comply with Federal regulations regarding crash testing and other market-specific rules.While Volkswagen had no reason to introduce an affordable brand to the American market, the Skoda brand is doing well in Europe and China, and Americans might be the next people to embrace their Simply Clever tagline.The idea behind this reasoning is that Skoda would allow the Volkswagen Group to keep selling cars in the USA without the image deficit of the emissions scandal The representatives of the company have not confirmed or commented this possibility, but it is known that the German corporation has trademarked the Skoda name and a few of its nameplates in the USA. While it is a way to keep its products safe from copycats, these applications usually reveal future intentions that may include an American offensive.While the cost of launching a new brand or even killing an existing automotive nameplate can be significant, it might be more affordable for Volkswagen only to sell a few of its models in the USA, while the rest of the range would be replaced by Skoda cars.Just like the recently discontinued Scion brand, Skoda could be the younger alternative of Volkswagen cars, but without the whole embarrassing part of the emissions scandal.Since Volkswagen has not applied to sell any diesel-engined cars in the USA, do not expectengines to appear in Skodas American offering. Instead, fuel-sipping TSI turbocharged gasoline direct injection engines might be the only options for Skoda cars planned for the USA.
TDI

HP

As the years passed, turbocharged vehicles started providing more and more power, but their delivery has become more linear than ever. Every once in a while, an automaker launched a twin-turbo or a bi-turbo setup. Those vehicles were seen as outstanding achievements when people first heard of them.Some customers had the opportunity to buy a twincharged vehicle , which blended turbocharging with supercharging for optimal throttle response and performance. Eventually, twin-turbo cars became something mundane, and single turbo engines can be found under the hoods of modest vehicles these days.Even the most affordable models in an automakers range can be ordered with a turbocharged power plant, but it is now used as a downsizing solution instead of a way to bring massive amounts of power.Things reached a status quo for a while, and then Bugatti launched a new quad turbo engine on the Veyron. The solution was first implemented on the EB110, but another company has further refined the idea and has replicated it in a new mass produced car, which will be featured below. After the Veyrons launch, BMW surprised the world with a triple turbo setup, which they employed on a diesel engine.With those power plants in mind, we decided to do a roundup of all production cars available today with more than three turbochargers under their hoods.The plan was to make a top five, or only to select the most compelling solutions. Unfortunately for us, the world does not have that many multiple turbo setups in production so that we will review the existing ones in this story.The first multi-turbo setup we review is the one found on Audis 2017 SQ7. It has instantly become the most powerful diesel engine offered on a production automobile, and the solution was interesting enough to be featured by Bentley.The British brand is owned by the same German corporation that controls Audi, so the part sharing is not surprising, but it led to the first diesel offered in a Bentley.We know that the V8units do not have three conventional turbochargers, but the implementation of the units is impressive enough to be featured in this story. The idea is that the power plant features two conventional turbochargers, which are supported by an electric turbo.When reading electric turbo, do not think of those silly kits you can get on eBay. Instead, the electrically assisted turbocharger (compressor is the correct technical term here) has a dedicated electrical system, which operates on 48 V. Audi has eliminated turbo lag entirely lag with the setup, and it provides 900 Nm (663.8 lb-Ft) of torque and an impressive 435Bugatti used to have the only quad turbo setup in a production car in the world. They have been matched by an unlikely challenger, which will be featured below. Before we get into that, it is important to describe the engineering masterpiece that sits behind the passengers of the Chiron.The Chiron has a W16 configuration, which is unique in the world of production automobiles. Several companies have tested the V16 engine configuration , but nobody except Bugatti made a W16.With modern emissions regulations and the unimaginable costs associated with this development, we do not expect anyone to match the French brand owned by the Volkswagen Group on this chapter.As you already know, the Chiron has a quad turbo setup, which is divided into two pairs of turbos that are fed from the two sets of eight cylinders.The solution is named two-stage turbocharging, and is employed in many cars that are more affordable than a Chiron, but none comes close to the level of performance announced by this unit.The top output is rated at 1,500 HP, while peak torque is 1,600 Nm. The eight-liter motor delivers its peak torque between 2,000 and 6,000 rpm. The latter is impressive in itself, but this is expected from a hypercar that is built by Bugatti.BMW surprised the world in 2012 with the introduction of a triple turbocharged engine. The shock was even bigger when the unit turned out to be a diesel engine, instead of a gasoline power plant. Furthermore, BMW put the M letter in front of the model designation of the resulting automobiles.BMW offers the triple-turbo diesel engine in the 5 Series, 7 Series, X5, and X6. The last two get the M50d designation, while the 7 Series was named 750d.The previous generation of the 5 Series was offered with this engine under the M550d name. All shared the ZF eight-speed automatic transmission and the xDrive system.The triple turbo setup is a sequential solution. A small turbocharger provides a boost at low rpm, so that the engine can develop more torque right after idle, and this happens thanks to variable geometry. Shortly after, a big turbo supplies more boost for high torque in the low-to-mid range of revs.The third turbocharger is designed to operate in the upper rev range. Contrary to expectation, it is the small secondary turbocharger, and not an even bigger turbo unit. This helps you accelerate from 2,500 rpm all the way to the red line.All three turbos operate simultaneously. The result is a power plant that delivers 381 HP between 4,000 and 4,400 rpm, while peak torque is 740 Nm. BMWs N57S provides its peak twist between 2,000 and 3,000 rpm.BMW is the only automaker besides Bugatti that offers a production automobile with four turbochargers. Unlike the solution employed by Audi for the SQ7, the quad turbo motor from BMW only uses conventional turbochargers, without any supplementary compressors. Bugatti applies a similar strategy, but on a larger scale and with over three times more power.Regardless, the average mortal might get the chance to experiment the four turbos of BMWs 750d , while the four turbochargers of the Chiron will only spool for the wealthy few. Coming back to the solution chosen by the Bavarian Motor Works, it has two pairs of sequential turbochargers on an inline-six cylinder engine.Instead of a V8 or whatever configuration, BMW implemented the quad turbo setup on its signature inline six unit. Thanks to the group of turbos and high-pressure direct injection, the unit delivers 400 HP between 4,000 and 4,400 rpm. That is not a dramatic increase from the three-turbo predecessor, but it is something.Peak torque is available between 2,000 and 3,000 rpm, and it is rated at 760 Nm (560 lb-Ft). The cool part about BMWs quad turbo setup is the integration of two small turbos into a single housing, while the other two turbochargers are separate. The torque at 1,000 rpm is 450 Nm, half of what Audis SQ7 delivers , but without a 48-Volt electrical system, its associated compressor, and with one liter of displacement less.We do not expect quad turbos to become mainstream, like single turbo engines have been for a few years, and the triple turbo solution from BMW might remain proprietary to the German automaker for a few years. The brand from Munchen might discontinue it to save room for four turbos, while smaller units will have to settle for TwinPower Turbo solutions.
Now that he has won the presidential election, Donald Trumps home in midtown Manhattan is within a Temporary Flight Restriction. The VIP TFR, effective Wednesday, closes open flights through the popular Hudson River area for sightseeing the city skyline. The FAA Notam is effective immediately through Trumps inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017. The TFR has a 2-nautical-mile radius from the surface to 2,999 feet AGL. It still allows arrivals and departures from five locations including heliports and the New York Skyports Inc. Seaplane Base, as well as medical, law enforcement, firefighting and other emergency operations. All aircraft operating in the TFR must be in two-way radio communications with ATC and squawk an assigned transponder code.

AOPA said Wednesday itplans to look for options to provide more open access to the area. AOPA respects the need to provide increased security for President-elect Donald Trump, but we will work to see if there is a way to balance the restrictions while maintaining GA access to the airspace, said Nobuyo Sakata, the associations director of aviation security. It remains to be seen how the TFRs will look when President Trump is in Manhattan, and the permanent flight restrictions to 18,000 feet surrounding the White House and Washington area remain in place.
AVwebs search of news in aviation found announcements from Able Flight, Jeppesen and Diamond Aircraft, Ross Aviation and Independence Aviation.Able Flight has selected Captain Ferris Butler (U.S. Army, Ret.) as the first recipient of the new Lockheed Martin/Able Flight Scholarship. After successful completion of Able Flights six-week flight school held at Purdue Universitys Department of Aviation Technology, Butler will earn his pilots certificate and receive his wings at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh airshow in July 2017. Jeppesen and Diamond Aircraft Industries GmbH have signed an agreement to deliver preselected Jeppesen NavData and digital charts at the time of delivery as part of the purchase process of new Diamond aircraft. Jeppesen flight information will be on board with the purchase of Diamond DA40, DA42 and DA62 models and will be ready for immediate use in flight.

Ross Aviation announced it has successfully completed the purchase of the AirFlite FBO located at the Long Beach Airport in Long Beach, California.Ross Aviation embraces a system in which managers are granted authority to operate and optimize their business based upon the unique considerations and customer base of their locations. This philosophy will continue at the Long Beach location under the general management of Greg McQueary.Independence Aviation LLC, based at Centennial Airport in Englewood, Colorado, announced that it has added charter travel services to its roster of private-aviation services. The FAA has issued an Air Carrier Certificate to IA allowing for single-engine flights. Service will initially be provided using a Cirrus Aircraft SR22T Generation 5.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan is currently in the United Arab Emirates on an official visit.

On the occasion of the Presidents visit, ARMENPRESS presents the level of diplomatic and trade-economic relations between Armenia and UAE.

Diplomatic ties between Armenia and the UAE were established on June 25, 1998, with the signing of a protocol in New York.

In March 2012, H.E. Gegham Gharibjanyan was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Armenia to the United Arab Emirates.

The embassy of the UAE has been operating in Armenia since 2015.

On February 18, Ambassador H.E. Jassim Mohamed Al Qasemi presented his credentials to President Sargsyan.

Armenia and the UAE are engaged in productive cooperation in political, economic, scientific and educational sectors.

Since the establishment of diplomatic ties 15 agreements, 3 memorandum of understandings, and 2 protocols have been signed between the two states.

Armenias main imports from the UAE are: colorant materials, construction materials, confectionery, sugar, plastic, paper, cardboard, furniture, electronic appliances, and transportation vehicles, while exports from Armenia to the UAE are mainly comprised of copper and aluminum products, natural and artificial pearls.

Armenia and the UAE are expected to expand the business and investment opportunities during President Sargsyans visit. In this context a memorandum of understanding is planned to be signed between the Chambers of Commerce of the two states. Another memorandum of understanding will be signed which will deepen the cooperation in the fields of crisis and natural disaster management and emergency situations.

Several documents will also be signed, outlining the directions of cooperation in the scientific and technical fields.
Former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said on Thursday that his Hamakhmbum (Consolidation) party is ready to form an alliance with other opposition groups ahead of next years parliamentary elections.

Oskanian described the April 2017 vote as a unique opportunity to achieve regime change, arguing that it will be followed by Armenias transition to the parliament system of government.

For the sake of a great consolidation, we stand ready to put aside any personal ambition, he told reporters. In particular, he said, he would not aspire to the top spot in the opposition blocs list of election candidates.

Oskanian was reluctant to list his partys potential opposition allies. I wont name any party at this point, he said. Ill just say that we dont exclude anything and are ready to sit down, negotiate and reach common ground with everyone.

In that regard, Oskanian made clear that he is open to joining forces with the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK).

The ex-minister and his political associates, who set up Consolidation earlier this year, are former senior members of the BHK. They quit Armenias second largest parliamentary force last year after its founding leader, Gagik Tsarukian, was forced into political retirement following a bitter confrontation with President Serzh Sarkisian.

Tsarukian indicated late last month that he is now considering returning to active politics. The BHKs current leadership publicly urged him to do so earlier in October.

Oskanian, who served as foreign minister under former President Robert Kocharian from 1998-2008, would not be drawn on Tsarukians possible political comeback. I will try to skirt this question as long as Mr. Tsarukian himself has not made a statement, he said.

But when asked whether Tsarukian can play a major role in the consolidation of opposition forces sought by his party, Oskanian replied: Of course he can.
10 November 2016 10:57 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Armenias armed forces have 18 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops over the past 24 hours, Azerbaijans Defense Ministry reported on November 10.

The Azerbaijani army positions located on nameless heights of Azerbaijans Gazakh district underwent fire from the Armenian army positions located on nameless heights of Armenias Ijevan district.

Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani army positions located in the Aghbulag village of Azerbaijans Tovuz district were shelled from the Armenian army positions located in the Chinari village of Armenias Berd district.

Moreover, the Azerbaijani army positions also underwent fire from the Armenian positions located in the Armenian-occupied Goyarkh, Chilaburt villages of the Tartar district, Shikhlar, Yusifjanli villages of the Aghdam district, Horadiz village of the Fuzuli district, as well as on nameless heights of the Tartar and Fuzuli 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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10 November 2016 17:49 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan feels the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh not only by loss of lands, Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Garayev said while addressing a scientific conference Karabakh: history and heritage in Baku on November 10.

Every day we are witnessing the Armenian aggressive policy at international events, in the Internet space and press, as well as in cuisine, the minister noted. Armenians continue to infringe on the culture, historical monuments, music and cuisine of Azerbaijan.

The minister emphasized that not a day passes without Armenias such infringes. We feel it in relation to our historic monuments, music and cuisine, he noted.

Garayev further said that the Azerbaijani side tries to prevent such claims of the Armenians, and Azerbaijan managed to achieve many samples of its cultural property to be included in the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list.

Today, our folk musical instrument tar, ashig art and carpet are in the list of intangible cultural heritage. These values do not belong only to the Azerbaijani people, but to all mankind, Garayev stressed.

The destruction of Azerbaijani cultural monuments in the occupied territories continues to this day. The invaders are carrying out large-scale archeological excavations, destroying burial mounds.

In total, Armenians have destroyed 927 libraries in the occupied Azerbaijani territories as part of the purposeful policy to annihilate the history and culture of the Land of Fire. Moreover, nine mosques, 44 shrines, 464 historical monuments and museums, over 40,000 museum pieces were looted, destroyed and crushed on the occupied territories.

The damages caused by Armenia during the years of occupation of Azerbaijani lands hit about $818 billion.

The destruction and damage of historical and cultural monuments by the Armenian invaders in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan contradict the 1954 Hague convention on the preservation of cultural values during armed conflicts, the 1992 European convention on preservation of archeological heritages, and the 1972 UNESCO convention on preservation of world cultural and natural heritages.

The preservation of historical and cultural monuments in the Armenian-occupied territory of Azerbaijan, as memories of the nation's centuries-old history, is a matter of international importance, since the Azerbaijani people's cultural heritage is an integral part of the world culture.

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10 November 2016 14:32 (UTC+04:00)

By Mark Leonard

Alone again. Since World War IIs end, Europe has looked at the world through a transatlantic lens. There have been ups and downs in the alliance with the United States, but it was a family relationship built on a sense that we would be there for each other in a crisis and that we are fundamentally like-minded.

Donald Trumps election as US president threatens to bring this to an end  at least for now. He believes more in walls and oceans than solidarity with allies, and has made it clear that he will put America not just first, but second and third as well. We will no longer surrender this country, or its people, he declared in his one major foreign-policy speech, to the false song of globalism.

Europeans will not only have to get used to Trump; they will have to look at the world through different eyes. There are four reasons to expect that Trumps America will be the single biggest source of global disorder.

First, American guarantees are no longer reliable. Trump has questioned whether he would defend Eastern European NATO members if they do not do more to defend themselves. He has said that Saudi Arabia should pay for American security. He has encouraged Japan and South Korea to obtain nuclear weapons. In Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, Trump has made it clear that America will no longer play the role of policeman; instead, it will be a private security company open for hire.

Second, global institutions will come under attack. Trump fundamentally rejects the view that the liberal world order that the US built after WWII (and expanded after the Cold War) is the cheapest way of defending American values and interests. Like George W. Bush after September 11, 2001, he views global institutions as placing intolerable constraints on US freedom of action. He has a revisionist agenda for almost all of these bodies, from the World Trade Organization to NATO and the United Nations. The fact that he wants to put the Art of the Deal into practice in all international relationships  renegotiating the terms of every agreement  is likely to provoke a similar backlash among Americas partners.

Third, Trump will turn all US relationships on their head. The crude fear is that he will be kinder to Americas foes than to its allies. Most challenging for Europeans is his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Should Trump, cozying up to Putin in search of a grand bargain, recognize Russias 2014 annexation of Crimea, the EU would be placed in a near-impossible role.

Fourth, there is Trumps unpredictability. Even during the 18 months of the presidential campaign, Trump has been on both sides of almost every issue. The fact that he will say the opposite today of what he said yesterday, without admitting that he has changed his mind, shows the extent to which capriciousness is his method.

One of the benefits the US political system is that it provides a two-month grace period to prepare for Trumps world. So what should Europeans do about it?

First, we need to try to increase leverage over the US. We know from Trumps writings and behavior that he is likely to resemble other strongmen presidents and treat weakness as an invitation to aggression. We saw from the Iraq experience that a divided Europe has little ability to influence the US. But where Europe has worked together  on privacy, competition policy, and taxation  it has dealt with the US from a position of strength.

The same was true with the so-called E3+3 policy on Iran  when the big EU member states shifted the US stance by standing together. To get on the front foot, the EU now needs to launch a process to agree on common policies on security, foreign policy, migration, and the economy. This will be difficult, as Europe is deeply divided, with France fearing terrorism, Poland dreading Russia, Germany inflamed by the refugee issue, and the United Kingdom determined to go it alone.

Second, Europeans should show that they are able to hedge their bets and build alliances with others. The EU must reach out to other powers to help shore up global institutions against Trumpian revisionism. And it also needs to diversify its foreign-policy relationships. Rather than waiting for Trump to marginalize the EU over Russia and China, Europeans should fly some kites of their own. Should they, for example, begin consulting with the Chinese on the EU arms embargo to remind the US of the value of the transatlantic alliance? Could the EU develop a different relationship with Japan? And if Trump wants to cozy up to Russia, maybe he should take over the Normandy process on Ukraine?

Third, Europeans need to start to invest in their own security. From Ukraine to Syria, from cyber attacks to terror attacks, Europes security is being probed in different ways. Despite an intellectual understanding that 500 million Europeans can no longer contract out their security to 300 million Americans, the EU has done little to close the gap between its security needs and its capabilities. It is time to put meat on the bones of the Franco-German plan for European defense. And it will be important to find institutionalized ways of binding the UK into Europes new security architecture.

In all of these areas, Europeans must keep the door to transatlantic cooperation open. This alliance  which has so often saved Europe from itself  is bigger than any individual. And, in any case, Trump will not last forever. But the transatlantic relationship will be more likely to survive if it is built on two pillars that understand and defend their own interests.

This will be a tough agenda to adopt  not least because Europe is facing its own brand of populist nationalism. Frances far-right National Front leader, Marine Le Pen, was among the first to congratulate Trump on his victory, and Trump has said that he would put the UK at the front of the queue after Brexit. But even Europes most Trump-like leaders will find it harder to defend their national interest if they try to go it alone. To survive in Trumps world, they should try to make Europe great again.

Copyright: Project Syndicate: Europe, Alone in Trumps World

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10 November 2016 14:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan is taking new steps to combat the illegal business. Hence the Taxes Ministry will have a department to combat illegal entrepreneurial activity as a subdivision of the Preliminary Investigation of Tax Crime Department

The Ministry also carried out structural and personnel changes in order to improve mechanism for oversight of the full forecast on budget revenues and bring it in line with contemporary requirements.

Speaking on the board earlier this week, Tax Minister Fazil Mammadov noted that activity of structural divisions of the department of preliminary investigation of tax crimes in the fight against tax evasion and illegal business was unsatisfactory.

"The operational structure, in some cases, limited to drawing up regulations concerning small businesses," said Mammadov.

The minister instructed to take the necessary punitive measures against the tax service employees, whose activities have shortcomings in the fight against illegal business.

Meanwhile, the Ministry launches new module of Electronic criminal case.



Zeynalabdin Mammadzade, Head of the analysis of tax crimes and collection of tax debts, made the remark during the presentation on November 10.

The module will be operational from November 21. "Appropriate training for investigators and research department are planned within the framework of the application of this module. The purpose of the creating and implementing this module is to improve the quality and speed of operation of the department, to establish a unified electronic database of statistical accounting, to minimize additional administrative measures, as well as to save time and to ensure more rational use of human resources," he said.

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10 November 2016 13:45 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

Promotion of export remains one of the priority areas for the development of the non-oil sector in Azerbaijan. Organizing export missions to foreign countries to explore the markets and marketing activities stands among the promotional mechanisms required for increasing awareness about the local production.

Head of Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) Rufat Mammadov said that Azerbaijan plans to organize an export mission to Egypt. Moreover, the mission will be also presented in Dubai. Such spheres of agriculture as processing, food stuff and production of non-alcoholic beverages will be will be presented in both countries.

The first export mission of Azerbaijani entrepreneurs, which is currently in China, comprises some 12 companies, including Ganja Wine, Agro Azerinvest, Sharg Ulduzu, Absheron Wine, Tovuz Baltiya, Yarimada Wine, Goygol Wine, Aspi Agro Winery, Fireland Vineyards, Caspian Coast Winery, Az-Granata and Cristal Plus.

The mission will be represented in Hong-Kong on November 9-13 and Guandzhou pn November 13-15.

The missions formed by representatives of AZPROMO and wine-producing companies are expected to participate in "Hong-Kong Wine and Spirits Fair 2016" and "Guandzhou Interwine Fair 2016". Businessmen will meet local distributors, potential customers and will get acquainted with new technologies applied in wine production. The selection of companies to participate in the missions was defined by the competition organized by the Economy Ministry.

Only 10 export missions may be held within a year, while exporters participating in missions are freely provided with accommodation, transport and translation services.

A total of 3 million manats ($1.84 million) has been allocated out of the Azerbaijani Presidents Reserve Fund in the 2016 State Budget to finance the export support measures.

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10 November 2016 16:07 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

Business relations between Azerbaijan and the Islamic Republic of Iran are developing steadily, as the two countries are constantly exploring the opportunities for boosting the trade ties.

Vice-President of Azerbaijan Entrepreneurs Confederation Vugar Zeynalov said that two Azerbaijani-Iranian Business Forums are scheduled to be held in Iran in December.

Addressing the conference titled Investment opportunities of Azerbaijan and Iran Zeynalov said that the first business forum will be held on December 18 in Ardabil, while the second is scheduled for December 19 in Tabriz.

The conference, which will feature a number of panel discussions involving Azerbaijani and Iranian investors, aims to ensure the execution of bilateral agreements signed by the two countries and bring Azerbaijani and Iranian investors closer to each other.

Business forums bear huge importance for the enhancement of the relations between the entrepreneurs representing the two countries and provision of the information about investment environment.

Head of AZPROMO Rufat Mammadov said that Iranian investments in Azerbaijan's economy amounted to almost $1.2 billion, with some $145 million being invested in the countrys non-oil sector, adding that some 450 companies with Iranian capital currently operate in Azerbaijan.

Mammadov underlined that the countries can increase the volume of mutual investments, saying that Azerbaijan has implemented significant work to improve the investment climate in the country, and nowadays the country has concrete proposals for the Iranian investors.

He added that the two countries are currently engaged in the creation of joint plants for production of cars and pharmaceuticals, while the successful cooperation is an indicator of high confidence of Iranian investors in Azerbaijan. Moreover, Azerbaijani investors are also interested in Iranian market.

Groundbreaking ceremony of the joint Azerbaijani-Iranian pharmaceutical plant will be held in two weeks, Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh told the reporters in Baku.

He further said that Iran intends to build a hospital in Azerbaijan.

Deputy Head of Iranian Organization for Investment, Economic & Technical Assistance (OIETAI) Akbar Ghahramani said that for the first time the volume of foreign investments in Iran has been brought up to some $8 billion, which is considered to be a clear proof of conditions created for investors.

He invited Azerbaijani investors to participate in the process of investing and take advantage of favorable conditions.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Iran amounted to $137.65 million in January-September 2016, more than $102 million of which fell on the import of Iranian goods, according to the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan.

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10 November 2016 17:46 (UTC+04:00)

Next session of English language courses for journalists organized jointly by Azercell Telecom LLC and Kaspi Education Company is over.

The press conference held on November 10 announced the winners who will go to London to join a language course. Namely, Saadet Mamedova and Samir Guseynov scored the highest points in the exams conducted by the course instructors in Baku and gained an opportunity to improve their English in Great Britain next year.

The journalists were awarded certificates after successful completion of the multi-level course lasting for six months. As a result, the journalists acquired grammar, speaking and writing skills. Major objective of these courses is to help Azerbaijani journalists learn English and to facilitate their easy access to English sources.

Azercell has organized such languages courses for journalists for 6 years. So far, hundreds of media representatives have attended these specialized courses to upgrade their qualification and build international relations with the support of Azercell.

It should be mentioned that throughout its operation Azercell Telecom regularly organized interesting projects for media representatives. Azercell is the only mobile operator that has developed a special tariff pack for media representatives  Mediacell. Azercell Telecom will continue to support the development of Azerbaijani media.

Media representatives will receive further information about next enrolment for English language courses supported by Azercell.

For more information, please contact [email protected]

The leader of the mobile communication industry of Azerbaijan and the biggest investor in the non-oil sector Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996. With 48% share of Azerbaijans mobile market Azercells network covers 80% of the territory and 99,8% of population of the country. Currently, 4,5 million subscribers choose Azercell services. Azercell has pioneered an important number of innovations in Azerbaijan, including GSM technology, advance payment system, 24/7 Customer Care, online customer services, GPRS/EDGE, M2M, MobilBank, one-stop- shop service offices Azercell Express, mobile e-service ASAN signature, etc. Azercell deployed first 4G  LTE services in Azerbaijan in 2012. According to the results of mobile network quality surveys of Global Wireless Solutions company and international systems specialized in wireless coverage mapping such as Opensignal and Testmy.net, Azercells network demonstrated the best results among the mobile operators of Azerbaijan.

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10 November 2016 12:34 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Red Bull Skydive team has once again performed a breath-taking show in the Baku sky.

Two of the most talented team members- Marco Waltenspiel and George Lattner raised the national flag of Azerbaijan while flying over the National Flag Square, Trend Life reported.

They showcased their incredible aerial acrobatics skills to the citys residents in honor of the the State Flag Day.

Azerbaijan celebrated National Flag Day on November 9.

The state flag of Azerbaijan represents a rectangular panel consisting of three equal horizontal bands colored blue, red, and green, with a white crescent and an eight-pointed star are centered in the red band. The ratio of the flag's width to its length is 1:2.

Marco Waltenspiel and George Lattner are Austrian skydivers, specializing in wingsuit-flying and base-jumping. Marco started skydiving in 2001, but he already completed his first tandem-jump when he was 11.

George did his first tandem jump in Salzburg when he was only 12 and wanted to start doing aero-sport professionally ever since, a dream he has most certainly realized in adult life!

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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10 November 2016 16:29 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

The French Embassy in Baku hosted an event dedicated to the presentation of the film "Terra" as part of the European Film Festival on November 10.

TERRA tells the story of life, while Yann Arthus Bertrand and Michael Pitiot reveal the incredible saga of our living planet in the film.

French Ambassador Aurelia Bouchez and Head of Political, Economics and Press & Information Section at the EU office in Baku, Denis Daniilidis addressed the event and highlighted that the Festival Festival is a cultural bridge between Azerbaijan and the European Union.

The festival familiarizes the audience with European culture from different angles, giving a great opportunity to know about the traditions and history of different peoples and the world cinematography, the speakers said.

Michael Pitiot, who also addressed the event, said that the festival is an important event in the development of European cinema.

"Azerbaijan is called the Land of Lire, while Baku is the City of Winds. These are the two natural elements - fire and wind and may be we will make a movie about it," said the French director.

The ten-day festival running until November 12 will display feature and documentary films from 19 European countries. Films in different genres including comedies, dramas, thrillers, documentaries will be presented at the festival. Some of them were awarded by prestigious film awards.

The European Film Festival has been organized since 2010 and serves to further building and strengthening the cultural links between the countries of the European Union and Azerbaijan, contributing to a better mutual understanding

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YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. The allied relations of Armenia and Russia are based on friendship and centuries-old traditions and are at the interstate and political high levels, Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, Co-Chair of the Inter-parliamentary Commission on Cooperation between the Armenian Parliament and the Russian Federal Assembly Hermine Naghdalyan said at the launch of the 28th session of the Commission, reports Armenpress.

Our strategic cooperation has developed and reached a new level in the context of joining the Eurasian Economic Union. One of the most important elements in the bilateral relations is the Armenian-Russian parliamentary cooperation which is intensifying year by year. The evidence of this is the official visit of the Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko last year, the working visits of the State Duma President, the joint sessions of the committees of our parliaments, and of course, the active works of our inter-parliamentary commission, she said.

Naghdalyan said the Commissions regular works enable to explore the situation of the economic cooperation, to reveal the issues and decide the prospects, to provide the necessary agreed decisions at the parliamentary level.

Of course, we are united not only with trade-economic cooperation. We are united by historical, cultural and humanitarian ties. We are going to discuss the Armenian-Russian cultural cooperation and the tourism development issues in the upcoming session, Naghdalyan said adding that a number of projects are being implemented on the sidelines of Armenia-Russia cultural cooperation.

Various thematic exhibitions are regularly held in our countries, joint concerts, theatrical performances, intelligentsia meetings are being organized, she stated.

Hermine Naghdalyan also attached importance to the cooperation in tourism sector of the two states. She said recently there is a huge flow of Russian tourists visiting Armenia. She stated that tourism is very important since it provides the two people a chance to communicate with each other, raises the level of mutual trust and the friendly attitude towards each other. We aim to develop cultural-cognitive tourism, to increase inter-regional and international tourism exchanges, she said.

Naghdalyan ensured that the upcoming discussions and the proposals will contribute to solving the issues faced by both countries.
10 November 2016 17:22 (UTC+04:00)

American voters, who felt slighted by the Washington establishment and sought changes, have had their say. The election is over and Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States to lead the nation in the years ahead.

As he celebrated victory, Donald Trump vowed to heal the wounds of whats been described as one of the dirtiest presidential campaigns in American history. It is time for us to come together as one united people, he told an audience of supporters in New York.

One thing we already know is that from now the policy of the United States will change the focus from the world to America first. We also know that Trump, along with promises to make America great again also vowed to fight the terrorism, aggressively pursue the Islamic State and jihadist threats around the world.

With Trumps victory, the world has decisively entered a new period, while a number of important issues will occupy Trumps foreign policy agenda, but a few key issues will likely dominate  namely great power relations with China and Russia and the turmoil in the Middle East.

Also experts assess him as unpredictable; he vowed to deal fairly with everyone. In his post-election speech, he expressed a wish to work with other nations who are willing to get along with us.

Significantly, he did not mention immigration, nor a proposed wall on the Mexican border which had featured heavily in his campaigning.

Based on traditionally friendly relations with the United States, Baku has already voiced its intention to closely cooperate with Donald Trump.

President Ilham Aliyev, in his congratulatory letter to Trump, voiced hope that bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and the U.S. will continue to develop successfully, mentioning the two countries cooperation in political, economic, energy, security areas, including global anti-terror war and NATO`s peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan.

Trumps victory also raised hopes of Baku in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, as the Azerbaijani leader expressed hope that the Trump-led U.S. will contribute to a fair settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The Republicans, when they were in power, were particularly active regarding the South Caucasus and Baku had the best relations with the U.S. during the presidencies of conservative presidents.

Trump has repeatedly noted in his speeches that the U.S. has enough problems in its domestic and foreign policy to deal with, refusing interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. Experts believe that the presidency of Donald Trump will create good conditions for the development of relations between the U.S. and Azerbaijan.

Although Donald Trump faced harsh criticism over his lacking political experience or some of his statements, many are impressed by his pragmatism with good economic knowledge.

Azerbaijan, as a state ensuring reliable energy supply to Europe and enjoying strong security relationship with the United States, hopes to further the all-round cooperation.

The U.S. will continue to work with Azerbaijan in all spheres of cooperation, U.S. Ambassador Robert Cekuta told reporters, adding that We have been working on building strong security relationship supporting Azerbaijan's security, stability and independence.

There have been ups and downs in the relations with the United States, but it was a friendly relationship overall. The Baku-Washington relationship will be more likely to prosper if it is built on two pillars that lack double-standards and defend their own interests.

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10 November 2016 12:16 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The Armenian leadership hampers the solution of Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenian journalist and social activist Susan Jaghinyan, said at a press conference in Baku on November 9.

She, together with two other Armenian human rights activists, joined the Baku conference on Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: main obstacles and prospects for conflict settlement. The look from Armenia and Azerbaijan" to have an exchnage of opinion over the conflict in a bid to contribute to its settlement.

The Armenian people had their share of grief. Only occupiers [Armenian authorities] benefited from the conflict, Jaghinyan stressed.

She underlined that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be resolved, saying that both Azerbaijan and Armenia suffer from the conflict.

The purpose of my visit to Baku is to contribute to the conflict settlement, the journalist said. If the perpetrators of the conflict and those who are currently in power in Armenia remain unpunished, there will be no nation as Armenia after 20 years."

Jaghinyan also emphasized that the Armenian government is inadequate. My visit to Baku is a slap in the face for the Armenian leadership, she said, by calling Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan "occupier", who came to power through murders. President Sargsyan robs his people.

The journalist added that after her publications appeared in the Azerbaijani media, President Sargsyan instructed the Armenian officials to declare the journalist "dead". The only way for the Armenian leadership to solve the problem with such people like me is assasination, she said.

Vahe Avetyan, Armenian human rights activist, also attended the press conference. Armenia cannot always ignore international law, he said. It must respect the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

The activist added that the fundamental basis was created for the work on all points: policy, peacekeeping activity and others in the framework of the Baku conference held on November 8.

The entire situation with the so-called public movement in Armenia, voicing the position of the countrys authorities, is aimed at disrupting the process that we are carrying out with our Azerbaijani colleagues, Avetyan stressed.

Vahan Martirosyan, Armenian human rights activist, for his part also emphasized that the change of power in Armenia can speed up the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. However, he said that Armenia's current authorities will never resign without a coup.

Martirosyan added that issuing Nagorno-Karabakh with an autonomy status is a reasonable decision. Nobody is going to evict Armenians from there, he said. Two peoples will be able to coexist peacefully there.

The activist also stressed that it is necessary to wirthdraw troops from seven districts around Nagorno-Karabakh and return them back to Azerbaijan.

Martirosyan said that he together with Jaghinyan and Avetyan visited one Armenian family in Baku without journalists, and the members of that family said that they have no problems of living in Azerbaijan. Armenian names and surnames are indicated in their documents. Unfortunately, such a case is not observed in Armenia, he regretted.

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. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts, as well as ignores the resolutions and decisions of the UN General Assembly, OSCE, Council of Europe, NATO, the European Parliament, Economic Cooperation Organization, Non-Aligned Movement and other international organizations.

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10 November 2016 14:09 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Recent reports on the intention to rename the status of Nagorno-Karabakh will not affect Russias position on the settlement to the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told APA on November 9.

She made a comment in response to next provocation by the Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh on their intention to rename the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory under Armenia's occupation.

Russia and other OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries, as well as Armenia itself, do not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state, Zakharova stressed. The status of Nagorno-Karabakh must be determined during negotiations.

The spokeswoman also touched on whether the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict issue will be discussed at the OSCE Ministerial Council in Hamburg on December 8-9.

The Nagorno-Karabakh settlement will be discussed at the Vienna meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on November 10, and also at a meeting of the OSCE Minsk Group. We believe that this work will continue at the Hamburg meeting of OSCE foreign ministers, the spokeswoman said.

The Azerbaijani side has already given its consent for the meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister in the framework of the OSCE Ministerial Council in December.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with the signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Since the war, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign State with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years.

Armenia ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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10 November 2016 15:32 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry has excluded a Bulgarian traveler from the list of foreigners, who are persona non-grata in the country.

Bulgarian citizen Valentin Dreharski, an employee of "Besttechnia" company and a traveler, has been removed from the list of undesirable people, who illegally visited the Azerbaijani lands occupied by Armenia, the Foreign Ministry told Trend on November 10.

Dreharski sent a letter to the ministry, in which he expressed respect for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and inviolability of internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. The traveler noted that he was unaware of the illegality of his trip.

In his letter, Dreharski apologized to the Azerbaijani people and added that his visit wasnt aimed at promoting the illegal regime in Azerbaijans occupied territories.

His letter was thoroughly considered and a decision was made to remove his name from the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys black list .

Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly one million were displaced as a result of the war. Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions are temporarily out of the control of Azerbaijan as a result of Armenias aggression.

Unauthorized visits to Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied regions of Azerbaijan are considered illegal and individuals who pay such visits are included in the ministrys black list.

The list of persona non grata banned from visiting Azerbaijan includes MPs, media persons, businessmen, entertainers, and others, who violated Azerbaijans borders and showed disrespect to the sovereignty and territorial unity of the country.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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10 November 2016 11:06 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Camal

Azerbaijans top official has assessed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trumps election as the 45th president of the U.S. as a surprise for Armenia.

Another surprise outcome of the U.S. presidential election for "Armenia and Co." was the defeat of long-time buddies Bob Dold, Mark Kirk and others, Deputy Head of Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administration's foreign relations department Novruz Mammadov wrote in his micro-blog on Twitter, while commenting on the election results.

Republican Trump won the latest presidential elections to head the White House in a hard-racing with his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton which lasted for over a year.

American Armenians, who rely on quite close ties of the heads of the American-Armenian organizations with high ranking democratic officials in the Congress and White House, earlier voiced that they will support the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton has also been supporting the efforts of the Armenian community directed at the adoption of the law on recognition of the so called Armenian Genocide. Therefore, Armenians hoped to see their friend in the post of the U.S. President in a deep expectation to gain a pressure on Turkey over the "genocide recognition".

Armenians alleged "genocide" claims over mass killing of some 1.5 million of their people by Ottoman forces ordered by Minister of War Enver Pasha and other top officials in the last century remain a major request from the new U.S. presidency.

Ankara, in turn categorically, denies the term "genocide", insisting that the Turks and the Armenians both suffered in the clashes, when Armenians joined forces with invading Russian troops in the hope of carving out their own state.

Taking advantage of the power and influence of the great powers, Armenians this time as well wanted to achieve their dream and also maybe to further claim to foreign territories.

But, the things turned out not so well for Armenians, as Trump won with votes 290 in the electoral college, whereas Clinton had just 232 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win (CNN).

Soon after the decisive victory, which Trump supporters named as "historic", a top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump said that Turkey should be a top priority in U.S. foreign policy.

We must begin with understanding that Turkey is vital to U.S. interests, retired Gen. Michael Flynn wrote for the Hill newspaper, criticizing an unwise policy of the Obama administration to keep Ankara at arms length,

We need to adjust our foreign policy to recognize Turkey as a priority. We need to see the world from Turkeys perspective, he wrote.

So, the results are really frustrating for Armenians...

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10 November 2016 12:55 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

A magnificent show of 70 classic automobiles along the streets of Baku on the Day of National Flag on November 9 turned out a real holiday gift to citizens and visitors of the capital city.

The Azerbaijan Automobile Federation organized a parade and exhibition of vintage cars in a cool desire to make it a bright and memorable event in the city life.

Arzu Aliyeva, President of the Azerbaijan Automobile Federation Anar Alakbarov, as well as classic car amateurs attended the adorable retro parade.

From early in the morning car fans gathered near the Heydar Aliyev Center to see the event, which was held under the sounds of retro music.

Brilliant retro cars of various models and colors, and decorated with national flags journeyed through the streets and landmark places of Baku to the State Flag Square.

Everybody had an opportunity to enjoy the beauty and elegance of classic cars and even sit behind the wheel of the legendary classic vehicles produced in the last century. Any driver could take part in the parade having pre-registration. The only condition for the event was the availability of serviceable classic cars produced before 1980.

Legends of the global automotive industry, including Mercedes, Rolls-Royce, Mustangs, Chrysler, Pobeda, Cossacks, Muscovites, GAZ and ZIM lined up in a row, plunging the atmosphere of favorite movies and retro hits. The oldest among them was Plymouth manufactured in 1949.

One of the oldest participants of the parade was 67-year-old Vagif Gurbanov, owner of ZIM 1955. In an interview with Trend he noted that "the owner of such a car does not need to tell something about himself, as this car well reflects his attitude and lifestyle."

Another participant of the parade Alisafa Zeynalov, the owner of the GAZ-21, prodcued in 1962, noted that the car has become a family heirloom, and he got it by inheritance from his grandfather. His father, he himself and his children drove this car.

Five vintage cars of Azad Karimov took part in the parade, one of which was Volkswagen Beetle manufactured in 1959 -- the same age as the owner.



"My Volkswagen Beetle looks much younger than me (laughs). I have owned it for 25 years. I restored it myself and then gave as a present to my daughter at her 18-year anniversary. I've been collecting vintage cars. I do not buy them in good condition, but restore them myself. The oldest car in my collection is Steyr, produced in 1936. Soon I will restore it," he assured..

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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10 November 2016 17:13 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

President of the Spanish Senate Pio Garcia Escudero has voiced necessity of developing relations between Spain and Azerbaijan.

Escudero made the remark as he received the Azerbaijani delegation, who visits the country to attend the conference titled Contribution of the inter-religious dialogue to peace and multicultural environment.

The delegation included State Adviser on Multinational, Multicultural and Religious Affairs, Academician Kamal Abdulla, Chairman of the Caucasian Muslim Board Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahashukur Pashazade, Head of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations Mubariz Gurbanli, Rector of Baku State University Abel Maharramov, as well as heads of various diplomatic corps accredited in Madrid, scientific, art figures, and the Media.

The head of the Senate highlighted the similarity of the values that unite the two countries, stressed the need for further development of relations based on common interests.

He said that his country attaches great importance to inter-religious cooperation.

Kamal Abdulla, in turn, reminded that representatives of various nations and religions live in peace and tranquility in Azerbaijan, and in this regard there are many similarities that unite Spain and Azerbaijan.

Abdulla said, 2016 was declared the "Year of multiculturalism" in Azerbaijan, which hosted number of international events on this occasion.

During the meeting, the State Adviser also informed the president of the Spanish Senate about the establishment of the Catholic Church in Baku, as well as visits of the head of the Roman Catholic Church - Pope John Paul II and Francis to Azerbaijan, adding that this is a good example of the religious tolerance in Azerbaijan.

The State Adviser further underlined the high level of relations between the two sides and emphasized that the scope of relations in all spheres between the two countries, that have ancient, deep and historical traditions, will bring together our peoples in the future.

The State Adviser invited the Spanish official to visit Azerbaijan.

During the meeting the sides suggested to teach Spanish language at Azerbaijani secondary schools, while subject on multiculturalism in Spanish universities.

Subject on multiculturalism, taught in Azerbaijani universities, have been already introduced into the curriculum in almost 20 countries around the world.

The Azerbaijani delegation then visited the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Spain. They met with the Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport Fernando Benzo Sainz and Secretary General on Universities Jorge Sainz Gonzalez.

The conference on Contribution of the inter-religious dialogue to peace and multicultural environment was held in Madrid on November 9 and was arranged with support of Azerbaijan's Embassy to Spain and Catholic University of Murcia.

Azerbaijan's Ambassador to Spain Anar Maharramov, addressing the event, said the country attaches great importance to peace, religious and multicultural values.

Azerbaijan has hosted 7th Global Forum of UN Alliance of Civilizations, Baku Global Forum, Baku International Humanitarian Forum. Azerbaijan is a model country to the world in the intercultural dialogue issues, said the Diplomat.

Spanish State Secretary for Justice Carmen Sanchez-Cortes, in turn, stressed the importance of increasing the efforts to promote the tolerance across the world.

Kamal Abdulla, for his part, highlighted Azerbaijan's experience in the field of multiculturalism. The State Advisor spoke about the policy carried out by the state on this front.

Mubariz Gurbanli, for his part, said that Azerbaijan has developed an exemplary model of multiculturalism, adding that representatives of different religions live in peace and harmony in Azerbaijan, while Rector Abel Maharramov highlighted tolerance environment in Azerbaijan.

The event featured a demonstration of video about Azerbaijan's multicultural values.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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10 November 2016 15:53 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

A modern technology called horizontal directional drilling (HDD) has been used for ensuring the crossing of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) through Albanias Seman river, which is another first for the country, said the message on TAPs website.



In November 2016, TAP began complex work for crossing an approximately 1.1 km stretch in the Albanian region of Fier, which hosts the Seman river, a railway as well as a road, said the message.



Using a modern technology called horizontal directional drilling (HDD), the team avoided trenching, reduced excavation works to a minimum and limited impact on ecosystems. All in all, another first for Albania, said TAP.



Commenting on the issue, TAP project manager for Albania Karl Roberts said that the pipeline crosses 555 roads, 514 rivers and one railway in Albania alone and special engineering attention is paid to each crossing.



TAP will continue to apply the highest industry standards and best practice, working safely and with care for the environment, cultural heritage and the communities along the pipeline route, he added.



Earlier, for the first time in Albania, TAP refurbished an access bridge using a structural strengthening method that allowed to maintain road traffic open.



TAP project envisages transportation of gas from the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to the EU countries.



The 870-kilometer pipeline will be connected to the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's south.



TAPs route through Albania will be approximately 215 km onshore and 37 km offshore in the Albanian section of the Adriatic Sea. It starts at Bilisht Qender in the Korca region at the Albanian border with Greece, and arrives at the Adriatic coast 17 km north-west of Fier, 400 meters inland from the shoreline.

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10 November 2016 16:18 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

The upcoming meeting of OPEC is still one of the most anticipated events for the world energy market. While investors are still cautious and doubtful about the possible outcome of the meeting, Russia, one of the essential players of the market,said it might consider a freeze of oil production.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on November 10 that global crude oil output could be frozen at November levels should the world's leading oil producers manage to reach an agreement.

This will be discussed depending on when our OPEC colleagues will come to a common understanding. If the decision is made on November 30, then the month of November will be taken as the basis, he said.

Novak reiterated the importance of the agreement on output, mentioning higher chances of reaching the agreement than before.

The oil market is still heavily oversupplied, while a number of hindrances, including the internal disagreements within the cartel, and the fact that many producers seek exemptions from the preliminary deal complicate the agreement.

Most analyst says the failure in reaching the consensus may deteriorate the situation greatly and push the prices back.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its recent report that the market will remain in surplus throughout the year, with little prospect of oil prices rising significantly higher should no agreement is reached.

OPEC member states agreed to cut cartel-wide oil production to 32.5-33 million barrels per day without placing exact limits for individual countries. The producers are set to finalize the agreement on an oil output freeze at the OPEC summit in Vienna on November 30.



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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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10 November 2016 17:40 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Hasanova

Turkmengaz and Russian company Gazprom suspended the arbitration process due to the development of a peaceful resolution of the dispute, said Turkmenistan's Oil and Gas Complex citing a memorandum on the issuance of Eurobonds of Gazprom.

Being on a working visit to Russia Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov held negotiations on this issue with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

"Despite the difficulties in the economic sphere and in terms of the ruble, the trade turnover between our countries are growing," said Putin at the meeting.

However, according to the Turkmen media, he didnt mention anything about the gas dispute during the meeting.

Russias purchase of natural gas from Turkmenistan is regulated by the intergovernmental agreement of 2003, which envisages the cooperation until 2028. The document envisages the supply of up to 80 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Russia via the Central Asia - Center and East - West pipelines.

Since early 2008, Gazprom was trying to revise the price of the gas purchased from Turkmenistan.

Despite the contracted annual volumes of 70-80 billion cubic meters, firstly, the volumes were decreased to 10-11 billion cubic meters per year throughout five years. The annual volumes dropped by 2.5 times in 2015 to 4 billion cubic meters.

Last year, Turkmenistans Ministry of Oil and Gas Industry and Mineral Resources reportedly said that Gazprom Export LLC (100-percent subsidiary of Gazprom) doesnt pay the remaining money for the actually delivered Turkmen natural gas, without explaining the reason.

In early 2015, Gazprom announced that it will purchase only 4 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan and was going to change the terms of the contract in the Stockholm arbitration mid-2015

Gazprom filed a lawsuit in Stockholm Arbitration Court against Turkmengaz, demanding to revise the price in the gas supply contract.

Due to declining gas export prices in Europe, linked to the constantly falling oil prices, the previously set price for Turkmen gas at $240 per 1,000 cubic meters appeared unsatisfactory to the Russian side.

Turkmenistan possesses the world's fourth largest natural gas reserves after Russia, Iran, and Qatar.

Turkmenistan holds 9.4 percent of the worlds total proven natural gas reserves and produced 2 percent (72.4 billion cubic meters) of the worlds total blue fuel output in 2015 which is up by 4.5 percent compared to the countrys production level in 2014, according to the BP statistical review of 2016.

Gas supply was one of the strategic areas of partnership between Turkmenistan and Russia until recently. Turkmenistan transports its gas to Russia via the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline that was constructed during the Soviet period and monopolized by Gazprom.

Turkmenistan, which produces about 70-80 billion cubic meters of gas a year, is actively implementing an energy strategy aimed at increasing exports of the blue fuel and diversifying its supply routes to the largest global markets, where the demand for energy resources is growing.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Nikolai Ryzhkov, Russian co-chair of the inter-parliamentary committee of cooperation between the Armenian Parliament and Russias Federation Assembly, says visiting Armenia and meeting his Armenian friends cause special feelings.

In his opening remarks at the 28th session of the inter-parliamentary committee in the Armenian Parliament, Ryzhkov underscored that many events in his life are associated with Armenia.

Today, as a member of the Federation Assembly, let me say that the parliamentary ties between Armenia and Russia have an important role in strengthening the friendly and allied relations of the countries, he said.

Ryzhkov stressed that development of cooperation between Armenia and Russia in the fields of tourism and culture is the main topic of the session.

These fields are very important in terms of expanding peoples ties and interaction. Armenia and Russia have rich legacy in these fields. The warm spiritual-cultural ties between our nations havent stopped even in historys most difficult periods. This helped us is resisting challenges, jointly solve difficult problems. I am sure it will be so forever, he said.
10 November 2016 10:44 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The Iranian government is concentrating on two areas as the main propelling power behind the countrys non-oil economy, government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said.

One of the areas is petrochemical industries in which Iran enjoys some degree of advantage for being an oil and gas producer, Nobakht told Trend in a press conference.

"Fifteen or 20 years ago we made some investment in the petrochemical sector, which now has the largest share in the countrys non-oil product," he pointed out, adding that there are still plans to further develop the petrochemical sector as a great source of income.

Iran produced 46.4 million tons of petrochemicals during the last fiscal year (ended March 20), but for the current year, the figure is planned to reach 54.7 million tons. The countrys actual petrochemical output capacity is around 63 million tons per year. Iran hopes to bring the capacity to 120 million tons by 2020 and 160 million tons by 2025.

"There are some industries such as the automotive, where we are far behind developed countries," Nobakht noted, adding, "However, there are some other fields such as high-tech in which we are not behind."

"Therefore, high-tech, and in particular science-based industries, are the second area which we are considering as a suitable area for investment and development."

Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for the advancement of a knowledge-based economy, and in this vein, support for domestic high-tech firms. These companies have been benefiting from special tax exemptions, financial incentives and laws to ban imports of products whose equivalents have been produced domestically, among other measures.

Also, research and development investment in some fields became highly profitable during the sanctions era.

In 2015, Secretary General of Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council (INIC) Saeed Sarkar said Iran ranked 7th in the world and 1st among the Islamic countries in scientific production and nanotechnology, one of the most hotly pursued fields of science in the country.

Besides nanotechnology, Iran is investing heavily in the domestic applications of nuclear technology, medicine, satellite, as well as some military-dominated areas of sci-tech such as drones and radars.

Nobakht said the government hopes by developing these two areas it will attain its objective of becoming a regional economic and technological hub.

Iran is projected to experience the largest growth in the contribution of the non-oil sector to its gross domestic product in the 2021 outlook.

The International Monetary Fund in a mid-October report predicted that the countrys non-oil share in GDP growth in the 2021 outlook will be greater than that of all other countries in the MENAP (Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan) region.

This year Iran saw a huge rise in oils share of GDP growth. The countrys headline growth has been revised up to 4.5 percent this year, owing to faster-than-expected increases in oil production and exports following the unwinding of sanctions.

However, the government is intent upon using the opportunity to diversify its GDP composition as well in a bid to reduce its dependence on oil revenues.

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10 November 2016 10:21 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Turkish jets destroyed PKK targets in northern Iraq, the military said on November 9.

A statement by the Turkish General Staff revealed that 4 positions of terrorists were destroyed.

The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- resumed its decades-old armed campaign in July last year.

Since then, PKK terrorist attacks have martyred more than 600 security personnel and also claimed the lives of many civilians, including women and children, while more than 7,000 PKK terrorists have been killed in army operations.

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10 November 2016 11:53 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Turkey should be a top priority in US foreign policy, a top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday in an article that slammed Barack Obama for failing to understand Ankara's geopolitical position, the Daily Sabah newspaper reported on November 10.

We must begin with understanding that Turkey is vital to US interests, retired Gen. Michael Flynn wrote for the Hill newspaper. He also called Turkey a source of stability in the region.

Flynn was a key national security adviser to Trump during his presidential campaign and is expected by many to be appointed to a Cabinet position, possibly as defense secretary.

The veteran general wrote that it was an unwise policy for the Obama administration to keep Ankara at arms length.

We need to adjust our foreign policy to recognize Turkey as a priority. We need to see the world from Turkey's perspective, he wrote.

Noting the extradition request by Turkey of Gulenist Terror Group (FETO) leader, Fetullah Gulen, as one of the key points of contention between Washington and Ankara, Flynn suggested the US handover Gulen.

Earlier, Turkeys Prime Minister Binali Yildirim congratulated the newly elected US president Donald Trump and called on him to facilitate the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, who is accused of involvement in the July 15 military coup attempt in Turkey.

Gulen and his movement have a negative impact on the relations between Ankara and Washington, he noted.

I am confident that if the US extradites Gulen in the shortest possible period, a new page will be opened in our relations, added Yildirim.

Earlier, the Turkish Ministry of Justice officially requested the US to arrest Fethullah Gulen. In addition, the Turkish authorities sent two requests to the US for Gulens extradition. Prior to that, the Istanbul Court released an order to arrest Gulen.

On July 15 evening, Turkish authorities said a military coup attempt took place in the country. Meanwhile, a group of servicemen announced about transition of power to them. However, the rebelling servicemen started to surrender July 16 and Turkish authorities said the coup attempt failed.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said the death toll as a result of the military coup attempt stood at 246 people, excluding the coup plotters, and over 2,000 people were wounded.

He also declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20. The state of emergency was prolonged for 90 more days on October 3.

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10 November 2016 14:43 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Hasanova

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on November 9 called on the EU to make a final decision on Turkeys accession to the union.

Speaking ahead of an annual EU report assessing Turkeys progress on EU membership and visa-free travel due later in the day, Erdogan said: "They shamelessly say that Turkeys EU negotiations should be reviewed. You are late. Review it as soon as possible."

"But do not just review, make your final decision, he added.

The president reiterated the Turkish government's determination to fight terror, saying thousands of people have been martyred in this struggle.

"If you will review Turkeys EU negotiations because Turkey fights honorably against terrorism, you are late. Our struggle with terrorism will continue until the end," he said.

Turkey has a long waited for its EU membership, while each application to accede to the European Union was frustrating for the government. Turkey, holding a status of an associate member at the Economic Community -- the predecessor of the EU since 1963 -- made an official application for entry on April 14, 1987.

The European Commission has proposed in May that the European Parliament and EU Council will lift visa restrictions for citizens of Turkey if Ankara fulfills the remaining conditions for abolishing visa entries until the end of June.

The list of pre-conditions included measures to prevent corruption, negotiations on an operational agreement with Europol (the EU police office), providing judicial cooperation with all EU member states, as well as the revision of the legislation on the fight against terrorism.

However, since the July 15 coup attempt, relations between Ankara and Brussels have fallen to a low as Turkish politicians lament the EUs muted response to the attempted takeover and EU leaders criticize Turkey over widespread arrests and job suspensions in its wake.

Previously, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that if the EU doesnt cancel visa regime with Turkey in mid-October, Ankara wont be able to receive illegal migrants from the EU.

In addition, Erdogan also warned the West against opening their doors to "the terrorists who escaped from Turkey," and called on the EU to embrace "Syrian and African sufferers" instead of "terrorists and supporters of terrorism."

"I want them to know that it will hit them like a boomerang. You declare PKK as a terrorist organization while you open the European Parliament's doors and corridors to PKK's leaders and members," he said, adding that it is not possible to say yes to this hypocrisy.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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10 November 2016 13:31 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Hasanova

The Kyrgyz Parliament at its plenary meeting approved the structure, composition, and program of the new government, which was presented by Acting Prime Minister Sooronbay Zheenbekov, Kabar Agency reported.

The vote on November 9 confirmed the proposals made by reappointed Prime Minister Sooronbai Jeenbekov.

106 deputies voted for the new program of the government and 8 parliamentarians were against. The new government structure was supported by 112 deputies, and 4 parliamentarians were against.

The structure of the government has not changed much, except some changes in the composition of the cabinet.

The new government includes one person who was not in the previous cabinet -- Cholpon Sultanbekova, who replaces Gulmira Kudaiberdieva as a deputy prime minister.

Kudaiberdieva, meanwhile, has been named Education Minister.

Five other ministers in the previous government have also been moved to different cabinet posts.

Jeenbekov's previous government resigned on October 26 after Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev's Social Democratic Party's (SPD) withdrew from the ruling coalition.

The SPD quit the alliance after some coalition partners refused to support SPD proposals for constitutional amendments that call for expanding the powers of the prime minister.

Previously, it was reported that Kyrgyzstan is preparing to shift from the presidential-parliamentary form of governance to a parliamentary system in the near future.

Led by Kyrgyzstans president, a number of parties represented in the parliament put forward an initiative to amend the countrys current constitution which was adopted in the referendum after the coup in 2010.



The initiators proposed to strengthen the powers of the countrys prime minister and allow combining the position of the prime minister, or deputy prime minister with MP activities.

The Parliament of Kyrgyzstan approved the bill calling a referendum on the constitutional reforms on December 11.

Kyrgyzstan is a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the President is the head of state and the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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10 November 2016 12:41 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The first NATO-Georgia joint multinational brigade-level exercise, the NATO-Georgia Exercise 2016, will take place from November10 to 20 at the Joint Training and Evaluation Center, near Tbilisi, Georgia, Sputnik International reported on November 10.

The exercise is aimed at developing the necessary skills in officers to plan NATO operations and testing the interoperability of Georgian, Allied and Partner Forces. Along with the Georgian side, Allied Command Transformation (ACT), Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) and Joint Force Training Center (JFTC) are involved in the planning and execution of the exercise.

Officers from 13 NATO-member and two partner countries will take part in the exercise, including Turkey, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Belgium, Slovenia, UK, US, Ukraine and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

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10 November 2016 17:08 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Hasanova

The result of the U.S. presidential election has no impact on the Islamic Republics policy, Irans President Hassan Rouhani said.

Rouhani made the remarks commenting on Republican Donald Trump's victory at the U.S. presidential election, Irans state-run IRINN TV reported on November 9.

Rouhani further said that the nuclear deal is independent of the administrations decision and cannot be overturned by the governments change.

Irans sagacity was in having the nuclear deal endorsed as a resolution by the UN Security Council and not just an agreement with a single country or administration, so it cannot be changed by decisions of one government, Rouhani said.

The P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the UK, the U.S. as well as Germany) reached a historic deal with Iran last year to curb the Islamic Republics nuclear program in return for lifting the nuclear-related sanctions. The deal came into force in January.

Trump has severely criticized the nuclear deal during his presidential campaign.

He has said that would rip up the Iran nuclear deal, which was aimed at curbing the nation's ability to acquire nuclear arms.

"The nuclear deal puts Iran, the number one state sponsor of radical Islamic terrorism, on a path to nuclear weapons," Trump said in one of his convention speeches.

In turn, experts hold controversial views regarding the fate of nuclear deal and Trumps upcoming policy about Iran.

"With regard to Iran, Trump has talked about hard power and put on agenda the confrontation with Iran," Mehdi Motaharnia, futurist and political science professor at Tehran Islamic Azad University told Trend. "He has pledged to Americans that if U.S. warships are threatened by Iranian fast boats, he will order an attack on them. He also said he will tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This resembles campaign talk rather than policy that Trump would be able to carry out.

Dr. Motaharnia believes that the victory of Trump today creates some populism is America, populism that Iran tacitly took as deconstruction in the U.S., Iranian leaders having endorsed his statements. "But it was not kept out of mind that what happens in the U.S. is a democratic system which even provides its de-constructers with the chance to become president," he underlined.

Regarding Trumps pledged foreign policy;, he said that the new U.S. president will be able to develop grounds for convergence with Moscow and work toward closer positions on global conflicts.

Russia is Irans ally in such regional conflicts as Syrias, which has turned into a hot issue of debate between Iran and the U.S.

Russia also backed Iran during its long talks with the world powers to reach a nuclear deal.

Meanwhile, some experts think that Trumps statements can be more than just a campaign talk and lead to more tensions in the world.

Some officials believe that if Trump adopts hostile policies towards Iran, this will empower hardliners in Iran and unite their supporters, which in fact hints at more political pressure and aggressive regional policy.

During the election campaign, Trump described Iran as the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism and dismissed the nuclear accord as "one of the worst deals I've ever seen negotiated."

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif urged him to stay committed to the Iran deal.

Although President Hassan Rouhani said the election result would not affect Iran's policies and the nuclear accord could not be dismissed by one government, there are experts who consider Trumps victory to affect the new presidential elections results in Iran, as well as, Irans economy.

"Now with Trump's victory, even the European companies will be reluctant to invest in Iran ... in the best-case scenario they will adopt the policy of 'wait and see'," said a senior Economy Ministry official to Reuters.

The official also stressed that this would "harm the credibility of Rouhani and his economic plans."

Iran, which has a population of 80 million, was the biggest economy to rejoin the global trading and financial system since the Soviet break-up in 1991.

However, many foreign investors are put off by obstacles to doing business in Iran such as the poor state of banks that were long outside the international financial system, the state's big role in the economy and a lack of clarity about the legal system.

Europe's largest banks have been reluctant to finance deals because they fear they could run incur financial penalties by violating U.S. sanctions that remain in force.

"With Trump's victory, major and even medium-sized foreign companies, banks and other investors will be more cautious ... to invest in Iran," said Tehran-based businessman Reza Sardari.

"This will harm the economy just when we were hoping to attract foreign investors."

So, given multiple approaches to the president-elect Trumps future foreign policy, it is only the time to show the end of affairs.

---

Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
10 November 2016 16:54 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Hasanova

The Malaysian government will study the possibility of its companies participation in the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak said.

Razak made the remarks speaking to the press, following the negotiations with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who recently was in Kuala Lumpur on an official visit, the Oil and Gas Complex of Turkmenistan reported.

Razak also stated about the readiness of Malaysian companies to participate in a number of projects for the construction of production facilities, development of the petrochemical industry and manufacturing of finished products in Turkmenistan.

The Oil and Gas Complex of Turkmenistan reported that Ashgabat is ready to provide certain volumes of gas in the TAPI pipeline on the swap scheme to foreign companies that produce gas on the Turkmen shelf after they enter the TAPI Pipeline Company Limited consortium.

Earlier, President Berdimuhamedov offered the business circles of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Germany and other countries to take part in the implementation of the TAPI project.

Turkmengas and Turkmenneftegazstroy state concerns have been constructing the Turkmen section of the TAPI since December 2015.

The annual capacity of the gas pipeline will reach 33 billion cubic meters. It is planned that the total length of the TAPI pipeline will be 1,814 kilometers. Some 214 kilometers will pass through the territory of Turkmenistan, 774 kilometers - Afghanistan, 826 kilometers - Pakistan.

The project is expected to be completed in late 2019.

Malaysia is one of the most important and long-standing partners of Turkmenistan in trade, economic and investment spheres. A long-term partnership with PETRONAS, which is one of the first companies that started to work at Turkmenistans offshore field, is an example of effective use of the existing bilateral potential in this area.

High technologies, banking sphere, urban planning, agricultural processing and food industry, tourism are among priority directions for cooperation between Turkmenistan and Malaysia.

---

Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
10 November 2016 16:44 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called on the European Union to send humanitarian aid to Syria and Yemen, IRNA reported on November 10.

During a meeting with Slovakian President Andrej Kiska in Bratislava, he said Iran is negotiating the regional processes with the EU.

The situation in Syria and Yemen is going to be worse and the European Union is expected to take on bigger role in resolving the problems in the region, said Zarif.

He said Iran is ready to discuss the political resolution of regional problems with the EU.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

to discuss the political resolution of regional problems with the EU.
10 November 2016 18:54 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The ability of Donald Trump as the US president to influence the oil market will not be concentrated in the US but in three other places - Libya, Venezuela and Russia, Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), a Washington based think tank focused on energy security, and a senior adviser to the United States Energy Security Council, told Trend on November 10.



Trump will re-engage with Libya and bring about to its reconstruction. This will mean, among other things, restoring Libyan production which alone could easily bring one million barrels a day to the market, he said.



The expert pointed out that Trump administration will work to expedite the fall of the Venezuelan government and this will trigger turmoil in the short run, but a rebound of the country some years later.



Regarding the US-Russia relations, Luft said that the improvement in the relations with Russia will result in lifting of the sanctions and reopening of the Russian oil sector.



Further, he noted that on the demand side, Trump administration will emphasize greater utilization of natural gas and its products as automotive fuel which will lead to greater diversification of the fuel supply and reduction in domestic demand for gasoline and diesel.



The US held presidential election November 8. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump won the election.



Given Trumps pledge to open all federal land and waters for fossil fuel exploration, there are prospects of increased US oil output.



Trumps energy policy includes the following goals: declare the countrys energy dominance a strategic economic and foreign policy goal; become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy; encourage the use of natural gas and other US energy resources that will both reduce emissions and the price of energy and increase its economic output.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. During the Governments November 10 session Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan gave a new instruction to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs aimed at assisting the IT sector, reports Armenpress.

The PM said one day in a week together with the IT sector representatives they are discussing what to do in order to provide favorable conditions to them and make a progress.

They have applied under the following request: they want to have representations by using this platform in the Armenian Embassies of 15 countries. This is not an additional expense for the diplomatic corps, the expenses will be covered by the IT sector business representatives. I ask to assist them, the PM said.

Karen Karapetyan tasked the Ministry of Economic Development and Investments, as well as business representatives to think maybe they also can create such a platform. Maybe they will also need such platforms in order not to establish separate trade representations.
10 November 2016 14:01 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

Hungarys three major travel companies are keen to enter the Azerbaijani market.

Hungarian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Imre Laszloczki told Trend that three leading travel companies, including 1000 ut, Robinson Tours, and Vedi Tour consider mutual revival of tourist relations between the two countries.

The Hungarian Economy Ministry and Culture and Tourism Ministry of Azerbaijan signed an agreement on cooperation in November 2014.

Moscow branch of the Hungarian Tourism Agency is currently responsible for tourism development with Azerbaijan. However, Hungarian companies showed interest to the Azerbaijani market after Hungarian Wizz Air launched operation of Baku-Budapest direct flights in March 2016.

The envoy said that the large presentation of the Vishegrad Four (V4) countries in Baku in April 2016 is among the factors that triggered the interest of Hungarian tourism organizations.

The V4 also known as Visegrad Group is an alliance of four Central European countries, including Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

The envoy mentioned that Azerbaijani tourism companies were earlier offering tours to Budapest and Lake Balaton region. However, combined tours to several countries, (such as Budapest-Vienna), and medical tours to Hungarian thermal water clinics are gaining popularity.

He mentioned that Azerbaijan is also turning into alluring destination for Hungarian travelers.

BLS International Services, a specialist provider for outsourcing of visa, passport and attestation services opened a visa centre in Baku in January 2016, on the initiative of the Hungarian embassy.

The decision to open the center was made by Hungary in order to strengthen relations between the two countries, establish direct relations between the citizens of Azerbaijan and Hungary, as well as develop tourist relations and meet the needs of the increased tourist and businessmen flow thanks to the direct flights of Wizz Air Company.

--

Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
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Today

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Showers early, then cloudy overnight. Low around 50F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Member of Russias Federal Assembly, National Hero of Armenia Nikolai Ryzhkov says Donald Trumps election as US President will certainly contribute to the normalization of Russia-US relations.

Nikolai Ryzhkov told reporters at the Armenian Parliament that majority of the Russian people supported Donald Trump since Hillary Clinton adopted an obvious anti-Russian stance.

Majority of our people were supporting Trump since Clinton adopted an obvious anti-Russian stance. She was always saying that Russia is bad, that countrys leadership is bad, therefore, an antidote against her was formed among us. Our people were supporting Trump, since he didnt make any aggressive statements on our country, Ryzhkov said adding that he doesnt expect significant changes, however, he expressed confidence that there will be steps aimed at improving Russia-US relations. He said Russia has a positive attitude on this issue. Ryzhkov said Russia-US relations became worse and there is no other option.

To the question what stance the US will adopt on Ukraine under Trumps presidency, Ryzhkov said people were praying in Ukraine for Hillary Clintons victory, since only in that case the US would maintain its stance on this issue, but as for Trump stance, it must be still understood. Trumps victory was a big blow for Ukraine. If I am not mistaken, Poroshenko hasnt congratulated Trump on victory yet, he said.
China will sign agreements with Ecuador, Peru and Chile in areas including trade, investment, finance and nuclear power during President Xi Jinping's third trip to Latin America next week, according to the Foreign Ministry.

China attaches great importance to the development potential of Latin America despite the region's slow economic growth in recent years amid global sluggishness, Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Chao told a news conference on Thursday.

Xi will make state visits to the three countries beginning Nov 17. He will also attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meetings in Lima, Peru, as part of the weeklong trip.

While in Ecuador, Xi will talk with President Rafael Correa, meet with reporters, attend launch ceremonies for Chinese-assisted projects and witness the signing of agreements, Wang said. It will be the first visit by a Chinese president to Ecuador since diplomatic ties were established 36 years ago.

Zhang Xiangchen, a senior official at the Ministry of Commerce, said China will announce assistance plans and issue loans to Ecuador during the president's visit.

China will offer to help with rebuilding work, including the construction of hospitals, houses and roads in the country, which was hit by a strong earthquake in April, Zhang said. China has already provided $2 million as well as $60 million worth of materials for quake relief, he added.

China will also initiate negotiations with Chile over expanding the free trade agreement that was signed 11 years ago, Wang said.

Since becoming president in March 2013, Xi has visited Latin America twice, going to Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Mexico in 2013 and Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba in 2014.

China is the largest trade partner of Peru and Chile and the third-largest of Ecuador, and is the main investment source for the three countries. Last year, China's direct investment in Latin America reached $126.3 billion.

Although China's trade volume with Latin America dropped last year, Latin America's agricultural exports to China increased last year, Wang said.

Xu Shicheng, a researcher of Latin American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that China-Latin America trade volume dropped in recent years due to the price decrease of commodities like crude oil and minerals.

Latin America needs China's support in building infrastructure, factories and hydropower stations, he said.

China's capacity in steel, manufacturing and equipment could be exported to Latin American countries to benefit both sides, he added.

Zou Shuo contributed to this story.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. On November 10, 2016, in accordance with the arrangement reached with the authorities of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, the OSCE Mission conducted a planned monitoring of the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan in the eastern direction of Talish settlement of the NKR Martakert region, the foreign ministry of NKR told ARMENPRESS.

From the positions of the NKR Defense Army, the monitoring was conducted by Field Assistants of the Personal Representative to the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office (CiO) Khristo Khristov (Bulgaria) and Jiri Aberle (Czech Republic).

From the opposite side of the Line of Contact, the monitoring was conducted by Field Assistant to the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ghenadie Petrica (Moldova) and Personal Assistant to the CiO Personal Representative Simon Tiller (Great Britain).

The monitoring passed in accordance with the agreed schedule. No violation of the cease-fire regime was registered. However, the Azerbaijani side did not lead the OSCE mission to its front-lines.

From the Karabakh side, the monitoring mission was accompanied by representatives of the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Nikolai Ryzhkov  co-chair of the inter-parliamentary committee of cooperation between the Armenian Parliament and Russias Federal Assembly and the Yerevan 28th session participants visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial on November 10.

They were accompanied by Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, co-chair of the inter-parliamentary committee of cooperation between the Armenian Parliament and Russias Federal Assembly Hermine Naghdalyan, committee members Volodya Badalyan and Levon Martirosyan, press service of the Parliament told Armenpress.

The guests laid flowers at the Eternal flame and paid a tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims.

Nikolai Ryzhkov said still from school years he was aware about the Armenians great tragedy that took place in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

Centuries will pass, but the Armenian Genocide will never be forgotten. Although already four generations were changed in Turkey, they still continue the Armenian Genocide denial policy. Steps must be taken towards the reconciliation of the two peoples.

Unfortunately, today the tragic events, that happened with Armenians 100 years ago, continue in Syria and other places. It is a sacred task for us and for you to prevent them.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan says by carrying out military exercises Baku continues hindering the implementation of the Vienna and St. Petersburg agreements.

The Foreign Minister has already reacted to it. The problem is that after St. Petersburg and Vienna they must have applied 40 days before in order to carry out such military exercises, however, they havent done it. This again shows that Baku, actually, continues to torpedo the implementation of the Vienna and St. Petersburg agreements, he said, reports "Armenpress".

Concerning the predictions that the situation can become tense in the border, Shavarsh Kocharyan said: We must always be ready to any step by the Azerbaijani side. The Deputy FM said this is already an axiom for everyone, especially after the events in April.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. The Asian Development Bank will allocate 90 million USD budget support loan to Armenia, reports Armenpress.

While presenting the agreement at the Governments session, Finance Minister Vardan Aramyan said these funds will be used to improve the management and sustainability of roads, water supply and electricity sectors in Armenia.

Aramyan said the money will be given for 15 years, from which 3 with a grace period, by Libor +0.5%.

The project also aims to install competition mechanisms in the electricity market.
Several St. Petersburg police officers were honored Thursday for going above and beyond the call of duty.

Brittany Becker, Sean Nolin, Seth Maranville saluted

Becker helped save lives on Aug. 20 off I-275



Nolin, Maranville saved suicidal man on Skyway Bridge



One of the officers, Brittany Becker, was recognized for saving lives in the early morning hours of Aug. 20.

Officer Becker was off duty and driving home when she noticed a crash on the Howard Frankland Bridge.

"That's a dangerous area -- to be in traffic anywhere is dangerous -- but to be on 275 at 2 a.m. on a Saturday," Officer Becker said in describing what happened.

As she was assisting the people stranded on the side of the road, Becker noticed a car speeding over the hump and heading straight toward them.

"I want to help people. It was a great feeling afterwards having these three people hugging me and thanking me." - Officer Brittany Becker

"I ran back, started screaming to the folks there, yelling at them to get out of the way," Becker said.

Beckers lights were flashing but the car didnt slow down. Becker got everyone out of harm's way just seconds before the driver slammed into her cruiser.

"Then I went to the vehicle, which burst into flames pretty immediately," she said.

Becker still managed to pull the driver out of the burning car. She said she doesnt like to linger over the what ifs but said shes grateful she was in the right place at the right time.

"At least three people were standing in that area. If there wasn't protection there, I don't think they would've made it," she said.

"I want to help people. It was a great feeling afterwards having these three people hugging me and thanking me, owing their lives to me, so they're claiming. It was a good feeling."

Lifesaving awards were also given to two officers, Officer Sean Nolin and Officer Seth Maranville, who saved a suicidal man on the Skyway Bridge over the summer.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. An incident involving unidentified people attacking the French Embassy building in Athens with a grenade was an act of terrorism, a Greek government spokesperson said Thursday, Sputnik News reported.

"These terrorist acts will not have any influence on the relations of friendship and solidarity between Greece and France," the spokesperson said in remarks obtained by RIA Novosti.

An officer was injured in the early morning attack by two individuals aboard a motorcycle who escaped police pursuit in a district that is home to a number of Greek anarchist organizations.

"The Greek government condemns the attack on the Embassy of the French Republic and expresses its support to the special forces police officer wounded in the attack," the spokesperson added.




YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. While on an official visit to the United Arab Emirates, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan on November 10 met Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, Prime Minister, Emir of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, press service of the Presidential administration told Armenpress.

The Armenian President expressed gratitude for the warm reception and expressed confidence that his visit will enable to hold practical discussions and reach mutually beneficial agreements which will raise Armenia-UAE multisectoral friendly relations to a new level and will have their significant contribution to the further development of the bilateral relations.

Serzh Sargsyan stated that the Middle Eastern region has always had a key place in Armenias foreign policy and Armenia has established productive and multifaceted cooperation with the Arabic countries after the 25th Independence.

During the meeting the Armenian President attached importance to deepening the trade-economic and investment cooperation with the Gulf countries and said Armenia considers the Emirates as an important link from Armenia to the Gulf region and other states, and vice versa.

The President informed Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum that he presented a proposal to the Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan on organizing an investment forum dedicated to Armenia in the UAE. According to the President, such forums will boost the investments in Armenia.

The sides also attached importance to the possibility of visa regime liberalization which will significantly boost the tourism.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said the UAE aims to make Flydubai direct flights to Yerevan on a daily basis starting from next year.

The sides agreed that there is a great potential to deepen the mutual cooperation of the two states.

After the meeting a number of documents aimed at deepening and strengthening Armenia-UAE cooperation, as well as memorandums of understanding were signed. Those were related to the cooperation in the security field and counter terrorism, the emergency situations field, scientific and technical spheres, expansion of investment and business opportunities.
















YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan met with Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah on November 10. President Sargsyan highly appreciated the great contribution of the Ruler of Sharjah to the deepening of Armenian-UAE partnership in a number of spheres.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Armenian Presidents Office, Serzh Sargsyan pointed out with gratitude the fundamental reconstruction of Haghartsin Monastery Complex and the construction of a shrine near the complex by the direct support of Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi and stated that the visit of the Sheikh to Armenia years ago left a significant impact on the relations between the two states, and the mentioned exemplary and heavenly-minded deed was the best demonstration of inter-religious dialogue and tolerance.

The Armenian President also appreciated the direct role of Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi in opening a trade and economic center of Armenia in Sharjah and attached a special importance to that act in terms of developing and deepening bilateral trade and economic relations. Serzh Sargsyan noted that the center will foster the development of bilateral economic relations.

The interlocutors noted that the first direct flight between the two friendly countries was Sharjah-Yerevan- Sharjah flight, the current intensiveness of which openly documents the rise in bilateral interests.

During the meeting with the Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan also referred to Armenias interest in activating the relations with different UAE Investment and Development Funds, for the implementation of which some agreements have already been reached in the sideline of the meeting.
Two Holiday Highlights Begin in North Oregon Coast's Cheery Seaside



Published 11/10/2016 at 5:01 AM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff



(Seaside, Oregon)  One of the loveliest lit up towns on the Oregon coast for the holidays is Seaside, where its million dollar walk of Broadway Ave. gets especially cheery and bright. But two major events raise the holiday spirit even further: one with a quaint time-traveling vibe and another with a glittery, modern flair.

Some Saturdays in November and December take on a special new holiday slant on the north Oregon coast, with the Gingerbread Tea at Butterfield Cottage, starting November 26.

For the twenty sixth year, the Seaside Museum and Historical Society hosts its annual Gingerbread Tea at Butterfield Cottage, which has become the holiday tradition for many local residents as well as visitors returning from far and wide to share a relaxing and quaint experience. Attendees can take a break from holiday stress by enjoying homemade gingerbread with a variety of teas, hot cocoa and spiced cider while being entertained by live holiday music. Musicians this year include the North Coast Ukulele Strummers (December 3, 1 - 2:30 p.m.) and Linda Nielsen, a perennially popular performer at the Museums July 4th Old Fashioned Social.

The Butterfield Cottage will be decorated in Victorian holiday style and open for Gingerbread Tea from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays, November 26, December 3, 10 and 17. No reservation is necessary; tickets are available at the door: $3 for children aged 12 and under; $5 for all others. The ticket includes admission to the Museum's exhibits in the Helen Gaston Building during the day of the event. The museum and cottage are located at 570 Necanicum Drive in Seaside, 4 blocks north of the Seaside Convention Center.

In addition, raffle tickets, at $1 each or 8 for $5, will be available for a drawing to be held at the end of the last Gingerbread Tea, at 4PM on December 17. Amongst the lucky winners of many items contributed by local merchants, one will receive a Gingerbread House created by Three Little Birds Bakery. Winners need not be present to win. Safeway also contributes to the event.

Horace Seely Butterfield, a prominent Portland jeweler, built the Butterfield Cottage in 1893. The original location was at 21 North Columbia. In 1984 the Butterfield Cottage was given to the Seaside Museum and Historical Society and moved to its present location at 570 Necanicum Drive. It has been interpretively restored to be used as a museum depicting an Oregon coast beach cottage and rooming house of 1912.

The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. More information can be found at www.seasidemuseum.org.

On December 3, there's the Seaside Festival of Trees. The festivities begin with a free community open house from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Seaside Civic & Convention Center. This is your chance to catch some holiday spirit, see beautiful trees, and get your photo with Santa himself. New this year, Candy Cane Lane will offer fun holiday activities for kids like Story Time with Princess Belle, Christmas wand-making with the Sugarplum Fairy, Christmas cookie decorating with Santas elves, and more.

Later, the evenings festivities include a signature gala dinner and auction to assist the hospitals diagnostic Iimaging department in the purchase of new 3D Tomosynthesis breast mammography technology. This state-of-the-art technology will aid in the Seaside communitys fight against breast cancer, offering earlier detection of breast cancer for patients on the north coast.

For more information about this event, to sponsor or make a donation for the auction, or if you are interested in designing a tree this year, please contact Veronica Russell at (503) 717-7604 or email: [email protected] Seaside Civic and Convention Center. 415 1st Ave. Seaside, Oregon. (503) 738-8585. Lodging in Astoria/Seaside - Where to eat - Maps and Virtual Tours























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By Rev. Elizabeth M. Edman

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos signing the peace agreement with FARC leader Timochenko. Photo credit: Chilean Government

Authors Note: I wrote this piece before the American presidential election on November 8. Interestingly, Donald Trump parts ways with those in his party who relentlessly demonize LGBTQ people. But queerbaiting has long been a staple tactic in the overall Republican political strategy to mobilize disaffected voters; and this year bashing queer peopletrans people especiallyplayed a role in races across the US and was written into the Republican Party platform. This piece reflects on the Colombian vote on the peace agreement. Though the American election involved a more complex array of concerns, there is no overlooking the centrality of numerous issues at the forefront of this campaign, including treatment of immigrants and foreigners, on which the teachings of Christianity are quite clear.

On October 8, The New York Times reported that conservatives who opposed the peace agreement in Colombia used gay-baiting tactics to rally evangelical Christian and Catholic voters to their side. Given how close the election was, it is entirely possible that such tactics played a role in the outcome of the vote.

The campaign took place amidst protests against the legalization of marriage equality and efforts by President Juan Manuel Santos openly-gay education minister, Gina Parody, to adopt practices like mixed-gender bathrooms. The Times article notes that opponents of the peace deal successfully linked these issues to the peace deal in some voters minds, harnessing homophobic sentiment to draw conservative religious voters to the polls. Pastor Marco Field Ramirez, for instance, expressed concern that those promoting the peace deal were trying to advance same-sex marriage. This was a fundamental objection and a danger to the natural family in Colombia [which] consists of a man and a woman, he was quoted as saying.

This report demonstrates just how severe the consequences of religious gay bashing can be, and not just for people who identify as LGBTQ. For those of us who are Christian, it should also be a clarion call to recognize the damage that Christian homophobia inflicts on our ability to do the most basic work that our faith tradition demands: honoring God by working to bring justice and peace to the world that God created.

As an Episcopal priest who is also a lesbian, I have long noticed the resonance that exists between queer and Christian ethics. Queer people are called to discern an identity, tell people about it even in the face of material risk, find others who share a comparable identity marker, build community, and look to the margins to lift up those who are still struggling. This is an ethical path is nearly identical to the path that Christians are called to walk.

This resonance is no accident. Queer theory is all about rupturing false binaries. LGBTQ people constantly ruptureor queerthe idea that male and female are wholly distinct categories. Queer people may be androgynous in our dress; our marriages often do not include one man and one woman; and growing numbers of transgender people reject any neat conception of themselves as male or female at all.

This queer approach to binaries has helped me think in a new way about Christian faith. As a priest, I have long noticed that Jesus challenged false binaries all the time: human/divine, life/death, sacred/profaneJesus queered all of that. He especially did this in his parables, stories designed to crack open our hearts and minds, getting us to think in new ways about how Gods realm works. The more I peer into our tradition, the more I understand that Christianity is outright queer, constantly challenging us to disrupt conventional thinking and rupture overly rigid categories of self and other that pit us against one another.

The vote in Colombia reveals the insidious and corrosive impact that queerphobia has on the Christian tradition as a whole. As I listened to the voices of people who had suffered hideous loss at the hand of FARC rebels, my heart ached with sympathy. I understood why some people could not bring themselves to accept the terms of the peace deal, even as many communities most impacted by the war voted overwhelmingly for peace. My heart swelled with respect and admiration for the people who, despite their pain, swallowed hard and voted to end the half-century conflict. Though many of these people may not themselves be Christian, they demonstrated precisely the gritty resolve to put down enmity that Christians are supposed to model to the world.

It should be a shock that those who enthusiastically claim the mantle of Christianity would reject peace as part of a knee-jerk hatred of LGBTQ people. The degree to which this is an affront to Christian mission cannot be overstated. Yet this is fully and completely the fruit of the spirit of queerphobic proclamation. It gestures powerfully toward the theological and ethical vacuousness of such teachings and goes a long way toward explaining the crisis in credibility that plagues the contemporary church.

There is a crying need in todays world for people who can summon the intestinal fortitude demonstrated by the Colombians who voted for this peace deal. Global Christianity should play a robust role in preaching this vision and helping people walk this challenging path, the coordinates of which exist in the very marrow of our tradition. This is queerness at work, and until Christian leaders recognize this, people the world over will continue to pay a very steep price.

About the Author

The Reverend Elizabeth M. Edman is an Episcopal priest and a political strategist who has been expanding peoples understanding of faith and sexuality for over twenty-five years. She has worked on the most pressing contemporary issues in the intersection of religion and sexuality, serving as an inner-city hospital chaplain to people with HIV/AIDS from 1989 to 1995 and helping to craft political and communications strategies for marriage-equality efforts. She lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter at @liz_edman and visit her website.
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"Bayou Billionaires" cast member Valerie Dowden Wells was found dead in her car at a McDonald's in Shreveport, La.

She was reportedly shot multiple times while sitting in the parked vehicle Monday afternoon.

Officers believed that she was murdered by Robert Paul Gaddy, with whom she had a relationship. Police say Gaddy then turned the gun on himself after shooting Wells.

REALITY WEDDING: 'The Hills' star Audrina Partridge marries BMX rider

"We know they had a relationship of some type, but I can't tell you if they were friends having a dispute or formerly intimate. We simply don't know at this moment," police Sgt. Rod Johnson told People Magazine. "We have some guesses, but we'd like to back that up with hard facts."

Wells' parents, Kitten and Gerald Dowden, shared a post on Facebook that reads: ""This is really hard on us and her children. It is out of order. No parents should have to go through this."

Wells is known for her role in the 2012 CMT show that focused on the income she received from Haynesville Shale natural gas development. She's survived by her three children.
In one night, the number of states allowing the sale of marijuana for recreational use almost doubled, from four to seven states. About 20 percent of all Americans now live in a state where recreational marijuana is legal, and more than half the states - 28 -- have now approved medical marijuana.

The election results last night could lead to more than $7 billion in additional cannabis retail sales annually, according to estimates from Marijuana Business Daily.
More than 400 protesters marched through downtown Austin Wednesday in an 9-hour-long protest of the election of Donald Trump to president.

The growing demonstration began just after noon on the University of Texas at Austin campus, with dozens of students chanting and marching in high-trafficked areas on the school's grounds, according to the Austin American-Statesman. It concluded after 9 p.m.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Founded in 1874 in Bern (Switzerland) the Universal Postal Union (UPU), including the Republic of Armenia among its member-countries and represented by HayPost CJSC, announces an International Letter-Writing Competition every year in order to promote the literacy and the role of letter-writing all over the world.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of HayPost CJSC and HayPost Trust Management B.V., this year the 45th International Letter-Writing Competition under the theme Write a letter to your 45-year-old self has been organized by HayPost CJSC with the support of the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies and the Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia. The mentioned theme was announced by the Universal Postal Union in celebration of the International Letter-Writing Competitions 45th anniversary.

Participating in the above-mentioned competition, Zaven Antonyan, a 9th grader of Hay Krtutyun educational complex of Yerevan, was awarded a special mention certificate by the UPU international jury. The official ceremony of awarding the certificate to Zaven Antonyan was attended by the Deputy Minister of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies of Armenia Gagik Tadevosyan, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of "Hay Krtutyun" educational complex, Armenia Representative of the Armenian Missionary Association of America Harut Nersesyan, Principal of the educational complex Melanya Geghamyan, family members of Zaven Antonyan, Managing Director of Haypost CJSC Juan Pablo Gechidjian.

Those present congratulated Zaven Antonyan and presented gifts from Director General of the Universal Postal Union Mr. Bishar Hussein and Minister of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies of Armenia Vahan Martirosyan.

Last year, too, the special mention certificate was granted to the author of the essay, representing the Republic of Armenia in the 44th International letter-Writing Competition.
The following hospitals announced plans in the last two weeks to expand, upgrade or renovate their facilities.

1. University Hospital gets greenlight to expand ED

The Georgia Department of Community Health recently approved an emergency department expansion project at Augusta-based University Hospital, reports North Augusta Star.

2. Ohio county votes to close century-old hospital

Voters in an Ohio suburb just outside of Cuyahoga County voted to shutter Lakewood (Ohio) Hospital and replace it with a Cleveland Clinic family health center and emergency department, according to The Plain Dealer.

3. Plaza Medical Center to build $64M ED

Fort Worth, Texas-based Plaza Medical Center will construct a $64 million facility, nearly doubling its emergency and intensive care capacity to meet increasing demand, reports Star-Telegram.

4. Miami Valley Hospital South in Ohio proposes $60M expansion

Centerville, Ohio-based Miami Valley Hospital South will invest $60 million in a spine and joint center expansion, reports ABC 22.

5. St. Luke's Health System plans microhospitals: 4 things to know

St. Luke's Health System in Kansas City, Mo., unveiled plans to build at least four microhospitals in Kansas, according to The Kansas City Star.

6. Thousands get first look at University of Iowa's $360M children's hospital

Iowa City-based University of Iowa Children's Hospital opened doors to its new 14-story complex for thousands to tour before its Dec. 10 opening, reports The Gazette.

7. Valley Children's Hospital plans $25M satellite medical clinic

Valley Children's Hospital in Madera, Calif., is planning a $25 million satellite medical clinic that will offer specialty care to children in Modesto, Calif., according to the Manteca Bulletin.

8. Salem Hospital cuts expansion plans by $33M

Salem (Mass.) Hospital plans to limit its proposed $240 million expansion by $33 million due to financial losses from its partner company Boston-based Partners HealthCare, reports Gloucester Times.
Healthcare organizations are transforming their traditional, insular operating structures to become more nimble and centralized. This means hospital systems need financial leaders equipped with a different skill set to achieve future success.

Financial leaders discussed how the hospital CFO role has evolved in the past five years and predicted what a future CFO might look like during a panel at Becker's Hospital Review 5th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable in Chicago Nov. 8.

Here are five ways panelists see the CFO skill set changing in the next five years.

Strategic thinker. The CFO position is increasingly removed from daily financial processes as more hospitals choose to either centralize or outsource some financial services, such as revenue cycle management, accounts payable or collections. Economic uncertainty has caused many healthcare organizations to seek partnerships as a way to retain their market share and ensure financial stability. The new CFO is "someone who is still conversant in financial terms, but maybe has an MBA instead of an accounting degree, who is comfortable doing business in a matrix environment and capable of seeing the big picture," says Patrick McGuire, executive vice president at Ascension Health in St. Louis and CFO of the Michigan market at St. John Providence Health System in Warren, Mich.

Michael Allen, CFO at OSF HealthCare in Peoria, Ill., also expressed the critical importance of business acumen for CFOs. "I need to think beyond the numbers on the spreadsheets and be a visionary [as CFO]," Mr. Allen says.

Exceptional social skills. Planning long-term hospital business strategy and forming partnerships has made relationship building a key part of the CFO role. Alternative business models and transactions require collaboration and trust, and "the CFO needs the social and emotional intelligence to do that well," Mr. McGuire says.

Interdisciplinary approach to problem solving. "Money touches everything," says Mr. Allen, meaning that increased pressure to improve a hospital system's financial performance and reduce spending has spurred financial leaders to address operational efficiency across the enterprise. Cost containment efforts are increasingly focused on areas such as performance improvement, capacity management and materials management  departments outside of finance leaders' traditional wheelhouse. "I've seen increased overlap between the CFO and COO roles as both chiefs partner to lead process improvement efforts," said Kenneth McGee, CFO at LorettoHospital in Chicago.



Equipped with an extra-industry sensibility. Leaders who gained their professional experience outside of the healthcare industry can bring fresh perspective, says Jim Cockey, senior vice president and market executive of specialized industries and global commercial banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "There's already an incredible number of folks cross-pollinating into the healthcare industry, asking questions and bringing and outsider's perspective," Mr. Cockey says. Extra-industry leaders may be more likely to question entrenched processes to drive innovation, look to translate successful models from other industries into the healthcare setting and use creativity when approaching healthcare problems.

Knowledge of alternative payment models. Panelists agreed the CFO and CMO should jointly helm a hospital's implementation of alternative payment models and risk-baring contracts. "As financial leaders who are accustomed to dealing with data and analytics, I think we can step in and play an important role in developing and implementing these alternative payments," Mr. McGuire says.
The transition to value-based care is a gradual one, with individual marketplaces casting diverse circumstances for stakeholders.

During a panel titled "ACOs, Bundled Payment and Working with Exchange as Payers Withdraw," three industry experts discussed healthcare markets, bundled payments and more at the Becker's Hospital Review 5th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable in Chicago on Nov. 8, 2016.

Market dynamics

Back in 2012, the Community Hospital of the Monterey (Calif.) Peninsula faced a challenge. Laura Zehm, the hospital's vice president and CFO, said they ventured toward a value-based care model as they served patients in an area of California protected from managed care.

"We didn't want to be a commodity and remain the problem," explained Ms. Zehm. "We wanted to be part of the solution." So, the hospital formed the Aspire Health Plan as well as a population health company. Ms. Zehm also serves as the CEO of the health plan.

Ms. Zehm noted the importance of trying ideas, and if they don't come to fruition, fail quickly and fail wisely.

"You start one place thinking you're going somewhere, and end up somewhere entirely different," she said.

Jim McNey, senior vice president and CFO of North Kansas City (Mo.) Hospital, illustrated the unique landscape of his market, as it's bifurcated by state lines and rivers. The hospital has expanded to about 450 beds and 160 physicians, earning the label of the largest governmental hospital owned by the smallest city in the United Sates.

"We started about five years ago, being an island out in the middle of this metropolitan [area]. How could we coalesce with the other independent hospitals as we saw changes coming with reimbursements?" said Mr. McNey. These hospitals are working together with a major market payer to establish a narrow network with some risk after the second year.

Bundled payments

Boston-based OM1 focuses on leveraging outcomes management and predictive analytics combined with an aggregated data set to assist providers with bundled payments.

"We believe that bundled payments are a winning strategy among alternative payment models," said Richard Gliklich, MD, CEO of OM1. He noted bundled payments present a significant opportunity because they offer a gradual process and CMS is showing strong support for this payment model.

To succeed under bundled payments, providers must benchmark a base and apply advanced analytics to reduce costs and personalize care. Although the hospital is the anchor of the bundled payment model, the clinicians prove critical for its stability. And over time, more risk will transition over to the clinicians.

"The greatest opportunity to make a change in cost is actually to run the analytics at the operating physician's office," explained Dr. Gliklich. Therefore, you can identify key risk factors among patients pre-operation, such as readmission risk. "The message is, to make these things work, you have to be connected with your community providers and get them into the mix as early as possible."

Although the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula has not yet successfully implemented bundled payments, Ms. Zehm noted they hope to soon. Her facility has struggled with orthopedic surgeon engagement as a group.

"Even though we're pushing really hard toward capitation, that's going to take a while," said Ms. Zehm. "And in the mean time, sure, absolutely, let's get gains in efficiency where we can." A step along that process involves enhancing relationships with their physicians, practicing transparency and sharing data.

"You have to go where the buck is going and right now it's this gradualism," said Dr. Gliklich. In orthopedics total joint, the cost difference of implants from the highest quartile to the lowest quartile is $4,000. It often proves challenging to convince surgeons to start using different devices, but Dr. Gliklich said data helps with this persuasion.

"I think bundled payments will have to be a core competency for every health system and driving that with data analytics is the easiest way," said Dr. Gliklich.

The industry may very well be heading toward a total capitation model in the future.

"The reason that we're headed down this road and actually pushing the market in that direction is because we want to be in control of our destiny," explained Ms. Zehm.

Mr. McNey added, it all depends on the money: "I think the biggest question is how long these forces that like living off fee-for-service and like living off the fact that we have a totally dysfunctional, bifurcated system can keep that going?"
After Republicans garnered sweeping victories in the U.S. Congress and the presidency, healthcare companies across sectors saw stock prices spike or plummet depending on how investors perceived President-elect Donald Trump's decisions during his first 100 days in office would affect the industry.

Pharmaceuticals

According to an article in Bloomberg, pharmaceutical stocks and bonds rallied following Mr. Trump's victory. According to the stock prices listed on CNNMoney from market close Tuesday to market open Wednesday, Pfizer, the largest U.S. drug manufacturer, saw its stock rise 5.82 percent. Novartis' stock price rose 4.22 percent and Roche witnessed a 5.37 percent jump.

"Most biotech and pharma companies might be sighing a sigh of relief because Mrs. Clinton looked like she might do something drastic on drug pricing," Clive Meanwell, MD, PhD, CEO of pharmaceutical giant The Medicine Company, told Bloomberg. "I suspect [Mr. Trump] will have bigger healthcare topics to take on first."

Hospitals and health systems

"[Hospitals'] stocks are really taking it on the chin, because the market abhors uncertainty," Sheryl Skolnick, an analyst at investment firm Mizuho Securities, told Bloomberg. "We know this is the worst possible outcome, but we don't know how bad it is."

The nation's three largest for-profit hospital operators saw their holdings take a significant tumble between the market closing Tuesday evening and reopening Wednesday morning. According to the prices listed on CNNMoney, Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, which was plagued by financial insecurities prior to the Nov. 8 election, saw its shares decline 21.55 percent. Nashville, Tenn.-based Hospital Corporation of America stock fell nearly 10.8 percent. Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare stock slid 24.96 percent.

HIT

A dip in some health IT firms' stock reflects the post-election plunge in hospital stocks, analysts said. Hospitals need capital to invest in technology vendors, and the ACA's potential repeal could negatively impact hospitals' capital reserves. From market close Tuesday to market open Wednesday, Cerner's stock fell from $56.65 to $50.22, or a 4.6 percent decrease.

"A good portion of Cerner's revenue is driven by hospitals and capital spending from hospitals," Jeffrey Loo, an equity analyst at CFRA Research, told Kansas City Business Journal. "That's why you're probably seeing their stock decline."

IT companies in the business of value-based care are slightly more confident in their future. Privia is one of many companies that provide software and services to help healthcare providers transition to value-based care models and ACOs. Privia CEO Jeff Butler told Washington Business Journal hospitals will continue to require Privia's services because the ACA's potential repeal would not affect the move to value-based care.

"We don't think the gas will be let off, but rather we believe a Republican administration will be more inclined to back market-based reforms," Mr. Butler said.

Health insurers

An incoming Trump administration has left health insurers' stocks in flux amid the possibility of an ACA repeal and uncertainty regarding its replacement.

Some managed care and exchange companies that have been performing well under the ACA saw their stocks plummet. St. Louis-based Centene's stock dipped 19 percent and closed at $54.05 Wednesday, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Long Beach, Calif.-based Molina Healthcare saw stock fall about 15 percent Wednesday.

Centene CEO Michael Neidorff said the market's reaction was a "gross overreaction" to election results and that the stocks will recover.

"We are the one company left standing with a very successful exchange product," Mr. Neidorff told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "We've let investors know that and I'm sure that plays in their mind."



Commercial insurers' stock performance following the election was mixed. Aetna's stock increased 3 percent mid-Wednesday, while UnitedHealthcare stock dipped 2 percent, according to The Washington Post. Since Tuesday, Anthem's, Cigna's and Humana's stocks have experienced a steady upward trend.
Hospitals' methods for gathering patient information remain largely imprecise, which can lead to costly, long-lasting ramifications for hospital finances downstream.

Many hospitals still rely on rudimentary oral registration processes to enter patients' information into sophisticated electronic systems. However, "vocally relaying and manually entering patient identification information leaves ample room for error by the patient, the staff at the registration desk or the computer system itself," Aaron Miri, CIO and vice president of government relations at Imprivata, said during a webinar Oct. 27.

Medical record overlays and duplicates are the most common byproducts of misidentification. Overlays occur when staff choose the wrong patient record from the master patient index, causing an intermingling of two patients' medical histories. Duplicate records, which are more common than overlays, occur when registration staff inadvertently assign a single patient multiple medical record ID numbers.

Mr. Miri was joined on the webinar by Justyna Evlogiadis, senior product marketing manager of Imprivata PatientSecure, and Molly Drake, former senior director of corporate access management at Scripps Health in San Diego, to examine the scope of the patient misidentification crisis and the promise of biometric identification solutions.

The impact of misidentification

"Alarmingly, hospitals on average misidentify between 7 percent and 10 percent of incoming patients when registration staff search the EHR database for patient records," said Ms. Evlogiadis. Not only does this pose a serious problem for patient safety during medical treatment, but it also has a quantifiable effect on hospital cash flow and can lead to reduced reimbursement, inefficient administrative processes, drains on resources and liability concerns.

The fact that patient misidentification poses a serious threat to patient safety comes as little surprise. Misidentification accounts for 30 percent of radiation, medication and blood transfusion errors annually, said Mr. Miri. But misidentification also has a quantifiable effect on hospitals' financial performance.

When patient identification errors occur, hospitals must go through the expensive process of cleansing the inaccurate patient records from the EHR. "The process to cleanse a hospital EHR of one duplicate or overlaid medical record costs on average $1,000 and $5,000, respectively, in labor expenses and human capital," said Ms. Drake. Incorrect or inaccurate demographic or insurance information also requires scrubbing on the back end to prevent the payer denying the claim. Combined, these preventable mistakes can lead to a 5 percent annual net patient revenue loss per hospital, due to denied claims and bad debt.

"Patient satisfaction also suffers when misidentification occurs," Ms. Drake said. For instance, physicians who plan care or treatment based on a duplicate medical record are typically working with a fragmented patient medical history. This could cause patients to endure the trouble of undergoing unneeded tests and subsequently shoulder the cost of that care. Or, when the wrong patient's record is selected at registration, a patient may receive a bill for another person's medical treatment.

By ensuring correct patient records are retrieved at registration, hospitals mitigate the risk of adverse medical events and improve patient satisfaction by streamlining their medical experience.

How does misidentification happen?

Here are six ways patient misidentification occurs at hospitals.

Patients cannot communicate. For many organizations, the emergency department generates a majority of duplicate records because unconscious, critically injured or confused patients cannot identify themselves to registration. Physicians who are unaware of a patient's medical history, allergies, medical conditions and other vital health information run the risk of delivering lesser quality care.



Out-of-date information. Sometimes changes to patients' demographic or insurance information are not properly updated in their medical record. For instance, a patient might tell the registrar he or she still has Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance, but they may forget their policy ID number changed since his or her last visit.



Registrars are rushed or poorly trained. Traditional patient identifiers, such as oral demographic data, Social Security numbers and patients' addresses, can be easily mistyped and cause preventable medical errors, particularly if registration staff are managing high patient volumes. Implementing well-developed patient access training for employees is key to standardizing registration processes to mitigate mistakes.



Lack of accountability and conflicting priorities. Organizations should establish clear policies and protocol for registration, so each employee understands and abides by the same processes.



Cultural variation in naming conventions. "Scripps is close to the border with Mexico," said Ms. Drake. "In Mexican culture, some people have multiple last names, and they may use a different name every time they visit the hospital." Cultural norms such as this can contribute to the creation of duplicate medical records under a series of technically correct patient names.



Intentional medical fraud and abuse. "About 2.3 million patients were affected by medical identity theft in 2013," said Mr. Miri. "Patient privacy and cybersecurity issues can cost hospitals regulatory fines, as well as the trust of their patient community."

Biometric identifiers improve accuracy

Although patient misidentification is a pervasive problem, hospitals across the country have taken steps to significantly reduce these mistakes by investing in the right technology. Biometric identification tools offer one of the most promising ways to combat the patient identification crisis and protect hospitals' bottom lines.

There are a number of biometric modalities available in today's patient identification technology market. "Many hospitals and health systems use palm-vein biometric authentication for patient identification, as patients typically find this technique less intrusive than other biometrics, such as fingerprinting," said Ms. Evlogiadis.

This biometric of choice takes a scan of a patient's palm vein pattern. Since no two palms are the same, any misidentification issues are eliminated. "After implementing Imprivata's palm vein scanner technology, Carolinas HealthCare System reduced the average patient check-in time by 75 percent," said Ms. Evlogiadis.

Improving both clinical outcomes and data integrity are key strategic priorities for hospitals, especially in the transition to population health management. Improving patient identification rates is a crucial step to achieving these goals while optimizing revenue cycle operations.

Click here to watch a recording of the webinar.

Click here to download a copy of the presentation.

More articles on revenue cycle management and health IT:
Republican Donald J. Trump, president-elect, has vowed to make cybersecurity one of his top priorities as president.

Here are three cybersecurity quotes from Mr. Trump:



At the fifth Republican primary debate in December 2015, Mr. Trump discussed his views on how to deter ISIS from recruiting through the Internet, as documented in Time:

"ISIS is using the Internet better than we are using the Internet and it was our idea. I want to get the brilliant people from Silicon Valley and other places and figure out a way that ISIS can't do what they're doing. You talk freedom of speech, you talk freedom of anything you want, I don't want them using our Internet to take our young impressionable youth  I would certainly be open to closing areas where we are at war with somebody. I sure as hell don't want to let people that want to kill us and kill our nation use our Internet."



During the first presidential debate in September 2016, Mr. Trump commented on the Democratic National Committee's email leak, as reported in the Washington Post:

"As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said. We should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we're not. I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I don't  maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay? ... We came in with the Internet, we came up with the Internet, and I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what [the Islamic State] is doing with the Internet, they're beating us at our own game. ISIS.

"So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is  it is a huge problem. I have a son. He's 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it's unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it's hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing. But that's true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester, and certainly cyber is one of them."



At an event hosted by Retired American Warriors in October 2016, Mr. Trump spoke to why cybersecurity is one of his primary policy concerns, according to CBS News:

"Attacks like these are happening on a regular basis both in the United States and around the world. I will make certain that our military is the best in the world  in cyber offense and defense  and in every other way, by the way, every other way.

"The United States must possess unquestioned capacity to launch crippling counter-cyberattacks. This is the warfare of the future... America's dominance in this arena must be unquestioned and today, it's totally questioned."
The following healthcare layoffs were reported by Becker's Hospital Review so far in November. They are listed below, beginning with the most recent.

1. Sharon Regional cuts employees: 3 things to know

A number of employees at Sharon (Pa.) Regional Health System were laid off or saw their hours reduced on Tuesday, according to The Herald. The hospital did not provide The Herald with an exact figures, though employees told the publication approximately 70 workers were affected.

2. Hallmark Health to lay off 57 employees

Medford, Mass.-based Hallmark Health is laying off 57 employees, or about 2 percent of the company's workforce, according to Wicked Local Reading. Hallmark Health CEO Alan Macdonald wrote in an email to his employees that the layoffs were necessary to achieve the company's goal of reducing operating costs by $16 million in fiscal year 2017, according to the article.

3. McKesson lays off 60 workers in North Carolina

San Francisco-based McKesson laid off 60 employees last week at its office in Charlotte, N.C., The Charlotte Observer reports. The layoffs are in McKesson's sales, customer service and IT departments in its Enterprise Information Solutions business, which helps provide EHRs for hospitals.

4. Wilkes-Barre General Hospital lays off, reduces hours for employees

Some employees at Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) General Hospital were laid off and others saw their hours reduced as part of a move to align staffing with patient volumes, according to The Citizen's Voice. Renita Fennick, a hospital spokesperson, did not specify how many or what types of employees are being laid off. However, the layoffs and reductions in hours will not affect registered nurses, according to Bill Cruice, executive director of Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, the union that represents the registered nurses at the hospital, according to the report.

5. CVS Health to eliminate 600 jobs

Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS Health plans to eliminate nearly 600 jobs in the company's corporate offices in Rhode Island, Illinois and Arizona over the next two months, according to the Wall Street Journal. As of early November, the company had not disclosed which divisions will be affected by the layoffs. Employees affected by the job cuts will be able to apply for different positions within the company. Employees who aren't placed in new positions will receive a severance package.

6. Massachusetts hospital to lay off 64 with closure of transitional care unit

Brockton (Mass.) Hospital, part of Brockton-based Signature Healthcare, will lay off 64 employees when it closes its 29-bed transitional care unit, according to The Enterprise. Leaders told the hospital's transitional care unit employees were told Nov. 1 the unit will close within three months. A department manager, three shifts of nurses and a part-time activities coordinator are among those who will lose their jobs when the unit closes, according to the report.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Washington belittles the number of civilians killed in the US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, Armenpress reports, citing TASS, a source in Russias defense ministry said on Thursday, commenting on the recent statement of US Central Command spokesman John Thomas.

Thomas said just 64 people were killed and another 8 wounded in the US airstrikes in Syria and Iraq between November 2015 and September 2016.

"Such statements of the US Central Command representative suggest that the Pentagon does not consider the remainder thousands of peaceful Syrians and Iraqis killed by the US airstrikes as "humans," the source said.

According to the source, US warplanes make up to 20 air strikes a day in Syria and Iraq.

"In Syria and Iraq US aviation carries out up to 20 strikes a day. Last year there were 7,300 such air raids. Many of these missions are flown by strategic bombers B-1B and B-52N," the source said.

The source said 62 Syrian servicemen were killed and more than 100 others were wounded in the September US airstrike near Deir ez-Zor, in eastern Syria. "They were not terrorists or adversaries for the US Air Force, but they were not even mentioned (in this statistics)," he said.

In January, another US airstrike near Aleppo killed by an error 24 Syrian civilians and wounded over 40 others. Another 19 civilians, including three children, were killed in the US airstrikes in the Kurdish village Sulsana. The July US airstrike in Syrias Tokhar claimed 56 lives. Another nine people, among them four children, were killed by the US bombing in Khamira. A total of 167 civilians, including 44 children, perished in the US airstrikes between May and July in Manbij.

The source said the US airstrikes also killed 92 civilians and wounded 135 others in the university premises in Iraqs Mosul on March 20. More than 150 citizens of Mosul were killed by the US airstrikes on April 18. Another 21 civilians died and 44 others were wounded in the US bombing of a funeral procession in Dakuk.

The US-led international anti-terrorist coalition was formed in 2014 for struggle against the Islamic State (outlawed in Russia).

The coalition is currently taking part in a military operation to drive Islamic State militants out of Mosul - Iraqs second largest city which has been under the Islamic States control for the past two years. The coalition has been conducting the anti-terrorist operation in Syria since 2014.








An unexpected victory for Republican Donald Trump has prompted many to consider what the president-elect's administration will mean for healthcare.

Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of San Diego-based Scripps Health, recently provided Becker's Hospital Review with his projections.

Mr. Van Gorder acknowledged no one knows exactly what will occur with the ACA under the new administration, or what Congress will agree to support or change. But, he said, generally speaking, he believes there will be less of a big government approach to healthcare with Mr. Trump as president.

He went on to outline his seven specific expectations:

1. He expects Mr. Trump to continue the ongoing shift from fee-for-service to value-based care. However, he said he believes Mr. Trump could move to change a number of key elements of the ACA, including the mandates for individuals to have health insurance and for many business to offer coverage to employees.

2. Mr. Van Gorder said he also believes a Trump administration will rein in Medicaid expansion. California is among the states that has expanded Medicaid under the ACA. The state's Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, now covers roughly one-third of Californians.

3. He projects discussions about privatizing Medicare could begin again. "That could mean a proposal that would shift some of the cost risk of the program to beneficiaries by providing vouchers or other methods for purchasing private insurance," Mr. Van Gorder said.

4. Additionally, Mr. Van Gorder noted that Mr. Trump has said he wants Medicare to negotiate drug prices  but this will require a compromise between the President and Republicans in Congress who have previously opposed doing so.

5. Mr. Van Gorder projects there might be a different approach to mergers and acquisitions, and antitrust enforcement on deals such as the Anthem-Cigna merger, in the future.

6. He said he also expects a change in the federal government's approach to labor unions.

7. And certainly, Mr. Van Gorder said, Americans should expect a more conservative appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's vacancy. Such a move would have an impact on cases involving healthcare issues, he noted.
Donald Trump became the president-elect on Nov. 9, and executives from the healthcare industry are preparing for his presidency. Mr. Trump ran on a platform to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and transforming Medicare into a block grant to the states, among other policies.

Here is how these hospital executives and physicians are planning for the future:

Daniel Ahern, Senior Vice President Strategy & Business Development, Reading Health (West Reading, Pa.): "As part of our ongoing strategic planning process, we continue to focus on the needs of the community across the continuum of care. Where gaps are identified, we invest in facilities, clinical experience and leadership, technologies and people to yield high-quality, high-value care.

For example, Reading HealthPlex is a 476,000-square-foot surgical and inpatient facility investment that allows us to continue to provide state-of the-art care in 24 operating suites, eight procedure suites, 150 new private patient rooms and an expansion of our emergency and trauma centers. The facility provides the necessary infrastructure to expand our surgical capabilities while investing in clinical providers to provide top-rated care resulting in continued recognition as evidenced by our quality awards. Leveraging our investment in technology, in areas such as telemedicine, offers the opportunity to enhance value-based care for targeted populations while increasing access to care."



Alejandro Badia, MD, Co-Founder and Medical Director of OrthoNOW (Miami): "The Affordable Care Act created a climate that encouraged entrepreneurial thinkers to activate new and disruptive methods of healthcare delivery. These innovations provided better outcomes, lower costs, improved patient experiences and improved clinician experiences. We should expect the innovations that emerged during that time, like access to specialized care on-demand, to remain viable options as we look to the future regardless of any actions that would repeal or modify the ACA."



Daniel DeBehnke, MD, MBA, CEO at Nebraska Medicine (Omaha): "From a healthcare standpoint, what will be key moving forward will be how the president-elect fills his key administrative positions, such as the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Administrator of CMS, as these individuals will be important advisors to the administration. With respect to the campaign promise of repealing the ACA, this will be difficult as it could leave millions of Americans without coverage. He will need to tread carefully. It will be interesting to see how President-Elect Trump interacts with Republican healthcare policy expert Paul Ryan. The first 100 days of the Trump administration will be very important to watch."



Ira Kirschenbaum, MD, Chairman, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center (New York): "Obamacare represented a radical shift in healthcare in this country. With a Republican president and a Republican Congress, theres no doubt that this will at least be modified. Unfortunately, we're not exactly sure what those modifications are going to bring. I don't feel Obamacare will be repealed, but certainly there are going to be lively discussions in Congress and in the industry about how it should be modified. The key will be that Trump convenes the right people to help lead the discussion."



Stephen Klasko, MD, President and CEO of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health (Philadelphia): "Over one year, it is a matter of living in a twilight zone between fee-for-service and fee-for-value. While everyone talks about moving from volume to value over the next year, most of our income is from fee-for-service so we have to live with being penalized for doing the right thing. Over five years, at Jefferson we are counting on a combination of millennials who value technology over loyalty beginning to access healthcare as well as doubling down on our from 'Blockbuster to Netflix' strategy of moving care out to where people are. This requires a combination of providing university-level care in our community hospitals, telehealth, partnerships with companies like IBM Watson Health and bringing 'hospitality' back to the 'hospital' business.



I believe we overestimate the effect of health policy on our strategy and underestimate the hard work and disruption that is needed in how we deliver healthcare regardless of Democratic or Republican healthcare policy. In essence the Affordable Care Act provided more people access to a broken, expensive, fragmented, inefficient, inequitable and occasionally unsafe healthcare delivery system, and hoped that the healthcare delivery system would self-correct. As I wrote in my recently published book, We Can Fix Healthcare: The Future Is Now, regardless of who wins the presidency we will need to provide better access with greater quality at a reduced cost and significantly enhanced patient experience. If we do that, we will succeed in an ACA world, a health systems accounts world, an interstate portable insurance world or a single-payer world."



Paul Wood, Vice President and Chief Communications Officer of UPMC: "Although the results of this election would certainly point to changes in the Affordable Care Act, its uncertain at this time what those might be. We will be watching the legislative landscape closely, and, as UPMC has demonstrated repeatedly, we will be prepared to adjust as needed to serve our patients and members. It's important to remember that more than 20 million people are newly insured as a result of the ACA, and we will do whatever we can to provide affordable, high-quality healthcare under a new administration."
Following Republican President-elect Donald Trump's unexpected win this week, many scientists are expressing concerns for what the new administration might mean for research, according to The Washington Post.

Here are three things to know.

1. A key concern for scientists is Mr. Trump's position on climate change. Mr. Trump has previously pledged to "cancel" the Paris climate agreement, as well as eliminate environmental regulations, according to the report.

"It doesnt look like it's going to be great," Joshua Drew, a lecturer in the department of ecology, evolution and environmental biology at Columbia University in New York City, told The Washington Post. "The class I'm teaching right now is coastal and estuarine ecology, and we cover a lot of topics including global climate change, sea level rise, ocean acidification. The fact that Trump doesn't believe in that does not bode well toward having a U.S. policy that addresses those issues."

2. Mr. Trump hasn't provided details on how his pledge to cut federal spending will affect funding for scientific research, according to the report. The report notes the majority of academic researchers count on grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, as well as other government agencies.

"I just feel like there's so much uncertainty," Meghan Duffy, PhD, a disease ecologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, told The Washington Post. "I have tenure, so if I have a gap between grants, it wouldn't be disastrous. But I know a lot of people who are earlier in their careers and are really worried about what it means for funding right now . . . about what a reduction in funding would mean for their ability to have a career as a scientist."

3. Also unclear is how Mr. Trump's immigration policies might impact research, according to the report. Leighton Ku, PhD, a professor of health policy and management at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., told The Washington Post it's likely that the kinds of highly-skilled scientists who immigrate to America to work or go to school would still be welcome. The question is will they want to come?

"I can see someone saying, 'Gee, do I really want to go to the U.S. if I think this is an environment that might not be friendly to immigrants?" Dr. Ku said.

For more on this story, read Sarah Kaplan's full report in The Washington Post.
When most people think about the grief endured by physicians in training, they often think of the emotionally taxing nature of patient care  sudden illness, rapid decline, untimely death, unforgettable errors and irrepressible uncertainty. Beyond the inevitable patient tragedies physicians-in-training encounter, there are many more often-ignored issues that affect medical providers' psyche.

In an article recently published in JAMA, Jennifer A. Best, MD, who works in the Office of Graduate Medical Education at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, describes the numerous other factors that culminate in emotional fatigue, burnout and depression among young physicians.

"We enter the field of medicine steeled to the fact that some of our patients will die," wrote Dr. Best. "However, many of us may be less prepared for the reality that parts of ourselves will also die in the process. Although we may not recognize these sacrificial 'deaths' as such in the moment, these losses are deeply visceral and their effects additive."

Here are nine commonly experienced but often unaddressed factors of physician fatigue and burnout, according to Dr. Best.

1. Forming close-knit clinical teams that split up each month without formal acknowledgement or proper goodbyes.

2. Being asked by family and friends to provide medical advice for an ill relative, leaving no opportunity for personal sadness and dealing with the intense anxiety of "imposter syndrome."

3. Difficulty dating and having enough time to spend with a significant other.

4. Trying to get pregnant but being assigned to a week on night rotation while ovulating.

5. Absence from important, "unrepeatable" events, such as weddings, funerals, birthdays and holidays.

6. Dealing with situations at the bedside that challenge one's core ethical, moral and spiritual framework.

7. Strained friendships as a result of years of sustained unavailability and often geographic distance due to taking residencies in other states.

8. The sad recognition that one may have given up his or her favorite pastimes.

9. Physical deterioration as a result of sleep disturbance, rushed meals and little exercise or health maintenance.

For the full article, click here.
President-elect Donald Trump's vow to "repeal and replace" the ACA may be prove to be a matter of semantics rather than a dramatic change in healthcare policy, reports Kaiser Health News.

Many of the issues that gave rise to healthcare reform  rising costs, an aging population, mediocre medical results  continue to plague the U.S. today.

Here are four characteristics of the ACA that could exist in some form under replacement legislation, according to analysts surveyed by Kaiser Health Foundation.

1. Health insurance subsidies. Completely eradicating healthcare subsidies, thereby endangering 5 million Americans' coverage, poses a political risk for Republican congressmen. "[Republicans] don't want to be in a position of saying they're just kicking millions of people out into the street," Joseph Antos, a health economist at the American Enterprise Institute, told Kaiser Health News. This leads some analysts to believe a type of healthcare subsidy for the middle class may remain, even it is not ACA tax credits.

2. The 26-year-old insurance cutoff. The most likely provision to survive a Trump presidency is the requirement employers cover workers' children up to the age of 26. The measure is widely popular and relatively inexpensive, analysts said.

3. Payment reform. ACA legislation encouraged and gave rise to a number of initiatives aimed at aligning cost and quality in healthcare services. Daniel Steingart, a hospital analyst at Moody's Investors Service, said he believes the new administration is on-board with value-based initiatives. "I can foresee a scenario where [the administration] gradually expands all those programs," Mr. Steingart said.

4. High healthcare costs. Repealing the ACA will not influence Americans' ability to afford healthcare services or reduce the number of high-deductible health plans. "They could repeal [the ACA] tomorrow and still have a broken delivery system and costs would continue to go up," Don Berwick, who was acting Medicare administrator in President Obama's administration, told Kaiser Health News.
Orthopedic surgeon and Congressman Tom Price, MD (R-Ga.) is currently the House Budget Committee chairman heading into 2017, when the new Republican president and Congress are expected to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, according to a report in AJC.

The paper also pegged him as a potential candidate for the HHS secretary in a Trump presidency, along with Ben Carson, MD.

Dr. Price reportedly laughed when asked about the potential appointment, but said he would serve however he could best benefit his constituents in Georgia and the citizens of the United States. He may also be preparing for a potential run for governor of Georgia in 2018, according to the report.

Dr. Price earned his medical degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and completed his residency at Emory University in Atlanta. He became a senator in 1996 and has won re-election since then, the third and fourth terms were unopposed.
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It's been a year since the release of Ajith's Vedalam, and here we have an interesting update about the film's Telugu remake. We were the first to report that the film's Telugu remake will star Pawan Kalyan, and directed by Jilla fame R.T.Neason.



Sources close to the film's unit suggest that the team is currently working on the dialogues of the film, and are planning to start the shoot from January end. Casting decisions are expected to be made in another ten days of time. It is said that the makers are looking out for an established heroine, who hasn't acted with Pawan Kalyan till now, to play the female lead. Rumors suggest that Rakul Preet Singh might be a feasible option to reprise Shruti Haasan's role in this remake.



Also, this is the very first-time music director Thaman is scoring for a Pawan Kalyan film. Exciting updates about this project are expected to follow suit. Stay tuned.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. All kinds of marches and assembles have been banned in Turkeys Van district for 10 days in the sidelines of the state of emergency in Turkey, Armenpress reports Turkish trthaber.com informs.

Van governor issued a statement saying that the decision was taken to ensure security for the citizens.

State of emergency was declared in Turkey from August 21 to October 19. In a Cabinet meeting on October 3 it was decided to extend the state of emergency for another 3 months.
Toys R Us has moved into a bigger unit in CastleCourt Shopping Centre in Belfast as the busy Christmas season approaches

Toy retailer Toys R Us has moved into a bigger unit in CastleCourt Shopping Centre in Belfast as the peak Christmas season draws closer.

Toys R Us first moved into the city centre shopping destination in September 2014, when the firm took a 6,000 sq ft unit.

But the company said that after strong sales, it was moving into a 23,000 sq ft unit on the first floor and would sell its full range, including baby goods.

The US giant will now be on the same level as rival toy shop The Entertainer - though positioned at the other side of the centre.

Colin Mathewson, senior director of retail at commercial property agents CBRE - which joined Savills in acting for CastleCourt in concluding the move - said: "We are delighted to see Toys R Us expanding within CastleCourt, which shows real signs of growth through a period that has been tough for a lot of retailers within Belfast city centre. The retail environment is clearly improving with consumers spending again."

Mike Coogan, marketing and e-commerce director at Toys R Us, added: "The move to a larger unit is on the back of strong results and a demand from our shoppers for a wider selection of toys and games in-store."

Centre manager Paul McMahon said the expansion indicated the strength of its footfall.

The Entertainer, a UK chain, opened in CastleCourt earlier this year. It has a strong Christian ethos and does not sell products with connotations of witchcraft or sorcery.
From left, Belfast Telegraph managing director Richard McClean, INM chief executive Robert Pitt, Olivia OKane, chair of the Belfast Solicitors Association, and Len OHagan, INM non-executive director, at the Northern Ireland Post Brexit event organised by the association and The Bar of Northern Ireland at the Reform Club, Belfast

Businesses across Northern Ireland and the Republic should move on and focus on innovation to expand following the vote for Brexit, according to Independent News and Media (INM) chief executive Robert Pitt.

Mr Pitt said that the company - which owns the Belfast Telegraph - was a "very integrated business across the whole island of Ireland".

He was joined by a number of top business and legal experts during an event at the Reform Club in Belfast city centre yesterday, organised by the Belfast Solicitors Association and the Bar of Northern Ireland.

"Brexit is something which is foremost at our minds," Mr Pitt said.

"In Ireland, we feel safe in the EU with Britain in there.

"We feel we have a partner we can trust, who is going to represent our agenda as well.

"However, we are where we are at the moment, and we need to move on from that.

"It's probably a scary thing, Brexit, but our industry - the media - we have been living with this kind of destruction for quite a while.

"We operate in an industry where there are no trade barriers."

Mr Pitt said the company operated in a "digital space", competing with publications from across the world.

"What that has taught us is that we need to become very resilient and very innovative, because innovation is what is going to lead the way forward.

"That for us is a very key area for where we are."

He said businesses "have to move forward" following the UK vote to exit the EU.

"Northern Ireland remains, for INM, a very, very important part (of the business).

"A quarter of the island's population is in Northern Ireland."

He said businesses across Ireland would remain very committed to operations in Northern Ireland, following Brexit.

"We need to make sure our services are joined up, and digital will help you on that," Mr Pitt explained.

He said a boost in broadband and infrastructure was also key to ensuring the strength of businesses across the island of Ireland.

He added: "Together we can make this as a rich an experience as possible for anyone who wants to invest or visit in either part of our island."

Meanwhile, one top lawyer, Monye Anyadike-Danes QC, said businesses must closely examine contracts in the run-up to the UK exit from the EU.

CBI director Angela McGowan said the impact of Brexit would be "absolutely enormous" for Northern Ireland, and said the future remains uncertain for trade and the freedom of movement for workers.

But she said Northern Ireland would be tackling its exit from the EU "from a relatively strong position in the economy".

And Joanne Stuart, director of development at Catalyst - formerly the Northern Ireland Science Park - said around 90% of the 160 or so businesses under its wing supported remaining part of the EU.

But she remained positive and said firms must accelerate their growth in order for them to scale in a post-Brexit landscape.

Other speakers included Danske Bank's Richard Caldwell and Chris Marshall, and Ronan Lavery QC and Ciaran O'Hare, who are both involved in the legal bid by victims campaigner Raymond McCord to halt the UK's exit from the EU.

Media lawyer Olivia O'Kane, from Carson McDowell, who hosted the event alongside Liam McCollum QC - chairman of the Bar Council - said any changes to data protection laws following Brexit were certain to have a "highly significant and commercial impact".

She said the EU had invested more than 100m in the film and television industry, and warned the loss of such subsidies could hit the sector here.
Co Armagh firms Tayto and Irwin's Bakery have both landed major deals in China (stock picture)

Crisps and buns from Co Armagh firms Tayto and Irwin's are on their way to China after the companies clinched important contracts.

Tayto, which is based in Tandragee, has recently shipped two orders to distributor ET2C in Shanghai and China Merchant Foods in Shenzhen. It's focusing on selling its 'real hand cooked crisps' range in the country.

And Irwin's Bakery in Portadown has also won a valuable order for its buns with United Merchant Food in Beijing.

The deals were announced as the two joined a delegation of 11 companies from Northern Ireland at Food Hotel China - a trade event for food, drink and hospitality firms wanting to import into the world's most populous nation.

Alastair Hamilton, chief executive of Invest NI, which organised the visit, said: "Securing these export orders is a significant achievement for Irwin's and Tayto, who are both investing considerable time and effort into nurturing partnerships with global operators in this lucrative market.

"These local food producers have benefited from food business development guidance, trade advice and from participating in Invest NI trade missions to profile their products on an international stage.

"As these results demonstrate, Northern Ireland companies are reaping the business benefits of our export support and establishing strong trade and investment links across what is a huge country."

Brendan Lappin, business development manager at Irwin's, said it was "delighted" to win the new order.

"We hope it is the beginning of a fruitful relationship with this prestigious customer," he said.

"Invest NI has assisted with expertise in market, and also with the help of their great team in Northern Ireland, to facilitate introductions and meetings through the Food Hotel China exhibition. This ongoing support has been invaluable in helping us achieve this new business."

John McQuaid, Tayto Group sales and marketing director, said its shipments to China were a "promising start". "Trade support from Invest NI is paying dividends... Food Hotel China offers invaluable opportunities to showcase our award-winning produce and build relationships with key decision makers."
Having funded local home ownership in Ulster for over 100 years, Progressive Building Society has a proud history of providing savings and mortgage products.

Throughout this time the society has come to recognise the invaluable work estate agents put into helping both first-time buyers and home-movers purchase their dream property. For this reason, Progressive is delighted to be involved in the Belfast Telegraph Property Awards, through sponsorship of the Residential Estate Agency of the Year category.

Speaking ahead of this year's property awards, Darina Armstrong, chief executive at Progressive Building Society, said: "Our commitment to engaging with our customers on a personal level is key to Progressive's continued success, but it is not the only factor.

"Along with mortgage advisers and brokers, estate agents are the first point of contact for those who are looking to buy for the first time or to move home, and we rely on their knowledge and expertise to help our members and potential members in the purchase of their property.

"We recognise that the home-buying process is very much a joint effort and our continued support of this category provides Progressive with the opportunity to acknowledge the role estate agents play and to show our appreciation."

Darina said the company was seeing vibrancy across the mortgage market in Northern Ireland, with first, second and third-time movers reflecting the increase in the number of new developments being built in a range of locations.

She added: "With this increasing demand and excitement for moving home, Progressive Building Society will be working ever closer with estate agents to help local people throughout the home-buying process, and as Northern Ireland's only locally-owned mortgage provider, this is something we hold dear.

"At Progressive we work hard to ensure our mortgage products are easy to understand and that our customers receive the support they need at every stage of the mortgage application process. We understand the need to be flexible to meet the needs of all our customers whatever their circumstances and central to this are the relationships we have developed over the years with our partners in the property sector - both our mortgage brokers and local estate agents."

Darina said that Progressive will continue to invest in all 12 local branches to ensure that it continues to meet the ever-changing requirements of local customers.

She added: "Progressive Building Society is proud to sponsor the Belfast Telegraph Property Awards' Residential Estate Agency of the Year category. We look forward to the event and wish all applicants the very best of luck."
Daniel and Amy McArthur of Ashers which lost an appeal against the ruling that they had discriminated against gay man Gareth Lee.

Christian bakers found to have breached equality laws by refusing to make a pro-gay marriage cake have asked judges to rule on whether they can appeal to the UK's highest court.

The owners of Ashers bakery are seeking clarity on their legal position in regard to a potential Supreme Court challenge. The McArthur family are also considering taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights if the route to the doors of the Supreme Court is not open.

Last month, Court of Appeal judges in Belfast upheld an original judgment which ruled that Ashers had discriminated against a gay activist for declining his order for a cake bearing the slogan "Support Gay Marriage".

The McArthur family's legal team believe an appeal to the Supreme Court may not be possible under legislation relating to appeals in civil cases.

The lawyers have written to the Appeal Court judges in Belfast requesting that they issue a ruling making clear the position.

The letter stated: "In view of the complexity of these issues... and the wider public importance which this case clearly has, and in order to make clear that the appellants (Ashers) have exhausted their domestic remedies... we respectfully invite the Court of Appeal to consider giving a short ruling on the question of whether appeal to the United Kingdom Supreme Court is available in this case".

Simon Calvert, from The Christian Institute, which has backed the McArthur family throughout the legal proceedings, said: "Under the complex rules regarding appeals in civil cases, such as the Ashers case, the Court of Appeal decision seems to be final, according to the terms of the Judicature Act 1978."

If the Supreme Court is not an option, the Ashers could still mount a challenge in the European courts.

The Christian Institute said Northern Ireland's Attorney General John Larkin could also potentially refer "devolution issues" linked to the cake case to the Supreme Court.

Northern Ireland-based Ashers, a name with Biblical connotations, has six branches, employs more than 80 people and delivers across the UK and Ireland.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Daniel McArthur (General manager at Ashers Bakery) arrives at Laganside Court in Belfast with his wife Amy in October. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Daniel McArthur of Ashers with his wife Amy and parents pictured leaving the High Court in Belfast after the judgement was given. Picture by Jonathan Porter/Press Eye Daniel and Amy McArthur of Ashers Baking Company speak to the media at Belfast High Court, as judgment is due to be delivered on an appeal brought by the Christian bakers who were found to have discriminated against gay man Gareth Lee. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire PA Gareth Lee(left) and Dr. Michael Wardlow, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Equality Commission pictured leaving the High Court in Belfast after the judgement was given. Picture by Jonathan Porter/Press Eye Gareth Lee(left) and Dr. Michael Wardlow, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Equality Commission pictured leaving the High Court in Belfast after the judgement was given. Picture by Jonathan Porter/Press Eye Daniel McArthur of Ashers and his wife Amy pictured leaving the High Court in Belfast after the judgement was given. Picture by Jonathan Porter/Press Eye Gareth Lee pictured leaving the High Court in Belfast after the judgement was given. Picture by Jonathan Porter/Press Eye Daniel McArthur of Ashers pictured leaving the High Court in Belfast after the judgement was given. Picture by Jonathan Porter/Press Eye Judgement due on 'gay cake' appeal for Ashers Bakery. Two years ago, the family-run firm refused to make a cake for gay rights activist Gareth Lee with the slogan "Support Gay Marriage" leading to a judge ruling the Christian owners of Ashers had discriminated against him. Daniel McArthur of Ashers and his wife Amy arrive at the High Court in Belfast to hear the appeal. Picture by Jonathan Porter/Press Eye Judgement due on 'gay cake' appeal for Ashers Bakery. Two years ago, the family-run firm refused to make a cake for gay rights activist Gareth Lee with the slogan "Support Gay Marriage" leading to a judge ruling the Christian owners of Ashers had discriminated against him. Gareth Lee(left) and Dr. Michael Wardlow, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Equality Commission arrives at the High Court in Belfast to hear the appeal. Picture by Jonathan Porter/Press Eye Daniel McArthur (L), managing director of Ashers Bakery and his wife Amy McArthur (R) hold a press conference as they outside Belfast high court alongside family members for the so called 'Gay Cake' case verdict on October 24, 2016 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images) Getty Images Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy arrive at court for the verdict. Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Daniel McArthur (director of Ashers Bakery) and with wife Amy at Laganside court in Belfast on tuesday, A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Gay rights activist Gareth Lee outside Laganside Court , A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Gay rights activist Gareth Lee outside Laganside Court , A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Gay rights activist Gareth Lee outside Laganside Court , A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Daniel McArthur (director of Ashers Bakery) and with wife Amy at Laganside court in Belfast on tuesday, A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Gay rights activist Gareth Lee gets a hug from a friend outside Laganside Court , A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Gay rights activist Gareth Lee gets a hug from a friend outside Laganside Court , A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Daniel McArthur (director of Ashers Bakery) and with wife Amy at Laganside court in Belfast on tuesday, A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Daniel McArthur (director of Ashers Bakery) and with wife Amy at Laganside court in Belfast on tuesday, A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Daniel McArthur (director of Ashers Bakery) at Laganside court in Belfast on tuesday, A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Daniel McArthur (director of Ashers Bakery) and with wife Amy at Laganside court in Belfast on tuesday, A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Daniel McArthur (director of Ashers Bakery) and with wife Amy at Laganside court in Belfast on tuesday, A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 19/5/2015 Daniel McArthur (director of Ashers Bakery) and with wife Amy at Laganside court in Belfast on tuesday, A judge has found the Christian bakery guilty of discrimination , Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The order placed at the firm's shop at Royal Avenue in Belfast was for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia last May. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Dr Michael Wardlow(left() from the Equality Commission and Gareth Lee(centre) pictured outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. The DUP's Paul Givan(second from right) and Edwin Poots(second from left) pictured outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy arrive at court for the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy arrive at court for the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy arrive at court for the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy arrive at court for the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy pictured outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy pictured outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Gareth Lee(centre) pictured outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Gareth Lee(right) pictured outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy pictured outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy pictured outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Gareth Lee(centre) pictured outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Gareth Lee receives a hug outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy pictured outside the court after the verdict. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye Ashers found guilty of discrimination in cake case. A judge has found a Christian bakery which refused to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan guilty of discrimination. Ashers Baking Company, which is run by the McArthur family, declined the request for a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage. The Equality Commission took the case against the Newtownabbey based company on behalf of Gareth Lee who had trued to order the cake. Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy pictured outside the court after the verdict. Pacemaker Press 26/3/2015 Daniel McArthur (General manager at Ashers Bakery) arrives at Laganside Court in Belfast with his family on thursday, Ashers face a discrimination case supported by the Equality Commission, after a dispute began when the Christian-run bakery refused a request to make a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Daniel and Amy McArthur arrive at Laganside Court yesterday morning Ashers' Daniel McArthur with his wife Amy and his parents Colin and Karen behind leave Laganside Court after the case finished Daniel McArthur (General manager at Ashers Bakery) arrives at Laganside Court in Belfast with his family. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Daniel McArthur, general manager of Asher's Bakery gives a statement to the media before entering court Getty Images While not identical to the Ashers gay cake controversy, this story touches on some of the same themes and dilemmas Getty Images Ashers bakery boss Daniel McArthur at Belfast Court. Pic Mark Simpson BBC Ashers bakery boss Daniel McArthur at Belfast Court. Pic Mark Simpson BBC More than 2,000 people pack the Waterfront Hall to show support for Ashers bakery Gareth Lee, whose lawyer put his side of the case to the court yesterday Daniel and Amy McArthur arriving at Belfast County Court to fight a challenge by Northern Ireland's Equality Commission following their refusal to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan. David Young/PA Wire PA The cake at the centre of the Ashers row Pacemaker Press 26/3/2015 Daniel McArthur (General manager at Ashers Bakery) arrives at Laganside Court in Belfast with his wife Amy on thursday, Ashers face a discrimination case supported by the Equality Commission, after a dispute began when the Christian-run bakery refused a request to make a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 26/3/2015 Daniel McArthur (General manager at Ashers Bakery) arrives at Laganside Court in Belfast with his family on thursday, Ashers face a discrimination case supported by the Equality Commission, after a dispute began when the Christian-run bakery refused a request to make a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Christian Institute support rally for Ashers bakery held at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. Photograph: Stephen Hamilton/Presseye Christian Institute support rally for Ashers bakery held at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. Photograph: Stephen Hamilton/Presseye Pacemaker Press 26/3/2015 Daniel McArthur (General manager at Ashers Bakery) arrives at Laganside Court in Belfast with his family on thursday, Ashers face a discrimination case supported by the Equality Commission, after a dispute began when the Christian-run bakery refused a request to make a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Daniel and Amy McArthur with their baby daughter Elia Christian Institute support rally for Ashers bakery held at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. In attendance is the DUP's Sammy Wilson. Photograph:Stephen Hamilton/Presseye The Ashers Baking Co outlet in Belfasts Royal Avenue Mayor Andrew Muir cutting a Sesame Street Bert and Ernie 'Support Gay Marriage' cake Photopress Belfast / Facebook

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Whatsapp Daniel McArthur (General manager at Ashers Bakery) arrives at Laganside Court in Belfast with his wife Amy in October. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Gareth Lee, a member of the LGBT advocacy group Queer Space, had wanted a cake featuring Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia.

He placed the order in person at Ashers' Belfast city centre branch in May 2014. It was accepted and he paid in full but, two days later, the company called to say it could not proceed with the cake due to the message requested.

In the original court case, District Judge Isobel Brownlie ruled that religious beliefs could not dictate the law and ordered the firm to pay damages of 500.

Mounting an appeal, Ashers contended that it never had an issue with Mr Lee's sexuality, rather the message he was seeking to put on the cake.

The business said the slogan was inconsistent with their deeply held religious beliefs.

The appeal was heard before three senior judges at Belfast's Court of Appeal in May, with the reserved judgment delivered in October.

In delivering their ruling, Northern Ireland's Lord Chief Justice, Sir Declan Morgan, said Ashers had directly discriminated.

He rejected the argument that the bakery would be endorsing the slogan by baking the cake.

"The fact that a baker provides a cake for a particular team or portrays witches on a Halloween cake does not indicate any support for either," he said.
Caroline Sewell, of the Musicians Union, warned that low-paid musicians in Northern Ireland could be put out of business by Brexit

Low-paid musicians in Northern Ireland could be put out of business by Brexit, a union official warned.

Many earn less than 10,000 a year from weekend gigging and the introduction of work permits to move around Europe and funding cuts from the EU may mean the end of the road for some talent, Caroline Sewell from the Musicians Union said.

The industry benefits from 1.4 billion funding under the Creative EU programme which is in jeopardy.

Ms Sewell said: "I think driving some people out of business is a very real possibility and not actually just for musicians but for any workers who are in a casualised workforce, those who don't work under employment contracts, who are self-employed or freelance."

She added: "I think that it could potentially drag small businesses out of business, it could potentially drive freelance musicians to stop practising music and that would be the worst thing really, that the talent that we currently have in the pool has to stop what they are doing as a musician because they cannot afford it."

Half the union's members earn less than 10,000 a year from music, combining weekend gigging with jobs like teaching during the week.

The Musicians' Union regional organiser for Scotland and Northern Ireland said it represented around 30,000 members UK-wide and 250 in Northern Ireland.

She added: "You are not at One Direction level or that crazy level of success.

"The nature of the work in the music industry is freelancing, it is essentially hand-to-mouth, essentially low-paid and casualised."

She envisaged European touring becoming more expensive post-Brexit.

"Musicians are going to have to fork out for work visas and work permits, the cultural industries are constantly under threat from spending cuts.

"We know that we in the cultural sector are the first ones to be hit. Cuts to the arts sector are already having a big impact, so we would expect that to continue and actually probably worsen."

Ms Sewell appeared at a conference as part of the Sound of Belfast 2016 festival.
A visitor views paintings on display at an exhibition marking Sun Yat-sen's 150th birthday at the Guangdong Museum of Art in South China's Guangzhou city, Guangdong province, Nov 1, 2016. [Photo/IC]

This Saturday marks the 150th birthday of Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) when a series of celebrations will be held in the memory of the "great national hero, patriot and front-runner of China's democratic revolution" across the Taiwan Straits. The Chinese mainland has held many seminars and commemorative events before the day, and Hung Hsiu-chu, chairwoman of the opposition Kuomintang in Taiwan, paid tribute to Sun at his mausoleum in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province, on Nov 1 during her five-day visit to the mainland.

Born in Zhongshan in South China's Guangdong province, Sun fought for the full national unification and sovereign integrity throughout his life. His outright opposition to separatists is a valued legacy for compatriots across the Straits, especially at a time when pro-independence campaigns are being organized on the island.

The Revolution of 1911 he led ended the feudal monarchy that had existed in China for more than 2,000 years, although it could not end the long-drawn confrontations among several warlords. But despite being threatened by some imperialist powers' preposterous "divide and rule" policy aimed at splitting the country in half, Sun did not succumb to the pressures from home and abroad.

His unwavering belief that the sense of unification in generation after generation of Chinese people had played a major role in keeping the country unified, Sun made strenuous efforts throughout his life to achieve full national unification. He believed there are no uniform patterns to achieve national unification; it could be achieved through either force or by winning the hearts and minds of the people.

His idea was visionary and still applies to cross-Straits relations. The mainland remains firm on its promise to deepen grassroots exchanges with Taiwan and promote peaceful unification, but it strongly opposes so-called pro-independence campaigns in any form and does not renounce the use of force if need be.

This approach is in line with Sun's unfinished work to build a stronger, unified nation, which is the "hope of all Chinese people". The longstanding confrontation between the two sides of the Straits has consumed considerable economic and social resources, making the island a bargaining chip for countries like the United States that often use it to put pressure on the mainland.

Many Taiwan compatriots feel this pain, which has intensified because of the waning cross-Straits exchanges since Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, became the island leader in May.

The Chinese Dream will not be realized if separatists keep challenging national sovereignty and integrity. Ignoring this fact, however, a DPP legislator earlier this year proposed that portraits of Sun Yat-sen be removed from schools and government buildings on the island to sever the ties between the mainland and Taiwan and sabotage cross-Straits peace and stability.

Similar moves can be seen in Taiwan again, as Sun's "Three Principles of the People"Nationalism, Democracy and People's Livelihoodare no longer valued in academic research on the island. This warrants compatriots across the Straits to make extra efforts to restore the image of Sun and respect his historical contributions, and guard against all separatist moves.

The author is a researcher with the Institute of Taiwan Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Russian Federation Council Deputy Chairman Nikolai Ryzhkov, who is also Co-Chairman of the RussianArmenian Commission on Interparliamentary Cooperation, as well as the participants in the 28th Yerevan meeting of this commission, on Thursday visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial, in the capital city of Armenia, NEWS.am reports.

November 10, 2016, 15:43 Ryzhkov: Centuries will pass, but Armenian Genocide will never be forgotten

STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 10, ARTSAKHPRESS: The guests from Russia placed flowers at the Eternal Flame, and paid silent tribute toand bowed beforethe memory of the Holy Martyrs of this tragedy.

Centuries will pass, but Armenian Genocide will never be forgotten, said Ryzhkov. Even though four generations have already changed in Turkey, they continue the policy of Armenian Genocide denial. Steps should be taken toward reconciliation between the two peoples.

Sadly, the tragic events, which occurred with the Armenians one hundred years ago, today continue in Syria and elsewhere; preventing them is a sacred deed for us and for you.
David Davis laid out plans for the UK Government to hold monthly meetings of the EU Negotiation Joint Ministerial Committee

Brexit Secretary David Davis said he had a "constructive and amicable" meeting with his counterparts from the devolved administrations, as the Scottish Brexit Minister urged the UK Government to provide "greater clarity and transparency" on plans to leave the EU.

Mr Davis laid out plans for the UK Government to hold monthly meetings of the EU Negotiation Joint Ministerial Committee, enabling the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to share analysis as part of a "two-way information flow".

Mr Davis said the moves will allow the devolved administrations to voice their views as the Government prepares for divorce talks with Brussels which he insists will still be launched by next April, despite the High Court ruling that Parliament, and not Prime Minister Theresa May, must trigger that process.

Following the meeting on Wednesday, Scottish Brexit Minister Mike Russell said: "Although it is good that the process of involving the Scottish Government and the other devolved administrations is under way, more than four months after the referendum the UK Government has still not made its strategic intentions clear.

"There was a discussion over EU market access but we do not know whether UK ministers want to remain inside the single market or the customs union. This will remain a considerable problem as we continue to promote the interests of Scotland.

"The UK Government must provide greater clarity and transparency on its intentions."

He said he made it "absolutely clear" that membership of the single market "is essential for the economic prosperity of Scotland".

Mr Davis said: "Today's meeting was an important step in bringing the devolved administrations together with the UK Government to discuss how we can work together to get the best deal for the whole of the UK.

"Naturally, there are different standpoints around the table, but the meeting was constructive and amicable. We will meet regularly and share our latest thinking as the UK shapes its negotiating strategy.

'We will work positively with the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive as we implement the decision of the people of the UK to leave the EU."

The UK Government hopes the High Court judgment on how Article 50 will be triggered will be overruled on appeal to the Supreme Court next month.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Edinburgh would be seeking to intervene against the UK Government in its attempt to overturn the High Court ruling, saying she was not trying to veto the right of England and Wales to withdraw from the EU, but insisted the large majority of Scottish voters who backed Remain could not be "brushed aside as if they do not matter".

The First Minister said Scotland's most senior law officer, the Lord Advocate James Wolffe, would lodge an application to intervene in the legal case.

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland's First and Deputy First Ministers pledged to "take every opportunity" to highlight the region's unique situation during the negotiations.

In a joint statement, Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness insisted they were united on the issue.

"Our attendance today sends out a clear signal that we are determined to work together to champion the interests of the people we represent," the ministers said.

"We have received assurances from the Prime Minister down that the Northern Ireland Executive will be fully represented in the negotiating process. We will ensure that those promises are honoured.

"We will continue to take every opportunity to re-iterate our agreed priorities and to emphasise the unique nature of our situation.

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire also described the meeting as useful and said there was a "clear work programme in place".

He said: "Today's meeting was a constructive session in looking at how the devolved administrations work with one another and at how we can share our analysis to inform the evidence base we're putting together."

Brexit was also expected to be high on the agenda as Mrs May held talks in Downing Street with her Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban.

During her meeting with Mr Orban, Mrs May reiterated her commitment to triggering Article 50 to begin Brexit by April despite the High Court ruling, Downing Street said.

She also reaffirmed that she "wants and expects" to protect the rights of EU nationals in the UK, as long as British citizens' living in Europe are protected in return, a spokesman said.

And the PM told Mr Orban, who has failed in his attempt to block the settlement of refugees to Hungary in an EU-set quota scheme, that refugees should be hosted in the first safe country they travel to and that "all states have the rights and responsibilities to control their borders and accept returned illegal migrants".
Would-be bomber fled after woman hammered on the bedroom window.

A man accused of planting a bomb under a police officer's car received bullets in the post warning him he was a "dead man walking", the High Court heard today.

Letters delivered to Sean McVeigh's family home also declared an intention to shoot on sight, prosecutors revealed.

Details emerged as a judge overturned a decision to grant compassionate bail for the 35-year-old to attend the christening of his new-born child.

McVeigh, of Victoria Street in Lurgan, Co Armagh, faces charges of attempted murder and possessing explosives with intent to endanger life.

The alleged offences relate to the discovery of a bomb underneath a policeman's car in Eglinton, Co Derry on June 18 last year.

The target's wife, also a serving PSNI officer, woke in the middle of the night to discover a man planting the viable device, a previous court heard.

The would-be bomber fled after she hammered on the bedroom window.

A circumstantial case allegedly links McVeigh and two other men to the terrorist attack.

They were arrested by gardai who stopped a Volkswagen Passat later the same night across the border in Co Donegal, but released unconditionally after clothing was taken for forensic examination.

McVeigh was said to have remained in the Irish Republic until detained by the PSNI at Portadown train station in May this year.

Tests revealed a low amount of explosive component on the clothing that had been seized from him, it was alleged.

Prosecutors contend there is material pointing to him being the person who actually placed the device.

Earlier this week a District Judge granted compassionate bail for McVeigh to attend the christening service in Craigavon later this month.

But the prosecution appealed his temporary release, citing fears he could flee.

Concerns were also raised for the safety of an associate of McVeigh's who was prepared to put up a 5,000 cash surety and accompany him to the event.

Prosecution counsel disclosed that the defendant received threats in two letters containing .22 bullets sent back in March 2015.

Referring to the second message, the barrister said: "The wording stated: Sean McVeigh, you're a dead man walking. Shoot on sight."

With investigations into the threats continuing, Mr Justice Burgess was told police have concerns about protecting the safety of members of the public connected to the accused.

Dessie Hutton, defending, stressed his client was only seeking out of custody for four hours.

He rejected any suggestions of an "audacious" attempt on the life of the surety while in McVeigh's company for that period.

However, the judge denied release from custody due to the risk of flight.

Mr Justice Burgess confirmed: "For that reason I'm going to allow the appeal and refused compassionate bail, which I don't do lightly."
Barrister Karen Quinlivan, right, with Pearse Jordan's mother Teresa, leaving the hearing in Belfast

Two police officers involved in the inquest of an IRA man killed by security forces over 20 years ago should be investigated for allegedly perverting the course of justice and perjury, a judge has been told.

Lawyers for the family of Pearse Jordan returned to Belfast's High Court to request anonymity orders protecting the identities of Officers M and Q also be lifted.

Karen Quinlivin QC said: "It is in the public interest in people knowing and having information about wrongdoing.

"The allegation is that two police officers perverted the course of justice in a murder inquiry - that's not minor, that's serious - and thereafter perjured themselves in an inquest."

Twenty-two-year-old Mr Jordan was shot dead by a Royal Ulster Constabulary Officer (RUC) in west Belfast in 1992.

He had been driving a stolen car suspected of ferrying IRA munitions when the fatal incident unfolded. He failed to stop when ordered by police and sped away from a patrol car.

The Ford Orion was finally brought to a halt on the Falls Road when police rammed the vehicle. Mr Jordan was shot after getting out of the car when he tried to run away.

Earlier this week Mr Justice Horner delivered findings in what was the third inquest into the highly contentious death.

The coroner said he was not convinced either by family claims Mr Jordan was gunned down in cold blood or by police insistence the RUC sergeant acted in self-defence.

Testimony from Officers M and Q, who were not directly involved in the shooting, was also criticised as inconsistent, contradictory and unconvincing.

Justice Horner said the officers had been "untruthful" and that one or both may have edited log books.

During Thursday's brief hearing Ms Quinlivin argued : "If somebody is suspected of involvement in serious misconduct that's a factor which should give rise to a review of anonymity."

The barrister also called for the alleged wrongdoing to be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions for further investigation.

"We disclose that an offence may have caused against the law of Northern Ireland," she said.

But legal representatives for the PSNI and Officers M and Q opposed the application.

Tony McGleenan QC, representing the PSNI, said lifting anonymity orders could increase the genuine risk to both officers' lives.

He said: "If anything the risk to the individual would remain static and could potentially increase.

"It would not under any rational analysis decrease.

"These are not soldiers who have returned, these are individuals who live in this jurisdiction and the court knows that."

The investigation into the controversial shooting has been beset by controversy and delay.

In 2014, the Jordan family were awarded compensation for the lengthy hold-ups in concluding an inquest.

An original inquest was adjourned in 1995 after being only part heard. Another probe was held in 2012 but the jury failed to reach consensus on a number of crucial issues, including whether the RUC used reasonable force.

Those findings were later quashed after the High Court identified a number of failings in how the probe was run.

On Monday, Justice Horner said it was impossible to determine with certainty what happened.

Adjourning the matter for further legal argument on November 21, Justice Horner said any ruling could have "wide ranging consequences".
A thief who targeted a Belfast store for designer coats within days of arriving in Northern Ireland has avoided jail.

Polemis Octavian's six-month prison term was suspended after a judge heard his failed attempts to find work resulted in him sleeping on the streets.

The 30-year-old Romanian national stole five Ralph Lauren jackets valued at 589 from a TK Maxx branch in the city on Wednesday.

He put the coats inside a foil-lined rucksack in a bid to avoid detection, only to be detained on exiting the store.

Appearing before Belfast Magistrates' Court today, Octavian pleaded guilty to charges of theft and going equipped for theft.

His barrister said the accused, with an address at Newbridge Hill in Bath, travelled to Northern Ireland earlier this week after being told of car washing job opportunities for Romanan nationals.

"He found himself sleeping on the streets when he couldn't find work here," counsel said.

"His intention was to take the jackets and sell them on to get money to return to England."

District Judge White responded that stealing designer coats was not the answer.

He also commented: "It was a planned outing with a foil-lined bag to steal clothes worth a lot of money."

But based on Octavian's previous clear record, the judge decided to suspend the six-month jail term for two years.

With the defendant said to have no income, the court was told he will now be relying on friends to get him back to Bath.
The union has warned schools may need to close because of the strike.

Teachers' union the NASUWT has admitted some schools it said would have teachers striking will not be involved in its industrial action.

The union said its list of schools was based on the geography of the Belfast and Newtownabbey area, but that the vast majority would have NASUWT members and would be impacted by the strike.

It comes after angry school heads criticised the union for including them on its lists of those taking part in strike action later this month.

Large numbers of teachers are expected to strike n a dispute over pay, working conditions and job security.

The NASUWT, while not specifying an exact date for this month's action, did list some 232 Belfast and Newtownabbey schools said had members which would be called upon to strike.

It warned some would be forced to close because of the numbers involved.

However, a number of those listed contacted the Belfast Telegraph to say they had no members in the NASUWT and therefore would not be impacted.

One head said that as she was the sole member of the teaching staff and a member of Ulster Teachers' Union - she could say for a certainty her school would not be involved.

"We have had to field calls all day from parents wondering what is happening because of this," She told the Telegraph.

"As the unions are all too aware, we are overworked and could do without the extra work of having to deal with incorrect information being put out there.

"And it is all down to the information from the union - they are just wrong.

"It just looks like they have listed all the schools in the area."

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The NASUWT was unapologetic. It admitted it listed schools in the geographic area and conceded schools listed may not be involved in the strike.

General secretary Chris Keates said: "The NASUWT is taking a rolling programme of strike action and has published a list of all schools in Belfast and Newtownabbey which is the geographical area that will initially be affected.

The schools that will be affected are the ones that have NASUWT members, which is the vast majority of those schools.

It should be borne in mind that union membership is confidential, and members of trade unions are protected by law from workplace intimidation.

It begs the question how some principals claim to know they have NASUWT members, unless of course they are acting in breach of the law by requesting teachers to declare their union affiliation.

The NASUWT will not hesitate to take action, including legal action, against any school that seeks to intimidate any member of the NASUWT.
James Brokenshire said it is vital to "get it right" on dealing with the legacy of Northern Ireland's conflict

The UK Government will not rush to artificial deadlines in its effort to resolve a political row over stalled mechanisms for Troubles victims, the Secretary of State has said.

James Brokenshire said it was vital to "get it right" on dealing with the legacy of Northern Ireland's conflict, rather than make hasty decisions.

His comments came a week before the first anniversary of the Fresh Start Agreement between Stormont's leaders and the British and Irish governments.

While the signatories to that accord hailed it as a new beginning for power-sharing in the region, the deal faced heavy criticism for its failure to address victims' issues.

Last month, Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness expressed a desire to find a way forward on the legacy wrangle before the November 17 anniversary. It looks almost certain the date will pass next week with the matters still outstanding.

Mr Brokenshire set out his position after attending a conference on Brexit in Belfast on Thursday.

"I remain committed to ensuring we find that way through to get this right," he said.

"That is about getting it right and that focus, rather than necessarily rushing to artificial deadlines and timescales."

The Northern Ireland Secretary insisted he did not want to delay progress longer than necessary.

Proposed mechanisms were outlined in a previous political settlement - the Stormont House Agreement of 2014 - but they have not been established.

They are stuck in the starting blocks due to a political wrangle linked to the potential non-disclosure of state papers on national security grounds.

The multimillion-pound package includes a new investigations unit, a truth recovery mechanism, an oral history archive and enhanced funding for Troubles-related inquests.

The national security dispute is primarily between the UK Government and Sinn Fein, but Democratic Unionist First Minister Arlene Foster is refusing to sign off on the funding boost for legacy inquests until all the other issues are sorted.

Mr Brokenshire said he wanted to see the process move to a "more public phase" when detailed proposed solutions could be laid out.

He acknowledged that victims and survivors want to see progress.

"I remain committed to seeing that we can achieve that," he said.
The world's most high-profile anti-abortion campaigner is coming to Northern Ireland for the first time to bolster morale among pro-life groups.

Rebecca Kiessling - a child of rape whose mother has Ulster ancestry - has accepted an invitation from Precious Life boss Bernie Smyth to undertake a number of engagements across the province.

The successful lawyer and mother-of-five will participate in a debate with Northern Ireland Human Rights Chief Commissioner Les Allamby at Queen's University and will give presentations in a number of schools.

Mrs Smyth said Ms Kiessling was also awaiting authorisation to hold a speaking event at Stormont during her five-day trip here before she travels on to Scotland.

"She will be in Belfast from November 13 until November 18 and she'll be doing a number of speaking engagements in schools," she added.

"She'll also be participating in a debate with the Chief Human Rights Commissioner at Queen's next Thursday, which we're really looking forward to."

Ms Kiessling's visit coincides with a legal case in which a Northern Irish teenager has taken the NHS to the Supreme Court over the Government's refusal to fund abortions for women from here who travel to England for terminations.

It also comes at a time when Stormont has never been under more pressure to change its current stance on abortion, which is only available in hospitals here if there is a direct threat to the mother's life.

More than 830 women travelled to English hospitals and clinics from here in 2015 to have terminations, all of whom had to raise the money to pay for the procedure themselves.

Ms Kiessling, now 46, grew up blissfully unaware that she was conceived through rape - although she always knew she was not being raised by her biological parents.

The horrific truth only emerged when she turned 18 and tracked down her birth mother Joann, who confirmed that her father was a rapist who was never caught.

Her story has inspired many people, but her unwavering "no abortion under any circumstances" standpoint has made her a highly controversial and divisive figure.

It was her image on billboards outside Belfast's Laganside Court last year when a judge ruled that Northern Ireland's law on abortion did not comply with the European Convention on Human Rights in cases of fatal foetal abnormality or sexual crime.

In an exclusive interview with the Belfast Telegraph earlier this year, Ms Kiessling, an international speaker, defended her uncompromising views on abortion.

"Children like me who are conceived in rape have every bit as much value as everyone else and we deserve to be protected," she said.

"This is a human rights issue. I did not deserve to die for the crimes of my biological father. What kind of civilisation punishes a child for someone else's crime? That's draconian, and unjust."

Ms Kiessling and her businessman husband Robert have five children - Caleb (16), 14-year-old Kyler, Carina (12), Coralie (11) and Contessa (8). Their adopted baby girl Cassie died when she was just over a month old.
AN article about the funeral of a Co Antrim man who died while on holiday in Majorca regrettably contained a number of errors (News, November 8).

The name of the deceased was given as Richard Moore; that should have been Russell Moore. Mr Moore was 61, not, as stated, in his late 50s. His surviving son is named Richard, not Lee, and his brother is Michael, not Richard.

We apologise to Mr Moore's family for these errors, which have since been corrected online.

The Belfast Telegraph has also made a donation to the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust, which assisted Mr Moore's family in having his body returned to Northern Ireland.
A senior civil servant has admitted he cannot remember a scheme producing worse value for money than the renewable heat incentive (RHI).

It aimed to cut the cost of green energy to encourage people away from fossil fuels - but ended up landing ministers with an overspend of hundreds of millions of pounds.

Dr Andrew McCormick is permanent secretary at the Economy Department.

He said: "It has given us more pause for thought than anything I can remember."

A lack of cost controls enabled businesses to claim huge sums of public money for running biomass boilers, with some applicants claiming vast sums for heating empty buildings.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (Deti, now the Department for the Economy) designed the RHI.

Mr McCormick said ever since he was a junior civil servant in the Department of Finance in the 1980s he had been taught to 'ask why' repeatedly, and that had not happened in this case.

He added: "I cannot recall anything that was on the scale in relation to both opportunity costs to public services and...poor value for money."

Millions will have to be set aside annually to cover the cost of the 20-year scheme.

Mr McCormick reassured Public Accounts Committee (PAC) members at Stormont that lots of mechanisms in the Government did work following decades of learning.

Committee member Daniel McCrossan said: "This is an unprecedented scandal beyond belief.

"It has damaged the credibility of this institution."

Overall, more than 1 billion of public money will be paid to Northern Ireland-based businesses by 2036.

The firms installed new appliances under the RHI scheme, which is now closed.

The RHI encouraged the installation of costly eco-friendly heating systems by paying a tariff per kilowatt of heat burned over a 20-year period.

Thousands signed up to the scheme, which started in 2012 and was extended to domestic customers in 2014.

However, unlike in the rest of the UK, in Northern Ireland no cap or payment tier system was placed on the money that could be claimed in proportion to the size of boiler.

In effect, that enabled a business to burn unnecessary heat just to make money.

According to whistleblower claims, a farmer is allegedly in line to receive 1m over the next 20 years for heating an empty shed.

Large factories in Northern Ireland are also allegedly on course to pocket 1.5m over two decades for running incentivised biomass boilers all-year round in premises which previously were not heated.

In July an Audit Office report found "serious systematic failings" in the Stormont-run renewable energy scheme.

The Auditor General said there was insufficient evidence that the department's controls over the spending on the scheme were adequate to prevent or detect abuse.
Three teenagers were caught when flood waters trapped their car on the Livery Road in Stranocum, Co Antrim

Three teenagers have been rescued after a fast flowing river trapped their car in Co Antrim.

Heavy rain had swollen the River Bush in Stranocum.

The woman and two men, aged 19, were driving on the Livery Road but were stopped by the flood. They climbed on to the roof of the vehicle and were saved by the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS).

A Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) spokeswoman said: "We received a call last night (Wednesday 9 November) at 7.04pm to attend an incident involving a car with three teenagers trapped in approximately two ft of water at Livery Road, Stranocum."

Two fire appliances from Ballymoney and one from Coleraine attended the incident and used a nine metre ladder and water rescue equipment to rescue the teenagers.

"The teenagers - two boys and a girl - were praised for their actions. When they realised that their car had become stuck in water they dialled 999 and listened to the advice given. They were able to get on to the roof of the car and remain there until the Fire & Rescue Service arrived.

The teenagers were treated at the scene by the Ambulance Service and the incident was dealt with by 7.45pm.
It's a sight that people here - particularly the road racing fraternity - thought they might never see.

But yesterday Northern Ireland's inaugural air ambulance touched down on Ulster soil on a flying visit ahead of establishing a permanent presence here.

The Air Ambulance Northern Ireland (AANI) charity will base two helicopters here, bringing us into line with other UK regions and the Republic in a move that will help save an expected 18 to 50 lives annually.

It follows a campaign by Dr Janet Acheson, whose partner Dr John Hinds was killed in a motorbike accident in July 2015 after unsuccessfully attempting to secure a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) for the province.

Dr Hinds, one of the so-called 'flying doctors' of Irish road racing for his expertise in high-speed motorcycle trauma medicine, died during a practice session in the Republic. He was a long-term air ambulance lobbyist. The visiting helicopter - which will come into service by March - touched down at Titanic Belfast yesterday.

It will visit Enniskillen and Portstewart over the next two days.

It will provide the main service, while a second aircraft will be kept on stand-by to ensure minimum down time.

Decisions are yet to be made about staffing and a permanent base for the helicopter.

AANI chairman Ian Crowe said it was delighted to "publicly unveil the actual helicopter which will provide Northern Ireland's first HEMS service".

"The support we've received from the public and local businesses has been fantastic, and this visit is an opportunity to say thank you and encourage others to get involved," he said.

"Annual running costs for the service will be 1.8m and we're relying on the generosity of local people to help us raise these funds.

"AANI is continuing to work with our partners in health and social care to establish this lifesaving service, and we expect that the Health Minister will make a further announcement about the commencement of the service by the end of November."

The helicopters and pilots will be supplied by Babcock Mission Critical Services, the leading provider of HEMS in the UK. Operating from more than 20 bases, Babcock responds to hundreds of emergency calls a week. The medical staff and equipment will be provided and funded by the health service.

Health Minister Michelle O'Neill thanked the community for "their continued enthusiasm and support for the HEMS project" and "the trustees who have been working closely with the Ambulance Service and health commissioners to prepare for the implementation of HEMS".

Earlier this year then Chancellor George Osborne provided 4.5m from banking fines to get the service up and running.

Ray Foran, an AANI trustee, added: "AANI is very pleased to have secured two EC135 Airbus Helicopters for use in Northern Ireland.

"These modern twin-engine helicopters were designed specifically with emergency services operations in mind and come fully equipped for HEMS and air ambulance operations. The main helicopter will also be equipped with weather radar to maximise its effectiveness."

Among those who will have the opportunity to inspect the helicopter at close quarters during its visit to Northern Ireland are 100 supporters who have helped raise funds for AANI.
The Irish Central Bank's director of policy and risk, Gerry Cross, has said banks are not doing enough to minimise the potential impact of an IT failure on their businesses, reputations and the wider financial system (stock picture)

Cyber attacks are getting more sophisticated, more targeted and progressively more difficult to detect, top bankers have been warned by the Irish Central Bank.

As Tesco Money this week scrambled to cope with an attack that saw hackers steal funds from 20,000 of its customers accounts, the banks director of Policy & Risk, Gerry Cross issued the warning to financial institutions in the Republic.

He said banks were not doing enough to minimise the potential impact of an IT failure on their business, reputations and the wider financial system.

The risk of consumers being hit due to IT and cybersecurity incidents is a particular concern, he said.

The warning comes ahead of a major conference on cybersecurity, Dublin Info Sec 2016 in the RDS on November 15.

Cyber crimes including data theft and fraud are now considered to be one of the top ten business risks. As the biggest finance houses do more to protect themselves there is evidence that cybercriminals are moving down the business food chain and targeting small and medium sized firms, he said.

Firms have to stop seeing cybersecurity risk as an IT or process problem, and regard it as a people problem and an issue that board members and senior managers must be across, he said. The Tesco is the latest in a series of high profile attacks that have pushed the issue to the top of the global agenda. October saw an unprecedented attacks on digital giants including Twitter, Paypal, Spotify and US tech provider Dyn, which saw hackers unleashed a complex attack through common devices such as webcams and digital recorders in a stunning breach of global internet stability. Recent months also saw the theft of Hillary Clintons emails during her failed presidential bid, and a massive heist in the Bank of Bangladesh.

The Central Bank says it is moving to lift standards, including publishing formal guidance that is now being used to assess firms performance at cyber defence.

Government and banking officials meanwhile will be among those attending next weeks cyber security conference, Dublin Info Sec 2016.

New speakers have been added including Pavel Gladyshev, director, UCDs Digital Forensics Lab. He will be bringing his insights and experience in digital forensics and investigation to Irelands leading cybersecurity event. Other speakers include WikiLeaks journalist Sarah Harrison and cyberpsychologist, Dr. Mary Aiken.

The conference is an Independent News and Media event. Attendees are eligible for up to 8 CPE credits. Tickets for the event can be purchased online at www.independent.ie/infosec2016.
The plane was forced to divert from its planned course.

An Aer Lingus flight to John F. Kennedy (JFK) Airport in New York was forced to return to Shannon Airport after a medical emergency.

Flight EI111 departed Shannon Airport shortly after 12pm on Thursday when the passenger became ill mid-flight.

The passenger is currently being treated by medics and is expected to be transferred to University Hospital Limerick.

Shannon Airport, in a statement said: "Shannon Airport confirmed that an Aer Lingus flight (EI 111) which departed Shannon Airport en route to New York JFK at 12.08hrs today (Thursday 10 November 2016) returned to Shannon with a medical emergency when a passenger became ill.

"The plane landed safely at 14.10 pm. The individual is currently being treated by HSE personnel and is expected subsequently to be taken by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick."

Aer Lingus has been contacted to see if any other flights are expected to be delayed as a result.

More to follow.
The US firm that sought to buy the Project Eagle loan portfolio has claimed that Nama has repeatedly mischaracterised how it withdrew from the sale process.

Pimco has sent what one TD described as a "potentially explosive letter to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that contradicts Nama's version of events.

The committee is probing the controversial sale of Nama's Northern Ireland loan book in light of the Comptroller and Auditor General's finding that the agency incurred a probably loss of 190m (223m) in the 2014 deal.

Nama has rejected this finding.

Pimco's letter was read into the public record by committee chairman Sean Fleming TD this morning.

The firm's chief legal officer in Europe, Tom Rice, wrote: Pimco has been disappointed that Pimco's withdrawal from Project Eagle has been repeatedly mischaracterised by Nama.

Pimco's withdrawal came after it asked Nama if it was aware of an alleged 16m sucess fee that was to be split equally paid to the agency's Nama's former adviser Frank Cushnahan and law firms Brown Rudnick and Tughans.

The letter states that Picmo was approached by Brown Rudnick on two occasions seeking a success fee.

Mr Rice states that the first request made in June 2013 was later refused. The letter states that Pimco contacted Nama after a new fee proposal from the law firm in February 2014.

He writes: "At this point, it appeared to Pimco that disclosures still had not been made by the relevant parties to Nama.

"Accordingly, Pimco decided to contact Nama directly and take it upon itself to disclose full details of the success fee arrangements that had been proposed by Brown Rudnick, including the amount and intended recipients.

"In particular, Pimco sought clarification on Nama's awareness of Mr Cushnahan's role in Project Eagle".

Mr Cushnahan has denied any wrong-doing.

Mr Rice's letter details various contacts with Nama including a communication on March 11, 2014 where Nama advised that its board considered the involvement of Mr Cushnahan to be a very serious issue for Nama.

The letter states that Pimco later informed Nama that it did not want to be part of any process where there was any suggestion of impropriety and was willing to withdraw.

Pimco claims that Nama asked if the firm had considered 'other options' such as proceeding without the three parties.

The letter continues On March 12, Pimco advised Nama that it had no option but to withdraw from Project Eagle and it claims: Nama expressed disappointment but accepted the decision.

A different firm subsequently bought the loan portfolio.

The contents of the letter directly contradicts evidence given to the PAC by Nama chairman Frank Daly.

He previously told TDs that Nama was responsible for Pimco leaving once the issue of the fee came to light saying: they withdrew because they knew we would not let them continue.

Fianna Fail TD Marc McSharry this morniing called the Pimco letter potentially explosive while chairman Mr Fleming said the committee will seek a detailed response to the letter from Nama.

A Nama spokesman said: "Nama has made its position clear to the PAC on the withdrawal of Pimco from the process.

"The NAMA Board was very clear that, if Pimco did not withdraw, then NAMA would exit them.

"Nama rejects any suggestion that it did not set out the circumstances of Pimcos withdrawal accurately."
The Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre helps women and girls learn to appreciate themselves again through lessons in behavior control, life skills, and healthy comparison based evaluation for all. Families are rebuilt through family mediation, where parents learn to use our principles to control their children while becoming happier people. Teachers are able to make their classrooms into safe spaces that quickly begin to change the chemistry of the student population. In addition to our NYC, Global and regional work, we stay connected to Upstate New York, in the underserved communities of Sean McLeods youth and supply Auburn, NY and Cayuga County with a Black-run arts organization, an entity the city desperately needs along with positive role models for minority and underserved youth in the community.
The Russian missile cruiser Varyag, with the Russian navy destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov in the rear, on patrol in the Mediterranean. (AP)

Russian warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea have driven away a Dutch submarine shadowing the squadron, the military said.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said two Russian navy destroyers spotted the Walrus-class submarine on Wednesday while it was 11 nautical miles away from the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier and its escorting ships.

The destroyers had tracked the submarine for more than an hour, using anti-submarine helicopters, before forcing it to leave the area, he said.

The spokesman added that such "clumsy" attempts to manoeuvre close to the Russian squadron could have resulted in an accident.

Major General Konashenkov said the Russian squadron had previously spotted several Nato submarines, including a US Virginia-class nuclear submarine, while en route to eastern Mediterranean waters.

A Nato official said the alliance's navies have been monitoring the Russian fleet in recent weeks in a "measured and responsible way, as is customary". He refused to elaborate on how Nato was doing that.

The Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier is being accompanied by the nuclear-powered Peter the Great missile cruiser and several other ships on a mission to Syria's shores, the Russian navy's largest deployment since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Nato has expressed concern, saying the move could presage an increase in the number of Russian air raids in Syria, particularly around the besieged city of Aleppo.

AP
A Syrian Kurdish-led force fighting the Islamic State group are on the verge of surrounding a wide area north of the IS stronghold of Raqqa, according to a spokeswoman for the group.

Cihan Ehmed of the US-backed Syria Democratic Forces said its fighters are advancing on two fronts north of Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS' self-declared caliphate.

The push from Ein Issa and Suluk north of Raqqa has been ongoing for days under the cover of air strikes by the US-led coalition.

The US-backed SDF, which includes Kurdish, Arab, Syriac and Turkmen fighters, say they have committed 30,000 fighters to the offensive aiming to eventually recapture the city of Raqqa, which was announced on Sunday. Meanwhile, Iraq is waging a major offensive to drive IS from the northern city of Mosul.

Ms Ehmed said once the forces coming from the two directions meet north of Raqqa, they will surround 212 square miles of territory controlled by the extremists.

"The operations are ongoing according to the plan," she said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said many people are fleeing areas of fighting north of Raqqa. It added that SDF fighters have advanced north of Raqqa, capturing new areas and raising to 17 the number of villages and farms taken from IS since the offensive began.

Later on Thursday, the SDF said on social media that its fighters have captured three farms, a village, and have approached the village of Hayes where intense clashes are ongoing.

The operation to recapture Raqqa has been dubbed "Euphrates Rage" and a joint operations command has been set up to co-ordinate various factions taking part in the battles.

Elsewhere in Syria, seven people were wounded, some critically, when rebels shelled two government-held neighbourhoods in the northern city of Aleppo, state news agency SANA said.

In the capital Damascus, a rocket fired by rebels struck a school in the central al-Mohajireen neighbourhood wounding three children, state media said.

AP
Donald Trump has certainly confounded the pollsters. This side of the Atlantic, they got it badly wrong over Brexit, and on the far side of the Atlantic, they got it badly wrong over the US presidential election.

Of course, that is not the only connection between Donald Trump and Brexit.

Back in April, when the current US President, Barack Obama, was in London with David Cameron, he told us that, if the United Kingdom left the European Union and it came to negotiating a trade deal between the UK and the USA, the UK is going to be in the back of the queue.

His words were carefully scripted and it was all stage-managed as part of Camerons Project Fear.

However, when journalists asked Donald Trump and his trade advisor, Dan DiMicco, about negotiating a trade deal between the UK and the USA, they were much more positive.

DiMicco was asked if they would do a deal with the UK ahead of the EU and he said, absolutely.

It is also worth noting that, after the EU referendum, US spokesmen from the Democratic Party were quick to play down the Obama threat. There was no more talk about back of the queue.

Nevertheless, the election of Donald Trump may help address one of the concerns that is raised by Remainers as we prepare to leave the European Union.

Another concern that is often raised by the Remainers is about the land border between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic.

Some readers will be old enough to remember the old days, when there was a very visible border with border posts at the side of the road (at least there were border posts, when the IRA wasnt burning them down or blowing them up).

South of the border, Enda Kenny and his Fine Gael Government have got very worked up about it all and, as a result, they convened a forum, variously described as an all-Ireland forum, an all-island forum and a civic society conference.

The first meeting was held in Dublin on November 2 and the invitation list included politicians, businessmen, trade unions and NGOs.

It was hosted by Enda Kenny and Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan, and Im sure they all felt better after they shared their concerns.

There were no representatives from the DUP, or indeed any unionist party in Northern Ireland, because they realise that there is no need for another forum.

There are already formal structures in place to facilitate cross-border co-operation and, with the advent of the telephone, the internet and the motorway, it is fairly easy for politicians from Northern Ireland to talk informally to their counterparts south of the border when the need arises.

Nevertheless, it is clear that, in the Irish Republic, there is concern about the future, post-Brexit.

So, perhaps, it is time for our neighbours in the Irish Republic to think the unthinkable.

If they are concerned about what will happen with the United Kingdom outside the EU and the Irish Republic still locked inside the EU, then why not leave the EU as well?

There are those who will ridicule the proposal and say that people and politicians in the Irish Republic would never contemplate that, but it is worth remembering that change is possible. While Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalist Party are now Remainers, back in 1975 all three parties were opposed to membership of the European Community.

Not only would it deal with Dublins concerns about the border, it would also facilitate trade between the Irish Republic and its nearest and biggest market  the United Kingdom.

The Irish Republic would benefit and so would the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland. So, as a good neighbour, could I encourage the Irish Republic to be radical and for people and politicians by considering the benefits of breaking free from the shackles of Brussels?

Indeed, Enda Kenny might consider putting put that on the agenda for his next forum meeting.
DEAR BRUCE: Due to a U.S. government data breach, a Los Angeles company sent me a $6,000 bill for "services." I refused to pay and informed the company. They sent the $6,000 to collection and it appeared on my Experian credit report. I reported it to the police, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and other state and federal agencies.

Experian sent me a letter stating the collection action was deleted from my credit report. I am not sure what "deleted" means. Is my credit still damaged? Please explain it to me. -- P.F.

DEAR P.F.: Congratulations! A win to the good guys. Unfortunately, there is no way I can tell you which one of your inquires got Experian to take care of the collection letter. In turn, there is no damage to your credit history.

I really would like to say congratulations again. It isn't often you can say the good guys won one.

DEAR BRUCE: My wife is set to retire at the end of the year. She has several retirement investments in different accounts. She is also over the age of 69 1/2.

Is it beneficial for her to work one week into 2017 rather than retire at the end of 2016? Would this allow us more time to set up required distributions? Immediate money is not an issue.  D.C.

DEAR D.C.: I don't think it's going to make a big difference except you may have a few weeks more to make a decision. Frankly, I don't see what that's going to do for you. Make the decision if she wants to retire now and let her go about it, or if she wants to hang out another couple of months, that's fine, too.

DEAR BRUCE: I recently left my job and received a large severance payment of $140,000. I was without another job for only one month and started a new job with an annual salary of $250,000. I am trying to avoid the IRS hit on all the income this year. Do you have any suggestions for what I can do to lower the amount of income tax I will have to pay? -- D.M.

DEAR D.M.: All I can tell you is that many people would love to have your problem  $140,000 in the bag and a $250,000 salary. I don't know any way to avoid income tax on this money. If another reader has an idea, I would love to know, but I am afraid it's a problem that will not make many people feel sorry for you. I do wish you well.

DEAR BRUCE: Discover is pushing more work on cardholders when it comes to resolving disputes.

I don't have an issue with talking to a company about a dispute, but when that fails, I notify Discover so they can work on it. In the past year, Discover did nothing and let disputes sit on my account. I later resolved some of them myself, at my personal time and expense.

Based on my reading of federal guidelines, Discover is obligated to help in order to reduce fees, facilitate business and prevent bad transactions. Discover has staff and people who get paid to do this, so why are they making me do their work? -- Reader

DEAR READER: As in so many situations, the responsibility is the work of the other guy. I can't tell you what Discover is supposed to do, but I am certain that there are lots of people who would agree with you that it isn't doing enough, and as a consequence, it costs you time and money. The only thing you can do is find another credit card company to deal with, work it out with Discover or suck it up!

DEAR BRUCE: I have a commercial property rented out and income taxed. It has a small piece of vacant land, which I want to sell to a third party. Are the proceeds of that land sale taxable?  J.M.

DEAR J.M.: Without knowing the history of the property, its acquisition cost and expenses, I can't accurately tell you the answer to your question. But the likelihood is that the proceeds of the land will be at least partially taxable.
In response to Shelley Leggett of the Humanist Association of Northern Ireland (Write Back, October 31), I feel it necessary to clear up some misconceptions that seem to have been omitted from her argument.

Ms Leggett argues rhetorically that shop owners should be required to put "No gays" signs in their windows, like London landlords once put the signs "No blacks" and "No Asians" in theirs.

This argument misses a fundamental point.

The plaintiff in question was already a valued customer of Ashers. At no point was the customer refused service based on their sexual orientation, right up until they asked for a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan.

What this objectively tells us is that Ashers did not base the decision on who the customer was. If that had been the case, they would have denied service long before this event.

Secondly, to clear up the issue of love and compassion. Christians are told to deal with people in gentleness and with respect (1 Peter 3:15) - an instruction that, sadly, many Christians struggle with at times.

The Christian community is one that is marked by tolerance. One need only look at the Christian response to the constant mockery and misrepresentation in our culture and compare that to Islam's response to mockery and misrepresentation to see the graciousness of the Christian worldview towards those who oppose it.

However, what the Christian is not called to be tolerant, loving, or compassionate towards is idolatry.

The Bible strictly tells them not to engage in it, and that God is to be the focus of their ultimate adoration and worship (Exodus 20:3-4).

Love is not God to the Christian, God is love.

ROB IRVIN

Belfast

Churches' historic step deserved recognition

I was disappointed by the poor media coverage in Ireland, north and south, of the joint declaration by Pope Francis and the Lutheran World Federation, marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

I had the same reaction to the lack of coverage of the initial declaration on justification in October 1991 in Augsburg, Germany.

Here was the wedge issue of the Reformation laid to rest with faith-filled words and Christian hope and love.

The declaration said the teaching of the Lutheran Church in the joint declaration does not come under the condemnations of the Council of Trent (1545-63) and that Catholic teaching on justification does not fall under the condemnations of the Lutheran Confessions (1580). It was a stunning development and surely the work of the Holy Spirit.

Surely in Ireland, of all places, there should be an outpouring of support for both Churches exorcising the demons of old religious bigotry, intolerance and disrespect? While there are still issues to be resolved, the shared understanding is to be celebrated by Christians all over the world - especially in Northern Ireland.

FR SEAN McMANUS

President, Irish National Caucus

Washington, DC, USA

Brexit has echoes in fate of Soviet Union

Much has been made by opponents of Brexit on the lack of a "plan". There was - and is - a plan. It's the same one which led to the fall of the previous European bureaucratic dictatorship: the Soviet Union.

The plan is to stop taking orders from - and giving money to - an unelected commissariat; to ignore their interfering laws and pathological micromanagement, then just go to work as usual.

For those whose businesses require European subsidies, please remember these come from the pockets of other working men and women. Should such funding cease, any resulting hardship will be either a sign of inefficiency, or that the product is not what people want.

It might soon be time to put away the begging-bowl and join the rest of us.

RICHARD SPENCER

By email

Ireland owes victory to giants of recent past

In their tributes to Ireland's heroics at Soldier Field, Chicago, many have rightly recalled the Herculean efforts of greats like Ronan O'Gara, Paul O'Connell and Brian O'Driscoll, who never actually got to taste victory over the hitherto "invincible" All Blacks.

All who played a part deserve credit, from Joe Schmidt to the water boys. It was an immense moment in Irish sport. But this great achievement was fashioned over a number of years.

Remember Isaac Newton's words: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

M O'BRIEN

By email

Rugby success shows what it means to unite

I do not belong to any political party, or grouping, but the comprehensive victory over world champions New Zealand shows what the Irish can achieve as a united country, with politics and religion left to one side.

AIDAN HAMPSON

By email

Abortion discussion needs to show balance

Nelson McCausland (Comment, October 27) rightly pointed out the troubling nature of a seminar event, which is due to be held at the Northern Ireland Assembly on November 16.

The panellists invited to speak at the Knowledge Exchange Seminar Series (KESS) at the Assembly on "Abortion Policy and Law: Key Considerations" all come from the position that abortion law in Northern Ireland should be changed.

The Northern Ireland Assembly communications office has acknowledged that no one participating in this event comes from a pro-life perspective.

In hosting this event, the Assembly must accept responsibility that this event will only be offering a pro-choice discussion around abortion laws here and should insist it is billed as such.

Failing that, it is not too late for the Assembly to postpone the seminar to ensure that a balanced panel is heard.

The academics participating in the seminar are free to hold the views they do and to articulate them.

However, it is incumbent on the Assembly, as the representative body for the people of Northern Ireland, to ensure that a balance of opinions is heard on what is a deeply sensitive issue.

MARK BAILLIE

CARE in Northern Ireland
The burgundy rayah, the banner of our family, bears the emblem of a slender lunar crescent in gold between whose cusps are clasped the Arabic name of God. Around this assertion of The Faith weave silver and gold strands into an interlocking arabesque, which allegedly witnesses our clan's unbroken bloodlines. Hereby, divinity, religion and genealogy are forged into a statement of identity.

While these days I joke our first patriarch was about as likely to be Cu Chulainn as its pretence of being Abraham, there is an uglier side to all this tribalism in the quiet pride that our family tree remains uncontaminated by black African or, worse still, Jew blood.

This is something I've always found incongruous, given that Islam's prophet affirmed in the Hujjat al-wadaa, "Verily, there is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, nor of a non-Arab over an Arab, nor of a red (fair-skinned) over a black, nor a black over a red, except by piety".

Thus, to my ever-so-slightly finger-pointing Catholic or Jewish friends who might buy the liberal narrative that ethno-religious racism is a thing pre-eminently of white Protestant males, let this confession assure you of the rottenness encoded into my spiritual genetics, and yours too.

The horror of events on our TV screens attests to how the manufacture of religion is the pure idolatry of human power trying to subvert the sovereignty of God over all His children.

Out of stone and blood we have sculpted false godlings such as 'Islamic State', as though God isn't already ruler of everything, and 'established church' when Christ was anything but a functionary of the Crown.

The men of religion usurp God by dividing us, and "my tribe versus your tribe" expresses itself in the internet contagion of European anti-Semitism, which has found a host in the Muslim East, translated out from German or Russian and combining there with native Judaeophobia. And heartbreakingly, the heinous persecution of Christian minorities in the Middle East now forebodes the extinction of Christianity in its very birthplace, despite the inestimably brave efforts of charities like the Barnabas Fund.

Islamic Scripture itself warns, "For were it not for God's checking of people, one by another, there surely would have been demolished monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, in which the name of God is commemorated abundantly".

And yet, shameless in our guilt, I and my British and Irish Muslim brothers pay to build mosques here without having the decency first to donate our money to rebuild destroyed churches and shattered lives over there.

This is what happens when a nation like Britain or Ireland gives up on values of reciprocal pluralism - the idea that we're all in it together as citizens and have a moral imperative to stand up for the religious freedom of everyone. Instead, the white liberal media subjects Muslims like me to the racism of low expectations that says such a civic demand is too much to ask of a backward people, and rather singularises me as either entirely victim or wholly perpetrator, when the complex truth is that I and my people are both.

Like others from minorities, I grew up with Irish nationalist childhood pals and, later on, musician friends, whom I honour as family and who love me in Gaelic song and fiddle reels and wrap me in the green flag. And I have learned to uphold Irish family in apposition to the remote shadowiness of those austere Ulstermen who surely would have no time for a black lad. And then I met Pastor James McConnell.

Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle in Belfast was built brick by brick by the pastors and congregation, and the service has more in common with African Pentecostalism than vaporous Anglican smells-and-bells.

Whitewell's sister churches, schools and healthcare missions in Kenya and Ethiopia feed Muslim and Christian children alike. Astonishingly, my friend David, one of the congregants, offered the greeting, "Dia duit", and engaged my love of Irish musicianship and language.

I met Pastor McConnell last December, when the State decided to prosecute one of its citizen for preaching theological criticisms of my religion and the dangers of importing extremism into Ireland. While there are multiple doctrinal matters on which Pastor McConnell and I, as Christian and Muslim clergymen, naturally disagree, our threefold friendship was forged together with our Catholic priest chum, Fr Paddy McCafferty, in shared determination that Ulster says no to judicial interference in spiritual matters of a man's heart.

It is long overdue for minorities and others to honour the Protestant heritage in Ireland, and the patrimony of freedom of speech and conscience it has given civilisation, at a time when it sometimes feels everyone's culture has a right to be respected except the local one.

Understanding and respect for Ulster Evangelicalism, as well as listening to its anxieties about migration and extremism, are critical if we are to avoid the recent violence elsewhere in Europe happening here in Ireland.

Moreover, that Islamism and indigenous backlash might become confounded with the history of The Troubles doesn't bear thinking about.

The pursuit of fairness and justice in any society needs to be sought through dialogue and relationship between minorities and the established majority. Where in place of conversation and reciprocity there is merely wrangling about equality between parties out of communication, this leads to a perceived sense by one or more parties of one-sided demands, double standards" and feelings of being beleaguered and put upon.

The Ashers case illustrates how one community's seeking parity of esteem conflicts with another's freedom of conscience, with prominent gay rights campaigners themselves holding opposing positions on "cakegate".

Likewise, how can Stormont, Dublin or Westminster possibly allow to fester popular bitterness at the plain non-reciprocity of mosques being built at home while there is such feebleness by the state in responding to churches being burned overseas?

There are some remarkable examples such as the Northern Ireland Muslim Family Association in South Belfast, of Shi'a and Sunni Muslims worshipping together in ways that marvellously counter the bloody sectarianism of our times. To these we can add the numerous indigenous cross-communal initiatives across the North and South, which form the seeds of conciliation and which show that peace in this land is hardly a unionist versus nationalist issue, nor does it require for one moment conceding the unique truth-claims of the Evangelical or the Catholic faith. It is simply a case of cherishing all of the children of the nation equally.

Where superpowers have failed spectacularly to resolve the phenomenon of Islamist extremism and domestic integration in the West, it is of course inconceivable that a little island off the north-west of Europe might in its gentle, inimitable way write a different story of reciprocal pluralism for itself. But in our daring to imagine it could, wouldn't that just be a thing?
Use these novel gadgets to help shape your literary masterpiece during National Novel Writing Month. By Keeley Bolger.

Moleskine Smart Set, 199.95, www.moleskine.com

With their soft covers and smooth creamy paper, Moleskine notebooks are loved by writers for good reason and now the brand have added a digital offering to sway tech-savvy pen-smiths. The Smart Set has all the hallmarks of a Moleskine - the stylish design and soft pages, but with a twist; by hooking up to the app and writing with the USB-charged pen with a secret camera in it on the enhanced paper, your musings will be simultaneously uploaded to the online platform. You can convert your handwriting into different fonts and colours and edit online via the app, as well as emailing your work, converting it into PDFs and choosing different front cover designs for your online Moleskine book. And if you're not in the mood to scribble down your thoughts, you can record audio via the pen and link up the files to your online pages. For a tech product, the pen is surprisingly slimline and the ink flows beautifully, even if your ideas don't.

Livescribe Pro Edition 3 Smartpen, 149.97 from169, Currys, www.currys.co.uk

Plotting and planning is made easier with this Livescribe Smartpen. Scribble away on the accompanying pad and watch as your words or doodles are synchronised to the app. Editing functions mean you can chop and change the copy, which is especially useful if youre sharing notes with other people. As with the Moleskine Smart Set, there is a record function which means you can capture conversations, add a note to the pad and the technology will link two online. As with all gadgets of this type, sometimes words will get lost in translation, so it makes sense to cross-check the transcript on the app.

Olympus VN-731 2GB PC Dictaphone, 29.99, Argos, www.argos.co.uk

If you're planning on writing your family history, invest in a Dictaphone so you can concentrate on keeping the conversation going instead of scrabbling to record it. Generally Dictaphones pick up sound better than phone-based recording apps and crucially, they don't clog up your storage. This Olympus model doesn't have all the bells and whistles of some pricier alternatives, but it does the basics well. All you have to do is press record and let the memories flow on to your device, before uploading your files using the USB cable.

Kindle Paperwhite, 109.99, www.amazon.co.uk

If you're suffering from writer's block and searching for some literary inspiration, this Kindle Paperwhite could help get your juices flowing again. Lighter than a paperback, it can store thousands of books and displays them in a new Bookerly font, which is easier to read. There's also an inbuilt light to aid bedtime reading and a word-builder function where you can add interesting vocabulary to use in your own pieces. And of course, once you've finished your own work, you can self-publish on the platform.

Seagate USB 3.0 1TB Backup Plus Portable Hard Drive, 54.95, www.amazon.co.uk

Cloud storage is useful for keeping your documents in one place online but for complete cover for your manuscript, an external hard drive ensures your work is backed up externally too. This one by Seagate - suitable for both Macs and PCs - attaches itself to your computer via USB and gives 1TB of storage for documents, films and photos. Thanks to the connections, it does the job of transferring content to the drive quickly too.

HD monitor for laptops, 149.99, www.packedpixels.com

Hunkering down in a coffee shop to start work on your bestseller is a romantic vision, but one that in practical terms can be difficult if you have a clunky laptop in tow. At home though, you can really spread out using this extra monitor which clips into one side of your machine with the accompanying mount and is secured with a strap. The idea is that having a separate screen makes productivity and cross-referencing easier, and for aspiring writers, means flicking between your writing plan, character bios and copy, seamless.
A Waterloo woman is facing multiple charges following an incident in which she allegedly attacked the father of her children.

Brandy Alicea, 29, of Waterloo, has been charged with second-degree assault, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, second-degree harassment and endangering the welfare of a child.

The New York State Police arrested Alicea after she allegedly used a knife to slash at the father of her children during an argument. The victim sustained a cut to his thumb. Alicea also punched him in the face, police said.

During the incident, the man was holding a child. The child wasn't injured, authorities said.

Alicea was arraigned in Waterloo Town Court and remanded to the Seneca County Jail in lieu of $5,000 bail.
AUBURN  A U.S. Army veteran was sentenced in Cayuga County criminal court Thursday for assaulting a police officer last year.

At the time of Ackerley's plea, Cayuga County Assistant District Attorney Chris Valdina said the Auburn Police Department received a call from Ackerley's mother on Nov. 17, 2015, saying her son had threatened to harm himself in the woods behind Cayuga Community College.

"His mother said he could have a knife on him," Valdina said, adding that Ackerley had also been intoxicated. "The police set up a perimeter and (Ackerley) came out and immediately attacked an officer."

Ackerley, however, told a different story, saying he went into the parking lot behind the college to talk to police when an officer reached for him. He then resisted arrest and the officer suffered a concussion from the scuffle.

At sentencing Thursday, Ackerley's attorney, David Elkovitch, said that the defendant was "difficult to get along with" when the case began last year, but said Ackerley has come a long way with treatment for alcoholism and mental health issues.

"I regret everything that happened that night," Ackerley told Judge Thomas Leone. "I never wanted to hurt anyone ... and I wish I could take back everything that happened."

Leone sentenced him to a total of five years probation, noting that he took into account Ackerley's service to the country, limited criminal history and compliance with seeking treatment.

Also in court:

 A former inmate at Cayuga Correctional Facility admitted assaulting another inmate in exchange for an additional three years in prison.

Uvaldo Gonzalez pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of second-degree assault and a reduced charge of first-degree attempted possession of prison contraband. The 41-year-old said he injured another inmate in February when he tied a padlock in a sock and swung it at the man's head.

"We had a fight," Gonzalez said. "He didn't reach his weapon in time and I hit him with the lock."

A second felony offender, Gonzalez could face a maximum of seven years in prison. However, Leone will likely sentence him on Jan. 12 to three years for the assault.
An Indian man displays 2,000 rupee notes after exchanging old demonetized bills for the new money at a Kolkata bank, Nov. 10, 2016.

Banks across India on Thursday witnessed serpentine lines of angry and anxious customers two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government was scrapping high denomination banknotes to combat corruption, black money and terror financing.

Describing it as a historical move, Modi said Tuesday that his government was withdrawing 500 rupee (U.S. $7.46) and 1,000 rupee ($14.91) notes in circulation and replacing them with fresh 500 rupee and 2,000 rupee ($29.83) notes to curb financing of terrorism through counterfeit money.

Modis surprise address to the nation, telecast live, created a commotion across the country as Indians thronged ATMs to withdraw smaller denomination notes. Although the government has given people until Dec. 30 to exchange the demonetized banknotes, unending lines of customers were seen outside banks when they reopened Thursday following a holiday on Wednesday to allow banks to remove the old bills from circulation.

The government should have given adequate time to make the transition so that the common man does not suffer. See the crowd here. I have to get to the office and I have no money at all, S.V. Venkat told BenarNews while standing in a line outside a bank in New Delhi.

Others lauded the move.

It is a masterstroke by the Modi government to eliminate black money. Those who have millions stored in unaccounted cash need to worry, not those who are clean, New Delhi resident Gaurav Kumar said.

Announcing the scrapping of 1,000 rupee and 500 rupee notes, which account for more than 80 percent of the value of cash in circulation in India, Modi said government hospitals, railway and airline counters, state-owned gas stations, consumer cooperative stores and government-authorized milk booths would still accept the demonetized currency on humanitarian grounds.

Experts skeptical

And while many praised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government for taking the bold step, financial experts were skeptical about the projected aims of the fresh legal tender.

This policy is a complete non-starter. Those involved in malpractices in trade-invoicing or real estate will only start a fresh cycle of black money with the new notes that will be issued, Praveen Jha, a professor at the New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru Universitys Center for Economic Studies and Planning, told BenarNews.

Besides, the available surplus cash could easily be converted into gold from any legally sanctioned trader. Also, the replacement of 1,000 rupee notes with a still higher 2,000 rupee notes in rather contradictory to very purpose of the move. What will stop people from accumulating black money in the fresh 2,000 rupee notes? Jha said.

G.K. Arora, a financial analyst, said that the governments move had both micro and macro effects.

One can see a small impact on prices of essential items which may drop further but it comes at mass-scale inconvenience. It is a major set-back for people from remote villages. Theyve collected their money for so many years and now suddenly theyre being told that that money is no good, Arora told BenarNews.

A large chunk of black money is deposited in banks outside the country. That still needs to be tackled, Arora said.

As part of its election manifesto to rid the country of black money, the Indian government formed a special investigation team to investigate cases of money laundering, soon after coming to power in May 2014.

The Modi government has brought back nearly $20 billion stashed in foreign bank accounts in the last two years, according to the latest figures available.

Regional effect

The effects of the move could be witnessed in neighboring Bangladesh as well as many Bangladeshis holding the demonetized Indian currency were turned away by local money changers.

Hundreds of people began gathering at money changers in Bangladesh soon after the announcement on Tuesday. They want to exchange 500 and 1,000 rupee notes but we cant do much since those notes are now banned in India, Mostafa Khan, president of the Money Changer Association of Bangladesh, told BenarNews.

However, authorities in Bangladesh said they were in constant touch with India to come up with solutions to exchange the demonetized notes that are preserved in Bangladeshi banks.

Even as trade in India came to standstill after the announcement of the withdrawal of the notes, traders welcomed the move.

There has been absolutely no business for the last two days. Despite that, we support the move because the long-term effects would be good for the country, Susheel Goyal of the Chemical Merchants Association told BenarNews.

Others agreed.

It will have economy-wide positive advantages in tackling the scourge of corruption that has taken hold in the country over the last several decades. Such an initiative was recommended by CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), CII president Naushad Forbes said in a statement.

Kshitij Nagar in New Delhi and Shahriar Sharif in Dhaka contributed to this report.
Indonesian National Police Chief Karnavian and Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi address reporters after the closing of the 85th Interpol General Assembly in Nusa Dua, Bali, Nov. 10, 2016.

Security officials from 164 countries agreed at a meeting in Indonesia to boost efforts to gather and share biometric data to help catch foreign terrorist fighters who cross borders using false names and travel documents.

The resolution was adopted at the 85th General Assembly of the international police organization Interpol that closed Thursday after a four-day meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali.

It urged countries to consider the systematic collection and recording of DNA and fingerprints of suspects or convicted individuals following counter-terrorism actions.

The recommendation covered individuals who travel to conflict zones to support or join terrorist groups; people recently deported or incarcerated for terrorism-related offenses; and returnees from conflict zones assessed as posing a high risk of cross-border mobility and reoffending, the resolution said.

According to Interpol, some 15,000 foreign terrorist fighters in the Middle East could pose a threat back home through joining radical groups or carrying out terror acts after returning from abroad.

Interpol has files on some 9,000 of these individuals but fewer than 900 of them contain biometric data or high resolution images that could be used for facial recognition, an Interpol statement said.

The proliferation of aliases, the complexity of fake travel documents, deception tactics falsely declaring individuals have died in the conflict zones, and even basic issues linked to transliteration present mounting challenges to law enforcement in the field, the statement said, referring to different spelling of names in different languages.

Although information shared via Interpol has enabled national law enforcement agencies to prevent numerous terrorists and aspiring foreign terrorist fighters from traveling, the lack of biometric data remains a weak link, Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock said.

Interpol member-countries are not exchanging much biometric data on terrorists, he added.

Governments should take a closer look at the reasons why they cannot or will not share biometric data on terrorists when it is clear that doing so greatly increases the chances of foiling potentially lethal attacks committed by returning fighters, he said.

He pointed to a case where biometric data helped identify a detainee in Mali as a suspect wanted in Algeria. His fingerprints were also found at the scene of an attack claimed by al-Qaeda on the Grand Bassam resort in Ivory Coast in March that killed 16.

A lack of technology

Interpol already has a tool to counter cross-border movement of foreign terrorist fighters: its Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database, which enables immigration and law enforcement agencies to ensure the validity of travel documents within seconds.

The database has more than 68 million entries from 174 member countries. From January to September, it was searched more than 1.2 million times, yielding 115,000 positive matches.

But some Interpol member countries lack the technology to create their own databases or share such information with others.

There has been strengthening cooperation in the field of operational capabilities to fight terrorism. But for the exchange of biometric data, not all countries have the infrastructure readiness, Johanes Agus Mulyono, executive director of ASEANPOL, told BenarNews. ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Sutep Dechrugsa, head of the Thai delegation to the Interpol assembly, claimed that his country was not facing as great a threat from cross-border terrorism as other ASEAN nations including the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.

We are not afraid of terrorism. We are not afraid, he told BenarNews. Thailand already collects DNA samples of suspected insurgents in its Deep South region, where an insurgency has raged for more than a decade, claiming some 6,700 lives since 2004.

No borders

In a closing speech to the Interpol assembly, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi underlined the importance of global cooperation in fighting terrorism.

Terrorism has no religion. They are not friends of any religion. In a situation that has no borders, no single country can deal with this common enemy alone, she told some 830 participants from 164 countries.

Officials in both Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia for many months have warned of a threat of the extremist group Islamic State (IS) recruiting young citizens to its ranks via social media, and of IS veterans carrying out terror plots on home soil after returning from the Middle East.

Therefore, there is no question, we need stronger cooperation. Our partnership must go beyond traditional boundaries more concretely and strategically to counter this threat.
Malaysia and the Philippines agreed Thursday to increase cooperation against kidnappings by Abu Sayyaf militants and other security threats along their shared maritime borders, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said after holding talks here with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Najib, who hosted the new Philippine president during his first official trip to Malaysia, said Duterte had granted permission for Malaysian ships to enter his countrys waters during hot pursuits of kidnappers.

I am pleased to announce the signing of an exchange of notes between our governments on establishing a framework for cooperation in tackling the issue of kidnap for ransom and other security issues along our sea borders, Najib said in statement released Thursday.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr confirmed that the two countries agreed to establish stricter security cooperation on sea borders, among other issues of mutual concern, the Philippine Star reported.

The prime minister was just as concerned as we are. There is much to be done in terms of cooperation, Yasay told the Star, referring to the prospect of hot-pursuit operations by either nations military or police forces.

The seas that separate the southern Philippines from the close-by Malaysian state of Sabah have been plagued this year with kidnappings of Malaysian and Indonesian sailors off ships sailing in those waters.

Ten Malaysians have been kidnapped to date in 2016, and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) is holding six of them hostage as it reportedly demands ransom money for their release. Over the weekend, two Indonesian sailors were abducted by gunmen in waters off Sabah.

For months officials from Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have talked about mounting joint patrols aimed at safeguarding the Sulu and Celebes seas from piracy and kidnappings, but have yet to implement the plan.

If were chasing the bad guys, for example, and we reach the international maritime boundaries with the Philippines, if we were to stop, the bad guys will get away, Najib told a news conference in Putrajaya after his meeting with Duterte, who was on a two-day visit to Malaysia.

So we must continue pursuing them and if possible, interdict them ... but the moment we reach the international maritime boundaries with the Philippines, we have to inform the Philippine Navy, they will be informed that we are entering Philippines waters and they will also try to be assisting us, Najib added.

Hot pursuits could begin as soon as defense ministers establish standard operating procedures (SOP), Najib said Thursday, according to state news agency Bernama. Indonesias defense minister will join his Malaysian and Philippine counterparts in Laos on Nov. 22 to discuss the SOP and legal aspects involved in such pursuits involving all three countries, Bernama reported.

This new development is a practical way to helping each other because we really need to stamp out the kidnappings affecting the security and welfare, not only for Sabahans but also foreigners who are visiting us, Najib said.

Azmi Hassan, an analyst at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), said the agreement that both sides struck on Thursday reflected Dutertes resolve in putting an end to kidnappings carried out by Abu Sayyaf.

This means Philippine waters will be penetrated by Malaysian and Indonesia militaries. Thats why this development shows the seriousness of President Duterte, Azmi told BenarNews.

Malaysia as peace monitor

During their meeting Najib and Duterte also agreed that Malaysia would no longer serve as a facilitator in peace talks between the Philippine government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels, but would continue to monitor efforts in the southern Philippines, Najib said.

In August, weeks after Duterte took office, Malaysia facilitated talks in Kuala Lumpur on implementing a stalled southern Philippine peace deal between Manila and MILF. At the meeting Philippine government representatives and a MILF delegation began negotiating a new version of a law associated with the deal, which was signed in 2014.

It has been held up because the Philippine Senate did not take up the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), whose passage was needed to implement the deal, before former President Benigno Aquino III left office.

The peace process will move forward and we will continue with our monitoring team there. They do not require a facilitator since there are no more negotiations, Najib said. It is more due process and it is more internal domestic matter.
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First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain.





Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.





And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.





If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.

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In June 2015, Gauteng health MEC, Qedani Mahlangu, announced that the department would terminate its contract with private hospital group, Life Healthcare.

The private healthcare provider had housed almost 2,000 long-term, state-funded psychiatric patients at its Life Esidimeni facilities in Johannesburg.

Patients would either be sent home or transferred into the care of communitybased nongovernmental organisations, said Mahlangu. At least 36 patients have died following the move.

Source: M&G/Felix Dlangamandla

Last week, dozens of activists from organisations such as the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and public-interest law organisation Section27 joined affected families in a protest outside the Gauteng health department and handed over a list of demands.

This week, Mahlangu discussed the department's response to the deaths and why the matter may prompt court cases on both sides.

Can you explain the rationale behind the move?

We've been through that. I should start by saying we have met with a lot of people and the majority of them were at the march.

When people take things to the street as if there is no engagement with the department, it worries me as to what exactly is the intention of this.

A number of patients  because their psych conditions could not be managed at NGOs (nongovernmental organisations), those [patients] were sent to Sterkfontein [psychiatric hospital], to Weskoppies [psychiatric hospital] and some to the Cullinan [care and rehabilitation] Centre.

We've employed additional nurses  and we are also reviewing the amount of money we spend on patient care.

How were NGOs identified and vetted?

From September, I started visiting the NGOs. Before that  I would not have visited NGOs and I don't think it would be my responsibility as an MEC.

The mental health team would have decided [on] these NGOs. The report we received would say something like: "This NGO qualifies."

How will the department improve the monitoring of mental health facilities?

These scheduled weekly visits by our team are important but [we will be doing] more unannounced visits. I have said to some of the NGOs like the TAC that I am going to invite you to the NGOs when I go there. We've also said to our hospitals that where they have a [nearby NGO operating], medical doctors, not only psychologists, must  visit those places to medically assess patients.

A memo delivered to the department asked for a list of the NGOs housing former Life Esidimeni patients and the number of patients who have died. Will you be responding to the demands?

We will respond to the issues that are practical to respond to. One thing that is impossible to do is to share details of family members without their consent  that we can't do. Section27 has asked us for the list [of NGOs and patients].

Section27 wants to sue the department, so they want the list for that purpose. They've said it in our formal meeting with them. They came with their lawyers; we came with ours.

How many NGOs still house former Life Esidimeni patients?

Sho, I wouldn't know off the top of my head  Probably more than 10.

You've mentioned possibly taking legal action yourself. Why?

Where my name has been used inappropriately in certain things, I will definitely be able to do so. I am working with lots of people who work exceptionally hard and sometimes they will make mistakes. Things go wrong sometimes, [but] the question is how do you learn from the mistake?
Within hours of the Takeover Regulation Panel ruling on Tuesday that the offer by Country Bird Holdings (CBH) for Sovereign Foods had lapsed, the JSE-listed poultry producer lost more than 7% of the value of its shares. The share price dropped from R9.19 to close the day 7.4% lower at R8.51.

Shareholder activist Albie Cilliers said he was surprised the share had not dropped further and that its relative strength suggested a buyer had emerged to mop up shares as soon as the ruling had been announced.

"Given the uncertainty now facing the company, its difficult to imagine who could be buying or why; we will probably find out in the coming days or weeks," Cilliers said.

About 200 shareholders, holding 13.4% of the Sovereign shares, had accepted CBHs R9 offer and were waiting completion of the deal to receive their cash. The ruling means CBH will not be allowed to acquire these shares. CBH will hold onto the 34.1% block that it accumulated in the market before Sovereign sought the ruling in September.

The panels decision creates an uncertain future for Sovereign, which will now have to deal with a hostile shareholder holding 34.1% of the company. This stake will prevent the board from passing any special resolutions, including resolutions needed to approve the controversial black empowerment scheme that was blocked at a 2015 shareholders meeting.

In terms of the takeover code, CBH cannot launch another offer until September 2017, which is 12 months after the panel ruled this offer to have lapsed.

The reasons for the ruling, which was taken by a special committee of the panel, will be released within 30 days.

Sovereign said in a Sens statement on Tuesday that the committee had decided unanimously that CBHs waiving of the conditions attached to its offer was contrary to the Companies Act and to the Companies Regulations.

In early September CBH waived the condition requiring acceptance by 50% plus one share for the 900c a share offer it announced in July. At the time it waived the condition, Sovereign had built up a stake of 34.1% and had undertakings that would lift this to 47.5%.

However, it could not take its stake above 34.9% without approval from the Competition Commission. CBH has sought approval from the commission, which is expected to give its ruling on a merger between CBH and Sovereign within the coming weeks.

Marthinus Stander, CEO of CBH, said on Tuesday that his company was considering its options. "The fight is not over. We made it clear from the start were going nowhere."

He said CBH was considering its options, which included taking the ruling on review.

Sovereign CEO Chris Coombes did not respond to requests for comment.
Furniture retailer Lewis more than halved its interim dividend to R1 from the matching period's R2.15.

Aftertax profit for the six months to end-September fell 41.5% to R174.3m while overall revenue fell 2% to R2.74bn, its said in its interim results statement on Wednesday morning.

Lewis said the drop in revenue was mainly due to lower insurance and interest charged on credit sales.

Excluding new stores, Lewis said its sales fell 9.2%. Including new stores, merchandise sales grew 1%.

Group credit sales were down 2.3% and accounted for 63.4% of all sales, down from 65.9% in the matching period.

In the Beares chain, acquired from Abils subsidiary Ellerines, credit sales accounted for 52.9% of total sales. In its flagship Lewis stores along with Best Home and Electric, credit sales account for 67.4% of the total.

Operating costs, excluding debtor costs, increased by 8.4% mainly as a result of the integration costs of the 56 Beares and Ellerines stores acquired in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland.

"Excluding Beares, operating costs across Lewis and Best Home and Electric were well managed to an increase of 2.9%. Beares has a higher cost structure than the groups other brands and it is expected to take another two years to more closely align the Beares expense base with the rest of the group," Lewis said in its statement.
Google Shopping has delivered excellent results for global brands and with a South African launch immanent, global search and digital marketing specialists, Clicks2Customers looks at what local brands should be doing to ensure they are not left behind when the virtual doors open.

What is Google Shopping?

Google Shopping campaigns (formally referred to as Product Listing Ads) have been used effectively by international retailers since 2012. They put product images, price and business name right in front of users searching on Google, no matter what device theyre using, in essence, creating a storefront on the worlds biggest web platform.

Google Shopping ads appear alongside Googles search results when people search for the products they want and are designed to be retail-centric. Users can search and compare products from participating online stores and retailers only pay when users click through to visit the website or view local inventory.

Why its important?

Google Shopping campaigns can result in a significant uplift in leads and revenue for retailers.

Clicks2Customers has been running Google Shopping campaigns for large international clients from its Cape Town based operations hub since 2012.

Today 'Shopping Ads' are a significant channel for the majority of our retailers in global markets, and we have seen a huge growth in shopping volume, with traffic up by 700% compared to 2014, and mobile traffic up by nearly 1,000% year on year. This has led to significant gains across the board for our clients.

In 2015, our Australian retail campaigns indicated that as much as 50-60% of volume and revenue is coming from 'Shopping Campaigns' alone.

Perhaps one of our biggest learning experiences came from our first US campaign  one of the largest online car parts retailers, with over 10 million SKUs in their product feed. (The average feed size for retailers is between 10,000-20,000 SKUs.)

At the time, Google Shopping was a new product released by Google AdWords. The challenge was to generate the largest profit possible across the group, through the channel, and report down to gross profit level.

We ran the accounts via our own in-house technology in conjunction with AdWords Shopping. This allowed us to report the initial sales figures along with gross profit, which incorporated tax and shipping costs for each product. This also enabled us to calculate the variable cost margin (VCM).

After successfully setting up shopping campaigns across all sites, the shopping and digital accounts experienced year-on-year growth which culminated in 65% of the groups online revenue being generated via Shopping Campaigns. The Shopping account's ROI improved by 120% in the four years that we ran it.

How can SA companies prepare themselves?

The launch of Google Shopping will significantly benefit all online retailers in South Africa. But it is equally important for traditional bricks-and-mortar companies who want to take a step into the online world.

One of the concerns about the launch of Google Shopping to the local market was that it might give big e-commerce aggregator sites an unhealthy advantage. However, we believe that competitors, who do their preparation now, can actually aggressively compete with the e-commerce juggernauts.

Merchants using Google Shopping set up product feeds or an inventory feed that lists all the various attributes such as product titles, descriptions, URLs, images, SKUs (stock keeping units), all of which are housed in the feed and allows granular identification and the ability to manage their inventory. As a result, its vital that e-tailers have their product feeds correctly set up and ready in advance so that they can start leveraging the benefits of Shopping campaigns as soon as possible.

Smaller e-tailers will traditionally make use of CMS platforms which have the advantage of having Google Shopping feed integration built into their back end (e.g. WooCommerce or Shopify), however any organisation using a custom built CMS should start updating their product feeds so that they will seamlessly integrate with Google Shopping campaigns, and they should do this as soon as possible.

The next logical step would be for CMOs and digital teams to familiarise themselves with the Merchant Centre guidelines. Although there are no regional guidelines for the local market, we believe Google will probably base these on the US feed specifications.

The smart strategy for local merchants would be to have traditional paid search and shopping campaigns running concurrently  they are not mutually exclusive and this is not a zero sum game.

While there has not been an announcement yet about the launch date of Google Shopping in South Africa, we can realistically expect it in the next few months. We have also seen first-hand the benefits it can deliver. We are currently working with our local clients to make sure they are prepared for the launch. This is one area where first mover advantage cannot be underestimated and 2017 budgets and strategies should be factoring in this new opportunity.
SA's bulk export volumes fell by 0.7% year-on-year in October to 12.80-million tons, Transnet National Ports Authority said on Wednesday. The record monthly volume of 16.4-million ton was achieved in January 2015.

The 15.4% year-on-year drop in July to 11.6-million tonnes was, in part, due to the closure of the coal line between Mpumalanga and Richards Bay for the annual maintenance period between 11 July and 24 July.

On average, 230,000 tonnes per day is railed along the corridor, but export orders can be filled from the stockpile at Richards Bay Coal Terminal during the maintenance period. The maintenance is usually carried out in May, but shifted to July this year at the request of coal miners, as overseas coal demand is seasonally weak due to the Northern Hemisphere summer.

The June and April increases of 3.4% and 6.2% year on year were the only two rises in the first six months of 2016 after declines of 6.1%, 11.7%, 15.7% and 12.2% in May, March, February, and January respectively.

This followed a 7.3% increase in 2015 to a record annual tonnage of 168-million tonnes. Despite the September, June and April increases, total bulk exports are still down 5.1% in the first 10 months of 2016.

Bulk exports out of Richards Bay, which is mostly coal, 7.5-million tonnes after rising by 4.5% year on year in September to 8.1-million tonnes and plunging by 18.5% in July to 6.2-million tonnes from 6.9-million in June and growing by 8.2% in 2015 to 93-million. As Richards Bay Coal Terminal no longer releases operational statistics, economists are finding it more difficult to track SA's

Despite the 40% plunge in the iron ore price in 2015, bulk exports out of Saldanha, which are mostly iron ore, increased by 12.7% in 2015 to 63.4 Mt, but in July 2016 there was a 17.8% fall year on year to 4.3-million before a 12.1% increase in August to 5.1-million, a 20.5% surge in September to 5.9-million followed by a 12.5% gain in October to 4.0-million year on year.

The surprise in the October data was the 23.6% y/y rise in bulk exports from other ports such as Durban to 1,242,591 tonnes. These exports are mostly agricultural commodities, such as grains and sugar, and there was a 19.3% fall in 2015 to 11.6 Mt due to the drought, which extended into this year. In September, there was a 23.2% y/y slump to 826,671 tonnes.

Source: BDpro
The latest South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi) for Fast Food Restaurants found that Debonairs Pizza's customers are the most satisfied with the highest score of 85.0, ahead of the industry average score of 82.2. Nando's and McDonald's are also ahead of the industry average with scores of 83.8 and 83.2 respectively. KFC, Chicken Licken and Steers lag below the average score.

Debonairs Pizzas customers also expressed the highest perceived value score of 85.2, followed by KFC, Chicken Licken (both 83.1) and McDonalds (82.4).

The pizza chain's customers clearly believe they receive the best value for money, as they indicated the highest value in both categories of perceived value  the quality received for the price paid for their food and the price they paid for the quality of the food.

The perceived value industry average was 82.2, with Nandos (80.8) and Steers (78.9) scoring below par. This should be of concern to Nandos since its overall position doesn't correlate with the lower value score in this section.

Cash-strapped South Africans will choose a fast food brand that offers excellent value for money without sacrificing quality. They will not dig deeper into their pockets unless they believe that the quality justifies the price, says Professor Adre Schreuder, CEO of Consulta. Fast food restaurants that deliver value without sacrificing quality scored well, even in this challenging economic climate.

Due to the expansion of the industry and the entrance of international brands like Burger King and Dominos Pizza, customers are spoilt for choice and can afford to be more discerning, he says.

Customer complaints

Demand for value and service is reflected in the complaints about South African fast food restaurants, as the most common complaints relate to the accuracy of orders, speed and quality of service and the price of selected items.

Customers perception of a brand is often viewed through the lens of how complaints are managed. McDonalds customers rated them the lowest for complaints management with a very low score of 9.4%. On the other hand, Nandos customers indicated that their complaints were well managed, with a score of 71.3, well above the industry average of 54.9.

South Africans are typically quite reluctant to complain about service or quality because they feel that no lasting change will occur, he explains. Social media is making it easier for customers to express their concerns, and the brands that embrace this opportunity to engage with their customers are likely to see improvement in their scores over the next year.

The 2016 SAcsi for Fast Food Restaurants benchmarks customer satisfaction through an internationally recognised model to achieve an overall result out of 100. The Index provides a weighted average of the various aspects of a customers experience with fast food restaurants, and the degree to which their product and service has met, fallen short of, or exceeded expectations. It also includes a Net Promoter Score (NPS) that measures the percentage of customers who would recommend a fast food restaurant to their family and friends minus the percentage of those with a low likelihood to recommend (called detractors).

Debonairs Pizzas NPS is a very positive 65%, compared to 56% for KFC, both above the industry average of 50%. Falling below the industry average is Nandos at 49%, Chicken Licken and McDonalds at 44%, and Steers with a concerning 35%.

New fast food brands that launch in South Africa may enjoy long queues for a while, but research suggests that in the current economic climate, South Africans only visit a fast food restaurant once a week. In the long-term, customers will remain loyal to restaurants that offer the best quality and value for money, Prof Schreuder says.

Across the SAcsi industries surveyed by Consulta this year, some of the highest scores  and therefore, greatest customer satisfaction  is in the fast food industry. The highest score recorded in the 2016 SAcsi for Restaurants for example, was 78.6.

The full SAcsi for Fast Food Restaurants Report and other SAcsi reports are available from Consulta.

Notes

Consulta, the independent research company exclusively licensed to conduct the index in South Africa, surveyed nearly 2400 fast food restaurant customers, choosing the total number of respondents in line with the various brands local market share. The research is conducted independently, without sponsorship from any of the brands, offering impartial insights into the fast food market in South Africa.

The 2016 SAcsi for Fast Food Restaurants benchmarks customer satisfaction through an internationally recognised model combining a Customer Expectations Index, a Service Quality Index, a Product Quality Index, a Perceived Value Index, and a Perceived Quality Index to achieve an overall result out of 100. The index provides a weighted average of the various aspects of a customers experience with the mobile handset, the degree to which the product or service has met, fallen short of, or exceeded their expectations.
America is facing the reality that Donald Trump will be its next president, and world markets have felt the aftershocks, thanks to uncertainty around his economic and geopolitical views.

In the run-up to in what was probably be regarded as the most controversial and personal election campaign in the history of election campaigns, many things have been said. Some in jest, others seriously.

What seems to be clear from Trumps presidential administration will focus on America. He has vowed to investigate trade treaties and uncover trade violations. He may instruct the US Treasury to label China as a currency manipulator and one would expect a tighter look at Chinas investment practices. Could it be that Trump would insist that the FBI enforce the foreign corrupt practices act with more vigour?

All this leads to uncertainty. And markets dislike uncertainty.

Mining is by its very nature a long-term investment endeavour that takes decades to mature. Moreover, it has an insatiable demand for capital, which must be raised in capital markets. If markets are spooked it would be increasingly difficult to raise capital to invest in the South African mining industry. Regulatory uncertainty already permeates the mining industry with a new amendment bill having been passed, a third mining charter floating around in draft form and ongoing court cases on the implications of empowerment structures in mining not having been resolved. Unfortunately the South African mining industry already does not exactly appear safe and stable to American investors.

Mining is South Africas sweetheart industry. It is labour intensive (and we need large scale employment). A large cottage industry surrounds it, through the entrepreneurial businesses sprouting from the communities in which the mines operate. It has the ability to improve socio-economic and living conditions for ordinary South Africans, and it is a great source of foreign currency (notionally strengthening the rand).

South Africa is very chummy with China as a trade partner and we are encouraging that country to invest in our mining industry, as well as downstream beneficiation and manufacturing. We are firmly part of BRICS and the only African country to have attended the G20 summit in China earlier this year. So there is a risk that this relationship may be at odds with potential US foreign policy objectives.

Although a weaker rand makes investment notionally cheaper, exports of mining commodities are all US dollar based. A weakening Rand deteriorates real profits and makes investment more uncertain and unstable.

At a time when the storm clouds are thickening for the South African mining industry, it now does not look like the next four years will be any easier. We will have to look creatively at funding, investment and the development of our commodity-based economy.
According to a famous African proverb, "When the music changes, so does the dance." This adage illustrates the continent's current position amidst opportunities for, and challenges to, development and governance as the 21st century unfolds.

In recent years, national leaders have pursued many new development initiatives. Among them are the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on sustainable financing, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris climate agreement and the World Trade Organisations Nairobi Package.

These frameworks could fast-track the continents development, and even fulfil the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the next 15 years. The initiatives dovetail with the African Unions (AU) Agenda 2063, a set of aspirations for a more prosperous continent.

At the same time, Africa confronts chronic problems of poverty, food insecurity, ballooning youth unemployment, mounting debt, climate change and environmental degradation. These problems have been exacerbated by falling commodity prices, which have dropped over 40% from their peak in 2011. This translates to a loss of over $63bn, which has left a trail of economic devastation for commodity-dependent nations such as Angola, Nigeria and Zambia. Commodity revenues make up more than half the total of Africas gross domestic product (GDP).

Africa must make a concerted effort to address these long-standing obstacles to growth, and seize available opportunities to get on a path to sustainable development.

Natural capital losses

Africa currently loses $68bn annually from environmental degradation, according to Agriculture for Impact, an independent group that advocates for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

In addition, key environmental sectors such as forestry, wildlife, fisheries and mining suffer losses worth billions to illegal logging, illegal trade in wildlife, unaccounted and unregulated fishing and illegal mining practices, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

has found.

Without investments to eliminate inefficiencies in the agro-value chain resulting from farming on degraded lands, Africa loses between $4bn and $48bn in food worth annually. This is in addition to 6.6-million tonnes of potential grain harvest lost to degraded ecosystems.

Consequently, countries in Africa spend $35bn annually on food imports, which is hardly sufficient, as more than 200-million Africans still go hungry, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. Yet with appropriate government policies, Africa could recover that $35bn and be able to finance development projects and boost food security.

Targeted policy interventions

Africas current precarious ecosystem situation can be addressed by promoting environmental sustainability. A good first step is to sustainably harness Africas natural capital, advises UNEP.

At the sixth African Ministerial Conference for the Environment, held in Cairo, Egypt, in April, Africas environmental experts identified three key ways to leverage natural capital opportunities. The first involves policies, actions and partnerships at national, regional and global levels designed to reverse current losses from degraded ecosystems, agro-value-chain inefficiencies, illicit financial flows and crimes involving wildlife, logging, fisheries and mining.

By reversing these losses, Africa could save up to $150bn annually. Sectors such as healthcare and education, needing annual investments of up to $32bn and $26bn respectively, and infrastructure, for which investments of $93bn are required annually, could potentially benefit.

The second way Africa can sustainably harness natural capital is by allocating, again at national and regional levels, a portion of current natural capital earnings to unlock the potential of natural-capital-based sectors. By so doing, the continent would be achieving the targets of multiple SDGs.

For example, investments in ecosystem-based, adaptation-driven agriculture and using clean energy for processing and other commercial chains can potentially support sustainable agro-industrialisation.

Clean energy can boost sustainable agro-processing in rural areas and, combined with affordable financing and market accessibility, enhance farmers incomes, boost food security by up to 128% and create up to 17-million jobs along the entire value chain. This is in addition to boosting an agro-sector expected to be worth $1tn by 2030, according to the World Bank.

Investments in natural-capital-based sustainable agro-industry will contribute towards SDG one (poverty eradication), SDG two (an end to hunger), SDG seven (affordable and clean energy) and SDG eight (sustainable economic growth and employment), as well as promoting food security and improved nutrition.

Investments can enhance climate adaptation and the health of ecosystems, and produce healthier food even as clean energy options reduce emissions and pollution  all of which would contribute to SDG three (good health and well-being for all) and SDG 13 on climate action. Healthy ecosystems would contribute to SDG 15 (protecting life on land).

The World Bank reckons that a 10% increase in crop yields in Africa would translate to approximately a 7% reduction in poverty through agricultural growth, which is at least two to four times more effective in reducing poverty than growth in other sectors.

The third way Africa can leverage natural capital opportunities is by targeting policies and actions to enable value addition of its natural capital exports, instead of exporting raw materials. This would enhance earnings. Policies prioritising investment in rural transport and energy infrastructure to achieve sustainable agro-industrialisation is a good starting point, experts believe.

Unlocking agriculture potential

Experts continue to praise key elements of the Paris climate agreement, the SDGs, and the AUs Agenda 2063. What is lacking, however, are policies to ensure those elements are part of individual countries development frameworks and, most importantly, that their implementation is financed.

Without such policies and financing, it may be difficult to achieve modern, climate-friendly and efficient food systems, and, by extension, inclusive economic growth.

With regard to the critical financing need, one area of intense discussion is how to deal with illicit financial flows, mainly attributable to Africas natural capital. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), financial aid spent on improving tax administration could substantially increase tax revenue for African countries. For instance, a project assisting Kenyas tax administrators returned a massive $1,650 for every $1 extra invested, while a programme in Mozambique was able to increase short-term revenues by 350%.

The potential is huge, yet currently just 0.07% of OECD assistance to poor countries is used to improve tax systems. Building capacity of Africas negotiators with multinational companies and improving regulatory oversight in tax administration could help deal with illicit flows and recoup funds for sustainable development.

African countries should make it a priority to implement the 2015 recommendations of the AU high-level panel on illicit financial flows headed by former South African President Thabo Mbeki. These include taking measures to deal with organised crime, including environmental crimes (which make up about 33% of all organised crimes) and the public sector corruption that plays a key role in facilitating these outflows.

Additionally, unnecessary tax expenditures such as incentives for natural-resource exploration constitute significant revenue losses, up to 4% of GDP, in addition to providing loopholes for fraud. Up to 65% of oil subsidies in Africa benefit the richest 40% of households and feed corrupt cartels, according to the African Development Bank.

Africas huge natural resources can turn the dream of a prosperous continent into a reality. Countries need to act urgently and strengthen the governance structure and to enact and implement appropriate policies. The challenge is to make actions speak louder than all the fine words.

The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of UNEP.

Article published courtesy of Africa Renewal.
For environmentalists and development experts, green is not just a colour, it also refers to activities that benefit the environment - the careful use of the earth's finite resources.

Africas policy wonks are already on the green bandwagon, having identified green industrialisation as the Holy Grail of the continents socioeconomic transformation. They believe infusing green initiatives into value-chain activities  during the sourcing and processing of raw materials, and the marketing and selling of finished products to customers  can cure economic stagnation.

At recent economic forums in NDjamena in Chad, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Abuja in Nigeria, Rabat in Morocco, even New York in the United States, and elsewhere, Africas experts have been expressing their support for green industrialisation.

Green industrialisation is the only way for Africa  it is a precondition for sustainnable and inclusive growth, highlights the Economic Report on Africa 2016: Greening Africas Industrialisation, published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

Green initiatives will move Africa from the periphery to the centre of the global economy, said Fatima Denton, director of the ECAs Special Initiatives Division, during the African Development Week in Addis Ababa, in April.

Africas green industrialisation advocates have borrowed from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by world leaders in September 2015, and the Paris Climate Change Agreement of December 2015  both promote green initiatives.

Given that energy production and use contribute up to 87% of overall carbon dioxide emissions generated by humans, curtailing the exploitation of fossil fuels is at the centre of green advocacy. The burning of fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas generates carbon dioxide, methane and water vapour, which in turn contribute to global warming.

However, it may be tough to sell Africas oil and natural gas exporters, like Angola and Nigeria, on limiting fossil fuel drilling. For both countries, oil accounts for more than 90% of exports and at least two-thirds of the national budget. The price of oil dropped from a peak of $100 a barrel in 2015 to about $50 by mid-June 2016. Before the oil price crash, even countries just discovering oil  like Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone  had anticipated a financial windfall from the sector.

These countries fear that limiting fossil fuel investments may severely damage their economies, although green advocates continue to insist that renewable energy, including energy generated by sun, wind, rain, waves and geothermal heat, all of which Africa has in abundance, is the way to go.

African countries must take advantage of new innovations, technologies and business models that use natural resources optimally and efficiently, notes the 2016 ECA economic report.

Kandeh Yumkella, who formerly held the title of special representative of the UN secretary-general for Sustainable Energy for All (a global initiative), offered a middle-of-the-road approach, recommending that Africa adopt an all-of-the-above energy strategy. Why should we burn gas? Why shouldnt we use gas for energy production? Yumkella asked rhetorically, in an interview with Africa Renewal.

Grudging acceptance

Globally, countries have been slow to embrace green technology because of the lingering belief that environmental regulations erode competitiveness, wrote Harvard University business professor Michael E. Porter and his co-author, Claas van der Linde, in an article for the magazine Harvard Business Review.

And in October 2011, Salifou Issoufou and Nama Ouattara, economists with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank respectively, presented a paper based on their research, titled Does Green Investment Raise Productivity? to a packed house at the African Economic Conference in Addis Ababa. Green investments lowered productivity growth, they told a shocked audience that included some of Africas top policymakers. Africa must adopt a cautious approach in attempting large-scale investments in green technologies, the researchers recommended.

The main problem with green investments, the 2011 paper showed, was that costs, made worse by regulations, further stifled interest. Investing in environmentally friendly agricultural equipment, for example, requires heavy upfront costs and the transition from the existing mode of production to the new one requires complementary technical innovation, wrote Issoufou and Ouattara at the time.

There is also the argument that since Africa contributes the least of all continents to global warming, it should not be compelled  or expected  to adopt policies that mitigate global warming.

Cost effective

Since 2011, when Issoufou and Ouattaras research findings lowered expectations for green industrialisation, the green economy train has been running at full speed due to several factors, including innovative technologies, which are bringing down the cost of renewables considerably. In addition, a crash in commodity prices, particularly in extractives, is sending some of Africas economies  such as Angola, Nigeria and South Africa  spiralling into chaos, forcing many countries to explore opportunities in green industrialisation.

Government leadership has been playing a key role in driving the growth of renewables, particularly wind and solar, in the power sector including many in Africa. As of early 2016, 173 countries had renewable energy targets in place and 146 countries had support policies. Cities, communities and companies are leading the rapidly expanding 100% renewable movement, playing a vital role in advancing the global energy transition.

Additional growth factors include better access to financing, concerns about energy security and the environment and the growing demand for modern energy services in developing and emerging economies.

Carlos Lopes, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, expressed optimism: We have the potential to access renewable energy at a time when the price of producing this energy is comparable to fossil fuel production.

Triple bottomline

According to Professor Mark Swilling of the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, the added value of renewables is their positive impact on the triple bottomline, a term that refers to a companys profit, its social responsibility activities and its environmental responsibility.

Africas capabilities for leapfrogging  another buzzword at economic forums  constitute a significant economic advantage for the region. Simply put, African countries implementing green initiatives wont have to go through every intermediary stage of technology, but

instead can directly access the latest available on the market. Africa can therefore be expected to take a giant developmental step: the leapfrog. Industrialised countries, on the other hand, will have to retrofit older infrastructure, said Lopes, a burdensome expense.

The ECA 2016 economic report states that Africas population is expected to hit 2-billion by 2050. The rapid growth of the working-age population (aged 2564), increasing urbanisation and the dominance of informal employment have weighty implications for the continents structural transformation. While young people provide a valuable resource to be harnessed in national development, they can also drive green industrialisation if they have green jobs in various sectors.

Many African countries are planning or already implementing green projects. In March 2014, an intergovernmental committee of experts from Central African countries (Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo and Sao Tome and Principe) met in Ndjamena to hash out a plan for transitioning to a green economies

Mariam Mahamat Nour, Chads minister of planning and international cooperation, said companies operating in the region must master production techniques based on low energy use.

Ethiopia in 2011 adopted a Climate Resilient Green Economy strategy as part of its ambitious plan to propel the country into middle-income status by 2025. The government is partnering with the private sector to help communities engage in sustainable farming.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a tree-cloning project is enhancing afforestation (establishing forests on lands that have not been forested for a long time) and reforestation (establishing forests where they have been destroyed). Climate change experts consider afforestation and reforestation effective methods of combating global warming. Despite the DRCs efforts, it is considering lifting the moratorium on logging that has been in place since 2002; this could threaten the forests, experts believe.

Last February the World Bank assisted Ghana in launching a Climate Innovation Centre in the capital, Accra, to support a green growth strategy. The centre is working with about a hundred local technology companies.

Nigerias Renewable Energy Programme is, among other things, executing a low-carbon development project to provide electricity for its capital city, Abuja, through improved insulation, energy-efficient devices for apartments and local power generation. The project, currently underway, is the first of its kind in Africa and the second in the world, after that of Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates, according to Nigerias environment ministry. Also, the Tata Group of India is planning to establish in Nigeria a mass transit system of compressed natural gas vehicles to reduce emissions.

The ECA economic report recommends a step-by-step systemic approach, with a focus on value chains in agriculture, energy extractives, manufacturing, transport and water. Countries must identify green industrialisation entry points, set policies that support green industrialisation and mobilise resources from the public and private sectors, recommends the report.

The report further stresses that investments in infrastructure and innovation are critical and that countries should share best practices, strengthen national institutions and constantly review their green industrialisation policies and activities.

Overall, a general belief among Africas development experts is that going green  and clean  is no longer a moral question; it is now a socioeconomic imperative. They view it as the new pathway to Africas industrialisation.

Article published courtesy of Africa Renewal.
ZAKA, ZIMBABWE Under the scorching Zimbabwean sun, cattle seek shade among stunted thorn bushes in the drought-prone district of Zaka, where crops wither due to increasing temperatures and changing weather patterns. Severe lack of rain across Southern Africa has hit the country hard, with government officials saying a quarter of the population faces starvation. Many villagers are forced to survive on wild fruit.

SuSanA Secretariat via Wikimedia Commons

Maize, the country's traditional staple crop, has suffered a series of poor harvests. Late rains this year again wrecked the planting season, and the little that is growing has often been destroyed by heat. It may not help the immediate crisis, but science is providing a glimmer of hope for smallholder maize farmers in Zimbabwe.

Hybrid maize seeds

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center - known by its Spanish acronym CIMMYT - is conducting trials in Zaka on hybrid maize seeds adapted to tackle drought and high temperatures. The seeds are developed to survive dry conditions with 60 percent less water than normal and in temperatures of up to 35 degrees C (95 degrees F), according to CIMMYT researchers.

"If we get these new maize seed varieties, that will help us a lot," said Ceaser Chavizha, a small smallholder in Zaka, located in Masvingo province, south of the capital Harare.

Like many farmers in the region who rely on maize produce, Chavizha has been forced to survive on food handouts as his crops have been reduced to dried husks. "We cannot continue with handouts as we have fields that we can work on to produce food for our own, so we hope the new maize seeds will help us improve our yields," he told AFP.

El Nino-induced drought wrecked arable fields

Maize meal crops are ground and turned into mealie meal, used to make porridge and other food, but the El Nino-induced drought has wrecked arable fields, grazing pastures and water sources.

The drought scourge is high on the agenda at UN COP22 climate talks in Morocco, where world leaders and experts are discussing how to implement the landmark Paris Agreement that was signed last year. The pact aims to cap global warming at below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F), compared with pre-industrial levels.

Once referred to as the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe used to be an exporter of maize, but now aid organisations say the country requires about two million metric tonnes a year to feed itself.

Developing long-term sustainable agriculture

Cosmos Magorokosho, a senior scientist and maize breeder at CIMMYT, said the ultimate goal of hybrids was to help farmers develop long-term sustainable agriculture. "Basically it means transferring genes from one plant to another type so that you create a new type that has the characteristics that you want," he said.

He said CIMMYT had received $500,000 funding from USAID to develop the new maize variety for drought-prone areas in East, Central and Southern Africa. Magorokosho stressed that more funds were needed to extend the project, and criticised the Zimbabwe government's delay in adopting new maize hybrids. "There is a layer of testing that is required by the authorities which is a little bit long... we would wish it is shortened so that the varieties can get quickly to the farmers," Magorokosho said.

CIMMYT, a non-profit research project headquartered in Mexico, is also working on a vitamin A-rich maize variety which is already in production in other parts of Africa and Latin America.

This year, Zimbabwe's cash-strapped government declared a "state of disaster" in most rural areas, with at least 2.4 million people in urgent need of food aid. Sekai Makonese, another small-scale farmer in Zaka, welcomed the potential impact of scientific intervention, saying she was counting on hybrids becoming widespread as soon as possible.

"Long ago, we used to farm maize with no problems but now we have a problem with climate change and now our crops fail before we harvest," she said.

The Zimbabwe government is yet to approve the mass distribution of the seeds, but the product is already available at some agricultural outlets.

Source: AFP
Ten years ago, a group of 53 African ministers of agriculture met in Abuja, Nigeria to discuss what they referred to as "Africa's fertiliser crisis". They shared their collective observations on the state of the continent's agricultural production systems at the time, agreeing unanimously that "bold and urgent action" would be needed if the sector were to play its part in tackling the widespread rural poverty, hunger, and malnutrition facing its population.

Kostic Dusan via 123RF

Crop yields in Africa were only 10-25 percent of the yields found in the developed world, leaving the continent dependent on billions of dollars worth of food imports. No great surprise, fertiliser use was also around 10 percent of the global average. Around two-thirds of Africa's soils were thought to be degraded, causing an estimated $4 billion in GDP losses on the continent each year.

African leaders knew these losses were untenable, given high levels of poverty in a rapidly expanding population. In response, they called for a systematic increase in average fertiliser use - from 8kg per hectare to 50kg per hectare by the year 2015.

Fast forward to 2016, and another African city - this time in Marrakesh, Morocco - is playing host to another important meeting: the annual UN climate talks. Thousands of delegates will descend to discuss how to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions while building the resilience of societies and economies against global warming.

Food security in Africa will be a key concern at the conference with the Moroccan government launching its AAA initiative, which focuses on Adaptation in African Agriculture.

African farmers are among the principal victims of extreme temperatures and weather events, which are expected to worsen as a result of climate change. As just one example, the recent devastating El Nino-induced drought left millions in Southern and Eastern Africa in need of food assistance when crops failed across the region.

It is, therefore, the ideal moment to revisit the issue of Africa's fertiliser crisis and determine how to move forward on the agenda set in Abuja ten years ago in a "climate-smart" way. Climate-smart agriculture requires agricultural practices that provide the "triple win" of boosting productivity and livelihoods, increasing resilience and minimising greenhouse gas emissions. Fertilisers play a crucial role in all three areas.

Food security in Africa will simply not be achievable without fertilisers. Vast tracts of Africa's arable land lack the nutrients needed to grow healthy crops. Applying appropriate fertilisers according to soil type will not only improve soil conditions but also enhance the productivity of food crops as yields increase.

By helping farmers to crop more crops on less land, fertilisers also help farmers spare more forests and pastures from conversion to farmland - one of the biggest single drivers of climate change. And nutrient-rich, healthy soils tend also to be more resilient under stressful growing conditions, which reduces crop losses and helps farmers adapt.

Carbon footprint

It is important to recognise that mineral fertilisers do have a carbon footprint, estimated at 2.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but consider this: fertilisers are also responsible for around 50 percent of our total crop production worldwide. And considering that the agricultural sector as a whole represents 12 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, fertilisers' contribution starts to seem negligible.

Nonetheless, the fertiliser sector continues to be committed to reducing its carbon footprint globally by promoting farming techniques that allow for better nutrient uptake: 4R Nutrient Stewardship, a management technique that makes best use of site- and crop-specific practices in the four areas of nutrient management (using the right nutrient source at the right rate, at the right time and in the right place), and Integrated Soil Fertility Management which recommends using organic sources of nutrients that are available on-farm (e.g. animal manure and/or crop residues) and then supplementing them with manufactured fertilisers to sustainably increase yields.

In Africa, however, the most urgent priority is to ensure that the continent's millions of farmers have sufficient access to both sources of nutrients in order to redress soil degradation and boost yields. This requires everyone's support. The African leaders who met back in 2006 called for "immediate steps to accelerate investment in infrastructure, particularly transport, fiscal incentives, strengthening farmers' organisations, and other measures to improve output market incentives".

Progress on this is being made. The African Fertiliser and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP), for instance, is investing in wholesale rural infrastructure by developing better inland storage and distribution facilities for fertiliser and supporting "hub" agro-dealers. These agro-dealers often have better access to credit (for the initial purchase of inputs) as well as more capacity and incentives to provide the right advice to farmers. As such, they can provide the right products consistently and at scale to retail outlets, farmer groups and cooperatives.

There are many tools and technologies available that are appropriate even for the smallest-scale African farmers. Soil testing devices such as the SoilCares scanner can give recommendations on which fertilisers to use within 30 minutes of running a test. Other techniques such as micro-dosing - in which very small amounts of fertiliser are applied next to the rooting zone of the crop - helps reduce waste and lower costs.

Digital tools, such as the GreenSeeker, can analyse the level of nitrogen in a crop, and guide a farmer on how much fertiliser to apply to optimise crop growth. Simple colour charts that allow farmers to monitor the nutritional status of plant leaves can do a similar job. Speciality fertilisers that are blended according to local soil needs are also key - with results from Ethiopia having already boosted yields by up to 65 percent.

If agriculture is to become a viable livelihood for the growing African population - the majority of whom will be young people - it needs to become more productive, and more lucrative. Fertilisers remain essential to this.

And yet, already a year after the deadline for the Abuja Declaration has expired, African fertiliser use is still nowhere near its target of 50kg per hectare. In fact, it's only about 13kg per hectare on average and with lots of variation from region to region. If agriculture is to become a viable livelihood for the growing African population - the majority of whom will be young people - it needs to become more productive, and more lucrative. Fertilisers remain essential to this.

Healthy soils can build a foundation on which to build a thriving agriculture sector in Africa, and by reviving the momentum to restore them, we can make food security and resilience to climate change on the continent a reality.

Charlotte Hebebrand is director general of the International Fertilizer Industry Association. The IFA is hosting a side event at the UN climate talks on the role of farmers in implementing the Paris Agreement.

Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
University of Cape Town (UCT) academics who in the initial stages were tentatively doubtful about the likely success of the employment tax incentive, are "cautiously positive" that it has improved the employment of young workers.

In a submission on the incentive, the UCT development policy research unit's Prof Haroon Bhorat and Amy Thornton recommended that it should be extended, as proposed by the Treasury.

The Treasury has proposed to extend the incentive - which was introduced in January 2014 and expires at the end of December - for another two years. It has also proposed a R20m cap on claims per employer.

The scheme can be claimed for workers aged between 18 years and 29 years who earn less than R6,500 per month. The proposal was the subject of public hearings on Wednesday by Parliament's standing committee on finance.

Bhorat and Thornton cautioned in their submission to the committee that all the evidence was not yet available on the effectiveness of the incentive, but based on existing research they were cautiously positive.

The displacement of older workers, which was feared by trade unions, appeared to be small, and initial evidence did not suggest that the incentive was suppressing wages or resulting in employers churning workers so they could claim the incentive.

The MD of the security division of Servest, Costa Diavastos, was emphatic that the employment tax incentive had created more job opportunities for young people and should be extended. Servest, which provides specialised support to business, employs about 30,000 people.

"We commend the government on the employment tax incentive. We believe it has been an extremely effective and successful intervention," Diavastos said. "To a large extent the incentive has contributed to the growth of the company which in turn has lead to even more employment of young inexperienced job seekers."

He said the measure had incentivised the company to employ and train more young job seekers. However, he believed the proposed R20m cap per employer on claims would limit the ability of firms to create youth employment and that this should either be removed entirely or raised to R50m per employer.

Diavastos reported on research conducted by the University of Pretoria (commissioned by Servest), which showed that 14,592 employees who qualified under the incentive's requirements had been employed by the company since the inception of the programme. Of these, 7,891 had been retained. The company had claimed R98m under the scheme over the last three years and spent R44m on training.

Union federation Fedusa general secretary Dennis George also supported the extension, especially since empirical evidence had allayed concerns that older workers had been displaced and that labour brokers had not benefited extensively from the scheme.

Fedusa also opposed the introduction of a R20m cap, saying it would inhibit the achievement of its objectives.

Union federation Cosatu parliamentary officer Matthew Parks urged that labour brokers and outsourcing contractors be excluded from the incentive, but said the government had rejected its proposals during negotiations in the National Economic Development and Labour Council.

"The flood of labour broking, outsourcing and casualisation has devastated workers in all sectors of the economy, from the private sector to universities to the state," Parks said. "All employment tax incentive claims must be for new permanent jobs with the actual employer and not with outsourced contractors or labour brokers."

Parks said the research had found that the displacement and lower hiring of older workers was estimated to be 1%, but said enforcement action was required to prohibit any further claims from companies engaging in this practice.

Source: BDpro
Mara Delta, the pan-African property fund, has announced a planned capital raise of up to about 193.29m, to fund various acquisitions.

The minimum issue price of 1.54 per share would represent a discount of about 5.68% to the company's net asset value as at June 30 and a discount of about 11.49% to the Mauritian traded closing market price of $1.74 on October 28.

"All of the acquisitions are highly yield-accretive, allowing us to issue the shares at a discount to net asset value without dilution of the distribution per share. This capital raise provides smaller investors with an ideal access point into the company through the Mauritian stock exchange," said CEO Bronwyn Corbett.

"These acquisitions significantly improve the depth and quality of the property portfolio, mitigating concentration risk. Traditionally we've had a relatively large presence in Mozambique, which has now been counterbalanced by significant acquisitions in Mauritius."

She said that increased size and liquidity for Mara Delta, as a result of the planned capital raise, was expected to move the company closer to the Stock Exchange of Mauritius top 10 companies in terms of size.

This would position the company well for future inclusion on the SA Listed Property index, the JSE's benchmark index for listed property.

Source: Business Day
According to research released by Mastercard and CrescentRating , Muslim business travellers are gaining greater autonomy and are increasingly using technology and digital tools when planning to travel. Thelooks at the behavior and preferences of Muslim business travellers across the world including Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe and the US.

Giuseppe Anello via 123RF

The report is based on an online survey and interviews conducted with 250 frequent Muslim business travellers from across the world including Malaysia, Singapore, US, South Africa, Qatar, Sri Lanka, UK, India, Canada, Australia, Germany, Denmark, and Pakistan.

The study has revealed that the main reasons for business travel were to attend conferences or exhibitions (57 percent), to meet clients (45 percent) or potential clients (44 percent), with an average trip lasting between three to four days.

When planning their trips, 88 percent of them rely on online research  while only 44 percent seek advice and information from family and friends  highlighting the importance of strong digital strategies in targeting this segment. More than one in two book their own flights and hotels rather than rely on their company or travel agents.

A growing Muslim travel market

This is the first-ever detailed report examining the travel trends and attitudes of a sub-segment of the growing Muslim travel market. It aims to provide the tourism industry including airlines, airports, hotels and travel agents with a greater understanding of how best to market and cater to the needs of Muslim business travellers.

The Muslim business traveller market is projected to be worth $22 billion by 2020, representing 10 percent of the expected 168 million Muslim travelers in 2020 that will spend over $220 billion. Asia and Europe are the two leading regions in the world for attracting Muslim visitors  accounting for 87 percent of the entire market.

Muslim Business travel is a niche market on its own which is only set to grow bigger. The travel industry can reflect positively on the discoveries on insights and the trends related to business travel, which bodes well for its immediate future. It should also be recognised that improving the experience of this segment from improved digital strategies, catering for their faith-based needs and personalised digital services, such as superior Wi-Fi connections, can be key to capitalising on this market, said Fazal Bahardeen, CEO of CrescentRating and HalalTrip.

Catering for this segment

The Muslim business travel market is expected to continue to expand over the next couple of years, alongside the growth of emerging economies such as Indonesia and Malaysia. In an effort to cater to this increasingly important segment, businesses and destinations are adapting their products and services to better suit their needs and preferences. Industry players looking to tap into this market for the first time will benefit from the insights gathered from the new Mastercard-CrescentRating Muslim Business Traveler Insights , said Aisha Islam, vice president, consumer products, South East Asia, Mastercard.

The research also revealed that 38 percent of Muslim business travellers spent between $2,000 and $5,000 per business trip, with 44 percent spending less than $2,000.

Not surprising, the availability of prayer facilities (78 percent), halal dining options (71 percent) and Wi-Fi (67 percent) at airports are the top three most important services for business travellers. When booking a flight, the availability of Halal food and airfare emerged as the most important considerations for Muslim business travellers.

The majority of respondents (70 percent) avoid traveling during the Muslim month of fasting (Ramadan), pointing to the need for the travel industry to adjust its marketing strategies to cater to this segments preferences.

The full Muslim Business Traveler Insights is available here.
The new Suzuki Baleno, which has been enthusiastically acclaimed and backed by strong sales across the globe, has arrived in South Africa and is destined to become a rapid attention-grabber in the brand's local line-up.

Management has set its sights on 80 sales a month which might seem a tad optimistic in the current downturn in new vehicle sales but such is the appeal of the Baleno that it might well clock up that figure or do even better.

It is a handsome wagon with a number of eye-catching features such as a sporty, sloping roofline, bulging wheel arches, slit-eyed headlights, black grille with the prominent S badge, sunken fog lights and attractive wheel trim.

Comfortable interior

The living quarters are refined, comfortable and richly endowed with many appealing nice-to-haves and it feels much roomier than its compact exterior proportions suggest. Thats especially true of the rear bench seat, which is wide enough for three occupants, and offers ample shoulder room, with legroom to match.

In fact, the distance between the front seat backrest and the rear bench seat, also referred to as the tandem distance, is an impressive 805 mm. The rear bench seat is divided 60:40, allowing each section to be folded flat individually to create a number of seating and cargo space configurations. The standard luggage space is 355 litres and with the rear seat folded flat this is extended to a generous 756 litres.

The instrument panel is designed for maximum visibility directly ahead of the driver and a 6,2-inch colour display for the infotainment system is located in the centre stack in the case of the range-topping GLX models.

There are three models to choose from, a GL, GLX manual and a GLX Auto and even the least expensive GL has a full-house of goodies which include dual front airbags, ABS, EBD and BAS, aircon, MP3, USB compatible CD player, Bluetooth with six speakers; steering mounted audio controls, multi-information display, front and rear accessory sockets. Extras on the GLX models add leather-covered steering wheel, alloy wheels, keyless entry, 6.2 touchscreen, rear park distance control, cruise control side and curtain airbags, auto climate control LED daytime running lights and more.

Driving pleasure

Fancy kit, comfort and looks aside, where the Baleno really shines is on the trot, where it really dishes up a delightful performance. All the models are powered by a 1.4lVVT engine that produces 68kW and 130Nm, which does not make any motoring aficionados heart beat faster, but on this hatch it feels more than capable.

The two manual gearbox derivatives accelerate from 0-100 km/h in 10,9 seconds and are capable of clocking a top speed of 180 km/h. The automatic model boasts a 0-100 km/h sprint time of 11,6 seconds and has a top speed of 170 km/h. Suzuki claims an average fuel consumption of 5.1 litres/100 km for the manual and 5,4 litres/100 km for the automatic version.

At the media introduction I took the wheel of the least expensive GL and in the company of one of the other oldies with heavy miles as a motoring scribe, we covered some interesting areas in the more scenic parts of the Eastern Cape and we were equally impressed by the Suzukis upmarket versatility.

Everything about this hatch feels good. The ride is solid, the steering feel is much better than the average in this segment, the cog-swopping process is slick and well attuned to power on demand and the living quarters are really well-insulated. In typical Suzuki fashion its clings to the tar with tenacity with hardly any body lean through the corners. To drive the Baleno is pure pleasure and undoubtedly amongst the best I have piloted in this class and price range.

It was quite unusual that not a single mutter about the Baleno was aired by any of the scribes during the after-drive beer-oclock post mortem before dinner. We all seemed to have one common concern though: that not one of us could find even one nit-pickingly small thing to dislike about the Baleno  and that says it all about this top notch Suzuki.

The models and prices (which include a three-year/100,000 km warranty, as well as a four-year/60,000 km service plan) are:

Suzuki Baleno GL  R199,900

Suzuki Baleno GLX manual  R229,900

Suzuki Baleno GLX automatic  R244,900
The world is changing, and we just have to look at Brexit, Trump's election victory and the current situation on Planet Zuma - aka South Africa - to verify this as fact.

The global economy needs to be seen in context, which is experiencing falling growth especially in developed world.

Brexit and Europe

The Issue that prompted Brexit and other changes originated from the implied threat of migrants, which lead to insecurity. This could have a knock-on effect in the rest of Europe, with other countries contemplating leaving the European Union (EU).

Political analyst, Daniel Silke, says that throughout Europe, there is a swing to the right and it will be interesting to see the outcomes when the France and Italian going to polls in the next few months. Having said that the economy in Europe is not that bad, in spite of the political volatility.

The Trump card

Trump heralds a dramatic change for US. And now that the horror show of the election is over, we face a double set of uncertain conditions  Brexit and how US will treat the developing world  especially the issues surrounding the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

President Trump will be unfettered regarding policy. Dont expect him to get his own way, but there will be pullback, he says. More protectionism could mean our exports are subject to excise duty.

There are shifting strands of power, such as dealing with rising China and aspirations of Putin. All of this puts the US economy in interesting state as Trump promised jobs and economic growth, Silke explains.

Moving away from Trump, volatility in the oil price has had a profound effect on the world, with massive job losses in the sector.

The previously booming China economy is now crackling and creaking. Its now muted growth has changed Chinas relationship with other economies on the world, as it goes through a multi-year transition, changing from a production to a services based economy, says Silke.

Africa

We have to be realistic about Africa where growth is also under pressure. Were no longer have an Africa rising scenario, but an East Africa rising one, Thanks to the regions more diversified economy. The good news is that many African economies are already in a state of transition, with the promise of open borders and relaxed trade conditions, but this does take a long time. Although, from a global perspective, Africa still point of growth, Silke says.

Part two  South Africa

Were facing a difficult period and fragile period for ruling party, with lots of discourse on leadership, which has created concern locally and globally, he explains.

Theres the Issue of business and its influence on government policies, and although there has been economic growth, its simply not good enough for our growing population.

The big challenge is creating hope for young South Africans as employment figures are unacceptably high. This not only poses a strain on social structures but also on the tax basket because so many young people are out of the tax loop, says Silke.

He explains that there is also more we can do about turmoil in higher education such as streaming people not suited for tertiary education into vocational programmes.

South Africa is dangerously close to junk status and with foreign debt at R147bn, a downgrade will increase our repayments causing more pressure.

Have we done enough? he asks. " The finance minister has done well to jack up state-owned enterprises. He can safely say we are tackling SOEs.

We must undertake not to spend beyond our needs, such as the nuclear deal.

On the other hand, the threat of junk status has gone a long way to improve dysfunctional relationships between state, labour and business.

However, we still face the political conundrum of Zuma, which has caused ructions even within his own party and unions, but its not enough to unseat him at the moment, Silke says.
John Robbie, who has spent more than 30 years with 702 - 15 of which he served as the 702 breakfast show host - will retire at the end of this year. Replacing Robbie as host of the breakfast slot from 6.00-9.00 is Xolani Gwala, who commences on 9 January 2017.

Robbie has won numerous awards and interviewed significant newsmakers on almost every major news story to affect South Africa, often setting the Gauteng and national news agenda for the day.

John Robbie

John has been a part of the fabric of the station since 1986 and has guided audiences through some of the most tumultuous stories and changes in our recent history, said Primedia Broadcasting CEO, Terry Volkwyn.

Reflecting on his time at 702, and his decision to leave, John said: Just as I ended my rugby career, I knew when it was time to go and informed my bosses. Thirty years at 702 has been a blast. I am proud of my contribution and proud of the station. It is one of the most transformed businesses in SA and has a massive role to play going forward. In thirty years, many on the morning show, I was never late once. Good luck to my dear colleagues and friends who are listeners and advertisers and to my family who have shared the journey. It has been a privilege to serve. "

Changes to 702 line-up

Redi Tlhabi, who has been with 702 in the mid-morning slot for 10 years, will take over afternoon drive from 15.00-18.00, currently held by Gwala. Tlhabi will take her tough but fair approach to afternoon drive and is thrilled to be taking over a new show.

Tlhabi's current show, 9.00-12.00, will be permanently hosted by Eusebius McKaiser who has been filling in for Tlhabi for the past three months while she has been on maternity leave.

When John first discussed his plans to retire, earlier this year, we were saddened by his loss to the line-up, but are in an exceedingly fortunate position to have the depth of talent on our station that we do, said 702 station manager, Thabisile Mbete. This new line-up strongly reflects South Africa. It is balanced and will take the station into the future.

Xolani has extensive experience on a breakfast show from before he re-joined 702, some four years ago. Hes an excellent broadcaster who we are proud to have on our station and as our new breakfast host, she said.

Gwala is looking forward to this new challenge. I have an immense respect for John and what he has done for 702 and South African radio in general. I know that taking over from him will be a great challenge, but Im humbled by it and looking forward to it.

McKaiser said he is ecstatic to be hosting his own show: Our country and world cry out for debate, creating meaning, being silly, laughing together, disagreeing deeply, emoting openly, and all the while building community. It's an enviable joy to have the privilege of being in conversation with our listeners daily in my favourite slot on the radio clock."

He too wanted to express his respect for John: John Robbie has been one of the most hardworking broadcasters in the country with an incredible energy and passion that put our 702 community of listeners at the centre of his daily offering of breakfast radio. He never took the airwaves for granted, and approached everyday as if his career depended on it. His openness to self-examine his worldview is a characteristic many of us struggle to emulate."

Mbete added that each of the new shows will create their own identity, while retaining all of the elements that audiences have become accustomed to.

One other change was announced: Veteran journalist Karima Brown will be hosting Talk @ Nine on Sundays. Brown was the Friday Stand-In for Tlhabi earlier this year, and took to the radio medium with positive response from the audiences. She will be hosting a current affairs show that discusses and analyses the stories and issues that come out of the Sunday newspapers.

Browns appointment and the new show format will come into effect from 20 November 2016.

The changes to breakfast and afternoon drive as well as 9.00 to midday will take effect in the new year, from 9 January 2017.
A while back, I attended my brother and his partner's launch of their urban wear store. The event was an intimate affair, but it echoed an important message, the importance of community in entrepreneurship. At the launch, my brother's team had invited all of their friends and family to partake in this momentous occasion. I was impressed by the team's commitment to their cause and to turning something that was nothing, but a concept, into a reality.

Shangoo (www.shangoo.co.za) had gone from being an online store to having an actual physical presence. For the team, cutting the ribbon felt like theyd been officially invited to open a new high rise building! We shared in the joy, but we neglected the other and most important part of us being invited to the event: we didnt buy much. Only a few people walked away with trinkets that were being advertised in the store. This saddens me, because it could mean a few things.

 Hongqi Zhang via 123RF

First, we dont understand how important it is for us to be invited to such events. Through the invitation we get exclusive exposure to the brand and the brands entrepreneurial walk, asking them to comment about their journey, trials and tribulations and key successes and failures. We also get a chance to get advice on how to be successful in our own entrepreneurial endeavours. In light of this free consult, the least we can do is show our support through purchasing a few products on display and remember from a communal approach were supporting a business to one day become so great that it will employ our children and, if we work hard enough, our childrens children. An example is Adidas and Puma, larger than life organisations which all started from humble beginnings by the Dassler brothers in a small village in Bavaria. The town of Herzogenaurach, Germany is immortalised because of these two brothers and their formed companies. Our turn has come and, when invited to such events, attendance is half the support. Purchasing a product or two is the greatest support we can show.

Second is were probably too broke to be able to afford to offer our support. This raises a lot of alarm bells. A lot of us attended the event dressed smart, driving cars that cost a pretty penny and work for top-tier employers. However, the poor uptake of product means that were knee-deep in debt that we cant afford to support our up and coming businesses. If this is the case, African entrepreneurship will continue to grow and progress at a snails pace. What we need to do is get as much money as we can away from the banks and financial services providers and invest it in building businesses in our local communities. The more money that goes around within our ecosystems, the more opportunities we create for ourselves with no financial services provider acting like our big brother. In the context of the entrepreneur, the least we can do is applaud them for sacrificing their hard earned income to bootstrap their own little venture. We celebrate our heroes by making a sacrifice for their sacrifice. We need to start believing that we have the power and resources to make a difference in our own lives. Like Obama, we are the change that we need.

Lastly, we dont understand or dont really care about what entrepreneurship entails. Although subjective, a personal review of the continents most successful entrepreneurs is limited to necessity driven enterprises. Even though I am all for the basics being adequately supplied in the market, I believe in balance. Balance that includes creating industries that address a want instead of a need. An example is the US film industry which encourages people to write comics, comics which are converted into screenplays, screenplays converted into films and films converted into series. An entire value chain that supports us to greatly address the continents unemployment. This cannot be done without support from the community.

In conclusion, my own story is linked to a book I wrote with a friend. A book Id like to use as a springboard to start my own publishing company. A publishing company committed to positively contributing to African poetry, short-story and full novel writing. We cant all have our dreams fulfilled by corporate employment. There are other ways to earn a living. We hope our society understands the importance of entrepreneurship. An understanding that will result in support - support that will contribute to the building and progression of Africas next commercial giant.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, left, shakes hands with Kazakh Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev in the third regular meeting between the two countries' prime ministers in Astana on Thursday. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

We live in a world of increasing interdependency and complexity, where international cooperation is necessary, however increasingly multifaceted and complicated. Global challenges such as climate change, global health and security issues require ever-higher degrees of global effort and collaboration if they are to be overcome. This calls for new ideas on how to make global governance work better for all countries and people.

In the light of this, the Belt and Road Initiative (the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road), potentially the world's largest economic corridor, is part of a new trend and an innovative contribution to global governance. It represents an opportunity to build a shared vision for common prosperity through regional cooperation, and could act as an accelerator for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The Belt and Road Initiative covers a vast population of 4.4 billion and an economic output of $21 trillion in more than 70 countries in Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Africa. The majority of them are emerging and developing countries. Through connectivity, it aims to foster trade, financial integration and people-to-people bonds, while promoting inclusiveness and win-win cooperationhence reshaping the landscape of international cooperation.

A key strength of the initiative is that it strategically targets recipient countries' development gaps. According to a joint study by the Asian Development Bank, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and the UN Development Programme (Making it Happen, 2015), in the Asia-Pacific region alone, the total financing requirement for infrastructure is $8.3 trillion between 2010 and 2020, or $750 billion per year.

While the majority of financing is expected from government revenues, foreign direct investment will play an increasingly important rolemaking the Belt and Road Initiative a powerful framework for facilitating its flow.

Some countries are already fully engaged and investment and trade are expanding rapidly.

Outbound direct investment made by Chinese companies to countries along the Belt and Road reached $12 billion in the first three quarters of 2015, up 66 percent year-on-year.

The question is how these investments can bring not only economic development, but also human development benefits along the way. The Belt and Road Initiative will contribute to improved infrastructure and industrialization, but it should not stop there, and must also transform local communities and help reduce poverty and protect the environment, and facilitate inclusive social development, contributing to the achievement of UN Agenda 2030.

Highlighting sustainability is a critical aspect of the initiative's credibility, and the synergies and complementarities between initiative and the SDGs can help create a win-win outcome. The initiative's success will critically depend on the ability to contribute to national and local development objectives, and inter alia improving the livelihoods of local communities, through, for example creating decent jobs, increasing capacities and overall living standards.

The broader UN system, including agencies, such as United Nations Development Programme, UN Children's Fund and UN Industrial Development Organization, is ready to play a facilitating role to ensure alignment of the Belt Road Initiative with the SDGs. UNDP recently signed an agreement with the government of China, aiming to support China and the other countries along the Belt and Road in achieving their development aspirations, building more consensus, providing analytical basis for policymakers to engage on the initiative, and identifying practical projects coupled with investments to ensure that common economic prosperity will go hand-in-hand with inclusive social and environmental gains.

The Global Governance Forum brings together 14 Belt and Road countries, UN officials, development practitioners, think tanks and the private sector to explore a collective plan for concrete actions. This is just the beginning. We have a long road ahead of us, but all of us working in the UN system truly believe that development can be achieved only through a broader vision bringing together ideas, resources and partners with capacity to reach the common goal of shared prosperity for sustainable development.

The author is UN resident coordinator and UNDP resident representative in China.
DOUALA, Cameroon - Leading remittance service WorldRemit is set to accelerate adoption of digital money transfers to Cameroon, after completing a series of strategic deals with local partners.

Image by 123RF

WorldRemits new partnerships with MTN Mobile Money, Express Union and Banque Atlantique ensure that people in Cameroon can choose to receive remittances in a way that suits them  turbocharging Mobile Money transfers and adding nearly 700 cash pick-up locations throughout the country.

With the WorldRemit app or website, people all over the globe can now send money instantly and securely to their friends and relatives in Cameroon, to be collected in one of three ways:

Mobile Money - WorldRemit customers can send instant overseas money transfers to any MTN Mobile Money account. There are currently over 2.6 million registered MTN Mobile Money accounts in Cameroon.

WorldRemit customers can send instant overseas money transfers to any MTN Mobile Money account. There are currently over 2.6 million registered MTN Mobile Money accounts in Cameroon. Cash pickup  WorldRemit transfers can be collected at hundreds of Express Union locations throughout Cameroon or at any branch of Banque Atlantique.

WorldRemit transfers can be collected at hundreds of Express Union locations throughout Cameroon or at any branch of Banque Atlantique. Bank transfer  Funds can be sent directly to any Cameroon bank account.

WorldRemit sees high growth potential in remittances to Mobile Money accounts. With only 12% of adults in Cameroon holding bank accounts, Mobile Money provides a way for people to instantly receive a remittance using just a phone.

WorldRemit sends more money transfers to Mobile Money accounts than any other provider and is currently connected to 34 Mobile Money services in 26 countries. Over half of WorldRemits money transfers to Africa are now received on Mobile Money accounts.

Remittances play an important role in Cameroons economy - Cameroon received $244m in remittances in 2015 according to the World Bank, more than double the amount in 2010.

Catherine Wines, co-founder and Executive Director at WorldRemit, comments: We see the diaspora of Cameroon as leading the way in adoption of digital money transfers. Sending money through our app becomes as easy as sending an instant message  no more waiting in line at expensive money transfer agents. Our partnerships with trusted brands like MTN Mobile Money, Express Union and Banque Atlantique offer unrivaled local expertise and more payout options to the benefit of consumers.

WorldRemit customers worldwide currently send more than 500,000 money transfers every month.
Over the last year, all eyes have been on Africa's technology sector. And for a very good reason: infrastructure growth is booming. Between 2010 and 2016, seven new undersea cables brought fast data connections to the continent, with two more already under development. Meanwhile, mobile providers have invested $13.6billion into getting 500,000,000 Africans online by 2020.

Brett Parker

But as necessary as infrastructure investment is, it alone won't take African business global. So what technological development or product has the potential to make African businesses global players?

Tech sector outperforms expectations

A common misconception is that raw materials are the big African growth story of the last decade. But according to research by Freshfields, since 2004 Africa's technology companies have delivered 19% annualised returns, compared to just 11% in commodities.

A clue to why the African tech sector is growing can be found in the East African mobile payments industry. In most of the world, mobile payments is a niche sector, because consumers have many other convenient ways to pay -bank cards, credit cards and banking transfers, for instance.

But in Sub-Saharan Africa, only 34% of people have a bank account. This used to be a significant barrier to any transaction that wasn't small-scale or local. Or, in plain English, it was a huge inconvenience.

Change began in 2007, when local telco Safaricom teamed up with Vodafone to develop the mobile-payment system M-Pesa. Its creators expected M-Pesa to have 250,000 customers by the end of its third year. After just two years it already had over two million customers.

By 2014, the East African mobile-payments market was worth US$61 billion. There were 41 new African mobile-payment start-ups. A huge 80% of all the world's mobile payments were African. And global players were looking to Africa to see what lessons they could learn.

So is mobile-payment the technology that could take African business global? There's clearly huge potential for the industry to grow and act as an enabler for other sectors: in particular African SMEs and sole traders, who need a means of making and accepting online transactions. But for a fundamental transformation to take place, it needs to be about more than just one industry.

Overcoming barriers through technology

Another brake on the globalisation of African business is the tariff and non-tariff barriers that inhibit the growth of a single African market. This is something that African businesses need to change if they are to grow to the point of being ready to operate on a global scale.

Here again, signs are positive. For instance, the NGO, TradeMark East Africa, worked with the Ugandan government to develop an online reporting system for non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade.

Exporters in East Africa can now report NTBs online or via SMS, resulting in a 20% reduction in the time taken to move goods around the region. This is expected to lead to increased trade, lower costs and higher regional GDP.

At the same time, the adoption of online revenue, legal and other government systems is helping African countries cut red-tape and increase the speed at which businesses can operate. In Addis Ababa, for instance, tax assessments can now be made online: giving taxpayers access to faster decisions, with less form filling.

Without doubt, institutional barriers to trade and growth need to be broken down, if African business is to go global. But technology is only one part of the solution. Much more depends on political will and clout.

Foundation of any technological revolution



To take on the world, African business will need investment in technological infrastructure. It will need break-out technologies that allow it to disrupt and then likely lead existing global markets. And it will need technology solutions to problems that currently hold it back. But there is something more fundamental than all of these factors:

Africa is the world's youngest continent. This will give it a demographic dividend, just as the last generation of economic tigers is beginning to age. But only 1% of the 11 million African young people who come of age every year have even basic software coding skills. This is a waste of talent and a barrier to growth. Without basic STEMS skills, let alone coding knowledge, African entrepreneurs won't be able to grow their businesses to the point of being ready to compete on the global stage.

In April 2016, Africa Internet Group (AIG) - the holding company for a range of online businesses - was valued at US$1 billion, making it the first 'African tech unicorn'. AIG's success is not a one-off. M-Pesa in Kenya, the mobile advertising platform Twinpine in Nigeria, and South Africa's content-distribution service 8bit - among many other successes - prove that.

"If it works in Africa, it'll work anywhere," jokes Juliana Rotich, the co-founder of BRCK, a Kenyan-made Wi-Fi hotspot and battery designed for use in the field. And there are hundreds of African technology companies with innovative ideas, ready to prove her right. But in order to do it, they need access to a skilled, digital workforce.

The technology that will take African business global? As AIG and M-Pesa have shown, it's the software developer's kit, in the hands of an African programmer and entrepreneur who's been trained to use it. The time to start training the next generation of African programmers is now.

Source: African Media Agency.
Eight Finnish technology companies are joining AfricaCom 2016 in Cape Town, South Africa on November 15 - 17, 2016, through Finnish trade promotion agency Finpro's 'Connectivity from Finland' program. The purpose of their visit is to connect with potential clients and present their offering, to eventually form beneficial and value-adding business relationships.

Finnish technology companies view Africa as fertile soil for future business thanks to considerable mobile communications investments throughout the continent. The expertise of the Finnish tech companies is well suited to answer the current needs of African telecom operators.

Finland is known for its long history and track record in telecommunications innovation. After the success of Nokia, Finnish telecom businesses have introduced several new technologies and digital services to the global market.

Finland is one of the worlds leading developers of new mobile communications technology, but Finnish companies also have plenty of know-how in existing telecom technologies. The companies we are bringing along have plenty of specialised expertise to offer to several promising markets in Africa, says Kimmo Aura, Finpros Connectivity from Finland program director.

Joining AfricaCom, are network performance and data transfer optimisation specialists Creanord, Exomi and Cumucore, software companies JL-Soft, Methics and Pajat Solutions, as well as data roaming specialist Uros and operator platform developer Tecnotree.

The participating companies offer a versatile selection of future proof technologies for the digitalised world. They enable operators to improve their operational efficiency and come up with new business models and offerings, which in turn benefit end-users and boost their customer satisfaction.

New investments generate new needs

Emerging foreign interest in the African telecom sector stems largely from sizeable mobile communications development projects happening throughout the continent. The mobile markets in South Africa and Kenya, for example, are already highly developed, but reliable data transfer capabilities will become increasingly crucial in the future as mobile Internet access grows more commonplace.

Faced by the challenge of increasing mobile internet use, operators are striving to find new ways to make the most of their existing network infrastructure in order to support the future growth of data traffic. This calls for new ways of monetising data traffic as well as improving the capacity of existing networks, Aura says.

Finnish telecom expertise covers the entire operator value chain from core and access network solutions to value adding services and applications.

Connectivity from Finland has had a strong focus on Africa since its start in 2015, and it has previously organised similar trade missions to select African markets.
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Karen Balsley-Omot is a sixth-grade EL teacher at Worthington Middle School. On Wednesday, she spent time in each of her classes talking about the outcome of the presidential race. I didnt even have to ask about the election and they said they were feeling terrible and stressed out, she said after school on Wednesday. Among the questions her students asked were: Why does Trump hate us?, How will this affect my family?, What happens now?, Is the wall going to keep me from visiting family? There were a lot of fears with just not knowing, Balsley-Omot said. They just dont understand. In one of her classes Wednesday, Balsley-Omot was asked if a Muslim friend of one of her students was going to be able to come to school again. . . .

Read the whole article at the Daily Globe.

According to a database on the Minneapolis Star Tribune's website, 54 percent of students in the Worthington Public Schools live in households where the primary language was something other than English.

In 2013, Sioux Falls-based Keloland Television reported in Diversity Runs Deep:

Diversity runs deep through the halls at schools in Worthington, Minnesota with different nationalities, ethic groups and languages; but teachers, students and staff use the diversity to their advantage. "We have a very unique population of students in Worthington," Worthington High School Principal Paul Karelis said. If you step in the halls, you will see students of different backgrounds working together for one goal. "It doesn't matter what nationality our kids come from, in our school district they don't necessarily see color. They don't see different nationalities. They don't see different kids. They are kids and they are all working to do well and create opportunities for themselves," Worthington School District Superintendent John Landgaard said. Landgaard has been superintendent for the past decade and says he never thought the school would transform into this. "There's been a dramatic change in our student population, over that time period and about a year ago someone referred to our school as an international school," Landgaard said. "That's a benefit for our kids. They have the opportunity to work with a number of students." Hispanic, Karen, Native American and Asian, the administration prides themselves on working and learning together. "There are numerous languages spoken along with different dialects within that language that not only presents opportunities for our district, but also challenges," Landgaard said. Of the 2,700 students in the district, 68 percent are diverse, but that doesn't set anyone a part. "Our staff and our students no longer see the color of skin and every kid is expected to elevate themselves to the highest possible level," Karelis said. "We have 28 different languages, approximately 28 different languages in the building right now. It's really unique to be able to walk down to the lunch room at lunch time and see 200 students seating together eating lunch and there are combinations of kids from all over the country and the world." . . .

According to election results posted at the Minnesota Secretary of State's website, 61.38 percentage of voters casting ballots in Nobles County (home to Worthington) cast their ballots for Donald Trump.

Photo: Students on the first day of classes, Fall 2016 at Worthington Middle School. Buntjer reports that 67 percent of the students at the school are immigrants or refugees, or the children of immigrants or refugees. Photo by Tim Middagh via Worthington Globe.

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From the West Central Tribune crime blotter

Tuesday, police received two reports of protesters outside Vinje Lutheran Church on the 1100 block of Willmar Avenue Southwest. Vinje was a polling place in Tuesday's election. The first was reported around 5 p.m. A man was standing outside the polling place with an anti-abortion sign. The man had reportedly been asked to leave, but was refusing to. At 7:15 p.m. Tuesday, police received another report of a protester in the parking lot of the same church. The man was advised of Minnesota statute barring protesters within 100 feet of a polling place

Minnesota election judges take our statutes very seriously, though it's likely many of those voting at the location agreed with the protester. The right of voters to cast their ballots without encountering persuasion or intimidation at their polling location is part of the process.



The man was persistant--and likely there to shame Clinton supporters.

According to the interactive poll finder at the Minnesota Secretary of State's website, Vinje Lutheran Church is the polling place for Willmar Ward 2, Precinct 2. The vote in the precinct heavily favored Republican candidates who opposed reproductive rights (and in the U.S. House, Minnesota Senate and Minnesota House, all DFL and GOP candidates were anti-choice; that left the Presidential race).

With the exception of conservative Blue Dog Republican Collin Peterson, the precinct voted heavily Republican. This was not the case in 2014, when citizens favored DFL candidates with the exception of Dan Severson for Minnesota Secretary of State; in 2012, the voters split their tickets, picking Romney--but Klobuchar for U.S. Senator, Republican candidate Joe Gimse over eventual winner Lyle Koenen for state senate (both were sitting senators at the time) and Sawatzky over sitting state representative Bruce Vogel.

It's a swing district, but both Republican and DFL candidates for the state legislature from Willmar are pro-life.

Photo: File photo of the church, via West Central Tribune.

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 33166 770th Ave, Ortonville, MN 56278) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post.

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Looking over the results of Tuesdays election, local Democrats said the outcome provided some sobering lessons about the sentiment of the electorate and ways the party needs to reshape its approach.

Clearly people are concerned, they are upset, said Doug Ballard, vice chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, who was a Hillary Clinton delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Where do we go from here? That's the challenge we have as the Democratic Party.

Ballard had several thoughts on what the election means for those on the left.

We need to message better certainly, we need to really evaluate how we communicate and how we represent working people, he said. The Democrats have been and are the party that supports workers, but somehow the hate and fear has worked its wedge within our society.

Harriet Young, vice chair of the Coconino County Democratic Party, also zeroed in on the partys communication strategy, saying it needs to relay a simpler message that doesnt get twisted by opponents.

Instead, Democrats are labeled as being big government and socialistic when they take positions meant to help workers like supporting job benefits or advocating for better workplace safety, she said.

Clinton also possessed her own inescapable set of faults, her local supporters said. She is undeniably an establishment candidate and that is probably what hurt her the most, said Sallie Kladnik, vice chair of the Coconino County Democratic Party.

I think Bernie (Sanders) did have more of an excitement and connection with his progressive values and the fact that he challenged Wall Streets control of government, Kladnik said.

The party needed a more satisfying messenger than Clinton, Young agreed.

She didn't create a good story, something that's going to grab attention and get you the front page, Young said.

Patrice Horstman, who also was a Clinton delegate to the Democratic National Convention, said Tuesdays vote shows a country deeply divided. At the same time, Horstman said she sees the ideals and philosophies of the Democratic Party, like economic and social justice, equality and diversity, are still being embraced by the majority of the country.

Young and others said they see a bleak future when it comes to the survival of President Obamas Affordable Care Act, the makeup of the Supreme Court and action on pressing environmental problems like climate change.

Still, they expressed a resolve not to follow in the footsteps of Republicans who vowed to do everything in their power to make Obama a one-term president when he was elected in 2008.

Kladnik said she hoped her party could turn the other cheek, give president-elect Donald Trump respect and get behind some attempt to try to fulfill his promises on reviving the economy.

Horstman also said she was willing to give Trump a chance.

The Democratic Party is not an obstructionist party, she said. It is so important that we are able to move our country forward, so to the extent that we are moving our country forward in economic and social justice for all people, he is going to get my support and the support of the other Democrats I know.

Faced with a Republican-controlled White House and Congress, Young said she is turning her focus to working through citizen initiatives to pass more progressive state-level measures like the minimum wage increase that Arizona voters approved on Tuesday.

There are some places where local Democrats said they see some hope for compromise with Trump. Campaign finance reform may be one, Young said. Another could be infrastructure investments, Kladnik said.

This whole thing has been so acrimonious that it will take some healing, she said.
Chin fighter Lost Both legs in battle but Never Gave Up his Dream to be a computer scientist The artillery round landed and exploded next to me. The...
While some lessons from such a project could definitely be drawn, it is not clear if such similar undertakings would follow suit anytime soon for some 103,000 refugees spread over nine camps along the Thai-Burma border for more than two decades, given the still unclear to negative feedback regarding the returnees in terms of the recent resettlement experience and more importantly, the failure to instill the peaceful atmosphere on the ground, in most ethnic states and the country over.

Although this United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) first voluntary repatriation of Burmas refugees from Thailand is definitely aimed as a pilot project and partly, the eagerness of the stakeholders concerned to pull it through for whatever reason they might have in store, even under unfavorable condition, an UNHCR official was careful in his statement not to sound overly optimistic, regarding the issue.

 This particular movement is a milestone but it wont be the start of a large exodus, Iain Hall, UNHCRs senior field coordinator, told Reuters.

Rumors have surfaced that the Thai government plans to close down the camps but Hall dismissed this claim.

Were not promoting return and weve made that clear with both governments, said Hall. We dont yet believe it is the time to return but of course these people have the right to return if they want to.

Feedback and situation on the ground

Of the nine refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border that house around 103,000 refugees and internally displaced persons, more than 80,000 are ethnic Karen, with a mixture of Mon, Tavoyan or Dawei, Karenni and Shan, from eastern Burma who fled violence and persecution while the country was under military rule.

While most of the refugees will be resettled in various towns within Karen State, according to the states Chief Minister Nang Khin Htwe Myint, some would also go to Mon State, Arakan State, Tenasserim and Rangoon Regions.

Feedback on how the returnees are fairing after their return is still scant at this writing, but some resettlement problems regarding resettlement in ethnic states are just beginning to surface, including also the housing difficulties of the Rangoon returnees.

According to local media, seventeen refugees who returned recently to Burma from Thailand are stuck in a state-run shelter in Rangoon because the government has so far failed to arrange housing for them.

Reportedly, government officials have encouraged the four families to buy low-cost housing in Hlaing Tharyar Township, but so far they have refused.

Daw Khin San Yi, 59, a former political prisoner and refugee who returned from Nu Po camp in Tak province, told The Myanmar Times: We lived with difficulties in Thailand. We are not rich people and we have no money to pay for low-cost housing. I dont understand why the government arranged that.

She added that she and her husband returned from the Nu Po refugee camp, where they were sheltered since 2010, as they heard that the National League for Democracy-led government would fully support their repatriation.

We chose to return to Myanmar but I think we made a mistake. I thought the government had already arranged our accommodation, she said.

Again, although not directly concerned with the recent repatriation, the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Tanintharyi Region told a press conference in Rangoon according to the Myanmar Times quite recently, that they thought their problems were finally over when the ceasefire between the military and ethnic armed groups was finally signed in October last year, allowing them to return to their ancestral homesteads.

But they discovered that their problems were just beginning, when four villagers from Kyayzuetaw village, Yephyu township, have been slapped with lawsuits by Shwe Padonmar Production Enterprise, and two villagers from Band Mae village, Myeik district, are being sued by the Asia World company amid accusations that some villagers destroyed palm oil trees.

The villagers, who left in the 1990s, due to the fighting between the KNU and the military, returned twenty years later, as the regional minister for Karen affairs has told them to do so, only to find out that certain companies were granted permission by the government to set up palm oil plantation projects in their villages, according to Naw Pe Tha Law of the Tanintharyi Friends civil society group.

Karen Refugee Committee (KRC)

Regarding the recent refugee repatriation undertaking, this writer has inquired a prominent Karen National Union (KNU) functionary, David Tharckabaw on his take, in which he replied: The KNUs stated policy has been the return of the refugees should be done only after there are stable peace and democracy in the country. This pilot project is done by some of our own officials and foreign NGO persons who would gain benefit from the refugee return.

According to him the KRCs ten point refugee repatriation statement issued is also still the KNU policy today.

The Karen News of 26 March 2013 posted the KRCs ten key point statement that had to be met in order for a repatriation process to be put in place that did not undermine the lives of refugees.

KRCs ten key points are:

Nationwide ceasefire should be observed;

There should be sustainable peace and political conflicts should be settled;

Provision of universal human rights must be respected;

Relocated areas should be freed from land mines and security should be given a priority;

The relocated areas should be suitable for one to support their livelihood; favorable land should be provided adequately for ones family;

Health certificates, education certificates received should be recognized by the government;

We will not tolerate force repatriation; it should be ones own decision or voluntary return;

Adequate preparation should be given to return;

Right should be given to the Committee concerned regarding repatriation and allow them to inspect location and collect necessary information;

The repatriation can only take place when the concerned organizations, KRC, INGOs, NGOs, UNHCR, and CBOs (Civilian-Based Organizations) agree that there is a genuine peace in Burma.

UNHCR strategic roadmap

In the same vein, the UNHCRs Strategic Roadmap for Voluntary Repatriation also outlined the similar conditions for the possible return of the refugees on a large scale.

Accordingly, promotion of voluntary repatriation will be initiated by UNHCR only when conditions of legal, material and physical safety throughout South-East Burma are conducive to return for the vast majority of refugees.

In particular, it is envisaged that the following benchmarks should be met:

A Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement or other durable ceasefire agreements are in place;

UNHCR has unhindered access to most of the return areas and is able to conduct protection monitoring, including through confidential interviews with returnees and receiving communities;

An effective framework for mine action at the regional or national level is in place; in particular, a system throughout the South-East for demarcation of return routes and locations, and mine risk education (MRE);

Plans for free and fair elections remain on track, or more likely the vote has been completed, with a political transition underway (This benchmark penned in 2015 before the election was partly fulfilled, with NLD being able to form the government in March 2016, although the militarys formidable clutch on political power remains in tact, made necessary by the 2008 military-drafted constitution);

A tripartite agreement for return is in place which clearly re-establishes national protection for returnees.

Accordingly, UNHCR employs the following definitions in relation to its repatriation categories.

Spontaneous returns, which are already taking place, are organized by the refugees themselves, without UNHCRs direct knowledge or support before or during the movement.

Facilitated returns actively involve UNHCR both through the provision of information prior to departure, possible assistance to Persons with Specific Needs (PSNs) during the voluntary return movement, and assistance upon return, with such engagement contingent upon an assessment of the conditions in a specific location.

Promoted returns involve extensive UNHCR support, including support for transportation and the entitlement to a package of reintegration assistance, once the conditions are appropriate for the promotion of return throughout South-East Myanmar. (Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Strategic Roadmap for Voluntary Repatriation, Refugees from Myanmar in Thailand 2015-2017, Update  March 2015)

Core problems and perspective

Aside from the negative feedback of the recent, facilitated, repatriation pilot project, lack of real ceasefire on the ground and problems stemming from unjustified land confiscation and distribution would be the two toughest challenges that the government has to overcome.

The KRC and as well as the UNHCR have outlined these common issues which are essential to the successful repatriation of the refugees.

The nine refugee camps in Thailand are mostly inhabited by the Karen, with a mixture of Karenni, Mon, Tavoyan and Shan, among others. And the military situation in the mentioned, affected states could be termed as a mixture of tranquil and conflict zones.

For example in Karen State the conflict between the DKBA splinter group, which calls itself the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, and the Karen Border Guard Force (KBGF), that is under the wing of Burma Army with Burmese military officials involved, have pushed some four to five thousands of IDPs and refugees fleeing to inland sanctuaries like Myaing Gyi Ngu and to the Thai side of the border some two months ago.

Reportedly, as recently as of 20 October, there has been a clash between the DKBA splinter group and a joint force of Burma Army and KBFG.

 During the attack, four of our soldiers died, Maj Saw San Aung, a leader of the DKBA splinter group told The Irrawaddy on 20 October. The fighting lasted over 30 minutes and we heard that one civilian was injured.

The Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) and New Mon State Party (NMSP) are non-signatories to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and thus are militarily prone to attacks if the Burma Army chooses to do so.

Even the NCA signatorys Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) drugs rehabilitation center and its other various military camps were attacked last month by Burma Army with the pretext of RCSS recruiting new troops.

The Union-level Ceasefire Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC-U) is said to be investigating the fighting that has now already died down, even though it could restart any time depending on the mood of the Burma Army.

The KNU, the signatory of the NCA has no military engagement with the Burma Army starting 2011, except for some small accidental clashes. But the clashes between the DKBA splinter group and KBGF, sometimes in collaboration with the Burma Army, have irked the KNU, as the Karen BGF intruded into its areas of control and even asked permission for its troops to be stationed permanently, which were refused.

Other than that the KNU congress that is about to be held, even though rumors about postponement for one year, due to the wish of Chairman Mutu Say Poe, is said to be in discussion.

Many knowledgeable Karen watchers have not ruled out that Mutus faction could be voted out, due what many believe to be his appeasement posture vis a vis the Burma Army, and a hardliner faction headed by Naw Zipporah Sein, Vice- President of KNU, could replace him.

According to insider Karen sources, there has been unclear speculation regarding the last KNU congress election, which has ushered Mutu in as a Chairman of the KNU.

Reportedly, when the former Vice-President David Tharkabaw was not reelected, a proposal to recount the votes was made, but unable to carry out as the voting ballots were already burned. The controversial surrounding the election results were never able to be cleared, which might have resulted in little or no backing from Karen diaspora, political parties and Civil Society Organizations for Mutu headed KNU leadership.

If this happens, the KNU might rejoin the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) and the whole military equation could change. This could either be unleashing another heightened military offensive by the Burma Army or coming to the negotiation table with renewed enthusiastic positive attitude, as it might seem fighting a long drawn out war would only lead to the continued destruction of the country without end and the denial of development and reconciliation, which the country could ill afford.

Apart from that, within the context of the whole country, the armed conflict in the North and Northern-eastern part involving the Kachin, Shan, Palaung and Kokang EAOs are still ongoing, where some 100,000 IDPs and refugees are still unable to go home.

To sum up, the war in Karen State is not as wide spread for now, but could escalate depending on the KNU power struggle and political development. The armed conflicts in Shan and Kachin States are ongoing and could heightened anytime, if the military chooses to do so.

Besides all these debacles, another social side-effect might be brewing that could become a headache and problematic issue in the future, as Time has pointed out in its report on 27 October.

 Nearly half the Burma refugees in Thailand are under the age of 18. Its bad enough to be forced to become a refugee; its almost as bad to be forced to return to a homeland youve never knowna refugee in everything but name only, the Time report said.

Given such circumstances, the possibility of of a mass refugee repatriation, or promoted returns involving extensive UNHCR support, for the South-eastern and as well, the North and North-eastern part of the country, is dependent on a comprehensive end to conflict, a normalization of state-society relations, and the emergence of a legitimate and functioning state. And as such, the trial and error refugee repatriation pilot project of the UNHCR wont lead us anywhere to the durable solution, but only the holistic political settlement approach that would enable to end this decades-old, simmering, refugee crisis, linked to all the woes encompassing the country, would resolve the problems.
Kid Who Has Same Hair Streak As Her Mom! Pulse oi-Syeda Farah

A woman was more than happy when she gave birth to a baby girl as the little angel had a unique feature of white hair streak that the woman herself had inherited from her mother and grand mother!

Check out this interesting story of how the woman named Brianna was delighted to see her daughter get the same streak of white hair.

Also Read: A Woman Who Gets 50 Orgasms Every Day!!

The little girl is named "Tiny MilliAnna Worthy", and is from Ridgeland, South Carolina where her family resides and her mother, grandmother and great grandmother have the same streak of white hair in the middle of the forehead.

This rare co-incidence is due to a skin condition known as "Poliosis". Doctors claim that this condition is due to the lack of pigment in patches of hair and the skin surrounding it.

When the mother was interviewed by a leading newspaper she said: "We are unsure how far back the birthmark goes as my grandmother was adopted as a child and hasn't met her biological family. I was hoping she did have it. My younger sister that my mother had a few years after me didn't get it, so I didn't know if MilliAnna was going to, but once I had her and they laid her on my chest and I saw she had it I was so happy."

The mother claimed that the unique feature makes it difficult for them at times as people tend to ask them more questions regarding their hair colour.

Also Read: Facts To Know About The Indian Currency

However, the mother has decided to raise this beautiful child in the best possible way and teach her to pay no attention to nasty comments.

As of now this little bundle of joy is just 18 months old and is quite a star with this unique feature.

We only wish good luck to her!
PR Newswire

LONDON, Nov. 9, 2016

LONDON, Nov. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Future Market Insights report examines the 'Global Protein A Resin Market' for the period 2016-2026. The primary objective of the report is to offer market dynamics such as trends, drivers, restraints and opportunities for manufacturers operating in the global protein a resin market. The report also offers value forecast for the global protein A resin market for the period 20162016Globally, demand for protein A resin is increasing with increaisng production of biologics including monoclonal antibodies (Mab). Mab is one of the fastest growing markets in the medical product segment and the production of Mab in biopharmaceutical companies requires purification process to sepate it from other antibodies. Moreover, purification of monoclonal anitodies requires protein A resin due to presence of fragment crystallizable region (Fc region) in the Mab, and sepecifically binds to protein A resin. Increasing prevalence of chronic disease such as cancers and increaisng governement funds for R&D on monoclonal antibodies are the major factors expected to drive sales of protein A resin over the forecast period. However, relatively high cost of protein A resin and increasing awareness about alternate methods for purifcation of MAb is expected to hamper overall sales of protein A resin during the forecast period. To understand and assess the opportunities in this market, the report is categorically split into five sections, namely market analysis by product type, matrix type, application type, end user type and region. The report analyses the global protein A resin market in terms of market value (US$ Mn).The report starts with an overview of the protein A resin market. In the same section, FMI covers the protein A resin market performance in terms of revenue. The section also includes FMI's analysis of drivers and restraints from the supply and demand side perspective. This is followed by global trends and opportunities in the global protein A resin market.The next section of the report analyses the market based on product type and presents the forecast in terms of value for the next 10 years. Product types covered in the report include:Natural protein ARecombinant protein AThe next section of the report analyses the market based on matrix type segments and presents the forecast in terms of value for the next 10 years. The segment covers different protein A resin matrixes including:Agarose-based matrixGlass or silica gel-based matrixOrganic polymer-based matrixThe next section of the report analyses the market based on application segments and presents forecast in terms of value for the next 10 years. The segment covers different protein A resin applications including:ImmunoprecipitationAntibody purificationThe next section of the report analyses the market based on end user type segment and presents the forecast in terms of value for the next 10 years. The end user type segments covered in the report include:Biopharmaceutical companiesClinical research laboratoriesAcademic institutesFurthermore, the report analyses the market based on regions and presents forecast in terms of value for the next 10 years. Regions covered in the report include:North AmericaLatin AmericaWestern EuropeEastern EuropeAsia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ)JapanMiddle East & Africa (MEA)The forecast presented for the market assesses the total revenue generated in the protein A resin market. When developing the forecast, the starting point involves sizing the current market, which forms the basis for the forecast of how the market is anticipated to take shape in the near future. Given the characteristics of market, we triangulated the outcome based on analysis of supply side and demand side. However, quantifying the market across the above mentioned segments and regions is more a matter of quantifying expectations and identifying opportunities rather than rationalising them after the forecast has been completed. For quantifying of market numbers, we conducted interviews with subject matter experts in the protein A resin market field.In addition, we have taken into consideration the year-on-year growth to understand the predictability of the market and to identify the right growth opportunities in the global protein A resin market.As previously mentioned, the global protein A resin market is split into various categories based on product, matrix type, application, end user and region. All these segments or categories have been analysed in terms of Basis Point Share (BPS) to understand the individual segments' relative contribution to market growth. This detailed level of information is important for identification of various key trends in the global protein A resin market.Another key feature of this report is the analysis of the protein A resin market by product, application, matrix, end user and region type; and the market revenue forecast in terms of absolute dollar opportunity. This is traditionally overlooked while forecasting the market. However, absolute dollar opportunity is critical in assessing the level of opportunity that a provider can look to achieve, as well as to identify potential resources from a sales perspective in the global protein A resin market.Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4070845/About ReportbuyerReportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishershttp://www.reportbuyer.comFor more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 208 816 85 48 Website: www.reportbuyer.com

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/protein-a-resins-market-global-industry-analysis-and-opportunity-assessment-2016-2026-300360359.html

SOURCE ReportBuyer
Description - True Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia by David Hunt

In this side-splitting sequel to his best-selling history, David Hunt takes us to the Australian frontier. This was the Wild South, home to hardy pioneers, gun-slinging bushrangers, directionally challenged explorers, nervous indigenous people, Caroline Chisholm and sheep. Lots of sheep.



First there was Girt. Now comes . . . True Girt



In this side-splitting sequel to his best-selling history, David Hunt takes us to the Australian frontier. This was the Wild South, home to hardy pioneers, gun-slinging bushrangers, directionally challenged explorers, nervous indigenous people, Caroline Chisholm and sheep. Lots of sheep.



True Girt introduces Thomas Davey, the hard-drinking Tasmanian governor who invented the Blow My Skull cocktail, and Captain Moonlite, Australia's most famous LGBTI bushranger. Meet William Nicholson, the Melbourne hipster who gave Australia the steam-powered coffee roaster and the world the secret ballot. And say hello to Harry, the first camel used in Australian exploration, who shot dead his owner, the explorer John Horrocks.



Learn how Truganini's death inspired the Martian invasion of Earth. Discover the role of Hall and Oates in the Myall Creek Massacre. And be reminded why you should never ever smoke with the Wild Colonial Boy and Mad Dan Morgan.



If Manning Clark and Bill Bryson were left on a desert island with only one pen, they would write True Girt.

Buy True Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia by David Hunt from Australia's Online Independent Bookstore, Boomerang Books.

Book Details

9781863958844

1863958843

Paperback / softback

448

(234mm x 155mm x 30mm)Black Inc.31-Oct-2016Australia
Democrat Nikki Bagley, who is running against Republican incumbent Sylvia Allen in Legislative District 6, is still hopeful that uncounted ballots could give her a win in the state Senate race.

Thousands of early ballots and provisional ballots have yet to be counted in the four counties included in the northern Arizona district.

I really think it could go either way, Bagley said. I'm content either way, I love my life and my job, so its all good, but I am hopeful.

The most recent results from the Arizona Secretary of State shows Allen leading Bagley 40,838 votes to 38,023 votes, or 51.78 percent to 48.22 percent. They also show Reps. Bob Thorpe and Brenda Barton having pulled away from their Democratic challenger Alex Martinez in the LD6 House of Representatives race. Thorpe received 40,465 votes or 35.11 percent of votes cast, Barton received 39,385 votes or 34.17 percent of total votes cast and Martinez received 35,409 votes or 30.72 percent of total votes cast.

A rough calculation based on the number of ballots still uncounted in each county, the proportion of voters in each county who also are located in Legislative District 6 and the percent of counted ballots that went for Bagley over Allen show only a slim possibility of the Democrat taking the race.

In Coconino County, for example, 15,000 ballots haven't been counted and 69 percent of ballots already counted belonged to voters from LD6. Bagley has so far received 60 percent of votes to Allen's 40 percent in the county. If the estimated 10,350 LD6 ballots uncounted in Coconino follow the same partisan pattern as those counted, Allen would pick up 4,140 votes and Bagley would pick up 6,210 or a net of 2,070.

In Gila County, where about 3,300 ballots have not been counted, 2,000 of those could be from LD6 if they mirror the 61 percent of counted ballots countywide that were cast by LD6 voters. If the partisan breakdown falls along the same lines, Bagley would pick up 620 of those votes and Allen would pick up 1,360, or a net of 740.

In Navajo County where 1,107 ballots are uncounted and 28 percent of ballots cast were from voters also in LD6, the same set of calculations produce an estimated 310 ballots uncounted in the LD6 race with a net of 132 going to Allen.

The uncounted LD6 votes in Yavapai county, an estimated 5,100, would be expected to split evenly for Allen and Bagley if they mirror votes already counted in the race, which would leave the candidates' positions unchanged.

The sum of those calculations would put total net gain by Bagley at an estimated 1,198 votes, which is about 40 percent the 2,800 votes she currently needs to catch up to Allen.
Sex offender notifications

Detectives with the Flagstaff Police Department would like to make the following Level 3 (high risk to the community) sex offender notification:

 James Gary, 49, is living at the Relax Inn, located at 1500 E. Route 66, Room No. 24 in Flagstaff. Gary was convicted in 1992 of statutory sexual seduction of a minor under the age of 16. He is not wanted by the police at this time.

Detectives with the Flagstaff Police Department would also like to make the following Level 2 (intermediate risk to the community) sex offender notifications:

 Anthony Ray Talas, 37, is living at the Americana Inn, located at 2650 E. Route 66, Room No. 237 in Flagstaff. Talas was convicted in 2016 on two counts of attempted sexual abuse. The victim was a 7-year-old girl. Talas is not wanted by the police at this time.

 Albert Lopez Jr., 48, is living at 3114 N. Alta Vista Drive in Flagstaff. Lopez was convicted in 1990 on three counts of attempted child molestation. The victim was a 6-year-old girl. Lopez is not wanted by police at this time.

Notification that Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders are living in the community is required by Arizona law. Resident abuse of this information to threaten, intimidate or harass sex offenders will not be tolerated by the police department.

If residents have information about current criminal activity by any offender, contact the police department at 774-1414.

For more information on sex offenders in the Flagstaff area, visit the Arizona Department of Public Safety sex offender Web site at www.azsexoffender.com.

City and county residents who want to report a crime but wish to remain anonymous may call Silent Witness at 774-6111 or (877) 29-CRIME, submit a tip online at www.coconinosilentwitness.org, or text the word Flagtip along with your information to 274637 (CRIMES). Rewards of up to $2,000 are given for information that leads to an arrest.
Sitting Flagstaff City councilmembers are wondering what actions the new Council and mayor will take once theyre seated.

Mayor-elect Coral Evans sent an email with her plan for her first 100 days in office to the Arizona Daily Sun Editorial Board in mid-October. In that email she said that she planned to meet with each councilmember individually to discuss their priorities and goals. She also stated that she would meet with the citys partners to discuss their goals and how the partnership could be enhanced.

She wanted to hold a joint meeting between Council and the Arizona Board of Regents. She would create Community Policy Trust which would be made up of former elected city officials and would act as an advisory board to the mayor. She also wanted to hold quarterly community breakfasts/outreach events between city officials and the public.

Evans hoped to also create an internship program that would include Northern Arizona University, Coconino Community College and the city of Flagstaff.

Vice Mayor Celia Barotz said she was hopeful that the new Council would be able to have a meaningful conversation about several policy issues that were shelved during the past four years. Barotz was hoping to discuss ways to implement the climate change goals in the citys General Plan and have a discussion on affordable housing and the citys role in creating more of it.

Barotz also expected Evans would have a different approach to handling the City Council meetings, one that was more inclusive and examine issues that were important to voters.

Councilmember Eva Putzova said she was excited for the new Council term to begin and there were several items that she expected the new Council to take up.

There are more shared values between the members, she said.

One would be to change the rules on how many votes a councilmember needs to put an item on a future agenda. Council changed the rule in 2015 from requiring at least three votes to put an item on future agenda to four or more votes, a move that critics said disenfranchised the minority from even getting a hearing.

She also predicted that Council would take up the citys water rate structure and revisit the citys zoning code.

The city set water rates in July. Barotz and Putzova voted against the changes in the rates because they said that there weren't enough incentives for people and businesses to conserve water. They also said that the citys reclaimed wastewater rates should have been set at the same time since its part of the same system.

Evans voted against the rates because they didnt start collecting funding for the Red Gap Pipeline from new development until 2021.

The rules for transect zoning will also probably come under the scrutiny by the new Council, according to Putzova. Transect zoning gives developers a break on some of the city building and zoning code limits in exchange for the contractor building a more compact building that can house both residents and retail shops and offices. The zoning came under fire during the approval process for The Hub, a large apartment complex designed to attract college students. The Hub is slated to be built at the corner of Phoenix Avenue and Mikes Pike.

Councilmember Scott Overton said the Council was representative of the community. He expected some changes with the new members and would work with them to represent the needs of the residents he represented.
US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at election night rally in Manhattan, New York, US, November 9, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

MARRAKECH, Morocco - Donald Trump's win of the US presidential election on Wednesday has triggered concerns by experts attending the climate change conference here over the US possible pull-out from the Paris Agreement, with others still expecting the president-to-be would be more measured and responsible on the issue.

Salaheddine Mezouar, president of the 22nd Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22), congratulated Donald Trump on his election, saying that the ongoing conference will continue to discuss and mobilize, in order to "pursue progress already made with all parties, particularly with the new American administration."

He highlighted that climate change issue transcends politics and concerns the "preservation of our livelihood, dignity and the only planet on which we all live," saying that all parties will respect their commitments and stay the course in this collective effort.

Trump has vowed in his presidential campaign to "cancel" the Paris Agreement once elected, calling global warming a "hoax," and to stop all payments of US tax dollars to UN global warming programs, which worried many after the agreement's entry into force on Nov 4.

"Human-caused climate change is not a belief, a hoax, or a conspiracy. It is a physical reality," said an open letter released in September, signed by 375 members of the US National Academy of Sciences, including 30 Nobel laureates and renowned scientists such as Stephen Hawking.

"Election results will impact tone of negotiations, but the task ahead remains the same. We need long-term vision, regardless of the US elections," said Mariana Panuncio-Feldman, senior director of international climate cooperation of World Wildlife Fund.

Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy from Union of Concerned Scientists, said that it remains to be seen whether Trump would be the same "as we saw in the campaign, or a more measured and responsible Trump we saw in his acceptance speech this morning," adding that courage and expectation are needed to view him as a responsible president.

He said that Trump was "very conciliatory" in his acceptance speech on Wednesday, voicing hope to work with the United States as partners rather than adversaries.

According to Li Shuo, Greenpeace's senior climate policy adviser, the US economy is "decarbonizing," and developing renewable energy resources is the general direction of US action dealing with climate changes.

Segolene Royal, president of COP21, called it means of campaign that Trump advocated to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which is not worth concerning about, while Brazilian Minister of Environment Jose Sarney Filho said that dropping out the combat against climate change is unthinkable for any society in the face of the threatening issue.

The Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 during COP21. Its 180 signatories committed themselves to maintaining global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.

The United States remains outside a previous major climate agreement, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, since George W. Bush withdrew from the treaty in 2001, arguing that it might cripple the US economy.
Fred Solop, a political science professor at Northern Arizona University, said President-elect Donald Trumps success appeared to be due to voters in the Midwest, an area that has been hit particularly hard by the global economy.

It sure seems like there was an outpouring of support from blue collar, working class voters, Solop said. These people have seen their fortunes erode over time, theyre angry, and theyve lashed out.

Solop said many of these voters saw Trump as the Molotov cocktail.

Theyre voting to burn the whole system down, to throw a wrench in the works, he said.

Solop said, so soon after the election, it is difficult to tell why so many polls prior to the election failed to predict the outcome. However, he said some polls turned out to be reliable, even in the presidential race.

In Arizona, polling was very clear in the prediction that John McCain would win and Ann Kirkpatrick would lose in the Senate race, he said. And nationally, polls showed Hillary Clinton would win the popular vote by about 2.5 percent, and at this point shes ahead by at least 1 percent, within the margin of error.

Solop said election forecasters will have to adjust their strategies to remain relevant.

The forecasts clearly got it wrong, he said. Right now, we dont know if people were lying, or if people who said they were voting for Hillary Clinton did not vote, or changed their votes.

Solop said this election is unique because Trump has never held elected office or served in the military. However, he said presidents whose party is also the majority of the House of Representatives and the Senate have historically been able to make sweeping changes, with the cooperation of the legislative branch.

Along with those sweeping changes, there is also an opportunity for catastrophic failure, Solop said.

As a researcher, Solop said he is interested in learning if Trumps candidacy and election actually represents a change in the electorate, or if this election was a one-time anomaly.

We will be analyzing what Donald Trump can do and what he cant do, Solop said. Republicans control the Legislature, but he has been very critical of the Legislature, so Republicans are not sure what to expect.

Solop said one of the first gauges of support for Trumps leadership will come from leaders in the Congress, like Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, whose support for Trump was lukewarm throughout the election cycle.

Support from prominent members of the party was difficult for Trump to gather, another aspect of this years election that made it a very unusual situation, Solop said. Typically the party rallies around the nominee.

Solop said in the upcoming years Republicans will have to define themselves and the values of the party.

Is this the party of Trump, or was Trump an anomaly? Solop said.

However, he said Democrats are left in disarray after Clintons loss.

They put all their cards and support behind Clinton, he said. Even just one day ago, everyone thought she would be the next president.
In heavily Democratic Flagstaff, you could almost hear the moans Tuesday night as Republican Donald Trump scored an upset victory in the presidential race.

Out of 26 precincts, not a single one went for Trump  they dont call Flagstaff a blue oasis in an Arizona sea of red for nothing.

And as we report today, the defeat of Hillary Clinton by a man accused of demeaning treatment of women was particularly galling. Clinton had already broken many a glass ceiling in her long career in public life, and many supporters hoped the presidency would be the ultimate breakthrough for women everywhere.

But Clinton was gracious in defeat, as was fellow Democrat President Obama. And Trump sounded a rare conciliatory note in his victory speech, urging all sides to come together as Americans.

We hope the president-elect was being sincere because the campaign was particularly divisive. In part that was due to Trump himself, who played into voter anxieties over lost jobs and low wages by denigrating minorities, immigrants, Muslims and the disabled, among others. Such behavior is indefensible in any elected official, much less the president, and we urge leaders, regardless of political affiliation or faith tradition, to denounce it if it reoccurs. There has to be a line drawn between campaigning and governing  we changed the president, after all, not the Constitution. The right of all people to be treated with dignity and respect shouldnt depend on who wins at the polls every four years.

Ironically, just as Trumps victory was signaling a rejection of the political establishment at a national level, Flagstaff was undergoing a major shift of its own on Election Night. Grassroots organizer and neighborhood activist Coral Evans replaced two-term Mayor Jerry Nabours, and two other newcomers aligned with her toppled incumbent councilmembers. The Chamber of Commerce had backed the incumbents as more responsive to business, but opponents identified them with plans for even more post-recession growth that will tie up traffic and burden city water and sewer systems.

We dont know how much the new mayor and councilmembers can change thousands of housing units and hotel rooms already in the pipeline. But if the anxiety over change expressed in the election results can be addressed with a more transparent and deliberate approach to city decision-making, then Evans is their kind of mayor. As we report today, she has produced a plan for her first hundred days in office that is heavy on joint meetings with city partners, new advisory councils and more regular council outreach events. If the city is growing too fast or in the wrong direction, at least citizens will know about it.

Wed hope, of course, that the new council majority tackles substantive as well as procedural issues in a way that moves the needle. Growth, on balance, is a good thing to have  certainly much better than contraction. But high housing costs, limited water supplies and jobs that are concentrated in the lower-paying hospitality and retail industries have been seemingly intractable problems for decades. That doesnt mean Flagstaff is not an attractive and dynamic community. But for many families, the financial struggles outweigh the benefits, resulting in high community turnover.

The new Flagstaff council majority, like Donald Trump, will at least have a fresh start on old challenges. We hope they see the value in governing for a common good that transcends politics  or at least harnesses its energy and civic engagement to practical problem-solving, not constant confrontation.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/11/2016 (2182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Flipping through the pages of his wartime memoirs, Doug Christie pointed to a photo of an aircraft and quipped, Heres the office.

The Second World War veteran, now 97 years old, served as a tail gunner during the war. The office, as he called it, was a Boulton Paul Type E Turret. Christie completed 30 missions by the time the war ended in 1945.

Christie recently received the first shipment of his memoir, Some Experience, just in time for Remembrance Day. He will be at the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum on Friday at 2 p.m., where he will sell and sign copies of his book.

File Riverheights Terrace resident Doug Christie holds an old portrait of himself that sits on the retirement homes Wall of Honour, commemorating veterans that reside there, in this April photo. Christie, who served as a tail gunner during the Second World War, will be selling and signing copies of his new memoir, Some Experience, at the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum on Remembrance Day at 2 p.m.

Stephen Hayter, executive director of the CATPM, said Christie is the perfect guest for their Remembrance Day event, and a living reminder of what the memorial day is all about.

There wont be too many more chances to have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with a World War Two veteran, so we thought it would be a neat opportunity, Hayter said.

As The Brandon Sun reported last May, the book came about thanks to an incidental friendship at a Brandon retirement home. Christie met Joan Dillon who was visiting her mother at Riverheights Terrace.

They talked about Christies wartime experiences, and he showed her a package of handwritten notes.

Christie kept records of his missions, and made a point to collect the newspaper the day after each operation.

Together, Christie and Dillon worked on the book, with some historical context added in. Christie served with the No. 6 Royal Canadian Air Force Group Bomber Command after joining at the age of 21. It was his job to defend the bombers from enemy fire, from his perch in a turret located at the rear of the aircraft.

He originally wanted to share his stories for his children, but after some encouragement decided to sell it to a wider audience.

Joan talked me into publishing it, and selling it  so were doing it, Christie said, adding Dillon did a crackerjack job of arranging it.

Dillon is originally from Hamiota, and has lived in the Netherlands for more than 40 years.

A lot of Dougs flights Im sure went right over here on the way to Germany, Dillon said in a telephone interview on Wednesday from Enschede, near the German border.

Dillon said she enjoyed working on the project, helping with research and learning about the war along the way.

Its very interesting, and just to imagine what they went through  I mean they were flying these missions in the night, and cooped up in these turrets, and my goodness, it really was quite the thing.

Dillon also spoke about a war cemetery near her home which has 1,394 Canadian soldiers buried there.

Everybodys got stories about the war, and I visit the cemetery every year out of respect, she said. The interest in it hasnt waned, and I think thats really great because we mustnt forget what can happen and what these fellows went through.

 jaustin@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @jillianaustin
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/11/2016 (2182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A speed demon allegedly caught on Snapchat travelling faster than 230 km/h is lucky the social media platform automatically deletes messages after a couple seconds.

Russell RCMP Cpl. Brett Church said police cannot lay charges against the teenager, who had a picture posted of their excessive speeding on the image messenger, because there is no record of the photograph.

The photo allegedly showed the drivers speed clocked at 232 km/h.

Thats one of the fastest Ive ever seen. We hear about it, but we dont often catch them going that fast, and this would have been one we would have liked to have caught, Church said. But in the end, the person was giving a warning by police, and the guardians know and were hoping this is the end of it.

RCMP is only aware of the drivers lead foot because of an anonymous tipster, who reported on Oct. 24 that they witnessed a photo on Snapchat showing the drivers speed. The witness could not produce the message because photos automatically disappear after a couple seconds  unless a person quickly takes a screenshot, which the witness did not.

The tipster was not willing to provide a formal statement, which also thwarted police efforts in pursuing charges, Church said.

He said police spoke to the teenagers guardians about the alleged speeding. It was an informal type of discipline because police could not prove it took place.

Lets just say they were given a good scolding by their guardian, he said.

Snapchat has a feature which overlays on the users cellphone the speed they travelled when the picture was taken.

Church, who isnt clear when the speeding took place, understands a passenger in the SUV, also a youth, took the picture of the driver.

Church said the driver, who was travelling in a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee with an Alberta licence plate, lives in the Russell area temporarily.

If the teenager would have been convicted in court, Church suggested the youth would lose their licence and vehicle. The driver would likely face a charge of dangerous driving under the Criminal Code.

Church said social media often helps police combat crime, but the discoveries the applications show arent easy to prove.

Were definitely exposed to more things that are going on, he said, but the other side of it is its difficult to say who is involved. We dont know who is the one posting things.

 ifroese@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @ianfroese
As a culmination to a polarizing and divisive presidential campaign, a nail-biting election night, and a shocking win, Americans gave Donald Trump the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and hypothetically the world, all in a single stroke.

The world is still reeling from the aftermath of the bitter, contentious campaign, one that left the US scarred forever. The notion that the US is the beacon of wisdom is out the window.

Both candidates had historical unlikeable facets; still the world had vouched that Trump would lose. He didnt and, once the election results sunk in, the phrase Oh, America! went viral.

Trump, the mogul businessman

The business tycoon and reality TV star, Donald Trump, came with baggage and no political insight. Along the way, he insulted and defamed Muslims, Latinos, women, and the physically challenged. His views on deportation, abortion, and gay rights tarnished him further. And still he won.

The affluent businessman could afford to go against the norm though. Paying for most of his presidential campaign out of his own pocket, he owes lobbyists and corporate businesses nothing.

Trump is not a purebred Republican; he isnt a politician either nor does he act like one coming across most of the time as ill informed on global issues. More importantly, he doesnt even owe the Republicans much, since four former US presidents have deemed him unfit for the presidency, and still, he won.

However, the world didnt take Trump seriously, rather found him temperamentally unsuitable and took aim at his bizarre hairdo cum comb-over, his facetious smile, and his obnoxious tone.

The world made erroneous assumptions about his potential to win and about Americans at large. This while media considered him a xenophobic racist, a misogynist, and a sexual predator. And still he won.

By far the most worrisome aspect is that, as president, once he eventually receives the nuclear code, he doesnt need to consult anyone before he launches a nuclear attack.

The Reverberations

The reverberating fears go across many fronts.

Trumps gain may as well be Obamas loss. Obamas legacy may fade into oblivion if Trump scraps Obamacare, the Iran Nuclear Agreement, and the Paris Climate Agreement that aims to curb greenhouse gases.

Trumps win was a vote for white male privilege, a white lash as some critics called it leaving many other minorities in fear.

Muslims are fearful Trump would implement an en masse ban on Muslims from entering the US. Illegal immigrants, over 11 million, worry about deportation measures and the border wall. Gay rights and same sex marriage are on the chopping block. And will he lock Hilary Clinton up as he promised? Big mouth? Yes, but scary nonetheless.

Hopefully his rhetoric was as blunt as it was to appease certain voters. Wishful thinkers hope Trump, once he becomes president, will temper his irate ways. Indeed, his acceptance speech was mellow and the statement on his website to ban all Muslims from the US has been removed.

The Aftermath

For a few hours markets plummeted, both the American and the Canadian dollars fluctuated, and the Mexican pesos took a nosedive. Since then markets have regained much of their losses.

Anti-Trump protests are taking place in Chicago and other cities. Thousands marched in protest in LA the night after. Time will tell if the disgruntlement with Trump will continue or are a mere tempest in a teapot.

Both Republican and Democrat Parties have suffered from the results of this election. Much will occur within the parties so as to heal the wounds and fix the disarray.

Cordial diplomacy will dictate leaders actions. Though flabbergasted, they will have to maintain a common working ground with Donald Trump while keeping their fingers crossed he doesnt unleash his outbursts on them.

Trump presidential campaign was filled with insane rhetoric.The world is now scrambling trying to size up the aftermath. Mexico must be reeling in pessimism if Trump insists on building the wall. Canada is wondering if Trump will act on his words to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, and the Trans Pacific Partnership, TPP. Europe, having just emerged from BREXIT, expects Trump to challenge the status quo of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO.

Trump and Egypt

Though we are off to a good start, we will have to wait and see how the US and Egyptians relationships go during Trumps presidency.

After his meeting with President Sisi in September, Trump came out to say that President Sisi is a fantastic guy. I thought it was a great meetinggood chemistry theregood feeling between us, which I must admit is by far more amicable than what Barack Obama or any other western leader has said about President Sisi.

This while President Sisi reiterated a similar respect. He said he had no doubt that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would make a strong leader. And on Wednesday, the day after election night, President Sisi spoke with President Elect Donald Trump to congratulate him.

"The U.S. President-elect Donald Trump expressed his utmost appreciation to the president, pointing out that his was the first international call he had received to congratulate him on winning the election," the Egyptian statement said. "President Trump said he looked forward to meeting the president (again) soon.

Another seemingly good stance is Trumps plan to combat terrorism, DAESH, in particular, and radical Islam in general. He refrained from telling us how he would do that though.

The real test to all this will occur when Trump begins his term.

In conclusion

President Elect Donald Trump must become symbolically presidential if he wants the world to take him seriously while he articulates a coherent foreign policy void of sweeping unfounded statements.

More importantly, this unprecedented shift in the American political landscape tells us that democracy is a myth. Democracy is a mere disillusion if the choices voters make are bizarre or self indulgent.

As Isaac Asimov, the American author and biochemistry professor says, There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, but there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

Oh, America, what have you just done to the whole world?
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/11/2016 (2182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An essential record of Manitobas agricultural history is being organized through a project at Brandon Universitys S.J. McKee Archives.

Mixed-media items from the Manitoba Pool Elevator (MPE) fonds are being appraised, processed, arranged and described as part of the project. These graphic materials document the entire history of MPE, from 1924 to 2001. The materials are only part of a collection that includes correspondence, photographs, slides, audio tapes and reel-to-reel recordings. Also included in the fonds are books from the MPE Library, the entire run of MPEs first newspaper, the Scoop Shovel, and bound copies of the Manitoba Co-operator.

The $10,000 project is being funded in part by a $4,500 provincial heritage grant.

Submitted An aging and seemingly abandoned grain elevator in Westman.

Additional funds were provided by the Eileen McFadden Endowment and the Fred McGuinness Endowment.

Work has already been completed on the bulk of the textual records in the fonds, however the mixed media materials remained largely unprocessed and inaccessible until this project, BU archivist Christy Henry said. The funding has allowed the S.J. McKee Archives to hire a research assistant to develop a preservation plan for these valuable records, while also providing us with greater context for a collection of great significance to the history of Manitoba and the Canadian Prairies.

The National Archival Appraisal Board declared the MPE fonds to be of provincial and national significance, describing it as clearly one of the most important fonds related to agriculture existing in Manitoba and one of the fundamental collections for the study of the settlement and farm economy of Manitoba in the 20th century.

The S.J. McKee Archives, located in the John E. Robbins Library at BU, took possession of much of the fonds in 1975, with a number of additions to the collection made since then.

 The Brandon Sun
Badaliyya is a movement based on the concept of BADAL (an Arabic word for "Substitution" or "Ransom". The inspiration comes from the "understanding" that interreligious relation, is primarily a movement of LOVE - a PASSIONATE LOVE that moves one to offer his/her life that others may have life and life to the full. It is a movement of self-expenditure... The model is Jesus Christ in the cross who paid the price by being a RANSOM for us! Bapa Eliseo "Jun" Mercado, OMI
The 2017 British Pie Awards (BPAs) will officially open for entries on 16 November.

Entries close on 17 February and are open to anyone who sells pies commercially in the UK, with a special rate for companies with fewer than five pie makers.

For the first time, pie makers will be able to enter by filling out an entry form on the BPA website, where there is also a full list of classes.

The awards, now in their ninth year, will be held on 8 March, 2017, in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, as part of British Pie Week (6-13 March).

The 2016 awards saw 816 pies entered from 132 professional bakers, butchers and chefs, and judged by over 100 top pie aficionados.

Pies must be totally encased in pastry, with a closed top, and must fit into one of the 21 pre-assigned classes. All entries, except the annual themed class (see below), must be commercially available in the UK.

In celebration of the traditional pies associated with different regions across Britain, bakers, butchers and chefs are invited to create a Regional Pie for this years annual themed class.

For this category the awards will be welcoming everything from the Forfar Bridie to the Bedfordshire Clanger, as long as it is traditionally associated with a region and follows BPA rules regarding what constitutes a pie.

Although judged to the same standards as other classes, this category is all about the wow factor, said the organisers, with more freedom to choose fillings, pastry type and presentation, as long as the pie stays true to the traditional regional recipe.

Matthew OCallaghan, chairman of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association, said: Were so looking forward to another awards celebrating the craftsmanship, creativity and innovation of great British pie makers.

Each year were impressed by the increasing number of entries, all of which are of a superb calibre  we cant wait to taste this years offerings.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/11/2016 (2182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The media and the political community simply didnt understand the role 1976 had played in (Ronald) Reagans advance to the White House. It escaped them that Reagan had achieved credibility as a candidate, developed a fervent national following, and created a lasting political organization. Worse, what they knew for sure about Reagan  that his conservatism was too extreme for most voters  was wrong. When it came to Reagan, the political cognoscenti didnt have a clue.

 Fred Barnes, American political commentator

History has apparently repeated itself. And apparently the vast majority of media pundits and pollsters just didnt see it coming.

In his historic win early yesterday morning as the final votes were counted, president elect Donald Trump realized an achievement that few pundits or professional politicos dared to believe possible.

He had been dismissed as an inexperienced political sideshow during the Republican primaries  a joke that was funny until it wasnt. Late night TV hosts, columnists and cartoonists mocked his hair, his foibles, his financial abilities, and his wives.

Trump was  rightfully  labelled a misogynist who belittled female appearances, bragged of sexually assaulting women, incited violence and hate at his political rallies, and was considered a conman who was nearly unelectable by those within the establishment.

And now he is the leader of the free world, the soon-to-be 45th president of the United States.

How did this happen? Thats a question several media organizations have already tried to answer. And all of them hold some part of the truth. Hillary Clinton was too disliked, carried too much baggage  especially Bill Clinton. She didnt inspire the public so much as turn them off. The FBI meddled in the election by telling the Republican-held Congress that the investigation into Hillary Clintons emails was ongoing, just weeks before the election date, even as advance voting had already begun.

The Democrats chose the wrong person  better to choose an outsider like Bernie Sanders whose poll numbers against Trump showed better possible outcomes.

Like him or hate him though  and theres no real middle ground here  Donald Trump deserves a lot of credit for replicating Ronald Reagans path to electoral victory in 1980.

In fact, there are a few eerie echoes of Reagans political past that have popped up within the Trump campaign over the last year.

Though Reagan, unlike Trump, had political experience as a governor in California, both railed against the elites in the political system that had for decades screwed over ordinary, working-class, blue-collar Americans. As a result, both were disliked by the same Republican establishment that Trump and Reagan sought to lead.

In many election polls, several of which were taken right up to the final weeks of the campaign, Hillary seemed to have a comfortable lead over the television star. So too, Gallup polls in early 1980 showed Reagan 30 points behind Jimmy Carter. It didnt last.

Certainly both became famous for through mass media  Reagan for hosting General Electric Theatre for CBS as well as his B-list movies, and Trump as a reality-TV star hosting The Apprentice.

Both were outsiders, and like Trump, who famously announced that he would force Muslims to leave the United States and halt their immigration to the country, Reagan had a history of voting against civil rights bills, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair housing Act three years later.

Its also noteworthy that both mens campaigns were endorsed by the Klu Klux Klan. While both teams ultimately disavowed that endorsement, it was no accident that their policies drew praise from white supremacists.

Reagan managed to create a right-wing populist revolution within the GOP that essentially obliterated the moderate wing of the Republican party. And in forging ahead with his antagonistic and unapologetic campaign when most other wannabe candidates would have gone down to defeat, Trump has done something very similar.

As the New York Daily Intelligencer rightly observed, while the styles of these two individuals are remarkably different  Reagan smilingly optimistic and Trump full of temperamental bombast  both have marketed the same brand of outrage to the same angry segments of the electorate, faced the same jeering press, and espoused the same conservative populism built broadly on the pillars of jingoistic nationalism, nostalgia, contempt for Washington, and racial resentment.

How this possibility could have been dismissed by so many people in so many high places is quite shocking. Even Hillary herself seemed almost smug about her chances of pulling an election victory on Tuesday morning.

Reagans term was marked by great instability in the world, and an American arms buildup generated by the ongoing cold war with the Soviet Union  a threat often fanned by the president himself through his policies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has instead welcomed a Trump presidency with open arms. Thats not surprising given Trumps disdain for NATO and its attempts to contained further incursions into Eastern Europe by Putin. Yet he is also credited with ending the Cold War.

In spite of taking a page from the Reagan playbook, Trump is not Reaganesque in temperament. We can only guess to what road he will lead this brave new world.
Data protection and the development of a Digital Single Market are just two items up for discussion during a two-day visit by EU Commissioner Vera Jourova.

The Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality will meet Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald (pictured) - and take part in an IBEC hosted meeting with senior tech industry representatives.
Ireland's first rural digital hub is the focus of attention for nearly 2,000 entrepreneurs and tech-enthusiasts who are heading to Cork for National Digital Week.

The two day festival is the first of it's kind - and it highlights an ambitious plan to turn Skibbereen into a digital role model for rural Ireland.
Update 5.40pm: The Church of Ireland has said it commends the courage of abuser Patrick O'Brien's victims in coming forward.

In a statement issued this evening it said St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and the wider Church of Ireland community have been deeply dismayed at the nature and extent of the offences which have been brought to light in this case.

Court report:

A former Church of Ireland lay worker has been jailed for 13 years for abusing 14 young boys between 1974 and 2014.

77-year-old Patrick OBrien of Knocklyon Road, Templeogue in Dublin and a former volunteer at St Patricks Cathedral, pleaded guilty to over 50 charges of indecent and sexual assault.

Some of his victims returned to court this afternoon to watch him being jailed. Their loved ones filled the public gallery, while he sat alone in the dock with nobody there to support him.

Between 1974 and 2014, he abused 14 boys - some as young as seven.

Many were abused at St Patricks Cathedral where he volunteered for the Church of Ireland; others at his workplace, his car, his boat and in their bedrooms while their parents were nearby.

He enticed the younger boys with sweets and drinks and trips away and groomed the older ones with driving lessons or money for cigarettes and alcohol.

He got away with it for so long by warning them to keep it a secret, leaving them feeling guilty and isolated.

Judge Melanie Greally described his actions as manipulative and predatory and considered his breach of trust as a significant aggravating factor.

The 77-year-old was then handed a 13-year prison sentence.

Afterwards, Detective Superintendent Declan Daly from the Garda National Protection Services Bureau praised the victims for coming forward: "I'd simply like to commend the bravery of all the victims in this case,

"They have gone through what is a harrowing and difficult case and I hope their bravery will send a message to all other victims who may come forward in historical cases and report their complaints on An Garda Siochana."

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this report, please contact the 24-hour Childline helpline on 1800 666 666, or text 'talk' to 50101, or go to Childline.ie
The nation's first homesteader claimed land under the Homestead Act of 1862 thanks, in part, to a chance encounter with a land office clerk the night before.

The first homesteader was Daniel Freeman and his land was in Beatrice, now the site of the Homestead National Monument of America.

Hailing originally from Ohio and later Illinois, Freeman closely watched the progression of the bill that would give major parcels of land to anyone looking to move west during his time serving in the Union Army.

Freeman had his sights set on claiming land in Nebraska under the opportune act, which went into effect Jan. 1, 1863.

In The story of Dan Freeman: A biographical sketch by his granddaughter, published in the Beatrice Daily Sun on June 10, 1962, author and Freemans granddaughter Evelyn Freeman Cummins described Freeman, then 36, as being in a time of personal despair when he fell in love with a Nebraska landscape.

Suddenly, the war, and all his problems, vanished and he beheld the most beautiful sight he had ever laid eyes on, Cummins wrote. He found himself on a rise of ground that rolled down like a green carpet toward a creek surrounded by trees and lush with spring foliage.

Slowing his horse down to a stop, Dan dismounted and walked a short distance from the trail in a southerly direction. He could feel the thick carpet of prairie grass under his feet and the earth giving way with every step, for he was a big man and the ground was soft from an earlier rain. Dan lifted up his face and looked at the blue sky. The rain clouds had disappeared. A lone bird circled freely and daringly above him, obviously far from his nest. Dan breathed deeply of the cool air faintly perfumed with Nebraska spring.

How long he stood there he did not know, for he lost track of time until an uncontrollable sigh shook him awake and there settled over him a deep sense of peace. He knew he had passed a crisis and was on the right way at last. This was his land. He would survive the war and begin a new life right there. Dan felt a fullness in his throat and wanted to cry out in gratitude. He had come home at last.

According to An Early History of Beatrice, Nebraska by Prosper Dee Pyle, Freeman was on furlough in the last days of 1862 when he headed to a U.S. land office in Brownville, Nebraska, to file his land claim on Jan. 1, the last day of his furlough and the first day of the law.

But the land office was closed until Jan. 2, due to the holiday.

Quoting an 1876 edition of The Beatrice Express, Pyle recaps the story by saying the whole town of Brownville gathered for a New Years Eve party. There, Freeman shared with the group his desire to claim land under the Homestead Act before returning to the army.

All the others agreed that he should have the first chance, Pyle wrote. A clerk in the land office was persuaded to open the office a few minutes past midnight on January first for Daniel Freeman alone.

Freeman made homestead entry number one, and afterwards received homestead patent number one for 160 acres on Cub Creek near Beatrice, Pyle wrote.

Freeman lived on his land with his wife Agnes Suiter, who was previously engaged to Daniels brother who died in the Civil War. Daniel and Agnes had eight children, some of which later married and built homes on the homestead.

From a small log cabin to a two-story brick house, a variety of structures -- including a barn and other outbuildings -- were built on the land during the Freemans residence there, the National Park Service website says.

The two-story brick house burned in 1916, eight years after Freemans death. None of the Freeman homes exist on the land today.

Starting as early as 1909, Beatrice locals started advocating for the land to become a national historic site. After project leaders gained formal support in Beatrice, surrounding states and at a national level throughout several years, a third bill was finally approved by Congress.

Homestead National Monument of America was officially designed on March 19, 1936 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The historic site is owned by the National Park Service.

This site commemorates the lives and accomplishments of all pioneers and the changes brought about by the Homestead Act, the National Park Service says of the monument on its website.

Today, the land is home to constant programming and displays that explain the history of the land, the Homestead Act and the lives of pioneers. The Education Center and Heritage Center serve as visitors centers complete with free, year-round historic displays, films, merchandise, art, workshops and educational and entertaining programming. Between the centers are 100 acres of preserved tallgrass prairie, boasting plants that were on the land in 1862.

Also on the monumental land are the J.D. Troyer Homestead Sod House, an original one-room prairie schoolhouse called Freeman School and an orchard of apple, plum, pear and peach trees. The Freeman family and tenant farmers planted corn, wheat and oats and orchards of apple and peach trees.

The National Park Service purchased the 162.73 acres from the Freeman family for $18,000, according to Homestead National Monument: Its Establishment and Administration, by Ray H. Mattison in 1962.

Daniel Freeman is documented as a farmer, soldier, doctor, coroner, sheriff and homesteader.

Galusha Grow, the Speaker of the House of Representatives when the Homestead Act passed, pointed out in a speech to Congress some years later the irony of Freeman being the first to claim land under the Homestead Act.

There are two interesting incidents connected with the final passage of the original free homestead bill, Grow said, as quoted in Pyles book. First, it took effect on the day of Lincolns emancipation proclamation. Second, the first settler under the homestead bill, which provided free homes for free men, was named Freeman.

His entry was No. 1, his proof of residence was No. 1, his patent was No. 1, recorded on page 1, of book 1 of the Land Office of the United States. The first settler under this law was a Freeman, and I trust the last of its beneficiaries in the long coming years of the future will be a free man.
A major investment fund says NAMA still wanted to sell it its Northern loans, even after finding out about a controverisal fixer's fee for a former advisor.

Pimco says NAMA still wanted to go ahead with the Project Eagle sale, even after being told of the fees due to Frank Cushnahan.
Update 10am: Housing Minister Simon Coveney this morning said the invitation by US President Elect Trump to the Taoiseach to visit the White House next March for St Patricks Day is significant.

Mr Coveney added that it was a major signal of reassurance that business between the Ireland and the United States would continue.

The minister was speaking after Taoiseach Enda Kenny spoke with President Elect Trump for 10 minutes by phone last night.

He acknowledged given Mr Kennys description of Mr Trump as a racist, there was concern that Irelands standing in Washington would diminish.

Mr Coveney said: Of course there are a lot of people concerned. A lot of what was said during this Presidential campaign was very bitter, nasty and concerned a lot of people.

What we need to do now is judge the president-elect on his comments as president-elect.

The Minister said Ireland had such an important relationship with the US and it needed to reinforce and maintain that.

Mr Coveney said people may not forget the comments of Mr Trump during the presidential campaign. However, he said the decision has been by the American people.

The Minister said Ireland needed to focus on the relationship going forward rather than looking back.

In a statement from Government Buildings, it was confirmed that Mr Kenny spoke by phone with US President Elect Donald Trump.

During a 10 minute conversation the Taoiseach congratulated Mr. Trump on his electoral success and both men committed to working together to the mutual benefit of Ireland and the United States, the statement said.

The President Elect confirmed to the Taoiseach that in the spirit of the strong ties between the two countries, the long standing tradition of Taoisigh attending the White House for St. Patrick's Day celebrations would continue and extended an invitation to the Taoiseach in that regard for next year 2017, the statement added.

Earlier: Taoiseach Enda Kenny has spoken with US President Elect Donald Trump.

The Taoiseach held a ten minute phone call with Mr Trump last night, with both men committing to working for the mutual benefit of the two countries.

They also confirmed that the long standing tradition of the Taoiseach visiting the White House on St Patrick's Day will continue.

Meanwhile protests have been taking place overnight in the US after the shock election of Donald Trump.

Demonstrators have been chanting and holding up banners saying 'Not Our President'.
We know, an open air Irish gig has a strange ring to it, but its a thing.

The Coronas have announced that they are to play in the courtyard of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham on July 1 of next year.
President Barack Obama is set to welcome his successor, Donald Trump, to the White House. Mr Obama will be extending an olive branch to a man he has labelled unfit to serve as commander in chief and who led the charge to challenge the legitimacy of his own presidency.

The Oval Office meeting is the symbolic start of the transition of power from Mr Obama, a Democrat who ushered in a sweeping health care law and brokered a landmark nuclear accord with Iran, and Mr Trump, a Republican who has promised to wipe away those initiatives. Mr Trump takes office on January 20.

First lady Michelle Obama also planned to meet privately in the White House residence with Mr Trump's wife, Melania Trump.

The expected show of civility contrasts with post-election scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president", burning a papier mache head of Mr Trump, beating a pinata of the president-elect and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump".

Congressional Republicans were emboldened by Mr Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the Republicans control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," House Speaker Paul Ryan declared.

In an emotional concession speech, Mrs Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought".

Mrs Clinton was gracious in defeat, saying: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

Mr Trump was uncharacteristically quiet in the aftermath of his triumph and made no public appearances on Wednesday.

He stayed with jubilant, sleep-deprived advisers at his eponymous skyscraper in Manhattan, beginning the daunting task of setting up an administration that will take power in just over two months.

He also met with vice president-elect Mike Pence and took calls from supporters, family and friends, according to spokeswoman Hope Hicks.

In Washington, Mr Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Mr Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts.

According to an organisational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Mr Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Representative Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Mr Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for treasury secretary. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee senator Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Mr Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Mr Obama - one that includes information on US covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies.

If Mr Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy.

He has pledged to repeal Mr Obama's signature health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He has vowed to build a wall along the US-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

It is unclear whether Mr Trump, a highly unusual candidate, will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He will enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue. He never allowed journalists to fly on his plane during the campaign, as is customary for White House nominees.

Issues of transparency bubbled up right from the start. On Wednesday evening, Mr Trump aides said they would not bring the press corps to Washington with the president-elect for his meeting with Mr Obama, breaking long-standing protocol.

With several million votes still to be counted, Mrs Clinton held a narrow lead in the nationwide popular vote. Most of the outstanding votes appeared to be in Democratic-leaning states, with the biggest chunk in California, a state Mrs Clinton overwhelmingly won. With almost 125 million votes counted, The Associated Press tally had Mrs Clinton with 47.7% and Mr Trump with 47.5%.

Mr Trump's sweep of the battleground states that decided the election was commanding. He carried Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, three of the election's biggest prizes, and snatched reliably Democratic Pennsylvania and Wisconsin away from Mrs Clinton.

Mr Trump's support was older, male and overwhelmingly white. His supporters said they were deeply dissatisfied with the federal government and eager for change, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.
Gage County Sheriffs Deputies arrested a man Tuesday accused of refusing to let a woman out a vehicle he was driving while under the influence.

Trey D. Saathoff, 20, was arrested for false imprisonment, second-offense DUI possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and an open container violation following the incident.

Shortly before 6:30 p.m., Southeast Communications received a 911 call from a screaming female. The woman said she was in a vehicle, driven by Saathoff, and he wouldnt let her out.

The woman advised they were in a white vehicle that just left Walmart. A deputy in the area spotted the vehicle leaving the parking lot and conducted an investigatory traffic stop.

Saathoff appeared to have bloodshot eyes and smelled of alcohol, Gage County Court documents state.

He allegedly showed signs of impairment during sobriety maneuvers and submitted a breath test that revealed an alcohol level of .201, more than double the legal driving limit.

The woman said she got into the car in Beatrice and became immediately concerned Saathoff was drunk, due to his inability to figure out how to turn the headlights on, court documents state. She stated he almost hit multiple vehicles while driving.

When he refused to let her leave, court records state the woman tried to exit, but he accelerated when she did.

She estimated Saathoff refused to let her out of the vehicle 25 times.

He also allegedly took the phone from her when she tried calling 911, but she retrieved it and alerted authorities.

During an inventory of the vehicle, offices found an open bottle of vodka, marijuana grinder with residue, a pipe and a bong.

Saathoff appeared in County Court Thursday, where his bond was set at $7,500 with a 10 percent deposit. His next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 6.
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The Chinese and Indian militaries should manage conflicts appropriately and contribute to the development of China-Indian relations for the people of both countries, said Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department of China's Central Military Commission.

The two countries' relations enjoy positive momentum and they should continue to cooperate to safeguard peace and security in border areas, Sun said when meeting with Indian Defense Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday.

Sun was in New Delhi attending the eighth meeting of the China-India Defense and Security Consultation, an annual dialogue between senior defense official designed to enhance strategic mutual trust and pragmatic cooperation between the two nations.

Sun said China insists on peaceful development and firmly pursues a defensive national defense policy and regional diplomacy based on amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness. President Xi Jinping has met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a number of occasions in recent years and reached consensus on strengthening strategic dialogue, deepening mutual cooperation and pursuing mutual development.

Parrikar responded by saying that China-India relations go back a long way and have been positively served by frequent visits by the leaders of both countries. He hopes the two countries can increase interaction between senior officials, enhance exchanges in various technical fields, jointly promote security in border areas, and reinforce cooperation between the two militaries.
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As the light faded from the Canberra sky, the families and friends of victims of past child sexual abuse at Marist College gathered for a long-awaited healing ceremony on Thursday night.

At once an acknowledgement and apology for the abuse suffered by college students during the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, and the failures to act at the time, the ceremony also marked a College plea for forgiveness and a public pledge that such events would "never happen again".

Marist college healing ceremony Marist Canberra school is to apologise to victims of child abuse, hold healing ceremony, and unveil plaque on school grounds. Credit:Elesa Kurtz

The ceremony also saw a plaque unveiled in remembrance of the students abused and committing the school to the "healing process", with a reading from psalm 119:105: "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path".

It followed calls from survivors of abuse at the college for a permanent memorial, including one as early as 2012 by former student Nicholas Quaine, as well as the findings of the royal commission that the Marist Brothers Catholic order failed to intervene and remove offending brothers John Chute and Gregory Joseph Sutton.
As the dust settles on the US election result, the influx of Americans to Australia has already begun - led by none other than a Collingwood player.

As the news filtered through of Donald Trump's likely US election success, the haven for those US citizens who were unhappy with the outcome looked set to be Canada - right up until the Canadian immigration website crashed.

American Mason Cox (right) was vocal on Twitter after the election victory of Donald Trump. Credit:Getty Images

But that news wouldn't have bothered American big man Mason Cox, who already had a contingency plan in place. He has, in fact, had one for some time - and he let everyone know about it in March this year.
Keep your shirt on. The world as we know it may be ending, but if so it won't be for a while. And maybe things won't change as much as feared.

Yesterday the experts were confidently predicting Hillary Clinton would be president. Today they are predicting Donald Trump's presidency will be a disaster with equal confidence. How do they know?

I find it hard to imagine Trump's ascendancy won't end up being bad for our economy, for the rest of the world and the Americans themselves.

But that's a long way down the track and lots of unexpected things could happen between now and then. Maybe even a few good things.
Singapore Telecommunications will "vigorously defend" a $326 million tax bill it received last week from the Australian Tax Office, dating back to its takeover of Optus in 2001 for $17.2 billion.

This is the first time Singtel has revealed the size of the potential bill. Singapore Telecom Australia Investments Pty Ltd first received a tax position paper from ATO in late 2013, and then a Statement of Audit in late 2014.

Optus was purchased by SingTel in 2001 from London-based Cable & Wireless Credit:Optus

In 2015, Singtel received a final Statement of Audit Position, and then in July this year it received the outcome of an Independent Review, an internal service offered by the ATO to large corporations.It informed shareholders in it's first quarter results that Singtel has not yet made a provision for the tax bill.

And then on Thursday Singtel noted in its quarterly results it may pay the tax bill from the current financial year's free cash flow. It estimates free cash flow of $1.4 billion, but a footnote added this figure is "excluding payment to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) in respect of the amended assessments received on 2 November 2016 from the determinations on the acquisition financing of Optus".
The Queensland government has granted the controversial Carmichael mine an 11th-hour exemption to new water laws that could have seen the project subjected to further legal challenges.

The government has introduced laws requiring Queensland mining projects to obtain a water licence, in an effort to reduce the impact on ground water.

The Queensland government added an amendment to the laws that will allow the Adani mine project to avoid court challenges to its water licence. Credit:Rob Homer

But the Palaszczuk government on Wednesday added an amendment to the laws that will allow the Adani mine project, which has already faced significant legal action, to avoid court challenges to its water licence.

Under the amendment, projects that have already finalised proceedings with the Land Court will be able to obtain a licence from the government without being subjected to challenges from the public.
Wesfarmers chair Michael Chaney has brand the US election outcome as a triumph of political populism and warned president-elect Donald Trump could stymie economic prosperity if he makes good on his threat to tear up international trade agreements.

Mr Chaney said it was obvious to any student of history that free trade agreements led to increased prosperity and described Mr Trump's proposal to scrap the trans-pacific trade agreement as a "huge shame."

"Australia has always relied on international trade, so any move to limit trade would be very damaging," Mr Chaney said.

"The benefits of free trade are no clearer to anyone than to all the people in this room with a farming background. It is vitally important that we speak out on this matter."
Bushfires might dominate the summertime headlines but storms and flooding pose the biggest disaster risk to Sydney's economy.

Storm damage, hail and flooding caused 70 per cent of all insurance losses in NSW between 1970 and 2013, a report by insurance giant IAG and consultancy firm SGS Economics and Planning shows. Insurance losses from hail damage in that period were nine times more than bushfire losses in the state.

The report warns that Sydney has a "high risk" of floods relative to other regions. That is due mainly to extensive urban development in the flood plains of the Hawkesbury, Georges and Cooks rivers along with their various tributaries.

Storms and flooding regularly cause disruption to urban transport networks, affecting work patterns and economic activity. Heavy rainfall also impacts road networks by reducing travelling speeds and increasing accident rates.
Workers at struggling food producer SPC Ardmona have warned of "economic devastation" across the Goulburn Valley if supermarket giant Woolworths dumps its canned fruit-sourcing arrangements.

The future of hundreds of jobs and farms hang in the balance after Woolworths revealed it was ending its canned tomatoes deal with SPC and wouldn't say whether it will retain a five-year agreement struck in 2014 for other private-label tinned fruit.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union has raised fears the company is considering sending fruit-sourcing offshore.

Tom Hale, the union's national food division secretary, called for federal government to pull together all political parties and start drafting legislation to "help keep the Australian food industry alive".
Oil drillers. Gas pipelines. Coal. Banks. Pharmaceuticals. Construction, industrial equipment. The defence industry.

Those are the likely winners of a Trump administration that could take the lid off coal and fracking regulations, begin a massive repair of US roads and bridges, rebuild defence, repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform act and kill Obamacare.

One big loser? Foreign trade could suffer if the president-elect follows through on his plan to renegotiate trade agreements.

"Without a doubt, the obvious beneficiaries are defence, transportation and energy," said Tim Loughran, a professor of finance at Notre Dame. "If there were more coal companies still on the market, they would be really hot right now. The transportation sector has been hit with excessive regulation. Trump should be able to fix that, too."
Six months since her appointment in May, ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie will on Friday wander up to Martin Place from Ultimo for a sit down with Premier Mike Baird.

No doubt, like any meeting between a political leader and the head of a media organisation, issues of coverage and balance will be high on the agenda.

But Guthrie will also get an opportunity to engage in something largely lost to the NSW public thanks to a decision of her predecessor Mark Scott: an in-depth discussion of NSW politics with an expert on the subject.

Scott's decision to axe the Friday night current affairs TV program Stateline in response to budget cuts dramatically reduced the depth of the ABC's coverage of state politics across the country.
Comedian and Trainwreck star Amy Schumer, who was at Hillary Clinton's election party night at the Javits Convention Centre in New York, has reneged on plans to move to London if Donald Trump won, and chastised Trump's supporters in a lengthy Instagram post.

"People who voted for him you are weak. You are not just misinformed. You didn't even attempt information... [Clinton] dedicated her entire life to public service and got our children health care and education without discrimination," Schumer wrote.

"He didn't pay his workers. Started a fake college. Ripped people off. Never paid his taxes and sexually assaulted women and on and on.

"She was fighting to take care of you, kicking and screaming babies. Yelling about emails you know nothing about and not liking her clothes or her hair. She wanted to protect you - even you. Well, you've gotten what you asked for and now you can watch the sky open up. Literally. I am furious."
Still, abandoning the playing field is not an option. It's hard to think about tomorrow when today is so crushingly awful. Take a day: hug your kids, drink your wine, punch a pillow, go for a run. Then let's get to work.

I'm writing from my current, and I assumed temporary, home in Nairobi, but now I wonder whether the United States - this United States, the one that just elected Donald Trump - is one to which I want to return. That sounds melodramatic. But what a clear statement of what so many of my countrymen (and the people who put Trump in power are mostly men) value: white male supremacy above all, especially over female ambition, intelligence and basic competence.

I'm a feminist writer. I am inundated with sexist harassment and political ugliness more or less constantly; I know that the history of women's progress in the United States has been uneven, and often marked with big setbacks just as we were on the precipice of real change.

A Democrat wearing a 'Make America Great Again' hat and her friend dressed as Wonder Woman were celebating when Hillary Clinton won the state of Vermont. Credit:Getty Images

For feminists, getting to work means plowing forward, not second-guessing our mission. This is a big setback - a phenomenal, shocking setback. It is not the first, and it will not be the last. The only way to change is to change, and when our project is so immense - changing no less than the foundation of our society, our very ideas of what it means to be male and female - it will take a very long time to complete. We know, now, what so many Americans think of successful, ambitious, intelligent women: They think we are a threat. They will choose almost anything to avoid putting us in charge.

We fix this with more feminism, not less. And given who Americans just elected, we have to focus first on the women a Trump presidency will make most vulnerable: immigrant women, women of colour, lesbian women, transgender women, women seeking abortions, women seeking asylum, women seeking protection from men. If there was ever a time to donate to your local domestic violence shelter, your local abortion fund, Black Lives Matter, your local group helping refugees apply for legal status, your local nonprofit group that shelters and assists undocumented immigrants, this is it. If there was ever a time to refuse to cower in the face of defeat - to speak louder, even in our female voices - this is it. Because what Trump wants us to do is sit down and shut up.

We should pay attention, too, to the many men whose lives are about to get significantly worse under Trump. Immigrant men. Gay men. Black men at risk of police violence. Men who rely on the Affordable Care Act for their health insurance. Men who reject traditional masculinity. And even the men and women who voted Trump to victory - white people who traded racial resentment for the kind of progressive change that would have improved their lives, too. They surely think feminism has nothing to offer them compared with a promise to restore them to their former position of unearned power; they are about to see how wrong they are.

For the many women who were surprised by this result, myself included, we need to take a good look around and quit excusing bad behaviour where we see it. There's a huge gender gap in this election, the widest since 1976: Early numbers point to women favouring Clinton by 12 points, and men favouring Trump by the same margin. Clinton's strength with women was mostly due to women of colour backing her; where Trump's support was overwhelmingly white, Clinton's was incredibly diverse, and she won majorities of African Americans, Asians and Hispanics. Clinton's base looks like America's future, while Trump's looks like the waning white face of American power.
Supporters of US President-elect Donald Trump were kicked out of an election party at the University of Sydney after they became rowdy and started chanting "grab them by the pussy, that's how we do it".

A few hundred people packed into the United States Studies Centre-hosted event at the university's Manning Bar on Wednesday, as polling stations closed and the shocking results poured in.

When the university was alerted to the "inappropriate behaviour" of emboldened Trump supporters, its security team removed some of them and issued warnings to others, a spokesperson said.
An elderly man has been arrested for sending threatening letters to high-profile individuals and organisations over 22 years.

Tony Hannibelzs, 71, pleaded guilty just hours after being arrested on Thursday morning for sending 184 threatening and offensive letters since 1994.

Commissioner Andrew Scipione was one of several high-profile people to receive threatening letters from Tony Hannibelsz. Credit:Daniel Munoz

The NSW Terrorism Investigation Squad established a strike force in 2011 to reinvestigate the letters, but a police spokesman said they were not terrorism related.

The 22-year long investigation culminated in a raid on Mr Hannibelzs' home in Koorinda Avenue, Villawood, just after 6am on Thursday.
Janie Panton Roberts, 21, was at a music event at Petersham in Sydney's inner west when her boyfriend gave her a dose of the drug MDMA in June this year.

By the next morning, Ms Roberts was dead.

Jordan Duffy with his girlfriend Janie Panton Roberts. Credit:Facebook

On Thursday, her boyfriend, Jordan Duffy, 19, pleaded guilty to supplying the drug Ms Robert allegedly ingested before her death.

Mr Duffy, a bartender from Wamberal on the state's central coast, did not appear at Newtown Local Court where his lawyer formally entered a plea of guilty on his behalf.
With the Midterm Elections less than one week away: What do you consider the top issues that you will be voting on to correct by your hoped for better representation?

Education Crime Big Government getting Bigger Biden /Democrat controlled Spike in Energy Cost Inflation created by Legislation of Majority in Power Gender Reassignment Corrupted Bureaucratic (DOJ, FBI, etc.) Institutions Abortion Discredited Legacy Media The Corruption of Dishonest Politicians Corruptive Influence of Social Media
The message was attached to a photo of a 1963 Canadian-made de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, one of only 900 of these seaplanes in the world.

Within minutes of arriving at Rose Bay's new seaplane terminal for a scenic flight on the morning after the US election, American tourist and Trump critic Debbie Saxe texted her sister: "Not planning on coming home."

Sydney: Beautiful one day. Trump-free and still beautiful the next.

A shot of Sydney from a Sydney Seaplanes de Havilland Beaver flying around 300 metres. Credit:Peter Rae

By the time the Beaver dropped Mrs Saxe and her husband, Jon, off for lunch at Cottage Point north of Sydney, the two Americans didn't look quite ready to emigrate but happy to linger.

"I might stay longer than ever, now I don't have to answer to people on the street," Mrs Saxe said.

In the last 24 hours, Immigration New Zealand received 56,300 visits from the US compared to its daily average of 2300, according to The Guardian. The Canadian government's immigration website crashed under the weight of inquiries.

The Saxes' flight over Sydney took off from a new seaplane terminal, which also houses a museum dedicated to the "Golden Age of Aviation" when the only way to travel internationally was by seaplane.
Opponents to the residential tower development adjacent to Brisbane's Customs House are disappointed by the agreement between the building's owner, University of Queensland, and developer Cbus Property announced on Thursday.

In a statement, UQ said the "agreement would enable the new development at 443 Queen Street to proceed, whilst preserving important views of Brisbane's historic Customs House".

Customs House conservationists are not happy with the UQ and Cbus Property agreement, Credit:Bradley Kanaris

UQ chief operating officer Greg Pringle said the agreement would see the reduction of the external car parking area and ensure the pruning of the fig tree on the Customs House site would be kept to a minimum.

But Protect Customs House Precinct Group spokeswoman Tracie Rodwell said the agreement was not good enough.
Police have warned people to be vigilant about identity theft after Taskforce Maxima raids uncovered a network stretching across two states on Wednesday.

Officers executed 18 search warrants across Queensland and New South Wales as part of Operation North Outfield, arresting and charging 16 people with 232 offences.

Taskforce Maxima Detective Inspector Phillip Stevens speaking to media on Thursday. Credit:Queensland Police Service (Supplied)

Police will allege the network and individuals involved were linked to the Hells Angels and Nomads outlaw motorcycle gangs.

The 12-month operation uncovered alleged stolen property including three laptops, passports, a camera and a Hudson motorcycle racing engine which was believed to have been purchased using stolen credit cards.
Police have found a loaded handgun hidden between the buttock cheeks of a man associated with the Rebels bikie gang.

Police searched the man's Mercedes on Felix Street in Brisbane City on Monday and alleged that they found a handgun in the rear of the vehicle.

Officers then went to an apartment linked to the Rebels associate and did a body search, where "a loaded handgun was located secreted between his buttocks", police said.

The man was charged with offences including unlawful possession of a handgun, silencer, Taser, explosives and dangerous drugs.
The man who flew a drone to pick up a sausage in bread from a Bunnings sausage sizzle has given a warning to anyone who might like to do the same.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is considering fining the man, who wants to be known only as Tim, $9000.

And for the record, it seems the sausage was cold by the time the drone arrived home.

"It was freezing," Tim told the Today Show on Thursday.
The hunt for armed robber Lachlan Mitchell, who escaped on crutches from youth detention on Tuesday appears to have headed across the South Australian border.

It's believed the black ute involved in helping the Warrnambool man flee from Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre was involved in a carjacking at gunpoint at Mil-Lel, north of Mount Gambier.

South Australia Police Media reported that following a minor crash at the intersection of Sherwin Road and Attamurra Road, Mil-Lel on Thursday morning, "a grey Nissan Navara dual cab ute was stolen at gunpoint from the owner".

"The two male suspects abandoned a black Holden ute at the scene of the crash and drove off in the stolen car," an SA police spokesperson said.
A 13-storey tower proposed to be built on top of Ormond railway station could have minimal car parking to encourage its expected 600 residents to use public transport.

The car park would also be designed so that it could one day be converted to other potential uses, such as housing or office space, planning documents for the "vibrant transport hub" in Melbourne's south-east show.

The Andrews government wants to build the first high-rise building in low-rise Ormond, on railway land freed up by the recent removal of the North Road level crossing, to recover some of the costs of its $6 billion grade separation project.

The proposed high-density apartment, office and retail development is the first of several such projects likely to spring up along Melbourne's rail lines in the next few years, as an add-on to the government's program of 50 level crossing removals by 2022.
On social media, Elly's friends and family have paid tribute to a woman who loved to travel. Credit:Facebook/@elly.warren.1 "It's a nice beach," said a local business owner. "We never have something like this before. We don't know what happened." Ms Warren finished up with Underwater Africa on Tuesday, said the company's booking manager, Graeme, who asked that his surname not be used. Tofo beach. She booked two nights at Wuyani Pariango backpackers, about one kilometre away.

A staff member at the backpackers said she never arrived. "We are still trying to figure out what happened," Graeme said. "We are mourning her as well. Our staff have taken a real knock. They are just young scientists and they worked closely with her." Graeme said Underwater Africa directors were helping the Warren family, and would not comment further. Fairfax Media believes Ms Warren's body is being taken from the small hospital near Tofo Beach to Mozambique's capital of Maputo, 500 kilometres south.

It's believed she had visited the area to fulfil her lifelong dream of swimming with whales. In a Facebook post, her sister Kristy Warren, said her mother had got a call to say Ms Warren had been killed. "My sister was in Africa when my mum got a phone call from one of the backpackers saying her daughter has been murdered, as I heard that my heart dropped," she said. "It is a parents' nightmare to get a phone call like this. "Elly was always ambitious and had so many goals to go travelling but maybe she had too many.

"I want to say if you are thinking of going travelling or going overseas please be careful [about]who you go with. Rest in peace Elly, you are loved dearly." Ms Warren's stepfather David Cafarella said the news was very raw, and they were still seeking information from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. "We can't say anything else until we find out more. We haven't got any more information from DFAT," he said. He said that despite being only just out of her teens, Ms Warren was already a "seasoned traveller" with an "insatiable desire to help the environment and others less fortunate" than herself. "She worked several jobs when home to fund her next adventure often working 16 hours a day sleeping in the car between jobs," Mr Cafarella said.

Following her trip to Africa, he said Ms Warren had planned to return home and study at university. "She was off to NZ when she got back and then to James Cook University to begin her studies to become a marine biologist her great passion and what she wanted to do with her life more than anything," Mr Cafarella said. "She has volunteered in South America and Africa in various environmental study locations. "Her strong will and work ethic were her strengths as was her love of family, especially her eight-year-old brother Sam. "She was a really determined, beautiful young woman who we are all going to miss so much."

Ms Warren's boyfriend, Luke Tempany, said she would be deeply missed. "I want her to be remembered for her love of the oceans, whales, sharks and all living animals," he said. "She had such a beautiful heart that wanted to travel the world diving all the waters, exploring caves and swimming with all different fish." Ms Warren's family are planning to fly to Mozambique to collect her body. There are already hundreds of messages from friends on social media, with the 20-year-old remembered as a "gorgeous girl" with an "infectious smile".

"I'll never forget your huge infectious smile and crazy stories," Milly Waters said. "Rest in peace you gorgeous girl. You were actually such a beautiful person who knew exactly what she wanted in life and it is devastating that you were taken before all your dreams could come true," Claudia Hall said. "You were really a one of a kind, such a lovely soul," Codie Diston said.



Ms Warren's father Paul Warren posted a photo on Facebook, with a tribute: "My lovely daughter Elly passed away yesterday when overseas. I loved her dearly & I will miss her so much". The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that it was "providing consular assistance to the family of a woman who died in Mozambique".
The family of a teenage Albany fisherman taken by a shark almost two years ago have asked for the public's help in locating his phone, after it was stolen from their boat on Monday evening.

Jay Muscat died after he was attacked by a suspected great white shark while spearfishing near Cheynes Beach in December 2014.

This photo of Jay Muscat, taken by a shark nearly two years ago, is the lock screen of his stolen phone. Credit:Facebook

Thieves made away with more than 40 items from the boat, including amplifier speakers, a stereo, fishing gear - and most importantly, Jay's precious iPhone.

Mr Muscat said while it would be expensive to replace a lot of what had been taken, Jay's phone was the one thing he wanted back.
Students in the ECU College of Education like Brian Arredondo would get an opportunity to work in a laboratory school being planned to boost elementary school student performance and provide exposure and training for teachers and principals to address challenges in high-needs schools. (Photos by Cliff Hollis)

College of Education Dean Grant Hayes

ECU students Joy Bryan and Timothy Prices talk with faculty member Dr. Christina Tschida in ECU College of Education, which has been identified as one of eight UNC system schools to likely open a laboratory school for underachieving elementary school students.

East Carolina University is one of eight UNC system schools identified to create and operate a laboratory school to help under-achieving elementary students perform better.UNC President Margaret Spellings announced Nov. 1 that ECU along with Appalachian State University, North Carolina Central University, UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Pembroke, UNC-Wilmington and Western Carolina University are candidates to establish and operate laboratory schools. The system has 15 institutions that offer educator-preparation programs.Some universities are expected to open and operate laboratory schools in the 2017-18 academic year, and others will be added in 2018-19.The planned laboratory schools are the result of a N.C. General Assembly law passed this summer requiring the UNC Board of Governors to establish laboratory schools aimed at improving student performance in low-performing elementary schools.Spellings said.The UNC system plan has been submitted to the legislature's Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations. A draft plan for implementation was approved at the UNC Board of Governors Oct. 14 meeting in Chapel Hill. On Sept. 30, the ECU Board of Trustees heard a presentation on the project from College of Education Dean Grant Hayes.ECU has proactively prepared by initiating talks about a partnership with the Pitt County Schools to meet the new legislation, Hayes said.he said.The laboratory school will be a demonstration site to provide exposure and training for teachers and principals to address challenges in high-needs schools, and be used to determine best practices, provide educational research and foster professional development.said Dr. Ethan Lenker, superintendent of Pitt County Schools.Math literacy, early language development and reading literacy will be a focus of the ECU laboratory school, Hayes said.Hayes said.Planning for the operation, curriculum and policies for the school is still underway, but regulations would require that the ECU Board of Trustees act as the board of education for the laboratory school.Last month, representatives from UNC, the State Board of Education, the NC Department of Public Instruction and local school districts participated in a daylong meeting to identify and discuss the significant operational, programmatic and policy issues that must be addressed in creating successful laboratory schools.Subject to further consultations, the UNC system aims to solidify the precise districts in which the first laboratory schools will be located by early 2017.ECU's College of Education is the largest producer of new teachers in the state and the oldest professional school on campus. The mission of the College of Education is the preparation of professional educators and allied practitioners, including teachers, counselors, media coordinators, special education professionals, and principals and administrators.
London: There's a whole lot of word-eating going on right now in the UK political classes.

Various British politicians  of all political flavours  have called US president-elect Donald Trump such things as "wazzock", "poisonous", "buffoon", "repellent", "demagogue" and "out of his mind".

But few have as many or as colourful words to swallow as does the leader of Scotland's Conservatives, Ruth Davidson.

"So, Twitter, we're all agreed?" she wrote in December last year. "Trump's a clay-brained guts, knotty-pated fool, whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch, right?"
Moscow: For all their mutual praise, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President-elect Donald Trump are likely to disagree on many things.

But Trump's election win could hand Moscow an elusive prize  the lifting or easing of Western sanctions.

Rolling back those sanctions, imposed by the United States and the European Union to punish Moscow for its 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, could spur investment in Russia's flat-lining economy.

That might make it even easier for Putin, who is trying to plug holes in the state budget inflicted by low oil prices and sanctions, to win a fourth presidential term in 2018 by allowing him to show he has returned the economy to growth.
Kabul, Afghanistan: Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed Afghan woman whose photograph as a young refugee girl was published on the cover of National Geographic magazine three decades ago, received a warm welcome on Wednesday from Afghanistan's president after she was deported from Pakistan.

Long the face of Afghanistan's millions of refugees abroad, Gula, now 44 and the mother of several children, has become the most public example of what has become, in effect, the forced return of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees and migrants from Pakistan, as well as Iran and Europe.

Gula was arrested by Pakistani authorities two weeks ago on charges of obtaining false identity documents, a common practice among Afghans in Pakistan, who have been subjected to roundups and arbitrary arrests in efforts to force them to return to Afghanistan.

She was sentenced to detention for two weeks, and ordered deported, a move criticized by Amnesty International.
Bangkok: South-east Asia's authoritarian leaders have been quick to congratulate Donald Trump for his surprise victory, including Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte who called outgoing US president Barack Obama "the son of a whore".

Policy-makers in capitals across the region expect Mr Trump to be more hands off and less critical of human rights and anti-democratic policies than Mr Obama who put America's "Asia pivot" at the centre of his foreign policy agenda.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says he looks forward to working with US president elect Donald Trump. Credit:AP

Mr Duterte has repeatedly railed against Mr Obama in obscenity-laden comments for the US criticism of his crackdown on drugs that has left thousands of Filipinos dead.

But as it emerged on Wednesday (Philippine time) that Mr Trump was heading toward victory, 71-year-old Mr Duterte issued a statement saying he "looks forward to working with the incoming administration for enhanced Philippines-US relations anchored on mutual respect, mutual benefit and shared commitment to democratic ideals and rule of law".
Los Angeles: Two F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets have collided over the Pacific Ocean near San Diego while flying a training mission from the Marine Corps Air Station at Miramar.

One of the pilots was able to land safely at the Naval Air Station North Island following the collision at 11.43am local time, the base said in a statement posted on Twitter.

The second pilot ejected safely from his aircraft and rescue crews were en route to recover him, it said.

The cause of the crash was under investigation.
In New York there were scattered chants of "Not my president" to "Black lives matter" and "Bernie!", according to NBC New York. Hundreds protest in opposition of Donald Trump's presidential election victory in Boston. Credit:AP People at the Union Square protest, hosted by Socialist Alternative, planned to march more than 40 blocks uptown to picket outside Trump Tower, according to organisers.

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia and Boston on Wednesday evening, and organisers planned rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland, California. In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said. Anti-Trump protesters march along Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. Credit:Austin American-Statesman/AP Demonstrators angry about the election result have smashed windows and set garbage bins on fire in downtown Oakland, California, joining protesters elsewhere in the country who swarmed streets in response to the election. In Oregon, dozens of people blocked traffic in downtown Portland and forced a delay for trains on two light-rail lines. Media reports said the crowd grew to about 300 people, including some who sat in the middle of a road. The crowd of anti-Trump protesters burned American flags and chanted, "That's not my president." Protesters yell against the election of President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle. Credit:AP

In Pennsylvania, hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students marched through the streets, with some in the crowd calling for unity. The student-run campus newspaper, the Pitt News, tweeted about an event titled "Emergency Meeting: Let's Unite to Stop President Trump." In Seattle, about 100 protesters gathered in the Capitol Hill neighbourhood, blocked roads and set a trash bin on fire. Clair Sheehan has the words "Not My President" written on her forehead as she takes part in a protest in Seattle. Credit:AP On Twitter, the hashtag "NotMyPresident" had been used nearly half a million times. The Oakland protest grew to about 250 people by late Tuesday. Police Officer Marco Marquez said protesters damaged five businesses, breaking windows and spraying graffiti. No arrests were made.

People protest on the University of Connecticut campus against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President. Credit:AP A woman was struck by a car and severely injured when protesters got onto a highway, the California Highway Patrol said. Demonstrators vandalised the driver's SUV before officers intervened. The highway was closed for about 20 minutes. In one of the largest demonstrations, some 1500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School in California, and then marched toward the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, a city known for its progressive politics. A fire burns during protests at Trump's victory in Oakland, California, late on Tuesday. Credit:Area News/AP "We're sitting here, setting our clocks back to 1950 electing this fool. You know? Trump honestly just makes us realise how much hate and ignorance is left," a female student told the rally, monitored via the social media app Periscope.

In downtown Los Angeles, a mostly Latino group of about 300 high school students, mostly from the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, walked out of classes and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally. Several school officials accompanied the youths as chaperones. Protesters gather in front of Sproul Hall at the University of California Berkeley campus on Wednesday. Credit:Bay Area News/AP Chanting in Spanish, "The people united will never be defeated," the group held signs with slogans such as "Not Supporting Racism, Not My President," and "Immigrants Make America Great." A few hundred students also walked out of classes in Seattle, Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area cities of Oakland, El Cerrito and Richmond. Several hundred more pupils at the University of Texas protested on campus as well, according to local reports and footage on social media. Albany High School students Lily Hopwood, Lulu Lebowitz and Tanan Javkhlantugs joined other high school students on a march to the University of California, Berkeley campus on Wednesday. Credit:AP

Anti-Trump rallies were planned later Wednesday in New York, Boston, Chicago and other cities as well, according to social media postings. A Facebook page for a protest scheduled for Manhattan's Union Square Park showed more than 8000 people planned to attend. In Austin, Texas, about 400 people staged a peaceful protest march through the streets of the Texas capital, police said. Lone protester Sarah, who refused to give her last name, stands outside Trump Towers holding a shredded US flag, demonstrating her opposition to Trump becoming President. Credit:AP The demonstrations followed a night of protests around the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump's political upset. Police said at least 500 people swarmed streets in and around the UCLA campus, some shouting anti-Trump expletives and others chanting "not my president".
Moscow: Russian government officials had contact with members of Donald Trump's campaign team, a top Russian diplomat confirmed on Thursday - a disclosure that could reopen scrutiny over the Kremlin's role in the President-elect's bitter race against Democratic Party contender Hillary Clinton.

Facing questions about his ties to Moscow because of statements interpreted as being supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr Trump repeatedly denied having any contact with the Russian government.

After the latest statement by the Russian diplomat, the spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, Hope Hicks, denied there were interactions between Russia and the Trump team before Tuesday's election.

"The campaign had no contact with Russian officials," she said in an email.
Construction has begun on Unit DX, a new lab space and science incubator in central Bristol, 10 minutes walk from Bristol Temple Meads and the Engine Shed.

This brings much needed facilities and support to the growing number of entrepreneurs in the city, adding a new scientific dimension to the already thriving Bristol tech scene. Unit DX is announced in partnership with the University of Bristol's SETsquared Centre, which was named as the best university business incubator in the world last year and is also supporting a record number of businesses.

Monika Radclyffe, Centre Director at SETsquared Bristol said: "I am very excited that SETsquared will be working with Unit DX to increase access to laboratory space and to provide tailored support for scientific enterprise. We look forward to supporting innovative technologies in the life sciences sector and help Unit DX companies scale their businesses with our proven incubation model."

Of the 183,000 life sciences jobs in the UK, over half of these are located in the 'golden triangle' of London, Cambridge and Oxford. Unit DX will help to translate Bristols scientific research into commercial business opportunities.

Nishan Canagarajah, Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bristol, said: "We are very pleased to be working with Unit DX to augment Bristol's scientific facilities which will significantly enhance the city's attractiveness as a location for start-ups and spin-outs."

The facility will provide entrepreneurs with 10,000 sq. ft. of high end laboratory space and another 5000 sq. ft. of office facilities to support cutting edge technologies. Unit DX will also provide access to mentoring and business support, as well as links to investors and industry networks through its partnerships.

Jack Allan, Economic Development Manager, Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone said: "Incubator facilities have a key role to play in helping business ideas take off and stimulating and supporting entrepreneurship."

Unit DX will open its doors in early 2017. Further information can be found at www.unitdx.com
I saw Donald Trump at Dorton Arena 11 months ago, and I saw him there (on the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh) again yesterday.What changed?First, the crowd. Last time, as I wrote, the crowd was rather loose and raucous. They were like fans of a stand-up comedian, laughing and applauding as he spouted their favorite zingers.Monday, they again crowded the arena. Yes, they cheered and applauded their favorite lines. They booed the media and Hillary Clinton when Trump zinged them. They applauded and chanted vigorously.In another sense, however, it seemed to be a more serious crowd. They weren't there so much to be entertained, though as Trump himself says,My totally subjective take is, first, that even supporters are still curious about him. That means they are still scrutinizing him seriously.To explain what I mean, I think I know what President Hillary Clinton would be like. I'm not eager for that, but I think I know what she will do, and I bet most voters also think they know what she will do.Trump ... He's still an unknown, in many ways. He never has held elective office. How will he respond? That's a genuine question. And, let's face it, he's an eccentric person with a voluble personality.So, will he really build a wall? Will he bomb the @#$% out of ISIS? Will he make America great again? I would guess that many at Dorton Arena came to do a last-minute check on whether he seems to be kind of man who might be able to do all that, and more. They weren't just there for kicks.Second, I think the crowd was serious because the news suggests he is now more serious. Eleven months ago, he basically said his policies could be found on his campaign website. Um, that's the kind of answer a customer service rep gives when the company guidelines say to get off the phone with an annoying customer.On Monday, however, his speech had more substance. In this case, the policies were the bricks, the barbed comments and wisecracks were just the mortar holding it all together. I would even speculate that people came, wonder of wonders, to hear what his policies are.Last December's crowd was like people going to hear a show. Yesterday's was more like students going to hear a popular, entertaining professor give a lecture. Think of that as a hypothesis: People came to hear Trump because they wanted to learn something.I know I'm going out on a limb there.By the way, in the interests of fairness, I did try to get into Hillary Clinton's midnight rally at North Carolina State University. But Reynolds Coliseum was full by the time I got there. So good for her and her campaign. It just goes to show that if some big-name entertainers and Bill Clinton put on a free show on a college campus, students (and adults) won't stay away just because Hillary is there.Turning back to Dorton Arena, in addition to the audience, others were in attendance who were absent in December: politicians.That includes Gov. Pat McCrory, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and others.What was striking, to me anyway, was how relaxed they seemed to be. McCrory, for instance, noted that as he campaigns, people sort of sidle up to him and whisper,At Dorton Arena, when he called out,the crowd gave a resounding cheer and applauded enthusiastically.Huckabee quipped,Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who proclaimed, "Blue lives matter!", was especially impressive. I've seen him on TV and the Internet, but there in the arena, dressed in black with a big cowboy hat, he had a powerful presence.In short, many politicians have often seemed skittish about Trump. Yesterday, however, the crowd and the setting seemed to energize them, and I've seen a number of them many times before. Before a Trump crowd, with him waiting in the wings, some of the politicians seemed stronger and more relaxed than they usually do.It's often been speculated that Republicans might oppose a President Trump. But could the opposite be true? Could a Trump-led party be more dynamic and confident?One group was missing yesterday: Protesters. They interrupted his November speech several times. None showed up Monday. It would be mere speculation to wonder if this was connected to the revelation that Democrat operatives had funded and directed many anti-Trump protests.It was the crowd that interrupted him, at times, chanting, "USA! USA! USA!" and "Trump! Trump! Trump!" and "Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!"My sense was that the people there feel they too are part of the show, and when they feel it's time to say something, they're part of the show too, and they go ahead. Trump nods along, applauds, gives a thumbs-up, then swings back into his talk.Which underlines what Trump has been claimed: this is a movement of the people.For conservatives, a popular movement is neither good nor bad, in itself. Our constitution aims to channel and direct the wishes of the voters through settled institutions. The whole trick is to properly balance the will of the people with effective institutions, while protecting the rights of communities, minorities and individuals.But could a Trump administration do so?Monday he seemed more serious than 11 months ago. Sure, there were the one-liners, the standard riffs, the bombast and bluster. He's still a showman. He doesn't want people fidgeting in their seats. But, in perhaps the real upset of the campaign, he basically delivered a typical campaign speech that at least outlined what he would try to do in the Oval Office.Monday, he laid out a number of ideas most conservatives would be comfortable with. He insisted that a top item on his agenda would be repealing and replacing Obamacare. He would stop payments sent to the United Nations to cut global warming, and instead would route the money to rebuilding inner cities.He also said he would cut taxes, and especially would cut corporate taxes down to be among the lowest in the world. He at least seems to realize that high taxes are driving corporations, and their cash and jobs, away, and that cutting taxes could help bring them back.To be sure, corporate tax cuts don't always excite ordinary taxpayers. But at the Trump rally, people applauded the line. It may be that Trump has helped his followers make the connection many people don't: if taxes are lowered, companies have more money to hire workers and buy things from other companies, starting a virtuous cycle of growth and job creation.Moreover, he said he aimed to rebuild America's inner cities.he said, in effect telling the urban poor,And his audience, mostly white, cheered as heartily for that as almost anything else. That raises yet one more possibility: That he not only champions ordinary people, he might be able to change them.I can't pretend to predict if he will win or be a good president. There is not enough information to decide either question.But I did get an impression of how he had changed. In December, he was very much the showman, obviously having a good time, enjoying the attention and fuss. It's not that he disdained the job. It might be that as an entrepreneur he was willing to take a flyer and see what happened.Monday, I thought he had moved beyond that, and become a much more aware and committed leader.Somewhere along the line he seems to have gotten more serious about the whole thing. They say John Kennedy when running for president was shocked by the poverty he saw in Appalachia, and it changed him. Did something like that happen to Trump? He seemed genuinely outraged that, according to him, 70,000 factories have closed in the U.S. since NAFTA was signed.Trump noted how he had traveled all over America, and said,Did his campaign put him through the furnace, and make him (relatively) more thoughtful, more serious, more empathetic?By tomorrow we may have a better idea. After he left, and we filed out, a song came over the loudspeaker. The Rolling Stones were singing,
Latest News Broker backs government schemes to help first-home buyers Single parents can secure property with 2% deposit

NAB to lift variable mortgage rates The change will take effect next week

Australian mortgage franchise Aussie Home Loans has announced a partnership with financial services giant Virgin Money Australia  placing the firms home loans on Aussies panel of 21 lenders.Our link with the Virgin Money brand in Australia brings together two leading challenger brands, both focused on delivering greater competition to the home loan market together with strong customer service, said James Symond, chief executive of Aussie.This partnership will bring greater choice for the thousands of Australians our brokers connect with every month, access to a vast number of potential new customers and the ability to offer rewards to our existing customers who are also Velocity Frequent Flyer members.Virgin launched a new mortgage product in May, the Reward Me Home Loan, which offers customers Velocity Frequent Flyer for every $100,000 borrowed at settlement, 1,000 each month for each loan split, plus 30,000 every three years.Were excited to be partnering with Aussie, a giant in mortgage broking that has shaken up a big sector of the Australian economy by being bold and offering fantastic customer service, said Greg Boyle, chief executive of Virgin Money Australia.There are many similarities between these two great brands, not least our strong desire to deliver simplicity, greater choice and better value for our customers. Were looking forward to demonstrating how the partnership with Aussie will bring some exciting new opportunities for Australian borrowers.Currently, Aussies loan book, including its wholesale aggregator nMB , totals more than $70 billion.
Latest News Broker backs government schemes to help first-home buyers Single parents can secure property with 2% deposit

NAB to lift variable mortgage rates The change will take effect next week

MyState Bank has announced the appointment of Paul Herbert as its head of broker channel.An experienced banking industry executive, Herbert has been CEO of The Rock in Central Queensland, a division of MyState, for the past two years. He will continue in this role while assuming his new national broker relationship responsibilities with MyState Bank.MyState's general manager of sales and distribution, Huw Bough , said Herbert's 23 years of experience in the financial services sector made him well qualified for the job.Paul knows MyState Bank well, has extensive experience in the mortgage broker industry, previously as State Sales Manager for Queensland and NSW with GE, and most importantly he understands brokers needs.This will help Paul to hit the ground running, quickly establish key relationships and maintain our mortgage business growth momentum.To assist him, we have recently almost doubled our number of broker relationship managers around the country and are looking at other ways to strengthen broker relationships and enhance the way we work with them, Mr Bough said.Brokers helped MyState increase its home loan book by 30% from $2.8 billion to $3.7 billion in the two years prior to 30 June 2016.MyState is working to diversify its loan book by accelerating lending outside of Tasmania and currently has around 40% of its loan book outside the state.Mr Herbert said he was looking forward to working with and supporting MyStates broker network.Brokers are a very important part of our business and our partnership with them is the key to our growth," he said. Our goal is to make a difference to our partners, customers and communities everyday. With brokers we will do this by being accessible, being exceptional communicators and having a shared passion to serve and make things happen."
On Wednesday night (9 November), Australia witnessed what many called an historic moment: the election of Donald Trump as the next US president.With his controversial views and policy direction, many economists are predicting ripple effects from his presidency that will span the globe. REA Group s chief economist Nerida Conisbee told The Australian that Trumps win may increase the likelihood of the Reserve Bank of Australia ( RBA ) further cutting rates.The impact on our rates at this stage is uncertain. Under Trump, uncertainty in the US may lead to a strengthening of the Australian dollar that an increase in US rates is unable to offset. It may put more pressure on the RBA to cut rates.Matthew Tiller, head of research at LJ Hooker, told the paper that Australian real estate could actually benefit from greater foreign investment as a result of Trumps presidency.The US election result will make Australian property look more stable and less risky to those weighing up options, he said.Talking with Australian Broker, the founder and principal of Digital Finance Analytics (DFA), Martin North, believes that banks reliant on overseas funding for their mortgage books may have to increase mortgage rates over the next few months.Its probably fair to say that we are going to see more uncertainty on the international capital markets. Therefore, the banks funding of their mortgage books from offshore sources probably will cost a little bit more.However, North disagreed with sentiments that Trumps victory will lead to a cut in the RBAs cash rate.If you look closely at the RBAs statements over the past little while, I think they are saying they are going to sit on their hands for a period of time. I dont theres been sufficient evidence to indicate they would change that view so Im less confident of a rate cut here as a direct result of the Trump effect.As for international investment in the local property market, there was an argument that interest by real estate investors could increase as Australia is increasingly seen as a stronger, more robust property market, North told Australian Broker.So you might see more demand for Australian property and if that demand continues to grow in line with the local demand that were still seeing, you could still see markets moving relatively positively over the next couple of years, he said.Australia might become a bit of a safe haven and that could flow into the property sector.Whether this occurs however will be a trade-off between how successful a Trump-led government is in igniting the US economy versus the uncertainty it creates.Depending on that, you could see positive or negative results for Australia.North concluded, stressing that Australian banks are in a more secure place now than they were after the GFC. This is due to greater proportions of deposits aligned to loans as well as higher levels of capital.I dont think were going to see some dramatic impacts on the banks or the prices of mortgages, he said. Lets not panic. Lets take a more balanced view.While there is the potential of risk for mortgage rates on one side, property markets would not curl up and die in the next 24 hours, he added.
Burr gained momentum in Senate race as election drew near; House delegation retains its 10-3 partisan split



Sen. Richard Burr thanks supporters at his victory speech Tuesday night in Winston-Salem. (CJ photo by Dan Way)

Rep. G.K. Butterfield garnered 69 percent of the vote in his race against Republican H. Powell Dew Jr. (29 percent) and Libertarian J.J. Summerell (2 percent) in the 1st Congressional District.

Rep. David Price, the dean of the North Carolina delegation, claimed 68 percent of the vote against Sue Googe, who had 32 percent, in the 4th Congressional District.

Rep. Alma Adams defeated Republican Leon Threatt 67 percent to 33 percent in the 12th Congressional District.

Rep. George Holding defeated John McNeil 57 percent to 43 percent in the 2nd Congressional District. Holding currently holds the 13th District seat, but he chose to pursue the 2nd District after the General Assembly, under court order, drew new congressional maps and shifted the 13th District roughly 100 miles west.

Rep. Walter B. Jones defeated Ernest Reeves 67 percent to 33 percent in the 3rd Congressional District.

Rep. Virginia Foxx defeated Josh Brannon 58 percent to 42 percent in the 5th Congressional District.

Rep. Mark Walker defeated Pete Glidewell 59 percent to 41 percent in the 6th Congressional District.

Rep. David Rouzer defeated Wesley Casteen 61 percent to 39 percent in the 7th Congressional District.

Rep. Richard Hudson defeated Thomas Mills 59 percent to 41 percent in the 8th Congressional District.

Rep. Robert Pittenger defeated Christian Cano 58 percent to 42 percent in the 9th Congressional District.

Rep. Patrick McHenry defeated Andy Millard 63 percent to 37 percent in the 10th Congressional District.

Rep. Mark Meadows defeated R

Incumbents ruled the day in the North Carolina congressional delegation as the state's voters sent Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr back to Washington for a third term and kept the GOP's 10-3 U.S House majority intact.said Andy Taylor, professor of political science at N.C. State University, of Burr's victory.Taylor said when polling showed the U.S. Senate race tightening, Democrats thought pouring money into it might be a good investment.Taylor said.During his victory speech Tuesday night in Winston-Salem, Burr noted that he was only the third North Carolinian to hold that Senate seat for more than two terms, joining state political icons Sam Ervin and Jesse Helms.The makeup of the U.S. House delegation from North Carolina was no surprise, Taylor said.he said.The one race of interest was the newly drawn 13th Congressional District, where political newcomer Ted Budd, a Republican from Davie County, defeated Democrat Bruce Davis of Guilford County, 56 percent to 44 percent.The remaining nine Republican candidates won by comfortable margins over their Democratic opponents:ick Bryson 64 percent to 36 percent in the 11th Congressional District.
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It is mourning again in Park Slope.

The heart of progressive Brooklyn is in shock after the nation elected Republican Donald Trump as the countrys Commander in Chief on Tuesday, with locals brushing back tears as they trudged to work on a Wednesday morning that felt more like the day after tomorrow, according to one local leader.

Were all a little shell-shocked today, said Community Board 6 district manager Craig Hammerman. I saw people in tears this morning walking through the streets. There was a lot of hugging  just a very sad tone.

It was an especially bad way to wake up for one local who would otherwise have been celebrating her birthday on Nov. 9.

This is the worst birthday Ive ever had, said 20-year Slope resident Ivice Rose.

More than 30,000 neighborhood residents cast a ballot in the presidential race, according to a Park Slope Courier analysis of state voter data available as of Wednesday afternoon  of those, around 28,000 went to Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton, and only 1,500 to Trump.

But Trumps victory was in many ways a national rebuke of the Park Slope way of life  a place where grocery shoppers argue over Palestinian rights, fashionistas shilled handmade Clinton and Bernie Sanders T-shirts, and a synagogue dedicated its sukkah to the global refuge crisis  and his elevation to the nations highest office came as a revelation to some that the neighborhood is not in sync with other parts of the nation, according to one resident.

I think its a wake-up call, said Michelle de la Uz, local resident and executive director of local social justice outfit the Fifth Avenue Committee. I think people werent necessarily fully aware of how disaffected folks are around the country  we tend to be in a bubble here.

Locals in liberal strongholds across the country protested after Tuesdays shock result, but Park Slope remained grimly somber on Tuesday evening and into the next day, as residents were still in a state of shock, de la Uz said.

Theres just a lot of shock and mourning going on right now, she explained. I think people are literally going through the steps of mourning. The anger part of it will come later.

Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixs on@cn gloca l.com or by calling (718) 260-4505.
Tom Campbell

Regardless of who was your champion in this past presidential election: Will you recognize the duly elected leader of the Free World? I will never recognize President Donald J. Trump because he is not worthy. I will recognize President Donald J. Trump, providing he respects the office in which he holds. "At this point, what difference does it make?" 89 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



We will be dissecting Tuesday's elections for months to come but there are some immediate takeaways from the outcomes. With three notable exceptions it was a great year for Republicans in North Carolina.Few predicted a convincing Donald Trump national presidential victory. He defied long-standing political beliefs and practices in an unprecedented and historic victory. Neither the political parties, most elected officials, nor the media or pollsters recognized the depth of the anger, distrust and desire for change among white middle class voters. Trump alone did. Even those who didn't like his bombastic personality embraced his call to "drain the swamp" and responded to fears that the next president would nominate as many as three new Supreme Court Justices. Trump's coattails guaranteed that Republicans maintained control of the U.S. House and Senate.Exception one: Republican Pat McCrory may be the first North Carolina governor to be defeated seeking re-election. Out of 4.6 million votes cast Roy Cooper won by only 5,000, however this contest isn't final. Some 8,000 provisional ballots have to be tallied, there are questions about Durham County's election results and you can be assured a recount will be requested. The courts might ultimately decide the gubernatorial outcome.Why did the incumbent governor get fewer North Carolina votes than either Trump or the reelected Senator Richard Burr? When the dust settles it will be the fallout from HB2 that did McCrory in. As Beverly Perdue learned, Cooper will face unique circumstances. Republicans actually gained a seat in the NC House and maintained firm control over the Senate, setting up a very interesting 2017 legislative session that assures a Cooper veto can be overturned.For the first time in our lifetimes the Council of State will have 6 Republicans and 4 Democrats, assuming Tuesday's outcomes stand. Republicans picked off the office of State Treasurer, the Commissioner of Insurance and Superintendent of Public Instruction, while retaining the Lt. Governor, Commissioner of Labor and Commissioner of Agriculture.Exception two was Democrat Josh Stein winning the Attorney General's office. We suspect Buck Newton's close association to HB2 spelled his defeat.The third exception came from the Supreme Court contest. Democrat Mike Morgan had more than a 300,000-vote plurality over incumbent Justice Bob Edmunds. Some speculate voters didn't know either candidate and since Morgan's name appeared first on the ballot (with no listed party affiliation) they chose Morgan. But it may have resulted from the shenanigans the legislature tried to pull to allow Edmunds to stand for a confirmation vote rather than face a human competitor, legislation that was overturned by Edmund's own Supreme Court colleagues for being unconstitutional. Democrats will now hold a plurality on our highest court, the final arbiter to an ever-growing number of litigations resulting from Republican controlled legislation. Republicans won all the contests for the Court of Appeals, the only surprise being the defeat of incumbent Democrat Linda Stephens by Phil Berger, Jr. - likely a case where name recognition prevailed.North Carolina turned a deeper red shade in 2016. It was not a good night for Democrats, who must now regroup, reevaluate their policies and constituencies. It should also be a wake-up call for pollsters, consultants and the mainstream media. The voters have spoken and we would all do well to heed their voices.
When Arrow killed off Church in Human Target they were making a big promise. Despite Churchs impressive showing in the first few episodes, Prometheus was going to be an even better and more threatening villain. In So It Begins Arrow starts to deliver on that promise by giving us our first proper look at season 5s Big Bad. While there is much more story to go, Prometheus is already shaping up to be one of the most impressive and personal villains for Oliver and Arrow yet.

Did Arrow Kill off Season 5s Big Villain Too Soon?>>>





Another Season, Another Killer

Prometheus has graduated from showing up in random alleys threatening and shooting people. Now he is a full-blown serial killer who has a flair for the dramatic and terrifying. It is a credit to Arrow that although the show has seen many deaths before Prometheus, his actions immediately make an impression. The fact that Prometheus is killing people in a domestic setting like inside homes is much more unnerving than the usual street killings of Arrow.

Though Prometheus has an obvious and scary name all his own, Susan Williams dubs him the Throwing Star Killer because he kills people with throwing stars. (Sidenote: Susan Williams is quickly becoming the most annoying character on this show. I have to believe that a professional journalist could come with a better name for a serial killer.) Williams report whips the city into a panic. Though Star City seen immortal assassins, powerful magicians and terrorists attack them, a serial killer makes them lose it. I guess everyone has a breaking point.

Curtis and Felicity work together and realize that Prometheuss random killings actually arent random at all. The names of victims are anagrams of the people that were on Olivers list back in season 1. This leads the recruits to finding out that Oliver kind of used to be a serial killer. They dont take the news too well. This is an interesting position for Arrow to put itself in especially in season 5.

Evelyn Comes into Sharper Focus

While its true that Oliver killing people has always been a part of the show and a reason for his personal growth, never has Arrow been so harsh to call Oliver a serial killer before, but its not exactly an incorrect definition. Evelyn takes the news especially hard since when she first met Ollie in season 5, he stopped her from killing Ruve Darhk because it would tarnish the legacy of the Black Canary.

So It Begins then becomes a sort of Artemis-centric episode, which is nice because Evelyn needed some identity besides being the girl. The episode doesnt go into any great lengths to explain why Evelyn wears eye-shadow in the shape of a mask as a part of her vigilante outfit rather than just an actual mask. It does do wonders to explain what makes Evelyn tick though. Unlike her introductory episode, Madison McLaughlin is not overwrought and melodramatic either. She is relatable and sympathetic playing Evelyns anger at Oliie, instantly shooting up to the one of the most likable characters among the recruits.

Evelyn realizes that Oliver was right about not letting her kill Ruve but she wants Oliver to be honest. Evelyn wants to save the city because her parents died in Damien Darhks crusade. How can she trust someone like Oliver who is just a secretive and proven killer? Evelyns mistrust of Oliver comes to head when she is forced to go back into action to save another of Prometheus potential victims.

Evelyn is hopelessly outmatched by Prometheus and it is up to Ollie to save her. Oliver, luckily, does and this is apparently enough for them to come over their differences. It is a little bit quick and in honesty, Evelyns anger should have lasted a little bit more. Still, despite Olivers past, he is a changed man. Arrow probably shouldnt spend too much time reminding us of the hero could be defined as a serial killer

Arrow: 5 Lessons Olicity Taught Us About Relationships>>>

Flashback Break

Believe it or not, there is actually a little more of this episode to go but first we have to do a very quick flashback break. For the first time in season 5, the flashback story really falters. There is nothing here that connects to the present day storyline except that we finally meet the main villain of the Russian storyline. The rival Bratva captain that Oliver is looking to defeat, Konstantin Kovar, introduces himself to Oliver in the most monologuey and supervillainy way. Its really paint by numbers, but Kovar is played by Dolph Lungren. If we learned nothing else from Rocky IV, Lungren makes for one terrifying Russian.

Quiz: Which Arrow Character Are You?





Prometheus Unmasked?

It turns out that Arrow isnt done pulling the curtain back on the villains in the episode. Felicity analyzes one of Prometheuss throwing stars. It turns out that the throwing stars are made from arrows that Oliver has used in the past. Prometheus is melting down Olivers old weapons and creating new ones. Since the only person who would have access to those arrow would be someone with connections to the SCPD, that narrows the list of suspects to Prometheus true identity considerably.

Across town a former SCPD police captain, Quentin Lance, wakes up from a supposedly drunken stupor. Confused, Quentin looks over to his arm which is slashed in the exact same place that Prometheuss arm was cut during his earlier fight with Oliver. One of Prometheuss throwing stars is also lying directly on Quentins living room table. Really, all he is missing is the outfit and voice changer. Is Quentin actually Prometheus?!

So what do you think? Did Arrow just reveal the identity of Prometheus? Is it a trick? How could Quentin have turned evil? Is Quentin evil? Would you happy if Quentin did turn out to be Prometheus? Do you have any other theories for what could be going on?

Arrow season 5 airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW. Want more news? Like our Arrow Facebook page for the latest updates!





(Image courtesy of The CW)
During a peaceful Governors Summit at the White House, shots are fired at the home of the president on Designated Survivor. Will ex-designated survivor and now President Kirkman (Keifer Sutherland) be the target of the latest attack on the United States government?

Kirkman is slow to discover that the real terrorist is still out there and Nassir is just a shield to cover the real killers when he holds a Governors Summit in The White House. This event will be the first time Kirkman will be appreciated for his attempts at leading the government in the right direction after his victorious capture of the lead suspect in the capitol bombing.

Quiz: Which Designated Survivor Character Are You?>>>

Just when Kirkman is giving a moving speech at the event welcoming his constituents, shots are fired into the exterior of the White House. Are they directed at the president or someone closest to him?

After feeling secure he has captured the leader of a terrorist group named Al-Sakar, Majid Nassar, Kirkman is relieved he has moved the United States away from any further terrorist threats. But the latest shooter is found to have pledged his allegiance to Nassar moments before the attack.

Kirkmans bodyguard Mike Ritter (LaMonica Garrett), is struck and in critical condition, but not before killing the would-be assassin. Nassar is brought back alive to the United States and jailed and is refusing to talk about his involvement in the capitol bombing.

A plane of Syrian refugees has landed in Florida, but Governor Rivera will not let them disembark in the United States. The First Lady Alex Kirkman (Natascha McElhone) continues to work alongside her husband to make the refugees be allowed to stay in the state, but Governor Rivera will not allow it to happen. Aaron Shore (Adan Canto) asks the First Lady to stay away from the refugee situation, but she refuses.

The FBI Interrogates Nassir

FBI Agent Hannah Wells (Maggie Q) and her supervisor Jason Atwood (Malik Yoba) continue to investigate the Capitol bombing. They make a shocking discovery regarding the sole survivor of the attack on the Capitol, Congressman Peter MacLeish (Ashely Zukerman).

Designated Survivor Recap: Are the Darkest Days of Kirkmans Presidency Behind Him?>>>

Chief of Staff Shore and the Presidents special advisor, Emily Rhodes (Italia Ricci), ask MacLeish if he is interested in taking the position of Vice President, as per orders from President Kirkman. He accepts the position and Kirkman asks the FBIs help in investigating his background.

Hannah Wells is worried when she learns that MacLeash is being vetted for the job of Vice President. Hannah grills the incarcerated Nassir, informing him of his basic rights in the United States. He responds by saying that United States missiles struck an apartment building killing his wife and children and that after that experience, nothing could break him, not even an interrogation.

Nassir continues to maintain his innocence, but after threatening his other family, Hannah finds out that Nassir did not cause the bombing, but took credit for it so the real attackers could stay anonymous. He said he wanted the same thing, death to America, Nassir remarks to Hannah. Nassir is later found dead in his holding cell.

Kirkman Gets Grilled by the Governors

Kirkman meets with all of his governors and they grill him as to what he stands for as president. Given the opportunity, the governors will speak with him and if they are satisfied, in turn, will give him his senate appointees.

After being dragged through the mud by his constituents, Kirkman admits that their opinion of him is probably right, that he is not good enough to be the President of the United States and leaves their meeting. President Kirkman later tells the governors that they need to work together or he has to step down from his position. The governors quickly propose a rebuttal and ask him to suspend national immigration until the country feels safe. They also threaten to stand in the way of his appointment of a congress if he does not do so.

Kirkman and his wife Alex fight over his decision to reroute the plane of Syrian refugees to Canada instead of allowing it to stay in the United States as per his agreement with the governors.

Designated Survivor and Speechless Picked Up for Full Seasons>>>

Designated Survivor airs on ABC on Wednesdays at 10/9c. Want more news? Like our Facebook page.

(Images courtesy of ABC)
The winter finale (season 13, episode 9) of Greys Anatomy, titled You Havent Done Nothin, will see Richard and Bailey going head to head as Richard tries to figure out whats going on with Eliza at the hospital  and what does the future hold for him?

The official episode description says, Alex makes a big decision that could have life-changing consequences: Believing he is going to jail tomorrow, Alex makes a big decision about his future. While the hospital is overrun with victims of a building collapse, Richard demands answers from Bailey about Elizas presence at Grey Sloan.

Best Greys Anatomy Quotes from Why Try to Change Me Now >>>

Here are photos from this episode of Greys Anatomy:

Richard Confronts Bailey About Eliza

Richard and Bailey Look Concerned

Victims of a Building Collapse Begin Arriving at the Hospital

Will Richard Be Forced Out?

Quiz: Who is Your TV Boss? >>>

What Will Arizona Do Regarding Eliza?

Arizona Looks After One of the Victims

Jo Wilson

Will DeLuca Feel Vindicated If Alex Goes to Jail?

What do you think will happen after Richard confronts Bailey? Will he be forced out? And what decision do you think Alex will make?

Greys Anatomy airs Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC. Want more news? Like our Facebook page.

(Images courtesy of ABC)
Larvae from aquatic invasive mussels have been detected in Montana for the first time.

Water samples from Tiber Reservoir, east of Shelby, tested positive for the larvae of aquatic invasive mussels, with similar tests from Canyon Ferry Reservoir near Helena showing suspect or inconclusive results, according to officials at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

FWP, along with other state and federal agencies and the Montana Invasive Species Advisory Council, are now working to determine whether adult mussels are present in Tiber Reservoir and to get further test results from Canyon Ferry.

This is the first positive test in Montana for the larvae of quagga or zebra mussels, said Eileen Ryce, FWP fisheries division administrator. Although we hoped we would never see these invasive species in Montana waters, weve been preparing for this possibility for some time, and were going to work together to address this threat.

Quagga and zebra mussels are aquatic invasive species not known to be established in Montana. In other parts of the country, such as the Midwest, Southwest and the Great Lakes areas, mussels have impaired hydroelectric, municipal and agricultural water infrastructure. Mussels may also impact fisheries and other aquatic resources and damage recreation facilities.

FWP runs aquatic invasive inspection stations during the summer as well as the Clean. Drain. Dry. campaign to discourage unintentionally transporting invasive species in and on boats.

Recent site inspections at Tiber and Canyon Ferry did not turn up any established populations of adult mussels, but officials will conduct more extensive inspections with the assistance of dam operators, marina concessionaires and other groups. State agencies are also making arrangements to bring in dogs that may detect mussels at Tiber and Canyon Ferry reservoirs.

FWP regularly tests the states rivers, lakes and reservoirs for aquatic invasive mussels. Water samples from Fresno, Holter and Hauser reservoirs have come back negative, as did samples from Lake Frances, the Marias River and the Milk River. Testing at Fort Peck Reservoir and the entire Missouri River system is ongoing.

The recent test results are definitely bad news, but they do indicate our detection system is working, Ryce said. The results from Tiber Reservoir show the larvae exist at very low densities, which improves our chances for containment."

The coming winter also offers some hope of stifling a potential infestation.

At 50 degrees and below the larvae are not able to reproduce, said Stephanie Hester, MISAC coordinator. Were in the process of determining what state the larvae are in  so timing wise were in a pretty good spot.

Thats not to say there isnt concern, because theyre just crazy in terms of what theyre able to do and hide and proliferate once adult mussels are established," she added. "Were taking this very seriously.

Officials are unsure of when the introduction may have occurred, although Hester suspects the larvae were transported by a boat.

A rapid response plan includes assessing the risks, coordinating state and federal agencies and other water users, contacting legislators and looking at possible control measures, she said. Recent work on the council and regionally to address invasive species has given officials a framework for responding, she added.

We have a huge list of people were on the phone with right now letting them know we need their support and help, Hester said. I feel like were in really good shape with the goal to protect the resource and prevent any more issues.

If adult mussels are detected, potential controls include aeration or dissolving potash in an attempt to eradicate them.

Bob Gilbert, executive director of Walleyes Unlimited of Montana, said he is hopeful the Canyon Ferry detection is a false alarm, but encouraged officials to get out ahead of potential infestations as soon as possible.

Our organization is 100 percent behind keeping any invasive species out of Montana and especially these mussels, he said. Theyre not only devastating to fisheries but to just about everyone who uses water in this state.

This latest invasive species detection is much different than the high-profile detection of a fish-killing parasite that caused temporary closures of the Yellowstone River this summer, Ryce said.

The Yellowstone River was much more of an emergency to prevent the spread to other water bodies and reduce additional stressors on the fish, she said. For this situation its less of an emergency because we have the luxury of having the winter to come up with plans to minimize the spread and containment.

As officials look at strategies, watercraft inspection and mandatory decontamination may be instituted to alleviate concerns of spreading larvae or adult mussels. Boating restrictions are not expected.
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SCA Merchant Services, who acquired Swedscot Timber in Cumbernauld in September, is already beginning to strengthen its operation by welcoming two new members to the team.

Brendan Murphy has been appointed as operations manager, while Cheryl Wallace becomes internal sales coordinator. Both bring with them a wealth of timber and local market knowledge.

Mr Murphy joins SCA from James Callander & Son where he held the position of operations manager for the past two years. Previous to this, he worked for Metsa Wood in Grangemouth for 38 years.

Ms Wallace, who has spent the past eight years at Thornbridge Sawmills as a sales manager, brings with her more than 10 years experience in the timber industry. With excellent market and product knowledge, she is tasked with expanding current trading activities.

I am delighted to welcome both Brendan and Cheryl to enhance our team, said Steven McRitchie, general manager of SCA Merchant Services, Cumbernauld.

Both individuals have extensive experience in the timber trade. Their local knowledge will help to grow our business during the transition from Swedscot Timber to SCA Merchant Services.
Why do people keep leaving their cars unlocked in NJ? We asked

Vehicle thefts have steadily risen since 2020. To counteract that, the state Attorney General's Office is urging people to lock their cars.
Barry Beach appeared in Yellowstone County Justice Court on Thursday and was ordered to remain jailed until he posts a $50,000 bond.

Yellowstone County Justice of the Peace David Carter ordered Beach to appear on Nov. 18 in front of a district court judge in Judicial District 15 for a hearing on the petition to revoke his suspended sentence.

Beach was serving a 10-year suspended sentence for deliberate homicide after being granted clemency by Gov. Steve Bullock and released from the Montana State Prison last year. Beach spent 30 years in prison for the 1979 murder of 17-year-old Kim Nees in Poplar.

Beach's probation officer, Katie Weston, wrote a report to the court stating Beach had violated a temporary restraining order while wearing a GPS monitoring unit. The woman with the protection order reported the violation to Billings Police on Sunday, and the Billings City Attorney filed a misdemeanor charge against Beach on Thursday.

Billings Probation and Parole officers and the U.S. Marshal's Task Force arrested Beach on Wednesday during a regular check-in with probation and parole, said Montana Department of Corrections spokesperson Judy Beck.

A woman who said she had a brief intimate relationship with Beach was granted a temporary order of protection against him after alleging she was being stalked, according to Yellowstone County Court records.

"For the safety of the petitioner, her family and the community," the Department of Corrections is filing a report of violation with the Roosevelt County Attorneys office, where Beach was originally sentenced, Beck said. Filing the violation is the first step in asking the court to revoke Beachs probation.

In the order of protection against Beach, the woman has stated she is the mother of a 4-year-old boy believed to be Beach's son. Beach has stated the woman took the order of protection out against him to prevent him from obtaining visitation rights. The woman said in her order that Beach had not wished to be present in the boy's life and only wanted to continue his relationship with the woman.

The protection order states the boy was conceived while Beach was out of prison in 2011, when a state district judge ruled Beach should get a new trial based on new evidence and freed him from prison pending the trial.

But the Montana Supreme Court in May 2013 overturned that ruling on a 4-3 decision, sending Beach back to prison to serve out the rest of his 100-year sentence, with no possibility for parole.

Beach was granted clemency and released on probation last year.

Earlier in October, increased restrictions were placed on Beach's release. The new terms included wearing a GPS device, travel restrictions, an evening curfew and approval of visitors to his home.

Beach was ordered to appear in Sheridan County District Court on Nov. 18 to begin court proceedings on whether or not to revoke his suspended sentence.

Judicial District 15 includes Roosevelt, Daniels and Sheridan counties. The courthouse is in Plentywood.
Indian Hotels Company on Thursday announced that Tata Sons, a shareholder in the company, had called an extraordinary general meeting for the removal of Cyrus Mistry as director of the company. Mistry is currently the chairman of the company and just last week its independent directors had expressed their faith in his leadership. Tata Consultancy Services also announced that it has called a EGM to remove Mistry apart from replacing him as the Chairman of the company with a Tata group veteran, Ishaat Hussain.
Bayer group, which has entered a global agreement to acquire Monsanto, has indicated that it would want to continue with fresh research in countries like India.
QUITO -- Bilateral ties between China and Ecuador have seen notable growth within the framework of their strategic partnership, and Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to the country will further boost the development of the relations.

At the invitation of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, Peruvian President Pablo Kuczynski and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Xi will pay state visits to the three countries from Nov. 17 to Nov. 23.

During the tour, Xi will also attend the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting from Nov. 19 to Nov. 20 in Peru.

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Guillaume Long told Xinhua, "It is a historic visit, the first time that a president from China visits us, so we are very excited. They (Correa and Xi) met in China, and now, on Ecuadorian soil. It is an honor for us."

Ecuador "hopes the historic visit by a Chinese president...leads to strengthening strategic ties," Long said, adding that "the ties with China in recent years have been very fruitful, very significant."

Ecuador and China established diplomatic ties in 1980. Since Correa came to power in 2007, the South American country has focused on deepening ties with the Asian country.

Correa's first official trip to Beijing took place in the same year, to bolster cooperation in different fields, from energy, science and technology, to economy, trade and education.

In 2015, on his second visit, Correa and Xi agreed to elevate the ties to the level of strategic partnership, signing 14 bilateral agreements in diverse areas.

"The establishment of strategic partnership precisely reflects the level of China-Ecuador relations and will boost the development of the ties," Xi said at the time. Correa has said the relationship "is at its peak."

Such an assessment was echoed by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, when he met Correa in Quito in October.
Nicole Walksalong has special expertise in the area of foster and adopted children, a knowledge that comes from beyond her formal education.

Shes the adopted mother of twin girls and her own mother was adopted into a white family as a child. The family raised her mother on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, which later allowed Walksalong to stay connected to her culture.

Walksalong's intimate knowledge on the topic of adoption and fostering children is part of the reason she will help to define a newly created position within Yellowstone County's Court Appointed Special Advocates.

"The important thing to remember is that you're not saving these children," Walksalong said. "You're helping them."

Walksalong began in October working as CASA's Indian Child Welfare Act program coordinator. Part of her job is helping programs like the Center for Children and Families and Child and Family Services, understand the cultural background of Native American children.

About 40 percent of the countys foster children are Native American, Walksalong said. CASA hopes to reduce the number of Native American children in foster homes and connect more Native American families with resources to help them through the foster care system.

Shes also working with county Judge Rod Souza to establish what would be the fourth special ICWA court in the nation. The court is scheduled to begin taking on cases in July 2017.

Congress passed ICWA in 1978 in order to keep native families and tribes together. The act requires states to place native children removed from their families with relatives or other tribal members.

Taking children from Native American families without their consent goes back to when trains would run through reservations picking up children and shipping them to boarding schools to be educated, Walksalong said. Tribes lost much of their culture when that generation of children was taken.

There are some cultural differences with Native American families, Walksalong said. Its normal for multiple generations to live in a household, and older children are taught to look after their younger siblings, she said.

These arent signs of neglect, Walksalong said. It is part of a childs education.

Many Native American families feel like theyre often misunderstood when dealing with dependent or neglect cases, she said. The special court could be a more relaxed place where families can discuss what is happening in their homes.

The changes would be small. Things like scheduling the court in the afternoon to help with travel time from the nearby reservations and having the judge sit at the table with parents rather than speaking from the bench, Walksalong said.

She is reaching out to Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes to see what they need and what they are struggling with when it comes to members of their tribes in foster families.

While in high school, Walksalong worked with children in the foster care system at Watson Childrens Shelter in Missoula. The shelter provides short-term care for children who have been abused, neglected, abandoned or whose family is in crisis.

She was awarded a full scholarship to Rocky Mountain College. After earning a bachelor's degree in psychology, she began working for New Day, a private nonprofit working to improve the lives of troubled youth, particularly Native American kids.

My heart is with kids, Walksalong said.

It was through New Day that Walksalong met her twin daughters. The girls had been placed in 19 different homes before she adopted them. Their last placement had been with Lavonna Bird, who was arrested in 2012 after killing a boy she was fostering along with the girls.

Walksalong was an ideal parent for the girls, having worked before with children who suffered huge traumas. Her husband is also an enrolled member of the Crow tribe, and able to help the girls continue to connect with their culture, Walksalong said.

She encourages Native American families to foster Indian children, or be a CASA volunteer. Even if a family can't adopt a child, the foster system needs more Native American advocates working for the children in the court system, Walksalong said.

It takes a lot to adopt, and you have to give them a certain type of love, because youre taking in children you didnt get a chance to raise, to mold, Walksalong said. But to me, theyve always been my kids.

Walksalongs mother, Lonette Keehner, was adopted as a child from her Blackfeet family. Keehner and her two siblings were the first set of triplets born to the Blackfeet tribe in recent history. Keehner and the surviving sister were adopted by a white hospital nurse after the two got sick soon after their birth. Their brother died in the hospital.

That experience had helped Keehner bond deeply with Walkalongs two adopted daughters.

They started calling their grandparents grandma and grandpa, before they called my husband and me, mom and dad, Walksalong said.

Keehner was murdered on Dec. 21, 2015, in Missoula by Scott Austin Price. Walksalong struggled to help her children through another painful loss. She said her grief overcame her for a time, before realizing she needed to help herself before she could help others again. She entered therapy to help her process what had happened.

When Keehners side of the family met to spread her ashes in Glacier National Park, Walksalongs daughters were included. The two girls wear a piece of their grandmothers jewelry every day in memory of her, Walksalong said.

The tragedy of her mothers death brought her daughters closer to their family in many ways, she said.

If we look at our old ways, our traditions say all children deserve a home, Walksalong said. All children deserve a family.

The last three informational sessions this year for people interested in becoming a CASA will be at 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 16 and Dec. 14 as well as an evening session at 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 1. All informational sessions will be held at the CASA offices located at 1201 Grand Avenue, suite five.

For more information, people can visit the Yellowstone CASA website.
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We have received emails and calls from many across the globe since the board of decided to change its Chairman.
A tender issued by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) for procuring 50 million LED bulbs has found no takers for a part of the supply by other bidders because they could not match the lowest bid from Philips Lighting India of Rs 38 a bulb.
It is no surprise that social commerce is flourishing in Southeast Asia as and Instagram are among the most popular social networks where internet users spend up to 3.7 hours every day on average.
Businessman C Sivasankaran on Thursday said he was not a beneficiary but a victim in his deal with .
foundation, the philanthropic arm of India's IT major Ltd, on Thursday said it has given Rs 6.5 crore through an endowment fund to Inter-University Center of Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA).
(OVL) and Petroleos De Venezuela SA (PDVSA) have signed two agreements for facilitating redevelopment of their San Cristobal joint venture project in that country.



Signed on November 4, these provide a mechanism to liquidate dividends due to . At the same time, OVL needs to long-term financing for the capital investment in a remediation plan, to invigorate the field from its current production of about 18,000 barrels a day to 27,000 bbl a day.



OVL, foreign arm of state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corporation, owns 40 per cent of San Cristobal and had invested about $190 million in 2008. PDVSA holds the remaining stake. The venture was a sequel to an agreement in 2005.



Earlier in August, OVL and PDVSA had signed a memorandum for cooperation on training and education, under which sponsored training for a batch of petroleum engineers from PDVSA in a master's degree programme at the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad.
Retail company today said it has closed two stores of the chain, one in Inorbit Mall in Pune and a Nirmal Lifestyle mall in Mulund due to lower than expected business and low profitability.
Chennai-based Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd (TAFE) is planning to invest around Rs 970 crore for its two initiatives related to farm productivity in Rajasthan.
The war of words between Tata Groups 78-year-old patriarch Ratan Tata and his former protege escalated on Thursday. Tata Group accused Mistry of ulterior objective, and of employing devious methods to take over Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) and other operating companies, with help from the independent directors.
The push to scrap the Clean Power Plan is on following Donald Trumps presidential victory, though its unlikely to save coal-fired polluters like Colstrip's power plant.

Meeting with the press Wednesday morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he hoped Trump would immediately scrap the Clean Power Plan, which called on states to cut greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants and other sources by 2030.

Day one would be a good idea, McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told Roll Call, suggesting the new president stop the EPAs legal battles supporting the Clean Power Plan.

Montana is one of 24 states suing the EPA over the emissions plan, which is aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Montana Attorney General Tim Fox has said the EPA is overstepping its authority by making new law with the CPP.

EPAs prescribed emissions reductions for Montana were the nations steepest, 47 percent. Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock accused the EPA of moving the goalposts because based on earlier planning, Montana had expected a prescribed emissions cut of about half that amount.

Gov. Bullock's office did not return calls Wednesday.

Colstrip was an obvious emissions target. It was the nations 15th-largest producer of greenhouse gases, emitting 13.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases annually, according to EPA. Carbon dioxide contributes to climate change.

Trump has said climate change is a hoax promoted by China.

But Colstrip is facing more imminent challenges, which will persist regardless of whether Trump scraps the Clean Power Plan.

Talen Energy and Puget Sound Energy, the owners of the two oldest units at the four-unit power plant, have agreed to shut down their units no later than 2022. The agreement settled an emissions violations lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club and the Montana Environmental Information Center.

The units targeted for closure opened in the 1970s. Agreeing to shutter the units made better financial sense than adding costly pollution controls, the owners said. Cheap natural gas has cut into coals share of the energy market and eroded profits. Talen Energy, which operates all four Colstrip units through an agreement with the power plant's five other owners, said this summer that it is currently losing millions.

The settlement with the Sierra Club is whats determining the future of Units 1 and 2 at this point, said Grant Ringel, of Puget Sound Energy.

The timing of the closure means the two oldest units will be shuttered before the Clean Power Plan came into play.

Montana shelved its efforts to curb greenhouse gases under the Clean Power Plan as soon as a federal judge granted the states a stay in February. Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock appointed a 27-member advisory panel to address the Clean Power Plan in January, but disbanded it after a couple weeks.

Since the task force was suspended, at DEQ we havent worked on the Clean Power Plan, said Kristi Ponozzo, of the Department of Environmental Quality.

Last month, a federal judge ordered the EPA to assess jobs loss related to enacting the Clean Power Plan.
In this file photo of Cyrus Mistry whom Tata Sons on Monday removed as its Chairman, nearly 4 years after he took over the reins of the group.
The Tata group is working towards turning around Port Talbot, which could entail a phased investment in assets and an overhaul of systems.
The real estate group founded by US President-elect is looking to launch more projects in the country after the success of its previous projects here.


Paytm, Indias largest mobile payments entity and commerce platform, put PM Narendra Modi on its ad, the next morning after the demonetization announcement on 8 November. Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener, Arvind Kejriwal who has initially maintained silence over governments demonetization decision could hold it back no longer.
The Diwali vacation in Surat's diamond polishing industry is in for an unplanned extension as the recent move by the Centre to demonetise the currency notes of two denominations had hit this industry hard which thrives on a cash transaction culture. Industry insiders say that payments would be stuck for at least the next two to three months owing to paucity of cash funds, and defaults as such would rise.
Pakistani security officials say five more Indian diplomats have returned to their country amid a deepening diplomatic row.

The two officials said Wednesday the five were among eight diplomats whose names were publicised by Pakistan, which said they were spies. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

A diplomatic row between Pakistan and India has deepened since October 27, when they each expelled an embassy staffer for spying.

The situation worsened when Pakistan withdrew six of its diplomats after their names were released to Indian media amid tensions over Kashmir.

Islamabad reciprocated by publishing the names of the eight diplomats. India protested the move, and what it called "factually incorrect allegations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity among the large Indian diaspora, particularly those living in the United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US), has in recent months also led to piquant situations. He has been called upon with entreaties that he indicate to the influential diaspora that he supports one of the two candidates in the US presidential rate, or even that he opposes Brexit.
The Karnataka High Court on Thursday upheld rules framed by the state government to regulate fares by taxi aggregators such as Ola and Uber, which includes a ban on surge pricing by these platforms.

The ruling is a setback to both Uber and Ola as several states, including Maharashtra, Delhi and West Bengal have framed similar rules to regulate these aggregators.
The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday came down heavily on the government and the for not having an urgent action plan to tackle air pollution, despite the dangerous air quality levels in Delhi and its neighbourhood.
Following Supreme Courts verdict that it is unconstitutional for Punjab to terminate water sharing agreement with other states, Congress president Amarinder Singh on Thursday resigned from his Lok Sabha seat while his party MLAs resigned en-masse from the state assembly.


For the first time in decades, the use and maintenance of more than 5 million acres of Montana trust lands will be controlled by Republicans, which could shift the way public lands are managed in the state.

The GOP secured four of five seats on the Land Board by winning their bids for attorney general, superintendent of public instruction, auditor and secretary of state.

Democrat Gov. Steve Bullock serves as chairman and leads the Department of Natural Resources which does the daily work on trust land leases and projects. The boards primary constitutional duty is to generate funding for public education by leasing land for farming, ranching, mining, timber harvest, oil and gas extraction or other uses. Because the parcels checkerboard the state and often abut federal lands, the board also plays a critical role in managing access for hunting, fishing and other recreational uses.

Many of the newly elected Republicans have promised to put more Montanans to work, particularly in natural resource industries such as logging and mining, by seeking more opportunities to lease under-performing trust lands. Several also said on they would explore new options to expand public access through limited land transfers or sales with or near federal lands.

It could be a sign of changes in policy regarding lands, but it depends on what happens on the national scene, said Carroll College political scientist Jeremy Johnson.

GOP Chairman Jeff Essmann agreed that the ability of land board members to keep job promises will be closely tied with other national and state efforts to revive natural resource industries and commodity markets. He said that could include Republican efforts to deregulate some industries and conservative calls for Trump to undo executive orders by President Barack Obama that tightened some environmental rules.

Itll take a little bit more time for Trump and Congress to get the economy moving again, but when they take those steps nationally to free things up and free up investment I think our land board will be ready to act, he said.

Democrats had said on the campaign trail that they already had been doing just that.

Nearly all decisions by the board are unanimous. Since January 2004, there have been only 30 split votes out of more than 1,200 action items, according to a Lee Newspapers analysis. To some degree, candidates from both parties attributed that to the professional work of DNRC staffers who smooth out most kinks long before the board votes. Others suggested there has been little disagreement because Democrats have controlled the board for so long.

Montana Conservation Voters Spokesman Clayton Elliott said he is disappointed with the GOPs near sweep of statewide offices, but said there is nothing to worry about yet with the shift in land board leadership. The group had endorsed and spent heavily to support Democrats because of their records on public lands.

I hope the land board will continue its record from the last several years of acquiring more public access to public lands and they work theyve done through the land banking program and through Habitat Montana to help open up public lands, he said. I dont imagine any big, divisive issues happening on the near horizon, but well wait and see, I guess.

As campaigns kicked off last year, federal management of public lands drew intense scrutiny. Citing the states record of managing trust lands, some Montana Republicans have called for the state to consider contracting for management of federal lands. A few have supported transferring ownership to the state, an idea broadly panned by Democrats as a step toward selling them to private owners. U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke resigned as a delegate to the Republican National Convention last year in protest of a platform plank that called for transferring federal lands to states.

Land Board members also have been drawn into heated public debates over particular development projects. In 2009 and 2010, the group reviewed a proposal to lease Otter Creek tracts to ArchCoal for the construction of a new surface mine. It was ultimately approved on a split vote, but never developed as global markets shifted and the company filed for bankruptcy.
The morning after the government suddenly demonetized Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, two of Mumbai's most popular ectectronic markets remained deserted on Wednesday even as chaos prevailed on roads, petrol stations, drug stores, retail outlets and wholesale markets in Mumbai as all daily cash transactions choked up.

Irla market in the Vile Parle area along with the south Mumbai's Lamington Road market are majorly driven by cash transactions, a trend that has now turned against the vendors.

Meanwhile, 24-hour pharmacies and retail petrol stations had an unending stream of customers offering big notes for conducting small value transactions, putting a severe strain on their stocks of Rs 100, Rs 50, Rs 20 and Rs 10 notes and coins

"I exhausted over Rs 60,000 worth in small notes in one hour - usually that is my fortnight's stock. The crowds don't stop coming. Where will I get more change?" rued the manager of a pharmacy chain in Kandivali in north-west Mumbai.

The wholesale fresh fruits and vegetables market in Navi Mumbai experienced piling up of these perishable goods as most wholesalers turned up with the banned currency notes.

"We are asking the banks to allow us to accept these notes and cooperate in exchanging them later. Failing this the huge quantities of fresh goods which came from farms will perish and the farmers and traders could incur losses worth crores of rupees," said an official.

Scenes of uproar were also witnessed at petrol pumps as customers offered the demonetized notes for small value transactions though many opted for credit/debit card transactions.

The situation was compounded as all banks and ATMs remained shut on Wednesday.

Massive traffic snarls were witnessed at all entry and exit points of Mumbai, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and other toll roads as the toll contractors refused to accept high value notes and did not permit vehicles to cross over to the other side.

Alarmed by the growing anger among the crowds, one toll post - Khalapur on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway - allowed vehicles toll-free, at least for Wednesday.

People encountered similar problems for daily routines like ordering food and beverages, either online, or in restaurants or at take-away counters as well as railway and bus stations.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government has convened a high-level meeting later on Wednesday to discuss the fallout of the government decision on the masses.
The government is closely tracking all cash deposits into banks and has warned that deposits above Rs 2.5 lakh threshold under the 50-day window could attract tax plus a 200 percent penalty in case of income mismatch.



Here is everything you should know



1. 200% penalty The finance ministry on Wednesday warned that any mismatch between the deposited sum and income declared would attract up to 30 per cent income tax and 200 per cent of tax liability as penalty.



The (tax) department would do matching of this with income returns filed by the depositors. And suitable action may follow.





Any mismatch with income declared by the account holder will be treated as a case of tax evasion. However, Revenue secretary Hashmukh Adhia said small businessmen, housewives, artisans and workers who had some cash lying as their savings at home should not be worried about any tax department scrutiny.
Back in 2014, when the Reserve Bank of India was withdrawing Rs 500 denomination notes from the system to introduce new notes with better security features, many had constructed it as an effort in demonetisation. Then central bank governor Raghuram Rajan, however, was not sure demonetisation helps in curbing black money.



Raghuram Rajan's view on demonetisation
According to government estimates, or so a top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader claimed on Thursday, as much as Rs 6 lakh crore of unaccounted money was set to come back into the system after Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination currency notes have been demonetised. He said the unaccounted money in the economy was to the tune of Rs 15.75 lakh crore.
The Income-Tax (I-T) department is keeping a hawk's eye on the operations of money changers known to help black money holders convert large amounts of unaccounted cash.

With the government banning Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with immediate effect from Tuesday night, a lot of people with black money are seeking to get their existing notes to be converted into the new set of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes seamlessly. And money changers come into play here. The new set of currency will be launched on November 11 by the Reserve Bank of India.

According to an I-T official, these operators are paid a fixed 10% - 15% commission for exchanging old with new notes. They use multiple bank accounts to do this. And a token fee needs to be paid before the transaction.

Business Standard visited some money changers who said that they would charge 15% commission to convert Rs one crore and the converted amount will be given by tomorrow afternoon. Interestingly, they were going about their business just behind the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) building in Fort.

When asked how they get the supply of the new currency, they said that they were in the business for a long time and had made their own arrangements. There were a lot of enquiries from individuals to convert as well.

Tax officials said that they are aware of such practices in the market. They are several currency suppliers in the market, some are hand-in-glove with bullion traders while some with bank officials, explained the tax official.

In some cases, money operators are chartered accountants who launder money on behalf of clients and provide cheques/cash to beneficiaries to convert black into white, he added.

Tax officials suspect that high networth individuals and big businessman would opt for this route to evade tax and not declare their source of income. As per the rule, one can exchange old notes at banks/post offices till December 30. From November 10 to 24, the limit for exchange will be Rs 4,000 per day. After November 24, this limit will be increased.

Tax officials said that if the deposits in banks do not match with individual tax filing, it can attract 100% to 300% of the tax rate (30% tax).The department, on its part, has also created data base of individuals who were raided by the I-T officials in the past two years. These data has provided officials with the names of thousands of suspected tax evaders and companies who could be involved in black money transactions.

The government, while announcing the demonetisation of the old notes, appealed to people to not indulge in such kind of money exchange. The accumulation of unaccounted wealth fuels inflation and corrodes the very basis of our economy. I would appeal to citizens that people holding lots of unaccounted cash may seek your help  dont let yourself be used for exchange of such notes, economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das said on Tuesday.
Government may fall short of its target of awarding 25,000 km of projects in the current financial year as delays in project clearances impact growth in the sector. So far, a meagre 18% of the projects have been awarded during the current financial year as against the target of 25,000 km.
Much has already been written and said about Prime Minister Narendra Modis announcement demonetising the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes on Tuesday night. However, the fine print (large on the actual notes) has eluded most, if not all, analysts and commentators. As people raced to ATMs to retrieve as many Rs 100 notes as they could, discussed the policy implications of the decision, had a laugh about the entire issue on social media and various politicians praised or condemned the move, a particular feature of the new (but yet to be issued) notes was missed by everyone  that of the Devanagari numerals. While this may seem like a minor change in the design of the currency notes, there are significantly larger issues at stake here.


The more the merrier is what roads and shipping minister believes on ports, even if there is excess capacity.
Each batch of fry bread being made for the student-run powwow on Saturday, Nov. 12, at Senior High multiplies the ingredients in the recipe by seven. It's up to students that the food supply, and other logistics, go smoothly.

The Billings Tribal Youth Council, a group of Native American students from all three public high schools, met Wednesday to finalize preparations for the Billings Public Schools-sponsored event, which begins at noon.

Jazz Walker from Skyview High led the meeting. He'll emcee the powwow and was looking for help.

The group discussed having a young woman emcee, a role usually filled by men. Clint Valandra, Skyview's home-to-school coordinator, said he checked with some experienced powwow organizers.

"They said they've never heard of it but they don't think it's (traditionally) wrong," he said. "You'd be breaking ground."

Students are planning every aspect of the powwow, from fundraising to contacting different tribes to promoting the event. Traditionally, the powwow is planned by the school hosting it, but this year has a multischool approach.

Students also started planning beyond the powwow; they talked about an Indian taco sale in December, and how to put that money to work. They talked about how to challenge prohibitions against beading on graduation caps at Skyview and West, where other decorations on caps are also prohibited. And they talked about how to mentor younger students.

"We started this just as an outlet to speak," Walker said. Reaching out to younger students quickly became a priority.

"We have influence," said Cali Walks Over Ice. "And we need to understand that we have influence and project our influence."

In Billings and most other areas of Montana, Native American students are more likely to drop out of school than white students and have lower academic achievement.

"If they don't have anyone else to look up to, we can be that," Walker said.
Long queues extending to roads can be seen outside as banks reopen for the first time after govt withdraws Rs 500/1000 notes. Rows can be seen at various places across India, where people are rushing to withdraw money from the banks. In many places, chaos were reported as people lined up to exchange Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
premium payments that will be be due in the next few days will either have to pay by cheques, demand draft or in lower denominations since the government has declared that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will no longer be legal tender. While it was anticipated that there could be some relief for cash payments in Rs 500, Rs 1,000 notes, cash counters at companies including that of Life Corporation of India (LIC) have stopped accepting it on an immediate basis.
After being cashless for over 24 hours, millions of people stood in queues outside on Thursday to exchange their now-defunct Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with new Rs 2,000 notes, or simply withdraw some money. According to sources, still havent got the new set of Rs 500 notes as customers were given a mix of Rs 2,000 and Rs 100 notes.
Country's second largest public sector bank, Punjab National Bank plans to calibrate all its ATMs by the month end to dispense new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes in the wake of demonetisation of these currency notes.
Dr. Jitendra Singh to address the National Workshop on Public Service Delivery being held in Jammu

Implementation of Right to Services Act in the States to be discussed

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions is organizing a two-day National Workshop on Public Service Delivery being held in Jammu from November 11-12, 2016. The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh will address the audience on the second day of the workshop.

On the first day of the Workshop, Secretary, DARPG, Shri C. Viswanath will address the workshop. There will be presentations by various states on the topics related to Public Services, Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) and implementation of Right to Services Act etc. Smt. Usha Sharma, Additional Secretary, DARPG and Professor Ashok Aima, Vice-Chancellor, Central University of Jammu will also address the workshop. During the workshop, Minister of State Dr Jitendra Singh will release a book on Key to Success Research and Evaluation of Prime Minister Awarded Best Practices. A Panel discussion on Citizen Centric Service Delivery Challenges and Way Forward will also be held during the workshop. Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Haryana will participate in the panel discussion. During the two-day long workshop, Senior Officers from various States will be making presentations on the status of implementation which will be followed by Panel Discussions. Around 20 States will be sending their representatives to the Workshop. The proceedings of the Workshop will be documented by the Administrative Staff College of India and will serve as important input for States which may consider implementing the Right to Services Act and to the Central Government where a Scheme on the subject is under consideration. As far as Central Government is concerned, it has taken several measures for improving Public Service Delivery. Some of them include online system for lodging of Public Grievances known as Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) through which a grievance regarding deficiency in public service delivery can be lodged 24x7 to the concerned Department. Action can be tracked by the petitioner. It has provisions for detailed report for monitoring purpose. Regular review meetings are held in the Department for monitoring. The System has been further improved through integration with PMO and Pensioners' portal which avoids duplication. It has also been integrated with Common Service Centres for grassroots access. Dashboards have been created for monitoring at the top most level and more detailed analytical reports can be generated. The Department has issued instructions to all the Central Government Departments to ensure that their Citizens' Charter containing the list of services along with service standards including timelines and grievance redress mechanism in case of failure in public service delivery, are formulated, updated and uploaded on their respective websites. The volume of grievances has increased more than 3 times after the present Government took over. It is a measure of high expectations that the citizens have from the present Government. A Grievance Analysis Study had been conducted by DARPG in respect of top 20 Organisations receiving maximum grievances. The Study identifies the grievance prone areas, root cause and recommends systemic reforms for reducing grievances, thus, improving Public Service Delivery. The reports have been circulated to the concerned Ministries/Departments. Some important reforms have been carried out by CBDT, CBEC, Health and Family Welfare, etc. for improving their services. Now, the Income Tax Refunds are being sent expeditiously. A Project Management Unit has been set up for further monitoring systemic reforms. Grievance Analysis is also being done for next 20 Ministries/Departments receiving maximum grievances. Another important initiative worth mentioning is self-attestation of documents which simplifies the procedure and is a testimony of the trust that the government imposes on the youth of this country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
DRDO Conducts the 4th Young Scientists Meet

The 4th Young Scientists Meet (YSM), organized by the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), New Delhi along with other Delhi based laboratories of the DRDO, commenced here today. DRDO provides a platform to its young scientists in the form of YSM to interact, network, discuss and share their scientific ideas that help them unleash their creative and innovative potential. Complete autonomy was given by DRDO headquarters to the organizing team comprising young scientists under the age of 35, right from the inception and planning to execution of the event. Also, the opportunity was given to young scientists to share the dais with the head of their organization.

YSM 2016 is a two-day technical event with participation of around 200 young scientists of DRDO coming from various laboratories from all over India. The program emphasizes on making each and every scientist to enthusiastically take part in various open competitions and team building activities. Various talks delivered by eminent speakers from inside and outside DRDO were organized to motivate the young minds. The programme was inaugurated by Secretary Department of Defence (R&D) & Chairman, DRDO Dr. S Christopher. In his keynote address, Dr. Christopher encouraged his younger colleagues to be upright and never change their goals in the journey of their career. The core theme of the event was Convert Challenges into Opportunities. The Chairman, DRDO interacted with the young scientist individually and discussed their research areas. All the events starting from innovative ideas, poster presentation, team building activities, interactive quiz, open interaction and discussion amongst the scientist received tremendous responses from the participants. Scientists from different laboratories presented their work and shared their aspirations with the head of the organization. NAo/DM/RAJ

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Partnership Summit 2017-Andhra Pradesh to Focus on Partnerships for Sustained Growth in an Emerging Global Economic Order"

Commerce and Industry Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman and Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Shri N Chandra Babu Naidu formally announced today the Partnership Summit to be held from January 27 28, 2017 in Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. On the occasion, Smt.

Sitharaman said that it was due to the efforts of the Chief Minister Shri Naidu that summit was being held for the second consecutive year in Vishakhapatnam. She said there is so much economic activity in the state by way of logistics hub, corridors, newer seaports and airports. Chief Minister Shri N Chandra Babu Naidu said that the state of Andhra Pradesh was not only competing with other states but also globally in ease of doing business rankings.

The Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Government of Andhra Pradesh is organizing the 23rd edition of its major international flagship event The Partnership Summit 2017 for global and Indian industry to discuss innovative policies and path-breaking strategies.

Apart from the Plenaries, the Summit will host a Make in India virtual exhibition, the Time Awards for Business Excellence, B2B-B2G Meetings, sessions with transformational leaders and social impact icons to name a few. The State Partner will also host focused sessions in pre-dedicated slots throughout the two days.

MJPS
Avinash Iragavarapu, an MBA graduate from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, helped to win the US Presidential elections. Political campaigning is his natural forte. He joined the YSR Congresss election campaign in Andhra Pradesh after quitting his job with HCL Technologies Ltd in New Delhi.
In a bid to attract more Indian investors across sectors, the Bangladesh government will towards easing rules of doing business, said Kazi M Aminul Islam, chairman of Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) on Thursday while addressing a group of delegates from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
President-elect Donald Trump will have an early Capitol Hill honeymoon with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress when he takes office in January, but a long-term romance may be more challenging.

A president whose party controls both the Senate and House of Representatives can generally count on getting things done fairly quickly, and Trump likely will not be an exception, despite starting with unusual handicaps.

Many Republicans in Congress only backed Trump after he became the candidate. Some never fell in line. He offended and attacked others while running as a Washington outsider, including House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who did not campaign with him.

On top of that, the New York real estate businessman and former reality television celebrity, who will head the world's most powerful government and largest economy, has no governing experience.

On Wednesday, party leaders were quick to back the victor, and they are expected to find more common ground than differences once he takes office.

"Donald Trump will lead a unified Republican government," Ryan told a news conference in his home state, Wisconsin, promising to "work hand in hand."

Ryan said his relationship with Trump "is fine," the transition is under way, and he has already spoken to the president-elect twice, and to his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, a former House member.

"Most of the things he's likely to advocate, we're going to be enthusiastically for," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told a news conference on Capitol Hill.

OBAMACARE IN CROSSHAIRS

Trump and Republican leaders in Congress agree on one major policy: They want to repeal Democratic President Barack Obama's landmark Obamacare healthcare law, enacted in 2010.

Ryan and McConnell both pledged to deal quickly with the law.

They will also move quickly to confirm a Trump nominee for the Supreme Court, after McConnell refused to consider any Obama nominee to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, infuriating the White House and Senate Democrats.

Other issues might be more contentious within the party.

While campaigning, Trump spoke extensively about scrapping trade deals and building a wall along the U.S.- Mexico border, but some Republicans are sceptical about both those pledges.

The party has long been in favour of free trade, and Trump's wall scheme would bear a $25 billion price tag and anger Mexico, an important ally and trading partner.

McConnell said on Wednesday he wanted to achieve border security in whatever way was most effective. And he said the new president was free to negotiate trade pacts.

Trump will also have to work with Democrats, who made narrow gains on Tuesday that reduced the size of the Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

With some votes still being counted, they won a handful of new seats in the House.

In the Senate, they seemed to secure at least 48 seats, up from 46, on Wednesday when the New Hampshire secretary of state called a close race for New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, over incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte, although Ayotte had not conceded.

Controlling only 52 seats, Republicans will need Democrats to reach the 60 votes needed to advance most legislation in the 100-member Senate.

"Trump will have to work with a fair number of Senate Democrats to get things done," said William Galston, an expert in governance studies at the Brookings Institution think tank.

One of those things could be infrastructure spending, which Trump promised in his victory speech. Spending on infrastructure to fuel job growth is popular with lawmakers from both parties, possibly funded by ending a law that lets corporations hold profits offshore without paying U.S. taxes on them.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump Wednesday to say she wanted to work with him on a "robust infrastructure jobs bill," and she told her fellow Democrats that this should be done very fast. "We're not starting a campaign against the Republicans right now," Pelosi told Democratic lawmakers in a conference call, according to a Democratic aide.

PARTY UNITY

Trump's Republican critics in Congress said they hoped Trump would work toward party unity, but they would be watching him.

"Starting today, I will do everything in my power to hold the President to his promises," including fighting to enact term limits and repealing Obamacare, Senator Ben Sasse, who opposed Trump from the start, said in a statement.

Repealing Obamacare would shake the U.S. healthcare and insurance industries, which have broadly called for measured reforms, although not for its full-scale elimination.

America's Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, a trade association that represents insurers such as Anthem Inc and Cigna Corp in Washington, said late on Tuesday that it would work with any new administration on the issue.

Trump has called Obamacare a "disaster" and vowed to repeal and replace it. House Republicans have already voted more than 50 times to repeal all or part of the law.

Senate Democrats were certain to fight an Obamacare rollback, but could be outmanoeuvred by Republicans at the procedural level with Trump's cooperation.

"It would be a tragedy, and I certainly won't in any way cooperate or work with an effort to take health insurance away," Senator Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, told CNN.

Trump and congressional Republicans will find common ground on taxes. Trump generally sees eye to eye with Republicans in Congress in calling for major tax cuts, including those for the wealthy, although details of their plans are not an exact match.

Trump has called for cutting the U.S. corporate income tax rate to 15 percent from the current level of 35 percent; Ryan's tax plan proposes going to 20 percent.

Trump has also said he wants to do some things as president, such as ban Muslims from the country and allow torture in the fight against terrorism, that some legal experts say are legally questionable.
MontDevCo Ltd., the group of three developers hoping to build the $165 million One Big Sky Center, seek $30 million from EB-5, a federal program that grants green cards to foreign investors in exchange for funds that create American jobs.

Brandon Meyer, principal of the San Francisco-based Meyer Law Group, a full-service immigration firm, told a crowd of about 90 people meeting at the Northern Hotel Wednesday that he can explain the program in one sentence.

All it is, he said at the beginning of a talk sponsored by Big Sky Economic Development Authority, is that instead of a construction loan at 15 percent, they get a loan at 3 percent.

He said theres a lot of misinformation and emotion surrounding the program, set to expire Dec. 9, but one he believes lawmakers will at least temporarily extend until the 115th Congress begins its work Jan. 3, 2017, and can look at possible program modifications.

The Billings City Council is scheduled to decide Monday whether to approve a predevelopment agreement with MontDevCo LLC. The goal of bringing Meyer to Billings, according to Steve Arveschoug, executive director of Big Sky EDA, was to help us to become more educated about the EB-5 program. There are other venues to have that debate, but today our goal is to learn.

EB-5 expanded during the Great Recession and is now capped at 10,000 annual visas, Meyer said. It became popular beginning in 2008, when American developers no longer had easy access to capital, but investors in other countries were growing wealthier.

Reauthorizing and possibly revising the EB-5 program will be tied to other immigration programs Congress will be considering, he said, including E-verify, an internet-based system that allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in the U.S., a program lots of people like, Meyer said.

Its likely that the minimum EB-5 investment required will be increased from $500,000 to $800,000, he said. Along with the minimum investment, the program requires that the investment brings about 10 jobs in the U.S. Those jobs are typically construction jobs, he said, but not necessarily.

In exchange for their investment  and following a three-stage process that takes years  the investor is granted 10 green cards and can ultimately receive permanent residency and even U.S. citizenship.

But its not a program where youre buying citizenship, Meyer said. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services vets investors, and the man who runs the vetting program formerly led the U.S. Treasury Departments anti-money laundering program.

Investors must prove that they earned the money lawfully and are subject to background checks by everyone from local police to the FBI and Interpol.

Chinese citizens make up 70-80 percent of EB-5 investors, Meyer said, and in his experience they are not the super-wealthy, people who dont want to come to the U.S. and have half their money taxed. The super-wealthy prefer instead living in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Belize, he said.

The more typical EB-5 investor is in his or her 40s, has small children and owns a small business in China or Vietnam, he said.

They want their kids to come to the U.S., be educated and have a stable future if and when their country collapses, Meyer said. Their primary goal is to protect their children.

While Montana has enjoyed a handful of EB-5 investment  Meyer cited the mixed-development Old Sawmill District in Missoula  the paucity may owe more to the fact that foreign investors may have heard of Montana but dont know much about it.

Except for some investors in China, he said.

They know (U.S. ambassador to China) Max Baucus is from Montana, he said.

In addition, much of the investment comes through gateway cities with large immigrant communities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Orange County, Calif. Those investments tend to go to projects occurring in gateway cities, he said.

The EB-5 program has made possible a number of developments that might surprise some Americans. A new FBI office in San Diego was partially funded by EB-5 dollars, he said.

People thought that was scandalous, like there were spies roaming though the construction site, he said. They invested, they lent the money and that was it. It is a financing mechanism  nothing more, nothing less. They may get the chance to live in the U.S. in the end.
With four Indian-Americans, including two women, elected to the US Congress, euphoric community members said that the unprecedented victory shows they have become part of the mainstream political landscape.

Kamala Harris, who was elected to the Senate, along with Pramila Jayapal, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Ro Khanna, who were elected to the House of Representatives, entered one of the citadels of democracy for the first time, leading to celebrations among community members.

That number is expected to increase to five if Democratic Congressman Ami Bera is declared elected for a third consecutive term after a recounting of votes. In 2012, and in 2014, Bera's race was too close to call on the election night. On both occasions, Bera emerged winner.

"It is a no mean achievement. This is a moment of celebration," said M R Rangaswami, a Silicon Valley-based investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

He had held fund-raising events for almost all of them.

"It is important that Indian-Americans become part of the political mainstream," he said.

Rangaswami hoped the "historic election" would encourage others from the community to run for not only Congressional elections, but also those at state and city levels.

"We are growing up and growing out," said Sekhar Narasimhan, an activist in the Greater Washington area.

He has been encouraging young Indian-Americans to run for elected offices.

Ajai Jain Bhutoria from California, who too had raised funds for these candidates, said: "This is matter of pride for Indian-American community."

Indian-Americans - one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the US - this year pooled resources from across the country - through fund-raising events and by volunteering time and effort.

For instance, the Indian-American community in Tampa, Florida, one of the battleground states - held fund-raising events for Raja Krishnamoorthi, while those in the greater Washington area raised money for Ro Khanna, Raja and Pramila Jayapal and several others running for Congress.

After a bitter experience in the past, in particular with Bobby Jindal, the community now is seeking accountability and commitment from these candidates.

When around two dozen Indian-Americans from the Silicon Valley held a fund-raiser for Kamala Harris about six months ago, they sought her position on issues related to India and Indian-Americans.

"We are thrilled to see a record-breaking number of Indian Americans got elected for the first time in the US political history," said Prasad Thotakura, president of Indian-American Friendship Council.
EU foreign ministers will hold a special meeting on Sunday following Donald Trump's win in the US presidential election, a German diplomat said today.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier "welcomes that an EU foreign ministers' meeting will take place Sunday," said a ministry source.

The talks will be held in Brussels, where the foreign ministers of the 28 EU member states will hold a regular meeting on Monday, reported German national news agency DPA.
Donald Trumps surprise victory on Wednesday in the bitterly contested US presidential election might have shocked people the world over, but there were people, aside from those who voted for him, who have found a cause for joy. In particular, Indian right-wing group, the Hindu Sena, celebrated in Delhi as projections trickling in showed Trump leading Clinton in the race to the Oval Office.
Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto reached out to US President-elect Donald Trump, agreeing to meet with the Republican billionaire whose anti-immigrant rhetoric has infuriated Mexicans.

Pena Nieto said he had congratulated Trump on Wednesday for his election victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton during a "cordial, friendly and respectful" phone conversation.

"I agreed with the president-elect to meet, preferably during the transition period, to define with clarity the direction that the relationship between both countries should take," he said from his official residence.

"I am optimistic. It's clear that a new phase in relations opens with the arrival of a new government, but I also think that there is a great opportunity" for the development of both countries, Pena Nieto said.

A government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the two men did not talk about Trump's pledge to force Mexico to pay billions of dollars for a giant border wall.

But Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu reiterated earlier to the Televisa network that "paying for a wall is not part of our vision".

Pena Nieto had told Trump during a controversial visit by the candidate in August that Mexico would never pay for the wall.

That previous visit had angered Mexicans, who slammed Pena Nieto for inviting a man who described migrants from their country as rapists and drug dealers.

Trump has also unnerved markets by vowing to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

He also pledged to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and threatened to freeze billions in remittances that migrants send to their families back home.

After the election, Mexico's currency fell 7.18 per cent to 20.20 pesos per dollar, while the Mexican stock market tumbled 2.2 per cent.

But Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade said the government did not need to take "premature actions" as the country's economy was robust enough to cope with the market upheaval.

"Mexico has lived through challenges of volatility in the past that we faced with unity, seizing on our economic strength and taking correct and prudent policy decisions, and this won't be an exception," Meade said at the National Palace.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said his country expects respect from the US president-elect Donald Trump for the international deal which put an end to the nuclear disputes of the Islamic republic.

"The nuclear agreement between Iran and the world powers, including the outgoing US administration, is a reflection in a UN Security Council Resolution," Rouhani was quoted as saying on Wednesday by Xinhua news agency.

The accord cannot be dismissed by one government's decision, Rouhani said referring to Trump's disapproving comments of Iran's nuclear deal during his presidential campaign.

Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is the nuclear agreement sealed between Iran and the major world powers including China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States and Germany in July 2015 and was implemented on January 16, 2016.

Rouhani stressed that the result of the US presidential election will have no impact on the Islamic republic's policies.

"Iran's policy of constructive interaction with the world and breaking up nuclear sanctions has placed Iran's economic ties with all countries on an improving and irreversible course," he said.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also said that the upcoming US administration should observe the country's commitments pertaining to the nuclear deal.

"Iran and the US have no political relations, but the US must carry out what it has undertaken as an international multilateral commitment in the JCPOA," said Zarif.
Snapping previous session's losses, the market rebounded in trade on Thursday in a remarkable snapback from the shock of Republican Donald Trump's presidential victory in US. The expected long-term positive impact of demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes also boosted investor sentiment.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Thursday asserted that Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Captain Amarinder Singh decision to resign as Member of Parliament following the Supreme Court verdict in the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal row, is nothing "but a drama".

Following the Supreme Court verdict in the SYL canal row wherein it declared the legislation passed by the Punjab Government as 'null and void', Amarinder Singh tendered his resignation to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

"I am writing to inform you that I hereby tender my resignation as Member of the 16th Lok Sabha from Amritsar constituency in Punjab with immediate effect, as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of my state of the much-needed Sutlej river water. The Supreme Court ruling against Punjab on the SYL issue has come as a major blow to the people of Punjab, who need me in this hour of despair and with whom I stand in support at this critical juncture in the state's journey," Singh said.

"The central government, as well as the state government, failed to come to the rescue of the people of Punjab in time to save them from the sorry plight into which they have been plunged by the apex court judgment. It is my moral duty, in the circumstances, to extend my solidarity to the people of Punjab and join them in their fight for justice.

I have decided, therefore, to quit the Lok Sabha, of which I have been a member since May 2014, in the interest of the people of Punjab, for whose rights I shall now fight outside the four walls of this august House. You are requested, therefore, to accept this as my formal resignation as Member of Parliament," he added

The apex court earlier in the day held as unconstitutional the 2004 law passed by Punjab to terminate the SYL canal water sharing agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.

The judgement made it clear that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 is "unconstitutional" and Punjab could not have taken a "unilateral" decision to terminate the water sharing agreement with neighbouring states.

The five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court answered in negative on all the questions of president reference if Punjab can enact the law over Sutlej Yamuna link canal.

The Centre will now take over the canal and continue building it.

Today's judgement implies that the 2004 Act was not in consonance with the apex court judgement of 2003 which had mandated the construction of the SYL canal that has been stalled.

Meanwhile, all Punjab Congress MLAs have also sent their resignations to Captain Amarinder Singh in protest of the apex court verdict.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has described the bold step of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demonetise Rs. 500 and 1000 currency notes as surgical strike on corruption and a move to stop fake currency being printed in Pakistan to promote terrorism in India.

Addressing a 'Parivartan Rally' in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, Singh said, "Yesterday was a historic day in the history of India. Our Prime Minister openly announced that they are doing surgical strike on corruption so that nobody dares to do corruption. I can understand that the people must be facing problems. But I would assure you that it will be beneficial."

"I know about the country's economy. Some people might face some problem. But it will be only for few days. I can assure you that in coming time India would be economic superpower," he added.

Rajnath further said that fake currency was being printed in Pakistan and was then sent to India to destroy its economy.

"Such was Pakistan's attempts...In India, fake currency was helping terrorists to grow. It further gives strength to terrorists and Pakistan. By scrapping Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, Narendra Modi ji has taken away that strength," Singh said.

Singh also spoke about the U.S. presidential results, linking president-elect Donald Trump to Prime Minister Modi.

"How did Trump fight his election? Trump said that if he becomes the president of the U.S., he would follow and work according to Narendra Modi's policies. That Trump has won in America," Singh said, adding that after the Modi Government came to power at the Centre, India had increased its global standing and has become the fastest growing economy in the world.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian umpire Sundaram Ravi is all set to officiate the two-match Test series between New Zealand and Pakistan beginning November 17 at Hagley Oval.

The 50-year-old, who made his Test umpiring debut in October 2013 at Chittagong when Bangladesh hosted New Zealand, has been given on-field duty and will stand alongside experienced Ian Gould of England for the opening Test.

Meanwhile, Australia's Simon Fry, who is currently officiating the ongoing final match of the Zimbabwe-Sri Lanka series in Harare, will serve as the TV umpire during the Christchurch Test.

Fry would then join the Indian umpire in the middle for the second Test beginning November 25 at Seddon Park in Hamilton. Gould will monitor the TV replays of that match.

Ravi, who is due to stand in his 16th Test match, has previously officiated three Tests involving Pakistan, which came all against Sri Lanka, the Dawn reported.

Ravi has been on on-field duty in 27 ODIs and 18 T20Is while Fry has stood in 29 ODIs and 11 T20Is matches.

In contrast, Gould has been on the ICC Elite Panel since 2008 and officiated as the on-field official in 54 Tests, 114 ODIs and 37 T20Is so far.

Meanwhile, former West Indies skipper Richie Richardson has been named as the match referee for the upcoming two matches in New Zealand.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
WASHINGTON  At dawn Tuesday in West Quoddy Head, Maine, America's easternmost point, it was certain that by midnight in Cape Wrangell, Alaska, America's westernmost fringe, there would be a loser who deserved to lose and a winner who did not deserve to win. The surprise is that Barack Obama must have immediately seen his legacy, a compound of stylistic and substantive arrogance, disappearing, as though written on water in ink of vapor.

His health care reform has contributed to three Democratic drubbings. The 2010 and 2014 wave elections, like scythes in a wheat field, decapitated a rising generation of potential party leaders. Then came Tuesday's earthquake, which followed shocking increases of Obamacare's prices.

Obama's foreign policy legacy, aside from mounting chaos worldwide, was the Iran nuclear agreement. By precedent and constitutional norms, this should have been a treaty submitted to the Senate. Instead, disdainfully and characteristically, he produced it as an executive agreement. Because the agreement lacks legitimizing ratification by senators, the president-elect will feel uninhibited concerning his promise to repudiate it.

Unprepared candidate

The simultaneous sickness of both parties surely reveals a crisis of the American regime. The GOP was easily captured, and then quickly normalized, by history's most unpleasant and unprepared candidate, whose campaign was a Niagara of mendacities. And the world's oldest party contrived to nominate someone who lost to him.

To an electorate clamoring for disruptive change, Democrats offered a candidate as familiar as faded wallpaper.

Americans perennially complain about Washington gridlock, but for seven decades they have regularly produced gridlock's prerequisite  divided government. From 1944 through 2016, 22 of 37 elections gave at least one house of Congress to the party not holding the presidency; since 1954, 21 of 32 did; since 1994, eight of 12. Republicans now lack excuses: If 40 Democratic senators block repeal of Obamacare (or Supreme Court nominees), the Republicans' populist base will demand Democratic behavior, revision of Senate rules to make this body more majoritarian.

For constitutional conservatives, the challenge is exactly what it would have been had Clinton won: to strengthen the rule of law by restoring institutional equilibrium. This requires a Republican Congress to claw back from a Republican executive the legislative powers that Congress has ceded to the administrative state, and to overreaching executives like Obama, whose executive unilateralism the president-elect admires.

Demographic destiny

From Clinton's nastiest aspiration, we are now safe. She promised Supreme Court justices who would reverse Citizens United, thereby eviscerating the First Amendment by empowering the political class to regulate the quantity, content and timing of campaign speech about itself. This will never happen.

Demography need not dictate for Republicans a grim destiny but it soon will, unless they act to counter adverse trends. Republicans should absorb Tim Alberta's data in National Review: Arizona whites have gone from 74 percent to 54 percent of the population in 25 years; minorities will be a majority there by 2022. Texas minorities became a majority in 2004; whites are now 43 percent of the population. Nevada is 52 percent white and projected to be majority-minority in 2020. Georgia is 54 percent white, heading for majority-minority in 2026. Because of inexorably rising minorities, Clinton, an epically untalented candidate, did better than Obama did in 2012 in Georgia, Texas, Arizona and where one in eight Americans lives  California.

This kamikaze arithmetic of white nationalism should prompt the president-elect to test his followers' devotion to him by asking their permission to see the national tapestry as it is and should be.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will inaugurate the two-day Economic Editors' Conference-2016 here on Thursday.

The Press Information Bureau (PIB) in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance is organising the two-day Economic Editors' Conference-2016 on November 10 and 11.

The main objective of holding the economic editors conference is to apprise the media about the major policy initiatives, achievements and the future road map of different participating departments/ministries of the government.

About 75 economic editors from different parts of the country, including from as far as Andaman and Nicobar in the south, Jammu and Kashmir in the north, Manipur in the east and Rajasthan in the west will be participating in this conference.

It is an opportunity especially for those who have come from across the country to have direct interaction with the policy makers, including ministers and senior officers of the different participating ministries.

Editors and local correspondents covering the different participating ministries will also participate in the conference.

Besides the Ministry of Finance, the ministries of Commerce and Industry, Railways, Road Transport and Highways, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Information Technology and the Niti Ayog, among others are participating. They will be distributing background material highlighting the policy initiatives and achievements of their respective ministry/department in the last two-and-a-half years.

The Directorate of Advertising and Audio-Visual Publicity (DAVP) will also be putting on an exhibition to mark 70 years of India's Independence.

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Karnataka's primary and secondary education minister Tanveer Sait was today found watching obscene photographs on his mobile phone during the Tipu Jayanthi celebrations in Raichur.

A media channel ran footage of the minister viewing photographs of skimpily-clad girls on his phone while on the dais during the celebrations organised as a tribute to Tipu Sultan, the ruler of erstwhile Mysore kingdom who fought against the British.

The minister is seen browsing photographs of the girl while other speakers are lauding Tipu Sultan.

Though the minister and the Congress are yet to react, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been criticising the government for organising Tipu Jayanthi, has demanded the minister's resignation.

BJP leader K S Eshwarappa said: "He has no moral authority to continue as a minister, he should resign immediately."

This is the second such scandal that has surfaced in Karnataka in the recent times. In 2012, two BJP ministers were caught viewing porn in their mobile phones inside the legislative assembly.

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Biju Janata Dal (BJD) Member of Parliament Baijayant 'Jay' Panda has congratulated U.S. president elect Donald Trump and said he is looking forward to India and America cooperating on ways and means to counter cross-border terrorism.

Panda told ANI, "President Trump has said he will take out-of-the-box approaches on many things, certainly on an issue like terrorism, which India has been affected by very seriously. He has been talking very bluntly and I look forward to the ways and means of co-operating even more with America then we already do to crack down especially on the cross-border terrorism that we face from our neighborhood."

"India will be prepared to work with him for mutual benefit, for India's benefit, for America's benefit and for the benefit of the world," he added.

Donald Trump was elected as the 45th president of the United States on Wednesday.

Trump's surprising performance at the polls ended Hillary Clinton's quest to make history as the first female president of the United States.

Trump, a 70-year-old celebrity businessman who had never before run for office, is poised to become the oldest U.S. President ever elected to a first term, reports the Washington Post.

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Union Minister of State for Women and Child Development Menaka Gandhi addressed a BJP rally at Malom Bazar in the Naoriya Pakhanglakpa Assembly constituency on Thursday.

On Friday, she will be visiting angwanwadi centres and other child care institutions run by her ministry.

Meanwhile, the Manipur government has appealed to the social welfare department to pinpoint some of the centres where the minister can visit.

Security has been beefed up for the minister as Manipur is an insurgency hot spot.

Gandhi will also hold a review meeting on the implementation of various ministry schemes.

She will leave Imphal for New Delhi around noon on Friday.

Officers of the Ministry of Women and Child Development are accompanying her for the review meetings.

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Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday said Punjab will not share water with any other state, in response to the Supreme Court order, which called the state government's law to terminate a water-sharing deal unconstitutional.

The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today called an "emergency meeting" after Punjab suffered a serious setback with the Supreme Court holding as "unconstitutional" the 2004 law passed by it to terminate the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal water sharing agreement with neighbouring states.

"A decision taken at an emergency meeting of Punjab cabinet said that Punjab Government would not allow the SYL to be built at any cost nor a single brick would be allowed to be laid for its construction by any agency," Sukhbir said.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled against the Punjab government in Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal (SYL) case, which if made operational will take waters of Punjab to Haryana.

In a clear message for the Haryana government, Badal said, "As far as legal steps are concerned, advocate will advise us on what can be legally done. Our main aim is to not let the water go, and we will do anything for that. We want to assure people of Punjab that only we can do this, and resignation in Congress is just a drama."

Punjab plunged into a political crisis after the Supreme Court ruled earlier in the day that a state law scrapping water-sharing agreements with other states is unconstitutional.

The court also ruled that the Sutlej Yamuna canal (SYL canal), which is at the centre of a row between Punjab and Haryana, has to be completed.

Holding that the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, was not in conformity with the provisions of the constitution, the court answered in the negative all the four questions referred to it in a presidential reference.

A constitution bench of the court ruled that Punjab could not have taken a "unilateral" decision to terminate the agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh to share of the Ravi-Beas river waters.

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The Pakistan High Commission on Thursday issued 3,316 visas to the Sikh pilgrims to attend celebrations of Baba Guru Nanak Dev from November 12 to 21 in the country.

Last year, the Pakistan High Commission rejected the visa of 150 Sikh pilgrims visiting Pakistan to commemorate the martyrdom day of fifth Sikh Guru Arjan Dev.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandhak Committee (SGPC) last year sent a delegation of nearly one thousand Sikh pilgrims to Pakistan to take part in the 546 birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev, the founder and first spiritual master of the Sikhs.

Guru Nanak Dev was born at Rai Bhoi Ki Talvandi (present day Nankana Sahib, Punjab, Pakistan) near Lahore. He spent the last years of his life at Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, situated about three kilometers from the International Border that separates India and Pakistan.

A Pakistan High commission official informed that the mission has issued 2850 pilgrimage visas to Sikh pilgrims to attend the event from November 20 to November 29 in Pakistan.

Sikh devotees living in Pakistan also visit India to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple and other Sikh shrines in India.

There are more than 172 Sikh shrines in Pakistan, but the Pakistan government grants visas to visit only six shrines.

Over 5,000 Sikh devotees are expected to gather at Pakistan from across the world for this momentous occasion.

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Taking a jibe at Rahul Gandhi for alleging that demonetization has hit farmers, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday said the Congress vice-president can't understand currency denomination and that's why he is called 'Pappu'.

"That is why people call Rahul Gandhi 'Pappu'. Pappu won't understand when 500 and 1000 rupees notes will be deposited in the bank, Rs. 2000 notes will be issued. The fake currencies and black money will come to an end. The new money will be accounted. When someone will deposit 500 or 1000 rupees notes and take his money, it will control the flow of black money. But Pappu won't understand these things," BJP leader Prem Shukla told ANI.

Joining the chorus of protest against the Centre's move to demonetize Rs. 500 and 1000 notes, Rahul yesterday asserted that ordinary people in the nation have been thrown into chaos, and asked Prime Minster Narendra Modi as to how replacing 1000 rupee notes with 2000 rupee notes makes black money hoarding harder.

Expressing his ire on Twitter, Rahul said that this step was a testimony of how little the Prime Minister cared about the ordinary people who included farmers, shopkeepers and housewives.

Prime Minister Modi has said the notes in circulation can be exchanged at banks till December 30, adding that some concessions will be allowed for use of these notes at hospitals and crematoriums, and to buy air, rail and bus tickets till November 11.

But the short notice sparked concern among people who then formed long queues outside ATMs across India, attempting to withdraw smaller bank notes.

A majority of citizens, including Dalal Street experts have lauded the government's demonetization of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes.

However, the move is expected to hit many sectors such as real estate and jewellery, where cash transactions are widespread.

Sectors like real estate and jewellery that use more of black money will take a big knock after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's massive crackdown with the withdrawal of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes.

Real estate stocks have taken a pounding in early trade as the sector is expected to feel the heat of the government's move.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Tokyo on Thursday evening where he will attend the Annual Summit meeting with Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe and have an audience with the Emperor of Japan scheduled for tomorrow.

"Konbanwa Tokyo! PM @narendramodi arrives in Japan for the Annual Summit, his second visit in two years," Vikas Swarup, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs tweeted.

Prime Minister Modi, earlier in the day, paid his final respects to late Thai King Adulyadej Bhumibol in Dulsit Maha Prasat Hall in Bangkok.

He landed in Bangkok earlier in the day enroute to Japan and paid homage to the late King. The Prime Minister had embarked on a three day visit to Japan this morning from New Delhi.

In a statement issued before his departure for Tokyo, the Prime Minister said he and his Japanese counterpart would be travelling to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed railway. He also said that he will be visiting the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where the high speed trains are manufactured.

The Prime Minister said high speed railway cooperation between the two countries is a shining example of the strength of bilateral cooperation.

He said, it will not only boost trade and investment ties, but also create skilled jobs in India, improve infrastructure and give a boost to 'Make in India' mission.

The summit will be an occasion for the Prime Minister to review the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation with his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo tomorrow.

Prime Minister Modi will also have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties.

The two sides are likely to sign several agreements, including on civil nuclear cooperation. Both leaders are also likely to discuss defence cooperation, including joint maritime exercises between Japan, India and the U.S.

The South China Sea is also likely to figure in the talks.

During Prime Minister Modi's visit to Japan in 2014, the India-Japan relationship was upgraded to Special Strategic and Global Partnership.

In the 2015 summit in New Delhi, India and Japan outlined a vision of working together for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and the .

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Expressing serious concern over the escalating ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC), the Janata Dal (United) on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who made tall claims during the 2014 general election, needs to take firm steps to strengthen internal security and stop cross border terrorism.

JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav told ANI that there is a need to formulate policies with regard to Kashmir, adding China can play a prominent role in finding a permanent solution.

"The present situation in Kashmir is extremely bad. Our soldiers are being killed almost every day, which is quite depressing. We should strengthen the internal security and stop cross border terrorism with full force," he said.

Another JD (U) leader K.C. Tyagi welcomed the move of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to summon Pakistan Deputy High Commissioner Syed Hyder Shah yesterday to express its strong concern over the continued violations of ceasefire along the International Border and the LoC.

Tyagi said the promises made by Prime Minister Modi in the run up to the general election have not been fulfilled yet.

"During the 2014 general election, he criticized the UPA government but presently the count of soldiers being killed and civilians being injured on day-to-day basis is on the rise," he added.

Earlier in the day, one terrorist was killed in an infiltration bid foiled by the Indian Army in Rampur sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

According to sources, one AK-47 was recovered from his possession.The search operation is presently underway.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid homage to late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyade.

Prime Minister Modi visited the Grand Palace and paid homage to the late King, who passed away last month, in Dulsit Maha Prasat Hall.

The Prime Minister earlier today landed in Bangkok en-route to Japan to attend the annual summit meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

He will have an audience with the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo tomorrow.

Ahead of his visit, the Prime Minister in a statement yesterday said that from Tokyo, he along with Mr. Abe will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway.

He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed railway is manufactured. The Prime Minister said the high speed railway cooperation between the two countries is a shining example of bilateral cooperation.

He said it will not only boost trade and investment ties but also create skilled jobs in India, improve infrastructure and give a boost to the 'Make in India' mission.

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In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the countrys service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."

Many communities recognize our veterans every year on Veterans Day by holding parades or flag raising ceremonies.

I would like to offer an opportunity to recognize and serve our Nations Veterans every day.

We are in critical need of volunteer drivers to transport Veterans to their VA appointments.

In Montana, the Disabled American Veterans donates vehicles to the Veterans Health Administration. These vehicles are used to transport veterans, who have no other means of transportation, to and from VA approved appointments. Volunteer drivers are needed for local transportation as well as long distance.

Many of our volunteers are veterans, who want to give back to their brothers and sisters. Others, who havent served in the armed forces, volunteer to help those who gave so much to our country.

We welcome licensed drivers, over 18 years old, who are interested in this program to contact Voluntary Service, VA Montana Health Care, at 406-447-7345 to receive more information.

Let us remember and serve our veterans not only on Veterans Day, but every day.

Terrie Casey

VA Montana Health Care

Helena
A defence expert on Thursday condemned Pakistan's constant ceasefire violations and said that it is time for India to recalibrate its policies and take tough decisions against Islamabad.

"The tit-for-tat policy going on across the Line of Control (LoC) is not having much of an effect on Pakistan. I think the time has come where we need to recalibrate our policy and take some tough decisions and ensure that Pakistan stops firing and sniping at our troops unnecessarily," Anil Gupta told ANI.

Another expert, S.R. Sinho, said Pakistan's aim is to highlight the lack of peace in the Kashmir Valley on the international platform.

On Wednesday, a soldier was killed in firing by the Pakistan Army in Machhal Sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district.

In retaliation to the firing, the Indian forces carried out fire assault with heavy weapons on many Pakistani posts.

Meanwhile, two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists have been killed in an encounter with security forces in Watergam area of Baramulla district. As per latest reports, the encounter has ended.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Pakistan Army initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing on Indian Army posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Naushera Sector. In the ensuing unprovoked shelling, a Non Commissioned Officer Naik Prem Singh was martyred while Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav sustained grievous injuries and was immediately admitted to the hospital.

However, the brave heart succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.Naik Prem Singh, aged 26 years, is survived by his wife, The soldier hailed from Village Shahar, Tehsil Bayatu, District Barmer, Rajasthan.

The other martyr, Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav, aged 30 years, is survived by his wife and three young children. Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav hailed from Ballia District, Uttar Pradesh.

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State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya on Thursday welcomed the government's decision to scrap Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes and said that the banks would provide full support to the customers.

"It is a good decision taken by the government. We are providing full support to the customers and have advised the same to every branch. Our banks have been given responsibilities which we are trying to handle. A slip with account details and signature will have to be filled. Any measure of amount can be put in an account. At once, an amount of Rs. 10,000 can be taken from the cash counter," Bhattacharya told ANI.

"Customers can withdraw Rs. 4000 from the ATMs and can deposit any amount in the banks," she added.

The banks were closed yesterday to realign and reload new Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 currency notes.

However, the banks are today open to ensure that the customers do not have any problems in exchanging Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes.

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Taking part in the scouts and guides not only help you in physical, mental and spiritual development, but also lower the risk of mental illness in later life.

A study by the University of Edinburgh suggests that children, who participate in the organizations, which aim to develop qualities such as self-reliance, resolve and a desire for self-learning, are likely to have better mental in middle age.

Such activities, which frequently involve being outdoors, also seem to remove the relatively higher likelihood of mental illness in those from poorer backgrounds, the results showed.

The findings were drawn from a lifelong study of almost 10,000 people from across the UK who were born in November 1958, known as the National Child Development Study.

Scientists from the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, who analysed the data, found that those who had belonged to the scouts or guides tended to have better mental at age 50.

Around one-quarter of study participants had been in the scouts or guides, and those were found to be around 15 percent less likely to suffer from anxiety or mood disorders, compared with others.

Researchers say their findings suggest programmes that help children develop skills such as self-reliance and teamwork, and encourage being active outdoors, may have lifelong benefits.

Attending the guides or scouts may help build resilience against common stresses in life, or it may increase a person's chances of achieving more in life, so that they are less likely to experience such stresses, researchers suggest.

Lead researcher Chris Dibben said, "It is quite startling that this benefit is found in people so many years after they have attended guides or scouts. We expect the same principles would apply to the scouts and guides of today and so, given the high costs of mental ill to individuals and society, a focus on voluntary youth programmes such as the guides and scouts might be very sensible."

Richard Mitchell of the Centre for Research on Environment, Society and Health at the University of Glasgow, said, "Governments and health services around the world struggle to do something about the health gap between richer and poorer people, so this new evidence that being a scout or guide can help is very important."

Bear Grylls, Chief Scout of the Scout Association, said, "I am really proud that scouting provides young people with an opportunity to develop the skills they need to be resilient and deal with what life throws at them. Through initiatives such as our A Million Hands Campaign, the Scout Association is helping give young people the ability to develop mental wellbeing throughout their lives."

Emma Brodey, 18, a member of the Girlguiding Advocate Panel, said, "Girlguiding is, and for over 100 years now has been, for the girl. It offers a safe space where they can be themselves, build their confidence and escape from the ever-increasing pressures in their lives. Women tell us every week that their accomplishments and memories through Guiding have lasted throughout their lives, so it's amazing to see research showing the long-term benefits of being a member of Girlguiding."

The study, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

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The two -day second BRICS Communication Ministers meeting chaired by Minister of State for Communication Manoj Sinha will begin in Bengaluru today.

The high-level delegation from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will deliberate for greater cooperation in Telecommunication and ICT sectors.

To be hosted for the first time by India, the Communication Ministers Conference will draw course of action on creating new frameworks of cooperation and collaboration among BRICS countries.

The meeting will discuss ways to improve collaboration in the field of digital economy, future communications, mobile technology among other things.

An exhibition is also organized on the theme to coincide with the meeting.

Industry leaders from these five countries are also invited to take part in the sessions.

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Celebrating Fashion, Elegance and Style, Van Heusen and GQ announce the 2nd edition of 'Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights', the most stylish platform to showcase the best menswear in the country. Scheduled on December 3 & 4, 2016 at the Taj Land's End, Mumbai, renowned fashion designers including Rohit Bal, Rajesh Pratap Singh, Shantanu & Nikhil, Sahil Aneja, Abhishek Paatni, Kunal Rawal and Rohit Gandhi + Rahul Khanna, will together present 6 shows to celebrate menswear fashion in India.

Commemorating the best of menswear in India, 'Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights 2016' will feature not just the best names in men's fashion in the country, but also opinion leaders who have been setting examples with their individual sartorial choices.

Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights 2016' will showcase the Van Heusen SS 2017 Collection that creates a beautiful connect between art and fashion inspired from the 'Optical Art Movement of the 20th Century Kinetic and Optical Art. Van Heusen in its splendid glory will not simply present a look, but an entirely new attitude towards elegance keeping in pace with the digitally connected, fast-paced lifestyle of the contemporary global man.

Commented Mr. Sooraj Bhat, Chief Operating Officer (COO) - Fashion Brands, Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, Aditya Birla Fashion and Lifestyle Ltd., "Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights launched in 2015 has created a new milestone in the men's fashion industry in the country. We aim to take the 2nd edition to new heights and set a new benchmark in the world of fashion and retail. Van Heusen will present its SS17 collection along with India's most loved designers."

Talking about the success of last year's inaugural edition and sharing his thoughts on what the 2nd edition has in store, Che Kurrien, Editor, GQ, said, "We have edgy newcomers, established stars and icons, all coming together this year to showcase the Indian men's fashion universe that's exploding with energy, ideas and vitality. This year's designers' collections will reflect a dynamic range of styles, sensibilities and points of view - making this platform the leading showcase for the best menswear in India."

Elaborating on his association with this unique property, designer Rohit Bal said, "I've had an obsession with GQ since I was a young boy; we had this term amongst us friends saying he's so GQ. It was my first love where fashion was concerned and to be a part of it today and do a show is thrilling."

Rajesh Pratap Singh added, "I am happy to be back again at the finest men's fashion event in the country. The collection I'm showcasing at Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights 2016 is all about a new direction in silhouettes and construction. The looks will be pure, modern and definitely from small town India."

Shantanu & Nikhil commented, "Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights is a much needed men's only showcase and takes Indian men's fashion to a whole new level. We are extremely excited and inspired to collaborate with GQ just like the inaugural event last year in 2015. The collection for Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights 2016 is a progressive take on menswear with sensibilities of layering and temporal details, materials such as leather and metal featuring through the showcase."

Sahil Aneja added, "GQ is undoubtedly one of the best platforms for men who are fashion aficionados. I firmly believe an association with GQ will help me develop further, and expand my horizons as I compete in this ever-expanding, vibrant and exciting menswear industry. The collection is all about effortless dressing that promises to breathe winter into 2016's fashion for men. The collection is extremely refreshing and chic focusing on clothes that are enlivening to both wear and see worn. It has been inspired from today's youth which comprises the modern man who has evolved and stepped out of the comfort zone into the broad fusion-led and dynamic international fashion world."

Abhishek Paatni said, "Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights 2016 is a great opportunity for me to present my collection in the most unadulterated and raw format without having to edit to fit into the profile of an event. Van Heusen and GQ has always been instrumental in promoting menswear, and with a platform like Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights 2016, it has marked the beginning of a new era for menswear in India. My collection this year draws inspiration from the ancient warrior clothing of Japan. The traditional Japanese silhouettes like the kimono and hakama are being reinterpreted with modern aesthetics, fabrics and details. The collection involves techniques like quilting and sashiko stitching."

Kunal Rawal further added, "It's great to be part of this platform which showcases and encourages menswear to be in the forefront. We all know the challenges menswear designers face with limited reach and Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights 2016 is providing accessibility to men's fashion by creating awareness and giving it the much deserved limelight."

Rohit Gandhi + Rahul Khanna concluded by saying, "Van Heusen + GQ Fashion Nights 2016 is a unique platform and is more like a men's fashion week which our country is missing. We had an amazing showcase during the 1st edition and are looking forward to a bigger event this season. Every season we try to offer something different, yet comfortable which will appeal to our audience. This season we transport you back to the 60's where we turn the page for men's fashion this winter. New vintage is the new rage, with subtly exaggerated details.

We have emphasized it with grid like structures, retro colors, stripes, surface texture and metal embroidery. Retro has definitely found its way into this collection and is here to stay and still has its classic glamour.

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Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has decided to bury the hatchet with the United States after Republican Donald Trump's election to the White House as he pointed that both of them share the same trait of being brutally straightforward.

After Trump won, Duterte said that Trump has a shared trait, and that some military exercises would be back on, reports the CNN.

"We both like to swear. One little thing, we curse right away, we're the same," he said Wednesday.

"I would like to congratulate President Trump. Long live!. Now we're here, I don't want to ... fight because Trump is already there," Duterte said.

The traditional alliance between the United States and the Philippines strained after Duterte called President Barack Obama a "son of a bitch".

Later, during a visit to China in October, Duterte said the US alliance was over, claiming "America has lost."

However, in a statement on Thursday, Philippines National Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana said Duterte had agreed to continue military training with the United States.

A meeting will be held between the US and Philippines military officials on November 22 to begin planning for next year's drills.

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Defence Minister on Thursday said that instead of saying 'India won't use nuclear weapons first', it should be said that 'India is responsible nuclear power'.

"If written down strategy exists or you take a stand on a nuclear aspect, I think you're actually giving away your strength in nuclear. People say India has not first used nuclear concept. I should say that I'm a responsible nuclear power and I'll not use it irresponsibly. This is my thinking. Some may say that Parrikar says nuclear doctrine has changed. It has not changed in any government policy," Parrikar said at a book release function.

The no-first-use commitment was made after India conducted a series of nuclear tests in 1998. Pakistan responded within weeks by conducting tests of its own.

"We used to get threat from the defence ministry of neighbouring country that they are going to use tactical nuclear weapon if they're threatened. The day surgical strikes happened, no threat has come again. 'Be unpredictable' is part of the strategy. But we have to have a written book so that in general, we follow that direction. Necessarily if there is any question or danger to the country, I will not open the book first," he said.

However, the Defence ministry has clarified that the statement made by Parrikar was his personal opinion and not official position.

"What he said was that India being a responsible power should not get into 1st use debate. But once again it is clarified that this was his personal opinion," the ministry said in a statement.

India carried out surgical strikes late on September 29, days after Pakistani terrorists attacked an army camp in Uri in Kashmir, leaving 19 Indian soldiers dead.
With effect from 09 November 2016

Alfa Ica (India) announced that Jhanki Poptani has resigned from the post of Company Secretary. The Company has accepted her resignation and relieved her from the services of the Company from the closing hours of 09 November 2016. Consequent to her resignation as Company Secretary, Jhanki Poptani also ceases to be the Compliance Officer of the Company.

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Bosch gained 1.98% to Rs 21,700.05 at 9:50 IST on BSE net profit rose 79.2% to Rs 703.74 crore on 9.59% rise in total income to Rs 3026.96 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015.

The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 308.44 points or 1.13% at 27,560.97.

On BSE, so far 452 shares were traded in the counter as against average daily volume of 1,776 shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 22,310 and a low of Rs 21,685 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 25,649.95 on 10 August 2016. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 15,752.65 on 12 February 2016. The stock underperformed the market over the past one month till 9 November 2016, dropping 7.96% compared with the Sensex's 2.88% fall. The scrip also underperformed the market in past one quarter, declining 15.93% as against the Sensex's 2.96% decline.

The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 31.40 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

Bosch announced that the board of directors yesterday, 9 November 2016, approved with effect from 1 January 2017, resignation of Dr. Steffen Berns, Managing Director consequent to assuming new position in Robert Bosch, Germany. The board redesignated Soumitra Bhattacharya, Joint Managing Director as Managing Director of the company from 1 January 2017 to 20 June 2020.

In India, Bosch is a leading supplier of technology and services in the areas of mobility solutions, industrial technology, consumer goods, and energy and building technology. Bosch is the flagship company of the Bosch Group in India. Robert Bosch GMBH holds 70.49% stake in the firm as on 28 October 2016.

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Cipla's consolidated net profit dropped 34.75% to Rs 354.34 crore on 8.39% rise in total income to Rs 3778.25 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

Cipla said that Q2 September 2016 reflected improved profitability in base business driven by better product and geography mix. The company launched 6 new products during this quarter in the US market and continues to invest in building a niche and differentiated product portfolio, Cipla said. Commenting on the results, Umang Vohra, MD and Global CEO, Cipla said that the company continues to stay focused on building operational efficiencies and strengthening presence in priority markets.

Bosch's net profit rose 79.2% to Rs 703.74 crore on 9.59% rise in total income to Rs 3026.96 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

Power Grid Corporation of India's net profit rose 32.01% to Rs 1872 crore on 29.86% rise in total income to Rs 6480.20 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

Tata Consultancy Services announcd before market hours today, 10 November 2016, that the company has received a letter dated 9 November 2016 from Tata Sons nominating Ishaat Hussain as the Chairman of the board of directors of the company in place of Cyrus P. Mistry with immediate effect. In view of this, Mistry has ceased to be the Chairman of the board of directors of the company and Hussain is the new Chairman of the company. The company has been further informed that Hussain shall hold office as Chairman of the company until a new Chairman is appointed in his place. Tata Sons has issued a special notice and a requisition for convening an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of the company to consider a resolution for the removal of Cyrus P. Mistry as Director of the company. It may be recalled that Tata Sons, promoters of the company, had replaced Cyrus Mistry as Chairman of Tata Sons with immediate effect. Ratan Tata was appointed as Interim Chairman of Tata Sons.

HDFC announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016 that the company will issue secured, senior, redeemable non-convertible debentures worth Rs 2000 crore on private placement basis on 11 November 2016. The debentures carry coupon of 7.8% and tenor of 3 years. The proceeds would be utilized for financing/refinancing the housing finance business requirements of the company.

DCM Shriram announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016 that the company has on 8 November 2016 commissioned additional captive power generation capacity at its chlor-alkali unit in Bharuch (Gujarat). The total coal based captive power generation at the Bharuch (Gujarat) unit now stands at 115 megawatts (MW). The increased power generation capacity will meet the power requirements of its chloro-alkali unit at Bharuch (Gujarat) wherein the expansion of chlor-alkali capacity to 1013 tonnes per day (TPD) was completed in October 2016.

Pidilite Industries' consolidated net profit rose 13.1% to Rs 231 crore on 9.1% rise in gross sales to Rs 1522 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

JK Tyre & Industries consolidated net profit dropped 13.54% to Rs 100.15 crore on 5.26% rise in total income to Rs 2077.24 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

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While the approval of I-182 was cause for celebration among proponents, its effect for medical marijuana providers and patients won't be felt immediately.

The state health department will begin plans to retool the program, adding systems for laboratory testing and new licensing procedures. Additionally, a drafting error in the initiative could hold off full implementation of the new program until mid-2017.

After a tumultuous year for those involved in medical marijuana, Tuesday's vote is a sign that there's more work to be done.

"It's like a rollercoaster that just won't stop," said Nick Frentsos, owner of the Billings-based dispensary Bloom Montana.

Montana voters passed I-182 by a 13-point margin, supported by widespread support in the state's most populous counties. It will be the latest iteration of the program, which was first passed in 2004, revised in 2011 and curtailed earlier this year.

The passage of I-182 amends the program, which will be recreated in the coming months.

I consider that a pretty significant mandate, and I think the administrators and elected officials going forward need to make this work, said Jeff Krauss, treasurer of the I-182 campaign and a Bozeman city commissioner.

As drafted, some provisions of I-182 take effect immediately. They include the addition of post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of eligible conditions and a mandate for the state health department to establish licensing and testing systems.

But other parts of the initiative won't take effect until June 30  the result of what previously was called a technical error.

That includes the rule that providers can only serve up to three patients each. This provision was seen as the most onerous in the medical marijuana industry, and it caused many providers to close.

The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services will move forward with that information at hand. The agency can only act on the ballot language as passed, technical error or not.

"Most sections of the initiative do not go into effect until June 30, 2017," said Jon Ebelt, department spokesman. "At this time, DPHHS is reviewing the sections that are effective upon approval and passage to determine our transition plan going forward for those sections."

Krauss said that the Montana Legislature, which convenes on Jan. 2, would be best suited to move up the effective date.

Todd Everts, chief legal counsel of the Montana Legislative Services Division, said in August that only the Legislature can make substantive changes to a voter-approved bill.

The delays mean additional wait times for patients, most of whom lost their providers on Aug. 31. Nancy Moore, who uses marijuana to help ease symptoms of multiple sclerosis, was among them.

She said that the passage of I-182 will give her regular access to cannabis again. She wasn't able to successfully grow her own. Years ago, she swore off traditional prescription medications that she said were draining, mentally and physically.

"It means my provider will once again open up, and that will be a good thing," she said. "It means also that I won't have to worry about having to go back on the pharmaceutical meds."

The vote

Montana was among nine states voting on marijuana-related ballot issues on Tuesday.

Maine, California, Massachusetts and Nevada passed recreational measures. North Dakota, Florida and Arkansas passed medical marijuana programs.

Arizona voters declined a recreational marijuana measure, though it does have a medical program.

Montana's most populous counties favored I-182, while some of the smallest voted against it.

Flathead, Cascade, Gallatin, Lewis and Clark, Missoula and Yellowstone Counties all came out in favor of the measure.

The most votes against I-182 in a single county came out of Fergus County, where 3,300 people  56 percent  opposed the initiative. The majority of voters in Stillwater, Sweet Grass and Musselshell Counties also opposed the measure.

In total, 29 counties opposed I-182 and 27 supported it, but the regions weighted with population carried the most sway.

Steve Zabawa, who spent more than $150,000 opposing I-182, said that having medical marijuana is "good," though he initially campaigned to repeal the state program. He called the Montana medical marijuana program a step toward legal recreational use.

"It's lacking a lot of direction in the law, which is what Safe Montana's opposed to," Zabawa said in a statement to The Gazette.

Both opponents and proponents of medical marijuana will be watching the state legislative session to see if the issue comes up again.

Zabawa said the legislature could make further revisions to the program. Krauss said lawmakers could help ease the implementation delay.

Moore, the medical marijuana patient, said that she hopes the plan stays intact.
Sales rise 16.27% to Rs 388.59 crore

Net profit of Hinduja Global Solutions declined 30.28% to Rs 24.04 crore in the quarter ended September 2016 as against Rs 34.48 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2015. Sales rose 16.27% to Rs 388.59 crore in the quarter ended September 2016 as against Rs 334.21 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2015.388.59334.2114.6320.8856.0372.8135.8653.7124.0434.48

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Sales rise 1.66% to Rs 1805.91 crore

Net profit of JK Tyre & Industries declined 13.54% to Rs 100.15 crore in the quarter ended September 2016 as against Rs 115.84 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2015. Sales rose 1.66% to Rs 1805.91 crore in the quarter ended September 2016 as against Rs 1776.37 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2015.1805.911776.3721.3917.48282.94255.61212.88204.13100.15115.84

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Key benchmark indices jumped in early trade tracking strong leads from Asian markets and overnight rally on the Wall Street. At 9:20 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 285.47 points or 1.05% at 27,538. The Nifty 50 index was up 83.40 points or 0.99% at 8,515.40.

The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market was strong. On BSE, 1,205 shares rose and 134 shares fell. A total of 26 shares were unchanged. The BSE Mid-Cap index was currently up 1.91%. The BSE Small-Cap index was currently up 2.17%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

In overseas stock markets, Asian stocks jumped the most in almost eight months to join a global rebound on speculation Donald Trump will pursue business-friendly policies. Japan's Nikkei 225 surged 5.80%. US stocks rallied Wednesday, 9 November 2016, led by a surge in financial, health-care and industrial stocks, as investors bet on the infrastructure spending policy promised by President-elect Donald Trump. Trump was declared as the 45th President of the United States yesterday, 9 November 2016.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was up 1.36%. The company announced before market hours today, 10 November 2016, that the company has received a letter dated 9 November 2016 from Tata Sons nominating Ishaat Hussain as the chairman of the board of directors of the company in place of Cyrus P. Mistry with immediate effect. In view of this, Mistry has ceased to be the chairman of the board of directors of the company and Hussain is the new chairman of the company. The company has been further informed that Hussain shall hold office as chairman of the company until a new chairman is appointed in his place. Tata Sons has issued a special notice and a requisition for convening an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of the company to consider a resolution for the removal of Cyrus P. Mistry as Director of the company. It may be recalled that Tata Sons, promoters of the company, had replaced Cyrus Mistry as chairman of Tata Sons with immediate effect. Ratan Tata was appointed as interim chairman of Tata Sons.

Cipla was up 4.57%. The company's consolidated net profit dropped 34.75% to Rs 354.34 crore on 8.39% rise in total income to Rs 3778.25 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

Cipla said that Q2 September 2016 reflected improved profitability in base business driven by better product and geography mix. The company launched 6 new products during this quarter in the US market and continues to invest in building a niche and differentiated product portfolio, Cipla said. Commenting on the results, Umang Vohra, MD and Global CEO, Cipla said that the company continues to stay focused on building operational efficiencies and strengthening presence in priority markets.

Bosch was up 2.56%. The company's net profit rose 79.2% to Rs 703.74 crore on 9.59% rise in total income to Rs 3026.96 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

Power Grid Corporation of India was up 0.97%. The company's net profit rose 32.01% to Rs 1872 crore on 29.86% rise in total income to Rs 6480.20 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

On the macro front, the figures for direct tax collections up to October 2016 show that net collections are at Rs 3.77 lakh crore which is 10.6% more than the net collections for the corresponding period last year. Till October 2016, 44.5% of the Budget estimates of direct taxes for financial year 2016-17 has been achieved.

The figures for indirect tax collections (Central Excise, Service Tax and Customs) up to October 2016 show that net revenue collections are at Rs 4.85 lakh crore which is 26.7% more than the net collections for the corresponding period last year. Till October 2016, 62.4% of the Budget estimates of indirect taxes for financial year 2016-17 has been achieved.

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Market is seen opening higher tracking strong leads from Asian markets and overnight rally on the Wall Street. Trading of Nifty 50 index futures on the Singapore stock exchange indicates that the Nifty could rise 53 points at the opening bell.

In overseas stock markets, Asian stocks jumped the most in almost eight months to join a global rebound on speculation Donald Trump will pursue business-friendly policies. Japan's Nikkei 225 surged 5.80%.

US stocks rallied Wednesday, 9 November 2016, led by a surge in financial, health-care and industrial stocks, as investors bet on the infrastructure spending policy promised by President-elect Donald Trump.

Closer home, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 2095 crore yesterday, 9 November 2016, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1116.31 crore yesterday, 9 November 2016, as per provisional data.

Among corporate news, Tata Consultancy Services announcd before market hours today, 10 November 2016, that the company has received a letter dated 9 November 2016 from Tata Sons nominating Ishaat Hussain as the Chairman of the board of directors of the company in place of Cyrus P. Mistry with immediate effect. In view of this, Mistry has ceased to be the Chairman of the board of directors of the company and Hussain is the new Chairman of the company. The company has been further informed that Hussain shall hold office as Chairman of the company until a new Chairman is appointed in his place. Tata Sons has issued a special notice and a requisition for convening an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of the company to consider a resolution for the removal of Cyrus P. Mistry as Director of the company. It may be recalled that Tata Sons, promoters of the company, had replaced Cyrus Mistry as Chairman of Tata Sons with immediate effect. Ratan Tata was appointed as Interim Chairman of Tata Sons.

Cipla's consolidated net profit dropped 34.75% to Rs 354.34 crore on 8.39% rise in total income to Rs 3778.25 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

Cipla said that Q2 September 2016 reflected improved profitability in base business driven by better product and geography mix. The company launched 6 new products during this quarter in the US market and continues to invest in building a niche and differentiated product portfolio, Cipla said. Commenting on the results, Umang Vohra, MD and Global CEO, Cipla said that the company continues to stay focused on building operational efficiencies and strengthening presence in priority markets.

Bosch's net profit rose 79.2% to Rs 703.74 crore on 9.59% rise in total income to Rs 3026.96 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

Power Grid Corporation of India's net profit rose 32.01% to Rs 1872 crore on 29.86% rise in total income to Rs 6480.20 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 9 November 2016.

Key benchmark indices ended the volatile trading session with modest losses yesterday, 9 November 2016. The barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, fell 338.61 points or 1.23% to settle at 27,252.53. The Nifty 50 index fell 111.55 points or 1.31% to settle at 8,432.

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PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry has complimented the NDA government under the Prime Ministership of Mr. Modi for demonetization of currency notes of Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 with sufficient alternates for public at large, describing the move as one of the most unprecedented reforms of independent India.

Applauding the move, President, PHD Chamber, Dr.

Mahesh Gupta in a statement issued here today, said that it would address the issue of black money, curb financing of cross border terrorism and equally tackle the issue of fake currency that has acquired a serious and dangerous proportion.

Dr. Gupta appealed to the masses in general and industry in particular that with this decision, there bound to be some inconvenience to the public at large and other segments of the society including industry. However, India is sufficiently geared up to take on such an inconvenience which is for the national cause and the entire society should be prepared for it.

The President, PHD Chamber has also appealed to entire industrial community and chambers of commerce and other such association to whole heartedly support the government in its endeavour for demonetization of Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes.

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Fear and shock were expressed by American Muslims after Republican was confirmed as President of the US after months of taking anti-Islamic stands.

The Republican made his most controversial remarks about Islam in December last year, sparking anger among the world's 1.5 billion followers of the religion, when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the US after a mass shooting in California, the Daily Mail reported.

For the editor of the Muslim section of Patheos, a website specialising in spirituality, Dilshad Ali had never felt the fear of Trump until now.

"I woke up today and I finally felt it. It felt personal, like the election was a vote against me," the 40-year-old mother of three told CNN on Wednesday.

More than seven in ten Muslims had said they would vote for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, according to an October survey by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Just four per cent had said they would vote for Trump, and perhaps as few expected him to win.

"Our worst nightmare has materialised... A man that built his platform on bigotry, misogyny, and the vilification of Muslims and minorities won the highest office in the land," said Wardah Khalid, a writer and foreign policy analyst.

Yasir Qadhi, a well-known Muslim scholar in Memphis, Tennessee, said: "Shock. Complete and utter shock".

"All of us are genuinely worried. I fear for the safety of my wife in 'hijab'; of my children in the streets; of minorities everywhere struggling to understand what happened," Qadhi told CNN.

Sahar Aziz, a professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law, said Trump's election represents a regression to a less tolerant and inclusive America.

"The general mood I am seeing among Muslims is concern that a Trump presidency will be open season on them. Some Muslims worry their children may experience bullying at school because Trump's victory validated the mainstreaming of Islamophobia. Some women are afraid to wear their headscarves in public in case this invites physical or verbal assault," said Aziz.

Other Muslims said they feared that Trump will install anti-Muslim activists, whose work he has promoted, in powerful roles at the Justice Department and other agencies.

"We could go back to that post-9/11, witch hunt-type environment," said Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, a scholar and co-founder of Zaytuna College, the country's first accredited Muslim college.

According to the latest survey in 2016, there are 3.3 million Muslims living in the US, about one per cent of the total population.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi left for Japan on a three-day trip on Thursday, China said it expected both countries to respect its "legitimate" concerns.

"We have no problem over the developing normal relations between our neighbours. We hope that they can respect the legitimate concerns of neighbours," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said.

China is wary of India and Japan issuing a joint statement on the South China Sea asking Beijing to adhere to the UN-court ruling which rejected Beijing's rights over the disputed waters.

In an oped on Wednesday, the Chinese media warned India of suffering great losses in bilateral trade if it joined Japan in asking Beijing to respect the ruling by an international tribunal.

"India should beware of the possibility that by becoming embroiled in the disputes, it might end up being a pawn of the US and suffer great losses, especially in terms of business and trade, from China," an oped article in state-run Global Times said.

Lu refused to comment over the arms deal between India and Japan.

In September, China reacted angrily to a report about Japan reducing the price of US-2 amphibious aircraft, calling it "shameless".

India and Japan may sign a civil nuclear deal and are likely to discuss other important issues.

--IANS

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Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has congratulated America's President-elect Donald Trump, saying the world places great hope in the democratic vision and leadership of the US.

In a congratulatory letter sent to Trump on Wednesday, he said the Tibetan people and himself were honoured with the support received by respective US Presidents and fellow Americans in the Tibetan people's endeavour to protect and preserve ancient Buddhist culture.

He wished him prayers and good wishes for every success in the many challenges that lay ahead.

In a separate message, Tibetan Prime Minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay also congratulated Trump on his election victory.

"I am grateful for the people and government of the US for hosting the Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama, at the White House on many occasions," he said.

Sangay added that the Tibetan people are immensely grateful to the US for applauding and supporting amiddle-way' approach and encouraging dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Chinese authorities to lower tensions and resolve our differences.

The Dalai Lama has lived in India since fleeing his homeland in 1959. The Tibetan exile administration is based here.

--IANS

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Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday called for state funding of elections to curb black money.

Raising questions over the spiking of Rs 500 and 1,000 notes, the Congress leader said in his Facebook post that black money was widely used in elections.

"We must find ways to stop black money in elections. For that, we need to progress toward introducing the policy of state funding of elections."

He said the government's decision to check black money lacked a long term strategy.

"The problem is not so easy to solve as to get rid of old notes and issue new ones," he said.

"NDA must explain how they plan to root out the problem of black money from our economic system, our institutions... Otherwise black marketers will again find ways to twist the system as soon as new currency is circulated."

--IANS

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The government's move to demonetise currency notes of high denominations has, in one deft stroke, ended all kinds of funding for terror and Maoist activities, a top BJP leader said on Thursday.

He also said that the move will clean up electoral by ridding it of misuse of money power.

"It has been found that mostly Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes are used to fund nefarious activities. Most fake currency is in these denominations. So, by demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the government has ended all such funding in one stroke," he said during an informal interaction with the media.

Vowing to continue the Bharatiya Janata Party's fight against black money and corruption, the party leader said the decision to demonetise notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 may even hit the party's own vote bank but for it national interests are always supreme.

Denying the opposition charge that the decision was taken with an eye on the coming assembly elections in five states, including Uttar Pradesh, the BJP leader said: "The decisions on the surgical strikes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and demonetisation have been taken in national interest. Such decisions connected to national interest are not taken on electoral considerations."

Denying that the Bahujan Samaj Party was a threat to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, he said his party's main rival will be the ruling Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav.

He said both these parties have been hard hit by the demonetisation.

--IANS

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BOZEMAN  Hours after the Gallatin County sheriff said he and four deputies would be helping to keep the peace during an ongoing oil pipeline protest in North Dakota, he said they might not because of a miscommunication over whether an agreement between the states meant their expenses would be covered.

Sheriff Brian Gootkin said Wednesday morning that he expected to spend about a week at the Dakota Access oil pipeline protest site on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

North Dakota requested help under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, an agreement among all 50 states that requires the governor and the Department of Emergency Services to approve any mutual aid.

The Montana Highway Patrol sent 10 troopers to help at the protest site last month. However, the compact doesn't authorize local law enforcement assistance.

Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder said his office also got the email seeking help, but does not have the officers to spare. The request came through the Montana Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, according to their Executive Director Jim Smith. The association was passing on the request for help from one of the local sheriff offices in North Dakota, Smith said. The email was sent out to sheriff's offices across Montana.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday hailed the Supreme Court decision on a 2004 Presidential reference on the sharing of the Sutlej-Yamuna rivers waters.

The Supreme Court on Thursday held as 'unconstitutional' Punjab's 2004 law intended to deny Haryana its share in the Sutlej-Yamuna waters.

The Chief Minister said the Supreme Court decision on the vital issue, which comes after 12 years, was a result of persistent efforts made by the present BJP government in Haryana.

He said the decision would enable the state to get its legitimate share of the surplus Ravi-Beas waters, that is 3.5 million acre feet.

Holding that the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, was not in conformity with the constitutional provisions, a Constitution Bench of Justice Anil R. Dave, Justice Shiva Kirti Singh, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Amitava Roy answered in the negative all the four questions referred to the top court in a Presidential reference.

"The decision is a gift to Haryana's people in the golden jubilee year of the state," an official statement quoted Khattar as saying.

--IANS

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Millions of anxious people armed with Rs 500 and 1,000 notes mobbed banks across India on Thursday to exchange or deposit them after the government decided to take the bills out of circulation.

Officials and residents said people began assembling outside banks even before they opened, a day after they were closed for business following Prime Minister Narendra's Modi's surprise announcement on Tuesday night aimed at curbing black money, corruption and terror financing.

People jostled to get lower denominations or new currency notes as a sweeping cash crunch caused all round chaos and inconveniences to buy even simple daily essentials.

Serpentine queues started forming near banks in Delhi and adjoining Noida and Gurgaon as early as 6 a.m., hours before they opened amid security to prevent any law and order situation.

"The rush was already there when I reached the bank," Mukul, an executive at Axis Bank in Noida, told IANS, minutes after it opened at 8. "Now there a huge crowd inside the bank."

Many banks allowed people to enter only in groups. Bank officials stood outside distributing withdrawal or exchange forms to customers prescribed by the Reserve Bank of India.

A Kotak Bank nearby also witnessed a huge rush.

"I'm in the queue for the last one hour. I came at 9, I think I should've come early," Naresh Chauhan told IANS.

There was frustration as some banks faced a cash crunch.

Although the government had said people could exchange Rs 4,000 worth of spiked currency daily, most banks halved this amount so as to cater to all customers.

Anil Wadhwani, an executive with a retail chain, realized this to his horror -- after being in a queue outside a bank in Lajpat Nagar in Delhi for five long hours.

"I had brought four 1,000 rupee notes but could only exchange Rs 2,000," Wadhwani said outside the ICICI Bank.

There was no limit on deposits but banks sought PAN number for major amounts. Those drawing Rs 10,000 from their bank accounts were also asked to produce identity proof.

Scenes of chaos were reported from almost everywhere, including Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Chandigarh.

Many customers across India complained that some banks and ATMs ran out of cash stocks within hours.

Innumerable households reported they had to scrounge for smaller notes and even coins to buy basic food items on Wednesday and Thursday.

"The problem is indeed massive for everyone," said Naresh Kumar, a south Delhi resident. "Now the 500 rupee note is so common that virtually no one is unaffected. This is different from the earlier demonetizations.

"The tragedy has worsened because it is near impossible to even enter banks now to do NEFT and RTGS," he added.

Anxious customers also crowded at post offices.

For many who managed to get hold of the new 500 and 2,000 rupees notes, it was like a war won. Many clicked selfies and put them on social media.

But outside they encountered fresh problems as they could not get them changed due to a virtual absence of Rs 100 and 50 and lower denomination notes in the markets.

Amid the public anger over the inconveniences, the government scrambled to clear confusion about the decision to demonetize.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said people might face problems initially but in the medium to long run they would definitely benefit from the move.

"It is only those with large amounts of undisclosed money who will have to face the consequences under existing laws," the minister said.

The government has directed all banks to work for 12 hours on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and clear the rush of customers, and if needed, be open even next Sunday (November 20).

--IANS

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A number of agreements spanning various sectors, including agriculture and education, are likely to be signed during Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's official visit to India next week, Israeli Ambassador Daniel Carmon said here on Thursday.

Rivlin will be visiting India from November 14 to 21 and will hold bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 15.

"We are, together with our Indian colleagues, contemplating the final stages of preparation of agreements on water, energy, agriculture, R&D, and education," Carmon said at a media briefing here.

"Not everything is finalised yet, but most of it is," he said.

Carmon said that there will be a "unique academic event" during which chancellors of universities of both India and Israel would meet and sign 15 or more agreements.

"When I talk about universities in Israel, I talk about the top leading universities in Israel which are world renowned, like Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, Technion University, Bersheeva University," he stated.

The Ambassador also flagged cooperation in defence production as another important area of the bilateral relationship.

"India and Israel enjoy a very special and unique relationship in the field of defence," he said.

Stating that it was an industrial type of cooperation, he said that it involved research and development between the two sides.

"It is beyond the buyer and seller prospects, military-to-military and beyond that," he said, adding that it was a "special and deep" relationship.

Apart from New Delhi, President Rivlin, accompanied by a large business delegation, will also visit Agra, Karnal in Haryana, Chandigarh, and Mumbai.

In Agra, besides visiting the Taj Mahal, he will take a look at an adjacent Israeli water treatment plant called "Aqwise".

In Karnal, Rivlin will visit the Centre of Excellence in Agriculture set up with Israeli assistance.

In Chandigarh, he along with President Pranab Mukherjee will jointly inaugurate Agro Tech 2016 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Rivlin will visit Mumbai on the last day of his India tour on his way back to Israel. He will attend a commemorative function in memory of the victims of the 26/11 terror attacks.

He will also meet members of the Jewish community.

This will be the first Israeli Presidential visit to India in nearly 20 years since Ezer Weizman came in January 1997.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to travel to the US next week to meet President-elect Donald Trump with a view to strengthening bilateral ties, officials said on Thursday.

Abe and Trump spoke over the telephone, following the latter's victory in the US presidential elections, Japan's top government spokesperson Yoshihide Suga said in a press conference.

During their 20-minute-long conversation, Abe congratulated Trump on his win and stressed the need to maintain a strong US-Japan alliance to preserve peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, Efe news reported citing Suga as saying.

Abe and Trump will hold a meeting in New York on November 17 to discuss bilateral ties and future challenges, Suga added.

Trump called relations between the two countries "excellent" and expressed his desire to further boost ties, according to the Japanese spokesperson.

Abe will travel to the US with a delegation comprising his team of advisers, before going to Peru to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima from November 19 to 20.

On Wednesday, Abe had expressed his willingness to work closely with Trump and had praised him as "a very successful businessman with extraordinary talents".

"Not only have you made a great contribution to the growth of the US economy, but now as a strong leader, you have demonstrated your determination to lead the US," he said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actress Kanisha Malhotra, who has previously appeared in shows like "Jai Jai Jai Bajrang Bali", "Gumrah" and "Yeh Hai Mohabbatein", will next be seen in filmmaker Nikkhil Advanis finite TV series "P.O.W. Bandi Yuddh Ke".

In the show, Kanisha will be seen as Ananya, a news producer who works with a channel that shows updates about events around the border.

"I am very excited regarding the role since it's Nikkhil Advani's show, and working with film directors is a different experience altogether, with such vast star cast," Kanisha said in a statement.

The Star Plus show features names like Purab Kohli, Sandhya Mridul, Amrita Puri, Satyadeep Dubey and Rasika Dugal.

"My entry in the show takes place while producing news about Nazneen's (Sandhya) new cook book and moving on to bigger events which I cannot reveal much about," she added.

An Indian adaptation of the Israeli TV drama "Hatufim", "P.O.W. Bandi Yuddh Ke" tells the story of two missing-in-action soldiers who return home after 17 years.

--IANS

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The Maharashtra government will permit citizens to use the demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes to pay various utility bills and government dues, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Thursday.

"The Government of India accepts the state government's request to further help citizens by allowing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. One more step by the state government for citizens' convenience," Fadnavis said in a tweet.

He added that all government offices will accept the withdrawn notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 as legal payment to clear dues till Friday, and will work extra hours till late night for this purpose.

Accordingly, a government notification said that all state-owned enterprises, urban-rural local bodies and other departments concerned will remain open till midnight on Friday.

On Wednesday, Fadnavis urged anxious people to not to panic as they will get the demonetised currency replaced, for which a sufficient time period has been given.

He advised people to carry on with their daily routines and not to worry as their money earned through legal means was safe. He also asked them to avoid crowding in banks and ATMs to exchange the cancelled currency notes in their possession.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
One militant was killed on Thursday when an infiltration bid was foiled on the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir's Baramulla district.

Police said the troops challenged a group of militants in Uri sector's Rampur area.

"In the ensuing encounter, one militant was killed. The operation against the militants was still on," the police added

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Soon after his arrival here on Thursday for the annual India-Japan bilateral summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with members of the Indian community in Japan.

"The Indian community extends a very warm welcome to the Prime Minister on his arrival in Tokyo," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

According to the External Affairs Ministry, in recent years, there has been a change in the composition of the Indian community in Japan with the arrival of a large number of professionals.

"These include IT professionals and engineers working for Indian and Japanese firms as well as professionals in management, finance, education, and S&T (science and technology) research who are engaged with multinational as well as Indian and Japanese organisations," a ministry brief on Japan states.

On Friday, Modi will call on Emperor Akihito and attend the bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

On Saturday, the Prime Minister will travel by the Shinkansen high-speed rail to Kobe.

Japan has committed to build a high-speed rail system between Ahmedabad and Mumbai.

This is Modi's second visit to Japan in two years.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Modi reaches for annual bilateral summit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday reached Tokyo to attend the annual India- bilateral summit to be held on Friday.

"Konbanwa Tokyo! PM @narendramodi arrives in for the Annual Summit, his second visit in two years," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.

In a pre-departure statement here on Wednesday, Modi said the high-speed railway cooperation between the two countries would boost bilateral trade and investment.

"The high-speed railway cooperation between India and Japan is a shining example of the strength of our cooperation," he said.

"It will not only boost our trade and investment ties, but will also create skilled jobs in India, improve our infrastructure and give a boost to our 'Make in India' mission."

During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India last year, the east Asian economic superpower committed itself to a high-speed railway line between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

"On November 12, Prime Minister Abe and I will travel to Kobe on the famed Shinkansen -- the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed railway.

"Both of us will also visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where the high speed railway is manufactured," Modi said.

Stating that the India-Japan partnership was characterised as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership, Modi said the two countries "see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order".

"Today, Japan is one of the top investors in India. But many Japanese companies, which are household names in India, have been committed to the potential of Indian economy for several decades," he said.

The Prime Minister said that in Tokyo he would have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan to look for ways to further strengthen trade and investment ties.

He will call on Japanese Emperor Akihito and review the entire spectrum of the bilateral cooperation with Prime Minister Abe in Tokyo on November 11.

Modi, who left New Delhi early on Thursday morning, made a brief stopover in Bangkok to pay homage to the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-ruling monarch, who died last month.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on his way to Japan, arrived in the Thai capital on Thursday for a brief stopover to pay homage to the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-ruling monarch, who died last month.

Modi laid a wreath and paid his respects to the mortal remains of the late king, whose body has been kept at the Grand Palace complex in Bangkok. The king's cremation is likely to take place next year, amid reports that it may happen beyond the official one-year period of mourning.

Modi also inscribed "a message of condolence at the Grand Palace in Bangkok" while "paying tributes to one of Asia's tallest leaders", External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.

After the Bangkok stopover, Modi is scheduled to land in Tokyo for a three-day Japan visit during which the two countries are expected hold talks on boosting ties in areas like trade, investment and security.

--IANS

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A 19-year-old Crow Agency man who admitted trying to force a woman into performing a sex act before she hit him on the head with a container of glitter will spend more than two years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Susan Watters on Wednesday sentenced Jaylen Frank Plentyhawk to 30 months in prison and to 10 years of supervised release for his guilty plea to abusive sexual contact.

Plentyhawk, who had just turned 18 at the time he committed the crime on Sept. 15, 2015, apologized and said he took responsibility. I have an alcohol and drug problem, he said.

Watters followed the prosecutions recommendation and sentenced Plentyhawk at the high end of the guideline range and to a lengthy period of supervised release.

The judge called the offense serious and noted the victim was able to resist and get away before something worse happened.

She also said Plentyhawk had no criminal history and that his actions were fueled by alcohol.

Assistant Federal Defender Gillian Gosch recommended a two-year sentence with seven years of supervised release. She said Plentyhawk was young and would benefit from continued treatment and monitoring while on supervised release.

Prosecutors said Plentyhawk picked up the victim as she was hitchhiking on the frontage road north of Crow Agency. Plentyhawk drove to an abandoned residence, directed the victim into the house, forced her into a bedroom and pushed her down on the bed.

Plentyhawk then dropped his pants, grabbed the victims head and tried to make her perform oral sex, prosecutors said. The victim resisted. Plentyhawk then got on top of the victim, lifted her shirt and rubbed his penis on her bare breasts.

The victim was able grab a container of glitter that was near the bed, hit Plentyhawk on the head and escaped. The victim ran across the street to the nearest house and one of the neighbors gave her a ride home.

Watters accepted a plea agreement and dismissed two other counts of attempted aggravated sexual abuse and kidnapping.
There will be no "mahagatbandhan" (grand alliance) in the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav said on Thursday.

"If anyone wants to contest along with us, they will have to merge their party with ours," Mulayam Singh told the media.

The Samajwadi Party leader also blasted the government for demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, saying the step had caused great inconvenience to people across the country.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday appealed to citizens not to panic over scrapping on notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, saying only those with black money will be affected.

Naidu called criticism on the issue by the opposition useless and fact less.

"They (opposition) are making allegations just for sake of making allegations. No farmer or poor person will be impacted. Your Rs 500, Rs 1000 notes will not be invalid if your money is valid. You can exchange them till December 30. Only corrupt, black money holders, money launderers, terrorists and their sympathisers need to worry," said Naidu during the GRAM 2016 event here,

On Wednesday, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had targeted the government on the move, saying farmers, small shopkeepers and housewives were thrown in utter chaos.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
North Korea on Thursday re-asserted its demand that the US should recognise it as a nuclear state.

In a statement that made no mention of the Republican candidate Donald Trump's electoral victory, the Kim Jong-un regime urged the US to abandon the "failed" policies of President Barack Obama.

"The US should officially recognize North Korea as a de facto nuclear weapons state and follow the same policy towards it as those pursued with other nuclear weapons states," Pyongyang said in an editorial published by the state-run agency KCNA.

It added it had demonstrated the "sanctions slapped by the Obama administration against North Korea proved unworkable and it is impossible to force it to dismantle its nukes," Efe news reported.

However, neither the editorial nor other articles in North Korea's state-run media made any mention of US President-elect Donald Trump, who is expected to modify US policy towards North Korea.

During his campaign, Trump said he would be willing to invite Kim Jong-un to the White House, in contrast to the tough stance adopted by the Obama administration that demands North Korea take a firm step towards denuclearisation before initiating talks.

Trump also said China must resolve the North Korean nuclear problem, suggested the possibility of reducing US military influence in the region, and said South Korea and Japan should develop their own nuclear weapons to counter the threat from Pyongyang.

Until now, the US has adopted a policy of tough economic and trade sanctions against North Korea to choke its economy and force it to abandon its nuclear programme.

However, despite the sanctions, North Korea has continued developing its nuclear program and conducted its fifth nuclear test in September.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday lauded the move to demonetise notes of the denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1000, saying that terror funding and black money used in elections have become 'zero' in a stroke.

"This is an excellent step by the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi). All the black money that was used in election, that black money has suddenly become null and void. It will ensure more free and fair election," he said at the sidelines of the launch of book "The New Arthashastra: A Security Strategy for India", edited by Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal (retd.).

"Taking away big notes may cause some problem, common man also uses it but, there is a freedom to deposit it in a bank. There will be some problem...

"There is a substantial (amount of) counterfeit notes, which are used by the enemy for terror funding. As the Defence Minister I am very happy, all these notes in one stroke have become zero," Parrikar said.

"They (terror elements) cannot even put it in a bank, so automatically the major source of terror funding has got blocked. The impact will be seen in coming days because terror funding also requires money, that is now gone from the system. The common man can put it in the bank, those have illegally gotten wealth in big quantity, that money has become paper in a day. Definitely the black money funding of election go neutralised," he said.

Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday evening announced that currency notes of Rs 500, and Rs 1000 will not be a legal tender after midnight of November 8. The government has said it has been done to fight counterfeit currency, black money, and funding to terror.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to stop picking a fight with the United States, saying Donald Trump has been elected as president.

In a speech before the Filipino community in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Duterte said, "I said I don't want to pick fight because Trump is there", Xinhua news agency reported.

"I would like to congratulate President Trump. Long live! We have something in common. We are alike because we both curse easily," Duterte added.

Duterte is in Kuala Lumpur for an overnight official visit.

During the campaign early 2016, Duterte has been likened to Trump and even earned the nickname "Trump of the East" for his style that many say is similar to Trump.

Both managed to win the votes of millions even if they did not have occupied national positions.

Duterte, 71, was a former mayor of a southern Philippine city of Davao while Trump, 70, is a billionaire, real estate developer-turned reality television star with no government experience.

Duterte has hurled expletive-laced remarks against Obama and the US for criticising his campaign against drug users and pushers, which has reportedly left 4,000 suspects dead.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Positive global indices, coupled with value buying, short covering and a strengthening rupee, lifted the Indian equity markets on Thursday -- a day after global and domestic cues had heavily dented investors' buying sentiments.

The key indices provisionally closed with gains of around one per cent each, as healthy buying was witnessed in banking, metal and capital goods stocks.

The wider 51-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) surged by 149.05 points or 1.77 per cent, to 8,581.05 points.

The barometer 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the BSE, which opened at 27,605.05 points, provisionally closed at 27,517.68 points (at 3.30 p.m.) -- up 265.15 points or 0.97 per cent, from its previous close at 27,252.53 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 27,743.46 points and a low of 27,457.05 points during the intra-day trade.

The BSE market breadth was skewed in favour of the bulls -- with 2,011 advances and 736 declines.

On Wednesday, the key Indian indices reacted adversely to the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump in the US presidential election and the union government's decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

The barometer index then plunged by 338.61 points, or 1.23 per cent, and the Nifty had dropped by 111.55 points, or 1.31 per cent.

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rebel shelling has killed at least six civilians and injured many others on the Aleppo University campus, which houses families displaced by the Syrian conflict, officials said on Thursday.

The attack on the Aleppo University area took place on Wednesday, when a number of mortar shells and other self-propelled rounds fired by militants landed near the campus, RT online reported.

According to Aleppo Police Command, cited by SANA news agency, all of the victims were either students or members of displaced families and locals.

Earlier on Wednesday, three women and a man were injured by reactive munitions shelling from rebel forces in the neighbourhoods of al-Hamadaniyeh and New Aleppo.

The attacks, apart from inflicting heavy civilian casualties, have significantly damaged buildings and other properties.

Jihadist groups have been shelling residential areas of Western Aleppo almost on a daily basis since the Syrian Army with the support of Russia and other allies surrounded Al-Nusra Front terrorists and allied militants in Eastern Aleppo, which has become a jihadist stronghold.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congratulating Donald Trump for becoming the 45th US President, Microsoft's Indian-born CEO said he looks forward to working with all those elected.

"We witnessed the democratic process in action here in the US. The results are of importance around the world, and I know that interest is shared among Microsoft employees," Nadella said in a statement posted on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn on Wednesday.

"We congratulate the president-elect, and look forward to working with all those elected yesterday. Our commitment to our mission and values are steadfast, and in particular fostering a diverse and inclusive culture," Nadella added.

According to The Verge, "Nadella may be congratulating president-elect but he's also crossing his fingers that Trump doesn't follow through on some of his tech-adverse campaign promises."
Donald Trumps triumph is a bundle of contradictions wrapped in irony that has turned many popular beliefs on their head.

For one, Trump repeatedly claimed the elections were rigged, yet he won.

Hillary Clinton has received 2,18,134 more votes than Trump, but he is the winner because he has won 279 electoral college seats to Clinton's 228. This is because US presidential elections are not direct elections, but the choosing of electors from each state.

He's a multi-billionaire, yet he has emerged as the voice of the working class and the poor.

Only 38% of voters surveyed had a favourable opinion of Trump and 51% said only Hillary Clinton had the qualities of leadership and personality needed to become President. But they elected Trump.

Progressives have railed against the money power they say the Republicans have deployed to control the political process. In reality, the Democrats outspent the Republicans in this election. According to the Washington Post, Hillary Clinton raised $1.3 billion against Trump's $795 million as of mid-October.

The irony is that financial advantage didn't help her.

During the primaries, Jeb Bush reportedly raised $162 million and lost to Trump's measly $67 million.

The Democratic Party has always claimed to be the party of the people, the poor ranged against the rich. But it was backed by titans of business and technology and likes of super-rich George Soros.

People like Sheldon Adelson, who promised $100 million didn't come through with it and dropped just $10 million in Trump's coffers. In fact, even Trump didn't put up the $100 million of his own money that he said he would and settled for $66 million.

Democrat Clinton had a cosy relationship with Wall Street, for example collecting $1.8 million for speeches she gave at Goldman Sachs, according to CNN. Trump disdains Wall Street -- and the feeling is mutual.

Christian fundamentalists have backed Trump, whose personal life is littered with marital transgressions and sexual sins unlike Clinton's.

Trump has sought out Hindus and his son Eric and daughter-in-law Lara have visited Hindu temples, which is anathema to the Christian fundamentalists.

Trump's statements about deporting illegal immigrants and on immigrant crime have been turned by the media into xenophobia and blanket anti-immigrant sentiments. He is married to an immigrant and employs several immigrants at his facilities.

Trump has emerged as the symbol of change and a new direction for the nation. But he is 70 years old and was elected President.

Democrats have the reputation for being doves and Republicans for hawks. But in this election, Clinton was hawk and has left a trail of advocating aggressive foreign interventions in Iraq, Libya, Syria and the Ukraine. Trump is advocating a pullback and staying off foreign entanglements.

In the attitude to Russia and Iran, there is, however, a reversal. Clinton was raring for a confrontation with Russia while supporting the Obama administration's deals with Iran. Trump is conciliatory towards Russia, but wants to scrap the agreement with Iran.
Two more of the eight Indian High Commission staff members declared "persona non grata" left Pakistan early on Thursday, the Foreign Office said.

Indian High Commission First Secretary Balbir Singh and Staff Officer Jayabalan Senthil, who Islamabad alleged were Indian intelligence agents, left for Dubai, the Foreign Office said in a statement.

On November 8, three of the eight Indian High Commission officials, declared persona non grata, left for home. They included Anurag Singh, Vijay Kumar Varma and Mandhawan Nanda Kumar.

The remaining three officials are expected to leave Pakistan also on Thursday through the Wagah border crossing, the statement said.

The Foreign Office last week alleged that a number of Indian diplomats and staff belonging to Indian intelligence agencies were found involved in coordinating terrorist and subversive activities in Pakistan.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President-elect Donald Trump may look to hold their first meeting on Nov. 17 in New York, government officials said Thursday.

Following a 20-minute telephone conversation between Abe and Trump, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda told a press briefing that the pair had agreed to the meeting and to work together on a number of issues.

The proposed meeting between Abe and Trump would come ahead of Abe's planned attendance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum leaders' summit slated for Nov 19-20 in Peru.
A former Dean Morgan Junior High campus supervisor was sentenced to a maximum of 18 years in prison Tuesday for causing a man to overdose on methamphetamine and die last year.

Jon Freiberg pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance in August.

Authorities say Richard Serafin died after drinking from a cup that contained meth, though Freiberg maintained through his court hearings that he did not intentionally place the drug in Serafin's drink.

Freiberg did admit at his plea hearing that he acted recklessly when he did not call 911 or take Serafin to a hospital when he began to show signs of overdose.

Freiberg and Serafin met through a phone app and agreed to meet at the Days Inn on Aug. 28, 2015. Freiberg offered Serafin drugs, but Serafin refused, according to court documents. At some point while the two men were together, Serafin ingested meth.

Serafin then began to show signs of overdose. In an attempt to help him, Freiberg put the man in a cold bath and gave him a small dose of meth meant to help revive him, court documents show.

Freiberg then put Serafin in his car parked outside the hotel and left. Officers found Serafin dead in the car later that day.

Freiberg worked for the Natrona County School District until February 2015 when he resigned after authorities found meth in his car.
Two more staffers of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad on Thursday left Pakistan after being declared "persona non grata" for alleged spying, diplomatic sources told Geo News.

The two staffers turned out to be officials of India's Intelligence Bureau (IB), diplomatic sources said. They included First Secretary Press Balbir Singh and Jiabalan Sainthal.

Singh was reportedly the IB station chief while Sainthal too was a member of the agency in the guise of a staff officer.

The two officials left for India in wee hours of Thursday from Islamabad airport through on a foreign airline.

Earlier on November 8, three out of seven Indian High Commission officials, declared persona non grata by Pakistan, had left for home. They included First Secretary Commercial Anurag Singh, Vijay Kumar Varma and Mandhawan Nanda Kumar.

Pakistan had ordered expulsion of the eight Indian High Commission officials from Pakistan on charges of spying.

The remaining three officials of the Indian High Commission are also expected to leave Pakistan on Thursday morning through the Wagah border crossing.

On November 2, Pakistani authorities had claimed to have uncovered a spy network of Indian diplomats who were said to be involved in activities to destabilise Pakistan by facilitating and funding terrorism.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Underlining the importance of innovations, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandra babu Naidu on Thursday said the country's education system should move ahead of traditional ways and embrace innovation.

"The world has moved towards innovation, things are changing fast. What was useful yesterday will be redundant tomorrow. The goal of education is to create individuals capable of doing new things. The need is to move ahead of traditional ways and embrace innovation," said Naidu addressing the 12th Ficci Higher Education Summit here.

Pointing to India's "immense" demographic dividend, Naidu said it was imperative that the country's human resource is capable of making innovations.

"Schools and universities must have innovation as a subject. The need is also to translate research work into action. Most of the research works in our universities are for publication, we need to move ahead of that and translate that into useful innovations," he said.

The Chief Minister also called for universities having incubation centres.

"Today technology and the internet of things (IoT) have brought a revolution across the world. Our education system must embrace technology in a big way and also should ensure that ideas and research are not just for papers.

"All our universities should have incubation centres so that new ideas and innovations can be tested, nurtured and ultimately used for development," he said.

Talking about Andhra Pradesh, Naidu said the government was in the process of setting up a university dedicated to research on water resources and another to research on energy.

"We are committed to capacity-building, we are steadily moving towards making Andhra Pradesh the No.1 state in the country in terms of teacher-students ratio," added Naidu.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The decision to keep the demonetisation plan a secret is getting a pat on the back. But apart from select officials in the Prime Ministers Office, the finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India, would likely have been so many people at the currency printing press. Was everybody surprised by the move? Was the president of the party in power unaware?
The fact that British Prime Minister Theresa Mays two-day visit to India was oddly timed  smack in the middle of the US presidential polls  should not take away from the fact that it was a very important visit for both the UK and India. True, there was nothing much to show at the end of the visit, but it did indicate which way the wind was blowing. For Ms May, who has become Britains face for negotiating the actual exit from the European Union (EU), even though she herself did not lead that charge during the Brexit referendum, the key concern is to shore up markets other than the EU. During the referendum, the leavers had hoped that the over 2-billion-strong Commonwealth population could be propped up as an alternate market. Indias significance is that it is more than half of that promised land. However, for the most part, she returned empty handed. Not surprisingly, her Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, too, could not achieve any breakthrough.
over the Satluj-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal hotted up in poll-bound Punjab soon after the Supreme Court asked the state to share water with neighbouring Haryana.
Two more Indian High Commission officials, out of the eight accused by Pakistan of being members of Indian intelligence agencies, today left for India.

"Balbir Singh and Jayabalan Senthil left via Dubai-bound Emirates flight EK 615," sources said.

Both the staffers were named as undercover agents of Indian intelligence agencies. With this the number of Indian High Commission officials leaving Pakistan has reached five.

Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria last week had alleged that several Indian diplomats and staffers were involved in "coordinating terrorist and subversive activities in Pakistan under the garb of diplomatic assignments".

Last month, Pakistan had declared Indian High Commission official Surjeet Singh 'persona non-grata' after India's action against Pakistan High Commission official Mehmood Akhtar following Indian police's busting of an ISI-run spy ring.

On November 2, Pakistan had pulled out six of its officials in the wake of the spy scandal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two Nigerian nationals were today arrested for allegedly duping a 64-year-old widow to the tune of over Rs 94 lakh on the pretext of marrying her, police said.

The Cyber Cell of city police arrested the accused - Caleb Mezie Ogbuagu (28) and Victor Chigozie Ezuruikie (37), both residents of Noida in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday.

"The duo had come to India on a business visa and started duping people by sending them friend requests on social media sites and matrimonial sites," Sunil Pawar, police inspector of Cyber cell, said.

"We have recovered three laptops, seven cell phones, internet cards, multiple SIM cards from their possession," he added.

A few months back, the woman complainant had received a friend request from the accused, who posed as one Harley Benson. He told the woman that he was an engineer from the UK.

"After some days, the person expressed his wish to marry her and even told her that he was ready to relocate to India," Pawar said.

He added that the woman, who is retired, used to work as a teacher and was associated with a central government institute in Pune. She had lost her husband in 2014.

In July this year, Benson called the woman and informed her that he is relocating to Pune.

"A couple of days later, he again called her and told that the Customs had caught him at Delhi airport and seized his bag, containing gold, diamonds and pounds and demanding fine from him. He requested her to pay the money for fine and asked her to deposit the money into various accounts," he said.

The unsuspecting complainant deposited money into various accounts given by the suspects and ended up losing Rs 94.5 lakh to the fraudsters, the officer said.

After realising that she has been duped, the woman then approached police and registered a complaint.

Based on the complaint, the accused were arrested from New Delhi on Sunday and remanded in police custody.

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A three-day-old baby girl was today abducted from the maternity ward of the Government Hospital here, police said.

A 23-year-old woman delivered the baby girl on November eight and both mother and child were recovering in the maternity ward, police said.

She had handed over the child to a woman, standing near her bed and gone out, reportedly to answer nature's call around 3.30 PM, they said.

On her return, she found the woman and the child missing and lodged a complaint with hospital authorities, who in turn informed police.

Search is on for the child and woman, police said.

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Intensifying its special drive against public drinking, the Excise department of Delhi government has arrested 45 people, taking the number of violators to 122 in the last three days.

According to the Excise department, 10 special teams formed to catch those persons drinking in the open held 45 people yesterday, the third day of the drive which was launched on Monday.

The action was taken against violators under section 40 of the Delhi Excise Act and they were handed over to Delhi Police for further action as per law.

The arrests were made from Seelampur, Anand Vihar, Chanakya Puri, Babarpur, kalkaji, Defence Colony, Mayapuri, Khyala, Mangol Puri, Rani Bagh, Bhalaswa Diary and New Ashok Nagar.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also heads Excise department, said consumption of alcohol in the open, particularly near liquor vends and in vehicles is not merely a safety hazard but a major problem for the women safety in Delhi.

On first day of the drive, 36 people were arrested while 41 were held on Tuesday for drinking liquor in public places.

The government said earlier anyone caught drinking publicly will have to pay a fine of Rs 5,000 and anyone creating nuisance in public will be fined Rs 10,000 and face arrest.

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Five additional judges to the Gauhati High Court were appointed tonight, taking the working strength to 18.

A notification issued by the Law Ministry said Achintya Malia Bujor Barua, Kalyan Rai Surana, Prasanta Kumar Deka, Nelson Sailo and Ajit Borthakur have been appointed as additional judges for a period of two years.

The new appointments are from both the bar and the bench.

The Gauhati High Court has a sanctioned strength of 24 but was so far functioning with 13 judges. Once the new judges take oath, the working strength will go up to 18.

Five judges were last week appointed to the Delhi High Court. The Delhi High Court has an approved strength of 60 but is functioning with 34 judges -- a shortage of 26.

The government is also considering recommendations for 35 judges in Allahabad High Court, eight of which have been pending since January.

In a scathing attack, the Supreme Court had last Friday said the government cannot bring the judiciary to a "grinding halt" by not appointing high court judges despite the recommendations of its collegium long ago and said it could as well close the courts and lock "justice out".

"You cannot bring the entire institution (of judiciary) to a grinding halt. If there is a problem with the name of a person, please send it back and ask us to reconsider," a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur had told Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, representing the Centre.

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The country would require about 83 lakh skilled persons in the telecom sector in the next five years, a top official of Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) said today.

Nearly 38 lakh hands will be needed in manufacturing segment, prominently in mobile handset sector, and the remaining in various other segments like services, back operations, TSSC CEO S P Kochhar told reporters here.

As part of its efforts to strengthen skill development in telecom sector, TSSC had signed MOUs with PSG College of Technology and PSG Polytechnic here to set up Telecom Skill Development Centre in the region, he said.

This would help compliment each other's technical capabilities and industry reach, to achieve a common goal of skilling India in the telecom and ICT domain, he said.

Kochhar said the skill centre will help in promoting and supporting Digital India and Make in India programmes of the central Government.

In a short span of three years, TSSC has already enrolled 3.64 lakh and certified 2.90 lakh people in various segments of telecom sectors, Kochhar said adding 1.25 lakh people would be registered with it during the year.

TSSC was going to sign an agreement with a firm in the USA within one month, he said.

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Underlining that black money is one of the main sources of funding terror activities, Afghanistan today welcomed India's decision to demonetise high-denomination currency, saying the move will benefit the region.

Afghan Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali said the move will help curb economic terrorism by foiling the usage of counterfeit currency for terror activities.

"Black money is one of the main sources of funding for activities related to terrorism. And therefore it will help in fighting against it. Terrorism certainly has no boundary and so India's move will help the region too," he said on the sidelines of the 'Heart of Asia' seminar here.

The two-day seminar, organised by International Council for World Affairs (ICWA), is being held in the run-up to the 'Heart of Asia' conference in Amritsar in December, which India will co-chair with Afghanistan.

Earlier, speaking at the event, Abdali appreciated the role of 'Heart of Asia' in the stabilisation of Afghanistan and the region while pitching for for bold, result-oriented regional leadership.

"The National Unity Government of Afghanistan took unprecedented steps to address the question of terrorism and improve our relations with Pakistan.

"We have exchanged with Pakistan several delegations, to secure Pakistan's cooperation in ending war and violence," he said. We appreciated the initial gestures of goodwill of the Pakistani government...But we are yet to see tangible steps to be taken towards the peace process," he said.

He said zero-sum postures must be discarded and win-win strategies adopted to secure Afghanistan against the same threats that undermine the security of every nation in South Asia and Central Asia, and the countries that neighbour these resourceful regions in Asia.

Abdali said a well-defined regional counter-terrorism strategy was a necessity and no longer an option for stabilisation.

The seminar is being attended by representative from several member and supporting countries of 'Heart of Asia'.

There are 13 member countries, which include Afghanistan, India, China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Besides, there are 30 supporting countries which include the US, the UK and Germany.

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Ahead of the crucial board meeting of Tata Motors next week, the group's interim chairman Ratan Tata today met the employee unions from the company's biggest plants.

"We have had a long lasting, emotional relationship with Ratan Tata for over 25 years and met him today," president of Pune-based Tata Motors Employees Union Sameer Dhumal told reporters here.

Dhumal and other representatives met Tata at an office of the Tata Trusts in downtown Mumbai, but refused to share what exactly transpired.

Stating that the unions will come out with a statement outlining their stance in a day or two, Dhumal said Tata has asked them not to get distracted by the boardroom battles and continue to work for the betterment of the company, which is one of the crown jewels in the group.

Asked about their relationship with the management led by Cyrus Mistry, Dhumal restricted himself to saying that the workers have worked for the betterment of the company during the four-year stint of the ousted chairman as well.

To a query on the company's sagging domestic operations, Dhumal blamed it on the global recession.

He also declined a specific answer regarding which camp the workers support -- Tata or Mistry.

The board of Tata Motors, chaired by Mistry, is scheduled to meet on Monday to consider the company's second quarter results. However, just like other board meetings of Tata Group companies held recently, the entire focus is expected to be on the feud between Mistry and Tata camps.

Dhumal said workers respect the Tata Group's values and ethics and will continue to work towards the same in the future.

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The All India Radio today launched its first-ever Gojri bulletin, reaching out to lakhs of people of the Gujjar commmunity in Jammu and Kashmir.

The inaugural ceremony was held at Abhinav Theatre Jammu with Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh launching the new bulletin.

Singh thanked the Centre for starting the Gojri bulletin and said it will help in a big way in disseminating the important information to people of the state in general and Gujjar Bakerwal community including nomadic tribes in particular.

Among others, state ministers belonging to the Gujjar community -- Choudhary Zulfkar Ali and Abdul Ghani Kohli were present on the occasion.

Gojri is one of the most widely spoken language in Jammu and Kashmir and over 20 percent chunk of the population in state consists of the Gojri speaking people, an AIR official said.

A morning Gojri news bulletin was the long pending demand of the people.

"The five minutes bulletin will be aired at 10:15 am daily from the transmitters of Radio Kashmir Jammu", the official said.

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Government has convened an all-party meeting on November 15 on eve of commencement of winter session of Parliament where issues like demonetisation, surgical strike and triple talaq are likely to come up for discussion.

"The Government has called an all-party meeting on November 15, which is likely to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh along with representatives of various political parties," a source said.

The Winter Session, which normally convenes from the third or fourth week of November, has been advanced to November 16 this time, for early passage of Central GST (CGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) legislations, which will pave way for the Goods and Services Tax (GST)



The issues of army's surgical strikes and allegations by some parties that the government was trying to politicise it and step to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 100 notes are set to in limelight during the session.

The government is also considering advancing the Budget Session by a month or so starting from January next year.

Sources in the government said besides legislations relating to GST, nearly 15 new bills are likely to be introduced.

The government would also push for passage of the ordinance which seeks to amend the Enemy Property Act.

In December, the Centre had for the fourth time promulgated the ordinance to amend the nearly 50-year-old Enemy Property law to guard against claims of succession or transfer of properties left by people who migrated to Pakistan after wars.

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Comedienne Amy Schumer, who had earlier said she would leave US if Donald Trump wins in the presidential election, has slammed his supporters for mocking her over the statement as he has now won the presidency.

The 35-year-old actress revealed her anger on Instagram, saying she was joking about leaving the US.

"First of all the interview where I said I would move was in London and was said in jest. Not that anyone needs more than a headline to count something as official news," she wrote.

During an interview in September she said she was planning to move to Spain should Trump, 70, win the election.

"My act will change because I'll need to learn to speak Spanish because I will move to Spain, or somewhere.

"It's beyond my comprehension if Trump won. It's too crazy," she said at the time.

Schumer went on writing, "Anyone saying pack your bags is just as disgusting as anyone who voted for this racist homophobic openly disrespectful woman abuser.

"Like the rest of us I am grieving today. My heart is in a million pieces. My heart breaks for my niece and my friends who are pregnant bringing children into the world right now."



Schumer then directly attacked those, who had voted for the Republican presidential candidate calling them "weak" and "misinformed".

"You say lock her (Hillary Clinton) up and you know something about the word email but what was in the emails? You have no clue. Well I'll tell you if you were able to read this far through the holes in your sheet. They said nothing incriminating. Nothing," she wrote.

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England pace spearhead James Anderson says he is hopeful of being declared match fit to play in the second Test against India starting November 17 in the port city of Visakhapatnam.

The 34-year-old paceman, England's record Test wicket-taker, is coming off a shoulder injury which ruled him out of the drawn series in Bangladesh and there were fears that he would miss most of the India tour.

However, Anderson sounded optimistic about returing to playing XI next week.

"I had a good week at Loughborough last week, bowling to get some overs under my belt. Hopefully I can keep that going this week and get some miles into my legs to make sure I'm as fit as I can be and maybe be fit for the second Test," Anderson told 'Sky Sports'.

Returning from a stress fracture in his right shoulder, Anderson's last Test appearance came in August against Pakistan at the Oval.

"It is still over a week away. It is hard to say right now, but it will all depend on how this week goes. I'm sure in the next two of three days we will have a good idea of whether that is a possibility or not.

"At first we thought maybe missing four Tests was a possibility, but the way I have progressed over the last two or three weeks has been positive."



The Lancastrian added, "At the tender age of 34 I've got enough experience to get into match mode quite quickly. Obviously it is not always easy without having any games under my belt, but I think I am able to do that."



Anderson congratulated his pace bowling partner Stuart Broad after he followed in his footsteps and won his 100th Test cap in the onging opening Test in Rajkot.

"I thought I was going to miss it, with the injury and stuff, but it is great I could make it out here in time and see him get his cap this morning off Straussy (Andrew Strauss)," Anderson added.

"What an amazing achievement. He has been a fantastic bowler for years, I am fortunate to have played the majority of his 100 Tests as well, and created a great friendship on and off the field. I am just delighted to be here.

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Hundreds of thousands of angry Americans took to the streets across the US to protest Donald Trump's win in presidential polls with demonstrators holding vigils, lighting bonfires and blocking traffic while shouting slogans like 'Not my President' and 'No Fascists USA'.

People from all ages, faiths and nationalities assembled at landmark locations in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, California, Colorado, Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, Atlanta, Austin, Denver, San Francisco and other cities, protesting against Trump, barely a day after the 70-year-old businessman billionaire registered a stunning victory in the polls against Hillary Clinton.

The protesters were seen walking on roads and highways between moving traffic, holding a multitude of placards and expressing their resentment for Trump through slogans such as 'No more Hate' and 'Trump is not our President'.

In Washington, protesters gathered outside the White House. A candle light vigil was also held outside the White House last evening.

In New York, protesters walked about 40 streets from 14th Street to Fifth Avenue, where Trump's campaign headquarters The Trump Towers is located. Streets surrounding the towers were completely shut off due to the protests.

Thousands of protesters blocked entry to the Trump Tower in downtown Chicago.

Angry against the election of Trump as the president of the country, they held a protest rally in Chicago downtown.

"No Trump, No KKK, No Fascists USA" and "Not my president!" were some of the chants shouted by those participating in the rally.

"I'm disappointed, shocked, a little panicked for my friends and family - for everything that will be unleashed, the hate that will be unleashed," Marion Hill, 22, who joined thousands who amassed outside of the Trump Tower in downtown Chicago, told The Chicago Tribune.

Some Californians also took to the social media and the state Capitol to voice their opinions that California should secede from the United States after Trump's win. #Calexit was trending nationally.

In the polls, Clinton had won California, pocketing 55 electoral college votes.

Hundreds massed in downtown Seattle streets with many holding anti-Trump and Black Lives Matter signs and chanting slogans, including "Misogyny has to go," and "The people united, will never be defeated."



Five people were shot and injured in an area near the protest. However, police said the shootings and the demonstration were unrelated.

In Austin, media reports said protesters blocked a highway, while protesters gathered in downtown Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles, demonstrators held aloft a burning effigy of Trump.

Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles

One member of the crowd near the White House held an upside-down American flag, alongside the LGBT rainbow flag, in silent protest, a media report said.

Kelly Lopez, a young Latino said, she has been upset since morning when it was clear that Trump will be the next US President. She said a person who throughout his campaign has resorted to racism, bigotry, fascism and insulting women and minorities, cannot change overnight and say that he will work for all American people.

"You have bases your entire electoral race on bringing down people, you cannot suddenly change that," she said.

John Jacob, referring to Trump's victory speech, said he does not trust Trump when he said he will "bind the wounds of division".

"How does he take back everything he said in his campaign and the debates," Jacob said, adding that Trump does not have the experience or the intelligence of Clinton.

A young African American student Elaz Iben said Trump will be president of the country for the next four years and "while I will respect the institution of the presidency, I will also respect my right to protest."



The protests in the city as well as across other parts of the country were organised by a group called Socialist Alternative.

"The victory of Donald Trump is being met with shock, fear, and anger. Especially for immigrants, Muslims, people of color, women, and other oppressed people who Trump has singled out for attack, the question of how to defend themselves against the coming attacks is sharply posed," the group said.

It urged people to come together and demonstrate their "mass opposition" to Trump.

"Build a wall around Trump's bigoted agenda," the group said on its Facebook page.

The group said the protests must be the beginning of "coordinated nationwide mobilisations to organise millions into a massive grassroots movement.




Andhra Pradesh is finding it hard to pay salaries to its staff despite a hike in its revenues in the first half of the fiscal year.

The state recorded a 12.26 percent growth rate in the first quarter of the fiscal and is eyeing a 15 percent annual growth.

"We have no money for salaries. We are already running on a huge overdraft," Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu admitted last evening, bringing out ironies in the state's economic story.

The state's revenue earnings rose to Rs 22,800 crore in the first half of 2016-17 financial year as against Rs 20,166 crore in corresponding period last year, a 13.05 per cent increase.

But what has become worrisome is the mounting revenue deficit which stood at Rs 6,641 crore during the first half of this fiscal.

In fact, the government estimated an overall revenue deficit of Rs 4,868 crore in 2016-17, but increased spending has widened gap.

"There is heavy pressure on government expenditure and adjustment of finances has become problematic," Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu said.

While the state estimated its borrowings to be Rs 20,497 crore during the year, the government has already borrowed Rs 13,673 crore.

"We have reached the fiscal deficit but we are somehow pulling the cart either by borrowing or through internal adjustments," Yanamala pointed out.

Asked about the jump in state's revenues during the first half, the Finance Minister remarked "the situation is still worse".

Official sources, however, attribute the sorry state of affairs to "unmindful spending".

More than Rs 500 crore have been spent so far on the construction of the Government Transitional Headquarters (interim Secretariat) at Velagapudi and the expenditure is not complete.

Over Rs 100 crore was spent on the Chief Minister's offices and residences in Hyderabad and the capital region (including Vijayawada).

Now, another sum of Rs 5.82 crore is being spent on



"repairs, renovation, modification and refurbishment" of bunglow at 1, Janpath in New Delhi, that has been allotted to the AP Chief Minister.

A private airline, in which actor and former Union minister K Chiranjeevi's family has a stake, has been granted Rs 4.90 crore a few days ago as "viability gap funding" for operating flights on Vijayawada-Tirupati-Kadapa sector for a six-month period.

"These figures appear small and are just an example. But when the government is virtually on a hand-to-mouth existence, such largesse will only add to the misery," a senior bureaucrat remarked.

The TDP government in the state has been desperately pleading with the Centre for over a year to relax the Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management Act norms to increase the borrowing limit by at least 0.5 per cent, if not one per cent, from the current three per cent cap.

An increase of 0.5 per cent limit would enable the state to borrow an additional Rs 2,800 crore from the market, but the Centre turned down AP's request given the bad state of its finances.

Interestingly, the Centre granted neighbouring Telangana a 0.5 per cent hike in its borrowing limit, much to the chagrin of the AP administration.

Though the Centre has released large quantum of funds under different heads to the state, including construction of the capital city, but they were ostensibly not spent or rather diverted for other purposes.

Hence, the state is in no position to press for more releases from the Centre, officials point out.
In a bid to boost income of farmers in Punjab's south-western parts through pisciculture, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today gave nod for a Research and Development Centre near Malout to promote shrimp farming.

"The 'Blue Revolution' in the state could transform the destiny of farmers," he said while interacting with a delegation of progressive fish farmers at his residence here.

The unprecedented success of shrimp (Jhinga) farming in brackish waters in Muktsar and Fazilka districts has proved its huge potential as an allied source of income for farmers, Badal said.

"The SAD-BJP government was making all out efforts to promote fish farming in the state," he said.

The Chief Minister said, "Though Punjab pioneered the Green Revolution, which was instrumental in providing food security to the country, agriculture was no longer a profitable venture because of escalating input costs and squeezed profit margins."



"Because of these factors farmers of the state were on the brink of an economic crisis," he claimed.

"In such a dismal scenario pisciculture was the only ray of hope for farmers as they could supplement their income through it," he said.

The state government would set up a dedicated fund for running this centre, Badal assured.

The Chief Minister announced that the state government would give a 50 per cent subsidy on equipment, feed and seed to boost production of shrimps in the state.

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31 years ago, Congress passed the Food Security Act of 1985. Under the Swampbuster provisions of this Act, the USDA may make determinations as to whether certain lands qualify as wetlands and whether wetlands which have been manipulated qualify as converted wetlands. The Act, passed during the Reagan Administration, was written to oppose the conversion of wetlands into cropland. The Eight Circuit Court of Appeals has previously ruled that a person found to have converted wetlands into cropland may become ineligible to receive farm program payments from the federal government. Some of these wetlands are what I call cattail swamps, and I spent part of my youth hunting in them.

Faced several years ago with a wetlands designation for part of their land, South Dakota farmers Arlen and Cindy Foster challenged the USDAs decision that certain parts of Fosters acreage were wetlands. These bureaucratic proceedings took over five years. The USDA based its decision, in part, on a comparable wetlands site some 30 miles away from the Fosters property in Miner County. Wetland regions in the U.S. include the Prairie Potholes of North and South Dakota as well as other states.

When the Foster case was later ruled upon by the U.S. District Court for South Dakota, the Fosters were unable to provide the court with substantial evidence that the USDA wetlands decision-making process was wrong. The District Court said that Plaintiffs (the Fosters) have not shown, beyond a bare assertion, that the range of rainfall shared by both locations or the differences in the depth of the potholes renders the (USDA comparison) site insufficiently local. The trial judge also stated that the Fosters did not challenge the USDA expert testimony about rainfall averages on the land. The Fosters then appealed this decision to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals in its decision upheld the District Court and ruled that the original USDA agency decision was a reasonable interpretation of USDA regulations and that courts should give deference to the informed discretion of responsible federal agencies.

The Fosters have now filed a Petition to have the case heard by the United States Supreme Court. Unfortunately for the Fosters, weak facts make bad law. The Foster case, in my view, will not be accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court. Although the Foster Petition to the Supreme Court presents important arguments about agency authority to make decisions and about a courts deference to an agency decision, the Court will also look at the underlying facts of the case before it. The facts of the Foster case are not strong. However, just because the Supreme Court may not hear the case does not mean that the issues raised by the Fosters are without grounds. Overreaching by the USDA in Swampbuster and wetlands decision and rulemaking is a genuine issue. Proposed legislation filed this year in Congress is intended to address some of these challenges. The sponsors of the filed bill argue that the new law would ensure more timely decisions by the USDA; would make the appeals process more efficient for a landowner/farmer and would improve government transparency in providing information to landowners and farmers affected by the Swampbuster process. The intention behind the current Swampbuster law has merit, but I am reminded of what my father said about raising me: David, my intentions with you were good. It is the outcome that is questionable.

David Ganje practices law in the area of natural resources, environmental and commercial law. His website is Lexenergy.net
Describing holy Guru Granth Sahib as a lighthouse of universal brotherhood, secularism and socialism for every human being, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today said that it could guide the path to the entire country for strengthening the bonds of communal, harmony, peace and amity in the country.

Granth Sahib was a repository of faith spirituality that has guided the destiny of the mankind since ages, Badal said while flagging off "Bhasha Anek: Bharat Ek Granth Yatra" organised by NGO Sarhad Foundation, Pune to mark the upcoming 350th birth anniversary of 10th Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh.

He said that Sikhism propagated the true model of socialism and secularism in the world and the foundation of Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple), Amritsar was laid down by the Muslim seer Sai Mian Mir to foster the ethos of secularism and its four entrances symbolized concept of equality of mankind.

Badal said that this yatra would prove to be a milestone in cementing the bonds of communal harmony, national integration and brotherhood across the country, which was the need of hour.

Complimenting the NGO Sarhad Foundation for taking this unique initiative, the Chief Minister said that it would help in disseminating the ideology of Granth Sahib in every nook and corner of the country as the yatra would travel several hundred kilometre all the way from Anandpur Sahib to Huzur Sahib before finally terminating at Pune, headquarters of the Sarhad.

Badal underscored the need for replicating this initiative of NGO to spread the message of love, peace and brotherhood amongst the mankind.

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Long queues were witnessed in all bank branches in Bihar today as people thronged banks to deposit Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes and get lower denomination currencies in return.

The queues were seen in almost every bank branches till late in the evening as panic-stricken citizens sprinted to banks in the morning, the first day after banks reopened following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement banning Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes to fight the menace of black money.

"There was no time to even take lunch during the day as flood of people had descended at the branch," said S K Shrivastava, Manager, of Bank of India, S K Nagar branch.

An estimated Rs 1.03 crore -- 5958 pieces of Rs 1000 notes and 8643 pieces of Rs 500 notes -- was deposited by customers today, Shrivastava added.

Similar rush was seen in all other branches of SBI, Allahabad Bank, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, UCO bank and private banks like ICICI and HDFC.

There are 6,700 bank branches in Bihar. Out of this 4,300 are in public and private sector while rest are regional rural and cooperative banks. The state has around 6,600 ATMs and over 4 crore ATM-cum debit cards.

There were reports of shortage of cash in some branches considering huge rush of customers which was solved.

"There were some minor problems like shortage of cash which was solved without much delay," said Praveen Kumar, Assistant General Manager, RBI Patna, who has been made nodal officer for Patna.

Confusion prevailed initially among the people in exchanging money as many of them did not know about filling up the form with an ID to exchange the notes.

Policemen were deployed outside banks to prevent any untoward incidents.

Reports from districts also showed heavy rush of citizens to banks.

A report from Araria said people gathered at the banks since early in the morning to avail facility at the earliest.

Superintendent of Police, Araria, Sudhir Kumar Porika said 250 policemen were deployed at different branches.

Unlike yesterday, petrol pumps saw much less people in Patna during the day.

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As part of its expansion plans, Bayer India is investing 30 million euros to set up an agro ingredient plant at Vapi in Gujarat.

"As part of our expansion programme, we are investing Euro 30 million to set up agro ingredient unit at Vapi in Gujarat by June 2017.

"These agro ingredients will be manufactured for both domestic and global markets," Senior Bayer Representative, South Asia Richard van der Merwe told reporters after inaugurating Bayer's global science exhibition here.

Bayer's existing Vapi unit is engaged in the manufacture of active ingredients and intermediates for use in a wide array of agriculture and environment protection products. It is also the single largest synthetic pyrethroids production facility in the world.

With this new laboratory, in which Bayer has invested around Euro 2 million, the company aims to increase resource flexibility in its global formulation activities. The new formulation lab unit will focus on developing seed treatments, herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides.

The Euro 489 million Bayer group in India has already invested Euro 200 million in the country, which includes capital investment and setting up three manufacturing units at Hyderabad, Vapi and Himatnagar in Gujarat, Merwe said.

The company also hopes to launch 10 new crop science products in next three years to help increasing average yields for farmers, he added.

Merwe also sought government's intervention to curb spurious farm products, which causes crop failures.

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Brazilian free-tailed bats are the fastest flyers in the animal kingdom, shooting through the night skies at record speeds of over 160 kilometres per hour, a new study has found.

Up to now, the speed record for horizontal flight was held by birds from the swift family: the common swift, for example, can reach speeds of over 100 kilometres per hour.

Together with colleagues from the US, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany have now discovered a new front-runner among the acrobats of the air.

The Brazilian free-tailed bat shoots through the night skies at over 160 kilometres per hour. Their aerodynamic body shape and longer than average wings compared to other bat species enable them to reach such vast speeds.

Birds are still a model for aviation engineers today and remain unequalled when it comes to flight characteristics.

While birds can take off at comparatively low speeds, even the most modern aircraft must reach a speed of around 300 kilometres per hour to be able to lift off.

The main contributing factors here are the animals' aerodynamic, projectile-like body shape and their low weight due to special bones.

The narrow wings found in faster-flying species also enable greater lift relative to the aerodynamic force invested.

Swifts, like the common swift (Apus apus), which can reach speeds of 110 kilometres per hour, are considered the fastest birds in the world at horizontal flight.

Peregrine falcons can even reach speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour when diving. In contrast, due to their wing structure, bats generate greater resistance, and are generally considered slower flyers.

Animals with long and narrow wings usually fly faster than those with shorter and wider ones. For this reason, the scientists selected the Brazilian free-flying bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) for their study.

"Initially, we could hardly believe our data, but they were correct: at times, the female bats, which weigh between 11 and 12 grammes, flew at speeds of over 160 kilometres per hour - a new record for horizontal flight," said Kamran Safi from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology.

The data on the bats' flying speeds were collected using a radio transmitter weighing just half a gramme and attached to the their backs using an adhesive and fell off after two to five days.

Its regular beeping signal was localised using a mobile receiver installed on a small aircraft.

"It was not easy for the pilot to follow the fast-flying animals so that we could localise them accurately and measure their flight path continuously," said researcher Dina Dechmann.

The scientists also evaluated the data recorded by the closest weather station and noted the wind conditions at the time of the studied flights.

"External factors like landscape and tailwinds cannot explain these results, as they had no impact on the maximum speeds," said Dechmann.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
British Muslims today expressed fears that Donald Trump's election as the next US President would lead to backlash against Muslims around the world.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said Trump must ensure his win does not pave the way for bigotry.

"The people of the United States have clearly spoken and I congratulate Mr Trump. There is however, a justifiable concern about his election," said MCB secretary-general Harun Khan.

He added: "It is hugely worrying that a man who has openly called for discrimination against Muslims and other minorities has become the leader of a superpower nation.

"We hope the bombast and rhetoric we have seen from Mr Trump in the last few months gives way to a more reconciliatory approach.

"The President-elect must demonstrate that his election is not a green light for bigotry for the rest of the world."



On the campaign trail, Trump had made the call for a "total and complete shutdown" of America's borders to Muslims in December last year in the wake of the San Bernardinoterror attack.

Meanwhile, it emerged that Trump's team has removed the statement on his website toban all Muslims from the US.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Canada's ambassador to Washington has said that Canada is open to renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement if that's what President-elect Donald Trump wants.

Ambassador David MacNaughton, on a conference call with journalists, said free trade on lumber, long an irritant, would be one of the first things he'd like to see if there's a new agreement.

He noted that the US is Canada's largest trading partner and Canada is the largest trading partner for the US.

"We're ready to come to the table," he said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to Trump yesterday to congratulate him and to invite him to Canada at the earliest opportunity. Trump also invited Trudeau to visit him.

"The Prime Minister and the President-elect reiterated the importance of the Canada-United States bilateral relationship, and discussed various areas of mutual interest," Trudeau's office said.

The Liberal prime minister has vowed to work "very closely" with Trump and said Canada has no closer ally and partner than the United States.

But Trudeau's openness to trade, refugees and the environment stands in stark contrast to Trump. Of particular concern to Canada is Trump's vow to renegotiate NAFTA but MacNaughton said any agreement can be improved. Trump has called NAFTA the "worst deal in history."



MacNaughton said if NAFTA was scrapped, the original Canada-US trade agreement that predated NAFTA would come back into force and he said he doubted the Americans would want to end that.

A positive for Canada could be the eventual approval of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the US Gulf Coast. President Obama nixed it but Trump supports the pipeline though he has said he wants a share of the profits. TransCanada said it remains committed to building the pipeline.

Brad Wall, premier of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, noted Trump's support for Keystone XL.

"And with Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, I am hopeful that this important project will move ahead quickly," Wall said in a statement. "On the other hand, I hope he reconsiders his plan to end the North American Free Trade Agreement."



Canada and the prospect of Americans moving there drew so much interest that the country's immigration website was knocked out Tuesday night.

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The Kerala High Court today directed CBI to probe the conspiracy behind the 2003 communal riots in Marad in Kozhikode district in which eight persons were killed.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Mohan Shantanagoudar and K Sathish Nainan issued the order while considering a PIL filed by Kolakkadan Moosa Haji in 2012, seeking a direction for a CBI probe into the 'conspiracy' behind the riots.

The CBI was directed to probe the larger conspiracy behind the riots, in which eight persons were killed on May 2, 2003.

The state government also favoured a CBI probe into the incident.

The high court directed the state to provide all infrastructure to CBI to carry out smooth conduct of the probe.

Earlier, after a judicial probe into the incident, Kerala police had registered a criminal case on the larger conspiracy.

Prior to this, another incident of communal riot took place in Marad in 2002.

(Reopens LGM 4)



Meanwhile, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan welcomed the verdict and said demand for a CBI probe was a long-pending one.

"Demand for a CBI probe to unravel the conspiracy has come at that time itself," he said.

In a statement, BJP state President Kummanom Rajasekharan said the verdict was victory to the "people's agitation in the area to expose the conspiracy behind the massacre".

"We hope that the terrorist link to the killing would be brought out with CBI probe," he said.
Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil would be performing the customary pooja at the iconic Vitthal temple at Pandharpur tomorrow, indicating his formal elevation as number two in the Maharashtra cabinet.

As per the convention, Chief Minister performs pooja at the Vitthal temple during Ashadhi Ekadashi (around June) while the pooja on the 11th day of Kartik month (around November) is performed by the second-ranked cabinet minister.

Who was number two in the BJP-led Devendra Fadnavis government was a mystery until now following the exit of senior BJP leader Eknath Khadse, who resigned over corruption charges earlier this year.

But an officer of General Administration Department today confirmed that the CM had approved 64-year-old Patil's elevation.

A son of dockyard worker in Mumbai, Patil, whose family hails from Kolhapur in western Maharashtra, started his political career with BJP's student wing ABVP of which he was national general secretary during the first NDA government.

His closeness to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah back then helped him later, when he was asked to strengthen BJP's base in Western Maharashtra, then a Congress bastion.

Along with weighty portfolios of Public Works Department, Co-operation and Textile, he was also guardian minister of Kolhapur and Sangli districts. After Khadse's exit, Patil was handed Revenue, while Cooperation went to Subhash Deshmukh.

Following this, GAD sent a proposal to Fadnavis under a government resolution of 2013 which gives the CM discretionary power to allocate rankings in cabinet, even by deviating from laid-down norms.

A senior officer of GAD confirmed that Fadnavis had approved allocation of number two rank to Patil, and protocol department had been intimated about it. Official order would be out before Saturday.

When asked about the development, Patil said, "My priority has been to serve people and my party. I am really not into ranks and it does not fancy me.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi set off on a key visit to Japan, China today said that while it has no issues in New Delhi and Tokyo developing normal relations, they should respect "legitimate concerns" of neighbours.

"Regarding what might be discussed by the two leaders, we note that Prime Minister Modi will kick off his visit to Japan. We have no problem with our neighbours developing normal relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media briefing here replying to a question.

"We hope that when they develop their relationships, they can respect legitimate concerns of their neighbours and contribute to regional peace and stability," he said.

He declined to comment on reports that India will buy US-2 ShinMaywa amphibious aircraft from Japan, saying it is mere speculation.

In September, Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted angrily to reports that Japan plans to sell weapons to India at a cheaper prices saying that such a move is disgraceful.

"We hold no objection to normal state to state cooperation including defence cooperation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told media briefing on September 13.

"But if the report is true that if someone is making unrighteous move then this is very disgraceful," she said while replying to a question about media reports that Japan plans to cut prices to sell 12 ShinMaywa US-2 amphibious aircraft designed for air-sea rescue in a USD 1.6 billion deal.

Ahead of Modi's visit, Chinese official media warned that India may suffer "great losses" in bilateral trade if it joins Japan to ask China to abide by the international tribunal's ruling quashing Beijing's claims over the South China Sea (SCS).

"India should beware of the possibility that by becoming embroiled in the disputes, it might end up being a pawn of the US and suffer great losses, especially in terms of business and trade, from China," an op-ed article in state-run Global Times said yesterday.

Citing Indian media reports that India is seeking support from Tokyo during Modi's visit to Japan next week to issue a joint statement asking China abide by the July ruling of the tribunal on the SCS, the article said "India and China should put more efforts into resolving problems like the imbalance of their trade ties".

"India won't benefit much by balancing China through Japan. It will only lead to more mistrust between New Delhi and Beijing," it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A top Chinese security official was today elected to head the Interpol, in a move that fortifies China's global influence and could boost its anti-graft campaign in tracking fugitives who have fled the country.

Vice Minister for Public Security Meng Hongwei was elected President of the International Criminal Police Organisation, making him the first Chinese official to take the prestigious post.

Meng took over from his predecessor Mireille Ballestrazzi of France at the closing ceremony of Interpol's 85th General Assembly in Bali, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

Hailing's Meng's election, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters here that it showed China would like to shoulder more responsibility and contribute to the global law enforcement.

Besides boosting China's global influence, the move was expected to give a fillip to the anti-graft campaign launched by President Xi Jinping after he took over in 2012, helping Beijing in tracking down fugitives or suspects staying abroad.

More than a million officials have been punished under the crackdown. Chinese police have brought over 400 fugitives from at least 61 countries in a campaign called "fox hunt".

Official estimates say that the officials accused of corruption fled the country with more than USD 126 billion.

Meng's election also gives China another seat at a global organisation tasked with fighting transnational crimes.

In his speech, Meng promised to work together with all member-states of Interpol to build the international group into a stronger platform for global police cooperation.

He said he will promote a "more effective" global police cooperation, better support the capacity-building efforts of police in member-countries, with a view to building a safer world and a more efficient Interpol.

The Interpol President heads its Executive Committee and is elected by the General Assembly for a period of four years.

Meng's new charge will include chairing meetings of the committee which ensures the implementation of decisions made at the General Assembly.

Founded in 1914 and now headquartered in Lyon, France, Interpol is the second-largest international organisation after the United Nations with 190 members.

By establishing a global police communications system, the agency has played an important role in deepening international police cooperation to combat transnational criminal offences.

China became a member state of Interpol in September 1984.

The 86th General Assembly of Interpol is scheduled to be held in China in 2017, according to the report.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
"Germany and America are connected by values: democracy, freedom, respect for the law and for the dignity of human beings, independently of origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views. On the basis of these values, I am offering the future president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, close cooperation."
A special court today dismissed with cost the plea of a firm facing prosecution in a coal scam case to summon former Coal Minister Shibu Soren and then Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayana Rao, as additional accused in a matter pertaining to alleged irregularities in allocation of a Chhattisgarh coal block.

Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar rejected the application and imposed a cost of Rs one lakh on the accused firm M/s JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd. The court directed it to deposit the amount with the Delhi Legal Service Authority.

The firm's counsel Vijay Aggarwal had earlier cited a book written by former Coal Secretary P C Parekh, submitting that the ex-bureaucrat had apprised Soren and Rao that the existing system of coal blocks was discriminatory but both the politicians had overruled the concerns.

"The role of the said two persons (Soren and Rao) is clear from the book written by P C Parekh... Hence, viewed from this angle, it is clear that Shibu Soren, the then Minister of Coal in the Union Cabinet and Dasari Narayana Rao, then Minister of State for Coal, are the persons who are involved in the basic reason behind the entire facade," the counsel had said.

"On the basis of the above (book excerpts), Soren and Rao are ought to have been summoned as additional accused," the plea had said.

Former Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda and others, including his son Devendra Darda and former Coal Secretary H C Gupta, the accused who were earlier granted bail, were today put on trial by the court.

The court also framed charges against two senior public servants -- K S Kropha and K C Samria -- businessman Manoj Kumar Jayaswal and the firm.

The case pertains to the allocation of Fatehpur (East) coal block in Chhattisgarh to the accused firm. The court framed charges against the accused for the alleged offences under section 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 420 (cheating) of IPC and under relevant provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda, ex-Coal Secretary H C Gupta and five others were today put on trial by a special court in a coal scam case relating to alleged irregularities in the allocation of a coal block in Chhattisgarh.

The court also framed charges against two senior public servants K S Kropha and K C Samria, M/s JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd, its Director Manoj Kumar Jayaswal and Vijay Darda's son Devendra Darda after they pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.

Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar framed charges for the alleged offences under section 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 420 (cheating) of IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The court has fixed December 16 for admission and denial of documents.

The court had on August 20 last year granted bail to the accused who had appeared before it following summons.

It had on November 20, 2014, refused to accept CBI's closure report in the case and directed it to conduct further probe the matter, stating that the former MP had "misrepresented" facts in letters written to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who then held the Coal portfolio.

The court had said that Darda, the Chairman of Lokmat Group, had done so to get the Fatehpur (East) coal block in Chhattisgarh allotted to JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd.

It had said that "prima facie" offence of cheating was committed by private parties in "furtherance of conspiracy" hatched between them and the public servants.

JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd was allotted Fatehpur (East) coal block by the 35th Screening Committee.

CBI had earlier alleged in its FIR that JLD Yavatmal had wrongfully concealed previous allocation of four coal blocks to its group companies in 1999-2005, but later filed a closure report saying no undue benefit was given to JLD Yavatmal by the Coal Ministry in allocation of coal blocks to it.

It had said that nothing substantial has emerged to establish cheating and criminal conspiracy among officials of the Ministry of Coal and JLD Yavatmal Energy Ltd's directors.

All the accused had denied the allegations against them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
High-profile persons, including politician Vijay Darda and bureaucrat H C Gupta, were today put on trial by a special court in a coal scam case by framing charges of cheating and criminal breach of trust but gave relief to JMM chief Shibu Soren by dismissing a plea to make him an accused.

Charges were also framed against five others-- two senior officials K S Kropha and K C Samria-- private firm JLD Yavatmal Pvt Ltd, its Director Manoj Kumar Jayaswal and Darda's son Devendra after they pleaded not guilty and claimed trial in the case relating to alleged irregularities in the allocation of a Chhattisgarh coal block.

Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar dismissed with a cost of Rs one lakh the firm's plea to summon former Coal Minister Shibu Soren and then Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayana Rao, as additional accused in the case.

The court directed the firm to deposit the amount with Delhi Legal Service Authority and junked the plea which cited a book written by former Coal Secretary P C Parekh, that he had apprised Soren and Rao that the existing system of coal block allocation was discriminatory, but both politicians had over-ruled his concerns.

It fixed the main case for December 16 for admission and denial of documents.

It said prima facie charges for the alleged offences under section 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 420 (cheating) of IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act are made out against the accused.

The court passed the order in the case pertaining to the allocation of Fatehpur (East) coal block in Chhattisgarh to the accused firm in which it had earlier rejected CBI's closure report.

CBI prosecutors V K Sharma and A P Singh had sought framing of charges against the accused saying the offences were made out against them.

The six accused persons were granted bail by the court on August 20 last year after they appeared before it in pursuance to summons issued to them earlier.

The court had on November 20, 2014, refused to accept the



closure report of CBI in the case and directed it to conduct further probe the matter, stating that the former Rajya Sabha MP had "misrepresented" facts in letters written to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was holding the Coal portfolio.

The court had said that Darda, the Chairman of Lokmat Group, had done so to get the Fatehpur (East) coal block in Chhattisgarh allotted to JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd.

It had said that "prima facie" offence of cheating was committed by private parties in "furtherance of conspiracy" hatched between them and the public servants.

JLD Yavatmal Energy Pvt Ltd was allotted the coal block by the 35th Screening Committee.

CBI had earlier alleged in its FIR that JLD Yavatmal had wrongfully concealed previous allocation of four coal blocks to its group companies in 1999-2005, but later filed a closure report saying no undue benefit was given to JLD Yavatmal by the Coal Ministry in allocation of coal blocks to it.

It had said that nothing substantial has emerged to establish cheating and criminal conspiracy among officials of the Ministry of Coal and JLD Yavatmal Energy Ltd's directors.
US-backed forces pressed offensives on the Islamic State group's strongholds in Syria and Iraq, as an air strike by the American-led coalition reportedly killed 20 civilians near the Syrian city of Raqa.

Supported by coalition air raids, Iraqi forces have pushed into IS's Mosul stronghold and a Kurdish-Arab militia alliance has been advancing on the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital Raqa.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday that a coalition strike overnight had hit the IS-held village of Al-Heisha, about 40 kilometres north of Raqa.

Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring group, said nine women and two children were among the 20 civilians killed and that 32 others had been wounded.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the militia alliance that Washington is supporting in the assault, denied the civilian deaths.

"There is no such thing, and any such claims are IS news," SDF spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed said.

Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, told AFP it appeared there had been strikes in the area.

"After an initial assessment... The coalition confirms it did conduct strikes in the area described in the allegation," he said.

"However, more specific information is needed to conclusively determine responsibility" for civilian casualties.

The Observatory said the latest deaths brought the number of civilians killed since US-led air strikes in Syria began in September 2014 to 680, including 169 children.

Meanwhile the Pentagon said late yesterday that US air strikes in both Syria and Iraq may have killed 119 civilians since 2014, a figure far lower than estimates by a number of monitoring groups.

Some 200 families had fled Al-Heisha, according to an SDF official.

"Daesh fighters brought heavy weapons to our village and stayed among us so that if there were strikes they would hit us," 45-year-old Saada al-Aboud said after fleeing the town, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

"They wouldn't let us leave. We had to escape by running out into the fields, with our children and old people. What else could we do? We left everything behind."



The SDF launched the drive towards Raqa on Saturday, upping pressure on the jihadists three weeks after Iraqi forces began their assault on Mosul.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has submitted a feasibility study report for two industrial corridors -- Vizag-Chennai and Chennai-Bengaluru -- and the commerce ministry is waiting for Cabinet approval to form special purpose vehicles to roll out these projects.

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Vizag-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC) and Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor (CBIC) are priority activity for her department.

ADB has done the feasibility study and "they have submitted (the report) and now we are also waiting for the Cabinet to give us an approval for forming special purpose vehicles with which each of these corridors can start rolling out," she told reporters here today.

The minister said this at a joint press briefing with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. Both were speaking on the forthcoming Partnership Summit 2017 in Vizag in January next year, being organised by CII.

To boost manufacturing, the government has proposed several other industrial and economic corridors, including Delhi-Mumbai, Amritsar-Kolkata and Bengaluru-Mumbai.

The ministry is trying to integrate national investment and manufacturing zones (NIMZS) with these corridors.

About the two-day Summit, kicking off on January 28, 2017, Sitharaman said Andhra Pradesh has all the potential to attract domestic and global investments.

Naidu too tried to hardsell the state, saying delegates from several countries are expected to participate in the summit.

"Andhra has all the advantages. It has deep sea ports, water, power, natural resources and other infrastructure to attract investments," the chief minister said.

According to Naidu, last year, as many as 328 MoUs were signed worth Rs 4.67 lakh crore. Of this, 93 projects are at different stages of implementation and 41 have been alloted land.

CII Vice-President Rakesh Bharti Mittal said the summit will provide a platform to investors to deliberate on investment opportunities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress today alleged that the Centre was putting up roadblocks in the development of Uttarakhand and asked BJP chief Amit Shah to mount pressure on the Narendra Modi government to address matters of public interest and resolve the problems faced by the state.

In a letter to the BJP president who is scheduled to address three rallies in the state in the course of the party's Parivartan Yatra, Pradesh Congress President Kishore Upadhyay said despite the difficult geographic location of the hill state, the Centre was putting up hurdles in the path of its development.

"Created as a result of a non-violent struggle, Uttarakhand is a disaster-hit state with meagre resources at its disposal.

"Still the Centre keeps putting up roadblocks to impede the growth of the state by creating political and financial crisis for the state government which is working with commitment to take development to the border areas," Upadhyay said.

Claiming that he had drawn the Centre's attention to the problems faced by the state by staging dharnas at Jantar Mantar in Delhi in 2014 and 2015, he said so much time has elapsed since then, but nothing has been done so far.

He said people of the state feel cheated especially because they had voted BJP candidates to victory from all the five Lok Sabha seats in 2014.

Upadhyay demanded quota for people of the state in central government jobs, revival of its special category status, Rs 10,000 crore for construction of a permanent capital of Uttarakhand, compensation of a budgetry loss worth 5,000 crore to the state and release of the remaining amount sanctioned by the cabinet committee on Uttarakhandin the wake of 2013 calamity.

The Congress leader expressed hope that the BJP chief will mount pressure at the Centre to do something about these demands before visiting the state on November 13 to kick off the party's Parivartan Yatra in Uttarakhand.

Shah who is scheduled to flag off the yatra from Dehradun on November 13 with a public rally is also slated to address two more public meetings in Almora and Haldwani on different dates in the course of the yatra which concludes on December 7.

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One of two western Pennsylvania police officers "ambushed" and shot while responding to a domestic situation has died, and police are searching for a suspect, authorities said today.

State police Trooper Melinda Bondarenka told reporters the incident began at 3:14 a.M. When the Canonsburg officers responded to a report of a domestic dispute.

The officers were "ambushed upon their arrival" and immediately shot, Bondarenka said. The dead police officer was identified as Officer Scott Leslie Bashioum.

The surviving officer was flown to a hospital in Pittsburgh, county Coroner Tim Warco said. His name and condition weren't immediately released.

Police and SWAT teams were seen near at least two homes in the borough about 20 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.

The Canon-McMillan School District canceled classes today because of the heavy police presence, and the nearby Chartiers-Houston School District was operating on a two-hour delay.

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Cyprus police say a Syrian woman says she gave birth aboard a boat loaded with 128 other migrants as they made their way from Turkey to the eastern Mediterranean island.

Police spokesman Andreas Angelides said Thursday the woman told authorities the birth took place a day into the two-day trip that began in Mersin, Turkey, and ended when rescue crews towed the boat to Cyprus' northwestern coast.

Angelides said the captain had abandoned the boat before rescuers reached it late yesterday. Most of the migrants, including 48 children, were taken to a reception center near the capital, Nicosia.

Five of the children were unaccompanied.

Angelides said the migrants paid traffickers USD 2,000 each for the journey. Nine men were detained after they were found to have been previously deported from Cyprus.

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The effects of demonetisation on small traders and manufacturers in the national capital were discussed in a meeting of Chamber of Trade and Industry today wherein representatives expressed their apprehensions over the move.

Representatives from grocery, jewelry, transport, garment, property, and manufacturers raised the problems faced by them and extended suggestions to meet the challenges of the situation marked by paucity of usable notes and new banking rules.

The gathering extended various suggestions to tackle the situation, including extending the deposit limit from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh in view of interests of the small traders, said Brijesh Goel, national convener of CTI.

Some traders also suggested withdrawal limit to be enhanced from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 as well.

While some suggested extension of income tax exemption limit to Rs 10 lakh and bringing down the maximum tax rate to 25 per cent, he said.

"All the suggestions will be discussed further in 2-3 other meetings of the CTI in coming days and an agenda will be prepared which will be presented to the Centre and Delhi government," he said.

The gathering also emphasised on the need to safeguard the interests of the small traders and manufacturers.

The CTI office bearers announced a helpline number for the traders who require help from experts including advocates, chartered accountants and consultants.

Some participants of the gathering demanded the trader body to adopt stringent measures to oppose the move by Centre but the office bearers of the organisation called for restraint before going for stronger measures like protests or total shutdown.

In a surprise decision, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday night had announced withdrawal of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes from circulation in a bid to flush out black money.

Huge rush and long cues were witnessed at banks, which opened today after a day's break, as people jostled to get lower value currency and new banknotes to meet their daily basic needs.

Only a maximum of Rs 4,000 per person in cash in exchange for the old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes was being given per person after submission of valid identity proof. Anything over and above this value was credited to bank account.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'surgical strike' on black money has given a powerful blow to the people supplying fake Indian currency notes and those involved in terror funding.

"It is a historic step and will break the bones of the terrorist organisations and the people who are funding behind the cartel," Rijiju said at the sideline of a function held in a city college.

Reacting to Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma's attack on the PM's decision terming it as a "complete insensitive" move, Rijiju said that initially inconveniences will be there but "you have to accept this strong therapy to deal with the menace of black money, corruption and terror funding".

"So if you expect that everything will go smoothly it will not be so. Good citizens are bearing with us and it is only some of the people because of whom the black money has been generated in this country and the corruption promoted only that person and group of people are having problem," he added.

Rijiju also said that the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes will not be idle as they will be returned to the banks and will continue to be the owner's asset.

Asked about the issue relating to banking facility in the remote areas of north-east states, Rijiju said, "We have already asked all the bank branches to ensure that they should go further deep in terms of reaching out to the people. We need to expand the reach of banks so that people are linked with the financial system easily."



He also said that the Reserve Bank of India has already made certain decision to ensure that branches are opened in various administrative centres or locations in the remote areas of the country.

Replying to another query, he said that the present Bangladesh regime is "very favourable" towards India in ensuring that there are no anti-India activities taking place in Bangladesh.

"We are very grateful to the present leadership of the government of Bangladesh for all the cooperation so we don't have much problem there," he stated.

However, Rijiju said that there are certain elements in Bangladesh who are involved in anti-India activities but the present regime is doing everything at its command to stop that.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Welcoming the decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1000, a top External Affairs Ministry official today said it will go a long way in fighting "economic terrorism" by checking use of black money for funding "subversive activities".

Delivering a keynote address at an international seminar here, Secretary (West), MEA, Sujata Mehta also asserted that the scourge of cross-border terrorism has assumed "highly destructive" proportions and there was an "urgent" need to check safe havens and sanctuaries enjoyed by terrorists.

"In the past year, the scourge of terrorism directed from across borders has assumed highly destructive proportions and represents the single biggest threat to peace, stability and and progress.

"There is an urgent need for all concerned to call a halt to all sponsorship, support, safe havens and sanctuaries to terrorists," she said.

The two-day seminar, organised by International Council for World Affairs (ICWA), is being held in the run up to the 'Heart of Asia' conference in Amritsar in December, which India will co-chair with Afghanistan.

She further said, "The recent initiative announced by the Prime Minister to cancel as legal tender high denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 will, among other things, help curb the financing of terrorism through fake Indian currency notes and the use of such funds for subversive activities,".

"Yes, the move will go a long way in curbing economic terrorism," Mehta said.

Mehta added that India's security is intrinsically linked with peace and stability in Afghanistan.

The senior official of the Ministry of External Affairs also said UN Security Council must take the lead through "credible and objective processes" under the 1267 Sanctions Committee.

"India advocates a policy of zero tolerance to terrorism.... However, there is a need for the international community to come together with a sense of unity and purpose to eliminate this scourge," she said.

"Another important signal of such resolve of this international community would be early adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the long-pending draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism," she said.

The seminar is being attended by representative from several member and supporting countries of 'Heart of Asia'.

There are 13 member countries, which include Afghanistan, India, China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Besides, there are 30 supporting countries which include the US, UK and Germany.

"The event today was attended by representatives from almost all embassies here, including an official from the Pakistan High Commission. Scholar and experts from several countries are also here. Besides, a few experts were invited from Pakistan to attend the event, but perhaps for logistic constraint, they couldn't attend it," a source said.

'Heart of Asia - Istanbul Process' brings together all stakeholders in the region to discuss and attempt to solve challenges pertinent to the broader region keeping focus on Afghanistan.

(REOPENS DEL39)



Mehta said India believes that reconciliation in Afghanistan will only be possible and sucessfull if all sides abide by the agreed "red lines" and the international community continues to support the process which must be "Afghan-led and Afghan-owned".

"We will play our role in ensuring peace and stability in the line with the obligations outlined in our bilateral strategic partnership agreement. We expect an early meeting of the Strategic Partnership Council to focus on these important factors," Mehta said.
Raising her pitch against Modi government at the Centre on demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee tonight called upon all opposition parties to unite and fight against the "political and financial anarchy" even as TMC gave a notice in Rajya Sabha to discuss the issue on November 16.

"May I appeal to all political parties in the Opposition to work together boldly against the anti-poor government at the Centre. Let us fight this political and financial anarchy together. We will be with you all," Banerjee said in a statement.

Earlier, reacting to a question on how will the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes play out for the BJP in the Uttar Pradesh polls, she told reporters at the state secretariat, "They will suffer a big loss. A wrong message has gone to the people. It won't be able to control the damage."



She said when people decide to retaliate, political parties cannot win elections by money.

Mocking the Prime Minister, she said Narendra Modi "has gone to Japan after making the people poor in India."



Prime Minister Modi today embarked on a three-day visit to Japan.

"They had promised to return black money from abroad. They couldn't do it and has turned common people beggars. Who gave them this right?" Banerjee said.

Saying that India was now going through a phase of "financial anarchy", she pointed out how even her own household was suffering as she had to live on 'muri' and 'aalu bhaja' for dinner tonight.

"I don't buy things from government money. I buy it from my own money," she said.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise announcement on Tuesday evening, Banerjee had slammed the Centre for the move and said it had resulted in "complete disaster and chaos".

She had urged the Modi government to rescind the "hasty decision".

TMC leader in the Upper House Derek OBrien told PTI, "Today we gave a notice in the Rajya Sabha to discuss the issue suspending business under Rule 267 on November 16."



Party leader in the Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay also said the party would bring an adjournment motion in the Lower House on the same issue on November 16.

Derek, also the chief national spokesperson of TMC, said it was vital that black money hoarders and the corrupt were punished, but it must not be done by inconveniencing the common people and the poor.

He said there must be a proper action plan for implementation of such an extensive move which directly affects millions, specially the middle class and the poor.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Government has directed to ensure tickets issued using the now-withdrawn Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes directly from counters at airports are "non-refundable" following an unusual surge in such bookings since the high-value currencies were demonetised two days ago.

Stepping up the fight against the black money menace, the government has demonetised the two high-denomination notes, but their use has been allowed for select purposes, including purchasing tickets from counters for air travel, train journey and travel in government-run buses till November 11.

The government's directive to airline operators came amid concerns that unscrupulous elements could be using air ticket booking as a means to convert their unaccounted cash into legal transactions by cancelling the bookings later and take back the refund.

Sources said the directive came from the "top level" in the government.

Aviation regulator DGCA has asked the to strictly make sure customers booking through counters at airports using the withdrawn Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes are not able to cancel or get any refund for such tickets, they added.

While there has been no official announcement from the government and DGCA about the directive, some have already announced that air tickets booked in the last 48 hours using old currency notes will not be refunded or cancelled.

Airline officials said there has been a significant jump in over-the-counter booking of flight tickets since the government announced the demonetisation.

"We generally see bookings at the airport counters to the tune of Rs 20-25 lakh per day. However, in the last 48 hours, it has risen significantly to around Rs 1 crore, which is almost a four-fold jump," no-frills airline SpiceJet's spokesperson Ajay Jasra told PTI.

In a tweet, full-service carrier Vistara said "tickets sold at airport ticket counters with Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes are strictly non-refundable".

Vistara, a joint venture between the Tatas and Singapore Airlines, also said these notes cannot be accepted for ancillary payments such as for excess baggage, upgrades, cancel or change fee, among others. They can only be accepted towards the purchase of air tickets, it added.

"Those who have booked tickets on counter in the last 48 hours using old currency will not be able to refund or cancel," Jasra tweeted.

However, Jet Airways said it was the demonetised notes not only for ticket bookings, but also for ancillary services such as excess baggage and upgrades.

The demonetised currency notes can be used to make bookings at airport ticket counters until 23:59 hours on November 11.

Declaring a "decisive" war against black money and corruption, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a televised address to the nation on Tuesday said high-denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 will no longer be legal tender from mid-night that day.

To minimise inconvenience to people, the government has allowed use of these currency notes for 72 hours till mid-night tomorrow for certain purposes, including booking of airline and railway tickets from the counters.
Hurried donations made to nearly 100 temples and trusts and sudden spurt in cash reserves in nearly 1,000 cooperative banks and credit societies in Maharashtra after Centre's decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes have come under government's scanner, a senior state minister said on Thursday.

"The suspicious part of the whole rush for temple donations and opening six deposit accounts is that they were triggered immediately after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement of demonetising currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination," the minister said.

The minister, who did not wish to be named, said officials have apprised the state government that there has been a surge in donations to temples immediately after the announcement.

"Some people have tried to secure their unaccounted cash by donating it to temples by taking its management into confidence and making receipt of such donations as anonymous donors," he said.

A similar pattern was applied in some cooperative banks that are associated or directly controlled by politicians, he said.

"Some people having unaccounted cash in lakhs of rupees have managed to secure receipts of opening of fixed deposit account. It was possible because these (cooperative) banks operate locally with handful of branches and cater to local banking needs," the minister said.

"In such cases, the unaccounted cash will turn into white money, if people manage to produce all valid documents. We have asked officials from departments concerned to keep a tab on any suspicious transaction, donations or deals," he said.

"In most of these banks, works, including issuing receipts, is done manually. As a result, some people managed to get the date of opening of the FD account, as prior to the PM's announcement. To counter such frauds, government will check the unnatural rise in the cash reserves in these banks. They will be under scanner," the minister added.

Such fraudulent transactions have taken place in over 100 temples and trusts in the state, he said, adding, action will be initiated against those guilty of colluding with the fraudsters.

The government will also monitor the sudden spurt in cash reserves in the nearly 1,000 cooperative banks and credit societies in Maharashtra.

Some temple managements are "close to political parties, making such transactions possible," he alleged.
The Union Health Ministry today said it will form an expert group to examine regulatory issues for Indian vaccine industry.

It also urged the domestic vaccines manufacturers to accord prime importance to meeting domestic demand and also to take initiatives in developing critical vaccines.

"Indian vaccines manufacturers should accord prime importance to meeting domestic demand, upscale research and development related work, and also take initiatives in developing critical vaccines such as Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV)and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines," the Union Health Secretary, C K Mishra, said.

He was addressing the inaugural session of the CII National Conference on Vaccine Industry in India 'Reforms required for early accessibility, growth and sustained competitiveness' today.

Dr GN Singh, Drug Controller General of India, Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, said that the government will form an expert group to examine regulatory issues for Indian vaccine industry.

This expert group would work towards speedy resolution of issues in time-bound manner without compromising critical aspects like quality, patient safety and patient management, he said.

Mishra also lauded the efforts of Indian vaccines players in leaving a mark on global landscape as leading supplier of vaccines to world, and said that it is encouraging to witness that there has never been an instance of shortage of vaccines in India.

He asserted that the entire Indian Healthcare industry has to get involved for an effective healthcare delivery in Indi; and "we must move from health for all to health by all, whereby the vaccine industry has a critical transformational role to play."



The Health Secretary said that the Government is committed to putting together resources for Mission Indradhanush.

Mission Indradhanush is a government initiative to ensure full immunisation of all children in India.

Besides, he stressed that both industry and government should continue nurturing the symbiotic relationship thereby taking vaccine industry to a higher level.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A group of experts today raised concerns over any move to prohibit e-cigarette, saying such a development can harm millions of people globally.

They claimed there were widespread rumour in social media that delegations of a few countries with little or no experience on the topic were driving an agenda at the global tobacco control conference here to prohibit electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) or e-cigarette.

The experts, who have long advocated for evidence-based regulations on electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) or e-cigarette, said there is a clear public health benefit from having access to high-quality, appropriately regulated ENDS product.

They argued that a growing body of evidence is now showing that ENDS is substantially less harmful than combustible tobacco products and has helped millions of individuals to quit, thus substantially reducing their risk of smoking-related diseases.

"There is a clear public health benefit from having access to high-quality, appropriately regulated ENDS product," they said in a statement.

The experts, including Julian Morris of Reason Foundation, Konstantinos Farsalinos, Riccardo Polosa and Christopher Russell, said, "Such a course of action would be a huge mistake and do untold harm to millions of smokers. We hope these rumours are untrue and do not reflect the current climate and the real intentions of WHO COP7 delegates."



"ENDS represent the greatest opportunity in generations to prevent and reduce the harm of smoking," the statement said.

India is hosting the Seventh Session of the Conference of Parties (COP7) to World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for the first time.

Meanwhile, health experts in India have said that for e-cigarette to become a "promising alternative" nicotine replacement therapy, there is a need for further research on its long-term health effects and putting in place regulations to limit its sale to adults only.

M Siddiqi, the chairman of the Cancer Foundation of India in Kolkata, and R N Sharan, Professor of Biochemistry at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, had recently written to Health Minister J P Nadda regarding the issue.

They argued that e-cigarettes could provide a safer and familiar way of meeting the physiological demands of nicotine to smokers, thus, helping them quit or cut down significantly on cigarette smoking.

"We, believe that ENDS to become a promising alternative NRT, there is an immediate need of further research on its long-term health effects. Furthermore, regulation should be put in place for quality controls and limiting its sale to adults only," they had said in the letter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 11 people including four children were killed today in air strikes on rebel-held areas near the Syrian capital, a monitor said.

One strike on the besieged town of Douma killed eight people including three children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A separate strike on nearby Sabqa killed two women and a young girl, it said.

The raids are part of a six-month offensive by government forces that has chipped away at rebel-held villages and farmland across Eastern Ghouta, according to the Observatory.

Douma, the largest town in the Eastern Ghouta area with more than 100,000 residents, is surrounded and regularly shelled by regime forces.

Syria's five-year conflict has left more than 300,000 people dead.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Supporters of a South African Indian student who was injured after being allegedly beaten up by a group of men in Bangalore have started a fund to get him back home.

Abhishek Bunwarie, 19, was allegedly beaten up last Thursday when he intervened to stop some men who were hurling abuses at his two fellow female students while they were on an outing in Bangalore.

Bunwarie is studying hotel management at the Acharya Institute of Management Science in Bangalore on a scholarship from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

His mother, Ashika Bunwarie, told local media here that although her son was discharged from hospital on Monday, he still needed extensive treatment for serious facial injuries and had a cast on his right arm.

She said although the two women were not physically harmed, friends had commended Bunwarie for avoiding a situation where they might well have been attacked.

The mother said her family was overwhelmed by the support they have received from many quarters in both South Africa and India.

"You worry about your child being in a foreign country all alone But his friends there have been totally supportive, sending me constant updates while they visited him in hospital day and night."



Bunwarie also thanked the Indian consul-general in South Africa, Pradeep Gupta, and staff at the university who had taken care of all the hospital arrangements for her son, adding that funds were now being raised to get him home to recuperate.

Huge disruption of academic activities through unrest and racial quota policies at South African universities have led to many South African Indian parents sending their children to India for further studies, either through scholarships or by paying for it themselves.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Five members of a gang of robbers who looted 5-6 tonne of aluminium scrap by holding hostage workers in a godown in Shahbad Dairy area of outer Delhi has have been arrested, police said today.

Accused Inderjeet, Dinesh, Fayyaz, Vijay and Vinod were arrested by a police team near Bhalaswa Jheel while carrying the stolen scrap in a tempo to sell it to a buyer, on November 8, said Ravindra Yadav, Joint Commissioner of Police(Crime Branch).

The Crime Branch team also recovered 3 tonne of the stolen aluminium scrap which is estimated to be worth Rs 4 lakh, he said.

The gang had barged into the godown on the night of November 5 and taken away the whole aluminium scrap weighing around 5-6 tonne in a tempo after holding hostage three workers guarding the godown.

Accused Dinesh and Vijay had alongwith their other associates allegedly committed murder of a watchman Jagdish at DSIDC, Sector-I in Bawana with iron rod during a theft in 2010. They were arrested and facing trial in the case, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Superstar Shah Rukh Khan says filmmakers do not offer him variety of roles as they have a perception about him, thanks to his stardom.

"Stardom hasn't restricted me but it is sometimes awkward to say that being in this position, the choices are fewer," Shah Rukh said at the launch of his biography, "SRK: 25 Years Of a life", here last night.

"I sit with different directors and they say, 'We will make a big film!' so, even before I start working, the film becomes big and I say, 'Let's just make a film!' and it goes out of hands sometimes and everybody wants the film to be big," he said.

When asked if being a superstar restricts him, the 51-year-old actor admitted that commerce is something that stars cannot remain untouched from but he, on his part, has always tried to not change his approach towards work.

"It is a good excuse to make. If not excuse, then a good reason because people say that stardom takes things out of you as an actor, and yes somewhere it happens that when you become a star you have little issues (about) Rs 100 crore, 200 crore. Howsoever, we remain untouched from this; it does come to our mind. You are in a business and hence, business remains in your head.

"But I would still like to believe that whenever I have got an opportunity, like a 'Fan' or a 'Chak De! India', I have never questioned it. I have never designed a film for myself. Limitations also come from the people who you work with."



The actor said that people prefer making an out-and-out commercial film with him and though he does not blame them, he does feel this approach puts limitations on him.

"A lot of people will offer me a film saying, 'Why should we make an off-beat film with you, let's make a commercial movie.' I am not blaming them; it is a good thought because if I sell, then selling me is but natural.

"I can't be two-faced about it because even I sell many things. It's a business finally. Having said that, I have tried to maintain some kind of balance. Earlier, I had nothing to lose, so, I did a lot of things and didn't question them but now may be I don't, but people around me question, 'Will this work? Should you do another love story?' I don't listen to them," he said.

Shah Rukh's biography has been penned by former journalist Samar Khan and it contains interviews of the directors Shah Rukh has worked with in the 25 years of his career, from Aditya Chopra to Abbas-Mustan.

At the launch, Samar pointed out that something which all the filmmakers mentioned about Shah Rukh was the fact that he never questioned their vision and believed in them, despite his own knowledge of the craft and position in the industry.

To which, Shah Rukh said, "There are two things -- belief in the filmmaker because film is a director's medium, we see the movie through his eyes and the second part is the belief in yourself that whatever the director gives me, I will do it to the best of my abilities.

"I find it very wrong when actors turn around and say, 'My character won't say these lines.' That's your character, you are the maker of it. I can do anything. If my director asks me to do a somersault during an emotional scene, I will do that. I will make it believable because I am an actor."



SRK further said that for someone to retain purity as an actor throughout his or her career, it is important to understand that the art is bigger than the artists.

"My mother was a very social person and whosoever she met, she used to be like him or her. She would talk to a worker like a worker and an army officer in his way. That's how actors should be. Whosoever they sit with, they should become like them.

"There's a Manoj Kumar song, which I hold dearly as an actor - 'Paani re paani tera rang kaisa, jismei milado us jaisa'. So, an actor is just like water. I believe the art is important, the artist is not. In the end, what remain will be Rahul, Raj (his on screen characters), I won't," he said.
Fishery crews have completed annual salmon spawning operation

Fisheries crews have completed their annual salmon spawning operation on the Missouri River System after collecting about 2 million eggs.

Dave Fryda, North Dakota Game and Fish Department Missouri River System supervisor, said the salmon spawning season was extremely productive and crews easily collected enough eggs to stock the 400,000 smolts planned for Lake Sakakawea in 2017.

The majority of eggs were collected from Lake Sakakawea, but the Missouri River below Garrison Dam also contributed, Fryda said. In addition to meeting North Dakotas own egg goals, additional surplus eggs were provided to South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks to help with their Lake Oahe salmon program.

The average size of Lake Sakakawea female salmon was 7.6 pounds, about 3 pounds smaller than 2015, according to Fryda.

The average size was smaller than the record we saw in 2015, but the overall number of salmon in the spawning run was exceptional, he said. Montana also had a very strong spawning run and a good egg take, but South Dakota had challenges collecting eggs this year.

The abundance of young male salmon, also called jacks, was again high in 2016, Fryda said.

Jacks are 1-year-old male salmon that become sexually mature, and typically a high abundance of these young males will forecast a good run over the next couple years, he said.

Chinook salmon begin their spawning run in October. Since salmon cannot naturally reproduce in North Dakota, Game and Fish Department and Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery personnel collect eggs and transport them to the hatchery.

Once the eggs hatch, young salmon spend several months in the hatchery before being stocked in Lake Sakakawea.

Hunters reminded some refuges open to late-season upland game

Hunters are reminded that several North Dakota national wildlife refuges are open to late-season upland game bird hunting the day after the deer gun season closes.

Arrowwood, Audubon, Des Lacs, J. Clark Salyer, Lake Alice, Lake Zahl, Long Lake, Lostwood, Tewaukon (pheasants only) and Upper Souris NWRs open Nov. 21.

However, portions of each refuge are closed to hunting. Hunters should contact refuge headquarters for information on closed areas and other restrictions.

National wildlife refuges are managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Hunters are reminded that use of nontoxic shot is required on all USFWS lands.
Close on the heels of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee criticising the government's decision to demonetise currency notes, Goa MLA Vijai Sardesai today dubbed it as "surgical strike against country's poor and middle class families".

"The demonetisation has put our country in social and financial chaos. It's an unprecedented move which more seems to be surgical strike against poor and middle class of the country and not against the black money hoarders," Sardesai, an independent legislator from Fatorda constituency and mentor of Goa Forward party, told PTI today.

Supporting West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Benerjee's demand to rescind the decision of demonetisation, he said, "She is a forthright leader who minces no words in condemning the wrong decisions."



The 46-year-old Independent legislator claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured to bring back the money stashed abroad.

"But this move aims at targeting the poor people whose money would now be labelled as black money," he said.

The legislator said the decision has put the country in a chaotic situation.

"India has become an unpredictable nation under the leadership of Modi. The decision of demonetisation is arbitrary and smells of dictatorial bias," Sardesai said.

"Don't be surprised if Modi announces that notes of Rs 100 are withdrawn from immediate effect in near future," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US Internet giant Google today rejected EU allegations that it abused the market dominance of its hugely succesful Android mobile phone operating system.

The rapsheet targets one of Google's most sensitive businesses, as smartphones become by far the dominant player over PCs and laptops.

"Android hasn't hurt competition, it's expanded it," said Kent Walker, senior vice president and general counsel of Google, in a blog.

Google was responding to a long list of charges involving Android that Margrethe Vestager, the EU's outspoken competition commissioner, filed in April.

They include the claim that the firm used practices such as making manufacturers pre-install its market-leading search engine as well as its Chrome browser as the default in their phones.

"The response we filed today shows how the Android ecosytem carefully balances the interests of users, developers, hardware makers and mobile operators," Walker said.

Google's response comes a week after the company rejected separate EU charges over online shopping and its advertising services in a series of rulings against US companies that has raised hackles across the Atlantic.

The Android charges are seen as especially sensitive for one of Google's most strategic businesses that could alter a global smartphone sector which has taken over traditional PC's as the biggest segment in the world of computing.

The case only pertains to Android-run phones, with the European Commission not considering Apple's iPhone as a factor in the case.

The EU in its charge sheet accused Google of obstructing innovation by giving unfair prominence to its own apps, especially its search engine, in deals with giant mobile manufacturers such as South Korea's Samsung or China's Huawei.

"No manufacturer is obliged to preload any Google apps on an Android phone," Google insisted.

Google is also accused of restricting manufacturers from installing rival versions or modifications of Android, an open source software operating system, on their phones.

The commission, through a spokesman, confirmed the receipt of Google's official response.

"As is standard practice, we will carefully consider Google's response before taking any decision on how to proceed and cannot at this stage prejudge the final outcome of the investigation," it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Government inaction and stubble burning in Punjab are the real culprits in robbing 20 million Delhi'ites of three years of their life expectancy, which amounts to "genocide" and "murder", Delhi High Court said today.

"It is killing us," a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Ashutosh Kumar said, adding that the grave situation was leading to the "decimation" of more than 60 million life years or one million deaths.

It also asked whether votes were more important than the lives of those who vote.

The bench made the serious observation while referring to a recent environment study published in a weekly.

"As per the report, air pollution in a city like Delhi deducts three years from your life expectancy. Delhi has a population of over 20 million. So 60 million life years are being decimated and killed. It is akin to one million deaths. If this is not murder, what is? This is genocide.

"Government inaction is the culprit for shortening of life. Look at the enormity of the matter. Something drastic needs to be done. Is vote bank more important or the man or woman behind the vote," it said, adding "Punjab (stubble burning) is killing us".

The court said as per various reports, Delhi has been termed as the worst city in India in terms of air quality.

Bad air quality not only kills people, but also leads to respiratory ailments, the court said and added that these led to reduction in working population and loss of productivity.

"In pure economic terms, look at the cost-benefit you would have if this issue of air pollution is addressed," the bench said while hearing a PIL initiated by the court on the issue of air pollution in the city.

Last month, while hearing the air pollution matter, the high court had asked the states of UP, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana to prevent stubble burning for which the national capital every year grappled with the menace of haze even after orders of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to stop the practice of burning of crop and agriculture residue.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sugar production in India, the world's second largest producer after Brazil, is estimated to decline by 10.27 per cent to 22.52 million tonnes in ongoing season, but stock availability will be sufficient to meet the domestic demand, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said today.

The country's sugar production had declined to 25.1 million tonnes in the 2015-16 season (October-September) due to drought in major growing states.

Paswan today reviewed prices and availability of sugar in the country in a meeting with senior officials of his ministry.

After the meeting, the Minister said, "The production of sugar has been estimated at about 22.52 million tonnes in the current sugar season."



It may be noted the government's sugar production estimates for this year are lower than 23.26 million tonnes pegged by Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA).

The sugar estimates for this year have been finalised after a recent meeting with sugar commissioners of cane growing states.

Despite expected drop in sugar output for the second straight year, Paswan said, "Total availability in the country would be sufficient to meet the domestic consumption."



While the domestic sugar consumption is estimated at about 25.5 million tonnes, the stock position at the close of the 2016-17 season is likely to be at 4.73 million tonnes, which will be carried forward for the next season, he added.

The Minister also said the government has taken necessary steps to maintain sufficient stocks in the country and keep the sugar prices under check.

Sugar production is estimated to fall in 2016-17 season because of likely decline in sugarcane output on account of drought in key growing states including Maharashtra.

However in the next 2017-18 season, Paswan said, "Sugar production is expected to be good and is likely to start early and therefore there will be no shortage of domestically produced sugar in India."



By November 2017, another 2 million tonnes would be available from early crushing, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A sikh organisation today appealed the separatist leaders in Kashmir to withdraw the 'Lal Chowk chalo' call for November 14 as it coincides with Gurpurab, birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev.

"I on behalf of Sikh community appeal to separatist leaders to withdraw the Lal Chowk chalo call keeping in view Guru Nanak Dev Ji's birthday on November 14," All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC) chairman Jagmohan Singh Raina said in a statement here.

Separatists, who are spearheading the ongoing agitation in Kashmir for the past four months, have called for a march to Lal Chowk on Monday to press for resolution of Kashmir issue.

Raina said the authorities are likely to impose restrictions on movement of people on November 14 in view of the call for march to Lal Chowk which will prevent the Sikh community from visiting the Gurudwaras.

Authorities would likely impose restrictions on November 14 in view of Lal Chowk Chalo march.

"The forces won't allow us (Sikh Community) to throng Gurudwaras amid restrictions. Thus, we appeal resistance leadership to withdraw the protest programme on that day," he added.

The Sikhs have been following the protest calendar of the separatists till now as any other Kashmiri.

"But this time we are sharing our concern in respect of our religious function to celebrate Gurpurab," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Guyana's Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo today urged judiciary across globe to keep track of "changing profile" of the world, which he said is faced with newer problems, and pitched for coming together of governments and judges to protect values gained through civilisations.

"...Where the judiciary is independent, it should not allow itself to be constrained by the issues of (only) law...(it should see) justice is not only a question of litigation, but something that belongs to the entire society.

"The judiciary should also deal with issues such as...The issues of nuclear disarmament, issues of climate change, issues of wars and conflicts, of discrimination," Nagamootoo said.

He made the remarks during an event here in the run up to five-day International Conference of Chief Justices of the world beginning tomorrow in Uttar Pradesh's capital Lucknow.

Besides Nagamooto, former Presidents of Croatia and Sudan, Stjepan Mesic and Abdel Rahman M Hassan Swar Elzahab respectively and over 200 chief justices and judges from 63 countries will participate in the conference, its organiser, Lucknow's City Montessori School said in a statement.

During his address, Nagamootoo made a pitch for constant exploration of issues involving children, women, disadvantaged people, tribes and also those who are endangered by wars and climate challenges.

"...We have to come together, the governments, judiciary and executives, legislatives, we all have to come together to look and feel the pulse of the changing world. And to play our role to take measures to protect values that have gained by our civilisation," he added.

The Prime Minister also advocated uniting the world through an enforceable international law and new world order to protect future of 2.5 billion children world over and upcoming generations - an issue the conference is set to discuss.

According to a statement issued by the organiser later, Nagamootoo expressed concerns over children facing dangers of national disasters such as drought, flood and epidemic in countries like Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Sudan.

"...The era of complexities and emergency, on the other hand, is going on and on. According to the (UNICEF's State of the World's Children) Report 2016, around 16 lakh children were born in these terror-affected areas in 2015.

"In 2014 alone, there were 163 attacks on schools in Afghanistan and there were 67 reported attacks on schools in Iraq. In Nigeria, armed group Boko Haram killed more than 600 teachers and more than 1200 schools were damaged or destroyed," he noted.

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The Bombay High Court has declined to allow beleaguered NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal, who is facing charges in a money laundering case, to withdraw his petition challenging provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) following opposition by Enforcement Directorate.

Bhujbal had urged the High Court to allow him to withdraw his petition as he wanted to file a fresh plea soon.

A vacation bench of Justice M S Karnik observed during the hearing yesterday that a petition cannot be allowed to be withdrawn without the consent of both the sides.

"In this case, ED has vehemently opposed the plea of the petitioner to withdraw the petition in order to enable him file a fresh petition. So I am not inclined to allow the application (Bhujbal) to withdraw his plea," the Judge said.

Bhujbal, through his lawyer Vikram Chaudhary, had challenged sections 19 and 45 of PMLA. Section 19 empowers ED to arrest an accused based on evidence gathered by the agency against the individual, while section 45 deals with bail of the accused.

Bhujbal's counsel urged the court to grant liberty to allow the applicant to withdraw his plea and file a fresh petition soon. However, the High Court refused after the ED objected to the plea.

ED's lawyer Hiten Venegaonkar argued that the agency welcomed the move of the accused to withdraw the petition but was opposed to his plea to file a fresh petition.

The HC also asked Bhujbal's lawyer to approach a regular bench after the Diwali vacation and posted the matter for hearing on November 16.

Bhujbal was arrested in March this year by ED in an alleged money laundering case in which the agency claimed that he had caused a loss of Rs 870 crore to the exchequer.

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India is third among countries with the largest pictorial warning on tobacco products, according to a report released today.

The report said that India has moved to the third position out of 205 countries from its earlier ranking of 136 in 2014 and 123 in 2012.

"Nepal now has the largest warning requirements in the world at 90 per cent of the package front and back.

Vanuatu will implement 90 per cent pictorial warnings in 2017.

"India and Thailand are tied for third, requiring 85 per cent pictorial warnings.

In the 2014 report, Thailand was top ranked at 85 per cent," the report said.

The Cigarette Package Health Warnings International Status Report was released today by Canadian Cancer Society at the 7th session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), being held at Greater Noida.

The report ranks 205 countries and territories on the size of their health warnings on cigarette packages and lists countries and territories that require graphic picture warnings.

The report shows a significant global momentum towards plain packaging with 4 countries requiring plain packs and 14 working on it.

The report also shows that 105 countries and territories have required picture health warnings on cigarette packages.

"By implementing 85 per cent pictorial health warnings front and back on all tobacco packages, Indian Government has set up an example for making India a global leader and sending a strong message to the global community about India's commitment to reducing tobacco use and the sickness and poverty it causes", said Bhavna B Mukhopadhyay, Chief Executive, Voluntary Health Association of India.

While inaugurating the COP7, Union Health Minister J P Nadda had said that 2016 has been a landmark year for tobacco control activities in India.

"We have successfully implemented, from April 2016, the large pictorial health warnings occupying 85 per cent of the principal display area of tobacco packs and on all forms of tobacco," he had said.

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India has the highest number of pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths among children in the world with nearly 3 lakh children dying in 2016, a new report released ahead of World Pneumonia Day on November 12 said.

The Pneumonia and Diarrhoea Progress Report for 2016 which was released by International Vaccine Access Centre(IVAC), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that the top five countries with highest global burden of child pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths are India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.

"The top 15 countries contributing to the global burden of child pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths were unchanged between 2015 and 2016. These 15 highest burden countries consist of India, Nigeria, Pakistan, DRC, Angola, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Chad, Afghanistan, Niger, China, Sudan, Bangladesh, Somalia, and United Republic of Tanzania," it said.

The report said that only six of the highest-burden countries (Angola, Ethiopia, India, Niger, Sudan and Tanzania) have introduced rotavirus vaccines in their routine immunisation program to help prevent a substantial portion of diarrhoea deaths and hospitalisation.

India introduced rotavirus vaccines in four states in 2015, it said.

"Fifteen years after pneumococcal conjugate vaccines' (PCV) first introduction globally in 2000 (the United States was first to implement the vaccine), five of the highest pneumonia burden countries (India, Indonesia, Chad, China and Somalia) are still not using the vaccine in their routine immunisation programs," the report said.

The Health Ministry recently announced that the PCV that can combat pneumonia, will be rolled out as part of the Universal Immunisation Programme, in a phased manner in Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The report found that some progress has been made in combating pneumonia and diarrhoea among young children in the nations most severely impacted by the two diseases, but they remain responsible for hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths around the world.

In 2015, pneumonia and diarrhoea together led to one of every four deaths globally that occurred in children under five years old.

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IVAC identifies the 15 countries with the greatest number of deaths from pneumonia and diarrhoea among children under the age of five in a given year.

IVAC then uses a scoring method based on the Global Action Plan for the Prevention of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (GAPPD) developed by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

A country's "GAPPD score" measures the use of interventions that protect against, prevent and treat pneumonia and diarrhoea. The higher the score, the more interventions are being used.

"Overall GAPPD scores in 2016 varied widely from a low of 20 per cent (Somalia) to a high of 74 per cent (Tanzania), with all 15 countries falling below the 86 per cent target for the overall GAPPD score.

"Over the past year, some large countries, including Nigeria, DRC, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China had little to no improvement in their GAPPD scores, while others, including India, Angola, Niger, and Bangladesh have made substantial gains," the report said.

"Pneumonia and diarrhoea fly under the radar. These illnesses are so common that many people and organizations fail to recognize the need to step up efforts and identify creative solutions to fight them.

"Although most cases are easily prevented and treated, they often prove deadly when families cannot access basic health services such as vaccines and antibiotic treatment," said Kate O'Brien, professor in the Bloomberg School's Department of International Health and IVAC's executive director.
Hailing the Indian government's decision of demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes, US experts have said the success of this radical anti-corruption step would depend on its implementation.

"This is a surprising and radical policy to get at the core of one of India's problem corruption," Puneet Manchanda, professor of marketing at the Ross School of Business, said.

"The positives are that it signals clear intent and action to minimise corruption. The negatives are that it targets low and mid-level corruption, it is less likely that large-level corruption is heavy on cash," he said.

Markets such as real estate are likely to be slowed due to the lack of liquidity. Thus, it is hard to predict the short term effect, but it can only help in the medium term, he said.

"In order to make this policy maximally effective, the government should continue to roll out other policies to fuel the fight against corruption," Manchanda said.

Vikramaditya Khanna, professor at University of Michigan Law School, said "How effective this measure will be in addressing corruption and unaccounted for money will depend in part on whether the most likely methods of evading it are being policed effectively. Time will only tell but it is a bold move to address a problem plaguing India for many years".

M S Krishnan, associate dean of global initiatives at the Ross School of Business, described this as an excellent move from Indian Government and said, "It will address many challenges they face such as unaccounted black money, corruption and fake currency".

"Over the last several months, government did offer opportunities for citizens to declare their wealth, so it was in the making. In the long run this will make it much easier and cleaner to do business in India," Krishnan said.

Reacting to the Indian government's step, the Obama administration described this as an anti-corruption move.

"It is an anti-corruption measure taken by the Modi government following a series of steps that the government has taken in the past years in an attempt to reduce counterfeit money or black money," State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner told reporters yesterday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 announced the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, making these notes invalid in a major assault on black money, fake currency and corruption.

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Heitkamp will speak at the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum's Veterans Day event to honor the service of North Dakotans who have served in the military. She will underscore the country's commitment to making sure veterans receive the resources and support they earned. The event takes place at 9:45 a.m. Friday at Heritage Center, 612 E. Boulevard Ave.
India will take up the issues concerning IT sector with Donald Trump, who will take over as the new US President in January, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said today.

"We will continue to negotiate with the government there. ..We will certainly at the earliest available moment give a brief and a profile of where our industry is and what is its contribution, particularly the IT sector, in the US economy and I hope that the President-elect will in all fairness (listen to us)," she told reporters here.

She was replying to a question on what impact the policies of the new US administration would have on India's IT sector. Trump during his election campaign expressed concerns about immigration and outsourcing of jobs.

India has time and again raised concerns over the American visa regime and hike in visa fees as it impacts Indian IT industry which earns about 60 per cent of its revenue from that market.

India has also filed a case in the WTO against the US decision to impose high fees on temporary working visas.

She also said that India will wait for the position the new US administration takes on the mega trade deal - Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

India too is a member of similar pact - Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement.

When asked whether there is any plan to relax FDI in e-commerce sector particularly in the business-to-consumer model, she said "no".

However, she said a committee is looking at all the issues related to FDI in the e-commerce sector.

Talking about the issues related with tea, rubber and grapes, the minister said that the ministry is aware of all the matters and is working to help both growers and exporters.

"We are working with them (grape growers) to see see more grapes can be exported. Rubber Board is constantly in touch with the small growers in Kerala. There is more to be done for them," she said.

The ministry is also looking that companies importing rubber, at zero duty under a scheme of exports, should not keep the raw material for long time, she added.

Similarly, in tea sector there are issues related with wages and the ministry is in touch with the West Bengal government on the matter, Sitharaman said.

On the India-EU free trade agreement, Sitharaman said



that India might have to recalibrate its position after UK exit from EU.

She said India is waiting for dates to resume the long- stalled negotiations.

EU-India are negotiating the Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) since June 2007 but are yet to conclude the talks.

When asked about how India is planning to take its issues with the new US administration, she said India is continuously making efforts to resolve all the matters related with investments, visa regulations and totalisation pact.

"We will have to wait (till the new US administration assumes office). I will wait for him (Donald Trump) to take charge and then see how things pan out," she added.
While India is committed to peace, it will use all its "might" to protect the sovereignty of the nation drawing strength from its armed forces, President Pranab Mukherjee said today.

"India's increasing eminence in the comity of nations also draws its strength from the ever increasing capabilities of our armed forces.

"Though we remain firmly committed to peace, we will use all our might to protect the sovereignty of our nation, and I am confident that our valiant men and women in uniform will rise to the occasion to meet the challenges triumphantly," he said.

Mukherjee, the supreme commander of the armed forces, was speaking after presenting the President's Standards to the 501 Signals Unit, based in Barnala, and 30 Squadron, raised in Tezpur, Assam, at the Indian Air Force base here.

The 30 Squadron operates the combat superior Sukhoi-30MKI fighter aircraft to secure Indian skies in times of peace and war. The President's Standards are given to armed forces units which render exceptional and dedicated service over a period of time.

The President said the country's armed forces, exemplified by the air warriors, epitomise "grit and determination" in fulfilling their responsibilities by upholding the highest standards of service ethos.

He praised the Indian Air Force for being at the "cutting edge" of county's military might and for being at the forefront of disaster relief and humanitarian aid operations.

The 30 Squadron of the IAF was raised on November 1, 1969 and at present the unit is located at Pune under the control of South Western Air Command.

The 501 Signals Unit has been entrusted with the responsibility of defending the Punjab Sector against the western adversary.

The unit is located at Barnala in Punjab under the functional control of HQ Western Air Command. The unit commenced operations right from its inception in 1966.

In the 1971 Indo-Pak War, the unit proved its mettle by providing uninterrupted surveillance and tactical control over air defence weapons in the Punjab sector.

The President asked both the IAF units decorated today to "uphold their rich traditions" and operate as a formidable fighting force in the years to come.

A display by the famed helicopter-borne 'Surya Kiran' acrobatics team and other drills by IAF soldiers was conducted during the event.

Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Sonaki, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Health Minister Anil Vij, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha and Air Marshal SB Deo were among those present on the occasion.

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"The current level of financing of innovation based startups is only about a couple of thousand technology based startups every year. How do we, therefore, increase the appetite for innovations in public and private financing institutions...Simultaneously, how do we encourage technology students to choose the risky path of entrepreneurship," he said.

The President appreciated the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) who have teamed up with NABARD and SIDBI to enrich the inclusive innovation ecosystem.

"Both these institutions, NABARD and SIDBI, are providing invaluable back up support to small entrepreneurs," he said.
Several Indian-Americans, who had campaigned intensively and raised millions of dollars for Hillary Clinton, are disappointed at the "shock defeat" of the Democratic candidate who was highly popular among the community members.

"This is a stunning result. We never expected this. I thought we would hold Pennsylvania and North Carolina," Shekar Narasimhan, one of the major fundraisers for the Clinton Campaign who had campaigned intensively in various Swing States in addition to his home state Virginia, said yesterday.

A few days before the general election, he and his team of volunteers were doing door-to-door campaigning in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

"Let us pray that (US President-elect) Donald Trump has the wisdom to lead. We are not going anywhere and will continue to organise and fight for our rights and for the under-privileged," Narasimhan said.

"Like millions of Americans, I am disappointed at the results," said Ajay Jain Bhutoria, a major fund raiser for the Clinton Campaign.

Based in Silicon Vally, he had flown to New York this week in anticipation of victory of his presidential candidate.

"As a strong Clinton supporter, this is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, and I am at shock we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country," said Bhutoria.

"The election results are unbelievable and unsettling for many," said Rajwant Singh, who had been campaigning in Pennsylvania and other battleground States for the election.

"There is a great deal of concern among minorities and especially among people of colour. Trump's rhetoric throughout the campaign has made many racial and religious minorities very nervous and this election outcome has shocked them further," said Singh, adding that the Clinton campaign certainly missed measuring the success of Trump among the rural White folks and in the 'Rust Belt' states.

There are people who are frustrated with the slow recovery of the economy after the meltdown in 2007, he said.

"The Clinton campaign failed to assuage their feelings of insecurity but overall, the Clinton campaign had an inclusive agenda which was supported by communities from every corner of the country," Singh said.

Before the elections, polls had predicted that more than 70 per cent of the Indian-Americans preferred Clinton over Trump. But on the polling day, sentiments prevailing on the ground even in string Democratic strongholds like Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey indicated that the Trump Campaign had managed to make a dent into their Indian-American vote bank.

"People have spoken. We have been hearing and feeling them. What a victory!!," Dr Pawan Rattan from Florida, a lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump, said.

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One of the oldest employees of the Indian High Commission in the UK passed away in London today.

Maureen Travis, who took on secretarial work at India House in 1948 and went on to take charge of the library under 25 high commissioners over the years, had carried on working well into her 90s.

"It's hard to imagine India House without Maureen. She has been part of the history of India House from its very inception, and her passing away will leave a vacuum that can never be filled," said Dinesh Patnaik, acting high commissioner of India to the UK.

Travis described the High Commission's library, stocked with over 20,000 books and journals, as "love's labour".

She began by dividing time between her work in the education department and the library until 1956, when she shifted entirely to the latter.

"India came to me through its people and the books," she was quoted as saying.

Travis, among the few local British staff employed at the mission, served under all Indian high commissioners to the UK - starting with V K Krishna Menon, the first Indian envoy posted to the UK after independence.

"I was young then and quote nervous. Krishna Menon was a very kind and soft spoken person," the librarian had said a few years ago.

Travis was much loved by the staff of India House over her 68 years of employment in the historic building.

While she was to never visit India, it was clear she knew all about the country having read every book in the India House library.

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Infosys Foundation today announced it has signed an MoU with the Inter-University Centre of Astronomy and Astrophysics through an endowment of Rs 6.5 crore to build a novel and powerful instrument called Wide Area Linear Optical Polarimeter (WALOP).

According to the Memorandum of Understanding, the endowment will also be used to boost support for international travel, post-doctorate fellowships and thematic workshops among researchers of IUCAA, said a statement from the Foundation -- the philanthropic arm of Infosys.

IUCAA is an autonomous institution of the University Grants Commission to promote nucleation and growth of active groups in astronomy and astrophysics at Indian universities.

Through the partnership, Infosys Foundation intends to provide impetus to IUCAA's objective of developing a number of advanced and unique instruments for astronomy, the statement said.

WALOP, the instrument that the endowment will support, is currently at the design stage at IUCAA's instrumentation laboratory. It will be used to measure polarization caused by interstellar dust and map the distribution of dust in the Milky Way.

The instrument's uniqueness is in the combined strengths of very wide field polarimetry, high sensitivity and single shot measurement ability, the statement said.

Sudha Murty, Chairperson of Infosys Foundation, said, historically, ancient Indian scientists like Varahamira and Aryabhatta contributed immensely to the field of astronomy.

"The Foundation is excited to collaborate with IUCAA, an institute dedicated to the study of Astronomy and Astrophysics, in their endeavour of developing a new instrument that will greatly benefit the research community," she said.

Subsequent to funding from Infosys Foundation, IUCAA has been successful in garnering funding for the project from reputed international organizations such as the National Science Foundation of USA, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation of Greece and National Research Foundation of South Africa.

"The instrument proposal has gone through reviews in four continents starting with Infosys Foundation in India and has succeeded in all of them. We thank Infosys Foundation to be the first to recognize our proposal worthy of funding which has enabled us to develop the breakthrough technology needed for building this instrument and carry out potentially transformational scientific ventures," said Prof. A N Ramaprakash, Principal Investigator of the project, IUCAA.

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Islamic State and al-Qaeda jihadists have 'hailed' Donald Trump's win in presidential polls as the beginning of "dark times" for the US with some extremists predicting America's "demise" at the hands of the billionaire businessman, according to media reports.

Shortly after Trump was declared the victor, a number of prominent ideologues linked to jihadist outfits in the Middle East took to social media to cheer the prospect of a Trump presidency, The Washington Post reported.

Social-media sites associated with both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda hailed Trump's success as the beginning of "dark times" for the United States, marked by domestic unrest and new foreign military campaigns that would sap the strength of the American superpower, the report said.

"Rejoice...And find glad tidings in the imminent demise of America at the hands of Trump," Islamic State-affiliated Al-Minbar Jihadi Media network was quoted as saying.

The remarks of jihadists signaled their apparent belief that the victory of a candidate like Trump, who has suggested blocks on Muslim immigration and advocated torture, undermines the US' moral standing in the world.

"Trump's win of the American presidency will bring hostility of Muslims against America as a result of his reckless actions, which show the overt and hidden hatred against them," said an essay, provided by the SITE Intelligence group, a private organisation that monitors jihadists' web sites.

Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, on Twitter said, "AQ (al-Qaeda) & ISIS supporters on election: Trump exposes US' hatred of Muslims, will contribute to America/West's downfall -- likening to brexit."



She quoted pro-al-Qaeda accounts on social media as saying, "On 9-11, US struck with disaster at the hands of AQ (al-Qaeda). On 11-9, US struck with disaster at the hands of their own voters."



"Jihadists warn that Trump will unite the mujahideen; Announce: 'Bring it on, Donald'; 'The mujahideen are ready!'," another tweet by Katz said.

A pro-al-Qaeda al-Maqalaat Twitter account predicted that Trump would "make the US Enemy No.1 again," in the Muslim Middle East.

"Trump will serve as the perfect straw man for the next four years, like Bush did before him," it said.

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a jihadist ideologue linked to al-Qaeda, gloated about Trump's victory, suggesting that it "may be the beginning of America's fragmentation and the era of its breakup," according to the Post.

Just ahead of polls, the Islamic State terror group had called for "slaughter" of American voters on election day and urged Muslims not to participate in the democratic process.

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Former Union Minister and IUML



national president E Ahamed has been admitted to a hospital at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia following illness, his office said today.

The 78-year-old Ahamed, who was in Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah, complained breathing problem and was taken to King Fahad Hospital yesterday, his office said in a release here.

The condition of Ahamed, who is currently in the ICU, is better now, one of his close associates said.

The Lok Sabha MP has been advised a week long rest by doctors attending him.

The IUML leader, who served as Minister of State for External Affairs in the previous UPA government, represents Malappuram constituency in the Lok Sabha.

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Bollywood actor John Abraham is all set to enter the Marathi film industry as a producer with a film which will go on floors next year.

The "Dishoom" actor has roped in directorSwapna Waghmare Joshi, who has currently helmed "Fugay".

"I am doing my first (Marathi) production with Swapna. We are hopefully starting in March. It is a fantastic script. I am really lucky to be working with her. I am very excited for that," the actor told reporters here last night.

John said the Marathi film industry is coming out with top quality content, something which the Hindi film industry should learn.

"Marathi cinema is the most superior cinema today. I just hope it doesn't reach a point where it starts getting corrupted. We need to see the balance, though this happens in every industry...," he said.

"Hindi films should learn from Marathi, even Malayalam films, because the content in their films is far superior than ours. We need to borrow this kind of talent to make great cinema in Hindi," the actor said.

He was speaking at the trailer launch of the Marathi film "Fugay".

The moviestars Swwapnil Joshi and Subodh Bhave in lead roles. "Fugay" is scheduled to release this December.

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Music video director Jonas Akerlund has been tapped to shoot a biopic about late rocker Johnny Thunders.

Beyonce's "Lemonade" collaborator will take charge of the film adaptation of Nina Antonia's authorised biography, "Johnny Thunders in Cold Blood", which was released in 1987, and the author is excited to work with Akerlund.

"Rock n' Roll movies are always something of an awkward beast to nail," a statement issued by Antonia, who helped to pen the screenplay, read.

"Do you get an insider or an outsider to direct? Finally we got both in Jonas Akerlund."



Casting details have yet to be announced, but production is expected to begin in early 2017, reported TheWrap.

Antonia's book chronicled the New York Dolls founder's rise to fame, as well as the guitarist's infamous struggle with substance abuse, and his mysterious death in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1991.

He was thought to have died of drug-related causes, having suffered numerous overdoses, but his official cause of death was listed as "unknown".

Akerlund made his name by working on music videos with the likes of Madonna, Christina Aguilera, U2, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga, while the Swede also directed Madonna's documentary "I'm Going to Tell You a Secret" and took charge of her concert special "The Confessions Tour: Live from London."



He made his feature-length film debut with 2002's "Spun," which featured Jason Schwartzman, Mickey Rourke, and John Leguizamo.

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State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler convened a meeting of her new group of Student Cabinet members Thursday.

Twenty students from schools throughout the state, ranging from fourth grade to freshmen in college, spent the day at the Capitol discussing educational policy and school experience.

And the students didn't hold back when it came to talking about what they liked and didn't like at their schools, such as a lack of Advanced Placement courses and having "flex times" in their school schedules.

This isnt a fluff type of group, neither was the first Student Cabinet. This is a group that was brought together to intently discuss policy, budget and goals for K-12 education in North Dakota," Baesler said.

In April 2015, Baesler formed the first Student Cabinet as a way for the Department of Public Instruction to hear directly from students, just as it does teachers, school administrators and parents. Cabinet members serve for 18 months.

Im extremely pleased, because the conversation we had this morning has been very meaningful. Its been very substantive," Baesler said.

Dawson Schefter, a senior at Langdon Area High School in Cavalier County, who served on the inaugural Student Cabinet, said he'd like to talk about opportunities for students to take AP classes or enroll in dual-credit courses. At his school, there aren't any AP classes and only one dual-credit course is offered, he said.

Cabinet member Peyton Cole, a freshman at the University of North Dakota, who served with the first group of students, said she appreciated the opportunity for younger and older students to share their experiences and hopes to continue that this year.

"It was really cool. I learned a lot, and it was really eye-opening to hear everyone's perspective," Cole said.

At the cabinet's first meeting Thursday, Baesler and members discussed changes in education at the state and federal level, including rewriting math and English standards to replace Common Core and the new Every Student Succeeds Act.

Students set the agenda for their next meetings and will meet four times per year.

On Thursday, students also toured the Capitol and talked about other education bills in the afternoon.

Student Cabinet applicants had to submit letters of recommendation and answer a series of questions, including a question on what they believed to be top issues students face. Those students were evaluated and selected by a group of people outside the state superintendent's office.

Baesler said she told those evaluating the applications that she wanted a diverse group.

I dont want all just National Honors Society kids," she said. "And I want to make sure that Im hearing what isnt going so well, and I appreciate their ability to share with me the positive things that are going on in their schools, and then also the items that they have concerns about."

Cabinet members include 11 females and nine males from Abercrombie, Bismarck, Dickinson, Ellendale, Fargo, Hazen, Langdon, Mandan, Minot, Mohall, Oakes, Park River, Parshall, Watford City, West Fargo and Williston.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today asked the political parties in Punjab to respect the Supreme Court's decision on the Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal (SYL) and not give political colour to the issue in the view of forthcoming elections there.

Talking to reporters here, he expressed hope that the "decision would be amicably implemented".

Asked about Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal's statement that he would not allow even a single drop of SYL water to Haryana and is ready to make any sacrifice, Khattar said such acts should not be done in federal system.

"Our's being a federal system, the decision of Supreme Court should be accepted by rising above politics," he added.

Asked about reports of resignation of few Congress leaders of Punjab, including Amarinder Singh from his Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, he said as the assembly elections are approaching in Punjab, the parties are trying to give political colour to the issue of SYL which should not be done.

He said the decision of the apex court would not affect the interest of Punjab.

In reply to a question, Khattar said that this is not the question of BJP-ruled state but it is a matter of distribution of water between the states.

He said Punjab and Rajasthan were already getting their share of water from Ravi-Beas waters but Haryana was deprived off its legitimate share of water.

"But after this decision, we would get 3.5 MAF of water as our share," he said, adding especially for parched land in southern Haryana through SYL.

Asked about the possibility of any tension which might mount in the region following the judgment, he said neither there is any such situation nor we would allow disruption of peace in the state.

He said now after this SC decision would go to the President of India after which it is expected that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 passed by the Punjab Assembly would be nullified and thereafter this judgment would be implemented.

Khattar said the state government fast tracked the hearing on presidential reference which had been pending in the Supreme Court for the last 12 years.

"Today, the Supreme Court has announced its decision in favour of Haryana and he welcomes it," he said.

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Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar welcomed Supreme Court's decision today to hold as "unconstitutional" the 2004 law passed by Punjab to terminate the SYL canal water sharing agreement with neighbouring states.

"I welcome the Supreme Court verdict. It is natural justice," he told reporters here.

In its judgement the apex court made it clear that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, was "unconstitutional" and Punjab could not have taken an "unilateral" decision to terminate the water sharing agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.

"The Supreme Court has given its decision on this vital issue after 12 years and it is a result of the persistent efforts made by the present state government," he claimed.

This judgement has brought smile on the face of every Haryanvi because the state would get its legitimate share of surplus water of 3.5 million acre feet (MAF) from the Ravi-Beas River, he said.

"People have been eagerly waiting for this decision since long but it was kept lingering because of laxity by previous governments," the Chief Minister alleged, adding it was gift to the people on Haryana's golden jubilee year.

The Supreme Court judgement was in favour of Haryana on four points for which Presidential Reference was sought.

Elaborating, Khattar said, "These points included whether the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 and its provision were in accordance with the Constitution of India. If the Act and its provisions were in accordance with Section 14 of Inter-State Water Disputes Act 1956, Section 78 of the Punjab Re-organization Act 1966 and a notification issued in 1976 there under."



"Besides, if Punjab has validly terminated the agreement dated December 31, 1981 and all agreements related to the Ravi-Beas waters and has discharged from its obligation under the said agreements," he said.

The points also included whether in view of the Act, Punjab is discharged from its obligations flowing from the judgement and decree dated January 1, 2002 and judgement and order dated June 4, 2004 of the Supreme Court, he added.

The Haryana Assembly had recently unanimously passed a resolution condemning Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's statement that Punjab and its residents will not accept any verdict against the state's interest on river waters.

On November 1, in his 'Punjabi Suba' address, Badal had said the state was ever ready to make any sacrifice to safeguard its legitimate share of river waters.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi government has given the nod to police to book those arrested for running a kidney racket at a private hospital here in June under the Transplantation Of Human Organs Act.

The Delhi Police had in August written a letter to the Secretary of the Health department requesting permission to prosecute the accused in the case under the Act.

The response to the letter sanctioning prosecution came around 20 days ago. The relevant sections under the Act will be added to the supplementary chargesheet, sources said.

The delay was due to the change of the Health Secretary.

With the arrest of five persons, including the personal secretaries of a neurologist in Apollo Hospital, police had in June unearthed the kidney trading racket. It used to lure poor people across several states to sell their kidney off and also hound for people desperately looking out for kidney for transplant.

They allegedly forged documents to establish relationship between the donors and the recipients in order to adhere to the law. They used to charge Rs 40-50 lakh from the recipients, of which not even 10 per cent reached the donors.

Police had in September filed a 1000-page chargesheet in the case against 17 accused including the racket's alleged kingpin T Rajkumar Rao, personal assistants of senior doctors at Apollo Hospital, donors and some recipients.

They had arrested 13 accused by the end of July, while four others surrendered before a court in August.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The kin of a 22-year-old youth, who was killed in a road accident in November, 2010, will receive a compensation of Rs 45 lakhs, the district Motor Accident Claims Tribunal has ruled.

Principal District Judge and chairman of MACT, S M Gavhane, in his recent order directed owner of a three-wheeler, which was involved in the mishap, and an insurance company to jointly pay the compensation to the parents of the deceased, Abhishek Tiwari, a resident Badlapur here.

Appearing on behalf of claimants, advocate V K Singh told the tribunal that Abhishek worked as a SAP consultant with a private firm in Mhape, Navi Mumbai.

On November 26, 2010, while travelling to his office in morning, a tempo, being driven negligently, dashed into Abhishek's bike from behind near Nevali in Ambernath, injuring him severely, the counsel said, adding that he succumbed the same day.

His parents, Jitendra Tiwari and Sumitra in their submission told the Judge that their son drew a salary of Rs 30,000 per month and had good future prospects.

They filed a claim of Rs 51 lakhs.

Owner of the tempo Rajit Khan did not not appear before the tribunal, and hence, the matter was decided ex-parte against him.

The judge rejected the arguments of the insurance company and held that the accident occurred due to the negligence of the tempo driver.

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The Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child rights today asked government to quash an order fixing income limit of parents for getting education allowance for their children studying in special schools.

The Commission asked the government to quash the order issued by the Public Education Department in this regard, a Commission release said here.

It is discriminatory and illegal to fix income limit for providing education allowances to students with any type of disability, the Commission said.

The Commission also wanted the government to inform the steps taken in this regard within 45 days.

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A Syrian Kurdish-led force fighting the Islamic State group north of the country are on the verge of surrounding a wide area north of the IS stronghold of Raqqa, according to a spokeswoman for group.

Cihan Ehmed of the US-backed Syria Democratic Forces told The Associated Press on Thursday that its fighters are advancing on two fronts north of Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS' self-declared caliphate.

The push from Ein Issa and Suluk north of Raqqa has been ongoing for days under the cover of airstrikes by the US-led coalition.

The US-backed SDF, which includes Kurdish, Arab, Syriac and Turkmen fighters, say they have committed 30,000 fighters to the offensive aiming to eventual recapture the city of Raqqa, which was announced on Sunday.

Iraq is meanwhile waging a major offensive to drive IS from the northern city of Mosul.

Ehmed said once the forces coming from the two directions meet north of Raqqa, they will surround 550 square kilometers (212 square miles) of territory controlled by the extremists.

"The operations are ongoing according to the plan," she said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said many people are fleeing areas of fighting north of Raqqa.

It added that SDF fighters have advanced north of Raqqa, capturing new areas and raising to 17 the number of villages and farms taken from IS since the offensive began.

Later today, the SDF said on social media that its fighters have captured three farms, a village, and have approached the village of Hayes where intense clashes are ongoing.

The operation to recapture Raqqa has been dubbed "Euphrates Rage" and a joint operations command has been set up to coordinate various factions taking part in the battles.

Elsewhere in Syria, a rocket fired by rebels struck a school in the capital Damascus' central al-Mohajireen neighborhood wounding three children, state media said without providing further details.

In the rebel-held Damascus suburbs of Douma and Saqba, government airstrikes killed at least 11 civilians, including four children and three women, according to the Syrian Civil Defense in Damascus suburbs. The Observatory also said 11 were killed, but said they included four women.

In the northern city of Aleppo, seven people were wounded, some critically, when rebels shelled two government-held neighborhoods, state agency SANA said.

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Notwithstanding waiting in a long queue outside the banks since early morning, people in many parts of West Bengal were seen taking selfie with the new Rs 2,000 currency notes even as others complained of the hardships they faced to exchange the now-invalid currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.

In Beliaghata area in the state capital, many stood in long queue in front of a nationalised bank to exchange old currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 besides depositing and withdrawing money.

On the rush for depositing and withdrawing money, a person, who had been waiting in the queue since 8 AM, said there were apprehensions that there might not be adequate supply of new notes, which was refuted by bank authorities.

Bank officials said it would take some time to complete formalities for exchanging money but assured that there is adequate supply of notes.

Amid a large number of people thronging the banks, some suggested that the banks should have given tokens to save time.

"In that case we would not have to stand in queue for long, we could have done other works. Then there are old people also in the queue," said a person who had been waiting in the queue since early morning.

After withdrawing money from a bank here, some people were seen taking selfie with the new Rs 2,000 currency notes.

Despite facing hardships, some people welcomed the Centre's move to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes.

There was an incident of minor scuffle in front of a bank in Howrah over entering the bank premises.

Banks have been asked to be open on weekends including Sunday to deal with the situation. The ATMs will resume functioning from tomorrow but there is a limit of withdrawal of Rs 2,000 per day which is expected to be increased in coming week.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Serpentine queues were seen outside banks here, which opened today after a day's break following the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, as people jostled to get lower denomination currency and new banknotes to pay for their daily basic needs.

Mumbaikars started queueing up as early as 6 AM in the morning, nearly 3-4 hours before the banks open.

Several bank officials said most of the branches were witnessing unprecedented huge rush and therefore, they have sought the deployment of police personnel to deter any unwarranted circumstances.

The customers, however, seemed frustrated with some banks exchanging only Rs 2,000 with Rs 100 notes.

"I was in queue for four hours to exchange Rs 4,000. But unfortunately I was permitted only Rs 2,000 to be exchanged that too with Rs 100 denomination," said Ashwin Kadam, who stood in queue since 6 AM at the Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative Bank limited branch in suburban Vikhroli.

Clarifying on the issue, an executive of the bank said, "We are facing liquidity crisis. As and when the RBI supplies us sufficient notes we would start disbursing the notes with full permissible limit".

He also said that they have opened additional counters and cancelled the leaves of the staff to meet the demands.

The RBI has ordered all the banks across the country to work on this Saturday and Sunday also to serve the people.

Some customers who approached post office branches were seen displeased as they were unable to exchange the now defunct currency notes.

Some people were also miffed with the exchange limit of Rs 4,000.

Venting out her disappointment, Pramodini Naik, a housewife, said, "It seems we have to spend five to six hours daily for one month or two months to exchange the notes. This is really disgusting. Banning black money is ok, but certainly not this way".

Meanwhile, some banks issued SMS on cell phones to inform their customers regarding the process to be followed to deposit the notes.

"Special squads of RBI officials are conducting random checks in the bank branches and keeping a tab on the developments," a senior official of Union Bank of India told PTI.

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People in Delhi continued to face difficulties in paying for household items, essential commodities and vegetables as they ran out of savings of small currencies while it was tough to get cash from banks which opened after a day's break, due to huge rush and long queues.

While serpentine queues were witnessed at banks across the city where people thronged to exchange Rs 500 and Rs 1000 for new currency, some of the banks ran out of cash. In many areas, people were seen queueing up outside banks even before they opened for business.

"First I had to wait for four hours to get new currency of Rs 4000 then I still could not buy anything because I just had two notes of Rs 2000. As the lower currency notes are available in limited quantity nobody could give me change," Bharti Raghav, a housewife said.

The city has been witnessing chaos and anxiety since Tuesday night after government announced to withdraw Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

People are particularly facing difficulties in buying milk, vegetables, medicines and other daily essentials and in commuting in auto-rickshaws and taxis.

Citizens in many areas were seen fuming over having to wait in long queues in banks and ATMs for hours on a working day.

Security was also beefed up in banks in view of the rush of people. As many 3,400 personnel of paramilitary and Delhi Police along with quick reaction teams have been deployed across the national capital for maintaining security in banks.

"Despite having money with us, we are struggling for basic necessities as grocery stores, vegetable vendors and other stores are not accepting Rs 500/1000 notes. I had to take leave from office to exchange notes as there is such a long queue that my turn will not come before another 3-4 hours," said Kumkum Bhargav, a primary school teacher.

Kunal Bhardwaj, a TCS employee said, "Those who have blackmoney will anyway find methods to get away. It is common man who will suffer. Now we have no option other than waiting in queues as there is no money for basic things as well".

Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement to withdraw the high denomination notes, the banks were ordered to remain closed yesterday to realign and reload new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 currency.

Banks have been asked to be open on weekends including Sunday to deal with the situation. The ATMs will resume functioning from tomorrow but there is a limit of withdrawal of Rs 2000 per day which is expected to be increased in coming week.

Banks have been asked to be open on weekends including Sunday to deal with the situation. The ATMs will resume functioning from tomorrow but there is a limit of withdrawal of Rs 2000 per day which is expected to be increased in coming week.

Major markets and shopping complexes reported marginal trading due to shortage of cash.

"There are around 9 lakh small traders in the city who have been hit directly by withdrawal of the notes. All the major markets including Chandni Chowk, Sadar, Lajpat Nagar, Sarojini Nagar, Khan Market, Khari Baoli have been affected as buyers have no money to spend," said Brijesh Goyal, convener of Chamber of Trade and Industry.

Traders in various markets complained that either there were no customers and those who were coming to buy things were bringing Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes which are "useless" now.

"Nearly 80 per cent of the market including grocery, garment, transport, bullion, hotels and restaurants and other businesses have been hit. Work has stopped at all the markets with traders preferring to sit at home and wait for situation to normalise," Goyal said.

Transporters in the city also expressed concerns that the plying of trucks on the road will be hit soon as cash is not available in adequate quantity in the market.

"Maximum withdrawal limit is Rs 10,000 which is inadequate to meet the expense of plying a single truck on the road. What will happen to those transporters who have larger number of trucks. The transport of goods between Delhi and other parts of the country is likely to severely hit in coming days," said Rajender Kapur, president of Delhi Goods Transport Organisation.
The Centre has accepted Maharashtra government's request to allow Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 bills for payment of electricity bill, water bill, property tax or any kind of government dues, thus easing troubles of the common man in wake of the demonetisation of high denomination notes.

"One more step by the state government for citizens' convenience. The Government of India accepts the state government's request to further help citizens by allowing Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes for payment of electricity bill, water bill, property tax or any kind of government dues," Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in a tweet today.

He said this will be implemented with immediate effect and remain in force till tomorrow midnight.

Yesterday too, the chief minister in a bid to soothe the people, had tweeted urging them not to panic as they can get the currency notes, discontinued by the government, replaced when banks reopen on Friday.

"There is a time period given, so don't panic and crowd the ATMs and bank branches," he had said.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision is revolutionary. There is no reason to panic. Let's all together fight this war against corruption and black money," the CM had said.

He had also asked the people to continue with their daily routine and said that common man need not worry as the money earned through legal means is safe.

(REOPENS BES13)



Meanwhile, activists lauded Fadnavis for approval of his government's request by the Centre to allow Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes for payment of electricity bill, water bill, property tax or any kind of government dues.

RTI activist Anil Galgali, said, "I had requested the CM to allow people to pay bills with scrapped notes and this is really a citizen friendly initiate from the Maharashtra Chief Minister".
Large Republican majorities in both state chambers will place the onus on party members to produce results, according to Republican leaders in the wake of the legislative gains made in Tuesday's election.

Winning has consequences. Its our responsibility to govern now, said North Dakota Republican Party Chairman Kelly Armstrong, who described the victories as impressive and humbling.

On the other hand, Democrats found themselves licking their wounds, wondering how their efforts to rebuild through the Legislature failed.

Its no easy task being a Democrat in North Dakota. Today we are down, but not out. Tomorrow we will rededicate ourselves to the task of building an even stronger, more prosperous North Dakota for all," Daniel Tick, communications director of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, said in a statement.

The Republicans flipped seven state Senate seats and lost one, for a net gain of six seats. In the North Dakota House, the Republicans flipped 11 seats but lost one of their own, for a net gain of 10.

It was the partys largest gain in an election since taking 11 House seats and nine Senate seats in 2010.

Lawmakers take office Dec. 1. When they return to Bismarck to begin their session in January, the Republicans will have a House majority of 81-13 and a Senate majority of 38-9.

Tuesdays results leave Democrats with their fewest legislative seats in both chambers in several decades. North Dakota Legislative Council data going back to 1957 show the Democrats will account for the smallest number of senators since the party held only six seats in the 1969 session. The partys House numbers will be at their lowest since 1957.

I think it begins and ends with our candidates. They worked and worked and worked and worked, Armstrong said of the party's campaigning efforts.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumps upset victory Tuesday night produced a wave election, which the North Dakota GOP took advantage of with a strong ground game and candidate slate, according to Armstrong.

The party will be faced with crafting a sustainable budget after addressing a $1.4 billion budget shortfall this year, and Gov.-elect Doug Burgum will need to work on finding a solution to the Dakota Access Pipeline protest movement thats been going on for months in Morton County.

This is not a time to get arrogant. This is not a time to think we have all the answers. This is time to roll up our sleeves and get to work, said Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner, R-Dickinson. The onus is on us. We need to make sure were investigating every issue so we know that were making a good decision.

Wardner cautioned that, with a larger caucus, party members will need to be sure they include all members in the decision-making process. Democrats deserve attention and respect despite their diminished numbers, he said.

We dont have probably as many people in the minority to keep us straight, Wardner said. We just need to keep focused on whats best for the people of North Dakota.

North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party Chairwoman Kylie Oversen said the partys leadership will need to do some soul-searching and have some difficult discussions in the coming weeks.

Obviously, were very disappointed with the results we saw across the state and across the country. People are not happy with where things are at right now. We need to take that seriously," said Oversen, a state representative from Grand Forks who was among those defeated Tuesday.

Senate Minority Leader Mac Schneider, of Grand Forks, is in Oversens district and was also ousted.

Its pretty clear looking at the numbers that our folks didnt show up as they have in the past, said Schneider, describing the party at a very low ebb, but still ready to fight. He expects what remains of the partys caucus to continue next session as they grapple with how to reverse their poor fortunes of recent years.

Theyre going to do what they always do with the majority: work with them where they can and voice opposition when they need to, Schneider said.
Kerala-based Malabar Group, which is a leader in gold business with Malabar Gold & Diamonds, is entering the realty business with Rs 10,000 crore worth commercial and residential projects, including townships, to be developed over the next three years.

The group, through its realty arm Malabar Developers, will raise funds from investors, including the NRIs and banks to develop commercial and residential properties across the South in the first phase and then into the Northern and Western markets over the next five years.

Malabar Group chairman MP Ahammed told PTI that debt will not be too high as the company already has over 1,000 investors and the debt-equity ratio will not be more than 1:1.

Malabar Developers currently has a land bank of 200 acres spread in three states - Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka -- with over 2 million sqft of ongoing projects and more than 16 million sqft of upcoming projects.

"Our biggest township project on 120 acres is already underway in Kozhikode, called Malabar Marina Convention Centre and township. We also have a 30-acre project coming up in Thrissur and the biggest mall project in Thiruvananthapuram on a 20-acre plot. The Kozhikode project on completion will be worth around Rs 5,000 crore," Ahammed said.

Other ongoing projects include the Rs 2,000-crore hitech township in Thrissur in central Kerala, a township in Mangalore, a 0.4 million sqft 'Mall of Travancore' in Thiruvananthapuram.

On the land-bank the company has, he said apart from around 200 acres in Kerala, the company already has a 30-acre plot in Mangalore and are scouting for joint venture partners in Mysore, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The next phase will have the company spreading out to Maharashtra, Andhra and Telangana, Ahammed said.

When asked about the reason for diversification, he said the company has conducted a strategic survey through the global consultant E&Y which shows that townships and standalone



Premium residential projects have large scope as 90 per cent of the homeowners are looking for upgrades.

"We have prepared a roadmap to emerge as one of the biggest real estate players in the country by 2020 by developing commercial business clusters, shopping malls, convention centres, affordable housing, technology hubs and integrated townships" said Ahammed.

The group has also firmed up plans for budget homes in major cities. "Our plan is to construct luxury villas and affordable budget homes across the main cities in the country over the next five years. We are in the process of tying up for joint ventures at the national level," he added.

Malabar Developers also announced the signing of Mollywood actor Dulquer Salmaan as its brand ambassador. Malabar Gold, one of the top five global players in the segment, has 156 showrooms across nine countries.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 26-year-old man was booked today for allegedly raping a 30-year-old woman under the pretext of marriage and making her abort, police said.

According to Oshiwara police, Abhay Vats, a resident of suburban Andheri, came in contact with the woman through social media in 2013 and has been in relationship with her since then.

Vats kept physical relations with the woman promising to marry her, following which she became pregnant recently, police said.

However, Vats made her undergo abortion, saying if the baby is allowed to born it may affect their careers.

When the woman asked him about marriage again, Vats allegedly started ignoring her, following which she lodged complaint with police.

No arrest has been made in the case as police are yet to trace Vats.

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A gas leak at a Carlsberg brewery in central England has left one man dead and 22 people requiring hospital treatment, police and the Danish company said.

Julian Momen, chief executive officer of Carlsberg UK, said the company was "deeply saddened" by the incident yesterday lunchtime at the Northampton brewery.

Eleven of those hospitalised were working on site, including a 51-year-old man who is in a "serious but stable condition", according to police.

Eleven members of the emergency services were also taken to hospital following the incident, which is under investigation.

"Police have confirmed the gas leak is confined to the Carlsberg UK site and the emergency services do not believe there to be any wider risk to members of the public outside of the site," Momen said in a statement late Wednesday.

He added: "Nothing is more important to us than the safety of everyone working for us.

"We are working closely with the authorities to investigate how this tragic incident occurred and we will be in a position to say more once a full investigation has been concluded."



Momen said the company would support the family of the victim, a man in his 40s, in "every way we can".

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A 25-year-old man was arrested for allegedly robbing a security firm personnel of over Rs 14 lakh when he was on his way to deposit the money in a bank at Koregaon in Satara district today, police said.

However, what the accused, identified as Adhik Pawar, did not know that the bag containing the cash was in denominations of Rs 500 and 1000 which were scrapped recently.

The incident occurred in afternoon when Vitthal Pawar, a staffer with a private security firm, withdrew over Rs 14 lakh cash in old currency from an ATM in Koregaon and was heading towards the State Bank of India bank to deposit them, a senior police officer said.

Vitthal's firm was tasked with withdrawing old currency notes from the specified ATM and deposit them in SBI branch in Koregaon.

"As Vitthal reached one intersection, he was waylaid by the accused, who pushed the complainant on the floor and fled with the bag containing the cash worth Rs 14 lakh," said Local Crime branch senior police inspector Padmakar Ghanvat.

On the basis of description, the accused was identified and arrested in evening. He is a resident of Koregaon.

A case of robbery was registered against him on the basis of the complaint lodged with police by the security firm personnel.

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To promote beekeeping in Manipur, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh today announced setting up of an integrated beekeeping development centre at the central agriculture university here.

"There is tremendous potential for beekeeping in North Eastern states. Therefore, National Bee Board and Ministry of Agriculture have decided to set up an Integrated Bee Keeping Development Centre (IBDC) in Central Agriculture University, Imphal, Manipur," Singh said after inaugurating the Regional Agriculture Fair organised in Central Agriculture University.

The centre will focus on promoting and developing beekeeping sector in Manipur and will assist farmers in this endeavour, he said in a statement.

The minister also stressed on bringing down post harvest losses and better management of crop residue using latest technologies.

To provide online details about agri courses and varsities, Singh said an integrated information management system is being developed for all agri varsities in India. Also, a national database of students is being worked out.

"This system will be examined in the first phase for Central Agriculture University, Imphal and National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal. Thereafter, the information system will be linked with rest of the universities and educational institutes," Singh said.

The Minister mentioned that the Centre is implementing a number of agri-related programmes in this region while keeping in view the potentialities of organic farming.

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Many prominent Indian-Americans could be part of Donald Trump's administration, a senior Republican leader has said, asserting that the president-elect has a "history of hiring the best talent".

With Trump kicking off the process of building a formidable team to help him run the country beginning January 20 next year, Harmeet Kaur Dhillon, who holds the position of Republican National Committee's National Committeewoman, said the 70-year-old tycoon will look for the best available talent for his administration.

"Trump has a history of hiring the best talent. I fully expect to see many prominent Indian-Americans in the new administration," said Dhillon, who is the highest ranking Indian-American in the Republican Party, on Wednesday.

Ronald Regan was the first US president to appoint an Indian-American in his administration. Outgoing US President Barack Obama has the distinction of appointing a record number of more than 75 Indian-Americans in his administration.

The Trump transition team headed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has not indicated anything on the selection process, but Trump in his victory speech said that he was looking for the best available talent in the country to work in his administration.

"I will harness the creative talents of our people and we will call upon the best and brightest to leverage their tremendous talent for the benefit of all. It's going to happen," Trump told his supporters in New York.

A recent Pew research report said that Indian-Americans had the highest number of engineers and medical doctors and are responsible for starting the largest number of startups in the Silicon Valley.

Dhillon said Trump's stunning victory last night heralded a new era of opportunity and promise for all Americans, which will also benefit Indian-Americans.

"As a diverse community with energy and a desire to succeed and excel in this great nation we call home, Indian Americans can expect the new President to focus on lowering regulatory burdens, reducing taxes on individuals and corporations, focusing on jobs and growth for US before other countries, enforce the laws of the US, including its immigration laws and keep our nation safe from harm," she said.

Eminent Indian-American Republican from Texas Ashok Mago said that the victory of Trump was good for India and Indian Americans.

"President-elect Trump is for legal immigration and preferably highly skilled individuals and that approach is good for India," he said, adding that Trump is against radical Islam and so is India.

Under Trump presidency one should expect much more cooperation between the US and India, he said.

"Indian American community should forget the party affiliations and extend their full support to president elect Trump for all of us to make America Great Again," Mago said.

"Trump win is historical in US history. He has changed major political system in USA. He will be a great president and will build greater relations with India," said Raju Chintala, Indiana Chair and Chair for Asian Americans for Trump-Pence Campaign.
Stars including Mark Ruffalo, Jamie Lee Curtis and Josh Hutcherson joined thousands of Americans protesting Donald Trump's presidential victory.

Ruffalo shared footage on Instagram which showed him surrounded by thousands of people in New York holding placards chanting "hands too small, can't build a wall" to protest against Trump, who was declared the 45th US President in Tuesday's election, reported USA Today.

Ruffalo, who does not appear in the video, zoomed in on signs which read, "Liberty of all Americans" and "Donald Trump's victory does not speak for me" and various people stood outside the Trump Tower, the home of the new President and his Trump Organisation.

"Love Trumps Hate love fest NYC Thousands in the Street," he wrote in the caption.

One Twitter user shared an image of a gay man being attacked and Ruffalo retweeted the message and replied, "This is what we were out protesting tonight. It's the hate Trump elicits from his followers. #TrumpProtest"



He also retweeted a video from the protest in which the demonstrators chant, "No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!"



Jamie Lee Curtis shared footage of a march taking place in Chicago, Illinois although it was not clear if she was present herself. She tweeted, "It begins. Protest and more protest.

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Meghalaya Governor V Shanmuganathan has lauded the decision of the Narendra Modi government to do away with the circulation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes from the country.

"The decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes is a dynamic decision taken by the government of India. It can curb financing of terrorism through the proceeds of fake Indian currency notes. This can help to eliminate black money and corruption," he said.

The Governor said the move can effectively stop funds from subversive activities such as smuggling of arms, drugs, espionage and other anti-national activities.

"I feel, India is moving fast, with safety and security of every Indian, to achieve greater heights of development," Shanmuganathan said.

The central government had on Tuesday night announced withdrawal of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes from circulation in a bid to flush out black money and to check corruption.

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A militant was today killed as army foiled an infiltration bid near the Line of Control (LoC) in Baramulla district of north Kashmir.

A group of militants tried to infiltrate in Rampur sector in Baramulla, but their attempt was thwarted by the alert troops, an army official said.

During the exchange of fire, one militant was killed, he said.

The operation was in progress, the official said, adding further details were awaited.

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As the board-room battle intensifies, ex-chairman of Tata Sons Cyrus Mistry is likely to up the offensive next week once the Tata group that he chairs come out of the mandatory silence period before their quarterly earnings.

The board of Tata Motors, which is the second biggest cash-cow in the Tata group, will meet next Monday to clear the quarterly numbers and also may discuss whether to repose faith in Mistry or not.

If the sources can be believed, that is precisely why Mistry, who was also removed last night as the chairman of the Tata Group crown jewel TCS, has upped his sleeves.

Mistry was unceremoniously sacked as Tata Sons chairman on October 24. Tata Sons is the one holding group .

"Mistry has been lying low because he has fiduciary responsibilities to all the that he chairs. He will chair the board of on Monday. With that he is likely to break the long silence. Come November 15, you may hear a lot from him," the source close to mistry camp, told PTI.

The source further said the Mistry camp has "enough ammunitions to counter every baseless claim" by the Tatas.

Since his ouster last month, the Tatas or Mistry has not spoken to the media. While Tatas has sent out two formal communications since then, including a 9-pager on Thursday, the Mistry camp issued one formal statement last week.

With Thursday's claims and counter-claims, there seems to be more escalation in the board room battle between the Tatas and the Mistrys who own 18.4% in the group.
A Bismarck man who accidentally shot and killed his teenage daughter at a shooting range last month will not face charges.

A release from the Burleigh County Sheriff's Department said Andrew Tosseth was attempting to clear a malfunction in a .22-caliber handgun. The gun discharged and his 14-year-old daughter, Jaide Tosseth, was hit.

"Based on the investigation, we felt that he was being very safe and cautious, but a tragic accident occurred," Maj. Kelly Leben said of the Oct. 16 incident.

Tosseth said in an interview that he was with his family at the McLean Bottoms Shooting Range when the handgun jammed. He said he tried unsuccessfully to clear the Beretta U22 Neo by firing it multiple times down the range. Believing the shell was spent, he moved to take the gun back to his car, but the firearm went off unexpectedly, he said.

Burleigh County Assistant State's Attorney Julie Lawyer said she reviewed video surveillance and reports from officers and witnesses. She said she looked at the evidence in light of the three potential reasons to file criminal charges: rehabilitation, punishment and deterrence.

"I didn't believe any of those goals would be met," Lawyer said.

Tosseth said shooting had been a favorite family activity, and he prides himself on teaching his kids safety skills. But the family doesn't plan to continue target practice for now.

He said he misses his daughter, who was a cheerleader and Girl Scout who could sew and cook, and never wanted to be late for school. She had just recently gotten her driver's permit.

"It's still almost like a dream, because when I go home I expect to see her, and I know she's not there," Tosseth said. "If there was any way I could switch spots with her, I'd be ready to go."

On Sunday, another Bismarck man allegedly shot and critically injured an infant in his care while fixing a gun in his home. Christopher Simmons, 36, has been charged with felony reckless endangerment.

Lawyer said the circumstances surrounding the two cases were "completely different."
India and Japan will ink about 12 pacts and possibly sign a crucial civil nuclear deal tomorrow after wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Shinzo Abe aimed at giving a fillip to the bilateral strategic relations.

At the annual Summit, the two leaders will also discuss ways to enhance ties in a broad range of areas, including security, trade and investment, skill development and infrastructure development.

Modi will address Japanese business leaders during his two days of official programme tomorrow and day after here and in Kobe.

Ahead of his visit, Modi said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo on November 11.

"I will have detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties," he said.

After the Summit talks, about 12 pacts will be signed by the two sides, sources said, adding these would cover areas like skill development, cultural exchanges and infrastructure.

Amid high expectations about the civil nuclear deal being signed tomorrow, the two sides were in the process of concluding the negotiations, sources said here today.

The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abe's visit to India last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.

Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week.

When specifically asked whether the pact will be signed during Modi's visit, he only said, "I cannot pre-judge outcome of the talks."



Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two sides have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

In Tokyo, Modi will also have an audience with Japanese Emperor Akihito. He will also meet some opposition and other political leaders.

From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway. He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed trains are manufactured.

"Our partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order," Modi had said in his pre-departure statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India and Japan will ink about 12 pacts and possibly sign a crucial civil nuclear deal tomorrow after wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Shinzo Abe aimed at giving a fillip to the bilateral strategic relations.

"Looking forward to fruitful deliberations that will boost economic and cultural ties between India and Japan," tweeted Modi, who arrived here after a brief stopover in Thai capital Bangkok to pay respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illnes.

He also tweeted in Japanese along with his arrival picture.

At their annual Summit, Modi and Abe will discuss ways to enhance ties in a broad range of areas, including security, trade and investment, skill development and infrastructure development.

He will address Japanese business leaders during his two days of official programme here and in Kobe.

Ahead of his visit, Modi said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo on November 11.

"I will have detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties," he said.

After the Summit talks, about 12 pacts will be signed by the two sides, sources said, adding these would cover areas like skill development, cultural exchanges and infrastructure.

Amid high expectations about the civil nuclear deal being signed tomorrow, the two sides were in the process of concluding the negotiations, sources said here today.

The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abe's visit to India last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.

Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week. When specifically asked whether the pact will be signed during Modi's visit, he only said, "I cannot pre-judge outcome of the talks."



Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two sides have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

In Tokyo, Modi will also have an audience with Japanese Emperor Akihito. He will also meet some opposition and other political leaders.

From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway. He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed trains are manufactured.

"Our partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order," Modi had said in his pre-departure statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's much-awaited visit to Israel may take place in the first half of next year coinciding with celebration of 25 years of diplomatic engagement between the two countries.

There was an indication to this effect days ahead of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's eight-day visit next week to bolster ties in range of areas.

The announcement of Modi's visit to Israel, the first by an Indian Prime Minister, was made by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in May last year but no dates have yet been finalised.

When asked about Modi's proposed visit to Tel Aviv, Israeli Ambassador Daniel Carmon today said it will happen for sure and that it will be a very important trip.

When pressed further, he said Modi's visit will take place in "relevant period", indicating it may take place soon as he talked about plans to celebrate 25 years of full diplomatic relations in early next year. The envoy said dates for the trip was being decided by the two governments.

India had established "full" diplomatic relationship with Israel in 1992 though it had recognised the country in 1950. No Indian Prime Minister has ever visited that country.

In June, an official of the Jewish state had hinted that Modi may visit Israel early next year.

President Pranab Mukherjee had gone to Israel in October last year and Rivlin is arriving here next week to reciprocate Mukherjee's trip.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Madhya Pradesh has demanded to link Bina Complex with the second phase of the Ken-Betwa river liniking project.

Minister for Water Resources, Public Relations and Parliamentary Affairs, Norattam Mishra demanded to link Bina Complex with the second phase of Ken-Betwa Project at the 11th Special Committee Meeting on Rivers Linkage at New Delhi yesterday, an official of the Public Relation department said today.

Bina Complex Irrigation and Multipurpose Project is an ambitious project of Water Resource Department of Government of Madhya Pradesh.

It comprises construction of four dams namely Madia reservoir, Dehra dam, Dhasan dam and Chakarpur dam in Sagar district, the official said.

The project having Culturable Command Area (CCA) of 84,200 hectare is designed to irrigate 92,620 hectare land annually including 84,200 hectare Rabi and 8420 hectare Kharif crop.

It is also devised to generate hydroelectric power by two power plants with installed capacity of 2x11 MW and 2x5 MW at Madia and Dehra dams respectively.

Ministers of Water Resources and Secretaries of the deparment of several states took part in the meeting called by the Union Ministry for Water Resources, he said.

The meeting was chaired by the Union Minister of State for Water Resources Vijay Goyal.

Mishra urged for immediate environment and administrative sanction of Lower Aur Project beside permanent priority for implementation of Ken-Betwa project's second phase.

Principal Secretary Water Resources Department Madhya Pradesh Pankaj Agarwal attended the meeting.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Making education upto class 12th free and compulsory, emphasis on skill-based learning and focusing on the needs of rural India were some of the suggestions made at a HRD ministry consultation for MPs on the New Education Policy (NEP), on which the government is working.

It is learnt that the ministry may hold another such consultations with more Members of Parliament.

Speaking at an event later, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said over 40 parliamentarians had expressed their views while several gave their suggestions in writing also.

Javadekar is also learnt to have told the Parliamentarians that the draft of the panel led by TSR Subramanian is not final and the government will appoint another committee "headed by an educationist" to draft the NEP.

Shashi Tharoor of the Congress, initiated the discussion and among others who were present were Satyanarain Jatiya of the BJP, C P Narayanan of the CPI(M), Dhananjay Mahadik of the NCP, Derek O Brien of the TMC, Hussain Dalwai (Cong).

Sources said some of the members spoke about their views while others expressed concerns about unfilled vacancies, on the issue of languages including Sanskrit, out of school children and also difficulties faced by children belonging to minorities.

"Javadekar provided the members with suggestions from time to time and also took suggestions. He also explained that the draft is not ready yet and the suggestions would be considered," a source said.

Among other suggestions, the MPs sought installation of CCTVs in schools and colleges to make them more secure, mainstreaming out of school children etc.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
North Korea today warned the incoming Donald Trump administration will have to acknowledge it as a nuclear state, as the South said the maverick billionaire had pledged to protect it.

The US maintains it cannot accept North Korea as a nuclear power, despite it conducting five nuclear tests - including two in 2016 - and has pushed harsh international sanctions against the Pyongyang regime.

"If there is anything the Obama administration has done... it has put the security of the US mainland in the greatest danger," said an editorial carried by North Korea's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

"It has burdened the new administration with the difficulty of facing the Juche nuclear state," it said, referring to the North Korean ideology usually translated as "self-reliance".

The editorial, which did not mention Trump by name, follows growing calls for the US to change tack on North Korea, with US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper last month labelling attempts to denuclearise the North a lost cause.

President Barack Obama has made talks with the North conditional on Pyongyang first making some tangible commitment towards denuclearisation, but today's editorial called the goal an "outdated illusion".

Although Trump has not laid out a clear direction for his policy on North Korea, he has indicated that he would be open to negotiations with its leader Kim Jong-Un in the US to talk him out of his nuclear ambitions.

Trump caused consternation during his campaign when he threatened to withdraw the troops unless Seoul paid more for their upkeep, and suggested South Korea and Japan develop their own nuclear weapons to counter threats from Pyongyang.

But in a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun- Hye today, Trump vowed that US commitment on protecting its ally against the North "will not waver".

"We are going to be with you 100 per cent," Trump said, according to a statement from South Korea's Blue House.

"We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea," Seoul quoted him as saying.

North Korea has been hit by five sets of UN sanctions since it first tested a nuclear device in 2006.

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, the Security Council adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date, targeting North Korea's trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

Council members are currently debating a fresh resolution after the North's fifth nuclear test in September.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An Assam based NGO today welcomed India becoming third among 205 countries with the largest pictorial warning on tobacco products.

The Voluntary Health Association of Assam (VHAA) said it was a giant leap from its earlier ranking of 136 in 2014 and 123 in 2012.

Nepal has the largest warning requirements in the world at 90 per cent of the package front and back while India and Thailand are tied for third, with 85 per cent pictorial warnings.

VHAA Executive Secretary Ruchira Neog said, "By implementing 85 per cent pictorial health warnings front and back on all tobacco packages, Indian Government has set up an example for making India a Global Leader and sent a strong message to the global community about India's commitment in reducing tobacco use and the sickness and poverty it causes."



"Cigarette package warnings are a highly cost-effective way to increase awareness of the negative health effects of smoking and to reduce tobacco use. Picture-based warnings convey a more powerful message than a text-only warning, and larger ones increase impact", she said.

Picture warnings are especially valuable for low and middle-income countries where there are higher rates of illiteracy and where governments may have few resources, the executive said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Days after Congress Working Committee (CWC) expressed "strong sentiment" for Rahul Gandhi's elevation as party president, senior leader Digvijaya Singh today said the call on the issue will be taken by incumbent chief Sonia Gandhi at "right time".

"No one wants to sort of see that Sonia Gandhi is replaced in her absence. No one has criticised the decision to elevate Rahul Gandhi. Unanimously, CWC has said that it's high time that Rahul Gandhi should take up the leadership," the AICC general secretary told PTI here.

At its meeting held in Delhi earlier this week, the highest decision-making body of the Congress had unanimously voiced "strong sentiment" for the elevation of the Congress vice-president as party chief. Sonia couldn't attend that meeting apparently on health grounds.

"...Now the issue is Sonia Gandhi is president of Congress so she has to take a call. No one wants to sort of see that Sonia is replaced in her absence. She could not attend the meeting because she was unwell," Singh said.

He further said, "The decision is with her. Whenever she feels the timing is right she will take a decision. Sonia is undisputed leader of the Congress party.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds of thousands of Americans today rallied across the US as anger over Donald Trump's election victory spilled to the streets amid chants of "Not my President" and "No Fascists USA", deepening the political turmoil further after months-long bitter campaign.

Disappointment turned into protest as people in huge numbers rallied in at least 25 US cities - including New York and Nashville, Chicago and Cleveland, San Francisco and Seattle - shouting anti-Trump slogans, burning effigies, and holding candlelight vigils to mourn yesterday's result of the general election in which Trump secured a stunning victory despite his explosive and divisive rhetoric.

Several arrests took place when the demostrators - that included people from all ages, faiths and nationalities - held vigils and blocked traffic.

Angry Americans assembled at landmark locations in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, California, Colorado, Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, Atlanta, Austin, Denver, San Francisco and other cities, and were seen walking on roads and highway between moving traffic, holding placards that read 'No more Hate', and chanting "Not my President." "Not today."



Outside Trump's residence in Trump Tower on New York's Fifth Avenue, protesters gathered with signs that read "Dump Trump". Protesters walked about 40 streets from 14th Street to Fifth Avenue. Streets surrounding the towers were completely shut off due to the protests.

Authorities estimated that as many as 5,000 people protested the real estate mogul's victory outside the Trump Tower, including pop star Lady Gaga who is a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter.

Thousands of protesters blocked entry to the Trump Tower in downtown Chicago.

In Los Angeles, demonstrators sprayed the Los Angeles Times building and vans with anti-Trump profanity. Late in the evening, hundreds of people blocked one of the city's busiest freeways - US 101 between downtown and Hollywood.

Demonstrators outside the Los Angeles City Hall also set ablaze a giant, box-shaped head resembling Trump's, topped with bright orange hair.

In Washington, protesters gathered outside the White House protesting against Trump's racism, sexism and xenophobia. A candlelight vigil was also held outside the White House last evening.

Angry against the election of Trump as the president of the country, people were heard chanting "No Trump, No KKK, No Fascists USA" and "Not my president!"



The massive protests came hours after Trump, a political outsider, secured a stunning victory against Clinton, defying all forecast, a development that refused to end months-long bitter campaigning by the two political leaders.

The 70-year-old real estate tycoon, who is said to have started off his maiden political campaign with a team of just six persons and a Twitter account, single-handedly ran one of the most unconventional presidential campaigns in which political correctness was tossed out of th e window. He has been slammed by many for his divisive and derogatory rhetoric against minorities, women and immigrants.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Taking a dig at senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said after taking no action against blackmoney, politicians have now turned columnists, as he accused the opposition party of never having a dislike for corruption.

He also expressed disappointment at Trinamool Congress and the Left parties mounting criticism against the government's move to withdraw higher denomination Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in a major crackdown on blackmoney, corruption and counterfeit currency.

"I am not surprised at the reaction of the Congress party. Congress party has never had a kind of dislike against corruption. In fact, they were marred in it when they were in power. And if I were to ask the Congress party, you were in power for last 10 years, name one step against blackmoney that you took... You probably won't find anything," Jaitley told channel Times Now.

Terming government's decision to demonetise Rs 500/Rs 1000 notes as a "puzzle", Chidambaram had yesterday said that if the idea was to address the issue of blackmoney, why has it decided to introduce Rs 2000 denomination notes.

Jaitley said some Congress leaders who are not politicians have now become columnists.

"So when we were in power we did nothing, but now we are columnists so we will comment on whatever you are doing," he said, referring to Congress leaders.

"It is very easy to comment and start hair splitting. When you were in power and some of you got opportunity to become finance minister three times, what were the steps against blackmoney that you took. You can't recollect a single one," he added.

Jaitley said he was "disappointed" at the reaction of TMC and the Left as he had expected a different level of ethics from these parties.

"If India is trying to move away from a cash economy, the Communists should not have been unhappy. So the Communists want a free market society to deal only in cash. Well, this is not the history of the Left that I understood it to be.

"Ideally a politician like Mamata Banerjee also should be on the side of this battle against blackmoney. I would have ideally expected Mamata Banerjee and the Left to be on this side, but I am a little surprised that they have chosen to be on the other side," he said.

Leaders of regional parties like Naveen Patnaik of BJD and Nitish Kumar of JD-U have supported the government's move to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in government's fight against blackmoney, corruption and terror financing.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NEW YORK -- There might be some changes in Washington's China policy, but the relations between the two countries are positive in a long term, said a US expert on China on Wednesday.

The election of Donald Trump as new president is going to lead to some changes in US policy toward China, said Stephen A. Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations.

"I believe in a long term, and look at the horizon, I am optimistic about US-China relations," he told representatives of US students who had studied in China.

Orlins forecast a debate about US-China relations in the next several months, or even several years. He urged those US students who had lived and studied in China to participate in the debate, as they could help Americans who have never gone to China better understand China.
President Barack Obama today hosted his successor at the White House to discuss smooth transition of power.

Trump,70, flew from New York on his private jet and landed at Reagan National Airport, just outside the nation's capital.

He broke from protocol and barred journalists from travelling with him to cover his first meeting with Obama.

The president-elect was accompanied by his wife, Melania, who will have a meeting with First Lady Michelle Obama.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence also accompanied them.

The Republican president-elect has questioned Obama's US citizenship and vowed to dismantle his legacy.

During the election campaign Obama called Trump "uniquely unqualified".

Yesterday Obama had urged all Americans to accept the result of the presidential election.

"We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country," he said.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest has insisted that Obama is sincere about ensuring a smooth handover although he added: "I'm not saying it's going to be an easy meeting.
The Oil Ministry has launched a probe into the role played by officials at ONGC and regulator DGH for their alleged inaction on information about the state- owned firm's natural gas flowing into adjoining fields of Reliance Industries in the KG basin.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) had in late 2013 claimed that it suspected extension of reservoirs from its blocks in the Bay of Bengal into RIL's KG-D6. This was based on seismic data available to it at least since 2007.

Confirming sending notice to RIL and its partners BP plc of UK and Canada's Niko Resources for "unfairly enriching" by producing natural gas belonging to ONGC, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said his ministry is probing the role played by "those in office" in the ministry, ONGC as well as DGH in the entire issue.

"All stakeholders are being looked into as to what role they had played in those days," he told reporters here.

Oil Secretary K D Tripathi is overseeing the probe to find if there were any errors of omission or commission in not taking timely acting on the information provided by the seismic data that ONGC's natural gas was seeping into KG-D6.

"This is an internal mechanism (of investigation). Whosoever is found responsible (for lapses) will be disclosed publicly," Pradhan said.

ONGC has had two Chairmen, R S Sharma and Sudhir Vasudeva, after seismic data is believed to have thrown up leads about its blocks being connected with RIL fields. The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) first had S K Srivastava and then R N Choubey as the head.

It is alleged that while ONGC initially refused to act on the information, DGH did not take cognizance of the issue when the state-owned firm finally acted and brought the issue to its notice in 2013.

"It is not just ONGC, but also (petroleum) ministry and DGH which is being investigated," Pradhan said.

His ministry had on November 3 issued a notice to RIL, Niko and BP plc seeking USD 1.47 billion for producing in the seven years ended March 31, 2016 about 338.332 million British thermal unit of gas that had seeped or migrated from state- owned ONGC blocks into adjoining KG-D6.

After deducting USD 71.71 million royalty paid on the gas produced and adding an interest at the rate of Libor plus 2 per cent, totalling USD 149.86 million, a total demand of USD 1.55 billion was made on RIL, BP and Niko.

ONGC had in 2014 moved the Delhi High Court seeking Rs 11,000 crore compensation for its gas that RIL had produced. Under the court's direction, an independent consultant D&M was appointed to establish connectivity across reservoirs.

After D&M quantified the gas that had migrated from ONGC blocks to KG-D6, the ministry appointed a one-man panel headed by Justice (Retd) A P Shah to recommend compensation RIL and partners should pay. It however stated that the compensation should be paid to the government and not to ONGC.

Pradhan said the Supreme Court has clearly established that all natural resources belong to the State and using that premise the government is claiming compensation from RIL.

The Shah panel had in August 29 report stated that



natural gas had indeed migrated from ONGC's KG basin blocks to adjoining fields of RIL but opined that the compensation for the same should be paid to government as the natural resource belonged to the state.

It further stated that the gas migration issue needs to be resolved within the parameters and provisions of the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) instead of any other method like bilateral agreement.

This premise has led to RIL stating that it will challenge the compensation in arbitration.

RIL contests any claim of compensation on the premise that it drilled all wells within its own block boundaries and only after explicit permission from the government.

Also, migration is a natural phenomenon and contractor cannot be held liable for unfair enrichment for migrated gas that has been extracted from wells drilled within its own block.

Continuity and extension of reservoirs between ONGC blocks and KG-D6 was established by independent expert D&M in late 2015 which said as much as 11.122 billion cubic metres of ONGC gas had migrated from its Godavari-PML and KG-DWN-98/2 blocks to adjoining KG-D6 of RIL between April 1, 2009 and March 31, 2015. Justice AP Shah was then asked to go into the D&M report.

Shah in his report has stated that ONGC doesn't have any claim on the migrated gas. It agreed with government's (represented by the DGH) oral submissions (that was contrary to its written submissions) that gas belongs to the government and RIL has been unfairly enriched, liable to pay compensation on the migrated gas.
Demonetisation of higher denomination banknotes will curb sale of spurious agro-input products and directly benefit farmers, agrochemical firm Crystal Crop said today.

Taking its fight against the black money to a next level, the government on November 8 announced the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from market and people were given 50 days time to deposit old currency bills in banks.

"It will have a very positive impact on agro-input industry which has, for long, been grappling with the problem of spurious products, sold in cash to farmers without invoices. The move will benefit farmers," company's Chairman N K Aggarwal said in a statement.

Farmers can now get genuine products, which will improve their yield and income, he said.

Stating that the move will also put to end role of commission agents in the agriculture sector, Aggarwal said, "They will cease to exist and hopefully, the benefit will go directly to farmers."



Farmers can rejoice at the development as they can now hope to get quality products with proper bills. "But dealer from rural markets, whose business is mostly in cash, will be adversely affected," he noted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Altogether 5,725 people of 1,109 Bru refugee families have been identified till date as bona fide residents of Mizoram so that they could be repatriated from three refugee camps of North Tripura.

Mizoram additional secretary for Home, Lalbiakzama, today said the identification was conducted in the Kaskau relief camp since November 2 and was followed by those at Khakchangpara and Hamsapara.

The identification process would continue tomorrow at Asapara relief camp where officials from Mizoram would conduct the identification, he said.

Mizoram-Tripura border Mamit district Deputy Commissioner Lalbiaksangi told PTI officials completed the identification process at Hamsapara camp last evening and went to Kanchanpur in the same district today where they would be camping till November 21.

As per the Road Map - V for Bru repatriation, the repatriation was proposed to commence from November 30 while the state government officials expressed apprehension that the deadline might not be met due to various reasons including the failure of the Ministry of Home Affairs to decide on some issues.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Peerless Group, a Kolkata-based financial services major, today sold its mutual fund business with an asset base of over Rs 970 crore to Essel Finance Management.

However, the deal size is under wraps.

Essel Finance, which offers a range of financial services and products such as SME Business Loans, said the acquisition is part of its strategy to become a financial services conglomerate.

Essel Finance is the umbrella brand for the financial businesses of the USD 10 billion conglomerate, Essel Group, which is founded by Chairman Subhash Chandra.

"The addition of the mutual fund business will fortify our position and take us closer to our goals," Essel Finance Management Managing Director Amitabh Chaturvedi said.

In a statement, Peerless General Finance and Investment Company said: "It has signed an agreement to sell its entire shareholding in the Peerless Fund Management Company Ltd and Peerless Trust Management Company Ltd to Essel Finance Management."



The transaction will be completed once all regulatory approvals have been obtained.

"We are happy to have reached this agreement with the highly regarded Essel Group, which intends to build on the efforts taken by the Peerless group over the last few years. We are confident that the interests of our unitholders will remain foremost in their approach to this service, as it was in ours," Peerless General Finance and Investment Company MD S K Roy said.

Peerless Mutual Fund, a subsidiary of Peerless General Finance and Investment Company, was incorporated in April 2009. At the end of September quarter, Peerless Mutual Fund had an asset under management of Rs 970.88 crore.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds of people thronged bank branches since early morning in different parts of Gujarat to exchange the now-invalid Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Long queues were seen outside all bank branches in the state as several of them started dispensing new notes, while several others awaited the arrival of new notes.

Post offices were yet to receive the new notes and people who went to get their old notes exchanged were only given Rs 100 and Rs 50 denominations notes.

While banks were closed yesterday to make preparations for disbursement of the new currency, in place of the demonetised notes, people were faced hardships in procuring them today as new notes had not reached many branches and post offices.

Whereas, people who got new notes expressed happiness after receiving them.

Some people were seen queueing up outside various banks in the city as early as 6 am to exchange the old notes.

"I ran out of cash to meet my daily needs. If I do not get new notes, I would be in big trouble. To make sure that I get new notes today, I have came here very early. However, many others were already in the queue when I reached at 6 AM," said A Patel of New Ranip, a bank account holder in SBI.

Similar queues can be seen outside almost all the banks in the city as well as other parts of the state today.

"We have no notes of Rs 50 or Rs 100 for daily use, have run out of it, so urgently need money. Which is why we arrived here early morning," said Suresh Dalal, who stood outside to withdraw money from the RBI centre.

Senior citizens complained that there were no separate queues for them and the banks opened late.

"Knowing that people have arrived here since early morning, the bank should have opened at least on time if not early. There is no separate queue for senior citizens," an elderly woman at a Bank of Baroda branch in Surat said.

At another branch of a private bank here, people



complained that the banks did not put up notice outside to instruct people to bring the xerox copy of their ID proof.

"I was turned back by the clerk because I did not have xerox copy of ID proof, so I went back again. Bank should have put up the notice," an irked customer said.

Today is the first day to exchange the notes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced two days back the scrapping of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, making them invalid for transaction post Tuesday midnight.

As per the Centre's announcement, people can deposit any amount of the now invalid currency in their bank accounts till December 30 and also exchange them for lower bank notes at special counters at banks and post offices till November 24, but with a limit of Rs 4,000 per day.

Though people are getting new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 from the banks, some complained that the post offices in the city were not giving them new notes in exchange of the old ones.

Officials of the General Post Office (GPO) here said that the post offices were yet to get the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes.

"We are unable to exchange old notes with new notes, as we are yet to get those new notes. It may take one or two days. However, we are giving people Rs 100 notes against their old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000," said M J Rathva, an official at the city GPO.
The Gujarat High Court today sought the view of the state government over a PIL challenging its decision to appoint a company, allegedly without floating a tender, for installing LED street lights.

The division bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice V M Pancholi asked the government pleader to seek the response of the government and kept the matter for hearing on Tuesday.

Petitioner Paresh Gurjar argued in his PIL that state government appointed Energy Efficiency Services Limited to carry out the task of installing LED street lights across 162 urban local bodies and eight municipal corporations without following due tendering process.

EESL -- a Joint Venture company of central PSUs -- has entered into an MoU with the state to execute the project.

The petitioner said EESL was given the work through single tendering process without following due procedure, which may affect the quality of the work and result in loss of taxpayers' money.

It said the government should have conducted competitive bidding instead.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
En route to Japan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today made a surprise stopover in the Thai capital where he paid respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illness.

Prime Minister Modi laid a wreath and paid tributes to the late King Bhumibol, whose body is lying in state at the Grand Palace complex here.

"His Majesty will always be remembered for his compassion, foresight and commitment for the welfare of his people," Modi wrote in his condolence message at the Grand Palace.

Describing the late King as "world statesman", the Prime Minister said, "His (the King's) departure from this world is also a loss for the international community" and has left a void.

"On behalf of the Government and the people of India, I convey our deepest condolences to the Royal family and the Government and the people of the Kingdom of Thailand," he said.

Earlier, Modi was received at the airport by Thai Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith.

Bhumibol, who was the world's longest ruling monarch, passed away at the age of 88 on October 13. He was adored by many of his subjects and seen as an anchor of stability in a kingdom rocked by turbulent politics.

A one-year mourning period had been announced in Thailand following the monarch's death. He will be cremated next year.

The mortal remains of King Bhumibol, also known as King Rama IX, have been kept here for people to pay their respects.

Thousands of Thais are still streaming into the gates of the Grand Palace to pay their respects to the late King.

Modi is headed to Japan for a three-day visit during which the two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in areas like trade, investment and security.

(Reopens FGN 7)



After his brief stopover in Bangkok, the Prime Minister left for Japan. In Tokyo, he will hold the annual summit meeting with his counterpart Shinzo Abe and have an audience with the Emperor of Japan.
Election officials today seized Rs 4.5 lakh unaccounted cash from a car proceeding to Tamil Nadu during checks being held in view of the November 19 byelection to Nellithope assembly constituency in the Union territory, police said.

The occupants of the car including an engineer said they were working in a private firm in Chengalpet near Chennai and carrying the cash withdrawn from banks in nearby Cuddalore some days ago for payment of salary to the workers.

However, as they could not provide any supporting documents, the flying squad of Election department seized the cash and lodged the same with revenue officials.

The seizure was made at Mullodai village in Puducherry limits close to Cuddalore, they said adding the engineer had been told to claim the cash by submitting relevant documents.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Further deepening the already close defence ties will be a major focus of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's eight-day trip to India beginning Monday during which both sides are also set to ink a number of MoUs to expand cooperation in areas of energy, agriculture and trade.

Ahead of Rivlin's visit here, first by an Israeli President in nearly two decades, the Jewish country's envoy Daniel Carmon said the bilateral defence ties were beyond buyer-seller and military-to-military relationship and the message will be to broaden it further besides boosting cooperation in some other sectors.

During his stay, the Israeli President will hold extensive talks with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi covering key bilateral and regional issues besides attending a ceremony in Taj Hotel and Chabad House in Mumbai to pay tribute to victims of 26/11 attack in which six Jews were also killed.

On defence cooperation, Carmon said Israel has plans for fresh joint ventures and technology transfer in developing weapons systems and ensuring implementation of Modi's Make in India initiative in the key sector which is a "major facet" of his country's "special relationship" with India.

"It is a very deep relationship. India and Israel enjoy very unique relation in areas of defence.... There are plans for fresh joint venture and technology transfer," he told reporters, refusing to go into specifics.

India is Israel's largest buyer of military hardware and the latter has been supplying various weapons systems, missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles over the last few years but the transactions have largely remained behind the curtains.

Carmon said Rivlin's "large" delegation will comprise honchos of top Israeli arms manufacturing companies and senior government officials dealing with matters relating to defence.

Asked about Modi's proposed visit to Israel, he said it will happen and will be a very important trip.

It was being decided by the two governments when it will happen, the envoy said.

There were indications that the Prime Minister may visit Tel Aviv in first part of 2017 which will be 25th year of formal diplomatic ties between the two countries. India had established "full" diplomatic relationship with Israel in 1992 though it had recognised the country in 1950.

Asked about the proposed Free Trade Agreement between the two countries, he said its finalisation "should and could be a easier process henceforth".

The envoy said both countries are set to sign a raft of pacts in areas of education, energy, water, agriculture and research and development during Rivlin's visit.

On Modi comparing India's cross LoC military action



against terror launchpads following Uri attack to Israeli-type response, the envoy said his country had to develop robust capability to protect its citizens, considering the geo-political situation.

He said Israel was ready to share with India its technology and enhance security ties.

In October last year, President Mukherjee had visited Israel, the first by an Indian head of state.

Rivlin will also visit Chandigarh where he will inaugurate an Agro Tech conference along with Mukherjee.

President Rivlin will head business and academic delegations including chancellors of 12 Israeli universities as well as Israeli companies, some of which are already active and successful in India.

He said at least 15 MoUs are likely to be signed between Indian and Israeli educational institutions during the visit.

Identifying agriculture and water conservation as key areas of cooperation, he said the number of agri centres set up by Israel in India will go up from current 15 to 40.

The visit will focus on strengthening the ever growing economic ties between India and Israel in the fields of agriculture and water, and promoting academic cooperation, he said.

Asked about India attempting to strengthen ties with countries like Iran, UAE and Saudi Arabia, the envoy said Indo-Israel bilateral ties were not affected by New Delhi's relationship with other nations.

In Agra, the Israeli President will visit Taj Mahal and an Israeli water treatment plant. He will also visit the Indo-Israeli Agricultural Project's Center of Excellence in Karnal.
Donald Trumps presidential victory has been described as a revolt against the establishment. The public, tired of a system often in gridlock, looked to a fresh face to lead them.

North Dakota voters also demonstrated an independent streak this election. Fargo businessman Doug Burgum was able to upset Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem in the primary for governor and cruise to victory over Rep. Marvin Nelson of Rolla on Tuesday. Burgum promises to find new ways to address fiscal issues in the state and make state government more efficient.

North Dakotas support of Trump wasnt a shock, The state hasnt backed a Democrat since Lyndon Johnsons victory in 1964.

While North Dakotans returned Republicans to office en masse, when it came to the ballot measures they showed a willingness to buck government leaders and groups.

There was a long list of law enforcement, legal and support groups opposed to Measure 3, known as Marsys Law. The measure makes victims rights part of the state constitution. Despite the opposition, which argued the measure was unnecessary, it easily passed. The same with Measure 5 which allows medical marijuana in the state. Government leaders, medical groups and others battled the measure. It was a surprise to many that law and order North Dakotans joined the list of states approving the use of marijuana for medical reasons.

While those measures passed, voters reaffirmed their opposition to tax increases. Measure 4 would have raised the tax on cigarettes from 44 cents a pack to $2.20 and increased the tax on other tobacco products. The tax money was targeted for veterans and health-related programs. It appears voters distaste of tax increases prompted the vote. The carrot of the money benefiting veterans and health programs couldnt sway them.

Voters sent a variety of messages to leaders. With Marsys Law they want to protect victims, one way to be tough on crime. Voters want to be able to decide their medical treatment even if it involves a controversial drug like marijuana. And, finally, they dont like tax increases despite the fact that tobacco was the target. With Measure 2, voters showed a willingness to dip into a rainy day fund. Measures 2 and 4 provide hints to the 2017 Legislature and Burgum as they begin to deal with revenue problems.

It takes a while for all the impacts of an election to be known. Theres no doubt voters want more say, and control, over their government and future.
Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan today said the Centre has taken up with Sri Lanka, the issue of the release of nine Tamil Nadu fishermen and 115 boats in the island nation's custody.

"We have taken up the issue of the release of nine Tamil Nadu fishermen in Sri Lankan prison and 115 boats in their custody," he said.

He was speaking to reporters in Dhanushkodi, near here after inspecting the newly laid 9.5 km long road, stretching from Mukuntharayar Chathiram to Arichalmunai near here, for the convenience of hundreds of pilgrims visiting this island.

On the emotive fishermen's issue, he said the November 4 talks between the two governments were fruitful.

As decided in that meeting, a Joint Working Group (JWG) on Fisheries would be set up to meet every three months.

A meeting between the Ministers of Fisheries every six months on possible mechanisms to find a permanent solution to the emotive issue of fishermen will also be held, he said.

On the proposed construction of a bridge between Rameswaram and Thalaimannar in the Island nation, he said India was willing to proceed if Sri Lanka agreed to it.

Earlier, he visited the house of former president A P J Abdul Kalam in Rameswaram and sought the blessings of his elder brother Mohammed Muthumeeran Maraikayar, who turned 100 recently.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today said the resignation by Congress Chief Amarinder Singh and his party's MLAs on the Supreme Court's verdict on SYL issue was just a "drama".

"Why should we run away? This entire resignation drama has been created by the Congress party. After one month, they would anyways not remain MLAs. So why do this drama now?" he said at the inauguration of free medicines store at a Community Health Centre here.

"Irrespective of any decision, Punjab would not give a drop of water to any state," he said.

"We will not let anyone take away even a single drop of water from Punjab," Badal asserted, alleging that SYL issue was the sole creation of former prime minister Indira Gandhi.

The Deputy Chief Minister said, "The time when the construction of SYL canal started, Amarinder Singh had welcomed it. If he and Congress MLAs are so empathetic and sincere toward Punjab, they should first resign from the Congress, which is responsible for this issue."



If they resign from the Congress, then SAD will welcome it, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The rising gap between urban and rural areas is not in the interest of the country and it must be contained, Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said today as he stressed the need for promoting the agriculture sector.

"The rising gap between urban and rural areas is not at all in the interest of the country and this should be contained. I am not undermining the importance of industry and business, but agriculture sector is needed to be promoted today," he said at an MoU signing ceremony on the second day of Global Rajasthan Agritech Summit here.

"Agriculture is the basic culture of the country. I come from a farmer's family and I know the pain of the sector. Priority was not given to this sector and now the government is making all efforts to promote agriculture and is taking positive decisions in the interest of the farmers," he said.

The Urban Development Minister said small-scale industries in the agri sector will not only boost the local economy but also enhance the prospects of the farming sector.

Naidu said that along with the traditional farming, there is a need to incorporate and promote silviculture, fish culture among others.

He said people are now becoming aware about using pulses, cereals in place of rice and also the organic food.

"I too have curbed the use of rice," he said.

Appealing to farmers not to demand free power, he said they must understand that they need round-the-clock quality power supply and this would be possible only when the government is able to increase generation.

He said that the Centre would also help making smart villages in the state.

Thirty-eight MoUs worth Rs 4,400 crore were signed during the event.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said the government has showed seriousness towards the concerns of farmers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Russia's security service said today it had detained several people in Crimea, accusing them of being saboteurs sent by Kiev to the Moscow-annexed peninsula to attack infrastructure targets.

Russia's FSB security service yesterday "detained members of a sabotage-terrorist group from the main intelligence directorate of the Ukrainian defence ministry," it said in a statement.

The group "planned to carry out acts of sabotage on objects of military and public infrastructure," and had in its possession "powerful explosive devices, weapons, ammunition" and communication equipment, the FSB said.

Ukraine's defence ministry dismissed the allegations in a statement on its website, calling them "yet another fake" report aimed at discrediting Kiev and covering up "repressive actions" against Crimeans critical of Moscow rule.

Moscow seized and annexed the Black Sea peninsula in 2014 and effectively made it part of Russian territory despite an outcry from the international community which was followed by sanctions.

Earlier this year, the FSB announced that it had thwarted "terrorist attacks" in Crimea, and Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered additional security measures.

Ukraine has dismissed the accusations of plotting attacks as "fantasies" concocted by Moscow to boost its military buildup and create a pretext for threatening Kiev.

Kiev is still fighting a pro-Russian insurgency in the eastern regions of Lugansk and Donetsk, parts of which have declared independence. Nearly 10,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted in April 2014.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A billionaire Saudi prince has congratulated US president-elect Donald Trump after previously calling him a disgrace who should have pulled out of the race.

"President elect @realDonaldTrump whatever the past differences, America has spoken, congratulations & best wishes for your presidency," Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said on his official Twitter account, after US election results yesterday confirmed Trump's unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton.

Alwaleed is an unusually outspoken member of the Saudi royal family who chairs Kingdom Holding Co.

The diversified firm's interests include US-based giants Citigroup and Time Warner.

Late last year Alwaleed took exception to what his office called Trump's "anti-Islam statement", a proposal that all Muslims should be temporarily barred from entering the US.

"You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America," Alwaleed tweeted to Trump, referring to the Republican Party.

"Withdraw from the US presidential race as you will never win."



Trump hit back, also on Twitter.

"Dopey Prince Alwaleed Talal wants to control our US politicians with daddy's money. Can't do it when I get elected," he wrote at the time.

Trump later modified his stance on Muslims to urge an immigration ban from countries with "a proven history of terrorism" and for "extreme vetting" of immigrants.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The country's largest bank SBI today said its existing debit cards are not at any risk and customers can use them without any concern.

"We would like to emphasise that our bank's system is absolutely robust and secured and existing debit cards are not at any risk and can securely continue to enjoy the superior banking services on their State Bank debit cards for transactions at ATMs, point of sale (PoS) terminals and on e-commerce websites, without any concern," the bank said in a regulatory filing.

The Bank's response came to a clarification sought by stock exchange on recent reports on debit cards blocking in the wake of suspected data breach.

On the suspected debit card data breach, SBI said the bank was alerted by card network -- Visa/MasterCard and RuPay that they have been notified by multiple acquires of a potential data vulnerability at their payment card processor system that may put member bank's cards at risk.

"After receipt of the alerts from the networks, bank has proactively taken measures to ensure full security of all cards which had even the remotest possibility of being at risk," SBI said.

All these cards have been blocked and replacement cards have been sent to all such customers, without any cost, it said further.

Besides, these customers were kept suitably informed, the bank added.

SBI said it also provided options to cardholders to choose channels of usage such as ATM/POS/e-commerce and restrict card usage to domestic and international through SBI Quick mobile application, internet banking or through SMS.

Customers can also set their own card limit through internet banking based on requirement, SBI said, adding these services are easy to operate and available free of cost to the cardholders.

SBI said this has been investigated thoroughly by cyber experts under guidance of NPCI and RBI and there is no security issue within the Bank.

Earlier on Tuesday, private sector ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank in their responses to the stock exchange had told that debit card data security breach was on account of third-party payment processor and the amount involved was not material.

Besides, Axis Bank and Yes Bank have also been asked to furnish their responses on the suspected data breach incident.

Taking cognisance of the gravity of cyber security, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance headed by Congress MP Veerappa Moily, had asked officials from the finance ministry, corporate affairs ministry and various banks to appear before it on November 9.

The Reserve Bank of India has also initiated forensic audit to investigate the entire matter.

The suspected data breach is said to have affected over 32 lakh debit cards, where the security mishap happened through a malware in the systems of Hitachi Payments Services.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
on Thursday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, saying ever since the surgical strikes, ceasefire violations are on and time will tell whether the second one now on black money will be successful.

The BJP ally in the state government said one will have to adopt a wait and watch approach to see how far does Modi's "second strike" against black money goes to curb illicit trade of funds.

It said corruption is a mindset and until that changes, the disease of black money cannot be checked completely.

"Modi had last month conducted a sudden surgical strike against Pakistani terror launch pads and now this strike against black money. The second strike has caused chaos among the masses as this strike too was sudden," Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

It said that attempts to stop illicit trade flow have been made in the past as well, but what was derived from it was a question that remained answered in the past and there are no answers today as well.

Sena said questions are being raised about Modi's poll promise of bringing back black money stashed abroad and depositing Rs 15 lakh in bank accounts of Indians.

"How far has the government been successful in bringing back black money from abroad is what people are asking," it said.

"Modi answered the question in his style by demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Only time will tell if the government is able to achieve its objectives by doing so. The truth is that this decision will have far-reaching effects on the Indian economy," it added.

"It was being said that the surgical strike against Pakistan was meant to tighten our grip over the neighbouring nation. But, firing, ceasefire violations are on at the borders ever since the strike. Demonetising currency was the second strike but if it actually pays dividends, only time will tell," the editorial said.
Banks in Mumbai witnessed serpentine queues as thousands flocked to deposit scrapped notes and withdraw lower denomination and new banknotes today on the first day after reopening for public after demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Not everyone returned with their pockets full though since a few were turned down due to unavailability of cash.

Following the government's announcement of scrapping Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on Tuesday, banks and ATMs were shut yesterday.

Starting today, customers are allowed to exchange up to Rs 4,000 in cash at any bank branch with valid identity proof. They can also withdraw cash against withdrawal slip or cheque subject to ceiling of Rs 10,000 in a day within an overall limit of Rs 20,000 in a week (including withdrawals from ATMs) up to November 24, after which these limits shall be reviewed.

Long queues were seen at public sector banks, which have large number of branches across the country, compared to their private and foreign peers.

In order to manage the crowd, some of the public sector banks such as State Bank of India, Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra and IDBI Bank among others also deployed police officials, along with their private guards.

A customer at a State Bank of Mysore (SBM) branch in the northeast suburb of Mulund said, "I came to exchange my Rs 500 notes. The bank accepted those but did not give me Rs 100 notes as it does not have cash. They deposited into my account and I will withdraw from ATM tomorrow."



Seeing less crowd at the same branch, an auto-rickshaw driver visited it but was turned away as there was no cash.

Mumbaikars started queueing up as early as 6 AM in the morning, nearly 3-4 hours before the banks open.

Some customers seemed frustrated with a few banks exchanging only Rs 2,000 with Rs 100 notes.

"I was in queue for four hours to exchange Rs 4,000. But unfortunately I was permitted only Rs 2,000 to be exchanged that too with Rs 100 denomination," said Ashwin Kadam, who had stood in queue since 6 AM at Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative Bank Limited branch in Vikhroli.

Clarifying on the issue, an executive of the bank said, "We are facing liquidity crisis. As and when the RBI supplies us sufficient notes we would start disbursing the notes with full permissible limit."



He also said that they have opened additional counters and cancelled the leaves of the staff to meet the demands.

A Corporation Bank branch manager said the bank today



will exchange Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes of its account holders only, while it will exchange that of other banks' account holders from tomorrow as less cash was available.

An official at Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank said it was accepting scrapped notes but the customers will have to wait for sometime as the cash was on its way.

"We had written for new notes. It will shortly be delivered at our branch. Till then customers will have to wait," the official said.

Wary of counterfeit notes, state-run IDBI Bank branch in Mulund pasted a notice - 'Fake notes will not be returned'.

"We had a feel that fake notes may also come so we have cautioned all the customers coming to our branches that if they bring counterfeit notes, the branch will accept it but will not return any money," said an official at the branch.

The branch also saw this as an opportunity to woo non-account holders and started a saving account opening drive outside the branch.

An India Post branch in Mulund was accepting Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes but was not giving lower denomination notes. It, however, asked customers to enquire about the new notes only after two days.

Some customers who approached post-office branches were displeased as they were unable to exchange the now-defunct currency notes.

Some people were also miffed with the exchange limit of Rs 4,000.

Venting out her disappointment, Pramodini Naik, a housewife in suburban Vikhroli, said, "It seems we have to spend five to six hours daily for one month or two months to exchange the notes. This is really disgusting. Banning black money is OK, but certainly not this way."



Meanwhile, some banks issued SMS on cell phones to inform their customers regarding the process to be followed to deposit the notes.

"Special squads of RBI officials are conducting random checks in the bank branches and keeping a tab on the developments," a senior official of Union Bank of India told

(REOPENS BOM12)



In suburban Thane, serpentine queues were seen at bank branches.

The paucity of space in the branches, many of which are located in crowded neighbourhoods, meant the customers had to sweat it out in the open in a queue before being called in.

A security guard outside HDFC Bank said even though it opens at 9.30 AM, anxious customers had formed a queue since 8.30 AM itself.

Many of them wanting to exchange notes had to return disappointed as the bank did not have sufficient cash as the vehicle carrying it had not reached on time.

An ICICI Bank branch located nearby had similar story of long queues but was exchanging cash till Rs 4,000 limit.

One of SBI's Thane branches was giving cash and hence saw a huge rush.

Appeals by banks not to worry and the fact that there is a 50-day window for depositing the older notes did not find many takers with people in large numbers thronging the banks.

Some were particularly unhappy that they are forced to show their ID proofs despite having completed the KYC formalities at the bank.

All the banks' staff was out on the floor helping the harried customers who had to face newer ways of working.

This was seen even in the case of state-run banks.

Syndicate Bank and Punjab National Bank branches in downtown Fort in the heart of the financial capital had staff out on the floor helping.

In the satellite city of Navi Mumbai, people complained about slow systems leading to long queues.

A Bank of India branch manager in Seawoods said, "The business was as usual and there were not many customers who came for exchange of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes."



However, foreign lenders did not seem to attract the same crowds, despite the government announcement of changing notes over the counter. The Fort's Citi Bank had low footfalls.
The 11th Shanghai Biennale will begin from November 12 and will be a conversation that travels from the atelier of a Mughal miniaturist to Ritwik Ghatak's studio to the spirit of questioning in Chinese Taoist philosophy before taking a detour into the writing of a Chinese science fiction writer like Cixin Liu.

According to the curator - the Delhi-based artist group Raqs Media Collective, the biennale to be held in a former power station is anchored in a continuing dialogue between some of the best minds in India and China.

Xiang Liping, project manager of the biennale as well as the head of exhibition department of Power Station of Art, says the curator's plan for the event include: thematic exhibition with focus on the artists and curators, "51 Personae" that explores possibilities of everyday life, as well as "Theory opera" that goes way into the depth of thinking.

"Those different angles form their art expression 'argument, counter-argument, and stories' perfectly. If the artworks in thematic exhibition form the 'argument' that focus on the nature of art, then '51 Personae' could be the 'counter-argument' that relates art with life.

The 'theory opera' works between theory and action, focus on the social life in aesthetic, philosophical and literary level, thus could be seen as 'stories'. The three forms an interesting triangle for us," Xiang told PTI.

Whether they are Desire Machine Collective, Navjot Altaf, V Vinu, Gagandeep Singh, Surabhi Sharma and Tejaswini Nilanjana, Moinak Biswas, Robin Mondal or Vishal Dar, each artist and artist collective represents an artistic position that is thoughtful and incisive.

Two young curators - Sabih Ahmed and Srajana Kaikini - will also present their projects at the biennale called 'Why Not Ask Again'.

"As curators, we are interested in the sharpest and most acute kind of work happening internationally. We believe that a lot of the kind of work we are interested in is unfolding, say, by the bank of the Brahmaputra in Guwahati, but then, it is also happening under the shadow of a volcano in Guatemala City, or overlooking a 'separation wall' in Ramallah, or under a bridge in Lagos, or next to a Hutong in Beijing," the curator says.

"Our curatorial vision is anchored in a long conversation between the cultures that have been shaped across and around the Himalayas. This is where India and China meet. We see this frontier and intersection between many ancient cultures as a zone of possibilities," it says.

One of the key references for the curatorial concept is Ghatak's Bengali film "Jukti, Takko aar Goppo".

The biennale, which will be until March 12, 2017, will have a main thematic exhibition featuring over 90 artists and artist groups, in addition to other sections extending into the city, bringing a diversity of contemporary art displays to Shanghai audience.

According Raqs Media Collective, the biennale celebrates the work that contemporary art does when it becomes a generator of curiosity, of imaginative thinking, of pushing the frontiers of what can be imagined and thought.

"Since the exhibition takes place in a former power station, we are working with the understanding that art is a turbine - a means to energise life with the electricity of questions," it says.

The facility that houses PSA was renovated from a former power plant, whose brute style of industrial architecture provides a rich source of inspiration for artists and enables diverse creative possibilities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With Allahabad High Court breathing down its neck for "non-action" on dengue prevention, Uttar Pradesh government has declared the outbreak of the disease as an epidemic requiring daily filing of report on the vector- borne viral infection.

"Dengue has been declared epidemic by the state government. The decision in this regard has been taken by the state cabinet," Principal Secretary (Health) Arun Kumar Sinha told PTI today.

A notification in this regard has been issued after which private hospitals will have to provide information regarding dengue to government authorities on a day-to-day basis.

The high court had asked the state government on Monday as to what strategies it had adopted for prevention and control of vector-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya.

A division bench comprising Justice V K Shukla and Justice M C Tripathi passed the order, while directing the state's Principal Secretary (Medical and Health) to furnish details of the number of patients afflicted with these diseases who may be admitted in government or private hospitals across the state.

Over 800 people have been affected in Lucknow district alone, while data from other places were not immediately available.

Chief Medical Officer Dr SNS Yadav said that with the change in weather moving towards the colder side, there will be a gradual decline in dengue cases, as the virus causing Aedes Agypti mosquito cannot survive cold weather conditions.

With rising pollution and hovering smog in the atmosphere, one needs to be careful and limit exposure as pollution supports the rise of vector-borne diseases, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
FARGO  Fresh off his decisive Election Day victory, Governor-elect Doug Burgum announced his transition team chairperson on Wednesday and said he wont second-guess departing Gov. Jack Dalrymple on his handling of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.

Burgum, who cruised to a 57-point win over Democratic state Rep. Marvin Nelson of Rolla, named former Great Plains Software and Microsoft executive Jodi Uecker to lead his transition team.

Uecker also served as an adviser to former Gov. John Hoevens transition team in 2000. She worked in operational and leadership positions at Great Plains from 1984 to 2001, helping then-CEO Burgum grow the company to more than 2,000 employees and lead it through its 2001 sale to Microsoft for $1.1 billion. After the merger, Uecker served as corporate vice president of Microsofts Business Solutions division. She most recently was interim president for Sage Business Solutions.

Shes got true tech experience, true global experience, true leadership experience, Burgum told reporters at Fargos Radisson Hotel.

Uecker said its a tight time frame before Burgum takes office Dec. 15, and they want to build a high-performing team.

And were going to do that based on certainly the strength of existing leaders and certainly looking for additional people that want to join the journey, she said, pointing to the website joindougburgum.com for those interested.

Burgum wouldnt speculate on how many members of Dalrymples cabinet will stay or go, saying the transition team will meet with all agency heads.

At least one cabinet spot will already be open: Labor Commissioner Troy Seibel has taken a job as chief deputy attorney general effective Dec. 1, in a move announced Wednesday.

Burgum also was asked about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests that have drawn thousands of Native Americans and other pipeline opponents to camps on or near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Protesters, tribal leaders and the American Civil Liberties Union have criticized the militarized law enforcement response as authorities have arrested more than 400 people so far for criminal trespass, disorderly conduct and other charges.

Burgum stressed that Dalrymple is still governor until Dec. 15.

Were not part of that decision-making chain until Dec. 16, Burgum said. And so we need to give our full support to the  current administration and not second-guess any decisions that they might be making at this point in time.

Burgum said he didnt want to make a political statement about whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should issue the easement Dakota Access needs to finish the $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile pipeline by drilling through corps land under and bordering the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. The Obama administration has been withholding the easement since September for further review, and Burgum said he would leave the issue to the corps engineers, because meeting the criteria for the easement should be a black-and-white decision.

He said it wouldnt be fruitful to speculate on what will happen if protests are ongoing when he takes office.

We could have a completely different situation on our hands there than now, he said, adding he hopes for a peaceful and legal dialogue, as opposed to having something tragic happen here in North Dakota.

Following up on a campaign promise, Burgum said he still fully intends to give his $132,964 governors salary back to taxpayers, though its unclear whether state law allows it.

Well figure out a way to get it done, and even if it means Ive got to take the salary and then donate it, well do that, he said.

Lt. Gov.-elect Brent Sanford also addressed his transition away from the mayors position in Watford City, saying the City Council could nominate one of its members for the post or pass a resolution for a special election.
An influential South-Asian group has urged US President-elect to immediately renounce the "steady narrative of hate and fear used during his campaign", saying he should partner with the community to protect its civil liberties.

"The President-elect must acknowledge the steady narrative of hate and fear used during his campaign has served as a rallying cry for violence and oppression against our communities," said Suman Raghunathan, executive director of South-Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).

"At this early and urgent hour, the President-elect must immediately reverse course and partner with South-Asian groups nationwide to protect our community's civil liberties to achieve immigration reform and to understand that the only way to Make America Great is by ensuring the fundamental freedoms of everyone under the law," Raghunathan said yesterday.

SAALT said the "upcoming new administration must also abandon the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric that were hallmarks of the campaign".

Statements about "building a wall", using a "deportation force", and "extreme vetting" must be categorically renounced, it said, adding Trump must instead prioritise engaging members of Congress to create a roadmap to citizenship, preserve family-based immigration systems and put an end to the draconian immigration enforcement policies currently in place.

With 450,000 undocumented Indian-Americans alone, South- Asians have a tremendous stake in fixing the broken immigration system, the group said.

"We call on the new administration to pass immigration legislation that will defend our rights and expand opportunity for immigrant families," it said.

The group said it has heard from many in the community, particularly Muslim and Sikh-Americans, who have expressed concerns for their safety in the wake of the elections.

"Unfortunately, these fears are not misplaced. SAALT has tracked a disturbing uptick in hate violence and xenophobic rhetoric against our communities in the last year with 200 instances occurring across the US since November 2015.

"Of the over 80 incidents of xenophobic rhetoric, we have tracked over 25% have been statements by the President-elect, including calling for a "complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the US," it said.

"We call on the President-elect to partner with SAALT and the National Coalition of South-Asian Organisations to prevent, detect and respond to bias-motivated incidents of violence and to denounce any hate directed at our communities," the group added.
Meng Jianzhu, special envoy to President of China Xi Jinping along with a delegation today visited the iconic Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus here.

CST, which is a UNESCO heritage building, is the headquarter of the Central Railway (CR).

CR's Additional General Manager AK Srivastava, along with Principal Head of Departments and Divisional Railway Manager, Mumbai of CR held a meeting and presented how the oldest railway system in the world works with such a great efficiency.

Meng Jianzhu and the delegation went around the UNESCO world heritage building and interacted with commuters on platform no 2, star chamber where the booking counters are situated and at the concourse, CR said in a statement.

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A huge suicide car bomb struck the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif late today, killing at least one person and wounding 29 others, officials said, in an attack claimed by Taliban insurgents.

"The suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the wall of German consulate in the city," said local police chief Sayed Kamal Sadat.

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Tata group stocks today saw hectic activity, with shares of Indian Hotels Company falling by over 4 per cent, as a shareholder meeting has been called to seek removal of Cyrus Mistry from the company.

Shares of Indian Hotels fell 4.16 per cent on BSE.

Besides, TCS was down 0.60 per cent while Tata Motors ended flat, down 0.05 per cent.

On the other hand, shares of Tata Steel surged 9.27 per cent, Tata Metaliks jumped 5.73 per cent, Tata Communications soared 5.24 per cent, Tata Power (4.82 per cent), Tata Sponge Iron (3.67 per cent), Tata Global Beverages (2.83 per cent), Tata Coffee (2.55 per cent), Tata Chemicals (1.97 per cent) and Tata Elxsi (1.62 per cent).

In sharp escalation of boardroom battle at the Tata Group, patriarch Ratan Tata-led holding entity removed Cyrus Mistry as chairman of TCS, the conglomerate's most successful firm, and called a shareholders' meet to remove him from IHCL that runs Taj hotels.

Mistry, who was ousted as chairman of Tata Sons in a surprise move last month, however dug in his heels, rallying around independent directors of Tata Chemicals -- the second group firm after Indian Hotels Co Ltd (IHCL) where independent directors have backed him as chairman.

Tata Sons asked IHCL, where it holds 28.01 per cent, to call an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) shareholder meet to consider removing Mistry as director of the company. Mistry is chairman of IHCL.

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Despite sex assault allegations hounding him, fat-shaming a former beauty queen and his controversial abortion stand, a large number of women voters helped put Donald Trump in the White House.

Though his rival, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, clinched 54 per cent of the female vote, Trump was backed by 42 per cent of women voters, which contributed to his stunning victory, according to CNN exit polls.

Some 53 per cent of white women voters supported the Republican candidate, CNN said, the majority of them (62 per cent) non-college educated.

The results upended predictions that sexist and degrading comments Trump made against women would sway female voters - who accounted for about 52 per cent of the electorate Tuesday - in favour of a candidate that could have broken the glass ceiling.

Experts said the outcome is not surprising, and reflects an election in which issues about the economy, jobs and immigration were much higher on all voters' priority list than gender issues.

"At the heart of it is what was driving all voters," said Diane Heith, professor and chair of the Department of Government and Politics at St John's University in New York.

Heith said although the leaked Access Hollywood tape in which Trump boasted about groping women, and his disparaging comments about a former Miss Universe had made many women cringe, it was not enough to turn them against the candidate.

"There was no sisterhood created," Heith said. "The issue of how he treated women did not overshadow the attitudes these individuals already had - being disaffected and how they had been treated by the establishment elite of which Hillary was absolutely part of."



Still, the real estate magnate's shock win has left many women struggling to cope with the election of a president whose misogynistic behaviour was disregarded at the polls.

"More than half of white women voted for the man who bragged about committing sexual assault on tape, who said he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v Wade ... Who has spent 30-plus years in the public eye reducing women to their sexual attributes," wrote LV Anderson in an article in the online current affairs magazine Slate.

"White women sold out their fellow women, their country, and themselves last night," added the author. "Most white women don't want to be part of an intersectional feminist sisterhood. Most white women just want to be one of the guys. And we will all suffer for it."



One issue of particular concern for women - both Democrats and Republicans - will be how Trump deals with abortion rights while in the White House.

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Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh today said he does not know how relations between India and the United States will pan out under the administration of Donald Trump as the President-elect is not an "established politician".

"I don't know. Let us see. He (Trump) is not an established politician. We will see how things pan out," he told PTI after calling on Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah at the state secretariat here.

Singh was responding when he was asked how relations between India and US would pan out under Trump's administration.

The billionaire businessman defeated seasoned politician Hillary Clinton in the knife-edge polls, defying the odds to become the 45th US President after starting off as a rank political outsider.

Asked how India must see Trump's victory, Singh said, "I have no comment on that."



Asked whether Indian diplomats are being called back after the surgical strikes across the LoC, Singh told reporters that the government would see what is to be done depending on how things pan out.

"Diplomacy is the procedure, and depending on how things pan out we will see what is to be done," he said.

Amid the raging Indo-Pak tensions, in a tit-for-tat action, it was reported that India was mulling withdrawal of eight of its diplomats as their security has been "completely compromised."



Pakistan, earlier, had pulled out six of its officials in the wake of a spy scandal involving staffers of its High Commission in New Delhi.

Asked about the problems faced by people due to the BJP-led NDA government's decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination notes, Singh said in a lighter vein "You and me also (are suffering)."



Replying to a query, Singh said he met Siddaramaiah to discuss about Pravasi Bharatiya Divas to be held in Bengaluru in February.

"I met the Chief Minister with regard to Pravasi Bharatiya Divas to be held here. This is an event of India, and that is why both the state and the Centre are coming together," he said.

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With his stunning election triumph, Donald Trump has emblazoned his name in golden letters on the brand of the United States.

The superpower of soft power that produces much of the world's most-loved music, movies and technology yesterday chose a president who is wildly unpopular in close US allies.

Trump's surprise election could have far-reaching effects for the US image with potential consequences for companies, universities and tourism.

Still, the extent of Trump's impact remains to be seen.

The presidency itself has long been key to the US global image, with popular films and television series such as "Air Force One" and "The West Wing" depicting wise, principled presidents, and embassies around the world throwing election watch parties to showcase the peaceful transition of power.

The harsh tone of the campaign, and protests that followed Trump's victory, undercut that message this time, said Nicholas Cull, a professor of public diplomacy at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School.

"I think it's unsettling to audiences around the world, especially as part of Trump's approach is to be tough and to be rude around foreigners - saying he is going to teach China a lesson, or that China has been 'raping' the American economy, or to say that NATO allies are not pulling their weight," Cull said.

"However, on the other side of that, I think people around the world are not stupid and they recognise an American version of a kind of politics that is occurring in many countries," said Cull, referring to rise of populist leaders.

The drag on the US image could be particularly acute to the travel and tourism industry, which has been growing steadily with help from the marketing firm Brand USA, set up under a 2010 law.

The United States last year was the largest recipient of foreign tourists after France, with the tourism industry accounting for 7.6 million jobs directly or indirectly.

Trump has called for a ban on all Muslim visitors and a wall to block the border with Mexico, the biggest source of visitors to the United States after Canada.

Christopher Nurko, global chairman of strategy firm FutureBrand, said European countries and especially Canada - whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has laid out a welcome mat to foreigners including refugees - stood in a strong position to woo foreign travelers or investors turned off by Trump.

US universities are also home to nearly one million foreign students, contributing more than USD 30 billion in 2015 to the US economy, according to government data.

Led by China and India, the international student body in the US jumped 10 per cent in 2014-15, its fastest pace in years, amid concerted efforts to attract students of diverse backgrounds.

"What you are seeing now is that the domestic identity of the United States, or of those who elected Trump, is starkly at odds with how the world wants America to be seen," Nurko said.

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Donald Trump should begin work to kick-starting the economy, enforcing immigration laws and tackling terrorism in Asia, a US-India political action committee said today as it expressed confidence he will build "greater relations" with India under his presidency.

The US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) congratulated President-elect Trump on winning the 2016 Presidential race and commended efforts of all Indian American supporters who canvassed and fundraised for this successful campaign.

USINPAC Indiana Chair and Chair for Asians for Trump-Pence Campaign, Raju Chinthala described Trump's election win as "historical" in American history, saying "he has changed major political system in USA. He will be a great president and will build greater relations with India".

Assuring the support of Indian-Americans to a Trump administration, USINPAC Chairman Sanjay Puri said Trump "must work on kick starting the economy, tackling ISIS and terrorism in Asia. The Indian-American community congratulates President Trump on such a decisive win and pledges to work with the new administration."



RNC National Committeewoman from California Harmeet Kaur Dhillon said Trump's "stunning" victory "heralds a new era of opportunity and promise for all Americans, which will naturally benefit Indian Americans. With Trump's penchant for hiring the best talent, Dhillon expressed confidence that many prominent Indian Americans will be inducted into the new administration."



"As a diverse community....Indian Americans can expect the new President to focus on lowering regulatory burdens, reducing taxes on individuals and corporations, focusing on jobs and growth for America before other countries, enforce the laws of the United States, including its immigration laws, and keep our nation safe from harm," Dhillon said.

Dhillon added that the country's leaders have failed to put the nation first, enabling foreign nations to perceive America as weak.

The committee said foreign policy challenges for Trump will include eliminating ISIS, renegotiating the NATO treaty, reconfiguring US relations with Russia and the war in Syria and illegal immigration. "President Trump now has the mandate to navigate the party to the future with a mix of conservatism and populism," it said.

The political action committee focuses on the over 3.2 million Indian- Americans and works on issues that concern the community. It supports candidates for local, state and federal office and encourages political participation by the Indian- American community.

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Sixty-four civilians were killed and eight were injured in 24 US-led coalition airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria over the past year, the US military has said, based on newly completed investigations.

The latest totals bring the number of civilians killed in airstrikes in the fight against the Islamic State group to 119, with another 37 injured, according to US Central Command.

Colonel John Thomas, Central Command spokesman, said the investigations concluded that the proper military process was followed in each incident and precautions are always taken to try to avoid any civilian deaths.

Independent monitoring groups and activists, however, have repeatedly said that coalition and other airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians.

The cases announced yesterday include strikes from last November through September. And they range from one or two civilians killed to a March strike near Mosul, Iraq, that killed 10 civilians.

The latest report, however, doesn't include two air attacks in Syria in recent months that may have each killed dozens. According to residents and international aid groups, an airstrike in July near Manbij, Syria, may have killed at least 56 civilians and wounded many more.

And a US brigadier general has been appointed to lead an investigation in a September airstrike near Deir el-Zour, Syria, that may have unintentionally killed dozens of Syrian government forces.

The US has said that it monitored the target for two days and deemed it valid before launching the strike. But it was halted when Russian officials called the coalition to say the attack was hitting personnel and vehicles that were part of the Syrian military.

There have been lingering questions about reports that the troops or people on the ground were not wearing uniforms and that they were armed, leading to confusion about who they might be. Other theories suggest they may have been conscripted troops or prisoners of some sort, but there have been no solid findings yet on those reports.

As of yesterday, US Central Command has received 257 allegations of airstrikes causing possible civilian casualties, and has concluded that 76 of the reports were valid and required further investigation. Of those 76, four were duplicates.

To date, 65 of the investigations have been completed, and about half of them have been publicly disclosed. Seven allegations remain open.

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A top American business advocacy group has urged President-elect Donald Trump to invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a state visit to the US in the first year of his administration.

Congratulating Trump on winning the US presidential elections, the US India Business Council (USIBC) has written a letter to him, urging him to invite Modi.

"Invite Prime Minister Modi for a state visit within your first year in office. This will send a clear signal about the importance of the bilateral relationship," USIBC president Mukesh Aghi said in a letter to Trump, a day after he was elected as the 45th president of the United States.

The letter describes USIBC's wish list that the administration should take in the first months of his administration to deepen and expand commerce between the US and India.

Prominent among these include continuing tradition of more and frequent government-to-government interaction between the two countries, negotiating bilateral investment treaty with India and support for India's admission into the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum.

Representing top American companies having a foothold in India, USIBC urged the president-elect to order a comprehensive review of the policies and procedures that weaken US competitiveness in the Indian defence and aerospace market.

"The US export control and licensing processes puts Americans at a competitive disadvantage compared to foreign competitors like the Russians," it said.

The US has refused to sell to India advanced defence equipment on counter proliferation grounds despite the fact that India can now purchase comparable systems from foreign suppliers due to the proliferation of advanced defenve technologies, the letter said.

According to the letter, the US does not have the monopoly it once did in many defence technologies and its policies need to adapt to this reality.

"From both a commercial and national security perspective, it is better that a country like India purchase advanced defence equipment from America than from its foreign competitors," it said.

The USIBC has also urged the President-elect to work to eliminate outdated and unfair tax for Indian workers by concluding an executive agreement with India on social security totalisation.

"We encourage you to prioritise this relationship through consistent engagement with India at the highest levels of your administration," Aghi said in the letter to the President-elect.

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has issued a strongly worded rebuke to Dakota Access Pipeline, asking for the second time in a week for the company to stand down operations for 30 days to de-escalate tensions between pipeline demonstrators and police.

Col. John Henderson, commander of the corps Omaha District, said Dakota Access refused the first request by the administration for a voluntary shut down on Nov. 4 and he reiterated it again in a statement issued Wednesday night.

We again ask DAPL to voluntarily cease operations in this area as their absence will help reduce these tensions, Henderson said.

On Tuesday, the company said it is moving drill bore equipment toward the Missouri River/Lake Oahe, near where hundreds of anti-pipeline protesters are encamped on corps land and on the nearby Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The company does not yet have an easement from the corps to drill the pipeline under the water.

The company said Thursday it has not changed its position in the face of the second request.

Henderson said hes concerned about the Dakota Access position that it will move forward in spite of a commitment from Sioux tribal leaders and key state officials to work toward de-escalation.

The conflict surrounding pipeline construction near Standing Rock has resulted in more than 400 arrests.

Henderson said tribal leaders are committed to the preservation of life and safety by encouraging the demonstrators to move to a winter camp on the reservation for better weather protection and access to emergency services. Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault said the tribe has permission to use land southwest of the Cannon Ball town site for a winter camp, even while the land is being formally partitioned by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The water protectors, as they prefer to be called, are occupying corps land just north of the reservation boundary about 1 mile from the pipeline route.
The CB-CID, which is probing the Vicky Tyagi murder case, today recorded the statement of Additional District Sessions judge in whose court the gangster was gunned down.

SP CB-CID K Angel recorded the statement of Additional district Sessions court judge Mayank Chouhan in connection with the case, a CB-CID official said.

The Uttar Pradesh government had handed the investigation into Vicky Tyagi murder case from local police to CB-CID.

Tyagi was gunned down in the court room by a shooter during the hearing in another case here in Feruary last year.

An alleged shooter Sagar was arrested from the spot while another accused Brijbir was nabbed the next day.

Police had registered a case against11 people, including Sagar and four police officials.

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A waste picker here today came across a bag full of Rs 1,000 notes totalling upto Rs 52,000, two day after the demonetisation of the currency of these denominations.

The elderly woman ragpicker, who chanced upon the cash in a plastic bag, however, immediately alerted her supervisor who in-turn informed the police of what she found.

Police said the incident took place in one of the by-lanes of Law College Road here this morning.

"Shanta Ovhal, who is working with the civic body, was segregating the waste this morning in one of the by-lanes of Law College Road, where she found a plastic bag," an officer attached to Deccan-Gymkhana police station said.

"To segregate the waste, she opened the bag and was shocked as she saw currency notes in denominations of Rs 1,000 along with some waste in the bag," he said.

The woman then informed about it to her supervisor.

"Later, they approached the police and submitted the bag, full of demonetised currency notes," the officer said.

"We are investigating who had left the bag in the waste and also probing the genuineness of the recovered notes," he added.

On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that high denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 will no longer be legal tender, in a bid to fight against black money and create a "corruption-free" India.

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Asking Apple's "diverse" workforce to stay united in the face of "uncertainties" following Donald Trump's surprise win in a bitterly fought US election, CEO Tim Cook today asked the tech-giant's employees to "move forward together" regardless of their individual political choices.

Without naming either Trump or his rival Hillary Clinton, Cook in a memo to Apple employees, said it is inevitable that the election results have left many with strong feelings but urged them to move forward "together" regardless of their political affiliations.

"We have a very diverse team of employees, including supporters of each of the candidates. Regardless of which candidate each of us supported as individuals, the only way to move forward is to move forward together," he said.

Cook said Martin Luther King's phrase "to keep moving forward" is timeless and a reminder that "we only do great work and improve the world by moving forward".

He sought to reassure his company's employees amid "uncertainties ahead", saying "Apple's North Star hasn't changed".

"Our company is open to all, and we celebrate the diversity of our team here in the United States and around the world - regardless of what they look like, where they come from, how they worship or who they love.

"I've always looked at Apple as one big family and I encourage you to reach out to your co-workers if they are feeling anxious.

"Let's move forward - together!," he said.

Cook had hosted a fund-raiser for Clinton in August and one for RepublicanSpeaker of the House Paul Ryanbuthe had not hosted an event for Trump who was declared the next president-elect of the US yesterday after he won with a comfortable margin securing 289 electoral college votes against Clinton's 218.

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Pakistan today said it has welcomed an earlier offer of mediation by US president-elect Donald Trump to reduce Indo-Pak tensions as it expressed the desire to work closely with the new Trump administration.

Foreign Office (FO) spokesman Nafees Zakaria said this while responding to questions at the weekly briefing here about Trump's victory in the general elections yesterday.

"The US president-elect had offered mediation between Pakistan and India on Kashmir dispute during his campaign and we had welcomed that offer," he said, though reports had not mentioned Trump making a specific mention to Kashmir.

The 70-year-old real estate tycoon had last month described tensions between India and Pakistan as a "very, very hot tinderbox" and offered to be "the mediator or arbitrator" if it was necessary and if the two countries wanted him to, following which the Foreign Office had welcomed such an offer.

Radio Pakistan also quoted Zakaria as saying today that people of Kashmir had given sacrifices for their right to self-determination and that Pakistan is concerned over continued atrocities by Indian forces in Kashmir.

He said Pakistan will continue to raise Indian brutalities and human rights violations at international fora besides continuing to extend moral, political and diplomatic support to the just cause of Kashmiris.

The spokesman said that Pakistan was looking forward to work closely with the new US administration for mutual benefits of both the countries.

Pakistan will continue the endeavour to promote and strengthen the existing relationship, he added.

"Pakistan has multidimensional and strategic relationships with the US including economic, defence, Science and Technology, education, strategic issues, counter-terrorism and wants to strengthen them further," he said.

To a question regarding any violation of Indus Waters Treaty by India, Zakaria said Pakistan has approached the World Bank for establishing a Court of Arbitration.

Pakistan is looking forward to establishment of the court at the earliest in line with the Indus Waters Treaty, he said.

Zakaria added that India has not fulfilled its promise of investigation into Samjhauta Express incident.

He said perpetrators of the incident had made public confession in which eight serving army officers were involved.

Zakaria said India did not share anything with us and that Pakistan time and again raised this issue bilaterally and on various forums.

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The worsening ambient air quality near Kaushambi township on Delhi-UP border has prompted the National Green Tribunal to direct Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to inform it about the steps it was taking to check air pollution in the area.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar asked DMRC to file an affidavit stating the steps it was taking to ensure that it does not generate air pollution from its yard near Sahibabad Industrial area.

"DMRC shall file an affidavit as to what appropriate steps are they taking to ensure that it does not generate air pollution from its yard in the Sahibabad Industrial area. It is stated to be located quite close to Kaushambi area," the bench said.

It also directed Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board to file a status report on steps it has taken regarding pollution, dumping of municipal solid waste and generation of air pollution by other means.

The matter was listed for next hearing on November 11.

Earlier, the bench had directed Uttar Pradesh government to take immediate steps for reducing vehicular congestion in the area and consider introduction of CNG buses.

It had directed the state's Transport Secretary to hold a meeting with officials of Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation in this regard and deliberate on the mechanism to decongest the area near Kaushambi bus depot.

Taking strong note of air pollution near the Kaushambi Bus Terminal on the Delhi border, the tribunal had imposed a penalty of Rs 5 lakh on the public authorities in Ghaziabad for "failing to discharge their statutory duties".

The green panel was hearing a petition filed by Kaushambi Apartments Residents Welfare Association which had contended that the presence of two bus terminus (Anand Vihar and Kaushambi) within 200 metres of each other had aggravated air pollution in the area.

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Vice Chancellor Jammu University Prof R D Sharma has courted controversy by saying it would have been "better" if Hizbul Mujahideen Commander Burhan Wani was kept in jail instead of being killed.

"If we would have kept him (Burhan) in jail for entire life, it would have better than killing him. I feel so. Killing a militant is ok and those who have done deaths and destruction should be killed. The problem in Kashmir is that people are still with militancy...We need to understand this," Sharma told media at afunction here yesterday.

He said an "issued was created" by killing the militant.

"What a big issue was created by killing a militant. I don't know whether I am saying right or wrong? If we would have arrested him, the career of school children would not have been spoiled. I am saying this not as politician but as an educationist," he said.

Sharma said students in Kashmir are "dedicated, well organised and career conscious but would fight if they feel they are being harassed".

"They (Kashmiri students) are very enlightened. It was a surprise and shock for me as to why they don't go to schools and colleges. It is sensitive issue. I am not a politician, I am a educationist," he added.

His statement today sparked protests by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha following which he issued a statement saying his views be interpreted in the light of academic pursuits only.

"It is clarified and impressed upon that the statement given by the vice chancellor, which is already available on the social media as well, be interpreted in the light of academic pursuits only, as it in no way was aimed to promote or protect the interests or hurt the sentiments of any individual. Communication gap caused, if any, is regretted," a statement quoted Sharma as saying.

He said, "It is unfortunate that some vested interests have started twisting the statement to satiate their own objectives".

"We should take lessons from it. If one militant's killing can create this situation for four-long months, where families, parents and children become adamant and want Kashmir issue to be resolved...This is an eye opener for all of us. We need to change our strategy," he said.

BJYM today held protests over Sharma's remarks, saying as an academician he should stick to his work only.

State General Secretary, BJYM, Vikas Choudhary said he (Sharma) has given his statement at a time when there was unrest in the state and "our jawans were giving sacrifices for the nation".

President, Chamber of Commerce and Industry Jammu, Rakesh Gupta said the chamber was concerned about the statement by the vice chancellor.

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By Aditi Shah

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's No. 1 software services firm by revenue, ousted Cyrus Mistry as chairman on Thursday, escalating a battle between the Tata group and Mistry who was also sacked as chairman of TCS's parent last month.

Mistry was axed in October as chairman of Tata group holding company Tata Sons and replaced by Ratan Tata as interim chairman of the $100 billion steel-to-software conglomerate.

A similar move to unseat Mistry from TCS, the group's cash cow, was anticipated given the public spat that ensued between the two sides.

TCS said in a statement it received a letter from Tata Sons, its biggest shareholder, on Thursday, nominating Ishaat Hussain as chairman.

"In view of this, Mistry has ceased to be the chairman of the board of directors of the company, and Hussain is the new chairman of the company," TCS said, adding Hussain will remain TCS chairman until a replacement is named.

Tata is now working to wrest control of other key group companies still chaired by Mistry.

Indian Hotels Co, another Tata group company, said in a separate statement on Thursday it has called an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders to consider a resolution to remove Mistry as director. Indian Hotels owns the Taj group of hotels.

Mistry, however, is still chairman of key Tata group companies like Tata Steel, Tata Motors and Tata Chemicals, whose board of directors will meet over the next few days to discuss quarterly results.

Tata Sons owns about 30 percent stakes in these companies which means removing Mistry as chairman may not be as easy as in the case of TCS, in which Tata Sons' shareholding is more than 73 percent, lawyers have noted.

"In TCS, Tata Sons has a right to nominate the chairman," a Tata Sons spokesman said.

Investors fear the split in leadership is likely to delay decision-making at the Tata companies, adding to the uncertainty at the group that is also battling Mistry's allegations of failures in corporate governance.

Tata Sons has not given a clear reason for his removal as chairman but said it was due to a growing 'trust deficit' between Mistry, its directors, and Tata trust companies which collectively are its biggest shareholder.

It has also said Mistry's tenure was marked by departures from the group's culture and ethos.

But Mistry has received support from the management of some group companies. He received unanimous support as chairman from Indian Hotels' independent directors at a board meeting last week, where he was praised for providing strategic direction and leadership.

Shares in TCS were up 1.6 percent as of 0630 GMT on Thursday, in line with the broader Mumbai market. They are down nearly 10 percent this year.

Meanwhile, Tata Sons has called for an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders to consider a resolution for removal of Mistry as TCS director as well.

Hussain, a director of several Tata companies, including Tata Steel and air conditioning and engineering arm Voltas Ltd, currently serves as chairman of Voltas and satellite television provider Tata Sky.

(Additional reporting By Darshana Sankararaman in Bengaluru; Editing by Euan Rocha and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The new statement of Tata Sons (which sounds like a speech of Ratan Tata) against its ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry has a few points to discuss--- 1) Mistry's forecast of 'potential write-downs of $ 18 billion' in Tata companies destroyed their market values by Rs 25,000 crore; 2) He betrayed Tata Sons, avoiding Tata's representatives from the boards of group companies, and desired to seek to control of main operating companies (the statement cited Indian Hotels as an example, in which independent directors sounded in support of Mistry); and 3) Mistry marketed him as an agent of change, blaming the bad investments as 'legacy' issues and 'hot spots'. The rest of the issues noted in the statement are business related--- the over dependency on TCS and Jaguar, Land Rover for showing numbers; failure to turn around troubled businesses--- Tata Steel UK, Tata-Docomo and Tata Motors India; and growing financial liabilities, which increased from Rs 69,877 crores to Rs 225,740 crores over the last four years.

Going back to the first point, the $18-billion-write-off' remark by Mistry was unwanted. It is true that the $12 billion acquisition of Corus, some of the buyouts of Indian Hotels, Tata Power's ultra mega power project in Mundra and the telecom investments were failed bets. But the fact is that Tata group always tried and continued many projects without finding success for long. Mistry knew it but tried to shake up the system, challenging the old practices, before settling himself in the group. At least, the write off remark demoralized the employees and made the share market and bankers pessimistic about the group companies.

Another allegation of Tata Sons is that Mistry blocked the entry of Tata Sons members on the boards of group companies. But the latest developments, including the independent directors' support to Mistry in Tata Chemicals, tell a different story. The leading Tata companes appointed at least a dozen independent directors on the boards during the time of Mistry--- mostly in Tata Steel, Tata Power and Indian Hotels (three each). But surprisingly, the longstanding independent directors like Nusli Wadia and Nasser Munjee (both appointed during the time of Tata) supported Mistry's chairmanship in Tata Chemicals. Wadia is there on boards of Tata Steel and Tata Power. At Indian Hotels, the independent directors including banker Deepak Parekh, former Unilever director Keki Dadiseth and Nadir Godrej supported Mistry. All three came on board during the time of Tata. This time we see that Tata's men are supporting Mistry.

For Tata, it will be tough to handle all the independent directors, especially the stalwarts in the industry, in one go. The shareholders will see split between Tata and Mistry as battle escalates. Mistry is out of TCS, in which Tata Sons holds majority stake. But the case is different in other group companies where the holding company is a minority shareholder. Mistry's fate will be decided at the extraordinary general meetings (EGMs). For sure, the Tata companies will get caught up in the middle of Tata-Mistry battle.

What was Tata's original worry? Some say "The chairman was expected to perform the role of CEO when there were many issues to be sorted out. But Mistry took ownership at the group level and tried to redesign it," says an insider. But people close to him says he dealt with issues at companies also. The decision to exit the British steel business was a pressure tactics to force the UK government to act against Chinese cheep dumping, they say. Augmenting the passenger car launches were another such move.

In another allegation, Tata Sons says that Mistry littered the interviews with text-bookish directives and objectives like 'growth with profits', 'target to be among the top 25 groups in the world by market capitalization' and 'cater to the lives of many millions'. During the time when they announced a market capitalization target, many in the stock market shocked as it was for the first time any respectable group announcing such targets, which is completely outside the ambit of a company. Mistry was very much under the influence of the erstwhile GEC, old-timers say. And, his team marketed Mistry's era directly comparing to Tata's. For instance, one of the recent big announcements was that the Tata group doubled patent count in two years during Mistry's time. Another one says that the group deployed $28 billion capital for expansion after Mistry took over.

Mistry has wasted a golden opportunity. But for the first time in his life, Tata sees an army of opponents.
Cipla Ltd, country's fifth-largest drugmaker by sales, on Wednesday reported a 35 per cent fall in quarterly profit, missing analysts' estimates, mainly due to lower sales in the emerging markets and Europe.

Net profit in the July-September quarter was Rs 354 crore ($53.3 million), down from Rs 543 crore during the same period a year earlier. That compared with the average estimate of Rs 392 crore from analysts in a Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S poll.

Sales in India, Cipla's biggest market, rose 21 percent in the quarter, the company said in a statement.

North America, where Cipla has been working on building up its presence, contributed 18 percent to sales in the second-quarter. Sales from the region rose 38 percent.

Those rises could not offset a 27 percent fall in Europe sales, and a 1 percent fall in emerging markets, which are Cipla's second-largest contributor to sales.
Donald Trump's stance on trade has always had a protectionist bent as his campaign showed aversion towards immigrants, H-1B visas apart from pledge to set up tariff barriers that could cause a ripple effect in India too.

Now taking over as the 45th president of United States, his tough trade beliefs could become a reality.

Here are 4 ways Trump's policies might affect India:



VISA

Many Indians who aspire to work in America could face a setback in future due to Trump's stance on H-1B visas.

The H-1B visa programme is a non-immigrant visa that allows employers in the US to hire foreign professionals for specialised jobs.

On March 11, 2016 Donald Trump said that the H-1B visa programme he uses to employ highly-skilled foreign workers at his own businesses should end as it is 'very unfair' for American workers.

Several companies like Cognizant which has large operations in India send their staffs to America on H1-B visas.

In a speech last month in Ohio, Trump raised the issue at the millennial-age voters, calling the outsourcing of jobs for 'college-educated kids' a 'tremendous threat.'

Among the players who may face the heat are IT professionals and IT companies from India who are major beneficiaries of H-1B visa.

IT SECTOR



India's IT sector has been a major exporter of IT services, accounting for more than a quarter of country's international trade. The IT-BPM exports for the financial year eneded 2016 crossed the $100 billion milestone and the IT services export was recorded at $61 billion, according to Nasscom.

Companies like TCS and Infosys are likely to lose out on workforce if Trump takes a stern action against H-1B visas.

"The Indian IT companies have been outsourcing its services to the US companies and earning approximately more than 60% of its $110 billion yearly revenue from the US market only," said Abnish Kumar Sudhanshu, Director & Research Head, Amrapali Aadya Trading & Investments.

"The IT sector is already struggling with reduced IT spending, now the views voiced by the President-elect (Trump) regarding bringing back the jobs to US again will create more trouble for already nervous sector," said Mustafa Nadeem, CEO, Epic Research.



JOBS

The president-elect has expressed his anguish over jobs being stolen from Americans.

"I'm going to bring jobs back from China, Mexico Japan, Vietnam. They are taking our jobs. They are taking our wealth. We have $2.5 trillion offshore. We're going to bring that money back," said Trump in a Republican debate in North Carolina.

He also spoke about jobs moving to India in his speech in Minneapolis a day before voting: "IBM laid off 500 workers in Minneapolis and moved their jobs to India and other countries. A Trump administration will stop the jobs from leaving America, and we will stop the jobs from leaving Minnesota."

PHARMA INDUSTRY

"A win of either of party was expected to impact pharmaceutical industry in near to short term. Both Hillary and Trump have favored tighter pricing policy in US. We are expecting trump to advocate repealing current obamacare, ultimately putting pressure on the pharmaceutical companies," said Abnish Kumar.

Many of Indian generic drug companies like Sun Pharma, Lupin and Dr Reddy's gained under the Obamacare that allowed the use of 'biosimilars' which are drugs that have properties similar to ones that are already licensed.

Indian Pharmaceuticals is the second biggest exporter to US recording 2086.32 USD million in exports as of 2016. In 2013 Pharma exports touched an all time high 11.1 billion in 2013.

If Obamacare is scrapped, Pharma companies will be hit hard costing thousands of jobs in India and abroad.
Newly re-elected Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said hed use some of his considerable political capital with Donald Trump's administration to see that the Dakota Access pipeline is approved  but he doubts that will be necessary.

Instead, Cramer said he thinks the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will issue an easement in late November or early December for the controversial pipeline to cross the Missouri River, and the topic will be moot by the time Trump takes office in January.

I think the pipeline will be largely done, and boring (under the river) will have begun. The easement is written, its on their desk and its to the point where theres no legal reason not to do it, Cramer said Wednesday, the day after Trump was elected president.

He said he has not specifically discussed the pipeline with Trump or any of his staff, though he wrote white papers on energy-related issues for Trumps campaign. The corps easement is the only authority preventing the company from hooking the pipeline from one side of the water to the other on its 1,172-mile route toward Illinois.

A disputed crossing

The crossing has been the subject of intense dispute since mid-August as thousands of Native Americans and others who fear water contamination and desecration of sacred lands have camped nearby on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Activists, who call themselves water protectors, have repeatedly disrupted construction, leading to more than 400 arrests and daily deployment of police in the pipeline vicinity.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said what happens could rest upon what President Barack Obama does in his remaining two months in office.

We hope he will deny the easement until theres a full environmental impact statement. Whether that happens or not is yet to be seen, Archambault said. As long as its not under the river, Im hopeful.

Obama said last week that the corps is looking into whether the pipeline can be rerouted away from tribal sacred lands, though Cramer said he believes the president was talking from his heart, not from insider knowledge, and that unwinding all the permits would be too complicated. The corps said in September it will withhold the easement while it reviews its earlier decisions regarding the pipeline.

Equipment mobilized

Despite that, Dakota Access LLC is mobilizing equipment in preparation for tunneling about 90 feet beneath the riverbed.

Dakota Access remains confident that it will receive the easement for these two strips of land adjacent to Lake Oahe in a time frame that will not result in any significant delay, company spokeswoman Vicki Granado said in a statement Tuesday. The company had initially expected to deliver Bakken oil by the end of December, but that schedule has been delayed.

Archambault said the company is forcing the federal governments hand and made the statement to reassure its investors that the project will proceed. He said the tribe is ending its 50-year relationship with Wells Fargo because of that banks financial involvement with the pipeline.

If they drill regardless and they dont have an easement, it will be up to the corps and the nation to put them in check, the chairman said.

Cramer said the protest at Standing Rock ends with the pipeline under the river. It doesnt mean it will be easy and that it wont require law enforcement. I dont expect the protest will go away easily, but, at the end of it, we will have a pipeline under the river.

He said high-level discussion needs to continue to decide how tribal consultation should take place for such projects, including the topics of Native American sovereignty and self-governance.

Im hoping the tribe takes advantage of the leverage it does have -- which, by the way, is slipping away (with protest activities) -- and use it while they have it, Cramer said.

On Wednesday, the Dakota Resource Council urged Republican Gov.-elect Doug Burgum to heal the rift between the tribes and state government. The environmental group urged Burgum to go the protest camps to listen and talk to tribal leaders, to remove the blockade on N.D. Highway 1806 that prevents north-south travel near the protest camps, and to create a de-escalation plan for the police force engaged with the protest.

There was no comment from the Burgum camp on those suggestions.
The sudden demonetising of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes has come as a major setback to 'hawala' and 'angadia' operators in the country's financial capital, police said. Hawala (informal and illegal money transfer) transactions of around Rs 2,000 crore take place in Mumbai every day, according to the police.

"We are closely monitoring the activities of hawala traders and angadias (cash couriers),'' a PTI reprot from Mumbai quoted a senior police officer as saying.

Mumbai has been a traditional hub for hawala and angadia activities, operated mainly from Bhuleshwar, Kalbadevi and Opera House areas of the city.

Currency in denominations of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 used to be sent along with gold and jewellery to places like Surat and Ahmedabad, the officer said.

However, yesterday's decision to scrap the high denomination notes has hit the hawala and angadia business badly, the officer said.

Those having stash of unaccounted-for currency today rushed to convert it into gold, as seen from the high footfall in jewellery market, he said.

In Pantnagar area of suburban Ghatkopar, gold was sold at a record Rs 45,000 per 10 gm, he added.

Meanwhile, deputy commissioner of police Ashok Dudhe said police were monitoring activity in areas of the city which witness high-volume financial transactions. If needed, we will deploy extra police in these areas, he added.

The scrapped 500 and 1,000 rupee notes constitute around 86 per cent of the total cash in circulation and in the case of hawala operations all deals are carried out in high-denomination notes.

The extent of the hawala racket is quite evident from the fact that earlier in July this year the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in Mumbai had unearthed a 'banking-hawala' scam, in which reputed public sector banks illegally remitted Rs. 2,240 crore overseas based on forged documentation and declarations of traded goods by exporters and importers.

The funds, generated in connivance with officials of six public sector banks, were a result of duty drawbacks claimed on the basis of inflated export bills and, in most cases, non-existent imports. The actual import value of the goods was not more than Rs. 60 crore.

The fictitious trade circuit was mostly controlled from the one-room office of Stelkon Infratel at Masjid Bunder in south Mumbai, while a chunk of the remittances was made by Punjab National Bank's branch.
After banning the higher denomination currency, the government has issued a warning that records will be maintained by banks for those who deposit cash worth more than Rs 2.5 lakh between November 10 and December 30.

The tax department will match the amount deposited with the income shown in the return filed over the previous years. If there is a mismatch, suitable action will follow.

ALSO READ: Will the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1000 be the end of black money?

In case the amount deposited is more than Rs 10 lakh and the money is unaccounted for, then it will be treated as tax evasion. So, apart from the tax due, the person will have to pay a penalty of 200 per cent. Penalty is levied on the tax amount due.

So, suppose a person falls in the highest tax bracket of 30 per cent (with income not exceeding Rs1 crore) and has unaccounted money of Rs 10 lakh, then the penalty can be over Rs 9 lakh (30.9 per cent tax including 3% cess plus 200 per cent of 30.9 per cent). If the income is more than Rs1 crore there will be additional levy of 12 per cent as surcharge.



The total penalty can be much higher or, in fact, a person may have to pay more than the amount declared if interest is to be paid on the tax due. "The tax department will check if the income is from past years. Then interest at the rate of 12 per cent per annum will be levied for the period since the tax is due," says Sudhir Kaushik, Chief Financial Officer, Taxspanner.com.

"The government had given the option for declaring undisclosed income under Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) where the effective tax rate was much less at 45 per cent. But that window has been closed now. So, if now a person has undisclosed income, he or she has to pay higher penalty or face persecution, " adds Kaushik.



ALSO READ: 5 things to know before you go to the bank to exchange Rs 500, Rs 1000



In case of IDS, the government had provided immunity against prosecution. But now, if the Principal Tax Officer feels that the tax evasion was done wilfully, it may lead to rigorous imprisonment ranging between six months and three years, depending on the amount and nature of the tax evasion.

However, it is not that if you deposit the money with the bank you will have to pay penalty. You may get a scrutiny notice from the tax department, which will ask you for the source of income. If you are able to explain the source or are able to prove that tax evasion was not done wilfully, the tax officer may waive the penalty depending on the circumstances.

Therefore, it is advisable that you don't panic and go to a tax expert and seek their help on the necessary action to be taken.
Donald Trump's surpriseelection as U.S. president has Pakistanis wary that he may accelerate what theysee as a shift in American policy to favour arch-foe India in the long rivalrybetween nuclear-armed neighbours, analysts said on Wednesday.

Historical allies in the region, Islamabad and Washingtonhave seen relations sour over U.S. accusations that Pakistan shelters Islamistmilitants, a charge Pakistan denies.

They hit new lows in May when a U.S. drone killed the leaderof the Afghan Taliban movement on Pakistani territory.

At the same time, Pakistan's ties with traditional rival Indiahave also deteriorated this year, with India saying Pakistan-based militantskilled 19 of its soldiers in a September attack on an army base in the disputedKashmir region.

To many Pakistanis, Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric - he onceproposed banning Muslims entering the United States - and business ties toIndia are signs that his administration could shift further toward New Delhi.

"America will not abandon Pakistan, but definitely,Trump will be a tougher president than Hillary Clinton for Pakistan," saidHasan Askari Rizvi, Lahore-based foreign policy analyst.

"I think India will have a better and smootherinteraction compared to Pakistan."

Trump has yet to lay out a detailed policy for South Asia,although he recently offered to mediate between India and Pakistan in theirdispute over the divided territory of Kashmir.

He also told Fox News in May he would favour keeping nearly10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan "because it's adjacent and right next toPakistan which has nuclear weapons."

CONGRATULATIONS, ASSURANCES

On Wednesday, a U.S. diplomat in Pakistan sought to assurethe country that Trump's election did not signal a drastic policy change.

"Our foreign policy is based on national interest andthey don't change when the government changes," Grace Shelton, U.S. ConsulGeneral in Karachi, told Geo News television.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Trump.

"Your election is indeed the triumph of the Americanpeople and their enduring faith in the ideals of democracy, freedom, humanrights and free enterprise," Sharif said in a statement.

Still, the uncertainty of a Trump presidency has manyPakistanis on edge, even if the country has leaned towards China in recentyears for investment and diplomatic support.

"Trump is a bit of a wild card," said SherryRehman, a Pakistani senator and former ambassador to the United States.

"Pakistan obviously cannot rule out engaging withwhomever America elects, but his anti-Muslim rhetoric may cast a shadow onrelations in times of uncertainty."

INDIA HOPEFUL

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also congratulated Trumpon Wednesday.

"We look forward to working with you closely to takeIndia-US bilateral ties to a new height," Modi said in a tweet.

Trump has partnered with Indian businessmen on a handful ofreal estate ventures, but apart from courting the Indian-American vote he hasnot articulated how he would develop the bilateral relationship.

India-U.S. ties have flourished under President Barack Obamaand Modi, who came to power in 2014, with the two countries striking keydefence agreements this year.

Modi's government has also waged a campaign to isolatePakistan diplomatically.

Shaurya Doval, director of the India Foundation, athink-tank close to Modi's government, called Trump's election "a verypositive development", but added that India and the United States wouldhave continued to grow closer under a Hillary Clinton presidency as well.

"My sense is that India-U.S. relations are notdependent on individuals - there are strong institutions and processesthere," he said.

One fringe Hindu nationalist group in India held a victorygathering at New Delhi's speakers' corner on Wednesday.

"He's an American nationalist. We are Indiannationalists. Only he can understand us," Rashmi Gupta of the Hindu Sena,or Hindu Army, told Reuters. "We expect him to support us when it comes toterrorist attacks on India from Pakistan."

AFGHANISTAN WAR

Trump will also have to decide whether to maintain thenumber of U.S. troops in Afghanistan or change the scope of the mission, 15years after a U.S.-led campaign toppled the hardline Islamist Talibangovernment.

The United States has spent some $115 billion in aid forAfghanistan since 2002, but the country is still caught in conflict, with athird of the country out of government control and thousands of Afghancivilians, soldiers and police dying every year.

Afghan officials have voiced concern that the conflict isbeing forgotten in Washington, and warned privately that the West will pay ahuge price if that continues.

"The people of Afghanistan are tired of war. We want(Trump) to invest heavily in bringing peace to war-torn Afghanistan and stabilizeour region," said Umer Daudzai, former Afghan minister of interior.

Obama's original aim of pulling out of Afghanistan entirelyhas been put on hold in the face of mounting gains by Taliban militants, withU.S. air power and special forces still regularly involved in combat.

As recently as last week, two U.S. Green Berets were killednear the northern city of Kunduz.

Although Afghan security forces have been fighting largelyalone since the end of the main NATO-led combat mission in 2014, their performancehas been patchy and they continue to rely heavily on U.S. air power.

The Taliban on Wednesday urged Trump to withdraw all U.S.troops.

"They should not cause damage to their economy andtheir military in this failed war," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahidsaid of the American government in a statement.
Gold, which is considered as safe haven under uncertain circumstances, saw a surge in demand on Wednesday due to both global and domestic factors.

Internationally, the major driver of gold prices was the victory of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the US. Apart from this, the surprise ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes by the government to clamp down on black money and fake currency led to a surge in domestic prices.

Gold prices today shot up to a three-year high of Rs 31,750 per 10 gm, gaining a whopping Rs 900 following the government's scrapping high-denomination notes to curb black money.

Experts believe that gold prices are poised to move higher as uncertainties prevailing in the domestic as well as international market are unlikely to die down anytime soon.



"Prices are poised to move higher towards the level of around Rs 31,200 per 10 gm initially with Rs 29,700 per 10 gm as a very strong support area. In coming days, we may see levels of around Rs 31,800 per gm and eventual breach of this level will pave way for higher level of Rs 32,500 per 10 gm," says Sugandha Sachdeva, AVP and incharge- metals, energy and currency research, Religare Securities.

Kunal Shah, Head of Commodities Research at Nirmal Bang, says, "Investment demand in gold is likely to remain robust. Moreover, whatever has happened in India is causing surge in gold demand. Overall the trend in gold should remain bullish."

However, the physical demand for gold has shot up overnight as people rushed to convert their black money into gold. Prices of physical gold have shot up to Rs 45,000 to Rs 60,000 per 10 gm due to tight supply in the physical market. As per sources, there was record buying of around 250 kg of gold in around three and half hours yesterday after the announcement.

However, experts believe that ban on high denomination currencies will have short-term impact as there is a limit of Rs 2 lakh on how much a person can buy gold in cash without disclosing the PAN card number.

"There has been a risk aversion in the market and turmoil like situation because of the shock victory of Donald Trump. It ignited the safe haven demand for gold and prices rose to a five-week high," says Sachdeva. "Trump's victory is in favour of gold as there are a lot of uncertainties prevailing in the market about his policies. Uncertainties are good for the safe haven demand for gold."

Apart from this, experts are expecting that the US Fed may delay its rate hike decision, which will favour the support the gold prices.

Sachdeva says, "Trump may try to have more control over Fed as he may chalk out his own policies. It is expected that the rate hike which was expected to happen in December may be postponed. If the current run in gold prices continues and if the current high of the year $1,377.5 an ounce seen in July is breached , it would actually usher in an era of firm bull run in gold prices where in prices can even move to a level of $1,460 as well."

Experts say that investors should use these corrections as good buying opportunities for medium to long term prospective.

With PTI inputs
In a press conference Finance Minister, Arun Jaitely finally faced questions for the first time after the massive ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes by the incumbent government. Indian banks opened early to cater to the huge cash demands and will be working for extended hours as well as on weekends to help more and more people with cash. Numerous people are running out of Rs 100 notes, which has led to long bank ques since morning.

Along with the trashing of old currency, the banks are finally introducing the new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes that come with an all new design and colour. Many people are showcasing the new notes on social media.

Here's how Indian banks look like on the first day after the "surgical strike" on the black money:





UP: People queue up outside banks in Lucknow to exchange scrapped notes after Govt announcement to withdraw Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/uZpxbjGuu2 - ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) November 10, 2016

Siliguri (West Bengal): Huge crowd gathered outside banks as it reopens for the first time after Govt withdraws Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/tlAxc3gasn - ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

Delhi: People queue up in large numbers outside Reserve Bank of India to exchange banned Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/t9gDDNCrL0 - ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

Bihar: Chaos outside a bank in Patna after people queue up in huge numbers to deposit/exchange Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/Czk5TvBBTD - ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016
World food prices edged up in October to continue an upward trend since January, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday, adding that prospects for global cereal output had improved.

Barring a slight dip in July, the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) food price index has steadily increased from a seven-year low hit in the first month of this year.

The index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar, averaged 172.6 points in October, 0.7% above the month before and 9.1% above October last year.

Sustained demand for cheese and butter in the European Union pushed up dairy prices 3.9% on the month, while sugar rose on reports of production shortfalls in Brazil and India.

Conversely, sluggish import demand globally for palm oil pushed oil and fats prices down, and weaker appetite for European pigmeat from importers in China weighed on meat prices.

FAO senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian said high production prospects for basic foods such as cereals meant any future price rises would probably be muted.

But he added that currency volatility and uncertainty unleashed by the U.S. presidential election this week hampered predictions about changes in dollar terms.

"It's not an election in just any country, it's the very country whose currency is the common denominator for all international trade," Abbassian said.

"This is an additional uncertainty, but ... if you had assumed that business as usual were to continue I would have argued that, given the good prospects at hand, the potential for further price increases was probably limited."

Cereal prices rose 1.0% month-on-month in October as high-quality wheat supplies tightened, but the FAO forecast global wheat output this year would be 1.5% higher than in 2015. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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The European Union is likely to extend economic sanctions on Russia over Ukraine in December but could find it much harder to renew them in the future if Donald Trump succeeds in warming up relations with Russia.

Trump, who will take over as U.S. president in January, has said he wants a "good relationship" with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, alarming some in the EU who fear a policy shift that softens the U.S. stance on the Ukraine crisis.

The sanctions were first imposed shortly after Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and rolled over for six-month periods since then.

Five European diplomats told Reuters they expected EU leaders to extend the main economic sanctions in Brussels next month -- before Trump takes office. The decision requires unanimity among the 28 member states and the economic sanctions are now in place until the late January, 2017.

"The roll-over in December should still happen. There is no change on the ground in Ukraine ... there is really no argument not to extend them," said a European diplomat.

"But then, after Trump's inauguration, who knows where he takes us. It may become way more difficult."

Under President Barack Obama, the United States has also imposed sanctions on Russia and has urged the bloc to remain united over them.

But the measures' effectiveness has been increasingly questioned by EU member states Italy, Hungary, Greece and Cyprus, all of which have close business ties with Moscow.

During his election campaign, Trump adopted a more open-minded stance on Putin than current U.S. officials who consider him an autocrat bent on suppressing dissent at home while bullying his neighbors and projecting Russia's power abroad.

Trump has not said what he would do to revive ties with Russia. EU diplomats fear a softening of the U.S. position would be seized on by the Kremlin in the hope of weakening the bloc's own resolve on sanctions.

"After Trump is inaugurated in January, if there really is a rapprochement with Putin, it would deepen divisions within the EU on Russia and would make keeping sanctions in place more difficult," a diplomat in Brussels said.

Another envoy said: "The EU must make its own decision in December but the complication comes if in January the United States signals that it is going to change its policy. That could affect EU unity."

TOUGH TASK AHEAD FOR TRUMP ON RUSSIA

The economic sanctions include restrictions on the access of Russia's banking sector to international money markets, an embargo on most arms trading with Russia and the sale of some energy-related equipment and technology.

They have exacerbated a Russia's economic woes but failed to force a change of policy in Moscow. Critics of the policy inside the EU are increasingly upset at the lost trade and economic benefits that stem from putting sanctions on Russia.

Britain's vote in June to leave the EU has further weakened the voices of those who strongly favor sanctions, including member states from eastern Europe which were once part of the Soviet bloc and fear a cozy relationship between Trump's Washington and Putin's Moscow could undermine their security.

Despite the concerns in Brussels about Trump, some diplomats say that delivering meaningful rapprochement between Russia and the United States will be hard, not least because of the tough views on Moscow held by many Republicans in the U.S. Congress.

"Even assuming Trump reaches out to Putin, what do they really stand to gain? He's a very difficult partner, it's hard to get anything back from him. And the Republicans are very pragmatic," said one EU envoy.

"We'll have to see, but there is a chance that for all the talk there won't be such a massive shift in real policy."

Officials in Brussels said the fate of Russia sanctions would also not be a priority for Trump and that for Europe the future of ties with the Western NATO alliance were more vital.

Trump said during the presidential campaign that he would make the United States' defense of its Western allies conditional, casting doubt on the key pillar of the alliance.

On Wednesday, NATO responded to Trump's victory by pledging unwavering defense.

"In reality, sanctions on Russia may not be the biggest fish to fry. The first question is what he does on NATO, as this has broad repercussions for the whole European security, including Russia ties," said an EU official. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Simon Coveney, has today vowed to fast-track the delivery of 30,000 new homes in urban centres across the country.

The Minister made the remarks at the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) Annual Conference in Dublin today.

SCSI say they broadly welcome the latest announcement but they warn that the intention must be backed up with the provision of increased manpower in local authorities and An Bord Pleanala to meet the potential increase in large scheme applications.



Reacting to the announcement from the SCSIs Annual Conference in Dublin today, President of the SCSI, Claire Solon said, "We welcome and support the latest actions announced by the Minister to help stimulate the housing market in key areas of demand in an effort to address the lack of supply. In particular we welcome the fast-tracking of residential housing schemes and the identification of significant land holdings for potential development."

She added, "Availability of development finance at affordable levels to fund these projects is also key to ensuring the delivery of the Ministers proposals. Government has no choice but to get involved in the provision of finance in a more significant way if they are looking for quick solutions. Its done in other countries, particularly after significant downturns and we need to adopt this approach here."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
A new 12 million life science network has been announced to assist Irish and Welsh businesses to innovate.



Celtic Advanced Life Science Innovation Network (CALIN) is a collaborative programme led by Swansea Universitys Medical School and is funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Ireland Wales Cooperation programme.



It aims to engage and assist over 240 Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) throughout Ireland and Wales by offering open access to a unique strategic international partnership involving 6 world leading higher educational institutions and global healthcare leaders Unilever and GE Healthcare.



Through CALIN Welsh and Irish businesses will have access to a powerful knowledge base and technological infrastructure enabling accelerated innovation and access to a network of key stakeholders including those involved in supply chains, route-to-market and end-user healthcare providers. CALINs aim is to drive smart sustainable growth in advanced life sciences in both Ireland and Wales, by undertaking a large number of collaborative R&D projects, and through these generating new jobs and attracting investors into the cross-border regions.



The six higher educational institutions are University College Dublin, National University of Ireland Galway (NUI Galway), Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork in Ireland and Bangor University, Cardiff University and Swansea University in Wales.



All R&D activities will include a collaborative partnership between an SME and both an Irish and a Welsh university over a 1-3 year period depending on the nature of the development programme.

The network will offer R&D, technological development and innovation support to SMEs, which will drive the international competitiveness of both regions. Together the internationally recognised centres of excellence will foster long-term cross-border research and industrial partnerships, building a platform of excellence for wider interactions in Europe and beyond.



Speaking today, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe said, "The Ireland-Wales programme shows how EU funding can contribute to successful cross-border cooperation  in this case across our maritime border with the UK."

He added, "The CALIN project is an excellent example of how it supports research and development in universities for the benefit of enterprises of all sizes, leading to new jobs and further investment in new technologies."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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It was announced today that Irish retailer Penneys is the latest brand to join the One4all scheme. The partnership is the first of its kind to be undertaken by Penneys and means that shoppers can now redeem their One4all Gift Cards in Penneys stores nationwide.



Penneys operates in 36 stores across the country and offers a diverse range of products, stocking everything from baby, kids, womens and mens wear to homeware, accessories, beauty products and confectionery. Until this partnership with One4all, Penneys did not offer any facilities for 3rd party gift cards to be redeemed in its stores.

Speaking of the announcement, Group CEO at One4all, Michael Dawson said, "Were delighted to announce the extension of the One4all retailer portfolio and partnership with Penneys which means that One4all customers are able use their Gift Cards across Penneys stores nationwide. Penneys is a fantastic Irish brand offering a broad range of products, which is going from strength to strength both nationally and internationally at the moment."

He added, "Fashion is the sector where we are seeing the largest growth in terms of redemptions of the One4all Gift Card and so this most recent addition is a welcome one, and will sit perfectly alongside existing brands."



Source: www.businessworld.ie


The Irish Times reported yesterday that the High Court has appointed a provisional liquidator to the American Apparel clothing retailer in Dublin city centre.

The company, part of the US-based American Apparel group, had been trading in Ireland since December 2007.

Mr Justice Paul Gilligan appointed insolvency practitioner Kieran Wallace, of KPMG, as provisional liquidator on Wednesday to American Apparel Ireland Ltd, which operates a store on Grafton Street, after being told the company was insolvent and unable to pay its debts.

The company leased its premises at 114 Grafton Street and its landlord claims to be a considerable creditor, the court heard. The only realisable assets are the stock in its premises, it was also stated. The company has no warehouse here and the Dublin store sold clothing ordered from other group companies that retained stock on their premises.

Kelley Smyth BL, for the company, petitioned for the appointment of a liquidator following its American parents decision to file for bankruptcy in the United States. This meant the parent could no longer support the Irish firm with stock supplies, credit and finance management.

The judge appointed Mr Wallace and granted him several powers, including to trade and sell the companys stock, secure the companys assets and retain the employees. The matter will return before the court in December.

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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Irelands largest tech event in 2016, National Digital Week, is starting today and will bring together a host of tech experts and influencers as well as demonstrations showcasing the latest in tech innovation.



Following on from the success of last years inaugural National Digital Week, more than 1,600 entrepreneurs, digital marketers and technology enthusiasts are expected to attend the three-day event.



It will kick off at the AIB Brave Stage on Thursday morning with an opening address from Lord David Puttnam, Digital Champion of Ireland and a video message from An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny. Over 80 speakers will take part across the three days, discussing a wide range of topics including Food, Innovation in Agri-Tech, Start-up Ecosystems, Virtual Reality, The Sharing Economy and Female Leadership.



Furthermore, AIB will host an opening night reception at the Ludgate Hub on Thursday evening to mark the opening day of National Digital Week and celebrate the recent launch of the Ludgate Hub itself.

The reception will include a panel discussion on digital entrepreneurship featuring CEO at Spearline Labs - Kevin Buckley, Innovation Community Manager at PorterShed Galway - Mary Rodgers, Founder of IDD Consulting - Ingrid De Doncker and James Long, Founder and VP of OurValiance, a Ludgate Hub tenant who recently relocated to Skibbereen from Silicon Valley.

Head of Digital Marketing and Innovation at AIB, Mark Brennan said, "AIB are delighted to back National Digital Week for the second year. AIB prides itself in its commitment to backing our tech customers and the wider tech community in Ireland."

She added, "National Digital Week, along with AIB-backed innovation centres such as the Ludgate Hub in Skibbereen and PorterShed in Galway, are examples of how we are helping tech start-ups to succeed and grow to their full potential."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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The largest event in the European machine learning and data mining calendar comes to Dublin in 2018, following a successful co-bid by the Insight Centre for Data Analytics and IBM Research- Ireland.



The Insight Centre for Data Analytics, Irelands national data research institute comprising 400 data scientists, made the successful bid in partnership with IBM Research - Ireland at this years event in Riva Del Garda in Italy.



ECML/PKDD 2018 is expected to attract at least 600 science and industry delegates from all over Europe to a flagship Dublin venue due to be announced next year.

Data scientists will discuss new techniques to enable machines to learn from data and their environment. Major topics at recent conferences include deep learning, a method central to IBM Watson or to Google Deepmind AlphaGo.



Other areas explored at the event include reinforcement learning which allows robots to update their knowledge as they interact in the world and network analysis to extract knowledge from social media interactions and learn people's preferences.



The Insight Centre and IBM Research-Ireland worked closely with Failte Ireland and Keynote PCO on developing the bid for ECML/PKDD. The event will take place over five days in September 2018.



"The event, sponsored by industry giants such as Google, IBM, Deloitte and Siemens, will copper fasten Irelands position as a European leader in data research," says Insights Dr Neil Hurley, who led the bid alongside IBMs Dr Michele Berlingerio.



"This is an important win for Dublin, especially this week as the Web Summit opens its doors in Lisbon, says Dr Hurley. It signifies the standing of our data and machine learning research in Europe. Our ability to attract prestige events like the ECML/PKDD conference proves that Ireland is a competitive tech hub in Europe, with the research clout that makes us a natural home for an event of this stature."



Source: www.businessworld.ie

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The theft of money from accounts at Tesco Bank is a threat to national security and undermines public trust in financial firms, Britain's interior minister Amber Rudd said on Thursday.

Retailer Tesco's banking arm said this week that 2.5 million pounds was stolen from a total of 9,000 customers last weekend in what cyber experts say is the first mass hacking of accounts at a western bank.

Rudd said the government recognised financial crime such as cyber crime and money-laundering as a national security threat, which costs 24 billion pounds a year.

Britain cannot afford to be seen as a haven for dirty money, she added.

"The recent example of Tesco Bank is a stark example of what we face," Rudd told a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) conference on financial crime.

The FCA watchdog has described the Tesco thefts as unprecedented.

"Public confidence in our institutions get shaken by these sort of events," Rudd said.

She was also "deeply concerned" by claims London is a major global money laundering centre, she said.

"Money laundering still poses a real threat both to the UK's international reputation and integrity of our world leading financial centre," Rudd said.

Britain's National Cyber Security Centre, launched last month, is helping with the Tesco investigations, giving direct assistance to the bank, and identifying any wider lessons for industry, she said.

"The recent Tesco bank incident served to demonstrate that the private sector has a crucial role and a responsibility in countering cyber-enabled fraud," she added.

FCA Chief Executive Andrew Bailey said the watchdog was not going to reduce its focus on financial crime anytime soon.

It will visit a random sample of smaller "higher risk firms" to flush out practical problems in applying anti-money laundering rules, such as checking the identity of customers properly.

The watchdog is also asking small firms for the first time to submit data on crime risks and will publish aggregate findings in June, which could include which countries are seen as most risky to do business with.

FCA head of financial crime, Rob Gruppetta, said it was worth exploring ways to cut compliance costs, such as centralising monitoring of transactions in banking, making it easier for banks to share information, and no longer making money laundering reporting officers criminally liable.

Bailey said automation could help firms cut the cost of complying with financial crime rules, and authorities should play a role in enabling such change to happen.

"The FCA should make it clear that firms don't need to establish identity through physical production of paper passports and utility bills when this can be done by secure video link. BaFin, the German regulator, has published guidance on this and the FCA should follow suit," law firm CMS said. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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PROVIDENCE  Residents decided against changing its form of government Tuesday night. Proposition 2  the ordinance that would have given the mayors administrative duties to a city manager  was defeated 1,160 votes to 708.

The Providence mayor has both legislative and administrative powers in its current form of government. Chad Checketts, one of the Providence residents behind the Proposition 2 push, said he wanted to provide an alternative to those who were dissatisfied with the current system. He knows the cost of hiring a city manager was likely what defeated the proposition, but said he doesnt think residents examined the issue enough.

I think most people in Providence are not satisfied with our current situation, he said. Had they vetted this theyd realize that you could hire a city manager, and that it wouldnt cost $125,000.

Council member John Drew, like Checketts, wanted the ordinance to pass and believes there was some misunderstanding surrounding it.

Most people dont like change, he said. And when they dont understand it they are confused. They usually just vote against it.

Both Checketts and Drew believe hiring a city manager could potentially save the city more than what the manager would cost. Drew said that managers often network with other city managers and are aware of what grants are available. Drew said Providence rarely pursues those things.

Smithfield just got $64,000 in grant money to update their general fund, he said. We missed the deadline because nobody paid attention.

A bigger issue than the grants is the high number of lawsuits that have been filed against the city.

Somebody that was in office that would listen to what the people are interested in and be concerned what the people are interested in, I think would alleviate many of those lawsuits, Checketts said.

Drew said more lawsuits have been filed against Providence than every other city in the valley.

Some cities have not been sued at all in 15 years, he said. In 15 years Logan has been sued 15 times. Logan is eight times the size of Providence. In 15 years Providence has been sued 21 times.

Many others opposed the issue. Council member Roy Sneddon said he didnt believe the ordinance would pass, but was still relieved when he saw the results. He said he doesnt think the cost is worth the benefits.

Given the size of Providence and the size of its problems, they could be handled by an elected mayor and a city council with competent full-time employees, he said. At least for the foreseeable future.

Drew said most Utah cities with comparable size have a city manager, but added that most didnt have one until a crisis arose. He believes Providence will have a city manager in the future, but worries what the crisis will be that prompts it.

Were just as complex as Logan is, he said. We may not have as many employees. Nibley has a smaller population than we do. They have a city manager and Nibley does a fabulous job.
Nearly 64 percent of voters approved medical marijuana in North Dakota on Tuesday, but it will likely be some time before a dispensary opens in the state, proponents say.

North Dakota Compassionate Care Act Committee Chairman Rilie Ray Morgan said his group has had a couple of inquiries from possible dispensary operators, but hes not sure how serious they were.

Were a ways away from seeing a dispensary up and running, he said. Its going to take awhile to get the (Health Department) up to speed and a legislative appropriation, so it's not going to be happening overnight. At least we got the ball rolling.

Morgan predicts it will be nine months to a year at the earliest before a medical marijuana industry takes hold in the state.

The passage of Measure 5 makes it legal to possess up to 3 ounces of medical marijuana for treatment of up to nearly a dozen medical conditions. Facilities for medical marijuana distribution would be licensed by the state Health Department and be operated by nonprofit organizations.

Those more than 40 miles from a licensed facility would be able to grow up to eight marijuana plants after providing notification to law enforcement, as long as theyre grown in an enclosed facility.

The number of North Dakotans who approved this was overwhelming. I dont think there needs to be too much tweaking, Morgan said of the implementation, though he said it will be up to legislators and regulators to make it work.

Because of medical marijuanas overwhelming support, Eric Olson thinks full legalization has a good chance of passing in the state in 2018 or 2020.

I think (full legalization) would have passed if it had it been on the ballot this year, he said. That measure failed to get the signatures needed to make it onto the ballot this election cycle.

Olson said if full legalization is on the horizon, it could make the recently passed measure unnecessary. He said Measure 5 could result in unnecessary government expenses to manage something that doesnt need to be managed, though he did vote in favor of the measure.

The medical marijuana initiative could cost the North Dakota Department of Health about $7.35 million for the 2017-19 biennium, which includes costs for 32 full-time staff, according to Deputy Health Officer Arvy Smith. Theres also an additional $2.8 million cost per biennium estimated for the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and fees included in the measure would not be enough to cover the full cost of implementation, she said.

Because of meeting rules associated with the measure, Olson also raised concerns that North Dakota residents interested in opening a mom-and-pop dispensary might have a hard time because it will take additional resources to comply.

In addition, because North Dakota is a smaller market, he said it may take a longer time for larger operators with the necessary resources to make their way here.

Its hard to say who will come, Olson said. Its going to depend on how smooth implementation goes.

Morgan was more optimistic about a locally run operation.

I think there are locals that could get on board with this, apply for a license, get growing and get a dispensary up and running," he said. "I dont see why some group of North Dakota investors cant get behind this.

Either way, Morgan would like to see something happen as quickly as possible.

Although its small market compared to other places, I think the industry is pretty sophisticated, said Greg Falls, a partner at national law firm Sherman & Howard who is an expert in working with states to implement medical and recreational marijuana laws and policy. If theres an opportunity for business people to make money in North Dakota, I think they will find their way there sooner rather than later.

Falls pointed to small towns in Arizona, where it took a little while to open; but those that did open did a pretty good job of getting in.

Nicholas Vita, CEO of Columbia Care, the nations largest medical marijuana company, said he doesnt think there will be much of a lag.

Theres always an interest in health care, said Vita, adding that the key is to develop a collaborative regulatory framework and investors will be looking for a high degree of certainty and the ability to serve a wide range of patients. He said it will likely start in larger population areas and could come from a combination of local and outside investment.

While approving legalization of medical marijuana, North Dakota voters also helped to bring in a new president -- one whose supporters have been critical of legalized marijuana. To date, the Barack Obama administration has largely allowed states to take the lead on marijuana legalization rather than enforcing federal law, as long as action is taken to limit use by minors.

Fall said whether that will change under Donald Trump's administration is unknown, but it is something of which to be wary. He said if the new administration were to take action, it would most likely be through lawsuits against states, starting with those with fewer regulations preventing use by minors.

Morgan also acknowledged that possibility, but he said with medical marijuana now legal in nearly 30 states, he is confident the strength in numbers could lead to either a change in federal law or a continued deference to states rights.

Changes have been made to this story to correctly reflect who made statements related to Measure 5's future should full legalization eventually pass.
Moldova: Car sharing for democracy

Published on November 8, 2016

Story by Lucille Guiheneuf Translation by: Lara Bullens

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On 13 November, Moldova will elect its new president. Thanks to a Facebook group that reunites the countrys expats, Moldovans will have access to voting polls from every corner of the world. This new initiative could potentially redefine Moldovas political future.

I can host two people in New York. There are three spots left in the car going from Frankfurt to Kempten. We are a group going from Seattle to Calgary, a good 2400km in the name of one rightful vote. We have reserved a bus for 70 people leaving from Northampton, join us!

This is how everyone communicates on the Adopta un vot! Facebook page [Adopt a vote! in Romanian, the official language in Moldova, Ed.]. The page is drowning in offers. Just as Nico is inviting everyone to tea in Berlin, Anatolie posts pictures of her flamboyant van that seats 12 people  offering to bring them from Norway to Stockholm, one of the only cities in Scandinavia where Moldovans can vote. In the mean time, Doinizza chooses to post a list of all Italian cities in which her compatriots can cast their votes. If Adopta un vot! does indeed have any resemblance to car sharing website Blablacar, it is simply to get organised and share accommodation so that a large number of Moldovans living abroad can vote in the second round of presidential elections on 13 November this year.

Political road trip

The idea took form bit by bit in Barcelona, thanks to 28-year-old Anastasia Condruc. A Moldovan whos been working in Spain for 2 years, she belongs to a generation that chose to leave their country in search for greener pastures. The Facebook group has now amassed over 30,000 members, and new offers appear by the hour. Anastasia is the first to be shocked by its success: I thought that it could help out a few friends, and potentially reunite 100 people, but thats all. It was after a Skype conversation the day after the first round of elections that she decided to launch her initiative. I was talking to a Moldovan friend living in Los Angeles who was complaining that there were no voting stations nearby. The closest was in Sacramento, about 600km away. Later on I spoke to a Mallorcan friend who mentioned that she was looking for accommodation in Barcelona so that she and six other friends could vote, she explains. It was in that moment that I envisioned a platform where everyone could help each other out. I spoke about this idea with a friend in Amsterdam, who immediately jumped on ship and helped me create the group.

Due to the immediate success of the project, Anastasia and her friend were forced to call on their connections. Now about eight of us are managing the group, scattered around the world. But others help as well. For example, someone published an interactive map indicating every voting poll in every country.

Adopta un vot! is not only a practical guide to all those living abroad, but has become somewhat of a political forum, the only difference being that opinions are not necessarily debated. When members of the group share their journey, their roof and their time they are also sharing their political ideas, all embodied by Maia Sandu. It is impossible for an expat to jump in a car or be part of an organisation unless they vote for this candidate. Opposing the center-right, the young politician has represented the hopes of the Moldovan diaspora since she qualified for the second round of elections on 31 October. Winning 38.71% of the votes, Sandu has revived the pro-European spirit in opposition to Igor Dodon, a pro-Russian socialist who was expecting to coast to power.

Russia or Europe?

Maia Sandu, who created her own political party Actiune si Solidaritate [Action and Solidarity, Ed.] in May 2016, can count on Moldovan expats to vote for her despite travelling thousands of kilometers to leave their dead-beat country. Like her, they also want to make a leap forward. Maia Sandu embodies a revival, Anastasia says. Shes a unique candidate. Firstly because she is one of the first women to get this far politically, but also because she was the Minister of Education. She put things in their place and even has international experience with the World Bank She knew how to give back hope to Moldovans who had lost faith in their political figures.

Its safe to say that the latest scandals havent necessarily sparked hope. In April 2015, $1 million (equal to 15% of the countrys GDP) disappeared from the - countrys banks. Suspicious of this mystery and its corruption, both the pro-Russian and the pro-European parties went out to demonstrate their mistrust in huge protests. Since this incident, three pro-European governments have enlisted in an Alliance for European Integration (formed by social democrats, Christian democrats and some liberal parties) without managing to calm the calamity of the Moldovan people, who still deem their political leaders corrupt.

Moldova, an ex-Soviet country between Russia and Romania with a population of about 3.5 million, is still being torn between Russia and Europe. The eternal debate is which side to choose. To renew relations with Moscow, which placed an embargo on Moldovan meat and fruit after they signed an agreement with the EU in 2014, or to collaborate with Europe and open a new market? Chisinau, the capital, is a perfect depiction of the countrys see-sawing. There, both Russian and Romanian are spoken in the streets and the media, and the Cyrillic alphabet mixes with Romanias Latin-based language on every wall. The East/West debate is all the rage, and is becoming even more of a concern with the upcoming elections. Anastasia regrets that geopolitics has become the most popular subject in the elections. What should be at the heart of these debates is the fight against corruption, she explains. First we have to deal with internal issues, and then we can discuss partnerships with other countries. Its a disillusioned debate, and sadly we are only concentrating on this one issue.

We dont feel lonely

Whatever happens, on 13 November Moldovans will head to the ballots to decide their destiny. If Maia wins, of course we will celebrate. Hundreds, maybe even millions of Moldovans from the diaspora have reunited, travelled together, and gotten to know each other. This group has brought us many things. We dont feel lonely. Anastasia confessed. People in Moldova confessed that they hadnt voted in a long time. But when they saw the enthusiastic and optimistic messages in the group, they wanted to believe in something and vote. The group could be an archive of voices that will make all the difference for Maia Sandu. During the first round of elections, only 49% of Moldovans made the effort to vote according to the electoral commission. Could the 20% of Moldovans living abroad change things?

Whatever the result, Anastasia believes that Sunday will end well. Just seeing this mobilisation is already a victory. The most important thing is, even though we are far from home, people around us share our opinions, she says. Democracys Blablacar, Couchsurfing for solidarity or a global meeting point - Adopta un vot! has surely allowed for the Moldovan presidential elections to be exciting.

Story by Lucille Guiheneuf

Translated from Moldavie : le Blablacar de la democratie
There's a new sheriff at the state Capitol.

Burleigh County Sheriff Pat Heinert picked up a seat in the District 32 House race on Tuesday. Now, he'll just have to figure out how he'll manage his time once the legislative session starts in January.

I kind of function better under some stress, he said with a laugh at his office Wednesday.

As both sheriff and legislator, Heinert plans to spend about the same amount of time shuffling between the sheriff's department and state Capitol. With 37 years in law enforcement, he said he has a unique perspective to bring to the Legislature.

During the session, he said he still plans to go into the sheriff's office each day. He and the department have established a protocol in which, if something were to go awry and he were needed at the office, he could be reached by text or email and then follow up with a phone call.

Most of his job there requires him to manage the budget and staffing, he said.

Ninety percent of the issues that come up are taken care of by those three positions  the sergeants, the lieutenants, the majors. And theyre just informing me of what theyre doing," he said.

Heinert said he'll still be able attend every Burleigh County Commission meeting, which are typically held after hours.

I plan on working some Saturdays to make sure bills are caught up (and the) budget is squared away. Ill probably work just about every Saturday here at the office," he said.

And with the new Burleigh-Morton jail getting closer to completion, Heinert said he's at a point where he's not required to be there as often.

A lot of these things are going to be after hours. Meetings with staffing, meetings on training, its all going to be in the evening," he said.

Still, Heinert said he's not completely worry-free.

I have worries because I want to make sure I do a good job on both sides," he said. I want to make sure I represent the people, the county, as sheriff, and I want to make sure I represent the people of District 32. I think theyve entrusted me with that because they elected me."

Heinert said the details are still being worked out on his pay at both jobs. As sheriff, he makes $114,108 a year; and he will make $177 per day during the session as a legislator.

When we sat down, I talked with the commissioners about how this was going to work. We really didnt talk about (pay)," Heinert said.

Commission Chairman Brian Bitner said commissioners haven't had an official discussion on it.

Weve had some conversations about it, not that thats led to any conclusions," he said. Obviously, we needed to wait until he either won the election or didnt before it would be an issue.

Bitner said the commission will discuss the issue at an upcoming meeting.
| BY Lynchy |

EXCLUSIVE: Darren Spiller, regional creative director of Publicis Mojo is moving to Minneapolis in June as Chief Creative Officer of Fallon US, replacing Al Kelly, who joined Fallon in 2007 from Strawberry Frog Amsterdam.

However, Spiller will continue to have input into Mojo Australia and New Zealand, the agency he has worked at since 1995 when he joined the Auckland office as head of art.

Fallon is also owned by The Publicis Groupe and has offices in London, and Tokyo.

Graeme Wills, regional chairman of Publicis Mojo negotiated for Spiller to retain ties with the agency and clients, however Spillers main focus will be Fallon US.

When they realised I was going to Fallon and it was still in the family it made sense to maintain a relationship, Spiller told Campaign Brief.

Ill liaise with some clients on a monthly basis. There may be a fewteams that work on Australian projects with me overseeing them from theU.S, especially things like Tourism Victoria. An account which is veryclose to my heart and which I have fostered a great client relationshipover many successes and many years. Its a clever business thing to do,why lose someone completely when you can keep them in the family,everyone benefits  clients, staff, and agency. I thought it was a verymature way to look at it, says Spiller.

Spiller has been ECD on award winning campaigns for clients includingTourism Victorias Labyrinth and Run Rabbit Run, Nestle PetersDrumstick campaign and Nikes Stuff History.

His remit at Fallon is to grow the business and put Fallons creative reputation back on top.

While Fallon enjoys a reputation for groundbreaking creative such asBMW Films, in recent years the London office has been outshining the USheadquarters with work such as Sony Balls and Cadbury Gorilla.

Fallon has won six new business pitches in the last six months, whichis very encouraging. Theres a feeling of resurgence there, it had afew tough years, but everyone eventually goes through that 

While Spiller has had a number of job offers over the years this is the first he was really interested in.
| BY Ricki Green |

DDB Group Australia has announced that incumbent RAPP Melbourne managing director, Dave Brown and DDB Melbournes multi-award winning chief creative officer, Darren Spiller will be partnering in the agencys top job in a move that places creativity at the heart of the business.

As part of the restructure Simon Bagnasco (below left) has been promoted to the role of ECD of DDB Melbourne, which will provide further depth to the creative department as Spiller expands his remit.

In 2012 RAPP re-launched after its merger with Brown and Steve Crawfords boutique agency Crawford Brown and Brown moved into the managing director role at the new RAPP Melbourne.

Says Andrew Little, CEO, DDB Group Australia: In the past two years, Melbourne has grown exponentially and has produced outstanding and multi-award winning creative married to a leading and innovative strategic offering. In response to this trajectory  we are now looking at a broader senior management structure.

Dave has done an outstanding job growing RAPP Melbourne into an innovative CRM and digital agency and is the perfect candidate to partner Darren and lead DDB Group Melbourne going forward. We believe the Spiller/Brown leadership will be a force to be reckoned with.

Browns breadth of experience across client-side and agencies makes him a well-rounded candidate to leverage the multi-disciplined offerings of the DDB Group as managing director of the DDB Group.

Says Brown (top right): We have 130 incredibly talented people in Melbourne across DDB, Mango, RAPP, Tribal and Shop. Daz and I are passionate about nurturing and deploying the best talent from each business unit, so our clients get truly innovative and effective business solutions to their unique growth challenges.

Says Spiller (top left): The DDB Melbourne Group is in such a strong position  both creatively and from a business performance viewpoint. Im looking forward to partnering with Dave and about giving creativity its rightful place at the boardroom table. I will concentrate on the creative output across all the DDB Group brands as well as applying creative thinking to clients business challenges.
| BY Ricki Green |

Commercial radio broadcasters have welcomed the passing in Parliament yesterday of the 25 percent reduction in licence fees for commercial radio licence holders.

Says Joan Warner, chief executive officer of industry body Commercial Radio Australia: The licence fee reduction is a welcome relief and the industry looks forward to continuing to work with the Communications Minister on further cuts in 2016/2017 as foreshadowed in his budget statement.

The licence fee reduction is applicable for the 2015-16 licence period and was announced by the communications minister, senator the hon Mitch Fifield in May.

Warner said the fee reduction recognised the increased competition from global players who are largely unregulated and do not have the costs, obligations and restrictions carried by Australian radio broadcasters.

At the National Radio Conference in October, minister Fifiield said the fee reduction decision recognises the fact that the media landscape for radio has changed dramatically since the licence fees were first introduced in the mid-1950s and the digital environment is placing increasing financial pressure on commercial broadcasters whose main competitors pay no licence fees.
| BY Ricki Green |

CB Exclusive  Campaign Brief can reveal that DDB Group Melbournes Darren Spiller has decided to step down as chief creative officer, effective November 15, to pursue international creative opportunities.

Spiller joined DDB Melbourne in 2012 as ECD replacing Grant Rutherford and was promoted to CCO in February last year, a move which saw a major creative restructure for the agency.

Prior to joining DDB Melbourne, Spiller held the role of CCO at Fallon USA and before Fallon, was regional creative director role of Publicis Mojo Australia and New Zealand before moving to Minneapolis in June 2009.

Says Andrew Little, CEO, DDB Group Australia: Darren has done an outstanding job for DDB Melbourne over the past four years and we wish him the very best for this next stage  he is a truly amazing creative talent achieving over 100 awards in this first three years for clients including Devondale, Radiant Returns and RSL to name but a few.

We are conducting the search for Melbournes new CCO and in the interim, Melbourne Creative Directors Glen Dickson and Jim Ritchie will be closely supported by the senior Sydney team led by Ben Welsh.

Says Dave Brown, managing director, DDB Group Melbourne: Darren has been my partner in crime and one of the most talented creative leaders I have worked with. We will remember his legacy for many reasons but the highlight will always be the highly entertaining and multi-award winning Devondale campaign that broke category rules and challenged perceptions.

DDB Melbourne has a very strong senior creative line-up with outstanding creative and innovative work already in the process for 2017.
| BY Ricki Green |

Melbourne agency Fenton Stephens has just announced the addition of a new client, Dennis Family Homes, after a successful creative pitch.

Dennis Family Homes is an award-winning home builder, known as much for their quality of construction as their passion for making homes more affordable. After a collaborative creative Pod process with the agency, Dennis Family Homes announced they would be working with Fenton Stephens to advertise their full range of products over the next year.

Says Jordan Hodson, marketing manager, Dennis Family Homes: We really enjoyed being involved in the strategic and creative process and were very excited to get started with the team at Fenton Stephens.

Fenton Stephens will produce work across Television, Print, Radio and Digital media for both brand and retail messages.

Says Alex Fenton, CD, Fenton Stephens: We presented a wide range of creative territories based on a solid brief and were delighted that Dennis Family Homes chose to work with us. Theyre a perfect fit for our agency and culture and we look forward to creating great work together.
How you treat a server says more about you than anything else
GRAND FORKS  Col. Rodney Lewis, commander of Grand Forks Air Force Base, told a Tuesday morning crowd at the Ramada Inn that he hadnt stayed up on Tuesday night to watch the election unfold. Instead, he said, he read the oath of office hed taken in the Air Force before going to sleep.

A long time ago, I raised my right hand just like all the other members that you see in uniform and many of our civilians that are out there, and it starts like this: I, Rodney Lewis, do solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, he said. We live in a great country, and Im so proud to be an American. Period.

Lewis delivered the remarks on the heels of Republican Donald Trumps election Tuesday evening, and at the top of his State of the Base Presentation, an update for the community on ongoing projects and links between the base and the community. In a roughly hour of remarks, Lewis moved quickly from discussion of the election to matters at the base, from developments at Grand Sky to potential new missions to $220 million in local economic impacts stemming from the base in its 2015 fiscal year.

Near the end of his remarks, Lewis offered a peek into a few marquee projects unfolding at the base. He mentioned Grand Sky in particular, the aviation business park designed around fostering unmanned aircraft development -- more commonly known as drones.

Its amazing what you can do as community, going from sticking shovels in the ground in September to actually flying in July, he said. I will tell you that we lead the country in (unmanned aircraft systems), and Grand Sky is going to be apart of that.  Operations are moving quite nicely in that space. That is a future we can depend on.

Lewis also referred to work to attract the KC-46A tankers to the base, including a recent visit by evaluators.

I can only tell you, without getting ahead of my bosses, that the evaluators came out to our base, (and) they left with an understanding that we have great facilities and a great community, he said.

The address also gave a peek into the composition of the base, which has shifted significantly over the years. Lewis offered notes on base population, which he said is at about 3,500 people -- with about 1,600 active duty military members, 400 civilians and 1,500 family members. Leaders of various forces at the base, such as the 69th Reconnaissance Group, offered brief summaries of their duties and missions.

University of North Dakota President Mark Kennedy called the link between the base and the university vitally important.

If you look at what we do on UAS, and what they do, combined, thats really the magnet that brought in Grand Sky and its really a great opportunity for Grand Forks, the region to diversify our economy beyond energy and ag.

Grand Forks City Administrator Todd Feland praised the base as an asset for the community.

We are the base of the 21st century, and Im always impressed by Col. Lewis and his team, Feland said.
Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 2:21PM

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

2016 is truly the year that Virtual Reality (VR) breaks into mainstream consumer consciousness with products like the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR being made available with game support in many markets.

For Google, VR has been an aspirational part of their ecosystem every since they revealed Google Cardboard a few years ago and this cheap introduction into smartphone-based VR, has been an evolving part of their ecosystem.

Daydream View is Googles next VR headset and is designed to correspond with the Pixel and Pixel XL but is also open to other devices that fall into the required specs.

The Hardware





Another one of the Made By Google products, the Daydream View offers a friendlier and more comfortable way to watch VR on your smartphone. Rick Osterloh, formerly of Motorola, probably brought former Motorola designer Rhea Jeong along to Google with him, she was one of those talents that made the Moto X and its accessories like the Moto Hint look and feel unique.

The style and colour palette of that device seem familiar in the Daydream View which isnt made out of hard plastic or cardboard but which merges various rubber and cloth materials into a device that looks and feels organic and inviting. After using it for a week, Daydream VR felt as inviting and comfortable as a familiar pair of jeans. I also like that you can remove the faceplate and wash it if it gets too sweaty or gross from too much use.

There are many clever touches to the Daydream VR that set it aside from other headsets. The neat way it snaps your smartphone into place, the small recessed holder for the VR controller and even the fact that it comes with a remote are huge features that do set it apart from other non wired headsets.

The Pixel XL slots in nicely and its high-res screen is suite to work with this Pixel XL does have a 2K HD display, which plays a big part in creating an immersive and engaging experience.

The Daydream View plus Pixel XL make a good combination, but I found that it was a bit heavy on my face (the device kept sagging), the belt that is used to secure the headset to your face can barely hold it (at least that was my experience). It doesnt help that the Pixel XL is a bit too big for the Daydream as it sticks out a bit.

After around 20 minutes of use, the Pixel got rather hot to the touch and I noticed that there is a threshold of about 30 minutes where you may want to stop to let the hardware cool off (and also to rest your poor eyes).

The Software





Google has an entire Daydream ecosystem in store for users. Theres the Daydream app, which is available for download starting today. The Daydream software offers an entertaining menu system with various app suggestions, most of them are paid though. But there are Google specific apps that are free and worth checking out, YouTube VR is by far the most useful one since theres already a lot of 360 video on that service.

Some of the apps I downloaded included Google Arts and Culture which is a virtual art museum where you can learn about artists and their work and even zoom into photos and paintings, Wonderglade which has a variety of puzzles and games that require the use of motion control on the remote. Google Street View brings an even more immersive experience with 360 views and other applications like the Wall Street Journal App, take the VR approach and place you in the middle of an office with access to articles (text articles. for some reason), some video as well as the latest stock information displayed in 3D.

Daydream VR and the Moto Hint are cut from the same cloth or at least feature the same organic look and feelStar Chart VR makes looking at planets and nearby galaxies possible in VR. The graphics are a bit low-resolution here and I understand that this was necessary in order to make navigation and animation smoother. Just this week I received a VR press release, an introduction to the Baci Perugina specialty chocolate , via a VR YouTube link, introducing the brand ,which took me to sunny Italy where an attractive Italian guide explained the history as well as the creation of these delicious and storied chocolate bonbons.

Compared to more intensive VR experiences like the HTC Vive or the PlayStation VR, the quality and resolution of what is available on Daydream View isnt as detailed or smooth but thats fine. Daydream VR costs a lot less ($99 Canadian) than those other solutions and it is far less cumbersome. Daydream View is a great introduction to VR content consumption and definitely does more for users than the Galaxy VR and cardboard-type VR glasses can provide.

Theres not too much content available for Daydream VR right now, unless you count the hundreds of 360 videos on YouTube right now, so theres definitely some merit in waiting for more titles to come to the platform. Theres also the chance Google might discount Daydream VR even more as we head closer to the holidays.

Hits:

Comfortable, stylish VR headset that feels organic and friendly

Handy VR remote extends functionality of VR experiences and makes them more interactive

Misses:

VR titles are few as of the moment

Pixel XL devices tend to get hot while using Daydream VR

VR remote can be a bit kludgy

Verdict:





Daydream VR is one of the easiest and most affordable tools to get into VR today provided you have a smartphone that can support it. While it may not offer the detail and graphics horsepower of more expensive VR platforms, it does a lot to democratize the experience as well as bring serious VR content such as games, videos and immersive experiences into the mainstream.

Rating: 4 out of 5
"But now we are are over the moon because the community has helped us back up and looking into the future when most businesses would probably struggle to get back on its feet as soon as we have."
Canberra is her home town. And it's from Canberra that she has battled terminal breast cancer for the last six years and also been the face of the remarkable grassroots organisation Love Your Sister, raising more than $2 million for breast cancer research and awareness, not least with the help of her brother Samuel, who unicycled around Australia.
"They range from one like the helmet orchid that's out now, it's only a couple of centimetres tall and it's literally like this red helmet growing on the ground, to a blotched hyacinth orchid that stands a metre tall and it's just like a pink hyacinth flower so the diversity is just amazing."
"Our No. 1 objective is to close another two of Labor's offshore detention centres. We have already closed 17. When Manus and Nauru are empty and closed that will be 19, that will basically be the end of Labor's legacy."
BEIJING -- A Foreign Ministry spokesman on Thursday urged Japan to deal with comfort women issue responsibly.

The conscription of "comfort women" was a grave crime against humanity committed by the Japanese military during World War II, said spokesman Lu Kang at a daily press briefing.

According to Japanese media reports, surviving "comfort women" from the Republic of Korea (ROK), the Philippines, Indonesia and East Timor called on the Japanese government last Friday to make a formal apology and offer compensation to victims, while rejecting a December agreement between Japan and the ROK that was intended to permanently settle the issue.

One agreement can not completely settle the issue, they said, calling for a solution acceptable to all victims in all countries.

They also demanded that the matter be included in Japanese textbooks and that the victims be compensated.

China has taken note of those reports, said Lu, adding that China's position on the issue is clear and consistent. "We have always urged the Japanese side to face up to and reflect on its history of aggression, draw lessons from history, deal with relevant issues with a responsible attitude and win trust from its Asian neighbors and the international community."

Lu hoped that the Japanese side would teach its citizens accurate history, ensure they have a comprehensive and objective understanding of the history and never allow the tragedies to repeat.
As settlers headed west in the middle of the 19th century, nations of Native Americans wanted them to keep their distance and their foreign diseases at bay. The United States wanted easements for trails and permission to build forts in Indian territories.

The result was the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851  a historic agreement that has found new resonance in the disagreement over the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

It really is an important thing, said Suzan Harjo, president of the Morning Star Institute and a longtime Native American historian and advocate. These agreements  they all started out with peace and friendship.

Harjo curated an exhibit on treaties at the Smithsonians Museum of the American Indian and wrote an accompanying book, both called, Nation to Nation: Treaties between the United States and American Indian Nations. The exhibit is slated to be open until at least 2018. President Barack Obama in 2014 awarded Harjo the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nations highest civilian honor, for her decades of advocacy on behalf of Native Americans.

Because of the unique standing of treaties under the U.S. Constitution, many parts of the treaty remain in effect, according to Harjo, who said she believes Dakota Access Pipeline opponents are correct in citing the treaty in their efforts to stop pipeline construction on treaty lands that are privately owned and not part of the Standing Rock Reservation.

The Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851 was an attempt to establish Native American territories and set ground rules for the westward spread of settlers, Harjo said. More than 10,000 Native Americans came to Fort Laramie for discussions with U.S. officials. Because the fort couldnt hold them, negotiations were held at Horse Creek, leading some to call it the Treaty of Horse Creek. Others call it the Great Smoke, because of the smoke when tribal leaders burned sage and buffalo grass and other symbolic things up to the Creator to signify the deal was done, Harjo said.

They made this treaty, and it was a reasonable treaty on all sides, she said.

A map drawn by Belgian Jesuit missionary Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet with information from famous guide and fur trapper Jim Bridger helped define the approximate boundaries of the tribes, Harjo said. The pool-table sized map now is at the Library of Congress.

The treaty also laid out rules for interaction among the tribes and with the United States, gave the government permission to build small forts and provided easements no wider than a Conestoga wagon for westward trails, said Harjo, who explained that is part of the reason for the width of railroad tracks: They originally had to fit in those same easements.

Areas on the Dakota Access Pipeline route run through the 1851 territories of tribal bands that make up the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Yankton Sioux Tribe, as well as through the Great Sioux Reservation drawn up in the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868, Harjo said.

However, Congress in 1889 divided the Great Sioux Reservation into six separate, smaller reservations, which have remained intact. While Congress forced the tribes on to smaller parcels of land, the treaties of 1851 and 1868 didnt go away, Harjo said.

Grant Christensen, an assistant professor at the University of North Dakota School of Law, said he hasnt reviewed the two Fort Laramie treaties close enough to give an opinion on any legal standing related to them. But, he explained the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution makes any treaty the supreme law of the land" and the terms of treaties remain in place unless specifically repealed by Congress.

The U.S. Supreme Court also has held that subsequent treaties do not do away with an earlier treaty unless the new treaty specifically addresses and removes the terms of the older treaty, he said.

An example is a 1999 Supreme Court case called Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, in which the Mille Lacs Band successfully argued they never lost the right to hunt and fish on lands laid out in an 1837 treaty despite an 1855 treaty that made their reservation smaller, Christensen said.

Harjo said she believes Standing Rock still has claims to the lands in the 1851 territories. The Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851 didnt make the tribes change who they were, she said.

They didnt give up their right to speak their language or exercise their religion. They didnt give up their ancestors graves. They didnt give up their worship and other sacred places. They didnt give up their right to have a clear blue stream to jump in to conclude the Sun Dance, Harjo said.

Harjo said she believes the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and the 1996 Executive Order on Indian Sacred Sites  all of which she played a part in molding  have built on those treaty rights and also are in play.

The native people in this situation havent begun to mount the kind of legal case that they could, she said.
Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing.

You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
Vigyan Bhavan at New Delhi today hosted the most awaited FICCI Higher Education Summit 2016 with hundreds of national and international delegates taking part in the event. Themed 'Education for Tomorrow: Learn in India - Learn for the World', the three day global conference and exhibition is from November 10 to November 12.

Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu flagged off the summit with Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry Rita Teaotia, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, Martine Reicherts, Director General, EU, Education and Culture; Harshavardhan Neotia, President, FICCI and Dr Rajan Saxena, Chairman, FICCI Higher Education Committee on the list of participants.

Hundreds of delegates from India and foreign nations and post graduate students from universities across NCR region have registered for the conference. Nearly 200 foreign delegates from 55 countries from Africa, CIS region, Middle East, Central Asia, SAARC, SE Asia and North America were present at the summit.

The summit is expected to become the ideal platform to tap the Asian market and network across continent with educators, higher education institutions, service providers and technology companies etc. More than 150 exhibitors from top of the line Institutions showcase best practices to the global participants and explore collaborations.

Attendees

Chancellors/Vice Chancellors/ Promoters / Directors / Principals / Chairpersons /Academicians / Senior Management / Administrative Heads & Decision makers of Universities /Higher Educational Institutions (Public & Private)

Government officials/ Policy makers / Think Tanks

Corporates/Industry representatives

Training Institutes Infrastructure and IT Companies providing technology products and services for Higher Education Sector

International Organizations & Associations, Embassies, High Commissions & Consulates

NGOs

Banks / Financial Institutions

Media

Agenda:
Sony opens Free Registrations for the 4th Edition of Global Math Challenge (GMC), an online contest for Math lovers across age groups from 17th - 19th November, 2016. Participants can not only discover the fun in math, but also challenge their computational thinking skills - the ability to deal with problems of the 21st century, in a logical and creative way.

With questions that focus on creative, logical thinking rather than formulas and a focus on the world stage, GMC provides something one doesn't find in most textbooks. Registration is free, quick and easy.

More than 170,000 challengers from over 85 countries took part in the past 3 editions. GMC has previously been held three times worldwide, available online simultaneously in English, Japanese and Chinese.

About the Global Math Challenge

The test consists of multiple choice & number entry questions. Participants can try some sample questions that will help ease into the patterns of questions found in Global Math Challenge. Check out some fun Sample questions here: https://www.global-math.com/about_sample

Free Registration Process and Important Dates

1. One can create GMC account on the website: https://www.global-math.com from now onwards until the challenge date.

2. Log in with GMC account and Register for free by choosing the Home plan.

3. The challenge will be held online November 17, 2016 at 09:00 - November 19, 2016 at 23:00.

Math lovers across India will be able to participate anywhere through a computer or tablet, and test their skills against other math fans across the globe.

8 Age-based Courses of Difficulty:

Global Math Challenge will be offered in 8 different courses of difficulty to best suit the education level of test takers, from the 1st grade in elementary school all the way up to the adult level. The advanced "Master" course is tailored to math enthusiasts as well as students attending integrated middle/high schools, and will feature the most challenging problem sets.

Participants can try some sample questions of each course on the GMC website (www.global-math.com/about_course) if they are not sure which course to take.

The Result

With the Trial & Standard Plan, participants will be able to receive their score and global ranking shortly after the test.

Reward and Recognitions

All challengers who get a high score will also receive a special digital certificate which will include the GMC name, score, area and age.

GMC is managed by Sony Global Education and Supported by The Japan Prime Math Olympic Committee, The New York Academy of Sciences, Beijing Gifted & Talented Education Technology Center.

Important links:
In his best-selling book The Black Swan, probabilist Nassim Nicholas Taleb warns against the need for easy narratives to explain the unexpected. Given how unexpected the result of this Tuesdays election was, it is worth taking some time to review what Taleb calls the narrative fallacy.

According to Taleb,

The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently, forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship, upon them. Explanations bind facts together. They make them all the more easily remembered; they help them make more sense. Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding.

Yesterday, I reviewed New York Times exit polling data to try to look at what we actually know about who voted for president-elect Donald Trump or Sec. Hillary Clinton. The results, as I noted, were often surprising.

The reason they are surprising is precisely because of what Taleb gets at here: we have a tendency to want everything to fit into neat-and-tidy narratives. But reality rarely works that way, especially in the case of unexpected events. Donald Trumps win was a Black Swan event to many.

By nearly every poll, Hillary Clinton was the favorite to win (and, of course, it appears she did win the popular vote). The most cautious index I saw was FiveThirtyEight, where to their credit they stressed the probabilistic nature of their forecast. They basically put the odds at 2-to-1 in favor of Clinton, and they even said that her chances were not as good as President Obamas reelection in 2012. Even so, they too have been reeling at the inaccuracy of, again, basically every poll.

So Trump won. It wasnt outside the realm of possibility (obviously now), but it was certainly unexpected to most, even some of those who gave him a better chance than others. How did it happen?

Ah! Theres the catch! How did it happen? is the question everyone wants to have the answer to, no matter if they voted for the winner or one of his opponents. I have seen explanations that run the gamut of apocalyptic to miraculous and many in-between.

Economic Class?

Was it due to economic class division that favored Trump? Partly, but as I noted yesterday, Clinton still won low income voters, according to the NYT exit polls (we will get better data in the days and weeks ahead). People generally qualify this as white working class support for Trump. Again, there is definitely something to that, but other indicators clearly mattered too.

Race?

Was it due to issues of race, from policing to immigration to white identity politics? The vocal alt-right support for Trump was well (too well?) covered by mainstream media. His restrictionist immigration policy was the flagship of his campaign. He declared himself the law and order candidate. Certainly that was all part of his win. People who listed immigration as their top issue voted in large part for Trump, for example. But according to the data Trump also won a greater share of black, Latino, and Asian American voters than did Romney in 2012. This explanation would satisfy many, but it cant be the whole story. (One problem is clearly that people assume black, Latino, and Asian Americans are all homogeneous groups. But Cuban and Vietnamese Americans, for example, have long voted majority Republican.)

Bernie Sanders?

Was it due to Clinton failing to connect with Senator Bernie Sanders supporters? There is something to this too. Independent voting was especially high among lower age groups, who favored Sanders in the Democratic primary. (Although, being a member of that group I would stress that not all of them voted in the Democratic primary or even then supported Sanders.) News of DNC support for Clinton during the primaries broke during the presidential debates as well, seeming to confirm the claim of many Sanders supporters that the DNC, beyond their super-delegate system, had its hand on the scale. But one would still expect a much higher turnout for Green party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, for example, if that brand of politics was really a sine qua non for those voters. Maybe they only cared about one or two issues in the end (such as opposition to international trade), and Clinton didnt offer them as much as Trump. Maybe, but we really dont know.

#NeverTrump?

Was it due to the Clinton camp failing to reach out to the concerns of disaffected, #NeverTrump conservatives? That was probably a missed opportunity, but either they werent as #NeverTrump as they claimed or they werent as large a voting block as some imagined. Even in Utah, where independent social conservative Evan McMullin was on the ballot and had seen some strong polling numbers, Trump still won the state handily with 47% of the vote. McMullin, who had been polling above Hillary Clinton, came in third with only 20% in his home state among a voting demographic that looked a lot like him (white, Mormon, socially conservative).

Pro-Life?

Was it due to white evangelical and other pro-life voters who were concerned with the Supreme Court voting for Trump? Again, in some cases for sure. Ive talked with those voters before and after the election. And Trump improved over Romney notably among Roman Catholics, for example, but his numbers with white evangelicals were actually about the same as Romney. As I said yesterday, White evangelicals voting Republican are not an anomaly.

Terrorism or Islamophobia?

Was it due to fears over terrorism or, worse (and not at all the same), Islamophobia motivating people to vote for Trump? Trump certainly won those voters who listed terrorism as their top concern. But he also improved over Romney among voters who are non-Jewish, non-Christian, but also not no religion (unhelpfully listed as something else by the NYT). That category has to include American Muslims. Id love to see a breakdown of the numbers to know for sure  maybe a huge Hindu or Buddhist turnout for some reason favored Trump? maybe Mormon falls into this category (some demographers would include it among Christian)  but at the moment this narrative is too simple as well. Perhaps of note in this regard: my wife was electronically exit-polled and had to answer other for her religion because the options she was given was either Protestant Christian or Roman Catholic Christian. We are Eastern Orthodox Christians.

Anger at the Establishment?

Was it anti-establishment anger that fueled Trumps win? The outsider vs. the Establishment? Federalism vs. centralization? Again, Trump won voters who were angry at the federal government  so that is definitely a factor  but he did not at all do as well as Romney did in 2012. Clinton actually improved over Obamas 2012 numbers among angry voters.

Third Parties?

Was it due to third party voting? This seems the least likely to me. Jill Stein didnt do very well, and as Johnsons polling numbers declined over the last month, Trumps, not Clintons, rose. In the final tally, it appears Johnson underperformed the final polls as well, suggesting that many who said theyd vote for him instead of Trump changed their mind at the last minute. Indeed, as I pointed out yesterday, Trump voters were more likely to have come to the decision to vote for him in the last days and weeks of the campaign. Thus, if there is any story here, it is not that third party voters took votes from Clinton, but rather that there were too few third party voters to draw votes away from Trump in the end.

Concluding Thoughts

And of course, there are many other narratives out there and to come in the future, many of which will be valuable and true to some degree, but never total.

As moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt has pointed out, while we often think we use our reason to understand how things work, we more often use it to justify what we already felt or thought about any given topic. Humans are free rational animals, after all, with passions and appetites, not robots. What we cling to as reasons that explain things are often just self-justifications. Add to that the Christian conviction that all have sinned (Romans 3:23) and are corrupted by sin, and self-justification and self-deception should be things we expect and actively endeavor to guard ourselves against  an ancient Christian ascetic practice known as watchfulness.

Thus, while fascinated by the many factors that appear to have affected the result of the 2016 presidential race, Im also trying to resist the need to have an easy explanation. Depending on the person, casting the result as wholly good or wholly disastrous may be comforting, but doing so simply does not reflect the complex composure of those people, equally created after the image of God as you and me, who actually voted in this country. As Nate Silver pointed out at FiveThirtyEight yesterday, if only 1 in 100 Trump voters chose Clinton instead, the narratives wed be hearing this week and in the months to come would be very different, even though the actual margin of victory for her would be nearly as close.

Another lesson here is to remember economist F. A. Hayeks conviction, as Jordan Ballor touched on yesterday, that there are real limits to what can be measured, and thus to what we can plan on based on what we measure. That is not to say that data is unimportant  obviously I think it tells us a lot  but only that its predictive power is limited when there are so many important but non-quantifiable factors that affect real life. Really doing so requires humility on our parts, a virtue that ought to characterize any Christians life, no matter if he or she is happy with Tuesdays election results or not.
While Audi was recently scooped testing out the latest RS5 coupe, were still unaware of any plans for a Convertible model.



Nevertheless, if Audi does go after BMWs M4 Cabriolet, this rendering from X-Tomi Design gives us a pretty good idea of what such a car could look like.

As is typical for RS-badged Audis, the RS5 Cabriolet is distinguishable from lesser models with its more brash and overt styling. In particular, we have the same aggressive bumpers as the hardtop, an enlarged front grille and sizeable air intakes.

Additional visual changes include sporty new wheels, twin oval-shaped tailpipes, a host of RS5 badges and some minor interior modifications.

Powertrain details about the new RS5 remain unconfirmed, but a 3.0-liter V6 with two turbochargers or one conventional and one small electric turbocharger is the most likely candidate. With up to 500 hp on tap, it will allow the model to adequately rival the Mercedes-AMG C63 and C63 S Cabriolet and BMW M4 Convertible.

The RS5 coupe may launch at Marchs Geneva Motor Show 2017, with an open top version possibly following a few months later if given the green light.

PHOTO GALLERY
Ford has announced it will invest $195 million into a global technology and business center located in Chennai, India.



The automaker confirmed that this center will serve as the base for mobility services and product development for India as well as a number of other unnamed markets. The investment will add 3,000 new employees in Chennai in the coming five years and when the center is constructed, house 12,000 employees, making it Fords largest employment center behind its Michigan facilities.

The Detroit News reports that the Chennai facility will include testing labs for future vehicles while also supporting employees focused on information technology, manufacturing, accounting and data. It will be the brands third product development center in the Asia Pacific region.

Discussing the center, Ford executive chairman Bill Ford said India is not only a vibrant market for cars and new mobility ideas, it also is rich with talent, technical expertise and ingenuity. This new center will help us attract the best and brightest, and make Chennai a true hub of innovation for Ford around the world.

PHOTO GALLERY
Unveiled back in September, the 2018 Chevrolet Equinox is bringing a new look and advanced on-board tech to this years Los Angeles Auto Show before going on sale in Q1 of 2017.



Among its key features are the sharp and expressive design, the on-board connectivity and the trio of propulsion choices which includes the segments only turbo-diesel unit, rated at 136 HP and 236 lb-ft (320 Nm) of torque.

The all-new 2018 Chevrolet Equinox is a modern SUV sized and designed to meet the needs of the compact SUV customer, said Alan Batey, president of GM North America. Weve got the strongest truck business in the industry and weve reinvigorated our car lineup with Volt, Cruze and Malibu. Now we are focusing on growing our crossover/SUV business, starting with the Chevrolet Equinox.

Visually, the 2018 Equinox comes with standard projector-beam headlamps, LED daytime running lamps and a horizontal taillight design. Inside, there are new fabrics, a new flat-folding rear seat and the latest connectivity technologies offered by Chevrolet  including 7 & 8 MyLink infotainment systems that support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and also feature OnStar 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspot.

In terms of safety, there are several new systems to take into account, such as the Safety Alert Seat, Surround Vision, Forward Collision Alert with Following Distance Indicator, Low Speed Forward Automatic Braking, Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning and the Rear Seat Reminder.

Powering the 2018 Equinox is a range of three turbocharged engines, two petrol (1.5 & 2.0 liter) and a 1.6-liter diesel. At the moment, the new Equinox is the only model in North America with an all-turbocharged, multi-engine range.

PHOTO GALLERY
In a radio address on July 24, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to the 100-day session of the 73rd United States Congress between March 9 and June 17, a session that produced a record-breaking volume of new laws.

Despite the fact that the 100 days referred to a legislative session and not the beginning of a presidency, the term has become a metric for what a new president can accomplish and how effective they will be during their term. For this reason, president-elects often lay out a proposal for what they hope to accomplish during the early days after the Inauguration.

During a speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania last month, Donald Trump laid out his own plan for what hell do in his first days. Below is a summary of all the actions related to economics that Trump has promised to tackle in his Hundred Days.



Executive Actions

The following are actions Trump believes he can take either through the executive orders or through the other powers of his office:

 Issue a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.

 Announce his intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205.

 Announce that the United States will be withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

 Direct his Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator.

 Direct his Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately.

 Lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.

 Remove any obstacles to vital energy infrastructure projects (e.g., the Keystone Pipeline) so that the projects can move forward.

 Cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix Americas water and environmental infrastructure.

Legislative Proposals

The following are proposals for economic-related legislation that President Trump would send to Congress:

Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act  An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.

End The Offshoring Act  Establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free.

American Energy & Infrastructure Act  Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral.

School Choice And Education Opportunity Act  Redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.

Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act  Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications.

Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act  Allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-side childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families.
Photo: The Canadian Press A vehicle lies amidst debris brought about by powerful typhoon Haiyan that hit Tacloban city, in Leyte province in central Philippines Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Update 10:00 am November 10:

As many as 10,000 people are believed dead in one Philippine city alone after one of the worst storms ever recorded unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes and schools. Corpses hung from tree branches and were scattered along sidewalks and among flattened buildings, while looters raided grocery stores and gas stations in search of food, fuel and water.

Officials projected the death toll could climb even higher when emergency crews reach areas cut off by flooding and landslides. Even in the disaster-prone Philippines, which regularly contends with earthquakes, volcanoes and tropical cyclones, Typhoon Haiyan appears to be the deadliest natural disaster on record.

Haiyan hit the eastern seaboard of the Philippine archipelago on Friday and quickly barrelled across its central islands before exiting into the South China Sea, packing winds of 235 kilometres per hour (147 miles per hour) that gusted to 275 kph (170 mph), and a storm surge that caused sea waters to rise 6 metres (20 feet).

It wasn't until Sunday that the scale of the devastation became clear, with local officials on hardest-hit Leyte Island saying that there may be 10,000 dead in the provincial capital of Tacloban alone. Reports also trickled in from elsewhere on the island, and from neighbouring islands, indicating hundreds, if not thousands of more deaths, though it will be days before the full extent of the storm's impact can be assessed.

"On the way to the airport we saw many bodies along the street," said Philippine-born Australian Mila Ward, 53, who was waiting at the Tacloban airport to catch a military flight back to Manila, about 580 kilometres (360 miles) to the northwest. "They were covered with just anything  tarpaulin, roofing sheets, cardboards." She said she passed "well over 100" dead bodies along the way.

Haiyan raced across the eastern and central Philippines, inflicting serious damage to at least six of the archipelago's more than 7,000 islands, with Leyte, neighbouring Samar Island, and the northern part of Cebu appearing to take the hardest hits. It weakened as it crossed the South China Sea before approaching northern Vietnam, where it was forecast to hit land either late Sunday night or early Monday morning.

On Leyte, regional police chief Elmer Soria said the provincial governor had told him there were about 10,000 deaths there, primarily from drowning and collapsed buildings. Most of the deaths were in Tacloban, a city of about 200,000 that is the biggest on Leyte Island.

On Samar, Leo Dacaynos of the provincial disaster office said 300 people were confirmed dead in one town and another 2,000 were missing, while some towns have yet to be reached by rescuers. He pleaded for food and water and said power was out and there was no cellphone signal, making communication possible only by radio.

Reports from the other affected islands indicated dozens, perhaps hundreds more deaths.

Television footage from Eastern Samar province's Guiuan township  the first area where the typhoon made landfall  showed a trail of devastation. Many houses were flattened and roads were strewn with debris and uprooted trees. The ABS-CBN footage showed several bodies laid out on the street, covered only with blankets.

"Even me, I have no house, I have no clothes. I don't know how I will restart my life, I am so confused," an unidentified woman said, crying. "I don't know what happened to us. We are appealing for help. Whoever has a good heart, I appeal to you  please help Guiuan."

A massive relief operation was underway, but the Philippine National Red Cross said its efforts were being hampered by looters, including some who attacked trucks of food and other relief supplies the agency was shipping Sunday from the southern port city of Davao to Tacloban.

With other rampant looting being reported, President Benigno Aquino III said Sunday that he was considering declaring a state of emergency or martial law in Tacloban, as city officials have proposed. The national disaster agency can recommend such a measure if the local government is unable to carry out its functions, Aquino said.

A state of emergency usually includes curfews, price and food supply controls, military or police checkpoints and increased security patrols.

The massive casualties occurred even though the government had evacuated nearly 800,000 people ahead of the typhoon. About 4 million people were affected by the storm, the national disaster agency said.

Aquino flew around Leyte by helicopter on Sunday and landed in Tacloban to get a firsthand look at the disaster. He said the government's priority was to restore power and communications in isolated areas and deliver relief and medical assistance to victims.

Challenged to respond to a disaster of such magnitude, the Philippine government also accepted help from its U.S. and European allies.

In Washington, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel directed the military's Pacific Command to deploy ships and aircraft to support search-and-rescue operations and airlift emergency supplies.

The United Nations office in Geneva said in a statement Sunday that the U.N. and the "humanitarian community have ramped up critical relief operations," but that access remains a challenge because some areas are still cut off.

Pope Francis led tens of thousands of people at the Vatican in silent prayer for the victims of the typhoon. The Philippines has the largest number of Catholics in Asia, and Filipinos are one of Rome's biggest immigrant communities.

The Philippines is annually buffeted by tropical storms and typhoons, which are called hurricanes and cyclones elsewhere on the planet. The nation is positioned alongside the warm South Pacific where typhoons are spawned. Many rake the islands with fierce winds and powerful waves each year, and the archipelago's exposed eastern seaboard often bears the brunt.

Even by the standards of the Philippines, however, Haiyan is a catastrophe of epic proportions and has shocked the impoverished and densely populated nation of 96 million people. Its winds were among the strongest ever recorded, and it appears to have killed many more people than the previous deadliest Philippine storm, Thelma, which killed around 5,100 people in the central Philippines in 1991. The country's deadliest disaster on record was the 1976 magnitude-7.9 earthquake that triggered a tsunami in the Moro Gulf in the southern Philippines, killing 5,791 people.

Tacloban's two largest malls and groceries were looted and the gasoline stations destroyed by the typhoon. Police were deployed to guard a fuel depot to prevent the theft of fuel. Two hundred additional police officers came to Tacloban on Sunday from elsewhere in the country to help restore law and order.

Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Aquino was "speechless" when he told him of the devastation the typhoon had wrought in Tacloban.

"I told him all systems are down," Gazmin said. "There is no power, no water, nothing. People are desperate. They're looting."

Tacloban, in the east-central Philippines, is near the Red Beach on Leyte Island where U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur waded ashore in 1944 during World War II and fulfilled his famous pledge: "I shall return."

It was the first city liberated from the Japanese by U.S. and Filipino forces and served as the Philippines' temporary capital for several months. It is also the hometown of former Filipino first lady Imelda Marcos, whose nephew, Alfred Romualdez, is the city's mayor.

One Tacloban resident said he and others took refuge inside a parked Jeep to protect themselves from the storm, but the vehicle was swept away by a surging wall of water.

"The water was as high as a coconut tree," said 44-year-old Sandy Torotoro, a bicycle taxi driver who lives near the airport with his wife and 8-year-old daughter. "I got out of the Jeep and I was swept away by the rampaging water with logs, trees and our house, which was ripped off from its mooring.

"When we were being swept by the water, many people were floating and raising their hands and yelling for help. But what can we do? We also needed to be helped," Torotoro said.

In Torotoro's village, bodies could be seen lying along the muddy main road, as residents who had lost their homes huddled with the few possessions they had managed to save. The road was lined with trees that had fallen to the ground.

UNICEF estimated that about 1.7 million children are living in areas impacted by the typhoon, according to the agency's representative in the Philippines, Tomoo Hozumi. UNICEF's supply division in Copenhagen was loading 60 metric tons of relief supplies for an emergency airlift expected to arrive in the Philippines on Tuesday.

"The devastation is ... I don't have the words for it," Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said. "It's really horrific. It's a great human tragedy."

In Vietnam, about 600,000 people living in the central region who had been evacuated returned to their homes Sunday after the weakened storm changed directions and took aim at the country's north. The storm was approaching landfall Sunday night with sustained winds of 133 kph (83 mph).

Four people from three central Vietnamese provinces died while trying to reinforce their homes ahead of the storm, the national floods and storms control department said Sunday.

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved. This image provided by NASA shows Typhoon Haiyan taken by Astronaut Karen L. Nyberg aboard the International Space Station Saturday Nov. 9, 2013. Rescuers in the central Philippines counted at least 100 dead and many more injured Saturday a day after one of the most powerful typhoons on record ripped through the region, wiping away buildings and leveling seaside homes in massive storm surges, then headed for Vietnam. (AP Photo/NASA, Karen L. Nyberg)

Local government is reporting the typhoon death toll could reach 10,000 people.

Regional police chief Elmer Soria said he was briefed by Leyte provincial Gov. Dominic Petilla late Saturday and told there were about 10,000 deaths in the province, mostly by drowning and from collapsed buildings. The governor's figure was based on reports from village officials in areas where Typhoon Haiyan slammed Friday.

Tacloban city administrator Tecson Lim said that the death toll in the city alone "could go up to 10,000." Tacloban is the Leyte provincial capital of 200,000 people and the biggest city on Leyte Island.

About 300-400 bodies have already been recovered, Lim said. A mass burial was planned Sunday in Palo town near Tacloban.

The typhoon barrelled through six central Philippine islands on Friday, wiping away buildings and levelling seaside homes with ferocious winds of 235 kilometres per hour (147 miles per hour) and gusts of 275 kph (170 mph). By those measurements, Haiyan would be comparable to a strong Category 4 hurricane in the U.S., and nearly in the top category, a 5.

It weakened Sunday to 163 kph (101 mph) with stronger gusts as it approached central and northern Vietnam where authorities evacuated more than 500,000 people.

"The rescue operation is ongoing. We expect a very high number of fatalities as well as injured," Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said after visiting Tacloban on Saturday. "All systems, all vestiges of modern living  communications, power, water  all are down. Media is down, so there is no way to communicate with the people in a mass sort of way."

President Benigno Aquino III said the casualties "will be substantially more" than the official count of 151  but gave no figure or estimate. He said the government's priority was to restore power and communications in isolated areas to allow for the delivery of relief and medical assistance to victims.

The U.S. and other governments and agencies were mounting a major relief effort "because of the magnitude of the disaster," said Philippine Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon.

Even by the standards of the Philippines, which is buffeted by many natural calamities  about 20 typhoons a year, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions  the latest disaster shocked the impoverished nation of 96 million people.

The airport in Tacloban, about 580 kilometres (360 miles) southeast of Manila, looked like a muddy wasteland of debris, with crumpled tin roofs and upturned cars. The airport tower's glass windows were shattered, and air force helicopters were busy flying in and out at the start of relief operations.

"The devastation is, I don't have the words for it," Roxas said. "It's really horrific. It's a great human tragedy."
Christmas tree lights on the roof of Vernon Jubilee Hospital will be turned on for a week starting Nov. 14, as the annual Light a Bulb campaign begins.

The Vernon Jubilee Hospital Foundation is hoping to raise $250,000 to purchase high-definition camera heads and control monitors for the hospital's operating rooms.

Every year hundreds of individuals undergo surgical and diagnostic procedures at VJH to diagnose and treat critical health issues, said Kevin Arbuckle, campaign chair. There is always a great need for high-tech medical equipment used to support these procedures.

It's expected the cameras will enable minimally invasive surgical and diagnostic procedures, resulting in faster recovery times and shorter hospital stays.

The official campaign launch takes place Monday, Nov. 14, with the lighting of the hospital tree on top of VJH. The lights will shine all week, then will be turned off and lit throughout the campaign in stages as the foundation advances towards its goal.

Since 1988, Light a Bulb has raised more than $4 million to purchase essential medical equipment for the hospital.

Each $35 tax deductible donation will light one bulb on the tree of lights a top Vernon Jubilee Hospital; $500 will light an entire string.

Donations can be made online or mailed to Vernon Jubilee Hospital Foundation, 2101  32nd Street, Vernon, B.C., V1T 5L2.
Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

The Penticton RCMP are asking the public for help on a series of break and enters that occurred late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning in Penticton.



At 1:49 a.m. on Wednesday, officers were called to Integrity Auto for a report of a removed front glass door. Investigators confirmed that nothing appeared to be missing from inside the shop.

Less than two hours later, police reponsed to Ginas Hair Design on White Street , which had been broken into and had a small cash box stolen. Entry had been gained by breaking the glass of the front door.

Aveda Hair Salon was the next to call at 7:15 A.M. Officers found that the front door had been pried open and a small quantity of cash and Mac Book Air computer stolen.

While the attending officer was knocking on doors regarding the previous break in, he came upon another insecure premise, finding Carls Flowers on Front Street with a pried open door. The till had also been pried open, but luckily had nothing in it to be stolen.



Anyone with any information on any of these break Ins is asked to contact the Penticton RCMP at 250-492-4300 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
Photo: Dustin Godfrey

Some people in the Okanagan may be experiencing a post-election hangover on Wednesday  and not of the figurative type.

Stores in Kelowna and Penticton both reported an uptick in sales, with customers largely telling clerks they were planning to drink while watching election coverage.

"Probably almost every single customer was telling me how they were going to go home and watch the election," said Hayley Watts at Metro Liquor Store in Kelowna. "They were telling me they were going to celebrate or drink away their sorrows."

Metro's sales spiked about $3,000 above the average November weekday, which Watts said is about a 25 per cent hike.

Cask and Barrel Liquor Store owner Devin Smith said the store saw about a 10 per cent increase from the norm, with many of the customers also saying they were planning to watch the election that night.

"I think any time people are going to kind of hunker down for a night and watch something on TV, whether it's a big sporting event or whatever, they'll get a bottle of wine or a case of beer," he said.

In Penticton two stores also reported higher-than-usual liquor sales, with the Riverside Liquor store reporting a 30 per cent increase in sales over the same day last year and Clancy's Liquor Store selling about $1,000 over the norm.

Riverside's manager Adam Vallice said that 30 per cent increase year-over-year hasn't been terribly unusual, as the last month or so has seen stronger sales than last year, but he noted that he did notice a little uplift in sales, with the sales target for the day met at 5 p.m.

Clancy's general manager Alanna Meneilly told Castanet she saw a lot of traffic from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. after people got off of work, as well as an unusual rush from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

But Meneilly said while she often keeps tabs on event night sales, she didn't think to keep a close eye on whether people were buying liquor for the election.

Of the three largest cities in the Valley, Vernon was the only one to report a business-as-usual level of sales.

Tanya Robinson, general manager of 30th Street Liquor Store, said the sales Tuesday evening didn't seem to change much from other weeknights.

Of those that did report heightened sales, the typical booze of choice appeared to be beer and wine, with Metro noting Budweiser 8-packs as the top seller.

But those shopping at Clancy's appeared to have their eyes on vodka, which was the major seller of the night.

One anomaly, however, was pink moscato sales at Clancy's. Meneilly said those don't usually make the top 20 list of liquor sales at the store, but noted that it made the list on Tuesday night.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A prominent Muslim leader is urging calm after Donald Trump's surprise U.S. election win.

Caliph Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad told reporters Wednesday he does not believe the Republican president-elect will go ahead with a campaign promise to crack down on Muslims.

"I'm sure what he is saying, it will never be implemented," he said at the Baitun Nur Mosque in Calgary.

"But it is not only wishful thinking. I don't think any government, any sane person can ever take this step."

The head of the world's Ahmadiyya Muslim community made his remarks on the last stop of a six-week Canadian tour that included visits in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta. He met one-on-one with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month.

The sect, which professes peacefulness and the separation of mosque and state, has tens of millions of followers spread across more than 200 countries, including thousands in Canada.

The tour coincided with the community's 50th anniversary in Canada.

During the long and bitter campaign, Trump drew condemnation for a plan to ban Muslim travel into the United States, though he later dialled back that rhetoric.
Photo: The Canadian Press

UPDATED: 9:50 a.m.

A day after Donald Trump's election to the presidency, campaign divisions appeared to widen as many thousands of demonstrators  some with signs declaring "NOT MY PRESIDENT"  flooded streets across the country to protest his surprise triumph.

From New England to heartland cities like Kansas City and along the West Coast, demonstrators bore flags and effigies of the president-elect, disrupting traffic and declaring that they refused to accept Trump's victory.

Flames lit up the night sky in California cities Wednesday as thousands of protesters burned a giant papier-mache Trump head in Los Angeles and started fires in Oakland intersections.

Los Angeles demonstrators also beat a Trump pinata and sprayed the Los Angeles Times building and news vans with anti-Trump profanity. One protester outside LA City Hall read a sign that simply said "this is very bad."

Vishal Singh, 23, said he was disappointed with voters who supported a man he sees as anti-immigrant and anti-LGBT.

"I expected better of my electorate," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I thought this country was different."

Late in the evening several hundred people blocked one of the city's busiest freeways, U.S. 101 between downtown and Hollywood.

More than a dozen people were arrested as officers in full riot gear walked the protesters off the freeway. In Orange County, about 10 people were arrested after three police cars were damaged during rallies in Santa Ana.

To the north in Oakland, several thousand people clogged intersections and freeway on-ramps.

Nearby in Berkeley, more than 1,000 students walked out of high school classes Wednesday, brandishing anti-Trump signs and Mexican flags. The students tweeted #NotMyPresident and vowed to unify.

In Chicago, where thousands had recently poured into the streets to celebrate the Chicago Cubs' first World Series victory in over a century, several thousand people marched through the Loop. They gathered outside Trump Tower, chanting "Not my president!"

Hundreds of protesters gathered near Philadelphia's City Hall despite chilly, wet weather. Participants  who included both supporters of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost to Clinton in the primary  expressed anger at both Republicans and Democrats over the election's outcome.

In Boston, thousands of anti-Trump protesters streamed through downtown, chanting "Trump's a racist" and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump" and "Abolish Electoral College." Clinton appears to be on pace to win the popular vote, despite losing the electoral count that decides the presidential race.

Hundreds also gathered in Providence, Rhode Island, and Portland, Maine.
Photo: Contributed

A Japanese official says Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump next week.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters Thursday that Abe and Trump had talked by telephone and confirmed the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance and their commitment for co-operation.

Their meeting "marks a very good start for building trust," Suga said. Their talks are being arranged for Nov. 17 in New York.

Officials said Abe and Trump also confirmed their resolve to co-operate in ensuring peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, but did not discuss the trans-Pacific trade pact and other contentious issues such as the cost of American troops in Japan.

Kyodo News agency additionally reported that Trump praised the Japanese premier's "Abenomics" economic measures.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Canada's effort to craft a legalized marijuana regime could be boosted by the move of four more U.S. states to approve recreational use of the drug, says a Halifax law professor.

As it designs a new system, the Liberal government must address the fact Canada is a signatory to three international conventions that require criminalization of the production and possession of cannabis.

The nod this week to recreational pot use from voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada should give Canada more ammunition in the court of global legal opinion, said Archie Kaiser, a professor in the schools of law and medicine at Dalhousie University.

"It seems that Canada may be part of an emerging consensus," Kaiser said in an interview.

The strength in numbers could make it easier for Canada argue that legalization is the best way to reduce harm, despite the international treaties that dictate prohibition of pot, he said.

The four latest U.S. states to take the first step toward legalization of pot join Alaska, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Oregon and Washington, which have already done so.

The Liberals have promised to legalize, regulate and restrict access to marijuana to keep it out of the hands of children while denying criminals the financial profits.

The current system of prohibition does not stop young people from using marijuana and too many Canadians end up with criminal records for possessing small amounts of pot, the Liberals say.

The government plans to remove marijuana consumption and incidental possession from the Criminal Code and create new laws to more severely punish those who provide the weed to minors or drive under its influence.

A federal task force is slated to report later this month on the many complex issues associated with legalization and legislation is to be introduced next spring.
Photo: The Canadian Press

UPDATE: 5:40 p.m.

The frantic search for a seven-year-old girl ended in tragedy Thursday when her body was discovered in a home in northeastern Saskatchewan.

An amber alert was issued by RCMP in Nipawin after Nia Eastman was not returned to her mother Wednesday evening. Police said Nia's father, Adam Jay Eastman, was found dead in a rural area earlier Thursday from self-inflicted injuries.

Then came word that officers found the girl's body in a house in Choiceland, a small community not far from Nipawin.

RCMP Insp. Jennifer Ebert struggled to maintain composure as she broke the news of the girl's death.

"All of us had hoped and prayed Nia would be located safely," Ebert said as she choked back tears. "This was not the outcome any of us were hoping for and our thoughts are with her family and the communities."

Ebert said investigators were trying to piece together what happened after Nia's father picked her up from school on Wednesday.

"Our investigators are working diligently to determine exactly what took place," Ebert said. "At this point in the investigation, there is no indication anyone else was involved in Nia's death and we are not seeking any suspects."

The house in Choiceland was cordoned off by yellow police tape Thursday. Forensic investigators in white suits could be seen going in and out of the residence.

Just down the road in the small community is the school where Nia attended Grade 1.

"The school is grieving, as is the community, as is the family," said Rob McKay, superintendent of school services with the North East School Division.

He said councillors will help students and staff cope with the tragedy.

A Facebook page belonging to a Jay Eastman features several photos of a little girl smiling happily with her father. People who knew Eastman say he went by his middle name "Jay."

On Wednesday, the page's cover photo was changed to a picture of a skull and crossbones with the slogan: "Leave me alone. I've had enough."

There were no further posts after that.

A business owner in Choiceland, who did not want her name used, said Eastman and his wife had separated about two months ago.

"He was having mental issues. Him and his wife split up. It wasn't a good situation," she said.

The woman said she would see Eastman and Nia together occasionally and he doted on the little girl.

"He loved her a lot. She was all he had."

UPDATE: 11:55 a.m.

RCMP in Saskatchewan say they have found the body of a missing seven-year-old girl that had been the subject of an Amber Alert.

The alert was issued overnight after Nia Eastman was not returned to her mother.

Police said Nia's father, Adam Jay Eastman, was found earlier in the day dead from self-inflicted injuries.

UPDATE: 8:50 a.m.

RCMP say the father of a seven-year-old girl who is the subject of an Amber Alert in Saskatchewan has been found dead.

The girl, Nia Eastman, has not been found and the Amber Alert remains in effect.

Police say Adam Jay Eastman, 45, was found on a rural property in northeastern Saskatchewan with self-inflicted injuries.

They say there is no indication there is anybody else involved in Nia's disappearance.

"Our focus right now is locating Nia," said Sgt. Earl LeBlanc at a news conference in Regina. "Her whereabouts are unknown."

Nia, who is described as Caucasian with blond, shoulder-length hair, was to have been returned home to her mother by 7 p.m. on Wednesday night.

Police are using dogs and drones in their search for Nia, but are asking the public to keep looking for her as well.

"The investigation is ongoing. We have deployed highly trained investigators and specialized equipment to the area to assist with the search for Nia," LeBlanc said.

A vehicle believed to be operated by Eastman was found around 10:00 p.m. Wednesday on a rural property near the community of Snowden, about 240 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.

ORIGINAL: 7 a.m.

An Amber Alert has been issued for a seven-year-old girl in Saskatchewan.

RCMP at Nipawin say Nia Eastman is believed to be with her 45-year-old father, Adam Jay Eastman.

Nia, who is described as Caucasian with blonde, shoulder-length hair, was to have been returned home to her mother by 7:00 pm Wednesday night.

A vehicle believed to be operated by her father was found around 10:00 p.m. on a rural property near the community of Snowden, about 240 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.

Neither Adam nor Nia was with the vehicle, but RCMP say they are searching the area.

It's not known where Adam Eastman is headed, or if he has access to a second vehicle.
Gigi Douban has been named news director for Public Radio WBHM 90.3 / WSGN 91.5 FM.



Most recently, Douban reported extensively for Marketplace, and as an independent producer for public radio since 2006 her work has been heard on WBHM, NPR, Studio 360, and The World. She also writes for Bloomberg News and Runner's World.





Gigi Douban will manage WBHM's news team.

"I'm lucky to be joining a team that is as talented and passionate as the staff at WBHM. As news director, I look forward to building on the station's tremendous successes and telling the stories that matter most to our community," says Douban. "These are exciting times in journalism, and in public radio, we're poised to capture voices and conversations rarely heard elsewhere. I'm committed to finding new and innovative ways of bringing listeners the quality reporting they've come to expect from WBHM."

Douban will oversee the activities of the WBHM news team. She will work extensively with on-air and online content, local, regional, and national content partners, and evolving technology.

"WBHM is very fortunate to have someone of Gigi's professional caliber head our news department," says WBHM program director Michael Krall. "We look forward to sharing more of North Central Alabama's stories with our listeners under her leadership."

Douban will begin as WBHM's news director Dec. 1, 2016.

About WBHM

Public Radio WBHM 90.3 FM, a listener-supported service of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is "Your NPR News Station" and home to the Alabama Radio Reading Service for the blind and print-impaired. WBHM programming and award-winning regional journalism also can be heard in North Central Alabama on WSGN 91.5 FM through a partnership with Gadsden State Community College and on 104.7 in Ft. Payne. Listen and give online at WBHM.org and follow the station @WBHM on Twitter, on Facebook, and @WBHM903 on Instagram.
Photo: Getty Images

Ottawa is setting aside $350 million to help dairy producers weather the impacts of Canada's trade agreement with the European Union.

Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay made the announcement this morning in Ottawa.

A five-year, $250-million fund will help milk producers upgrade their equipment and increase productivity.

A second program will offer $100 million to cheese makers to encourage them to modernize operations and diversify their products.

Dairy Farmers of Canada says it welcomes the funding but believes it will only partially offset the damage that will be caused by the trade deal.

MacAulay says the funding will become available as soon as the trade agreement takes effect.
Photo: Facebook

UPDATE: 9:55 a.m.

President-elect Donald Trump says he "very much looks forward" to dealing with President Barack Obama in the future.

Trump was meeting with Obama Thursday in the Oval Office for more than an hour to discuss the transition of power.

He called the meeting a "great honour."

Trump noted that he and Obama haven't met each other before. Their meeting lasted well over an hour.

Obama said that they had an "excellent" and "wide-ranging" conversation.

Obama said he was encouraged by Trump's wanting to work with his team on issues facing the country. He said it's important for all "to now come together."

Later, Trump will go to Capitol Hill to talk with congressional leaders about the Republicans' legislative agenda for next year.

ORIGINAL: 8:15 a.m.

President-elect Donald Trump arrived at the White House Thursday for his first meeting with President Barack Obama, a symbolic start to the transition of power to the nation's 45th president.

Obama was harshly critical of Trump throughout the campaign, blasting him as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, falsely suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he'll wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

First lady Michelle Obama was meeting privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice-President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice-President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

Trump travelled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Also on Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.

The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought."

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."
Photo: John Boivin

A change of heart by a Nelson city councillor has put the towns new pot dispensary bylaw on hold, just two days after it was approved.

The bylaw amended zoning bylaws to classify dispensaries as a prohibited activity.

Council said Monday night it needed the changes to regulate the stores when federal laws surrounding the drug change. They tried to reassure the public the city has no plans to close shops down.

But dozens of people showed up to the meeting to oppose the bylaw, and their concerns touched Coun. Anna Purcell.

There was a lot of anxiety about keeping them from the medicine that keeps their children from having seizures, she says. We asked them to take a leap of faith, while they felt blindsided.

Purcell, who voted for the bylaw Monday night, raised the issue when council reconvened Wednesday. Because she had voted for it before, she was able to bring the bylaw back to the table.

After hours of debate, council agreed to roll the bylaw back one stage in the approval process. It sits at third reading, but needs to be formally adopted to take effect.

The backpedalling didnt sit well with Coun. Janice Morrison, who says shes disturbed council is turning a blind eye to shops that sell an illegal product operating openly.

What disturbs me is we couldnt do something as simple as putting a zoning bylaw into place, she said. We have been very generous, very tolerant of these businesses in our downtown core.

Morrison, who voted for the original amendment and against the change, said council has given up an important tool for planning for a healthy community.

If four more opened up next week, we could say no (with this bylaw), she says. But now we cant.

Purcell says she still supports the bylaw, but is going to advocate for more substantial public discussion before it is adopted.
Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

Heartless thieves have stolen poppy boxes in Penticton.

Penticton RCMP Community Policing Co-ordinator Rick Dellebuur said one thief  described as disheveled looking, skinny, tall and about 35-years-old  took a box Wednesday afternoon from the Shell gas station on Fairview Road.

An officer later found items belonging to the suspect, including his bike, cowboy hat and the poppies, nearby, but the money from the box was gone.

Another thief stole a poppy box Tuesday from Foodland on Westminster Avenue, according to staff.

A woman working at the store said someone came in and took the entire box, which was full of poppies and money, off the counter.

"I think it's the lowest you can get, when you steal something that belongs to the veterans," she said.

Bill Wood, poppy campaign volunteer at Royal Canadian Legion Branch 40 in Penticton, said the boxes are typically spread all over town at this time of year.

The money raised goes to their local poppy fund and is used to help veterans and their family members in the community.

Unfortunately, he added, this type of theft isn't that rare.

"Every year we have a few thefts of the boxes because people are desperate and see it as an easy lift," he said. "It's a concern because they are taking away from the local veterans, people that served and that's not a good thing to do."

The investigation is ongoing, with police working to determine if it is the same individual involved in the thefts.
Photo: Google Street View

Okanagan Falls residents will soon be able to cross the highway more safely.

The provincial government has announced safety enhancements to the crosswalk at Highway 97 and Cedar Street.

MLA Linda Larsen says the changes came about after a petition calling for improvements at the intersection.

"Ministry (of Transportation) staff have been in discussions with Okanagan Falls and the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen," she said. "I'm pleased to see that those discussions have resulted in the ministry quickly moving forward on the installation of a special crosswalk at Highway 97 and Cedar Street."

Upgrades will include installation of overhead signage and pedestrian-activated flashing lights.

The installation is expected to be complete by the end of November.

The highway runs right through the heart of the tiny community, making safe access to shops on either side a priority.

The budget for the project is $50,000.
Photo: CTV

The often white-knuckle winter drive on Highway 1 near Revelstoke may be less so in future.

A high-tech avalanche control system is being field tested near Three Valley Gap.

The remote-control system will allow operators to fire charges so that avalanche control can be completed at any time, under any weather conditions.

Four systems installed on the south side of Three Valley Lake are being field tested prior to going into operation this winter.

If successful, more will be installed along the route next year.

As well, 18 digital speed signs have been placed along Highway 1, from Perry River to Revelstoke.

The electronic signs will adjust the speed limit according to conditions and will require drivers to reduce their speed in bad weather.

It is expected that a new traffic light signal timing system, installed at three intersections along the Trans-Canada in Revelstoke and Golden, will also help traffic flow more efficiently.
Photo: The Canadian Press

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday refused to let a group of journalists travel with him to cover his historic first meeting with President Barack Obama, breaking a long-standing practice intended to ensure the public has a watchful eye on the nation's leader.

Trump flew from New York to Washington on his private jet without that "pool" of reporters, photographers and television cameras that have travelled with presidents and presidents-elect.

Trump's flouting of press access was one of his first public decisions since his election Tuesday.

Trump's meeting with Obama on Thursday will be recorded by the pool of White House reporters, photographers and TV cameras who cover the president.

News organizations had for weeks tried to co-ordinate a pool of journalists who could begin to travel with Trump immediately after Election Day if he won election. But his campaign did not co-operate with those requests and his senior advisers refused Wednesday, the day after the election, to discuss any such press arrangements.

Trump also broke from tradition as a candidate, refusing to allow a pool of campaign reporters, photographers or cameras to fly on his plane as he travelled to events.

Every president in recent memory has travelled with a pool of journalists when they leave the White House grounds. A pool of reporters and photographers were in the motorcade when President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas.

The pool was just steps away from President Ronald Reagan when he was shot outside a hotel in the District of Columbia, and was stationed outside his hospital room as he recovered. The pool also travels on vacation and foreign trips and at times captures personal, historic moments of the presidency.

News organizations take turns serving in the small group, paying their way and sharing the material collected in the pool with the larger press corps. The pool also covers official events at the White House when space doesn't allow for the full press corps.

The Associated Press is among those reaching out to Trump advisers about press access.
The Province has been flexing its muscles in the battle against mussels.

Through an expanded Invasive Mussel Defence program, crews inspected a record 24,500 watercraft for invasive quagga and zebra mussels over the past boating season.

Of the watercraft inspected, 683 were identified as coming from a high-risk province or state, and 17 were confirmed to have adult invasive mussels.

Fourteen of the affected watercraft originated in Ontario. The remainder were from Manitoba, Michigan and Nevada.

Crews issued 92 decontamination orders, as well as 46 tickets and 36 warnings to motorists who failed to stop at the watercraft inspection station as required by B.C. law.

Eight permanent inspection stations are situated at major entry points along B.C.'s Alberta and U.S. borders, with 32 trained officers inspecting and, as needed, decontaminating watercraft. Teams also respond to boats flagged by the Canadian Border Services Agency, as well as Canadian and United States partner agencies.

The province began its anti-mussel program last year and expanded it this year  with a $2-million funding boost from BC Hydro, FortisBC, Columbia Power and the Columbia Basin Trust, as well as the Province's in-kind contribution of staff, office space, and equipment.

"Invasive mussels may be tiny, but they pose a huge risk to B.C.'s ecosystems and economy. That's why we are working hard with our partners and neighbouring states and provinces to prevent the spread of invasive mussels, said Environment Minister Mary Polak. To date, no zebra or quagga mussels have been detected in B.C."

The public is encouraged to report any mussel-affected boats and equipment to the Report All Poachers and Polluters (RAPP) toll-free hotline at 1-877-952-7277.
Photo: Canadian Forces

Governor General David Johnston says Canadians may have a lot of respect for the country's military, but they don't know enough about what it actually does.

Soldiers routinely rank near the top of opinion polls that ask Canadians which professions they respect the most.

But a survey conducted for the Department of National Defence earlier this year suggests many Canadians have only a limited familiarity with the military, if any.

Johnston says events such as Friday's Remembrance Day ceremony are important for recognizing and raising awareness of the duty and sacrifice demonstrated by Canada's military personnel on the battlefield.

But he says during his six years as Canada's commander-in-chief, he has also come to recognize that the Canadian military is unique in its ability to both fight and, in his words, construct order out of chaos.

That includes taking off their warrior hats to help rebuild communities and even countries devastated by natural disaster or conflict.

Johnston says that unique ability has been praised by representatives from other countries, even if it may not be widely recognized in Canada.

Johnston's term as Governor General is set to expire next September, meaning Friday will be his last Remembrance Day as Canada's commander-in-chief.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A number of Canadian residents have suddenly found themselves with worthless wads of cash after the Indian government abruptly scrapped its highest-denomination currency notes this week.

On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in a surprise broadcast that his government was withdrawing all 500 and 1,000 Indian rupee notes  which are equivalent to about $10 and $20.

He said the action was being taken to combat corruption, money laundering and counterfeiting in India, where there is a significant amount of so-called undeclared, untaxed "black money."

People in India were told to deposit their discontinued notes in banks and post office savings accounts before the end of the year. They were also told they could exchange limited amounts for new 500 and 2,000 rupee bills that are being delivered.

But for anyone with the cancelled currency outside India  including members of the large Indian diaspora in Canada  there appears to be confusion on what to do with the discontinued bills.

The High Commission of India in Ottawa said it did not yet have any official guidance on the matter.

"We have written to our national Reserve Bank. We are waiting for their response," said Prem Selwal, attache consular with the commission.

A number of Canadian residents who have the discontinued notes, either left over from past travel, received as gifts from Indian friends and family, or kept as spending money for future trips back to their country of origin, have spent the last few days frantically trying to exchange their rupees with little success.

Some have explained that they haven't typically exchanged their rupees in Canada in the past due to the unfavourable conversion rate.

Now, however, they've been left with banknotes that have no cash value.

TD Bank said all Canadian banks, including its own branches, are "unable" to process, buy or sell transactions of Indian rupees.

A spokeswoman said Modi's announcement had made exchange rates for rupees unavailable until further notice. Wire payments are not affected.
Have you ever been to a museum and wondered about the history of the specimens on display?

If you have, then youd probably be interested in talking to the museums collections managers, as their jobs include not only caring for and improving accessibility to the collections, but also serving as a living knowledge repository for information about the history of the collections.

William Flowers drawing of the bottlenose dolphin (lower). The skeleton from this individual is on display in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Flower, W. H. (1880), I. On the External Characters of two Species of British Dolphins (Delphinus delphis, Linn., and Delphinus tursio, Fabr.). The Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, 11: no 1. Digitized by the Natural History Museum, London. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28725656.

Take the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, for example. Amongst the many treasures on display in that museum are five whale skeletons suspended from the roof. Where did those specimens come from? Mark Carnall, Collections Manager for the Life Collections at the museum, knows that these specimens are linked to some very prestigious individuals in the world of whaleologists, including Daniel Frederick Eschricht and William Henry Flower. Curious? Learn more in Marks blog post for More than a Dodo.

Mark Carnall. Image by John Cardwell courtesy Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

As a collections manager for the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and during his tenure at other major UK museums, Mark has spent a great deal of time researching the history of the specimens in his care. BHL plays an important role in this research.

Having worked at some of the older UK natural history museums, including the Grant Museum of Zoology at University College London, the Natural History Museum London and currently the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Ive been very fortunate in that some of the early references to the specimens that I curate are THE original works when it comes to unravelling the physiology, taxonomy and ecology of major groups of animals, and it is rare that these arent already on BHL, says Mark.

British Sea-Anemones, showing many of the species in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History series. Gosse, Philip Henry. Actinologia britannica (1860). Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/12042290.

Mark first discovered BHL when looking for references and citations for specimens during his time at University College London. Today, he uses BHL about once a week as part of his research to answer inquiries about the museums collections. This research can be very time-intensive, and thus having online access to relevant publications is very important.

As a collections manager, my role is dictated by priorities in improving accessibility to the collections, so often there isnt much time for going in to depth with the history of specimens, explains Mark. Some specimens could be researched for weeks or months; however, with easy access to biodiversity heritage publications through BHL, it means that I can do some of this research on the fly rather than earmark it to return to later.

In addition to discovering publications as part of his research process, Mark also discovers additional content of personal interest through BHLs social media activities.

One of my favourite features of BHL is the curated content such as the blog posts that BHL users and staff write about discoveries or fascinatingly esoteric publications, says Mark. I am also a huge fan of the Flickr sets. As a collections manager, Im always thinking about how people can access our specimens and content. A dry item by item database is fine for people who know what they are specifically looking for, but it doesnt facilitate browsing such a vast amount of content or expose people to new knowledge or information. Ive spent more than a few evenings starting by browsing a Flickr album Ive been directed to by a BHL blog and ending up reading papers completely unrelated because making those fluid connections is so easy. The BHL social media team is also fantastic at raising awareness about the latest content on BHL. Additionally, I really appreciate that its clear how to reuse and credit resources, be it from reusing an image on Twitter to a bibliographic reference.

When it comes to favorite content, Mark has a soft spot for the cephalopod material.

Im a huge cephalopod nerd, admits Mark. For such an interesting group theres actually a paucity of published material. Browsing through BHL images, however, Ive gone from sea monsters to beautifully illustrated plates (see for yourself), which I would have otherwise not stumbled upon or overlooked in the hunt for a taxon description.

The rather sad-looking but earliest bona fide remains of a giant squid. Verrill, A.E. The cephalopods of the north-eastern coast of America. (1879-1881). Digitized by MBLWHOI Library. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/11826545.

Currently, his favorite item on BHL is the poem Spirula spirula by C. W. Johnson in the Nautilus (1926). According to Mark, Its a quirky (but accurate at the time) poem about the rams horn squid and formally captures a geekery and whimsy that you just dont see as much in modern formal science publishing.

While the historic collections and curated content on BHL are extremely valuable to Mark, he would love to see the amount of content from the mid-twentieth century expanded. This content, especially that from the 1930s-1970s, can be extremely difficult to access but can contain very valuable information for research.

You can help us obtain permission to include this content in BHL! If you or an organization you work with owns the copyright to a biodiversity-related publication, you can help us broker permission to digitize the work. Learn more on our website.

So, the next time youre at a museum, take a moment to think about the history of the specimens on display and the people who work so hard to care for and preserve knowledge about those pieces. And just maybe, indulge your curiosity by searching for some related publications or browsing related images in BHL. You never know what kind of history you might dig up.

______________________________________



This post may contain the personal opinions of BHL users or affiliated staff and does not necessarily represent the official Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) position on these matters.
The proportion of U.S. adults who smoke cigarettes declined from 20.9% in 2005 (45.1 million smokers) to 15.1% in 2015 (36.5 million smokers), and the proportion of daily smokers declined from 16.9% to 11.4%. However, disparities in cigarette smoking persist; for example, in 2015, cigarette smoking prevalence was higher among persons who have serious psychological distress (40.6%) than among persons without serious psychological distress (14.0%).

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, and cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product among U.S. adults (1,2). To assess progress toward achieving the Healthy People 2020 target of reducing the proportion of U.S. adults who smoke cigarettes to 12.0% (objective TU1.1),* CDC assessed the most recent national estimates of cigarette smoking prevalence among adults aged 18 years using data from the 2015 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The proportion of U.S. adults who smoke cigarettes declined from 20.9% in 2005 to 15.1% in 2015, and the proportion of daily smokers declined from 16.9% to 11.4%. However, disparities in cigarette smoking persist. In 2015, prevalence of cigarette smoking was higher among adults who were male; were aged 2544 years; were American Indian/Alaska Native; had a General Education Development certificate (GED); lived below the federal poverty level; lived in the Midwest; were insured through Medicaid or were uninsured; had a disability/limitation; were lesbian, gay, or bisexual; or who had serious psychological distress. Proven population-based interventions, including tobacco price increases, comprehensive smoke-free laws, anti-tobacco mass media campaigns, and barrier-free access to tobacco cessation counseling and medications, are critical to reducing cigarette smoking and smoking-related disease and death among U.S. adults, particularly among subpopulations with the highest smoking prevalences (3).

NHIS is an annual, nationally representative, in-person survey of the noninstitutionalized U.S. civilian population. The NHIS sample adult core questionnaire is administered to a randomly selected (sample) adult in the household, and, in 2015, included 33,672 adults aged 18 years; the response rate was 55.2%. Current cigarette smokers were adults who smoked 100 cigarettes during their lifetime and, at the time of interview, reported smoking every day or on some days.

Data were weighted to adjust for differences in the probabilities of selection and nonresponse, and to provide nationally representative estimates. Current smoking was assessed overall and by sex, age, race/ethnicity, education, poverty status, U.S. region, health insurance coverage at the time of survey, disability/limitation status,** sexual orientation, and serious psychological distress status. Two different measures for psychological distress were assessed (e.g., a dichotomous (yes/no) measure for serious psychological distress, and a four-category (no, low, moderate, or high) measure for the degree of psychological distress. The mean number of cigarettes smoked per day was calculated among daily smokers. Differences between groups were assessed using a Wald test, with statistical significance defined as p<0.05. Logistic regression was used to assess linear trends using annual NHIS data from 20052015. Relative percentage changes in prevalence rates during 20052015 were calculated.***

Current cigarette smoking among U.S. adults declined from 20.9% (an estimated 45.1 million adults) in 2005 to 15.1% (36.5 million) in 2015, a 27.7% decline (p for trend <0.05) (Figure 1). During 20052015, significant declines in smoking prevalence were observed among all subgroups by sex, poverty status, and U.S. region (p<0.05) (Table).

Current cigarette smoking was significantly lower in 2015 (15.1%) than in 2014 (16.8%) (p<0.05); however, there were differences in smoking prevalence by sex, age group, race/ethnicity, educational attainment, economic status, U.S. region, insurance and disability status, sexual orientation, and serious psychological distress status. In 2015, current cigarette smoking prevalence was higher among males (16.7%) than females (13.6%) and among adults aged 2544 years (17.7%) than those aged 65 years (8.4%). Prevalence was highest among American Indian/Alaska Natives (21.9%) and was more than three times the prevalence among non-Hispanic Asians, who had the lowest prevalence (7.0%). Among adults aged 25 years, prevalences ranged from a high of 34.1% among persons with a GED to a low of 3.6% among persons with a graduate degree. Prevalence among persons living below the poverty level (26.1%) was nearly twice that of persons at or above this level (13.9%). By region, the highest prevalence was in the Midwest (18.7%) and lowest was in the West (12.4%). Smoking prevalence was higher among Medicaid enrollees (27.8%) and uninsured persons (27.4%) than among persons covered by private health insurance (11.1%) or by Medicare only (8.9%), and higher among adults with a disability/limitation (21.5%) than among adults reporting no disability/limitation (13.8%). In addition, reported smoking prevalence was higher among adults who were lesbian, gay, or bisexual (20.6%) than heterosexual adults (14.9%). In 2015, persons with serious psychological distress reported a higher smoking prevalence (40.6%) than did persons without serious psychological distress (14.0%) (Table). Among adults with high psychological distress, prevalence was highest among persons aged 2544 years (44.3%) and lowest among persons aged 65 years (18.9%) (Figure 2).

Among current smokers during 20052015, the number of daily smokers decreased from 36.5 million (80.8%) to 27.6 million (75.7%), while the number who smoked on some days increased from 8.7 million (19.2%) to 8.9 million (24.3%) (p for trend <0.05). Among daily smokers, the mean number of cigarettes smoked per day declined from 16.7 in 2005 to 14.2 in 2015 (p for trend <0.05), but did not change significantly between 2014 (13.8 per day) and 2015 (14.2 per day). Moreover, despite an increase in the proportion of daily smokers who smoked 19 cigarettes per day since 2012, this proportion did not change significantly between 2014 (26.9%) and 2015 (25.1%). Similarly, during 20142015, no significant change occurred in the proportion of daily smokers who smoked 2029 cigarettes per day (27.4% to 29.3%) or 30 cigarettes per day (6.9% to 6.8%) (Figure 3).
Veterans with epilepsy who were deployed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts could benefit from evidence-based chronic disease self-management programs to reduce physical and psychiatric comorbidity, and linkages to U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs clinical health care providers and other community health and social service providers.

U.S. veterans with epilepsy who were deployed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts were more likely than those without epilepsy to have mental and physical comorbidity, and were 2.6 times more likely to die during 20112015, even after controlling for demographic characteristics and other conditions associated with death.

The age-adjusted prevalence of seizure disorder in United States veterans deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts (IAV) is 6.1 per 1,000 persons (1), compared with 7.1 to 10 per 1,000 persons in the general population (2,3). Persons with epilepsy are at risk of excess mortality in part because of comorbidity (4). Although patterns of comorbidity have been associated with mortality in IAV (5), the unique contribution of epilepsy to excess mortality in IAV is unknown. A cohort study was developed using inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration (VA) to identify epilepsy, demographic characteristics, and baseline comorbidity for IAV who received VA care in 2010 and 2011. The VAs vital status records were used to identify 5-year mortality (20112015). The unadjusted Kaplan-Meier estimator and adjusted proportional hazards regression models tested the hypothesis that excess mortality is associated with epilepsy. IAV with epilepsy were more likely than those without epilepsy to have mental and physical comorbidity, and significantly higher mortality, even after controlling for demographic characteristics and other comorbid conditions (adjusted hazard ratio = 2.6; 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.13.2). IAV with epilepsy could benefit from evidence-based chronic disease selfmanagement programs to reduce physical and psychiatric comorbidity, and linkages to VA clinical and other community health and social service providers.

The cohort study included IAV who received VA care in both 2010 and 2011. Each IAV included in the cohort had one or more inpatient or outpatient visits in both years to ensure that they were active VA users, and that adequate data would be available to identify epilepsy and assess comorbidity. VA national health system data from inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy records (20022011) identified IAV with and without epilepsy, and provided demographic characteristics and comorbidity data. Data from VA vital status records from 20112015 were used to identify persons who died and date of death.

IAV with epilepsy were defined as having a diagnosis indicative of epilepsy during 20102011 using diagnosis codes (International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification [ICD-9-CM]) and records of prescriptions for seizure medications (1). IAV with one or more diagnoses of epilepsy (ICD-9-CM 345), or two or more diagnoses of seizure not otherwise specified (ICD-9-CM 780.39), and a concomitant prescription for antiseizure medications* in 2011, met the epilepsy criteria for this study. IAV who met epilepsy criteria in 2010, but who did not receive antiseizure medications in 2011 were excluded from the study. The positive predictive value using this algorithm among IAV with epilepsy was 95% in a recent unpublished medical chart abstraction. IAV who did not meet the epilepsy study criteria formed the no epilepsy group.

Baseline demographic data (i.e., age, sex, race/ethnicity, poverty) and comorbidities were compiled from all available data for IAV with epilepsy before meeting epilepsy criteria, and for IAV without epilepsy through 2010. Sixteen comorbid conditions of interest included either those associated with epilepsy in the literature, or those that might have a strong association with mortality. Algorithms to ascertain comorbid conditions in administrative data required one inpatient diagnosis, or two outpatient diagnoses at least 7 days apart (6), except in cases of acute conditions such as traumatic brain injury, suicidality, and overdose in which a single diagnosis sufficed. VA vital status files provided information on the primary study outcome, the occurrence of death, and the date of death. The follow-up period to the study was January 2011December 2015 (or the date of meeting epilepsy criteria for those who first met epilepsy criteria in 2011), or until the date of death. Complete outcome data were available for this cohort because information for veterans who have received VA care or benefits is documented in the vital status data set regardless of whether they remain in VA care. ( Figure 1)

Chi-square statistics were used to compare IAV with epilepsy to IAV without epilepsy on baseline demographic characteristics, comorbid conditions, and mortality. First, analyses determined that there was no evidence of non-proportional hazards. Cumulative mortality curves were then calculated to determine if 5-year mortality in the epilepsy group differed from that in the no epilepsy group. The unadjusted Kaplan-Meier estimator and proportional hazards regression models adjusted for demographic characteristics and comorbid conditions were used to calculate hazard ratios. Statistically significant differences between groups were identified using a two-tailed significance level (p<0.01).

Among 320,583 IAV who received VA care in 2010 and 2011, 2,187 (0.7%) met the epilepsy criteria. IAV with epilepsy were more likely to be white and aged <40 years ( Table). IAV with epilepsy were more likely than those without epilepsy to have each of the examined 16 comorbid conditions (Table). Approximately five times more IAV with epilepsy (4.6% [n = 101]) had died by the end of follow-up than those without epilepsy (1.0% [n = 3,136]) ( Figure 2); unadjusted hazard ratio = 4.8; CI = 3.95.9. After controlling for demographic characteristics and comorbid conditions mortality was more likely among IAV with epilepsy than those without (adjusted hazard ratio = 2.6; CI = 2.13.2). (Table).
Irish Cement AF proposal receives backlash

10 November 2016

Willie ODea, technical director or Fianna Fail (Irish political party) has accused Irish Cement of an illegitimate and wrongful attempt to influence a planning decision after company bosses insinuated that it may not have a future in the region should its plans to switch to alternative fuels be blocked.

Irish Cements EUR10m proposal will apparently secure the future of 80 jobs and see fossil fuels gradually phased out over ten years, to be replaced with the burning of tyres and waste which otherwise would be sent to landfill.

The companys plans have proved unpopular, with over 1000 submissions sent to the EPA, which would ultimately be the body awarding Irish Cement the license to operate, as well as 80 objections to Limerick City and County Council. Concerns raised on the matter mainly relate to health and safety issues, with fears that burning the tyres and waste products will produce toxic emissions such as dioxins and furans.

Brian Gilmore, Irish Cements head of communications, said: Without this move to improve the sustainability of the plant, the jobs would be significantly at risk.

A spokesperson for Irish Cement stressed that the proposed new process does not involve incineration, despite what many objectors are claiming.

Published under
SACRAMENTO, Calif.  A common student data privacy agreement could soon be the gold standard for California school district contracts with vendors.The California Educational Technology Professionals Association (CETPA) represents more than 1,000 school districts in the state and created the California Student Privacy Alliance this year, setting its first goal to finalize a common agreement that districts could use and modify. The association gave an update on its progress at its annual membership conference on Wednesday, Nov. 9. Lawyers at Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost LLP have been working with the Ventura County Office of Education, the Internet Keep Safe Coalition; and Oxnard Elementary, Ventura Unified, San Ramon Valley Unified and Irvine Unified school districts over the past four to six months to settle on a first version of the document so that ed tech leaders can provide feedback.This agreement is designed to save time for school districts so they're not having to renegotiate privacy provisions in every contract, provide them a legally vetted standard that they can use and override any provisions in vendor service agreements that don't match the standard. Some of the areas it covers include describing the categories of data transferred to vendors, extending the agreement to sub-contractors that vendors use and establishing minimum security standards. And it's designed to fulfill California's 2014 legislation governing local education agency contracts with third parties while also allowing vendors to pre-sign the contract in what's called a joinder so that other districts can simply sign off on the privacy portions of a contract without renegotiating them."What we're trying to do with his model is to get buy-in from vendors and to move past AB 1584's original intent, which looks a little punitive," said Mark S. Williams, a partner and co-chair of the eMatters and Higher Education Practice Groups at Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost LLP. "We're entering into a new phase of maturity now with tech companies, and that's, 'Let's build a partnership  a partnership for data management.'"Along with the common agreement, the California alliance is taking a page from Massachusetts' alliance by building a repository of these privacy contract agreements that's publicly searchable. Both state alliances are members of the Student Data Privacy Consortium run by the nonprofit Access 4 Learning Community.With a public database of privacy contracts, California school districts can search by school district or application names to find out whether any agreements are on file or whether the vendor refused to sign the agreement. They can also download a PDF of the contract that shows any changes the school district made."Our big problem is how to scale up  how do we spread these privacy contracts and the language out as quickly as possible," Williams said.The registry is one way to do that.So far, three school districts and one county office of education have input contracts into the database that they have vetted, but are not based on the common agreement. Moving forward, school districts that are interested in using the agreements and uploading their own can fill out an online form to do so. And they can contact CETPA to share feedback on the provisions in its model contract, particularly under the security requirements.Ultimately these efforts could help districts tackle a major problem of not knowing where their data goes and what happens to it. And it could prevent every school district from repeating each other's contractual work."Theyre saving people millions of hours," Marsali Hancock, former founding president of the Internet Keep Safe Coalition and current commissioner at the Global Infrastructure Information Coalition, told the Center for Digital Education," and these are people who are already stretched to the max with time.
Angola Airlines flies to Mozambique as it seeks diversification and revenue growth

Angola national carrier Angolan Airlines (TAAG) has made its maiden flight to Maputo Mozambique in a diversification spree as it looks to grow revenue and customer base.

This is also part of the new schedule and aimed at permanent improvement of the provision of its services.According to a statement from the airline The 2,786-kilometre Angola-Mozambique capital connection will be operated by the airlines 737-700s twice-weekly on Wednesdays and Fridays, and will not face direct competition when referring to OAG schedules.

According to Flightradar24.com data, the inaugural flight touched down in Maputo 10 minutes behind its scheduled arrival time of 14:00, despite having departed Luanda 40 minutes after its planned 09:50 departure slot.

The Boeing 737-700 NG flights offers immediate connections to the cities of Lisbon, Porto, Sao Paulo / Rio de Janeiro and Sal / Havana on the same days.

The new the schedule, in force since last October 30, has been adjusted to better serve passengers by providing them with a wider range of options.

TAAG currently serves 17 domestic and 25 international destinations, in Africa, South America, Europe and Asia with a fleet of 13 aircraft, of which eight are Boeing 777, triple seven.

The company operates in the Lisbon, Porto, Beijing, Dubai, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Havana, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Sao Tome, Praia, Brazzaville, Bangui, Douala, Harare, Windhoek and from Wednesday in Maputo.

In addition to domestic routes, it operates in code share with local flag carriers to Paris, London, Frankfurt, Brussels, Nairobi and Casablanca.

www.taag.com
Saudi Arabia is making many changes this year after the Kings son, Prince Mohammad, presented Vision 2030, a plan to tackle financial issues. By focusing on reducing the budget deficit they are currently facing due to low oil prices and the war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is determined to take action.

The below are a few of the changes they are implementing and the factors affecting them:

A move from the Islamic Lunar calendar to the Gregorian calendar.

On October 1st, Saudi Arabia switched to the Gregorian calendar which will lower salary expenses. The Islamic Lunar Calendar follows the sighting of the moon where the year usually would be 354 days. By switching to this Gregorian calendar, civil servants will lose 11 days of payment from their salaries making the public sector line up with the private sector for employee salaries.

Higher fees for residency and foreign visas.

There has been an increase in visit visas, work visas and residencies. The Prince announced a visa application fee increase for the Islamic Pilgrimage Hajj by SR2000 for each visit. Prices for general visits will increase to SR200 for a two-month visa and SR300 for three. That excludes the fees taken by the offices that take care of the visa applications which usually reached up to 1000 riyals.

The cost of the war in Yemen and drop in oil prices.

The drop in oil prices has affected the economy and foreign employees are now suffering from salary cuts. These cuts have also been expanded to the public sector which includes Saudi citizens who will lose their bonuses and a 20% reduction in salaries.

Those exempt from cuts are the Saudi forces that are currently in Yemen. However, the conflict is expensive and shows no sign of getting better, forcing the government make changes to other sectors to deal with the losses.

To read more, please see: Saudi Arabia switches to Western Gregorian calendar so it can pay workers less and save money.
GAUTIER, Mississippi -- Restaurants in Gautier and Moss Point were among three cited for violations during recent inspections by the Mississippi Department of Health.

Shanghai Restaurant on U.S. 90 in Gautier was given a grade of C during a scheduled inspection on Nov. 4 by inspector William Buie, who found food contact surfaces were not cleaned and sanitized.

The issue was corrected by a Nov. 8 follow-up. This was Shanghai's first violation since 2006.

A C grade means critical violations were found, but some or all were not corrected during the inspection.

The facility is re-inspected in a 10-day span, and all violations must be corrected in that period. If violations are not corrected in the specified time, steps are taken to suspend the facility's permit to operate.

A grade of C is also given if critical violations are repeated from the last inspection, even if they were corrected at that time.

Also cited was Down The Road restaurant on U.S. 90 in Moss Point. During a permit inspection on Nov. 2, Buie found the eatery did not have hot and cold water at adequate pressure. This was the Moss Point restaurant's first-ever violation.

Two other coast eateries were cited, including Villa Pizza on Factory Boulevard in Gulfport. Based on a customer complaint, inspector Victoria Lyons inspected the restaurant on Nov. 3 and found insects, rodents or animals present.

This was Villa Pizza's first violation.

The other eatery cited was the cafeteria at Bayou View Elementary in Gulfport. During a scheduled inspection on Nov. 3, inspector Latanya Winn found the cafeteria did not have adequate hand-washing facilities supplied and accessible.

This was first time the school had been cited.

In all, 14 establishments statewide were cited during recent inspections.
Can I Contaminate Someone While on Preparation | And Does Preparation Prevent Transmission of HIV

Can I Contaminate Someone While on Preparation | And Does Preparation Prevent Transmission of HIV

Can I Contaminate Someone While on Preparation

PrEP ( pre-exposure prophylaxis ) is known as a medication that can prevent HIV (human immunodeficiency infection). If you deal with someone that is HIV favorable, you need to know how to protect on your own from transmitting the infection. Well, among the initiatives to prevent HIV is to take PrEP medication. Find more about Can I Contaminate Someone While on Preparation, in this article.

What is PrEP?

PrEP ( pre-exposure prophylaxis ) is a medication that prevents the transmission of infection for individuals that go to high risk of having HIV from sex or infusing narcotics. PrEP is a mix of 2 HIV medications, specifically tenofovir and emtricitabine.

2 kinds of PrEP that can prevent HIV are:

 Truvada, for individuals that are in danger of HIV from sexual relations or shot medication use.

 Descovy, for individuals in danger of HIV from sexual relations, besides individuals birthed as ladies and in danger of having HIV from genital sex.

PrEP medications are among the effective ways to prevent HIV if used regularly. Youre recommended to take this medication once daily to prevent transmission of HIV infection from HIV -positive companions. PrEP isnt for everybody. HIV avoidance medications are intended for individuals that dont have HIV but have a high risk of having it.

PrEP has the ability to protect you maximally from the HIV infection thats transmitted through rectal sex after 7 days of use. On the other hand, PrEP can maximally protect versus HIV transmission through genital sex and shot medication use after 20 days of taking it. This medication is well tolerated by the body for up to 5 years of use.

Does Preparation Prevent Transmission of HIV

Does Preparation Prevent Transmission of HIV. Prophylactic therapy for pre-exposure (PrEP) can help in preventing HIV infection also in those that do not experience from HIV but are in danger of obtaining contaminated. PrEP involves taking the mix medication emtricitabine-tenofovir (Truvada) or emtricitabine plus tenofovir alafenamide (Descovy) daily.
[]*ST:2016 20161110 15:46:06 

Suggestive Announcement for Network polling Wafangdian Bearing Co., Ltd.



2016 1st Extraordinary Shareholders Meeting







The Company and whole members of the Board hereby ensure that the Notice is factual, accurate and complete

without any false record, misleading statements or important omissions.







Announcement of Wafangdian Bearing Company Limited 2016 1st extraordinary shareholders meeting

had been discoursed on October 28,2016 at Securities Times, Hong Kong Commercial Newspaper and

http://www.cninfo.com.cn.This meeting adopt the way of On-site meeting and Internet polling. Relevant

events of the Meeting will announce as follow again:







I. Calling of the meeting:



1. The period of board session: The 20161st extraordinary shareholders meeting



2. Convener: Board of the Director of the Company



3. The meeting is in line with the relevant laws and administrative regulations, departmental rules and

regulations, regulatory documents and relevant provisions of "Articles of Association".



4.Date of meeting:



(1) On-site meeting: 14:30, 14 November,2016



(2) Internet polling: the poll through network via trading system of Shenzhen Stock Exchange will be at

9:3011:30 a.m. and 1:00-3:00 p.m. dated 14 November,2016; any time from 3:00 p.m. 13 November,

2016 to 3:00 p.m. 14 November,2016 will available for polling through internet poll system of Shenzhen

Stock Exchange.



5. Way of meeting: on-site votes plus network polling



(1) On-site vote: shareholders attend the Meeting in person or authorized other person to present through

power of attorney.



(2) Network polling: the Company will provide a voting as an internet form to whole shareholders through

the trading system and internet poll system (http://wltp.cninfo.com.cn) of Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Shareholders should participate in voting any time in the network polling.



According to Article of Association, whole shareholders registered on record date of shareholders general

meeting are entitled to participate in voting via relevant voting system. However, one of the polling ways

between on-site voting and internet polling is available for the same share only. If repeat votes occurred in

the same voting, the first voting result shall prevail.



6. Attendance



(1) All shareholders of the Company whose names appear on the register of the Shenzhen Branch of China

Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation Limited while the close of trading at noon on 9 November,

2016. The above mentioned shareholders of the Company have the right to attend the Meeting, they can

attend the Meeting through proxy by trust deed and shareholder of the Company wouldnt be necessary as

the proxy. The investor shall buy the share on or before 7 November





(2) Directors, supervisors and senior executives of the Company



(3) Attorney engaged by the Company



7. Venue



Conference room 309 of Wazhou Group, No.1, One section Bei Gong Ji Street, Wafangdian, Liaoning

Province



II. Items consider and approve in the Meeting



I. Approved



1.The proposal of adjusting the business of WBGC automobile bearing branch, precision cage company,

precision roller company, renting out related assets and involving related transaction (Adjusted)

2.The proposal involving the related transactions and about purchasing the rental equipment (after audited).

3.The proposal of adding to daily related transactions the next half year of 2016.

4.The proposal of assets sale which involved in related transaction(after audited)





4.1The proposal of selling the Pulandian plant to WBGC



4.2 The proposal of selling the fully depreciated equipment to WBGC automobile bearing branch, precision

cage company,precision roller company.



4.3 The proposal of selling the fully depreciated equipment to WBGC automobile bearing branch, precision

cage company, precision roller company



4.4 The proposal of selling low-value consumption goods whose cost have been amortized to WBGC

automobile bearing branch, precision cage company, precision roller company;



4.5 The proposal of selling idle equipment to WBGC equipment manufacturing Company;



4.6 The proposal of selling railway private sidings and related assets to WBGCprecision forging Company



II.Disclosed



More details of the proposal 3 please found in the Additional cases on the Routine Related Transaction

for Second Half of 2016published on Securities Times, Hong Kong Commercial Daily and Juchao Website

dated 27 August, 2016 respectively. Proposal 1.2.4 can be found in Wafangdian Bearing Co., Ltd. Assets

sale involved in Related Transaction published on Securities Times, Hong Kong Commercial Daily and

Juchao Website dated 28October, 2016 about Wafangdian Bearing Co., Ltd.Related Transaction.







III. Register method for on-site meeting:



1. Registration: 9:30-11:30 am, 13:00-16:30 pm 11 November, 2016



2. Place: Conference room 309 of Office building of Wazhou Group



3. Register way:



(1) personal ID card accompanied by the shareholding certificates must be taken for individual shareholders;





if attends the Meeting by proxy, the attendant must hold the ID copy of the client, power of attorney,

shareholding certificates along with agents ID card for registration;



(2) if the legal representative attend the Meeting as corporate shares, copy of the business license,

certificate of identity of the legal representative along with the shareholding certificates must be necessary;

if attend the Meeting by proxy from legal representative, copy of the business license, certificate of identity

of the legal representative, power of attorney, shareholding certificates along with ID of proxy must be

necessary.



(3) Shareholders from different locations can register via fax, registration at 9:30-11:30 am, 13:00-16:30 pm

11 November, 2016



IV. Operational process of network polling



In the shareholders general meeting, shareholders can participate in voting through the trading system and

internet polling system (http://wltp.cninfo.com.cn) of Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Relevant explanations are

as the attachment 1 :







V. Others



(1) Contact way:



Address: Investment security department, No.1, One section Bei Gong Ji Street, Wafangdian, Liaoning

Province



Person to contact: Ke Xin, Zhuang Jinling



Telephone: 0411-39116731, 39116732



Fax: 0411-39116738



Post code: 116300



(2) Conference expenses: transportation and boarding expenses for attendance shall be paid by the

participants themselves







VI. Documents available for reference



1. The Resolution of the 2st meeting of 7th Board of Directors of Wafangdian Bearing Company Limited;



2. Other documents required by SZSE







Attachment



1.The Concrete Operation Process of Network Voting

2.Power of attorney









Hereby notify



Board of director of







Wafangdian Bearing Company Limited



10 November, 2016





Attachment 1:







The Concrete Operation Process of Network Voting







I .Vote via trading system of SZSE



1. Voting code and abbreviation: Voting code 360706;abbreviation Wazhou voting





2. Motion setting and opinion voting



(1) Motion setting







Table 1 shareholders' general meeting motion corresponds to the motion coding list



Serial



Proposals



Entrustment

price



Total proposal



Total bill except bill of cumulative voting bill



100



proposal 1



The proposal of adjusting the business of WBGC automobile

bearing branch, precision cage company, precision roller

company, renting out related assets and involving related

transaction (Adjusted)



1.00



proposal 2



The proposal involving the related transactions and about

purchasing the rental equipment



2.00



proposal 3



The proposal of adding to daily related transactions the next half

year of 2016.



3.00



proposal 4



The proposal of assets sale which involved in related

transaction



4.00



proposal 4.1



The proposal of sold Shenyang sales office House to WBGC



4.01



proposal 4.2



The proposal of selling the Pulandian plant to WBGC



4.02



proposal 4.3



The proposal of selling the fully depreciated equipment to

WBGC automobile bearing branch, precision cage company,

precision roller company



4.03



proposal 4.4



The proposal of selling low-value consumption goods whose

cost have been amortized to WBGC automobile bearing branch,

precision cage company, precision roller company



4.04



proposal 4.5



The proposal of selling idle equipment to WBGC equipment

manufacturing Company



4.05



proposal 4.6



The proposal of selling railway private sidings and related

assets to WBGCprecision forging Company



4.06







2Fill in the opinion of the vote or the electoral votes



For the shareholders' general meeting motion (both non cumulative voting motion), fill in the vote:

consent, opposition, and waiver.



3Shareholders to vote on the general motion, as the other than the cumulative vote of all motion to

express the same opinion.



In the shareholders' right to vote in the same motion as the motion of the same motion, the first valid

vote shall prevail.



If the shareholders on the vote on the motion, then the total vote on the motion, the motion has been





divided vote vote shall prevail, the other did not vote on the motion to vote on the motion views prevail; such

as the first of the total vote on the motion, and then split the vote on the motion, the motion of the total votes

prevail.



4Votes on the same motion are valid for the first time.



II.The system of voting by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Trading Program



1. Voting time: November 14, 2016 trading time, that is, 11:30 - 13:00 and 15:00 - 9:30.



2. Shareholders can log on securities companies trading client through the trading system to vote.



III.Through the Shenzhen Stock Exchange System for Internet voting procedures



1, the Internet voting system to vote in November 13, 2016 for the period of time (the shareholders'

meeting held the day before the afternoon) 15:00, time for the end of November 14, 2016 (the end of the

general meeting on the same day) at 15:00 p.m.



2, The shareholders to vote online through the Internet voting system, in accordance with the

"guidelines of Shenzhen stock exchange investor network identity authentication service business (April

2016 Revision)" the provisions of identity authentication, "Shenzhen digital certificate" or "Shenzhen

Investor Service password". Specific authentication process can be logged on the Internet voting system

http://wltp.cninfo.com.cn rules guide column access.



3, shareholders according to obtain the service password or digital certificate, can log on

http://wltp.cninfo.com.cn



Within the time required by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Internet voting system to vote.







Attachment 2:



Power of attorney







The company (I) hereby authorized Mr./Ms. to attended the 1st extraordinary shareholders general

meeting 2016 of Wafangdian Bearing Company Limited with voting rights participated. The voting opinion is

as follow:



Serial



Agenda



For



Against



abstention



proposal 1



The proposal of adjusting the business of WBGC automobile

bearing branch, precision cage company, precision roller

company, renting out related assets and involving related

transaction (Adjusted)















proposal 2



The proposal involving the related transactions and about

purchasing the rental equipment















proposal 3



The proposal of adding to daily related transactions the next

half year of 2016.















proposal 4



The proposal of assets sale which involved in related

transaction















proposal 4.1



The proposal of sold Shenyang sales office House to WBGC















proposal 4.2



The proposal of selling the Pulandian plant to WBGC





















proposal 4.3



The proposal of selling the fully depreciated equipment to

WBGC automobile bearing branch, precision cage company,

precision roller company















proposal 4.4



The proposal of selling low-value consumption goods whose

cost have been amortized to WBGC automobile bearing

branch, precision cage company, precision roller company















proposal 4.5



The proposal of selling idle equipment to WBGC equipment

manufacturing Company















proposal 4.6



The proposal of selling railway private sidings and related

assets to WBGCprecision forging Company























This power of attorney shall come into force from the date of issued and shall invalid while the above

mentioned Meeting ends.



Consignor: ID No.: of consignor:



Volume of shares hold by consignor: Shareholder account of consignor:



Consignee: ID No.: of consignee:



Delegation date:



(Copies and prints of this Power of Attorney are valid)





 Suggestive Announcement for Network polling Wafangdian Bearing Co., Ltd.2016 1st Extraordinary Shareholders MeetingThe Company and whole members of the Board hereby ensure that the Notice is factual, accurate and completewithout any false record, misleading statements or important omissions.Announcement of Wafangdian Bearing Company Limited 2016 1st extraordinary shareholders meetinghad been discoursed on October 28,2016 at Securities Times, Hong Kong Commercial Newspaper andhttp://www.cninfo.com.cn.This meeting adopt the way of On-site meeting and Internet polling. Relevantevents of the Meeting will announce as follow again:I. Calling of the meeting:1. The period of board session: The 20161st extraordinary shareholders meeting2. Convener: Board of the Director of the Company3. The meeting is in line with the relevant laws and administrative regulations, departmental rules andregulations, regulatory documents and relevant provisions of "Articles of Association".4.Date of meeting:(1) On-site meeting: 14:30, 14 November,2016(2) Internet polling: the poll through network via trading system of Shenzhen Stock Exchange will be at9:3011:30 a.m. and 1:00-3:00 p.m. dated 14 November,2016; any time from 3:00 p.m. 13 November,2016 to 3:00 p.m. 14 November,2016 will available for polling through internet poll system of ShenzhenStock Exchange.5. Way of meeting: on-site votes plus network polling(1) On-site vote: shareholders attend the Meeting in person or authorized other person to present throughpower of attorney.(2) Network polling: the Company will provide a voting as an internet form to whole shareholders throughthe trading system and internet poll system (http://wltp.cninfo.com.cn) of Shenzhen Stock Exchange.Shareholders should participate in voting any time in the network polling.According to Article of Association, whole shareholders registered on record date of shareholders generalmeeting are entitled to participate in voting via relevant voting system. However, one of the polling waysbetween on-site voting and internet polling is available for the same share only. If repeat votes occurred inthe same voting, the first voting result shall prevail.6. Attendance(1) All shareholders of the Company whose names appear on the register of the Shenzhen Branch of ChinaSecurities Depository and Clearing Corporation Limited while the close of trading at noon on 9 November,2016. The above mentioned shareholders of the Company have the right to attend the Meeting, they canattend the Meeting through proxy by trust deed and shareholder of the Company wouldnt be necessary asthe proxy. The investor shall buy the share on or before 7 November(2) Directors, supervisors and senior executives of the Company(3) Attorney engaged by the Company7. VenueConference room 309 of Wazhou Group, No.1, One section Bei Gong Ji Street, Wafangdian, LiaoningProvinceII. Items consider and approve in the MeetingI. Approved1.The proposal of adjusting the business of WBGC automobile bearing branch, precision cage company,precision roller company, renting out related assets and involving related transaction (Adjusted)2.The proposal involving the related transactions and about purchasing the rental equipment (after audited).3.The proposal of adding to daily related transactions the next half year of 2016.4.The proposal of assets sale which involved in related transaction(after audited)4.1The proposal of selling the Pulandian plant to WBGC4.2 The proposal of selling the fully depreciated equipment to WBGC automobile bearing branch, precisioncage company,precision roller company.4.3 The proposal of selling the fully depreciated equipment to WBGC automobile bearing branch, precisioncage company, precision roller company4.4 The proposal of selling low-value consumption goods whose cost have been amortized to WBGCautomobile bearing branch, precision cage company, precision roller company;4.5 The proposal of selling idle equipment to WBGC equipment manufacturing Company;4.6 The proposal of selling railway private sidings and related assets to WBGCprecision forging CompanyII.DisclosedMore details of the proposal 3 please found in the Additional cases on the Routine Related Transactionfor Second Half of 2016published on Securities Times, Hong Kong Commercial Daily and Juchao Websitedated 27 August, 2016 respectively. Proposal 1.2.4 can be found in Wafangdian Bearing Co., Ltd. Assetssale involved in Related Transaction published on Securities Times, Hong Kong Commercial Daily andJuchao Website dated 28October, 2016 about Wafangdian Bearing Co., Ltd.Related Transaction.III. Register method for on-site meeting:1. Registration: 9:30-11:30 am, 13:00-16:30 pm 11 November, 20162. Place: Conference room 309 of Office building of Wazhou Group3. Register way:(1) personal ID card accompanied by the shareholding certificates must be taken for individual shareholders;if attends the Meeting by proxy, the attendant must hold the ID copy of the client, power of attorney,shareholding certificates along with agents ID card for registration;(2) if the legal representative attend the Meeting as corporate shares, copy of the business license,certificate of identity of the legal representative along with the shareholding certificates must be necessary;if attend the Meeting by proxy from legal representative, copy of the business license, certificate of identityof the legal representative, power of attorney, shareholding certificates along with ID of proxy must benecessary.(3) Shareholders from different locations can register via fax, registration at 9:30-11:30 am, 13:00-16:30 pm11 November, 2016IV. Operational process of network pollingIn the shareholders general meeting, shareholders can participate in voting through the trading system andinternet polling system (http://wltp.cninfo.com.cn) of Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Relevant explanations areas the attachment 1 :V. Others(1) Contact way:Address: Investment security department, No.1, One section Bei Gong Ji Street, Wafangdian, LiaoningProvincePerson to contact: Ke Xin, Zhuang JinlingTelephone: 0411-39116731, 39116732Fax: 0411-39116738Post code: 116300(2) Conference expenses: transportation and boarding expenses for attendance shall be paid by theparticipants themselvesVI. Documents available for reference1. The Resolution of the 2st meeting of 7th Board of Directors of Wafangdian Bearing Company Limited;2. Other documents required by SZSEAttachment1.The Concrete Operation Process of Network Voting2.Power of attorneyHereby notifyBoard of director ofWafangdian Bearing Company Limited10 November, 2016Attachment 1:The Concrete Operation Process of Network VotingI .Vote via trading system of SZSE1. Voting code and abbreviation: Voting code 360706;abbreviation Wazhou voting2. Motion setting and opinion voting(1) Motion settingTable 1 shareholders' general meeting motion corresponds to the motion coding listSerialProposalsEntrustmentpriceTotal proposalTotal bill except bill of cumulative voting bill100proposal 1The proposal of adjusting the business of WBGC automobilebearing branch, precision cage company, precision rollercompany, renting out related assets and involving relatedtransaction (Adjusted)1.00proposal 2The proposal involving the related transactions and aboutpurchasing the rental equipment2.00proposal 3The proposal of adding to daily related transactions the next halfyear of 2016.3.00proposal 4The proposal of assets sale which involved in relatedtransaction4.00proposal 4.1The proposal of sold Shenyang sales office House to WBGC4.01proposal 4.2The proposal of selling the Pulandian plant to WBGC4.02proposal 4.3The proposal of selling the fully depreciated equipment toWBGC automobile bearing branch, precision cage company,precision roller company4.03proposal 4.4The proposal of selling low-value consumption goods whosecost have been amortized to WBGC automobile bearing branch,precision cage company, precision roller company4.04proposal 4.5The proposal of selling idle equipment to WBGC equipmentmanufacturing Company4.05proposal 4.6The proposal of selling railway private sidings and relatedassets to WBGCprecision forging Company4.062Fill in the opinion of the vote or the electoral votesFor the shareholders' general meeting motion (both non cumulative voting motion), fill in the vote:consent, opposition, and waiver.3Shareholders to vote on the general motion, as the other than the cumulative vote of all motion toexpress the same opinion.In the shareholders' right to vote in the same motion as the motion of the same motion, the first validvote shall prevail.If the shareholders on the vote on the motion, then the total vote on the motion, the motion has beendivided vote vote shall prevail, the other did not vote on the motion to vote on the motion views prevail; suchas the first of the total vote on the motion, and then split the vote on the motion, the motion of the total votesprevail.4Votes on the same motion are valid for the first time.II.The system of voting by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Trading Program1. Voting time: November 14, 2016 trading time, that is, 11:30 - 13:00 and 15:00 - 9:30.2. Shareholders can log on securities companies trading client through the trading system to vote.III.Through the Shenzhen Stock Exchange System for Internet voting procedures1, the Internet voting system to vote in November 13, 2016 for the period of time (the shareholders'meeting held the day before the afternoon) 15:00, time for the end of November 14, 2016 (the end of thegeneral meeting on the same day) at 15:00 p.m.2, The shareholders to vote online through the Internet voting system, in accordance with the"guidelines of Shenzhen stock exchange investor network identity authentication service business (April2016 Revision)" the provisions of identity authentication, "Shenzhen digital certificate" or "ShenzhenInvestor Service password". Specific authentication process can be logged on the Internet voting systemhttp://wltp.cninfo.com.cn rules guide column access.3, shareholders according to obtain the service password or digital certificate, can log onhttp://wltp.cninfo.com.cnWithin the time required by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Internet voting system to vote.Attachment 2:Power of attorneyThe company (I) hereby authorized Mr./Ms. to attended the 1st extraordinary shareholders generalmeeting 2016 of Wafangdian Bearing Company Limited with voting rights participated. The voting opinion isas follow:SerialAgendaForAgainstabstentionproposal 1The proposal of adjusting the business of WBGC automobilebearing branch, precision cage company, precision rollercompany, renting out related assets and involving relatedtransaction (Adjusted)proposal 2The proposal involving the related transactions and aboutpurchasing the rental equipmentproposal 3The proposal of adding to daily related transactions the nexthalf year of 2016.proposal 4The proposal of assets sale which involved in relatedtransactionproposal 4.1The proposal of sold Shenyang sales office House to WBGCproposal 4.2The proposal of selling the Pulandian plant to WBGCproposal 4.3The proposal of selling the fully depreciated equipment toWBGC automobile bearing branch, precision cage company,precision roller companyproposal 4.4The proposal of selling low-value consumption goods whosecost have been amortized to WBGC automobile bearingbranch, precision cage company, precision roller companyproposal 4.5The proposal of selling idle equipment to WBGC equipmentmanufacturing Companyproposal 4.6The proposal of selling railway private sidings and relatedassets to WBGCprecision forging CompanyThis power of attorney shall come into force from the date of issued and shall invalid while the abovementioned Meeting ends.Consignor: ID No.: of consignor:Volume of shares hold by consignor: Shareholder account of consignor:Consignee: ID No.: of consignee:Delegation date:(Copies and prints of this Power of Attorney are valid)
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Gautier will again host its Laying of the Wreath Veterans Day ceremony Friday at 11 a.m. at the Veterans Tribute Tower in front of Gautier City Hall.

(File photo/Gulflive.com)

JACKSON COUNTY, Mississippi -- Numerous tributes and ceremonies are slated for Friday in commemoration of Veterans Day.

At 11 a.m., the City of Gautier and American Legion Post 1992 will host the fourth annual Laying of the Wreath Ceremony. Veterans and the public alike are invited to attend the event, which will be held at the Veterans Tribute Tower in front of Gautier City Hall on U.S. 90.

Also at 11 a.m., Jackson County will host its 16th annual Veterans Day program at the Moss Point Veterans Memorial in downtown Moss Point. The keynote speaker for the event is Capt. James M. Hightower, U.S. Navy (ret.), a Pascagoula High School graduate.

Hightower completed religious studies in Lakeland, Fla., and Anderson, S.C, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Southeastern University in 1973, Masters of Divinity degrees from Erskine Theological Seminary in 1978, and Masters of Theology in 1988, from Princeton Theological Seminary.

He was ordained by the General Council Assemblies of God in 1975, and served as associate pastor and pastor in Columbus, Miss., and Clinton, Miss. He received a commission in the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps in 1980.

During his military career, Hightower served sea duty and completed extended deployments to the Mediterranean Sea & North Atlantic Ocean onboard combatant ships of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet home ported in Charleston, S.C., and Norfolk, Va. Follow-on tours included serving with the U.S. Marines at Parris Island, S.C., Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va., First Marine Air Wing, Okinawa, Japan, two Fleet Marine Force units based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and with Navy Seabees in Gulfport.

Hightower's awards and honors include the John H. Craven Servant Leadership Award, the Legion of Merit (4 times), the Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Commendatioin, the Iraq Campaign Medal and numerous other awards.

In addition to those events, the National Park Service is offering free admission for active-duty personnel and their dependants to national parks across the country, including Gulf Islands National Seashore in Ocean Springs, on Friday.

Vancleave, St. Martin and Ocean Springs High Schools each held Veterans Day events earlier in the week, as did Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.
JACKSON, Mississippi -- Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant says he's not actively seeking an appointment in the Donald Trump administration but that it might be difficult to reject an offer from the president-elect.

Bryant spoke Wednesday at a state Republican news conference celebrating Trump's victory. He campaigned for Trump in Pennsylvania, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. Bryant says he would consider an appointment as secretary of agriculture or another post.

Bryant has three years left in his second term. If he were to leave, Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves would become governor.

Republicans say they believe Mississippians will have access to Trump to air concerns, and say GOP congressional majorities will benefit the state. Republican U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper says he hopes a Trump presidency increases chances of building Air Force training jets in Meridian.
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The public is invited to greet the Ingalls-built destroyer USS Ramage Nov. 21 as it makes its return to the Pascagoula shipyard, where it will undergo a $21.4 million modernization.

(Ingalls Shipbuilding)

PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- The public is invited to be on hand to greet the 300 sailors aboard the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Ramage, built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in the mid-1990s, as it makes its return to the Pascagoula shipyard Nov. 21.

In September, Ingalls was awarded a contract valued at $21.4 million to modernize the Ramage. The overhaul of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer will include ship alterations, repairs, testing, and procurement of materials. The work is expected to be complete by late 2017.

The Ramage was the fifth of 28 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers Ingalls has delivered to the U.S. Navy. It was launched Feb. 11, 1994 and commissioned into the fleet on July 22, 1995. It is named in honor of Vice Admiral Lawson Ramage, a sub commander who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during World War II.

Over its 21 years of active duty, the Ramage has participated in numerous campaigns, including Operation Silver Wake, Operation Allied Force, Operation Enduring Freedom and in the Global War on Terrorism.

In addition, the Ramage has served in other capacities, such as patrolling the waters off the coast of New York in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, providing escort to the historic museum ship USS Constitution, assisting with search and rescue operations after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 409 in 2010, and patrolling the Black Sea during the Sochi Olympics in 2014.

Most recently, the Ramage served an eight-month deployment as part of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group combating ISIS in Syria and Iraq in July.

Those wishing to be on hand to greet the Ramage are asked to be at the Point on the west end of Pascagoula's Beach Boulevard by 7 a.m. on Nov. 21, with the destroyer expected to arrive shortly after that. Ingalls employees will be handing out American flags to the public.
The Obama Administration banned the trade in ivory, among other key federal rules. Some of the poachers who kill elephants finance terrorist activities by selling ivory. Photo by iStockphoto

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In the United States, we fight like cats and dogs during elections. But in their aftermath, were not nearly as forgiving as creatures who get into a scrape and then put the tussle behind them.

The nation has just gone through a tough battle, with half the country supporting one candidate and half backing the other.

Donald Trump is our president-elect. We congratulate him. To play politics at this level and to succeed requires real ability, and skill. Ive long admired the prior winners  the Bushes, father and son, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama  and we admire Trump for amassing the votes needed for victory. Hes the second recent president to win in the electoral college but to lose the popular vote  an especially important reminder of responsibilities associated with governing in a divided nation.

When the nation is split as it is, a very capable political leader will gravitate to the issues that bind us together. There is no shortage of these issues, and animal protection is certainly one of them. That was on display this week, as voters overwhelmingly approved animal protection ballot measures to protect farm animals from extreme confinement in Massachusetts (passing Question 3 with 78 percent of the vote), and wildlife from poachers and traffickers (passing Measure 100 in Oregon with 70 percent of the vote). At the same time, they rejected an overreaching attempt to deregulate agriculture in Oklahoma (defeating Question 777 with more than 60 percent of the vote).

As those votes reinforce yet again, we have a mainstream agenda at The HSUS. And any good person  Democrat, Republican, or Independent  should support an agenda grounded on opposition to animal cruelty. Both Clinton and Trump voters lined up with us in these states on these issues. We invite President-elect Trump to embrace the core of our agenda because its good for the country. It also happens to unite so many of us, including our members and volunteer leaders who are devoted Republicans and conservatives. As a businessman, we hope Mr. Trump will embrace the principles of the humane economy  recognizing that an embrace of animal protection is good for business.

The table is set for him in Congress:

The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act has a majority of the House as cosponsors. The Senate bill  led by Pat Toomey, R-Penn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., both re-elected on Tuesday  has broad bipartisan support in Congress and has been endorsed by more than 200 law enforcement agencies across the country. It should be first on the list for action.

The Prevent All Soring Tactics Act has even more congressional support. It has more than 300 House and Senate cosponsors, and the practice of injuring horses feet to exaggerate their performance in competitions is disgraceful. Every legitimate horse industry organization and the equine veterinary community favors the bill.

The Humane Cosmetics Act not only has strong bipartisan support, but it has dozens of major corporations behind it. Here again, animal welfare groups and businesses are aligned.

The Pet and Womens Safety Act is about stopping domestic violence to animals, children, and women. It provides federal help to equip womens shelters with animal care facilities, so the women can get out of a dangerous relationship and take their animals with them. So many victims of domestic violence fear leaving their pets behind because they know the abuser will torment or kill the animal as an act of vengeance.

The Thoroughbred Horseracing Integrity Act not only has The HSUS behind it, but also The Jockey Club, which consists of so many major horse owners, track owners, and other prominent leaders within the industry.

I must confess that we are alarmed by candidate Trumps declared intentions to do away with Obama-era regulations. When it comes to regulations to stop cruelty, these are not onerous regulations for business. These are good for business and for the country, reflecting our values that cruelty to animals is never acceptable, as a personal matter or as a matter of business. Strip away the regulations, and you strip away our values.

It would be unthinkable to roll back important rules:

USDA banned the use of downer cows in the food supply. Animals unable to walk have been dragged into slaughter plants or pushed with bulldozers. Its unsafe for the animals, for the workers, and for consumers who eat meat from sick animals dragged in manure and waste.

The Obama Administration banned the trade in ivory. Some of the poachers who kill elephants finance terrorist activities by selling ivory. These people are no friends to elephants or to the countries where the elephants live. They are no friends to the United States, either.

The National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service adopted rules to stop aerial scouting and shooting of wolves and grizzly bears, trapping of grizzlies, and other inhumane and appalling hunting practices on federal lands. These lands were set aside to protect the animals, and Alaska generates hundreds of millions of dollars in tourist revenue because people come to these lands to view these animals in their native habitats.

A Trump Administration can also help advance important animal protection goals, with a proactive agenda, by:

Enacting a regulation to fortify humane standards of care for dogs in commercial breeding operations. Puppy mills are notorious for mistreating dogs, and Americans will continue to turn away from dog breeders as long as the standards allow dogs to be kept in small wire cages for their entire lives.

Expanding the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act to include poultry. Americans dont realize that there are no federal protections at slaughterhouses for 95 percent of animals whose carcasses are certified by USDA for consumption. Our federal humane slaughter laws exclude poultry.

Reforming check-off programs that tax family farmers and amount to a political slush fund for commodity trade associations.

We welcome the opportunity to sit down with the president-elect and to elaborate on our agenda. And its our earnest hope he appoints to key positions within his administration people who represent the values of the nation. To select people from special interest groups who oppose mainstream animal welfare reforms and who would treat their appointment as an opportunity to serve narrow constituencies and do harm to animals, will get him off on the wrong foot on this set of issues. It will contradict a winning message of change that so many millions of voters embraced.
Bethlehem hosts 13th annual Turkey Trot 5K

The Turkey Trot 5kRun, presented by Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites is a competitive and fun walk.

(Lehighvalleylive.com file photo)

AMERICA ON WHEELS, Allentown, is seeking volunteers to help at the admissions desk/museum store. Cash register training is available. Shift times are usually 10 a.m.-1 p.m. or 1-4 p.m. Contact: Liz Hahn, 610-432-4200 ext. 10, fund_development@americaonwheels.org.

CAMELOT FOR CHILDREN INC., Allentown needs volunteers to help wrap gifts at gift wrap booths at the Lehigh Valley Mall or at Sands Outlets in Bethlehem from Dec. 2 through Dec. 24. Make this a fun event with your family, friends and co-workers by spreading holiday cheer while you wrap presents to raise funds to keep the magic going at Camelot. Sign up on the nonprofit's website.

FRIENDS OF JOHNSTON INC., Bethlehem, needs volunteers for a phone-a-thon fundraiser for the farm and veterans' programs. Dinner is included. Grant writers are also needed, and they will teach grant writing. Volunteers are needed for kitchen and serving help and with kids' projects at Breakfast with Santa and Elf Workshop - Family Community Building (event fundraiser) Dec. 2 and Dec. 3. Contact: Victoria Bastidas, 484-241-6117, victoriabastidas01@gmail.com.

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY LV RESTORE, Whitehall, ReStore's housewares department. New volunteers shadow a current volunteer on their first day. Shifts are available 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday. Volunteers will be accepting usable donations, sorting, cleaning, pricing and displaying of these items. Long pants and closed toe shoes must be worn while volunteering. Contact: Camille Urbano, 610-776-7737 ext. 318, Camille@habitatlv.org.

HISTORIC BETHLEHEM MUSEUMS & SITES needs volunteers for its annual Turkey Trot 5kRun, a competitive and fun walk, Nov. 26. Volunteers are needed Friday and Saturday to help with registration, be a race marshal, hand out pre-race refreshments, tee shirt handout, and many more tasks. Contact: Tavia Minnich, 610-882-0450 ext. 20, Tminnich@historicbethlehem.org.

THE GRESS MOUNTAIN RANCH, Orefield, has on ongoing need for volunteers to feed and water their ranch animals. Environmental cleanup and ground maintenance volunteers are also needed yearround. Contact: Kathryn Grass, 610-398-2122, gressranch@gmail.com.

THE SANCTUARY AT HAAFSVILLE, Breinigsville, is rapidly growing in the number of dogs and cats saved and needs volunteers to support this expansion including: foster homes, event planning, community event coverage, fundraising, treasurer/bookkeeper, grounds maintenance and animal care including walking, socializing and grooming. Contact: Donna Dougherty at gressranch@gmail.com.

WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE, Bethlehem, needs volunteers at the 9th annual Christmas Party at Broughal Middle School Dec. 16 for set-up and Dec. 17 for party help. Tasks include registering families at the door, checking families in at an activity, and assisting with food line, gifts, etc. Contact: Dr. Enid Jackson, Bethlehemwomenofexcellence@gmail.com.

For more opportunities: 610-807-0336, vc@volunteerlv.org, or www.volunteerlv.org
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President-elect Donald Trump (R) and Vice President-elect Mike Pence. (AINA) -- The following letter was sent to President-elect Donald Trump by the American chapter of the Assyrian Universal Alliance.

On behalf of the Assyrian Universal Alliance and its affiliate organizations I extend our heartfelt congratulations to you for your election as the President of the United States.

You are assuming the responsibilities of this most-powerful and honorable office at a time the world needs clear direction from the United States for achieving long-lasting peace and security, especially in the Middle East. The Assyrian people, who are Christians of different denominations and the indigenous people of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran, have been victims of genocide by ISIS since its rise in the Middle East. The US government formally recognized this on March 17, 2016 through a formal Press Release by the US Secretary of State, the Hon. John Kerry.

The Assyrian people need your support to return to their ancestral lands and remain a viable segment of the fabric of the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria. We need your support to equip and train the Assyrians in Northern Iraq to defend themselves and their homes on their ancestral lands in the Nineveh Plains in a self-governed Assyrian province. We need your support to establish a special zone in the Nineveh Plains for the indigenous people, which should include the areas currently under the control of the Iraqi government army and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces. For the sake of the defenseless ethnic and religious minorities, the Nineveh Plains should not be turned into a battle-ground for a proxy war between the regional powers, and the Kurds' struggle for independence.

We need your support to encourage the Iraqi government to approve the creation of the Nineveh Plains province and rebuilding it so that the displaced Assyrian people may return to their homes and live free on their ancestral lands in a self-governed Assyrian province.

Best regards,

Carlo Kooktapeh Ganjeh

Chapter Secretariat

Assyrian Universal Alliance Americas Chapter Inc.
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Sen. Scott Wagner, R-York (PennLive file)

Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

Life is about to get a whole lot more difficult for Gov. Tom Wolf.

Legislative Republicans increased their majorities in the state House and Senate on Tuesday night, with Democrats slipping to a 122-81 disadvantage in the state House and a 34-16 minority in the 50-member state Senate.

That means that Wolf, who will enter the third year of his administration in January, will be constrained in the agenda he can pursue and the programs he can put forth when he rolls out his 2017-18 budget proposal next February.

So it's entirely understandable that one of the architects of that increased Republican majority, Sen. Scott Wagner, R-York, was feeling a little celebratory this week.

In an email to supporters on Wednesday, Wagner said Tuesday's night results were a reminder that Pennsylvania had "once again earned our nickname, 'The Keystone State.'"

Wagner, the chairman of the Senate Republicans' fall re-election effort, and a big backer of President-elect Donald Trump, said the reason for the GOP takeover was a simple one:

"Working class men and women came out in record numbers to vote for Donald Trump," he wrote. "They're tired and fed up with getting the same old excuses out of our elected officials and bureaucrats in Washington.

"Our roads and bridges are crumbling; Obamacare is strangling the middle class; our economy is stagnant; and most importantly, taxpayers are tired of being overlooked and under-appreciated," he concluded.

Three of Wagner's hand-picked candidates sailed to victory on Tuesday night. Locally, that included businessman John DiSanto, who beat Democratic incumbent state Sen. Rob Teplitz, D-Dauphin.

In Erie, in a heavily targeted race, GOP hopeful Dan Laughlin beat Democratic incumbent Sen. Sean Wiley.

Republicans also flipped the Cambria County-based 35th Senate District, a seat long held by the veteran Sen. John Wozniak, who dropped out of the race when it became clear it was unwinnable for Democrats. Republican Wayne Langerholc took that seat.

In Delaware County, newbie Sen. Tom Killion, who won the special election for the seat formerly held by now-Judge Dominic Pileggi, also won re-election. Wagner was instrumental in Pileggi's 2015 ouster as Senate GOP floor leader.

Wagner lost his bid at unseating Democratic Sen. Andrew Dinniman in Chester County's 19th Senate District. But he credited GOP challenger Jack London for putting in the mileage.

The rest of the day's news starts now.

The day after Hillary Clinton's loss was like 'sitting shiva,' ex-Gov. Ed Rendell tells PennLive's Wallace McKelvey.

In case you missed it, they were protesting in Philly and other cities over Trump's election on Wednesday night.

Also, if you missed it, why not take a gander at our post-Election Day roundtable? The discussion between Republicans, independents and Democrats was a productive and fruitful one.

The Tribune-Review explains why western Pennsylvania voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump.

The Post-Gazette has the details on anti-Trump protests in Pittsburgh's Oakland and East Liberty neighborhoods.

PhillyMag has no idea what a President Trump means for Philly, but that doesn't stop them from taking a few guesses.

BillyPenn talks with Philadelphians about the Trumpian fallout.

Here's your #Harrisburg Instagram of the Day:

Via WITF-FM, the Associated Press takes a look at how Pat Toomey won re-election on Tuesday night.

Nearly 2 million Philadelphians would lose their health coverage if the GOP promise to repeal Obamacare succeeds, NewsWorks/WHYY-FM reports.

The Morning Call offers its own analysis of how Donald Trump turned Pennsylvania GOP Red.

Already thinking ahead, PoliticsPA asks readers whom they think the GOP should nominate for Guv in 2018 to challenge Tom Wolf.

WolfWatch.

Gov. Tom Wolf holds a 10 a.m. newser in the Governor's Reception Room to announce the new "Pennsylvania Network of Care Service for Veterans."

Heavy Rotation.

Here's one from Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro that popped up on the way to work this morning. From the Reading Festival, it's "Re-Arrange."

Thursday's Gratuitous Hockey Link.

Ottawa snapped a losing streak, beating Buffalo 2-1 in a shootout.

And now you're up to date. See you all back here in a bit.
Administrators from Augusta Technical College and Georgia Piedmont Technical College spent the day with Georgia Northwestern Technical College Health Information Technology Director Donna Estes on the Walker County Campus.

These college saw how we have really grown things at GNTC and they wanted to learn what we knew about getting the program off the ground, said Ms. Estes. From laying out an academic plan for our students to have the best chance to succeed, as well as handling the administrative side of a health information technology education, we do a really good job here at GNTC.

Augusta Tech and Georgia Piedmont Tech took a day-long look at what steps GNTC took to understand what it takes to set up a competitive program. Thats what they want to do at their colleges, added Ms. Estes about GNTCs partners in the Technical College System of Georgia. Just a few years back, this program was taking its baby steps. Since that time, faculty, students, and staff have all done their part to make the most of this educational opportunity. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimates this career field to grow more than 20-percent over the next six years. Specialists in the field typically earn between $36,000 and $50,000 each year. However, managers can see salaries above $80,000.

GNTC currently offers an associate degree and a diploma in Heath Information Management. Application deadline for Georgia Northwestern Technical College is Nov. 30.

For more information on the Health Information Management program, contact GNTC at 866.983.4682. For information online, visit the college at GNTC.edu.
Stephen Tucker, 26, of Gallatin had a hunt of a lifetime, or perhaps what amounts to hundreds-of-thousands of lifetimes, if you count the millions of hours hunters have spent pursuing white-tailed deer through generations.

On Monday, Mr. Tucker bagged a buck while muzzleloader hunting in Sumner County in Middle Tenn., and as it turns out, this deers unique set of antlers has 47 points totaling more than 300 inches in length.

Because the buck's rack was so unique, Dale Grandstaff, a captain with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, measured it using Boone & Crockett Club requirements for non-typical racks.

The impressive deer, taken with a muzzleloader on Monday, had a gross (green) score of 313 2/8ths inches. However, after subtracting deductions for reasons defined by Boone & Crockett, Capt. Grandstaff determined that the buck has a net (green) score of 308 3/8ths inches.

When I first saw the buck, I thought this is going to be a state record for sure because it had about the same number of points as our standing record, but it surprised me when I measured it and it went above 300 inches, said Captain Grandstaff. That is something you just dont ever expect to measure as a certified scorer.

Taken in Iowa, the current world record buck is 307 5/8ths inches. Even if Capt. Grandstaff's measurements are accurate, there is a chance that a required 60-day drying period for the antlers could shrink that length below world record status.

Capt. Grandstaff noted that plans right now are for the antlers to be measured again in January at TWRAs headquarters.

Tennessee's current state non-typical record is 244 3/8ths inches, also killed by a hunter in Sumner County in 2000, giving the Tucker Buck an excellent possibility of shattering the state record.

If other certified scorers agree with Captain Grandstaffs recent conclusion--and he noted that so far he is the only professional who has measured the rack--then the next phase of scoring will occur when Boone & Crockett members meet at an awards banquet in the spring of 2019.

When that happens, other certified scorers in the Boone & Crockett Club will lay tape measures to the rack and ultimately decide if Tennessees conclusion stands, whatever that conclusion becomes, after January 2017.

Regardless, until Nov. 7 of this year, only one free-ranging white-tailed buck harvested by a hunter with a muzzleloader had ever been certified as having more than 300 inches of antlers on its head, according to Capt. Grandstaff. That deer is the current non-typical world record killed in September of 2003 in Monroe County, Iowa.

Will The Tennessee Tucker Buck soon join that elite company of legendary whitetails? Only time, and the meticulous hands of Boone & Crocketts certified scorers, will tell.
Rather than patients finding a train under their tree this holiday season, The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum will present a train to Childrens Hospital at Erlanger. The museum announced it will loan one of its treasured and historic locomotives to be displayed at the new Childrens Hospital at Erlanger.

The public is welcome to attend a special unwrapping ceremony of the locomotive which will take place at The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum Grand Junction on Saturday, November 19 at 11 a.m. Childrens Hospital Miracle Children will help with the unveiling and representatives from both the Museum and Childrens Hospital will be available to answer questions about the loan and the new Childrens Hospital.

Built by Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Central of Georgia Railroad, Engine 349 was chosen for display at the new childrens outpatient center because it was built in 1891, the same year Erlanger was founded.

Engine 349, once a wood fired engine and later converted to coal-burning, is an important part of southern railroad history. The engine ran regular freight service throughout Georgia for much of its time on the Central of Georgia Railroad. Later, it ran on two short-lines, the Talbotton Railroad and the Bowdon Railway, before ending its operating years in the 1950s.

The engine is currently non-operational but can serve the community by preserving the history of Chattanooga in a new location, said Tim Andrews, President, TVRM. The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum is pleased to provide this loan in hopes it will brighten the day of thousands of children and their families who visit Childrens Hospital.

The new Childrens Hospital at Erlanger is designed to engage a childs imagination and to improve and enhance the experience for the children visiting the hospital, said Bruce Komiske, VP, New Hospital Design and Construction. We are thrilled the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum is playing an important role in the healing process by opening the imagination of both children and adults to the history of trains in Chattanooga.

For more information about the new Childrens Hospital Believe Campaign, visit www.webelieve.build.
At 104 years-young, Todt Hill resident still going strong

At Carl Tavolacci's 104th birthday luncheon at Trattoria Romana, Nov. 9 are from left, standing, Fred and Carol Guinta and Rhodie Duenas. Sitting from left, Vittorio Asoli, owner of the Dongan Hills restaurant, Carl Tavolacci, his granddaughter, Carla Maresca Eichler and her husband Steven Eichler. (Staten Island Advance/Carol Ann Benanti)

(Staff-Shot)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- He's bright, intelligent and personable, whose warmth and sweet smile can charm the spots off a leopard.

And at a whopping 104 years-young, as of Nov. 9, he still remains a highly regarded member of Staten Island's legal community.

Meet Carl Tavolacci, the charismatic super centenarian of Todt Hill, who's illustrious career has spanned a great number of decades.

Tavolacci reveals he's seen many presidents come and go during his lifetime and in the days that follow Election Day 2016, he states he sincerely hopes President-Elect, Donald Trump does a good job.

"In the beginning I didn't think we had any outstanding candidates," says he. "However, I think Trump has a lot of experience in some areas and Hillary has demonstrated a lot of fortitude as she spoke to the world after the election," he goes on to explain.

Carl E. Tavolacci's seen here surrounded by family members on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2012, in the banquet room of the Richmond County Country Club, Dongan Hills. From left, standing, are granddaughter Trina Orsic, son-in-law Steve Nobbs, daughter Carol Nobbs, grandson Steven Eichler, granddaughter Carla Eichler, daughter Teresa Calagna, son-in-law Dr. Larry Calagna and grandson Smilyn Orsic. Sitting are great-granddaughters Anya Orsic and Katerina Orsic.

Tavolacci has distinguished himself as a member of a number of professional associations and as a lifetime member of the Richmond County Bar Association.

He is the founder the Kiwanis Club of Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge in June of 1952 and is the sole charter member.

Also, he incorporated the Kiwanis Club and the Kiwanis Foundation and secured a tax-free status for the foundation under the Internal Revenue Code, all on a pro-bono basis.

The Kiwanis Club raises more than $100,000 each year and distributes funds to various charitable projects. He is the only member who has been granted a life membership in the club by Kiwanis International, on June 4, 1980.

The super senior was admitted to the practice of law by order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Second Department, on Oct. 28, 1936, and has been engaged in the general practice of law for the last 74 years, excepting only his stint as a sergeant in the U.S. Army from September 1943 to December 1945 in the Normandy and Northern France campaigns of World War II.

Interestingly, he was a member of the first graduating class of St. John's University Law School, in 1935, when it was on Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn,

Born in Brooklyn, he moved to Todt Hill with his wife, the former Frances Mangano, in 1971, with whom he had two daughters, Carol T. Nobbs and Teresa Calagna. Frances passed in the year 2002, after 61 years of marriage.

Fond of travel, the couple would often visit Europe and the West Indies.

A community leader and civic activist, Tavolacci is the grandfather of two girls, Carla Eicher Maresca, his namesake and an attorney who was nominated five years in a row by lawyers and judges as a super-lawyer in defense cases pertaining to labor law, and Trina Orsic - and great-grandfather of Anya and Katerina Orsic.

He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the DaVinci Society of Wagner College on Sept. 25, 2008, and was founder and president of the Kiwanis Club of Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Mr. Tavolacci was lieutenant governor of the Metropolitan Division of Kiwanis International, which included Staten Island, Brooklyn and Manhattan, and in 1975 was president of the Iron Hills Civic Association, an organization by which he was honored in 2004.

He has a life membership in Kiwanis International, the Knights of Columbus and the Richmond County Bar Association.

When asked about his recipe for longevity, says he: "Savor every moment to the fullest," inasmuch as he's a believer in the hypothesis set in verse by Kenny Chesney titled "Don't Blink," because 100 years goes by faster than you think!

Happy 104th birthday, Mr. Tavolacci!

CELEBRATIONS - NOV. 13 AND 14

Happy birthday wishes Sunday go to Barbara Perricone, Andrew Casale, Sal D'Agostino Sr., Karen Tramontano, Randy Raia who turns 21, Elena Marie DeLucia, Michael Creeg, Natia Micalizzi and Austin Klien.

Happy birthday Sunday to Owen Carrara who is now 7 years-old, so says grandparents, Carl and Betty Carrara.

Happy wedding anniversary Sunday to Karen and Larry Miraglia and to Norma and John Mondelli.

Former Borough President Ralph Lamberti

Monday is birthday time for former Borough President, Ralph Lamberti, Court of Claims Judge/Acting New York State Supreme Court Justice Wayne Ozzi, Vincent Demonte, Jessie Rose, Madison O'Halloran who turns 15, Tom Spinelli, Danielle Paoluccio, Andrea Lyons and Matthew D'Onofrio.
A record number of Alabamians cast ballots in the general elections on Tuesday. The citizens of Alabama voted in favor of Amendment 2, which will secure the state parks funding and promises a sustainable future for the parks. An overwhelming percentage of Alabamians voted in favor of the Amendment and now for the first time ever, the parks will have secure funding allowing them to properly plan for the future, said officials.

Amendment 2 was included on the ballot after $15 million was transferred from the parks budget to the General Fund between 2012 to 2015. These funding transfers crippled the parks and depleted their reserve funds. Last year, five parks closed and numerous other facilities were shut down. Senator Clay Scofield and Rep. Kerry Rich heard the pleas of thousands Alabamians and sponsored the bill that brought Amendment 2 before the citizens of Alabama.

"Our coalition has been working for nearly two years to educate and engage citizens about the parks funding crisis, said Philip Darden, chair of Alabama State Parks Partners Coalition. We are thrilled for the passage of Amendment 2 and are excited to continue working to promote our parks and help them reach full stability, now that their funding is secured. Amendment 2 passed with the support of diverse organizations including tourism representatives, conservation groups, municipal governments and thousands of park volunteers who worked so hard to raise awareness about the importance of protecting the parks funding. We are very grateful for Senator Scofields leadership on this issue and his continued support of our parks.

The majority of the state park systems budget, about 90 percent, comes directly from guest fees. The passage of Amendment 2 will ensure that these guest fees are only used for the upkeep of the parks. As the parks funding was siphoned from the parks each year, park managers were left with difficult choices and multiple parks were closed and some facilities were shut down. For the last few years, the parks did not know their budget for the following year, making planning for routine maintenance each year - or even long-term planning - impossible for the parks.

In addition to protecting the park systems funding, Amendment 2 included language to open the option for concession agreements at all parks. Many parks already have concession agreements with private businesses, including zip lines, a wakeboarding course, restaurant management, allowing food trucks at parks and ATMs.

Don't underestimate the importance of Amendment 2 for the parks, said Greg Lein, State Park director. Despite a last ditch effort to misinform voters about Amendment 2, the voters heard our plea to protect the parks and I am so grateful for the support our parks have around the state. I'm very optimistic about the future of our parks and I can assure you now that the parks funding is protected, the parks will continue to serve citizens of our state and work to provide guests the best experience possible.

The parks attract millions of tourists each year and contributes $375 million in economic impact to the entire state.
Life is not always fair  especially when it comes to taxes. Many people would agree that the nations tax code is a bottomless pit of politics and controversy that tends to get deeper with each election. On a local level, tax debates typically pit red states against blue states in the name of ultimate tax fairness. However, what does a fair tax system look like and which states actually have the least fair tax systems?

Americans generally believe that higher income households should pay a greater percentage of their incomes in taxes than lower income households. Yet the exact opposite occurs. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds the nationwide average effective state and local tax rates by income group are 10.9% for the poorest 20% of individuals and families, 9.4% for the middle 20%, and 5.4% for the top 1%. This means the poorest Americans are paying two times more of their income in taxes than the top 1%.

Paying more with unfair tax systems

In the 10 states with the most unfair tax structures, the bottom 20% pay up to seven times as much of their income in taxes as their wealthy counterparts. A heavy reliance on sales and excise taxes are characteristics of the most unfair state tax systems. In fact, six of the 10 most regressive states derive roughly half to two-thirds of their tax revenue from sales and excise taxes, compared to a national average of roughly one-third.

The bottom line is that every state fails the basic test of tax fairness, explains the report. The District of Columbia is the only tax system that requires its best-off citizens to pay as much of their incomes in state and local taxes as the very poorest taxpayers, but middle-income taxpayers in DC pay far more than the top one percent. In other words, every single state and local tax system is regressive and even the states that do better than others have much room for improvement.

Lets take a look at the 10 states with the least fair tax systems. Do you live in one?

10. Indiana

The Hoosier State ranks No. 10 in the nation in terms of the least fair tax system. The poorest 20% of residents pay 12% of their income in taxes, compared to a rate of 5.2% for the states top 1% and 10.6% for the middle 60%. Since the last ITEP study two years ago, Indiana enacted across-the-board reductions in personal income tax rates, and is gradually reducing its corporate income tax rate form 7.5% to 4.9%.

9. Kansas

Kansas ranks No. 9 in the nation in terms of the least fair tax system. The poorest 20% of residents pay 11.1% of their income in taxes, while the top 1% pay 3.6%. The middle 60% pay 9.2% of their income in taxes. While a majority of states offer some kind of credit to assist low-income taxpayers in paying their property tax bills, Kansas provides targeted property tax credits to elderly taxpayers based only on income without a provision requiring property taxes to exceed a set percentage of income to qualify.

8. Arizona

Arizona ranks No. 8 in the nation for the least fair tax system. While the top 1% pay 4.6% of their income in taxes, tied for the highest rate on this list, the poorest 20% pay 12.5% of their income in taxes and the middle 60% pay 9.5%. Arizona collects personal income taxes, but has a graduated rate structure where there is little difference between the bottom marginal rate and the top marginal rate. The state also fails to provide a refundable Earned Income Tax Credit.

7. Tennessee

Tennessee ranks No. 7 in the nation for the least fair tax system. The poorest 20% of residents pay 10.9% of their income in taxes, the lowest percentage out of the 10 unfairest states. The middle 60% pay a rate of 8.4%. However, the top 1% of residents only pay 3% of their income in taxes. Tennessee only applies its personal income tax to interest, dividend, and capital gains income, but relies heavily on sales and excise taxes. On the positive, the sales tax on groceries was recently lowered from 5.25% to 5%.

6. Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania ranks No. 6 in the nation for the least fair tax system. The top 1% pay 4.2% of their income in taxes, but the poorest 20% and the middle 60% pay 12% and 10.1% of the incomes in taxes, respectively. Pennsylvania uses a flat rate which taxes the income of the wealthiest family at the same marginal rate as the poorest wage earner.

5. Illinois

The Prairie State ranks No. 5 in the nation for the least fair tax system. The poorest 20% pay 13.2% of their income in taxes, the third highest amount in the country. In comparison, the middle 60% pay 10.9%, while the top 1% pay 4.6%. Like Pennsylvania and Indiana, Illinois uses a flat rate which taxes the income of the wealthiest family at the same marginal rate as the poorest wage earner. The state also fails to provide refundable child tax credits, while state and local sales taxes include groceries.

4. South Dakota

South Dakota ranks No. 4 in the nation for the least fair tax system. The top 1% enjoy the lowest rate on the list at a mere 1.8%. Meanwhile, the poorest 20% pay 11.3% of their income in taxes and the middle 60% pay 7.9%. South Dakota also relies heavily on sales and excise taxes since it doesnt have a personal income tax or a corporate income tax.

3. Texas

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the amount of tax unfairness. The Lone Star States top 1% pays 2.9% of their income in taxes, compared to 12.5% paid by the poorest 20% and 8.8% by the middle 60%. The states sales tax base excludes groceries, but low-income taxpayers fail to receive tax credits to offset sales, excise, and property taxes. In lieu of a corporate profit tax, Texas imposes a gross receipts tax.

2. Florida

Florida ranks No. 2 in the nation for the least fair tax system. The poorest 20% of residents pay 12.9% of their income in the taxes and the middle 60% pay 8.3%. The top 1% pay 1.9%. Only Washington, Hawaii, and Illinois tax the poor more than Florida. With no personal income tax, the state has a comparatively high reliance on sales taxes, and fails to provide tax credits to offset impact of sales, excise, and property taxes.

1. Washington

Washington ranks as the least fair tax system in the Untied States. The poorest 20% are the most heavily taxed in the nation by paying 16.8% of their income in taxes. The middle 60% pay 10.1%, while the top 1% pay 2.4%. Washington has no personal income tax and has a high reliance on sales taxes. The state enacted a refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, but lawmakers failed to provide funding for it.

Follow Eric on Twitter @Mr_Eric_WSCS

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Welcome to our weekly Star Wars roundup! With Disney ramping up the franchise on all cylinders, theres tons of exciting stuff in the way of news, rumors, and clips. Weve picked out the best Star Wars stories the internet has to offer, bringing you everything you need to know about the worlds favorite sci-fi series.

1. J.J. Abrams reveals Steven Spielbergs subtle role in helping make The Force Awakens

Steven Spielbergs history with the Star Wars franchise dates all the way back to the original trilogy. The accomplished director has long been close with George Lucas, and the pair have often collaborated on a number of projects together. Knowing that, it only seems natural that hed have had some input on Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

First and foremost, Spielberg was the one who championed J.J. Abrams to direct the film in the first place. His role didnt end there though, with Abrams revealing in the The Force Awakens commentary that he used at least a couple of Spielbergs ideas in the final cut.

The first bit of advice from the legendary director: To include an explosion when Finn and Poes stolen TIE Fighter was swallowed by a sand pit on Jakku. While this is a CG effect of the swallowing, this explosion was Steven Spielbergs idea, Abrams admitted, going on to note how he loved the idea that the thing get sucked into the sand and then  that!

The second tweak was something a tad more subtle, with Spielberg suggesting they include falling trees during the climactic lightsaber duel between Kylo Ren and Rey. All in all, its both interesting and exciting to still see his fingerprints on the Star Wars franchise after all these years.

2. Donnie Yen talks about his Rogue One character

Of all the new characters debuting in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, its Chirrut Imwe that has us the most intrigued. Imwe will be played by martial arts legend Donnie Yen, and from what we know of him so far, hes going to kick a whole lot of Imperial ass. Yen recently talked about why he took the role, admitting that truthfully, I didnt want to spend five months apart from my family, filming in London. Ultimately, his childrens excitement over their father being in Star Wars convinced him, and he was brought into the fold.

He didnt sign on to simply be a background character though. When you hire me, youre not just getting an actor; you are getting a choreographer, a director, he described, going on to reveal that, it was my idea to make him blind. Suffice it to say, Yen is the full package, and the Star Wars saga is better off for having him in Rogue One.

3. Marvel is set to release a new Star Wars comic series featuring a fan favorite character

While the early run of new Star Wars comics has primarily focused on household names like Darth Vader, Luke, and Leia, one character has managed to capture the interest of fans more than anyone else: Doctor Aphra. The rogue archaeologist first appeared in Darth Vaders standalone series, assisting the Sith Lord whenever required. Even though Vader was expectedly threatening toward his ally, Aphra quickly evolved into a well fleshed out character, buoyed by her charming demeanor and considerable intelligence.

Soon, the good doctor will be getting her own self-titled series, set to debut December 7. The story will be set directly after her adventures with Vader, as she tracks down rare artifacts alongside her two murderous droids, BT-1 and 0-0-0. For anyone not currently familiar with Aphra, we highly recommend getting to know her in Darth Vader Vol. 1.

4. Star Wars Rebels introduces a familiar face in the latest episode

Over its three season run on Disney XD, Star Wars Rebels hasnt been shy about bringing in classic Star Wars characters. Already weve seen young Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Darth Maul, and Lando Calrissian.

In last weeks episode entitled Imperial Super Commandos, Rebels brought in something of a deep cut character with Gar Saxon. A Mandalorian whose history dates all the way back to the days of Death Watch in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Saxon was actually a prominent part of the Darth Maul comic series, helping rescue Maul after his imprisonment at the hands of Darth Sidious. By Rebels, Saxons joined the Empire as part of an elite group of commandos, acting as a formidable foe for Sabine and Fenn Rau.

Follow Nick on Twitter @NickNorthwest

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Following a strong third quarter, specialty chemicals company LANXESS has again raised its earnings guidance for 2016. The Cologne-based company now expects to achieve EBITDA pre exceptionals within a corridor of EUR 960 million and EUR 1,000 million. Previously, LANXESS had assumed earnings of between EUR 930 million and EUR 970 million.

EBITDA pre exceptionals for the third quarter of 2016 rose by 9.4 percent to EUR 257 million, compared with EUR 235 million a year earlier. The EBITDA margin pre exceptionals improved year-on-year from 12.0 percent to 13.4 percent. As in the preceding three-month period, the good overall earnings performance was due especially to the strong operational development of the new LANXESS segments  Advanced Intermediates, Performance Chemicals and High Performance Materials  and to improved cost structures.

We took the momentum from the first half of the year into the third quarter and delivered renewed proof of the operational strength of new LANXESS. We are therefore again raising our guidance for the full year, said Matthias Zachert, Chairman of the Board of Management of LANXESS AG. The company is anticipating a normal seasonal business pattern in the final quarter of 2016. In other words, performance will be slightly subdued compared with the preceding quarters.

The good business development in the third quarter was also reflected in net income, which increased by 51.2 percent to EUR 62 million from EUR 41 million the previous year. Earnings per share were EUR 0.68, after EUR 0.45 a year earlier.

Group sales declined by a slight 1.6 percent in the third quarter of 2016 to EUR 1.92 billion, compared with EUR 1.95 billion in the same period in 2015. Higher volumes in all segments nearly compensated for the lower selling prices resulting from raw material prices.

Advancing on the path of growth

LANXESS continued its path of growth in the third quarter as well. On August 31, 2016, it successfully closed the acquisition of the Clean and Disinfect business of U.S-based company Chemours. At the end of September, LANXESS then announced the next milestone with the planned acquisition of U.S-based chemical company Chemtura, thus positioning itself as a leading supplier of additives. Several working groups have now started planning the integration process. The transaction still needs to be approved by Chemturas shareholders and the relevant antitrust authorities and is subject to the standard conditions applying to such transactions. Closing is expected around mid-2017.

Net financial liabilities remain at a low level

At the end of the third quarter, net financial liabilities were virtually unchanged at a low level, despite payment for the acquisition of the Chemours business, and amounted to EUR 203 million. Net Debt was substantially reduced by, in particular, the payment of EUR 1.2 billion received by LANXESS in April 2016 from Saudi Aramco for its 50-percent share in the ARLANXEO joint venture. At the end of 2015, LANXESS still had net financial liabilities of around EUR 1.2 billion.

Margins improved in all segments

In the Advanced Intermediates segment, sales decreased by 1.1 percent from EUR 440 million to EUR 435 million. EBITDA pre exceptionals stood at EUR 83 million, 9.2 percent higher than the prior-year figure of EUR 76 million. In the Advanced Industrial Intermediates business unit particularly, sales volumes increased on account of good demand in almost all end markets. In the Saltigo business unit, demand for Saltidin  the active ingredient for insect repellents  was one of the factors which compensated for weaker demand for agrochemicals. The EBITDA margin pre exceptionals of 19.1 percent was significantly above the prior-year figure of 17.3 percent.

The Performance Chemicals segment posted a year-on-year increase in sales of 3.2 percent, from EUR 524 million to EUR 541 million. Alongside higher sales volumes, the Clean and Disinfect business acquired from Chemours at the end of August was one of the factors in this performance. EBITDA pre exceptionals increased by 5.8 percent to EUR 91 million, compared with EUR 86 million a year earlier. In particular, higher sales volumes in almost all business units contributed to the improvement in earnings. The EBITDA margin pre exceptionals increased slightly from 16.4 percent to 16.8 percent.

Sales in the High Performance Materials segment declined slightly by 2.3 percent to EUR 257 million from EUR 263 million in the prior-year quarter. Increased sales volumes almost compensated for the lower selling prices resulting from raw material costs. EBITDA pre exceptionals increased by a substantial 31.3 percent to EUR 42 million, compared with EUR 32 million in the third quarter of 2015. Higher sales volumes in more profitable product groups and improved capacity utilization resulted in this positive earnings performance. The EBITDA margin pre exceptionals of 16.3 percent was significantly above the figure of 12.2 percent posted in the prior-year quarter.

Sales in the ARLANXEO segment decreased by 5.3 percent to EUR 675 million, compared with EUR 713 million a year earlier. In particular, good demand from the automotive segment in Asia resulted in higher sales volumes. However, these were unable to offset the price decline resulting from raw material costs. EBITDA pre exceptionals stood at EUR 91 million, just 3.2 percent lower than the prior-year figure of EUR 94 million. Higher volumes and improved capacity utilization counteracted the impact of continuing price pressure. The EBITDA margin pre exceptionals improved slightly to 13.5 percent, compared with 13.2 percent in the prior-year period.
Donald Trump built his campaign on his experience in the business world, framing his outsider candidacy as the antidote needed to cure what he described as an ailing economy.

But at times, he has provided few details on how exactly he would turn things around. Here's what Trump has said in the past on key business and economic issues.

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Trade

Trump has staked his candidacy on the promise of establishing trade policies that he says will put America first. Core to that message is his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed Pacific trade deal between 12 nations.

In a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, Trump said the Trans-Pacific Partnership would "destroy our manufacturing" and would "make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments."

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"I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers or that diminishes our freedom or our independence," he said in the speech. "We will never, ever sign these trade deals."

Trump has also said he will "renegotiate" the North American Free Trade Agreement, a trade pact between the U.S., Mexico and Canada that he has called the "the worst trade deal ever approved in this country."

He has also called for a renegotiation of trade deals with China.

In an interview with the New York Times editorial board in January, Trump said he would support a tax on products coming in from China.

"I would do a tax. And the tax, let me tell you what the tax should be  the tax should be 45%," he said.

Healthcare

Trump has repeatedly slammed the Affordable Care Act throughout the campaign, but has released few details on how he would deal with rising healthcare costs, other than saying he will reduce regulation of health insurance.

During a rally in Pennsylvania last week, Trump told supporters that "Obamacare has to be replaced, and we will do it very quickly."

"If we don't repeal and replace, we will destroy American healthcare forever," he said.

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Taxes

During his speech at the Republican National Convention, Trump said he would reduce taxes, which would "cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country."

"Middle-income Americans and businesses will experience profound relief, and taxes will be greatly simplified for everyone. And I mean everyone," he said in July.

On his campaign website, Trump's tax proposal states that, among other things, it would consolidate seven tax brackets into three, repeal the estate tax and lower the business tax rate to 15% from 35%.

Technology

The president-elect's hard-line stance on restricting immigration helped catapult him to victory in the Republican primaries, but it alienated him from many, including those in the tech industry. Silicon Valley relies on many foreign workers and companies have long pushed for immigration reform.

"It's our right, as a sovereign nation, to choose immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us," Trump said in August while describing his plan for immigration.

Trump has said he wants to bring back U.S. manufacturing jobs  an idea many tech companies see as unfeasible because of lower costs overseas.

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When federal prosecutors criticized tech giant Apple Inc. this year for refusing to help unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack, Trump rebuked the company.

"What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such time as they give that security number," he said to a crowd in South Carolina in February.

samantha.masunaga@latimes.com

For more business news, follow me @smasunaga
British futures trader Navinder Singh Sarao, seen here on March 23, 2016, pleaded guilty in Chicago on Nov. 9 to wire fraud and spoofing, including for his role in the May 6, 2010, markets crash that saw tens of billions of dollars lost in just five minutes. (Matt Dunham / AP)

The British "flash crash" trader pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a Chicago federal court to wire fraud and spoofing, including for his role in the May 6, 2010, markets crash that saw tens of billions of dollars lost in just five minutes.

Navinder Singh Sarao, 37, had been extradited to the United States and appeared in an orange jumpsuit, with legs shackled, during a 90-minute hearing in U.S. District Court that included a phone call to his parents overseas and the revelation that he had lost some of his gains in a scam.

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In a plea deal announced on the day he was to be arraigned, Sarao must forfeit more than $12.8 million that he made from manipulating markets. He'll be sentenced later. He also must pay fines and make restitution.

The markets later recovered that day in May 2010, although prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall on Wednesday that Sarao also had committed wire fraud from 2009 to 2014.

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Kendall accepted the plea deal. Sarao may return to the United Kingdom on a $750,000 bond secured by his parents' home  where he had been living  and property owned by his brother. Sarao has severe Asperger's syndrome, the judge was told.

During the court proceedings, Kendall called Sarao's parents to ensure that they knew that they could lose their home if anything went wrong with the agreement. For example, Sarao must adhere to a curfew in their home of 11 p.m. to 4 a.m., avoid contact with victims or witnesses, refrain from trading U.S. securities, and not get drunk, among other things.

"He doesn't even drink tea or coffee," Sarao's father assured the judge. "We will make sure (the agreement) is carried out to the letter."

"You have a nice evening," the judge said in ending the call.

A grand jury in Chicago indicted Sarao in 2015, alleging manipulation on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He also had been accused of commodities fraud.

In July, Michael Coscia was sentenced to three years in prison and two years of supervised release for spoofing and commodities fraud. Coscia, of New Jersey, was the first defendant in the country to stand trial under new anti-spoofing laws included in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. He earlier was found guilty of six counts of spoofing  the use of computer algorithms to rig markets in fractions of a second  and six counts of commodities fraud.

byerak@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @beckyyerak
Passengers begin to board a Megabus headed for Ohio on Nov. 10, 2016, at Polk and Canal streets in Chicago. The bus company is laying off employees in Chicago and cutting some routes. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)

Megabus, the discount interstate bus carrier, is downsizing operations in Chicago.

Facing decreased demand, the New Jersey-based company announced Thursday it will reduce its schedule, eliminate some routes and lay off about 100 employees in Chicago effective Jan. 10.

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Some of the slack  and potentially the displaced employees  may be picked up by Megabus hubs in Wisconsin and Ohio, but the oversized, double-decker buses will be fewer and farther between in Chicago, with the daily schedule cut from 26 to 16 departures.

The buses, which seat 81 passengers, have had plenty of space as of late, as low gas prices entice more travelers to do the driving themselves, according to Megabus spokesman Sean Hughes.

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"Customer demand has been going down," Hughes said.

Launched in 2006, Megabus offers fares as low as $1 to more than 100 cities, predominantly across the East and Midwest. More than 50 million customers have taken a ride on a Megabus over the past decade, but the numbers have declined in lockstep with falling gas prices, Hughes said.

The Chicago hub  one of 23 nationwide  will go away Jan. 10, turning the city into a bus stop on the way to Ohio, Texas and other destinations. About 30 drivers will remain based in Chicago after the change, Hughes said.

Megabus passengers will no longer be able to get to Omaha, Neb., or East Lansing, Mich., from Chicago, two routes being completely eliminated.

Passengers will still board Megabus at its current stop on West Polk Street between Clinton and Canal streets. An office at 4400 S. Racine Ave. will remain open, but with a skeleton staff.

Megabus notified the 100 or so employees, including drivers, mechanics and administrative staff, on Wednesday, Hughes said. It also began discussions on how to manage the changes with the union representing about two-thirds of the affected employees.

"All affected employees will qualify for a severance package, while most will have the opportunity to apply for a transfer," Hughes said.

Chicago Megabus drivers and their union, United Workers of America, ratified a three-year labor agreement last year, averting a strike and raising wages by more than 10 percent. At the time, the union represented more than 140 Chicago drivers who were paid about $15 per hour  far lower than Megabus drivers in the Northeast.

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Megabus has had a checkered safety record out of its Chicago hub, including the most recent incident in February, when 40 passengers escaped without injury after a Megabus caught fire on U.S. Highway 41 in Lake Forest.

Among the high-profile accidents was a December 2014 crash, where a bus headed from Chicago to Atlanta skidded into the back of a stopped semi along Interstate 65 in southern Indiana, injuring 19 of the 63 passengers.

In October 2014, a Megabus traveling from Atlanta to Chicago overturned on a rain-slicked I-65 near Greenwood, Ind., after hitting a car that had crashed. Eighteen of the 56 passengers were taken to nearby hospitals with injuries. Four Chicagoans sued the company, claiming malfunctioning wipers contributed to the crash

In 2012, Megabus was involved in two incidents resulting in fatalities. One involved a pedestrian fatally hit near Union Station in Chicago and the other involved a high-speed wreck on Interstate 55 in southern Illinois that killed one passenger and injured dozens of others.

Hughes said the decision to downsize operations in Chicago was not related to the company's safety record.

"The decision was a business decision based on customer demand," he said. "It was not based on any of those safety issues."

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rchannick@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RobertChannick
Well, we all knew that Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare wasn't exactly going over well with the players. There's a bigger problem that's recently cropped up, though, and it's one that might mean an early end for the latest chapter of Call of Duty. New reports from data intelligence kingpins Githyp suggests that the space shooter isn't going over well at all, and has currently fewer players on Steam than even Payday 2.The biggest number of online players that Infinite Warfare could generate, the Githyp report noted, was 15,280, through Sunday of its launch weekend. Given that Black Ops III generated over 60,000 simultaneous players, or nudging up on a ratio of four to one, it's clear that Infinite Warfare was not super well-received. Though 15,280 simultaneous players isn't bad objectively, it's not the greatest news subjectively, and that player count wasn't even sufficient to get it into the top 25 most-played games that weekend on Steam.What's worse is that there's a problem of motivation involved; an unknown percentage of players specifically picked up Infinite Warfare so they could play Modern Warfare Remastered, and given the player numbers on that, that only means about another 4,546 people to add to the rosters. Even watchers aren't doing so well here; Livestream viewer counts are on the decline, and that's for PC and console alike, so any hope that Infinite Warfare players are focused on consoles is a fading hope at best. Reports suggest Twitch numbers are down as well.There are many potential explanations: a Call of Duty burnout similar to that seen recently in Assassin's Creed , a bad weekend in general, a host of recently-released shooter games and some still set to arrive...all of these and more are rational enough. I'm of the mind that people might be just getting tired of this franchise, which has been hitting its audience with a new and vaguely similar version every year. Some time away from the field to reconsider the concept, add some new innovations, and in general get better could be a great way to revive the spark.In the end, the players will speak, and right now the consensus is that they don't much care for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
When she left the now-defunct Cantina 1910 last December, chef Diana Davila was already talking of opening her own restaurant. Now it appears she is poised to get it.

The chef will open Mi Tocaya Antojeria, a Mexican restaurant, in her own neighborhood of Logan Square in spring 2017.

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"I'm really excited. I couldn't ask for more," Davila said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Mi Tocaya, which translates to "my namesake" in Spanish, will try to capture the feeling of going to the chef's house for a meal.

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When I talked to Davila right after she left Cantina 1910 citing "irreconcilable differences," she spoke of only cooking Mexican food and doing it in Logan Square. Asked what her dream place would be, she talked of a "cool bar program," lots of tacos and a portion of the menu devoted to "cool, imaginative" small plates.

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

It seems that's exactly the direction she's going at Mi Tocaya Antojeria. An antojeria is a place that serves antojos, defined as Mexican-style tapas  small plates with bold flavors. The menu will also offer some medium, large and family-style dishes. Expect familiar Mexican dishes, little-known regional specialties and modern plates pulled straight from Davila's imagination.

The bar program will be Mexican-inspired, with a small list of cocktails, a house margarita on tap, and Mexican and local beers.

"I want to be a Mexican cook,'' Davila said Wednesday. "I can't believe it's happening. It's combining all my passions: my family, my passion for cooking and (my passion) for my culture."

Davila has a 5-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son, and says owning her own place will allow her to see them a lot more  and she'll be able to walk to work too.

"Now that I'm a mom, it's come full circle," she said, noting her daughter is beginning to ask about the dishes mom cooks. "It's funny how these things get passed down."

Mi Tocaya Antojeria, 2800 W. Logan Blvd., www.mitocaya.com

wdaley@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @billdaley






"Late Night" host Seth Meyers made a last-ditch effort Wednesday to urge Donald Trump to play a fictional president on a Chicago-set show instead of the real president in the White House.

Meyers renewed his months-long call for Trump to star on "Chicago President," a fictional NBC show that's a spoof of Dick Wolf's Chicago franchise for the network.

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On Wednesday, Meyers upped the offer -- which is good until Inauguration Day -- by increasing the order of "Chicago President" episodes from 13 to 22 and giving the show the Monday night slot after "The Voice."

"Our offer still stands," Meyers said. "C'mon, you didn't think you were going to win this thing either, and I'm guessing that right now you are spinning out. You're probably looking at a map of the United States and thinking, 'Wait, how long does this wall have to be?'"

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"Late Night" airs 11:35 p.m. weeknights on NBC.

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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)
The alien spacecraft in "Arrival" arrive by the dozen, each of the looming, egg-sliced-in-half-shaped wonders looking like the latest in KitchenAid gadgetry writ large. All around the globe, their contents a mystery to paranoid earthlings, the visitors hover just above the planet's surface. Why have they come? Do they come in peace? Will the U.S. military and other nations' leaders give peace a chance?

True to the spacecraft, director Denis Villeneuve is one sleek craftsman. Every subtle camera crawl, each darkness-shrouded visual composition in "Arrival" conspires to unsettle us and hold us in a state of dread or wonder, without being cheap about it. A French Canadian by birth whose best film remains (for now) "Incendies," a complex mystery based on a stage play, Villeneuve is coming off a couple of well-made pulp outings, the child abduction revenge thriller "Prisoners" (gripping for an hour, then dragged down by its own worst impulses) and the drug cartel maze "Sicario," similarly strong for much of its running time before settling for the usual.

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"Arrival" has little of the usual. It may frustrate or confuse viewers who prefer their humanist science fiction on the order of "The Martian." Screenwriter Eric Heisserer adapted Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life," a few non-spoiler-y details of which can be relayed. At the start, we hear Amy Adams (terrific, her technique clean and exact) in voice-over, speaking to the girl we see with her on screen. They're mother and daughter, together over the years. But too young the girl dies, leaving the Adams character, Louise, alone and the girl's father out of the picture.

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Louise is a linguistics professor and translation whiz, and "Arrival" sets up its increasingly tricky narrative beautifully. The halved-egg alien saucers arrive; the world freaks out; the U.S. military, personified by gently intense Forest Whitaker, shows up at her office door out of nowhere, sussing out Louise's interest in learning how to crack the (literally) otherworldly beeps and pops and guttural somethings emitted by the inhabitants of the spacecraft. Jeremy Renner plays Louise's partner in research, a physicist compelled more by science than language. They're helicoptered to where one of the spacecraft hovers, motionless, just above a field in Montana.

Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams star in "Arrival," a movie about alien visitors directed by Denis Villeneunve. (Jan Thijs / Paramount Pictures)

The film builds its mystery scene by scene. Under the sway of the alien visitation, Louise's memories of her late daughter grow more and more baffling. Meantime there's a new language to learn, elusive visual symbols that, as we see on countless video monitors in various tents, are being interpreted differently by different linguists around the world. (A key alien phrase, setting off the alarmists who lack Louise's knowledge: "use weapon.") Many of the most effective passages in "Arrival: are paced deliberately; there are times, though, as in Louise's key solo encounter with the half-an-egg dwellers, when "deliberate" becomes "static." By that point in the narrative, the explanations begin their arrivals, and I honestly can't tell if they'll be intriguing and provocative enough to make this thing a hit. It deserves to be.

Villeneuve may be a visual stylist, inspired by everyone from Stanley Kubrick to Steven Spielberg to Terrence Malick, but he lets the performers do their thing. (Michael Stuhlbarg skulks around the edges as a CIA adviser, advising a more confrontational approach with the tourists from above.) Shot under gray skies and in artful shadows by cinematographer Bradford Young, scored to wickedly disorienting music by Oscar-nominated "Sicario" composer Johann Johannsson, "Arrival" will cast a spell on some while merely discombobulating others. Right there, I'd say that indicates it's worth seeing. And in its central idea  not to be discussed here, sorry  the old saw "no time like the present" takes on new shadings.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

mjphillips@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @phillipstribune

"Arrival"  3 stars

MPAA rating: PG-13 (for brief strong language)

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Running time: 1:56

Opens: Friday

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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)
"King Charles III," the remarkable 2014 play in blank verse by Mike Bartlett that enjoys its fresh Chicago premiere at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Wednesday night, relies on the audience taking a big leap. It imagines the moment when Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, and the head of the Commonwealth, dies. That moment, of course, is coming. For we all must die. Even queens.

Assuming things remain as they are, Prince Charles, the prince of Wales, thus will become the reigning monarch. This is true in the play, and most likely will happen in real life. Charles III, as he then becomes, is a thinking man who has ideas. This is also true in the play and in real life.

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But here's Bartlett's big, audacious idea: this Charles III has ideas of a governmental nature that he wishes to implement, even over the objections of the elected politicians of those nations. He finds the constitution  or lack thereof  invests him with all of the requisite power. He throws the whole notion of the constitutional monarchy into crisis. How can British Parliament censor him, when its members serve at his pleasure? How can anyone stop the commander in chief of everything?

As the great Oak Park comedian Judy Tenuta used to say  it could happen.

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Look what just happened in the election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. You might have heard that Trump won, even though the potentiality of his victory was discounted by virtually every outpost of the fact-based media.

Had someone written a play in blank verse called "President Trump," a play that imagined the real estate mogul, casino magnate and reality TV star with the complex past in actual elected office, it would have had to count on the very same suspension of disbelief upon which "King Charles III" relied when I first saw the play on Broadway in 2015.

When I saw that show, I recall thinking, that could never actually happen, could it? Prince Charles would not make trouble like that, would he?

Yet as I sat in front of my TV screen Tuesday night, I watched something I had wholly discounted take place.

The wildly unexpected does happen  arguably with increasing regularity. Consider. Brexit, the Cubs winning the World Series, Donald J. Trump assuming the American presidency.

Fair enough, the data geeks lent some advance predictability to the success of the Cubs, the historical drought notwithstanding. But Trump and Brexit were wholly unanticipated. In this world, then, huge shocks are not unknown. Our ability to predict the future  or the doings of others  has not improved with all of our great technological sophistication.

There is even an argument today that political events are moving into a paradoxical phase of increased unpredictability. Not unlike the weather. The reason that Trump's election shocked so many, of course, was mostly due to the polarized nature of the nation and the high stakes of the election. But it also was incredibly sudden  not unlike walking into a theater or turning on a movie and finding yourself in an alternate reality you never saw coming.

The Cubs, by contrast, were incremental in their success. The divisional series led to the pennant which led to the World Series. For all the fear of curses and jinxes, one had time to prepare. Trump's victory came out of nowhere.

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Many great works of theater rely on swallowing some massive conceit  that King Lear will give up his kingdom, that the men of the backwoods bar in "East Texas Hot Links" (at Writers Theatre) will find themselves violently attacked by their fellow citizens in the one room they thought to be safe.

They call that suspension of disbelief.

I am looking forward to seeing Robert Bathurst play Charles III (Amanda Drinkall plays Kate Middleton, Jordan Dean plays William and Alec Manley Wilson plays Harry) in director Gary Griffin's production of what I think to be a brilliantly structured and conceived play.

This time, I suspect, it will be far easier to believe.

Chris Jones is a Chicago Tribune critic.

cjones5@tribpub.com

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No commentary. No analysis. In the interest of moving beyond this historic presidential election  and maybe testing whether we are yet again capable of the laugh response  here are just the jokes from Wednesday's late-night shows, the first time most of them addressed the election results:

"Well, it looks like America has finally answered Jeff Foxworthy's question," said Seth Meyers on NBC's "Late Night," flashing the title card from "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?"

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"If this morning you finally woke up from a coma, well, you might want to go back," said Trevor Noah on "The Daily Show."

"Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, Obama and now Trump  one of these things is not like the other," said Noah. "And if you're thinking it's Obama because he's black, you probably voted for Trump."

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"This is what it feels like when America is made great again," Stephen Colbert said on CBS's "Late Show." "I was wondering."

"Two things happened last night," said Conan O'Brien on his TBS show. "Donald Trump got elected president, and my job just got easier for the next four years."

"No, no, no. Shut up," responded Samantha Bee, sort of, on a special edition of "Full Frontal." "Jokes don't write themselves. Jews write jokes, and they are scared (expletive)."

"Once you dust for fingerprints it's pretty clear who ruined America: white people. I guess ruining Brooklyn was just a dry run," Bee added.

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Colbert pointed a finger elsewhere: "If your child asks the ultimate question, Why do bad things happen to good people?, you finally have the answer: the Electoral College."

"I had the weirdest dream last night," Jimmy Kimmel said on his ABC show. "Remember that guy who used to host 'The Apprentice'?"

"Dude, the star of a reality show is going to run the country," said the comic Bill Burr, guesting on Conan. "The guy who decided if Bret Michaels or Cyndi Lauper would make a better CEO of a company that doesn't exist is going to be running the country."

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There were speeches, Tuesday night and into Wednesday.

"When Hillary Clinton found out she lost, she conceded with grace and dignity," reported James Corden, on CBS's "Late Late Show." "When Gary Johnson found out he lost, he was like, 'Wait, the election was yesterday?' "

"Trump gave a big victory speech," Jimmy Fallon said on "The Tonight Show." "He said he couldn't have done it with out the love of his life, his rock, his better half, FBI Director James Comey."

In that speech, Noah said, "Trump was gracious, he was humble, he was compassionate. I'll tell you now, if that guy would have run for president  he also would have lost to Donald Trump."

President Barack Obama also spoke, said Meyers: "He reminded the country that we are all on the same team. It's just that now, half of us are on defense."



"Those hats worked. Those stupid hats," said Kimmel. "Those hats that looked like they were printed at a kiosk in the middle of a Westfield Mall. Turns out they were magic."

"In hindsight I think the problem for Hillary was she didn't have enough celebrities supporting her," Kimmel deadpanned. "All over Hollywood today, movie and TV stars were Googling, 'Is there gluten in poutine?' "

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How could the pre-election polls have been so wrong?

"The polls may have been off because the shift to cellphones made it harder to collect data from people," Fallon said. "Then Hillary said, 'They seem to have a pretty easy time collecting data from my phone.' "

Kimmel had a beef with polling data too: "They should shut 538 down. That website should be closed in disgrace like Abu Ghraib. Nate Silver has been downgraded to Nate Bronze."

Meyers brought in other news: "Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington approved increases in minimum-wage rates  Which is good news for all those pollsters who will now be working at Burger King."

But people had to deal with the reality of the situation, the hosts agreed.

"We have to accept that Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States," Colbert said. "I just want to keep saying it until I can say it without throwing up in my mouth a little bit."

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"Republicans hope he'll keep his promise to build a wall, and Democrats hope he'll keep his promise not to accept the election results," said Fallon.

"The first thing I did this morning," O'Brien said, "was call my old high school bully and congratulate him."

Canada is not an option, Colbert said: "You don't get to flee to another country when things get rough here. Being an American citizen is like family. You're in it whether you like it or not. I mean, for Pete's sake, at Thanksgiving when Uncle Ernie hits the highballs and starts saying racist things about the help, you don't storm off from the table and move next door. You stay  and elect him commander-in-chief. That's America."

So what's next?

"Remember," Conan said, "America has a special place for people who lose. Ironically it's the cast of 'Celebrity Apprentice.' "

"This made me feel better," added O'Brien. "Buzzfeed has already put up a list of 12 cats that look like Mike Pence."

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Colbert was a little hopeful about our next leader: "Maybe he'll be different from who he was and always is."

And Meyers found a resounding note to go out on: "Based on this pattern of me being wrong on every one of my Donald Trump predictions, he's probably going to be a great (expletive) president."

sajohnson@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @StevenKJohnson

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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)
Election night and the morning after had some taking to Facebook to do housecleaning of their friends list.

"I unfriended at least 10 people today because I didn't want to see their celebratory Trump posts," says Lauren Lee, a Hillary Clinton voter who lives in Memphis, Tenn. "I unfriended two more people for making pro-Trump comments on my sad Hillary post, including my husband's aunt who is Facebook obsessed. So, Thanksgiving might be awkward."

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"I unfriended my brother and sister-in-law today, not because they were being particularly obnoxious, and I already knew they were Trump supporters, but because seeing their posts and "likes" just serves as a sad reminder to me of how little we have in common," added Laura Fitch, a Chicago resident who also voted for Clinton. "I guess I could have muted them rather than unfriending them, but I just needed that click-release today, I guess."

As the results rolled in and Donald Trump's election as the 45th president of the United States became official, supporters of both candidates took to Facebook to express their joy and dismay at the outcome.

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For some, the reaction from supporters of both candidates felt like a bit much.

"There was far too much overreaction, on both sides," says Adam Kmiec, a Chicago resident who declined to specify whom he voted for in this election. "I wouldn't characterize it as hostile because I don't think there was a lot negative intent."

"I'm seeing a lot of despair and a lot of joy," added Ashvin Lad, a Chicago resident who also declined to say whom he voted for. "A lot of uncertainty. A lot of shock."

Experts say some of the reasons people turned to Facebook after the election results came in were to bask in the reflected glory of having voted for the winning candidate and to try to take back some of the power they felt they'd lost when they found out the candidate they voted for didn't win.

"When we feel powerless, it is human nature to want to do or say something that will help us feel like we can regain our power," says Peg Duros, a licensed clinical social worker and the clinic director at the Center for Contextual Exchange. "For some, especially when emotions are high, it's a way of trying to discharge some of the emotional activation that they are experiencing. Of course, there are people that simply think that what they have to say is important and believe that others will be interested."

With social media becoming more and more ubiquitous, Facebook also is simply where we go to interact with other human beings.

"Facebook has become our town square because we don't have communities the way we used to," says Crystal Clair, a Chicago-based licensed clinical professional counselor. "To feel heard, understood, appreciated, we share our thoughts. I think, for the most part, people share for camaraderie, not realizing that other people are logging in to fight. Respecting others despite their viewpoints is a lesson we all need to keep at the forefront."

Kmiec says he cut ties to a handful of people throughout the election cycle  which turned nasty at times, with candidates and supporters trading barbs that felt deeply personal  but not because he disagreed with their political beliefs.

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"I unfriended them for their constant stream of political updates and an inability to be civil," he says.

Jeffery Beckham is a Chicago-based small-business owner who voted for Clinton who found himself in a particularly heated back and forth with a Trump supporter following the election. It was an acquaintance he met a long time ago at a professional networking event.

He says he thinks people are quick to take swipes at others on social media regardless of how close they are to that person simply because it's easy.

"Facebook attracts that kind of vitriol because you're behind a computer, and it's so easy to type a harsh response versus saying it in person," says Beckham. "When you read something, you read it in the tone of how you're feeling. Many people were hurt, saddened and angry at the direction our country took last night, so any defense of a Trump vote causes an instant reaction. People were very reactionary last night and still today."

Seeing tensions rise on his feed Wednesday morning, Kmiec felt the need to point out that, hey, we voted for different candidates, but at the same time we're all human beings.

"Remember folks, you were friends with one another for a good reason. Don't let politics and the outcome of this election drive a rift between you and people who have/had a different pov and political leaning," he wrote. "I personally like all of you and value you, more than either candidate. Friends can last for life. Election winners, have term limits."

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A Facebook spokesman wrote in an email that the U.S. election was responsible for 10 billion likes, posts, comments and shares on the social medium from March 23, 2015, through Nov. 1, 2016.

"On Election Day alone, 115.3 million people on Facebook worldwide generated 716.3 million likes, posts, comments and shares related to the election," according to Facebook.

Facebook doesn't have any data on how many unfriendings there were during the 2016 presidential election or on Election Day. It was a bitterly contested race that featured candidates expressing hostility toward each other and accusing each other of lying.

Monmouth University in New Jersey conducted a study of 802 registered voters in late September and found that "7 percent of voters report having lost or ended a friendship because of this year's presidential race."

But all the social media engagement and activity throughout the election cycle hasn't necessarily resulted in people cutting ties with others.

Erin Smith is an independent voter who lives in Illinois and voted for Donald Trump. The night of and the morning after the election, she posted multiple times on Facebook about the results.

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Smith says she refused to unfriend anyone on the site because, while she may not agree with a person, everyone should have a voice.

"I think it's ridiculous to (unfriend) because you don't agree with their opinions, candidate or political background," she says. "I believe in the First Amendment and the freedom to speak your mind without fear."

Likewise, Beckham says, he chose not to unfriend anyone during this election cycle, no matter how nasty the comments may have gotten, because at the end of the day, everyone is playing for the same team regardless of whom they're voting for.

"I feel it's a responsibility to be open and transparent and provide a perspective that may not be seen or heard by some on the other side of the aisle," he says. "I always remind my friends ... we are all still in the same auditorium, America."

"People, whether I agree with them or not, add value to my day with their posts and comments," Lad added. (It's) always good to understand all sides in a candid way."

So where do people draw the line between unfriending someone altogether and simply muting them so that those people's posts don't show up in their feed?

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Lee says she unfriended as many people as she did because she simply didn't wish to interact with them any longer.

"I didn't mute them because that doesn't stop them from commenting on my posts," she says. "I don't need those people in my life, and especially not on Facebook."

But rather than unfriend or mute, some took a different tack altogether in deleting the Facebook app from their phone and avoiding social media altogether.

Duros and Clair agree that from a coping perspective, people should never forget that they have a choice when it comes to logging on to social media.

"You can either engage in the conversation or disengage," Clair says. "The beauty of Facebook is that you can block, delete or hide people and their views if they are bothering you."

"We sometimes talk about the notion of hitting the pause button, especially when emotions are intense and the risk that one may say or do something that they may later regret is higher," Duros adds. "Pausing, reminding oneself that they are in a state of shock, a lot of information is coming their way, which they cannot possibly process immediately and will need to take their time to process might help with one's capacity to compartmentalize."

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Matt Lindner is a freelancer.

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 13 In 1987, Mayor Harold Washington ordered the design of a new central library. The breathtaking Winter Garden on the ninth floor is a quiet locale, perfect for logging some hours. (Stevegeer/iStock)
President-elect Donald Trump gives his acceptance speech during an election night rally Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in New York. (John Locher / AP)

When Sweety Agrawal told her daughter that Donald Trump won the presidency, the second-grader asked if their family would have to move.

"I asked her, 'Why do you think we'd have to move?' And she said, 'Because we're brown and that means Trump could hurt us,'" said Agrawal, who lives in Chicago's South Loop neighborhood with her husband and daughters, 8 and 9. "It was very hard not to go into tears with that one."

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Agrawal and her husband, Rishi, are both of Indian descent. They've spent the months leading up to Tuesday's election conscious that their skin color makes them seem suspect to many of Trump's supporters.

"We're Hindu," she said. "But people don't understand what a Hindu looks like versus what a Muslim looks like. If you look different, that's the issue."

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Across the country Wednesday, parents found themselves grappling with how to explain Trump's victory to children who spent the past year listening to grown-ups bemoan the way the president-elect demeaned women, bullied his competitors  both Republican and Democratic  and ridiculed immigrants and people of color.

Many of those same families  mine included  expected to spend the week celebrating the election of our nation's first female president. Instead we're searching for ways to soothe our children's fears about a Trump presidency.

"My daughter said kids at school compared Trump to Hitler," Agrawal said. "I thought, 'You're 8. This should not even be in your stream of consciousness right now.'"

But it is. John Duffy, a La Grange-based clinical psychologist, said a number of his adolescent patients wanted to talk about Trump on Wednesday.

"It came up a lot," Duffy told me Tuesday evening.

I asked him: What's the main thing parents should help their kids feel right now?

"Can I tell you the main thing to help them not feel?" he said. "Fear and disempowerment. We want kids to feel that they have some degree of agency and that they're safe and that it's going to be OK."

For Didi Lewis, a Hinsdale mom of two, that meant a quick lesson in the three branches of government.

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"I explained checks and balances," Lewis said, "I said that there are a lot of smart people whose job is checking on the president to make sure he does the right thing  just like Daddy and I have checks and balances on you guys to make sure you're making good choices."

Lewis and her husband, Rod, rarely discussed the election in front of their kids. But her son, 8, caught a number of campaign commercials during the World Series and was upset, in particular, by the image of Trump mocking a disabled person.

When she told him Wednesday morning that Trump won the election, he teared up and asked, "What are we going to do?"

"I told them we'll pray that he keeps the country's best interests in mind," Lewis said. "I told them he isn't working alone."

Darby Fox, a child and adolescent family therapist, said it's important to remind kids that a whole lot of people didn't vote for Trump.

"Talk to kids about the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote," Fox said. "Talk about the system and the way the country is set up, as opposed to keeping the conversation on the individual."

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Remind them too, she said, that many people who voted for Trump did so because of a single issue they align with, not because they endorse his rhetoric.

It will help them feel less at odds with their country, she said, and offer a civics lesson in the process.

It can also offer a way to reinforce that Trump's behavior isn't worth mimicking, Duffy said.

"I think it's important for parents to be able to say that they disapprove of, and do not support, a lot of things that the president-elect has said and done, and that we believe he may have been elected in spite of those things," Duffy said. "In some of his words and behavior, he has not been a role model so far."

Fox said she visited schools on Wednesday, and several kids asked whether Trump will send the United States to war.

"They've just heard all this stuff," she said. "I tell them, 'We don't go into a war lightly. One man doesn't decide we will be in a war.'"

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As with all things parenting, of course, the challenging conversations can also give way to lessons that reinforce our values.

"I told kids today, and I mean it sincerely, we can override negativity," Duffy said. "When we're acting out of fear, the wrong things happen. When we act out of kindness, we're on the right path. I think that gives kids something to click into: 'I'm not going to be a bully.' 'I'm going to be nice to that kid in the lunchroom.'"

Agrawal said she's turning her family's conversations into a lesson in resilience.

"My daughters said, 'Does this mean I can't be president?'" she said. "I said, 'Of course you can be president. What happens when you lose? You get back up on that horse.' We are not going to run away from this kind of challenge. We are going to stay and work and make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again."

Kids, Duffy said, may even like the idea of fashioning themselves into role models as the nation lurches forward.

"I told a middle school kid today, 'If we all are more open and kind, maybe Trump will learn to be as well,'" Duffy said. "He might have some things to teach us, and we might have some things to teach him. If enough of us act with kindness and respect, he might change too."

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The odds feel long. But it's worth a shot.

hstevens@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @heidistevens13

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Standard & Poor's pushed the Chicago Public Schools credit rating one notch deeper into junk territory and said the decision was based on what are by now familiar financial concerns. (Anthony Souffle, Chicago Tribune)

Financial analysts at one Wall Street rating agency on Wednesday dropped Chicago Public Schools' credit rating again, less than a week before the district is expected to sell hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term bonds.

Standard & Poor's pushed the school system's bond rating one notch deeper into junk territory  to the agency's B grade  and said the decision was based on what are by now familiar financial concerns.

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Those include the district's reliance on short-term borrowing to cover daily expenses, plus $55 million in costs added to this year's budget by the recent Chicago Teachers Union pact.

"The board's extremely weak cash position is a significant credit weakness, in our view," the agency said in a report.

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CPS, among other assumptions in its budget this year, is banking that state lawmakers will come through with $215 million in aid. The district has warned it will cut that amount from schools if that assistance doesn't materialize.

"CPS continues to make important strides in improving the district's financial stability," Ron DeNard, the district's top financial officer, said in a statement. DeNard said the district would continue to press for an overhaul of Illinois' education funding formula, which he said would "lay the groundwork for fiscal stability" at CPS and other school systems.

S&P warned a further downgrade has at least a 1 in 3 chance of occurring within a year. Moody's Investors Service also dropped the district's bond rating further into junk status in late September. Both decisions could cost CPS more money when it sells new bonds.

Starting next week, analysts said, the district is scheduled to sell roughly $420 million in bonds to refinance some of its old debts along with what S&P described as "computer servers and equipment."

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CPS would not publicly commit to that timing Wednesday. A spokeswoman said the district was "evaluating market conditions."

Fitch Ratings this week separately slapped those planned bonds with its current junk-level rating while repeating frequent criticisms of the current state of CPS finances.

"The lack of an adequate financial cushion leaves CPS ill-prepared to withstand even a moderate economic downturn," Fitch said Monday of the district's depleted reserves.

The Chicago Board of Education has already approved plans to use up to $1 billion in long-term borrowing to pay for construction projects and debt refinancing.

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School finance officials have said the cash-strapped district soon would close separate deals for $475 million in short-term credit needed to pay the bills this year. That borrowing will land atop another $475 million worth of short-term loans that already have been tapped to cover this year's expenses.

jjperez@tribpub.com

Twitter @PerezJr
Joseph Gauld is the founder of the Hyde Organization, a network of character-based public and private schools, and he has been an influential voice in the independent school community for decades. The first Hyde School was founded in 1966 after Gauld came to the conclusion that the nations education priority on testing and achievement came at the expense of effective character education.

Today, the Hyde network has boarding campuses in Bath, Maine, and Woodstock, Conn., as well as public charter schools in New Haven, Conn.; New York City; Oakland, Calif.; and Washington.

Gauld is also the author of four books, the most recent being What Kids Want and Need From Parents, which was published in 2012. What Kids Want examines the role of parenting in student success. The book tracks Hyde graduates later in life and comes to the conclusion that parenting has a much larger influence on their lives than schooling does alone. Many of Gaulds books explore the theme of parents as the primary teachers for their children and the home as the primary classroom.

I recently spoke with Gauld in October for Education Week Commentarys interview series with K-12 thought leaders to talk about his lifelong commitment to character education and the importance of social-emotional learning.

Though Gauld has been an advocate of character education for decades, recent changes in the K-12 landscape may put a spotlight on his ideas. For instance, both the increased interest in social-emotional learning and the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act , which requires states to include at least one nonacademic indicator in their school evaluation measures, draw attention to the importance of helping students develop character as a part of their overall academic success.

Still, the recent emphasis on these nonacademic indicators in federal education policy may not go far enough for Gauld, who in our interview calls social-emotional skills a pathetic step to try to humanize a very limited and underperforming system. Courage, integrity, concern, curiosity, and leadershipthe values that form the core of Hydes commitment to character educationare human qualities, not skills, says Gauld.

Gaulds insistence on the importance of teaching character in school may be welcoming for educators and parentslike those part of the opt-out movement who feel the emphasis on high-stakes testing and proficiency is ultimately detrimental to students. For Gauld, schooling is a social experience based on personal growth and development, not just academic performance. Character is the whole; academics are a subset, Gauld says in the Q&A.

His Hyde schools recently celebrated their 50th anniversary, and in September, Gauld received the Sanford N. McDonnell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Character Education, which recognizes an educators commitment to teaching character.

Read the Q&A here.

Photo: Argo-Navis
Supporters of Donald Trump across Illinois, outnumbered yet unbowed, awoke Wednesday relieved and optimistic after the Republican nominee secured the presidential nomination.

Despite his loss in the Prairie State, Trump voters from the north to the south said the New York businessman will boost the U.S. economy, help working-class people and nominate a qualified, desirable judge to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.

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A vote for Trump, Illinois supporters said, was a signal that people across the country are not happy with the direction of the nation.

"I think Trump will come in and help turn around our jobs situation," said Brian Krajewski, a Trump voter and the chairman of the DuPage County GOP.

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Equally important, Republican voters said, was preventing a Hillary Clinton presidency.

"Some of the voters for Trump weren't so much for him but were against Clinton with all of the stuff she's been involved in," said Ron Woodrow, the Republican chairman in downstate Wayne County, where Trump won more than 84 percent of the vote, his best showing in Illinois. "There's no instance I could see where I would vote for Hillary Clinton."

Clinton won Illinois' 20 electoral votes, earning more than 55 percent of the vote, compared to Trump's 39 percent. Clinton won big in Chicago and the suburbs. But Trump won most of the state's southern and western counties, rural areas and the counties on the outer reaches of the Chicago suburbs, such as McHenry, Boone, Kendall and Grundy.

To win by wide margins in traditionally conservative swaths of Illinois, Trump had to unify Republicans like Woodrow, who preferred another candidate in the primary but eventually backed the party's nominee. Woodrow, who voted for Ted Cruz in the primary, said he did not hesitate to vote for the New York businessman in the general election. As a National Rifle Association member and self-described fiscal and social conservative, Woodrow said the choice for president was clear.

"I was scared to death of a Hillary Clinton presidency," Woodrow said. "I feel so relieved. I have a positive feeling about our country going forward and how it's going to be with Trump."

Tops on Woodrow's agenda: an overhaul of the Affordable Care Act and a sensible selection for the Supreme Court.

Trump voters may have been the minority in Cook County, but hundreds of thousands backed the GOP nominee in the city and suburbs.

Supporters watch election results at a Trump watch party in Elmhurst. Nov. 8, 2016. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune) (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

"There is no doubt what President-elect Trump was able to capture was a silent but strong movement that transcends political ideologies and gave a voice to a middle America who are fed up with 'business as usual' politics," the Cook County Republican Party said in a statement.

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Amber Main, an outlier as a Trump supporter in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, said she does not support Trump's social policies but favors his economic policies and decided to vote for him.

"I hope that with a divided nation, everyone can respect the choice that has been made," said Main, 39, as she walked her two young children to school. "I hope he brings more jobs back to the United States, spurring the economy. Some of the trade deals he had good ideas on. I just hope some of the extreme things don't happen."

Trump also drew the support of Leah Fiduggia, of Ravenswood, who said she was pleasantly surprised Trump was able to overcome the "Democratic machine."

Fiduggia, 46, said Trump's populist message appealed to her as a conservative in a deeply blue state.

"Living in Illinois, I almost feel ostracized," Fiduggia said. "In my view, the left is always claiming to be all-inclusive except for the people who don't exactly feel how they feel. He represented my heart in terms of loving America. The liberals twist that into thinking we want to go back to the days of slavery. That's not it at all. He's talking about getting back to capitalism, people working factory jobs."

Republicans watch as U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk concedes his race at Mama Vesuvio's East restaurant in Palos Heights on Nov. 8, 2016. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

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Republican voters often kept quiet about their preference, Krajewski said, especially if their vocal or outward support of Trump led to taunting or harassment. But Trump voters had a decent showing, especially in the blue-collar sections of DuPage County, where many voters tend to skew Democratic, Krajewski said.

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The Trump victory party in Elmhurst on Tuesday night was a small affair, and the impromptu gathering at Trump International Hotel and Tower in the Loop also was modest, with some voters reluctant to acknowledge their support for Trump on the record.

Laurel Harbridge Yong, associate professor of political science at Northwestern University, said that beyond Illinois' status as a Democratic stronghold, "social desirability"  telling others what they think they want to hear, or fitting into cultural surroundings  and voters' motivations to vote against, rather than for, a particular candidate likely contributed to the subdued local reaction to Trump's win.

There is a disconnect, Harbridge Yong said, between the two sides of the divided electorate. The country's leaders and all residents need to better take into consideration the views and concerns of rural, working-class voters, the professor said.

Trump's lack of polish and political experience was a draw for some voters, who acknowledged his shortcomings but said he still can be a successful president.

"I don't think Trump is the most qualified man for the job. I think everyone knows that," Fiduggia said. "My hope is he surrounds himself with great leaders who assist him in leading us out of this cowardly and depressed nation."

Chicago Tribune's Jodi S. Cohen, Marwa Eltagouri and Dawn Rhodes contributed.
DePaul University student Riley Kunz, 19, was in tears Nov. 9, 2016, after learning that a family member voted for Donald Trump. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

Riley Kunz spent Wednesday morning in tears. She first broke down when she woke up to find that Donald Trump had won the presidency. Her hurt deepened when she learned a family member had voted for him.

"It broke my heart," Kunz said, tears rolling down her face. "I will never be able to look at her the same way again."

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The 19-year-old DePaul University student is bisexual and fears that a Trump presidency could retract gains made in the LGBT community, including marriage.

"I'm honestly terrified," said Kunz, who is from Crystal Lake and later Wednesday attended an anti-Trump rally in Chicago. "The fact that someone so hateful will be our president, I never thought it would come to that. And the fact that so many people voted for him.  I don't feel like I can be myself anymore in this country."

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Kunz isn't alone among Trump detractors. Many shared deep feelings of sadness, fear and anger on social media. At least one crisis center reported more requests for help Tuesday night. And some area colleges alerted students to mental health services to help process their emotions.

The reaction isn't necessarily unique to those feeling a sense of defeat after an election but is possibly "amped up" because of the polarizing rhetoric throughout the election cycle, said Mary Colleran, executive director of the Illinois chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Colleran said it's important for those who feel angst  especially those with existing mental health or substance abuse histories  to reach out for help.

"It's really overwhelming to make sense of it all," she said. "People are experiencing a really traumatic response."

Two DePaul students, Kayla Kade and Allie Colina, walked around the Lincoln Park campus holding signs: "Free Hugs. Stay Strong. Be Kind. Te Quiero," and "We'll get through this together."

Students and faculty took them up on their offer, stopping for hugs as many of them cried.

"Sitting and crying doesn't make sense anymore," said Colina, 24, who is studying for a master's degree in counseling. "There is too much hate. So we were like, 'Let's go spread love.'"

Involved in politics since college, 67-year-old Shelley Riskin, of Glenview, has had her share of election-season disappointment. She was a campaign volunteer for Robert Kennedy and mourned his assassination in 1968.

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After volunteering for Hillary Clinton, the latest loss left Riskin in a state of mourning again.

"I couldn't even talk this morning," Riskin said. "I felt like I did when my brother died. All I could do was pray."

For Riskin, that place was at her weekly prayer group at her synagogue. "We prayed for our country, for wise leadership moving forward."

Riskin said she's scared.

"The way Trump has expressed himself, he hasn't hidden the fact that he encourages racists of all kinds," Riskin said "This is the part of what frightens me."

At Crisis Text Line, a national free texting service that provides help to people in emotional turmoil, the normal volume of requests doubled on election night to more than 2,000 people, peaking around 1:30 a.m., founder and CEO Nancy Lublin said.

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The most commonly texted words that night were "scared" and "election." Lublin said requests for help came from women who'd been sexually assaulted, people fearful about their families being deported and those worried about access to medical care if Obamacare is repealed.

Lublin encouraged people to stay strong, to find a sympathetic person in which to confide and to try a productive activity to feel better, like exercise, cooking or writing. Others have also promoted volunteerism as a proactive way to channel one's concerns.

"The most important thing is to remind people how strong they are," she said. "You've got it, America."

Chicago Tribune's Duaa Eldeib contributed.

jscohen@chicagotribune.com

kthayer@chicagotribune.com

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A former attorney and school board member charged in the 1973 slaying of his wife will try to have statements he made to police before his arrest last year stricken from his trial.

Donnie Rudd, formerly of Hoffman Estates , contends authorities violated his constitutional rights by questioning him without his attorney present.

Rudd, 74, was arrested in Texas in December following a cold case investigation into the death of his 19-year-old bride Noreen Kumeta Rudd, who was initially believed to have died in a car accident in Barrington Township in September 1973. But authorities now allege Rudd staged her death to look like an accident.

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On Thursday, Rudd made his first court appearance in Cook County since he put up $400,000 in cash to be bailed out of Cook County Jail while he awaits trial. He appeared in court dressed in a blue suit and walked with the aid of a cane. His attorney, Timothy Grace, has said in previous court hearings that Rudd has cancer.

Grace said Rudd was not given his right to have an attorney present when he was interviewed by authorities. Prosecutors said Rudd made conflicting statements to police when he was interviewed in 2013.

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"I'm going to argue that my client had a right to legal counsel and that to interview him without counsel present is a violation of his 6th Amendment right," Grace said after Thursday's hearing.

The motion to suppress Rudd's statements is a common defense tactic in such proceedings.

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The crash that ostensibly killed Kumeta Rudd happened less than a month after she married Rudd. Police found him cradling her after their 1972 Ford Pinto went into a ditch along a highway in Barrington Hills, officials said. Rudd told police that an oncoming car forced them off the road and that Noreen struck her head on a rock after she was thrown from the vehicle, prosecutors said.

No autopsy was performed and her death was ruled an accident. Rudd collected insurance money and married a girlfriend eight months later, prosecutors said.

In 2013, investigators exhumed Noreen Rudd's body and had it examined by two forensic pathologists, who concluded that her death was a homicide caused by several blows to the head.

Rudd's case was reopened by Arlington Heights police as a result of a review of the unsolved murder of Loretta "Teri" Tabak-Bodtke, who was found shot to death in her Arlington Heights home in April 1991. Authorities said Tabak-Bodtke was a legal client of Rudd and had threatened to report Rudd to state authorities for attorney malpractice, prosecutors said.

Rudd was placed near the scene of the crime by witnesses, authorities said, but he has not charged in the Tabak-Bodtke case.

Once a prominent suburban lawyer who was on the board of Schaumburg-based School District 54, Rudd was disbarred in Illinois in 1994 and moved to Texas, according to authorities.

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George Houde is a freelance reporter.
It's been a week since four people were shot in a South Chicago home, two of them fatally, and the families are still waiting for an arrest and still struggling to give each victim a proper burial.



"I just don't understand," said Lashay Jones, who lost two cousins when a gunman opened fire in the house in the 8000 block of South Shore Drive last week Thursday. "He just went crazy. He just attacked everyone."



Officers were called to the home shortly after midnight and found Emoni House, 20, and her 16-year-old brother, Elijah House, both dead, police said. Emoni was the mother of a 6-month-old girl and was expecting another child, Jones said.



Two women in the home were wounded: the victims' 42-year-0ld mother and a 30-year-old family friend. Both were taken in critical condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.



Police have released few details, but a Chicago police spokeswoman said the shooting was domestic-related and they were looking for the gunman. Police have issued an alert for a 19-year-old man.



From what few details Jones has gathered, a "misunderstanding" started between Elijah House and another person inside the home, she said. The other person ran outside to his vehicle, grabbed a gun and came back inside, Jones said.



He shot all the adults and Elijah but spared the 6-month-old and four other children ages 9, 10, 11 and 12, Jones said. "Thank God he didn't shoot the children."



The mother was released from the hospital Wednesday and was too emotionally distraught to go back home, relatives said.



"I hate to see her mother go through this," Jones said. "Yesterday was the first day she was able to talk about what happened and all she could say was, 'I don't know how to face those walls.' She doesn't want to go back to that house at all."



The children who were inside the home seem to be coping, she said. "They're starting to smile and you don't see the pain as much in their faces," Jones said.



The family has started collecting money for burial through a GoFundMe account, hoping to raise $6,000. So far, about $2,255 has been donated.



"Emoni had a heart of gold. She could never say no," Jones said. "I will miss seeing her smile and her dimples."



Jones said her cousin was always in the house and her only focus was her baby. Her brother Elijah was very protective of his older sister, Jones added.



"It was unexpected," she said. "They didn't even expect it."
Ameena Matthews, center, and other protesters rally on Nov. 20, 2016, in Chicago's Mount Greenwood neighborhood on the Far Southwest Side following a police-involved shooting earlier in the month. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

A brother of Joshua Beal  the black man whose shooting by off-duty police in the mostly white Mount Greenwood neighborhood last weekend has triggered a series of racially charged protests  was released from custody Thursday after an anonymous donor came up with the hefty bail: $50,000 cash.

On Tuesday, a Cook County judge had ordered Michael Beal, 28, of Indianapolis, held in lieu of $500,000 bond on charges of attacking an officer moments after his brother's shooting.

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As he walked out of Cook County Jail on Wednesday afternoon, Beal told reporters he was thankful to supporters before embracing his mother.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said as the two walked to a black vehicle with reporters trailing behind them.

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His sister, Courdney Boxley, said Beal is a "great man" who took care of their grandmother and owned an auto repair business in Indianapolis.

"He's not this animal that everybody created," she said. "My mom didn't raise us like that. None of our family is like that."

Michael Beal, 28, brother of Joshua Beal, is charged with aggravated battery to a police officer and attempt to disarm an officer from the incident surrounding the death of his brother. Joshua Beal was shot and killed by a police officer on Nov. 5, 2016 in Mount Greenwood. (Chicago police photo)

Supporters criticized the high bail set by Judge Donald Panarese Jr., contrasting it with the $75,000 bond set three years for Chicago police Detective Dante Servin, after he was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an innocent woman. He was later acquitted by a judge in a controversial decision.

Prosecutors alleged Beal tackled an off-duty officer, put him in a headlock and threatened to kill him seconds after his brother, Joshua, was shot.

"(Expletive) you  you killed my brother. I'm going to kill you," Beal allegedly said as the officer struggled to keep control of the gun that prosecutors say Beal's brother had tried to fire.

Beal's lawyer, Barry Spector, has said his client does not have a criminal record and didn't know that the man who shot his brother was an off-duty officer. Spector said police had fired 14 shots and that Beal acted in the heat of the moment.

During two protests near the shooting in recent days, hundreds of pro-police supporters clashed with a few dozen mostly black protesters. On Tuesday night, hundreds of police officers swarmed the area to try to keep the peace, but angry police supporters shouted racial slurs at those protesting the shooting, yelling at them to "go home!" and "get the (expletive) out of here!"

"What we see in Mount Greenwood ... is just reflective of America now and the bigger race divide that's happening and the constant criminalization of black people," said Kofi Ademola, a Black Lives Matter activist who said his group had not taken part in the protests. "We're going to push back and fight back against the negative narrative and continue to support (the Beal) family."

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The shooting occurred Saturday afternoon after Beal's family left a funeral procession and drove to 111th Street, weaving in and out of traffic, including around an off-duty officer's car, before pulling over in front of a firehouse in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood, prosecutors alleged.

Members of the Blue Lives Matter movement and the Black Lives Matter movement gathered to protest in Mount Greenwood on Sunday, following the death of Joshua Beal. Beal, a 25-year-old African-American, was shot and killed in Mount Greenwood on Nov. 5, in an incident involving off-duty Chicago police officers. (Alyssa Pointer / Chicago Tribune) (Alyssa Pointer / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

When another off-duty officer asked the group to move the car because it was blocking the fire station driveway, about nine people got out of several vehicles and attacked him, punching him about the body, prosecutors said.

When the first off-duty officer, 33, saw that the other officer was being attacked, he ordered the group to stop and identified himself as an officer, holding up his badge in one hand and keeping the other near his firearm, prosecutors said. The officer then pulled out his gun and ordered the group to go back to their vehicles, they said.

A third off-duty police officer, who was in a barbershop nearby with his son, came onto the street to intervene, prosecutors said, along with a sergeant in uniform who police said was driving to work in Morgan Park.

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Three witnesses  including a Chicago fire battalion chief  saw Joshua Beal go into a black Dodge Charger, grab a gun from the back seat and point it at the 33-year-old off-duty officer, prosecutors said.

Beal then pulled the trigger, but the gun didn't fire, prosecutors said. Cellphone video captured Joshua Beal waving the weapon back and forth, they said, and the battalion chief saw him pull back the gun's slide, causing bullets to fall out.

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According to prosecutors, Beal ignored repeated orders from the 33-year-old officer and sergeant to drop the weapon.

Both fired their weapons, striking Beal, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

The Independent Police Review Authority is investigating the shooting.

sschmadeke@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @SteveSchmadeke
A judge Thursday denied bail for a Back of the Yards man charged with murder in the death of 1-year-old Raiylana Vasquez, who died Tuesday from child abuse, authorities said.

Uriel Vega, 22, appeared before Cook County Judge Adam Bourgeois during a hearing Thursday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.

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Vega was taken into custody after paramedics called police to the 4700 block of South Honore Street, the block where he and Raiylana lived with Raiylana's mother, police and prosecutors said.

The child's mother had left the house to work at a church and left Raiylana alone with Vega who pulled her off the living room couch and threw her across the kitchen and into a bedroom where he "stomped on the victim's stomach,'' said Asst. State's Atty. Jullian Brevard.

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When Raiylana, who was 21 months old, struggled to breathe and her eyes began rolling back, Vega called her mother and then ran downstairs and told a neighbor, Brevard said.

The neighbor found the child unresponsive and Vega called 911.

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Raiylana was taken to Holy Cross Hospital and pronounced dead at 12:18 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

A Wednesday autopsy found that Raiylana died of multiple injuries from child abuse and her death was ruled a homicide, according to the medical examiner's office.

Brevard said Raiylana suffered a severed pancreas, lacerated liver, severed arteries and multiple bruises on her abdomen and cheek. Vega admitted on videotape that he hit and pushed the child and was "stepping on victim hard,'' Brevard said.

The Illinois Department of Child and Family Services is investigating the mother's boyfriend for allegations of abuse and neglect and has had prior contact with the mother, said spokeswoman Alissandra Calderon, who added the investigation is pending.

DCFS found evidence against the child's mother in February 2016 for neglect but two additional investigations were unfounded -- one in September 2015 and one in August 2016.

There are three other siblings, according to Calderon. They do not live with this mother but live with another family member who has custody.

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The Chicago Tribune's Steve Schmadeke contributed.
Karen Finley, center, former CEO of red light camera vendor Redflex, leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago on Nov. 10, 2016, after her sentencing. Attorney Michael Monico is at left. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

The three-year federal prosecution of Chicago's red light camera program came to an apparent conclusion Thursday as a federal judge blasted the corporate and government corruption at the heart of the decade-long scheme while sentencing the former CEO of the camera vendor to 21/2 years in prison.

Karen Finley, who headed Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. through much of the $2 million bribery scandal, marks the third and final defendant to be sentenced in the probe.

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U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall decried the breakdown in "corporate social responsibility" at the root of Finley's wrongdoing and voiced the frustration of a city buffeted again by public corruption.

"Chicagoans are so sick of seeing their leaders walk through the revolving doors of the federal building year after year after year with no change in the government," the judge said. "... But when we have a corporation that is in the community making millions of dollars on a product that abuses the people, there is no sense of corporate social responsibility there. ... That impact cannot be underestimated."

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Even as Kendall handed down her sentence, the controversial program  now run by a Redflex competitor  continues to snap pictures at 300 locations throughout the city, raising tens of millions of dollars each year.

Finley faced up to five years in prison but was given a break for cooperating against John Bills, a longtime City Hall insider who steered multimillion-dollar contracts to Redflex in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash bribes and lavish gifts.

The scheme  first exposed by the Chicago Tribune more than four years ago  helped grow the city's camera program to the largest in the nation. At its peak, 384 cameras peppered the city, raking in more than $600 million in automated traffic fines.

Finley briefly addressed the judge Thursday, weeping as she apologized to Kendall, the prosecution, the citizens of Chicago and Redflex competitors.

"I am sorry that my conduct has contributed to the public's mistrust of the government," said Finley, her voice breaking with emotion. "I am ashamed of myself."

U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon, who personally prosecuted the case, sought the 21/2-year prison term imposed by the judge and urged Kendall to send a message to public officials that such misconduct will lead to "the inside of a prison cell."

"This is the latest sad, outrageous chapter in graft and greed and corruption in our city government," Fardon said.

Finley's sentence will run concurrent with a 14-month prison term she was given in Ohio last month for a much smaller $70,000 bribes-for-contracts scheme in two cities there.

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Calling the corporate violation on Finley's part "so significant," Kendall said she would have imposed a stiffer sentence if not for the business executive's remorse and cooperation. Finley continues to cooperate with authorities investigating Redflex's corporate parent company in Australia.

Finley testified in January at the trial of Bills that the longtime precinct captain in the powerful patronage army of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan instructed company executives which lobbyists to hire and even met with then-Mayor Richard Daley and Madigan to discuss the program. Then the No. 2 official in the city's Department of Transportation, Bills also provided inside information to Redflex executives and sabotaged competitors' bids, Finley told a federal jury.

At the trial, Bills' lawyers tried to deflect blame by asserting the bribe money went to elected officials and well-connected lobbyists, but the defense never provided evidence to back up those assertions.

No elected officials have been charged or implicated in the Chicago probe.

Jurors convicted Bills on all 20 counts, finding him guilty of taking up to $2,000 in cash for each of the 384 cameras as well as accepting gifts from Redflex that included lavish vacations, a Mercedes-Benz, pricey hotel stays throughout the country, even a condominium in Arizona.

Bills was sentenced in August to 10 years in federal prison, one of the stiffest sentences handed down in Chicago's federal court for a corruption conviction.

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A third conspirator, Martin O'Malley, was a Bills friend hired as a "consultant" by Finley to act as the bagman for the cash bribes. Finley signed off on a contract for O'Malley that called for lucrative increases in his compensation as new cameras were added.

But much of that money ended up in Bills' pocket. O'Malley testified at Bills' trial that on many occasions he passed Manila envelopes stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash to Bills at Manny's Deli and other restaurants. He was sentenced in September to six months in prison.

In the wake of the Tribune disclosures of the scheme, Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired Redflex from the Chicago contract and turned over operations of the program to one of its competitors.

Since then, a series of Tribune reports have revealed lax oversight, malfunctioning cameras, and inconsistent enforcement that led to millions of questionable and unfair tickets.

The Emanuel administration has acknowledged ordering a camera vendor to issue more than $7 million in tickets when yellow light times fell below federal minimum guidelines. The administration has also acknowledged that it sped up the time people had to pay fines and failed to send required second notices  two issues central to one of several lawsuits the city is defending.

"You couldn't make this stuff up if you were writing a novel about it," said Jacie Zolna, the Chicago attorney who is now fighting that class-action suit. "They didn't follow the law, so they just change it? That is scary to me."

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Zolna said he has become well-known among frustrated city drivers for his fight against City Hall.

"Look, I don't think there is any way the city is going to shear off a revenue source like this," he said. "But I can tell you that I will never have to buy another beer in any bar in this city for the rest of my life. That is how frustrated people are with this program."

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Emanuel and his top transportation officials have defended the program  and Emanuel's newer speed camera program  as needed safety measures to slow drivers down, reduce traffic infractions and cut down on serious crashes throughout the city.

In 2015, the Tribune sponsored the first scientific study on the safety benefits of the program and found that there may indeed be a safety benefit at nearly 60 percent of the camera locations because of a significant drop in right angle or T-bone crashes that caused injuries. But the study found no significant falloff in right-angle injury crashes at the remaining camera locations. At the same time, the cameras caused a citywide 22 percent increase in rear-end crashes that caused injuries.

Emanuel has appointed a panel of experts led by Northwestern University to study the program and offer reforms by the end of the year.

Dick Simpson, a former city alderman who wrote a book on political corruption as a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, said more than enough questions have been raised for a full, independent study of the safety effects of the camera program.

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"This set of convictions is not going to change the culture of corruption in this city," Simpson said. "It's not a case of one rotten apple spoiling the barrel but a rotten barrel. We have become so accustomed to corruption in this city that it no longer shocks Chicagoans like it would in other places in the country. This program needs to be reassessed to see what impact it is really having."

dkidwell@tribpub.com

Twitter @DavidKidwell1
One person was being questioned after an off-duty officer exchanged gunfire with someone in the Avondale neighborhood late Wednesday morning, authorities said.

The gunfire erupted around 11:30 a.m. in the 3400 block of North Albany Avenue, according to Officer Kevin Quaid, a police spokesman.

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No one was injured and one person was being questioned, Quaid said.

Ald. Deb Mell, 33rd, said in a Facebook message to constituents that the officer saw a group of people "committing acts of vandalism." When he "engaged" them, someone fired a weapon in the direction of the officer.

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The group fled and a "heavy police presence" saturated the area, searching for suspects, Mell said.

By 3 p.m., Mell said "authorities have several encouraging leads in this case and are interviewing persons of interest."

Check back for updates.
Gov. Bruce Rauner, seen here on Sept. 26, 2016, wants a meeting with Illinois Legislative leaders to resume budget talks. (Seth Perlman / AP)

Gov. Bruce Rauner on Thursday asked for a meeting Monday with the four legislative leaders to resume discussions on a broader budget deal.

The call for a meeting appeared to be a coordinated, post-election effort by Rauner, who has kept a low public profile for weeks as millions of dollars in TV attack ads aired tying him to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who lost Illinois by 16 percentage points on Tuesday.

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Shortly after word trickled out about Rauner's meeting request, several allies put out news releases praising the governor's move. Among them were the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno and House Republican leader Jim Durkin.

It was unclear whether Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan and Democratic Senate President John Cullerton would attend. Rauner and his deep-pocketed allies spent tens of millions of dollars to try to cut into legislative supermajorities held by union- and trial lawyer-backed Democrats. Republicans saw a net gain of four House seats, ending Madigan's supermajority, and two Senate seats.

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State lawmakers are scheduled to be back at the Capitol on Tuesday for the start of a two-week fall session.

On Wednesday, following a bruising campaign season filled with TV attack ads and mail pieces, Rauner put out a statement calling for Republicans and Democrats to come together on a budget but said a spending plan must come "along with reforms." That's code for Rauner's "turnaround agenda," which he's made a condition of a larger budget agreement, saying budget cuts and tax hikes will not fix the state's financial mess alone but that businesses need to grow. Democrats have said the governor's agenda would hurt the middle class.

The differing worldviews have led to a nearly 18-month standoff as state government operates without a full budget. A complex network of court orders and laws has kept money going out the door. But it's at a pace the state can't afford, driving up the backlog of unpaid bills to more than $9 billion.

Rauner has not been out in public to take questions on Trump's presidential win after avoiding even saying the controversial businessman's name for the better part of a year. But the governor did travel to a central Illinois craft brewer for a slice of pie and a beer, according to a picture posted on his official Twitter account Wednesday.
In this Sept. 26, 2016 file photo, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner speaks at the Illinois State Capitol, in Springfield, Ill. After a contentious, expensive campaign, on Wednesday the governor suggested it was time to move on. (Seth Perlman / AP)

As the election dust settled Wednesday, there was little indication that the historic state budget impasse driven by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan would end any time soon.

Republicans sought to parlay their net gain of four seats in the House and two in the Senate into pressure on Democrats to negotiate a blockbuster deal for Rauner's legislative agenda. For their part, Democrats dismissed the GOP gains in the General Assembly as a "small victory."

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The public posturing came after both parties spent tens of millions of dollars each to wage political war on each other in roughly 30 legislative contests, most of them centered on the Madigan-controlled House. Republicans got their money from Rauner, a former private equity investor, and two wealthy allies, while Democrats piled up contributions from labor unions and trial lawyers.

Rauner's money paid for thousands of TV ads attacking Madigan, but on Wednesday the governor suggested it was time to move on.

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"This has been a long, grueling campaign cycle, both nationally and locally," Rauner said in a statement. "For the good of the people of Illinois, let's put the election behind us."

He called for Republicans and Democrats to come together on a budget, but said a spending plan must come "along with reforms." That's code for Rauner's "Turnaround Agenda," which he's made a condition of a larger budget agreement, saying budget cuts and tax hikes will not fix the state's financial mess alone but that businesses need to grow.

Rauner's ideas to limit payouts for workers hurt on the job, curb collective bargaining rights and change the rules on civil lawsuits have been non-starters among Democrats, who say the proposals would harm middle class workers and have little to do with the annual budget making process.

Leading Democrats said Wednesday that they would not back down just because Rauner was able to flip control of a few seats. They noted Democrats still enjoy a firm grip on both chambers and the wins are relatively minor because Madigan has never had a working veto-proof majority despite having the required 71 votes. Come January when new members are sworn in, House Democrats will hold 67 seats. The GOP will have 51.

"I understand why Republicans in Illinois today think they won a great victory, but from my point of view, they did not," said Rep. Lou Lang, a Skokie Democrat and a top Madigan deputy. "The question now is, will the governor accept his small victory here and decide that it is time to sit down and do the work that Illinois citizens sent us to do?' "

"Our view is that his agenda is not related to the budget. There is not an item in that agenda that makes a nickel's worth of difference to the state of Illinois," Lang said. "Say what you will about Mike Madigan, but we had a budget for all of the 38 years of Mike Madigan It would not surprise me if we went the full four years of the Rauner term without a full budget in place."

Republicans warned that this year's Democratic losses are just the first step in efforts to win by control of the General Assembly.

"I think people need to realize that the governor and the House and Senate Republicans are not fooling around, and we are going to demand that Democrats work with us," said House GOP leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs. "This is not a one-sided request. We want to negotiate with them, we want to meet them half way. But if they are not willing to do that, we are going to continue to work hard on the campaign field."

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Republican campaigns centered on an anti-Madigan theme. In far southern Illinois, Republican Dave Severin ran ads featuring footage of longtime Rep. John Bradley nominating Madigan for another term as speaker. Severin won with 53 percent of the vote.

In Kankakee, Rep. Kate Cloonen lost to Republican attorney Lindsay Parkhurst, who benefited from ads accusing Cloonen of receiving money from Madigan that he made from his property tax appeals business.

Similar attacks were launched against Rep. Mike Smiddy, who lost his Quad Cities-area seat to Republican Tony McCombie, and Rep. Andy Skoog of LaSalle, who was defeated by Republican Jerry Long. (The GOP also picked up a seat long held by Democrat Jack Franks, who successfully ran for McHenry County Board chairman.)

Republicans say those races prove their anti-Madigan strategy is working. Democrats downplayed the losses, contending strong support for Trump in those districts helped boost Republicans.

GOP operatives say they did benefit from Trump's popularity in some areas of the state, but said they were also able to fend off challenges in the suburbs where Trump did not do well. Republicans did lose one House seat near St. Louis, with Rep. Dwight Kay falling to Democrat Katie Stuart. But they chalked that up to Kay's controversial comments about women.

Regardless, Republicans believe they've crafted a playbook that will prove valuable for 2018.

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"We think there are two things to take away from this campaign: Bruce can protect you if you take the tough votes, and Madigan, for the first time in a long time, showed vulnerability when it came to protecting his members," one GOP operative said.

The hope is that vulnerability will translate into a willingness for Democratic lawmakers to eventually break ranks on budget issues as lawmakers prepare to head back to Springfield next week with a temporary stopgap spending plan set to expire at the end of the year.

The stakes are high. While Illinois has continued to operate for nearly 18 months without a full budget, a complex network of court orders and laws have kept money going out the door. But it's at a pace the state can't afford, driving up the backlog of unpaid bills to more than $9 billion.

Finding a fix grew more complicated this week after voters approved a change to the Illinois Constitution that would prevent money raised from the gas tax and other transit fees from being spent on anything except transit projects. Moody's Investors Service estimated Wednesday that the move cuts off access to roughly $3 billion a year that could have been used to plug other budget holes, calling the change a "credit-negative" for the state.

One political observer warned that the big money spent on legislative races on both sides might not do much to move the needle other than consolidate power among party leaders.

"The message that was sent here is that the party leaders are willing to spend any amount of money and do anything they need to retain or try to gain a majority," said Chris Mooney, director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois. "That's a strong message to Republicans to keep in line, and it's a strong message to Democrats to keep in line. It solidifies the power at the top."

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mcgarcia@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @moniquegarcia
President-elect Donald Trump will work to ensure a new way of how to deliver public education that focuses on educational entrepreneurship and strong public and private school options, according to a leader of Trumps presidential transition team responsible for education.

Gerard Robinson, a research fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute and former state chief in Florida and Virginia, also said Wednesday that Trump will streamline, at least the U.S. Department of Education. And a Trump administration will likely take a significantly different approach than President Barack Obamas administration when it comes to contentious spending rules under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Trump could also discard another key piece of the Obama education legacy: The president-elect could significantly curb the role of the departments office for civil rights when it comes to state and local policies, according to Robinson, and thereby return that offices role more to how it operated under Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. That could have a big impact on everything from action on school-discipline disparities, to transgender students rights. Robinson also said that he expects the office for civil rights to ensure that students rights are not trampled on.

But Robinson expects states to have a great deal of flexibility in the ESSA accountability plans that they submit to the Trump administration starting early next yearsignificantly more than they enjoyed under Obama-era waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act, which ESSA replaces.



This is a great time to be a state chief, Robinson said, adding at the same time that, I dont want state chiefs to think that when they turn those [plans] in that, Oh, well, these will just get approved.

Robinson is leading Trumps transition team for education along with Williamson M. Evers, a research fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution. Robinsons comments about the proposed ESSA spending rules known as supplement-not-supplant indicate that anything the Obama administration does before the president leaves office in January could be rescinded. Republican lawmakers, who will continue to control Congress, have said Obama proposals on that score have been far too restrictive on states and districts.

I think [Trumps] secretary of education will handle it differently than what weve seen from [current Secretary] John King regarding those rules, Robinson said.

However, when it comes to ESSA in general, Robinson said he believes Trump views the law as a result of a bipartisan coalition and that the president-elect wont get too heavily involved in ESSAs rollout.

As for that $20 billion school choice plan Trump pitched on the campaign trail? Robinson indicated it represents the start of discussions about the issue for Trump.

We still have to have negotiations with members of the House and the Senate to make that happen, he said. But the fact that he put that out there ... I think its a good way to start the conversation. Whether its $20 [billion] or not remains to be seen.

More generally, Robinson said, I see him supporting public and private choice-based programs. I see him supporting blended learning models, alternative learning models.

And remember those Trump pledges that he would get rid of the Common Core State Standards?

To be determined. But he will expect his secretary of education to have something to say about common core, Robinson said, adding that the same goes for early-childhood education issues.

In addition to school choice and entrepreneurship, Robinson said financial accountability for higher education, in particular, would be the another key piece of Trumps approach to education policy. He said Trump will likely want to continue significant investments in colleges and universities, but also closely track how well graduates do in the labor market, among other indicators.

Robinson brushed off the idea that he might be interested in becoming Trumps education secretary himself, saying hes happy working at AEI. But he indicated that Trump could cast a wide net in his search for the next secretary (assuming, Robinson conceded, that Trump does not move to eliminate the department as a cabinet-level agency.)



The search for a new secretary could include governors, state chiefs, and local superintendents, or Trump could move outside and pick someone from the private sector, who may not have worked in education directly, but may be involved in philanthropy or some kind of reform. Robinson said.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
Cook County Board members chat while proponents of a sweetened-beverage tax wait for the hearing to begin Nov. 10, 2016. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

Updated 12:52 p.m. Nov. 14, 2016  Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle personally ensured her controversial new penny-an-ounce pop tax passed Thursday by breaking a rare tie vote among commissioners.

The two-term board president stepped further into the glare of a spotlight because she's counting on the $224 million a year the beverage tax is expected to bring in to balance the books for a while.

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"Raising revenue was never my first choice," Preckwinkle said. "This measure provides important revenue, not only to avoid damaging cuts for public health and public safety systems, but also to expand our community-based interventions in both arenas. It also puts us on a stable financial footing for the next three fiscal years, during which we will not have to approve any additional tax increases."

Asked after the vote why the county could not make further spending cuts, Preckwinkle defended her six-year record, saying she had reduced the workforce by 10 percent and overall debt by a slightly greater percentage.

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Preckwinkle also pointed to 300 layoffs included in next year's $4.9 billion budget proposal that's scheduled for a vote Tuesday. "We've tried very hard to be as efficient and effective as we possibly can in our budgeting process," she said.

Along with the new beverage tax, the county also passed an ordinance barring further sales tax increases, or property tax increases beyond the rate of inflation, before 2020  a measure proposed by Commissioner John Fritchey, D-Chicago, who voted against the beverage tax. That has the political advantage of pushing off further major tax increases until after the 2018 elections, when Preckwinkle's office and those of all 17 commissioners are on the ballot.

The new tax on sugary and artificially sweetened beverages goes into effect July 1. Cook County, with its 5.2 million residents, will become the largest locale in the nation to put in place a pop tax. Philadelphia approved a tax earlier this year, and voters in Oakland, Calif., San Francisco and Boulder, Colo., on Tuesday approved referendums to enact such a tax.

In all those places, TV viewers and radio listeners were bombarded with ads against the tax financed largely by the American Beverage Association and spots supporting it bankrolled by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a longtime advocate of reduced sugar consumption.

The tax will apply to all sugar and artificially sweetened drinks, including pop, sports drinks, lemonade and iced tea, adding 72 cents to the cost of a six-pack of soda or 68 cents for a 2-liter bottle. The tax also will be imposed on fountain drinks at a penny an ounce, bringing the tax on a 7-Eleven Gulp to 32 cents and on a Double Gulp to 50 cents. It won't apply to drinks bought with a Link card issued to families in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program because additional consumer taxes can't be added under the federal program.

It's the latest tax increase Preckwinkle pushed through a divided County Board. Last year, Preckwinkle won approval of a 1-percentage-point sales tax increase. The moves further erode Preckwinkle's onetime reputation as a tax-lowering, cost-cutting leader of county government.

As the Cook County Board voted Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 on a penny-an-ounce tax on sweetened beverages, the chambers were crowded with anti- and pro-tax supporters. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

She was initially elected in 2010 on a pledge to eliminate the remaining portion of the sales tax increase enacted under her one-term predecessor, Todd Stroger. Now, in the past 16 months, she's restored the Stroger tax, slapped a new tax on sweetened beverages and approved a new 1 percent tax on hotel stays.

The pop tax vote came after nearly three hours of public testimony, with retailers saying it will harm their bottom lines and health advocates saying it would help reduce rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease and tooth decay.

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Representatives from the beverage industry said it was a regressive tax that would hit low-income people hardest and worsen already declining sales of products that create many well-paying union jobs in the Chicago region.

Tanya Triche of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association suggested a legal challenge could be coming on the basis of double taxation, given that sales taxes already are applied to beverage purchases.

"This is a tax on a tax, what is being imposed today," Triche said. "We don't even think that's lawful to do in the state of Illinois."

The beverage tax would apply throughout the county, including Chicago, where there's already a 3 percent tax on retail sales of soft drinks in cans or bottles and a 9 percent tax on the wholesale price of fountain drink syrup.

Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, D-Chicago, chafed at suggestions from some opponents that the tax was needed because of county mismanagement, noting that under Preckwinkle the county had increased the sales tax to shore up a long underfunded worker pension system and significantly reduced the size of the jail population.

"The revenue measure that we're considering today is endorsed by groups like the Civic Federation, certainly not a liberal or a progressive think tank," said Garcia, who argued it was the best option to keep the county in the black financially without harming services.

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And Commissioner Deborah Sims, D-Chicago, characterized it as "a choice tax. They can choose not to buy the beverage, or they can choose to buy it."

Countering those arguments was Commissioner Timothy Schneider, R-Bartlett, whose northwest suburban district borders DuPage and Lake counties. Businesses just over the border in those counties are thriving, he said, with "signs that are prominently displayed all over the place: 'No Cook County taxes.'"

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 7 A variety of sugary drinks on display at La Chiquita grocery store in Little Village on Oct. 26, 2016. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)

"When will they learn that people have choices and they're choosing to leave?" Schneider asked before voting against the tax. "I'm proud to be considered 'Commissioner No.'"

Voting for the tax were Luis Arroyo Jr., D-Chicago; Jerry "Iceman" Butler, D-Chicago; John Daley, D-Chicago; Garcia; Edward Moody, D-Chicago Ridge; Stanley Moore, D-Chicago; Sims; and Larry Suffredin, D-Chicago.

Voting against the tax were Richard Boykin, D-Oak Park; John Fritchey, D-Chicago; Bridget Gainer, D-Chicago; Gregg Goslin, R-Glenview; Sean Morrison, R-Palos Park; Schneider; Peter Silvestri, R-Elmwood Park; and Jeffrey Tobolski, D-McCook.

Absent was Commissioner Robert Steele, D-Chicago, a Preckwinkle ally who was hospitalized earlier in the week.

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hdardick@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @ReporterHal

Earlier versions of this story incorrectly identified the Colorado city whose voters approved a pop tax as Denver.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin talked Donald Trump and what Democrats face in January at the Millennium Park Metra station on Wednesday. ((Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune))

Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield.

Topspin

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin lamented the outcome of the presidential campaign as he stood outside a downtown train station to help U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth thank voters for sending her to join him in the Senate.



"I now know the range of human emotions, in six days to go from the heights of a Cubs victory to last night's election," said Durbin, who added that he would "accept the legal verdict of our democracy" and fight for Democratic values "in a civilized way."



Durbin is the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, where his party is in the minority and will remain so after failing to win the handful of seats it needed to take control.



"It's a situation that's going to be uphill," Durbin said of the one-party control that will take over Washington in January. "You have to remember, though, the institution of the Senate was designed to respect the minority  most important things will have to be done on a bipartisan basis."



Of President-elect Donald Trump, Durbin said he'd work with him.



"That's my responsibility, that's what I accepted when I took this office," Durbin said. "I just hope the office will build the man and help him understand the awesome responsibility which the American people have given him."



Duckworth was all smiles as she greeted commuters and thanked them for helping her win in her challenge to Republican Sen. Mark Kirk.



At a debate last week, Kirk had asked Duckworth to join him for a post-election beer at the Billy Goat Tavern. Duckworth said the two had agreed to do so on Friday, which is Veterans Day.



"It can't be any more appropriate than that, for two veterans to get together on Veterans Day and have a drink together," Duckworth said. (Kim Geiger)

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What's on tap

*Mayor Rahm Emanuel will speak to the Civic Federation board of directors.

*Gov. Bruce Rauner has no public schedule.

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*The Cook County Board is scheduled to vote on President Toni Preckwinkle's soda pop tax.

What we're writing (Day After Election edition)

*Why Trump's big win means problems for Rauner.

*State budget impasse expected to continue as Rauner, Madigan dig in post-election.

*Big anti-Trump protest in Chicago night after election.

*Emanuel "not worried" about Trump retaliation against Chicago, but some aldermen are.

*Emanuel hints he's inclined to appoint Latino to replace Mendoza as city clerk.

*Duckworth will enter U.S. Senate, where seniority rules, as freshman in minority party.

*Meet the fresh new face in Illinois' congressional delegation.

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*Preckwinkle faces close vote on soda pop tax.

*Dive into election results here.

What we're reading (Day After Election Hot Takes Edition)

*The Age of Trump begins.

*How Trump won: The revenge of working-class whites.

*Can America survive President Donald Trump?

Follow the money

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*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.

Beyond Chicago

*Trump's agenda would take U.S. down new path.

*Clinton, Obama urge disappointed voters to accept Trump's victory.

*Giuliani, Christie and Gingrich could get Trump Cabinet jobs.

*Republican sweep imperils Obamacare law.
Eighth District Congressman-Elect Raja Krishnamoorthi speaks with campaign staff at his office in Streamwood on Nov. 9, 2016. Krisnamoorthi defeated Republican Peter DiCianni. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)

When he starts orientation as a congressman next week, Raja Krishnamoorthi will be joined by two other Indian-Americans  all Democrats  who won seats in the House in Tuesday's election.

Indian-Americans, he said Wednesday, have "established themselves economically and are now participating more fully in the civic life of the country."

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"Whenever the Congress represents the increasing diversity of the United States, that's a good thing," said Krishnamoorthi, who will become Illinois' first Indian-American congressman.

A day earlier, Krishnamoorthi, 43, defeated Republican Peter DiCianni for a west and northwest suburban district seat vacated by newly elected Sen. Tammy Duckworth. When the new House is seated in January, Illinois will be represented by 11 Democrats and seven Republicans.

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But Congress will remain in Republican control and so will the White House. It looks to be a steep climb for Democrats to advance their own agenda, but Krishnamoorthi said he hopes the two parties can find common ground, on issues including rebuilding infrastructure, education and college affordability.

The son of Indian immigrants, Krishnamoorthi came to the U.S. as an infant and was raised in Peoria. He said his family turned to government assistance for a few years in the mid-1970s when his father, then a teaching assistant at the State University of New York at Buffalo, struggled to provide for his wife and child, Krishnamoorthi, who also has a brother who is a physician at the University of Chicago.

His father, now 77, has a Ph.D. and teaches industrial engineering at Bradley University in Peoria. "He's become kind of a guru in quality control," Krishnamoorthi said. His parents' perseverance inspired him to want to help other families replicate that success story, he said.

Krishnamoorthi has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Princeton University and graduated with honors from Harvard Law School. He is president of two suburban businesses that sell chips for infrared, night-vision military equipment and solar energy technology.

He's held several government jobs, including as a state deputy treasurer, a prosecutor in the public integrity unit of the Illinois attorney general's office and member of the Illinois Housing Development Authority's audit committee.

The representative-elect's wife is an anesthesiologist. "The joke is we both put people to sleep," he quipped. He is the father of three, including a 6-month old daughter who served as his wake-up call Wednesday morning. "She's an alarm clock. She gets up around 4, 4:30 a.m.," he said.

According to an article in Forbes magazine, only three Indian-Americans have served in the history of Congress prior to Tuesday's election. In addition to Krishnamoorthi, winning seats in the House on Tuesday were Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Ro Khanna of California.

The new representatives join sitting Rep. Ami Bera, a California Democrat who happened to call Krishnamoorthi during Wednesday's interview. Krishnamoorthi said he'd call him back.

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Chicago Tribune's Christy Gutowski contributed.

kskiba@chicagotribune.com
Downers Grove police on Thursday released additional details about the online extortion case that caused former Sen. Ron Sandack to abruptly resign last summer after the Illinois attorney general's office ruled the village improperly withheld information about the investigation.

The new information is relatively minimal, revealing Sandack used Skype handles "rsandack" and "ron.sandack" and receipts showing he paid his scammers $3,000. But the back and forth over what the department is legally required to disclose to the public highlights the complex nature of the state's open records laws, which can often be gamed to prevent the timely release of materials at all levels of state and local government.

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Sandack, a top ally of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner known for expressing his views on Facebook and Twitter, resigned July 24 citing "cyber security issues" after fraudulent social media accounts were set up in his name. Sandack, who previously served as mayor of Downers Grove, said he reported the incident to police and stepped down because politics was getting "too ugly."

That prompted a spate of requests from media outlets to the Downers Grove Police Department seeking a copy of the police report related to the case. The department responded by releasing a heavily redacted report in which almost all the information about the case was blacked out.

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The attorney general's public access counselor's office, which oversees open records laws, was asked to weigh in on whether the department was withholding information that should have been released under the law.

On Sept. 16, Downers Grove police released a more complete version of the police report, which revealed Sandack left amid an extortion scam in which he wired money to the Philippines after engaging in "inappropriate online conversations" with a woman who contacted him on Facebook.

But that release also was heavily redacted, prompting further review by the attorney general's office headed by Lisa Madigan, daughter of Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan. On Monday, her office issued an opinion ordering the department to hand over more information.

That opinion came on the eve of Tuesday's election, in which Republicans fought to hold on to Sandack's seat. Rep. David Olsen, who was appointed following Sandack's departure, held on with 54 percent of the vote.

According to the police report, Sandack said the scam began July 7 after he received a friend request from an unknown woman on Facebook. They engaged in several conversations and video chats, before she made an unspecified demand that led Sandack to wire money to the Philippines. That demand remains redacted in the most recently released version of the police report. Sandack went to police July 12 after the woman demanded more and more money.

mcgarcia@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @moniquegarcia
Democratic U.S. Sen.-elect Tammy Duckworth greets commuters outside the Millennium Park Metra station in Chicago on Nov. 9, 2016, a day after she defeated Republican incumbent Sen. Mark Kirk. She previously served as the representative for Illinois' 8th Congressional District since 2013. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune) (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

In her two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Tammy Duckworth has become familiar with the challenges of trying to make a mark as a junior lawmaker in the minority party.

While she scored a promotion to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, Duckworth's status in her new chamber won't change much, after Republicans kept control of Congress and their nominee, Donald Trump, seized the White House.

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Trump's surprise victory, coupled with a multistate rejection of Democratic attempts to retake control of the Senate, threatened to cast a cloud over Duckworth's defeat of Republican Sen. Mark Kirk. But a beaming Duckworth reveled in her moment of glory as she greeted voters outside a Loop train station Wednesday morning.

"There will be a lot of, you know, folks looking back and trying to figure things out," Duckworth told reporters between shaking hands and posing for pictures with supporters. "I'm going to be focused on what do I need to do to serve the people of Illinois and what agendas we need to move forward. They're going to be the same  jobs, the economy, making sure we make college affordable."

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth bested Republican Mark Kirk for his U.S. Senate seat Nov. 8, 2016. (Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

The train station visit, a long-standing tradition of victorious politicians, came as the country awoke to news of Trump's unexpected defeat of Hillary Clinton, whose historic candidacy sucked up much of the Democrats' enthusiasm this election season.

Instead, it was Duckworth who emerged as the Democrats' most resounding success in an overall failed effort to take power in Washington. She was the lone Democrat to have clearly seized a Republican-held Senate seat, and her wide margin against Kirk made the race an early conclusive victory. In New Hampshire, Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, led by 1,023 votes over Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, but the possibility of a recount left the final outcome of that race unclear Wednesday.

Democrats would have needed to pick up a few more seats to take control of the chamber, so Duckworth will return to the Capitol facing familiar circumstances of obscurity.

The Hoffman Estates Democrat projected optimism that, while characteristic of morning-after debriefs, could prove difficult to maintain amid deep political divisions in Washington.

"I will work with whoever is willing to work hard for this nation and for the good of the people of both Illinois and the United States," Duckworth said. "And I'll stand up to anyone who makes decisions that are bad for the nation. But it's time to heal the country and come together. And I'm anxious to roll up my sleeves and get to work."

Duckworth has used her military ties and her position on the Armed Services Committee to build a resume that's heavy on veterans' issues, and she's pledged to continue that effort in the Senate. It's a continuation of the veterans-oriented career path she staked out after losing both of her legs while serving in the Iraq War. She held administrative posts at the veterans' affairs departments of Illinois and the federal government before winning a House seat representing the northwest and west suburban 8th Congressional District in 2012.

As a low-ranking member of the House, she's introduced legislation to help veterans find jobs in the private sector, to help reduce veteran suicide and to extend parental leave to military service members. But with little power to advance bills on her own, she has not been the main sponsor on any legislation that has become law.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 22 Democratic U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth waves to her supporters at her election night party at the JW Marriott in downtown Chicago on Nov. 8, 2016. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

Instead, Duckworth has sought to attach her priorities to bills that have a higher likelihood of surviving the gridlocked Capitol. She says she co-authored portions of the Clay Hunt Act, which aims to reduce suicides among members of the military and veterans and improve their access to mental health care. She also proposed an amendment to a military spending bill that streamlines the way camouflage uniforms are designed and purchased. The Government Accountability Office later estimated that savings from the measure would amount to $4.2 billion over five years.

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Duckworth points to the amendment as an example of her ability to work with Republicans who control Congress. Winning approval of the measure hinged on Duckworth's ability to appeal to the Republican committee chairman and persuade him to give it his blessing, Duckworth told the Tribune in a September interview.

In her Senate campaign, Duckworth sought to broaden her political identity, relating personal stories of growing up poor and accumulating student loan debt  experiences she said made her better equipped to advocate for ordinary Americans. College affordability, job creation and protecting the social safety net were key themes of her campaign.

Duckworth said Wednesday that she was eyeing infrastructure spending as an area where the two parties might find common ground. It's an idea that also was offered by top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who declared a desire to work with Trump to enact a jobs and infrastructure bill. Trump campaigned on a promise to rebuild roads, bridges and airports, and reiterated the promise again Wednesday in a brief victory speech. Whether he'll be able to get Congressional Republicans to approve such spending remains to be seen.

"Infrastructure goes through Republican districts as much as it goes through Democratic ones," Duckworth said. "There is a lot that we can do for the benefit and the good of the American people."

The Associated Press contributed.

kgeiger@tribune.com

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Twitter @kimgeiger
Sejla Palic and Mary Beth Benzing, St. Lawrence University students who were among very few in a national statistics competition to correctly predict Donald Trump's Election Day victory. (Tara Freeman / Courtesy of St. Lawrence University)

Mary Beth Benzing and Sejla Palic knew that Donald Trump would be elected president on Tuesday. In fact, they predicted it.

The two seniors at St. Lawrence University in New York took part in Prediction 2016, a contest from the American Statistics Association for high school and college students to analyze publicly available data and predict the election's winner.

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Benzing and Palic's final analysis, which they submitted on Oct. 30, had Trump winning 36 states, including Michigan and Wisconsin, and tying in New Hampshire. Trump ended up winning 33 states, but it was enough to secure the election and put Benzing and Palic among a tiny group of statistical prognosticators who got the final result correct.

The students said they created a model that relied heavily on information gleaned from the 2012 presidential general election and primaries.

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"Everyone was putting weight on 2016 polling, but we used a lot of data from 2012 because we thought it was most relevant," Benzing said Wednesday. "Putting a little history in there made for a better prediction."

Ahead of Election Day, the students knew their prediction was an outlier. Of the 193 individual and group entrants to Prediction 2016 from high schools and colleges across the country, just two had Trump emerging victorious.

"We didn't necessarily think we'd be right, but the numbers were just what our model was saying," said Palic, a double-major in statistics and psychology.

As the results came in Tuesday night, "we were quite shocked," Palic said. And neither was particularly pleased.

"Basically I would have preferred for it to go the other way," said Benzing, a statistics and economics double-major. "But the results are what they are."

For Palic, an international student who is Muslim, the result made her "a little scared." But, she added, "the people have voted and there's not much we can do about it."

The students' statistics professor, Michael Schuckers, was pleased they predicted the correct result, but he worries about the overall performance by trained statisticians in this year's election.

"Certainly one of the thoughts that I had was that statisticians had generally done a poor job of predicting the outcomes," he wrote in an email. "As a group, we'll have to reconsider how we model these sorts of data, though I'm not sure there were many non-statisticians who did any better."

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As many students who took part in the contest found out Tuesday night, statistics is a tricky business.

Yashelle Hunte, a junior at Magruder High School in Rockville, Maryland, averaged the results of several polls over a five-day period to come up with a election prediction.

Her submission had Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote total by a whopping eight percent. Watching the real numbers come in on Tuesday was "kind of shocking," Hunte said.

"A lot of states that I thought were going to be one color turned out to be the other," she said. "I found out that polls are very wrong. People tell the pollsters how they're going to vote, but it's not set in stone. They go out to vote and change their minds."

Ronald Wasserstein, the American Statistical Association's executive director, was thrilled that so many students embraced the inaugural event.

"Part of the project was digging into a complicated problem and figuring out what types of data could be used and which type of data was more useful than others," he said. "Some used polling aggregators, some went right to exact polls. Others were looking at trends or past elections to try and predict party turnout. It was all across the board."

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William Christensen, head of statistics at Brigham Young University, served as an advisor for this year's contest, and he said he was surprised at the level of sophistication many of the students displayed given their limited amount of statistics training.

"I was pleased to see how much students seem to engage not just in the statistical aspects of it, but the politics and historical aspects of the problem," he said. And even though some of the methods they use might not translate precisely to business or government or education, the tools they are developing are very much important and translatable."

On Tuesday, before any of the election results were known and before so many predictions were proven incorrect, Wasserstein offered an explanation of election forecasting that would cheer the hearts of beleaguered statisticians everywhere.

"Let's take a prediction that says there's 75 percent certainty that Clinton will win. And then Trump wins. Was that estimate wrong? It wasn't wrong necessarily," he said. "The fact is that it gave a one in four chance for Trump to win. It's just that as human beings we have a tendency to think that if there's only a 30 percent chance of rain and it rains that the forecast was wrong. And that's just not the case."
President-elect Donald Trump meets with House Speaker Paul Ryan at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 10, 2016, in Washington, D.C. Earlier in the day, Trump met with President Barack Obama at the White House. (Zach Gibson / Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump made his first joint public appearance with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Wis., on Thursday, appearing before cameras after a meeting that seemed to tamp down months of tension between the two Republicans.

"We're looking forward to doing some spectacular things for the American people," Trump said in brief remarks after his meeting with Ryan, specifically mentioning lower taxes and health care as shared priorities.

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He did not take questions and did not give an explicit endorsement for Ryan's continued service as speaker, but the meeting Thursday had the unmistakable feel of a summit between two governing partners who expect to spend the months to come advancing a shared agenda. Trump later met with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in his Capitol office.

Thursday's meeting served as denouement after a campaign season in which the Ryan-Trump relationship emerged as a major story line. Ryan spoke out on several occasions to denounce Trump's comments  on his proposed ban on Muslim immigration and his criticism of a Mexican American federal judge, to name two  and when Trump clinched the Republican nomination in April, Ryan initially withheld his endorsement, citing his desire to support a "standard bearer who bears our standards."

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The two men met privately in Washington shortly afterward, but they were never seen together in public at any point during the long campaign. They eventually settled into an uneasy truce, with Ryan stumping for Republicans and the conservative policy agenda he assembled with the help of fellow House members without appearing alongside Trump on the hustings.

Tensions flared again in early October, after The Washington Post published a video that captured Trump bragging about kissing and grabbing women without their consent  prompting scores of GOP lawmakers to speak out against him. Ryan convened a conference call of House Republicans, which he opened by declaring that he would no longer defend Trump as a candidate  though he said he still planned to vote for Trump and urge voters to elect Republicans up and down the ballot.

Trump and his allies on and off Capitol Hill, however, saw Ryan's move as an act of betrayal  not as an act calibrated to ensure that Republicans maintained their commanding House majority.

Trump tweet: "Our very weak and ineffective leader, Paul Ryan, had a bad conference call where his members went wild at his disloyalty."

But Trump has kept silent on Ryan since, and Tuesday's results  which included better-than-expected showings by Republicans in both the House and the Senate  have quieted a great deal of the internal unrest that threatened to end Ryan's speakership if Democrats had kept control of the White House.

One senior Republican said Wednesday that Ryan is "about to become Donald's best friend in Congress."

"He's still the indispensable guy," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. "Whatever differences they had in the past, they each need one another to be successful. Trump needs somebody that can unite the Republican caucus and move things through. Obviously, Ryan needs someone who can sign something. We now have that."

After lunch at the Capitol Hill Club, a Republican haunt a block from the Capitol, Ryan invited Trump to his office suite and invited him to the Speaker's Balcony on the Capitol's west front, which looks out across the National Mall toward the Washington Monument and the White House. It also looks down on the inauguration stand that is now being erected ahead of the Jan. 20 ceremony - and it has a clear view of Trump's new D.C. hotel in the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

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"Really, really beautiful," Trump said as he passed reporters afterward.

The meetings offered GOP leaders an opportunity to learn about Trump's policy goals for the first 100 days of his presidency, according to aides. McConnell and Ryan both avoided committing Wednesday to a list of legislative priorities for the lame duck session set to begin next week, in deference to Trump's wishes.

"It is very exciting to be going into a lame duck where we have a Republican president following right after it," Ryan said Wednesday. "I'm excited about that and we're going to coordinate with our president-elect on just what they're hoping we can achieve in the lame duck. "

Lawmakers and staff were unprepared for a lame duck session ahead of a Trump presidency, according to several aides. Leaders assumed they would be negotiating a year-end deal ahead of a Hillary Clinton presidency. Rank-and-file members entertained plans for how they would react if Democrats won the Senate but never what they would do with GOP control in both Congress and the White House, the aides said.

Part of the problem is that Trump shifted his positions on critical issues like Obamacare, immigration and tax reform several times during the campaign. Leaders are hoping to clarify what Trump's priorities are in the coming days so that members can be briefed when they return to Washington next week.
A lot is being said now about the "silent secret Trump supporters."

This is my confession  and explanation: I  a 51-year-old, a Muslim, an immigrant woman "of color"  am one of those silent voters for Donald Trump. And I'm not a "bigot," "racist," "chauvinist" or "white supremacist," as Trump voters are being called, nor part of some "whitelash."

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In the winter of 2008, as a lifelong liberal and proud daughter of West Virginia, a state born on the correct side of history on slavery, I moved to historically conservative Virginia only because the state had helped elect Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States.

But, then, for much of this past year, I have kept my electoral preference secret: I was leaning toward Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

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Tuesday evening, just minutes before the polls closed at Forestville Elementary School in mostly Democratic Fairfax County, I slipped between the cardboard partitions in the polling booth, a pen balanced carefully between my fingers, to mark my ballot for president, coloring in the circle beside the names of Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence.

After Hillary Clinton called Trump to concede, making him America's president-elect, a friend on Twitter wrote a message of apology to the world, saying there are millions of Americans who don't share Trump's "hatred/division/ignorance." She ended: "Ashamed of millions that do."

That would presumably include me  but it doesn't, and that is where the dismissal of voter concerns about Clinton led to her defeat. I most certainly reject the trifecta of "hatred/division/ignorance." I support the Democratic Party's position on abortion, same-sex marriage and climate change.

But I am a single mother who can't afford health insurance under Obamacare. The president's mortgage-loan modification program, "HOPE NOW," didn't help me. Tuesday, I drove into Virginia from my hometown of Morgantown, W.Va., where I see rural America and ordinary Americans, like me, still struggling to make ends meet, after eight years of the Obama administration.

Finally, as a liberal Muslim who has experienced, first-hand, Islamic extremism in this world, I have been opposed to the decision by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party to tap dance around the "Islam" in Islamic State. Of course, Trump's rhetoric has been far more than indelicate and folks can have policy differences with his recommendations, but, to me, it has been exaggerated and demonized by the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, their media channels, such as Al Jazeera, and their proxies in the West, in a convenient distraction from the issue that most worries me as a human being on this earth: extremist Islam of the kind that has spilled blood from the hallways of the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai to the dance floor of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

In mid-June, after the tragic shooting at Pulse, Trump tweeted out a message, delivered in his typical subtle style: "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!"

Around then, on CNN's "New Day," Democratic candidate Clinton seemed to do the Obama dance, saying, "From my perspective, it matters what we do more than what we say. And it mattered we got bin Laden, not what name we called him. I have clearly said we  whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, I'm happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing."

By mid-October, it was one Aug. 17, 2014, email from the WikiLeaks treasure trove of Clinton emails that poisoned the well for me. In it, Clinton told aide John Podesta: "We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL," the politically correct name for the Islamic State, "and other radical Sunni groups in the region."

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The revelations of multimillion-dollar donations to the Clinton Foundation from Qatar and Saudi Arabia killed my support for Clinton. Yes, I want equal pay. No, I reject Trump's "locker room" banter, the idea of a "wall" between the United States and Mexico and a plan to "ban" Muslims. But I trust the United States and don't buy the political hyperbole  agenda-driven identity politics of its own  that demonized Trump and his supporters.

I gently tried to express my thoughts on Twitter but the "Pantsuit revolution" was like a steamroller to any nuanced discourse. If you supported Trump, you had to be a redneck.

Days before the election, a journalist from India emailed me, asking: What are your thoughts being a Muslim in "Trump's America"?

I wrote that as a child of India, arriving in the United States at the age of 4 in the summer of 1969, I have absolutely no fears about being a Muslim in a "Trump America." The checks and balances in America and our rich history of social justice and civil rights will never allow the fear-mongering that has been attached to candidate Trump's rhetoric to come to fruition.

What worried me the most were my concerns about the influence of theocratic Muslim dictatorships, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, in a Hillary Clinton America. These dictatorships are no shining examples of progressive society with their failure to offer fundamental human rights and pathways to citizenship to immigrants from India, refugees from Syria and the entire class of de facto slaves that live in those dictatorships.

We have to stand up with moral courage against not just hate against Muslims, but hate by Muslims, so that everyone can live with sukhun, or peace of mind, I finished in my reflections to the journalist in India.

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He didn't get the email. I didn't resend it, afraid of the wrath I'd receive. But, then, I voted.

Washington Post

Asra Q. Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and a co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement. She can be found on Twitter at @AsraNomani.
For 70 years, the United States has overseen and guaranteed an unprecedented era of economic growth and peace around much of the world, for ourselves and our allies. With the election of Donald Trump, that era has ended.

What happens now is anybody's guess. Which is another way of saying that a world that has always counted on American power and leadership is suddenly cut adrift. A drifting world is a dangerous world. As we learned Tuesday, we cannot count on any country, including our own, to do the sane thing.

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The United States emerged from World War II as one of two superpowers, and by far the more powerful. We could have brought our troops and dollars home and raised the drawbridge against a threatening world. Instead, in a historic burst of generosity and self-interest, we constructed an international framework that has lasted for nearly three-quarters of a century.

American leadership created the great international organizations  the United Nations, NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization  that knitted this nation and its allies in a web of mutually beneficial relationships. We financed the Marshall Plan that endowed Europe's recovery from the war, and then supported the transformation of the European countries from a nest of hostile powers into a post-national project called the European Union.

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America, being the strongest nation, dominated these institutions. But the other nations happily signed on, because they benefited as much as we did from open economies in a peaceful world.

The American military policed that world. American troops stood along the Iron Curtain, daring the Soviets to invade. After 40 years, the Kremlin caved. American ships sailed the Mediterranean and the Pacific, probably preventing war between China and Taiwan, or Greece and Turkey. We used our clout to police the Mideast, and our nuclear umbrella to keep allies such as Japan and South Korea from going nuclear themselves.

President Harry Truman created this multilateral framework, but it has been the cornerstone of every administration, Republican or Democrat, ever since. Even George W. Bush returned to it after a flirtation with unilateralism.

We made tragic mistakes, in Vietnam and Iraq. We made silly imperialist forays into tiny places such as Grenada and Panama. We pushed economic integration too far, such as the trade deals that damaged the voters who elected Trump.

But these were the bad times in an otherwise positive history that produced the longest period of sustained prosperity and peace for much of the world. When the Cold War ended, former adversaries clambered to join the American-led institutions and bask in the Pax Americana. They did this because, for all its faults, they trusted the steadiness and benevolence of American leadership. As a Brit in Brussels once told me, "I've lived all my life believing in my bones that America is the good guy."

It is this context  this trust, this sense of America as a bulwark against history, this belief of America as the good guy  that the Trump election shattered.

He has praised Vladimir Putin and questioned America's resolve, embodied in the NATO treaty, to defend its European allies against attack. How long will it be before Putin tests that resolve? He has mused aloud about using nuclear weapons, and boasted of his "unpredictability" in this area. He has suggested that Japan and Korea should get their own nuclear arms. He has threatened to tear up trade treaties with allies and to start a trade war with China, now the No. 2 economic power.

He wants to shrink the United Nations. He may end U.S. support for international attempts to limit global warming, which he has called a "hoax." He wants to bar immigration on religious grounds. He says he will tear up the deal restricting Iran's access to nuclear weapons, increasing the threat of a nuclear war between that country and Israel.

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Does he mean any of this? Does he understand enough about the world to understand what he's saying? Will he have aides and advisers who know the world and can provide adult leadership?

Who knows? Probably Trump himself doesn't know. There's reason to doubt he means anything he says, but would you bet on it? Press reports that those aides and advisers will include Newt Gingrich and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton don't give much cause for confidence.

In the past 70 years, many bad things haven't happened because America was the cop on the beat. Countries didn't go to war or go nuclear, because we protected them. Europeans didn't have to line up with Russia and Southeast Asians didn't have to give in to China, because we presented an alternative.

In a post-American world, no other power can take its place  not ambitious China, nor authoritarian Russia, nor flailing Europe, itself roiled by populism. Instead, it will be a jungle out there, every country for itself, wheeling and dealing in a nuclear world, afraid that Trump really does mean what he says.

The era of Pax America was imperfect, expensive and often exasperating. But oh my, we'll miss it when it's gone.

Richard C. Longworth is distinguished fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Some Republicans have been trying to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education since President Ronald Reagan took office , when the agency was only about a year old.

Now, with Republican Donald Trump headed to the White House and a GOP-controlled House and Senate, Republicans have their best chance yet to scrapor at least seriously scale backthe agency.

Trump talked about eliminating the Education Department on the campaign trail or cutting it way way down, but didnt offer details about how he would do that, or what would happen to key programs if he did downsize.

For now, it looks like this idea remains on the table. Former Florida and Virginia state schools superintendent Gerard Robinson, who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said in an interview Wednesday that he expects that the new president will streamline, at least the Education Department. (Robinson is serving on Trumps transition team but spoke only on his own behalf.)

Slimming downor getting rid ofthe department wont necessarily be a slam dunk. Past attempts to eliminate it, including one in the early 1980s, when Reagan took office, and another in the mid-1990s, when Congress flipped to Republican control, havent gotten very far . Both times though, the administration and Congress were from different parties, which wont be the case next year.

But even in the current Republican-dominated political landscape, abolishing the department would cost Trump and his allies political capital that they might rather spend elsewhere.

Thats a heavy lift, and theres some Republicans that may not be comfortable with that, said Vic Klatt, a former aide to House Republicans on the education committee who is now a principal at Penn Hill Group, a government relations organization in Washington. He thinks such a proposal could get tripped up in the Senate, which requires a 60-vote threshold to get past procedural hurdles.

And education advocates would likely fight against getting rid of the department. We would actively oppose it, said Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools in an interview. And I think there is enough of a coalition on Capitol Hill to make opposition to it a rather bipartisan issue.

Whats more, Klatt said, the agency itself may not be as paramount as the programs that it operates.

At the end of the day what matters most is not the structure, its the programs. I dont think the new president has given any indication that hes likely to get rid of the most important programs, Klatt said.

Other Options

Instead of starting with getting rid of the department, Trump and his team may turn first to funneling federal education programs into broad block grants, essentially doubling down on the program consolidation thats already in the new Every Student Succeeds Act, said Lindsey Burke, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

There are just dozens of niche programs that the department operates, she said. And even though they have not worked well for kids, there is a constituency of adults throughout the country who really agitate to maintain those programs. The new administration could start with consolidation and block granting, and then move toward eliminating a lot of the competitive-grant programs that have accumulated over the years.

In particular, programs closely associated with President Obama could find themselves on the chopping block early in a Trump administration, such as the Education Innovation and Research program, or EIR. Thats the successor to the Investing in Innovation program, which helps school districts scale up and test out promising practices. Its already slated for elimination in a House spending bill.

Other programs that Obama started, such as the Promise Neighborhoods Program, which helps schools pair academics with wraparound services, such as health programs, may also be in danger, despite support from lawmakers.

Burke also suggested the Trump administration could work with Congress to enact something along the lines of the A-Plus Act, which would allow states to opt-out of a slew of federal requirements while still getting federal funds. Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C. offered the legislation as an amendment when the Every Student Succeeds Act passed in 2015. It didnt make it through the GOP-controlled House at the time, but the political landscape has shifted now.



And theres at least one office within the department that could get a makeover under a Trump presidency: The office for civil rights. It has been a hotbed of activity during the Obama administration, launching a series of guidance and investigations aimed at ensuring that school districts meet the needs of children from historically disadvantaged groups.

Robinson said Trump and his team would likely significantly curtail the offices role when it comes to state and local policies, while ensuring that students rights are not trampled on.

If OCRs role does shift in the Trump administration, local civil rights organizations may need to step up, said Daria Hall, the interim vice-president for government affairs at the Education Trust, a research and advocacy organization.

The one thing thats clear is that the work of state and local equity advocates is now even more important, she said.

If the department does stay at the cabinet level, who might be Trumps education secretary? Names floated include Robinson (who told us hes not interested), and one of Trumps rivals in the primaries, Dr. Ben Carson. Another possibility: Rep. Luke Messer, an Indiana Republican and a big fan of school choice.

Staff Writer Denisa R. Superville contributed to this report.

President-elect Donald Trump smiles as he delivers remarks at his victory rally in New York on Nov. 9. --Evan Vucci/AP

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
One of my first years working in news, just out of journalism school at the University of Missouri, I talked to a cameraman about the shoot we had just finished. Somehow where I had gone to school had come up.

"Wow, you went to Missouri  I thought they only hired Ivy Leaguers here," he said. And he didn't mean it as an insult, just a statement of fact.

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During the 2000 campaign, when I was covering social conservatives, some co-workers would ask me how I talked to "those people," the people who supported Right to Life and other related causes.

I talked about growing up in Prince George's County, Md., 11 miles and several worlds away from Washington, and how we had all kinds of people in my neighborhood and in my family. They may all have been union Democrats, but some were pro-life and others very pro-choice. Some went to church on Sundays at Riverdale Baptist and others went to synagogue down the road. Few had a college degree. No one had a master's. Nearly everyone had jobs that kept Washington going while power pinged back and forth between parties.

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We understood we may have seen the world differently on occasion, but we respected each other and didn't vilify or demean each other  and sometimes we even poked fun at the way the other saw the world.

It wasn't until I entered the rarefied world of media and, later, the Ivy League that I learned there really is one way of seeing the world and that that lens admits little dissent. Unwritten rules abound and they are bound by class. Poking fun at Kansas City was OK. Not knowing the difference between your forks wasn't. Coasts mattered  preferably D.C. or New York. "Fly over" didn't. School choice was an "issue," not a matter of life and death, and legacy admissions were to be lauded, not gotten around. People served in the military only because they "had no other options," and few would want their kids to don a uniform. Not too many folks I worked with had heard of double coupons; fewer still had used them.

Over the last few months I've been hearing from folks  from family members in Florida and Virginia to folks I have had the privilege of covering from Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia  that things were not all right when it came to the Democratic candidate. These people are not all devils, and some voted for Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012. But they were fed up. And they wanted someone to hear them.

And today in newsrooms across the country, comes the question: How did we miss this story? How did we not see what was coming and hear what people were saying?

And the media pose this question: Do we need reporters in "real America" so journalists can see the locals up close and get to know them?

The problem lies not just in the geography but in the mindset of journalists.

America is more than an urban clubhouse for the elite surrounded by "everyplace else." And journalists don't help when they treat "regular America" like a place that requires a passport, a translator and a clothespinned nose.

Journalists, listen to people instead of to one another. And respect the people you meet, even if they see the world differently. Sometimes especially if you see the world differently.

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None of this is to excuse or even explain flirting with white supremacists or those who espouse racism, sexism, anti-Muslim sentiment, anti-Semitism or any other "otherization." But it is to say that those who want to chronicle their world had better get out and see it. And listen as much as they speak.

Otherwise journalists create an echo chamber that hears only the din of its own internal dialogue while purporting to reflect the discussion of the nation.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Dressmaker of Khair Khan" and "Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield."
An Iranian man holds a local newspaper displaying a portrait of Donald Trump a day after his election as the new U.S. president, in Tehran, on Nov. 10, 2016. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said there was "no possibility" of its nuclear deal with world powers being overturned by Trump despite his threat to rip it up. (Atta Kenare, AFP/Getty Images)

We have yet to see the shape of Donald Trump's foreign policy. But as we wait, so do nervous leaders across Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. With his arrival in the Oval Office, American alliances and policies forged over decades may well be in play. Meanwhile, in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin smiles at the election outcome. Hmm.

That would be worrisome enough if the U.S. role in geopolitics would start from scratch on Inauguration Day. It won't. President Barack Obama already has reduced America's global involvement and influence. That backward lean is a key reason why Trump will inherit so many foreign policy predicaments.

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An America that on his watch slips further to the sidelines, an insular America that regards trouble on the other side of the world as someone else's problem, would risk eroding diplomatic partnerships and defense pacts. That would imperil American interests overseas and at home: Conflicts elsewhere often make themselves felt here. Witness the Islamic State-inspired attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., and Orlando, Fla. Or remember 9/11.

What are the chief challenges and how should a President Trump respond?

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Russia, Europe and NATO: Questions about Trump's take on the world start with his approach toward Russia  an authoritarian nuclear power that under Putin arguably has become the West's most dangerous threat. The Kremlin has run roughshod over a neighbor's sovereignty (Ukraine), indiscriminately bombed civilians (Aleppo) and allegedly overseen cyberpiracy of the Democratic Party to meddle in the U.S. election.

Trump's offhanded praise for Putin isn't as troubling as his questioning of America's commitment to its Eastern European allies. In recent weeks, Russian fighter jets have buzzed NATO allies in the Baltics. Putin also has deployed more cruise missiles along NATO's eastern flank. An aggressive Russia invites a forceful NATO response with the U.S. at its core. A Kremlin stoking the separatist insurgency in Ukraine also requires the U.S. to stand with Europe and ramp up sanctions against Russia.

Will Trump follow through with his suggestion that he might recognize the Ukrainian region of Crimea, currently illegally occupied by Russia, as Russian territory? Will he keep intact sanctions against Russia, or will he jettison them to curry favor with the ex-KGB agent he once hailed as "a leader, far more than our president has been a leader"? We hope the answers are no and no.

China and the Pacific. The U.S. has strong ties with Asian countries at odds with Beijing and its mischief in the territorial waters of the South China Sea. But if countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam cannot count on the U.S. to hold Beijing in check, their leaders might seek to bargain with China  a game the Philippines already is playing. Trump's administration has to accept the value of having American warships ply the South China Sea near disputed lands  a deterrent to China's aspiration to dominate the Pacific. Which brings us to ...

Iran, North Korea, Japan and South Korea: Will Trump and the Republican Congress scuttle, through action or inaction, last year's Iran nuclear deal? That's a likely prospect. We weren't huge fans of the deal because it enriched the terror masters in Tehran. But it's done. Some sanctions have been lifted. Iran, France and China just signed a preliminary $6 billion deal to develop an offshore Persian Gulf gas field, the first investment by a Western energy company since international sanctions were eased earlier this year. There will be more to come.

The U.S. can walk away, but its European allies would feel betrayed. Before Trump tears up the deal, he should have a plan in place to check Iran when it does the expected: launch a crash program to make a nuclear weapon. From what we've seen, the president-elect hasn't given Thought One to thwarting Iran.

And the other rogue nuclear power, North Korea? Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama failed to stop North Korea from becoming a nuclear menace with a growing arsenal. Trump can employ the same weak economic and diplomatic weapons his predecessors used. He can hector China, Pyongyang's main trading partner, to yank the rug from under Kim Jong Un.

What Trump shouldn't do: Encourage Japan and South Korea to go nuclear. "It's going to happen anyway. It's only a question of time," he has said. And: "Frankly, the case could be made that, let them protect themselves against North Korea. They'd probably wipe them out pretty quick." Bad ideas all.

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The U.S. maintains a "nuclear umbrella" over its allies  a promise to retaliate if they're attacked  partly to prevent more countries from going nuclear. Our allies rely on that umbrella and America's conventional military might. Those assurances aren't bargaining chips to be casually cashed out. An open invitation for other countries to build nukes foolishly increases the chances that someday, some impetuous ruler might use them.

Syria, Islamic State and Iraq: The Iraq-led military campaign is under way to drive Islamic State fighters from Mosul. A separate assault by an Arab-Kurd coalition has begun on the outskirts of Raqqa, the Islamic State's self-proclaimed capital in Syria. The U.S. plays support roles in both campaigns. If the battles go well, Trump takes office Jan. 20 facing a significantly diminished threat from Islamic State in the Middle East.

But many Islamic State fighters may ride waves of immigration to Europe or the U.S. That's where coordination among law enforcement and immigration authorities can prevent attacks on the West. Trump's not wrong to suggest that serious vetting of refugees will help.

The defeat of Islamic State won't end the terror threat to Iraq and the Middle East. And Iraq won't hold together if Shiite political leaders don't offer their Sunni counterparts a significant voice in that nation's future. Trump's administration can stand back or, better, try to broker a deal to ensure that a second Syria doesn't erupt.

Trump  every president  faces an unpredictable world that often shreds carefully laid agendas. Ask Obama, many of whose approaches haven't worked. But Trump would be mistaken to shred America's alliances  or alienate allies with impossible demands  and expect that Russia and China won't rush to pick up the pieces.

Some fresh but also shrewd thinking  maybe "The Art of the Deal, Global Edition"  could reassure America's allies and afflict its foes.

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Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.
National Geographic Channel and its parent company 21st Century Fox want to send teachers and students to Mars.

Well, not literally.

They hope a six-part series on colonizing Mars, along with a corresponding curriculum , will spark students interest in the planet and the technology it will take to get there.

The series, entitled MARS , includes a mix of scripted drama about a settlement on the planet in 2033 and more than 30 documentary-style interviews with many people doing the work today to support space travel to Mars in the future such as Elon Musk and Neil Degrasse Tyson .

Its like the largest TED Talk ever assembled coupled with the scripted drama, said Chris Albert, National Geographic Channels executive vice president for communications.

Teachers will be able to show the series in class and utilize a curriculum for high school students that was produced by a company called Journeys in Film . It includes eight different lessons on topics ranging from how the laws of physics affect the design of spacecraft to the place of science fiction in literature.

Its not just the science and engineering piece that you might think obviously is inspired by Mars, said Vijay Sudan, the executive director of social impact at 21st Century Fox . Theres really a holistic curriculum guide that is touching on history and language arts and all kinds of other problem solving as well.

Sudan said its important that all students are able to connect with the curriculum in some way whether its through the STEM subjectsscience, technology, engineering, and mathor creative writing and the unique format of the series should also appeal to students with diverse interests.

It is about the storytellers and the people who will inspire us to get to Mars and the scientists and engineers that are doing the calculations that are going to get us there, said Sudan. Theres an important role for all students to see themselves and the part that they may play in a future expedition to Mars.

The channel has held screenings for some students already, including a group of 125 in Washington. Those students also got a chance to talk to the commander of the International Space Station through a satellite uplink.

Before the screening or the Q&A with the commander, Albert said he asked the group if they had any desire to travel to Mars and only five or six students raised their hands. But afterward, about 75 percent of them had decided they would like to explore the Red Planet.

That is why were doing itto get students excited about science, adventure, and exploration, said Albert.

MARS premiers on Monday, November 14.
The Arlington Heights Memorial Library's 2016 "One Book, One Village" program featured Eric Weiner, on right, the author of this years selected title, "The Geography of Genius: A Search for the Worlds Most Creative Places from Athens to Silicon Valley." (Karen Ann Cullotta / Pioneer Press)

When the Arlington Heights Memorial Library launched its "One Book, One Village" initiative in 2014, officials were determined that any author whose book is selected must adhere to two golden rules.

"The author has to be alive, and they have to be available to visit the library," said Jason Kuhl, the library's executive director, who mingled with the 180 visitors who gathered at the library earlier this month for a literary discussion presented by Eric Weiner, the author of this year's selected title, "The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World's Most Creative Places from Athens to Silicon Valley."

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Weiner's recent visit to the library was just one of several events offered in celebration of the library's third year of the "One Book, One Village" initiative, which invites Arlington Heights residents to read the same book at the same time, sharing their experiences at book discussions and other activities.

This year's program will culminate from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday with a "Culture Faire" featuring food, crafts and performances recognizing the diverse cultures represented in Weiner's "The Geography of Genius."

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The event is free, and all ages are welcome, the library's programs and exhibits manager Jennifer Czajka said.

"When we first introduced the 'One Book, One Village' program in 2014, we selected 'Ordinary Grace' by William Kent Krueger, and we had very good participation from the start," Czajka said. "We have to be very careful, and select a book that we feel strongly about, and that would be good for readers' discussions."

Year two brought a second fiction book, "The Book of Unknown Americans," by author Cristina Henriquez, which Czajka said tugged readers into literary territory that included the potentially volatile topic of immigration.

"We pushed a little bit, and we knew that some people would possibly have strong opinions on immigration," Czajka said. "But after reading the book, readers realized it's really all about family and love."

While officials were a bit worried how readers would react to a non-fiction selection this year, Czajka said the response to Weiner's book has been overwhelmingly positive.

"We were a little nervous, but we felt very confident with the themes of genius and creativity," Czajka said. "Whether you're a parent who is hoping to foster creativity in your children, or a business owner trying to get your employees to innovate, it's an interesting topic. And Weiner's witty approach makes it even more interesting for readers."

Fielding questions from readers who attended the library's recent discussion of "The Geography of Genius," Weiner offered up a piece of writing advice.

"As a writer, you go to places and write about places that interest you," Weiner said. "If you're not interested, there's no way your readers will be interested."

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Arlington Heights resident Mary Jo Pedersen, 80, said she enjoyed Weiner's recent visit to the library and the discussion of his book, which she described as "fascinating."

"As soon as I started reading it, I couldn't put it down," Pedersen said. "Now, I want to travel, and to read all of his other books."

kcullotta@tribpub.com

Twitter @kcullotta
Garrison Keillor will be appearing this weekend at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora. (Paramount Theatre / Handout)

Garrison Keillor will return to the Paramount Theatre in downtown Aurora on Sunday.

Former host of the public radio variety show "A Prairie Home Companion," Keillor has also published more than two dozen books and has edited several poetry anthologies, including the recently released "Good Poems: American Places."

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Keillor has been honored with the National Humanities Award and with election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Keillor will share stories, advice, jokes and songs during his show.

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Tickets are $40 to $55 and can be purchased at www.paramountaurora.com or 630-896-6666.

Keillor will perform at 3 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora.

Nature book club in St. Charles

The Forest Preserve District of Kane County is hosting a Nature Book Group in St. Charles.

Each month, participants will discuss a book about the environment, nature or related topics that cover a broad range of environmental issues. Varying viewpoints are welcome, organizers said.

Participants should read the book in advance and come ready for a discussion.

Nature Book Group is at Creek Bend Nature Center within LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve, 37W700 Dean St., St. Charles.

The first book to be discussed is "In Control of Nature" by John McPhee from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

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Upcoming books include "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols, to be discussed Dec. 14; "The Art of Seeing Things: Essays" by John Burrough, edited by Charlotte Walker, Jan. 18; and "Lab Girl" by Hope Jahren, Feb. 15.

Advanced registration is required by calling 630-444-3190 or e-mailing to programs@kaneforest.com.

Business program at Aurora University

Aurora University will host "Building Sales by Building Relationships" on Tuesday.

The free business program will be led by Dan Troy, sales director at TEKsystems. TEKsystems focuses on the communications, financial services, government and information technology sectors.

The program is sponsored by the university's Sales Institute, a series of bimonthly educational programs.

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The event is free and open to the public.

For more information or to register, call 630-844-5527 or email tosgreen@aurora.edu.

"Building Sales by Building Relationships" is at 8 a.m. at Aurora University's Orchard Center campus, 2245 Sequoia Drive, Aurora.

Motivational speaker in Montgomery

Janet Lee Kraft will present "Leaving Lightly: Getting Your Affairs in Order So All You Leave Behind is Love" at Grandma's Table Restaurant in Montgomery on Tuesday.

"Getting your affairs in order can be a frightening, confusing and overwhelming experience. Contemplating the end of your life  and its effect on the people you love  causes most people to avoid the subject for as long as possible," she said in a news release about the event.

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Kraft has been a motivational speaker in churches, schools and businesses for more than 20 years.

Admission is $20 for dinner. Call 630-816-7612 or email to wcginc@aol.com for dinner reservations.

"Leaving Lightly: Getting Your Affairs in Order So All You Leave Behind is Love" is at 6 p.m. at a meeting of Aurora Navy League Council 247 at Grandma's Table Restaurant, 1700 Douglas Road, Montgomery. A reception will be held at 5:15 p.m.

Breakfast fundraiser in Yorkville

The Yorkville Sons of the American Legion will hold its monthly breakfast fundraiser Sunday.

The buffet will consist of pancakes, biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, pastry, tomato and orange juice, milk and coffee.

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Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for those age 55 and over, $4 for ages 13 to 20 and $3 for ages 6 to 12.

Call 630-553-7117 for more information.

The monthly breakfast fundraiser is from 7:30 to 11 a.m. at the Yorkville American Legion, 9054 E. Veterans Parkway.

Wine tasting fundraiser in Oswego

The Fox Valley Festival Chorus will host "Cheese, Chocolate and Cabaret," a fundraiser for the group, Saturday in Oswego.

The event will feature vocal performances by members of the chorus. The group is under the direction of Mary Beth McCarthy. Bonnie Werthmann is the accompanist.

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Five wine tastings, a winery tour and light refreshments will be offered. A 50-50 raffle will also be held.

Tickets are $25 and will be sold at the door and from chorus members. Proceeds will benefit the chorus as it prepares for a performance tour of Italy in June 2017.

Additional information is available at www.foxvalleyfc.org or foxvalleyfc@gmail.com.

"Cheese, Chocolate and Cabaret" is from 7 to 9 p.m. at Fox Valley Winery, 5600 Route 34, Oswego.

Got Pulse? Columnist Joy Davis is looking for interesting, quirky and just plain funny stories about people and places in the Fox Valley. Email her at joydavis234@gmail.com.
An Aurora man told police investigators that he drank beer and liquor and smoked marijuana in the hours before an Oct. 7 fatal crash that killed a young girl, according to Kane County court records.

Prosecutors have charged 25-year-old Anthony Potochney with multiple felony counts, including aggravated driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident involving a death. Potochney's admissions of alcohol and drug use are mentioned in an affidavit filed by Aurora police investigators seeking access to vehicle data recorders in the Cadillac driven by Potochney, as well as the minivan occupied by 9-year-old Katie Jonak, her mother and two young friends.

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Police said Potochney was behind the wheel of the Cadillac around 9 p.m. Oct. 7 when it drifted into the oncoming lane of traffic on Broadway Avenue just south of Pierce Street and broadsided the van. Jonak's mother tried to avoid the collision with a sharp left turn but was unable to steer clear in time. Katie Jonak died from her injuries, while her friends, ages 10 and 12, suffered a fractured pelvis and bruised lung, respectively, documents show.

Potochney fled the crash scene but was caught near the High Street Bridge, police said. Police credited witnesses with identifying Potochney as the driver in the crash. He was taken to a hospital for minor injuries. While there, an Aurora police officer noted that Potochney refused to submit to testing that would determine his blood alcohol content. The officer noticed a smell of alcohol and marijuana coming from Potochney, in addition to his "slurred" speech, the officer's DUI report states, adding that Potochney "admitted to driving the offending vehicle."

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Potochney remains in Kane County Jail on $750,000 bail. He has filed a motion to have that amount reduced. His case is scheduled to return to court in December.

In May, Potochney successfully completed Kane County's Treatment Alternative Court in connection to a 2013 case in which he was charged with aggravated battery to an elderly person, court records show. Potochney was accused of punching a 66-year-old man in the head during an altercation inside an Aurora restaurant. His record also includes a fine after receiving a 2009 ordinance violation for underage drinking.

Dan Campana is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
In the last round of federal Investing in Innovation grants under President Obama, the competition intended to find and build up research-based educational interventions has borne its first full fruit.

Among the 15 grants announced this afternoon, Spurwink Services Inc.'s Building Assets, Reducing Risks , became the first program to work its way up through all three of i3s grant tiers. Started by a Minnesota guidance counselor with a $5 million development grant, it built enough evidence to win a $12 million validation grant in 2013. Today BARR won a 5-year, $20 million scale-up grant to expand to 50 more schools in California, Tennessee, Maine, Minnesota, and Texas.

BARR trains teams of teachers to quickly size up the needs and progress of every student on campus using weekly data on students academic and social development. During a visit to two districts piloting the program in Maine , teachers said the program helped them prevent average but faltering students from slipping off track:

When you have 100 kids on your caseload, you have to deal with the bigger issues in class, and the kid who comes 30 seconds late to class every day can slip under your radar, said Josh Tripp, who was a math teacher in the nearly 400-student Bucksport High School four years ago when the school district, located on the states far-north coast, volunteered to participate in a $5 million development grant in the first round of the federal Investing in Innovation program. I thought we were really good at interpersonal relationships with our kids, Tripp said, but you dont know your kids until you are talking about them every week.

The i3 program, the only one of the Obama administrations stimulus-era programs to be authorized under the Every Student Succeeds Act, may face an uncertain funding future under a President Trump . But the current round of $103 million grants has all been forward funded for the next three to five yearsprovided they find private matching money by the end of December. That is likely to protect the i3 grantees from funding battles later.

Fifteen programs were selected from a pool of nearly 400 applicants. The National Writing Project also moved from a validation to a scale-up grant, winning just under $20 million to expand in 15 states. The validation grants included: $12 million for Texas A&M University, slightly less than $12 million for the Fresno County, Calif. office of education, and $9.3 million for Uncommon Schools. It also included 10 $3 million development grants .

Educators are constantly developing new ideas to better assist their students, and i3 empowers educators to develop these approaches into practices that can benefit schools and districts across the country, said U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. in a statement on the awards.

Photo: Science teacher Andrea Froburg, math teacher Jessica Cutliffe, and special educator Aimee Hall, from left to right, review a students file in a Building Assets-Reducing Risks meeting at Noble High School in North Berwick, Maine. Noble is testing the BARR program with i3 funding. Source: Sarah Rice for Education Week.

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Kay Keating, left, and Carol Bradtke sort and wrap diapers for the SouthWest Area Diaper Depository for Little Ends, a diaper bank. (Mike Nolan / Daily Southtown)

On a good day, the living room of Kathy Rogers' Palos Park home is piled high with packages of disposable diapers.

It's the result of a successful diaper drive, with the diapers going to local social service agencies, which will get them into the hands of needy parents.

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When the room is empty, that means maybe somewhere in the south or southwest suburbs a baby is going to spend a day, or perhaps longer, in a dirty diaper.

In the two years since SouthWest Area Diaper Depository for Little Ends, or SWADDLE, was founded, the nonprofit has collected 130,000 disposable diapers  relying on diaper drives and fundraisers  for agencies such as Respond Now in Chicago Heights and Together We Cope in Tinley Park.

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The diaper bank got its start a few years ago when Tinley Park resident Kay Keating read an article about how many families struggle to cover the cost of diaper wipes, which are not allowable purchases for families relying on government aid programs. Keating went to the National Diaper Bank Network website to find out more.

Friends with Rogers through church, Keating called her suggesting they work together to organize a diaper drive. Keating said she knew she wanted to, beyond a one-off drive, create something that could bring a steady supply of diapers and wipes for families in need. Rogers is SWADDLE's chairman and Keating vice chairman  part of a seven-member board.

Keating said she and other board members have heard how access, or lack of access, to diapers can impact children and their families. Babies don't get changed as often as needed, and families will try to clean and reuse disposable diapers, she and Rogers said.

"Health problems are a big issue," Keating said, with babies suffering severe diaper rash or urinary tract infections from being in a wet diaper for prolonged periods.

Beyond that, there are potential development issues for babies, Rogers said.

"They're not exploring their world, they're not exploring their fingers and toes because they're so uncomfortable," she said.

Diapers can cost $70 to $80 a month, and families that don't have broadband internet access can miss out on online diaper deals. Rogers said families might not live near a big box retailer or warehouse club, where they can get a better price on diapers and wipes, instead having to purchase them, at a premium, at a corner grocery or convenience store.

Earlier this year the White House noted that that the poorest families with infants use 14 percent of their income for diapers alone  an average $936 per child each year. By contrast, many higher income families pay less than half that amount.

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The Obama administration earlier this year challenged online retailers, diaper makers and nonprofits to come up with solutions to address the diaper gap. In response, online site Jet.com said it would offer to diaper banks packages of diapers at a reduced cost and ship orders for free. SWADDLE just got its account with Jet set up, and Rogers said it will go a long way toward stretching the cash donations the nonprofit gets.

"That's going to make a huge difference," she said.

Regular diaper drives can bring in thousands of diaper donations for SWADDLE, which end up taking temporary residence in Rogers' home until they can be distributed to local agencies. The nonprofit hopes to be able to use space at the Bridgeview business where she works as the new diaper depository.

St. Elizabeth Seton parish in Orland Hills has hosted a number of diaper drives, with one last fall bringing in more than 10,000, and St. Lawrence O'Toole parish in Matteson last fall collected 4,000 diapers and more than 1,200 wipes.

As part of homecoming activities at St. Xavier University in Chicago, SWADDLE was able to collect nearly 11,000 diapers. Rogers and board members Candace Ramirez and Carol Bradtke are SXU alumni, and Bradtke is vice president of the university's national alumni association.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

St. Rita of Cascia High School students and Queen of Martyrs junior high students collected about $1,300 to help purchase diapers, and SXU faculty and staff also made diaper donations, Rogers and Bradtke said.

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SWADDLE board members and volunteers will break down diapers collected at the drives into packs of ten, which are wrapped in plastic and labeled to indicate the size. Sizes four, five and six are the ones most requested from the agencies the nonprofit works with.

Those diapers collected at St. Xavier were quickly out the door of Rogers' home, and not having a consistent flow of diapers to ensure the social service agencies it works with are regularly supplied remains an obstacle, she and other directors said.

"We envision being able to meet that need some day," Bradtke, a Tinley Park resident, said.

Rogers said SWADDLE is, to try to get a constant flow of supplies, encouraging "recurring giving," with donors regularly dropping off packages of diapers. Rogers said that while "it's great having diaper drives," the group would like to see more donations of cash, allowing SWADDLE to "get diapers when we need them and in the size we need."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

mnolan@tribpub.com
Ahmed Rehab, center, Executive Director of the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, holds a press conference there on Nov. 9, 2016, to comment on the implications of the election victory of Donald Trump. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

Muslim Americans, who were a frequent target of Donald Trump's divisive rhetoric throughout his presidential campaign, expressed surprise and disappointment with his election victory Tuesday, but said they would not jump to conclusions about what a Trump presidency might mean for them and their families.

"I was a little shocked, concerned, worried," said Western Springs resident Nader Zughayer, who went to bed around midnight Tuesday, before the election was called, because he couldn't stomach the impending result. "But, as of now, the only thing we can do as a community is support the president, hope for the best, and if you don't like it, next time, if you didn't vote, get out and vote."

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Zughayer's gracious, wait-and-see sentiment mirrored that of numerous Muslims interviewed Wednesday morning across the Southland .

"It's foolish for anyone now to stand up and try to pretend to know how [Trump] is going to govern," said Safaa Zarzour, superintendent of the Universal School, an Islamic school in Bridgeview, and chairman of the Council on American Islamic Relations in Chicago. "There are signs both ways, and so, most people have the wait-and-see attitude."

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Zarzour, who emigrated from Syria some 30 years ago to attend school in the United States, said he tried to reassure Universal School's student body during an assembly Wednesday morning that, despite Trump's campaign rhetoric about banning Muslim immigration to the United States, America is still a country of laws with a constitution.

"He is not governing Somalia, not governing a lawless place," Zarzour said. "He's governing a country that has a constitution, that has institutions, civil society. A country that has struggled to reach better places constantly, and not cheaply, with sweat and blood, whether it's the civil rights movement or whether it's the suffrage movement before that.

"And it will continue," he said of Americans' struggle for a more perfect union. "We, as a community, will basically continue to do what we are doing. We are a community that is about family, about faith, about working hard, about earning your money every day to feed your family, and we will just continue to do that."

Zarzour said he also thought it important, due to students' concerns over Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric, to remind them that they were Americans, whose faith did not make them less of an American than any other citizen.

"We wanted to reassure them that 'You are an American,' and don't let anybody make you feel inferior," he said he told them, "and use your brains and your rights as a citizen to basically make sure that you have a place in this country."

A woman walks into Aqsa School in Bridgeview on Nov. 9, 2016. (Zak Koeske / Daily Southtown)

Tammie Ismail, the principal of Aqsa School, an all-girls Islamic junior high and high school in Bridgeview, said she also spent much of the day reassuring concerned students that Trump's election would not mean the deportation of their families or the loss of their agency to effect change as Muslim Americans.

"We talked a lot about the idea of our democratic process and that we had checks and balances and that no one person can hold ultimate power," said Ismail, who stressed to students that the foundational concepts of the United States, such as freedom of speech and religion, would not change.

"I just don't want my students to lose their sense of hope, or to lose faith that they can be an integral part of the system and of their greater community," she said.

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Ismail said she had made a concerted effort throughout the campaign season to assure students that there were non-Muslim members of the community who stood with them, citing a Catholic woman who showed up at the school unannounced with flowers during an especially low point in the campaign to show a little interfaith solidarity.

"I am very cognizant of sharing these experiences with my students so they realize that in our community there are many people who believe in coming together and celebrating our differences and not being divisive," Ismail said.

Zarzour attributed Trump's appeal to the fear some Americans feel over the country's changing demographics and said that many "good meaning white Americans" voted for Trump out of that fear.

He expressed surprise, however, that in today's day and age, that sort of appeal remains convincing to so many people.

"I thought that that kind of politics and playing to fear were over in America," he said. "I thought that we were beyond that."

Nihad Hannoun, who moved to the U.S. from Palestine in 1995 and now lives in Tinley Park, also was shocked and disappointed by Trump's victory, which has caused America to lose some of its luster for him.

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"I never thought it was going to come to this point, that somebody like Trump could be a president of this country," Hannoun, who drives a cab in Chicago, said. "It was sad to see this country go into this direction because growing up you always dreamed to come here."

At an afternoon news conference Wednesday, the head of the Council on American Islamic Relations' Chicago chapter expressed his "personal shock," at Trump's victory, and pledged to form alliances with other groups to organize and fight back against any attempts to make Trump's campaign rhetoric a legislative reality.

"I'm very concerned as a Muslim," Ahmed Rehab, CAIR's executive director, told reporters. "I'm concerned about a candidate who is now going to be president who said on the campaign trail he wants to ban all Muslims en masse just because they're Muslim."

Despite Trump's calls for unity after his Election Night victory, CAIR officials said the Muslim community has many misgivings about a candidate they say fearmongered and scapegoated minority communities.

Rehab, who at different points referred to the president-elect as a "boastful misogynist and sexual predator" and a "detached billionaire" who was similar to a third world dictator, said Trump's rhetoric had caused major concern within the Muslim-American community, which is growing increasingly disenfranchised and mistrustful of the government.

Zarzour said that while most Muslims are not naive to the fact that many Americans hold anti-Muslim beliefs, Trump's campaign rhetoric had mainstreamed intolerance of Muslims in the U.S.

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He believes Trump will be blamed for any flare-ups of violence and hate speech directed at Muslims in the coming years, but doesn't anticipate that an increase in outward anti-Muslim speech will necessarily cause rates of homegrown radicalization to grow among young Muslims.

"My contention is that the Muslim community in the United States is far more mainstream and less radical than any other group there is, more law abiding," he said. "In part, because a lot of people feel like they need to prove something, because of the media, because of the rhetoric, and I don't see that changing."

Despite the divisive rhetoric, Zarzour and other Muslims interviewed are holding on to hope that Trump's demonization of wide swaths of the country's minority population was a political tactic, an effort to rile up his base supporters that is not indicative of his actual beliefs.

"It may be that his bark is a lot worse than his bite," said Zarzour, who does not view Trump as an unreasonable ideologue. "That he's, again, throwing the red meat at his people, but, he, as a businessman knows he has to try to deal. He knows that he has to try to govern this country. He knows he has to deal with the world outside."

Mohamad Khawaja, a 55-year-old Chicago Ridge resident who works in retail, agrees and believes that Trump's past promises about his plans for immigrants and the Muslim community are likely fantasy.

"I believe he doesn't mean 90 percent of what he said," said Khawaja, who suspects much of the rhetoric was merely campaign promises.

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Khawaja called Trump "unpredictable," and not in a good way. The millionaire reality TV star and real estate mogul is all about money and business, he said.

"I don't think he cares about people," Khawaja said.

While most Muslims interviewed by the Daily Southtown said they, like most Muslims they knew, feared a Trump presidency and actively supported Hillary Clinton, the community is by no means monolithic in its beliefs.

Dr. Raad Rashan, 64, said he supported Trump during the campaign, even though he didn't vote in the election.

The Iraqi-American doctor, who lives in Burr Ridge and has offices in Bridgeview, agrees with Trump's criticisms of Obamacare and said his practice had lost money since the health care exchanges were established. He hopes the president-elect follows through on promises to repeal it.

Rashan, who is originally from the city of Mosul, said he wants to see what Trump will do to fix the mess left by the war started under the George W. Bush administration and by the troop pull-out under President Barack Obama's watch.

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"We are witnesses to history for what he's going to do," Rashan said.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

In the event that Trump does indeed double down on the aggressive anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment he expressed at times during his campaign, Zarzour believes minority communities will be ready to respond accordingly.

"The silver lining is that, at least with Trump, you have so many people placed in a broad brush category  immigrants, Latinos, African-Americans, Muslims -- that's a pretty decent front that you have in front of you, and for them to stand together would be hard to ignore, for Trump or anybody."

Zughayer, who grew up in Oak Lawn, said a Trump presidency makes him fear for the fate of the entire world, and especially for his children's futures, but agrees that Trump deserves a chance.

"He didn't do anything yet, so I mean, it might not be the popular answer, but you gotta give him a chance and see what happens," he said. "And then based on what he does and the things that he does, if you need to mobilize and it can make a difference, then by all means mobilize."

Daily Southtown freelance reporter Nick Swedberg and Chicago Tribune reporter Will Lee contributed.

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@ZakKoeske
George Quebbeman (left) and George De Jong recently found out that they both were stationed in the India-Burma-China theater at the same time during World War II. (Gary Middendorf / Daily Southtown)

George De Jong's favorite personal World War II story is the one about the U.S. Army writing off his entire unit as lost at sea.

When they learned of their demise, recalled the 98-year-old retired physician, "We were sleeping in tents in North Africa."

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De Jong arrived in the coastal town of Oran, Algeria, on Armistice Day, 1943. The 25-year-old newly graduated medic with the U.S. Army Air Corps had been told the site near Gibraltar was a temporary stopping off place. But as the months dragged on, he began to wonder if he'd ever get to his destination in the India-Burma-China theater.

"We slept in a tent throughout the winter," he recalled. "It gets cold there, too."

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Finally, his company's major inquired as to when the 198th Infantry was to ship out.

"He came back and told us that he'd been told, 'Oh, the 198th shipped out two months ago and they sunk, lots of casualties," he said.

"The U.S. Army made an awful lot of mistakes," he said. "But the Germans must have made more because we won the war."

Sharing war stories

The eyewitness accounts of veterans are an endemic part of American history, which is why libraries across the country, under the direction of the U.S. Library of Congress, are gathering personal accounts of veterans through film, audio, correspondences and visual materials.

The Veterans History Project aims to preserve and share those stories for years to come, said Linda Conrath, reference librarian with the Orland Park Public Library.

"It's a way to document history and to keep these stories alive," Conrath said.

De Jong's story is among 25 that have been gathered so far by the Orland Park facility, which has chosen to videotape each account.

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The interviews are being conducted both at the library and on site, she said.

"We go to Smith Crossing (continuing care retirement community) once a month," she said.

That is where they met De Jong.

Conrath said the project's storytelling process is relatively simple.

George Quebbemen holds up a photo of himself taken after he entered the Army. He was stationed in Calcutta, India during World War II with the U.S. Army Calvary Retraining Center. (Gary Middendorf / Daily Southtown)

"We have general guidelines and all of the videos have to be at least a half hour," she said. "It's funny, almost every one of them starts with, 'Well, my story won't last that long.' But once they get started, they do. No matter who they are, their story is unique."

In addition to giving a copy of each interview to the participant and keeping one in the respective library's collection, a copy also is sent to the Illinois State Library and the U.S. Library of Congress, Conrath said.

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"Just listening to them is so fascinating," she said. "We had a woman who was a phlebotomist in the Army. Her story was wonderful."

Another young man who served in a recent war described how he suffered extensive shrapnel injuries when his jeep blew up, she said.

"He was lucky to be alive," she said.

"You might watch these things on the news but when you hear someone talk about their personal experience," she said, "it shines a new light on everything."

Crossing paths

De Jong, who went on to help start Lawn Medical, first in Englewood and then in Oak Lawn, has lived at Smith Crossing since November of 2004.

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Until this past month he had no idea that fellow resident, George Quebbeman, had also served in the India-Burma-China theater during World War II.

"We learned about each other's service through this project," said Quebbeman, who served as a Buck Sergeant in the 275th Military Police Service Company, predominantly in Calcutta.

Though De Jong the officer and Quebbeman the enlisted man never encountered each other while on their tours of duty, they told similar tales about what life was like for the soldiers working on support teams.

"The poverty in Calcutta was incredible," Quebbeman said. "They would come by and pick up dead bodies at night and put them in a garbage can."

He recalled how his major would take extra food to Sister Teresa's mission and how, one time, he argued with a nun who'd accused him of stealing hospital beds after he tried to donate them.

"I explained to her they came from the Army, that we owned them, but we were breaking down the hospital," he said.

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Quebbeman, who has lived at Smith Crossing with his wife Pat since 2012, was drafted while he was still a student at Morgan Park High School. He got a deferment so he could graduate that June. By July 14 of 1944, he was en route to Fort Sheridan and shortly after to Fort Riley, Kan., where he was trained to be a mounted rifleman.

"Then I was assigned to an MP service company. We took rations and materials and arms to Northern India and Burma, en route to China," he said. "A lot of stuff flew out of Dum Dum Airport for China."

He said he also helped train Chinese soldiers to fight the Japanese.

Though he never saw combat, he said he faced other kinds of battles with his fellow soldiers.

"I remember, right after I got there, I had to serve on town patrol. They wanted somebody to walk with this (African-American) soldier. I said, 'Fine.' But when I got back to the mess hall, some of the guys that I had lived with wouldn't talk to me because I was hanging with that black guy. It made me angry," he said.

"I was raised in a household in which everybody was considered good  no matter your color or what church you went to  until you proved you weren't."

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George Quebbeman (left) and George De Jong recently found out that they both were stationed in the India-Burma-China theater at the same time during World War II. (Gary Middendorf / Daily Southtown)

Quebbeman said his color blindness would serve him well in later years as he made a career in the building industry on Chicago's South Side and in its southern suburbs.

After the war ended, Quebbeman said he and a few other guys had to stay on until they earned enough points to go home. He was in India during the Calcutta riots of 1946, when Hindus and Muslims clashed.

"We had various escorts who were killed by the civilian populace," he said. "I know of one guy from our organization that was killed."

The locals, he said, "didn't like us there but they loved us there because we gave them jobs."

He recalled one man who worked for him.

"Provo about 30 years old, married, a farmer who'd come down to Calcutta. I hired him. We paid him 10-12 rupees a month, plus food. Most of the (locals) slept in the street. The poverty was unbelievable," said Quebbeman, who later would return to the Chicago area, marry, raise four children and settle in Oak Lawn.

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De Jong, who served many months in Dhaka (now the capital of Bangladesh) called the poverty there "shocking."

"I worked in a hospital ward," he said. "But with the Air Force (Air Corps at the time), if there's a casualty they go to the mortuary, not the hospital. In the Air Force, they don't lose limbs, they lose lives."

Still, he said, his hospital treated its share of malaria, dengue fever and cystic diseases caused by poor quality drinking water. He was sent to a hospital in Calcutta specifically to learn about tropical diseases.

A graduate of the University of Michigan medical school, De Jong worked in internal medicine until he retired. He and his wife Agnes lived for many years in Evergreen Park, raising three children, which led to six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. He lost his wife of more than 50 years in 1996.

Keeping history alive

When he looks back on his military service, De Jong said, "I have mixed feelings. I learned stuff. I had some triumphs and some defeats. But it was not exciting at all compared to what the infantry guys went through. At that time, they were still digging foxholes and living out of backpacks."

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Mostly, he said: "When you reflect, you think about the things you lost. At that time we had prop planes. You couldn't see those propellers when they're zipping around. You just couldn't see them. They were just a blur. One of my nurses walked into one of those. It just cut her brain in half. You get attached to these people. You work with them, they're your friends. It was shocking."

Though both men insist their stories are "not all that interesting," they agreed that the opportunity to share them was most welcome.

"There are all kinds of stories," Quebbeman said. "A lot of them we don't know the endings to."

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

He retold a tale about the night a British soldier approached him and confessed he was deserting so he could be home with his dying mother.

"I went upstairs to my footlocker and pulled out, I don't know, 20 or 30 rupees so he could get on the train to Bombay," he said. "I never found out if he made it or not."

Today, Quebbeman, who is commander of the Chicago Basha, a local India-Burma-China veterans association, said he hears bits and pieces of war stories all the time.

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"They're all different, but they're all important," he said. "I don't think people know what being in the service means. To some it was a pain in the butt, but to others, it was an honor.

"This (Veterans History) Project is terrific," he said. "It's an honor, like the Honor Flight. We need history to live on."

dvickroy@tribpub.com

Twitter @dvickroy
President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Vice President-elect Mike Pence as he gives his acceptance speech during his election night rally Nov. 9, 2016, in New York. (John Locher / AP)

The people have spoken.

I thought a majority of Electoral College voters would reject Donald Trump because of his abrasive character. I expected Hillary Clinton to win because of her experience and qualifications. I was wrong.

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I underestimated the numbers of voters unhappy with the status quo and willing to go with Trump because he represents change. I get it now. I'm sorry for not being a better listener sooner.

I'm a columnist who covers Chicago's south suburbs. It's a diverse area. You have solidly red areas where Republicans do well. You also have deep blue territories where Democrats do well. As an opinion writer, I know my views aren't going to appeal to all parts of the audience all the time.

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In this election, the side I chose lost. I congratulate the victors. I'm still an independent moderate. Illinois is like two different states, and I-80 is often considered the dividing line. This election was as much a referendum on rural vs. urban values as anything else.

I was wrong to think of Trump supporters as nothing more than angry, racist chauvinists railing against establishment elites in media and government. I get it now. In addition to immense dislike for Clinton, Trump owes his election to people protesting welfare, economic globalization and the erosion of traditional family values.

I think electing Trump is like poking a bear, and I underestimated the number of people willing to take that chance. The thing about being in a group chased by a bear is you don't have to be the fastest. You just don't want to be the slowest.

Reaction to Trump's election ranges from glee to resigned acceptance to despair. On Wednesday, Clinton and President Barack Obama delivered speeches in which they were gracious in defeat. They took the high road.

"Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead," Clinton said.

"We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country," Obama said.

Many appealed for unity, but I'll be surprised if the country unifies. I expect Democrats in Congress to try to obstruct the Trump agenda, and if things don't improve in a hurry they could regain legislative majorities in the 2018 midterm elections.

Maybe some establishment Republicans will side with Democrats across the aisle, and Trump's election will actually lessen some of the partisan gridlock in Washington, D.C.

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If anything, this election showed that anger, when channeled into votes, equals power. I don't expect that anger to subside.

Republicans will have control of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of federal government. It will be interesting to see to what extent Trump delivers on promises he made to his supporters.

Will he build a wall and have Mexico pay for it? Will we have "extreme vetting" of Muslims trying to enter the country? How many of America's 11 million illegal immigrants will be rounded up and deported?

He's vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare and to withdraw U.S. support of the Paris agreement on climate change. He's criticized the nuclear deal with Iran, trade agreements and other foreign policy decisions. He's pledged to rebuild the American military and to destroy the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

I believe Trump's success as president will be measured in economic terms: Jobs, taxes, the deficit. He built his base by promising a better life. He was very good at criticizing the status quo.

Soon Trump will be the status quo, and if his critics don't like the way things are going they can blame him. Will he really Make America Great Again? He was short on policy specifics during his campaign. What will he do when he takes office in January? To what extent do his supporters expect him to actually try to achieve his campaign promises?

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Trump billed himself as the savior of forgotten Americans. He said what many wanted to hear. Half the country believed him, or at least felt he deserved a shot. He won states he wasn't expected to win, like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

His supporters included deplorable white supremacists, but they also included a lot of ordinary folks who feel disenfranchised.

A lot of us in the news business misread the biggest story of our lives. Mainstream journalists are high on the list of villains in this election, along with establishment politicians and Wall Street bankers.

We didn't get it. We were too preachy, too high-and-mighty. We didn't listen well enough to the working-class folks struggling to make ends meet.

Filmmaker Michael Moore called it, but I was too out of touch to see America as he does.

Yet, the signs are there, plain as day, all over the south suburbs. I whistled past the empty storefronts and vacant lots up and down Cicero Avenue. I turned a blind eye to the blight and economic hardship people are experiencing.

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Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

I placed too much importance on political correctness. I condemned the ridiculous and shocking things Trump said, as if I was morally superior. I'm not. I get it now.

I'm not sorry I championed decency and character. I am sorry by how badly I misread the mood of the people. Instead of condemning Trump as a bully I should have tried harder to understand his broad appeal.

The next four years should be interesting, to say the least. I look forward to robust expressions of views from all sides. I have faith in the rule of law, and that public officials will be held accountable. I trust the system of checks and balances our Founding Fathers built into the Constitution will withstand a strongman leader certain to test the bounds of his authority.

As for me, I pledge to be a better listener. I'll remain most interested in local concerns injustices and inequities affecting everyday life in the south suburbs. I'll continue to call 'em like I see 'em.

Hopefully, my vision improves.

tslowik@tribpub.com

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Twitter @tedslowik
The wailing and gnashing of teeth over the fall of Hillary Clinton positively demonstrates the smug certainty "progressives" had in a Democratic victory. I've heard the media covered liberal commentary about the mistake that is Donald Trump. Well, it sounds to me like they feel Clinton would be in if we Trump voters weren't so stupid. Sad fact for them is the the system worked as intended. Progressives, this is a democratic system of government, intended to reflect the will of the people. The result didn't fit your desired outcome, but it did reflect an outcome as the Founding Fathers intended.

Tom, Evergreen Park

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I've already lived through three of the worst presidents in history  Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. Looks like I'll have to do it one more time.

Greg, Frankfort

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Like it or not, there are winners and losers, you don't always get a trophy for participating. To all the protesters, just accept that your gal lost just as everybody else did in the last two elections and stop being cry babies.

Kudos to Ted Slowik for his apology in the Daily Southtown. As a Hillary Clinton backer, he graciously conceded that he misread why people were so irate and were so distrustful of the "establishment." He pledged to be a better listener and have a clearer vision of our feelings. Way to go, Ted. Then we had Kathleen Turner's opinion in the same issue. She still doesn't get or accept it. As all Democrats, she denies the facts, always blames others and tries to scare the people into voting for them. According to her, "Trump didn't win; Clinton lost it." Deny; blame and scare. The Democratic voters are finally realizing that the only time their politicians are visible is at election time when they "scare" them for their support through "blame" others or use race as Turner did. Bob, Oak Forest

What kind of people support Hillary Clinton? There were protests across the big cities and on college campuses of America. Students have burned flags and protesters use vile, filthy language. One Donald Trump supporter was beaten in Chicago. Lot of low-life, if you ask me.

To all of the actors and actresses that are leaving America when Donald Trump was elected: Canada doesn't want you.

Isn't everyone's vote supposed to count? If you voted in Illinois for Donald Trump, your vote did not count because all of the electoral votes from Illinois went to Hillary Clinton. Zero; zilch, no votes for Trump counted. Isn't this illegal? The majority of the people in the U.S. voted for Clinton, but Trump was chosen to be president even though he had fewer votes than Clinton. We elect all our other elected officials with the popular vote and whoever gets the most votes wins. The people have spoken, Clinton got the most people to vote for her. She should be the next president, not Trump. What a stupid and ridiculous system.

What's Speak Out?

Speak Out allows readers to comment on the issues of the day. Email Speak Out at speakout@southtownstar.com or call 312-222-2427. Please limit comments to 30 seconds or about 120 words and give your first name and your hometown.
Deerfield High School was placed in what police called "secure-building mode" for a brief time Wednesday morning after a student made a threat.

Just after 9 a.m. police responded to Deerfield High School after a threat was made by a student, police said in an alert.

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The school was then placed in secure-building mode while officers located the student, police said. After the student was located, police determined that the threat was false.

The student was taken into custody and the incident is still being investigated, police said.
Kane County board members rescinded a March vote rejecting a plan for a drug and alcohol abuse treatment facility in the old Glenwood Academy property in Campton Township. (Gloria Casas / The Courier-News)

Kane County board members rescinded a March vote rejecting a plan from Maxxam Partners for a drug and alcohol abuse treatment facility in the old Glenwood Academy property in Campton Township

The move allows the developer to bring its plan back to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a new hearing.

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Maxxam Partners' zoning petition  for a 120-bed private alcohol and substance abuse treatment facility at the former boys and girls' school at 41W400 Silver Glen Road  was listed on Tuesday's County Board agenda, but the vote came as a surprise to County Board member Barbara Wojnicki.

"The board never rescinds votes on petitions," said Wojnicki, who has been on the board for 18 years.

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Maxxam Partners' proposed treatment center, called Remedies Chicago, would lay within her district. "This is the biggest issue happening in my district. The board acted very respectfully and made a decision on the finding of fact," Wojnicki said of the March decision, adding she felt it was the "correct decision."

Wojnicki and fellow county board members Drew Frasz and T.R. Smith cast "no" votes on a motion to rescind the vote and send the petition back to the zoning board for further consideration. In discussing the motion, Wojnicki said county board members should always be included in any negotiations between petitions and should be aware of any conditions set. The motion passed 17-3.

Maxxam Partners threatened the county with a $68 million lawsuit over comments the Zoning Board of Appeals commissioners made during numerous public hearings, Wojnicki said. However, the county has no control over comments by commissioners, she said.

The former Glenwood School property is currently zoned F1, farming, county records show. And the developer wants zoning to allow for the treatment facility. Dozens of Campton Township property owners testified at numerous Zoning Board of Appeals hearings in opposition of the project. Zoning Board of Appeals commissioners rejected the plan as did the county board at a March 8 meeting.

County Development Committee Chairman Kurt Kojzarek said the developer has a year to reintroduce the plan and the county decided to allow the petition to come before the county four months earlier than the full year.

Kojzarek had not heard what, if any, changes Maxxam made to its proposal. The entire plan will again be reviewed by the Zoning Board of Appeals, he said.

"Any potential lawsuit had no bearing on" the county's action, Kojzarek said.

Maxxam's attorney, Andrew Kolb of Vanek, Larson and Kolb in St. Charles, did not comment Tuesday. He did announce the treatment center's name and said the developer bring the proposal before the Zoning Board of Appeals.

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Campton Hills Village President Harry Blecker was the only speaker at Tuesday's meeting about the topic. "Unless there are material changes to the petitions that the village has not been made aware of, the facts remain the same," he said. Blecker said the project would cause undue hardship on the village's police and fire resources as well as the county's.

It would also have a negative impact on the community, Blecker said. "It is our duty to vote in the best interest of the community and not be bullied by threats of lawsuits."

Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
Elgin's proposed 2017 budget would have a typical Elgin household paying $7.16 more per month to the city in 2017 than this year.

That was one of the points of discussion during the first City Council budget hearing for next year's document. Council members received copies of the budget late Monday as staff was still working until then preparing it, City Manager Rick Kozal said. The document went online Tuesday at cityofelgin.org/budget.

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Kozal said the meeting provided a road map and an opportunity to be informed when Council members opened their binders.

"There's a lot of pressure on this budget," Council member Toby Shaw said. "We're looking for every penny to save. I hope the public realizes that."

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The proposed increases were part of a broader discussion of the proposed $118 million general fund budget. According to the document, the amount is a 1.4 percent decrease from the 2016 year-end estimate.

The reasons for a small increase in property tax, Kozal and Chief Financial Officer Debra Nawrocki said, include a $2.1 million increase in public safety pension contributions required by state law, projected health insurance coverage increases that could be anywhere from 8 to 24 percent higher next year and budgeted up $1.5 million from this year, and $1.9 million in cost of living increases built into contracts with city employees. That increase would amount to paying $55 more per year on a home worth $171,000 next year compared to 2016  or up from $1,215 to $1,266 in property tax that goes to the city.

All told, Senior Management Analyst Aaron Cosentino said, on a home worth $171,000, in 2017, the owner would be paying $4.25 more per month to the city in property tax, $1.42 more per month on a water bill, another $1.03 per month in sewer rates and 46 cents more per month for garbage pickup. (The water, sewer and refuse increases will be discussed at upcoming hearings.)

The plan would use about $3.5 million in reserves, while reserve levels would remain at about $37.9 million or 32 percent of general fund expenditures, Kozal said.

The reason for tapping into reserves is that both sales and income tax, which account for close to 30 percent of the general fund budget, have been down this year and are not expected to rise to levels seen in prior years.

The state not having its own budget for a second consecutive year means it is difficult for the city to do any long-term financial planning, Kozal noted in his letter of transmittal for the budget document.

According to the letter, the reduction of sales and income tax amount to approximately $2.5 million in lost revenue for the 2017 budget.

"This, combined with the growth in earnings and benefits due to pension and health insurance, are the primary drivers of the planned 2017 deficit," the letter states. "Utilizing fund balance as opposed to property taxes to make up the difference between revenues and expenditures shields the taxpayer from bearing the brunt of what may only amount to a temporary fluctuation (of) revenue streams."

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As for why the sales and income taxes are down, Mayor Dave Kaptain provided Council members with an email he received Wednesday morning from Illinois Municipal League Director Brad Cole. It noted "significant revenue reductions are being seen by municipalities" and that the Municipal League has been talking with state officials "about the inconsistencies and irregularities."

Cole wrote, "We have made clear to (the) Illinois Department of Revenue that prominent concerns remain about the process involved with handling state shared municipal revenues and public confidence is eroding quickly. I believe IDOR recognizes the situation this places them in and is working with us to resolve that problem."

The next budget hearing is set for 5 p.m. Wednesday before the regular council meeting at City Hall and will cover the utility fund and TIF funds. Another hearing is set at 5 p.m. before the Dec. 7 Council meeting and will cover public safety, parks and recreation and user fees. A final hearing is set at City Hall for the morning of Saturday, Dec. 10, with the budget set for adoption at the Council meeting Dec. 21.

mdanahey@tribpub.com
Republican president-elect Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech during his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, 2016, in New York City. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton in the presidential race has created concerns for Hispanic leaders and area social services.

"I am in shock as like many other people," said Jaime Garcia, executive director of the Elgin-based Centro de Informacion, a Hispanic social services nonprofit. "Never did I think that there was a legit chance that Trump would be elected. But now that he is, there are a number of questions that are raised."

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The most glaring concerns, Garcia said, revolve around two of Trump's most controversial proposals: deporting all undocumented immigrants and eliminating the executive order protecting children of undocumented parents, also known as Dreamers.

It is one thing if it was a campaign promise, Garcia said. It is another if the two become reality.

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Wellesley College students and supporters of Hillary Clinton Kumari Devarajan, of Washington, left, and Diana Castillo, of Elgin, wipe away tears as they watch televised election returns during a watch party on the campus Tuesday. (Steven Senne / AP)

Gretchen Vapnar, executive director at the Community Crisis Center in Elgin, said she is concerned about funding for social services in the wake of this week's presidential election.

"I'm always concerned about funding. With a change of administration  and some of the programs in question were ones championed by Democrats  I am worried what might get cut," she said Wednesday, following Trump's victory.

Garcia was attending a conference in Elgin on Wednesday morning with other nonprofit organizations. They, too, were as stunned, he said.

"Most everybody that I was talking to was in disbelief," Garcia said. "I'm talking about both Hispanics and Anglos."

Retired federal judge and Elgin resident Manuel Barbosa called Trump's campaign rhetoric "non-presidential."

"It was dismissive and insulting to a lot of people," said Barbosa, who was the first Hispanic judge in the Northern District of Illinois when appointed to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in 1998. "While there were some legitimate issues raised, demagoguery and scapegoating was insensitive to many. I hope that is behind us and hopefully it is abandoned."

"President Obama sort of asked everyone  and I think Hillary did, too  to give the new president-elect a chance to govern and approach his tenure with an open mind," he added. "I think that is an appropriate thing to do."

Vapnar said she hopes support continues for funding the Violence Against Women Act and the Victim of Crime act, support she said that has been strong the last eight years, particularly through Vice President Joe Biden.

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The center provides services to individuals and families in crisis because of domestic violence, sexual assault or economic/financial difficulties. It is one of the oldest domestic violence shelters in the state.

"I had an overwhelming reaction. I just hope those who did not vote for Mr. Trump behave in a way that we hoped his supporters would have behaved had he lost," she said.

Courier-News reporter Mike Danahey contributed.
For Evanston's Brad Armacost, the world is sharply divided between good and evil, Santa and Satan. He's probably the only person in town whose career has him contending demonic possession by night and immersed in the redemptive, joyful spirit of Christianity's biggest observance by day. So it goes when you're a leading player in Fox television's "The Exorcist" and Drury Lane's "A Christmas Carol."

Opening Nov. 16, "A Christmas Carol" stars Armacost as Ebenezer Scrooge in Drury Lane's annual Theatre for Young Audiences production. On "Exorcist," Armacost plays Bishop Egan, busy battling an infestation of demons in Chicago. It's Armacost's third year as Scrooge at Drury Lane, but the first time he's had to balance Charles Dickens' Christmas classic with a gig that involves going toe-to-cloven-hoof with Christmas's biggest hater.

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Then again, Scrooge is hardly a fan of Christmas himself, at least not at the onset of Dickens' beloved ghost story. "He goes home at the end of the day and the only thing that he can feel or think about is that he's one day richer. He's completely closed off from compassion and humanity," says Armacost. "If the most important thing in your life is a ledger, that's just sad."

Armacost is no stranger to Dickens' story of a miser who finds redemption after being shown the folly of his ways by a ghostly Christmas Eve visitation. He played Scrooge for three years at Chicago's Provision Theatre, and did several stints at the Goodman as Scrooge's much-abused assistant, Bob Cratchit. At Drury Lane, thousands of children have seen Armacost's Scrooge over the years. As a production aimed at young audiences, the show regularly sells out the 971-seat auditorium to busloads of school groups.

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"Looking out at all those kids sitting on the edge of their seats, that never gets old," says Armacost. "Maybe some of the younger ones won't leave with a thorough grasp of the language or Dickens' place in literature, but they get the story."

Director Scott Calcagno is also a "Christmas Carol" veteran. This is his seventh year helming the production at Drury Lane, an anniversary that also figures prominently in the story. When Marley manifests in Scrooge's bedchamber on Christmas Eve, it's on the seventh anniversary of the shackled ghost's death.

"When he shows up, the emotional stakes rise," Calcagno says. "Sometimes it takes something a little scary to teach us what we need to know."

It takes four ghosts to teach Scrooge what he needs to know: Marley is famously followed by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. While the novel has them all visiting over the course of a night, Drury Lane gets the job done in slightly over an hour. The abridgment, stress Armacost and Calcagno, doesn't mean there are any shortcuts in the story's emotional truths.

"This is a story that speaks to people no matter where they are in their lives," says Calcagno. "It tells us that it's never too late to change, to become more caring, more giving. Above all, it teaches us that while we're here, time is precious."

'A Christmas Carol'

When: Nov. 16-Dec. 23

Where: Drury Lane Theatre for Young Audiences, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace

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Tickets: $15

Information: 630-530-0111; Drurylanetheatre.com
During the lengthy political campaign, President-elect Donald Trump and his surrogates offered few comments about issues related to people with disabilities.

But the Trump campaign did answer some special education questions in a questionnaire

created by the American Association of People with Disabilities and the National Council on Independent Living, as part of a get-out-the-vote effort sponsored by those organizations.

Trump said that he would work to eliminate wasteful government programs and work with Congress on special education funding, among many other spending priorities. When it comes to issues such as making sure students with disabilities are exposed to challenging academics, that would be an issue best left to districts, his campaign said. From the questionnaire:

The federal government should have as minimal a role in local public education as possible. That said, the government should protect the civil rights of students with disabilities. There are civil rights mechanisms in place to do just that already, such as the federal court ruling that disabled children have a right to a free and appropriate education. The federal government enforces that ruling and my administration will enforce it when it is violated.

The campaign gave a similar response when asked about inclusion. The federal courts have already found that students with disabilities are entitled to a free and appropriate education. To the extent this ruling is not being properly carried out, I will be open to ensuring that it is.

The questionnaire states that Trump would be willing to consider a cabinet-led task force on bullying.

The campaigns answers came in mid-October, said Zach Baldwin, the director of outreach for the AAPD.

The topic garnered only brief mentions on the campaign trail. For example, at an Iowa rally in January, he told a woman with autism who asked about employment plans for people with disabilities that Were going to work on it. Youll be happy, just watch , reported the advocacy organization RespectAbility.

During the Republican National Convention in July, Trumps son Eric said: To single mothers, to families with special needs children, to middle-class families who no longer can afford medical benefits sufficient to cover their everyday needs, my father is running for you.

My colleagues at Politics K-12 have spoken with one of Trumps education-team transition members, who has said to expect a less expansive role for the Department of Educations office for civil rights. And they also report that Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina is running to be the chair of the House Education Committee, and that IDEA reauthorization is a top priority . The law was last reauthorized in 2004.
A third member of the Glencoe District 35 board will depart next year, as Marc Glucksman has been slated by the New Trier Caucus to run for a position on the New Trier High School Board of Education.

Glucksman, a professor and former board member at North Chicago's Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, has served on the District 35 board since 2012, according to the district's website. He said in a text message that he was honored to be slated.

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"I hope to bring my experience serving on the Glencoe District 35 board as well as the Board of Trustees of Rosalind Franklin University to bear on this position," Glucksman wrote. "Representing all of our stakeholders in the community, I pledge to not only aid in maintaining the academic excellence of New Trier High School but act as a steward in furthering the school's stellar reputation."

Also slated by the New Trier Caucus, according to its Facebook page, are incumbent District 203 president Greg Robitaille, who is seeking a second four-year term; Keith Dronen, a past president of the Wilmette school board; and Carol Ducommun, a Wilmette Village Board trustee.

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Three incumbents on the New Trier board  Al Dolinko, Malcolm "Mac" Harris and John Myefski - are stepping down after serving the traditional two terms.

Glucksman's departure creates a third open slot on the District 35 board. Earlier this year, board members Eddie Chez and Robert Bailey announced they would not seek another term on the seven-member board in next year's municipal elections.

Board member Julie Ackerman plans to seek reelection, and said after the Nov. 3 board meeting that she has applied to go before the Glencoe School Board Nominating Committee to seek an endorsement for a second term.

Also, Melissa Estes, who was appointed earlier this year to the board to fill a vacancy following a resignation, has said she would appear before the caucus in hopes of being elected to the rest of the term that expires in 2019.

Matt Robbins, a nominating committee co-chair, said his organization is currently interviewing eight candidates for the five available slots on the board.

Candidates for all positions may seek election independently, but traditionally those who want to serve on Glencoe boards seek the endorsement of the caucus.

David Leibson, co-chairman of the Glencoe Caucus, said he expects the entire slate of endorsed candidates for all village positions to be released by mid-November.

Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.
Listings are subject to change. Please call the venue in advance. To submit items to the calendar, go to newssunonline.com/community.

Monday

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Film Screening  "Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah": "Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah" explores the arduous 12-year journey that led to the creation of the French iconoclast's "Shoah," a nine-hour-plus examination of the Holocaust. Marking the 30th anniversary of the landmark documentary, the film features previously unseen outtakes and reflects on key moments in the 90-year-old auteur's life. Speakers: Adam Benzine, filmmaker;Lindsay Zarwell, archivist, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 7 p.m. Monday, North Suburban Synagogue Beth El, 1175 Sheridan Road, Highland Park, free, 847-433-8099

Rotary Club of Highland Park/Highwood: Join in fun community service projects and fellowship. Now accepting donations at every meeting for Moraine Township Food Pantry! 11:30 a.m. Monday, Highland Park Country Club, 1201 Park Ave. West, Highland Park, Donations accepted for Moraine Township Food Pantry, 847-562-1099

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Tai Chi: Promote serenity through gentle flowing movements performed in a slow focused manner with deep breathing. 12:15 p.m. Monday, Recreation Center of Highland Park, 1207 Park Ave. West, Highland Park, $12-$15, 847-579-4554

Trivia Night at Lake Bluff Brewing Company: All participants must be 21 and older and required registration begins on Sept. 7.Gather your friends and join the Lake Bluff Public Library stafffor Trivia Night at the Lake Bluff Brewing Company! Register your team of up to six people and get your thinking caps ready. 7 p.m. Monday, Lake Bluff Brewing Company, 16 East Scranton Ave., Lake Bluff, free, 847-234-2540

Kundalini, Meditation Gong Monday Nights Pulsation Yoga: If possible, close your eyes, focus them on the root of the nose, and observe the flow of breath  in and out, out and in. Not only will your mind become more still but your body will respond as well  pulse and blood pressure slowing, muscles relaxing, nerves calming. 6:45 p.m. Monday, Pulsation Yoga, 729 W State Rte 22, Lake Zurich, $18 drop in or regular class package, 847-989-7792

Monday Night ACoA Group: Adult Children of Alcoholics is a support group for adults who were part of alcoholic and other dysfunctional families while growing up. For more information, visit www.acoa-libertyville.org. 7 p.m. Monday, St. Lawrence Episcopal Church, 125 W. Church St., Libertyville, free, 847-362-2110

Knights of Columbus Bingo: Knights of Columbus is having weekly bingoas a fundraiser to help support Santa Maria church and the community. Knights of Columbus is a nonprofit family fraternal service organization. 6:45 p.m. Monday, Santa Maria Del Popolo Catholic Church, 116 N. Lake St., Mundelein, free, 847-566-8213

Mundelein and Vernon Hills Rotary Club: Weekly meeting to discuss community service projects and fellowship. Meetings are held at the restaurant each Monday. 12:15 p.m. Monday, Dover Straits, 890 E. US Highway 45, Mundelein, free, 847-949-1550

Managing Your Digital Photos: So you've scanned some old photos and/or taken new photos with your camera or smartphone? Now what? Learn about some options for where to keep them, how to organize them, and how to perform some very basic editing tasks with photos such as cropping, rotating, and re-sizing. Feel free to bring some of your own images on a "thumb" (USB) drive. 6:30 p.m. Monday, Vernon Hills High School, 145 Lakeview Parkway, Vernon Hills, $25, 847-247-4576

The Brave Way Self Defense Training for Women and Girls: No previous self-defense training is required to master the moves taught in class. The techniques taught are based on instinctive principles that don't require constant practice or years of training to use, and work regardless of your age, size, strength, speed or skill. Students under the age of 16 must attend with a paying adult. 7 p.m. Monday, Vernon Hills High School, 145 Lakeview Parkway, Vernon Hills, $25, 847-247-4576

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Filtering for Families Class In Vernon Hills: This class helps detail all the best options for keeping explicit online content out of your children's lives. Registration is required through District 128's Community Education Department's website. 7 p.m. Monday, Vernon Hills High School, 145 Lakeview Parkway, Vernon Hills, $25, 847-247-4576

Tuesday

Chair Yoga: Experience safe yoga movements and poses that build awareness of your body and breath. This three session series leaves participants relaxed and refreshed. All fitness levels are welcome. 2 p.m. Tuesday, Antioch Public Library, 757 Main St, Antioch, free, 847-395-0874

Tuesday book group: Enjoy aninformal discussion and refreshments. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Fox Lake District Library, 255 E. Grand Ave., Fox Lake, free, 847-587-0198

Change Your Netoworking Approach: By changing your approach, using different strategies and new tactics, along with a fresh mindset, you will see real, tangible results for your efforts. Learn how! 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Career Resource Center, 40 East Old Mill Road, Lake Forest, Free (for CRC Members); $20 (for non-members), 847-295-5626

Evening of Gratitude at Lake Forest Book Store: Join Lake Forest Bookstore and Nina Vallone for a Night of Gratitude. Studies show that people who regularly practice gratitude by taking time to notice and reflect upon the things they're thankful for experience more positive emotions, feel more alive, sleep better, express more compassion and kindness and even have stronger immune systems. Join Nina in this discussion, but please register to theLake Forest Book Store by calling. 6 p.m. Tuesday, Lake Forest Book Store, 662 N Western Ave., Lake Forest, free, 847-234-4420

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Lake County Retired Teachers Association: The speaker is Navy Commander Walter Dalitsch III, who was recently selected for promotion to Captain and is currently a hospital administrator at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Center. A graduate of the Barrington School system, this impressive representative of our proud navy has many stories and experiences to share. Noon Tuesday, Lambs Farm, 14245 West Rockland Road, Libertyville, $16 per person, 847-362-4636

PhotoShop Elements Layers: This class explains the use of Layers in Photoshop to add type and multiple pictures to make fliers, posters and other interesting projects. The class includes digital scrapbooking so that individuals can learn how to turn vacation trips and memorable moments into beautiful tabletop books. Students must be familiar with Windows basics and basic Photoshop Elements. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Vernon Hills High School, 145 Lakeview Parkway, Vernon Hills, $59, 847-247-4576

Hypnosis to Stop Smoking: Are you tired of being a smoker? Hypnosis is the easiest way to quit smoking, and it takes less than two hours. Participants receive a CD that they can listen to for relaxation and to remain a nonsmoker. Bring a pillow and/or blanket. Registration is required online through District 128's Community Education Department's websiteor by calling to register. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Vernon Hills High School, 145 Lakeview Parkway, Vernon Hills, $39, 847-247-4576

Basic Vegetarian and Vegan Cooking Vegetables: In this hands-on class attendeesprepare vegetables using a variety of techniques including steaming, blanching, simmering and stir-frying. Also, meal planning, shopping and time-saving shortcuts are discussed. Adults and teens are welcome. Register online through District 128's Community Education Department's website. 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Vernon Hills High School, 145 Lakeview Parkway, Vernon Hills, $39, 847-247-4576

Wednesday

Parkinson's Support Group for Caregivers: Individuals who are involved in the care of someone with Parkinson's can meet others who face similar challenges, gain emotional support, and discover ways to relieve caregiver stress. Led by Nina Afremow, L.C.S.W. For more information, call Nina Afremow. Noon Wednesday, Weinberg Community for Senior Living, 1551 Lake Cook Road, Deerfield, free, 847-236-7853

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2nd Annual Shop for the Children Vendor Fair: Your support is counted on, so that NA'AMAT can continue to provide quality daycare programs for over 18,000 children in Israel, creating safe and innovative learning centers! NA'AMAT welcomes all, and tuition is based on the family's ability to pay. Even with the sliding scale, many families live below the poverty line and cannot afford even the subsidized fees. 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sachs Recreation Center, 455 Lake Cook Road, Deerfield, free, 847-572-2600

Deerbrook Park Toastmasters Club: Improve public speaking, communication, and leadership skills. The Club meets the first and third Wednesday of every month. 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, Deerfield Public Library, 920 Waukegan Road, Deerfield, free, 847-537-6438

"A Christmas Story, The Musical": "A Christmas Story, The Musical" is a brilliant rebundling of Ralphie Parker's hilariously desperate quest for a Red Ryder Carbine-Action 200 shot range model air rifle into a musical, sure to become every bit the holiday favorite as the movie that preceded it. All of your favorite highlights are here  the Old Man's leg lamp, the tongue-on-a-flagpole, the bunny suit and all of Ralphie's extravagant daydreams! Bring the whole family! 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday, Citadel Theatre Company, 300 S. Waukegan Road, Lake Forest, $35 - $38, 847-735-8554

Ramp Up Your Job Search for the Holidays: This is presented by: Lauren Milligan, CEO and Founder of ResuMAYDAY. There are many reasons to stay active with job searches during the holidays.Learn holiday search tips that will keep you motivated when looking for employment. 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Career Resource Center, 40 East Old Mill Road, Lake Forest, Free CRC members; $20 nonmembers, 847-295-5626

Zumba Gold at the Lake Forest Rec Center: Zumba Gold is a crazy, fun dance exercise class without impact on the joints. It's for everyone. The fees are: $138 persession for members; $172-$207 per sessionfor non-members. 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, Lake Forest Recreation Center, 400 Hastings Road, Lake Forest, $138-$207 per session, 847-810-3935

Lake Forest Hospital's Mistletoes & Martini's Event: The festive party features cocktails, light bites and a drawing for assorted top tier items including Hamilton tickets, Lettuce Entertain You gift cards, a signature clutch by Peach Carr, a tie from Collared Greens and a Hermas scarf from Luxury Garage Sale. 6 p.m. Wednesday, Lake Forest Recreation Center, 400 Hastings Road, Lake Forest, $50 in advance, $60 at the door, 847-535-6111

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Quilting and More: Join friends for quilting and discussion. 9 a.m. Wednesday, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 29700 N St. Marys Road, Libertyville, free, 773-523-3838

FLSA Regulations Breakfast Seminar: During this presentation, you'll gain an understanding of how the new rules work, learn how the rules impact your business, and receive a five-step action plan for addressing them. 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, Waukegan Public Library, 128 North County St., Waukegan, free, 847-782-7268

Impacts of War on Women's Health: "Women at War": Rivendell Theatre Ensemble's "Women at War." Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center WomenHeart Support Network. Experience the stories of women who have served their country and returned from deployment to re-enter civilian life. "Women at War" is crafted from diverse rich and complex stories of real military service women. Networking Reception, WomenHeart Cardiologist Joan Briller, MD, Heart Health Screenings, Veterans Resources, After performance Town Hall & Panel Discussion. 4 p.m. Wednesday, Red Iguana, 454 N Green Bay Road, Waukegan, free, 224-610-1123
Xi'an International University Alumni and current English Teacher in China, Mei Ming, 26 (right), helps Aaliyah Perez, 5, of Grayslake, with Chinese paper cuttings during a July 2016 program at the College of Lake County in Grayslake. (Mark Kodiak Ukena / Lake County News-Sun)

The Grayslake campus of the College of Lake County wasn't what 19-year-old John Yu expected.

The Xi'an International University student said he was expecting the area to look more like Chicago, with people living closer together and more public transit, but he loved the nature all around and the more relaxing atmosphere.

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Yu was one of eight exchange students who came to the college for three weeks this summer, the first time the Chinese university has been able to recruit enough students to make the trip possible, according to their professor, Ruiqing Liu.

The College of Lake County has been sending students to Xi'an since 2008, and it opened an American cultural center using a U.S. State Department grant in 2012. The semesterlong program also led to the creation of several shorter trips for students who can't, for family or financial reasons, take a whole semester to study abroad.

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And for the students who can't study abroad at all, the college has also made recruiting international students a focus.

The college spent more than $19,000 last year to send its international recruiter and accompanying international office staff members to conferences and on recruitment trips to Canada, Vietnam and Thailand, as well as Denver, according to expense reports obtained by the News-Sun.

That amount has climbed over the past few years, records show.

In 2015, the college spent $8,800 to send its international recruiter and other staff to international education-themed conferences locally and in Boston, and it spent another $8,700 to send top-level administrators to China and Bahrain, according to the expense reports. The year before, the college spent $8,700 to send the international recruiter twice to Florida and once to Germany, as well as another $4,900 to send the college president and other top-level staff to Seoul, South Korea; Las Vegas; and Newport Beach, Calif.

Travel-related spending is set to climb this year by 10 percent, according to the 2016-17 budget. With the elimination of a full-time staff member, though, the CLC international center's overall budget is set to fall 17 percent, to just over $300,000, an amount that is more than covered by the tuition and fees paid by international students.

International students pay just shy of $5,000 per 12-credit semester compared to just over $1,300 for an in-district student, according to college records. This year, with 120 international students, that amounts to nearly $600,000 a semester.

But despite the spending, CLC has seen its international student population fall 10.4 percent, from 134 students in the fall of 2012 to 120 students this fall, according to college data. The number is the same as it was last fall but higher than the 105 international students enrolled in the spring.

The college's goal is to increase the international student population by 270 percent in the next three years, which would give CLC the state's largest international student population, according to its 2016-17 budget.

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More than 90,000 international students were enrolled in public community colleges nationwide in 2014-15, a 4.2 percent increase over the year before, compared to a 8.8 percent increase for bachelor programs, according to the most recent data available from the Institute of International Education.

Enrollment fluctuates more for community colleges than it does for four-year universities, international recruiter Tammy Mireles said. CLC sees some students coming for a full two years but also for single-semester English language training programs.

"Sometimes we have that perfect storm where, all at the same time, we have a large group of students (leaving). So even if we have a larger group coming in  say 40, 45 students  we still have that same or more going out," Mireles said.

The changing enrollment numbers could actually be a healthy sign, said Mara Andersen, executive director of Community Colleges for International Development.

Her organization connects community colleges and technical schools around the world, and she said every institution approaches its international program differently, based on the resources available to it, how community colleges are set up in their area, and the policies and priorities of their community.

CLC has "pretty robust recruitment," Andersen said, adding that it appears that it goes about its recruitment in a thoughtful way to ensure that the students are matched with the right institution.

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"When you see community colleges that have successful recruitment programs, it is because they have held that standard," she said. "It's because they're looking for the right match between the student and the institution, and the right match is only going to happen when you have a human involved."

Mireles goes on one or two recruiting trips a year to build relationships and to find new potential partner institutions, she said. CLC officials use data from organizations like the Association of International Educators and the Institute of International Education to decide where to focus their efforts, tracking where students are already coming from and where there is growth.

The college also recently invested in new software that will allow it to send digital brochures that can be translated into a variety of languages to potential contacts, according to Patrick Peyer, the college's dean of enrollment services. The college's website also offers information in 16 languages.

The college has also discussed building partnerships with international businesses with local ties, Mireles said.

"Asia is a huge market for us," Mireles said. "We have a lot of students from China, Vietnam, South Korea. We have natural connections in China already because of our study abroad program. Vietnam is also very popular with community colleges so, over time, we've seen a growth in Vietnamese students on campus."

About 50 of the college's 120 international students came from Asia this year, down from 80 students in the fall of 2012, according to the college's data.

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But one of the pride points for Mireles is the number of countries  44 this year  represented on campus, she said.

"We want to keep growing enrollment," she said. "They're being exposed to international students in the classroom, in classroom panel presentations, just (through) the community base here (with) friendships, even in the local community, (by) getting out in the community and talking to people."

Much of the challenge comes with explaining what community colleges are to students and families in countries that often don't have a strong equivalent, Peyer said. The guaranteed admission agreements CLC has with 19 four-year colleges and universities has helped because it gives prospective students a clear plan for their education.

In China, parents worry that because CLC doesn't set minimum test score requirements to get in, it's not as good of a school, said Liu, coordinator for Xi'an's international center. The Chinese system is very competitive by contrast, he added, so there can be a disconnect.

"This is a family conversation most of the time," Peyer said. "The student may want to study in the States, but the family is behind the scenes ensuring their safety and their finances and the quality of the education that they're going to get."

Angelo Schulz, 20, in his third semester studying business administration at CLC, met Mireles when she was in Germany in 2014.

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Schulz, who is from Rheinberg, Germany, said he had been thinking about studying in the U.S., but money was a concern after his parents divorced.

Mireles told him about community colleges, and it seemed like a perfect solution, he said, adding that he also looked at other community colleges in the Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles areas before settling on CLC.

"I wasn't really aware of community colleges before I met Tammy," Schulz said. "She told me about community colleges and how they are more affordable, since my parents are divorced and we really haven't had the money to go to a four-year institution. Community colleges would be more affordable than a four-institution, which are tremendously more expensive."

They kept in touch, and Mireles set up a Skype call with another German student already at CLC.

It made Schulz a lot more comfortable in making the leap, he said.

When students arrive in the U.S., a group meets them at the airport, takes them to their housing and makes sure they're settled in with food and water for the night, Mireles said. A customized orientation follows where they can meet faculty, the college's international student ambassadors and their own peer mentor, who has been emailing them ahead of their arrival.

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CLC's international office schedules events and other programs to keep them engaged on campus, academically advises them and answers any questions they have, she said.

International student ambassador Julia Lachkova, 19, of Odessa, Ukraine, said she was impressed by the level of support she received and the relationship between professors and students.

"It's like your second home," she said. "When you come to CLC, you meet those people who are always glad to see you, who always can support you if something goes wrong. If you have some difficulties with not only college classes but maybe psychological, you can always come and talk to them."

emcoleman@tribpub.com

Twitter @mekcoleman
Veteran Craig Reuse of Wildwood sits next to Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center curator Arielle Weininger on Nov. 8 to discuss the donation of his father's POW diary to the museum. (Yadira Sanchez Olson / Lake County News-Sun)

A diary belonging to World War ll veteran Lt. Harry Reuse was found by his family in his footlocker at his McHenry home after he died at age 90 in 2006.

The veteran pilot's seven children and stepchildren said they had no idea the diary existed, but after reading through it, they decided its content should be shared with future generations.

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On Tuesday, Reuse's son Craig, a volunteer veteran at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, handed his father's diary to Arielle Weininger, curator of the Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, during a modest ceremony at the Lovell Center.

Admitting that there were mixed feelings about giving away the precious family heirloom, Craig said his father had taught him to always do the right thing, even when it wasn't easy.

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"I'm doing this to honor my dad and for the public to have a chance to view this. I think it belongs to everyone," Craig said.

The diary's content focuses on the B-17 pilot's time in captivity.

Reuse was shot down on July 2, 1944, and imprisoned for almost 10 months at Stalag Luft lll, a German prisoner-of-war camp that housed captured servicemen from Allied air forces.

In great detail, Reuse's diary reveals what his life was like at the camp through written thoughts, drawings and poetry.

A few photos of his sisters and his wife Bernice, whom he met at a church youth group in his hometown Chicago, were inserted between pages.

"We have nothing like that in our collection," Weininger said.

At times Reuse's writings reveal he felt hopeful, even thankful.

A Nov. 30 entry reads:

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"'Thanksgiving' The day turned out very good  Went to the service in the morning, (since the chaplain is of the church of England, he only gave the prayer, we sang American hymns, and had the Col. and Major give the service.)

"We had a film come to the camp, and our room was lucky to get seats for this night  it was a good U.S. film 'The Spoilers' and not too old.

"I have much to be thankful for this year, for all that I have gained in spirit and mind since being here. For the comfort of knowing that the dear ones back home do not have to know what war is like, as these poor people over here, for knowing that Bernice is waiting and that the price of our waiting will make our future life much richer and fuller."

Other entries describe much more challenging moments, such as going days in the dark and having food rations get thinner and served less often.

Poems written by B-17 pilot Harry Reuse while imprisoned at a German camp during World War ll will be preserved at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center now that his diary has been added to its collection. (Yadira Sanchez Olson / Lake County News-Sun)

"We ran out of Red Cross food this week so we are now really hungry," reads one entry.

Craig said the diary confirmed what he's always known about his father.

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"My dad was a quiet man. He didn't express himself a lot. I was just in awe finding out about what he went through," Craig said. "I feel very honored to have a father who was a good man."

On Tuesday, Weininger sat next to Craig, examining the diary's authenticity.

After reading through its pages, Weininger was surprised to find many intricate drawings of maps of tunnels, the same tunnels that had been used by the more than 70 prisoners who escaped the camp and whose attempt at freedom inspired the film "The Great Escape" starring actor Steve McQueen.

Weininger said she was happy to be taking possession of the diary and thanked Craig for parting with it.

World War ll B-17 pilot Harry Reuse. (Reuse family)

"The majority of our collection deals primarily with items relating to the Jewish experience during World War ll," Weininger said. "We have very little that deals with American servicemen that were POW's in German camps."

Lt. Reuse's diary, along with newspaper clippings reporting Reuse's release on April 29, 1945, will be displayed at the museum.

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Weininger said the journal will also be used in an upcoming photography exhibit scheduled to open in 2018, which will highlight people and important objects related to the war.

Yadira Sanchez Olson is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
A veteran from Waukegan performs part of his award winning poetry. A ceremony followed with the Navy singing the national anthem and playing salute music. (Sheryl DeVore / News-Sun) (Chicago Tribune)

Melvin T. Brown Jr. served in the U.S. Air Force as an airman in the early 1990s where he saw his friends get killed during an explosion.

But it wasn't until a few years ago that the Waukegan resident discovered he had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

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With help from the Captain James Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Brown said he is now recovering and working to help other veterans, adding that he came to the annual veterans resource fair and welcome home ceremony held Wednesday at the College of Lake County in Grayslake to celebrate veterans and offer a helping hand.

"We need to uplift each other," he said.

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Brown was visiting with Elizabeth La Combe at a booth before the ceremony, which featured keynote speaker Brian Riegler, a Navy commander and Purple Heart recipient who is also principal at Waukegan High School.

La Combe, the Lovell Center's music therapist, encouraged Brown to enter his poetry, titled "I am PTSD," into regional and then national creative veterans competitions this year. He won first place at both contests.

La Combe said the Lovell Center recently hired her and an art therapist to help veterans. "They're seeing how helpful creative expression can be for the veterans," she said. "Music is a non-confrontational way for them to work through their issues."

Brown said when he returned from service, he began working as a police officer for North Chicago, a job he later left. One day a few years ago while outside his home, he said a feeling overcame him where "reality began to look like water."

He added that there is no other way to describe the feeling  it was like water was enveloping him. He recalled getting down on the ground and crawling into his home, something he was trained in the military to do whenever he felt he was in trouble.

"I was on my knees crawling across the yard," he said, adding that his wife and his pastor told him he needed to get help. "It was shameful. I thought it was beneath me. Every veteran is trained to rise above that."

Three members of the U.S. Navy Band from Naval Station Great Lakes perform patriotic music at the College of Lake County's annual Veterans Day commemoration on Wednesday, Nov. 9. (Sheryl DeVore / Lake County News-Sun)

But Brown added that he listened to his wife and pastor and entered a special program at the Lovell Center, where he learned cognitive behavior as a way to heal and also received music and art therapy.

While enrolled in the program, Brown met La Combe, who suggested he enter his poetry into the 2016 Veterans Creative Arts Festival.

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"She made me do it," he said. "She was very persuasive, in a sweet and loving way."

"The way Melvin presents his poetry is rhythmical and musical," La Combe said. "I knew it would be a life-changing experience for him. After he came back (from the national contest in Mississippi), he's brighter. He's shinier. He has more confidence."

Now Brown spends time talking to other veterans to help them get the services they need and also serves as assistant pastor at Unity Temple in Waukegan.

Ken Parrish of Hainesville, a Vietnam War veteran who also came to the event, said there's a lot more help for veterans in Lake County compared with when he came home from war, and more Americans are welcoming servicemen and women home.

"It makes me feel good that everybody is recognizing these guys," he said of the veterans from recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brown said it's important for every veteran to be embraced and find healing help.

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During the noon ceremony, a clarinetist, flutist and bassoonist from the Navy Band performed patriotic tunes, and "The Star-Spangled Banner" was sung.

U.S. Air Force veteran Melvin T. Brown talks with James Lovell Federal Health Care Center music therapist Elizabeth La Combe during an event at College of Lake County to commemorate war veterans. (Sheryl DeVore / Lake County News-Sun)

Speakers talked about the myriad resources available for veterans in Lake County, and that a new Student Veterans Club has been formed at the college.

Army veteran Joseph R. Bochantin, who is veteran student services coordinator at CLC, spoke of how he returned to school to get a degree after service and was failing math.

By seeking support from local veterans, he said he was able to pass the class with a B.

"Veterans need veterans," he told the audience.

Riegler, who serves in the Navy Reserve when he's not on the job at Waukegan High, offered the audience some examples of the true meaning of a warrior. He's been deployed several times, most recently to Afghanistan, where his base was attacked by a suicide bomber.

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"It was here where I witnessed war up close," he said.

He saw his colleagues run out and help others in the midst of the chaos  and said that is the definition of a true warrior.

"I've often been asked by people  as a veteran  who would I want to be my president and do I agree with our nation's foreign policy?" he said.

Riegler said he responds: "We do as we are told, not for our leaders, not for who is president, but for our country."

Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
Campaign buttons are displayed at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif. (Jae C. Hong / AP)

"We have met the enemy and he is us." The ironic statement is from the durable comic strip "Pogo" by cartoonist Walt Kelly, widely syndicated in newspapers from the late 1940s into the 1970s.

Pogo paraphrased the famous declaration by Admiral William Hazard Perry  "We have met the enemy and they are ours"  after the United States Navy won a great strategic victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813.

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Sharp political and social commentary characterized "Pogo" in a manner emulated in "Doonesbury" by Garry Trudeau. Kelly first used a version of the "enemy" statement to refer to the anti-communist fears and hysteria of the 1950s, personified by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WI), and later to highlight growing public awareness and concern about environmental pollution.

The statement can also sum up our nasty presidential politics this year. The bellicose and insult-filled 2016 United States election campaign has led many, especially in the media, to condemn the depressing contest as unique.

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That is fiction. American party politics has from the start been characterized by insults, turmoil and intense competition. One important fact is that our party politics have always been fractious, and approximately every fifty years, developments have become especially tumultuous.

The most challenging and costly such turmoil was in the presidential election campaign of 1860, followed shortly by the Civil War. Four parties competed. The new Republican Party fully replaced the Whigs, and Democrats split into northern and southern parties. The Constitutional Union Party was led by Whigs who hoped to preserve the Union.

Earlier, the Whigs had replaced the Federalists in the aftermath of the War of 1812, which ended in 1815. The Federalists had opposed the war and eventually paid the ultimate political price.

Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

The third strategic shift began with the 1912 presidential election. Former President Theodore Roosevelt, dissatisfied with successor William Howard Taft, launched the breakaway Bull Moose Party. TR did not retake the White House but did split the Republican vote, handing the election to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. The 1916 reelection of Wilson confirmed trends of change.

Roosevelt had led the Republican Party in a profoundly progressive direction, confirming the anti-trust laws, initiating protection of workers  especially children and women  protecting the wilderness, and saving the buffalo. In the 1930s, a progressive Democratic majority was established, led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The 1912 election did not guarantee this, but did signal significant new currents of economic and social as well as political change.

The mid-1960s represent another period of great change for the political parties. Domestic unrest increased, significantly spurred by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. This culminated in the extraordinary election of 1968. President Lyndon B. Johnson unexpectedly withdrew from contention. The assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and then Sen. Robert F. Kennedy added tragic bloody dimensions to unfolding developments.

Democratic nominee Vice President Hubert Humphrey for a time badly trailed Republican Richard Nixon, and support flowed to third-party segregationist candidate George Wallace. Humphrey recovered and nearly caught up with Nixon, but Wallace also came very close to throwing the election in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Satire is an important stabilizing force, especially in times of great turmoil and uncertainty. Garry Trudeau, with brilliant foresight, has been covering Donald Trump in his comic strip since 1987. The artist has just published a collection of his Trump comic strips, aptly titled "Yuge!"

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Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of "After the Cold War."

acyr@carthage.edu
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.

But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

- William Shakespeare, Richard III

The United States of America is home to a quarter of the world's prisoners despite representing only five percent of the global population. The controversial prison-industrial complex is not only big business but part of our cultural mythology -- in our stories, good guys win and bad guys go to jail with justice served and the audience experiencing catharsis.



The prison escape film is one of a few cinematic sub-genres to buck this structural approach. In these stories we root for our protagonist(s) -- often wrongfully convicted but not always -- to escape oppression and cruelty for the promise land of freedom and open spaces. In these stories we recognize prisons as nightmarish and corrupt fortresses of torturous inhumanity.



'Runaway Train' blends a gritty prison escape with contained thriller elements as well as some fascinating themes about the nature of prisoners and sacrifice and redemption. It stars John Voight as Oscar "Manny" Manheim, a brutal bank robber who has been locked behind literally-welded bars for the last three years after two failed escapes from a remote Alaskan prison. With Manny back in gen pop -- much to the ire of Warden Ranken, who believes prisoners are animals and Manny to be the worst of them all -- Manny's plotting one final prison escape with his brother Jonah... Until tragedy strikes.



Ranken sends a prisoner to murder Manny. In the scuffle, the prison guards severely injure Jonah, forcing Manny to leave his brother behind and move up his escape plan with a little help from fellow con, Buck McGeehy (Eric Roberts). At the last minute, Buck begs Manny to tag along and the two men flee into the frozen Alaskan wilderness. The unlikely partners make it to town and stow away on a departing train, unaware the conductor has just suffered a heart attack and fallen out of the engine.



With the train picking up speed, the movie shifts between three POVs on a collision course of metal and emotion. 1) Manny and Buck as they realize the terrible danger they're in and meet another stowaway named Sara (Rebecca De Mornay) who may know how to save their lives. 2) The railway employees who are trying to stop the train using new automatic failsafes only to get a life lesson in Murphy's law. 3) And the furious Warden Ranken who is hunting Manny, hoping to bring vengeance and his twisted sense of justice down upon Manny.



'Runaway Train' is a fascinating movie for many reasons, internal and external. On the outside looking in, it's based on a script written and abandoned by the legendary Akira Kurosawa. The on-location production and stunt work long proceeded the safety of CGI spectacle. Russian filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky was a former Tarkovsky collaborator hoping to make Hollywood movies (he also directed 'Tango & Cash'). And this is one of a few action pictures to earn Academy Award acting nominations, for John Voight and Eric Roberts.



I personally came to 'Runaway Train' like so many '80s and '90s movies -- on cable TV where it played over and over on random Saturday afternoons. As a kid with a love for vehicles and action, I couldn't get enough of things like 'The A Team', 'Knight Rider', 'The Dukes of Hazzard', and 'Back to the Future'. And along comes a movie with a careening train at its center? Sign me up!



From this standpoint, 'Runaway Train' succeeds as a pure thrill ride. The action set-pieces are outstanding and terrifying and convey a visual story with as much suspense as possible. It would also make a fine double-billing with Tony's Scott's 'Unstoppable'.



But if we dig a little deeper, 'Runaway Train' is also a gut-wrenching drama, where the payoff comes in themes desperate for discussion. To put it another way, not only is this an action flick where Manny and Buck and Sara's lives are on the line, but also one where Manny could become the monster Ranken believes him to be. The stakes, therefore, are not simply will these three people survive and escape...



But will Manny lose his soul in the process?



To make this work, we must first become fascinated with Manny (and Buck and Sara). John Voight's performance is as gritty and over-the-top (at times) as the character itself, but you can't look away. Here's a broken man, beaten down by the system, and all he wants is the privilege of working at a job most of us would consider menial. Here's a man who could be both the hero and the villain of his own story. This dichotomy of violence and philosophy is simply enthralling. For their parts, Buck and Sara are much more low-key; they are flawed too, of course, but represent more standard and likeable characters with whom we empathize quickly and easily.



Either way, as that train barrels down the rails at high speeds, with Manny and Buck and Sara holding on for their lives, with Warden Ranken getting closer and closer, and the rail company effectively helpless, 'Runaway Train' ratchets up the tension to a sublime climax of men, machines, and monsters. So many films from our childhoods don't live up to later-in-life viewings; 'Runaway Train' is even better than I remember.



Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray



'Runaway Train' roars onto Blu-ray courtesy of Twilight Time. A limited edition 3,000-print run, a clear case houses the loan Blu-ray plus a booklet with images and key art from the film as well as an essay written by Julie Kirgo. There is no DVD or Digital HD copy, nor any mention of Region locking on the disc or its packaging, but I have only played this Blu-ray in Region A equipment.
Thanks to good weather and the addition of extra construction crews, the $9 million Cleveland corridor sewer project in Niles is coming in on budget and ahead of schedule, officials said.

The construction project was started in May as part of the Niles sewer master plan developed to address severe rainwater flooding that has impacted more than 140 homes in the suburb for years, said Mary Anderson, Niles public services director.

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"It is way ahead of schedule," Anderson said of the project. "We benefited from good weather and the contractor was able to bring in additional crews."

Initially, the project was expected to wrap up around mid-December. But officials said the work should be done by Nov. 30, save for some landscaping that is scheduled to be completed next spring.

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"We had at times three crews working out there at any given time which allows us to make a lot of progress and finish up faster and impact the neighborhoods much less than we would have," Anderson said.

The project calls for the installation of a new storm sewer with a 72-inch main line along Cleveland Street and Monroe Street, branching out to the adjacent side thoroughfares of Keeney Street, Monroe Street, Oconto Avenue, Octavia Avenue, Odell Avenue and Oketo Avenue. It consists of the installation of a relief sewer to capture storm water runoff and convey it to a new outfall to the North Branch Chicago River, according to information about the project on the village's website.

In total, about 11,200 feet of new storm sewer is expected to be installed, the website information indicates.

"It dates back to the startup of the sewer master plan and is a storm water improvement project that included a lot of other infrastructure," Anderson said.

"It was open trench construction," she added. "In addition there were connections to adjacent streets and some sanitary sewer work done, new curb, gutter and sidewalks in some areas. All of the streets that were impacted by the construction  that are Niles roads  are being completely resurfaced from curb-to-curb."

The public services director also said the project, which was forecast to cost $9 million, has largely come in on budget. The village got $2 million from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and some funding from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for the project, according to village data on the project.

"We did have some 'change orders' which is not unusual given the scope of a project like this," she explained. "With more than two miles of roadways being impacted you find some unforeseen conditions. We crossed three state roads. You find things that maybe you didn't expect to be there."

She also said that initial indications are that the flood relief effort is working.

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"There were some heavy rains [recently] in a short period of time and everything performed very well," she said. "We're very pleased with it so far. We think it's going to be a tremendous relief for that area for quite a while to come."

Brian L. Cox is a freelancer
Public Works employee David Kaspar was recognized for 30 years of service in Norridge. Mayor James Chmura (right) thanked him with a proclamation. (Natalie Hayes / Pioneer Press)

The following items were discussed and/or action was taken at the Norridge Village Board meeting on Nov. 9.

Longtime employee honored

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David Kaspar, a 30-year-employee of the village's public works department, was honored for his years of service by the Norridge Village Board. Mayor James Chmura congratulated Kaspar with a proclamation honoring his employment.

Mapping services provider enters contract with Norridge

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The board approved a one-year contract for $38,939 with Municipal GIS Partners Inc. of Des Plaines for support services for the village's Geographical Information System. A GIS system is used to store and manage geographical mapping data to help with planning, emergency response and other municipal functions.

Village to consider bank's request to build drive-thru

A zoning hearing is scheduled for Dec. 5. Village officials will consider a request from Wintrust Bank to construct a drive-thru at a proposed banking facility at 4363 N. Harlem Ave. The bank, represented by law firm Dowd, Dowd & Mertes Ltd., needs a zoning map amendment to rezone the land parcel from its current designation as a manufacturing district to what would become a general business district. Businesses in manufacturing districts are prohibited from having a drive-thru feature, according to the village.

Combined police dispatch center moves forward

Norridge officials Nov. 9 approved an intergovernmental agreement with the villages of Harwood Heights and Schiller Park for a combined 911 dispatch center opening in the Harwood Heights police department next year.

The call center will service the three towns' 911 and non-emergency calls, and its opening will force the closure of the police dispatch departments operated by the Norridge and Schiller Park police departments.

The merger was prompted by a state law passed in 2015 requiring most communities in Illinois with less than 25,000 residents to combine their dispatch centers with neighboring towns.

Local officials have not said when the new dispatch center would open, but the state mandate says the new combined call centers should be operational by next summer.

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In a separate measure, the Norridge Village Board approved a $22,275 agreement with Computer Information Systems Inc. of Skokie for software to support records management and dispatch operations for the new call center.

New police employees hired

The board approved a recommendation from Police Chief Dave Disselhorst to hire Joshua Rio-Ramirez and Robert Smiegowski as auxiliary police officers. Kelly Brooks was hired as a reserve radio dispatcher.

Smiegowski, who started his new position Oct. 1, was employed by Norridge as a reserve auxiliary officer for the past year, according to the village.

Brooks and Rio-Ramirez marked their first day on the job Nov. 1, according to the village.

Next board meeting scheduled

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The next Norridge Village Board meeting will be held Dec. 14 at village hall, 4000 N. Olcott Ave.

Natalie Hayes is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Oak Park trustees voted to allow residents to sell baked goods and other products made out of their homes, which could include sales at its farmers market. (Jon Langham / Pioneer Press)

What started out as a hobby for Oak Park resident Emily Belcheva can now be her own small business following the action of the village board on Nov. 7.

One month earlier, Belcheva spoke to the village board about adding a home kitchen and cottage food operations section to its public health code. Belcheva, who bakes cookies out of her home, could not legally sell them prior to the trustees' action.

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"I started making elaborately decorated sugar cookies years ago as a hobby, and I'm frequently asked if I sell them," Belcheva said. "I looked at the cottage baking law in Illinois that said unless I sell at a farmers market, I am not permitted to sell them if I bake in my home kitchen. I restricted myself to giving the cookies away."

Some time last month, Belcheva said she looked at the Illinois cottage baking law again and noticed a 2014 amendment that she wanted to bring to the attention of the village board.

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"[The amendment is called] the home kitchen operation ordinance," Belcheva said. "This ordinance allows a person to sell certain baked goods baked in their own kitchen to customers."

Belcheva told the village board Oct. 4 that the law has a cap of $1,000 income per-month and is designed for small-scale baking.

According to a village memo, the Illinois Cottage Food Law officially went into effect in 2012. A 2014 amendment called the "cupcake bill" signed by then-Gov. Pat Quinn allowed a person to produce or package non-potentially hazardous baked goods in a home kitchen operation of that person's primary domestic residence for direct sale by owner or family member.

Mayor Anan Abu-Taleb said he had safety concerns that all ingredients be labeled on the baked goods, but village staff said homeowners would have to follow strict laws before selling their products.

"It follows state and federal law," Village Attorney Paul Stephanides said. "Allergen labeling has to be on the product."

Oak Park's Interim Public Health Director Mike Charley said the law would also allow residents to sell at the village's farmers market, provided they register with the village's health department first.

"The law is one that allows someone to sell directly to a farmers market for up to $36,000 per-year," Charley said. "They can sell pre-packaged baked goods, jams, jellies, herbs and teas out of their home. They'd have to go through the same application [as other sellers] at our farmers market."

The ordinance allows the village to collect a $25 fee with each cottage food operation registration, and the program will be managed by the business services and health departments.

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Belcheva said she pursued the matter after meeting other bakers in town and was eager to begin selling.

"[We wanted it] so we can share our talents with the community and make a little extra cash," Belcheva said.

The vote to authorize home kitchen operations in Oak Park was approved by a 6-0 vote. Trustee Adam Salzman was absent.

sschering@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter: @steveschering
An event called the Oak Park Solidarity Walk is set to start at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 10 near the Buzz Cafe on Lombard Avenue in Oak Park. (Oak Park Solidarity Walk / HANDOUT)

On Election Day, Oak Park resident Nell McNamara said she was elated to cast her ballot for a candidate who she hoped would be the first woman elected president of the United States.

But as the results began to roll in later that evening, McNamara began to realize that would not happen. Instead, Donald J. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the electoral college and will be the country's next president.

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In the aftermath of the election, McNamara and her neighbor, Emma Arnold, decided to put together a solidarity walk, which will take place tonight outside Buzz Cafe on South Lombard Avenue at 6:30 p.m. Since the election, there have been demonstrations and protests after a campaign in which Trump faced criticism over harsh words directed at some groups, such as immigrants.

"People are feeling very alone and like they are powerless," Arnold said. "I think there is something about coming together to reject these policies that [Trump] is going to be empowering. ... It's political. It's a political walk."

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McNamara said people from all over the community and of all ages are welcome to attend. She said the crowd will march with candles in hand as a show of solidarity against "Trump's bigotry, xenophobia, Islamophobia and misogyny." She said the group tentatively plans to walk down Harrison Street toward South Ridgeland Avenue, up Ridgeland to Van Buren Street and back to Lombard and Buzz Cafe.

Arnold said she was "shocked and devastated" by the election results.

"America is not defined by the policies of Donald J. Trump," she said. "And it's just really depressing to me that he's going to be the biggest symbol of our country. I thought it would be important for our neighbors to come together and reject the politics of hate."

She said the march will be a peaceful show of mourning over the election result and an illustration of a community united in its rejection of bigotry and racism.

"I can't just sit around and be depressed in my house," McNamara said. "I want to do something and say something to my kids about how we're not going to just sit here and watch this happen."

Rallies in response to the recent election results will continue in Oak Park at least through the weekend.

Oak Park and River Forest High School teacher Anthony Clark will help host a "Community for Unity" rally Saturday afternoon between noon and 2 p.m. at Scoville Park at 800 W. Lake St. Clark founded the Suburban Unity Alliance earlier this year to raise awareness about discrimination and racism in Chicago suburbs.

"With everyone hurting, everyone searching for answers, let's come together and rally as a community," Clark said. "Let's also give everyone the opportunity who now seems to be aware and ready to do something an opportunity to join us."

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He said residents "can't allow these elections results to make us give up."

"We're going to dust ourselves off, and we're going to stand up as Americans ... and use our collective energies to act," Clark said.

Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Vice President-elect Mike Pence as he gives his acceptance speech during his election night rally, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in New York. (John Locher / AP)

The Indiana Republican Party planned a public rally for Thursday to welcome Gov. Mike Pence back to the state for the first time as vice president-elect.

The rally will take place 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Indianapolis International Airport's Building 7 in an area of private aviation operations, according to organizers. Pence will be traveling to Indiana after spending part of Thursday in Washington, D.C., where he is to meet with Vice President Joe Biden and congressional leaders.

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The event comes two days after Donald Trump's election victory. Trump met President Barack Obama at the White House Thursday.

Pence has only held a handful of Indiana events since being picked as Trump's running mate in July and started making dozens of campaign stops for Trump across the country. Pence and his wife, Karen, voted Tuesday at a church near the governor's residence in Indianapolis then headed to New York City to be with Trump.

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Indiana Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb, who was elected Indiana's next governor, left open the possibility Wednesday of an early gubernatorial transition when asked whether Pence might step down. But Pence's spokeswoman, Kara Brooks, said Thursday that Pence will finish his term as governor, which ends Jan 9. That is 11 days before he and Trump begin their new jobs.

Holcomb said he thinks Pence helped broaden Trump's appeal and that Pence was always optimistic of a Trump victory, no.

"He had his finger on the pulse from the outset that there was a statement a'comin and it arrived (Tuesday) night all across the nation," Holcomb said.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 14 Republican vice presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, walks with his wife, Karen, and daughter, Charlotte, after casting their ballots, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, in Indianapolis. (Darron Cummings / AP)

Associated Press
Indiana State Police and the FBI vehicles parked outside the Lake County Government Center in Crown Point on Nov. 10, 2016. (Javonte Anderson / Post-Tribune)

FBI officials Thursday morning visited a string of Lake County offices.

FBI and Indiana State Police officers first visited the Lake County Sheriff's department before moving over to the main county complex. Ryan Holmes, of the U.S. Department of Justice, confirmed that a federal search warrant was served in the vicinity of the Lake County Government Center. Holmes could not discuss the case any further.

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"The Lake County Sheriff's Department is cooperating with our federal law enforcement partners, fully assisting the FBI with their inquiry," the department said in a statement. "Regular Sheriff's Department operations are continuing. We assure the citizens of Lake County that their safety remains our top priority."

After starting at the Sheriff's Department, federal and state authorities moved into the administrative building, at the same time as a Veterans Day ceremony winded down.

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Officials stopped by the Board of Elections and Voter Registration, the E-911 office, auditor's office, data processing and the County Commissioners.

Lake County Commissioner Michael Repay said the FBI requested access to the data processing and E-911 office for records.

"To the extent we have records or information needed for the investigation, the commissioners and staff will fully cooperate," Repay said.

An FBI official at the courthouse was unable to comment on why federal officials were visiting the offices.

Federal authorities also subpoenaed records from the Board or Elections and Voters.

Jim Wieser, Lake County election board attorney, confirmed the office was served a subpoena seeking records but did not disclose what records were requested.

"We are required to have that request by the end of next week," Wieser said.

Lake County Sheriff John Buncich did not respond to a call for comment Thursday morning.

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Carrie Napoleon is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.

clyons@post-trib.com
The fifth annual Myanmar Media Development Conference is being held at the Chatrium Hotel in Yangon 7-8 November under the title of Inclusive Independent Media in a New Democracy.

As International Media Support (IMS), a co-sponsor of the event points out, this is a matter that cannot be underestimated in a country where a fragile peace process is relying on professional media to support negotiations thorough, pluralistic, balanced and informed coverage.

One particular theme IMS highlights it that media outlets carry much of the responsibility for keeping alive the gender stereotypes and general gender inequality that pervades Myanmar society.

As IMS says, if large parts of society from women to minority and ethnic groups are not represented in mainstream media, they are unable to engage in and contribute to the countrys ongoing democratic process.

They highlight a new and exciting report published in November 2016 by Fojo Institute with IMS support, that maps the gender inequalities in Myanmar media  an imbalance that women themselves seem to be reproducing as well in their coverage.

For the fifth consecutive year, national and international media stakeholders, members of civil society and government representatives are meeting to discuss the status of and way forward for media development in Myanmar, and this year, in particular, will be an opportunity for engagement with the countrys newly elected government.

One of the main sessions will deal with the safety of journalists on which IMS Head of Asia will share examples of best practices when it comes to establishing locally led safety mechanisms for journalists. The key to mechanisms that work lies partly in ensuring a broad support base, the buy-in of a wide range of media stakeholders from journalist unions to media houses, civil society and when possible, local and national government.

The 2016 conference will give particular attention to issues of gender and ethnicity in Myanmars media. Efforts have also been made to ensure a balanced representation of gender and ethnicity on each panel, and the situation of ethnic media and female journalists will be a cross-cutting theme. One session will be devoted entirely to a discussion of women and media, according to IMS.

Discussions at this years conference will draw heavily from the recently-published Assessment of Media Development in Myanmar published by IMS and UNESCO. Based on UNESCOs Media Development Indicators, the report analyses the Myanmar media sector and provides a baseline for the curresituation and recommennt dations for improvements.

The conference takes place against a backdrop in which controversy has blown up over alleged restrictions for media in covering the conflict in Rakhine State, and the recent dismissal of a foreign journalist working for Myanmar Times over her coverage of alleged violence against women in the conflict zone.

The 5th Myanmar Media Development Conference is organised by the Myanmar Press Council, Myanmar Journalist Association, Myanmar Journalist Network, Myanmar Journalist Union, Burma News International and Myanmar Journalism Institute with support from Myanmar Ministry of Information (MoI), UNESCO, the IMS-FOJO Media Development Programme in Myanmar, Deutsche WelleAkademie, USAID, Centre for Law and Democracy, Internews, DVB, ARTICLE 19, Mizzima, and FHI 360.
The South Shore Line's first season of carrying bicycles on weekend trains wasn't the rousing success some had hoped.

Most of the bike racks the railroad installed on some cars went empty, particularly in rainy or cool weather, officials said.

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John Parsons, the railroad's director of marketing and planning, said the South Shore is still analyzing the numbers from the first season, which ended in early November.

The numbers vary widely. In the last weekend of October, for example, the South Shore carried 17 bikes on Saturday and five on Sunday. The weekend before, it had 31 on Saturday and 42 on Sunday.

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The South Shore hasn't given up on its bikes-on-trains program, Parsons said.

"We have every intention of continuing that on weekends next year," Parsons said.

"We were probably looking for more people to take advantage of it," he added. "What we learned from this is that it's important for bicyclists to have ready information on getting from the railroad stations to points of interest."

Before the next season, Parsons hopes to involve local bike or trail groups in providing information for people who want to take their bikes onto weekend trains.

In the Chicago suburbs of Illinois, he noted, an organization called Ride Illinois has a website with maps showing the best ways, on bike paths and streets, to bike to Metra stations in nearly 40 towns.

Mitch Barloga, a Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission staffer who specializes in non-motorized transportation, took his bike on a South Shore train to Chicago's Museum Campus one day last summer.

"It was a fantastic ride," he said. "The equipment (for carrying the bikes) is top-drawer."

But there was only one other cyclist on the train, as the weather was chilly. And taking his bike off the platform at the Museum Campus was a little awkward, Barloga said.

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Munster resident Paul Rotatori regularly rides his bike to the South Shore station in Hammond for his commute to Chicago. When he started doing that five years ago, he saw only a handful of bikes parked at the station; now, there are a dozen some days.

Not everyone is comfortable riding on city streets, Rotatori added; he wants to see Northwest Indiana cities installing protected bike lanes along some streets, as Chicago has.

Rotatori likes the South Shore's bike racks. They are much better, he said, than the system for taking bikes on Metra's commuter trains.

He wishes the South Shore also allowed weekday riders to take their bikes, so he could ride his to work.

That's not going to happen any time soon, Parsons said, because the South Shore needs all the space on its weekday, rush-hour trains for passengers  often at standing-room-only by the time the train reaches downtown Chicago.

One constraint on the South Shore's program is that the railroad has only three stations in Northwest Indiana  Hammond, East Chicago and Dune Park  with high-level boarding platforms that allow bicyclists to board the trains; all the Chicago stations have high-level platforms.

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If the South Shore gets federal and state funding for its proposal to build a second set of tracks between Gary and Michigan City, high-level platforms at the Miller, Ogden Dunes/Portage and Michigan City stations also would be built.

Tim Zorn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Republican vice presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, walks with his wife, Karen, and daughter, Charlotte, after casting their ballots, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, in Indianapolis. (Darron Cummings / AP)

The news of Donald Trump's Election Day victory was met by both enthusiasm and shock in Northwest Indiana.

Trump won the race for the presidency after Democrat Hillary Clinton conceded the election Wednesday morning. Northwest Indiana Republicans were not surprised by Trump's victory, citing a groundswell of support for his message, but the win took Democrats by surprise.

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"We have never seen this kind of support for a presidential candidate ever," said LeAnn Angerman, chairman of the Tri-Creek Republican Committee.

In Indiana, Angerman said she saw unprecedented and overwhelming support for Trump.

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"It's not common we have people begging us for campaign signs all the way up to the day before the election," Angerman said.

Trump's opinions resonated with everyday people, Angerman said, and Trump said what they felt.

"That drew people to his campaign," she said.

Trump's message and stances on the issues, like the economy, drew a lot of different groups, Angerman said.

"Add all that together, and it turns into a whole lot of votes," Angerman said.

In Griffith, Michelle Creech had a new sign planned for the Griffith Town Tap had her candidate lost, but she decided against it.

Instead, she's decided to "be more like Trump" and lead by his example, not by words.

"When he builds up a business, he's not bragging about it," Creech said Wednesday at Lucille's, her other bar in Griffith. "Instead, we're going to brag about it with our silence."

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"But the new sign was really funny," she said.

Creech said she stayed up until about 2 a.m. watching the results but couldn't take the roller coaster anymore and went to bed. Her daughter, Morgan Szot, called her at 2:30 a.m with the news that Trump had won.

"I was worried about my boy," she said. "After Morgan called, I went back to sleep, but then I woke up at 5:30 a.m., called all my employees over (to Lucille's), made coffee and were watching Fox. It was so exciting. It's such a good day."

Ever since Creech was told she was given the candidate's only Northwest Indiana campaign office, it's been a wild ride, and one she's going to miss.

"It was a good game, and I've had the best time of my life," she said. "And look, he's sacrificing his lifestyle for America. If I were him, I'd rather be my rich self."

Jackie Doescher, 32, of Griffith, also wasn't awake for the announcement but was thrilled with the news when she woke up.

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"I was shocked because I really didn't think it was going to happen. But I woke up at 8 a.m. and started reading my phone," she said. "I started running around the house shouting, 'Trump won!'"

Doescher said she's also been vocal about her Trump support, especially on social media. Among her friends, she was one of very few.

"I haven't bashed people over liking Hillary, but now, all I'm seeing are my friends saying they're packing up and moving out of the country. And you know what? Bye," she said. "I really think he's going to do good things."

Porter County's political parties, not surprisingly, took different tacks on the result of the presidential election.

"I think it was very interesting, and I think it just goes to show the pollsters and political pundits didn't have it quite right," said Mike Simpson, chairman of the county's Republican Party. "It's going to be interesting to see how it transpires."

While there were predictions eight years ago when Barack Obama was first elected president that the world would come to an end, Simpson said he finds similar predictions about Trump's presidency equally untrue.

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"I think whoever got elected, the American economy, the American system and the American people are going to do just fine," he said.

Kevin Cornett, chairman of the Center Township Democratic Party, said he was "absolutely shell-shocked" about Trump's election.

"I'm disappointed and quite frankly I'm a little bit ashamed of the 50 percent of the people in Center Township who voted for him," he said.

Election Day's results were not just a surprise for party officials.

Gregg Johnson, chair of the Valparaiso University political science and international relations department, said the results were surprising in some ways but not in others.

"I would say it was a little bit of a surprise if you looked at the aggregate of the polling data which showed a Clinton win by 3 percent. That clearly didn't happen," he said.

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Political science forecasting models done a few months ago showed a tight race; some projected a Trump win and others a win by Clinton, Johnson said.

At the same time, Johnson noted Alan Abramowitz's "Time for Change Model," which shows that almost consistently, every eight years, the incumbent party gets knocked out.

"The results are completely consistent with historic precedent," he said.

As Trump prepares for his transition to the White House, some said Americans will come together.

At Valparaiso University, President Mark Heckler released a statement at 8 a.m. Wednesday to students, faculty, staff and retirees, quoting Abraham Lincoln, who in turn was quoting Jesus Christ: "A house divided cannot stand."

The question for the country the day after the election, Heckler said, was, "Where do we go from here?" after what he called, "possibly the most dividing and morally problematic elections in our nation's history."

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He said he was "proud and humbled" that the campus worked to nurture dialogue across its differences and begin to overcome its political, religious and cultural divisions.

"Today can be a day on that journey toward healing, peace and unity across our differences," he wrote.

Angerman said she thinks Trump will be able to unify Americans, even if they don't agree on all the issues.

"He will find a way to get Americans to work together," Angerman said.

Correspondents Amy Lavalley and Michelle Quinn and staffer Craig Lyons contributed.
Bob Kuepler struggles to hold back tears as he reflects on the three tours he served in Vietnam. Nearly 50 years later, Kuepler is still trying to cope with the repercussions of war.

"Everyday I live in the jungle," he said. Kuepler, an Army veteran, doesn't like to discuss the details of his missions in Vietnam.

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"War is hell," he said. "It's really that simple."

Kuepler said he gave up part of himself for his country and always looks forward to Veterans Day.

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"I'm gratified and proud to have served my country and fellow Americans," he said. "It's not only a day to remember those who died in service to our country but also to recognize those who continue to serve today. People don't realize when you see a veteran it means a lot to go up to them, shake their hand and thank them."

Despite the positive reception veterans receive today, Kuepler said things were a lot different for Vietnam veterans when they returned home from the war. Kuepler is still bitter the lack of help Vietnam veterans received when they returned home.

"I was one of those young boys when I finished my three tours in Vietnam. I didn't have anyone to take my hand, lead me and give me the camaraderie that people have today," he said.

But Kuepler said he's optimistic that things are going to turn around for veterans in the future.

"It's more appreciation for us now," he said. "People understand that freedom isn't cheap."

Michael Vode, a Marine veteran and a Schererville Police commander, said Veterans Day isn't a day of celebration but a day to reflect on the sacrifice thousands of veterans made.

"I appreciate the appreciation people show us for serving but I guess for us that have served and were fortunate enough to make it back, on Veterans Day we still think of those that were not so fortunate," he said.

Vode said he originally joined the Marine reserves in 1989 and was activated for six months to serve in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the Gulf War.

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"It's one of those things that you never forget and I would say it changes you in many ways," he said. "Not all bad, in some good ways. It makes you appreciate what we have back in our country."

Vode said he enjoys seeing the outpouring of support service members and veterans receive today but he makes "a point" to thank Vietnam veterans for their service when he sees them.

"They didn't receive what they should've received when they came home," he said.

jaanderson@tribpub.com

Twitter @JavonteA
By Mike Vinkenborg

Chinese e-commerce sales are expected to reach new heights on the countrys upcoming Singles Day shopping festival, with analysts predicting sales to reach US$20 billion (around RMB 135 billion) on Alibabas platforms alone. This figure represents continued growth at remarkable speeds for the landmark online shopping event. Since Alibaba popularized the former small Nanjing University tradition in 2009, revenues grew from almost RMB 1 billion in 2010 to 5.2 billion in 2011, 19.1 billion in 2012, 35.2 billion in 2013, 57.1 billion in 2014, and 91.2 billion in 2015.

Each year Alibaba utilizes Singles Day to launch new innovations in the e-commerce scene, and this year it plans to launch, amongst others, a new virtual reality (VR) shopping experience, which the company claims will transform how people shop both online and offline. Ongoing innovation in Chinese e-commerce signals the intense competition among online retailers to capture the lucrative market, as well as offering a preview of possible ways consumers will embrace technology to shop in the future.

Big data and e-commerce innovations

On the coming Singles Day, Alibaba asserts that it will show China and the world the future of online shopping. Through its integrated e-commerce, social media, payments, and location-based services, Alibaba has managed to gather immense amounts of data, which it plans to leverage to personalize the shopping experience. This creates opportunities for retailers to engage on a deeper level with their customers by allowing them to customize their online stores based on individual preferences.

Whats more, on Singles Day the company will introduce Buy+, a VR technology that creates a virtual shopping environment. Following a US$793.5 million investment in Florida-based VR startup MagicLeap, Alibaba opened its own GnomeMagic Lab in March 2016, a research laboratory working on VR and augmented reality (AR) technologies. Thus, Singles Day will unveil the worlds first complete VR shopping experience on Alibabas Tmall and Taobao platforms.

RELATED: Information Technology-based Solutions from Dezan Shira & Associates

The experience utilizes a cardboard glasses frame in which a smartphone can be inserted, thereby creating a makeshift VR headset that shoppers can use to enter the digital shopping environment. Shoppers can virtually visit shopping malls all over the world and have a 360-degree panoramic view of products during the process, and with Alipay integrated into the platform, a simple nod of the head can be used to make a purchase.

In addition to this, Alibaba wants to show its progress on its ability to integrate online data with offline activities by launching a location-based AR game similar to the popular mobile video game Pokemon Go. In this game, consumers can follow the Tmall Cat mascot on an adventure across both its online marketplace and physical stores such as Suning, and at other locations such as Starbucks and Disneyland Shanghai. Furthermore, to lead up to Singles Day, Alibaba hosted an eight-hour live stream of a fashion show where shoppers were able to buy what they liked at high discounts on demand, in what was called a See Now, Buy Now promotion.

Competing platforms are not just sitting in waiting either: JD has announced its own investment into VR and AR technologies last September to keep up with Alibaba, and electronics retailer Suning invested in Shenzhen-based VR camera maker Insta360 last August. But while competing companies are investing in their own research and development capabilities, it is evident that Alibaba is leading the way in innovation.

The future of e-commerce

Successful implementation of VR and AR technologies will contribute to the gamification of shopping, leveraging technology to make the online shopping experience more social and interactive. Forward-thinking investors keeping up with the latest trends in Chinas dynamic e-commerce market can benefit from proactively embracing emergent technology and consumer habits, and gain from the visibility of being on the forefront of the next generation of e-commerce innovation. However, the full-blown integration of VR and AR into shoppers daily habits have not yet been realized. Regardless, by setting up stores on one of the platforms, retailers will have access to large amounts of data and be able to market their products in an effective and personalized way.

These innovations in conjunction with the use of big data will facilitate the continuing growth of the e-commerce sector. Annual online retail sales in China reached US$622.5 billion last year, solidifying the countrys status as the largest e-commerce market in the world. Sales are predicted to double by 2020, reaching US$1.3 trillion. Cross-border e-commerce sales are set to make a major contribution to this growth, with sales expected to almost triple in the same period, going from US$57.1 billion in 2015 to US$157.7 billion in 2020. As such, the e-commerce sector in China remains a highly captivating sector with opportunities abound for foreign investors.



About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email china@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight.



China Investment Roadmap: the e-Commerce Industry

In this edition of China Briefing magazine, we present a roadmap for investing in Chinas e-commerce industry. We provide a consumer analysis of the Chinese market, take a look at the main industry players, and examine the various investment models that are available to foreign companies. Finally, we discuss one of the most crucial due diligence issues that underpins e-commerce in China: ensuring brand protection.



Selling, Sourcing and E-Commerce in China 2016 (First Edition)

This guide, produced in collaboration with the experts at Dezan Shira & Associates, provides a comprehensive analysis of all these aspects of commerce in China. It discusses how foreign companies can best go about sourcing products from China; how foreign retailers can set up operations on the ground to sell directly to the countrys massive consumer class; and finally details how foreign enterprises can access Chinas lucrative yet ostensibly complex e-commerce market.

An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2016

Doing Business in China 2016 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in China. Compiled by the professionals at Dezan Shira & Associates in June 2016, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Chinese market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to keep up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes
By Ari Chernoff

As wages continue to rise in an increasingly service oriented economy, China looks to manufacturing clusters to bolster the nations labor-intensive industries. Offering clear lines of communication and reduced transportation costs, cluster manufacturing provides economic stability by bringing together an array of businesses from across the supply chain.

While China looks to transition to a more consumer-based society, its manufacturing base faces increasing pressure from low-cost ASEAN members like Vietnam and Indonesia. Yet in Chinas coastal provinces, investors will find well-established infrastructure that much of ASEAN lacks. The Middle Kingdoms ability to provide the resources for reliable manufacturing in close proximity to like-minded businesses and institutions are essential arguments to Chinas continued manufacturing competitiveness.

Defining a Cluster

A manufacturing cluster is an interconnected system of like-minded businesses in a geographically centralized location. They share industry characteristics and benefit from collective growth. Clusters look to create an environment with clear communication that allows them to bridge gaps and create a more efficient ecosystem for design, production, and distribution.

An effective manufacturing cluster does not begin with product development, but leverages local resources, educational institutions and complimentary services. A well-established cluster offers a business network that is an easily navigable system for suppliers, buyers, and R&D facilities. Like Shenzhens one stop shop for electronics production, clusters should continue to attract similar businesses in an effort to create a sustainable system for continued growth.

Shenzhen

Although cluster manufacturing is primarily located in the advanced manufacturing districts of developed countries, India and China have recognized its importance and acted accordingly. Nowhere in China are the advantages of cluster manufacturing more apparent than the city of Shenzhen.

Known as Chinas Silicon Valley, Shenzhen boasts over 4,700 national-level high-tech enterprises amid 30,000 science and technology companies. With the largest export oriented manufacturing base in China and R&D investment of 4.02% of the citys GDP (roughly equal in percentage to that of South Korea, the second highest ranking country in the world), Shenzhen has become a one-stop-shop for technological design, production, and distribution.

The rise of ASEAN manufacturing

Rising labor costs in China, as well as attractive manufacturing alternatives in ASEAN, have bred uncertainty over Chinas continued dominance in the manufacturing industry. Chinas rapid development has increased manufacture costs, and has therefore decreased profitability for foreign companies operating within the nation. Chinas ASEAN neighbors continue to develop at a steady pace, offering foreign investors tax incentives and low production and assembly costs.

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Yet ASEANs manufacturing sectors still faces significant hurdles regarding the ease of conducting foreign direct investment and the development of local infrastructure. Although the capitals and major port cities of many ASEAN member states have capable infrastructure and a skilled workforce, these amenities rapidly deteriorate in regions removed from the urban cores.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has implemented tax incentives for companies willing to invest in one of Indonesias nine Special Economic Zones (SEZs). However, although these zones offer preferential policies, Indonesian SEZs are generally created to spur development in rural or underdeveloped areas. As such, potential investors into the emerging markets of Asia should carefully consider all of the elements of a potential investment opportunity.

With both new foreign direct investment and factories traditionally based in China shifting towards ASEAN, China needs to carefully consider the future of its manufacturing industry.

Achieving economic stability

Today, cluster manufacturing is still an effective method of economic transformation. The Science Publishing Group offers a report from the International Journal of Business and Economics Research on the benefits of cluster manufacturing for Chinese cities whose commerce relies heavily on natural resources. In short, the journal finds that strategically implemented manufacturing clusters can help resource cities take a proactive approach to a heavy reliance on an unsustainable industry. Bringing together like-minded businesses that span the length of the supply chain work to create a healthy and sustainable local economy.

In recent years, Chinas State Administration of Taxation (SAT) has begun promulgating resource tax reforms in an effort to conserve the nations natural resources. While these regulations will undoubtedly have some effect, a number of cities economically dependent on natural resources have already seen their supplies exhausted as the nation works to meet domestic demand.

Such cases have brought the benefits of cluster manufacturing to light for local government officials. In Fuxin, a strong agate handicraft and manufacturing cluster became a vital counterweight to the decline of mining and the Fuxin Mining Groups dismissal of a significant portion of its workforce. Occupying 50 percent of the market share as well as providing 30,000 jobs, the manufacturing cluster is now the driving force of the citys economy. Stories similar to that of Fuxin can be found in Liaoyuans sock manufacturing cluster, Benxis traditional Chinese medicine cluster, and Baotous lanthanum cluster. As these cities exhausted their resources of iron and coal, cluster manufacturing proved to be an effective remedy to their ailing economies.

As China continues to mine its natural resources at an alarming rate, the nation has begun to seek out natural resources lying beyond its borders. A report issued by Ernst & Young put China at the top of the list of mining and metal acquisition in 2014. Chinas acquisitions abroad should be a signal to relevant domestic economies that it is time to start thinking about alternative economic solutions. In such cases, cluster manufacturing, especially in the low-cost regions of the interior, has already emerged as a suitable replacement.

Key takeaways

While ASEAN manufacturing is an increasing threat to Chinese manufacturing, manufacturing clusters can still provide economic stability. This is especially true for resource-rich areas in the interior where labor costs still lie well below that of the coastal regions. Chinas next economic shift is poised to be towards high-tech production, which can already be seen in the vibrant city of Shenzhen. Shenzhens cluster, like that seen in Silicon Valley, provides the city with long-term economic stability and keeps it at the forefront of emerging technologies. Completing such a transformation would see Chinas competition shift rather than disappear, leading the country on the path of continued development.



About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email china@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight.



Establishing & Operating a Business in China 2016

Establishing & Operating a Business in China 2016, produced in collaboration with the experts at Dezan Shira & Associates, explores the establishment procedures and related considerations of the Representative Office (RO), and two types of Limited Liability Companies: the Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprise (WFOE) and the Sino-foreign Joint Venture (JV). The guide also includes issues specific to Hong Kong and Singapore holding companies, and details how foreign investors can close a foreign-invested enterprise smoothly in China.

A Guide to Chinas Free Trade Zones

In this issue of China Briefing magazine, we examine Chinas four Free Trade Zones and discuss the differences and strongpoints that exist in each of them. We begin by providing an introduction to the FTZs, and then take an in-depth look at the market access conditions, registration procedures and tax environments of each. Finally, we highlight some of the key considerations that foreign companies should be aware of when choosing an FTZ to invest in.



China Investment Roadmap: the Automotive Parts Industry

This issue of China Briefing presents a roadmap for investing in Chinas automotive industry. We begin by providing an overview of the industry, and then take a comprehensive look at key foreign investment considerations, including investment restrictions, tax incentives and manufacturing requirements. Finally, we discuss foreign investment opportunities in a part of the industry that receives substantial government support: new energy vehicles.
Photo taken on Nov. 9, 2016 shows the trial scene at a court in north China's Tianjin Municipality. Courts in Tianjin on Wednesday sentenced 49 people to prison, including 24 company managers and staff members as well as 25 government officials found guilty of various crimes that led to the city's warehouse blasts, which killed at least 165 people in August 2015. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei)

More than a year after a catastrophic industrial accident shocked the nation, a court finally brought justice for 165 people who lost their lives in the Tianjin warehouse blasts on Aug. 12, 2015.

On Wednesday, in the city where the tragedy occurred, 49 suspects stood trial and were given prison terms ranging from one year to life for their roles in the accident.

The blasts, which occurred at a warehouse of Ruihai Logistics Co. Ltd. (Ruihai Logistics) in Tianjin's container port, destroyed 304 buildings, 12,428 cars, and 7,533 containers, incurring economic losses of 6.87 billion yuan (1.01 billion U.S. dollars).

But how did an accident of this magnitude happen at one of China's busiest ports? The trial gave us some answers.

BOSS BYPASSING RULES

According to the court ruling, Ruihai Logistics bears the main responsibility. The company was found to have ignored industrial safety rules and violated municipal district planning by illegally setting up a hazardous materials storage yard.

"Management was chaotic, and safety problems persisted," the ruling said. It was found that Ruihai Logistics management, led by board chairman Yu Xuewei, had used a number of dirty tricks to obtain a certificate to store hazardous chemicals at the port. They faked environmental assessment papers, bribed officials and safety evaluation experts, and tactically halted operations to dodge inspections.

Yu was convicted of illegal storage of hazardous materials, illegal business operations, causing incidents involving hazardous materials, and bribery. He was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve and ordered to pay a fine of 700,000 yuan (103,704 U.S. dollars).

His deputy and other senior executives were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 years to life.

A law professor with Tianjin's Nankai University, Liu Shixin, said he was not surprised, since causing incidents involving hazardous materials is a crime punishable by a suspended death sentence in China.

"The court considered the case a 'severe' one because Yu illegally obtained the certificate, hoarded many hazardous materials for long periods of time, and ignored safety rules for handling such materials," Liu said.
Beijing police have arrested 1,500 suspects in a monthlong crackdown on drug users and dealers, and will extend such efforts in the capital city to the end of this year.

As of Wednesday, 189 drug-related cases had been cracked, with 1,300 drug users arrested since the operation started on Oct 8.

"The tipoffs and intelligence we got from various channels have played a significant role in the operation. In addition, our squad uncovered several drug laboratories, nipping the problem in the bud," said Zhang Jihong, deputy head of Beijing Public Security Bureau's anti-drug squad.

Zhang said that more than 280 cases involving about 600 suspects have been cracked as a result of 426 tips provided by members of the public since the beginning of this year. Nearly 1 million yuan ($148,000) in cash rewards have been given to whistleblowers in such cases.

Zhang said a total of 40 metric tons of chemical materials for producing drugs had been recovered in the operations. "Such hazardous materials pose a danger to the public, because some of them are highly explosive," he added.

Drug trafficking has been in the bureau's crosshairs as the number of known drug users has risen by 17 percent in the past few years.

An anti-narcotics officer with the squad said members of the public are encouraged to report information on suspects by calling 110, sending mail to the drug squad, or via the Beijing Public Security Bureau's WeChat account.

According to regulations regarding rewards for tips, cash rewards start at 1,000 yuan and are determined by the value of a tip. There is no upper limit set for cash rewards.

According to bureau statistics, Beijing has about 33,000 registered drug users, with more than half of those using synthetic drugs. Last year, there were 2.3 million registered users of illegal drugs nationwide.
The Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which was held last month, highlighted the Party's determination to carry out comprehensive and strict intra-Party governance.

Scholars at home and abroad have said that the all-round governance of the CPC is expected to inject fresh impetus into the country's efforts to pursue the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, stressed at the meeting the need to regulate intra-Party political life and increase supervision, calling the move "an important approach to promote comprehensive and strict Party governance."

The CPC published updated norms on Party political life on Nov 2, which were introduced to promote strict governance of the Party.

Some foreign observers and scholars have said that at a critical time in China's development, the CPC's call for strict governance within the Party indicates the farsighted strategic vision and wise governance of Chinese leaders.

The new plan has been described not only as an important innovative step by the CPC itself, but also an example of management and governance for other political parties around the world to follow.

Gu Xuewu, director of the Center for Global studies at Bonn University, said that "by holding the plenum, the CPC led by Xi is showing Chinese and the world a ruling Party devoted to self-renewal, self-growth and self-improvement".

Gu said the new guidelines on intra-Party life were mainly designed to prevent Party members from becoming corrupt, especially those holding high-ranking positions.

"Insisting on the purity of the Party has become a key factor in defining the path for China in the context of the global economic crisis," said Xulio Rios, director of Spain's Observatory of Chinese Politics in Madrid.

"New rules and procedures should be consolidated to raise the moral standard of the CPC and its members and ensure public recognition of their ability to realize the 'two centenary goals' of building an all-round moderately prosperous society and becoming a modern socialist country."

Some foreign observers have said that strengthening intra-Party governance and furthering the anti-corruption campaign gives other political parties around the world an ideal example of "Chinese wisdom".

"China's anti-corruption drive looks set to yield promising results for the world's second-largest economy," said Munshi Faiz Ahmad, chairman of the Bangladesh Institute of International Studies.
The quarry projects have been given permission to operate in the nature conservation area. However, those project areas have been limited to the boundaries. Those areas have been places of previous quarry projects for a long time [ago]. The department permitted them to use those areas only because they have historically been quarry sites. It didnt just permit what they requested, it was only after careful checking, said U Kyaw Zaw, director of ministry office of forestry at the Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment Conservation.

However, the Mon State government was not informed of the quarry projects work permission in the Kaylatha Mountain nature conservation area.

Firstly, there is already a letter regarding the quarry project from the State level director. However, this letter is only out in accordance with the union-level director. Why are they not acknowledging that this place is a sanctuary area? On September 1, there was letter that said further quarry operations would damage the environment. Subsequently, on September 29, there was no remark on the quarry projects. Therefore, the letter that came out on September 1 and the letter on September 29 are complete contradictions. Both letters were sent from district to Union level departments. Displaying that the state-level department was not involved and that no sector of the State government was able to be involved, said U Tin Ko Ko Oo, of Belin Township Pyithu Hluttaw Representative.

U Tin Ko Ko Oo will question the permitted quarry project in the Kaylatha natural conservation area at the Hluttaw [parliament].

I already asked the Forestry Department for the documents regarding the Kaylatha area [projects]. These are concerning which areas the companies are allowed for quarry activities, which are for the prison, and which areas are for the village area. I will ask whether the prison [administration] area and the quarry sites are permitted by the forestry department. If they are not permitted, this must be stopped. What I understand is that Kaylatha Mountain is a sanctuary. Therefore, if the quarry projects are permitted, the question would be raised, what do they mean when they say they are working for natural environmental conservation?,said Belin Township Pyithu Hluttaw Representative.

Rock Well Mining Co., Ltd has been permitted 45 acres of land at the Kaylatha Mount for quarry production. The companys official U Than Zin Htun and U Min Thein Myint, director of Mon States Forestry Department signed the agreement on June 1.
Falling costs and rapid development mean the sector is becoming increasingly viable for private operators.

Scientists assess monitoring equipment at the satellite ground-control station at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, Shaanxi province. The station is one of three around the world participating in the QB50 microsatellites project funded by the European Commission.[Photo/Xinhua]

While the accomplishments of China's microsatellite industry have recently been overshadowed by the success of the nation's manned space program, the sector has developed so rapidly that the cost of providing commercial services has fallen to a level where the use of small satellites is now within the range of private companies.

Microsatellites, usually weighing less than 500 kilograms, are of lower mass and size than traditional craft, such as those used by the military, which use customized parts to ensure complete reliability. By contrast, the components used in microsatellites, which have less stringent standards of dependability, can be bought at hardware stores, making them perfect for commercial use.

"Satellites can watch over the globe and provide a view that other devices can't. For example, we can monitor traffic at any port or logistics center on Earth and thus calculate the scale of operations, which has great commercial value," said Cao Jin, a senior engineer at the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites, which is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"A number of innovators in China, including research institutes, colleges and startups, are actively exploring the commercial value of microsatellites," he said.

The country's major developers are State-owned research agencies such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp.

One example is Cao's academy, which sent the Banxing 2, or Companion 2, microsatellite into space with the Tiangong II space lab in September.

The satellite's mission is to photograph the Shenzhou-XI manned spaceship, which docked with the space lab on Oct 19 for a 30-day mission that is scheduled to draw to a close soon.

Development barriers

Currently, the application of microsatellites is limited to State-funded research projects, and only few have been produced and launched by private companies.

"China's commercial space business is just beginning to explore opportunities, but we have not yet developed a mature business model that will make a profit," said Huang He, an associate professor at the Shaanxi Engineering Laboratory for Microsatellites at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an.

According to Huang, the cost of developing microsatellites has been reduced to a relatively low level, ranging from 3 million yuan ($433,000) to 20 million. That is about 20 to 30 percent of the cost of traditional satellites. However, an absence of operators is proving the major barrier to full commercialization.

"The key to establishing the industry is application. If you want to use microsatellites to provide full-time Wi-Fi signals or digital maps, launching a constellation of satellites will not be enough; you have to develop high-quality client application terminals (systems that can receive signals from the satellite and provide services to users) as well," he said.

The laboratory is planning to produce a 36-satellite constellation for a company that is providing services for ships to send out short messages in the middle of the ocean. Each satellite will cost about 5 million yuan.

"As more and more startups emerge, the market is beginning to recognize the value of satellite-based services," he said.

Short-term goals

Another obstacle is that launch services are monopolized by State-owned companies, which have shown little interest in civil applications. However, the picture is set to change as a result of competition from companies overseas.

"Becoming China's SpaceX is just our short-term goal," Han Qingping, president of ChinaRocket Co in Beijing, told a media briefing last month.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp, known as SpaceX, is a US aerospace manufacturer and provider of space transport services. It is famous for developing the Falcon 1, Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the Dragon cargo spacecraft, which ferried supplies to the International Space Station.

ChinaRocket, established on Oct 19, is a subsidiary of the State-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the main contractor for the country's space program. It plans to exploit the technical expertise of its parent company and expects to begin carrying cargo into space and providing high-atmosphere passenger services by as early as 2020.

"With 60 years' experience of space launches, our technological foundation is very strong. Also, (Elon) Musk (founder of SpaceX) has limited funds, but China has ample capital," Han said. "SpaceX only has two types of Falcon launch vehicle, but our company owns a dozen types of Long March rocket that can carry payloads ranging from hundreds of kilograms to 20 tons."

In February, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, another State-owned defense technology giant, set up Expace Technology Co to market its Kuaizhou-series of solid-fueled rockets. According to media reports, the first Kuaizhou rocket will blast off in December with a cargo of two microsatellites.

"With reference to the experience of the US, the primary question is how to involve more companies and improve the quality of the participants," said Cao from the microsatellite academy.

Investment

Last month, the US government unveiled a project aimed at boosting the commercial space industry by encouraging NASA to invest $30 million in microsatellites which would allow smaller companies to enter the sector.

"The Chinese government should reciprocate by opening some aeronautics projects to private companies to create a competitive environment. By this process, the industry would develop gradually as it draws talent and technologies," Cao said.

In September, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp signed an agreement with the government of Hubei province to jointly build a commercial spaceflight industry park and develop an entire industry chain, including rocket launches, satellite development, spatial information services and the production of aerospace ground equipment.

By 2020, the park intends to produce 30 billion yuan worth of equipment, including 50 launch vehicles, 40 100-kg satellites and 100 satellites weighing less than 100 kg.

Globally, the market for nano- and microsatellites is expected to show average annual growth of more than 20 percent until 2021, according to a report by Mordor Intelligence, a market researcher and consultancy in India.

Some experts are predicting further developments in the sector.

"We already have Internet Plus in China. In the future, we will be able to propose a new concept - Spaceflight Plus - by opening our launch capacity to the market, and thus driving productivity in other industries," said Han, of ChinaRocket.

"The reputation and reliability of China's aerospace industry means we have already received offers of cooperation from many sides, and that is likely to facilitate the formation of a Spaceflight Plus industry," he added.
A growing number of Chinese couples have asked for test-tube babies after the country abandoned the decades-long one-child policy in 2015. However, due to some special reasons, some of them have turned to illegal surrogate clinics for help.

An undercover investigation conducted by the Southern Metropolis Daily based in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province in south China, gave us a glimpse of the secrete surrogate industry.

Although the practice is not allowed under current Chinese laws, illegal advertisements can be found in the corners of many large reproductive medical centers if you look for them patiently enough.

Xiaoke is the codename of a surrogate broker. On her WeChat Moments page, there are photos of many beautiful young girls labeled as "egg provider." Potential customers can find the girls basic information like blood type and height, and sometimes even information like name (codename in most cases), age, ethnic group, hometown, education background, major of study and menstrual period. Many of the girls are allegedly studying in top universities in the province.

Egg donation, which is a big headache for legal medical institutions due to high legal and professional barriers, is only a matter of money for Xiaoke. On her WeChat page, the eggs of girls with extremely appealing CVs can be priced at more than 100,000 yuan (US$14,761.02).

As for doctors, Xiaoke said all operations would be done by qualified doctors from the First Affiliated Hospital and the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of the Sun Yat-sen University, two of the most famous hospitals in the province. The only difference is that customers can bypass the annoying queues in overcrowded hospitals.

Aspiring parents must pay an introduction fee before meeting any doctors. The fee for a doctor surnamed Feng stood at 10,000 yuan (US$1,476.1), and Xiaoke said it was already 50 percent off due to growing market competition.

On Baidu Tieba, one of Chinas largest online forums, there is a group discussion on the topic of test-tube babies. There, one can also find the advertisements of surrogate service providers, who boast that they can handle all needs of customers, including baby gender selection.

In Guangdong Province, there are 28 medical institutions with official certification to conduct test-tube operations. Liu Jianqiao, a doctor at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, said, "The 28 hospitals are fully capable of receiving the couples going to illegal clinics, but we wont conduct any operation against ethics or medical conventions, such as surrogacy."

Besides the refusal of handling surrogate operations, these hospitals also have strict rules on sperm and egg supply, whereas things are much easier in illegal clinics. Anything, from egg supply to baby gender selection, is not a problem as long as you can afford it.

The difficulty in obtaining sperm and egg donation is one of the things driving aspiring parents to illegal clinics. Currently, there is only one sperm bank in Guangdong. Due to a lack of donors, patients have to wait for a long period of time to get what they need.

Eggs are even more difficult to get, as they mainly depend on the donation of women who underwent test-tube operations and had extra eggs. Liu Jianqiao said, "If patients with extra eggs are unwilling to donate them, we have no other options. We cant buy eggs as illegal clinics do."

With strong demand but no sufficient supply, the underground "egg donation" trade came into being. In many shantytowns, its advertisements can be found everywhere. Some women, even teenage girls, have joined in the business despite the huge risks. On Oct. 7, a 17-year-old girl in Guangzhou was reported to have made a narrow escape from death caused by severe internal bleeding after an illegal clinic took 21 eggs from her in one operation.

Chinese authorities are mulling solutions to deal with the situation. In the final amended Law on Population and Family Planning that came into effect on Jan. 1, the proposed legal ban on the use of surrogate mothers was scraped.

"We think surrogacy is a very complicated and sophisticated thing. We need to further discuss it," said Zhang Chunsheng, director of the legislative affairs department with the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC).

At the same time, the NHFPC has continued the crackdown on illegal surrogate clinics and the trades of sperms, eggs, fertilized eggs and fetus, and sought to improve the management of assisted reproductive techniques.
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Sun Hongzhi, former vice minister of the State Administration for Industry & Commerce, stood trial on Thursday for taking bribes, embezzlement of public funds and holding a huge amount of property with unidentified sources.

Sun was accused of taking advantage of his various official posts from 2002 to 2014 to seek benefits for 25 entities and individuals in obtaining contracts and promotions.

Sun accepted bribes of over 14.2 million yuan (around 2.1 million U.S. dollars), either himself or through his wife, according to the indictment from the People's Procuratorate of Taian City in east China's Shandong Province.

When he served as mayor of Songyuan City in northeast China's Jilin Province from 2009 to November 2014, Sun abused his power to embezzle public funds of over 1.64 million yuan, the indictment reads.

He is also accused of holding property worth more than 9.53 million yuan with unidentified sources.

The procuratorate filed the charges with Taian Intermediate People's Court.

Sun confessed to the crimes, and expressed remorse in court.

The ruling will be announced at a later date.

More than 80 people, including journalists and members of the public, attended Thursday's hearing.
"China-Russia cooperation benefits not only the two countries, but also peace, stability and prosperity of the region and the world." - - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (November 8, 2016)

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's just-concluded eight-day Eurasia trip, encompassing Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Russia, from November 2 to 9 is highly significant in enhancing Chinese economic diplomacy on the international stage. Li's trip gives a strong signal to the rest of the world that China is ready to play a leading role in regional and international affairs.

Premier Li visited these four Eurasian countries with an aim to improve economic and bilateral ties with these countries and facilitate the Belt and Road Initiative which has also been widely supported by the international community. Undoubtedly, Li's visit has paved the way in building up a comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Central Asian and Eastern European countries.

During the first leg of his Eurasia tour, Premier Li Keqiang reached the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on November 2, where he met with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev, during which he first conveyed to the president kind regards from Chinese President Xi Jinping. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in January 1992, China and Kyrgyzstan have built a truly good-neighborly and friendly relationship, characterized by equality, mutual respect and trust. Kyrgyzstan raises its significance for China for its geographical position. This is because it shares a border with Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The two countries have signed a number of cooperative documents in a variety of fields such as on finance, culture and energy. During his meeting with Kyrgyz counterpart, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, hailing China and Kyrgyzstan as friendly neighbors bound by mountains and rivers, Chinese Premier said, "China stands ready to jointly push forward the development of bilateral ties and cooperation to benefit the two peoples in a better way." The bilateral strategic partnership between the two countries was upgraded in 2013 during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Kyrgyzstan.

On November 3, Li attended the 15th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) prime ministers' meeting, a regular meeting mechanism established in 2001, where he made a six-pronged proposal which included observing a concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security system to all the SCO countries. Notably, the SCO is a regional political, economic and security organization that groups China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members. For their parts, other attending leaders of SCO member states gave positive affirmation to boost the construction of regional anti-terrorism institutions and mechanisms proposed by Premier Li. This proposal would be beneficial for the regional as well as global security as the whole world is now under the cobweb of heinous terrorism. Political analysts said that security co-operation will become more challenging with the admission of India and Pakistan next year.

As part of his trip, Chinese premier Li Keqiang arrived in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, on November 3, 2016, where he met with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Li attended the 3rd China-Kazakhstan Regular Prime Ministers' Meeting with Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev. The two countries uphold the principles of mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit, and win-win cooperation to promote the leapfrog development of bilateral relations. Li Keqiang pointed out that China is willing better synergize the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative with Kazakhstan's new economic policy of "the Bright Road", so as to usher a new stage of bilateral mutually beneficial cooperation. As good neighborly countries, Li vowed to conduct better cooperation with Kazakhstan under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to safeguard regional peace and stability. China's Belt and Road initiative got the full support of Kazakhstan.

Latvia is the third leg of Li's eight-day Eurasian tour. On November 4, Chinese premier Li Keqiang arrived Riga, the capital city of Latvia, at the invitation of Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis. This is the first time for a Chinese premier to visit Latvia since it declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Latvia. China is the largest trading partner of Latvia in East Asia and the two countries have tremendous potential for cooperation in trade, transportation, logistics, education, culture and tourism. Latvia gets involved in the Belt and Road initiative. Li held a talk with his Latvian counterpart Maris Kucinskis and his visit highlights China's interest in stability in the region. China has participated in the construction of the high-speed railway linking Serbia and Hungary, which has been hailed as a flagship Belt and Road project. On November 5, he also met with leaders from 16 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries at the "16+1" summit which was held for the first time in Warsaw in 2012. Li and the CEE countries' leaders agreed to enhance pragmatic cooperation with China, and increase people-to-people exchanges to achieve mutual complementarities of advantages. China's relations with the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region at large are expected to grow in leaps and bounds, as a visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to the region has injected fresh impetus into their already effective cooperation.

As the last stop of his long eight-day Eurasian trip, on November 6, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Russia, for participating in the 21st regular meeting of heads of governments of China and Russia which was held in St. Petersburg on November 7. During the meeting with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, Premier Li said, "As permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, both China and Russia have maintained cooperation in international affairs and jointly safeguarded the missions and principles of the UN charter to promote regional and global peace and stability." Twenty-one agreements were signed between China and Russia to further promote cooperation in various fields, including on high-speed railways this time. One of the strategic agreements reached was the development of Russia's the Far East. The vast region covers over 36 percent of Russia's land territory and contains rich natural resources including oil and natural gas - exactly what China needs right now. The favorable trend of development in the Russian Far East has made numerous Chinese businessmen and companies become increasingly interested in investing in the region. According to the Russian PM, Moscow and Beijing will make additional efforts to increase trade to $200 billion in next 3-7 years. The two sides agreed to lift their countries' all-around strategic partnership to a higher level.

Before wrapping up his visit, Premier Li and Russian President Vladimir Putin met on November 8 in Kremlin, Moscow and exchanged views on boosting bilateral cooperation and further promoting China-Russia ties. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the signing of the China-Russia Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation and the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Russia strategic partnership of coordination. Li Keqiang spoke positively of the current China-Russia relations and progress of cooperation in all fields. At present, China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination is in a comprehensive, strong and fast development and enjoys broad prospects between the two governments. According to Premier Li, China would also work with Russia to advance people-to-people exchanges and consolidate the public support for bilateral ties. China-Russia cooperation is not only beneficial to the two sides, but also to regional and world peace, stability, development and prosperity.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's just-concluded 'Eurasia' trip proves a successful tour injecting vigor and vitality into the development of China- Eurasian relations. The visit witnessed multi-billion-dollar deals and concrete roadmaps for future cooperation between China and four Eurasian countries. His visit to Eurasian countries significantly signals to the outside world of China's ability to engage multiple audiences across the Eurasian landmass bringing closer Europe and Asia to China's new economic policy under the framework of Belt and Road Initiative, connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient routes. Chinese initiation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and integration with economies along the Belt and Road Initiative, first put forward by President Xi Jinping, have won broad-based support. Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Russia - all the nations are located along the strategic ancient Silk Road. These four countries are a growing market for Chinese goods and investment, and a planned transit route for the "Belt and Road" project. Surely China will benefit itself from Li's 'Eurasia' trip with the greater Eurasian partnership that affirms the ideology of rejuvenating the Chinese nation to other regions and countries, regardless of their current national circumstances.

The author Rabi Sankar Bosu is secretary of New Horizon Radio Listeners' Club, West Bengal, India.
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President Xi Jinping will pay a week-long visit to Latin America starting next week, China's Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday.

At the invitation of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Xi will pay state visits to the three countries from Nov. 17 to 23, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said in a statement.

During the tour, Xi will attend the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting from Nov. 19 to 20 in Lima, capital city of Peru, according to Lu.
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For more than four years, the Chinese Embassy in Khartoum and Sanad Charity Foundation, a Sudanese non-governmental organization, have implemented a number of social initiatives in support of thousands of the needy, where their partnership served as a bridge for the deeply-rooted Sino-Sudanese ties.

The joint social initiatives covered fields including education, health, water and electricity in addition to other projects that targeted the vulnerable people in Sudanese society.

On Wednesday, the Chinese Embassy in Khartoum and Sanad Charity Foundation celebrated at Ed Babikir area, east of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the distribution of 3,500 blankets for the needy people at the area.

"Today, we are distributing 3,500 blankets for the people affected by the floods which hit Sudan two months ago," Chinese Ambassador in Khartoum Li Lianhe told reporters.

"These blankets are donated by the Chinese Embassy in Khartoum to ease the suffering of those affected by the floods, particularly with the onset of winter season," he noted.

The ambassador said "we share these emotions on bases of the deeply-rooted friendship between the two peoples, this is the reason why we decided to donate these blankets."

"We have previously donated 100,000 U.S. dollars, on behalf of the Chinese Red Cross, for the Sudanese Red Crescent to help the people affected by the rains and floods in Sudan," Li said.

He added that the Chinese embassy, in cooperation with the Sudanese Health Ministry, carried out a three-month program to conduct cataract surgeries for Sudanese patients.

"As many as 1,041 cataract surgeries have been carried out for Sudanese patients as part of the program, where all the patients who underwent the surgeries have regained their eyesight," he noted.

Samia Mohamed Osman, secretary-general of Sanad Charity Foundation, told reporters that "we have a close partnership with the Chinese organizations and the Chinese Embassy in Khartoum covering vital and important projects."

"The cooperation between our foundation and the Chinese Embassy in Khartoum has been ongoing for four years during which we have implemented many projects in fields of health, education and electricity in the capital Khartoum and a number of states," she said.

She further appreciated China's support for the poor and needy people. "Such initiatives have been repeated by the Chinese embassy and greatly helped many poor families."

Meanwhile, many of Ed Babikir area citizens who benefited from the donation expressed their appreciation for the initiative of the Chinese embassy.

"We appreciate this assistance. We really need these blankets to face the winter season. We thank the Chinese Embassy in Khartoum," Abdalla Ahmed, a citizen from Ed Babikir area, told Xinhua.

Mariam Mohamed, a citizen from the same area, told Xinhua that "we need the blankets to protect our children against cold. Thanks for China and Sanad Charity Foundation."
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U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday he had invited President-elect Donald Trump to the White House to "talk about making sure there is a successful transition."

Obama said he called Trump at around 3:30 am local time (8:30 GMT) to congratulate him on winning the election.

"We are all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country," Obama said.

"The presidency and the vice-presidency is bigger than any of us," Obama said, and that his team was instructed to "work as hard as we can to make sure this is a successful transition."

"We are actually all on one team," Obama said as he tried to console those who were saddened by the outcome of the election.

"We are not Republicans first or Democrats First, We are Americans first," he said, adding "we all want the best for this country."

Obama also praised his party's nominee Hillary Clinton, whose candidacy and nomination was "historic" as it sends out a message that females can "achieve at the highest level of politics."

Clinton "has lived a extraordinary life of public service" as the First Lady, the senator of New York and the Secretary of State, Obama recounted.

Clinton has made a concession speech earlier in the day, congratulating Trump on his election and hoping for a peaceful transition of power.

U.S. Republican Donald Trump defeated Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, pulling a major upset after a controversial and scandalous campaign cycle.
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The Israeli air forces attacked a Syrian military position in Syria's southern province of Qunaitera on Wednesday, the Syrian army said in a statement.

The attack led to the destruction of a cannon in the countryside of Qunaitera, said the statement.

It added that the attack comes after the successes the Syrian forces have made in foiling a wide-scale attack the terror-designated Nusra Front had unleashed in Quniatera earlier on Wednesday.

"The Israeli attack is an attempt to boost the morale of the of the terrorists," the statement said.

It stressed the Syrian army's resolve to continue the battles against the terrorist groups, which it said are the tools of Israel.

The Syrian government has repeatedly accused Israel of aiding the terror groups in Qunaitera, especially as the Israeli shelling on Syrian military positions often comes after a heavy blow the rebels receive by the Syrian army in that area.
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The U.S. Republican Party on Wednesday managed to retain control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress, bagging two branches of the U.S. government and eyeing the third.

Republicans went into the Senate race with 54 seats and kept at least 51 in the 100-seat chamber, according to projections from major U.S. TV networks.

The battle for Senate majority, though overshadowed by the Presidential Election, was every bit as heated as many analysts predicted the Democrats to gain a slight margin riding on their presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's healthy poll numbers in several battleground states.

But crucial Republican wins in the states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin saw the Democrat's effort thwarted.

The Republicans had an easier job defending their majority in the House of Representatives, with major U.S. news outlets projecting the GOP to keep 239 seats in the 435 member group.

The Democrats needed to occupy 30 more seats during the election but snatched less spots than expectation.

"It is my hope and intent that we succeed in the years ahead by working together with our colleagues across the aisle to strengthen our national and economic security," said veteran Republican Senator Mitch McConnell.

McConnell, who will serve as the Senate Majority leader, also congratulated fellow Republican Donald Trump, saying "after eight years of the Obama administration, the American people have chosen a new direction for our nation."

After controlling the White House and the U.S. congress, the Republican Party is on course to appoint a conservative Justice in the U.S. Supreme Court, filling in the crucial slot vacated by late Justice Antonin Scalia.

With four Justices appointed by Republican presidents and four appointed by Democrats, the Supreme Court will likely tilt toward conservative values after the new appointment.
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Independence-seeking insurgents in eastern Ukraine said on Wednesday they have rejected the offer to carry out a prisoner exchange with Kiev under the "one-for-three" formula during the latest meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine crisis.

"The attempts of the representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to put on the discussion the "truncated" version of prisoner swap had been negatively perceived by the representatives of people' s republics," Vladislav Deinego, a Lugansk representative in the Contact group, was quoted as saying by the insurgent-run Lugansk information center.

Donetsk and Lugansk representative are insisting on the "all-for-all" prisoner exchange formula with the Ukrainian government, Deinego said.

Last week, the head of the Ukrainian Security Service Vasyl Hrytsak said Kiev stands ready to release three detainees in exchange for one in an effort to revive the stalled prisoner swap.

Kiev believes that insurgents are holding at least 109 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians captured in the conflict, while rebels estimate that the government is holding 618 of their supporters.

The prisoner swap is a key part of the Minsk ceasefire agreement designed to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 9,600 people since April 2014.
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Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that his country expects respect from the U.S. president-elect Donald Trump for the international deal which put an end to the nuclear disputes of the Islamic republic.

The nuclear agreement between Iran and the world powers, including the outgoing U.S. administration, is a reflection in a UN Security Council Resolution, Rouhani was quoted as saying by Press TV.

The accord cannot be dismissed by one government's decision, Rouhani said, referring to Trump's disapproving comments of Iran's nuclear deal during his presidential campaign.

Iran's nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is the nuclear agreement sealed between Iran and the world major powers, including the U.S., in July 2015 and implemented in January this year.

Rouhani stressed that the result of the U.S. presidential election will have no impact on the Islamic republic's policies, as "Iran's policy of constructive interaction with the world and breaking up nuclear sanctions has placed Iran's economic ties with all countries on an improving and irreversible course."

Washington will no longer be able to continue the spread of Iranophobia as before, he added.

On Wednesday, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also said that the upcoming U.S. administration should observe the country's commitments pertaining to the nuclear deal.

"This is the American people's election, and we respect it," Zarif said in his first reaction following the reports about Trump's victory.

"Iran and the U.S. have no political relations, but the U.S. must carry out what it has undertaken as an international multilateral commitment in the JCPOA," said Zarif.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump, a Republican, defeated rival Hillary Clinton, in a close race to win the 45th U.S. presidency.
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Spokesman for the Libyan National Army said on Wednesday that his forces have controlled 70 percent of the country's territories.

Spokesman for the Libyan National Army Ahmed al-Mesmary addresses a press conference at Libya's Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, on Nov. 9, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

"After retrieving the majority of homeland, we pledge to fight hard until the entire soil of Libya is freed from the grip of terrorist groups," the army spokesman Ahmed al-Mesmary told reporters at Libya's Embassy in Cairo.

He stressed that the army moved to help the Libyans who suffered much from the crimes of terrorists across the country.

Al-Mesmary said that the army, which is led by Maj. Gen. Khalifa Haftar, is now fighting against four terror groups as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and a militia of mercenaries.

"These terror organizations killed hundreds of Libyans across the country and mainly in Benghazi where some terror groups are still acting. We had to move to stop the massacres and to keep the unity of the Libyan territories," he added.

He accused the terror groups of using the foreign laborers and the residents of Benghazi, the birthplace of the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, as human shields.

The spokesman also called for lifting a UN arms embargo that was imposed on Libya in 2011 to prevent sale or supply of arms and related material of all types to the country.

"Despite the arms ban and poor capabilities, our forces managed to prevent terrorists from reaching neighboring countries and even Europe," he pointed out.

He also said that his forces have taken over all major oil fields and ports after launching an attack on the oil crescent, a region containing Libya's largest oil ports that had been closed by terrorists for years.

"The oil companies have resumed working and produce 600,000 barrels of oil a day. We export the production from all ports," he confirmed.

The oil sector, Libya's main source of income, has been suffering drastically since 2011, due to armed attacks and political division.

The North African country remains divided politically between two governments and parliaments, despite a UN-brokered peace agreement signed by the country's political rivals in December 2015.

The Tripoli-based, UN-backed government of national accord claims legitimacy, while the eastern government, which supports Haftar, has the strongest troops in the country and is fighting on various frontiers to have full control over the oil-rich country.

Regarding Egypt's support and cooperation with the Libyan army, al-Mesmary said that there is a full and ongoing coordination between the two countries as they both fight against the same enemy.
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to stop picking a fight with the United States, saying Donald Trump has been elected as president.

In a speech before the Filipino community in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Duterte said, "I said I don't want to pick fight because Trump is there."

"I would like to congratulate President Trump. Long live! We have something in common. We are alike because we both curse easily," Duterte added.

Duterte is in Kuala Lumpur for an overnight official visit.

During the campaign early this year, Duterte has been likened to Trump and even earned the nickname "Trump of the East" for his style that many say is similar to Trump.

Both leaders are septuagenarians and managed to win the votes of millions even if they did not have occupied national positions.

Duterte, 71, was a former mayor of a southern Philippine city of Davao while Trump, 70, was a billionaire, real estate developer-turned reality television star with no government experience.

Political analyst Ramon Casiple said both leaders "think out of the box," adding that they could probably get along better than outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama.

He predicted that Trump's victory could usher in a new beginning in the U.S.-Philippines relations.

Duterte has hurled expletive-laced remarks against Obama and the United States for criticizing his campaign against drug users and pushers, which has reportedly left 4,000 suspects dead.
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The first batch of Kenyan troops who served in South Sudan's UN peacekeeping mission arrived in Nairobi on Wednesday following President Uhuru Kenyatta's order to withdraw.

Some 100 soldiers who were part of about 1,000 troops seconded to the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) in Wau region, were received by the commander of the Kenyan military's Eastern Command Major-General Benjamin Biwott.

"Today we have started our withdrawal from South Sudan," Biwott told journalists in Nairobi, noting that further batches of soldiers from about 1,000-strong Kenyan contingent would arrive in coming days.

Biwott said the withdrawal followed the order by President Kenyatta after the sacking of Lt. General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki as UNMISS Force Commander by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the basis that he failed to protect people of South Sudan.

"We are happy and committed to serving in the missions. We have been serving in the peacekeeping missions since 1979 in 24 countries," he added.

He said Kenya will withdraw all the more than 1,000 troops from South Sudan as soon as possible and when UN provides the needed logistics.

The military officer said Kenyan soldiers had taken part in peacekeeping operations in 44 countries over the past four decades and Kenya was continuing in its other missions.

"We are committed in our peacekeeping operations as a credible and well-trained force," he said.

The dusty troops who carried light rucksacks were taken for a debriefing at the airport upon landing in Nairobi before they could be redeployed to their original stations.

President Kenyatta had ordered the troops to withdraw in response to the sacking of the Kenyan commander of the UNMISS force.

Kenya said last week it would pull its forces out after a UN inquiry accused UNMISS of failing to respond to an attack on a Juba hotel during fighting in July. Lieutenant General Johnson Ondieki was fired.

"Peace will not come to South Sudan by blaming a Kenyan commander for the wider failings of the Mission to South Sudan. We intend to withdraw Kenyan troops from the mission and will discontinue our contribution of troops to the proposed Regional Protection Force," Kenyatta said.

He said events involving the UN Mission to South Sudan led UN Secretariat to place the blame for a systemic failure on an individual Kenyan commander.

The hotel attack occurred in July during several days of fighting between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his former vice president Riek Machar in July. The two men have long been political rivals and come from different ethnic groups.

A civil conflict erupted in South Sudan in December 2013, but the two leaders signed a peace deal in 2015 that was meant to halt the fighting, but it failed to stick. Machar has since left the country and sporadic clashes have continued.
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The African Development Bank (AfDB) on Wednesday approved 391 million U.S. dollars to help finance a major water and sanitation program in Kenya.

The Kenya Towns Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation Program is designed to improve water access and quality in 19 towns and improve waste water management in 17 towns.

"The program fits with the Kenya's Vision 2030 and its five-year Mid-Term Plan II (MTP-II), whose realization is heavily dependent on adequate and sustainable provision of water supply and sanitation services," AfDB said in a statement received in Nairobi.

The program aims to catalyze commercial activities, drive economic growth, improve people's quality of life and build resilience against climate change, according to the statement.

"These objectives would be achieved through construction and rehabilitation of water supply and sanitation infrastructure including expansion into informal settlements; and capacity development of water service providers, sector regulators, and women and youth," it said.

The program will provide more than 2.1 million people with reliable and sustainable water supply services and more than 1.3 million people with water-borne sewerage systems, creating more than 15,000 new jobs in the process.

The MTP-II prioritizes the water sector investments including expansion of water supply and sanitation in towns. The program, to be implemented in 54 months, is estimated to cost 451.66 million dollars.

The Bank's loans and grants will cover 86.52 percent of the total program costs. The Kenyan government will contribute 60.87 million dollars in counterpart funding.
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About Censored News Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell. Since 2006, Censored News has received more than 20 million pageviews. As a collective of writers, photographers and broadcasters, we publish news of Indigenous Peoples and human rights. Contact publisher Brenda Norrell: brendanorrell@gmail.com

From the publisher Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell, a journalist in Indian country for 40 years. Norrell created Censored News after she was censored and terminated as a staff reporter at Indian Country Today in 2006. She began as a reporter at Navajo Times during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. She was a stringer for AP and USA Today and later traveled with the Zapatistas through Mexico. She has been blacklisted by all the mainstream media for 14 years. Contact brendanorrell@gmail.com

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Hong Kong, the world's second-largest market for new listings this year, is planning to step up its efforts to police misconduct by sponsors of initial public offerings.

The Securities and Futures Commission will bring more cases against IPO sponsors, or financial institutions that sign off on listings, Thomas Atkinson, the regulator's executive director of enforcement, said on Wednesday at a conference in the city.

The SFC is boosting its supervision of new listings amid a spike in complaints against publicly traded companies in recent years. Inexplicably high valuations, excessive shareholding concentrations and trading volumes that collapsed after some IPOs were among problems highlighted by the SFC's Chief Executive Officer Ashley Alder earlier this week.

"To put it very lightly, the conduct and level of professionalism demonstrated by some sponsors has left a lot to be desired," Atkinson said at the Thomson Reuters Pan-Asian Regulatory Summit. "You can expect to see some more of these cases," he said, adding that "hopefully, we'll hold these firms and the senior management accountable."

The commission on Nov 1 alerted Standard Chartered Plc that it intends to take action against a unit of the UK bank in relation to its role as a joint sponsor of an IPO in the city in 2009. Last month, UBS Group AG said it could be fined and suspended from arranging first-time share sales in Hong Kong.

The securities watchdog introduced a new system in October 2013 where sponsors of an IPO will be held accountable if the offer documents contain untrue statements. It has also warned that bankers on such deals can be held criminally liable. In 2012, the SFC said a stricter regime, with unambiguous criminal and civil liability, is needed to protect investors after a string of accounting scandals involving publicly traded Chinese companies.

Bloomberg
A worker walks at a unit of South Pars Gas field in Asalouyeh Seaport, Iran. [Photo/Agencies]

JV is the first after United Nations sanctions were eased on Mideast nation

Iran signed a $4.8 billion natural gas development project with energy giants Total SA and China National Petroleum Corp, marking the first joint venture with international partners since UN sanctions on the nation were eased in January.

Paris-based Total will control 50.1 percent in the project, with CNPC taking 30 percent and Iran's Petropars the rest. The deal, for the 11th phase of the offshore South Pars gas field, is still preliminary, with both sides signing a "heads up agreement", according to Gholam-Reza Manouchehri, deputy director of the National Iranian Oil Co.

Total put the cost of the first phase of the project at $2 billion, with Total's share at $1 billion, Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said on Tuesday.

"It's definitely in the interests of the country and now the partners to finalize the contract production," he said at a signing ceremony in Teheran on Tuesday.

Iran has the world's biggest natural gas reserves, estimated by BP Plc at 34 trillion cubic meters. The offshore South Pars gas field is Iran's section of the world's biggest deposit, also shared with Qatar. Iran is seeking to revive an energy industry crippled by international sanctions.

The agreement signals that the country is trying to fast-track projects to boost oil and gas production amid low prices, analysts said.

"Iran wants to go very quickly and they are looking to sign agreements as soon as possible," said Homayoun Falakshahi, a specialist on the Iranian oil industry at consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd in London. The project is the first to be signed with an international oil company since Iran developed new oil contract procedures to attract foreign investment. Teheran earlier signed an agreement with a domestic company, Persia Oil & Gas Co, using the new contracts.

Alastair Syme, an oil analyst at Citigroup Inc in London, described the South Pars deal as "attractive," estimating it would deliver returns of 19 percent for Total. In Iran's previous buyback deals, which foreign groups disliked and which were used in the late 1990s and early 2000s, companies often achieved single-digit returns.

Still, companies are likely to be wary about investing in Iran too quickly, or too much. "While the project terms look attractive, the political history clearly warrants limiting exposure," Syme said.

Total was working on developing the South Pars gas project until sanctions designed to halt the nation's nuclear program forced the company to pull out in 2009. "I thank Total for returning," Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said.

Bloomberg
A space capsule pod in Hong Kong. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Hong Kong is widely known for its high rents and tiny homes. As a result, a local landlord is bringing "space capsule pods" to the city, which can be stacked together to ease the housing crunch, adding a new accommodation option for university students and young workers.

A local rental website shows that 10 capsule pods in a 90 square meter dormitory are currently available for rent in Sai Ying Punthe northwestern part of Hong Kong Island, near Hong Kong University and the main business district Central.

The rental price for each capsule pod starts at HK$4,500 ($580) per month. In a three-bedroom apartment, four capsules were stacked in the sitting-room and two capsules were installed as bunk beds in each bedroom.

One kitchen and one bathroom will be shared by all the tenants. Each pod, which is 1.9 meters long, 1 meter wide and 1.15 meters high, is slightly larger than a twin bed. In spite of their small size, capsule pods come complete with a bed, ventilation fan, light switches, a computer table and power outlets.

The apartment's landlord said: "The regular price to rent a pod per month is HK$4,500, but I can give you a discount if you decided to rent. The lowest price every month is HK$3,800, plus a HK$1,000 deposit," adding that he bought the capsules pods from Micane Technology, a company based in Guangzhou.

The landlord, Wong, who refused to give his full name, said the capsule pods are very popular, and two had already been taken by young workers.

"We provide all the furniture and cleaning services. You don't need to pay an electricity or water bill, or bother to set up Wi-Fi connection. We do everything for you."

A pre-sales consultant from Micane Technology told China Daily that it mainly sells capsule pods to mainland hotels, with each pod starting from 2,990 yuan ($446).

As it's relatively cheap to invest in a hotel in the mainland, the landlords can generally break even in one year.

The launch of capsule pods has aroused safety concerns from the public.

"The SAR Buildings Department has checked our place to make sure we meet the fire safety standard. We are able to lease the pods to the public now," Wong said.

According to Hong Kong's Home Affairs Department, if a tenant's accommodation period is longer than 28 continuous days, the landlord is not required to apply for a license.

It's not the first time that "space capsule pods" have appeared in Hong Kong. As early as 2012, a capsule hotel was about to open in the same district.

The surging house prices and skyrocketing rents in Hong Kong are pushing people to live in subdivided homes or "cage homes". The average monthly rental of subdivided homes ranges from HK$3,500 to HK$10,000, while cage homes were generally priced at HK$2,000 per month.
The Chinese government's decision to raise the value-added tax rebate on petroleum products has been hailed by experts.

According to a statement released by the State Administration of Taxation and the Ministry of Finance, the government has raised the value-added tax rebate on exports of oil products, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, to 17 percent, starting Nov 1.

With an oversupply of oil products in the domestic market, the tax reimbursement for its exports will encourage more oil product exports and improve corporate revenue and profits, said experts.

According to Wang Lu, an Asia-Pacific oil and gas analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence, China's exports of refined oil products surged this year due to abundant refining capacity.

Ample domestic supply and weakened demand also contributed to its surge, she said.

With an acute shortage of oil product market supplies in the past, the government had previously imposed strict restrictions on the tax refund to discourage exports, according to Han Xiaoping, chief information officer at China Energy Net Consulting Co, an industry consultancy in Beijing.

"However, with a serious surplus of domestic oil products in recent years, the policy will encourage companies to export their products to ease the country's oil refining capacity surplus," he said.

China's petroleum refinery distillation capacity reached 710 million metric tons per year by the end of 2015, according to Su Jun, general manager of the production and operation department of China National Petroleum Corp, while figures from the National Bureau of Statistics reveal that China's total oil production reached 255 million tons during the first nine months this year, a year-on-year 1.6 percent increase.

On the other hand, with slowed economic growth, demand for oil products like diesel is seeing a decrease, and the popularization of new energy vehicles have also contributed to a slowdown of gasoline and diesel demand.

The supply of oil products in 2015 reached 337 million tons, while consumption, despite a year-on-year increase of 4.3 percent, is 316 million tons, still less than supply.

Against such a backdrop, many companies are eyeing markets abroad.

Figures from China's customs authority reveal that January to September diesel exports reached 10.79 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 148.14 percent, while gasoline exports reached 6.93 million tons, a 72.26 percent increase compared with the same period of last year.

Diesel exports in September reached 1.6 million tons, a 44 percent increase, reaching a record.

Wang added that the increase in the tax refund will help lift China's refiners' profits, but the effect might be limited.

"China's increase in the tax refund for exported refined products might have limited impact on Chinese oil majors including PetroChina and Sinopec," said Wang.

"Many exports are processed on order and are not subject to the value-added or consumption taxes and it will take some time to see whether the tax policy will work."
A visitor experiences a high-definition smart movie system on display by China's Royole Corporation at the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. [Photo/Xinhua]

The ongoing negotiations for a bilateral investment treaty between China and the United States will not be obstructed or delayed by Donald Trump's new administration as both sides are under pressure to stimulate their economies, experts said on Wednesday.

Their comments came after Trump gained the keys to the White House in the presidential poll. Their optimism was despite the fact Trump previously pledged to impose tariffs on Chinese products to "level the playing field", even though analysts said this would be contrary to the rules of the World Trade Organization.

He Jingtong, a professor of trade policy at Nankai University in Tianjin, said potential political conflict would not occur after Trump took over the reigns of power, because he needed to fulfill his promise to create jobs in the country's manufacturing sector, at least within the next two years.

"The US economy still relies on big-ticket investment from China to create new market growth points to boost both job and export markets," He said.

"Shutting down the BIT talk channels will not conform to the interests of both new US federal government and local governments, especially those located in the so-called Rust Belt in the country."

Backed by its legal environment, infrastructure facilities and market demand, the US remained China's biggest overseas investment destination in the first three quarters of this year. China's outbound direct investment to the US amounted to $16.24 billion during the nine-month period.

Chinese investment mainly flowed into the country's manufacturing and information, food processing, retail and housing sectors.

BIT is an agreement signed between two countries or regions on cross-border investment. It assures foreign investors of nondiscriminatory treatment and protection against unwarranted expropriation.

"The road ahead is still fairly tough," said Zhang Jianping, director of the International Economic Cooperation Institute at the National Development and Reform Commission.

"The validation of the BIT can help both Chinese and US companies operate businesses in each other's markets independently in the long term, instead of looking for local partners to form joint ventures," Zhang said.

He said this would give investors more flexibility to control their finances and make investment decisions.

China and the US held their 31st round of BIT talks in Washington this week.

China has signed bilateral investment treaties with 130 countries and regions in the world, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
The American Chamber of Commerce in South China said on Wednesday it believed Sino-US relations would continue to grow after Donald Trump was elected as the next US president.

"I firmly believe that he realizes that China is one of our most important partners on the world stage and must be treated as an equal partner. I'm confident that Trump will work on building a future based on cooperation and trade with China," said Harley Seyedin, president of AmCham South China.

"Now that the campaign rhetoric is over, I am fully confident that Trump will pay great attention to expansion and liberalization of trade between China and the United States," he said.

"Not only American companies in South China will increase their investments in China, but also all those who have invested in Asia Pacific. And the best proof of this is the fact that the American Chamber of Commerce in South China will host the 2017 APCAC Asia-Pacific Business Summit in Guangzhou," he added.
Chinese exporters have remained calm after the US presidential election result, saying they had prepared for inevitable exchange rate fluctuations, and see little impact on China's exports to the United States.

The surprise victory of Donald Trump, who lacks political experience, might mean some uncertainties about China-US trade, which is worrying for many of Chinese exporters, but they can cope with it, said Yan Guoshan, president of Foshan Textiles Import and Export Co Ltd.

"To avoid big financial losses due to exchange rate fluctuations, we always write into contracts that prices may be adjusted if the currency fluctuations are out of a certain range," Yan said.

"And we have been expanding our business with emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America in the past three years," he added.

Yan's company is based in Foshan, Guangdong province, and serves as the foreign trade agent for local manufacturers. It has an annual export volume of $200 million, mainly trading textiles, building materials, electronics, lighting products and furnishings.

The amount of business done by the company with the US market has shrunk from two-fifths of the total three years ago to one-fifth now.

"But the US is still an important market for us. We will consolidate the market by providing higher-quality products and conducting more detailed research on American consumers in different regions," Yan said.
COPENHAGEN - Danish food processing company, Danish Crown, plans to invest about 300 million Danish kroner ($44 million) in building a processing and retail product plant in China, the company announced on Wednesday.

The Europe's largest pork producer, dealing primarily in meat processing of pork and beef, said in a statement that the new plant will be located in Shanghai and the production will be based on Danish raw material.

The plan is part of the strategy of the company towards 2021, and chief executive officer Jais Valeur admits that it is a bit of a "gamble" to try the Chinese market.

"But this is one of the chances we should take as a big company and try to see if we can get closer to the market, closer to consumers and further up in the value chain in China, rather than just being a raw material supplier," Valeur said.

Danish Crown already has a large export of fresh pork to China, and its by-products like toes, ears and tail are delicacies popular among Chinese consumers.

Valeur said the consumption pattern in China is changing rapidly, and the Chinese eating habits begin more and more to resemble the food culture in Europe and the United States.

Meanwhile, the e-commerce is developing fast in China, enabling groceries being bought and delivered at home, he added.

"It is therefore evident that we should try to capitalize on this by our own production," Valeur said.

Danish Crown is a co-operative slaughterhouse, created through numerous mergers, and the oldest slaughterhouse which is part of Danish Crown today was founded in Horsens in 1887.

Approximately 22 million pigs and sows and about 700,000 cattle are slaughtered each year in the Danish Crown slaughterhouses, and the products are sold in more than 130 countries worldwide.

With 26,000 employees, Danish Crown has an annual turnover of about 60 billion kroner.
SHENYANG - A Chinese port and Russian Railways have signed an agreement to jointly develop an international logistics center in the Russian capital of Moscow.

According to the document inked earlier this week, the Yingkou Port Group Corporation will buy a 49-percent stake in the Bely Rast Terminal Logistics Center of Russian Railways.

The two companies will invest a total of 18 billion rubles ($283 million) to build the logistics center into the largest in Moscow, said the agreement.

As part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, Yingkou Port, located in northeast China's Liaoning province, has railway routes to cities including Moscow and Warsaw, Poland.

The Bely Rast center is a transport hub for 21 container trains running between China and Europe.

The cooperation will boost China's efforts to reinvigorate its northeastern rustbelt provinces of Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin, as well as serve Russia's strategy to develop its Far East, according to Li Hezhong, president of the Yingkou Port Group Corporation.
BEIJING - High-quality Sunflower oil, wheat flour and organic jam from Russia are no longer the rare, exotic food stuffs they once were. They are now common pantry items in the homes of many Chinese thanks to the significant improvement of economic and trade ties between China and Russia.

China is now Russia's biggest trading partner and an important source of foreign investment, while Russia is one of China's main import sources of energy, electromechanical products and high technology.

In the first half of this year, bilateral trade between China and Russia rose 1.8 percent year on year to $31.72 billion, official data showed.

During Premier Li Keqiang's official visit to Russia, from Sunday to Tuesday, Li said that China and Russia should capitalize on their complementary advantages, and help promote each other's development, revitalization, and economic transformation.

Regarding trade and investment, Li said the two sides should continue to promote healthy and sustainable development of bilateral economic and trade ties and two-way investment.

Luz Yanin, head of the Institute of the Far East of Russia's Academy of Sciences, said that besides traditional cooperation areas like oil and natural gas, new areas, such as e-commerce, are emerging that will continue to boost bilateral cooperation.

In the first quarter of 2016, Russian cross-border e-commerce totalled about $1.1 billion with nearly half through Chinese e-commerce platforms. On average, 300,000 parcels were sent daily from China to Russia.

Infrastructure investment is also a highlight of bilateral cooperation, which will further stimulate trade and economic exchanges between China and Russia, said Jia.

Chen Yu, researcher with China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said that one of the opportunities for both nations to deepen their joint work is the development of Russia's Far East, a vast region with abundant resources.

China is willing to work with Russia to synergize the Belt and Road initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

Li Hui, Chinese ambassador to Russia, told Xinhua that the integration would unlock the potential of economic complementarity between China and Russia, and contribute to the economic recovery of the EEU member states as well as benefiting countries along the ancient Silk Road and across Eurasia.

Premier Li's visit to Russia showed that the China-Russia relationship is at its best in history, said Chen.

Bilateral ties will continue to maintain high level as long as the two sides adopt a pragmatic, cooperative approach with mutual benefits, he said.
The "2016 special training on South-South cooperation of climate change: Seminar on Addressing Climate Change  Pathway and Implementation of Carbon Emission Reduction" sponsored by the Department of Climate Change of National Development and Reform Commission and organized by Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (China National Cleaner Production Center, Ministry of Environmental Protection) was successfully completed in Beijing.

The seminar invited 24 representatives from 13 countries respectively distributed in the Asian-Pacific region (Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal and Sri Lanka), Africa (Uganda, Tanzania, Egypt and Cote d'Ivoire) and Latin America (Cuba and Peru). They serve in the areas of addressing climate change, environmental management, industrial management and cleaner production in their own countries.

The training lasts 10 days and combines classroom instruction, on-site visits, discussions and exchanges. For the lectures, some famous professors from Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences and Tsinghua University were invited to share valuable experience and successful cases in China about addressing climate change, carbon trading, industrial carbon emission, environmental protection and cleaner production. During the training, representatives visited Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences and discussed with the leaders from various departments including the cleaner production center in environmental management, environmental protection technology and cleaner production policy. The representatives visited some enterprises such as Tus-Sound Environmental Resources Co Ltd, Beijing GeoEnviron Engineering & Technology Inc, and China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group as well to realize the advanced technology and related applications in environmental protection and carbon emission reduction.

The training summarized national reports and technical demands from 13 countries, including applications of renewable energy, construction of low-carbon parks, energy saving and emission reduction technology in the industry, clean and effective utilization of fuel coal. Many representatives expressed that Chinese experience and China's model provided a reference for them in policy-making and practical ability. They hope this training could facilitate mutual communication and understanding, and continue advancing international cooperation in addressing climate change and solving environmental issues that we all face and to provide strong support for pushing the implementation of China's strategy "One Belt and One Road" as well as South-South cooperation.
This year's China International Travel Mart, which attracts nearly 1,100 travel organizations and associations from both at home and abroad, will begin in Shanghai on Friday.

Apart from nearly 600 participants from the Chinese mainland, another 80 come from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, while more than 400 come from foreign countries and regions, Cheng Meihong, deputy head of Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration, told a media briefing on Thursday, adding that the mart has become the largest of its kind in Asia.

The annual mart that began in 1998 and hosted jointly by the National Tourism Administration, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, and Shanghai Municipal People's Government will for the first time establish special exhibition areas for Chinese souvenirs and outdoor gears and apparel.

The three-day mart is accessible to both travel industry insiders and the public.
Beijing urges EU to drop calculation proposal that won't treat China as a full market economy

Beijing has urged the European Union to drop its proposed use of new criteria in calculating dumping, which may not recognize the full market economy status that has been granted to China by nearly 100 countries.

Ministry of Commerce spokesman Shen Danyang said on Thursday that the new method proposed by the European Commission would continue its practice of not treating China as a full market economy regarding China's foreign trade activities.

"These new measures have no basis in (World Trade Organization) rules, and are likely to be taken as the tools of trade protection. China thinks that countries have different economic development modes and economic management modes because of different national conditions, development phases and cultural traditions," said Shen.

In Wednesday's proposal, Brussels introduced the concept of "market distortions" for calculating dumping. The European Commission said several criteria will be considered, such as state policies and influence, the widespread presence of state-owned enterprises, discrimination that favors domestic companies and the independence of the financial sector.

The European Commission submitted the proposed amendment on protection against dumped imports to the European Council and the European Parliament on Wednesday.

Chi Fulin, president of the China Institute of Reform and Development, said the proposal has indicated that the European Commission is "backsliding and playing a dangerous game" in dealing with the China-EU relationship.

"This has long been debated between China and Europe, but the European Commission's proposal, against a backdrop of rising protectionism in the West, is damaging and unwise," Chi said. "I think the European Commission should withdraw this before it enters the approval process."

Pierre Defraigne, executive director of The Madariaga  College of Europe Foundation, a Brussels think tank, said the EU should have treated China as a market economy at an earlier date, but it has failed due to its longtime policy of following the United States regarding China policy.

"I have long called on the EU to treat China as a market economy, but it is regretful that it has not shown such political vision as of today," Defraigne said.

Ministry of Commerce spokesman Shen said: "These new measures have no basis within the WTO framework and are likely to be taken as the tools of trade protection.

"We urge the EU to use the common WTO practices and rules in the anti-dumping calculation," he said.

Shen said the EU has a responsibility to take the lead in abiding by WTO rules, to fulfill international obligations, to use trade remedy measures properly and to avoid sending wrong signals of trade protectionism to the world.

If the EU insists on the proposed calculation method, "China will reserve all the necessary means to protect its rights," Shen said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Thursday that the EU is the "core member" of the WTO and a champion in advocating multilateral trade and free trade.

"We hope the EU will fulfill its WTO obligations in a timely manner, completely and utterly, in a bid to protect the order of the international trade system and further boost Sino-EU relations," Lu said.

Contact the writers at fujing@chinadaily.com.cn
More and more of China's richest citizens are hunting for overseas properties ahead of their retirement.

More than 1.3 million Chinese have assets worth over 10 million yuan ($1.48 million), a 10.7 percent increase compared to last year, according to a Hurun Research Institute and China CITIC Bank report.

These high earners continue to be attracted to the international property market.

While investment, children's education and immigration remain the main reasons, the report found more and more "ultra-rich" people are buying properties overseas for their retirement. That trend was strongest among those with more than 100 million yuan and aged over 45. Currently,14.3 percent of the ultra-rich, who own a house overseas want to live abroad when they retire.

The report predicts that the high levels of overseas property investment will drop as the wealthy find new ways to spend their money. It found 30 percent who have overseas properties plan to buy up more housing abroad, but 50 percent don't intend to increase their stake.

The United States remains the top destination for wealthy property buyers with 66 percent investing in the country's real estate market.

See which other countries make up the top 10 most popular real estate markets for high-net-worth individuals.

10. Spain

1.7 percent of China's 1.3 million high-net-worth individuals bought properties in Spain.
BEIJING - Auto sales growth in China, the world's biggest auto market, retreated in October from September's three-year high.

About 2.65 million cars were sold in China last month, up 18.7 percent year on year, according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

The growth slowed from the 26.1 percent registered in September.

Sales of passenger cars came in at 2.34 million units last month, up 20.3 percent year on year.

In the first ten months, auto sales went up 13.8 percent to 22 million units.

Earlier official data showed China's manufacturing sector posted its best performance in more than two years, with the manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rising to 51.2 in October, the highest level since July 2014.
Workers monitor an auto-sorting line at a facility of ZTO Express Inc in Shanghai. Courier companies are gearing up for the upcoming Singles Day shopping festival. [Photo provided to China Daily]

In order to deliver the more than 1 billion packages from merchants to buyers during the Singles Day shopping frenzy, the nation's major couriers have launched auto-sorting systems to enhance their efficiency and accuracy.

As the country's biggest shopping festival, the Singles Day event is putting great pressure on domestic express companies.

According to estimates by the China Express Association and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's logistics service offshoot Cainiao, China's fast delivery industry will have to handle 1.05 billion packages throughout the annual shopping carnival, up 35 percent year-on-year.

So it becomes critical for industry players to further raise their handling efficiency, and some major express companies are mechanizing, or auto-sorting, part of the process.

Yunda Express (Shanghai) Co Ltd has installed a set of 200-meter-long sorting lines, with more than 300 trays, in a Shanghai transit center.

"We are ready to launch a second line before Nov 11. The facility can handle more than 20,000 packages per hour and it can operate without any break for more than 20 hours a day," said Lai Shiqiang, operations vice-president of Yunda.

According to Lai, Yunda launched the Shanghai auto-sorting facility ahead of last year's Nov 11 shopping festival, The 20 million yuan ($2.95 million) facility cuts staff number from 200 in peak days down to around 40, with the accuracy rate increasing from 95 percent to 99 percent.

The Shanghai-based company expects its orders during the Singles Day sales period will increase 50 percent from last year.

To get fully prepared this year, the company has restructured and expanded more than 10 transit centers, added 16,000 vehicles and hired 30,000 temporary staff, and introduced brand new automatic sorting equipment in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

"Yunda will also install 300 sets of automatic collection systems at its transit centers to double the package collection speed to 2,500 packages per hour," added Lai.

Some other big-name courier companies, such as the New York Stock Exchange-listed ZTO Express Inc, STO Express Ltd, which is waiting to list, and Shenzhen-based SF Express (Group) Co, have also installed auto-sorting facilities.

"Apart from the auto-sorting facilities in operation in the eastern China region since last year, STO added similar equipment at its eight main new transit centers, including Zhengzhou of Henan province, Panjin of Liaoning province and Wuhan of Hubei province," said Sara Gu, marketing director of STO.

According to Gu, the auto-sorting will save 80 percent on manpower and raise efficiency by 75 percent.

In early 2016, STO became the nation's first courier to launch robotic sorting in Yiwu, Zhejiang province. It launched the second trial in Tianjin in October.

Sorting lines operated by robots handle 2 and 3 times the amount of that can be done by human sorters, with error rates going down to nearly nil.

"Auto-sorting and robot sorting will be the trend, and we expect to have all of STO's 81 major transit centers using such smart facilities soon," added Gu.
Eleven people with a safety evaluation company that provided Ruihai Logistics counterfeit safety reports bow at the court in north China's Tianjin Municipality, Nov 9, 2016.[Photo/Xinhua]

TIANJIN - Courts in north China's Tianjin Municipality on Wednesday sentenced 49 people to prison, including 24 company managers and staff members as well as 25 government officials found guilty of various crimes that led to the city's warehouse blasts, which killed at least 165 people in August 2015.

The suspects were tried by the Second Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin and nine other grass-roots courts from Nov. 7 to Nov. 9. As the rulings were made on Wednesday, all suspects agreed with the verdicts and expressed remorse, sources with the Higher People's Court of Tianjin said.

On Aug. 12, 2015, a series of explosions ripped through a warehouse of Ruihai Logistics Co. Ltd. (Ruihai Logistics) in Tianjin Port, leaving 165 people dead, eight missing, and 798 injured. The blasts also damaged 304 buildings, 12,428 cars, and 7,533 containers, incurring economic losses amounting to 6.87 billion yuan (1.01 billion U.S. dollars).

The court ruled that the blasts were an accident with "extraordinary seriousness," with Ruihai Logistics bearing the main responsibility. The company ignored industrial safety rules and violated municipal district planning by illegally setting up a hazardous materials storage yard, the court ruling says. "Management was chaotic, and safety problems persisted."

Officials of various government agencies involving transportation, ports, customs, industrial safety, city planning, and maritime affairs were also responsible for the accident due to dereliction of duty and abuse of power, the court added. The third responsible party was Tianjin Zhongbin Haisheng, a company that provided counterfeit safety evaluation papers to Ruihai Logistics.

Yu Xuewei, chairman of Ruihai Logistics, was found guilty of bribing port administration officials with cash and goods worth 157,500 yuan (23,333 U.S. dollars) to obtain a certificate to handle hazardous chemicals at the port.

Yu was convicted of illegal storage of hazardous materials, illegal business operations, causing incidents involving hazardous materials, and bribery. He was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.

Yu was ordered to pay a fine of 700,000 yuan (103,704 U.S. dollars).

The deputy chairman and general manager of Ruihai Logistics and three other employees of the company were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 years to life. Seven Ruihai Logistics staff members directly responsible for the incident were sentenced to between three and 10 years in prison.

Eleven people with Tianjin Zhongbin Haisheng, the company that provided Ruihai Logistics counterfeit safety reports were also jailed.

Twenty five officials, including head of Tianjin Municipal Transportation Commission Wu Dai, were sentenced to prison terms lasting from three to seven years for dereliction of duty, abuse of power, and accepting bribes.
Top graft-buster calls for deepened international anti-corruption cooperation

Xinhua | Updated: 2016-11-10 07:34

BEIJING - Wang Qishan, chief of the discipline watchdog of the Communist Party of China (CPC), met on Wednesday with Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, chairman of the National Accountability Bureau of Pakistan in Beijing.



Wang, secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), said anti-corruption cooperation between China and Pakistan has become an important component of their all-weather strategic cooperative partnership.



The sixth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee not only summed up the experience of strengthening Party discipline over the past four years, but also represented a new mobilization order against corruption, said Wang.



He said the meeting also showed the strategic design of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core.



The promotion of comprehensive and strict Party governance has won the support of the Party and the people, he said, calling for deepened international anti-graft cooperation.



Chaudhry briefed Wang on anti-corruption institution building and operations in Pakistan and voiced appreciation for China's anti-corruption efforts and achievements.



He said Pakistan is willing to deepen exchanges and cooperation with China in various fields.
200 factories were closed, while 123 people were detained after inspections last year

Nearly 500 government officials and company leaders in Hebei province have been held accountable for environment-related issues, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

An inspection team sent by the central government found problems with 468 government officials and 19 company managers, including dereliction of duty and abuse of power.

Among them, five have been handed over to judicial organs, and 10 others have been dismissed or moved to other positions. The rest received punishment in other forms, such as demerits and admonishment, the ministry said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Li Bao, a former deputy head of the Hebei Environmental Protection Department, will be subject to criminal prosecution for abuse of power.

Two branch companies of Hesteel Group Co, China's largest steel producer, were admonished for not eliminating high-polluting equipment and for building a new furnace without permission.

The central government's environmental protection inspection team started to look for problems in Hebei province at the end of last year. In one month, the inspection team found 2,856 problems with polluting in the province and handed evidence to the provincial government in May.

In response, the Hebei government quickly shut down 200 polluting factories, detained 123 people and admonished 491 others.

The 487 people exposed on Tuesday is the latest group to be punished, bringing the total of those punished to 1,101.

Chen Zhenhui, a publicity official at the Environmental Protection Bureau of Baoding in Hebeione of the cities with serious air pollutionsaid severe and timely punishment for related officials and business leaders is a strong reminder that the government is taking polluting seriously.

"It will help scare off those people who might potentially violate environmental protection rules," he said.

Hebei, neighboring Beijing, is known for its heavy pollution mainly caused by traditional heavy industries such as iron and steel. According to a report on the air quality of 74 major cities by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, six out of the 10 cities with the worst air quality over the first three quarters were in Hebei.

The province's average annual concentration of PM 2.5hazardous particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameterwas 77 micrograms per cubic meter last year, which is 52 micrograms per cu m higher than the standard set by the World Health Organization.

The province has taken a series of measures to improve its environment since 2013, such as slashing coal-burning and reducing steel capacity.

The Hebei government said that by 2020, the province would have no cities on the list of those with the worst air pollution, and its average annual concentration of PM 2.5 would be reduced by 25 percent from that of last year.
Rescue efforts to save a 6-year-old boy who fell into a dry well in Baoding, Hebei province, continues on Wednesday.[Huo Yan'en/For China Daily]

By Wednesday night, there were still no signs of a boy who fell into a dry well in Baoding, Hebei province, on Sunday morning, despite rescue efforts, authorities said.

"It is hard to predict how long the rescue operation will take due to complex situations underground. The deeper we dig, the more difficulties we encounter," Pang Zhi, head of Baoding Blue Sky Rescue, said during a news conference on Wednesday.

The 6-year-old boy fell into the 40-meter-deep well by accident when playing with his older sister on farmland in Zhongmengchang village in Lixian county.

The boy's father was working on farmland nearby when the incident occurred.

More than 500 rescue workers have participated in the search operation, which has involved excavating the land around the well using more than 140 excavators and other vehicles.

Oxygen has also been sent into the well, said Wang Xiaodong, one of the rescue workers at the site.

The well, about 35 centimeters wide, was too small for rescue workers to enter, so the only option was to dig the land around it.

According to Luo Yun, a professor at China University of Geosciences Faculty of Engineering, said that digging the land around the well requires a huge amount of work, with every meter taking about two hours to dig.

Rescue workers said that more than 200,000 cubic meters of land has been excavated.

In addition, the land around the well is sandy soil, which poses a risk of the land collapsing during digging.

Luo Yun said more professional rescue teams and improved tools for well rescue are needed in China.

The boy's grandfather, surnamed Li, said the well was used for irrigation and had been abandoned for five years.

"It was not filled and there was no cover on it or warning sign beside it when the accident happened," Li was quoted as saying by Beijing News.

Beijing News said they had found many abandoned wells like this in the area.

Villagers said they remove nozzles on the top of dry wells and install them on new ones, because a nozzle usually costs 3,000 yuan ($443), which they consider expensive.

Therefore, the tops of abandoned wells are left open.

Zhang Yong, a rescue team leader, said abandoned wells should be filled in order to avoid potential danger.

No villages officials commented on the incident.
Feng Xiaoyan views herself as a "new farmer", despite being 53 years old. She is contracted to grow organic potatoes on 1,333 hectares of land in her hometown in the northwest province of Shaanxi, and she established her own brand, Sister Potato, in 2009.

"I'm not young, but I think like young people in the internet age," Feng said at the ongoing 2016 China Yangling Agricultural Hi-Tech Fair in Yangling district, a high-tech agricultural zone in Xianyang.

Food safety in China has been questioned due to the overuse of pesticides, fertilizers and chemical additives. Feng, seeing an opportunity for the transformation of Chinese agriculture, decided to plant eco-friendly potatoes to international standards.

Feng was a teacher for eight years in her hometown in Zizhou county before she worked as a government official in Tongchuan from 1990 to 1994.

Feng said the quality of her potatoes is the major reason for her success. From the beginning, she brought in the best potato varieties in the world and employed experts from home and abroad to ensure she used the most sophisticated planting techniques.

She also takes advantage of social media to promote her products.

"Using microblogs as a free advertising platform helps us attract more customers," Feng said.

A Ministry of Agriculture report shows that China has about 2 million new farmers who sell their produce on popular online platforms such as Taobao, Weibo and WeChat.

Compared with traditional farmers, they are generally well-educated. Some even have an overseas education.

Wang Xiaotie, a graduate from Yangling-based Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, is one such new farmer.

In 2012, he gave up his job as the general manager of a vegetable export company in Beijing and went back to Yangling, a testing ground for new agriculture technology.

"Organic agriculture and circular agriculture are not new terms, but are inherited from the wisdom of our ancestors. We only have to observe the laws of nature to plant high-quality fruit," Wang said.

Wang has a kiwi orchard covering 33 hectares. To ensure that all his kiwis are organic, Wang built a fence around the orchard to separate it from surrounding farmland.

"We use organic fertilizer - cow dung and sheep manure - from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in our orchard," Wang said.

Last month, his kiwis won organic certification from the United States, the European Union, Japan and China.

Du Zhixiong, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said he is not sure if all produce from the new farmers is up to the standards of "organic produce", but praised the ambition of such farmers.

"Organic produce has become a symbol and an aim of Chinese new farmers," he said. "In this sense, they are contributing to the country's food safety."
China's law enforcement officials responded on Tuesday to questions about how overseas NGOs will operate in China once a new law takes effect in January.

At a briefing held by the Ministry of Public Security and Shanghai Public Security Bureau in Shanghai, the ministry said there will be no "transitional period" for overseas NGOs.

Overseas NGOs in China are expected to prepare for the new regime and authorities are working on ways to assist them, the ministry said.

The representative offices of overseas NGOs can organize activities within registered regions, it said.

Citing articles 10 and 13 of the law, the ministry said that overseas NGOs can establish one or more representative offices in China, and should disclose and register the areas where they will operate.

The registered regions of two or more representative offices affiliated to the same overseas NGO should not overlap, it said.

According to the ministry, a catalog of fields and activities in which overseas NGOs are allowed to operate in China, as well as a list of authorities in charge of their operation, is being drafted.

This will clarify the agencies responsible for the management of overseas NGOs' activities in various fields, including the economy, education and disaster relief, it said.

The ministry is pondering more details on supervising overseas NGO activities.

Officials from consulates of 11 countries in Shanghai attended the briefing.

(China Daily 11/10/2016 page5)
Zhang Lijun, former vice-minister of environmental protection, was sentenced to four years in prison on Wednesday for taking bribes worth 2.43 million yuan ($357,000), a local court in Beijing ruled.

Zhang, 64, was also fined 500,000 yuan ($73,500) and all his ill-gotten gains were confiscated, according to the verdict of the Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court.

The verdict said Zhang abused his power to gain benefits for others on product sales, project approvals, job promotions and hiring the children of other officials, and accepted bribes between 1998 and 2013.

During the course of 15 years, he served as the director of the planning and finance department under the State Environmental Protection Administration, director of the administration's pollution control department, deputy head at the administration and vice-minister of environmental protection.

SEPA was upgraded to the Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2008.

The court said in a statement that Zhang was given relatively lenient punishment because he had confessed to his crimes and expressed regret, and all his ill-gotten assets have been recovered.

In July last year, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the country's top anti-graft watchdog, announced an investigation into Zhang for "serious discipline violations" two years after his retirement.

In June this year, he stood trial in Beijing on charges of taking bribes.

Last year, the CCDI sent a special inspection team to the Ministry of Environmental Protection to collect evidence of graft, which found some problems such as interference by ministry officials and their relatives in environmental impact assessments.

Since late 2012, when the new Communist Party of China leadership was elected, anti-corruption has become a priority, and a sweeping drive to target both high and low-ranking officials has been initiated.

To date, more than 140 high-ranking officials have been placed under investigation for, or convicted of, graft issues, including Zhou Yongkang, the country's former security chief, who was jailed for life in June last year.

zhangyan1@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/10/2016 page5)
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You never know when a bag for life will come in handy.

A chance encounter in a supermarket bumps Karen up against the simmering trauma caused by a tragedy in her familys past and triggers a campaign of rage and revenge. Through physical, physiological andFacebook stalking, a woman who outwardly appears normal becomes consumed by her mission to undermine the security and stability that her brothers killer has built up around himself. All the while she recklessly risks her own familys security and stability.In, Karens outlook is very black and white. Dressed like a summery bride, Julie Addy spends 75 minutes perched barefoot on top of a small plinth in the middle of the black and white stage, trapped in her virtual cell of anguish. Her eyes wide open and hands gesticulating, she leans forward on her platform and throws a scullery full of emotions at Colin Batemans script as the mother and wife becomes unearthed and loses contact with reality. Its only as the play reaches its breath-taking denouement that the virginal white set is finally sullied with colour.Black and white images are nearly continuously projected onto small white blocks suspended around the stage. Looping video, sophisticated cues and a confident actor allow other filmed characters to walk into shot and briefly interact with the three dimensional Karen. The wickedly dark humour in Batemans monologue is enhanced by visual references thrown up on the screens  yet the script seems strong enough that it would survive without the gimmick of projection should the bulb ever pop or a pared down production be considered.With director Kieran Griffiths turning up the emotional intensity to eleven right from the start of the no-interval performance, the unvaried angsty and shouty tone lacks colour and variation as Karens insane plan is enacted. At times the sound effect of heavy rain threatened to drown out Addys micced up voice.Commissioned as a legacy project for the Derry/Londonderry 2013 UK City of Culture and premiered earlier this year in The Playhouse, the play asks whether the men of violence whose time has been and gone and have settled into civil and civilian life really have it easier than the survivors and families of victims.The plays title works at many different levels and the production exposes the unaddressed prevalence of mental health issues that remain long after conflict withers. It reminds us that for some revenge is more attractive than forgiveness. It allows us to laugh heartily at jokes and asides as a way of coping with the distressing tale that is unravelling on stage.In my review of Lucy Caldwellsit turns out that I prematurely noted that it included the best (and only) use of flibbertigibbet on stage in Belfast this year. You can now hear the word used on both stages at the Lyric every evening until this weekend!challenges the view that its safe to delay addressing the legacy of conflict, safe to impede the exposure of truth, and safe to defer addressing the mental health scars that run deep through Northern Ireland society. You can catch a performance of one of the most visually arresting plays of the year in the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 13 November . The production will tour Northern Ireland in 2017.
Wild asses graze in Hoh Xil in Qinghai province. The area is in Sanjiangyuan National Park, where the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers are located. The park, the first in a trial program, has been joined by a second planned park in Northeast China.Wu Gang/ Xinhua

The area in Northeast China is being added to a pilot program to better manage the nation's wild resources

An area on the border of Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces will be the second addition to a trial national park program and will focus on protecting wild Siberian tigers and leopards, according to government officials.

The new addition has been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic planner.

The trial program is intended to streamline the management of scenic spots and reduce the reliance on raising funds through commercial activities, environmental groups said on Wednesday.

The new addition comes after the first entry in the program, Sanjiangyuan National Park, was approved in December 2015. Sanjiangyuan park includes the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers in Qinghai province.

The second national park plan awaits review and approval from the Party's Leading Group on Overall Reform, according to Xu Shaoshi, director of the NDRC.

The national park trial program will run until 2017, when officials will evaluate its effectiveness. If deemed successful, additional pilot parks may be approved in other provinces by 2020. Nine provincial-level regions have been picked for projects over three years: Beijing, and Jilin, Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hubei, Hunan, Yunnan and Qinghai provinces.

Experts said introducing a national parks system is expected to make environmental protection easier and more effective, and to help local governments cover costs without having to rely so much on commercial activities in the parks.

China has 2,740 natural reserves, occupying a total 1.47 million square kilometers, aiming to protect wildlife, forestry, grasslands and other valuable environment elements, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said.

However, Fan Zhiyong, a senior researcher with the World Wildlife Fund, said some reserve officials failed to protect the environment, and exploited resources instead of protecting them.

Peng Kui, a researcher at the Global Environmental Institute, an NGO in Beijing, said: "The management of natural reserves now involves many government departments. Land ownership in a reserve may be handled by over three parties like ministries, other agencies of the central government and rural collectives, making management a mess."

The central government won't allocate funds for the parks during the trial, so the provinces will have to pick up the costs. But Peng said State funds should go to support their management after the pilot, "so the management commission will not worry about making money from tourism, resources exploitation or other commercial activities, so it could protect the environment better than the existing reserves".

The provincial governments also must figure out what to do about residents living in the park areas, in a way that protects the environment and people's livelihoods as well.

"The governments need to solve the problems in management, funding and public participation, which is not an easy job, but urgently needed and necessary for environmental protection," Fan said.
President Xi Jinping greets two Chinese astronauts aboard the Tiangong II space lab during a video call on Wednesday afternoon. [Photo/Xinhua]

President Xi Jinping greeted two Chinese astronauts aboard the Tiangong II space lab during a video call on Wednesday afternoon.

Xi asked about the physical condition, living conditions and work progress of Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong during the half-month they have been in space so far. The mission will last a month.

"We are in good health. And our work is going smoothly," Jing said. "We can even watch live broadcasting of Xinwen Lianbo (CCTV's flagship news program at 7 pm) on the spaceship with a smooth and clear picture."

He said the two are enjoying better working and living conditions aboard the space module, which is linked to the Shenzhou XI spacecraft, than their predecessors, adding, "We feel so proud of our country."

Xi encouraged the astronauts to redouble their efforts and cooperate with each other closely to complete the mission successfully.

The Shenzhou XI space mission is China's sixth manned space mission. In the course of these missions, technology for ground-to-space calls has developed rapidly.

Yang Yu, a CCTV commentator, said, "For the audience, the most impressive part about the space-ground calls is the emotional communication that was supported by technological breakthroughs."

chengyingqi@chinadaily.com.cn
Five Chinese-made microsatellites will be sent into space in the near future as part of a proposed international network of 50 satellites that will study the lower thermosphere, a layer of the Earth's atmosphere.

The QB50 project, an initiative by the Von Karman Institute in Brussels and funded by the European Commission, will simultaneously launch 50 CubeSats - microsatellites composed of cube-shaped units - on a single launch vehicle.

"The project has set records for the number of participant countries in international microsatellite projects and the number of satellites carried by a single rocket," said Zhou Jun, director of the Shaanxi Engineering laboratory for Microsatellites at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, the capital of the northwestern province.

The CubeSats were produced by universities in more than 30 countries and regions.

Five Chinese universities - Northwestern Polytechnical University, the Harbin Institute of Technology, the National University of Defense Technology, Nanjing University of Science and Technology and Beihang University - have each provided a microsatellite for the project.

European countries have produced 19, while there are 10 from the United States, three from Japan and two from Canada.

"The satellite constellation will be sent into an orbit of 350 km and fall toward Earth from there. In the following three months, they will explore the thermosphere between 90 km and 320 km (above the Earth), about which we know little," Zhou said.

While most of the satellites will be double-unit CubeSats - composed of two units, each approximately the size of a 2 liter container - Zhou's team became so ambitious that it developed the world's first 12-unit CubeSat.

"Developing a 12-unit CubeSat is not as simple as piling up Lego bricks, so we had to redesign the satellite's structure and power system," said Huang He, an associate professor at Northwestern Polytechnical University.

In double-unit CubeSats, one unit provides the usual satellite functions while the other carries sensors for research. By contrast, the 12-unit CubeSat provides much more space for sensors.

In June, a Long March 7 rocket carried a 12-unit CubeSat into a 350-km-high orbit to test its structure, thermal control and power systems, communications and the direction of its axes.

"Our CubeSats use a wide range of off-the-shelf commercial components, so during the last launch we had to test the satellite's key technologies to ensure its dependability," Huang said.
Scientists assess monitoring equipment at the satellite ground-control station at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, Shaanxi province. The station is one of three around the world participating in the QB50 microsatellites project funded by the European Commission.[Photo/Xinhua]

Falling costs and rapid development mean the sector is becoming increasingly viable for private operators. Cheng Yingqi reports.

While the accomplishments of China's microsatellite industry have recently been overshadowed by the success of the nation's manned space program, the sector has developed so rapidly that the cost of providing commercial services has fallen to a level where the use of small satellites is now within the range of private companies.

Microsatellites, usually weighing less than 500 kilograms, are of lower mass and size than traditional craft, such as those used by the military, which use customized parts to ensure complete reliability. By contrast, the components used in microsatellites, which have less stringent standards of dependability, can be bought at hardware stores, making them perfect for commercial use.

"Satellites can watch over the globe and provide a view that other devices can't. For example, we can monitor traffic at any port or logistics center on Earth and thus calculate the scale of operations, which has great commercial value," said Cao Jin, a senior engineer at the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites, which is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"A number of innovators in China, including research institutes, colleges and startups, are actively exploring the commercial value of microsatellites," he said.

The country's major developers are State-owned research agencies such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp.

One example is Cao's academy, which sent the Banxing 2, or Companion 2, microsatellite into space with the Tiangong II space lab in September.

The satellite's mission is to photograph the Shenzhou-XI manned spaceship, which docked with the space lab on Oct 19 for a 30-day mission that is scheduled to draw to a close soon.
A screen shot of joybuy.com, English-language page for JD.com, China's second largest e-commerce platform.

With just one day to go until China's phenomenal Singles Day, domestic buyers are busy hunting for cyber bargains, loading their virtual carts and counting down to the minute prices drop. Many foreigners may feel frustrated for missing out on the shopping carnival due to language, cultural and logistic barriers.

But there's good news for international bargain hunters, China's e-commerce platforms are more foreigner-friendly than many would expect. Here is a guide to help buyers of all nationalities get involved.

Shopping agents

A comparatively easy and quick way to buy from Chinese online stores is to use a shopping agent. All you need to do is to select your "prey" from Chinese shopping websites and submit the item link to the agent, which will then give you a quote and buy it for you.

Once the purchase is made, customers will be updated mostly via email on the delivery status and sometimes photos of their package too. Goods can also be returned via the agent.

The agents often charge a service fee of about 10 percent of the goods' price and extra charge for after-sale service.

Buy directly

For those who are more adventurous and want to save the service fee, many shopping websites in China also offer a chance to buy directly.

For example, Taobao, China's biggest online retailer, has launched its overseas market website and official forwarding services for international buyers in countries such as USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and Singapore.

However, although Taobao offers English registration, the main shopping page only supports traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese. Therefore, it's recommended buyers install a webpage translation plug-in to their browser or seek other translation tools.

China's second largest e-commerce platform, JD.com, on the other hand, has a Russian and English-language page for foreign buyers, joybuy.com.

With categories ranging from dominant electronics like cell phones, computers to clothes and automotives, joybuy.com is ready to provide more than 40,000 products with discounts of up to 80 percent.

Payment

As for payment, most of China's e-commerce websites now accept various options including Alipay, UnionPay and credit cards.

Shipping

For shipping, Taobao offers two options including direct shipping and global consolidation and shipping. The Taobao Global Direct Shipping is a Taobao official forwarding service in Singapore and Malaysia areas. All you need to do is checkout all items in your shopping cart at once, select "Taobao Direct Shipping" and make a one-off payment.

Taobao Global Consolidation and Shipping is available in more countries but more complicated as buyers have to pay for the shipping processes from sellers to China's forwarder's warehouse and from warehouse to buyers separately.

Similar shipping services are offered by JD.com and Dangdang.com. For some products, the shipping is even free.

After-sale service

For most online marketplaces, if the products are not as described, customers can return them and get a full refund or keep the products and get a partial refund agreed with the seller. The detailed refund policy can be found on each website.
China is expected to increase the number of early detection and treatment centers for lung cancer to more than 100 from the 42 it has currently, according to a senior expert.

Lung cancer is the most common form of cancer in China and is one of the biggest killers, Zhi Xiuyi, from the capital's Xuanwu Hospital, told a lung cancer treatment forum held by the Phoenix Oxford Cancer Center of Beijing Yanhua Hospital.

The proposed new centers will be located in regions with a relatively higher lung cancer prevalence and will target populations at greater risk, making earlier detection and treatment possible, he said.

According to Zhi, before the 1990s, more than 80 percent of patients diagnosed with lung cancer were already at an advanced stage and had missed the best window for treatment.

After the year 2000, comprehensive efforts such as government screening programs, regular health checkups, and increased health awareness led to a rise in early-stage lung cancer detection, particularly in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Yet in the remote countryside, "the situation stayed almost the same as before", Zhi said, urging the government to bridge this gap and enhance national capacity as a whole for early detection and treatment.

Lung cancer rates are expected to rise amid risk factors such as a huge population of smokers, air pollution and traditional Chinese cooking methods, he said.

In response, Zhi recommended low-dose CT scans for lung cancer screening, as previous studies in the US have showed the practice worked better than the traditional X-ray scan for spotting early stage lung cancer  reducing the mortality rate by 20 percent.

"That's highly significant given that new treatments could help lower that percentage," he said.

However, David Kerr, chairman of Cancer Care Commission in UK, pointed out that low-dose CT scans alone report a high rate of false positives.

He suggested a new screening method using autoantibodies, which are cheaper and studies show can lead to lung cancer detection up to four years earlier than a CT scan.

Kerr's organization has been working with the Phoenix Oxford Cancer Center of Beijing Yanhua Hospital to develop world-leading cancer care, he said.

Under the cooperation agreement, cancer patients from abroad have been brought to China for more affordable, quality treatment.
BEIJING -- Chinese prosecutors have indicted Gai Ruyin, former deputy head of the Standing Committee of Heilongjiang Provincial People's Congress, accusing him of bribery.

Gai abused his power to seek benefits for others and accepted "a huge amount of goods and money from others" while he held major posts in the province, according to the indictment from Tianjin municipal people's procuratorate.

The procuratorate filed the case to the First Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin.
BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's scheduled attendance at the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economic leaders' meeting will boost regional economic integration, senior officials said on Thursday.

Xi will attend the APEC meeting with the theme "Quality growth and human development," in Lima Peru from Nov. 19 to 20, vice foreign minister Li Baodong told a press briefing.

Li said Xi's attendance at the Lima meeting shows the importance China has attached to regional cooperation.

"China has been an APEC contributor and supporter since it joined the mechanism 25 years ago and has played a significant role in building the Asian Pacific family," Li said.

During the meeting, Xi is expected to deliver a speech to the APEC CEO summit, meet representatives of the APEC business advisory council, attend two phases of the economic leaders' meeting and have meetings with some leaders.

China expects positive outcomes of the meeting, said Zhang Xiangchen, deputy China international trade representative, at the briefing.

He said the first should be completing collective strategic research on the Asian-Pacific free-trade zone on schedule.

China also hopes for implementation of the Beijing APEC meeting outcomes, Zhang said.

He added that China expects that the Lima meeting to support inclusive growth in the Asian Pacific region and new cooperation in service industries and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), speaks at a CMC meeting on logistics, in Beijing, capital of China. The meeting was held from Wednesday to Thursday in Beijing. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING -- President Xi Jinping has called for strong and modern logistic forces in the army to boost army.

Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks at a CMC meeting on logistics held from Wednesday to Thursday.
By Thursday night there were still no signs of a boy who fell into a dry well on Sunday morning in Baoding, Hebei province.

Rescue teams have kept digging the land around the 40-meter-deep well and sending oxygen into it.

They detected signs of life several times, but found nothing except a toy, which the boy's grandfather confirmed belonged to him.

"We found no signs of the boy, and there is a possibility that he was buried by some soil at the bottom of the well," Zhang Yong, a leader of the Baoding Blue Sky Rescue Team, said during an interview with the Beijing News.

The boy's father, surnamed Zhao, said his 6-year-old son fell into the 35-cm-wide well by accident when playing with his older sister on farmland in Zhongmengchang village, Lixian county.

Zhao was working on farmland nearby when the incident occurred, after which he called for help.

Zhao and other family members were taken to a local police station on Thursday morning.

Some netizens wondered if they might be questioned about the certainty of the accident, because no signs of life had been detected in the well.

"If the boy turns out not to be in the well, this matter will become a criminal case," a local government official was quoted as saying by China Central Television.

By 6 pm on Thursday, there were about 2 meters left to the end of the well, according to Zhang Yong, who said that if all went smoothly they could reach the end in two to three hours.

The rescue has lasted for more than four days.

Wang Xiaodong, head of Baoding Zhili Rescue Team, said digging the soil around the well requires a huge amount of work and they had been slowed by risks of land collapsing.

"There have been three minor landslides during the rescue, when efforts must stop until they make sure of no further danger to rescue teams," Wang said.

The publicity organizations of Lixian county said there would be a news conference at about 6 pm, but none was held.
Zhang Guoyong speaks in front of an audience. [Photo/Chinaculture.org]

Zhang Guoyong, a renowned conductor, traveled to Chile to introduce the development of symphony orchestra in China. He gave a speech called Symphony in China, a recent episode of Chinese Culture Talk at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile on November 2.

Zhang works as the music director for the Qingdao Symphony Orchestra. Seventeen of his colleagues accompanied him on the trip to Chile, giving a wonderful performance.

He recounted how China's homegrown symphony orchestras survived and thrived throughout the years. He shared his take on symphony's role in China's civic life, cultural exchanges and soft power. The classical Chinese song The Butterfly Lovers was mentioned, as a sneak peek into the folk song  symphony fusion. Most attendees were teachers and students from the university's music department. Zhang encouraged them to not only work hard on their majors, but try to dabble in as many fields as possible.

Artists from the Qingdao Symphony Orchestra brought down the house. They performed several pieces, all of which were adapted from Chinese folk songs.

A professor from the music department said the speech shed new light on his teaching methods. A junior student majoring in arts management even related the performance to the fight for love and freedom.

The speech was part of the 2016 China-Latin America Cultural Exchange. Opened in March, the exchange is the biggest and most far-reaching cooperation project between the two, covering music, dance, painting and food.

Founded in 1888, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile is one of the most prestigious universities in Chile, whose graduates excel in all walks of life. The university has been working closely with Chinese universities to promote Chinese culture.
[Photo provided to China Daily]

The Igor Moiseyev State Academic Ensemble of Popular Dance, also known as the Igor Moiseyev Ballet, will return to China six years after its last performance in Beijing. The troupe will tour with shows in Wuhan on Nov 25, Shanghai on Dec 3, Chongqing on Dec 8 and Beijing on Dec 13 and 14.

The ensemble will bring some of their popular dance pieces created by the ensemble's founder, the outstanding 20th-century Russian choreographer, Igor Moiseyev.

Founded in 1937 by Moiseyev, who created a legacy of over 300 choreographic works including the famous Guerrillas, Gopak, Summer, and Aragon Jota, the ensemble has toured extensively.

Moiseyev died in 2007 at the age of 101. However, his passing did not end the life of the ensemble. Since it opened its professional dance training school in 1943, a younger generation dancers now carries on the Moiseyev legacy and continue to tour worldwide.
Ma Ke. [Photo by Wu Yong/China Daily Asia]

I studied fashion design and acting in university, and learned that although China was the largest clothing manufacturer in the world, there were no recognised designer brands. I thought I should try to create China's own designer brand  that was my dream.

I went abroad early in my career and the comment I heard most was that "Chinese don't know about creation  they only copy." I felt humiliated and angry. I knew that we had exquisite craftsmanship and wisdom, and that we could be as good as other countries. I worked for three different garment companies before starting my own brand  Exception  in 1996 with my partner.

What did you have in mind when you started designing?

I only wanted to follow my heart. As for the style  it emerged gradually. It was a process of getting to know myself; I am what I design. I left Exception in 2006 and started my second brand, Wu Yong (which translates as "useless").

In fact, 2006 was an important year for you. You started Wu Yong and were invited to do a show at Paris Fashion Week.

In June 2006, the then-president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, Didier Grumbach, came to my office in Zhuhai and invited me to be the first Chinese designer to present at Paris Fashion Week. I went to Paris Fashion Week in 2007 and showed 27 garments inspired by the lives of Chinese farmers and artisans. I was aware that what I had designed had nothing to do with fashion. But Paris has the biggest appreciation and acceptance for any kind of art and creation.

After the show, you were invited to be part of another big show.

The week after, I received an invitation from Paris Haute Couture Week. I did agree to do it, but made it clear that it would be my only time. So I presented Wu Yong's Luxury of Austerity line and became the first Chinese designer to show work there.

Wu Yong was described as "anti-fashion" and you said you wanted to be an artist.

My show at Paris Fashion Week attracted attention from museums around the world; they invited me to do exhibitions. I had the chance to be a real artist so I could get away from the commercial world forever. But I didn't, because there were other things I cared about. When I did research and toured rural areas in China, I was moved by the lives and stories of farmers and artisans. I wanted to help them preserve their traditions of craftsmanship.

You opened a "life-experience" space in Beijing named Wu Yong. What was the inspiration?

After Paris Haute Couture Week, I came back to Zhuhai and wanted to give myself some time to concentrate on the things I was passionate about. In 2012, I had accumulated enough original designs to share with the public. That's when I decided to transform Wu Yong from a NGO into a social enterprise and look for a space to present our work.

You worked in Zhuhai for many years, so why did you choose Beijing as the brand's home base?

It was just my instinct  I think Wu Yong is more suitable for Beijing. It has deep-rooted Chinese cultural heritage.

After 2013, you became known as the designer for Chinese First Lady Peng Liyuan. How did this influence your work and daily life?

I am who I used to be  I haven't changed. The First Lady came to me when I was looking for Wu Yong's space in Beijing in 2013. We had known each other for many years; she wore my designs in the late '90s and loved them. Then she invited me to do the designs for her first official visit abroad.

Are you still doing designs for her?

Yes, and also working on Wu Yong. I design most of the clothes the First Lady wears during her official visits abroad, but not all of them.

You provide people with a kind of lifestyle that focuses on the most commonly used material, skills and textures from the past.

I think we Chinese haven't put on our own clothes for a long time. I was born in the 1970s. Clothes were very simple at that time. I remember a Chinese lady looking at my Chinese-style garments, asking me whether she was suitable for that style. I was shocked, because she had no confidence in Chinese style. The power of fashion is enormous. I always say that what Wu Yong is doing is like helping a man with amnesia find his memory.

Besides nature and traditional craftsmanship, what other sorts of things inspire you?

My biggest inspiration is Chinese culture. Also, you must have a free soul to create. My inspiration comes from the inside, not the outside.

How would you describe yourself in three words?

I can't  it's like blowing your own trumpet. Instead, I would like to say what kind of person I want to be. First, a warm person who can bring warmth to those around me. Second, a simple person who doesnt have so much confrontation or hesitation. Third, an innocent person who isnt influenced by the outside world.

Related:

A quiet designer

Designs by Ma Ke
Canada is hoping to hook more Chinese customers after signing a deal with e-commerce giant JD.com at the 2016 China Fisheries and Seafood Expo (CFSE) held in China's sailing capital Qingdao, on Nov 4.

The launch of the Canadian Fresh Food Promotion on JD.com, the second largest e-commerce platform in China with more than 188 million active customers, looks set to boost the Canadian seafood industry.

Lawrence Macaulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), said that China is Canada's second largest trading partner, as well as its second largest export market. In 2015, total Canadian exports to China reached 136.92 billion yuan ($20.2 billion) and two-way trade was valued at $85.8 billion, an increase of 10 percent on 2014.

He added that Canada and China enjoy a growing and ever-more dynamic relationship, with bilateral ties expanding every year. The two countries share close cooperation across an array of areas including in trade and investment, agricultural and food products, environment and climate change, security and the rule of law, arts and sports, and education and tourism.

The AAFC signed a strategic agreement with JD in June 2015, during a visit to China by AAFC Deputy Minister (DM) Andrea Lyon. As a result, the Embassy of Canada has organized two major seafood promotions with JD -- one in June 2015, as part of the DM mission, and one in November 2015.

A veritable armada of Canadian fisheries and seafood stalwarts were present at the expo this year, having attended for the past 10 years, including three federal government departments, five provincial government organizations, eight associations and 51 Canadian companies.

The Canadian booth at the 2016 China Fisheries and Seafood Expo, which was held in Qingdao from Nov 2 to 4. [Photo/qdhkcd.com]
Shanxi and Mexico City join forces on health care ( chinadaily.com.cn ) Updated: 2016-11-10

Shanxi and Mexico City signed a Memorandum of Understanding relating to health care in Taiyuan on Nov 8, marking the first time the two have cooperated in that field.

According to the agreement, Shanxi province will work with Mexico City in popularizing traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), promoting a Mexican model of family doctors and advancing business and communications between medical professionals.

Jose Armando Ahued Ortega (L), director of the health department of Mexico City, meets with Wei Xiaochun, head of Shanxi Health and Family Planning Commission, on Nov 8 in Taiyuan to further cooperation in medical care. The two signed a Memorandum of Understanding relating to health care services. [Photo/sx.xinhuanet.com]

They will also carry out clinician training and organize a series of forums and seminars to boost innovation and further scientific research, helping facilitate the implementation of policies in the fields of TCM and public health.

The visit to Taiyuan and signing of the agreement were follow-ups to the Shanxi medical delegation's trip to Mexico City in December 2015. Jose Armando Ahued Ortega, director of the health department of Mexico City, expressed his confidence in the future partnership with Shanxi province in health care services after the tour.

The delegation from Mexico City led by Jose Armando Ahued Ortega (R) watches a doctor perform acupuncture and moxibustion on a patient at Shanxi Provincial Hospital of TCM before the signing ceremony. [Photo/sx.xinhuanet.com]

The cooperation will enhance communication with foreign countries owning advanced medical services and technology as well as improve the skills of doctors in Shanxi and the treatment they can provide for patients.

Shanxi has been pushing its TCM "going out" strategy and broadening access for the training of medical specialists in recent years. The province has teamed up with several medical institutions, such as Harvard Medical School and Yaounde Women and Children's Hospital in Cameroon. It will train more than 10,000 medical professionals over the coming three to five years.
The streets of modern-day Shangri-La have become somewhat of a magnet for couples tying the knot. On any given day, you'll likely stumble upon a wedding party.

Wander the city's lesser-travelled streets on a quiet day, however, and you might hear the whisperings of an ancient saying: "you will regret it if you did not taste chicken soup in Nixi black pottery."

So what exactly is this fabled black pottery of the Nixi? The pottery is now a national intangible cultural heritage and is every bit as charming as the town of the same name in which it originated  Nixi.

Nixi is inhabited by Tibetan ethnic group and is nestled along the popular adventure route from Zhongdian to Deqing in the Diqing Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Yunnan province.

A black pottery made in Nixi township, Yunnan province, is used to boil food and generate a unique flavor. [Photo/Xinhua]

Caravans along the ancient Tea Horse Road would pick up fine black pottery from the village while ferrying brick loads of tea to and from Tibet for trade.

Until modern kilns developed, the pottery was hardened in low temperatures. Most Tibetan households own one or two Nixi pottery sets, which is said to give a unique and delicious taste to soup or tea brewed in it.

Dangzhenpichu is a local black pottery artist who has made Nixi pottery for over 38 years. Though he maintains age-old traditions in the essence of the work he creates, Dangzhenpichu is contantly adding modern twists to appeal to new buyers.

"Time evolves. Black pottery craftsmanship must keep up the speed of the social development or it will die," the pottery artist said, while spinning a lump of clay.

Heir of black pottery craftsmanship, Dangzhenpichu from Nixi township, Yunnan province, makes a pottery carefully. [Photo/Xinhua]

"Nixi black pottery now can be made into over 120 classifications used as religious articles, travel souvenirs, ethnic featuring handiworks."

According to Nixi's deputy township head, Dunzhuciren, the black pottery is the main source of income for most people in Nixi. Over 100 villagers make black pottery in the town and can earn several tens of thousands of yuan a year. To preserve the cultural significance of the intangible cultural heritage, the town's authorities have set aside eight million yuan to build an earthenware cultural center.
An elderly woman walks in a residential community in Beijing. [Photo/IC]

IN ITS DRAFT VERSION of the Primary and Secondary Students Behavior Code, the educational authority in East China's Zhejiang province has included the requirement that students remember their parents' birthday and express their respects to them. Southern Metropolis Daily commented on Wednesday:

According to the draft code, the reason for adding the new item is because filial piety is a key part of traditional Chinese culture, but children need to be taught how to honor their parents, which begins with remembering their birthdays.

It seems to be a response to media reports that half of the surveyed middle school students didn't remember their parents' birthdays.

However, does requiring remembrance of their parents' birthdays help foster the spirit of traditional piety among children? Compared to the idea of making students celebrate their parents' birthdays, the education authority would do better to try and foster close and trusting relationships between students and their parents, because it is far more important.

Maybe it is easy for students to understand and practise remembering their parents' birthdays and it can also be a start to learning and practising the traditional moral code. But the problem is how to nurture children's obedience and filial piety when it is not their parents' birthdays, especially when the drafters of the students' code don't even know how to do it.

If a student forgets or is unable to honor one of his or her parents on their birthday, does it mean the student doesn't love the parents? So the concept of piety should not be narrowed down to regulated practise.

Instead of making the traditional morality so far-fetched, the education authority in Zhejiang should be more in touch with the times.
TWO SENIOR OFFICIALS of a local State-owned highway investment company have been convicted of corruption. Peng Shu took bribes of 188 million yuan ($28 million), while Hu Haolong accepted 170 million yuan in bribes. Their subordinates also made money illegally. Gmw.cn comments:

It is astonishing that two leading officials of a provincial SOE could grab so much illicit money, yet it is even sadder that such corruption cases have become so common.

Corruption has become so rampant in State-owned highway companies that people jokingly call it "streamline corruption", as one official after another is proving corrupt.

The rampancy of corruption has, of course, much to do with the lack of supervision. In 2014, Feng Weilin, the former head of Hunan provincial highway management bureau, was given a life sentence for corruption in which another 27 officials in the department were also involved. When the supervisors became corrupt themselves, how can they supervise their subordinates?

Besides, records show that the Hunan Highway Construction Company, in which the two corrupt officials worked, suffered heavy losses when the two officials were in position, because they took bribes and sacrificed the interests of the SOE. In other words, the SOE had almost become a tool for them to make illicit money. They became rich while the taxpayers lost money.

That period coincided with Hunan accelerating its highway construction. The more highways they built, the more money the corrupt officials could grab. That has almost become a new mode of corruption: Officials start projects and apply for investment from the State, allowing those who bribe them to win the bids.

It should be noted that taxpayers suffer greater losses than the money they grab, because those giving the bribes want to make money, too. Worse, in order to enlarge their profit margin, those offering the bribes need to save costs, which comes at the cost of project quality.

It is time for the higher authorities to intervene and cut the corruption chain, not only to prevent losses to the taxpayer, but also to ensure safety.
MANILA - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to stop picking a fight with the United States, saying Donald Trump has been elected as president.

In a speech before the Filipino community in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Duterte said, "I said I don't want to pick fight because Trump is there."

"I would like to congratulate President Trump. Long live! We have something in common. We are alike because we both curse easily," Duterte added.

Duterte is in Kuala Lumpur for an overnight official visit.

During the campaign early this year, Duterte has been likened to Trump and even earned the nickname "Trump of the East" for his style that many say is similar to Trump.

Both leaders are septuagenarians and managed to win the votes of millions even if they did not have occupied national positions.

Duterte, 71, was a former mayor of a southern Philippine city of Davao while Trump, 70, was a billionaire, real estate developer-turned reality television star with no government experience.

Political analyst Ramon Casiple said both leaders "think out of the box," adding that they could probably get along better than outgoing US President Barack Obama.

He predicted that Trump's victory could usher in a new beginning in the US-Philippines relations.

Duterte has hurled expletive-laced remarks against Obama and the United States for criticizing his campaign against drug users and pushers, which has reportedly left 4,000 suspects dead.
US President Barack Obama and US Vice President Joe Biden speak after the election of Donald Trump in the US presidential election at the White House in Washington, US, November 9, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama said Wednesday he had invited President-elect Donald Trump to the White House to "talk about making sure there is a successful transition."

Obama said he called Trump at around 3:30 am local time (8:30 GMT) to congratulate him on winning the election.

"We are all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country," Obama said.

"The presidency and the vice-presidency is bigger than any of us," Obama said, and that his team was instructed to "work as hard as we can to make sure this is a successful transition."

"We are actually all on one team," Obama said as he tried to console those who were saddened by the outcome of the election.

"We are not Republicans first or Democrats First, We are Americans first," he said, adding "we all want the best for this country."

Obama also praised his party's nominee Hillary Clinton, whose candidacy and nomination was "historic" as it sends out a message that females can "achieve at the highest level of politics."

Clinton "has lived a extraordinary life of public service" as the First Lady, the senator of New York and the Secretary of State, Obama recounted.

Clinton has made a concession speech earlier in the day, congratulating Trump on his election and hoping for a peaceful transition of power.

US Republican Donald Trump defeated Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, pulling a major upset after a controversial and scandalous campaign cycle.
A migrant passes by a French riot policeman guarding next to tents of a dismantled makeshift camp in a street near Stalingrad metro station in Paris after the evacuation of thousands of migrants and their transfer by French authorities to reception centres across the country, France, November 4, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

BRUSSELS - The European Commission on Wednesday adopted its latest progress report on the bloc's emergency relocation and resettlement schemes, urging member states to step up efforts to deliver on their commitments and comply with their obligations.

Assessing actions taken since Sept 28, the report said that an additional 1,157 persons have been resettled with an additional 1,212 relocated during the reporting period.

However, the two figures are smaller than that in the previous reporting period, demonstrating that further efforts are still needed from the bloc's member states to sustain the positive trend reached until now, the report noted.

"After the positive trends we have seen on both relocation and resettlement following summer, now is the moment to sustain them," said Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs, and Citizenship.

"I welcome the work done by member states in their collective efforts on relocation and resettlement so far. I would like to see a stable number of pledges, swift procedures and a stable number of relocations every week," the commissioner added.

"After one year into the schemes, we expect member states to step up their efforts to deliver on their commitment and to fully comply with their obligations," he noted.

There are currently around 24,000 migrants eligible for relocation in Greece and around 20,400 eligible for relocation that have arrived in Italy since January 2016.

If relocation efforts are stepped up, it should be possible to relocate all those eligible within the relocating period (until September 2017), said the report.

"More needs to be done, and swiftly, to address the increasing arrivals in Italy and the many thousands stuck in Greece," said Avramopoulos.

The temporary emergency relocation scheme was established in two EU Council decisions in September 2015, in which member states committed to relocating up to 160,000 people from Italy.
An Iraqi girl, who was displaced by fighting in Mosul, looks out of her window at a camp for internally displaced people, in Hassan Sham, east of Mosul, Iraq, Wednesday, Nov 9, 2016. The United Nations says over 34,000 people have been displaced from Mosul, with about three quarters settled in camps and the rest in host communities. [Photo/IC]

MOSUL, Iraq - Iraqi security forces on Wednesday completely cleared the districts freed earlier in the week from the Islamic State (IS) militants in eastern Mosul, a security source said.

The commandos of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) have ended operations to clear the districts of al-Zahraa, al-Samah, Kirkukli, al-Intisar, Malayin and Khdraa in eastern Mosul after several days of fierce clashes with IS militants, killing dozens of them and destroying many of the vehicles, the source from the CTS told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The IS militants were using a complex network of tunnels dug earlier under the city, the source said, adding that the extremist militants also used the civilians as human shields as they prevent them from moving from the battleground.

In the coming days, the troops will push further into the eastern districts of the city, including al-Tahrir and al-Salam, the source said.

Earlier in the month, hundreds of the CTS commandos and Iraqi army made a significant progress at the eastern side of Mosul, and managed to seize six districts.

The advance unleashed the most intense street battles against IS militants since the offensive to retake the city began more than three weeks ago.

The battles inside Mosul pushed the number of civilians who were displaced from their homes to around 34,860 since the start of the military offensive earlier this month, according to the recent report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

On Oct 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city.

Since then, the Iraqi security forces have inched to the eastern fringes of Mosul and made progress on other routes around the city, preparing for a major battle to storm the city and drive out IS militants.

Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
NAY PYI TAW - The Tibetan delegation of the Chinese National People's Congress (NPC) concluded its visit to Myanmar on Tuesday.

Deputy Speaker of Myanmar's House of Nationalities U Aye Tha Aung (C, front) poses for a group photo with head of the delegation Penba Tashi (4th R, front), who is also Vice Chairman of the Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region, in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, Nov. 7, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

During the visit, the delegation met with Deputy Speaker of Myanmar's House of Nationalities U Aye Tha Aung, as well as a number of other Myanmar officials.

Head of the delegation Penba Tashi, who is also Vice Chairman of the Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region, said Tibet is enjoying good and rapid economic development, with people's livelihood improving, the ecology system being well maintained, and ethnic unity and harmony prevailing.

He said Tibetan people enjoy freedom of religious belief, and live and work in contentment in a peaceful and harmonious society.

All these achievements, he said, should be attributed to the wise leadership of the Chinese Communist Party as well as the care given by the central government.

Penba Tashi praised Myanmar's long-time adherence to the one-China policy, and hoped Myanmar would continue to support China's principled stance in issues concerning China's core interests such asTibet-related issues.

Myanmar officials, including U Aye Tha Aung, expressed admiration for the development achieved by Tibet Autonomous Region, saying that Myanmar values the "paukphaw" (fraternal) friendship between Chinese and Myanmar people, and will continue to abide by the one-China policy.

They said Myanmar is willing to further enhance the traditional friendship with China, strengthen trade and economy communications and peope-to-people exchanges, and deepen legislative and regional communications, to benefit people from both countries.
SEOUL - Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans are expected to rally during the upcoming weekend to demand President Park Geun-hye's resignation over scandal involving her longtime confidante and former aides.

A private association aiming to let President Park step down, which is composed of about 1,500 civic groups, announced a plan to hold a massive rally in a city hall square in central Seoul this Saturday.

It would be the third weekend protest since the scandal over the president's decades-long friend, Choi Soon-sil, came into focus last month. Choi, who has been placed under custody, is charged with meddling in state affairs behind the scenes and peddling undue influence for personal gains.

Police estimates 160,000-170,000 protesters would attend the rally. Organizers said at least 500,000 would turn out, according to Yonhap news agency report on Thursday. Last Saturday, about 200,000 marched in Seoul to demand the embattled president's resignation.

This Saturday, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of the country's two umbrella labor union groups, expected to bring at least 100,000 unionists and supporters to the square.

Voluntary participants, including couples, families and students as seen in last Saturday's protest, are expected to peak in number. Three main opposition party members vowed to join the rally.
Business / Economy

by Thobekile Zhou

Financially troubled government of Zimbabwe is itching to tax the informal sector to raise revenue base.Thousands of people have been retrenched from the formal sector in the process reducing taxable people.Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa has sent a delegation to Ethiopia to study how the informal sector is taxed."I have already sent a delegation of officials to go and see what the Ethiopians do. We need to understand how they are doing it and learn from their experiences," he told 2017 budget workshopHe added "We need a lot of discussions; we are going to have a meeting with Minister (of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, Sithembiso) Nyoni to try to understand this sector and try to see how we can collect revenue".The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) recently said it would come up with more revenue collection strategies next year.The taxman missed its revenue collection target by six percent in the six months to June 30, 2016.It is estimated that between $3 billion and $7 billion is circulating in the growing informal sector, which has been described by government as the "the new economy".Vendors are struggling to earn a living with unemployment in the country soaring above 85 %.By taxing them, government could indeed be worsening their plight.
President Jacob Zuma answers questions at Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, March 17, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

CAPE TOWN - South Africa looks forward to working closely with the new administration in the United States in promoting peace, security and prosperity around the world, especially on the African continent, President Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday.

Zuma made the remarks while congratulating US President-elect Donald Trump on winning the presidential elections, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) said.

Zuma conveyed his best wishes to Trump and looked forward to working with the president-elect to build on the strong relations that exist between the two countries, DIRCO said.

"President Jacob Zuma has today, on behalf of the Government and the people of South Africa, congratulated President-elect Donald Trump on winning the presidential elections that were held in the United States on Nov. 8, 2016," DIRCO said in a statement.

During the election campaign, Trump described South Africa on Twitter as "a crime ridden mess that is just waiting to explode -- not a good situation for the people!"

Fears grew in the South African business circle that Trump's victory could inevitably impact on the future of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), among others.

AGOA, a legislation approved by the US Congress in 2000, gives preferential treatment to 39 African countries by waiving import levies on more than 7,000 wide-ranging products.

Trump's victory ushers in a fresh set of uncertainties into a world already reeling from the Brexit vote, South African political analyst Daniel Silke told Fin24, a local news outlet.

In South Africa's case, AGOA, which was already difficult to renegotiate under the Obama presidency, could possibly be even more problematic with Trump in the White House as the United States would become more protectionist, Silke said.
By WANG LINYAN in New York and JUNE CHANG in San Francisco | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2016-11-10 13:01

While many people woke up on Wednesday to the stunning fact that Republican Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the US, Daniel Lou, co-founder of the Chinese American Alliance for Trump in New York, wasn't surprised.

"I knew he would win a month ago," said Lou, a Trump supporter who has helped organize several Trump rallies in New York. Lou said before Election Day that he knew many people backing Trump.

Don Sun, president of the Silicon Valley chapter of the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs, said: "Neither Clinton nor Trump lives up to my expectation of a president." Sun said he wrote "Bernie Sanders" on his ballot.

But what comforted him, said Sun, is that he saw a rising voter turnout among Asian Americans, especially Chinese Americans in Cupertino, California, where the population of Asian ancestry takes up 63 percent of the city's total.

"Many of them were first-time voters. They said this year's election was too important to miss," said Sun, also an election officer in Cupertino.

Some Chinese-American voters also tried to influence as many voters as possible.

Liu Min, a former engineer at an IT company in Silicon Valley, voted for Clinton. She gathered her Tsinghua alumni in San Francisco and beyond and people of similar values across the US by binding them into WeChat groups and shared phone bank tips and lobbying tactics.

"Try those small restaurants and grocery stores; those owners are inclined to vote for Clinton and you just leave them the voting guide packet," said Liu in one of her messages. "That usually will work."

For Tian Wang, founder of Chinese Americans for Trump, who has organized fundraisers and many rallies, the next step is a larger plan now that Trump is elected.

"We will continue to gather more people in all states with the current 8,000 registered (members) at CAFT," Wang said. "We will form a national voter bloc in which we will have state chapters in charge of state-level voter registration and voter bloc forming."

Cliff Li, adviser to the Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee for the Trump campaign and executive director of the National Committee of Asian American Republicans, said Trump successfully defined Clinton as part of the establishment even though she repeatedly said she would tax the richest 1 percent.

Almost 70 percent of working-class whites with less than a college degree supported Trump because he became their voice, Li said. He said they used to support Democratic Party.

"Blue-collar workers in Rust Belt states feel their job opportunities have been slighted. They feel they are not protected," Li explained.

Li said data show that 65 percent of Asian Americans voted for Clinton, compared with 73 percent four years ago. Conversely, 29 percent voted for Trump compared with 25 percent four years ago.

"I guess among the 65 percent of Asian American voters for Clinton, Chinese-American voters make 55-60 percent," Li said. "My personal observation is that Chinese-American voters are turning a bit to the right compared with four years ago."

Li said President-elect Trump has a lot on his plate, but he needs to "deliver his first 100-day contract".

Lia Zhu in San Francisco contributed to this story.
The polls blew it.

US survey companies and media organizations that collectively presaged a close Hillary Clinton victory now face an autopsy on how they got it so wrong after a year suffused by polls, aggregates of polls and even real-time projections of the vote on Election Day.

While the predictions gave some observers a soothing sense of certainty, actual voters still possessed the capacity to shock. Donald Trump's commanding performance defied the final surveys of the American electorate, which broadly predicted a Clinton win of 2 to 4 percentage points.

Final tallies by CBS News, FiveThirtyEight, Fox News, Wall Street Journal-NBC News and Washington Post-ABC News all predicted a relatively safe 4-point win for Clinton.

Only slightly less wrong were polls by Bloomberg Politics and New York Times's Upshot, which estimated a Clinton victory by 3 points. Rasmussen Reports called for a 2-point Clinton triumph.

A few got it right: The USC/Los Angeles Times Daybreak tracking poll and The Investor's Business Daily-TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence poll were among the rare outfits to call the election for Trump, by 3 and 2 points, respectively.

The University of Southern California and the LA Times poll had given Trump a significant chance to win over the past four months.The newspaper noted that it adjusted polling data to weight it in a "best case scenario" for Trump, unlike other news outlets that may have underestimated Trump supporters.

"It's harder and harder to poll today, to get a sample that looks like the electorate," said Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion analyst at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "We've seen epic fails."

"The anger is stronger than any of us really expected," said Megan Greene, chief economist at Manulife Asset Management in Boston, which handles money for institutional investors such as pensions and foundations.

In the US, questions linger about how to slice the electorate and how to weight under-represented demographics -- whether by ethnicity or location or political affiliation -- while Americans increasingly withdraw from survey participation and view pollsters themselves through a political lens.

Peter Woolley, a professor of comparative politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Florham Park, New Jersey, said a key part of the difference between expectations and the results was that people simply expected surveys to be too precise. Woolley is a past director of the PublicMind polling institute at the university.

"Polling is a scientific method to arrive at an estimate," he said early Wednesday. "We tend to over-report the accuracy of the poll, and tend to forget very quickly that it's an estimate within a range."

J. Ann Selzer, an Iowa pollster who conducts surveys for Bloomberg Politics, said her trade entered uncharted territory this year as it attempted to deal with the spread of wireless communication and a demographically volatile electorate.

"There was a lot of experimenting this year with the types of questions they were using, the types of methodologies they were using," she said in an interview at Bloomberg News headquarters in New York. "There's the continuing barrier of the lack of landlines, the erosion of landlines. In the old days, if we knew your landline phone number we knew where you lived and that was fantastic for pollsters. Now it's very difficult."

Turning points in the race happened at poorly timed moments, she said.

"Day by day, things happened that would break the poll that was currently in the field," she said. "Even since Sunday, when most polls were done, things changed."

Pollsters have gotten some relatively undeserved criticism. The UK's June vote to leave the European Union, often called a surprise result, actually was largely deemed too close to call by opinion polls. While markets priced in a vote for "Remain," traditional tallies were much closer to the end result for a Brexit win.

Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute said every precept must be re-examined.

"I don't think the business is particularly introspective, but it needs to be going forward," she said. "This has been a business that's told us so much about America. ... To lose that going forward would be a real problem."
Joy Fang, senior financial analyst at Siemens Energy, Houston, Texas

The most ugly, tense and close race is over! I am amazed to see Mr. Trump finally wins, against all the odds. I was quite liberal in the past, however I am fed up with the pervasive political correctness over time. Mr. Trump 's bold, blunt speeches and his policies resonate with me. That's why most of my Chinese American friends support him too, as we value law and order, hardworking and equality. This somewhat stunning outcome (at least from the mainstream media's point) also shows people's desire for a political revival. Mr. Trump will not magically unite the nation and fix what is wrong overnight , but I do hope he walks the talk and makes American great again.

David Y. Du, Engineering Specialist, Houston, Texas

I like Trumps campaign slogan to make America great again, overall USA slopes downhill recent decade, Trump sees this problem, and specifically try to stimulate people to think deeply about why it happens, and make his plan to pay more attention to domestic affairs, of cause as a successful business man he is more realistic for international affairs, but due to his lack of government experience and outside of Washington political network, I think this uncertainty may be more negative. The new president should unite USA people together, minimize gap and crack between two parties due to this election. Furthermore, he should make clear and realistic plan to cut USA debt, internationally to re-evaluate Middle East and Asia strategies specially relationship with China.
HANOI - Some 1,000 Vietnamese girls aged under 18 are sexually abused each year, local media on Thursday reporting ,quoted statistics from the Vietnamese Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.

Up to 58 percent of Vietnamese women have faced physical, spiritual or sexual violence at least once in their life, daily newspaper Tien Phong (Pioneer) reported.

To help reduce violence against Vietnamese girls and women, the ministry is implementing a month of action for gender equality and gender-based violation prevention and fight. The month lasts from Nov 15 to Dec 12.
CHONGQING -- Japan's former prime minister Yukio Hatoyama apologized for his country's bombardment of Southwest China's Chongqing during World War II at the 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference Thursday.

Hatoyama made the apology at the opening of the conference in Chongqing, the wartime capital of the Kuomintang government, where Japanese air-strikes from 1939 to 1941 left more than 30,000 people dead or injured.

In his speech, Hatoyama criticized Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for inflating the "China threat", noting that such remarks will bring tension to the region. He said that an East Asian Community with China, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN at the center would reduce nationalism.

Friendship cities are important in communication between countries, he said, adding that political, economic and cultural exchanges alleviate conflict and promote integration.

Over 700 representatives from around the world joined this year's conference.
News / Local

by Stephen Jakes

The Stanbic Bank has sued a client Jonas Kumwenda after he failed to repay a loan amounting to over $14 200.The bank filed summons against Kamwenda on October 27 at the Bulawayo High Court."The plaintiff claim is for payment of $14 273, 29 being the amount due and payable to plaintiff by defendant in terms of a loan agreement between the parties which remains unpaid despite demand. Interests on the amount at the rate of 23, 85 % per annum as reckoned from July 15 2016 to date of payment in full," reads the summons.The bank stated that in August 28 2013 Kamwenda took a loan of $21 500 from the bank and undertook to pay installments on monthly bases within a period of 36 months. The bank stated that Kamwenda has not paid the loan in full hence the breach of the agreement.The bank said he only paid part of the money and was left with a large chunk of debt of $14 273, 29 which the bank is now claiming through the court.Kamwenda is yet to respond to the summons.
News / Local

by Staff Reporter

A number of so many orphans will be soon rejoicing after the Dingani Charity Organization opened various branches around the country.Speaking online the General Secretary of the organization Mr Siameka said "We would like to thank the members of the public who assisted us with clothes so that we present them to our beneficiaries, however we haven't donated anything to them so far as we are still solving some issues"The growing organization is yet to have it's first annual General meeting for all branches which will be hosted by Bulawayo Branch on the 9th of December.In an interview one of the members from Harare, Mr Maredza siad, "we would like to thank God for using us, so as to assist the vulnerable. The most touching thing is that, so many people are suffering out there as a result, the community totally ignore them.We have to transform them.""Since the Organization is starting, it is our dream to archive our major aim, we inviite members of the public to attend this general meeting, also those who want to donate something for this general meeting can assist us.They can contact either me on +263778072206 or Mr Dingani on +263777896159"added Mr Maredza
News / National

by Mary Charamba

Riot police teamed up with Harare municipal police to block protesters from handing over a petition to city authorities today.The protesters had gathered at Harare Town House to demonstrate against alleged corruption by top officials.However, when Harare Mayor councillor Bernard Manyenyeni gave George Makoni, Advocacy Officer for Centre for Community Development in Zimbabwe ( CCDZ) a platform to address the crowd riot police quickly arrested Makoni.However, protesters attempted to block a police truck from whisking away Makoni."Mayor Manyenyeni was left helpless but only to watch as police arrest people he had gave audience" Bulawayo24.com heard."I don't believe in violence. I believe in dialogue that's why I came down to meet them" Manyenyeni reportedly told the crowd.The protesters demanded Acting Town Clerk Josephine Ncube to be fired over corruption.This week, it emerged that five council executives awarded themselves more than $60 000 each in holiday allowances at a time a majority of workers were in five month's salary arrears and service delivery a shambles.The audit also showed that the executives shared more than $170 000 in unsanctioned allowances."There was no proof availed to audit that these managers ever went for a holiday granting them authority to claim professional contact leave allowances as resolved in the City of Harare minutes of the sub-committee on the review conditions of service for executive council officials."In July 2015 executive managers were paid allowances amounting to $173 880. There was no council resolution produced to audit that authorised the payment of this allowance to executive managers except for the councils' medical doctors, medical laboratory scientists and medical laboratory technicians," reads part of the report.
(Photo : getty images.) With Indian Prime Minister slated to visit Japan, a state controlled Chinese tabloid has warned India not to align with China on South China Sea Issue.

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Ahead of the slated visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's to Japan, a state-controlled Chinese tabloid warned on Wednesday that New Delhi will make a serious mistake if it aligns with Japan on the South China Sea issue.



The Global Times article entitled India Overestimates Its South China Sea Leverage is apparently in response to recent reports that India and Japan may include the Permanent Court of Arbitration's verdict in their joint statement.



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New Delhi's move is seen as a revengeful act against China's decision to block India's bid to become a member of the elite Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG).



"India knows that it is not yet qualified for membership in the NSG, according to the organisation's rules. China's decision was simply a fulfilment of its international duties," the article said, adding that accusing China as a troublemaker and creating problems to claim revenge are "preposterous" moves for both the Indian media and government.



The article's author Liu Zhun claimed that Indian government's "Look East" foreign policy has triggered India's unprecedented interest in the South China Sea dispute and will not benefit by trying to put pressure on China with the help of Japan.



But Liu wrote that New Delhi seems to have overestimated its influence in the region. He also expressed regret over the fact that Modi has not learned any lesson after Singapore struck down its request to include international arbitration's ruling in the joint statement.



The article further took a swipe at India for not being at ease with China being a larger and more powerful neighbor. The tabloid accused that while India is impressed with its neighbor's unprecedented economic rise, it is equally wary about its rise.



It urged that instead of focusing on the South China Sea Dispute, the Modi government should focus on resolving host of problems plaguing bilateral relationship.



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TagsSouth China Sea Dispute, India and Japan, china, India, India and China
News / National

by Mary Charamba

MDC leader Welshman Ncube has been urged to re-join Morgan Tsvangirai led MDC and be considered for vice president post.Norton legislator Temba Mliswa said apart from Ncube returning to Tsvangirai, People's Democratic Party leader Tendai Biti, Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe president Elton Mangoma and Simba Makoni should also do the same."The coalition should have somebody who leads it."My opinion is that Simba Makoni has the numbers."He may probably come back considering his performance in 2008 but I will urge Biti to go back to MDC," Mliswa is quoted saying."As for Ncube, we should look at his results in 2013 how he performed but let him come on board and perhaps become the VP for this region (Matabeleland)".However, in October Biti vowed never to re-join the MDC-T."I will never go back to the MDC, never! In capital letters never, over my dead body! I can work with the MDC in a coalition anytime" he said.
(Photo : Indian Government) What to do with Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes.

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It now seems India's sudden and shocking decision to immediately demonetize its 500-rupee and 1,000-rupee banknotes effective Nov. 9 was an effort to stop Pakistan from mass producing more counterfeit banknotes to fund terrorist groups attacking India while making a hefty profit in return.



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India has long known Pakistan has been printing fake Indian bank notes at Pakistani government printing presses in Punjab and Balochistan province. The banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes are the most widely used among all Indian banknotes.



The Rupee comes in denominations of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000.



Pakistan's multi-billion rupee "Fake Indian Currency Network" (FICN) has been dealt a "body blow" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to demonetize the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, claim top officials battling the FICN.



India alleges Pakistan used a complex network of couriers and banks to flood India with counterfeit currency printed at Pakistani government mints.



Sources at India's security services told media that Pakistan realizes the fake rupees it was printing couldn't destabilize a huge economy of India's size.



Instead, the Pakistanis used the bogus rupees to fund terror operations in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as those in Maharashtra and Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Bengal and Bihar.



Money was routed through Nepal, Bangladesh, Dubai, Thailand and China. By demonetizing the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, the entire counterfeit network has been destroyed, claimed intel sources.



Indian intel also said Pakistan's spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which is behind the fake rupee operation, makes an annual profit of some $75 million from this caper. Around $240 million in fake Indian rupees entered India from abroad in 2010.



Operations of Pakistan's FICN are said to be so extensive it was printing rupees on a scale that surprised the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India, Ltd (SPMCI), which produces all of India's currency at four mints and four printing presses.



Forensic examinations of fake Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes by SPMCI concludes these bogus notes were manufactured at regular currency making machines owned by a sovereign government such as Pakistan.



SPMCI also said some of the pivotal parameters of the fake rupees and Pakistan currency notes bear similar values.



"Nobody had the guts and moral courage to nail the widespread fake Indian currency racket since the abyss of corruption was very deep," said Vikram Singh, former Director General of the Uttar Pradesh Police.



"PM Modi has taken the bull by the horns and by demonetizing big currency notes all anti-India forces lose."



The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Research and Analysis Wing and other Indian intelligence agencies have long exposed Islamabad's efforts to buy ink and paper far in excess of its requirement to print Pakistani currency.



Intelligence agencies have also documented Pakistan's acquisition of printing press and security printing inks from Germany and Switzerland. India claims Pakistan's purchase of the special paper used to print currency is far in excess of its own requirements. The excess must be used to print fake Indian rupees.



"In fact Pakistan is printing more (fake) Indian currency than its own currency,'' said Dr. Nirmal Singh, deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.



Intelligence sources quoted by Indian media said their investigations revealed that HBL Pakistan (Pakistan's largest bank) used branches of a local bank in Nepal along the India-Nepal border to transport fake rupees into India.



The same sources claim Modi's demonetization has crippled the nexus of the FICN. It said all the large denominations held by Indian currency separatists, terrorists and over ground workers of terrorist organizations are worthless.



"Their money power has been destroyed,'' said the sources.



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TagsIndia, rupee, Rs 500, Rs 1, Rs 1000, Counterfeit, Pakistan, Inter-Services Intelligence, Fake Indian Currency Network
(Photo : Russian Navy) The obsolete and rusting hulk that is the Admiral Kuznetsov.

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The obsolete Soviet era Russian Navy aircraft carrier, RFS Admiral Kuznetsov (063), now in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Syria, is expected to launch its first airstrikes either today or in the next two days against anti-Assad rebel forces allied with the United States in and around the city of Aleppo.



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The Kuznetsov and its naval battle group made an uneventful three-week long voyage from their base in Severomorsk, Russia. After the arrival of the Kuznetsov and its escorts off Syria on Nov. 8, the Kremlin announced the first airstrikes from the carrier will "hit the long-range approaches to the city" but won't hit the eastern portions of Aleppo strongly held by the stubborn rebels.



The Kuznetsov carries a mix of Mikoyan MIG-29KR carrier-based multirole fighters; MIG-29KUBR trainer/attack aircraft; Sukhoi Su-33 carrier-based air superiority fighters and Kamov Ka-52K ship-borne attack helicopters armed with air-to-ground missiles.



The besieged city of Aleppo has become the focal point of the five year-long Syrian Civil War. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said he is determined to retake the country's largest city and former commercial capital aided by Russia and its formidable air force and naval presence in his country.



Russian state-owned media said the coming naval attack on Aleppo is aimed at preventing more U.S.-allied militants from entering the city. The Russians are hardly attacking ISIS and are instead focusing the bombardments on U.S.-led rebels that are the more dangerous to Assad.



Russian media said Russia's most advanced weapons, including "Kalibr" (Caliber) cruise missiles, might be used in the naval bombardment. The missiles will probably be launched from Russian submarines in the Mediterranean Sea.



The Kuznetsov is the largest ship ever built by Russia and is the flagship of the navy's Northern Fleet. She will be retired by the 2020s after being commissioned in the 1990s.



Her escorts in this deployment to the Mediterranean are the 20 year-old Kirov-class battle cruiser RFS Pyotr Veliky (099), or Peter the Great; the 36 year-old Udaloy-class destroyer RFS Vice-Admiral Kulakov (626) and other anti-submarine Udaloy-class destroyers like the Kulakov that weren't named.



The Kuznetsov isn't a true aircraft carrier as understood in the U.S. Navy and NATO. She is more accurately described by the Russians as a "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser," which means her primary role is to shoot down enemy aircraft with her surface-to-air missiles.



Launching aircraft from her ski jump flight deck is a secondary role.



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TagsAdmiral Kuznetsov, Russian Navy, Syria, Mediterranean Sea, Aleppo, United States, Rebels, Bashar al-Assad
(Photo : Getty Images) The Chinese communist party mouthpiece said US President-elect Donald Trump was not the right man to implement changes in domestic and foreign policies

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Hours after being elected as the next US President, the Chinese Communist Party backed-newspaper put out an editorial on Thursday doubting Donald Trump's presidential capabilities saying it was highly unlikely that he would live up to his campaign promises.



The editorial, entitled China Strong Enough to Cope with Trump Victory and was published on the Global Times website, sent out mixed messages on the recent win of US President-elect Donald Trump.



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On the one hand, the editorial took a swipe on the New York billionaire's apparent brashness and on his brand of politics saying he was not bold enough to implement major changes in the United States, while, on the other hand, the commentary expressed optimism that the Trump government would work hand in hand with Beijing, which the article said the outgoing President Obama did not do.



Shock



The editorial also took a shot at Trump's win saying whatever his foreign and domestic policies will be will not compare to the shock brought on by his victory around the world.



The editorial said that despite the President-elect's plans to craft US domestic and foreign policies, the move would be in no match to the shock his election has generated around the world.



"He probably will not make any drastic changes in the short-term, and it is highly likely that he will not live up to his campaign promises. He is not as bold enough to really change the country," part of the editorial read.



The Global Times said Trump will have a hard time unifying the American people, many of whom still refuse to recognize him as their president. Also, US allies across the world will pressure Washington to restrain Trump from isolationism.



Foreign policy



The commentary said that the recent US elections have divided the American people noting the refusal of many Americans to accept Trump as the new US President. At the rate things are going, the political piece said it was unlikely that a unified America would happen very soon.



The newspaper said the biggest uncertainty that lies following Trump's victory is his foreign policy. It said that future Sino-US ties as well as Russia-US relationships will have a significant effect on the international community.



Trump's earlier campaign promise that he would focus on the return to US economic interests might lead to economic conflict between the two sides.



"The new president lacks diplomatic experience. His much touted business experience will in some form penetrate future US foreign policy," according to the newspaper.



The editorial added that "Sino-US relations may see dramatic renegotiations, including sharpened conflicts of interests."



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TagsGlobal Times, US President-elect Donald Trump, editorial, US foreign policy, china
(Photo : Getty Images) Nissan's Chief Executive announced at a Web Summit in Lisbon that RenaultNissan Alliance is planning to launch affordable electric car in China in two years.

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Renault-Nissan Alliance is gearing up for the launch of a new electric car in China in two years. The new car would cost approximately $8000. The grand announcement was made by company's chief executive Carlos Ghosn at the Web Summit in Lisbon.



Ghosn justified the launch by claiming that China's car market is witnessing unprecedented demand for electric cars amid the government's sustained effort to fight climate change.



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"For me, it is a no-brainer: electric cars are going to be a much bigger part of our industry in the future," Ghosn said. "There is an explosion of demand for the small, cheap electric cars in China. We're going to compete because we want to continue to maintain our leadership in electric cars."



He claimed that the Chinese government is taking a lot of incentive to promote electric cars and the country would soon represent one-third of the global market for electric cars.



Ghosn said that Renault-Nissan Alliance would work along with Chinese automobile company Dongfeng to manufacture the car. Without revealing any details about the new model, he claimed that the price point and time frame have already been decided.



"Our intention is to market a car that you can sell at $8000 without government incentives," Ghosn added.



Nissan, a Japanese multinational automobile company, was one of the first companies to try its luck in the nascent electric car market. The company, however, failed to capitalize on the "first mover advantage" as it could not compete with cheaper models offered by Chinese car manufacturers such as BYD, Zhidou, and SAIC.



Meanwhile, the Chinese government is making the necessary efforts to support the electric car industry by offering financial incentives and other non-monetary support. The government believes that electric cars would prove to be a great boon in their great fight against air pollution.



China is widely regarded as one of the most polluted countries in the world. Several automobile companies including Nissan have noted that government's climate change fight will pave the way for user-friendly policies for the electric car industry.



The Chinese government's efforts are already yielding fruits. This was validated by data furnished by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The data showed that nearly 2,47 000 electric cars were sold in China in 2015, which is four times more than the 2014 sales figures.



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Tagsnissan, Renault-Nissan Alliance, Web Summit in Lisbon, Electric Cars in China, China Car Market
(Photo : Indian Army) Russian-made Indian Army T-90S tanks on parade.

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The Indian government has approved a request by the Indian Army for the purchase of 464 T-90 main battle tanks from Russia at a cost of more than $2.1 billion. The T-90 is the premier battle tank of the Indian Army, which plans to have over 2,000 of these machines by 2020.



The government's Defense Acquisition Council led by Minister of Defense Manohar Parrikar has given the deal the green light. Military observers said the fast tracked request sends a signal to both Pakistan and its ally, China, that the Indian Army will do whatever it takes to modernize its armored forces.



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The tanks will mostly be manufactured at the Ordnance Factory Boards, which has also produced other Russian tanks such as the T-72. The T-90, currently the most modern tank in the Russian Ground Forces, will replace the Army's ageing fleet of T-72s.



The Army already plans to deploy some 1,650 T-90M and T-90S MBTs in most of its 97 armored regiments. Of this total, some 1,300 will be T-90Ms. It also has 350 T-90MS tanks deployed along the Line of Actual Control with China. In addition, the Army operates some 120 Arjun MK-1 MBTs, a domestically produced tank much heavier than the T-90.



The Army currently has 13 regiments operating both the T-90M and T-90S, a number that will increase to 21 regiments by 2020. One regiment consists of 62 tanks.



The exact T-90 model in the new deal wasn't disclosed by the Army, however. The Army has requested the tanks be installed with Active Protection Systems (APS).



Its existing T-90S' are equipped with Russia's Shtora electro-optical APS system and Catherine thermal imaging cameras from Thales.



The new T-90s will be a force multiplier for the Indian Army, said Brig. Gen. Gurmeet Kanwal (Ret), Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses.



"The new T-90s will replace the T-72 fleet of tanks. The upgraded tanks will have night fighting capabilities which are sorely needed. Overall, the tanks will act as a force multiplier when it comes to war in the plains against Pakistan."



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TagsT-90 tank, T-90M, T-90S, Indian Army, T-90MS, Arjun Mk-1, Pakistan
(Photo : Getty images) China and India have agreed to cooperate in fighting against terrorism and curbing fake currencies distribution.

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A meeting between Chinese and Indian officials has led to the possibility of a dual working system in a bid to do away with fake currencies while upgrading the security system of the two states.



Present in the meeting were Chinese delegation under the leadership of Vice-Minister of Public Security Fu Zhengua and an Indian team of representatives led by Rajiv Mehrishi, the Union Home Secretary.



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In a statement issued by the Indian Ministry, the two sides agreed on the creation of a two joint working group with its main intention focused on dealing fake notes. Also, a 24-7 hotline dedicated to the exchange of information will be established.



Other things mentioned in the statement are e-Visa, telecom fraud, and security matters. The meeting was held in New Delhi.



In a separate meeting, Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Commission of the Communist Party of China Meng Jianzhu together with other representatives met with Narendra Modi, India's Prime Minister.



During the meeting, joint efforts to curb terrorism was a key among other issues discussed.



"The intensive exchange of high-level visits between India and China over the last two years is complimentary," PM Narendra said. "Such visits contribute to a strategic understanding between the two countries."



During the meeting, PM Narendra encouraged the idea of better cooperation between the two states in the fight against terrorism.



At a later dinner hosted by Indian Minister Rajnath Singh, Singh requested that China backs up India in efforts to delegate chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) Masood Azhar as a terrorist under UN Resolution 1267.



"Leaders of terrorist groups including JeM leader Azhar, Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed, and Hizbul Mujahideen leader salahuddin roam freely in Pakistan and preach terrorism," Rajnaath said.



As discussed in previous meetings, fake currency notes were also tackled as well as the apprehension of ULFA chief Paresh Barua.



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Tagschina, India, Fake Curreny, Security, terrorism
(Photo : Getty images) Tianjin Airlines is starting to expand overseas, with the launching of its new Xi'an to London route.

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Tianjin Airlines made an official announcement on Tuesday on its plan to launch a new flight route from London to Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, come May 2017.



Tianjin Airlines is making strides to keep up with competing airlines. Its recent move is a clear indication that indeed the airline has the potential of expanding further.



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Up until recently, the airline only operated locally with a fleet of Airbus A320s. To embrace its new channel of operation, the launch of an Airbus A330-200 aircraft was necessary.



The Airbus A330-200 will house 18 business class and 242 economy class. The direct flight from London to Xi'an is expected to take 10 hours, and then, the aircraft will then continue to its final destination in Tianjin.



To add to this, the airline, which made its official debut on British soil in June this year, will increase from its two flights per week to three per week next summer.



British general manager for Tianjin Airlines, Robert Chen, expressed the company's joy in its new venture, saying that it will look to move further in the future.



"We're delighted to announce yet more new services for British travelers following the hugely successful launch of our first ever flight from Gatwick to Tianjin and Chongqing in China," said Chen. "Paris will be our next destination, probably next winter."



He further explained that local competition was a great determining factor in the expansion, thereby leading to the need to look for an international market.



Chen is optimistic that the airline would have 50 percent of its client base from international routes within the next five years. Talking about the price tag, he noted that Tianjin Airlines is "always lower than UK airlines."



Meanwhile, chief commercial officer for Gatwick Guy Stephenson commented on the announcement of the new route.



"Tianjin Airlines now connect Gatwick to three megacities. Our passengers will value the increased frequency of services to China today," he said.



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Tagschina, British, Tianjin Airlines, aviation
(Photo : Getty Images) India and China have agreed to collaborate to combat the use of counterfeit banknotes.

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India and China have agreed to create a 24x7 hotline to exchange information about fake currency notes. This decision was made during a meeting between Chinese leader Meng Jianzhu and Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday.



The move comes just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a ban on the use of high denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 across the country. The decision is widely considered as the Indian government's attempt to crackdown on corruption.



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Meng, who is a senior official in China's Communist Party, is reported to have been urged by Indian home minister to clamp down on Pakistan's nefarious design to smuggle fake Indian currency notes to the country via China. Singh referred to the recent arrest of a Pakistani citizen in Guangzhou city with fake Indian notes during the meeting.



India also took up the contentious issue of Masood Azhar during the meeting with the Chinese leader, calling on Beijing once again to help New Delhi in blacklisting the alleged Pakistani terrorist and his organization Jaish-e-Mohammed under the United Nations.



"Raising India's concerns on terrorism, the Home Minister appealed the Chinese leader to support the international community's efforts to designate as a dreaded terrorist the leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist group already designated under the U.N. Resolution 1267," a statement from India's home ministry said.



The statement further claimed that Singh informed Meng that Pakistan was openly supporting and financing terrorist organizations, while well-known terrorists like Masood Azhar are roaming fearlessly across Pakistan.



It must be noted that the national security advisors of both countries met last week in Hyderabad to discuss security issues, and Masood Azhar and India's Nuclear Supplier Group membership bid were reportedly discussed.



China's irritant role on both issues has frayed its ties with India, with Beijing solely focussed on keeping the pressure on India with the help its close ally Pakistan.



China and Pakistan's decades of close diplomatic relationship is largely shaped by both their mutual distrust towards India. This is largely due to festering border issues, with the disputed region of Kashmir being the main flash point. Both counties fought a war against India to settle the border dispute.



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TagsIndia and China, India Fake Currency Notes, India Rs 500 and Rs 1000 Ban, china
(Photo : ChinaPhotos/GettyImages) The yuan hit a new six-year low on Wednesday.

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Donald Trump's victory led to the Chinese yuan plunging to a six-year low. The fall is due to concerns about Trump's protectionist trade policies. The Chinese yuan seems to be heading for its third annual loss. The currency is down 4.4 percent this year.



Trump's presidency is likely to put a strain on the economic ties between China and the US. During the election campaign, Trump accused China of currency manipulation. He may also proceed to impose punitive duties on Chinese exports to the US.



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Christy Tan, head of markets strategy in Hong Kong at National Australia Bank Ltd., said, "Trump has made his stance quite clear about China and it is definitely not a friendly outcome in terms of bilateral trade relations."



The offshore yuan hit a new six-year low on Wednesday as it breached the 6.8 per dollar level in the early trade. However, later in the session, the currency stabilized on account of the declining dollar.



China sets a daily reference rate for its currency. This reference rate defines the yuan's trading in the secondary market. The rate is determined using its previous closing price and the movement shown by a basket of currencies. This implies that the decline of the yuan is partially attributed to the weakness shown by other currencies vis-a-vis dollar.



The markets are expected to keep a keen eye on US politics. Trump had threatened to levy duties as high as 45 percent on Chinese imports. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia believes that the move may cause up to 25 percent decline in Chinese shipment to the US, furthering straining the yuan's value.



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Tagsdonald trump, yuan, Commonwealth Bank of Australia
(Photo : Boeing) U.S. Air Force X-51 Waverider hypersonic missile (illustrationj).

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The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Air Force are partnering to fund development of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) Program.



DARPA recently awarded Raytheon Company, the world's largest missile maker, and Lockheed Martin Corporation, the world's largest defense contractor, with contracts amounting to $170 million each to develop the air-launched hypersonic weapons.



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HAWC seeks to develop and demonstrate critical technologies to enable an effective and affordable air-launched hypersonic cruise missile.



These demonstrations seek to open the door to new, responsive long-range strike capabilities against heavily defended targets and targets that need to be attacked immediately. The program intends to emphasize efficient, rapid and affordable flight tests to validate key technologies.



Weapons capable of streaking towards their targets at hypersonic speeds of at least Mach 5 (6,200 km/h) can be fired farther away from their targets. At these fantastic speeds, a hypersonic missile can speed from Los Angeles to Beijing in less than 1.5 hours.



"These demonstrations seek to open the door to new, responsive long-range strike capabilities against time-critical or heavily defended targets," said DARPA.



Lockheed earlier this year touted a "breakthrough" in hypersonic technology and has floated the idea of developing a hypersonic spy plane for the U.S. military.



The Air Force wants to build on its research from previous efforts. In 2013, the service conducted its fourth and longest flight of the Boeing X-51 WaveRider.



X-51 is an unmanned research scramjet aircraft for hypersonic flight at Mach 5 at an altitude of 21,000 meters. Waverider refers to aircraft that take advantage of compression lift produced by their own shock waves.



X-51 technology will be used in the High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), a Mach 5+ missile planned to enter service in the mid-2020s.



After separating from a rocket launched beneath the wing of a B-52, the X-51 climbed to 18,000 meters, accelerated to Mach 5.1 and flew for about three and a half minutes before running out of fuel and plunging into the Pacific Ocean.



The X-51A Waverider was powered by a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne SJY61 scramjet engine and designed to ride on its own shockwave and accelerate to about Mach 6.



Other companies such as the British defense giant BAE Systems and countries such as China and Russia are also working to develop hypersonic cruise missiles and similar technology.



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TagsDefense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, U.S. Air Force, Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept, HAWC, Boeing X-51 WaveRider
Opinion / Columnist



Prof Changamire is a political analyst and social commentator for Prof Changamire is a political analyst and social commentator for Khuluma Afrika - a center for analysis, commentary and investigative journalism.

The world is coming to terms with a paroxysm of national anger and the reality of The Donald being the POTUS elect, despite many polls and experts saying otherwise, Donald Trump now occupies the Oval office.A question on many an analyst is how did it happen? I do not presume to illustrate exhaustively the composite and complex reality that is America today as that will be invidious, I will however endeavour to explain with the benefit of hindsight what went off beam for Clinton and the Democrats, as became clear on election day.Obama inherited a defunct economy, unemployment was at an all-time high in as many decades, Americans were tired of war and longed for their troops to come home, which Obama managed to do exceptionally well, during this time Obama meticulously manoeuvred to get his transformational policies approved, chief among them, Obamacare, Iran-US nuclear deal, Wall Street reforms et al.It is now apparent however, those policies never at all resonated with the average American, and this is true. Benny Sanders the Democratic rival to Clinton had the same message as Trump on the other side of the aisle; the political establishment in Washington was broken and it needed fixing.This is the message that carried Trump through to the White House, the many voters didn't care about his personality or his unprecedented verbal assaults, neither did they care that he was "un-presidential", his businesses were in the red, he never filed tax returns nor was he politically correct, they merely liked him because he was anti-establishment, the establishment that Hilary Clinton so perfectly represented, protruded and magnified in her campaign strategy. The American people have shown that it is possible to differentiate personality from policy.It was Obama who said during the mid-terms in 2014, that Americans were voting to keep his policies in place not only did the Democrats lose that election but also their control of the Senate.As fate would have it Obama repeated the very same line this time around and it cost them (Democrats) the presidency, - despite approval ratings of over 50% - Obama's policies just didn't sell to the public, and to the average American, voting Clinton meant perpetuating the same establishment that was only looking at self-enrichment and cared for none but themselves, the Trans-Pacific Partnership being a glaring example.Should policy-makers and advisors be accountable to the present, or to history? The democrats chose the latter and it cost them gravely.When disillusionment sets in all rational flies out the window, the American economy grew and cut unemployed by half from 10- 5% and has added jobs for a record 6 years in a row, the 2% farmers that feed the American population heavily relies on migrant labour especially from Latin America.Trump has stocked nationalism and to dangerous levels, his vitriol is repugnant to every principle of the founding fathers of the USA, it can be closely linked to Hitler's, blaming the Chinese, Mexicans for America's woes, where the latter squarely blamed the Jews for the economic mess. Trump in the White House doesn't reflect on his person, rather it reflects the soul and conscience of a whole nation.2016 will go down in the annals of history as the year of the outsider, as the year that Britain pulled out of the EU, Trump caused the biggest upset in US presidential election, the ANC in South Africa lost control of all save one metro in local government elections. Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe lost a by-election for the 1st time since its inception.It's a clarion call to governments across the world, the people are fed up and anything, that offers an alternative is welcome, as to whether that alternative is the best, only time will tell.
(Photo : Getty Images) Chinas Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei is the new President of Interpol.

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Meng Hongwei, China's vice minister of public security, was elected as the president of Interpol on Thursday. Meng is the first-ever Chinese to be appointed as the head of the French-based organization which is widely considered as a "global police organization" by the international community.



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The Chinese security minister was elected at Interpol's 85th general assembly held on the Indonesian island of Bali, the agency said in a press release. He will be replacing incumbent President Mireille Ballestrazzi and will take office from immediate effect.



Meng was quoted saying in Interpol's press release that he takes over the reins of Interpol at a critical time when the world is behest with some of the most critical security challenges since the World War II.



The appointment is likely to give a huge boost to China's controversial undercover operation to nab Chinese fugitives hiding on foreign soil. The undercover operation is a part of President Xi Jinping's national wide crackdown against corrupt officials.



However, Meng's appointment may force many human right organizations to press the panic button. Activists have been long critical of China's alleged human right violations. The country's law enforcement agencies have been accused of subjecting prisoners to third-degree torture and forced confession.



"The Chinese police have a terrible human rights record, including the endemic practice of coercing 'confessions' and the widespread use of torture," Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia director at Amnesty International, said in an interview.



Bequelin also wrote on his Twitter account that China has a long history of using Interpol to nab fugitives and criminals hiding in foreign countries.



Although the post of Interpol's president is widely considered "ceremonial" in nature. Nonetheless, Meng would be an influential figure, as he would be heading a powerful organization that is recognized by 190 countries across the world and has the power to issue a "red notice" against criminals.



The red notice is treated as an international warrant and is often used by member nations to extradite criminals from foreign countries.



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TagsMeng Hongwei, interpol, Interpol President, china, Interpol's 85th General Assembly
Calls for unity  and warnings  from Christian leaders after Trump's election 10 November, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , |

WASHINGTON (Christian Examiner)  The knockdown, drag out 2016 presidential campaign is over and now Christian leaders who stepped into the fray both for and against Donald Trump are calling for unity. They are also issuing warnings to churchgoers not to trust in political power to save the nation.

Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, who during the campaign repeatedly exchanged barbed tweets via social media with the New York billionaire  now president-elect  was among the first out of the gate.

Moore published an opinion editorial in the Washington Post that was conciliatory, but also cautious about how Christians should proceed after a "demoralizing" and "traumatizing" election for the country. He called on Christians, even those who had significant disagreements with Trump, to pray that he will lead the country with wisdom and justice.

Earlier in the campaign, Moore said Trump was peddling "reality television moral sewage" in his campaign for the highest office in the land  and the most important one in the free world.

Trump fired back at the denominational leader for his insistence that evangelicals pull back from supporting his campaign.

"Russell Moore is truly a terrible representative of Evangelicals and all of the good they stand for. A nasty guy with no heart!" Trump said. The comment was retweeted thousands of times.

Moore also openly criticized Trump's appearance at Liberty University, calling him a "golden calf"  a reference to Old Testament idolatry. He said conservative support of Trump is a betrayal of decades of conservative, principled opposition to social changes pushed by liberals.

That comment earned a response from Jerry Falwell Jr., president of the university and a Trump campaign surrogate. Falwell pondered on National Public Radio (NPR) whether Moore was conservative or a "closet liberal."

That is all now mostly water under the bridge, though Moore warned in the Washington Post that the type of conservatism that won the presidential election doesn't produce conservative, constitutional results. Instead, he argued, it is the type of conservatism represented by "a European-style ethno-nationalist populism, opposed by an increasingly leftward progressive movement within the Democratic Party."

"In both of these movements, moral concerns  certainly personal character and family stability questions  are marginalized. We now have a politics of sexual revolution across the board. This means that conservative evangelicals are politically homeless  whether they know it or not," Moore wrote.

The most important lesson we should learn is that the church must stand against the way politics has become a religion, and religion has become politics. We can hear this idolatrous pull even in the apocalyptic language used by many in this election  as we have seen in every election in recent years  that this election is our 'last chance.' We should be ready to pray and preach, to promote the common good and to resist injustice. We will pledge allegiance to the flag, but we will pledge a higher allegiance to the cross. We can pray and honor our leaders, work with them when we can, while preparing to oppose them when needed.

He called on the church to maintain its "prophetic clarity" as the conscience of government and work to reject the culture of abortion and divorce, racism and the sexual liberation movement. Still, he wrote:

"The most important lesson we should learn is that the church must stand against the way politics has become a religion, and religion has become politics. We can hear this idolatrous pull even in the apocalyptic language used by many in this election  as we have seen in every election in recent years that this election is our 'last chance.'"

"We should be ready to pray and preach, to promote the common good and to resist injustice. We will pledge allegiance to the flag, but we will pledge a higher allegiance to the cross. We can pray and honor our leaders, work with them when we can, while preparing to oppose them when needed," Moore wrote.

Moore also said the church would need to guard religious freedom in the coming years, a thought shared by Family Research Council President Tony Perkins  though he was less concerned about how Trump would perform in office.

Perkins said in a Facebook post that religious freedom was more imperiled than ever after eight years under the administration of President Barack Obama.

Perkins also said the election was a "stunning rebuke of the political establishment" brought about by 81 percent of the evangelicals who voted (more than for Sen. John McCain in 2008 and Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012). They voted almost exclusively for Trump, in spite of their misgivings about his troubled character and misogynistic comments about women.

"It isn't that folks liked him more than previous candidates," Perkins wrote on social media. "Rather, they were mobilized by what is at stake and Trump's clear contrast with Hillary Clinton on life, specifically partial birth abortion."

Several ministers, including David Jeremiah, Robert Jeffress and Franklin Graham  all members of Trump's advisory council on faith  called on Christians to pray for Trump as he entered office.

Jeremiah said the election should remind Christians where their allegiance lies. Christians belong first and foremost to Christ's kingdom, he said.

"While we love America, as Christians we are sojourners and pilgrims, and like the heroes of our faith, we are looking for a better country beyond this earthly one, to the heavenly city God has prepared for us. Let us then continue walking by faith, not by sight, placing our trust in God's eternal promises and not in the fleeting machinations of men," Jeremiah wrote.

"We commit to pray for the new Trump administration. We pray that God might have mercy on our nation and that our leaders might know and fear Him, for as the Scriptures say, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. This is a time when we must hold fast to our calling to be good citizens and to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, pointing those around us toward our hope in Christ and breathing life wherever there is despair. Presidents come and go, but our God remains forever and he will be on his throne on November 9 as he was on November 8 and as he will be for all of eternity."

Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy Graham and president of Samaritan's Purse, wrote on social media the election was "the biggest political upset of our lifetime" and congratulated the president- and vice-president elect. While he acknowledged that the campaign was divisive, he called for unity and for help in fulfilling the spiritual needs of the country.

"We cannot ignore his hand and His supreme authority," Graham wrote. "One thing is for sure, we need to pray for our new president, vice president, and our other leaders every day  whether we agree with them or not. They need God's help and direction. It is my prayer that we will truly be 'one nation under God.'"

Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas and an ardent defender of Trump who called Christians who refused to vote for the candidate "hypocrites" and "fools," said voters had made their opinions known in the election.

"America has spoken," Jeffress said in a video statement. "In his first letter to Timothy, Paul made it clear that we are supposed to prayer for all those in authority, and no matter how you feel about the outcome of this election, I hope you'll join me in praying for my friend, President-Elect Donald Trump.

Jeffress said those who are afraid of a Trump presidency shouldn't be because God put Trump in the White House.

"For those who didn't chose to vote for President-Elect Trump, and may carry a measure of uncertainty about the future, there's no reason to fear and no reason to be discouraged," Jeffress said. "In Daniel 2, it is clear that God alone establishes our leaders. As Christians, our hope does not reside in kings, presidents or any authority, but in God and God alone. So let's fulfill our mandate from Jesus to be salt and light."

Across the ocean at the Vatican, Roman Catholic officials expressed the need to pray for the president-elect and to ask that he promote peace in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said on Vatican Radio the church had taken note "with respect the will of the American people in this exercise of democracy."

Parolin cited the large turnout of votes and congratulated Trump on the victory. He also said churchgoers should ask God to "illuminate him and sustain him in the service of his homeland, naturally, but also of the peace and wellbeing of the world."

"I believe that today it is needed for everyone to work to change the global situation, which is a situation of serious laceration and grave conflict," Parolin said.

Closer to home, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement calling for Americans to move forward together for "the common good of all citizens."

"Let us not see each other in the divisive light of Democrat or Republican or any other political party, but rather, let us see the face of Christ in our neighbors, especially the suffering or those with whom we may disagree," Kurtz wrote.

Kurtz said the church could work with Trump to strengthen families and also to protect human life from conception until "its natural end"  a clear rejection of the abortion industry and the burgeoning physician suicide plans already afoot in some states. He also wrote that Trump should focus on the immigration crisis to welcome refugees humanely without sacrificing security.

Of particular concern for the bishops is religious liberty. Kurtz said he hopes the new administration's domestic agenda includes protections on religious liberty, such as the right to "proclaim and shape our lives around the truth about man and woman, and the unique bond of marriage that they can form."

"Every election brings a new beginning. Some may wonder whether the country can reconcile, work together and fulfill the promise of a more perfect union. Through the hope Christ offers, I believe God will give us the strength to heal and unite," Kurtz wrote in his statement.
Two blasphemy charges against Pakistani Christians were dropped last month, World Watch Monitor reported.

The two incidents were unrelated and were reported from localities hundreds of miles away from each other, and both involved allegations of burning of Muslim religious text.

These cases were resolved when prominent religious leaders intervened and came to the help of the victims of the false blasphemy accusations.

On October 20, a six-year-old boy and his mother were suspected of desecrating religious papers from Hajj, after those papers were found outside their apartment in Quetta. Ayan Masih and Shakeela who works as a nurse in city Civil Hospital were detained, and underwent thorough investigation. They were later released after intervention by local religious clerics.

On October 28, about a thousand miles away from Quetta, torn and burned pages of Quran were found in courtyard of an abandoned home adjacent to a Christian worker's house in Sheikhupura.

Parvaiz Masih told World Watch Monitor that his wife Azra Bibi returned home after her duty shift as a cleaner at a maternity hospital around 1:30 pm and noted smoke coming out of their neighbor's vacant house.

The owners of the house Anwar Khan Lodhi and Irfan Khan Lodhi use it as a storeroom, while they live nearby.

The police said that the Quran was found in the washroom of the storeroom.

When a mob gathered around the house, a cleric suggested that the Christian family could be investigated for the crime.

The Lodhis, however, said that the Christian family would never be involved in such an act and they had been living in the area for the last 40 years. At that time, no one in the mob accused them.

However, two days later Masih received a call summoning them to the police station. He said that he was not present at the scene when the crime happened, which can also be verified through the security cameras at the bank where he works as a cleaner.

His wife asked her employer to check with the police station if a complaint had been registered against them. Her employer told her that the complaint was registered against unknown people and not against them.

Another local meeting was conveyed to find out who could be responsible for the act, in which one Muslim family assured the public of their trust in their Christian neighbors. A local lawyer Abu Obaid also stood behind the family, and said that if it was ever proved that Masih's family were guilty, he would deem himself liable to be accused of the crime.

Masih's family is also involved in an ownership dispute with owners of the house.
The final phase of jury selection for the trial of 22-year-old Dylann Roof at the federal court has been postponed until Wednesday. He is accused of shooting nine black members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in June 2015.

District Judge Richard Gergel said at the Monday hearing that he received a request from Roof's lawyers to appoint a jury that will ensure a fair and unbiased trial.

Roof is indicted with 33 counts of hate crimes, obstructing religion, committing violent crime using a firearm during a Bible study session.

The jury selection began in September when about 700 people filled out questionnaires. On Monday, some 500 participants in the process were to report to the court to be probed and interviewed by the judge. The court will pick 70 qualified jurors, out of whom several will be left out and only twelve will hear the testimony along with six other alternative jurors.

Court records reveal that Roof will plead guilty if death penalty is dropped by the federal court.

Federal prosecutors have sought death penalty against him. They said that Roof planned the church attack for months, and appeared to show no remorse. He wrote a racist manifestos and posed with a confederate flag before killing the church members.

During the first of the Roof's court hearings, many relatives of the victims offered tearful forgiveness to Roof.

In August, Roof was attacked by a black inmate at the South Carolina prison where he is being held. When he was in shower, another prisoner Dwayne Stafford came out of his cell and ran downstairs towards the common area and hit him in his face and back.

Roof was given a medical examination and then sent back to his cell. He and his attorneys did not press any charges against Stafford.

If he is convicted, his trial could extend for several months. He will undergo another trial at state court where he also faces death sentence.
Hillary Clinton has vowed to work with the president-elect Donald Trump and asked the people who voted for her to have an open mind towards him.

"Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans," she said in her concession speech in New York.

Her husband Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea were standing behind her on the stage as she addressed her supporters.

"We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought. But I still believe in America and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future."

"Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead," she said.

"Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power and we don't just respect that, we cherish it. It also enshrines other things; the rule of law, the principle that we are all equal in rights and dignity, freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values too and we must defend them," she continued.

Clinton asked people to keep working for the values they cherish, protect the country, and protect the planet.

"We've spent a year and a half bringing together millions of people from every corner of our country to say with one voice that we believe that the American dream is big enough for everyone - for people of all races and religions, for men and women, for immigrants, for LGBT people, and people with disabilities. For everyone," Clinton reiterated.

She urged Americans to stand united irrespective of differences, and to respect each others' convictions.

"I am so grateful for our country and for all it has given to me. I count my blessings every single day that I am an American. And I still believe as deeply as I ever have that if we stand together and work together with respect for our differences, strength in our convictions and love for this nation, our best days are still ahead of us."

Clinton quoted Galatians 6:9 in her closing remarks.

"Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart."

"May God bless you and may God bless the United States of America," she said.

Meanwhile, protests erupted across the country and pictures and footages showing a mob burning flags emerged in media. A woman was reported to have been severely injured by a car in one of the protest rallies in California.
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California residents voted against abolishing the death penalty and approved another measure limiting death penalty appeals.

"California voters have spoken loud and clear that they want to keep the death penalty intact," said Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert. "This is the ninth time California voters have voted in favor of keeping the death penalty for the most heinous killers."

Ballots were cast on Proposition 62 and Proposition 66, both of which relate to death penalty cases, on Tuesday.

Proposition 62 sought to replace the death penalty with life in prison with no access to parole, which was opposed by a majority of 56 percent of the voters. Proposition 62 had received large donations from many Democratic activists.

"The outcome of the election does not change the fact that California's death penalty is broken beyond repair and remains a sentence 'in name only,'" said Jacob Hay, Yes-on-62 campaign spokesman. "The high costs will continue to add up, the backlog of cases will continue to mount and the stories of injustice will continue to be heard. We are confident California's failed death penalty will one day come to an end, either from voters or through the courts."

Proposition 66 puts limits on appeals for the death penalty and sets timelines for trials in cases involving capital offense.

Supporters of Proposition 66 wanted to expedite execution proceedings by restricting the number of petitions and the time limit granted to the death sentence trials. The measure also increases the number of lawyers who can work on the death penalty appeals.

However, critics of the proposition say that it renders innocent people to be denied justice.

"The danger with 66 is it does limit and narrow the ability to present newly discovered evidence, which is how most of these innocence claims are presented in court," said Ellen Kreitzberg, professor at Santa Clara University.
Donald Trump is now the president-elect. This fact is deeply discouraging for some evangelical Christians. Many fear that Trumps ascendency will only encourage racism and misogyny. Others see his election as a blow to immigration reform. Those concerned about religious liberty for all worry about the future of Muslims in our land. But Clintons loss, and by extension, Trumps win, brings deep relief to other evangelical Christians. Many feared an acceleration of President Obamas progressive policies, including the use of their tax dollars to make abortion even more accessible. They are weary of being labeled bigots for their views on human sexuality, and being increasingly subject to social and legal penalties for such views.

Initial reports suggest that four out of five white evangelical Christians voted for Trump, continuing their pattern of support for the Republican candidate in US presidential elections since the 1980s. Not all did so with enthusiasm, and for that matter, Trump received a higher percentage of black and Hispanic votes than did his predecessors, Republican candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain. Still, what makes this election different is how many prominent evangelical leadersfrom the Southern Baptist Convention's Russell Moore to World magazine to Christianity Today, among othersmade clear our serious reservations about the Republican candidate. White evangelical Christians voted for him anyway.

This points to a significant divide among evangelical Christians of all colors and stripes. From hallway conversations to Facebook and Twitter exchanges, we look at one another and ask, How could you, as an evangelical, possibly support your candidate?

In ...

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I had the privilege or reading a pre-release version of "God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church." Here are 20 quotes from the book, which you should pick up.
home World Beheaded bodies discovered in mass grave near Mosul

A mass grave containing around 100 decapitated bodies has been found in a town south of Mosul as Iraqi forces continue to liberate towns from the hands of ISIS.

The Iraqi military stated that the mass grave was located in the School of Agriculture on the outskirts of Hammam al-Alil, which was recaptured from ISIS on Monday.

"Gangs of ISIS militants continue to commit crimes against our people," Iraq's Joint Military Command said in a statement. Special teams have been deployed to the site to investigate the killings.

Iraq's federal force started attacking the town of Hammam al-Alil on Saturday. The day before the operation, a U.N. Refugee Agency said that it had received reports that ISIS was forcing residents to surrender boys aged 9 and older to fight for the jihadist group.

It was revealed that ISIS has deployed a brigade of child soldiers and more than 300 have been killed since the operation to retake Mosul began in mid-October.

"This will raise the death toll to at least 480 Syrian fighters killed in the ranks of the Islamic State since the start of the battles in the Mosul area, among them more than 300 child soldiers from the 'lion cubs of the caliphate,'" the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights also reported that ISIS has abducted tens of thousands of men, women and children from their homes to be used as human shields. They were forced to walk alongside the terror group on their way to Mosul. Those who refused were killed on the spot.

"ISIL's depraved, cowardly strategy is to try to use the presence of civilian hostages to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military action, essentially using tens of thousands of men, women and children as human shields," said the U.N. agency's spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani.

Human rights groups are also concerned about revenge committed by government-sanctioned forces against civilians.

Last week, Amnesty International reported that fighters from the Sab'awi tribe, who are part of the Mosul operation, tortured civilians with electric shocks and placed them in cages while some were tied up to vehicles and paraded in the streets.

Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty International's Beirut office, has called on Iraqi authorities to arrest those responsible for the unlawful torture.
home World Dutch cardinal warns Catholic parents against allowing children to choose own gender

A Dutch cardinal has shared his concerns that gender theory has become so widespread that even Catholic parents have accepted that children can choose their own genders.

Cardinal Willem Eijk of Utrecht, Netherlands has suggested that a papal encyclical or other magisterial document might be required to counter the spread of the idea that gender can be determined by choice and not by biology.

In a Nov. 7 interview with Catholic News Service, he noted that Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have both addressed the subject of gender theory in the past five years.

"Perhaps a document only on this problem might be an urgent question. It (gender theory) is spreading and spreading everywhere in the Western world, and we have to warn people. From the point of moral theology, it's clear a you are not allowed to change your sex in this way," said Eijk.

Eijk, who is a former medical doctor at the Amsterdam university hospital, is set to give his lecture on the theme "Is Medicine Losing its Way?" in Blackfriars, a Dominican monastery in Oxford. He is expected to address the rise of non-therapeutic medical practices, including gender reassignment, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The cardinal warned that there would be a growing intolerance directed against people who refuse to accept new ideas like gender theory.

"We are living in a quite intolerant society. People are talking about tolerance and they say the individual is free to think what he likes but in practice ... people have to accept this certain view of man, this dualistic view of man and this view of the body as something that is mouldable," he said.

He added that Catholics must insist on their right to live according to their conscience to avoid facing harassment or imprisonment in the future.

In his meeting with Polish bishops on World Youth Day in August, Pope Francis denounced the idea that people can choose their own gender, emphasizing that it is the "exact opposite" of what God intended.

He addressed the issue of gender theory during his visit to Georgia and Azerbaijan in October. He encouraged Catholics to accept homosexuals but he warned against accepting gender theory.
home US Franklin Graham congratulates Trump and hails win as "biggest political upset" of our lifetime

Samaritan's Purse CEO Franklin Graham sent his congratulations to President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence on Wednesday morning and described their victory as the "biggest political upset of our lifetime."

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Graham called for unity and pointed out that there are still problems that needed to be fixed.

"This election has been long, it's been tough, and it's been divisive. It's time to put that behind us. Now is the time to come together in unity and work together. Our nation has so many problems that need fixing. Even more important are the spiritual needs of our country," the evangelist said.

"Whether we are rich or poor, without Jesus Christ we are the most desperately in need, the poorest of the poor. We cannot ignore His hand and His supreme authority," he added.

Graham, who went to all 50 state capitals for the "Decision America" tour, invited Christians to pray daily for the new leaders.

The evangelist has been careful not to endorse any candidate during the tour but he encouraged Christians to vote based on biblical principles. He has repeatedly declared that God is the only hope for the nation while stating that he has no faith in both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Graham officially resigned from the Republican party in December last year and declared himself an independent.

His daughter, Cissie Graham Lynch, has openly endorsed the business magnate while emphasizing that she does not speak for other members of the Graham family. Lynch stated that she is mainly concerned with Supreme Court appointees, noting that Trump had vowed to appoint conservative justices who will protect religious liberty and the life of the unborn.

In a recent interview with The Christian Post, Graham expressed his belief that Trump is a changed man despite the controversies and the lewd remarks he made 11 years ago. "I think God is working on his heart and in his life. But people have to make up their own mind" he said.
home World Iran releases four Christians accused of "propaganda against the regime"

Three Christians from Azerbaijan, together with an Iranian convert, who faced charges of missionary activity and "propaganda against the regime" have been released on bail after spending four months in prison.

Eldar Gurbanov, Yusiv Farhadov and Bahram Nasibov, all from Baku, Azerbaijan, were invited to bless a wedding in Tehran on June 24. According to Middle East Concern, the three men wanted to tour Iran for three more days but they were arrested by security agents at the party.

Gurbanov, Farhadov and Nasibov were taken to Evin prison along with an Iranian Christian convert named Naser. The four Christians were locked up in a solitary confinement for two months and were not allowed access to a legal counsel or consular assistance.

The four men were later transferred to shared cells at a ward in the prison facility. They were released on bail on Oct. 29.

Their families and friends are hoping that they will be acquitted of all charges. They are also praying that "the Iranian regime will treat all prisoners with dignity and justice, and that people will no longer be penalised on account of their faith or religious activities."

According to a report from World Watch Monitor, more than 200 Christians have been arrested by Iranian authorities since 2015. Many are still in jail while others were released conditionally.

Rob Duncan of Middle East Concern said that 43 Christians have been arrested in September alone.

"The Iranian regime is conducting a very active campaign against house churches at the moment and leaders of house churches are harassed and put under pressure," he remarked.

Iran is currently ranked as the ninth most difficult place to live as a Christian, according to the Open Doors World Watch List.

Despite heavy persecution, the number of Christians continues to increase. Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs USA asserted that many Iranians have already rejected Islam and they are now prepared to receive the Gospel. He believes that God is enabling Christians to share the Good News through various means.

"I think the Gospel is spreading in Iran really through every imaginable channel. We know satellite broadcasting is producing great results. Because of the danger, people in the privacy of their own home who can turn on the TV and get answers to their questions, that's a great way of reaching them," Nettleton told Mission Network News.
home US Ken Ham says Trump's surprise victory is proof God's in control

Answers in Genesis (AIG) President Ken Ham has remarked that the unexpected victory of Republican Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election is proof that God is in control.

"Many people and much of the media are shocked and perplexed at the election results. What happened? How could polls be so wrong? Answer: God, not the media, is in control: 'For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God' (Romans 13:1)," he wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.

Ham's comment generated some debate among his followers with some wondering whether he is expressing his support for Trump.

The Young Earth creationist clarified that he merely suggested that God put Trump in power and might use him like other controversial rulers in the Bible.

"Remember, God used the pagan King Cyrus and called him His anointed: 'Thus says the Lordto His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held a To subdue nations before him And loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut.' (Isaiah 45:1)," he said, as quoted by The Christian Post.

He also suggested that it was God who placed outgoing President Barack Obama in the White House as well.

Ham has been vocal in his criticism of Trump. In October last year, Ham expressed his doubts whether Trump really understood true Christianity. He believed that many people supported the business mogul because he spoke with authority regardless of whether he is correct or not.

The AIG president previously pointed out the inconsistency of the secular media when Trump was criticized for his lewd remarks against women. He noted that the media treated Christian morality with scorn while using it to judge politicians.

On election day, Ham posted a blog urging Americans to pray for the nation, vote and keep God's commandments. He told Christians to pray that God will protect the freedoms enjoyed by the nation and that Christians will be given the courage to stand for their rights to proclaim the truth.
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China Cracks down On Children Attending Church

Christian children in China are being lured away from churches by a government scheme aimed at stopping them from taking part in Sunday services with other believers.

According to Texas-based watchdog China Aid, authorities in Zhejiang province have begun setting up community cultural centres and holding child-friendly activities at weekends to attract young people, "thus eliminating the problem of them attending church".

The scheme has so far been established in Yangy, Tengqiao, Shanfu and other towns.

Zhejiang has been the centre of a government campaign to crack down on churches and up to 1,700 churches have been demolished or had their crosses removed in the province over the past three years.

However, China Aid reports that the latest restrictions on religious activities are being implemented by local authorities across the country.

The Lucheng district of Wenzhou  known as the 'Jerusalem of the East' because of its large Christian population  is to "build a grid system to regulate religious affairs", China Aid said.

Each village will be monitored via the system, which will involve 1,500 officers from the religious affairs bureau.

Churches will also be forced to conform to strict government regulations called the 'Five Entries and Five Transformations movement'.

Beijing has become progressively more suspicious of the influence of Christianity in China, and will next year implement new Regulations on Religious Affairs.

These will forbid "organising religious activities in unapproved religious sites" and "preaching, organising religious activities, and establishing religious institutions or religious sites at schools".

The new rules have been drafted by the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) and will  according to an expert who spoke to ChinaSource  "in effect leave no space for the house or unregistered Church in China, and will significantly curtail many of the activities of the TSPM [Three-Self-Patriotic Movement, the state-controlled Protestant Church] as well".
Christians Dismayed As Colorado Votes To Legalise Assisted Suicide

Catholics in Colorado have reacted with dismay after the state voted to legalise assisted suicide.

The vote on legalisation, which came on the same day  Tuesday  as the presidential election, was approved by a margin of 65 per cent to 35 per cent.

Catholic, Mormon, and evangelical leaders played a role in the unsuccessful opposition to the ballot measure.

The Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported the Colorado Catholic Conference as saying yesterday: "The mission we have as citizens of Colorado should be to help people live with dignity  not to offer them more options to kill themselves."

The conference said the legalisation was "a great travesty of compassion and choice for the sick, the poor, the elderly and our most vulnerable residents".

The ballot measure, which is modelled on a 22-year-old Oregon law and uses the language of "medical aid in dying," is called the Colorado End-of-Life Options Act. It will allow an adult with a terminal illness to request a lethal prescription from their doctor. The individual must be deemed mentally competent and two doctors must diagnosis the person as having six months or fewer to live. The measure requires self-administration of the drug, called secobarbital, which is also used for lethal injections in some states, CNS said.

The measure voted on requires the official cause of death to be listed as a patient's underlying condition, not as an assisted suicide.

The president of the legal assisted suicide advocacy group Compassion and Choices, Barbara Coombs, said the vote was "an especially tremendous victory for terminally ill adults who worry about horrific suffering in their final days," the Associated Press reported.

But Colorado's Catholic Conference rejected depictions of assisted suicide as a private choice, saying: "killing, no matter what its motives, is never a private matter; it always impacts other people and has much wider implications."

The Conference added: "As Pope Francis has noted it only furthers a 'throwaway' culture".

A Colorado-based non-profit hospice and palliative health care provider, Divine Mercy Supportive Care, declared itself a "no-kill provider" in the wake of the vote. The Catholic organisation's policies follow the US bishops' ethical and religious directives for Catholic health care.

The organisation said it was "the antidote to assisted suicide." It added that advances in pain and symptom management have helped alleviate the suffering of advanced illness.

However, it said several other Colorado hospice agencies have said that they are willing to accommodate assisted suicide.

Supporters of legal assisted suicide failed to pass bills in the Colorado legislature in 2015 and 2016, before placing the proposal on the election day ballot.

According to the Denver Post, the ballot measure's advocates raised $4.8 million from groups like the Compassion & Choices Action Network.

Church groups opposed to the ballot measure raised $2.3 million, including contributions from the dioceses of Denver, St. Louis, and Arlington.

Five other states have similar laws or court action permitting assisted suicide: Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, and Vermont.

Also on election day, California voted to legalise the use of marijuana for recreational use.
Did These Evangelical Leaders Exalt Donald Trump Over Jesus?

Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo have spoken out against Christian leaders in the United States who they claim chose to exalt Donald Trump over Jesus.

In a blog for Red Letter Christians, Claiborne denounces contemporary evangelicalism.

He says that many Christians in post-election America are now spiritually "homeless". He calls for these Christians in the United States to abandon the term "evangelical" and reclaim their identity as "followers of Jesus".

Claiborne wrote the article with his friend Tony Campolo, who served as spiritual adviser to former US President Bill Clinton.

Describing the election as "catastrophic", he says: "As a result, many evangelical Christians will need a new home."

He writes: "Many today see evangelicals as anti-women, anti-gay, anti-environment, anti-immigrant, and champions of guns and war.

"Most of what has come to characterise evangelicalism is in direct conflict with the core values and teachings of Christ."

He laments the support of so many white evangelicals for a presidential candidate who rejects "many of the core values of evangelicalism" such as fidelity and faithful stewardship.

Claiborne writes: "Many of us grieve that our brothers and sisters once known for their zeal for Jesus have been more passionate about exalting Donald Trump this year than Jesus."

In particular he criticises Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and Franklin Graham who he claims "overlooked" Trump's "anti-Christian" values.

And he says there is a new generation of post-evangelical Christians rooted in the "values of Jesus" who care about the earth, the poor, refugees and immigrants.

The term "evangelical" has been hijacked and made toxic, he argues, saying: "Many are now done with the word 'evangelicalism', which has come to represent white self-interest. But the very same people are still attracted to the true 'evangel', the gospel, the good news."

It is time for Christians to reclaim their identity as followers of Jesus, he continues. "We've made idols out of wealth, fame, power, and whiteness  and the phenomenon of Donald Trump is a natural outgrowth of that idolatry."

He says there can be a new home for homeless Christians. "Today there is a growing movement of Red Letter Christians who want a Christianity that looks like Jesus again."
Evangelicals And The Supreme Court: Why It May Have Swung The Election

"My greatest concern for our country is the direction of the Supreme Court. If there is one reason to vote, this is it."

This is how Cissie Graham Lynch, granddaughter of Billy Graham and daughter of Franklin Graham, explained her endorsement of Trump when she went on Fox News.

She was not alone. For evangelicals the state of the Supreme Court in America dominated their thinking as they weighed a longstanding support of Republicans with a nervousness about Trump's horrific rhetoric. But the court won out. Evangelicals overwhelmingly backed Trump by four to one.

Clearly it was not not the only issue. But it was very important.

Wayne Grudem, Franklin Graham, Eric Metaxas, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson all cited the court in justifying their support for Trump.

The Supreme Court in America hangs in the balance. Out of nine seats, four are liberal leaning, four are conservative leaning and one is empty.

It is the ultimate judge involving all laws of Congress and in administrating the highest law of all  the constitution. It has the power to check the actions of the president and Congress if they are deemed to go against the constitution.

Made up of nine justices, the appointments are all lifetime positions. There is no limit to how long they can stay unless they are impeached, which last happened in 1805. Since 1970 the average tenure has been 26 years.

So it holds an immensely powerful position in the US legal system. But it is also highly political.

Supreme Court Justices are first nominated by the president but then have to be appointed by the Senate. Presidents are likely to suggest judges who are sympathetic towards their political leaning. Although the judiciary is supposed to be non-partisan, in reality it is nearly always neatly divided along party lines. It is difficult to find a judge in the States whose legal judgments aren't influenced by his or her political convictions.

In the current cohort John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy lean consistently to the right, although Kennedy is slightly more unpredictable. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer tend to be more liberal.

So the ninth and final is crucial in tipping the balance one way or another. The President has control over whom to nominate and will choose someone who is sympathetic to his politics.

This can prove complicated when the president is from one party but the Senate is controlled by another, as is the case currently.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an arch conservative, died in February 2015. It is the president's constitutional responsibility to nominate a replacement and Obama duly suggested Merrick Garland in March 2015.

But the Senate judiciary committee, which decides whether to give the go-ahead for a vote in the wider Senate, refused to hold any hearings. They said because an election was approaching, the decision should be postponed until there was a new president. "The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice," said the Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Together with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, McConnell blocked Obama's nomination.

While ethically dubious it is technically legal and the ninth post on Supreme Court remains empty without Senate approval.

With Trump's election this week the Republicans now hold both the White House and the Senate, paving the way for a conservative appointment tilting the balance of the court towards the right.

A conservative dominated court could have serious implications. Simply put, "if you have a conservative court, you are going to have more conservative decisions," said Kerri Kupec, a lawyer with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group involved in religious rights cases.

First, a number of Obama's key initiatives are tied up in legal challenges and are now more likely to lose. These include his signature 2010 healthcare law, his plan to combat climate change, his executive action on immigration and his transgender rights policy.

A major upcoming issue is whether business owners who oppose same-sex marriage can object on religious grounds to providing services to gay couples. One dispute concerns a baker in Colorado, while another involves a florist in Washington state.

On top of that a conservative court would probably be favourable toward gun rights, sceptical of abortion and supportive of the death penalty when it came to legal cases involving these issues.

But with three judges 78 or older including 83-year-old liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom Trump called on to resign in July after she called him a "faker", Trump's administration could make further appointments.

Fellow liberal Stephen Breyer is 78, while conservative Anthony Kennedy is 80.

If these three retired or died in the next four years the Trump administration appointments could dominate the court for decades to come.

Trump has already issued a list of 21 judges, mainly federal judges appointed by President George W Bush and state court judges, he said he would consider to fill Scalia's vacancy. All have conservative credentials on such issues as abortion, birth control and gun rights.

The case that could be affected soonest by Trump's win involves transgender rights. The court on October 28 took up a case concerning a female-born transgender high school student named Gavin Grimm, who identifies as male and sued in 2015 to win the right to use the school's boys' bathroom. Grimm is backed by the Obama administration.

No date has been set for the argument in the case. The court could potentially delay acting until it has nine justices.

A ruling could resolve similar litigation around the country over an Obama administration directive saying schools should allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their choosing.

Trump has said he would rescind the directive. He also has said he would rescind Obama's executive action to protect millions of immigrants in the country illegally from deportation and give them work permits, which was put on hold by the courts while the administration fights to revive it.

Trump is also expected to overturn major regulations put in place under Obama, including the Clean Power Plan to curb greenhouse emissions mainly from coal-fired power plants. That process takes time, meaning the Supreme Court could potentially rule on a legal challenge to the Clean Power Plan before Trump can dump it. The case is pending before an appeals court in Washington.

White evangelicals voted for Trump largely based on his promises over the Supreme Court. And it is plausible Trump could make up to four appointments to the court in his time as president.

The evangelical gamble paid off. It looks like they have control of the court for the foreseeable future.

Additional reporting by Reuters.
'God Wants Me To Be Here Till The End': Aleppo Pastor Reports Muslim Conversions As War Continues

Many Christians have been forced to flee Aleppo as the violent conflict in Syria continues. However, one pastor is convinced he must stay and speaks of renewed faith and many new conversions.

Before the war more than 200,000 Christians resided in the city, but now only about 20 per cent of those remain. Pastor Alim [name changed for security reasons] has remained there with his congregation, World Watch Monitor reports.

"I feel a calling of God. He wants me to be here till the end, as long as there is work to do in Aleppo," Pastor Alim says. Violence in the city is pervasive: "The situation in Aleppo has been unstable for a long time now. Ceasefires only last for a short time. As soon as the people catch breath, the fighting starts again."

He adds: "The other day, as we finished our meeting on Friday, a bomb exploded next to the church, killing a young girl and her brother. On Sunday, when we were getting ready for church, bombs exploded around our house."

In the midst of this war, Alim's church is reaching out to Muslims and Christians to support their needs. They pay rent, provide medical support and his church has dug a well so the community can access clean drinking water. These actions have helped previously tense relations with the Islamic community. Alim said: "Before the war, authorities put a lot of pressure on Muslim converts, investigating and interrogating them. We continued serving them, went with them to the police, and because of that they felt the church didn't leave them."

Alim says that "These people now see what the church does. There is now a greater appreciation for its role. Before, people reacted differently towards the church. Before, as we were distributing food, we heard people saying: 'Here come the infidels': now people are different."

As a result of that, many Muslims have been more open to Christianity and have subsequently converted, with some reporting encounters with Jesus in their dreams. "It happens more with the Muslims and the Druze," says the pastor. "God is speaking the language of each group. Muslims meet Jesus in dreams. A woman saw a man in a dream, he was dressed in white and his face was shining. She woke up and went to church, she was very afraid of being rejected. She was accepted with love."

Alim sees 15-20 baptisms in his church every year, with other new believers unable to make the public commitment due to pressure from their own communities. He adds: "There is hunger to come closer to God! There is hunger for the prayer meetings for example. Now the whole congregation comes to these meetings. The church is full of people praying."

Such news echoes other reports from Aleppo which describe a surge in new believers even as other Christians flee.

Alim still longs for peace in the area. He asks that people would "pray for an agreement to end the fighting so that we can live a normal life again". He says that despite the struggle and uncertainty, his faith has grown: "We have passed through very difficult situations, we don't know why we feel such a peace and hope! I think God is giving us double grace."
Modern Society Has 'Destroyed' Family Bonds And Community Life, Says Former Archbishop

The automobile has left the elderly generation behind, said the 80-year-old former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey on Wednesday.

Old patterns of family life were "hollowed out" as communities became scattered by improved modes of transport and new career patterns, he said according to the Telegraph. Carey spoke with nostalgia at a conference on ageing Britain about his working-class upbringing that "revolved around the older generation".

He said respect for older people had declined because people were no longer taught the 10 Commandments.

Carey, a controversial proponent of assisted suicide, said the fifth commandment  "honour your father and mother"  once meant communities believed in "primacy of the elderly".

He told the conference in Westminster hosted by think-tank the International Longevity Centre:

"I remember growing up as a boy in the East End of London, in a cockney family, the close-knit communities that marked working class culture. There was a remarkable symbiosis between the different ages. Life revolved around the older generation with my mother's mother as the matriarch at the centre of the family.

"Now perhaps there still exists that pattern of family life in some parts of northern England and maybe in some of the newer communities, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, that are springing up around us. But in the main strong community life has been hollowed out by the car, by younger people seeking work elsewhere, by job opportunities and so on. Family cohesiveness has been destroyed as a result.

"Of course I don't want to sentimentalise or romanticise a long-ago age when communities were more stable."

He said there were now two contradictoryapproaches towards the elderly: "On the one hand ageing is seen as a loss, a decline from the best of life a major demographic problem, a drain on the economy to the other view that it is seen as a time of maturity and wisdom, a release from the stress of working life, self-fulfilment, serenity and [a time] to develop and pass on knowledge to another generation," he said.

"In Christian and Jewish thinking the primacy of the elderly stems from the Fifth Commandment, honour thy father and thy mother, and in the teaching of Jesus love thy neighbour as thyself."
Russian Orthodox Church Welcomes Trump Victory, Blasts Obama's Foreign Policy

The Russian Orthodox Church's foreign affairs spokesman has said that the election of Donald Trump as US president "gives hope for improvement of the entire system of international relations".

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, said in an interview with Interfax-Religion yesterday: "I don't think we should fall into euphoria about the Republican candidate's victory. Time will show what kind of president he will be, whether he will fulfill the promises that he gave during the election campaign. But his election gives hope for improvement of the entire system of international relations, for the creation of a unified global coalition against terrorism."

He added that the rhetoric of Hillary Clinton failed to convince American voters "and even active support from incumbent President Obama did not give her more votes".

Alfeyev portrayed the result as a vote against the status quo, saying: "The choice was not only between two persons. Essentially, the Americans were asked the following question: do you want everything to stay as it was or do you want changes? And the American people voted for changes."

He was highly critical of US policy in recent years towards the Middle East. "American policies in the Middle East, starting from the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and to the recent events in Syria, was, in my view, shortsighted and wrong," Alfeyev said. "Overthrowing the regimes that existed in the Middle Eastern countries one after another, allegedly in the name of democracy, America did not lead the region to democracy or prosperity. On the contrary, it provoked chaos, mass exodus of civilians, genocide of ethnic and religious minorities."

He went on: "Trump spoke about all these things directly and clearly. He criticised the American government for [its] Middle Eastern policies, for giving up alliance relations with Russia. And the people of America heard him."
Trial Resumes Of Christian Pastors In Sudan Facing Death Penalty

There is "cautious" optimism about the fate of the pastors facing the death penalty for allegedly "spying" and for claiming that Christians are persecuted in Sudan.

Open Doors, the charity that serves persecuted Christians around the world, reports that after many delays this year, Sudanese pastors Hassan Kodi and Kuwa Shamal, along with graduate Abdulmonem Abdumawla and Czech aid worker Petr Jasek, have appeared in court again.

Their lawyers have now been able to begin their defence.

"Observers are cautiously optimistic about the process thus far, but ask that we continue to pray for the Lord's undertaking for the lawyers, and for His grace to the men and their families as they continue to face uncertainty," a source told Open Doors.

They will be back in court next Monday.

The trial has been adjourned repeatedly, most recently because the prosecution failed to prepare adequately.

All four men are accused of spying and face the death penalty if convicted.

According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Jasek is charged with propagating false news. He, Taour, Shamal and Abdumawla face at least seven charges including waging war against the state. One charge against the pastors is that they propagated news about churches being burned down in Khartoum and bombed in the Nuba mountains, where Christians are classed as "atheists".

On the Open Doors' 2016 World Watch List, Sudan is ranked eighth. The organisation is continuing to ask for prayers for the four defendants.
Trump And The Middle East: Are There Any Signs Of Hope?

Despite some gymnastically optimistic analysis in certain quarters, the future of the Middle East surely looks bleak with Donald Trump in the White House.

The most immediate crisis revolves around Syria.

There, Amnesty International judges that "right now a Trump presidency looks like making a catastrophic situation for Syrian civilians even worse".

While acknowledging that it's "too early to say exactly what Donald Trump's presidential victory means for Syria's beleaguered civilians", the charity goes on to speculate that Trump may well "pivot" the US towards a Putin-Assad alliance against ISIS. After all, Trump has said that his priority is wiping out ISIS, not deposing Assad.

Amnesty says that "aligning with the Syrian and Russian governments would almost certainly spell even greater disaster for Syria's long-suffering people" and lead to "many more" civilian casualties.

"And this kind of realignment may carry with it some kind of acceptance of the Damascus/Moscow line that all opposition in Syria  whether armed or unarmed  amounts to 'terrorism'," Amnesty warns.

Trump has also talked of building "safe havens" in Syria which he himself has linked to containing Syrians in their war-torn country. "I would stop the Syrian migration and the Syrians from coming into this country in two seconds," he told NBC's Meet the Press in July.

Amnesty says that a "consequence of a Trump 'safe zone' could be the beginning of a process of partitioning the country. This is an idea that itself may gain US political support under a Trump presidency, appearing to offer relatively quick and easy solutions."

On Iraq meanwhile, Trump has made contested claims that (unlike Hillary Clinton) he opposed the 2003 invasion which led to the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

Regardless of that policy, he is unlikely to want the US to be more involved than it has to be in assisting the Iraqi forces in their attempt to drive ISIS from the beleaguered country.

US military presence in Iraq has reportedly been creeping up since 2014, when President Obama told Congress he was ordering "up to approximately 275 US Armed Forces personnel" to Iraq to fight ISIS. Trump may wish to reverse that trend.

Nonetheless, he has said that, "We're going to have to do something extremely tough over there."

The truth is that though he will doubtless be being briefed heavily on them in the coming weeks, Trump's policies when he takes office in January towards Iraq, and to a lesser extent Syria, are hard to predict. As Time magazine has said, a Trump victory casts "a cloud of unpredictability over an already unstable region".

Less hard to forecast - on the surface at least - is Trump's approach to another seemingly intractable conflict central to the region: that of Israel-Palestine. This is because in September, Trump delighted Israel's right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu by telling him during a lengthy meeting that the US would "recognise Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel".

The US, the UN and almost every country in the world currently refuse to accept that Jerusalem is Israel's capital, with most major embassies functioning in Tel Aviv. International consensus is that East Jerusalem  having been seized militarily in the Six Day War and then unilaterally "annexed"  is occupied territory, just like the West Bank.

If Hillary Clinton was pro-Israel, Trump had gone one better. Trump reportedly invited Netanyahu to the US when the latter called the former to congratulate him on his victory this week, and there are no signs that Trump intends to stand up to an Israeli prime minister who himself does not appear to want a deal (indeed, "Bibi" this week turned down a French initiative at renewed talks this week, perhaps emboldened by Trump's win). Further, with both Houses in the US Republican-dominated, the pro-Israeli position in Washington seems entrenched.

On the other hand, according to the "Nixon went to China" maxim, you just never know. Back in May, Trump talked at length about wanting a deal  "man, would that be a beauty"  between Israel and the Palestinians. The transition of power in the White House is as good a time as any to make a fresh start.

And anyway, Barack Obama is said to want to make a final push for talks in his final two months of office. The outgoing president is still considering whether to instigate a new UN Security Council resolution. This would at a minimum create a series of parameters which  if Trump were to do all that the Israeli right wants him to do  he would have to deviate from.

Next year, Trump comes to power exactly 50 years after the Six Day War. What better time to initiate a fresh drive for a deal which could, just possibly, hold the key to a wider peace across the region? But on paper at least, the signs of peace in the Middle East remain as elusive as ever.
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If you like top shelf prosciutto, Italian cheeses and olives, and the best olive oils and risotto, you're in luck. Nine of Houston's top Italian restaurants will participate in a first Italian Restaurant Week set for Nov. 14-20.

The event is a partnership between the Italy America Chamber of Commerce and the Extraordinary Italian Taste, a campaign dedicated to the education of authentic Italian food products. That campaign showcases artisan foods such a prosciutto, Cerignola olives, Arborio rice, balsamic vinegar from Modena, extra virgin olive oil, and select chocolate, salami and tomato sauce. Those products will be used by the restaurants offering special a la carte or prix fixe meals during the Italian Restaurant Week.

HOUSTON'S BEST BURGERS: For when you need a 'cheat' day

There's also a good cause at play: a portion of proceeds from the special dishes and set dinners will be donated to assist with the Italian earthquake relief.

Here's what each of the participating restaurants are offering:

Amalfi Ristorante Italiano & Bar, 6100 Westheimer: Will donate $5 from each $35 set menu that includes a choice of appetizer (classic bruschetta or anancini), an antipasto dish, choice of entree (spaghetti cacao e pepe or braised beef in red wine with risotto), and dessert.

Arcodoro, 5000 Westheimer at Centre at Post Oak: Will donate a percentage from a special menu that includes dishes such prosciutto with buffalo mozzarella and roasted pumpkin; focaccia with Parmigiano Reggiano, prosciutto and cerignola olives; beet risotto; shrimp risotto; braised wild boar ribs with aged Modena balsamic vinegar; and wood fired pizza with Pecorino Romano cream, cerignola olives, prosciutto, arugula, and Parmigiano Reggiano).

Cane Rosso, 1835 N. Shepherd in Heights and 4306 Yoakum in Montrose: Will donate a percentage from a $30 set menu that features first course of antipasto (bruschetta of mushrooms and herbed ricotta, arancini, mozzarella, prosciutto and olives), followed by second course of white pizza with prosciutto, arugula and Pecorino Romano, and a dessert course of panna cotta with cookie crumbs.

Carmelo's Ristorante Italiano, 14795 Memorial: Will donate a portion from a special menu that offers starters (antipasto misto, prosciutto, creamy Parmigiano Reggiano and spinach soup), and entrees (seafood lemon risotto, and penne with prosciutto and sweet peas).

Damian's Cucina Italiana, 3011 Smith: Will donate 5 percent from each dinner from a $45 set menu that includes starters (mixed salad, Mona Lisa salad, or sweet potato ravioli), entrees (grilled port chip with garlic mashed potatoes and green beans, pistachio crusted salmon with vegetable risotto, or grilled filet mignon topped with marsala mushrooms and served with garlic mashed potatoes and green beans), and dessert (tiramisu or Italian cream cake).

Il Mascalzone, 12126 Westheimer and 1500 Shepherd: will donate a portion from $35 set menu that includes four courses: asparagus and prosciutto, pear and pecorino risotto, grilled red snapper with puttanesca sauce, and lavender panna cotta with mango coulis.

Quattro, 1300 Lamar in the Four Seasons Hotel Houston: Will donate a portion of sales from an a la carte menu featuring dried prosciutto with yellow autumn melon; salsify-parsnip soup with oyster mushrooms; buccatini pasta; squid ink risotto with shrimp; cacio e pepe-style risotto with truffle parmesan fondue; Mediterranean fish stew; roasted half chicken with thyme-roasted potatoes; and chocolate cake with white chocolate mousse and dark chocolate sorbet.

Sud Italia, 2347 University: Will donate a portion from a $39 set menu that includes an antipasto of Pecorino Romano with Modena balsamic vinegar; prosciutto and melon; saffron risotto with dried cranberries; and cod with Cerignola olives, lemon, and olive oil.

Fellini Gelato & Cafe, 794 Sorella Court at CityCentre: Will donate a portion from an a la care menu that offers tomato bruschetta; prosciutto with mozzarella and arugula; antipasto for two; select cheese plate; and mascarpone gelato with strawberries and Modena balsamic vinegar.
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Texas State University police said it is trying to determine who posted fliers on the San Marcos campus advocating arrest and torture of university leaders spouting off all this diversity garbage after Donald Trumps election.

The flier featured a photo of armed men calling themselves Texas State Vigilantes. The handout said: Time to organize, tar and featherand go arrest and torture those deviant university leaders spouting off all this diversity garbage.

At least five such fliers were posted in various academic buildings, Sgt. Rolando Belmares said. On Thursday morning, many people -- most of whom anti-Trump protesters -- assembled on the Texas State campus quad with signs that read "less hate more love" and "stop blaming Muslims." About a third of the students at the university are Hispanic, and 10 percent are black.

VIOLENCE: College student says man in Trump hat robbed her of hijab and wallet

University President Denise Trauth urged "constructive dialogue" as a path to understanding "that which causes divisions among us."

Junior Nicholas Prejean said "the environment on campus went from being a little chaotic to an absolute frenzy with Trump being elected." For example, he described students carrying "build that wall" and "ban Muslims" signs. "I feel like everyone's getting a lot bolder."

Prejean also has heard shouts from students on the campus quad yelling "go back to Africa" and called the atmosphere "nerve-wracking."

BACKLASH: Protesters set fire to Trump pinata at UH demonstration

Emotions have run high on Texas campuses following Trumps election as the nation's 45th president. Many students reacted in anger and sadness, seeing the decision as validation of Trumps calls to deport immigrants here illegally and ban Muslims from entering the country, as well as his boasts of sexually assaulting women.

Protests emerged Wednesday at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University and the University of Houston, echoing calls from college students around the country. In Austin, hundreds of students took to the streets for hours, at one point shutting down a bridge, before marching to the state capitol.

Though Trump issued few higher education policies over the course of his presidential campaign, his consistent criticism of "political correctness" may ripple through higher education, as campuses have been openly grappling with issues of diversity and access for the last several years.

"Having Trump as president suggests there's a different tenor; people have voted for someone who has expressed negative views toward a lot of different groups in American society," said Natasha Warikoo, a Harvard University professor, who studies relationships between education and racial and ethnic diversity in schools and universities.

Beyond appointing conservative judges to the Supreme Court who may overturn affirmative action, she said she expected Trump to galvanize college students nationwide into activism, should his rhetoric continue.

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Meanwhile, Texas university administrators hope students continue peacefully expressing themselves after the tumultuous presidential election, but avoid resorting to violence.

"Discourse is fundamental to the academic enterprise, and this university strives to protect it," Trauth, the Texas State president, said in a statement Wednesday.
As the Texas Legislature is set to reconvene in January, District 127 state Rep. Dan Huberty plans to focus on several items, including the school finance system, education for students with special needs and more funding for infrastructure.

Huberty, a Republican, won a fourth term in office in the Nov. 8 general election. He received 49,674 total votes (81.9 percent) to Libertarian challenger Scott Ford's 7,481 votes (12.33 percent) and Green Party candidate Joseph McElligot's 3,496 votes (5.76 percent).

"I feel honored to have the chance to go back to Austin and have the ability to represent our district," Huberty said. "I have a lot of gratitude for our constituents who voted for me, knowing I will fight for what is right for our district. I want to thank my wife, kids and all of my staff that have sacrificed for me to be able to serve; I am very appreciative for all of their hard work and support."

On election night, Huberty passed on hosting a watch party in order to speak with Humble Independent School District board members, school representatives and parents during a board meeting that evening.

One of the first things Huberty plans to work on this session is school finance issues.

"Education is always a key component for what we deal with in Austin," Huberty said. "More than ever, I think we will see a big push to try, once and for all, to deal with the school finance system. This will be the first time in about 5-1/2 years the state is not under a lawsuit from the school districts in regards to the school finance system."

This will allow for state representatives to work together to develop a funding formula to help school districts across the state. According to Huberty, not many thought the Supreme Court would not rule in favor of the school districts.

"One of the things the Supreme Court says is that although the school funding system is constitutional, it is broken and that we have a big problem," Huberty said. "The bigger problem is we have a divided legislative body; on one side the Senate who has one position on how to fix the school funding system, and the other side is the House that has another position."

Last summer, Huberty attended multiple hearings where they talked specifically about the funding formula for school districts, which will be very relevant to the Texas legislative session in 2017 because many on the House side believe they have to fix the system that currently exists starting with the basic allotment. This means if they take money not allocated that doesn't go into the school funding formula, that will help school districts like Humble ISD significantly.

"The problem in Humble ISD, which is a good problem, is that people keep moving here," Huberty said. "But, this can be a bad problem as well because the district only has a certain amount of dollars being generated from the local tax base."

Huberty also plans to focus on education for students with special needs and continuing to make sure there is access to programs and facilities for these students."

Another contentious fight expected during the session revolves around school choice.

"This next session, we are also going to work on an annexation bill that stops other municipalities and cities from forcibly annexing ... unincorporated areas and continuing to find ways to fund infrastructure to improve transportation," Huberty said. "We live in an area that is growing tremendously and we need to find ways at the state level to accommodate this growth."

Since every session is a different session, Huberty is excited about the challenges ahead.

"The economy is still not where it needs to be, and that is a big concern," Huberty said. "I believe we will see issues with available resources. We will have to be pragmatic to make sure these resources are allocated appropriately and we have got to fund enrollment growth, the tremendous issues surrounding Medicaid in Texas and with the change in the administration at the top of the ticket, we will see what happens with national health care, which is a huge cost to the state of Texas. If we see some holistic changes at the federal level, that will help our budget process as we go forward. It will, like everything else, be a challenge."
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An affiliate of Braun Enterprises has purchased a property on North Shepherd at 24th Street across from the proposed Heights H-E-B store.

The building, which sits on 1.2 acres at 2401 N. Shepherd, will likely be another redevelopment project, according to Dan Braun, president of Braun Enterprises.

The sale, which represents the company's 20th property in the Heights-Washington Avenue area, closed in September.

Houston-based Braun Enterprises has revived more than 30 inner-Loop properties, renovating the buildings and bringing in trendy tenants such as Snooze restaurant on Montrose and Harold's in the Heights on 19th Street.

RELATED: Roundup of Braun Enterprises redevelopment projects on West Gray

The company also recently purchased a building a 1900 W. 18th in the Heights for a redevelopment project.

The building is on a stretch of Shepherd, inside Loop 610 North, that's poised for new retail. Voters repealed a century old ban on alcohol sales in a dry area of the Heights this week, paving the way for H-E-B to proceed with plans for a store on the former Fiesta grocery store site.

RELATED: Scott McLelland of H-E-B talks about the proposed Heights store on Looped In

"The addition of an H-E-B on that street would add to the redevelopment of Shepherd and allow the Heights to reflect on its outside edge what the quality that exists on the inside of the Heights," Scott McClelland, head of H-E-B in Houston, said in a recent Chronicle Looped In podcast.

Justin Miller and Derek Hargrove of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller, a local family partnership. Miller, Hargrove and Davis Hansen secured the buyer.
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Theater

Remote Houston: The Alley Theatre hosts an audio tour through Houston. 4 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, through Nov. 18. $39; Evergreen Cemetery, 500 Altic; 713-220-5700, alleytheatre.org.

Wolf Hall Part Two: Part two of play based on Hilary Mantel's novel. Presented by Main Street Theater. Rice Village location, 2540 Times; 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, through Dec. 18; $39-$45; 713-524-6706, mainstreettheater.com.

The Judgement of Fools: A theatrical take on politics and social media, with audience interaction. Presented by Horse Head Theatre. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays, 8 and 10 p.m. Saturdays, through Nov. 12; REC Room, 100 Jackson; $25-$45; horseheadtheatre.org.

This Is Modern Art: Idris Goodwin and Kevin Coval's story about Chicago graffiti artists. Presented by the Landing Theatre. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays, through Nov. 19; Landing Theatre at the Docks, 1119 Providence; pay what you can, suggested ticket $25; 562-502-7469, landingtheatre.org.

The 80s (Mix Tape Diaries): Comedic tribute to music of the 1980s. Presented by the Music Box Theater. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, through Nov. 27; 2623 Colquitt; $27-$37; 713-522-7722, themusicboxtheater.com.

Five by Tenn: Five one-act plays by Tennessee Williams. Presented by Dirt Dogs Theatre Co. 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; the MATCH, 3400 Main; $20; 713-561-5113, dirtdogstheatre.org.

The Rocky Horror Show: The rock opera that became a cult film. Presented by Theatre Under The Stars; 7 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays, through Nov. 17; Zilkha Hall, 800 Bagby; $39-$93; 713-558-8887, tuts.com.

Song About Himself: A new play by Mickle Maher set in a dystopian future. Presented by the Catastrophic Theatre. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, through Dec. 3; MATCH, 3400 Main; 713-522-2723, catastrophictheatre.com.

Classical/Opera

Picasso and Music: Music inspired by "Picasso: The Line," an exhibit at the Menil Collection. Presented by Da Camera. 7:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday; 1533 Sul Ross; $60; 713-524-5050, dacamera.com.

La Boheme: Puccini's classic opera. Presented by Opera in the Heights. 7:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday, also 7:30 p.m. Nov. 17 and Nov. 19. $15-$75; 1703 Heights Blvd.; operaintheheights.org, 713-861-5303.

Faust: Houston Grand Opera's production starring Michael Fabiano and Ana Maria Martinez. 7:30 p.m. Friday; Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas; $18-$338; 713-228-6737, houstongrandopera.org.

Beethoven's Ninth: Houston Youth Symphony celebrates its 70th anniversary with Houston Masterworks Chorus. 7 p.m. Saturday; Rice University, Stude Concert Hall; $10-$20; 713-785-2422, houstonyouthsymphony.com.

Tasting Menu: Violinist Aloysia Friedmann performs Schumann and others. River Oaks Chamber Orchestra; 5 p.m. Sunday; MATCH, 3400 Main;713-665-2700, rocohouston.org.

Dance

Cinderella: American Ballet Theatre's Misty Copeland and Calvin Royal III lead a cast of local dancers in Open World Dance Foundation's premiere. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday; Hobby Center, 800 Bagby; $32-$315; 713-315-2525; ticketmaster.org.

New Faithful Disco: DiverseWorks presents Meg Wolfe's queer-love power-performance trio for herself, taisha paggett and Marbles Jumbo Radio, with original music by Maria de los Angeles "Cuca" Esteves. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday; MATCH, 3400 Main; $15; 713-521-4533, matchouston.org.

iLuminate: Dancers wear the wireless lights in Miral Kotb's spectacle of technology with contemporary hip-hop, Latin, and break movement, set to original music, as seen on "America's Got Talent." 7:30 p.m. Saturday; Miller Outdoor Theatre, 6000 Hermann Park Drive; 281-373-3386; milleroutdoortheatre.com. Free
RLJ Entertainment

A study in exuberant trash, "Dog Eat Dog" gives us Nicolas Cage and Willem Dafoe feeling their oats as ex-con buddies over their heads in a harebrained scheme to baby-nap a one-year-old.

They clearly couldn't care less that they were making an absolutely absurd movie with director Paul Schrader (who helmed "American Gigolo" and "Cat People," and scripted "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "The Last Temptation of Christ," where Dafoe played Jesus). Saturated with campy gore, it plays as if they put the basic formula for a pulp B movie in a blender and set it to puree. The result is a punk comedy that's repugnant but never boring.
I See Stars lead vocalist Devin Oliver is trying to channel his inner Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar.

It's not the typical thing to hear from an electronicore band, but Oliver and his band are far from typical.

Known for their creative style and chance taking, I See Stars has a little bit for everyone and the influences of the band have never been brighter than with their June album "Treehouse"  which the group is currently promoting on the Sumerian Records 10 Years in the Black Tour.

"A big thing for us is to produce a show that sounds like what you get on the album  which can be hard with electronic music," Oliver said. "For me, I want to be able to deliver on the vocals from some of our influences from "Treehouse" like Frank Ocean and Bon Iver."

The 10 Years in the Black Tour is in celebration of the 10 year anniversary of Sumerian Records  the label that signed I See Stars in 2008. The tour features other artists from the label including Asking Alexandria, Born of Osiris, After the Burial, Upon a Burning Body and Bad Omens and began on Oct. 25.

The tour will venture through Houston on Nov. 25 at Warehouse Live.

"This tour is exciting for us," Oliver said. "We are really kind of one big family. We've been touring with the guys with Asking Alexandria for years. We were excited to hit the road with them again."

I See Stars has grown a lot since its early years. Starting as a group of Michigan teenagers on MySpace, the group quickly found a following.

"It was a great time for young artists," Oliver said. "MySpace offered a great way for small local artists to get their music out. It became a competition overtime as more bands wanted to the top band in their area and it kind of pushed each other."

Once signed by Sumerian in 2008, the band has been full tilt ever since.

"The writing process is never ending," Oliver said. "I write music 24/7. As soon as "Treehouse" was done and we were wrapping it up, I started writing for the next album. It just keeps on going."

The band currently consists of Oliver, guitarist Brent Allen, bassist Jeff Valentine and keyboardist/vocalist Andrew Oliver  the brother of Devin Oliver.

I See Stars parted ways with longtime members Jimmy Gregerson and Zach Johnson before the release of "Treehouse", replacing them within the band by adding extra duties for both Devin and Andrew Oliver both in studio and on stage.

The change in the band led to a slight change in styles for its new album, creating a slightly-less heavy sound in the process.

"We are kind of a change of pace on this tour," Oliver said. "'Treehouse' isn't the heaviest album and we aren't the heaviest band on the tour. The fans have been great, though. We have great fans and we are hopefully making more as this tour goes on."

I See Stars has a little for everyone. The band's electronic sound mixes well with the metalcore undertones that continues resonate throughout its catalogue.

"Treehouse" is the fifth album of the band and has a strong mix of heavy and not-so-heavy music. "Running with Scissors," "Mobbin' Out," and "Portals" are about as heavy as they come but "White Lies" and "Walking on Gravestones" are a bit of a departure on the past and sounds similar to top-40 radio electronic driven bands.

On top of delivering a diverse catalogue, I See Stars also delivers live. Oliver is known to crowd surf on a raft at shows and is among the best at keeping the crowd engaged  something that he has perfected in his eight years of touring.

"The most important thing for us for fans to walk away with is that we deliver live what we did on the albums," Oliver said. "We are excited about this tour and being able to connect with fans."
Rex Wall has always been a No. 1 fan of his father Buddy. When the opportunity to purchase a business where his father works became available, he was happy to do so.

Buddy Wall has served as the broker of record at RE/MAX Associates Northeast for a number of years and has been in the real estate industry in Kingwood for more than three decades. Rex fondly recalls visiting his father at his office through the years.

"I grew up around real estate," he said. "Some of the agents who still work at the office remember me as a kid."

Rex and his wife Candace purchased the RE/MAX Associates Northeast franchise, with offices at 2940 Oak St. in Kingwood and 18700 W. Lake Houston Parkway in Atascocita  a combined 96 agents strong  Sept. 1, and Rex is immersed in learning all the ins and outs of the business.

Rex said he looks forward to spending time expanding his connections in the community. Rex and his family moved to Kingwood when he was 4 years old, and he returned to the area after earning his business degree from Baylor University.

Candace also is a graduate of Baylor University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in education and a master's degree in counseling. She has worked in the field of neuropsychology and as a teacher in the Humble Independent School District.

The couple said they look forward to showcasing the community they love to call home.

"RE/MAX has been a leading company in this market for close to 40 years," Rex said. "What I want to do is continue that pursuit of excellence  and do whatever I can to make it even better."

For more information about RE/MAX Associates Northeast, call 281-358-8888 (Kingwood) or 281-812-9400 (Atascocita) or visit northhoustonhomes.com.

Small Business Salute Luncheon to recognize, honor local businesses

The Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce will recognize and honor local small businesses at the Small Business Salute Luncheon presented by Commercial State Bank and Insperity from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 15, at The Clubs of Kingwood.

Small business owners and operators make up 90 percent of the Chamber's membership. At the luncheon, the Chamber will recognize the impact small-business owners have on the Lake Houston Area community and economy, highlight the Chamber's Small Business Saturday initiative, recognize the Lone Star College Small Business Development Center Small Business of the Year Award finalists and celebrate the Total Resource Campaign with a Victory Party marking the successful end of the 2016 campaign.

Finalists for the Small Business of the Year Award Presented by Lone Star College Small Business Development Center are Connie and Darryl Chandler with Minuteman Press Humble, John and Kelly Altic with JLA Realty and Danny Sullivan with Sullivan's Advanced Pain and Body.

Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale will speak at the event.

Reservations are due by noon Friday, Nov. 11. The cost to attend is $30 for Chamber members and $35 for guests. Reservations made after the deadline are subject to availability and will be $35 for members and $40 for guests. For more information, email Chris O'Dell at codell@lakehouston.org.

Insperity representative: answer four critical questions ahead of new overtime rule

Barring any court or legislative delays, the federal overtime rule change is scheduled to take effect in approximately four weeks, impacting the salaries of 4.2 million American workers, according to White House estimates.

On Dec. 1, the federal minimum salary level for overtime pay for FLSA-covered workers will increase to $913 per week, or $47,476 annually. However, recent news reports suggest that many American companies are not fully prepared. With the clock rapidly ticking down, Anna Brewer, director of HR administrative compliance at Insperity, suggests that companies have answers to the following four questions before the change occurs.

1. What are the impacts? It is critical for companies to gain a full understanding of the effect the law will have on their bottom lines. Businesses should review job duties and salaries for all workers right away, so it is clear what will happen with company payroll in December and beyond. Also, consider pay adjustments for some employees whose salaries are near the cap.

2. Is the company in need of a technology upgrade? Is it finally time for the business to enter the digital era when it comes to employee scheduling and time entry? Electronic timekeeping solutions that allow employees to clock-in and clock-out at their workstations or via mobile devices can provide accurate and immediate data. This allows employers to track worker hours in real time and make scheduling adjustments if problems arise.

3. Are some new, creative solutions needed? Challenges posed by the new overtime rule may require some companies to consider a few scheduling and/or time management alternatives. One example is to allow employees to request an adjusted work schedule. This allows employees to shift their work hours (within reason) for convenience or to times when they are most productive. Approaches such as this can help ensure staffing during key periods while also improving morale and retention. Another suggestion is to conduct a company-wide survey of standing meetings to determine if cancelling or combining meetings can eliminate wasted work hours. A third idea is to combat employee time spent working outside the office by limiting or discouraging after hours work emails. In many companies, employees spend countless hours emailing at night and on weekends. This can lead to burnout. Furthermore, non-exempt employees must be compensated for all the time they have worked, including answering work emails at home.

4. Is the company communicating with employeesand also listening? Perhaps the most important step in preparing for the rule change is to communicate with impacted workers and their supervisors. In doing so, proactively explain any protocol or policy adjustments related to the overtime rule change. It is also crucial to ensure employees have the chance to ask questions or raise concerns both now and in the weeks ahead.

For more information, visit http://www.insperity.com.
Union Pacific Railroad is examining its bridge across the San Jacinto River in Humble after a low spot discovered in the span allowed two traincars en route to Houston to uncouple.

As they hit the dip, they somewhat separated from the train, Union Pacific spokesman Jeff DeGraff said.
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University of Texas at Austin students cheered and yelled as they marched in Austin Wednesday in opposition to Donald Trump's election as 45th president of the United States.

Footage posted by The Daily Texan, the student newspaper, shows dozens of people walking around the city. At least one passerby gave the middle finger.

"We love Muslims, we love blacks, we just want our country back," they chanted just after 2 p.m. "This is what democracy looks like."

The students marched along streets near the Texas Capitol, then briefly blocked a crowded traffic bridge, according to the Associated Press.

Many in the crowd waved hand-scrawled signs proclaiming Trump racist and anti-gay. Some of their later chants were vulgar plays on the 2005 recording where Trump bragged about groping and kissing women without their permission.

HOUSTON RALLY: UH students join anti-Trump protests

Texas A&M University students planned an anti-Trump demonstration at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Members of the Muslim Students Association, several wearing hijab, stood next to a table in the campus breezeway urging students to ask them questions about their faith. They offered passersby brownies, pamphlets and copies of the Quran.

"If you haven't talked to us before, talk to us today," a sign read.

Setting up a table on campus is a weekly ritual for the student club, and they said they generally hear questions asking about hijab and Islam's relation to Christianity. Several students said they felt let down last night, angry and upset with the election results.

Today, they exchanged reminders to stay safe, quelling nerves with smiles. "We'll still be here, spreading the word," one said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Higher education policy did not play a big part in this years presidential campaign, and president-elect Donald Trumps articulated higher education policies are sparse but have the potential to vastly change how the federal government works with colleges and universities.

Most radical is his criticism of the U.S. Department of Education, a Cabinet-level department that receives billions of dollars in federal funding. In Crippled America, a book by Trump, and in Fox News coverage, the president-elect said he was totally against and may cut the education department, according to the nonpartisan website OnTheIssues.org.

College students in Texas and nationwide rely on loans from this agency to enroll and graduate.

The Chronicle of Higher Educations Sarah Brown has written about how a revamped education department might look, finding that a key issue would be privatizing the portfolio of $1.3 trillion in federal student loans owed by 44 million people. Congress would need to approve the agencys shutdown.

Trump devoted about six minutes of a campaign speech in Columbus, Ohio, to criticizing the uptick in tuition, debt and administrative jobs on college campuses.

There, he warned colleges and universities that the government may revoke federal student loans for institutions that do not control costs and invest their resources in their students.

They will be held accountable, he said.

He also pledged to cap the interest repayment rate on student loans at 12.5% and to stop payments after 15 years. He called student debt an anchor around your neck that hinders new graduates.

Trumps criticism of political correctness may make waves on college campuses well into his presidency.

This year, Texas campuses have grappled with questions of how race, gender, religion and sexual orientation affect students lives  consider the racial slurs yelled last February at visiting students to Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austins anti-affirmative action bake sale just weeks ago.

Trump's campaign website offers few education policy proposals. There, he promised to work with Congress on reforms to ensure universities are making a good faith effort to reduce the cost of college and student debt in exchange for the federal tax breaks and tax dollars.

He also pledged to ensure that the opportunity to attend a two- or four-year college, or to pursue a trade or a skill set through vocational and technical education, will be easier to access, pay for and finish.

President Barack Obama has taken an aggressive stance against for-profit colleges, with his education department strengthening standards with the aim of preventing fraud. Trumps own for-profit university is in entangled in federal court defending allegations that the institution defrauded its students.

Meanwhile, leaders at the University of Houston and Rice University said Wednesday it would be too soon to comment on the potential effect of Trump revamping the education department and his higher education views overall. Students protested in quiet and loud ways to Trump's stunning election at University of Texas at Austin and UH.

The American Association of University Professors, which has never endorsed or supported a presidential candidate, said Wednesday that to many faculty members, "his election threatens some of the core institutions of our democracy and may be the greatest threat to academic freedom since the McCarthy period."

Read the full statement here.
If two year old Muzni had to stay in Kenya, she may not have lived to make it to her adolescent years. Thanks to HeartGift, Muzni and her father, Issack, were able to travel to Houston to get the care that she needed.

HeartGift provides life-saving heart surgery to children who have congenital heart disease around the world where medical care is either scarce or non-existent.

When Muzni was a baby, she was seen by a doctor who discovered she had a heart murmur.

Issack had a friend in Kenya whose daughter had received heart surgery through HeartGift, so that is how he knew about the program.

"My daughter was born with a heart defect, and there wasn't much help where we were," Issack said.

Dr. Shaffer, a pediatric cardiology doctor in Austin, had done some screening trips in northern Kenya, and he was able to screen Muzni's case (and others too) and bring it back to HeartGift to look into.

"It's easy to take for granted how fortunate we are to live in a country where our children have access to good medical care. Muzni's condition was very treatable but she wasn't able to get the help she needed in her home country. As a medical provider, it's always gratifying to play a role in helping kids like Muzni get the care they need," Dr. John Breinholt, chief of pediatric cardiology at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital and McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, said. "Because of her heart condition, this little girl spent the first two years of her life not growing very well and struggling with frequent illnesses. But after this, she will be able to go home and have a perfectly normal and healthy childhood."

Issack and Muzni were in Houston for two weeks over October and November.

"The Children's Hospital has been wonderful to us and her surgery went well. It was a very good experience. Our time here has been excellent. Muzni is doing very well now," Issack said.

They stayed in the home of Paul and Elizabeth Tepikian, who live in the Rice University area of Houston.

The Tepikians heard about HeartGift through a neighbor, who had received an email that HeartGift was looking for host families.

"We met with Rachael and we decided it was something we would be happy to do," Elizabeth Tepikian said.

In order to prepare for Muzni and Issack's arrival, the Tepikians asked their neighbors for items for Muzni. Their neighbors were able to supply them with a crib, and lots of toys.

"The host family was very good to us. They were able to meet all of our needs and they have been very helpful," Issack said.

"It was fascinating to experience and learn about another culture. We had many great conversations about what it is like where they are from. Muzni is just a doll. She doesn't speak English, but we were able to communicate just fine," Tepikian said.

Tepikian encourages others to become host families for HeartGift participants.

"It is a very rewarding experience and I would encourage other people to open their homes and try it. HeartGift takes care of all of the medical arrangements and it is not a large time commitment," Tepikian said.

"HeartGift partners up with Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital to serve six children a year. HeartGift as a whole serves 40 children a year," HeartGift Executive Director Rachael Wright said.

According to Wright, it costs approximately $25,000 to bring the child and a caregiver over and have the surgery. The costs can be contributed through both financial donation and gifts in kind such as donated airfare. All participating physicians and medical practices contribute 100 percent of their professional fees.

A group of people will race in the Score Baja 1000 Race in Mexico later this month, and they are racing to raise money and awareness for HeartGift. According to Wright, the race is HeartGift's main fundraiser this year.

"Many people can help in many different ways," Wright said.

In order to be a host family, HeartGift asks that people in the community have extra space and are willing to welcome a caregiver and a child, for anywhere from two to six weeks. At least one person in the home needs to speak the same language as the caregiver.

HeartGift started in Austin, Texas in June 2000. The organization expanded to form additional chapters located in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and New Orleans. HeartGift has now served over 250 children and families from 30 countries.

For more information about HeartGift, and to read other children's stories, visit HeartGift.org.
Alexandria Vera, the middle school teacher accused of having a long-term sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy, arrived in court Wednesday after violating terms of her bond condition.

The 25-year-old former Aldine ISD teacher is free on $100,000 bail, but has to wear a GPS ankle monitor, stay away from schools, have no contact with the teen who allegedly impregnated her, and must abide by a set curfew.
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Police officials say they are confident they have found the body of a missing teenage girl days after her mother and sister were found dead in the family home in Baytown.

An Amber Alert was issued for Kirsten Fritch after the bodies of Cynthia Morris, 37, and her daughter Breanna Pavlicek, 13, were discovered about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday n the 5400 block of Louisa, according to the Baytown Police Department.

According to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, Morris had gunshot wounds in her torso and neck while Pavlicek had gunshot wounds in her head, neck and right shoulder. Their deaths were ruled homicides.

Police said Fritch and Morris' white, Chrysler PT Cruiser, were missing from the home. The car along with a person of interest in the case, Fritch's 21-year-old boyfriend, Jesse Dobbs, were later found Monday in in Texas City.

Fritch, however, remained missing.

Volunteers with Texas EquuSearch scoured areas Thursday along Texas 146 between Texas City and Bacliff, said Tim Miller, the group's founder and director.

At an afternoon press conference Baytown police Lt. Steve Dorris said Fritch's body had likely been there over 24 hours.

Equusearch volunteers on ATVs found the body within half an hour of starting day two of the search about 12:30 p.m. Thursday. Dorris said the body was found just outside the area police searched Wednesday evening.

The body was found on the northeast edge of a wooded area behind Shenanigan's bar in Texas City, where Dobbs was arrested. Surveillance video reportedly showed him entering the bar wet and shoeless.

"We'll be looking for a gun," Dorris said, though he could not say whether the body had a gunshot wound.

Dobbs is likely to be charged with murder, Dorris said. Police and the Galveston County District Attorney will weigh evidence when considering whether to pursue capital murder charges.

Thursday night police issued a statement that said,in part: "At this time no charges have been filed on Jesse Dobbs in connection with the murders, however he is currently considered a suspect in both, the murders of Kirsten and the murders of Cynthia and Breanna in Baytown. He does however; remain in the Galveston County Jail on the resisting arrest charge."

Dobbs would not cooperate with investigators and has asked to speak with a lawyer, Dorris said.

The lieutenant thanked Equusearch for their volunteer work, saying they were a "force multiplier" that freed up detectives to pursue other aspects of the case.

"It's a tragic ending to something that we hoped would have a different (outcome)," Dorris said.

The victims' relatives were notified, Dorris said. "In the blink of an eye, you're losing three family members."

The search Wednesday included the FBI and state DPS as well as local police, Dorris said. Equusearch was asked to come out Thursday.
For those who are stunned and dismayed by Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election, the 2020 campaign can't begin soon enough.

Hours before Hillary Clinton's concession speech Wednesday morning, lists of potential contenders to unseat Trump in four years were already circulating online.
Andrew Kragie

After a landslide victory on Nov. 8 that returns her to the state House District 144 seat, Mary Ann Perez says that education will be an important focus in her coming term.

"Hopefully, we'll be able to fund education better," said the Democrat, whose district includes the Pasadena, Deer Park and Goose Creel school districts and portions of Houston ISD. "Even though in 2103 we were able to restore $4 billion to the schools, we were still $1.4 billion short. Since then, no one has addressed the issue of growth and the number of new students that have come into the state since that time."
A driver for Spring-based towing business Haulin Iron Towing & Recovery is accused of wearing a mask of President Obama with a noose around his neck in a photo that was posted on social media.

According to Spring news site Spring Happenings, the photo was taken at the scene of an accident at the intersection of Louetta and Kuykendahl. The owner of the business,Shaune Key, took to Facebook to apologize for the photo:

'WE KNOW HIS ENTOURAGE': Russia confirms it had contact with Trump's team

A post on the Haulin Iron Towing Facebook page for the company reads:

"Well it has been brought to my attention that one of my drivers has posted a picture on facebook that is unacceptable and totally uncalled for. That is not what my company stands for. I want to let everyone know I have handled the situation and it wont ever happen again. Sorry for the disrespect."

Key then posted another update to the company's page after an article in Spring Happenings accused him of laughing off the incident:

"There was a situation that got brought to my attention yesterday. That one of my workers shared a picture on social media of something extremely distasteful. I know now this is not funny. I do care and I apologize for not approaching the situation properly at first. I am taking the allegations extremely serious. I have spoken to the rest of my workers and we are all taking these allegations seriously, they will not happen again. And never around my company without any consequences. I stand on my behalf of beliefs and what my company stands for. And the worker was not just 'spoken to' or just given 'a talking to'. There are steps and measures that I will be and am taking. The employee behind the Obama mask has been called to a meeting, has received a work referral and violation. And is suspended till further notice.

Thank you for everyone who showed me that this situation is NOT a joke, and thank you for bringing it to my attention."

JUST UPDATED: KRIV-TV reporter Scarlett Fakhar under fire for pro-Trump Facebook post

People have taken to social media and consumer review site Yelp to express their anger at the situation and the way it's been handled. Some are calling for the owner to fire the employee, others say that they will never choose this company in the future.

Chron.com reached out to Key for comment, but have not yet heard back.
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The "Residents Advocates," a slate of candidates including incumbent Gordy Bunch, swept The Woodlands Township Board of Directors election Tuesday in spite of a high-dollar campaign against them led by former board chairman Bruce Tough.

Position 2 incumbent Mike Bass was unseated by political newcomer Brian Boniface, while John Anthony Brown (Position 3) and Bruce Rieser (Position 4) defeated Stuart Schroeder and Chris Grice to fill the seats being vacated by Ed Robb and Jeff Long.

With the exception of the Position 2 election, the contests were runaways.

For Position 1, Bunch earned 22,209 votes (58.89 percent) to challenger Amy Lampman's 12,046 (31.94 percent) and Bob Lelich's 3,458 (9.17 percent).

Boniface received 17,940 votes (51.32 percent) to Bass' 17,016 (48.68 percent).

In the Position 3 race, Brown earned 21,212 votes (63.51 percent) to Schroeder's 12,186 (36.49 percent).

And in Position 4, Rieser garnered 22,732 votes (66.56 percent) to Grice's 11,422 votes (33.44 percent).

Bass could not be reached for comment late Tuesday night after Montgomery County election results were delayed more than four hours after polls closed due to a problem tallying mail-in ballots, according to Elections Central.

The township election results bring a major shift to power on the board, where Bunch and fellow board members John McMullan and Laura Fillault have often been blocked in 4-3 votes by Bass, Robb, Long and Ann Snyder.

The win for the "Residents Advocates" came in spite of at least $244,000 spent in campaign advertising by Tough, who was unseated by Fillault last year. In the past several weeks, Tough's nonprofit group, The Woodlands Concerned Taxpayers, showered Woodlands residents with advertising  including mailers, signs, billboards, online and TV ads  which endorsed a slate of candidates opposing the "Residents Advocates."

The campaign warned voters of a 70 percent property tax increase should The Woodlands become a city now, which the literature claimed Bunch and his fellow "Residents Advocates" slate were promoting.

Bunch and the others decried this campaign as misleading, pointing out that incorporation and a tax increase were not on the ballot this election.

"I'm incredibly proud of our community for being able to decipher the truth of what was actually going on in our community given the onslaught of deceptive information," Bunch said. "I'm honored to continue to serve the community and am looking forward to welcoming the new directors."

For Boniface, unseating Bass despite the aggressive campaign was an incredible feat.

"This is a victory for The Woodlands residents," he said. "We fought a $200,000 campaign against us.  It was David versus Goliath."

Rieser believes the new makeup of the board will help residents of The Woodlands have more influence on the board.

"I've been here for 27 years; and it's always been the developers get their way," Rieser said. "The people are saying, 'We want a seat at the table.'"

"The people have spoken," said Rieser's opponent, Chris Grice. "Now it's time for us to unite behind our new board and move forward."

Candidates Amy Lampman, Bob Leilich, Brown and Schroeder could not be reached for comment late Tuesday night.
GALVESTON  Two students at Friendswood High School were arrested Thursday on charges of carrying a gun on campus after images were discovered on social media that police said indicated a fixation on school shootings.

Friendswood police did not release the names of the two students. A police news release gave the following account:

Police began an investigation after a report about 1 p.m. Tuesday that a 14-year-old student had shown another student a pistol hidden in a school binder. A search at the school failed to find a gun.

An uncle of the 14-year-old learned about the investigation and reported that a pistol had been stolen from his home in mid-October. Late Tuesday police learned that photos of the stolen firearm were on Instagram that indicated where it might be found.

Investigators discovered the stolen weapon at a residence in the Polly Ranch subdivision about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The investigation also found images and messages on Instagram and Twitter accounts used by the two teenagers. "These accounts contained disturbing images and statements that manifest Columbine ideations and a fixation on school shootings," the news release said.

After the gun was found, school officials sent a statement to parents and faculty notifying them about the investigation and discovery of the firearm. The statement said that one of the students had given the gun to the other at the high school.

"The students involved will receive swift and appropriate consequences in accordance with school board policy," the statement said.

Both juveniles were arrested Thursday and charged with unlawfully carrying weapons in a weapons-free zone, a state jail felony. They are being held at the Galveston County Juvenile Justice Center in Texas City.

Friendswood ISD, which encompasses 15 square miles and has 6,000 students, is situated between the Pearland, Alvin and Clear Creek school districts.
The 19-year-old student gunned down outside of a southwest Houston school has been identified as Adrian Castillo, police said Tuesday.

The high school senior was one of two students hit in an apparent drive-by shooting Monday near the Houston CAN Academy, according to authorities.

Afterward, the school's principal mourned the loss of the slain teen.

"Adrian Castillo has been a student at the Houston CAN Academy Southwest for a month now, and in such a short time frame he had established a warm, friendly rapport with teachers, students and office staff," James Troutman said in a statement Tuesday.

The gunfire broke out around 12:30 p.m., between the school's morning and afternoon sessions.

About four men jumped out of a gray SUV in the school parking lot and got into a verbal altercation with two males in a white pickup truck.

One of the passengers in the SUV opened fire on the two people inside the pickup.

The truck's driver fled to an urgent care center on Chimney Rock, but the passenger - Castillo - was pronounced dead at the scene.

The driver - whose name has not been publicly released - was rushed to Ben Taub General Hospital. He was in stable condition as of Tuesday morning, according to police spokeswoman Jodi Silva.

"It is our understanding that the person who committed this crime is not one of our students," Troutman said Monday.

"Adrian was a senior and was on a mission to fulfill his graduation plan with full force," he said. "He surrounded himself with a small group of students that shared his same positive ethics.

"All of us will miss him and extend our deepest condolences to the Castillo family."

There have been no arrests at this time. Anyone with information about the suspects can call Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS or HPD homicide division at 713-308-3600.

Dale Lezon contributed to this report
TEXAS WINNERS AND LOSERS IN THE PRESIDENTIAL SURPRISE

WINNERS

Rick Perry

After some unpleasant barbs about Trump as his own presidential campaign folded, the former Texas governor was among the first to publicly endorse the New York tycoon after he won the GOP nomination. He has criss-crossed the country campaigning for Trump since then, and Trump confidants have hinted Trump might like to have Perry be part of his administration -- perhaps as secretary of veterans affairs or agriculture. On Wednesday, Perry tweeted: "Just got a call to #makeamericagreatagain. Saddle up and ride, bro!!" Washington, here we come?

Dan Patrick

Patrick, who Has a great nose for emerging political trends, jumped aboard the Trump Train early, long before it was in vogue among other Republican officeholders, and became his statewide campaign chairman. Though Patrick says he will turn down any jobs he might be offered in a Trump administration, he says the Trump victory will allow the Senate to pass legislation favored by ultra-conservatives without fear of having it struck down by the courts, as several past bills have been.

Sid Miller

Texas' agriculture commissioner, one of Trump's most public supporters in recent months, has been advising Trump on agriculture issues and is rumored to be on Trump's short list for agriculture secretary -- though that could be threatened by the recent firestorm over Miller's Twitter account using the "C" word in referring to Hillary Clinton. Miller blamed a staffer and apologized, but Trump, sensitive to criticism from women, might lean toward other reported candidates from Kansas, Nebraska and Georgia.

Don Willett

The Texas Supreme Court justice and constitutional conservative, already on Trump's list of possible U.S. Supreme Court nominees released earlier in the campaign, is still reported to be in the running -- though his early Tweets criticizing Trump might hurt his chances. A close friend of Gov. Greg Abbott, Willett is reportedly interested, although others on Trump's list come from states that were more of a help in his win.

LOSERS

Ted Cruz

With Trump now in the White House, political observers say the junior Texas U.S. senator's chances of running again for president in 2020 are diminished, if not extinguished. Cruz famously refused to endorse Trump at the GOP national convention in Cleveland, as he had pledged during the bitter primary fight. Cruz's seemingly reluctant endorsement of his onetime rival did little to erase Trump's label of him as "Lying Ted" during the primary campaign.

Joaquin and Julian Castro

Currently the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Joaquin had been mentioned briefly as a potential vice presidential candidate to run with Clinton. With Clinton now out, Castro's political fortunes are less certain in Red State Texas, though he and his identical brother -- U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas -- have been mentioned as possible statewide candidates for Democrats in Texas in coming years. Had Clinton won, chances are good one or both might have been players in her administration.

George P. Bush

The Texas Land Commissioner and son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a one-time bitter Trump primary rival, initially hesitated, even distanced himself, from supporting Trump with sharp comments, despite the fact he led the Texas GOP Victory team. Trump as president could slow George P's political ambitions, even though he remains a great hope in the future as a possible gubernatorial candidate to bring the Hispanic vote into the GOP column.

Pete Gallego

In one of the nation's most closely watched congressional races, Republican incumbent Will Hurd prevailed over Pete Gallego who was trying to reclaim the seat he lost two years ago. Hurd won 48 to 47 percent, a separation of just 4,000 votes, and as Democrats begin to deconstruct why they lost nationally they might start by looking at how they failed to win the heavily Hispanic Congressional District 23.
Secession talk in Texas is nothing new, with the most recent round coming in the wake of the United Kingdom's vote this year to leave the European Union.

The hashtag #Brexit, convenient shorthand for Britain's exit, quickly morphed into #Texit to describe the Lone Star State's faction that yearns for independence.
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AUSTIN  Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who drew national headlines for a vulgar reference to Hillary Clinton from his Twitter account last week, reportedly is being considered for a top post in Donald Trumps administration.

Thats quite an honor to even be considered, Miller told the Express-News Wednesday. Well see. Were just kind of like the dog that caught the school bus. Now weve just got to figure out what to do.

Miller is on a list of people being considered for agriculture secretary, along with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Politico reported Wednesday.

RELATED: Ag Commissioner Sid Miller calls Hillary Clinton C-word on Twitter, blames staffer

I think Ive got the best job on the planet being agriculture commissioner of the state of Texas, Miller said. Im certainly flattered. Id want to pray about it and talk to my family about it.

But sure, yeah, who wouldnt want to be the secretary of agriculture for the largest agricultural country on the planet?

A member of Trumps agricultural advisory committee, Miller was an enthusiastic Trump supporter even though some other officials were decidedly more low-key as the Republican drew controversy over offensive remarks. Miller said Wednesday he expected Trump would win.

RELATED: Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry hints at Trump administration post

I was predicting this would happen, he said. Theres a hidden vote out there that never voted, theyre not in the polls, not in the count I was one of the few statewide officials who was even campaigning for Trump. Most of them were supporting him but not actively out campaigning, which thats fine, but I did everything I possibly could to get the man elected. Im not taking credit for it, but I didnt sit at home.

Miller pointed to farmers and residents of rural areas as a major key to Trump's upset.

I think rural America gets a lot of credit for electing Donald Trump," he said. It certainly does in Florida. All the states he won, he just swept the rural vote.

He said farmers and ranchers were driven most by the sense they were being over-regulated and over-governed, such as by the Environmental Protection Agencys redefinition of Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, which farmers and ranchers saw as a way to encroach on ponds and ditches with burdensome paperwork and expensive fines.

MORE: 11 things Donald Trump promised to do as president

Trump has vowed to throw out the rule. Miller said the future Supreme Court makeup also weighed heavily in the vote, with farmers and ranchers hopeful a Republican would nominate justices more likely to side with the private landowner.

If named secretary, he said he would ramp up trade.

I want America to win again, particularly agricultural commodities. Id like to see Cuba open trade completely up Of course were going to have to write a new farm bill; were definitely right in the middle of that, get rid of WOTUS, over-regulation and allow our farming community and ranching community to flourish.

Miller is no stranger to controversy himself, most recently when a tweet from his account used a four-letter c-word to refer to Clinton. Miller apologized for the tweet, which quickly was deleted, and said it was a mistake by a staffer.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac

lbrezosky@express-news.net
UPDATE: The Associated Press reports the student has admitted to lying about the incident. She could face charges for filing a false police report. The original story is below.

An 18-year-old Middle Eastern student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette told police a man wearing a Trump hat stole her wallet and her hijab.
On the morning after Election Day, residents in Birmingham, Alabama awoke to a surprise: Ku Klux Klan fliers urging people to join their organization.

Some Birmingham residents posted the fliers on social media, expressing shock.

DENIED: Donald Trump rejects 'repulsive' KKK newspaper endorsement

"Wake up Birmingham!" the flier reads. "Get off the fence whitey and join the only group that has ever stood for the white man - the Ku Klux Klan! The United Dixie White Knights Realm of Alabama wants you!"

Al.com reports the imperial wizard of the United Dixie White Knights, Brent Waller, confirmed Donald Trump's presidential victory inspired the KKK to distribute the fliers.

"We await Donald Trump to start fulfilling his promises about building a wall, removing illegals and stopping wars started to benefit the New World Order," Waller wrote in an email to Al.com's John Archibald.

DON'T DO IT: Donald Trump's biggest ally in Britain warns him not to grope prime minister

Trump crossed paths with the KKK after the group's former grand wizard David Duke endorsed him.

Trump caused a controversy for not immediately disavowing Duke and the KKK. Speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper on March 3, Trump said, "Just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, OK?"

Trump eventually told MSNBC's "Morning Joe:" "David Duke is a bad person. I disavowed him. I disavowed the KKK."

VICTORY: The alt-right celebrates Donald Trump's win

Despite disavowing them, the group continues to express excitement about Trump's victory, since campaign promises like building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and banning Muslims from entering the country appeal to their goals.

The KKK has a history in Birmingham. In 1963, a bomb planted in a church killed four young girls. Nearly 40 years later, KKK member Thomas Blanton was convicted of first-degree murder for the bombing at the age of 62.

Trump is scheduled to be sworn in as president on January 20.
Major metropolitans across America from New York City to Dallas to Oakland, California, thousands of Americans took to the streets - or the highways - Wednesday night to protest president-elect Donald Trump.

Protesters in Chicago gathered outside the Trump Tower, while chanting "Not my president." According to AP, police said the protests were mostly peaceful with minimal arrests.
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Flames of discontent burned briefly on a University of Houston corner Wednesday night as protesters took a baseball bat, and eventually lighters, to a Donald Trump pinata.

For two hours, dozens of outraged Houstonians toting "Not My President" signs gathered to offer fiery speeches and trade creative obscenities about the incoming commander-in-chief.

"F--- Trump" and "stand up, fight back," chants rang out on the corner of Elgin and Cullen as the crowd grew to more than 60. Black Lives Matters activists, concerned students, members of the Houston Socialist Movement and a smattering of other Trump opponents and local advocates turned up for the outpouring of anger.

"I woke up in 'Idiocracy,'" said 25-year-old Ariel Hurlbert, in reference to a satirical 2005 film.

About 45 minutes into the demonstration, a Latino man took a bat to the pinata - and others soon followed suit.

ANGER GROWS: Anti-Trump protests erupt across the U.S.

After a few daring Trump-haters took lighters to the devil-horned papier mache effigy, police quickly arrived on scene with fire extinguishers.

But the protest didn't stop, and speakers revved up the crowd for another hour and half.

Some took a doom-and-gloom approach in their talks.

"This election will be one of the final notes in the history of the U.S. government," one rally leader said.

Others tried for short bursts of optimism.

"This is not the end of the world. It's only a dumba-- billionaire," one man told the crowd.

But for some rally attendees, the event took on a more personal meaning.

University of Houston graduate student Karen Martinez, 27, burst into tears as she told the crowd about her fears for a Trump presidency.

"Donald Trump promised to have immigration agents at my door on January 21," she said. "To somebody like me, this is fing real."

Martinez explained that her parents brought her here without documents when she was just 10.

NEW JOB? Former Texas Gov. Perry hints at Trump administration post

For now, she has a temporary work permit under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama executive action that grants deportation deferral to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

But under a new president, that could change.

"I am undocumented and unafraid and I should not have to be undocumented in my own land," she said.

University of Houston freshman Achilles Khetpal, whose family immigrated from India and Pakistan, turned up at the rally.

The 18-year-old - who is transgender himself - said Tuesday's outcome came as a surprise.

RIVAL GETS EMOTIONAL: Clinton asks voters to give Trump a 'chance to lead'

"I just thought we would pull through," he said. "I believed in us."

Shouting, "No war, no KKK, no fascist USA," protesters left for a short march before returning to their starting point for more speeches.

Around 7 p.m., the rally died down, as protesters hugged, cried and posed for selfies with a Mexican flag.

The Houston protest was just one of many across the nation Wednesday. In the wake of Hillary Clinton's concession, angry crowds took to the streets in cities from New York to California - and the hashtag "NotMyPresident" went viral on Twitter.
At the very least, Mayor Sylvester Turner said Wednesday in reflecting on Tuesday's election results, America is a democratic society in which citizens' voices can heard and the transfer of power is peaceful.

The mayor said he will wait to get concerned about shifts in federal programs driven by such an anti-establishment candidate such as president-elect Donald Trump.

"We give people an opportunity to perform and see which direction that they will go," Turner said. "I'm not quite clear on the direction that the president-elect will take. I think many people will wait to see which direction he goes and then we'll deal with those issues step by step, one day at a time. You give everyone the benefit of the doubt."

"The good news is that in the democratic process, people were given the right to vote, they exercised their right to vote and now we prepare for a transition," the mayor continued. "We're doing it in an orderly and peaceful fashion. That's the whole purpose of living in a democratic society."

Outside experts weren't shy to assess Trump's potential impact on cities, however.

Bill Fulton of Rice University's Kinder Institute in a blog post called Trump's election perhaps "the most anti-urban act on the American political stage since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan 120 years ago, when the populist Nebraskan railed against New York bankers in a fiery speech at the Democratic convention."

"He never proposed any urban-centric policies, insisting instead  in surprisingly classic Republican fashion  that he would stimulate so much economic growth that everybody would benefit," Fulton wrote, adding that a Trump presidency "probably means that the federal government won't be doing much of anything for cities over the next four years."

The folks at the Atlantic's CityLab also tackled the issue, noting that Trump often spoke of fixing "inner cities" and improving infrastructure, though their post noted he also spoke of limiting the influence of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on local communities."

In his comments Wednesday, Turner preferred mostly to discuss local election results, which saw Democrats record a comprehensive sweep.

"In terms of Harris County, we'll have a transition of so many different offices," Turner said. "I look forward to working with the new people who will be coming in in January. For those who have served and will not be returning in January, I certainly want to thank them for their service."
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.
Not everybody got it wrong. Professor Alan Lichtman of American University, who had accurately predicted outcomes in the last eight presidential elections, said that all signs indicated a Donald Trump victory. And leftist filmmaker Michael Moore issued a grim forecast, five months before the upset: Lets face it. Our biggest problem isnt Trumpits Hillary. Shes hugely unpopularnearly 70 percent of all voters think shes untrustworthy and dishonest. Im sorry to have to be the buzzkill so early on but I think Trump is going to win.

However, the preponderance of prophets foresaw a female president breaking the final barrier. (So, in fact, did Hillary Clinton; a glass ceiling was to be a prop in her victory announcement.) In a New York Times op-ed, Ross Douthat confidently stated, Trump will win Ohio and Iowa and outperform Romney in the course of losing Michigan and Pennsylvania. Elsewhere hell slightly underperform Romney en route to losing North Carolina, Florida and Nevada . . . the call will come early, and Trumps concession speech will be a schizophrenic messhalf a conciliatory attempt to save his kids brand equity, half a ranting advertisement for Trump TV.

Douthat wasnt singing solo. The normally reliable Moodys Analytics claimed that Hillary Clinton would garner 332 electoral votes. Trustworthy Emerson College announced that Democrats would emerge from election night with 50 or more total seats, enough to rule the Senate, with Tim Kaine casting the tiebreaking vote. The New York Observer radiated assurance: Hillary Rodham Clinton will become the first woman to win the presidency, decisively defeating Donald Trump in no small part due to unprecedented Latino turnout. Tongue not quite firmly in cheek, CBS invoked the Redskins Rule: Its official: The Washington Redskins won their last home game. Rule says that if the Redskins win the last game before the election, then the current party stays in power.

These tea-leaf interpreters are part of a great American tradition. Every history buff has been amused by the picture of Harry Truman joyously holding the Chicago Daily Tribune with the erroneous headline, dewey defeats truman. A decade earlier, The Literary Digest proclaimed that GOP candidate Alf Landon would win the 1936 presidential election with 57.1 percent of the popular vote and an Electoral College margin of 370 to 161. In fact, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won, with 60.8 percent of the popular vote and an Electoral College landslide of 523 to 8, losing only Maine and Vermont. Two years later, subscribers were informed that the Digest would no longer publish.

Earlier still, a candidate made his own prediction, implying that the future would echo the past. Woodrow Wilsons 1916 reelection-campaign slogan consisted of six memorable words: He Kept Us Out of War. The mediacomposed entirely of print publications in those pre-broadcast dayseagerly parroted the phrase, and Wilson was reelected. Five months after Wilsons second inauguration, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops landed in France. When the war ended on November 11, 1918, more than 2 million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe. Some 100,000 never came back.

Humility is not an adjective that adheres to pollsters and pontificators, even after this most extraordinary presidential election. A pity so few of them pay attention to the apercu attributed to Casey Stengel (and sometimes to others): Never make predictions, especially about the future. Theyll ignore the Old Professors advice and try it all again at the next mischance.

Stefan Kanfer, a City Journal contributing editor, is the author, most recently, of The Eskimo Hunts in Miami.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Merriman Smith liked being front and center among the reporters who covered presidential motorcades. On November 22, 1963, Smittyeveryone called him thatwas, as always, poised for the battle to get the story first and right. Smitty took the middle front-seat spot next to the radiotelephone in what reporters called the wire car, a blue hardtop Chevy near the front of President Kennedys motorcade.

Sitting by the phone suited Smith, a gadget freak who liked anything that got his stories out quicker. The radiotelephone, a two-way radio link to the Dallas telephone exchange, would let Smith inform his editors instantly of anything that happened on the motorcade route. Smittys insistence on sitting next to the radiotelephone was something of a joke to his colleagues, since he was usually the only reporter who wanted to use it. His non-wire service competitors didnt care as much about being in constant touch with their offices. Even if the car didnt have a radiotelephone, Smitty might have insisted on sitting in front. In motorcades, he demanded choice, front-seat spots he believed he needed and deserved as a White House reporter whose job was to always be with the president.

Smittys insistence on sitting next to the radiotelephone was something of a joke to his colleagues, since he was usually the only reporter who wanted to use it.

With Smith in the wire car that day was Jack Bell of the Associated Press. Sometimes, AP and UPI reporters took turns sitting by the radiotelephone. It might have been the APs turn to sit next to the phone that day. Bell either didnt know or didnt care. He usually covered the Senate, and was not a White House regular like Smitty. Bell sat in the back seat, with two other pool reporters, Robert Baskin of The Dallas Morning News and Bob Clark of ABC News. In the front, the driver was on Smiths left. Kennedys deputy press secretary, Malcolm Kilduff, was on Smiths right.

Smitty, 48, and Bell, 59, were longtime rivals. They stood next to each other at Harry Trumans first presidential news conference in 1945, and competed covering Thomas Deweys 1948 presidential campaign. Smith respected Bell enough to praise him as a fine, tough, competitive reporter and an expert questioner on the Sunday TV political shows on which they sometimes appeared together. Bell was an expert on the Senates arcane machinations, and was on a first-name basis with the capitals top politicians.

Merriman Smith put the first report of the Dallas shooting on the UPI wire five minutes ahead of the AP. Veteran journalist Bill Sanderson describes how Smith scored one of the 20th centurys greatest scoops in this excerpt from his new book out this week, Bulletins from Dallas. Smith won a Pulitzer for his narrative of JFKs assassination printed in newspapers the next day. Credit: Skyhorse Publishing

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But Bell was not known for covering breaking news. If something happened in the motorcade, there was no doubt who would get the story first. When it came to breaking news, Smitty was a gunfighter. Jack Bell was a very nice man, said Robert MacNeil, who was in Dallas that day for NBC News. But he was a rather more passive reporter and less aggressive reporter than Smitty.

The motorcade headed out of Love Field at about 11:50 a.m., five minutes behind schedule.

Thousands of excited, cheering people lined Dallass downtown skyscraper canyon hoping for a glimpse of the glamorous president and first lady.

On its way out of downtown Dallas, the motorcade turned right from Main Street onto North Houston Street, on the eastern side of Dealey Plaza. Next, a short block north, the cars turned sharply left, about 120 degrees, onto Elm Street in front of the Texas School Book Depository, on the plazas northern side. In the wire car, Smith and Kilduff chatted about how well the trip seemed to be going. Kennedys car was moving at about 11 miles per hour, heading toward an underpass beneath railroad tracks where three roads converged.

President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy arrive at Love Field, Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was assassinated later in the day.

Above, at a sixth-floor window in the Book Depository, Lee Harvey Oswald waited until just after the presidential limousine passed below. At 12:30 p.m., he fired three shots.

Oswalds first shot sounded to Mrs. Kennedy like a motorcycle noise. She heard Texas Governor John Connally cry out from his seat in front of the president. My God, they are going to kill us all, Connally said.

The First Lady saw a flesh-colored piece of her husbands skull torn off. Then, she said, he slumped on my lap, his blood and brains were in my lap. Oh my God, they have shot my husband, she said, cradling him. I love you, Jack.

The reporters werent sure what the first sound was. There was a loud bang as though a giant firecracker had exploded in the caverns between the tall buildings, wrote Bell. Then they heard the next two shots. Smith owned several guns. The second and third blasts were unmistakable. Gunfire, he wrote in his story for the next days morning newspapers.

The wire car stopped. Everybody in our car began shouting at the driver to pull up closer to the presidents car, Smith wrote. As they did so, Kennedys limousine and motorcycle escort roared away at high speed.

We screamed at our driver, Get going, get going, Smith wrote. The wire car steered around Lyndon Johnsons carSmith didnt say how jittery Secret Service agents and cops reacted to this dodgy maneuver. The wire car was barely able to keep in sight of the presidents car and the accompanying Secret Service follow-up car.

Smith now took advantage of his seat by the wire cars radiotelephone. He picked up the handset and called the Dallas UPI bureau. Bulletin precede! he shouted. By shouting bulletin precede, Smith informed the bureau that he had news that would supersede the other Kennedy stories he had filed so far that day.

Then, Smith yelled: Three shots were fired at the motorcade!

What? I cant hear you, answered Wilborn Hampton, a novice reporter whod picked up the phone in the UPI office. Static afflicted radiotelephones. There was a great deal of interference on the circuit, Smith recounted later. But Hampton had no problems with the connection. I heard Smitty perfectly. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, he said.

Hampton typed out Smiths sentencehe thought his fingers fumbled as he took down the words. He handed the typed copy to Jim Tolbert, a Teletype operator. Tolbert prepared to transmit the bulletin by retyping it on a machine that converted the words into a long strip of punch paper tape.

As Tolbert typed, Hampton handed the phone to Jack Fallon, UPIs Southwest division director. Fallon was sitting at another Teletype machine, typing out a message to UPIs Austin bureau about coverage plans for Kennedys visit there later in the day.

Jack, this is Smitty on the phone, Hampton said.

Yeah, what is it? What does he want? Fallon sounded as if he didnt want to be bothered.

He says three shots were fired at the motorcade.

What?! Fallon yelled. Give me that! Fallon grabbed the phone, and Hampton showed him a carbon copy of the dispatch he had just written.

Fallon quickly read the two lines. Send it! he yelled to Tolbert.

At the time, the A-wire was under the control of UPIs Chicago bureau, which was transmitting an account of a murder trial in Minneapolis. Fallon pressed a break lever on his terminal that cut off the Minneapolis story in mid-sentence. Then he fed the punch paper tape coded with the bulletin into the terminal.

The bulletin said:

PRECEDE KENNEDY

DALLAS, OV. #22 (UPI)  THREE SHOTS FIRED AT PRESIDENT KENNEDYS MOTORCADE TODAY IN DOWNTOWN DALLAS. JT1234PCS..

Everything was capital letters on the wire services in those days. The typos in the dateline didnt stop anyone from understanding the news. The last bit of the dispatch included Tolberts initials and the time it was sent, 12:34 p.m. Central Standard Timefour minutes after Oswald fired his three shots.

On AP machines, there was nothingbecause back in the wire car, Smith was hogging the radiotelephone.

After the bulletin ran, Chicago tried to resume sending the murder trial story. Editors at UPIs New York headquarters immediately stopped the Chicago transmission, and sent out this terse message in wire-ese: BUOS . . . UPHOLD DA IT YRS NX. Translation: All bureaus, hold your copyDallas, the A-wire is yours. New York. Next, the Atlanta bureau tried to correct a story. It only managed to transmit CORRECTE before New York jumped in again: BUOS UPHOLDNX.

On AP machines, there was nothingbecause back in the wire car, Smith was hogging the radiotelephone. He scrunched down under the dashboard. Repeat my bulletin back to me! Smith shouted into the handset. The other reporters in the car thought the yelling was a ruse. They heard clear voices on the other end of the line.

Jack Bell wanted his turn on the phone. As the wire car raced to the hospital at 60 miles per hour, the AP man tried to grab the phone from Smith. Give me the goddamn phone! Bell yelled. He swung his fists into Smiths back. Bell realized Smith was beating him on a big story.

Kennedys open-top limousine pulled into Parkland Hospital at about 12:36 p.m., six minutes after the shooting. The wire car was just behind it. Finally, Smith relinquished the phone. Bell immediately called the APs Dallas bureau. This is Jack Bell, he said. The line went dead, but Bell kept talking. He shouted that three shots had been fired at Kennedys motorcade. When he realized no one could hear him, he tried to get an operator. But the phone was still dead.

He swung his fists into Smiths back. Bell realized Smith was beating him on a big story.

While Bell tried to call the AP bureau, Smith and the others jumped out of the car and dashed up to the limousine in the emergency room ambulance bay. It was a scene of blood-soaked horror. The president was face-down on the back seat. Mrs. Kennedy made a cradle of her arms around the Presidents head and bent over him as if she were whispering to him, Smith wrote.

Governor Connally was on his back on the floor of the car, his head and shoulders resting on the arm of his wife, Nellie, who kept shaking her head and shaking with dry sobs. Blood oozed from the front of the governors suit.

I could not see the presidents wound. But I could see blood spattered around the interior of the rear seat and a dark stain spreading down the right side of the presidents dark gray suit.

Smith turned to Secret Service agent Clint Hill. How badly was he hit, Clint? he asked.

Hes dead, Smitty, Hill replied.

The hospital gurneys hadnt even arrived yet.

Smith ran into the hospitals emergency entrance. Inside he saw a clerk. On a shelf behind the clerk was a telephone.

How do you get outside? Smith asked. The president has been shot and this is an emergency call.

Dial nine, said the startled clerk. Smith tried twice before he got through to the Dallas UPI bureau with a fresh dispatch.

Fallon wanted to send this news as a flash, the designation reserved for the very biggest stories. Tolbert was seated at the Dallas bureau Teletype terminal that controlled the UPI A-wire. Tolbert typed Fallons words directly onto the wire, without bothering with paper tape:

Kennedy seriously wounded

Bill Payette, the UPI Southwest Division vice president, overheard Fallons dictation. He ordered a revision: The flash was to use the word perhaps. So in those seconds, Tolbert typed this slightly awkward dispatch directly onto the A-wire:

KENNEDY SERIOUSLY WOUNDED

PERHAPS SERIOUSLY

PERHAPS FATALLY BY ASSASSINS BULLET

JT1239PCS

The flash moved at 12:39 p.m. Nine minutes had passed since the shots in Dealey Plaza, and Smitty had already sent several dispatches that put UPI ahead on the story.

His competitors at the AP were just getting started. At 12:39 p.m., five minutes after Smittys first report of shots fired, the AP finally moved its first dispatch to Teletype machines west of the Mississippi. Because of a quirk in the APs transmission system, it wasnt until 12:40 p.m. that the news moved on Teletypes east of the Mississippi. The AP was behind UPIs Smitty, who died in 1970, on one of the biggest stories of the century.

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Bill Sanderson is a veteran journalist whose newspaper resume includes the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, the Bergen Record in New Jersey, and the New York Post. Hes also written for The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch.com, and Politico NY. He lives in New York.
A state system to track prescription painkillers in Wisconsin to prevent abuse shows a nearly 10 percent drop in the number of opioid prescriptions written and filled compared to this time last year.

Wisconsins Controlled Substance Board recently published its first quarterly report on the prescription drug monitoring database, which was established in 2013, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.

Gov. Scott Walker said the findings are very encouraging.

The report does not say what percentage of doctors, dentists or pharmacists check the database, but officials said its use has steadily increased. Doctors will be required to check it next year.

The Wisconsin Medical Societys chief medical officer, Donn Dexter, said the organization is working to educate physicians on the database and get them ready for the mandates.

A year after the database started in 2014 only 30 percent of pharmacists used the database and 8 percent of doctors. Dexter said with the new database implemented in January that number is sure to go up.

The reason it wasnt used is I think our doctors are already very busy, Dexter said.

He said it is challenging to implement because its difficult to use.

The purpose of the database is to crackdown on patients getting various prescriptions from doctors and filling the same prescription with multiple pharmacists.

One thing that the Medical Society is working hard on is that the pendulum doesnt swing too far; so that patients that need pain control still get pain control, said Dexter.

Law enforcement also uses the database most commonly for stolen prescriptions.
Is advertising injury in the bag? In a recent decision the United States Second Circuit Court Of Appeals found that the sale of counterfeit branded goods was not covered as advertising injury.

In United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Fendi Adele S.R.I., 823 F.3d 146 (2nd Cir. 2016), the United States Court of Appeals held in favor of USF&G finding that USF&Gs policy did not provide coverage for the legal liability of its insured for selling counterfeit handbags and other goods with counterfeit brand labels.

The insured, Ashley Reed Trading, Inc., was in the business of purchasing and selling off-price branded handbags and other luxury goods. Ashley Reed was insured by USF&G under two liability policies for advertising injury. Under the policies, advertising injury was defined by the policies as the act of attracting the attention of others by any means for the purpose of seeking customers or supporters or increasing sales or business. The policies listed four advertising injury offenses which included the use of anothers advertising idea in your advertising,' as well as infringement of anothers copyright, trade dress or slogan in your advertising.'

Ashley Reed was sued by Fendi for allegedly selling counterfeit Fendi goods and for trademark counterfeiting, false designation of origin, trademark dilution and unfair competition.

Applying New York law, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that Ashley Reed did not engage in any advertising of the counterfeit goods Fendi had alleged that it suffered injury because of the sales of the counterfeit goods, not because of Ashley Reeds advertising activities. The Court rejected Fendis argument that Ashley Reeds use of the Fendi mark constituted advertising within the policies broad definition of attracting the attention of others by any means for the purposes of seeking customers or increasing sales or business. The Court found that there was a difference between placing a counterfeit brand label on a handbag and the act of soliciting customers through printed advertisements or other media.
The persona of Georgia O'Keeffe can't be ignored when discussing her legacy.

The persona of Georgia O'Keeffe can't be ignored when discussing her legacy.

To Georgia, on her 129th Birthday

The Gloaming, by Melanie Finn, traces grief across continents.

Rafael Estevez

Art Magnified

Yjastros 31 to Feature Fresh Choreography

Company performs new and surprising works
California, Massachusetts and Nevada voted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, giving a huge boost to the campaign to allow pot nationwide. Six more states also voted on marijuana measures.

In all, five states considered whether to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Arizonans defeated the measure in their state. The outcome in Maine was still too close to call.

Overall, the results were hailed as historic by legalization activists, given that California is the most populous state. Massachusetts became the first state east of the Rockies to join the movement.

Voters in Arkansas, Florida and North Dakota approved measures allowing marijuana use for medical purposes. Montanans voted on whether to ease restrictions on an existing medical marijuana law.

Florida, where the pot measure was backed by 71 percent of the voters, and Arkansas became the first states in the South with full-scale medical marijuana programs, which exist in 25 other states.

Collectively, it was the closest the U.S. has ever come to a national referendum on marijuana, which remains prohibited under federal law.

These votes send a clear message to federal officials that its time to stop arresting and incarcerating marijuana users, said Rob Kampia, executive director of the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project.

The outcome will more than triple the number of Americans living in states where recreational pot is legal. The jurisdictions where thats already the case  Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state and the District of Columbia  have less than 6 percent of the population.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Bartenders from Porco will attempt to mix up the world's largest daiquiri this weekend.

(John Petkovic, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Bartenders from Porco Lounge and Tiki Room plan to raise a really big glass to the weekend this Friday.

At noon, the Cleveland Tiki bar that has garnered national attention in Travel + Leisure and Bon Appetit magazines and on the Food Network will attempt to mix up the world's largest daiquiri in hopes of setting a record at the Fabulous Food Show.

"It's a big deal for us," says Porco bartender Jordan Anderson. "We've been all across the United States and the Internet, we might as well make it a world thing."

The idea came from Anderson and fellow bartender Dan Watson, who wondered if there were any cocktail-related world records. They looked online, and found the "World's Largest Daiquiri," made in 2012 by the El Floridita bar in Old Havana, Cuba, and verified by the World Record Academy. That massive cocktail weighed in at a hefty 71 gallons.

The bartenders at Porco took that as a challenge. After securing sponsorship from Campari USA/Appleton Estate Rum and Cleveland-based Vitamix, they approached the organizers of the Fabulous Food Show.

They'll attempt the boozy feat this weekend. Their goal is to make a 100-gallon daiquiri with house-made simple syrup, fresh lime juice, Appleton Estate Rum and ice. Four bartenders and four barbacks will be manning four gallon-and-a-half Vitamix blenders until the massive 100-gallon Tiki mug is filled. They estimate it will take 80 bottles of Appleton Estate Rum.

"Hours have been spent poring over the numbers to make sure a consistent, quality product is achieved from the first cocktail to the last," says Porco owner Stefan Was.

Tiki fans can watch the fun unfold from noon to 4 p.m. Friday at the Fabulous Food Show at the I-X Center.

Porco Lounge & Tiki Room is located at 2527 West 25th St., Cleveland.

The Fabulous Food Show is at the International Exposition Center, 1 I-X Center Drive (off Ohio 237), Cleveland. Hours are 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday.

General admission tickets: $20 at Giant Eagle, $23 at Discount Drug Marts, $25 in advance on the food show's website (fabulousfoodshow.com) and $30 at the door. Once again, those with general admission tickets will be given seats in unreserved seating areas of the theaters on a first-come, first-served basis. Live, on-site simulcast of those shows will not be offered this year. Most chef appearances are free of additional charge. Expect separate fees for some food, all drinks, parking ($10), reserved seating and some special events. Buy reserved seating and special events in advance at Discount Drug Mart, online and at the door.
Charles Whitman

Charles J. Whitman, a 24-year-old student at the University of Texas, is shown in this is a 1966 photograph.

(PD File Photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- "Tower" is a documentary about the Aug. 1, 1966, mass shooting at the University of Texas by the deranged former Marine sniper Charles Whitman. The 96-minute killing spree left 16 people dead.

Director Keith Maitland worked with the animation team Minnow Mountain to illustrate survivors' verbal remembrances of that day, spoken by actors, while drawing them as they were 50 years ago, re-enacting the events of that horrific day.

We hear from students, journalists who covered the story, law enforcement and other witnesses.

Compelling personal stories emerge. A pregnant woman walking across the plaza was hit and lost her baby and boyfriend in the same instant. She lay there wounded for some time before another woman ran out and lay down next to her, talking her through the trauma. Other brave people eventually came out to save her life, whisking her to safety and medical help.

A young police officer used his Army training and the help of a local store clerk to enter the university Tower and take the shooter out. The account of their courageous actions is vividly dramatic.

A radio reporter from Austin station KTCB drove his car into the heart of the massacre, giving live reports warning the people of Austin away from the area. His dispatches reached as far as Alaska and Nova Scotia while the shootings were still underway.

Once Whitman was neutralized -- and the film makes a point of not focusing on Whitman -- the documentary pivots away from animation to filmed interviews of the participants as they are today.

This first-of-a-kind use of animation is effective and moving. It transports the viewer eerily and accurately into the past, to the day of the carnage, but the film also takes care to reveal how that day's events changed those survivors forever.

"Tower" is a groundbreaking triumph for both documentary journalism and art.

REVIEW

Tower

Who: A documentary with animation directed by Keith Maitland.

Rated: Not rated.

Running time: 82 minutes.

When: Opens Friday.

Where: Capitol Theatre, 1390 West 65th St., Cleveland.

Grade: B+
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio

Disturbance, East Antisdale Road:

Officers responded to a report of a fight between two boys in the street Oct. 27 and separated them. One boy, 14, said the other boy, 12, pushed his younger brother, which lead to the fight. A witness said the older boy's grandmother instigated the fight and encouraged the other boy to hurt her grandson. The grandmother told officers she is sick of his behavior and he is always getting into fights. She was cited for contributing to the unruliness of a child. Officers recommended the two boys be charged with assault through juvenile court.

Theft, Stonehaven Road:

A woman, 21, reported Nov. 1 her vehicle, valued at $23,000, was stolen from her driveway overnight. It was believed to have been taken with a second key fob, which was kept in her sister's vehicle, which was also entered overnight. Her sister, 17, said a purse, valued at $1,600, and $300 cash was also taken from her vehicle. The woman said her vehicle was not insured.

Theft, Warrensville Center Road:

A Walmart employee was arrested at the store Oct. 31 for the theft of an iPhone, handheld video game device and two pairs of headphones. He admitted to the manager that he had committed other work-related thefts, but said he had since sold the items. He said he used the money from the items to pay for hotels when he travels out of state to attend video gaming competitions.

Theft, Brookline Road:

A man reported Oct. 31 his four-month-old pit bull dog was stolen from his backyard, along with its chain. He had last seen the dog at 6:30 a.m. and noticed it missing at 1:30 p.m.

Theft, Mayfield Road:

A Speedway manager reported Oct. 19 two employees had stolen $431 worth of Ohio Lottery tickets from the store. She said she verified the theft on surveillance video. The tickets included $223 worth of scratch-off tickets and $208 worth of printed tickets, which one woman was seen printing and handing to the other woman. The Cleveland Heights woman, 22, admitted she stole the tickets. The South Euclid woman, 21, said she only printed the tickets for the other woman and did not steal any of them. Theft charges are pending further review by the detective bureau.

Fraud, Mayfield Road:

An employee of A-Wireless reported Oct. 27 a male customer had obtained four iPhones in August using a fraudulent account registered to a business in Colorado. Each phone is valued at $409, but only about $20 in set up fees was paid for each phone. The employee said the account has been used to obtain phones from other locations as well. Officers' contacted police in Colorado, where the account was registered, and learned no such business existed. The address for the account is an actual address, which is occupied by a coffee shop and marijuana shop. The incident is under investigation.

Stolen vehicle, Warrensville Center Road:

A man reported at 5:30 a.m. Oct. 29 his minivan was stolen from the Walgreens parking lot while he was inside the store. He said he left three passengers in it and he was trying to contact them but they would not respond. He said he only knew them as CC, Peaches and Jah and they had all been out partying. While the man was speaking with police around 8 a.m., a friend he knew as MonT, told him he had contacted the passengers and had recovered the vehicle. The man asked that the incident be documented in case the van was used for any criminal activity during the time it was missing.

Property damage, South Green Road:

A woman reported at 5:14 p.m. Oct. 29 someone threw a rock through a window at her home. A witness described a man he saw commit the act and then drive away from the area. It was later learned the woman's boyfriend had been in a fight with a co-worker while at work in North Olmsted and the co-worker went to police in that city to file an assault report. That man, 36, had also threatened her boyfriend and told him he knew where he lived. North Olmsted officer's description of the man was the same as the suspect who threw the rock. The following two days, the woman's boyfriend said the man returned and threw rocks again. The last time he saw the man, whom he said told him "I'll be back. I'm not done with you yet." The incident is under investigation.

Criminal damage, South Green Road:

A man reported Oct. 31 a window was broken out on his vehicle while it was parked in his driveway. He said he heard a loud noise and saw someone running from his home, but assumed it was a prank associated with Halloween.

Harassing communication, Clinton Road:

A woman said Nov. 2 she received a voice mail in early September from a man who said "goodbye" and then someone shot at her a few days later while she was walking her dog in Cleveland Heights. She suspects the message came from her ex-boyfriend, a 48-year-old Stow man, and may be connected with the shooting. Cleveland Heights police are investigating the shooting and South Euclid officers are trying to determine the origin of the phone call and other similar calls she has received.

Property damage, Warrensville Center Road:

A woman said Nov. 2 two tires on her vehicle were slashed while it was parked at Walmart Nov. 2. She suspected a woman in a vehicle was responsible for the damage because they were both trying to occupy the same parking space. Officers were able to review surveillance video and saw her park in the space and enter the store. Three females from the other vehicle took a different space and then walked behind her car and paused for a brief moment. It was unclear if they caused any damage to her vehicle. The incident is under investigation.

Assault, Mayfield Road:

A woman reported at 11:30 p.m. Oct. 27 she was punched in her mouth two times by a friend at Geppetto's - Johnny Malloy's bar because he did not like something she said. The woman did not show any signs that she had been hit and surveillance video did not show the man hit her. The woman was told to speak to the prosecutor to see if charges could be filed.

Theft, Mayfield Road:

Two South Euclid boys, 14 and 16, were arrested for theft at Giant Eagle Nov. 2 after they were suspected of stealing $143.11 worth of candy and other items. They ran from the store, but officers located one of them in the Walgreens parking lot and the other one inside that store. Their backpacks were recovered and found to contain the stolen items.

See more South Euclid news at Cleveland.com/south-euclid.

If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page.
Asian head of states congratulated Donald Trump on winning the White House, but their positive messages masked the serious consequences the Republican's victory could have for Asia. "The change in administration will generate more uncertainty than any in the past half century, possibly even longer," warned Bob Herrera-Lim, managing director of Teneo Intelligence.

Nov 9, 2016: Hindu Sena activists celebrate in New Delhi after Donald Trump won the U.S. election Arvind Yadav / Hindustan Times / Getty Images

"The reason lies not only in Trump's personality, but the campaign promises he made and the fact that many in his administration will likely be outsiders to established networks that are the bases for relationships between Asia and Washington." By far, bilateral trade and foreign policy are the areas believed to be the most high-risk for U.S.-Asia ties, amid serious concerns that Washington will become more protectionist and conservative under Trump. Here's a breakdown of how major Asian leader reacted, and the broad issues at stake for their respective nations.

China

"I place great importance on the China-U.S. relationship, and look forward to working with you to uphold the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation," President Xi Jinping told Trump on the phone. Naturally, Xi's message made no mention of the U.S. president-elect's aggressive anti-China rhetoric, in which Trump labelled China a currency manipulator and accused Beijing of "raping" Washington with unfair trade policies. The mainland's manufacturing sector, which may be on the decline but still remains a major growth engine, is set for a hit if Trump attempts to increase trade barriers against the Chinese through punitive tariffs. "The Trump presidency could also mean many tit-for-tat negotiations between the two sides. Trump's threats on currency and trade wars could mean Chinese officials will need to sit down and negotiate more with the U.S. on market access and intellectual property rights," Citi economists warned in a note. Chinese investments in the U.S., already under pressure due to American national security concerns, are now likely to come under even greater scrutiny with Trump in power. But on the bright side, "Beijing stands to benefit from Trump's isolationist foreign policy in Asia as it will give the mainland a chance to assert more influence on the region," said Guo Yu, head of Asia research at risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft. "Beijing would be happy to see a drawback of U.S. military activities in the South China Sea."

Japan and South Korea

For both nations, with volatile North Korea on their doorstep, defense is of the utmost priority and each leader's congratulatory message hinted at that. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Trump on Wednesday that Tokyo and Washington were "unshakeable allies," adding that stability in Asia-Pacific was crucial to peace and prosperity in the U.S. Abe planned to meet Trump in New York on Nov. 17, Reuters reported on Thursday. South Korea's President Park Geun-hye said she hoped Washington would continue to cooperate with her country to address pending issues, including North Korea. "South Korea and Japan are particularly unsettled by Trump's advocacy for removing all U.S. troops from Asia and Europe if the host nations did not pay 100 percent of their costs," explained Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation. Should Trump deliver on that threat, it could embolden Seoul to risk China's ire by deploying the THAAD ballistic missile defense system, Klingner continued. South Korea had agreed with Washington to host a U.S. anti-missile defense system, known the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), to counter North Korea, but Beijing and Moscow are against the idea, calling THAAD a regional security threat. For now, Trump has said he will maintain firm security commitments to Seoul, according to Yonhap News.

Tokyo, meanwhile, would need to increase spending to compensate for reduced U.S. troops, warned Guo. But greater defense outlaysalready at record levelswould expand Japan's chronic budget deficit and add to its already massive debt pile, he noted.

Philippines

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, dubbed "Asia's Donald Trump" for similarities that include a taste for politically incorrect commentary, seemed joyful at the Republican's victory. "Long live [Trump]," Duterte said in a speech during a visit to Malaysia. He admitted his resemblances with Trump, saying "we both curse, even with trivial matters." But most importantly, following months of lashing out at Washington and threatening to cut defense deals, Duterte promised to stop quarreling with the world's largest economy "because Trump has won." Still, Duterte may be a tad bit too optimistic. "If U.S.-Philippines ties weren't in jeopardy before, they are now. Trump is likely to approach the military alliance with the Philippines in a similar way to Duterte; with skepticism," said Guo. Moreover, economic risks are ahead. "Trump's anti-outsourcing, more protectionist trade position threatens the future of the Philippines' thriving business process outsourcing (BPO) industry," Guo added.

India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked Trump for the friendship shown towards New Delhi during his campaign, and said he looked forward to working with the U.S. billionaire to take India-U.S. ties to a new height. Trump, who wished Indian-Americans a Happy Diwali in Hindi last month, has promised to boost intelligence sharing with New Delhi in the fight against terrorisma key topic for Indians of Hindu faith who are worried about Muslim extremism and renewed tensions with Pakistan following the recent Kashmir crisis. But India may suffer in other sectors, especially immigration and investment, with Trump in power. "India's software exports could be impacted if immigration policy turns more restrictive considering that India remains the biggest user of H1B visas, about 70 percent of issuances," Citi analysts flagged. H1B visas are a U.S. visa class that allow the companies to employ foreign workers with college degrees for specialist jobs in sectors including tech and science. "Secondly, investment flows to India could be impacted if multinational corporations choose to repatriate larger shares of their income, as suggested during the Trump campaign," Citi continued, referring to Trump's threatened crackdown on multinational tax offshoring. U.S. investors directly contribute 6 percent of total foreign direct investment flows into India, Citi estimated.

Australia

"Americans understand that they have no stronger ally, no better friend, than Australia" Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he told Trump on Wednesday. Like the rest of Asia-Pacific, however, Australia is in danger from Trump's protectionist stance. "Australia will be particularly vulnerable if Trump were to set off a global trade war," said Shane Oliver, AMP Capital's head of investment strategy and chief economist. For Canberra, exports make up 21 percent of gross domestic product, versus 13 percent for Washington, he noted.

Singapore
China's prominent display of power in a Hong Kong legal case this week may have ramifications for another territory that has testy ties with Beijing: Taiwan.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) released a statement on Wednesday urging Chinese leaders to "listen to the aspirations of the people of Hong Kong eager to practice democracy." The DPP and people of Taiwan were closely monitoring how Beijing handled "the problem in Hong Kong" and supported the right of Hong Kongers to choose their representatives in a democratic fashion, the statement continued. In response, a mainland spokesman asked Taipei to stop such "misleading comments and conduct," according to Xinhua.



Hung Hsiu-chu (blue scarf), leader of Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang Party, led a delegation to visit Nanjing and Beijing from Oct 30 to Nov 3. Zhou Guoqiang / Wuhan Evening News / VCG / Getty Images

On Monday, the world's second-largest economy issued a ruling on a case involving pro-independence elected Hong Kong lawmakersa move that pre-empted local courts and called into question rule of law in the city, a special administrative region (SAR) of China. Beijing's intervention in Hong Kong "signals the likelihood of elevated tensions with Taiwan in coming months," Eurasia analysts flagged in a note this week. Ahead of a key leadership transition in the Chinese Communist Party next year, "China's top leaders cannot afford to be seen as weak on matters considered core interests for the party, including Hong Kong and Taiwan," the note continued. And Taipei's bold support for the SAR is likely to exacerbate already-tense China-Taiwan relations. Five months ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping's administration cut off official communication with Tsai's administration for her failure to adhere to a principle that Beijing considers crucial to cross-strait tries. Tsai has yet to acknowledge the "One China" policy under a framework called the "1992 Consensus," which Beijing claims is a tacit understanding reached between the two governments that acknowledged there was only one China. However, the contract also stipulates that the mainland and Taiwan could have their own interpretation of what 'One China' meant. But in contrast to Eurasia's views, some believe it may not be in Beijing's interests to intensify the quarrel with Taipei. Unlike the SAR, Taiwan maintains a separate ruling authority, explained Katherine Hui-Yi Tseng, research associate at the National University of Singapore. "It will be unwise for Beijing to explicitly suggest that its treatment of HK will be equally applied to Taiwan."

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With talks between Chipotle Mexican Grill and hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman intensifying recently, Chipotle's CFO Jack Hartung shed light on the discussions to Jim Cramer on Wednesday.

"The dialogue we have had with Pershing has talked about driving long-term shareholder value. Talks about recovering the business model and from what they have said so far, they believe that Chipotle is a special brand we are going through a tough time right now," Hartung told the "Mad Money" host.

Ackman took a nearly 10 percent stake in the company two months ago, but did not disclose his strategy. Chipotle also recently hired a law firm, investment banks and public relations company to help engage with the billionaire.



"They want just like everyone else to see us recover our sales, recover our business. And if we do that we are going to get back to our stock price, and then add shareholder value from there."
"The simple fact is there were a heck of a lot more people who wanted in after this election than wanted out, and a gigantic number of hedge funds who were on the wrong side of the trade and had to reverse their stance," the " Mad Money " host said.

Jim Cramer broke down what happened for investors in plain English. After all, he was also puzzled.

Many investors were confused as to why stocks entered a mini-bear market and then a bull market within the same 24 hour period following the news of Donald Trump 's election into presidency on Wednesday.

The coalition of the willing buyers cobbled together to produce an improbable rally. But then again, wasn't this whole darned election improbable? What a fitting way for it to end.

Donald Trump speaks to supporters as he celebrates his Presidential win at his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York City on Nov. 9, 2016.

The first buyers were those who were waiting on the sidelines for the election to end. For them, there were just too many questions and uncertainty to pull the trigger. Cramer referred to them as "agnostic" buyers  they were going to buy stocks, regardless of who won.

"The people who sold everything last night, the people who said to sell everything, let's just say they aren't worth a bucket of warm spit  I've railed against these sell everything folks for months, but obviously pajama traders don't listen," Cramer said.

The second group were those who wanted a smooth transition. They also didn't care who won, as long as the winner was magnanimous and the loser was gracious to allow a peaceful transition of power to occur. These buyers bid everything up when they saw that Trump wasn't going to threaten to put Hillary Clinton in jail.

The third group of buyers were those who believe Trump as a businessman who will cut taxes and borrow money to fix America's infrastructure. This group knows Trump is comfortable borrowing money, so they did the same with the Treasury given that 30-year rates are so cheap.

"Face it, rich people love it when their taxes are cut and they love capital gains, so they love stocks!" Cramer said.

The fourth group were those who got the election wrong. These are the short-sellers who assumed Clinton was a shoo-in for president. Many hedge fund managers made huge bets against pharma and banking stocks with the assumption that Clinton would win the White House, along with a Democratic Senate majority.

The fifth set of buyers were those who like the idea that something can be done with corporate taxes to repatriate the money overseas. That would mean more buybacks, more dividends and more deals, which Cramer did not think would happen with a Democratic White House.

The sixth group were those who believe that the predatory nature of regulations and foreign trade partners have met their match. Many CEOs want free trade. Part of Trump's reputation is to disrupt the status quo, so he could have his eye set on everything from the Affordable Care Act, to NAFTA.

The seventh group were those that just had a shopping list of stocks they liked. Defense contractors, fossil fuels, pipeline companies and railroads all got the green light from Cramer.

Finally, there was the group that bet that Americans would go out and spend now that the election is over. This means the refurbishment trade could be back, with more people spending to fix their homes at Home Depot .

"The coalition of the willing buyers cobbled together to produce an improbable rally. But then again, wasn't this whole darned election improbable? What a fitting way for it to end," Cramer said.
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As Jim Cramer digested the stunning victory of Donald Trump, he realized the stock market would suddenly become a very different place with different sectors leading the charge. "The biggest impact of this shocking election is probably on the healthcare group," the "Mad Money" host said. For over a year, the prospect of Hillary Clinton winning the White House has weighed on drug stocks, especially after she tweeted about cracking down on pharmaceutical price gouging in September of 2015. But with a Trump regime entering Washington, those worries have pretty much been taken off the table. The Republicans are all about limited regulation and free markets. Thus, Cramer doesn't expect them to crack down on drug pricing because it would stifle innovation. "For the segments of the health care sector that don't have price wars, I think we need to get a lot more positive because these stocks have more room to run," Cramer said. Cramer warned to also stay away from Valeant 's ugly balance sheet that made the stock "downright toxic," and while CVS seemed to have headwinds after reporting a mixed quarter, he thinks most of the weakness is CVS-specific.

Donald Trump speaks to supporters as he celebrates his Presidential win at his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York City on Nov. 9, 2016. Jessica Rinaldi | The Boston Globe | Getty Images

Many investors were confused as to why stocks entered a mini-bear market and then a bull market within the same 24 hour period following the news of Donald Trump's election into presidency on Wednesday. Cramer broke down what happened for investors in plain English. After all, he was also puzzled. "The simple fact is there were a heck of a lot more people who wanted in after this election than wanted out, and a gigantic number of hedge funds who were on the wrong side of the trade and had to reverse their stance," he said. Cramer doesn't want to throw cold water on the rally, but he's willing to bet that investors won't be talking about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton by next week. "I'm saying that we will be stuck in a world of some unknowns that will be a source of anxiety, and therefore selling," Cramer said. Once the euphoria dies down, Cramer expects focus to once again resume on the Federal Reserve, mergers and whether Trump will convince Congress to kill NAFTA. Investors will worry about who will be chosen as Treasury Secretary, a possible trade war in China and the price of oil. Soon, these realities could be very sobering for investors. "So, don't get cocky. Relief rallies don't last when faced with a new set of facts, unless they are positive. Otherwise, they just tend to fade away," Cramer said.



The early morning sun begins to rise behind the White House. Getty Images
But with a Trump regime entering Washington, those worries have pretty much been taken off the table. The Republicans are all about limited regulation and free markets. Thus, Cramer doesn't expect them to crack down on drug pricing because it would stifle innovation.

For over a year, the prospect of Hillary Clinton winning the White House has weighed on drug stocks, especially after she tweeted about cracking down on pharmaceutical price gouging in September of 2015.

"The biggest impact of this shocking election is probably on the healthcare group," the " Mad Money " host said.

As Jim Cramer digested the stunning victory of Donald Trump , he realized the stock market would suddenly become a very different place with different sectors leading the charge.

For the segments of the health care sector that don't have price wars, I think we need to get a lot more positive because these stocks have more room to run.

Cramer also expects Republicans to attempt to repeal Obamacare, which could hurt many healthcare plays, but he thinks the Democrats in the Senate will filibuster.

A GOP Senate also means investors don't need to fear aggressive interventions from a Democratic committee chairman, such as Bernie Sanders running the Budget Committee or the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which are both relevant to health care.

Now, after being crushed for ages, health care companies have very cheap valuations. Cramer warned that not all companies are worth owning, as some are engaged in a price war with competitors, such as the wholesale drug distributors.

"For the segments of the health care sector that don't have price wars, I think we need to get a lot more positive because these stocks have more room to run," Cramer said.

Cramer warned to also stay away from Valeant 's ugly balance sheet, and while CVS seemed to have headwinds after reporting a mixed quarter, he thinks most of the weakness is CVS-specific.

He recommended Merck as one of the best to own, followed by Pfizer , Celgene , Allergan and Walgreens Boots Alliance .

"I've been telling you that we can figure out how to make money, regardless of who wins the White House. And with last night's surprise Trump victory, things are looking a lot better for the healthcare cohort," Cramer said.
Among the Obama administration's major accomplishments during eight years in office was a sweeping series of environmental regulations governing everything from clean air and water to greenhouse gas emissions and auto fuel efficiency.

It looks like much of that work may be reversed in just a few days of the new Trump administration.

Donald Trump has broadly attacked a wide range of government regulations, echoing complaints of congressional Republicans and some business leaders that economic growth has suffered.

"We have been stuck in a terrible, over-regulated economy for eight years," former General Electric CEO Jack Welch told CNBC on Wednesday.

Welch and other critics of Obama administration regulations now have an opportunity to see many of them rolled back.

Trump has singled out Obama's Affordable Care Act and the landmark Dodd-Frank financial regulations as targets for repeal. But the list of rules subject to repeal includes a wide range of actions undertaken by the White House governing everything from food safety to internet network neutrality.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are already gearing up for the regulatory rollback.

"You're going to find that we are going to repeal a half dozen or more regulations in the first week of Congress," Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul told MSNBC on Wednesday. "And I'm excited about it because I think the regulations have been killing our jobs and making us less competitive with the world."

A swift reversal of White House policies would not be unusual. President Barack Obama made similar moves in the early days of his administration after succeeding Republican president George W. Bush. Those moves included some of the environmental policies and regulations that are now targeted for repeal by Trump.
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Throngs of demonstrators marched in cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest against Republican Donald Trump's surprise U.S. presidential election win, blasting his controversial campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups. In New York, thousands of protesters filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, Trump's gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted "Not my president." In downtown Chicago, an estimated 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA." Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators' path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there. "I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."

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In Seattle, police said they were responding to reports of a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of anti-Trump protests. Police said the shooting was unrelated to the demonstrations.

Protesters railed against Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally. Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston and Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday evening, and organizers planned rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland, California. In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said. A representative of the Trump campaign did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the protests. Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans, saying: "It is time for us to come together as one united people."

Thousands of protesters take to the streets of Chicago, on November 9, 2016 after Donald Trump is elected president of the United States. Jim Vondruska | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that "Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form." "Dreamers" fear deportation Earlier on Wednesday, some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, in a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other Bay Area cities - Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito. A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday morning in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally. Chanting in Spanish: "The people united will never be defeated," the group held signs with slogans such as "Not Supporting Racism, Not My President" and "Immigrants Make America Great."

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The "Fast Money" traders evaluated the market shakeout in the aftermath of Donald Trump winning the presidency.

While most infrastructure stocks rallied, Kansas City Southern declined more than 10 percent on Wednesday. The company's shipping business is heavily reliant on domestic trade with Mexico.

Wednesday's selloff of Kansas City Southern was "completely overdone," trader Guy Adami said, especially given the volume of trading. More than 13 million shares changed hands during the session, several times above its 30-day average of about 1.4 million shares.

Trader Tim Seymour said that trade legislation that would be negative for Mexico will not happen overnight under a Trump presidency. He said investors should keep an eye on the peso .

Trader Pete Najarian was not concerned that tech stocks did not participate in the rally in the broader market on Wednesday, as the three major indices all gained more than 1 percent. He said he is focused on the technicals and fundamental numbers such as the strong quarterly results released over the past few weeks.
Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said Wednesday that the company looks forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump and Congress to create strong fiscal policy.

After the surprising results, Sloan said the country will need its leadership to bring people together.

"Now with the election behind us, the American people are looking to our policymakers to bridge the divide and focus on matters important to the country and our future," he said in a statement to CNBC.

Sloan added that America's fair and free elections are the foundation of the democratic process, and he looks forward to working with Trump to help all Americans.

"Creating strong fiscal policy that promotes economic growth and greater opportunity for all Americans should be at the top of that list," he said. "We at Wells Fargo look forward to working with the new Administration and Congress to do all we can to help achieve this goal."


WHEN: Today, Thursday, November 10th

WHERE: CNBC's "Squawk Alley"

Following is the unofficial transcript of breaking news from CNBC's Kate Kelly on CNBC's "Squawk Alley" (M-F, 11AM-12PM ET) today, Thursday, November 10th. Following is a link to the article on CNBC.com: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/10/donald-trump-advisors-considered-jpmorgans-jamie-dimon-for-treasury-secretary-sources.html.

All references must be sourced to CNBC.

KATE KELLY: IN RECENT DAYS SINCE TRUMP'S UPSET VICTORY FOR PRESIDENT, OF COURSE, JAMIE DIMON, THE CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF JPMORGAN, HAS APPARENTLY BEEN CONSIDERED ALOUD BY SOME ADVISORS TO TRUMP AS A POSSIBLE TREASURY SECRETARY. NOW, I REACHED OUT TO THE CAMPAIGN, HAVE NOT YET CONNECTED WITH THEM FOR COMMENT, ALSO REACHED OUT TO JPMORGAN. THEY DECLINED TO COMMENT BEYOND DIMON'S PREVIOUS STATEMENTS WHICH AS RECENTLY AS SEPTEMBER HAVE BEEN TO THE EFFECT THAT HE WOULD NOT BE INTERESTED IN THAT JOB AND OF COURSE, THAT WAS AT A TIME WHEN WE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHO THE PRESIDENT-ELECT WOULD BE. DIMON, NOT CLEAR WHERE THE CONVERSATIONS STAND RIGHT NOW. THERE MIGHT BE A LIST OF PEOPLE THEY ARE CONSIDERING. REPORTEDLY STEVEN MENUCHIN, WHO OF COURSE, WAS THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE CHAIRMAN FOR MR. TRUMP WAS THE FRONT-RUNNER ALTHOUGH A LOT OF DETAILS YET TO BE DETERMINED. I THINK THIS WOULD PROBABLY BE A SIGH OF RELIEF FOR WALL STREET TO KNOW THAT DIMON WAS UNDER CONSIDERATION OR THAT HE WAS ON A LIST BECAUSE IT'S A MORE MAINSTREAM CANDIDATE COMING FROM A PRESIDENT-ELECT WHO OF COURSE HAS EMBRACED LESS TRADITIONAL TYPES OF IDEAS FOR BOTH HIS OWN STAFF AND A POTENTIAL CABINET, KAYLA. SO, WE'LL BE EAGER TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THIS. I'LL CONTINUE BRINGING YOU ANY DEVELOPMENTS.

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Some in the industry have expressed concern that Trump's election could spell trouble for the technology sector.

At the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, start-ups and investors are still digesting the results of the U.S. election in which Republican candidate Donald Trump won the vote to become the next president.

Brexit has had a bigger impact on Deezer than the U.S. election will, the music-streaming start-up's chief executive told CNBC on Thursday.

But Hans-Holger Albrecht, the CEO of Deezer, said the weakening of sterling since the Brexit vote has affected the company more than the U.S. election.

"The Brexit is worse that's for sure. The U.K. is a big market. We are a euro-denominated business," Albrecht told CNBC.

The euro has strengthened by 7 percent against sterling since the June Brexit vote. Companies that have large businesses in the U.K. and report earnings in euros have been hit.



Deezer is a music streaming start-up that rivals the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. The company has not disclosed its user numbers. Last year, Deezer pulled its plans to go public and in January secured a 100 million euro ($109 million) investment led by Access Industries.

Albrecht did not say if the company plans to revive the initial public offering (IPO) or continue to raise capital in the private markets.

"We had the choice a year ago, we decided on a private round. We now have the flexibility, we have money in the bank and we can decide. We have no pressure and we wait and see really," Albrecht told CNBC.
YesCalifornia, which is pushing for California to secede and become a separate country, staged a daylong "informational session" Wednesday outside the State Capitol in Sacramento.

That's the philosophy of a growing secessionist movement in the nation's biggest state, and it got a kick start after Tuesday's presidential election.

Discussion of the idea exploded Wednesday on Twitter , where tweets with the hashtag #calexit rolled in at hundreds per minute all day. Many  often paired with the hashtag #notmypresident, in reference to Donald Trump's election  backed the movement, but a significant proportion also adopted the hashtag to ridicule it.



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YesCalifornia, a political action committee formed in August 2015, is working for a referendum on the 2019 state ballot that would start the long path to legal secession.

"In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children," the group says in a 33-page "CalExit Blue Book."

The movement "is about California taking its place in the world, standing as an equal among nations," it says. "We believe in two fundamental truths: (1) California exerts a positive influence on the rest of the world, and (2) California could do more good as an independent country than it is able to do as a just a U.S. state."

California is the country's most populous state, making up 11.6 percent of the U.S. population, according to mid-year figures from the U.S. Census. If it became a separate nation, it would be the 35th-biggest country on Earth, according to U.N. data.

But getting there will be extraordinarily hard. An 1869 Supreme Court ruling called Texas v. White suggests that there are only two ways for a state to leave the union: "through revolution or through consent of the States."

YesCalifornia rejects revolution. So independence could come only after a series of increasingly unlikely events  assuming the referendum gets on the 2019 ballot at all, something California voters will first have to decide in 2018.

All peaceful avenues to independence involve amending the U.S. Constitution  meaning the legislatures of two-thirds of the states would have to consent to letting the country's biggest state and its most powerful economic engine walk away.

Still, some pretty heavy hitters, especially in the tech-rich northern half of the state, are on board.

Tuesday night, as Trump's victory became increasingly apparent, a number of Northern California tech entrepreneurs joined in an extraordinary Twitter thread started by Shervin Pishevar, co-founder of the futuristic transportation venture Hyperloop One, who promised to fund "a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation."

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Big bucks executives who joined the thread in support included angel investor Dave Morin, a former Facebook executive and chief executive of the social network Path; and Anand Sharma, founder of the health tracking iPhone app Gyroscope.

Pishevar told CNBC on Wednesday that he's not joking.

"It's the most patriotic thing I can do," he said. "The country is at serious crossroads. ... As the sixth-largest economy in the world, the economic engine of the nation and provider of a large percentage of the federal budget, California carries a lot of weight."
U.S. stock futures were sharply higher this morning, an advance that would push the Dow to a new intraday high. The Donald Trump trade higher continued from Wednesday, which saw a huge swing in the Dow from down 800 points around midnight to closing up 256 points. (CNBC)

European stocks were higher again, while a 6.7 percent surge on Japan's Nikkei led Asian markets higher overnight. Japanese stocks closed sharply lower Wednesday while U.S. futures were still deep in the red. The dollar was higher against the yen and the Mexican peso today. (CNBC)

Treasury yields were flat to higher this morning, after jumping to their highest levels since January, a signal markets believe Trump's policies could spark a rise in inflation, more growth, and ultimately an era of higher interest rates. (CNBC)

Following Trump's election, billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller told CNBC he's betting on economic growth by shorting bonds. He also said: "I sold all my gold on the night of the election."

In the wake of Trump's presidential win, San Francisco Fed President John Williams said last night the central bank is apolitical. He also said it's time to raise rates gradually. Meanwhile, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard speaks at 9:15 a.m. ET. (Reuters)

An economic advisor to Trump said the president-elect would not seek Fed Chair Janet Yellen's resignation, despite speculation to the contrary. But the advisor suggested Trump would not nominate Yellen to a second term. (WSJ)
As department stores struggle to grow sales, they're shrinking down their businesses to prop up their profits  and investors are eating it up.

Shares of both Kohl's and Macy's jumped higher in afternoon trading, as each chain detailed plans to grow bottom lines by getting smaller.

At Macy's, strategies include selling its San Francisco men's flagship for $250 million, with the potential for other similar maneuvers. The update comes just days after Macy's said it would sell five locations to mall operator General Growth Properties for $46 million. Both moves are part of Macy's broader goal to operate more profitably, including its previously announced decision to shutter 100 stores.

Kohl's is also pruning down its physical footprint, but with a twist. Instead of closing a large chunk of its fleet, the Wisconsin-based chain sees opportunity to open more of its small-shop formats. After recently cutting the ribbon on a handful of these locations, CEO Kevin Mansell told investors that as more open, "the more confident we're getting that those are long-term pluses for us."

Both companies are meanwhile whittling down their inventory levels, with Kohl's sending them 10 percent lower during the three-month period.

Shares of Macy's shot 7 percent higher in afternoon trading, while Kohl's jumped more than 11 percent. The gains helped drive the S&P Retail ETF nearly 3 percent higher.

"They're catching on about being right-sized and scaling the business to where the demand is," said Ken Perkins, president of Retail Metrics. "The question is, is the demand going to come forth and help them drive growth that's not financially engineered."

Indeed, department stores' sales contracted 4.8 percent during the first nine months of the year, compared with a 2.9 percent increase for the overall industry. To help mitigate the pullback in spending at their chains, department stores have been looking for opportunities to boost their businesses off the sales floor.

Macy's investors, in particular, have been clamoring for the company to find ways to profit from its real estate, after activist Starboard Capital began calling for change last year. That firm argued the company needed to tap into its massive store fleet to deliver additional value for shareholders.

Macy's is taking a three-prong approach to do so: examining its flagship locations, closing 100 stores and potentially redeveloping some 50 locations. For the latter, Macy's said Thursday that it had entered into a strategic alliance with Brookfield Asset Management.

"It allows us to keep our focus as a top retailer while optimizing our real estate," CFO Karen Hoguet told investors. She declined to speculate how much such moves could boost its bottom line.



At Kohl's, the biggest shift has been its decision to aggressively pull back the amount of product it has on its shelves, while not crippling its sales. Management pointed to its Sonoma brand as an example of how this strategy could play out. During the third quarter, sales in the label's women's business rose in the mid-single-digit range as inventories were 19 percent lower.

And while it's still in the early stages, Kohl's said expanding upon its smaller stores initiative could allow it to enter smaller markets, and potentially scale down its physical footprint in more digitally heavy sales markets. The chain shuttered a handful of stores during the quarter, but said it's still too early to draw conclusions from the closures.

"Having stores is a critical component to our success," Mansell reiterated.

Despite these initiatives, underlying revenue trends remained a challenge for both department stores during the quarter. Excluding licensed departments, comparable sales at Macy's slipped 3.3 percent; at Kohl's, they dropped 1.7 percent.

The department store space has been struggling to keep up with shifting consumer demand, which has sent more shoppers to Amazon and T.J. Maxx . Consumers have also been spending more on dining out and taking trips.

Yet both Kohl's and Macy's management sounded more optimistic about their fourth-quarter opportunities. Macy's Hoguet pointed toward a "meaningful improvement" in its apparel business, which spanned men's, women's and kids. The company also saw stabilization in international tourist spending, which had weighed on its results for the past few quarters.

Because of those trends and pared-down inventories  which should allow the chain to sell more merchandise at full price  Macy's lifted its full-year comparable sales outlook.

"Inventory is in such different shape today than it was one year ago," CEO Terry Lundgren told CNBC. Back then, a slowdown in demand due to a prolonged period of warm weather left them with excess product that they had to steeply mark down.

In addition to its moves to trim its inventory levels, Kohl's is leaning on its loyalty program and a more localized product assortment to power its holiday sales. The company reiterated its full-year earnings guidance of $3.80 to $4 a share, excluding items.
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The white working class turned out, and they struck back. The morning after, that already appears to be the dominant media narrative coming out of the 2016 presidential election. Sure, the black and Latino voters that Hillary Clinton was counting on to deliver her to victory were there  but white turnout was up, and especially among white people without college degrees, there was a major swing to Trump.

There's already furious debate about why this is, and how it jibes with data suggesting that Trump supporters are richer, not poorer, than average. But let's not lose sight of something very important: Donald Trump's presidency is going to be an absolute disaster for the white working class, the white poor, and every other economically struggling person in America. The people the media is crediting with Trump's win have a tremendous amount to lose.

Lower-income whites are not going to suffer from Trump's restrictions on Muslims traveling, or from his mass deportations, or from his cavalier attitude toward police brutality. But Trump has promised an economic agenda that will increase the ranks of the uninsured by tens of millions, that will eliminate crucial safety net programs for low- and moderate-income Americans, that could start a trade war that drives up prices and devastates the economy, and that will put in place a tax code that exacerbates inequality and leaves many families with children worse off.

That affects all Americans  and with Republicans retaining control over the House and Senate, it stands a very good chance of passing.



Trumps budget cuts could send millions of children into extreme poverty

For the past decade, Paul Ryan has languished either in the House minority or under a Democratic president, putting together extreme proposals for completely overhauling the safety net. Medicare would be voucherized  either with or without the option for beneficiaries to keep the traditional program. He offered one of the most extreme Social Security privatization proposals of the 2005-'06 debate on the issue. But the worst is saved for means-tested programs, in particular Medicaid and food stamps. He would move fast to "block-grant" food stamps and Medicaid, transforming them from guarantees of food and medical care for the nation's poorest people into a slush fund for states. This approach was devastating during welfare reform, and it's impossible to imagine a way this would happen that wouldn't exacerbate extreme poverty and hunger. After the end of welfare, food stamps were the last cash-like benefit upon which people without earnings could rely. Ryan will put an end to that.

And then he'd cut all these programs for good measure. Sixty-nine percent of the cuts in his last budget came from programs for people with low or moderate incomes, including $137 billion over 10 years from food stamps (now the block grant), up to $125 billion from Pell Grants, and another $150 billion or more from other low-income programs like Supplemental Security Income and the earned income tax credit. Medicaid would be cut by more than a quarter through the block grant. Ryan has sometimes trolled journalists by claiming to support boosting the EITC, only to propose paying for it by cutting other programs for the poor.

More from Vox:

A letter to America from Leslie Knope, regarding Donald Trump

Here is Donald Trump's plan for his first 100 days

Trump can end Obamacare's free birth controland he doesn't need Congress's help

These are changes that will dramatically decrease insurance coverage among the poor, increase hunger, and greatly exacerbate poverty in its most extreme form. And while Trump has expressed wariness of tampering with Medicare or Social Security, he has expressed no such hesitation about Ryan's proposed cuts to programs for the poor.

The Ryan budget has become the key economic agenda of the Republican Party over the past six years. By now it wields substantial, likely majority, support in both houses of Congress, even if Ryan himself does not survive as speaker. And it's hard to imagine Trump using a veto to prevent these kinds of reforms and cuts from becoming law.

As a result, Trump will likely oversee the most vicious cuts to programs for poor and medium-income people of any president since Reagan  and could very well go further than Reagan did. The result will almost certainly be a massive increase in uninsurance for the lower-income working people currently covered by Medicaid, an increase in poverty and hunger for the working poor on food stamps, and a large increase in extreme poverty.



This is a chart of extreme poverty  the share of people living on less than $2 a day in cash income  from 1996 to 2011. It was put together by the University of Michigan's Luke Shaefer and Johns Hopkins's Kathryn Edin, America's leading researchers on extreme poverty. The gap you see between the solid and the dotted black lines is the difference between the extreme poverty rate not counting food stamps and the rate counting food stamps. Roughly 2.1 percent of households with children in 2011 were kept afloat, barely out of the $2-a-day range, if you count food stamps. That's a little under 800,000 families, representing millions of children. Paul Ryan's plan will, with the signature of Donald Trump's pen, deny them the one thing keeping them from completely unmitigated extreme poverty.



Trump will rob at least 20 million people of their health insurance

With Donald Trump in the presidency, Vox's Sarah Kliff explains, there is now a governing majority capable of repealing Obamacare. All of it. Republicans will almost certainly control the Senate, and definitely control the House, and while the law took a filibuster-proof majority to pass, House Budget Committee Chair Tom Price has designed a bill that would repeal it but work through the budget reconciliation process, which requires a simple majority in the Senate. Price's bill would end the Medicaid expansion and repeal tax credits for low-income Americans. It would repeal the taxes used to finance the law and its mandate. This plan would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, cost 22 million people health insurance.

There's some reason to suspect the Republicans in Congress wouldn't go full steam ahead. It's hard to deny 22 million people health insurance without paying an electoral price for it. They could do the transition gradually, or phase out Medicaid expansion first, since Medicaid recipients are poor enough that they rarely vote for Republicans anyway. But after six years of Republican pledges to repeal and replace, it's hard to imagine the first part of that equation not happening.

As for replace, Trump's plan is to make health insurance costs tax-deductible. This proposal is well to the right of the kind of thing Paul Ryan, John McCain, and Mitt Romney have championed in the past. Generally the alternative has been to create a uniform tax credit, most likely a refundable one. That way, some benefit goes to poor people who don't have a positive income tax burden. Trump doesn't do that. Instead, he limits the benefit to people rich enough to pay taxes. All this is before you take into account the block-granting of Medicaid Ryan has proposed. Medicaid covered about 60 million Americans before Obamacare passed. Even if states don't entirely eliminate their guarantee of health care for the poor, we should expect that number to fall by millions, probably tens of millions, if the block grants pass, just as the block-granting of welfare effectively ended that program in most states. Ryan is also proposing to dramatically cut the scale of Medicaid spending by about a quarter. If giving states free rein to use the money as a slush fund doesn't uninsure millions, the cuts definitely will. Any way you slice it, Trump's agenda, and that of congressional Republicans, will probably increase the ranks of the uninsured. At this point, everything else is likely a fight over the magnitude of the reversal.



Trump's trade war will cost Americans jobs and raise prices substantially

One of Donald Trump's most consistent promises is to impose massive tariffs on goods from other countries, including a tariff of up to 45 percent on goods from China and up to 35 percent on goods from Mexico. He might face some resistance from Republicans in Congress on this point, but luckily for him, the president has a surprising amount of authority to unilaterally impose duties, by bringing "safeguard" or "market disruption" cases against imports from China or Mexico. He could bring a trade war upon America, whether Congress wants him to or not. The Peterson Institute, a pro-trade but widely respected think tank in Washington, tried to estimate the economic cost of Trump's plans in a report in September. Peterson, understandably, assumes that China and Mexico would retaliate with tariffs of their own. So would other countries if Trump withdraws from the WTO, NAFTA, the South Korea free trade pact, and other agreements.

Peterson concludes that this would very likely cause a full-on trade war, and with it a recession by the year 2019. The unemployment rate would reach 8.6 percent, and more than 4 million jobs could be lost:

Millions of American jobs that appear unconnected to international tradedisproportionately lower-skilled and lower-wage jobswould be at risk.

In a full trade war scenario, Washington State would be the worst affected, suffering a 5 percent private sector job loss relative to baseline. But employment would fall by more than 4 percent in a broad swath of states, including California, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. Twenty-nine counties across America would experience employment declines of 7 percent or more. In absolute terms, Los Angeles county in California would be the worst affected (176,000 jobs), followed by Cook county, Illinois (Chicago) with 91,000 and Harris county, Texas (Houston) with 89,000.

Peterson also considers an "aborted trade war" scenario. That encompasses the chance that Trump will enact tariffs and then back down quickly when the economic devastation this would cause becomes clear, and the chance that his threats succeed in cowing other countries somehow. This scenario would not be nearly as bad as the full trade war, but unemployment will still shoot up by about a point, costing about 1.3 million jobs. This is not a good scenario for the white working class. States that went for Trump like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will see massive job losses.

And this is neglecting the fact that prices would rise substantially due to the new tariffs and the disruption to the global supply chain. That could dramatically increase the cost of a whole range of consumer goods, cost increases that would hit poor Americans the hardest.



Hell dramatically cut taxes for the rich, raise them for many middle-class people, and increase inequality

We should also expect Trump to take cues from Ryan on tax policy. Over the course of his campaign, Trump has gradually adjusted his tax proposal to match "A Better Way," an economic agenda including a tax reform proposal that Ryan put out in June. Both Trump and Ryan propose replacing the current seven-bracket income tax structure with just three: 12 percent, 25 percent, and 33 percent. Because the current top rate is 39.6 percent  plus a 2.9 percent Medicare surtax from Obamacare that Trump and Ryan promise to repeal  the plan would reduce the tax rate paid by the richest Americans by nearly 10 points. And while both Trump and Ryan propose increasing the standard deduction to offset the increase in the bottom rate from 10 to 12 points, at least some people would fall through the cracks all the same.

NYU Law's Lily Batchelder conservatively estimates that 25 million individuals and 15 million children would see their taxes go up under Trump's plan. That's about 20 percent of households with minor children at home, and includes more than half of all single parents. The combination of an increased bottom rate, Trump's total elimination of personal exemptions for taxpayers and dependents, and his abolishing of "head of household" filing status, often used by single parents or single caretakers, leaves many people in the middle class worse off.

Batchelder provides several examples of families that would see their taxes go up under Trump's plan. The biggest hikes number in the thousands of dollars and are concentrated among single parents:

A single parent with $75,000 in earnings, two children in school, and no child care costs (because the kids are in school) would pay $2,440 more.

A single parent with $50,000 in earnings, three children in school, and child care costs of less than $6,000 would pay $1,188 more. A married couple with $50,000 in earnings, two kids in school, and no child care costs would pay $150 more because of the bottom bracket's increase from 10 to 12 percent. The Tax Policy Center still finds that Trump would on average cut taxes for every income segment, though a minority of the middle class would face hikes. Ryan's plan offers very modest cuts across the board in 2017 but by 2025 would start increasing them for upper-middle-class people in the 80th to 95th percentile. Given that it also raises the bottom rate and repeals personal exemptions  just like Trump's plan  it's quite likely that many families lower down will see tax hikes as well. Investors and corporations, by contrast, would do extremely well under both Ryan and Trump's plans. Ryan's plan would effectively decrease the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends from 23.8 percent to 16.5 percent, and on interest income from 43.4 percent to 16.5 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Trump and Ryan both promise to dramatically slash the corporate tax rate from its current peak at 35 percent; Ryan wants a 20 percent top rate, and Trump wants 15 percent. Given that the corporate tax is, according to the Tax Policy Center, even more progressive than individual income taxes, that change will almost certainly increase income inequality.

What's more, Trump would apply the new 15 percent rate to pass-through income, which is currently taxed at higher individual rates. Rather than pay a top rate of 39.6 percent, or even 33 percent after Trump's cuts, it would pay a mere 15 percent. Ryan wants a new, lower 25 percent rate for this income.

It should probably be noted that most of Trump's own business efforts are organized as pass-through entities. His losses from those companies were what let him evade taxes for several years. He and Ryan are essentially proposing a big tax cut for the Trump Organization. The other beneficiaries will be rich too; about 69 percent of pass-through income goes to the top 1 percent of earners.



These tax cuts will have to be paid for somehow  probably through cuts that hurt the working class

The extreme budget cuts contemplated by Ryan would go some of the way toward paying for Trump's tax cuts. But his tax plan would cost $6.2 trillion over 10 years before interest. That's likely more than Ryan's cuts alone could pay for. And when you try to start thinking about how to fill that hole, it becomes clear that genuinely massive and unprecedented cuts would be necessary, as my colleague Alvin Chang has argued. Cutting all funding for transportation only nets you $1 trillion. All criminal justice programs would only net $600 billion. You have to start essentially imagining a government that does nothing but run a military, send (maybe lowered) Social Security checks, and administer Medicare.

The distribution of those cuts is almost certain to be regressive. That's why even if on paper Ryan and Trump's tax cuts would leave most lower-income people no worse off, the overall effect of the cuts plus budget cuts to pay for them will be absolutely brutal for the poor and working class.
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet Inc., speaks during the New York Times DealBook conference in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016.

Despite political discord, the American economy is doing well, Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said Thursday.

"I think the math is the American economy is doing well, and the unemployment situation is [going] well, and if you're confused on that, visit Europe," Schmidt said.



Schmidt spoke from the DealBook Conference in New York City, hosted by CNBC anchor and New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and the editors of the Times. The conference focuses on "playing for the long term" in a business environment that's shackled to quarterly returns and compressed news cycles.



After an election cycle that stoked arguments over the shrinking middle class and widening inequality, Schmidt addressed the role that information played in the political process.

"My conclusion is you have a couple of things going on. You have immense amounts of information coming to people but they don't feel they have the tools to address them," Google's former CEO said. "You also have the pervasive insecurity of their perception of an uncertain future."

While unemployment has ticked steadily down since the recession, people have remained upset about the job market, Schmidt said. The solution, he said, is to foster entrepreneurship and use artificial intelligence and technology to broaden the scope of information that people receive.

"How people get their information  what they read and what they don't  I think is a project for the next decade," Schmidt said.



The mainstream media has faced broad-based criticism in the wake of Donald Trump's election, after polls indicated that Democrat Hillary Clinton would likely win by a comfortable margin. Schmidt said that amid data scientists, he's not sure what went wrong, but he pointed to issues with data collection. For instance, mobile phones and online polling haven't caught up with traditional landline polling, he said.

"It's still a new science," Schmidt said. "There's awful lot of people that I know that are sitting there trying to figure out what was wrong with the models.  I'm sure there will be significant engineering thinking about this."

But Schmidt said Google has taken its role in the political process seriously. He said it is possible for artificial intelligence to filter out bots, trolls, harassment and a rising flood of misinformation online.

But artificial intelligence has faced backlash, both within the political process and the technology community. Tesla's Elon Musk, for instance, has warned that robots will become the workforce.

"Manufacturing jobs are infinitely safer today because robots do the dangerous work. We take that for granted," Schmidt said. "Computers in manufacturing eliminated  the [tasks] that humans don't want to do. The jobs that are routine are going to be replaced by technology. ... Those same tools make an average person smarter."

Over the past year, Google publicly set its sights on the artificial intelligence market. In its annual founder's letter, CEO Sundar Pichai set a vision for artificial intelligence that "can help us in everything from accomplishing our daily tasks and travels to eventually tackling even bigger challenges like climate change and cancer diagnosis."

But to foster continued innovation in America, Schmidt said the tech sector's day-one ask of Trump is H1-B visa reform. Schmidt said Google has brilliant engineers who are languishing in condos in Canada waiting to get to work.

When we kick out highly educated foreign engineers, "they go and build competitors to our companies," he said.



Another high priority for the incoming government should be cybersecurity, Schmidt said. He said disclosures from WikiLeaks and insiders like former NSA analyst Edward Snowden will become ever easier.

"An obvious thing that the next president should do is have a division that audits the security of the data of our citizens," Schmidt said.

Given the focus on Cinton's email during the election, Schmidt emphasized the importance of two-factor authentication.

"I strongly recommend that you don't use your own private email server.  I strongly recommend you use Gmail," he said. "There's going to be an ever-increasing set of problems for people who use just a password."

Though Schmidt admitted to being on Clinton's "side," he said he was a fan of PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who openly supported Trump, despite backlash in the tech community.

"I think he's a brilliant entrepreneur," Schmidt said. "I like him personally and I like a lot of things that he says, my personal view. And I think we want a culture where people can speak what they think. I admire what he did."
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has responded to Republican Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election by calling upon people to find new ways to cooperate to solve the world's most pressing challenges.

The social media pioneer eschewed any reference to either Trump or the losing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, instead taking his daughter, Max, as a starting point for his heartfelt message.

"Last night was Max's first election. She's got a lot of election nights ahead of her. Holding Max, I thought about all the work ahead of us to create the world we want for our children," the message on his personal Facebook site began.

"This work is bigger than any presidency and progress does not move in a straight line. The most important opportunities of Max's generation -- like curing all disease, improving education, connecting everyone and promoting equal opportunity -- will take long term focus and finding new ways for all of us to work together, sometimes over decades," the post continued.
Customer makes online grocery pickup at Wal-Mart Source: Walmart.com

The online grocery business is expected to heat up over the holidays as major players beef up e-commerce efforts and expand into new markets. Driving the growth is the ramp up of fast grocery delivery services by Amazon and others and the expansion of curbside pickup by Wal-Mart Stores . Also, tech-savvy consumers have an increased comfort level with buying fresh foods online and see ordering groceries through an app as a way to save time and avoid checkout lines.

"Online grocery will take off this holiday season, with consumers buying more turkeys, cranberry sauce and stuffing online than ever, as a result of Wal-Mart, Kroger and others ramping up their e-grocery services," said John Mercer, a senior analyst and research head at Fung Global, a retail and technology think tank.

Employee fills online grocery order at Wal-Mart store Source: Walmart.com

Indeed, Wal-Mart has expanded the range of items this year so consumers looking to avoid crowds at the grocery store this Thanksgiving can order for curbside pickup not just a turkey and all the fixings but a roasting pan, gravy boat and other food prep items. With a minimum $30 grocery order, the pickup is free and available the same day.

The Arkansas-based retailer sells upward of 30,000 food items  including fresh produce, meats, dairy, organic groceries and gluten-free items, among other things. It uses personal shoppers to fulfill the order and currently serves about 600 locations, including some just added within the last several weeks. "We've really expanded our footprint and our offering in a very aggressive way just this past year," said Ravi Jariwala, a spokesman for Wal-Mart. "I would say we are probably one of the fastest-growing online grocers in the U.S., just based on the fact that at the start of the fall last year we were in five markets. Today we're in 100."



We believe that the grocery category is likely to be one of the next key areas of e-commerce growth Jessica Schoen Mace Nomura analyst

Online grocery purchases are expected to rise nearly 20 percent this year, according to market researcher Technomic. In contrast, the traditional brick-and-mortar supermarkets are projected to see just 2 percent growth in consumer spending.

Analysts say the holidays are particularly important for the online grocery delivery sector because there may be more consumers using it not just for restocking the refrigerator and pantry but for fill-in orders when they forget something from the supermarket and don't have time to run out and get it. As it turns out, online grocery shoppers also spend more on average than regular brick-and-mortar store customers and are more apt to continue shopping in cyberspace after they've experienced the service, according to research group Kantar Worldpanel.

"We believe that the grocery category is likely to be one of the next key areas of e-commerce growth," Nomura analyst Jessica Schoen Mace said in a research note last month.


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As a family physician, Jon White dealt with mountains of paperwork every day. From charts to medical histories and prescriptions, each patient came with their own bundle of papers. Sometimes the script was illegible, and sometimes sheets would get lost. When he was on call and asked to consult on a case from home, White often couldn't verify patient details since the files were back in the office. White thought there had to be a better way to address these challenges. "I came to appreciate that in order to deliver great care, you need great information," White said. The idea led him into the burgeoning field of health-care information technology, which includes everything from electronic health records to tracking diseases like Zika or Ebola through population health data. White eventually became deputy national coordinator for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, a federal organization that helps the health-care system implement and use technology. White didn't know it at the time, but his decision to pivot to health IT more than a decade ago foreshadowed a new era in health care. Today health-care providers around the world spend more than $100 billion per year on health IT, an emerging field that includes electronic health records, online patient portals, health apps and personalized medicine. More than 45 percent of that spending comes from North America, according to research and advisory firm Gartner . With major market players like IBM , Cerner , GE Healthcare and many more embracing health IT, the global market is expected to increase at a rate of nearly 16 percent through 2022.

The rapid growth has brought with it a shift in the traditional roles of physicians like White, along with new jobs in health informatics. Many employers are no longer searching for just doctors and nurses. Now they need chief medical information officers, quality management officers and clinical analysts.



Ariel Skelley | Getty Images

It is too early in the emerging sector for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to track health IT jobs yet, but it shows that the job outlook for health information technicians (involving digital and paper-based work) is projected to grow 15 percent by 2024, much faster than most occupations. Jobs in computer and information technology in general are projected to increase 12 percent, with part of the growth coming from the health-care industry.

The revenue opportunity

Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey is one of them. The hospital's electronic system allows users to look up symptoms, find doctors, make appointments and review test results. It also links patient-generated data from personal fitness devices and mobile apps to electronic medical records. The system allows the hospital to see one additional patient each hour and has increased hospital revenue by 17 to 25 percent, according to chief information officer Dr. Shafiq Rab. "It improved the workflow. It improved the quality of care," he said. "It helped us to decrease bad outcomes. Hence, our revenue increase." White said positive revenue results have been seen at some hospitals, but other experts say it is still too early to conclude that electronic health records are definitively worth the cost of implementation. In some cases, adopting the digital system can decrease costs after three years, but in other cases  especially at smaller health systems  it can cause increased costs even after six years.

Rab is clear about what he looks for in employees.

"Electronic health records has changed the staff. That means they have to learn how to use the iPad, the iPhone, the Android, Google," he said. "It has created new opportunities. It has created new types of jobs. And the shift of the jobs is going more toward informatics. The people who were nurses, they are now joining IT. People who were transport people, they have joined information technology." It is now vital for clinicians to learn to use electronic medical records without alienating patients by staring at a computer screen. It is vital to look at various data sources in order to make a holistic diagnosis. It is vital to share data between providers to increase the quality of care. This requires skills that were not part of the traditional physician toolkit: database manipulation, knowledge of information systems and an ability to code. According to a 2014 survey by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, more than 84 percent of health-care organizations hired at least one health IT worker in the past year and 80 percent plan to hire more.

The shift of the jobs is going more toward informatics. The people who were nurses, they are now joining IT. People who were transport people, they have joined information technology. Dr. Shafiq Rab Hackensack University Medical Center chief information officer

The American Health Information Management Association says approximately 12,000 to 50,000 new health information jobs  which encompasses technical fields like health IT and informatics, as well as more administrative positions to manage the flood of data  are expected to open up by 2017. Many of these jobs will be in data science, said Thomas Handler, a health-care provider analyst at Gartner. Employees need to analyze and make meaningful use of the data obtained through electronic health records. David Marshall, managing director of Huron Consulting Group 's health-care practice, sees great potential for health IT jobs in human resources, too. Most providers don't keep track of employee credentials and capabilities in a digital system, he said. When they have a particular task, they just pick the first person available. But if providers had someone to monitor employee skills, they could optimize processes by matching individuals with the right skill set to each task. "Lots of productivity is lost by putting the wrong people in the wrong jobs," Marshall said.

Developing skills beyond Facebook and apps

For many employers, finding the right candidate to bridge the gap between health care and IT can be a challenge. A 2014 Burning Glass report found that listings for clinical analyst positions stay open 15 percent longer than the national average.

A quick web search for degrees in health or biomedical informatics will pull up programs from countless universities around the country, including some of the most respected names in medical training: Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins. Health informatics education has risen in tandem with the health IT industry. These increasingly common programs provide students from a variety of backgrounds  health, computer science, information management  with courses in system design, database analysis and information systems alongside health care and health policy. They teach students how to use data from health apps, electronic health records and other sources to affect change in their patients and avert public health crises.

This type of education requires more than just the basic technological comfort and literacy that most people ascribe to the younger generation, said William Hersh, chair of the department of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology at Oregon Health & Science University. The college received an ONC grant to update health IT training materials.

"Knowing how to post something on Facebook is not informatics," he said. "Implementing these information systems in health care is not like downloading an app. ... Most of these systems have complex workflows around them, so you really need expertise." Students need to understand the complexities of the health-care industry and its financial structure. More from Net/Net:

Citibank's plan to fight fintech shakeup

First came chicken, then the egg-bot

Humans and robots on the factory floor



"Health-care data isn't as clean or clear as other kinds of data," said Eta Berner, professor of health informatics at University of Alabama at Birmingham, another ONC grant recipient. If a patient comes in with symptoms of a heart attack, a doctor is focused on providing immediate care and not asking the patient detailed history questions. That means data available for health informatics specialists to review could be incomplete, a nature of primary health care that the data analysts need to understand, Berner said. It is important for students to develop a thorough understanding of how health-care providers work while also mastering the more technical skills of informatics, said Marshall of the Huron Consulting Group. It is also their greatest opportunity. "They are going to be the ones that have the fastest path to robust careers," Marshall said. "People who only know how to provide care are being left behind."
Joe Biden is not allowed to drive a car during his term as Vice President. Even when he's done, he'll still have to wait six months before he can get behind the wheel.

So says the Secret Service.

But his protection makes a special exception for him when Biden meets up with Jay Leno for a segment on the CNBC reality business show "Jay Leno's Garage."

"It feels great," Biden says. "I've always loved to drive."

With Leno sitting next to him, Biden cruises down the street in his beloved 1967 Corvette Stingray, a wedding gift from his father. Back then, it sold for about $5,600. Now it's worth roughly $78,000.

But to Biden, it's not about the value. It's about the speed. His Stingray goes 0 to 60 in 4.7 seconds, and he admits he likes to go fast.
U.S. President Barack Obama will host an awkward meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday in their first public step toward a peaceful transition of power after the Republican businessman's surprise election victory.

Separately, Trump, Pence, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will meet Thursday in Washington to discuss how they can hit the ground running in a Trump administration, NBC News reported. The meeting will take place at 12:30 ET at the Capitol Hill Club.



And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will meet with Trump and Pence for a meeting in his Capitol office at 1:30 p.m. ET.

Obama and Trump have had almost no one-on-one contact previously. Trump led the "birther" movement that questioned Obama's U.S. citizenship and has pledged to overturn the Democratic president's signature policy achievements after he takes office on Jan. 20



Obama campaigned vigorously for Trump's Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and called Trump both temperamentally unfit for the presidency and dangerously unprepared to have access to U.S. nuclear codes.



They will seek to put that history behind them, at least for the cameras, during a meeting in the Oval Office at 11 a.m. First lady Michelle Obama will also meet privately with Trump's wife, Melania, in the White House residence.
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The International Energy Agency (IEA) has highlighted the significant tasks ahead for OPEC if the oil cartel is to freeze or cut its production and boost the price of the commodity.

"We can see the scale of the task ahead," the Paris-based organization said in its latest monthly report on Thursday morning.

Investors are eagerly awaiting the outcome of OPEC's meeting, scheduled for November 30, after its members members pledged at their last meeting in Algiers to cut oil production by as much as 2 percent. This proposed production ceiling would be between 32.5 million barrels per day (mb/d) and and 33 mb/d.



However, the IEA stated Thursday that OPEC crude output rose by 230,000 barrels per day to a record 33.83 mb/d in October after "production recovered in Nigeria and Libya and flows from Iraq hit an all-time high."

It explained that output from the group's 14 members had climbed for five months running, led by Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In October, OPEC supply stood nearly 1.3 mb/d above what it was a year ago, it added.

"(OPEC members pumped) well in excess of the high end of the proposed output range. This means that OPEC must agree to significant cuts in Vienna to turn its Algiers commitment into reality," the agency said.

"Unfortunately for those seeking higher prices, an analysis of the other components provides little comfort," it added, highlighting that output was increasing in Russia, Brazil, Canada and Kazakhstan.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan woke up Wednesday morning with a new chance to effectively remain in office and even expand his influence. What a difference from last week, when I wrote that Ryan would probably be better off stepping down as Speaker whether Donald Trump won or lost. Then Tuesday night happened, and not only did Trump win, but Republicans retained majorities in both houses of Congress. And most importantly for the Speaker, one of the states Trump surprisingly won was Ryan's home state of Wisconsin. That proved Trump and Ryan can be winners simultaneously, even in the same battleground state.

And both Trump and Ryan were not surprisingly all smiles when they met on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon. Afterward, they spoke about all the work they're going to do together. And that makes sense, since a contrite and experienced Ryan is still a lot more useful as a partner than some neophyte Speaker no matter his or her level of Trump loyalty.

Ryan remains the best man on Capitol Hill to do some more behind the scenes politicking and push Trump's corporate tax plan. This is a signature policy Trump is relying on to create millions of jobs and even reduce the deficit. It is perhaps the last vestige of Ronald Reagan's legacy, and that makes it so important to what's left of the establishment Republican Party in Washington. If Trump can get this cut passed with Ryan's help, an essential healing process within the GOP will succeed.

But Ryan is going to need to do something else: endorse a Trump policy he has previously opposed. That's likely to be something connected to trade and/or immigration. Ryan has always spoken in favor of stronger border security, but now he's going to need to craft a real plan to "build that wall." Trump even mentioned immigration during a brief photo op with the news media after his Capitol Hill meeting with Ryan.

Helping Trump follow through on renegotiated trade deals and spiking the Trans Pacific Partnership for good will be harder pills for Ryan to swallow, but as they say, "elections have consequences."

And then there's the hardest job of all for Ryan: Winning over Trump supporters still angry with him for his weak and late support for the presidential nominee. These are the people Ryan is going to need even more than Trump does when the midterm elections roll around in 2018.

Ryan first addressed this issue during a news conference Wednesday when he vowed to make sure the GOP Congress hits the ground running as soon as Trump completes the Oath of Office. The anti-Ryan resentment along the Trump Train is real, but a lot of it will disappear over the course of two years if those years are dotted with some legislative accomplishments.

The conciliatory spirit Trump launched in his acceptance speech seems to have provided Ryan with that opening he needed to keep his job. And he's done everything right in the hours that followed by showing his eagerness to get things done. But doing an effective job relies more on Ryan remaining cordial with the White House.

The new power base in the Democratic Party is led by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who aren't likely to join in any of the Ryan-Trump agenda when it comes to taxes and immigration. Sanders and Warren are, however, now both talking about how they look forward to working with Trump on trade and banking reforms like possibly repealing Glass-Steagall.

There's a danger in all of that for Ryan if Trump finds he can achieve his goals via a partnership with Senate Democrats that leaves the Speaker behind. But the Speaker does have the advantage of setting the legislative calendar, as opposed to minority party senators who will have to pick their issues on someone else's timetable.

But Ryan has to be one of the point people in finding some kind of common ground with that progressive Democratic wing. He might want to start with those trade policies and deals that Warren, Sanders, and Trump actually all oppose. Perhaps they can then move on to raising the minimum wage, another goal Trump has shown some interest in reaching across the aisle to achieve. But Ryan has to do something to avoid two or four years of filibustered gridlock in Washington.

Trump's clear victory and the almost equally as surprising GOP retention of the Congress have provided a deeply divided Republican Party with the perfect chance to start over with Ryan in a prominent role. Incredibly, given the historically nasty nature of this election, we might actually be seeing the ingredients of historic bipartisan cooperation and accomplishments on Capitol Hill.
Stan Druckenmiller: Not going to 'sugarcoat' trade 7:30 AM ET Thu, 10 Nov 2016 | 02:09

One of President-elect Donald Trump's most powerful rallying cries was a call to end unfair trade practices.



Americans may soon learn what a trade war looks like.

"Trade reform and the negotiation of great trade deals is the quickest way to bring our jobs back to our country," Trump said at a Pennsylvania rally in June, one of his most detailed speeches on trade policy. "A Trump administration will change our failed trade policies, and I mean quickly."

It remains to be seen just how far the Trump administration will go in upending decades of U.S. trade deals with the rest of the world.

Those decisions could turn out to be good or bad news for states that rely most heavily on exporting goods and services to China or Mexico.



Trump's threats to get tough come after decades of liberalized trade deals and lower tariffs helped boost import and export traffic around the world. That wave of globalization also produced the backlash from American voters, many of whom lost jobs to that economic upheaval.

Trump has vowed to raise tariffs on Mexico and China. Those higher tariffs would almost certainly cut into U.S. exports, which represent about $2 trillion, or roughly one-eighth of the nation's gross domestic product. One of his most powerful rallying cries was a pledge to reverse the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, the two top U.S. trading partners.

"We will either renegotiate it or we will break it," Trump said last fall, calling it "a disaster. Every agreement has an end. Every agreement has to be fair."

Popular support for protectionist trade policies has swelled to levels not seen since the Great Depression. British voters who voted to reclaim their independence from the European Union delivered a major blow to globalized trade.

But even before the political wind shifted, the engine of global trade had begun slowing. That's one reason the overall pace of the global economic growth remains relatively weak.

Now, Trump's election will likely extend that protectionist sentiment to the world's largest economy. Unlike other parts of the Trump administration's agenda that require congressional approval, the White House has broad powers to favor or punish U.S. trade partners.

The impact of a U.S. trade war would vary widely from one U.S. state to another.

West Coast states, for example, are much more heavily reliant on Chinese markets while border states see the biggest demand from Mexico.

China represents the third-largest U.S. export market, after Canada and Mexico, accounting for nearly $120 billion worth of goods last year. Overall, that represents less than 8 percent of U.S. exports  or less than 1 percent of total GDP.

Among the most dependent: Washington state, which sold roughly 20 percent of its exports to China last year, or nearly $19 billion worth of goods. Airplanes, the state's largest export by far, made up the bulk of the sales to China.

California exports some $16 billion to mainland China, with computers and electronics accounting for more than a quarter of the total. Texas was the third-largest exporter to the Asian nation, with more than $11 billion worth of products that included chemicals, computers and machinery.
Robots could be set to displace millions of jobs across the globe with industries favoring a digital revolution at the expense of human workers, according to a report from the United Nations .

Artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace is most prevalent in the automotive and electronic industries and countries with a particular focus on exports, such as Mexico and developing economies in Asia, are identified as the "most exposed" to an AI influx, according to a policy brief by the UN Conference on Trade and Development published this week in conjunction with research from the World Bank.

"The share of occupations that could experience significant automation is actually higher in developing countries than in more advanced ones, where many of these jobs have already disappeared, and this concerns about two thirds of all jobs," the policy brief said.

The UN report, published Tuesday, advised that though the use of robots could bring new opportunities for developing economies, it would be important to consider taxing the use of automation which should, in theory, prevent inequality.
President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Nov. 10, 2016. Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

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Apple , Facebook , Microsoft , eBay and Box posted public statements and emailed employees to reassure the community, though most stopped short of issuing congratulations to America's new leader. Silicon Valley, of course, leans heavily left and the Trump surprise sent many technologists reeling.

Despite all the uncertainty many people may be feeling at this time, "Apple's North Star hasn't changed," Apple CEO Tim Cook, who did not mention Trump by name, said in an email to the company's U.S. employees on Wednesday evening. He urged people to move forward, regardless of which candidate they had supported, and reassured them that the company will continue to embrace diversity. "Our company is open to all, and we celebrate the diversity of our team here in the United States and around the world  regardless of what they look like, where they come from, how they worship or who they love."

At a conference on Thursday, Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt congratulated Trump on winning the presidency, which he called a "significant achievement" and a "pretty amazing story." Despite political discord and a perceived lack of job opportunity, the American economy is doing well, said Schmidt. That said, immigration reform is desperately needed to enable tech companies to hire the world's top engineers and remain competitive, Schmidt said. Immigration reform is perhaps tech's top priority for the next administration.

Trump's victory signaled widespread discontent about economic opportunity, something which technology can help address, several technology executives suggested. For example, eBay's marketplace empowers buyers and sellers, LinkedIn 's tools help people find jobs and develop skills, and Apple's devices connect people, leaders at those companies reminded employees. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reminded people in a LinkedIn post that the world is witnessing democracy in action and linked to the company's blog with recommendations for the new administration and Congress. "We congratulate the president-elect, and look forward to working with all those elected yesterday. Our commitment to our mission and values are steadfast, and in particular fostering a diverse and inclusive culture," Nadella wrote.

On things like cybersecurity, STEM education and regulatory reform, cloud storage company Box will collaborate with government, wrote CEO Aaron Levie in a note to employees on Tuesday night that was later posted online. The company will also fight to protect technologists' closely held values, such as tolerance and inclusion. "Much of the work that President Obama and other leaders have pushed through on critically important social issues over the past few years has been challenged throughout this campaign cycle. This is scary," wrote Levie. "I'm hopeful that over the coming weeks and months we'll start to see a very different style from the President-elect. Some of the ideas that were proposed in this campaign cycle would be disastrous if put into action, and I'm confident they will not come to pass," he wrote.
Howard Schultz, chairman and CEO of Starbucks , said that both the nation and the world at large are in a "state of shock and disbelief" over the results of the election.

"I think we are looking at years and years of a great many people in Amercia feeling like they haven't been heard and listened to and had been let down, he said.



Schultz spoke from the DealBook Conference in New York, hosted by CNBC anchor and New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and the editors of the Times. The conference focuses on "playing for the long term" in a business environment that's shackled to quarterly returns and compressed news cycles.



Schultz also laughed off a claim by Donald Trump that Trump Tower had the most successful Starbucks store. "Every once in awhile you wake up and say, 'what?'" he said.

Tweet



Even though Trump criticized Starbucks' red cups last winter, the coffee chain had its best Christmas season ever. Schultz endorsed Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, earlier this year.

"Washington has been broken for quite some time," Schultz said. "The rules of engagement for a public company today are very different as a result of Washington not doing its job."



Last month, Starbucks announced plans to nearly double its China locations to 5,000 by 2021, after growing locations in the Asian nation from 400 stores in 2011 to more than 2,300 locations today.



Starbucks has a unique role as an American company operating abroad, Schultz said, as it adapts to customs that might be considered un-American. He said there was a lot more admiration of America 20 years ago than he sees today.



"Unfortunately there's been a lack of truth and authenticity in America for a while," Schultz said. "When you carry the American flag from the U.S. to another country, there is both a feeling of pride because of the American story and the American process, and then I think there is a new level of skepticism because of things that have happened over several years."



Starbucks has operated in China for nearly two decades, amid drastic changes in the region. China is mounting an uneasy transition to a consumer-centric business environment after years as a manufacturing-based economy fueled by state-owned enterprises.



"There will be cyclical changes as a result of the economic transformation under President Xi," Schultz said. "There will be timesthat will result in the media [overestimating] changes."



Schultz's bullishness on China comes amid an uncertain future for trade there. President-elect Donald Trump has campaigned to raise tariffs on trade with China.



"In the political season that we just went through with just a vitriolic display of hatred while people were saying it, they knew it wasn't true," Schultz said.



Schultz said he doesn't expect that investments in technology and the mobile ecosystem will lead to fewer employees at Starbucks. But he did say that e-commerce will lead to a significant number of store closures in the future, because America is "over-retailed."

"We are certainly in an evolutionary period," Schultz said. "I don't have the answers as to where those jobs are going to go. The brick and mortar stores that exist today, there's going to be a lot less of them in the future."



Schultz said that Starbucks is committed to adhering to values, such as paying above minimum wage, that have helped the company be successful over the past two decades. But sometimes long-term goals of the company are not consistent with what's expected on Wall Street, he said, giving activist investors as one example.



"What was the catalyst for activism?" Schultz said. "The catalyst is that there are bad actors. But not all companies are evil. And not all management teams are bad. When a company is doing the right thing and taking the long view and doing everything it can to share success with their employees and shareholders, there should be no room for the kind of activism we've seen over the years."



Schultz talked about his view of the American dream and capitalism, as someone who grew up on "the wrong side of the tracks" in Brooklyn's projects. He said Washington needs to understand that not all business is evil.



"We are creating the jobs in America and capitalism is an unbelievable source of revenue and opportunities across the country, and most business are good," Schultz said.

 CNBC's Christing Wang contributed to this report.
The new Donald Trump administration may soon force states to cut spending on services or raise taxes.

That's because the president-elect wants to overhaul the way the federal government pays for state-provided Medicaid health-care coverage.

Both Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have proposed giving states fixed payments called block grants instead of covering a share of the cost of delivering health care to low-income families.

"Trump's proposal to convert Medicaid funding into a block grant program would lead to much lower federal funding to states," according to a statement Thursday from Fitch Ratings, which tracks state finances for investors in municipal bonds.

Trump and congressional Republicans have also vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which expanded the number of people who are covered by Medicaid, a program launched 50 years ago to provide health care for low-income families.



Even without a repeal of the ACA, President-elect Trump could use his executive power to let states opt out of federal guidelines, a choice the Obama administration rejected, according to Kaiser Health News. That could let states cut their costs by imposing work requirements for Medicaid coverage enrollees, charging monthly premiums and shifting other costs to families.

Medicaid spending hit $532 billion in fiscal 2015, with about 62 percent of that funded by the federal government, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data.



Those costs vary widely from one state to another. Alaska spent roughly $10,000 a year for each person enrolled in Medicaid, the highest in the country in 2011, according to the latest data available from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Nevada spent just $3,728, well below the U.S. average of $5,790, according to the data.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images

Asian leaders wishing for a cordial relationship with the U.S. president-elect may have to scrub from their minds some of Donald Trump's comments about the region, because they've rarely been positive. For those who need reminding, here is a selection of Trump's quotes on Asia. The easily offended should avert their eyes now.

On China

"They suck the blood out of us and we owe them money," Trump told CNBC in a September interview, in which he added that the Chinese were "great magicians" who had stolen U.S. intellectual property. Instead, as a big buyer of Chinese imports, the U.S. should use its leverage to force a more mutually beneficial relationship, Trump added. "We should get China to fix that problem. We should use our economic power. Because without us, China would be in serious trouble," he said.

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In the same month, Trump told the Economic Club of New York that China was "a currency manipulator" of "grand master level" and that tariffs should be applied because of the "unfair advantage." This followed an August interview with CNBC, in which he said China was America's "biggest abuser." "We're like their whipping post, the United States. We have people who don't understand the system. We have people that don't get it. We are being ripped by many countries, China being the No. 1 abuser. They do it better than anybody else," he said.

"I have very big relationships with China, but the fact is China is the great abuser of the United States economically and we do nothing about it, and it would be very easy to stop."



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"China goes down to 7 percent [growth], and then what they do is devalue their currency and they take more of our business and they start to go up again," he added.

These comments were toned down from ones he made at a rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana. "We can't continue to allow China to rape our country," he told the crowd, referring to trade. "That's what they're doing. It's the greatest theft in the history of the world."

On India

Trump made his first comments on India in January. Speaking to CNN, he said, "India is doing great. Nobody talks about it. And I have big jobs going up in India. But India is doing great."

At an event sponsored by the Republican Hindu Coalition, Trump repeated this sentiment, saying that the U.S. and India would be "best friends" if he were to be elected. "I am a big fan of Hindu, and I am big fan of India," the New York Times reported Trump saying, "Big, big fan." Trump has also mentioned enhancing intelligence sharing between the two nations to combat Muslim extremism.

On Japan

In August, Trump indicated he didn't believe Japan was a true ally of the U.S., while delivering a broader attack at a campaign event in Iowa on countries he said did not make sufficient financial contributions to NATO.

"You know we have a treaty with Japan, where if Japan is attacked, we have to use the full force and might of the United States," Trump said, according to a report in Britain's The Telegraph. "If we're attacked, Japan doesn't have to do anything. They can sit home and watch Sony television."

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He said that as president, he could "walk away" from the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, according to the report. "It could be that Japan will have to defend itself against North Korea," he said.

On South Korea

Trump criticisms of South Korea while on the campaign trail were, like those of Japan, about defense. MSNBC reported in May that the GOP candidate railed against the country in May for the cost to the U.S. of having a defense force on its soil. "They're paying us a tiny fraction of what it's costing. I'd love to continue to defend Japan, I'd love to continue to defend South Korea - we have 28,000 soldiers on the line between North and South Korea right now. It's costing us a fortune, which we don't have, we're a debtor nation," he told the "Morning Joe" show. "I'd like them to pay up. They have a lot of money, both of those nations, we take in Japan's cars by the millions."

On North Korea

Trump has appeared more conciliatory toward the isolated state than his White House predecessor, telling Reuters in June that he was prepared to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un about the country's nuclear weapons. In return, A column by the DPRK Today outlet called Trump a "prescient presidential candidate" and a "wise politician."

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But earlier in the year, Trump made it clear he didn't intend to turn his back on Kim, should they ever meet.

"Any young guy who can take over from his father with all those generals and everybody else that probably wants the position - this is not somebody to be underestimating," he told CBS in February.



On Singapore
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Donald Trump's shock election victory has enraged Muslim militant groups around the world, and may fan the flames of global terrorism. The Republican's aggressive anti-Muslim rhetoric, which has included proposing an outright ban on Muslims entering the U.S. and a wish for all Muslims to register in a national database, has provided ample fodder for Islamist extremists. On Wednesday, several groups declared Trump's win was proof of a U.S. war on Islam, counterterrorism research group SITE Intelligence flagged in a post on its website. Jihadists used social media to warn that having Trump in the White House would unite the mujahideen, SITE director Rita Katz tweeted, with supporters of Al Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State (IS) saying the billionaire's election exposed America's hatred of Muslims and would contribute to America's downfall. Southeast Asia may be at particular risk from Trump's inflammatory comments. Indonesia and Malaysia are not only home to the world's largest Muslim-majority populationseach also has local militant networks that sympathize with IS' agenda, so a Trump administration could intensify the efforts of those groups.

Protestors gather outside Trump Tower in New York during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump on November 9, 2016. Mohammed Elshamy | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

"They [terror organizations] are good at taking events from one side of the world and using that to incite passion on the other side, which may play out in Indonesia and Malaysia." explained Greg Barton, chair in global Islamic politics at Australia's Deakin University. "There's a real danger we'll see right-wing bigots in the U.S. seize the chance to do nasty things, which will be picked up by jihadi propaganda as evidence that the West is at war with the Muslim world."

In his congratulatory message to the tycoon, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said he hoped Washington would continue to work with Jakarta to "build peace and prosperity for the world." But in June, the country's Vice President Jusuf Kalla told Reuters that his government was "not happy with Trump's opinions" and warned that religious discrimination in the U.S. could prompt retaliatory policies from other countries. "Trump's continued anti-Muslim rhetoric will definitely feed into the already deep-seated distrust of the West by the Muslim conservatives in the region. Depending on his policies in the Middle-East, it will drive even more radicalization and terrorism activities," Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani, a Malaysia-focused analyst at BowerGroupAsia, warned. But some believed the expectation of violence as a result of Trump's victory alone was unrealistic. Terrorist groups operate on a range of ideologies, which include not just anti-Western beliefs but also anti-democracy and anti-government views, Jacinta Carroll, head of the counterterrorism policy center at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said. "These positions are already held as part of the central tenets of these groups and are unlikely to be affected by statements made by President-Elect Trump."



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Still, networks were likely to continue to use selected statements from the billionaire as a means to provide inspiration and justification for their cause, just as they selectively quoted from religious leaders, she continued.



On the bright side
Just over 24 hours ago, the U.S. found out who would be their next President, but if Hollywood decided to turn the 2016 election campaign into a movie, who would be cast as its leading roles?

When asked by CNBC, leading Hollywood star, Joseph Gordon-Levitt knew who could be "spot-on" for the job if it ever came about.

"Honestly I think they've been doing it perfectly on SNL," Joseph Gordon-Levitt, actor and director of open-collaborative production firm hitRECord, told CNBC.

"I've watched all of the SNL Trump Clinton with Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon  I think they've been doing it spot on. I've been really impressed."

In the run-up to the U.S. election, Saturday Night Live (SNL) had been hosting a number of sketches based around the 2016 Presidential Campaign, featuring Kate McKinnon as Democrat Hillary Clinton, and Alec Baldwin as Republican Donald Trump.

The 42nd season premiere of SNL alonewhich featured an Election sketchdrew in some 8.3 million viewers.
Photo Credit: Beth Manwaring, The Rockwell Museum

CORNING  The Rockwell Museum in Corning has named Brian Lee Whisenhunt as its new executive director.

He will start in the position in early January 2017, succeeding Kristin A. Swain who announced her retirement earlier this year, after serving for 14 years.

Whisenhunt brings nearly 20 years of museum experience, according to a news release from The Rockwell.

Since July 2011, Whisenhunt has served as the executive director of the Museum of the Southwest in Midland, Texas. He was responsible for planning a $5.4 million capital campaign to renovate and restore the Turner Memorial Art Museum, which includes the historic Turner Mansion dating from the 1930s. Under his leadership, the museum attracted more than 100,000 visitors in 2015, the first time in more than a decade.

Brians museum experience and eagerness around arts in education, community collaboration and high quality American art experiences make him a great fit for The Rockwell and our region. Im certain hell be overwhelmingly welcomed by our vibrant arts community and the people that make it happen, Deb Naylor, president of the museums board of trustees, said in the release.

Whisenhunt received his masters degree in art history from the University of Oklahoma.

His other previous jobs include stints as executive director of the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana; adjunct professor of art at Indiana State University; director of education at the Wichita Art Museum in Kansas; and manager of public programs at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas.

Whisenhunt is joining The Rockwell after it, in the last three years, has broadened its mission statement to encompass art about the American experience, transformed its permanent art galleries from top-to-bottom, [and] opened a new Family Exploration Studio for young visitors, the release stated. The Rockwell also revamped it museum store, and launched new programs like Rockwell Roadhouse and the Urban Arts Crawl.

Most notably, The Rockwell, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, has become an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum said.

The Rockwells diverse collection includes a mix of contemporary American art with traditional bronze sculptures, landscape paintings, and other works that embody the American experience. The museum is housed in the restored 19th century Old City Hall building in Corning.

Contact The Business Journal News Network at news@cnybj.com
What do women around the world think of Trump winning the 2016 presidential election?

Can can look forward to big oil, not working with the UN, an end to federal funding to Los Angeles, New York City, Salt Lake City (and many more) as well as a withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Trump's first day in office.

Trump's data team predicted very accurately that he would win. How?

GM will be laying off over 2,000 workers at two different plants in January.

Trump's bff Vladimir Pussein (and co.) is excited he won.

So things are going to get all crazy with Mexico, huh?

There's a lot of hype around Conor McGregor for a reason.

Now here's some nice, happy things to read.
Foundation adds another $25M to Kinder Institute

The Kinder Foundation is giving the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy another $25 million, bringing its total to $60 million.
Voters Support Common Sense Solutions

In addition to populist movements that challenged both major party establishments, and was ultimately part of the winning formula for President-elect Donald Trump, voters at the local and state level worked together to win democracy reforms across the country. A total of 20 pro-democracy reform initiatives were on ballots and almost all of them won with comfortable margins.

Many Americans sense politicians dont listen to voters, only to big donors, so ordinary Americans are taking matters into their own hands to create a 21st Century democracy that works for everyone. Many Americans feel increasingly alienated from, or lack trust in, government and other civic institutions. They see money and gerrymandered districts as major obstacles to their full participation, and the regressive laws making registration difficult and voting less convenient as impediments intended to discourage people from voting. With support from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents ordinary people are working together to create local campaigns like these, and win! We expect to see even more in the coming legislative sessions and in the next election cycle, to involve more cities and states. Voters are focused on overcoming obstacles by solving problems to improve and strengthen our democracy for the 21st Century,

Here are ballot initiatives Common Cause led with outstanding allies:

California

Berkeley Citizen Funded Elections (Measure XI) WINS with 63.1 percent

California Common Cause led a campaign to create a more representative and accountable government in Berkeley with a citizen funded elections program.

Sacramento Redistricting Reform (Measure L) WINS with 52.9 percent

California Common Cause supported Measure L, which would create an independent citizens-led redistricting commission to draw city council districts.

San Francisco Lobbying & Ethics Reform (Proposition T) WINS with 87 percent

California Common Cause supported Proposition T, which would strengthen the citys lobbying and ethics laws to create a more accountable government.

Strengthening Legislative Transparency (Proposition 54) WINS with 64.3 percent

California Common Cause led a campaign to pass Proposition 54 statewide, which would strengthen transparency in the state legislature and increase citizens access to information.

Overturning Citizens United (Proposition 59) WINS with 52.3 percent

California Common Cause led a campaign to pass Proposition 59 in California, which calls on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Courts Citizens United v. FEC decision.

Voters are sending a message that we want to take our government back from special interests and ensure everyone has a voice in our democracy. Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause.

Maryland

Howard County Citizen Funded Elections (Question A) WINS with 52 percent

Common Cause Maryland led a campaign to create a more representative and accountable government in Howard County with citizen-funded elections.

We are pleased that Howard County is joining Montgomery County and states and cities across the country with citizen funded election. This reform will help put people back in the drivers seat of our elections and local government, and help build momentum for Maryland and the nation to adopt their own fair elections programs. Jenifer Bevan-Dangel, Common Cause Maryland, executive director.

Rhode Island

Ethics Reform (Question 2) WINS with 77.6 percent

Common Cause Rhode Island led the campaign to pass Question 2, restoring the Ethics Commissions constitutional authority to police ethics violations by members of the General Assembly.

By saying yes on Question 2 today, voters said yes to ethics, transparency, and a better Rhode Island. Because of this victory once again our lawmakers will be held accountable for any conflicts of interest, and citizens will know that legislators are serving the public interest, not their own self-interest.  John Marion, Jr., Common Cause Rhode Island executive director.





Other pro-democracy reforms that Common Cause took a position on but did not have a lead role on include:

Alaska

Automatic Voter Registration (Measure 1) WINS with 63.4 percent

Alaskans will be automatically registered to vote when they apply for the permanent fund dividend (PFD), a yearly dividend funded by oil wealth that is received by nearly 90% of the Alaskan population. The measure has bipartisan support, including the endorsement of both of Alaskas Republican U.S. senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan.

Maine

Ranked Choice Voting (Question 5)

This initiative would take on political polarization and establish statewide ranked choice voting.

Missouri

Contribution Limits (Amendment 2) WINS with 70 percent

This initiative establishes limits on campaign contributions for state and judicial candidates, committees, and political parties.

Voter ID (Amendment 6) wins with 63 percent (Common Cause opposes)

A person seeking to vote in person in public elections may be required by general law to identify himself or herself and verify his or her qualifications as a citizen of the United States of America and a resident of the state of Missouri by providing election officials with a form of identification, which may include requiring valid government-issued photo identification.

Oregon

Benton County Ranked Choice Voting (Measure 2-100) WINS with 54 percent

Takes on political polarization and establishes ranked choice voting in Benton County.

South Dakota

Anti-Corruption Act (Measure 22) WINS with 51 percent

This initiative puts limits on donations from parties, political action committees, and lobbyists, require more transparency, and institute other money in politics reforms.

Redistricting Reform (Amendment T) loses with 42 percent

This initiative would create a statewide independent redistricting commission.

Washington

Overturning Citizens United (Initiative 735) WINS with 63 percent

This initiative calls on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Courts Citizens United v. FEC decision.

Accountability & Transparency (Initiative 1464) loses with 47 percent

This initiative includes a menu of changes that includes publicly funded vouchers and a ban on large campaign contributions from lobbyists and public contractors.
When President-elect Donald Trump officially takes office, hell inherit a powerful U.S. surveillance apparatus, including the National Security Agency, thats already been accused of trampling over privacy rights.

This has some legal experts worried, but like almost every other aspect of a Trump presidency, there are more questions than clarity over what he plans to do.

Over the course of his presidential campaign, Trump has only offered snapshots on his views about U.S. privacy matters, but they suggest a pro-government surveillance stance.

For instance, Trump showed support for the National Security Agency's bulk telephone data collection, which ended last year. I err on the side of security, he said at the time. And on Apple's refusal to provide the FBI access to an iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter: the public should boycott the company until it complies, he said.

This doesn't bode well for privacy advocates looking for government reform on surveillance. Republicans typically show little sympathy on the matter, said Timothy Edgar, a director of law at Brown University who previously served in the Obama administration.

I would say pretty much any attempts to reform will come to a screeching halt, and maybe it will go backwards, he said.

Abuse of surveillance programs also worry some, who think a crafty White House legal team can find ways to bend the checks and balances already in place.

To think that we have made the NSA Trump-proof or tyrant-proof, we are deluding ourselves, said Edgar. "Some people have argued that we need to have stronger controls over the NSA because you are never going to be sure who is going to be elected."

And privacy fears also stem from controversial stances he took during his campaign, such as speaking favorably on profiling Muslims and advocating for a change to libel laws so he can sue news organizations.

Susan Freiwald, a law professor at the University of San Francisco, said it wouldnt be far-fetched to imagine a Trump presidency using the FBI to collect information on opponents. Shes particularly worried about the private communications of both media critics and political figures.

While the rules of law should not permit that, it is not clear that oversight mechanisms will be sufficient to stop it, she said in an email.

But how much those comments will translate into actual policy is unclear.

Nobody knows what hell do, said Jay Edelson, an attorney and CEO of law firm Edelson PC. I dont know if his past statements should be taken as gospel or if its more about emotions.

When it comes to privacy, President Barack Obama's administration also came under criticism for the NSAs mass surveillance activities that were disclosed by Edward Snowden.

The Democratic administration has been pretty bad. So has the previous Republican administration, Edelson said. I dont think it will be any worse under a Trump administration.

However, Edelson is concerned that Trump's pro-business stances will strip away cybersecurity and data privacy regulations meant to protect consumers. Nobody in my industry views Trump as pro-regulator. We think he has more of a pro-business agenda, he said.

Its also possible that political issues involving privacy and cybersecurity will take a backseat during a Trump presidency. His campaign never made those matters a priority, said John Dickson, a principal at security provider Denim Group and a former U.S. Air Force officer.

I think hell have a real learning curve, Dickson said, adding that Trump may also have to repair relationships in the U.S. intelligence community. During his campaign, he questioned whether Russia was truly behind several high-profile hacks on Democratic targets, which U.S. intelligence agencies had publicly blamed on the Kremlin.

Hes not the biggest expert in this policy area, Dickson said. However, once Trump begins appointing members of his cabinet, the public will gain a better idea of the incoming presidents approach, he said.
President-elect Donald Trump, working with Congress, may try to make it harder and more expensive to hire H-1B workers. His intent would be to change the economics of visa usage and encourage employers to hire U.S. workers.

Trump could do this by working with a bipartisan group in Congress committed to reform. But Trump also has executive power levers and could impose changes on his first day in office. He also can prod various federal agencies to launch investigations into visa use.

Ron Hira, associate professor of public policy at Howard University, said its too early to predict what a Trump administration will do, if anything, about the visa programs. Republicans and Democrats have splits on this issue in each of their parties, and business interest groups will be out in full force trying to stop any sensible reform.

Also uncertain is the business response to visa changes by a Trump administration. The practice of offshore outsourcing is deeply embedded in major U.S. companies. The use of the H-1B visa grew with industry, and IT services companies use about half of all the visas issued.

India-based Infosys, for instance, earns more than 60 percent of its $9.5 billion in revenue from business in North America. It employs about 200,000, but only about 20,000 of those employees work in the U.S. Many of those workers are on an H-1B visa, but much of the work is done offshore.

One possibility is that H-1B visa restrictions could force India-based firms and other large H-1B-using companies to hire more U.S. workers. It also may prompt IT services firms to try to cut the amount of work they do in the U.S.

Increases in H-1B wages makes "managing complex IT projects a lot more expensive, Phil Fersht, the CEO and chief analyst at HFS Research, wrote in a blog post following Trumps victory.

Fersht said that more enterprises will turn to cloud-based systems because the cost of maintaining legacy systems will spiral with visa reforms. Maintaining legacy systems is a staple of IT outsourcing firms, he noted.

Fersht also said Trumps effort to restrict visa will help push the industry to automate, in much the same way the auto industry has been automating. IT is no different, he said. But this may have more impact on lower-skilled workers.

Hira said he doubts that automation will bring many changes to IT services delivery. The industry remains very labor intensive and will remain so for the foreseeable future. The question is whether that labor is delivered from U.S. workers or foreign workers, who are offshore and on-site with guest worker visas.

Changes in guest worker policies, which impact offshoring decisions, will not impact the trajectory of automation adoption. It will, though, impact jobs for U.S. workers, in a positive way.

John Miano, the founder of the Programmers Guild, a group that opposes offshore outsourcing, and a programmer who became a lawyer, was buoyed by Trumps win. Miano has been fighting President Barack Obamas administration in court over its extension of the Optional Practical Training extension, which allows STEM students to work up to three years on a student visa.

There is great joy right now in tech worker land, Miano said. The next big question, he said, is what steps Trump will take. Miano said he hopes that Trump will reverse some of Obamas executive actions, but also take affirmative steps to use his authority to protect working Americans."
Best friends Mary Bencks, left and Cindy Limauro, right, both of Durham, stand outside the UNH Whittemore Center holding handmade signs. The two were there to see President Barack Obama speak on Monday. By ELLA NILSEN

Pres. Barack Obama shakes hands with members of the audience following a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama shakes hands with members of the audience following a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama shakes hands with members of the audience following a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama shakes hands with members of the audience following a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Scenes from Mondays Hillary Clinton campaign event featuring President Barack Obama at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Scenes from Mondays Hillary Clinton campaign event featuring President Barack Obama at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Scenes from Mondays Hillary Clinton campaign event featuring President Barack Obama at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Scenes from Mondays Hillary Clinton campaign event featuring President Barack Obama at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

A member of the audience snaps in agreement as Pres. Barack Obama speaks during Mondays Hillary Clinton campaign event at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Ellen Mosier of North Andover, Mass., cheers during Mondays Hillary Clinton campaign event featuring President Barack Obama at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Diane Huster of North Andover, Mass., cheers during Mondays Hillary Clinton campaign event featuring President Barack Obama at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama walks on stage during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama walks on stage during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Gov. Maggie Hassan speaks as Sen. Jeanne Shaheen stands in the background during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama speaks briefly to an outdoor overflow crowd during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Scenes from Mondays Hillary Clinton campaign event featuring President Barack Obama at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama speaks briefly to an outdoor overflow crowd during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama speaks briefly to an outdoor overflow crowd during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama speaks briefly to an outdoor overflow crowd during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly walk on stage during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Executive Councilor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Colin Van Ostern speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Executive Councilor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Colin Van Ostern speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Rep. Annie Kuster speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Rep. Annie Kuster speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Former congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Former congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords waves during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Gov. Maggie Hassan speaks during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

Pres. Barack Obama stands with Executive Councilor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Colin Van Ostern, Gov. Maggie Hassan, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and other Democratic legislators running for office at the end of a Hillary Clinton campaign rally at Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Election Day. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)

The 2016 election is the first one that motivated Durham resident Mary Bencks to get out and canvass for a candidate. And as she casts her ballot for Hillary Clinton today, Bencks plans to wear all white, a nod to the womens suffrage movement.

But first, Bencks and her best friend, Cindy Limauro, had a date to see President Obama. The two women beamed on Monday as they held BFFs for Hillary signs that Bencks had made that morning.

I think hes been wonderful, Limauro said. Im here for him as much as Hillary today.

With Clinton maintaining a slim lead over Republican Donald Trump, Obama made a stop in the Granite State Monday to stump for the former secretary of state. A thunderous cascade of applause and cheers greeted the president as he stepped onstage at the University of New Hampshires Whittemore Center.

It depends on you, Obama told the crowd of thousands. Donald Trump is uniquely unqualified to hold this job. And the good news is, New Hampshire, you are uniquely qualified to make sure he does not get this job, but youve got to vote!

It was yet another reminder of New Hampshires small but important contribution to the nations electoral math. With just four electoral votes, the notoriously independent Granite State is seen as a critical part of the campaigns strategies.

Some political experts are predicting a record number of voters today; New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner has estimated a turnout of 738,000.

Still, Obama was not leaving things up to chance.

Dont boo, vote! he reminded the crowd throughout his speech. Donald Trump cant hear your boos, but he can hear your vote.

After a bitter and divided 2016 election, Obama said it was now up to the people to decide the countrys fate.

You hold the most important office in a democracy, he said. Thats why we dont talk about I, we talk about we. We the people. We shall overcome. Yes we can. America has never been about what one person says hell do for us, its about what we can do together.

Recent days have seen the presidential race tighten amid a bombshell announcement by FBI Director James Comey that the bureau was looking at a new batch of Clinton emails to see if she had mishandled classified information as secretary of state.

By Sunday, however, it was revealed that many of the emails were duplicates of previously investigated ones. Comey said the FBI had finished its investigation, coming to the same conclusion it did this summer that no charges would be brought against Clinton.

The news has nevertheless cast a renewed sense of urgency for the Democrats campaign as she maintains a small national lead over her Republican rival.

Clinton held a Sunday night rally at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, where she was introduced by Gold Star family member Khizr Khan, the father of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, a Muslim-American soldier who was killed during the Iraq War.

Clinton spoke somberly during her speech, urging the crowd to cast their ballots on Tuesday morning. She also looked ahead to after the election, touching on the divisiveness of the campaign.

We will have some work to do to bring healing and reconciliation after this election, Clinton said. We havent been listening to one another and respecting one another.

Both Clinton and Obama encouraged their audiences to vote in down-ballot races as well as the presidential one, giving shout-outs to New Hampshires slate of Democratic candidates.

If we want Hillary to continue the progress weve made, shes going to need allies in the Senate, allies like Maggie Hassan, Obama said, jabbing Hassans opponent, Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte.

Maggies opponent, I gather that shes kind of running like shes a Democrat all of a sudden. But in Washington, she supports Mitch McConnell. In Washington, she supports a majority that has been consistently about saying no to everything, Obama said.

New Hampshire voters standing outside the Whittemore Center on Monday said they were anxious but hopeful about the outcome of the election  as well as what happens after.

Im nervous but optimistic, said Hooksett resident Judy Duval.

Her friend Barbara Gingrow of Londonderry agreed.

If she wins, people have to give her a chance for the sake of our young people, Gingrow said.

Duval says she knows Clinton isnt perfect, but she believes shes an intelligent and tested candidate.

She added that she hopes the country can heal after such a divisive election, and thinks people must come together to start the process in their local communities.

I think you just have to talk to your friends and hope they talk to their friends, she said.
New affordable housing in Five Points available for rent
Andrew Allison is Head of Campaigns at The Freedom Association.

The Royal College of Physicians stated earlier this year that the hazard to health arising from long-term vapour inhalation from the e-cigarettes available today is unlikely to exceed five per cent of the harm from smoking tobacco. In other words, e-cigarettes are at least 95 per cent safer than smoking combustible tobacco  cigarettes.

Public Health England (PHE) agrees, and in July this year created a framework for organisations that will assist them in creating vaping policies. This framework includes recommendations that organisations make a clear distinction between smoking and vaping, support smokers to stay smoke free, and ensure policies are informed by the evidence on health risks to bystanders.

This last recommendation is important because despite some scare stories, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has stated that the risk to bystanders from second hand vapour is negligible. In other words, there isnt a risk, and policies should reflect this and not succumb to ignorance and prejudice.

Bearing all the above in mind, we decided, through freedom of information requests, to find out what the vaping policies are in every council in the UK. The main findings are:

112 councils (29 per cent of those who responded) require vapers to use designated smoking areas in all or some circumstances, despite that fact that vapers are not smokers  indeed the vast majority of those who vape do so as a means of quitting combustible tobacco or to reduce the amount of tobacco they consume. Two included in the list required vapers to vape in close proximity to designated smoking areas.

335 councils (87 per cent of those who responded) have the same (or effectively the same) policy on vaping as they do on smoking.

Just one council  the London Borough of Enfield  allows vaping indoors and actively encourages staff to vape instead of smoking combustible tobacco, in line with recommendations from Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians.

Three other councils (Belfast, Chiltern and South Bucks) allow vaping at desks; however, they do so because currently there isnt a policy in place.

The levels of ignorance amongst councils the length and breadth of the country is breathtaking. For example, you cannot smoke an e-cigarette. I know the name e-cigarette doesnt help in this perception, but you do not light-up an e-cigarette  it is not combustible  and it does not contain tobacco. It does contain nicotine, which although not harmless, is certainly the least harmful component of a cigarette. Its not the nicotine that kills you, its the smoke, or the tar. Despite this, Glasgow Council said that e-cigarettes must be smoked externally in line with current policy. Ipswich Borough Council said that it considers the use of e-cigarettes to be a form of smoking, and Harlow Council states that the same procedures apply to both types of smoking.

Some councils are openly hostile to vaping. Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire states that it supports the aim of de-normalising smoking. The Council supports the tobacco control professionals who consider that the acceptance of e-cigarettes will undermine the now widely accepted view that smoking is unacceptable.

The professionals they are listening to are clearly not from PHE which said earlier this year that it is never acceptable to require vapers to share the same outdoor space with smokers. Where a designated outdoor smoking area has been provided in a public place or workplace, vapers should be allowed to vape elsewhere.

Councils may not wish to have arguments with staff about whether or not it is safe to allow indoor vaping, however, the policies they formulate should be evidence based  not based on ignorance or prejudice.

We have made three key recommendations:

All councils should review their vaping policies in line with the recommendations of Public Health England.

Those councils who currently require vapers to vape in designated smoking areas, should immediately change their policies.

All councils should allow some form of indoor vaping based on the current evidence that indoor vaping does not constitute a risk to public health.

Compiling this report has taken a huge amount of work. I havent done it as an academic exercise  I want it to be a catalyst for change. Reading the FOI responses was an eye-opener in many ways. Too many councils treat smokers in an appalling way and their policies deliberately make life as hard for them as possible. This is wrong and needs addressing. But if councils really mean what they say, and they do want to encourage their staff to give up smoking, then basing policy decisions on pure ignorance and prejudice is counterproductive to their aims.
James Frayne is Director of communications agency Public First and author of Meet the People, a guide to moving public opinion. The focus of this column is Theresa Mays conservatism for ordinary working people.

The British publics vote to leave the EU was a surprise to British political and media elites. Trumps winning of the Presidency was a shock to those same elites in the US. Why? And does it matter?

Answering the second question first: yes it does matter. If politicians and pundits end up with egg on their face after failed predictions, so what? But if those making political decisions, influencing them and analysing them are out of touch with large numbers of ordinary people, thats a big deal.

Without an accurate sense of public concern, politicians can make decisions that take them further away from those they represent. That stokes up disillusionment, irritation and anger. That doesnt mean politicians should always bow to public opinion (consider the death penalty). But politicians, advisers and the media must treat issues the public take seriously with the same seriousness.

Immigration is the most obvious British example. Public unease with immigration levels has been clear for years. Overwhelmingly, this related to worries about access to public services and jobs, rather than race and culture. The political and media class mostly ignored these concerns  and this led directly to Brexit.

The point is not that Brexit was bad and should have been avoided, but that major electoral surprises can happen, with unintended consequences, when those that govern lose contact with those they represent.

The ramifications of an out of touch media are less visible politically, but still count. The media generally purports to reflect public interest and effectively to offer a window into the public mind. Yet media outlets are becoming increasingly polemical and opinionated.

Politicians are less and less able to use the media for a guide to public concern  or even a sense-check on the desirability of their proposed policies.

Why is this all happening?

As I wrote last week, the British political and media class, with some exceptions, are either uninterested in provincial England or actively hostile to it. The same is true in its own way in large swathes of American public life. This simply means many in politics and the media dont understand the values and policy priorities of vast numbers of people.

At the risk of over-generalising (certainly about American politicos), these political and media classes tend to recruit people that have metropolitan values, are very highly educated, love life in places like London, Washington, D.C., and New York City, and come from wealthy backgrounds. Many spend little time in less affluent parts of their respective countries.

This shouldnt matter but it visibly emphatically does. Its not so much the sneering tone that political and media classes take to provincial voters that causes the sorts of results weve seen  although it doesnt help (after all, its not 100% clear how much people really notice it). But people clearly do recognise the fact theyre being ignored or wilfully opposed.

Revolutions are typically thought of as working class affairs, led by elites. In the UK and the US, weve seen leaderless revolutions of the lower middle class. The political and media class need to respond to the revolutionaries demands or theyll have to get used to more people like President Trump.
dtac, part of the Telenor Group and the second largest mobile operator in Thailand, has selected Nokia's IP/Optical portfolio for delivering ultra-broadband mobile access to more than 40 percent of Thailand's population. Financial terms were not disclosed.



The number of mobile subscribers in Thailand is increasing rapidly, stimulating greater demand for advanced networks to support surging data consumption. dtac needed a core network to handle the increased data demand, but also with the open interfaces and the programmability necessary to support a migration to SDN.



Nokia's 7950 Extensible Routing System (XRS) and the 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS), will replace dtac's existing IP core routing and DWDM infrastructure. dtac is also deploying Nokia's Wavelength Routing Engine GMPLS (Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching) Control Plane at the optical layer to provide automated network operation, as well as Nokia's security gateway for dtac's LTE network.



Sebastien Laurent, head of Nokia Thailand, said: "Deploying Nokia's end-to-end IP/DWDM Core solution provides the foundation for an SDN-centric network and will allow dtac to implement on-demand services while also easing operation and maintenance demands. Deploying this technology will make dtac the first carrier in Thailand positioned to implement carrier SDN in preparation for the cloud era."



http://www.nokia.com
Learn advanced tips, communication techniques and perspectives with Reid Mihalko.

If you've figured out that non-monogamy is right for you, but you could use some advanced tips and perspectives. If you've read the Ethical Slut and Opening UpIf you belong to every polyamory Facebook group known to hummankind. If you're the person all your friends come to for relationship advice

Then Polyamory: Beyond The Basics with Reid Mihalko is going to be a GREAT night of learning, laughing, and upgrading your relationship kung-fu!

Intentionally designed to cover information beyond Non-Monogamy 101, in Polyamory: Beyond The Basics, Reid will cover:

Different "Polyamory-Fits" and how to find poly-styles that match yours!How to navigate Slut/Slut-Lite self-expressions in and out of non-monogamy (Because it's not always about libido, people!)Advance scheduling and negotiating techniques to make poly life easier!Pre-emptive communication techniques to lessen upset in your "relationship eco-systems" and help make non-monogamy more sustainableHow to navigate "Liger Relationships" - When poly people date swingers and visa versaAdvanced tips for Poly-Mono relationshipsAnd more!

There will be time for Q&A, so please bring your questions, a notebook, and all your lovers!

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Get a $20 Self Serve gift card when you sign up for all three special edition classes in November

Wednesday Nov. 2nd - Anal Sex for Everyone w/ Tristan Taormino

Wednesday Nov. 9th - Rough Sex for Nice Folks W/ Reid Mihalko

Thursday Nov. 10th  Polyamory: Beyond the Basics!

ABOUT REID: Reid Mihalko of ReidAboutSex.com helps adults create more self-esteem, self-confidence and greater health in their relationships and sex lives, no matter what their self-expression of those happen to be.

Reid has appeared on Oprahs Our America With Lisa Ling on OWN, the Emmy award-winning talk show Montel, Dr. Phils The Doctors on CBS, Bravos Miss Advised, Fox News, in Newsweek, Seventeen, GQ, People, Details, Marie Claire, The National Enquirer, The Washington Post, on VH1s Scott Baio is 45 and Single, Showtimes Penn & Tellers Bulls**t!, Canadas The Sex Files and SexTV, and the short-lived Life & Style, on NPR, Sirius Maxim Radio, Playboy Radio and Cosmo Radio, and in thirteen countries and at least seven languages.

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Applications & OS News

SAP Targets Digital Transformation Projects With Its Next Generation Of The HANA Platform

Rick Whiting

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SAP will ship at the end of this month SAP HANA 2, a new edition of the company's in-memory database offering a slew of new data management, analytical intelligence and application development capabilities.

With the new edition, a significant upgrade for the original HANA that debuted in late 2010, SAP is doubling down on HANA as a platform for spurring digital transformation among its customer base.

The announcement, made at this week's SAP TechEd conference in Barcelona, comes just a week after the company launched a new release of SAP S/4HANA, the company's flagship ERP application suite that runs on HANA.

[Related: SAP reports 28 Percent Cloud Revenue Growth, Surging S/4HANA Sale In Q3]

"Our goal is to help IT organizations evolve their operations into agile organizations for digital transformation," said Marie Goodell, vice president and senior director of marketing for the HANA platform, in an interview. "Our goal with this release is to help customers really innovate."

HANA 2 will be released on Nov. 30 and SAP plans to ship the express edition of HANA 2, the version that runs on desktops and laptops and is popular with developers, shortly after to help IT organizations jumpstart new development projects.

The May 2016 release of the original HANA  known as HANA SPS12  will be the last release of that software, although the software code will be maintained until 2019, Goodell said. Going forward all new enhancements will be in HANA 2 and the company plans on delivering new releases twice a year.

SAP is also in the process of certifying its own products, including SAP Business Warehouse (BW/4HANA) and the SAP S/4HANA application suite, to run on HANA 2. Goodell said that validation work would likely be completed sometime around the end of 2016 or into the first quarter of 2017.

Among the improvements in HANA 2 is a new Enterprise Architecture Designer Edition for SAP HANA, which expands the system's data modeling capabilities. New high-availability, security, workload management and administration functionality better ensure business continuity.

On the analytical intelligence side, HANA 2 has new processing engines for text, spatial, graph and streaming data, while new algorithms for classification, association, time series and regression have been added to the predictive analytics library. SAP also said it has added new machine learning capabilities to its SAP BusinessObjects business analytics software and SAP Lumera data discovery tool  in both on-premise and cloud editions.

This week SAP also unveiled new business services for its SAP HANA Cloud Platform, the vendor's Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering, including a virtual machine, an Ariba Cloud integration gateway, an API business hub, new workflow services, business rule functionality and data quality microservices. Also added were analysis and transformation capabilities for streaming data and predictive analysis services for applications running on the platform.

The new edition of SAP S/4HANA, available now, is the third major release of the on-premise ERP application suite that initially debuted on February 3, 2015. The new release, officially SAP S/4HANA 1610, utilizes a simplified data model and SAP's Fiori 2.0 user interface.

Last month, when reporting its third-quarter financial results, SAP said more than 4,100 customers had adopted S/4HANA since its initial launch and about 10 percent of the company's ERP application customer base is now using S/4HANA. More than 80 percent of those implementations are supported by SAP's channel ecosystem, said Sven Denecken, senior vice president and S/4HANA product manager, in an interview with CRN.

The new release builds more native industry functionality into the software's "digital core," a change from SAP's earlier practice of providing industry-specific functions through add-on applications. The new approach helps address the lack of support for industry features in earlier releases  an issue that presented a potential roadblock to customer adoption of S/4HANA, said Julien Delvat, an SAP S/4HANA consultant at Bluefin Solutions, an SAP channel partner, in a blog post.

The new release also addresses what Delvat identifies as S/4HANA issues, including an unclear roadmap for several key applications and incomplete coverage for lines of business outside of finance.

The 1610 release "looks to be the first release of S/4HANA that 'mainstream' customers can adopt," Delvat said. "In particular, the coverage of most industry capabilities, the new innovations delivered for all lines of business, and the updated UX [user interface] are contributing to a compelling value proposition."

Many of the enhancements and new features in the latest release center on the suite's supply chain management applications, adding new inventory management, material requirement planning, extended warehouse management and "advanced available to promise" capabilities. The new release also incorporates all features of SAP S/4HANA Finance.
What's Next For Lenovo's Channel?

Channel Chief Sammy Kinlaw says Lenovo's business with small- and midsize-business-focused solution providers grew 40 percent in the second quarter, and the company is getting ready to ramp up new programs designed to push partners into selling services and to establish its own PC-as-a-service business.

Lenovo rolled out its "Partner Sold, Partner Delivered" services program to partners in the spring, and Kinlaw said success with the 21 partners in the pilot means the program will be offered more widely beginning in January.

The global PC company's data center strategy, which revolves around partnerships with hot software vendors like Nutanix, Cloudian and Nimble Storage, will not change as executives figure out how to drive those products into large accounts and keep prices low enough to compete with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell EMC.

Kinlaw spoke with CRN after Lenovo reported second-quarter sales declines across its business units and revealed another round of changes to its executive ranks, moving former Data Center Group chief Gerry Smith into a role as executive vice president of the PC and Smart Device Business Group and hiring former Intel executive Kirk Skaugen to head the Data Center Group.

Here's what Kinlaw had to say about Lenovo's position in the PC market, as well as the evolution of the company's data center battle plan.
Wendy Bahr On Apple, HPE, Partner Summit

Fresh off Cisco Partner Summit 2016, Cisco's channel chief, Wendy Bahr, sat down with CRN Executive Editor Jennifer Follett and Associate Editor Mark Haranas to talk about the highlights from the conference as well as competition with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and how partners should take advantage of Cisco's partnership with Apple.

Cisco Partner Summit was held in San Francisco from Nov.1 to Nov. 3 where the San Jose, Calif.-based networking giant unleashed a slew of new products and channel promotions. Bahr, senior vice president of Cisco's Global Partner Organization, also talked to CRN about bringing operational technology partners around the Internet of Things into the channel mix, crafting a new version 2.0 of its Enterprise License Agreements for software, and the importance of Cisco's Customer Success team aimed at driving channel sales.
So lets just get this out of the way up front: I voted for Hillary Clinton. Not because I like her  I dont  but because there are a few issues on which Im on her side and the prospect of Donald Trump being president scared the shit out of me. I consider myself an independent and think my beliefs fall generally in-line with many millennials. I think everyone should have the right to own a gun, but it should be much tougher to get one and there should be limits on what it can do. I think climate change is a real thing and theres no reason why there shouldnt eventually be solar panels on every roof and that the Republicans in the pocket of big oil are shameful and literally ruining the world for their own gain. I think taxes and regulation are too high and unfairly impact the middle class. I think there should be more competition in the healthcare marketplace and Im already fed up with Obamacare. I think American military dominance is ultimately the thing that keeps us safe and that idealistic liberals are way too naive and fail to understand that simple dynamic. Im torn on abortion I think women should have the option, in certain cases, but that were way too callous about it, and the first time you see your unborn child on an ultrasound, your opinion changes in some way. You can disagree with me on any of those things. I dont hate you. I tell you only so you can see where Im coming from here and that I really didnt have a horse in this race and seriously considered writing in my balls on the ballot, because I really hated both of these candidates.

So how did Trump win? The media, the Democrats, the Republicans, the establishment no one saw this coming. They underestimated the hurt and struggle for many in this country. They keyed on the hate and the vocal minority of Trump supporters and failed to account for the many, many reasonable others who found something in his message, which was largely the same message Bernie Sanders had. Whether it was the unemployed factory worker, the bigoted hunter, the guy who just saw his health insurance go up 30%, the anti-Hillary moderate, or one of the millions of people on both sides of the aisle who were upset with the status quo, Trump hit on something for many people. The media simultaneously gave him a voice and then acted shocked that anyone was listening. They continuously underestimated and misunderstood what made his message stick.

Im not defending Donald Trump. I think hes crazy and Im terrified that hes going to be our president. I watched his entire speech last night with my jaw unhinged. But couched in many of the crazy, racist, sexist, xenophobic, hurtful, dumb things he said, there were some accurate observations on the way our country functions. There wasnt some grand conspiracy for Hillary, but there is a complicit virtuous cycle, an ecosystem of politics, media, lobbying and business that enabled her candidacy to become a foregone conclusion. People hop in and out of politics and the media and back and again. The revolving door is a real thing brilliantly described in Mark Leibovichs This Town, an incredible (and funny) book about the ridiculousness of Washington D.C. She was a terrible candidate. People simply dont like her. They wanted change and she represented the complete opposite. It didnt help that she was perceived as a lying crook. But the establishment and media never questioned her inevitable candidacy. She probably wouldve lost to Bernie Sanders if the Democratic party didnt bury the primary debates on Friday nights, something the media never questioned and simply accepted. They bought into the Clinton hype machine and failed to consider the endless supply of information (and disinformation) available and the fact that people dont need the mainstream media to shape their opinions anymore. Its not just niche cases everyone has some independent website they read, documentary they like, or podcast they listen to that is free to question the way things are in a way the media doesnt.

Bernie, whether you agree with his politics or not, hit on many of the same issues that Trump did, and, unlike most ultra liberals, isnt staunchly anti-gun due to being from Vermont and probably wouldve appealed to many Trump voters. In other words he probably wouldve won. Hillary essentially had to cheat to beat him. And it shows you just how terrible of a candidate she was that couldnt then beat a guy who is widely considered and accepted to be a sexist, racist asshole.

Many people feel that Trump won because hes a sexist, racist asshole, or because Hillary is a woman and the country is still sexist. I think both of the claims ring hollow. Id argue Trump won despite those things. Sure, there are many people to whom he appealed because of his hateful rhetoric, but there were likely as many, if not more people who were turned off by it and didnt vote for him as a result. Remember, he went down in the polls after the pussy comment. Never mind the fact that he trounced, like, 10 other guys (and 1 woman) en route to earning the nomination. Hillary was the only one who even came close. In fact, she got more votes than he did. He won because of a silly quirk, or bug, or feature, whatever, in our election system. So the notion that he won because hes a sexist, racist asshole, I think, is wrong. And Hillary likely earned more votes than she lost because shes a woman, just like Barack Obama earned more votes than he lost because hes black. It actually says something positive about our country that the issue of Hillary being a woman rarely came up, even by the most awful Trump supporters. In fact, it was the Hillary campaign that kept harping on the topic with applause lines that often rang hollow.

It was frustrating to watch last night exasperated media members  including some on FOX News  who couldnt believe what was happening. Setting aside the errors in polling and such, the mainstream media is extremely disconnected from the average American, and not only did they fail to account for the real hurt many of them are feeling, but they also further incensed many of the more extreme Trump supporters by playing right into his claims of media bias, complicit-cy and conspiracy. If you set aside the hateful rhetoric and his laughable delivery and just read his words, some of what Trump said in the debates  mostly about the economy, healthcare and trade  made sense. If you could separate Trump the character from his policy, when he actually had one, there were some things to like about Trump the candidate. The media, however, couldnt do that and focused almost exclusively on Trump the character. Im not saying he didnt give them plenty of fodder, but sometimes they went too far. The media worked itself into a lather trying to find anything on Trump. I follow a ton journalists on Twitter. Too many. Ive been doing this for six years and over that time have followed countless reporters in all verticals and from publications big and small, local and international, mainstream and independent, and I cant tell you how many times I saw a Tweet containing a hollow bit about Trump. The enterprising liberal who tweeted it thought they had stumbled upon the smoking gun that would bring him down. Often times, it was nonsense, some self-righteous reaction to a relatively mundane factoid about Trump or his family. They were mostly too frivolous to even recall individually, but one story about Trump licensing his name to developers and not actually taking on the risks of development himself at some of his properties really stood out. That wasnt some gotcha moment it was simply a description of a common business practice. The liberal media, most of which wouldnt understand simple capitalism if it hit them in the smug fucking face, smeared Trump over stuff like this, not understanding that they both sounded like idiots and were further fueling his main supporters. Keying on the failures of Trumps merchandising and branding efforts showed an even greater misunderstanding of how business works. John Olivers famous rant, while fun, skewered Trump for failures in things that totally dont matter Trump Water, Trump Steaks, and Trump Magazine. These werent his main business ventures, they were licensed branding plays. Trumps company didnt actually bottle water, source steaks, or run magazines, you fucking idiots, it simply lent his name out (for profit) to someone else who did. There was plenty to dissect about Trumps business and personal failures, but these ancillary bullshitties served as absurd distractions and often made the media look foolish and biased. Even the stuff that sort of mattered, like Trump not releasing his tax returns or bankrupting his businesses, wasnt as hurtful to him as the media thought it was. Trump admitting that he took a massive loss and used it to not pay taxes for years is the sort of brutal dont-give-a-fuck honesty that appealed to his supporters. To them, he exposed a system that needed exposing. The effort to discredit Trump over everything torpedoed the real reporting that largely showed he was unfit to be president. It became hard to decipher what was a meaningful story and what was just hysteric noise to tear him down. The media piled on, to Trumps benefit, and never stopped to consider what it was in his message that actually appealed to people, pumping up the walking definition of an establishment candidate in the process. Way to go.

Believe it or not, the best explanation of this phenomena came from Michael Moore. FOX News, of all places, commended him last night for spotting this and eloquently explaining it in his TrumpLand movie or performance. He understood that disenfranchised blue-collar folks who would otherwise vote Democrat saw something in Trump, whose message, as hollow as it may turn out to be, trumped (sorry) Hillarys stellar ground game. I think Im registered as an independent, but I had briefly registered as a Democrat in 2008 so I could vote in that primary (for Barack Obama). I got no less than four calls and two text messages yesterday asking if I planned to vote for Hillary. Their effort was downright impressive. I thought it was what would put her over the edge. And yet, it still wasnt enough to compete with Trumps reach and his understanding of modern communication. The traditional mechanisms no longer apply. Trump can reach the world with a few taps of his small fingers. He can compel every cable news channel to broadcast his speeches live. He appealed directly to voters.

Of course, the scary part, is that Russia helped him along the way. Hillarys emails were fair game once they came out, but the fact that it was likely Russia who helped make them public is downright frightening. And hey remember that story from yesterday about the guy who turned up dead in the Russian consulate? Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I dont even want to think about that one.

Hillary was a more experienced and capable candidate. She may be a liar, she may have committed a crime, but she was ultimately more fit to be president. Her speech today showed it. That Hillary, the sincere, genuine one who actually demonstrated that she cares about others, wouldve won. But she was establishment to a fault. She couldnt get out of her own way. She was too rehearsed, too much of a careful candidate in an election that was looking for the exact opposite. I believe there are things she cares deeply about, but it was hard to tell what they were because everything she said and did was focus-grouped to the point of being offensive. Trump, on the other hand, shot from the hip. He told it like it is, or how he thought it should be. The fact that he was an imperfect candidate who made mistakes actually endeared him to many otherwise intelligent people.

The fact is, this whole election was fucked. Everyone missed something. We were given lousy choices and got a lousy outcome because few realized who was lousier. Fingers crossed we didnt just blow up the whole damn thing.
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A New Addington school has paid tribute to former student Dane Chinnery who was killed in the tragic Croydon tram crash.

Mr Chinnery has been named as the first of the seven victims who died when a tram derailed near Sandilands tram stop at 6.10am.

The 19-year-old was a former pupil at Meridian High School, on Fairchildes Avenue.

This morning head teacher Martin Giles has paid tribute to Mr Chinnery as well as revealing that at least three other former pupils were involved in the tragedy.

He said: "The staff and students at Meridian High School have been heartbroken this morning to hear that a former student died yesterday.

"We have extended our deepest sympathies to the family and do so to the wider community, who have all been so affected. To our knowledge, at least three other former students have also been injured. All of the staff in the school shares their pain at this difficult time.

"As a school our first priority is to look after our students. As the full extent of what happened yesterday transpires, we are aware that many students have been directly and indirectly affected. We have made safe spaces and councillors available for those students who need some time out or support.

"The victims and their families are in our thoughts and prayers and we stand ready to support the community in any way that we can."

Friends and family have started to pay tribute to Mr Chinnery, with one friend - Billie-Joe Ingrams telling the Advertiser: "Dane was the highlight of our year group in high school, there was never a dull moment nor any anger or dispute to be had with him.

"He [Dane] was there for me through a lot and I loved him like a brother, I'll never forget him and it is horrible to see such a great person go."

Five people were pronounced dead at the scene, however another two died later in the day from their injuries.

In their latest update a BTP spokesman told the Advertiser that the death toll remains at seven.
Crystal Cruises announced the appointment of Kris Endreson as the director of sales and marketing for the growing companys air division. Endreson will oversee sales, marketing and revenue strategy for both of Crystals air brand experiences, from the Miami branch office, reporting directly to Marc Cavaliere, senior vice president of all Crystal aviation ventures.

As Crystals air division continues its trajectory skyward with the recently announced 15- to 29-day global itineraries for Crystal AirCruises beginning with the inaugural journey on Aug. 31, 2017 as well as a second Global Express Jet to join the Crystal Luxury Air fleet next year, Endresons 20-year track record of cruise and luxury travel industry experience will bring a wealth of expertise to Crystals executive team. She will work closely with the sales force, providing training and support, and act in a central role in forming strategic relationships with high-end travel partners and influencers.

This is such an exciting time of growth for the Crystal family, and the addition of talented industry experts like Kris will only help ensure our continued success and expanding reach to worldwide travelers, said Crystal CEO and president, Edie Rodriguez. Were happy to welcome Kris aboard, and continue to project our focus on delivering unparalleled luxury travel experiences to our guests.
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BRIDGEPORT  Its not easy to estimate how quickly a new apartment building will become fully leased. Its like an election  you never know, said Kim Morque, principal at Spinnaker Real Estate Partners.

On Wednesday the Spinnaker staff, its partners and city and state officials celebrated the opening of the Harral Security Wheeler development on Main Street. The first project to be redeveloped in what is known as Downtown North, the 70 studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments in the eight-story building are already 40 percent leased.

Were off to a good start, Morque said.

Spinnaker, in a joint venture with the Trefz Corp., recently completed its adaptive reuse of the former office building that dates to 1904. Morque said most of the building was gutted and the work included the addition of a new staircase.

Uncovered during the redevelopment were several surprises, including an elaborate pattern engraved in cast iron around the main entrance of the building. The pattern had been hidden in a 1970s-era renovation.

Enclosing the buildings atrium with glass partitions to contain smoke in case of a fire was also a major project, Morque said, adding that city building inspectors were on the site monitoring the progress constantly. You can believe this is the safest and most compliant building in all of Bridgeport and probably Connecticut and all America, Morque said, with a laugh.

The Housing Development Fund was the first commercial tenant to move into the building. Its a great space, said Catherine Halstead, senior leads manager for the organization, adding that the site sees plenty of foot traffic.

City Lights Gallery, which is in a temporary space at 855 Main St., is slated to move into the complex next year. The building has multiple commercial spaces available.

Were looking for small businesses  professional firms, design firms; the local architect or engineer would be terrific, Morque said. We didnt really set the spaces up for food or restaurants. We think theres enough food or restaurants downtown now so we want to make sure those stay vibrant.

The mixed-use building adds housing options to a neighborhood that has seen its residential population triple over the last decade. Its also the first long-vacant building to be occupied in the Downtown North area, which contains a half-dozen or so dilapidated structures.

The Security building contains amenities including a rooftop patio and fitness center. Studio rents range from $950 to $1,200, one-bedroom unit rents are between $1,100 and $1,500 and the two-bedrooms are going for $1,400 to $1,800.

This hopefully is the catalyst that is going to move everything happening in the south end (of the downtown) to the north, said Thomas Gill, the citys economic development director.

Gill said residents and visitors downtown will see more activity in Downtown North next year. He said the Jayson-Newfield buildings, under development by Urban Green Builders, will close on its financing by the end of the year and the work already started will move forward quickly.

Next to that is what is known as the Preservation Block, where Spinnaker is finalizing its plans. A tulip museum next to the Harral Wheeler Security buildings should be completed next year.

Helen Muniz, community development specialist for the state Department of Housing, which funded part of the $21 million price tag on the Security project, said she was impressed by the results. I know what it takes to undergo a gut rehab, she said. This is a good day for Bridgeport.

ktorres@hearstmediact.com; 203-330-6227
FAIRFIELD  Fairfield University is ranked first among universities in the North for giving veterans a smooth path to a college degree.

So says U.S. News & World Report, which released its ratings on Thursday, the day before Veterans Day.

Also making the top 25 were Quinnipaic University in Hamden, at sixth place, and Sacred Heart University, ranked 25th.

The ratings take into account participation in federal initiatives helping veterans and active-duty service members pay for their degrees. Schools reported on their benefits for veterans as part of U.S. News annual statistical survey of undergraduate schools during spring and summer 2016.

To make the list, institutions had to be certified for the GI Bill, participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program or be a public school that charges in-state tuition to all out-of-state veterans. Each college also had to have 20 or more students who used GI Bill benefits to partially or fully finance their tuition and fees during 2015-2016.

At Fairfield, the recognition was noted at a Veterans Commemoration Ceremony which also marked the 241st birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps. Statistics on the number of veterans among the universitys student body were not available.

During the ceremony, an American flag was raised that was given to the University by Lt. Col. Timothy Biggs of the U.S. Air Force in appreciation for the education his daughter, Class of 2016 graduate Taylor Biggs, received at Fairfield under the Post-9/11 GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon Program. The flag has flown over Iraq and Afghanistan during combat missions.

The gathering also heard from Meredith Kazer, who served in the Army Nurse Reserve Corps.

This Veterans Day were called together in words of honor and appreciation for those men and women who have left their families, their lives and all theyve known to keep us safe and promote peace and freedom in our neighboring countries, Kazer said.

Kazer also spoke about Fairfields School of Nursing and Health Studies partnership with the Veterans Administration.

(It) ensures that our students have the practice opportunities to care for both the physical and mental health needs of our veterans, Kazer said.
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FAIRFIELD  A Connecticut prosecutor has determined that the fatal shooting of a man who police say attacked his wife and children was justified.

Stamford-Norwalk States Attorney Richard Colangelo Jr. released his findings Thursday in the February 16 shooting death of Christopher Andrews. Colangelo said Fairfield Police Officer Sean Fenton believed the use of deadly force was necessary to defend himself and others from Andrews.

A police report said Andrews stabbed his wife and injured his two sons on Feb. 16, while acting like a man possessed. His wife and sons survived. Authorities say Andrews cut his wrist and stabbed himself in the neck after the attack.

Colangelo said Fenton, responding to a 911 call, was forced to open fire when Andrews came at him with a knife and refused commands to drop the weapon.

For police officers, day in and day out, they go out there and, hopefully, they never have to find themselves in this type of situation, Fairfield Police Chief Gary MacNamara said after Colangelo announced his findings.

Officer Fenton found himself in this in one of these situations, and I believe his actions saved the lives of others, MacNamara said. But at the same time, we have to remember there is a family, and a community that is suffering, and will forever be suffering as a result of this tragedy, and we have to keep them in mind.

Michael Meehan of Bridgeport, the lawyer for Andrews widow, asked for privacy for the family.

At this point, we are still digesting all the material and his conclusion regarding the facts of this terrible tragedy, Meehan said.

He declined to comment on whether the family planned to take any civil action against the Fairfield Police Department or the officer, adding that he met with Colangelo prior to the report being released.

Fenton is back on full duty. MacNamara said now that the State Police investigation of the incident has concluded, his department would finish its internal investigation into the officers actions.

The reasons for Andrews behavior remain unclear.

Associate Medical Examiner Dr. Angela McGuire submitted blood specimens from Andrews. But testing did not find anything of toxicological significance, officials said, despite speculation that Andrews had been taking a sleep aid because he was distraught over the recent death of his mother.

We had hoped the why would have been answered, MacNamara said.

The Associated Press and staff writer Cedar Attanasio contributed to this report.
BRIDGEPORTA federal judged sentenced a Waterbury man, formerly of Bridgeport, to 37 months in prison and three years of supervised release Tuesday.

In May, Stephen Goins, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
FAIRFIELD  When Officer Sean Fenton had to make a split-second decision Tuesday morning to draw his gun when confronted by Christopher Andrews outside his Mountain Laurel Road home  an encounter that turned fatal when Andrews was hit by shots fired by the officer  Fenton became one of only a few Fairfield officers to have discharged a handgun at another person in the line of duty.

Most of the departments officers will make it through their entire career without ever having to even take their gun from its holster while on duty in this traditionally quiet town.

But Lt. James Perez has personal insight into the fateful choice Fenton, a Fairfield officer 26 years, was forced to make this week. It was Flag Day, June 14, 2002, and Perez, just promoted to sergeant, had just started a midnight shift when he heard a fellow officers agitated radio call about a possible sniper.

Perez sped to the lower Black Rock Turnpike address of what was then Boston Billiards, across the street from BJs Wholesale Club.

Officer Chris Rubis was a low-key guy, Perez said, and he was yelling into the mike. I flew down Kings Highway.

At that point, he recalled, the adrenaline was pumping fast. As he pulled up to address, Perez said he was already mentally going over the best place to position himself. I get out of the car and Im looking at (Rubis), who is squatting behind a car, pointing his gun toward the suspect, Perez said.

Rubis had already shot the suspect at least once. Perez yelled to Rubis, but Rubis didnt hear him. I had to run up to him and touch him for him to realize I was there, he said.

Perez then ran behind a Bronco to get closer to the suspect, who was standing in the parking lot, a gun in his hand, so he could try and talk to him. Shots ring out, and Perez hit the ground. All I could hear was the plink, plink of shells hitting the asphalt, he remembered. Perez demanded the man drop the .44 magnum he was holding. Instead, the man started firing again at Rubis.

We were about 20 yards away, Perez said, and then the man was holding the gun sideways, pointing it at me. Perez fired his gun, hitting the gunman  who had been smoking PCP-laced marijuana  in the shoulder and knee. He drops to the ground, but he still wouldnt let go of the gun. Finally, the man did, and Perez said he realized by then there were nine other cops in the parking lot with guns trained on the gunman, who was taken into custody.

At that point, police protocol for shootings was initiated with Perez, Rubis and Officer Peter Stansfield turning over their guns as the investigation began.

I know exactly what Sean is going through, Perez said of the fatal shooting outside Andrews Mountain Laurel Road home. Its a surreal feeling, things are happening so fast.

When an officer is engaged in an active-shooter situation and fires his weapon, Peres said the officer initially experiences tunnel vision, all you see is that person he said. Next is what he called time dilation with everything happening in slow motion and the third is auditory exclusion  as when Perez said all he could hear was the noise of shells hitting the ground.

Youre so hyper aware, and focused on the shooter, all these other things just disappear, he said.

After the shooting, Perez was put on mandated administrative leave. They ask you to stay home, to decompress, he said, and meet with a psychiatrist, who has the authority to clear an officer to return to duty. I think it was four days for me, he said.

Perez said, when he first became a police officer, he came to terms with the reality there could come a time when he would have to use his gun  and possibly kill someone. If its going to be them or me, its going to be them, he said.

Fairfield officers are trained to handle situations, Perez said, where a suspect  actually, a paper target on a rail, armed with a knife  is just 21 feet away. The target then begins to move toward the officer, he explained. Some officers were not event able to unholster their guns before the training suspect was almost on top of them, Perez said.

It is difficult job, Perez said, and not everyone can handle the pressure.

In the late 1980s, Officer Ronald Thompson was called to a home to assist employees from Bridgeport Mental Health, who were trying to bring a schizophrenic man to the hospital. Thompson went to an bedroom upstairs, and was confronted by the man, who swung an axe at him. Thompson fired his gun, killing the man. Thompson lated decided to take early retirement from the police force, and filed a lawsuit against the deceased mans family.

Whenever there are news reports of an office involved shooting, Perez said, his mind travels back to that night. But it isnt something he talks about much, he said, even now as he travels across the country leading active-shooter training seminars for law-enforcement agencies.

Maybe we feel like no ones going to understand, Perez said.
Cuba and Mexico Consider Larger Trade Exchange

Submitted by: Juana

Havana

Mexico

Business and Economy

11 / 09 / 2016



Cuban and Mexican authorities are meeting in Havana to boost bilateral exchange on regulatory issues, the pharmaceutical market and to explore business opportunities.

Both sides are expected to sign a memo of understanding during the meeting which winds up on Wednesday.

Mexican ambassador to Cuba Enrique Martinez told reporters that bilateral commercial relations continue to increase as well as links on research and health cooperation.

Meanwhile, the first vice-president of the Cuban Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industrial Group (BioCubaFarma), Eduardo Martinez, said that they are considering a group of products and technology that could be of interest for Cuba.

The Cuban and Mexican authorities have thus far agreed to setting up a technical team to sort out steps towards complete recognition of manufacture certificates and practices, as well as clinical protocols and sanitary registration.
Qatar and Cuba to Strengthen Bonds

Cuba's newly appointed ambassador to Doha Eumelio Caballero and Qatari Foreign Minister Bin Saad Al Muraikhi analyzed the pace of bilateral relations between their countries and considered prospects to further develop those links.

The two officials met in the capital Doha as the Cuban appointed ambassador handed over to the Qatari Foreign Minister a copy of the document that accredits him as top Cuban representative in that Persian Gulf nation, PL news agency reported.

During the meeting, the Qatari minister wished the new ambassador success in his diplomatic mission and offered him his support.

The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani visitd Cuba in late 2015. His visit boosted bilateral relations particularly commercial exchange.

Cuba and Qatar cooperation relations include the areas of health and investment projects, the construction of hotels, air connections and other economic initiatives. Qatars National Bank will reportedly open a branch office in Cuba, which will make it one of ten foreign Banks represented in Cuba.
Thursday 10

Superstore (KOB-4 7:30pm) America loves jumping the gun on Christmas. Christmas songs are already airing on the radio, for crying out loud. Here, NBCs retail workplace sitcom tackles the topic of Black Fridaya good two weeks early.

Friday 11

MECH-X4 (Disney 9:30pm) In Disneys newest live-action/CGI series, four high school friends discover a 150-foot-tall robot, which they then use to save the Earth from alien monsters. The kids from Voltron would like a word with them.

Payday (Viceland 7pm) This new docuseries follows twentysomethings over the course of a single payday to see how they struggle and survive. We start in Reno, Nev., with a valet-turned-rapper, a funeral director, a cam girl and the Muslim Republican County Chairman.

Saturday 12

Every Christmas Has a Story (Hallmark 6pm) So here I am back at my annual dilemma: Am I going to list every single stinking RomCom Hallmark airs this season about cynical young professionals who manage to fall in love after being overcome by the spirit of Christmas?

The Killing Season (A&E 7pm) Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) executive produces this immersive, investigative series in which filmmakers Joshua Zeman and Rachel Mills try to solve the real-life nightmare of a serial killer on Long Island.

Sunday 13

Christmas Cookies (Hallmark 6pm) A cynical young professional is sent to shut down a small-town cookie factorybut falls in love with the factorys hunky owner after shes overcome by the spirit of Christmas. ... Well, I guess that answers that question.

ISIS: Rise of Terror (History 7pm) History Channel gives us the dope on historical events that spawned the creation of the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

Monday 14

Mars (National Geographic 7pm) NatGeo explores how Mars could be colonized in this half- scripted/ half- documentary series following a crew of fictitious astronauts on a mission in the year 2033.

Soundbreaking: Stories From the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music (KNME-5 9pm) PBS explores the history of the recording industry in this new musical series. Topic number one? The role of the record producerfrom George Martin to Dr. Dre.

Tuesday 15

Wrench Against the Machine (Esquire 7pm) Esquire tosses another motorcycle-building competition onto the TV heap.

David Blaine: Beyond Magic (KOAT-7 9pm) David Blaine astonishes easily astonished celebrities like David Beckham, Drake, Steph Curry, John Travolta, Emma Stone and Arnold Schwarzenegger with his super-cool street magic.

Shooter (USA 8pm) The 2007 movie of the same name (based on the book Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter) gets a TV spin off. Ryan Phillipe replaces Mark Wahlberg as the military sniper caught in a conspiracy.

Sweet/Vicious (MTV 11pm) In this timely action comedy, two millenials become vigilante superheroes on their college campus to combat sexual assault.

Wednesday 16

Nightcap (POP 6pm) This scripted sitcom features the behind-the-scenes antics of a late-night talkshow. The guests, however, are realincluding Gwyneth Paltrow, Whoopi Goldberg, Michael J. Fox and Kelly Ripa.
Democrats saw a surge in new voters in Pennsylvania as midterms near
Journalism senior, Jacob Woloshin, monitors TweetDeck to find tweets of users in Oklahoma who had problems at the voting polls for Election Land.

Sarah Blevins Journalism senior, Jacob Woloshin, monitors TweetDeck to find tweets of users in Oklahoma who had problems at the voting polls for Election Land.

This year, University of Memphis journalism students were encouraged to get involved in the 2016 election, not only to exercise their right to vote, but to volunteer to help professional journalists get the inside scoop on problems that happened on election day.

Professor Joseph Hayden of the journalism department helped to make University of Memphis one of 13 colleges in the United States to participate in Electionland, an organization that monitors voting poll problems during the election.

aThis is the first of its kind experiment involving journalism and democracy,a Hayden said. aElectionland gives student journalists the opportunity to help professional journalists find stories that would otherwise cost a professional several hours to get. By finding and fact-checking social media posts all day and sharing them to the Check website, professional journalists of ProPublica, USA Today, Gannett and other news organizations are able to follow story leads and ultimately turn a social media post into an investigative story.a

Sarah Blevins Journalism students participated in the Electionland project. The goal is to warn others about problems at the polls

U of M students who volunteered to be a part of Electionland were in charge of monitoring posts made on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, from individuals who posted or tweeted about issues they had at the polls on election day in Tennessee, Kentucky and Oklahoma, while departments from other schools around the country covered other states.

Students used TweetDeck and Facebook Signal to find posts that were related to voting poll problems via hashtags such as #maga, #Imwithher, #VoterIDIssues, #DownPolls, #longlines and #rigged. Once a student found a post he or she deemed newsworthy, such as aIave been in line for two hours and still cannot see the doors of the polling place. #longlines,a he or she was responsible for fact checking the information or picture posted.

Intel Techniques Search Tools was used to see if the person who posted about the problem on Facebook also tweeted the same issue on Twitter. Fact checking added to credibility of the post and eliminated the question of hoax.

Once verified, the student shared the social media post along with the useras information and originality to the Check Verification Project online, where professional journalists could use information to start investigating whether a news story could be pulled from the Facebook or Twitter post.

aAs a student who understands social media and how to find newsworthy tips, I got experience with data mining and was able to join a cause that saves professional journalists time by pushing them tips and leads to potential stories,a Jacob Woloshin, journalism senior, said.
Voters in the worlds most powerful democracy chose a man who by any yardstick should be patently unfit to hold any office  let alone the Presidency of the United States

It is impossible to overstate the implications of yesterdays extraordinary and historic election.

Voters in the worlds most powerful democracy chose a man who by any yardstick should be patently unfit to hold any office  let alone the Presidency of the United States.

They did so in protest at a complacent liberal elite that had ignored them for too long. On both sides of the Atlantic, this result should have profound repercussions for the way we are governed.

For confounding the pollsters, the pundits and the sneers of almost all the US media (not to mention the BBC), Donald Trumps victory sounded an unmistakable warning to the Wests we know best political class.

Indeed, the wails of disbelief from bien-pensant politicians and the massed ranks of luvvies (Madonna, Lady Gaga, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lily Allen etc) lay bare their utter incomprehension and contempt for the ordinary people whose interests they profess to hold dear.

They simply fail to understand voters rejection of all the isms beloved of the Left (multiculturalism, militant feminism, internationalism and social liberalism) or Trumps appeal to the most enduring ism of them all  old-fashioned patriotism.

They did so in protest at a complacent liberal elite that had ignored them for too long. Pictured are Hillary and Bill Clinton

And this result was not merely the revenge of the white, middle-aged, blue-collar men crassly dismissed by Hillary Clinton as a basket of deplorables. Indeed, Trump succeeded in increasing his partys 2012 share of the vote among blacks and Latinos.

Mrs Clinton even lost support among her own sex, with fewer women backing her than voted for President Obama  while 45 per cent of college-educated white women opted for Trump.

In short, the president-elects support base is far broader than his mockers admit.

But then didnt the Left display the same stunned reaction to Brexit?

The parallels are too glaring to miss. In Britain, as in America, voters were fed up with having their concerns about mass immigration ignored. They were sick to death, too, of a political class bailing out super-rich bankers while family budgets were relentlessly squeezed.

For his part, Mr Trumps faults are too numerous to list. In the course of the campaign, he made many ill thought-out or downright crazy pledges while shooting from the hip. But he said sensible things too, promising to mend fences with Russia and cut taxes and red tape.

From Britains point of view, his election offers great opportunities. He is a staunch anglophile

And from Britains point of view, his election offers great opportunities. He is a staunch anglophile, who has said the UK will certainly not be at the back of the queue for a free trade deal.

Indeed, those with most to fear from his Presidency are the blinkered elites of the EU, whose own hopes of such a deal have gone up in smoke.

They should worry, too, about Mr Trumps dislike of footing most of the bill for defending our continent through Nato while Germany and France pay nothing like their share.

But here, again, is an opportunity for Britain  Europes biggest military power, with the most advanced intelligence-gathering centre  on whom our partners will depend more than ever. We have to play the defence card in the Brexit talks.

As for Mr Trumps prospects, we must hope he grows into his office  and that sound judgment prevails in Congress and the US Supreme Court. Dont forget the Left was similarly aghast at Ronald Reagans election, before he turned out to be a hugely effective president.

But whatever the future may hold, this result is a warning to all liberal elites  including the French, Germans and those who seek to frustrate Brexit  of the penalty for ignoring the electorate.
She says she works hard to be able to afford one and shouldn't feel guilty

On the day my fourth child was born nearly six years ago, the first person to hold her in hospital after me, her dad and her siblings was her nanny.

Their special bond began that day, just hours after my daughter came into the world and it will no doubt continue for some time to come.

On Monday, Mabels part-time nanny, Imelda, left us to start a new, full-time job with another family. So now a new nanny is picking up my youngest daughter and ten-year-old son from school four days a week while I am at work.

Lorraine Candy, pictured above, is editor-in-chief of Elle magazine

Its been an emotional few days. There were lengthy and occasionally tearful conversations with our children in the lead-up to this moment because they will obviously miss the woman who has been in their life for almost six years.

The guilt tap has been dripping constantly and illogically in the back of my mind in the days leading towards goodbye.

But the moment I watched Mabel slip her little hand happily into that of our new nanny, Elsa, in the playground on Monday afternoon, I felt reassured. I was witnessing the birth of a rewarding new relationship in my childs life.

It wont be the same, of course, but I can only hope it will be just as strong and comforting.

Sometimes when I write about employing a nanny or talk about it on radio and TV, I prompt a confusing, negative reaction.

Over the years I have concluded this is because the old-fashioned word nanny implies some form of elite neglect or ambivalence, as if I have abandoned my mothering responsibilities entirely and am gadding about in a feckless and selfish manner.

Im not. Im providing the cash that contributes to keeping the roof over everyones head and raising the bar to give my children choices when they leave school and start life proper.

I am also living my own life, which is not a maternal sin.

Lorraine says: 'Im providing the cash that contributes to keeping the roof over everyones head and raising the bar to give my children choices when they leave school and start life proper. I am also living my own life, which is not a maternal sin'

Bar giving up my job (a ridiculous suggestion no one would impose upon my husband, who also works), Im not sure what the nanny-bashers expect. Should I leave the children at home all day with the dog and the remote control?

Anyone who works, whether by choice or not, has their own form of paid help, unless they benefit from willing parents nearby.

Perhaps if I had used a word such as childcare, babysitter or childminder rather than nanny it would be more palatable to critics who illogically believe life for a working parent is all somehow easier if a nanny is involved. Having paid-for childcare is a necessity, not a luxury like dark chocolate HobNobs or scented candles.

However you do it: stay-at-home mum or working mum with help, its a challenge. Neither way is better.

Im aware I have been lucky to be able to pay for a nanny over the past 14 years, but I have worked hard to be this lucky.

It was something my mum couldnt afford and Im grateful to have had the choice of affording one-to-one care.

She also says of her situation: 'Im aware I have been lucky to be able to pay for a nanny over the past 14 years, but I have worked hard to be this lucky. It was something my mum couldnt afford and Im grateful to have had the choice of affording one-to-one care'

Im also grateful to have brought exceptional women  including the two nannies before Imelda  into our lives.

They taught me patience, showed me not to seek perfection and that being a mum is a learning curve. They had my back at every step.

Its an unusual and emotional female relationship fuelled by epic trust and powered by sensitivity and tiny acts of tactful wisdom every day.

You want your care-giver to be a shadow mother, you want a loving bond between her and your child. The exchange of value is love as much as money because you hope your children are as loveable to her as they are to you.

For my family, it has worked well. This is my choice, yours may be different.

On Tuesday I watched the clock nervously at work as soon as it hit 3pm, wondering how school pick-up was going for the new nanny.

Would Elsa watch out crossing the road? Would she remember to bring snacks? Would she make sure coats were done up, gloves on? When I got home, it was as its always been. It felt like everything and nothing had changed.
The 47-year-old is one of six million Brits suffering from bruxism

If she doesn't, her husband is woken by her grinding her teeth in her sleep

When Christina Schwab climbs into bed each night, theres one thing she never fails to do  the businesswoman reaches for her plastic mouthguard and slots it into place.

Glamorous? Hardly. But Stuart, her partner of 21 years, insists she wears it for if she doesnt, he is woken in the night by the horrendous sound of Christina grinding her teeth in her sleep.

The 47-year-old is one of six million Britons suffering from bruxism  the medical term for the condition characterised by teeth-grinding and jaw-clenching  and cases are soaring, particularly among women.

Flo Powell's, pictured above, grinding has worn her teeth down so much that she risked losing them altogether

It can cause agonising problems for sufferers, from cracked tooth enamel and jaw pain to migraine and earache, and can also make teeth age rapidly.

But many have no idea theyre doing it until their dentist spots the damage  or their partner complains about the noise.

I was totally unaware, but Stuart said the noise was so loud it sounded as if my teeth were going to shatter and hed have to wake me during the night to ask me to stop, says Christina, a travel agency owner from Sheringham in Norfolk.

Id wake up in the morning with the most awful migraines and jaw ache. Id feel grotty and sore. It was like Id been in a fight.

Flo admits: I went for a check-up in 2009 and the dentist told me there were vertical hairline fractures in all of my teeth'

So why is there a bruxism epidemic among middle-aged women?

Experts say most cases are caused by stress  many are facing the strain of juggling jobs, childcare and looking after ageing parents.

Sufferers are often high-flyers who may pride themselves on keeping everything running smoothly at home and in the office, but even they cant control what happens when they sleep.

Dr Shivani Patel, orthodontic specialist at Elleven Dental in London, has noticed a 30 per cent rise in the number of patients coming to her clinic with teeth-grinding complaints in the past five years.

The fact we are seeing so many more cases is worrying. It could be down to work-related stress, as many jobs are increasingly pressured, she says.

When we sleep, any worries or concerns we have, even if only in our subconscious mind, can lead to clenching, nocturnal grinding and, in some cases, pain and dysfunction of the jaw muscles.

Six million Britons suffering from bruxism  the medical term for the condition characterised by teeth-grinding and jaw-clenching  and cases are soaring, particularly among women

Often symptoms manifest themselves as an aching jaw, facial pain or teeth sensitivity.

Christina believes her grinding began when her mother was killed in a road accident, triggering a long period of stress and trauma.

But it was only when she went for a dental check-up two years later and discovered shed chipped a couple of teeth at the back of her mouth that she was diagnosed.

The dentist asked if I was stressed because the crack in my teeth showed Id been grinding them quite severely for a long time, she says.

The solution was a 400 plastic U-shaped mouthguard, made to fit her upper teeth and act as a barrier to her lower teeth.

It was meant to protect my teeth  not necessarily stop the grinding  but I ground through that first one in just a few years, says Christina.

She has since destroyed three mouthguards  one every three to four years  but has recently had a 500 one made from a softer plastic that is much more comfortable to wear.

Flo admits she even had a 250 bite plate fitted, but ground through it in six months and had to replace it

I cant go to sleep without it, says Christina. My jaw still sometimes aches a little in the mornings, but I dont get any more migraines.

Dr James Goolnik of Londons Bow Lane Dental Group, who designed Christinas latest mouthguard, has seen a 28 per cent rise since June in the number of guards made by his practice, taking the numbers up to more than 90 a year.

I see patients who complain of waking with excessive jaw ache, neck and shoulder pain, headaches and even seeing blood on their pillow from broken teeth, says Dr Goolnik.

Teeth grinding involves the excessive use of the jaw muscles, which has a knock-on effect of tensing the muscles of the shoulder and neck and causing them to spasm.

But the most obvious impact is on our teeth. The enamel on them is designed to last a lifetime, but all this extra, clenched pressure wears down the enamel so teeth crack and are more sensitive.

When I look inside a teeth-grinders mouth, the teeth dont look the same age as they are.

Sufferers are often high-flyers who may pride themselves on keeping everything running smoothly at home and in the office, but even they cant control what happens when they sleep

Flo Powell knows this only too well. Her grinding has worn her teeth down so much that she risked losing them altogether.

I went for a check-up in 2009 and the dentist told me there were vertical hairline fractures in all of my teeth.

Id worn them down flat so they were significantly shorter than they should have been.

He added that if I didnt wear a mouthguard, they would continue to crack and loosen and eventually fall out, says Flo, 36, an account director from Brighton.

Until that point, she had no idea she was a teeth grinder.

Id recently moved to Brighton, but was still commuting to London and it was definitely a time of high stress.

Flo had a 250 bite plate fitted, but ground through it in six months and had to replace it.

I am used to wearing it, but its not attractive, she says.

It also needs to be cleaned every morning with a toothbrush as the plastic can collect plaque just like teeth, which is pretty gross. As my teeth are so short, the nerves are more exposed, so it means I have highly sensitive teeth.

Flo says despite treatment, Eating ice cream or anything too hot has its problems'

Eating ice cream or anything too hot has its problems.

The subconscious nature of bruxism means that even those who have been trained to spot the signs might not realise theyre doing it themselves.

Dentist Dr Raha Sepehrara had no idea she ground her teeth  until her dental nurse pointed it out ten years ago.

She said she could see my jaw clenching behind my mask while I was seeing patients, says Dr Sepehrara. I had a look inside my mouth and could see a few small chips on my teeth.

I started to be more conscious of it after that and realised I did it whenever I was concentrating at work, driving or studying.

She managed to keep the bruxism at bay for a time, but since the birth of her second child last year, the grinding has become much worse due to disrupted sleep and stress.

I didnt do it as badly after my son was born five years ago, but it was different after my daughter, she says.

I started to develop severe jaw pain, earache and tinnitus  an incessant ringing sound in my ears. I had it investigated by an ear, nose and throat specialist, who attributed the problem to bruxism. Dr Sepehrara is about to be fitted with a device called Cerezen, a 550 set of custom-moulded plastic earplugs recently launched in Britain and recommended by dentists.

The subconscious nature of bruxism means that even those who have been trained to spot the signs might not realise theyre doing it themselves

When you grind your back teeth, it exerts pressure on the jaw muscles, causing the ear canal to contract which can cause earache, she says.

The pressure of the ear inserts changes this cycle  it gives you feedback with a tightening, pressurised sensation, which lets you know you are grinding, so you stop and the jaw relaxes.

Another solution for bruxism sufferers is injecting Botox into the jawline.

I usually do one to three injections under the ear on each side of the jaw, which immobilises the masseter muscles, the chewing muscles that power the grinding and clenching, says Dr Saira Vasdev, an aesthetics doctor at The Waterhouse Young Clinic in London.

By weakening the muscles, you arent able to grind significantly or damage your teeth, but you can still smile, talk and chew. Its an easy way to get a great result.

Dr Vasdev claims a success rate of close to 100 per cent  but at 500 for Botox with top-ups required every three months, the cost can add up.

A cheaper alternative is hypnotherapy.

People who suffer from bruxism tend to be high achievers, says Professor Ursula James of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, who has been hypnotising bruxism patients for 25 years.

Flo's dentist told her: 'If I didnt wear a mouthguard, they would continue to crack and loosen and eventually fall out

They are good at organising their lives and are the last people in the world who would think of seeking therapy.

So they end up spending a fortune on treating the symptoms of bruxism rather than tackling the root of the problem itself.

Curtailing the habit usually takes between one to three sessions, at 250 each.

I will get clients to visualise their tongue as warm, large and floppy to release the tension in the mouth, she says.

I also get them to think about other ways in which they can release their frustrations.

These may involve doing exercise to get their tensions out, joining a choir or even making drastic changes if there are parts of their life that are causing them stress.

Flo Powell would like to try alternatives to wearing a mouthguard in bed every night.

I had some counselling last year to see if I could reduce my anxiety and stress levels and I am interested in doing some more, she says.

I forgot to take my mouthguard on holiday recently and it felt so good not having to wear it.
Some joked it was a terrible end to a bad day after US election results

Pinned to the floor with an attacker looming over him, brandishing an electric drill, the victim's face was contorted with fear as he faced his final moments of life.

This was the terrifying killing that took place in the closing minutes of BBC's kidnapping drama The Missing last night, and it left viewers unable to believe their eyes.

German detective Jorn Lenhart was seen visiting military press officer Adam Getterick and ended up losing his life in a grisly fashion after discovering a huge secret.

German detective Jorn Lenhart was seen visiting military press officer Adam Getterick and ended up losing his life in a grisly fashion in last night's The Missing

Military press officer Adam Getterick who has been a peripheral character so far, turns out to be a killer

During the visit to childless Getterick, a little girl came downstairs brandishing a drawing and told the detective: 'It's me and Mummy in the basement.'

Getterick has been a peripheral character in the series so far, but he certainly won't be forgotten after killing the detective to protect his secret.

Nicole Gardiner tweeted: 'Did we have to drill him in the head? I mean, kill him off, okay, but drill? To the head? Was it necessary?'

Natalie_Grace95 added: 'When you think the day can't get worse and then The Missing does that to the lovely policeman.'

'Not going to sleep after watching the end of the missing alone,' worried ScarlettHutt.

The detective stumbled across a secret - a little girl living with Adam Getterick who does not have any children

The girl told the detective that she had done a drawing of herself and her mother 'in the basement'

Others were more concerned about the technicalities, such as Antro92 who said: 'Sorry to be "that guy", but I'm not sure the drill bit in that cordless would actually cause death in such a short amount of time.'

NellKirby also questioned how realistic the scene was, saying: 'I can't even get my drill through some shitty B&Q plasterboard, let alone a fit German bloke's skull.'

Hamblepoint took a more light-hearted approach, saying 'When they said there was going to be extra drill for the soldiers on The Missing, I wasn't expecting that.'

Viewers were horrified and mystified by the drill murder in equal measures

Meanwhile, Louispeake couldn't believe her eyes.

'Did I just watch a man take a Black and Decker to the bonce?' she said.

Wisehemmings added: 'Tell you what I was NOT expecting that. How can you just DRILL through someone's head?'

And ErinLavis joked: 'I want to drill a hole in my head after that. So confused.'

And others were in agreement: 'Trying to figure out what's actually going on, makes me want to drill my own head #TheMissing'

'#TheMissing that ending scared the life out of me omg,' said Jackkflo.

'#TheMissing s top that now!!!!! A F***ING DRILL.. great tele. Poor jorn tho didn't deserve that,' added dhiggins10.

The hit drama centres around the kidnapping of a British girl Alice Webster, and a French girl Sophie Giroux.

Viewers were having a VERY hard time figuring out what was going on

Alice returns to her family after 11 years but the investigating detective believes it was in fact Sophie, posing as her friend.

However Alice, or the girl pretending to be her, dies in a fire shortly after her homecoming only to apparently reappear in Switzerland.

Five episodes in, viewers are still none the wiser as to who the 'real' Alice is and whether she's dead or alive but still heap praise on the BBC drama for being so complicated and compelling.

Alice or is it Sophie? The Missing centres around the disappearance of Alice Webster but nobody know if she's dead or alive or if someone else has taken her identity

Viewers were fearing for their own sanity after the closing moments of the final scene saw army sergeant Jorn get drilled in the head after he discovered a key piece of information

Edwina was one of the baffled mutltitudes, tweeting: 'Who ever wrote this is a fecking sadist. I am beyond confused and there are only five minutes to go.'

The so-called sadist is not one author, but two - brothers Harry and Jack Williams.

And Harry previously told The Guardian that grisly murders in crime shows are 'a run of the mill thing' these days.

They are often a way in to finding out about a detective but theyre treated with a lot levity arent they? ,' he said. 'Isnt that odd? That were in a world where these murders are just throwaway things, racking up body counts.'

Tweeting about last night's show, Ladybirdangel added: 'The Missing has more twists & turns than a neurotic pretzel. I'm gripped every week.'

'#TheMissing is hands down one of the most exhilarating and well written series the BBC have ever produced. My god it's good,' said TheTomMercer.

The writers of The Missing, brothers Harry Williams and Jack Williams, attend the closing ceremony of the 55th Monte-Carlo Television Festival

'#TheMissing is by far one of the best series I've ever watched, can't get enough of it,' said Bethowenx.

Naturally the US election got a mention, with Jacq_Critch tweeting: Perhaps Alice Webster is the new president? #Trump #Confused.'
It's hard to tell whether she was delighted or terrified.

On her recent state visit to New Zealand Queen Maxima got close and personal with a Kiwi: a flightless bird native to the country.

Together with her husband King Willem-Alexander the Queen was offered the chance to pet the Kiwi named Elvis at a wildlife reserve, and she did so while pulling a series of faces.

Flighty: Queen Maxima appeared hesitant to pet the Kiwi on a recent trip to New Zealand

Slow and steady: Together with her husband, King Willem-Alexander, the Queen hesitantly reached a hand out to pet the bird

Royal visit: The royals visited Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch as part of their New Zealand state tour

The Dutch royals were in New Zealand for three days on a state visit.

On Tuesday they visited Christchurch, where the couple was taken to Willowbank Wildlife Reserve.

The Reserve runs an extensive breeding program for the New Zealand Kiwi, which is an endangered species.

All smiles: Maxima appeared to come around to Elvis the Kiwi, smiling as she patted his feathers

Education: The Reserve runs an extensive breeding program for the New Zealand Kiwi, which is an endangered species

The Queen wore a bright yellow jacket by the the Belgium label Natan.

The label's designer, Edouard Vermeulen, is known for dressing members of the royal families in Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg.

She paired the coat with a dress from the same label, a soft pink head piece and diamond earrings.

All class: Maxima wore a bright yellow coat by the the Belgium label Natan

Stylish: She paired the coat with a soft pink headpiece and diamond earrings

Heading home: The couple has wrapped up their three-day state visit of New Zealand

The Dutch royals wrapped up their New Zealand tour on Wednesday.

While in the country they visited Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland, visiting Government House and the National War Memorial.
Ms Allen, who nearly died after a

Sophie Allen has fought hard to transform her body.

The Melbourne 26-year-old nearly died after suffering a perforated bowel, but defied the odds to not only recover but share her story in the hopes of inspiring others.

But Ms Allen has found herself the target of online trolls, who accused the fitness blogger of faking her progress and looking 'worse' after transforming her physique.

Fitness blogger Sophie Allen was trolled for sharing this progress photo on Instagram

People accused Ms Allen, 26, of faking her progress photos and said she looked better before she embraced health and fitness

Ms Allen shared a photo of her progress across 58 weeks, sharing a series of photos in the same pose to compare her figure.

The post went viral, with more than 16,300 likes and 400 comments.

But not all the feedback was positive, with trolls taking the opportunity to undermine Ms Allen's hard work and body shame her figure.

'Some of the stuff up there is just nasty, really offensive, and really unnecessary,' she said of the comments

Ms Allen said while she had received negative comments in the past, it was never to this extent

Commenters accused Ms Allen of 'faking' her photos and body shamed her progress shots.

'Her skin tone changes every time and had a different phone in each pic... fake,' one person wrote.

Others said she looked 'worse' after transforming her body from fat into muscle.

'You lost all your booty and curves!? You look best in the second picture. Such a shame,' one person wrote.

'I mean you lost weight and all but you also dont have any gains. Like you literally worked your a** off,' said another.

One person wrote: 'so in the end she ended with sunburn and losing her butt', while another simply said: 'she looks worse now'.

The progress photos received more than 16,300 likes and 400 comments from people, making it by far her most popular post

'Ive received a few negative comments in the past, this comes with the territory,' Ms Allen told Daily Mail Australia.

'But Ive never received them at this volume.

'I was shocked, and it just kept happening day after day.

'Some of the stuff up there is just nasty, really offensive, and really unnecessary.

'Ive had to block a few people that were saying some really awful things.'

'She looks worse now': Commenters body shamed the woman, saying she had 'no gains' and her figure now lacked a 'booty'

'Initially I felt really upset, but I know my journey is my own, that Im not doing this for anyone else aside from me,' she said

Ms Allen said she was shocked at the response.

'I read every single comment,' she said.

'Initially I felt really upset, but I know my journey is my own, that Im not doing this for anyone else aside from me.

'It is really hard to see people saying I havent gained anything, when I works so hard six days a week to build muscle and burn fat.

'Im so happy with my body, and I want to motivate people to feel empowered and confident about their hard work, those comments encourage the exact opposite.'

She shared her story and progress to inspire others, but said the negative comments had the opposite affect

Ms Allen suffered from a perforated bowel that nearly killed her

Ms Allen started on her path to health and fitness after she suffered from a perforated bowel.

The condition nearly killed her.

After surgery to fix her condition she spent a month in bed, losing almost all her muscle mass.

'For so long I got out of breath really easily because of the damage to my lungs,' she said.

'I would try to walk up two stairs, then three, then five and that was my achievement for the day.'

After invasive surgery to fix the bowel she embarked on a long, and physically challenging, road to recovery

She was left with a scar down her stomach, and despite being told her tummy would never be flat, is close to having a six pack

It took a few months before she was able to exercise, and her journey to recovery was gradual.

But today Ms Allen is passionate about health and fitness, and despite being told she would never have a flat stomach she is now close to having a six pack.

'I can't tell you how it is to sit in bed and not be able to walk or eat or lift or walk up stairs,' she said.
They are used to a rapturous welcome wherever they go but even Charles and Camilla couldn't have expected the enthusiastic crowd who met them this evening.

The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall were met by an army of fans waving Union Jack flags as they arrived at an exhibition in Bahrain.

The pair, who are currently on a tour of the Gulf on behalf of the British Government, paused to shake the hands of young fans who awaited their arrival this evening.

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Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall dressed up to attend an exhibition and reception in Bahrain this evening

The majority of the crowd were of school age so the Duchess had to duck a little in order to speak to them, many of whom had made banners in honour of their arrival.

Camilla, wowed in a metallic kaftan this evening accessorised with a pearl clutch and matching embroidered slippers.

Tonight's reception was held at the British Embassy to celebrate the 200th anniversary of bilateral relationships between the United Kingdom and Bahrain.

The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall were met by an army of fans waving Union Jack flags

The majority of the crowd were of school age so the Duchess had to duck a little in order to speak to them

The pair paused to shake the hands of young fans who awaited their arrival this evening

The couple have certainly been made to feel right at home by their hosts and were given a spooky reminder of their home turf earlier today when Charles visited the Mina Salman Naval Base.

While there the Prince of Wales boarded the HMS Middleton the namesake of his daughter-in-law Kate.

Although the ship shares the same name as the Duchess it was not named after Prince William's wife.

Camilla, wowed in a metallic kaftan this evening accessorised with a pearl clutch and matching embroidered slippers

While at the base Charles, who slipped into full naval uniform opened the welfare block of the HMS Jufair, as well as looking at the HMS Middleton - a ship that detects, investigates, and destroys sea-bed threats with high-powered sonar.

Charles could be seen chatting to naval officers aboard the vessel.

His next engagement was a visit to Bahrain National Museum, where he will join a reception of 32 young Bahraini leaders.

Earlier today the royal climbed aboard the HMS Middleton which shares the name of the Duchess of Cambridge

Charles could be seen chatting to naval officers aboard the vessel on Thursday

The ship detects, investigates, and destroys sea-bed threats with high-powered sonar

Earlier today Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall shared a giggle as they visited the Krishna Temple in Bahrain on Thursday.

The couple, who are currently on a tour of the Gulf on behalf of the British government, popped into the temple on what was a busy day of engagements after picking up some bargains at a local souk (market) in the country's capital, Manama.

Manama Souq in the old bazaar area of the city is home to shops teeming with local souvenirs, gold jewellery, rugs and textiles.

Charles looked to be in good spirits following a busy day of engagements on Thursday

The royal meets naval officers as he visits the Mina Salman Naval Support Facility

Charles donned a white naval uniform and sailor's hat for his next engagement on Thursday

Charles's next engagement is a visit to Bahrain National Museum, where he will join a reception of 32 young Bahraini leaders

Charles and Camilla share a giggle at the Krishna Temple, in Manama, the capital city of Bahrain, on Thursday. The pair are visiting the country on behalf of the British government

The Duchess of Cornwall wore dusky pink kaftan on the latest leg of her tour of the Middle East, pairing the garment with a woven clutch, taffeta scarf and white pumps

Camilla, 69, who can never resist a bargain, took her husband into Ali Baba Cave Antiques where they snapped up a cushion and Russian-style dolls.

The shops is a family business and manager Abdul Waheed said: 'We were so honoured.'

At Bhashar Jewellery Charles asked the staff: 'Do you produce all this jewellery yourself? So many bracelets...'

The couple left empty-handed although Charles did call out: 'We know where you are!'

The souk has undergone a major redevelopment in recent years and gives visitors the opportunity to experience the rich local culture of Bahrain's capital. As they walked brought the bustling, chaotic street a band of Punjabi drummers played.

The royal couple, pictured at Krishna Temple, had a busy day on Thursday, visiting a local market as well as dropping in on a school and the Old Post Office

The pair wore matching garlands at the temple with Camilla adding a patriotic poppy

The couple were also introduced to craft makers displaying their wares including model dhows and pottery.

Earlier they visited the Post Office Museum, which displayed stamps commemorating historic moments in the history of the kingdoms of Bahrain and the UK.

The Duchess of Cornwall wore dusky pink kaftan on the latest leg of her tour of the Middle East, pairing the garment with a woven clutch, taffeta scarf and white pumps.

The Duchess of Cornwall grins as she receives a garland of flowers on arrival at the Temple

The pair spoke to locals at the temple after visiting the Post Office Museum, which displayed stamps commemorating historic moments in the history of Bahrain and the UK

The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall seemed engrossed as they learned about the temple

The Duchess inspects a brightly-coloured basket as she chats to locals at Krishna Temple

Later Charles and Camilla removed their shoes and wore floral garlands and yellow scarves for their visit to the Krishna Temple in Manama.

They toured the temple, which is the oldest Hindu temple in Bahrain, and learnt about the history of the Hindu community.

Camilla stopped and chatted to four women making garlands from jasmine and rose in the temple. They smell fantastic, they are very, very nice, she said.

The couple went to a courtyard below the temple for a reception with members of different faith communities.

Ebrahim Noor, who was representing the Jewish community in Bahrain, handed the prince two notes worth 100 trillion dollars. Thank you very much, Charles said.

The pair are carrying out engagements in Bahrain today as part of their tour of the Middle East

After visiting the temple, Charles will attend a private audience with Prince Khalifa bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the prime minister of Bahrain

Mr Noor, who gave the heir to the throne one 50 trillion and one 50 trillion note for the Queen, said the notes came from Zimbabwe.

I gave him a souvenir - one for him and one for his mum, Mr Noor said. They come from Zimbabwe where there is hyper inflation. When I gave them to him I think he had an idea they were from Africa. The numbers are ridiculous.

Mr Noor said the Jewish community in Bahrain was between 45 and 50 people.

The pair wore floral garlands and yellow scarves for their visit to the Krishna Temple in Manama

The couple toured the temple, which is the oldest Hindu temple in Bahrain, and learnt about the history of the Hindu community

Charles greets locals at 200-year-old Krishna Temple on an action-packed day for the royals

Local celebrities: Wellwishers take photos as Charles and Camilla visit Krishna Temple

Charles is surrounded by a sea of people as he tours the 200-year-old temple in Manama

It is a very beautiful feeling to see the royals here because a lot of us have grown up in the UK and have connections to the UK, he added.

To see them here as a very special moment. There's a lot of admiration for the royal family because the Queen holds the moral values that everybody seeks. People feel that she really is the most moral person of all.

Later in the day Camilla visited St. Christopher's School, a not for profit British-style school that has more than 2,200 pupils from more than 70 countries.

At Bhashar Jewellery, Charles asked the staff: 'Do you produce all this jewellery yourself? So many bracelets...' and Camilla appeared to be eyeing up some of the pieces herself

Charles appeared to barter with a local jewellery seller at Manama Souq on Thursday

Picking up some bargains, Camilla? The Duchess appears to make off with a parasol at Manama Souq in the old bazaar area of the city

The pair inspect some local bargains at the market. Manama Souq in the old bazaar area of the city, is home to shops teeming with local souvenirs, gold jewellery, rugs and textiles

She was greeted by hundreds of smartly-dressed youngsters waving flags and cheering before going inside to watch youngsters make carrot cake and patriotic cup cakes. The Duchess was even given some to take home with her.

She was also persuaded to take part in a traditional Tudor feast as part of a school project, after being invited to sit down by 'Henry VIII'.

'Very impressive, ' said the Duchess. 'You are only 32 you know, so you have plenty of years yet. I'm just sorry I can't join your feast.'

Meanwhile, Charles attended a private audience with Prince Khalifa bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the prime minister of Bahrain.

Charles seemed particularly interested in some small wooden boats although the pair eventually left with some cushions and some Russian-style dolls

Camilla, 69, who can never resist a bargain, took her husband into Ali Baba Cave Antiques where they snapped up a cushion and Russian-style dolls

Charles and Camilla inspect a woven basket in a the souq market, Manama, on day three of their royal tour

The souk has undergone a major redevelopment in recent years and gives visitors the opportunity to experience the rich local culture of Bahrain's capital

He will then attend a discussion at Bin Mattar house in Muharraq on the topic of empowering communities for positive change.

The discussion will include a diverse group of Bahrain's society and cover a wide-range of issues including education and active citizenship.

Camilla then visited the Supreme Council for Women, which is chaired by Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa, the king's wife.

It consists of 16 women from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences.

The Duchess said she was 'lost for words' at how 'impressive' their achievements were. She was accompanied, in a rare public appearance, by first of the King of Bahrain's four wives, Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka Bint Ibrahim Al-Khalifa, who is president of the Council.

A warm welcome: The Duchess of Cornwall is greeted by flag-waving pupils at the St Christopher School

Camilla poses with pupils at St. Christopher's School, a not-for-profit British-style school that has more than 2,200 pupils from more than 70 countries

Warm welcome: As they walked brought the bustling, chaotic street a band of Punjabi drummers played and locals lined the streets to meet them

The royal couple chatted with locals as they visited a number of local landmarks including a local souk (market), Krishna Temple, and the city's Old Post Office

Camilla chatted to dozens of women from fields as diverse as the judiciary, the media, aviation and engineering, academics and medicine - and the country's first ever Paralympic medalist, Fatima Nizam, who won gold in the shotput at Rio.

The Secretary-General of the Council, Hala al Ansri, said: 'The strides we have made in recent years are immense. Of course there are areas we wish to improve in such as science, engineering, business and tourism, to enable us as a country to be not so reliant on oil. But we need to stop nagging about our rights and go out and seize the opportunities that are open to us. And believe me, there are many.

'The issues that face women here in Bahrain are no different to those that face women in any other country: our work/life balance and childcare for example. But the good thing is that we have the help so many senior men in business and other fields who are support and encouraging us.'

Speaking to Mail Online Princess Sabeeka added: 'We need the support of our families to go out and achieve. Family support is essential to a woman's success.'

Charles chats to local children waving Union Jack flags in the capital city

Later today, The Duchess will meet successful young business women, view their products and services and hear about setting up a company in Bahrain

Charles appeared to be in a jovial mood as he chatted to local children waving flags

Camilla also met with several successful young businesswomen who talked to her about the experience of being female entrepreneurs in Bahrain.

She was given armfuls of gifts by the women, including a beautiful silk scarf by anada, which she put on immediately, crockery and a basket of delicious local delicacies.

The Supreme Council for Women consists of sixteen women from a wide range of backgrounds who work with the Bahraini government and ensure that the status of women is given due prominence.

Camilla sits down to a meal with youngsters at at St Christopher's School in Manama

The Duchess appears to admire the red overcoat and hat worn by one youngster at the school

Charles and Camilla Duchess of Cornwall unveil an enlarged version of two new stamps that have been designed to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the UK Bahrain relationship

Government ministries are required to consult with the Council before taking any decisions that might impact on women and since its creation in 2001 Bahraini women have obtained the right to vote and participate in elections.

The Duchess will meet successful young business women, view their products and services and hear about setting up a company in Bahrain.

She will then join a reception celebrating the achievements of about 80 successful Bahraini and non-Bahraini women in their fields.

Charles will visit Al-Fateh Grand Mosque, where he will speak with six members of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs.

The couple at the at the Old Post Office Museum where they viewed an exhibition of historic stamps including the 1948 British Royal Silver Wedding stamp

Later, Camilla visited visit the Supreme Council for Women, which is chaired by Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa, the king's wife (pictured)

Camilla meets young businesswomen, viewing their products and services and hearing about their experience of setting up a business in Bahrain, at the Supreme Council for Women

The mosque is the largest in the country and is capable of holding up to 7,000 worshippers.
She's a mother-of-two but despite her children now being aged 12 and 8, Sophie, Countess of Wessex proved she hasn't forgotten how to handle a little one.

The Countess of Wessex, 51, showed her maternal skills as she cradled and played with babies and toddlers on a school visit in London on Thursday.

The royal, who looked resplendent in red, was on a visit to the Nursery at Waverley Preparatory School Finchampstead, Wokingham, Berkshire.

Doting Sophie Wessex, 51, who is a mother-of-two, shows off her maternal side as she played with adorable children at a school in London

The blonde mother-of-two giggled with glee as she threw a little toddler into the air.

She also got stuck into the day's activities by crawling around on the floor with the little ones in their arts and crafts lesson.

Sophie also partook in games with the reception class members and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying her day out.

She was dressed to impress in a red wrap coat - no doubt as a mark of respect ahead of Remembrance Day - and wore a poppy brooch and carried a clutch bag emblazoned with the flower.

Beneath her coat, she wore a black jumper and black tailored trousers and wore her hair in its signature low chignon.

The royal, who looked resplendent in red, was on a visit to the Nursery at Waverley Preparatory School Finchampstead, Wokingham, Berkshire

The royal crawled around on the floor with the little ones in an arts and crafts lesson

The Countess of Wessex played games with the reception class members and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying her day out

The royal has been lending her time to children a lot lately. Earlier this month she joined Colombia's first lady, Maria Clemencia Rodriguez de Santos, on a tour of a west London nursery school, founded by Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave, and a nearby children's centre that provides a range of services from midwifery and health visitors to play sessions.

Mrs Rodriguez de Santos had joined her husband, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, on his historic three-day trip to the UK, the first state visit by a leader of the South American nation.

In Cathnor Park Children's Centre - run by Michele Barrett, executive head teacher of Vanessa Nursery School - the countess and Mrs Rodriguez de Santos joined mothers and their babies who were aged up to 10 months.

The babies were lying on their bellies for the interactive music sessions, with their mothers sat beside them, when the leader got the group to sing a song.

Sophie, who has two children with the Earl of Wessex, picked up one baby called Maggie and bounced her on her knee after chatting to her mother.

She had taken off her stiletto heels and knelt down in her grey dress by Suzannah.
For her first trip to Washington, D.C. as the future First Lady, Melania Trump stuck with a demure all-black ensemble as she accompanied her husband Donald to the White House.

The 46-year-old former model donned a double breasted black coat, a black skirt, and black Christian Louboutin pumps on Thursday, choosing a rather somber outfit for their appearance at the nation's capital.

Although Michelle Obama wasn't seen at all during the trip, Melania had a private meeting with the First Lady and Joe Biden's wife Jill before she and the president-elect traveled to Capital Hill together.

Political duties: President-elect Donald Trump and future First Lady Melania traveled to Washington, D.C. on Thursday

First couple: Melanie and Donald held hands as they walked alongside Majority Leader Mich McConnell at the US Capitol

Keeping it classic: The 46-year-old former model donned a double breasted black coat, a black skirt, and black Christian Louboutin pumps for their day of meetings

The future first lady also had a pale pink opaque manicure

Melania's monochromatic ensemble was a far cry from the $4,000 white Ralph Lauren silk crepe jumpsuit she wore on election night.

And while Michelle is a fashion icon in her own right, it's unclear what she wore to greet Melania in the White House for the first time.

While President Barack Obama and the president-elect met at the White House on Thursday morning for more than 90 minutes in a public display of unity following the election, Michelle was no where to be seen.

Teamwork: Melania had a private meeting with First Lady Michelle Obama and Joe Biden's wife Jill, while Donald met with President Barack Obama in a public display of unity

Mitch McConnell appeared to gaze at the future First Lady at one point

When Melania met Michelle: The meeting bizarrely took place behind closed doors with just this White House-issue picture reluctantly released after repeated media requests

Thumbs up! While Melania kept an incredibly straight face throughout the trip, Donald looked thrilled about the visit

Picturesque: The couple met with House Speaker Paul Ryan, who showed them the view from his balcony on Capitol Hill

During the trip, Donald and Melania were photographed holding hands as they walked alongside Majority Leader Mich McConnell and Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

The couple met with House Speaker Paul Ryan, who showed them the views of Pennsylvania Avenue, as well as the inaugural stand that is being built, from his balcony on Capitol Hill before they posed for photographs together.

The Slovenian born mother-of-one left her highlighted hair loose around her shoulders, opting for natural-looking make-up and a nude lip.

All together: Donald, Melania, the House Speaker, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence posed for photographed together after their meeting

Presidential style? Donald wore a red tie, navy suit, and a small American flag pin on his lapel

Going great: Donald gave two thumbs up after a meeting in the Majority Leaders office

Her black coat had a delicate edging around the edges

Donald and Melania departed from LaGuardia airport in New York at 9:36 am on his way to Washington on Thursday morning on his personal aircraft, a 757, emblazoned with his name. They arrived at Ronald Reagan National Airport just after 10:30 am.

The future first couple entered the White House complex twenty minutes later via a back entrance through the South Lawn that is inaccessible to media.

Donalds son-in-law, Jared Kushner, owner of the New York Observer and a senior adviser to the president-elects campaign, was also in tow.
Lauren Conrad is decking the halls in a stunning new holiday spread for Good Housekeeping magazine.

The 30-year-old, who models everything from festive dresses to cozy sweaters in the spread, dished about her life with her husband William Tell, revealing that she loves to spend the holidays with his family.

'One of my favorite new traditions, which is from my husband Williams family, is going over on Christmas morning in our pajamas,' she told the magazine. 'Its really sweet  his mom drops off a set for me so well all match.'

Boughs of holly: Lauren Conrad stars in a stunning holiday spread for Good Housekeeping magazine

In one of the images from the shoot, Lauren is modeling a red and blue floral dress from French Connection as she poses next to a Christmas tree.

When it comes to festive holiday looks, Lauren insists you don't need to splurge on a ton of new outfits to look fashionable.

'If you go to a lot of holiday parties, its good to invest in accessories that can help mix up a little black dress, such as a cool embellished jacket, a statement necklace or fun heels,' she said.

Festive fun: Lauren dished about wearing matching holiday pajamas with her husband William Tell's family on Christmas morning, calling it her favorite new holiday tradition

'Buying a new outfit for every party can get costly  I like having fun with accessories instead.'

Holidays: Lauren is featured in the December 2016 issues of the magazine

Another image from the shoot sees the designer putting together holiday place settings, and while she is known for her love of decoration, she admits that she has trouble keeping her party guests out of the kitchen.

'No matter where Im trying to entertain, everybody ends up in the kitchen,' she said. 'Wherever the food and drinks are thats where theyll be.

'I try to drag them to other rooms. Im like, "Come on guys, Ive decorated this whole room," but they dont care. Theyre like, The cheese platter is here."'

Lauren is known for her feminine style, and she admitted that when William first moved into her apartment, it was 'very girly'.

'When we got our first place together, I definitely had to learn to compromise,' she said. 'Ive never had to do that before. I mean, a little bit with my roommates, but I think its good and I think that your home should represent both of you and both of your styles.

Casual outings: Lauren said she and William like to go to places where she doesn't have to wear make-up on their date nights

Accessories are key: Lauren, who is pictured at her brand's pop-up shop in September, insisted that you don't have to buy a ton of new outfits for the holiday season

'Its definitely a blend of our tastes. I think hes toned down my girly a little bit, which is good because Im an adult and everything cant be pink. Its fun.'

The entrepreneur also dished about their date nights, explaining that they are usually 'pretty casual'.

'We have a local sushi place that we really like to go to,' she said. 'I love a place that you dont have to put makeup on to go to. You can just go, have a glass of wine, eat dinner, and have a really relaxing night.
British reality star Megan McKenna is recieving a backlash online after social media users noticed similarities between her and Kylie Jenner's lip kits.

While 19-year-old Kylie has been releasing her eponymous line over the past year, TOWIE star Megan, 24, just recently announced her intentions to release a set of matte lipsticks, dubbed Mouthy by Megan McKenna.

However, in promoting her products, Megan has been using the term 'lip kit' to describe them - a word that has almost become synonymous with Kylie's signature product.

In hot water: The Only Way Is Essex star Megan McKenna, 24, has received backlash online after releasing a line of lip kits

Copying? Fans were convinced that Megan was ripping off the line of lip kits released by Kylie Jenner over the last year

The looks: 19-year-old Kylie's wildly successful lip kits have consistently sold out

It didn't take long for social media users to catch on.

'Can someone please tell me why Megan McKenna has her own lip kit?' wrote one Twitter user. 'You ain't Kylie Jenner babe.'

Another added: 'So Megan McKenna has basically just copied Kylie Jenner with her new lip kit line.'

Beyond the similarities between the products, people also became worked up when they realized that Megan's products carry a heftier price tag.

Similar look: Megan's Mouthy line also has three shades almost identical to those in the first run of Kylie's line

Slip up? Megan sparked speculation after referring to her product as a lip kit on Snapchat

Hitting out: Social media users were quick to notice the similarities and went after the star

Up it goes: Many also angrily pointed out that Megan's line was considerably more expensive

'Why would anyone pay 30 for Megan Mckenna's lipkits when Kylie Jenner's are 23,' mused one user.

But it isn't just the name that Megan appears to have lifted from her younger fellow reality star, the new shades are almost identical to the first run of Kylie's lip kits.

More worrying than this is that another brand has also come out accusing Megan of theft, saying that the product itself is a ripoff.

Nathan Lippitt, a beauty blogger with his own line of matte lipsticks called Lippitts Cosmetics, was bombarded by fans on social media following Megan's announcement.

The entrepreneur subsequently took to Instagram to compare the two products and revealed that not only did they look identical but bear the same names of shades.

Trying them out: Megan has been promoting the line by posting videos on Snapchat

Another rip: Blogger Nathan Lippitt also joined in, accusing Megan of putting out an identical-looking product at 'triple the price'

Hitting out: Nathan took to Instagram to talking about Megan's line, saying that she also used the same shade names

Turning off: Nathan eventually deleted the post after it gained attention and asked people on Twitter to leave him alone

'I think its a huge compliment that a celebrity used the same manufacturer as me, although Im slightly disappointed she didnt change the names of the shades and basically tripled the price of them,' he wrote.

The post received plenty of attention, leading to Megan's fans to blast him online. Nathan later deleted the post from his profile and implored for people to 'back off and leave me alone'.

After being contacted by the Daily Star, a spokesperson for Megan insisted that the similarities are simply down to the manufacturer.

'It is very common for manufacturers to work with multiple companies selling them the same products which they then personalize themselves in terms of color co-ordination and packaging,' reads the statement.
She's known for her elegant, but no-nonsense trouser suits and smart dresses that hark back to her days as a television news anchor.

But tonight Queen Letizia of Spain, 44, showed off her more edgy side in a studded black leather peplum top.

The royal was joined by her husband King Felipe as she attended the Francisco Cerecedo' journalism award at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid.

Queen Letizia of Spain, 44, showed off her more edgy side in a studded black leather peplum top

King Felipe VI of Spain and Queen Letizia of Spain attend the 'Francisco Cerecedo' journalism award at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid

The royal was clearly keen to vamp up her look for the night out, wearing a 225 leather top featuring studded detail at the wrists, waist and neckline.

Known for champion native designers, it's no surprise the edgy item came from the Spanish brand Uterque.

She kept to a dark colour palette, teaming the garment with slim dark trousers and black patent heels.

Mother-of-two Letizia carried her essentials in a small clutch bag, which also featured stud details to complement her top.

The royal was clearly keen to vamp up her look for the night out, wearing the leather top which features studded detail at the wrists, waist and neckline

King Felipe cut a more sombre figure in a dark suit and purple tie

And she vamped up her usual natural look, rocking a smoky eye and glossy berry lips.

Meanwhile, her husband King Felipe cut a more sombre figure in a dark suit and purple tie.

The event held at the Ritz is an annual occurrence, which sees a journalist honoured by the Association of European Journalists.

This year Italian writer and columnist Claudio Magris was the recipient of the prestigious prize.

The Spanish royal vamped up her usual natural look, rocking a smoky eye and glossy berry lips.

A smiling Queen Letizia looks flawless as she attends a journalism awards ceremony at The Ritz in Madrid

Tonight's outing comes as King Felipe prepares for a controversial state visit to Saudi Arabia

It's been a busy week for the royals who opened the annual Carlos III: The Keys of a Reign symposium in Madrid on Monday.

The Queen used the outing as an opportunity to recycle, sporting a favourite Hugo Boss skirt and jacket combo she has worn on four previous occasions.

King Felipe is due to set off for Saudi Arabia in the next few days for an official visit.

However, the upcoming trip is not an altogether popular prospect among Spanish politicans.
Adults who suffer from heart disease, diabetes or depression are more likely to be lonely as they grow older, new research suggests.

But not only are they at risk of having less social involvement later in life, they have a higher chance of being left disabled.

And having a combination of two or more of the chronic conditions also increased the likelihood of being lonely or disabled.

However, the impact of suffering from multiple disorders differed by gender and age, scientists claim.

Adults who suffer from a range of chronic conditions, including heart disease, diabetes and depression are more at risk of being lonely, new research suggests

While the association between chronic conditions and disability is well documented, there is little research examining the effects of a combination of disorders.

Researchers from McMaster University, Ontario, assessed more than 15,000 participants aged between 45 and 85.

They found middle-aged women living with arthritis and depression were most likely to be disabled or have less social involvement.

While in the same age group, men suffering from heart disease and diabetes were more at risk of being left disabled.

Arthritis was consistently linked to disability in both genders across most of the age groups, they found.

Experts believe knowing which conditions are linked to greater disability will help create preventative health strategies.

They also have a higher chance of being left disabled as a result of having multiple conditions, scientists have discovered

Lead researcher Lauren Griffith said: 'These findings help us to better understand, at a population level, the biggest drivers of disability for middle-aged and older adults.

'What this research shows is that depending on your age and sex, the specific chronic diseases most highly associated with disability in the population differ.

'Often, when we are looking at disability, especially for chronic conditions, we are looking at the 65 and older age group.

'But if we want to be able to develop interventions earlier to help prevent or slow down the progression of disability, we need to start looking at the impact of chronic conditions on younger age groups.'
But now at 22 months, her parents say she is thriving since being home

She spent 2 and a half months in hospital and even fought off sepsis

When she was born she was whisked away for an emergency operation

Doctors warned that it was unlikely she would survive the pregnancy

A baby born with her intestines and bowel outside her body defied all medical expectations to survive.

Erin Angell-Field was diagnosed with gastroschisis - a rare birth defect that causes the digestive organs to stick out of the stomach - while in the womb.

Doctors warned it was unlikely she would make it through pregnancy, forcing her mother Lucia Angell, 25, to seek regular check-ups.

When she was born, she was whisked away by doctors who had to wrap her in cling film to keep her organs warm as she was rushed for emergency surgery.

They put most of her intestines back into her stomach but had to remove part of her bowel which had died as a result of being exposed in the womb.

She spent two and a half months in hospital being closely monitored and even fought off the deadly blood infection sepsis during her battle.

But now 22 months old, Erin, from Benington, Hertfordshire, is thriving at home. However, her parents say there is still 'a long road ahead'.

Erin Angell-Field (left) was diagnosed with gastroschisis while in the womb - which doctors warned may kill her. It caused her to be born with her intestines and her bowel on the outside of her body. But now 22 months (right), she is thriving at home

Ms Angell, from Benington, Hertfordshire, said: ' That day we got to take her home was incredible. We didn't tell any of our family and just turned up with Erin. Everyone was so happy and relieved.

'There is still a long road ahead as she might have some stomach problems when she's older but it is a small price to pay to have her with us.

'She is doing so well. She is bright and funny and a right little madam but the fact she has a little attitude is nice because it shows how strong she is.

'Seeing her fight this battle gives you a completely different outlook on things. We live life to the full and we want to make sure that every day of Erin's life is filled with lots of fun things.'

Erin was diagnosed with the rare condition during Ms Angell's 16-week scan at hospital.

And when she was born in January last year, her small and part of her large intestine and her bowel were outside of her body.

The family weren't allowed to touch their daughter until she was five days old and taken off a ventilator - which was keeping her alive (pictured with mother Lucia Angell, 25)

She spent 2 and a half months in hospital being closely monitored, and even fought off the deadly blood infection sepsis during her battle

The first-time parents had to watch her be wrapped in cling film to keep her organs warm and rushed for emergency surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London.

Surgeons put back her digestive system in her body but 15cm of her bowel had to be cut away because it had died.

She then underwent an ileostomy to divert her small intestine into a stoma bag and was hooked up to breathing apparatus to keep her alive.

The family weren't allowed to touch their daughter until she was five days old and taken off a ventilator.

Ms Angell added: 'It was awful. It's hard enough being a first-time mum but the pressure of not knowing if she was even going to survive was horrible.

'The moment she was born she was whipped away. It was so upsetting not being able to hold her but she needed to have all her organs wrapped up before we could have contact.

'After all the pain of childbirth, holding your baby is something a mother wants more than anything but I just had to concentrate on what was best for her.'

She continued: 'On the fifth day in hospital we were allowed to hold and cuddle her for the first time. It was such a special moment.

'We had gone from not being able to hold her and not knowing if she'd be able to breathe on her own to getting both at the same time. It was amazing.

But she returned to health, and was booked in for a stoma reversal and to finally have her stomach closed. She has been left without a belly button from where it was stitched up and doctors finally allowed her home at the end of March

Throughout her entire hospital stay, her parents had no idea if Erin would survive and in March she stopped breathing

'We were so happy. We really learnt to cherish those moments and hold onto the good things because you had no idea what the next day would bring.'

Doctors monitored her in hospital for two and a half months in case her intestines began to fail.

WHAT IS GASTROSCHISIS? Gastroschisis is a type of abdominal wall defect. It occurs when a child's abdomen does not develop fully while in the womb. In gastroschisis, the abdominal wall does not form completely so the intestines develop outside and are open to the air when the child is born. Some areas of the intestines may look darker as they have been in contact with the amniotic fluid inside the womb, which can damage them. It is not known exactly what causes gastroschisis although it is becoming more common, particularly in younger mothers under the age of 20 years. Overall the incidence is quite low with 1 in 3000 babies being born with gastroschisis each year. Source: Great Ormond Street Hospital Advertisement

They later found a small hole in her heart, which was responsible for an increase in her heart rate.

Throughout her entire hospital stay, her parents had no idea if Erin would survive and in March she stopped breathing.

Ms Angell said: 'She had finally come out of intensive care and after all the complications, things finally seemed to be going well.

'I had walked Daniel to the door to say goodbye as he was going home for the night and when I got back into Erin's room the emergency bell started going. She had stopped breathing.

'In seconds there were 15-20 nurses and doctors running in there and doing CPR, it was a crazy moment and absolutely terrifying.

'They kept asking if I wanted to leave but I told them if my daughter was going to die I was going to be with her.'

Doctors later discovered she had the deadly blood infection sepsis - forcing her to return to intensive care.

But she returned to health, and was booked in for a stoma reversal and to finally have her stomach closed just a week later.
When his condition worsened the next week she took him back to the GP

A mother watched her two-year-old son die before her eyes after doctors allegedly misdiagnosed his meningitis as a chest infection.

Tyler McDonnell, from Leeds, had developed a bad cough, high temperature and was violently shaking last month.

But his mother Theresa, 41, says doctors believed it to be just a viral infection and sent him home.

When his condition worsened over the following week, she took him back to Bellbrooke Surgery in Harehills, where his GP prescribed antibiotics - which they say was just 'following procedures'.

Ms McDonnell realised his heart had stopped beating and immediately called an ambulance when she tried to give him the medicine.

Doctors diagnosed him with meningococcal meningitis and spent days trying to save his life - but he died just two days later.

Tyler McDonnell had developed a temperature last month. His mother Theresa, 41, claims doctors told her it was just a chest infection. But after his heart stopped beating he was rushed to hospital where doctors spent two days trying to save his life before he died

Ms McDonnell, who has seven other children, said: 'The doctors should have caught this. This is a mistake that has seen me lose my son.

'This story needs to be told to raise awareness to other parents because I dont want anyone to go through what Im going through.

'The staff at the hospital tried everything they could but I knew he was gone. Im just so devastated and angry. I watched my little boy die before my eyes.'

Upon consulting the GP, Ms McDonnell says they just listened to his heartbeat and looked in his ears - and did nothing else.

She says her son was complaining about pains in his head and neck but the doctor said this was a common symptom of chest infections.

It wasn't until he had been rushed to hospital after his breathing had stopped that doctors made the diagnosis.

Meningococcal meningitis is a rare but serious infection that causes the membranes that cover the brain and the spinal cord to become inflamed.

Ms McDonnell has since launched a formal complaint with NHS England, which has confirmed it is looking into the case.

Ms McDonnell said: 'The doctors should have caught this. This is a mistake that has seen me lose my son'

But a spokeswoman for NHS Leeds South and East Clinical Commissioning Group, which oversees the practice, says it was 'following all relevant procedures'.

She said: 'The practice has just received a formal complaint from the family, via NHS England; they will co-operate fully with this investigation and make records available as appropriate.

'The practice recognises that this is a terribly difficult time for the family and extends its condolences.'

Ms McDonnell had already bought Tyler's Christmas presents before the tragedy happened.

'I still have them in my house,' she added. 'I see them and it's heartbreaking.'

She has since urged other parents to be aware of the symptoms of meningitis themselves so that they know when they need to take action.
Prince Philip boasted this week he has not had flu for 40 years.

But he may be luckier than he thinks, a new scientific study suggests.

Researchers have found people born before 1968, like the Prince, have super-strong defences against one group of common type of flu. They are, however, much weaker against the other types.

The reverse is also true. People born after 1968 will be hit for six by flu that wont trouble their elders.

People born before the late 1960s have resistance to certain types of the flu. Experts say this could be why Prince Philip, born in 1921, hasn't suffered from the bug in 40 years

Unfortunately, the kind of flu that is more likely to infect older people is now the more common type, researchers said.

The reason for the generation gap, is because the first flu bug you are exposed to as a child gives you 75 per cent resistance from severe sickness from similar types of the virus.

This finding overturns previous thinking that prior exposure to a flu bug offered little or no protection to new flu viruses, mutant strains that have made the leap from animals to humans.

The discovery also answers a long-standing puzzle.

The 1918 flu outbreak, which killed between 50-100million people, predominantly killed young adults, but nobody knew why.

Now it is thought that the reason is that older folk had greater resistance absent from the young.

Researchers also fear a similarly lethal outbreak could happen again, if a deadly flu virus were to evolve, but this time they would be better able to forecast its effects.

The researchers from University of Arizona and UCLA looked at two flu viruses that originated in birds -H5N1 and H7N9  and that have killed hundreds.

It is feared they could become even more lethal if they mutate to not only to readily jump from birds into humans, but also spread rapidly between human hosts.

Since 2013, when H7N9 was first detected, scientists have been puzzled by the fact that the two viruses tend to affect distinct age groups:

Australian-born actor Hugh Jackman and Hollywood star Will Smith were also born in 1968 and are protected from H1N1 strain, which is believed to have killed more than 200,000 in 2009

Children and young adults are more likely to be infected with H5N1, while H7N9 disproportionately affects older adults.

1968 is the key year as this is the date of the Hong Kong flu pandemic, which swept away viruses from a different genetic group that had dominated seasonal influenza for a half-century.

People born since 1968 are more likely to have protection against H7N9, which is more closely related to the 1968 virus than to previous flu bugs.

People born before 1968 are likely to have protection against H5N1.

A major pandemic like the one we saw in 1918 has the potential to kill large numbers of people and shut down the world's economy Lead researcher Michael Worobey, of the University of Arizona

As H7 flu is now the more dominant seasonal type, Prince Philip may well have had some lucky escapes.

Flu can range from comparatively mild events  which make many sick  to the lethal 1918 outbreak.

Michael Worobey, of the University of Arizona, co-author of the research published in Science said: Even a comparatively weak, mild pandemic flu event like the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) outbreak is a trillion-dollar affair.

A major pandemic like the one we saw in 1918 has the potential to kill large numbers of people and shut down the worlds economy.

The researchers discovered that whichever strain a person was exposed to during their first flu infection determined which strain they were protected against for life.

The young persons immune system learns to focus its attacks on a protein called haemagglutin. This protein sticks out like a lollipop on the surface of the virus.

PRINCE PHILIP: 'I HAVEN'T HAD FLU IN 40 YEARS' The Duke of Edinburgh may be 95 but he appears to have a robust constitution after he told a flu expert yesterday he has not had the illness for 40 years. Prince Philip made the revelation about his good health when he joined the Queen on a tour of the 650 million Francis Crick Institute - a major biomedical research centre that aims to develop new ways of preventing, diagnosing and treating disease like cancer, HIV and malaria. With the flu jab recommended for the over-65s, it is not known if Philip has had the procedure but he chatted about his apparent immunity to flu expert Dr Yi Pu Lin. Advertisement

These lollipops come in two main flavours, the researchers said.

Professor Worobey said: Lets say you were first exposed to a human orange lollipop flu as a kid.

If later in life you encounter another subtype of flu virus, one from a bird and one that your immune system has never seen before but whose proteins also are of a similar orange flavor, your chances of dying are quite low because of cross-protection.

But if you were first infected with a virus from the blue lollipop group as kid, that wont protect you against this novel, orange strain.

The findings explain why some groups resist certain age groups resist some flu strains, but not others.

Professor Worobey said the finding may explain the unusual mortality patterns caused by the 1918 flu pandemic, which was more deadly among young adults.

In their latest paper, Worobey and co-authors not only show that there is a 75 percent protection rate against severe disease and 80 percent protection rate against death if patients had been exposed to a matched virus as children.
ALL OF US AND EVERYTHING by Bridget Asher (Corvus 12.99)

ALL OF US AND EVERYTHING

by Bridget Asher

(Corvus 12.99)

I adored this story of boho-glam Augusta Rockwell  whose husband is an absent spy  and her three brilliant, disaster-prone daughters.

Ashers warm, witty, clever novel examines the ironies and contradictions of a fatherless family whose dad, without their knowledge, is always there, and three sisters who endlessly squabble yet are passionately close.

The characters are wonderful, especially writer Ru and Tweeting niece Atty, and I especially enjoyed the James Bond romance of Augusta and Nick.

The frustrating practicalities of CIA wifedom are as funny as they are fascinating, as is the way Nick occasionally appears in Augustas bathroom picking shrapnel out of his chest.

THIS WAS A MAN by Jeffrey Archer (Macmillan 20)

THIS WAS A MAN

by Jeffrey Archer

(Macmillan 20)

The British Establishment has always been the theme of Archers Clifton Chronicles, and here we have the full glitter and ermine as author Harry, series hero, is knighted and his wife, Emma, is welcomed into the Lords. Archers inside track on such things is put to great effect; there are also some thrilling prison scenes.

He also gives us lashings of the usual business backstabbing, legal weaselling and general glamorous swashbuckling.

Archers women, as ever, are the best characters; besides wonderful Emma theres fiery artist Jessica and arch-villain Virginia reaching her scheming apogee.

Archer puts his entire formidable bag of storytelling tricks into this last in the series; even Margaret Thatcher makes a cameo appearance, and theres a truly tearjerking ending.

THE SHADOW SISTER by Lucinda Riley (Macmillan 16.99)

THE SHADOW SISTER

by Lucinda Riley

(Macmillan 16.99)

Ive loved the Seven Sisters series from the start, and this third book  about shy, retiring Star  is my favourite so far.

The series premise is that the seven stunning, adopted daughters of a mysterious, wealthy man have been left clues to their real backgrounds in his will. Beginning in a kooky Kensington bookshop, Stars family history takes in the opulent court of Edward VII, a friendship with Beatrix Potter and a shabby-chic Kentish manor house which is home to a charismatic family.

Love, betrayal, loss and self-discovery all figure in a complex tale which combines contemporary romance with historical fiction and detective story.

Rileys trademark lavish detail, glamorous settings and wonderful characters are all present in this treat of a novel.
SWING TIME by Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton 18.99)

SWING TIME

by Zadie Smith

(Hamish Hamilton 18.99)

A major novel in a muted, minor key, the opening sentence of Swing Time decisively sets its tone: It was the first day of my humiliation.

The unnamed narrator is a thirtysomething Londoner who, until recently, was PA to Aimee, a global pop superstar. Now, shes unemployed and entirely alone  what went wrong?

Smith returns us to her protagonists childhood friendship with fellow council estate-dweller Tracey, their shared mixed heritage and mutual passion for dance.

But just as the technological developments of the Eighties begin to allow for home taping  which will later play a central role  and the fast-forwarding and rewinding of time, so the plot begins to thicken with scenes from later decades.

Celebrity is always a seductive read, and Smith hits all the right notes in her portrait of Aimee, whose wealth is greater than the gross domestic product of the African country on which she bestows her largesse. But satire is never the central aim, and as the final pieces drop devastatingly into place, they register as depth-charges, rather than explosions.

That, however, is no criticism: if Swing Times central theme is power, then it is Smiths restraint that makes the impact of this flawlessly executed novel so great.

MISS JANE by Brad Watson (Picador 12.99)

MISS JANE

by Brad Watson

(Picador 12.99)

There are few taboos in fiction, and those who flirt with them often seek to enjoy reflected glamour. Brad Watson, who was nominated for Americas National Book Award for this novel, is not that kind of writer. His eponymous heroine is born in Mississippi in 1915 with a genital birth defect that renders her infertile and incontinent.

Its a reality that both Watson  who was inspired by the story of his own great-aunt  and his characters are unafraid to address frankly, and yet, he never seeks to elicit our pity or horror.

Miss Jane is courageous, resilient and enquiring; her parents are troubled souls, but loving. That said, Watson doesnt succumb to sentimentality. There is no hope of a cure for Jane, her schooldays are short-lived and she knows from an early age that her destiny is to be alone.

Even so, her days are not limited, but brimful with experience, much of it surprisingly sensual.

With the woods and fields of Janes rural home seeming to cast a subtle enchantment on her life, hers is a history that is as unexpectedly beguiling as it is affecting.

PERFUME RIVER by Robert Olen Butler (No Exit Press 14.99)

PERFUME RIVER

by Robert Olen Butler

(No Exit Press 14.99)

Olen Butlers novel comes heaped with praise from his fellow Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford, but I struggled to find in it the plainly-put elegance that Fords jacket puff promises.

At its heart is the Quinlan family  or, more accurately, its menfolk.

Octogenarian patriarch William is a veteran of World War II; while his septuagenarian son Robert served in Vietnam. However, Roberts brother Jimmy dodged the draft and fled to Canada, cutting all ties.

Following a crisis, the trio are drawn together unwillingly and the past comes flooding back  which is part of the problem.

This is a novel about the long shadows cast by war and trauma, but memories often threaten to bog it down entirely.

Momentum comes from a thriller-like strand involving the mentally unstable son of another Vietnam veteran, which, if lacking in nuance compared with the rest of the novel, is nonetheless effective.
THE HISTORY THIEVES

by Ian Cobain

(Portobello 20)

Ian Cobain, author of this well-researched and carefully written book, takes deadly aim at the official version of modern British history. We are taught at school that we are a decent and tolerant nation, and that the state does not assassinate its opponents, use torture or commit atrocities. Cobain argues that this picture is both complacent and untrue, and he provides chilling evidence that the British state has routinely committed appalling crimes, many of them in wars fought well away from the public eye.

How many people know that it was Britain  not the French or the Americans  who launched the Vietnam conflict, airlifting the entire 20th Infantry Division of the British Indian army to Indo-China in 1945 with orders to suppress a Vietnamese attempt to form their own government?

Who knows about the four-year-long war fought by the British in Indonesia in the Sixties, or the decade-long counter-insurgency campaign in Oman on the Arabian Peninsula?

Cobain proves the British authorities have arranged the suppression  or destruction  of documents that portray Britain in a bad light

Cobain calculates that British forces have been engaged somewhere in the world every year since at least 1914. Between 1949 and 1970, Britain initiated 34 foreign interventions. No other country, not even Russia or the U.S., has such a record.

Yet the British people are, for the most part, blithely unaware of this. Cobain argues that the reason for their ignorance is a culture of national secrecy more thorough-going than that of France or the U.S. He shows that the brutal Oman war went unreported for many years. And when wars did get reported, it was by tame journalists passing on a doctored version of events.

The wars remain a mystery to historians, too. Cobain proves the British authorities have arranged the suppression  or destruction  of documents that portray Britain in a bad light. Thousands of incriminating files have been incinerated or dumped at sea, while others remain hidden in secret archives.

Cobain calls this an extraordinarily ambitious act of history theft. He maintains the British state of the late 20th and early 21st century was attempting to protect the reputation of the British state of generations earlier, concealing and manipulating history  sculpting an official narrative  in a manner more associated with a dictatorship than a mature and confident democracy.

THE HISTORY THIEVES by Ian Cobain (Portobello 20)

Cobain explains that the problem is getting worse because of recent legislation pushed through by the Coalition enabling suspects to be tried in secret courts, meaning that defendants do not even know the charges being made against them. The real reason for much of this secrecy, suggests Cobain, is not to ensure justice, but rather to protect the reputation of intelligence officers complicit in crimes such as torture.

Cobain is an honest and accurate reporter, but I have one serious criticism of the book. It does not give enough of a voice to the Whitehall figures whose job it is to fight terrorism and make sensitive decisions about British foreign policy.

They have the grave task of ensuring atrocities are not carried out on the streets of Britain  and in recent years they have been successful in this vital and largely thankless task. Their need to work in secret is all too understandable.

I continue to believe that Britain is a decent country. We have nothing in our recent history comparable to the atrocities committed by the French in Algeria or the Belgians in the Congo  let alone the mass murders of Stalin, Mao or Hitler.
An unprecedented desi wave hit the US general elections as a record number of five Indian-Americans were elected to the US Congress.

Indian-American women put up a good show in the 2016 elections, with Kamala Harris, 51, a two-term attorney general from California, creating history by winning the US Senate seat from the state.

Pramila Jayapal, 51, won the Congressional seat from Seattle to enter the House of Representatives, the first Indian-American woman to accomplish this feat.

Raja Krishnamoorthi has made it to the highest citadel of democracy at the second attempt

Jayapal will be joined in the House of Representatives by Raja Krishnamoorthi, who has made it to the highest citadel of democracy at the second attempt.

Ro Khanna beat fellow Democrat Mike Honda from California.

At the time of writing, Ami Bera was leading in the race for the House of Representatives from their districts in California. With 56 per cent of the votes counted in Californias Silicon Valley, Democratic Congressman Bera was leading with 54 per cent votes at 47,427, ahead of his Republican party rival Scott Jones, who got 46 per cent votes.

Democratic US Attorney General Kamala Harris

If elected for the third successive term, Bera will become the longest serving Indian- American Congressman ever.

Khanna, the Democratic Party candidate from Californias 17th district, beat his closest rival Mike Honda, also of the Democratic Party.

After 72 per cent of the votes cast were counted, Khanna was leading with 58 per cent votes at 50,952 while Honda had garnered 42 per cent.

Interestingly, the outgoing US President Barack Obama had endorsed Harris, Krishnamoorthi and Bera. Senator Bernie Sanders and former US President Jimmy Carter had endorsed Jayapal.

Ro Khanna beat fellow Democrat Mike Honda from California

Harris, who was born in Oakland, California, is the daughter of an Indian mother who emigrated from Chennai in 1960 and a Jamaican American father.

California Democrats had overwhelmingly endorsed Harris for the US Senate, solidifying her front-runner status in the race to become California's next Senator.

Endorsing Harris, Obama had said, Kamala Harris fights for us. That's why I am so proud to endorse her for United States Senator.

"And if you send her to the Senate, she will be a fearless fighter for the people of California, all the people of California, every single day. Jayapal entered the US Congress on her maiden attempt.
If you have ever dialed the CATS (Centralised Ambulance Trauma Services) in Delhi and waited in vain, its not a surprise.

The much-hyped service is hit by control room mismanagement, ill-equipped vehicles, as well as untrained staff and drivers, a complaint has alleged.

And this is despite a large chunk of CATS being outsourced with the hope that it would better the quality of the service.

The much-hyped CATS is hit by control room mismanagement, ill-equipped vehicles, as well as untrained staff and drivers, a complaint has alleged

Just four months back Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia signed off 55 new CATS ambulances with much fanfare, taking the strength to 265.

But today the condition of these emergency vehicles has deteriorated, sources claim, with the outsourcing/privatisation of CATS said to be to blame for the decline in the service.

In March 2016, the contract for the operation and maintenance of these ambulances was given to UKSAS-BVG Company and the contract to operate the CATS control room was given to WIPRO.

According to the informed source: Recently, several complaints were made to Health Minister Satyendra Jain and Deputy CM about the worsening condition of CATS ambulances, but nothing has been done so far.

Mail Today has a copy of a complaint which said: On 3 July 2016, Deputy CM of Delhi flagged off 55 new ambulances but so far the UKSAS-BVG Company has not made all the 55 new ambulances operational.

"Even the old fleet of 155 ambulances is not functioning. Since taking charge, these companies have failed in every aspect to provide on-time modern ambulances services to the people.

The complaint continued: Ambulance staff is forced to operate mechanically defective ambulance vehicles without AC, siren-beacon, oxygen cylinders and emergency first aid medical equipment."

The concerned company has failed to provide adequate and quality manpower for ambulances services in CATS. The ambulances drivers have not been recruited by following the standard procedure as was followed by CATS earlier to recruit contractual ambulance drivers. These new drivers were recruited without any test for their driving skill and written exam, the letter added.

The complaint alleged that the staff deployed in CATS control room by WIPRO are not adequately trained.

They do not know the functioning of CATS. They also have scant knowledge about Delhi's geography, which is why they are not attending to emergency calls on time, the complaint letter stated.

They are unable to despatch the calls to the concerned zone immediately and this leads to a delay in communication with the ambulance vehicles.

Experts pointed out that under the Motor Vehicles Act, it is illegal to operate ambulances without rectifying the defects.

Sources told Mail Today that two ambulances have recently had accidents, with the vehicles driven by newly-appointed drivers.

A CATS official said: The initial time after an emergency or accident is critical for the patient. But due to lack of coordination with the control room, we are unable to reach the spot fast. As a result, most of these critical patients opt for private ambulances."
Now that Donald Trump has won the US presidential elections against all odds, we have to carefully assess its implications for us here in India.

The position he took on various political and economic issues during the election campaign may indicate his general approach to highly complex issues but cannot be taken as policy. That will get crystallised in the months ahead.

In the US system even the formation of the new government takes an extraordinary long time.

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Trump may have shocked the world community by storming to presidential victory, but what will his election as the most powerful man in the world mean for India?

Little is known about Trumps advisers; some believe he really listens to no one and decides himself.

It will be interesting to see who he nominates in key positions; they will not obviously be from the personalities one is familiar with.

It will take us time to establish relationships with the new team, and so for a while the current dynamism of India-US ties should slow down.

Protectionism

In several areas the contours of his thinking, as expressed during the election campaign, could be considered as either positive for us or less problematic than what one might think.

There is concern that he is protectionist in his economic thinking.

His approach to issues including trade ties, Pakistan, terrorism and nuclear power could all have a huge bearing on India, as it seeks to build better ties with America in the years ahead

His focus on job losses is in the manufacturing sector targets China and Mexico primarily. It is in the services sector that India is accused of job losses.

While Trump has made some comments on H-1B visas and call centres, his primary target is not India, though there would be spill over effect of bringing jobs back home on us too.

Trump wants to renegotiate NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) and is of the view that the trade agreements that the US has signed have damaged its economy and benefited others.

This position is not unhelpful to us, as we are being kept out of the trade agreements the Obama administration was pushing, and, in any case, the Indian economy is not ready for these high standards agreements.

Trumps position may give us more time to prepare our economy for such agreements by carrying out more reforms.

Trump supporters celebrate his historic victory in the US presidential race, but should Indian people be celebrating with them?

If China comes under pressure because of Trumps protectionist thinking, and that at a time when the Chinese economy is slowing down, this may be helpful geopolitically to us.

However, Trump is also against the US pivot to Asia. If he moves away from it, that would open more space for China to assert itself geopolitically in the western Pacific, expand its power there and be in a position to move into the Indian Ocean more quickly.

With Obama we had forged a joint strategic vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. This vision had at its centre the concerns about the rise of China in view of its increased muscle- flexing.

If Trump discards the pivot as an unnecessary drain on US resources, this joint India-US vision will lose sense.

Reset

US-Russia relations have deteriorated sharply under Obama. Clintons antagonism towards Russia had deepened further during the election campaign because of allegations of his interference in the elections in Trumps favour.

Trumps attitude towards Russia is much more sensible than that of Obama.

His willingness to work with Russia in Syria and against the Islamic State, and, generally find a modus vivendi on Ukraine and Crimea, has indirect geopolitical benefits for us.

That's because improved India-US ties will become less of a negative factor in Russian thinking about ties with India and may slow down Russias embrace of China.

Obligations

Trumps robust statements on the Islamic threat to the US and on extremism and terrorism in general were essentially in the context of the threat from these forces to homeland America.

He has made some negative comments about Pakistan. This concern of his can be helpful in forging stronger understandings with the US on Indias position on terrorism, including from Pakistan.

Trump has not taken any particular position on Afghanistan, but given his general position on US shedding its burden on defending others and pressuring them to do more for their own defence, and his focus on rebuilding US strength depleted by foreign adventures, the US commitment to Afghanistan could weaken further.

On nuclear issues, Trump has made statements that have caused concern to the non-proliferation lobby, such as, for example, entertaining the idea of Japan going nuclear to defend itself against the Chinese threat.

On the US-Iran nuclear deal he has said nothing of note and so the likelihood of the Republicans seeking to sabotage the deal after the elections can be set aside.

On nonproliferation issues, therefore, we may be less troubled by existing lobbies in the US in the democratic camp that continue to focus negatively on India.

It is ironical though that Trump wants to make America great by withdrawing unto itself, whereas the US pre-eminence can only be maintained by asserting its strength globally.
The Indian army has confirmed that three of its soldiers have been killed in cross border firing with Pakistan in disputed Kashmir, in the latest skirmish between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

One Indian soldier died after coming under Pakistani sniper fire on Wednesday in the Machhal sector, army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia told reporters.

Indian soldiers retaliated by targeting the Pakistan army posts across the Line of Control - the de facto border dividing the disputed Himalayan region - he confirmed.

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The Indian army has confirmed that three of its soldiers have been killed in cross border firing with Pakistan in disputed Kashmir, in the latest skirmish between the nuclear-armed neighbours

The sniper attack came a day after two soldiers were killed in Pakistani firing in Naushera sector, a separate Indian army statement said.

Three civilians on the Pakistani side of Kashmir were also killed in that exchange of fire, according to local officials.

In a separate incident, Indian troops gunned down two suspected militants in a firefight in the Sopore area of Indian-administered Kashmir after receiving a tip-off.

Paramilitary soldiers take position as they cordon off the area near the government building, Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Institute

An Indian army soldier takes up a position near the site of a gun battle between Indian army soldiers and rebels inside an army brigade headquarters near the border with Pakistan

"Two terrorists were killed and two weapons were recovered from their bodies," Colonel Kalia said.

The latest exchanges of fire come as ties worsen between the two rivals.

India blamed the September attack on Pakistan-based militants and responded with "surgical strikes" on what New Delhi described as terrorist launching pads across the dividing line.

Pakistan denied the strikes took place and the two sides have since expelled diplomats from their countries in a tit-for-tat row.

The sniper attack came a day after two soldiers were killed in Pakistani firing in Naushera sector, a separate Indian army statement said

The border skirmishes come against the backdrop of months of protests against Indian rule of Kashmir, sparked by the killing of popular rebel leader Burhan Wani in July.

Nearly 90 people, most of them young protesters, have been killed in clashes with security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir since then.
With Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes being scrapped, the government has directed the Income Tax Department to work in coordination with banks to collect information on individuals who exchange cash amounts in excess of Rs 2 lakh.

Officials will keep a record of such citizens, along with their PAN card details, and tally it with their tax returns to check they have paid what they owe on the income.

In cases where the tax has not been paid, a penalty ranging from 30 per cent to 120 per cent could be imposed on people.

Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley spoke on Wednesday during a press conference in New Delhi following the news that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes would be taken out of circulation

According to senior officials, the government decided to go in for the drastic step of demonetising the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, which account for as much as 86 per cent of the cash in circulation in the economy as the response to the voluntary Income Disclosure Scheme was "lukewarm."

The total money in circulation in the Indian economy is around 17 lakh crore.

"The main reason for scrapping these two currency denominations is to curb the menace of black money and turn India into a cashless economy which is easier to bring under the tax net," a senior IT official said.

The move comes as a part of the Modi government's war against black money

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said that the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes which people come forward to deposit in bank accounts will not enjoy immunity from tax and the law will apply on the source of such money.

Jaitley said the old higher denomination currency notes have to be deposited in bank accounts to get newer or smaller denomination currencies.

"But it should be clear that it is no immunity scheme, he explained.

"If the money is legitimate which had been previously withdrawn from the bank or earned legally and saved and had been disclosed, there is nothing to worry about," the Finance Minister said. "But if it is illegal money, the source will have to be disclosed and if it is a crime money, or bribe money, then it is trouble."

Modi announced he was pulling the high value bank notes from circulation in a TV address on Tuesday

Jaitley further said that housewives and farmers with genuine savings need not worry about depositing cash in their bank accounts.

In cases of small amounts that people deposit like Rs 25,000, 30,000 or 50,000 lying in the house for expenses, there is no need to worry, he said.

The Finance Minister said for the first one or two weeks replacement currency may not keep up with demand, but after two to three weeks, as more currency notes come into the market, and normal replacements will be available.

He said the temporary inconvenience cannot be an excuse that allows India to continue living with black money and parallel economy.

As the high value notes are traded in, there are fewer smaller denomination notes to go round - but the temporary inconvenience was "no alibi" for black money to continue, said Jaitley

The move would help make more and more transactions become digital, he said, adding that people will now disclose income and pay taxes.

India will become a more tax compliant society, he believes.

Jaitley said that people who have accumulated black money, crime money or bribe would suffer, with more transactions brought under the tax net and both direct and indirect taxes moving up.

A reduction in parallel economy would increase the size of the formal economy, Jaitley said.
Indian cabinet has cleared the India -Japan nuclear deal. It speaks of "cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy".

The agreement will be signed and ratified during Modis visit. This is especially important as Japan manufactures nuclear components and partly or fully owns firms like Westinghouse.

So, a clearance will allow these firms to sell such components to India. Japan has so far opposed the sale of these equipment to India as the latter has not yet signed the NPT.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays respects to late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej in Bangkok

The Indo-Japan Civilian Nuclear Deal is one of the crucial elements of cooperation in Indo-Japanese relationship.

An MoU exists between the Indian Coast Guard and the Japan Coast Guard for the establishment of a collaborative relationship to combat crimes at sea and develop regional cooperation.

India and Japan have been holding exchanges and talks at military-to-military level and information exchanges on maritime data, with both countries being prominent maritime states in the Indo-Pacific region.

PM Modi tweeted pictures as he met with Indian community in Japan

There has been agreement on technology transfer and protection of military information.

A framework for collaboration in the field of defence in high-tech areas is being looked at.

India identifies Japan as a privileged partner in the Make in India program and an important strategic partner in its Act East Policy.

China had expressed concern on the deal for US-2 Shinmaywa amphibious aircraft expected to be signed during PM Modis visit to Japan, and also cautioned both the countries against making statements on the South China Sea dispute.

A day before the PMs departure, Chinese State media had warned Delhi against seeking support from Tokyo on censuring China on its moves in the South China Sea.
A number of bullion traders and hawala operators are offering parallel platforms for hoarders of black money to park their unaccounted wealth, laying to waste the countrys historic clampdown on tax cheats, an India Today investigation has found.

In a country where gold is one of the most-preferred investment instruments, quite a few bullion traders were found to be selling the precious metal at a hefty premium in exchange for outlawed banknotes.

India Todays investigative teams have been out and about on the streets to expose underground attempts to sabotage Prime Minister Narendra Modis measure to cleanse the system of unaccounted wealth.

Traders are using illegal means to use banned notes of Rs 500 while Hawala operators are short-changing void currency in bulk

Since Tuesdays announcement to demonetize high-value denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, gold-for-cash shops and hawala rackets have started angling for a pie in the sudden upsurge of black-money market over the past two days, the teams have found.

Gold and jewellery are considered to be the easiest way to hide unaccounted money as these could be passed on as traditional possessions and experts feel people may park their unaccounted money in gold and other assets - making their prices shoot up in the long run.

The government, too, had appealed to traders to not help these hoarders and had warned all transactions will come under scrutiny.

But that has done little to stop these pop-up gold for cash shops across the country.

At the K.P. Jewels store in Delhis Chandni Chowk, trader Rishabh was willing to barter 10 grams of gold at around Rs 55,000 for invalid currency against the market price of Rs 31,000.

Its Rs 54,500 for a tola (10 grams). Youll get two kilos in two days. he told India Todays undercover reporter.

It will cost you one crore and nine thousand rupees.

India Today also found heavy black-marketing of ornaments in the same jewellery hub.

At Chandni Chowk, Gehna Jewellers offered 18-carat ornaments at Rs 47,000 in high-denomination notes.

Gold and jewellery are considered to be the easiest way to hide unaccounted money as these could be passed on as traditional possessions. (Picture for representation only)

Its 75 per cent pure gold, claimed a trader at the store, guaranteeing unlimited quantities even for cash notes that were declared void by the Prime Minister on Tuesday night.

Well give you as much as you want, he said. Really, for Rs 2 crore? asked the reporter.

Even for Rs 3 crore, offered the trader. Noidas Bagga Jewellery accountant Suman Jha told India Todays crew that his establishment had made sales of Rs 1.40 crore in few hours of Thursday.

This Noida store would demand no identity proof from its high net-worth customers. Bagga Jewellery director Puneet Bagga also explained how they would manipulate their accounts.

You don't have to give any PAN card, he said. We'll issue fake bills of Rs 1.50 lakh or 1.75 lakh. Well pay all the taxes. We are going make a 30 per cent profit and will pay 30 per cent tax on those gains at the end of the financial year.

Several hawala operators were also found to be short-changing repealed currency in bulk.

In Chandni Chowks Kucha Ghasi Ram, suspected money launderer Raju Sharma promised to deliver Rs 1 crore in two instalments in Mumbai.

Youll get Rs 25 lakh in two days. The rest Rs 75 lakh will be paid in 5 to 6 days, he claimed.

In the same business district, hawala broker Shahid offered instant delivery of money in Ahmedabad in exchange for cancelled banknotes.
Punjab politics was hit by a flash flood of controversy on Thursday after the Supreme Court ruled that the scrapping of water-sharing agreements with other states was unconstitutional.

Observers say the poll-bound state may even end up under Presidents Rule in the near future with Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh resigning from his Lok Sabha seat in protest and his party MLAs quitting en-masse from the state assembly, while leaders from other parties including the ruling SAD may follow suit.

The top court said the Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal, which is at the centre of a row between Punjab and Haryana, has to be completed.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi with former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh during his visit to Mallwala village at Talwandi Sabo

At the root of the dispute is water, an emotive issue in SAD-BJP-ruled Punjab where elections are due early next year.

Every party wants to be seen as furthering the cause of the states crisis-hit farmers who perceive any water flowing away through the canal would be their loss.

The Congress was in power in Punjab in 1982 when Indira Gandhi flagged off the project.

The Congress was in power in Punjab in 1982 when Indira Gandhi flagged off the project

The venture, however, got stalled in the state during the Khalistan movement.

In 2004, the then Amarinder-led government passed the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, that stopped construction of the SYL canal designed to carry Haryanas portion of the Ravi-Beas waters from Punjab.

The neighbouring state took the matter to court. In March this year, the Parkash Singh Badal government decided to de-notify the 5,376 acres acquired for the project with the passage of the Punjab Sutlej- Yamuna Link Land (Return of Property Rights) Bill, 2016, to facilitate the return of 3,928 acres to villagers.

But within a week of the passage of the bill, the top court asked Punjab to maintain status quo. While CM Badal hastily convened an emergency meeting of his council of ministers to discuss the crisis provoked by Thursdays SC order, his son and deputy, Sukhbir Badal, had already made it clear that his government would go to any lengths to block the canals completion.

We will not allow a single drop of (Ravi-Beas) water to go out from Punjab, Badal said on the sidelines of an official function in Adampur near Jalandhar ahead of the Cabinet meeting on Thursday evening.

The deputy CM blamed the Congress and former PM Indira Gandhi for planning and executing the construction of the canal against Punjabi interests.

Punjab politics was hit by a raging torrent on Thursday after the Supreme Court ruled that the scrapping of water-sharing agreements with other states was unconstitutional

But minutes after the news of the Supreme Court order came in, Amarinder dashed off a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker, conveying his decision to resign his parliamentary seat (Amritsar).

All Congress party MLAs quit their Assembly seats simultaneously.

In his letter, Amarinder said he had decided to quit as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of my state of the much-needed Sutlej river water".

He blamed the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal for bringing the people of Punjab to this pitiable pass where they face imminent devastation from acute water scarcity.

Amarinder insisted that CM Parkash Singh Badal and his government had failed to defend Punjabs stand in the court, leading to the adverse verdict.

The AAP, which had earlier been slow to realise emotive potential of the SYL issue, also responded with a measured mix of anger and rhetoric as state convener Gurpreet Ghuggi announced a new morcha (demonstration) starting from Kapoori, the village in Patiala District where Indira Gandhi inaugurated the digging of the canal in April 1982.

Among other leaders, Sanjay Singh accused the Congress and SAD of indulging in histrionics while HS Phoolka claimed his party is prepared to make any sacrifice on the issue.

The SYL has a long and bloody history that includes the assassination of SAD chief Harchand Longowal in August 1985, the killings of Punjab irrigation chief engineer ML Sikri and his clerk in 1990 and Khalistani terrorists mercilessly gunning down 30 construction workers engaged in digging the canal near Chandigarh.

Analysts say the current political rhetoric which is already finding angrier echoes amid fringe hardline Sikh outfits such as the Dal Khalsa and the SAD faction headed by Simranjit Singh Mann, could easily fan more flames in the charged atmosphere ahead of the Assembly polls.

The water dispute between Punjab and Haryana has been simmering for over a decade
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrived in India on November 6 on her first bilateral visit outside Europe to reinvigorate the India-UK strategic partnership.

She has suggested that her three-day maiden visit to India shows the importance of the UK and India bilateral ties which will be a true celebration of relations and shared ambition for the future.

Mays visit to India comes at a crucial time for the UK.

British Prime Minister Theresa May stands among Indian school children during her visit to Stone Hill Government Higher Primary School on the outskirts of Bangalore

She intends to start formal negotiations on leaving the European Union (EU) by the end of March 2017, putting Britain on course to exit the bloc - and potentially the European single market - by early 2019.

As the UK struggles to re-define its global role post-Brexit, May has often mentioned India among the priority countries for a free trade agreement to boost the UKs ties outside the EU.

PM Theresa May visits the Sri Someshwara Hindu temple in Bangalore on the final day of a three-day trade mission designed to pave the way for close commercial links with India

Immigration

At the Conservative Party conference last month, she asserted: Countries including Canada, China, India, Mexico, Singapore and South Korea have already told us they would welcome talks on future free trade agreements.

"And we have already agreed to start scoping discussions on trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand.

For May, Brexit means Brexit and she fully intends to make a success of it. As home secretary in the cabinet of David Cameron for six years, May was a hardliner on immigration though her policies, more often than not, failed to have the desired results.

The Home Office, under her leadership, often resorted to unseemly gimmicks such as hiring vans to tour Asian-dominated areas of London with big Go Home signs apparently aimed at illegal immigrants.

But as Prime Minister May has hailed the contribution of British-Indians, suggesting that she would highlight their success during her first official visit to India. In her Diwali message, she said that in Britains Indian communities, we can see the good that can be done when peoples talents are unleashed.

Theresa May walks with Hindu priests to offer prayers to Hindu deity Lord Shiva

"I think of all those running their own businesses, taking risks and working hard so that they can provide for their families and take on staff.

She has also made it clear that the UKs stand on Kashmir remains unchanged and it is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan to address, underlining that Kashmir was unlikely to be on the agenda during her bilateral talks with PM Narendra Modi.

On Kashmir as well as on the broader trajectory of India-UK ties, May will be building on the legacy of her predecessor, David Cameron who was a champion of Indian interests in the UK.

India and Britain had forged a strategic partnership during former British PM Tony Blairs visit to India in 2005, but it remained a partnership only in name.

The Conservatives were keen on imparting it a new momentum. But the Labour governments legacy on India was very complex and Camerons government needed great diplomatic finesse to manage the challenges.

Terrorism

Camerons government has made a serious effort to jettison the traditional British approach towards the subcontinent in so far as it has decided to deal with India as a rising power, not merely as a South Asian entity that needs to be seen through the prism of Pakistan.

Cameron himself made all the right noises when it came to India. He warned Pakistan against promoting any export of terror, whether to India or elsewhere, and said it must not be allowed to look both ways.

He proposed a close security partnership with India and underlined that Britain like India was determined that groups like the Taliban, the Haqqani network or Lakshar-e-Tayyeba should not be allowed to launch attacks on Indian and British citizens in India or in Britain.

More significantly, the British PM has also rejected any role for his country in the India-Pakistan dispute.

PM Modis successful trip to the UK last year was a reflection of the transformation in Indo-British ties under Cameron.

Investment

Where the UK has failed so far is in articulating a broader strategic vision for its ties with India and this is related to its failure to view Asia beyond economics and trade.

In the first speech by a serving Indian Prime Minister to the British Parliament, Modi said the UK and India were two strong economies and two innovative societies but their relationship must set higher ambitions.

Though the rise of India as an economic power is transforming British attitudes towards India across the political spectrum, the opposition Labour Party continues to see it through the lens of human rights and the impact of its Pakistani immigrant support base remains strong.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May shakes hands with her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi

The UK is the largest European investor in India and Delhi is the second largest investor in London.

Indian students are the second largest group in Britain.

There are significant historical, linguistic and cultural ties that remain untapped.

So a robust partnership with the Tory government is a good idea for India.

Modis visit to the UK last year managed to change the course of the India-UK ties considerably. It will be now up to May to build on that momentum.
Pakistan and the US are traditional allies in South Asia, but the relationship has soured after

Top political analysts have suggested that Donald Trump's surprise election as US president has left Pakistanis wary that he may instigate a shift in American policy to favour India.

Indian right-wingers demonstrated their support for Trump as he ran for election, hosting an event called Hindus for Trump in which Bollywood dancers played America's war against Islamic terror.

Historical allies in the region, Islamabad and Washington have seen relations sour over US accusations that Pakistan shelters Islamist militants, a charge Pakistan denies.

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The corridors of power: US President-elect Donald Trump walks with his wife Melania Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Capitol Hill in Washington

Will Trump really be great for India?

US-Pakistan relations hit a new low in May when a US drone killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban movement on Pakistani territory.

At the same time, Pakistan's ties with traditional rival India have also deteriorated this year, with India saying Pakistan-based militants killed 19 of its soldiers in a September attack on an army base in the disputed Kashmir region.

To many Pakistanis, Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric - he once proposed banning Muslims entering the United States - and business ties to India are signs that his administration could shift further toward New Delhi.

Hasan Askari Rizvi, Lahore-based foreign policy analyst told reporters: "America will not abandon Pakistan, but definitely, Trump will be a tougher president than Hillary Clinton for Pakistan".

Nawaz Sharif and Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the White House

"I think India will have a better and smoother interaction compared to Pakistan".

Trump has yet to lay out a detailed policy for South Asia, although he recently offered to mediate between India and Pakistan in their dispute over the divided territory of Kashmir.

He also told Fox News in May he would favour keeping nearly 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan "because it's adjacent and right next to Pakistan which has nuclear weapons".

Congratulations and Assurances

A US diplomat in Pakistan has assured the country that Trump's election did not signal a drastic change in policy.

"Our foreign policy is based on national interest and they don't change when the government changes," Grace Shelton, US Consul General in Karachi, told Geo News television.

Like many world leaders, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Trump, saying: "Your election is indeed the triumph of the American people and their enduring faith in the ideals of democracy, freedom, human rights and free enterprise".

Still, the uncertainty of a Trump presidency has many Pakistanis on edge, even if the country has leaned towards China in recent years for investment and diplomatic support.

"Trump is a bit of a wild card," said Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and former ambassador to the United States.

"Pakistan obviously cannot rule out engaging with whomever America elects, but his anti-Muslim rhetoric may cast a shadow on relations in times of uncertainty".

Allies? Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and President George W. Bush President George W. Bush

India Hopeful

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also congratulated Trump on Wednesday.

"We look forward to working with you closely to take India-US bilateral ties to a new height," Modi said in a tweet.

Trump has partnered with Indian businessmen on a handful of real estate ventures, but apart from courting the Indian-American vote he has not articulated how he would develop the bilateral relationship.

India-US ties have flourished under President Barack Obama and Modi, who came to power in 2014, with the two countries striking key defence agreements this year.

Navy Seals get the Bollywood treatment saving innocent Indians from the threat of jihadists with green lightsaber guns

Modi's government has also waged a campaign to isolate Pakistan diplomatically.

Shaurya Doval, director of the India Foundation, a think-tank close to Modi's government, called Trump's election "a very positive development", but added that India and the United States would have continued to grow closer under a Hillary Clinton presidency as well.

"My sense is that India-U.S. relations are not dependent on individuals - there are strong institutions and processes there," he said.

One fringe Hindu nationalist group in India held a victory gathering at New Delhi's speakers' corner on Wednesday.

"He's an American nationalist. We are Indian nationalists. Only he can understand us," Rashmi Gupta of the Hindu Sena, or Hindu Army, told Reuters.

"We expect him to support us when it comes to terrorist attacks on India from Pakistan".
Donald Trumps choice of treasury secretary will clearly be of enormous importance. Suggestions that Jamie Dimon, the all-powerful chairman of JP Morgan Chase, is being sounded out shows that the transition team is thinking along the right lines.

Trump will need a figure with the right skills to bolster credibility of his administration. Never mind that JP Morgan is one of the worlds most-fined banks for its role in the financial crisis, having paid out more than 25bn in penalties  a history which made Dimon toxic in the Obama White House in spite of credentials as a Democrat donor.

Wall Street already is exuberant at Trumps campaign commitment to sweep away legislation designed to usher in an era of safety and consumer protection for the financial markets. The Dodd-Frank act was intended to make sure abuses that led to the financial crisis never happen again.

Don't bank on it: Wall Street already is exuberant at Donald Trumps campaign commitment to sweep away legislation designed to usher in an era of safety and consumer protection

It runs to some 2,500 pages and is considered over-elaborate, costly and cumbersome. But presence on the statute books has not prevented American banks from bouncing back quickly from the nadir reached in the aftermath of the crisis.

Much of the hard graft on probing the sham accounts scandal at Wells Fargo was done by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency created by Dodd-Frank.

In Chicago, the prosecution and guilty plea entered by Hound of Hounslow Navinder Singh Sarao for spoofing trades, triggering a flash crash on Wall Street, was made possible by Dodd-Frank. Credit rating agencies, which escaped lightly from their role in the creation of sub-prime mortgage securities, have been brought under the same umbrella.

The creation of a new office of banking supervision at the Federal Reserve should make sure it has the tools it needs to deal with failing banks. And the Volcker Rule has ended the dangerous practice of the casino banks risking investor money by behaving as if they were giant hedge funds.

Moreover, even though the US dislikes international rule-making, it is party to the Financial Stability Board, headed by Mark Carney, which aims to make the global financial system safer, strengthen the capital of the banks and bring the guillotine down on too big to fail.

Eviscerating Dodd-Frank, which seeks to make banks and finance safer and protect the consumer, would be dangerous. It should also be looked at with some trepidation by the City. There already have been suggestions that post-Brexit some US banks may move functions back to the US.

Light-touch regulation of the banks would give Wall Street a competitive advantage. Sure, the act may have made it harder for new regional and challenger banks in the US to be established. But making life easier for the Wall Street banks and elites surely cannot be why Main Street and rural America voted Trump-Pence.

Steel nerves

When Anglophile Ratan Tata stepped back into his role as chairman of the Tata Group last month, the 130,000 members of the British Steel pension fund could not have been blamed for breathing a sigh of relief.

Ever since the crisis at Port Talbot emerged earlier this year, the fate of the pension fund has been in the balance.

Now we learn that Tata Steel, in which Tata Group has a stake, is considering closing the UK final salary pension scheme next year. The company already has agreed to make a 60m payment into the scheme in the current period and potentially could avoid making a similar contribution in 2017-18 should the scheme be shut.

Tata Steel is anxious to resolve the issues facing the 15bn pension fund as it is seen as an obstacle to a merger with Germanys ThyssenKrupp. The deficit in the Tata Steel fund has shrunk from 300m at the start of the year to 50m at present as a result of the improved returns on gilts. Nevertheless, closure of the scheme would clearly put at risk the security of payments to those already retired as well as the 11,000 active workers.

A merger of Tata Steel with ThyssenKrupp, without the guarantee provided by the current owners, could lead to the pension plan being transferred to the Pension Protection Fund, where benefits would be cut by 10 per cent and the bill would have to be picked up by a levy on healthy UK funds.

As one of Indias richest companies and an investor in Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Group has a moral and potentially legal responsibility to make sure that the British Steel pensioners are not disadvantaged by any attempt to restructure the pension fund.

Ratan Tata needs to take a personal interest in resolving a problem which could stain his impeccable reputation.

Creating value

As Britains leading free-to-air commercial broadcaster, ITV is being hammered by the switch by advertisers from traditional media to digital.

Worries about the ad environment have driven the shares down by a pound over the last year to 168p.

Investors should not despair. ITV is still the best place for advertisers to reach a mass audience and revenues at its production arm rose by 18 per cent in the past three months to 923m.
President-elect Donald Trump's victory Tuesday has prompted embattled pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli to publicly debut some songs off the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album he bought for $2million last year.

Shkreli promised last month to release Once Upon a Time in Shaolin if the Republican took the White House.

He made good on the plan early Wednesday by playing snippets of the album during a live Periscope video posted on Twitter. The video has since been deleted.

Shkreli won an auction for the sole copy of the album last year.

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President-elect Donald Trump's victory prompted Martin Shkreli on Wednesday, to publicly debut some songs off the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album he bought for $2 million last year

He made good on the plan early Wednesday by playing snippets of the album during a live Periscope video posted on Twitter

He played parts of the first two tracks of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.

The album, in line with the Wu-Tang Clan's work, opens with a dramatic introduction driven by strings, which Shkreli played with relish as he drank a can of Cherry Coke.

He said at one point in the video: 'So yeah, that's the intro.

'I knew you guys liked the Wu-Tang Clan, they have those kinda hype-you-up kinda intros about, and they have the old Chinese movies that the RZA loves and sort of picks apart.

'And I think the intro is true to the album, which is about the return to roots in that Wu-Tang sound that was popular. Rap music's changed a lot, the beats have changed a lot.'

Shkreli indicated that he could not play more for the moment.

Shkreli played parts of the first two tracks of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin

Shkreli won an auction for the sole copy of the album last year

The Wu-Tang Clan is seen performing in this August 2014 file photograph

He said: 'I gotta decide how to put out - there's about 30, 35 tracks. I actually have a contract with the Wu-Tang Clan, where I'm not allowed to do this.

'Obviously I own the music and I bought it and I paid a lot of money for it, in many ways the contract shouldn't matter that much.

'But, I am a man of my word, and I have to play a little bit of it. I'm also a man of my word - I gotta keep my word to them, too.'

Shkreli also claimed on Twitter to have unreleased music by other top artists

He tweeted on Wednesday: 'More music comes out when OkCupid, Twitch and Youtube unban me. Trump won, sorry, don't take it out on me. @okcupid @Twitch @YouTube'

Shkreli has had a rocky relationship with the Wu-Tang Clan which said the sale was completed before Shkreli's 5,000 per cent rise in the price of the drug Daraprim last year.

Shkreli, who is free as he faces allegations of securities fraud, also claimed on Twitter to have unreleased music by other top artists -- The Beatles, Radiohead, The Smiths, Elliott Smith, Jimi Hendrix, The Ramones and slain rap legend Tupac Shakur.

He tweeted Tuesday night: 'Ok so I have unreleased wu, Beatles, 2pac, nirvana, radiohead, Hendrix, brand new, smiths, Elliot smith, Ramones... What do you want first?'

Donald Trump is pictured with running mate Mike Pence after winning the 2016 US presidential election

The former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO was vilified by many in 2014 for raising the price of Darapim, a medication to treat HIV, by 5,000 per cent.

He tweeted on Wednesday: 'More music comes out when OkCupid, Twitch and Youtube unban me. Trump won, sorry, don't take it out on me. @okcupid @Twitch @YouTube.'
ISIS militants are crucifying civilians and carrying out mass electrocutions in a bid to keep control of Mosul as the terror group continues to lose grip of its Iraqi capital.

Dozens have been killed in the last two days alone after being accused of passing information to 'the enemy' while fanatics are back on the city streets policing the length of men's beards, according to local reports.

As Iraqi and Kurdish troops continued to move in on Mosul, depraved extremists electrocuted 30 prisoners who had been accused of 'collaboration with security forces'.

And on Tuesday, five crucified bodies were put on display at a road junction, a clear message to the city's remaining 1.5 million residents that the ultra-hardline Islamists are still in charge, despite losing territory to the east of the city.

ISIS militants are crucifying civilians and carrying out mass electrocutions in a bid to keep control of Mosul as the terror group continues to lose grip of its Iraqi capital (file picture)

ISIS leaders in Mosul are increasingly telling militants to skip prayers to fight the advancing Iraqi joint forces

Others were seen hanging from electricity poles and traffic signals around the city, residents said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, ISIS leaders in Mosul are increasingly telling militants to skip prayers to fight the advancing Iraqi joint forces.

Thousands of ISIS fighters have run Mosul, the largest city under their control in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, since they conquered large parts of northern Iraq in 2014.

They are now battling a 100,000-strong coalition including Iraqi troops, security forces, Kurdish peshmerga and mainly Shi'ite paramilitary groups, which has almost surrounded the city and has broken into eastern neighbourhoods.

Residents contacted by telephone said many parts of the city were calmer than they had been for days, allowing people to venture out to seek food, even in areas which have seen heavy fighting over the last week.

As Iraqi (pictured) and Kurdish troops continued to move in on Mosul, depraved extremists electrocuted 30 prisoners who had been accused of 'collaboration with security forces'

'I went out in my car for the first time since the start of the clashes in the eastern districts,' said one Mosul resident. 'I saw some of the Hisba elements of Daesh (Islamic State) checking people's beards and clothes and looking for smokers'.

ISIS's Hisba force is a morality police unit which imposes the Sunni jihadists' interpretation of Islamic behaviour. It forbids smoking, says women should be veiled and wear gloves, and bans men from Western-style dress including jeans and logos.

Hisba units patrol the city in specially marked vehicles.

'It looks like they want to prove their presence after they disappeared for the last 10 days, especially on the eastern bank,' the resident said.

Mosul is divided into two halves by the Tigris river running through its centre. The eastern half, where elite Iraqi troops have broken through ISIS defences, has a more mixed population than the western, overwhelmingly Sunni Arab side, where Islamic State fighters are believed to be strongest.

The militants are putting up a fierce defence after their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, told them in a speech last week to remain loyal to their commanders and not to retreat in the 'total war' with their enemies.

ISIS militants are now battling a 100,000-strong coalition including Iraqi troops (pictured), security forces, Kurdish peshmerga and mainly Shi'ite paramilitary groups, which has almost surrounded the city and has broken into eastern neighbourhoods

Iraqi military officials say they have sources inside the city, helping them identify Islamic State positions for targeting by the US-led air coalition supporting the campaign, which is also backed by U.S. troops on the ground.

The gruesome public display of the bodies appeared to be a warning against other potential informers.

'I saw five corpses of young men which had been crucified at a road junction in east Mosul,' not far from districts which had seen heavy fighting, said another resident.

'The Daesh people hung the bodies out and said that these were agents passing news to the infidel forces and apostates,' he said, referring to the Western allies backing the campaign and the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad.

In another sign of a clampdown on contact with the outside world, one retired policeman said ISIS officials were trying to inspect SIM cards to check on all communications.

Five crucified bodies were put on display at a road junction, a clear message to the city's remaining 1.5 million residents that the ultra-hardline Islamists are still in charge, despite losing territory to the east of the city (file picture)

'I went to get my pension as usual, but the man at the office refused to give it to me unless I handed over my SIM card,' said the 65-year-old man, who gave his name as Abu Ali.

'These are the instructions from Daesh,' Abu Ali quoted the man at the office as telling him.

Many residents close to the fighting have said the scale of the clashes has been terrifying, with the sound of gunfire, mortar bombardments and air strikes echoing through the streets.

In the Zuhour district, still controlled by Islamic State on Mosul's eastern bank, witnesses said that cars carrying mortars roamed the streets on Tuesday, but were not seen being fired - unlike in the previous two days.

The relative quiet may reflect a reduction in fighting since Iraq's special forces first broke into eastern Mosul a week ago. They faced fierce resistance and have not sought to make any major advance since then.

One witness said traffic had almost returned to normal in most parts of eastern Mosul and markets were operating, albeit not as busily as before the start of military operations.
Donald Trump's most far-reaching action after moving into the White House in January will arguably be to nominate a new Supreme Court Justice to take the seat of Antonin Scalia who died last February.

Trump issued a list of 11 all-white jurists last May who he said he would consider for the lifetime appointment.

He then supplemented that list with ten more names - this time including three minority candidates - in September.

But the mercurial president-elect is not bound to stick to either list when it comes time to make his pick, Supreme Court experts say.

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President-elect Donald Trump will nominate a new Supreme Court Justice to take the seat of Antonin Scalia who died last February

Scalia died of natural causes while at a a luxury resort in West Texas in February. He was 79 years old

Liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg (left) and regular swing vote Anthony Kennedy (center) are in their 80s and considered unlikely to stay on the court for four years. Time might also be running short for a third justice, liberal 78-year-old Stephen Breyer (right)

Trump's choice is likely to be the first of at least three in his presidency as two of the current justices, liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg and regular swing vote Anthony Kennedy, are both in their 80s and considered unlikely to stay on the court for another four years. A third justice, liberal Stephen Breyer is 78.

So the president-elect will have a chance to mold the court and turn what is now a regular 4-4 split between conservative and liberal justices into a 6-3 - or even 7-2 - majority for the right.

'Until some combination of Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer leave, the appointment of a Scalia clone will simply return us to the prior status quo, Sanford Levinson, law professor at the University of Texas told The New York Times.

During the final presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, Trump made it clear his choices would be people who resisted gun control.

'We are going to appoint justices that will feel very strongly about the Second Amendment, that will not do damage to the Second Amendment,' he said.

The most high profile name on Trump's lists is Utah Senator Mike Lee (left), a close ally of Ted Cruz, the last Republican standing in the grueling GOP primaries. Lee's older brother Thomas (right), an associate justice on the Utah Supreme Court, is also on Trump's list

No previous presidential candidate has issued a list of potential Supreme Court picks, and Trump's move to name potential choices was seen as a political move to attempt to placate many who thought he did not take the highest court in the land seriously enough.

Among the favorites in Trump's 21-person roster is William Pryor, 54

Now only time will tell as to whether he will stick by that original promise. Trump's first list gained praise from the right.

'They all seem to share in common a record of putting the law and the Constitution ahead of their political preference,' said Carrie Severino, chief counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative advocacy group.

But most of the names on Trump's two lists are to his right and could end up deciding against his policies.

Ilya Shapiro, a lawyer with the libertarian Cato Institute told the Times: 'An open question is what happens when Trump realizes that the sorts of judges he's been advised to appoint would rule against him on various matters.'

The most high profile name on Trump's lists is Utah Senator Mike Lee, a close ally of Ted Cruz, the last Republican standing in the grueling GOP primaries.

Lee, 45, refused to endorse Trump throughout the election and even voted for independent Evan McMullin in Tuesday's election.

'I've signaled in the past concerns I had with my party's nominee. I had an opportunity to register a protest vote. That's what this was,' Lee, who called on Trump to quit the race after the infamous Access Hollywood tape was revealed, told reporters.

Another name near the top of Trump's lists is Don Willett, 50, a justice on the Texas Supreme Court who likes to make fun of Trump on Twitter

That could scupper his chance of a seat on the court as Trump is notoriously thin-skinned about criticism.

Lee's older brother Thomas, an associate justice on the Utah Supreme Court, is also on Trump's list.

Thomas Lee, 51, worked in the Department of Justice during George W Bush's presidency, at one point arguing that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay should not be subject to laws under the Constitution.

Among the favorites in Trump's 21-person roster is William Pryor, 54.

A staunch anti-abortionist, his nomination to the 11th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals was blocked by Democrats who said his description of Roe vs. Wade as 'the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law' made him too much of an extremist.

Eventually Bush pushed his nomination through as a recess appointment.

Three others, Diane Sykes (left), 58, a judge on the Seventh Circuit from Milwaukee, and Steven Colloton (center), 53, from Iowa, and Raymond Gruender (right) from St Louis, who both sit on the Eighth Circuit, also made Trump's roster

Pryor had earlier shown an independent streak by personally prosecuting Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore for refusing to take down a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state's Judicial Building in Montgomery.

Pryor said he personally thought there was nothing wrong with the monument but he had to follow a court order and uphold the rule of law.

Another name near the top of Trump's lists is Don Willett, 50, a justice on the Texas Supreme Court who likes to make fun of Trump on Twitter.

Willett, the son of two high school dropouts, once joked that if Trump were to remove his mask the world would find out he is really Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

He tweeted a haiku saying 'Who would the Donald name to Scotus? The mind reels. *weeps can't finish tweet'.

Another tweet made fun of Trump's promise to build a wall on the Mexican border with a Star Wars reference:.

'We'll rebuild the Death Star. It'll be amazing, believe me,' he wrote. 'And the rebels will pay for it.'

And he even blamed Trump's appearance on Saturday Night Live for the Dallas Cowboys' slump last year.

The sole African-American on Trump's list is bowtie-wearing Bob Young, 65, the chief justice of Michigan's Supreme Court

The other two minority candidates are Amul Thapar, 47, a federal judge in Detroit who is of South Asian descent, and Venezuelan-born Federico Moreno, 64, who sits on the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida

'Cowboys record  2-0 before Trump hosted SNL. 2-5 after Trump hosted SNL,' he wrote.

Both Pryor and Willett were among eight possible justices suggested by the conservative Heritage Foundation's John Malcolm in March.

It is considered extremely unlikely that Trump would re-nominate Merrick Garland, the centrist who was chosen by President Obama after Scalia's death

Three others, Diane Sykes, 58, a judge on the Seventh Circuit from Milwaukee, and Steven Colloton, 53, from Iowa, and Raymond Gruender from St Louis, who both sit on the Eighth Circuit, also made Trump's roster.

Gruender wrote a ruling in 2012 that Colloton concurred with that claimed that women who had an abortion were more likely to commit suicide.

The sole African-American on Trump's list is bowtie-wearing Bob Young, 65, the chief justice of Michigan's Supreme Court. Like Clarence Thomas, Young is an admirer of Scalia.

He told Bloomberg that the Associate Justice 'literally changed the focal point of judging'.

Before Scalia, 'we had a pretty free-floating dominant judicial culture as represented by law school teaching,' and 'everything was a jump-ball and judges could do pretty much what they wanted' because nothing limited their judgments, he said.

The other two minority candidates are Amul Thapar, 47, a federal judge in Detroit who is of South Asian descent, and Venezuelan-born Federico Moreno, 64, who sits on the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

It is considered extremely unlikely that Trump would re-nominate Merrick Garland, the centrist who was chosen by President Obama after Scalia's death, despite the praise he received from both sides when he was picked.

HERE COME THE JUDGES CONSIDERED FOR SUPREME COURT Keith Blackwell, 41, of Georgia, is justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Blackwell previously served on the Georgia Court of Appeals and as deputy special attorney general in the state. He received his bachelors and law degree from University of Georgia. Charles Canady, 62, of Florida, is a justice of the Florida Supreme Court. A former Florida Congressman, Canady was the prime sponsor of the first congressional effort to ban the procedure abortion opponents call "partial-birth abortion." He also served as general counsel to former Florida governor and Trump rival Jeb Bush, according to a biography from the conservative Federalist Society think tank. Steven Colloton, 53, of Iowa, is a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, a position he has held since President George W. Bush appointed him in 2003. Colloton has a resume that also includes distinguished service as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, a Special Assistant to the Attorney General in the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel, and a lecturer of law at the University of Iowa. He received his law degree from Yale, and he clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Allison Eid, 51, of Colorado, is an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court. Colorado Governor Bill Owens appointed her to the seat in 2006; she was later retained for a full term by the voters (with 75% of voters favoring retention). Prior to her judicial service, Eid served as Colorados solicitor general and as a law professor at the University of Colorado. Eid attended the University of Chicago Law School, and she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. Neil Gorsuch, 49, of Colorado, is a judge of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Gorsuch previously served in the Justice Department as a deputy assistant attorney general. He received his bachelors degree from Columbia University, his law degree from Harvard Law School, and a doctorate of legal philosophy from Oxford University. Raymond Gruender, 52, of Missouri has been a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit since his 2004 appointment by President George W. Bush. Gruender, who sits in St. Louis, Missouri, has extensive prosecutorial experience, culminating with his time as the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. Gruender received a law degree and an M.B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. Thomas Hardiman, 51, of Pennsylvania, has been a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit since 2007. Prior to serving as a circuit judge, he served as a judge of the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania since 2003. Hardiman was the first in his family to attend college, graduating from Notre Dame. Raymond Kethledge, 49, of Michigan, has been a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit since 2008. Before his judicial service, Kethledge served as judiciary counsel to Michigan Senator Spencer Abraham, worked as a partner in two law firms, and worked as an in-house counsel for the Ford Motor Company. Kethledge obtained his law degree from the University of Michigan and clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy. Joan Larsen, 48, of Michigan, is an Associate Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. Larsen was a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law from 1998 until her appointment to the bench. In 2002, she temporarily left academia to work as an Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel. Larsen received her law degree from Northwestern and clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia. Mike Lee, 45, of Utah, is a US Senator and a Ted Cruz ally who refused to endorse Trump during the presidential election. He started his career as a clerk for the US District Court for the District of Utah before serving as a clerk for Samuel Alito, who at the time was a Third Circuit Court judge but is now on the Supreme Court. After working at a private practice, working as an assistant US Attorney for the District of Utah and serving as the general counsel for Utah Gov Jon Huntsman, he sought office as a senator. Lee received his bachelors and law degree from Brigham Young University. Thomas Lee, 52, of Utah, has been an Associate Justice of the Utah Supreme Court since 2010. Beginning in 1997, he served on the faculty of Brigham Young University Law School, where he still teaches in an adjunct capacity. Lee was Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Departments Civil Division from 2004 to 2005. He attended the University of Chicago Law School, and he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. Edward Mansfield, 59, of Iowa, is a justice of the Iowa Supreme Court. Mansfield previously served as a judge on the Iowa Court of Appeals. He received his bachelors degree from Harvard and his law degree from Yale Law School. Frederico Moreno, 64, who was born in Venezuela, is a judge of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. He previously served as a public defender and as a judge on the 11th Judicial Circuit Court. Moreno received his bachelors degree from University of Notre Dame and his law degree from University of Miami School of Law. William Pryor, 54, of Alabama, is a judge of the USCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Pryor became the Alabama Attorney General in 1997 upon Jeff Sessionss election to the US Senate. In 2013, Pryor was confirmed to a term on the United States Sentencing Commission. Pryor received his law degree from Tulane, and he clerked for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Margaret A Ryan, 52, of Illinois, is a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. Ryan is a Marine Corps veteran who was deployed to Philippines during an uprising and to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. She received her bachelors degree from Knox College before receiving her law degree from the Marine Corps Law Education Program at the University of Notre Dame Law School. Amul Thapar, 47, of Michigan, is a judge of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Thapar, who is of South Asian descent, has also served as an assistant US Attorney in Washington and in the Southern District. He received his undergraduate degree from Boston College and his law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. Timothy Tymkovich, 60, of Colorado, is chief judge of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Tymkovich formerly served as Solicitor General in Colorado, where he argued several cases in front of the Supreme Court. Among them: Colorado's failed bid to preclude the state from providing legal protections for gays and lesbians. He received his bachelors degree from Colorado College and his law degree from University of Colorado College of Law. David Stras, 42, of Minnesota, has been an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court since 2010. After his initial appointment, he was elected to a six-year term in 2012. Prior to his judicial service, Stras worked as a legal academic at the University of Minnesota Law School. Stras received his law degree and an MBA from the University of Kansas. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. Diane Sykes, 58, of Wisconsin, has served as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 2004. Prior to her federal appointment, Sykes had been a Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court since 1999 and a Wisconsin trial court judge of both civil and criminal matters before that. Sykes received her law degree from Marquette. Don Willett, 50, of Texas, has been a Justice of the Texas Supreme Court since 2005. He was initially appointed by Governor Rick Perry and has been reelected by the voters twice. Prior to his judicial service, Willett worked as a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, as an advisor in George W. Bushs gubernatorial and presidential administrations, as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Departments Office of Legal Policy, and as a Deputy Attorney General under then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. Willett received his law degree and a masters degree from Duke. Robert Young, 65, of Michigan, is chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. The only African American judge on Trump's list, Young previously served as a judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals. He received his bachelors degree from Harvard University and his law degree from the universitys Law School. Advertisement
Thousands of tourists flock to Freshwater West Beach in Wales each year to leave tributes, including socks, to the mischievous but loyal character (pictured inset left). The mock grave (pictured left and right) sits above the Pembrokeshire beach where Dobby's death was filmed (pictured inset right: Dobby being buried by Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, played by Rupert Grint and Emma Watson), but concerns about high visitor numbers and pollution led to a survey on its possible relocation. Some locals had branded the attraction an 'eyesore' and compared it to a landfill site, while fans of the show said it 'brings happiness to so many children', labelling 'haters' of the memorial as 'killjoys'. The National Trust had considered removing the tribute, which is constructed from hundreds of painted pebbles, stones and socks, but ultimately ruled it can remain in place on the protected beach for the time being. Dobby was a key character in the Harry Potter films in the struggle against he-who-must-not-be-named, aka Lord Voldemort, and died at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange after rescuing Harry and friends from Malfoy Manor in the Deathly Hallows film. A sculpture was engraved with the words 'Dobby is a free elf in Pembrokeshire' at the spot, however it became the subject of a consultation due to the high number of visitors flocking to Freshwater West Beach to see the 'grave'.
With the news that Donald Trump has been elected President, the world is now waiting to find out exactly what kind of leader he will be come January.

But if his supporters are anything to go by, then New Zealand may well find itself left off the political map under the billionaire's administration.

When Patrick Gower, a reporter from Auckland-based radio station Newshub, tried to interview one Trump supporter at an election-day rally he seemed unsure what the country was.

Patrick Gower, a reporter from Newshub in New Zealand, found himself accused of being part of the 'Clinton network' when he tried to interview a Trump supporter in Florida

Gower was filmed attempting to speak to the cap-wearing, banner-waving man in Miami, Florida, on election day but found himself rebuffed.

The activist refused to speak with him, accusing him of being part of the 'Clinton network' - a buzzword that Trump supporters use to reference the media and institutional support given to the Democrat during her campaign.

But when Gower protests, saying he can't possibly be part of the so-called 'network' because he's from New Zealand, it leaves the man on the back foot.

'What's Zealand?' he asks, seeming to believe it is the name of a news network.

He adds: 'You're not part of the Clinton network, are you? You're not part of the lying media are you?'

When Gower responded that he wasn't affiliated with Clinton because he was from New Zealand, the Trump supporter inquired: 'What's Zealand?'

The interview was over after Gower then suggested there was no 'Clinton network' at which point he was derided as part of the 'lying media'

Gower's next suggestion, that there is no such thing as the Clinton network, ends the interview before it has even started.

The man yells: 'Oh there isn't? You're part of the lying media. Listen, why don't you guys move along, move along, move along.'

When Gower asks what the New Zealand media has done, he adds: 'You guys are disgusting. You sell out your own profession. Your children's food, you sell it out.'

Florida proved to be a huge win on election night for Trump, and the first sign as results trickled in that the vote was swinging his way.
Female Trump supporters explained they voted for him because they didn't trust Clinton

Others feared that the result means they will never see a female U.S. president in their lifetimes

'My body totally rejected the result,' said one Clinton supporter

Many described breaking down in tears or even feeling physically sick when Donald Trump was announced as the president-elect

Female Hillary Clinton supporters have described how they broke down after her crushing election loss.

For many women, they felt they'd not only lost the chance of a huge milestone  the election of America's first female president  but the victorious candidate was one who had denigrated women and been accused of multiple instances of sexual assault.

Maggie Passmore of St. Paul, Minnesota, had been watching election returns at a party but reverted to watching at home 'when things got scary.' She fell asleep, then awoke to learn that Donald Trump was defeating Hillary Clinton.

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A woman weeps as election results are reported during Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's election night rally

Audience members listen as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke in New York, Wednesday, where she conceded her defeat to Republican Donald Trump after the hard-fought presidential election

'And then I threw up,' said Passmore, 54. 'My body totally rejected the result.' Hours later, she found herself writing an email to her kids saying how terrified she was for the country's future: for the Supreme Court, for health care, for international relations.

Countless devastated voters spoke of collapsing in tears, or seeing strangers do the same  on the subway, or on the street after the results were announced.

Many were left in a state of shock.

By the time Donald Trump had called his opponent 'such a nasty woman' at the third and final presidential debate, it had seemed that women might hand him a defeat at the ballot box.

Female Hillary Clinton supporters have described how they broke down after her crushing election loss

Wellesley College students and supporters of Hillary Clinton, Ellie Chalphin of Philadelphia, left, and Lena Engbretson of Beaverton, Ore., right, are tearful while watching televised election returns

But when the dust cleared, the unprecedented gender gap  13 points in Clinton's favor, assuming exit polls hold up, the largest since the exit poll began in 1972  wasn't enough.

In Florida  a key battleground state won narrowly by Trump  Phyllis Towzey of St. Petersburg watched election night returns from her sofa, and started to cry. 'I've dreamed about a woman president since I was a little kid,' the 57-year-old attorney said.

'And if she couldn't win over a grossly less qualified male candidate, I don't think there's any hope in my lifetime to have a woman president.'

Meanwhile in New York, at Clinton's election night party, a stony silence turned to sheer horror early Wednesday as it became painfully clear she would not close the gap with Donald Trump.

One by one, states turned Republican red on the interactive map of the country. One by one, dejected Clinton fans left in tears without even seeing their beloved candidate.

U.S and global youth supporters of Hillary Clinton mourn the election of Donald Trump during the World Climate Change Conference 2016 in Marrakech, Morocco

A group of Hillary Clinton supporters at her election night rally comfort one another as they break down in tears over the presidential results

A Clinton supporter covers her mouth as she breaks down with emotion over election results on Tuesday

Nora Rubel and her two daughters were among throngs of people who went to suffragist Susan B. Anthony's gravesite Tuesday to celebrate voting for Clinton  the Rochester, New York, graveyard had extended its hours, expecting the crowd.

'The energy was incredible, and it felt prophetic,' she recalled.

A day later, her 13-year-old daughter was sobbing so hard over Clinton's loss that the girl stayed home from school.

Rubel struggled with what to say to her despondent children Wednesday, but settled on this: 'We're all disappointed. There are checks and balances, although not as many as we want, and we all have to take care of each other.'

Yet the fact remains that millions of American women did vote for Trump.

'Listen, I didn't love either of the candidates,' said Susan Paarz, 69, of Somers Point, New Jersey. 'But I voted against corruption and dishonesty.'

Former Democratic US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to supporters at the New Yorker after her defeat

Mr Trump gave his victory speech after 3am, not long after Hilly Clinton called to concede the race

Said Paarz of Trump's vulgar comments: 'Any woman would have been offended. But guys talk that way in a locker room. Is he different? Probably not.'

For Clinton supporter Jan Risher, Election Day had begun joyously. She'd rustled up the best pantsuit she could  not matching, but no matter  and headed to downtown Lafayette, Louisiana, to take a happy photo with some similarly attired women.

Hours later, instead of celebrating the first woman president as she'd expected, she was searching online for how to immigrate to Canada.

'I have never felt so forlorn in my life,' said Risher, 52. 'I just feel such alienation from my country today.'

On social media, many women asked: What will we tell our daughters?

Clinton herself addressed the issue in an emotional concession speech. 'To all the little girls watching: Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world,' she said.

Hillary Clinton supporters react as results come in at an election night party for the Democratic presidential candidate at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center

Many Democrats said they were nervous as they arrived at Hillary Clinton's event in New York, but no one was expecting such a violent slap in the face

Clinton and Trump supporters get into a heated argument during a large gathering in front of the White House on election night

Not all of the women who voted for Trump completely condoned his behavior. They just preferred him to the alternative.

To Trump supporter Diane Massaroli of Staten Island, New York, the candidate's vulgar, caught-on-tape comments were disgusting  but not a dealbreaker.

And the series of women who accused him of sexual assault didn't persuade her, she said, although her 15-year-old daughter, a Clinton supporter, was in tears at the result.

'A lot of people said that to me: How could I vote for him, being the mother of a daughter? ... But I think everything else is far greater' than his comments, Massaroli said. 'I think people just didn't trust her as much as they would trust him.'

A clearly disappointed Kathy Spillar, executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation, preferred to accentuate the positive in the election: Clinton, she noted, won among young women, not to mention winning the popular vote. And the subject of sexual assault made it front and center in the campaign.
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The Boxer star of the new John Lewis Christmas advert has already won the hearts of the nation - but photographs of his life at home will melt them even more.

Five-year-old Biff lives at home in the Midlands with Jan Patten, 66, who now owns one of Britain's most famous dogs after his star role in the high street giant's new 7million festive campaign.

Ahead of the launch today Jan told friends how excited she was about the commercials and joked that the Boxer might need security because of his army of new fans.

And using Twitter and Facebook she also gives an insight into Biff's life at home by publishing photographs for friends, family and followers.

One shows him on a laptop wearing glasses, which resonates today because he is trending on Twitter. Others include a picture of what she says is his one bad habit, notably sleeping on his back, legs in the air, snoring loudly.

Cute: Biff is owned by Jan Patten from Bedfordshire, who enjoys taking these playful pictures of the Boxer

Bad habit? Jan has said his one bad habit, notably sleeping on his back, legs in the air, snoring loudly

Clever: In this Facebook picture 'clever boy' Biff balances this dog treat on his nose at home with his owner

Forty winks: Fans have fallen head over hills in love with Biff, who plays Buster in the new John Lewis Christmas advert

Joke: Biff's owner Jan posted this professional photograph with this German Shepherd called Giantlands Gandalf, and called it the Boxer's new security

A penguin, a snowman and the man on the Moon, the John Lewis Christmas advert has made overnight stars of a host of colourful characters.

Now it is time for the nation to meet Biff, the five-year-old Red and White Boxer from Bedfordshire who steals the show in this year's 7million offering.

Biff was scouted for his breakthrough role when the advert's production team visited a training club in search of a 'very handsome dog'.

He plays the part of Buster the dog, who sneaks out on Christmas morning to jump on his young owner's new trampoline.

When not on set, Biff lives in a family home with his owners and two other boxers, Betty and Darcy.

He had previously been trained for agility and obedience but had never done film work.

Biff was called to a casting in London, where he was chosen ahead of 11 other boxer dogs for the prestige role.

The key skill the director was looking for was an ability to repeatedly look up and down on cue as if watching something or someone bounce on a trampoline. This was achieved by getting him to follow a ball on the end of a pole.

Good looks: Biff was scouted for his breakthrough role when the advert's production team visited a training club in search of a 'very handsome dog'

Fit and healthy: Biff had previously been trained for agility and obedience but had never done film work

Having fun: The five-year-old Boxer is shown here running on the beach with his friends Betty and Darcy over the summer

Comforts: His favourite food is baked tuna cake and like any star he loves being pampered and is quick to jump in the bath

Biff is said to be obsessed with his toy ball (pictured) and loves running in the woods near his home

But, he also has other skills, including running and stopping on his mark, barking on cue, walking backwards, bowing and balancing things on his nose.

Biff is said to be obsessed with his toy ball and loves running in the woods near his home.

His favourite food is baked tuna cake and like any star he loves being pampered and is quick to jump in the bath.

Julie Tottman, who was Biff's handler, said: 'Biff is an absolute superstar. He's a natural born actor and was extremely professional considering this was his first job. He's a really friendly boy and was a pleasure to work with throughout.

'Biff would do anything for attention and a ball, and definitely enjoyed being the star of the show. He got on famously well with the other cast members and was completely spoilt during his time on set.

'Everyone that meets Biff agrees that he's a complete gent, and we're sure that his new found fame won't go to his head.'

Breakthrough role: Biff the four-year-old boxer plays the part of Buster in the John Lewis Christmas advert. The talented dog had been trained for obedience but had never done film

Talented: The key skill the director was looking for was an ability to repeatedly look up and down on cue as if watching something or someone bounce on a trampoline

Dreams: Bridget sleeps soundly on Christmas Eve, smiling at the thought of her presents

Hard work: Her father goes out into the snow to build a giant trampoline in the garden

Forlorn: Buster, played by Biff, looks out of the living room window at the trampoline outside

Fun: Buster looks on as foxes, a badger and a hedgehog all take a turn on the trampoline

Morning: As dawn breaks, Bridget jumps on her bed with excitement as Buster watches on

Unveiling: Her father opens the patio door as his daughter tears towards the garden

Shock: Bridget, played by a six-year-old child actress called Summer, can't believe her eyes

Reveal: Buster the dog rushes to the trampoline before the little girl and bounces up and down
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's son-in-law has warned a Donald Trump presidency could spark a nuclear war.

James Brown, an adjunct associate professor at the U.S. Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, took to Twitter after lunch on Wednesday as it appeared the Republican was on course to win key swing states.

'If it's President Trump then dust off those nuclear theory text books,' he tweeted to his 6,275 followers.

His criticism has the potential to create diplomatic tensions with the United States, Australia's long-term defence ally.

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Associate Professor James Brown (pictured left) with his father-in-law Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured right) on election night in July

Associate Professor Brown's tweet only hours before Donald Trump declared victory

James Brown (left) with his mother-in-law Lucy Turnbull, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, son Jack, wife Daisy Turnbull Brown and new daughter Alice Lucinda in August

As former First Lady Hillary Clinton fell behind in states that normally vote Democrat, the husband of the prime minister's daughter, Daisy Turnbull Brown, mocked Mr Trump's perceived authoritarian tendencies.

'Under Trump, U.S. foreign policy in Asia is going to start looking a lot like China's foreign policy in Asia,' he tweeted.

He put out another tweet on October 9 mocking Mr Trump's criticism of the war in Iraq, based on reports the former Celebrity Apprentice host had initially supported the 2003 invasion.

'10 years from now Donald Trump will say he was against fighting ISIS,' he said.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (pictured right) with his running mate Mike Pence (pictured left) as he declared victory in the election on Wednesday night, Australian time

Associate Professor Brown says Donald Trump has authoritarian tendencies

Associate Professor James Brown ridiculing Donald Trump's opposition to the war in Iraq

Associate Professor Brown, who stood on the podium with the prime minister on election night in July, told Sky News on Wednesday a Trump presidency would have security implications for Australia in Asia.

'We would have to be more cautious in how we cooperate and collaborate with the US in Asia,' Associate Professor Brown he said.

'We would be more worried about the way the US would support us in any sort of security situation so it might lead us to take another look at our defence strategy.'

A week before polls opened in the U.S. presidential race , Associate Professor Brown wrote a column for The Guardian, with Stanford University professor Simon Jackman, criticising Mr Trump's promise to make Japan and South Korea pay for their defence.

'All of these moves are destabilising in a rapidly evolving Asian strategic situation,' he said.

'A Trump presidency however would put the US-Australia relationship under much greater stress.

'It would be unpalatable to a majority of Australians, and concerning to those with responsibilities for Australias foreign and defence policy.'

He issued another tweet on October 30 warning a Trump victory would see seven out of 10 Australians want to sever the US alliance.

'If it's President Trump next week, 70 per cent of Australians would seek to distance us from the U.S.,' he said.

Lucy Turnbull (pictured left), Daisy Turnbull Brown (pictured second, left), Associate Professor James Brown (pictured second, right) and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured right) on election night in July

The prime minister's office declined to criticise Associate Professor Brown's remarks about president-elect Trump on Thursday.

They instead referred Daily Mail Australia to a speech Mr Turnbull made on Wednesday night.

'Now, we have no stronger relationship; whether it is on the battlefield or in commerce, than we have with the United States,' Mr Turnbull told reporters.

'They are a great and powerful nation; they are a great and powerful friend.'
An Australian woman accused of killing a Balinese police officer on Kuta Beach in August has pleaded her innocence to a panel of judges in court.

Byron Bay mother Sara Connor appeared in court on Wednesday for the first day of the murder trial in Denpasar in Bali, Indonesia, reported the Brisbane Times.

Ms Connor and her British boyfriend David Taylor are accused of the murder of police officer Wayan Sudarsa, whose bloodied body was discovered on Kuta Beach on August 17.

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Australian woman Sara Connor is pictured in court on Wednesday on the first day of her trial. Ms Connor is accused of the death of a Balinese police officer on Kuta Beach in August

Ms Connor, who appeared teary and confused at times, pleaded her innocence to a panel of judges as her indictment was read out. She said 'I want to object' and later she told the court 'I am innocent. Please!'

Ms Connor, who was teary and seemed confused at times, said she was innocent as parts of her indictment were read out in court.

'I want to object,' she said. Later she told the court 'I am innocent. Please!'

After almost three months in custody, Ms Connor, 45, and Taylor, 34, were photographed handcuffed together as they were transferred from Kerobokan prison ahead of their first court appearance.

Ms Connor (right) is pictured talking to her lawyer on the first day of her trial at Denpasar court on November 9

Ms Connor (pictured left) and Mr Taylor are facing trial over the alleged murder of police officer Wayan Sudarsa, whose bloodied body was discovered on Kuta Beach on August 17

Mr Taylor is pictured sitting in a court room during his first day of trial at a Denpasar court on November 9

Mr Taylor (left) and Ms Connor (right) are pictured holding hands as they are transferred from Kerobokan prison ahead of their court appearance on Wednesday

Ms Connor attempts to shield her face as she is transferred to her court appearance

The couple are being tried separately but some of the judges will preside over both cases.

Photos show a serious looking Connor attempting to hide her face with a fan in one hand while seeking comfort from Taylor with the other.

But it appears the pair had little choice but to link up given they were handcuffed together.

Dressed in long white T-shirts and orange vests identifying them as prison inmates, the pair walked silently into the courtroom as a united front.

While Connor donned a big dark pair of sunglasses to hide behind, it was Taylor whose appearance dramatically changed in the lead up to the trial.

The Australian mother (centre left) is seen covering her face as she walks alongside her British boyfriend (centre right)

Holding hands with Mr Taylor in one hand, Ms Connor shields her face from photographers with a hand fan with the other

Ms Connor (left) and Mr Taylor (right) are transferred from prison to their court appearance on Wednesday

His long, matted dreadlocks were completely cut off - leaving him with a short and fresh look for the judges.

Connor, a mother-of-two from Byron Bay, and Taylor, from Stoke Newington who goes by the name 'DJ Nutzo', are charged with three separate charges of murder, torture and assault.

Taylor told police he struck policeman Sudarsa with a pair of binoculars during a late night altercation at a tourist hotspot in Bali.

Taylor said he thought the policeman attacked Connor and tried to steal her bag, but police claim Taylor flew into a rage and hit the policeman repeatedly.

Hiding behind dark sunglasses, Ms Connor (left and right) attempts to avoid photographers on her way into court

Ms Connor (pictured) is escorted to a courtroom for her trial at the Denpasar District Court

British man David Taylor (right) and Australia's Sara Connor (left) arrive to face their first trial at Denpasar Court

Connor has maintained her innocence, claiming her only involvement was to pull her boyfriend off the police officer during the brawl.

Police finalised their case against the pair in October paving way for the murder trial to go ahead on November 9.

The trial is expected to last for months, with the defendants due to appear before the court a couple of days each week.

Ms Connor (right) talks to her lawyer inside a holding cell before her first day at trial on Wednesday

Mr Taylor (left and right) has cut off his dreadlocks in lead up to the murder trial in Bali

Attemping to shield her face, Ms Connor held a fan on her way into court on Wednesday

David Taylor, 33 (2nd R), and Australian Sara Connor, 45 (2nd L), who are accused of killing a policeman, arrive to attend the start of their trial

Mr Taylor is seen inside holding cell before facing the first trial with Ms Connor at a court in Denpasar

A panel of three judges will preside over the trial, and if found guilty of murder, Connor and Taylor will face a maximum sentence of 15 years behind bars.

The pair have been awaiting the murder trial at the notorious Kerobokan prison, a jail known for being overcrowded, squalid and outright dangerous.

Case prosecutors are expected to outline the dramatic lengths the couple went to in order to allegedly cover up the crime, including burning their clothes and getting rid of the police officer's phone and wallet.

Ms Connor is pictured walking out from her jail cell for her first trial at Denpasar court on November 9, 2016
Alec Baldwin  the man whos been hilariously portraying Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live  has spoken out after the billionaire businessman became President-elect and called America's political system 'broken.'

The billionaire businessman is close to winning the race and world markets are crashing, the actor tweeted from the Alec Baldwin Foundation Twitter account.

Hes all yours, America. Hes all yours.

The 30 Rock Star has been vocal about his dislike of the man he's been impersonating on television  while his brother Stephen Baldwin is a Trump supporter.

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Alec Baldwin (left, as Trump)  the man whos been hilariously portraying Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live  has spoken out after the billionaire (right) became President-elect

Stephen, who bashed his brothers portrayal of Trump on SNL as nasty, has been reveling in the victory on social media.

He shared a series of snarky tweets along with a selfie with Sarah Palin.

Meanwhile Alec shared his thoughts with the followers of his two verified Twitter accounts.

I was taught in college that Americans choose their President like they choose laundry soap, [with] a knee-jerk brand loyalty devoid of reason, he wrote late on Tuesday night.

Later, he added: One thing that is changed forever in this country is the meaning of the word Christian as it applies to politics.

The billionaire businessman is close to winning the race and world markets are crashing, the actor tweeted from the Alec Baldwin Foundation Twitter account

Early on Wednesday morning, he added: I think the thing to focus on now is our families.

To love those that were put in our lives to care for. Also our respective health, work and faith.

The American political system is broken. Walk away from it for a while. As Coriolanus says, There is a world elsewhere.

On Election Day, 58-year-old Baldwin revealed that he doesnt hate Trump.

Baldwin took to Twitter to express his thoughts as the man he's been impersonating on television was elected president

I dont hate Trump, but hes not somebody I admire, so it was more difficult, he told The Brian Lehrer Show on playing Trump this season.

Baldwin was brought in to take on the role of Trump in September opposite Kate McKinnons Clinton on the sketch-comedy show  and the duo have received rave reviews since.

But in the SNL episode ahead of the election, Baldwin and McKinnon broke character to offer hugs to New Yorkers on the streets.

Im sorry, Kate, Baldwin told his co-star. I just hate yelling all this stuff at you. I just feel gross all the time.
Twitter called on Trioli to be fired, saying she 'spits in workers's faces'

Virginia Trioli came under heavy fire after making comments about Donald Trump, but it is not the first time the breakfast presenter has had an awkward on-air slip-up.

Pictures of presidential candidate Donald Trump staring at his wife's ballot paper as she cast her vote in Manhattan went viral on Wednesday, but Trioli accidentally said:

'Do you know there are people on Twitter this morning, and theyre deadly serious, who believe that I am formally spruiking here for Donald Trump to win? I mean you want to subject them to an IQ test dont you  And theyre serious.'

Social media users were not impressed and called the breakfast presenter 'embarrassingly biased', a 'hypocrite' and 'non-deserving of her $235,664 taxpayer-funded salary'.

Many said it was the 'second strike' for Trioli after she was forced to apologise to Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce in 2009 after making a gesture to indicate he was crazy during a live cross.

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Many said it was the Donald Trump comment were a 'second strike' for Trioli after she was forced to apologise to Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce in 2009 after making an hand gesture to indicate he was crazy during a live cross (pictured)

The live cross appeared to come back to the studio slightly too early for Trioli and the following day she apologised to Mr Joyce.

'Yes, it was off-air and an uncharacteristically frustrated moment from me, and the senator was very gracious in accepting my apology. Lesson learned,' she told The Herald Sun.

Mr Joyce laughed off the incident saying that he might in fact be 'crazy' and believed Trioli was 'frustrated with [his] approach'.

On Wednesday, the ABC's Media Manager, Sally Jackson, said they would not be commenting on the gaffe as 'there was nothing to add to what's been said at this point'.

Daily Mail Australia contacted the ABC again on Thursday morning.

The journalist has remained quiet since her comments about Donald Trump's wife and his supporters

Social media users were not impressed and called the breakfast presenter 'arrogant', 'embarrassingly biased', a 'hypocrite' and 'non-deserving of her $235,664 taxpayer-funded salary'

Twitter users tried to alert the veteran Australian journalist the feed was still live, tweeting: 'We can hear you!'

Overnight, Twitter launched into a tirade against the presenter and dozens called on her to be sacked by the ABC.

'Time for Trioli to go. She is so embarrassingly biased. How can she be a political commentator. Goodnight Virginia,' One man wrote.

'Dear ABC News, after her performance today and her actions in the past, please sack Trioli,' another said.

Some Twitter users also made mention to the journalist's six-figure salary, after the details of top ABC stars' wage was leaked in November, 2013, according to the Australian.

Trioli was revealed to earn $235,664 yearly - almost $84,000 more than her News Breakfast co-host Michael Rowland.

Earlier in the day, Trioli tweeted the image of Mr Trump staring toward Melania's voting booth and asked her followers to 'caption it'

Overnight, Twitter launched into a tirade against the presenter and dozens called on her to be sacked by the ABC

In 2013, Trioli (far right) was revealed to earn $235,664 yearly - almost $84,000 more than her News Breakfast co-host Michael Rowland (centre)

A member of the crew brought a glass of water to Trioli's desk and it is believed she had no idea the live US election feed was still going

'ABC News, you are going to have to cut her loose, one is enough - twice is a kick in the guts to taxpayers,' one woman wrote.

In the accidental video, a member of the crew could be seen bringing a glass of water to Trioli's desk and it is believed she had no idea the live feed was still rolling on the website.

'Careful what you say,' one Twitter user urged the breakfast presenter.

'Your audio is coming through the web feed,' another said.

Other viewers agreed with her comments, saying it was the journalist's 'best work'.

Earlier in the day, Trioli tweeted the image of Mr Trump staring toward Melania's voting booth and asked her followers to 'caption it'.

'Happy US election day! Caption suggestions please for this priceless pic. Winner gets coffee,' she wrote.

A member of the crew brought a glass of water to Trioli's desk and it is believed she had no idea the live feed had continued through the website. Donald and Melania Trump are pictured
Hillary Clinton supporter Mia Freedman has spoken of her and her readers' grief over the former secretary of state's shock defeat

Prominent media personality Mia Freedman says she is grief-stricken following Donald Trump's shock defeat of Hillary Clinton.

The publisher of women's website Mamamia urged any readers who were struggling with the news to contact a national crisis support and suicide prevention hotline, Lifeline.

'I can't bear any of it,' said the Sydney resident, a supporter of the Democratic nominee Mrs Clinton.

The commentator said the election results had shown she '(lives) in a bubble', remarking upon the echo chamber nature of the internet.

'Every single one of my Facebook friends opposes Trump,' Ms Freedman wrote.

'I shared polls that said Hillary was going to win and I steadfastly avoided media like Fox News who I found to be distressingly biased.

'This made me feel good. But it wasn't reality.

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#ImWithHer: Ms Freedman is seen in an Instagram post wearing some Clinton campaign merchandise - 'a woman's place is in the White House'

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton conceded the election in a speech Wednesday

'There's a whole America - perhaps a whole world - I know (or choose to know) nothing about'.

She told readers to be kind to each other and said 'it's OK to feel upset and traumatised', providing the 24 hour Lifeline number 13 11 14.

Ms Freedman was far from alone in being shocked at the result of the election.

Mrs Clinton, the first female nominee of a major U.S. political party, appears to have won the popular vote - but failed to lock down the Electoral College.

The former First Lady, Senator and secretary of state conceded to the billionaire businessman after losing the critical states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.

On Thursday morning (Australian time) Mrs Clinton told supporters the verdict was 'painful' but urged supporters not to lose hope.

Big win: In a victory that has shaken the world, Donald Trump (pictured giving his victory speech) has swept to power on his promise to 'Make America Great Again'

'You know, scripture tells us: 'Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart,' she said.

'So my friends, let us have faith in each other.

'Let us not grow weary, let us not lose heart, for there are more seasons to come.'

An Essential Research poll this week found 59 per cent of Australians would prefer Mrs Clinton as 'leader of the free world', compared to 19 per cent for Donald Trump.

President-elect Trump will take the oath of office January 20, 2017.
Clemency declaration would have to be worded such that it protects her from prosecution for potential violations tied to the Clinton Foundation

Coming up with a pardon that would cover all of the various charges Trumps administration could throw at her could prove difficult

Said the White House doesnt announce pardons before theyre doled out

The White House opened the door on Wednesday to a pardon for Hillary Clinton for crimes she may have committed in connection with her secret server.

Press Secretary Josh Earnest deflected a question about President-elect Donald Trumps intent to appoint a special prosecutor to review Clintons emails by saying that the White House doesnt announce pardons before theyre doled out.

The president has offered clemency to a substantial number of Americans who were previously serving time in federal prisons. And we didnt talk in advance about the presidents plans to offer clemency to any of those individuals, he said.

Earnest added, Thats because we dont talk about the presidents thinking, particularly with respect to any specific cases that may apply to pardons or commutations.

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On Wednesday, during press secretary Josh Earnest's (above) briefing, he was asked whether the president had considered using his executive power in favor of the former secretary of state

For over a year, Clinton had been embroiled in a FBI investigation into her private email server, but the investigation was closed for a second time just earlier this week.

Obama could pardon her whether she asks for it or not.

Coming up with a pardon that would cover all of the various charges Trumps administration could throw at her could prove difficult, legal experts told Politico.

The clemency declaration would have to be worded such that it protects her from prosecution for potential violations tied to the Clinton Foundation.

A dismissal of potential crimes that wide-reaching would leave a mark on Obamas reputation.

Back in 1974, President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor to the White House, Richard Nixon.

Ford did it for any crimes that Nixon may have committed against the country while he served as president.

At the time, he justified his decision by claiming that an extensive trial would have further polarized the country.

Clintons husbands departure from the White House was overshadowed when he granted Marc Rich, a fugitive at the time, clemency on his last day in office.

Richs ex-wife made a large donation to the Clinton Library and was a high-dollar Democratic donor.

In recent months, Republicans have alleged that the senator violated the law, and are pushing to put her behind bars.

Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, two of Trumps possible picks for attorney general, have openly advocated for a re-do.

No charges have been filed against Clinton (left on Wednesday), but the White House is not ruling out the possibility of her receiving a last-minute pardon from President Obama (right on Wednesday)

President-elect Donald Trump had vowed during the campaign for the White House that he'd appoint a 'special prosecutor' to handle the investigation into Clinton and her private email server.

He even told Clinton during a debate that if he were president, shed be in jail.

Clinton subsequently told DailyMail.com she had no concerns that would ever happen.

Since winning higher office in the wee hours of the morning Trump has not spoken about his designs for Clinton. He used a victory speech in the wee hours of the morning to highlight the hard work of Giuliani and other members of his team.

His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said on a series of morning shows Wednesday that the subject hadnt come up.

'We have not discussed that at all, and he certainly did not discuss that on his brief phone call with Mrs. Clinton,' she said on MSNBC.

Conway suggested that Trump wouldnt pursue a case against Clinton, however.

I think you heard his own words last night -- to the extent that one man can as president, certainly Vice President Pence who's phenomenal, they're looking to unify the country, she said. But we haven't discussed that in recent days. And I think that it's all in good time.

Taking a cue from Conway, the presidents spokesman indicated today that he too believed Trump move on from Clinton in the wake of his victory.

We have a long tradition in this country of people in power not using the criminal justice system to enact political revenge, he also said. In fact we go a long way to insulate the criminal justice system from partisan politics.

The Clinton Foundation has not been formally probed by the FBI, but it could be in a Trump administration.
Pupils of Chinese descent from disadvantaged homes are almost three times as likely as white working class pupils to get five good GCSEs, a study shows.

The analysis suggests a poor childs chances of achieving at school depends heavily on their ethnicity.

Across all disadvantaged pupils, white British children had the poorest performance at the age of 16 last year  with only 28 per cent getting good grades, according to the Sutton Trust, an education think tank.

In comparison, 74 per cent of similarly hard-up Chinese children got good grades  making them the highest-achieving group.

Disadvantaged Chinese children performed better in their exams then their white, Asian, or black counterparts

Just over 48 per cent of poorer Asian children achieved this, while among black children it was 41 per cent and among mixed race children it was 38 per cent.

The figures were for pupils on free school meals  the Governments indicator of deprivation  achieving five or more GCSEs at A* to C, including English and maths in 2015.

The report authors said the lack of aspiration in some white working class homes could be to blame because many other cultures place more importance on attainment.

Within the white British working class group, boys achieved the worst, with just 24 per cent gaining the benchmark compared with 32 per cent of girls.

Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: It is particularly concerning that white working class boys and girls continue to perform so poorly.

Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, said every pupil, regardless of family income, gender or ethnicity should have the chance to succeed

Harnessing that same will to learn that we see in many ethnic minority groups in white working class communities should be a part of the solution. We need a more concerted effort with white working class boys, in particular.

This should ensure that every pupil, regardless of family income, gender or ethnicity has the chance to succeed.

It comes amid a government drive to reintroduce grammar schools into the poorest areas of the country in an effort to boost social mobility.

A report commissioned by Labour council Knowsley found grammars could transform white working class areas.

The new research brief, Class Differences, highlights how the academic attainment of disadvantaged pupils at 16 varies dramatically between different ethnic groups.

Disadvantaged Chinese pupils perform above the national average for all pupils, while Bangladeshi, Indian, black African and Pakistani pupils from poorer homes all perform well above the national average for disadvantaged pupils.
A man sentenced to jail for assault has had an extra 18 months added to his term after he called the magistrate an 'a**wipe piece of s**t c**t' in court.

Scott Andrew Druett, 35, from North Nowra appeared in Nowra Local Court on September 20 on assault charges, reported the Illawarra Mercury.

He was initially given an 18 month sentence for a violent confrontation with another man in Goulburn in May.

Scott Andrew Druett, who was charged with assault had an extra 18 months added to his sentence after he called the magistrate an 'a**wipe piece of s**t c**t' in Nowra Local Court (pictured) in September

The court heard Druett had kicked and punched the man in the alleged unprovoked attack.

The man suffered cuts to his ear and forearm and bruising on his knee and ribs.

Magistrate Gabriel Fleming sentenced Druett to 18 months in prison before his outburst.

Druett sarcastically thanked her in court, before abusing her with offensive language.

'Eighteen months, you f**k... f**king idiot.

'You a***wipe, you will always be a piece of shit c**t.

'You make violence come out.'

Druett was initially given an 18 month sentence for a violent confrontation with another man in Goulburn (pictured) in May

He then told supporters in the dock to 'kick her [family member's] head in...kick her f**king parents' heads in...I dont want to talk to her.'

The outburst was filmed on CCTV and picked up by recording devices in the court.

Druett was later sentenced to another 18 months in jail for threatening a judicial officer and destroying court property, after he damaged the door of the court dock as he was being led out.

Druett appeared in Wollongong Local Court on Tuesday and pleaded guilty to both charges.
A former MP falsely accused in the VIP sex abuse inquiry called last night for the BBC to be investigated over its role in the scandal.

Harvey Proctor said reporters from the corporation and from the Exaro website should face possible prosecution for alleged conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The ex-Tory MP spoke out after it was revealed that the suspected fantasist, known only as Nick, who triggered Scotland Yards disgraced Operation Midland inquiry, had been shown photographs of suspects by investigative journalists.

Harvey Proctor (pictured) spoke out after it was revealed that the suspected fantasist, known only as Nick, who triggered the inquiry, had been shown photographs of suspects by investigative journalists

Nick is facing an investigation by Northumbria Police over whether he perverted the course of justice after his claims of rape and murder involving a Westminster sex ring were found to be baseless.

Mr Proctor said the polices inquiry into Nick should be extended to include Exaro and BBC News reporters who had close dealings with him.

A damning report into Operation Midland by former High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques found that reporters had shown Nick photographs of suspects. Sir Richard did not name those responsible but Scotland Yard has previously said that the BBC had shown pictures of individuals to Nick, which could have compromised Operation Midland.

Mr Proctor, pictured in 1987, had always strenuously denied allegations that he was part of a VIP paedophile ring that murdered three boys

Operation Midland led to raids on the homes of Mr Proctor, D-Day veteran Lord Bramall and the late former home secretary Leon Brittan. But on Tuesday detectives on the case were savaged by Sir Richard for giving credence to Nicks far-fetched allegations. It emerged that Nick made an application for damages from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which could be worth up to 50,000, and that police officers helped him process his application.

Mr Proctors former Tory colleague, Sir Gerald Howarth, said: I am so angry at the way this unidentified individual has been able to destroy lives. The BBC declined to comment on its dealings with Nick and whether reporters had shown him pictures of potential suspects.

Mark Watts, former editor in chief of the now-defunct Exaro, admitted showing a series of photographs of suspects and dummies to Nick but that it was a completely legitimate way of operating.
A number of prominent Republicans who bashed Donald Trump during the election campaign have now come out in support of the President-elect.

Despite dozens within the party stating prior to election day that Trump was fit to be president, most of those critics seemingly fell in line behind their new leader on Wednesday.

Some of Trump's most vocal opponents were among the Republicans to publicly back him in the wake of his stunning triumph - including many who had been beaten to the presidential nomination by the Donald.

A number of prominent Republicans who bashed Donald Trump (pictured) during the election campaign have now come out in support of the President-elect

MITT ROMNEY

The 2012 Republican nominee has blasted Trump in recent months, calling him 'very not smart', a 'fraud', and a 'phony'.

Romney also attacked Trump after his infamous Access Hollywood recording emerged last month.

Mitt Romney has been one of the most vocal critics of Donald Trump throughout the election

But the 2012 Republican nominee congratulated Trump shortly after he was announced as President-elect

However, the former Governor of Massachusetts praised Trump on Wednesday.

'Best wishes for our duly elected president: May his victory speech be his guide and preserving the Republic his aim,' Romney tweeted.

JEB BUSH

Bush, who was once considered the party's best shot at winning the White House in 2016, became arguably the most anti-Trump Republican since his defeat in the primaries.

Jeb Bush and Trump sparred throughout the Republican primaries and the campaign season

Bush was one of many Republicans to tweet their congratulations to Trump on Wednesday

Jeb's bitter battle with Trump led to him announcing he would not vote for Trump, however it did not stop him from congratulating the President-elect on Wednesday.

'Congratulations on your victory @realDonaldTrump. As our President, Columba and I will pray for you in the days and months to come,' he tweeted.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Bush did not vote for Trump on Tuesday, but it was revealed on Wednesday he personally reached out to the Republican to congratulate him.

'This morning I called President-elect Donald Trump and congratulated him on his election as President of the United States of America,' Bush said in a statement.

Bush did not vote for Trump on Tuesday, but it was revealed on Wednesday he personally reached out to the Republican to congratulate him

'Laura and I wish the President-elect, Melania, and the entire Trump family all our very best as they take on an awesome responsibility and begin an exciting new chapter in their lives.'

It comes after a spokesman for the former president confirmed Bush and his wife, Laura, opted not to vote for either presidential candidate - instead voting for Republicans down the ticket.

GEORGE HW. BUSH

H.W. Bush reportedly planned to vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, after having spent the months leading up to the election uncharacteristically silent when it came to the Republican nominee.

Bush refused to endorse Trump - breaking with his pattern of the past five election cycles, and Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend claimed in September the former president planned to cast his ballot for Clinton.

George H.W. Bush (pictured at a University of Houston football game in 2015) broke with his tradition by not endorsing Trump

Despite his opposition, Bush and his wife, Barbara, congratulated Donald Trump on Wednesday

Despite any of that, the 41st president congratulated the soon-to-be 45th on Wednesday with a tweet.

'Barbara and I congratulate @realDonaldTrump, wish him well as he guides America forward as our next President. His family is in our prayers,' he wrote.

JOHN KASICH

Kasich, who was beaten by Trump in the Republican primaries, officially pulled all support from the Donald after his Access Hollywood tape emerged.

John Kasich, who was beaten by Trump in the Republican primaries, congratulated him for his election win

Kasich called for people to come together after Trump's historic win in a tweet on Wednesday

'I will not vote for a nominee who has behaved in a manner that reflects so poorly on our country,' the ex-Ohio Governor said on October 8.

'The American people have spoken and its time to come together. Congratulations President-elect @realDonaldTrump,' he tweeted on Wednesday.

JOHN McCAIN

McCain and Trump sparred throughout the campaign, with the now-President-elect even criticizing the Arizona Senator for being taken prisoner when he served during the Vietnam War.

John McCain had been highly critical of Donald Trump throughout the election cycle

Once Trump was declared the winner, McCain put personal issues aside and congratulated the President-elect

However, that did not stop McCain from publicly celebrating Trump in the immediate aftermath of his win.

'Congrats to President-Elect Donald Trump - as Chrmn of Armed Services Cmte I'll work to confront nat'l security challenges & support troops,' he tweeted.

LINDSEY GRAHAM

The long-serving South Carolina Senator appeared to break away from the party by voting for Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin on Tuesday.

It seemed to cap off an explosive feud between Graham and Trump, with both attacking each other at different times over recent months.

Lindsey Graham did not vote for Donald Trump on Tuesday, but he congratulated him on Wednesday

Graham released a statement saying Trump: 'defied the odds and overcame many obstacles to achieve a stunning victory.'

During the primaries, Graham said that nominated Trump would 'destroy' the party, adding that the wound would be well-deserved.

But, like so many others, he congratulated Trump on Wednesday.

'Congratulations to President-elect Trump. He defied the odds and overcame many obstacles to achieve a stunning victory,' Graham wrote in a statement.

CONGRESSMAN JASON CHAFFETZ

'President-elect Trump! Congratulations!' Chaffetz tweeted on Wednesday morning.

Republican Jason Chaffetz speaks to supporters during a Republican Election Night party at Rice-Eccles Stadium on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City

On Wednesday morning, Chaffetz excitedly celebrated Trump's shocking win over Hillary Clinton

The Utah Congressman said last month he could not endorse the Donald, but maintained all along that he would vote for the Republican nominee.

SENATOR JEFF FLAKE

Flake had been anti-Trump for months. In June, the Arizona Senator said he was 'unable to back' the Republican nominee.

Arizona Senator Jeff Flake has been strongly against Trump, but he praised the President-elect for a 'gracious' victory speech

He strengthened his criticism after the Access Hollywood tape, but on Wednesday he was happy to throw him support behind the President-elect.
Clinton voters have been frantically searching for an escape to Australia and New Zealand in the hours since Donald Trump won the presidential election.

'Australia immigration' and 'New Zealand immigration' were some of the most searched terms in Google over the past 24 hours, peaking 4am Wednesday, EST.

Canada's main immigration website remained down as NZ reported increased traffic to its website for residency visas from the U.S. as Trump surged to victory.

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'Australia immigration' and 'New Zealand immigration' were some of the most searched terms in Google over the past 24 hours, peaking 4am Wednesday, U.S. EST

Immigration officials said the New Zealand Now website, which deals with residency and student visas, had received 1,593 registrations from U.S. citizens since November 1, more than 50 per cent of a typical month's registrations in just seven days.

Rod Drury, chief executive of NZ-based global accounting software firm Xero, said the statistics matched up with interest his company has been seeing.

'I've got lots of messages coming through at the moment asking for a job in New Zealand, and we're saying 'Yes you can',' Drury told Reuters on Wednesday.

'It will be interesting to see whether it translates into real action, it's an active conversation that moved to getting more serious and we'll what will happen in the next month.'

Hillary Clinton supporters cry as they follow the presidential election results

'If this ends badly, is either Australia or New Zealand going to let me stay?' New York-based Eliza Orlins said on Twitter

Wellington-based startup base Creative HQ put a callout on Twitter 'for U.S. tech talent to relocate to safer shores and "make startups great again".'

New-York based criminal defense lawyer Eliza Orlins joked she wanted to emigrate out of the country.

'If this ends badly, is either Australia or New Zealand going to let me stay?' she wrote on Twitter.

The potential surge follows an already high population of Americans in Australia, New York Times reported just last week.

Over the past 15 years, the country's population in Australia has almost doubled from about 50,000 to 100,000.

They initially move to Australia temporary for well-paid jobs, but decide to stay on long-term after enjoying the quality of life.

The rate of Google search results for 'Australian Immigration' over the past week

The rate of Google search results for 'New Zealand immigration' over the past week

Some of the celebrities who had promised to leave the country if Trump won the presidency include Lena Dunham, Miley Cyrus, Kesha, Cher, Bryan Cranston, Barbra Streisand, Stephen King and Ne-Yo.

A spokesperson for Canada's immigration department had confirmed the website crashed as a result 'significant increase in the volume of traffic' when Trump came out winning.

In the hours after Trump's victory, Americans were searching for jobs in Canada at 10 times the rate of previous nights, said Jed Kolko, chief economist for job website Indeed.

'It's far too soon to guess how many of these searchers will make a move after the shock wears off. But the jump in searches shows how many Americans were surprised by Trump's victory and are thinking about their options elsewhere,' Kolko said in an emailed statement.

Republican candidate Donald Trump was elected president after a tight race

New Zealand had most interest from Alaska, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii
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Violence has broken out at anti-Trump rallies across America overnight as tens of thousands marched against the President-elect before angry mobs attacked police, started fires and shut down highways.

The streets of downtown Oakland in California were choked with smoke Thursday as police launched tear gas and protesters lit fires, in what became by some distance the most violent of the many protests against the election of Donald Trump.

More than 6,000 protesters were seen on the streets of Oakland with an initially peaceful march down a cop-lined street turning nasty after some protesters threw bottles at officers and torched a police car. An office block was also attacked, daubed with 'f*** Trump' and 'kill Trump' graffiti and then set alight.

And thousands more filled streets in Los Angeles before taking over the 110 Freeway while other protesters gathered outside City Hall, lighting fires and waving Trump heads on sticks. There were 14 arrests.

In New York, home of the President-elect, at least 30 people were arrested when cops cracked down on twin demonstrations in Columbus Circle and at Trump Tower.

As many as 7,500 demonstrators were believed to have been split between the two locations, chanting 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Donald Trump, go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay.'

Cher and Madonna were among the NYC protesters, with Cher telling one supporter they needed to 'fight.'

Trump's poll-defying win has sparked a wave of similar rallies across the country. Protests stopped traffic in Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; and San Francisco, California, among many others.

Outside the White House, a candlelit vigil was being held in protest against Mr Trump's inflammatory and divisive brand of politics. But even peaceful protests in that city went awry, with at least one protester being bundled into the back of a van by the Secret Service.

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Oakland, CA

Oakland: Some people were seen burning objects in the streets, while others tried to get onto the I-90, but were blocked by cops

Oakland: People carrying placards reading 'Women against Trump' and 'Not my president' march through the streets

Oakland: A member of the public tries to scrub away 'Kill Trump' graffiti as demonstrators riot in California

Oakland: Protesters clash with police in Oakland, California, where one of the most violent rallies was held Wednesday

Oakland: Demonstrators run on Telegraph Avenue after police deployed tear gas during a demonstration in the city

Oakland: Half a dozen police officers pin down a protester amid arrests across America overnight

Oakland: Police try to control chaos at an office building that was attacked, graffitied and then set alight

Oakland: A peaceful protest turned violent Thursday, resulting in rioters setting fires and police firing tear gas

Oakland: Planks of wood, cones and other detritus is set alight in the city, close to San Francisco

Oakland: A protester shoots fireworks at police officers during rioting in Oakland, California, on Wednesday

Oakland: A protester throws a bottle at police officers as violence boiled over after a tumultuous 24 hours

Oakland: The protest had begun peacefully, but descended into violence after protesters threw glass bottles at a police wall

Oakland: As property damage spread, this AT&T truck was engulfed in flames during the protests

Oakland: A police officer clears a path into a burning building during an anti-Trump protest in Oakland

Oakland: Protesters also smashed up this police cruiser during the riot on Wednesday evening

Oakland: Police form a barrier after demonstrators set fires on Telegraph Avenue

Oakland: Police marched onto the scene (left) while protesters fed the flames (right)

Held: Police in riot helmets and armed with batons arrested this suspect amid violence in the city

Masses of protesters - more than 6,000, according to the East Bay Times marched down a cop-lined Broadway, protesting the election of Donald Trump.

The group had convened in Frank Ogawa Plaza for a peaceful but passionate protest - that plan, however, went to pieces after 8pm after the crowd threw glass bottles at the police line.

The cops responded in kind, firing incendiary devices into the crowd as unlawful assembly orders were read out.

Two groups were still contained by police in the area, feeding fires and being blocked from entering the I-90.

It's not yet clear how many - if any - were arrested in that incident, but one person was taken in after shining a laser at a police helicopter - something that cops say is a federal offense.

Twitter videos showed many fires burning in downtown streets, and cops marching in formation on protesters.

New York City, NY

New York City: Thousands - including Cher (circled) packed the streets of New York as they marched more than 40 blocks from Union Square to Trump Tower

New York City: Angry demonstrators hung effigies of Donald Trump as they descended on Columbus Circle, Manhattan, Wednesday night

New York City: Thousands packed into Columbus Circle in Midtown Manhattan as Anti-Trump rallies sprung up across the country

New York City: People take part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside Trump Towers

New York City: The massive protest in Trump's own city eventually carried the crowd to the doors of Trump Tower

New York City: Demonstrators began burning American Flags after the procession moved from Columbus Circle to the steps of Trump Tower

New York City: A close up of a US flag torched by protesters in an act that will upset many Americans

New York City: Protesters furious about the election of Donald Trump lit the flags ablaze outside Trump Tower

New York City: 'Love Trumps Hate' and 'Love = Resistance' were among the placards on show at Columbus Circle Wednesday

New York City: At a rally at Columbus Circle, protesters held signs reading 'Black Lives Matter' and 'United To Stop Hate'

New York City: Protesters amass outside Trump Tower, waving placards complaining that Trump got in even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote

New York City: A ring of steel is formed by police to stop the billionaire's building targeted by the thousands who gathered there

Crowds of disgruntled voters packed into the northern plaza of Union Square, in Downtown Manhattan tonight - among them pop star Cher. One protester announced on Facebook: 'Cher just told me we have to fight. I trust in Cher.'

Madonna posted footage of crowds chanting 'Not my President!' on her Instagram feed.

The rally, organised by a group called Socialist Alternative, called on people to 'build a movement to fight racism, sexism, and Islamophobia'.

Among the crowd was teacher Julia Dunn, who told NBC 4 New York: 'There's a man who's the human embodiment of hate who's going to become our next president, so the best thing we can do is try to connect with people who are representing love and connection.'

'Fight white power' and 'Love Trumps Hate' were printed across dozens of placards as people voiced their anger over the election result.

There were reports of 'multiple arrests' as the crowd started their march 40 blocks uptown towards Trump Towers. Father Craig Wolf was reportedly detained as he marched with his 15-year-old daughter and her friends, and NBC later reported at least 30 arrests.

One woman taking part in the event was Julie Rossman, 30, who told DNA Info: 'He is a misogynist, he's a racist, and he ran a campaign on hate and lies.'

In Columbus Circle demonstrators hung a plastic effigy of Donald Trump as cries of 'Black Lives Matter' rang out across the crowd.

At around 8pm, NYPD officers outside Trump Hotel & Tower attempted to break up the crowds and move them onto the sidewalk.

Video on Twitter shows rows of police standing in the road as a robotic voice warned that anyone refusing to leave the street would be arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

Thousands packed into Columbus Circle, Manhattan, on Wednesday night as news of Trump's shock victory took hold

New York City: Hundreds gathered at an anti-Trump rally at Columbus Circle, Manhattan as the nation reacted to his victory

New York City: Thousands signed up to join the rallies in New York City on Wednesday night. Pictured, Columbus Circle

New York City: This young woman sobs as she is hugged in Manhattan amid unrest after Trump's election

Los Angeles , CA

Countless thousands of protesters were seen across LA's streets, swarming in what was described by CBS as an apparently disorganized protest, with no particular start or end point.

As time wore on, the crowd looked increasingly out of control, it said.

Many of the protesters took over the 110 Freeway, stopping traffic completely.

Others headed to City Hall, where they lit fires on the steps and waved around placard and signs - as well as a papier mache Donald Trump head on a stick. Police eventually dispersed the crowd around the fires and put them out.

Los Angeles: Protesters lit fires on the steps of City Hall in Los Angeles in the middle of an apparently disorganized protest

Los Angeles: A protester confronts police as people shut down the 101 Freeway following a rally to protest the election result

Los Angeles: Several officers were pictured holding down a demonstrator following a rally on the 101 Freeway

Los Angeles: Protesters marched onto the 101 Freeway, a major thoroughfare in the city, forcing police to stop traffic

Los Angeles: A demonstrator was handcuffed and arrested by police following a rally to protest against Trump's victory

Los Angeles: The busy Hollywood 101 Freeway was completely shut down amid the unrest, with drivers out of their cars

Los Angeles: Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway in protest of the election result

Los Angeles: With the American flag draped over his mouth, one protester put his hands up in apparent surrender when he approached police

Los Angeles: The protester then dropped to his knees and flashed the peace sign in front of heavily armed officers

Los Angeles: One protester was seen in an angry confrontation with a police officer following a protest on the 101 Freeway

Los Angeles: For several hours there has been a stand-off with police who lined up in riot gear

Los Angeles: California Highway Patrol deputies are deployed as demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall

Los Angeles: People also carried banners demanding protection for those in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities

Los Angeles: A man was seen throwing his bike towards police as demonstrators shut down the 101 Freeway

Los Angeles: One police officer, wearing riot gear, was pictured grabbing one of the protesters before arresting him

Los Angeles: Police arrested a man after demonstrators shut down the 101 Freeway following the major protest

Los Angeles: Trump made an appearance as a head on a stick (left) and a pinata (right) - the latter showing the level of resentment he has built up in the Hispanic community

Los Angeles: Some of the signs were more direct than others. Elsewhere, a large group of protesters took over 110 Freeway

Los Angeles: Police eventually put out the City Hall fires using extinguishers after moving crowds away

Los Angeles: People march as they protest the election of Republican Donald Trump as president in downtown Los Angeles

Los Angeles: Protester waves a Mexican flag outside City Hall in the Californian city

Seattle, WA

A socialist councilwoman's call for a protest was met in mass in Seattle, KIRO 7 reported.

Kshama Sawant called for a massive protest on Wednesday night and a nationwide shutdown on Inauguration Day. 'I appeal to you, [Wednesday] at 4 o'clock, at Westlake [Park], let's have a massive protest, and tell America we do not accept a racist agenda,' she said.

And so at 4pm hundreds began to amass in the park, objecting through bullhorns to being ruled by billionaires. Their numbers swelled until thousands were amassing downtown.

They then traveled to Capitol Hill, and on into the University District.

In a separate incident, five people were shot dead at around 7am, while the protest was ongoing. Police have said there was no link between the two events.

Seattle: A woman yells in a protest against Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. Five people were shot in downtown Seattle at the same time as the protest, but police said it was not connected

Seattle: Smoke from a fire-extinguisher blankets a crowd during the Seattle protest march

Seattle: A protester (left) yells, while one of her compatriots wears a US flag emblazoned with corporate logos in protest at the Trump presidency (right)

Seattle: Thousands of people march through Seattle against Donald Trump

Seattle: This protest was suggested by local councilwoman Kshama Sawant who advised people to 'tell America we do not accept a racist agenda'

Seattle, Washington: A protester holds a sign that reads 'Love Trumps Hate' during a protest in the city

New Orleans, LA

Dozens of protesters gathered in Lee Circle to protest the election, setting fire to an effigy of Trump and vandalizing the monument - dedicated to Confederate general Robert E Lee - with spray-painted slogans.

Among the slogans on the pillar and its base were 'Black Power,' 'Dismantle White Supremacy' and 'F*** Trump,' NOLA.com reported.

The protesters chanted 'No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!'

Local Monica Jean, who declined to give her last name, told the crowd: 'I am a gay Latina woman. Last night, I found out that most of my country hates me.'

A nearby Chase Bank window was also broken after the protest peeled away from the monument and went down St Charles Avenue. Passersby said masked men were responsible.

New Orleans: Dozens of protesters occupied Lee Circle, spray-painting the Robert E Lee monument with 'Black Power' slogans and setting a Trump effigy on fire

New Orleans: After protesting at the monument, they left and walked down St Charles Avenue, where a Chase Bank window was broken

San Francisco , CA

Thousands of protesters filled downtown San Francisco before heading up to the Castro District.

Cable car lines were down while the protest passed under the cables, with some holding signs and placards reading 'Dump Trump' and 'Build Bridges, Not Walls.'

Chants of 'f*** Donald Trump' and 'No racist USA, no Trump, no KKK,' were reported by Hoodline as the masses marched, some with children in pushchairs.

San Francisco: Demonstrators carrying placards march on Market Street on Thursday

San Francisco: The crowd started downtown and headed to the Castro District

San Francisco: Effigies of Trump were held up, along with signs, requiring power to the cable car cables to be shut down

San Francisco: This man expressed his anger by graffiti-ing the US flag, suggesting the red represents blood

Philadelphia, PA

The city of brotherly love was showing precious little love for Donald Trump, as a march that started at The University of Pennsylvania became a rally at City Hall.

That rally attracted hundreds, then around 1,000, people who headed out onto the streets, protesting 'We're not Trump's America.'

The group marched to Temple University, causing delays for traffic, and then on through the city.

A US flag was burned at Temple University, The Tab reported.

Philadelphia: Furious protesters in the city of brotherly love started at the University of Pennsylvania before heading on to City Hall and then on into the city,

Philadelphia: The number of Philly protesters swelled to around 1,000

Chicago, IL

The streets of Chicago, Illinois, were overrun with protesters Wednesday night as anti-Trump fever took hold.

A small group of demonstrators were picketing the Trump International Hotel and Tower in the city in the afternoon. They were later joined by dozens more before taking their protests to the streets.

Thousands of activists carrying signs reading 'stop Trump!' and 'shut down white supremacy' marched through the streets of the Loop, blocking traffic and surrounding cars.

Anti-Trump protester Sam Barber Kennedy told ABC 7: ' We're just not happy about Trump. He's a bigot. We can't have that as the face of America. We're a joke of the world.'

Chicago: Huge crowds of protesters are pictured carrying placards in downtown Chicago following the shock election result

Chicago: Protesters march on Trump Tower in Chicago, watched by police

Chicago: Thousands of people were seen protesting the Republican President-elect Donald Trump

Chicago: Protesters hold aloft a giant 'baby Trump' placard and posters with the 1984-inspired slogans 'War is Peace' and 'Ignorance is Strength' as they march through Chicago

Chicago: At Trump International Hotel and Tower, activists carried signs reading: 'Stop Trump! Shut down white supremacy'

Chicago: Demonstrators protest on Michigan Avenue as thousands of people across the United States took to the streets in protest

Boston, MA

A small crowd of around 50 who gathered at Boston Common to protest around 7pm swelled into a crowd of 4,000, according to police, as incandescent Bostonians descended on the area.

Local government dispatched 75 officers as a precaution, Patch.com reported, but the protest - organized by Boston Socialist Alternative - soon swelled to gargantuan proportions.

Female and male protesters started a call-and-response chant of 'My p***y, my choice' and 'Your p***y, your choice,' as they occupied the space.

Their numbers were added to by others from a separate anti-Dakota Access Pipeline event that had taken place earlier in the day, and they soon joined the chants of 'F*** your wall.'

The protest eventually went mobile, marching past the State House under the watchful eyes of police.

Boston: Around 50 people gathered on Boston Common in the early evening, but those numbers swelled into the thousands as the night wore on

Boston: The protest then went mobile, marching up to the steps of the State House. The initial protest was organized by groups such as Boston Socialist Alternative, but quickly drew in people of all political affiliations

Boston: Protesters wearing the 'V For Vendetta' masks associated with the Anonymous online movement were also present at the event

Boston: Protesters hold up signs and yell during a protest against the election of Donald Trump on Boston Common

Boston: This protester holds a sign listing the people she believes will be failed by Trump after his win

Portland, OR

American flags were set ablaze in the hipster capital as dozens of people blocked traffic and forced delays on two rail lines, and that number ultimately swelled to around 2,000 according to KOIN.

Earlier in the evening, when there were just a few protesters gathered at Pioneer Courthouse Square, Trump supporters had arrived to jeer at and taunt them.

At one point, one of the Trump backers was chased across the square and hit in the back with a skateboard. That almost broke into a full-on fight but it was ultimately broken up.

A separate group on the march swelled in numbers as it blocked roads downtown and in north-east Portland. At one point, a small group of people burned an American flag.

It then merged with another group at Pioneer Courthouse Square, increasing numbers dramatically.

Portland: An American flag is set ablaze in the center of Portland, where dozens had gathered to block traffic and train lines

Portland: Thousands marched across roads and rail tracks, causing delays, in Portland

Portland: Traffic was held up as protesters blocked streets and highways

Portland: Though the march was peaceful, some got into fights with Trump supporters who turned up to jeer at the crowd early in the evening. At one point a Trump fan was chased away and hit in the back of the head with a skateboard

Richmond , VA

Hundreds of protesters in Richmond took their anger onto the I-95, WTVR reported.

The march began at Virginia Commonwealth University, before proceeding onto Broad Street and Belvidere, then down the south ramp of the Interstate.

The group stopped traffic there, but were removed by police. It's not yet clear whether there were any arrests.

They then looped back around and to the VCU campus. Some then peeled away to protest at the Virginia State Capital.

One Twitter video showed the group marching down the I-95. Another showed the group occupying a wide street, raising banners painted with the gay pride colors, and another designed to look like an upside-down US flag.

Richmond: A group of hundreds gathered at Virginia Commonwealth University before marching on the city

Richmond: The group then marched onto the I-95, snarling up traffic until they were moved on by police. It's not clear whether there were any arrests

Richmond: The group then looped back around to the university. Some of them separated and went on to protest at the Virginia State Capital building

Washington, DC

Protesters gathered for a second night outside the White House before marching to picket the new Trump International Hotel in Washington DC - but their initially peaceful protest also ended with arrests.

Disappointed voters of all ages lit candles before moving on to Trump's new hotel. There, people's chants of 'say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here' were met with cheers. Others chanted: 'They go low, we go high'.

As the night wore on, however, things became less placid; a flag was burned in the street, and later ABC 7's Tim Barber tweeted a photograph of a man being handcuffed and bundled into a van by Secret Service.

He had reported of a 'scuffle' just shortly before, although between whom was not clear.

Washington, DC: An initially peaceful protest in the seat of government ended with at least one person being arrested by the Secret Service, apparently after a scuffle

Washington, DC: Hitting out against Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail, people gather outside the White House before moving on to the new Trump hotel

Washington, DC: Angry voters carried signs criticizing Trump's brand of inflammatory and divisive politics outside the White House

Washington, DC: The protest hard started out more placidly with a candlelight vigil outside the White House

The White House: Peaceful demonstrators light candles in a sign of peaceful protest against Donald Trump's divisive politics

Washington, DC: 'Dump Trump' and 'Unfit to serve' were among the placards carried by frustrated voters outside the White House

Washington, DC: The candlelight vigil outside the White House later moved to outside Trump's new hotel in Washington DC

Across the country

Other cities affected by protests included San Diego, California; Dallas, Texas; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Las Vegas, Nevada.

They followed election-night protests that took place on university campuses in Democrat states, after alcohol-fueled parties descended into wakes as swathes of Republican red spread across the map.

Hundreds of people in Philadelphia and Seattle marched in the early hours as Trump's win was confirmed.

Police said 500 angry voters swarmed onto streets in and around the University of California, Los Angeles, shouting anti-Trump expletives and lighting flares.

San Diego, CA: Demonstrators walk through Downtown San Diego in protest to the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States

San Diego, CA: Faith Attaguile holds a placard reading 'Not my president' and chants as she protests against president-elect Donald Trump

San Diego, CA: A crowd of hundreds protest against Trump at a march downtown on Wednesday evening

San Diego, CA: A crowd of around 300 people marches down Broadway overnight after the most divisive election campaign in living memory

San Diego, CA: Jocelyn Rodriguez, 20, (center) and her sister Michelle Rodriguez, 16, hold hands as they protest the election result

Las Vegas, Nevada: Kid Crawford of Las Vegas chants during a protest march against the election of Republican Donald Trump

Las Vegas, Nevada: The group then waved placards near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in the city

On the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, a group of around 30 Trump supporters tried to shout down demonstrators, the LA Times reports.
The woman feels lucky to be alive after learning he attacked his girlfriend

He then stalked her at an Australia Day party and

He invited her to his hot tub and fly her to Sydney during a

A fourth woman targeted by Tinder stalker Paul Lambert claims he invited her to his 'hot tub' and followed her around an Australia Day party.

The Brisbane woman who gave her name only as Sarah said she was horrified to learn he had stabbed his girlfriend Angela Jay 11 times last week as 't hat could have been me'.

Sarah said the pair met on Tinder last year, during which he tried to lure her to his home for their first meeting.

Scroll down for video

A fourth woman targeted by Tinder stalker Paul Lambert claims he invited her to his 'hot tub' and followed her around an Australia Day party

'He tried to meet up with me plenty of times saying that he lived in a big apartment in the city and had a hot tub and so on, but that stuff didn't appeal to me so I didn't go,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

They finally met at Riverbar in central Brisbane but the friend she took with her 'instantly took a disliking' to Lambert.

'She was quite rude to Paul and he remained really calm and smooth and left,' Sarah said.

Lambert (pictured) was shot to death by police after he broke into his girlfriend Angela Jay's home in Port Macquarie last week and stabbed her 11 times

Brisbane woman Sarah said she was horrified to learn he had stabbed his girlfriend Angela Jay 11 times last week as 't hat could have been me'

Sarah talked to Lambert on and off on Snapchat after their first meeting, which mostly consisted of him asking her to meet up again or have dinner.

'Months went by and I got messages asking me to come visit him in Sydney as he was down there for business,' she said.

'He said he would pay for my flights and everything but it just didn't feel right and I didn't feel right about him.'

On Australia Day this year, Sarah and a group of friends attended a party near the iconic Story Bridge and quickly spotted him.

'I didn't want anything to do with him as he gave me the creepiest of feelings. He proceeded to follow me and watch me all day until I asked one of my male friends to pretend we were together,' she said.

'Even then he kept watching but that was it. He would message me after that but I stopped replying and he eventually stopped messaging.'

Sarah, who asked her last name not be used, said the pair met on Tinder last year, during which he tried to lure her to his home for their first meeting

Sarah talked to Lambert on and off on Snapchat after their first meeting, which mostly consisted of him asking her to meet up again or have dinner

Sarah moved on with her life but was shocked to see Lambert on the news after he stabbed Dr Jay at her home in Port Macquarie and was later shot to death by police after a wild 150 kilometre car chase.

'It took my breath away. I mean being creepy is one thing, being a psycho is another and that's clearly what he was,' she said.

'You never imagine that someone you're talking to could be actually capable of hurting someone like that. It's disgusting.'

Sarah said many of her friends contacted her when the news broke last Thursday night.

'Everyone was thinking that I was a lucky one and I am so very lucky. That could have been me,' she said.

Lambert who moved on to stab doctor Angela Jay (pictured) admitted to his wife in a barrage of texts earlier in the year that he was a psychopath and a stalker and was getting worse

'I was also in disbelief about all the lies he told, he was so believable.

'I immediately felt so sad for [Dr Jay], I just wanted to know if she was ok and I was angry that the justice system had failed yet another woman.'

A frequent user of dating apps, Sarah said the experience had put her off seeing new men, even if they first met in real life.

'We put a lot of faith in the people we are meeting on there and we have no idea of these people's pasts and who they really are,' she said.

'There are a lot of men on there living double lives, psychos, users, you name it.

'To be honest it hasn't just put me off Tinder it's put me off the whole thing. Tinder is just the platform, you could meet someone like that anywhere.

'There needs to be a system where a girl can check prior restraining orders or things like that.'

Paul Lambert (pictured) laid in wait when Dr Jay clocked off from work and returned home. He was later gunned down by police - in what is now the subject of a critical incident investigation

Lambert was labelled as a 'serial stalker' by The Courier Mail, which revealed old court documents showed he had even stalked his ex-wife after leaving her to chase another love interest.

In February, Lambert - who went by the last name 'Scales' at that time - was driving with his then wife Samantha Inkpen when he threatened to crash the car - and punched her twice in the face.

He followed the assault up with dozens of messages begging for forgiveness and admitting fault in their failed marriage.

'I did cheat on you a few times and be a creep and control freak and manipulator. You name it I did it. The whole time I was a sick f---. I've always been sick. I just got greedier and more controlling,' one message said.

He then admitted to being at her house - while threatening to kill himself if she didn't take him back.

'I'm doing this (threatening suicide) because I know I'll never leave you alone. I'm worse than I was years ago. I did go to your house. The side door only had a chain lock.

'I just said all that so you know it's the real me. Shows I'm a stalker and bad person.'

The shocking revelations come after a string of Lambert's ex-partners come out about how their relationships ended with eerie similarity to his fling with Angela Jay.

Paul Lambert harrassed and terrorised Fox News reporter Brittany Ann Keil (L) for months until she could not sleep or eat and was crying daily. Australian woman Tarnie Johnston (R) has told of how she was harassed by the Tinder stalker ten years ago

Dr Jay (left, right) shaved off her hair for a cancer charity a while back and was known for her bright and bubbly personality before being attacked by Lambert

The young doctor has been described as a 'bright and bubbly' Californian who delivers babies for a living and shaved off her hair for a cancer charity.

Port Macquarie obstetrics and gynecology doctor Angela Jay was brutally attacked at her home by her psychopathic date Paul Lambert about 6pm Thursday.

Lambert waited at her home for her to finish her shift, doused her in petrol and stabbed her eleven times.

But the 28-year-old managed to escape the bloody scene - fleeing to a neighbour's house and calmly talking him through first aid until paramedics arrived.

In February Lambert was driving with his then wife Samantha Inkpen when he threatened to crash the car - and punched her twice in the face

Just 18 months ago, her attacker Lambert was kicked out of the United States for stalking a TV news reporter who he had a brief relationship with.

Then going by his birth name Paul Michael Scales, he was arrested in Orlando, Florida, on May 11, 2015 for breaching a restraining order.

This time, the object of his obsession was Emmy award-winning TV reporter Brittany Ann Keil, 32, with whom he had a brief relationship until his 'erratic' behaviour forced her to end it.

The 36-year-old then waged a campaign of 'manipulation, guilt, harrassment, control and emotional terrorism' to compel her to continue their relationship.

He invented dead relatives, a brain injury, and a terminal brain tumour, threatened suicide many times, and even pretended to have nine personalities - all while bombarding her with dozens of calls, emails and messages.

Blood was seen splattered on the streets outside her home in Port Macquarie

Lambert stabbed Dr 11 times inside her Port Macquarie home (pictured) before she ran to the neighbour's for help

'Paul... maliciously threatened her reputation, threatened to expose her to disgrace, expose her secrets which would affect her personally and professionally, with the intention to compel Brittany to see him,' court documents read.

'He also has attempted to extort money in exchange for no contact with her and in exchange for not following through with his malicious attempts to use his personal knowledge to ruin her life.'

It went on for months until he was arrested in Orlando, Florida, on May 11, 2015, charged with stalking and extortion.

He was later deported from the country accompanied by two U.S. federal marshals.

Paul Lambert (police mugshot pictured) continued his campaign of harassment for months until he was arrested, charged with stalking and extortion and later deported from the country accompanied by two U.S. federal marshals

Lambert was a big fan of all things Americana, pictured here with U.S. band Aerosmith

Another victim of Lambert's stalking, Tarnie Johnston, dated the 'psychopath' a decade ago - and told A Current Affair about her troubles.

Ms Johnston said the revelations about the psychopathic stalker have reopened old wounds from her past.

'All of the emotion, fear and memories came flooding back instantly. Paul's behaviour towards Angela and Ann was reminiscent of what I had experienced 10 years ago.'

'What's even worse is we all look the same.'

Experts on the program warned his harassment of Ms Johnston was before the rise of popular dating app Tinder, which played a crucial role in his harassment of his other victims.
Expensive new cancer drugs are contributing little to the life expectancy of dying patients, an expert has warned.

Despite billions of pounds of investment, most extend the lives of patients by a few months at best, according to analysis published in the British Medical Journal last night.

Dr Peter Wise, a retired consultant physician from Charing Cross Hospital in London, claims drug development has contributed little to the improvements in cancer life expectancy seen in recent decades.

The worlds biggest drug firms make huge sums from cancer drugs, with the most expensive treatments costing more than 100,000 a year.

Dr Peter Wise, a retired consultant physician from Charing Cross Hospital in London, pictured, claims drug development has contributed little to the improvements in cancer life expectancy

Global sales hit 85billion last year, and that figure is set to soar with one in two people born today expected to get the disease at some point.

Already more than 352,000 are diagnosed each year in the UK - a number expected to hit 500,000 a year by 2035.

Billions are invested in new drugs, yet the 48 new cancer treatments approved between 2002 and 2014 only lengthened life expectancy by an average 2.1 months, Dr Wise said.

Cancer charities are keen for new drugs to be funded - even with such marginal benefits - arguing that even a few months at the end of a life can give patients precious extra time with their families.

But Dr Wise insisted that allowing such drugs to be provided was questionable.

The approval of drugs with such small survival benefits raises ethical questions, including whether recipients are aware of the drugs limited benefits, whether the high cost:benefit ratios are justified, and whether trials are providing the right information, Dr Wise wrote.

Chemotherapy drugs are only truly effective for 10 per cent of cancer patients affected by certain cancer types, including testicular, cervical and ovarian cancer, and lymphoma and Hodgkins disease, he said.

Citing a 2004 Australian and American study, he said of the remaining 90 per cent of patients, chemotherapy only increases five-year survival by 2.5 per cent - an average increase of just three months.

Yet most patients think these drugs can cure them, Dr Wise said.

In an important multicentre study, almost 75 per cent of 1,200 patients with metastatic colorectal and lung cancers considered it likely that their cancers would be cured by chemotherapy, he wrote.

Yet a cure in these situations is virtually unknown.

Unawareness of poor treatment outcomes leads patients to only rarely question a physicians proposal for chemotherapy.

Dr Wise called for regulators to raise the bar for drug approval.

Global sales hit 85billion last year, and that figure is set to soar with one in two people born today expected to get the disease at some point

He said: Spending a six-figure sum to prolong life by a few weeks or months is already unaffordable, and inappropriate for many of the 20 per cent of the Western population who will almost inevitably die from solid tumour metastases.

Above all, the efficacy bar for approval needs to be raised for both new and existing cancer drugs  by using more meaningful statistical and disease specific criteria of risk-benefit and cost-benefit.

His assessment echoes that of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which last month issued a list of 40 unnecessary treatments that are of little or no benefit to patients.

Chemotherapy for terminally-ill cancer patients was included on the list, with the Academy warning that it may raise false hopes and will probably do more harm than good.

Many experts have warned that Britains cancer drugs bill is becoming unaffordable.

A major report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee last year warned that mismanagement of the 1.3billion Cancer Drugs Fund meant that patients dying of other diseases were missing out on cutting-edge drugs.

When it was founded in 2010, the Cancer Drugs Fund budget was capped at 175million a year, but this rose to 416million as demand grew.

The report said: To help cover this overspend, NHS England had to defer some planned spending on primary care services.

NICE - the NHS drugs rationing watchdog - has now taken control of the fund.

Dr Wise said he hoped it would be able to rein in spending.

NICE is highly cost aware, and it is to be hoped that a less permissive approval principle will evolve, he wrote.

Experts last night refuted Dr Wises argument, insisting it is crucial that patients get good access to cancer drugs.

Emlyn Samuel, senior policy manager at Cancer Research UK, said: Drugs are vital in cancer treatment. Advances in drug development, with the emergence of immunotherapy and precision drugs, give cancer patients much better prospects.

Its crucial that patients dont miss out on the best treatments for their condition. The recent changes to the cancer drugs fund in England are a step in the right direction and were monitoring this closely. B

'ut we also need further consideration of NICE reform to make sure its processes reflect advances in drug development.

A NICE spokesman added: NICE only recommends treatments that have proven clinical benefits and are good value for money on the NHS.

The drugs industry last night insisted cancer medicines can change lives.

Dr Jacintha Sivarajah, of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said: 'While earlier detection and diagnostics have played an important role in cancer survival rates increasingly targeted medicines have shifted some cancers from a terminal illness to a chronic, manageable condition.

'Through NICE, the UK is recognised as having one of the most robust systems in the world for assessing whether a medicine is good value and its important that once a treatment is approved it is made available to those who need it.
A 19-year-old boy who gave his 21-year-old girlfriend an MDMA capsule at a music event before she died has plead guilty to drug supply.

Jordan Duffy, from Avoca in the NSW central coast, stood before the magistrate at a Newtown court on Thursday morning before entering a guilty plea to supplying a prohibited drug.

Duffy's girlfriend Janie Panton Roberts died on Sunday, June 5 after taking the drug at a pub in Sydney's inner west.

Duffy is accused of supplying the woman with up to four MDMA pills between 11.30pm on Saturday, June 4 and 2.30am the morning she died.

Jordan Duffy, left, has plead guilty to supplying a prohibited drug following the death of his girlfriend after a music event

The 21-year-old woman took drugs from Mr Duffy at the music event the day before she died

The couple were at a house in Marrickville, also in the city's inner west when Ms Roberts fell ill, The Sydney Morning Herald reported at the time.

She died before paramedics could arrive.

Friends have poured their grief and fond memories of Ms Roberts over Facebook.

'I'll always remember you and that bloody laugh lol think everyone will never forget that laugh haha,' one friend wrote.

Friends have poured their grief and fond memories of Ms Roberts over Facebook

'Still can't believe you're gone.'

Another said Ms Roberts was a good friend.

'Never have you ever let me down whenever I needed you're help.'

'Heaven you have gained a beautiful angel today. Take good care of our darling girl. I love you always,' another said.

The case was adjourned until December 8 for sentencing at the same court.
Gerard Araud, French ambassador to the US, tweeted: 'After Brexit and this election, everything is now possible. A world is collapsing before our eyes.'

The EU was in turmoil last night as Donald Trump's election victory delivered another huge blow to the ailing Brussels project.

European chiefs were sent into a state of panic by Mr Trump's shock victory, amid fears he will prefer to deal with a post-Brexit Britain than the overly bureaucratic and notoriously cumbersome EU bloc.

European Parliament president Martin Schulz immediately warned that it had been 'another Brexit night' and said it was clear that a 'wave of protest' was engulfing established politics.

France's ambassador to the US, Gerard Araud, tweeted: 'After Brexit and this election, everything is now possible. A world is collapsing before our eyes.'

Eurosceptics in Austria, France and the Netherlands lined up to claim they would be next to cause upsets in elections planned for the coming months.

In their official remarks, EU leaders only grudgingly welcomed America's new president  with German chancellor Angela Merkel almost lecturing him in her stern congratulatory message. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council president Donald Tusk said they needed urgent talks on how to move forward.

The pair urged Mr Trump to travel to Brussels 'at your earliest convenience' for a summit with EU leaders 'to allow for us to chart the course of our relations for the next four years'. In the joint invitation letter, they wrote: 'We should consolidate the bridges we have been building across the Atlantic.'

In a statement later, Mr Tusk admitted it was a 'moment of uncertainty over the future of our transatlantic relations'.

He added: 'The EU and US simply have no option but to cooperate as closely as possible. It is in our common interest to recognise that this will take major efforts by both sides. The EU is a strong and reliable partner and will remain so. We expect the same from America and its new president.'

President-elect Donald Trump speaks to supporters at New York Hilton Midtown on election night

The EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, has called a meeting of all 28 foreign ministers, including Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, on Sunday night to discuss 'the way forward following the US elections'.

Mrs Merkel, who was denounced as 'insane' by Mr Trump for allowing more than a million migrants into her country last year, said his campaign has included 'confrontations that were difficult to bear'.

She said: 'Germany and America are bound together by values  democracy, freedom, respecting the rule of law, people's dignity regardless of their origin, the colour of their skin, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views.

'On the basis of these values, I am offering to work closely with the future president.'

Germany's defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, said she was in a state of 'deep shock' after learning the result. Mr Trump has cast doubt on Nato's mutual defence pact and Mrs von der Leyen, who has been pushing for the establishment of a European army, said the continent must now be prepared to stand for itself in security matters with higher defence budgets.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was denounced as 'insane' by Mr Trump for allowing more than a million migrants into her country last year, said his campaign has included 'confrontations that were difficult to bear'

French president Francois Hollande said the election of Mr Trump 'opens a period of uncertainty. It must be faced with lucidity and clarity'. He added: 'What is at stake is peace, the fight against terrorism, the situation in the Middle East, economic relations and the preservation of the planet. Some positions taken by Donald Trump during the campaign contradict values and interests we share with the US.'

European leaders are worried that they could be next to suffer a shock at the ballot box. Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right Front National, was one of the first politicians to congratulate Mr Trump. Polls show she will win more support than any other politician in the first round of the country's presidential elections early next year.

THE SIMPSONS SAW A TRUMP WIN COMING 16 YEARS AGO The creator of The Simpsons came up with the fantastical idea of Donald Trump as US president 16 years ago as a joke. In an episode called Bart to the Future aired in 2000, a dumbfounded Homer looks on as Trump is elected. A later clip called Trumptastic Voyage shows the Republican candidate take the stand with a sign saying: 'America, you can be my ex-wife.' The cartoon's creator, Matt Groening, said yesterday: 'Trump was of course the most absurd placeholder joke name that we could think of at the time, and that's still true. It's beyond satire.' Dan Greaney, a writer for The Simpsons also told The Hollywood Reporter that the clip had a dark message behind it. 'It was a warning to America. That just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom,' he said. 'It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane.' In Bart to the Future, Homer's daughter Lisa takes over as US President and says: 'We've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump. How bad does it get?' Advertisement

In a Simpsons episode called Bart to the Future aired in 2000, a dumbfounded Homer looks on as Trump is elected.

Her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party's founder, added: 'Today the United States, tomorrow France.'

On December 4, Austrians will vote in a presidential election that could see Norbert Hofer, of the Freedom Party, become the first far-Right head of state in western Europe since the Second World War.

Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache said: 'The aloof and sleazy establishment are being punished by voters and voted out.'

On the same day, a constitutional reform referendum on which prime minister Matteo Renzi has staked his future could upset the political order in Italy, pushing Beppe Grillo's Left-wing populist movement Five Star closer to power. Mr Grillo hailed the Trump victory as the 'apocalypse' of the mainstream.

In the Netherlands, the far-Right Freedom Party of Geert Wilders is neck-and-neck in opinion polls with prime minister Mark Rutte's liberals ahead of elections next year.

GOD FORGIVE THEM! HOW THE WORLD REACTED TO TRUMP Newspapers across the globe reacted with astonishment to the election of Donald Trump. 'God forgive America' was the headline on the front page of the Catalan paper El Periodico. New York's Clinton-supporting Daily News splashed with 'House of Horrors' and Canada's Le Journal de Quebec expressed its surprise with a front page saying: 'Oh my God!' Sydney's Daily Telegraph had 'WTF' on its cover, which stands for 'What the f***?' However, the paper said the letters stood for 'Will Trump Flourish (or fail)'. Spain's El Pais had a picture of stunned Hillary Clinton supporters with the words: 'US falls into the hands of the aggressive populism of Trump'. Advertisement

'God forgive America': The Catalan paper el Periodico's reaction (left) while the New York Daily News (right) left readers in no doubt how it felt about a Trump win
A Victorian man was lounging in a hot tub with his friends when envy over a the delicious smell of a neighbour's BBQ gave him the idea to use a drone to pick up a sausage in bread from Bunnings.

'We thought we'll go to Bunnings, get one of their snags, and then one of the blokes said we should send the drone,' the man called Tim told the Today Show on Thursday.

But now the innovative thinker from Sunbury could face a fine of up to $9,000 from aviation authorities who said they would be investigating the flight for breach of drone regulations.

A Victorian man Tim, told the Today Show (pictured) that he was lounging in a hot tub with his friends when the smell of a nearby BBQ gave him the idea to use a drone to pick up a sausage in bread

A man is facing up to a $9,000 fine after he flew a drone to a Bunnings sausage sizzle to pick up a sausage. Footage shows the man writing a note reading: 'Please buy snag and put in bag, here's $10' (pictured)

The drone footage shows an unidentified man writing a note reading: 'Please buy snag and put in bag, here's $10'.

He then puts the note and money in a clear plastic bag, and attaches it to a string from the drone before it takes off from a wooden deck.

Footage then shows the drone flying over neighbouring houses, a four-lane main road and over the roof of Bunnings Warehouse Sunbury, and down into the large car park.

Tim told the Channel 9 breakfast show that they had spoken with Bunnings staff, who said they 'didn' t mind' the unconventional pick-up method.

An accomplice in the footage collects the note from the drone as it hovers near the barbecue, before he walks over to collect the sausage and attaches the bag back to the drone.

The drone then flies back to the house and is seen hovering down above the hot tub, before Tim unclips the bag, takes a bite out of the sausage and gives a thumbs up to the camera.

Footage shows drone flying high up in the air and over the roof of Bunnings Warehouse Sunbury, and down into the large car park

An accomplice then collects the note from the drone as it hovers near the barbecue, before he walks over to collect the sausage in a bun and attaches the bag back to the drone

The drone then flies back to the house and is seen hovering down above a hot tub (pictured)

Unfortunately, while the arrival of the sausage was successful, it left a disappointing taste.

'The snag? It was freezing,' Tim told Today.

And aside from the hot tub, Tim is also in a bit of hot water with the Civil Aviation Authority.

He said as far as himself and his friends were concerned they were being safe, by making sure the surrounding area was clear.

'There was a lot of cropping involved to make it look like it was one big flight when it was a couple of individual ones, so we considered it safe at the time,' he said.

The man then unclips the bag, takes a bite out of the sausage and gives a thumbs up to the camera

Peter Gibson, a spokesperson for the Civil Aviation Authority, told Daily Mail Australia the incident had three potential breaches of drone use, and they were investigating.

'The potential breaches are operating beyond a line of sight, because there's obviously no way you could see the drone and the person was using the camera to fly it,' Mr Gibson said.

'That's not allowed because while it's fine that you can see where the drone is going, it gives you no awareness of whats happening around the drone.'

Mr Gibson said the only way to operate a drone in this way is if a person has a separate spotter, and you can't do that with recreational drones.

'Another rule is a person cannot fly a drone over a populous area - if you have a drone flying 10 to 20 feet if something went wrong it would fall to the ground like a stone and someone could be hit,' he said.

The other rule states a person is not able to fly a drone within 30 metres of people.

'This was also breached because you can see people walking from their cars and back and the drone hovering above the barbecue before some bloke comes out and takes the note from string.'

Peter Gibson, a spokesperson for the Civil Aviation Authority, told Daily Mail Australia the sausage sizzle incident (pictured) had three potential breaches of drone use, and they were investigating

Mr Gibson said they have issued fines twice before for people who have broken the rules based on social media videos.

He said the incidents happen from time to time, and there were 15 fines issued last year and about eight or nine issued so far this year.

Daily Mail Australia contacted the Bunnings Head office in Victoria but they were unable to comment on the incident.
There was one word  beginning with Br and ending in it  which kept tumbling from the lips of both jubilant Trump supporters and devastated Clintonistas as it became clear that The Donald had defied the pundits and the pollsters to become the 45th President of the United States.

Brexit.

We should have seen it coming, Hillarys crestfallen cheerleaders complained. We told you so, said the Trump camp.

Trump didnt just beat Clinton, he steam-rollered the Republican establishment, first by winning the partys nomination and then by capturing the White House in spectacular style

The rule of thumb used to be that all politics is local. No its not, its global, is the new refrain.

Trump spotted it early. He promised that the outcome of this election would be Brexit, plus, plus, plus . . .

He was right. While there were local factors which propelled him to victory in rustbelt states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, Hillary Clintons crushing defeat was part of the revolt on both sides of the Atlantic against the arrogant, self-selecting, self-perpetuating liberal elite.

This was the sweet revenge of 58 million decent Americans Hillary smeared as Deplorables.

The sheer lack of comprehension on the faces of pro-Clinton commentators was a joy to behold. It reflected the shell-shock of the Remainers as it dawned on them that the Brexiteers had won.

Trump tapped into the same sense of alienation and anger which inspired so many people in Britain to vote Leave  the feeling that the smug political class and their celebrity sycophants have been lording it over the rest of us for far too long.

The sheer lack of comprehension on the faces of pro-Clinton commentators was a joy to behold. It reflected the shell-shock of the Remainers after realising Brexit had won

The revolt against the Democrats in traditional, blue-collar, working-class states mirrored the rejection of Labour in so many constituencies in the North of England. Similarly, Trumps triumph had echoes of the rise of Ukip and the collapse of Call Me Daves Labour Lite project.

He didnt just beat Clinton, he steam-rollered the Republican establishment, first by winning the partys nomination and then by capturing the White House in spectacular style.

The result has shattered not one, but two dynasties that have dominated U.S. politics for almost 30 years, as well as torpedoing the legacy of Americas first black president, Barack Obama.

To win the Republican nomination, Trump slaughtered Jeb Bush, who would have been the third member of his family to occupy the Oval Office had he been successful. To win the White House, he trampled over Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady, whose ocean-going sense of entitlement made Gordon Brown look like a man who only became Prime Minister under duress.

The Bush familys betrayal of the grassroots Republican voters who put them into office was manifest in their refusal to back Trump and the announcement of George H.W. Bush, father of Jeb and Dubya, that he would be voting for their hated arch-rival  and wife of his own nemesis  Hillary Clinton.

It only served to reinforce the already widely held view that the real divide in America was not between the two main parties, but between the aloof political class in Washington and the people who pay their wages.

Under Barack Obama, politicians and judges spent more time obsessing about whether a man should be allowed to use the ladies toilets than terrorism

For a brief moment it seemed, too, that the Clintons were not going to accept the result. Even as it became glaringly apparent that Trump was heading for victory, the Democratic Party chairman turned up on TV declaring that there would be no concession.

Those of us who remember the bitter 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore in Florida had visions of the outcome being contested in court again.

When liberals lose a democratic vote, they often resort to litigation. Look at the way in which petulant, resentful Remainers have taken legal action in a cynical attempt to derail the Brexit vote.

Both in Britain and America, the democratic will of the electorate has increasingly been usurped by judicial activism. If Clinton had won, she would have appointed to the Supreme Court judges hell-bent on advancing the liberal agenda on everything from gun control to transgender rights.

Under Barack Obama, American politicians and judges have spent more time obsessing about whether a man should be allowed to use the ladies toilets than what to do about Islamist terrorism at home and abroad.

Trump tapped into the same sense of alienation and anger which inspired so many people in Britain to vote Leave

Although Trump is personally relaxed on issues such as gay marriage and abortion, he can be relied upon to appoint judges to uphold the constitution, not pursue a Leftist political crusade.

His victory is a timely reminder to all those in Britain who think they can use the courts to thwart the democratic process.

It should also serve as a warning to MPs planning to disrupt Britains departure from the EU. There will be a day of reckoning at the ballot box.

Although we dont have a presidential system, there is a danger that if our judges and elected representatives keep defying the properly expressed wishes of the people, the backlash could some day propel a Trump-type figure into 10 Downing Street.

The day of reckoning for Americas political class came yesterday. A rank outsider  given lukewarm support by his own partys leadership and faced with an overwhelmingly hostile media  overcame the odds to capture the most powerful office on earth.

No other candidate, with the possible exception of Nigel Farage, has ever been so roundly vilified.

Trump is not a likeable man. Hes a braggart, a liar and borderline racist (in the sense that he says hes going to build a wall along Americas southern borders to keep out illegal Mexican immigrants).

Yet his core message on Islamist terrorism, illegal immigration and American jobs being lost to cheap foreign competition, resonated in the heartlands.

His pitch was not dissimilar to that of the extreme elements of the Brexit campaign.

The more he was attacked by the Establishment and the pro-Clinton media, the greater his appeal to the disillusioned and dispossessed. Like Brexit, he managed to enlist the support of those who seldom  in some cases, never  bother to vote.

Millions of Americans turned out across the country for his rallies. The only time his opponent came anywhere near matching his crowds was when she surrounded herself with A-list Lear Jet Liberals.

The Bush familys betrayal of the grassroots Republican voters who put them into office was manifest in their refusal to back Trump (George W Bush and wife Laura Bush)

But the abiding impression is that the masses had come to see Bruce Springsteen or Katy Perry (whoever she is), not Hillary.

Of course, Trump is a celebrity in his own right, thanks to reality TV. But one of these days it might dawn on pop stars and actors that their artistic talent and popularity doesnt give them the right to impose their political prejudices on their fanbase.

In fact, it could well prove counter-productive. Theres no accurate polling data, but my guess would be that the majority of Springsteens blue-collar followers will have voted for Trump. Sucking up to Crooked Hillary may have earned him a few brownie points in the music industry and Hollywood, but it wont shift many copies of his new autobiography.

When Springsteen sang at the final Clinton rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he performed an acoustic version of his Eighties disco hit Dancing In The Dark. He couldnt have chosen a more appropriate song.

As it turned out, the Clinton campaign, the pollsters and the pundits were all dancing in the dark. Pennsylvania voted Trump. It was the state which pushed him over the line and forced Clinton to concede.

Springsteen would have been better off reviving his hero Bob Dylans Ballad Of A Thin Man, which contains the line: Something is happening here, but you dont know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?
Family members of Valerie Dowden Wells say that jealousy may be the reason why the reality TV star was shot dead in an apparent murder suicide on Monday.

The 47-year-old was a cast member on the 2012 CMT reality show Bayou Billionaires, which featured their family after they struck it rich thanks to mineral rights.

She was found shot multiple times in her car parked in a McDonald's in Shreveport, Louisiana, as Sgt. Rod Johnson said she was killed by Robert Paul Gaddy, 46, who then turned the gun on himself.

They were both taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead and he later died.

The victim's 15-year-old daughter, Nikki, told People magazine that Gaddy had recently started dating her mother and was jealous that her mom continued to speak with her father.

Murdered: Bayou Billionaires star Valerie Dowden Wells (in red) has been 'shot dead in murder-suicide by her boyfriend'. She is pictured with her daughters Nikki (second from right) and Jessica, and her son Devyn

She was killed by Robert Paul Gaddy, pictured, who then turned the gun on himself

Bayou Billionaires' executive producer Brian Flanagan told People that family members 'believe that's the reason it all went down.'

Johnson said that in terms of the motive, authorities 'haven't been able to lock it down as a hard core fact.'

He added that with both the victim and shooter dead, 'that could be one of those facts we'll never know.'

Earlier, Johnson said police know they had a 'relationship of some type.'

'But I can't tell you if they were friends having a dispute or formerly intimate. We simply don't know at this moment,' Johnson told the magazine.

'We have some guesses, but we'd like to back that up with hard facts.'

Reality star: Bayou Billionaires was the 'modern day rags to riches story' of the Dowden family  a hardworking family of modest means who discover their home sits on the fourth largest deposit of natural gas in the United States

Her body was found here in the parking lot of a Louisiana McDonald's

He said Valerie had pulled up to the parking lot around 4pm on Monday, before Gaddy walked up to the side of her vehicle and fired multiple shots.

They had previously been in a relationship, according to KSLA.

Bayou Billionaires' executive producer Brian Flanagan told People that Gaddy 'is a man [Wells] knew from high school, who she recently started dating.'

'She was a sweetheart. Valerie suffered from MS, but she was incredibly strong,' Flanagan said. 'She was ill for a very long time but worked through it. She always had a smile on her face. She was sunshine walking through a room, and it's incredibly sad news.'

Flanagan was informed of the news via a text from Valerie's mother Kitten.

'It's complete heartbreak,' he said, adding the family 'is not doing well'.

Bayou Billionaires was the 'modern day rags to riches story' of the Dowden family  a hardworking family of modest means who discover their home sits on the fourth largest deposit of natural gas in the United States. The show first aired in 2012.

Valerie is survived by her three children.

Her parents Kitten and Gerald Dowden, wrote on their personal Facebook page: 'This is really hard on us and her children. It is out of order. No parents should have to go through this.'

Valerie worked at a public defender's office. A friend described her in a Facebook post as 'kind and giving'.

Her funeral service will be at noon on Friday at Rose-Neath Southside Chapel, with interment in Forest Park West Cemetery.

Family visitation is from 6 to 8pm on Thursday at the chapel.
Bernie Sanders says he's prepared to work with Donald Trump to help the working class, but will 'vigorously' oppose any racist, sexist or xenophobic policies promised by the president-elect.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the independent Vermont senator noted that Trump 'tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media.'

He said that if Trump 'is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him.'

But Sanders added that if Trump 'pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.'

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Bernie Sanders (pictured) says he's prepared to work with Donald Trump, but will 'vigorously' oppose any racist, sexist or xenophobic policies promised by the president-elect

He said: 'People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids - all while the very rich become much richer.

'To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him.

'To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.'

On Election Day, Sanders tweeted: 'I hope today we defeat Donald Trump and we defeat him badly'

In the wake of Hillary Clinton's shocking defeat, calls grew on Twitter for Sanders to run for president again in 2020

Sanders ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, and supported her candidacy after she won that race.

And in the wake of Clinton's shocking defeat, calls grew on Twitter for Sanders to run for president again in 2020.

However, Sanders would be 78 by then making the chances of him running unlikely,

'#Bernie2020 Next time, don't lock out the other anti-establishment candidate that wasn't a bigot,' wrote Omar Suleiman on Twitter.

Another Twitter user added: 'Cryogenically freeze me for 4 years and wake me up when bernie sanders is elected president in 2020.'

'Bernie 2020,' declared CB Mullen. 'Because hindsight is 2020.'

Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren has also offered to 'put aside' her differences with Trump and work with him to rebuild the US economy for 'working people'.

The liberal icon extended the olive branch after campaigning fiercely against Trump.

On Wednesday she released a statement saying: 'It's no secret that I didn't want to see Donald Trump win yesterday...

'But the integrity of our democracy is more important than any individual election, and those of us who supported Hillary Clinton will respect this result.'

Warren continued: 'President-Elect Trump promised to rebuild our economy for working people, and I offer to put aside our differences and work with him on that task.
Military chiefs last night warned of the risk of war with Russia if Donald Trump abandoned Nato.

The US president-elect has cast doubt on the coalitions mutual defence pact and has told members to raise military spending.

Three former British generals and an admiral said Britain and Europe should heed the warning or risk an unstoppable Russian invasion.

Sir Michael Graydon, the former head of the RAF, said a Nato without the US would not be strong enough to defend Eastern Europe. From a security point of view this may be the wake-up call Europe needs, he added.

Three former British generals and an admiral said Britain and Europe should heed the warning or risk an unstoppable Russian invasion

We can expect Trump to be quite serious on this one, he will not forget it. If European nations do not raise their game then there are real concerns over the future of Nato.

If the US leaves Nato it would be absolutely disastrous and just what Vladimir Putin would like. If a situation occurs in the Baltic where we need to take a firm stance, the credibility of this would be lacking without the US.

General Richard Shirreff, Natos deputy supreme allied commander for Europe until 2014, said: We have to hope the rhetoric we heard during the campaign is rapidly replaced by a very sober and serious statement that if there is any question of a Nato member being attacked then Trump will without any hesitation or equivocation come to the defence of the country. Anything less would be really bad news for Nato.

In his book, 2017: War with Russia, Sir Richard describes an apocalyptic vision of Russia invading the Baltic states and Moscow threatening to go nuclear.

Defence commentators have concerns the US and British militaries would struggle to repel Russia's new 'super tank, the Armata

General Lord Dannatt, former head of the Army, said: Weve seen Donald Trump threaten all sorts of things, we should take that threat seriously.

From a UK point of view we have to think about increasing our own defence expenditure.

We should actually realise that Trump means it and states have to do more about their own role in Nato. If the US walks away, Nato ceases to exist, almost by definition, so we would have to invent something else. In the context of Brexit that is ridiculous.

Mr Trump alarmed the Western world earlier this year when he said the US might not come to the aid of Nato allies if they were attacked.

Russian Su-27 jet fighters and MIG 29 jet fighters fly over Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow earlier this year

The Republican accused them of failing to pull their weight, with the US accounting for 72 per cent of the alliances expenditure.

Paving the way for an ultra-isolationist foreign policy, he said he wanted to put America first when it came to its military and economic interests.Lord Bramall, a former head of the Army and a D-Day hero, and Lord West, former head of the Royal Navy, called for higher defence spending. I dont expect any immediate change but perhaps European countries should spend more on defence, said Lord Bramall.

Lord West, a former security minister, added: It will be incumbent on all of Europe to spend more. We will have to spend more on defence to show we are stepping up the plate.

Julian Lewis, who chairs the Commons defence select committee, said Mr Trumps presidency could leave Europe in a catastrophically weakened position.

He said: If he means to carry out his threat and turn his back on Nato that would be potentially catastrophic for security and the West. It does not bear thinking about. Nato has been the cornerstone of Western security since 1949. Its central purpose is set out in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which says an armed attack against one Nato member shall be considered an attack against them all.

Dr Lewis added: Once you undermine the Article 5 commitment then effectively you are going back to the terrible days of the 1930s when aggressors could gamble on picking off one country after another.

Donald Trump has warned NATO countries they need to spend more on their militaries (US F-35B Joint Strike Fighter pictured)

The Tory Government maintains it spends 2 per cent of GDP on its armed forces - but many other NATO countries struggle (British Challenger II tanks)

From 1949, Russia has always known that any aggression against a Nato member would mean war with the US, that is a deterrent that must remain.

If Trump turns his back we would be in a catastrophically weakened position.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg congratulated Mr Trump, saying: I look forward to working with you to strengthen Nato, keeping Europe and America safe.

A strong Nato is important for Europe, but its also important for the United States: We have to remember that the only time that we have invoked Article 5, our collective defence clause, is after an attack on the United States; after 9/11.

Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded forces in Afghanistan, said the world would be fearful of Mr Trump. He said: Hes a strong figure who is required to deal with the current situation. He will confront Putin, he wont kowtow to Putin. People will be afraid of him.

He has said he requires Nato countries to pull their weight if they want US support and hes right to say that because Nato countries are not pulling their weight.
Former Apprentice contestant Omarosa has revealed what was said in the moments immediately after the man who fired her in front of millions won the White House.

Omarosa, the reality television personality who went on to become one of Donald Trump's most vocal surrogates, said the Republican was in full 'Trump mode' just seconds after he gave his victory speech.

'I was literally just standing next to him on the stage and just bawling. I don't remember a word he said. We were live on air. I just remember Mr. Trump saying to me, "Are you ready? Are you ready to come with me to Washington?!",' the 42-year-old told the Hollywood Reporter.

Former Apprentice contestant Omarosa (pictured at Trump's victory party in New York) has revealed what Donald Trump said moments after winning the election

'I was so proud of him. I got to see him before he left the war room. We all met in the freight elevator of the hotel. He was so not focused on himself.

'He got all his family business sorted. He addressed his supporters. He was still in Trump mode! Just a business man in the private sector, rattling off a list of things that needed to get done that night.'

The veteran of more than 20 reality television shows then went on to talk up Trump, while repeating claims the President-elect has made about a number of issues over the course of the campaign.

Omarosa's election night insight comes after she made headlines for claiming the Trump campaign kept a list of its 'enemies'.

'I just remember Mr. Trump saying to me, "Are you ready? Are you ready to come with me to Washington?!",' Omarosa (pictured speaking during a Trump rally) said on Wednesday

'Let me just tell you, Mr. Trump has a long memory and were keeping a list,' she told the Independent Journal Review.

The comment was made in reference to Republican Lindsey Graham - who criticized Trump throughout the campaign and also cast his ballot for Independent candidate Evan McMullin.

She explained the comment during her interview with the Hollywood Reporter.

'My quote was very clear. I was referring specifically to Sen. Lindsey Graham,' Omarosa said.

'Donald Trump won't soon forget how Graham failed to fight with him to achieve his vision and ultimately his betrayal.'

Omarosa (right) and boxing promoter Don King (middle) listen as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in Ohio in September
Donald Trump has been a persistent critic of Nato and could now present the alliance, which has been the cornerstone of Western security since 1949, with its biggest crisis since the Cold War ended.

Repeatedly during the campaign, he said the US was paying too much into Nato and that its other members 27 members, from Canada to most of its European members and Turkey, were paying too little.

Nato is costing us a fortune, he said, and yes, were protecting Europe, but were spending lots of money. Number one, I think the distribution of costs has to be changed.

Donald Trump has been a persistent critic of Nato and says it relies too much on US funding

According to Natos own statistics, the US spent an estimated 523billion on defence last year (USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier pictured)

Were spending billions and billions of dollars on Nato, he added on another occasion. Were paying too much! You have countries in Nato that are getting a free ride and its unfair, its very unfair.

Trump has a point. According to Natos own statistics, the US spent an estimated 523billion on defence last year. Thats more than double the amount all the other 27 Nato countries spent between them, even though their combined GDP tops that of the US. The UKs 2015 expenditure was 32.5billion.

Natos official guidelines state that its members should pay a minimum of 2 per cent of their GDP on defence, yet only four other countries do so. Britain is one of them  although only because the figures have been massaged to include spending on the intelligence services.

The others include Greece, which wants to ward off aggression from its old enemy Turkey, and Estonia and Poland which are understandably terrified of Russia.

Trump is unlikely to pull out of Nato, but he will do his utmost to pressure the Europeans into increasing their spending  he has warned that those who dont should be kicked out. The trouble is that most EU countries are planning further defence cuts.

And some, especially France and Germany which resent Americas influence, will be considering how to speed up their plans for an EU Army which would compete with Nato and actually weaken European defence.

But spending is only one of Trumps Nato bugbears. The other is the alliances stance against Russia.

Since the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, Nato and the US under Obama have taken an increasingly hard line against President Vladimir Putin.

Since the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, Nato and the US under Obama have taken an increasingly hard line against President Vladimir Putin

Britain has not had an operational aircraft carrier since HMS Illustrious was decommissioned in 2014. Two new aircrafts are being built, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales

During the campaign, however, Trump made clear he was an admirer of Putin and said there should be more co-operation between their two countries, particularly on fighting terrorism.

He said Nato was obsolete, partly because its obsession with containing Russia rather meant it wasnt focussing on todays real military challenge  terrorism.

Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg may have congratulated the new President yesterday on his election victory  but he also delivered a stern reminder of Americas obligations to its allies, some of which border Russia.

Natos security guarantee is a treaty commitment, said Mr Stoltenberg.

All allies have made a solemn commitment to defend each other. This is something absolutely unconditioned.

This guarantee  known as Article 5  is at the heart of the Nato Treaty. But would Trump abide by it?

Trumps great political ally, former Speaker of the US House Newt Gingrich, who may be the next Secretary of State, has said for example that since Estonia is virtually a suburb of St Petersburg, there is no way in which the US will risk a nuclear war with Russia should President Putin decide to grab it.

Does Gingrich feel the same about Latvia, where there is a sizeable ethnic Russian minority? Or Lithuania? At what point exactly would the US step in to honour Natos Article 5?

And might President Trump force Nato to rethink its plan to deploy 4,000 troops  including American soldiers  to the Baltic States and Poland next year?

Could he also reconsider plans by the Obama administration to send a heavy infantry brigade to Eastern Europe early next year?

Perhaps Trump hopes that, given his special relationship with Putin, he will be able to sweet-talk Russia out of its aggressive behaviour  this summer he suggested a President Trump might recognise Russias right to Crimea. That approach, I am afraid, simply wont work.

For now, officials in Eastern Europe are hoping that Trump will prove a hard dealmaker. Estonian defence minister, Hannes Hanso said he hoped that the new administration would see we cannot live and be secure without each other.

He also agreed with Mr. Trump that European military spending had to rise. We need to pay more for our security in Europe. Estonia is a country that is doing that, he said.

Whatever the case, the UK may yet have a pivotal role in shaping the new world order. Trump has little faith in Chancellor Angela Merkel  Europes most powerful leader  and there is every chance that, despite Brexit, he may choose Britain to act as a crucial bridge between the US and the EU.
Ukips Nigel Farage, who has endured his fair share of brickbats over the years, has criticised Prince Harry for his public defence of his girlfriend, Meghan Markle.

The 32-year-old prince issued an unprecedented statement on Tuesday confirming his relationship with the star of American TV legal drama Suits and decrying the wave of abuse and harassment directed at her on social media and in the press.

OK, hes in a difficult spot, but lashing out in a statement is not always a good idea, Farage tells me. Its probably best he doesnt say anything at all! Its not worth it in the end.

Nigel Farage (pictured) has criticised Prince Harry for his public defence of his new girlfriend

The 32-year-old prince (left) issued an unprecedented statement on Tuesday confirming his relationship with actress Meghan Markle (right)

Farage believes Harrys heartfelt statement, in which he set out to defend Miss Markle, 35, from alleged sexism and racism, has actually been counter-productive.

Hes probably said a little too much and possibly made it worse, he says, speaking at Lord Ashcrofts launch of Victoria Cross Heroes: Volume II at the City of Londons Devonshire Club. I have a lot of sympathy with him though, just better say a bit less. I know what its like to be famous. Oh God, yes!

Farage has been derided, reviled and vilified for much of his political career and was even denounced by the founder of his own party, Dr Alan Sked, as alcoholic, dim and racist.

But he has had the last laugh after his long campaign for a referendum on Europe resulted in a vote for Brexit.

Now there is even talk of the President-elect Donald Trump, who predicted his own victory as Brexit plus plus plus, giving Farage a plum post in his administration.

I get accosted in the street all the time, adds Farage. Thankfully, apart from the odd one, I seem to be loved. Im as happy as Larry at the moment, enjoying myself and hoping to be part of the White House team.

The Ukip interim leader flew out to the U.S. yesterday to congratulate The Donald in person and joked he might even be appointed U.S. ambassador to the European Union.

Model Lottie Mosss latest accessory is a 45 mobile phone case from Moschino which resembles a cigarette packet (pictured)

Model Lottie Mosss latest accessory is a 45 mobile phone case from Moschino which resembles a cigarette packet.

Its probably not the sort of image fashion brands would want her to be associated with, but carefree smoker Lottie, 18, was only too happy to share the image with her followers.

I am who I am and I do what I want, whether that is modelling or anything else, she says.

Half-sister supermodel Kate, 42, is said to have a two pack-a-day nicotine addiction and has smoked since she was 12. Lets hope Lottie has not copied any of her older siblings other naughty habits.

Who says the metropolitan elite are out of touch? Guests at CNNs lavish U.S. election night London bash, including artist Tracey Emin and human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger, were asked to vote for their favoured candidate in a ballot box upon arrival.

Guests at CNNs lavish U.S. election night London bash were asked to vote for their favoured candidate in a ballot box upon arrival and overwhelming went for Hillary Clinton (pictured)
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A wooden cubby house bar tucked down a laneway in Adelaide, an industrial-style croissanterie and an old converted power station have won this years top hospitality design awards.

The winners of the 2016 Australian and New Zealand Eat Drink Design Awards were announced on Tuesday in Melbourne.

Adelaide bar Pink Moon Saloon took out the prize for Best Bar Design and Best Identity Design with it's woodland cabin-inspired design.

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A wooden cubby house bar tucked down a laneway in Adelaide (pictured), a gothic-inspired croissanterie and an old converted power station have won this years top hospitality design awards

Adelaide bar Pink Moon Saloon took out the prize for Best Bar Design and Best Identity Design with it's woodland cabin-inspired design (pictured)

Designed by Sans Arc Studio, the tiny bar (pictured) is tucked into a space on Leigh Street in the South Australian city and has a sharply pointed roof, a powder blue door and a wooden paneled interior

The bar is made up of two parts - Pink Moon Saloon and Pink Moon Deli - two separate cabins separated by a small courtyard

Designed by Sans Arc Studio, the tiny bar is tucked into a space on Leigh Street in the South Australian city and has a sharply pointed roof, a powder blue door and a wooden paneled interior.

An old power station converted into a cafe on Little Bourke Street took out the award for Best Cafe Design.

Higher Ground, a cafe designed by DesignOffice, features an exposed brick interior, a 15 metre-high roof and an L-shaped mezzanine level looking over the ground floor which is filled with trees and plants.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal was awarded Best Restaurant Design, with the judges describing the interior as 'sumptuous'.

An old power station converted into a cafe on Little Bourke Street took out the award for Best Cafe Design (pictured)

Higher Ground, a cafe designed by DesignOffice, features an exposed brick interior and a 15 metre-high roof (pictured)

An L-shaped mezzanine level overlooks the ground floor which has trees in corners and planter boxes filled with small shrubs

The restaurant features curved brown leather booths, pea green lounge chairs, circular wooden tables and a screen printed with snails sliding across food and plants strewn across a table.

The moody interior of Lune Croissanterie in Melbourne, recently judged as the location of the world's best croissant, won Best Retail Design.

Designed by Studio Esteta the central feature of the converted warehouse in Fitzroy is a glass cube with LED lights patterned across the ceiling, where the pastries are made.

Il Bacaro, an Italian dining restaurant design by Chris Connell Design, was also inducted into the award's Hall of Fame.

The Melbourne institution was opened in 1995 and was described by the judges as having a 'classic, timeless, character-filled Italian dining interior' that was 'dark and atmospheric'.

Concrete columns and exposed steel beams also feature throughout the industrial-style interior (pictured)

The space also feature small circular tables, pastel wooden chairs and small lights that illuminate the minimalist interior

While customers can choose to sit at the bar on grey stools, there are also groups of small tables, a mezzanine area and larger dining spaces

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal was awarded Best Restaurant Design, with the judges describing the interior as 'sumptuous' (pictured)

Described by some as 'Melbourne's best restaurant experience' the dimly lit interior features luxurious furniture and lavish images of food, printed on screen and displayed on the side walls (pictured)

The restaurant interior features curved brown leather booths, pea green lounge chairs and circular wooden tables (pictured)

Large background screen covers the walls, with this one (pictured) showing an image of snails sliding across a toast rack, large silver tureen and plants strewn across a table

The inteiror of the Michelin star restaurant was described by judges as 'theatrical and delightful'. Pictured is the bar area

The moody interior of Lune Croissanterie in Melbourne, recently judged as the location of the world's best croissant, won Best Retail Design (pictured)

Designed by Studio Esteta the central feature of the converted warehouse in Fitzroy (pictured) is a glass cube with LED lights patterned across the ceiling, where the pastries are made

The raw concrete, brick and glass interior (pictured) was described by one judge as 'the Apple store of croissants'

A black marbled bench (pictured) is the central feature of the glass cube where the award winning croissants are created

The ceiling of the converted warehouse is patterned with strips of LED lighting, making it appear like some kind of spaceship

The minimalist interior (pictured) was described by other judges as 'self confident yet fabulous' and 'perfectly manifesting the concept of experiential retail'
our was into politics somewhat later in life,' he said on Thursday

Mr Turnbull told reporters discussion with new US president was 'warm'

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has telephoned Donald Trump to congratulate him on his election win and said the new president 'could not have been warmer'.

Mr Turnbull said the 45th president congratulated him on Australia's economy and made note of the two countries' common interests, values and goals.

'I suppose as both being businessmen who found our way into politics, somewhat later in life, we come to the problems of our own nations and indeed world problems with a pragmatic approach,' the prime minister told reporters in Canberra.

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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has telephoned Donald Trump to congratulate him on his election win

Mr Trump was elected as the US president in a shock win on Wednesday

The government has already begun talks with Trump administration advisers as the new president prepares to take over the White House in January.

Mr Turnbull described the discussion with Mr Trump as 'very warm'.

'He is a businessman, a deal maker and he will, I have no doubt, view the world in a very practical and pragmatic way.'

Both leaders agreed on the vital importance of the US-Australian alliance.

'Mr Trump recognises the solidarity that Australia has shown the United States and the United States has shown Australia over 98 years, during which we have fought side-by-side with the United States in every major conflict' Mr Turnbull said.

'I suppose as both being businessmen who found our way into politics, somewhat later in life, we come to the problems of our own nations and indeed world problems with a pragmatic approach,' the prime minister told reporters in Canberra

Mr Turnbull said the 45th president congratulated him on Australia's economy and made note of the two countries' common interests, values and goals

The government has already begun talks with Trump administration advisers as the new president prepares to take over the White House in January

Mr Trump also observed the success of the Australian economy and 'congratulated me on that'.

Mr Turnbull confirmed the pair had discussed the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

While the prime minister acknowledged Mr Trump's opposition to the treaty, he maintained the pact was in Australia's national interest.

'The argument we have put to the United States is that it is in America's strategic interest to be seen to be the cornerstone of an important trade agreement in our region,' he said.

Asked whether he sought assurances the US would not retreat on its defence presence in the Asia-Pacific region, Mr Turnbull said the president-elect was committed to a strong US with enhanced military power.

Both leaders also discussed plans to boost their respective naval strengths.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton delivered her concession speech on Wednesday
Students at colleges across the country have started petitions urging their professors to cancel classes due tot heir 'emotional distress after Donald Trump won the election.

Petitions to cancel classes at Loyola University New Orleans, Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland have attracted hundreds of signatures.

'Loyola students are exhausted and exasperated from this election and no one wants to go to class,' wrote the creator of the petition, which has attracted 341 signatures so far.

'The only cure to an election hangover is drinking a cold beer in bed... all day.'

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Petitions to cancel classes at Loyola University New Orleans (above), Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland have attracted hundreds of signatures

Bryn Mawr student Mia DiMeo addressed her petition, which is also well on the way to reaching its goal of 500 signatures, to the college's president.

'After a stressful election night, we need this,' she wrote.

The third petition, directed towards Johns Hopkins University president Ron Daniels, says students need a day off to recover from 'emotional distress.'

'We as students are anxious and fearful for the future,' the petition states.

'Right now our primary focus is on the outcome of the election and the future. We'd really appreciate the time to process the results because it will not be easy for a lot of people and families if Trump will become president.'

The petitions come as a number of the country's top universities went into meltdown following Trump's shock victory, with professors cancelling exams and organizing strikes.

On Wednesday, a Yale economics professor announced he was making an exam 'optional' after receiving 'heartfelt notes' from multiple students who were in shock over the result.

Other teachers cancelled classes and one professor from Cleveland State University told her students to come dressed in 'warm clothes' as they were going on strike.

Schools in Boston offered counselling so that students could face the 'challenging weeks' ahead - while other educators opted to bring in their pets as 'therapy'.

A Yale economics professor announced he was making an exam 'optional' after receiving 'heartfelt notes' from multiple students who were in shock over the election result

The University of Maryland was one of a number of schools across the country that decided to postpone exams, with professor Alan Peel labelling Trump a 'hazard'.

'The nation in which you currently reside decided last night to elect a president whose own words have painted him a moral and possibly physical hazard to many of us,' he wrote in an email to students.

'I am convinced it is necessary to postpone any assessments whose scores might very well reflect circumstances far beyond the mastery of the current material.

'I debated whether to press on today in the spirit of re-establishing normalcy, but have come to realize that my position and my background may have afforded me the privilege to do so. Others may find they do not have that privilege.'

A Yale economics professor gave his students a reprieve following the result, saying he would let the students decide whether or not they wanted to sit an exam.

'I am getting many heartfelt notes from students who are in shock over election results,' the educator said - writing even before the election result had been confirmed.

Elizabeth Bly, a Women's Studies professor from Cleveland State University, called on her students to join her in a protest

Berkeley High School students (pictured) assembled on the UC Berkeley campus in protest against the result

One professor brought her dog to class with a tage around its collar saying: 'Do you need a hug'

'These students are requesting that the exam be postponed. I am making the exam optional.'

Elizabeth Bly, a Women's Studies professor from Cleveland State University, called on her students to join her in a protest.

'Please dress warmly. We are striking today,' she wrote.

'Women and brown and black people are unsafe now more than ever.'

The University of California, Berkeley created safe spaces for minority students and healing spaces for women and members of the LGBT community.

'We know that the results of yesterday's election have sparked fear and concern among many in our community; in particular our immigrant and undocumented communities, Muslim, African American, Chicanx/Latinx, LGBTQ+, Asian and Pacific Islander communities, survivors of sexual assault, people with disabilities, women, and many others,' an email sent to students read.

The University of Maryland was one of a number of schools across the country that decided to postpone exams, with professor Alan Peel labelling Trump a 'hazard'

The University of Vermont's president Tom Sullivan offered time for tea and meditations.

'This is a challenging time for many of our colleagues and students, who may be feeling isolated and concerned for personal welfare,' he wrote.

A letter was sent to parents and students at public schools in Boston on Wednesday saying counselors were available to anyone who has concerns after Tuesday's election.

Boston Superintendent Tommy Chang sent a letter to parents at district schools on Wednesday saying counselors were available

Boston Superintendent Tommy Chang said in the letter that resources were available and that it was important to be strong for the students.

'The coming days and weeks may be challenging for many, and celebratory for others,' he wrote.

'We must ensure that our students feel safe by providing safe and respectful learning communities. We are fortunate to live in a democracy where we can hold these conversations even if we disagree with the outcome.'

It comes as furious students started protesting across the country with more than 1,500 angry California high school students walking out of classes in Berkeley.

Some students held anti-Trump signs that read 'Nasty Women Unite,' 'F*** Donald Trump' and 'No Deportation, No Profiling, No Brutality.' Others waved Mexican flags.

Trump's poll-defying win has sparked a wave of similar rallies across the country.

A letter was sent to parents and students at public schools in Boston on Wednesday saying counselors were available to anyone who has concerns after Tuesday's election

In New York, which voted overwhelmingly in favour of Hillary Clinton, demonstrators descended on Union Square and Columbus Circle, chanting 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Donald Trump, go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay.'

Thousands are expected to march uptown to picket outside Trump Towers, where the President-elect will live before moving into the White House in January.

Protests are stopping traffic in the streets of Chicago, Illinois, while downtown Portland, Oregon, is overrun with disgruntled voters.

Outside the White House a candlelit vigil is being held in protest against Mr Trump's inflammatory and divisive brand of politics. Demonstrations are being held in at least seven cities.

Youth in revolt: Berkeley High School students begin to march after assembling in front of Sproul Hall on the UC Berkeley campus in protest to the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States in Berkeley, California

Chicago: At Trump International Hotel and Tower, activists carried signs reading: 'Stop Trump! Shut down white supremacy'

Young men and women shield their candles from the wind as they gather outside the White House on Wednesday night
Pauline Hanson has called for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to be pardoned so he can be released from hiding after publishing secret military files.

The One Nation Senator urged Donald Trump to consider granting the 'political prisoner' and 'Australian hero' a presidential pardon.

Wikileaks had published information which damaged the Clinton campaign over the course of the U.S. election.

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Pauline Hanson has called for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to be pardoned and released from the Ecuadorean embassy in London (he is pictured at the embassy)

Senator Hanson (pictured) called Mr Assange a 'political prisoner' and 'Australian hero'

'I hope that in light of his great service towards freedom and truth President Elect Donald Trump will consider granting Mr Assange a full presidential pardon,' Senator Hanson wrote in a statement on Thursday.

Mr Assange has been holed up at the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012, to avoid being extradited to Sweden over sexual assault allegations.

He claims the accusations are part of a rouse to have him extradited to the U.S., after Wikileaks published 500,000 secret military files on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Mr Assange is expected to be questioned by Swedish authorities next week. He has not been charged with anything by U.S. or Australian authorities.

Wikileaks had published information which damaged the Clinton campaign ahead of Donald Trump's victory

Earlier this week, he wrote he had 'come under enormous pressure to stop publishing' damaging information about Clinton because of the timing.

He said Wikileaks had not received information about Trump.

Senator Hanson shared her statement on Twitter with the words: 'FREE JULIAN ASSANGE: It is time to bring him home.'

'I hope the Government of Australia has taken notice and will no longer continue to assist in the shameful imprisonment of an Australian hero,' Senator Hanson said.

She flagged her intention to petition the Australian and U.S. governments to immediately release the 45-year-old.

A video of her expanding on the issue will be released over social media about 6pm on Thursday.

Pauline Hanson released the statement on Twitter on Thursday morning

Mr Assange has been holed up at the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012, to avoid being extradited to Sweden over sexual assault allegations, which he claims are a rouse to have him extradited to the U.S. after Wikileaks published secret military files
Donald Trump's triumph has been compared to the September 11 terrorist attacks by some people who are furious with the election result.

Shortly after the Donald defeated Hillary Clinton to become President-elect, social media users began pointing out the symmetry in the dates on which the two incidents took place.

'On 9/11 a war began. On 11/9 that war ended. The terrorists won. Our country is now more like theirs,' writer Joshua Fialkov tweeted.

Furiously anti-Trump social media users are comparing the Donald's election win to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Pictured are emotional Hillary Clinton fans in New York

'In England the date is 9.11,' London-born rapper M.I.A wrote.

'11/9 is the new 9/11,' another said.

'Worst day in America 9/11... 2nd worst day in America 11/9,' one person tweeted.

'It is eerie though that 11/9 is a mirror reflection of 9/11,' actor Dan Fogler added.

Some complained about the 'huge tragedy' that is Donald Trump winning Tuesday's election

Actor Joshua Fialkov and rapper M.I.A were two of the celebrities who joined in with those tweeting that Donald Trump's election is similar to September 11

Film-maker Michael Moore chimed in, tweeting: 'Fahrenheit 11/9.' The message was a reference to Moore's critically-acclaimed documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11 - which explored the Bush administration's response to the September 11 attacks.

However, others hit back at people for comparing the two incidents.

'Anyone comparing 9/11 to Trump getting elected on 11/9 please remove yourself from my life b/c (sic) you're literally the epitome of idiotic,' one person tweeted.

Some have compared Donald Trump defeating Hillary Clinton the the attacks on September 11, 2001. Pictured are the Twin Towers during the attacks in New York

Many people took to social media to tweet about how Trump becoming president is comparable to the September 11 attacks

'Please stop comparing the tragedy of this election to the tragedy of 9/11. Both are tragedies yes, but to compare the two is insulting,' another wrote.

Former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke also made the comparison between the dates, however he did so in a celebratory way.

'The towers fell on 9-11. Trump rises on 11-9 #AmericaFirst #MAGA #AltRight #Election2016,' Duke tweeted.

Former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke also made the comparison between the dates, however he did so in a celebratory way

Duke presented Trump's triumph as the opposite of September 11, saying the Republican has risen

Trump's victory has sparked protests across the US, with thousands taking to the streets in Chicago, New York, and other places.

However, his fans were overjoyed with the result on Wednesday morning, heralding it as a 'political miracle'.
The man who sexually assaulted a schoolgirl before murdering her in her bed said the 11-year-old 'looked like an angel' and he 'wanted her all for himself' before he strangled her.

Before killing Zoe Buttigieg, Bowe Maddigan woke her from her sleep, took off her pants and underwear, then licked and touched parts of her body, a prosecutor told the Wangaratta Supreme Court.

On Thursday, he appeared for a pre-sentencing hearing after he in August pleaded guilty to the murder and indecent assault of Zoe, who was found dead on October 25, 2015.

The prosecution set out the horrific details of the night for the court to hear.

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Bowe Maddigan, 30, pleaded guilty to the murder of schoolgirl Zoe Buttigieg, 11 (pictured)

The young girl's family wept in the Wangaratta Supreme Court as graphic details about her final moments were revealed

Her family wept as graphic details about her final moments were revealed, the Herald Sun reported.

Director of Public Prosecutions John Champion, SC told the court Maddigan had stated 'I wanted to have her all to myself' and alleged he had acted for sexual gratification.

Forensic test later revealed Maddigan's DNA on parts of Zoe's body, including on her thighs and buttocks, he said.

Zoe's DNA was found on the inside of Maddigan's underwear and on his penis, the court heard.

Maddigan had been partying with Zoe's mother in the hours leading up to the child's death, Mr Champion said.

Then about 1.30am, the 30-year-old was left alone in the house after smoking marijuana and drinking.

Maddigan (left and right) sexually assaulted the child before strangling her to death in her bed

Maddigan, who had been released from jail just three weeks before the murder, then began to walk the hallways.

He found Zoe's bedroom and woke the child up before closing the door behind him, turning off the light and telling her to come down from her bunk bed, the court heard.

The girl had looked 'like an angel' and he was desperate to have her 'all to himself', Maddigan later told police.

He sexually assaulted Zoe and manually strangled her after placing his gold ring inside her mouth, Mr Champion told the court.

Zoe was found dead in her mother's Wangaratta home on October 25, 2015

Around 500 friends, family and neighbours attended a vigil at the park where Zoe once walked her dog

Mourners gathered at a vigil for murdered schoolgirl Zoe Buttigieg

Mourners with candles attend a memorial for the 11-year-old girl

A note left for Zoe reads: 'Beautiful girl we knew you... but our hearts cry for the loss of such an innocent precious soul'

He then placed her back in her bed. It is alleged the schoolgirl was not raped.

Maddigan the returned to the party.

Her mother didn't discover her body - naked from the waist down but covered with a doona - until about 11am.

Maddigan had been found walking barefoot along the side of a highway about 6am.

Police allegedly found child pornography on his phone.

He described the events of the night as being like a movie he couldn't control.

'I still honestly don't think I'm capable of that, but I can't argue with the evidence around me.'

The 30-year-old pleaded guilty to murder and one count of committing an indecent act. The hearing continues.

Children sign a book for Zoe at a memorial for her

Maddigan told police the girl looked like an 'angel' and he wanted her all to himself, a court heard

Maddigan also said he was desperate to have her all to himself, the court heard

A floral tribute laid for Zoe Buttigieg in Wangaratta
Dr Donald Cline (pictured) is accused of using his own sperm up to 50 times to impregnate at least eight mothers decades ago

In an emotional episode for Crime Watch Daily with Chris Hansen, Elizabeth Smart confronts a retired fertility doctor who is suspected of using his own sperm up to 50 times on unsuspecting patients to impregnate at least eight women decades ago.

She also brought some of his children together for the first time.

Smart went to the home of Dr. Donald Cline in Zionsville, Indianapolis to confront him over the felony charges he is facing after he allegedly used his own sperm to impregnate at least eight mothers decades ago and admitted to six now-adult children to doing so.

Cline, 77, faces two felony obstruction of justice charges for misleading authorities who were investigating two of the children's complaints against him.

He surrendered to the charges in court back in September, and pleaded not guilty before being released. He is currently awaiting trial.

In an exclusive video for Crime Watch Daily, Smart is seen knocking on the door to Cline's home.

He answered the door for Smart, who explained who she was and began to ask him questions, which he declined to answer before referring her to speak with his lawyer and closing the door.

Elizabeth Smart (above) confronted the retired fertility doctor for Crime Watch Daily at his home in Indiana. He declined to speak with her and referred her questions to his lawyer

Cline (above in September) faces two felony obstruction of justice charges for misleading authorities who were investigating complaints filed against him

One woman, Deborah Pierce (above), who unknowingly received his sperm said she feels 'violated'

Smart also had the chance to reunite some of the children he fathered, as one woman who unknowingly received his sperm said she feels 'violated.'

'He's the father. Yes, I do feel violated,' said Deborah Pierce, whose daughter, Jacoba Ballard, is one of Dr. Cline's children.

'He was my doctor and you just don't do that to your patients. That's not morally right at all...It's not ethically right.'

In the emotional video clip, Ballard had the chance to meet a few of half siblings.

'I used to beg my mom for a sister every year...and [now] I have one,' said Ballard.

She also provided Crime Watch Daily with a recorded phone call with Cline, who reportedly admitted that his 57-year marriage has experienced 'problems' as his wife considers his actions adultery.

She told Smart (above) that '(Cline) was my doctor and you just don't do that to your patients'

Smart had the chance to reunite some of the children (above) he fathered decades ago

The retired Indianapolis fertility doctor told his six adult children that he had donated his own sperm about 50 times, a probable cause affidavit said.

His patients were told they were receiving sperm from medical residents or students.

Cline is accused of being the biological father of at least eight people, and the youngest would be about 30 years old.

The six adults conceived through Cline's clinic in the 1970s and 1980s discovered they were siblings born to the same biological father through online DNA tests, Fox59 reported.

Cline (above) said he didn't consider himself to be fathering children, but helping families unable to conceive back in September

The six adults conceived through Cline's clinic (above, file photo) in the 1970s and 1980s discovered they were siblings born to the same biological father through online DNA tests

The siblings met with Cline in the spring of this year and he told them that he had used his own sperm when a donor was not available, according to court documents.

He also told them that he had kept records of which patients received his sperm but all of those have since been destroyed since Indiana only required medical records be kept for seven years.

He didn't consider himself to be fathering children, but helping families unable to conceive, Cline said in an interview with Fox.
A 13-year-old boy has gone missing and is believed to be in a 'distressed state' lost in bush.

The young student went missing from his home about 8.15am on Thursday wearing his Wellington College, New Zealand, school uniform.

Police and rescue teams have been searching for the boy in bush at Karori, in west Wellington.

The bush the boy is believed to be missing in at Karori in west Wellington, New Zealand

The troubled student is known for running off, but police are concerned he remains missing as weather conditions worsen,Stuff reported.

Rain, fog and low visibility have led to fears he could injure himself or suffer hypothermia.

Police said he is 'believed to be in a distressed state'.

Police are seeking information on his whereabouts.

Anyone who sees a teenager matching this description or has information about his whereabouts should call police on 111.
Yahoo has admitted a number of workers knew the company's network had been hacked by a state-sponsored attacker in 2014, as it faces 23 lawsuits over the massive breach.

The shocking revelation was was uncovered as part of an independent investigation into the security breach that took place two years ago, which has created further uncertainty around a $4.8 billion deal with Verizon to acquire the tech company.

More than 500 million users had their account information stolen in the massive attack.

Yahoo has admitted a number of workers knew the company's network had been hacked by a state-sponsored attacker in 2014

In a new filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission as part of the investigation, Yahoo allegedly admitted to knowing it had been breached by a 'state' actor.

'The company had identified that a state-sponsored actor had access to the companys network in late 2014,' Yahoo said in the document, according to the Financial Times.

It has also been claimed the hack could mean Yahoo will face almost two dozen lawsuits, according to Business Insider.

The website said 23 cases seeking class action against the tech company have been levied against Yahoo.

More than 500 million users had their account information stolen in the massive attack in 2014 (stock image)

It has been reportedly that the hack could impact the deal Yahoo reached to sell to Verizon (stock image)

It comes after Verizon said last month the massive breach could potentially impact the deal to purchase Yahoo.

Craig Silliman, general counsel at Verizon, acknowledged the hack's potential financial repercussions, saying: 'I think we have a reasonable basis to believe right now that the impact is material.'

It remains unclear whether Verizon will seek a price cut or simply back out of the deal, which was announced in July - a month before Yahoo began looking into the 2014 hacking.

In the first indications that Verizon may be second guessing the deal, Silliman spoke to a roundtable of reporters, saying the onus was on Yahoo to prove the hack did not affect its financial value.

The the wake of the hack, critics called on its $36million-a-year boss Marissa Mayer (pictured) to quit after hackers reportedly sold the stolen data on the 'dark web'

'The company had identified that a state-sponsored actor had access to the companys network in late 2014,' Yahoo said in the filing document

If Verizon finds the breach did indeed have a damaging effect, it could trigger a clause in the deal that would allow the company to back out, Silliman said.

But experts said bidders who try to extract themselves from mergers using the material adverse clause face an uphill battle, since no U.S. company has ever invoked it successfully in court to get out of a deal.

Earlier in October, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said his company was still investigating the breach and vowed that Verizon wouldn't walk away from the deal.

Yahoo also issued a statement at the time that read: 'We are confident in Yahoos value and we continue to work towards integration with Verizon.'

Yahoo agreed in July to sell its core assets to Verizon for $4.8 billion, ending a 20-year run as an independent company for the internet pioneer.

The deal would separate the Yahoo internet assets from its more valuable stake in both Yahoo Japan and Chinese online giant Alibaba, worth a combined $40 billion.

The the wake of the hack, critics called on its $36million-a-year boss Marissa Mayer to quit after hackers reportedly sold the stolen data on the 'dark web'.
PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK Reel World Post Goal The New Mexico Post Alliance is presenting another hands-on post-production workshop this Thursday, Nov. 10, at UNM Continuing Education (1634 University NE) from 6 to 8pm. Award-winning filmmaker, writer and cinematographer Brad Stoddard will teach a class on round tripping a Final Cut Pro X xml to DaVinci Resolve 12.x and back again. Black Magic Designs DaVinci Resolve is a popular and affordable application for color grading on Mac OS X, Windows or Linux. So if you wanna sharpen your post-production computer skills, heres a prime opportunity. Admission to the class is $30. To register, go to newmexicopostalliance. org/ postproduction- workshop- series- 2016.

Pro Con The New Mexico Film & Media Industry Conference 2016 gets underway Friday and Saturday, Nov. 11 and 12, at Isleta Resort & Casino. This two-day conference offers our states film communityfrom actors to script supervisors to indie filmmakersaccess to panel discussions, guest speakers, professional presentations and important networking opportunities. This year will see the debut of the Emergent Media Playground, an interactive environment designed to encourage attendees to touch and feel the technology of the future. Dozens of local film- and- media- related vendors will be showing off their goods and services as well. Among the topics being discussed this year are The Future of Television, Working ActorsNew Mexico and Beyond, Emerging Media and Location Myth Busting. Its too late to register online, but you can still grab weekend passes onsite. Theyll set you back $110 for the full conference ($85 for students) or $90 for a one-day pass. Registration starts at 8am on Friday. The conference runs from 9am to 5pm both nights with a special networking party from 5 to 6:30pm on Friday night. For more information, including a full weekend schedule of events, go to nmfilm. com/ film- media- industry- conference. aspx.
Daniel Holland (above in 2001 before he was jailed) is demanding a retrial in his wife's death, claiming he was mentally impaired when he killed her

A father who was famously 'divorced' by his son for killing the boy's mother is now demanding a new trial in her murder, claiming he had mental health issues that were overlooked when he was first jailed.

Daniel Holland was put behind bars in 2001 for the 1998 murder of his estranged wife Elizabeth at her home in Quincy, Massachusetts.

He shot her eight times in the stomach and chest and bludgeoned her over the head with the butt of his 0.22 calibre rifle. The couple's eight-year-old son Patrick found her body in a pool of blood hours later.

Patrick divorced his father in 2004, having him legally stripped of his parental rights, and was later adopted by friends of his mother.

Now 51, Daniel, who is serving life without parole for the murder, is demanding a new trial claiming his lawyers should have argued mental impairment on his behalf.

He is appealing to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts after being turned down by a local judge who denied his request for a retrial.

Holland's new lawyer claims his first legal team did not properly pursue a mental impairment defense despite their argument at trial that he not be held criminally responsible for Elizabeth's death.

They said his chronic abuse of drugs and alcohol had damaged his mental health and Holland himself testified that on the day of his wife's death he had drunk, smoked crack cocaine and marijuana. He told the court he had no memory of being at her home or of killing her.

But Kevin Nixon, his new lawyer, says not enough was done to prove his mental incapacity.

Holland shot his estranged wife Elizabeth (left) eight times and bludgeoned her over the head with the butt of his 0.22 calibre rifle. Their eight-year-old son Patrick found her. He is seen right, at the age of 14, after successfully divorcing his father

'The evidence pointing to a mitigating defense of mental impairment was never investigated or developed by trial counsel, Nixon wrote in a legal brief filed with the Supreme Judicial Court.

'The defense (that) was presented was limited and inadequate and, given the evidence that was available to the defense, inexplicable.'

It is not what specifically Nixon feels was not adequately pursued in court. He was not available for comment on Thursday morning when contacted.

Patrick (above in 2004, aged 14) found his mother's lifeless body in their home

Prosecutors proved that Holland had bought the rifle used in her death and several rounds of ammunition a month before she died.

They say Hollands' latest bid for freedom is another vain attempt to get away with the killing. He unsuccessfully attempted to sue his attorneys in 2011 claiming he was not given sound enough advice.

Responding to his latest complaint, Assistant District Attorney Tracey Cusick said: 'There is no evidence in the record that the defendant had any mental impairment; nor is there evidence that any qualified expert determined that he might not be criminally responsible'.

The Supreme Judicial Court is due to review the case on Thursday.

Northeastern University law professor Daniel Medwed said defendants who ask for a new trial based on the argument that their lawyers were ineffective often face an uphill battle.

'It's hard to prove ineffective assistance of counsel, especially when the trial lawyers did engage in some investigation and may have made a strategic decision to pursue one line of defense over another,' Medwed said.

Daniel and Elizabeth Holland had been separated for eight months when he killed the 31-year-old mother-of-one.

She had previously taken out a restraining order against him and told friends how he violently threatened her during their marriage.

Patrick was taken in by his mother's best friend Rita and her husband Ron Lazisky (above together)

Patrick (above with his adoptive father Ron and Governor Mitt Romney) said a weight had been lifted when he was no longer legally bound to his biological father

Patrick found her bludgeoned corpse in her bedroom at their home on October 14, 1998, and ran to neighbors for help. He cried: 'Who is going to look after me now,' at the time.

Daniel was arrested after a daylong search by police and jailed but did not face trial for three more years.

Immediately after his mother's death, Patrick was taken in by Rita and Ron Lazisky, a couple who were friends with his mother.

Elizabeth Holland had taken a restraining order out against her husband before her brutal death. They were separated for eight months before she died

They, along with his paternal and maternal grandparents, cared for the boy while his father was in jail.

The Laziskys launched Patrick's legal effort to separate himself from the man after he requested his school and counseling records from prison to keep tabs on his progress after his mother's death.

They could not formally adopt him until Daniel had been stripped of his parenting rights.

A custody settlement between the father and Patrick's grandparents, who sued Daniel for wrongful death, also prevented them making from legally making him part of their family.

A judge granted their request in 2004, when Patrick was 14, Daniel Holland agreed to waive his parental rights.

At the time Patrick said: 'It's like a big weight's been lifted off my shoulders, knowing that I don't have to worry about him being in my life.'

The Laziskys formally adopted Patrick after the following year. Patrick's case was not the first of its kind.

Children in Florida, Milwaukee and Pittsburg all successfully applied to remain in the care of foster parents instead of their biological parents in earlier years with the earliest case reaching court in 1992.
A Silicon Valley guru has proposed Calexit for California as the state tops the list for people searching 'secession' from the United States following Donald Trump's victory.

Venture Capitalist and co-founder of Hyperloop One, Shervin Pishevar has produced a 25-page document outlining the exit process, which promises to create the sixth-largest economy in the world.

On Tuesday night as the election unfolded, Pishevar tweeted that if the billionaire won the race, he would be 'announcing and funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation.'

California residents have topped internet searches for the world 'secession' following Donald Trump's victory which has even led to calls for a Calexit referendum to leave the union

Searches for 'secession' on Google have rocketed since Donald Trump was declared President Elect, with California topping the list, followed by Vermont, Oregon and Washington

Calexit?: Venture capitalist and Hyperloop One co-founder Shervin Pishevar (left) proposed that California should secede from the United States to escape a Donald Trump (right) presidency

Pishevar tweeted (above that if the billionaire won the race, he would be 'announcing and funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation.'

Pishevar, 42, explained (above) that he loves the country and is doing this 'as a patriot'

After Hillary Clinton conceded the election to Trump, Pishevar said that he is 100 per cent serious about the proposal and already has a name for the potential sovereign body.

'It's the most patriotic thing I can do,' he told CNBC on Wednesday. 'The country is at serious crossroads. ... Calling it New California.'

Pishevar, 42, explained how his plan for the state would become a catalyst for a 'national dialogue as the country has reached a tipping point.'

'We can re-enter the union after California becomes a nation,' Pishevar, who is not married, said.

'As the sixth largest economy in the world, the economic engine of the nation and provider of a large percentage of the federal budget, California carries a lot of weight.'

Hours after Trump's victory was announced a 25-page manifesto for Calexit was produced which claims the new country would be the sixth-largest economy in the world

According to the International Monetary Fund, in 2015 California had the sixth largest economy in the world with a gross state product of $2.496trillion.

In addition, the state is a key stronghold for Democrats and is more politically progressive than other states in the country.

In taking steps towards making this happen, Pishevar (above) resigned from the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board

With a population of more than 38.8million people as of 2014, California is the most populated state and has the largest populations of four major ethnic groups making it one of the most diverse states in the country, according to the Census Bureau.

Pishevar, who was listed at number 86 on Forbes' annual 'The Midas List', added that the United States needs to 'confront the systemic problems that this election has exposed.'

In taking steps towards making this happen, Pishevar resigned from the prestigious J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

He sent a letter to President Obama saying he 'cannot serve with a good conscious a President Trump in any capacity' on Wednesday.

Pishevar also tweeted a mock-up of what he would envision the new flag for the 'New California Republic' to be featuring the state's signature bear.

Pishevar, who is an influential Uber investor, is not the only person in the Silicon Valley who wants California to secede from the U.S., as he has garnered support from people like Cheezburger founder Ben Huh, Design, Inc. CEO Marc Hemeon and Path founder David Morin.

Searches for secession rocketed as soon as in appeared Donald Trump was going to win the White House, with the largest figures coming from California, followed by Vermont, Oregon and Washington.

Pishevar also tweeted (above) a mock-up of what he would envision the new flag for the 'New California Republic' to be featuring the state's signature bear.

Angel investor Jason Calacanis said that it would be simple in the wake of both Trump's White House win and Brexit on Twitter (above)

Fellow angel investor Dave Morin said (above) that he's willing to support Pishevar

Angel investor Jason Calacanis said that it would be simple in the wake of both Trump's White House win and Brexit.

On Twitter, Calacanis said: 'If Trump can win, & after the #brexit, California succession would be a layup. CA is increasingly more distinct from America.'

Evan Low, a Democrat currently serving in the California state assembly, chimed in saying he'd support introducing the bill to start the process.

'In the disastrous case that @realdonaldtrump is elected, I will explore intro of a bill to have CA secede from the union. #kiddingnotkidding,' Low tweeted.

Back during the summer, roughly 100 tech leaders signed an open letter that warned about how a Trump presidency would be 'a disaster for innovation'.

Evan Low, a Democrat currently serving in the California state assembly, chimed in on Twitter (above) saying he'd support introducing the bill to start the process

The Yes California campaign was launched by political activist Louis Marinelli, as he called to create a free and independent California Republic in 2015. They group tweeted the above message following the election

Pishevar's recent actions echo a similar movement that started in 2015 when the Yes California campaign was launched by political activist Louis Marinelli, as he called to create a free and independent California Republic.

He's now proposing a 2019 referendum that follows the model being adopted by Catalonia to gain independence from Spain, The Guardian reported.

There is no clear path as to how the state could appeal to the federal government so it may leave the United States.

The Constitution includes procedures as to how a new state can enter the union, but it does not say how one can exit.

Some have proposed to amend the Constitution to allow states who want to secede from America to do so under that amendment.

However, proving to amend the Constitution is extremely difficult, as it requires either two-thirds of each branch of Congress or two-thirds of states at a specially-formed constitutional convention with the said amendment being then ratified by three-quarters of the states.

In the 227 year history of the Constitution, it has only been amended 17 times and no state has ever seceded from the union in American history.

Eric McDaniel, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, told Business Insider that 'the legality of seceding is problematic.'

'The Civil War played a very big role in establishing the power of the federal government and cementing that the federal government has the final say in these issues,' he said.
A manhunt is underway for a 26-year-old woman accused of sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl.

Caitlin Morrison, 26, is charged with super aggravated sexual assault of a child in relation to an incident with the young child in a Houston apartment on December 4 last year.

According to police, the young victim reported the attack to a worker at the Children's Assessment Center, KHOU reports.

Caitlin Morrison (pictured), 26, is charged with super aggravated sexual assault of a child in relation to an incident with the young child in a Houston apartment on December 4 last year

The network claims the four-year-old said Morrison hurt her and 'touched her hoohoo'.

Police confirmed an assault had taken place after giving the young girl a medical exam.

Morrison remains on the run, and police are calling for locals to help put her behind bars.

She is 5'8", weights about 125 pounds and has blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyone who sees her is urged to contact police.
'He (the Opposition leader) is not fit to lead this country,' Ms Bishop said

Mr Shorten has not backed down from his controversial remarks

#imwithher?: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten posed with a Hillary Clinton cupcake as polls closed in the United States on Tuesday

Bill Shorten's description of Donald Trump as 'barking mad' shows he is unfit for office, according to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.

Ms Bishop on Thursday said the Opposition Leader had a responsibility not to damage or undermine Australia's relationship with the United States.

'He once more showed his flawed judgment and his reckless immaturity... he is not fit to lead this country,' Ms Bishop said.

Mr Shorten was vocal in his condemnation of Mr Trump before he became U.S. President-elect Tuesday.

The Labor leader - who this week posed for a photograph with Hillary Clinton themed cupcakes - took aim at the billionaire businessman in May.

'I think Donald Trump's views are just barking mad on some issues,' he told Darwin's HOT 100 FM.

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'He is not fit to lead this country!' Julie Bishop laid into Bill Shorten in Parliament Thursday

He pointed out former prime minister John Howard had made similar remarks, describing the Republican nominee as 'unstable' that month.

Mr Shorten refused to resile from his criticism after Mr Trump swept the Electoral College in a stunning upset victory over former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

'The friendship between our nations is strong enough for honesty,' he said.

'I will always call it as I see it.'

Some senior Liberal MPs including Christopher Pyne had expressed hope Mrs Clinton - seen as a steady hand - would win.

And Mr Shorten's criticism did not go as far as Greens leader Richard Dr Natale on the Senate floor Thursday.

Mr Shorten (pictured) said Australia's alliance with the U.S. was 'strong enough for honesty'

In light of the election, Senator Di Natalie called for Australia to rethink its alliance with the United States.

'I have no respect for the man, he is a danger,' Dr Di Natale said.

He then described the Australian alliance with the United States as 'one of our greatest security risks'.

Mr Trump will take the oath of office January 20.

Victor: Donald Trump's voice was heard by tens of millions of working class Americans who felt forgotten by Washington - and he won
An Australian woman living in America said she feels so unsafe after president-elect Donald Trump's win she and her African American husband are moving their family to Sydney as soon as possible.

The woman, who wishes to be unnamed, lives in the southern state of Georgia with her husband and children.

She told Nine News that Mr Trump's victory pushed her over the edge and that she worries for her children and husband's well-being.

'My husband is born and bred American but he's tired of being black in America,' she said.

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An Australian woman living in America said she feels so unsafe after president-elect Donald Trump's win she and her African American husband are moving their family to Sydney

The Sydney native said electing Mr Trump into the presidency will open the way for racists to say and do what they want.

'He's been endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan for God's sake,' she said.

'It's kind of like Trump's led the way for political incorrectness. He's just said "I'm allowed to say this and act this way". There's a mentality that, well if the president elect can say and do it, then I can too.'

She realised Mr Trump's victory was likely a couple of weeks ago when she saw support signs in the front yards of million dollar homes, bringing to a halt her belief than only the uneducated would vote for the businessman.

The woman, who wished to remain unnamed, said electing Mr Trump into the presidency will open the way for racists to say and do what they want

The woman, who lives in the southern state of Georgia with her family, said Mr Trump's victory pushed her over the edge and that she worries for her children and husband's well-being

The mum is not the only Australian living in America who is considering moving after Wednesday's results.

Fellow Sydneysider Camilla, who is studying and living in New York, said she was planning on staying in America after she graduated in five weeks, but may change her mind.

'I'll have to reconsider my options - I was planning on living and working in the states for another few years but next year will be really important to gauge how the country deals with the change.'
Taiwan is set to become the first place in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage after it was backed by the island's first female head of state.

Taiwanese politicians are working on three bills in support of marriage equality, one of which is already listed for review and could be passed within months.

Same-sex marriage also has the prominent support of President Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's first female head of state.

Taiwan is set to become the first place in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage after it was backed by the island's first female head of state Cindy Su, left, and Lana Yu hold their baby during an interview in Taipei, Taiwan

Taiwanese politicians are working on three bills in support of marriage equality, one of which is already listed for review and could be passed within months

About 80 percent of Taiwanese between ages 20 and 29 support same-sex marriage, said Tseng Yen-jung, spokeswoman for the group Taiwan LGBT Family Rights Advocacy , citing local university studies.

Taiwan's United Daily News found in a survey taken four years ago that 55 percent of the public supported same-sex marriage, with 37 percent opposed.

That's seen as a reflection of Taiwan's ready acceptance of multi-party democracy and other inclusive attitudes, as well as the fact that Taiwan's 23 million people largely follow Buddhism and traditional Chinese religions that take no strong positions on sexual orientation or gay marriage.

Gay and lesbian relationships began to find wide acceptance in the 1990s, aided by the already well-established feminist movement, said Jens Damm, associate Professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Studies at Chang Jung University in Taiwan.

'The elite became in favor of a kind of gender equality,' Damm said.

Same-sex marriage also has the prominent support of President Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's first female head of state

About 80 percent of Taiwanese between ages 20 and 29 support same-sex marriage, said Tseng Yen-jung, spokeswoman for the group Taiwan LGBT Family Rights Advocacy , citing local university studies. Same-sex couple Chalynn Hsueh (left) and Log Chen (right) are pictured above

Still, same-sex marriage still had to overcome traditional perceptions of gender roles and the strong pressure on children to marry and have kids.

The self-ruled island also lacks many openly gay and lesbian celebrities to lead the way; the writer and television talk show host Kevin Tsai is among the few exceptions.

Taiwan would join Canada, Colombia, Ireland, the United States and 16 other countries that have legalised same-sex marriage over the past 15 years, according to the Washington, D.C.-based LGBT rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.

But it would be a notable exception among Asian and Middle Eastern countries, at least 20 of which continue to ban same-sex intercourse.

'It's a big step forward for the history of human rights,' said Yu Mei-nu, a ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker who is sponsoring the same-sex marriage bill now in line for parliamentary debate. 'If Taiwan can get this passed ... it will give other Asian countries a model.'

Taiwan's Justice Ministry has not backed a specific bill, but pledged on its website last month to maintain an 'attitude of openness' toward same-sex marriage. President Tsai said as recently as October that she supports same-sex marriage.

Taiwan's United Daily News found in a survey taken four years ago that 55 percent of the public supported same-sex marriage, with 37 percent opposed

Su Shan and her partner are raising 5-month-old twins together, but only one of the women is their legal parent. That could soon change if the law is passed

Domestic gays and lesbians have also formed an effective lobby in recent years. An annual Gay Pride march in Taipei last month drew tens of thousands of people, many pushing for gay marriage. About 100 people have separately formed a group pushing for the cause.

For Log Chen, a Tarot card fortune teller in Taipei, legalised marriage would mean she and her partner of three years could make future plans with more confidence.

'In case something happens to my partner, I will not be left with nothing,' Chen, 32, said.

While practical issues such as sharing assets and medical benefits are motivating factors, simple love and respect are also a strong impetus, said Jay Lin, founder and director of the Taiwan International Queer Film Festival.

'There are lots of people who have been loving and committed to each other for decades and they'd like to put a ring around their finger,' said the father of 4-month-old twin boys, who said he would consider marrying his partner.

Still, as legalisation grows closer, opposition to same-sex marriage is hardening among a small minority of fundamentalist churches and conservative politicians. That includes some members of the main opposition Nationalist Party's Central Standing Committee, party spokesman Hu Wen-chi said.

Domestic gays and lesbians have also formed an effective lobby in recent years. An annual Gay Pride march in Taipei last month drew tens of thousands of people, many pushing for gay marriage

While practical issues such as sharing assets and medical benefits are motivating factors, simple love and respect are also a strong impetus, said Jay Lin, founder and director of the Taiwan International Queer Film Festival

During their time in power, the Nationalists stopped earlier efforts to pass same-sex marriage bills, including one introduced in 2013 that met opposition from Christian groups that gathered signatures from about 400,000 naysayers.

Legalising same-sex marriages would burden Taiwan's welfare system and be tough on children, said Chen Chih-hung, chairman of the year-old political party Faith And Hope League, which has no seats in parliament.

The death of a same-sex spouse would leave the survivor dependent on government support as many couples would not have children to support them in old age, Chen said. Children of such couples would find it difficult to socialise with children from more mainstream families, he said, although that argument has been refuted by many social scientists.

Su Shan and her partner are raising 5-month-old twins together, but only one of the women is their legal parent. That could soon change if the law is passed.

During their time in power, the Nationalists stopped earlier efforts to pass same-sex marriage bills, including one introduced in 2013 that met opposition from Christian groups that gathered signatures from about 400,000 naysayers

Legalising same-sex marriages would burden Taiwan's welfare system and be tough on children, said Chen Chih-hung, chairman of the year-old political party Faith And Hope League, which has no seats in parliament

Gay and lesbian relationships began to find wide acceptance in the 1990s, aided by the already well-established feminist movement, said Jens Damm, associate Professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Studies at Chang Jung University in Taiwan

'Now, if something happens to the child, the other partner is nothing but a stranger,' said Su, a 35-year-old software engineer in Taipei. By contrast, either partner in a legally recognised marriage could make legal, medical and educational decisions, she says.

Su, the software engineer, said she and her partner, also 35, find little sign of such concerns among the people they meet. Most Taiwanese are highly accepting of their relationship and their right to raise children, she says.
A man accused of the 1974 McCulkin murders admitted involvement in their deaths days after they disappeared, a witness has told a jury.

Garry Reginald Dubois, 69, is accused of raping and murdering siblings Vicki and Leanne McCulkin, and killing their mother Barbara in Brisbane on or around January 16, 1974.

Peter Hall is giving evidence at the Brisbane Supreme Court in the trial of Dubois who has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Barbara McCulkin (pictured) disappeared from her Highgate Hill home in January 1974

Sisters Vicki and Leanne McCulkin pictured before they were allegedly raped and murdered in 1974

It is alleged Dubois and his co-accused Vincent O'Dempsey, who is yet to face trial, took the McCulkins from their Highgate Hill home and murdered them.

Mr Hall said Dubois told him only days afterwards he and O'Dempsey had driven the three to bushland where Ms McCulkin was killed and her daughters, Vicki and Leanne, were raped and also murdered.

Dubois, nicknamed Shorty, had told him the girls were separated from their mother, who he believed was strangled.

'He [Dubois] said there were gurgling sounds and he [O'Dempsey] seemed to be gone for what seemed like a long period of time,' Mr Hall said.

The McCulkin family home in Highgate Hill in Brisbane

'After the sounds stopped O'Dempsey came back and he raped one of the girls and he told Shorty to rape the other one, which he had trouble doing.'

Mr Hall said Dubois had said he didn't 'feel good' at the time but eventually complied.

'After that was over O'Dempsey killed one and asked him [Dubois] to kill the other. He said he couldn't do it so O'Dempsey killed the second one.'

Defence lawyer Dennis Lynch questioned Mr Hall about why he had told Queensland's crime watchdog in 2014 he had not been told anything by Dubois about the death and disappearance of the McCulkins.

'I lied,' he replied.

At the start of the trial, Mr Lynch told the jury Mr Hall's credibility and reliably would be the essential issue for their determination in the case.
These are the shocking facial injuries inflicted on a 43-year-old woman who was violently mugged in west London.

Philippa May was walking through Uxbridge on a Monday evening in October when she was set upon by a thug who stole her rucksack.

She was left with a large cut to her face and a badly bruised eye after she was suddenly knocked to the ground by a man who ran up behind her.

Philippa May was left covered in blood after she was knocked to the ground by a mugger

Ms May managed to get to her partner's house nearby and police were called. Two iPhone 5S phones were taken along with her bag.

Some of her things were later found dumped in a nearby park.

Police are appealing for witnesses after the attack on St John's Road, Uxbridge, at 7:30pm on Monday, 31 October.

They have released CCTV images which shows Ms May walking up the busy street, followed closely behind by her hooded attacker.

Investigating Officer Detective Constable Reda Imane of Hillingdon CID said: 'Philippa has taken the brave step of releasing an image which shows the extent of her injuries and highlight the excessive violence used by her attacker.

'Philippa was lucky she did not suffer more serious injuries but it goes without saying that her ordeal was extremely traumatic and she has yet to return to work.'

CCTV shows Ms May (left) seconds before the attack, closely followed her attacker (right)

Detective Imane added: 'I would like to appeal to members of the public that may have been travelling home from work or who live and work in the general area to come forward with any information that could assist this investigation.

'We know that St John's Road would have been busy at that time of night.

'Rockingham Park has numerous dog walkers and the route number 3 bus uses St John's Road. Somebody may have seen something which could prove an invaluable piece of information to catch the person responsible.'

The suspect is described as a male who was wearing a hooded top and gloves.

Anyone with any information is asked to either call DC Reda Imane or DS Andy Dawson at Hillingdon CID on 07500 102 621 or 020 8246 1552, or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Donald Trump's election may have prevented World War Three, a top official at the Kremlin has revealed.

The Republican's victory was greeted with jubilation in Moscow yesterday, with Russian President Vladimir Putin known to loathe Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Relations between the two superpowers have been frosty during the Obama administration, and during Trump's campaign the President-elect promised friendlier relations with Moscow.

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Presidential adviser Sergei Glazyev said electing Donald Trump could have prevented World War Three

Putin was pictured sipping champagne at a reception yesterday after Trump's election win was announced

The Russian premier yesterday spoke of his hopes that tensions can be set aside.

His aide Sergei Glazyev went further, describing Clinton as a symbol of war.

He told reporters, Lenta reports: 'Americans had two choices: World War Three or multilateral peace.

'Clinton was a symbol of war, and Trump has a chance to change this course.'

Trump's victory was greeted with jubilation in Moscow yesterday, with the Kremlin expecting an improvement in relations

Fellow Putin aide Vyacheslav Volodin, said that the end of the Obama years will signal 'an end to the problems it caused between the Kremlin and Washington'.

Among these were sanctions imposed by the US and the EU after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Volodin said: 'Sanctions are the tool used by the weak.'

And he added: 'With sanctions you cant have mutual respect.'

Hillary Clinton, pictured yesterday after her election defeat, was viewed as a 'symbol of war' in Russia, Glazyev said

In a speech in the Kremlin yesterday, Putin stated: 'We have heard the pre-election statements by then-candidate (Trump), which were directed at rebuilding relations between Russia and the US.

'We understand that this will not be an easy path considering the unfortunate degradation of relations.

'But Russia is ready and wants to restore full-fledged relations with the US.'

Relations between Russia and the Obama regime were frosty, and news of Trump's election was met with cheer in Moscow

Russia has been subject to US and EU sanctions since its annexation of Crimea in 2014

The Russian President, who had a frosty relationship with President Obama and Hillary Clinton, continued: 'We are ready to do our part and do everything to return (US-Russian) relations to the trajectory of development.

'This would be in the interest of Russian and American people and would positively affect the general climate in international relations, considering the special responsibility of Russia and the US for ensuring global stability and security.'

Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin voiced hopes for more constructive US-Russian dialogue when the newly-elected president takes office.

He said: 'Current Russian-US relations cannot be called friendly. One would like to hope that a more constructive dialog between the two countries will be possible when the new president takes office.'
President Barack Obama hands over the White House to Republican Donald Trump in 71 days, leaving the Democratic Party leaderless and with few up-and-coming stars among its aging cast of stalwarts.

In what appeared to be a wave election, Republicans also secured majorities they already enjoyed in the Senate and the House and in governor's mansions and state legislatures across the country.

Democrats were all but wiped out in places like Iowa and Kentucky.

The defeat of Hillary Clinton, an experienced Washington politician who sought common ground with Republicans, could make it more likely that the party will turn to its liberal wing as it grapples with its future.

That's best represented by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, whom Clinton defeated in a long primary, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a pull-no-punches progressive darling.

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Star quality: Bernie Sanders successfully energized his supporters and ran Hillary Clinton close in the primaries - but he is 75

Other star power: Firebrand Elizabeth Warren's public speaking outshone Hillary Clinton's every time they appeared together and she got into Twitter wars with Trump. But she is 67

'The Democratic Party needs to remold itself in the image of them and offer a systemic critique of the rigged economy that shows the voters who put Trump over the top that they understand why they are angry,' said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Green said Democrats must make a 'conscious decision to separate themselves from the corporate villains who are to a large extent funding their campaigns.'

Trump's open warfare with Republican leaders over the past year and a half obscured the extent of the Democrats' crisis, and they are only now beginning to contend with it.

'This is painful, and it will be for a long time,' Clinton said in her concession speech Wednesday in New York. She implored those who want to fight for Democratic values  particularly young voters  to participate every day, not just every four years.

Hawaii senator Brian Schatz urged careful deliberation as the Democratic reckoning begins. He said the 'rush to recalibrate' strategy and messaging concerns him.

'Democrats need to take, not forever, but weeks and months to diagnose what just happened to us and why,' he said.

Democratic leaders are already in touch with each other and party strategists, he said, but added that alone will not provide answers.

'Obviously talking to just each other didn't work. We need to open our minds and expand our Rolodexes beyond the people who live and breathe Washington politics. That's what got us here.'

But the outlook for Democrats may well get worse before it improves.

In two years, they will be defending about two dozen Senate seats, including at least five in deep-red states. That election could hand Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a filibuster-proof majority, further clearing the way for a conservative policy agenda.

She was with her: Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House of Representatives, who is 76, and who strongly identified with the failed Clinton power bid

Ethical deficit: Wikileaks exposed first DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (right) then her emergency successor Donna Brazile (left) for rigging the system and leaking debate questions

'We have to ask ourselves what is wrong with our party,' said Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, arguing it's at least in part a failure to connect with working-class people who are hurting.

One small Democratic bright spot this year was the election of three women of color to the Senate, Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, Kamala Harris in California and Tammy Duckworth in Illinois. At the same time, the party's marquee names are far older than the core Democratic coalition.

Sanders is 75, Warren 67, and soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer turns 66 this month.

Across the Capitol, Democrats are led by 76-year-old Nancy Pelosi. In a statement Wednesday, Sanders said Trump had 'tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media.'

Democratic woes ripple into their party's infrastructure, as the Democratic National Committee in Washington struggles.

Both the chairwoman who stepped down this summer and the interim woman who succeeded her have been dinged by embarrassing emails published by WikiLeaks after what the government believes was a Russian hack of their internal Democratic systems.

First Debbie Wasserman Schultz was exposed as a shill for the Clintons, rigging the system in her favor against Sanders.

Then her emergency successor Donna Brazile was sacked from CNN and called 'disgusting' by its boss for leaking debate questions when she was a contributor for them.

When the first revelation of leaking emerged she claimed she was a 'Christian woman' who was suffering 'persecution' and suggested the emails were fake.

Facing even worse: Chuck Schumer, the Democrats' Senate minority leader, faces the prospect of losing even more seats and a filibuster-proof minority

Goodbye from them: Obama will have to decide if he wants to take leadership of the Democratic party - and insiders are warning his dazzling success eight years ago created their current lack of talent

Then more evidence she had leaked emerged and she was dumped quietly by CNN. Despite being exposed over her ethics, she is still the committee chair.

Democrats emphasized their party's diversity, and some argued that Trump's singular appeal as a plain-spoken celebrity businessman does not translate into a wholesale voter rejection of Democratic policies.

Jaime Harrison, the South Carolina party chairman, downplayed the idea that Trump's nationalistic populism should necessarily push the Democratic Party leftward. 'That might be overthinking what happened,' he said.

Harrison argued it's more about finding the right messengers to take the Democratic platform to the pockets of the electorate that have drifted away from the party, naming New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker among others as potential role models for other Democrats.

Yet Walsh warned Democrats not to fall into the same trap as they did eight years ago, after an inspiring 47-year-old first-term senator with a powerful stage presence was elected president.
A public sector worker who didn't turn up to work for more than a decade is appealing the decision to freeze his salary because he is 'quite upset about it'.

The Kuwaiti man's absence from work went completely unnoticed for more than 10 years until officials discovered the case.

The government suspended the salaries of 900 employees in an attempt to curb the trend of citizens who wrongfully collect their wages without turning up to work.

A public sector worker from Kuwait (pictured) who didn't turn up to work for more than a decade is appealing the decision to freeze his salary because he is 'quite upset about it'

After finding out his pay was being frozen, the man is understood to be appealing the decision, stating he was upset, according to the Al Rai newspaper.

Another employee whose wages were suspended was a man who spent 18 months abroad but still got his regular pay cheque.

When asked to explain his blatant absenteeism, he said his boss did not ask him why he hadn't shown up for work in a year and a half.

A source told Gulf News several employees in a similar situation have appealed their sanctions.

In July, 30,000 public sector workers asked for three days off after the Eid festivals, claiming they were too ill to work, prompting the government to investigate.

In July, 30,000 public sector workers asked for three days off after the Eid festivals, claiming they were too ill to work, prompting the government to investigate. (file photo)

The Kuwaiti man's absence from work went completely unnoticed for more than 10 years until officials discovered the case. (file photo)

Schools also get hit by truancy and officials are considering whether a student's attendance should impact on their grades.

Pupils without a valid reason for absence would be punished by it counting against their grades.

It followed reports showing students were not showing up for classes before and after planned holidays to maximise their time off.
Turks have been handing out free radishes to mark Donald Trump's earthquake victory in the US presidential election.

The bizarre celebration - apparently a reference to the similarity between the Turkish word for the vegetable 'turp' and the new president's name - has been taking place in Antalya.

According to the country's SoL newspaper, the chief of the Serik district's farmers' market handed out 500 kilos of radishes when the results were announced - and has promised to keep distributing them.

The chief of a farmers' market in Antalya is handing out free radishes to mark Donald Trump's victory. The new president's name is apparently similar to the Turkish word for radish, 'turp'

Mr Trump (pictured at his victory rally yesterday) rocked the political establishment by defeating Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in the US election

Mr Trump shocked the world by defeating Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in the historic vote on Tuesday.

After a campaign marred by unprecedented levels of bitterness and antagonism, the Republican billionaire pledged to 'bind the wounds' of the US yesterday.

He insisted he wanted to be a president for the whole country, regardless of whether they had backed him.

Mrs Clinton and outgoing president Barack Obama have urged their supporters to give Mr Trump a chance.

There has been a wave of anger and disbelief among left-wingers in the UK, with Jeremy Corbyn among senior figures who have avoided congratulating the former reality TV star on his win.

Tory former Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith today lashed out at the 'orgy of complaining', saying people had to accept the verdict of the US public and suggesting he Mr Trump could be become a Reagan-style leader.

Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted she is ready to work with the new president and the special relationship will continue.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has previously criticised the Trump campaign for Islamophobia, in particular over suggestions muslims could be barred from America until security controls are improved.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Mr Trump's election could be a chance to reset relations with the US

But yesterday Mr Erdogan telephoned the president-elect to congratulate him and express hope for a new start in relations.

Tensions between the two Nato allies have been running high over the situation in Syria, among other issues.

Mr Erdogan had said in a speech in Ankara that 'a new era is beginning' in the United States with Trump's victory after two terms of Democrat-held presidency.
Two teenage lovers who murdered a dinner lady and her daughter have been jailed indefinitely in a case the judge said 'has few parallels in modern criminal history'.

Elizabeth Edwards and her 13-year-old daughter Katie were killed in their beds at their semi-detached home in Spalding, Lincolnshire in a crime which shocked Britain.

The pair who murdered them were just 14 at the time. They plotted the killings during an 'intense and toxic' relationship after meeting at school.

They were both given indefinite detention terms today and told they would serve at least 20 years before they can apply for parole.

Elizabeth Edwards and her 13-year-old daughter Katie were murdered in their home by two teenagers who had a 'grudge' against the dinner lady. The teens were sentenced today

A court sketch showing the two teenagers (left and right) being spoken to by the judge today

Judge Mr Justice Haddon-Cave said of the crime: 'There is a clear intention to kill both victims - both defendants admitted wanting to murder them.

'There was remarkable premeditation and planning - it was substantial, meticulous and repeated.

'The killings were brutal in the form of executions and both victims, particularly Elizabeth Edwards, must have suffered terribly in the last minutes of their lives.'

The sentences mean the pair, who are now both 15 and cannot be named for legal reasons, will be locked up until they are at least 35.

Peter Edwards, 43 - victim Katie's father - stared at the defendants as they were led away.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Ms Edwards' eldest daughter Mary Cottingham, 27, said: 'I can't believe what's happened. I was thrust into the biggest nightmare of my life.

'I still can't take it all in and can't get over the fact my mum's gone. No matter how old you get, you still need your mum and I'm no different.We would talk about anything. She would give me advice when I was struggling.'

The boy slouched in his seat, with his arms crossed, as the court heard how he told police one of his victims fought back for up to three minutes.

Police released this image of the murder weapon after the girl was convicted last month

Katie Edwards was the second victim on the night of violence. Her killers then watched vampire movie Twilight and had sex. They were nonchalant about the attacks when arrested

Jurors at the girl's trial were told the teenage couple - thought to be the youngest defendants to be convicted of double murder in a British court - shared a bath, had sex, and watched four vampire-themed Twilight films after the killings.

At the start of the trial, prosecutor Peter Joyce QC said the victims were stabbed a total of 10 times in a 'cold, calculated and callous' pre-planned attack.

The boy carried out the murders after the girl backed out of killing the younger victim. She said she heard Mrs Edwards making gurgling noises during the struggle.

Peter Edwards, the father of the young victim Katie, was in court to see her two killers given the potentially lifelong sentences

In police interviews a day after her arrest, the girl said her boyfriend had knifed Ms Edwards through the voice box to ensure her daughter was not woken by screams or cries for help.

The pair seemed nonchalant about the murders, with the girl telling police: 'Afterwards I felt fine. [My boyfriend] seemed fine. He said; "I have done lesser things and I felt more bad for doing them than this" It didn't upset him at all.'

The girl added: 'I'm glad she's dead even though I'm in a sticky situation. She deserved it.'

The plan to kill Mrs Edwards had started as 'a joke' between the teenage killers, because of 'a grudge' against the churchgoing dinner lady, the court heard.

Psychiatrist Philip Joseph told the trial the now-15-year-olds would not have killed without each other's encouragement.

Comparing the teenagers to crime duo Bonnie and Clyde, Dr Joseph told the court: 'If they hadn't got together and had the intense, toxic relationship, they (the killings) would never have happened.'

But the girl's feelings for the boy seem to quickly faded after she was arrested.

Mrs Edwards's partner, Graham Green, sat in the public gallery of the court today

The girl told a doctor she had 'moved on' and 'didn't need him', two months before the trial.

She said: 'It took something this extreme to realise he might not have been the right person for me'.

Police found the bodies of Ms Edwards and her daughter on April 15 this year when three officers forced their way into their house in Dawson Avenue, Spalding.

Post-mortem examinations found signs of defensive injuries on the older victim's hands, suggesting she had tried to fight off the boy. Her daughter had been stabbed twice in the neck.

The girl was found guilty of two counts of murder last month after jurors rejected her claim of diminished responsibility. Her boyfriend pleaded guilty on the first day of the trial at Nottingham Crown Court.

The grandmother and grandfather of young victim Katie Edwards both attended court today

Speaking outside court today, Karen Thompson, deputy chief crown prosecutor, said: 'This is one of the most distressing and disturbing cases that I have ever encountered.

'The male defendant accepted his guilt on the first day of trial. The other defendant maintained her not guilty plea but, after the jury heard all the medical evidence presented, they concluded that any difficulties that she may have had did not prevent her forming an intent to kill.

'Our deepest sympathies are now with the extended family and friends of Elizabeth and Katie Edwards as they attempt to come to terms with this horrific crime.'

Authorities were warned that the teenagers were 'a time bomb' months before they committed the savage murders

An investigation is underway after it emerged concerns about the two teenage killers were flagged up to authorities in the months before the murders.

The girl was known to social services from the age of six following an issue with her family.

She was referred to local mental health services more than a year before the killings after writing a suicide note which said 'death is the only way'.

She was assessed by health workers a few months later but given a 'concern level' of just 2/10.

Lincoln County Council's Safeguarding Children Board is investigating the case

However, the following year - a month before the murder - the girl attempted suicide and was admitted to hospital. On her release, she was assessed again and, this time, experts said she needed professional help 'sooner rather than later'.

Around the same time, a warning from an adult who knew the two killer children said they were 'like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off'.

A police community support officer also flagged concerns after hearing the girl talk about wanting to harm or kill herself.

The boy was also known to the police and authorities. He was excluded from the school where the pair met and sent to a specialist unit not long before the murders.

Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board has said it is investigating the case.

Its chair Chris Cook said: 'Our sympathies are very much with friends and families who have been devastated by this tragic event.

'We can confirm that a Serious Case Review has been commissioned into this case.

'We can't comment further until the review has been completed, when the findings will be published.'

'I'LL NEVER FORGET MY SERGEANT'S WORDS': DETECTIVE TELLS OF THE MOMENT HE HEARD CASE'S CHILLING DETAILS DCI Martin Holvey said he couldn't believe two 14-year-olds had carried out the horrific double murder The senior detective who led the investigation into Britain's youngest double murderers admitted he was shocked two 14-year-olds had carried out such 'cold and calculated' killings. Detective Chief Inspector Martin Holvey said the girl and boy were 'totally besotted' with one another when they carried out the murders of Mrs Edwards and her daughter. The DCI, based with the East Midlands major crime unit, said he also believed the girl involved could have stopped the killings. 'It was just so unreal,' DCI Holvey said. 'On the Saturday evening my detective sergeant rang me and I'll never forget his words. 'You think that in 30 years you have heard everything and then he recounted the story of what happened. 'I just sat there in my office and thought: I can't believe this. I don't want to believe it.' The officer added: 'Two 14-year-olds who have killed is unprecedented. They are the two youngest who have committed double murder. They showed no remorse. Those features are all unprecedented.' At the time of killings, DCI Holvey said it was obvious both the boy and girl were only focused on each other. 'The lack of remorse was a feature from the beginning. They were absolutely besotted with each other. 'Their lives were so entwined. No-one else mattered. She was his life and he was her life.' That even continued after police officers made the gruesome discovery at the Edwards' family home. 'When they were arrested they wanted to be together but we couldn't allow that.' Advertisement

'We don't give a f*** anymore': How schoolgirl killer and her tearaway boyfriend became obsessed with death as they spiralled into a 'fantasy of their own devising'

'I feel like I will burst and do something really stupid' - 'Life is s*** and it is going to get worse' - 'We don't give a f*** anymore'.

It was in private comments in her diary and to friends that the schoolgirl behind the double killing revealed her inner-most feelings.

Though not dissimilar to the kind of remarks made by countless other teenagers her age, her unguarded statements go some way to explaining how a once 'sensitive and kind' youngster became one of Britain's youngest ever killers.

The once-popular teen - who loved Oreo cookies and shopping in New Look - harboured a simmering anger beneath the surface, which was ignited when she started an 'intense and toxic relationship' with her tearaway boyfriend.

The girl had a troubled start in life and her father, a welder said to have had drug problems, moved away when she was just two.

Police outside Mrs Edwards's Spalding home following the discovery of the bodies

She is understood to have spent time with her mother in a women's refuge and was once taken into care.

A psychologist who spoke to her said her fractured relationships at a young age meant the girl struggled to form relationships with adults as she grew up and suffered from feelings of loneliness.

But if something was eating away at her inside, she kept up the appearance of a normal teenager with her school friends.

One of her closest friends described her as 'funny and happy-go-lucky', recalling shopping trips the pair made together and the fun they had in school.

The girl was a fan of the Twilight movies and the pair watched them after the killings

The friend said: 'She loved Oreo cookies and wore stick-on nails so she would appear more grown up... we would eat Oreos in class.

'We used to spend our Saturday afternoons shopping in New Look and trying out the make-up testers in Superdrug.'

But despite her appearance to friends, the girl told a teacher she felt 'lonely and depressed', writing in a note: 'I feel like no one cares.... Help me before it too late.... I have tried to be strong for so long but now I see death is the only way.'

Her appearance as just another normal teen began to fall apart after she fell for her boyfriend and began to spend less and less time with her friends.

The boy was described as a bit of a loner at school and it is said his girlfriend only noticed him when he threw a chair across a classroom in a fit of rage.

The boy had also gone through a similarly tumultuous childhood. His mother had died when he was five and he rarely saw his father, who was from a travelling background. He later told police he 'didn't really like adults'.

Unlike the girl, who had some close friends at school, he struggled to fit in with his peers, who saw him as an aggressive misfit and bully.

The girl quickly started spending most of her free time with the boy, who is believed to have been her first boyfriend, and they took long walks together.

They planned the savage attacks while in a local McDonald's, the girl's trial heard

She became more alienated from her existing friends, some of whom accused her boyfriend of being 'controlling' and of sending them vile messages.

A peer said the girl had always seemed quite quiet, but the boy was known for being isolated at school and getting in trouble with police.

A neighbour added: 'I've heard that he turned her bad. She was supposed to originally be quite a nice girl but everyone said that there was something wrong with him.'

The pair seem to have shared a hatred of adults and became increasingly preoccupied with death and dark thoughts during walks along the Coronation Channel riverbank in Spalding.

They said the plan to murder dinner lady Mrs Edwards came about as a joke which they then worked into a detailed plan, plotting, as they sat in a McDonalds, to target their victims' necks.

The pair claimed they planned to take their own lives after the killings, although this was questioned by prosecutors, who said they had no real plans to do so.

Locals have expressed their horror that two children who were so young could murder

In a supposed suicide note written in a pink diary, the girl wrote: 'F*** you, world. I want to be cremated and want our ashes to be scattered at our special place. We don't give a f*** anymore.'

When arrested, the boy said: 'F**k life.'

Officers were shocked with the matter-of-fact way the pair spoke about the killings.

The girl said: 'Until he (the boy) came along no one had ever listened to my thoughts. I'm an emotional train wreck. I've been a disaster from day one. I've felt like murdering for quite a while. It just sort of happened.

'We made sure we were both definitely OK with it and he continuously asked me if I wanted to go through with it and I said the same to him. We went through the plan over and over again.'

A lawyer in the case said: 'The reason these offences were committed was, as far as anyone can ascertain, the two children became trapped in a fantasy of their own devising.'

TIMELINE OF THE 'TWILIGHT' MURDERS: HOW A 'TOXIC' RELATIONSHIP TURNED INTO A GRUESOME MURDER September 2013: The girl, aged 12, notices the boy for the first time at school when he hurls a chair across a classroom during an English lesson. February 2015: The girl writes in a suicide note: 'Death is the only way'. She is referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). May 2015: The girl and boy begin their 'toxic' relationship. October 2015: The pair come to the attention of police. Messages left near the murder scene pay tribute the the 'wonderful' mother and daughter March 2016: The boy is excluded from school due to his uncontrollable behaviour and is sent to a special unit. He and the girl continue to meet out of school March 2016: The girl attempts suicide and is admitted to hospital. After her hospital release, a report from Lincolnshire County Council says the girl needs professional help 'sooner rather than later'. April 9, 2016: Following a disturbance at a local McDonald's the boy and girl barricade themselves in his bedroom and refuse to leave for more than 12 hours. April 13, 2016: The girl and boy meet at McDonald's and discuss the plan to kill Ms Edwards and her daughter. April 13/14, 2016: At some point while Ms Edwards and her daughter are asleep, the boy enters their bedrooms then stabs and smothers them to death. The boy and girl then remain in the house for 36 hours, having sex and watching Twilight films. April 14, 2016: The pair are reported missing to police. April 15, 2016: Police enter the house and find the teens inside on a mattress. They are arrested after the two bodies are found upstairs. April 16: The 14-year-old girl makes a full admission to police, giving them a step-by-step account of the murders and their planning. She tells two detectives the plan was fully agreed between her and her boyfriend. April 17: Both teenagers are charged with two counts of murder. September 6: The defendants both admit manslaughter but plead not guilty to murder. October 10: The boy admits murder at Nottingham Crown Court and is remanded in custody awaiting sentence at the end of his former girlfriend's trial. October 18: The girl is found guilty of murder after jurors reject evidence that she was mentally ill at the time of the killings. Advertisement
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President-elect Donald Trump says his first meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House was 'fantastic' and boasted of their 'great chemistry'.

The pair spoke for more than 90 minutes in the Oval Office on Thursday while their wives visited separately.

'A fantastic day in D.C. Met with President Obama for first time. Really good meeting, great chemistry,' Trump tweeted on Thursday night.

'Melania liked Mrs. O a lot!' he added.

A public display of unity intended to help the country digest the shocking results of Tuesday's presidential election, the president-elect called Obama a 'very good man' in an Oval Office statement after the meeting.

'I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel,' he said. 'He explained some of the difficulties some of the high flying assets, some of the really great things that have been achieved.'

The sitting president stressed that his top priority was 'ensure our president-elect is successful.'

President-elect Donald Trump and current President Barack Obama and an hour-long meeting at the White House on Thursday morning. Trump later tweeted the meeting was 'fantastic' and that the pair had 'great chemistry'

'I have been very encouraged by the interest in President-elect Trump to work with my team around many of the issues that this great country faces and I believe that it is important for all regardless of party and regardless of political preferences to now come together, work together to deal with the many challenges we face,' he said.

The president-elect and the first lady in waiting, Melania Trump arrived at the White House on Thursday morning through a back entrance that opens up to the White House's South Lawn.

The private drive is inaccessible to media, and reporters were disallowed from covering the historic greeting between the incoming and outgoing first families.

A Wall Street Journal report says the White House cancelled the photo-op. The president's spokesman forcefully pushed back on the assertion in his daily briefing.

'That's not true,' he said.

The pair shook hands during a photo-op following their one-on-one meeting in which they discussed policies

Trump described Obama as a 'very good' man when the meeting was finished as a pack of reporters hurled questions at the pair

Obama said that he was 'encouraged' by the conversation he had with Trump on Wednesday morning

Trump and Obama addressed the press with short comments about their meeting following their hour-and-a-half long talk

Trump called the meeting a 'great honor' and noted that he had never met President Obama before Wednesday's meeting

Trump said he walked in thinking the meeting would only last '15 minutes' but concluded by the end that it could have gone on 'much longer'

Trump told reporters of Obama: 'I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel'

Obama and Trump were surrounded by dozens of photographers and press members following their meeting in the Oval Office

The White House official angrily told reporters that they were given more access to today's events at the White House than they were in 2008, when the Oval Office last changed hands.

Then, journalists were allowed to photograph the Obamas arrival at the White House.

President George W Bush and his wife Laura gave the future first couple a warm welcome when they came to the White House on November 11, 2008 for a post-election briefing.

The Bushes made a show of it, posing for portraits with the president-elect and his wife in front of the White House's private entrance. Bush lined up photographers to shoot he and Obama walking down the colonnade that leads to the Oval Office.

That did not happen today. No official photos have been released of the Trumps' arrival or departure.

Mr. and Mrs. Trump departed from LaGuardia airport in New York at 9.36am on their way to Washington. Traveling in the billionaire's personal aircraft, a Boeing 757, emblazoned with his name, they arrived at Ronald Reagan National Airport just after 10.30am.

The future first couple entered the White House complex twenty minutes later. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, owner of the New York Observer and a senior adviser to the president-elect's campaign, was also in tow.

Kushner was seen speaking to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Trump aide Dan Scavino. McDonough and Kushner broke off from the group for a private meeting, raising new questions about the role that Ivanka's husband will have in the Trump administration.

Kushner acted a right-hand man to Trump and was instrumental in keeping Chris Christie off the Republican ticket. Like his father-in-law, he is a real estate mogul with a lucrative New York business.

Trump's adult children, Ivanka, Eric and Don Jr., have said they would stay in New York and run their father's business. Kushner's presence at the White House today and his meeting with the current chief of staff suggests a possible change of plans for the president-elect's eldest daughter.

Journalists were allowed into the meeting between Obama and Trump at the end for what is known as a 'pool spray'  a photo opportunity where they typically shout questions in hopes of getting a response. As they did that today, Obama advised his successor not to respond.

Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner (pictured behind Trump's campaign press secretary Hope Hicks), owner of the New York Observer and a senior adviser to the president-elect's campaign, was in the Oval Office while Trump and Obama spoke to reporters

Donald Trump and Paul Ryan had a lunch meeting, and then they met with other GOP leaders at Capitol Hill

Ryan says he and President-elect Donald Trump had a 'fantastic, productive meeting' at the Capitol. Trump called the meeting 'an honor', adding that he thought they were 'going to do some absolutely spectacular things for the American people'

Trump and Melania were given a tour of Capitol Hill by House Speaker Paul Ryan upon arrival on Wednesday afternoon

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (center) met with Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence (left) at around 2.30pm

McConnell showed Pence, Trump and Trump's wife Melania through Capitol Hill on Wednesday afternoon

Trump and Melania walked hand in hand as they followed McConnell to a meeting on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon

Pence, Trump and McConnell had a meeting after Trump met with Ryan and other GOP leaders on Capitol Hill

While on Capitol Hill, Trump spoke to the media to tell them he hopes to create 'big league' jobs while in office

Jared Kushner was seen leaving Capitol Hill as part of the Motorcade following Trump's meetings with GOP leaders

Vice President-elect Mike Pence waves as his motorcade arrives at the Capitol Hill Club on Wednesday ahead of his meetings

Following his meeting with Obama, Trump headed over to Capitol Hill (his motorcade pictured above), where he has two meetings

While at Capitol Hill, Trump is lunching with House Speaker Paul Ryan and has another meeting immediately after

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told the media on Wednesday that Obama wants to give Trump the 'opportunity to succeed' at president

Each man delivered a short statement from the Oval Office that reporters were invited to witness  a practice that was followed by this White House, Earnest pointed out today, but was not part of the 2008 meeting between Bush, a Republican, and Obama, a Democrat.

The president spoke first, telling the press, 'I just had the opportunity to have an excellent conversation with President-elect Trump. It was wide-ranging. We talked about some of the organizational issues in setting up the White House.

'We talked about foreign policy and domestic policy. And as I said last night, my number one priority in the coming two months is try to facilitate a transition that ensures the president-elect is successful,' he said. 'In the meantime, Michelle has had a chance to meet the incoming First Lady and they had an excellent conversation as well. We want to make sure they feel welcome as they prepare to make this transition.'

The president added, 'Most of all, I want to emphasize to you, Mr. President-elect, that we now are going to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed then the country succeed.'

Hands clasped, Trump looked around the room at the reporters gathered there as Obama spoke. When the president finished, he turned his attention to his predecessor and said, 'Well, thank you very much, President Obama.

'This was a meeting that was going to last for maybe ten, or 15 minutes, just get to know each other. We had never met each other. I had great respect. The meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half, and as far as I'm concerned, it could have gone on for a lot longer,' he said.

'We really, we discussed a lot of different situationssome wonderful, and some difficulties,' he said. 'So Mr. President, it was a great honor being with you, and I look forward to being with you many, many more times.'

Following the meeting, Trump senior adviser Dan Scavino tweeted: President Obama's team was very welcoming & cordial to President-elect @realDonaldTrump's team today at the White House. Thank you!!'

Trump had two meetings on Capitol Hill following his meet-and-greet with Obama. He lunched with House Speaker Paul Ryan House Speaker Paul Ryan and joined Indiana Governor Mike Pence, the vice-president elect, at a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after that.

We have a lot to do. We're going to work very strongly on immigration, health care and we're looking at jobs, big league jobs, Trump told reporters chasing him around Capitol Hill.

A Marine is standing guard out the entrance to the West Wing, where president-elect Donald Trump and current president Barack Obama are meeting today

As Trump met with Obama, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was seen as Trump's de facto campaign manager during the presidential race, met with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough

Trump aide Dan Scavino (left) and other members of President-elect Donald Trump's staff arrive at the White House as Trump attends a transition planning meeting with Obama

President-elect Donald Trump's motorcade makes its way through Washington, DC, to the White House where he will meet with President Barack Obama

As Trump meets with Obama, First lady Michelle Obama planned to meet privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania Trump, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence

President-elect Trump waves to the crowd as he steps of his private plane as he arrives in Washington, DC, on Thursday morning

Trump and his wife, Melania, walked off the plane first in Washington, DC, as vice president-elect Mike Pence followed closely behind

President-elect Donald Trump arrives in Washington, DC, for a meeting with current president Barack Obama at the White House

Trump flew into Reagan International Airport in Arlington, Virginia, which is just a 15 to 20 minute drive to the White House

Thursday's Oval Office meeting is the symbolic start of the transition of power from Obama to Trump, who will enter the office in January

While in Washington, DC, Trump also plans to meet with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, to discuss the GOP legislative agenda

Obama and his wife, Michelle, fiercely challenged Trump as he campaigned for the presidency, branding him a racist, a sexist and a sex abuser at events for Hillary Clinton. Now they must come together with him and prove to the country and the world that America is a shining example of a functioning democracy.

The president's spokesman acknowledged today that they 'obviously have deep disagreements.'

'Look the president's views haven't changed, he stands by what he said on the campaign trial,' his spokesman said today. 'He had an opportunity to make his argument, he made that argument vigorously, he made that argument in state's all across the country. But the American people decided. '

Earnest added, 'The election is over, the President didn't get to chose his successor, the American people did. And they've chosen President-elect Trump, and President Obama is determined to preside over a transition that gives the incoming President the opportunity to get a running start.'

Today's meeting was expected to last an hour but it did not conclude until 12:30, the start time of Trump's next meeting, with Ryan.

Ryan says he wants to stay on as House Speaker despite his rocky relationship with Trump. The GOP leader endorsed Trump this summer before the nominating convention but rescinded his support after a video emerged of Trump saying he uses his celebrity to grab women by the genitals.

The White House said Wednesday that the sitting president would press the president-elect not to take an ax to all of his key policies.

The current administration is especially concerned that Trump, who spent the campaign promising to repeal and Obamacare, will cancel millions of Americans' health insurance plans without a new mechanism in place.

Obama's administration is terrified that Trump will immediately round up and deport the illegal immigrant children they said could stay.

The president-elect has been unclear how quickly he'll move on that aspect of his agenda, though he says he will rescind the executive orders Obama issued saying they could remain in the country indefinitely.

Outside the White House Secret Service officers braced for the coming protests. Riot gear and gas masks were on hand in case the confrontations became violent.

Pennsylvania Avenue and the adjacent park were overcome by construction in preparation for the January inauguration. Workers were busy building wooden risers on Thursday morning for the massive number of journalists that will descend on Washington for the festivities. The bullet proof viewing box for the VIPs and members of the new and old administrations will soon be brought in, as well.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence also visited the White House today for a 2.30pm conversation with outgoing Vice President Joe Biden.

In a twist of irony, basketball player LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavilers was also meeting with the president today at the White House.

Ceremonial farewell: Two firetrucks sprayed jets of water in the air as Trump's plane taxied at La Guardia airport

Goodbye New York: Trump waved from his armored SUV as he swept out of Trump Tower just after 9.10am

On board: President-elect Trump walked up the rear stairs to his private 757 with his wife Melania (circled) ahead of him. Vice-president elect Mike Pence is also on the trip

Fist lady in waiting steps out: Melania Trump left the armored SUV as she prepared to board the plane to Washington to meet Michelle Obama. Her Secret Service codename is Muse

On his way: When Trump lands in Washington he will meet the president in the Oval Office with Mike Pence, his vice-president-elect at his side. Joe Biden, the vice-president, will also be present

Historic trip: This will be the first meeting between Obama and Trump at the White House - and possibly ever. The pair are never known to have met although they have been in the same rooms

James and his teammates are being honored for their NBA Championship. The professional basketball player appeared with Clinton at a rally in the final days of the race and encouraged his fans not to vote for Trump.

Ohio Governor John Kasich came to Washington with his states sports team.

Kasich was the last remaining Republican presidential candidate in the 2016 race apart from the winner. Kasich boycotted the presidential nominating convention in Cleveland over his differences with the businessman. He refused to endorse Trump after the GOP primary and wrote in John McCain on Election Day.

Unlike Trump, he held a brief news conference in front of the building before he departed.

'Today I said my prayers on the plane for the success of Donald Trump,' Kasich told the press. 'I think as Americans we all need to come together because it's the lives of our children.'

Kasich observed that the country's problems 'won't be fixed overnight.'

'What we can all do as Americans is join hands, join arms, say a few prayers for the success of the next President of the United States,' Kasich advised. 'I want to also compliment the president himself, President Obama and also Secretary Clinton.'

The outgoing president and the losing candidate 'were really inspirational in the way in which they embraced the outcome of the election,' he said. 'So for those of you in the streets, think about the fact that America works best when America is united. It doesn't work best when we are divided. That's been my message and it will continue to be my message as we move forward in this new time.'

He declined to comment on the possibility of burying the hatchet with Trump and joining his administration.

'I expect I'll be governor of Ohio for the next two years,' he said.

The high-profile meeting between Obama and his successor set the White House into a frenzy on Thursday. Staffers continued to mourn what could have been under a President Clinton as they turned their focus to the impending transition.

For the first time in eight years the country will have a new president on January 20, and he will come from the opposing political party.

Waving goodbye: Airport workers waved and took photographs of the departing president-elect's plane as it made the short journey to Washington

On the move: The president-elect was in a full Secret Service protective motorcade for the first time

Mogul is heading to Washington: POTUS-elect Trump was in a Secret Service armored SUV for the trip to La Guardia airport

Ambulance too: The use of an emergency medical vehicle in the motorcade puts President-elect Trump's protection at the same level as Obama's

Welomce: President Obama's meeting is the symbolic start of the transition of power

In anticipation of a Clinton win, White House aides seemingly made no plans to hand over the keys Trump.

'There's no specific thing that I have in mind that we're going to do differently now,' White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said after he was asked by a reporter if the administration was building a 'firewall' to protect Obama-era policies. '

Earnest said Wednesday, 'Our plan all along was to ensure the successful implementation of those and other priorities, and we're going to be committed to doing everything we can to ensure the success of those policies between now and January 20th.'

Today, Earnest said the administration would have the same priorities in its last two months in office as it would have 'regardless of the outcome of the election.'

'Whether or not Mr. Trump had emerged victorious from the election, we would be focused on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and maximizing the opportunity that currently is available to millions of Americans to go to healthcare.gov during the open enrollment period and sign up for health care,' he said.

Trump has said he will dismantle the Democratic president's health care law, deport the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, negotiate the 12-nation trade deal brokered by the Obama administration and remand the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Previewing the meeting today between the president and the president-elect, Earnest said yesterday that Obama would talk to Trump 'about some of these policies and about some of the benefits of some of these policies.'

'The President-elect's team will have an opportunity to get briefed by the national security experts here in the Obama administration that have been working on implementing these policies. But, ultimately, the President-elect will be the person that is responsible for setting the path of foreign policy for the United States for the next four years,' Earnest said.

Earnest was tight-lipped Thursday about the president and the president-elect's discussion.

'I'm not going to get into all of the details of their meeting,' he said.

The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with post-election scenes of protests across a politically divided country.

Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting 'Not my president,' burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said 'Impeach Trump'.

Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

'He just earned a mandate,' Ryan said.

Trump and Obama's meeting is a far cry from how former president George W Bush and his wife Laura greeted the Obamas in November 2008

When the Bushes met with the Obamas shortly after Barack Obama was elected president, George Bush opened their meeting to the press and waiting outside for them to arrive

George W and Laura Bush met with Barack and Michelle Obama on November 11, 2008, days after Obama had been elected the next president

While Trump and Obama are meeting in private and having a photo session afterward, the Bush family opened the meeting to the media from the start

Obama and Bush chatted as they walked through the colonnade at the White House during their meeting eight years ago

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was 'painful and it will be for a long time' and acknowledged that the nation was 'more divided than we thought.'

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: 'Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.'

Trump was uncharacteristically quiet in the aftermath of his triumph and made no public appearances Wednesday.

He huddled with jubilant, sleep-deprived advisers at his eponymous skyscraper in Manhattan, beginning the daunting task of setting up an administration that will take power in just over two months.

He also met with Pence and took calls from supporters, family and friends, according to spokeswoman Hope Hicks.

In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies.

A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts.

The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration.

National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary.

Waiting: Trump was being greeted at Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, by another Secret Service motorcade

Might not be a comfortable meeting: Michelle Obama was last seen on stage on Monday night endorsing Hillary Clinton before her defeat. She will meet Melania Trump in the White House while their husbands talk in the Oval Office

First lady-in-waiting: Melania Trump will have talks with the current First Lady about life in the East Wing.

Getting ready for Trump power: The White House surroundings are now under construction in preparation for the inauguration in January

On his way: The massive effort to get ready for President Trump is not just inside the West Wing and Oval Office - it is outside in the public areas around the White House

Yuge effort: The scale of construction works needed for the inauguration means that like transition, they begin now

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama - one that includes information on US covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies.

The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

It's unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency.

He'll enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue. He never allowed journalists to fly on his plane during the campaign, as is customary for White House nominees.

Issues of transparency bubbled up right from the start. On Wednesday evening, Trump aides said they would not bring the press corps to Washington with the president-elect for his meeting with Obama, breaking long-standing protocol.

Trump is heading back to New York this evening with his advisers. The White House says there are no additional meetings on the books between the two presidents despite Trumps claim that there would be many more to come.

Massive police presence: This was the scene around Trump Tower in New York late on Wednesday night and early on Tuesday morning.

Protests: Trump's defeat of Hillary Clinton has left the far-left angry and some came to New York's Trump Tower to hang him in effigy
But a new set of photographs show that the crumbling fort is covered in graffiti and falling to

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Eerie photographs show the decaying remains of a fort built by the Victorians to protect London from French and Russian navies at the end of the 19th century.

The concrete complex was constructed in North Weald Bassett, Essex, as a last line of defence to stop invaders conquering London.

But now the bolthole is covered in graffiti, overrun with foliage and flooded with stagnant water after it was abandoned.

Trees have burst into the shell of the roofless buildings - despite the North Weald Redoubt being a scheduled monument of national importance.

The North Weald Redoubt no longer has a roof and parts of the walls are covered in graffiti as it was overrun by nature

The building, built in the late 1890s to prevent French and Russian navies from attacking London, is now submerged

Part of the building in Epping Forest, Essex, has collapsed - despite being a scheduled monument of national importance

An ordnance survey point was placed near the building which was left abandoned after being used in both World Wars

One of the Allan Williams Turret (pictured) at the North Weald Redoubt in Essex is rusting and covered in graffiti

The historical building was built as part of the London Defence Scheme to store guns, small arms ammunition and tools

At the end of the 19th century, the London Defence Scheme was set up to protect the south east from foreign invasion landing on the south coast.

Thirteen Mobilistaiton Centres were built and the North Weald Redoubt was one of the first and the only one north of the River Thames.

It was built to respond to the progress made by France and Russia during the 1880s after both nations were creating advanced warships.

The buildings in Epping Forest were used to store guns, tools and ammunition to protect the capital if a war was to break out.

But now, more than 100 years after it was built, rusting machine gun turrets are plastered with graffiti and vandals have sprayed bright artwork on its collapsing walls.

Shockingly when Historic England last looked at the site it stated it 'exhibits a remarkable level of survival'.

The old buildings were part of a ring of fortified arms stores built around London by the Victorians - but was also used in both World Wars and later as a radio station.

The positions were built as London was deemed undefendable and the redoubts were safe sites joined by trenches where a defence could be launched.

They were also ammunition and tool stores for units who would man the line, and if the main defence line was breached troops could fall back there and regroup.

North Weald was also designed to house devastating artillery or machine guns to rain death on invaders.

Parts of the abandoned fort - which was built in the 1890s after pressure from France and Russia - is now covered in water

Parts of the old century-old fort are now flooded after it was built in the 19th century to protect London if a war broke out

In a new set of photographs, parts of the Mobilisation Centre in Epping Forest, Essex are now submerged

Parts of the derelict building have been covered in graffiti after the old fort was left unused after it was built more than 100 years ago

Small trees have started to grow outside the building and there are no longer glass windows or doors at the old fort

The plan was drawn up in 1888 to protect the capital as the Government feared the Royal Navy would struggle against emergent French and Russian navies.

It was however never used by Victorian troops as by 1905 confidence had been restored in British superiority on the waves.

After being brought back into action in the First World War the site was sold at auction to the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company in 1919.
A federal judge tentatively denied a request to ban statements made by and about President-elect Donald Trump during his campaign from being used at the San Diego trial of a lawsuit involving him and his now-defunct Trump University.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the Indiana-born jurist who was accused of bias by Trump over his Mexican heritage, issued his decision in the class-action suit on Thursday.

His decision came hours before attorneys for Trump and those suing him were expected to appear in court to discuss what evidence will be allowed and other issues involving the trial set to begin November 28.

The highly unusual petition would apply to Trump's tweets, a video of Trump making sexually predatory comments about women, his tax history, revelations about his private charitable foundation and the public criticism of the judge in the case.

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A federal judge tentatively denied a request to ban statements made by and about President-elect Donald Trump (above in May 2005) during his campaign from being used at the San Diego trial of a lawsuit involving him and his now-defunct Trump University

The billionaire's attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, told the judge last month that evidence tied to the campaign would be irrelevant to the civil fraud case and may prejudice or inflame a jury, jeopardizing the right to a fair trial.

Judge Gonzalo Curiel was accused of bias by Trump during the presidential campaign due to his Mexican heritage

Petrocelli warned that allowing the jury to consider Trump's remarks "carries an immediate and irreparable danger of extreme and irremediable prejudice to defendants, confusion of issues and waste of time."

Curiel said he was prepared to deny the request because Trump's attorneys didn't specify what evidence they wanted to exclude. He said he would consider specific objections at trial.

A cornerstone of Trump's presidential campaign was a promise to deport the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally while also building the wall. The real estate mogul says he will force Mexico to pay for it.

On June 16, 2015, in his presidential announcement speech, Trump portrayed immigrants from Mexico as 'bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.' Trump also boasted about his ability to fortify the border with Mexico: 'Nobody builds walls better than me.'

His comments drew condemnation from the Mexican government as 'biased and absurd.' Several businesses, including NBC, Univision and Macy's, soon cut ties with Trump.

One year later, in June 2016, Trump said Judge Curiel had an 'absolute conflict' in handling the Trump University case because he is 'of Mexican heritage.'

Petrocelli had warned prior to Thursday's hearing that allowing the jury to consider Trump's remarks 'carries an immediate and irreparable danger of extreme and irremediable prejudice to defendants, confusion of issues and waste of time.'

The lawsuit filed in 2010 on behalf of former customers alleges that Trump University, which was not accredited as a school, gave seminars and classes across the country that were like infomercials, pressuring people to spend up to $35,000 for mentorships and, in the end, failing on its promise to teach success in real estate.

The claims mirror another class-action complaint in San Diego and a lawsuit in New York.

In March this year the top instructor at Trump University, James Harris, told MailOnline that the Republican had exercised 'bad judgment' and hired the wrong people to teach at the controversial institution.

Trump's attorneys want to exclude any statements made by or about their client during the presidential campaign

Harris himself was hired despite having a felony conviction for assault.

Harris said that voters urged people not to back Trump in the presidential election because he failed in real estate - the area he claims to be an expert in.

He alleged: 'Trump University owed me a lot of money when it shut down... I made them millions and millions of dollars.'

Petrocelli told reporters in May that Trump planned to attend most, if not all, of the trial and would testify.

'He has very, very strong feelings about this case,' Petrocelli said at the time.

At the May hearing, Petrocelli asked for a trial after Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, but the judge raised concerns about distractions if Trump won the election.
Donald Trump's election as US President has sparked fresh call for an EU army, amid a warning that the continent will not always be able to rely on American protection.

The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, voiced his concerns after the Republican's surprise victory was announced.

He said a 'community of defence' is required.

Jean-Claude Juncker has mounted a fresh call for a European army, saying the continent cannot always rely on the US to protect it

Juncker said: 'We need more security in Europe, and I do not mean just the anti-terror fight.

'Talking about security we need a different way of organizing a European defense.'

He said that the French National Assembly prevented a proposed European community of defence being created in 1954 - a move that could have seen an army created, but was rejected amid concerns about national sovereignty.

Juncker said: 'We need it now. The idea that the Americans will eternally see to... European security is not true.

Comments by Trump in the build-up to the election has raised questions about his commitment to Nato treaty obligations

'Independent of the outcome of the US election, the Americans will not see to Europes security forever. We have to do it ourselves.

'And this is why we need a new approach to the European community of defense, including a European army.'

In July, Trump cast doubts over his commitment to Nato agreements, telling the New York Times: 'We have many Nato members that arent paying their bills.'

And he added: 'You cant forget the bills. They have an obligation to make payments.

'Many NATO nations are not making payments, are not making what theyre supposed to make. Thats a big thing. You cant say forget that.'

German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen has also argued in favour of a European army

His comments echo remarks made by German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who has called on the EU should match Nato.

She declared she was in 'deep shock' after Trump's win, saying the President-elect has cast doubt on Nato's mutual defence pact.

Mrs von der Layen said the continent must now be prepared to stand for itself in security matters.

Last week she said: 'We have seen an enormous modernisation drive by Nato over the past three years because of the Kremlins behaviour.

That was correct and important, but I believe that we must invest at least the same energy into a modernisation of the European security and defence union.

However, she claimed the increase should occur knowing that one cannot build up competition between the two bodies, but that they should work in a complementary fashion.

For instance, she said, the EU had a clear mission in working with Africa to stem the steady flow of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon rubbished the idea of a shared European army last month

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon rubbished the idea of a shared European army last month, stating: 'We continue to oppose any new military structure that would introduce a second layer of command and control. Command and control is a matter for the military, it is a matter for Nato.

When it was last discussed by EU defence ministers, there was very strong opposition to any kind of EU military command headquarters from Sweden, Poland, the Baltic states, even from the Netherlands, which is sometimes sympathetic to some of these EU proposals, they very strongly opposed that kind of duplication.
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A photographer has captured a cheetah mother's plucky defense of her cubs in Masai Mara, Kenya, which borders the Serengeti.

Paul Goldstein was guiding last month when he spotted the stand-off when a leopard took an interest in the family.

The cheetah, known as Amani translating to Peace, faced the threat head-on, and dramatically tried to wear the large female leopard out before it could attack.

Cheetahs are the world's fastest land animals, capable of top speeds of 71 miles per hour, and while running they can cover four strides in a second with each stride measuring up to 24ft.

Wimbledon-based Paul said: 'Recently, in the heart of Kenya's Mara North Conservancy, I saw something I can still scarcely believe.'

Paul was guiding for Exodus Travels when he snapped the stand-off.

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The cheetah mother Amani (Peace) bravely confronts the leopard and slowly exhausts its energy Cheetah defends cubs from leopard, Masai Mara, Kenya

Cheetah mother Amani (Peace) and cubs pictured earlier in the day Cheetah defends cubs from leopard, Masai Mara, Kenya

The cheetah mother Amani (Peace) sends the leopard packing after chasing it away from her cubs

The cheetah and the leopard come face to face in the stand off in Masai Mara in Kenya

The cheetah, known as Amani (Peace), flashes her huge fangs at the advancing leopard as another big cat watches on

Paul Goldstein was guiding for Exodus Travels last month when he spotted the stand-off when a leopard took an interest in the family

Mr Goldstein said: 'Amani (Peace) is a cheetah I am very familiar with having spent many game drives with her in this most beautiful part of East Africa.

'She is a good mother and an excellent hunter, but this particular morning, only a few minutes from camp, something was clearly concerning her.

'A quick check with the binoculars from my guide and friend Joseph Sengeny from Kicheche Mara Camp confirmed a large female leopard very interested in her and more importantly, her two sub adult cubs.'

'Leopards and cheetahs, whilst not quite the mortal enemies of lions and hyenas, are still never seen together, so this was a remarkable display of territorial parenting skills by the lighter, but faster cheetah.

'This mother lost her infant brood of five cubs last year to hyenas and she was in no mood to see her two go the same way to this powerful adversary.

'Goaded by the cheetah's advances, the leopard descended from its arboreal stronghold and battle lines were drawn.

'The cheetah's ploy was clear - get close enough to goad the opponent, but with her superior acceleration, stay just out of the way of those potentially fatal claws.

'After around five rounds the leopard moved off and the cheetah re-united with her young charges.'

'Joseph said, "I have never seen anything like this", and as shell-shocked as I was, fortunately it being in a precious Conservancy it was not marred by too many vehicles.

'Joseph has about 10,000 game drives to his name so when he says something like this it carries weight.

'Life is incredibly tough for cheetahs for so many different reasons, from land encroachment to hyenas, jackals and lions, but rarely if at all leopards, so to witness an extended bout like this was utterly extraordinary and with a satisfying outcome. '

The cheetah faced the threat head-on, and dramatically tried to wear the large female leopard out before it could attack

Cheetah mother Amani (Peace) and cubs pictured safe and well a day after the stand-off with the leopard Cheetah defends cubs from leopard, Masai Mara, Kenya

Leopard surveys whereabouts of cheetah family from security of tree as the mother watches it carefully

The cheetah mother Amani (Peace) faces off against the leopard waiting in the tree Cheetah defends cubs from leopard, Masai Mara, Kenya
Mr Keating said it was time for Australia to 'cut the tag' from America

Paul Keating has urged Australia to sever its ties with the US following the controversial election of Donald Trump as the next US president.

The former Australian Prime Minister, who served from 1991 to 1996, told ABC's 7.30 Australia was a 'better society' than the United States and no longer needed to rely on its relationship with the US.

'We've had more or less a tag-along foreign policy, tagging along to the United States. It's time to cut the tag. Time to get out of it,' Mr Keating said.

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Paul Keating (pictured) has urged Australia to sever its ties with the US following the controversial election of Donald Trump as the next US president

Mr Keating said he didn't agree with America's decision to vote in Trump, claiming he would have voted differently were he given the chance.

'Look, I wouldn't have voted for him at the election, I would have voted for Hillary. But he said some interesting things,' he said.

And now Trump was the US president elect, Mr Keating urged the Australian government to do things differently.

'The idea we should get around like Uriah Heap, like we're some subordinate outfit that has to get a signal form abroad before we think, is of course a complete denial of everything we've created here,' Mr Keating said.

'And we should be thinking the same way in foreign policy terms.'

Mr Keating urged Australia to sever ties with America following Donald Trump's (pictured) win

Mr Keating urged the Australian government to do things differently after Trump was elected

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating (pictured) said Australia was a 'better society' than the United States and no longer needed to rely on its relationship with the US

Mr Keating said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull came out 'saying prayers' to America following Trump's election win - and said he would not have done the same had he been prime minister.

'We had the Prime Minister almost sayig prayers to the alliance yesterday, and the Foreign Minister, you know as if nothing has changed,' he said.

'The message from President Elect Donald Trump is that he's a big power guy and he's not for alliances, like wink wink, maybe you're on your own.'

He said Australia was a stronger society than the United States and should back itself.

'I mean (Australia's) more even, it's more fair, we've had a 50% increase in real incomes in the last 20 years, median America has had zero,' Mr Keating said.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating (left) campaigning with Anthony Albanese in his electorate o Grayndler at Persham town hall in Sydney in June 2016

Mr Keating told Leigh Sales (pictured) it was time Australia had an independent foreign policy from the US

Mr Keating also claimed the 'Australian-American dialogue' - a function for Australian and American leaders - was cult-like.

'There's a thing called the Australian-American dialogue, which I never attended, a cult thing that's gone on for years. I don't know what the Americans put in the drinking water, but when they come back they're bowing and scraping,' he said.

Mr Keating said Australia should now make its own way with an independent foreign policy.

Mr Keating said Australia should make its own way with an independent foreign policy after Donald Trump (pictured) was announced the US president elect

'We should be thinking about an independent policy that does worry about Indonesia, that does worry about South East Asia,' he said.

In his interview with ABC's Leigh Sales, Mr Keating referred to Australia's long serving relationship with the United States.

Mr Keating said he himself worked alongside the US government, even advising Bill Clinton in 1997, but urged Australia was now in very different times.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating (pictured) is seen at Melbourne University after a state funeral for former federal MP Jim Carlton in Melbourne in January 2016

Australia's strong relationship with the US dates back to World War Two which lasted from 1939 to 1945.

And since then, the country has been involved in most major American military endeavours.

Following the September 11 attacks, in which 11 Australians were killed, there was an enormous outpouring of sympathy and support from Australia for the US.
A drunk man killed three people in a fiery crash before walking home, taking a shower and going to bed.

Amiel Tittums, 36, was driving up to 165km/h in a 90km/h zone in Geraldton, north of Perth, when he collided into the back of a Holden Commodore killing those inside the vehicle in August 2015, The West Australian reported.

Tittums pleaded guilty to three counts of dangerous driving causing death, failing to render assistance and failing to report an incident.

Amiel Tittums, 36, pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol and crashing into a car killing three people. The driver Felicity Pallett, 23, and passengers Michael Hook, 31, and Coen Kentwell, 27, burned to death at the scene (pictured)

He was due to be sentenced on Thursday in the West Australian Supreme Court, but his sentencing was adjourned to a later date.

The impact of the crash was so hard the fuel tank burst and quickly engulfed the car in flames and killed driver Felicity Pallett, 23, and passengers Michael Hook, 31, and Coen Kentwell, 27, who burned to death at the scene.

When police later questioned him hours later at his home, he said he did not know where his car was or who had it, the court heard.

Officers also said when they asked him to remove his shirt, he had a bruise across his chest that appeared to come from a seat belt.

Tittums recorded a blood alcohol reading of 0.135, and was discovered with diazepam and methamphetamine in his system.

Prosecutor Mark Nicol said Tittums, a father-of-two, fled the scene and walked 1.5 kilometres to his home instead of trying to save them and called his actions selfish, reckless and callous.

'They were lost in the most horrific and unnecessary way,' Mr Nicol said, according to Perth Now.

Tittums recorded a blood alcohol reading of 0.135, as well as diazepam and methamphetamine in his system. Prosecutor Mark Nicol said the victims 'were lost in the most horrific and unnecessary way,' when Tittums walked back to his home, showered and slept

In a letter read in court, Tittums said: 'From the time of the accident, Ive been trying to keep away from Geraldton.'

Linda Black, his lawyer said Tittums had 'struggled with is the fact he didn't stay and help' and 'understands he has to pay a price for the crimes that he's committed.'

She claimed that her client used to drink alcohol in the past as a way to cope with problems in his life.
As a teenage film buff sat in his bedroom creating a computer database in the 1980s, few would have expected Col Needham to have become a multimillionaire.

But the 49-year-old from Denton, Manchester, became one of the most powerful British men in Hollywood after creating the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).

Mr Needham, who would often watch six films a day in his youth, is on first name terms with the likes of Marion Cotillard, Leonardo DiCaprio and Amy Adams.

IMDb founder: Col Needham is pictured with Orange Is The New Black actress Alysia Reiner at his company's annual StarMeter award dinner party in January 2015 in Park City, Utah

Mr Needham (right) is pictured with his wife Karen, with whom he lives in a village near Bristol, and actor Kevin Bacon (centre) at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in Utah in 2009

With the stars: Mr Needham, pictured with Spider-Man actor James Franco last year, became one of the most powerful British men in Hollywood after creating the Internet Movie Database

And his databases StarMeter which tracks the popularity of actors is credited with helping to get Robert Pattinson a starring role in the Twilight films.

Mr Needham said the producers were having trouble casting for the film and told their staff to search on IMDb for someone who had been in a Harry Potter film.

He told The Times that Pattinson had played Cedric Diggory at the time and was around the top 10,000 on StarMeter but no higher, so they got in touch with him.

But he told the newspapers journalist Kevin Maher that extra clicks or dodgy software cannot artificially push an actor up the StarMeter rankings.

He said: We have filters and we monitor for that. If we see a new pattern, and it seems as if somebody is trying something, we'll look into it and tighten it up.

Mr Needham, pictured with Hulk and A Beautiful Mind actress Jennifer Connelly, had his database bought for a reported $55million (44million) by Amazon in 1998

Mr Needham, pictured with X-Men and Superman Returns actor James Marsden, would often watch six films a day in his youth and is on first name terms with many Hollywood stars

Mr Needham is pictured with his wife Karen (left) in New York in April, and House and Rush actress Olivia Wilde (right) in Toronto in 2013

Mr Needham was brought up with his brother by his single mother in a working-class area after his parents divorced, and said he does not remember his father.

But his mother famously told him to open the windows and leave his darkened room - which he recalled when they went to a West End showing of Hugo in 2011.

He told the Times: As we stepped out on to the red carpet in Leicester Square, I turned to her and said, Now. Aren't you glad that I didn't go out and play?

He began to develop the database in his teenage years before studying computer science at Leeds University and then working for Hewlett-Packard in Bristol.

Then in 1998 his database was bought for a reported $55million (44million) by Amazon, which left Mr Needham in charge as chief executive.

Mr Needham, pictured with Divergent and Fantastic Four star Miles Teller in Toronto in 2014, began to develop the database in his teenage years before studying computer science

Heroes and Rocky Balboa actor Milo Ventimiglia is pictured with Mr Needham in 2010. Some 115 million people worldwide have downloaded the IMDb app

Now, the database has 250million unique users every month who search for the cast and crew of films and have their say in reviews and ratings.

Speaking to The Mail On Sunday in February, Mr Needham said he is close to having seen 10,000 films and expects to hit the landmark next year.

Some 115 million people worldwide have downloaded the IMDb app and Mr Needhams net worth is estimated at 35million.
said she was not

Donald Trump winning the US presidential election may have come as a shock to some but not to Australia's former Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins.

Hawkins, who was crowned Miss Universe in 2004, never doubted a Trump presidency, despite the majority of media outlets projecting a Hillary Clinton win.

'I wasn't surprised at all,' she told Daily Mail Australia when she was asked about the election result.

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Jennifer Hawkins has said Donald Trump's shock US election win came as no surprise to her (the pair are pictured in 2004)

While attending an event in Sydney on Thursday the former Miss Universe said she plans to personally congratulate the president-elect

Hawkins, who was crowned Miss Universe in 2004, never doubted a Trump presidency, despite the majority of media outlets projecting a Hillary Clinton win

Hawkins was also quizzed about whether or not she had personally congratulated the former pageant owner on his win.

'Not as yet, but I'm sure I'll get the chance. It's been a big week,' the 32-year-old model said.

Hawkins rose to fame winning Donald Trump's 2004 Miss Universe campaign.

Earlier this month, the model was forced to defend Mr Trump after a video surfaced of him awkwardly trying to kiss her onstage in 2011.

After the footage emerged, she told Daily Mail Australia the Republican presidential candidate had 'always treated her with respect'.

Ms Hawkins also declined to comment on the multiple accusations of sexual misconduct made against the Celebrity Apprentice star, 70, in recent weeks.

The 32-year-old model rose to fame winning Donald Trump's 2004 Miss Universe campaign

Former Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins said Donald Trump's election win came as no shock to her

Donald Trump won the presidency this week after a sensational victory that sent shockwaves across the globe.

His Democratic rival Hillary Clinton had just 218 of 270 electoral votes needed to win when Mr Trump took Pennsylvania to secure crucial 274.

Mr Trump will become the 45th President of the United States when he takes office in January.
It is just one day since Donald Trump was elected President - but thousands of furious liberals are already plotting ways to remove him from office.

Within hours of the Republican's unexpected win over Hillary Clinton, people were calling for him to be impeached over claims of sexual abuse, fraud and racketeering.

Online searches for 'How to impeach a president' surged hours after the result, with the question seeing a 4,850 per cent rise on Google.

One of the seven petitions to contest his presidency amassed more than 13,322 signatures in a matter of hours as furious protests across the US intensified.

Thousands of people are calling for Donald Trump to be impeached over claims of sexual abuse, fraud and racketeering, pictured are protesters in Chicago

One of the seven petitions to contest his presidency has already amassed more than 13,322 signatures in a matter of hours as protests across the US intensified

A number of professors have thrown their weight behind the movement, saying there is a 'strong case' to impeach Trump and stop him from taking the top job.

Speaking on Newsnight on Wednesday, English historian Simon Schama said: 'It is not a moment for calm, it is a moment for contesting what seems to be a very dangerous point in American history.

'George Washington warned against despotism and that's what we're facing.'

University of Utah Law professor Christopher Peterson said he found evidence to charge Trump with fraud and racketeering - felonies within state and federal law.

People were seen holding signs saying: 'Not my president' during a protest in Seattle

Online searches for 'How to impeach a president' surged hours after the result, with the question seeing a 4,850 per cent rise on Google

It is just one day since Donald Trump was elected President - but thousands of furious liberals are already plotting ways to remove him from office

Dozens also took to social media to support calls to impeach Trump following the result

He claimed that Trump University was unaccredited and taught students get-rich-quick schemes.

Trump is set to go on trial in three weeks over his now-defunct Trump University, potentially taking the witness stand weeks before his inauguration.

The lawsuit, filed in 2010, claims Trump University gave seminars across the country that were like infomercials, pressuring people to spend $35,000 for mentorships.

In a 23-page article, Professor Peterson laid out why Congress should impeach Trump over these claims.

'In the United States, it is illegal for businesses to use false statements to convince consumers to purchase their services,' Mr Peterson said.

'The evidence indicates that Trump University used a systemic pattern of fraudulent representations to trick thousands of families into investing in a program that can be argued was a sham.

Even protesters in the Philippines carried placards which read 'Dump Trump'

'Fraud and racketeering are serious crimes that legally rise to the level of impeachable acts.'

Impeachment is where a formal accusation of serious wrongdoing is lobbied against a sitting president or any other senior US official.

The US Constitution states that the House of Representatives can vote to impeach ad kick an official out of office, but it's the Senate actually tries the case.

'The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States' who may be impeached and removed only for 'treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours', reads the act.

Thousands marched through downtown Boston on Wednesday night, waving signs and chanting anti-Trump slogans to protest the election.

Hillary Clinton has conceded her race against Donald Trump for the White House with a speech at New Yorker hotel

The crowd held signs that read 'Love Trumps Hate,' 'Trump is racism,' and 'Impeach Trump.'

In her speech to concede defeat on Wednesday, Clinton told her supporters to accept the shock result - despite winning the popular vote.

Flanked by her husband Bill and daughter Chelsea, she said: 'Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.'

At one point in Trump's campaign he said he could reject the result of the election if he lost to Clinton.

Speaking during the final televised debate, Mr Trump, who has previously said the election has been rigged against him, raised the possibility he could launch a challenge to the results.
A farm boy's life has been changed after people pointed out his incredible resemblance to a Chinese tech tycoon who is worth $27 billion.

Eight-year-old Fan Xiaoqin is now an internet star in China because he looks like Jack Ma, a self-made CEO and China's second richest man according to Forbes.

The founder of the world's largest e-commerce platform, Alibaba, has allegedly offered to sponsor the boy, whose family is too poor to afford his education, according to Chinese media.

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Fan Xiaoqin (left) is now an internet star in China because he looks like tycoon Jack Ma (right)

Fan, or 'Mini Ma', became famous after a video of him was shared this week on Miaopai.

The video post claimed that his family was extremely poor.

It's believed that Fan lives in Yongfeng County in south-east China, according to China Daily.

The report also said that the boy was not able to go to school like his peers because of his family's poor financial situation.

The seven-second-long video was filmed by another resident of Yongfeng County who was shocked by the boy's resemblance to Ma.

The clip quickly became popular among web users, making Fan an internet star.

Web users even dig out one of Ma's childhood pictures and compared a younger Ma to Fan.

A farm boy's life has been changed after people pointed out his incredible resemblance to Jack Ma (pictured) worth $27 billion

Web users even dig out one of Ma's childhood pictures (right) and compared a younger Ma, standing left in the black-and-white picture, to Fan (left)

According to China Daily, Fan's family is incredibly improvised.

His mother suffered from polio as a child and is blind in one eye.

His father, who is disabled in the leg, is the sole bread winner of the family.

The 59-year-old man told the reporter that he was incapable of providing education to his two sons.

Fan and his elder brother have both passed the school age in China, but neither is able to receive education.

Fan's fortune changed when his likeness to the billionaire was discovered by Chinese web users.

Jack Ma has even said in an email he had sent to his staff that he 'must lend a helping hand' to the boy, reported Eastday.com citing information provided by an insider.

The article also claimed the CEO intended to cover Fan's tuition fees until he finished university.

Jack Ma is a self-made CEO and China's second richest man according to Forbes

He founded Alibaba, the world's largest e-commerce platform and a Nasdaq-listed company

The story has attracted great interests on social media platforms. Thousands of people have left comments to discuss the topic.

One user wrote on QQ.com: 'If there's a biographic film about Jack Ma, [the boy] is definitely the leading actor.'

Another one joked: 'Jack Ma should have a DNA test.'

A third person said: 'I shall get plastic surgery to make myself look like [Jack Ma].'
cstatic to get the doll, the 70-year-old said 'I feel like seeing her again'

A lonely Chinese widower received a long-awaited gift this week - a customised sex doll modelled after his late wife, according to Chinese media.

The 70-year-old man, known as Zhang Wenliang (not his real name), was left heart-broken when his partner of 40 years died of cancer in 2015.

After receiving the silicone doll on Tuesday, an excited Mr Zhang put his late wife's clothes on it and said 'I feel like seeing her again when she was young'.

Zhang, a retired doctor from China, received a sex doll modelled after his late wife (pictured)

The 70-year-old put his late wife's clothes on the doll (pictured) and relaxed with it at home

The doll was given to the heart-broken widower for free after they were touched by his story

According to People's Daily Online, Zhang Wenliang, who lives in the Chinese city of Chongzhou, said 'I am satisfied with the looks of the doll, especially the facial features'.

However, the retired doctor also mentioned he was not 'too sure about its skin colour'.

As Mr Zhang slowly dressed up the doll, he told the reporter: 'The winter is coming. She can not catch cold.'

Pictures taken in Mr Zhang's home have been widely shared by Chinese media, including ifeng.com and china.com.

The images show the man carefully re-arranging the doll's hair and relaxing alongside it in the sitting room.

Mr Zhang and his late wife married for about 40 years and did not have any children.

The man bought his first sex doll (pictured) in 2015 - one month after his wife died of cancer

He said he wanted to live with the sex doll (pictured) in order to remember his deceased wife

He dressed up the doll like his late wife and talked to it (pictured) daily to cope with his sorrow

This is the second sex doll the widower has owned after his wife passed away in August, 2015.

A month after her death, the man spent 16,000 Yuan (1,901) - around seven times the average monthly pension in China - purchasing a sex doll to fill the void left by his late partner.

The doll was reportedly capable of making sounds and it could be temperature controlled.

However, the man was left devastated again when the sex doll broke with in a year. Feeling angry, Mr Zhang had threatened to sue the manufacturer.

Around the same time, Exdoll, another sex doll manufacturer, offered to customise a figure for Mr Zhang for free after reading his story on the Chinese media.

Mr Yang, who is the business director of Exdoll, told MailOnline: 'We were moved by Mr Yang's love and devotion to his late wife, so we decided to give him a gift.'

The 5ft 3in doll is based on the looks of Mr Zhang's late wife when she was about 40 years old.

Mr Yang said Mr Zhang had sent them some pictures of the woman to refer to. He added that she looked like a 'gentle' woman in the pictures.

It took the manufacturer, based in Dalian in north-east China, around a month to make the doll before having it delivered to the man's home in south-west China on November 8.

However, Mr Zhang was left devastated again when the sex doll (pictured) broke a year later

Feeling angry, Mr Zhang had threatened to sue the seller over the quality of the doll (pictured)

Mr Zhang's decision to fashion a sex doll after his late wife has sparked an outcry in China, with many people feeling shocked by his behaviour.

Zhang Xiaoqiong, a psychologist from Chengdu, described Mr Zhang's mental state as 'stable' after a free consultation with him in August.

Ms Zhang told Chengdu.cn that 'his looks, mental state and way of acting showed that his recognition, behaviour and the ability to adapt to the society were very normal'.

Ms Zhang added: 'He had spent 40 years living with his wife. He was used to couple life. When his wife suddenly passed away, his life lost balance, so he chose to use the object to fill the void.

'If he did not have a replacement like this, it would not be good for him in terms of the release of negative emotion.'

Another sex doll seller offered to give the man a new doll after his first one (pictured) broke

Mr Yang, from Exdoll, said the Chinese market is yet to fully accept the concept of sex dolls.

He explained: 'My company produces around 5,000 sex dolls every year and many of them are exported to Europe, Japan and Australia.

'However, in China the market is still opening up.'

When Exdoll first started business in 2012, they had customers from big Chinese cities and in southern part of China where people were more open minded, according to Mr Yang.

In recent years, rich businessmen from smaller cities have grown to accept the concept, he added.
Neo-Nazis have horrified politicians and churchmen in Germany by publishing a list on the 78th anniversary of the infamous 'Kristallnacht' pogrom of Jewish-owned firms in Berlin.

The far-right extremists produced a street plan on Facebook with the names and addresses of 70 Jewish shops, stores, restaurants, kindergartens and even cemeteries on the occasion of the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

'Today is such a beautiful day!' was the headline at the top of the social site posting, referring to November 9, 1938, when Hitler gave orders for Jews and their businesses to be targetted by the mob.

Jews were targeted in a night of violence 78 year ago which experts believe was the first step on the path to the Holocaust

The state organised nationwide riots while claiming they were spontaneous acts by the people. Across Germany synagogues burned, Jewish shops looted, Jewish gravestones smashed and hundreds of Jews arrested and killed.

The name Kristallnacht - or Night of Broken Glass - took its name from the shards of windows that had been smashed which littered the streets the next day. It is widely seen as Nazi Germany's first step along the road to the Jewish Holocaust which would claim six million lives.

According to Nazi watchdog groups the neo-Nazis have become more brazen in their propaganda since the refugee crisis began in Germany 18 months ago.

Hitler ordered mobs to target Jews and their businesses on November 9, 1938

'This is an attack on us all, on our open society,' said Green Party parliamentary deputy Volker Beck. Churchmen and Jewish organisations also condemned the posting intended to once more fuel resentment against Jews.

'It is a deliberate and indefencible provocation,' he added.

Piled up synagogue furnishings being burned following Hitler's incitement to followers to attack Jews and their businesses

The neo-Nazi group behind the post even included the Holocaust Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe which stands near to the city's most famous tourist site, the Brandenburg Gate.

A spokesman for the memorial said: 'We find it unbearable. The list reminds us opf list of Jewish businesses the Nazi made up in the 1930's of businesses to boycott.'

The new street plan and list is being examined by prosecutors, but because it does not actually contain any hate speech it is unlikely that the authors can be prosecuted.

Chancellor Angela Merkel warned against hate at a remembrance service to mark the anniversary of the infamous night

Chancellor Angela Merkel attended a remembrance service at Munich's Ohel-Jakob-Synagogue on Wednesday evening for the victims of Kristallnacht in which she warned that people must beware of hate - both on the streets and on the Internet.

'We bow in deep mourning before the victims', said Mrs. Merkel. 'The events of that night were harbingers for the largest genocide in the history of mankind'.

At the same time she paid tribute to the Jewish communities who later stretched out the 'hand of reconciliation' to Germans.
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Donald Trump's transition from a flashy businessman and reality TV star to the President of the United States is keeping the security services busy.

A no-fly zone was imposed over his home and workplace, Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue in New York on November 9.

The Federal Aviation Administration edict bans any aircraft in a two mile radius within 3,000ft of the 58-story building, which was the setting of the NBC television show The Apprentice and is not only Trump's main residence but is also a tourist hotspot.

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Shut down: One lane of traffic outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue will be closed while 56th street has been closed off between 5th and Madison

Security operation: Police officers help to install concrete barriers around Trump Tower, the home of President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday

Threats: A row of sand-filled sanitation trucks have been parked in a barricade in front of the skyscraper to try and insure against car bomb attacks

The flight ban will re-route many helicopter tours of the city, limit the work of media helicopters as well as re-routing commercial aircraft. Drones are also banned

Military, police emergency and secret service flights are exempt from the ban.

Mashable reports that the change could cause flight delays out of LaGuardia Airport.

Flights are also limited over Vice President Mike Pence's Indianapolis home.

The no-fly zone will be in play until Trump's inauguration on Friday 20 January, 2017, when he will move into the White House.

The new President: Trump pumps his fist during his election night rally when he shocked the world by winning the race to the White House

On Guard: Members of the New York Police Department's Counterterrorism Bureau stand watch outside Trump Tower earlier this week

Buffer: A cyclist rides by a row of sanitation trucks filled with sand acting as barricades along Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower in Manhattan on Tuesday

Police presence: Various NYPD officers can be seen patrolling Trump Tower

Meanwhile, on the ground, police officers have helped to install concrete barriers around the Tower.

A row of sanitation trucks filled with sand have been acting as barricades along Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th streets since Monday in order to protect the tower against car bombs.

A no-fly zone has been imposed around Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue, New York

Sources said one lane of traffic that passes the Tower is expected to remain closed to prevent car bomb attacks.

An NYPD checkpoint is also in operation outside the building while 56th street between Fifth and Madison is closed to traffic.

On Thursday, heavily-armed officers could be seen around the president-elect's home while Trump himself visited the White House.

Trump and Melania, departed from LaGuardia airport in New York at 9.36am on his personal aircraft and arrived at Ronald Reagan National Airport just after 10.30am.

Following the meeting, Obama said that he had an 'excellent conversation' with Trump.

Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, owner of the New York Observer and a senior adviser to the president-elect's campaign, was also in tow.

People who work and live inside Trump Tower will also now be vetted by the Secret Service, the New York Daily News reports.

And elevator routes will also be altered to stop people accessing Trump's personal floors.

'Obviously, Trump Tower is not like a house in the suburbs or the country. It's a tourist location, with businesses and apartments inside, people coming in and out at all hours,' a source told the New York Daily News.

The glass building is one of New York's most visited attractions since its completion in 1983.

If Hillary Clinton had won the election, these additional security measures would not have been needed as her Chappaqua home is already deemed safe from when it acted as a presidential home for husband Bill.

Trump first received a Secret Service detail after requesting one in November 2015.

Clinton already had protection because of her status as a former first lady.

Heavily armed: Officers have been patrolling the area during the election but security measures have stepped up since Trump's shock victory

Hotspot: Trump Tower has long been a tourist attraction

Donald Trump is pictured here with wife Melania inside his lavish, gold coated penthouse apartment in Trump Tower in 2003

Elevator routes in Trump Tower will be altered to stop people accessing Trump's personal floors where he lives and works

When Trump and his family move into The White House in January, 10-year-old Barron Trump will be the youngest presidential son to reside in the executive mansion since John F. Kennedy, Jr.

The White House has been home to only presidential daughters since JFK, Jr., whose father was assassinated just before his 3rd birthday in 1963.

Kennedy's son broke a long drought of boys living in The White House. He was the first since Quentin and Archie Roosevelt lived there beginning in 1901.

Outside Trump Tower on Thursday, protesters gathered with signs reading 'Dump Trump'.

At least 30 people were arrested when cops cracked down on twin demonstrations in Columbus Circle and at Trump Tower.

As many as 7,500 protesters were believed to have been split between the two locations, chanting 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Donald Trump, go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay.'

Cher and Madonna were among the NYC protesters, with Cher telling one supporter they needed to 'fight.'

Concrete barriers arrive for placement around Trump Tower on Wednesday to stop attacks on the building

Donald Trump elected as America's 45th president, will end eight years of Democratic control of the White House

It's believed one lane along Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower will remain closed

Members of the New York Police Department's Counterterrorism Bureau stand guard outside Trump Tower

It wasn't just New York that saw violence break out overnight. Tens of thousands of people across the country marched against the President-elect before angry mobs attacked police, started fires and shut down highways.

The streets of downtown Oakland in California were choked with smoke Thursday as police launched tear gas and protesters lit fires, in what became by some distance the most violent of the many protests.

More than 6,000 protesters were seen on the streets of Oakland with an initially peaceful march down a cop-lined street turning nasty after some protesters threw bottles at officers and torched a police car. An office block was also attacked, daubed with 'f*** Trump' and 'kill Trump' graffiti and then set alight.

And thousands more filled streets in Los Angeles before taking over the 110 Freeway while other protesters gathered outside City Hall, lighting fires and waving Trump heads on sticks. There were 14 arrests.

Trump's poll-defying win has sparked a wave of similar rallies in Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; and San Francisco, California, among many others.

Outside the White House, a candlelit vigil was being held in protest against Mr Trump's inflammatory and divisive brand of politics. But even peaceful protests in that city went awry, with at least one protester being bundled into the back of a van by the Secret Service.

Musician Lady Gaga stages a protest against Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City after midnight on election day

Protesters gathered outside Trump Tower as Trump's poll-defying win sparked a wave of similar rallies across the country

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters hit the streets in NYC chanting 'Not My President'

Outside Trump Tower on protesters gathered with signs reading 'Dump Trump' and 'Not My President'

Tens of thousands of people across the country marched against the President-elect before angry mobs attacked police, started fires and shut down highways

Police investigate a fire lit by protesters inside a building during an anti-Trump protest in Oakland, California

A man sprays lighter fluid on a burning trash fire at an intersection during an anti-Trump protest in Oakland

People march and shout during an anti-Trump protest in Oakland, California on November 9

A man tries to remove 'Kill Trump' graffiti as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California

A protester shoots fireworks at police officers during rioting in Oakland which turned violent

In another step towards Trump taking office, his transition team has launched a new website and Twitter account for him.

Visitors to greatagain.gov can find information on Trump's polices as well as biographical information about the Republican.

The website also includes a notice that it's looking to fill 4,000 slots for presidential appointees, but doesn't have instructions on how to apply for positions.

The transition team's Twitter account, @transition2017, posted its first tweet Wednesday night. It reads: 'Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream.'

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is leading Trump's transition team.
The outcome of the US presidential election marks the end of a period of 'liberal non-democracy' that has been mainstream for the past two decades, according to the Hungarian Prime Minister.

Having already pledged his allegiance to Donald Trump, Viktor Orban has described today as the 'second day of a historic event' in which the West has 'successfully broken free from the confines of an ideology'.

The conservative leader said the Republican winning the race to the White House was the catalyst for society to 'return to real democracy.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (pictured) has congratulated Donald Trump on his victory over 'deadly' Hillary Clinton

In July he became the first European head of state to express a clear preference for Republican Donald Trump, who bagged a surprise victory over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton yesterday.

The pair have plenty in common with both having been criticised for their friendly approach towards Russia.

Mr Orban said: 'This is the second day of a historic event, in which Western civilisation appears to successfully break free from the confines of an ideology.

'We are living in the days where what we call liberal non-democracy - in which we lived for the past 20 years - ends, and we can return to real democracy.'

What a great news. Democracy is still alive,' Orban wrote on his Facebook page following Donald Trump's unprecedented election victory. Pictured: Trump on stage with his running mate Mike Pence

Orban, whose speech two years ago on building an 'illiberal state' earned him rebukes from the domestic opposition and some foreign capitals, said the time was ripe for politicians to break the shackles of political correctness.

The combative 53-year-old premier has clashed several times with European Union authorities over reforms affecting the independence of the judiciary and the central bank.

His razor-wire border fence to stem the flow of migrants from the Middle East last year drew criticism from human rights groups.

'We can call problems by their name and find solutions not derived from an ideology but based on pragmatic, creative thinking rooted in common sense,' Orban said.

'We are two days after the big bang and still alive,' he said.

'What a wonderful world. This also shows that democracy is creative and innovative.'

Orban said Trump's victory, like Britons' decision to leave the European Union, represented an important shift in global popular thinking.

'Brexit is not a tragedy, even remotely,' Orban said.

'It is not a defeat, but an attempt by a great nation to make itself successful in other ways than what everyone else had considered the path to success.'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who welcomed refugees to her country, has offered President-elect Donald Trump (pictured) 'close cooperation'

The Hungarian Prime Minister yesterday congratulated Donald Trump on his victory over 'deadly' Hillary Clinton.

'What a great news. Democracy is still alive,' Viktor Orban wrote on his Facebook page following Donald Trump's unprecedented election victory.

Orban said Trump's foreign policies were 'vital' for his nation and branded Clinton's plans 'deadly'.
Abdirashid Boos has been jailed for life for stabbing a stranger to death outside a house party in an attack which lasted 19 seconds

A killer who stabbed a stranger to death in a random attack at a house party grinned as he was jailed for life.

Abdirashid Boos ran up to charity fundraiser Ahmed Mohammed outside a party in south Manchester in March and knifed him three times in an attack which lasted just 19 seconds.

As Mr Mohammed, 20, lay bleeding to death on the pavement, Boos fled with his brother to Liverpool and booked flights to Amsterdam. He was arrested the following day as he was about to fly out of the UK.

Boos, 23, smiled in the dock at Manchester Crown Court this week, and used his fingers to pretend to a fire a gun as he was jailed for a minimum of 23 years after being found guilty of murder.

Judge David Stockdale QC told him: 'This was a calculated, cold-blooded act, planned and executed with a clinical ruthlessness and efficiency. Your weapon of choice was a knife and Ahmed did not stand a chance.

'In no more than 19 seconds you confronted him, stabbed him three times and departed - and that is a measure of the ruthlessness of your attack on him.

'He did nothing to provoke the attack which was premeditated and an intention was to kill. Whatever the motive, you are a highly dangerous young man and a man who generates fear.'

Charity fundraiser Ahmed Mohammed was outside the party when he was suddenly attacked

Mr Mohammed - who was nicknamed Mudi - was well known in the Moss Side area for raising money for good causes in the area and was respected in the community.

The daylight killing occurred on March 22 after Boos and his older brother Abdirahman, 25, arrived at a party and told guests: 'Something's going down'.

He then confronted Ahmed, shouting and swearing before he stabbed him repeatedly. He then jumped into a waiting Citroen C1 car. Abdirahman made a gun gesture as he drove away in another vehicle.

The victim suffered huge blood loss and died less than half an hour later in hospital. Prosecutor Anne Whyte QC, prosecuting, said: 'This killing was a spontaneous call to arms by Abdirashid Boos.'

Boos's brother Abdirashid made a gun gesture after the attack - his brother made a similar gesture as he was jailed this week

The brothers went to Liverpool where the Citroen was torched and arrangements were made to fly to the Netherlands. The pair were then taken to Leeds but were arrested before they could flee the UK. Flight tickets to Amsterdam due to be used the following day were seized.

Abdirahman got six years jail for his part in the crime. Two others, Adnan Mohammed, 20, and Kaz Johnson, 30, each got four years after they were convicted of assisting or encouraging an offender.

In a statement Mr Mohammed's family said: 'Listening to the evidence of Mudi's last moments has been the hardest thing we have had to endure as a family.

'But we take comfort from the fact that the evidence acknowledges that Mudi was a greatly respected young man, a caring and loving soul, who always put others before himself.

'The events leading up to his murder showed what a cruel and callous attack this was on Mudi and has shown that he was unable to defend himself against such vicious force, making the acts of these perpetrators deplorable and cowardly.

'It is clear that Mudi did not deserve what he had been subjected to on that appalling day.

The attacked happened in Crondall Street in Moss Side, Manchester in March this year

The family added: 'We came to court to seek answers from those who have been accused of this sickening crime but none of them have shown any remorse towards Mudi or his family. This was typified from their attitude and demeanour throughout the last five weeks.

'Mudi was a young man full of energy and zest for life. In that short life, he was dedicated to serving his family and the community whether it was raising money for charities in Manchester or helping other young people growing up in our community.

'We have now lost that light and our lives have been thrown into darkness. Our family has been left empty and no words can accurately express the feelings of our loss.

'As a family we would never wish this nightmare upon anyone and would urge everyone in our great community to remain calm, as senseless violence brings nothing but prolonged pain and suffering for so many lives.'

Adnan Mohammed (left) and Kaz Johnson (right) were jailed for assisting an offender

Det Insp Kev O'Regan, from Greater Manchester Police said after the case: 'We continue to think of Ahmed's family who are understandably still devastated by their loss.

'It is every parent's worst nightmare to lose a child and although these sentences won't make that pain go away I hope it provides them with some comfort and closure. Their courage throughout this case has been commendable and I would like to thank them for their continued help.
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Daredevil divers have gotten up close and personal with monster great white sharks to snap jaw-dropping selfies.

Images show 4.5-metre great whites weighing 450 kilograms swimming up to flash a toothy-grin for divers guided by Calypso Star Charters in Port Lincoln, off the coast of South Australia.

The company said a good shark selfie was no mean feat and required a great deal of patience and luck.

But as the photographs show, the final product is guaranteed to make a splash on social media.

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Crunch time: A diver gets up close and personal with a monster Great White shark in Port Lincoln, South Australia

Jaw-inspiring: The 4.5 metre, 450kg Great Whites swims up close to flash a toothy-grin for a diver

Calypso Star Charters is hoping to tackle some of the stigma that follows the apex predators, who they say have a softer side.

'We are very lucky to see them as often as we do appreciate how magnificent they are. It is great seeing all the photos from our charters and see the sharks' different personalities. They are so misunderstood,' said Calypso Star Charters Social Media and Marketing Manager Nicol Wright.

'Many people fear Great White Sharks. As part of our tour we hope to change people's perceptions and turn them into appreciation of how amazing the sharks really are.'

The photographs have surfaced just weeks after two nightmarish incidents near Guadalupe Island, Mexico, which saw great white sharks break into the cages of two divers, both of whom escaped unharmed.

You can book a Calypso shark cage here.

Say cheese: The company said a good shark selfie is no mean feat, and require a great deal of patience and luck

Gentle giant: Calypso Star is hoping to change people's perceptions about the apex predators, who they say are beautiful and carry a host of colourful personalities

Barely behind bars: This thrillseeking diver gets too close for comfort with the apex predator

A young diver flashes a thumbs up during a close encounter with a massive Great White

These shots, taken underwater, reveal just how close the encounters were with these mighty ocean predators

The company hopes to change people's attitude towards Great White sharks by showing them their softer side
A Victorian man who has been cleared of murdering his girlfriend's two-year-old daughter told a neighbour the day before her death 'sometimes [he] felt like beating the s*** out of her'.

A jury found John Clifford Torney, 32, not guilty on Thursday of killing his de-facto stepdaughter Nikki Francis-Coslovich on August 25 last year in her mother's Mildura home, in north-west Victoria.

Mr Torney maintained his innocence throughout the three-week murder trial and insisted Nikki's mother, Peta Ann Francis, killed the toddler, but told police he helped hide the body in the roof.

Now the trial is over, testimony from neighbours depicting Mr Torney as an alleged violent ice user presented to the court during a pre-trial hearing has been revealed by The Age.

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John Torney, who was cleared on Thursday of murdering his girlfriend's two-year-old daughter Nikki Francis-Coslovich last year, was violent toward the toddler, neighbour said

Mr Torney accused his ex-girlfriend Peta Ann Francis (pictured) of murdering her daughter before asking him to hide her body in the roof cavity. Ms Francis has not been charged and police do not believe she killed her daughter

The battered body of Nikki Francis-Coslovich (pictured) was found by police inside the roof cavity of her mother's home in Mildura, north-west Victoria

Neighbour Jermayne Kennedy testified visited Mr Torney the day before Nikki was killed and heard him tell the toddler to 'shut the f*** up you little c***', a court heard.

Mr Torney allegedly told Mr Kennedy Nikki 'does his head in'.

'Sometimes I feel like belting the s*** out of her,' Mr Kennedy claims Mr Torney told him.

Mr Kennedy's testimony was ruled inadmissible for the murder trial as it was not relevant to the issue of guilt or innocence in the trial.

Nikki-lee Caton, another neighbour of Mr Torney, said during a pre-trial hearing she had seen him swear at Nikki and he had allegedly asked her where to get any 'old time speed' or ice.

'I have never seen him use ice ... [but] I can pick a junkie a mile away and he is definitely one,' she said, according to The Age.

It is alleged during the time of Nikki's murder, Mr Torney was coming down after binging speed for his birthday five days earlier, the Herald Sun reported.

Now that the trial is over, testimony from neighbours depicting Mr Torney as an alleged violent ice user presented to the court during a pre-trial hearing is open to the public

Mr Torney's mother testified her son had violence issues but that they did not relate to children.

He was arrested 13 years ago for attacking a police officer with a hammer, for which he was sentenced to eight months jail, but it was suspended.

At the time of Nikki's death, Mr Torney was receiving treatment for anger management at a local medical clinic, the Herald Sun reported.

Mr Torney was escorted from Mildura Magistrates court by two uniformed police officers on Thursday afternoon after he was acquitted, showing off tattooed arms as he wore a tightly-fitting black singlet and held a plastic bag filled with his belongings.

Supporters were seen looking solemn outside of the Supreme Court after hearing the verdict

The pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Nikki said the fatal blunt force trauma injuries inflicted on her were akin to those seen in high-speed vehicle accidents or a fall from a great height.

Nikki died as a result of repeated blows to her abdomen and chest.

Her liver was split in several places, and she lost between a quarter and a third of her total blood volume.

The Crown said the damage was caused by the repeated infliction of a clenched fist to the abdomen and chest of the child.

During the trial, Mr Torney accused his ex-girlfriend, Ms Francis, of murdering her daughter before asking him to hide her body in the roof cavity.

The court also heard Mr Torney claimed Ms Francis demanded sex from him shortly after the toddler was murdered.

In a video played to the jury, Mr Torney had claimed he 'freaked out' and hid Nikki's body in the roof because he wanted her to be found quickly.

Torney had been dating Ms Francis for about five months at the time of Nikki's death.

Torney was followed by media carrying a plastic bag filled with his belongings after the supreme court sitting at Mildura Magistrates Court

Three supporters linked arms after the not guilty verdict was handed down

The court previously heard secret recordings from an undercover police officer named 'Steph' who befriended Ms Francis, The Age reported.

In the audio, Ms Francis was heard speaking to 'Steph' about having to 'get her story right' when asked about irregularities in her explanation of events.

After parts of the recording played in court, Mr Torney's lawyer asked the mother if she was a 'clever, cunning person'. Ms Francis disagreed.

She was also suggested to have sounded 'emotionless' while talking about her dead daughter.

Ms Francis agreed, but said it was because she'd shut out her emotions.

Then, referencing emotion exhibited before the court, Mr Torney's lawyer suggested Ms Francis was manipulative in order to get sympathy from the jury, but the woman rejected the suggestion.

Throught the three-week murder trail in the Victorian Supreme Court he maintained his innocence

Nikki died as a result of repeated blows to her abdomen and chest (pictured is a scene outside of the court on Wednesday afternoon)

Torney had been dating Ms Francis for about five months at the time of Nikki's death

The court also heard Sergeant Kaare Anderson, who responded to the missing person report, thought it was 'very odd' that Ms Francis was smiling and appeared happy when telling police her daughter was missing.

A recording of her triple zero call to report Nikki missing also revealed her giggling while she spoke to the operator.

Ms Francis told the trial 'having the cops at my house makes me nervous'.

'It's a nervous smirk that I have,' Ms Francis said.

She denied Ms Condon's assertion that she referred to her daughter as 'the little cow'.

Ms Francis had told the court earlier she sometimes psychically disciplined her children but never laid a hand on her two-year-old daughter.

'Not hard, it was just a tap. I've never hurt my children,' Ms Francis said.

Ms Francis has not been charged and police do not believe she killed her daughter.

JOHN TORNEY'S CONFESSION TO POLICE Police: Gerard said you wanted to speak to us about something? John Torney: Yep. Police: What's the go? Mr Torney: Peta killed Nikki. The mother killed her. Police: Her mother killed her? Mr Torney: Yeah. Later in the conversation Police: What are the circumstances John? Mr Torney: She killed her, then asked me to help her get rid of the body. Police: How did this all take place? Mr Torney: It was whilst we were laying down on the bed that she goes: 'I've gone a bit too far with Nikki' and then 'she's dead'. Later Police: Did she say how, or? Mr Torney: She just said that she threw her on the bed, that, that could I help her get rid of the body... Police: OK, and what did you do? Mr Torney: I put Nikki in the manhole. It's eating me up inside. I can't hold back anymore. I've got to get it out. Later Police: When did you decide to that you'd come clean and tell us what actually happened? Mr Torney: I've been wanting to tell youse for the last two days. Police: Mmm. Mr Torney: I've been having nightmares, waking up in hot and cold sweats. I've got to get it off my chest. Police: Mmm. Mr Torney: It's killing me inside. I loved that little girl like she was my own. Advertisement




Donald Trump has finally taken a congratulatory call from Theresa May in the wake of his seismic victory in the US Presidential battle.

The billionaire hailed his 'very, very special' bond with Britain as he spoke to the PM this afternoon.

Mr Trump also extended an invitation to visit Washington 'as soon as possible'.

But the incoming commander-in-chief had already talked to leaders from at least nine other countries including Turkey, Egypt and Ireland - causing speculation over a snub.

The President-elect is in the early stages of a huge round of calls to world leaders to mark his election. He is due to speak to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.

Hopes have been raised that Donald Trump's election could herald a deepening of the special relationship between the US and UK

Theresa May made a statement welcoming Mr Trump's victory and has sent him a letter, but was behind nine other leaders in the queue of telephone calls

Hopes have been raised that the Republican is keen to strengthen ties, after he dismissed Barack Obama's jibe that we will be at the 'back of the queue' for a trade deal with the US after Brexit.

But there could be lingering tensions over the furious reaction to Mr Trump's suggestion at the end of last year that muslims could be barred from America to cut the risk of terrorism.

The comments were roundly condemned by David Cameron as 'stupid', while Mrs May branded them 'divisive and wrong'.

There was a further row when Mr Trump claimed parts of London were 'no go zones' because of extremism.

Mrs May has welcomed Mr Trump's victory and insisted she wants to work with him to deepen the special relationship.

THE LEADERS TRUMP TOOK CALLS FROM FIRST Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny: Mr Trump hailed the 'strong ties' between the two countries and invited Mr Kenny to attend the St Patrick's Day celebrations next year. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Mr Erdogan expressed hope that there can be a resetting of relations between their countries. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu: The President-elect invited him to visit the US 'at the first opportunity'. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi: A statement issued by the Egyptian presidency said: 'The U.S. President-elect Donald Trump expressed his utmost appreciation to the president, pointing out that his was the first international call he had received to congratulate him on winning the election.' South Korean President Park Geun-hye: Mr Trump told the premier: 'We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea.' Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull: The conversation with Mr Trump was described as 'constructive and practical'. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto: They had a 'cordial, friendly and respectful' conversation. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi: The leaders agreed they wanted to take their 'strategic partnership to a new height'. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe: The premier told Mr Trump he was convinced that 'America will be made even greater'. Advertisement

Last night she sent a letter to the president-elect reiterating her desire to foster ties.

Downing Street said this morning that they would be speaking at the 'earliest opportunity'.

And it was later confirmed that the leaders chatted on the phone at around 1.45pm.

The President-elect - who formally takes office in January - invited Mrs May to visit as soon as possible.

A No10 spokesman said: 'The Prime Minister and President-elect Trump agreed that the US-UK relationship was very important and very special, and that building on this would be a priority for them both.

'President-elect Trump set out his close and personal connections with, and warmth for, the UK. He said he was confident that the special relationship would go from strength to strength.

'The Prime Minister expressed her commitment to building and expanding the UK's relationships around the world, particularly after the referendum vote, and the importance of our partnership with the US.

'She noted President-elect Trump's commitment in his acceptance speech to uniting people across America, which she said is a task we all need to focus on globally.

'The Prime Minister said that we have a long history of shared values and added that she looked forward to that continuing in the future.

'She highlighted her wish to strengthen bilateral trade and investment with the US as we leave the EU.

'But she said that our relationship is so much more than that and our two countries have always stood together as close allies when it counts the most. President-elect Trump strongly agreed and added that the UK is a "very, very special place for me and for our country".'

Chancellor Philip Hammond said the apparent delay in the call between Mrs May and Mr Trump was because they had no urgent business to discuss.

Boris Johnson, pictured today in Belgrade with his counterpart Ivica Dacic, will be waiting to hear who Mr Trump will appoint as his Secretary of State

Mr Johnson is on a one-day visit to Serbia and today called for continued talks between Kosovo and Serbia

But he said the 'special relationship' between the UK and US was 'alive and well' and 'strong and deep'.

Speaking after talks with Chinese counterparts at Lancaster House, central London, Mr Hammond said: 'We do not have any urgent business that we need to transact.

'Obviously, in due course the Prime Minister will be looking forward to meeting Mr Trump once he is inaugurated as the president.

'I expect that the very strong and close relationship that always develops between a UK prime minister and US president will develop between those two.'

Ukip leader Nigel Farage today made an extraordinary offer to become Mrs May's conduit to the new administration, after he formed an unlikely friendship with the property mogul during the US campaign.

Mr Trump has described his bombshell victory over Hillary Clinton this week as 'Brexit plus plus plus'.

Nigel Farage is planning to meet President-elect Donald Trump in New York on Saturday and deliver a speech in Florida, the key state that helped send him to the White House. Pictured, Mr Trump addresses his supporters in New York after being elected the 45th President yesterday

The Ukip figurehead said it was vital the pair form a close partnership and told his ally Mr Trump to 'come and schmooze Theresa, but added: 'Don't touch her, for goodness sake'.

Continuing the quip, he said he could 'be there as the responsible adult to make sure everything is OK.'

The distasteful joke was in reference to last month's revelations that Mr Trump had boasted that stars like him can 'do anything' to women, including grabbing them 'by the p***y'.

Former Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith suggested in an article today that Mrs May and Mr Trump could forge an alliance along the lines of that between Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s.

He urged ministers not to 'indulge in an orgy of complaint' that has characterised many UK responses to the Republican's triumph yesterday.

Instead Theresa May should 'engage with the new administration in a positive way' and 'reinvigorate' our relationship with America, the former Tory leader wrote in an article on the ConservativeHome website.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured left) spoke to Mr Trump, and said his election could be a chance to reset relations with the US. South Korean President Park Geun-hye also had a conversation with the President-elect

Mr Trump had already managed to have conversations with Irish premier Enda Kenny, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt.

He has also spoken to leaders of Mexico, Israel, India, Japan, Australia and South Korea.

In their phone call, Mr Erdogan expressed his hope that there can be a resetting of relations between their countries.

TRUMP VICTORY GIVES US THE CHANCE TO REPAIR THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP - IDS Donald Trump's election as US President gives Britain the chance to repair the 'special relationship,' former Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said today. He urged ministers not to 'indulge in an orgy of complaint' that has characterised many UK responses to the Republican's triumph yesterday. Instead Theresa May should 'engage with the new administration in a positive way' and 'reinvigorate' our relationship with America, the former Tory leader wrote in an article on the ConservativeHome website. Mr Duncan Smith, who served as Work and Pensions Secretary in David Cameron's government, said the 'special relationship' had come under strain with President Obama in the White House but said of Mr Trump's victory: 'This is where an opportunity opens up for the UK. 'Notwithstanding the fact that we are bound on a course that takes us out of the EU, we should seize this opportunity to engage the new administration and remind them of our enduring friendship in good times and in bad. 'A positive tone of support and assistance will reinvigorate a relationship which has the potential to help us both.' Advertisement

Describing his conversation with Mr Trump, Mr Kenny's spokesman said: 'The president-elect confirmed to the Taoiseach that in the spirit of the strong ties between the two countries, the long-standing tradition of Taoisigh attending the White House for St Patrick's Day celebrations would continue and extended an invitation to the Taoiseach in that regard for next year, 2017.'

After Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Mr Trump on the phone yesterday, a statement issued by his office said: 'President-elect Trump invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to a meeting in the United States at the first opportunity.'

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi spoke to Mr Trump yesterday. A statement issued by the Egyptian presidency said: 'The U.S. President-elect Donald Trump expressed his utmost appreciation to the president, pointing out that his was the first international call he had received to congratulate him on winning the election.

'President Trump said he looked forward to meeting the president soon.'

Mr Trump is said to have told South Korean President Park Geun-hye: 'We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea.'

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described his conversation with Trump yesterday as 'constructive and practical'.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto congratulated Mr Trump on his election in a phone call last night. He said it was a 'cordial, friendly and respectful' chat.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr Trump agreed that they wanted to take their 'strategic partnership to a new height'.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Mr Trump he was convinced that 'America will be made even greater'.

In his discussion with Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny Mr Trump hailed the 'strong ties' between the two countries and invited him to attend the St Patrick's Day celebrations next year

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Mr Trump are said to have had a 'cordial, friendly and respectful' conversation. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was the first leader to speak to Mr Trump after his victory yesterday

Nigel Farage, pictured in Barcelona yesterday, has told Theresa May he can be her link to Donald Trump as the UK Government scrambles to smooth relations with the President-elect. Mr Farage joined the billionaire on stage at a rally in Jackson, Mississippi in August

OSBORNE GETS CAUGHT UP IN ANTI-TRUMP PROTEST IN US George Osborne tweeted a picture from Manhattan last night where he was caught up in an anti-Trump protest George Osborne witnessed first-hand the anger at the election of Donald Trump after getting caught up in the middle of a protest in New York last night. He tweeted a picture of a group of youngsters carrying placards voicing their opposition to the controversial Republican, who shocked the world by beating Democrat Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's election. The picture, taken in Manhattan last night, shows one protester holding a sign showing Mr Trump's face next to Adolf Hitler's along with the words: 'History is about to repeat'. Mr Osborne, who backed Hillary Clinton in the election campaign, tweeted: 'Came across this anti-Trump protest here in New York last night - can't help wondering how many of them voted.' Since being sacked as Chancellor by Theresa May in the summer Mr Osborne has joined the lucrative after-dinner speaking circuit, charging up to 70,000 per appearance and has made several trips to the US. New entries in Mr Osborne's parliamentary register of interests last week revealed he was expecting to receive 69,992 from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association in Washington for speeches totalling one-and-a-half hours on September 27 and October 18. And he was also due to be paid 28,454.40 for a speech on October 17 to the Hoover Institution at California's Stanford University. Travel and accommodation expenses were also being covered by Mr Osborne's hosts. In his final days as Chancellor in May he defied the convention that British politicians do not express their preferences on elections abroad by revealing his support for Mrs Clinton. Asked who he wanted to win the presidential race, Mr Osborne said: 'We look forward to working with whoever the next president is, whoever she may be.' Advertisement




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The crumbling ruins of an 800-year-old castle bombed by the British Army could have a new lease of life.

The remains of Cavers Castle, near Hawick in the Scottish Borders, are on the market for just 300,000.

It was bombed in a demolition by explosives exercise in 1953 after its owners could no longer afford the upkeep.

But it could now become a luxury family home - if the buyer can put in another 1million to make it habitable.

Unusual purchase The crumbling remains of Cavers Castle, near Hawick, in the Scottish Borders, are on the market for a knockdown price of just 300,000 - but buyers should reckon on sinking another 1million into it to make it habitable

Falling down: The vast castle, originally set in more than 100,000 acres, was home to the Douglas family, one of Scotlands most famous clans, until 1878. But after the Second World War the owners could not meet the crippling costs of its upkeep

Blown up: The British Army's Royal Engineers used the castle for a 'demolition by explosives' exercise in 1953, and the stones and mortar of the five-storey south east wing - including walls that are 11ft thick - are more or less all that remain

Historic building: Over the centuries almost all the land was sold off, but the castle still nestles in 11 wooded acres, including what in believed to be the oldest chestnut tree in Britain, dating back to 1603

The vast 64-room castle was home to the Douglas family, one of Scotlands most famous clans, until 1878.

But after the Second World War the owners were unable to meet the crippling costs of its upkeep.

So in return for tax and death duty exemptions, they allowed the Royal Engineers to demolish it in 1953.

The stones and mortar of the five-storey south east wing - including 11ft-thick walls - are mostly all that remain.

And plans have been drawn up to restore the castle as a breathtaking nine-bedroom home.

The castle, which is on the Scottish Register of Buildings at Risk, was originally set in more than 100,000 acres.

Outbuilding: Some of the surviving stonework of the castle near Hawick in the Scottish Borders is in remarkably good condition, but a gable and chimney stack at the back of the building are in danger of collapsing

Proposals: Architects had drawn up a set of plans to include a swimming pool, gymnasium, library, ballroom and cinema. But the current owners, who bought Cavers Castle eight years ago with a view to restoring it, have since decided to sell it instead

History: The Douglas family, one of Scotlands most famous clans, occupied the castle until 1787, when it passed to a niece because there was no male heir. Mary Malcolm married a Captain Edward Palmer and the castle was then re-modelled

Plans: The crumbling ruins of the 800-year-old castle bombed by the British Army could have a new lease of life

Over the centuries almost all the land was sold off, but the castle still nestles in 11 wooded acres.

ARMY WERE ALLOWED TO BLOW UP CAVERS CASTLE While many castles across Britain have been destroyed during times of war, the end of Cavers Castle was a rather different affair. For the castle was bombed in a demolition by explosives exercise by the Royal Engineers in a special arrangement in 1953 - after its owner James Palmer Douglas, the 23rd Earl of Douglas, could no longer afford the upkeep. The building was handed to the Army for target practice in return for tax and death duty exemptions, but not before there had been a huge sale of all its contents. These included doors, windows, flooring, bathroom fittings and even central heating pipes. The Earl said at the time: I tried to sell it  at any price... but nobody would take it. So now it goes for whatever its insides will fetch as scrap and Ill be left with a ruin. When the Army were allowed to use it for demolition, they were partially successfully in destroying the Victorian section but made little impact on the 11ft-thick walls of the older medieval section. This left the tower house and a few other fragments of the building standing as a reminder of the grand castle that once stood. Advertisement

The land includes what in believed to be the oldest chestnut tree in Britain, dating back to 1603.

Tony Perriam, of Melrose-based estate agents Rettie, said: It was effectively destroyed after the war.

It became uneconomic, so the owners allowed the slates to be ripped off the roof, the stones to be sold.

And then they allowed the British army to "take it down" in return for tax breaks.

Its been left in this state for more than 60 years. Historic Scotland is quite broadminded about plans for the building.

So it could be something more imaginative and contemporary than youd normally expect.

The core of the original tower remains, and a Georgian wing, but much of the 19th century additions have entirely gone.

It would cost a minimum of 750,000 to restore the stone-built core as a home, but a new owner could end up spending significantly more.

He said some of the surviving stonework was in remarkably good condition.

However, a gable and chimney stack at the back of the building were in danger of collapsing.

Architects drew up a set of plans to include a swimming pool, gymnasium, library, ballroom and cinema.

But the current owners, who bought the castle eight years ago with a view to restoring it, have since decided to sell it instead.

Their dream for the site was designed to contrast modern architecture with the existing historic fabric, resulting in a rejuvenated structure that can once again take its place amongst the noteworthy buildings of the Scottish Borders.

The plans they drew up said: Cavers has seen many destructions and reconstructions during its turbulent past.

'With each resurrection has come a reinvention seeing Cavers rebuilt drawing inspiration from the contemporary style of the day.

There is evidence of this architectural evolutionary journey to be found in archives in Edinburgh, in the form of architectural plans and photography.

Original plans: An old dream for the site wanted to contrast modern architecture with the existing historic fabric, resulting in a rejuvenated structure that can once again take its place amongst the noteworthy buildings of the Scottish Borders'

Pictured in 1892: The castle was effectively destroyed after the war having become uneconomical, so the owners allowed the slates to be ripped off the roof, the stones to be sold and the British Army to take it down in return for tax breaks

An archive image of the castle: The core of the original tower remains, and a Georgian wing, but much of the 19th century additions have entirely gone - and it would cost a minimum of 750,000 to restore the stone-built core as a home

These date back to the 19th century and show Cavers in its Georgian days and subsequent Victorian glory.

New ideas: Historic Scotland is said to be 'quite broadminded' about plans for the 800-year-old castle

It is now proposed to carry on this tradition of reinvention, creating an inspirational home of a scale that respects the past, whilst creating a structure that is of importance and relevance to the area.

Mr Perriam said: The plans are to create a family home to a very high specification, with space, design and amenities to meet todays living requirements.

No formal application has been submitted, but the local planning department have indicated they would look favourably on the restoration of the castle and would consider the existing or new design plans.

The Douglas family occupied the castle until 1787, when it passed to a niece because there was no male heir.

Mary Malcolm married a Captain Edward Palmer and the castle was substantially re-modelled by prominent Scottish architects Kinnear and Peddie in the Scottish Baronial style.

The Douglas family can trace their roots to William de Duglas who lived in the 12th century. Later, Sir William Douglas the Hardy was the first person of note to join William Wallace in his revolt against England.

Branches of the House of Douglas included the Angus Red Douglases who had a major role in the conflict between Scotland and England between the 15th and 18th centuries.

And in the 15th century, the Douglas clan came to dominate the Scottish court, having a stranglehold on power thanks to the major offices and posts of government being filled with their family and supporters.

There are plans to create a family home to a 'very high specification, with space, design and amenities', the estate agent said

No formal application has been submitted yet, but the proposals are to create a home to 'meet todays living requirements'

The local planning department have indicated they would look favourably on the castle's restoration, the estate agent said

The estate agent said there is a hope that 'an inspirational home of a scale that respects the past' will be created

It is also hoped that the new building on the site will be 'a structure that is of importance and relevance to the area'
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Bra tycoon Michelle Mone has won a battle to expand her 1.5million 'dream' mansion after buying her ex-husband out of the property.

The Tory peer became the sole owner of her former marital home, a five-bed luxury property in the leafy village of Thorntonhall, Lanarkshire, earlier this year.

The house was put on the market in 2012 for offers of more than 1.6million when Mone and her ex-husband Michael split but it failed to find a buyer. The couple purchased the house for 1,525,000 in 2008.

Mone submitted plans for a programme of renovations at the 6,000-square ft home to make it even bigger and get rid of the 'bad memories' from her marriage breakdown.

Bra tycoon Michelle Mone has won a battle to expand her 1.5m 'dream' mansion after buying her ex-husband out of the property

Michelle Mone bought the home with ex-husband Michael (pictured together, right) for 1,525,000 in 2008 then put it on the market for offers in excess of 1.6million in 2012 but failed to find a buyer

Baroness Mone will extend to the rear, creating a self-contained annex for her disabled father, according to the application to South Lanarkshire Council

The Tory peer is to add a new open-plan courtyard with an extravagant glass ceiling and luxurious kitchen to the side of the gated house in Scotland

She wants to add a single storey extension to the house - named Telperion after one of the trees in the Lord of the Rings - and build a granny flat to the rear of the property for her parents to use.

The former Ultimo owner will also convert the current bar and cinema at the home into a self-contained flat for use by one of her daughters.

The plans also include a new gymnasium in the house, a two storey bay window and a large courtyard to the rear of the property.

Mone's next door neighbour Alan Williamson objected to the plans over concerns the extension could impinge on his privacy.

However they have now been approved by planning officials at South Lanarkshire Council.

In a written decision, they said: 'In this case the proposed rear extension would form a residential annexe for immediate members of the applicant's family.

These images show what the house will look like inside the main section (centre), as well as how the new extension will be composed (right)

 Slide me  Images from the planning application show the new extension to the side of the house and a single-storey, ground floor annex at the back in the centre

'This building would be approximately 100 square metres in floor space and comprise of a lounge, kitchen/dining area, bedroom, ensuite and associated storage.

'The proposal also includes the formation of a self contained annexe within the existing dwelling.

'A raised covered courtyard would also be formed between the existing dwelling and the proposed accommodation.

'I am satisfied there is adequate boundary screening to ensure no loss of privacy to the adjacent property.

'The applicant has provided supporting justification to demonstrate the requirement for the additional accommodation.

'It is considered the proposed development at this property is acceptable.'

The virtual plans submitted to South Lanarkshire Council show French doors from the extension that open out onto an open-plan courtyard with a glass ceiling

The planning application was submitted to the council in the name of 'Baroness Michelle Mone' and included 3D drawings of how the house will look following the building work.

The 45-year-old businesswoman was admitted into the House of Lords last year as former Prime Minister David Cameron's business tsar.

Her five-bedroom home is situated behind heavy security gates and includes 12 large rooms which are opulently furnished.

Within the property is a 26ft lounge, a 36ft family dining kitchen complete with stainless steel fittings and the cinema which boasts reclining leather seats.

Security at the property - which also features five en-suite bedrooms - includes panic buttons and a CCTV system can be monitored by smartphone from anywhere in the world.

Mone is currently living in an apartment in the upmarket neighbourhood of Mayfair and used the name of the area for her official title in the Lords.

She will also convert the bar and cinema rooms (pictured) in the luxurious home into a self-contained annex for her teenage daughter

Within the property is a 26ft lounge, a 36ft family dining kitchen complete with stainless steel fittings and the cinema which boasts reclining leather seats

Speaking last month, the mother-of-three told of her plans for the property, which she has called her 'dream home', following the break-down of their 19-year marriage.

She said: 'Mum and Dad will have their own part and my children will too.

'I always wanted to build a house for my parents. It will be built just for them, especially for my dad who has been in a wheelchair for a long time.'

She added: 'I'm going to change it all so that it doesn't have any of the bad memories from when I lived there.'

In her autobiography, Mone admitted she put her husband's cufflinks in the bin, let down his tyres and cut holes in his boxer shorts.

She also said that on one occasion while they were still sharing the marital home, she poured cold water on his side of the bed.

She said later: 'I am sorry for that. Sorry for that woman I became. It wasn't nice at all.'
Chancellor Philip Hammond was today promised a 'new level' of trade with China as he warned Donald Trump against protectionist measures against the economic super power.

Hosting a Chinese delegation in London for the eighth UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue, Mr Hammond announced a raft of new measures alongside Vice Premier Ma Kai.

Mr Hammond earlier promoted the benefits of free trade and open markets after being pressed on the President-elect's plans to impose 45 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports.

After the talks, China's vice premier Ma Kai said: 'We want to bring trade and investment co-operation with the UK to a new level.'

Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai said at a press conference alongside Chancellor Philip Hammond today, pictured, that the relationship with the UK was one of his country's most important

Mr Kai said China's relationship with the UK was now 'one of our most important in the world'.

And he said the prospect of a 'golden era' of co-operation between the two countries would not be knocked off course by Brexit.

'China respects the choice made by the British people and hopes to see the UK and Europe achieve prosperity,' he said.

'China would be happy for the UK and Europe to develop a win-win relationship.'

Mr Hammond also stressed the importance of improving trade links.

He said: China will have a middle class numbering 600 million by 2020  that is greater than the entire population of the EU. That presents unrivalled opportunities for British business.

At the press conference, Mr Hammond also revealed that regulators will fast-track assessment of a controversial Chinese nuclear reactor that could be installed in a new power station in Bradwell, Essex.

Philip Hammond, pictured today at his talks with China, today warned free trade and open markets were more important to securing jobs than protectionism

Mr Hammond was joined by Chinese officials to open the stock market in London this morning ahead of today's talks, pictured

Asked directly if he would support Mr Trump's tariffs, Mr Hammond said: 'Britain has always believed that the best way long-term to protect jobs and promote prosperity is free markets and free trade.

'President Trump has just been elected by the American people. He will want to consult with his advisers and officials and I am sure we will have a very constructive dialogue as we do with the Chinese with the new administration.'

Half of US imports from China are devices such as phones, tablets and laptops as major US firms manufacture their products in the country.

Other imports, such as steel, are more controversial and the European Union has also discussed whether to raise tariffs to stop China 'dumping' cheap product on the market.

Speaking at the London Stock Exchange ahead of his talks today Mr Hammond added: 'We do also recognise the concerns that there are around dumping and unfair practices.

'It's about getting the right balance in the global trading system so that we can have the benefits of open markets, while being properly and appropriately protected from unfair practices.'

President-elect Donald Trump, pictured making his victory speech yesterday, has said he wants to impose steep tariffs on Chinese imports to protect the US economy

Mr Hammond said he 'looked forward' to working with Mr Trump's administration.

And reflecting on Brexit, he added: 'We have very strong and close ties with the United States and as we begin the process of negotiating our exit from the EU, of course we will want to talk to the Americans about future opportunities for deepening our trade links with the United States.'

Mr Hammond's talks will be seen as a fresh attempt to reassure the Chinese after a rocky start to relations under Theresa May.

One of her first acts on becoming Prime Minister last July was to order a review of the project to build the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant - part-financed by the Chinese - to the intense annoyance of Beijing.

Mr Hammond, right in No 10 yesterday with Theresa May at China's Vice Premier Ma Kai, is holding bilateral talks with Chinese official

But having finally given the green light to the plant last September, Mrs May has again echoed the deal's architect, former chancellor George Osborne, in speaking of a 'golden era' in Sino-UK relations.

'I'm determined that as we leave the European Union, we build a truly global Britain that is open for business,' she said in a statement ahead of the talks.
Samer Alaaeldin Mahran has been released on bail after posting $100,000

A 17-year-old girl was allegedly raped by an Uber driver after falling asleep while on her way home to Laguna Beach, California.

The Orange County District Attorneys Office said Samer Alaaeldin Mahran, 23, was giving the victim a ride home from a bar in nearby Huntington Beach when he allegedly assaulted her after parking up near her home.

KTLA reported that a relative ordered a ride home for the girl at 2am on Saturday, using the Uber app.

But when she did not arrive home another family member used Ubers tracking featured to find Mr Mahrans car.

The DA's office said the relative found the car and allegedly found Mr Mahran in the back seat with the victim.

The girl was being taken from a bar in Huntington Beach to her home in Laguna Beach (pictured) when the incident happened

After the intoxicated girl was removed from the cab Mr Mahran drove off but was later arrested after the relative called 911.

Mr Mahran has been charged with a felony count of rape by use of drugs, one felony count of forcible oral copulation upon a minor over 14 years of age, one felony count of sexual penetration of a child over age 14 by foreign object and force, and one felony count of unlawful sexual intercourse.

He posted bail of $100,000 and was released yesterday morning but is due back in court in Santa Ana next month, pending his trial in the New Year.
She demanded they take responsibility and main offender

A mum with a gun has taken the fight on the spiralling sex attacks in India into her own hands by patrolling the streets of her local village and seeking out rapists.

Shahana Begum, 42, from Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, northern India, did just that in one typical instance for her in 2013, where she caught three men who had raped a girl for two days.

The mother-of-four, who sees herself as a guardian of the people, handed them over to police and forced them to face up to their crimes, which resulted in the main perpetrator marrying the victim.

She regularly visits the police station to confront officers for not following up complaints or pokes her shotgun into the faces of suspected sex abusers on her fight for justice.

The mother-of-four Shahana Begum, 42, from Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, northern India, is famous among teenagers and women in her area as the Bandookwali Chachi which translates as aunt with a gun

After she was widowed 17 years ago she feared for her safety in a male dominated area but decided to take extreme measures to protect the safety of herself, her daughters and other vulnerable girls

In 2013, she caught three who raped a girl for two days and handed them over to police where she demanded the rapists took responsibility for their actions. The main perpetrator is now married to the girl and Ms Begum said the couple were now happily married

Ms Begum is famous among teenagers and women in her area as the Bandookwali Chachi which translates as aunt with a gun.

After she was widowed 17 years ago she feared for her safety in a male dominated area but decided to take extreme measures to protect the safety of herself, her daughters and other vulnerable girls.

My gun is now my second husband, she said.

It is my support and I need it at all times.

'No man dares trouble a woman in my district now a day.

'They know I will shoot them. I protect the women of my society like a mother and it is the responsibility of every mother to safeguard her children.

Ms Begum has claimed she has managed to reduce the number of sex attacks and harassments in her area, something the police have never been able to officially achieve.

She added: Ive not heard of any of these cases being reported to the police in many years.

'At times girls even come to me when the police have failed to help them because they know I get results.

Ms Begum has claimed she has managed to reduce the number of sex attacks and harassments in her area, something the police have never been able to officially achieve

Recalling that harrowing case three years ago, she said the victim's family had tried to call the police, but were turned away.

They came to me asking for help, Ms Begum said.

Firstly I went to the police station and told them to accept the case or Ill report them to a higher authority.

'The accused were from an influential family so the police were hesitant but eventually the boys were picked up.

'At the station I demanded to see the main boy and in his face I ordered him to take responsibility for his actions.

Recalling that harrowing case three years ago, she said the victim's family had tried to call the police, but were turned away

'Eventually he married the girl and today the two live happily.

The local celebrity, who has four children - two daughters aged 19 and 22, and two sons aged 17 and 25, has become even more protective of young girls knowing how vulnerable her own daughters might be.

She added: I was very young when my husband died.

'He was shot by his brother many years earlier over a family dispute and then one day he got a sudden stomach ache and died.

'We have no idea if the wound was to blame or not.

At the time my youngest son was only three-days-old and my youngest daughter was two-years-old.

'I was on my own with these little children.

'People in this village were not supportive. I used to feel unsafe going out of the house to buy clothes, food or basic needs.

'I was scared of being attacked or killed and then who would look after my children?

'I thought about asking the police for help but Id seen how women had struggled to get any complaint dealt with.

'Id known girls to commit suicide after failing to get any support from the police.

'So I decided to rely on myself. I had to protect myself and to do that I needed a gun.

Ms Begum was already pretty comfortable around guns - as her father and husband had used them - so she applied for an arms license

As soon as the license was processed she bought her first gun in 1999 from a gun shop, in Shahjahanpur, for Rs 15,000 (150) with her savings. She taught herself to shoot and aim in the empty fields behind her house and now she has an expert aim

Ms Begum was already pretty comfortable around guns - as her father and husband had used them - so she applied for an arms license.

As soon as the license was processed she bought her first gun in 1999 from a gun shop, in Shahjahanpur, for Rs 15,000 (150) with her savings.

She taught herself to shoot and aim in the empty fields behind her house and now she has an expert aim.

People got to know that I had a gun and started talking, she said.

But I didnt care. I knew what I was doing was good and people would learn to understand my decision eventually.

And with time, people began to lean on her for help whenever there was an issue in her district.

The bullish Ms Begum's direct approach and no-messing attitude meant she was a force to be reckoned with, and she had no reservations about tackling big built men, officials or superior members of her community if it meant she was protecting vulnerable women like her.

She said: The circle of protection kept growing with time. I went from confronting police officers at the station to fathers and their sons who had done terrible things.

Ive not had to actually shoot anyone yet.

'But Im not afraid of using my gun if I have to.

'I know that if I have to shoot someone its because theyve done something dreadful to a woman.

'Police should actually be thanking me for stepping in and helping them do their job.

As well as the village protector, the 42-year-old has to also earn money to feed her family. She works as a labourer in the farming fields, sells fish from a local lake and works with community officials

As well as the village protector, the 42-year-old has to also earn money to feed her family.

She works as a labourer in the farming fields, sells fish from a local lake and works with community officials.

The mother-of-four also travels around different villages every week to speak to residents and help them with any disputes such as property disputes, daily issues with water, harassment, safety and dowry cases.

She often intervenes in cases with the local Kangaroo court, which is famous in India as a small town political system consisting of respected elders chosen and accepted by the local community to settle disputes between individuals and villages.

But local people only know her as the aunt with a gun.

Villager Sehra Banu, 20, said: No boy dares do or say anything to us.

'I hear about girls being molested and raped in other parts of the state but not here, and its all because they fear Bandookwali chachi.

'She is our support. We can go to college, study and work and were safe. I will never leave this village because no where else has anyone like her.

The mother-of-four also travels around different villages every week to speak to residents and help them with any disputes such as property disputes, daily issues with water, harassment, safety and dowry cases

The Uttar Pradesh Crime Records Bureau have released figures that show the number of rape cases recorded from 2014 to 2015 had increased by 160 percent. In 2014 a total of 3,467 cases of rape were reported, and in 2015 it had increased to 9,075

The state of Uttar Pradesh is one of the most densely populated states in India which a huge number of rape crimes reported.

The Uttar Pradesh Crime Records Bureau have released figures that show the number of rape cases recorded from 2014 to 2015 had increased by 160 percent. In 2014 a total of 3,467 cases of rape were reported, and in 2015 it had increased to 9,075.

And so far, in 2016 there had been 11,012 cases of rape, 4,520 cases of harassment.

She said: I feel sad that crime against women in my country is increasing. I meet women in my district to learn about their fears so we can fix these issues.

'I wish this could be done everywhere in India. Women should be given equal respect as men instead of being considered as a commodity.
An EastEnders actress has made an emotional appeal for information to catch her brother's killers after he was stabbed to death while celebrating his birthday.

Ziggy Worrell-Owusu was attacked while he was at a shisha bar in Ilford, north-east London in the early hours of October 27.

His sister Belinda Owusu - who plays Libby Fox in the BBC soap - today called for anyone who knows anything about the attack to come forward to police.

Ziggy Worrell-Owusu was stabbed to death in north-east London on the day after his birthday

Ms Owusu told London's Evening Standard: 'I don't know how someone can stay quiet and live with this for the rest of their life.

'We want to ask people who were there or who knows someone who was there to come forward to help with the investigation to help the police identify the person who did this.'

She said her brother was 'very kind and had a good heart' and her family are still in shock over his brutal killing.

She added: 'He had just started out, he had a 19th birthday and he was just starting to become an adult and suddenly it is all gone.'

She returned to filming EastEnders again this week to keep herself occupied, and fellow cast members have been very supportive.

Mr Worrell-Owusu, from Hackney, was one of around 100 people at the party and police believe he may have been injured as he tried to break up an altercation. He had been celebrating his 19th birthday hours before the shocking incident.

Sister Belinda Owusu, who plays Libby Fox in EastEnders - has appealed for information

Detective Inspector Euan McKeeve said at the time: 'Ziggy was a popular young man and I would encourage anyone with information about this tragedy to come forward.

'One line of inquiry is that Ziggy stepped in to prevent a fight escalating between others.

'There were a large number of young people inside the Basement Shisha Lounge who would have witnessed this incident and the events that led up to it.

'Some of these people may be reluctant to tell police what happened, but I would urge them to come forward of their own accord and speak to us.'

Mr McKeeve also urged anyone at the party with phone footage or pictures to hand it to police, and appealed to parents of teenagers who were there to ask them to come forward.

Three teenagers, two aged 17 and one 19, have been arrested and bailed pending further inquries.
Junior doctors have permanently cancelled all further planned strike action over a new contract being imposed by Jeremy Hunt.

A series of planned strikes were postponed in September over fears a programme of all out strike would put patients at risk.

But today the British Medical Association admitted it was time to 're-engage' with NHS bosses and study how the new contract would work in practice.

A splinter group of junior doctors said the BMA's decision was made without consultation and branded it 'unacceptable'.

An angry series of strikes by junior doctors, including in April, pictured, was brought to a final end today as the British Medical Association agreed to work with NHS bosses to study the deal in practice

A BMA spokesman said today: 'The BMA believes the best way forward for junior doctors, patients and the NHS is to closely monitor the implementation of the contract, and to work with the Government and NHS employers to address any issues and concerns highlighted during this process.

'In this way, we can hold both the Government and NHS Employers to their commitments on safe working, high-quality training and the promise to address wider morale and workforce issues.'

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: 'It's welcome news for patients that the BMA has now completely called off industrial action.

'The NHS is getting on with the job of implementing this contract and we are determined to make sure junior doctors are supported during this process.'

A statement from the Junior Doctors' Alliance (JDA), a pressure group of medics who have been calling for more intense opposition to the new contract, said the BMA was losing the trust of its members.

It said: 'In the last 48 hours, the BMA has announced an end to all industrial action to oppose the Government's imposed contract on junior doctors.

'This was done without any discussion with the mass membership of thousands of junior doctors who voted overwhelmingly to reject the deal the BMA had negotiated earlier this year - and without any openness about how it reached this decision.'

The JDA also said the BMA was withholding details about the content of an upcoming symposium about the contract.

A spokesman said: 'This is unacceptable. The BMA is a democratic union and its decision-making and actions should be transparent to its membership.

'It is clear that our union prefers secrecy than transparency when dealing with the Government and its members.

'It's no wonder so many doctors - at all grades - are losing trust in the BMA.'

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, pictured on the BBC on Sunday, moved to impose the new contract earlier after finding it impossible to strike a deal

Junior doctors spent months bitterly opposing the new contract, claiming it was unfair to them and unsafe for patients, launching an unprecedented wave of partial and full walk outs.

The campaign prompted the cancellation of tens of thousands of appointments as senior doctors were pressed into service to cover routine care.

But announcing a wave of further strikes for this autumn despite the Government and the BMA reaching an earlier agreement appeared to undermine public support.

The dispute ended up in the High Court as doctors contested Mr Hunt's right to impose the contract without agreement.

The dispute centres on junior doctors employed by NHS England, which is run by chief executive Simon Stevens (file picture)

But the Government won the case and the new contract is now in use for junior doctors who joined the health service in the summer.

Six strikes have already taken place across England during the dispute, causing disruption to hundreds of thousands of patients who have had appointments and operations cancelled.
Nichole Ellen Carver allegedly posed as a detective in an attempt to track down her estranged husband

The estranged wife of a man found buried on a rural South Carolina property owned by a suspect in several homicides has been arrested.

Anderson police said 35-year-old Nichole Ellen Carver posed as a detective when she called AT&T last month to track down the location of her estranged husband Charlie Carver's phone.

Carver was reported missing in August with his girlfriend, Kala Brown, but after he vanished family and friends continued to receive Facebook messages from someone pretending to be him.

He was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds on convicted sex offender Todd Kohlhepp's property on Friday, while Brown was rescued from a storage container on the same Spartanburg County property on Thursday.

Kohlhepp has been arrested and deputies say he confessed to killing four other people in the county in 2003. He has not been charged in Carver's death.

Charlie Carver was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds on Friday on South Carolina realtor Todd Kohlhepp's property

Kohlhepp (left) is alleged to have killed seven people, and kidnapped Kala Brown (right) who was imprisoned in a shipping container for two months. The realtor took the investigators to the woodland where he said he had buried his victims and police said he had been true to his word

Nichole Ellen Carver was arrested Tuesday after allegedly calling her husbands phone carrier on October 8 claiming she was a detective hoping to geo-locate the phone, police say.

However, Anderson police spokesman Captain Mike Aikens told People she got the spelling of the detective she was pretending to be wrong twice.

Nichole Ellen Carver was given bond on Tuesday and will next appear in court on December 16.

On Thursday, two more bodies found on Kohlhepps farmland were revealed to be a newly married couple.

Meagan and Johnny Coxie, aged 25 and 29, were gunned down and buried close to the metal container where Kohlhepp is accused of kidnapping Kala Brown and keeping her captive for two months.

Meagan was shot once in the head and her husband suffered several bullet wounds to the torso.

Her mother reported her daughter and son-in-law missing on December 22 last year and police are working to establish when they met their deaths.

It was just four months after they had posted pictures of a new baby on social media.

Spartanburg coroner Rusty Clavenger said that he believed the victims had been buried around eleven months ago, shortly after they disappeared.

Latest victims: Meagan and Johnny Joe Coxie vanished last December and their bodies were found and identified this week

New parents: The married couple, who had a history of petty crime and panhandling, had not been reported missing to police. They had a young baby son born in September

Kohlhepp hid the container away from public view on his 95-acre farmland at Woodruff, South Carolina and painted it green to ensure it blended into the foliage. The container is 30 feet long, 15 feet wide and 10 to 12 feet high and a few steps from a shed (seen left) where the kidnapper is thought to have stored food supplies for his captive

A police dig site on Kohlhepp's property. It was at one of these digs that police found the shallow graves with the couple's bodies. Their tattoos and dental records were used to identify them

He said both bodies had been discovered in shallow graves and fully clothed. They had been identified through their 'extensive' number of tattoos and dental records.

Kohlepp had led officers to the two graves and that of his third alleged victim Charles Carver, 32, who was exhumed from a nearby grave at the weekend.

Officers said they did not yet know the motive as to why the married couple were shot dead or the type of gun or bullets used.

But Clavenger added: 'There were some parts of the bodies we were not able to recover. But I really don't want to get into that because there is an open investigation.

Police refused to reveal how the suspect mass murderer might have come into contact with the couple or how they came to be on Kohlepp's 95-acre land in Woodruff.

But it was revealed that the victims had been released from jail late last year and had been known to panhandle on streets around Spartanburg.

Warrants had been issued for Coxie and his wife had had a bond paid to be released from a local jail by her mom who was told by her daughter that she had found a job.

Familes of both victims showed 'remorse and extreme grief' when news of their loved ones' deaths were reported to them this morning, Clavenger added.

One family had no suspicion that their relative could be a caught up in the serial killer probe, while the second family had pondered over the possibility of contacting police, before officers called.

Both families had asked police to make a request to the news media to respect their grief and privacy.

'Both had history of pan handling in an effort to make money' said Lt Kevin Bobo.

He said the search had been scaled down and the container in which Kala had been held captive had also been removed.

Bobo said he 'didn't know' how Kohlhepp came to be in contact with the couple and inquiries were continuing.

On the move: The shipping container used by by the serial killer was removed by police for further forensic examination on Wednesday

Kohlhepp entering the court for a bond hearing in Spartanburg, South Carolina on Sunday, Lists of missing persons are being scoured for any possible connection to the serial killer who is said to be responsible for at least seven deaths

But he said Kohlhepp had given no further indication that there might be more bodies buried on his farmland.

Kohlhepp, 45, a convicted sex offender, confessed to murdering four people in 2003 at the weekend after he was allowed by police to see his mother and tell her first of the slayings in a motor bike shop.

He also asked for a photograph of him to be given to his mom and for some money to be taken from his personal bank account to continue to pay for a young woman's college education

Kohlhepp has been charged with the murder of of Brian Lucas, Scott Ponder, Beverly Guy and Chris Sherbert at the motorcycle shop in Chesnee on Nov. 6, 2003.

He also faces a charged of kidnapping Kala Brown and is set to be charged with three more murders.

Bobo confirmed officers are closely examining his social media activity for clues to his crimes and whether he used his work as a realtor to snare his victims making the photograph part if the investigation.

Postings on Amazon by a user named 'Me' on a wish list linked to his name began in 2014, close to the time he purchased the farmland and told local hunters to keep off in future saying: 'You're hunting days are over'

On Amazon and for a shovel with a folding handle, the user posted a review suggesting, 'keep in car for when you have to hide the bodies and you left the full size shovel at home.'

Criminal history: Meagan and Johnny Joe Coxie were known for panhandling and had been released from jail on bond when they vanished. Their disappearance was not reported to police

Buried for almost a year: The couple's bodies were found in shallow graves

Mystery: Police refused to reveal how the suspect mass murderer came into contact with the couple or how they came to be on Kohlepp's 95-acre land in Woodruff.

The same user left a review for a knife that read: 'havnet (sic) stabbed anyone yet...... yet.... but I am keeping the dream alive and when I do, it will be with a quality tool like this...'

In a review about a padlock, the Greenville News reports the user wrote: 'solid locks.. have 5 on a shipping container.. wont stop them.. but sure will slow them down 'til they are too old to care.'

Brown, 30, was found chained by the neck and feet inside a rusty-colored container by officers who entered the land with a warrant last Thursday.

Local sheriff Chuck Wright told Daily Mail Online: 'I'm going to be honest with you. I don't chain my dogs up and I wouldn't treat my dogs the way this lady was treated.'

Further postings by Kohlhepp on Facebook have also been included as part of the investigation.

On September 15, a fortnight after Brown and her boyfriend went missing, he posted: 'Reading the news..this person missing, that person missing, another person missing, oh wait, that person just went to beach with friend, other person found with her parole violation boyfriendin the event I become missing, please note no one would take me.

The 'missing' poster for Brown and her boyfriend Charles Carver. Brown is said to have watched as Carver was allegedly murdered by Kohlhepp in front of her

'I eat too much and I am crabby, they would just bring me back or give me 20 bucks for a cab ride, most likely if I am missing, its because my dumb ass did something on that tractor again and I am too stubborn to go to the doctorI got 9 lives...I ain't done yet.'

On September 30 he added: 'Just admit it..you look at the news, you see the political crap and the school shootings and just general wth (sic) is going onzombie apocalypse is starting to look better and better every day.'

In another posting the same month, he said: 'Another day at camp ohshitthisisgonnahurtinthemorningbushhogged all day yesterdaylooks like another day of it todayI don't care hos sexy she thinks my tractor isby the time you get off the damn thing all you want is a shower and the noise to stopthink I need to invest in concrete and green paint.'

On November 3rd, he added on Facebook: 'We need ebola to come as a huge snowstorm, wipe out half the population, then melt awayjust tired of entitlement, rude ass people for no reason..people who race to cut in front of you to slam on brakes to make right turnand that mother------ that stands in the isle( sic) at the grocery store ( and dude you know who you are) that blocks the isle (sic) checking out the microbrews and blocking everyone on their way to their average Michellobbitch move.'

Sheriff Wright said Kohlhepp had been remorseful and prayed with him at the weekend and was being corporative.

But he stressed that police would continue searching the land until they were satisfied every piece of evidence had been uncovered.
A paedophile teacher was arrested after hundreds of sickening images were found on his school computer.

Iain Moore, 46, from Swindon in Wiltshire, was found to have a memory stick containing 310 photos of which almost 100 fell into the most serious Category A classification.

Moore choked up as he pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing them.

Iain Moore, 46, from Swindon in Wiltshire, was found to have a memory stick containing 310 photos of which almost 100 fell into the most serious Category A classification

When asked if he was okay to continue by the clerk at Swindon Magistrates' Court, the teacher - who has now been sacked - nodded and entered his pleas.

He confessed to making 91 Category A images between February 2012 and May 2016 as well as 98 Category B images and 121 category C images.

Chairman of the bench Paul Sample told him: 'We have come to the view that these are very serious offences' aggravated by the fact he was a teacher.

He added: 'You held a position of trust with young people and you breached that trust when young people were in school.

'This makes the offence more serious and really puts it out of our powers of punishment.

'We do not believe that this court has the level of punishment available to it on this occasion.

'The offences are so great you need greater punishment than we can give.'

Prosecutor Paula Mulhern told the court that at the time of the offences, Moore had been a teacher at Swindon Academy in Wiltshire, which teaches children aged three to 19.

Moore was revealed after hundreds of the sickening pictures found at Swindon Academy

Defending, Phillip Morris, said the photos were created in 2012 and had not been accessed in the recent past.

The case was passed to Swindon Crown Court, where Moore will be sentenced at a hearing on a date to be fixed.

He remains on conditional bail and was required to register as a sex offender and banned from having unsupervised contact with children.

A spokesperson for Swindon Academy said: 'On discovering these images the school immediately informed the police and we have assisted them throughout their enquiries. It is thanks to our stringent internal checks and monitoring that these images were discovered.

'We have been assured by the police that none of the images in his possession had any link to the academy but nevertheless this is distressing and understandably concerning.'
Donald Trump's controversial plan for a total ban on Muslim immigrants may have been dropped already after the statement mysteriously vanished from his website.

The statement: 'Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on' had been on the site since December.

But hours after he was confirmed as the 45th U.S. President it suddenly disappeared.

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The controversial statement has disappeared from the Trump/Pence campaign website

Trump is due to visit Barack Obama at the White House today to discuss a 'smooth transition of power'.

The outgoing President traditionally updates the President-Elect on important foreign affairs issues and confidential matters of national security, aswell as handing out a few crumbs of advice.

Obama might be tempted to go further and urge Trump to drop a few more of his more left-field ideas, such as the wall along the southern border, paid for by the Mexicans themselves.

Khizr Khan, whose son, Humayun Khan was one of 14 American Muslims who died serving in the U.S. Army in the 10 years after the 9/11 attacks, took Donald Trump to task after he proposed a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

Trump had said in the statement on his website: 'Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.'

But it appears Trump may have now realized the total ban on Muslims - which had been criticized for being racist and xenophobic - was not practical.

It had also failed to recognize that some Islamic terrorists, like Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida in June, were themselves born in the United States and the ban would not have prevented their violent acts.

Among those who had spoken out against it was the Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

The total ban on Muslim immigrants has been dropped, but the plan for a Mexican wall remain

But the ban on Muslims had been popular with many Trump supporters, especially in the Midwest and in the Bible belt.

As the campaign progressed Trump had retreated from the ban, saying he wanted a ban on immigration from countries 'with connections to terrorism', rather than Muslims specifically.
Robert Rochefort was seen masturbating in a hardware store

A French MEP has pleaded guilty after he was caught masturbating in a DIY store.

Police rushed to the shop after Robert Rochefort was seen committing the lewd act in front of two teenage girls in August.

He was beaten up by an angry customer, who wanted to administer justice himself.

The 61-year-old, who reportedly pulled down his trousers to commit the crime, told police that he 'needs to masturbate' whenever he is 'under stress', Le Monde reports.

Rochefort committed the sex act in the Castorama store in Velizy, a town to the southwest of Paris.

He later claimed he only made the claim to avoid a night in a police cell, and had felt threatened after being tackled by a man who reportedly punched and kicked him after spotting him in the awkward position.

After his guilty plea, the politician wrote on Twitter that there would be 'no further action'.

The Castorama store in Velizy, where Rochefort committed the lewd act

The MEP tweeted that no further action was being taken as a result of the scandal

Court officials have not revealed the punishment given to Rochefort, but it is likely to be a fine.

Rochefort, who represents the south west region in the European Parliament, was replaced as the vice president of the liberal MoDem party due to the scandal.

MoDem party leader Francois Bayrou told Politico after the allegation was made: 'This is crazy and very serious if it is true.

'It just goes to show that you never really know some people.'
Dr Finella Brito-Babapulle, pictured outside her medical tribunal in Manchester on Monday, allegedly invaded a patient's home

A senior doctor who claimed she could cure terminal cancer invaded the deserted farmhouse of a patient having treatment and left her a note saying: Im here for you, a tribunal heard today.

Dr Finella Brito-Babapulle, 62, had just left her job at St Marys Hospital on the Isle of Wight after allegedly clashing with colleagues over untested treatments.

But just hours later the consultant haematologist is said to have clambered over a gate to the womans driveway then crept past her two guard dogs.

Brito-Babapulle, of Richmond, South West London, then allegedly sneaked into the empty property and left the letter on the kitchen table with her home telephone number and email address.

It said: Im here for you, I do hope you are alright, I hope youre not concerned about not seeing me. Please contact me on the number directed as I leave tonight.

Police were called in after a farmhand who knew the 65-year old lady was in hospital for a rare bone marrow condition noticed the lights to the farmhouse had been switched on and alerted his boss, who was said to be deeply distressed.

Former workplace: Brito-Babapulle had just left her job at St Marys Hospital (pictured) on the Isle of Wight after allegedly clashing with colleagues over untested treatments

The incident occurred just 24 hours after Brito-Babapulle had left her job as a locum consultant at St Marys Hospital.

It came amid claims she had criticised colleagues over cancer treatments and had tried to pressurise other doctors into administering inappropriate treatment.

It was claimed the divorced mother-of-three had told an 84-year-old terminally ill patient that she had a cure for him, despite colleagues saying his recovery was extremely unlikely - and then asked him if he would fund the treatment himself.

After she left her job, she allegedly hand-delivered the patient a letter at his home saying: it was kind of you and [your wife] to invite me to dinner, I look forward to that when you are cured. He died three months later.

In a third case, the doctor also tried to contact another patient outside the hospital via a friend at her bridge club after she said he should get smaller doses of medication in defiance of manufacturers recommendations, the hearing was told.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service was told Brito-Babapulle had joined St Marys in August 2013 for a four month stint but left on October 28 that year after being in the job for just ten weeks.

In the days up to her departure the 65-year old woman - known as Patient E - had been treated by a different doctor.

But Brito-Babapulle, who was helping file a report on her condition, unexpectedly turned up at the clinic, gave the patient the results of the investigation herself and then diagnosed her with Systemic Mastocytosis and told her she would cure her symptoms.

The letter was later left at Patient Es home whilst she was undergoing a day of out-patient treatment in hospital, it was alleged.

Paul Wakerley, lawyer for the General Medical Council, said: She lived in a farmhouse and the farmhand was concerned about lights that appeared to be on.

The patient had not left lights on. He entered the house and found no one there but an envelope on the kitchen table.

It gave the doctor's home telephone number in London, her email address and said Im here for you, I do hope you are alright, I hope youre not concerned about not seeing me. Please contact me on the number directed as I leave the Isle of Wight tonight.

This upset the patient, a stranger who was uninvited and who had been into her home without permission to enter.

The house may well have been unlocked but it was a farm house, accessed by a long driveway which was gated and the gate was locked.

The patient described her ownership of two territorial dogs at the property. The episode left the patient deeply distressed.

The trust reported the matter to the local police and a witness statement was provided at the time.

The GMC expert doesnt comment on entering the patients address and leaving a letter but it hardly requires an expert to speak about the inappropriateness of entering an address without permission.

She must have climbed over, or found some other way otherwise of getting past a locked gate and getting passed territorial dogs.

The hearing was told another patient, a man of 84, was terminally ill with cancer and had been under the care of another doctor who was due to retire.

RESTRAINING ORDER OVER POISON PEN CAMPAIGN In 2011, Brito-Babapulle was issued with a restraining order banning her front contacting her ex-husband Dr Mark Leyton. This came after she waged a poison pen campaign against him while she was working at Ealing Hospital in West London. She suggested his new girlfriend was a Bangkok ladyboy and sneaked notes into her childrens Christmas gifts to the woman, which read: Once a gay. Always a gay. In the same year she lost her job at Ealing Hospital after being caught treating patients privately while on sick leave. Advertisement

He had undergone six cycles of chemotherapy but his condition progressed and it was extremely unlikely that he could be cured, said Mr Wakerley.

Dr Brito-Babapulle took over his treatment and during a consultation was openly critical of the previous doctors management and decision making and suggested he could be cured and expressed her intent to cure him.

She allegedly said she would be starting him on a new treatment plan which was a combination of four different drugs, including Bendamustine, which was at the time not funded by the NHS.

Although the plan was discussed at a team meeting, it was not recommended - yet Brito-Babapulle changed the patients medication after telling colleagues she had read about it online, the tribunal heard.

She allegedly failed to inform Patient A, about the potential toxicity of the treatment which was only being used as a trial drug in the United States.

He later attended the chemotherapy unit to undergo treatment but when told Bendamustine was not available on the NHS, Brito-Babapulle asked him whether he would be willing to fund the drug himself, the tribunal heard.

Mr Wakerley said: The regimen she was proposing was toxic and could easily have killed Patient A.

She didnt explain the risk that it could make him worse with the possibility of not making him much better.

Shortly after Dr Brito-Babapulle left her post, Patient A, came to the ward and brought with him a letter that had been hand delivered to him by Dr Brito-Babapulle at his home address.

There are references of achieving a cure and that letter appeared to have upset the patient. It was not appropriate to tell this patient the was likely to be cured by this treatment.

The likelihood of him being cured was at best slim no matter what regimen would have been offered. It was entirely inappropriate to go to his own home.

She decided to propose a different and untested chemotherapy which was not clinically indicated. Curative treatments were extremely unlikely to be successful on this patient.

It was not appropriate to ask him to self fund - it was only mentioned as a trial drug in the US. It was not appropriate at this stage, it was only in the use of a clinical trial.

Another colleague took over treatment of Patient A and said he and his family had been harmed due to the levels of expectation they were given.
Accused cop killer Sara Connor spent her 46th birthday in a Balinese prison eating tiramisu cake with a plastic fork.

The Australian mother and her toyboy DJ boyfriend David Taylor are facing trial over the alleged murder of local police officer Wayan Sudarsa whose bloodied body was discovered on Kuta Beach on August 17.

Her barrister, Peter Stain, visited Bali's Kerobokan prison along with two of Ms Connor's friends to celebrate her special day, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.

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Australian woman Sara Connor is pictured in court on Wednesday on the first day of her trial. Ms Connor is accused of the death of a Balinese police officer on Kuta Beach in August

Ms Connor (right) is pictured talking to her lawyer on the first day of her trial at Denpasar court on November 9

'She was reflective' Mr Strain said outside Ms Connor's jail cell.

He said a cake was brought to lift her spirits.

'Being Italian we had some tiramisu. She had a smile on her face when the tiramisu came out,' Mr Strain said.

There were no candles for Ms Connor to blow out but her Byron Bay based friend Ambra Bertoldi brought plastic forks.

Her birthday comes the day after Ms Connor pleaded her innocence during the first day of the murder trial.

Ms Connor, who was teary and seemed confused at times, said she was innocent as parts of her indictment were read out in court.

Ms Connor (pictured left) and Mr Taylor are facing trial over the alleged murder of police officer Wayan Sudarsa, whose bloodied body was discovered on Kuta Beach on August 17

Mr Taylor is pictured sitting in a court room during his first day of trial at a Denpasar court on November 9

Mr Taylor (left) and Ms Connor (right) are pictured holding hands as they are transferred from Kerobokan prison ahead of their court appearance on Wednesday

'I want to object,' she said. Later she told the court 'I am innocent. Please!'

Ms Connor, a mother-of-two from Byron Bay, and Mr Taylor, from Stoke Newington who goes by the name 'DJ Nutzo', are charged with three separate charges of murder, torture and assault.

Mr Taylor told police he struck policeman Sudarsa with a pair of binoculars during a late night altercation at a tourist hotspot in Bali.

Ms Connor attempts to shield her face as she is transferred to her court appearance

The Australian mother (centre left) is seen covering her face as she walks alongside her British boyfriend (centre right)

Mr Taylor said he thought the policeman attacked Ms Connor and tried to steal her bag, but police claim Taylor flew into a rage and hit the policeman repeatedly.

Ms Connor has maintained her innocence and claiming her only involvement was to pull her boyfriend off the police officer during the brawl.

Police finalised their case against the pair in October paving way for the murder trial to go ahead on November 9.

The trial is expected to last for months, with the defendants due to appear before the court a couple of days each week.

Ms Connor (left) and Mr Taylor (right) are transferred from prison to their court appearance on Wednesday
Talks between the Kremlin and Trump more fruitful than those with Clinton

Russia has revealed it was in contact with both the Trump and Clinton campaign teams during the race for the White House.

The deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said there had talk between the Kremlin and both the Republican and Democratic party after Hillary called her opponent a puppet of Vladimir Putin.

Although it was not revealed what was said, it appears talks with the Trump team were far more fruitful than with the Clinton team, and the Russian parliament erupted on Wednesday when the Republican was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.

The deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov (pictured) said there had talk between the Kremlin and both the Republican and Democratic party after Hillary called her opponent a puppet of Vladimir Putin

Mr Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency today, 'there were contacts,' but did not elaborate, and when asked whether talks would now intensify he added: 'These working moments and follow-up on this or that matter will depend on the situation and the questions which face us.

'But we will of course continue this work after the elections.'

The foreign minister said there was also 'sporadic' contact with Clinton's Democratic party, but that it was 'not always productive', according to Bloomberg.

He said her campaign team did not always immediately return calls.

During the race to the White House, defeated Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton accused Trump of being a 'puppet' of President Vladimir Putin.

U.S. officials also said Russia had hacked into Democratic party emails, something Moscow denied.

Trump has said he might meet Putin before his inauguration, but Putin's spokesman has said there are currently no plans for such a meeting.

Russia has revealed it was in contact with both the Trump and Clinton campaign teams during the race for the White House

Although it was not revealed what was said, it appears talks with the Trump team were far more fruitful than with the Clinton team, and the Russian parliament erupted on Wednesday when the Republican was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States

The Russian parliament erupted in applause on Wednesday when it heard that Trump had been elected and Putin told foreign ambassadors he was ready to fully restore ties with Washington.

Ryabkov was more circumspect in his interview, saying the Russian Foreign Ministry felt no euphoria about the Republican's win even though it wanted to normalise relations with Washington.

Ryabkov said Trump's allies had made some tough statements about Russia during the campaign and that his ministry was therefore not harbouring any rose-tinted hopes.
A pub landlord who spent five hours tracking Hitler's flagship under heavy fire before it was defeated has been revealed 75 years later.

Flight Sergeant Frederick Cecil Davis was one of the first to spot the Bismarck as it headed for the safety of Brest, in France, having sunk HMS Hood during the Battle of the Denmark Strait.

Despite being fired at from the ship's guns and coming under attack by the Luftwaffe, Flt Sgt Davis held his nerve and acted as navigator before it was destroyed by the Allies on May 27, 1941.

Flight Sergeant Frederick Cecil Davis (centre) spent five hours tracking the Bismarck

His campaign medals and logbook sold for 850 at the Cotswold Auction Company

Despite being fired at from the ship's guns and coming under attack by the Luftwaffe, Flt Sgt Davis held his nerve and acted as navigator for five hours

Flt Sgt Davis' feat will be told for the first time in the TV series called 'Trading History'.

The series explores the stories behind historical artefacts bought and sold at auction houses.

Before he died in 2009 aged 88, Flt Sgt Davis passed on his war medals and RAF logbook to his son, Raymond.

With nobody else to pass them onto, Mr Davis, 70, recently sold them at auction.

His campaign medals and logbook sold for 850 at the Cotswold Auction Company.

Flt Sgt Davis' (centre) feat will be told for the first time in the TV series called 'Trading History'

Mr Davis, from Tewkesbury, in Gloucestershire, said: 'I remember dad telling me that a number of Royal Navy ships had been chasing Bismarck for a day or two when they lost it in a big bank of fog.

'His plane was one of three or four Catalinas tasked with finding it.

'Dad's plane followed it for five hours and he was the navigator so he had a pretty crucial job.

'He was very lucky to keep on its trail for all that time. The Bismarck had a few shots at them but they stuck to their task and got their reward, if you could call it that.'

Before he died in 2009 aged 88, Flt Sgt Davis passed on his war medals and logbook to his son

Flt Sgt Davis wrote in his RAF logbook: 'At 0410 Catalena AH546 located Bismarck, attacked by anti-aircraft fire, contacted three enemy aircraft shadowed Bismarck 5 hours'

Just days earlier, in 1941, the Bismarck had sunk HMS Hood, the pride of the British fleet.

The attack, that killed 1,415 men, prompted the Prime Minister to give the famous order 'sink the Bismarck'.

That prompted more than 50 Royal Navy ships to chase down the battleship before it could reach the safety of a German-occupied French port.

But the pack lost the 820ft long shop in fog and the squad of Catalina seaplanes, based in Northern Ireland, were scrambled to find it.

The first plane to spot the ship had to return to base after being shot by enemy fire.

It was at this point Flt Sgt Davis took command and his plane tracked the ship for five hours while evading German gunfire.

Just days earlier, in 1941, the Bismarck had sunk HMS Hood, the pride of the British fleet

Bismarck was subsequently destroyed by Allies off the west coast of France with the loss of 2,090 men.

Afterwards, Flt Sgt Davis wrote in his RAF logbook: 'At 0410 Catalena AH546 located German Battleship Bismarck, attacked by anti-aircraft fire, contacted three enemy aircraft shadowed Bismarck 5 hours.'

The squadron later received a telegram from their commanding officer which read: 'Well done, you have done a great day's work.'

After more than 20 years service in the RAF, Flt Sgt Davis and his wife Joyce ran pubs in Reading and Monmouthshire, as well as a corner shop in Bournemouth before retiring to Weston-super-Mare, in Somerset.
A family member of a Chinese boy, who is thought to have fallen down a deep well, said the well turned out to be empty, according to Chinese media.

Some 80 diggers have been dispatched to the village in central China to save the five-year-old after his family claimed he had plummeted into a 130-foot-deep chute last week.

The team of rescuers have been searching for the child for more than 85 hours as of writing.

Where is the boy? Rescuers have worked around the clock for more than three days

Five-year-old Zhao Sicong, from China, fell into a deserted well on Sunday, his family claimed

After the family alerted the authority, a large team of rescuers have been sent to save the child

Rescue operation has been going on for more than 85 hours around the clock as of writing

However, the child's uncle told a reporter that he found the well to be empty this morning

The boy's uncle, Song Jiandang, told a reporter from The Paper that he only saw a pile of dry mud at the bottom of the well as he carried out excavations this morning in the village of Zhongmengchang in Lixian County, Hebei's Baoding city.

Mr Song said he was digging the earth with another family member and one volunteer from the same village.

The uncle said they dug from 5am for about two hours.

The boy's uncle said he only saw a pile of dry mud at the bottom of the well when he peeked

The man said he was about 13 feet from the bottom of the well and he looked down the well

The man was puzzled when he saw nobody in the well and he had no idea where the boy was

As they were about four metres (13 feet) from the bottom of the well, the boy's uncle turned on a torch and looked down the well. Surprisingly, he found nobody there.

A puzzled Mr Song also claimed that the rescuers had used life detectors for four or five times during the operation, and they couldn't find any signs of life either.

The excavation is still ongoing as of writing.

Excavators work at the rescue site in Zhongmengchang Village of Lixian County in Baoding

The rescue team are trying to save a boy who fell into a dried well in Baoding on November 6

A six-year-old boy fell into a deserted well measuring 130ft deep and 12 inches wide

A large rescue team, including police, firemen and paramedics, have been sent to the scene

According to the boy's parents and grandfather, the child, named Zhao Zicong by Chinese media, fell into the deserted well by accident while harvesting cabbages with his father at around 11am on November 6.

The boy had previously been reported to be six years old, but more updated reports said he was five years old.

The dry well measured 30 centimetres wide (11.8 inches).

The boy's grandfather told a reporter from The Beijing News on an earlier occasion that the well was located near their house and had been used to irrigate the nearby fields.

The man also said that the well was about 40 metres deep (131 feet) and had been abandoned for around five years.

After the family alerted the local authority, a team of rescuers, including police officers, firefighters, paramedics and local volunteers were sent to the scene to search for the boy.

Over 80 diggers have been dispatched for the rescue operation, according to local media

The heavy duty vehicles are working around the clock to save the child since fell on Sunday

The heavy-duty vehicles have dug a crater of around 330 feet in diametre around the well

It remains unknown whether or not Zhao is still alive as rescuers carry on searching

More than 80 diggers have been sent to the farm to remove earth around the well, according to local media.

Rescuers have put metal tubes around the well to prevent the boy from being hurt by the diggers.

In addition, oxygen is being pumped into the bottom of the well by the rescuers.

An aerial video posted by QQ.com shows the heavy-duty vehicles have dug a crater of around 100 metres (328 feet) in diametre around the well.

It remains unknown whether or not Zhao is still alive.

It has been reported that his parents and grandfather had been taken away by the police.
A firefighter had a brush with death this weekend, when she was bitten by a snake after decapitating the reptile.

Kyle Watson and his family were hiking in Columbia, Tennessee on Sunday, when his wife stepped over a Timber rattlesnake.

Wanting to protect others who would be hiking on the remote trail, Watson decided to chop the snake's head off with an oar he found nearby. He ran into trouble when his two kids asked to see the snake's body.

'When I reached to get the body, the severed head turned and struck me,' Watsontold NewsChannel 5.

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Kyle Watson was hiking with his family on Sunday when he was bitten by a venomous Timber rattlesnake

Watson, a firefighter, chopped the snake's head off with an oar, but it continued to bite him when he reached out to grab the body to show to his two kids

Watson began to feel the effects of the venomous bite just a few seconds later, when a burning sensation started spreading up his arm and his lips and throat started to swell.

'It took about 10 seconds for the burning sensation to start shooting through my arm. Within 60 seconds, I was unconscious. I fell on the trail and hit the back of my head on a rock. I was knocked out. In a remote area, bleeding from the head and bitten by a snake,' Watson told WSMV.

Watson's wife called 911 and emergency responders had to carry the firefighter out of the woods for about a mile before he could be life-flighted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Emergency responders had to carry Watson for about a mile to a place where he could be life flighted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Watson is currently recovering at the hospital, after being given an anti-venom serum

He was initially hospitalized in critical condition, but is now stable after being given a steady drip of anti-venom medication. He should be able to go home in a few days.

Emergency officials warn that if bitten by a venomous snake, only anti-venom serum will work. So getting to a hospital as soon as possible could be life saving.

The Timber rattlesnake is one of four venomous snakes in Tennessee.

There are between 8,000 and 10,000 reports of snakebites annually, around the country, but only 12 to 15 deaths each year.

Watson pictured above with his two children. Emergency officials warn that if bitten by a venomous snake, only anti-venom serum will work. So getting to a hospital as soon as possible could be life saving
Samnatha Bee has made no secret of her disdain for Donald Trump and many of his supporters over the past few months, and on Wednesday night's special episode of her TBS show Full Frontal, she took aim at the people who elected him president.

'In the coming days, people will be looking for someone to blame: the pollsters, the strident feminists, the Democratic party, a vengeful god. But once you dust for fingerprints, its pretty clear who ruined America - white people,' said Bee.

Shen then joked: 'I guess ruining Brooklyn was just a dry run.'

Bee went on to say: 'The Caucasian nation showed up in droves to vote for Trump. So I dont want to hear a goddamn word about black voter turnout. How many times do we expect black people to build our country for us?'

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Anger: Samantha Bee (above) took aim at white people on Wednesday night's episode of Full Frontal after they voted for Trump in overwhelming numbers

Explanation: Bee said that 'once you dust for fingerprints, its pretty clear who ruined America - white people'

Bee did not stop there either, going on to say: 'White people, this is the worst thing weve ever - no, Im sorry, thats a very high bar. But holy s***! And dont try to distance yourself from the bad apples and say, "Its not my fault, I didnt vote for him. Hashtag not all white people." Shush.

'If Muslims have to take responsibility for every member of their community, so do we.'

Bee also took aim at white women, who polls show supported Trump over Clinton on Tuesday.

'White women, faced with the historic choice between the first female president and a vial of weaponized testosterone said, "Ill take option B. I just dont like her,"' said Bee.

She then added: 'Hope you got your sticker, ladies. Way to lean out.'

Bee then struck a more hopeful tone as she noted that while Clinton did not win on Tuesday, there is a woman out there who will become the first female president.

'If Ms. Rodhams not in the White House, thats okay. One of those girls is going to be,' said Bee.

'We still have millions of nasty women who are not going away. And as long as women over 25 are still allowed on television, Ill be here cheering them on.'

Bee then flashed a promo for the program showing a young beauty queen and joked: 'Although that may only be until late January.'

She then closed out the opening segment by calling on all the women who were watching the show.

'Lets get off the floor and get busy. Especially you white women,' said Bee.

'Weve got some karma to work off.'

Disbelief: Bee (above with Jon Stewart) also criticized white women, who polls show supported Trump over Clinton on Tuesday

Disappointment: 'Hope you got your sticker, ladies. Way to lean out,' said Bee (above with Katie Couric)

Bee opened the show on Wednesday with a pre-taped segment in which she hugged a number of other news hosts to celebrate the election being over, including Katie Couric, Ana Navarro, Shepard Smith and Greg Gutfeld of Fox News as well as her former Daily Show co-workers Larry Wilmore, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert.

She then came out and asked: 'How did everyone get this so spectacularly wrong?'

Bee then offered the possibility that she was to blame, pointing out that Law & Order was cancelled after 20 seasons the same year she first appeared on the program as a guest star, and that Playboy announced they would no longer feature nudity in the magazine the day after her interview with the magazine was released earlier this year.

Tuesday, she explained, was the first time that the Canadian-born Bee voted in an American election.

'And I broke America,' said Bee.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. JAMES L. WILSON, Plaintiff Counterclaim Defendant - Appellant, v. MARK ROKUSEK, Defendant Counterclaimant - Appellee, JOHNSON COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT; JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS; FRANK DENNING, Defendants - Appellees. No. 16-3027 Decided: November 09, 2016

Before KELLY, GORSUCH, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges.

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

Plaintiff James L. Wilson brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas pursuant to 42 U.S.C.  1983 for alleged constitutional violations arising from his arrest. In the course of his detainment and arrest, Mr. Wilson ran from Officer Mark Rokusek, stole his service vehicle, hit him with the vehicle, and then swerved at another officer. Mr. Wilson was then shot in the arm. He alleged that Officer Rokusek used excessive force in shooting his arm because there was no reasonable danger to him or others.

The district court held the case in abeyance while Mr. Wilson was charged and convicted of, inter alia, battery against a law enforcement officer. After the Kansas Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, State v. Wilson, 347 P.3d 1214 (2015) (per curiam) (table decision), the district court dismissed the claims against the governmental-entity defendants under state sovereign immunity, the claims against Frank Denning under Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), and the claims against Officer Rokusek under Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). On appeal, Mr. Wilson does not raise any error in the district court's Heck analysis; his brief reads more like an application for post-conviction relief. He merely maintains that he did not drive the service vehicle into Officer Rokusek, seeking to buttress his claim for excessive force. Mr. Wilson does not appeal the district court's determination regarding the governmental-entity defendants or Mr. Denning.

Civil actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments. Heck, 512 U.S. at 486. Under Heck, a plaintiff may not bring a civil-rights claim for damages under  1983 based on actions whose unlawfulness would render an existing criminal conviction invalid. Havens v. Johnson, 783 F.3d 776, 782 (10th Cir. 2015). A claim of excessive force does not necessarily imply the invalidity of a conviction for assaulting the officer. Martinez v. City of Albuquerque, 184 F.3d 1123, 1126 (10th Cir. 1999). As a result, we must compare the plaintiff's allegations to the offense he committed. Havens, 783 F.3d at 782. An excessive-force claim must be barred in its entirety if the suit squarely challenges the factual determination that underlies the plaintiff's conviction. Id. at 783.

Mr. Wilson's  1983 claim is precisely the kind of suit barred by Heck. Under Kansas law, a person commits battery against a law enforcement officer if he intentionally or recklessly caused bodily harm to a properly identified officer engaged in the performance of his duty. R. Vol. 1 at 273 (jury instruction); see also Kan. Stat. Ann.  21-5413(a). Mr. Wilson was thus convicted of causing bodily harm to Officer Rokusek. Neither his complaint nor his opening brief alleges that Officer Rokusek's use of force was excessive in response to a battery. Rather, he contends that Officer Rokusek's use of force was unreasonable because he was not in the path of the service vehicle. These allegations could not support the elements of battery against a law enforcement officer under Kansas law and the factual basis for Mr. Wilson's conviction. Mr. Wilson does not present an alternative scenario consistent with his [battery] conviction, Havens, 783 F.3d at 78384  his only theory of relief is based on his innocence, which is a theory barred by Heck, see id. at 784. We therefore affirm the district court's dismissal of his suit.

Mr. Wilson has moved to proceed without prepayment of court fees. To succeed on this motion, he must show the existence of a reasoned, nonfrivolous argument on the law and facts in support of the issues raised in the action. Lister v. Dep't of Treasury, 408 F.3d 1309, 1312 (10th Cir. 2005). Here, the district court thoroughly discussed the deficiencies of Mr. Wilson's complaint under Heck. Mr. Wilson does not attempt to put forth any reasoned and nonfrivolous arguments showing error in the district court's analysis, opting instead to challenge the factual basis for his battery conviction. Accordingly, we find his appeal frivolous and deny the motion. We have previously assessed a filing fee of $505.00 and directed partial payments from Mr. Wilson's prison trust account. Mr. Wilson is directed to pay the outstanding balance of the filing fee to the clerk of the district court forthwith.

Entered for the Court

FOOTNOTES

. After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.

Paul J. Kelly, Jr. Circuit Judge
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Thousands of police officers from across the country lined the streets to pay tribute to a New York City police sergeant who was killed during a gunfight last week.

Officers stood shoulder-to-shoulder for nearly a mile as a hearse carrying the body Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo arrived for his funeral in Massapequa in Long Island on Thursday. The 19-year veteran officer was killed last Friday in the Bronx.

Tuozzolo's widow Lisa and their two young sons, Austin and Joseph, walked alongside the flag-draped casket and Tuozzolo's fellow officers served as pallbearers.

During a eulogy, his voice cracking, Police Commissioner James O'Neill posthumously promoted Tuozzolo to Sergeant-Special Assignment.

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Lisa Tuozzolo, wife of the late Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo is escorted by a high ranking New York Police Department officer, at the conclusion of Tuozzolo's Mass of Christian Burial at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Massapequa, New York, on Thursday

Police officers present a flag to Lisa Tuozzolo, center, after a funeral service for her husband Sergeant Paul J. Tuozzolo outside St. Rose of Lima church in Massapequa on Thursday

Lisa Tuozzolo holds a NYPD flag during the funeral service for her husband, slain New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer Paul Tuozzolo

Officers and loved ones line the street leading to St. Rose of Lima church for the funeral for NYPD Sergeant Paul J. Tuozzolo

'Paul was everything we could wish for in a police officer,' O'Neill told mourners. 'Paul protected all New Yorkers and he died while keeping people safe.'

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and former Police Commissioner William Bratton also were among those who attended the service.

People stand as the casket of slain New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer Paul Tuozzolo is carried to his hearse

Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo, a 19-year veteran officer, was killed last Friday in the Bronx

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio hugs a high-ranking New York Police Department officer at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church

High ranking New York City Police officers greet the family of fallen NYPD Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo during the Mass of Christian Burial on Thursday

De Blasio said Tuozzolo was a hero who 'gave his life protecting his fellow officers, protecting all of us. He laid down his life for his friends.'

Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins said Tuozzolo was a 'warrior' who lived for his job and his family.

The 41-year-old officer, who would have been eligible to retire next year, is the fifth New York City police officer to be fatally shot in the line of duty in the last two years.

The 41-year-old officer (left, and right, with his wife), who would have been eligible to retire next year, is the fifth New York City police officer to be fatally shot in the line of duty in the last two years

Thousands of police officers from across the nation have paid tribute to Tuozzolo, a New York City police sergeant who was killed November 4 in The Bronx

Tuozzolo's wife Lisa is pictured alongside mourners at a funeral for her husband, a 19-year police sergeant, on Thursday

Tuozzolo's fellow officers served as pallbearers and carried his flag-draped casket into the church in Massapequa

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (left) leaves the funeral service for Sergeant Paul J. Tuozzolo at St. Rose of Lima church

'The memory of Paul will be a part of this department forever and ever and ever,' added police chaplain Monsignor Robert Roman.

Blue ribbons were tied to trees and lampposts near the St. Rose of Lima Church in Massapequa; businesses hung signs and photos of Tuozzolo with messages of condolences for his family.

A police helicopter hovered over the church as snipers stood watch on nearby rooftops.

Tuozzolo died unfolded after an encounter with Manuel Rosales, who had broken into his estranged wife's home. Rosales, of Brentwood, stayed for hours before fleeing. He also was killed in the gunfire.

Police officers salute as mourners leave St. Rose of Lima church after funeral a service for NYPD Sergeant Paul J. Tuozzolo

Police Officers carry the casket of NYPD Sergeant Paul J. Tuozzolo as loved ones walk behind them as they leave the church

Tuozzolo's partner, Emmanuel Kwo, was treated at a hospital for a leg wound. Mullins said Kwo told him that his partner 'saved my life' and shouted 'gun, gun, gun!' before Rosales opened fire.

Authorities say Rosales had a history of 17 arrests and served time in state prison for possession of stolen property.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim Sini said Rosales was bailed out of jail after his last arrest, in July, on a domestic violence charge.

He said his officers have 'taken a hard look' at Rosales' arrest history as part of the investigation.

Tuozzolo's partner, Emmanuel Kwo, who was treated at a hospital for a leg wound, said Tuozzolo 'saved my life' and shouted 'gun, gun, gun!' before the gunman opened fire
A jury will resume deliberations in the murder trial of a white former police officer who shot dead an unarmed black man during a traffic stop in Ohio.

Prosecutors want the jurors to conclude that now-fired University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing 'purposely' killed Sam DuBose.

Tensing said he feared for his life before shooting DuBose in the head after stopping him over a missing front license plate.

Hamilton County Judge Megan Shanahan sequestered the jurors Wednesday night, telling them that they would resume deliberating Thursday morning.

A jury will resume deliberations in the murder trial of white former police officer, Ray Tensing (pictured in court on Wednesday) who shot dead an unarmed black man during a traffic stop in Ohio

Tensing, 26, (pictured in court last month) has said he shot unarmed black man Sam DuBose (right), 43, while being dragged by DuBose's car as he tried to drive away on July 19, 2015. The prosecution said evidence including Tensing's own body camera video contradicted his story

Prosecutors want the jurors to conclude that now-fired University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing 'purposely' killed DuBose. The victim's family, including his mother Audrey DuBose (left) listened as the prosecution made closing arguments on Wednesday

Before they got the case, Shanahan instructed them to apply the law to the facts presented in court, and to judge the facts 'from the perspective of a reasonable officer at the scene,' not in '20-20 hindsight.'

Jurors also have the option of convicting him of voluntary manslaughter, meaning he killed in a fit of rage or sudden passion after being provoked.

Tensing, 26, has said he shot DuBose, 43, while being dragged by DuBose's car as he tried to drive away on July 19, 2015.

The prosecution said evidence including Tensing's own body camera video contradicted his story.

'The video is the ultimate witness ... this video exposes Tensing's lies,' Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said during closing arguments.

Jurors also have the option of convicting him of voluntary manslaughter, meaning he killed in a fit of rage or sudden passion after being provoked

Hamilton County Judge Megan Shanahan (pictured) instructed jurors before they got the case to apply the law to the facts presented in court, and to judge the facts 'from the perspective of a reasonable officer at the scene,' not in '20-20 hindsight'

He said Tensing and his lawyer became 'almost comical with their word games,' calling shooting DuBose 'stopping the threat' and saying he 'perceived to be dragged.'

But defense attorney Stewart Mathews insisted Tensing was trying to keep from being run over.

'He was in sheer terror,' Mathews told jurors. 'The evidence is very clear that a car can be just as deadly as a gun or knife.'

He said prosecutors tried to use race as 'a smokescreen.' They pointed to Tensing's T-shirt worn under his uniform that day.

Tensing said his arm was stuck in DuBose's car at the time and the car was turning toward him

City officials met with civil rights and faith leaders in the weeks before the trial, trying to reduce tensions over a racially charged case that brought demonstrators outside the courthouse. Pictured is Cincinnati City Council Member Yvette Simpson in court

Tensing is pictured standing near DuBose's car after the man was shot dead

The 'Great Smoky Mountains' shirt had a Confederate flag on it. Mathews said it had 'no evidentiary value.'

City officials met with civil rights and faith leaders in the weeks before the trial, trying to reduce tensions over a racially charged case that brought demonstrators  including Black Lives Matter activists  outside the courthouse.

It is among cases nationwide that have raised attention to how police deal with blacks.

Deters told jurors Wednesday that 'emotions are high,' but they must decide based on the facts.

Tensing wept on the stand. He said his arm was stuck in DuBose's car at the time and the car was turning toward him.

Deters asked Tensing about an outside report that eight out of every 10 drivers that Tensing pulled over for traffic stops were black, the highest rate of any University of Cincinnati officer.

At the time of the shooting, Tensing was wearing a black T-shirt (pictured) that was emblazoned with the Stars and Bars and the words 'Great Smoky Mountains', which appears to be in reference to the national park in Tennessee

The University of Cincinnati has restructured its public safety department and made reforms since the shooting. DuBose's emotional family members listen to closing arguments in court Wednesday

Tensing (pictured leaving court Wednesday) faces 15 years to life in prison if he is convicted of murder. The university has also agreed to a $5.3 million settlement with DuBose's family that includes free undergraduate tuition for his 13 children

Tensing said he was often unaware of a driver's race, did not single people out unfairly and wasn't racist.

Witnesses testified that DuBosem who was the father of 13 children, had significant amounts of marijuana and cash on him, which Mathews described as a reason why he was desperate to flee.

Tensing faces 15 years to life in prison if he is convicted of murder.

Meanwhile, the University of Cincinnati has restructured its public safety department and made reforms since the shooting.
But she later admitted to police that she had fabricated the story

A Louisiana student claimed she was attacked by a man in a Trump cap

The assault took place in parking complex at San Diego State University

A female student in a hijab was targeted because of her faith, police said

A female Muslim student was targeted on a California college campus by supporters of Donald Trump because of her faith within hours of his election, authorities said  while another in Louisiana admitted she had fabricated a story about being attacked by a man in a Trump cap.

Authorities at San Diego State University said the assault occurred in a parking complex while the woman was wearing a hijab.

They said two suspects targeted the student because of her faith and made comments about Trump's election.

She wasnt hurt, but the suspects stole her car keys, and the vehicle was later reported missing, authorities said.

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A female Muslim student was targeted on a California college campus by supporters of Donald Trump because of her faith within hours of his election, authorities said  while a University of Louisiana (above, file photo) student admitted she had fabricated a story about being attacked by a man in a Trump cap

On Thursday, San Diego State University police said they are investigating the attack on its campus as a hate crime. The woman was not hurt.

In a statement, SDSU President Elliot Hirshman denounced the attack, calling hate crimes destructive to the spirit of the campus.

Meanwhile, the University of Louisiana college student had told police that two white men  one wearing a white 'Trump' hat  shouted racial obscenities as they beat her before they stole her wallet and ripped of her headscarf, known as a hijab.

But the Lafayette Police Department said in a statement Thursday that it is no longer investigating the 18-year-old woman's claims.

Earlier on Thursday, police said the woman told investigators she was walking near the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's campus on Wednesday morning when she was accosted by two white men who drove up in a gray sedan.

She claimed the men struck her several times in the back with a metal object, knocking her down and continued to beat her while she was on the ground.

The student had claimed the men shouted racial obscenities as they knocked her down and stole her wallet and the headscarf.

The 18-year-old Louisiana student claimed she was attacked on Smith Street (above, file photo) in Lafayette on Wednesday, but later told police she made the story up

Earlier on Thursday, Lafayette Police Department spokesman Cpl. Karl Ratcliff said investigators hadn't found any witnesses or surveillance video to assist them.

The Muslim community of Lafayette is very ashamed that someone would make up a story so terrible, especially since this type of discriminatory violence is very real across the country, Nadia Khansa, a senior at UL Lafayette, told DailyMail.com.

We do not condone this behavior but we will use this as an opportunity to take preventative measures to ensure Lafayette's community is safe and civil.

The American Civil Liberties of Louisiana had issued a statement, saying it was outraged and troubled by the Lafayette student's report.

'We call on all Louisianians to reject anti-Muslim bigotry,' the group said in a statement.

'Muslim Americans and residents have the same rights that we all do: to practice our religion freely and openly, to live and work without fear, and to participate equally in public life.'

And the university's police department issued a statement notifying staff and students about the student's reported attack.

Donald Trump (above, with Mike Pence) defeated Hillary Clinton to become president-elect in the early hours of Wednesday

In a separate statement that didn't mention the fabricated incident, university president E. Joseph Savoie called for unity after a 'long, contentious presidential campaign.'

'With the election behind us, we must now concentrate on trying to find common ground that will enable us to move forward together  as a nation,' Savoie said.

Kareem Attia, a 23-year-old graduate student who is president of the university's Muslim Student Association, had said he didn't want to jump to any conclusions about whether the election results inspired the alleged attack.

'I don't think that's proper,' he said. 'But I will say a hate crime is a hate crime. It's not within our religion to accept it.

'It's not within our species of humans to accept that, either.'

Trump's shock ascent to the White House topped a vitriolic campaign in which he promised to ban Muslims from entering the US and pledged to establish a database of those living in the country.

His rhetoric - including repeated mentions of the threat of terrorism from 'radical Islam' on American soil  has previously been linked to attacks on the country's Muslims.
He was swooped on by counter-terrorism after a 22-year investigation

Accused of warning shock jock Ray Hadley he had 'three bullets' for him

to 'shoot the pigs' to NSW Police Commissioner

A reclusive elderly man has been arrested for sending almost 200 threatening letters over decades to the NSW Police Commissioner and a high-profile radio presenter.

Tony Hannibelsz, 71, was arrested by counter-terrorism police at his western Sydney home in Villawood at 6am on Thursday after a 22-year investigation, Daily Telegraph reported.

Hannibelsz allegedly wrote letters to NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione threatening to 'shoot the pigs' and warning shock jock Ray Hadley he had 'three bullets' for him.

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Tony Hannibelsz, 71, was arrested by counter-terrorism police at his western Sydney home (pictured) in Villawood

He also allegedly lashed out at the head of electronics retailer Bing Lee, Lionel Lee, and demanded $2 million from Bankstown Post Office in an extortion warning.

The pensioner was charged with six counts of documents containing threats in Fairfield Court, and police may lay further charges.

He told the court he did not know why he sent the letters.

Hannibelsz was refused bail and ordered to seek a mental health assessment before reappearing in court in February.

Neighbours said the solitary senior citizen had taped up his windows and letterbox.

Police said despite the arrest being carried out by counter-terrorism officers, it was not a terror-related investigation.

Allegedly wrote letters to NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione (left) threatening to 'shoot the pigs' and warned shock jock Ray Hadley he had 'three bullets' for him
Ahmed Khan Rahimi (pictured) faces charges of detonating a pressure cooker bomb in New York City that injured more than 30 people

The man charged with setting off bombs in New Jersey and New York in September shuffled slowly into a Manhattan courtroom to face federal terrorism charges on Thursday - where his lawyer said he'd undergone up to 10 surgeries after being seriously injured in the police shootout that led to his capture.

Ahmed Khan Rahimi, 28, listened as US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn read him his rights and the charges against him during a brief morning appearance after he was transferred into federal custody at 5am.

No plea was required because he has yet to be indicted.

But his lawyer expressed worries that a federal lockup could not adequately care for injuries stemming from his shootout with police.

The Afghanistan-born US citizen was hospitalized for weeks for treatment of multiple bullet wounds after a police shootout during his capture outside a bar in Linden, New Jersey, on September 19.

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Rahimi is shown in this courtroom sketch with attorney David Patton (left) as he appears in federal court Manhattan to face charges on Thursday

His attorney David Patton told the judge he was worried that Rahimi cannot be adequately treated for his wounds at the Manhattan Correctional Center, a federal lockup next to federal courthouses in lower Manhattan.

He said Rahimi has already undergone eight to 10 surgeries, many for infections resulting from his bullet wounds.

Rahimi also has serious liver damage, injuries to his left hand that prevent him from closing it, an open wound on his right leg and serious back and shoulder injuries, he added.

'We have some real concerns about Mr. Rahimi's medical condition,' Patton said.

But assistant US Attorney Andrew DeFillippis said federal authorities took his injuries into consideration when they decided he was well enough to be transferred to the Manhattan facility.

Rahimi is accused of planting two pressure cooker bombs in New York City. Above, a bomb squad at the scene of the unexploded bomb on 27th Street in New York on September 18

Rahimi is charged with detonating a pipe bomb along a Marine Corps charity race in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and planting two pressure cooker bombs in New York City.

One of those devices did not explode, but the other one detonated in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, injuring 30.

On Thursday, Judge Netburn formally notified Rahimi that he faced four federal charges: the use of weapons of mass destruction, the bombing of a public place, the destruction of property through fire or explosion and the use of a destructive device during a crime of violence.

Speaking softly, Rahimi acknowledged that he understood the charges while his attorney, David Patton, waived a public reading of them.

An NYPD robot retrieves an unexploded pressure cooker bomb on 27th Street, hours after an explosion nearby

Outside court, Patton said Rahimi 'certainly plans to enter a plea of not guilty at his arraignment.'

But he declined to discuss anything further about the case or his client's mental condition.

In addition to the federal charges, Rahimi faces five counts of attempted murder of a police officers and weapons offenses in New Jersey.
A German train dispatcher responsible for the deaths of 12 people in a horrific rail crash had been playing on his phone, a court heard.

The 40-year-old, identified as Michael P because of the country's privacy laws, admitted he had hit the wrong signal buttons in the lead-up to the crash.

He was responsible for controlling signals which allowed both trains onto the same stretch of track.

The rail worker covered his face as he appeared in court charged with 12 counts of negligent homicide and 89 counts of causing bodily harm

Twelve people died and dozens were injured in the horror crash, which saw two commuter trains collide head-on

The rail worker is charged with 12 counts of negligent homicide and 89 counts of causing bodily harm in the collision, which is one of Germany's worst rail crashes in recent history.

The two trains were filled with commuters when they collided on a single track line at around 60mph near the Bavarian town of Bad Aibling, around 40 miles southeast of Munich on February 9.

Michael P, who covered his face as he was photographed in court, said in a statement to the victims' families that he knew he was guilty, and told them: 'In my thoughts I am with you.'

A regional court in Traunstein was told that Michael P was playing a fantasy game, Dungeon Hunter 5, on his smartphone until shortly before the crash

The collision, which happened on February 9, was one of the worst rail crashes in recent German history

A regional court in Traunstein was told that Michael P was playing a fantasy game, Dungeon Hunter 5, on his smartphone until shortly before the crash.

When asked about his online game habits at the trial, the accused didn't answer, news agency DPA reports. Rail dispatchers are banned from using personal phones at work.

The dispatcher has been in custody since April, and is due to be sentenced on December 5. He faces a maximum of five years in prison.

The 40-year-old train dispatcher covered his face as he arrived in court to answer charges following the tragedy

There were 12 fatalities, and more than 80 people were injured in the horrific collision

Chief prosecutor Wolfgang Giese said after the case was opened: 'Had he behaved according to the rules the trains would not have collided.'

State-owned operators Deutsche Bahn launched an immediate investigation into the disaster.

Each train carried several 'black boxes' which were recovered and interrogated to determine whether either driver was at fault.

However, the investigation found that the line's controller opened up the track to the trains heading in opposite directions.

The collision happened on a single-track line in Bad Aibling, around 40 miles southeast of Munich
Britain is facing a cereal shortage after a sacking row at the factory that makes Shreddies, Cheerios and Shredded Wheat.

Up to 100 workers at the major Nestle production centre have threatened to walk out unless colleague Justin Beckett gets his job back.

The company let go of the manufacturing operative after 18 years following a 'minor altercation' with a manager.

Mr Beckett is also a rep for the Unite union who claim he has been the victim of an 'internal stitch up' by bosses during the disciplinary process.

Britain is facing a cereal shortage because of a 'frosty' sacking row at the factory that makes Shreddies, Cheerios and Shredded Wheat

He said: 'It's a number of things that have built up. People going to that place feel sick that they have to work there because it's such an unhappy working atmosphere.

'I didn't know I was suspended until the Monday and the incident happened on the Saturday and if it was that serious of an incident, why wasn't I suspended on the Saturday?

'They found an opportunity when you can take the line of gross misconduct and you can get anybody on gross misconduct and you can get that on anything.

'The appealing manager didn't even talk to me or ask me any questions.

'When I was fired on September 7 there was two people sat outside ready to escort me off the premises so the factory knew before I did.

'I was sick, I felt stressed and my face was all swollen up so I went and got that sorted out and I had an infection in my eye.

Up to 100 workers at the Nestle production centre have threatened to walk out unless colleague Justin Beckett gets his job back

'I didn't come back in for the rest of the weekend because I felt stressed out to be honest.

'I went into to work and I'd already complained to HR that I was already being picked on this was another incident where another manager was picking on me and I'd just had enough.

'So I went and complained and I was accused of doing something and then they fired me over it.

'At the end of the day they'll just say they were doing the right thing.'

Talks between Unite and bosses at the Cereal Partners factory in Trowbridge, Wiltshire - one of just two UK Nestle cereal sites - have so far been unsuccessful.

A meeting was planned for Thursday but Unite have described the management's attitude so far as 'frosty'.

Mr Beckett added: 'There's a big divide between management and people on the shop floor.

'For the last ten years, as long as I've been a rep, I've told the management there this and they just haven't listened. They sit in their offices and they aren't bothered about it, as long as they get a tick in the box and profit out the door they don't care.

'I've helped a lot of people being a union leader who've been through the same thing as me, like if they've used language when they're talking. It's a factory environment, there's no women on the shop floor and the language is like working on the shop floor.

'It's been blown up so they can get what they want and they've got it and now I've got to find another job.

'They can talk to you any way they want and treat you how you want, people have put complaints in about bullying and they just get away with it and you just get told it's because they're under pressure.

'It's alright for them to do it but it's not okay for us to do it.

If the row cannot be resolved the production of the nation's favourite breakfast cereals could be disrupted.

As well as Shreddies, Shredded Wheat and Cheerios, Cereal Partners manufacture brands including Golden Nuggets, Cookie Crisp, Nesquik and Honey Nut Clusters.

Mr Beckett is also a rep for the Unite union who claim he has been the victim of an 'internal stitch up' by bosses during the disciplinary process

Unite regional officer Tony Hulbert said: 'The management has a final opportunity to resolve this dispute and reinstate Justin Beckett who has an unblemished 18-year work record, before the union moves to the next stage which is industrial action.

'Such action will hit the production of some of the nation's favourite breakfast cereals, such as Shredded Wheat and Shreddies.

'Unite will not stand by and allow Justin to lose his job in a manner that smacks of an internal stitch-up, following a minor verbal exchange with a colleague.

'Last Friday's talks could be described as frosty and the management gave no commitment to reinstate Justin.

'I have another scheduled meeting with the company on Thursday which gives the management a chance to do the right thing and reinstate Justin, who enjoys maximum support from his work colleagues.'

Nestle said: 'Unfortunately we cannot comment on individual employee matters.

'Where there is cause for dismissal we follow strict company disciplinary procedures.
Clemency declaration would have to be worded such that it protects her from prosecution for potential violations tied to the Clinton Foundation

Coming up with a pardon that would cover all of the various charges Trumps administration could throw at her could prove difficult

Said the White House doesnt announce pardons before theyre doled out

Last night Giuliani told Bill O'Reilly it would cement Obama's legacy as being one of the country's worst presidents

Donald Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani explained on 'Fox & Friends' why that would be a bad idea

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani suggested that President Obama shouldn't pardon Hillary Clinton for any crimes connected to her private email server or her family foundation.

'President Obama should leave it to the system we all believe in to determine if she's innocent or if she's guilty,' Giuliani argued.

During this morning's 'Fox & Friends' appearance, Giuliani gave a more nuanced answer when asked about the pardon in comparison to what he told Bill O'Reilly last night  suggesting an Obama pardon for Clinton would 'seal Obama's legacy of being one of the worst presidents.'

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This morning, Rudy Giuliani explained why he thought it would be a bad idea for President Obama to pardon Hillary Clinton

Today, Giuliani, who could potentially become President-elect Donald Trump's attorney general, noted the 'two traditions' the country has that are 'sort of in conflict with each other.'

'One is we try to get over the anger and everything else about an election after it's over and put it behind us,' Giuliani said.

'And I don't like to see America become a country in which we prosecute people about politics,' he added.

'On the other hand there are deep and disturbing issues there,' he said of the Clinton Foundation.

Giuliani said if Clinton gets off the hook, thanks to being part of Obama's inner circle, it would make it hard to prosecute other people for similar crimes.

'What do you say to a foundation where you have a fraud of $50,000 when you haven't looked at a foundation where there's an alleged fraud of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars,' Giuliani continued.

'Now it may be true it's not true,' the former mayor said. 'But it hasn't been investigated.'

'That's why I don't think President Obama should pardon her,' he said.

Giuliani added that what Trump has talked about is finding an independent counsel to prosecute the case, not a more-partisan attorney general.

On Wednesday, during press secretary Josh Earnest's (above) briefing, he was asked whether the president had considered using his executive power in favor of the former secretary of state

On Wednesday, the White House opened the door to a pardon for Clinton for any crimes she may have committed in connection with her secret server.

Press Secretary Josh Earnest deflected a question about President-elect Donald Trumps intent to appoint a special prosecutor to review Clintons emails by saying that the White House doesnt announce pardons before theyre doled out.

The president has offered clemency to a substantial number of Americans who were previously serving time in federal prisons. And we didnt talk in advance about the presidents plans to offer clemency to any of those individuals, he said.

Earnest added, Thats because we dont talk about the presidents thinking, particularly with respect to any specific cases that may apply to pardons or commutations.

For over a year, Clinton had been embroiled in a FBI investigation into her private email server, but the investigation was closed for a second time just earlier this week.

Obama could pardon her whether she asks for it or not.

Coming up with a pardon that would cover all of the various charges Trumps administration could throw at her could prove difficult, legal experts told Politico.

The clemency declaration would have to be worded such that it protects her from prosecution for potential violations tied to the Clinton Foundation.

A dismissal of potential crimes that wide-reaching would leave a mark on Obamas reputation.

Back in 1974, President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor to the White House, Richard Nixon.

Ford did it for any crimes that Nixon may have committed against the country while he served as president.

At the time, he justified his decision by claiming that an extensive trial would have further polarized the country.

Clintons husbands departure from the White House was overshadowed when he granted Marc Rich, a fugitive at the time, clemency on his last day in office.

Richs ex-wife made a large donation to the Clinton Library and was a high-dollar Democratic donor.

In recent months, Republicans have alleged that the senator violated the law, and are pushing to put her behind bars.

Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, two of Trumps possible picks for attorney general, have openly advocated for a re-do.

No charges have been filed against Clinton (left on Wednesday), but the White House is not ruling out the possibility of her receiving a last-minute pardon from President Obama (right on Wednesday)

President-elect Donald Trump had vowed during the campaign for the White House that he'd appoint a 'special prosecutor' to handle the investigation into Clinton and her private email server.

He even told Clinton during a debate that if he were president, shed be in jail.

Clinton subsequently told DailyMail.com she had no concerns that would ever happen.

Since winning higher office in the wee hours of the morning Trump has not spoken about his designs for Clinton. He used a victory speech in the wee hours of the morning to highlight the hard work of Giuliani and other members of his team.

His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said on a series of morning shows Wednesday that the subject hadnt come up.

'We have not discussed that at all, and he certainly did not discuss that on his brief phone call with Mrs. Clinton,' she said on MSNBC.

Conway suggested that Trump wouldnt pursue a case against Clinton, however.

I think you heard his own words last night -- to the extent that one man can as president, certainly Vice President Pence who's phenomenal, they're looking to unify the country, she said. But we haven't discussed that in recent days. And I think that it's all in good time.

Taking a cue from Conway, the presidents spokesman indicated today that he too believed Trump move on from Clinton in the wake of his victory.

We have a long tradition in this country of people in power not using the criminal justice system to enact political revenge, he also said. In fact we go a long way to insulate the criminal justice system from partisan politics.

The Clinton Foundation has not been formally probed by the FBI, but it could be in a Trump administration.
British historian Simon Schama lost his rag over the presidential election and shouted: 'This is not a moment for calm,' before going on to compare Donald Trump's rise to power to that of Hitler.

Schama, who teaches at Columbia University in New York, reacted angrily after newspaper columnist Melanie Phillips told him: 'Calm down, dear.'

The 71-year-old responded: 'I don't want to calm down. Don't patronize me. It is not a moment for calm, it is not a moment for calm!...it is a moment for contesting what seems to be a very dangerous point in American history.'

Schama was on the BBC's flagship programme, Newsnight, discussing what lay behind Trump's extraordinary victory.

Schama (pictured) was enraged when Melanie Phillips told him to 'calm down, dear' and said it was 'not a time to be calm'

Schama and Phillips, who are both Jewish, disagreed about Trump, with Schama saying Trump's populism was pandering to racist and anti-Semitic 'dog-whistles'.

He said George Soros, who is Jewish, was singled out by Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions 'as a particularly odorous figure' in an alleged banking conspiracy.

Phillips, who is based in London, said: 'Clearly some of the people supporting Mr Trump are anti-Semites and racists...but there is no sign that he personally is anti-Semitic or racist.'

Simon Schama said Melanie Phillips (pictured) was being patronizing when she told him to 'calm down, dear'

Schama said Trump's victory was a 'cataclysmic moment' and he said many commentators were 'pussyfooting' around the 'toxic' subject of racism.

He warned of 'despotism' and said: 'D emocracy often brings fascists to power, it did in Germany in the 1930s'.

Schama said: 'Donald Trump retweeted a neo-Nazi tweet. It is not a coincidence that David Duke [the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan] is exhilarated and rejoicing about the advent of Trump, who is his man. We will see race crimes, hate crimes, explode now, probably in the period of transition. This is not alarmist.'

But his comments were criticized online, with one social media user calling it 'hysterical nonsense' and someone else saying he 'got his knickers in a twist'.

Today he refused to back down and told BBC radio: 'It is the exercise of the democratic will and it can often bring you authoritarian regimes and, in my opinion, that is exactly what is it going to do.'
When election day dawned, almost all pollsters and pundits predicted that Hillary Clinton would have any easy ride into the White House.

But by the time the results came in, it soon became clear that all but one of the major polling institutions had been spectacularly wrong about Trump's chances.

Now one history professor, who correctly forecast nine presidential elections in a row, is calling for all election polls and pundits to be banned.

Allan Lichtman, from the American University in Washington DC, told the i paper: 'It just shows how useless the polls and the pundits are.

History professor Allan Lichtman (pictured), from the American University in Washington DC, has called for all election polls and pundits to be banned

'I hope we dispense with polls, and send all the pollsters in the next election out to a very nice island in the Pacific, [so they can] have a very nice vacation.'

He also took aim at pundits and analysts for trying to backtrack after realising they got the predictions wrong.

'It's all after the fact stuff, the pundits, it's meaningless, it's worthless,' he said.

Mr Lichtman has successfully predicted the last nine elections using his unique 'keys' system.

The system assesses the strengths and performance of the party in the White House to predict whether the incumbent party will stay in power or be defeated.

Of the 20 major polling institutions including national networks and newspapers that conducted more than 80 polls since mid-September, only one organization, the Los Angeles Times paired with USC Tracking, consistently gave Trump the edge.

Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton has confounded the predictions of most pollsters

The ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Clinton with a four-point lead the day before America casts its ballots

Both the CBS and Bloomberg polls published Monday placed Clinton in the lead by a small margin

One the night before the election, The New York Times' polling desk projected that Clinton had an 85 per cent chance of winning the U.S. presidential election.

By 9.30pm on Tuesday Clinton's numbers started falling - until, within the hour, Trump was favored by the same publication to win by more than 77 per cent.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, which predicted Clinton would win, said: 'Almost all polls were wrong.

'This is worse than 'Dewey Defeats Truman,' said Sabato.

'There were only a few polls back then. At least 90 per cent of hundreds of surveys were wrong. Those of us who model from polls use their data; garbage in, garbage out.'

'We'll be studying this for many years to come. Your Brexit polls really weren't off by more than a few per cent.

'Our polls were dramatically off,' he added. 'And let me add, today's exit poll had Clinton winning almost everywhere at 5 pm. No doubt they've 'adjusted' it.'

HOW DOES LICHTMAN'S PREDICTION SYSTEM WORK? Professor Lichtman's system, based on his study of the presidential election cycles between 1860 and 1980, doesn't rely on polling data. It instead works by assessing 13 statements  called 'keys'  to see to what extent they support the re-election of the party currently in the White House. If six or more of these 'key' statements outlined in his Predicting the Next President book are true, the system favours the party in power. Party mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the US House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections. FALSE Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. FALSE Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president. FALSE Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign. UNCLEAR Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy. FALSE Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. FALSE Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero. FALSE Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. Advertisement

By 9.30pm on Tuesday Clinton's numbers started cratering quickly - until, within the hour, Donald J Trump was favored by The New York Times to win by more than 77 per cent

The Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California tracking poll consistently called Trump the winner in the final months of the campaign.

But among those who called it wrong immediately prior to the election were CBS and ABC News/Washington Post, as well as a CNN poll of polls, which all forecast a four-point lead for Clinton.

Bloomberg calculated a three-point lead for the Democrat, while Rasmussen estimated two.

The LA Times tracking poll, which has tended to show Trump at an advantage when other polls gave Clinton the lead, presently has the billionaire at 48 points to the Democrat's 43

Monmouth University and NBC News/Survey Monkey predicted even bigger leads of six points for the former secretary of state.

The only two major national surveys to call a Trump victory were the USC/LA Times and the IBD/TIPP tracking polls. The LA Times poll was also an outlier back in 2012, when it correctly called a win for Obama.

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight - which has correctly called the previous two elections - forecast a 66 per cent likelihood that Clinton will take the White House.

Away from the popular vote, electoral college forecasts were also misplaced. Emerson College saw Clinton winning 323 electoral votes to Trump's 215, among other studies predicting a Democrat landslide.

But in several key states, Trump outperformed expectations.

In Wisconsin, the RealClearPolitics average of 4-way recent polls pegged Clinton at 46.8% and Trump at 40.3%.

The IBD/TIPP four-way tracking survey shows Trump ahead

By early Wednesday morning, however, with 90 per cent of the votes counted, Trump was winning by more than 4 percentage points.

Pollsters suggested to USA Today that there should be more polling in states like Wisconsin and Michigan.

Additionally, Sabato said he believed pollsters miscalculated by underestimating white turnout in rural areas and overestimating the number of black and millennial voters who would show up on Election Day.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. United States of America, PlaintiffAppellee, v. Ashley Larae Tidzump, DefendantAppellant. No. 16-8021 Decided: November 09, 2016

Before LUCERO, McKAY, and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges. Submitted on the briefs.* Josh Lee, Assistant Federal Public Defender (Virginia L. Grady, Federal Public Defender, with him on the briefs), Office of the Federal Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for DefendantAppellant. Timothy W. Gist, Assistant United States Attorney (Christopher A. Crofts, United States Attorney, with him on the brief), District of Wyoming, Lander, Wyoming, for PlaintiffAppellee.

This appeal grows out of Tapia v. United States, 564 U.S. 319 (2011). There, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a federal district court cannot impose or lengthen a prison term to promote rehabilitation. 564 U.S. at 332.

Tapia was implicated when Ms. Ashley Tidzump was convicted of assault and requested an 18month prison term, admitting an addiction to opiates and a need for treatment. But Ms. Tidzump would ordinarily qualify for the prison's drug treatment program only if she were to begin treatment with at least two years remaining on her sentence. See BOP Program Statement No. P5330.11  2.5.1(b)(d) (Mar. 16, 2009) (stating that admission into the residential drug-abuse treatment program (RDAP) ordinarily requires an inmate to have at least 24 months remaining on the sentence). So, the district court imposed a prison sentence of 31 months. Though the sentence dipped below the guideline range, the sentence was long enough to allow Ms. Tidzump to become eligible for the prison's drug treatment program.

Ms. Tidzump appeals the sentence, calling on us to decide whether the district court's explanation for the sentence was permissible under Tapia. We conclude that the sentence was impermissible because the district court expressly lengthened the sentence for the purpose of promoting rehabilitation. We reverse.

I. Standard of Review

Ms. Tidzump did not object to the sentence in district court. As a result, we engage in limited review, deciding only whether the sentence constitutes plain error. United States v. Mendiola, 696 F.3d 1033, 1036 (10th Cir. 2012). In reviewing for plain error, we will reverse only if the district court erred in a way that is plain or obvious, prejudicing Ms. Tidzump's substantial rights and seriously affecting the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings. Id.

II. The district court erred in a way that is plain or obvious.

In our view, the district court erred in a plain or obvious manner. In reaching this conclusion, we recognize that the district court decided the sentence with a laudable purpose (facilitating rehabilitation) and proceeded without the benefit of adversarial argument. Nonetheless, the Tapia Court clearly and unequivocally prohibited district courts from imposing or lengthening a sentence for the purpose of promoting rehabilitation. Tapia v. United States, 564 U.S. 319, 332 (2011); see United States v. Mendiola, 696 F.3d 1033, 1036 n.2 (10th Cir. 2012) (Tapia's holding was clear and unequivocal.).

The government argues that until now, there has been no precedent on whether Tapia prevents a discretionary downward variance to account for treatment. Appellee's Resp. Br. at 20. This argument would not support affirmance here. The issue does not involve prevention of a downward variance, for the district court did vary downward by selecting a 31month sentence. Though a downward variance was permissible, the district court could not reduce the downward variance for the purpose of promoting rehabilitation.

The court did precisely that. Though Ms. Tidzump requested an 18month sentence, the district court stated that it preferred not to require any prison time. R., vol. 3 at 56. Ultimately, however, the court varied downward to 31 months, declining to go down any further for the stated purpose of allowing Ms. Tidzump to qualify for treatment in the RDAP. The district court expressed its thinking in two statements:

1. I'm not sending her 18 months to warehouse her, because she won't get into the program.

2. I [will] go down to 31 months. I think that's theprobably the bottom number I can get to and get her into the RDAP program.

Id. at 57.

The government interprets these comments differently, noting that the court expressed uncertainty over whether the 31month sentence would be the shortest prison term to qualify Ms. Tidzump for the RDAP:

In looking at all the facts and circumstances in this case, a sentence of 33 months, what is sufficient but not greater than necessary considering the objectives? I go down to 31 months. I think that's theprobably the bottom number I can get to and get her into the RDAP program. Maybe not.

Id. (emphasis added). Seizing on the comment at the end, Maybe not, the government argues that (1) a 31month term would have been too short to allow entry into the RDAP and (2) surely the district court knew that:

[T]he Defendant had served almost 4 months (119 days) in custody as of the date of sentencing, and thus a 31 month sentence was in effect a 27 month sentence. If the court was truly fashioning a sentence to ensure the Defendant would be eligible for RDAP  it would have imposed a longer sentenceand not varied downward from the advisory guidelineso as to offset this time already spent in custody. The court would also have known it would take upward of several months for the Defendant to be designated and transported to her eventual BOP placement, shaving even more time from her sentence.

Appellee's Resp. Br. at 19 (citation omitted).

The government's argument does little to create uncertainty over the district court's intent. Indeed, the argument serves only to confirm that a 31month sentence would probably constitute the shortest prison term that would allow entry into the RDAP.

What did the court mean when it added Maybe not? Presumably, the court meant that no one could know for sure what would be the shortest prison sentence to qualify Ms. Tidzump for the RDAP.

As indicated above, the BOP ordinarily allows entry into the RDAP only if at least 24 months remain on a sentence. See p. 2, above. As the government implies, Ms. Tidzump would get credit for the period of roughly four months in pretrial detention. 18 U.S.C.  3585(b)(1) (2012); see Appellee's Resp. Br. at 19 (stating that a 31 month sentence was in effect a 27 month sentence because of the period of almost four months in pretrial detention). Thus, Ms. Tidzump's four months in pretrial detention would not count toward her eligibility for the RDAP.

The same is true of the time that Ms. Tidzump spent awaiting a BOP placement. Appellee's Resp. Br. at 19. The government states that this period could take upward of several months. Id.

According to the government's math, Ms. Tidzump could not enter the RDAP until she had already served almost four months in pretrial detention and upward of several months waiting for her eventual BOP placement. Id. By then, roughly 24 months would have remained on her sentence, precisely the minimum ordinarily allowed under the BOP guidelines.

But the court could not know for sure

 how long it would take for Ms. Tidzump to be placed at a BOP facility or

 how quickly she could get into an RDAP.

Thus, the district court acknowledged some uncertainty, stating Maybe not, when remarking that 31 months was probably the shortest prison sentence to allow Ms. Tidzump to get  into the RDAP. R., vol. 3 at 57.

The court expressly acknowledged that it sentenced Ms. Tidzump to 31 months because that was likely the minimum to allow entry into the RDAP. We do not know with certainty how the court arrived at 31 months. But the government's argument reflects a reasonable explanation: Ms. Tidzump could not enter the program until spending roughly 4 months in pretrial detention and upward of 3 months in awaiting a BOP placement. At that point, Ms. Tidzump would have roughly 24 months remaining on her sentence, precisely the minimum for entry into the RDAP. Coincidence? We think not.

* * *

In sentencing Ms. Tidzump, the court expressly relied on Ms. Tidzump's need for drug treatment. This approach, however, is clearly and unequivocally foreclosed by Tapia. As a result, we conclude that the district court erred in a way that was plain or obvious.

III. The error affected Ms. Tidzump's substantial rights.

An obvious error, however, is not enough to require reversal. In addition, Ms. Tidzump must show an effect on her substantial rights. See Section I, above. This burden is met if compliance with Tapia would likely have led to a shorter sentence. United States v. Cordery, 656 F.3d 1103, 1108 (10th Cir. 2011).

Ms. Tidzump has made the required showing: the district court stated that it preferred not to give any prison time and decided against an 18month sentence because it would have prevented residential drug treatment. In these circumstances, it is reasonable to assume that, had the district court not focused on a particular drug treatment program within a federal institution, it likely would have imposed a lesser sentence. United States v. Mendiola, 696 F.3d 1033, 1042 (10th Cir. 2012) (citation omitted). Thus, we conclude that the error affected Ms. Tidzump's substantial rights. Id.; see also United States v. Cordery, 656 F.3d 1103, 1108 (10th Cir. 2011) (holding that a Tapia error affected the defendant's substantial rights because the district court's emphasis on RDAP eligibility suggests a reasonable probability that the sentence would have been lower without this consideration).

IV. The error seriously affected the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of the judicial proceedings.

Finally, Ms. Tidzump must show that the error seriously affected the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of the judicial proceedings. See Section I, above. We conclude that Ms. Tidzump satisfied this burden.

On this element, we consider whether compliance with Tapia would likely have led to a significantly shorter sentence. United States v. Cordery, 656 F.3d 1103, 1108 (10th Cir. 2011). That likelihood exists here. Defense counsel asked for an 18month sentence, and the district court stated that it preferred not to require any prison time. Instead, the court imposed a prison term of 31 months. That prison term exceeded Ms. Tidzump's request by over 40%, which was significant. As a result, we conclude that the Tapia error seriously affected the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of the judicial proceedings. See id. at 1105, 1108 (holding that a Tapia error seriously affected the fairness, integrity, and reputation of the judicial proceedings when the sentence exceeded the bottom of the guidelines by five months).

V. Disposition

We reverse and remand for resentencing in a manner consistent with Tapia.

FOOTNOTES

. We may take judicial notice of the BOP's program statement. See Davila v. Gladden, 777 F.3d 1198, 1207 n.3 (11th Cir. 2015) (taking judicial notice of a BOP program statement); United States v. Thornton, 511 F.3d 1221, 1229 n.5 (9th Cir. 2008) (same).

BACHARACH, Circuit Judge.
The former director of an investment company who embezzled almost $6million has been jailed for four years.

Frederick Leslie Hansen, from the Gold Coast, was sentenced in the Southport District Court on Thursday, after pleading guilty last month to two counts of dishonestly using his position as a director of Global Rule Pty Ltd.

An investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission found between October 2008 and September 2010 Hansen transferred a personal debt of $8,423,333 to Global Rule.

Former investment company director Frederick Hansen was sentenced to four years in jail on Thursday after pleading guilty to embezzling almost $6 million (stock image)

He then used $5,721,424 of investors' funds in an effort to pay it off.

ASIC commissioner Greg Tanzer said that decision left several investors in serious financial hardship.

'Today's decision shows that this type of behaviour will be met with serious consequences,' Mr Tanzer said in a statement.
A married police officer who said he 'gave into temptation' when he allegedly raped a drunk male inmate, faces up to 20 years in state prison.

Prosecutors and reports on the case have accused Salem officer Brian Butler of sexually assaulting the man in a station broom closet on the morning of Halloween.

Butler, who is married to the city's police chief, Mary E Butler, told a captain who confronted him: 'I am embarrassed and I gave into temptation. I've embarrassed myself, my family and the police department, according to court documents obtained by the Boston Herald.

Married police officer, Brian Butler (pictured during his arraignment on Wednesday) who said he 'gave into temptation' when he allegedly raped a drunk male inmate, faces up to 20 years in state prison

Prosecutors and reports on the case have accused Salem officer Butler (left) of sexually assaulting the man in a station broom closet on the morning of Halloween. He has been married to his wife, Chief Mary E Butler (right), for 29 years and the couple have three children

On Wednesday, Butler, who has been a part of the force for 24 years, pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and indecent assault and battery, the paper reported.

He has been married to his wife, Mary, for 29 years and the couple have three children.

The Salem Police Department posted a letter from Chief Mary Butler on Facebook.

She wrote: 'Though I will not get into any discussions about the incident, know that in all matters, regardless of who is involved, we must always put our integrity and the service to the public above all as it reflects on the solid reputation this Department has worked so hard to build and maintain.'

The chief went on to say that she's saddened by the 'alleged actions of one of our own', which she wrote 'is going to place another spotlight on the profession and on all of you [Salem police], which is incredibly undeserved'.

She wrote that she's 'taking some time to deal with personal matters related to this' but she remains 'fully committed to all the men and women of the Salem Police Department who work diligently everyday to ensure the safety of our residents and our community'.

The chief told the Herald that her husband is 'not (doing) well'.

Randy Chapman, Brian Butler's attorney, called him a 'good police officer' and said that he has no history of discipline issues in the department, the Herald reported.

Butler's accuser was in protective custody after allegedly getting drunk and flooding a motel room bathroom . He told authorities that Butler fondled him under a blanket that he was given to cover up with while he called his family at the police station (pictured)

Video and audio surveillance of Butler and the accuser 'confirms nearly everything that the victim did tell the police'. Butler (pictured) was ordered held on $10,000 cash bail, which he posted soon after

On the morning of Halloween, the man accusing Butler of rape was in protective custody after allegedly getting drunk and flooding a motel room bathroom at the Clipper Ship Inn.

The man was reportedly naked in his cell after taking off his wet clothes to try and sleep, the assistant Essex County District Attorney, A.J. Camelio told the Herald.

Butler, who is now on paid administrative leave, told investigators that he had been drinking as it was the day before his birthday.

The man told authorities in an affidavit that Butler fondled him under a blanket that he was given to cover up with while he called his family.

Butler's accuser then said the officer took him into a broom closet and raped him, according to the Herald.

'In fear, I said yes. After a few seconds I tried to pull away, then I asked him to stop. I asked him to stop three times and by the 3rd time he did and he took me back to my cell,' the accuser wrote, according to the Herald.

Video and audio surveillance of Butler and the accuser 'confirms nearly everything that the victim did tell the police', Camelio said.
Security has been bumped up around Trump's New York home including a no-fly zone and concrete posts around Trump tower

They said that 'every threat is taken seriously' as it's likley that those posting will be investigated

Sources close to the Secret Service said the agency was monitoring the situation and had seen a spike in threats since election day

Others also called for the death of vice president-elect Mike Pence

'So who's going to assassinate Trump at his inauguration?' one Twitter user demanded to know

Just days after Donald Trump won the election, Twitter has erupted with calls for his assassination.

The Republican beat Democrat rival Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States on Tuesday.

But the controversial figure, who has denigrated women, called Mexican immigrants 'rapists' and pledged to ban Muslims from entering America, appears to have made a few enemies during his divisive campaign.

After the results were announced, many of those who opposed Trump rushed to Twitter to call for his assassination.

T witter is exploding with people calling for president-elect Donald Trump to be assassinated

'So who's going to assassinate Trump at his inauguration?' one Twitter user demanded to know.

'I just pray that the first n***a who tries to assassinate Donald Trump don't miss ', another added.

One joked: 'My mom is talking about assassinate donald trump. watch out guy my white suburban mother is coming for you.'

While some also called for the death of vice president-elect Mike Pence.

'I f trump wins pls dont assassinate him without getting mike pence first because his a** is f***ing crazy,' one user tweeted.

While the First Amendment allows freedom of speech, death threats against political figures - particularly the next president of the United States are taken very seriously by security agencies.

Trump pumps his fist during his election night rally after he beat Democrat rival Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States on Tuesday

A source close to the Secret Service, told the DailyMail.com that the agency were well aware of the threats and that they had seen a spike since Trump was elected on Tuesday.

They said there were 'mechanisms in place' to monitor social media for such posts, and to determine which threats were more concerning than others but said that 'every threat was taken seriously'.

Agents can then 'drill down' into someone's social media history to find out if the threat is a one off or comes from a history of worrying behavior.

Escalating threats pose the greatest concern and require 'more of prompt response'.

The source said that now was particularly busy for the agency as there were two potential targets; the sitting president and the president-elect.

Donald Trump has swiftly beefed up security around his New York home following his surprise election win which also saw protests erupt around the country.

More than 6,000 protesters were seen on the streets of Oakland where an office block was also attacked, daubed with 'f*** Trump' and 'kill Trump' graffiti and then set alight.

Outside Trump Tower, protesters gathered with signs reading 'Dump Trump'.

A two-mile no-fly zone has been established around Trump Tower that will effectively put a stop to popular sightseeing flight paths.

After the results were announced, many of those who opposed Trump rushed to Twitter to call for his assassination

The no-fly zone will be in play until Trump's inauguration on Friday 20 January, 2017, when he will move into the White House. Meanwhile, on the ground, police officers have helped to install concrete barriers around the Tower. A row of sanitation trucks filled with sand have been acting as barricades along Fifth Avenue since Monday.

People who work and live inside the lavish building will now be vetted by the Secret Service.

The Secret Service has a history of investigating threats made by people on Twitter.

In March this year, Eli Martinez, 20, had tweeted what he called a joke, saying 'I think I have to kill Trump. None of y'all gon do it, I have to take measures in my own hands.'

He thought little about it until a few days later, when Secret Service agents showed up at his Chicago home and 'questioned the hell' out of him.

He said they wanted to know about about his personal, medical and employment history, if he was a U.S. citizen and if he'd ever purchased weapons.

'I thought he was kidding or I was dreaming,' Martinez told Mashable.

Members of the New York Police Department's Counterterrorism Bureau stand watch outside Trump Tower earlier this week

Police officers help to install concrete barriers around Trump Tower, the home of President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday

A man tries to remove 'Kill Trump' graffiti as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters hit the streets in NYC chanting 'Not My President'

Another Twitter user, who goes by the name Kevin Supernaw on the social network site, posted a picture of agents outside his home last year after he tweeted 'Ima shoot Donald the next time I see him.'

He claimed that his room was raided and he was interrogated by two FBI agents and three Secret Service agents over his threat.

A 29-year-old Iowan woman said she 'tweeted something like 'just let me shoot, you ass' while waiting outside a gun range as Trump's sons shot rifles inside.

She says agents showed up at her workplace, with a screenshot of the offending tweet, and warned she could spend ten years in prison for the threat.

A Secret Service spokesperson warned: 'If you see anything that applies on Twitter, we're going to investigate it.'

They said that anyone that 'knowingly and willfully threatens to kill, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm' upon a candidate can expect a visit, and could face fines and up to five years in jail.

President Obama also faced unprecedented number of death threat tweets and in 2012, the Secret Service asked Twitter users to report suspicious tweets

Government agencies also have the power to request an Emergency Disclosure Report on the user which can list IP addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and direct messages that authorities obtained from Twitter and other social networks.

The Secret Service has a history of investigating threats made by people on Twitter. One user posted a picture of agents outside his home last year after he tweeted 'Ima shoot Donald the next time I see him'
Teen mom charged: Amber Fulton, 19-year-old student at Claflin University in South Carolina, is accused of throwing her newborn son in the trash on campus

A newborn baby boy has been found alive in a dumpster on the Claflin University campus in South Carolina and now police are charging his 19-year-old mother with attempted murder.

Claflin student Amber Brianna Fulton, of Kingstree, has also been charged with illegal contact towards a child.

Her son, less than five hours old, was discovered in the trash by custodians at around 8.55am on Wednesday.

The Orangeburg Department of Public Safety stated that university employees were disposing of trash collected from a dormitory when they heard the sound of a baby crying coming from the dumpster on Goff Avenue, reported The Tand D.

They peered into the bin and found the newborn stuffed inside a trash bag. He was not wearing any clothes or a diaper.

Baby found: A full-term baby boy was discovered alive in this dumpster on the Calflin University campus in South Carolina after police say his mother threw him out

The 19-year-old allegedly admitted to police that she delivered her son in secret in a dorm bathroom, cut the umbilical cord with scissors, then packed him up in trash bags and threw him in the garbage receptacle

Fulton explained she was trying to hide her pregnancy from her family

The custodians tore open the plastic sack so the child, a full term baby boy weighing 5 lbs 7 ounces, could draw a breath.

The Claflin staffers immediately contacted campus security and called for medical help.

According to a police report, when investigators tracked down Amber Fulton, the 19-year-old allegedly admitted to giving birth in secret in a dormitory bathroom at around 4am Wednesday.

The station WBTV reported, citing the document, that the teen mom used a pair of scissors to cut the umbilical cord and wiped the newborn with some tissues.

Fulton's arrest warrant states that after delivering the boy, the college student placed him in a plastic bag, then stuffed it into a larger black trash bag, which she tied with a loose knot, and then dumped the bundle containing her son into the dumpster behind the Claflin dining room.

Claflin is a liberal arts college in Orangeburg, South Carolina, attended by just under 2,000 students

When interviewed by police, Fulton reportedly explained that she was trying to hide her pregnancy from her family.

The teenage mother has been taken to the Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg for evaluation. Police say both Fulton and her son are in good condition.
America's neighbors to the North are less than thrilled with the idea of celebrities moving to their country in the wake of Donald Trump's win on Tuesday.

A number of Canadians have taken to social media to speak out against stars like Lena Dunham and Miley Cyrus who said they would relocate if Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.

Dr. Winder Gill of Toronto posted a picture of a man building an igloo and wrote: 'This is Canada building an igloo wall between the US, just in case. I'll bet you regret all of those jokes now, eh?'

He then added: 'When did moving to Canada become the backup plan to poor decision making in an election? We didn't get a vote.'

Scroll down for video

Canadians are responding to American celebrities who have threatened to move to their country after Trump's win on Twitter (Lena Dunham above)

No go: One man told Lena Dunham that Canada did not want her

Deal: When an American responded it was only fair because Bieber moved to the US, the man said Canada would take back the singer

Another Canadian responded to a tweet that claimed Dunham and Amy Schumer were heading to Canada by writing: 'Please don't punish us few sane-minded Canadians.'

And a Canadian by the name of Dave also tweeted directly at Dunham, writing: 'off you go and we Canadians don't want you.'

That tweet drew a response from an American, who wrote: 'You sent us Bieber, so you taking @lenadunham is more than fair. #KarmasABitch.'

Dave responded to this by writing: 'okay we promise to take Bieber back but you keep all those left wing nut jobs. Our squirrels will eat them.'

Girls star and creator Dunham said earlier this year that if Trump won she would move to Vancouver.

'I know a lot of people have been threatening to do this, but I really will,' said Dunham at the Matrix Awards in April.

'I know a lovely place in Vancouver, and I can get my work done from there.'

Build that wall: One man posted a photo of a Native American building an igloo and joked that they were making a wall

Not a deal: 'When did moving to Canada become the backup plan to poor decision making in an election? We didn't get a vote,' wrote one man

The Canadian immigration website kept crashing Tuesday night and early Wednesday as Trump's victory looked imminent, with thousands going online in search of a possible way out of the country.

Meanwhile, it was not all unkind words and negative remarks from Canadians, as many took to Twitter to welcome Americans who might be thinking about a move.

In fact, the official Twitter account for the country tweeted on Tuesday: 'In Canada, immigrants are encouraged to bring their cultural traditions with them and share them with their fellow citizens.'
the media for blowing the story out of proportion

Tara Brown has refused to back down over 60 Minutes

Australian television presenter Tara Brown has refused to apologise for an abduction bungle that left her and a 60 Minutes crew locked in a Beirut jail.

Brown, 48, was arrested in April along with other members of a 60 Minutes team - David Ballment, 55, Stephen Rice, 58, and Ben Williamson, 37 - following an attempted kidnap of Gold Coast mother Sally Faulkner's children from their father, Ali Elamine.

'(After Beirut) I felt that all I needed to do was to continue doing my job, and that's what I've attempted to do,' Brown told The Daily Telegraph.

Australian television presenter Tara Brown has refused to apologise for an abduction bungle that saw a 60 Minutes Crew end up in a Beirut jail

Brown, 48, was arrested in April along with other members of a 60 Minutes team

'A lot of that (criticism) has been generated by you (the media). I don't necessarily think that matches what our audience says.'

Channel Nine Carried out an extensive review of the indecent and found errors had led to the 'gravest misadventure in the program's history'.

In April former 60 Minuter presenter Michael Usher admitted they made 'mistakes' in chasing the story of Sally Faulkner's attempt to take her children back to Australia.

Brown however maintained she and her team were 'just journalists doing our job.'

Her defiant stance on the attempted kidnapping comes as the program prepares for backlash over a paid interview with Gable Tostee, which will air on Sunday.

An snippet of the interview, which is rumoured to be earning the 30-year-old carpet layer a six-figure sum, shows Tostee fidgeting and stammering as he responds to questions from journalist Liam Bartlett.

Tostee was found not guilty last month of the murder or manslaughter of 26-year-old New Zealand tourist Warriena Wright, who fell to her death from his 14th floor Gold Coast balcony in August 2014.
Nicola Sturgeon has branded Donald Trump's views as 'deeply abhorrent' and vowed to ignore diplomatic protocol to keep speaking out.

The First Minister took the unusual step of endorsing Hillary Clinton during the Presidential campaign and today told MSPs of her horror at the result.

The SNP leader said she 'hoped' President-elect Trump would govern in a different way to how he campaigned and warned the Holyrood Parliament it had a responsibility to be a 'beacon of hope'.

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, who campaigned for Mrs Clinton, also renewed her criticism of Mr Trump today, while the main opposition leader, Tory Ruth Davidson, has also slammed Mr Trump.

Nicola Sturgeon, pictured speaking during today's First Minister's Questions in Holyrood, branded Donald Trump's views as 'deeply abhorrent' and vowed to ignore diplomatic protocol to keep speaking out

Speaking at First Minister's Questions today, Ms Sturgeon said: 'I, during that campaign, found so many of President-elect Trump's comments deeply abhorrent.

'I never want to be, I am not prepared to be, a politician that maintains a diplomatic silence in the face of attitudes of racism, sexism, misogyny or intolerance of any kind.

'I think it is important today that, firstly, I hope that President-elect Trump turns out to be a president very different to the kind of candidate he was and reaches out to those who felt vilified by his campaign, but people of progressive opinion the world over, I think, do have to stand up for the values of tolerance and respect for diversity and difference.

'There is more of an obligation on us now than there perhaps has been on our generation before and this is the time for all of us, no matter how difficult, no matter how controversial or unpopular it may be in certain quarters, to be beacons of hope for those values we all hold so dear.'

She said Mr Trump's election victory was not what she wanted but that the will of the American people must be respected.

Ms Sturgeon added: 'Hillary Clinton's defeat yesterday, amongst many other things, perhaps tells us we are not as far down the road to true gender equality as we hoped we were, so we do have a great deal of work still to do.'

Kezia Dugdale, pictured in the Scottish Parliament today, has warned the President-elect's behaviour 'sends a dangerous signal across the world'

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said: 'Donald Trump's behaviour towards women sends a dangerous signal across the world.

'In January we will have a misogynist in the White House who has boasted about assaulting women and has used the most degrading language possible.

'And, of course, Donald Trump's tolerance is not just aimed at women - we all remember the sickening sight of him mocking a disabled journalist. We can't forget his plans to build a wall or ban people of one faith from entering America.'

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, seen today during First Minister's Questions, has also condemned Mr Trump

Conservative MSP Jackson Carlaw called on Ms Sturgeon to explain how she would ensure Scottish businesses and jobs would not be prejudiced in any new trading relationship between a post-Brexit UK and the US as a result of her interventions against the president-elect.

In response, Ms Sturgeon highlighted strongly-worded tweets condemning Mr Trump sent by Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson.

'I'm not sure if anything I've said about Donald Trump even comes close to some of the tweets I was seeing earlier on from Ruth Davidson,' she said.

The First Minister added: 'The relationship between the United States and Scotland is a long-standing one, it is based on ties of family, of culture, of business.

'I want those ties not just to continue, I want them to be enhanced and to get even stronger.

'So, as First Minister, I want to engage with the next American administration just as we have the last one, but I do believe it is important for all politicians at this moment in our history to stand up and be counted on important principles of tolerance and respect and diversity.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has maintained a powerful role as the man steering Donald Trump's transition effort  a post that gives him powerful sway because of his close relations with President-elect Trump during the mad dash to fill slots and develop policy on the fly.

Trump, who showed confidence in Christie throughout the campaign, has kept him in the role notwithstanding the convictions of two senior Christie aides in the Bridegate scandal just days before the election  and he is in the running for several senior jobs.

He is also maintaining a role as a high-level mouthpiece for the incoming administration, appearing on the 'Today' show Thursday to talk transition steps.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie continues to head Donald Trump's transition efforts. He is pictured at Trump's election night victory party

'What happened last week with the verdict was that they confirmed what I knew and did in January 2014. Because back then I said after 24 hours in my view three people were responsible, Christie said.

Two former Christie aides, Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, were found guilty last week after a 7-week trial over their role in the Bridgegate scandal over lane closures to the George Washington Bridge. Another pled guilty. Former Christie associate and port authority executive head David Wildstein pled guilty to his role.

Christie's name has been floated as a possible Trump chief of staff. The former federal prosecutor is also mentioned as a possible attorney general, though Trump advisor former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is also in the mix.

'You really dont think Im answering any of these questions, do you?' Christie said when asked about the jobs.

'I am not committed to doing anything in a new administration, or not,' Christie said, without ruling out possibilities.

Buzzfeed reported that Christie's name also has appeared on a list that included candidates for Commerce Secretary or Homeland Security head.

Chris Christie, who appeared on NBC Thursday morning, continues to head Donald Trump's presidential transition

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (C) stands on stage along with Republican president-elect Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, and Trump campaign CEO Stephen Bannon during the election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown

Christie addressed the delegates on day two of the Republican National Convention

Bridget Anne Kelly, former deputy chief of staff for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, arrives at federal court in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., on Friday, Nov. 4, when she was found guilty

The Homeland post includes oversight of a massive bureaucracy, but one that has suffered severe organizational problems. Commerce isn't considered a powerhouse slot, but it can lead to an array of business relationships and contacts with U.S. and foreign business leaders.

'The bottom line is that I have a job to do in getting a new administration ready,' Christie said. 'If theres some role for me that I want to do and that the president-elect wants me to do -- you know, weve known each other for 14 years -- well talk about it.'

Christie acknowledged that Trump spent very little time talking or even thinking about his transition plans, focusing instead on the election.

'We have not talked about anything. The president-elect was absolutely adamant about not discussing the transition before he was elected,' Christie said.

'He wanted to remain focused on what he needed to do, which was winning, and so he said to me back in May when he gave me the job, he said you focus on getting this ready for me.'

'And he said well talk on election night. So we spoke on election night, but we didnt speak about me. We spoke about the transition,' Christie continued.
Following Donald Trump's shock victory, mainstream politicians in Europe have been warned not to underestimate the threat from populist candidates.

Trump's win has shaken many European lawmakers ahead of elections next year, including in France and Germany, where right-wing parties are expected to notch up big gains.

'Demagogic populism is not only a problem in America,' German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Bild daily. 'Elsewhere in the West, too, the political debate is in an alarming state.'

Chancellor Angela Merkel is widely expected to stand for a fourth term in German elections in September, and although her conservatives are roughly 10 points ahead of their nearest rivals, her open-door migrant policy has angered many voters.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is widely expected to stand for a fourth term when German elections take place in September

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has embraced tough anti-immigrant rhetoric, is swaying supporters from the bigger parties.

Founded less than four years ago, it now has seats in more than half of Germany's state assemblies.

Schaeuble said politicians had to respond by being more inclusive. His words were echoed by another senior conservative, Hans-Peter Friedrich, who feared a Trump effect in Germany.

Voters feel they have no control over things, from European Central Bank policy to immigration, he said.

'If there are no answers provided by the main parties in our country, they will turn to populists,' Friedrich told Bild.

EU Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, also a senior conservative, said the U.S. election was a warning for Germany.

Donald Trump's win has shaken many European lawmakers ahead of elections next year, including in France and Germany, where right-wing parties are expected to notch up big gains

'Things are getting simplified, black or white, good or bad, right or wrong. You can ask simple questions, but one should not give simple answers,' Oettinger told Deutschlandfunk radio.

Businesss leaders have also pointed to risks for companies working in Europe's biggest economy.

Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser told reporters:'The rapid rise of political and social populism and accelerating global migration are causes of concern.

'As a result, uncertainty continues to dominate our lives,' he told reporters.

Stability is crucial for the factory equipment maker which needs firms to commit to substantial capital investments.

The AfD, polling at around 13 percent, has seized on Trump's victory, saying his message resonates in Germany.

French Front National (FN) far-right party's President Marine Le Pen is expected to do well in elections in France next year

'The issues that moved the detached middle class in America to vote for Trump are issues we face in Europe,' AfD chief Frauke Petry told MDR radio, pointing to tax and migration.

However, a Politbarometer poll for broadcaster ZDF showed 82 percent of Germans view Trump's win as bad or very bad.

Experts also argue that Germany's political system was designed after World War Two specifically to avoid the rise of a dictator after Hitler, and that social divisions are narrower than in the U.S.

The poll also showed that 65 percent of Germans expect relations with the U.S. to deteriorate under Trump.

After World War Two, the United States was one of the closest allies of West Germany - then the front line in the Cold War. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, ties have remained close but a scandal about NSA mass surveillance in Germany has chilled relations.
A hero former fireman who was severely disfigured in a blaze in Sweden has hit out at Facebook 'censorship' after it removed a photo of him.

Lasse (Lars) Gustavson was left without ears, hair and eyebrows after bravely putting his life on the line in a 1981 fire in Gothenburg.

He has become a national figure and regularly gives talks in his homeland about his experience.

The photo was posted on Facebook to mark Gustavson's 60th birthday, but it was removed

But when a friend posted a picture on the social network to mark Gustavson's 60th birthday, it fell foul of Facebook censors and was removed.

It was only after his friend Bjorn Lindeblad complained in a post that was shared 30,000 times that Facebook relented and apologised.

Gustavson told Aftonbladet newspaper in Sweden: 'Its an offensive system Facebook has with this kind of censorship. You could call it a kind of racism.'

And he said that if it had happened soon after he was injured, it would have been incredibly hurtful.

He said: 'When I was 24, I probably would have felt offended and upset that pictures of me were considered wrong and unpleasant.

He said that he would have felt 'offended and upset' if the picture had been removed when he was 24

'It is a very volatile and sensitive time... but now I have lived so long with my burns.'

Lindeblad said it was only after he was contacted by other burn victims that he discovered it was a regular occurrence.

He posted the picture along with a heartfelt message, and urged people to share it, writing: 'Do you want to help me to speak out against a disgusting Facebook policy? Share or spread this photo of one of the most beautiful souls I know.'

He was sent a message from Facebook on Tuesday, which said: ' A member of our team accidentally removed something you posted on Facebook.
Bookmakers Paddy Power lost $4.5million on Donald Trump's shock win after the firm paid out $1million to punters who backed Hillary Clinton - before the US election was over.

The controversial billionaire, 70, was the underdog in the two-horse race before the shock result was announced on Wednesday morning.

Irish firm Paddy Power was so confident that Clinton, 69, would be the 45th President that they even paid out to customers who backed her - in October.

Paddy Power lost a staggering $4.5million after it was announced Donald Trump would be the next President

But the company has been forced to cough up $4.5million - 3.6million - their 'biggest political payout' since it was set up in 1988.

A huge number of customers backed the former Apprentice star and his odds were dramatically slashed when the FBI announced they were investigating Clinton's private email server.

Trump had seen his initial odds of 100/1 - which were available from November 2012 to June 2015 - drop to 13/8 in May 2016.

On October 20, punters could have got 9/2 on Trump becoming the next President, and the odds represented an 18.2 per cent of winning.

The Irish firm was so confident that Clinton, 69, (pictured) would be the 45th President that they paid out to customers who backed her - in October

Just before the firm rewarded customers who backed Clinton, her odds had dropped to 2/11 - meaning she had an 84.6 per cent of winning, according to the bookmakers.

Feilim Mac An Iomaire, from Paddy Power, said: 'We're in the business of making predictions and decided to put our neck on the line by paying out early on Hillary Clinton, but boy did we get it wrong.
A brave father died in vain trying to save his newly-wed son when their fishing trip together turned into a double tragedy, an inquest heard.

Experienced fishermen Gareth, 59, and Daniel Willington, 32, were searching for lobster and crab in choppy waters off the Welsh coast in their 38ft vessel called 'Harvester'.

Tragedy struck when Daniel became tangled in ropes as they came close to fishing grounds and he was dragged over the back of the boat in the dead of night.

Gareth, a former oil rig worker for BP, frantically tried to cut through the ropes with a knife to free his son - but he too was pulled into sea, Pembrokeshire Coroner's Court heard.

An inquest today heard neither had been wearing lifejackets when they were swept out to sea on April 28.

Experienced fishermen Gareth and Daniel Willington drowned during a fishing trip on April 28

The experienced pair were not wearing lifejackets during the tragedy (pictured, their 'Harvester' boat before the incident)

Gareth was found 16 hours later by a coastguard helicopter. He was winched aboard but later pronounced dead in hospital.

The body of his only son has never been recovered.

They didn't get a chance to make a mayday call and the alarm was only raised when their 27-tonne boat was found on rocks off St Davids, west Wales.

Although seas were calm when they set off at 2.30am from Milford Haven, the weather quickly deteriorated.

The pitch black seas were just 12C, giving a maximum survival time of no more than six hours adrift.

Gail Willington, 59, who was left widowed and without her only son following the tragedy, urged the coroner to recommend laws which would make the wearing of lifejackets compulsory at all times for fishermen at sea.

The pair ran the family fishing business together and supplied expensive lobsters to local hotels and markets around Pembrokeshire, west Wales.

The family lived in a rural cottage near the village of Carew and were well-known members of the community.

The smashed remains of the 'Harvester' after it crashed on to rocks along the Pembrokeshire coast

The coroner Mark Layton recorded a verdict of accidental death on Daniel and misadventure on father Gareth.

He said: 'It is likely that Daniel became entangled in the back rope and Gareth has come to his assistance and they have both gone overboard. Gareth tried to assist his son.

'These deaths have shocked the local community and I offer my condolences to the family.

'Despite previous recommendations by the maritime and coastguard agency that the wearing of personal flotation devices should be compulsory on the deck of any sea vessel, no legislation has been put in place to make it mandatory.

'Therefore I will compile a report to the agency asking them to make the wearing of personal flotation devices compulsory and they have a statutory duty to respond within 56 days.

'I hope they will say action is going to be taken and it will become mandatory, just like wearing seatbelts in a moving car.'

This map shows the fishing area of the boat and its location during various witness sightings on the day

An investigation by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) found evidence of a knife being used in an attempt to cut the rope.

The report said: 'Closed circuit television recording indicates that when Harvester sailed from Milford Haven neither Gareth nor Daniel was wearing a personal flotation device [PFD].

'When Gareth was recovered from the water following the accident he was not wearing a PFD. Evidence suggests that it was not the practice for Gareth and Daniel to wear a PFD when fishing.'

According to the MAIB, chances of survival overboard are five times greater if a lifejacket is worn.

The wearing of lifejackets is law in countries including Ireland, France, Norway, Belgium and Spain.

Many fishermen choose not to wear them because their movements feel restricted, or worry they will catch on equipment.

Tragic: The body of fisherman Daniel Willington, 32, (second right) has never been found
A 48-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences.

The man, who has not been identified, has been detained at a police station in the West Midlands while a search is carried out by officers at a home in Yale Park, Wrexham.

A joint statement was released by the Wales Extremism Counter Terrorism Unit, North Wales Police and West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit.

Undercover police detain the man from the Wrexham address in Yale Park earlier today

Police said the arrest was 'intelligence-led'. They now have 48 hours to question the man

In it, authorities confirmed that the arrest was 'pre-planned and intelligence-led', with no threat to public safety.

It read: 'An address in Wrexham is subject of an ongoing search.

'The man was arrested under terrorism legislation, meaning officers have an initial 48 hours to question the suspect before charging, releasing or applying for a warrant of further detention.'

Detectives are still inside the property tonight as their investigation continues.

Unmarked police vehicles have been outside the property this afternoon.

Locals from the quiet neighbourhood have spoken of their shock at the arrest.

The man has been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Two weeks ago police again descended on Yale Park and arrested a man on suspicion of assault.

Armed police stormed a property and detained the man on October 25 shortly after 4pm. A force spokesman said police executed a firearms warrant as part of their search.
A 20-year-old woman who was travelling in Africa was last seen dropping off her bag at a beachside hostel before being found dead in a toilet cubicle.

Elly Warren, from Melbourne, was expected to return to Australia on Monday before heading to New Zealand with her boyfriend for a holiday.

Days before she set off for Africa, the 20-year-old told her father: 'It's dangerous Dad, I don't know if I should be going over there.'

And things took a turn for the worst after she was allegedly raped and attacked when she reportedly walked home alone from a party in Mozambique on Wednesday.

The young traveller had booked two nights at the beachfront Wuyani Pariango backpackers in the picturesque Tofo Bay but she failed to return to her room.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, the hostel manager, who wished to remain anonymous, said staff members had seen the woman before she went missing.

'She came in alone to drop off her bag and then left to meet a friend,' the hostel manager revealed.

'She had pre-booked her accommodation but never stayed here.'

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Elly Warren, from Melbourne, was travelling Africa before she tragically died on Wednesday

The 20-year-old had been holidaying and doing a volunteer stint in Mozambique

The young woman had booked two nights at the Wuyani Pariango backpackers in Tofo Bay

Daily Mail Australia understands Ms Warren's body is currently being transported from Tofo Beach to the country's capital Maputo, some 500 kilometres away where a post-mortem will be performed.

Paul Warren, the distraught father of the avid traveller, is currently travelling to Mozambique in an effort to bring his daughter's body home.

On Thursday he revealed his heartbreak over his daughter's terrible death.

A tearful Mr Warren told 7News: 'She even told me, 'It's dangerous dad, I don't know if I should be going over there'.

'And I said to her: 'Yes it is, very dangerous'.'

On Thursday evening, hours after paying a moving Facebook tribute to his daughter, Mr Warren also revealed on social media an autopsy would be conducted to determine her cause of death.

'I would just like everyone to pray for our Elly right now,' he wrote on Facebook.

'She is at peace with Sam, our dog, who she grew up with and loved dearly. Thank you all for your thoughts and well wishes Elly touched us all in some special way.

'The funeral is going to take some time as Elly was in a remote fishing village called Pemba.

'There is going to be an investigation and autopsy, which I have been informed can take up to two weeks.

'I will be going over there in a few day to bring my baby back home. God bless you Elly Rose Warren.'

The hostel manager said staff saw Ms Warren drop her bag off before heading out to see a friend but she failed to return to her room (pictured is one of the rooms at the hostel)

The young traveller had booked two nights at the Wuyani Pariango backpackers in Tofo Bay

Staff members at the hostel claimed they saw Ms Warren drop her bag off before heading back out to meet a friend

Her family, who found out about the young traveller's death in a heartbreaking late-night phone call from another backpacker, believe she became separated from her group before her body was later found in a toilet cubicle, The Age reported.

The revelation comes after her sister Kristy Warren took to Facebook to warn backpackers to be 'careful who they go [travelling] with'.

'My sister was in Africa whilst my mum got a phone call from one of the backpackers saying to her that her daughter has been murdered,' Ms Warren posted to Facebook.

'As I heard that my heart dropped. It is a parent's nightmare to get a phone call like this.'

Describing her sister as 'maybe too ambitious', she urged travellers to be vigilant when overseas.

'I want to say if you are thinking of going travelling or going overseas please be careful who you go with,' she wrote.

Ms Warren had been in the country since late September as part of Underwater Africa, a conservation program that 'helps protect the oceans'.

The volunteer tour's booking manager Graeme Warrack told Daily Mail Australia the young traveller had left their group the day before she was killed.

A room at the backpackers Ms Warren was last seen before her death

Ms Warren (pictured) has been killed while on a volunteer holiday to Mozambique, Africa

The 20-year-old from Mordialloc, in Melbourne's south-east suburbs, was also reportedly sexually assaulted before her death

'Elly arrived with us on the 27th of September and left our program on the November 8,' he said.

'We dropped her at her new accommodation at 5pm, to hear the news the next day has left us as broken as anyone can be, she was our friend and colleague.

'We're trying to find out where exactly she went once she left us, that's something we can't answer.'

Mr Warrack described Ms Warren as 'the life of the party' and said her death had taken a large toll on her fellow volunteers and scientists.

'Elly was an incredible volunteer who was doubtlessly the life and soul of any activity,' he said.

Ms Warren's mother, Nicole Cafarella told The Age her daughter was 'just one of those girls that wanted to travel the world and see everything she could before she was 30'.

Just days earlier Ms Warren had posted a video to Facebook of herself swimming with whale sharks off the Mozambique coast.

Her father Paul also shared a tribute on social media and even passed on his condolences to her boyfriend (right) in the midst of his own grief

Tributes flowed online from Ms Warren's friends and family following news of her death

Ms Warren's sister Kristy took to Facebook to share a tribute to her sister and to tell how her mother had received a call from a fellow backpacker telling her of the terrible news

Just days before her death Ms Warren (third from left) posted a video to Facebook of her diving with whale sharks

Dozens of online tributes flowed from Ms Warren's friends from Wednesday evening when news broke of her death.

'Taken way too soon, a gorgeous girl who had an amazing life ahead,' one girl wrote on Facebook.

'I feel like this is all just a f***ed up dream... It can't be true. Rip Elly Warren I'll never forget your huge infectious smile and crazy stories. I love you,' another posted.
Arthur Heeler-Frood vanished after leaving home as normal to cycle the seven miles to school on September 6

A 15-year-old grammar schoolboy who disappeared nine weeks ago left a letter for his anguished parents saying he was 'bored of life'.

Arthur Heeler-Frood, from Devon, vanished after leaving home to cycle the seven miles to school on September 6.

He had just received 'outstanding' GCSE grades and started his A levels the previous day at Colyton Grammar in Devon, one of Britain's top-rated state schools.

His despairing parents Caroline and Jeremy have made tearful public appeals for him to get in touch but without success.

The couple have now released a letter Arthur left behind - telling them not to try to find him, but promising to return within a year.

It says: 'To Mum and Dad,

'I have run away because I am bored of my life. Please don't try to find me or make me come home.

In a letter to his parents Arthur asked for them not to try and find him or make him come home

Arthur's despairing parents Caroline and Jeremy (pictured) have made tearful public appeals for him to get in touch but without success

'I don't know how long I will be away for, but it won't be any longer than a year.

'You will find my school uniform in a bin bag in a small barn in the field on the green, down the road from Membury church. My bike is chained to the fence, there is a spare key to the lock on the window.

'Please can you apologise to the restaurant and tell them that I will no longer be able to work there.

'I know you will be upset, but understand that I have to do this. From Arthur.'

Arthur's clothing and bike were found as he described - but there has been no sightings of him.

Speaking at a police press conference last month his mother Caroline, of Membury, near Axeminster, Devon, said: 'Arthur, we miss you terribly.

'We don't know whether you are safe or what situation you are in.

'I don't think you realise how hard it is for us. Please make contact.

'Just let us know you are safe Arthur. Please.'

His father added: 'If you don't want to ring home there's a charity called Missing People.

At the time of his disappearance Arthur had just received 'outstanding' GCSE grades at Colyton Grammar in Devon (pictured)

'Better still come home and talk to us.

'If there are aspects of your life you are unhappy about there are other options that we can consider together.'

Arthur's older sister Hester has also appealed for information on Facebook.

Police said Arthur admired his older brother who had hitchhiked around Europe funded by work he picked up on the way.

Arthur is white, 5ft 4in tall, with a slight build and short light brown hair.

Detective Constable Mark Boon said: 'Arthur left a detailed note expressing his wishes to travel and his reasons, and at this time we are asking anyone who has seen him to get in touch.

'Arthur's hair clippers are missing from his room indicating that he may now have considerably shorter hair, possibly shaven.

In the note to his parents Arthur said he had run away because he was 'bored of life'

'I would also like to stress that Arthur is not in trouble and we are desperate to hear from him to know that he is okay.

'When he was last seen he was wearing his school uniform and carrying a black rucksack, but is now thought to be wearing blue jeans and a black hoody.'

Colyton Grammar is a state-funded, co-educational grammar rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted in three successive reports.

Headteacher Tim Harris said: 'We are helping the police in the search for Arthur.

'He is a bright, popular and sociable boy who has just got outstanding GCSE results this summer and has just started his A-levels.
A devastated Chelsea Handler broke down crying on her Netflix talk show on Wednesday night while discussing Hillary Clinton's staggering loss to Donald Trump.

The comedian, who has been an incredibly vocal hater of Trump for the entire Presidential race, was reduced to tears as she explained how she planned to leave the country after the billionaire businessman was voted in.

'I want to move to Spain. I really, really want to move to Spain right now. Everyone in my office is like, ''you have a responsibility, you have a voice and you need to use it and you have to be here'',' Handler said.

Overcome with emotion: Chelsea Handler cried on her talk show on Wednesday night while discussing Hillary Clinton's shock loss to Donald Trump

'The message I want to get out is not to give up': Handler explained that she planned to leave the country before she was convinced not to give up

The Chelsea host had Senator Barbara Boxer on the show to help make sense of the results.

Handler explained that she decided that, since Clinton made it through her concession speech without crying, she could try to do her show without crying as well.

Only it was only a few minutes before the tears started coming.

'Sorry, I hate fing crying on camera,' an emotional Handler.

She then went on to give an important message aimed at women.

'I know as a woman, it feels so sexist (that Trump won). I guess the message I went to get out is not to give up. Because this is so important. It's easy to throw in the towel,' she said.

Handler also said that she believed the language that Trump used during his candidacy should have disqualified him from running for president.

She also posted a separate video to her Instagram account, reiterating her belief that there is still a fight to be fought.

She was not the only talk show host to be overcome with emotion on Wednesday night, with Seth Meyers also moved to tears throughout his opening monologue.

Meyers, who recently became a father, said at the top of the show: 'I do really feel for the parents who had to explain this to their kids this morning. Especially parents with daughters because a lot of them like me probably thought Hillary would be our first woman president.'

He went on to say: 'But she won't be. But that does mean - that does mean that someone's daughter is out there right now who will one day have that title. Maybe you're a woman who is currently a senator. Maybe you're still in college.'

One day: Seth Meyers said that he hopes his mother, whose name is Hillary, will live to see this country elect a female president

Meyers then inserted a bit of humor, saying: 'Hopefully, you're not a toddler but who knows with the way things went last night, who knows?'

Soon after that is when Meyers first began to tear up, while speaking about his own mother, whose name is also Hillary.

'I hope I live to see your inauguration,' Meyers said to the potential first female president.

'And I hope my mom does too. She was really excited yesterday and I was really sad for her.'

Out of step: California-based Jimmy Kimmel (left) and Englishman James Corden (right) are obviously not seeing America the same way as Trump supporters in the Midwest

He went on to say: 'But good news to our first woman president whoever you are, where ever you are, you may have been rooting for Hillary but now you can still be the first woman president and first is so much better than second.

Jimmy Kimmel took viewers through the stages of grief, from denial: 'No, the host of the Celebrity Apprentice is not our president, to and bargaining: 'Maybe he'll only build the wall waist-high, to keep short people out', and, finally, acceptance: 'No matter how you feel about it, Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Of America. So thank God we legalized marijuana yesterday.'

Kimmel's show is filmed in Los Angeles and California voted to legalize recreational marijuana.

Tonight host Jimmy Fallon saw the election result as comedy gold.

'Republicans hope he'll keep his promise to build the wall, and Democrats hope he'll keep his promise not to accept the election results,' he joked.

Fallon also quipped about Trump not having been able to win without the 'the love of his life, his rock, his better half...FBI Director James Comey.'

Late Late Show' host James Corden, who moved to America from England - the land of Brexit - two years ago, was determined to be upbeat.
Donald Trump has raced up the Amazon book charts after slashing 45 per cent from the price of his books following his dramatic victory in the presidential race.

Trump's tome, The Art of the Deal, is currently in first place on an Amazon chart having seen its price cut from $16.99 to $9.34.

The book, which was ghost written by Tony Schwartz, offers advice such as 'I like thinking big. I always have. To me its very simple: If youre going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.'

Donald Trump's Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America has shot to the top of the charts

His Art of the Deal book, is the number one seller today in the Business and Professional Biographies section having slashed the price by 45 per cent to $9.34

Donald Trump flew into Washington today for meetings with President Obama and leaders on Capitol Hill as he prepares his transition into the White House in January

The book is in number one spot in the Business Professional's Biographies section.

While his Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America, is currently number one in the United States National Government section. He cut the price of his book by 40 per cent.

This book was previously published as Crippled America, but was reissued to take advantage of his campaign slogan which convinced many Americans to support him in in the presidential election.

In total, Trump has written 16 books, mostly on how to make money.

However, Trump himself flew to Washington today from New York to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House.

The business mogul's jet landed at Reagan National Airport this morning in advance of the meeting.

Melania Trump will meet with current First Lady Michelle Obama.

Trump, pictured, will also hold meetings today with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill

Later today, Trump will then hold meetings in Capitol Hill with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Former president Jimmy Carter said Trump needed the 'support and prayers' of Americans as he prepares to take office.

Carter said he can understand exactly how Trump and his rival Hillary Clinton both feel this week ' because I won the same election, as some of you may be old enough to remember, and then I lost the same election'.
They spread faster than the regular kind and have not been seen in 60 years, but the tropical bed bug has re-emerged in Florida.

The state has not seen the tropical bed bug species since the 1930s or 1940s, according to experts, however they have now been discovered in Brevard County, researchers at the University of Florida have confirmed.

In 2015, a family in Merritt Island, near the Ulumay Wildlife Sanctuary, reported the tiny unwanted creatures had infested their home, Click Orlando reported.

They're back: The tropical bed bug species has not been seen in Florida for 60 years, but researchers at the University of Florida have no confirmed a case in Brevard County

The easiest way to identify a bed bug infestation is to examine a mattress or furniture for little marks such as this

Brittany Campbell, a UF/IFAS doctoral student in entomology, said in a news release that tropical bed bugs are similar to the standard variety of bed bugs, but they could potentially develop more quickly.

'This could mean that this species would develop more quickly, possibly cause an infestation problem sooner, and also could spread more rapidly,' Campbell said.

The UF scientists confirmed the bugs were the tropical species, but so far, Brevard County has the only confirmed case in Florida.

'I personally believe that in Florida, we have all of the right conditions that could potentially help spread tropical bed bugs, which is the case in other southern states,' Campbell said.

'As long as you have people traveling and moving bed bugs around, there is a real potential for this species to spread and establish in homes and other dwellings.'

'The species could spread more quickly,' said Brittany Campbell, a UF/IFAS doctoral student in entomology

It's unknown how the bed bugs got here, but Campbell suspects it could have been via Port Canaveral.

'A lot of pests that do get into Florida, a lot of them do pop up in ports,' she said. 'We don't really know where these bed bugs were introduced from.'

Bed bugs feed off human blood and are nocturnal. They cannot fly or jump, but they can months without blood and survive.

Typically they hide in cracks and crevices and emerge, at night, to feed.

They are not dangerous, essentially, however many people suffer from anxiety, depression and sleeplessness as a result of an infestation.

They can also leave itchy, swollen bites on the skin.
A man has been charged with animal cruelty after he admitted shooting his pet dog when it chewed his dentures.

Charles Gillispie, 63, told a sheriff's deputy in St Albans, West Virginia, he lost his temper and shot the animal.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha County Magistrate Court and reported in KOMONews.com when the deputy arrived he found the small, white dog in a cage on the front porch.

Charles Gillispie (pictured) admitted shooting the dog when it chewed up his dentures

It had been shot twice in the face and showed no signs of life.

The deputy said Gillispie told him the dog was 'annoying' and was always chewing his possessions.

When asked about the wounds on the dogs face, Gillispie admitted he had shot it in the cage after he spotted it gnawing on his expensive dentures.

He was charged with animal cruelty and detained at South Central Regional Jail in Charleston, West Virginia, pending the posting of a $25,000 bail bond.
Wal-Mart's insurance company has lost patience with Tracy Morgan in a court battle over who foots the multi-million bill for the comedian's injuries, which he sustained in a crash caused by one of the supermarket's truck drivers.

Lawyers for the Ohio Casualty Insurance Company and Liberty Insurance Underwriters asked a judge on Wednesday to enforce subpoenas served on Morgan and his fellow passengers for documents involving the settlement - rumored to be as much as $90 million - according to filings seen exclusively by DailyMail.com.

Wal-Mart coughed up the sum after one of its truck drivers crashed into a limousine carrying 30 Rock star Morgan, his assistant, the driver, and comedians Harris Stanton, Ardie Fuqua and James McNair at the New Jersey turnpike in 2014.

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Morgan was spotted driving around New York in his Lamborghini in July 2015. Wal-Mart's hasty settlement has been blasted by its insurers who say the retail giant paid out without conducting proper checks

One of Walmart's drivers crashed into Morgan's limousine (pictured in an image released by the NTSB to show the damage), leaving the comedian with a brain injury and fractures

The insurers, who are trying to avoid taking the hit for the payments, believe Morgan's health problems can be disproved. Morgan is pictured in July 2014, one month after the crash

McNair died in the crash, while Morgan suffered a broken leg, several broken ribs, and a brain injury. He spent almost two months in the hospital and rehab before he could return home. He was also forced to put an FX series he had in development on hold.

The star has spoken about how he had to learn how to talk and walk again following the medically induced coma doctors placed him in.

But Wal-Mart's hasty settlement has been blasted by its insurers who say the retail giant paid out without conducting proper checks - including that Morgan was spotted walking around New York and driving through the city in his Lamborghini, as well as appearing at the Emmy awards shortly after the settlement.

The DailyMail.com previously reported Morgan was refusing to release medical records subpoenaed as part of the legal battle over the Walmart settlement.

The exact settlement figure has not been revealed but in court documents they call it a 'staggering and unprecedented' amount to cover Morgan's injuries and his loss of earning potential, and say they are not equipped with the proper information to pay out the sum.

They accuse Wal-Mart of not getting their approval of the amount of settlement paid to Morgan and his friends, and therefore they don't believe they are responsible for the settlement payments.

Last month, the insurers wrote a letter to the judge explaining they have an issue due to Tracy Morgan refusing to hand over his medical records to them, which they need to build their case in the legal battle.

In their latest missive they complain that subpoenas for the documents they requested were served over seven months ago and they have received nothing since then.

Comedian Tracy Morgan (pictured left in September) is accused of refusing to hand over medical records and other documents ordered as part of a legal battle over a multi-million dollar crash settlement paid out to him by supermarket Walmart

In October Morgan hit the stage to a sold out audience at Dover Downs - the exact same stage he performed at before being involved in the fatal traffic accident in 2014

Morgan (center) welcomed fellow comedians, Ardie Fuqua (left) and Harris Stanton (right), on stage with him. Fuqua and Stanton were involved in the fatal accident with Morgan in 2014

Prior to the October show starting, Morgan shared a photo to Instagram, where he is seen kneeling and bowing his head over the empty chair dedicated to McNair

Wal-Mart said they clearly had responsibility for the accident, which is why they did the right thing and settled the claims. They also say they were threatened with numerous legal actions including by the Estate of James McNair, noting that none of the claims against them went to trial because they chose to settle all of them as a 'business decision'.

The supermarket chain accuses their insurers of being 'unnaturally obsessed' with the case, and say they are dragging it out and looking for excuses not to pay the money.

Wal-Mart said four of their other insurers paid out on their policies, with the only exception being Ohio Casualty.

Ohio Casualty says it wants more information, including all documents related to the settlement between Morgan and Wal-Mart and all medical records following the accident.

They also want all Morgan's federal and state tax returns from 2009-2014, all documents showing his future earning potential, and ll financial documents that relate to his earning for the five years prior to the accident - plus the list of medicines he was prescribed after the crash and any examinations he received afterward, including financial records, bills and invoices related to his mental condition, illnesses and disability.

In mid-October Morgan returned to the stage at Dover Downs, where he performed to a packed-out audience - the exact same stage he performed at before being involved in the fatal crash. He also shared a photo to Instagram of himself kneeling and bowing his head over an empty audience chair dedicated to McNair.

Morgan's friend, comic James McNair died in the crash when a tractor-trailer driven by Walmart employee Kevin Roper slammed into the back of their limo van (pictured on its side)

Morgan spent almost two months in the hospital and rehab following the accident before he could return home. Pictured is the Walmart truck after the crash

But behind the scenes, the insurers are complaining that Morgan's lawyer is saying he has none of the documents they are requesting.

The insurance company's attorney is demanding the judge either order them to search their devices again for the documents or they be made available for a deposition where they can be questioned why they have no responsive documents - which they believe is 'impossible'.

'They were provided important documents by Wal-Mart, they provided to Wal-Mart important documents, and Wal-Mart and its attorneys exchanged numerous emails', the insurance company explains in the court filings.

They are also on the hunt for documents related to any request that he appear on Saturday Night Live or The Emmys, as well as any relating to his ability to drive a Lamborghini after the accident 'without creating potential harm to the public'.
While President-elect Donald Trump met with outgoing President Barack Obama, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was getting his introduction to White House life from chief of staff Denis McDonough.

This could be a sign that Trump is eyeing Kushner to be his chief of staff.

Kushner is marred to Trump's oldest daughter Ivanka, who also played a pivotal role in the billionaire's campaign.

Kushner and Ivanka Trump also are preparing for their first TV interview since Donald Trump's stunning election victory put them even more into the spotlight.

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CHIEFS OF STAFF? Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner walks alongside President Barack Obama's chief of staff Denis McDonough, leading to speculation that he's up for the same job

Reporters spotted Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough on a 'long stroll' of the South Lawn

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough gave Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner on a stroll of the South Lawn

AND HERE'S GRANDAD IN THE OVAL OFFICE: Kushner used his iPhone to take a picture of his father-in-law meeting the current president

ON TO THE NEXT ONE: Kushner departed the White House with Trump, then headed to the Capitol

QUIET AN OBSERVER: Kushner can be seen trailing President-elect Trump after his meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

A FAMILY AFFAIR: Jared Kushner (center) was spotted on a walk today with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough stoking speculation that he could be picked to be Donald Trump's chief of staff. He's married to Trump's daughter Ivanka (left)

President Barack Obama's (center) chief of staff is Denis McDonough (right), who met today in Washington with Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner

CNN reported that the two men did a 'full stroll' of the South Lawn.

The other rumored top contender for the chief of staff gig is Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus, who gave a data boost to the Trump campaign allowing GOP operatives to find Trump voters.

In Washington today Team Trump is meeting the corresponding person from Team Obama, with the president and president-elect in talks.

Melania Trump will come face to face with first lady Michelle Obama, who had been one of Hillary Clinton's top surrogates, campaigning for the former secretary of state up until election day eve.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the incoming vice president, will meet with Vice President Joe Biden.

Unlike the outsider Trumps, Pence is no stranger to Washington, having served in the House of Representatives before returning to Indianapolis to become the governor of his state.

Pence started his day talking to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The White House communications team is also meeting today with Hope Hicks, Trump's campaign press secretary.

Dan Scavino, who ran Trump's social media during the campaign, was also spotted by reporters at the White House today.
Two polar bear cubs have been caught engaging in a bout of sibling rivalry as they playfully wrestled each other in the Arctic Ocean. The stunning pictures show the two cubs square up to each other in the water, before this action-packed struggle for dominance ensued. Although there was no clear winner, the wrestle at least gave the cubs a chance to blow off some steam. The images were captured by professional photographer Ian Plant, 44, from Victoria, Minnesota, USA during a trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
Close President-elect Donald Trump confidant Kellyanne Conway says she has a White House job offer  and she's already taking shots at would-be ladder climbers relying on well-placed leaks in an attempt to get ahead.

On Thursday morning, while Trump was at the White House meeting with President Obama about running the country, Conway sent out a tweet that ridiculed 'sources' who claimed she was reluctant to take a job in the new administration.

'New York' magazine's Gabriel Sherman had tweeted that 'two sources say @kallyanne polls [Conway] is saying privately she's reluctant to take administration job b/c she wants to keep running her business,' in reference to her polling firm.

SHE'S THE ONE: Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tweeted that she already had a White House job offer, and took a swipe at 'sources' who speculated she might not want one

'Sources' claimed President-elect Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway was reluctant to join the new administration, prompting pushback

Conway tweeted out her response while Trump was inside the White House. 'Could it be those "sources" want the WH job I've been offered?' she wrote.

It was unclear what job Conway might have been offered. Politico quoted a source as saying the job was 'hers if she wants it.' But the job would force her to do daily battle with the press.

Although she was one of Trump's most effective surrogates on television, Conway's other essential role was helping to guide Trump and protect him from some of his worst instincts, from late night tweets to score-settling behavior.

She could also find a role holding down a more general 'counselor to the president' role or serve in senior communications director role.

Conway appeared outside Trump Tower the day after her candidate's stunning election victory

The early infighting occurred a day after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie met in New York with members of Trump's transition team. Christie isn't ruling out taking a job for himself, though at least two of the positions floated have other contenders.

Christie's name has come up in connection with the attorney general post, as has close Trump advisor former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Two Barclays Bank cashiers who leaked details of wealthy customers' bank accounts to a fraudster were jailed for more than two years, while the mastermind of the scam was locked up for more than four years.

Mohammed Kazi Quyyum, 32, recruited Umayma Bashrit, 33, and Muhammad Tanvir Alam, 20, after he was released from serving a jail term for an identical scam.

The trusted bank workers supplied Quyyum with confidential information, which enabled him to order new bank cards and PINs.

They took 72,000 from customers accounts, which was later reimbursed by the bank.

Mohammed Kazi Quyyum, above left, recruited Muhammad Tanvir Alam, above right, and Umayma Bashrit to give him customer details which helped him steal 72,000

The accounts belonged to wealthy customers and contained anything from 100,000 to 1 million.

Quyyum, single mother Bashrit and Alam, who was just 17 at the time of the scam, were all jailed at the Old Bailey today after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud.

Judge Paul Worsley QC told them: Confidence and trust in the banking industry are their very life-blood and cashiers and others who breach that trust go to jail. Each of you will go to prison.

He told Quyyum: You had decided you were on to a good thing. On being released from a surprisingly short prison sentence in 2011, you went on doing exactly the same thing. You had learned no lesson.

Quyyum was jailed for four years and nine months after admitting two counts of conspiracy to defrauding Barclays bank between 2012 and 2014 and one count of conspiracy to defraud clearing banks on or before 23 March 2013.

The judge jailed Alam, who admitted a single charge, for 12 months, telling him: You were approached and agreed to use the information entrusted to you to enable fraud to take place.

Bashrit, who also pleaded guilty to one charge, was handed a 15-month sentence as Judge Worsley told her: You had been at the bank for several years, you were a trusted employee, and you breached that trust.

The court heard how Quyyum first recruited Bashrit to hand over confidential information of Barclays customers.

Wealthy customers of Barclays Bank were targeted, with the accounts hacked containing anything from 100,000 to 1 million. File photo

Wealthy customers were targeted, particularly ones where the fraudsters would had easy access to their mail to divert new cards and PINs.

When Bashrit was rumbled at the beginning of 2013, Alam picked up where she had left off.

The judge said: They were recruited by Mr Quyyum in order to commit those frauds and without their co-operation, the frauds would not have been possible.

The amount of money by way of actual loss is in the region of 70,000. The accounts which clearly were targeted involved something in the region of 1 million.

Police found five mobile phones, a laptop computer and bundles of documents when they raided Quyyums flat in Tower Hamlets, east London in November 2014.

He had access to confidential information of a number of wealthy customers - each holding accounts containing upwards of 100,000.
Chrissy Teigen and Jon Cryer have also voiced how upset they are about the magazine's coverage of the Trumps

Writer and actress Zoe Kazan called for a boycott and said: 'Celebs: do not give them your interviews or sell them your pictures'

'F*** @People magazine. How disgusting. Selling their soul. Soon the happy Donald cover,' said Judd Apatow

Last month, People writer Natasha Stoynoff came forward and claimed that Trump sexually assaulted her while she was interviewing him in 2005

also released a special edition with a smiling Donald Trump on the cover

On Wednesday, the magazine posted links to multiple slideshows on their website

Calls for a boycott of People are being made by women and celebrities on social media after the magazine began posting a slew of positive Trump stories to their website after his win over Hillary Clinton.

Last month, one of the magazine's writers, Natasha Stoynoff, came forward and alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by Trump while interviewing him back in 2005 at Mar-a-Lago.

Now, many are taking issue with the magazine's glowing coverage of the Trumps, especially as they posted an article after their writer came forward stating that they supported her and believed her story.

What's more, a special issue of People has been released featuring Trump, with a line on the cover reading: 'His life, his family & his astonishing journey to the White House.'

Director Judd Apatow wrote on Twitter Wednesday: 'F*** @People magazine. How disgusting. Selling their soul. Soon the happy Donald cover. Sell those mags! F*** your employees.'

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Angry: Women and celebrities are urging the public to boycott People magazine (above)

Not happy: 'F*** @People magazine. How disgusting. Selling their soul. Soon the happy Donald cover,' said Judd Apatow

Call to action: Writer and actress Zoe Kazan called for a boycott and said: 'Celebs: do not give them your interviews or sell them your pictures'

Calling them out: Kazan also accused People of 'normalizing' Trump for their own 'profit'

Also taking a stand against People was writer and actress Zoe Kazan, who wrote on Twitter: '#BOYCOTTPEOPLEMAGAZINE Celebs: do not give them your interviews or sell them your pictures Readers: do not give them your money This matters.'

Kazan, who has long been a vocal supporter of Clinton and equal rights for all minorities, especially women, later tweeted directly at People, writing: '@people your own writer was assaulted by this man. Now you look the other way for profit? Normalizing him is shameful. I won't stand for it.'

People did not respond to her tweet.

Kazan then urged her followers who were looking for something to read to pick up Glamour or Vogue, noting that both were run by women who spoke out against Trump.

Chrissy Teigen also voiced her shock and dismay at People after they tweeted out a link to a Trump story on Wednesday.

'22 photos of Ivanka Trump and her family that are way too cute,' tweeted People, with a link to a slideshow.

Teigen at first wrote 'really?' and then responded again, saying: 'If I didn't love you guys so much, I wouldn't feel so sick. So much for that writer, eh?'

Natasha Stoynoff (above) alleged last month that Trump sexually assaulted her, with the magazine voicing their support soon after

Even Two and a Half men star Jon Cryer voiced his anger, tweeting on Wednesday that people should boycott the magazine.

The most blunt response to People's posting of numerous Trump slideshows on Wednesday however came from writer and comedian Emmy Blotnick, who wrote: 'go f*** yourself.'

People said in a statement: 'Donald Trumps win is a history-making news event that warranted the cover of the magazine.

'The story is not a celebration or an endorsement and we continue to stand by Natasha Stoynoff, whose account of being attacked by Trump in 2005 is recounted in this weeks cover story.'

Stoynoff wrote last month about how she had traveled to Mar-a-Largo to interview Trump and his wife, Melania, in December 2005.

'Our photo team shot the Trumps on the lush grounds of their Florida estate, and I interviewed them about how happy their first year of marriage had been,' she wrote in People.

'When we took a break for the then very-pregnant Melania to go upstairs and change wardrobe for more photos, Donald wanted to show me around the mansion.

'There was one "tremendous" room in particular, he said, that I just had to see.

'We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds, he was pushing me against the wall, and forcing his tongue down my throat.

'I was grateful when Trumps longtime butler burst into the room a minute later, as I tried to unpin myself.'

First family: On Wednesday, the magazine posted links to multiple slideshows on their website celebrating the Trump family

Fans: The magazine also released a special edition with a smiling Donald Trump on the cover

Pressing questions: Chrissy Teigen and Jon Cryer have also voiced how upset they are about the magazine's coverage of the Trumps

Two and a half complaints: Cryer hit out at both New Balance and People on Twitter

Disbelief: Chrissy Teigen shared her thought's on the magazine's coverage

Stoynoff went on to detail how her 'self-esteem crashed to zero' as a result of the alleged attack, which she struggled to get her head around.

'How could the actions of one man make feel so utterly violated?' she wrote.

'Id been interviewing A-list celebrities for over 20 years, but what hed done was a first. Did he think Id be flattered?'

The writer then explained how she tried to get on with the task at hand, interviewing the Trumps, before Donald said something as they were again alone, waiting for Melania.

'Trump smiled and leaned forward. "You know were going to have an affair, dont you?" he declared. "Have you ever been to Peter Lugers for steaks? Ill take you. Were going to have an affair, Im telling you."'

Trump responded to the claim on Twitter by writing: 'Why didn't the writer of the twelve year old article in People Magazine mention the "incident" in her story. Because it did not happen!'

He again addressed the claims during a rally by saying: 'You take a look. Take a look at her. Take a look at her words. You tell me what you think.'
Now Di Mauro claims he delayed finding work to put off alimony payments

Kelly, who resigned at height of the scandal, returned to Wall St this year

She accused him of coaxing her into a drug-fueled foursome at the Ritz

Told how they snorted cocaine and did mushrooms with his friends

Christina Di Mauro is back in court with her ex-husband, former Jeffries & Co banker Sage Kelly (above with their daughters before their 2014 divorce)

A bad boy banker whose wife divorced him amid humiliating claims he had forced her to take part in cocaine orgies and wife swapping is now being accused of delaying finding a new job to put off giving her child support.

Sage Kelly, 44, a former $7million-a-year Jeffries & Co banker, was publicly shamed by his PR director ex-wife Christina Di Mauro in a divorce affidavit which laid their his depraved lifestyle in 2014.

In it she described how, under his encouragement, she slept with fellow financiers and their wives in drug-fueled orgies and held 'mushroom parties' at their Hamptons holiday home with colleagues.

The claims sent shockwaves through Wall Street and prompted drug tests at major banks. The pair, who now live separately in Manhattan, were chastised for their court 'fiasco' by a judge who said he felt sorry for their 'innocent' children.

Now, more than two years after settling for an undisclosed amount of money and winning joint custody of their daughters, Cameron and Logan, they are back in court.

Di Mauro, 41, is accusing her ex-husband of deliberately delaying finding new work after quitting his job as head of healthcare investments at the bank to put off having to pay her alimony.

They agreed on an unknown arrangement regarding the care of their daughters who are now eight and 12 in 2014.

The New York Post reported that the feuding former spouses returned to the courts on Wednesday where she demanded money promised to her in their settlement.

Kelly took a leave of absence after his wife's allegations became public in October 2014.

Earlier this year he returned to work, joining Cantor Fitzgerald's investment banking division as a senior managing director.

In her 23-page affidavit, she alleged that he making for salacious reading on Wall Street.

The pair were married for 12 years before divorcing in 2014 in a salaciously scandalous separation in which Di Mauro described their excessive debauchery

In the affidavit she claimed she had been asked by her husband to take part in a cocaine-driven foursome with another financial titan, Aegerion Pharmaceuticals boss Marc Beer.

Di Mauro claimed her husband pressured her to have sex with Beer and his girlfriend during a boozy and drug-filled weekend at the Ritz Carlton in Boston.

'There was one room, with two beds. Soon, Sage and I were having sex with each other on one bed, and Marc and his girlfriend were having sex on the other bed. Then Marc said, "Let's switch." I did not know what to do,' she wrote.

She went on to describe how she and the man's girlfriend had 'sexual contact for a while' while the men watched and later that they swapped partners.

Beer angrily denied the allegations immediately after they became public.

Di Mauro also alleged her husband's regular use of cocaine and its prevalence among Jeffries workers - an explosive accusation which prompted drug testing at the bank.

She told in an affidavit how her husband held 'mushroom parties' at their Sag Harbour home in the Hamptons and how they both took drugs while their children were in the house

Di Mauro was given a DWI in 2010 after crashing the pair's Range Rover while her daughters were in it. Kelly returned to Wall Street earlier this year with a job at Cantor Fitzgerald

She was initially deprived of custody of the couple's two daughters after being caught on a hidden camera installed in their Fifth Avenue apartment snorting cocaine.

Another alleged incident saw him have sex with a colleague's wife in their swimming pool while she stood naked nearby.

'Mushroom parties' for colleagues at their Sag Harbour summer home and cocaine bags left on pool tables were also described.

Despite a later plea to Jeffries & Co that her husband was a 'good father', she wrote in her affidavit that Kelly called their daughters 'f****** retards' on a daily basis.

Later, it emerged that Di Mauro had been the subject of a DWI for crashing the couple's Range Rover while their daughters were in the vehicle.

Neither of the pair answered questions as they left court on Wednesday.
Derek Coleman was on his way back from the chemist's to pick up his wife's prescription when the vehicle ploughed into him

A great grandfather was killed by a bus being driven by a driver who had deliberately hidden his poor eyesight from bosses to keep his job.

Derek Coleman was on his way back from the chemist's to pick up his wife's prescription when the vehicle ploughed into him in broad daylight.

The 82-year-old was rushed to the Royal London Hospital, but despite doctors' best efforts he died days later.

His wife, who he is a registered carer for, was waiting in the car nearby for her husband to return with the prescription.

CCTV played to the court showed how Mr Coleman was clearly visible to the driver, Stephen Thompson, as he crossed the one-way road.

Today Basildon Magistrates' Court heard how visibility and conditions were perfect on the afternoon he was hit in Tilbury, Essex.

Thompson, 49, admitted causing the death of the retired driver and lying to his employers Ensign Bus Company about having Type-2 Diabetes.

The court heard how Thompson, now homeless, had been driving for five years without disclosing his illness.

Thompson also rarely picked up a prescription that could have helped his condition when driving, the court heard.

The firm, which shuttles passengers across South Essex, would have likely never hired him if they knew of his health problems, which affects his eyesight.

told the court what happened on August 20 last year.

He said: 'Mr Thompson at the time was driving a double-decker bus in the Grays area owned by Ensign Company.

'He drove into Civic Square, in Tilbury with no passengers on board at the time, this was a fine clear evening with good visibility.

'The deceased Derek Coleman was aged 82, he parked his vehicle in Civic Square, left his car with his wife still in and walked to the chemist.

'When he left the chemist he began to walk back across the road to his car, as he walked across the bus collided with him.

'Mr Coleman suffered serious head injuries and was taken to the Royal London Hospital where he remained until he died on September 1.

'The CCTV from the bus itself shows Mr Coleman cross from the driver's left and cross across the bus before he was struck.'

The solicitor then revealed how the bus driver had lied about his medical condition whilst getting the job with firm in 2010.

He said: 'Mr Thompson suffered from Type-2 Diabetes and he knew about this at the time of his employment with Ensign Company.

'Thompson failed to disclose than his application form and throughout his employment with Ensign failed to disclose it.

'Even the day after the incident he filled out a form and failed to disclose it.

'There is expert evidence which shows the Type-2 Diabetes suffered by Mr Thompson affected his eyesight.'

CCTV played to the court showed how Mr Coleman was clearly visible to the driver, Stephen Thompson (pictured outside court), as he crossed the one-way road

And added: 'It is certainly something that should have been reported not only to the employers Ensign but also to the DVLA, which clearly he failed to do it.

'If he disclosed that clearly it would be unlikely he would be employed by the Ensign Company.'

Upon hearing the evidence District judge John Woollard sent the case to crown court as he felt his sentencing powers were insufficient.

Speaking after the case Mr Coleman's devastated family paid tribute to the 'Old School Dagenham Boy' and slammed Thompson.

In joint statement son Andrew and Julia Coleman said: 'He made a choice when he took that job that he has to live with for the rest of his life.

'We are happy with the police handling of the case and what they discovered about Mr Thompson.

'My dad took to everyone and would talk to everyone.

'He played bowls for the county of Essex and was really proud of that.

'He has left a big hole in everyone's life, it has just been terrible. We have got two young boys and they have been struggling and had outside help.

'The affect on my mum is terrible, he was her carer.'
The Polish defence ministry is launching free nationwide classes to teach women skills in unarmed combat.

The classes are being held at 30 military facilities, and will start next weekend and run until June 3.

The classes are open to all Polish women aged 18 or above who are in good health.

Participants must have their own medical insurance and sign a letter saying the defence ministry will not be liable for any injury claims.

The Polish defence ministry is launching free nationwide classes to teach women skills in unarmed combat

Polish army instructors will provide the training in techniques including defensive postures, how to break holds, strangulation, assaults with a weapon and guards against kicks.

Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz said the classes aim to teach women 'basic fighting techniques and, above all, improve overall physical fitness', adding 'We invite the ladies, there are still places - there are no age limits.'

The classes are being run as Poland ramps up its military amid fears of an invasion from Russia.

Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz said the classes aim to teach women 'basic fighting techniques and, above all, improve overall physical fitness'

The defence ministry is also setting up a 35,000-strong paramilitary Territorial Defence Force, as a defence against Russian aggression and a mode of promoting patriotism among citizens.

Poland and its Nato neighbours in the Baltic region have expressed concerns about Russia's aggressive military tactics, particularly in relation to the Ukraine conflict.

Nato said that Russian fighter jets are constantly testing defences over the Baltic states, with more than 600 'interceptions' so far this year.

Neighbouring countries have said they have concerns Russia could attempt to invade, and fear a military conflict, such as in the March 2014 annexation of Crimea.

The classes are being run as Poland ramps up its military amid fears of an invasion from Russia

The new defence scheme marks the first time that the military has run a nationwide programme.

However, some Poles have accused the army of running the classes as a way to improve its image.

Special forces commander, Roman Polko, told the Dziennik Polski news website that it was not the army's role to instruct citizens in unarmed combat, adding that learning martial arts 'won't win a war'.

Krakow-based journalist Marcin Ogdowski, also said the lessons 'have a propaganda dimension', adding that self-defence classes should be run by the police, rather than the military.

Russia has been bolstering its military capabilities, holding parades involving more than 100,000 troops each year

Tensions have been mounting in Europe following Russia's aggressive military posturing.

The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has voiced his concerns about security on the continent after Donald Trump's surprise election victory was announced.

Given Moscow's military tactics, Nato chiefs are scrambling to put together a force of 300,000 troops which they can put on 'high alert.

Calling for the creation of an EU army, Juncker said: 'We need more security in Europe, and I do not mean just the anti-terror fight.
Among a catalog of claims of election-inspired racial abuse since Tuesday

Footage of the chant has already been viewed more than 650,000 since it was posted on Facebook

Superintendent said the school was working with law enforcement to address any threats made

Parents have contacted the school concerned for the

Chant echoes the president-elect's pledge to build a wall on the United States' border with Mexico

Latino children were said to be in tears during the incident on Wednesday

A group of Michigan middle schoolers began chanting 'build a wall' in their cafeteria after Trump was elected the next president of the United States.

Latino students were said to be in tears as kids at Royal Oak Middle School began echoing Donald Trump's rallying cries to build a wall on Wednesday - just one day after the Republican won the vote.

Footage of the chant has already been viewed more than 650,000 since it was posted on Facebook.

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A group of Michigan middle schoolers began chanting 'build a wall' in their cafeteria after Trump was elected the next president of the United States

The video has alarmed a number of parents with children at the school who have contacted the school saying they are concerned about their safety.

The phrase 'build the wall' became a signature chant at Trump's rallies across the nation during the campaign after he said he planned to build a wall on the United States border with Mexico.

Royal Oak Schools Superintendent Shawn Lewis-Lakin confirmed that the incident happened at the school during a lunch break in a message to parents on Thursday.

He said a 'small group of students engaged in a brief' chant and school personnel in the cafeteria responded.

'Because of the strong emotions and intensity of rhetoric that the posting of this incident to social media has elicited, we have had families express concern regarding student safety,' Lewis-Lakin told Buzzfeed.

Latino students were said to be in tears as kids at Royal Oak Middle School began echoing Donald Trump's rallying cries to build a wall on Wednesday - just one day after the Republican won the vote

'Know that we work with our partners in law enforcement on responding to any and all threats that have been or will be made involving our students or schools.'

Lewis-Lakin said that staff had addressed the incident when it occurred and are working with students 'to help them understand the impact of their words and actions on others in their school community.'

'Our school district and each building in it works every day to be a welcoming community for all, inclusive and caring, where all students know they are valued, safe and supported.'

He urged everyone to hear each other's stories, 'not slogans'.

'We need to work towards understanding, not scoring points, and we need to find a way to move forward that respects and values each and every member of our community,' he said.

The video sparked outrage on Facebook where many have condemned the 'bullying', blaming Trump for inspiring the reaction.

The phrase 'build the wall' became a signature chant at Trump's rallies across the nation during the campaign after he said he planned to build a wall on the United States border with Mexico (Trump is pictured yesterday after winning the election)

Carrie Miller said: 'That's what our president is teaching our adults who follow him and their children!'

'This is so heartbreaking,' Conny Helms added. 'And this is why we need to rise to a higher level than running scorched Earth campaigns. And he's not going to build his fabeled wall anyway.'

Not everyone agreed. Another Facebook user blamed the parents for their children's behaviour.

'This is not the result of the election!!! Hate is not born with us, it is taught in our homes and communities!!!' Armida Marinov, said. 'These kids didn't just learn to bully others and put them down in one day!!! They learned from their parents and their teachers.'

Lewis-Lakin urged the district to come together after the incident.

The video has alarmed a number of parents with children at Royal Oak Middle School (pictured) who have contacted the school saying they are concerned about their safety

'In responding to this incident  indeed in responding to this election  we need to hear each other's stories, not slogans, we need to work towards understanding, not scoring points, and we need to find a way to move forward that respects and values each and every member of our community,' he said. 'We will be working on this in school today. Please work on this with us.'

The incident is among a catalog of claims of election-inspired racial abuse since Tuesday.

A college student in North Carolina wrote 'Bye bye Latinos hasta la vista' on a classroom whiteboard after Trump's victory.

Laura Roselle, professor of political science and international studies, posted a picture of the note on Facebook.

In a statement, Elon University said the student was 'deeply remorseful', according to Fox News. President Leo M. Lambert called it 'reprehensible'.
Today he has been indicted on 24 counts including wire fraud and theft

raised questions about improper mileage reimbursements, trips on donors' aircraft and more

And $5,123 for a custom built podium in the style of President Obama's

He spent $3,300 for a private jet trip to watch the Chicago Bears play

He also asked to be reimbursed for $30,000 of camera equipment

Around $5,000 of the remodel cost was spent on a single chandelier

remodeling his Capitol Hill office in the style of the television series 'Downton Abbey'

The Illinois congressman who resigned amid scrutiny of his spending habits has been indicted by a federal grand jury.

Aaron Schock, 35, who stepped down from Congress on March 31, 2015, faces 24 charges including wire fraud and theft following the criminal probe into his $1 million-plus annual office budget and lavish spending - including remodeling his Capitol Hill office in the style of TV series Downton Abbey.

His attorney, George Terwilliger, called the expected charges a 'misuse' of prosecutorial power by the Justice Department.

'This indictment will look bad, but underneath it is just made-up allegations of criminal activity arising from unintentional administrative errors,' Terwilliger said in a statement shortly before the indictment.

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A federal grand jury has indicted former Illinois US Rep. Aaron Schock (center, today) on 24 counts including wire fraud, theft of funds

'These charges are the culmination of an effort to find something, anything, to take down Aaron Schock.

The grand jury indictment accuses the former congressman of spending $40,000 in government funds to redecorate his Washington office in the style of Downton Abbey  including the purchase of a $5,000 chandelier.

He allegedly also spent more than $5,000 on a custom-built podium based on that of President Barack Obama's.

Other allegations, in the 24-count, 52-page indictment, include that Schock 'fraudulently' asked the House to reimburse him for nearly $30,000 worth of camera equipment and hired a personal photographer to follow him around.

Schock also put in official expenses for taking interns to a sold-out Katy Perry show and a Cubs- Bears game, according to the indictment.

Once a rising star and prodigious fundraiser for the GOP, the 35-year-old Republican from Peoria was forced to resign amid the intensifying scrutiny over his improper mileage reimbursements, trips on donors' aircraft and real estate deals.



The former congressman downplayed the allegations in June, saying any wrongdoing was 'honest mistakes.'

Gone: Aaron Schock in the office which he redecorated in the style of Downton Abbey and for which he claimed $40,000 in expenses  which he later had to repay out of his own pocket

RED IS THE COLOR:The lavish design appointments earned Schock snickers

Schock's financial charges have been made public after organizations questioned what his expenses were going toward. He has spent thousands on concerts and car mileage reimbursements

Schock is also accused of spending $5,000 on this chandelier for his Clinton Hill office

In his own statement Thursday, Schock said he never intentionally did anything wrong and that he was eager to defend his name and reputation.

'As I have said before, we might have made errors among a few of the thousands and thousands of financial transactions we conducted, but they were honest mistakes  no one intended to break any law,' he said.

SCHOCK'S LAVISH SPENDING BILL - ACCORDING TO THE INDICTMENT $3,300 for a private jet trip to watch the Chicago Bears play football. $20,500 on Super Bowl tickets in 2014 and 2015 $5,123 for a custom built podium in the style of President Obama's. $10,000 for a trip for him and his entourage of 20 to go to New York for a star-studded 'Global Citizen Festival' concert. $40,000 to have his Rayburn House office remodeled in the style of British TV series Downton Abbey - including $5,000 on a chandelier. $41,000 total for both his own apartment and Cannon House office to be remodeled - including a $2,200 stereo for his home. $30,000 for camera equipment and hiring a campaign staffer to follow him around as his personal photographer. $140,000 for official and campaign-related travel between 2008 and October 2014 - although indictment says he claimed for 150,000 miles more than his vehicles drove. He is also accused of spending tens of thousands on cars and transport, five star hotels and travelling on private jets. Advertisement

The charges are the culmination of 19-month investigation that included two grand juries that Schock said 'poked, prodded, and probed every aspect of my professional, political, and personal life.'

'Like many Americans, I wanted to have faith in the integrity of our Justice Department,' he said.

'But after this experience, I am forced to join millions of other Americans who have sadly concluded that our federal justice system is broken and too often driven by politics instead of facts.'

Schock gained a reputation as a walking lifestyle magazine, attending entertainment awards show, posing with celebrities and giving interviews about his buff physique.

Instagram snaps how him posing with Pope Francis, Apple Computer CEO Tim Cook, Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler, Ariana Grande, the country music band Lady Antebellum, and legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Several other social media pictures show him speaking to reporters in his home district from behind a podium that cost $5,123 from his official office budget in 2009 - according to the 2010 Statement of Disbursements of the House of Representatives.

According to Buzzfeed, the podium is a close facsimile of the one President Obama uses, complete with a circular seal  in this case, one that reads 'United States House of Representatives.'

Rules state that the Member's Representation Allowance 'may only be used for official and representational expenses' and may not 'pay for personal expenses' or any expenses 'related to activities and events that are primarily social in nature.'

In particular, furniture is 'not reimbursable' for the Washington DC congressional office and only decorations of 'nominal value' are covered.

According to the indictment, he also spent more than $40,000 on getting his Cannon House office, and his own apartment remodeled.

'THE PRESIDENTIAL': Schock's congressional office budget covered more than $5,000 for this custom podium, styled after the one President Obama uses when he's on the road

HE'S EVERYWHERE: Schock mugged with Apple Computer CEO Tim Cook in 2014 after the tech king's speech at an exclusive American Enterprise Institute event on tony Sea Island in the US state of Georgia

IPHONE AT THE READY FOR HIS HOLINESS: Schock posted online a photo of him greeting Pope Francis in January on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp

Schock is also accused of hiring a personal campaign photographer to follow him around. He also chartered private planes and stayed in five-star hotels, according to the indictment.

The Associated Press have also identified at least a dozen flights worth more than $40,000 on aircraft belonging to Schock's donors since mid-2011.

Beyond air travel, Schock spent thousands more on tickets for concerts, car mileage reimbursements - among the highest in Congress, the indictment claims.

He also allegedly sold his home to a donor who had built and financed it  receiving more than the property was worth.

And National Journal reported that an outside group paid for Shea Ledford, to travel to India with Schock.

Politico reported he also faced questions over his expenses: Schock allegedly submitted claims for 170,000 miles he said he drove on Congressional business in his Chevy Tahoe.

But the car, which he bought new, had just 80,000 miles on its odometer when it was sold.

Schock, 35, resigned from Congress on March 31, 2015, amid a federal criminal probe into his $1 million-plus annual office budget

Rep. Aaron Schock sold this Dunlap, Illinois house to political donors who built and financed it  allegedly keeping the profits

Schock's air charters allegedly include one jaunt with staffers to a Katy Perry concert, and another in 2014 that saw him bring an entourage of 20 to New York where they reportedly did little work but saw a star-studded 'Global Citizen Festival' concert.

That journey set taxpayers back $10,000; Schock justified it as a 'very legitimate trip' by noting that it coincided with a U.S. visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The festival and concert that were underwritten in part by the Peoria-based Caterpillar company.

Salon reported in February that Schock had accepted a string of lavish gifts and meals in London, and hosted a September 2014 fundraiser at a Maryland golf course  'The Aaron Schock Golf Classic'  which netted his political coffers $125,000.

But his official financial disclosure documents showed no signs of the perks.

Another visit to the UK saw Schock taking Ledford to several high-society meals hosted by the Prince of Wales Foundation in June 2011.

Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, attended one of them. The events were hosted at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and a posh London nightclub.

At the time a foundation spokeswoman told Politico that Schock had been 'a guest of a guest of the Prince of Wales, so he has no involvement with the foundation and therefore wasn't in any way, shape or form involved other than attending a dinner as a guest of a guest.'

TRAVEL BUDDY: Schock (right) posed with longtime friend Shea Ledford (center) and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (left) for a ceremonial swearing-in picture in 2011, at the beginning of his second term in office

Schock also used official expenses to attend a Chicago Bears game (pictured) last year

Separately, Schock declared on a political campaign disclosure document that he had spent money on software purchases. The expense turned out to be for a private jet trip on an aircraft owned by a software company president.

Congressional rules prohibit members from accepting any a gift worth more than $50. That includes food and beverages.

The guidelines provide an exception for gifts from close personal friends, but even those require written approval from the House Ethics Committee  and later public disclosure  if they exceed $250.

Under the intensifying scrutiny, Schock previously hired a firm to review his spending and reimbursed the government for the office decorations and the Bears game flight.
There could be a shortage of dairy products including cream for the Christmas pudding, according to The Grocer magazine

Britain is facing a shortage of cheese, butter and cream for the Christmas pudding, it has emerged.

A collapse in supply from British farms means some wholesalers are struggling to find supplier and prices have been driven up.

One firm supplying cheese to schools in the south west of England is already experiencing shortages, according to The Grocer magazine.

Many small dairy farmers have given up over the last five years, driven out of business by persistently lower prices.

A high proportion of those that remain are contracted to provide liquid milk to the nations supermarkets. As a result, the amount available to be turned into butter, cheese and cream has fallen dramatically.

Milk deliveries to the nations dairies were down more than 10 per cent in September compared to the same month last year, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB). And this pattern has continued.

The shortage will also affect levels of cheese available in the UK, a staple of the Boxing Day dinner table. One firm supplying cheese to schools is already experiencing shortages

The shortage has driven up the wholesale price of milk from around 20p a litre to more than 30p.

In September, UK wholesale Cheddar prices were up 30.9 per cent year on year to 3,175/tonne their highest level since 2014.

Wholesale butter prices were up a staggering 75.8 per cent on last year at 3,600 a tonne. And the figure is now closer to 3,800 a tonne.

Christmas usually sees a huge increase in demand for cream to pour over mince pies and puddings.

However, if milk is diverted to produce cream, that will mean there is even less to make butter and cheese.

The more milk that is diverted to make cream for pies and puddings, the less there will be for butter later

One source told The Grocer magazine: There is also real concern that when demand for Christmas cream starts, UK retail wont have enough UK butter.

Its a massive volume and normally pulls all of the December fat out of the market, but this year supplies just arent there. Either not enough cream now or not enough butter later. Thats the choice.

Another supplier said there simply wasnt enough supply of cheese or butter in the system.

The net result is that dairies have been forced to hike the price being paid to farmers for milk, which will feed through to higher prices in supermarkets.

The cheesemaker Barbers last week announced a 6pence per litre increase in the price it is paying farmers for milk, taking it up to around 30p.
A 13-year-old boy fatally shot by Columbus, Ohio police investigating reports of an armed robbery earlier this year was struck three times on his left side, according to autopsy results.

The report, released on Thursday, from Franklin County Coroner Dr Anahi Ortiz listed Tyre King's cause of death as gunshot wounds to the head and torso.

The manner of death was listed as homicide, which is standard in the county when a person is shot, regardless of the circumstances.

The case will go to a grand jury following a police investigation to determine whether officers will face charges.

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Tyre King, 13, (left) was fatally shot by Columbus, Ohio, police officer Bryan Mason (right) on September 14. Autopsy results released on Thursday indicated Tyre was struck three times on his left side

It remains under investigation, police spokeswoman Denise Alex-Bouzounis said.

Tyre was shot after he ran from Officer Bryan Mason investigating a reported armed robbery and pulled a BB gun that looked like a real firearm, according to police.

Mason was just two days into a new assignment when he responded to the robbery call in the city's Olde Town East neighborhood.

There he encountered 19-year-old Demeterius Braxton and Tyre, who fled.

At the time, officers were investigating an armed robbery report and spotted three males who matched the description of the suspects, authorities said.

Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs holds up a photo showing the type of BB gun that police say Tyre pulled from his waistband just before he was shot and killed by police investigating an armed robbery report earlier this year

Two of them ran away when officers tried to speak with them.

The police chased the pair into a nearby alley and tried to take them into custody.

That's when Tyre pulled out a BB gun, and Mason fired his weapon, hitting the boy repeatedly, police said.

Tyre died at Nationwide Children's Hospital - approximately one hour after he was shot.

Hundreds of mourners came out for Tyre's funeral on September 24 (shown above)

The funeral program for Tyre shown above. The autopsy report listed his cause of death as gunshot wounds to the head and torso. The manner of death was listed as homicide

Officers have said the BB gun looked 'practically identical' to a police weapon.

The Umarex 40XP Blowback BB Pistol retails for $50 and is readily available to buy at stores such as Walmart.

It is not known where King purchased the laser sight.

The autopsy results, done the day after the September 14 shooting, were consistent with a review of Tyre's body on September 18 by a medical examiner hired by the teen's family.

Tyre's death inflamed racial tensions in Ohio's largest city while adding to a growing number of black people who have been killed by police across the country.

Relatives of Tyre are shown earlier this month as they consoled each other during a vigil held for him in Columbus, Ohio

Attorneys for the family have called for an independent investigation. A message was left with the attorneys on Thursday.

Mason has since returned to the force, although not in his prior assignment as a patrol officer.

Mason's personnel file is full of commendations and he had also been involved in other shootings, including another fatality, in which he was cleared of wrongdoing.
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After clashing with Donald Trump when the real estate mogul took over the Republican party, House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday adopted Trumps campaign slogan, showed off his own stunning Capitol balcony to the new the president-elect  and even pointed out Trumps hard-to-miss new luxury hotel.

Trump motorcaded down Pennsylvania Avenue Thursday afternoon to the Capitol after his 90-minute meeting with President Obama  the first time the two men had met.

It was the first meeting between Trump and the two pillars of the party he was able to essentially take over since the election.

Ryan, a Wisconsin representative, says he voted for Trump but disinvited him from a campaign rally after the release of the infamous and radioactive 'p****' tape. He criticized Trump's Muslim ban and has been skeptical of Trump's border on the U.S. Mexico wall.

And on Thursday, he took Trump onto his balcony and showed him where the billionaire's latest hotel is.

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Trump's other tower: Paul Ryan points out the clocktower of the Old Post Office Building, which Trump turned into his Washington D.C. hotel

Down to business: President-elect Trump met Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, for talks over lunch at the Capitol Hill Club and were then photographed in the Speaker's office

This is your new home: Paul Ryan showed the Trumps the extraordinary view from the Speaker's Balcony - said to be the best in Washington

Trump Hotel is to the right: Ryan took the president-elect and his wife out onto his balcony after they were photographed in his office

Ready for January: Construction work is already under way on the platform on which Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States of America

Platform for governing: The president-elect will be sworn in in 71 days time in front of the Capitol. Construction work is already under way.

National Mall: The Speaker's Balcony looks straight down the Mall to the Washington Memorial, while to the right of the memorial is the White House. Trump's vice-president, Mike Pence, was just behind him

Look what I can see: Trump said the view was 'absolutely beautiful' after being taken on to the balcony by Paul Ryan

Meeting time: Donald Trump was escorted through the Capital by Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, with Mike Pence, the vice-president-elect behind him and his wife at his side

Make America great again: Trump waved and gave a thumbs-up as he left the Capitol Hill Club in his armored SUV

In the latest sign of shifting power dynamics, Ryan who was able to chide Trump as the leading elected Republican official and spokesman for the power establishment, pointed out to the real estate mogul the territory he would soon oversee.

Looking out on the National Mall with his arm outstretched, Ryan pointed out a property Trump knows something about. 'That's it right there, that's the Old Post Office Building,' Ryan said, in earshot of pool reporters.

He was referring to the newly opened Trump DC International Hotel, a new venture Trump plugged incessantly during the campaign, including during a televised presidential debate. It is also one of the most recognizable landmarks in Washington, towering over buildings downtown, easy to spot even by someone who doesn't own it.

Trump called the view 'absolutely beautiful.'

The two men are now partners, with Ryan's GOP House having the ability to send all manner of legislation to the Senate under unified government.

After the two met for lunch at the Capitol Hill Club, Ryan showed Trump and future first lady Melania Trump the stunning view of the Mall from the Speaker's balcony.

Trump said the team would do 'absolutely spectacular things' for the country in brief remarks inside the Speaker's office.

'I think we are going to absolutely spectacular things for the American people and I look forward to starting  quite frankly we can't get started fast enough,' Trump said.

'Whether it's on healthcare or immigration so many different things. We're going to lower taxes, so many different things we are going to be working on,' Trump said.

Trump didn't mention his border wall, although reporters shouted questions about it.

Reflecting the new PR blitz of cooperation, Trump spoke of 'healthcare' rather than repealing Obamacare, immediately after meeting with the man who helped create it.

'We had a very detailed meeting, and we're going to lower taxes, as you know, health care we're going to make it affordable. We are going to do a real job on healthcare,' Trump said.

Gilded halls: President-elect Trump and Speaker Ryan were photographed in the Speaker's office, one of the grandest of the Capitol's rooms.

Reflecting time: Paul Ryan has been House speaker until now in opposition to a Democratic White House but will now be freer to pursue a conservative agenda

At his side: Melania Trump was with the president-elect for his talks after a meeting with Michelle Obama at the White House

Slogan: 'We are now talking about how we are going to hit the ground running to get this country turned around and make America great again,' Paul Ryan said - using the Trump slogan he had steered clear of before

Let's deal: The president-elect, the speaker and the vice-president-elect were at the meeting in Paul Ryan's office.

Hand in hand: The Trumps were escorted through Capitol Hill by the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, for talks with him in his offices

In the entourage: Jared Kushner was right behind his father-in-law, amid speculation he will be Trump's chief of staff

A step behind him: Jared Kushner's presence throughout President-elect Trump's Washington visit is fueling speculation he will be chief of staff

Time for change: The Trumps smiled after leaving talks with Mitch McConnell, the Republican's Majority Leader in the Senate as they walked down the Ohio Clock Corridor

Thumbs up: Trump gave his trademark gesture as he walked through Capitol Hill with Mitch McConnell - and his son-in-law Jared Kushner behind him

Keeping it short: Trump paused briefly to speak to reporters and said: 'We have a lot to do. We're going to work very strongly on immigration, health care and we're looking at jobs, big league jobs.'

Cockpit of government: Trump flew his private jet to D.C. and got tours of the White House and the Capitol with Mitch McConnell the final of the three most powerful men in government to act as guide

Working relationship: President-elect Trump will have the help of a Republican clean sweep of Congress

Pages line up: Capitol Hill's pages were at the sides of the Ohio Clock Corridor as President-elect Trump and his wife walked through it

Meet the press: Mitch McConnell and President-elect Trump spoke briefly to reporters after their talks

The son-in-law also rises: As the president-elect stopped to briefly answer questions from the press, Jared Kushner was just a few feet behind. He is being tipped as chief of staff in the Trump White House

Ryan hailed the nation's new leader and even used his slogan. 'Donald Trump had one of the most impressive victories we have ever seen and we're going to turn that victory into progress for the American people, and we are now talking about how we are going to hit the ground running to get this country turned around and make America great again.'

Then, it was on to a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. As the two walked through the Capitol, the Trump entourage included his son-in-law Jared Kushner - a man being spoken of as a White House chief of staff.

McConnell is known as a wily legislative tactician. He came up with the controversial but successful strategy to stall President Obama's Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland.

That move has left Trump with the ability to pack the high court with conservatives. McConnell, the ultimate insider, has also made a career of foiling campaign finance legislation he considers unconstitutional.

Trump has already spoken about moving corporate tax legislation and infrastructure through Congress. Both measures would require heavy input from the two experienced lawmakers.

President-elect Donald Trump and current President Barack Obama and an hour-long meeting at the White House on Wednesday morning

Trump described Obama as a 'very good' man when the meeting was finished as a pack of reporters hurled questions at the pair

Obama said that he was 'encouraged' by the conversation he had with Trump on Wednesday morning

Trump and Obama addressed the press with short comments about their meeting following their hour-and-a-half long talk

Trump said he walked in thinking the meeting would only last '15 minutes' but concluded by the end that it could have gone on 'much longer'

Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner (pictured behind Trump's campaign press secretary Hope Hicks), owner of the New York Observer and a senior adviser to the president-elect's campaign, was in the Oval Office while Trump and Obama spoke to reporters

Under Senate rules, Democrats can filibuster legislation, giving them a say in the outcome despite the GOP's unified control of government.

But under budget procedures both McConnell and Ryan know well, the majority has the ability to set parameters for special legislation through budget reconciliation procedures that can get tax and spending measures through on a simple majority vote.

Ryan is up for reelection next week as speaker. He was potentially facing blowback from pro-Trump forces in the House who wanted him to steer clear of criticizing the nominee. But the first signals out of Trump-land have been for reconciliation, at least as far as the White House is concerned.

At his meeting with President Obama, Trump said his counterpart was a 'great man'  a departure from his earlier suggestions that Obama wasn't even born in the United States and therefore might not be eligible to serve.

Also along for the meetings with Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who served in the House leadership before he was elected Indiana governor and who is friends with Ryan.

Pence is expected to have a major portfolio inside the administration, and could take on a role as liaison to Capitol Hill.

And this is what it looks like: The Trump International Hotel D.C. is the latest in the billionaire's hotel properties

Inside and out: There is little mistaking the Trump branding on his new hotel, which he boasted was finished early and under budget when he opened it in October, less than two weeks before the election

Also along for the Capitol Hill tour was Melania Trump  who was not photographed at the White House after the White House canceled a photo-op.

And as at the White House, son-in-law Jared Kushner was present. He walked behind the future first couple as they strolled through the Capitol's ornate second-floor hallways with a beaming McConnell. A key force in the campaign, Kushner is considered a candidate for White House chief of staff.

Just days ago, McConnell was facing the prospect of losing his carefully assembled majority and having to contend with having his political nemesis Hillary Clinton running the White House. The first year had all the markings of an angry confrontation complete with congressional investigations of the new president.

Instead, McConnell finds himself as the primary gatekeeper of the Trump administration, working with a political inexperienced chief executive. The most experienced people currently in Trump's orbit, Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani, don't have a national legislative resume.

Another Trump confidante, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, like McConnell is a fellow Southern Republican who has been a Republican loyalist.

Later, Ryan told Brett Baier the meeting with Trump was 'wonderful.'

Asked if he was just saying that, Ryan replied: 'No, I'm not just saying that. Wonderful. We had a great working lunch. The presidential election, the first lady, the incoming first lady and the vice president-elect. A great working lunch.'

Then he lauded Trump as a 'man of action.'
FBI rescued Janssen as his captors were finalizing details to kill him

Melton used a smuggled cellphone to direct how to kill Frank Janssen, dispose of his body and clean up the crime scene

But the criminals made a mistake and kidnapped her father

He was convicted of masterminding kidnapping of Frank Janssen, the father of Wake County assistant district

Kelvin Melton (pictured), 51, was sentenced to life for masterminding the kidnapping of a prosecutor that went wrong when his cronies snatched her father instead

A violent gang leader was sentenced to life for orchestrating a botched kidnapping in which his underlings mistakenly grabbed the father of the North Carolina prosecutor who helped convict him.

Kelvin Melton was sentenced to life plus seven years in the federal 'super-max' penitentiary in Florence, Colorado, by US District Judge James Dever on Thursday.

The 51-year-old was convicted of being the mastermind behind the kidnapping of Frank Janssen, the father of Wake County assistant district attorney Colleen Janssen.

During the two-week trial, Frank Janssen testified that he still suffers from emotional and physical injuries obtained during the abduction in April 2014 from his home.

Evidence showed that while imprisoned, Melton directed members from the United Bloods Nation gang to kidnap the prosecutor who put him there.

But the criminals goofed and kidnapped her father instead.

Melton used a smuggled cellphone to direct how to kill Frank Janssen, dispose of his body and clean up the crime scene.

Melton was convicted of being orchestrating the kidnapping of Frank Janssen (left), the father of Wake County assistant district attorney Colleen Janssen (right), who put him behind bars

Melton used a smuggled cellphone to direct how to kill Frank Janssen, dispose of his body and clean up the crime scene. He was already serving a life sentence in a North Carolina prison as a violent habitual felon after a 2011 shooting. FBI agents are pictured gathering evidence in 2014

He was already serving a life sentence in a North Carolina prison as a violent habitual felon after a 2011 shooting.

The ADX Florence prison houses some of the country's most violent, high-profile or high-security criminals, including Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph, 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, Mafia bosses and former FBI agent and Soviet spy Robert Hanssen.

Inmates are locked in their cells for all but one hour of the day.

Melton deserved a life sentence in the prison because he had repeatedly recruited other inmates to gang activities and showed his 'skill in running outside criminal enterprises while under the most restrictive of conditions,' government prosecutors wrote in a report last week.

He had previously spent 13 years in New York prisons. While behind bars, he helped create the United Blood Nation gang and was nicknamed 'Godfather' and 'Old Man,' authorities said.

Melton turned to vengeance against Colleen Janssen, after she put him in prison.

Colleen Janssen's father, Frank, was taken from his home (pictured) in Wake forest, NC in 2014

Melton ordered gangsters to kidnap her, but they took her father by mistake. Her father was then driven to an apartment (pictured) in Atlanta, where he was bound to a chair and locked in a closet. The FBI rescued him after four days

Evidence showed he directed gang members to kidnap two of her female relatives  kidnappings that weren't carried out  before turning to Janssen herself.

Melton ordered gangsters to kidnap her, but they took her father by mistake. Her father was then driven to an apartment in Atlanta, where he was bound to a chair and locked in a closet.

Prosecutors said Melton sent more than 120 texts instructing his underlings and on two occasions called on speaker phone before and after the kidnapping, the News Observer reported.

Co-conspirators in the plot also sent threats to Frank Janssen's wife.

FBI agents monitored Melton's cellphone and tracked Janssen to an Atlanta apartment four days after he was taken from his Wake Forest home.

The FBI's Hostage Rescue Team stormed the apartment as Janssen's captors were finalizing details to kill him, authorities said.

When Melton testified in his defense at the June trial, he denied having a role in what he called a 'stupid' plan.
For the people of Little Rock, Arkansas, the Hillcrest Pumpkin Roll is almost as exciting as Halloween itself.

The annual event is the time of year when, after All Hallows Eve, locals get together to roll all their leftover pumpkins down the street.

It's a competition to find out which gourd can go the distance, however this year, one went straight for a little boy standing on the curb.

Here it comes: The annual Hillcrest Pumpkin Roll raises money for charity, and is a competition for mostly children to roll pumpkins down the street

Smashing pumpkin: The gourd rolled straight into a little boy who was watching the competition, knocking him down

Help: Video from the scene shows other spectators running to help the little boy

In a video taken by a spectator, the large pumpkin is seen rolling straight for the child, and while others move out of the way, he doesn't.

The pumpkin then suddenly hits him, breaking apart, and throwing the boy down.

The boy springs back up with the help of other onlookers and appears to be just fine.

The pumpkin competition started 13 years ago as an opportunity to both watch a little pumpkin destruction and raise money for charity, Arkansas Online reported.

A close-up shows the boy trying to get on his feet after being hit by the pumpkin

Participants pay $5 for a chance to roll their pumpkin, and this year over $1,500 was raised for a local charity, Camp Aldersgate.

The aim - or hope - is to get the pumpkin all the way down Hillcrest to Lee Avenue.
Two teenagers have been arrested after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed at school for challenging youngsters.

Police were called to the pupil referral unit in Erdington just after 1.30pm today following reports a group of people had entered the school and stabbed a student.

The youngster was treated by the ambulance service and taken to hospital with serious injuries where he remains in a stable condition.

Police were called to City of Birmingham School in Fentham Road, Erdington, just after 1.30pm on Thursday following reports a group of people had entered the school and stabbed a student

Two boys aged 16 and 17 were arrested a short time later on suspicion of attempted murder. Officers continue to search for other suspects.

Superintendent Mark Payne, from West Midlands Police CID, said: 'This is a fast paced investigation and we are still conducting inquiries to establish the circumstances around today's incident.

'We are working closely with the school and if anyone has any information then I am urging them to speak to police or to call us as a matter of urgency.'

City of Birmingham School in Fentham Road, Erdington, is a pupal referral unit, which deals with childrenb who have 'emotional, behavioural and social issues'.

Councils across Britain send students there when other schools have struggled to deal with them, often after an exclusion.
A high school student was attacked by a classmate in the school yard after sharing her support of Donald Trump on Instagram.

Jade Armenio, a sophomore at Woodside High School in Redwood City, California, shared her view on the social media site on Tuesday night alongside millions of others.

In the post, the teenager, who cannot yet vote, said she hoped the Republican candidate would win.

She was attacked on camera the following day by another student who grabbed her hair and threw her to the ground after Trump's election victory.

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Jade Armenio was attacked in the school yard (above) on Wednesday after sharing her support for Trump on Instagram the night before

Jade said every one of her friends on social media had shared their views online as the election unfolded on Tuesday.

She joined them, posting on her private Instagram account in support of Trump.

The next day a female classmate approached her and asked: 'Do you hate Mexicans,' before slamming her to the ground.

'This girl come up to me and said "do you hate Mexicans?"'

'I said "no" and she said "you support Trump, you hate Mexicans,"' she told ABC.

Jade was hit in the face and dragged to the ground by her hair before being left with a bloody nose.

Footage of the attack was taken on another student's cellphone. In it, she could be heard screaming.

Jade's mother Gina said she was appalled her daughter had been the bivtim of such an attack

Jade's parents said they were keeping her out of Woodside High School in Redwood City until they knew she could be safe there

The student's mother said she would be keeping her out of school until they could be sure she was safe.

Jade also claimed she had received hate mail since sharing the post.

The school said in a statement that it had investigated the incident and taken appropriate disciplinary measures.

Its principal was not available on Thursday afternoon when contacted.

Angry protests erupted across America after Trump's victory on Wednesday morning.

More than 6,000 people took to the streets of Oakland, less than 40 miles from Jade's school, to demonstrate against the President-elect.

In Los Angeles others marched in anger against the shock result.

Trump's shock election sparked riots across California. Jade merely said she wanted him to win in an Instagram post




A man who escaped from juvenile jail on crutches could be behind a carjacking after his getaway car was spotted when two people held up a driver at gunpoint.

Lachlan Mitchell, 20, fled the prison at Malmsbury in Victoria on Tuesday and got into a black ute waiting for him with South Australian number plates.

On Thursday morning, two people in a black ute held up a driver at gunpoint near Mount Gambier across the border, police said.

Lachlan Mitchell, 20, fled the Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre in Victoria on Tuesday and got into a black ute waiting for him with South Australian number plates

Mitchell is serving a 12-month sentence for serious driving and firearm offences.

He was wheelchair bound after sustaining a leg injury.

The Warrnambool man had escaped the juvenile jail about 2pm on Tuesday on crutches and got into the black ute.

Following a minor crash about 10.45am Thursday in Mil-Lel, north of Mount Gambier, a grey Nissan Navara dual cab ute was stolen at gunpoint from the owner.

The two suspects abandoned a black Holden ute at the scene and drove off in the stolen vehicle.

Police later found the stolen vehicle.

On Thursday, two men in a black ute held the driver of a grey ute (pictured) up at gunpoint and stole his vehicle

Police are currently carrying out a search of the area with assistance of STAR Group patrols and PolAir.

Two homes have been searched, ABC News reported.

Possible links between the carjacking and the escapee is being investigated, South Australian Police confirmed.

Mitchell is described as Caucasian, 175cm tall, medium build, with blue eyes and short hair.

He was wearing black shorts, white runners, a grey t-shirt and a black jumper when he left the centre.

Police have warned the public not to approach him as he may be armed and dangerous.

Anyone with any information about his whereabouts is urged to contact triple-0.

The Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre in central Victoria Lachlan Mitchell escaped from

Mitchell had escaped Malmsbury Juvenile Justice Centre on Tuesday on crutches
Hackers are targeting vital hospital machines in a bid to extract thousands of pounds in ransom money, experts warn.

At least four NHS trusts have been targeted in the so-called 'ransomware' attacks this year.

A major cyber-security firm yesterday claimed out-of-date hospital computers make it simple for hackers to install malicious software which freezes the entire IT system  including medical machines connected to it.

Hackers are targeting hospital machines in a bid to extract ransom money, experts warn. All non-urgent operations and appointments were cancelled at Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (above) for two days last month after a virus infected the IT system

Radiotherapy machines, MRI scanners and other diagnostic equipment can be rendered useless until hospitals pay for a password to unlock the software.

All non-urgent operations and appointments were cancelled at Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust for two days last month, after a malicious virus infected the IT system.

No cash was paid in that incident, but a report by Intel Security revealed further attacks in February, in which two unnamed British hospital trusts were infected with 'ransomware' in the same way.

A fourth attack, at the Papworth heart hospital in Cambridge, was dodged only because the lucky timing of its daily backup meant computers could simply be rebooted.

Gordon Morrison, director of government relations at Intel Security, warned that many NHS hospitals use 'antiquated' computer equipment which does not have the latest security software.

An attack at the Papworth heart hospital in Cambridge was dodged only because the lucky timing of its daily backup meant computers could simply be rebooted

Speaking at the King's Fund Annual Conference in London yesterday, he said: 'Criminals recognise that MRI machines, oncology departments, machines that are providing medical services, medical analytics, are all linked to legacy [outdated] devices.

'They will know that and they will exploit that. If there is money to be made by crippling a machine, they will do that.'

While it is not thought NHS trusts have paid out ransoms, Mr Morrison cited the case of a hospital in California, which was forced to close for more than five days earlier this year before giving hackers $17,000 (13,600).

He said a total of 19 hospitals around the world were hit in the first half of this year.

Hackers typically attack by including a virus in a spam email. If a hospital staff member clicks a link or opens an attachment, the virus can lock down the entire IT system.

Mr Morrison said: 'This is malware that infects you, encrypts as much information as it can, and then demands a bitcoin [anonymous digital payment] or many bitcoins to free it. A California hospital was hit in this way earlier this year ... the reputational damage was catastrophic.'

He said one hacker had made the equivalent of 80,000 targeting several hospitals.
Police have said that Cora Okonski's (pictured) 'disappearance was not voluntary'

A 23-year-old Iowa mother who vanished without a trace in 2000 is believed to be a homicide victim, law enforcement officials said Thursday.

A review by a multi-agency task force has concluded that Cora Okonski's 'disappearance was not voluntary,' the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation said in a statement.

The agency said that it has reclassified Okonski's disappearance as a homicide rather than a missing persons case and that it was under investigation by state and local police and prosecutors.

Okonski was the mother to a toddler son and had worked as a waitress in Tama, a town of about 2,800 residents that's 60 miles northeast of Des Moines.

Police have never identified a suspect in her disappearance. But Okonski's ex-boyfriend, Tait Purk, has long faced scrutiny from police and the public since he was with her the night she disappeared.

The two were scheduled to be married one month after she vanished, and they had a volatile relationship that was marked by drug use and fighting.

Purk is set to be released from a federal prison in Kansas on unrelated drug and gun charges in April, after roughly 14 years behind bars.

Okonski was the mother to a toddler son (pictured) and had worked as a waitress in Tama, a town of about 2,800 residents that's 60 miles northeast of Des Moines

Police have never identified a suspect in her disappearance. But Okonski's ex-boyfriend, Tait Purk (right), has long faced scrutiny from police and the public since he was with her the night she disappeared, but has denied involvement

He has denied involvement in Okonski's disappearance, telling police that she left their home to walk to the store to buy cigarettes and never returned.

Purk has said he told Okonski he wanted to put off their wedding date earlier that day and that she became upset. He reported her missing to police two days after she was last seen.

Her relatives have long presumed Okonski was dead, because she stopped collecting her Social Security disability payments and cut off contact with them. But her body has never been found.

Investigators have made recent trips to the location where Okonski was last seen, have identified new witnesses and re-interviewed old ones.

'It was put on the shelf and collected dust and then it was opened back up by the DCI's interest in it,' said Tama County Sheriff Dennis Kucera, who has assigned a detective to the case.

'It's a case of interest and there's been new information that's been discovered.'

Kucera and others involved in the investigation declined to elaborate on the new information.

Investigators have made recent trips to the location where Okonski was last seen, have identified new witnesses and re-interviewed old ones. Okonski's case has been reopened but investigators declined to elaborate on the new information they have obtained

DCI said agents with significant experience in cold cases were leading the investigation, even though it no longer has a dedicated unit to solving old cases.

The agency disbanded a three-year-old cold case unit after a federal grant ran out in 2011.

That unit relied on DNA testing to help solve two old cases, a 1974 slaying of a woman in a farmhouse and a 1984 triple homicide linked to a killer who was later executed in Missouri.

In March, DCI announced a first-degree murder charge against an Iowa City man in the 1985 slaying of his wife's lover.
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The body of a missing teenager has been found in woods two days after her boyfriend was arrested for shooting dead her mother and sister.

Kirsten Nicole Fritch disappeared on Tuesday before the bodies of her mother and sister were found in their home in Baytown, Texas.

Her boyfriend Jesse Dobbs was arrested in Texas City hours later for their killings after walking in to Shenanigans bar covered in sweat and asking for a glass of water.

Police searching for the missing 16-year-old found a body they said they were confident was hers behind the bar on Thursday.

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The body of 16-year-old Kirsten Fritch (left) was found on Thursday in woodland in Texas City two days after she vanished with boyfriend Jesse Dobbs (right) after his arrst for the deaths of her mother and sister

' It's a tragic ending to something that we hoped would have a different (outcome),' said Baytown Police Lieutenant Tim Dorris afterwards.

Of the victims' remaining family, he said: 'In the blink of an eye, you're losing three family members.'

Police are searching for a gun, according to The Houston Chronicle.

Dobbs went on the run after allegedly shooting dead his girlfriend's mother and her 13-year-old sister.

Cynthia Morris, 37, and Breanna Pavilicek were found at their home on Tuesday after Morris's mother phoned police to share her concerns.

The teenager's mother Cynthia Morris (right) was found shot dead in her home in Baytown 30 miles away on Tuesday with her other daughter (not pictured)

Dobbs, 22, was named as a person of interest in their deaths as an amber alert for Kirsten was sent out

The girl's body was found in woodland behind Shenanigans bar in Texas City (above) on Thursday

Police issued an amber alert for Kristen on Tuesday and shared an image of her mother's car which they said had gone missing

It took police just half an hour to locate her body in woodland on Thursday morning (above) as supplied by KHOU11

Dobbs was arrested in Texas City 30 miles away after entering the bar sweating and barefoot and asking for a glass of water.

A police hunt for Kirsten was unfruitful on Wednesday. It took officers only 30 minutes to find her body on Thursday.

Her boyfriend is already facing double homicide charges for her mother and sister's deaths.

No fresh charges had been yet brought on Thursday afternoon.

Investigators had issued an Amber Alert for Fritch, sharing her photograph and a photograph of her mother's car - a cream 2008 Chrysler PT Cruiser.

Police said Dobbs' grandmother told them she and Morris did not approve of a relationship between Dobbs and Fritch.
Chanting activists gathered outside the heavily guarded Trump Tower with signs reading 'not my president'

Nearly 200 people were arrested in Los Angeles where crowds flocked to City Hall and the Staples Center

Police threw flash grenades and arrested 26 people as on-scene journalists dubbed it a 'war zone'

In Portland, Oregon, protesters descended into violence and prompted local police to declare a riot

He optimistically declared that the country would 'come together' after second night of nationwide unrest

Donald Trump commended protesters on Friday morning despite earlier bemoaning their demonstrations

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President-elect Donald Trump backtracked after bemoaning protests against his election triumph on Friday, taking to Twitter to commend what he called 'small groups' of activists for their passion as thousands took to the streets in riots across the country.

'Love the fact that small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud,' he said on Friday morning after a second night of unrest since his shock election win.

It was a reversal of his earlier complaint that 'professional protesters' and the media were inciting what he called 'very unfair' demonstrations seen in numerous states since Wednesday.

His early morning optimism was in sharp contrast to the fury of Clinton voters in Portland, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Oakland and New York, who took to the streets in revolt on Thursday night.

Portland, Oregon: Hundreds of protesters marched through Portland on Thursday night as the city revolted against President-elect Donald Trump for the third night in a row

U-turn: President-elect Trump reversed his complaint that 'professional protesters' and the media had incited violence

They burned flags, smashed car windows and store fronts and held signs depicting the new President-elect as the devil as police dressed in gas masks declared riot zones and made arrests.

185 protesters were arrested in Los Angeles where crowds flocked to City Hall and the Staples Center.

At least 26 people were arrested in Portland, Oregon, where Hillary Clinton won 52 percent of the vote, as police used flash grenades to control them.

THURSDAY: ANTI-TRUMP PROTEST ARRESTS Los Angeles: 185 Portland, Oregon: 26 New York: 1 Oakland, California: 30 Baltimore: 3 Advertisement

Journalists at the scene likened it to a 'war zone' and local police officially declared the protest a riot as outraged voters burned flags and smashed store fronts and car windows.

Portland police said they had used rubber baton rounds - which are not lethal - as well as pepper spray and what they described as 'rubber ball distraction devices'.

'After several orders to disperse, police have used less lethal munitions to effect arrests and move the crowd. (Officers) still taking projectiles,' officers said in a Twitter post.

Protests continued outside Trump's home, Trump Tower, in New York; in Oakland, California, where a march of 6,000 people descended into a riot; and in downtown Los Angeles, where 35 demonstrators were arrested after blocking traffic and staging a sit-in in the street.

Multnomah County, which includes Portland, voted 76 percent for Clinton on Tuesday. The city is known as a liberal hipster hub on the West Coast.

Oakland, California: Police dressed in riot gear clashed with protesters in Oakland on the second night of uproar

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: On the east coast, young protesters linked arms to march through the streets, their faces hidden beneath Bandanas as they followed furious leaders carrying megaphones

Madison, Wisconsin: Pride flags and protestations of love were among placards toted by crowds in Wisconsin. Madison was one of few Democrat precincts in the state where Trump won 48 percent of votes

Baltimore, Maryland: Screaming mobs united in Baltimore with their own signs as the fallout from Trump's election continued

Manhattan, New York: Outside the heavily guarded Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, New Yorkers rejected the President-elect

ANTI-BULLYING AMBASSADOR 'ASSAULTS' ELDERLY MAN AT OUTSIDE TRUMP TOWER Shacara McLaurin, 23, was charged with felony assault An anti-bullying campaigner was arrested in New York on Thursday after allegedly pushing a 74-year-old man to the ground during a fight over Trump's win. Shacara McLaurin, 23, was charged with felony assault after the man, who has not been named was taken to hospital with an injury on back of his head. He fell to the ground after being pushed by the woman, said police, while they argued. A source told The Daily News the man had responded 'all lives matter' when McLaurin, a Black Lives Matter activist, was protesting. An NYPD spokesman told DailyMail.com on Friday that McLaurin and the man began arguing outside Trump's Manhattan home where scores had gathered for a third night in a row in protest since his election win. It turned physical, with McLaurin pushing the man causing him to fall. She was charged with felony assault, given the man's age, and spent the night in jail. McLaurin made headlines in 2011 when she was the victim of a brutal attack by girls at her Brooklyn high school. They attacked her with a padlock wrapped in a sock, pummeling her face to keep her out of a talent show. Advertisement

The Portland march had begun happily enough, with inspiring Clinton quotes, offers of free hugs and protesters walking arm-in-arm down the street. The crowd was estimated at around 4,000.

The protest began in Pioneer Courthouse Square, then continued on to Waterfront Park at around 6pm local time before continuing eastwards, taking over roads and slowing traffic.

By 7pm, however, reports of vandalism began to filter through, and by 8pm police were noting aggressive behavior and asked anyone not involved to leave.

Ninety-minutes later it was officially declared a riot by police.

Protesters were spotted carrying baseball bats and letting off fireworks, and video began to emerge on twitter of people spraying anarchy symbols and 'F**k Trump' graffiti on walls and signposts.

One woman allegedly tried to drive into two girls and had her windscreen smashed. Two protesters were filmed getting into a fight after an argument broke out in the crowd, while a self-professed leader split them up.

A car lot in North Portland saw windscreens being smashed to pieces, and business windows were smashed in the Pearl district while police blocked an I-5 ramp to stop protesters from getting onto the highway.

Protest organizer Gregory McKelvey announced that he was leaving the group, not wanting to be associated with violence, and later tweeted: 'The protest that became violent was not our protest.'

Another group, #PDXResistance, tweeted: 'We are marching peacefully. Some have entered our ranks to vandalize. We do not police other people's activism, but we will always lead with peace and love... we are about peaceful change.'

Portland, Oregon: A volunteer removes graffiti in Portland on Friday after a second night of disruption

Portland: Police declared the protests a riot on Thursday as they arrested 26 people and used flash grenades to control the crowds

Portland: Rioters smashed store fronts as the protests grew increasingly futile on the third night of disruption

Portland: Protesters set fire to traffic bollards as others wielded baseball bats as the violence escalated on Thursday night

Portland: A woman demonstrating against Donald Trump is arrested during the disturbances Thursday night

Portland: Thousands gathered in what was Portland's third night of protests. But what began as a happy evenyt descended into vandalism, violence and rioting

Portland: A North Portland car dealership had its windows smashed and cars jumped on by rioters

Portland: Conflict broke out between various members of the protest; in this shot, a leader (pictured pointing) tries to break up a fight. Protest organizers later disavowed criminal elements, saying multiple protests had melded together

Portland: One car had 'f**k Donald Trump' written on its hood (left) before it was stomped on

Portland: People look anxiously towards the anti-Trump protest as it turns into a riot

Portland: Smashed glass was left scattered by store fronts (left) and children were carried through the angry mobs

Non-violent marchers were told by police to go to Pioneer Courthouse Square to continue their protest.

In Oakland, 3,000 people marched on highways from 6pm. Police warned of traffic disruptions on Twitter but steered clear of sharing arrest information or if there had been any violence.

The city belongs to the electoral precinct of Almeda County which voted overwhelmingly in favour of Hillary Clinton with 77 percent.

Protesters, many of whom were Hispanic, declared Trump 'El Diablito' - the devil- in hand drawn signs while vandals spray painted news crew vans with graffiti in Los Angeles, another Clinton stronghold.

Three police officers were injured earlier in the week in Oakland after being hit by flying Molotov cocktails and fireworks.

Among those who took part in Thursday's protest was Occupy Oakland. The group tweeted updates including footage from the scene late into the night and early on Friday morning.

Oakland, California; Protesters burned American flags as they ran through the streets in Oakland which has been in uproar since Trump's win

Oakland, California: Outraged activists held signs depicting Trump as 'El Diablito' - the devil - in Oakland where a quarter of the population is Hispanic

Oakland: Police wore gas masks and carried shields in Oakland. They did not share details of how many were arrested if any

Oakland: A woman faces riot police armed with cable-ties, batons and gas masks on Thursday night

Oakland: Demonstrators gesture toward an approaching line of police officers as they stopped traffic on Interstate 580

Oakland: A group of demonstrators chant as they stand on Interstate 580 during Thursday night's demonstration

Oakland: A masked demonstrator scuffles with police officers during Thursday night's demonstration against Donald Trump

Oakland: Demonstrators gather in Frank Ogawa Plaza during Thursday's demonstration following election of Donald Trump

Oakland: A woman urges fellow demonstrators to stand back from the police line during the anti-Trump protest Thursday

Oakland: Crowds gathered at Frank Ogawa Plaza (pictured) on Thursday, where they listened to speakers

Oakland: A speaker told the crowd (left) 'The regime does not dictate to the people how, when, where, or in what manner we resist.' One protester brought a tiny effigy of President-elect Trump (right)

By 10:30pm, around 1,000 people had gathered in Frank Ogawa Plaza, where a woman spoke through a PA system to cheers, while Native American protesters danced in traditional clothes.

'The regime does not dictate to the people how, when, where, or in what manner we resist,' she said, to cheers. She then began a call-and-response chant of 'Whose streets?' 'Our streets!'

Instead, some stores, including restaurant Camburger, were boarding up windows and shutting down hours early, the East Bay Times reported.

When the Frank Ogawa Plaza group dispersed, some members tried to head to Broadway with mischief in mind, but a strong police presence meant that only a few were able to enter the main shopping areas, SFGate reported.

Smashed windows, sprayed graffiti and street fires were reported, but the damage was nothing like that seen the previous night. Police also managed to keep traffic flowing on the Interstate 580, though two protesters managed to cut their way through fencing and get onto the road.

Oakland: California Highway Patrol officers in riot gear form a line on Interstate 580 during Thursday's demonstration

Los Angeles saw similar uproar, with hundreds flocking to City Hall to protest the election result.

Nearly 200 people were arrested across the city and officers were injured as they tried to gain control of crowds.

Chief of Police Charlie Beck issued a plea for protesters to act peacefully in sharing their views.

' Your 1st amendment right to freedom of speech is a cherished privilege that should be exercised. However destruction of property and vandalism will not be tolerated.

'Exercise your rights responsibly and respect our city,' he said.

LAPD was still processing arrests on Friday morning but an officer said an estimated 185 people had been taken into custody during the night.

In Trump's home state of New York, crowds huddled outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to share their fury.

Los Angeles: Thousands marched in Los Angeles to the Staples Center and City Hall

Los Angeles: A man is one of 185 arrested across the city in the early hours of Friday morning (above)

Los Angeles: Thousands gathered outside the Staples Center after marching through the city

Los Angeles: LAPD issued a plea to citizens to protest peacefully after a third night of unrest in the city

They held signs reading 'not my president' and yelled as NYPD officers watched on gingerly. One person was arrested; a 23-year-old woman who pushed a 74-year-old man to the ground after becoming embroiled in a fight over the election result.

Shacara McLaurin was arrested after pushing the elderly man who fell and hit the back of his head. He was taken to hospital in 'substantial pain' and dizziness but was in a stable condition.

'We had a 74-year-old male and a 23-year-old female engaged in a dispute which turned physical. When female pushes the male, he fell to the ground and suffered a laceration to the back of the head.

'(The) victim suffered substantial pain and dizziness,' an NYPD spokesman said.

New York: On Friday afternoon, the protests continued in Manhattan where crowds gathered at Washington Square Park

New York: The President-elect's home state voted in favor of his opponent, sparking widespread disappointment across its namesake city where Clinton fans continued to revolt on Friday (above)

New York: Protesters held up signs calling Trump a fascist. Trump's home is in Trump Tower, although he spent Thursday in Washington, having a 90-minute hand-over meeting with President Barack Obama

New York: Crowds of women chanted as they carried on their protests outside Trump Tower for the second night in a row

New York: Outside Trump Tower crowds were more restrained, holding up signs declaring their protest at Trump's election victory

RICH TRUMP TOWER RESIDENTS FLEE HOMES Wealthy residents of Trump Tower are planning on fleeing their homes as protesters continue to gather outside. Security is demanding that they show ID upon entry and be frisked, an added measure since protesters set up camp. A real estate broker told The New York Post the tenants were planning on leaving amidst the chaos. 'These are wealthy people, they dont need this, and they cant take it any longer,' he said. Advertisement

The previous night, 65 people including journalists were arrested. Earlier Thursday, students at New York's famously progressive New School staged a demonstration on Fifth Avenue.

Dozens of students armed with placards chanted against Trump outside the main campus building. Their action came as the school set up a 'space for support' after the election.

Protests also erupted in Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Baltimore.

An estimated 600 people marched through Baltimore but only two have been arrested and none charged. Baltimore Police Department said the majority of those who took part were 'law abiding'.

It concluded at around 4.30am on Friday, some 10 hours after police first reported disturbances.

In Milwaukee, police warned of possible road closures but gave no indication of violence.

Philadelphia told a similar story, with officers describing the protests as 'pretty peaceful'.

Minneapolis, Minnesota: Crowds blocked roads and freeways in Minneapolis on Thursday in one of the more peaceful protests

Baltimore, Maryland: Angrier protesters were seen in Baltimore where they gathered near Washington Monument

Madison, Wisconsin: Hundreds listened to leaders venting their fury over megaphones in Madison, Wisconsin

Outside the White House, protesters held up signs reading 'Donald Trump is a Racist' and 'Undocumented and here to stay!'

In San Francisco, high schoolers marched to express their dismay. Many gathered outside San Francisco' City Hall, where they held a sit-in, holding signs decrying Trump as a racist and misogynist.

Several identified themselves on clothing and signs as 'nasty women' - a reference an insult Trump directed at Clinton in their final televised debate.

Claire Bye, a 15-year-old sophomore, said: 'As a white, queer person, we need unity with people of color, we need to stand up. I'm fighting for my rights as an LGBTQ person. I'm fighting for the rights of brown people, black people, Muslim people.'

The White House: Some protesters took their anger to the seat of power, holding up signs calling Trump a racist

San Francisco: The San Francisco city Hall protesters held a massive sit-in earlier in the day to protest the result

And in Baltimore around 1,000 people marched from North Station to Inner Harbor, then on to the the stadium where the Ravens were playing. Photos showed the protesters gathering at the Washington Monument.

Protests in Minneapolis saw demonstrators marching from an anti-Trump rally at the University of Minnesota to the Interstate 94.

There, traffic was blocked in both directions as protesters marched down Franklin Avenue and swarmed across the lanes, chanting 'shut it down.'

A couple of vehicles that attempted to push through the crowd were attacked - a truck had its hood jumped on and a woman's car mirror was hit - but no one was injured.

Officers from the Minnesota State Patrol and the Minneapolis and St Paul police departments rushed to the area with lights flashing, only to find a line of protesters facing them off on the freeway.

Minneapolis: Thousands marched through Minneapolis (left) and onto the I-94 (right)

Minneapolis: Crowds chanted 'shut it down' as they blocked off both lanes. One woman's car had its wing mirror hit and a truck was jumped on by protesters after both vehicles attempted to force their way though, but no-one was hurt

Minneapolis: Children and adults alike joined the march through Minnesota

Chicago: Around 50 people protested outside Trump Tower - the second time in as many nights that it had been the focus of a protest. 'Moderation is no longer the answer,' one group wrote on their banner, 'It is time to FIGHT'

Chicago: Shoppers and diners in the area shouted their support to the group - although at least one driver-by told them they should 'shut up and accept democracy'

Chicago: Bike-mounted cops kept an eye on the peaceful protest

Hundreds more gathered in the center of Philadelphia, host of a 1,000-strong protest Wednesday night and the location of Clinton's final rally, holding signs saying 'Reject hate' and 'P***y strikes back!'

The crowd, which included parents with children in strollers, carried candles in Dixie cups and chanted 'We must remember to love ourselves and each other' and 'Not our president.'

The Philadelphia Police Twitter account posted regular updates of traffic blockages across the city.

Meanwhile, hundreds gathered in Rosa Parks Circle Grand Rapids, Michigan, during the day on Thursday.

One protester wore face-paint that read 'Fat pig,' 'Degenerate' and 'Slob,' and red paint that made it appear as though she was bleeding from her eyes. She said she was 'sad for America that the majority ignores the sexist bullying.'

Grand Rapids: An anti-Trump protester who was 'sad for America that the majority ignores the sexist bullying' protests by covering herself with insults: 'Fat pig,' 'Degenerate' and 'Slob'

Grand Rapids: She was one of hundreds who gathered in Rosa Parks Circle

Grand Rapids: The Michigan protest also attracted a counter-protest. Here, two Trump supporters (center, with placard, and right) argue with anti-Trump members (center-left and left)

That event saw a counter-protest by pro-Trump supporters, one of whom held a placard reading 'America voted for common-sense, rejecting the Liberal agenda.' Both groups got into arguments.

In Milwaukee, a crowd of hundreds gathered to hear speakers, one of whom talked about taking on 'the system that gave Trump power' despite losing popular vote, and called on supporters to organize against Trump.

The crowd cheered as he told them they were on the 'right side of history' and they entered a chant of 'Not my President.'

In Texas, protests took place at Texas State University in San Marcos. One black protester held up a sign reading 'We matter #NotMyPresident.'

Other signs read 'Hell Toupee' and 'Rather have NO Pres. than a rapist 4 President!!' - the latter a reference to sexual assault allegations directed at Trump, all of which he has denied.

In Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia, a group of students held a largely LGBT-themed protest walk through the grounds.

San Marcos: Protesters at Texas State University press their objection to Donald Trump's presidency

On Wednesday night in New York, home of the President-elect, 65 people were arrested when cops cracked down on twin demonstrations in Columbus Circle and at Trump Tower.

As many as 7,500 demonstrators were believed to have been split between the two locations, chanting 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Donald Trump, go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay.'

Cher and Madonna were among the NYC protesters, with Cher telling one supporter they needed to 'fight.'

Madonna posted footage of crowds chanting 'Not my President!' on her Instagram feed.

Protests also stopped traffic in Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; and San Francisco among many others.

Outside the White House, a candlelit vigil was held in protest. But even peaceful protests in that city went awry, with at least one protester being bundled into the back of a van by the Secret Service.

In Oakland, thousands marched in demonstrations that turned violent with the crowd throwing bottles at police.

Security operation: Police officers help to install concrete barriers around Trump Tower, the home of President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday

Threats: A row of sand-filled sanitation trucks have been parked in a barricade in front of the skyscraper to try and insure against car bomb attacks

On Guard: Members of the New York Police Department's Counterterrorism Bureau stand watch outside Trump Tower earlier this week

Videos and images showed flags being set alight and swarms of armed cops marching on protesters.

Traffic was also stopped on an LA freeway by angry crowds.

Security measures have been stepped up in New York in the wake of the contentious election result and Tuesday night's marches.

Police officers have helped to install concrete barriers around Trump Tower which is home to Donald Trump, his wife Melania and their son Barron.

A row of sanitation trucks filled with sand have also been acting as barricades along Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th streets since Monday in order to protect the tower against car bombs.

Sources said one lane of traffic that passes the Tower is expected to remain closed to prevent attacks until he moves to the White House.

New York, Wednesday: Outside Trump Tower on protesters gathered with signs reading 'Dump Trump' and 'Not My President'

New York, Wednesday: Tens of thousands of people across the country marched against the President-elect before angry mobs in a few cities attacked police, started fires and shut down highways

An NYPD checkpoint is also in operation outside the building while 56th street between Fifth and Madison is closed to traffic.

On Thursday, heavily-armed officers could be seen around the president-elect's home while Trump himself visited the White House.

A no-fly zone has also been imposed over the 58-story tower.

The flight ban will re-route many helicopter tours of the city, limit the work of media helicopters as well as re-routing commercial aircraft. Drones are also banned

Military, police emergency and secret service flights are exempt from the ban.

Mashable reports that the change could cause flight delays out of LaGuardia Airport.

Flights are also limited over Vice President Mike Pence's Indianapolis home.

The no-fly zone will be in play until Trump's inauguration on Friday 20 January, 2017.

People who work and live inside Trump Tower will also now be vetted by the Secret Service, the New York Daily News reports.

And elevator routes will also be altered to stop people accessing Trump's personal floors.

Handing over: On Thursday President-elect Donald Trump met with President Barack Obama to discuss the transition

Oakland, Wednesday: Police investigate a fire lit by protesters inside a building during an anti-Trump protest
Gable Tostee has claimed he is 'still traumatised' and attempted to explain why he did not call an ambulance when his Tinder date Warriena Wright fell to her death from his 14th floor balcony.

The 30-year-old carpet layer has been criticised for leaving his Gold Coast apartment building to eat pizza and call his father rather than phone triple-0.

'What happened, had happened  there was nothing an ambulance could do,' Tostee said in a paid tell-all interview with 60 Minutes, a promotional video played on Nine's TODAY revealed.

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Gable Tostee has attempted to explain why he did not call an ambulance when his Tinder date Warriena Wright (pictured together in his apartment) fell to her death from his balcony

'Nobody's trained for a situation like this. It's like being hit by lightning.

'There's no right or wrong to proceed from there.'

He said he was 'still traumatised' and wanted to speak with Warriena's family and had put in a 'formal request' through the Queensland Courts, but 'they weren't interested in anything he had to say', Nine reported.

Tostee had locked the New Zealand tourist on his balcony when the pair fought while intoxicated on their date in August, 2014. Warriena climbed over the balcony in an apparent attempt to escape but plunged to her death.

Tostee pleaded not guilty and was cleared of murder and manslaughter last month.

He was criticised for using his right not to testify during the trial.

'Nobody's trained for a situation like this. It's like being hit by lightning,' Tostee said in the interview

Tostee had locked Warriena Wright (pictured) on his 14th floor balcony when the pair had an altercation. She climbed over the balcony in an apparent attempt to escape

Tostee is rumoured to have been paid a six-figure sum for the interview, the first time the public will hear an explanation from him.

He was interviewed by Liam Bartlett, who has revealed Tostee wanted a chance to clear his name.

'He says he couldn't have possibly foreseen what she was about to do' when he climbed over, Bartlett said.

'I'm sure he regrets the entire night, but I'm not certain whether that's more about his personal regret, or whether that regret hinges more on his personal future and less on what happened to her.'

'What happened, had happened  there was nothing an ambulance could do,' Tostee said

Bartlett said he was clearly an intelligent man but wasn't convinced of Tostee's 'emotional intelligence'

Bartlett said he was clearly an intelligent man but wasn't convinced of his 'emotional intelligence'.

He said he doesn't believe Tostee referred to Warriena by name throughout their interview.

The journalist said he had been to the Gold Coast apartment and the balcony was so high you would want to be a 'champion cirque du soleil' gymnast to attempt to climb down sober.

A snippet of the 60 Minutes interview had been released earlier in the week, and revealed Tostee maintains he was trying to stop Warriena from 'attacking him'.

A policewoman impersonates Warriena Wright in a police recreation of her death

The 14th floor Gold Coast balcony Warriena fell from in August, 2014

'I don't know what else to do. I wanted it to stop,' Tostee told Bartlett of the pair's altercation.

In an audio recording taken by Tostee, Ms Wright can be heard yelling 'no' more than 30 times, to which Tostee responds she was 'certainly trying to make a lot of noise.'

'Can you understand why many people would think you're a cold, heartless, cruel bastard?' Bartlett asked Tostee during the clip.

'When you put it that way, umm,' Tostee said before the snippet ended.

The interview has already incited social media backlash from viewers who criticised Channel Nine over the paid interview.

The 60 Minutes interview will air on Sunday at 8.30pm.
George Zimmerman was removed from a cigar bar in Florida after a confrontation in which he used a racial slur and yelled at a female employee, according to law enforcement officials.

The Seminole County Sheriff's Office stated that the incident involving Zimmerman, the man who has been acquitted in the 2012 killing of an unarmed black 17-year-old boy, Trayvon Martin, took place Wednesday night at the Corona Cigar Company in Sanford.

A deputy was dispatched to the scene just after 11pm in response to a report about possible battery involving a woman named Amanda Horne, who was in Zimmerman's group of friends.

More trouble: George Zimmerman, seen in this file photo testifying about his injuries in a road-rage incident, was ejected from a Florida bar Wednesday after causing a disturbance

Foul language: Zimmerman was partying with friends at Corona Cigar Company in Sanford when he allegedly used a racial slur and yelled at a waitress

While the deputy was in the back reviewing surveillance footage, he heard a commotion at the front and found Zimmerman, 33, yelling at a waitress, according to an incident report cited by WFTV.

The woman explained to the deputy that she was trying to get Zimmerman's group to pay their bill when he snatched the credit card from her hand and began yelling at her.

The manager of the bar, Chip Brown, informed the deputy that Zimmerman had caused multiple disturbances at his establishment and he wanted the man escorted out.

Before he left, Zimmerman reportedly told the manager, 'I didnt know you were a [racial slur] lover,' the report stated.

Zimmermans friends also reportedly had been using racial epitaphs towards other bar patrons throughout the night, according to ClickOrlando.

A short time after Zimmerman walked away, he called 911, gave his name to an emergency dispatcher as 'John Doe' and asked to speak with a supervisor about an unrelated battery. A sergeant was sent to the bar to speak to the complainant.

The deputy who was initially called to scene offered Zimmerman to look into his battery complaint, to which he responded that another patron, a black man by the name Floyd Narcisse, came up to him saying, 'Zimmerman, what are you doing here?'

When Zimmerman asked Narcisse to leave him alone, he allegedly hit him twice on the shoulder,

However, surveillance video from inside the bar along with witness accounts painted a different picture of what had transpired.

The report stated that Narcisse came up to Zimmerman with an extended hand, in a gesture of greeting and as if attempting to shake Zimmermans hand.

Zimmerman ignored the man, who then tapped him twice on the arm. Zimmerman told Narcisse not to touch him, to which he replied, 'I will do whatever I want.'

Infamous: Zimmerman (pictured left in 2013) has been acquitted in the 2012 killing of an unarmed black 17-year-old boy, Trayvon Martin (right)

The deputy concluded in the incident report that Narcisse had no ill will towards Zimmerman and there was no probable cause to charge him with any crime.

The deputy then tried to convince Zimmerman to fill out a sworn voluntary statement form, but the man allegedly 'became belligerent and refused to cooperate.

When Zimmerman finally relented, he wrote on the form that he wanted to press charges and described the deputy as incompetent and 'under qualified [sic] to flip burgers.'

Zimmerman then warned the officer that he would remember him and threatened to sue the Seminole County Sheriff's Office. The incident at the bar concluded with no arrests or injuries.

In the Trayvon Martin case, Zimmerman, a former Neighborhood Watch volunteer, claimed self-defense and was acquitted of charges in the shooting, a verdict that sparked protests and a national debate about race relations. Martin was black, and Zimmerman identifies as Hispanic.

In January 2015, Zimmerman (pictured after a court appearance) was arrested for allegedly hurling a wine bottle at his girlfriends head

Since his acquittal, Zimmerman has been involved in several altercations, including multiple domestic violence incidents involving different girlfriends.

In January 2015, Zimmerman was arrested for allegedly hurling a wine bottle at his girlfriends head as the two argued over a painting he wanted returned to him. Prosecutors ultimately opted not to file charges in that case.
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First Lady Michelle Obama met her successor this afternoon, greeting the president-elect's wife Melania Trump at the White House when she arrived and hosting her for tea.

Press were barred from covering the visit that coincided with their husbands' 90-minute meeting in the Oval Office.

The Trumps arrived at the White House via a private entrance on the south side of the building. They left the same way they came.

A photo of the women chatting in the Yellow Oval Room was posted by the current administration hours after the visit - and only after DailyMail.com put public pressure on the White House to release it.

In 2008, when the White House last changed hands, President George W. Bush and his wife Laura eagerly greeted the Obamas on the South Lawn.

First Lady Michelle Obama met her successor this afternoon, greeting the president-elect's wife Melania Trump at the White House when she arrived and hosting her for tea.

A photo of the women chatting in the Yellow Oval Room was posted by the current administration hours later - and only after DailyMail.com put public pressure on the White House to release it

Reporters were invited to cover the historic moment then. Today they were not.

A Wall Street Journal report says the White House cancelled the photo-op. The president's spokesman forcefully pushed back on the assertion in his daily briefing.

'That's not true,' he said.

Late Thursday evening Donald Trump sent out a tweet complimenting the first couple. 'A fantastic day in D.C. Met with President Obama for first time. Really good meeting, great chemistry. Melania liked Mrs. O a lot!' he wrote.

The White House says that Mrs. Obama gave Mrs. Trump a tour of her new living quarters while the two women spoke about ' the unique demands of raising a family in the White House.'

'The First Lady was pleased to extend that courtesy to Mrs. Trump and enjoyed the opportunity that she had to visit with her today,' White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.

Melania, a 46-year-old former model, donned a double breasted black coat, a black skirt, and black Christian Louboutin pumps. Michelle wore silver heels and a dark blue dress that was split in two by a large red stripe that was framed in golden yellow.

Political duties: President-elect Donald Trump and future First Lady Melania traveled to Washington, D.C. on Thursday

First couple: Melanie and Donald held hands as they walked alongside Majority Leader Mich McConnell at the US Capitol

United front: The two posed for plenty of pictures together during their first outing following the election

As part of their tour, the first lady showed off the Truman Balcony, Earnest said, and the state floor of the White House.

'They also had a discussion about raising kids,' he said. 'Obviously the first ladys two daughters spent their formative years of their childhood at the White House and Mrs. Trumps son will also spend some important years of his childhood here.'

Making reference to Barron Trump, the 10-year-old son of Melania and Donald, and the life that awaits him, Earnest said, 'Thats a rather unique childhood, and the two women had an opportunity to talk about that experience and being a good parent through that experience.'

'After their tour concluded, the first lady and Mrs. Trump walked over to the Oval Office and the two couples visited again before they departed,' he said.

The first lady has not appeared in public since Donald Trump won Tuesday's presidential election.

Thumbs up! While Melania kept an incredibly straight face throughout the trip, Donald looked thrilled about the visit

Obama lent her time to Hillary Clinton repeatedly in the final months of the campaign, appearing alongside her in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and four more times on her own.

More popular than her husband and both of his would-be successors, Obama delivered the most memorable take-down of Trump in the general election when she publicly reprimanded him at a Clinton rally for bragging that he could sexually assault women without recourse because he's wealthy.

She also gave Clinton one of her mantras of her candidacy: 'When they go low, we go high.'

When Trump finally announced that he was no longer a birther after doubting president's birth origins for years, it was the first lady who hit back.

Trump won more electoral votes than Clinton on Tuesday. Even though Clinton, a Democrat like the Obamas, won the most votes overall, Trump will become the next president. The electoral college, not the popular vote, decides the winner in national elections.

Solid support: Melania remained close by her husband throughout the visit

The first lady did not stand at her husband's side when he begged Americans who voted for Clinton to approach the new president with an open mind.

She has neither been seen nor heard from in the 48 hours since polls closed.

Her husband's spokesman insisted today that she was not responsible for what happened on the South Lawn.

Keeping it classic: The 46-year-old former model donned a double breasted black coat, a black skirt, and black Christian Louboutin pumps for their day of meetings

'Absolutely not,' White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, shooting down a suggestion that first lady or the vice president asked not to be taped meeting the Trumps.

The White House official said, 'I'm not aware that the first lady's office was consulted about the press arrangements for today. I certainly didn't consult with them.

'What we can do is, we can go back to the White House photographer and see if there are any photos from the greet so that you all can get some insight into how that went. We'll follow up with you on that.'

None of those photos had manifested by 6:30 pm on Thursday. A single photo of Melania and Michelle sitting for tea popped up on the White House's photo steam after 5pm.

Earnest argued during his daily briefing that that the administration went above and beyond to provide access to today's meetings.

The Obama-Bush Oval Office meeting was not accessible to reporters the last go round, he pointed out. He incorrectly claimed that it was off limits in 2000, too, when Bush took the reigns from Bill Clinton.

He scolded reporters asking why the current and first family were not pictured together today and told them staff sought to 'provide you the best access that we could.'

FLOTUS in particular, was gracious with her time, he argued.

'She doesnt have any sort of vested constitutional responsibility that relate to a transition,' he said. 'I think what you saw today was a gesture of hospitality to the incoming first lady.'

He brought up Mrs. Obama's struggle to adapt to life at the White House and 'the stresses and anxieties' she's said she faced 'moving to a new place, living inside a fish bowl, living inside a museum and raising your family there.'

'And Im sure that Mrs. Trump is feeling many of those same anxieties as she prepares to move herself and her family into the White House,' he added. 'So the courtesy that Mrs. Obama extended is rooting in her own experience of going through this difficult transition.'

After their departure from the White House the Trumps traveled to Capitol Hill for meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. They were to return to New York later tonight.

Keeping it classic: The 46-year-old former model donned a double breasted black coat, a black skirt, and black Christian Louboutin pumps for their day of meetings

Presidential style? Donald wore a red tie, navy suit, and a small American flag pin on his lapel

All together: Donald, Melania, the House Speaker, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence posed for photographed together after their meeting

Teamwork: Melania had a private meeting with First Lady Michelle Obama and Joe Biden's wife Jill, while Donald met with President Barack Obama in a public display of unity

Going great: Donald gave two thumbs up after a meeting in the Majority Leaders office
Donald Trump has told Theresa May he wants to revive the close transatlantic bond enjoyed by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

The controversial US President-elect launched a charm offensive during a ten-minute phone call with the Prime Minister yesterday, telling her Britain is 'a very, very special place for me and our country'.

Mr Trump invited Mrs May to visit him in Washington 'as soon as possible'. And  in a boost for hopes of a post-Brexit trade deal  Downing Street sources said the tycoon also talked of his hope of reviving the close UK-US relationship that dominated the West throughout the 1980s.

The controversial US President-elect launched a charm offensive during a ten-minute phone call with the Prime Minister yesterday

Mr Trump invited Mrs May to visit him in Washington 'as soon as possible'

Former US President Ronald Reagan dancing with Margaret Thatcher (left) during his inaugural ball in 1984 at the White House. Thatcher again with Reagan in 1990 at Claridges, in London

'The President-elect made it clear he is keen to have a good personal relationship,' a source said. 'He used the Reagan-Thatcher relationship as his reference point.'

The apparent warmth of the call spared Downing Street's blushes after it emerged Mr Trump had called nine other world leaders, including those of Egypt, Ireland and Australia, before speaking to Mrs May.

As the reverberations of Mr Trump's unlikely victory continued to spread around the world yesterday:

A former Nato chief warned that his triumph could spark the 'beginning of the end' for the transatlantic security pact that has kept the peace for decades, unless he uses his first 100 days to show he is willing to stand up to Russia;

China warned Mr Trump against sparking a trade war that would damage the world economy. His threat to impose stiff tariffs prompted threats of 'countermeasures' by Beijing;

Ronald Reagan with Margaret Thatcher review an honor guard during a welcoming ceremony for the former Prime Minister on the White House lawn in Washington, D.C in 1988

The apparent warmth of the call spared Downing Street's blushes after it emerged Mr Trump (pictured with wife Melania) had called nine other world leaders before speaking to Mrs May

Mr Trump and Barack Obama posed awkwardly for the cameras after talks at the White House. Officials were forced to deny that Michelle Obama had cancelled the traditional photograph of the first family and their successors;

Demonstrations against Mr Trump broke out in cities across the US, with protesters chanting 'not my president'.

Britain moved to exploit European divisions over Mr Trump by seeking to build early relationships with the new regime. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told EU leaders it was 'time to snap out of the doom and gloom'.

Whitehall initially appeared to be caught flat-footed by Mr Trump's victory, and faced embarrassment after it emerged that a string of world leaders had beaten Mrs May ito speak to the man now heading for the White House.

Chancellor Philip Hammond defended the delay, saying the two leaders had 'no urgent business' to discuss. Downing Street insiders insisted it had simply taken a while to co-ordinate the diaries of the pair.

The President-elect is keen to have a good personal relationship with Mrs May, a source said

THE BOND THAT REALLY WAS A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP Ronald Reagan walks with Margaret Thatcher during the G7 Summit in Toronto in 1988 During the Thatcher years, the special relationship between Britain and America was elevated to new heights. Margaret Thatchers bond with Ronald Reagan was said to have defined her premiership. From the moment they met  in 1975 at the House of Commons when he was governor of California and she was the leader of the Opposition  they bonded and were said to have agreed on almost everything. Mr President and Madam Prime Minister were replaced by Dear Ron and Dear Margaret. They danced together on a number of state occasions  most famously following a dinner given in her honour at the White House in November 1988. She was Mr Reagans most prolific correspondent among heads of state and they exchanged hundreds of letters, messages and telephone calls. Reagans last official act as President of the United States on January 11, 1989, was to sign a letter of thanks and appreciation to Lady Thatcher, then beginning her last two years in Downing Street. Advertisement

When the call was finally arranged at 1.45pm it was surprisingly warm. No 10 said the two leaders described the UK-US relationship as 'very important and very special'. A spokesman added: 'President-elect Trump set out his close and personal connections with, and warmth for, the UK. He said he was confident the special relationship would go from strength to strength.'

Mrs May 'highlighted her wish to strengthen bilateral trade and investment with the US as we leave the EU'.

She also urged Mr Trump to follow through on his pledge to work to heal the divisions that poisoned a brutal presidential elections campaign.

EU capitals have reacted to Mr Trump's victory with what one Government insider described as a 'collective nervous breakdown'.

The EU has called an emergency summit in Brussels on Sunday to discuss future relations with the US. Senior German politicians have warned the result, coupled with Brexit, could fuel populist revolts across Europe.

But Mr Johnson, who was due to speak to Mr Trump's running mate Mike Pence last night, told EU leaders to calm down, saying: 'It's time we were positive about this. I say to my European colleagues that it is time we snap out of this doom and gloom and whinge-arama.

'He's a deal-maker and we should seize the opportunities.'
Every person entering Britain should be subject to fingerprinting and iris scans to prevent terrorists sneaking in, a police chief has said.

Neil Basu, the new national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism policing, said border checks must include fail-safe biometric tests, while passports need to be made tamper-proof.

He said much more needs to be done to protect the UK, amid growing concern over the number of guns being smuggled into the country.

Last month a major security review by Lord Harris of Haringey concluded Britains borders were not secure enough to prevent weapons being brought in from mainland Europe.

Mr Basu spoke a year on from the atrocities in Paris, when Islamist extremists murdered 130 people in mass shootings and bomb attacks.

Neil Basu, the new national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism policing, said border checks must include fail-safe biometric tests

The carnage was a wake-up call for counter-terror chiefs that a major firearms attack could bring bloodshed to the streets of Britain.

Mr Basu, who is Scotland Yards Deputy Assistant Commissioner, said: The terrorist tactics are very different now. They are not interested in negotiation, they are not interested in warnings. They are very interested in the maximum amount of terror, damage and economic, physical and emotional carnage.

Just in the same way you can smuggle illegal firearms into a country, you can smuggle people into a country. And if one of those happens to be a terrorist, thats a big problem.

If you want security, you need to improve your biometrics at the borders. Everybodys identity should be checked as they come through a border in a way that is foolproof. Fingerprints, iris scans, the documents need to be tamper-proof.

What we need is a debate about what border security really means.

Mr Basu added: Paris woke us up to the fact this could be in Europe, and in a major capital city not a couple of hundred miles from our shores.

It was a tremendous sit up and think about how could we respond to something similar. What changed our assumptions were the sheer number of attacks and the breadth and spread of the attacks, and our ability to respond as quickly as possible.

In March, a damning report by the Commons public accounts committee revealed a border security system was failing to check the passports of every person arriving in Britain against terrorist and criminal watchlists.

The security chief has said much more needs to be done to protect the UK, amid growing concern over the number of guns being smuggled into the country

The Home Office admitted it did not know how many people were entering the country unchecked.

It is supposed to check all foreigners passports against security databases before they travel. But a series of catastrophic IT failures and management blunders means the UK currently collects advanced passport data from only 86 per cent of the 118million people travelling here each year, according to the report by MPs.

It means 17million people  about one in seven  are not screened before their arrival, raising fears that terrorists, sex offenders and other criminals could be sneaking in.

Mr Basu also said armed police must adopt a battlefield mentality in the event of a Paris-style massacre, prioritising shooting the jihadists over stopping to help dying colleagues and members of the public.

Mr Basu said: This is a psychological change in policing in this country, to be able to cope with what would be a battlefield or a war scenario.
Hillary Clinton has been seen for the first time since conceding the election to Donald Trump.

The vanquished Democratic nominee has fled to her home in the upstate New York town of Chappaqua since admitting defeat in Manhattan on Wednesday morning.

Clinton was out walking her dogs with Bill Clinton, when a local woman saw them and asked for a photo with the former Secretary of State.

Hillary Clinton has been seen for the first time since conceding the election to Donald Trump on Wednesday

Hillary beamed from ear to ear in the photo, appearing to have had the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders.

Margot Gerster, the woman who posted the photo, explained how she stumbled across Hillary and Bill while on a hike.

'I've been feeling so heartbroken since yesterday's election and decided what better way to relax than take my girls hiking,' Gerster wrote.

'So I decided to take them to one of favorite places in Chappaqua. We were the only ones there and it was so beautiful and relaxing. As we were leaving, I heard a bit of rustling coming towards me and as I stepped into the clearing there she was, Hillary Clinton and Bill with their dogs doing exactly the same thing as I was.

Margot Gerster (right), the woman who posted the photo, also shared an old picture of herself and Hillary Clinton on Facebook. It was taken during an event at the Kittle House in Chappaqua. Hillary was the guest of honor

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton makes a concession speech alongside husband, Bill Clinton, and her running mate, Tim Kaine

'I got to hug her and talk to her and tell her that one of my most proudest moments as a mother was taking Phoebe with me to vote for her.

'She hugged me and thanked me and we exchanged some sweet pleasantries and then I let them continue their walk.'

The photograph emerged after exit polls revealed the reason behind Hillary's defeat.

Election data states target demographics her campaign relied upon - sometimes favoring up-and-coming groups over historic Democrat supporters - simply did not show up as planned.

The data help to paint a picture of a campaign whose headquarters, isolated in their ultra-liberal Brooklyn, were disastrously out of touch with America's reality.

Women were an obvious play for the first female candidate ever on the presidential ticket. 'I'm With Her' became a catchphrase among celebrities; a viral map of the women vote showed an America painted blue; and Trump sabotaged himself after a tape leaked of him talking about grabbing women 'by the p***y'.

Women were an obvious play for the first female candidate ever on the presidential ticket. But in reality only 54 per cent of women picked Clinton - just one point more than Obama's 2012 vote, according to the Pew Research Center's assessment of exit polls

Trump gained seven points among black voters and won 29 per cent of Hispanics - two points more than Romney four years previously

She also lost votes among millennials, many of whom were fervent supporters of Sanders. Clinton had been caught in a February fundraiser recording saying young people are 'consigned to... being a barista' 'living in their parents' basement'

Her campaign even arranged for a literal glass ceiling to 'shatter' with confetti resembling shards at what was supposed to be her Manhattan victory party, according to the New York Times.

Exit polls paint a picture of a campaign whose headquarters, isolated in liberal Brooklyn (pictured), were disastrously out of touch with America's reality

But in reality only 54 per cent of women picked Clinton - just one point more than Obama's 2012 vote. Forty-two per cent went for Trump.

It wasn't Clinton's only disappointing showing. She was hoping for big wins among black and Hispanic voters.

After all, she was squaring off against a candidate labeled as a racist by many commentators - one who was threatening to build a wall along the border with Mexico and make that country pay for it.

She couldn't lose among minorities, and she didn't - winning 88 per cent of blacks and 65 per cent of Hispanics.

But contrary to her campaign's assumptions, she actually lost crucial numbers in comparison to Obama's vote. Trump gained seven points among black voters and won 29 per cent of Hispanics - two points more than Romney four years previously.

Bill Clinton implored his wife's campaign to do more to reach out to the working class - which Bernie Sanders had succeeded in firing up in the primaries - but nothing was done

In addition, the rising number of Latinos in key state Florida were touted by the Clinton camp as a major roadblock on Trump's path to the White House - but Trump claimed the must-win state by one point.

The Clinton camp's firm belief that those demographics could not and would not vote for Trump meant that they ignored the lack of enthusiasm for her - even though her unfavorability ratings were consistently higher than 50 per cent in the polls.

Her ratings were worse than either Obama or Romney, although she remained a few points less unpopular than Trump.

By glossing over her unpopularity the campaign missed vital opportunities to shore up support in other groups and broaden their appeal beyond minorities, women, religious and educated voters.

She also lost votes among millennials, many of whom were fervent supporters of Sanders. Clinton had been caught in a February fundraiser recording saying young people are 'consigned...to being a barista' 'living in their parents' basement'.

In the event, voters aged under 30 were unconvinced by her vision. Just 55 per cent voted for her, compared to Obama's 60 per cent in 2012.
A team of divers has ventured 110 metres deep in the Mediterranean Sea to explore a 2,700-year-old shipwreck.

The Phoenician ship is about 50ft long and lies a mile off the coast of Gozo.

It dates back to the first part of the 7th century BC, making it the oldest wreck ever found in the central Mediterranean.

Researchers have now uncovered new artefacts in the wreck which have helped shed light on possible trade routes for the mysterious Phoenician merchants.

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A team of divers has ventured 110 metres deep in the Mediterranean Sea to explore a 2,700-year-old shipwreck. The wreck dates back to the first part of the 7th century BC, making it the oldest wreck ever found in the central Mediterranean

MEDITERRANEAN TRADE The finding suggests that Malta was on the Phoenician trade network at the time. Dr Gambin said: 'This tells us that the ship was leaving the Maltese islands and not shipwrecked there because it was blown off course. 'We have another piece of the puzzle that will help us understand the routes taken by these elusive merchants.' Most shipwrecks found in the Mediterranean are Roman, dating back to around 2nd century BC  a time when the shipping industry was rapidly growing. But most of these ships carried just one type of cargo, whereas this older ship carried a variety of objects. Dr Gambin added: 'The findings give us a snapshot of the extensive trade links around the Mediterranean.' Advertisement

The ancient Phoenicia civilisation consisted of independent states along the coast of what is now Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel.

Phoenician city-states started to form around 3200 BCE and by 2750 BCE they had created a stable society.

The people were known as maritime traders and manufactures, as they built ships, made glass, produced dyes and other luxury and common goods.

Their trading routes extended as far up into Britain and to Mesopotamian ports and also east to mainland Greece and Crete - but exactly where they travelled has long been a mystery.

In the latest study, divers discovered several artefacts on board, including an amphora pot from Malta, which suggests the Maltese islands were part of the trade route in the Mediterranean.

While the shipwreck off the coast of Gozo was first discovered nine years ago, limited equipment meant that archaeologists were unable to recover any objects.

In 2014, researchers from the University of Malta and the University of Aix-Marseille in France were granted funding to return to the site.

Using a high-resolution camera, they were able to record four artefacts  two amphorae (pots), an urn and a grinding stone.

The team of divers returned to the site for five days, in which time they recovered several new items, including a jug from Malta

Dr Timmy Gambin, who led the study, told MailOnline: 'When you have an international team of professionals that have come together to work, bad weather can cause some costly delays, and loads of frustration.

'Given that we spend long periods decompressing (over two hours) if the weather turns whilst we are down there things can get a little uncomfortable'

A lack of further funding prevented the team from returning, so instead they decided to come up with a more cost effective way to visit the shipwreck.

The team decided to explore the site with divers using hand-held cameras with powerful lights to capture video footage from the wreck.

Still images could then be linked together to create a 3D map of the site.

The team decided to explore the site with divers using hand-high cameras with powerful lights to capture video footage from the wreck

Dr Gambin said: 'We dived to 110 meters - 20 minutes bottom time (including descent) and more that 140 minutes to ascend.

'Dives to those depths are very demanding - especially when one has to carry out tasks such as excavation, precise recording and recovery of objects.'

The team of divers returned to the site for five days, in which time they recovered several new items, including a jug from Malta.

The finding suggests that Malta was on the Phoenician trade network at the time.

Other findings included wine amphoras, from North Africa, volcanic grinding stones from Pantelleria and flat-bottomed amphoras from North Italy.

The divers discovered several artefacts on board, including an amphora pot from Malta, which suggests the Maltese islands were part of the trade route in the Mediterranean

Other findings included wine amphoras, from North Africa, volcanic grinding stones from Pantelleria (pictured) and flat-bottomed amphoras from Northern Italy

Dr Gambin said: 'This tells us that the ship was leaving the Maltese islands and not shipwrecked there because it was blown off course.

'We have another piece of the puzzle that will help us understand the routes taken by these elusive merchants.'

Most shipwrecks found in the Mediterranean are Roman, dating back to around 2nd century BC  a time when the shipping industry was rapidly growing.

The shipwreck was found just off the coast of Gozo, which suggests that Malta was on the Phoenician trade network at the time

But most of these ships carried just one type of cargo, whereas this older ship carried a variety of objects.

Dr Gambin added: 'The findings give us a snapshot of the extensive trade links around the Mediterranean.

'Most satisfying of all was the fact that we now know that we are capable of working at these depths and are able to work to the same scientific standards.'

The team now hopes to analyse the remains of the pottery to further understand its origin.

Dr Gambin said: 'This winter we will take samples from inside the wine amphoras, which we hope will tell us the type of wine they carried, and even the variety of grape.'
The election of a U.S. president who has called global warming a 'hoax' alarmed environmentalists and climate scientists and raised questions about whether America, once again, would pull out of an international climate deal.

Several scientists warned that Earth will likely reach dangerous levels of warming if President-elect Donald Trump fulfills his campaign pledges to undo the Obama administration's climate policies.

Many people at U.N. climate talks in Morocco said it's now up to the rest of the world to lead efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

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Environmental activists stage a protest against President-elect Donald Trump at the Climate Conference, known as COP22, in Marrakech, Morocco, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. The election of a U.S. president who has called global warming a 'hoax' alarmed environmentalists and climate scientists and raised questions about whether America, once again, would pull out of an international climate deal.

WHITE HOUSE 'COMMITTED' TO PARIS DEAL The Obama administration remains committed to implementing the Paris agreement on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal through its final months, the White House said on Wednesday after the presidential election victory of Republican Donald Trump. 'This administration will be committed to implementing those policies through January 20th, and we will live up to the commitments that we have made in each of those areas as we do so,' White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a news briefing. Advertisement

Others held out hope that Trump would change his stance and honor U.S. commitments under the Paris Agreement .

'Now that the election campaign has passed and the realities of leadership settle in, I expect he will realize that climate change is a threat to his people and to whole countries which share seas with the U.S., including my own,' Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said in a statement.

Small island nations fear they will be swallowed by rising seas.

More than 100 countries, including the U.S., have formally joined the agreement, which seeks to reduce emissions and help vulnerable countries adapt to rising seas, intensifying heat waves, the spreading of deserts and other changes from man-made warming.

'I'm sure that the rest of the world will continue to work on it,' Moroccan chief negotiator Aziz Mekouar said at the climate talks.

Others weren't so sure, with scientists and environmental activists calling Trump's election a planetary disaster.

'The Paris Agreement and any U.S. leadership in international climate progress is dead,' said Dana Fisher, director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland, said in an email. However, the transition toward cleaner energy is so entrenched in the U.S. it would continue without federal money, she added.

The U.S., under the Bush administration, declined to join the previous climate deal, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which greatly reduced the accord's impact. But President Barack Obama made climate change a priority and was instrumental in making the Paris accord come together.

The goal is to keep the rise in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with preindustrial times.

Temperatures, though, have already gone up by half that amount.

Trump pledged in May to 'cancel' the Paris deal.

'Without U.S. action to reduce emissions and U.S. diplomatic leadership, implementation of Paris will surely slow and avoiding a 2 degree warming, the benchmark of danger, would become impossible,' said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer via email.

About 21 percent of the accord's expected reductions in heat-trapping gases through 2030 were to come from the United States, according to Drew Jones, co-director of Climate Interactive , a group of researchers who model climate emissions and temperatures.

Trump has called for stripping regulations to allow unfettered production of coal, oil and natural gas  a key source of emissions  and rescinding the Clean Power Plan , an Obama administration strategy to fight climate change.

A member of security forces stands guard outside the COP22 village, in Marrakech, Morocco, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016. Climate negotiators have started work on implementing the Paris pact on global warming amid uncertainty over how the U.S. election will impact the landmark deal as temperatures and greenhouse gases soar to new heights.(AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Trump told an oil and gas conference in North Dakota he would 'save the coal industry' and stop using tax dollars for global warming programs.

But it's unlikely that Trump's actions would reopen coal mines or coal-fired power plants. What really killed coal in the United States is much cheaper natural gas from hydraulic fracturing or fracking, said former astronaut Jay Apt, now co-director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center.

In a phone interview from Pittsburgh, Apt said it is likely the nation will use even less coal if Trump opens up more drilling and the price of natural gas drops.

The pro-fossil fuels American Energy Alliance said Trump's victory presents a chance to reset 'harmful energy policies' in the U.S.

While shell-shocked American climate activists in Marrakech cried and embraced, U.S. negotiators declined to speak to reporters about the election outcome.

Before the two-week conference, U.S. officials said they expect other countries to stay the course no matter what Washington decides.

Environmental activist Bethany Hindmarsh, 26, cries during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump at the Climate Conference, known as COP22, in Marrakech, Morocco, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. The election of a U.S. president who has called global warming a 'hoax' alarmed environmentalists and climate scientists and raised questions about whether America, once again, would pull out of an international climate deal. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Li Shuo, a climate policy expert at Greenpeace in China, said his nation  the world's top polluter  would continue to work on climate change 'out of its own very genuine concern.'

Any U.S. withdrawal would take four years  an entire presidential term  under the terms of the agreement.

However, Trump could also decide to simply ignore the U.S. pledge to reduce emissions by 26-28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.

There is no punishment for countries that miss their targets.

Environmental activists hold a banner during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump at the Climate Conference, known as COP22, in Marrakech, Morocco, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. The election of a U.S. president who has called global warming a 'hoax' alarmed environmentalists and climate scientists and raised questions about whether America, once again, would pull out of an international climate deal. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

'If the U.S. drags its feet on climate in the next four years, then there is nothing stopping the rest of the world doing an awful lot,' scientist Glen Peters of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, said in an email.

Trump's win sparked hopes among the minority of researchers who disagree with the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is a major threat.
Researchers hope the test could be used to help patients in remote regions to monitor their condition

UK scientists have developed a new type of HIV test which can plug into your computer, like a USB memory stick.

Researchers claim the device can detect the virus in a drop of blood, generating a signal which can be read by a laptop or handheld device.

The disposable technology could help patients to monitor their own treatment and produces an accurate result in just 30 minutes.

UK scientists have developed a USB test (pictured) which can detect levels of HIV in a drop of blood. The disposable technology could help patients to monitor their own treatment and produces an accurate result in just 30 minutes

Developed by a team Imperial College London and diagnostics firm DNA Electronics, its makers say the USB test could be used to help patients in remote regions manage the condition more effectively.

Like current diagnostic tests, it detects the amount of virus in the patients blood.

But unlike standard HIV tests, the USB chip can produce a result in minutes rather than days.

HIV treatment has dramatically improved over the last 20 years - to the point that many diagnosed with the infection now have a normal life expectancy, said Dr Graham Cooke, a clinician scientist at Imperial and senior author of the research, published today in the journal Scientific Reports.

The diagnostic test generates an electrical signal which can be read by a laptop or handheld device, so could potentially be used by people in remote areas

He added: Monitoring viral load is crucial to the success of HIV treatment.

At the moment, testing often requires costly and complex equipment that can take a couple of days to produce a result.

We have taken the job done by this equipment, which is the size of a large photocopier, and shrunk it down to a USB chip.

Current treatments for HIV involve powerful anti-retroviral drugs, which reduce the amount of virus in blood cells.

While these drugs are effective, patients need regular blood tests to check the viral count.

If the drugs stop working, or if the virus becomes immune to them, then a key sign will be an increase in the amount of HIV in their blood.

Routine HIV tests can check for the presence of the virus, but not the amount in the bloodstream.

The hope is that quick and effective diagnostic tests like the USB stick could enable patients to use a self-test kit, just like those with diabetes use to check blood sugar levels.

In addition, doctors could not only monitor if patients are taking their medication properly, but be able to spot viral resistance against the drugs.

Professor Chris Toumazou, founder of DNAe and Regius Professor at Imperial, said: This is a great example of how this new analysis technology has the potential to transform how patients with HIV are treated by providing a fast, accurate and portable solution.
The death of our universe will be a cold and gradual one according to most physicists.

But new research from Portugal suggests we may be in for a rougher ride than first thought.

Previous research has shown that dark energy, an enigmatic force that gradually speeds up the expansion of the cosmos, could in fact cause our universe to violently tear itself apart until nothing remains.

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The Big Rip would start once the pull of the universe's expansion gets stronger than gravity. Galaxies would tear apart, followed by black holes, planets and stars

HOW COULD THE UNIVERSE END? The Big Crunch: Gravity would become the most powerful force in the universe. The rate that the universe expands would decrease and the universe would start to collapse. The Big Freeze: In this end-of-the-universe scenario, matter would stay together, but would decay into radiation as the universe expands. The Big Rip: This would start once the pull of the universe's expansion gets stronger than gravity. Galaxies would tear apart, followed by black holes, planets and stars. Advertisement

Now the University of Lisbon scientists have dug deeper than ever before into this theory, giving us a closer look at how exactly this 'Big Rip' may bring an end to our universe.

Current estimates pitch our universe at around 68 per cent dark energy, a hypothetical form of energy that directly opposes the force of gravity.

Dark energy is so elusive that, currently, more remains unknown than known about the mysterious substance.

What scientists do know is that dark energy is gradually accelerating the expansion of our universe, opposed only by the strong gravitational pull between the galaxies that decorate the cosmos.

The common view of the death of our universe involves galaxies and planets gradually inching further and further apart.

Eventually, these objects will be too isolated and cold to interact any more, steadily killing off the universe.

This possibility has been labelled the 'Big Freeze' or 'Heat Death' of the universe.

But over the past couple of decades, researchers have explored a new possible avenue for the end of our universe.

The big question is: what if dark energy, already one of the great mysteries of physics, doesn't behave in the way we predict?

The theory goes that, instead of causing a stable expansion of our universe, dark energy may in fact accelerate this expansion over time.

This would eventually cause the universe to obliterate itself via a large, cosmic tear.

This possibility is known as the Big Rip, and would mean that dark energy behaves in ways we as yet do not fully understand.

The death of our universe will be a cold and gradual one according to most physicists. But new research from Portugal suggests we may be in for a rougher ride than first thought

The matter would have to take on a form in which it gets denser as the universe expands.

Scientists have previously tried to prove that this isn't possible, but so far have failed to rule it out.

To delve deeper into just how the Big Rip may play out, a team of researchers from the Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal explored three possible versions of the event: The Big Rip, the 'Little Sibling of the Big Rip', and the 'Little Rip.'

Each possibility differs slightly in the way the universe eventually tears itself apart, though they are all roughly similar.

Whilst the Big Rip would be more of a sudden, rapid rip, the little versions would see a more steady tear.

'What they have in common is that our galaxy, and all galaxies, would be ripped apart,' one of the researchers, Mariam Bouhmadi-Lopez, told Rebecca Boyle of New Scientist.

'Everything goes wrong.'

The researchers studied the latest maps of the cosmos based on observations from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the Planck satellite to analyse which of the three 'rip' scenarios was the most likely.

They used the maps to search for areas of the universe with unusual deviations in gravitational pull.

In some parts of our universe - such as our galaxies - dark matter and regular matter condense and collect in special ways.

Time had a beginning but whether it will have an end depends on the nature of the dark energy that is causing it to expand (illustrated). The rate of this expansion may eventually tear the universe apart, forcing it to end in a Big Rip

The gravitational inconsistencies that this generates can alter the rate at which dark energy acts in these areas.

By analysing these condensed areas of matter, the team were able to figure out what type of rip our universe may be headed for.

They estimate that a Little Rip is the most likely outcome, in which a cosmic tear in our universe is slowly teased apart over billions of years.

The finding remains just a theory for now - the paper is yet to undergo peer review - but they could focus further research into how our universe may one day end.

'They've been able to come up with some observational signatures that are different in these models, and in the future we will be able to use that,' Robert Scherrer from Vanderbilt University, one of the scientists who sparked the original Big Rip theory, but who wasn't involved in this study, told New Scientist.

On a brighter note, we won't have to worry about a cosmic rip for some time - the Little Rip scenario proposed by the researchers won't happen for another 100 billion years.
The Rubik's cube was devised by Hungarian architect Erno Rubik more than 30 years ago, but he likely never envisioned his puzzle being cracked this quickly.

A robot has this week solved a Rubik's cube in 0.637 seconds, at the Electronica Trade Fair in Munich, Germany.

The machine, known as 'Sub1 Reloaded' and developed by German tech company Infineon, was aided by one of the world's most powerful microcomputers.

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The machine, known as 'Sub1 Reloaded' and developed by German tech company Infineon, was aided by one of the world's most powerful microcomputers

The robot took a fraction of a second to analyse the cube and make 21 moves to solve the puzzle.

Its time of 0.637 seconds beat the previous world record of 0.887 seconds, set by an earlier prototype of the same machine.

The complexity of the scrambled cube had to meet the standards of the World Cube Association.

Once set to solve the cube, shutters rapidly peel back from the robot's multiple senor cameras, revealing the layout of the cube to the awaiting eyes of the machine.

The robot then analyses how the cube has been scrambled.

A microchip, the 'brain' of the machine, then uses a complex algorithm to lay out instructions on how to solve the cube in less than 0.15 milliseconds.

The robot's power semiconductor muscles then activate six motors, one for each side of the cube, which speedily twist and turn the puzzle, solving it in a fraction of a second.

The robot smashed the previous record of 0.887 seconds set by an earlier prototype of the same machine. By contrast, the human record for solving a Rubik's cube is 4.904 seconds, set by 14 year-old Lucas Etter last year

A special 'speed cube' had to be used to reduce friction between the moving parts and keep the time to a minimum.

The human record for solving a Rubik's cube is 4.904 seconds, set by 14 year-old Lucas Etter last year.

'We realise that quickly solving a Rubik's cube is not the most urgent of the world's problems,' the German company's spokesman Gregor Rodehueser told MailOnline.

'The robot was developed as a metaphor to show how digital systems are constructed

'We wanted to show that microelectrics are a great and efficient solution to problems faced by technology.'

The robot was developed to showcase the speed and reliability of Infineon's Aurix microcontrollers, which were developed to help self-driving cars recognise and avoid obstacles in rapid time

The robot was developed to showcase the speed and reliability of Infineon's Aurix microcontrollers, which were developed to help self-driving cars recognise and avoid obstacles in rapid time.

Asked if the team would be attempting to beat their own record, Mr Rodehueser was coy.

'Officially, no, we will be looking for new challenges as a company, and the project was only ever intended as a nice metaphor for technological challenges,' he said.
The population of golden eagles in Scotland has grown by 15 per cent over the last decade, figures show.

Conservationists have welcomed the results of the fourth national golden eagle survey that shows numbers of the bird of prey have increased to 508 pairs from 442 in the last survey in 2003.

Experts say the figures show the golden eagle, regarded by many people as Scotland's national bird, is recovering to previous historic levels.

The population of golden eagles in Scotland has grown by 15 per cent over the last decade, figures show. Experts say the figures show the golden eagle, regarded by many people as Scotland's national bird, is recovering to previous historic levels

SCOTLAND'S GOLDEN EAGLES Conservationists have welcomed the results of the fourth national golden eagle survey that shows numbers of the bird of prey have increased to 508 pairs from 442 in the last survey in 2003. Experts say the figures show the golden eagle, regarded by many people as Scotland's national bird, is recovering to previous historic levels. Scotland is now 'more than likely' home to the entire UK population, RSPB Scotland said, following reports earlier this year that England's only resident golden eagle was feared to have died. The northern Highlands and the central spine of Scotland, between the Great Glen and Stirlingshire, saw the greatest increase in eagle numbers between 2003 and 2015, with 'modest increases' also found in the west Highlands and Islands. Advertisement

Scotland is now 'more than likely' home to the entire UK population, RSPB Scotland said, following reports earlier this year that England's only resident golden eagle was feared to have died.

The northern Highlands and the central spine of Scotland, between the Great Glen and Stirlingshire, saw the greatest increase in eagle numbers between 2003 and 2015, with 'modest increases' also found in the west Highlands and Islands.

Duncan Orr-Ewing, head of species and land management at RSPB Scotland, said more work still needed to be done to increase populations in the east of the country.

'The sight of a golden eagle soaring in the sky above is an awe-inspiring part of our natural heritage, and this increase in numbers of golden eagle pairs is great news,' Mr Orr-Ewing said.

'Increased monitoring and satellite tagging of eagles, as well as stronger sanctions against wildlife crime may be serving as effective deterrents against illegal activity, therefore helping their population to increase.

'However, the continued absence of golden eagles in some areas of eastern Scotland remains a real cause for concern and suggests that much more work needs to be done.'

The national survey was carried out during the first six months of 2015 and was co-funded by the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH).

Having surpassed 500 pairs, golden eagles are now designated 'favourable conservation status' in the UK.

Scotland is now 'more than likely' home to the entire UK population, with the northern Highlands and the central spine of Scotland, between the Great Glen and Stirlingshire, seeing the greatest increase in eagle numbers

Andrew Bachell, SNH's director of policy and advice, said: 'It's particularly encouraging to see greater recovery in some areas where persecution had been thought to be a major constraint in the past.

'That picture is uneven though, and we would still expect eagles to be doing better in parts of the eastern Highlands.'

Conservation groups and landowners have clashed previously over allegations that a number of satellite-tagged golden eagles have been 'disappearing' in Scotland, but the association of Scottish gamekeepers and moorland groups believe their members have supported the population recovery.

Tim Baynes, director of the Scottish Moorland Group, part of Scottish Land and Estates, said: 'Our members are passionate about the golden eagles on their land and it is in large part a tribute to their management and collaboration that the population has increased.

While the results are positive, experts say that the continued absence of golden eagles in some areas of eastern Scotland remains a real cause for concern

'They have helped the surveyors and worked with SNH in the interest of golden eagles for many years.'

The Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) said it was 'delighted' the golden eagle was now in favourable status.

Chairman Alex Hogg said: 'Three years ago, the SGA started counting eagles on ground managed by gamekeepers and the increase we reported between year one and year three is accurately mirrored in this study.

'Some of the most productive eagle nests in Scotland have been on driven grouse moors in the last few years, with one nest in the Angus Glens producing three chicks in 2014 and rare triplets in another nest on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park in 2015.
Happy rats love to laugh: Scientists have found that rats enjoy being tickled  but only if they were already in a good mood

Associated with the plague and demonised in novels such as George Orwell's 1984, rats dont have the best of reputations.

But the vilified rodents are known to giggle.

Now scientists have found that rats enjoy being tickled  but only if they were already in a good mood.

Researchers at Humboldt University of Berlin identified neurons in rats brains linked to ticklishness and laughter and by stimulating them, were able to elicit a chuckle from the furry creatures.

The finding suggests the somatosensory cortex - the brain region where the neurons were located - may play some role in mood.

It was previously thought this brain region is primarily associated with the sense of touch.

The study, published in the journal Science, builds on previous work in which it was discovered tickling rats causes them to laugh at high frequencies that are inaudible to humans.

While tickling is easy to do, how the sensation reaches our brain is unclear.

Know any good jokes? Rats love to chuckle, according to a new study. Researchers captured footage of a rat emitting ultrasonic vocalisations when it was tickled (still pictured)

To investigate, Shimpei Ishiyama and Michael Brecht monitored neuron activity in the rat somatosensory cortex before and during tickling.

They found that consistent with earlier claims that tickling is rewarding, the rats readily approached the tickling hand and performed joy jumps as well as ultrasonic giggles when tickled.

The experts observed that neural firing rates in the deep layers of the somatosensory cortex increased along with laughter when the rats were tickled.

To test this correlation, they stimulated somatosensory cortex neurons when the rats were not being tickled, which they found also resulted in laughter.

However, when the rats were in an anxious mood  as a result of being placed on a high platform, for example - tickling-evoked laughter and neural firing were suppressed.

The authors believe their findings support Darwin's idea that the mind must be in a pleasurable condition for ticklish laughter to occur.
If you like the idea of having a phone with a large screen, but need it to fit in a pocket or small handbag, help may be at hand.

Samsung has been awarded a patent for a radical design that allows a phones to fold in two.

It could lead to a handset that can easily transform into a tablet - simply by unfolding it.

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The patent drawings reveal a folding design similar to a concept Samsung is known to be developing.

The document shows a narrow Samsung device with a screen that bends and folds like an old-school flip phone handset, with a large hinge.

The device is described as something that can be 'folded or unfolded semi automatically.'

The patent also referred to both a 'flexible' and 'secondary' display, which is supposed to activate when you fold the device, according to International Business Times.

The design can be folded and placed on a table, depending on how much of the screen is needed.

According to previous claims from Korean news site ETNews, the product is known internally as a 'smartlet' and has a 7inch screen when unfolded, which becomes a 5inch device when folded.

Samsung will apparently start mass producing the 'smartlet' this year for a 2017 release, and has spent three years developing the technology.

Dubbed 'Foldable Valley', the device is expected to take advantage of bendy plastic screens being developed by Samsung's display division.

Samsung is expected to release a new handset that folds in two like a notebook as early as January next year. A screenshot from a conceptual video showing what the device may look like is pictured

In a call with investors in January, director of Samsung's Display division Lee Chang-hoon said 'Development of Foldable OLED is taking place according to our plan...We are planning on mass-production and release this product by discussing with out partners.'

The South Korean tech giant previously said it will launch foldable devices in 2016 and trusted rumour blog SamMobile reported earlier this year that anonymous sources claim the device is already being tested in China.

A complex hinge allows it to be folded

When folded, the handset looks almost like a wallet.

The source, who claims to have in-depth knowledge of the device, said it is being developed under the codename Project Valley.

And they added that two versions of the phone are being tested - one with a Snapdragon 620 processor and another with a Snapdragon 820.

Elsewhere, the device is rumoured to have 3GB of RAM, a microSD card slot and a non-removable battery.

Samsung told MailOnline it doesn't comment on rumour or speculation.

Samsung has been teasing bendable screens for years and at CES in 2013 revealed a flexible Oled screen called Youm.

The firm said at the time it could make high-resolution screens on extremely thin plastic, instead of glass, so it could be bent without shattering.

However, a notebook style phone would need to bend at a very sharp angle and would need to withstand considerable wear and tear, leading some commentators to suggest the rumour should be taken with a pinch of salt.

LG is similarly developing incredibly bendy screens.

In 2014, it showed off a working 18-inch Ultra HD screen that uses a special film instead of plastic as backing.

Samsung is not the only firm working on highly flexible screens. In 2014, LG showed off a working 18-inch Ultra HD screen (pictured) that uses a special film instead of plastic as backing to allow screen to be rolled into a tight tube for transport. At the time, it said it could make its debut in 2017

This allowed the screen to be rolled into a tight tube for transport.

At the time, the company said it could make its debut in 2017.

In May, it debuted a a concept ultra thin 'wallpaper TV' less than 1mm thick, and at four lbs (1.9kg) it is so light it can be attached to the wall using just magnets.

At IFA, a demonstration showed an LG employee pulling the screen away from the wall and bending it, to prove it carries on working.
Chimpanzees continue to amaze us with their clever, and often human-like, tactics in the wild.

While theyre known to use tools to help them gather food, these instruments differ depending on the environment.

Now, researchers have spotted them fishing in Bakoun, Guinea, using long branches or twigs as fishing rods to scoop up algae.

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While chimps are known to use tools to help them gather food, these instruments differ depending on the environment. In Bakoun, Guinea, researchers have now discovered a new variant  using long branches or twigs as fishing rods to scoop up algae

Footage of the remarkable behaviour was captured as a part of the Pan African Programme: the Cultured Chimpanzee, launched in 2010 by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

And, anyone can watch and annotate videos from the program through its citizen science website, where there are over 1 million clips of African wildlife, including chimpanzees, gorillas, elephants, buffalo, and leopards.

At a temporary research site in Bakoun, the researchers set up non-invasive observation methods, including remote camera traps.

After noticing conspicuous sticks near bodies of water, the researchers also placed these traps along rivers and ponds.

Doing this revealed scores of chimpanzees, from all walks of life, fishing for algae in the water.

The footage shows how the chimps plunge a long stick into the water and drag it back toward them after giving it time to collect the algae.

Then, they scoop it right off the fishing rod and eat it.

At a temporary research site in Bakoun, the researchers set up non-invasive observation methods, including remote camera traps. After noticing conspicuous sticks near bodies of water, the researchers also placed these traps along rivers and ponds

This particular use of natural tools is unique to Bakoun, the researchers say, differing greatly from the behaviour seen in neighbouring communities.

The tool-use appears quite different from what is known from a nearby long-term chimpanzee site at Bossou, Guinea and also differed from previous reports of rare algae scooping in Congo, says Ammie Kalan of the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

All age and sex classes of Bakoun chimpanzees were seen in the camera trap videos to successfully fish for algae in a river, stream, or pond using woody branches or twigs as fishing rods.

The tools were on average longer and sturdier than the algae fishing tools that are known from Bossou. Some Bakoun tools were more than 4 meters long.

The footage revealed scores of chimpanzees, from all walks of life, fishing for algae in the water. This particular use of natural tools is unique to Bakoun, the researchers say, differing greatly from the behaviour seen in neighbouring communities

Footage of the remarkable behaviour was captured as a part of the Pan African Programme: the Cultured Chimpanzee launched in 2010 by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

While the method for collecting it might not be the same, the researchers say the freshwater green algae targeted by chimpanzees in Bakoun is of the same genus as that at Bossou.

But in Bakoun, it grows on the bottom of the stream beds rather than collecting at the surface as it does at the nearby site.

The ecology of the particular algae growing at each site may drive the types of tools necessary to harvest the algae, says Christophe Boesch, Director of the Primatology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

We suggest that the algae probably provide an important nutritional benefit to the chimpanzees at Bakoun, especially during the dry season when chimpanzees were observed to fish algae for up to an hour at the same spot.
And, some may put more focus on low-wage jobs that robots can't yet do

Report warns shift could take two-thirds of jobs in developing countries

Investors believe it is 'inevitable' that artificial intelligence will destroy millions of jobs and that governments are unprepared for such an impact, according to a new survey.

Artificial intelligence (AI), or the process by which computers or robots take on tasks that need human intelligence, is one of the key themes of this week's Web Summit in Lisbon.

The poll among 224 venture capitalists attending the conference showed 53 percent believed AI would destroy millions of jobs and 93 percent saw governments as unprepared for this.

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The poll among 224 venture capitalists attending the Web summit in Lisbon found 53 percent believed AI would destroy millions of jobs and 93 percent saw governments as unprepared for this.

The survey also found that 83 percent of the investors canvassed expect Britain's exit from the European Union to damage Europe's economy and 77 percent believe it will damage British startups.

London is widely seen as the main tech startup hub in Europe, thanks to its large pool of talent and a much bigger pool of funding than in rival centres.

Cities like Berlin, Amsterdam and Lisbon are eager to attract more tech startups.

The Web Summit, one of Europe's biggest tech conferences, is being held for the first time in Lisbon, with 53,000 attendees, after moving from Dublin where it was first launched in 2010.

The venture capitalists taking part have more than $100 billion of capital in total to invest. The Web Summit conducted the poll on Nov. 7.

It comes as the UN warns as manufacturers increasingly turn to industrial robots, workers in developing countries will be hit hardest.

So far, automation has largely been introduced to automotive, electrical, and electronics industries, posing a risk to low-wage workers in Mexico and many countries in Asia.

While workers in North America and other developed regions may also be affected by the shift, developing countries could soon lose 'about two thirds of all jobs' and risk the exploitation of low-wage workers in areas robots have yet to master.

As manufacturers increasingly turn to industrial robots, workers in developing countries will be hit hardest, a new UN report warns. Developing countries could soon lose 'about two thirds of all jobs'

The estimates come from a new report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development, which warns of the mixed benefits and risks of 'disruptive technologies.'

As many of these lower-skilled jobs had already disappeared in developed countries, the effect of automation and reshoring could bring about extreme losses in developing countries.

The use of robots will reduce the value of human labour in these settings as they act as a 'close substitute' for these workers, the report explains, putting many people out of jobs.

'The increased use of robots in developed countries risks eroding the traditional labour-cost advantage of developing countries,' the report says.

'The share of occupations that could experience significant automation is actually higher in developing counties than in more advanced ones, where many of these jobs have already disappeared, and this concerns about two thirds of all jobs.'

So far, automation has largely been introduced to automotive, electrical, and electronics industries, as shown on left. On right, the graph shows estimated world-wide year-end annual supply of industrial robots, by main industry, 2013-2015 (thousands of units)

Automation could also cause developing countries to put more focus on jobs that robots are not yet capable of taking on, like garment-making.

'In many labour-intensive industries, such as garment-making, widespread automation is not yet suitable,' the report explains.

'While robots have become cheaper, some developing countries continue to have a large pool of cheap labour.

'Thus, for those countries whose major challenge is to create jobs for a large number of low-skilled entrants to the labour force  such as in many parts of Africa  deploying robots under current cost structures many drive production costs up, rather than down.'

WORKPLACE ACTIVITIES WITH HIGH POTENTIAL FOR AUTOMATION In a recent McKinsey report, researchers analysed more than 2,000 work activities for over 800 occupations, looking at the amount of time spent on particular activities, and the feasibility of automating these tasks. For jobs which involve performing predictable physical activities, the researchers say the feasibility of automation is roughly 78 percent. The findings include: 59 percent of manufacturing activities could be automated. Within this field, the researchers say 90 percent of the activities of welders, cutters, solderers and brazers could be done by a robot.

73 percent of activities in food service and accommodations could be automated

53 percent of retail work could be automated; 47 percent of the salesperson's job could be automated, while 86 percent of bookkeepers, accountant and auditing clerks has this potential For jobs which involve performing predictable physical activities, the researchers say the feasibility of automation is roughly 78 percent. But, this is not the only factor to be considered when determining which jobs could soon be taken over by robots They also detailed the activities with low potential for automation: Education

Healthcare, especially those which require expertise and direct contact with patients, like dental hygienist

'Knowledge work,' including management jobs Advertisement

The report comes just days after Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed automation will soon cause global job displacement and the adoption of a 'universal basic income.'

The billionaire explained that our options may be limited in the future as automation becomes the norm, and this could even leave people with more time to enjoy their lives.

Musk said humans will eventually need to achieve symbiosis with 'digital super-intelligence' in order to cope with the advancing world  but, he warns doing this might be the toughest challenge of all.

In an interview with CNBC, the CEO of Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX said certain jobs, like truck driving, may soon be lost to automated technologies.

Machines equipped with artificial intelligence are ever creeping into the workforce, and for humans, this could soon mean job displacement and a 'universal basic income,' according to Elon Musk (pictured)

FIVE JOBS MOST AT RISK A study last year revealed the five jobs most at risk of automation. These are: Accountants are 99 per cent likely to lose their jobs to machines. Umpires and referees have a 98.3 per cent chance of being automated. Waiters and waitress are 93.7 per cent likely to be replaced by machines. Legal assistants and paralegals have a 94.5 per cent chance of being automated. Fashion models are 97.6 per cent likely to lose the lime light because of robots. Advertisement

And with machines taking over the workforce, human income would shift as well, potentially necessitating universal payments from the government.

'There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation,' Musk told CNBC.

'I'm not sure what else one would do with this.

'I think that's what would happen.'

Musk went on to explain that some people may have plans to do more 'complex' and 'more interesting' things with these capabilities in the future.

This will open the door for more leisure time, he said.

'And then we have to figure out how we integrate with a world in the future with advanced AI,' Musk told CNBC, noting that this will likely be the 'toughest' part.
A cargo plane that obliterated its right wheels while landing in Bogota caused hours of delay for international and domestic passengers.

The AerCaribe operated aircraft, which suffered from structural damage to the landing gears in addition to the tyres, was stranded on the runway for several hours after the incident.

This caused flights from New York, London and other long haul destinations to be diverted to other airports and delays for those already at the airport.

The AerCaribe plane had been on the runway since the early hours of November 9 and was finally towed away at 9.30am (pictured)

While landing at Bogota airport, the landing gears of the aircraft suffered structural damage and its right tyres had burst (above)

AerCaribe's Boeing 737 landed at 12.20am local time in Bogota on November 9 according to Aviation Herald.

While touching down on the south runway at El Dorado International Airport, both main landing gears of flight HK5139 were damaged, which caused the wheels to rotate in different directions.

The right hand side wheels also burst during the landing.

According to the Colombian Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the landing gear of the plane had to be replaced before it could be towed away.

Engineers worked through the night to secure the cargo plane on the runway (pictured)

The aircraft caused the south runway to be closed for several hours, impacting several passenger flights

The aircraft was finally towed to safety at 9.30am.

However, during this time, the north runway continued to operate and was able to handle 20 landings and 20 take offs with passengers already at the airport delayed.

The closure of the airport also directly impacted other passenger airlines.

Avianca, which operates mainly in South America, posted a statement on its website to say that several of its flights were affected.

According to the statement, issued on November 9, prolonged closure of the airport 'limited the departure and arrival of domestic and international flights scheduled for last night and early today.'

Colombia CAA said the wheels of the aircraft had to be changed before it could be towed away

While landing, the wheels had rotated in different directions due to the damage it received

Long haul flights from New York and London had to be diverted due to the runway closure

While the north runway was reopened at 7am, the continued work on the tarmac meant that the length of the runway was shorter than usual so its larger aircraft could not land at the airport.

The airline added: 'In this situation, the flights from cities like New York, Sao Paulo and London have had to proceed to alternate airports.

'Similarly, the long-haul flights with a duration longer than five hours scheduled for last night and today are postponed.'

According to the Colombian CAA, operations at the airport has now returned to normal.

MailOnline Travel has contacted AerCaribe for comment.
A woman who was 'ghosted' by a love interest just ahead of a birthday trip is keen to show him what he's missing.

Canadian teacher and writer Jasmine Teed, 32, had agreed to go on a date with the man in question - a pilot, who told her he would be taking her for a spin in a private plane - but then promptly vanished and never contacted her again.

So Ms Teed, an avid traveller who thought she had finally met her match, set off on a tour of Ireland, Denmark and Iceland alone with the foam cutout of a faceless man on which she wrote: 'You could be here'.

Canadian teacher and writer Jasmine Teed, 32, who was 'ghosted' by a love interest just ahead of a trip to Ireland and Iceland, pictured, is keen to show him what he's missing

Ms Tweed posted her first selfie with the cutout from Montreal airport, with the caption: 'You said you would take me flying and then you ghosted me so I'm going to take myself flying. Off to #Ireland, #Denmark and #Iceland!'

She added: 'P. S. The flight attendants think my new travel companion is really cute.'

Ms Teed tells MailOnline she had known the man for years before he revealed a romantic interest in her this summer.

A week before their planned date aboard a private plane, however, her suitor ceased all contact and disappeared into the ether.

'He just ghosted me which I thought was very rude,' she says.

Ms Teed had planned to invite him along on her next travel adventure, so instead she took the cutout with her.

Ms Teed, an avid traveller who thought she had finally met her match, set off on her tour alone with this foam cutout of a faceless man, pictured here in Ireland

Ms Teed, again in Ireland, had known the man as 'casual acquaintances' for years before he revealed a romantic interest in her this summer

Pictured in Iceland, she had agreed to go on a date with the man in question, who told her he would be taking her for a spin in a private plane but then never contacted her again

What followed was a series of selfies taken around Iceland, in one stating: 'Can't beat that rugged Icelandic landscape and you're missing it!'

'It's not really about the guy,' she explains. 'It's more that if you can't find your perfect travel just make your own and go on the adventures you want to go on anyways.

'I think we all see those perfect couples on Instagram, doing all those amazing things and want that, but there's no need to wait for the perfect travel partner in crime.

'I'd rather just get out there and do them and the right person for me is someone who would be up for doing those things too.'

Ms Teed, pictured in Iceland, had planned to invite him along, but took the cutout with her - partly to show her date what he was missing, and partly as a 'dating advertisement'

What followed was a series of selfies taken around on her travels, in one stating: 'Can't beat that rugged Icelandic landscape and you're missing it!'

Only time will tell whether her light-hearted stunt in Iceland will find her a travel buddy more willing than the last

Ms Tweed, has been voyaging the world for a few years now, writes on her blog, Restless Heart: 'I travel because something about a place intrigues me and I want to immerse myself into that place and get to know it like a new lover.'
He skyrocketed to fame following his portrayal of Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man.

And now Andrew Garfield, 33, has opened up about the struggles of playing the incredibly popular superhero, as well as his dislike for celebrity culture.

Talking to Mr Porter, the British actor - who took over from Tobey Maguire as Spiderman in 2012 - revealed he often got in trouble while on set of the hit movie.

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'I had to fight for my freedom': Andrew Garfield, 33, opened up to Mr Porter about the struggles of playing Spiderman, as well as his dislike for celebrity culture

He said: 'I was really excited to be Spider-Man. I had a real hope that it would be something that young people could connect with, that wasnt just about commodifying everything.

'But I had to fight a lot for my freedom within that. And Id often get in trouble as Id say things I wasnt supposed to.'

Andrew, who maintains a low-key lifestyle outside his busy filming schedules, revealed how he manages to keep his feet firmly on the ground, despite being one of Hollywood's most sought after actors.

The Social Network actor explained: ' You just need to go home and be with friends, be with family. But I'm still learning, to be honest. I love being an actor, but I'm not crazy about celebrity culture.'

Opening up: The British actor - who took over from Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man in 2012 - revealed he often got in trouble while on set of the hit movie

Moving on: Andrew played the popular superhero from 2012 to 2014, after handing over the role to Tom Holland

The actor's latest movie Hacksaw Ridge, in which he plays Desmond Doss, gave him a measure of perspective on his own life.

He continued: 'When you look at Desmond Doss and then you look at our generation, you do ask questions. What do we value?

'Is it service, humility, our capacity to love, our capacity to be true? Or are we going to honour and value physical attractiveness or braggadocio or arrogance?'

Andrew has had a hectic schedule lately promoting his latest Mel Gibson directed film, Hacksaw Ridge, which recently had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

Next project: Andrew has had a hectic schedule lately promoting his latest Mel Gibson directed film, Hacksaw Ridge, which he plays Desmond Doss

It's over: Andrew split from his Spider-Man co-star Emma Stone last year after a four-year relationship

The film - which hit cinemas in the U.S. on November 4 - made its debut out of competition at the festival, and was met with a 10-minute standing ovation from the audience.

The movie is based on the true story of Desmond T. Doss, who became the first conscientious objector in American history to receive the Medal of Honor.

Andrew split from his Spider-Man co-star Emma Stone last year after a four-year long relationship.

The former lovebirds became an item after meeting on set of The Amazing Spider-Man in 2011, and over the past year their relationship had been hovered by break-up rumours.
The Bachelorette's Sam Frost successfully built herself a career in radio after appearing on the reality dating show.

And it seems reality TV duo, The Block's Ben and Andy, are hoping to do the same.

The primary school teachers told OK! Magazine that they are taking a break from their current jobs after the show and would like to be on the airwaves.

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New career? The Block's Ben and Andy told OK! Magazine that they are taking a break from their current jobs after the show and would like to be on the airwaves

'We'd love to do radio,' Ben, 24, told the publication.

Andy, 25, also said that after the show they are now 'inseparable.'

The pair, according to their Block profile, met six years ago as they did a training course for a diploma of sport.

Could they make it? The pair are known on The Block as the lovable larrikins (seen here before they did an interview with KIIS FM's Kyle and Jackie O)

They now work at the same school together and are known on the show as the lovable larrikins.

Meanwhile Sam Frost was a previous financial assistant who went into the public eye when she appeared on The Bachelor in 2014.

She was humiliated in front of Australia when was dumped by leading man Blake Garvey, after he proposed to her.

The brunette then appeared on The Bachelorette last year, where she met boyfriend Sasha Mielczarek.

She did it: The Bachelorette's Sam Frost successfully built herself a career in radio after appearing on the reality dating show (seen with her co-host Rove McManus)

Claim to fame: The personality appeared on both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette

Earlier this year, it was announced that she was heading into radio and would be the co-host of 2DAY FM's breakfast show.

Shortly after her radio debut, the show - which is co-hosted by comedian Rove McManus - was heavily criticised and suffered poor ratings.

Sam was also criticised for her lack of experience on radio.

In February, Rove defended Sam to critics and said he has given her some advice on how to deal with them.

'You've got to weather the storm,' he told News.com.au.

'I think she's doing a tremendous job and there is nobody else that I would wanna have in that chair talking to me for three hours everyday.'

He added: 'I'm her number one fan.'
Former Bachelorette star Sam Frost revealed on her 2DAY FM radio show that she tried to use her fame to get out of a speeding fine.

The 27-year-old told her co-host Rove McManus that on her way to work on Thursday morning, she got pulled over by a 'super lovely' policeman that she thought was a 'fan.'

She said he told her to be 'mindful' as she was going 50km in a 55km zone but didn't fine her, before saying: 'But I did drop in, I was like, "oh I'm just going to my job on radio, please don't pull me over and fine me."

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It worked! Former Bachelorette star Sam Frost revealed on her 2DAY FM radio show that she tried to use her fame to get out of a speeding fine

She added how she worked out he was a 'fan' of hers after he noted that she had changed her hair colour recently, going from brunette to blonde.

'But he did say, "oh you've changed your hair colour," and I'm like, "he's a fan!," she laughed.

She said she did a breath test so that the office could check her 'booze face' and that before he pulled her over, she didn't realise he had his sirens on for her.

Cruising: She added how she worked out he was a 'fan' of hers after he noted that she had changed her hair colour recently, going from brunette to blonde (seen in her new Mini Cooper earlier this year)

Sam said she didn't think she was speeding and he followed her for a while, before she pulled over.

'I didn't think it was for me...I didn't do anything wrong, I was "oh, you can go around," making Rove laugh.

In January this year, Sam bought a brand new Mini Cooper less than three months after making her radio debut.

At the time, her boyfriend, Bachelorette winner Sasha Mielczarek shared a shot of her on Instagram, sitting in the drivers seat.

Hitting the airwaves: In January this year, Sam bought a brand new Mini Cooper less than three months after making her radio debut (seen with co-host Rove McManus)

Upgrading: Seen is her old car which was smashed at the front

'Congratulations to this dork @fro01 on the purchase of her new car!' gushed Sasha in the caption.

'She was like one of them wacky inflatable tube guys at the car yard running around the show room #ishallcallhimminime,' he added.

Sam previously had a black Hyundai that was spotted parked on a Bondi street with its front section smashed.

The former finance worker went into the public eye when she appeared on The Bachelor in 2014, before being dumped by Blake Garvey, after he proposed to her.

She then appeared on The Bachelorette last year where she met Sasha.

Earlier this year, she started working on radio.
Brad Pitt hit his first red carpet since his shocking late September split from Angelina Jolie.

On Wednesday evening the 52-year-old actor joined Marion Cotillard at the Los Angeles premiere of his WWII drama Allied.

And Brad - who wasn't wearing his wedding ring - spent a lot of time signing autographs for fans, and was grateful for their 'kindness' as he spoke with them.

He told E! News: 'It's really sweet, everyone has been really kind out here. It's really nice to have all the support.'

Brad Pitt hit his first red carpet since his shocking late September split from Angelina Jolie; On Wednesday evening the 52-year-old actor joined Marion Cotillard at the Los Angeles premiere of his WWII drama Allied

Easy on the eye: Brad looked dapper in a dark suit and white shirt as he opted to not wear a tie for his red carpet attire

This comes just hours after TMZ reported the star was cleared by the Department Of Children And Family Services of child abuse.

Pitt is now ramping up for a custody battle with his wife of two years. She has asked for sole physical custody and he has asked for joint custody.

After he was cleared, Jolie released a statement through her spokesperson which read: 'The job of the DCFS is to make sure the children are in a safe and secure situation. As we said earlier this week, childcare professionals encouraged a legal agreement accepted and signed by both sides that was in the best interest of the children.

'Angelina said from the beginning that she felt she had to take action for the health of the family and is relieved that after their 8-week involvement, the DCFS is now satisfied the safeguards are put in place that will allow the children to heal.'

On Wednesday Brad looked dapper in a dark suit and white shirt as he opted to not wear a tie for his red carpet attire.

His hair was cut short as he showed off his salt and pepper beard.

Brad was seen smiling at the fans as he signed autographs for them whilst walking down the carpet.

Good look: His hair was cut short as he showed off his salt and pepper beard

Laughing with the fans: Despite his personal troubles, the actor looked to be in good spirits

On good terms: The two looked chummy after the actress shot down rumours of a fling

A few laughs: The costars talked animatedly on the red carpet

Despite his personal troubles, the actor looked to be in good spirits.

He showed off his chiseled jawline and smouldering pose as he had his picture taken.

Marion looked radiant in a high neck midnight blue dress, which showed a little hint of her bump.

The brunette actress wore dazzling diamond earrings as she went for a natural palette of make-up.

She wore smokey eye shadow and nude lipstick to complete her flawless look.

Pregnant beauty: The French star showed off her figure in a flowing dress

Still got it: He showed off his chiseled jawline and smouldering pose as he had his picture taken

Lovely: Marion looked radiant in a high neck midnight blue dress, which showed a little hint of her bump

Wednesday evening was a stark contrast to how Brad looked the night before.

The actor looked a little pale and drawn as he hit a screening for Moonlight, which was executive produced through his company Plan B, in Los Angeles with old friend Julia Roberts.

At the premiere Brad did not conduct interviews.

Fabulous: The brunette actress wore dazzling diamond earrings as she went for a natural palette of make-up

The Sun reported the star had specified he would not be doing any press junkets or talk show appearances for the WWII epic that is hitting theaters on November 23.

The actor skipped his last premiere for Voyage of Time in late September after Jolie's divorce filing became front-page news.

Bad end: This will be the first time the 52-year-old has been seen since his ugly September split from Angelina Jolie that involved the Department Of Children And Family Services and the FBI. Here he is seen with the family in 2015

Quiet: It has been added Brad won't do any press junkets or talk show appearances either for the WWII epic that is hitting theaters on November 23

A source told The Sun newspaper: 'This was supposed to be the start of a big campaign push for Brad to finally win an acting Oscar but there's too much controversy for him to risk any publicity.'

It was added: 'It also doesn't help that there were rumours he had an affair with his co-star Marion Cotillard, which both deny.'

Cottilard is pregnant with her second child. The father is her partner since 2007, actor Guillaume Canet.

And there were plenty of appearances on the calendar.

Hot stuff: In Allied Pitt and Cotillard have many steamy scenes. They have denied an affair

So romantic: In the film the actors play a married couple, but then he is told she's a spy

'Loads of chat show studios are gutted as they had him booked to come on and dozens of journalists have had their interviews scrapped,' it was claimed.

'They are also being briefed not to ask anybody else associated about the film about Brad's personal life.

'His team look very likely to pull the plug on him even walking the red carpet in Los Angeles.

'They know it's important he been seen to support the film but this is a huge crisis for him and the current tactic is to lie low. If he does appear, he'll not say a word to any media and sneak in a side door.'

The estranged couple - who got married last year - have six children; Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and eight-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne, while he has asked for shared guardianship.

Bad timing: The dust has not yet settled on the Pitt/Jolie split, which could hurt or help the movie

Over: The estranged couple - who got married last year - are currently locked in a bitter legal battle. This is the last time they were on the red carpet together, in November 2015

Jolie will continue to have sole custody of her children with Pitt in an agreement reached by the actors, a representative for the actress said Monday.

The agreement calls for the former couple's children to continue to have 'therapeutic visits' with Pitt.

Jolie filed for divorce in September, days after Pitt was involved in a disturbance during a private flight with his family. She cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for the breakup, and an attorney said at the time she filed for divorce 'for the health of the family.'

Monday's statement said the agreement was reached more than a week ago in consultation with childcare professionals. It says no further details could be provided, and it makes no mention of an investigation by child welfare workers into the plane incident.

Sad end: Angelina filed for divorce after Brad was allegedly 'verbally abusive' and 'physical' towards their son Maddox while under the influence of alcohol during a flight on September 14. Here he is seen with Pax, Shiloh and Maddox as well as his parents in 2014

Pitt and Jolie Pitt reached a temporary custody agreement in late September that included at least some of the same terms  visitation with his children and both sides agreeing to meetings with therapists.

'In accordance with this agreement,' the statement from Jolie's rep claimed, 'the six children will stay in their mother's custody, and the children will continue therapeutic visits with their father. This has been determined by childcare professionals to be in the children's best interest.'

'We are not in a position to discuss the details,' the rep continued. 'We hope now that it is clear that the events which led to the dissolution filing involved minor children and their wellbeing, there will be understanding of the sensitivity of the family situation.'

Short marriage: The two wed in 2014 in the South Of France. Here they are seen in 2012

'We believe that all sides are committed to healing the family and ask for your consideration during this difficult time,' Monday's statement concluded.

Angelina filed for divorce after Brad was allegedly 'verbally abusive' and 'physical' towards their son Maddox while under the influence of alcohol during a flight on September 14.
Their 13-year marriage has survived testing times, following a sexting scandal.

And Tess Daly, 47, and Vernon Kay, 42, showed that they're still happily united as they attended an anniversary party to celebrate Kelly Hoppen's 40 years in the interior design business.

The photogenic pair, who have two children, hugged warmly and smiled for the cameras as they arrived in style at London's Alva Studios on Wednesday night.

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Out on the town: Tess Daly and Vernon Kay attended an anniversary party for Kelly Hoppen, celebrating her 40 years as an Interior Designer, at London's Alva Studios on Wednesday night

Strictly Come Dancing co-presenter Tess tastefully draped her svelte frame in a black sleeveless minidress, which boasted a overlay, sequinned at the hem.

With her golden locks scraped back in a sleek high ponytail, the TV beauty opted for natural makeup tones, while large hoop earrings gave her ensemble extra sparkle.

The star displayed her perfect pedicure in a pair of black strappy heels, which almost brought her shoulder-to-shoulder with her statuesque spouse.

Date night: The couple enjoyed something of a rare date night as they attended the bash

Strictly stylish: The photogenic twosome were sure to step out in style for the big celebration

Dapper gent: Vernon donned a tailored midnight blue suit with a white button-down shirt

LBD: Strictly Come Dancing co-host Tess wowed in a flattering sleeveless black minidress

The lady of honour: She posed for a shot with celebrated interior designer Kelly Hoppen

Hollywood's finest: Actress Meg Ryan was also among the group of well-heeled guests

Blonde ambition: The Hollywood screen star looked radiant as she arrived at the party

Black to basics: Screen star Meg arrived in a full-length black coat, teamed with a faux fur stole

Game show host Vernon looked equally stylish for their night out, cutting a dapper figure in a midnight blue suit with a crisp white shirt, left unbuttoned at the top.

Inside the bash, they rubbed shoulders with a host of stars, including Hollywood actress Meg Ryan, TV host Davina McCall and rocker Simon Le Bon.

The lady of honour also turned heads, arriving at the Patron-sponsored bash in a flattering halterneck black jumpsuit, which featured a large cleavage cut-out.

Inside the bash, guests were treated to bespoke cocktails by Patron Tequila, including The Patronic, fruity Raspberry Caprihanas, Perfect Patron Margaritas and Espresso Martinis.

Rock royalty: Veteran rocker Simon Le Bon was also among the long list of celebrity guests

Razzle dazzle: The musician arrived in a patterned metallic blazer over a fitted black ensemble

Grand designs: While at the bash, he stopped to catch up with designer Amanda Wakeley

Glam: Simon's glamorous model wife Yasmin Le Bon, right, was spotted chatting with Jo Wood

Pose: Yasmin also posed with Anastasia Webster, wife of jewellery designer Stephen Webster

Passion for fashion: The ladies each displayed their stylish flair as they lit up the gathering

Social: Kelly also mingled with (l-r) Jonathan Shalit, Phillip Schofield and Stephanie Lowe

Let's hug it out: Actress Tina Hobley made a glamorous arrival at the exclusive party

So in love: She cosied up to her husband of 10 years, Oliver Wheeler, at the celebration

Black is the new black: Tina stuck to the night's unofficial colour theme in a smart black dress

Her simple-yet-chic ensemble was given a glittering touch with the addition of gold side seams and a stylish bejewelled bracelet.

With her signature golden hair styled in abundant wild curls, Kelly further accessorized with large hoop earrings.

Guests sipped on Perrier-Jouet champagne and were treated to a delicious three-course dinner.

Soul 2 Soul DJ legend, Jazzie B, took to the decks after dinner and ensured he had everyone on their feet dancing until the early hours of the morning.

Back in 2010, Vernon was forced to make a public apology to his wife Tess on Radio 1, subsequently promising he would no longer contact Rhian Sudgen or four other women he had been caught sending sexually-charged messages to at the time.

Suits you! Actor Luke Evans cut a dapper figure in a three-piece suit with a patterned shirt

Group pic: John Gardiner, left, and Erika Gardiner, right, joined the screen stars for a group pic

VIPs: TV presenter Davina McCall and her husband Matthew Robertson put in an appearance

Warm embrace: The couple, who have three children together, shared a warm hug at the bash

Enduring romance: Davina and former presenter Matthew have been married for 16 years

Fighting fit: Former Big Brother presenter Davina displayed her fit physique in a fitted dress

Movers and shakers: Strictly judge Bruno Tonioli posed for a snap with towering Gabby Roslin

Warm greeting: Kelly enthusiastically greeted TV star Bruno with a warm hug on seeing him

Chatty Man: Chat show presenter Alan Carr looked stylish as he posed with Jackie St Clair

I'm Carr-azy about you! The star pulled a funny face as he stared at his boyfriend Paul Drayton

Fine style: Emma Forbes, left, and Yasmin Mills, right, stepped out in fine style for the occasion

Bubbly: The Apprentice's Karren Brady raised a glass of bubbly as she got into the party spirit

Stunning offspring: She was joined by her stunning 20-year-old daughter Sophia Peschisolido

But earlier this year, busty blonde Rhian revealed she was still speaking with the star, and even claimed he had asked her to meet up.

Vernon claimed at the time of the allegations that the WhatsApp messages he sent to Rhian asking to meet had been taken out of context, that he had done 'nothing wrong' and that his wife was completely aware of all contact.

Rhian said the messages were not like the explicit texts they had exchanged in 2010, until it was claimed that Vernon had been visiting her Instagram page and labelled one of her photographs '10/10'.

Good relations: Stylish Amanda caught up with veteran public relations guru Hugh Morrison

Working the room: Designer Kelly did her best to personally greet each of her many guests

Night out: Gabby posed for a shot with Duncan Bannatyne and his fiancee Nigora Whitehorn

Great sole: Former Dragons Den star Piers Linney turned heads with his choice of patent shoes

The big question: Scottish entrepreneur Duncan proposed to Nigora in Monaco in March

Dark and lovely: Jackie St Clair, left, and Caroline Massenet, right, also opted for black dresses

Golden girl: Amanda Berry jazzed up her ensemble with a golden belt and matching shoes

Delicious! Cookbook writer Natasha Corrett draped her slender frame in a dramatic dress

Wow! Kelly looked sensational in a flattering halterneck jumpsuit, with a cleavage cut-out

The big gulp: She sipped on a small bottle of popular tequila brand Patron at the bash

Unique style: Interior designer Nicky Haslam displayed his unique sense of style

Party time: The stars merrily mingled at the exclusive bash, with was sponsored by Patron
Their relationship has been on the rocks since Pete Wicks's now infamous sexting scandal.

And Megan McKenna was nearly as unhappy to discover Pete had taken part in a 'disrespectful' photo shoot with a model for Ann Summers.

But on the latest episode of TOWIE, the stunning brunette finally agreed to 'wipe the slate clean' with her beau, as the pair celebrated Chloe Simms's 35th birthday.

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Sorting things out: Megan McKenna and Pete Wicks became a couple again 'officially' after talking through their problems on the TOWIE series finale on Wednesday

Time to deal: Pete told Megan he wanted to get back together 'officially'

Admitting she can 'lose my s*** sometimes, and say stupid things,' Megan urged Pete to be completely honest with her in the future.

'I want you to tell me everything and we wouldn't be put in these stupid situations,' she declared.

'I think I need to stop worrying about p******g you off and just deal with problems, you know what I mean,' conceded Pete in a romantic interlude outside Chloe's impressive party venue.

Love conquers: Megan posted a snapshot of herself getting back together with Pete on her Instagram

'I only want to go forward, and I only want to go forward with you,' he admitted. 'I want us to be a couple again. I want you back properly.'

Looking stunning in a pink silky dress, Megan agreed they would now officially be a couple again, admitting that a heart to heart with Chloe S earlier that day had helped her see things more clearly.

'Chloe said if I could just wipe the slate clean and get over everything and I feel like I can,' she acknowledged. 'She said if I carry on being so crazy, I might lose you.'

No more crazy: Megan quoted Chloe Simms's advice to Pete after the photoshoot row

Moving forward with you: In a romantic ending, the pair got back together

In fact, Chloe had urged her to try to stop the green-eyed monster taking over or face being without her tattooed beau.

'He loves you. It's just an ugly sight. - Jealousy. If it carries on, you're going to lose him,' the bubbly blonde advised Megan, adding that she didn't think Pete's shoot was 'that bad'.

However, Chloe's birthday bash wasn't all smooth sailing in the love stakes.

Thanks to Chloe: Megan received some words of wisdom over a glass of champagne

Don;t give in to jealousy: Chloe urged Megan to overcome her anger towards Pete

Up for discussion: Chloe, Gemma discuss the problems between Pete and Megan

Psycho: Megan admitted she's been a 'bit of a b**** to Pete' over the photoshoot

Decked out in their party finery, Amber Dowding and Chris Clarke took centre stage as they made a last ditch attempt to salvage their fractured relationship.

But their meeting turned ugly as the pair rounded on one another, not helped by the presence of Chriss protective brother Jon.

But there was a relationship improvement Chloe Lewis who managed to sort things out with Ben Shenel, while reiterating that she just 'want to carry on having a good time.'

Salvage: Amber Dowding and Chris Clarke took centre stage as they made a last ditch attempt to salvage their fractured relationship

Rowing: But their meeting turned ugly as the pair rounded on one another, not helped by the presence of Chriss protective brother Jon

Meanwhile, Tommy paid a visit to a local school to try to inspire the kids, impressing Georgia, who accompanied him.

'I wouldn't say I was naughty. I just had a different character than a lot of people,' he told the youngsters when they asked about his behaviour at school. 'Listen to your teachers because they're old.'

'I hope I've inspired you and I wish you the best of luck in the future,' he said before departing.

Scared to death: Bobby Norris was shaking like a leaf as he embarked on his ziplining adventure

Do I hold on? Bobby was advised to do it quickly and 'not look down'

And elsewhere Bobby Norris, prepared to go ziplining for the first time with the help of Jon and Chris and pal Debbie.

'I've done it loads of times before. Do it quickly. Don't look down,' she advised.

'Do I hold on?' he asked, before conquering his fear and plunging at speed along the thrill ride.

Lecture time: Tommy and Georgia headed to the local school to give an inspiring talk to the children




Luke Bracey has revealed he shared a bed with Chris and Liam Hemsworth - well kind of.

The Hacksaw Ridge star spoke about the time he moved to Los Angeles to try and break into Hollywood and stayed in his manager William Ward's guesthouse.

According to Luke he stayed in the same bed that both Chris and Liam did when they were launching their movie careers.

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Pillow talk: Luke Bracey says he's slept in the same bed as Chris and Liam Hemsworth

'Chris stayed in his guesthouse, then Liam, then me,' the Point Break star told The Daily Telegraph.

'They were kicking goals while I was there and my manager was like: ''I'm two for two on this mate, so there is a little bit of pressure''.'

Like the Hemsworth brothers, Luke's career began on Home And Away where he played Trey Palmer until 2010.

Management: Luke is managed by the brothers' manager William Ward

His first Hollywood role was opposite Selena Gomez and Leighton Meester in Monte Carlo, as the latter's love interest and he's since gone on to appear in a number of big budget films including GI Joe Retaliation, Point Break and, of course, Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge.

In the latest film from the Australian actor and director, Luke plays ruthless soldier, Smitty Ryker, who torments Andrew Garfield's conscientious objector Desmond T. Doss during WWI.

Doing well: The actor appears in Hacksaw Ridge with Vincent Vaughn

He's a tough bloke but also a scared and very lonely one,' Luke explains.

'Even now, it's hard for men to reveal their vulnerabilities, to start that conversation. It's something that needs to be talked about.'
They became engaged in June during a romantic getaway to Monte Carlo following a ten-month courtship.

And it isn't difficult to see why Duncan Bannatyne is smitten with his gorgeous fiancee Nigora Whitehorn as they attended an anniversary party to celebrate Kelly Hoppen's 40 years in the interior design business.

The Dragons' Den star, 67, looked dapper in a slick suit while his 36-year-old love stole the spotlight by flaunting her ample assets in a plunging pink dress.

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Date night: Duncan Bannatyne, 67, was joined by his sexy fiancee Nigora Whitehorn at the anniversary party to celebrate Kelly Hoppen's 40 years in the interior design business

The slinky satin number showcased her busty assets to perfection while sheer black lace teased her flats abs.

Going on to skim her sensational frame, she flaunted her toned legs with the garment's sexy side split.

The former receptionist's brunette locks were glamorously blow-dried and framed her perfectly chiselled face, which boasted a deep mauve pout.

Duncan, who looked handsome in a snazzy suit and tie, couldn't wipe the smile from his face, as he kept his woman close.

Sexy display: The slinky satin number showcased her busty assets to perfection while sheer black lace teased her flats abs

Content: Duncan, who looked handsome in a snazzy suit and tie, couldn't wipe the smile from his face, as he kept his woman close

Stunner: The former receptionist's brunette locks were glamorously blow-dried and framed her perfectly chiselled face, which boasted a deep mauve pout

The loved up couple announced their engagement on Twitter in June, after Duncan popped the question in Monte Carlo.

Duncan acknowledged he was a lucky man to be engaged to such a beauty when one of his followers responded to the Tweet by saying he was 'punching massively your weight Duncan man.'

He wittily replied: 'Oh I know. I very much know.'

Pins on parade: She flaunted her toned legs with the garment's sexy side split

Details: The stunner held on to a statement clutch

Whirlwind: The couple became engaged in June during a romantic getaway to Monet Carlo following a ten-month courtship

Upon their engagement, Duncan seemed to have spared no expense when it came to making the occasion one to remember - having been thought to have splashed out approximately 40,000 on the ring.

The couple have been dating for approximately 10 months, after going public with their romance in July 2015.

They met when Duncan visited the Harley Street Dental Clinic where Nigora worked as a 'coordinator'.

Talking to Hello! when the romance first began, the businessman gushed: 'Nigora and I are very much in love. We met only a few weeks ago and many people don't realise we only began our relationship after the break-up of my previous relationship had occurred.'

Attached at the hip: Tess Daly and Vernon Kay looked smitten as they stepped out in style for the event

Duncan - who split from his second wife, Joanne McCue, in 2011 - and Nigora have been almost inseparable since they started dating.

Nigora even jetted to Australia to support Duncan during his stint in the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! camp in December.

Duncan has six children from his time with Joanne, and was married to first wife Gail from 1983-1994.

Meanwhile, Tess Daly and Vernon Kay also stepped out in style for the event, as did Davina McCall and hubby Matthew Robertson.
It was the silver lining that eased the blow of Donald Trump being elected president for many celebrities.

And Snoop Dogg led the way as he hailed the legalisation of recreational marijuana after voters approved Proposition 64 on Tuesday.

It was one of eight states have voted to legalize marijuana for recreational or medical use in the closest thing the US has ever come to a national referendum on the drug.

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Puff daddy: Cannabis advocate Snoop Dogg was delighted California passed a measure to legalise recreational marijuana on Tuesday

The Long Beach, California raised star, who in 2012 recorded a full album of songs glorifying cannabis called Stoner's EP, was quick to praise the measure, which passed after winning 56 per cent of the vote.

Sharing a television graphic as the votes were counted, he said: 'I'll smoke to that.'

And 78-year-old Tommy Chong, one of half of legendary stoner comedy duo Cheech And Chong, posted an image of himself sitting next to jars full of the drug, saying, 'Legal weed!'

Lisa Rinna joked she was going to 'smoke a lot of pot,' while Snoop's fellow rapper Wiz Khalifa showed perspective about the unfolding election result, saying, 'long as weed gets legalised I'm good.'

'I'll smoke to that': The rapper was delighted as the early votes came in for the measure

Star attraction: A host of celebrities weighed in on the measure

Meanwhile House star Kal Penn offered up a feeble gag, saying: 'Florida, hurry up and stop smoking the weed that's up for vote in California.'

Collectively, it was the closest the U.S. has ever come to a national referendum on marijuana, which remains prohibited under federal law.

Many insist the eight 'yes' votes will place insurmountable pressure on the government to reclassify cannabis, which is currently listed as a dangerous drug with no benefits.

At last: Stoner comic Tommy Chong was overjoyed his drug of choice was finally legal

Pot luck: The comic was one half of iconic 70s stoner comedy duo Cheech And Chong

California's vote is one of the most important moves in health and politics this election.

The state, home to 39 million people, is the most populous of the nation, and has an economy bigger than France.

With California joining Oregon and Washington, the entire West Coast is a haven for recreational marijuana, while Massachusetts and Maine are the first East Coast states to allow recreational use.

Meanwhile, medical marijuana use got the green light in all four states that were given the option - Florida, Arkansas, Montana and North Dakota.

Historic: California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada voted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, giving a huge boost to the campaign to allow pot nationwide. Another four states voted to legalize medical use. Arizona, where medical is legal, rejected a vote for recreational
Sir Richard Bransons well-connected son, Sam, has upset friend and rapper Dizzee Rascal.

Branson Jr posted a mocked-up picture of Donald Trump sitting behind the Oval Office desk at the White House with the slogan: First time in history that a billionaire moves into public housing vacated by a black family.

Dizzee, whose fans include Princes William and Harry, commented underneath: Mate, Ive known you a long time and I know you mean well but this looks a bit nuts coming from you.

Sam Branson (left) has upset friend and rapper Dizzee Rascal (right) when he posted an 'insensitive' joke on Twitter

The joke was also criticised by 31-year-old Sams followers as insensitive.

Father-of-one Sam, who is married to Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, swiftly deleted the picture and replaced it with something less contentious.

Comedian Jennifer Saunders, creator of Absolutely Fabulous, has been spotted looking more drab than fab.

As this picture shared by her daughter Beattie Edmondson shows, the 58-year-old has devised her own set of bifocals. She wears two pairs to use her phone.

Last year, Saunders told me she was considering eye surgery. Joanna Lumleys had her whole corneas replaced and Im considering it now, she said.

Comedian Jennifer Saunders has devised her own set of bifocals by wearing two pairs of glasses to use her phone (pictured)

It makes me so cross because in all the script readings with us oldies, shes the only one that doesnt have to reach for her spectacles.

Im like, Damn you Joanna, damn you. 

Mary Berry (pictured) will be serving the teas on a special Belmond British Pullman railway journey next year

At the age of 81, Mary Berry is to become a trolley dolly.

The Great British Bake Offs former judge will be serving the teas on a special Belmond British Pullman railway journey next year.

The company says passengers can enjoy a special afternoon tea experience with Britains national treasure.

The 1920s train will travel from London Victoria station to an unnamed countryside destination as they are served some of Marys favourite creations, including cherry and almond tart, strawberry mille-feuille, opera slice and baked scones.

Belmond adds that passengers will spend time with Mary hearing about her award-winning career whilst picking up some baking tips.

And at 275 per person, the cake should be good.

Johnny Depps actress daughter Lily-Rose might have inherited her fathers thespian genes, but it appears she hasnt quite mastered the natural elegance of her French mother, model and actress Vanessa Paradis.

The 17-year-old was caught in a very unflattering pose while walking the red carpet this week in Paris, where she was promoting her new film Planetarium, in which she plays a medium in pre-war France alongside Hollywood star Natalie Portman.

Standing with her legs apart, Lily-Rose, whose parents split up in 2012 after 14 years together, clumsily hoisted up her black skinny jeans, which she teamed with an eye-catching sparkly gold top, matching gold stilettos and a Chanel cropped tuxedo-style jacket.

Lily-Rose (pictured) was caught in a very unflattering pose while walking the red carpet this week in Paris

Next time youre at the supermarket, dont be alarmed if a vivacious brunette with a familiar face runs up and embraces you: it will be Big Brother host Davina McCall. I love meeting people, she declares. Ill give them a kiss or a hug. I spend most of my supermarket shopping trips just walking from aisle to aisle hugging people.

Hes smooth, suave and sophisticated, but Sir Roger Moore reveals he is an unlikely fan of downmarket sitcom Mrs Browns Boys.

My wife thinks Im disgusting, but I love Mrs Browns Boys, says Monaco-based Moore, 89, who is about to embark on a new one-man tour.

It appeals to me because I have a filthy mind.

Meanwhile, though he professes to be a fan of current Bond Daniel Craig, Moore (6ft 1in) declares that the next 007 needs to be a taller man.

I think it has to be anyone over 6 ft,he says. I think Aidan Turner would make a very good Bond. Tom Hiddleston would do a very good job as well.
They've been inseparable since embarking on a romance more than four years ago.

And Michelle Collins, 55, and her toyboy beau Mike Davison showed they're still very much smitten as they stepped out for the 28th Annual Gala for Chickenshed in London on Wednesday night.

Michelle looked sensational in a a plunging golden gown as she arrived at Victoria and Albert Museum on the arm of her handsome beau.

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Date night! Michelle Collins and her boyfriend Mike Davison attended the 28th Annual Gala for Chickenshed at London's Victoria and Albert Museum on Wednesday night

Her sleeveless dress of choice, featured rows of glittering sequins, styled to resemble animal print, while a knee-high side slit allowed her to show a hint of leg.

She teamed the eye-catching frock with a pair of stylish black booties, which featured golden soles, perfectly complementing her colour scheme.

With her golden tresses swept back in a sleek style, the actress enhanced her natural beauty with a layer of bombshell-style makeup, while chandelier earrings further lit up her outfit.

Jovial: The couple of four years appeared to be in jovial spirits as they posed for photographs

Golden girl: The former EastEnders and Coronation Street star stepped out in a golden gown

Not to be outdone, Mike also stepped out in style, wearing a black suit with a white shirt and grey tie, rounding out his ensemble with brown suede shoes.

The couple hugged as they posed for photographs inside the grand venue, with former EastEnders and Coronation Street star Michelle playfully puckering up.

Michelle and Mike began dating in late 2012, after they were set up by Michelle's niece, who is said to have worked for Mike at a retail store.

Mind the gap: Her dress also boasted a knee-high side slit, allowing her to show some leg

Is she fur real? Staving off the winter chill, she arrived at the bash in a stylish fur coat

At the time that rumours began to swirl about their romance, Michelle was coy about confirming things, though she couldn't help but gush about being in love.

She said: 'I dont want to tempt fate by talking about my personal life.

'I want to avoid the curse of celebrity magazines, where as soon as people reveal how blissfully in love they are it all falls apart! All Ill say is Im enjoying life right now.'

Glamorous ladies: At the glamorous bash, she was seen catching up with (l-r) Carmen Dell'Orefice and Lady Jane Rayne
Suki Waterhouse indulged in retail therapy at Fred Segal in West Hollywood on Wednesday.

The British 24-year-old - who relies on stylist Jeanann Williams - was dressed down in a black T-shirt, ripped blue jeans, and tan TOMS alpargatas.

The Brutally songstress - rocking a trendy choker - kept her make-up minimal and wore her ombre locks down.

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Feeling blue: Suki Waterhouse indulged in retail therapy at Fred Segal in West Hollywood on Wednesday

Waterhouse was toting a shopping bag from the Ron Herman Boutique after lunch at Mauro's Cafe with gal pals.

Later, the crestfallen Hillary Clinton supporter - who boasts 1.2M followers - shared an Instagram snap captioned: 'We need extra hugs today.'

Last weekend, Suki - born Alice - hung out with her Insurgent co-star Ansel Elgort and Harry Styles at Meghan Trainor's surprise birthday bash.

Missed a button! The British 24-year-old - who relies on stylist Jeanann Williams - was dressed down in a black T-shirt, ripped blue jeans, and tan TOMS alpargatas

Natural beauty: The Brutally songstress - rocking a trendy choker - kept her make-up minimal and wore her ombre locks down

Out and about: Waterhouse was toting a shopping bag from the Ron Herman Boutique after lunch at Mauro's Cafe with gal pals

Sister, sister: Suki was also joined by her lookalike sibling Immy Waterhouse

The Absolutely Fabulous actress and the 22-year-old One Direction boybander have been inspiring on/off romance rumours as far back as 2013.

On October 3, the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies stunner locked lips with 22-year-old Ansel on the Manhattan set of their sci-fi drama, Jonathan.

Elgort plays twins Jonathan and John, who get involved with Elena (Waterhouse) in the indie film from first-time feature director Bill Oliver.

Seeing double: The pair share the same casual, tomboy influenced personal style

Low-key: The girls embraced the boyfriend jean trend, pairing their denim with loose tops

Later, the crestfallen Hillary Clinton supporter - who boasts 1.2M followers - shared an Instagram snap captioned: 'We need extra hugs today'

Reunited: Last weekend, Suki - born Alice - hung out with her Insurgent co-star Ansel Elgort (2-R) and Harry Styles (R) at Meghan Trainor's surprise birthday bash

English duo: The Absolutely Fabulous actress and the 22-year-old One Direction boybander have been inspiring on/off romance rumours as far back as 2013

Hard at work: On October 3, the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies stunner locked lips with 22-year-old Ansel on the Manhattan set of their sci-fi drama, Jonathan

The New York native - who's dating ballerina Violetta Komyshan - sweetly stopped by Suki's bag brand launch last Wednesday at Mel's Drive-In.

Waterhouse and Poppy Jamie will discuss their new accessories line Pop & Suki at Beautycon happening December 3 at Olympia London.

Colleagues: Elgort - who's dating ballerina Violetta Komyshan - sweetly stopped by Suki's bag brand launch last Wednesday at Mel's Drive-In in LA
She raised a few eyebrows on Tuesday night with her live coverage of the presidential election.

But Lindsay Lohan set aside politics for a charitable cause on Wednesday, as she brought her own unique brand of glitz and glamour to a charity function in London.

Straddling the line between racy and restrained chic, the actress, 30, donned a plunging monochrome dress for her afternoon at Morton's Club at the Nadezda Foundation's event.

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Stylish as always: Lindsay Lohan set aside politics for a charitable cause on Wednesday, as she brought her own unique brand of glitz and glamour to a charity function in London

Lindsay, accompanied by BFF Hofit Golan, traded Twitter interactions for a pleasant afternoon tea at the swanky members' club.

Always careful to put her most fashionable foot forward, the Herbie Fully Loaded star slipped into a fitted sleeveless dress.

The flowing printed number featured a plunging neckline that allowed the actress to flash more than a hint of her bust.

Chic: Straddling the line between racy and restrained chic, the actress, 30, donned a plunging monochrome dress for her afternoon at Morton's Club at the Nadezda Foundation's event

The retro-inspired dress also allowed Lindsay to subtly show her lithe legs, thanks to a thigh-high split.

A fabric belt around the waistline to accentuate her trim wasitline, whilst she also added a matching scarf to top the whole look off.

Adding a pair of black patent stilettos to the mix, the actress subtly accentuated her figure whilst also defining her legs.

Best foot forward: Always careful to put her most fashionable foot forward, the Herbie Fully Loaded star slipped into a fitted sleeveless dress

Monochrome magic: The flowing printed number featured a plunging neckline that allowed the actress to flash more than a hint of her bust

Sassy style: The actress (with L-R Hossein Tohi, Alessandro Grassini-Grimaldi, Hofit and Nadya Abela) added a pair patent stilettos to the mix

Wearing her famous flame-coloured locks styled in an centre parting, she let her shining locks fall around her pretty face.

Lindsay added a bold flash of colour to her look by adorning her lips with a slick of bright pink lipstick.

Nedezda, the charity which hosted the afternoon tea, aims to help children in Russia with health issues and a solid education.
She dramatically quit social media after complaining of the speculation over her relationship with Sasha Mielczarek.

And now that she's returned from the blackout, Sam Frost has hit her first red carpet.

The former Bachelorette showed off her very slender frame in a ruffled little black dress as she joined the celebrity guests at Cosmopolitan's Women Of The Year Awards in Sydney on Thursday.

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Red carpet comeback: Sam Frost attended the Cosmopolitan Women Of The Year awards in Sydney on Thursday

Sam, 27, paired her strapless cocktail dress with some strappy perspex heels that showed off a red pedicure.

She added a pair of black tassled earrings that stood out against her tight centre-parted updo.

Sam was in attendance after being nominated by the magazine for Radio Presenter of the Year which she eventually won.

She made headlines for deleting her social media earlier this year after being forced to deny, reports by New Idea that she had split from Sasha.

Hard work: Sam trains five days a week to maintain her svelte frame

Dramatic change: Sam has dropped 12kg since appearing on The Bachelorette

Slick: The radio host wore her in a centre-parted updo to show off her tassled earrings

'Social media isnt the real world,' she wrote on Facebook. 'The media isnt the real world.'

'Whats real is the time you spend with your partner, the challenges you work through and the unconditional love and support we have for one another.'

Sam and her trainer revealed the secrets behind her 12kg weight loss last month, after admitting to gaining a lot of weight while starring on The Bachelorette.

Nominated: Sam is up for Radio Presenter of the Year at the magazine awards

Larking about: Sam seemed to be having laugh at the event

Bachelorettes: Sam and Georgia Love share a joke at the event

In the house, we did absolutely nothing and we just sat around eating the whole time, she says.

I was eating chocolate every single day, and just heaps of bread.

Her PT, Blake Worral-Thompson, explained that Sam trained five days a week - three days of weights and two days of cardio.
Angelina Jolie is prepared to fight Brad Pitt in court to win custody of their six children.

Following the news Wednesday that the Ocean's Eleven star has been cleared of abuse allegations by the LA County Department Of Children And Family Services, a rep for the actress told TMZ she's prepared to present evidence to a judge that he did commit abuse.

Jolie doesn't want to share custody with her ex but Pitt shows no signs of backing down from his stated determination to seek joint physical and legal custody of Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 8.

Legal battle: Brad Pitt, pictured Wednesday night in LA, has been cleared of child abuse allegations by LA's DCFS but a source claims Angelina Jolie, right in 2015, still plans to fight for sole custody in court as part of their divorce proceedings

Law enforcement sources revealed Wednesday it had been decided that the 52-year-old actor had not committed child abuse when he got into a fight with Maddox aboard a private jet in late September.

Jolie filed for divorce just days after the incident and on Friday Pitt formally filed a response to her petition in Los Angeles.

A rep for the Maleficent star moved quickly to tell TMZ: 'Angelina said from the beginning that she felt she had to take action for the health of the family and is relieved that after their 8-week involvement, the DCFS is now satisfied the safeguards are put in place that will allow the children to heal.'

Back in circulation: Pitt, 52, who walked the red carpet at the LA premiere of his new movie Allied on Wednesday night, had remained out of the spotlight after claims he abused son Maddox, 15, on a private jet in September

Investigation closed: A rep for the actress told TMZ she's prepared to present evidence to a judge that he did abuse one of the kids if he continues to seek joint custody of their six children

Jolie currently has primary physical custody and Brad has monitored visitation.

Now that the DCFS investigation is closed, the former couple will have to battle it out in court if they can't come to an agreement privately.

Meanwhile, Pitt has made his first public appearances since news of the divorce broke six week ago.

Support: On Tuesday, Pitt was seen for the first time since the plane incident as he joined pal and Ocean's Eleven co-star Julia Roberts for an LA screening of the movie Moonlight

On Tuesday, the actor, 52, joined pal and Ocean's Eleven co-star Julia Roberts for an LA screening of the movie Moonlight, which he is executive producing for his company Plan B.

Then on Wednesday, he walked the red carpet at the LA premiere for his new film Allied.

He signed autographs for fans and also posed for pictures with his co-star, French actress Marion Cotillard.
Pregnant Natalie Portman reunited with her Thor co-star Kat Dennings at the Israel Film Festival Gala in Beverly Hills on Wednesday.

The 5ft3in brunettes acted together in Thor (2011) and Thor: The Dark World (2013), but they won't appear in next year's three-quel Thor: Ragnarok.

The expecting 35-year-old covered her bump in a belted white-striped gown featuring belled sleeves selected by stylist Kate Young.

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Gemini duo: Pregnant Natalie Portman (R) reunited with her Thor co-star Kat Dennings (L) at the Israel Film Festival Gala in Beverly Hills on Wednesday

Marvel muses: The 5ft3in brunettes acted together in Thor (2011) and Thor: The Dark World (2013), but they won't appear in next year's three-quel Thor: Ragnarok

The Israeli-born Oscar winner sported minimal make-up and wore her locks in a partial updo to receive the night's Achievement in Film Award.

Natalie - born Neta-Lee Hershlag - and her husband Benjamin Millepied will soon welcome their second child after five-year-old son Aleph.

Portman will next play First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in Pablo Larrain's biopic Jackie.

The sixties-set drama - starring Peter Sarsgaard, Billy Crudup, and John Hurt - hits US theaters December 2 and UK theaters January 20.

Baby on board! The expecting 35-year-old covered her bump in a belted white-striped gown featuring belled sleeves selected by stylist Kate Young

Natural beauty: The Israeli-born Oscar winner sported minimal make- up and wore her locks in a partial updo to receive the night's Achievement in Film Award

Solo mission: Natalie - born Neta-Lee Hershlag - and her husband Benjamin Millepied will soon welcome their second child after five-year-old son Aleph

Meanwhile, 30-year-old Kat covered her curvaceous hourglass figure with a black caped blazer over a matching high-low gown and stilettos.

The Drunk History funnywoman sported full make-up and lashes with her middle-parted shiny locks down.

Dennings - born Litwack - currently plays Williamsburg waitress Max Black in the sixth season of 2 Broke Girls, which airs Mondays on CBS.

While mingling inside the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Natalie greeted Sharon Stone, the recipient of the evening's Career Achievement honors.

Mourning JFK: Portman will next play First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in Pablo Larrain's biopic Jackie

Widowed at age 34: The sixties-set drama - starring Peter Sarsgaard, Billy Crudup, and John Hurt - hits US theaters December 2 and UK theaters January 20

The 58-year-old Oscar nominee bared her taut tummy in a black velvet pencil dress and open-toe heels.

The Restylane spokesmodel - who has three adopted sons - rocked red lips and a sideswept blonde bob for the film festivities.

Earlier, Sharon reassured her 817K social media followers and Hillary Clinton supporters with a peaceful post-Election Day message.

Goth for life: Meanwhile, 30-year-old Kat covered her curvaceous hourglass figure with a black caped blazer over a matching high-low gown and stilettos

Heavy-handed application: The Drunk History funnywoman sported full make-up and lashes with her middle-parted shiny locks down

'And the Sophie Doll': Dennings - born Litwack - currently plays Williamsburg waitress Max Black in the sixth season of 2 Broke Girls, which airs Mondays on CBS

'Let's not fight further regarding this election...the election is over. Donald J. Trump is our next President,' the Running Wild actress wrote on her Facebook page.

'[But] this does not mean that we will suddenly go into agreement with racist, anti-gay, anti-woman, misogynistic behavior or allow laws to quickly pass that undermine decades of healthy, thoughtful work for a nation that speaks to all of our rights.'

Also celebrating Israeli cinema was The Brink's Niko Koshet in a lacy LBD and matching court shoes.

All smiles: While mingling inside the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Natalie greeted Sharon Stone, the recipient of the evening's Career Achievement honors

Fierce after 55! The 58-year-old Oscar nominee bared her taut tummy in a black velvet pencil dress and open-toe heels

Evergreen: The Restylane spokesmodel - who has three adopted sons - rocked red lips and a sideswept blonde bob for the film festivities

'Let's not fight further': Earlier, Sharon reassured her 817K social media followers and Hillary Clinton supporters with a peaceful post-Election Day message
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Playboy model Ashley Kirk denied ever dating Geoffrey Edelsten, but now texts between her and the disgraced Australian millionaire have emerged to prove it.

And judging by the embarrassing text messages that have been leaked, their relationship seemed to be one in which she hoped to make a million dollars from a TV appearance with the doctor.

'I want to make lots of money,' Ashley, 26, says in one text, which Geoffrey, 73, has confirmed to Daily Mail Australia are authentic. 'So I never have to be poor ever again.'

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Leaked: Leaked texts between colourful Australian millionaire Geoffrey Edelsten and Playboy model Ashley Kirk (pictured) confirm they were in a relationship

Money maker: The texts - which Geoffrey confirms to Daily Mail Australia are authentic - show Ashley wanted to make a lot of money from a TV appearance about her 'relationship' with the doctor

Confirmed: Geoffrey, pictured this week following a trip to the supermarket, told Daily Mail Australia the texts are real but he did not leak them

Later in the text thread, the pair discuss an interview with A Current Affair, for which Ashley seemed disappointed to find that she would not be getting 'a million' for it.

'Any idea what they would offer... Hopefully it's a lot,' she asks Geoffrey.

'I wish It will be much more modest as a 20 minute segment of show,' Geoffrey replies.

'So not a million,' the wannabe actress asks with a crying face emoji, 'well that sucks'.

'Why ruin my name for less would it be half(sic)?' she adds.

Romantic declarations: The former couple told each other they loved them during the text exchange

Ready to move: Ashley was preparing to visit Australia with a pet and take part in interviews with Geoffrey about their relationship

Other messages see the one-time Playboy model slamming Geoffrey's ex-wife Gabi Grecko, who is believed to have become involved with the doctor after meeting him on a 'sugar daddy' website.

'I'm a great girl I really am,' she writes, 'not like ur ex she sounds horrible.'

Throughout the interaction, Geoffrey tells Ashley that he loves her, and she says it back.

Playboy: Ashley once appeared in the famous mens' magazine. Geoffrey claims he met her at a Sofitel hotel but would not say which one

The leaked texts also suggest that they were trying to arrange the transport of her pet to Australia, so she could be with Geoffrey in Melbourne, who gushes about his beloved home town.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia via telephone, Geoffrey claims that he did not meet Ashley on a 'Sugar Daddy' website, rather at a Sofitel hotel.

Geoffrey denied leaking the text messages himself, though admitted he had 'told many friends about them' and one might have leaked them online.

'She's a liar!' Geoffrey recently hit back at the Playboy model after she denied his claims they are in a relationship

'She is attracted to me because I've a lot to offer': Geoffrey explained there was 'sensational chemistry' between the pair, but Ashley told a rather different story

Geoffrey, who is 47 years Ashley's senior, confirmed to that he was dating the glamour model last month.

'We have a lot in common and there is sensational chemistry between us,' said the former medic.

'She's gorgeous, articulate and fun and is attracted to me, I believe, because I've a lot to offer,' he added.

Back and forth: Ashley denied she was romantically involved with Geoffrey and said she was 'upset' to be called a 'gold digger'

But following the comments, Ashley strongly denied she was romantically involved with Geoffrey - and demanded he apologise.

Ashley had told previously told the Herald Sun: 'I feel taken advantage of and I definitely feel used. I'm not going after a 73-year-old man. He's been going after me.

'He's made me look like a gold digger and I'm completely not. I'm upset about that. I never wanted money. I never said that,' she added.

Acting aspirations: While denying her romance with Geoffrey, the busty blonde said she was approached to play one of his ex-wives in a film about his life

In Ashley's version of events, Geoffrey first reached out by asking her to play one of his ex-wives in a film about his life.

When asked what he thought of Ashley's complaints about being labelled a gold digger, he responded, 'she is'.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Ashley's rep for comment and they declined to comment.

Geoffrey previously said he met Ashley, who hails from Michigan, on a business trip to America a couple of months ago.

Previous love: The wealthy senior met his estranged wife Gabi Grecko New York in 2015

Geoffrey met his ex-wife Gabi Grecko in New York City in 2015.

Daily Mail Australia later confirmed that Gabi and Geoff actually met on a 'Sugar Daddy', website which connects young women to rich older men.

Geoffrey says he met Ashley in Los Angeles, but the circumstances are not yet clear.

Meanwhile, it appears Ashley is just Geoffrey's type, with the businessman's estranged wives, Brynne and Gabi, being over 40 years his junior.
Suki Waterhouse looks to have mastered time travel.

The Burberry model channeled a '70s vibe in her double denim printed outfit while attending The Hollywood Reporter's Next Gen 2016 Celebration at Nightingale in Los Angeles.

The Love, Rosie actress wire a pair of flared, flower printed jeans with a matching denim jacket.

Rockin' it: Suki Waterhouse attends The Hollywood Reporter's Next Gen 2016 Celebration at Nightingale in Los Angeles

She added a large brown belt with blue stones around the edge and a ruffled printed shirt underneath.

Her blonde locks were darker than normal and styled in a messy and unkempt fashion.

She had her hair in a middle parting as she opted to wear natural looking make-up.

Individual: The Burberry model channeled the 70s in her double denim printed outfit

Her famous dark eye brows were of course perfectly shaped for the evening, but the actress only added a little mascara and blush to complete her look.

She added a bright pink handbag to add a pop of colour into her outfit.

Meanwhile the actress and model has been keeping herself busy with several projects.

The blonde beauty currently has four films in post-production.

Jonathan is about a man who leaves the office everyday at noon.

Say cheese: The Love, Rosie actress wire a pair of flared, flower printed jeans with a matching denim jacket

When he gets home, he goes to sleep. Every morning he wakes up and there is a breakfast prepared for him along with a video telling him about the second part of his day.

Ansel Elgort, from The Fault In Our Stars, is set to play the lead in this sci fi drama. Maze Runners Patricia Clarkson will also be in the movie.

She is also part of another sci-fi titled Future World with James Franco, Milla Jovovich, Lucy Liu and Snoop Dogg.

Signature look: Her famous dark eye brows were of course perfectly shaped for the evening, but the actress only added a little mascara and blush to complete her look

Billionaire Boys Club, which is due out later this year, is about a group of wealthy boys in Los Angeles during the early 1980s who establish a 'get-rich-quick' scam that turns deadly.

The talented cast includes Emma Roberts, Taron Egerton, Kevin Spacey and Billie Lourd.
Their film Gold is set to be released on Christmas Day.

And Matthew McConaughey and Bryce Dallas Howard coordinated in dark hued ensembles for the TWC-Dimension party on Wednesday night.

The bash, which was held at the Los Angeles home of Absolut Elyx CEO Jonas Tahlin, celebrated the cast and filmmakers of Gold.

Fancy: Matthew McConaughey and Bryce Dallas Howard coordinated in dark hued ensembles for the TWC-Dimension party for their film Gold on Wednesday in Los Angeles

The crime adventure film, directed by Stephen Gaghan, is about a businessman, played by Matthew, who wants to find gold in Indonesia.

Bryce stunned in a black Cushnie Et Ochs dress that featured a cut-out detail on her torso.

The one-shoulder frock was knotted above the left side of her waist, which accentuated her slim mid-section.

The 35-year-old actress paired the fitted number with Stuart Weitzman heels in the same tone, with no visible jewelry.

Classic LBD with a twist: Bryce, 35, stunned in a black Cushnie Et Ochs dress that featured a cut-out detail on her torso

The red haired beauty styled her locks with a center part and luscious waves.

Bryce lined her green eyes with copper shadow, adding pink lip gloss and peach hued blush on her cheeks.

Matthew, 47, looked ruggedly handsome at the party while wearing a dark suit with a heavy beard.

Showstopper: The one-shoulder frock was knotted above the left side of her waist, which accentuated her slim mid-section

Having a blast: Matthew, 47, looked ruggedly handsome at the party while wearing a dark suit with a heavy beard; seen with singer Carol Connors

Matthew added a white button up shirt with black dress shoes to round out his dapper look.

The party was thrown by the film's distribution company TWC-Dimension at the home of Tahlin.

The film Gold also stars Edgar Ramirez, Joshua Harto and Rachel Taylor.

Grining ear to ear: The bash, which was held at the home of Absolut Elyx CEO Jonas Tahlin, celebrated the cast and filmmakers of Gold; Jonas with Bryce
Dennis Quaid caught a flight out of LAX Airport with his new girlfriend Santa Auzina on Wednesday.

At 30, the French-Canadian blonde is 32 years younger than the 62-year-old Texan, who was carrying a guitar case.

The two-time Golden Globe nominee flashed his signature sly grin as he worked up a sweat through his grey polo shirt.

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Headed for a romantic holiday? Dennis Quaid caught a flight out of LAX Airport with his new girlfriend Santa Auzina on Wednesday

Old enough to be her father: At 30, the French-Canadian blonde is 32 years younger than the 62-year-old Texan, who was carrying a guitar case

All puffed out: The two-time Golden Globe nominee flashed his signature sly grin as he worked up a sweat through his grey polo shirt

Zero defects: Dennis hauled two other bags in his black skinny jeans, while Santa opted for athleisure attire topped with a white Adidas jacket

Dennis hauled two other bags in his black skinny jeans, while Santa opted for athleisure attire topped with a white Adidas jacket.

The Truth actor and the Montage Model officially made their red carpet debut as a couple at the MIPCOM bash in Cannes on October 17.

The May-December duo were first pictured canoodling July 13 at Montreal's Atwater Cocktail Club, and a month later Santa was calling Quaid her 'soulmate.'

Rebound? The Truth actor and the Montage Model officially made their red carpet debut as a couple at the MIPCOM bash in Cannes on October 17

So in love: The May-December duo were first pictured canoodling July 13 at Montreal's Atwater Cocktail Club, and a month later Santa was calling Quaid her 'soulmate'

Baggage: According to Radar Online, Auzina allegedly 'abandoned' her Ecuadorian husband Alejandro Jimenez and his two young daughters upon falling for Dennis

According to Radar Online, Auzina allegedly 'abandoned' her Ecuadorian husband Alejandro Jimenez and his two young daughters upon falling for Dennis.

Their whirlwind romance began weeks after the Fortitude star and his second wife Kimberly Buffington filed for divorce after 12 years of marriage.

Quaid shares fraternal twins Thomas & Zoe, 9, with the 45-year-old real estate agent; and he has a 24-year-old son Jack with first wife Meg Ryan.

Pictured in 2015: Their whirlwind romance began weeks after the Fortitude star and his second wife Kimberly Buffington (R) filed for divorce after 12 years of marriage

Blended brood: Quaid shares fraternal twins Thomas & Zoe, 9, with the 45-year-old real estate agent; and he has a 24-year-old son Jack (M) with first wife Meg Ryan

The Emmy nominee resumes his role as real estate shark Samuel Brukner in the 10-episode second season of The Art Of More streaming November 16 on Crackle.

Meanwhile, Santa's last known gig was modeling Christian Ghielmetti for Neiman Marcus fur coats at the Sofitel Montreal back on July 19.

Ready to binge? The Emmy nominee resumes his role as real estate shark Samuel Brukner in the 10-episode second season of The Art Of More streaming November 16 on Crackle
He has been playing the role of Sam Frost's loyal supporter through thick and thin over the past year.

And Sasha Mielczarek has now publicaly slammed the former Bachelorette's critics in a scathing Instagram post after she won the Cosmopolitan Women Of The Year 'radio star' award on Thursday.

Taking to the social media platform with a photo of his ladylove cradling her new trophy, Sasha wrote: 'This young lady is deadset off chops like a vegetarian! To all the critics out there who didn't give her the chance she deserved.'

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'To all the critics out there who didn't give her the chance she deserved': After Sam Frost (pictured) took home the trophy for Cosmopolitan Women Of The Year 'radio star' on Thursday her beau Sasha Mielczarek has slammed his girlfriend's critics in a scathing Instagram post

'YOU ARE WELCOME! 'Trumped' everyone #seewhatididthere #theysayatrophysaysathousandwords #wouldntreadaboutit #actuallyprobablywill,' he added.

Sam's triumphant win comes just one year after she took helm as a breakfast radio announcer at 2DAY FM alongside Rove McManus.

The 'critics' to whom Sasha refers includes rival announcer Kyle Sandilands, who hasn't been shy to share his disdain for Sam Frost live on-air.

Biggest fan: Sasha has been playing the role of Sam's loyal supporter through thick and thin over the past year

In January, Kyle took a swipe at Sam after predicting she and Rove wouldn't last longer than a year on FM radio airwaves.

'They will blame that poor girl for the ratings so they will replace her,' he commented on air.

'Where they have gone wrong with Rove is he just doesn't translate on radiothe problem is most of his humour is in his facial expression and you don't see it.'

From reality star to radio royalty? Sam's triumphant win comes just one year after she took helm as a breakfast radio announcer at 2DAY FM alongside Rove McManus

He's not a fan! The 'critics' to whom Sasha refers includes rival announcer Kyle Sandilands, who hasn't been shy to share his disdain for Sam Frost live on air

Back in April, Kyle told his co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson live on air that Rove and Sam's show was 'a waste of time.'

'In all honesty, if you worked over at (Southern Cross) Austereo and you had those Rove McManus figures ... it's just a joke,' Kyle said of his former network.

'I just don't understand why they've even got anyone advertising on their station. No one's listening, no one cares, why bother advertising?'

'That's just what I honestly think': Back in April, Kyle told his co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson live on air that Rove and Sam's show was 'a waste of time'

'That's just what I honestly think. It's a bloody waste of time,' he snapped.

Indeed, Rove and Sam's show has suffered ratings dips throughout its tenure, with the most recent ratings showing a 0.1 point drop of listeners in Sydney.

The pair finished sixth on the FM chart, while Kyle and Jackie O reclaimed the top position.

Slumping: Indeed, Rove and Sam's show has suffered ratings dips throughout its tenure, with the most recent ratings showing a 0.1 point drop of listeners in Sydney
Meg Ryan somewhat stole the spotlight on Wednesday with her remarkably age-free appearance.

At 54, the Hollywood actress rolled back the years with her taut visage as she turned out to celebrate Kelly Hoppen's 40th anniversary bash.

Sleepless In Seattle star Meg and 57-year-old Kelly made the perfect pair in all black, raising a glass to four decades of interior design, inside Alva Studios.

Frozen in time: Meg Ryan looked remarkably ageless on Wednesday night, as she turned out for Kelly Hoppen's anniversary party celebrating 40 years of her business

Actress Meg was effortless with barely a scrap of make-up and instead she relied upon her radiant skin.

She wore a slick of clear gloss to emphasise her smile, but otherwise looked natural as she chatted to her old friend.

Cloaking her figure, Meg layered up for a cold night in London and paired a fluffy scarf with a full length black coat.

Old friends: The Hollywood moviestar joined Kelly at Alva Studios for the bash

Youthful: Meg stunned with her line-free visage at 54 (left), barely appearing to have aged a day since her forties (right, in 2003)

The pair seem to have plenty in common, after actress Meg covered Architechtural Digest last month with an insight into the renovation of her New York pad.

She told the publication: 'I know it sounds crazy to most people, the idea of renovating that many houses, but I love renovating. I think it's tied to living the actor's life. As an actor, you are so rarely in control.

'You're always saying words that someone else has given you, standing in a room that someone else has designed, to create a reality that someone else wants to see.

'But with decorating I am in control. It's a chance for me to bring my vision into the world.'

Cute twosome: The pair matched in black, keeping warm even inside the bash

Meg's last film was 2015 drama Ithaca, in which she reunited with her Sleepless In Seattle co-star Tom Hanks.

She played Mrs Macauley to his Mr Macauley, while he also served as an executive producer and she made her directorial debut.

Previously, she took a four-year break from the big screen before returning with a break in TV.

Dismissing the idea that Hollywood is harder for women of a certain age, Meg recently spoke out about her vigour for her fifties, telling Porter magazine: 'I love my age. I love my life right now. I love what I know about.

'I love the person I've become, the one I've evolved into. In my life I've been scrappy as hell, but I feel easy with things now. I think that comes with age.'
She surprised fans with her dramatic weight loss since her days as Ricky Sharpe on popular Australian soap Home And Away.

And Bonnie Sveen, 28, stunned as she flaunted her svelte figure on the red carpet of the Cosmopolitan Women Of The Year Awards for 2016.

Wearing an elegant navy halter-neck dress, the television actress appeared to be all smiles as she posed for pictures at the Sydney event on Thursday.

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Can't falter a halter: Bonnie Sveen looked elegant in a navy halterneck dress with lattice pattern detailing as she stepped out for the Cosmopolitan Women Of The Year Awards 2016 in Sydney on Thursday

Bonnie, who now plays Layla alongside Jessica Mauboy on The Secret Daughter, accessorised her ensemble with silver pumps and jewellery.

The blonde beauty opted to wear her long locks out and blow dried with a slight curl at the front for the occasion.

Taking to social media, Bonnie thanked her hosts at the awards and posed next to makeup artist, Sherri Meissner, who appeared to be enjoying a glass of champagne.

She wrote: 'To bring @makeupbysherri and sit with @tylerwright and @bethanyhamilton at the #cosmowoty2016 that's my idea of a wonderful Ladies' Lunch.

'Thanks @cosmoaustralia and well done to all the winners and nominees.

Television star: The blonde beauty known for her roles on Home And Away and The Secret Daughter with Jessica Mauboy wore her hair out for the occasion

'A very significant day for women to come together and celebrate our achievements and unity,' she finished.

Meanwhile the Tasmanian actress recently admitted that she'd dropped a few dress sizes of late due to her love of yoga and Pilates.

The weight loss may come as a surprise to fans, as she's always been an advocate for everyone embracing their natural figure.

The Logie winner, who was a size 10 - 12 while on the show, stepped out noticeably thinner this year after starting her role as Layla on The Secret Daughter.

Side on: The 28-year-old actress accessorised for the event with silver shoes and jewellery

But in 2014, Bonnie revealed to New Idea that it was 'important to differentiate storytellers from models'.

'I think it's well established in the industry that the slimmer the better. Peers might suggest that, people you work with might suggest that,' she started.

'People at home [should be] able to turn on the television and see someone with an achievable look or something that is at least more of a mirror of themselves.'

She cited knowing it's 'about being happy' with not worrying about her fuller figure.
She's remained truly dignified throughout her involvement in Brad Pitt's divorce.

And it was another understated appearance from pregnant French actress Marion Cotillard, 40, on Wednesday night, as Allied co-star Brad returned to the red carpet.

Despite having her name dragged into the messy separation of Brad and wife Angelina Jolie through false romance claims, Marion has quietly turned her attention to welcoming her first child.

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Elegant: Marion Cotillard looked effortless at the Allied premiere in Los Angeles, showcasing her baby bump on the red carpet

As such, the exquisite brunette showcased her pregnancy figure when she hit the Allied premiere in Los Angeles.

She gave maternitywear a red carpet makeover, deciding on a chic, navy blue gown that skimmed over her baby bump.

Sans detail, the sleeveless dress simply featured a neat, sweeping train and a high collar.

Understated: It was a truly elegant, classic display from the French actress

Reunited: Despite being dragged into his messy divorce, Marion supported Brad Pitt (right) as he made his return to the limelight

Back in the spotlight: Brad returned to the red carpet for the first time since his wife Angelina Jolie filed for divorce

Marion confirmed her pregnancy with partner of eight years Guillaume Canet in September.

It was a simultaneous announcement, tainted by her denial about alleged relations with 52-year-old Brad, said to have taken place as they filmed the WWII drama.

'This is going to be my first and only reaction to the whirlwind news that broke 24 hours ago and that I was swept up into,' she said, referring to Angelina's decision to divorce Brad.

'I am not used to commenting on things like this nor taking them seriously but as this situation is spiraling and affecting people I love, I have to speak up'.

Close: Their on-screen chemistry saw the pair accused of having an affair during filming

Taking a back step: Marion denied any allegations of an affair in a length post in September

Acting: They play a husband and wife on screen but maintained a strictly professional relationship, off screen

She went on: 'Many years ago, I met the man of my life, father of our son and of the baby we are expecting. He is my love, my best friend, the only one that I need.'

Marion went on to wish Brad and Angelina 'peace in this very tumultuous moment,' in her lengthy Instagram response.

Angelina, who has six children with partner-of-12-years Brad, filed for the divorce the day after an alleged altercation between Brad and their eldest son Maddox.

On Wednesday, Brad was cleared attacking the child on a private jet; an incident which was at the time thought to have prompted their separation in September.

Married: In the film Allied, the pair are locked in a passionate yet suspicious relationship during WWII

Is she or isn't she? Brad's character suspects that his wife is a Nazi spy

Relaxing: During the Q&A that day, Brad seemed to relax slightly more

Talking shop: It was originally thought that the actor would cancel his promotional duties as his messy divorce gets more complicated

Actor Brad, looking drawn and visibly slimmer, returned to the red carpet that evening to thank his fans for their ongoing support.

He told E! news: 'It's really sweet, everyone has been really kind out here. It's really nice to have all the support.'

The red carpet was lined with baiting fans and Brad even appeared more relaxed when he sat down for a Q&A with the cast, later that night.

Brad was previously thought to have cancelled many of his promotional duties for Allied while his custody battle with Angelina rages on.

In his role: Brad has been heartbroken by accusations of child abuse, that he was cleared of on Wednesday

Talking shop: The actors were in conversation with director Robert Zemeckis

Glowing: Marion confirmed her pregnancy in September

Expecting: She is expecting her first child with partner of eight years Guillaume Canet

Dignified: She has wished Angelina and Brad 'peace' during their tumultuous divorce

In the film, he plays Canadian intelligence officer Max Vatan who meets and falls in love with French Resistance fighter Marianne Beausejour (played by Marion) during the second world war.

Max is torn when he is told that she is a Nazi spy and that he must kill her, and so their relationship is rocked by suspicion.

Promotional duties for the movie will be demanding on the pair, who also immersed themselves in photocalls earlier in the day.

Proving that the Allied appearances will be a consistent run of noteworthy sartorial displays for Marion, the pregnant star was this time hugging her bump in stripes.

She wore a drop waist dress with a band that sat just beneath her bump to emphasise her new pregnancy curves.

On point: Marion wore stripes for her photocall appearance earlier that day

Dressing her bump: She proved that her approach to maternity dressing with be noteworthy

Stunning: At 40, the pregnant actress looked remarkably ageless
She's been keeping a low profile of late following a busy year for her acting career.

And Sienna Miller was embracing a casual look when she stepped out in New York City on Wednesday, forgoing make-up and letting her natural beauty shine through.

The 34-year-old star was equally low-key when it came to her wardrobe, sporting a pair of loose-fitting tracksuit bottoms as she pounded the pavements.

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Natural beauty: Sienna Miller was embracing a casual look when she stepped out in New York City, forgoing make-up for her morning walk on Wednesday

Sienna wrapped up in a padded khaki jacket, knotting a neon trimmed scarf around her neck for extra warmth.

She embraced comfort in a pair of white trainers, slinging a bright yellow handbag under one arm.

The screen star blended in with the crowd as she sauntered along the busy street.

The British beauty, who has relocated to the US for her career, recently confessed she was considering leaving the US should Donald Trump become President.

Sportswear chic: The 34-year-old star was equally low-key when it came to her wardrobe, sporting a pair of loose-fitting tracksuit bottoms as she pounded the pavements

Following the Republican candidate's surprise victory over Hillary Clinton, Sienna is no doubt rethinking her life plan.

'I don't know if I can stay if it goes the wrong way, so I'm really hoping that Hillary comes through,' she told Variety.

'It was really funny initially until I realised [Trump's candidacy] wasn't a joke... I'm really horrified.

Out and about: The star blended in with the crowd as she sauntered along the busy street

'I've never been here for an election. I've never felt as invested in the outcome as I do now.'

Sienna's latest film is The Lost City of Z in which she plays the wife of real life British explorer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) who made several attempts to find an ancient lost city in the Amazon.

He and his son eventually disappeared back in 1925 in search for the city.
Only five weeks ago Rebecca Judd was giving birth to twin Tom and Darcy, with the help of her obstetrician and a midwife.

And on Thursday, the designer paid a visit to the doctor's office, with husband Chris Judd and their four children - Oscar, Billie and the twins - in tow.

The 33-year-old shared a sweet snap of the meeting with Dr Len Kliman and Cath, joking in the caption: 'We weren't expecting that when we started out.'

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Only the best! Rebecca Judd (C) shared a sweet snap to Instagram after a visit to see her obstetrician (second R) and midwife's (R) office on Thursday, with husband Chris Judd (L) and their four children - Oscar, Billie and twins Tom and Darcy in tow - in tow

In the image posted to Instagram, Bec wrote: 'Big shout out to the best Obstetrician in the world (and loveliest man) Dr Len Kliman and the awesome @midwifecath for delivering me four healthy babies in five years'.

'These guys make an incredible dream team and I can't recommend them enough,' the mother-of-four finished.

Bec gave birth to her two healthy sons on September 29, and has been proudly posting 'baby spam' since their birth.

In a post to Instagram, the new mum held her boys in her arms and joked that she'd forgotten who was who.

'Suns out, tums out': Bec gave birth to her two healthy sons on September 29 at about 35 weeks, and has been proudly posting 'baby spam' since their birth

The wife of former Carlton and West Coast Eagles captain Chris Judd wrote: 'What's his name on my shoulder and what's his name in my arms.

Adding, '(Just kidding- I know who they are)', with the hash tag: 'soz not soz'.

Ahead of giving birth to the boys, Bec noted in an interview with website Mamamia, that she was hoping she wouldn't have to see her obstetrician early.

'With identical twins there is one placenta and two cords. You know, it's one fuel tank growing two humans,' she said.

'What's his name on my shoulder and what's his name in my arms': Bec held her sons in her arms and joked that she'd forgotten who was who after giving birth to them only days earlier

'I'm going to put my feet up and stay horizontal and try and get these babies through to 34 weeks. All I can do is close my legs and hope for the best.'

But it seems all went to plan, with the boys arriving at 35 weeks.

Chris and Bec also have two older children - four-year-old Oscar and two-year-old daughter Billie Kate.
Elyse Taylor has shown exactly why she is one of Australia's leading supermodels.

In her latest photoshoot, the 30-year-old glamour posed completely nude in a hotel room for a new artistic series.

Flaunting her breathtaking physique, Elyse worked the camera angles and struck seductive poses as she sprawled across a mattress.

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Baring all: Australian model Elyse Taylor has flaunted her model physique while posing completely nude while posing for a new artistic series Hotel Rooms, by New York based photographer Will Vendramini

In one of the most dazzling snaps, Elyse reveals more than a glimpse of her ample assets as she gazes alluringly at the camera.

In a black and white shot, she goes topless while suggestively placing her arms behind her head.

In another photo, Elyse showcases her pert derriere and incredibly toned torso as she lays on the bed on her stomach.

The blonde beauty's locks were worn in loose waves and were tousled for that sexy bedhead look.

Breathtaking: In one snap, Elyse showcases her pert derriere and incredibly toned torso as she spawls on a bed

Her makeup was kept simple to showcase her natural beauty, with just a hint of mascara highlighting her eyes.

The mother-of-one was photographed for artistic series Hotel Rooms, by New York based photographer Will Vendramini.

The renowned photographer is currently working with models in different hotel rooms across the world, aiming for a 'very intimate and sensual' finished product.

Blonde beauty: In another photo she goes topless while suggestively placing her arms behind her head

'Elyse looks so pretty and natural on this shoot that it's crazy, besides her amazing personality and how great it is to work with her always,' Will said.

Speaking of his new artistic series, he added: 'It's a lot based on my working life, traveling and making those small rooms as home for a couple of days.

'And of course it's a lot of the girls that I've been shooting lives as well, so it's an interesting concept, trying to make them look similar but at a completely set up for each shoot.'

Natural beauty: Elyse's makeup was kept simple to showcase her flawless complexion

Meanwhile, it was revealed by Daily Mail Australia back in May that Elyse and her husband Seth Campbell had called time on their marriage.

Close friends confirmed to DMA that the pair - who share two-year-old daughter Lila Louise - had separated many months earlier, though remain on amicable terms.

After giving birth in March 2014, Elyse soon returned to work as one of Australia's most successful international models.

'Elyse looks so pretty and natural on this shoot': Renowned photographer Will Vendramini said he loves working with the Australian model

Discovered at age 18, she moved to New York where she was immediately booked by major labels such as Dolce & Gabbana, Bottega Veneta, Tommy Hilfiger, Moschino and Trussardi.

Since then she has featured in campaigns for Estee Lauder and Victorias Secret, and featured in the lingerie brand's annual fashion show with the likes of Miranda Kerr.

More recently, the model was appointed as the global face of Nude by Nature, as well as the face of new Seafolly brand Milea.
He is the genetically-blessed son of acting legend Clint Eastwood.

So it's no wonder Scott Eastwood had heads turning as he strut around shirtless along Sydney's Bondi Beach on Thursday.

With his hair still wet from a day in the surf, the 30-year-old actor showcased his ripped torso and bulging biceps as he strolled in the sun with his discarded T-shirt in one hand.

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Sun's out guns out! Scott Eastwood, 30, had heads turning as he strut around shirtless along Sydney's Bondi Beach on Thursday

His off-duty ensemble was complete with a pair of black designer board shorts and some square-framed sunglasses.

Scott arrived in Australia late last month to film his newest project, Pacific Rim: Maelstrom.

He is set to play opposite Star Wars' actor John Boyega, who will play the son of Idris Elba's character, who sacrificed himself at the end of the first Pacific Rim movie.

Off duty: With his hair still wet from a day in the surf, the smouldering actor showcased his ripped torso and bulging biceps as he strolled in the sun with his discarded T-shirt in one hand

Filming is slated to begin in mid-November at the Fox Studios in Sydney as well as some location shooting in Queensland.

Upon his arrival in Sydney, the hunky Hollywood star took to Instagram to gush about reconnecting with long lost pals Down Under.

Posing for a selfie with a pretty brunette, Scott wrote: 'Down here in Austrailia working on #pacificrim and look who I ran into. Dalia and I used to Bartend together back in my early 20's [sic].'

Staying shady: His ensemble was complete with a pair of black designer board shorts and some square-framed sunglasses

Down Under: Scott arrived in Australia late last month to film his newest project, Pacific Rim: Maelstrom

He continued: 'I travel with this shirt everywhere I go to always remind myself where I came from. Every time I put it on I'm reminded of the grind, working till 3 am in the morning, exhausted and still running lines in my head for the next day.'

'Then driving 100 miles up to LA that morning to audition. Never forget where you came from. Never lose sight of where you are going. I'm so lucky to get to do what I love. Make movies, for you all.'

He went on: 'Thanks to all of my fans, without you it wouldn't be possible. Follow your dreams people!!! Also thanks to my old boss Matt Spencer for hiring me when I was a 21 year old punk. Sending out love to all my old #firehouse crew. #thegrind #hustle #stayhumble.'
He's the Australian Olympic gold medallist who spent his teen years in the pool, training to be a world champion swimmer.

But in an episode of Silvia's Italian Table, Ian Thorpe told celebrity chef Silvia Colloca what he would tell his younger self in hindsight.

Thorpe spoke openly about what he'd write in a letter to himself and also touched on his views about same-sex marriage - almost two years after revealing he's gay.

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What would you tell your 15-year-old self? Australian swimmer, Ian Thorpe, has revealed that he would tell his younger self to 'enjoy growing up' and 'not to be too hard on himself'

Appearing on the show along with actress Pia Miranda and former politician and Ambassador to Italy Amanda Vanstone, Silvia asked: 'What would you write to the 15-year-old Ian, who was just Ian at that point and then all of a sudden became Ian Thorpe?'

'I think I'd make sure that I'm not too hard on myself growing up and I'd also tell myself to enjoy, you know, these moments more as they're happening.

'You know, competitions and things like that, because I was always thinking of "Oh, what's next?" rather than, "What's now?",' he admitted

The 34-year-old, was then questioned on what he would change in Australian society.

Here, he touched on the issue of people hiding behind their 'perfect' social media personas and how it's making us a nastier society.

'I think we could all be a little kinder to each,' he started.

Dinner party: Speaking to ABC's Silvia Colloca on Silvia's Italian Table, Ian was joined by actress Pia Miranda and former politician and Ambassador to Italy Amanda Vanstone

'I think we could all be a little kinder to each': Ian also touched on what he would change in Australia and mentioned that a plebiscite for same-sex marriage would cause a divide

'It's part of the issue with social media. We project the best image of ourselves rather than the realistic one  people start to think that this is a reality that isn't true.

'I think we should embrace life a little bit more in all of its aspects,' he added.

Thorpe also touched on the subject of same-sex marriage during the cooking chat show, saying: 'The vast majority of people now support gay marriage'.

However, he added that a plebiscite would 'divide' the community.

'Enjoy these moments': Thorpe admitted he was always looking ahead to the next competition than enjoying the now and life's moments (Pictured with his bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics)

The national icon, affectionately known as Thorpedo, made headlines in 2014 when he came out as gay in 2014 - admitting he had struggled with his sexuality for many years.

After years of denying his homosexuality, Thorpe told the world he was gay in an interview with British talk show host Michael Parkinson.

'I'm comfortable saying I'm a gay man,' he stated.

'I don't want people to feel the same way I did. You can grow up, you can be comfortable and you can be gay.

'What's next': Thorpe pictured in 1997 made his national debut at the Pan Pacific Swim Championships in Japan (pictured)

'I'd make sure that I'm not too hard on myself': Although Thorpe was a champion swimmer at a young age, he revealed he may have been a bit harsh on himself growing up (Pictured with Grant Hackett in 1997)

'I am telling the world that I am gay  and I hope this makes it easier for others now, and even if you've held it in for years, it feels easier to get it out,' he added.

Now, Thorpe - who never had a boyfriend prior to his tell-all interview - is currently dating 26-year-old Ryan Channing.

The pair were first pictured kissing and holding hands with in Sydney in February.

Months later the pair shared loved-up snaps from the Rio Olympics where Thorpe gushed that life with his younger partner made him very happy.

'I don't want people to feel the same way I did': The 34-year-old revealed he is gay in 2014 in an interview with British talk show host Michael Parkinson and is now dating Ryan Channing (right)

'Things are good,' he said to Daily Mail Australia from Rio, where he was filming Optus' new six part Olympic series, In the Pool With Ian Thorpe.

'Things are going well ... I'm really happy and have been for a while.'

Ryan hails from Perth in Western Australia and is now based in Sydney.

In addition to law studies and modelling, he also volunteers at North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club.
Fans of the Harry Potter franchise are eagerly awaiting the release of prequel Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them when it hits cinemas next week.

And star of the movie Eddie Redmayne has revealed one of the rehearsal tactics he employed to make sure he was delivering a convincing performance for the Harry Potter enthusiasts.

Speaking to TimeOut ahead of his panel discussion on Wednesday at the Apple Store Soho in New York, the 34-year-old revealed that he spent a lot of time talking to himself on the London underground, pretending to speak to the magical characters that appear in the film.

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Chit-chat: Eddie Redmayne and Ezra Miller speak among themselves at the Fantastic Beasts panel discussion on Wednesday at the Apple Store Soho in New York

Fantastic cast: Eddie was joined on stage by (L-R) Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, Katherine Waterston and Ezra Miller after discussing how he rehearsed for the role while on the tube

The star, who plays the character of Newt Scamander in the movie, elaborated on the fact that the creatures in the story were added during post-production.

'Sometimes wed have almost War Horse-style puppets for the rehearsal. But it varied, and sometimes it just involved having little Pickett the Bowtruckle, who is a stick insect, and he would be on my hand.

'Id be on the tube in London, imagining talking to this thing, and suddenly realise Im being stared at.

Slumming it: 'Id be on the tube in London, imagining talking to this thing, and suddenly realise Im being stared at, Eddie added

Success secrets: The 34-year-old said 'Id be on the tube in London, imagining talking to this thing, and suddenly realise Im being stared at'

Wand wrist: Eddie explained that 'there were injuries  wand wrist, wizard elbow. We were doing these huge wizard duels, throwing your arm around left, right and centre'

The star of The Danish Girl shot Fantastic Beasts in London - despite its New York setting - and declared that he prefers commuting to the set on the underground or on a bike.

' I take the tube! Whats the other option in London?' he said. 'This morning they sent a car and it took an hour to go half a mile to get here. On the tube, it would have taken ten minutes.

Stylish: Eddie shared a joke with his co-stars, laughing with beautiful actresses Katherine Waterston (centre) and Alison Sudol (far left)

The revelation comes as USA Today reported Eddie 'can't travel anywhere without his wand'.

Asked when he finally felt comfortable using the magical stick, he said: 'It's consistently weird but also only weird to begin with because everything is so exciting, getting to jump into all those experiences.

'Then it becomes very natural very quickly. I took my wand everywhere. I have it in my case upstairs; I just can't travel without it.'

'My wand is made of ash wood and then made of a shell at the bottom, a bit of mother of pearl.'

All smiles: Fellow cast member Alison, who plays Queenie Goldstein, wore a long patterned dress, in olive, black and violet, with a pink floral design and a bow at the front

'And there were injuries  wand wrist, wizard elbow. We were doing these huge wizard duels, throwing your arm around left, right and centre.

Eddie and some of his co-stars appeared at a panel discussion at the Apple Store Soho to chat about the movie.

He was joined on stage by Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, Katherine Waterston and Ezra Miller looking typically stylish in a slim-fit charcoal suit, with a light grey wool tie and a neat silvery handkerchief tucked into his blazer pocket.

The charming father-of-one shared a joke with his co-stars, laughing with beautiful actresses Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol.

American star Katherine, 36 - who plays Porpentina Goldstein in the film - sported a clean look as she wore a cream sweater embellished with ruffled sleeves and black skinny jeans.

Fellow cast member Alison, who plays Queenie Goldstein, wore a long patterned dress, in olive, black and violet, with a pink floral design and a bow at the front.

Cozy look: American star Katherine, 36 - who plays Porpentina Goldstein in the film - sported a clean look as she wore a cream sweater embellished with ruffled sleeves and black skinny jeans

The 31-year-old finished the look off with stylish black heels as she answered questions at the event.

Eddie's character Newt is a wizard who inadvertently unleashes a plague of magical beasts on the city of New York - seventy years before Harry Potter reads his book at Hogwarts.

On taking on the role in the mega-franchise, the star of The Theory Of Everything revealed that being offered the role without having to audition excelled the pressure he felt playing the part.

'With the thrill comes the paranoia that youre going to get fired after day one,' he explained. 'I was convinced I would lose the job. This is how neurotic actors work! But certainly fear is always there. Its what makes you work harder.'

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them hits screens on November 17.
She's had a busy year having divorced her ex-husband, given birth and starred in box-office smash Deadpool.

And Morena Baccarin, 37, looked radiant on the red carpet at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in Mexico City, on Wednesday night.

The actress opted for a classy black halter-neck dress which fell midway between the ankle and knee.

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Classy: Morena Baccarin, 37, looked radiant on the red carpet at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in Mexico City, on Wednesday night

She teamed the plain garment with a pair of black heels and brightened her understated look with a vibrant red lipstick and manicure.

The mother-of-two tied her raven tresses back, and her complexion emanated a healthy glow.

Morena posed with her hand on her hip before being joined by a busty gal pal whom she placed her arm around.

The Gotham star exuded warmth as she smiled, and decorated her chestnut peepers with minimal eye makeup.

Gal pals: The actress opted for a classy black halter-neck dress which fell to midway between the ankle and knee

Morena's pregnancy was much talked about, after it emerged that she was expecting a baby with co-star Ben McKenzie in September, two months after her estranged husband Austin Chick filed for divorce.

She first met Ben back in 2006 during her three-episode stint as Maya Griffin in The O.C.

The actress reportedly pays Austin $22K a month in child and spousal support for their two-year-old son Julius.

LA-based Chick famously claimed in legal documents that Morena became pregnant while they were still 'working on their marriage.'

A range of emotions: She's had a busy year having divorced her ex-husband, given birth and starred in box-office smash Deadpool

She and Ben welcomed their little girl Frances into the world on March 2 and two weeks later her divorce to Austin came through.

Frances was given the maiden name of Brazilian-born Morena's mother Vera, and Setta for her middle names, while Schenkkan is Ben's surname, he uses his middle name McKenzie.

The couple's Gotham characters, James Gordon and Dr. Leslie Thompkins, were also expecting a baby together on-screen throughout Morena's pregnancy, with the actress explaining that it was 'a total coincidence'.

She said in an interview: 'They were already planning on doing that with (our) characters when I got pregnant. When I told them they were like, "Okay, great!" and I was like, "What?" It worked out perfectly.'
Janet Street-Porter has branded Millie Mackintosh 'childish' for ruining her wedding dress in a bid to get back at ex-husband Professor Green.

Former reality star Millie is thought to have ripped up her 1,500 evening dress from the day she wed Pro Green and smeared blood all over it for a Halloween costume.

But 69-year-old Janet called the stunt 'horrible' when it came up in discussion on Loose Women on Thursday.

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Childish: Millie Mackintosh (pictured here on her wedding day to Professor Green) has been slammed for ruining it on Halloween to get back at him

'It's horrible to make a statement like that, it's childish,' said Janet, acknowledging the 27-year-old's jibe at her ex-husband.

Millie got a second wear out of the ivory Grace Loves Lace gown for the spooky festivities at Albert's in West London last month, but she defaced it to play dress as the jilted bride.

Chiming in, Ruth Langsford added: 'I don't like the idea of trashing a dress for anything.'

Fortunately, Professor Green saw the funny side when he spoke to This Morning's Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on Monday morning.

Hot topic: Janet Street-Porter (second right) slammed Millie for ruining her wedding dress when the subject of her Halloween costume came up on Loose Women on Thursday

Childish: Janet said that it was a horrible statement to ruin the dress, which was worn for the evening reception of her wedding to Professor Green

Blissful: Millie cuddled up to her new beau Hugo Taylor at the same Halloween party

Seeing the funny side, Professor Green - real name Stephen Manderson - quipped on Monday: 'At least she got to wear it again! It's hers to do what she wants with.'

He added: 'If you cant have a sense of humour... Divorce is horrible but if you cant look back at your marriage with any kindness then it was a mistake.

'If I was bitter about it then it would have been a mistake. We never got married to get a divorce we got married because we were young and in love.'

Millie reportedly joked that she wished the red stains were Stephen's blood when she wore the dress out on the night that explosive lyrics to his break-up track went viral.

The musician insisted that Millie's acts were not meant to be personal however, saying: 'Its not revenge - revenge for what?'

Moving on! Millie, 27, 'ripped' and 'bloodied' her 1,500 Grace Loves Lace wedding reception gown to create her Halloween costume

Transformed! An inside source revealed that she 'ripped it to shreds and covered it with blood splashes'

Bloodied: Millie was fawning over her new boyfriend Hugo that night

Lyrics from the no-holds-barred song include: 'Me an the Mrs we are getting along/Till I do something wrong - then it's another domestic/People wanna know what my life's like.

'Behind closed doors what's my wife like/It gets crazy in bed - We watch a couple episodes/Of a box set and and then it's night night.

'When she hears this s**t it's lights out/I'll probably get kicked out of my house/Till I come back with a brand new Chanel bag.'

Not letting the new track faze her however, the star remained in good spirits as she celebrated with new love Hugo Taylor, 30.

The original: Millie first wore a 4,000 Alice Temperley dress on her wedding day to Professor Green (above) at Babington House in Somerset back in 2013

Sprightly: Professor Green has since brushed off the speculation, as a laughing matter

The beauty first wore the stunning dress on her wedding day to the chart-topper, whose real name is Stephen Manderson, in Somerset back in 2013.

In summer 2015 it was then reported that Millie had demanded a divorce during explosive row in Istanbul, before the pair announced their separation in February the following year.

Millie has since rekindled her romantic flame with former boyfriend Hugo Taylor, who she first dated during her stint on E4 reality show Made in Chelsea in 2011.

Back on: The pair went public after the heiress was granted a 'quickie divorce' from the rapper, which dissolved the marriage in just 30 seconds

The pair went public with their relationship in May - after the Quality Street heiress was granted a 'quickie divorce' from the rapper, which dissolved the marriage in just 30 seconds.

In a statement at the time, they said: 'It is a mutual decision, we still care deeply about each other and would like it to be known that it is on amicable terms and we wish each other well.'

Not the only one moving on however, it was claimed last week that Pro Green has too found love again in model Fae Williams.
He is known for his presenting role on Australian music video program The Loop.

But Scott Tweedie, 28, will venture into the world of acting this week when he makes a cameo appearance on Neighbours.

The handsome showman is set to play the role of Jodi Anasta's on-screen ex-boyfriend Derek.

Acting debut: Scott Tweedie, 28, will venture into the world of acting this week when he makes a cameo appearance on Neighbours

According to Confidential, producers have been impressed with Scott's performance during filming, with a source claiming that it won't be his last appearance on Neighbours.

In the episode, which airs on November 18, Elly Conway (Jodi Anasta) will receive a text message from her ex Derek out of the blue, telling her that he is travelling to Erinsborough from Sydney to visit her.

According to Digital Spy, Elly will accidentally chat about the impending visit within earshot of her obsessive admirer Angus, prompting him to fly into a jealous rage.

Spoiler alert! In the episode, which airs on November 18, Elly Conway (Jodi Anasta) will receive a text message from her ex Derek out of the blue, telling her that he is travelling to Erinsborough from Sydney to visit her

Old flames: Despite Angus' attempts to foil the catch-up, Elly and Derek manage to rekindle their romance for a brief moment

Angus hatches a plan to stop Elly's date from occurring, asking his friend Piper Willis to send a fabricated text message to her from a 'parent' who needs a tutor for their child.

His attempts to sabotage the meeting fall flat, however, with Elly and Derek finally rekindling their romance for a brief moment.

However, the date soon descends into chaos as the pair launch into a bitter argument.

That was fast! However, the date soon descends into chaos as the pair launch into a bitter argument

Former Home And Away star Jodi joined the cast of Neighbours in April this year.

She told The Daily Telegraph at the time: 'I've been very much actively pursuing a major acting role. I have been doing classes and auditioning intensely for probably three or four months.'

'It is nice to be a working actor and know I've got a couple of years at the same thing and working with such incredible actors in this cast,' she said of her new full-time gig.
She's the self-described 'tough cookie' and mother to two Victoria's Secret models, Gigi and Bella.

But Yolanda Hadid has opened up about her battle with an illness which 'brought her to her knees'.

In 2012, the former model was diagnosed with Lyme Disease, an infection caused by bacteria spread by the bite of an infected deer tick.

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'This disease brought me to my knees': Yolanda Hadid, centre, is mother to supermodels Gigi, left, and Bella, right. and the self-described 'tough cookie' has spoken candidly about her battle with Lyme Disease

'I don't remember what it's like to be normal. I just can't pull it together,' the 52-year-old told Channel Nine's A Current Affair program.

The former Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills star continued: 'I couldn't read, I couldn't write, I couldn't stand in bright lights... I couldn't watch TV because of the sound.

'Life took me to my knees where I was praying and begging to stay alive one more day for my children.'

No definitive treatment or cure for Lyme Disease has been found.

Getting back to good health: After five years battling the disease, the 52-year-old says she is back up to 80 per cent health

'Life took me to my knees': Yolanda said she began to pray to stay alive 'one more day' for her children

Last year Yolanda revealed that Bella and her younger brother Anwar also suffer from the condition.

Symptoms include pain in the muscles or joints, fever, malaise, and chronic fatigue.

Bella's older sister Gigi is the only member of the family who hasn't been affected.

Yolanda says she is now back to 80 per cent health after her five year battle with the illness.

Bella (right) and her younger brother Anwar also have the disease, while her older sister Gigi (left) is the only member of the family who hasn't been affected

Meanwhile, the 52-year-old has been in Australian to promote Channel Nine's new website for women, Honey.

Speaking on the network's morning show, Today Extra, she revealed she didn't want her children to get into modelling at an early age.

'I was always very strict about the fact I never wanted them to work until they were 18,' she told the program.

'I didnt want anyone judging them on the way they looked.'

'I didnt want anyone judging them': Yolanda revealed she didn't want her children to model before they were 18 years old. Above, a throwback snap of the family she recently shared on Instagram

Gigi, 21, recently announced that she would be returning to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show this year, posting: 'See you in Paris!'

Bella, 20, will be making her debut at the show alongside her big sister, who walked in it last year.

Anwar, 17, signed with IMG Models earlier this year - the same agency that reps his older sisters.

Yolanda will share more details of her struggle with her illness in her upcoming memoir, Believe Me: My Battle With The Invisible Disability Of Lyme Disease, due out next year.
Her religious approach to health, fitness and general well-being has been rewarded with the kind of body many women dream of.

But while she works hard to maintain her physique, Elsa Pataky has given fans a rare insight into the methods she employs.

The Spanish actress, 40, gave fans an insight into her rigorous exercise regimen while appearing on Madrid based chat show El Hormiguero on Wednesday evening.

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This is how you do it! Elsa Pataky gave fans an insight into her rigorous exercise regimen while appearing on Madrid based chat show El Hormiguero on Wednesday evening

Joined by host Pablo Motos, Elsa performed a series of goblet squats and core strengthening hip raises while sharing useful tips on how to develop a 'pert behind.'

The super-fit star later slipped out of of her black stiletto heels while conducting a series of crunches with a large Swiss ball.

Elsa looked typically stylish in a silver camisole and fitted leather trousers as she chatted about her new promotional campaign for Women's Secret underwear before casting her eye over the world's largest 3D scanner.

Here we go: Joined by host Pablo Motos, Elsa performed a series of goblet squats and core strengthening hip raises while sharing useful tips on how to develop a 'pert behind'

Up and down: The actress put bearded host Motos through his paces on Wednesday evening

The actress also offered her opinion on the what has arguably been the most dramatic US Presidential race in recent memory.

Reflecting on billionaire realtor Donald Trump's surprise victory against Democrat Hillary Clinton, she said: 'In America it is clear that there is the American dream, and anyone can become President without having any idea of politics.'

Elsa, who lives in Australia's Byron Bay with husband Chris Hemsworth, also had plenty to say about her home-life with children India Rose, four, and twins Tristan and Sasha, two.

Sharing her secrets: Elsa's religious approach to health, fitness and general well-being has been rewarded with the kind of body many women dream of

Star attraction: Elsa jetted back to her native Spain for a promotional appearance on behalf of Women's Secret underwear

Candid: The actress also offered her opinion on the what has arguably been the most dramatic US Presidential race in recent memory

'My kids are like termites,' she joked. 'They destroy everything.'

Meanwhile Elsa and Chris are reportedly ready to splash out more than $8 million on the renovation of his Byron Bay estate.

A development application for alterations and additions to the Seven Mile Beach Road property was lodged to Byron Shire Council on 2 November, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin.
They were linked earlier this year after enjoying a string of dates.

And Vicky Pattison's former flame Jordan Wright has been spotted on a date with a mystery blonde last week, proving their summer romance is well and truly over.

The fitness fanatic has finally moved on from his flirtation with the TV presenter, holding hands with his companion as they stepped out in central London.

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Both moving on: Vicky Pattison's former flame Jordan Wright has been spotted on a date with a mystery blonde last week, proving their summer romance is well and truly over

Meanwhile, Vicky has jetted off to Australia for her dream job on Im A Celebrity: Extra Camp after being crowned Queen Of The Jungle last year.

The former Geordie Shore star - who has had presenting stints on Loose Women and This Morning - is set to join Joe Swash, Stacey Solomon and Chris Ramsey in the new presenting line-up, putting all her energy into the coveted gig.

Despite claims Vicky and Jordan are still 'secretly dating', a source told MailOnline the pair's short-lived romance actually ended weeks ago and was far from serious.

Single lady: Despite claims Vicky and Jordan are still 'secretly dating', a source told MailOnline the pair's short-lived romance actually ended weeks ago and was far from serious

Coming over all coy: The fitness fanatic has finally moved on from his flirtation with the TV presenter, holding hands with his companion as they stepped out in central London

'They had a couple of dates a few weeks back and are not together. He is free to date who he likes', the insider said.

It had been claimed that Vicky and the ex-fire fighter were deliberately keeping a low profile, but were still an item.

The Sun previously alleged: 'Vicky and Jordan decided to keep their relationship under wraps.

Summer fling: Vicky and Jordan were initially linked in July and were subsequently spotted on a few dates, but haven't seen each other in weeks

'Vicky is wary about her private life being played out in public again like it has in the past so has been keen to keep this one quiet.'

Vicky and Jordan were initially linked in July and were subsequently spotted on a few dates.

Vicky confirmed the pair were casually seeing each other when she joked that Casey Batchelor had gatecrashed one of their dates.

She wrote on Instagram: 'When your best friend EVER is in the same bar as you when youre on a date and you are literally so happy to see her you forget about your date.

'Temporarily.. SOZ, @jordanwright.92- youre lush! But @caseybatchelor1 is number 1, from day 1 Too much love for this beautiful creature!!!'

Short-lived: Vicky confirmed the pair were casually seeing each other when she joked that Casey Batchelor had gatecrashed one of their dates.
The Real Housewives star's Twitter has become a battlefield after she criticized those taking to the streets following the election.

Bethenny Frankel has spent most of Wednesday night and Thursday morning defending herself after she questioned the protests in New York overnight.

The 46-year-old found herself in the firing line after slamming the protesters and then mistakenly saying Donald Trump had won in New York when Hillary Clinton did.

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Twitter tirade: Bethenny Frankel has spent most of Wednesday night and Thursday morning defending herself after she questioned the protests in New York overnight

Upset people: The Real Housewives star's Twitter has become a battlefield after she criticized those taking to the streets following the election. She is pictured here in September

The business mogul started her Twitter tirade by saying: 'Crazy to bully & badger over the election. We & the media nominated them & we had the right to vote for either.'

The star then really offended people by continuing: 'This protesting is moronic. What is the government going to say? Just kidding. Do over??? The man did happen to win NY.

'People are burning flags. This is not a joke.'

When someone pointed out she was mistaken about Trump, the star claimed she was just typing too fast.

Kicking off: The business mogul started her Twitter tirade by saying, 'Crazy to bully & badger over the election' but then she really offended people by talking about the protests

Oops: When someone pointed out she was mistaken about Trump, the star claimed she was just typing to fast

Trying to clarify: Despite her slip up, the reality star continued to express her thoughts over social media

'She won NY so no reason to burn our city to the ground,' she clarified.

But the damage had been done with many questioning whether she understood why people are protesting with others pointing out her privileged position as a white millionaire.

One fan said to her: '@Bethenny multimillionaire white women haven't exactly been the focus of his vitriol for over a year so you wouldn't know their feelings.'

The other side: Some fans tried to explain the meaning behind the anti-Trump protests

Not backing down: Despite their pleading, Bethenny stood her ground over the issue

To which she responded that the commenter was also was white.

While fans pleaded with her to understand why the protests were happening, Bethenny, however, was not backing down.

'I'm sorry. Processing grief & frustration is one thing. This is another.'

Now we're here: The Real Housewives Of New York star woke to be inundated with comments - not all of them very nice. Bethenny said she was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth

After someone said protesting was a form of expression and her comments were 'moronic' the reality star bite back: 'Really? Cursing and screaming and fighting and burning flags is not productive right now.'

Not all fans were being as diplomatic though, it seems one may have threatened the star but the tweet has since been deleted.

Responding to the comment, Bethenny said: 'Oooooh I'm scared. Perhaps you're one of the imbeciles I saw today cursing, hurting people & burning your flag.'

Don't believe it: But not everyone was willing to accept the multimillionaire's started from the bottom argument

Look at yourself: Many pointed out that she was not considering her privileged position as a white millionaire

Despite then going to bed, The Real Housewives Of New York star woke to be inundated with comments - not all of them very nice.

'I will not tolerate insults. I started from the bottom & now I'm here bc of this country [sic].'

But not everyone was willing to accept the multimillionaire's started from the bottom argument.

Scary: Not all fans were being as diplomatic though, it seems one may have threatened the star but the tweet has since been deleted

When someone pointed out she was never at the 'bottom, she's white, the star responded quickly saying 'productive tweet'.

The star hit back at another who called her 'a typical white woman who was not thinking about those victimized by Trump' saying: 'Yes, I like to think of myself as a typical rich white woman. I lunch & shop & get manis all day. I bet you're very atypical.'

In another tweet she said: 'I'm lucky. I planted seeds & a money tree grew. Happens to some of us. I just sat on my a** & waited.'

Wide spread: Protesting occurred in New York - where up to 100,000 flooded the streets - Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston

Taking aim again at protesting, Bethenny said: 'Perhaps people should have protested BEFORE the election & maybe people are having regrets about not voting.'

After hours and back and forth the star decided to move away from the keyboard and start her day and, as she did, suggested in spite of people criticizing her seeming support for Trump, that she voted another way.

'Going to see my friend's new apt in pajamas, no bra look. I need a few days to reel it in.'

Protesting occurred not just in New York - where up to 100,000 flooded the streets - but also in Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston.
She set to star in the eagerly anticipated, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

And Felicity Jones looked every inch the celebrity as she arrived at Los Angeles' LAX airport on Thursday.

The 33-year-old actress flaunted her sartorial flair in a statement grey coat and tiny denim pinafore dress which showed off her long, lean legs.

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Touchdown! Felicity Jones, 33, looked every inch the celebrity as she arrived at Los Angeles' LAX airport on Thursday

The denim number skimmed her slim frame and she teased her toned pins in a pair of tights and funky flat shoes.

The collars of her frilled white shirt fell slightly over her stylish coat, which was unbuttoned and caught the wind as she strolled forth.

The Birmingham-born beauty tamed her luscious brunette locks with a pair of sunglasses on her head.

Her face was chiselled to perfection and her eyes sported just a flutter of mascara as she made her way through the airport.

Airport chic: The British actress flaunted her sartorial flair in a statement grey coat and tiny denim pinafore dress

Stylish: The denim number skimmed her slim frame and she teased her toned legs in a pair of tights and funky flat shoes

Sartorially savvy: The collars of her frilled white shirt fell slightly over her stylish coat, which was unbuttoned and caught the wind as she strolled forth

The Oscar nominated actress is currently starring in the mystery thriller Inferno and will also star in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story before the end of the year.

The British star recently revealed that she 'nearly killed' Tom Hanks while shooting a car chase scene for Inferno.

Felicity told chat show host Jimmy Kimmel last month: 'Was my first time driving an A-list movie star and nearly killing them.

'I'm at the wheel (with) Mr Tom Hanks sitting next to me and had to come out of this parking lot as you say in America... we call it car park.

'We were coming out quite a sharp corner... Italian are streets really tiny and my character had the biggest car they could find.

Stunner: Her face was chiselled to perfection and her eyes sported just a flutter of mascara as she made her way through the airport

'I was at the wheel': The British star recently revealed to chat show host Jimmy Kimmel that she 'nearly killed' Tom Hanks while shooting a car chase scene for her latest flick, Inferno

New flick: Inferno is a mystery thriller and is currently in cinemas

'I basically bashed the entire side of the car with Tom in into the side of the wall.'

Last year's Star Wars newcomer Daisy Ridley also praised her fellow Brit's upcoming portrayal of Jyn Erso in the new Star Wars movie and mentioned she 'needed no advice' for the famous film franchise.

Speaking to People Magazine, Ridley stated: 'Felicity needs no advice - she is a phenomenal actress and a wonderful human being.

'She is very graceful and poised and probably speaks far less than I do more interestingly. She's great!'

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, set for release December 16 release in the US and the UK.
Celebrity Big Brother star Cami Li has revealed she has been 'scarred' for 'eternity' after she was sexually assaulted lying next to her boyfriend.

Opening up about the horrific ordeal, the 29-year-old model admitted she was allegedly attacked by a 'friend's husband'.

Writing in her Daily Star column on Thursday, the former Ex On The Beach star revealed the fearful incident happened some years after she had a boob job aged 18 and joined an online group of women, who were on a similar 'plastic surgery mission'.

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Brave: Celebrity Big Brother star Cami Li has revealed she has been 'scarred' for 'eternity' after she was sexually assaulted lying next to her boyfriend

Although, the raven-haired stunner never met any of the women at the time, she claimed she got in touch with one woman, who she named 'Jennifer', three years later.

After much deliberation, the Puerto Rican born beauty and her boyfriend agreed to meet 'Jennifer' and her husband, who she referred to as 'Ken', for dinner in their home which was only 20 minutes away.

Having enjoyed their night together drinking wine and sharing 'memories', the reality star admitted the couple invited her and her boyfriend to stay the night, after she was unwell in the bathroom.

The US star then claimed 'Ken' came to her aid and helped her to the bedroom, before he repeatedly came into the room, and began to 'touch her inappropriately' while her boyfriend lay sleeping beside her.

Horrific: Opening up about the horrific ordeal, the 29-year-old model admitted she was allegedly attacked by a 'friend's husband'

She said: 'I remember holding my breath, hoping this was all a nightmare.

'The only way I can describe it, is it was like someone was holding me down, I was suffocating under a weight, I couldn't breathe, let alone speak.'

Admitting she was 'paralysed' by the incident, Cami bravely went into detail about her alleged assault, and wrote that 'Ken' thankfully didn't follow it further as her 'jeans were too tight'.

She admitted: 'The ordeal may've lasted a few minutes, it has scarred me for an eternity.'

Opening up: The former Ex On The Beach star revealed the fearful incident happened some years after she had a boob job aged 18 and joined an online group of women, who were on a similar 'plastic surgery mission'

Following the aftermath, Cami, who previously dated former TOWIE star Kirk Norcross, revealed she then woke up her boyfriend and asked to leave immediately.

As they made their way out of the gated community, she broke down and told him everything that happened, before he allegedly turned around to confront her attacker - leaving 'Ken' bloodied at his door.

MailOnline have contacted Cami Li's reps for comment.

Although, the raven-haired stunner never met any of the women at the time, she claimed she got in touch with one woman, who she named 'Jennifer', three years later

While Cami believed her woes ended there, she explained she later kicked her beau out after he questioned her whether the incident happened and asked to allegedly have sex, which she said was a clear 'lack of respect'.

Heartbroken following the terrifying events, the tattoo lover admitted her mother gave her an ultimatum, either she got in touch with the police following the fearful ordeal or she was going take matters into her own hands.

Although she insisted she spoke to the police, Cami said due to financial complications she wasn't able to get legal counsel to pursue her alleged attacker and eventually the couple moved away.

Cami revealed she decided to share the details of her horrific incident after Donald Trump, who made controversial remarks about sexual assault, still managed to win the Presidential election.
She got a beautiful new Rolls-Royce for her birthday last week.

But Kendall Jenner chose to take one of her classic cars out for a spin around Los Angeles on Thursday.

The 21-year-old model turned heads in the convertible red Mustang and flashed her shoulders in a revealing black top.

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Easy rider: Kendall Jenner took one of her classic cars out for a spin on Thursday

Kendall accessorised with a gold Chanel necklace and large hoop earrings.

Her long dark locks were scraped up into a bun and she sported some glam red-tinted cat-eye sunglasses.

The catwalk beauty was gifted a stunning Rolls-Royce last weekend by businessman Saygin Yalcin.

Off to the hospital? The 21-year-old model, who celebrated her birthday last week, headed out in her red Mustang as her brother welcomed his first child with fiancee Blac Chyna

Sexy seniorita: Kendall wore Are You Am I's Tiiu top along with a gold Chanel choker and large hoop earrings

'[Kris Jenner] played an integral role in orchestrating the gift of the Rolls-Royce from her close family friend, Saygin, to Kendall,' a source told Us Weekly.

'She was so excited and happy to be able to make it happen and loved that she was the one who could present Kendall with the keys!'

As Kendall took her sunny car ride, her brother Rob Kardashian, 29 and fiancee Blac Chyna, were at Cedars-Sinai hospital after welcoming their first child together.

They see me rolling: The brunette beauty got a Rolls Royce for her birthday but went for something more old school on Thursday

So chic! Kendall accessorised with red-tinted cat-eye sunglasses

'Pit stop': Kendall shared this snap with her 68.4 million Instagram followers

The duo named their daughter Dream Renee and were joined by Rob's mother Kris and Blac's mother Tokyo Toni.

Kendall's sisters Khloe, 32 and Kourtney, 37 were also spotted making their way to the hospital along with Kourtney's ex Scott Disick.

Kris, 61, said of the happy news: 'I got to watch [the] delivery,

'It was so beautiful and I'm so excited and happy to have another grandchild! No. 6!' she told E!

New book: The model and her little sister Kylie took to social media on Thursday to promote their new book Time Of The Twins

Coming soon: Kendall and Kylie's new books will be available next week

fasten seatbelt while seated A video posted by Kendall (@kendalljenner) on Nov 10, 2016 at 4:24pm PST

'Always sunny': Kendall shared a snap from the trip alongside a male pal
Don't mess with her.

Jaime King was escorted by a pair of Stormtroopers when she turned up for the launch of Rogue One: Recon - A Star Wars 360 Experience, at the Verizon Wireless flagship store in Santa Monica on Thursday.

And she tried out the Samsung Gear VR headset that puts fans in the helmet of a Rebel X-Wing pilot fighting the Empire in an epic space battle.

With her guard: Jaime King was escorted by Stormtroopers at the launch of Rogue One: Recon - A Star Wars 360 Experience, at the Verizon Wireless flagship store in Santa Monica Thursday

The 37-year-old certainly seemed to enjoy the adventure, smiling in surprise when she took the headset off.

The willowy actress and former model, who shares sons James, three, and Leo, one, with director husband Kyle Newman, is no stranger to the Star Wars world.

Jaime lent her voice to various characters in nine episodes of the cartoon version of Star Wars: The Clone Wars that ran on TV from 2009 to 2014.

Echoing the white armour of the Stormtroopers, she wore a white sleeveless top and palazzo pants with a faint grey stripe that were so long you couldn't see her shoes.

Looking out of this world: The 37-year-old wore a white sleeveless top and palazzo pants with a faint grey stripe that were so long you couldn't see her shoes

Joining the fight: The model-turned-actress tried out the Samsung Gear VR headset that puts fans in the helmet of a Rebel X-Wing pilot fighting the Empire in an epic space battle

Jaime smoothed her blonde hair back and wore it in a long plait that trailed down her back.

She kept her make-up simple with pale colours around her blue eyes and a pop of colour in the form of her bright red lipstick.

On Thursday, Jaime promoted the event by posting an Instagram snap of herself with her Stormtroopers on Instagram.

What a trip: Jaime certainly seemed to enjoy the adventure, smiling in surprise when she took the headset off

Thumbs up: The mother-of-two, who lent her voice to various characters in nine episodes of the cartoon version of Star Wars: The Clone Wars that ran on TV from 2009 to 2014, approved

She captioned it: 'STAR WARS FANS UNITE!!! Another blessed day celebrating with my @starwars family @official501st and piloting an X-Wing in-store at the @Verizon's Rogue One: Recon - A Star Wars 360 experience. Check it out!!! At your local Verizon store EXCLUSIVELY #sponseredwithlove'

Rogue One: Recon is available for fans to try at select Verizon stores now and will be on Facebook 360 on Monday and YouTube 360 on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is due out on the big screen on December 16.
The world was left in shock when the result of the US Presidential Election was revealed on Wednesday.

And Tammin Sursok's husband Sean McEwen has penned an open letter to the future Commander In Chief, 'imploring' him to 'be better' for the sake of his child and children all around the world.

In a message published online, the father-of-one pleaded with Trump to 'show my daughter what respect is' while also congratulating him on his new role.

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A message for Donald Trump: Tammin Sursok's husband Sean McEwen has penned an open letter to the President-elect, pleading him to set a good example for their daughter Phoenix

The post, titled 'A letter to the President-Elect, from a father,' was shared via Tammin's blog Bottle & Heels on Thursday.

The film writer and producer asked of Trump: 'Please, look at someone like my daughter. Think of your future leadership and how it will affect her. For she is a representation of all of our futures.'

He then likened himself to the President-elect, comparing his new role to that of a father's.

'Think of your future leadership and how it will affect her': Sean asked the 70-year-old future Commander In Chief to lead with love rather than hate

'Encourager, teacher, protector': The film writer and producer likened his role of being a father to the one Trump is set to inherit following his victorious election

'A father's role is as a caretaker, guider, disciplinarian, encourager, teacher, protector and so much more,' he wrote, adding: 'I want her to see all of those traits in you.'

Sean went on to say he wants his three-year-old daughter Phoenix to feel 'safe,' 'welcome,' 'championed,' 'represented,' and 'equal'.

And after what was a brutal campaign between Trump and Hillary Clinton, where countless blows were dealt that left the nation 'emotionally depleted,' Sean told the 70-year-old: 'It's time to heal. It's time to grow.'

Devastated: Sean's letter comes after his actress wife Tamming took to Instagram to express her despair over Trump's victory

He concluded by requesting the wealthy property mogul to be a 'beacon' for 'real' and 'positive change'.

'Be better President-Elect Trump. Be right. Be good,' he wrote.

Sean's letter comes after his actress wife expressed her despair over Trump's victory on social media.

'Completely broken': The 33-year-old actress simply shared an illustration of a broken heart, along with the caption: 'Completely broken. Our children....our future...'

Taking to Instagram, the former Home And Away star posted a simple illustration of a broken heart with the caption: 'Completely broken. Our children....our future...'

The 33-year-old actress is living in the US with her husband, whom she married in Italy in August 2011.

The pair welcomed their daughter Phoenix Emmanuel in October 2013.
Amber Rose paid a visit to BFF Blac Chyna on Thursday after the reality star gave birth to her daughter Dream.

And the 33-year-old TV personality was lucky enough to be one of the first to get a cuddle with the baby girl, the first child of Blac, 28 and her fiance Rob Kardashian.

Amber shared a photo of her cradling baby Dream and wrote: 'A Dream come true #DreamKardashian'

Cuddles! Amber Rose cradled baby Dream Kardashian while visiting new parents Blac Chyna and Rob Kardashian in hospital on Thursday

The curvaceous model is seen gazing down at the tiny tot who still has hospital tags around her ankles.

Earlier, Amber was photographed arriving in her customized Jeep at Cedars-Sinai in Beverly Hills.

She wore a white tank top, which showed off all her tattoos, with grey jeans.

Amber was one of the first people to congratulate the couple on social media, writing: 'Congratulations to my sister @blacchyna and brother @robkardashian on their lil bundle of joy!'

New arrival: Amber was spotted arriving at Cedars-Sinai hospital in LA

Dream was born at 9.18am on Thursday by c-section and weighed 7 pounds and 5 ounces.

As the news of the birth was announced, a source told E! News: 'She is gorgeous and has tons of hair!'

Rob was apparently 'giddy' with excitement leading up to the birth and his mother Kris was there to watch the moment.

'I got to watch [the] delivery,' the KUWTK momager told E! News.

'It was so beautiful and I'm so excited and happy to have another grandchild! No. 6!'

Paying a visit: Amber - who is close friends with Blac - drove up in her customised pink Jeep to see little Dream

Inked up: The mother-of-one showed off her tattoos in a white tank top

Covering up: Amber slipped on a cropped black leather jacket after parking her car

The proud grandmother added that it was one of the most 'precious moments' of her life.

Meanwhile, Amber hasn't had the easiest of relationships with the Kardashian clan, so it's anyone's guess how awkward her visit was on Thursday.

As well as Kris, Khloe, Kourtney Kardashian and Kylie Jenner were all at the hospital to meet baby Dream Renee Kardashian.

Booty-licious: The celebrity showed off her curves in skin-tight pale grey jeans

Awkward encounter: Khloe Kardashian - who Amber got into a Twitter feud with last year - also headed to the hospital on Thursday

Rob's youngest sister Kylie Jenner, who Amber once badmouthed - was also at the hospital with Rob and Blac

Amber - who used to date Kim's husband Kanye West - got into a massive Twitter feud last year with Khloe.

The tiff started when the KUWTK jumped to her younger sister Kylie's defence after Amber badmouthed her during a radio interview.

'She's a baby. She needs to go to bed at 7 o'clock and relax. [Tyga] should be ashamed of himself. He has a beautiful woman and a baby and left that for a 16-year-old who just turned 17.' she told Power 105.1.

'Bundle of joy': Amber was one of the first to congratulate the couple on Thursday

Blac shares four-year-old son King Cairo with ex Tyga - who is now dating Rob's younger sister Kylie, 19.

Khloe hit back on Twitter: 'Please stop talking about us in interviews mama. None of us talk about you'

When Khloe hinted at Amber's stripper past, Amber retaliated by bringing up Kim's sex tape.
New Chinese Interpol chief sparks rights concerns

A Chinese security official was elected president of Interpol Thursday for the first time, sparking criticism from activists who say Beijing uses the agency to track down dissidents abroad.

Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei was chosen as the new head of the global police organisation at its annual general assembly on the Indonesian island of Bali, France-headquartered Interpol announced.

He is the first Chinese official to hold the post, China's official Xinhua news agency said, and takes over from Frenchwoman Mireille Ballestrazzi.

China's Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei was chosen as the new head of global police organisation Interpol at its annual general assembly Roslan Rahman (AFP/File)

While it could provide a boost to China's campaign to hunt alleged economic criminals abroad as part of a much-publicised anti-graft drive, rights groups raised concerns that Beijing's intentions may be more sinister.

"Its worrying in the sense that for a long time, China has been using... Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad," William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, told AFP.

"We have looked at cases in the past where it seems that China has abused Interpols system to target particularly Uighur dissidents who, as far as we know, have committed no crime under international standards.

"Thats a worrying precedent that might be used towards people from other walks of life."

The mostly Muslim Uighur minority in the Chinese region of Xinjiang have long complained of religious and cultural repression. Many have fled the northwestern region in recent years, often heading to Central or Southeast Asia.

- Targeting fugitives abroad -

China has been seeking international help for its secretive campaign to track down alleged white-collar criminals abroad, including corrupt officials. Known as "Operation Fox Hunt", it has netted large numbers of fugitives.

However the drive has also proved controversial in some countries that say Chinese law enforcement agents have been operating covertly on their soil without the approval or consent of local authorities.

Amnesty's Nee said that having a Chinese official in the top job at Interpol could be aimed at helping in this campaign.

But he expressed concerns that the drive was being carried out through the Communist Party's feared internal watchdog, and with the use of its own investigative system that operates without judicial oversight.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang congratulated Meng on his appointment, noting China enjoyed "close communication and cooperation with Interpol and its member states.

"We attach high importance to the role played by Interpol, and would like to shoulder more responsibility and contribute more in the field of law enforcement and security."

After taking power in 2012, Xi launched a massive anti-corruption drive that has led to the punishment of over a million officials, although it has raised questions about whether the president is a reformer or is carrying out a ruthless political purge.
Trump triumph deals body blow to US brand

With his stunning election triumph, Donald Trump has emblazoned his name in golden letters on the brand of the United States.

The superpower of soft power that produces much of the world's most-loved music, movies and technology on Tuesday chose a president who is wildly unpopular in close US allies.

Trump's surprise election could have far-reaching effects for the US image with potential consequences for companies, universities and tourism.

Republican presidential elect Donald Trump stunned the world on November 9, 2016 as he rode a wave of populist resentment to defeat Hillary Clinton in the race to become the 45th president of the United States Jim Watson (AFP/File)

Still, the extent of Trump's impact remains to be seen. Most foreigners presumably can differentiate between politics and people, and America's best-known entertainers overwhelmingly backed rival Hillary Clinton.

The presidency itself has long been key to the US global image, with popular films and television series such as "Air Force One" and "The West Wing" depicting wise, principled presidents, and embassies around the world throwing election watch parties to showcase the peaceful transition of power.

The harsh tone of the campaign, and protests that followed Trump's victory, undercut that message this time, said Nicholas Cull, a professor of public diplomacy at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School.

"I think it's unsettling to audiences around the world, especially as part of Trump's approach is to be tough and to be rude around foreigners -- saying he is going to teach China a lesson, or that China has been 'raping' the American economy, or to say that NATO allies are not pulling their weight," Cull said.

"However, on the other side of that, I think people around the world are not stupid and they recognize an American version of a kind of politics that is occurring in many countries," said Cull, referring to the rise of populist leaders.

- US popular under Obama -

The foreign image of the United States has shifted sharply in the recent past. Outside much of the Islamic world, strong majorities in major countries have consistently seen the United States favorably since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, according to annual surveys by the Pew Research Center.

The enduring popularity of the United States under its first African American president was a marked change after wide criticism of the country among European allies following president George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Trump, a brash tycoon who has boasted of forcing himself on women and has no experience in government, has an abysmally low image in much of the world with Russia a rare exception.

The Pew survey released in June found that only single-digit percentages in US allies France, Germany and Japan were confident about his decision-making in world affairs.

- Blow to tourism? -

The drag on the US image could be particularly acute to the travel and tourism industry, which has been growing steadily with help from the marketing firm Brand USA, set up under a 2010 law.

The United States last year was the largest recipient of foreign tourists after France, with the tourism industry accounting for 7.6 million jobs directly or indirectly.

Trump has called for a ban on all Muslim visitors and a wall to block the border with Mexico, the biggest source of visitors to the United States after Canada.

While it remains unclear whether Trump can fulfill his promises, US visa rules are likely only to get more onerous.

Prospective visitors "will therefore say, why go through all of that, and will we be welcome anyway? Especially those from the Muslim faith and from Latin America," said Christopher Nurko, global chairman of strategy firm FutureBrand.

Nurko said European countries and especially Canada -- whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has laid out a welcome mat to foreigners including refugees -- stood in a strong position to woo foreign travelers or investors turned off by Trump.

US universities are also home to nearly one million foreign students, contributing more than $30 billion in 2015 to the US economy, according to government data.

Led by China and India, the international student body in the United States jumped 10 percent in 2014-15, its fastest pace in years, amid concerted efforts to attract students of diverse backgrounds.

"What you are seeing now is that the domestic identity of the United States, or of those who elected Trump, is starkly at odds with how the world wants America to be seen," Nurko said.

Donald Trump wins the US presidential election Laurence SAUBADU, Aude GENET (AFP)
Brad Pitt cleared over plane behavior: report

Brad Pitt has been cleared after an investigation into whether he behaved abusively toward one of his children, US media has reported.

The claims centered on an alleged incident with his 15 year old son Maddox in September on a flight from France.

Pitt's wife Angelina Jolie had said that Pitt intentionally hit his son, without justification, on the plane, the celebrity website TMZ reported.

Actor Brad Pitt attends The "Allied" Fan Event Presented by Paramount Pictures, in Westwood, California, on November 9, 2016 Valerie Macon (AFP)

Social workers interviewed the couple, their children and witnesses who were on the plane, TMZ said.

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services concluded Wednesday that Pitt, 52, did not behave abusively, USA Today and CNN reported, quoting a source that had seen the agency's report.

Jolie, 41, filed for divorce in September, citing irreconcilable differences. She is seeking sole custody of their six children.

Pitt is seeking joint legal and physical custody.
5,000 displaced since start of Raqa offensive: SDF

More than 5,000 civilians have fled their homes since the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces launched an offensive on the Islamic State group's Syrian bastion Raqa, an SDF spokeswoman said Thursday.

"More than 5,000 displaced people have arrived in regions liberated and secured by our forces. They are coming from combat zones through a corridor we opened for them," Jihan Sheikh Ahmed told AFP.

Supported by US-led coalition air strikes, the SDF launched the offensive on Saturday, upping pressure on the jihadists who are also battling Iraqi forces in their bastion of Mosul.

Syrians fleeing areas controlled by the Islamic State group are seen on the road on November 8, 2016, some 50 kilometres north of Raqa Delil Souleiman (AFP/File)

The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces, has been pushing south from areas near the Turkish border towards Raqa, seizing a string of villages and moving to positions about 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the city.

An AFP correspondent in the area has seen dozens of families fleeing towards SDF lines in recent days.

Many have been arriving in trucks and cars around Ain Issa, the main staging point for the operation some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Raqa, loaded down with belongings and in some cases with livestock including cows and sheep.

SDF forces have been stopping them a few kilometres (miles) from Ain Issa, checking their identities and searching their belongings.

Ahmed appealed for aid in dealing with the influx, which is likely to rise as SDF forces approach Raqa.

"We need international help because our capacities are limited and, with winter coming, there is no camp to host them," she said.

Raqa had a population of some 240,000 before the eruption of Syria's civil war in 2011 but more than 80,000 people have since fled there from other parts of the country.
Syrian opposition urges Trump to protect civilians

Syria's main opposition group has urged US president-elect Donald Trump to protect civilians and help end the bloodshed in the country, devastated by five years of war.

Riad Hijab, head of the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said Syrian civilians were in urgent need of protection from President Bashar al-Assad's regime, in a statement released on Wednesday night.

He called for American support to "establish peace in our region and to find fair and swift solutions for the threat of terrorism... especially the state terrorism practiced by the Syrian regime against the Syrian people," Hijab said.

Riad Hijab, head of the Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee Chris J Ratcliffe (AFP/File)

The United States leads an international coalition conducting air strikes in Syria against the Islamic State jihadist group.

Washington also supports certain rebel groups fighting the Russian-backed Assad regime.

Hijab congratulated Trump on his election victory and urged him to provide "the fastest and most efficient means to protect civilians".

The conflict in Syria has left some 300,000 people dead since anti-regime protests in 2011 triggered a brutal government crackdown that has prompted accusations of war crimes.

Syrian rebels have criticised President Barack Obama for not intervening militarily against the regime.

In an interview with the New York Times on March 26, Trump said he thought "the approach of fighting Assad and ISIS (IS) simultaneously was madness, and idiocy".

"You cant be fighting two people that are fighting each other, and fighting them together. You have to pick one or the other," said Trump, who has also pledged to improve America's ties with Assad's main backer, Russia.
China home to 9 million 'left-behind' children: government

More than nine million children have been "left behind" in China's countryside by parents who have moved to its towns and cities to find work, Beijing said Thursday.

The plight of such children, who are usually looked after by grandparents but sometimes have no guardians at all, is one of the most emotive consequences of China's decades-long economic boom.

Hundreds of millions of migrants have moved from rural areas to take jobs in urban centres, where their children would have limited access to schooling and healthcare under China's household registration system, forcing them to be left with relatives.

More than nine million children have been "left behind" in China's countryside by parents who have moved to its towns and cities to find work, Beijing says Ed Jones (AFP/File)

They sometimes see their mother and father only once a year.

A government census showed there were a total of 9.02 million "left behind" children in the country, the civil affairs ministry said in a statement on its website.

Nearly 90 percent -- 8.05 million -- lived with their grandparents, 3 percent were cared for by other relatives, and four percent were entirely alone -- almost 400,000 children.

Stories of those unable to fend for themselves periodically rock the nation.

In 2015, four siblings aged between five and 14 who had been left unattended by their parents for months apparently committed suicide by drinking pesticide in the remote southwestern province of Guizhou.

"The flow of migrant workers driven by urbanisation has affected the family unit and many parents lack a real awareness of their responsibilities," Tong Lihua, director of a Beijing-based legal aid organisation for teenagers, told the official Xinhua news agency.

The new 9.02 million official figure was in marked contrast to a previous statistic of 61 million children given by an All-China Women's Federation survey in 2013.

The civil affairs ministry said the decline was largely due to changing definitions, with the women's federation defining "left behind" children as those under 18 with one migrant worker parent, while the new census restricted the category to those under 16 with two migrant parents, or with one migrant parent and the other incapable of guardianship.
Sandstorm hampers offensive on IS-held Raqa

A US-backed militia advance on the Islamic State group's Syria stronghold Raqa was being hampered by a sandstorm on Thursday, a commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said.

"The situation is dangerous today because there is no visibility due to a desert sandstorm," the commander told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We fear that Daesh will take advantage of this to move in and launch a counter-attack," he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) patrol near the town of Ain Issa, north of Raqa, the Islamic State group (IS)'s de facto Syrian capital Delil Souleiman (AFP/File)

Speaking in Ain Issa, the main staging point for the operation some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Raqa, the commander said the sandstorm was also impeding visibility for warplanes from the US-led coalition backing the offensive.

Fighters in the area were covering their faces with scarves and journalists were being prevented from going to the front.

Supported by coalition air strikes, the SDF launched the offensive on Saturday, upping pressure on the jihadists who are also battling Iraqi forces in their bastion of Mosul.

The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces, has been pushing south from areas near the Turkish border towards Raqa, seizing a string of villages.

The commander said SDF forces advancing south on two fronts, from Ain Issa and Suluk near the Turkish border, were close to converging at a position some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Raqa.

"We have been able to cover a third of the distance that separated us from Raqa. Our strategy is to surround the enemy before beginning combing operations," SDF spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed said.

She said the SDF had taken 15 villages and hamlets since the start of the operation and were fighting on Thursday in Al-Heisha, a town some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Raqa.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that 20 civilians had been killed in a coalition strike on Al-Heisha.
World Bank projects 5.4 pc growth for Pakistan in 2018

Pakistan's economy is set to grow by a robust 5.4 percent by 2018 as Chinese investment from a multi-billion dollar infrastructure project flows into the country, the World Bank predicted in a new report Thursday.

The cash-strapped country, for years plagued by a bloody homegrown Taliban insurgency, has been battling to get its shaky economy back on track and solve a chronic energy crisis that cripples its industry.

But now confidence in South Asia's second-biggest economy is growing, with security improving and the International Monetary Fund claiming in October that it has emerged from economic crisis after completing a bailout programme, though it still faces major challenges.

Confidence in Pakistan, South Asia's second-biggest economy, is growing with security improving Rizwan Tabassum (AFP/File)

Pakistan recorded a 4.7 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) for the fiscal year ended June 2016, the highest rate in eight years, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has set an ambitious target of 5.7 percent for the current year.

He is banking on structural reforms, the improved energy sector, taxation -- and China's ambitious $46 billion infrastructure project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), linking its western province of Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea via Pakistan.

The World Bank report appeared optimistic about his plans, predicting even further growth in 2018.

"The pace of Pakistan's economic growth will accelerate to 5.4 percent in fiscal 2018," the Bank report said, observing that a moderate increase in investment mainly related to CPEC projects is expected to contribute to an acceleration of growth.

The Bank also noted Pakistan's efforts to address grinding poverty, including with revised ways to measure it.

"Based on the revised poverty line..., the percentage of people living below the poverty line decreased from 64.3 percent in 2002 to 29.5 percent in 2014," the report said.
Google rejects EU anti-trust charges over Android

US Internet giant Google on Thursday rejected EU allegations that it abused the market dominance of its hugely successful Android mobile phone operating system.

The rapsheet targets one of Google's most sensitive businesses, as smartphones become by far the dominant player over PCs and laptops.

"Android hasn't hurt competition, it's expanded it," said Kent Walker, senior vice president and general counsel of Google, in a blog.

The EU now has three cases on the go against Google Peter Muhly (AFP/File)

Google was responding to a long list of charges involving Android that Margrethe Vestager, the EU's outspoken competition commissioner, filed in April.

They include the claim that the firm used practices such as making manufacturers pre-install its market-leading search engine as well as its Chrome browser as the default in their phones.

"The response we filed today shows how the Android ecosytem carefully balances the interests of users, developers, hardware makers and mobile operators," Walker said.

Google's response comes a week after the company rejected separate EU charges over online shopping and its advertising services in a series of rulings against US companies that has raised hackles across the Atlantic.

The Android charges are seen as especially sensitive for one of Google's most strategic businesses that could alter a global smartphone sector which has taken over traditional PC's as the biggest segment in the world of computing.

The case only pertains to Android-run phones, with the European Commission not considering Apple's iPhone as a factor in the case.

- 'Into compliance' -

The EU in its charge sheet accused Google of obstructing innovation by giving unfair prominence to its own apps, especially its search engine, in deals with giant mobile manufacturers such as South Korea's Samsung or China's Huawei.

"No manufacturer is obliged to preload any Google apps on an Android phone," Google insisted.

Google is also accused of restricting manufacturers from installing rival versions or modifications of Android, an open source software operating system, on their phones.

The commission, through a spokesman, confirmed the receipt of Google's official response.

"As is standard practice, we will carefully consider Google's response before taking any decision on how to proceed and cannot at this stage prejudge the final outcome of the investigation," it said.

Google critics rejected the company's arguments.

"Google imposes severe sanctions on those who defy its insistence on conformity," said Thomas Vinje, legal counsel to FairSearch, a group that represents many of the complainants in the case.

"This is a problem that law enforcement can solve, by acting to bring Google into compliance with competition law," he added.

Complainants who brought the case to the EU include Yandez, a Russia-based search engine that says Google is stopping it from expanding beyond Russia.

They also include telecom companies that are looking to have better control of the Android software they provide on their smartphones.

But Google, which originally created Android, says limiting changes by companies to the system helps software developers so they do not have to make many versions of their apps to run on different versions of Android.

Developers of apps such as Spotify or WhatsApp, "depend on a stable and consistent framework to do their work," Google said.
Islamist extremists revel in Trump triumph

Islamist extremists have responded to Donald Trump's election victory with glee over his reputation as a loose cannon who has been openly hostile to Muslims.

The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, which is being pummelled by a US-led military coalition in Iraq and Syria, had said ahead of the US presidential vote that there was no substantial difference between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

But as the results came in, the group's supporters took to chat groups and accounts on the social media app Telegram to celebrate Trump's win.

The Islamic State group has not officially commented on Trump's victory but supporters took to chat groups and social media to celebrate his win

"Rejoice, he will show America's ugly face," said one post.

"I am optimistic about Trump's victory because he is a stupid, arrogant, hubristic bull who is dumber than (George W) Bush," said another.

"Trump's vulgarity will embarrass (Arab) tyrants and enlarge the field of jihad," one poster wrote on an Internet chat forum used by IS supporters.

They were apparently referring to Trump's proposal during his campaign to ban Muslims from entering the United States, and to disparaging remarks on Saudi Arabia whose monarchy the extremists loathe.

IS has not officially commented on Trump's victory.

Both candidates, Trump and Clinton, had "committed themselves to the Jewish state and the war on Islam", the group said in a pre-election English-language article released by its Al-Hayat propaganda arm on social media.

-'Cut their heads off'-

However, Clinton was "more skilled in 'political correctness' giving her leverage in the sorcery of hypocrisy".

On the other hand, Trump -- who has said he wants to "bomb the shit out of them" -- was "impulsive and unpredictable", the article said.

Some IS supporters found the whole idea of celebrating either candidate's victory scandalous.

"If Trump wins, it's in our favour," one wrote on a pro-IS chat group as the results were coming in, prompting condemnation from offended fellow Islamists.

"They're both tyrants and we just want to cut off their heads," another user, whose account profile features a scimitar, responded.

Extremists also celebrated news of anti-Trump protests in US cities.

"Praise God, may He increase this," read one comment about a video apparently showing Trump opponents assaulting a supporter of the president-elect.

Another IS supporter posted an appeal on a chat forum for fellow users to tweet "racist" pro and anti-Trump messages.

"If we can inflame the dissension and troubles in their countries maybe they'll withdraw" from the self-styled IS caliphate in Iraq and Syria, he wrote.

Al-Qaeda ideologue Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, who is based in Jordan, played up the division in American society over Trump's victory.

"Trump's rule may be the beginning of a split in the United States and the era of its disintegration," he wrote on Twitter.

In contrast to the small minority of extremists, many Muslims in the United States and elsewhere have reacted with horror on social media to Trump's victory.

"I'm sorry to all the Americans and my fellow Muslims #Trump sorry you have to tolerate such an idiot. #pray," one wrote on Twitter.
US climate pledges likely to go unmet: study

The United States will likely fail to meet its pledges under the landmark Paris climate pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, analysts said Thursday on the margin of UN climate talks.

Even if president-elect Donald Trump does not reverse policies already put in place by Barack Obama -- and that is a big 'if' -- US emissions of heat-trapping gases would remain stable over the next 15 years, badly missing the target, the experts said in a report.

"With no additional policies, emissions in the US will be flat until 2030," said Niklas Hohne, director of the NewClimate Institute in Cologne, Germany and co-author of the analysis.

With no change from current policies, the global thermometer would rise about 3.6C (6.5F) by century's end, a recipe for climate catastrophe, scientists say Patrik Stollarz (AFP/File)

Under the Paris Agreement, which went into force last week, the United States committed to slash its carbon pollution by 26-28 percent, as measured against a 2005 benchmark.

If Trump carries out threats to unwind the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, these emissions could be even higher, Hohne said.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton vowed to continue Obama's policies, and would have had at least a chance of meeting the Paris goals through executive action, experts say.

It is highly uncertain whether Obama's long-term objective of slashing economy-wide emission 80 percent by mid-century will be maintained by the new administration.

Trump has described global warming as a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese government, and has said at different times that he would "renegotiate" or "cancel" the 196-nation deal.

The country-by-country analysis of the world's biggest CO2 emitters, updated from last year, found that average global temperatures would rise by 2.8 degrees Celsius (5.0 Fahrenheit) if all nations fully carry out their emissions reduction pledges.

With no change from current policies, the global thermometer would rise about 3.6C (6.5F) by century's end, a recipe for climate catastrophe, scientists say.

Already with barely 1.0C (1.8F) of warming, the world has seen an uptick in deadly storms, droughts, heatwaves and flooding caused by unusually heavy rains.

- Leadership role up for grabs -

Nations must seriously boost efforts to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels if the Paris pact's goal of holding global warming to below 2.0C (3.6F) are to be met, said Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, who also co-authored the report.

"Not much change has happened in the level of ambition being put forward by countries" since the deal was inked in the French capital last December, he said.

But developments in China and India are "encouraging," he added, with both countries moving away from carbon-intensive coal to renewables.

China has cut coal consumption for three years running, massively developed solar and wind energy, and is boosting electric vehicles.

"With the election of Donald Trump, the position of global leader on climate is open," said Hohne.

China, he added, could well fill that slot.

A research note from HSBC released Wednesday made much the same point: "The result puts the US leadership in the global climate policy arena in doubt."

But other experts said the US transition away from fossil fuels is too far advanced to reverse.

"Trump's victory will take the Federal government out of the game," said Alden Meyer, a veteran climate expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"But it won't stop the trend towards the clean energy economy."

Tax credits in the US for wind and solar energy installation were recently extended for five years.
Tycoon as president: Donald Trump's conflicts of interest

Head of a business empire and now US president: by combining these two roles, billionaire Donald Trump could face conflicts of interest of an scale unprecedented in American political history.

The Republican elected to the White House Tuesday made his fortune by building a network of hotels, office towers and luxury apartment buildings as the head of the Trump Organization.

His real estate empire is primarily located in the United States, but also extends to countries such as South Korea and Turkey. Managing political relations with such US allies while president risks creating a curious mix of competing goals.

Republican Donald Trump was elected US president over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on November 8, 2016 Saul Loeb (AFP/File)

The Trump Organization is not publicly traded, so many of its activities are closed to scrutiny. But US media have reported it has financial ties with people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who the real estate mogul praised leadership during his campaign.

"For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia," Trump tweeted in July.

The potential for conflicts of interest from Trump's business activities are not limited to countries like Russia. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump has received some $2.5 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank since 1998.

But US regulators are currently in negotiations with the German bank over imposing a possibly multi-billion dollar fine for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. This raises questions about how the Trump administration will react if it inherits the case, and whether the new president's business interests will be considered.

- 'Unprecedented' -

Accusations of conflicts of interest are not new in US politics. They tainted the administration of president George W. Bush, whose vice president Dick Cheney, until his appointment in 2000, headed the Halliburton oil services and logistics company, which went on to win lucrative contracts in Iraq after the US invasion.

But the problem takes on another dimension with Trump, whose name is inextricably tied to his business empire.

"It's unprecedented in the history of the US in part because we don't know the scope or the nature of his many financial ties in particular," Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told AFP.

She said one ethical point of particular concern is that Trump financed his company's expansion through debt.

"We don't know to whom he owes money. In some ways owing money is a much more significant financial contact than an investment," she said.

Trump so far has not spoken much about his potential conflicts of interest. Possibly because few imagined he would end up in the Oval Office, but also perhaps because US laws on the issue are flexible when it comes to the president.

Under current law, while non-elected members of the US administration face stringent constraints on their business activities, those rules do not apply to the president or vice president.

Although the US Constitution prohibits any politician from accepting any "fee" from a foreign power, there is no prohibition on doing business with private partners abroad.

Trump had pledged during the campaign to entrust his business to a blind trust which would wall him off from any say in the company's activities.

But the tycoon added that this would put the company under the control of three of his children who already are executive vice presidents of the Trump Organization.

Is that really enough to separate a President Trump away from his business empire?

"We're not going to discuss those things ... Trust me. As you know, it's a very full-time job. He doesn't need to worry about the business," son Donald Trump Jr said in September of his father's becoming US president.

Another world leader used the same strategy. After his first election in 1994 as head of the Italian government, Silvio Berlusconi entrusted the management of his media empire to his family. But that did not prevent persistent criticisms over conflict of interest.

Donald Trump: the path to the presidency

Donald Trump made his fortune by building a network of hotels, office towers and luxury apartment buildings Saul Loeb (AFP/File)
Gambian president submits candidacy for fifth term

The Gambia's controversial leader Yahya Jammeh on Thursday submitted his candidacy to seek a fifth term in December's presidential election, saying he would listen only to God for guidance in governing.

Jammeh, 51, took power in a bloodless coup in 1994 and has run the country with an iron fist ever since, surviving successive coup attempts by consolidating his power at every level of society.

After submitting the required documentation to the electoral commission, Jammeh told its chairman: "No matter what people say about me, I am not moved... I don't listen to anybody because I know what is important.

President of Gambia Al Hadji Yahya Jammeh, pictured in 2014, took power in 1994 and has run the country with an iron fist ever since, surviving successive coup attempts by consolidating his power at every level of society Don Emmert (AFP/File)

"It is between me and God Almighty."

He had harsh words for his critics, or even putative advisors, adding: "You want to listen to everybody and satisfy everybody, you will end up satisfying the evil people.

"Do what is right. Make sure you satisfy the Almighty Allah."

The president went on to present a policy platform of free education and healthcare for all, adding that his government believed especially in empowering women.

The Gambia has made great progress in the last 20 years in improving literacy and child mortality rates, and the president has in the last year banned child marriage and female genital mutilation.

But his record on civil liberties is less impressive: he has promised to bury critics "nine feet deep" and told the UN Secretary-General to "go to hell" after Ban Ki-moon called for an investigation into an activist's death in custody.

Intimidation of opposition parties, media repression and politicised security forces have "all but extinguished" the chance of a free and fair election in the Gambia, Human Rights Watch said in a report this month.

Jammeh has attracted worldwide attention for declaring the Gambia an Islamic state, withdrawing the country from the International Criminal Court, and claiming he had concocted a herbal cure for HIV/AIDS.

Gambian opposition parties have decided to join forces to field a single candidate, Adama Barrow, to take on Jammeh on December 1.
Israeli-Arab mayor: 'I taught Trump all he knows'

An Israeli mayor said Thursday he taught Donald Trump how to win elections, despite never having met him.

"It is a fact that Trump learned from me, he learned everything from me," Ali Salam, the Muslim mayor of the largely Arab-Israeli city of Nazareth in northern Israel, told local radio.

One of his claims seemed to be that after victory Trump told supporters "I love you, I love you, I love you," a phrase Salam says he himself used before.

Ali Salam, the Muslim mayor of a largely Arab-Israeli city of Nazareth in northern Israel told a local radio station that he taught US President-elect Donald trump "everything" he knows about winning elections, despite never having met him Mark Wilson (Getty/AFP/File)

"That's what I did when I won," he said.

Salam did not claim to have ever met Trump or provide evidence the president-elect knew he existed, but said that the 2014 battle for the Nazareth municipality had been ferocious like the US election.

The two men shared a lot of personality traits, he added.

"Like me he is a businessman, who pursued his career and ignored anyone who stood in his way to get to the top."

"He does not take anyone into account when someone accused him of harassing women."

The interview, conducted on Arabic-language radio, was widely shared between somewhat disbelieving locals.

Salam, who has stirred controversy in the past, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January.
A Taliban attack has killed six and injured at least 120 people after a truck packed with explosives was driven into the German consulate in Afghanistan.

The bombing, which tore a massive crater in the road and flipped cars, was claimed by the terror group in 'revenge' for U.S. air strikes in Kunduz that left 32 civilians dead.

But the attack late on Thursday in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif killed Afghan residents as all German staff from the consulate were unharmed.

A security official inspects the site of a bomb attack targeting the German consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, on November 11, 2016

The blast site at the German consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif Attack on German Consulate in Mazar-E-Sharif, Afghanistan

The bombing, which tore a massive crater in the road and flipped cars, was claimed by the terror group in 'revenge' for U.S. air strikes in Kunduz that left 32 civilians dead

The explosion, followed by sporadic gunfire, reverberated across the usually tranquil northern city, smashing windows of nearby shops and leaving terrified local residents fleeing for cover.

'The suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the wall of the German consulate,' local police chief Sayed Kamal Sadat said.

Six people, including the attacker, died in the blast and two motorcyclists were shot dead by German forces close to the consulate after they refused to heed their warning to stop, said deputy police chief Abdul Razaq Qadri.

Seven of those killed were Afghan civilians.

A suspect had also been detained near the diplomatic mission on Friday morning, Qadri added.

At least 128 others were wounded, some of them critically and many with shrapnel injuries.

A damaged car is seen in a crater left from a powerful truck bomb that targeted the German consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, on November 11, 2016

The explosion, followed by sporadic gunfire, reverberated across the usually tranquil northern city, smashing windows of nearby shops and leaving terrified local residents fleeing for cover

Afghan special forces have cordoned off the consulate, previously well-known as Mazar Hotel, as helicopters flew over the site and ambulances with wailing sirens rushed to the area after the explosion

'The consulate building has been heavily damaged,' the German foreign ministry said in a statement.

'Our sympathies go out to the Afghan injured and their families.'

A diplomatic source in Berlin said Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had convened a crisis meeting.

'There was fighting outside and on the grounds of the consulate,' a ministry spokesman said.

'Afghan security forces and Resolute Support (NATO) forces from Camp Marmal (German base in Mazar-i-Sharif) are on the scene.'

Afghan special forces have cordoned off the consulate, previously well-known as Mazar Hotel, as helicopters flew over the site and ambulances with wailing sirens rushed to the area after the explosion.

The carnage underscores worsening insecurity in Afghanistan as Taliban insurgents ramp up nationwide attacks despite repeated government attempts to jump-start stalled peace negotiations.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the 'martyrdom attack' on the consulate had left 'tens of invaders' dead.

The insurgents routinely exaggerate battlefield claims.

Posting a Google Earth image of the consulate on Twitter, Mujahid said the assault was in retaliation for American air strikes in Kunduz.

US forces conceded last week that its air strikes 'very likely' resulted in civilian casualties in Kunduz, pledging a full investigation into the incident.

The strikes killed several children, after a Taliban assault left two American soldiers and three Afghan special forces soldiers dead near Kunduz city.

The strikes triggered impassioned protests in Kunduz city, with the victims' relatives parading mutilated bodies of dead children piled into open trucks through the streets.

Map of Afghanistan locating Mazar-i-Sharif, where Taliban attacked the German consulate with a powerful truck bomb on November 10, 2016 - (AFP Graphic)

The latest attack in Mazar-i-Sharif comes just two days after a bitter US presidential election

Afghanistan got scarcely a passing mention in the election campaign - even though the situation there will be an urgent matter for the new president

Civilian casualties caused by NATO forces have been one of the most contentious issues in the 15-year campaign against the insurgents, prompting strong public and government criticism.

The country's worsening conflict has prompted US forces to step up air strikes to support their struggling Afghan counterparts, fuelling the perception that they are increasingly being drawn back into the conflict.

The latest attack in Mazar-i-Sharif comes just two days after a bitter US presidential election.

Afghanistan got scarcely a passing mention in the election campaign - even though the situation there will be an urgent matter for the new president.
UN: Mosul marks beginning of caliphate's end

UNITED NATIONS (AP)  The operation to liberate the Iraqi city of Mosul marks the beginning of the end of the Islamic State group's so-called caliphate in Iraq, the U.N. envoy for the country told the Security Council on Wednesday.

Jan Kubis said efforts by the Iraqi Security Forces, the Peshmerga and other allies are making steady progress in liberating the city, while seeking to minimize civilian casualties.

"This liberation operation marks the beginning of the end of the so-called 'Da'esh caliphate' in Iraq," Kubis said, using an Arabic acronym to refer to the group.

Kubis also said he has received credible reports of IS forcing tens of thousands of civilians to relocate inside Mosul, for use as human shields.

He warned that reconciliation and restoration of confidence in the government was necessary if the victories against IS are to be lasting.

"Reconciliation at both community and national level is the way to make military victories against ISIL sustainable, to make Iraq truly peaceful and united," he said, using another acronym for the group.

Kubis said the operation to liberate Mosul has so far displaced some 35,000 people, with about 20,000 of them being sheltered in camps organized by the U.N. and its humanitarian partners and the rest being housed in host communities.

He said the humanitarian agencies were continuing to prepare for an ever greater number of displaced people as winter approaches.

Kubis also noted that the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq had referred scattered reports of acts of revenge against captured IS fighters to the Iraqi government for investigation.
US: 64 civilians killed in Iraq, Syria strikes in past year

WASHINGTON (AP)  Sixty-four civilians were killed and eight were injured in 24 U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria over the past year, the U.S. military said Wednesday, based on newly completed investigations.

The latest totals bring the number of civilians killed in airstrikes in the fight against the Islamic State group to 119, with another 37 injured, according to U.S. Central Command.

Col. John Thomas, Central Command spokesman, said the investigations concluded that the proper military process was followed in each incident and precautions are always taken to try to avoid any civilian deaths.

Independent monitoring groups and activists, however, have repeatedly said that coalition and other airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians.

The cases announced Wednesday include strikes from last November through September. And they range from one or two civilians killed to a March strike near Mosul, Iraq, that killed 10 civilians.

The latest report, however, doesn't include two air attacks in Syria in recent months that may have each killed dozens. According to residents and international aid groups, an airstrike in July near Manbij, Syria, may have killed at least 56 civilians and wounded many more.

And a U.S. brigadier general has been appointed to lead an investigation in a September airstrike near Deir el-Zour, Syria, that may have unintentionally killed dozens of Syrian government forces.

The U.S. has said that it monitored the target for two days and deemed it valid before launching the strike. But it was halted when Russian officials called the coalition to say the attack was hitting personnel and vehicles that were part of the Syrian military.

There have been lingering questions about reports that the troops or people on the ground were not wearing uniforms and that they were armed, leading to confusion about who they might be. Other theories suggest they may have been conscripted troops or prisoners of some sort, but there have been no solid findings yet on those reports.

As of Wednesday, U.S. Central Command has received 257 allegations of airstrikes causing possible civilian casualties, and has concluded that 76 of the reports were valid and required further investigation. Of those 76, four were duplicates.
The Latest: Thousands march in Oakland to protest Trump

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP)  The Latest on protests around the country (all times PST):

9: 15 p.m.

Police in Oakland, California blocked thousands of people protesting Donald Trump's election from getting onto a highway Wednesday night.

Madeline Lopes, left, and Cassidy Irwin, both of Oakland, march with other protesters in downtown Oakland, Calif., early Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. President-elect Donald Trumps victory set off multiple protests. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group via AP)

The crowd chanting and waving signs gathered in Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland in the afternoon. Officials said the crowd had swelled to 6,000 people by evening.

By late Wednesday, two groups that set small fires on streets remained in the area.

Officers in riot gear stood guard and blocked them from marching onto nearby Interstate 90.

Television images showed some in the crowd dragging plywood and trash cans to feed one fire.

In San Francisco, hundreds marched along Market Avenue, one of the city's main avenues, to join a vigil in the Castro District, a predominantly gay neighborhood.

___

8: 00p.m.

Thousands of protesters marched through Chicago's Loop and gathered outside Chicago's Trump Tower to express their disapproval of the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president.

"No Trump" and "Not my president!" were among chants shouted by the crowd late Wednesday.

Authorities say police have been stationed outside the hotel and condominium tower since it was apparent the Republican Trump had defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in their presidential contest.

Chicago resident Michael Burke said he believes the president-elect will "divide the country and stir up hatred." He added there was a constitutional duty not to accept that.

About a half-dozen Trump supporters were also in front of Trump Tower, with Anthony Moreira asserting Trump "isn't a bigot."

Similar numbers marched in New York and in Oakland, California, and hundreds also took to the streets in Seattle and Los Angeles.

___

7 p.m.

Thousands of protesters marched in Manhattan and converged outside Trump Tower to denounce the election of Donald Trump to the presidency.

One group began at Union Square Wednesday night, while another started at Columbus Circle. Splinter groups of protesters then streamed into the streets causing massive gridlock as police mobilized to contain them under a light rain.

The protesters chanted "Not my president" and "hey, hey, ho, ho Donald Trump has got to go." They held signs that read "Trump Makes America Hate" and "Impeach Trump."

Some of the protesters cursed out key battleground states that Trump had won to secure victory.

Outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in midtown police installed barricades to keep the demonstrators at bay.

Police say the protests have been mostly peaceful.

___

10:30 a.m.

More than 1,000 California high school students have walked out of classes in Berkeley to protest the election of Donald Trump.

Berkeley Unified School District spokesman Charles Burress says about half of the school's 3,000 students left at the start of the first period on Wednesday and gathered in the school's courtyard.

Students held anti-Trump signs.

Burress says classes were still going on for students who wanted to attend.

He says the district would prefer for students to stay in classes, but school officials understood that extraordinary circumstances prompted the student protest.

___

7 a.m.

Oakland police say they issued one citation but did not make any arrests during a protest following Donald Trump's presidential victory that damaged several businesses in the downtown area.

Officer Marco Marquez says protesters damaged five businesses, breaking windows and spraying graffiti. Police say the protest began around 11:45 p.m. Tuesday before growing to roughly 250 people.

Protesters also set garbage bins on fire. Marquez says police issued a citation for a vehicle code violation.

He says police are increasing staffing in preparation for the possibility of another protest on Wednesday night.

___

3 a.m.

Hundreds of students have protested on California campuses following Donald Trump's presidential victory.

Police says at least 500 people swarmed on streets in and around UCLA early Wednesday morning, some shouting anti-Trump expletives.

There were no immediate arrests.

Smaller demonstrators were held at University of California campuses and neighborhoods in Berkeley, Irvine and Davis and at San Jose State.

In Oakland, more than 100 protesters took to downtown streets. KNTV-TV reported that protesters burned Trump in effigy, smashed windows of the Oakland Tribune newsroom and set tires and trash on fire.

The California Highway Patrol says a woman was struck by a car during the protest and severely injured.

Multiple fires are lit in dumpsters and trash cans during protests in downtown Oakland, Calif., late Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016. President-elect Donald Trumps victory set off multiple protests. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group via AP)

A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif., early Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. President-elect Donald Trumps victory set off multiple protests. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group via AP)
Snowflakes, Santa Claus and reindeer are returning to Starbucks' holiday cups today after last year's more subdued red cups caused an uproar from critics who said the chain was part of a so-called war on Christmas.

And instead of looking to its creative team to design this year's holiday red cups, Starbucks has turned to its latte-sipping customers.

A total of the 13 different cups designed by customers will hit stores around the world on Thursday, with eleven of them available in U.S. locations.

Scroll down for video

Snowflakes, Santa Claus and reindeer are returning to Starbucks' holiday cups this year (pictured)

Instead of looking to its creative team, Starbucks turned to its latte-sipping customers to design its latest holiday red cups

Customers took to Twitter on Thursday to share their joy of seeing the holiday cups return

Last December, the company asked people to post their designs on Instagram, and 1,200 ideas came in from customers who have made it clear on social media they care about the holiday cups it has brought out each year for nearly two decades.

Over the next several months, company executives narrowed down the options to their favorites, Starbucks said on Wednesday.

They settled on 13 different designs from six countries overall that focus on traditional holiday themes like snowflakes, Santa Claus and reindeer.

'We hope that this year's red holiday cup designs express the shared spirit of the holidays as told by our customers,' Sharon Rothstein, Starbucks global chief marketing officer, said in a press release.

All the cups for hot drinks are red and have white designs featuring candy canes, ornaments or other holiday symbols.

The one cup for iced drinks has a wreath wrapped around the Starbucks mermaid logo.

Starbucks declined to say if the customers were compensated for the designs.

In all, 13 different cups designed by customers will hit stores around the world Thursday. Eleven of them will be available in U.S. stores

Last year's more subdued red cups (pictured) caused an uproar from critics who said the chain was part of a so-called war on Christmas

Customers were quick to comment on Twitter after the cups debuted on Thursday.

'Starbucks went ALL IN on the holiday cups this year and love it,' Lauren Schlander tweeted.

'The red Cups are back! The Red Cups are back! Probably the best news I've heard all week,' another wrote.

And following Election Day, many said the red cups' return was the best news they've heard all week.

'I know many people are still complaining now about election stuff... but the red holiday cups are back at Starbucks,' Nicole Thompson.

Customers were quick to comment on Twitter after the cups debuted on Thursday

Others seemed to not understand why so many people were flooding Twitter with comments about this year's red cups.

'I wish my life was basic enough to care about #RedCups at Starbucks at Starbucks,' one person tweeted.

Another hilariously wrote: 'Had no clue why #RedCups was trending. Thought only of keg parties...'

The company's return to more overt holiday imagery comes after a tempest last year when a more subdued cup  bright red on top, shading to a darker cranberry below  drew criticism from some who said the chain was part of a so-called war on Christmas.

Others on Twitter seemed not too bothered about the red cups and said others should not get offended this year as they did last holiday over the red cups

Thousands of people sounded off on Twitter and other social networks.

Donald Trump, now president-elect, even suggested perhaps people should boycott the chain.

That controversy came as a surprise to the company, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said at an event in New York on Wednesday where the new designs were displayed.

Last week, the Seattle-based company also unveiled a green cup ahead of Election Day that it said was 'a symbol of unity' (pictured). It features a mosaic of more than 100 people, including a coffee farmer and barista

'It's just a cup,' he joked.

Starbucks Corp. has released holiday cups every year since 1997.

Last week, the Seattle-based company also unveiled a green cup ahead of Election Day that it said was 'a symbol of unity.'

It features a mosaic of more than 100 people, including a coffee farmer and barista.

Once again, though, people took to social media to make it known  they wanted red cups.
Rockefeller Center Christmas tree cut in upstate New York

ONEONTA, N.Y. (AP)  This year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is beginning its journey from upstate New York to Manhattan.

The 94-foot Norway spruce in Oneonta (oh-nee-AHN'-tuh) was cut down Thursday morning and loaded on a truck. The spruce will make the 140-mile trip to Manhattan and is expected to arrive Saturday.

The tree's 50,000 lights will be switched on during a live television broadcast Nov. 30.

Graig Eichler, right, his wife Angie and their children Ava and Brock pose in front of a 94-foot Norway spruce that will serve as the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, in Oneonta, N.Y. The spruce is due to arrive Saturday in Manhattan, about 140 miles away. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

The tree was on the property of Angie and Graig Eichler (EYE'-kluhr).

A worker prepares a 94-foot Norway spruce that will serve as the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center before it is cut on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, in Oneonta, N.Y. The spruce is due to arrive Saturday in Manhattan, about 140 miles away. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

A worker prepares a 94-foot Norway spruce that will serve as the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center before it is cut on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, in Oneonta, N.Y. The spruce is due to arrive Saturday in Manhattan, about 140 miles away. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

Workers cut down a 94-foot Norway spruce that will serve as the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, in Oneonta, N.Y. The spruce is due to arrive Saturday in Manhattan, about 140 miles away. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
The Latest: British FM: Time to snap out of doom and gloom

LONDON (AP)  The latest on world reaction to the U.S. presidential election (all times local):

9:45 p.m.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson says that "it's time that we snapped out of the general doom and gloom" about the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson listens to a question during a press conference after a meeting with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, right, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. Johnson is on a one-day visit to Serbia. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Johnson said Thursday in the Serbian capital of Belgrade that "people should focus on the opportunities ... and not the problems."

Johnson added that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump had a "very, very good conversation" Prime Minister Theresa May earlier in the day.

He says Trump has spoken of a "spectacular relationship" with the U.K. and "wants to sign a free trade deal."

Johnson says Trump's election "is a great opportunity for us in the U.K. to build a better relationship with America that is of fundamental economic importance for us, but also of great importance for the stability and prosperity of the world."

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9:30 p.m.

Zimbabwe's state-owned Herald newspaper is rejoicing in Donald Trump's defeat of "the warmonger" Hillary Clinton.

In an editorial published Thursday, the newspaper attacked the United States as a "blundering global bully" for backing sanctions against Zimbabwe's longtime President Robert Mugabe and his allies.

The editorial says: "We hope Trump, who was considered an outsider and who was attacked no end for all of 18 months by the U.S. and Western media that sought to cast him as an unstable, unelectable ogre, will  with the benefit of experience  understand the Western characterization of Zimbabwe."

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6:00 p.m.

Germany's foreign minister says it's urgent for the incoming U.S. administration to set out its positions quickly since "very many questions are open" on its foreign policy.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier told German weekly Der Spiegel in comments published Thursday that he's spoken several times with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about what President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policies might look like.

Steinmeier says even Kissinger had no insights to offer.

He said: "Many have already tried to read a foreign policy doctrine, or at least clear and coherent positions, out of Donald Trump's comments. Without much success."

Steinmeier says he can't predict whether there will more or less U.S. military activity, or additional or fewer commitments in crises such as the ones in Syria and Yemen.

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3:25 p.m.

Argentina's president says he's hopeful that his nation's accords with the United States will remain in place under Republican President-elect Donald Trump.

President Mauricio Macri says he hopes Argentina will continue the "constructive, mature" relationship with the U.S. that was built under President Barack Obama. He spoke Thursday after inaugurating infrastructure projects in Buenos Aires.

Obama, a Democrat, visited Argentina in March and brokered several trade and investment deals with Macri. The meeting was seen as a fence-mending mission after years of tensions between the two countries under former President Cristina Fernandez.

Macri openly supported Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential election and has been forced to shift gears after Trump's victory.

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1:50 p.m.

The left-leaning contender in Austria's presidential election runoff says he hopes Donald Trump's victory in the United States will motivate people to support him against a right-wing rival.

Alexander Van der Bellen faces Norbert Hofer of the anti-establishment and anti-immigration Freedom Party in a Dec. 4 rerun of the runoff. Van der Bellen narrowly beat Hofer in May, but a court ordered a rerun after the Freedom Party successfully argued that irregularities had marred the results.

Van der Bellen said at a news conference Thursday that he hopes Trump's victory will be "seen as extra motivation to go vote, and vote for (Van der Bellen)," according to the Austria Press Agency.

He said: "I don't want Austria to be the first western European country in which right-wing demagogues take power."

Austria's president has mostly ceremonial responsibilities, but a Hofer win would likely be viewed as a boost for other nationalist parties in Europe.

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1:25 p.m.

Silvio Berlusconi is congratulating his fellow billionaire businessman-turned-politician, saying he is convinced President-elect Donald Trump will guarantee U.S. leadership in the free world "with authority and equilibrium."

Berlusconi's parallels to Trump are well known: A showman with a reputation as a womanizer who charmed Italians by speaking his mind, Berlusconi had a Trump-like improbable rise from cruise ship crooner to media mogul to three-time premier. He calls Vladimir Putin a friend.

A tax fraud conviction knocked Berlusconi out of parliament in 2013 and seriously hobbled his Forza Italia party. But Berlusconi, 80 and recovering from heart surgery, is still a political force in Italy and sent his "best wishes" to the president-elect in a Facebook message.

"I have always been and will always be the most loyal ally of the United States in Europe, recognizing the country that guaranteed our freedom for the 20th century," he wrote. "I'm convinced that the president chosen by the American people will, with authority and eqilibrium, guarantee the difficult role of the United States as the leader of the free world in today's complex and delicate global balance."

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1 p.m.

U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, Britain's most prominent ally of Donald Trump, has claimed he is the "catalyst" for the president-elect's success.

In a radio interview, Farage also called President Barack Obama "loathsome" and joked about sexual assault allegations against Trump.

Farage, who was key in pushing Britain to vote to leave the European Union, claimed credit in Wednesday's Talk Radio interview for the rise of Trump and populist movements that are sweeping Europe.

The right-wing politician said "that Obama creature" was a "loathsome individual" who disliked Britain, while Trump, whose mother was Scottish, was friendly to the U.K.

Asked about Trump potentially meeting Prime Minister Theresa May, Farage said: "Come and schmooze Theresa  don't touch her, for goodness sake," before offering to attend "as the responsible adult role, to make sure everything's OK."

Several women have accused Trump of sexual assaults, which he denies.

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12:55 p.m.

A top U.N. humanitarian aid official for Syria says he expects continued U.S. help in efforts to support beleaguered Syrian civilians under Donald Trump's presidency.

Jan Egeland also cited reports Thursday from Syria that "the last food rations are being distributed as we speak" in besieged eastern parts of the city of Aleppo.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Egeland said the U.N. needs "continued, uninterrupted U.S. help and engagement in the coming months," and noted that progress is made only when the United States and Russia, a backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, are leading the diplomatic efforts.

Egeland, the aid chief in U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura's office, said he could not speculate about whether the prospect of improved U.S.-Russia relations under Trump would have an impact.

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12:50 p.m.

France's president says European nations need strong, clear strategies on security and the economy as Donald Trump takes over the U.S. presidency, amid concerns that his victory will fortify populists who want to dismantle the EU.

Francois Hollande said Thursday that Trump's election "obliges Europeans to be clear and lucid and capable of facing the challenges that concern them."

Hollande, who had endorsed Hillary Clinton, also suggested European countries should be ready to stand up to Trump if necessary. "Europe wishes to be together with the U.S. but has to be in a position to decide for itself, too."

A leading contender in France's presidential elections in April and May is far right leader Marine Le Pen, who wants to quit the EU and who hailed Trump's victory, saying it "buried the old order."

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, after meeting Hollande in Paris, urged a more decisive European Union following Britain's decision to leave. He called for clearer policies on security and migration, amid criticism that Europe is too lax on both, saying "this is where the European Union needs to deliver."

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11:45 a.m.

An Israeli Cabinet minister has called for a renewed wave of settlement construction now that President-elect Donald Trump is signaling an end to longstanding White House opposition to the settlements.

Science Minister Ofir Akunis told Army Radio Thursday that, "We need to think how we move forward now when the administration in Washington, the Trump administration and his advisers, are saying that there is no place for a Palestinian state."

Earlier, Jason Greenblatt, one of Trump's advisers on Israel, told Army Radio that Trump doesn't believe settlement activity should be condemned and doesn't view the settlements as an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians.

Multiple U.S. administrations have condemned any construction on land captured by Israel in the 1967 war  land that Palestinians want for a future state.

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11:40 a.m.

About two dozen Filipino left-wing students have burned a portrait of President-elect Donald Trump along with a mock American flag at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, warning of worse times under his upcoming leadership.

Left-wing protests by students, labor and human rights groups are a common sight at the heavily-fortified embassy, often staged to oppose the presence of visiting U.S. forces in the former American colony. But activists say they are bracing for more intense rallies against Trump.

Protest leader JP Rosos says: "We are not expecting that it (U.S.) will remove its control on the Philippines and in the Asia Pacific."

He says under Trump, "we expect it to worsen with his anti-Muslim, anti-black and anti-immigrants declarations."

More than 100 riot police kept watch, but the small group of protesters dispersed without any incidents or arrests.

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11:20 a.m.

Hungary's prime minister says Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election will allow Western civilization to return to "true democracy and straight, honest talk" as it is freed from the "paralyzing constraint of political correctness."

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who said in July that Trump's migration policies made him the better choice for Europe, said Thursday that the results of the U.S. elections also meant that the West had rid itself of "liberal non-democracy," which had held it in "ideological captivity" for the past 20 years.

Orban said the world is living in "great times" thanks to Trump's victory and the British decision to leave the European Union, which he described as "not a tragedy" but an attempt by Britain to find its own road to success. Orban met with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday in London.

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10 a.m.

Iran's semi-official Fars news agency is reporting that the armed forces chief of staff has criticized Donald Trump for his past harsh words about confronting Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf.

The report quotes Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri as saying, "The person who has recently achieved power, has talked off the top of his head! Threatening Iran in the Persian Gulf is just a joke."

He said American presidential candidates during their campaigns "eat too much sugar," a reference to a Farsi proverb about those who talk nonsense.

In September, Trump said Iranian ships trying to provoke the U.S. "will be shot out of the water."

In January, Iran took 10 American sailors prisoner ship veered off course into Iranian waters; they were released a day later.

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9:30 a.m.

A top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump says his boss doesn't think Israeli settlements should be condemned and they don't pose an "obstacle to peace."

Jason Greenblatt's comments to Israel's Army Radio Thursday would mark a stark departure from the long-time American stance that Israeli construction in areas captured in the 1967 war makes it more difficult to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Greenblatt is the chief legal officer and executive vice president at the Trump Organization. He has been tapped by Trump as his top adviser on Israel.

Israel and the U.S. are close allies but relations were often tense between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mainly over Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. Netanyahu and Trump are friendly and ties are expected to improve.

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8:55 a.m.

Pakistani foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz says his country would like to work with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on the common interest of combatting terrorism.

In an interview with Pakistan's Geo News channel Thursday, he says that helping negotiate a political settlement in Afghanistan is another area where the two countries could work together.

The U.S. president-elect has publicly criticized Pakistan in the past for battling some Islamic militant groups while tolerating others.

Aziz acknowledged that perception, but said such policies were "in the past."

Local and al-Qaida linked Islamic militants who have had long used Pakistan's lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border as safe havens. The Afghan government frequently accuses Islamabad of sheltering the senior leadership of the Taliban.

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8:20 a.m.

South Korea says President-elect Donald Trump has promised to maintain the countries' strong alliance to guard against what he describes as "the instability in North Korea."

President Park Geun-hye's office says Trump made the comments while saying he believes North Korea is very unstable during a 10-minute telephone conversation with Park on Thursday.

Park's office quotes Trump as saying the United States "will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with (South Korea) to protect against the instability in North Korea."

A statement from Park's office says Trump told Park "we are going to be with you 100 percent" when Park proposed strengthening the alliance to make the North Korean leadership change its way of thinking.

There have been worries in South Korea that a Trump presidency could bring a major shift in U.S. economic and diplomatic ties with Seoul. Trump has questioned the value of the U.S.-South Korea security alliance.

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6:30 a.m.

A Japanese official says Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump next week.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters Thursday that Abe and Trump had talked by telephone and confirmed the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance and their commitment for cooperation.

Their meeting "marks a very good start for building trust," Suga said. Their talks are being arranged for Nov. 17 in New York.

Officials said Abe and Trump also confirmed their resolve to cooperate in ensuring peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, but did not discuss the trans-Pacific trade pact and other contentious issues such as the cost of American troops in Japan.

Kyodo News agency additionally reported that Trump praised the Japanese premier's "Abenomics" economic measures.

French newspapers with photos of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump are displayed on a newsstand, in Paris, France, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Filipino protesters burn a computer printout of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and a mock U.S. flag as they denounce the results of the elections Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, Philippines. President-elect Donald Trump becomes the 45th U.S. President after defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the Nov.8, 2016 US election. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

A student leader displays a placard as he addresses fellow protesters during a rally at the U.S. Embassy to denounce the results of the U.S. elections, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 in Manila, Philippines. President-elect Donald Trump becomes the 45th U.S. President after defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the Nov.8, 2016 US election. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Protesters display placards and an image of President-elect Donald Trump during a rally at the U.S. Embassy to denounce the results of the U.S. elections Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 in Manila, Philippines. Trump will become the 45th U.S. President after defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8, 2016 US election. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Protesters raise their fists during a rally at the U.S. Embassy to denounce the results of the U.S. elections, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, at the US Embassy in Manila, Philippines. President-elect Donald Trump becomes the 45th U.S. President after defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8, 2016 US election. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

An Indian man reads a newspaper near the Charming monument that has the headline "Trump Towers " to refer to U.S President-elect Donald Trump's victory in Hyderabad, India, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)

A Filipino newspaper vendor holds copies of newspapers with headlines on the U.S. presidential elections Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 in Manila, Philippines. Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to be elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
2 Norwegians killed in Vietnam bus crash; 14 passengers hurt

HANOI, Vietnam (AP)  A bus with 31 passengers aboard overturned on a rain-soaked road in central Vietnam, killing a Norwegian couple and injuring 14 others, police said Thursday.

Most of the passengers were asleep when the bus skidded off a curved road during heavy rains around 1:45 a.m. Wednesday, police said. It was traveling from the central highland province of Dak Lak to the historic city of Hue.

The fatalities were identified as a Norwegian couple of Vietnamese origin. They died at the scene of the crash in Nam Giang district in Quang Nam province, about 850 kilometers (525 miles) south of Hanoi, and their bodies were returned to their families in Vietnam, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

Norway's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ingrid Kvammen Ekker in Oslo confirmed the deaths of the two nationals but declined to identify them Thursday.

Police are investigating the crash.

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Japanese journalist denies allegation he is IS sympathizer

TOKYO (AP)  A Japanese journalist deported from Iraq denied on Thursday allegations by Kurdish officials that he is a sympathizer of the Islamic State extremist group.

Kosuke Tsuneoka told reporters in Tokyo that he was in Mosul only to report as a journalist on the battle to retake the IS-held city. Iraqi and Kurdish troops are currently fighting to expel the militant group out of Mosul.

"Let me remind you that I'm not an IS member, not even a supporter," said the Muslim convert who also goes by Shamil Tsuneoka. "I'm fundamentally against the belief of the Islamic State group ... That is not the Islam that I believe in."

Kosuke Tsuneoka, a Japanese freelance journalist who was detained by local authorities in Iraq, speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. Tsuneoka was released Monday, Nov. 7 after being suspected of being a member of the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Tsuneoka, a journalist who has covered militant groups in the Middle East, was arrested Oct. 27 after he was going through a security check and found to be carrying a key chain with an IS logo. He said it was given to him by a bus passenger on an earlier reporting trip. He said he kept it hoping to trace its origin.

He said it was merely his "stupidity" to have kept the key chain in a pocket of his backpack that he handed in for a security check. He was handcuffed at the spot and taken into custody for interrogation by Kurdish intelligence officials, Tsuneoka said. "Obviously I was suspected as an IS member trying to sneak into a news conference," he said.

The Kurdistan Region Security Council accused him of having links to the IS group. They said an investigation showed Tsuneoka had contacted IS members through his smartphone and has posted photos suggesting his link with the fighters on social media.

Tsuneoka said Kurdish intelligence officials asked him for details about how they communicated. The Kurdistan authority handed him over to Japan's Foreign Ministry on Monday for deportation out of the country, with his case still pending.

Tsuneoka said he hopes to be cleared soon so he could return to Mosul and resume reporting despite what he had just gone through. He said he was the only Japanese reporter there at the time and felt strongly about the need to inform the Japanese of the situation.

"I hope to go back," Tsuneoka said. "Someone must keep reporting on the situation."

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Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/mariyamaguchi

Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/mari-yamaguchi
Iranian commander criticizes Trump statements

TEHRAN, Iran (AP)  Iran's semi-official Fars news agency is reporting that the armed forces chief of staff has criticized Donald Trump for his past harsh words about confronting Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf.

The Thursday report quotes Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri as saying, "The person who has recently achieved power, has talked off the top of his head! Threatening Iran in the Persian Gulf is just a joke."

He said American presidential candidates during their campaigns "eat too much sugar," a reference to a Farsi proverb about those who talk nonsense.

In September, Trump said Iranian ships trying to provoke the U.S. "will be shot out of the water."
10 Things to Know for Today - 10 November 2016

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

1. OBAMA EXTENDING OLIVE BRANCH TO TRUMP

The president is set to welcome his successor  a man he blasted as unfit to serve as commander in chief  to the White House. Trump had led the toxic birther charge that challenged the legitimacy of Obama's presidency.

Faith Attaguile, from Encinitas, yells chants with others on the corner of Broadway and Front Street , Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in downtown San Diego, during a protest in opposition of Donald Trump's presidential election victory. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune via AP)

2. AP ANALYSIS: A REVERSAL OF FORTUNE FOR OBAMA

He warned that Trump was dangerous, a nuclear hair-trigger, who was proud to get away with sexual assault  and now it falls to Obama to reassure America that it can survive four years of Trump.

3. DIVISIONS RAW OVER PRESIDENTIAL RACE

Protesters flood the streets in American cities  with a rallying cry of "Not my president"  to condemn Trump's election in demonstrations that police say were mostly peaceful.

4. ONCE TARGET OF TRUMP RHETORIC, ASIA LOOKS AHEAD

There's no firm consensus among politicians and analysts across the Far East what kind of role the Trump administration will actually play in the region.

5. RISK, REWARD OF TRUMP'S ECONOMIC PLANS

Slashing taxes and lifting regulations are among measures that would turbocharge the economy, the president-elect says. Yet economists warn that his plans could spike the national debt or even cause a recession.

6. WHAT PUTIN COULD USE FROM TRUMP

High on the Russian leader's wish list is for the U.S. to drop the sanctions it imposed for Moscow's annexation of Crimea and its involvement in the continuing war in eastern Ukraine.

7. CONCERN GROWS FOR NEWBORNS IN HAITI

Across the Caribbean nation's hurricane-battered southwest, nearly 14,000 women are due to give birth in the coming weeks amid widespread shortages of meat, clean water and housing.

8. WHERE BARRIER TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IS POISED TO FALL

Taiwan is on the cusp of becoming the first Asian country to legalize gay marriage. Polls show marriage equality has broad public support.

9. SOMETHING FOR COOKS TO BE THANKFUL FOR

A meal-prep company backed by Martha Stewart says it can help simplify preparing your Thanksgiving feast  shipping you recipes and the ingredients you need.

10. BRAD PITT CLEARED IN ABUSE INVESTIGATION

A probe into whether the actor was abusive toward his son on a private flight in September has been closed with no finding of wrongdoing.

Newspaper front pages reporting on President-elect Donald Trump winning the American election are displayed for sale outside a store in London, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Spanish police arrest 56 in internet child porn operation

MADRID (AP)  Spanish police say they have arrested 56 men in a nationwide operation against internet child pornography.

A police statement Thursday said the detainees are suspected of distributing abusive images involving children on peer-to-peer internet file-sharing sites. Those arrested were mostly Spaniards, aged between 40 and 60.

It said officers seized some 170 hard discs and 600 CDs and DVDs containing child pornographic material in nearly 40 house raids.

Police said the arrests took place over several months in provinces across Spain.
The next EnVision Bus Read more [...]
Russian diplomat: there were contacts with Trump's campaign

MOSCOW (AP)  A top Russian diplomat says Moscow had contacts with the campaign of Donald Trump ahead of his election as U.S. president.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency Thursday that "there were contacts" with influential people in Trump's circle. "I don't say that all of them, but a whole array of them, supported contacts with Russian representatives."

The report did not give further details.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses new ambassadors to Russia after the credential receiving ceremony in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. Putin says that Moscow is ready to try to restore good relations with the United States in the wake of the election of Donald Trump. (Sergei Karpukhin/Pool photo via AP)
The Latest: Trump on Twitter taking on protesters

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on the U.S. presidential transition (all times EST):

9:45 p.m.

President-elect Donald Trump is back on Twitter, taking on the protesters who have gathered in cities across the nation since his election.

Protesters gather in downtown Chicago as they protest the election of President-elect Donald Trump, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. Two days after Trump's election as president, the divisions he exposed only showed signs of widening as many thousands of protesters flooded streets across the country to condemn him. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Trump tweets: "Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!"

Thousands have been gathering in cities from New York to Dallas to San Francisco to voice opposition to Trump's election.

Trump's complaint Thursday about the media echoes the rhetoric of his campaign, when he railed against the press as "disgusting" and "dishonest."

A few minutes earlier, Trump was more positive about his trip to Washington, tweeting: "A fantastic day in D.C. Met with President Obama for first time. Really good meeting, great chemistry. Melania liked Mrs. O a lot!"

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9:40 p.m.

Billionaire conservative donor Charles Koch (kohk) says the election shows America is "more deeply divided than at any point in my lifetime."

Koch and his brother, David, oversaw policy and politics groups that spent about $250 million in the two years ahead of the election, much of it on a successful drive to keep the Senate in Republican hands. However, the brothers did not support Donald Trump and withheld their money from the presidential race.

In an email Thursday to his groups' donors and employees, obtained by AP, Koch does not specifically mention Trump but says his group would work to find common ground with any elected official.

Koch says the election "made clear that Americans are angry about a rigged economy and political system that's driving our country toward a two-tiered society," he wrote.

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7:37 p.m.

Donald Trump has won Arizona's presidential contest and its 11 electoral votes.

The Republican president-elect had a solid lead over Hillary Clinton on election night, but a winner wasn't declared because there were so many uncounted votes. The latest batch of returns tabulated Thursday made him the clear winner.

It extends a 20-year winning streak for Republican presidential candidates in Arizona. Bill Clinton was the last Democrat to take the state, winning in 1996.

Hillary Clinton was closer to gaining Arizona than Barack Obama, who lost by more than 9 percentage points during his two runs for president. She is losing by 4 points.

Arizona was one of three races that had yet to be determined from the Tuesday election. Michigan and New Hampshire remain too close to call.

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7:16 p.m.

Several hundred well-wishers and a high school band greeted Vice President-elect Mike Pence when he landed in Indiana for the first time since Tuesday's election.

Fire trucks sprayed streams of water in the air over the Republican governor's plane Thursday night and the marching band played, "My Indiana Home."

Pence told the crowd he was humbled to be Donald Trump's vice president. And he choked up when he said that his heart will always be in the state no matter where his new duties take him.

Pence also asked the crowd to support President-elect Donald Trump and to pray that the starkly divided country to be reunified.

He said he was grateful for Republican majorities in Congress and looks forward to getting the country back on track.

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6:38 p.m.

Former President Bill Clinton has spoken to President-elect Donald Trump by phone. That's according to a spokesman for the former president and husband of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The spokesman says the former president congratulated Trump during the brief call on Thursday and wished him well.

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6:17 p.m.

The White House says Vice President Joe Biden talked to Mike Pence Thursday about the key duties of vice president and well as specific policy portfolios he has worked on, including the NATO alliance, eastern Europe and expanding access to the middle class.

The White House says in describing the meeting that the two men spoke in the vice president's office in the West Wing and that they reminisced about their friendship dating back to when they served in Congress.

The White House says Biden offered his full support to the vice president-elect to ensure a seamless transition to power and that he invited the Pence family to join him and his wife for dinner on the grounds of the Naval Observatory, which is where the vice president traditionally resides.

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5:13 p.m.

Donald Trump has picked a longtime friend and private equity executive to lead his inauguration efforts.

Tom Barrack, who founded California-based firm Colony Capital, has been selected to serve as chairman of the President-elect's inaugural committee. That's according to two sources with direct knowledge of the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.

Barrack has been an aggressive public supporter of Trump throughout the campaign. He was among the primetime speakers at Trump's nominating convention this summer.

The inaugural chairman is responsible for raising millions of dollars to fund the inauguration, which includes several major parties and an extensive entertainment program.

Barrack's office declined a request for comment.

He told CBS "This Morning" on Thursday that Trump was like an ultimate fighter during the campaign who used "whatever tools necessary to convey a really disruptive message." He said America would see "a softer, kinder" Trump now that he's won the presidency.

-- By Steve Peoples and Julie Bykowicz

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5:12 p.m.

The president of the United Auto Workers says the union's views on trade align with Donald Trump's, and he'd like a meeting with the president-elect to talk about it.

Dennis Williams says he agrees with Trump's call for scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has sent auto jobs to Mexico. He also backs Trump's proposal for a 35 percent tariff on vehicles imported from Mexico.

The UAW has historically supported Democratic candidates and endorsed Hillary Clinton this year. But Michigan, which has the most auto workers of any state, narrowly voted for Trump in unofficial results. Internal polling of union members prior to the election showed 28 percent going for Trump with 6 percent undecided. Williams says Trump's total may actually have been slightly higher than the 31 percent who voted for Mitt Romney and 33 percent who went for John McCain.

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5 p.m.

As President-elect Donald Trump puts together his White House, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and top campaign aide Kellyanne Conway are emerging as possible picks for chief of staff.

That's according to two people familiar with the transition planning.

Conway, a prominent Republican pollster, served as Trump's third campaign chief of staff and developed a strong rapport with the candidate. Priebus embraced Trump after his nomination, despite concerns among other Republicans, and worked his way into his inner circle.

A third person with knowledge of the transition process says conservative media executive Steve Bannon is also in the mix for chief of staff. However, others insist Bannon would not have a White House role.

Those involved in the process insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the planning publicly. A decision on chief of staff is expected in the coming days.

 By Julie Pace, Julie Bykowicz and Steve Peoples

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3:35 p.m.

President-elect Donald Trump says his top three priorities are immigration, health care and jobs.

"Big-league jobs," he says.

Trump spoke briefly with reporters Thursday after meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the Capitol.

Trump is wrapping up his first trip to Washington since winning Tuesday's election. He's been meeting with President Barack Obama and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

When a reporter asked if he would ask Congress to ban Muslims, Trump said "Thank you everybody," and walked away.

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2:29 p.m.

More than 100 protesters are holding a sit-in outside Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue as the president-elect meets with Republican leaders a few blocks away on Capitol Hill.

The mostly student protesters are holding signs that say #stillwithher and Love Trumps Hate, a phrase that Hillary Clinton often used during her campaign against Trump.

The demonstrators sat on the sidewalk outside Trump's new hotel, chanting "Black Lives Matter" and "Stronger Together," a slogan of Clinton's campaign.

Trump met earlier with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office near the hotel.

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2:15 p.m.

House Speaker Paul Ryan says he and President-elect Donald Trump had a "fantastic, productive meeting" at the Capitol.

Trump called the meeting "an honor." He added that, "I think we're going to do some absolutely spectacular things for the American people."

Trump may have signaled early agenda items where the Republicans agree. He said: "We can't get started fast enough, whether it's health care or immigration."

Ryan then took Trump, Melania Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence out onto his balcony overlooking the Mall. Ryan pointed to where the inaugural platform being is built. That's where Trump will be sworn in.

Trump at one point gestured toward the tower of his new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol.

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2:10 p.m.

First lady Michelle Obama and incoming first lady Melania Trump have spoken about the challenges of raising children in the White House.

Mrs. Trump's 10-year-old son Barron Trump will become a teenager during President-elect Donald Trump's first term. White House spokesman Josh Earnest says that's "a rather unique childhood."

He pointed out that Mrs. Obama and President Barack Obama also had the experience of raising children in the White House.

Earnest said Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Trump spoke about the experience of being a good parent under those unique circumstances. He said the two women then walked to the Oval Office to visit with the president and the president-elect.

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2:05 p.m.

Federal officials have imposed temporary flight restrictions over Vice President-elect Mike Pence's current home at the Indiana governor's residence.

A Federal Aviation Administration notice dated Wednesday prohibits most aircraft from flying below 1,500 feet within a one-mile radius of the governor's residence in Indianapolis. It says military aircraft supporting the Secret Service are exempt, along with police and emergency aircraft.

The FAA generally issues temporary restrictions when there's a special event or hazardous condition. Similar limits have been issued for around Trump Tower in New York City.

The notice says the Indianapolis air space restrictions are needed because of "VIP movement." They expire Jan. 21, the day after Pence becomes vice president.

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1:50 p.m.

Donald Trump's first wife, Ivana, says she voted for her ex. She says he'll "make big changes" in the United States.

Ivana Trump offered the comment when reached by phone by her fourth husband, Rossano Rubicondi, while he appeared on an Italian TV talk show.

Ivana Trump is the mother of the president-elect's three oldest children. She married Rubicondi in 2008 and legally separated from him later that year.

According to a news release from the "Maurizio Costanzo Show," Ivana Trump said: "Naturally I voted for Donald. He's a businessman who will make big changes."

The show is scheduled to air Sunday.

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1:10 p.m.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has spoken with Vice President-elect Mike Pence, her former House colleague.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said that Pelosi congratulated Pence on his win in their conversation Thursday.

Hammill said: "The two agreed on the need to find common ground and that they would meet in person in the weeks ahead."

Pence served in the House of Representatives before becoming governor of Indiana.

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1 p.m.

President-elect Donald Trump has left the White House after his first meeting with President Barack Obama.

Trump says it was the first time the two had ever met. For almost 90 minutes, they discussed the coming changeover of government. Trump said they had planned to meet for a much shorter period of time.

While in Washington, Trump also plans to meet with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

As Trump and Obama met in the Oval Office, first lady Michelle Obama welcomed Trump's wife, Melania, to the White House residence.

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A motorcade carrying President-elect Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Vice President-elect Mike Pence with his wife, Karen, and daughter, Charlotte, acknowledge supporters as they get off a plane after arriving for a public rally Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, left, accompanied by her husband former President Bill Clinton, right, finishes speaking at the New Yorker Hotel in New York, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, where she conceded her defeat to Republican Donald Trump after the hard-fought presidential election. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., left, shows President-elect Donald Trump, his wife Melania and Vice president-elect Mike Pence the view of the inaugural stand that is being built and Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President-elect Donald Trump, flanked by his wife Melania and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., gives a thumbs-up while walking on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, after their meeting. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)

President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Vice President-elect Mike Pence speaks as he wife, Karen, and daughter, Charlotte, stand next to him during a public rally Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
Macedonian police seize marijuana worth $1.1 million

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP)  Macedonian police say they have seized 108 kilograms of marijuana with an estimated street value of 1 million euros (US$1.1 million) and arrested four suspected smugglers.

A police statement Thursday said the drugs had been grown in neighboring Albania  a major producer of illegal marijuana  and were to have been delivered to Turkey.

The four suspects arrested in the capital, Skopje, Tuesday were identified as two Macedonian nationals, an Albanian and a Kosovan. The marijuana was found stashed in a car.
Mr Trump comes to Washington: Triumphant tour for the victor

WASHINGTON (AP)  President-elect Donald Trump took a triumphant tour of the nation's capital Thursday, holding a cordial White House meeting with President Barack Obama, sketching out priorities with Republican congressional leaders and taking in the majestic view from where he'll be sworn in to office.

Trump's meeting with Obama spanned 90 minutes, longer than originally scheduled. Obama said he was "encouraged" by Trump's willingness to work with his team during the transition of power, and the Republican called the president a "very good man."

"I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including his counsel," Trump said from the Oval Office. He'll begin occupying the office on Jan. 20.

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., left, shows President-elect Donald Trump, his wife Melania and Vice president-elect Mike Pence the view of the inaugural stand that is being built and Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

While Trump noted that he and Obama had never met before, their political histories will forever be linked. Trump spent years perpetrating the lie that Obama was born outside the United States. The president campaigned aggressively against Trump during the 2016 campaign, warning that his election would put the republic at risk.

But at least publicly, the two men appeared to put aside their animosity. As the meeting concluded and journalists scrambled out of the Oval Office, Obama smiled at his successor and explained the unfolding scene.

"We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds," Obama said.

From the White House, Trump headed to Capitol Hill for meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump and never campaigned with the nominee.

Emerging from the meetings, Trump sketched out priorities for his presidency.

"We're going to move very strongly on immigration," he said. "We will move very strongly on health care. And we're looking at jobs. Big league jobs."

Ryan took Trump on a tour of the Speaker's Balcony overlooking the National Mall, the scene of Trump's upcoming inauguration. The view, Trump said, was "really, really beautiful."

Trump was also beginning the process of putting together his White House team. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who worked his way into Trump's inner circle during the election, and top campaign official Kellyanne Conway were emerging as possible picks for White House chief of staff, according to two people familiar with the transition planning.

A third person said conservative media executive Steve Bannon was also in the mix, though others insisted Bannon would not have a White House role. Those involved in the process insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the planning publicly. A decision on chief of staff is expected in the coming days.

First lady Michelle Obama met privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden saw Vice President-elect Mike Pence late Thursday. Trump's team was said to be sketching a robust role for Pence, an experienced Washington hand, that would include both domestic and foreign policy responsibilities.

Obama and Trump met alone, with no staff present, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters following the discussion.

"The two men did not relitigate their differences in the Oval Office," Earnest said. "We're on to the next phase."

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

At the White House, Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough was seen walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.

The show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

More than 100 protesters held a sit-in outside Trump International Hotel just blocks from the White House. The mostly student protesters held signs saying "Love Trumps Hate," a phrase Democrat Hillary Clinton often used during the campaign.

The demonstrations drove the president-elect back to Twitter Thursday night. "Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting," Trump tweeted. "Very unfair!"

Trump's advisers, many of whom were stunned by his unexpected victory, plunged into the huge task of staffing government agencies. A transition website, GreatAgain.gov, referenced 4,000 political appointee openings.

Officials at the Pentagon and State Department said they had not yet been contacted.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the agency stood ready "to work with the incoming team once that team is designated and arrives here. But we don't have any firm word as to when that will be."

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama  including information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

___

AP writers Erica Werner, Andrew Taylor, Julie Bykowicz, Steve Peoples, Matthew Lee and Robert Burns in Washington, and Jonathan Lemire in New York contributed to this report.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

President Barack Obama shakes hands with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President-elect Donald Trump, flanked by his wife Melania and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., gives a thumbs-up while walking on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, after their meeting. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)

Protester Patricia Romo, left, 22, argues with Trump supporter Cody Williams, 18, during a demonstration at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, Thursday Nov. 10, 2016, opposition of Donald Trump's presidential election victory. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
Supervisors say George Lucas museum belongs in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Los Angeles supervisors are urging "Star Wars" creator George Lucas to bring his planned Museum of Narrative Art to LA, not San Francisco.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said Wednesday that the museum would bring 1,500 construction jobs and another 350 permanent jobs to the city.

Lucas has proposed two possible sites for the institution: LA's Exposition Park, across from the Natural History Museum, and Treasure Island in San Francisco.

Los Angeles supporters point out that Lucas attended film school at University of Southern California and founded Industrial Light and Magic in Van Nuys before moving it north.

The nonprofit museum  which will focus on movies, art and storytelling  is expected be fully funded by the Lucas family.
Toronto police charge 2 men in beating death of Maryland man

TORONTO (AP)  Police have arrested and charged two Toronto men with second-degree murder after a Maryland man was beaten to death outside a club in Toronto last weekend.

Toronto police Inspector Det. Sgt. Gary Gary Giroux said Kenneth Omorogbe, 25, and Kamari Folkes, 24, are accused of kicking and stomping Julian Jones while he was on the ground.

Jones, a 26-year-old college student from Baltimore, was at a bar to celebrate a friend's upcoming wedding. He died en route to a hospital.

Omorogbe and Folkes are due to make a brief court appearance on Thursday.
Q&A: Redmayne on finally getting his Harry Potter shot

NEW YORK (AP)  After spending two straight falls consumed by awards season, Eddie Redmayne is taking a break from the Oscars and fronting his first franchise.

In the Harry Potter prequel "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," the mantle of J.K. Rowling's leading man has been passed from Radcliffe to Redmayne. His Newt Scamander also wields a wand, but he's a humbler operator in the same magical realm. Newt is a sheepish Brit arriving in 1926 New York, with a leather case stuffed with wondrous but outlawed creatures.

Though the film, which also stars Colin Farrell, Katherine Waterson and Dan Fogler, is an ensemble, Redmayne is undoubtedly the freckled face of the new Pottermania. It's a new, high-pressured role for Redmayne, an Oscar winner for his Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything" and a nominee for last year's "The Danish Girl." So is fatherhood; in June, his wife, Hannah Bagshawe, gave birth to their daughter, Iris.

In this Nov. 7, 2016 photo, actor Eddie Redmayne poses for a portrait in New York to promote his film, "Fantastic Beasts," the first of a planned five prequels to the "Harry Potter" series by J.K. Rowling. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)

A few hours after taking a break from promotional duties with Iris, Redmayne chatted in a downtown Manhattan hotel about his headlong dive into Rowling's empire, the film's multicultural message and just how many movies he's gotten himself into.

AP: Your first blush with the Harry Potter world came much earlier, didn't it?

Redmayne: This is true. When I was at university, they were casting the net quite wide for Tom Riddle, the young Voldemort. I had gotten an audition. I think I was seeing the casting director's eighth assistant. I remember surviving about three and a half lines of the first scene before I was shown the door, so I wasn't very successful. It wasn't the greatest introduction to the Harry Potter world.

AP: I imagine, being a young actor in Britain, many of your contemporaries were finding their way in.

Redmayne: I definitely thought having a slight ginger gene there must be some distant relative of a Weasley I could be. I had lots of friends -- Robert Pattinson did the film and then Domhnall Gleeson played a Weasley. They would come back with wonderful tales. But I never got the call.

AP: So how did "Fantastic Beasts" come to you?

Redmayne: It came in the most wonderfully cryptic, slightly sort of Harry Potter-y way. I got a call saying that (director) David Yates wanted to meet. We met at a club called Blacks in Soho in London. I went downstairs and I found David sitting by a roaring fire. And I have this little case, this Globe-Trotter case that I always use as my work case. I think I was working on "The Danish Girl" so I came from there. He just gently started telling me this story and introducing me to who Newt Scamander was. And then he mentioned this case that had this sort of Mary Poppins-like quality. And I subtly pushed my case back. I was so mortified that he might think I was that actor who had turned up dressed as the character.

AP: What did Rowling tell you about Newt?

Redmayne: We had a discussion for about an hour two weeks before filming. It was the first time I met her. She told me where Newt came from in her imagination and aspects of her own life. It was a really wonderful conversation and galvanizing conversation. But it's not one that's really my place to talk about because it was personal to her.

AP: The fantastical beasts your character is secretly shepherding are deeply feared and banned in America. The political subtext is hard to miss.

Redmayne: I find that interesting in what it represents of things we don't know, things we see as other that we just become terrified of and dismiss. Newt believes, with the right education for both wizards and the creatures, there's a way to live harmoniously. I don't feel like he's a broadcaster. He's doing it in his own gentle way.

AP: Rowling has recently announced she plans not three but five "Fantastic Beasts" films. Will you be around for all of them?

Redmayne: In my heart of hearts, I don't know. I'm contracted to a few more but they always contract you to more in case you're needed. But I think only Jo knows what the story is. What I feel, what I get the sense of, is that Newt and his case and the beasts are the catalyst and the entrance -- our eyes -- into this much bigger story that she wants to tell about good versus evil. I had the most wonderful time doing it and I would love to be a part of it as it moves forward -- unless I get killed off!

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

In this Nov. 7, 2016 photo, actor Eddie Redmayne poses for a portrait in New York to promote his film, "Fantastic Beasts," the first of a planned five prequels to the "Harry Potter" series by J.K. Rowling. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)

In this Nov. 7, 2016 photo, actor Eddie Redmayne poses for a portrait in New York to promote his film, "Fantastic Beasts," the first of a planned five prequels to the "Harry Potter" series by J.K. Rowling. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)

In this Nov. 7, 2016 photo, actor Eddie Redmayne poses for a portrait in New York to promote his film, "Fantastic Beasts," the first of a planned five prequels to the "Harry Potter" series by J.K. Rowling. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)
Leaderless Democratic Party in dire straits after GOP sweeps

WASHINGTON (AP)  President Barack Obama hands over the White House to Republican Donald Trump in 70 days, leaving the Democratic Party leaderless and with few up-and-coming stars among its aging stalwarts.

In what appeared to be a wave election, Republicans also secured majorities they already enjoyed in the Senate and the House and in governor's mansions and state legislatures across the country. Democrats were all but wiped out in places like Iowa and Kentucky.

The defeat of Hillary Clinton, an experienced Washington politician who sought common ground with Republicans, could make it more likely that the party will turn to its liberal wing as it grapples with its future. That's best represented by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom Clinton defeated in a long primary, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a pull-no-punches progressive darling.

In this Nov. 3, 2016, photo, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at the University of Cincinnati. President Barack Obama hands over the White House to Republican Donald Trump in 71 days, leaving the Democratic Party leaderless and with few up-and-coming stars among its aging cast of stalwarts. The defeat of Clinton, an experienced Washington politician who sought common ground with Republicans, could make it more likely that the party will turn to its liberal wing as it grapples with its future. Thats best represented by Sanders, whom Clinton defeated in a long primary, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a pull-no-punches progressive darling. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

The Democratic Party should remold itself in the image of Warren and Sanders "and offer a systemic critique of the rigged economy" that appeals to the same voters who put Trump over the top, said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Green said Democrats must make a "conscious decision to separate themselves from the corporate villains who are to a large extent funding their campaigns."

Trump's open warfare with Republican leaders over the past year and a half obscured the extent of the Democrats' crisis, and they are only now beginning to contend with it.

"This is painful, and it will be for a long time," Clinton said in her concession speech Wednesday in New York. She implored those who want to fight for Democratic values  particularly young voters  to participate every day, not just every four years.

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz urged careful deliberation as the Democratic reckoning begins. He said the "rush to recalibrate" strategy and messaging concerns him.

"Democrats need to take, not forever, but weeks and months to diagnose what just happened to us and why," he said.

But the outlook for Democrats may well get worse before it improves.

In two years, they will be defending about two dozen Senate seats, including at least five in deep-red states. That election could hand Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a filibuster-proof majority, further clearing the way for a conservative policy agenda.

"We have to ask ourselves what is wrong with our party," said Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, arguing it's at least in part a failure to connect with working-class people who are hurting.

One small Democratic bright spot this year was the election of three women of color to the Senate, Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, Kamala Harris in California and Tammy Duckworth in Illinois. At the same time, the party's marquee names are far older than the core Democratic coalition.

Sanders is 75, Warren 67 and soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer turns 66 this month. Across the Capitol, Democrats are led by 76-year-old Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.

In a telephone interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Sanders said Democrats must take a strong stand against the role of corporate interests in politics.

That millions of white working-class people voted for Trump "suggests that the Democratic message of standing up for working people no longer holds much sway among workers in this country," Sanders said.

Warren is speaking Thursday at an AFL-CIO executive council meeting. Although labor leaders spent millions of dollars backing Clinton, many union members, particularly in Rust Belt states that had been Democratic strongholds, appear to have voted for Trump.

"We should hear the message loud and clear that the American people want Washington to change," Warren is telling them, according to her prepared remarks. "Working families across this country are deeply frustrated about an economy and a government that doesn't work for them."

Democratic woes ripple into their party's infrastructure, as the Democratic National Committee in Washington struggles. Both the chairwoman who stepped down this summer and the woman who succeeded her in the interim have been dinged by embarrassing emails published by WikiLeaks after what the government believes was a Russian hack of their internal Democratic systems.

Sanders said he would support Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota to become the next chairman of the DNC.

Democrats emphasized their party's diversity, and some argued that Trump's singular appeal as a plain-spoken celebrity businessman does not translate into a wholesale voter rejection of Democratic policies.

Jaime Harrison, the South Carolina party chairman, downplayed the idea that Trump's nationalistic populism should necessarily push the Democratic Party leftward. "That might be overthinking what happened," he said.

Harrison argued it's more about finding the right messengers to take the Democratic platform to the pockets of the electorate that have drifted away from the party, naming New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker among others as potential role models for other Democrats.

Yet Walsh warned Democrats not to fall into the same trap as they did eight years ago, after an inspiring 47-year-old first-term senator with a powerful stage presence was elected president.

"Every now and then you get a shining star, and that person takes over the party," Walsh said. "And during that time you sort of lose the bench."

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Associated Press writers Ken Thomas and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.
The Latest: Coroner: Woman killed by man who ambushed cops

CANONSBURG, Pa. (AP)  The Latest on the shooting of two police officers in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania (all times local):

6:30 p.m.

A western Pennsylvania coroner says a woman found dead in her home had been shot by a man who ambushed and killed a police officer and then killed himself.

Police vehicles line streets of the Canonsburg, Pa., neighborhood where two Canonsburg police officers were shot when they responded to a domestic call early in Canonsburg, Pa., Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Washington County Coroner S. Timothy Warco says Dalia Elhefny Sabae died as a result of a gunshot wound inflicted by Michael Cwiklinski Thursday morning.

He says Cwiklinski died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after police say he ambushed two officers responding to a domestic dispute in Canonsburg.

Officer Scott Bashioum was fatally shot and another Canonsburg police officer was wounded early Thursday.

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12:45 p.m.

A defense attorney has identified the couple found dead at the house where one western Pennsylvania police officer was fatally shot and another was wounded.

Attorney David Wolf says he represented 47-year-old Michael Cwiklinski in a domestic violence case against his Eqyptian girlfriend, Dalia Sabae, last November. Wolf confirms the two were found dead at the house where police say Officer Scott Bashioum was fatally shot and another Canonsburg police officer was wounded early Thursday.

Police haven't released the shooter's name, but say the man found dead in the duplex apartment was the gunman who shot officers called to a domestic dispute about 3:15 a.m.

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11:45 a.m.

A man suspected of ambushing two Pennsylvania police officers responding to a domestic dispute, fatally shooting one and wounding the other, has been found dead along with a woman.

Officials have not identified the man or woman.

Police say the man died of a self-inflicted injury after shooting at the Canonsburg police officers, killing seven-year veteran Scott Bashioum early Thursday. The name of the wounded officer, who is in stable condition after surgery at a Pittsburgh hospital, has not been released.

Police say there's no continuing threat to the public.

Neighbors tell reporters that police were often called to fights at the home where the shooting occurred. Police have said a woman in the home had a protection-from-abuse court order and the alleged gunman's defense attorney from an earlier incident has confirmed that information.

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10:45 a.m.

The coroner has identified a police officer fatally shot in what police say was a domestic dispute that turned into an ambush in western Pennsylvania.

Fifty-two-year-old Canonsburg Officer Scott Bashioum was killed and another Canonsburg officer wounded when they responded to the incident about 3:15 a.m. Thursday.

The surviving officer was flown to a hospital in Pittsburgh, but his name, condition and nature of his wounds haven't been released.

Police have indicated their hunt for the suspect is over, but have yet to release other details on the suspected gunman. They planned a news briefing later Thursday morning.

Police and SWAT teams were seen near at least two homes in the borough about 20 miles southwest of Pittsburgh before police were ordered to stand down about 9:30 a.m.

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7:30 a.m.

The coroner says one of two western Pennsylvania police officers shot while responding to a domestic situation has died, and police are searching for a suspect.

Washington County Coroner Tim Warco wouldn't identify the Canonsburg officer who was slain because relatives are still being notified.

Canonsburg and state police say the incident began about 3:15 a.m.

Trooper Melinda Bondarenka tells reporters the officers were immediately met with gunfire when they arrived at the scene.

The surviving officer has been flown to a hospital in Pittsburgh. His condition wasn't immediately available.

Police and SWAT teams have been seen near at least two homes in the borough about 20 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. It's not clear whether the suspect was in either of those homes.

Nearby schools were delayed or canceled because of the heavy police presence.

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5:45 a.m.

Two police officers have been shot in western Pennsylvania.

It happened around 4 a.m. Thursday in Canonsburg, which is about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh.

Mayor Dave Rhome tells radio station WJPA two officers were shot, but the mayor did not know their conditions. Their names have not been released.

One was taken to a hospital in Canonsburg and the other was flown to a hospital in Pittsburgh.

Officials have not released what led to the shootings.

A group prays in front of a makeshift memorial for the Canonsburg Police officers who were shot when they responded to a domestic call early Thursday, Nov 10, 2016, in Canonsburg, Pa. A gunman with a history of domestic abuse shot at police officers before he and a woman were found dead following a reported fight at their apartment, authorities said. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Becky Travaglini, of Canonsburg, Pa., places a teddy bear at a makeshift memorial for the Canonsburg police officers who were shot when they responded to a domestic call early Thursday, Nov 10, 2016, in Canonsburg, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Law enforcement personnel gather after a nearby shooting in Canonsburg, Pa., Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. Multiple western Pennsylvania police officers were "ambushed" and shot while responding to a domestic situation, authorities said. (Darrell Sapp/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)

Police conduct their investigation of the scene where Canonsburg, Pa., Police officers were shot when they responded to a domestic call early Thursday, Nov 10, 2016 in Canonsburg. A gunman with a history of domestic abuse shot at police officers before he and a woman were found dead following a reported fight at their apartment, authorities said. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

John Kelemen of Canonsburg, Pa., prays at a makeshift memorial to two Canonsburg, Pa., police officers who were shot early Thursday, Nov 10, 2016, in Canonsburg, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK Food News The Prison-to-Chef Pipeline Now, here's an election result I can get behind. From Tent City to prize-winning chef: Santa Fe's Fernando Ruiz just won the $10,000 grand prize on the Food Network's Chopped. Congrats, brother.

It Tastes Better When It's From Home HomeGrown: A New Mexico Food Show & Gift Market is happening on Nov. 19-20 at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces. Farmers and food-crafters from all over N.M. will be selling their homemade food wares and you can give your support by stocking up. The market will be open 9am-4pm. Admission is $5 per vehicle.

Let Them Eat Junk Let's all pretend that there isn't a connection between nutrition and cognitive performance in children, and just look the other way while the state shovels cheap crap into schoolchildren. Or, we could listen to what this concerned mother has to say and get serious about raising the next batch of New Mexicans.

Sometimes You Eat the Bar(becue), and Sometimes the Bar(becue) Eats You Dickey's Barbecue Pit just opened a second location at 1410 Wyoming NE. They will be serving free meals to all active military and vets on Nov. 11 in honor of Veterans Day.

Not So Wise After All Sysco New Mexico has filed a lawsuit against former WisePies owner Michael Baird, the WisePies corporate entity, two WisePies franchises and four other restaurant entities tied to Baird over an alleged $257,671 debt in unpaid food bills. A spokesperson for WisePies said they have no debt with Sysco, since food orders are made by individual locations, not the company.
Danish premier honors 2015 Paris attack victims

PARIS (AP)  Denmark's prime minister has paid tribute to victims of the Paris attacks during a visit to the French capital days before the anniversary.

Lars Loekke Rasmussen laid flowers Thursday at the main monument in Place de la Republique, after meeting with French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace.

Loekke Rasmussen also visited the Paris police department's crisis center used to ensure fast intervention in case of security incidents.

Danish ambassador to France, Kirsten Malling Biering, left, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, center, and French columnist for Charlie Hebdo newspaper Patrick Pelloux, right, pay their respects to the victims of the 2015 Paris attacks, in Paris, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

He said he wanted "to get an impression of how the French authorities work with counterterrorism because that's also a challenge in Denmark" and to increase bilateral cooperation in that field.

Since the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 130 people, France has maintained a high security threat level across the country.

France's president Francois Hollande greets Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, pror to their meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen lays flowers on the statue of the Republique Square, in Paris, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, to the victims of the 2015 Paris attacks. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Danish ambassador to France, Kirsten Malling Biering, left, and Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen leave the Republique Square, in Paris, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, after laying flowers to the victims of the 2015 Paris attacks. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Danish Ambassador to France, Kirsten Malling Biering, left, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, second left, and French columnist for Charlie Hebdo newspaper Patrick Pelloux, right, pay their respects to the victims of the 2015 Paris attacks, in Paris, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen ponders a question as he adresses to the media at the Elysee palace after his meeting with France's president Francois Hollande in Paris, France, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

France's president Francois Hollande, right, and Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen shake hands after a press conference following their meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
Al-Qaida in Yemen threatens UAE-enlisted forces

CAIRO (AP)  In a new video, al-Qaida's branch in Yemen has threatened to escalate attacks against forces recruited by the United Arab Emirates, which is part of the Saudi-led coalition against the Yemen's Shiite rebels, known as Houthis.

The video obtained Thursday, titled "deterring aggression," accused the UAE of waging an "immoral war" in which its warplanes undertake airstrikes under the banner of fighting terrorism while allegedly slaying civilians.

The UAE has recently formed a new force in southern Yemen dubbed the "Security Belt" led by the ultraconservative Salafists. With better armaments and financing compared to regular army units, it carries out raids and arrests among suspected al-Qaida militants.
He had vowed to fight it to the end and attacked the judge overseeing the case as

Donald Trump's attorneys on Thursday agreed to enter settlement talks in a class-action fraud lawsuit involving the president-elect and his now-defunct Trump University, raising the possibility of a quick end to the 6-and-ahalf-year-old case just before it goes to trial.

Daniel Petrocelli, Trump's lead attorney on the case, also asked to delay the trial to early next year, saying Trump needed time to work on the transition to the presidency.

'The good news is that he was elected president. The bad news is that he has even more work to do now,' Petrocelli told U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel during a hearing in San Diego, California.

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A federal judge tentatively denied a request to ban statements made by and about President-elect Donald Trump (above in May 2005) during his campaign from being used at the San Diego trial of a lawsuit involving him and his now-defunct Trump University

The lawsuit alleging Trump University failed on its promise to teach success in real estate begins in San Diego on Nov. 28 before Curiel, an Indiana-born jurist who Trump accused of bias during the presidential campaign for his Mexican heritage.

Both sides accepted Curiel's offer to work with U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller, who is based in San Diego, on a possible settlement.

'I can tell you right now I'm all ears,' Petrocelli told Curiel.

Patrick Coughlin, an attorney for the former students who sued, told reporters that previous attempts failed. 'We've been miles apart,' he said outside the courthouse.

Curiel didn't signal how he would rule on the request for a trial delay, but he encouraged efforts to settle. He has been reluctant to postpone it any longer.

The judge said more than 100 potential jurors would be in court Nov. 28, and nine would be picked to begin hearing arguments no more than two days later. He expects both sides to finish presenting their cases around Dec. 14.

Petrocelli said it was unlikely that Trump would attend the trial, and Curiel said he didn't expect he would.

Judge Gonzalo Curiel was accused of bias by Trump during the presidential campaign due to his Mexican heritage

The attorneys argued for nearly three hours over tentative rulings that Curiel issued earlier in the day on what evidence to allow jurors to hear.

Curiel said he was prepared to deny a request by Trump's attorneys to prohibit statements made by and about their client during his campaign.

The highly unusual petition would apply to Trump's tweets, a video of Trump making sexually predatory comments about women, his tax history, revelations about his private charitable foundation and public criticism of the judge.

Curiel noted Trump's attorneys didn't specify what campaign-related evidence they wanted to exclude and that he would consider specific objections at trial.

Trump's attorneys didn't challenge the judge further on that point, but they objected to many other decisions, including his refusal to allow many customer surveys and Trump's claims of a 98 percent customer approval rating.

The lawsuit filed in 2010 on behalf of former customers says Trump University gave seminars and classes across the country under the guise of being an accredited school, which it wasn't, and pressured people to spend up to $35,000 on mentorships from Trump's 'hand-picked' instructors.

The claims largely mirror another class-action complaint in San Diego and a lawsuit in New York.

Petrocelli told reporters in May that Trump planned to attend most, if not all, of the trial and would testify.

At the May hearing, Petrocelli asked for a trial after Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, but the judge raised concerns about distractions if Trump won the election.
Egypt freezes bank account of top anti-torture center

CAIRO (AP)  One of Egypt's most prominent rights' groups says the country's Central Bank has ordered a freeze on its bank account.

The renowned El-Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, which documented police abuses for the past few decades, said Thursday that the bank has notified them that it has to register as an NGO instead of a registered clinic.

Amnesty International issued a statement late Thursday decrying the move and called on authorities to retract the order.
Colin Hanks juggles CBS comedy with new documentary

NEW YORK (AP)  Colin Hanks goes for laughs each week on the CBS comedy "Life in Pieces," but his next project is one of terror, survival and hope.

Hanks, 38, is the director of a documentary on the American band Eagles of Death Metal. A terror attack in 2015 during the band's concert in Paris killed 89 people. "Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends)" is set to air on HBO in February.

"The doc space is one that I really enjoy. It's fun, it's a really creative outlet for me," Hanks said in a recent interview. He directed a film about music retailer Tower Records and has made a number of online short documentaries.

In this Oct. 26, 2016 photo, Colin Hanks poses for a portrait in New York to promote his series, "Life in Pieces." Hanks will direct an upcoming documentary on the American band, Eagles of Death Metal, before and after the 2015 Paris terror attack at one of their concerts that killed 89 people. (Photo by Victoria Will]/Invision/AP)

"Life in Pieces," now in its second season (Thursday, 9:30 p.m. Eastern), follows a large family. Hanks plays Greg, who's starting a family.

The actor, who has two daughters, says he can relate to his character's life. "I think as a parent you're constantly just going, 'Great, we haven't lost the kid. This is important,'" he said with a laugh.

"There are some days when you just go, 'OK, could've done better at the parenting thing today.' That's just all part of it. You just realize it's an ever-growing process and you're just constantly playing catch-up."

Hanks jokes that he's constantly amazed that he's responsible for two lives. But the idea of owning houseplants makes him nervous because it's "too much of a commitment."

He says being a father makes him appreciate his parents. (His father is two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks.)

"Pretty much as soon as you have kids you call up your parents and you just go, 'Sorry. Really sorry about all that.' And they go, 'Yeah.' And you find out that that's a club as old as the illuminati."

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Online:

http://www.cbs.com/shows/life-in-pieces/
Fraternity ousts 2 students who waved Trump flag at college

WELLESLEY, Mass. (AP)  A fraternity has ousted two Massachusetts college students accused of driving through Hillary Clinton's alma mater and waving a Donald Trump flag hours after she conceded the presidential race.

The Boston Globe reports (http://bit.ly/2eWt07X ) that Sigma Phi Epsilon's national chapter kicked the Babson College students out of the fraternity after they drove through nearby Wellesley College with the Trump flag on Wednesday. The Democrat Clinton lost to the Republican Trump in Tuesday's election.

Babson College confirms two of its students waved the Trump flag at Wellesley but hasn't said who they are. It says they may be disciplined.

Sigma Phi Epsilon leaders call the students' actions "abhorrent" and not representative of the fraternity's values and aspirations for diversity and inclusion.

Clinton graduated from Wellesley in 1969.

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PBS series delves into history of recorded music

NEW YORK (AP)  At one point in the "Soundbreaking" documentary series, producer Paul Epworth describes a freshly heartbroken Adele singing him her new song, "Rolling in the Deep," pounding out the beat  and her frustrations  with her foot on a slab of wood.

He shows how her foot-stomping was incorporated into the rhythm track of the recording, which became one of this century's biggest hits. It's one of several insights packed into the eight-hour series that begins Monday at 10 p.m. EST on most PBS stations.

The series was the brainchild of Beatles producer George Martin, who died March 8. The sprawling overview was wrestled into shape by American producer Jeff Dupre, who made sure it was something other than a technology wonk's paradise.

This undated image released by PBS shows Beatles producer George Martin, one of more than 100 artists featured in the documentary series, "Soundbreaking," beginning Monday on PBS. (Abbey Road Studios/PBS via AP)

"You want it to not be a history lesson but an experience for the audience," Dupre said. "They'll hear a few new things, but also enjoy hearing it."

The series is divided into several topics, including the role of a producer, the use of sampling and how the recording studio became an instrument. Each episode is packed with songs and personal stories. Tom Petty describes how Jeff Lynne stopped him upon first hearing the chord progression that became "Free Fallin'," and Questlove talks about being entranced by the sound of "Rapper's Delight."

Giles Martin was a partner in the project, becoming more active with his father's illness.

"His life was dedicated to making people happy through sound," he said. "If you think about it, it was really as simple as that. He tried to push boundaries all the time within that. The innovation, not just with himself but with a lot of people, he thought was quite an interesting story to tell."

After the Beatles left the road, they partnered with Martin using the studio as a palette. "Soundbreaking" discusses the making of "Tomorrow Never Knows," where Martin was charged with bringing some of John Lennon's offbeat ideas to life.

For much of the 1900s, the goal of recording technology was to make a listener experience being in a room as music was made, said Giles Martin, who went into the family business. In the 1960s and beyond with the constant introduction of new technology, that changed.

Before being assigned to a young Liverpool band no one had heard of, George Martin produced comedy records, where he was accustomed to incorporating sound effects into recordings. With his background, he would have never gotten the job as Beatles producer in today's world, "which is kind of an interesting lesson that hasn't been learned since," Martin said.

The surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, both participate in "Soundbreaking." More than 150 artists and producers are interviewed.

Besides George Martin and the Beatles, "Soundbreaking" talks about the 1960s work of Brian Wilson and Phil Spector. Because of Spector piling on the instruments, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" doesn't sound like a breakup, "it sounds like the end of the world," Dupre said.

Fortunately, the series doesn't stay stuck in a bygone era. There are artists you wish you'd heard from  Prince and Bruce Springsteen come to mind  but "Soundbreaking" keeps up with changing styles and the diversity of creators. In the first episode, Dr. Dre explains that "it's very easy to make a hip-hop record. It's not easy to make a good hip-hop record."

Although it's not something that Giles Martin wanted to spend much time on, the series doesn't avoid the masking power of recording technology: auto-tune's ability to make someone sound much better than they actually are.

"This is more a celebration of what is great about music," he said. "Since pop music has begun, there are people who have sold records who can't sing. It's not a new thing."

Mostly, "Soundbreaking" tells stories about how artists as fans were excited by certain sounds they heard on records and how they aspired to create something new themselves.

"If you watch all the episodes, you will hear music in a new way, because you will have a greater understanding of how it was created," Dupre said.

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GM may find jobs for laid-off workers at other factories

DETROIT (AP)  The head of the United Auto Workers union says about 2,000 General Motors factory workers who face layoff in January could be placed at other company factories.

President Dennis Williams told reporters Thursday that the UAW is talking with GM. He says there may be enough jobs for all the workers but he's not sure yet.

GM announced Wednesday it would indefinitely lay off third-shift workers at two car factories in Ohio and Michigan due to falling demand. But there may be more jobs available at truck and SUV factories where sales are growing.

GM confirmed it's talking to the union about jobs for laid-off workers but says nothing is finalized.
Keith Wisakowsky, a volunteer firefighter accused of sexually assaulting a new recruit in a 'rite of initiation' which involved a chorizo sausage, has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault.

A volunteer firefighter has admitted hazing a new recruit by sexually assaulting them with a chorizo sausage.

Prosecutors say Keith Edward Wisakowsky pleaded guilty to the bizarre act in the Dallas suburb of Waxahachie on Thursday, and received a suspended one-year jail sentence.

The Ellis County & District Attorney said in a Thursday release: 'Wisakowsky was sentenced to 365 days in the county jail.

'The sentence was suspended, and he was placed on community supervision for two years.

'He was also ordered to pay a fine of $2,000.

'Among the conditions of community supervision, Wisakowsky is ordered to have no contact with the victim of the offense, and to refrain from viewing or accessing pornography.'

Cases against seven others cases are going to be dismissed, the release announcing the plea offer said.

The attack happened in January 2015. Wisakowsky was arrested in April of that year and had faced an aggravated sexual assault charge, the Star-Telegram reported.

Fellow firefighters Alec Miller, Preston Peyrot, Casey Stafford, and Blake Tucker had faced aggravated sexual assault charges, the report said, before prosecutors decided to drop their cases.

Fellow firefighters Alec Miller (left) and Preston Peyrot (right) faced aggravated sexual assault charges. Their cases are going to be dismissed

Firefighters Casey Stafford (left) and Blake Tucker (right) also faced aggravated sexual assault charges. Their cases are going to be dismissed, as well

Gavin Satterfield and William Getzendaner, the chief and assistant chief, respectively, of the Emergency Services District 6 Volunteer Fire Department, had faced witness tampering charges. Their cases will be dismissed, the release said.

Brittany Parten, who was Wisakowsky's girlfriend, was arrested and allegedly filmed the attack, the Star-Telegram reported. Her case will be dismissed, too.

Victim Jason Waldeck told KXAS-TV last year: 'I want to try and stay strong but it still gets to me. Two or three of them grabbed me from the chair and took me over to the couch and they got on top of me.

Brittany Parten, who was Wisakowsky's girlfriend, had been arrested and allegedly filmed the attack. Her case will be dismissed, too

'[Then] somebody in the room said "I've got a broomstick" and that's when it crossed my mind what they were about to do.'

Investigators said Miller, Peyrot, Stafford, Tucker, and Wisakowsky decided to use a chorizo sausage instead.

Waldeck went on: 'I hit the ground and I threw up. I was just sickened. They didn't think I would ever turn them in.'

Afterwards he had a shower and the men stole his clothes and forced him to run outside naked to fetch a pair of shorts from his car.

Ellis County District Attorney Patrick Wilson said Waldeck agreed to the plea deal.

He said in a statement Thursday: 'This agreement was made with the full knowledge and consent of the victim, Jason Waldeck.

'My prosecutors and investigators met with him many times.

Victim Jason Waldeck, pictured, has said: 'I want to try and stay strong but it still gets to me. Two or three of them grabbed me from the chair and took me over to the couch and they got on top of me'

Ellis County District Attorney Patrick Wilson said: 'Jason is a young man with his entire life ahead of him. We wish him well as he pursues his dream to become a professional firefighter'

Above, the Emergency Services District No. 6 Volunteer Fire Department in Waxahachie, Texas

'Through those meetings, Jason and my staff had the opportunity to discuss and consider many possible outcomes if these cases continued to trial.

'I am confident that this outcome satisfies our legal and moral obligation not to convict, but to see that justice is done.
Josh Hodgson backs England to end wait for Australia win

Josh Hodgson insists England can end a 10-year wait for a home nations win over Australia when they meet at the London Stadium on Sunday.

Not one of Wayne Bennett's 24-strong squad know what it is like to beat Australia, whose last defeat by anybody but New Zealand was in 2006 when Ricky Stuart's men went down to Brian Noble's Great Britain in the Tri-Nations Series in Sydney.

Hodgson, who is coming off the back of a stellar season in the NRL with Stuart's Canberra Raiders, believes the class of 2016 is good enough to end that barren run.

Josh Hodgson believes England's class of 2016 is good enough to emulate Brian Noble's Great Britain team of 2006

"It's been a long time but this is a different team to the teams that have been and gone," he said.

"We know if we are at our best, we can get the job done. We're not too worried about the opposition, we're looking at ourselves."

England left themselves with an uphill battle by losing their first game to New Zealand and they did nothing to improve the situation when they struggled to overcome minnows Scotland.

"It's a must-win for us, in terms of where we are in the tournament " Hodgson said. "It's a massive game.

"We were pretty disappointed last week with the performance we put in against Scotland but we've looked at that and moved on.

"We've come back into camp full of energy and buzzing, which is what we needed going into such a big game."

Bennett is resisting the temptation to make wholesale changes and Hodgson insists the team are not far away from clicking into gear.

"It's just a few little areas where we need to improve," he said. "I don't think it's anything too drastic or too major.

"A lot of it comes down to communication. We got lost a couple of times at the weekend and went away from our game plan.

"Sometimes when you do that, you can look a long way off but it's the small things that make a big difference in these games."

In Brisbane Broncos boss Bennett, England have a man with heaps of inside knowledge of the opposition while Hodgson is likely to be one of eight NRL-based players in his line-up, with James Graham (Canterbury Bulldogs) and Gareth Widdop (St George Illawarra) set to return after sitting out the Scotland game.

"We've got some great players in our team and it's not just the NRL-based ones," said Hodgson, who was joined at the Raiders in 2016 by former Bradford and Catalans Dragons second rower Elliott Whitehead.

"The Super League players don't know an awful lot about the Aussie players because they don't play against them every week but the talent in the squad is massive. We've got the confidence.

"This week we will have a new game plan of what we're going to do, where we're going to attack and we'll be looking to be really clinical with that.

"Wayne will maybe have a bit more knowledge of Australia than the other teams but we'll be sticking with what works for us."

Hodgson is aware that even an England victory at the Olympic Stadium may not be enough to take them through to the Anfield final, with points difference the deciding factor if the big three teams are level on wins.

Eyes, therefore, will be on Friday's game in Workington between Scotland and New Zealand, who can set England a target if they win by more than 30 points at Derwent Park.
Woman injured in violent Halloween alleyway robbery

A woman has suffered severe facial injuries in a violent robbery.

Philippa May, 43, was set upon as she walked along St John's Road in Uxbridge, west London, at 7.30pm on Halloween, leaving her face bloodied and bruised .

Scotland Yard said she was walking from Uxbridge town centre when she turned into an alleyway leading from St John's Road to Culvert Lane, and a man ran up behind her and pushed her to the ground before attacking her and stealing her rucksack.

Philippa May suffered severe facial injuries in the violent robbery in west London (Metropolitan Police/PA Wire)

He then ran back along St John's Road past the General Elliott pub.

Suffering from significant cuts and bruising to her face, Ms May made her way to her partner's house and police were called.

Officers said some of Ms May's belongings were later recovered in nearby Rockingham Park but her bag and phones are still missing.

The suspect is described as a male who was wearing a hooded top and gloves.

Investigating Officer Detective Constable Reda Imane, of Hillingdon CID, said: "Philippa has taken the brave step of releasing an image which shows the extent of her injuries and highlights the excessive violence used by her attacker.

"Philippa was lucky she did not suffer more serious injuries but it goes without saying that her ordeal was extremely traumatic and she has yet to return to work.

"I would like to appeal to members of the public that may have been travelling home from work or who live and work in the general area to come forward with any information that could assist this investigation.

"We know that St John's Road would have been busy at that time of night. Rockingham Park has numerous dog walkers and the route number 3 bus uses St John's Road. Somebody may have seen something which could prove an invaluable piece of information to catch the person responsible."

If people have information that could assist, police ask them to call DC Reda Imane or DS Andy Dawson at Hillingdon CID on 07500 102 621 or 020 8246 1552.
Two boys arrested over Birmingham school stabbing

Two teenagers have been arrested after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed at school.

Police were called to City of Birmingham School in Fentham Road, Erdington, just after 1.30pm on Thursday following reports a group of people had entered the school and stabbed a student.

The youngster was treated by the ambulance service and taken to hospital with serious injuries where he remains in a stable condition.

Police are investigating a stabbing at a Birmingham school

Two boys aged 16 and 17 were arrested a short time later on suspicion of attempted murder. Officers continue to search for other suspects.

Superintendent Mark Payne, from West Midlands Police CID, said: "This is a fast paced investigation and we are still conducting enquiries to establish the circumstances around today's incident.

"We are working closely with the school and if anyone has any information then I am urging them to speak to police or to call us as a matter of urgency."
British diver rescued after 17 hours in shark-infested Australian waters

SYDNEY, Nov 9 (Reuters) - A 68-year-old British scuba diver expressed relief over his rescue after 17 hours lost at sea in shark-infested waters off Australia's northeast coast, when a solo dive trip went wrong.

Les Brierley was exploring a shipwreck off Cape Bowling Green, south of Townsville in Queensland state on Sunday afternoon, when strong currents pulled him out to sea.

Suffering from exhaustion and sunburn, he was eventually found about 25 km (16 miles) from his boat by a rescue helicopter on Monday morning, media reported.

"I feel relieved, tired and thankful," Brierley told ABC News from his hospital bed on Tuesday.

"I thought I was going to have to swim to Cape Upstart and spend another day in the water, and I didn't relish that because I know there's a lot of sharks in Cape Upstart Bay."

Brierley was lucky to be alive after forgetting his personal locator beacon, which complicated the search, said air rescue officer Alan Griffiths, who pulled the Briton from the water.
Tullow Oil cuts spending, West African production

Nov 9 (Reuters) - Tullow Oil lowered its spending again on Wednesday in the face of low oil prices and cut production targets due to the slower than expected increase in output from its new TEN oil fields offshore Ghana.

Two years of weak oil prices have forced Tullow to make stringent cost cuts and scrap its dividend and the Africa-focused company also faced a technical issue at its prized Jubilee field in Ghana that forced a month-long shutdown.

The company said efforts to repair a broken turret at the field remained on track to be completed next year and would result in another shut down of up to 12 weeks though insurance cover would offset lost production.

Chief Executive Aidan Heavey has tightened spending in response to the oil price slide, with capital expenditure down a quarter in the first half of the year.

Tullow said on Wednesday it had cut its 2016 capital expenditure budget to $900 million from $1 billion and expected 2017 spending to be in the $300 million to $500 million range.

Tullow shares were 1.3 percent higher at 1141 GMT following the trading update, an increase of 57 percent since the start of the year.

The company said it expected net output to be 64,000-67,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) for the year in West Africa compared with its June forecast of 62,000-68,000 boepd due to the slower increase in production from TEN fields since its first oil started to flow in August.

In Kenya, Tullow expects to launch a production pilot in mid-2017 that will involve trucking about 2,000 bpd to the port of Mombasa, Chief Operating Officer Paul McDade said.

Tullow, like many of its rivals, slashed exploration spending in 2014 but as the sector slowly emerges from one of its longest downturns, it is slowly reviving its search for new resources.

It expects to resume drilling in Kenya in December 2016 with four wells in the South Lokichar basin. It has also completed a geological survey in Suriname and plans to study opportunities in offshore Guyana, Uruguay, Mauritania and Jamaica.

"This has been a better period to add for our licence portfolio with lower oil prices and less competition. Governments are now realistic that these licences need to work at $50 a barrel looking forward," McDade said.

Net debt was expected to be about $4.9 billion at the end of the year as the company increased borrowing, mainly to fund investments in TEN, it said.
Basel banking rules should stand firm on capital -U.S. official

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Global banking regulators would make a grave mistake if they eased capital rules for the world's largest lenders, a senior U.S. banking official said on Wednesday.

The head of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said last month that he did not intend coming rules to demand higher capital.

A requirement that banks issue more capital - such as common stock - is one way to build an industry cushion against market swings.

Tom Hoenig, the vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said higher capital levels may be needed to protect banks from a repeat of turmoil like that seen during the 2008 financial crisis.

"The Basel Committee should not promise that there will be no significant increase in industry capital levels," he said at the Risk USA Conference in New York.

How to right-size capital rules has become a contentious question for banking regulators, with European Union officials warning that those standards could needlessly crimp credit.

EU officials have threatened not to apply the new bank capital rules if they lead to big hikes in capital requirements, fearing it could lead to banks restricting the flow of lending.

Also on Wednesday, EU regulators said they were certain that the Basel Committee will indeed ease the impact of new bank capital rules.

Euro zone banks like Deutsche Bank, which is already facing questions over its capital, are likely to be hit hardest unless changes are made.
Pakistanis worry that President Trump may favour rival India

By Asad Hashim and Kay Johnson

ISLAMABAD, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's surprise election as U.S. president has Pakistanis wary that he may accelerate what they see as a shift in American policy to favour arch-foe India in the long rivalry between nuclear-armed neighbours, analysts said on Wednesday.

Historical allies in the region, Islamabad and Washington have seen relations sour over U.S. accusations that Pakistan shelters Islamist militants, a charge Pakistan denies.

They hit new lows in May when a U.S. drone killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban movement on Pakistani territory.

At the same time, Pakistan's ties with traditional rival India have also deteriorated this year, with India saying Pakistan-based militants killed 19 of its soldiers in a September attack on an army base in the disputed Kashmir region.

To many Pakistanis, Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric - he once proposed banning Muslims entering the United States - and business ties to India are signs that his administration could shift further toward New Delhi.

"America will not abandon Pakistan, but definitely, Trump will be a tougher president than Hillary Clinton for Pakistan," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, Lahore-based foreign policy analyst.

"I think India will have a better and smoother interaction compared to Pakistan."

Trump has yet to lay out a detailed policy for South Asia, although he recently offered to mediate between India and Pakistan in their dispute over the divided territory of Kashmir.

He also told Fox News in May he would favour keeping nearly 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan "because it's adjacent and right next to Pakistan which has nuclear weapons."

CONGRATULATIONS, ASSURANCES

On Wednesday, a U.S. diplomat in Pakistan sought to assure the country that Trump's election did not signal a drastic policy change.

"Our foreign policy is based on national interest and they don't change when the government changes," Grace Shelton, U.S. Consul General in Karachi, told Geo News television.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Trump.

"Your election is indeed the triumph of the American people and their enduring faith in the ideals of democracy, freedom, human rights and free enterprise," Sharif said in a statement.

Still, the uncertainty of a Trump presidency has many Pakistanis on edge, even if the country has leaned towards China in recent years for investment and diplomatic support.

"Trump is a bit of a wild card," said Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and former ambassador to the United States.

"Pakistan obviously cannot rule out engaging with whomever America elects, but his anti-Muslim rhetoric may cast a shadow on relations in times of uncertainty."

INDIA HOPEFUL

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also congratulated Trump on Wednesday.

"We look forward to working with you closely to take India-US bilateral ties to a new height," Modi said in a tweet.

Trump has partnered with Indian businessmen on a handful of real estate ventures, but apart from courting the Indian-American vote he has not articulated how he would develop the bilateral relationship.

India-U.S. ties have flourished under President Barack Obama and Modi, who came to power in 2014, with the two countries striking key defence agreements this year.

Modi's government has also waged a campaign to isolate Pakistan diplomatically.

Shaurya Doval, director of the India Foundation, a think-tank close to Modi's government, called Trump's election "a very positive development", but added that India and the United States would have continued to grow closer under a Hillary Clinton presidency as well.

"My sense is that India-U.S. relations are not dependent on individuals - there are strong institutions and processes there," he said.

One fringe Hindu nationalist group in India held a victory gathering at New Delhi's speakers' corner on Wednesday.

"He's an American nationalist. We are Indian nationalists. Only he can understand us," Rashmi Gupta of the Hindu Sena, or Hindu Army, told Reuters. "We expect him to support us when it comes to terrorist attacks on India from Pakistan."

AFGHANISTAN WAR

Trump will also have to decide whether to maintain the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan or change the scope of the mission, 15 years after a U.S.-led campaign toppled the hardline Islamist Taliban government.

The United States has spent some $115 billion in aid for Afghanistan since 2002, but the country is still caught in conflict, with a third of the country out of government control and thousands of Afghan civilians, soldiers and police dying every year.

Afghan officials have voiced concern that the conflict is being forgotten in Washington, and warned privately that the West will pay a huge price if that continues.

"The people of Afghanistan are tired of war. We want (Trump) to invest heavily in bringing peace to war-torn Afghanistan and stabilize our region," said Umer Daudzai, former Afghan minister of interior.

Obama's original aim of pulling out of Afghanistan entirely has been put on hold in the face of mounting gains by Taliban militants, with U.S. air power and special forces still regularly involved in combat.

As recently as last week, two U.S. Green Berets were killed near the northern city of Kunduz.

Although Afghan security forces have been fighting largely alone since the end of the main NATO-led combat mission in 2014, their performance has been patchy and they continue to rely heavily on U.S. air power.

The Taliban on Wednesday urged Trump to withdraw all U.S. troops.
Tata's boardroom battle with ousted chairman Mistry escalates

By Aditi Shah

MUMBAI, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Tata Sons, holding firm of India's $100-billion salt-to-software Tata conglomerate, launched a broadside on Thursday against its ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry, criticising his performance and removing him as head of the group's flagship business.

In a nine-page statement, Tata accused Mistry of trying to take control of one of Tata's units and creating distance between the promoter, Tata Sons, and its group companies.

It also blamed him for nearly causing losses and eroding shareholder value.

Sources in Mistry's camp dubbed the Tata Sons' criticisms as "fallacious" and said they reflect "desperation."

The war of words between the two sides has escalated, as Tata attempts to convince the boards of Tata group companies, which it does not have majority stakes in, that it was justified in ousting Mistry as chairman of the conglomerate last month.

The Tata Sons board has already suffered two major setbacks, as the board of Indian Hotels last week, and that of Tata Chemicals on Thursday, both backed Mistry, saying he would remain chair of those group companies.

Tata Sons on Thursday axed Mistry as chair of its main cash cow Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), however, as it owns a stake of over 70 percent in that company.

The corporate power struggle is set to continue over coming days as Mistry remains chairman of other key Tata companies like Tata Steel and Tata Motors, whose boards are set to meet soon.

"It was fair expectation of Tata Sons that Mr. Mistry would gracefully resign from the boards of other Tata companies," the group said in its statement, adding that his refusal to step down went against Tata's values and ethos.

Mistry's office did not respond to an emailed request seeking comment.

Mistry was axed as chair of Tata Sons in a boardroom coup last month, with family patriarch Ratan Tata brought back to helm the company temporarily.

Since then the camps have traded barbs on a regular basis, leading to a drop in share prices of listed Tata entities and sparking concern among shareholders and other stakeholders.

DIVIDEND DECLINES

Tata Sons said on Thursday it had received queries from across the globe about its removal of Mistry as Tata Sons chair, and offered an explanation to provide the "desired perspective" behind the decision.

The group has criticised Mistry for his inability to turn around loss-making units during his four-year term, instead continuing to blame them as "legacy hot spots" and writing off huge amounts which have also not resolved the problem.

The company would have shown operating losses over the past three years, but for dividends from its flagship firm TCS, Tata Sons said, adding that "significant dependence" on TCS was a source of concern for its board. http://bit.ly/2fzQiSj

Dividends from 40 listed Tata companies, except TCS, fell to 7.8 billion rupees ($117 mln) in the fiscal year ending March 31, from 10 billion rupees three years ago, Tata Sons said.

Expenses, other than interest on debt, more than doubled to 1.8 billion rupees over the same period and impairment provisions have jumped to 24 billion rupees from 2 billion rupees, "indicating inability to stem falling values," it said.

Sources close to Mistry said Tata Sons used selective data in its representation. Mistry has also blamed Ratan Tata for some of the company's biggest debacles and alleged failures in corporate governance at Tata Sons and some group companies.

"ULTERIOR MOTIVE"

Tata Sons has blamed Mistry for "consciously dismantling" the group's existing management structure, thereby reducing the control and influence, between Tata group companies and their major shareholder and promoter, Tata Sons.

Tata Sons has alleged that Indian Hotels' support for Mistry shows his "ulterior motive" of trying to gain control of the company with the support of the independent directors.

Sources close to Mistry dismissed the allegation, and said Tata had attempted to fault independent directors for demonstrating their integrity and independence.

Tata have now called an extraordinary general meeting of all Indian Hotels shareholders in an attempt to get Mistry removed as a director from the board.

Tata Sons has made several other allegations against Mistry, including a conflict of interest with Shapoorji Pallonji group, his family firm, which also owns a 18.41 percent stake in Tata Sons.

Sources close to Mistry said that Tata had nothing to show for its allegations of a conflict of interest and called them a smear campaign unworthy of either the Tata group or a response. ($1 = 66.3929 Indian rupees)
PRESS DIGEST - Bulgaria - Nov 10

SOFIA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

-- Prime Minister Boiko Borisov acknowledged that he made a mistake nominating Tsetska Tsacheva as the ruling centre-right GERB party's candidate in Bulgaria's presidential elections. "For the first time, I did not submit to populism and looked for the most suitable person, the most knowledgeable and not the most charismatic or the one with the highest rating," he said. Tsacheva will face Socialist ally Rumen Radev in a runoff on Sunday with Radev winniing the first round (Standart, Trud, 24 Chasa)

-- Tsvetan Tsvetanov, chairman of the parliamentary group of ruling GERB party, said he is convinced that new U.S. president Donald Trump will not change drastically the course of the USA and they will remain an extremely strong factor in NATO (Standart, Trud, Monitor)

-- The European Commission raised its forecast for Bulgaria's economic growth in 2016 to 3.1 percent from 2.0 percent due to a better than expected performance of revenue and expenditure. Bulgaria's GDP growth is expected to slow down to 2.9 percent next year and 2.8 percent in 2018
PRESS DIGEST - RUSSIA - Nov 10

MOSCOW, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The following are some stories in Russia's newspapers on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

VEDOMOSTI

www.vedomosti.ru

- Russian energy holding Inter RAO is considering buying Enel Russia, a unit of Italian utility firm Enel, Vedomosti daily cites three people familiar with the matter.

KOMMERSANT

www.kommersant.ru

- Trump's victory is a good reason to reform bilateral relations between Russia and the United States, Russian analysts say. There were similar expectations eight years ago when Barack Obama became president, the daily writes.

IZVESTIA

www.izvestia.ru

- Donald Trump's victory is a real sensation as most of analysts had not predicted such an outcome, the daily says.

- Russia is in talks with Libya's parliamentarians about their possible visit to Moscow.

NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA

www.ng.ru
Leaked emails drag top Rio bosses into Guinea mine woes

By James Regan

SYDNEY, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Top Rio Tinto executives discussed payments to a consultant working to smooth relations with Guinea, weeks after it announced a settlement allowing it access to one of the world's largest iron ore deposits, according to internal emails.

Rio reported the April 2011 email correspondence on Wednesday after an internal probe. It said it had notified authorities and suspended the senior executive in charge of the project at the time, head of energy and minerals Alan Davies.

There is no suggestion that officials or the consultant acted illegally, but the emails, which involve two former chief executives, are a blow to a group that has campaigned for transparency even in complex countries, and in projects as devilishly difficult as Guinea's $20 billion Simandou mine.

U.S. authorities have investigated corruption in Guinean mining and a former representative of a rival miner, BSG Resources, was jailed for two years in 2014. BSGR denied allegations it paid bribes or ordered others to do so.

A U.S. investigation into Rio's activities and any payments in Guinea, however, could complicate a move announced late last month to sell the project to the miner's Chinese partner, Chinalco.

Guinea has been a focus for anti-corruption campaigners and funds, attracting cash from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and billionaire George Soros to improve governance.

"The company did self report and people have been stood aside, but that doesn't tell a lot about the ethical governance within Rio Tinto," Transparency International Australia chairman Anthony Whealy said.

The U.S. and Britain in recent years have ratcheted up their anti-corruption rules.

The email exchange in question, between then chief executive Tom Albanese, iron ore head Sam Walsh and Davies discussed a $10.5 million payment to Francois de Combret, a former Lazard investment banker with a long history operating in Guinea.

Rio has not confirmed the details, referring to an unnamed consultant and a "contractual payment".

Davies did not answer his mobile phone when contacted by Reuters. Albanese did not immediately respond to messages. Walsh could not be immediately contacted for comment. Rio declined further comment.

It was not clear exactly what services de Combret was being compensated for, although one email referenced "his very unique and unreplaceable services and closeness to the (Guinean) President", referring to Alpha Conde, elected in 2010.

In one exchange, Davies said he had spoken to de Combret.

"We have reached a final point, where Francois has requested a fee for services on securing [Simandou blocks] 3 and 4 of US$10.5m," Davies wrote.

"Sam, I accept that this is a lot of money, but I also put forward that the result we achieved was significantly improved by Francois' contribution," he wrote.

"He vouched for our integrity when it was needed and helped bring us together when things were looking extremely difficult."

In the correspondence, Walsh wrote there was "no question" de Combret "delivered sizeable value."

De Combret was a classmate of Conde who worked at Lazard bank until 2005, according to a document on the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes web site.

De Combret could not be reached for comment.

Albanese was ousted by Rio's board in 2013 after investments in aluminium and coal that turned into billions of dollars of writedowns. He was replaced by Walsh, who retired in July.
Work begins to fill large sinkhole on Japanese road

TOKYO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Construction workers have begun filling a large sinkhole that opened up on a major road in southern Japan with around 7,000 cubic metres of soil, local media reported.

The sinkhole, which measured 30 meters (98 feet) long and 15 meters (49 feet) deep, appeared in Fukuoka on Tuesday morning, swallowing nearby sidewalks and almost consuming several commercial buildings.

The city government started filling the hole on Wednesday with the special soil that contains cement so that it solidifies easily and were optimistic of having the road open by Monday, TV Kyushu said.
Slovak Republic - Factors To Watch on Nov 10

BRATISLAVA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Slovak financial markets on Thursday. ALL TIMES GMT (Slovak Republic: GMT + 2 hours) =========================ECONOMIC DATA======================== Real-time economic data releases.................. Summary of economic data and forecasts......... Recently released economic data................ Previous stories on Slovak data.......... **For a schedule of corporate and economic events: http://emea1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/Apps/CountryWeb/#/1C/events-overview ====================EVENTS===================================== = BRATISLAVA: EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier meets Slovak PM Fico. Related stories: BRATISLAVA: Iran's foreign minister discusses business with his Slovak counterpart. Related stories: ====================NEWS====================================== GAS TRANSIT: Polish state-run gas firm PGNiG PGN.WA said an EU decision to allow Gazprom GAZP.MM more access to Germany's Opal gas pipeline was 'extremely negative' for central and eastern Europe and repeated a threat to take legal action against the move. Story: Related stories: TRADE BALANCE: Slovakia's trade balance showed a higher-than-expected surplus of 456.6 million euros ($507.97 million) in September after revised 205.9 million euro surplus in August, data from the country's statistics office showed on Wednesday. Story: Related stories: ====================PRESS DIGEST================================ GDP GROWTH: Slovakia's economy will grow by 3.4 percent this year, the European Commission said, slightly raising an earlier estimate, but slashed down the estimate for next year to 3.2 percent. Slovakia will accelerate to 3.8 percent in 2018, it said. http://spravy.pravda.sk/ekonomika/clanok/410419-brusel-prognozuje-slovensku-dobre-casy/ (Reuters has not verified the stories, nor does it vouch for their accuracy.) For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX Main currency report TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets News editor of the day: Jason Hovet on +420 224 190 476 E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (Reporting by Prague Newsroom)
Italy Sept industry output falls but Q3 posts strong gain, auguring well for GDP

ROME, Nov 10 (Reuters)- Italian industrial production declined by less than expected in September after a surge the month before, data showed on Thursday, while output over the whole of the third quarter posted a healthy gain.

The data suggests the euro zone's third-largest economy returned to growth between July and September after stagnating in the previous three months.

Industrial output fell 0.8 percent in September following a 1.8 percent increase in August, national statistics institute ISTAT reported. A Reuters poll of 16 analysts had forecast a 1.0 percent drop in September.

August's data was marginally revised up from a previously reported 1.7 percent rise.

Industrial output, which shows a close correlation with gross domestic product (GDP) in Italy, rose 1.2 percent in the third quarter overall, which compares to a 0.2 percent fall in the second quarter.

That augurs well for third quarter GDP data to be issued by ISTAT on Nov. 15.

Italy posted a flat GDP reading in the April-to-June period, but the Bank of Italy and most economists expect to see a return to a modest growth rate in the third quarter.

The performance of industrial output suggests third quarter GDP could possibly even rebound more strongly than expected.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government expects full-year growth in 2016 of 0.8, roughly in line with last year's 0.7 percent rate, which would leave Italy in its customary position as one of the euro zone's most sluggish economies.

Industrial output fell by around a quarter between 2008 and 2014, and has recovered only a small part of that over the last year.

In September, output of consumer and energy products rose from the month before, but production of investment goods like machinery, and intermediate products like plastics and rubber declined.

ISTAT reported that on a work-day adjusted year-on-year basis, output in September was up 1.8 percent, following a 4.4 percent rise in August.

ISTAT gave the following details.

ISTAT gave the following details:

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION SEPT AUG JULY

Mth/mth pct change (adjusted) -0.8 1.8r 0.5r

Yr/yr pct change (adjusted) 1.8 4.4r -0.3

Yr/yr pct change (unadjusted) 1.9 7.7r -6.3
UK finance minister expects "very constructive dialogue" with Trump -BBC

LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Finance minister Philip Hammond said on Thursday he was certain that Britain would have a constructive relationship with U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump's administration.

Trump, a wealthy New York real estate developer and former reality TV host, rode a wave of anger toward Washington insiders to win a shock victory at Tuesday's U.S. election.

"I'm sure we will have a very constructive dialogue ... with the new American administration," Hammond told the BBC.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to revive the U.S. economy by cutting taxes, preventing companies from making products overseas, renegotiating trade accords and imposing tariffs on imports from countries like China.

Asked about warnings from the World Trade Organization that major economies, like the United States, were becoming increasingly protectionist, Hammond said Britain was committed to free trade and open markets.
Two police officers shot in Pennsylvania, one dies -reports

By Gina Cherelus

Nov 10 (Reuters) - Two police officers were shot in southwestern Pennsylvania and one died early on Thursday after they responded to a call about a domestic dispute, local media reported.

Moments after the two officers approached the home in the town of Canonsburg, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Pittsburgh, police said the suspect opened fire in an ambush-style attack around 3:30 a.m. local time, according to local CBS affiliate KDKA.

Washington County Coroner Tim Warco told KDKA that one officer, who was taken to Canonsburg Hospital, had died, and that the other was flown to a hospital in Pittsburgh.

"Obviously, it's very sketchy. At this point, it's still an active scene in search of the shooter," Warco said.

Police told residents to remain in their homes as they searched for the gunman in Canonsburg.

There were no immediate details on the other officer's condition, the names of the officers, or any possible suspect.

Authorities said schools would open two hours later than usual as the investigation continued. Some roads were closed.
Brazil's Oi picks Laplace as debt adviser -source

SAO PAULO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Phone carrier Oi SA, which in June filed for Brazil's largest ever in-court reorganization, has hired financial advisory firm Laplace Financas to restructure about 41.2 billion reais ($13 billion) in debt with banks and bondholders, a person with direct knowledge of the situation said on Thursday.

The board of Rio de Janeiro-based Oi formalized the hiring of Laplace at a meeting on Wednesday, said the person, who requested anonymity because the matter remains private.

Laplace, which is based in Sao Paulo, replaces PJT Partners Inc as Oi's adviser on the renegotiation plan.

Oi declined to comment. Laplace's senior partners were not available for immediate comment.
Croatia plans to cut income and business taxes, but budget may suffer

ZAGREB, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Croatia is proposing to cut both corporate and income taxes next year in an effort to boost growth and improve the business environment, the prime minister said on Thursday.

But analysts warn the tax cuts will lower government revenue and it will have to hold down spending to compensate. The government says next year's budget will be adjusted to reduce its deficit to two percent of gross domestic product.

The tax proposal calls for corporate tax to be cut to 18 percent from 20 percent and for tax on small and medium-size companies to fall to 12 pct. Income tax will have two rates, 36 and 24 percent, instead of the current 12, 25 and 40 percent.

"The changes reduce income tax for 1.8 million Croatian citizens," Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told a cabinet session on Thursday. And some 1.5 million people, out of an overall population of 4.4 million, will be exempted from income tax, Finance Minister Zdravko Maric added.

Croatia's public debt is now some 85 percent of gross domestic product. Current economic growth of around 2.5 percent is probably not enough to create a substantial number of new jobs that would produce more tax revenue.

The newest European Union member and one of its weakest economies, Croatia is struggling to achieve higher growth and reduce public debt after recovering in 2015 from six straight years of recession.

At an economic conference earlier this week, Plenkovic said that adoption of the 2017 budget, expected by early December, is the next step in the government's efforts to improve the economy's performance and the business environment. More reforms will follow next year.

Parliament is expected to approve the tax proposal, comprising 15 different laws, in time for the changes to take effect from Jan. 1, 2017.

"This is a wide and thorough tax reform package whose goal is to help boost growth, pave way for creation of new jobs and introduction of more social justice," Plenkovic told his cabinet.
Spain arrests 56 men in child pornography bust

MADRID, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Spanish police have arrested 56 men accused of possessing and distributing pornographic photos and videos of children, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

The men, some of whom were repeat offenders, all lived in Spain and were between 40 and 60 years old. They used an online file-sharing ring which disseminated caches of pornographic material featuring the sexual abuse or exploitation of minors, the police said.

The 18-month police operation covered the entire country and uncovered hundreds of computers, hard drives and DVDs with an undisclosed number of files featuring extreme sexual violence against boys and girls, the ministry said.
Rubik's Cube loses EU trademark fight over its shape

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Rubik's Cube, a multicoloured three-dimensional puzzle, lost a trademark battle on Thursday after Europe's top court said its shape was not sufficient to grant it protection against copycats.

The toy, invented in 1974 by Hungarian Erno Rubik, is popular among young and old, with more than 350 million cubes sold worldwide.

British company Seven Towers, which manages Rubik's Cube intellectual property rights, registered its shape as a three-dimensional EU trademark with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in 1999.

But German toy maker Simba Toys challenged the trademark protection in 2006, saying that the cube's rotating capability should be protected by a patent and not a trademark.

Patents allow inventors to block rivals from making commercial use of their inventions without their approval for a certain period of time while trademarks give intellectual property owners' an exclusive and perpetual right to their designs, logos, phrases or words as long as they use them.

The German company took its case to the Luxembourg-based European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) after EUIPO and a lower EU court dismissed its lawsuit.

ECJ judges agreed with Simba Toys' arguments. Their decision is final and cannot be appealed.

"In examining whether registration ought to be refused on the ground that shape involved a technical solution, EUIPO and the General Court should also have taken into account non-visible functional elements represented by that shape, such as its rotating capability," they said.

EUIPO will now have to issue a new decision based on the ECJ judgment.

3D OBJECTS

Apart from logos and brand names, three dimensional (3D) objects can also be trademarked, such as the design of Nestle's Perrier bottles or the colour of Duracell batteries.

Rubik's Brand Ltd's president David Kremer said he was baffled that the court ruled that functionality or a technical solution is implicit in the trademark.

"This judgment sets a damaging precedent for companies wishing to innovate and create strong brands and distinctive marks within the EU, and is not what European lawmakers intended when they legislated for 3D trademarks," he said.

Litigation over trademarks on three dimensional objects have repeatedly been escalated to Europe's top court.

Last year, the court ruled that Nestle's request to trademark the shape of its four-fingered Kit Kat bar in Britain did not comply with EU law, supporting a complaint by rival Mondelez International.

In 2014, however, the court said the layout of a shop such as Apple's flagship stores may be registered as a trade mark under certain conditions.

Lawyer Alex Brodie at London-based Gowling WLG said the Rubik's Cube ruling could be a wake-up call for toy makers.
Frank Goodwin is proposing to build eight single-family detached dwellings at 1400 and 1420 Hamilton Ave. in North Chattanooga.

It is a 1.64-acre site making the density 5.2 dwelling units per acre.

It is on the east side of Hamilton Avenue near Matlock Street.

The rezoning request goes before the Planning Commission on Monday at 1 p.m. at the County Courthouse.

The staff is recommending approval.
3-Trump and Obama set campaign rancor aside with White House meeting

By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump met on Thursday for the first time, setting aside the deep rancor that dominated the long campaign season to discuss the transition to the Republican's inauguration on Jan. 20.

Their 90-minute meeting in the White House Oval Office, with no aides present, took place just two days after Trump's stunning election victory over Hillary Clinton, Obama's former secretary of state.

Obama, who vigorously campaigned for his fellow Democrat to succeed him, had repeatedly called Trump unfit for the president's office, while the businessman had often dubbed Obama's eight-year tenure a "disaster."

But in separate post-election remarks on Wednesday, both men appeared to seek to help the country heal from a bitterly divisive campaign, and that tone continued into the White House meeting.

Seated next to Obama after their talks, Trump told reporters: "We really discussed a lot of situations, some wonderful, some difficulties." He said Obama explained "some of the really great things that have been achieved," but did not elaborate.

"It was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future," Trump said, with a tone of deference.

Trump, a real estate magnate who has never held political office, later met congressional leaders, including U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican who has had a strained relationship with Trump.

"A fantastic day in D.C. Met with President Obama for first time. Really good meeting, great chemistry," Trump said on Twitter late on Thursday.

Amid the efforts to bury hatchets, there were protests in a string of U.S. cities against Trump for a second day on Thursday as demonstrators expressed concern that Trump's election would be a blow to civil rights.

"Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!" Trump tweeted.

Obama said he had offered assistance to Trump over the next couple of months, and urged the country to unite to face its challenges.

"We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed, then the country succeeds," Obama said, adding he and Trump discussed a range of domestic and foreign policy issues and details related to the transition period.

"The meeting might have been at least a little less awkward than some might have expected," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

The two men's relaxed, cordial demeanor in front of the cameras was in stark contrast to the months of harsh rhetoric during the campaign.

Trump used Obama as a punching bag during his campaign speeches, repeatedly attacking the president's policies from healthcare to an Iran nuclear deal. Both Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attacked Trump as temperamentally unfit for the White House and dangerously unprepared to have access to U.S. nuclear codes.

Asked at a White House briefing on Thursday whether the meeting had eased any of the concerns about Trump that Obama expressed during the campaign, Earnest said: "The president was never in a position to choose a successor. The American people chose his successor."

ON THE HILL

Trump went from the White House to Capitol Hill for meetings with Republican congressional leaders, most of whom had a frosty relationship with Trump during a campaign where he tore into the Washington establishment.

Republicans retained control of the Senate and House in Tuesday's election, meaning at least some of Trump's agenda may find friendly terrain in Congress.

Trump emerged from meeting Ryan, along with Vice President-elect Mike Pence, to tell reporters: "We're going to lower taxes as you know." He added, in reference to Obama's signature healthcare reform of 2010 that is a common target of Trump and congressional Republicans: "We're going to fix healthcare and make it more affordable and better."

Ryan has sought to smooth over his relationship with Trump and his spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said he was "excited for the potential for unified Republican government and eager to get to work with Mr. Trump."

Trump also met for an hour with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying afterward that he had told the senator his top three priorities were better control of immigration and the borders, healthcare and jobs.

In what seemed like a possible early pivot by Trump, controversial campaign proposals, including his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, disappeared for a while on Thursday from the president-elect's campaign website. His campaign later blamed a technical problem and the statements were returned to the website.

Trump declined to respond when asked by reporters after meeting with McConnell if he would ask Congress to ban Muslims from entering the country.

On another Trump campaign pledge, a top Trump aide, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told NPR he did not expect him to spend much time trying to make Mexico pay for a proposed wall along the U.S. southern border, but "it was a great campaign device."

Such proposals, along with his free-wheeling tone and frequent insults of critics and rivals, earned Trump the disapproval of not just Democrats but many in the Republican establishment during the election campaign.

Trump's camp also showed signs it was beginning building a government, with names for top Cabinet positions being leaked. Steve Bannon, Trump's campaign chief, and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus could be named chief of staff. Trump has long hinted that his Treasury secretary could be campaign finance chair Steven Mnuchin, formerly of Goldman Sachs, but there were reports U.S. Representative Jeb Hensarling and J.P. Morgan's Jamie Dimon were also being considered.

Thursday's start at fence-mending also included meetings between Vice President Joe Biden and his future successor, Pence, and between the current and future first ladies.

Michelle Obama met privately with Trump's wife, Melania, in the White House residence. Michelle Obama has raised two daughters in the White House and the Trumps have a son, 10 year-old Barron. The two women discussed raising children at the White House, Earnest said.

"Melania liked Mrs. O a lot!," Donald Trump said on Twitter.
East Libyan factions see possible boost in Trump victory

By Aidan Lewis

TUNIS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Allies of Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, the dominant figure in the divided country's east, have welcomed Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. election, betting on more support for their anti-Islamist stance.

The result could boost pro-Haftar factions with strong ties to Egypt and increasingly to Russia, while diluting Western support for a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli that Haftar and his allies have opposed, analysts say.

Libya splintered into rival political and armed groupings after the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and remains deeply divided between factions based in the east and west that backed rival governments and parliaments.

The leaders of a U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) arrived in Tripoli in March. But they have failed to fully displace the previous administration in Tripoli or win endorsement from power-brokers in the east, who accuse the GNA of being beholden to Islamist-leaning militias.

Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) have been fighting a two-year military campaign against Islamists and other opponents in Benghazi and elsewhere in the east. Many suspect he seeks national power.

Haftar is aligned with the eastern parliament and government, both of which were quick to congratulate Trump on his win.

"I strongly support Trump because of his and the Republicans' resolute and decisive attitudes," said Tarek al-Jaroushi, a member of the parliament whose father commands Haftar's air force. "The Republican Party, which understands the truth about Daesh (Islamic State) and the positions and the victories of the Libyan army, will support us."

A statement from the parliament to Trump said: "We hope for your support  and we call for the lifting of the arms embargo on the Libyan army which is waging a war against terrorism."

Trump's win is likely to result in a retreat of U.S. support for the struggling GNA's leadership, or Presidential Council, said Claudia Gazzini, a Libya analyst at International Crisis Group.

"Up until now it's the U.S. Democratic administration that has been the major cheerleader of the Presidential Council, and the U.S. position on Libya has really dictated the international alignments, at least among Western countries," she said.

That could benefit Haftar, who in September seized control of key oil terminals from a rival faction aligned with the GNA.

REGIONAL POWERS

Change is unlikely in U.S. counter-terrorism policy in Libya, which has included air strikes against Islamic State in its former stronghold of Sirte, said Frederic Wehrey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but shuttle diplomacy and "the follow-on task of rebuilding Libya's government and especially security" could be reduced.

Any lessening of U.S. involvement in Libya could leave regional powers freer to act. In recent years western factions including Islamists have been close to Qatr and Turkey, whilst their eastern rivals have relied on support from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Haftar's allies have also cultivated ties with Russia, which printed banknotes for an eastern breakaway branch of Libya's central bank.

Trends in eastern Libya of "disengagement from party politics, a tightening of control over civil society, over mosques, over journalism" are a reflection of what is happening in Egypt, and close relations between Trump and Sisi could "strongly affect Libya", said Wehrey.

Egypt said its President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was the first international leader to congratulate Trump by telephone. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is ready to repair ties with the U.S. under Trump.

On Facebook, some Libyan supporters of Haftar expressed hope that a Trump victory would lead to a crackdown on Islamists in the region.
Russia says no change in gas price for Belarus

BAYIT VEGAN, Israel, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said on Thursday the gas price for Belarus would not be changed and that he hoped a debt dispute between the two countries would be resolved within the next two weeks.

The long-term allies have been at odds since the start of 2016 over how much Minsk should be paying Russia's Gazprom for gas supplies following a slump in global energy prices.
Trump may not be able to save U.S. coal miners: Kemp

By John Kemp

LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's election has thrown an apparent lifeline to beleaguered coal producers but he may not be able to do much to revive the fortunes of the industry.

The U.S. coal industry has been a victim of the shale revolution and the enormous quantities of cheap gas that have been unleashed by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

There is not much a future Trump administration can do to protect coal producers, who have mostly been the victim of economic forces rather than politics and the Obama administration's "war on coal".

U.S. coal production has fallen by almost a quarter from 1,171 million short tons in 2008 to just 897 million short tons in 2015, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Electricity produced from coal declined by nearly 32 percent between 2008 and 2015 and coal's share of total power generation has sunk from almost 50 percent to just one-third.

Record warmth during the winter of 2015/16 cut coal consumption even further and proved the final straw for many mining companies ("U.S. coal industry hopes for respite after perfect storm", Reuters, Oct. 18 ).

Coal consumption by power producers during the winter of 2015/16 fell by another 20 percent compared with the winter of 2014/15.

Many coal mining companies were forced to seek protection from the bankruptcy courts during 2015 and 2016 as they tried to reorganise their businesses and negotiate with creditors.

OBAMA'S WAR ON COAL

Coal companies have long complained that they have been disadvantaged by what they perceive as the Obama administration's war on coal to achieve its climate objectives.

The administration has made no secret of its preference for cleaner burning natural gas and renewables like wind and solar.

Emissions regulations for new and existing power plants for greenhouse gases and toxic air pollutants including mercury have been tightened in ways that favour electricity production from gas.

Regulatory permitting and mineral leasing policies have also been reviewed and altered to make coal production much more difficult and expensive.

The Clinton campaign made clear it would continue and intensify these policies because "we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels".

The Clinton campaign was dogged by the candidate's comment back in March 2016 that "we're going to put a lot of coal miners and companies out of business".

The comment was actually made in the context of a discussion about how to help miners but it cemented perceptions that Clinton was hostile to coal interests ("Clinton's comments about coal jobs", Politifact, May 2016).

INTER-FUEL COMPETITION

Domestic gas production and electricity generation from gas have surged and seized markets from the coal industry.

Inter-fuel competition is nothing new and has adversely affected the coal industry before ("Energy policy in America since 1945", Vietor, 1984).

Coal was hit during the 1950s and 1960s by cheap oil and gas which displaced much of the former use of coal in home heating and power generation.

"By 1956, coal was a sick industry in more ways than one. Coal production had declined by 39 percent from its peak in 1947; three thousand mines had closed and the number of mine workers fell by nearly half. Coal's share of the energy market had fallen by 18 percent with no end in sight", according to Vietor.

"The coal industry was losing share to imported residual oil in the electric utility market; to natural gas in commercial, industrial and residential markets; and to diesel fuel in its railroad and shipping markets."

Coal miners were eventually saved by the energy crisis of the 1970s, which made both gas and oil much more expensive and shifted the power generation mix back to coal.

But now the coal industry is being pummelled once again by the enormous quantity of cheap natural gas which has been unlocked by the shale revolution.

SUPERIOR GAS OPERATION

Gas-fired power plants are cheaper and faster to build, more efficient to run, and offer important operational flexibility which coal-fired power plants cannot match.

A combined-cycle gas-fired plant can be started up in around 15 minutes and reach full power output within somewhere between 40 minutes and 5 hours depending on whether it is started from hot, warm or cold.

By a contrast, a coal plant takes anywhere from 1.5 to 7.0 hours to start up and from 2 to 12 hours to reach full output ("Technical assessment of the operation of coal and gas fired plants", Parsons Brinckerhoff, 2014).

Starting a coal-fired power plant is a lengthy and expensive process which consumes enormous quantities of coal and lighting-up oil as well as electricity from the grid before it generates any usable electricity.

Coal's only advantage as a fuel has been its relative cheapness compared with alternatives such as natural gas or distillate fuel oil.

But as a result of the shale revolution, the cost of gas has fallen close to parity with coal on an energy-equivalent basis, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (http://tmsnrt.rs/2fF8tqr).

Even that understates the competitive threat given the superior operational efficiency and flexibility of modern combined-cycle plants.

COAL TO GAS TRANSITION

Power producers are retiring older, less efficient and less flexible coal-fired plants built between the 1950s and 1970s and replacing them with more efficient and more flexible gas-fired units.

The average capacity-weighted coal-fired power plant in the United States dates from 1974 while the average gas-fired plant was built in about 2002 ("Age of electric power generators varies widely", EIA, 2011).

The shift from coal to gas began long before the Obama administration. Since the early 1990s, almost no new coal-fired power plants have been built, and most new units have been designed to burn gas.

As coal units built in the 1960s and 1970s reach the end of their design lives, the alternative is between expensive refits and upgrades or retiring them and replacing them with more profitable gas units.

Given the low cost of gas, it is not surprising plant operators are rapidly switching their fleet away from coal to gas (http://tmsnrt.rs/2g16xuY).

For much of the post-1945 period, growing electricity demand ameliorated inter-fuel competition and helped accommodate increasing consumption of both coal and gas.

But in the past decade there has been almost zero growth in electricity demand, ensuring gas could only grow at the direct expense of coal (http://tmsnrt.rs/2fhgq6D).

HOLDING BACK THE TIDE

Trump has promised to ease the regulatory burden on all fossil fuel producers, including coal, gas and oil and unlock more investment in domestic energy production.

Regulatory changes could help coal producers at the margin. But if they also help natural gas producers and keep gas prices low, they will actually intensify the inter-fuel competition.

Only a large and sustained rise in gas prices would help coal miners, and even then it would probably slow the rate of retirements rather than lead to new coal-fired power plants being built.

Coal-fired plants take up to 4 years to build and have an expected life of around 40 years so anyone constructing a new plant must take a very long-term view about energy policy.

The Trump administration will last for either 4 or 8 years and there is no guarantee the following administration would be as friendly towards coal.

The balance of costs and risks will therefore continue to favour the construction of gas-fired power plants over coal-fired ones, which will keep the industry under pressure.

There may be an option to increase the amount of thermal coal exported to power producers in emerging markets including India and China.

Exporting to Asia might help coal companies in Wyoming but is less likely to help mines in the eastern United States.

But U.S. coal would be competing with rival producers in Colombia, Indonesia, South Africa and Australia as well as domestic production in India and China.

President-elect Donald Trump can help the U.S. coal mining industry at the margin, but he probably cannot save it, unless gas prices rise significantly.
U.S. air strike in Somalia killed local militia, not al Shabaab

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - A September U.S. air strike in Somalia killed local militia forces and not al Shabaab militants as the Pentagon had initially believed, the U.S. military acknowledged in a draft statement obtained by Reuters.

The Sept. 28 strike in Somalia's Galkayo area killed 10 fighters and wounded three others, the statement said. There were no civilian casualties caused by the strike, it said.
Brazil markets tumble puts central bank, gov't on alert

By Anthony Esposito and Patricia Duarte

SANTIAGO/SAO PAULO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Brazil's central bank and Treasury sprang into action to calm the debt market and stem the Brazilian real currency's slide on Thursday after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's victory triggered an emerging market rout.

The central bank suspended its daily currency market intervention for a second day as the real tumbled by the most since the 2011 Greek debt crisis. Its daily auctions of reverse currency swaps function like dollar purchases by investors for future delivery.

The surprise election of Trump to the White House this week has rattled emerging markets as investors fear the businessman will make good on campaign promises to limit commerce and rework trade accords.

Risk aversion weakened the real's exchange rate past 3.3 to the U.S. dollar for the first time in two months, triggering stop-loss automatic sales of the Brazilian currency that exacerbated its drop, traders said.

The real slumped as much as 5.7 percent to 3.3902, the weakest since late June. Brazil's benchmark Bovespa stock index fell 3.89 percent, but remained above the 60,000 point milestone.

Traders said they also feared President Michel Temer could face legal action after local media cited documents that showed he received 1 million reais in donations from builder Andrade Gutierrez during the 2014 re-election campaign of ousted President Dilma Rousseff, to whom he was vice president.

Rousseff faces an investigation by an electoral court calling for the cancellation of her 2014 victory due to illegal campaign donations. Her lawyers argue that any decision by the court should also apply to Temer.

The central bank announced after the market close on Wednesday it would suspend its daily intervention in currency markets for a second day on Thursday. Central bank head Ilan Goldfajn later told reporters the bank will monitor market conditions to decide whether to resume daily currency swap sales.

"We are pausing and looking at the market conditions and we are not intending to put any pressure on the FX market," Goldfajn told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Santiago, Chile.

The central bank has held reverse currency swap auctions since last year to reduce its costly stock of traditional swaps.

DEBT AUCTION

Financial market volatility also drove the Brazilian National Treasury to not sell any fixed-rate local bonds, known as Letras do Tesouro Nacional (LTNs), in a regular auction on Thursday.

Traders said appetite for LTNs tends to shrink as the prospect of future volatility strengthens.

Instead, the Treasury sold 7 billion reais ($2.1 billion)worth of floating-rate bonds linked to the country's benchmark Selic rate, known as Letras Financeiras do Tesouro (LFTs)

The government has typically resorted to selling LFTs, seen by investors as a safer bet, during periods of financial turmoil.

A source at the National Treasury told Reuters the decision was due to heavy financial market volatility following Trump's victory.
Insolvent Czech miner OKD sues investors for $987 mln

PRAGUE, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Czech coal miner OKD, which is under insolvency proceedings, has filed a lawsuit against its owner New World Resources (NWR) and former NWR co-owner Zdenek Bakala demanding payment of 24.5 billion crowns ($987 million).

An OKD spokesman said the lawsuit was filed with the regional court in the Czech Republic city of Ostrava and that the company's creditors had been notified. He gave no further details.

A spokesman for businessman Bakala's BM Management said it only knew of the legal action from the media and was seeking more information.

An NWR representative was not immediately available for comment.

OKD has been in insolvency since May and its administrator has started to look for investors to take over the business to continue operations at some of its mines for several more years before undergoing a managed closure.
Despite progress, measles kills 400 children a day - WHO

By Kate Kelland

LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The number of deaths from measles has fallen by 79 percent worldwide since 2000, thanks mainly to mass vaccination campaigns, but nearly 400 children still die from the disease every day, global health experts said on Thursday.

In a report on global efforts to "make measles history", the United Nations children's fund, the World Health Organization and other bodies said fight was being hampered not by a lack of tools or knowledge, but a lack of political will to get every child immunised against the highly infectious disease.

"Without this commitment, children will continue to die from a disease that is easy and cheap to prevent," said Robin Nandy, UNICEF's head of immunisation.

Mass measles vaccination campaigns and a global increase in routine vaccine coverage saved an estimated 20.3 million young lives between 2000 and 2015, the report said.

But coverage is patchy, and in some countries the majority of children are not vaccinated. In 2015, around 20 million babies missed their measles shots and an estimated 134,000 children died from the disease.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan account for half of the unvaccinated babies and 75 percent of the measles deaths.

Measles is a highly contagious virus that spreads through direct contact and through the air. It is one of the biggest killers of children worldwide, but can be prevented with two doses of a widely available and inexpensive vaccine.

According to the report, published by UNICEF, the WHO, the GAVI vaccines alliance and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, outbreaks of measles in various countries - caused by gaps in immunisation - are still a major problem.

Seth Berkley, GAVI's chief executive, urged governments to recognise the threat of "one of the world's most deadly vaccine-preventable childhood killers" and act to contain it.

"We need strong commitments from countries and partners to boost routine immunization coverage and to strengthen surveillance systems," he said.

In 2015, large outbreaks were reported in Egypt, Ethiopia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, the report said. The epidemics in Germany and Mongolia affected older people, highlighting the need to vaccinate young adults who missed out on measles jabs.
Zika striking women at higher rates than men -US study

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Adult women in Puerto Rico were significantly more likely to develop Zika than men, researchers said on Thursday, raising new questions about the potential role of sexual transmission of the virus from males to females.

The study, published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly report on death and disease, evaluated more than 29,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of Zika since the outbreak began in Puerto Rico in November 2015.

The data show that of all Zika cases with laboratory evidence of infection, 62 percent were female. The results pattern similar observations from Brazil and El Salvador, the authors said.

One obvious explanation might be that pregnant women are more likely than men to seek treatment for Zika because of the potential risk of birth defects.

To account for that, the researchers excluded all pregnant women who tested positive for the virus. Of the remaining 28,219 non-pregnant women and men testing positive for Zika, 61 percent of these cases occurred in women over the age of 20.

The Zika findings differ from prior outbreaks in Puerto Rico of arboviruses transmitted by the same mosquitoes as Zika. For example, in the 2010 dengue outbreak and the 2014 chikungunya outbreak, infections were equally distributed among men and women.

"It is possible that male-to-female sexual transmission is a contributing factor to this skewing of the burden of disease toward women," the CDC said in a statement summarizing the findings.

However, the contribution of sexual transmission to overall Zika rates is just beginning to be explored, the CDC said. It could be that women are more likely than men to seek care if they are sick, or that women are more likely to develop Zika symptoms if they become infected.

The CDC is conducting blood tests of individuals living near people with confirmed Zika to try to answer some of these questions.

Zika infections in pregnant women have been shown to cause microcephaly - a severe birth defect in which the head and brain are undersized - as well as other brain abnormalities. The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has since confirmed more than 2,000 cases of microcephaly.
The Kappa Iota Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. will honor two outstanding citizens at its 2016 Annual Achievement Week Awards Ceremony next Tuesday, 6 p.m. at Tucker Baptist Church, 1115 N. Moore Road in Chattanooga. Admission is free and a reception will follow in the fellowship hall.



Erskine Oglesby, Jr. will be honored as the 2016 Omega Man of the Year for his exemplary service to the fraternity, officials said. Mr. Oglesby served as basileus of the chapter from 2013-2016, the keeper of records and seal from 2010-2013 and is currently the 5th District of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity's treasurer for Kentucky and Tennessee, where he is responsible for managing the District's annual budget and investments.



He currently serves on the City of Chattanooga's Pension board as a trustee and on the boards of the WTCI-TV, Creative Discovery Museum, Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy, and the Downtown Kiwanis.



He was honored at the First Baptist Church's 150th Anniversary with the Community Visionary Award.



He and his wife Sheryl have a son, a daughter, and three grandsons. They are active members of Resurrected Baptist Chuch.



Also being honored is Mrs. Sylvia W. Phillips. Ms. Phillips has been selected as the Chapter's 2016 Omega Citizen of the Year. Mrs. Phillips is the wife of Mr. Robert Phillips and the mother of Sylvia and Jessica Phillips.



She is a member of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church where she serves as church secretary, church steward, president of Missionary Society, director of the Young Peoples Department of Education, and member of the 13th Episcopal District Health Committee.



She is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and a recipient of the 2016 Southeastern Region Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network Award.
From avocados to autos, Mexican businesses fear tough times with Trump

By Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein and Christine Murray

TIJUANA, Mexico/MEXICO CITY, Nov 10 (Reuters) - From avocado orchards to border factories, Mexican exporters who have prospered under two decades of NAFTA face the prospect of an abrupt end to the boom if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump carries out his threats to ditch the free trade pact.

Trump says the North American Free Trade Agreement favors Mexico at the expense of U.S. workers and has vowed to either rewrite or withdraw from the deal, as well as build a giant border wall and possibly slap steep tariffs on imports.

Since the treaty took effect in 1994, Mexican exports to the United States have jumped six-fold to some $320 billion a year, transforming a once-closed economy into a hub for investment and a workshop for some of the world's biggest companies.

So business leaders there were stunned as Trump romped to victory on Tuesday night, upsetting the widespread expectation in Mexico that his candidacy would fade.

"(We) couldn't believe what was unfolding before our eyes," said Marcello Hinojosa, president of the Canacintra industrial chamber in Tijuana, the border city whose economy is based on a mix of U.S. tourism and assembly plants.

"Our main partner where we export is the United States. So if we take that away we're going to have a lot of unemployment, we're going to have a really big trade deficit," said Hinojosa, who runs a company that collects factory waste.

Further south, on the outskirts of the city of Leon, Rosendo Castillo, business director of leather exporter WYNY, whose customers include global retailers like Hugo Boss and Inditex's Zara unit, fretted about a potential blow to sales that are six times higher than when NAFTA began.

"It would really jeopardize the business" if the deal were rescinded, Castillo said, adding that WYNY, whose sales reached $120 million last year, was "not very successful" before NAFTA.

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 35 percent on Mexican-made goods and said he would scrap NAFTA if he cannot renegotiate what he calls the "worst deal ever."

His victory has also put new pressure on automakers and other manufacturers that have become dependent on open trade with Mexico.

If NAFTA is scrapped, "it would be terrible" for the members of the Automotive Cluster of Nuevo Leon, said the group's director, Manuel Montoya. Nuevo Leon is a northern state bordering the United States.

And it would hurt consumers, he said.

"Cars made in Mexico are $3,000 cheaper than in the United States, I don't know if North Americans are prepared to pay $3,000 more for every car they buy," Montoya said.

In announcing his campaign in June 2015, Trump vowed to block Ford from opening a new plant in Mexico and threatened to impose tariffs on cars it shipped back across the border.

Those moves could add $5,000 or more to the price of a small car from Mexico said Charles Chesbrough, senior economist at the Detroit-based Original Equipment Suppliers Association trade group.

A relative minnow in manufacturing before NAFTA, Mexico has become one of the world's biggest and fastest-growing carmakers, surging past wealthier European economies and establishing itself as an indispensable part of the global supply chain.

Excluding China, Mexico and the United States are the only two of the world's top 10 automakers to have increased motor vehicle production in each of the last five years, according to data from international trade body OICA.

During the campaign, Trump raged against U.S. carmakers like General Motors Corp and Ford Motor Co for investing in Mexico.

Ford on Wednesday vowed to work with Trump "to support economic growth and jobs." GM similarly said it looked forward to working with Trump on "policies that support a strong and competitive U.S. manufacturing base."

GREEN GOLD

NAFTA brought mixed results for Mexican agriculture, with the sector suffering a net loss of 1.9 million jobs between 1991 to 2007 in the face of competition from U.S. agribusiness, according to a 2014 study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

But there have been clear winners too, such as avocado farmers who since 2007 have been able to sell their fashionable fruit north of the border, triggering a "green gold" rush that some say has stemmed migration and crime in some of Mexico's most troubled regions.

Mexico exported more than 1.7 billion pounds (771,000 tonnes) of the fruit to the United States in 2015, more than six times the amount a decade earlier, according to the Hass Avocado Board.

The United States has overtaken Mexico as the world's top avocado consumer, said Ramon Paz, spokesman for an avocado growers group in Michoacan state.

Paz said his members were so worried about protectionism under Trump that they had hired lobbyists in Washington.

"We would have to redirect out production to other places," if NAFTA was scuttled, said Paz. "In particular Europe, Canada, Japan and China."

He said growers were also worried about Trump's position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country trade deal from which the president-elect has vowed to withdraw.

"That is generally bad news," said Paz, adding that TPP, which Mexico has also signed, would open up the possibility of exporting to new markets like Australia.

Even farmers who might see some benefits from a protectionist turn in U.S. policy are spooked by Trump's threat to scrap the treaty.

If Trump started a trade war that slowed such imports, it would probably boost local demand for domestic potatoes, which have battled to compete with processed imports from the United States and Canada, said Bosco de la Vega, a partner in Agro Groppo, a potato producer in the northern state of Sinaloa.

But the repercussions for the rest of the economy would be far more serious, he added.

The competitiveness of the entire continent depends on avoiding moves that hurt producers and consumers alike, said Jaime Serra, who as trade minister in the early 1990s led Mexico's NAFTA negotiations.
Taliban storm German consulate in Afghan city, 4 killed

By Abdul Matin and Sabine Siebold

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan/BERLIN, Nov 11 (Reuters) - T aliban militants stormed the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, ramming its outer wall with a truck bomb before battling security forces in an overnight attack that killed at least four people, officials said.

The explosion caused extensive damage to the building, a NATO spokesman said, but Germany indicated on Friday this would not deter it from continuing its work as part of the international mission in Afghanistan.

Triggered by a suicide bomber, the blast shattered windows as far as 5 km (3 miles) away, NATO said. A local doctor said it and the subsequent firefight also wounded 120 people.

Twenty consular staff survived the attack with no injuries, German officials said.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said soldiers had had to battle hard to repel the heavily armed attackers.

"It was only possible to ... beat them back after fighting that occurred at the compound and in the building," he said, adding that Berlin would review its lead role in northern Afghanistan.

His spokesman Martin Schaefer later said he did not expect a big policy shift.

"I cannot imagine that the events of last night will lead to a fundamental change in Germany's thinking or that of the global community on the need for continued assistance for Afghanistan," Schaefer told reporters.

The attack also highlights one of the tougher policy challenges facing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump when he takes office in January.

U.S. combat operations against the Taliban largely ended in 2014, but thousands of its soldiers remain in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission.

The Taliban said the attack was in retaliation for NATO air strikes against a village near the northern city of Kunduz last week in which more than 30 people, many of them children, were killed.

Heavily armed fighters, including suicide bombers, had been sent "with a mission to destroy the German consulate general and kill whoever they found there", the Islamist militant movement's spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said by telephone.

Taliban forces came close to over-running Kunduz last month, a year after briefly capturing it in their biggest success in Afghanistan's 15-year-long war.

INTO THE EARLY HOURS

The NATO spokesman said at least one vehicle packed with explosives was rammed into the high outer wall surrounding the consulate, but authorities were investigating if a second car had been involved.

"The extent of damage to the city is huge," said Abdul Razaq Qaderi, deputy police chief of Balkh province. "This kind of an attack, bringing a truck full of explosives and blowing it up in the city, had never happened before.

Noor Mohammad Faiz, the head doctor in Mazar-i-Sharif hospital, said four bodies and 120 wounded, most hurt by flying glass, had been brought to the hospital.

Qaderi said German troops later shot and killed two men on motorcycles who did not comply with orders to stop, with a third man seriously injured. German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said that incident was being investigated.

It was not clear if the men were attackers or civilians.

Germany, which heads Resolute Support in northern Afghanistan, has about 800 soldiers at a base on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, with another 1,000 troops coming from 20 partner countries.

The explosion occurred about an hour before midnight local time, a spokesman for the German military joint forces command in Potsdam said.

"It was a prepared attack for which we made all arrangements," the Taliban's Mujahid said, adding that dozens of German soldiers and intelligence personnel were killed in the attack.

The Taliban often exaggerate casualties caused by its operations.

Sayed Kamal Sadat, police chief of Balkh province, said the fighting was over by the early hours of the morning after Afghan special forces, German security personnel and NATO's quick reaction protection force intervened.

At least one suspect was arrested from the area of explosion, officials said.
Russian hackers accused of post-election attacks on U.S. think tanks

By Jim Finkle and Dustin Volz

Nov 10 (Reuters) - A Russian hacking group began attacking U.S.-based policy think tanks within hours of Donald Trump's presidential election victory, according to cyber experts who suspect Moscow is seeking information on the incoming administration.

Three cyber security firms told Reuters that are tracking a spear-phishing campaign by a Russian-government linked group known as Cozy Bear, which is widely suspected of hacking the Democratic Party ahead of the election.

"Probably now they are trying to rush to gain access to certain targets where they can get a better understanding on what is going on in Washington after the election and during the transition period," said Jaime Blasco, chief scientist with cyber security firm AlienVault.

Targets included the Council for Foreign Relations, said Adam Segal, a security expert with the think tank. His colleagues include former U.S. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV and former Reagan administration State Department official Elliott Abrams.

Representatives with the Russian Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment. Moscow has strongly denied that it was behind the hacks.

Spear-phishing campaigns use malware-tainted emails to infect computers of carefully selected staff at target organizations. They typically appear to be from people whom the victims know and on subjects of interest to them.

Some of the emails appeared to be from Harvard University under the subject line, "Why American Elections are flawed," according to Washington-based cyber security firm Volexity.

The attacks began as the Obama administration was weighing if and how it might respond in its final two months to a series of high-profile hacks on Democratic Party organizations that U.S. intelligence officials have publicly blamed on Moscow.

A former senior Obama administration official said on Thursday that the White House had decided to take action against Russia after the election but no decision had been made on exactly how to respond.

Options included U.S. prosecutors indicting Russians believed to be behind the attacks, applying new economic sanctions against Moscow and the United States launching a retaliatory cyber attack against Russia, said the former official who asked not to be named.

White House officials feared that retaliating before the election could have led Russia to launch a major cyber attack on the United States that would have disrupted the banking system, power grid or internet service. But they said administration officials had decided that the United States needed to show after the election that it would respond to state-sponsored cyber attacks, said the former official.

Trump has said he is not convinced Russia was behind the attacks. He has yet to fill key national security posts, which makes it difficult to assess how his administration might handle the issue.

Harvard's chief information security officer, Christian Hamer, warned staff about the attacks on Thursday afternoon, saying that federal law enforcement was investigating.

He said some of the emails used in the campaign appeared as if they were sent from members of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, using the school's branding.
In what appears to be an apparent attempt to push the banking industry to consolidate, the Finance Minister yesterday proposed to double the minimum core capital level of the banking sector to Rs.20 billion from the current Rs.10 billion.



Presenting his third budget since coming into power, Ravi Karunanayake expressed his desire to have a well-capitalized banking system which has the scale and the potential to secure funds from diversified sources and fund large-scale projects in both public and private sectors.

Such consolidation of banks will enhance the size of the banks, facilitate the fund raising from diversified sources, enhance risk taking capacities and enable banks to participate in large state and private sector projects to a greater degree than at present and derive scale benefits with regard to operational costs, Karunanayake said.



In response to the Central Bank circular issued in December 2014, when the financial sector consolidation plan was in motion under the previous regime, Sri Lankas banks were required to double their minimum core capital level from the then Rs.5.0 billion to Rs.10.0 billion by January 01, 2016. While a large majority of banks had the required capital, few small and mid-sized commercial banks which did not have the capital had to seek Central Bank approval to get a deferment to the timeline. Sri Lanka has 25 licensed commercial banks  13 domestic and 12 foreign for a population of

21 million.

However, Australia, a country with a similar population has only four banks.

Apart from the need to have well-capitalized larger banks, Karunanayake also appears to believe that the consolidation of the banking sector could be beneficial in the long run as the enhanced capital adequacy requirements under the BASEL III capital rules come into full effect from early 2019 onwards.

Further, the actions will also be initiated to amalgamate the HDFC Bank and State Mortgage and Investment Bank (SMIB) to create a large housing bank, and the government will allocate Rs.7.5 billion as equity.

Meanwhile, the budget also proposed to increase the minimum capital requirement for licensed specialized banks up to Rs.7.5 billion and primary dealers to Rs.1.5 billion.

Single shareholder limit and directors board tenor to be reviewed

The government also proposed to review the maximum stake held by a single shareholder in a bank which currently stands at 10 percent.

Although the stipulated single shareholder limit is 10 percent, a party can increase it up to 15 percent with special approval from the Central Bank.

Nevertheless, there are a few exceptional occasions where some shareholders own even beyond 15 percent under extraordinary circumstances.

Union Bank of PLC, Nations Trust Bank PLC, Hatton National Bank PLC and Pan Asia Banking Corporation PLC are few of such cases in reference.

Meanwhile, the maximum tenor of a director in a banks board which is now restricted to 9 years is also expected to be reviewed.



We will revisit these policies in view of the proposed consolidation of banks, Karunanayake said.

Vehicle financing further restricted

In a bid to make the vehicles less affordable, the Finance Minister proposed to bring the existing 70 percent Loan-To-Value (LTV) ratio on vehicle financing further down, based on the vehicle category.

To this end, he proposed to reduce the LTV on three-wheeler financing to 25 percent while for motor cars and vans 50 percent.

However, for commercial vehicles such as lorries and heavy vehicles, the LTV was raised up to 90 percent.

Leading up to the budget, the bankers feared the government would restrict leasing facilities below Rs.15 million.
Riverbed helps global apparel exporter improve performance of Microsoft Office 365and other applications by 100x

Riverbed Technology, the application performance company, today announcedthat Sri Lankan apparel exporter Brandix Lanka Ltd.has selected Riverbed SteelHeadto address pervasive connectivity, low-bandwidth and latency issues, and accelerate its cloud-first strategy - an initiative aimed at speeding time to market, lowering OPEX and improving end-user experience through faster delivery of business-critical applications, including Microsoft Office 365, over wide area networks (WANs).As a result, Brandix Lanka has reduced its network bandwidth use by as much as 95%, reducing the amount of data going over the network by an average of 50%, and cut the average time it takes for end users to send and receive data by half.

BrandixLanka is Sri Lankas single largest apparel exporter, employing over 48,000 associates and supported by 40+ manufacturing facilities located throughout Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh. The pioneer of the concept of total solutions in the countrys apparel sector, and a preferred supplier to some of the top retail brands in the US and Europe, BrandixLanka is also a benchmark and international award winner for eco-friendly manufacture and commitment to environmental best practices.

Working closely with its technology partner, MillenniumIT, Brandix Lanka underwent a significant transformation in 2015 to modernize its IT environment. This was fueled by increasing competition from lower-cost providers in countries like Mexico, South Africa and Brazil, and to also offset the challenge of longer lead times for logistics, due to the greater distances between BrandixLanka and the global fashion brands it serves.

Under the leadership of a new Chief Information Officer &Group Head of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), BrandixLanka created a new division within the ICT group to lead its cloud-first strategy and related applications, as well as a new R&D and innovation division that is responsible for driving future business-led ICT innovation, piloting new projects to leverage cutting-edge IoT, robotics-based manufacturing and supply chain technologies.

As one of the first steps in the companys cloud-first strategy, Brandix Lanka centralized all data and applications in its Colombo Tier 3 data center, and laid plans for a migration to Microsoft Office 365. Its primary concerns were to ensure the integrity of its tight security policies as well as a great end-user experience for applications.

In Sri Lanka, the biggest challenge we have from an ICT perspective is connectivity to branch locations across the country and outside the country. It just isnt reliable, explained Sampath Perumbuli, Head of Group ICT, Brandix Lanka. Bandwidth is expensive and service providers dont provide SLAs. We cant get the required latency we need. Any cloud strategy will struggle here in a big way unless you have the data assurance on your connectivity.Brandix Lanka recognized early on that hosting Office 365 in a Microsoft data centerwas the only way it could ensure SLAs (Service Level Agreements), accelerate its data and address its challenges with low bandwidth. But moving business-critical data more than4,000 miles away from its users, which are dispersed across Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh, would also impact performance, degrade user experience, and reduce business efficiency. A spike in traffic caused by employees coming back after a long holiday weekend and downloading new emails, for example, would cripple the network and deplete bandwidth almost entirely. A rollout of Office 365 simply would not be possible without a solution to speed performance.

Brandix Lankas existing WAN optimization provider did not have the capability to optimize Office 365, and other vendors struggled to optimize Outlook traffic, which made up 60% of Office 365 traffic.

User experience and security were paramount  we werent willing to compromise either, said Perumbuli. We evaluated a few other vendors with similar capabilities, and while some can do caching in the WAN environment, Riverbed was the only vendor that could accelerate Office 365 and ensure a secure connection. Its unbreakable.

Brandix Lanka shares many of the same challenges that businesses in developing markets in Asia face in championing cloud-first strategies, says Nagendra Venkaswamy, Vice President, India and South Asia, Riverbed Technology. Riverbed offers a compelling solution in SteelHead to help them break down the barriers of distance and latency and get apps that simply work anywhere  on-premises, in the cloud, from a mobile device.

According to Perumbuli, implementing Riverbed has resulted in an immediate 60% reduction in bandwidth and 100x faster performance of Office 365, cutting the average time for end users to send and receive data (emails and files) by half. The Riverbed solution is also helping to optimize the performance of Brandix Lankas data center-hosted applications as well as IBM Mimix for DC-DR replication, increasing capacity by 9x.

The Riverbed solution has also given Brandix Lanka the ability to monitor the status of its IT environment and the impact of various business applications on the network, providing a foundation to optimize the networkand adapt to future change. IT isnt just an enabler anymore  its driving the business. Riverbed gives us the assurance we need to confidently take new projects forward, said Perumbuli

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Germanys premium kitchen brand, LEICHT being introduced in Sri Lanka for the first time by Centrepoint Homes, a subsidiary of Fairway Holdings.

For more than 80 years LEICHT has been creating quite a stir in the interior design industry and one can certainly see why. LEICHT definitely takes the lead in terms of affordable luxury. With designs that are at the very height of sophistication, elegance and innovation, LEICHT designs show off a harmony of materials, which are aesthetically pleasing, long lasting and of the highest quality.

LEICHT offers kitchens in many finishes, styles, textures and colors, all of which allow customers a wide choice range to suit their budget. LEICHT products are fully customized and can be tailored to suit every section of development, be it small, large or penthouse.

The winner of numerous global awards in the past 5 years for innovative design, LEICHT is well known for combining technology with the traditional, while producing many trend-setting developments for the whole industry originated at LEICHT, such as the grid system of shelving and their exclusive custom lighting features.

Partnering with such a prestigious brand, known all around the world as the leaders in innovative design, is indeed an honor for Centrepoint Homes, stated Rajeeve Kulatunge CEO of Centrepoint Homes.  We deeply admire the fact that despite the numerous awards and commemorations the company has received over the years LEICH products still remain affordable. We are sure that by collaborating with LEICHT, we at Centrepoint will be able to broaden our product range significantly, thus offering our customers the opportunity to experience the design and quality of a globally acclaimed brand.
Ceylon Tobacco Company PLC (CTC) recently received the ISO/IEC 17025:2005 certification by the Sri Lanka Accreditation Board for complying with the standards set out by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), two global entities which form specialized systems for worldwide standardization.

Following a comprehensive audit, the CTC Laboratory received this certification, which acknowledges the development of management systems for quality, administrative and technical operations, recognizing its competency in performing chemical and mechanical testing.

CTC Laboratory has complied with these standards and practices for 14 years since 2002. The specialty in 2016 is that we were able to obtain the ISO certification without having any non-conformity in the field of chemical and mechanical testing, which is a remarkable achievement for CTC, said CTC Operations Director Rukshan Gunatilaka.

CTC Laboratory receiving the ISO/IEC 17025:2005 certification emphasizes its ability to provide accurate feedback and maintain high standards, which the management and other employees within the organisation can rely on for planning and decision-making.
Prof. H.A. de S. Gunasekera Memorial Oration 2016 will be held on Friday, November 11, 2016 at 4:00 p.m., at the Senate Room, University of Peradeniya. The oration will be delivered by former Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) Deputy Governor Dr. Ranee Jayamaha on the topic World Financial Crises and Challenges to the Governance Structures of Central Banks.



Prof. H.A. de S. Gunasekera was Professor of Economics and University of Ceylon Economics and Political Science Department Head. He succeeded Prof. Das Gupta to become the second occupant of the Chair (and the first Sri Lankan) in the department in 1961.

He also served as Faculty of Arts Dean at Peradeniya (1963-1969) and later on as Planning Ministry Secretary (1970-1977) under Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. He was a much respected academic and public servant. A large number of his students have made outstanding contributions to both academic and public life in Sri Lanka and overseas.

Dr. Jayamaha has more than 45 years of experience in the banking and finance field, of which nearly 38 years were spent at the CBSL. During her tenure at the CBSL, she also served as Secretary to Presidential Commission on Finance and Banking, Advisor to Finance Ministry, Special Advisor (Economic) to Commonwealth Secretariat, London, Advisor on Payment Systems to Central Banks of Bangladesh, Brunei, Bhutan, Iran and the Maldives, Member of Global Payments Group of the World Bank among other national and international positions.



The oration is organised jointly by the University of Peradeniya Economics and Statistics Department and Prof. H.A. de S. Gunasekera Memorial Trust Fund. The event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to HAdeSoration@gmail.com (Lakshika) or 081-2392622 (Eranga).
One of historys biggest political earthquakes which hit the United States at the Presidential Election this week has vital lessons for democratic countries including Sri Lanka.



In a stunning if not sensational turn of events, the billionaire businessman Donald Trump  who had not held any elected political office or government post swept to a landslide victory in the Electoral College, winning 310 of the 530 votes. The Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton  was predicted to win in almost 95% of the opinion polls won the popular vote by a majority of about 300,000, which meant she won 47.7% while Mr. Trump received 47.5%. According to most analysts the tables were turned or the political system was turned upside down mainly by millions of middle class working Americans and their families who felt that during the past fifteen years they had been virtually disenfranchised and marginalised if not oppressed by the Washington based political establishment. This silent majority believed that the government had been taken away from them and the benefits of whatever growth or development went to further enrich the rich and ruling elite. These blue collar workers and their families believe they have been left out though politicians often proclaimed the founding father Abraham Lincolns motto of a government of the people, for the people and by the people.



The political parallels with Sri Lanka are similar, like the former Rajapakse administration Mr. Trump often spoke in blunt terms. He threatened he would arbitrarily tear up bilateral and multilateral trade deals which were disadvantageous to the US. He also threatened to deport millions of illicit immigrants, impose a total ban on Muslims entering the country and force Mexico to build a wall across the border so that drug pedlars, rapists and other criminals could not enter. Mr Trump also said he would double the US military strength and wipe out ISIS, though many 5 star generals themselves wondered how in hell he was going to do this.



In Sri Lanka too most people were stunned as Maithripala Sirisena was elected President on January 8th 2015. Though Mr. Rajapakses United Peoples Freedom Alliance still had a two thirds majority in Parliament, President Sirisena immediately appointed United National Party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister, though the UNP had only 47 seats. It was a calculated risk but it worked and the new government even managed to get Parliamentary approval for the 19th amendment which transformed the dictatorship into democracy with the promise of good governance and social justice including a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources.



Some 22 months after the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government was brought to office largely by people power coming from movements based in rural areas, the serious questions about what a national government has done or not done in outspoken speeches last month and again this week at a meeting to commemorate the first death anniversary of the Venerable Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera, President Sirisena spoke sincerely of the problems he and the government faced in implementing the pledges given to the people at the Presidential election in January and the Parliamentary elections in August last year.



Despite all the good moves there is including the 19th amendment, the national medicinal drugs policy based on the Senaka Bibile principles, the benefits of this changed have apparently still not touched the lives of millions of people, mainly the working class and the more oppressed poorer classes. Analysts believe that for better or for worse in the United States this silent majority voted on November 8thessentially for change.



Here in Lanka the national government which most analysts say is moving far too slowly has promised that 2017 will be the year of poverty alleviation to a sustainable eco-friendly and all inclusive development strategy covering urban and more importantly rural areas. We hope these words or promises will be turned into deeds.
Independent Sri Lankas 70th budget and the third budget of the good governance administration themed Towards rapid development with benefits to all will be presented to parliament today. The picture shows Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake engaged in giving the final touches to the budget proposals. Treasury Secretary Dr. R.H.S. Samaratunga, Deputy Secretaries S.R. Artigala, Chandra Ekanayake, A.R. Deshapriya and National Budget Department Director General K.D.S. Ruwanchandra are also in the picture.
A statewide strategy to help conserve hundreds of Georgia animal and plant species has been revised and is being put into practice following federal approval.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision this fall on Georgias State Wildlife Action Plan clears the way for continued efforts and new projects focused on nearly 640 species considered high priorities for conservation.

The new plan will guide work by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and partners for the next 10 years, said Rusty Garrison, DNR Wildlife Resources Division director. The Wildlife Action Plan sets our vision and our mission for how were going to manage these species, Garrison said.

State Wildlife Action Plans are aimed at conserving populations of native wildlife and habitats they need before the species become rarer and more costly to conserve or restore. An approved plan also is required by Congress for DNR and wildlife agencies in other states to receive State Wildlife Grants, the main federal funding source for states to conserve nongame  animals not fished for or hunted.

Experts from DNR and more than 100 conservation partners and stakeholders created Georgias Wildlife Action Plan in 2005 and reviewed and revised this comprehensive strategy from 2013 to 2015. Using the best available data, the revision includes new details about the status of species, developing regional conservation efforts and emerging issues such as white-nose syndrome, a disease deadly to bats.

White-nose syndrome was documented in the U.S. in 2006, the year after Georgias original Wildlife Action Plan was completed. The disease has since spread to 29 states and five Canadian provinces, killing an estimated 6 million bats. DNR has seen a 92 percent decline in bat populations at north Georgia hibernacula over the last three years.

DNR Nongame Conservation Section Chief Dr. Jon Ambrose said the revised Wildlife Action Plan underscores the need for partnerships and more robust federal funding to combat such problems.

To fully implement whats in the plan requires resources beyond what our state agency has available.

This year, an Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies panel representing outdoor recreation, energy companies, academia, wildlife agencies, conservation organizations, sportsmens groups and landowners identified the lack of dedicated funding to restore and manage nongame species as the key to a pending conservation crisis. The Blue Ribbon Panels recommendations led to the Recovering Americas Wildlife Act of 2016 being introduced in Congress. H.R. 5650 would dedicate $1.3 billion annually in existing revenue from the development of energy and mineral resources on federal lands and waters to the Wildlife Conservation Restoration Program. The panel said the funds would provide states with the resources needed to implement their Wildlife Action Plans.

Although Georgia is one of the nations most biologically diverse states, about 320 species here have such low populations they are state and federally protected. The revised Wildlife Action Plan lists 349 animal and 290 plant species as high priorities for conservation, and recommends 150 actions to address their needs.

The original plan promoted work such as prescribed burning, controlling invasive species and restoring native vegetation, enhancing habitats on public and private conservation lands. Survey and monitoring have helped manage populations of amphibians, shorebirds, sea turtles and rare plants. Recovery efforts for federally-listed species, technical assistance for private landowners and environmental education have all benefited from resources and guidance provided by the Wildlife Action Plan.

This work not only affects Georgians quality of life, it strengthens the states economy. Spending involving wildlife-watching totaled an estimated $1.8 billion in 2011, according to a federal survey.
The Committee for Protecting the Rights of Prisoners yesterday charged that all hopes that justice would be served with regards the massacre of 27 prisoners at the Welikada Prison on November 10, 2012 under the good-governance motto of the government, had faded as the government was allegedly having secret deals with those who are responsible for the deaths of these prisoners.

Speaking at a media conference held in Maradana, the committees president, Attorney-at-Law Senaka Perera, said no individual has been arrested in connection with the prisoners deaths despite investigations initiated by the CID, a Commission having been appointed by the former Minister of Rehabilitation and Prison Reforms Chandrasiri Gajadeera as well as an investigation by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) into the the incident.

He said the government had failed to address this issue because it is engaged in a futile attempt to defend the main culprit who was having day-dreams of becoming the next leader of the country. The Yahapalana" government pledged to punish those who are behind the Welikada prison massacre only for political purposes. The fact that these murders had taken place in a well-planned and organized manner is not a secret anymore, he said.

Civil Activist and Anti-Corruption Front (ACF) Convener Rajitha Keerthi Thennakoon, who also spoke, said that despite there were various investigations announced by the present and previous governments as well as the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, none of the reports had been published.

Sudesh Nandimal, a prisoner who witnessed the incident in 2012 but was not injured, alleged that they were informed by the Welikada Prison authorities that the order to shoot 27 prisoners was issued by the then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The committee said they would soon file a Writ Petition in the Colombo High Court to urge the Prisons Ministry to publish the investigation report which had already been completed and handed over to the government, which he said was not being done because the government was trying to protect the culprits. (Piyumi Fonseka)
Leo Burnett Sri Lanka (LBSL), the local office of the global advertising network Leo Burnett Worldwide, was the only agency from Sri Lanka to earn an accolade at Spikes Asia 2016. The agency secured two short lists and was honoured to be the recipient of a Bronze Spike in the most challenging film category. These successes and the accolades secured by Burnett offices within the region enabled the Leo Burnett Worldwide network to secure the 3rd place in the network rankings.

The Bronze Spikes winning idea, the White Cane Day campaign was conceptualised in partnership with the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society to encourage empathy for individuals suffering from visual impairments. At present there are 200,000 blind individuals and 400,000 visually impaired persons living in Sri Lanka out of a population of 21 million. In many of these cases their blindness could be cured if a healthy pair of eyes was available, but at any given time the eye depositories have less than half the required amount.

With the White Cane Day, media innovation the agency wanted to leave a lasting message with members of the public who have sight to encourage viewers to pledge to donate their eyes.This campaign idea vividly demonstrated the darkness experienced by the blind. The darkness that interrupted the screening caused a disruption amongst the viewers which jolted Sri Lankans across the country to create the realization that the privilege of having sight could be shared with others.

The agency negotiated with the countrys most popular television soap MeyAdarayai which has a viewership of over 80% of the total TV audience. At a climax in the show, 30 seconds of the visual component of the show was removed leaving only the audio. Through this innovation we took away the sight of the audience, which caused irritation to the viewers. Afterwards, a message saying if 30 seconds of blindness is this unbearable to you, imagine what its like for those who have to live with it for the rest of their lives. Please give them sight, when you dont need it anymore. This media innovation resulted in the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society receiving the highest number of eye donation pledges that they had ever received in a single day.

Commenting on the agencys success at Spikes Asia, Ranil de Silva  Managing Director, Leo Burnett Sri Lanka stated: I am extremely proud of our entire team for always reaching for the stars.Its a special honour to have been the only Sri Lankan agency to win a metal at the prestigious Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity. This win and our creative successes help to reiterate the agencys creative leadership which strengthens our position as the leader of Sri Lankasmarketing communications industry. White Cane Day and Sri Pada are two innovative ideas that have effectively delivered results for our clients and made a significant contribution to society. These ideas reflect the very essence of our Human Kind philosophy. They are excellent demonstrations of how creativity can truly change behaviour and make a positive difference in peoples lives.

The agencys Pin Katay campaign which was shortlisted as a finalist, also creatively addressed an important concern. Adams Peak is Sri Lankas holiest of mountains. Each year, pilgrims line up to embark on the 5-hour climb to glimpse the Buddhas footprint at the summit. But where there are crowds there is litter. When thousands of pilgrims leave behind their waste, a spiritual journey transforms into an environmental disaster. Our solution used two symbols associated with Sri Pada to deliver a simple message. The Buddhist concept of gaining merit through good deeds and the distinctive design of the Pin Katay (temple collection till). We created garbage bins along the pathway in the shape of temple collection tills, thus equating the act of collecting litter with merit and solving an environmental hazard with a creative solution.

This year Leo Burnett Sri Lanka celebrated its 17th anniversary in Sri Lanka. Over the years, the agency has built many powerful brands and meaningful partnerships with its clients, whilst delivering gratifying results and gaining industry recognition in Sri Lanka, the region and globally. The company has on its roster a diverse portfolio of clients and is the Sri Lanka office of one of the worlds largest agency networks, which is a member of the Publicis Groupe, the worlds fourth largest communications company.
The National Movement to Release Political Prisoners collected signatures from the general public for a petition urging the President and the Prime Minister to release political prisoners immediately. They also noted that if the authorities failed to meet their demands, they will take the matter up with the United Nations. Pix by Padeep Pathirana
Though the country was now free of conventional terrorism, the Sri Lankan Government was very much aware of the threat of its citizens joining foreign terrorist organizations, Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara said addressing the INTERPOL General Assembly in Bali, Indonesia yesterday.

The IGP said that involvement of Sri Lankans in foreign terrorist organizations was recently revealed following the killing of a Sri Lankan in Syria in 2015.

He said that Sri Lanka had suffered immensely from terrorism for well over three decades.

It is with great pride that I mention that we have successfully rooted out terrorism in 2009. Now, Sri Lanka is going through post-conflict phase and is focused on reconciliation, rehabilitation and development of the conflict affected areas, he said.

IGP Jayasundara said that all communities should have a clear and common definition for terrorism.

With decades of experience we in the Sri Lanka law enforcement know that combating terrorism is not an easy task, he added.

The IGP said that, in order to combat international terrorism, law enforcement agencies needed to work under different jurisdictions.

This has to be addressed, so that cross-border cooperation of security agencies is facilitated, he said. (Darshana Sanjeewa)
Sri Lanka Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen and Bangladesh Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed (second from right) exchanging the agreed minutes of the fifth SL-Bdeshi Joint Economic Commission session at Cinnamon Lake Hotel on November 9

The first-ever Sri LankaBangladesh free trade agreement (FTA) is to be a reality by next March and both countries, being members of the SAFTA, APTA and BIMSTEC are positioning for a huge cross-border cargo transshipment increase via the Port of Colombo.



My visit to Colombo is fruitful. The Sri LankaBangladesh FTA can become a reality when Sri Lankas high-level leaders visit Dhaka next March, said Bangladesh Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed on November 9 in Colombo. Ahmed was addressing the press at the conclusion of the fifth SL-Bdeshi Joint Economic Commission (JEC) at Cinnamon Lake Hotel.

The ministerial level session was led by Ahmed for Bangladesh and Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen for Sri Lanka.



Today both sides completed trade discussions successfully. The cordial discussions to come to an agreement on an FTA between both countries was preceded by my discussions on the same with three other Sri Lankan ministers in the last few days while I am in Colombo, said Ahmed. The Shipping Ministry of Bangladesh is also cooperating in this. We decided to use the Colombo Port in our future transshipments as we feel the other regional ports to be expensive. The current trade levels are not high but will be increased, he added.

Through its feeder vessels, Bangladesh already transships to the US and Europe via Port Kelang, Singapore and Colombo. Transshipments to Europe, the Middle East and the US via the Colombo Port is considered to bring in great savings for Bangladeshi exporters, saving as many as four shipping days to the US alone.

Last month (October 2016) Bangladeshi media reported that Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khans announcement that Bangladesh would sign a priority berthing and tariff concession pact with Sri Lanka, linking its Chittagong Port with Colombo.

The total bilateral trade between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at US $ 48 million in 2010 has grown by 2.7 fold to US $ 131 million by 2015. Sri Lankas exports to Bangladesh too saw a steady increase in the past five years. In 2013, it recorded the highest increase of 45 percent (compared to 2012).

The first SL-Bdeshi JEC session was held in 1985 in Dhaka.
Who would believe that former foreign minister G.L. Peiris would voluntarily form a new political party or take the reins of an existing party to challenge the incumbent government, without the blessings of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa? Peiris who was working with the so-called joint opposition or the Mahinda loyalists in Parliament definitely does not have any reason to form or join a new party abandoning the group loyal to Rajapaksa.



However, since November 5, Peiris is the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), a name change of an already existing political party recognized by the Elections Commission. When a leading figure in a political party joins another political entity, it would normally lead to frictions between the two groups, sometimes also to violent clashes. But, here the rank and file of the joint opposition seems to welcome the move by Peiris to join hands with the SLPP. Other political parties also do not expect even verbal attacks by the joint opposition against Peiris or his Podujana Peramuna, as they know that Peiriss appointment was a part of a strategy prepared by Rajapaksa.



The JO had announced months ago that it would form a new political party under the leadership of the former president. It also spoke about the possibility of joining an existing political party as there are legal snags to register new political parties against the background of the elections to two pradeshiya sabhas, the Maritimepattu and Puthukudiyiruppu in the Mullaitivu District being suspended since 2011. The law prohibits the Elections Commission to recognize new political parties at a time between the announcement and the conclusion of an election. It is under such circumstances that the JO joined the Podujana Peramuna instead of forming a new political party under the leadership of the

former President.



However, the leaders of the JO have publicly dissociated themselves from GLs party, while some of them are making ludicrous statements. The former president had denied the possibility of his joining another party stating that he was a member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led by President Maithripala Sirisena. When journalists asked him about the new party he said it would join the joint opposition against the government in the near future. Former transport Minister Kumara Welgama, a strong supporter of the former president was also noncommittal of his possible aligning with Peiris. Former Power and Energy Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi amused the journalists by claiming that she did not know anything about

Podujana Peramuna.



Parliamentarians of the joint opposition are reluctant to openly express their link or the support to the Podujana Peramuna as it might deprive them of their SLFP membership and thereby their parliamentary seats as well. Their dissociation with their own strategy is in fact an effort to deceive the law and not the people of the country, as everybody knows that it is the Mahinda group that is behind the rejuvenation of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna. However, two parliamentarians of the joint opposition, Keheliya Rambukwella and Dilum Amunugama had taken a different stance. They participated in what is called the inaugural public meeting of the SLPP organized by the partys Senkadagala electoral organization held in Kandy at the Pushpadhana Hall last Saturday

The reason behind the choice of Prof. Peiris for the Chairmanship of the SLPP surpassing many others who are more active and closer to Rajapaksa seems to be that he is not a parliamentarian to lose the seat. As they expected, Prof. Peiris has been removed from the membership of the SLFP by the partys General Secretary and Minister Duminda Dissanayake. He said the party constitution provided for the deprivation of the membership of any member once he took the membership of another party.

Mahinda Rajapaksa was so concerned about this provision in the party constitution from the beginning that he was very careful in handling the protests against the government. He did not join any of the four major anti-government public meetings held by the small parties in the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) last year, in spite of them being held under the theme, Arise with Mahinda. He stopped short of sending congratulatory messages to those meetings, but never got on to the stage.



After the declaration of his dismissal from the SLFP by the party General Secretary, Peiris compared his position to that of President Maithripala Sirisena when the latter announced his presidential candidacy under the New Democratic Front (NDF) in November 2014. The former Constitutional Affairs Minister was of the opinion that he would be taken back to the fold of the SLFP as President Sirisenas suspension was later annulled. However, in fact Maithripala Sirisena was never dismissed from the SLFP even after his presidential candidature was announced, despite the Party constitution providing the option for doing so. And also while the legal luminaries such as Peiris were with the SLFP leadership, Sirisena was just suspended from the party.



However, Prof. Peiriss expression of hope to be inducted back into the SLFP after his appointment as the Chairman of the Podujana Peramuna seems to be weak and a manifestation of lack of self confidence. Once he takes a lead role of a new political party mainly to fight against the party which he had thus far worked for, what is the purpose of hoping to be re-inducted into that old party?

As the Sinhala saying goes, you will have to dance in public though you had costumed in secret. With the announcement of the much anticipated local government elections which the Mahinda loyalists are agitating for, possibly early next year, the joint opposition would have to take a decision to come out with their open support to the SLPP. As it happened during the last general election, President Maithripala Sirisena might sideline the Rajapaksa loyalists within the SLFP when selecting candidates for the local government elections, resulting in Rajapaksa having to find an alternative platform for his supporters on the periphery. Hence, their only hope now would be

the SLPP.



The patch up of the two fractions of the SLFP under the former and incumbent presidents is unimaginable. It is highly unlikely that President Maithripala Sirisena would leave any room for the former President to come to power at least as the Prime Minister of the country, as he considers it a security threat for him. Last year he had told more than once that he would have been six feet underground, had he been defeated at the presidential election. Therefore, there is no option for the former President other than to break the SLFP to form a new party. The appointment of Prof. Peiris as the Chairman of the SLPP marks the kick-off of that split.
The init ial discussions on the possibility of a Sri Lanka-Bangladesh free trade agreement (FTA) are likely to take place between the Sri Lankan government and Bangladeshi Commerce Minister currently visiting Sri Lanka. Honourable Minister is in town. Theres a proposition of having a bilateral FTA, Bangladeshi High Commissioner in Sri Lanka Riaz Hamidullah told a bilateral trade and investment forum organised by his High Commission in Colombo and the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka, on Monday. He noted that Bangladeshs Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed would be meeting Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama and Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake s e v e r a l t i m e s t h r o u g h o u t h i s visit here.

He added that the discussions would include the impacts of a possible FTA on the economies of both the countries, the model to be used in entering such a trade deal and what modes of trade will be opened through it. We are seeing not only a movement in the FTA but also in other agreements on investment protection and MoUs (Memoranda of Understanding), Hamidullah further added. He went on to say that Bangladesh is looking for Sri Lankan investments in tourism, apparel, education, IT and fishing. The Bangladeshi High Commission had first publicly revealed its keenness to have an FTA with Sri Lanka this August and Development Strategies and International Trade State Minister Sujeewa Senasinghe had later said that the Sri Lankan government is also interested in the possibility. Sri Lankas leading exports are apparel, tea, rubber and IT services and Bangladesh also exports apparel, being the second largest apparel manufacturer in Asia after China, as well as agricultural products. Sri Lankas bilateral trade with Bangladesh is around US $ 150 million, in favour of Sri Lanka. Many Sri Lankan companies are major investors in retail goods, energy and apparel sectors in Bangladesh. However, Sri Lankas total exports to the world amounted to just US $ 11 billion in 2015, compared to US $ 34 billion export earnings recorded by Bangladesh. Bangladeshi traders present at the forum noted that traditionally, exporters in South Asia were directed to trade with the Western world but that they should look at trading with regional markets in the future. Bangladeshi companies have recently expressed interest in listing on the Colombo Stock Exchange as well, showing the push made by the South Asian country with a population over 150 million, for regional integration. The Sri Lankan government is hoping to transform the island into South Asias logistics and financial hub. Sri Lanka is currently negotiating trade agreements with India, Singapore and China, while several more are being conceived.
NEW YORK - Protesters took to the streets Wednesday in at least 10 cities to march against president-elect Donald Trump - and numerous college students and faculty leaders took to social media to announce support groups and even postponed exams.

Protests were underway in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Portland, Ore., St. Paul, Minn. and several other cities. An estimated 2,000 protesters shouted angrily in downtown Seattle, expressing their frustration at the Trump victory over Democrat and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who won 228 electoral votes to Trump's 279.

Police in riot gear struggled to hold back scores of protesters in some of the cities as protesters chanted "Not My President" and "No Racist USA." The protests were mostly peaceful. Seattle police said they were investigating a report of a shooting near the site of the protest in that city, but it may not have involved protesters.

In Washington, D.C., hundreds took to the streets carrying signs saying Nasty Women Fight Back and White Males for Equality for All.

The unrest culminated when two separate anti-Trump demonstrations converged in front of the Trump International Hotel. They chanted and yelled "Impeach Donald Trump and toward the end yelled at police officers who stood guard at the hotel entrance.
Former MP Tiran Alles and two others, who were arrested and remanded over the RADA case, were granted bail by the Colombo High Court today.

The accused were remanded over the case in which they were accused of misappropriating Rs. 124 million at RADA in 2006.

The four accused were, former RADA Chairman Tiran Alles, former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of RADA Saliya Wickramasuriya, Dr. Jayantha Dias Samarasinghe and Emil Kanthan.
Ukraine war: Putin is no pushover

So Ukraine is winning the war against mighty Russia, an enemy which is armed
Chattanooga-area McDonalds are offering a free Extra Value Meal of choice for veterans, active military and uniformed first responders on Veterans Day. The meal will be available all day on Friday

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State Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene said a War Veterans' Department would be established next year to prevent a repitition of incidents such as that which occurred in front of the Presidential Secretariat on Wednesday, when a group of disabled soldiers clashed with the police.

Mr. Wijewardene told reporters that a War Veterans' Department would be set up that is similar to the War Veterans' Department of the US. He said it would be responsible for all welfare work concerning war veterans of the Sri Lanka Army, Sri Lanka Air Force, Sri Lanka Navy and Sri Lanka Police -- such as the payment of pensions, allowances, health benefits and other benefits.

"The necessary legal framework for the department is being drafted right now," he said.

Mr. Wijewardene while expressing the government's regret at the unfortunate incident where the police were compelled to turn water cannon on the disabled war veterans to stop them from forcibly entering the Presidential Secretariat, said the protest had been an attempt to put the government in an embarrassing position, despite the fact that the two parties had already arrived at a compromise, and representatives of the disabled soldiers had requested the protesting disabled soldiers to stop the protest and disperse peacefully.

The government was extremely sorry about what happened, he said. He added that the Joint Opposition was behind the clash which led to two disabled soldiers being wounded. He said some JO parliamentarians and a number of Bhikkus had incited a group brought in from outside to create the disturbances and try to enter the Presidential Secretariat -- forcing the police to use the minimum possible force to stop them. (Sandun A Jayasekera)

Video by Chamilka

Pix by Waruna Wanniarachchi
Wednesday afternoon was unlike any other for 12-year-old Vansh, who spent it in the MCD park next to Sir Ganga Ram hospital in New Delhi. As he played with his favourite red Ferrari toy car, resting his head on his grandfather's lap, he realised his throat was dry and his stomach was rumbling.

But the constant hammering he felt in his head stopped him from speaking up. His usually calm grandfather seemed angry - he was grumbling about the government's recent order to ban 500 and 1,000 denomination notes.

"I have spent more than Rs 70,000 in the past four days to get my grandson treated. Today we are stuck. He has a clot in his brain and we don't have money in the bank. The hospital is not taking cash. What do we do?" he lamented.

They both hadn't eaten anything all day. The person at the canteen stall won't accept cards as also the recently banned notes.

The central government's order, even though it exempts government hospitals from accepting old notes, has left private ones in a lurch. It has resulted in a chaotic situation, impacting the rich and poor alike.

Similar scenes are unfolding at chemist shops - there's a lot of confusion and long queues . At one particular chemist that I visited, onlookers were busy trying to comprehend things as pandemonium broke loose, while a young lady haggled with the shopkeeper.

She told me she had only denotified currency and not enough money in her account. When the shopkeeper finally yielded, she yelled: "The government gives orders and we have to face the brunt...", pleading "please just give me medicines for three days".

Back at the MCD Park, Kishen, a small-time farmer from Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh, flashes a bundle of 1,000 rupee notes in the air. He wants to know whether they are worth anything if they cannot get his daughter proper treatment.

She is suffering from cancer and is critical. He left home last night in the hope that his daughter would be treated but is struggling to get her admitted. He rues the fact that all the cash he arranged after selling off family jewellery and valuables is in the denomination of 500 and 1,000 notes.

I am forced to rethink the government's decision. (Photo credit: India Today)

"What are we suppose to do with these notes? Today they are just worth trash. My only daughter is battling life and death and we have to face this?" he asks, trying to control his tears.

While I was talking to Kishen, the crowd in the park grows thicker. A woman walks in with her indisposed husband whose face is swollen. He seems to be in immense pain and murmurs something incomprehensible.

Sarita has come from Bihar to get him treated. She tells me she has begged and borrowed from friends and relatives for the treatment but today the money she has is worthless. Both wife and husband are waiting for their son to return - he has gone to exchange the 500-rupee notes they carried from Patna but luck and time seem to be running out.

"We beg the government to allow private hospitals to accept 500 and 1,000 rupee notes. We can't take this anymore. We have waited for hours on end, but neither can we conduct tests nor are we able to purchase medicines," she says.

The crowd is massive and angry. A man bursts into tears. "My wife is on her death bed; the doctor has told me to take her home where she can breathe her last. But I can't. I have no money to complete the discharge formalities. If my wife dies, let the government know I will donate her body to them," says Dhuleram, his face ashen.

How words keep ringing in my ears long after he has spoken. I am forced to rethink the government's decision.
Despite rebukes from the National Green Tribunal (NGT), billows of smoke from Punjab's paddy fields will continue to pollute the NCR region. Courtesy the Assembly elections.

Paddy and wheat is grown on an area of nearly 30 lakh hectare in the state, which also produces 47.2 million tonne of stubble, of which 25.2 million tonne and 22 million tonne is wheat and paddy straw, respectively.

While the state's farmers burn only 25 per cent of wheat straw, they set nearly 95 per cent of paddy straw on fire. We have the following reasons to believe that smoke from Punjab's fields will continue to choke New Delhi:

1) Nearly 70 per cent of voters in Punjab are farmers who are already stressed due to a number of reasons, including bad loans, crop failure and the state government's apathy towards compensating them. Farmer suicides have rocked the state in the past few years. At a time when Punjab is heading for Assembly elections, no political party will afford to annoy this community.

Interestingly, neither the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine nor any of the opposition parties, including the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party, have used harsh words against the farmers as speaking against them will have an adverse effect on election results.

That's why, despite facing criticism in his own state for having failed to control pollution, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal hesitates to speak against Punjab's farmers.

2) The ruling SAD has its largest supporter base in rural areas. Already facing over nine years of anti-incumbency, the Akali Dal cannot afford to annoy the farmers. Though the state government claims to have booked more than 1,800 farmers for paddy-burning this year, it is yet to recover the fines.

The Punjab government is neither concerned about its own farmers nor about the environment. Its focus is the rural votebank. Sources say state government officials, in two recent meetings held in Chandigarh and New Delhi with the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA), have conveyed their reservations that it is not possible to punish the farmers as elections are round the corner.

CM Arvind Kejriwal has been facing criticism in his own state for having failed to control pollution. (Photo credit: India Today)

3) Modernisation of agriculture in Punjab has stopped following the poor financial condition of the state government. The state requires thousands of crore of rupees to buy the latest equipment to handle the paddy straw.

It lacks bailers, paddy stubble chopping and seeder machines to get rid of the problem. The state government is debt-ridden and has to cough up over Rs 1.25 lack crore. The government, which has no money to pay social security and widow pensions, and diverts Dalit scholarship funds for other purposes, is not in a position to modernise its agriculture.

4) Punjab is facing a serious labour problem. While the state's unemployed youth have been venturing to the western countries for greener pastures, its farmers depend on labour from Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Nepal.

Non-availability of labour has increased the demand for combine machines which save both money and time. Non-availability of cheaper labour besides crop failure has broken the backbone of farmers. Small and marginal farmers cannot afford to hire harvesting machines which cost Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000 per acre. The state's combine machines also need to be upgraded.

5) Besides the poor resources to modernise agriculture, the biggest reason behind the lackadaisical attitude of the Punjab government to stop farmers from burning paddy residue is the greed for votes. The farmers can be seen burning their fields in broad daylight.

There is a provision to impose a fine of Rs 1,000 per acre on such farmers but the officials ignore the smoke rising from fields. Sources say the officials have instructions not to challan the farmers. They cannot dare to enter the village headed by the ruling party's village headman.

Interestingly, the state has not enacted any law to ban burning of paddy and wheat straw as well. The state government imposes Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code during the paddy and wheat harvesting season and asks them not to burn the agriculture waste.
The Lee University Internship Math Program held a luncheon to introduce business officials to the program and its benefits.

Representatives from Bayer, the chemistry division at Lee University, Life Care Centers of America, and Olin Cooperation attended the luncheon.

Partners from local businesses spoke at the luncheon including John McIntosh, executive vice president of Olin and president of chemicals and ammunition; Steve Keenan, director strategic analysis; and David Cawlfield, principal engineer. The title of the presentation was Mathematics in Action: Lee University & Olin  Working Hand in Hand. Several representatives from Olin gave an overview of the company, the benefits of having students intern at the company, the structure of the internship, examples of prior internship projects, the mathematical techniques applied in these projects, and potential future projects and paths.

It was great to have representatives from Olin share about their experience with our internship program, said Dr. Caroline Maher-Boulis, associate professor of mathematics and director of IMP. Their presentation shed light on how they use mathematicians in their work, what kind of projects they involve the Lee students in, and how the internship is structured from their side. It was a valuable presentation for all attendees.

IMP strives to introduce math majors to real-life problem-solving scenarios, opportunities to develop workplace skills, awareness of non-academic career options, and experience with research. Through the internship program, the industry will have access to bright and energetic students and an opportunity to identify and help train potential employees while giving students an opportunity to serve in their field.

The IMP is always looking to form more partnerships with local companies, said Dr. Maher-Boulis.

For more information about IMP, contact Maher-Boulis at cmaherboulis@leeuniversity.edu.
Commissioner Sabrena Smedley, chairman of the Education Committee, will host a public discussion regarding the selection of the next Hamilton County School superintendent on Monday at 6 p.m.

The meeting will be held at East Hamilton Middle/High School, 2015 Ooltewah Ringgold Road.

The public is invited to attend and comment.






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.
Brookfield Asset Management is an alternative asset manager and REIT/Real Estate Investment Manager firm focuses on real estate, renewable power, infrastructure and venture capital and private equity assets. It manages a range of public and private investment products and services for institutional and retail clients. It typically makes investments in sizeable, premier assets across geographies and asset classes. It invests both its own capital as well as capital from other investors. Within private equity and venture capital, it focuses on acquisition, early ventures, control buyouts and financially distressed, buyouts and corporate carve-outs, recapitalizations, convertible, senior and mezzanine financings, operational and capital structure restructuring, strategic re-direction, turnaround, and under-performing midmarket companies. It invests in both public debt and equity markets. It invests in private equity sectors with focus on Business Services include infrastructure, healthcare, road fuel distribution and marketing, construction and real estate; Industrials include manufacturers of automotive batteries, graphite electrodes, returnable plastic packaging, and sanitation management and development; and Residential/ infrastructure services. It targets companies which likely possess underlying real assets, primarily in sectors such as industrial products, building materials, metals, mining, homebuilding, oil and gas, paper and packaging, manufacturing and forest product sectors. It invests globally with focus on North America including Brazil, the United States, Canada; Europe; and Australia; and Asia-Pacific. The firm considers equity investments in the range of $2 million to $500 million. It has a four-year investment period and a 10-year term with two one-year extensions. The firm prefers to take minority stake and majority stake. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. was founded in 1997 and based in Toronto, Canada with additional offices across Northern America; South America; Europe; Middle East and Asia.
Cenovus Energy Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, natural gas liquids, and natural gas in Canada, the United States, and the Asia Pacific region. The company operates through Oil Sands, Conventional, Offshore, Canadian Manufacturing, U.S. Manufacturing, and Retail segments. The Oil Sands segment develops and produces bitumen and heavy oil in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. This segments Foster Creek, Christina Lake, Sunrise, and Tucker oil sands projects, as well as Lloydminster thermal and conventional heavy oil assets The Conventional segment holds assets primarily located in Elmworth-Wapiti, Kaybob-Edson, Clearwater, and Rainbow Lake operating in Alberta and British Columbia, as well as interests in various natural gas processing facilities. The offshore segment engages in the exploration and development activities. The Canadian Manufacturing segment includes the owned and operated Lloydminster upgrading and asphalt refining complex, which upgrades heavy oil and bitumen into synthetic crude oil, diesel fuel, asphalt, and other ancillary products, as well as owns and operates the Bruderheim crude-by-rail terminal and two ethanol plants. The U.S. Manufacturing segment comprises the refining of crude oil to produce diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, asphalt, and other products. The Retail segment consists of marketing of its own and third-party refined petroleum products through retail, commercial, and bulk petroleum outlets, as well as wholesale channels. Cenovus Energy Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.
Duke Energy Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Electric Utilities and Infrastructure, Gas Utilities and Infrastructure, and Commercial Renewables. The Electric Utilities and Infrastructure segment generates, transmits, distributes, and sells electricity in the Carolinas, Florida, and the Midwest; and uses coal, hydroelectric, natural gas, oil, renewable generation, and nuclear fuel to generate electricity. It also engages in the wholesale of electricity to municipalities, electric cooperative utilities, and load-serving entities. This segment serves approximately 8.2 million customers in 6 states in the Southeast and Midwest regions of the United States covering a service territory of approximately 91,000 square miles; and owns approximately 50,259 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity. The Gas Utilities and Infrastructure segment distributes natural gas to residential, commercial, industrial, and power generation natural gas customers; and owns, operates, and invests in pipeline transmission and natural gas storage facilities. It has approximately 1.6 million customers, including 1.1 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, as well as 550,000 customers in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky. The Commercial Renewables segment acquires, owns, develops, builds, and operates wind and solar renewable generation projects, including nonregulated renewable energy and energy storage services to utilities, electric cooperatives, municipalities, and corporate customers. It has 23 wind, 178 solar, and 2 battery storage facilities, as well as 71 fuel cell locations with a capacity of 3,554 MW across 22 states. The company was formerly known as Duke Energy Holding Corp. and changed its name to Duke Energy Corporation in April 2005. The company was founded in 1904 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
EnerSys provides various stored energy solutions for industrial applications worldwide. It operates in three segments: Energy Systems, Motive Power, and Specialty. The company offers uninterruptible power systems applications for computer and computer-controlled systems, as well as telecommunications systems; switchgear and electrical control systems used in industrial facilities and electric utilities, large-scale energy storage, and energy pipelines; integrated power solutions and services to broadband, telecom, renewable, and industrial customers; and thermally managed cabinets and enclosures for electronic equipment and batteries. It also provides motive power products that are used to provide power for electric industrial forklifts used in manufacturing, warehousing, and other material handling applications. In addition, the company offers mining equipment, diesel locomotive starting, and other rail equipment. Further, it provides specialty batteries for starting, lighting, and ignition applications in transportation; and energy solutions for satellites, military aircraft, submarines, ships, and other tactical vehicles, as well as medical and security systems. Additionally, the company offers battery chargers, power equipment, battery accessories, and outdoor cabinet enclosures, as well as related after-market and customer-support services for industrial batteries. The company sells its products through a network of distributors, independent representatives, and internal sales forces. The company was formerly known as Yuasa, Inc. and changed its name to EnerSys in January 2001. EnerSys was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Robert (Bob) Owens Jr., chief financial officer of OTR Wheel Engineering, Inc., was sworn in as Georgia Northwestern Technical Colleges newest board of directors member by Pete McDonald, president of GNTC, at a meeting held on the Gordon County Campus in Calhoun.Mr. Owens has worked with OTR Wheel Engineering since 1998. As chief financial officer, he directs a finance team that encompasses Controllership, Business Operations, Decision Support, Financial Planning and Analysis and Reporting, Human Resources, and Legal.Prior to OTR Wheel Engineering, Mr.Owens was the owner of Comprehensive Management Services in Rome, vice-president of operations and CFO, Physicians Strategic Alliance in Orlando; consultant/director of accounting, Centrex Primary Care Network in Rome; president and CFO, Vascular Centers of America in Rome; asst. vice-president and controller, DVI Healthcare Operations in Irvine, Calif.; accounting manager, Browning-Ferris Industries; accounting manager, Ryder International Freight; senior accountant, Hearst Community Newspapers; and senior accountant, International Marine Engineering.Mr. Owens earned a bachelors degree in accounting from California State University in Long Beach and a masters degree in finance from CSU.Georgia Northwesterns board serves both in a community advisory capacity and in a limited administrative capacity, performing certain oversight responsibilities as designated by State Board policy. The local board is comprised of 16 members from the business and industrial communities from nine counties in the service area (Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade, Floyd, Gordon, Murray, Polk, Walker, and Whitfield counties). State board policy defines the role and responsibilities of the local board. Board members are selected because of their experience, ability, and dedication to deal with issues that relate to the mission of occupational education and are without contractual, employment, or personal financial investment in the school.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE), an S&P 500<sup></sup> urban office real estate investment trust ("REIT"), is the first, longest-tenured, and pioneering owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, technology, and agtech campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, with a total market capitalization of $31.9 billion as of December 31, 2020, and an asset base in North America of 49.7 million square feet ("SF"). The asset base in North America includes 31.9 million RSF of operating properties and 3.3 million RSF of Class A properties undergoing construction, 7.1 million RSF of near-term and intermediate-term development and redevelopment projects, and 7.4 million SF of future development projects. Founded in 1994, Alexandria pioneered this niche and has since established a significant market presence in key locations, including Greater Boston, San Francisco, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle. Alexandria has a longstanding and proven track record of developing Class A properties clustered in urban life science, technology, and agtech campuses that provide our innovative tenants with highly dynamic and collaborative environments that enhance their ability to successfully recruit and retain world-class talent and inspire productivity, efficiency, creativity, and success. Alexandria also provides strategic capital to transformative life science, technology, and agtech companies through our venture capital platform. We believe our unique business model and diligent underwriting ensure a high-quality and diverse tenant base that results in higher occupancy levels, longer lease terms, higher rental income, higher returns, and greater long-term asset value.
Dateline: Malaysia

According to a report on BBC News, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department, a religious government body, said it has asked food outlets selling hot dogs to rename the product or risk being refused halal certification. In Islam dogs are considered unclean and the name cannot be related to halal, Director Sirajuddin Suhaimee announced. Local media reports that Malaysian halal food guidelines specify halal food and halal artificial flavor shall not be named or synonymously named after non-halal products such as ham, bak kut teh, bacon, beer, rum and others that might create confusion. The hot dog brouhaha popped up in early October when popular pretzel chain Auntie Annes was refused halal certification unless it renamed its pretzel dog a pretzel sausage. A representative from the US firm told the BBC it was fine with the name change, but others in the Asian nation are upset. Malaysian Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Aziz told reporters, Even in Malay, its called hot dogits been around for so many years. Im Muslim and Im not offended. The minister added that the word comes from the English language. Please do not make us seem stupid and backward. The ruling has garnered significant ridicule in local media and on Malaysian social media. Malaysia is a majority Muslim country that prides itself on practicing a moderate form of Islam and allowing other religions freedom of worship, although conservative attitudes have reportedly been on the rise in recent years.

Dateline: Japan

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper is reporting that a patient was seriously burned during a surgery at a university hospital in Tokyo after farting during the procedure. The incident occurred at the Tokyo Medical University Hospital in Shinjuku Ward on April 15 of this year. According to a report released by the hospital on Oct. 28, the patient was in her 30s and was undergoing an operation that applied a laser to her cervix, the lower part of the uterus. The laser is believed to have ignited the gas she passed, burning much of her body, including her waist and legs. A committee of outside experts who looked into the case determined that the equipment was functioning normally and that no flammable materials were present in the operating room at the time of the surgery. The report concluded that, When the patients intestinal gas leaked into the space of the operation [room], it ignited with the irradiation of the laser, and the burning spread, eventually reaching the surgical drape and causing the fire.

Dateline: Florida

A Florida man was arrested after allegedly robbing a bank, going out for a drink and then returning to the scene of the crime when police arrived. The Palm Beach Post reports 36-year-old Stephen Daniel Stump, entered a Key West bank on Tuesday, Oct. 25, at 12:30pm and demanded money. He told the clerk he had a bomb in his backpack. Stump, who is believed to be homeless, left with an undisclosed amount of money and made his way to a nearby bar called Mangoes where he grabbed a drink. He paid with a $50 bill from the robbery, telling the bartender to keep the change, city spokesperson Alyson Crean told FlKeysNews.com.When Stump heard the police sirens, he evidently returned to the bank to see what was going on. Police said a bank employee spotted Stump outside of the window while officers were interviewing witnesses. Stump was arrested on felony charges of robbery and falsely reporting an explosive device. All the money was recovered.

Dateline: Kansas

A Kansas State University student claims a snack-hungry burglar broke into his car just to steal a Kit Kat candy bar. Hunter Jobbins tweeted a photo of a note he found in his car after he left it for maybe 15 minutes in front of the dorms. The note, scrawled on a napkin, read, Saw Kit Kat in your cup holder. I love Kit Kats so I checked your door and it was unlocked. Did not take anything other that the Kit Kat. I am sorry and hungry. Jobbins did not report the crime to campus police, howevera day after he posted his tweetthe Hersheys company responded, Who steals someones Kit Kat?! Who does that?! Shoot us a DM and well replace it for you. By Thursday, Nov. 3, the company stuffed Jobbins car full of 6,500 Kit Kats, which he handed out to fellow students.
The Lee University School of Religion will host a Celebration of Christian Joy service on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m. in Pangle Hall.

The event will have four 12-minute sermonettes: Dr. Mark Proctor will address joy as freedom from sins dominion in Romans; Dr. Lisa Long will talk about Johns request for believers to love one another that your joy may be full; Rosalyn Small will discuss finding Christian joy in hardship in Philippians, and Andrew Banacos will offer reflections on Christian hope in resurrection from the dead as expressed in 1 Peter.

We encourage everyone to join us on Nov. 17 to celebrate the importance of joy in the life of the Christian believer, said Dr. Proctor.

Dr. Proctor is an assistant professor of the New Testament in Lees School of Religion. Dr. Long is an associate professor of Christian Formation and the director of graduate studies in Christian Ministries at Lee.

Mr. Banacos is a grad student in Lees Biblical and Theological Studies program, while Ms. Small is a recent Theology department graduate.

Special guest Bishop J. David Stephens, the second assistant general overseer for the Church of God, will host the evening.

The Lee Campus Choir will perform at the event and the evening will close with a time of special prayer.

The service is free of charge and open to the public.

For more information about the event, contact Dr. Proctor at mproctor@leeuniversity.edu.
The following companies are subsidiares of Kroger: 84.51 HQ Building Company LLC, 84.51 LLC, Alpha Beta Company, Ansonborough Square Investors I LLC, Ansonborough Square Retail LLC, Ardrey Kell Investments LLC, Bay Area Warehouse Stores Inc., Beech Tree Holdings LLC, Bleecker Ventures LLC, Bluefield Beverage Company, Box Cutter Inc., CB&S Advertising Agency Inc., Cala Co., Cala Foods Inc., Cheeses of All Nations Inc., Country Oven Inc., Crawford Stores Inc., Creedmoor Retail LLC, Dillon Companies LLC, Dillon Real Estate Co. Inc., Dillons, Distribution Trucking Company, Dotto Inc., Edgewood Plaza Holdings LLC, Embassy International Inc., FM Inc., FMJ Inc., Farmacia Doral Inc., Food 4 Less GM Inc., Food 4 Less Holdings Inc., Food 4 Less Merchandising Inc., Food 4 Less of California Inc., Food 4 Less of Southern California Inc., Fred Meyer, Fred Meyer Inc., Fred Meyer Jewelers Inc., Fred Meyer Stores Inc., Glasswing Labs LLC, Glendale/Goodwin Realty I LLC, Grubstake Investments LLC, HT Fuel DE LLC, HT Fuel NC LLC, HT Fuel SC LLC, HT Fuel VA LLC, HTGBD LLC, HTP Bluffton LLC, HTP Plaza LLC, HTP Relo LLC, HTPS LLC, HTTAH LLC, Harris Teeter, Harris Teeter LLC, Harris Teeter Properties LLC, Harris Teeter Supermarkets Inc., Harris-Teeter Services Inc., Healthy Options Inc., Henpil Inc., Home Chef, Hood-Clayton Logistics LLC, Hughes Markets Inc., Hughes Realty Inc., I.T.A. Inc., IRP LLC, ITAC 119 LLC, ITAC 265 LLC, Inter-American Foods Inc., Inter-American Products Inc., J.V. Distributing Inc., Jondex Corp., Jubilee Carolina LLC, KCDE  2013 LLC, KCDE-2 LLC, KCDE-3 LLC, KCDE-4 LLC, KCDE-5 LLC, KGO LLC, KPF LLC, KPS LLC, KRGP LLC, KRLP Inc., KV Anderson LLC, Kee Trans Inc., Kessel FP, Kiosk Medicine Kentucky LLC, Kirkpatrick West Retail LLC, Kroger Community Development Entity LLC, Kroger Dedicated Logistics Co., Kroger Fulfillment Network LLC, Kroger G.O. LLC, Kroger HQ LLC, Kroger LM Real Estate Holdings LLC, Kroger Limited Partnership I, Kroger Limited Partnership II, Kroger MC Holdings LLC, Kroger MTL Management LLC, Kroger Management Co., Kroger Management  Corryville LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Athens I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Champaign I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Champaign II LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Cincinnati I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Dallas I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Danville I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Logansport I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Missouri I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Oak Ridge I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Olney I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Omaha I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Portsmouth I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Starkville I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Topeka I LLC, Kroger NMTC Fremont I LLC, Kroger OZ1 Inc., Kroger OZ1 LLC, Kroger OZ2 Inc., Kroger OZ2 LLC, Kroger OZ3 Inc., Kroger OZ3 LLC, Kroger Opportunity Fund I Inc., Kroger Prescription Plans Inc., Kroger Specialty Infusion AL LLC, Kroger Specialty Infusion CA LLC, Kroger Specialty Infusion Holdings Inc., Kroger Specialty Infusion TX LLC, Kroger Specialty Pharmacy CA LLC, Kroger Specialty Pharmacy FL 2 LLC, Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings 2 Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings 3 Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings I Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy LA LLC, Kroger Texas L.P., LCGP3 Home Cooking Inc., Latta Village LLC, Local Mkt LLC, Main & Vine LLC, Matthews Property 1 LLC, Mega Marts LLC, Michigan Dairy L.L.C., ModernHealth LTC, Murrays Cheese LLC, Murrays Cheese LLC, Murrays LIC LLC, Murrays Table LLC, Pace Dairy Foods Company, Paramount Logistics LLC, Pay Less Super Markets Inc., Peyton's-Southeastern Inc., Plum Labs LLC, Pontiac Foods Inc., Queen City Assurance Inc., RBF LLC, RGC Southeast Properties LLC, Ralphs Grocery Company, Relish Labs LLC, Rocket Newco Inc., Roundy's, Roundys Acquisition Corp., Roundys Illinois LLC, Roundys Inc., Roundys Supermarkets Inc., Second Story Inc., Shop-Rite LLC, Smiths Beverage of Wyoming Inc., Smiths Food & Drug Centers Inc., Southern Ice Cream Specialties Inc., Stallings Investors I LLC, Sunrise R&D Holdings LLC, Sunrise Technology LLC, TLC Corporate Services LLC, TLC Immunization Clinic LLC, TLC of Georgia LLC, The Kroger Co. of Michigan, The Little Clinic LLC, The Little Clinic Management Services LLC, The Little Clinic of Arizona LLC, The Little Clinic of Colorado LLC, The Little Clinic of IN LLC, The Little Clinic of Kansas LLC, The Little Clinic of Mississippi LLC, The Little Clinic of Ohio LLC, The Little Clinic of TX LLC, The Little Clinic of Tennessee LLC, The Little Clinic of VA LLC, Topvalco Inc., Ultimate Mart LLC, Ultra Mart Foods LLC, Vandervoort Dairy Foods Company, Vine Court Assurance Incorporated, Vitacost, Vitacost.com Inc., Woodmont Holdings LLC, and YOU Technology.

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Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides energy and emissions control solutions to a range of industrial, electrical utility, municipal, and other customers worldwide. It operates through three segments: Babcock & Wilcox Renewable; Babcock & Wilcox Environmental; and Babcock & Wilcox Thermal. The Babcock & Wilcox Renewable segment offers technologies for waste-to-energy, solar construction and installation, and biomass energy systems, as well as black liquor systems for the pulp and paper industry. This segment provides technologies support solutions for diverting waste from landfills to use for power generation and replacing fossil fuels while recovering metals and reducing emissions. The Babcock & Wilcox Environmental segment offers a range of emissions control and environmental technology solutions for utility, waste to energy, biomass, carbon black, and industrial steam generation applications. This segment provides systems for cooling, ash handling, particulate control, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides removal, chemical looping for carbon control, and mercury control. The Babcock & Wilcox Thermal segment offers steam generation equipment; aftermarket parts; and construction, maintenance, and field services for plants in the power generation, oil and gas, and industrial sectors. This segment has an installed equipment for utilities and general industrial applications, including refining, petrochemical, food processing, metals, and others. The company was founded in 1867 and is headquartered in Akron, Ohio.
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. was founded in 1869 by Marcus Goldman as an investment bank catering to institutions and businesses. Among the firm's first products are the revolutionary use of commercial paper for entrepreneurs which opened a new method of finance for business and industry.

The original firm expanded to Goldman Sachs in 1882 with the inclusion of son-in-law Samuel Sachs and again in 1885 with a son and another son-in-law. The firm joined the New York Stock Exchange in 1896 expanding into trading of its own and in 1898 it was worth $1.6 million. The company began its work in the IPO market in 1906 with the initial public offering of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and then moved on to Ford and other prominent names of the time.

The 1930s brings a change of leadership and a new direction for the firm. The company shifted toward a purer play on investment banking and embarks on a campaign of acquisition that lasted until the present day. The company doesnt go public itself until 1999 and from that point on it will change into a bank holding company that not only offers investment banking services but takes deposits too, and in 2016 the company added consumer banking to its list of services.

Today, Goldman Sachs is a financial institution that provides a range of financial services for corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals globally. The company operates through four segments that include Investment Banking, Global Markets, Asset Management, and Consumer & Wealth Management. According to US banking regulations, it is systemically important to the financial health of America.

The company is headquartered in New York, New York, and operates 6 regional headquarters as well. Regional headquarters are located in financial hotspots such as London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangalore, and Warsaw. Among its many prominent CEOs are John Corzine and Hank Paulson who both went on to successful work in government.

The company's Investment Banking segment provides a full range of financial advisory services as well as underwriting for the public markets. The financial advisory services include but are not limited to strategic advisory for mergers and acquisitions, divestiture, restructuring, and spin-offs. This segment is also engaged in middle-market lending and transaction banking. Underwriting services include IPOs, preferred stock, debt instruments, and bridge loans.

Goldman Sachs Global Markets segment facilitates market transactions for institutions, banks, brokerages, corporations, and governments. Services include execution, derivatives, financing, clearing, settlement, and custody.

The Asset Management segment manages client portfolios across the investment spectrum while the Consumer & Wealth Management segment provides advisory and banking services to consumers.
A 62-acre Sequatchie Valley farm with a large frontage on the scenic Sequatchie River will be auctioned online.

The Dr. Craig A Depken Estate includes a metal quonset-style home, buildings and personal property.

It is located at 6275 Francis Springs Road in Whitwell.

The sale by Potts Auction will include dividing the farm into four acreage tracts ranging from 5 to 50 +/- acres.

Inspection is Thursday, Dec. 1, and Wednesday, Dec. 7, from 3-5 p.m. CST or contact the auctioneer for an appointment.

Bidding begins Nov. 25 and ends Dec. 8.



See more at: http://pottsbrothers.com/index.php?ap=1&pid=50624#sthash.412fafww.dpuf
Protests and vigils against President elect Donald Trump have spread coast to coast as huge crowds were burning effigies of Trump, blocked roadways and warned of more backlash. This underscored the tough task that Trump will face in uniting a fractured nation.

Despite President Obama and Hillary Clinton urging supporters to accept the victory of Trump and to support the transition to power he will take, thousands marched through streets across the country decrying his comments about women and attacks on undocumented immigrants.

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Authorities in a number of cities across the country such as the big metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, Chicago and New York and smaller ones like Portland, Ore and Richmond announced the arrest of many demonstrators.

Even cities that were within GOP supported states, such as Dallas, Kansas City and Dallas experienced demonstrations.

In the city of Oakland, CA, a pair of police officers became injured and two police cars torched as protesters in the thousands took to city streets chanting slogans against the President-elect, said a spokesperson for the police.

Objects were thrown by a few of the protesters at police that were decked out in riot gear. Others broke windows and small fires were started in the citys downtown are.

In Los Angeles, the streets were filled with thousands including those who burned a huge Trump head made of papier-mache outside City Hall. Others spray-painted profanity on the building that houses the Los Angeles Times and on vehicles the news organizations were using.

Hundreds more blocked two highways that helped back traffic up many miles.

Rainbow flags as well as signs that had messages of revolt waved amongst the crowd while protesters filled the streets in Chicago on Michigan Avenue. They then shut Lake Shore Drive down, which is the expressway that runs along Lake Michigan.

The major of the demonstrations were in urban centers that were won on Tuesday by Clinton, highlighting the divide demographically that shaped the results of the elections

Clintons narrow win in the popular vote helped to spur on New York demonstrators as they chanted that she had won more votes, during a massing of many thousands in front of midtown Manhattans Trump Tower.

The protesters stretched a number of blocks.

Earlier, protesters marched to Trumps building from Union Square chanting that Trump should leave, that he was sexist, racist and anti-gay.
Lee University awarded scholarships to 34 women for the 2016-17 school year. The Lettie Pate Whitehead foundation, a Georgia nonprofit organization that is dedicated to the education of female students, funded the scholarships.

Each woman was awarded a scholarship of $2,500. In accordance with the guidelines prescribed by the Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation, scholarships were awarded to women who reside in one of nine specified southeastern states. Recipients were chosen based on a combination of factors including financial need, academic merit, and character.

Mrs. Lettie Pate Whitehead, for whom the foundation is named, was born in Virginia in 1872. In 1895, she married Joseph Brown Whitehead, and the two settled in Chattanooga. In 1899, Mr. Whitehead and an associate approached The Coca-Cola Company with the idea of bottling the popular beverage. The two businessmen secured a contract and soon began bottling and selling Coca-Cola throughout the United States.

Upon Mr. Whiteheads death in 1906, Mrs. Whitehead assumed responsibility for the familys business affairs. She became one of the first women to serve on the board of directors of a major American corporation.

Along with her legacy as a successful business woman, Mrs. Whitehead was also known for her generosity. Throughout her life she supported charities and educational programs and was viewed as a leader in her community. The Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation aims to inspire women to stand out as leaders in their communities and to support them in their quest for education. This year marks the 11th anniversary of the scholarship program at Lee.

A reception to celebrate the women chosen for the award this year was held in the Lee Chapel.

For more information about the Lettie Pate Whitehead Scholarship, contact Lees Office of Admissions at 614-8500.


Albemarle County Public Schools staff members on Wednesday told a joint meeting of the School Board and Board of Supervisors that the division faces significant revenue shortfalls over the next five years.

Assistant Superintendent Matt Haas showed the revenue numbers in a presentation to the boards about the divisions five-year financial plan.

If the division decides not to fund any enrollment growth initiatives, the schools expect to face a $2.3 million revenue shortfall in fiscal year 2016-17.
The police chiefs of Charlottesville and Albemarle County came together Wednesday to talk policing issues and hear from the community.

The goal of the Senior Statesmen of Virginia meeting at the Senior Center was to give senior citizens a chance to meet the police leaders and ask questions.

Charlottesville Chief Al Thomas spoke about changing the structure of the departments ranks  including the recent promotion of Maj. Gary Pleasants to the role of deputy chief. He also addressed the need to focus more efforts on connecting with the community and listening to what people want.

Albemarle County Chief Ron Lantz addressed his departments efforts in geo-policing, a strategy that splits the county into geographical sectors and assigns officers to specific areas, allowing them to better engage their community. He also spoke about traffic being one of the biggest issues his officers face, most notably distracted driving.

I once saw a guy eating spaghetti while driving with his knees, said Lantz, getting a laugh from the audience. We had a good conversation, pulled over on the side of the road.

Lantz said he hopes to hire more officers and, eventually, open a district police station in the north part of the county near Hollymead Town Center. Along with the addition of a new satellite office in Crozet, he said hed like to see another open in the urban ring near apartment complexes with high numbers of calls for service.

Opening the floor for questions, one woman asked about what traffic problems most plagued the county; Lantz said the No. 1 issue is distracted driving. To combat issues at specific locations, he said, the Traffic Unit is often sent to deal with the problems.

You might have seen them on their motorcycles, Lantz said. Hopefully, you just waved and didnt have to talk to them.

When asked about drug issues in the area, Lantz said, bluntly, that there are both drugs and gangs in the community, and that the two are connected. Gangs get into the drug business to help fuel their enterprises, he said, and that can make it harder to rid the community of them.

Unlike other counties in Virginia, Lantz said Charlottesville and Albemarle have been lucky enough to avoid the heroin epidemic and the flow of methamphetamine.

We try to get the main folks selling it and try to keep it out of the schools and away from kids, said Lantz.

To start to train the focus on preventing crimes, like drug offenses, Thomas said the Charlottesville department is slowly doing away with a separate Crime Prevention Unit and tailoring those skills for all patrol officers.

We want all of our officers to understand the underlying causes of crimes and build trust in the community, said Thomas.

At the end of the discussion, one woman asked how the community can take care of its officers in light of recent police killings. Speaking about current tensions nationally, Lantz said he wants to know when one of his officers does something wrong; in terms of support, he asked for something simple.

Pray for us, Lantz said. Support us when you can and thank officers for what they do when you see them.

One participant, Kate Fraleigh, asked the chiefs what their relationship was like with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and whether they might become involved with enforcing immigrant statuses. Both chiefs assured her they had good relationships with the federal agency but that their responsibilities would not be changing any time soon.

I think the relationship between the community and the police departments is very important and that its important for the police departments to reassure the community of what theyre going to be doing or not doing, Fraleigh said following the forum. So, I was glad to hear that they wont be becoming immigration enforcement agents. Thats what I wanted to know.

I wondered, with the new president, if there would be some federal effort to get police departments to participate in immigration enforcement, she added.

Both Lantz and Thomas said the event went well and was a good opportunity to speak directly with part of their community. Thomas said the forum was an opportunity for both sides to hear one another.

I think it gave the community members an opportunity to share some of their concerns with us and learn a little more about our police agencies, and I think that was very beneficial, Thomas said. Thats what this is all about  its a give-and-take  and its getting to know each other, and for us, its listening and understanding what the problems in the community are.

Its a very caring, very challenging and very demanding community, and I wouldnt have it any other way.

For Lantz, the forum produced interesting questions from the community and a chance to work together.

I think there were some great questions from the folks and it was well-attended, said Lantz. What I was hoping to get out of it was that they see that were here as chiefs and were committed to providing service to the community but that we need the community to help us do our job, and be our eyes and ears in the community.
Piedmont Virginia Community College is facing a $700,000 state funding cut next fiscal year due to a state budget shortfall.

With revenues coming in below projections, Gov. Terry McAuliffe told officials last week to brace for a 7.5-percent funding cut.

Frank Friedman, president of PVCC, said he doesnt expect this to interfere with the colleges services or operations. The administration, he said, is working to avoid cuts to academic programs, possibly through private fundraising.

Were trying to avoid all these things, Friedman said at a meeting of the colleges board on Wednesday. We cant guarantee anything, but we think well be able to handle it.

The University of Virginia is facing a $10.8 million cut for fiscal year 2018.

UVa spokesman Matt Charles said the university will identify strategies to address the General Fund reduction with the goal of minimizing any adverse impact to our students academic experience.

The UVa Board of Visitors will meet to discuss the Strategic Investment Fund on Friday.

Also on Wednesday, PVCCs board took a few minutes to discuss a controversy involving one of its satellite properties in Greene County.

The Eugene V. Giuseppe Center in Stanardsville was the site of a controversial seminar titled Understanding the Jihadi Threat and hosted by the Greene County Sheriffs Office last Saturday.

Although the county owns the facility, Friedman told the press last week that the college would not censor such an event as it would violate the speakers First Amendment rights.

On Wednesday, board members discussed procedures for dealing with embarrassing public relations situations. But they also talked a bit about the thinking behind the colleges stance on censorship and free expression.

PVCC has a policy that states the administration cannot interfere with individuals or groups right to free expression based on the content of their expression.

College officials can step in if the expression causes significant disruption to normal operations on campus, according to the policy.

Departing from that policy, Friedman said, could leave the college vulnerable to legal action.

The second we dont follow our own policies is the second we open ourselves to a lawsuit, he said.

Sean Moynihan, the board chairman, said he agreed with the stance taken by Friedman and the rest of the PVCC administration.

Thats one of the hallmarks of any academic institution, Moynihan said. Ill defend anyones right to say it  that doesnt mean I agree with it.
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Rolling Stone magazine put University of Virginia administrator Nicole Eramo through a horrible ordeal when it published Sabrina Rubin Erdelys story about a rape on campusa story that quickly fell apart under scrutiny. Rolling Stone eventually retracted it, and Erdely apologized.

Eramo sued for defamationa tough case to make, especially after the judge in the case ruled she qualified as a public figure. That meant Eramo had to prove the magazine acted with actual malice. In libel law, malice does not mean an intent to do harm; it means the publication knew it was making accusations that were false, or had doubts about their veracity. Last week, the jury found that it had.To make matters worse, the Rolling Stone debacle is not the first of its type. Less than a decade ago the nation was convulsed by allegations about Duke lacrosse players raping a stripper. The lurid story, with its contrast between privileged rich white males and the underprivileged black woman who accused them, pushed every social-justice hot buttonand that was enough for many to assume the accused were guilty. But the accusation proved falseand the prosecutor, Mike Nifong, was disbarred.Why Erdely and Rolling Stone ignored that cautionary tale and plowed forward without questioning Jackies story harder is a mystery. Sexual assault on college campuses is sadly widespread, and sufficient shoe-leather reporting could have turned up numerousalbeit perhaps less sensationalcases. That is one of the many lamentable aspects of this episode: The high-profile debunking of Jackies story could make it harder for victims to come forward or make it easier for skeptics to dismiss their allegations. If Erdely and Rolling Stone were trying to advance a cause, they wound up setting it back.

The hints came early and from an unlikely source. Virginias polls closed at 7 p.m. Hillary Clinton was declared the states winner several hours later. She ended up with a comfortable lead but Donald Trump ran ahead of her for much of the evening.

Polls suggested Clinton had wrapped up the Old Dominion. The state may not have rated as a battleground. Trends gave Democrats momentum in Virginia, which Barack Obama carried twice. Tim Kaines addition to the ticket seemed to have put the state out of reach, but it was not to be. The competitive nature of Virginias vote suggested Trump would run well elsewhere. The surprises came. State after state fell into the Trump column.

Every election, The Times-Dispatch pays immediate attention to Chesterfield. The county usually is the first of Virginias populous jurisdictions to report its returns. It also produces reliably Republican numbers. We treat it as a barometer. If the GOP percentage in Chesterfield falls below 54 percent, the state will be in for a long night. If Chesterfield exceeds 55 percent, Republicans can anticipate a strong stateside showing.

Trump carried Chesterfield but with only about 48 percent. When Northern Virginia began cranking out ballots, Trumps lead evaporated. Trumps edge held up in the states rural regions, but Democrats enjoy an advantage in national elections. The Democrats approach to social issues resonates in Virginia. Kaines visibility boosted Virginia Democrats this year. A landslide that appeared possible did not occur. The Clinton-Kaine ticket took Virginia but Trump swept almost every battleground.

Regarding global economics, Virginia mirrors the national experience. The states I-95/I-64 corridors have benefited from international trade. The states reliance on the federal government gives it an international reach; its ports are booking. The state in its entirety has not shared fully in the largess. Trump spoke to and for the dispossessed. The tale of two commonwealths tells of the best of times and the worst of times. Voters respond to those who take heed.
All The Local Food News You Missed During The Election

By Anthony Todd in Food on Nov 10, 2016 3:26PM



Mussels at Bar Lupo, now open. Photo via Facebook.

Let's be honest: We weren't paying much attention to restaurant news over the last few days, for obvious reasons. But that doesn't mean nothing was happening! Here's a roundup of some of the key happenings so far this week.

Rick Bayless is making a change to his Wicker Park restaurant. Formerly known as Xoco Bistro, it will now be known as Fonda Frontera, according to a statement from his restaurant group. Instead of the more fast-casual (like the downtown Xoco) menu, it will now focus on raw seafood, a wood burning grill and, in a sure sign that Wicker Park is definitely filled with aging hipsters, a great value $6 childrens' menu.

Arami, which had closed because of a fire back in October, is back open and serving its well-known awesome sushi. According to a statement from the restaurant, there's some new dishes on the menu to celebrate the opening, and Eater Chicago has the full menu. We congratulate the place on its fast turnaround. The same group has also just opened Entente, a more upscale fine dining spot, on Lincoln Avenue.

Bar Lupo, a new Italian spot from veterans of Maple & Ash and RIA, has been open for a little over two weeks now. Zagat Chicago has a full profile of the restaurant, but we're actually most excited about the return of Liz Pearce, formerly of The Drifter and The Drawing Room, to the bar scene. It's occupying the old Oak & Char (and before that Graham Elliot) spot, which has a ton of potential to be gorgeous. According to Chicago Mag, there's homemade pasta and sausages. That being said, it's hard to get too excited about another River North mid-priced Italian spot, so we're reserving judgement on whether Bar Lupo is worth a visit until we actually get there.
One Of Chicago's Best Bartenders Just Released An Amazing (and Inexpensive) Rum

By Rob Christopher in Food on Nov 10, 2016 6:00PM



Plantation's O.F.T.D. rum (photo courtesy Land and Sea Dept.)

On Wednesday of last week, which happened to be the night of Game 7 of the World Series, Lost Lake hosted a launch party for a very special new rum. (We don't blame you if you missed it.)

Plantation O.F.T.D. stands out from other offerings in an increasingly crowded rum market for a few key reasons. Firstly, it's overproof: at a very potent 69 percent ABV (138 proof) this is one spirit that means business. Secondly, to create the rum's blend, Plantation gathered a veritable tiki all-star team of advisers, including Jeff "Beachbum" Berry, Martin Cate, Paul McFadyen, Scotty Schuder, and David Wondrich. And, Lost Lake's own Paul McGee.

McGee and Berry were on hand for Lost Lake's launch party, and the latter confirmed a rumor I'd heard about how the new Plantation rum got its name. Officially the O.F.T.D. stands for Old Fashioned Traditional Dark. But that's not the full story. Berry told me that when David Wondrich had a taste of the new rum's final blend, he exclaimed, "Oh fuck! That's delicious!"

It certainly is. O.F.T.D. isn't just powerful. It possesses a whole host of intense flavor notes, from fruit and spice to cream and vanilla, that are perfect for cocktails, tiki or otherwise. It's now in stock at Binny's, Foremost Liquors, and other area stores. I had the chance to talk with McGee about the development process, and he also shared the recipe for a cocktail that really spotlights the incredible new rum.

CHICAGOIST: Your rum is going to be in the $25-27 range. Thats exceptionally reasonable for an overproof rum.

PAUL McGEE: I know, right? I think that was the goal, to be at a price point where you would make cocktails with it at a bar. The Plantation guys made it happen. I think streamlining it with a one-size bottle definitely helped. its going to be in a liter bottle only. For the entire world, when it comes out globally, you wont have separate sizes for the UK and US and so on. Youll just have one bottle for all of the rum.

Plantation does some of their other rums in one-liter bottles as well, dont they?

PAUL McGEE: Yeah, they do the 3 Star in the liter bottles, and then their current overproof right now.

When did you get the first inkling that there was a secret project afoot and that you would be asked to be a part of it?

PAUL McGEE: I had no idea! It was a really cool email to get from Alexander Gabriel and Guillaume [Lamy] from Plantation. And they were like, Hey, weve got this idea. We want to reformulate our current iteration of Original Dark Overproof, and reach out to you guys and see if you want to play a part. And we were like, Absolutely.

It kind of turned into like the Oceans 11-type team of tikiphiles.

PAUL McGEE: Right!

What do you think is the most surprising thing about this collaboration? Something that was unexpected as you started working on it?

PAUL McGEE: Most of the people on the label of the bottle are bartenders or people who own bars. And it was really interesting to have someone whos not a bartender on that list: David Wondrich. Its really cool to be able to have him look at the historical significance of this style of rum. Hes one of the people who put the secret sauce if you will into the blend. We stumbled across a really young Barbados rum from a stainless vat. David was like, Whats in that? I want to try that. So we pulled some off of the vat, and we were walking back to the van and we tried some. And we were like, wow, this is really interesting. It was a really young pot stilled rum. So we got back to the chateau and started working on the formulas and stuff. We were towards the end, we were almost there. We were in the process of tossing it up between one or two. David was like, What if we put a little of that young, pot stilled rum in there? And so the blender went back and made that an option, and that was the winning formula.

Can you talk a little bit about the various components in the blend and what each one adds to the rum?

PAUL McGEE: There were three rums that were used in there. The majority of the rum is a really young demerara rum, [from] Guyana. And theres a little bit of high ester Jamaican pot rum. And theres a little bit of that Barbados pot stilled rum in there as well. Those are the three components to the rum, and then obviously its been colored and bottled at 69% alcohol.

For someone who doesnt know a lot about spirits in general, why is an overproof rum preferable? Why would you even go that route?

PAUL McGEE: It gives it that punch, historically speaking, looking for that kind of oomph and power, in a cocktail. And presence. Even just in a half-ounce increment. Just to kind of give it some of that spice, some of that big, bold flavor that youre going to get from this rum. But its also excellent in an Old Fashioned. And I think we as bartenders, bartenders who make tropical drinks and tiki cocktails, I think we like to be able to control the amount of alcohol in the drinks. Like in Zombies, and things like that. Some of these drinks are pretty big, so you can use a big, bold, overproof rum in it. And because theres so much volume, not only of the other ingredients but the amount of ice that youre going to put in a cocktail, its not going to get watered down.

It stands up better to dilution, right?

PAUL McGEE: Exactly. Exactly. Its like when we talked when we opened up the other joint several years ago, how you can contemplate over your cocktail for 20 or 30 minutes, its still good. Whereas if youre going to sit on your Old Fashioned for 30 minutes itll be be a bit watered down.

Well, as you know, there are a number of other overproof rums already on the market. Do you consider your rum to be a kind of compliment to those, or to replace a rum like Lemon Hart 151 thats getting harder to find?

PAUL McGEE: I really dont think so. I mean, the Lemon Hart 151 has that really young, demerara component obviously. But we were just trying to make a really good overproof rum that had a bunch of different layers to it, and not just something that was hot. So thats why Alexandre and the rest of us went to the trouble of wanting some of that Jamaican rum. The funky, fruity notes that you get from a Jamaican high ester rum. Lemon Hart and some other high proof rums are just there for the heat. Not much complexity to it. This was kind of cool because we had something that had a cool body to it but also had a really interesting nose. Instead of just the heat.

This simple mixture is ideal for sipping slowly (although it's so tasty that might be difficult!)

O.F.T.D. Swizzle

1.5 oz Plantation O.F.T.D. rum

.75 oz freshly squeezed lime juice

.75 oz simple syrup

2 dashes Angostura bitters

1 teaspoon Letherbee Charred Oak Absinthe Bruin

Combine all ingredients in a tall glass or metal swizzle cup. Fill halfway with crushed ice and swizzle or stir vigorously for about 10 seconds. Top with more crushed ice to fill and swizzle again. Garnish with a cinnamon stick and mint, and grate a little nutmeg on top. Serve with a straw.
Photos: 5 Arrested After Chicago Protesters Block Traffic, Shout 'F*ck Trump'

By Stephen Gossett in News on Nov 10, 2016 3:22PM



Everybody knows hes a pompous ass, said one protester at Wednesday nights mammoth demonstration against President-elect Donald Trump.

Thousands of fellow protesters, in apparent total agreement, flooded the streets from the evening through early Thursday morning, to make their displeasure boomingly loud and crystal clear. Protesters gathered before 5 p.m. and lingered well past midnight.

Several massive crowds formed on Wacker Drive, across the river from Trump Tower, which was blockaded off by police barricade. Marchers pushed forth through downtown, crisscrossing up and down State Street and Michigan Avenue. We witnessed a massive stream of protesters march northbound up Lake Shore Dr., from Monroe all the way to Grand, before it circled south down the Magnificent Mile and back toward Trump Tower.

Protesters hop lanes on Lake Shore pic.twitter.com/xUKkdiRNuC  Stephen Gossett (@gossettrag) November 10, 2016

Some stalled motorists look on, stern-faced, but dozens more along the protest line honked and cheered the demonstrators on. Countless onlookers downtown, on the Near East Side and in the South Loop voiced support for the passing anti-Trump marchers.

More high fives from motorists as demonstrators continue to march through the south loop #TrumpProtest Chicago pic.twitter.com/26uULntUQU  Aaron Cynic (@aaroncynic) November 10, 2016



Chants of Fuck Trump, SA, se puede,Not my president, Black Lives Matter, Make America gay again and countless others rang through the streets.

Its important to show the country and the world that we know this is not OK, said Amanda Foster, 22.

We witnessed people climbed atop stopped-in-traffic CTA buses and protesters perched on bus shelters, plus some Fuck Trump graffiti. But the demonstration was overwhelmingly peaceful and non-violent.

When the mood was tense at one pointas mounted officers jostled protesters who pressed toward a police barricade on Wabash, near Wacker Dr.friction was suddenly eased when protesters arrived with a speakers and music, transforming the scene into a brief dance party.

Five people were arrested in total, a police spokesman told Chicagoist via email. The arrests were for obstruction of traffic in roadway, reckless conduct, criminal trespass to land and resisting arrest, police said.

Meanwhile, in front of Trump Tower, Izzy Steel, 23 and Dylan Jenning, 22 from Edgewater were holding signs that simply red "love" and giving hugs to anyone passing by who might want one.

"There's so much hatred going on right now and I don't want to hate because of this man," said Steel. I want to love each other and it's through unity we stand together, not division. He doesn't deserve the kind of hatred we give each other - hate him, but not each other."

The couple - who both said they voted for Hillary Clinton and were both disappointed at the results and horrified that Trump was chosen to represent America to the rest of the world were later joined by their friend Kevin, also from the north side, who said the group was passing out hugs to try to create a sense of unity in a time of division.

"I thought tonight...I was really upset and wanted to channel it into something positive," he said.

"Last evening, citizens across the country exercised their First Amendment rights in response to the November 8 election," said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in a statement. "These demonstrations make evident the deep level of polarization and divisiveness that exists in our country and underscores the need for leadership that promotes unity. The fate of American democracy is at stake.
A new ancient Chinese costume drama, starring popular actress Tiffany Tang, is ready to hit small screens on Beijing Satellite TV starting on Friday.

The TV still shows actress Tiffany Tang in the Drama series, Princess Weiyang, which will debut on Nov 11, 2016.[Photo provided to CRI]

Entitled 'The Princess Weiyang,' the TV drama aims to take audiences back 1500 years, by portraying the struggles and conflicts within the imperial family during the Northern Wei Dynasty.

The 33-year-old actress elaborates on her experience of playing the titular role in the series.

"She has an insightful mind. She cares about the long-term interest and knows how to set her ambitious goals step by step. Later several incidents happened but all under her control. I wear a total of 90 ancient costumes, which is unprecedented in all of my acting experiences in the TV drama series."

The story develops as the kind-hearted princess accidentally enters her enemy's territory, and centers on how she eventually utilizes her wisdom to become a powerful woman after suffering many hardships.

Actor Luo Jin, Vaness Wu, and Golden Bell award-winning Hong Kong actress Leanne Liu also star in this TV drama.

The 54-episode drama is inspired by the hit online novel with the same name.
PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK Letters Another Opinion About Mexican Gray Wolves Dear Alibi, In all the debates about Mexican gray wolves, theres one opinion that rarely gets considered: Gods opinion. The most honorable opinion of all. And what God would say is easy to deduce. He would ask us to treat all His animals with respect and compassion, including Mexican gray wolves. God represents and gives love and care and compassion and respect. He would say dont kill these magnificent animals out of hatred, or for money or ego. Its inarguable to say that God would want us to respect all His creations. Including Mexican gray wolves. So why dont we take Gods opinion into account? Although our laws can't include Gods desires, surely our morals can. Surely our opinions and actions can reflect Gods desires about how we treat all His creations. Including Mexican gray wolves. God would say its not okay to kill wolves so some people can earn more money. He would say its not okay to kill a wolf because it might attack someone. God would advocate innocent until proven guilty. God gives love and compassion and care and respect to each and every one of us. He wants us to act like He does and appreciate what we have; appreciate that we have our lives, and food and clothing and shelter and health and loved ones; and appreciate and respect all His creations like he does. Including Mexican gray wolves. Please.

Give A.R.T. a Chance Dear Alibi, If you have traveled to small-town N.M., youll note that the young people have leftits only Boomers and seniorsand their City Councilors lament that fact. I would hate to see the same thing happen to Albuquerque. I think Rapid Transit could help keep our younger population here, especially those who choose to go without a car. I have resided in Nob Hill for decades and I am concerned. I think Nob Hill is dying, as evidenced by the many empty commercial real estate sites. I think Rapid Transit may help revitalize Nob Hill and bring shopping, not just dining, back to Nob Hill. If you work Downtown or on campus, you know how difficult it is to park. I think an up-to-date bus system, Rapid Transit, can help a large population who work there. I would like to give A.R.T. a chance.
The first Chinese firearm with an imperial reign mark ever to be offered at auction sold for 1.985 million pounds (2.5 million U.S. dollars), the auction house Sotheby's London announced in a statement on Wednesday.

Emperor Qianlong's firearm. [Photo / Sotheby's London]

The gun -- a brilliantly designed and exquisitely crafted musket, produced in imperial workshops -- was created for the Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), arguably the greatest collector and patron of the arts in Chinese history.

Estimated at 1 million to 1.5 million pounds (1.33 million to 1.99 million dollars), the firearm ignited a 10-minute bidding battle before finally selling to an Asian private collector.

"This gun ranks as one of the most significant Chinese treasures ever to come to auction. Today's result will be remembered alongside landmark sales of other extraordinary objects that epitomize the pinnacle of imperial craftsmanship during the Qing dynasty," said Robert Bradlow, senior director of Chinese Works of Art, Sotheby's London.

"Over the last 10 years we've seen the market for historical Chinese works of art go from strength to strength, with collectors drawn from across the globe and exceptional prices achieved whether the sale is staged in London, Hong Kong or New York," he added.

The musket bears not only the imperial reign mark on top of its barrel, but in addition, incised on the breech of the barrel are four Chinese characters which denote the gun's peerless ranking -- "Supreme Grade, Number One." This exceptional grading makes it unique amongst the known extant guns from imperial workshops, and asserts its status as one of the most important firearms produced for Emperor Qianlong.

According to Sotheby's London, the advent of Western firearm technology sparked the production of muskets in imperial workshops, and this modern mode of weaponry had unquestionable advantages over the traditional bow and arrow for hunting.

Using only the most luxurious materials, imperial muskets were created in very small numbers for Emperor Qianlong. While the Emperor is unlikely ever to have held a gun in battle, he would regularly hunt with a musket.

The auction house said the Supreme Number One is closely related to six celebrated, named imperial Qianlong muskets in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, which appear to correspond with seven muskets listed in the Qing work, Collected Statutes of the Qing Dynasty with Illustrations. These guns were probably graded in the same way as the Supreme Number One, but with lower grade and/or number ("Supreme Grade, Number Two", "Top Grade, Number 2").

Revered as one of the most powerful "Sons of Heaven," Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) was the longest-lived and de-facto longest-reigning emperor in Chinese history (1736-1795).
2016 World Economic Forums China Business Roundtable kicks off in Guangzhou on Nov. 10. Panelists discuss at the session themed with Digital Transformation: Strategic Impact for China. [China.org.cn/Li Kang]

More than 150 business executives, scholars and officials have gathered today in Guangzhou for a WEF roundtable set to discuss Chinas vision for promoting digital transformation of strategic industries and path for reform.

It is the first time that the World Economic Forum (WEF) has come to South China. Entitled Digital Transformation of Strategic Industries, the business roundtable is sponsored by the Guangzhou Municipal Government and is tailored to be a major platform for Guangzhous social-economic development and engagement in the global economy.

Benefiting from the automatic and intelligent assembly lines, now it only takes 49 seconds to produce a car, said Zeng Qinghong, Chairman of Chinas Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group, at the discussion session of the 2016 WEFs China Business Roundtable.

Undoubtedly, the manufacturing technology such as cloud computing and simulation design driven by digital transformation will reshape Chinas automobile industry.

David Aikman, Chief Representative Officer for Great China, World Economic Forum speaks at the 2016 World Economic Forums China Business Roundtable in Guangzhou on Nov. 10. [China.org.cn/Li Kang]

Guangzhou has done a good job in expanding its influence as an international city in past few years, and people really look to what Guangzhou does as a model of transformation and innovation in China. David Aikman, Chief Representative Officer for Great China, World Economic Forum, said Guangzhou is the ideal city to host this kind of meeting.

After the opening ceremonies, participants join in panels to have in-depth discussions about Chinas vision for promoting digital transformation of strategic industries and the paths for reform, to further exploring the opportunities as well as challenges through public-private cooperation. The topics covered quite a wide range of industries, including macroeconomic, Internet, Finance, Automobile, Medical Biology, 3-D printing, drones and visual reality (VR).

Participants experience VR glasses at the interactive session of the 2016 World Economic Forums China Business Roundtable in Guangzhou on Nov. 10. [China.org.cn/Li Kang]

Zhu Min, former Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) speaks at the 2016 World Economic Forums China Business Roundtable in Guangzhou on Nov. 10. [China.org.cn/Li Kang]

I think there are three core concepts and two big challenges of digital transformation. There core concepts are digital management and operation and keeping on-line and mobilization. The two challenges are big data and cloud computing, said Zhu Min, former Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Without big data and cloud computing, it is hard to improve the efficiency of digital management and operation.We believe that digital transformation will be a driving force for the birth of new economic growth model. Both the government and the entrepreneurs should move on and keep up with the trend. said Ma Xin, the Deputy Secretary General of China's National Development and Reform Commission.
President Xi Jinping greets two Chinese astronauts aboard the Tiangong II space lab during a video call on Wednesday afternoon. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday talked with the two astronauts in the space lab Tiangong-2, at the command center of China's manned space program in Beijing.

The two astronauts, Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, embarked on their 33-day journey, the longest mission in the country's manned space program to date, onboard the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft on Oct. 17. They entered Tiangong-2 on Oct. 19.

Xi expressed his sincere greetings to the two astronauts on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the State Council, the Central Military Commission, and people of all ethnic groups in the country.

"You have lived in space for more than half a month, and this is the third manned space mission Comrade Haipeng has undertaken and the first time for Comrade Chen Dong to enter space," Xi said during the video call. "All the Chinese people care about you very much."

Responding to Xi's inquiries about their work, health and living conditions, Jing, commander of the crew, said they felt very well and were working as scheduled.

Jing told the president that they could even watch the China Central Television (CCTV) evening news bulletin, or "Xinwen Lianbo," in space.

"China's manned space program has reached a new height. Chinese astronauts now enjoy better working and living conditions in space. We feel very proud of our great motherland," Jing said.

Chen said he had adapted to the zero-gravity environment in space, and his daily life and work there was normal. He vowed to work harder and fulfill the remaining tasks.

Xi said he was delighted to learn the astronauts were in good condition, speaking highly of their coordinated efforts in facing difficulties.

The president said he hoped the two astronauts would keep up the good work through close cooperation and careful operation, so as to complete their mission.

Shenzhou-11, China's sixth manned spacecraft, was launched on Oct. 17 from northwest China's Gobi Desert.

It approached Tiangong-2, which was launched into space on Sept. 15, and automatically docked with the space lab on Oct. 19.

The mission aims to transport personnel and materials between Earth and Tiangong-2, and test the ability to successfully meet, dock and return.

Other objectives include aerospace medical experiments, space science experiments and in-orbit maintenance.

Before the talk, Jing and Chen carried out an in-orbit maintenance test using man-robotics coordination, the first ever such test in space.
To say that the J-20 jet, China's new-generation stealth fighter, copied the technologies of U.S. F-117A fighter, which the U.S. Air Force first flew in the 1980s, is simply ludicrous, People's Frontline said in a commentary. The newspaper argued that such voices reflect the jealousy of the U.S.

The PLA Air Force's next-generation stealth jet fighter J-20 conducts an unscheduled flight on Nov. 1, the opening day of the six-day Airshow China 2016 held in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province. Albeit brief, the surprise aerial display of the J-20 may signal that the aircraft is close to entering active service. [Photo by Chen Boyuan / China.org.cn]

The original remarks were made by U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein in August. People's Frontline refuted Goldfein's claim, remarking that if the two models do share similarities, it is only that they both have wheels and wings.

The article exposed the truth behind the dismantled F-117. The aircraft sacrificed aerodynamic design for stealth, rendering it unable to fly at supersonic speeds. In addition, the F-117 could only cover a range of 1,000 kilometers with two land-attack missiles. Its performance is not even compatible with the J-5 and J-6.

Though the F-117 was a point of pride for U.S. military experts, it was shot down by Yugoslavia's SAM missile. Therefore, the U.S. decided to dismantle the aircraft and started development of the F-22, the paper added.

If, as Goldfein stated, China really had copied the technology of the F-117, then that would indicate that the J-20 is not competitive. But if that were the case, the U.S. government would not continually speak about a "China threat," People's Frontline mused.

It's not reasonable to compare the J-20 to the F-22 and F-35 either, the article said, adding that the latter has been frequently challenged by technical defects. In addition, the expensive F-22 fails to provide sufficient oxygen for the pilot. CNN commented that the F-20 would pose a threat to the U.S. in certain operational scenarios, such as a confrontation over Taiwan or the Diaoyu Islands.

As China makes progress on manned space flight, navigation satellites, early-warning satellites, remote-sensing satellites, aircraft carriers, major stealth destroyers, stealth aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and large aircraft, the U.S., as a major military power, has exposed its fear through its remarks about China's achievement.

China hopes to safeguard world peace through the development of cutting-edge weapons. Therefore, it doesn't matter what the U.S. hegemony says, the paper stated.
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The Forestry Department of Sichuan Province dismissed an online rumor on Tuesday that a wild bear was skinned alive and roasted by local villagers in Leibo County.

Villagers in Sichuan Province catch a black bear. [Photo/cqnews.net]

The online post said the bear cub was caught while lost in the mountain.

Investigations revealed that the black bear broke into the village and attacked locals there. It was shot dead by local police, in line with emergency management on hazard prevention against wild animals, the forestry department said on its official Weibo account.

The body of the bear was burnt and buried to prevent illegal animal products from entering the market, it was added.

Black bear is a second-class protected animal in China.
Philosophy academics gathered at the International Forum for the Chairs of Departments of Philosophy held at Renmin University of China (RUC), Thursday, to share their views on how contemporary philosophy should respond to the fast-changing world.

Philosophy academics from China, US, UK, Germany and France take a group photo at the International Forum for the Chairs of Departments of Philosophy in Beijing Thursday. [Photo by Liu Qiang / China.org.cn]

The forum's topic is "Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Tradition and Innovation." Over 20 philosophy professors from well-known universities including Princeton University, University of Toronto, Oxford University and King's College London attended the forum.

Pondering on the relationship between tradition and innovation in philosophical studies, the philosophy academics tried to find ways in which ancient philosophers' ideas can contribute to contemporary debates.

"All peoples, both in the west and the east, are faced with great changes not only in economics and technology, but also in all dimensions of life. How should we as philosophers respond to these changes? How should we strike a balance between the traditional ways of doing philosophy and the innovations in teaching and research as a dean?" said Yao Xinzhong, professor of ethics and dean of the School of Philosophy, RUC, in his opening speech.

For Yao, these questions are "universal."

There have been debates and divisions among classical philosophers regarding the proper scope for the connection between ancient philosophical wisdom, such as Confucianism and Taoism, and contemporary philosophy.

John M. Cooper, a philosophy professor from Princeton University, called for a look at ancient philosophy from a "historical" perspective.

"Ancient philosophers inherited the tradition of philosophy from their predecessors, and in the light of their current cultural situations, reworked it for the use of thinkers and other educated people of their own times," said Cooper.

On this understanding, Cooper argued, contemporary philosophers should explore "in what ways our current philosophical theories depart from those of the ancient tradition" and evaluate "the steps by which the old perspectives were gradually transformed into what we now presuppose."

Philosophers at the forum stressed the importance of philosophy in an age of science and technology as philosophy gives people wisdom and can do what science cannot do.

The forum was held as part of a series of events to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the School of Philosophy of the RUC.
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Buck Hunting

Let Young Bucks Go and Watch Them Grow!

Every year, tens of thousands of NY hunters enjoy the opportunity to bring home a handsome 2.5-year or older buck, while about half of the antlered bucks taken in NY are only 1.5 years old (yearlings). Yearling bucks generally weigh about 20% less and have 50% smaller antlers than they would as a 2.5-year-old.

The primary reason New York doesn't have more older, larger-antlered bucks in the harvest is because many get taken as yearlings. But the good news is that this is changing and hunters are now taking more older buck than ever before. Hunters can continue to push the harvest ratio solidly toward older bucks simply by choosing to Let Young Bucks Go and Watch Them Grow.

You Can Change Your Deer Hunting Experience

For NY bucks to get bigger bodies and larger antlers, they simply need to get older.

Older bucks are more challenging to hunt and yield more meat for the successful hunter. These bucks create more rubs and scrapes and vocalize more - all things that add to the hunting experience.

As more hunters choose to pass young bucks, all hunters will enjoy the opportunity to see and take more older bucks.

Many New York hunters are already choosing to pass up young bucks.

Take Action

Choose to let young bucks walk.

Improve the habitat by creating young forest and enhancing natural forage and cover for deer.

In many areas, taking an antlerless deer instead of a young buck would help meet overall management goals and bring the deer population into better balance with the habitat, which in turn improves deer condition.

Work with your neighbors and hunting partners to cooperatively reduce harvest of young bucks, meet your antlerless harvest goals, and improve habitat conditions.



Decreasing harvest of young bucks

is an unmistakable trend. Decreasing harvest of young bucksis an unmistakable trend.

Learn the Differences between Yearling and Older Bucks

Nearly all bucks in New York with 4 points or less are only 1.5 years old. In central and western New York or other high quality habitat areas, about 30% of yearlings have 5-6 points and 15% have 7-8 total antler points. However, the overall size and shape of their antlers remains small, with antler spreads generally less than 12 inches, well inside the ear tips.



These bucks from Washington County, NY demonstrate typical age-related differences in body size and antler growth.

(Photo courtesy of the National Deer Association) These bucks from Washington County, NY demonstrate typical age-related differences in body size and antler growth.(Photo courtesy of the National Deer Association)

Yearling Buck Older Buck Body Size similar to adult doe larger than adult doe Legs appear long and skinny appear more stocky due to deeper chest Muscles often not clearly defined well defined in shoulders and thighs Body Shape slender, belly tucks up belly flat or even sagging Antlers thin, spread narrower than ear tips spread almost as wide as ear tips on 2.5-year-old, wider if older

After the shot, check out the teeth of your deer to see whether it is a yearling or older buck. See DEC's Guide to Aging Deer in New York (PDF).

Have Realistic Expectations of Bucks in New York

While many hunters want the opportunity to take bigger bucks, the bucks frequently shown in magazines, on TV shows, and on hunting-related products are rare in the wild. To help hunters better understand what buck populations look like in New York and have realistic expectations of what they might encounter afield, in 2015 and 2016 DEC collected additional antler measurements from 2,176 bucks across the state. The picture is clear; when hunters choose to let young bucks go, they do grow - with antlers nearly doubling in size from 1.5 to 2.5 years of age.

Average Adult Buck in New York Age Total

Points Inside Spread

(inches) Main Beam Length

(inches) Gross B & C Score

(estimate) 1.5 4 8.5 9.8 47 2.5 7 13.5 15.4 90  3.5 8 15.5 18.1 110

Evaluation of Other Buck Management Options

In recent years, some hunters have expressed strong interest in increasing the number of older, larger-antlered bucks in our deer population. This could be accomplished through a variety of regulatory and non-regulatory approaches. New York hunters have divided opinions about buck hunting and many greatly value having the freedom to choose what type of buck to harvest. DEC worked with experts at Cornell University to evaluate various buck hunting strategies (e.g. mandatory antler point restrictions, 1-buck-per-hunter rule, shorter season, voluntary restraint) in a way that accounted for regional variation in hunter values and the impacts on harvest, population management, and hunter satisfaction. Based on that study, DEC concluded that regulatory changes are not appropriate or most compatible with hunter values. Encouraging hunters to voluntarily pass up shots at young bucks best balances hunter interests across the state and is now our management direction. For more information see PDF links below.

Mandatory Antler Restriction Program

DEC does have Mandatory Antler Point Restrictions in 11 Wildlife Management Units in southeastern New York. This program will continue as DEC encourages hunters elsewhere to practice voluntary restraint. Over time, as more and more hunters in the broader region opt to pass on young bucks voluntarily, it may be appropriate to lift the restrictions.

To learn more about DEC's buck management decision process and outcomes, see:




The company also hopes to launch 10 new crop science products in next three years to help increasing average yields for farmers.

Mumbai: As part of its expansion plans, Bayer India is investing 30 million euros to set up an agro ingredient plant at Vapi in Gujarat.

"As part of our expansion programme, we are investing Euro 30 million to set up agro ingredient unit at Vapi in Gujarat by June 2017. "These agro ingredients will be manufactured for both domestic and global markets," Senior Bayer Representative, South Asia Richard van der Merwe told reporters after inaugurating Bayer's global science exhibition here.

Bayer's existing Vapi unit is engaged in the manufacture of active ingredients and intermediates for use in a wide array of agriculture and environment protection products.

It is also the single largest synthetic pyrethroids production facility in the world. With this new laboratory, in which Bayer has invested around Euro 2 million, the company aims to increase resource flexibility in its global formulation activities.

The new formulation lab unit will focus on developing seed treatments, herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides. The Euro 489 million Bayer group in India has already invested Euro 200 million in the country, which includes capital investment and setting up three manufacturing units at Hyderabad, Vapi and Himatnagar in Gujarat, Merwe said.

The company also hopes to launch 10 new crop science products in next three years to help increasing average yields for farmers, he added. Merwe also sought government's intervention to curb spurious farm products, which causes crop failures.
New Delhi: Delivering one of India's biggest-ever economic upsets, Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week declared the bulk of Indian currency notes no longer held any value and told anyone holding those bills to take them to banks.

Only those holding huge stashes of untaxed "black money" need worry, Modi said. But in India, many others are deeply worried.

About 80 percent of India's financial transactions are conducted in cash, often to evade taxes. While some of that activity is illegal, hundreds of millions of rural poor, scrappy entrepreneurs and small-time traders also keep their savings in cash, sometimes just because there is no bank branch nearby.

India's industry leaders, bankers and market analysts rallied behind Modi's move, viewing it as a much-needed corrective in a cash-reliant culture that has enabled corruption.

Within hours of Modi's announcement that all 500- and 1,000-rupee notes  worth about $7.50 and $15  would hold no value as of Wednesday, the hashtag "ModiFightsCorruption" began trending on Twitter.

In the short term, economic activity is slowing until new notes worth 500 and 2,000 rupees can be printed and put into circulation, analysts said. They also predicted a rush on gold, foreign currency and other forms of wealth.

"The eradication of the black money menace from the Indian economy is a big positive in the long-term, and the Indian economy will be on a very strong footing once the short-term teething problems are done," said Sachin Shah, fund manager at the Mumbai-based Emkay Global Financial Services.

Morgan Stanley hailed the demonetization as a "bold move to curb black money" and bring millions more Indians into the tax regime. As of now, only about 1.6 percent of India's 1.25 billion people are paying income tax.

The surprise currency swap would "have a debilitating impact on the parallel economy in the country," said Harshavardhan Neotia, the head of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, referring to business conducted using illicit cash.

"We appeal to all sections of society to support this initiative," he said.

Not everyone is on board.

"Will it put an end to black money? Hardly. People with large amounts of black money will convert it into gold and foreign currency," the newspaper Economic Times said in an editorial Wednesday.

Citigroup warned that scrapping so much currency would spur short-term market volatility, though it said it does "expect longer-term positives for equities." As expected, Indian stock markets tumbled Wednesday before recovering some ground before closing. It was hard to tell how much came from the Modi currency shock and how much was due in reaction to Donald Trump winning the U.S. presidential election.

Former Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, of the opposition Congress party, warned that poor farmers, workers and small traders would be hit hard. He urged the government to swap in the new bills quickly.

"The government and the banks will be on test on how well they handle the implementation of the decision," Chidambaram told reporters Wednesday.

But apart from the immensity of Modi's currency overhaul, the suddenness of it took the country by surprise. Analysts questioned how they could have missed the signs it was coming.

Modi has been seeking to eliminate black money since his 2014 election, launching a government scheme to open bank accounts for all citizens, and granting wealthy Indians a tax amnesty for disclosing undeclared assets and cash holdings.

The one-time amnesty raised only around $10 billion - far less than what the government expected.

Modi said in his televised address Tuesday night that authorities had discovered 1.25 trillion rupees, or about $18.8 billion, in illegal cash over the last two and a half years. The only way to reclaim such sums would be to do it without warning, to prevent tax dodgers from converting illegal cash holdings, he said.
Mumbai: Ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry's leadership was intolerant to critical reports and used PR machinery of Tatas to deny such accounts, which did not reflect the ethos of fair play and transparency of the group, Tata Sons said today.

The promoter of the major operating Tata companies claimed that during Mistry's reign, unbiased and professional analysis of the group that differ from version put out by Bombay House (the Tata headquarters) have been treated as "uniformly wrong".

Tata Sons also accused Mistry camp of feeding the media with the total group figures over the past four years as evidence of the progress without highlighting that the aggregate figures showed a good picture largely, if not only, due "to the excellent performance on all parameters of just two companies, namely, TCS and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).

"There is no complaint about these good legacies!" Tata Sons said in a statement. Lashing out at the ousted chairman, the company further said: "It is evident that the group under Mr Mistry's leadership was intolerant to critical reports about the actions taken under his aegis."

It said over the past four years, only a very few such partially negative reports have appeared in some parts of the media "the most recent one being by the highly respected 'Economist' magazine of the UK, which was really a well-balanced and critical review of the Tata group's performance in recent years and which was reproduced by another respected Indian daily".

"Even this report was vociferously refuted in the strongest terms by the PR machinery of Tatas as being biased and incorrect," Tata Sons said.

"In short, those who analyse the overall position of the group in an unbiased and professional way which may differ from the version put out by Bombay House (the Tata headquarters) are uniformly wrong, even if they only seek to present an overall balanced picture which may (and rightly should) include the negative aspects," the statement said.

The company said: "This attitude does not befit an old and venerable house like Tatas known for their fair play and transparency."

Taking a dig at Mistry's recent interview published on the Tata group website, Tata Sons said: ..."one cannot help but feel that there is a very selective reference only to achievements and in the interest of transparency and balance, one feels compelled to highlight some of the areas which emerged over the last four years, which have not been mentioned at all."

Earlier in the day, Tata Sons issued a nine-page statement making a point by point rebuttal to the letter which Mistry had written to its board members a day after he was ousted on October 24.
New Delhi: Country's largest lender SBI will raise Rs 5,000 crore to fund infrastructure and affordable housing during the fiscal by issuing long-term infra bonds. The bank was accorded approval from the Executive Committee of its Central Board at a meeting held today.

"The Executive Committee of Central Board at its meeting held on November 10, 2016, has accorded its approval for issuance of long term bonds of Rs 5,000 crore for financing of infrastructure and affordable housing during 2016-17," it said in a regulatory filing.

The bonds are to be issued on a private placement basis in tranches.

SBI said it will raise the money at an appropriate time in domestic as well as overseas market. Earlier on Tuesday, the bank had informed about raising Rs 5,000 crore, saying the Executive Committee of the Central Board will consider the proposal on November 10, 2016.

Stock of the bank closed 8.41 per cent higher at Rs 281.60 on BSE.
New Delhi: Demonetisation of higher denomination banknotes will curb sale of spurious agro-input products and directly benefit farmers, agrochemical firm Crystal Crop said today.

Taking its fight against the black money to a next level, the government on November 8 announced the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from market and people were given 50 days time to deposit old currency bills in banks.

"It will have a very positive impact on agro-input industry which has, for long, been grappling with the problem of spurious products, sold in cash to farmers without invoices. The move will benefit farmers," company's Chairman N K Aggarwal said in a statement.

Farmers can now get genuine products, which will improve their yield and income, he said. Stating that the move will also put to end role of commission agents in the agriculture sector, Aggarwal said, "They will cease to exist and hopefully, the benefit will go directly to farmers."

Farmers can rejoice at the development as they can now hope to get quality products with proper bills. "But dealer from rural markets, whose business is mostly in cash, will be adversely affected," he noted.
COP21 president Segolene Royal (R) and Morocco's Foreign Affairs Minister Salaheddine Mezouar (L) pose for a photo during the opening ceremony of COP22 in Marrakech, Morocco, Nov. 7, 2016. The 22nd Conference of Parties (COP22) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) kicked off in Morocco on Monday. [Xinhua/Meng Tao]

On November 4, the landmark Paris agreement on climate change came into force. With some 66 countries representing more than 60 percent of the world's emissions ratifying the said deal, the 12-day Marrakesh Summit (called COP22), kicked off this week and has acquired greater credence than previously thought. If everything goes well, the Marrakesh Summit will provide the first real opportunity for all parties to thrash out an implementation roadmap. Xie Zhenhua, China's chief climate negotiator, has aptly named the Marrakesh Summit as "a conference of implementation."

At the COP22 summit in Morocco, climate negotiators will spend 12 tough days attempting to thrash out a concrete action plan for each country in terms of measures and mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Apart from this, the negotiators will have to weigh-up the options and methods of compensation for poorer countries and provide a strategy to shore up financial support from developed countries to aid the developing countries. Many climate analysts therefore claim that the Marrakesh meeting is much more important than Paris.

How have major countries responded to the implementation of the Paris accord? Arguably, the Paris deal (and indirectly the Marrakesh Summit) received maximum fillip during the G-20 meeting in Hangzhou when both China and the U.S. ratified the 2015 climate accord. On September 3, 2016, the Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama officially handed to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the instruments of ratification of their respective countries and pledged to exert pressure on countries that were still waiting to sign the accord.

Considering that China and the U.S. emit 38 percent of greenhouse gases, the ratification at Hangzhou was a big psychological boost for the Paris deal. It must be noted that the earlier Kyoto protocol, signed more than two decades before, was a grand failure, mainly because the United States and other major countries had not ratified the much publicized accord. The Paris ratification by the U.S. and China had an effect on India, the world's third biggest emitter. Following the footsteps of China and the U.S., India too ratified the accord last month. In short, with three major countries signing the Paris deal, the COP22 in Marrakesh has raised the hope for a robust roadmap for the implementation of the Paris pledges.

Tough road ahead

Notwithstanding the major gains, the Marrakesh Summit will be a tough battle to iron out a concrete and feasible roadmap for the implementation of the pledges made by 197 countries. Already, there is a growing tribe of sceptics who feel the goals inscribed in the Paris accord are too modest and too late to win the climate battle.

Their fear stems from the continued global dependency on fossil fuels and the voluntary nature of the emissions pledges by individual countries. Leaving aside the sceptics, the real challenges are with regard to finding ways and means to measure, report and verify emissions. This is because countries use a wide variety of methods to calculate their emissions reduction targets. For instance, while the EU calculates its emissions against the level of 1990, Japan has chosen to calculate its emissions against 2013 levels. Whereas China and India plan to calculate their peak emissions by 2030.

More importantly, one does not know how to ensure the emission numbers of individual countries are transparent and credible. What sort of governance and institutional mechanisms are required to ensure that countries fulfil their pledges?

Yet, the biggest hurdle in negotiation would be around raising requisite financial aid from the developed countries to support poorer countries to adapt and implement climate related projects. It must be recalled that developed countries had pledged $100 billion in the 2009 Copenhagen Summit to support the poorest and most vulnerable countries to climate change. So far only a fraction has materialized in terms of financial aid and technology transfer. With the developed world facing serious problems with economic growth and with the global economy looking gloomy at the moment, it remains to be seen if they will "walk the walk" in the Marrakesh negotiations.

While the developing countries had succeeded in having a section inserted in the Paris accord that specifically acknowledged "the loss and damages" suffered from climate induced natural disasters, it remains to be seen how negotiators can arrive at a roadmap in Marrakesh to compensate these countries. Thus, a tough road awaits as far as an implementation of a roadmap is concerned.

Yet, with the joining of the trio - China, U.S. and India - and the EU acting as a major cheerleader, there is hope that the Marrakesh Summit will yield the required results for the climate battle. With climate events becoming noticeably serious and the growing civil society emerging as a major stakeholder, the world can ill-afford to delay the hard choices. All in all, the Marrakesh Summit may not be a repeat of Copenhagen, and may raise the bar on climate justice.

Niranjan Sahoo is Senior Fellow with Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
Mumbai: Indian child actor Sunny Pawar will not be attending the screening of his debut film Lion in New York and Los Angeles this week. The actor, who had not attended the Toronto film Festival either, was denied visa to the US, film studio Weinstein Company reportedly informed The Guardian.

Weinstein Company the step was an offshoot of immigration paranoia hovering over the United States. "We believe it must be the effect of immigration paranoia...We want him to be a part of the celebration of this film and his performance We fully intend to go through the proper resources and appeal with the state department for assistance," Weinstein Company President David Glasser was reported as saying.

The 8-year-old plays the role of young Dev Patel in the movie, who is separated from his family at the ripe age of 5. The film is based on the true story of Australian businessman Saroo Brierley.

Lion will be released on January 19 in Australia and a day after in the United Kingdom. In the States, the film is slated for a November 25 release.
Mumbai: After Lady Gaga and scores of other celebrities took to the streets to protest against Donald Trumps Presidential victory, it was Mark Ruffalo, Jamie Lee Curtis and Josh Hutchersons turn to do the needful.

Ruffalo shared footage of protesters with placards reading Hands too small cant build a wall, on his Instagram feed.

Jamie Lee Curtis also shared footage of a protest march on his Twitter feed, using the now viral hashtag trend, #notmypresident.

It begins. Protest and more protest. My niece in Chicago is already voicing what we all are feeling! #notmypresident pic.twitter.com/6TRCUOTZSU  Jamie Lee Curtis (@jamieleecurtis) November 10, 2016

Josh tried to mildly galvanise his social media followers into a march as well.

come join in a peaceful march through downtown LA to show the world how many of us feel! #notmypresident  Josh Hutcherson (@jhutch1992) November 10, 2016

Earlier, Lady Gaga, who had been in tears when the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, whom she had been supporting, lost to Republican candidate Trump, had protested outside Trump Tower, with a placard that read, 

Marilyn Manson had also released a music video that insinuated the beheading of a man, suited up in blue, eerily resembling Trump. Bollywood celebrities like Twinkle Khanna, Arshad Warsi and Shirish Kunder have also been vocal about their shock over his election.

The billionaire business tycoon, who'd been globally mocked for his presidential aspirations for over a year, has sent the global global markets into turmoil and cast the long-standing global political order, which hinges on Washington's leadership, into doubt.
Actress Mehreen Pirzada, who made her Telugu debut opposite Nani in Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha is now excited to star in her maiden Tamil venture, which is helmed by director Suseenthiran. This yet-to-be titled film is a bilingual (Tamil and Telugu) starring Sundeep Kishan and Vikranth playing the lead roles.

In an exclusive chat, Mehreen says, Ive watched Naa Peru Shiva (Naan Mahan Allas Telugu version) and I loved it. I am extremely excited and consider myself lucky to make my entry into Kollywood with Suseenthirans film. Even though I dont know the language, I could understand the story while he was narrating the script. I want to give my 200 per cent to the movie, so I planning to learn Tamil with the help of an instructor.

Mehreen believes that this movie would strike a chord with audiences of all ages  The first half will be entertaining with several comic elements while the second half; an action-packed thriller like Naan Mahaan Alla, she asserts. The svelte actress is confident of pulling off a bilingual with ease. Since it is being made in two languages, I may have to enact a scene twice. But with Suseenthirans help, I believe I can come out with flying colours, she concludes. The movie will go on floors sometime in December and will be shot across Chennai, Vishakapattinam, Nellore and Tirupathi.
Theres nothing in the episode about walls or rounding up Mexicans or Islamophobia (Photo: YouTube)

New York: As Donald Trump pulled off a stunning victory in the US presidential polls, an episode of The Simpsons from the year 2000 started doing the rounds on the internet as it showed Donald Trump as president and also predicted his escalator entry accurately.

A day after the surprising result, the writer of the show has come out to reveal his exact thoughts behind the predictions made through the episode titled Bart to the Future. Dan Greaney told The Independent that, It was a warning to America, That just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was consistent with the vision of America going insane. What we needed was for Lisa to have problems beyond her fixing, that everything went as bad as it possibly could, and thats why we had Trump be president before her.

The episode showed Lisa Simpson being elected to the oval office after Donald Trump had ruined the economy and the writer also mentioned that back then Trump was still a over the top lovable character, but there wasnt the darkness displayed through his Islamophobia and ideas about the border wall.

Meanwhile the show's executive producer James L Brooks expressed his shock without mincing his words on Twitter.

F**k disillusionment!  james l. brooks (@canyonjim) November 9, 2016

While the social media is talking about this prediction, its not the first thing that Simpsons got right.

Click below to watch
A Brazilian tourist while trying to take a selfie had staggered backwards into the statue of Saint Michael that stood on a pedestal in one of the museums chambers. (Credit: YouTube)

A 400-year-old statue broke into pieces after it was knocked down by a tourist trying to click selfies with it. The incident occurred at the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon, Portugal.

A Brazilian tourist while trying to take a selfie had staggered backwards into the statue of Saint Michael that stood on a pedestal in one of the museums chambers. The sculpture smashed into many pieces after it hit the floor. Nuno Miguel Rodrigues, an eye-witness, clicked a photo of the shattered sculpture and shared it on Facebook.

Experts have declared that the damage done to the statue cannot be repaired. In the past, the museums director, Antonio Filipe Pimental, had warned in September that the museum was understaffed, according to the Daily Mail.
Her designation instantly evokes all kinds of reactions. And that is only natural as Taru Kapoor is the India head of Tinder.

When she walks in for a meet, after an early morning flight from Delhi, you could easily dismiss her as the girl next door. Taru is comfortably clad in a kurti, with jeans and sneakers. But behind that simple exterior, lies a razor sharp mind. It should come as no surprise as Taru graduated last year from the Harvard Business School, after an IIT Delhi degree.

How did Tinder happen? Serendipity, she says adding, After my business school graduation, I came back to India last year. I felt it was an exciting time to be in the country. There is so much going on. I was exploring my options and chatting with my friends, when this offer came my way and I took it up.

Taru is now accustomed to all kinds of interesting reactions. She is constantly hounded with requests for possible dates. People think I have access to the data base. But that is not the case. I can only guide them in terms of how they can make their profile interesting, she sounds amused adding, It makes me feel old keeping up with youngsters as the market is constantly evolving.

The general criticism against most dating sites in India, including Tinder, is that there a lot of desperate married people prowling around. Many single men and women are naturally turned off by such blatant moves. Taru is quick with her defense, The number of married people is miniscule on the site. Our data base largely comprises singletons in the 18-27 age groups. But having said that, there are a lot of married people, who may have moved to new cities and just looking for friendship.

You persist and tell her that the app continues to be identified as a hook up site and Taru insists its a problem of perception. You will hear innumerable stories. Indian society is still relatively conservative and such labels do not include the vast majority of users. There is no algorithm for chemistry. There have even been instances of people connecting and even getting married. We keep getting wedding invites and that is the best kind of validation, she adds.

And while the most obvious assumption would be that Taru met her husband on Tinder. But that would be an incorrect analysis. Taru did not meet her husband, Rajat Sahni, (CEO  Used cars, CarDekho.com) on any dating app. Theirs was a pre-tinder romance. He was my senior at college in IIT. Several years back I used to write a blog and we both agreed and disagreed on a lot of things. I got married just before I left for Harvard, So typically what kind of reactions does her husband get? There are many colleagues in his office who use Tinder and he is accustomed to varied reactions, she says rather dismissively

Taru however, believes in going with the flow, as long as you are learning and having fun. And when she is not checking out Tinder, she enjoys a good book or chilling with friends, some of whom she claims to have met on the dating site.

I use the app when I am travelling abroad, especially in London or LA and have made some great friends. I dont travel so much in India on work but I swipe online in different cities and the conversation varies with each location. Really, you just cant take Tinder out of this girl!
Hyderabad: A man took a selfie before hanging himself at his house in Uppal on Thursday. K. Krishna Kumar, 28, a cab driver, wrote in his suicide note that he was suffering from personal and financial problems. When police checked his phone, a selfie, in which he was seen with a noose around his neck and waving goodbye, was found. His wife and kids were not at home when the incident occured.

According to police, Kumar was found hanging at his rented home in Ramanthapur by his family members. Kumar had been upset because of his financial problems and his inability to properly take care of his family. Three days ago, Kumars wife Aruna and their two kids went to her maternal home. Kumar was alone in the flat and did not report for duty.

A native of Chityal in Nalgonda district, Kumar came to Hyderabad in search for a livelihood with his wife and children. He was working as a private cab driver staying in a rented place at Srinivasapuram in Ram-anthapur under Uppal police station limits.

Kumar tied a towel around his neck and took a selfie from his phone. He then waved to his family members. He kept the phone in his pocket and hanged himself. A suicide note, found in a room, said nobody was responsible, an officer from Uppal police said.

Kumars wife Aruna said her husband had been complaining about the financial stress and was depressed about his life. She said that her husband used to tell her that he cannot live like this for a long time and would commit suicide. I thought he will come out of the stress, but did not, she said.
Indian army soldiers patrol near the Line of Control in Nowshera sector, about 90 kilometers from Jammu. (Photo: AP)

Baramulla: Three terrorists were killed in an infiltration bid foiled by the army in Rampur sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla on Thursday.

One AK-47 was also recovered. Search operation is currently underway.

On Wednesday, a soldier was killed in firing by the Pakistan Army in Machhal Sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district.

In retaliation to the firing, the Indian forces carried out fire assault with heavy weapons on many Pakistani posts.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Pakistan Army initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing on Indian Army posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Nowshera Sector.

In the ensuing unprovoked shelling, a Non Commissioned Officer Naik Prem Singh was martyred while Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav sustained grievous injuries and was immediately admitted to the hospital.

However, the brave heart succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.Naik Prem Singh, aged 26 years, is survived by his wife, The soldier hailed from Village Shahar, Tehsil Bayatu, District Barmer, Rajasthan.

The other martyr, Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav, aged 30 years, is survived by his wife and three young children. Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav hailed from Ballia District, Uttar Pradesh.
New Delhi: BJP and its "friends" were informed about the demonetisation of high value currency "a week before" the move was effected, especially keeping the upcoming UP polls in mind, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday alleged.

Kejriwal questioned the logic behind the introduction of Rs 2000 notes saying it will fan corruption and the black money economy instead of containing it and that demonetisation has hit the common men hard.

Interestingly, Kejriwal's Cabinet colleague Satyendar Jain supported the "historic" move to introduce Rs 2000 currency notes saying it will remove corruption and black money. "To remove corruption & Black money, decision to introduce Rs 2000 notes historic," Jain tweeted.

The AAP chief, in a video message, said a racket of commissions was thriving across the country. The fault lies in their (government's) intentions, Kejriwal said.

In a series of tweets, Kejriwal also took pot shots at an advertisement of Mobile payments firm 'Paytm' that featured Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image, saying the company was the biggest beneficiary of the move.

"There is evidence that their (BJP) friends and own people were informed a week before the decision was announced.

They have made all arrangements like buying property or gold. BJP is going to fight polls in Uttar Pradesh and other states. It has made arrangements.

"Common men are the only ones suffering. I spoke to many people, they told me that black money holders have done settings already. Money will be delivered to their homes in lieu of 15 to 20 per cent commission," Kejriwal said.

Kejriwal said he was finding it difficult to understand as to why Rs 2000 notes have been introduced, which he said will only make hoarding of black money easier.

"Utterly shameful. Do people want their PM to model for pvt cos? Tomo, if these cos do wrongdoings, who will act against them? Paytm biggest beneficiary of PM's announcement. Next day PM appears in its ads. Whats the deal, Mr PM?" Kejriwal said in a series of tweets.
Policemen carry out a flag march in Mysuru on Tuesday ahead of Tipu Jayanti celebrations on Thursday. (Photo: File)

Bengaluru: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday staged a protest against the celebration of Tipu Jayanti in Karnataka.

Police detained a few of the protesters.

According to a report, state BJP president B S Yeddyurappa also demanded an NIA probe into the killing of 17 party workers and activists from various Hindu organizations over the last year.

Over 17 party workers and activists from various Hindu organisations have been killed in the last one year. Some were killed during the Tipu Sultan Jayanti held at Madikeri last year. It is repeating this year as well. We have requested the Home Minister to initiate NIA probe into the killings, Yeddyurappa said.

Two people died in the violent protests that marred the inaugural birth anniversary celebrations of the former Mysore ruler last year.

The Karnataka government deployed 119 KSRP platoons, 9,000 Home Guards, and 7 companies of Central forces across the state to avoid any untoward incident.

State Home Minister G Parameshwara appealed for cooperation from the BJP, but has received no response so far.
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Australia's immigration policies remain unchanged despite a "hoax" news reports saying new visa-free arrangements will come into force in January 2017, Australia's immigration department said Wednesday.

The hoax stories said countries including Pakistan, the Philippines, Oman and Fiji have signed deals with Australia establishing new immigration arrangements including new visa-free travel arrangements beginning in January 2017.

"These stories are false and Australia maintains a universal non-discriminatory visa regime," the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection said in a statement on Wednesday.

"There has been no change to Australia's approach."

All non-citizen travellers seeking entry to Australia require a valid visa before departing.
Mumbai: Launching a scathing attack on ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry, Tata Sons on Thursday accused him of betraying trust and trying to seek control of main operating firms of the over USD 100 billion group.

In a nine-page statement, the promoter of the major operating Tata companies made a point by point rebuttal to the letter which Mistry had written to its board members a day after he was ousted on October 24.

Tata Sons accused Mistry of trying to gain control of the Indian Hotels Co Ltd - the firm that runs Taj Group of Hotels - by using independent directors.

Mistry-headed IHCL, where Tata Sons holds just 28.01 per cent stake, had last week in a filing to stock exchanges stated that independent directors have backed the Chairman and his leadership.

"In hindsight, the trust reposed by Tata Sons in Mr Mistry by appointing him as the Chairman four years ago has been betrayed by his desire to seek to control main operating companies of the Tata group to the exclusion of Tata Sons and other Tata representatives," the Tata Sons statement said.

Tata Sons said dividend from 40-odd Tata Group firms had declined during Mistry's tenure while expenses have risen. It accused Mistry of demolishing the historic management structure where Tata Sons exercised control over its group companies.

"We now have an unacceptable new structure where the Chairman alone is the only common Director across several companies and this situation could not be allowed to go on," it said.

Punching holes into Mistry's performance over four years, it listed Tata Steel Europe, DoCoMo-Tata Tele joint venture and Tata Motors' Indian operations as "problem companies" where there was no "noticeable improvement in operations" and the situation has worsened with widening losses, increasing debt and declining market share.

"Even with no turn-around...the only action taken was to write-off huge amounts against these companies," it said.

Mistry had in his letter to the Directors warned of Tata Group firms facing Rs 1.18 lakh crore write-offs.

Tata Sons said the group's debt has risen by Rs 69,877 crore to Rs 2,25,740 crore in the last four years and went on to point that the buyer of Tata's European steel assets had dramatically turned around the company in the very first year.

It lashed out at Mistry's handling of the crisis at Tata Steel Europe and the stand-off with Japan's DoCoMo over the failed telecom joint venture where Tatas face USD 1.17 billion penalty for violation of contract.
New Delhi: As New Delhi chokes with the rising level of air pollution, the Delhi High Court on Thursday slammed the central and state governments saying, they are only interested in doing vote-bank politics and are not concerned about people behind the ballot.

Criticising the governments for being ignorant, the High Court said, "Delhi ranks one of worst polluted city in world. The governments only care about politics and votes, not about the people behind the ballot."

"Pollution gives rise to several respiratory issues in kids and older people," the court added.

The High Court also warned the agencies and the government, saying they would not be spared because increasing air pollution violates one's right to breathe clean air.

Last month, while hearing the air pollution matter, the High Court had asked the states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana to prevent stubble burning for which the national capital every year grappled with the menace of haze even after orders of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to stop the practice of burning of crop and agriculture residue.

The Delhi Government on Sunday unveiled a slew of steps, including closure of all schools for three days, to battle unprecedented smog levels that have drastically cut visibility and turned the national capital into a virtual gas chamber.
TForeign tourist stand in a queue to exchange discontinued currency notes outside a bank in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Welcoming the decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1000, a top External Affairs Ministry official on Thursday said it will go a long way in fighting "economic terrorism" by checking use of black money for funding "subversive activities".

Delivering a keynote address at an international seminar in Delhi, Secretary (West), MEA, Sujata Mehta also asserted that the scourge of cross-border terrorism has assumed "highly destructive" proportions and there was an "urgent" need to check safe havens and sanctuaries enjoyed by terrorists.

"In the past year, the scourge of terrorism directed from across borders has assumed highly destructive proportions and represents the single biggest threat to peace, stability and and progress.

"There is an urgent need for all concerned to call a halt to all sponsorship, support, safe havens and sanctuaries to terrorists," she said.

The two-day seminar, organised by International Council for World Affairs (ICWA), is being held in the run up to the 'Heart of Asia' conference in Amritsar in December, which India will co-chair with Afghanistan.

She further said, "The recent initiative announced by the Prime Minister to cancel as legal tender high denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 will, among other things, help curb the financing of terrorism through fake Indian currency notes and the use of such funds for subversive activities,".

"Yes, the move will go a long way in curbing economic terrorism," Mehta said.

Mehta added that India's security is intrinsically linked with peace and stability in Afghanistan.

The senior official of the Ministry of External Affairs also said UN Security Council must take the lead through "credible and objective processes" under the 1267 Sanctions Committee.

"India advocates a policy of zero tolerance to terrorism.... However, there is a need for the international community to come together with a sense of unity and purpose to eliminate this scourge," she said.

"Another important signal of such resolve of this international community would be early adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the long-pending draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism," she said.

The seminar is being attended by representative from several member and supporting countries of 'Heart of Asia'.

There are 13 member countries, which include Afghanistan, India, China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Besides, there are 30 supporting countries which include the US, UK and Germany.

"The event today was attended by representatives from almost all embassies here, including an official from the Pakistan High Commission. Scholar and experts from several countries are also here. Besides, a few experts were invited from Pakistan to attend the event, but perhaps for logistic constraint, they couldn't attend it," a source said.

'Heart of Asia - Istanbul Process' brings together all stakeholders in the region to discuss and attempt to solve challenges pertinent to the broader region keeping focus on Afghanistan.
New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha on Thursday called on the central government engage with all the stake holders for dialogue to establish peace in the Kashmir Valley.

"In our report we registered grievances of people in Jammu and Kashmir, based on that we have also given a few suggestions to the government," he said.

"In terms of agenda of alliance (between PDP and BJP), dialogue process must be initiated with all stakeholders so that peace can be restored," he added.

Sinha led a delegation to Jammu and Kashmir between October 25 and 27. During the visit, Sinha and his team met with locals, stake holders among others to discuss the problems faced by them.

Kashmir has been on the boil since July 9, a day after Burhan Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen commander was killed in an encounter by the security forces.

Sinha stated in his report that the people are distressed by use of excessive force. They pointed out that the use of pellet guns has particularly hurt them. They further point out that such force has not been used anywhere else in the country. Further the people have pointed out that the Kashmir issue being seen as Hindu vs Muslim. They also said that the administration appears to be divided between Jammu and Kashmir.

"Kashmiris believe that today Indian politics has taken such a turn that there is no willingness to listen to even demands for autonomy. Today, (the) Kashmir issue is being seen as Hindu versus Muslim, and governance seen as Jammu versus Kashmir," the group said in a six-page report, submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh Tuesday.

The report by the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation is based on the visit by concerned citizens "not sponsored by anyone" between October 25 and 27.

A copy of the report has been sent to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, and the group has asked the PDP-BJP government in the state to start the process of reopening schools and, as a precursor to this, release all first-time offenders, schoolchildren and minors arrested under the Public Safety Act.
The payment of toll would be suspended till the midnight of November 11.

Hyderabad: A large number of vehicles were stuck at toll plazas resulting in long traffic jams on highways in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday after the staff refused to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination notes.

Normalcy was restored by evening following the Union transport ministry suspending collection of toll to ensure free flow of traffic. The payment of toll would be suspended till the midnight of November 11.

Mr Sreedhar Reddy, incharge at GMR toll plaza at Panthangi in Nalgonda district on the Hyderabad-Vijayawada national highway, said they opened all the toll gates in the evening after receiving a copy of the Centres directions.

Before that, tension prevailed at toll plazas located near Pantangi, Nakrekal, Chillakallu, Shadnagar, Kaza, Gudur, Itchapuram, Keesara to Vijayawada, Kalaparru, Atkur, Khaza connecting Telangana and AP to Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Most motorists produced either Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 currency notes and the staff at the toll plaza refused to accept them. Local police had to intervene to calm tempers.
The Winter session usually starts in the third or fourth week of November, but has been advanced this time to achieve the government's ambitious target of rolling out the Goods And Services Tax. (Photo: Representational Image)

New Delhi: The Centre has called for an all-party meeting on November 15 to discuss about the upcoming Winter Session of Parliament. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to attend the meet.

The two controversial events of the recent past, the suicide of a former Indian Army soldier Ram Kishan Grewal and the manner in which eight SIMI under trials were killed in an encounter in Bhopal earlier on October 31 - are likely to be taken up in this session.

To add to the Bharatiya Janata Party's woes, the third dimension has emerged in the form of the missing Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Najeeb Ahmed, who reportedly had scuffle with some of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members.

The Winter session usually starts in the third or fourth week of November, but has been advanced this time to achieve the government's ambitious target of rolling out the Goods And Services Tax (GST), a uniform indirect tax regime that will subsume all central and local levies such as excise, octroi and Value Added Tax (VAT) from April 1 next year.
Chandigarh: Describing holy Guru Granth Sahib as a lighthouse of universal brotherhood, secularism and socialism for every human being, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Thursday said that it could guide the path to the entire country for strengthening the bonds of communal, harmony, peace and amity in the country.

Granth Sahib was a repository of faith spirituality that has guided the destiny of the mankind since ages, Badal said while flagging off "Bhasha Anek: Bharat Ek Granth Yatra" organised by NGO Sarhad Foundation, Pune to mark the upcoming 350th birth anniversary of 10th Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh.

He said that Sikhism propagated the true model of socialism and secularism in the world and the foundation of Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple), Amritsar was laid down by the Muslim seer Sai Mian Mir to foster the ethos of secularism and its four entrances symbolized concept of equality of mankind.

Badal said that this yatra would prove to be a milestone in cementing the bonds of communal harmony, national integration and brotherhood across the country, which was the need of hour.

Complimenting the NGO Sarhad Foundation for taking this unique initiative, the Chief Minister said that it would help in disseminating the ideology of Granth Sahib in every nook and corner of the country as the yatra would travel several hundred kilometre all the way from Anandpur Sahib to Huzur Sahib before finally terminating at Pune, headquarters of the Sarhad.

Badal underscored the need for replicating this initiative of NGO to spread the message of love, peace and brotherhood amongst the mankind.
New Delhi: Tata Sons has appointed board member Ishaat Hussain as the Chairman of the group's hugely successful IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in place of Cyrus Mistry, who was ousted last month.

"The company (TCS) has received a letter dated November 9, 2016 from Tata Sons Ltd nominating Ishaat Hussain as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company in place of Cyrus P Mistry with immediate effect. In view of this, Mistry has ceased to be the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company and Hussain is the new Chairman of the company," TCS said in a regulatory filing.

TCS said Hussain shall hold office as the Chairman of the company until a new Chairman is appointed in his place.

"Tata Sons has issued a special notice under Section 169 read with Section 115 of the Companies Act, 2013 and a requisition for convening an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of the company under Section 100(2) of the Companies Act, 2013 to consider a resolution for the removal of Cyrus P Mistry as Director of the Company," it added.

On November 5, Tata Sons put in place a new management team for the $100 billion steel-to-software group, days after its board ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry and disbanded his advisory council, triggering a public spat between him and Ratan Tata.

Ratan Tata, patriarch of the Tata group who was temporarily back at the helm as interim chairman earlier, put together a team of five executives, including two former Mistry advisers, Tata Sons said in a statement on Friday.

Mistry was unceremoniously removed as Tata Sons chairman in October by the Board of Directors.

It was reported that his sacking was due to his handling of the Tata conglomerates loss-making operations abroad, some of which he wished to sell off. Mistry was also accused of abandoning the philosophy of the Tatas in his quest to close loss making concerns. In particular, it was said that Mistry wished to shut down Tata Nano.

Mistry, reportedly shocked by his sacking, had alleged that Ratan Tata regularly interfered in the working of Tata Sons even after naming him chairman. He also claimed financial irregularities in AirAsia India.

A day after being sacked as chairman, Mistry in a letter to Tata Sons Board on October 25 raised ethical concerns in AirAsia India and alleged that forensic investigation revealed fraudulent transactions of Rs 22 crore involving non-existent entities in India and Singapore. However, the Tatas rubbished the claims.

Mistry and Tata were reported to have met Prime Minister Narendra Modi separately. The government said it was keeping a close watch on the ongoing row. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will look into Tata Sons' ousted chairman's allegations related to the mismanagement of the group's aviation ventures, a report said.
Bengaluru: The body of the second stuntman, Anil, who drowned in TG Halli reservoir during the shoot of the Kannada movie Masthigudi earlier this week was found on Thursday morning, said reports.

Forty eight hours after relentless search operation for the two bodies of the stuntmen, one of the bodies was found afloat on Wednesday and was identified to be that of Raghav Udhays.

The body was swollen, bloated, heavily decomposed and bitten all over by fish, a member of the search team said. The search for the other body of Anil resumed after Udays body was brought to the shore.

There was utter chaos at the banks of the T.G. Halli lake when Udays body was found floating by the team around 3.20 pm. Right from morning NDRF, SDRF and Fire and Emergency Services personnel, along with deep water divers from Mangaluru, were carrying out the search.

The search operation was overseen by Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner V. Shankar and DIG Fire and Emergency Service H.S. Revanna. Initially the search team mistook the floating body to be that of divers. However, when all the divers came to the surface, they confirmed that it was a dead body and pulled it over to one of dinghy boats.

The body came afloat almost at the same place where Uday had jumped into the lake from the helicopter on Monday afternoon, said H.S. Revanna.

Even after more than 48 hours the search team could not find the bodies and finally one body surfaced on its own, said an activist hinting at the lack of expertise in the search and rescue team to retrieve bodies even after taking help from expert divers.

Confusion over identity

Initially, there was confusion in identifying the body as it was bloated. Both victims were bodybuilders and on the day of the accident wore almost same coloured trousers and were bare-chested.

DC V. Shankar even announced to the media that the body was of Anil, but Duniya Vijay, the lead actor, who was also a part of the search team, correctly identified it with the help of Udays long hair and confirmed his identity. Both Anil and Uday had same structured built bodies, had mustache and beard, but while Anil had short hair, Uday had long hair, Vijay told reporters.

As soon as the body reached the shore, there was utter chaos with the crowd mobbing the ambulance to catch a glimpse and the police had tough time controlling the crowd. As the body was heavily decomposed, the post-mortem was carried out at a shamiana that was put up at the bank of the lake.

The police allowed only Udays sister Asha and her husband entry into the shamiana to identify the body. After the post-mortem, Udays body was then shifted in an ambulance to his house on K.R. Road in Banashankari.

Home minister G. Parameshwar visited T.G. Halli lake on Wednesday. We will work on safety guidelines that need to be followed by the film crew whenever there is a shoot risky scenes, Parameshwar told reporters and added that he would speak to the CM to decide on the compensation for the victims.

He also told that the law will take its own course and any person found culpable for this crime of negligence of life will be punished.
Narendra Modi will be holding the annual Summit meeting with his counterpart Shinzo Abe and have an audience with the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo. (Photo: Twitter/ANI)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday embarked on a three-day visit to Japan during which the two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in areas like trade, investment and security.

In his second visit to Japan as Prime Minister, Modi will be holding the annual Summit meeting with his counterpart Shinzo Abe and have an audience with the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo.

"An eastward sojourn begins, this time for the Annual Summit with Japan. PM departs for Tokyo," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said on twitter this morning.

From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai Ahmedabad High Speed Railway.

He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed railway is manufactured.

"I will have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties," Modi said in a statement on Wednesday.

The PM said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo on Friday.

"Our partnership with Japan is characterised as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order," he added.

During the visit, the two countries are expected to sign civil nuclear cooperation agreement. The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abe's visit here last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.

Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week.

Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two countries have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
 Flash

Kyrgyzstan's parliament approved on Wednesday the new composition, structure and program of the new government, proposed by candidate for the post of Prime Minister Sooronbay Zheenbekov.

One hundred and twelve members of the Kyrgyz Parliament voted in support of the new government, the structure of the Cabinet of ministers was supported by 112 deputies, and the government's program was supported by 106 deputies.

In general, the structure of the government remained the same. Small changes affected only the composition of the Cabinet. Thus, MP Cholpon Sultanbekova will replace Gulmira Kudaiberdieva in the post of Vice Prime Minister in charge for the social issues. While Kudaiberdieva will head the Ministry of Education and Science instead of Elvira Sarieva.

In addition, several ministers lost their jobs, Minister of Internal Affairs Kashkar Dzhunushaliyev was replaced by Ulan Israilov, the Minister of Agriculture, Food Processing and Land Reclamation Turdunazir Bekboev was replaced by Nurbek Murashev, Minister of Transport and Communications Zamirbek Aydarov is replaced by candidature Zhamshitbek Kalilov and Minister of Justice Jyldyz Mambetalieva is replaced by Uran Akhmetov.

The rest of ministers remain in their posts.

The government was forced to resign after the collapse of the coalition of parliamentary majority at the end of October. In early November, the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK) faction, mandated by President Almazbek Atambayev to form the alliance, has created a new coalition and again nominated Sooronbai Zheenbekov for the post of prime minister. Zheenbekov was appointed the prime minister in April 2016.

The composition of the new government of Kyrgyzstan:

-- Prime Minister - Sooronbay Zheenbekov;

-- First Vice Prime Minister - Muhammetkaliy Abulgaziev;

-- Vice Prime Minister - Oleg Pankratov;

-- Vice Prime Minister - Cholpon Sultanbekova;

-- Vice Prime Minister - Zhenish Razakov;

-- Head of Government Staff - Minister - Akylbek Osmonoliyev;

-- Minister of Economy - Arzybek Kozhoshev;

-- Minister of Finance - Adylbek Kasymaliev;

-- Minister of Agriculture, Food and Land Reclamation - Nurbek Murashev;

-- Minister of Transport and Roads - Zhamshitbek Kalilov;

-- Minister of Justice - Uran Akhmetov;

-- Minister of Foreign Affairs - Erlan Abdyldaev;

-- Minister of Interior - Ulan Israilov;

-- Minister of Emergency Situations - Kubatbek Boronov;

-- Minister of Health - Talantbek Batyraliev;

-- Minister of Culture, Information and Tourism - Tugelbai Kazakov;

-- Minister of Education and Science - Gulmira Kudaiberdieva;

-- Minister of Labour and Social Development - Taalaykul Isakunova;

-- Chairman of the State Committee for Industry, Energy and Mining Duyshenbek Zilaliev;

-- Chairman of the State Committee for Information Technology and Communications - Bakyt Sharshembiev;

-- Chairman of the State Committee for National Security - Abdil Segizbaev.

-- Chairman of the State Committee on Defense Affairs will be appointed by the president of the country.
In addition, sale of healthy foods like Peda, paneer and Dahi Matha (product of curd) has also risen since ban on liquor was clamped in Bihar in April, he said. (Representational image)

Motihari: Counting virtues of prohibition, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said sale of "Rasgulla" has increased by 16.25 per cent in past seven months since ban on alcohol in the state.

"Sale of Rasgulla has increased by 16.25 per cent in the past seven months since prohibition came into effect in Bihar,"Kumar said addressing a Chetna sabha as part of his "Nishchaya yatra" here in Bihar's East Champaran district.

In addition, sale of healthy foods like Peda, paneer and Dahi Matha (product of curd) has also risen since ban on liquor was clamped in Bihar in April, he said.

Yesterday, the Chief Minister had reeled figure of hike in sale of milk in the wake of prohibition by 11 per cent.

Kumar was addressing a rally here on his second stop of Nishchay yatra that started yesterday from Bettiah to take feedback from people on prohibition as well as on "seven resolves" which has been adopted by the government as "policy of governance" for next five years.

"Seven resolves" include civic amenities like drinking water, toilet, roads and electricity for every household.

Kumar read figures to claim a substantial drop in crime rate after banning liquor, spiced and domestic as well as Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) in the past seven months.

With Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and state police chief P K Thakur present on the dias, Kumar claimed that heinous crimes have seen a slide.

Murder cases have dropped by 36 per cent in between April 1 to October 31, this year as compared to during same period in 2015, he said.

Likewise, dacoity decreased by 25 per cent, riots by 40 per cent, kidnapping for ransom by 56 per cent and road accidents by 21 per cent, Kumar, who has taken the task of prohibition in a mission mode, said dwelling on impacts of liquor ban.
In an unprecedented order, the apex court on October 17 had asked Markandey Katju to appear and debate his Facebook post criticising the judgment by which the accused had escaped gallows in the Soumya rape case in which he was acquitted of murder charge.

New Delhi: All eyes in the Supreme Court on Friday will be on former apex Court judge Markandey Katju who has been summoned to appear in person before it to point out the "fundamental flaws", as claimed by him in the sensational Soumya rape case.

"Tomorrow, I'll be appearing in the Supreme Court at 2 PM before the bench presided over by Justice (Ranjan) Gogoi on their request in the Soumya case," Katju tweeted today.

In an unprecedented order, the apex court on October 17 had asked him to appear and debate his Facebook post criticising the judgment by which the accused had escaped gallows in the Soumya rape case in which he was acquitted of murder charge.

"He (Justice Katju) is a respected gentleman. We request him to come in person and debate his Facebook post criticising the judgment. Let him come to the court and let's debate over the fundamental flaws in our verdict," a bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and U U Lalit had said and issued a notice to Justice Katju.

Experts had said it was for the first time that the Supreme Court has asked its former judge to appear in person before it in connection with any matter.

In his Facebook post, Justice Katju had criticised the apex court saying it had grievously erred by "not holding" the convict, Govindachamy, "guilty of murder" in the case.

The bench had also kept the review petitions filed by Kerala and Soumya's mother in abeyance saying it would debate with Justice Katju on his facebook post.

"Though arguments have been elaborate and stands concluded, we do not consider it appropriate to express any opinion on the contentions advanced at this stage. This is so because we are of the view that a connected issue which has arisen needs to be resolved in the first instance," the bench had said referring to the blog of Justice Katju.

"Such a view coming from a retired judge of this Court needs to be treated with greatest of respect and consideration. Office to register a suo motu review petition," the bench had said in its order.

"We issue notice to Justice Markandey Katju, former judge of this Court and request him to appear in Court in person and participate in the proceedings on November 11...as to whether the judgment and order dated September 15 passed by this Bench...suffers from any fundamental flaw so as to require exercise of the review jurisdiction," the bench had said.

While issuing notice to Justice Katju, the bench had also quoted his Facebook post criticising the Soumya case verdict, which said "It is regrettable that the Court has not read section 300 carefully. The judgment needs to be reviewed in an open court hearing".

In another post on the same issue, Justice Katju had written "I submit that the Supreme Court has erred in law in not holding the accused guilty of murder, and its judgment needs to be reviewed to this extent".

Justice Katju, through his Facebook post on September 15, had criticised the verdict commuting to life the death sentence awarded to Govindachamy for raping 23-year-old Soumya on February 1, 2011, after pushing her out of a train in Kerala.

Following the apex court order, the state as well as Soumya's mother had filed review petitions.
The farmer had a large amount of cash at her home in 1,000 and 500 rupee notes. (Representational Image: PTI Photo)

Hyderabad: A farmer in Telangana committed suicide fearing she would be left penniless after the government's shock decision to withdraw high denomination notes from circulation, police said Thursday.

Kandukuri Vinoda, 55, had a large amount of cash at her home in 1,000 and 500 rupee notes and panicked that her savings had become worthless when she heard Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise announcement on Tuesday.

"The family told us she panicked after hearing about the note ban and hanged herself at her home," local police officer Raj, who only uses one name, told AFP.

Vinoda from Mahabubabad district, east of Hyderabad city, had sold some land last month and was paid around 55 lakh rupees for it in cash.

She used some of the money to pay for her husband's medical bills and planned to use the rest to buy a new plot of land, local media reported.

The withdrawal of the notes is part of Modi's campaign against corruption and "black money", and the government has tried to reassure worried citizens that only tax dodgers will suffer under the move.

Police in Uttar Pradesh said they were investigating reports that people were burning off sacks of notes to avoid declaring them and being landed with heavy penalities.

"We have sent the samples for forensic tests and asked bank authorities to authenticate these are currency notes," police chief of Bareilly district Joginder Singh said.
New Delhi: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday said India is a responsible nuclear power and that it shouldn't wade into the first-use debate. However, soon after his remarks, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) issued a statement saying that his remarks were his personal opinion.

What Defence Minister Parrikar said was his personal opinion and not official position. What he said was that India being a responsible power should not get into 1st use debate, the MoD statement read.

Parrikar was referring to Indias policy that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons in case of an armed conflict; however, rival country Pakistan does not abide by any such doctrine.

"If written down strategy exists or you take a stand on a nuclear aspect, I think you're actually giving away your strength in nuclear. People say India has no-first-use nuclear concept. I should say that I'm a responsible nuclear power and I'll not use it irresponsibly," Parrikar said during a book launch.

Without naming Pakistan, Parrikar said that the neighbouring country has issued warning that it would not hesitate in using its nuclear stockpile if threatened.

If there is any question or danger to the country, I will not open the book first, he said.

The Defence Minister also clarified that his statement were only his views and did not reflect any change in policy by the government.

This my thinking. Some may say that Parrikar says nuclear doctrine has changed, it has not changed in any Govt policy, he added.

Parrikars comments come at a time when India is trying hard to get into the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) but its entry bid has been scuttled by China.

Only last week, China stuck to its guns saying there was "no change" in its stand on India's membership bid which it has indicated would be considered only after rules for entry of non-NPT countries are finalised by the elite group.

Lu Kang, Spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said China is in close contact with relevant parties including India and have been having constructive dialogue and coordination on this issue.

NSA Ajit Doval had held talks with Chinese counterpart and State Councillor Yang Jiechi in Hyderabad during which the issue had reportedly figured.

The talks were held ahead of the meeting of the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in Vienna on November 11-12, where according to media reports the group could discuss the two-stage process to admit new members who have not signed nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

India and Pakistan which have applied for NSG membership have not signed the NPT.

After the second round talks with India on its entry into the NSG, China had said that it will first seek a solution to admit all countries who have not signed NPT and then discuss India's specific application.
People queue up to collect cash and to deposit demonetised currency notes in front of banks in the city on Thursday. (Photo: S. Surender Reddy)

Hyderabad: The two Telugu states are worried about their tax revenues due to discontinuation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Officials said that the move would affect the states revenues, mainly from stamps and registrations and Excise.

The Central government meanwhile has cut the two states share of tax devolutions this month, leading to AP losing Rs 790 crore and TS Rs 400 crore. AP gets about Rs 3,500 crore and TS Rs 5,000 crore through tax and non-tax revenues every month.

No registrations have been done in the last two days and business establishments too have been affected in both states. Officials estimate that each state might thus lose Rs 500 crore in revenues this month.

Both states are facing financial crises and not paying pending bills. The total worth of pending bills in TS has crossed Rs 1,000 crore and in AP it has crossed Rs 1,200 crore. The TS government had borrowed Rs 3,000 crore last Tuesday for the loan waiver scheme of farmers. The AP government too borrowed Rs 1,500 crore on Tuesday for distribution of DWACRA groups.

Under the states share in tax devolutions, the Centre releases about Rs 1,000 crore every month to TS and Rs 1,760 crore to AP. But this month, the Centre has released Rs 600 crore to TS and Rs 970 crore to AP. Both state governments are thus not clear about how much funds will be released by the Centre under tax devolutions in December.

Through its own tax revenues, TS earns about Rs 5,000 crore and AP Rs 3,500 crore every month. But due to the Central governments decision of discontinuing large currency notes, business in both states has been affected. Land transactions and real estate business have come to a standstill.

With no registrations, the states revenues through stamps and registrations will come down, as will revenues from excise and commercial taxes. Officials say it will take at least 10 days for normalcy to return.
Bengaluru: On the second day after the Union Government demonetized currencies of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, hundreds of people thronged banks to get old currencies changed; while banks faced technical glitches and some even ran out to cash.

The customers were made to wait endlessly in some of the banks as the system crashed, while some of the banks and post offices ran out of cash. The transactions at the vegetable shop, hotels and meat shops suffered on the second day too as not many people had currency notes of Rs 100 denomination and not everybody could get new currencies.

At the banks the public had to bring government issued original identity card and a photocopy of the same to be submitted along with a filled up prescribed form.

Scores of people had to either take leave from work or avail permission to get the money exchanged. Soubhagya, a private firm employee said that she had to take half-a-day to stand in the long queue to avail the new currency in lieu of old currency. Since the bank did not set up additional kiosk or desk for cash deposit, currency exchange from account and payment of loans it was chaotic at all the banks, she said. In some banks, security personnel and policemen were posted to ensure that there was no scrambling.

Rs 2000 note a status symbol

Flashing an all-new Rs 2,000 denomination note was trending on social media, with hundreds of city residents standing in long queues to get a first look of the newly-introduced Rs2000 and Rs500 notes.

According to the bank officials, cash counters were closed within a few hours following a huge demand for new notes.

Yesvant Ravi, an engineering student from Malleswaram, said that everyone was curious about these new notes. It is fun to have those notes in your possession on Day One, he said.

Refund issues: Many train passengers were found complaining that they had to undergo hardships while getting ticket cancellation refunds. But railway officials denied the charges.
Mysuru: Over 1,500 youths from various Muslim organisations participated in Tipu Jayanti celebrations here on Tuesday. They raised slogans hailing the former Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan.

Mysuru District Minister Dr H.C. Mahadevappa quoted Dr B R Ambedkar and said, Those who do not know history cannot create history. He highlighted the contributions of Tipu saying he was a freedom fighter who was pro democracy, secular and a patriot, visionary and freedom fighter who strived for social harmony while following Sufism. Just because he was a Muslim, his contributions should not be forgotten. Those who are opposing the celebrations, are doing it only for political reasons. Opposing Tipu Jayanti is an insult to history, he added.

Former Chairperson of Karnataka State Backward Classes Commission Dr H.C. Dwarakanath claimed that several progressive works initiated by Tipu were continued by then Maharaja Nalwadi Krishna Raja Wadiyar and former CM Devraj Urs. The blueprint of KRS dam was prepared during the reign of Tipu and he also introduced silk. Dr Dwarakanath sought a Tipu chair in the University of Mysuru and renaming Bengaluru Rural after Tipu.

Former MP Adagur H. Vishwanath came down heavily on BJP leader Shobha Karandlaje for claiming that Tipu killed Obavva. He said it was a myth. BJP should focus on the issues of the poor and downtrodden instead of trying to spoil peace in society, he said.

Forty BJP workers, including Mysuru MP Pratap Simha and former MLC G. Madusudhan, were detained while protesting near Mysuru DCs office and were released later. Schemes and programmes of the state government under the Minorities department were printed in Urdu and distributed among people who participated in Tipu Jayanti in Mysuru.
People queue up to collect cash and to deposit demonetised currency notes in front of banks in the city on Thursday. (Photo: S. Surender Reddy)

Hyderabad: Banks across the city were inundated by depositors on Thursday. Customers in Hyderabad deposited about Rs 943 crore in nearly 1.5 lakh transactions till 4 pm. Sources in the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that the figure would be Rs 50 crore more by the end of the day.

Sources said each of the nearly 1,000 bank branches in the city received deposits of around Rs 95 lakh till 4 pm. The highest single deposit was Rs 22 lakh, and about 1,200 deposits were more than Rs 10 lakh. The remaining were below Rs 10 lakh. The Indian Banks Association may announce the total number of deposits and amount on Friday, said the source.

Major branches in the city saw 10 times more deposits than normal.

Secretary for All India Bank Employees Association B. Seetha Rambabu, said that about Rs 100 crore was exchanged with old currency on Thursday in GHMC limits.

About 2.5 lakh people utilised the services of exchange counters. At most branches, the cash chests were empty by afternoon. We asked the RBI for arranging necessary amounts to handle the crowd at exchange counters at banks, he said.

Based on Thursdays experience, Mr Rambabu said, Each bank requires about Rs 11 crore to Rs 15 crore of lower denomination currency. On day 1, most customers refused to take Rs 2,000 notes. In view of customers convenience, the RBI should issue lower denomination currencies as they are not getting change outside.

Another bank official said that due to the rush, the process of uploading information to the RBI server was delayed. We insisted that staff clear the uploads from 6 pm to 8 pm. We are taking steps to overcome such problems on Friday, he official said.

Except big branches of major banks like ICICI-Khairatabad, SBI-Secun-derabad, SBH-Secunde-rabad, SBI-Saifabad and Allahabad Bank-Himay-atnagar, most branches utilised single counters for cash deposits and currency exchange, which led to inconvenience to customers.

Hours for Rs 4,000, people want more

Ill-informed bank staff created problems for people who flocked to the banks on Thursday to exchange or deposit Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Added to this, the failure of the RBI to ensure adequate currency led to chaos at many branches. People were stood for hours for Rs 4,000.

Many bank staff insisted only on Aadhaar cards while regulations say that any ID proof issued by the government is enough. At many branches, there was no one to assist those who needed help in filling the requisition forms for exchange of cash. Also, no arrangements had been made for senior citizens and physically challenged who faced hardships due to stampede-like situations.

It was also revealed that most of the banks had not received the new currency denominations. Many banks received only the new Rs 2,000 notes, which customers refused to accept fearing problems with change.

Each bank was supplied about Rs 30 lakh, which ran out in no time. People demanded an increase of the limit at least to Rs 10,000. I had to spend six hours after applying for leave from my office just to get Rs 4,000, which is not sufficient even to pay my house rent of Rs 15,000. I have to come to bank again tomorrow, said Mr G. Naga Sridhar, an employee from Himayatnagar.
New Delhi: India is third among countries with the largest pictorial warning on tobacco products, according to a report released today.

The report said that India has moved to the third position out of 205 countries from its earlier ranking of 136 in 2014 and 123 in 2012.

"Nepal now has the largest warning requirements in the world at 90 per cent of the package front and back. Vanuatu will implement 90 per cent pictorial warnings in 2017."

"India and Thailand are tied for third, requiring 85 per cent pictorial warnings. In the 2014 report, Thailand was top ranked at 85 per cent," the report said.

The Cigarette Package Health Warnings International Status Report was released today by Canadian Cancer Society at the 7th session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), being held at Greater Noida.

The report ranks 205 countries and territories on the size of their health warnings on cigarette packages and lists countries and territories that require graphic picture warnings.

The report shows a significant global momentum towards plain packaging with 4 countries requiring plain packs and 14 working on it.

It also shows that 105 countries and territories have required picture health warnings on cigarette packages.

"By implementing 85 per cent pictorial health warnings front and back on all tobacco packages, Indian Government has set up an example for making India a global leader and sending a strong message to the global community about India's commitment to reducing tobacco use and the sickness and poverty it causes", said Bhavna B Mukhopadhyay, Chief Executive, Voluntary Health Association of India.

While inaugurating the COP7, Union Health Minister J P Nadda had said that 2016 has been a landmark year for tobacco control activities in India.

"We have successfully implemented, from April 2016, the large pictorial health warnings occupying 85 per cent of the principal display area of tobacco packs and on all forms of tobacco," he had said.
Thiruvananthapuram: LDF state committee on Wednesday asked the government to expedite the distribution of title deeds to those who were in possession of land before 1977.

The LDF leadership also asked the government to remove hurdles for cutting trees located in land having title deeds. It also urged the government to take stern action against RSS and Sangh Parivar organisations which were deliberately creating trouble in the state. The meeting was presided over by chief minister Pinrayi Vjayan.

The LDF state committee passed a resolution urging the people to defeat RSS-BJP attempts to create law and order problem in the state. LDF convenor Vaikom Viswan said there was an organised attempt to divert the attention from pro-people development programmes being implemented in the state. RSS is resorting to violence in complete disregard of the decisions taken at peace meetings.

He said just hours after the peace meeting held in the presence of ministers in Kannur recently, the RSS resorted to bomb attack which resulted in grievous injures to two youths. On the same day the RSS activists unleashed a reign of terror destroying party offices and flag posts at many places.

Vaikom Viswan said the RSS was continuing to misuse various temple premises for physical training. They are resorting to such activities by challenging the devotees and the law and order system.

The LDF alleged that under the garb of hospitals, the Sangh Parivar outfits were organising antisocial activities. Those questioning them including the devotees, were being silenced through threats.

Even policemen have been targeted which was evident from the recent attack on a cop within temple premises in Alappuzha.

Viswan said a DYFI leader was attacked in an area in Thiruvanantha-puram which is not known for political violence. The assailants even carried gun.He said those indulging in violence and creating law and order problems were getting the backing and assistance of the Central government.

Despite the violent attacks, the LDF is committed to maintaining law and order in the state, Viswan said and appealed to all political parties and the people at large to support government's efforts to maintain peace in the state.
 Flash

This year's U.N. climate change conference may not be as impassioned as last year's in Paris, where more than 100 heads of states attended to ensure that a sweeping agreement was sealed, but the venue in Marrakech, Morocco, was thrust into an uproar of uncertainty and anxiety when business tycoon Donald Trump was announced winner of the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 9.

Business tycoon Donald Trump [Photo/Xinhua]

The President-elect has widely been seen as a climate change skeptic. He has said time and again that climate change is a hoax -- a hoax invented by China to harm U.S. industries. He also pledged to "cancel" the landmark Paris climate agreement and "stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs." Within U.S. domestic energy and environmental realms, Trump has vowed to expand the coal industry, despite the fact that coal consumption is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

The election results have thus put a big question mark on the fate of the Paris Agreement and the cause of tackling climate change in the United States as well as the world at large. The United States contributes around 16 percent of the world's carbon emissions, and the Obama administration pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent below its 2005 level by 2025 and to "make best efforts" to reduce its emissions by 28 percent.

Jacqueline McGlade, chief scientist of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), told China.org.cn on Wednesday that "the UNEP greatly hopes that the outcome of the U.S. election will not distract us from the real challenges that lie ahead of us."

She said that the signs of climate change are positive, and more and more American citizens are convinced of the need to tackle climate change. "Listening to the population of the United States, we hope that the president will be open-minded and not make rapid decisions that will be not only detriment to the United States but also to the rest of the world," she added.

The scientist said that the UNEP hopes that non-state actors in the United States can continue to contribute to the Paris Agreement and the global fight against climate change.

The election result has also apparently dismayed climate and environment NGOs and enthusiasts at the ongoing COP22. Katherine Egland, the chair of the Environmental and Climate Justice Committee of the US National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, told China.org.cn that she was "disappointed" by the results.

Alden Meyer, director of the Strategy and Policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a U.S.-based NGO, warned that the possible "inaction" of the president-elect in climate change would have ramifications in other realms as well. "If President Trump will not honor the U.S. commitments under the Paris Agreement, it will negatively impact his ability to get cooperation from other world leaders on other issues such as trade and terrorism."
Lucknow/New Delhi: The opposition parties and BJP on Friday sparred over the Centre's ban on high denomination notes with BSP chief Mayawati calling the action imposition of "undeclared economic emergency" and the ruling party asserting it was a fight against black money.



The opposition parties--SP, BSP and AAP--also questioned the timing of the move, claiming it was linked to the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.



Echoing Mayawati's sentiments, arch rival and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav said the "sudden ban" showed the NDA government did not keep the plight of people in mind and took the decision with an eye on UP polls.



The Trinamool Congress gave a notice in the Rajya Sabha to suspend business on the opening day of Winter Session of Parliament on November 16 to discuss the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes, saying it was inconveniencing the poor.



Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged that BJP and its "friends" were informed about the demonetisation of high value currency "a week before" the move was effected, especially keeping the UP polls in mind.



"Just before UP elections, Modi has realised the problem of black money after remaining in the saddle at the Centre for two-and-a-half years. Ninety per cent people are unhappy with this decision," Mayawati told a press conference in Lucknow.



She said poor people and farmers have been badly hit by high denomination rupee ban decision.



"It (the decision) is not in the interest of the people, it is in self-interest," she said, reminding people of the dark days of Emergency imposed by then Congress government.



Had Modi been honest in his approach, he would not have waited for two-and-a-half years to take action against black money, she said.



"Centre has not thought about the poor and the way in which people formed serpentine queues at petrol pumps shows their connivance with the government for earning a quick buck," she said, adding people will punish BJP for this.



At another press conference in Lucknow, Mulayam said the the demonetisation has been done by the NDA government with an eye on elections, and not keeping plight of people in mind.



The SP patriarch demanded a roll back of the decision for a few days in view of the wedding season.



A top BJP leader said the party's fight against black money and corruption will continue, observing that the common man will not be impacted at all with the demonetising exercise.



"More measures will be taken(by the Centre). We are committed to curbing black money," the leader said during an informal interaction with journalists in New Delhi.



He said the "war chest" of both the ruling SP and BSP for the UP polls has been "hit hard" with the move to demonetise Rs 1000/500 notes.



Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said only those with unaccounted income will face the consequences.



BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav questioned the stand of CPIM and party-led LDF government in Kerala on demonetisation and sought to know whether it stood with the poor or with blackmoney holders and fake currency racketeers.



TMC leader in the Upper House Derek O'Brien said it was vital that the black money hoarders and the corrupt were punished, but it must not be done by inconveniencing the common people and the poor.
Lucknow: In a major decision, the Congress has decided to go ahead with its Dalit Yatras without any support from political strategist, Prashant Kishor and his team.

Congress MP P.L. Punia said that the Dalit yatras will be launched from Friday without the cooperation and involvement of Team PK. This will be the first programme of the partys ongoing election campaign that is being carried out without the involvement of Mr Kishors team.

Party sources indicate that this could be a first step towards the end of Mr Kishors relationship with the Congress. Ruling out an alliance with the Samajwadi Party, Mr Punia said that Dalits were upset with the Samajwadi Party over the reservation in job promotions and also with the increase in number of atrocities on Dalits in the state.

We will be informing the partys high command about the sentiments of Dalits in UP on this issue, he added. He said that the Dalit yatras would travel to Dalit-dominated areas and would be solely managed by party workers.

Though the party leadership has not made any official comment on Mr Kishors meetings with SP leaders, it is widely talked among the party members circle that the political strategist has shown a lack of professionalism with his behaviour and has even damaged the Congress campaign for the upcoming polls.
SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav at a press meet with UP chief Shivpal Singh in Lucknow on Thursday. (Photo: PTI)

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav, on Thursday, announced that his party would not enter into an alliance with any other party.

We will contest the polls alone and there will be no alliance with Lalu (Yadav) or Nitish (Kumar). If anyone wants to merge his party, we can consider, he said at a press conference here.

The declaration comes a day after Mr Yadav held a series of meetings with political strategist Prashant Kishor, JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav and RLD president Ajit Singh in Delhi and Lucknow.

Mr Yadavs announcement brought disappointment for those who were expecting an alliance with like-minded parties. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav who did not appear too keen on cobbling together a coalition, on Wednesday said that forming a coalition was not that easy.

The fact that the SP wanted to go it alone was reflected in the Chief Ministers remark that the ruling party can win the election on its own.

But, as the alliance picture was not clear, he had also said that in case of pre-poll tie-up, they could garner 300 seats. Uttar Pradesh Assembly has 403 seats. The Congress had, all along, been denying reports of an alliance with SP.

Sources close to the SP president said that talks with parties fizzled out after the SP insisted on merger before the elections.

Meanwhile, the faction-ridden top leadership of the Samajwadi Party stands divided and this time on the issue of appointment of a new leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha after incumbent Ram Gopal Yadav was expelled from the party.

Party sources said while SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav favours Beni Prasad Verma as partys new leader in the upper house, CM Akhilesh Yadav is batting for Naresh Agarwal.
Hyderabad: Telangana Congress leaders took to the streets on Thursday, protesting the proposed demolition of Secretariat buildings. Led by TPCC chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, scores of Congress activists tried to lay siege on Secretariat building. They were arrested by the police and later released.

The TRS government tried to mislead the court to justify its insane decision of demolishing the Secretariat. As many as 16 CMs and their Cabinet colleagues functioned from the same Secretariat buildings and completed their tenures. They include AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu who enjoys Z-Plus security. It was not possible for security agencies to allow a VIP to function from an office which is unsafe, Mr Reddy said.

He said that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao was behaving like a Vastu maniac and wants to demolish even good buildings to please his sentiments.

Congress will continue the agitation till KCR drops the plan. Instead of wasting public money on new Secretariat, the government should clear dues of crop loan waiver, fee reimbursement, Arogyasri and other welfare schemes, Mr Reddy said.

The TPCC chief asserted that most Secretariat blocks were constructed in the recent past and were fit for office accommodation. Shockingly, the advocate-general resorted to falsehood before the High Court that present Secretariat does not meet fire safety norms, he said.

Party senior leaders Mohd. Ali Shabbir, D.K. Aruna, G. Chinna Reddy, Rammohan Reddy, Sampath Kumar, Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy and Vamshi Chand Reddy, and others, participated.

Police sealed all entry points to the Secretariat and put up barricades at the main entrance. The protesters then staged a sit-in protest for over an hour and raised slogans against the government.
As the election results affirmed his victory, President-elect Donald Trump was conciliatory: He promised to be the President of all Americans, applauded Hillary Clintons services to her country and assured the international community he would work with it constructively. Thousands of young Americans were not convinced; they took to the streets and shouted: No Trump! No KKK! No Fascists US. The era of America at war with itself has just begun as a highly divisive and controversial person, with no experience of government, prepares to assume the reins of what is often referred to as the most powerful nation on earth. The election campaign just behind us is not reassuring about what we can expect from the new government. It exposed the US deep polarisation that Mr Trump himself robustly promoted, taking aggressive positions on emotional issues like race, immigration and Muslims.

The commentator, Gordon Robison, described this as open bigotry. The Republican Party stalwart Peter Wehner decried the Trump campaign for its anti-intellectualism, its war with reason and its xenophobia, while Frank Bruni saw epic ugliness in Mr Trumps rhetoric and the fierce currents of resentment it had unleashed. Robert Gates, secretary of defence under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, viewed Mr Trump as beyond repair. The election has exposed the serious fissures in the nation  on the economy, on gender and minority issues, even on the very idea of the US as an accommodative, tolerant and progressive nation. However, millions of people excluded from their countrys success narrative, the under-educated and unemployable white males, saw a saviour in Mr Trump, even as Ms Clinton was viewed as consorting with Wall Street and corporate America.

Since the campaign was mostly about character rather than policy, hardly anything is known about international relations under Mr Trump. What is known is not comforting: He spouted deep suspicion of foreign interactions and highlighted fear and rage against foreigners in general. Islamophobia shaped much of his understanding of the Muslim world, which he frequently conflated with terror: He believed Arab Americans had cheered the 9/11 attacks and advocated surveillance of mosques and tracking of Muslims, restrictions on the entry of Muslims into the US, removal of Syrian migrants from the country, and the harshest possible reprisals against terrorists and their family members. The Dubai-based Khaleej Times responded to the Trump victory with the headline: Muslim world in shock.

Countries in West Asia have little reason for enthusiasm. Mr Trump expressed admiration for Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi for what he thought was their firm stand against terrorism. He also believes that President Vladimir Putin is a strong leader and has applauded the Russian intervention in Syria as a counter-terrorism initiative. Through the campaign he was severely critical of Irans emergence as a regional power and of the nuclear agreement he holds responsible for it. But he also included Saudi Arabia among countries such as Germany and Japan that need to assume a fairer share of the burden for their own defence, ignoring the billions of dollars of weapons that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have purchased from the US.

Many GCC countries have been critical of the Obama presidency for its lack of leadership and its withdrawal from the region during a period of widespread contention and conflict. Now, given Mr Trumps avowed hostility to Iran, some regional players might seek from the President an understanding of their interests and sympathy for their concerns. This would be wishful thinking: the ongoing contentions are so convoluted that it is difficult to see what useful contribution the new President, with his record of ignorance and prejudice, can make.

Syria, for instance, has attracted several players to its battlefields, with hardly any consensus amongst them on their long-term interests. While Saudi Arabia prioritises regime change, its partner Turkey is intent on curbing Kurdish aspirations even as Turkey and Qatar support Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups that are anathema to the Kingdom which, in turn, backs jihadi groups. Iran is backing the Assad regime in alliance with Russia, about which Mr Trump has expressed positive sentiments. These contentions have ensured the death of nearly half a million Syrians, the destruction of major cities, the displacement of millions, and the strengthening of various jihadi militia in the country.

The Yemen situation is no better. While the Saudis wish to defang the Houthi militia and restore the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, the Houthis are agitating for their place in the government in Sanaa, and are backed in this by forces loyal to former President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and possibly Iran. The UN remains a helpless bystander, coming up with peace plans that garner little support, while the Yemenis continue to suffer the consequences of war and destruction and Al Qaeda and ISIS elements continue to flourish. In Iraq, the Haider al-Abadi government has put together a temporary coalition of national, Shia and Sunni fighters to liberate Mosul from ISIS. But it is the aftermath of the liberation that will decide whether Iraq emerges as a united and pluralistic state where all its diverse peoples enjoy a place of dignity, or whether it will remain a bastion of ethnic and sectarian competition and distrust.

Much of what has gone wrong in West Asia is due to the US destructive military interventions and its divide-and-rule policies that have left countries in conflict, their people divided, and West Asia unstable and insecure. There is nothing in Mr Trumps background that would suggest he can contribute to bringing peace and camaraderie in the region. This, in fact, could be an excellent opportunity for regional powers to set their house in order through their own efforts. They can and should address the issues that foster distrust and, in time, build mutual confidence and shape initiatives to address concerns that they share: internecine conflicts, extremism and energy interests. They should recognise that the answers to these challenges lie not in Washington but at home.
Raushan Chiargh Dilli or Chiragh-e-Dehli  the illuminating lamp of Delhi  is the most beautiful and befitting epithet for Khwaja Naseeruddin Mahmood, also known as Chiragh Dehlvi. He lightened up not only the earthen lamps with water instead of oil, but also human souls with devotion. Born at Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh in 1274, Chiragh Dehlvi illuminated the entire people of India with his inclusive spiritual legacy. He left Ayodhya for Delhi, attained the spiritual guidance of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and, thus, became the last pioneer of Chishti Sufi tradition in Delhi. Remarkably, his memories are still alive in the city of Ayodhya where the shrine of his elder sister, called Badi Bua, is still found. The 14th century historiographers affirmed the everlasting impact of Chiragh Dehlvi as Indias native Sufi master on the future generations of Delhi.

In his time, he had evolved such a progressive and all-inclusive worldview that represents, even today, the harmonious values of the Indian culture. Inspired by his spiritual murshid (guide) Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, Chiragh Dehlvi served the mystical mission of khidmat-e-khalq (service for mankind) during the rest of his life, which he spent as disciple (mureed) and then successor (khalifa-majaaz) of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. He brought out in his Sufi discourses (malfuzat) all that he learnt from his murshid. Hazrat Nizamuddin, popularly known as Mehboob-e-ilahi (the one who is beloved to Allah), would often exhort to his disciples: True love for Allah can only be reflected in an earnest love and sympathy for his creations. This was the surest way to attain closeness to Allah (Qurb-e-Ilahi).

At a time when people in India were judged on false distinctions, Hazrat Khwaja Naseeruddin taught the countrys kings and masses alike to transcend the boundaries of caste, creed and race in creating a humane and brotherly bond. His sermons mainly dwelt on Tajlli-e-Rooh (illumination of the soul), Aqsam-e-Muhabbat (various forms of love), Sehat-e-Nafs (soundness of the self), different kinds of the Ghusal (purity of the soul), Chaar Aalam (the four kinds of world as per the Sufi view) among many other key Sufi percepts. Around a hundred of his discourses have been beautifully woven in a book titled, Khair-ul-Majaalis (the noblest meetings).

Khwaja Naseeruddin enlightened the hearts and minds of Indias old generations and, therefore, he truly deserves to be recalled today as Roshan Chiargh-e- Dehli, the illuminating lamp of Delhi. A poet at heart, Chiragh Dehlvi is also known as one of the most celebrated Sufi poets in Persian and Arabic in our country. Through his Sufi poetry, which reflects an essentially pluralistic and composite culture, Chiragh Dehlvi connected Indian people beyond all the barriers.

It is mentioned in Khair-ul-Majaalis that an official of the then King Muhammad bin Tughlaq, who was hostile to the Sufi saints, chose to be disciple of Khwaja Naseeruddin. In his first nasihat (an exhortation of murshid to mureed), Khwaja taught this couplet in Persian: Muraad-e-Ahl-e-Tariqat Libaas-e-Zaahir Neest, Kamar Ba Khidmat-e-Sultan Be-band-o-Sufi Baash! Meaning: Divine lovers dont aim to attract attention or admiration. They remain a (true) Sufi, even while being in the service of a king.
The app comes in a playful design, large images and bold icons.

YouTube on Wednesday launched YouTube Kids  a kids-centric version of the main online video streaming platform that consists of a library of learning content. The mobile app is available to download from the Google Play Store.

YouTube Kids comes to India at a great time for millions of Indian families, as it provides children access to content that will enrich their lives and create new opportunities for learning, Malik Ducard, YouTubes Global Head of Family and Learning, said in a statement.

India already has a very diverse and rapidly-growing creator base for kids and learning, with content in this category growing 100 per cent year over year, he added.

The app comes in a playful design, large images and bold icons. It is a kid-friendly app that is aimed to make it easier for the children to find and navigate through videos like Little Krishna and ChuChuTV among others.

The app also comes with a voice search option that lets children find videos that they cannot type or spell a word of.

Indian creators are exporting large amount of content as well. There is a uniformity in the consumption as a lot of content created in India is watched outside and a lot of content created outside in consumed in India, Aman Dayal, Content Partnership Manager YouTube Kids and Learning, India and South East Asia told IANS.

Several Indian creators will be adding new shows exclusive to the YouTube platform. These include popular shows such as Cat and Keet and Appu  The Yogic Elephant.

The service also offers parental control option wherein parents can restrict certain content and their kids screen time by simply setting a built-in timer.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
Users will have to be logged in to Facebook within the app to use the new feature.

Facebook had recently demonstrated Prisma type style transfer on its Live Video. The company basically tried on Prisma-like photo filters for live videos in a Live Panel discussion that was hosted by Wall Street Journal.

Now new reports suggest that Prisma has updated its iOS app to support filters on Facebooks live streaming platform.

The live video feature is only available on the iPhone 6 S and iPhone 7 devices. Developers at Prisma are also working towards introducing the features on Android but the update will only be available on high-end devices that are equipped with apt processing capabilities.

Additionally, the new feature comes included with GIF support, support for more aspect ratios and other social features.

The live art filters are available in 8 Prisma styles including The Scream, Tokyo, Gothic and Illegal Beauty among others.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
President-elect Donald Trump gives his acceptance speech during his election night rally, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in New York. (Photo: AP)

Washington: Build a wall, make nice with Moscow, tear up free trade deals and force Washington's allies to pay more for their own security. OK, and then what?

Beyond a few broad isolationist and protectionist strokes, President-elect Donald Trump has not painted a detailed picture of his foreign policy.

Now, with just ten weeks until he takes command of the world's sole superpower, Washington's friends and foes are seeking clues to his agenda.

And if it seems vague, perhaps that's intentional. In speech after campaign speech, Trump insisted on the virtue of "the element of surprise."

Here are the top 10 controversial views Donald Trump holds:

1. Global warming is a hoax

Expressing his opinion about climate change and terming it as a hoax, Trump said that the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.

2. Mexico should pay for the wall

Trump had vowed to make Mexico pay for a massive border wall -- which is estimated to cost several billions of dollars -- and to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He had also pledged to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and threatened to freeze billions in remittances that migrants send to their families back home.

3. Only gropes 'attractive' women

In a old video from 2005, Trump had bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during the conversation caught on a microphone.

However, at one of his rallies, he said that one of the accusers was a 'horrible woman'. "I don't think so! I don't think so!," he said.

4. Women who undergo abortions should be punished

Trump has often said hes opposed to abortions except in the case of three exceptions: rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk. He also went on to say that women who undergo abortions should be punished.

5. If Saddam Hussein and Gaddaffi ruled the country

While Trump agreed that Saddam Hussein was 'a horrible guy', he admitted that the situation in Libya and Iraq would have been a lot more better if Saddam would have ruled it.

6. Waterboarding a must in the fight against ISIS

Trump has repeatedly spoken of ways to fight against terrorism. He stressed on the importance of waterboarding and even compared it with the tactics used by militants.

7. May criminalise gay marriage

Although Trump said that everybody should be treated equally, he is against gay marriage and Vice President-elect Mike Pence signed numerous anti-gay legislation.

8. No entry for Muslims

In the wake of increasing terrorist attacks, Donal Trump had called for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives could figure out what was going on."

9. Obamacare is disaster

Vowing to scrap Barack Obama's signature health insurance program, Trump said "Obamacare has to be repealed and replaced and it has to be replaced with something much less expensive for the people, otherwise this country is in even bigger trouble than everybody thought."

9. American Muslims cheered 9/11 attacks

Trump has repeatedly alleged that thousands of Arab-Americans had celebrated the attacks on twin towers in US. However, there are no reports to back his claims.
In October a report from Amnesty International said that about 300 civilians have been killed in 11 coalition attacks in the past two years. (Representational photo: PTI)

Washington, United States: The Pentagon said on Wednesday that US air strikes in Iraq and Syria against the ISIS group may have killed 119 civilians since 2014, a figure far lower than casualty estimates by monitoring groups.

The figures released by Centcom, the US military command in the Middle East, came from a months-long review of reports and databases, it said, adding that the deaths and injuries stemmed from 24 air strikes.

London-based NGO Airways estimates coalition bombing has killed 1,787 civilians since the air campaign to destroy the ISIS began in August 2014.

"We have teams who work full time to prevent unintended civilian casualties," Colonel John Thomas was quoted as saying in the Centcom statement.

"We do all we can to minimize those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time."

The Pentagon's investigation found that "in each of these strikes the right processes were followed; each complied with Law of Armed Conflict and significant precautions were taken, despite the unfortunate outcome," Thomas said.

The United States, which carries out 80 per cent of the coalition bombing, says it uses precision-guided munitions that limit civilian casualties.

Meanwhile Russia is accused of using conventional bombs that are much more deadly to civilian populations.

Amnesty International estimates that there have been at least 300 civilian victims in Syria alone from coalition strikes.

The number of casualties has risen sharply since the start of the coalition's campaign in late 2015 to lay the groundwork to take back ISIS strongholds in Mosul, Iraq and Raqa, Syria.
 Flash

Bilateral ties between China and Ecuador will be strengthened by Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit next week, Jose Maria Borja, the Ecuadorian Ambassador to China, said in an interview with Xinhua.

Xi will be the first Chinese President to visit Ecuador since diplomatic relations were established in 1980.

"It's a historic visit, which will further cement bilateral ties," Borja said.

Cooperation on technology, investment and infrastructure construction has grown rapidly in recent years. China's non-financial investment in Ecuador reached 6 billion U.S. dollars at the end of March. Ecuador invested in 42 projects in China, with combined investment of 8.63 million dollars.

Borja spoke highly of China's contribution to Ecuador's development. Like many Latin American nations, Ecuador used to be faced with power shortages. Nine hydropower stations have been built or are under construction since President Rafael Correa took office in 2007. Of them, eight were built by Chinese companies. Ecuador now not only meets its domestic electricity demand, but has surplus power to export.

Borja said China's Belt and Road Initiative will bring great opportunities for Latin American nations to build trade and economic ties with Central Asia.

China's presence in Ecuador is palpable and useful, Borja said, speaking of China's humanitarian aid to the country in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated towns along the northern coast in April, leaving over 600 people dead and nearly 30,000 homeless.

Personal exchanges between China and Ecuador go back a long way, he said. In the 19th century, Chinese laborers went to Latin America for work. Currently, around 70,000 ethnic Chinese live in Ecuador, while 500 Ecuadorian students study in China.

Borja also hoped more Chinese would visit his home country to experience its variety of climates, biodiversity and breathtaking landscape.

He expects the number of Chinese tourists to exceed 18,000 this year, up from 16,000 in 2015.
New York: World leaders reacted to Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election with offers to work with him tinged with anxiety over how he would deal with a host of problems, from the Middle East to an assertive Russia.

Several authoritarian and right-wing leaders commended the billionaire businessman and reality TV star who against the odds won the leadership of the world's most powerful country. Trump, who has no previous political or military experience, sent conciliatory signals after his upset of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, pledging to seek common ground, not conflict, with the United States' allies. During his election campaign, Trump expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, questioned central tenets of the NATO military alliance and suggested Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons to shoulder their own defence burden.

Putin was among the first to send congratulations after Trump declared victory.

Ties between Washington and Moscow have become strained over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, and allegations of Russian cyber attacks featured in the U.S. election campaign. "We heard the campaign statements of the future U.S. presidential candidate about the restoration of relations between Russia and the United States," Putin said. "It is not an easy path, but we are ready to do our part and do everything to return Russian and American relations to a stable path of development."

Among other issues causing concern among allies are Trump's vows to undo a global agreement on climate change, ditch trade deals he says have been bad for U.S. workers and renegotiate the nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers which has led to an easing of sanctions on Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif urged Trump to stay committed to the Iran deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the election result would have no effect on Tehran's policies and the nuclear accord with six world powers could not be dismissed by one government.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, who had a poor relationship with President Barack Obama, said he hoped to reach "new heights" in bilateral ties under Trump. Obama and Netanyahu sparred over the issue of Israeli settlements, while Trump has said they should expand. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also congratulated Trump, but analysts said his rule may be profoundly negative for Palestinian aspirations.

And despite Trump's negative rhetoric about Muslims during his campaign, including threats to ban them from the United States, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he hoped the business magnate's election would breathe new life into U.S.-Egyptian ties.

Uncertainty

In Britain, where Trump's victory had echoes of last June's referendum in which voters showed dissatisfaction with the political establishment by voting to leave European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May said the "enduring and special relationship" between the two countries would remain intact. Nigel Farage, a leader of the Brexit campaign who spoke at a Trump rally during the election campaign, tweeted: "I hand over the mantle to @RealDonaldTrump! Many congratulations. You have fought a brave campaign." But some European officials took the unusual step of denouncing the outcome, calling it a worrying signal for liberal democracy and tolerance in the world.

"Trump is the pioneer of a new authoritarian and chauvinist international movement. He is also a warning for us," German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told Funke newspaper group.

Some leaders are smarting from insults that Trump doled out in the past few months, such as calling German Chancellor Angela Merkel "insane" for allowing more than 1 million migrants into the country last year.

"We're realising now that we have no idea what this American president will do," Norbert Roettgen, a conservative ally of Merkel and head of the German parliament's foreign affairs committee, told German radio. "Geopolitically we are in a very uncertain situation."

President Francois Hollande said France wanted to begin talks with Trump immediately to clarify his stance on international affairs. "This American election opens a period of uncertainty," Hollande said.

French officials had openly endorsed Clinton and warned that Trump's "confused" foreign policy objectives were alarming for the rest of the world. "The U.S. is a vital partner for France and what's at stake is peace, the fight against terrorism, the situation in the Middle East, economic relations and the preservation of the planet," Hollande said.

But like-minded right-wing European parties that are hoping to make inroads of their own in 2017 -- a year in which Germany, France and the Netherlands hold elections, and Italy and Britain could also do so -- hailed Trump's victory. "Their world is falling apart. Ours is being built," Florian Philippot, a senior figure in France's far-right National Front (FN), tweeted.

China conciliatory

In Asia, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message with a conciliatory tone, telling Trump that Beijing and Washington shared responsibility for promoting global development and prosperity. "I place great importance on the China-U.S. relationship, and look forward to working with you to uphold the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation," Xi told Trump, who said on the campaign trail to take on China and to tax Chinese imports to stop currency evaluation.

South Korea expressed the hope that Trump would maintain current U.S. policy of pressuring North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests. Seoul was concerned Trump may make unpredictable proposals to North Korea, a ruling party official said, quoting top national security officials.

A Japanese government official, speaking before Trump clinched the election, urged him to send a message as soon as possible to reassure the world of the United States' commitment to its allies. "We are certainly concerned about the comments (Trump) has made to date about the alliance and the U.S. role in the Pacific, particularly Japan," the Japanese official said.
Canberra: Australia's prime minister says after his first telephone conversation with the U.S. president-elect that Donald Trump agrees on the importance of the U.S. military alliance with Australia and the importance of the U.S. military presence to the security of the Asia-Pacific region.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Thursday that Trump "appreciates, honors" and "admires" the 65-year-old bilateral defense pact that requires the security partners to consult if either comes under attack but does not commit them to come to the other's defense.

Turnbull would not say whether Trump planned to continue to increase the U.S. military buildup in Australia during "warm" and "very frank" discussions.
Washington: Despite losing Tuesday's presidential election, Hillary Clinton appears to be on pace to win the popular vote, an ironic twist in an election in which her opponent repeatedly said the system was rigged against him.

Just two days before Election Day, Republican businessman Donald Trump tweeted: "The Electoral College is a disaster for a democracy."

As it turns out, without the Electoral College, Trump probably wouldn't be the president-elect.

A day after Election Day, Clinton held a narrow lead in the popular vote, according to unofficial results tallied by The Associated Press. With nearly 125 million votes counted, Clinton had 47.7 percent of the vote and Trump had 47.5 percent.

That's a lead of about 236,000 votes.

Many states count votes after Election Day, so Clinton isn't guaranteed to keep her lead. However, most of the outstanding votes appear to be in Democratic-leaning states, making it very likely she will become the second Democratic candidate for president this century to win the popular vote but lose the presidency.

The biggest chunk of uncounted votes is in California. Washington State, New York, Oregon and Maryland also have large numbers of uncounted votes. Clinton won all those states, and if the trends continue, she will pad her lead by more than 1 million votes.

There are also votes to be counted in Arizona and Alaska, two Republican-leaning states. But they are far outnumbered by uncounted votes in Democratic states.

Under the Electoral College system, each state gets one vote for each member of Congress representing the state. California has the most, with 55. Seven states have only three. The District of Columbia has three, even though the nation's capital has no vote in Congress.

It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency. Trump's total stands at 279, with races in Michigan, New Hampshire and Arizona too close to call.

There have been occasional calls to scrap the Electoral College, with no success. The latest push came after the 2000 presidential election, in which Democrat Al Gore lost to Republican George W. Bush, despite winning the popular vote.

Any calls to scrap the Electoral College aren't likely to go anywhere this time, either, with Republicans controlling both the House and Senate.

Senator Tim Kaine, the Democratic candidate for vice president, praised Clinton on Wednesday for winning the popular vote.

But when Clinton made her concession speech, she didn't mention it.
Social-media sites associated with both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda hailed Trump's success as the beginning of "dark times" for the United States. (Representational image)

Washington: Islamic State and al-Qaeda jihadists have 'hailed' Donald Trump's win in presidential polls as the beginning of "dark times" for the US with some extremists predicting America's "demise" at the hands of the billionaire businessman, according to media reports.

Shortly after Trump was declared the victor, a number of prominent ideologues linked to jihadist outfits in the Middle East took to social media to cheer the prospect of a Trump presidency, The Washington Post reported.

Social-media sites associated with both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda hailed Trump's success as the beginning of "dark times" for the United States, marked by domestic unrest and new foreign military campaigns that would sap the strength of the American superpower, the report said.

"Rejoice...and find glad tidings in the imminent demise of America at the hands of Trump," Islamic State-affiliated Al-Minbar Jihadi Media network was quoted as saying.

The remarks of jihadists signaled their apparent belief that the victory of a candidate like Trump, who has suggested blocks on Muslim immigration and advocated torture, undermines the US' moral standing in the world.

"Trump's win of the American presidency will bring hostility of Muslims against America as a result of his reckless actions, which show the overt and hidden hatred against them," said an essay, provided by the SITE Intelligence group, a private organisation that monitors jihadists' web sites.

Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, on Twitter said, "AQ (al-Qaeda) & ISIS supporters on election: Trump exposes US' hatred of Muslims, will contribute to America/West's downfall -- likening to brexit."

She quoted pro-al-Qaeda accounts on social media as saying, "On 9-11, US struck with disaster at the hands of AQ (al-Qaeda). On 11-9, US struck with disaster at the hands of their own voters."

"Jihadists warn that Trump will unite the mujahideen; Announce: 'Bring it on, Donald'; 'The mujahideen are ready!'," another tweet by Katz said.

A pro-al-Qaeda al-Maqalaat Twitter account predicted that Trump would "make the US Enemy No.1 again," in the Muslim Middle East.

"Trump will serve as the perfect straw man for the next four years, like Bush did before him," it said.

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a jihadist ideologue linked to al-Qaeda, gloated about Trump's victory, suggesting that it "may be the beginning of America's fragmentation and the era of its breakup," according to the Post.

Just ahead of polls, the Islamic State terror group had called for "slaughter" of American voters on Election Day and urged Muslims not to participate in the democratic process.
Washington: Many prominent Indian-Americans could be part of Donald Trump's administration, a senior Republican leader has said, asserting that the president-elect has a "history of hiring the best talent".

With Trump kicking off the process of building a formidable team to help him run the country beginning January 20 next year, Harmeet Kaur Dhillon, who holds the position of Republican National Committee's National Committeewoman, said the 70-year-old tycoon will look for the best available talent for his administration.

"Trump has a history of hiring the best talent. I fully expect to see many prominent Indian-Americans in the new administration," Dhillon, who is the highest ranking Indian-American in the Republican Party, said on Wednesday.

Ronald Regan was the first US president to appoint an Indian-American in his administration. Outgoing US President Barack Obama has the distinction of appointing a record number of more than 75 Indian-Americans in his administration.

Read: Record 5 Indian-Americans set to be elected to US Congress

The Trump transition team headed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has not indicated anything on the selection process, but Trump in his victory speech said that he was looking for the best available talent in the country to work in his administration.

"I will harness the creative talents of our people and we will call upon the best and brightest to leverage their tremendous talent for the benefit of all. It's going to happen," Trump told his supporters in New York.

A recent Pew research report said that Indian-Americans had the highest number of engineers and medical doctors and are responsible for starting the largest number of startups in the Silicon Valley.

Dhillon said Trump's stunning victory last night heralded a new era of opportunity and promise for all Americans, which will also benefit Indian-Americans.

"As a diverse community with energy and a desire to succeed and excel in this great nation we call home, Indian Americans can expect the new President to focus on loweringregulatory burdens, reducing taxes on individuals and corporations, focusing on jobs and growth for US before other countries, enforce the laws of the US, including its immigration laws and keep our nation safe from harm," she said.

Eminent Indian-American Republican from Texas Ashok Mago said that the victory of Trump was good for India and Indian Americans.

"President-elect Trump is for legal immigration and preferably highly skilled individuals and that approach is good for India," he said, adding that Trump is against radical Islam and so is India.

Under Trump presidency one should expect much more cooperation between the US and India, he said.

"Indian American community should forget the party affiliations and extend their full support to president elect Trump for all of us to make America Great Again," Mago said.

"Trump win is historical in US history. He has changed major political system in USA. He will be a great president and will build greater relations with India," said Raju

Chintala, Indiana Chair and Chair for Asian Americans for Trump-Pence Campaign.
San Francisco: Tech giant Microsoft's India-born CEO Satya Nadella has congratulated US President-elect Donald Trump and said he looks forward to working with all those elected in the general election.

"Yesterday, we witnessed the democratic process in action here in the US. The results are of importance around the world, and I know that interest is shared among Microsoft employees," Nadella, 49, wrote on Microsoft-owned professional networking site LinkedIn on Wednesday.

"We congratulate the president-elect, and look forward to working with all those elected yesterday. Our commitment to our mission and values are steadfast, and in particular fostering a diverse and inclusive culture," he said.

In a stunning result, Trump on Wednesday beat seasoned politician and Hillary Clinton in the knife-edge polls, defying the odds to become the 45th US President after starting off as a rank political outsider.

It was a heart-break for Democratic nominee Clinton, who was hoping to become the first woman president of the US, as Trump edged past her in a see-saw battle which he clinched by winning 288 electoral college votes to Clinton's 215.
Victims of a shooting attack lay on the pavement outside La Belle Equipe restaurant in Paris. (Photo: AP)

Paris: Outside the Carillon bar, where flowers piled up over bloodstains almost one year ago, the pavement tables are packed again with regulars from the hipster Parisian neighbourhood.

Drinks, cigarettes and laughter outside the red-fronted cafe suggest a recovery from the November 13 attacks, which saw it sprayed with automatic gunfire.

Opposite sits the Petit Cambodge restaurant, another business thriving again after being targeted by the Islamic State (IS) extremists who killed 130 people during their rampage across the French capital.

But beneath the outward signs of normality and defiance, some Carillon patrons betray the anxieties felt keenly across a deeply changed country.

Helene Lebecque, a 40-year-old who works in a nearby boutique, said on the surface that nothing has changed. "The bar's full, it's party time. You'd never know," she said.

But she also confided that the bloodshed is never far from her thoughts. "There isn't a night when I go to the Carillon that I don't think about it."

She is far from alone. Many Parisians still confess to being troubled by the intrusion of unwelcome memories while enjoying themselves in bars or restaurants.

The sheer regularity of recent jihadist atrocities in France -- at the magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, last November in Paris, this July in Nice -- has compounded the sense of trauma.

In between, a host of IS-linked killings, from the murder of a priest in his church to the fatal knifing of a police officer and his partner at home, have deepened the sense of a country under siege.

The fact that most of the Paris gunmen were young French or Belgian men only added to people's sense of betrayal.

Some remain wary of public transport. The likelihood of another terror strike has become macabre dinner-time conversation. Police sirens and suspect packages are an almost daily irritant.

"We are at war," President Francois Hollande declared in his first words to a special joint session of parliament four days after the Paris attacks in martial tones that would come to define the year.

The sight of troops in combat gear patrolling tourist sites or in front of public buildings are a visible reminder of this new reality.

News at the end of the summer holidays that schools would require children to simulate fleeing a terror attack did nothing to reassure parents about the ongoing threat.

Security: too much or not enough?

In the face of these fears, the French state has got tougher -- upping its military commitment against IS in Syria and Iraq and rolling out drastic measures at home to tackle extremists.

Hollande declared a state of emergency after the attacks which remains in place, giving police the power to raid homes at night, detain people more easily and operate without judicial oversight.

Mosques deemed to be spreading hate have been closed, while more than 4,000 raids have been carried out under the state of emergency, many at night targeting suspected radicals.

Only one in eight has led to an arrest, however, and a parliamentary commission that assessed the state of emergency judged it to be "useful but limited."

A coalition of international human rights groups was more damning, concluding in June after a fact-finding mission that "profound damage to individual freedoms" was being done.

It has also led to a "worsening of the existing stigmatisation of part of the population," referring to France's five million Muslims who feel targeted by the measures.

Judges have also seen their powers enhanced, with new legislation allowing them to sentence extremists convicted of terrorist offences to up to 30 years in prison, compared with 10 years previously.

The number of active terror cases before the courts has tripled to 350 so far this year, compared with 126 last year and just 26 in 2013.

In prison, convicts considered to be dangerous Islamist radicals are now held in isolation to prevent them converting fellow prisoners.

Sociologist Michel Wieviorka detects a new fracture developing in French society ahead of presidential elections next year.

On one side is "the call for more security and more exceptional measures," he says. On the other, "those who argue for the rule of law and individual freedoms," he said.

This can be seen across the political divide, with Hollande's Socialist government saying that the state's security arsenal is complete.

But the centre-right favourites to win next year's vote, Alain Juppe or Nicolas Sarkozy, want even greater powers for security forces, more police and increased prison places.

Sarkozy has gone as far as proposing preventative detention for anyone suspected by security forces of being a radical, even if they have not committed a crime.

"French society is in a situation unprecedented since World War II," concludes sociologist Gerome Truc, who has written a book on the Paris attacks.

"It's neither war, nor peace. We'll need time to move on and to measure the consequences," he said.
Thursday's Oval Office meeting is the symbolic start of the transition of power from Obama, a Democrat who ushered in a sweeping health care law and brokered a landmark nuclear accord with Iran, and Trump, a Republican who has promised to wipe away those initiatives. Trump takes office on Jan. 20. (Photo: AP)

Washington: President Barack Obama is set to welcome his successor, Donald Trump, to the White House, extending an olive branch to the man whom he blasted as unfit to serve as commander in chief and who led the charge to challenge the legitimacy of Obama's own presidency.

Thursday's Oval Office meeting is the symbolic start of the transition of power from Obama, a Democrat who ushered in a sweeping health care law and brokered a landmark nuclear accord with Iran, and Trump, a Republican who has promised to wipe away those initiatives. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

First lady Michelle Obama was to meet privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

Trump departed New York Thursday morning, breaking protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Also on Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.

The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought."

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

Trump was uncharacteristically quiet in the aftermath of his triumph and made no public appearances Wednesday. He huddled with jubilant, sleep-deprived advisers at his eponymous skyscraper in Manhattan, beginning the daunting task of setting up an administration that will take power in just over two months. He also met with Vice President-elect Mike Pence and took calls from supporters, family and friends, according to spokeswoman Hope Hicks.

In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama - one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. He's pledged to repeal Obama's health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He's vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

It's unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He'll enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Protesters chant slogans on Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower in New York. (Photo: AP)

Chicago: Thousands of protesters around the country took to the streets Wednesday to condemn the election of Donald Trump as president.

Elsewhere, the demonstrations were mostly peaceful, authorities said.

In Chicago, several thousand people marched through the Loop and gathered outside Trump Tower, chanting "Not my president!"

Chicago resident Michael Burke said he believes the president-elect will "divide the country and stir up hatred." He added there was a constitutional duty not to accept that.

A similar protest in Manhattan drew about 1,000 people. Outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in midtown, police installed barricades to keep the demonstrators at bay.

Hundreds of protesters gathered near Philadelphia's City Hall despite chilly, wet weather. Participants - who included both supporters of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost to Clinton in the primary - expressed anger at both Republicans and Democrats over the election's outcome.

In Boston, thousands of anti-Donald Trump protesters streamed through downtown, chanting "Trump's a racist" and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump" and "Abolish Electoral College."

The protesters gathered on Boston Common before marching toward the Massachusetts Statehouse, with beefed-up security including extra police officers.

Hundreds of University of Texas students spilled out of classrooms to march through downtown Austin. They marched along streets near the Texas Capitol, then briefly blocked a crowded traffic bridge.

Marchers protesting Donald Trump's election as president chanted and carried signs in front of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Local media outlets broadcast video Wednesday night showing a peaceful crowd in front of the new downtown hotel. Many chanted "No racist USA, no trump, no KKK."

Another group stood outside the White House. They held candles, listened to speeches and sang songs.

Earlier Wednesday, protesters at American University burned U.S. flags on campus.

In Oregon, dozens of people blocked traffic in downtown Portland, burned American flags and forced a delay for trains on two light-rail lines. Earlier the protest in downtown drew several Trump supporters, who taunted the demonstrators with signs. At one point, a lone Trump supporter was chased across Pioneer Courthouse Square and hit in the back with a skateboard before others intervened.

Protests also were reported at a number of universities in California and Connecticut, while several hundred people marched in San Francisco and others gathered outside City Hall in Los Angeles.

The only major violence was reported in Oakland, California, during a protest that began shortly before midnight and lasted into early Wednesday morning.

Some demonstrators set garbage bins on fire, broke windows and sprayed graffiti at five businesses in the downtown area, police said. No arrests were made.

Another protest began Wednesday evening downtown, with several hundred chanting, sign-waving people gathering in Frank Ogawa Plaza.

In San Francisco, hundreds are marching along Market Avenue, one of the city's main avenues, to join a vigil in the Castro District, a predominantly gay neighborhood.
Economists say that even if economic growth accelerates under Trump, it may not do much to counter the downward pressures on wages and middle income jobs. (Photo: AP)

Charlotte: Donald Trump's promise to revive small town America faces a tough challenge in an economy that for decades has been wired to direct income and opportunities towards urban hubs and the better educated.

Little in the president-elect's so far sketchy economic plans indicates the trend can be reversed any time soon, according to interviews with experts on income inequality and as recent occupational trends.

The manufacturing jobs Trump pledges to bring back have disappeared as much because of automation as the trade deals he has promised to rewrite, and that process will only continue. A promised infrastructure revamp would boost middle wage jobs but for only as long as the programs last, economists point out.

During President Barack Obama's eight years in office incomes for the best off continued to diverge, despite nearly 10 million new jobs and recent strength in those paying middle-tier wages.

On a pre-tax basis, the share of income to the top fifth of households increased from 50.4 percent to 51.4 percent between 2008 and 2015 at the expense of all the others, according to census estimates. (Graphic:tmsnrt.rs/2elimH2)

Without the sort of tax and redistribution policies Republicans have traditionally opposed, Trump may struggle to make good on his promise to help those left behind in the global economy, economists who study inequality trends say.

"We have 30 to 40 years to catch up on. Lots of money has gone to the top and to change that is going to be a long and slow process," said David Madland, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a think tank with close ties to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Trump campaigned promising to shake up a Washington establishment he argued was responsible for destroying middle class jobs with bad trade deals. The message hit home across rural America and mid-sized cities, where voters felt they missed out on the fruits of the seven-year economic recovery that big cities may have enjoyed.

Charlotte has been growing fast as a financial hub that attracts college educated talent from around the country, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton did better there than Obama did in 2012, handily beating Trump by 137,000 votes.

But in the state's textile and furniture belt just northwest from here, Trump's promise of economic renewal and anxieties of a shrinking white majority more than offset Clinton's urban victory, giving him 76 out of 100 North Carolina's counties.

The Catawaba County region, one of the nation's hardest-hit by cheap imports from China, now has a more diverse economy and even the furniture industry has begun adding jobs. But many still live in poverty and rely on disability and social services for support.

"The trade argument was as prominent as any. That is certainly the bet that the Trump campaign has made," said

John Dinan, a political scientist at Wake Forest University.

Taking out Obamacare

Trump has not highlighted income inequality the way Clinton did, but to help low-wage industries such as textiles or offer a "new deal" for blacks, he would need to tackle the income gap.

Recent data show how hard it may be if Trump relies on economic growth alone: Despite a record jump in household income and a continued surge in middle wage jobs nationally, the effect on income inequality was "statistically insignificant" according to census estimates.

Under Obama, after tax income for the bottom fifth of households did increase by about 18 percent, or $2,200, according to a recent Council of Economic Advisers study.

But that was made possible by higher taxes on the wealthy, more benefits for the poor and, in large part, by an estimated $1,900 gain from health coverage extended under the Affordable Care Act. Trump has vowed to roll Obamacare back.

Instead, Trump has proposed to strike better trade deals and offered a familiar Republican recipe - tax cuts for businesses meant to spur investment and jobs. He has been ambiguous about a possible increase in the federal minimum wage typically opposed by Republicans, but advocated by many economists as a way to help the disenfranchised workers Trump focused on in his campaign.

Economists say that even if economic growth accelerates under Trump, it may not do much to counter the downward pressures on wages and middle income jobs from automation, technology and other longstanding trends.

Brookings Institution senior fellow Isabel V. Sawhill said researchers on inequality agree on one point: it is hard to move the needle.

"Even when you distribute all of the dividends from growth in a progressive fashion you dont change things very much," Sawhill said. "You shift things at the margin."
 Flash

Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to three Latin American countries will boost the comprehensive partnership of cooperation between China and Latin America, senior officials said Thursday.

Xi will pay a week-long state visit to Ecuador, Peru and Chile from Nov.17 to 23 and attend the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting from Nov. 19 to 20 in Lima, capital city of Peru.

This is Xi's third visit to Latin America since he took office in 2013, said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Chao at a press conference held Thursday morning, hailing the flourishing momentum of the development of China-Latin America ties in past years.

Wang said the visit will further consolidate the traditional friendship between China and the three countries and lift mutual trust and substantial cooperation.

It will also help push forward development of the China-Latin America all-round partnership of cooperation and contribute to addressing the challenges facing developing countries, including China and Latin American countries, and to promoting common development and building a community of shared destiny, he said.

According to Wang, during his stay in Ecuador, Xi is expected to exchange views with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on bilateral ties. The two presidents will also witness the signing of a series of deals, meet with the press and attend a launch ceremony of an assistance program together.

Xi will meet with Ecuadorian President of the National Assembly Gabriela Rivadeneira. The two countries are slated to issue a joint statement, said Wang.

During his stay in Peru, Xi is expected to hold talks with his Peruvian counterpart, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, meet with Peruvian President of Congress Luz Salgado and deliver a speech at the congress, Wang said.

The two presidents will also attend the closing ceremony of the 2016 China-Latin America Cultural Exchange Year, he said.

During his stay in Chile, Xi is scheduled to hold talks with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, attend a signing ceremony for agreements and meet with the press, Wang said, adding that a joint statement will be issued.

All three countries have distinct features in the region and share traditional friendship with China, the vice foreign minister said.

According to Zhang Xiangchen, deputy China international trade representative, the three countries are China's major economic and trade partners in Latin America.

During Xi's visit, China will focus on discussing optimizing bilateral free trade arrangements and conducting cooperation in areas of e-commerce, production capacity, industrial parks and infrastructure construction under the principles of mutual trust, mutual benefit and mutual learning, said Zhang at the press conference.

A series of cooperative agreements are expected to be signed, and fruitful results will be achieved, Zhang said.

Official statistics show that the trade volume between China and Latin America rose more than twentyfold during the past decade to reach 236.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.

Currently, China is the second largest trade partner and third largest investment source country of Latin-America, while Latin America is China's seventh largest trade partner.

"China looks forward to deepening cooperation with Latin America so as to promote the economic recovery and prosperity of the world," Zhang added.
Donald Trump's attorney told the judge last month that evidence tied to the campaign would be irrelevant to the civil fraud case and may prejudice or inflame a jury, jeopardizing rights to a fair trial. (Photo: AP)

San Diego: Donald Trump is scheduled to go on trial this month in a class-action lawsuit against him and his now-defunct Trump University, potentially taking the witness stand weeks before his inauguration as president of the United States.

US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the Indiana-born jurist who was accused of bias by Trump during the campaign for his Mexican heritage, will hold a hearing Thursday on jury instructions and what evidence to allow at trial, which begins Nov. 28.

Among the flurry of requests from both sides to be considered Thursday is a highly unusual petition by Trump's attorneys to exclude any statements made by or about their client during the presidential campaign. The request would apply to Trump's tweets, a video of Trump making sexually predatory comments about women, his tax history, revelations about his private charitable foundation and public criticisms about the judge in the case.

Trump's attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, told the judge last month that evidence tied to the campaign would be irrelevant to the civil fraud case and may prejudice or inflame a jury, jeopardizing rights to a fair trial. He warned that allowing the jury to consider Trump's remarks "carries an immediate and irreparable danger of extreme and irremediable prejudice to defendants, confusion of issues and waste of time."

The lawsuit filed in 2010 on behalf of former customers alleges that Trump University, which was not accredited as a school, gave seminars and classes across the country that were like infomercials, pressuring people to spend up to $35,000 for mentorships and, in the end, failing on its promise to teach success in real estate. The claims mirror another class-action complaint in San Diego and a lawsuit in New York.

Petrocelli told reporters in May that Trump planned to attend most, if not all, of the trial and would testify.

"He has very, very strong feelings about this case," Petrocelli said at the time.

At the May hearing, Petrocelli asked for a trial after Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, but the judge raised concerns about distractions if Trump won the election. The attorney said the period between the election and swearing-in is extremely hectic for a president-elect but that it was preferable to holding a trial during the campaign.
Washington: A top American business advocacy group has urged President-elect Donald Trump to invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a state visit to the US in the first year of his administration.

Congratulating Trump on winning the US presidential elections, the US India Business Council (USIBC) has written a letter to him, urging him to invite Modi.

"Invite Prime Minister Modi for a state visit within your first year in office. This will send a clear signal about the importance of the bilateral relationship," USIBC president Mukesh Aghi said in a letter to Trump, a day after he was elected as the 45th president of the United States.

The letter describes USIBC's wish list that the administration should take in the first months of his administration to deepen and expand commerce between the US and India.

Prominent among these include continuing tradition of more and frequent government-to-government interaction between the two countries, negotiating bilateral investment treaty with India and support for India's admission into the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum.

Representing top American companies having a foothold in India, USIBC urged the president-elect to order a comprehensive review of the policies and procedures that weaken US competitiveness in the Indian defence and aerospace market.

"The US export control and licensing processes puts Americans at a competitive disadvantage compared to foreign competitors like the Russians," it said.

The US has refused to sell to India advanced defence equipment on counter proliferation grounds despite the fact that India can now purchase comparable systems from foreign suppliers due to the proliferation of advanced defence technologies, the letter said.

According to the letter, the US does not have the monopoly it once did in many defence technologies and its policies need to adapt to this reality.

"From both a commercial and national security perspective, it is better that a country like India purchase advanced defence equipment from America than from its foreign competitors," it said.

The USIBC has also urged the President-elect to work to eliminate outdated and unfair tax for Indian workers by concluding an executive agreement with India on social security totalisation.

"We encourage you to prioritise this relationship through consistent engagement with India at the highest levels of your administration," Aghi said in the letter to the President-elect.
After Trump won, Duterte said that Trump has a shared trait, and that some military exercises would be back on, reports the CNN. (Photo: AP)

New York: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has decided to bury the hatchet with the United States after Republican Donald Trump's election to the White House as he pointed that both of them share the same trait of being brutally straightforward.

After Trump won, Duterte said that Trump has a shared trait, and that some military exercises would be back on, reports the CNN.

"We both like to swear. One little thing, we curse right away, we're the same," he said Wednesday.

"I would like to congratulate President Trump. Long live!. Now we're here, I don't want to ... fight because Trump is already there," Duterte said.

The traditional alliance between the United States and the Philippines strained after Duterte called President Barack Obama a "son of a bitch".

Later, during a visit to China in October, Duterte said the US alliance was over, claiming "America has lost."

However, in a statement on Thursday, Philippines National Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana said Duterte had agreed to continue military training with the United States.

A meeting will be held between the US and Philippines military officials on November 22 to begin planning for next year's drills.
Islamabad: Donald Trumps surprise election as US President has Pakistanis wary that he may accelerate what they see as a shift in American policy to favour arch-foe India in the long rivalry between nuclear-armed neighbours, analysts said on Thursday.

Historical allies in the region, Islamabad and Washington have seen relations sour over US accusations that Pakistan shelters Islamist militants, a charge Pakistan denies. They hit new lows in May when a US drone killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban movement on Pakistani territory.

At the same time, Pakistans ties with traditional rival India have also deteriorated this year, with India saying Pakistan-based militants killed 19 of its soldiers in a September attack on an army base in the disputed Kashmir region.

To many Pakistanis, Trumps anti-Muslim rhetoric  he once proposed banning Muslims entering the United States  and business ties to India are signs that his administration could shift further toward New Delhi.

America will not abandon Pakistan, but definitely, Trump will be a tougher president than Hillary Clinton for Pakistan, said Hasan Askari Rizvi, Lahore-based foreign policy analyst. I think India will have a better and smoother interaction compared to Pakistan, he said.

Trump has yet to lay out a detailed policy for South Asia, although he recently offered to mediate between India and Pakistan in their dispute over the divided territory of Kashmir. He also said in May he would favour keeping nearly 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan because its adjacent and right next to Pakistan which has nuclear weapons.

On Thursday, a U.S. diplomat in Pakistan sought to assure the country that Trumps election did not signal a drastic policy change. Our foreign policy is based on national interest and they dont change when the government changes, Grace Shelton, U.S. Consul General in Karachi, said.

Your election is indeed the triumph of the American people and their enduring faith in the ideals of democracy, freedom, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Trump.
Bangkok: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday reached Bangkok, Thailand, for a brief visit during which he will pay respects to the Late King, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

"Tokyo, via Bangkok! PM lands in the Thai capital, where he will lay a wreath & pay final respects to the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej," Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.

Prime Minister Modi is on a three-day visit to Japan to attend the annual summit meeting with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe and have an audience with the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo tomorrow.

In a statement issued before his departure for Tokyo, the Prime Minister said he and his Japanese counterpart would be travelling to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed railway. He also said that he will be visiting the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where the high speed trains are manufactured.

The Prime Minister said high speed railway cooperation between the two countries is a shining example of the strength of bilateral cooperation.

He said, it will not only boost trade and investment ties, but also create skilled jobs in India, improve infrastructure and give a boost to 'Make in India' mission.

The summit will be an occasion for the Prime Minister to review the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation with his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo tomorrow.

Prime Minister Modi will also have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties.

The two sides are likely to sign several agreements, including on civil nuclear cooperation. Both leaders are also likely to discuss defence cooperation, including joint maritime exercises between Japan, India and the U.S. The South China Sea is also likely to figure in the talks.

During Prime Minister Modi's visit to Japan in 2014, the India-Japan relationship was upgraded to Special Strategic and Global Partnership.

In the 2015 summit in New Delhi, India and Japan outlined a vision of working together for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and the world.
Manila: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte congratulated Donald Trump on his election win and said on Wednesday he now wishes to stop quarrelling with the United States, recalling his anger at the Obama administration for criticising him.

The maverick leader, dubbed "Trump of the East" for his unrestrained rants and occasional lewd remarks, has repeatedly hit out at Washington in recent months, threatening to cut defence pacts and end military joint drills.

"I would like to congratulate Mr. Donald Trump. Long live," Duterte said in a speech to the Filipino community during a visit to Malaysia.

"We are both making curses. Even with trivial matters we curse. I was supposed to stop because Trump is there. I don't want to quarrel anymore, because Trump has won."

Duterte won a May election by a huge margin and is often compared with Trump, having himself been the alternative candidate from outside of national politics.

He campaigned on a populist, anti-establishment platform and struck a chord among ordinary Filipinos with his promises to fix what he called a broken country.

But the biggest surprise of Duterte's presidency so far has been his hostility toward the United States, shown during near-daily eruptions of anger over its concerns about human rights abuses during his deadly war on drugs.

He has also threatened repeatedly to severe a military relationship that has been a key element of Washington's "pivot" to Asia.

Duterte on Wednesday told Filipinos how angry he had been at Washington, saying it had threatened to cut off aid and had treated the Philippines like a dog tied to a post.

"They talk as if we are still the colonies," he said.

"You do not give us the aid, shit, to hell with you," he said, recalling comments he had directed at Obama.

Last month Trump told Reuters that the Philippines was a very important strategic location and that Duterte's comments about removing foreign troops showed "a lack of respect for our country."

Teddy Locsin Jr, Duterte's incoming ambassador to the United Nations, said there were a few parallels between Trump, who stunned the world by defeating rival Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's presidential election, and Duterte.

"I remember Trump in the middle of one of his statements, he said 'I will not talk like this after I become president'," Locsin said on TV. "I remember someone who also said the same thing."
Moscow: Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election could help to improve the US-Russian relations, which are at the lowest point since the Cold War, the last Soviet leader Mikheil Gorbachev said on Thursday.

"I do not rule out that, under the new president of the USA, Russian-American relations could significantly improve," Gorbachev told Russia's Interfax news agency.

"It is now necessary to start bilateral dialogue at the highest level... and to prevent failure of the dialogue under any circumstances," he said, adding that "a lot also depends on Russia's position".

Russian President Vladimir Putin - who was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump on his electoral win -- said Moscow was ready to contribute to rebuilding relations with the United States with Trump as president.

Moscow and Washington have been at loggerheads following Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and the launch of a Russian bombings in Syria.

During the campaign, Trump has said emphatically that he is willing to work with Putin, even praising him as a superior leader to outgoing US President Barack Obama.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as part of an anti-corruption drive earlier this week, giving Indians the option to exchange them at banks across India until December 30. (Representational image)

London: The Indian government is looking at ways to help NRIs who may possess some banned currency notes so that they can deposit them at a branch of an Indian bank overseas, India's acting high commissioner to the UK said.

"Our endeavour is to help everybody. We have asked Delhi about it (any banned notes with NRIs). I have a feeling we will work out something so that people who have carried certain amount of cash in their pocket, should be able to deposit it in any Indian bank abroad," Dinesh Patnaik said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as part of an anti-corruption drive earlier this week, giving Indians the option to exchange them at banks across India until December 30.

The Indian envoy highlighted that under currency rules, people are allowed to carry only less than Rs 10,000 when leaving India.

"Basically, it means people abroad should not have more than that. Also, not everybody will have an account with an Indian bank either they will have to open one or find an alternative. So, it is something we will have to look at very closely.

"There is a lot of time, until December 30," he said.

Patnaik, the deputy high commissioner who stepped in as acting high commissioner after Navtej Sarna left to assume charge as Indian ambassador in Washington DC, said that the reason behind the ban was to bring in money from outside the legal system.

"This is not an amnesty scheme or any scheme to garner black money. This is a method to achieve cashless transactions, which in itself will stop corruption, and to make sure that the money which is lying within the non-legal system, gets into the legal system.

"And, of course, the threat of fake Indian currency will be eliminated, because that threat was mostly with Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. The new Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 will have greater security features and it will make it more difficult for counterfeiters to try and copy it," he said.
Plaintiffs Regis Amponsah, left, and Elize Novembre, right, stand with Lanna Hollo, senior legal officer with Open Society Justice Initiative, and talk to the media at Paris appeals court. (Photo: AP)

Paris: France's highest court ruled for the first time Wednesday that police illegally checked the identification of three minority men based on racial profiling, a key source of tension between officers and youth in poor suburbs.

The Cour de Cassation set more specific rules for ID checks in France in a decision closely watched by activists who have long protested against what they call routine discrimination by officers against minorities, mainly black and Arab youth.

However, the court declared eight other contested ID checks were legal, as they were based on objective elements and therefore not discriminatory.

The judges didn't decide on two other cases, returning them to lower courts for retrial.

"The Cour de Cassation made a great decision," Thomas Lyon-Caen, the lawyer for the 13 checked men.

The lawyer said he was "rather satisfied" that France's highest court ruled that ID checks based only on racial profiles as illegal and discriminatory, even if it didn't rule in his favor in most of the 13 cases.

Lyon-Caen argued that all the ID checks in 2011 and 2012 violated the basic rights of his clients because a democratic state cannot "link delinquency to skin color."

A study conducted by France's National Center for Scientific Research has shown that blacks are 12 times more likely to be checked by police than whites, and those of Arab origin are 15 times more likely, Lyon-Caen said.

The court ruled that "an identity check based on physical features associated with a real or supposed origin, without any prior objective justification, is discriminatory."

Defender of Human Rights, an independent French watchdog, welcomed the ruling as a "major breakthrough" for ensuring the rights of citizens against ethnically biased ID checks.

Its lawyer, Francois Boucard, said young immigrant and minority men are over-represented among those targeted for ID checks. That bias often leads to a feeling of injustice among young people of black or North African origins, a large part of whom live in deprived suburbs of French cities, he said.

During the hearing last month, the arguments focused on alleged victims of racial profiling being unable to prove discrimination in court.

In Wednesday's ruling, the judges said the burden of proof must now be shared between those who are checked and the police.

The alleged victims will have to provide courts only with "elements" suggesting a mere assumption of discrimination - through the testimony of a single witness, for instance - while police authorities will have to prove there were "objective elements" for the ID checks.

The lawyer for the French state, Alice Meier-Bourdeau, had warned the judges their ruling shouldn't "throw suspicion on any police officer or any representative of the state" and lead to a widespread challenging of ID checks in courts.

None of the 13 men had a police record, but each claimed to be a victim of humiliating controls. French police consider ID checks as important in fighting crime and extremist attacks.
Moscow: For all their mutual praise, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump are likely to disagree on many things. But Trump's election win could hand Moscow an elusive prize - the lifting or easing of Western sanctions.

Rolling back those sanctions, imposed by the United States and the European Union to punish Moscow for its 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, could spur investment in Russia's flat-lining economy.

That might make it even easier for Putin, who is trying to plug holes in the state budget inflicted by low oil prices and sanctions, to win a fourth presidential term in 2018 by allowing him to show he has returned the economy to growth.

"Clearly the chances of sanctions being lifted on Russia have risen substantially," Charles Robertson, Renaissance Capital's global chief economist, said. "That would improve the investment climate for Russia."

Russia's rouble currency and stocks gained on the Trump election victory. Ukraine's dollar-denominated bonds tumbled to multi-month lows, reflecting pessimism about what a Trump presidency means for the divided and indebted country.

The Kremlin had been bracing for fraught relations if the White House had been won by Hillary Clinton - a politician Putin once accused of stirring up protests against him and who state media portrayed as an anti-Russian warmonger.

Trump was portrayed in a more positive light. Putin described him as "very talented" and in Kremlin-backed media he was cast as a plucky political maverick.

Still, few in Moscow had believed the Republican candidate would win, apart from a group of Trump-supporting nationalists who gathered in a Moscow bar decorated with a triptych of Putin, Trump and French Front National leader Marine Le Pen.

Once it became clear he had won, Russia's parliament erupted in applause and Putin told foreign ambassadors he was ready to fully restore ties with Washington.

State TV ran a clip of a Russian doppelganger of Trump taunting a cowed Clinton lookalike and Margarita Simonyan, the boss of RT, the Kremlin's English-language TV news channel, said she would drive around Moscow with a U.S. flag to celebrate.

But Russian glee was tempered by a recognition that Trump's pre-election promises might be diluted and that deep contradictions between Moscow and Washington would remain, even if Trump and Putin adopt a friendly tone in public.

Easing sanctions

Trump's attempts to ease restrictions on doing business with Russia could also be constrained by Congress, which has shown it has little patience for the Kremlin's military adventures.

Executives with Western firms say the biggest obstacle to deals with Russia is not the sanctions themselves but the prospect that more could be imposed and the zeal with which existing sanctions are enforced.

If a Trump White House were to send a signal to businesses that it was taking a more lax approach, investments could start flowing again with sanctions still in place. A softer US stance could also weaken European sanctions resolve.

The bloc's measures have already started to look wobbly, with some member states finding ways to circumvent them, others saying it is time to discuss moving on, and some business groups in countries such as Germany lobbying against them.

Until now, Washington has helped stiffen European resolve. When Russia placed a Eurobond in May this year, many European banks decided not to take part because they did not want to fall foul of U.S. financial regulators.

"America was the leader there and amazingly has been able to hold Europe together (on sanctions)," political analyst Masha Lipman told Reuters. "With Donald Trump in the White House I think there may be changes, something that might be beneficial for Russia."

Putin needs sanctions lifted as they risk hurting his re-election prospects.

Russia's central bank is forecasting economic growth of up to 1 percent next year, well below the level Russian households have come to expect. After previous slumps, recoveries have been driven by foreign lending and investment.

There are already some signs that the economy is hurting support for Putin, a trend that is only likely to grow in the 18 months until the Russian presidential election.

Hard bargain

Kremlin-watchers said that, even if U.S.-relations were less antagonistic with Trump in the White House, any deal would involve hard bargaining on both sides.

Russia is seeking formal recognition from the world that Crimea, part of Ukraine, is now Russian territory, something it has only got so far apart from a handful of nations. It also wants Kiev to do more to implement a peace deal covering eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists hold sway.

In Syria, where Russia is helping President Bashar al-Assad fight a war with air strikes and military assistance, Moscow wants the West to drop ideas about changing the government, abandon help for what it says are hardline Islamists, and drop talk of possible no-fly zones.

One possibility is a quid pro quo, with Russia making concessions on Syria in exchange for the United States ceding ground on Ukraine and sanctions.

"For Russia the key point is Ukraine. If Trump says that America does not care about Ukraine, then that is all that Russia wants to hear right now," Georgy Bovt, editor of the Russkiy Mir magazine, told Reuters.

"On Syria it will be easier to reach a deal. I think that on Assad, Russia will be willing to compromise because Ukraine is more important for Russia."

Personalities

Much has been made in Russian and Western media of the perceived similarities and differences between Putin and Trump, who have never met.

Both are fond of tough talking and some Russian politicians have suggested the pair might be able to forge a close working relationship similar to the one the Russian leader enjoyed with former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Trump has said he might even meet Putin before his inauguration. Putin's spokesman said there were currently no plans for such a meeting.

People familiar with both men's leadership styles advised caution however, saying both were relatively thin-skinned when it came to criticism.

Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think-tank close to the Foreign Ministry, told Reuters the fact that Trump was an untested politician would also be a worry for the Kremlin.

"He's a loose cannon and you never know what to expect from him," he said.

There were also concerns the two men might be too alike.

"The problem is that both of them, Putin and Trump, are macho," Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected analyst and former pro-Putin lawmaker, told Reuters. "They could try to take the measure of each other. We can't let that happen."
 Flash

Following is the full text of the keynote speech by Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao at the opening ceremony of the 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference on Thursday.

Work Together to Build the Bridge of Friendship and Mutually Beneficial Cooperation

Keynote Speech by H.E. Li Yuanchao

Vice President of the People's Republic of China

At the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference

10 November 2016, Chongqing

The 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference is now open in the mountainous city of Chongqing. On behalf of the Chinese government, let me extend my warm congratulations on the opening of the conference and sincere welcome to all the distinguished guests and friends!

We are living in a fast-changing era and a colorful world. In this global village, countries need greater exchanges and understanding and cities should have more bridges of communication and friendship.

President Xi Jinping pointed out that we need to enhance friendship between Chinese and foreign cities through more exchanges between local governments, so that they can share resources, complement each other with their respective strengths and achieve win-win cooperation. In that connection and under the theme of this conference "Innovation for Development and Cooperation for Sharing", I wish to make the following suggestions:

First, increase exchanges among friendship cities and deepen people's friendship. Amity between the people is the cornerstone of friendship among countries and world peace, and exchange among friendship cities is an important channel for amity between the people. Over the past 40 years of international friendship cities activities, China has established 2,340 pairs of friendship city relations with more than 130 countries. Changsha city of Hunan province and the city of Entebbe in Uganda have had vibrant education and culture exchanges, and built together the "Entebbe-Changsha Demonstration Primary School". Nanjing city of Jiangsu province and Aichi prefecture of Japan have deepened their friendship through youth and art troupe exchanges. Ruili city in Yunnan province and City of Muse of Myanmar organize the "China-Myanmar Pauk-Phaw Carnival" during China's National Day holiday week each year, which is quite popular among the local communities. The development of state to state relations is rooted in the people and invigorated by exchanges. I hope that international friendship cities can expand the fields of exchanges, engage in more forms of interactions so as to deepen mutual understanding and friendship between the people.

Second, share experience in urban planning and promote innovative development of cities. Urbanization is an important part of modernization. Cities have become the center of our political, economic, cultural and social activities. Now 54% of the world's population lives in cities. There are 28 mega-cities with a population of over 10 million, and six of them are in China, including Chongqing. Since the start of reform and opening up, China has experienced the largest and fastest urbanization in world history. Now 750 million Chinese people live in cities. Cities have improved the quality of life, but they are also increasingly troubled by such "urban diseases" as backward infrastructure, traffic congestion, environmental pollution. In recent years, China has pursued the new vision of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development. We have put people first in our development and worked hard to build harmonious, livable and dynamic modern cities with unique characteristics, contributing China's wisdom to urbanization in the world. Activities of international friendship cities are aimed at transforming development model of cities and better governance of cities. Guangzhou, Auckland of New Zealand and Los Angeles of the United States have founded the "Tripartite Economic Alliance"; Fujian province and Liege of Belgium have jointly developed the smart urban management system of "integrating water, electricity and gas services with one card"; Zhenjiang city of Jiangsu province and the city of Mannheim of Germany have carried out exchanges and cooperation on low-carbon commute and building eco cities. I hope that international friendship cities can learn from each other, work together to make urban planning more rational and forward-looking, make cities more livable and sustainable, modernize and refine urban management so that people will live a more comfortable and convenient life in cities.

Third, expand win-win cooperation and share fruits of urban civilization. Cities, with the highest concentration of resources, are the locomotive of development. International friendship city activities serve as important platforms for Chinese and foreign cities to have equal-footed and mutually beneficial cooperation. Deepened cooperation between Chongqing city and Dusseldorf of Germany have contributed to the opening of the Chongqing -Xinjiang-Europe International Railway, which has become a golden pathway on "the Belt and Road". The ancient European business camel team would need a year or two to reach China, but now the train ride takes only 13 days. Xi'an city and Groningen of the Netherlands strengthened their cooperation through friendship city relations. A "Groningen Day" event was included in the East-West Cooperation and Investment Trade Fair& The Silk Road International Exhibition in Xi'an. Xi'an municipal government has organized several trips by businessmen to business promotion events in Groningen in norther Netherlands. Cities are important carriers of modern civilization and urban civilization should be shared by all peoples. I hope that international friendship cities will promote practical cooperation in various fields and produce more win-win outcomes.

China's economy is growing rapidly and steadily. In 2015, China's GDP grew by 6.9%, contributing over 25% to world economic growth. In the first three quarters of this year, China's economy grew by 6.7%, one of the highest among major economies in the world. We are confident that China's economy will maintain a sound momentum in the long run with better quality and efficiency and innovative development, and bring more opportunities to the world.

The Chinese people are now working hard to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all aspects and realizing the Chinese dream of the great national renewal. The Chinese dream is interconnected with the beautiful dream of a happy life of all peoples. Holding high the banner of peace, development and win-win cooperation, China is pursuing friendly exchanges with other countries. Through international friendship cities exchanges , we hope to build together with other countries a bridge of friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation and the community of shared future for mankind, and contribute to world peace and development.
Police said several of the suspects had been arrested in the past for exchanging pornographic images involving minors over the internet. (Photo: AP/ Representational)

Madrid: Spanish police have arrested 56 men in a crackdown against internet child pornography carried out across the country, police said Thursday.

The suspects, the majority aged between 40-60, are accused of "distributing over the internet images of extreme cruelty involving very young minors," police said in a statement.

Over 150 police officers and 46 investigating magistrates took part in the operation carried out in 28 of Spain's 50 provinces.

Police said they searched 59 homes and seized over 170 computer hard drives, as well as 614 CDs and DVDs, which contained pornographic images.

The authorities are examining the material to see if any of the men who were detained sexually abused minors themselves.

Police said several of the suspects had been arrested in the past for exchanging pornographic images involving minors over the internet.

There were no further details and police did not identify any of the suspects. But police were to hold a press conference on the raids later on Thursday.

In August Spanish police arrested seven people, mainly French and Moroccan nationals, who were suspected of running a ring that produced pornography involving children.

The authorities suspect the ring exploited at least 80 minors during the past 15 years and distributed over a million pictures and videos of pornography and over a thousand DVDs.
Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted angrily to reports that Japan plans to sell weapons to India at a cheaper prices saying that such a move is disgraceful. (Photo: PTI)

Beijing: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi set off on a key visit to Japan, China on Thursday said that while it has no issues in New Delhi and Tokyo developing normal relations, they should respect "legitimate concerns" of neighbours.

"Regarding what might be discussed by the two leaders, we note that Prime Minister Modi will kick off his visit to Japan. We have no problem with our neighbours developing normal relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media briefing here replying to a question.

"We hope that when they develop their relationships, they can respect legitimate concerns of their neighbours and contribute to regional peace and stability," he said.

He declined to comment on reports that India will buy US-2 ShinMaywa amphibious aircraft from Japan, saying it is mere speculation.

In September, Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted angrily to reports that Japan plans to sell weapons to India at a cheaper prices saying that such a move is disgraceful.

"We hold no objection to normal state to state cooperation including defence cooperation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told media briefing on September 13.

"But if the report is true that if someone is making unrighteous move then this is very disgraceful," she said while replying to a question about media reports that Japan plans to cut prices to sell 12 ShinMaywa US-2 amphibious aircraft designed for air-sea rescue in a USD 1.6 billion deal.

Ahead of Modi's visit, Chinese official media warned that India may suffer "great losses" in bilateral trade if it joins Japan to ask China to abide by the international tribunal's ruling quashing Beijing's claims over the South China Sea (SCS).

"India should beware of the possibility that by becoming embroiled in the disputes, it might end up being a pawn of the US and suffer great losses, especially in terms of business and trade, from China," an op-ed article in state-run Global Times said yesterday.

Citing Indian media reports that India is seeking support from Tokyo during Modi's visit to Japan next week to issue a joint statement asking China abide by the July ruling of the tribunal on the SCS, the article said "India and China should put more efforts into resolving problems like the imbalance of their trade ties".

"India won't benefit much by balancing China through Japan. It will only lead to more mistrust between New Delhi and Beijing," it said.
Vice Minister for Public Security Meng Hongwei was elected President of the International Criminal Police Organisation. (Photo: AP)

Beijing: A top Chinese security official was on Thursday elected to head the Interpol, in a move that could come as a likely boost to China's anti-graft crackdown at home.

Vice Minister for Public Security Meng Hongwei was elected President of the International Criminal Police Organisation, making him the first Chinese to take the prestigious post.

Meng took over from his predecessor Mireille Ballestrazzi of France at the closing ceremony of Interpol's 85th General Assembly in Bali, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The Interpol President heads its Executive Committee and is elected by the General Assembly for a period of four years.

In his speech, Meng promised to work together with all member-states of Interpol to build the international group into a stronger platform for global police cooperation.

He said he will promote more effective global police cooperation, better support the capacity-building efforts of police in all member countries, improve the coordination among regional and global police forces with a view to building a safer world and a more efficient Interpol that is beneficial for all member-states.

The election gives China another seat at an international organisation tasked with fighting transnational crimes, and is believed to aid its domestic crackdown on corruption, helping it in tracking down fugitives or suspects staying abroad.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched a sweeping campaign on corruption after he took over in 2012. More than a million officials have been punished under the crackdown.

Meng's new charge will include chairing meetings of the committee which ensures the implementation of decisions made at the General Assembly.

Founded in 1914 and now headquartered in Lyon, France, Interpol is the second-largest international organisation after the United Nations with 190 members.

By establishing a global police communications system, the agency has played an important role in deepening international police cooperation to combat transnational criminal offences.

China became a member state of Interpol in September 1984. The 86th General Assembly of Interpol is scheduled to be held in China in 2017, according to the report.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Wednesday deported Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed Afghan Girl whose 1985 photo in the National Geographic became a symbol of her countrys wars, officials said.

Police escorted Gula overnight from a Peshawar hospital, where she had been staying since her arrest last month for living illegally in Pakistan, and handed over to Afghan authorities at the Torkham border.

Gulas deportation comes amid Pakistani pressure to send 2.5 million Afghan refugees back home even though Afghanistan is facing a bloody Taliban insurgency and would struggle to look after so many returnees.

We took Sharbat Gula from the hospital in a convoy and delivered her to the Afghan border authorities at Torkham, said a senior security official. During her transfer back to Afghanistan, Gula, wearing a green burqa, was heard praying for Pakistan, its people and everyone who helped her and her family during their stay in the country, the official added.

Gula was flown back to Kabul, where President Ashraf Ghani would host a function in her honour. Public billboards were already up welcoming her back home. Gula was for years an unnamed celebrity after an image of her as a teenage Afghan refugee was featured on NatGeos cover in 1985.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday said it has welcomed an earlier offer of mediation by US president-elect Donald Trump to reduce Indo-Pak tensions as it expressed the desire to work closely with the new Trump administration.

Foreign Office (FO) spokesman Nafees Zakaria said this while responding to questions at the weekly news briefing in Islamabad about Trump's victory in the general elections yesterday. "The US president-elect had offered mediation between Pakistan and India on Kashmir dispute during his campaign and we had welcomed that offer," he said, though reports had not mentioned Trump making a specific mention to Kashmir.

The 70-year-old real estate tycoon had last month described tensions between India and Pakistan as a "very, very hot tinderbox" and offered to be "the mediator or arbitrator" if it was necessary and if the two countries wanted him to, following which the Foreign Office had welcomed such an offer.

Radio Pakistan also quoted Zakaria as saying today that people of Kashmir had given sacrifices for their right to self-determination and that Pakistan is concerned over continued atrocities by Indian forces in Kashmir.

He said Pakistan will continue to raise Indian brutalities and human rights violations at international for a besides continuing to extend moral, political and diplomatic support to the just cause of Kashmiris.

The spokesman said that Pakistan was looking forward to work closely with the new US administration for mutual benefits of both the countries.

Pakistan will continue the endeavour to promote and strengthen the existing relationship, he added. "Pakistan has multidimensional and strategic relationships with the US including economic, defence, Science and Technology, education, strategic issues, counter-terrorism and wants to strengthen them further," he said.

To a question regarding any violation of Indus Waters Treaty by India, Zakaria said Pakistan has approached the World Bank for establishing a Court of Arbitration.

Pakistan is looking forward to establishment of the court at the earliest in line with the Indus Waters Treaty, he said.

Zakaria added that India has not fulfilled its promise of investigation into Samjhauta Express incident.

He said perpetrators of the incident had made public confession in which eight serving army officers were involved. Zakaria said India did not share anything with us and that Pakistan time and again raised this issue bilaterally and on various forums.
Islamabad: Donald Trump's surprise election as US president has Pakistanis wary that he may accelerate what they see as a shift in American policy to favour arch-foe India in the long rivalry between nuclear-armed neighbours, analysts said on Wednesday.

Historical allies in the region, Islamabad and Washington have seen relations sour over US accusations that Pakistan shelters Islamist militants, a charge Pakistan denies. They hit new lows in May when a US drone killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban movement on Pakistani territory.

At the same time, Pakistan's ties with traditional rival India have also deteriorated this year, with India saying Pakistan-based militants killed 19 of its soldiers in a September attack on an army base in the disputed Kashmir region. To many Pakistanis, Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric - he once proposed banning Muslims entering the United States - and business ties to India are signs that his administration could shift further toward New Delhi.

"America will not abandon Pakistan, but definitely, Trump will be a tougher president than Hillary Clinton for Pakistan," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, Lahore-based foreign policy analyst. "I think India will have a better and smoother interaction compared to Pakistan."

Trump has yet to lay out a detailed policy for South Asia, although he recently offered to mediate between India and Pakistan in their dispute over the divided territory of Kashmir. He also told Fox News in May he would favour keeping nearly 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan "because it's adjacent and right next to Pakistan which has nuclear weapons."

Congratulations, Assurances

On Wednesday, a US diplomat in Pakistan sought to assure the country that Trump's election did not signal a drastic policy change. "Our foreign policy is based on national interest and they don't change when the government changes," Grace Shelton, US Consul General in Karachi, told Geo News television.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Trump. "Your election is indeed the triumph of the American people and their enduring faith in the ideals of democracy, freedom, human rights and free enterprise," Sharif said in a statement.

Still, the uncertainty of a Trump presidency has many Pakistanis on edge, even if the country has leaned towards China in recent years for investment and diplomatic support. "Trump is a bit of a wild card," said Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and former ambassador to the United States. "Pakistan obviously cannot rule out engaging with whomever America elects, but his anti-Muslim rhetoric may cast a shadow on relations in times of uncertainty."

India hopeful

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also congratulated Trump on Wednesday. "We look forward to working with you closely to take India-US bilateral ties to a new height," Modi said in a tweet. Trump has partnered with Indian businessmen on a handful of real estate ventures, but apart from courting the Indian-American vote he has not articulated how he would develop the bilateral relationship.

India-US ties have flourished under President Barack Obama and Modi, who came to power in 2014, with the two countries striking key defence agreements this year. Modi's government has also waged a campaign to isolate Pakistan diplomatically.

Shaurya Doval, director of the India Foundation, a think-tank close to Modi's government, called Trump's election "a very positive development", but added that India and the United States would have continued to grow closer under a Hillary Clinton presidency as well. "My sense is that India-US relations are not dependent on individuals - there are strong institutions and processes there," he said.

One fringe Hindu nationalist group in India held a victory gathering at New Delhi's speakers' corner on Wednesday. "He's an American nationalist. We are Indian nationalists. Only he can understand us," Rashmi Gupta of the Hindu Sena, or Hindu Army, told Reuters. "We expect him to support us when it comes to terrorist attacks on India from Pakistan."

Afghanistan war

Trump will also have to decide whether to maintain the number of US troops in Afghanistan or change the scope of the mission, 15 years after a US-led campaign toppled the hardline Islamist Taliban government. The United States has spent some $115 billion in aid for Afghanistan since 2002, but the country is still caught in conflict, with a third of the country out of government control and thousands of Afghan civilians, soldiers and police dying every year.

Afghan officials have voiced concern that the conflict is being forgotten in Washington, and warned privately that the West will pay a huge price if that continues. "The people of Afghanistan are tired of war. We want (Trump) to invest heavily in bringing peace to war-torn Afghanistan and stabilize our region," said Umer Daudzai, former Afghan minister of interior.

Obama's original aim of pulling out of Afghanistan entirely has been put on hold in the face of mounting gains by Taliban militants, with U.S. air power and special forces still regularly involved in combat. As recently as last week, two US Green Berets were killed near the northern city of Kunduz.

Although Afghan security forces have been fighting largely alone since the end of the main NATO-led combat mission in 2014, their performance has been patchy and they continue to rely heavily on US air power.

The Taliban on Wednesday urged Trump to withdraw all US troops. "They should not cause damage to their economy and their military in this failed war," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said of the American government in a statement.
A gang of seven cheats that used to con traders by making payment with dishonoured cheques has been busted by Delhi Police.





The group had duped a Janakpuri-based distribution shop of Rs 23 lakh and had gone underground afterwards.



The accused have been identified as: Surender Jain, 30, Ankit Jain, 22, Sushil, 43, Ravipal, 20, Krishan Pal, Sanjay Kumar, 42, and Bharat Bhushan, 35. A resident of Sonipat, Haryana, Surender is the mastermind of the gang.



The case came to the fore when one Ajay Agarwal approached a distribution shop manager Pradeep Batra to supply Patanjali products to his firm Krishna Trading Co. in September this year.



After getting the products delivered, Krishna Trading made payment to Batra through cash.



However, soon afterwards, when they had won the confidence of the suppliers, Krishna Trading started making payment in cheques. The cheques were cleared by bank and thus they won over the confidence of SDS Enterprises, said a police officer.



In October, when Krishna Trading placed several orders for the products, the cheques issued by them were not cleared by the bank due to insufficient funds, police said.



When Batra contacted Agarwal over his phone and told him about the bounced cheque, Agarwal said that his mother has expired and he would make the payment in the next five to six days.



However, the payment was not made, and Agarwals shop was also found to be vacated. The residential address provided by him was in city's Mangolpuri. However no such person was found there.



In the police investigation, it was found that Agarwal had obtained his number through fake identity documents. The team arrested Ankit Jain. On his interrogation, he disclosed that he is known to Surender Jain of Ganaur, Haryana and Sushil of Panipat, Haryana.



Ankit Jain got prepared the fake Aadhaar card and voter card through Sanjay and Kuldeep of Mangolpuri. On the basis of these fake IDs, they purchased mobile SIM cards, new instruments and a motorcycle. Sushil included his friend Ravi and Krishan in this conspiracy. Ravi impersonated as Vijay Agarwal and opened a bank account, obtained a PAN card for the fake company.
A 15-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by two teenagers, including a former classmate of the girl, in south east Delhis Jangpura-Bhogal locality.





The incident occurred after the girl turned down a marriage proposal made by one of the friends. No arrests have been made so far. The girls parents hail from Afghanistan. However, she was born in Delhi. The two accused also hail from Afghanistan.



In her complaint, the girl told police that her former classmate introduced her to one of his friends last year. She began hanging out with him, but stopped when he asked her to marry him. As revenge, he allegedly clicked her objectionable pictures and posted it on Facebook, the girls mother told police.



According to the girl, he called her to a place on November 3 on the pretext of offering his apology. When the girl met him, he allegedly slapped her, touched her inappropriately and ripped her shirt open. Her former classmate was also present on the spot and had allegedly grabbed both her hands. After the incident, the girl called her mother, who informed police.



A senior police officer said that a case under sections 354A (sexual harassment), 354B (sexual assault), 354C (voyeurism), 34 (common intention) of the IPC and Section 8 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act has been registered against the two persons at Hazrat Nizamuddin police station.



The girls mother said that despite a case being registered on November 4, no action has been taken by police so far. The girl stopped going to school 10 months ago.



Our family is from Afghanistan. We came to India many years ago. My daughter was born in Delhi. One of the persons was following her everywhere since she met him through a common friend. She wanted to be friends with him. But he didnt like that and assaulted her," said the victims mother.
Government hospitals largely remained unaffected on Wednesday in the wake of demonetisation of high denomination currency, while private hospitals did not accept Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes or managed the needs with internal coordination.





Authorities at Lok Nayak Jaiprakash Hospital, the biggest hospital under the Delhi government, said, Since our services are free, we do not have to worry about monetary transaction.



Also, the medicines prescribed by our doctors are available for free. So no issues arose at our hospital, a senior LNJP Hospital official said. Safdarjung Hospital too did not face any problem, authorities said.



In order to cope with shortage of lower denomination available with AIIMS, the institute brought in some measures.



OPD card charge of Rs 10 per patient shall not be charged from walk-in patients from November 10-11. Also, charges for clinical services for out-patients where the cumulative billing per transaction per patient is less than Rs 500 shall not be charged for November 10-11, the AIIMS said.



As per the order, government hospitals will continue to accept Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes for payment. Pharmacies in government hospitals will also accept these notes for purchase of medicines.



At Sir Ganges Ram Hospital, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were not accepted, though, officials said, The situation at our hospital was normal with no major problem.



On an average we perform about 100 surgeries a day and today also we did the same. Day-care surgeries were also normal in number. The admission and discharge process also did not face any major issues.



The payments are being accepted by credit/debit cards or cheques, D S Rana, Chairman (Board of Management) at SGRH said.



Officials at Fortis Hospital said the lower denomination currency needs were managed with internal coordination, so that people do not suffer.



As 500 and 1000 rupee denomination notes are no longer legal tender we are only accepting Rs 100 and lower currency notes. Meanwhile we continue to ensure that emergency cases get immediate medical attention without delay whatsoever and have put in more administrative staff and help desks to assist patients.



We continue to accept payments through credit/debit cards and electronic banking transfers, so it is not an issue as such, the official said.
"I'm disappointed, shocked, a little panicked for my friends and family - for everything that will be unleashed, the hate that will be unleashed," Marion Hill, 22, who joined thousands amassed outside the Trump Tower in downtown Chicago, told The Chicago Tribune.



Some Californians also took to the social media and the state Capitol to voice their opinions that California should secede from the US after Trump's win. #Calexit was trending nationally.



In the polls, Clinton had won California, pocketing 55 electoral college votes.

Hundreds massed in downtown Seattle streets with many holding anti-Trump and 'Black Lives Matter' signs and chanting slogans, including "Misogyny has to go," and "The people united, will never be defeated".



Five persons were shot and injured in an area near the protest. However, police said the shootings and the demonstration were unrelated.



Media reports said that in Austin, protesters blocked a highway while in Oakland and California, protesters lit fires in the street and stood around them chanting.



One member of the crowd near the White House held an upside-down American flag, alongside the LGBT rainbow flag, in silent protest, a media report said.



Kelly Lopez, a young Latino said, she has been upset since morning when it was clear that Trump will be the next US President. She said a person who throughout his campaign has resorted to racism, bigotry, fascism and insulting women and minorities, cannot change overnight and say that he will work for all American people.



"You have bases your entire electoral race on bringing down people, you cannot suddenly change that," she said.



John Jacob, referring to Trump's victory speech, said he does not trust Trump when he said he will "bind the wounds of division".



"How does he take back everything he said in his campaign and the debates," Jacob said, adding that Trump does not have the experience or the intelligence of Clinton.

A young African American student Elaz Iben said Trump will be president of the country for the next four years and "while I will respect the institution of the presidency, I will also respect my right to protest."



The protests in the city as well as across other parts of the country were organised by a group called Socialist Alternative.



"The victory of Donald Trump is being met with shock, fear, and anger. Especially for immigrants, Muslims, people of color, women, and other oppressed people who Trump has singled out for attack, the question of how to defend themselves against the coming attacks is sharply posed," the group said.



It urged people to come together and demonstrate their "mass opposition" to Trump.

"Build a wall around Trump's bigoted agenda," the group said on its Facebook page.

The group said the protests must be the beginning of "coordinated nationwide mobilisations to organise millions into a massive grassroots movement."



Hundreds of thousands of Americans today rallied across the US as anger over Donald Trump's election victory spilled on to the streets amid chants of "Not my President" and "No Fascists USA", deepening the political turmoil further after months-long bitter campaign.Disappointment turned into protest as people in huge numbers rallied in at least 25 US cities - including New York and Nashville, Chicago and Cleveland, San Francisco and Seattle - shouting anti-Trump slogans, burning effigies, and holding candlelight vigils to mourn yesterday's result of the general election in which Trump secured a stunning victory despite his explosive and divisive rhetoric.Several arrests took place when the demostrators - that included people from all ages, faiths and nationalities - held vigils and blocked traffic.Angry Americans assembled at landmark locations in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, California, Colorado, Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, Atlanta, Austin, Denver, San Francisco and other cities, and were seen walking on roads and highway between moving traffic, holding placards that read 'No more Hate', and chanting "Not my President." "Not today."Outside Trump's residence in Trump Tower on New York's Fifth Avenue, protesters gathered with signs that read "Dump Trump". Protesters walked about 40 streets from 14th Street to Fifth Avenue. Streets surrounding the towers were completely shut off due to the protests.Authorities estimated that as many as 5,000 people protested the real estate mogul's victory outside the Trump Tower, including pop star Lady Gaga who is a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter.Thousands of protesters blocked entry to the Trump Tower in downtown Chicago.In Los Angeles, demonstrators sprayed the Los Angeles Times building and news vans with anti-Trump profanity. Late in the evening, hundreds of people blocked one of the city's busiest freeways - US 101 between downtown and Hollywood.Demonstrators outside the Los Angeles City Hall also set ablaze a giant, box-shaped head resembling Trump's, topped with bright orange hair.In Washington, protesters gathered outside the White House protesting against Trump's racism, sexism and xenophobia. A candlelight vigil was also held outside the White House last evening.Angry against the election of Trump as the president of the country, people were heard chanting "No Trump, No KKK, No Fascists USA" and "Not my president!"The massive protests came hours after Trump, a political outsider, secured a stunning victory against Clinton, defying all forecast, a development that refused to end months-long bitter campaigning by the two political leaders.The 70-year-old real estate tycoon, who is said to have started off his maiden political campaign with a team of just six persons and a Twitter account, single-handedly ran one of the most unconventional presidential campaigns in which political correctness was tossed out of th e window. He has been slammed by many for his divisive and derogatory rhetoric against minorities, women and immigrants.
Welcoming the decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1000, a top External Affairs Ministry official today said it will go a long way in fighting "economic terrorism" by checking use of black money for funding "subversive activities".





Delivering a keynote address at an international seminar here, Secretary (West), MEA, Sujata Mehta also asserted that the scourge of cross-border terrorism has assumed "highly destructive" proportions and there was an "urgent" need to check safe havens and sanctuaries enjoyed by terrorists.



"In the past year, the scourge of terrorism directed from across borders has assumed highly destructive proportions and represents the single biggest threat to peace, stability and and progress.



"There is an urgent need for all concerned to call a halt to all sponsorship, support, safe havens and sanctuaries to terrorists," she said.



The two-day seminar, organised by International Council for World Affairs (ICWA), is being held in the run up to the 'Heart of Asia' conference in Amritsar in December, which India will co-chair with Afghanistan.



She further said, "The recent initiative announced by the Prime Minister to cancel as legal tender high denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 will, among other things, help curb the financing of terrorism through fake Indian currency notes and the use of such funds for subversive activities,".



"Yes, the move will go a long way in curbing economic terrorism," Mehta said.

Mehta added that India's security is intrinsically linked with peace and stability in Afghanistan.



The senior official of the Ministry of External Affairs also said UN Security Council must take the lead through "credible and objective processes" under the 1267 Sanctions Committee.



"India advocates a policy of zero tolerance to terrorism.... However, there is a need for the international community to come together with a sense of unity and purpose to eliminate this scourge," she said.



"Another important signal of such resolve of this international community would be early adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the long-pending draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism," she said.



The seminar is being attended by representative from several member and supporting countries of 'Heart of Asia'.



There are 13 member countries, which include Afghanistan, India, China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Besides, there are 30 supporting countries which include the US, UK and Germany.



"The event today was attended by representatives from almost all embassies here, including an official from the Pakistan High Commission. Scholar and experts from several countries are also here. Besides, a few experts were invited from Pakistan to attend the event, but perhaps for logistic constraint, they couldn't attend it," a source said.



'Heart of Asia - Istanbul Process' brings together all stakeholders in the region to discuss and attempt to solve challenges pertinent to the broader region keeping focus on Afghanistan.
Infosys Foundation today announced it has signed an MoU with the Inter-University Centre of Astronomy and Astrophysics through an endowment of Rs 6.5 crore to build a novel and powerful instrument called Wide Area Linear Optical Polarimeter (WALOP).





According to the Memorandum of Understanding, the endowment will also be used to boost support for international travel, post-doctorate fellowships and thematic workshops among researchers of IUCAA, said a statement from the Foundation -- the philanthropic arm of Infosys.



IUCAA is an autonomous institution of the University Grants Commission to promote nucleation and growth of active groups in astronomy and astrophysics at Indian universities.



Through the partnership, Infosys Foundation intends to provide impetus to IUCAA's objective of developing a number of advanced and unique instruments for astronomy, the statement said.



WALOP, the instrument that the endowment will support, is currently at the design stage at IUCAA's instrumentation laboratory. It will be used to measure polarization caused by interstellar dust and map the distribution of dust in the Milky Way.



The instrument's uniqueness is in the combined strengths of very wide field polarimetry, high sensitivity and single shot measurement ability, the statement said.



Sudha Murty, Chairperson of Infosys Foundation, said, historically, ancient Indian scientists like Varahamira and Aryabhatta contributed immensely to the field of astronomy.



"The Foundation is excited to collaborate with IUCAA, an institute dedicated to the study of Astronomy and Astrophysics, in their endeavour of developing a new instrument that will greatly benefit the research community," she said.



Subsequent to funding from Infosys Foundation, IUCAA has been successful in garnering funding for the project from reputed international organizations such as the National Science Foundation of USA, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation of Greece and National Research Foundation of South Africa.



"The instrument proposal has gone through reviews in four continents starting with Infosys Foundation in India and has succeeded in all of them. We thank Infosys Foundation to be the first to recognize our proposal worthy of funding which has enabled us to develop the breakthrough technology needed for building this instrument and carry out potentially transformational scientific ventures," said Prof. A N Ramaprakash, Principal Investigator of the project, IUCAA.


As Prime Minister Narendra Modi set off on a key visit to Japan, China today said that while it has no issues in New Delhi and Tokyo developing normal relations, they should respect "legitimate concerns" of neighbours.





"Regarding what might be discussed by the two leaders, we note that Prime Minister Modi will kick off his visit to Japan. We have no problem with our neighbours developing normal relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media briefing here replying to a question.



"We hope that when they develop their relationships, they can respect legitimate concerns of their neighbours and contribute to regional peace and stability," he said.

He declined to comment on reports that India will buy US-2 ShinMaywa amphibious aircraft from Japan, saying it is mere speculation.



In September, Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted angrily to reports that Japan plans to sell weapons to India at a cheaper prices saying that such a move is disgraceful.



"We hold no objection to normal state to state cooperation including defence cooperation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told media briefing on September 13.



"But if the report is true that if someone is making unrighteous move then this is very disgraceful," she said while replying to a question about media reports that Japan plans to cut prices to sell 12 ShinMaywa US-2 amphibious aircraft designed for air-sea rescue in a USD 1.6 billion deal.



Ahead of Modi's visit, Chinese official media warned that India may suffer "great losses" in bilateral trade if it joins Japan to ask China to abide by the international tribunal's ruling quashing Beijing's claims over the South China Sea (SCS).



"India should beware of the possibility that by becoming embroiled in the disputes, it might end up being a pawn of the US and suffer great losses, especially in terms of business and trade, from China," an op-ed article in state-run Global Times said yesterday.



Citing Indian media reports that India is seeking support from Tokyo during Modi's visit to Japan next week to issue a joint statement asking China abide by the July ruling of the tribunal on the SCS, the article said "India and China should put more efforts into resolving problems like the imbalance of their trade ties".



"India won't benefit much by balancing China through Japan. It will only lead to more mistrust between New Delhi and Beijing," it said.
Supreme Court's ruling favouring Haryana on the contentious SYL canal issue has set political temperature soaring in Punjab, with the state Congress chief Amarinder Singh quitting as MP and declaring the party MLAs will follow suit, as Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal asserted "not a drop of water" will be allowed to be taken out of the state.





A major confrontation between the Supreme Court and Punjab government also appeared a distinct possibility with the state's SAD-BJP government asserting it would appeal to the President not to accept the advice of the apex court.



Addressing a press conference after a hurriedly called meeting of the state's council of ministers, Badal, with son and deputy Sukhbir by his side, declared "not a single drop of water will be allowed to be taken out of the state...water comes first for us."



Sukhbir said a special session of the state assembly has been called on November 16 where the government will adopt a resolution appealing to the President not to accept the advice of the Supreme Court, which had ruled a state which is a party to an agreement cannot unilaterally terminate it or nullify the decree of the highest court in the country.



Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court, while disposing of the Presidential reference said,"All the questions have been answered in the negative".



The reference had been made by the then President A P J Abdul Kalam on the constitutional validity of the law passed by then Punjab government-led by Captain Amrinder Singh to nullify the court verdict and unilaterally terminating the almost three-dacade old SYL water sharing agreement.



Amarinder, Lok Sabha MP from Amritsar, also demanded imposition of President's rule in the state and suggested holding the assembly elections in December, voicing apprehension that a "mischievous" Badal government may try to "foment trouble" following the court order.



In its judgement, a five-judge bench headed by Justice A R Dave made it clear that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 was "unconstitutional" and that Punjab could not have taken a "unilateral" decision to terminate the water sharing agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.



The apex court ruling saw the festering dispute over water sharing between Punjab, which will go to polls early next year, and Haryana, immediately catapulted to political centrestage with Amarinder upping the ante and announcing his decision to resign as MP and declaring that the MLAs will tender their resignation tomorrow "in protest against the injustice meted out to the state".



Amarinder, under whom the controversial law had been enacted to abrogate the agreement, said he had sent his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker and sought an appointment with her next week. For the resignation of an MP or MLA to be accepted, they have to submit their letters to the Speaker personally.



Blaming the Akalis squarely for bringing the people of Punjab to "this pitiable situation", where they face "imminent devastation" due to acute water scarcity, Amarinder said Badal and his team had failed to defend Punjabs stand in the court, leading to such "disastrous consequences" for the state.



The Congress leader accused the Akalis of being instrumental in acquiring the land for the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal, ignoring the interest of Punjab.



Amarinder said, "Badal issued the notification for land acquisition for the SYL on February 20, 1978 vide notification nos: 113/5/SYL and 121/5/SYL under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act. With this, the process of land acquisition started.



"Badal wrote to Haryana overnment letters demanding payment of Rs 3 crore more as he had already taken Rs 2 crore for the purpose. This was in follow up to an agreement between him and Devi Lal, the then Chief Minister of Haryana that Haryana will pay Rs 5 crores to Punjab (for SYL)."



Sukhbir Badal hit back, saying the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had forced Congress Chief Minister Darbara Singh to sign the agreement.



"It is a well known fact that PPCC President Capt Amarinder Singh welcomed the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1982 to lay the foundation of SYL canal at Kapoori. It was Akali Dal government which stopped it and did not allow water to be taken out of the state.



"Come what may, we will not allow even a single drop of precious river water of Punjab to go outside the state," he said.



Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, whose state hopes to gain from the SC ruling, meanwhile, urged the political parties to respect the apex court's ruling and not politicise it.



With his party BJP's ally Shiromani Akali Dal strongly opposing the SC ruling, Khattar said,"Punjab government is not bigger than the Supreme Court, which has given its advice. Now the President will decide on it. I hope that the decision is amicably implemented immediately."



On the assertion by the Badals that not a single drop of water will be allowed to be taken outside the state, Khattar said,"It is a multi-state agreement. Ours is a federal democracy and it should be respected."



Meanwhile, Arvind Kejriwal's AAP, which has decided to plunge into the Punjab elections in a big way, accused both the ruling SAD and opposition Congress of failing to protect the state's interest and announced an indefinite dharna at Kapoori, where the foundation stone for the SYL canal was laid, from tomorrow.



"The SAD and Congress have failed to protect the interest of Punjab on river water issue," AAP leader and lawyer H S Phoolka said.




Ousted Tata Sons Chairman Cyrus Mistry's camp today termed as "unsubstantiated claims and half truths" a series of allegations by the company, which stated that he betrayed trust and tried to seek control of main operating firms of the over USD 100 billion group.





Responding to a statement by Tata Sons, sources close to Mistry said after 17 days of silence on his "unjustified and unexplained removal", there was still no "word of explanation as to why it became necessary to remove him summarily violating natural justice and without explanation".



The statement, they said, "has not much but selective data, unsubstantiated claims and half truths".



On claims that Mistry had an 'ulterior motive' of taking control of companies, a source said: "Giving the example of Indian Hotels only because independent directors -- one of whom is also a director of Tata Trust -- demonstrated true independence, is not in keeping with Tata governance standards."



The sources also said removing TCS from data in assessing Mistry's performance stating he does not really contribute materially to the company and to blame him for all problems inherited by him such as Tata Motor's passenger vehicle business in India is "inherently fallacious to any unbiased observer".



Mistry camp also refuted allegations of "significant issues of conflict of interest in relation to the Shapoorji Pallonji Group" saying "it is a smear campaign unworthy of either the Tata Group or a response, particularly when it (is) known that Mr Mistry had instructed all Tata companies not to enter into new contracts with that Group".



Insisting that the Nomination and Remuneration Committee (NRC) of Tata Sons lauded Mistry's performance on June 28, the sources said the NRC's report was adopted by the complete board the following day.



"Tata Sons is yet to state what necessitated the replacement of Mr Mistry on October 24 without any notice or an opportunity to defend himself," a source said.



Calling the Tata Sons statement as a reflection of "desperation", a source said: "All the 'reasons' in the letter, would have, and should have, been tabled and recorded in the minutes of the many Tata Sons board meetings held over four years of Mr Mistry's Chairmanship.



Unfortunately for them, no such record exists because these allegations are simply not true."

A source said: "The 'reason' were not tabled even on October 24. That after 17 days, this is the best that can get said is heart-warming."


Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar welcomed Supreme Court's decision today to hold as "unconstitutional" the 2004 law passed by Punjab to terminate the SYL canal water sharing agreement with neighbouring states.





"I welcome the Supreme Court verdict. It is natural justice," he told reporters here.

In its judgement the apex court made it clear that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, was "unconstitutional" and Punjab could not have taken an "unilateral" decision to terminate the water sharing agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.



"The Supreme Court has given its decision on this vital issue after 12 years and it is a result of the persistent efforts made by the present state government," he claimed.



This judgement has brought smile on the face of every Haryanvi because the state would get its legitimate share of surplus water of 3.5 million acre feet (MAF) from the Ravi-Beas River, he said.



"People have been eagerly waiting for this decision since long but it was kept lingering because of laxity by previous governments," the Chief Minister alleged, adding it was gift to the people on Haryana's golden jubilee year.



The Supreme Court judgement was in favour of Haryana on four points for which Presidential Reference was sought.



Elaborating, Khattar said, "These points included whether the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 and its provision were in accordance with the Constitution of India. If the Act and its provisions were in accordance with Section 14 of Inter-State Water Disputes Act 1956, Section 78 of the Punjab Re-organization Act 1966 and a notification issued in 1976 there under."



"Besides, if Punjab has validly terminated the agreement dated December 31, 1981 and all agreements related to the Ravi-Beas waters and has discharged from its obligation under the said agreements," he said.



The points also included whether in view of the Act, Punjab is discharged from its obligations flowing from the judgement and decree dated January 1, 2002 and judgement and order dated June 4, 2004 of the Supreme Court, he added.



The Haryana Assembly had recently unanimously passed a resolution condemning Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's statement that Punjab and its residents will not accept any verdict against the state's interest on river waters.



On November 1, in his 'Punjabi Suba' address, Badal had said the state was ever ready to make any sacrifice to safeguard its legitimate share of river waters.


The Income Tax department today conducted multiple raids in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities in the wake of reports of alleged profiteering and subsequent tax evasion by traders by converting withdrawn currency notes in an illegal manner.





Interestingly, the operations (surveys) were launched from the evening as the taxman wanted some hard cash to get accumulated at the payment counters to make the action effective.



Officials said the operations are being carried out at least at four locations in the national capital including popular market places like Karol Bagh, Dariba Kalan and Chandni Chowk, three locations in Mumbai and few others in Chandigarh and Ludhiana.



Till reports came in, similar survey operations by I-T authorities are also understood to have been launched in two south Indian cities.



Sources said the department had received "actionable inputs" that some traders, jewellers, currency exchanges and hawala dealers were allegedly exploiting the recent currency demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and were changing currencies at "discounted" prices, thereby profiteering illegally.



They said the operations were planned after CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra yesterday asked all the investigation units in the country to keep a check on suspicious movement of huge cash and other illegal transactions leading to tax evasion.



Officials added that almost over 100 tax sleuths along with police officials have been roped in for the survey operations.



At few places, they said, some preliminary documents have been seized.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today assured people that taxman will not hound those making small deposits in scrapped Rs 500/1,000 currency adding, however, people with "large amounts of undisclosed monies will have to face the consequences under the tax laws".



Top I-T department officials had yesterday said the government's directive to them is "very clear", saying any instance of tax evasion and black money should be dealt with strictly, especially after two opportunities in the form of one-time stash declaration window has been provided.



In a surprise move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on November 8 announced demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and introduction of the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 ones with additional security features.
The Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan has unveiled a gleaming new international airport with a roof in the shape of a flying falcon. The design echoes the mascot of its national carrier.



The $2.8 billion airport is located in Ashgabat, the capital city, and has the capacity to handle more than 1,600 passengers an hour. But few foreigners visit the isolated Central Asian nation, known for its vast energy reserves. A mere 105,000 tourists visited it in 2015, according to government figures, and it is difficult to get a visa.



Ashgabat International Airport is one of three international airports in Turkmenistan, a former Soviet Republic. It is located approximately 10 km north-west of the capital.



The new airport opened this year after being completely redesigned and rebuilt. Ashgabat has no shortage of lavish buildings. It boasts of several other unique structures, including a publishing house in the shape of an open book.



The city also has two giant statues of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and his late predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov.
Pakistan today summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to the Foreign Office to protest over alleged ceasefire violations and use of artillery by the Indian forces, saying that such weaponry had been used after 13 years.





Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry summoned Bambawale and condemned the "unprovoked ceasefire violations on the LOC and the Working Boundary," said a statement issued by the Foreign Office this evening.



"He deplored the use of artillery by the Indian Forces in Shahkot and Jura sectors on the LoC on November 9, 2016 and highlighted that such weaponry had been used after 13 years, reflecting Indias intention to further escalate tensions and undermine regional peace and security," the statement said.



The Foreign Secretary observed that the "indiscriminate firing and shelling from the Indian side deliberately targeting villages and civilian populated areas" has resulted in the death of 26 civilians in the last two months, it said.



It said 107 people were also injured.The statement said the UN Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has the UN mandated responsibility for maintaining peace and tranquility at the LoC and the Working Boundary.



"While Pakistan is fully cooperating and providing full access to UNMOGIP, we urge India to permit the UNMOGIP to visit and observe the LoC and the Working Boundary," it said.



The Foreign Secretary urged India to investigate the continued incidents of "unprovoked ceasefire violations" on the LoC and the Working Boundary and ensure respect for the 2003 Ceasefire Understanding, in letter and spirit, it added.



Foreign Office had summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh yesterday for the sixth time in over two weeks for alleged ceasefire violations.



On October 27, the Foreign Secretary had summoned Bambawale to foreign ministry and conveyed the decision of the Government of Pakistan to declare an Indian High Commission official as "persona non-grata".
Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy on Thursday said that there is no need to be unduly concerned over the victory of Donald Trump in the US election, as the Indian industry has inherent strength of innovation to overcome all challenges.





I am having enormous confidence in the leaders of this Indian software industry. They are all smart people and they have brought in lots of innovation. I am not unduly concerned about these issues at this point of time. I do believe our leaders will come up with innovative solutions to overcome not just this problem, but also problems in future, he told DH.



Congratulating American friends for successfully electing the new president, Murthy said, From what I have heard and read, the concern of the President-elect has been to make America great again and to create good income jobs for Americans. I think that it is something every well-meaning politician all over the world wants to do. Therefore, I can fully understand that sentiment.



He also pointed out that being the first citizen of the US, he will do what is best for the US. And what is best for the US may consist of several options, and some of them may require him to continue the status quo, some times it may require him to tighten the screw; some of their options will be loosening their restriction. Who we are to prejudge what he is going to do? he said.



When asked about Trumps game plan to curtail market access, he said, during his Infosys days, he had come up with a model called visa independent global delivery model.



As per this model, we would reduce the onsite effort requirement to about 10-15% of the total effort, from the then 30% in 2013; and we said we will recruit local talent in the market to deliver 10-15%, out of the total effort on the project cycle. And the remaining 85% should be delivered from countries like India, using local talent. We had developed a methodology and tools for it, he said.



Creating jobs



He pointed out that the Indian IT industry with Indian multinationals has to create jobs not only for Indians, but also for the British in the UK, Americans in the US, Brazilians in Brazil, Japanese in Japan, and Canadians in Canada. We have to create opportunities for local talent, and they can cater to local demand. Also, they can understand the environment better; they can create better connection and goodwill with our customers, he said.



He also denied that the Brexit and the US election development cannot be portrayed as more protectionism is back, and the fundamentals of globalisation is challenged. If I apply for a US visa, I am given a certain date and the visa is issued. I dont understand that there is protectionism involved here. We have to work within the existing global order and that is what our industry is known for, he said.


Tata Sons may have sought the removal of Cyrus Mistry from the boards of TCS and IHCL but the independent directors of Tata Chemicals totally backed the decisions of the chairman and the management.



The independent directors unanimously affirmed their confidence in the board, its chairman and the management in the conduct of the companys business. The independent directors also reaffirmed that all the decisions taken with regard to the operations and business of the company had been taken by the board unanimously and executed by the chairman and management as per the directions of the board, Tata Chemicals said.



The independent directors also wish to reassure all stakeholders, management of the company and its subsidiaries, wherever located, of their full confidence and support, Tata Chemicals added. The board of Tata Chemicals, in the annual report of the company, had recommended and sought the support of all shareholders for confirmation of Mistrys reappointment at the annual general meeting held on August 11, 2015, and it was approved by 97.64% of the total votes cast.



Meanwhile, Tata Chemicals has reported income from operations for the quarter ended September 30, 2016, on a consolidated basis at Rs 3,496 crore and Rs 1,615 crore on a standalone basis. EBITDA from continuing operations was reported at Rs 554 crore on a consolidated basis and at Rs 181 crore on a standalone basis.

Subsidy receivable on a standalone basis stood at Rs 1,377 crore as on September 30, 2016, against Rs 1,479 crore as on June 30, 2016, and Rs 1,902 crore as on March 31, 2016. Standalone net debt on September 30 was Rs 1,972 crore against Rs 2,710 crore on March 31, 2016.

Ratan meets Tata Motors union



Ahead of the crucial board meeting of Tata Motors next week, the groups interim chairman Ratan Tata on Thursday met the employee unions from the companys biggest plants.



We have had a long lasting, emotional relationship with Ratan Tata for over 25 years and met him today, president of Tata Motors Employees Union Sameer Dhumal told reporters here. Dhumal and other representatives met Tata at an office of the Tata Trusts in downtown Mumbai, but refused to share what exactly transpired.
Minister for Forest, Ecology and Environment and District In-charge Minister B Ramanath Rai on Thursday said efforts are being made to distort history by launching hate campaigns against many great personalities, including Tipu Sultan who fought for the freedom of the country.





Addressing the gathering during Tipu Jayanti programme organised by the district administration at Netravathi Auditorium of Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat here, Rai said, The history documented by our elders cannot be disputed as those were the days of people who spoke truth. However, in the present day, efforts are being made to spread false news only to create instability in the society.



Describing Tipu Sultan, the erstwhile ruler of Mysuru who ruled from Srirangapatna and fought with valour against British, as a warrior, Rai said, Not just Tipu, people irrespective of caste and creed took part in the freedom movement.



Stating that first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his family were also not spared from virulent campaign, Rai said, Nehru fought for the freedom of the country without expecting anything in return.



Without taking the name of former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa who had once spoken in favour of Tipu Jayanti, Rai questioned the double standards of the former who indulges in hate campaigns.



In his special lecture, K P Shivaram Shetty, chairman of SVP Institute of Kannada Studies, Mangalore University, said, The government should take a cue from most of the programmes launched during the period of rule of Tipu Sultan as a real tribute to the great ruler.



Tipu has been portrayed by different people according to their observations. While Francis Buchanan who came to India after the fall of Tipu, documented history related to Tipu with the help of Lavanis (folk ballads) and tribals at Halagali, British officer Mark Wilks gave a different account. Likewise, history related to Tipu has been recreated by many people even after his death two centuries ago, Shetty said.



Chief whip of the government in Legislative Council Ivan DSouza, Mangaluru North MLA Mohiuddin Bawa, Deputy Commissioner Dr K G Jagadeesha, Police Commissioner N Chandra Sekhar and others were present.


For more than half a century, Asia has benefited from a US commitment to free trade and bilateral alliances in the region. But the election of Donald Trump left both statesmen and citizens here asking whether that commitment  and the prolonged era of peace and prosperity that has accompanied it  might be coming to an end.



Even before he began his campaign for the presidency, Trump was known as a critic of policies that opened markets in the United States to lower-cost Asian goods and helped fuel the dizzying growth that transformed Japan, gave rise to the dynamic economies known as the four Asian tigers, and propelled Chinas emergence as a global power.



But during his campaign, Trump made a drumbeat of his criticism, accusing several nations of currency manipulation and threatening a 45% tax on Chinese imports. He also added a geopolitical dimension by suggesting the United States might withdraw its security guarantees to Japan and South Korea unless they agreed to pay more of the cost of defending them.



Now, the question in Asia is how much of that rhetoric Trump will act on. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, sent a conciliatory message of congratulations to Trump that made no mention of Trumps promises to confront Beijing on trade and currency issues. Developing long-term healthy and stable Sino-US relations is in the fundamental interests of the peoples of both countries and is also the shared hope of the international community, Xi said.



But a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Lu Kang, offered a cautious rebuttal of Trumps views on trade between China and the United States, arguing that trade had benefited the people on both sides, including the American people, and has increased employment, rather than the opposite.



Some economic advisers to the Chinese government were sceptical that Trump would follow through with drastic action that could prompt a trade war. After all, they said, US presidential candidates have been promising to get tough on Chinese trade policies for more than two decades and have invariably backed off after taking office.



Nobody takes the electioneering that seriously, said Andrew Sheng, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission who advises the Chinese government on financial policy. People accept that the American consumers benefit so much from trade that it wont change that much.



Yu Yongding, a prominent economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, also had doubts. All the things he said during the election were the talk of an amateur  I dont think he was in earnest, he said.



After he becomes president, therell be advisers at his side to explain to him what the exchange rate is, what capital flows are, what macroeconomic policy is.



But if there was disbelief that Trump would follow through on his trade threats, there was also unease that his election could portend a retreat by the United States from the region that could embolden China, force Japan and South Korea to consider alternatives to the US nuclear umbrella and unleash long-suppressed tensions.



May be he will decrease the commitment to Pacific security issues, said Shin Kawashima, a professor of international relations at the University of Tokyo. But if he carries out such a policy, China will be much more authoritative and aggressive in the Pacific. And then most of the alliance countries and security experts in Washington will be against Trumps policies. It is a little difficult for Trump to just change all the old policies.



In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe congratulated Trump and sought to remind him of Washingtons special relationship with his nation. Japan and the United States are unwavering allies tied firmly with the bond of universal values such as freedom, democracy, basic human rights, and the rule of law, he said. And some in Japan expressed hope that Trump might prove milder in office than he was on the campaign trail.



Once he becomes the president, he will change, I think, said Katsuhito Momii, 73, chairman of NHK, the public broadcasting service. Reagan became a great president, so no matter what he said before the election, I think he will change.



Some analysts said they feared that Trumps America First vision would embolden Japans own right-wing nationalists, who push a revisionist history that denies the Japanese military committed atrocities during World War II.



Jiro Yamaguchi, a professor of political science at Hosei University in Tokyo, said that China and South Korea, victims of Japans wartime aggression, would object to any resurgence of Japans right wing and that this would increase tensions in East Asia.



Misreading signals



In South Korea, where President Park Geun-hye has been battling a corruption scandal, there appeared to be concern that Trumps election might be misinterpreted by the North, which has been racing to develop nuclear weapons and had welcomed Trumps threat to withdraw US troops from the South unless it paid more for their presence.



North Korea should not misjudge the solidity of our alliance with the United States and our joint ability to respond to its provocations, a government spokesman, Jeong Joon-hee, warned, adding that the South remained unshakable in its belief that it should maintain a strong military alliance with the United States.



Moon Jae-in, an opposition leader and leading contender for the presidency in the election next year, also reaffirmed his commitment to the alliance no matter who becomes president there.



Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute in Seongnam, said Trumps victory could open the way for South Korea to go nuclear with Washingtons consent to protect itself from the North.



The prospect of a nuclear arms race in Asia would certainly unsettle China. But analysts said that was one of many troubling issues that the Communist government could be forced to confront under a Trump presidency.



Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said that many in the foreign policy establishment had been wary of Hillary Clinton and believed Trump would be less likely to oppose Xis increasingly assertive territorial claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere.



A weakened and disorganised West like this will surely bring many more additional strategic opportunities for China, which would be even less prudent in its foreign policy, as it has been since 2013, Shi said.



But he added that Trumps approach to trade could cause problems for Xi when he is already struggling with an economic slowdown. These changes will make it more difficult for Chinas economy, he said, in a time when it is already facing difficulties at home.


Former chairman of State Backward Communities Commission C S Dwarakanath urged the state government to name Bengaluru Rural district after Tipu Sultan as he was born in Devanahalli.



Speaking during the Tipu Jayanti programme, organised by the district administration and Kannada and Culture department at Kalamandira, here, on Thursday, he said, Tipu fought against the British, so those who oppose Tipu should be deemed as supporting the British, thus as anti-nationals.



Claiming that a caricature of Tipu Sultan is found in the original copy of the Constitution, he said his struggle against the British is recognised nationally and hence describing him as Tiger of Mysuru is not adequate.



Tipu is actually Tiger of India. Three stalwarts of the Mysuru region who have always inspired me are Tipu Sultan, Nalvadi Krishna Raja Wadiyar and D Devaraja Urs. Tipu was instrumental in preparing the original blueprint for the Kannambadi dam across the River Cauvery, now Krishnaraja Sagar. He was the one who introduced sericulture in this region. In Kolar district we solely depend on sericulture, as all other forms of farming are not economically viable. So, we respect him as our annadaatha. Dalits got land rights for the first time in the history of India under his rule. He himself was involved in trade across the globe and also encouraged trade for financial stability of the state. If the father-son duo had not developed Lalbagh, Bengaluru would have missed a lung space, he said.



While Nalvadi followed in the footsteps of Tipu and cared for the people, Devaraja Urs tried to fulfil the dreams of Nalvadi, he added.



He compared Tipu Sultan to B R Ambedkar and also Che Guevara. Ambedkar had said that he would be satisfied when his people had power. Tipu had died holding on to his sword, signifying that he was inseparable from power. Like Tipu, Che Guevara too had died with wide open eyes, he said.



PWD and District in-charge Minister Dr H C Mahadevappa, who inaugurated the event, defended the decision of the state government to celebrate Tipu jayanti and listed out the contributions of Tipu Sultan. While one group is demanding dropping of all jayantis, another group is demanding dropping of only Tipu jayanti. The protests by the BJP are politically motivated. However, a day will come when all people will celebrate the jayanti unitedly, he said.



MLAs Vasu and M K Somasekhar, Sirkhazi Mohammed Usaman Shareef, president of All India Milli Council Zakhaullah, newly appointed chairpersons of boards and corporations D Dhruvakumar, Siddaraju, H A Venkatesh, Mallige Veeresh and Shivalingaiah, Mayor B L Bhyrappa, former MPs, ex-MLAs, ex-MLCs and ex-presidents of the ZP of the Congress and office-bearers of the Congress party were present on the dais.




The city police on Thursday took Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Pratap Simha and activists of pro-Hindu organisations into custody for staging a protest in front of the Deputy Commissioners office. The agitation was being held as part of a state-wide protest against Tipu Jayanti celebrations.





Both the DCs office and the Kalamandira  the venues of the protest by BJP members and the celebrations respectively  had turned into fortresses. While movement of people was banned on all roads leading to the DCs office, with blockades, people were welcome at the Kalamandira, but under the watchful eyes of the Police personnel. As a preventive measure, the police arrested nearly 35 people who were demanding that the state government suspend Tipu Jayanti celebrations.



Former MLC Go Madhusudhan alleged that Tipu had written to Afghanistan King Ahmad Shah Abdali to attack India. Tipu was anti-India, he had killed thousands of Kodavas, Nayaka community people and several Christians, he stated and alleged that the state government, led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, was celebrating the jayanti to appease Muslims.



The police took all the agitators into custody and led them to the City Armed Reserve (CAR) grounds after they refused to withdraw the protest. Former minister and MLC C H Vijayashankar, Deputy Mayor Vanita Prasanna, and Karnataka State Hotel Owners Association president M Rajendra were present.



As a precautionary measure, the police had obtained surety from 96 persons and had also installed CCTV cameras at sensitive areas. Meanwhile, security was beefed up in parts of the city. Three deputy commissioners of police and two assistant commissioners of police supervised the security arrangements. The police had deputed 680 home guards, four Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) and City Armed Reserve (CAR) battalions, 30 commandos and 20 mounted police and other police force to maintain law and order in the city. The police stated that no untoward incident had been reported during the celebrations in the city.


The Supreme Court on Thursday held as unconstitutional a Punjab law that had scrapped agreements entered with Haryana and other states for sharing waters of the Ravi and the Beas.



A five-judge Constitution bench presided over by Justice Anil R Dave ruled that a state government, which is party to the agreement, cannot unilaterally decide to nullify the effect of a decree passed by the highest court of the country.



The state of Punjab cannot discharge itself from its obligation which arises from the judgement and decree dated January 15, 2002, and the judgement and order dated January 4, 2004, of the apex court, the bench, also comprising Justices P C Ghose, Shiva Kirti Singh, Adarsh K Goel and Amitava Roy, said.



Giving its opinion under Article 143 of the Constitution, on a reference made by the President, the apex court invalidated the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act 2004, passed with an intention to terminate the agreement of December 31, 1981 and other arrangements made over sharing of waters of rivers Ravi and Beas.



The state of Punjab had exceeded its legislative power...and therefore, the Punjab Act cannot be said to be a validly enacted legislation, the court held.



In his separate and concurring judgement, Justice Singh said, No government, whether central or state, can usurp the power of adjudicating disputes vested in the judiciary...the exercise of judicial power cannot be set at naught by the process of legislative declaration in respect of facts and circumstances.



By its judgement of 2004, the apex court had then directed the Centre to ensure construction of Sutlej Yamuna Link canal (SYL) in Punjab for sharing of water with Haryana, besides Rajasthan, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh.



Noting somewhat disturbing facts, Justice Singh said, delay in execution of a final judgement should never be countenanced by any authority because it would surely tend to undermine peoples faith in the judicial system and cause avoidable harm to institutions and the Constitution.



On March 14 this year, even as the apex court began hearing the Presidents reference on the 2004 Act, the Punjab Assembly passed the Punjab Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal (Rehabilitation and Re-vesting of Proprietary Rights) Bill which provided for the return of over 5,000 acres of land acquired from farmers for the canal.



On March 17, the apex court ordered status quo and made it clear that it would not be relegated to the status of a silent spectator by any state Assembly. The court had further appointed the Union Home Secretary, Punjab's Chief Secretary and Director General of Police as joint receivers to ensure no alterations were made in the canal structure and related properties.
In a bid to strengthen his partys base in North Karnataka districts, JD(S) state president H D Kumaraswamy said he will set up a temporary base in Hubballi to have easier access to people of the region.





The house belongs to party MLA N H Konaraddis brother Sureshraddi. Kumaraswamy plans to shuttle between Bengaluru and the North Karnataka districts every 10 to 15 days in view of the next Assembly elections.



Addressing the media after chairing the party meeting with his father and party supremo H D Deve Gowda in the city, Kumaraswamy said that the primary focus of his party would be to understand the problems of farmers, especially in drought-hit districts, so that they could be highlighted during the winter session in Belagavi, scheduled to begin on November 21.



The party has asked its legislators to prepare on two major issues - Mahadayi drinking water and drought - to be raised during the 10-day session.



The party would form teams which will visit all drought-hit districts and later submit a report on the governments handling of the problems.



He would himself tour a few districts, before taking part in the house-warming ceremony in Hubballi on November 18. On November 19 and 20, he will participate in the partys convention in Muddebihal and Devara Hipparagi.



The convention is being organised to address the plight of Vijayapura farmers, who have suffered heavy crop damage.



As the partys core committee has become defunct, a decision had been taken to reconstitute a 23-member core committee, headed by Deve Gowda. The party would also appoint new office bearers shortly.



Kumaraswamy said his party would not align with either the Congress or the BJP to fight the next elections, but would instead highlight the failures of both national parties, both at the national and state levels.


The Centres move to scrap 500 and 1,000 denomination notes might have left the citizenry in a tizzy, but it is also likely to pull the plug on terror outfits, many of which use counterfeit notes.





Officials with the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and other agencies believe the effort will have a staggering effect on such groups.



The largest seizure of fake Indian currency notes (FICN) came on March 3, 2015, when the Special Task Force (STF) of the Kolkata Police seized counterfeit notes with a street value of Rs 10 crore. Related arrests revealed that small-time trader Chandrashekhar Jaiswal was running a note-printing factory using his scrap iron business as a front. Besides FICN, he was also printing the euro, Singapore dollar and Thai baht.



Having established possible terror links to Jaiswals network, STF handed the case to NIA.



The NIA has been probing a number of similar cases, including the one unearthed in Hyderabad in February 2015, where the kingpin, Morjen Hussein, is a resident of West Bengal. During the probe, the agencies found that Jaiswal was part of a bigger network that gave him access to imported paper, which was sourced from Pakistan and Bangladesh.



The ink came from Bangladesh through the largely porous border at Malda in north Bengal, officials said. While Jaiswal used his front to buy old currency-printing machines from the RBI on tender, investigators did not rule out the involvement of RBI employees. They also surmised that the dice Jaiswal used was the same one stolen from RBI in 2014, along with large volumes of silver security threads.



According to NIA officials, while the street value of FICN seized from across India in 2014 was more than Rs 17 crore, the agency intercepted a number of operations till May 2016 and seized high-quality FICN with street value of more than Rs 1 crore from Malda and Murshidabad districts. Even Rs 20 lakh in fake notes seized from a person at the Old Delhi railway station in February 2015 entered through West Bengal and was being transported for distribution.



Agencies like NIA, which keep track of counterfeit notes, zeroed in on West Bengal as the entry point for such currency through the India-Bangladesh border.



Sources pointed out that scrapping of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will deal a blow to outfits like Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, currently the most active terror group inside India. Agencies will have respite for at least two years till the new notes are forged. We expect to find large volumes of FICN anonymously dumped throughout India over the next few days, an official said.
Prodded by the Prime Ministers Office, scientific departments have joined hands to form a corporation that would seek to substantially reduce Indias tuberculosis burden by 2025five years ahead of the global target.



With 28-30 lakh new cases and 1,000 deaths daily, tuberculosis has emerged as Indias biggest public health threat, but its eradication receives relatively less support from the government.



Being a party to the World Health Organisations End TB by 2030 strategy, India is committed to lower the incidence and death figures over the next 15 years.



But the PMO has now asked the health ministry to quicken the target by five years. We have circulated an internal note within the government for financial approval of Rs 350 crore to set up a non-profit company to be named Indian TV Research and Development Corporation (ITRDC) for this task, Soumya Swamanithan, director general of Indian Council of Medical Research told DH.



To be set up as a Section 25 unit under the Indian Companies Act, 1956, that allows setting up of such non-profit corporations, the upcoming entity will be housed in the health ministry. Its main task will be to substantially cut down on TB incidence and death by 2025.



Half of the TB patients are outside the government programme. We will have to reach out to the private sector to work out a strategy acceptable to them, she said. In 2012, the health ministry made TB a notifiable disease with the hope of better reporting from vast Indian private healthcare sector, which is the first pit stop for a large number of patients.



The initial response was poor, but between 2013-15, there was 34% increase in notification. We dont know the quality of treatment in the private sector. But rather than condemning them, we need to work together to upgrade their (private sector) capacity and improve the quality of treatment, said Barry Bloom, distinguished service professor at Harvard University and chair of the ITRDC Scientific Advisory panel.




Tight security arrangements were made for Tipu Jayanti at the Banquet hall of Vidhana Soudha on Thursday.





To check untoward incidents, invitees were made to undergo multiple security checks.



Only those with invitation cards for the event and media accreditation cards were allowed inside the Banquet hall. So much so that two journalists wearing black T-shirt were asked to disclose their identity by the police, who thought that the two men in black might stage a protest at the event. The journalists were allowed to enter the Banquet hall only after they disclosed their identity.



With tight security in place, the event witnessed a poor turnout.



The BJP and a section of people from Kodagu had been vehemently opposing the governments decision to organise Tipu Jayanti. The BJP had threatened to stage a protest at the Vidhana Soudha, opposing the fete.



Though the government had invited the Opposition leaders in both the Houses of the legislature, Jagadish Shettar and K S Eshwarappa and Bangalore Central MP P C Mohan (all from the BJP), none of them attended the event. Even the Legislative Council Chairman D H Shankarmurthy was absent.



Congress leader C M Ibrahim attended the event, surprising many in the political circles. Ibrahim, vice-chairman of State Planning Board, had recently criticised Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and praised the JD(S) leader H D Deve Gowda.



A section of Congress leaders had been demanding that the party should take action against him. Though Ibrahim, once a close confidant of Siddaramaiah shared the dais with the chief minister, the two did not even exchange greetings.


India will not take part in an arbitration initiated by the World Bank to resolve its dispute with Pakistan over two hydroelectric projects proposed to be built on cross-border rivers.





New Delhi decided against taking part in the process after the World Bank accepted Islamabads request to set up a Court of Arbitration under the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) to resolve India-Pakistan dispute over the proposed Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects.



New Delhi had asked the World Bank to first appoint a neutral expert under the IWT itself to resolve the dispute, instead of setting up a Court of Arbitration as sought by Pakistan.



Neutral expert

The World Bank, however, decided to go ahead to appoint a Neutral Expert as well as to set up a Court of Arbitration.



It was pointed (out) by the Government (of India) to the World Bank that the pursuit of two parallel difference or dispute resolution mechanisms  appointment of a Neutral Expert and establishment of a Court of Arbitration  at the same time would be legally untenable, Vikas Swarup, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, said on Thursday.



Inexplicably, he added, the World Bank has decided to continue to proceed with these two parallel mechanisms simultaneously.



India cannot be party to actions which are not in accordance with the Indus Waters Treaty, said Swarup. The government will examine further options and take steps accordingly.



The World Bank brokered the negotiation between India and Pakistan on the IWT, which was finally signed by the two nations in 1960. The IWT provided a legal framework to India and Pakistan for managing the water resources of the cross-border rivers. The World Bank continued to play the role of treaty administrator.




A day before India and Japan is to sign a civil nuclear cooperation pact, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has triggered a controversy when he said that the country should not get into the first use debate with regard to nuclear weapons.



Why should I bind myself? I should say I am a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly. This is my (personal) thinking, Parrikar said

A defence ministry spokesperson clarified that what the minister stated was in his personal capacity and did not reflect the governments official position.



he no first use policy with the nukes was put in place by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government after five successful nuclear tests at Pokhran in May 1998.



While Pakistan too tested its nuclear weapons within days of the Indian test, Islamabad never announced any policy on the use of nukes.



Media will publish that the nuclear policy has changed. It has not changed in government. It is my concept. As an individual I also get feeling. I am not saying you have to use it first, Parrikar said at a book release function here on Thursday. Interestingly, the BJP in its 2014 election manifesto stated that if comes to power it would study in detail Indias nuclear doctrine, and revise and update it, to make it relevant to challenges of current times.



Stressing on the importance of unpredictability in strategic affairs, Parrikar said, Hoax can be called off. Prior to the surgical strike, the Pakistan defence minister used to threaten India with the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons. From the day surgical strike happened, no threat has come. They realised that we can do something which is not well defined.



What he (Parrikar) said was that India being a responsible power should not get into first use debate. But once again it is clarified that this was his personal opinion, pointed out the defence ministry spokesperson.



The ministers statement comes hours before New Delhi and Tokyo are to ink an agreement on nuclear cooperation, which was in the works for several years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reached Tokyo and the pact is expected to be signed on Friday after the summit meeting between Modi and Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.



Once realised, the Indo-Japan agreement would clear the decks for bilateral cooperation in peaceful use of atomic energy.



A nuclear deal with Japan  the only country that experienced the devastation by atomic bombs  is important for India, as it would be yet another sign of global acknowledgement of New Delhi's impeccable non-proliferation record.
When bank staff reported for work on Thursday morning, they were staggered by the queues, some a full kilometre long.





It was the first day people could exchange their Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for crisp new ones. Banks across India had remained closed on Wednesday to prepare for the transition.



Two days after the government junked high-denomination notes, customers were on a short fuse.



People waited for hours, and many got mint-fresh notes, but quite a few went back disappointed when the banks ran out of supplies.



Some banks served only those who held accounts with them, and that led to frustration among visitors who had assumed they could go to any bank and resolve their currency woes. (In fact, they can, according to the Reserve Bank of India.)

Arguments broke out between customers and bank employees at several places. We have limited currency, and must help our customers first, an employee of South Indian Bank said.



Only in English

The mandatory forms to exchange cash were in English, and proved a hurdle to those who couldnt write the language.



K Manjula, a domestic help, went to Corporation Bank in Indiranagar early in the day. I have to be at work by 11.30 am, but looking by the queue, I suspect I wont make it in time, she said. She needed money to repay a loan. Unable to read English, she sought help to fill the exchange form.





Similarly, Basavaraj, a daily-wage worker, waited helplessly to catch the attention of bank staff. I have studied only till Class IV. I only know to sign my name, he said.

Some banks had assigned staff to help customers who needed help with the forms.



Sorry, no stocks

Where supplies were low, banks were accepting deposits and refusing to exchange notes.



Turned away from a branch of HDFC Bank, Bala Murali, a software engineer, said, They say currency will be brought in only in the afternoon.



The branch did not receive money even in the afternoon and asked its customers to leave their phone numbers so that it could notify them when supplies arrived.

Banks that served all walk-ins, like a branch of Indian Overseas Bank, were out of currency before noon.
Cracking down on illegal currency exchange operators, tax officials conducted large and simultaneous raids in four places, including Delhi, Mumbai and Punjab.





Officials said those under the scanner were jewellers, money launderers or hawala dealers and those privately handling currency exchange. Acting on inputs that they were offering foreign currencies in exchange for Rs 500 and 1,000 notes that can no longer be used for transactions, tax sleuths raided Delhis Chawri Bazar and Mumbais Kalbadevi localities where the operators were active since Wednesday. On Tuesday, the government scrapped the high-denomination notes to crack down on black money and fake currency.



Intelligence agencies told the finance ministry officials that there was surge in hawala transactions for routing undeclared and untaxed money for conversion into legitimate money or assets.



These activities picked up after the government said deposits of the old notes up to Rs 2.5 lakh will not be taxed, but larger amounts will be taxed if they dont match the individuals declared income. On Thursday, Modi took to Twitter to assert that his government was unwavering in its efforts to create an India that is corruption-free. It is also heartening to learn that people are actively volunteering to help senior citizens withdraw money and exchange their currency. Such warmth, enthusiasm and the patience to bear limited inconvenience for a greater good is indeed very heartening, Modi further tweeted.






People from all walks of life visited the homes of actors Anil Kumar and Raghav Uday, who drowned in the Thippagondanahalli reservoir while shooting the Kannada film Mastigudi on Monday, to pay their last respects on Thursday.



Udays body, which was retrieved on Wednesday, was taken in a procession around 11 am on Thursday before being carried to the Hindu Rudra Bhoomi in Banashankari, south Bengaluru. His elder brother, Balaraj, performed the last rites. Uday was buried next to his uncles grave.



Kumars body was retrieved in the early hours of Thursday and brought to his house in Kadirenahalli, south Bengaluru, around 12.30 pm for people to pay their last respects.



He was buried in the Hindu Rudra Bhoomi, next to his fathers grave.

Kannada actors Puneeth Rajkumar, Darshan Thoogudeepa, Thriller Manju and Sa Ra Govindu, politicians R Ashoka, Dinesh Gundu Rao and T A Saravana were among those who paid their last respects to the deceased actors.



Tejaswi, a childhood friend of the actors, said, Anil and Uday used to be together always. Even in death, they held each others hand. Today, they are not there but their memories will stay with us.



Actor Duniya Vijay befriended Verma as he regularly visited his small gym in Kadirenahalli.



Uday also got to know Vijay and became friends with him, Tejaswi said. Kumars friends kept their businesses in Kadirenahalli closed until his funeral got over, he added.



Meanwhile, a court in Ramanagaram released the director of Mastigudi, Sundar P Gowda, for four hours so that he could attend Udays funeral. Gowda was arrested by the Tavarekere police on Tuesday night for culpable homicide and is in judicial custody.


Paul Ogatas quick, animated delivery of clever material won him the prestigious 32nd Annual San Francisco International Comedy Competition, while Arun Govada took over the internet with his viral hit on YouTube, Sh*t My Indian Parents Say.

The two stand up artistes are now coming together to perform as part of an act presented by award-winning comedian, Vasu Primlani. In a chat with Metrolife, the duo talks about professional challenges, and why being comedy artistes is a feasible career option today.

Excerpts:



What got you interested in the world of comedy?



Paul: When I was a kid, I wanted to be a magician. But I realised that magic is all about lies, whereas comedy was truth  a weird epiphany for an 11-year-old to have. The laughs I got from words and ideas were pure, and I didnt have to buy tricks or wear a silly hat.



Arun: I was always the guy in my friend circle that went out of his way to make newcomers feel comfortable. Five years ago when I was living between Hong Kong and Shanghai we had a season of a lot of newcomers and one friend in the group one day said to me, Dude you literally tell the same jokes every day. At that point I didnt realise I was telling jokes, I thought I was just being friendly. Out of confusion, I walked in to an open-mic down the road and asked to tell a joke for the first time on stage. The rest is history!



Stand-up in India involves taking a dig at ones race and culture. How different is it on the international stage?



Paul: I grew up in Hawaii, where comedy derived from much the same fertile grounds as stand-up acts in India. Its very similar throughout Asia. In Western countries, however, it can largely revolve around situational observations parsed through the comics point of view. And a needlessly large number of Tinder jokes.



Arun: I was born in the US, grew up in Hong Kong and am ethnically Indian. My life is a dig at race, culture, and associated stereotypes and habits.



Ever been criticised or taken in negative by the public or authorities? How do you deal with such situations?



Paul: The government of a small town in China once barred a show of mine from taking place because they were afraid of jokes I had not even said yet. What can you do but move on to where you are welcomed. Youre always going to get at least one person in the audience who will complain. A great comedian once said, I dont know the secret to success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everyone.



Arun: Not as of yet, although one time in Hyderabad during a show I was making a point about India and some drunk lady at the back said What do you know you are an NRI! I looked at her and said, First, I live in Hyderabad now. Second, where do you live? She muttered San Francisco under her breath. I laughed.



What is the most challenging part about being a stand-up artiste?



Paul: I am my own worst critic. The one person who shouts the most destructive things at me during my shows is the one I cannot escape nor quash.



Arun: Maintaining real, relatable or interesting new life experiences that you can talk about on stage while still performing as much as you can.



Describe yourself in one word.



Paul: Contumaciously puerile.



Arun: Culturally-confused.



Many stand-up artistes use social media to express themselves. Your views on the power and reach of the medium.



Paul: With each new technological advancement, from the printing press to the internet, we are given greater platforms for reaching our audiences. But with larger signal comes greater noise. So yes, there is much stand up on the internet, but there are exponentially more cat videos.



Arun: Social media and the internet in general are now the way to access content globally. The challenge is to connect with the public regularly so that they dont forget about you and come out to shows when you are in their town.



Which stand-up artiste from India do you enjoy performing?



Paul: Papa CJ was the first comedian from India I had ever seen. Dude is very intelligent on stage, which can be a difficult feat to pull off when the punters are largely drunk, but he makes it work.



Arun: Of the few Ive seen live, I like Sanjay Manaktala and Vasu Primlani, both equally American and equally Indian. As a non-Hindi speaker, I find that their sense of humour is universal and resonates with a global audience.



What makes for a perfect stand-up act?



Paul: You need to be likeable on stage. You need relatable material. Your punchlines must be deliciously unexpected. Many comics have only one of these. Good comics have two. Great comics have all three. I have zero.



Arun: You also need the audience on your side, but then surprise them to keep them on their toes. Its almost like dating 150 people at the same time.



Is being a stand-up artist a feasible career option today?



Paul: I saw Russell Peters house. In Malibu. Where Pierce Brosnan, Robert Downey Jr. and Matthew McConaughey all have homes. If youre living next to James Bond and Iron Man, youre doing alright.



Arun: Definitely! Especially in Asia where the demand is currently higher than the supply!



The duo will perform at Epicentre, at Apparel House Sector 44, Gurgaon on November 11 at 7.30 pm.
Artist-turned-curator duo Sangeeta Kumar Murthy and Suchismita Sahoo will be organising I Arts second International Art Symposium by bringing together artists from across the country and the world.





As artists we have both participated in various art symposia extensively. Last year we finally decided to create a place called I Art where artists can come to India from various countries and share their knowledge and journey with Indian artists.

Simultaneously, Indian artists who are talented and passionate but have never been exposed to this kind of a platform will also get an opportunity to show what they are best at, says Murthy, who specialises in contemporary and miniature art forms.



Delhi-based Murthy describes an art symposium as a party in which attendees revel together, and discuss intellectual topics and participate in workshops like art, photography, installations, sculptures and textile.



Through workshops and discussions regarding the artists works and contemporary art forms, the symposium will focus on sharing of ideas.



Sahoo says, Its main motive is cultural exchange between countries, to share ideas in form of what an artist thinks and their inspirations to help young artists get

exposure to the technicalities and different working styles.



This time, seven artists (including sculptors) from six countries, and 11 from across India will be a part of the 10-day long symposium.



Sahoo, who is also a fine art photographer informs, A panel of architects, interior designers, sponsors and senior artists have selected these artists on the basis of their work, technicalities, experience, depth of knowledge in the subject and how they are going to utilise their thought process and create different artworks.



They can get an environment to freely create and present their work. I Art offers a variety of accommodation and equipment to support the artists.



She adds, Also the artists ability to take part in public discussions will be an important parameter. They not just have to paint or carve, they have to showcase their artworks by use of different and exceptional ideas.



Participating artists include sculptors like Lukaszk Rupski from Poland, Luka Radojevic from Serbia, painter T G Thet from Myanmar and Indian artists like Sudha Sama

(Gurgaon), Kamlesh Gandhi (Jammu and Kashmir), Ashish Bose (Kolkata) and

Rajesh Harsh (Delhi).



The symposium is beyond colours and canvas. Art can be in any form like painting, sculpture, photography, art installation or textile.



In our first edition we had only introduced painters but in our second edition we have selected artists who are into painting, sculpting as well as ceramics. Hopefully, in our coming editions we will be able to include photographers and fashion designers who can create a difference with fine art in their garments, says Sahoo.



Second International Art Symposium from November 11 to November 20 at Karma Lakelands , Sector 80, Gurgaon, from 10 am to 7.30 pm.


Voters re-elected Mayor Sherryl Parks, but ousted Councilman Al Corti from the Del Mar City Council, according to unofficial results released by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters.

As of 10 a.m. on Nov. 9, there were approximately 620,000 mail and provisional ballots still to be counted throughout the county, but with all six Del Mar precincts counted, former Mayor Dave Druker led the race with 21.95 percent of the vote, followed by newcomer Ellie Haviland with 19.43 percent and incumbent Parks with 19.22 percent.

Challengers T. Pat Stubbs and Jim Benedict followed with 15.39 percent and 13.30 percent of the vote, respectively. Incumbent Corti received 10.70 percent of the vote.

There were three open seats on the council, with Councilman Don Moiser deciding not to run for re-election. Parks and Corti, who were both elected to the council in 2012, were seeking second terms.

If the trend continues as it is, its pretty clear that the three of us will be seated at the Council Chambers, said Parks, who has lived in Del Mar for more than 40 years.

The Old Guard or the community that has shaped Del Mar for 30 years was actually given a plebiscite to continue, she said. Were on the right track.

Druker, who has lived in Del Mar since 1986, served on the council, including three terms as mayor, from 1996 to 2008. He currently serves as executive vice president of DataSkill, a local technology company.

I feel very honored that Del Mar has again given me the privilege of serving them, Druker said. I feel very honored that Del Mar voters understood the importance of keeping Del Mar, Del Mar.

Haviland worked as an executive in the health care industry for 17 years. She currently serves on the citys Planning Commission.

I am really happy and I am honored to have won, said Haviland, who first moved to Del Mar about 30 years ago when she studied at UC San Diego. She moved back 18 years ago.

I have a lot of respect for my fellow council members and newly elected ones, she said. I think weve got a nice diversity of ideas and views, and I think it will make a really healthy, productive council. I think were going to be a good team for Del Mar.
Del Mar voters approved a measure that will increase the citys sales tax by one percent, while voting against another measure that would have required residents to approve sizable developments.

As of 10 a.m. on Nov. 9, there were approximately 620,000 mail and provisional ballots still to be counted throughout the county, but with all six Del Mar precincts counted, Measure Q was adopted by 67.30 percent of voters on Nov. 8, according to unofficial results released by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters. The measure received 1,027 Yes votes and 499 No votes, increasing Del Mars sales tax by one cent to help cover the costs of various city services and infrastructure projects.

A one-cent sales tax increase is estimated to generate about $2 million annually for the general fund.

The finance committee initially proposed the sales tax increase earlier this year as a way to help pay to underground utility poles throughout the city. The council later decided that revenues could also help pay for other projects, such as implementing the Shores Park master plan and improving streetscapes.

Supporters said the measure would create a way for visitors to help pay for some of the city services and infrastructure. Many local business owners, however, opposed the measure and argued it would create a burden on local businesses.

About 30 local business owners signed a petition opposing the measure. KC Vafiadis, owner of the Stratford Square Building, submitted the petition at the July 18 Del Mar City Council, when council members unanimously voted to move forward with the measure.

Del Mar voters appear to have defeated Measure R, which would have required voter approval for proposed development projects in a commercial zone that are 25,000 square feet or larger, allow a density bonus or require a specific plan or zoning code change.

The measure, with all six precincts counted, was defeated by nearly 52.69 percent of voters on Nov. 8, according to unofficial results released by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters. The measure received 792 No votes and 711 Yes votes.

The measure was backed by opponents of Watermark Del Mar, a 48-unit multifamily complex planned for the corner of Jimmy Durante Boulevard and San Dieguito Drive.

Opponents circulated a petition and submitted it to the city and the San Diego County Registrar of Voters in May with 505 signatures from residents supporting the ballot measure. Only 286 signatures, representing 10 percent of the registered voters in the city, were needed to qualify the measure for the general election.

After the signatures were confirmed by the Registrar of Voters in June, the council in July agreed to put the initiative on the November ballot rather than adopt an ordinance they did not support.

Supporters of Measure R said that voters should have a say in the community.

Opponents argued that the measure conflicts with the citys general plan and state housing regulations. In a legal analysis of the initiative, Assistant City Attorney Barry Schultz found multiple conflicts with state law.

According to the report, the initiative potentially conflicts with the councils administrative authority and single subject rule. The report stated that the initiative also appears to be inconsistent with planning and zoning documents, including the community plan, housing element, zoning code, Measure B  a similar voter-approved law in place that governs large developments in the downtown area  and the local coastal program. Finally, there could have been fiscal impacts associated with implementation of the initiative if it had passed, according to the report.

Of all six council candidates, only former Mayor Dave Druker supported the measure. Druker led the candidate race with 21.95 percent of the vote.

The ability for people to have the right to vote on major projects is still a very solid, contentious issue, Druker said. I think the council needs to be cautious as it looks at major projects.
Voters re-elected Mayor David Zito along with newcomers Judy Hegenauer and Jewel Edson to the Solana Beach City Council, according to unofficial results released by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters.

As of 10 a.m. on Nov. 9, there were approximately 620,000 mail and provisional ballots still to be counted throughout the county, but with all 14 Solana Beach precincts counted, Zito led the race with 24.17 percent of the vote. Hegenauer received 21.45 percent of the vote and Edson received 21.23 percent of the vote.

Challengers Cynthia Walsh and Chris Hohn followed with 12.89 percent and 12.57 percent of the vote, respectively. Challenger Edward Siegel received 7.70 percent of the vote.

There were three open seats on the council, with incumbents Lesa Heebner and Peter Zahn deciding not to run for re-election. Zito, who was first elected to the council in 2012, was seeking his second term.

Im really honored to be able to serve another term, said Zito, who has lived in Solana Beach for 25 years. He has worked at Hewlett-Packard, now known as HP Inc., for more than 20 years.

The election results are showing that, in general, the residents of Solana Beach are very happy with how things have been going, he added. They are looking for more of the same, and for things to keep improving and getting better.

Hegenauer has lived in Solana Beach for 45 years and was among the group of citizens who sought cityhood. The community recently celebrated Solana Beachs 30th anniversary, as the city was incorporated in 1986.

I ran to continue the mission and vision of over 30 years ago for self-control for the city of Solana Beach, said Hegenauer, who worked as a teacher for 12 years and worked as a director of statewide multi-agency education programs for 15 years. Thats the direction I want to take.

Hegenauer currently serves on the citys Climate Action Commission and was a founding member of the Solana Beach Clean and Green Committee. She has also been an active volunteer and member of the Solana Beach Civic and Historical Society for a decade, serving three terms as president.

Edson, who moved to Solana Beach in 1997, has served on the citys View Assessment Commission for 11 years. She previously served on the Solana Beach Chamber of Commerce Board and San Diego County District 3 Community Grant Review Panel. She currently owns and operates a small business.

I am honored to have been elected to serve the residents of Solana Beach, Edson said. Id like to thank everyone who voted for me and everyone who worked so tirelessly to make my campaign a success.

I look forward to reinforcing all of the qualities that make our city a great place to live and to representing all residents of Solana Beach as their City Councilmember, she added.
Voters strongly supported a $105 million bond measure to replace and upgrade Solana Beach School District facilities.

As of 10 a.m. on Nov. 9, there were approximately 620,000 mail and provisional ballots still to be counted throughout the county, but with all precincts counted, voters passed Measure JJ with nearly 66 percent of the vote. The measure received 6,655 Yes votes and 3,506 No votes.

We are very appreciative of the support the community has shown for our schools, for our students, Superintendent Terry Decker said.

Founded in 1925, Solana Beach School District has seven elementary schools and a child development center. In 2014, the district opened its seventh school, Solana Ranch Elementary School, in Pacific Highlands Ranch. Other schools, however, opened decades ago and need to be updated or completely replaced.

The bond will replace or upgrade outdated classrooms, science labs, libraries and school buildings; restore deteriorating roofs, plumbing and electrical systems; improve student safety and campus security; and provide students access to educational facilities, science and technology needed to prepare for high school, college and careers.

Our community places a high value on education and wants to be sure our students have everything they need to be successful, Decker said.

Under Proposition 39, general obligation bonds require a 55 percent voter approval and limit tax rates to $30 per $100,000 in assessed home value. Measure JJ represents an increase of $272 per year for the average homeowner in the Solana Beach School District.

To ensure transparency, Prop 39 requires an independent oversight committee of citizens. In addition, there are annual reports and audits that will come before the school board.

Following the certification of the election results, the district will have 60 days to establish the committee of citizens.

We certainly recognize that we have a responsibility to ensure that the funds are managed effectively and they are used to improve the learning environments for our students, Decker said. Its something we take very seriously.

Solana Beach School District plans to start with the reconstruction of Skyline and the modernization of Solana Highlands.

Skyline was built in 1955 and modernized in 2000. The school opened just one year after the old Earl Warren Middle School across the street, which San Dieguito Union High School District is currently rebuilding with use of its Proposition AA funds, a general obligation bond that passed in 2012.

District staff plans to submit its plans for these projects to the Division of the State Architect this fall. The Division of State Architect provides design and construction oversight for K-12 schools, community colleges, and various other state-owned and leased facilities.

We made the choice as a district to begin the planning process, Decker said prior to the vote. Were investing upfront in the planning so that if the community supports us with a bond, we can move forward with construction.

It puts our children into newer facilities just that much more quickly. It also helps to show our community that were very serious about making inroads on these needs and getting things done in a timely manner.

The district would receive its first bond issuance in spring 2017.

If plans are approved by spring 2017, construction could begin in June 2017, with the new Skyline to open in fall 2018. Solana Highlands would be modernized over the summer of 2017, with most updates completed by fall 2018.

Meanwhile, the district would begin planning for its next round of projects in fall 2017.

The district would receive its second bond issuance in spring 2019. Funds would help redesign and reconstruct 45-year-old Solana Vista and modernize Solana Santa Fe.

After that were into modernization and smaller projects, Decker said.

A statewide $9 billion school construction bond called Proposition 51 was also on the ballot. The measure was leading 52.87 percent to 47.13 percent, according to election returns at 10 a.m. on Nov. 9.

With approval of this bond, school districts will be able to qualify for matching funds for facilities projects. Solana Beach School District will be eligible for $20 million in matching funds so its $105 million could turn into $125 million.

That will extend our opportunities and just add to what we can do for schools around the district, Decker said.
If there were only one school board meeting to attend all year, San Dieguitos on Nov. 3 was it.

About 100 people squeezed into the San Dieguito Union High School District board room that night, most there to protest the sudden resignation for retirement purposes of Torrey Pines High School AP Physics teacher William Harvie.

Harvie, who resigned unexpectedly on Monday, Oct. 24, has been with the district for over 30 years and is by all accounts a dedicated physics teacher who inspires students with his innovative curriculum and engaging teaching style.

Hes received numerous awards and recognition, including being named one of MITs 2014 Inspirational Teachers.

When news broke of the sudden resignation, everyone seemed to have a different theory as to the reason. But no one, except a few school board members and district administrators, believed it was entirely voluntary.

He cared too much about his students to just walk away suddenly, said current and former students.

There is no way he simply retired, read a Facebook post from a Torrey Pines student. He loved Torrey Pines so much and he would have said something to us.

A movement was born, and within a week a petition to bring back Harvie had garnered over 700 signatures.

Dozens of letters were written to school board members from current students, alumni and parents, demanding an explanation. Some called for an independent investigation, suspecting Harvie was the victim of political retribution for his conservative views.

And conservative he is.

From the RateMyTeachers.com site, a student wrote in 2015: My only complaint is that his daily motivational speeches become radically conservative (politically and economically) by the end of the year.

Said another: Mr. Harvie wastes a shocking amount of time on unrelated content  almost all of which is politically-fueled conservatism 

A 2013 article in the San Diego Reader on weekly protests near General Atomics over drone use in warfare includes a photo of Harvie, who is identified as the lone counter-protester at one particular protest.

One of Harvies signs in the photo read, God bless General Atomics.

Putting to rest the rumor that he volunteered at the school, Harvies salary, according to Interim Superintendent Eric Dill, was $125,797 on the day he resigned.

Hes given cash donations to many conservative causes.

Harvie was one of only a handful of teachers who is not a member of the San Dieguito Faculty Association, the teachers union for SDUHSD, which may explain why the union didnt rush to defend him.

Given all this, one gets the impression that Harvie is not intimidated or shy about standing up for his beliefs.

Some would argue, legitimately, that its inappropriate for teachers to espouse their personal political viewpoints in the classroom, regardless of which direction they lean.

There are valid claims that Harvies off-topic digressions leave some students feeling uncomfortable, belittled and alienated. And thats unacceptable.

Former TPHS student Nada Al-Alusi, in a Facebook post Nov. 6, said how Harvies bigoted and hateful rant in the second week of class with him when she was a junior four years ago left me in tears.

Al-Alusi, a Muslim and now a student at UC Berkeley, said Harvie violated the safe, inclusive space that all classrooms should be, using his classroom as a platform to propagate racist ideologies.

She said she avoided taking AP Physics C, even though that was her interest, because Harvie was the only teacher for that class.

The counter-balance is that he inspired so many students to love physics and provided a path to understanding a complex subject in remarkably clear and poignant ways.

Id like to believe that the pro-Harvie students were able to separate his personal views from his ability to teach physics and make a difficult subject fascinating and accessible. They respect him as a teacher, overlooking his politics  enough to fight for his return.

But he is clearly a man not without flaws.

People are more than one-dimensional. Perhaps for so many students it is possible to overlook a persons negative aspects in favor of a deep appreciation for those universal qualities that inspire us to believe in ourselves and reach for the stars.

Core beliefs

The actual catalyst for Harvies unexpected announcement may never be revealed. The district wont discuss confidential personnel matters, and so far Harvie isnt talking.

What is known is that mid-year resignations, without some explanation and the normal two weeks notice, are highly unusual.

Wearing their newly minted Harvie T-shirts, student after student stood up and spoke at the Nov. 3 school board meeting about their love and respect for their teacher and their disbelief that he would suddenly choose to retire.

TPHS senior Ben Ehrlich said Harvies abrupt decision does not reflect his core beliefs.

Student Zach Brumm said the board should offer Harvie his position back. If he declines, then we will know the truth, he said.

Student Jacob Brumm said Harvie mentioned in class that he was having issues with the administration, and said the classes, with Harvie gone, are stagnant and devoid of learning.

Parents spoke as well, many of whom called upon the board to launch an independent investigation and to reconsider accepting the resignation.

Parent Anna Stepanenko called his impact on the students immeasurable and said the loss pains and saddens the entire community.

What concerns her most, she said, is that no effort was made to convince him to reconsider.

Marie LeRose asked board members to call Harvie and offer him his job back, saying they owe it to the students.

The only voice to speak on behalf of the administration and TPHS principal Rob Coppo was Torrey Pines social science teacher Lars Trupe, who said there was no conspiracy to drive Harvie out and that Torrey Pines is more than a single person.

Trupe said there is no one better to lead Torrey Pines than Coppo, a comment not well-received by the crowd.

Coppo was said to have disagreed with Harvie over a number of scheduling and enrollment issues and was the last to meet with him when Harvie submitted his resignation.

When asked for his reaction to the Harvie incident, Coppo wrote in an email that he was focused on moving beyond the events of the last two weeks and working to get the school back on track in a lot of areas.

Breaking eggs

While the students sat respectfully in the front rows at the Nov. 3 board meeting, adults shouted, booed and cheered trustees during their discussion.

Raucous San Dieguito board meetings are a rarity for a school board that nearly always votes quietly and with little controversy  even when votes are now often 3-2.

The frequent interruptions may not have been civil and may have set a bad example for the kids in the room, but disruption and civil disobedience are sometimes the only way to effect change. If everyone had sat peacefully, its doubtful the audience would have had their way.

Its said that you have to break some eggs to make an omelet.

At times the meeting seemed poised to spin out of control, but board president Beth Hergesheimer never exercised her right to clear the room.

After a lengthy discussion peppered by numerous audience interruptions, it was clear that initially only board members Mo Muir and John Salazar were refusing to accept Harvies resignation.

Student board member Isaac Gelman, representing Torrey Pines High School, asked trustees if it was fully disclosed in closed session what happened between Harvie and Coppo in the meeting on Oct. 24 when Harvie resigned. Trustees said yes.

Later, Isaac, wise beyond his years, commented that what troubled him is that two board members, referring to Muir and Salazar, did not appear to be satisfied with the explanation.

So whether it was a change of heart or political considerations, trustees Joyce Dalessandro and Amy Herman eventually sided with Muir and Salazar  another rarity  and voted not to accept the resignation.

Hergesheimer was the sole yes vote, saying she was satisfied with the explanation provided by the district.

As everyone now knows, after the 4-1 vote, Harvie was called and offered his job back, which he accepted. So, after a two-week absence, Harvie returned to his classroom Nov. 7.

Gap in learning

Torrie Norton, San Dieguitos associate superintendent of human resources, said it is unprecedented for the board not to accept an employees resignation, something she said shes never encountered.

If Harvie had refused to return, she said the resignation would have come back to the board at the next meeting.

The two weeks Harvie was out were initially recorded as retirement, Norton said, but will be changed to a leave of absence.

The gap in learning caused by a disastrous start to the school year is a major setback for AP Physics students applying this year to college and those intending to take the AP Physics C tests.

Each day of missed class in any AP subject is a challenge to make up. AP classes move along swiftly, and a two-week gap can be critical.

As student Jacob Brumm said, the administration is messing around with students lives. This isnt a game. Real lives are affected.

When reached for comment and asked what happened, Harvie simply said, Its the COS  Code of Silence, like the SEALs have.

Im just happy to be back to help the students in college and with their careers, Harvie told me. Students are number one with me.

Sr. Education Writer Marsha Sutton can be reached at suttonmarsha@gmail.com.
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South African B2B wireless services provider Comsol Networks has signed a frame contract agreement for terminals and hub site equipment with Intracom Telecom.

Intracom Telecom will supply its latest generation of WiBAS-OSDR, a Point-to-Multipoint (PtMP) wireless system, along with company's network management system (uni|MS). The firm is currently implementing the first phase of the five-year contract, while the total investment is estimated to reach USD 9 million.

Comsol has selected Intracom Telecom's WiBAS-OSDR at the 28 GHz frequency band after an international tender, technical evaluation and extensive field testing of the offered systems, in order to offer superior open access Layer 2 last mile connectivity services, to its growing number of corporate customers in over 200 towns across South Africa.

The product is the only one available worldwide to make full use of Comsols expanded spectrum assets, reaching up to 56 MHz channel, and advanced networking features, enabling the service provider to implement high calibre services for its subscribers with a committed turnaround time of under seven working days.

Darren Morgan, Comsol Networks Chief Operating Officer, stated: The OSDR product line offers the highest capacity per base station, allowing us to deliver exactly what the South African market wants; that is more capacity at a cheaper rate.

John Tenidis, Marketing Director of Intracom Telecom's wireless solutions portfolio, commented: Our WiBAS-OSDR provides the highest capacity in the industry, the best radio technology for uninterrupted service and the widest set of networking functions to help Comsol satisfy its strict requirements.
Donald Trump is in the White House and Silicon Valley is in great turmoil because of it. Executives from the Valley had been openly against Trumps presidency, but theyve been forced to accept the reality now. Experts say Trump being in the White House could have adverse effects on the companies in Silicon Valley. In fact, Shervin Pishevar, co-founder of Hyperloop One, even suggested that California should secede. Buzzfeed went ahead and found out that may indeed be possible.

Further, Trumps ascension to power has even been equated to Hitler. Mark Pincus, co-founder of Zynga, tweeted, Is this what it felt like when people first realized hitler could actually take power? He wasnt the only one so distraught with Trumps election, either. Pishevars secession idea was backed by Dave Morin, co-founder and CEO for social network, Path, and a well known investor in the Valley.

@shervin I was literally just going to tweet this. I'm in and will partner with you on it.  DAVE MORIN (@davemorin) November 9, 2016

While Trump hasnt spoken in detail about his technology policies, he has taken a tough stand on immigration and trade. This, in turn, could be dangerous for the US-based tech companies, which thrive on skilled labour from overseas, and drive revenues from overseas as well.

Nevertheless, in about 24 hours after the election, many have been brought back to reality. Trump is indeed the President, and while some big names in tech are still not exactly congratulating him, theyre not opposing him as strongly either.

Notably, Mark Zuckerberg, in a post on Facebook, said:

On April 12, Zuckerberg had opposed Trumps immigration policies, albeit without taking his name. I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as others, for blocking free expression, for slowing immigration, reducing trade and, in some cases around the world, even cutting access to the internet, Zuckerberg said, at the Facebooks Developer Conference.

Trump in turn had called our Zuckerberg. In his immigration plan, Trump wrote, This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg's personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities. Trump has said he wants to discourage companies from hiring employees from abroad.

While Zuckerberg steered clear of taking Trumps name in his response, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella took a more diplomatic approach. Yesterday we witnessed the democratic process in action here in the US, Nadella wrote in a LinkedIn post. The results are of importance around the world, and I know that interest is shared among Microsoft employees. We congratulate the president-elect, and look forward to working with all those elected yesterday. Our commitment to our mission and values are steadfast, and in particular fostering a diverse and inclusive culture. With that in mind and looking to the future, Brad Smith today outlined in a blog Microsofts thoughts and recommendations for the new Administration and Congress, Nadella added.

German-American entrepreneur and PayPal co-founder, Peter Thiel, was perhaps the only one rejoicing on Trumps victory. Thiel had openly backed Trump before the elections, and after the results were announced he said, Congratulations to President-elect Donald Trump. He has an awesomely difficult task, since it is long past time for us to face up to our countrys problems. Were going to need all hands on deck. According to the New York Times, Thiel will have a say in the Trump administration, but wont actually be moving to Washington.

Congratulations to President-elect Trump. He has a difficult task ahead in confronting the USA's problems.



We need all hands on deck.  Peter Thiel (@Thiel3X) November 10, 2016

While Thiel openly supported Trump, some entrepreneurs from the Valley have expressed their disappointment as well. Steve Case, founder of AOL, tweeted his surprise and disappointment at Trumps election, but also encouraged others to accept the result and work together. Interestingly, Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, hasn't yet commented on the victory. Bezos had an open tiff with Trump, when the latter accused him of using Washington Post (which Bezos owns) to damage his campaign.

I am surprised & disappointed. But now that the people have spoken, we should accept the result & work together to move the country forward.  Steve Case (@SteveCase) November 9, 2016

Only time will tell what Trumps impact on the tech industry in America will be, but it seems none of these powerful companies have any choice other than working with his right now, which is exactly what most of them are saying now as well. Interestingly, the crackdown on H1-B visas could also affect students from India, who need said visas to work in these companies in the United States. Trumps impact on the tech industry will be known over time, but it may very well affect us all.
Forget Galaxy S8, the foldable Galaxy X is the real deal with Samsung mobile!

Samsung is reportedly working on a foldable smartphone that will replace its existing flip range. Samsung recently published a patent with renders of a phone that folds into half from the middle. Sounding rather futuristic, the device is expected to hit the market somewhere in 2017.

In April, Samsung filed a patent with the Korean Intellectual Property Office for a foldable smartphone. The application has been picked up by Dutch website Galaxy Club, revealing a slim device that can actually bend. Samsung describes the device as something that can be "folded or unfolded semi automatically."

Samsung and LG are spearheading the future of bendable smartphones, but after the Galaxy Note7 debacle, Samsung might be working to ensure there is no battery issue. Samsung's biggest asset with plans for bendable devices is the availability of bendable OLED displays and the patent hints at use of a secondary display that is supposed to activate when the device is folded.

The International Business Times UK reports that the device will be Galaxy X, and host an interesting set of hinge mechanisms. The patent shows a hinge very similar to the dynamic fulcrum hinge available on Microsoft Surface Book.

Samsung already has grand plans for 2017 with the Galaxy S8 rumoured to launch with a dedicated virtual assistant, and Note7 getting a non-exploding successor. Samsung might not announce the device next year, but it is an interesting showcase of technology prowess by Samsung Electronics.
Automated Ships Ltd and Kongsberg to build first unmanned vessel

The UK's Automated Ships Ltd (an M Subs Ltd subsidiary) and Norway's Kongsberg Maritime have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to build the world's first unmanned and fully-automated vessel for offshore operations.

In January 2017, Automated Ships Ltd will contract the 'Hronn', which will be designed and built in Norway in cooperation with KONGSBERG. Sea trials will take place in Norway's newly designated automated vessel test bed in the Trondheim fjord and will be conducted under the auspices of DNV GL and the Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA). The Hronn will ultimately be classed and flagged, respectively.



Currently, only small unmanned boats are being utilised for near shore operations but there are no technical limitations to constructing large, unmanned and automated systems. The only impediments are regulatory, but with the participation of DNV GL and the NMA, and Norwegian and UK companies and institutions, it will be possible to rapidly and at low-cost be the first to market with a full-size unmanned ship.



Hronn is a light-duty, offshore utility ship servicing the offshore energy, scientific/hydrographic and offshore fish-farming industries. Its intended uses include but are not limited to: Survey, ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) and AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) Launch & Recovery, light intermodal cargo delivery and delivery to offshore installations, and open-water fish farm support. The vessel can also be utilised as a standby vessel, able to provide firefighting support to an offshore platform working in cooperation with manned vessels. Automated Ships Ltd is currently in discussion with several end-users that will act as early-adopters and to establish a base-rate for operations and secure contracts for Hronn offshore, in the near future.



Hronn will initially operate and function primarily as a remotely piloted ship, in Man-in-the-Loop Control mode, but will transition to fully automated, and ultimately autonomous operations as the control algorithms are developed concurrently during remotely piloted operations.



Automated Ships Ltd will be the primary integrator, project manager and ship-owner of this world's first fully automated and unmanned ship for commercial use. The project will leverage existing technology to develop a robust, flexible and low-cost ship to become the market leader and offer not only a capable work-boat but provide an unparalleled R&D asset for the furtherance of this emerging industry sector.



KONGSBERG's role in the project is to deliver all major marine equipment necessary for the design, construction and operation of Hronn. The leading global maritime technology manufacturer will deliver all systems for dynamic positioning and navigation, satellite and position reference, marine automation and communication. All vessel control systems including K-Pos dynamic positioning, K-Chief automation and K-Bridge ECDIS will be replicated at an Onshore Control Centre, allowing full remote operations of the Hronn.



'The advantages of unmanned ships are manifold, but primarily centre on the safe guarding of life and reduction in the cost of production and operations; removing people from the hazardous environment of at-sea operations and re-employing them on-shore to monitor and operate robotic vessels remotely, along with the significantly decreased cost in constructing ships, will revolutionise the marine industry. Automated Ships Ltd will be at the forefront of that revolution, along with its many Norwegian partners,' said Managing Director Brett A. Phaneuf of Automated Ships Ltd.



'Research, innovation and technology development are at the core of DNV GL's business-development philosophy. In general, we are widely involved in the qualification of new shipping technology. Increased automation combined with remote monitoring and control is an inevitable trend and has the potential to create safer and more efficient transport and operations at sea. This may lead to unmanned ships, as in this case, and the technologies involved also have the potential to improve the safety and efficiency of manned ships in the form of increased decision support and operational assistance. The contract that has been announced today is a brave initiative and a major step towards the realisation of these technologies, and we look forward to moving technology frontiers together with all those involved,' said Bjrn Johan Vartdal, Head of DNV GL Maritime Research.



'We are proud and excited to be part of the first project to actually realise the potential of unmanned vessels by supporting the construction of the first full size, fully operational example,' added Stene Frsund, EVP Global Sales & Marketing, Kongsberg Maritime. 'The Hronn is an incredible ship and a great example of KONGSBERG's commitment to developing autonomous and unmanned vessels. We are involved in several major projects in this field including AUTOSEA, which focuses on integrated sensor technology and fusion, and automated collision avoidance systems. KONGSBERG is also a key stakeholder in the world's first official autonomous vehicles test bed, which opened this September in the Trondheimsfjord.'



Hronn is expected to be built by Fjellstrand AS, a Norwegian shipyard with a long history of building state-of-the-art aluminium fast ferries in addition to a number of steel offshore vessels and aluminium work boats. As the builder of the world's first battery driven car ferry, 'Ampere', Fjellstrand AS is well known for taking the lead in maritime innovation and green technology.



'Fjellstrand AS has for years worked within the high-end development of new vessels. To design and build future ships with autonomic technology will be an exciting challenge, and follows the path laid from the recent building of Ampere where technology is pushed forward in good cooperation with partners,' said Morten Berhovde, Technical Director, Fjellstrand AS.

Associated Companies

 Kongsberg Digital


The project hosts a high grade mineral resource of 18.08 metric tonnes at 4.0 grams per tonne (g/t) for 2.31m ounces (Moz).



The miner has started a 4,000m scout drilling programme to demonstrate the upside of the entire district which contains approximately 104.5km strike length of veins. Only 54.8km of the veins have been trenched or mapped and only 13.2km has been drill-tested.



The programme has been designed by Dr Warren Pratt who joined the company as a geological consultant in June 2016.

Pratt helped on the La India Project on behalf of Ross Beaty, a successful mining entrepreneur who became a 7.1% shareholder in April 2016.



Chief executive Mark Child said that the companys twin strategy remains to fully permit and construct a base case 1m tonnes per annum (Mtpa), 2,800 tonnes per day (tpd) processing plant with capacity to produce 100,000 oz gold per annum from a single open pit on the La India Project and to demonstrate District-scale gold mineralisation.



Over the last 3 years, Condor has steadily conducted fieldwork to demonstrate that La India Project is a true gold District as evidenced by 104.5 km strike length of veins of which only 13.2 km have been drill tested. I am delighted that we have now prioritised several highly promising targets and are commencing scout drilling at El Cacao and Cristalito-Tatescame.

Although each is currently relatively small, we believe that both have excellent potential to host much larger gold resources, said Child.



The share price remained stable at 70p at 1123 GMT on Thursday.
It's a case of 'game over' for the iconic Rubik's Cube after an EU Court of Justice ruling on a long-running trademark dispute relating to the puzzle.

EU trademark law sought to stop a company getting a monopoly on technical solutions or functional characteristics of a product, the court ruled.

This means the cube has lost the last round of its attempt to retain an EU trademark protection. It means that those who cannot solve the cube can now make one.

Two years ago, a lower European court decided that the puzzle's distinctive surfaces and their black grid-line pattern justified an EU patent, Bloomberg reported.

But in May this year, an adviser to the higher court contended EU judges should instead back the contention of Germanys' Simba Toys GmbH.

That company alleged trademark protection was not justified on grounds because the multi-coloured cube's shaped performed a purely technical function, the news agency reported.

Rubik's cube's intellectual property rights are managed by Seven Towns, a UK company.

Intellectual property lawyer Geert Glas, of Allen & Overy LLP in Brussels, was not surprised, stating the EU court was wary of trademarks becoming competitive obstacles for others.

"I'm afraid it's game over for the owners of the Rubik's Cube," he told the news agency.

The cube is named after Hungarian inventor Erno Rubik who made it in 1974.
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has vowed to work with Donald Trump after the Republican was elected as the 45th president of the United States on Tuesday, but promised to fiercely oppose any policies that contained "racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment" sentiments.

Sanders had previously been highly critical of Trump's actions and policies during the Republican's campaign, and actively campaigned on behalf of former Democratic primary rival Hillary Clinton ahead of the election.

The New York businessman gained a comprehensive victory after a high percentage of white working and middle class Americans backed his plans to "Make America Great Again", and Sanders commented that Trump's campaign was able to speak to voters who felt unconvinced by the establishment.

"Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media," Sanders said in a statement.

"To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him," he added.

However, Sanders said that he and others stood by ready to "vigorously" oppose any policies that were against their agenda.

"To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him."

Sanders tapped into a similar feeling among voters after gaining vast amounts of support from anti-establishment voters during his contest with Clinton in the Democratic primaries.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage has claimed that he was a factor in Donald Trump winning the US presidential election on Tuesday.

The controversial politician, who stepped down as leader of the right-wing populist party only to be installed as interim head after Diana James resigned, described himself as a "catalyst" for the rise in popularity of the New York businessman.

Farage also referred to Barack Obama as a "creature" during the interview with TalkRadio, as well as making lewd jokes about British prime minister Theresa May.

"I'm the catalyst for the downfall of the Blairites, the Clintonites, the Bushites, and all these dreadful people who work hand in glove with Goldman Sachs and everybody else, have made themselves rich, and ruined our countries," Farage said during the interview. "I couldn't be happier."

Farage appeared with Trump on the campaign trail after backing the Brexit campaign which pioneered Britain's prospective departure from the European Union.

"That Obama creature  loathsome individual  he couldn't stand our country. He said we'd be at the back of the queue, didn't he?"

He went on to admit that Trump had plenty of imperfections, but said that his good relationship with Britain meant he was the best choice over Clinton.

"However imperfect Donald Trump may be, and my goodness he is, his mother was Scottish, he owns Turnberry, he spends a lot of time in our country, he loves our country, what we stand for and our culture."

Several references were made to a possible meeting between Trump and May, and the possibility of Trump acting inappropriately towards her.

"If it comes to it, I could be there as the responsible adult role, to make sure everythings OK," Farage joked.
With the news breaking very early on Wednesday morning, Thursday was the first opportunity for global media to respond in full to the news that Republican Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States.

Trump held off the challenge of Democrat Hillary Clinton to win the race for the White House, sending markets into an early meltdown and causing widespread panic around the world, and as the dust settles, here are the reactions of some of the major newspapers of the world.

The Daily Mirror clearly believe that the election of Trump was a mistake on behalf of US citizens.

Interesting take from The Independent's online front page release, painting Trump as a 1984-style overseeing figure.

The Washington Post attempts to remain neutral, with as basic a headline as possible, a common theme among many US publications.

Trump triumphs: Here is the front page of Wednesday's Washington Post pic.twitter.com/xKbpEzPNXK  Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 9, 2016

USA Today describes Trump's victory as a "stunning upset".

A look at @USATODAY's front page: President Trump. A Republican House and Senate. And a divided nation. pic.twitter.com/mNIL5f5eui  USA TODAY (@USATODAY) November 9, 2016

El Periodico in Spain is one of the more controversial front pages, with the headline "May God forgive America".

Nuestra portada de hoy. La prensa de EEUU, en estado de 'shock' tras la victoria de Trump https://t.co/2lKaDUJKYS pic.twitter.com/698iVA6065  El Periodico (@elperiodico) November 9, 2016

France's Liberation goes with a dark offering and an even darker headline.

The Advertiser in Australia has a quirky play-on-words based on the new president's most famous property.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has urged his employees and people up and down the country to move on and work together after Donald Trump's election as president of the United States.

The majority of leading tech companies did not support his campaign, and Apple did hold an event for the New York businessman, despite holding one for both Hillary Clinton and House speaker Paul Ryan.

In a memo released to all of the company's staff which was released by Buzzfeed, Cook said that it was certain many will have been left with strong feelings following the events of the last few months.

"We have a very diverse team of employees, including supporters of each of the candidates," Cook wrote in the email.

"Regardless of which candidate each of us supported as individuals, the only way to move forward is to move forward together."

During his campaign, Trump heavily criticised Apple for refusing to help the FBI in their investigation of shootings in San Bernardino, California earlier this year.

Cook added that the shock election of former reality television star Trump will not affect his company's operations.

"While there is discussion today about uncertainties ahead, you can be confident that Apples North Star hasnt changed," he wrote. "Our products connect people everywhere, and they provide the tools for our customers to do great things to improve their lives and the world at large."
International private healthcare group Mediclinic announced its interim results for the six months to 30 September on Thursday, with a 27% increase in group revenue to 1.28bn, of which 16% was contributed by Al Noor.

The FTSE 100 firm posted a strong performance in Switzerland with revenue up 5% and underlying EBITDA up 7%.

It also claimed good organic growth in Southern Africa supported by infrastructure investment, though its Middle East business was impacted by a new insurance co-payment requirement, doctor vacancies and delayed facility openings.

Mediclinic said the integration of Al Noor was on track to deliver AED75m of annualised synergies.

On the financial front, underlying EBITDA was up 11% to 220m and operating profit grew 10% to 169m.

Underlying earnings per share decreased by 26% to 12.8p, which the board said was largely impacted by the shares issued to acquire and adverse operating performance of Al Noor.

Cash flow conversion was 95% of underlying EBITDA.

Mediclinics board declared an interim dividend per ordinary share up to 3.2p, from 2.66p at the same time last year.

It said it was making continued investments to improve patient experience and clinical quality.

We have seen good progress across the group in the first half of the year, said CEO Danie Meintjes.

Switzerland in particular had strong revenue and underlying EBITDA growth driven by an increase in total patient activity.

In the Middle East, Meintjes said the company had a productive first half of the year, successfully opening the City Hospital North Wing in Dubai, with business integration progressing well.

In Abu Dhabi, the recent introduction of Thiqa co-payment has further impacted our near term expectations for Thiqa revenues.

We continue to believe in the long-term growth opportunity the Middle East presents to the group.

Meintjes said that while the industry trends of growing competition and regulatory changes remained challenging across all of Mediclinics platforms, the board was highly focused on investing in and delivering high quality patient-centric clinical care.

With this focus and our leading positions in core markets, Mediclinic is well-positioned to deliver sustainable long-term growth.
Meggitt s Training Systems division has been awarded two contracts from the UK Ministry of Defence worth around $20m in total.

The FTSE 250 defence and aerospace company said it will manufacture and deliver 866 BlueFire convertible wireless versions of the UKs SA80 main infantry service rifle and its associated support equipment.

In addition, Meggitt Training Systems will manufacture and deliver 70 Sharpshooter rifles and associated system upgrades for the UK's existing small-arms trainer, known as the Dismounted Close Combat Trainer.

Jeff Murphy, president of Meggitt Training Systems, said: The SA80 and Sharpshooter contracts continue to strengthen Meggitt Training Systems' long-standing relationship with UK Ministry of Defence. Precise marksmanship training using realistic weapon simulators is essential for mission success and a vital part of the UK's Future Integrated Soldier Technology modernisation initiative."

At 0817 GMT, Meggitt shares were up 2% to 457.90p.
Electricity infrastructure operator National Grid posted its half-year report on Thursday, with adjusted earnings per share of 28.2p, flat compared to the same period last year, and operating profit of 1.9bn, up 1% including favourable timing and the effect of foreign exchange.

The FTSE 100 company made capital investment of 2.2bn during the period, up 12% - or 6% at constant currency.

It declared an interim dividend of 15.17p per share, in line with the boards dividend policy.

National Grids board said new rates for Massachusetts Electric allowed a return on equity of 9.9%, and a three year joint proposal was filed for the downstate New York gas businesses.

It also claimed solid operational performance in the UK, generating savings for customers, with the UK Gas Distribution majority sale on track.

We have delivered good results and made significant progress on key priorities while continuing to deliver a safe and reliable service to our customers in the UK and the US, said chief executive John Pettigrew.

First half earnings per share were in line with a strong prior year, with our regulated businesses delivering a solid performance.

Pettigrew said in the US, the company received a positive outcome for its Massachusetts rate filing and was in the final stages of agreeing updated rates for its downstate New York gas businesses.

Once agreed, around 40% of our US business will be operating under new agreements which will enable us to improve future returns in the US.

In the UK, Pettigrew said the proposed sale of its gas distribution business was on track with separation activity in the final stages.

Looking further out we are focused on evolving National Grid to enable us to play a leading role in shaping the future of energy networks.
Donald Trumps election as US president denied Hillary Clinton the prize of being the first woman in the White House but could boost the hopes of a female politician across the Atlantic: Marine Le Pen. France is the next big western democracy due to elect its president and a win for the far-right National Front leader in Mays election would cause a political earthquake in Europe to rival Mr Trumps victory this week.  Financial Times

Business leaders have outlined their vision of a London-only visa that would allow them to maintain access to foreign labour. Under the proposals from the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, businesses in the UK capital would be able to sponsor skilled workers with a job offer for a visa.  Financial Times

Tata Steel has been lambasted for considering closing its UK pension scheme before making a 60m payment scheduled for next year. Stephen Kinnock, the Labour MP for Aberavon, said it would be an absolute disgrace if Tata closed the scheme without making the payment and said the Indian company had moral and social responsibilities. - Guardian

Homebuyers are slowly returning to the property market after the uncertainty caused by the referendum, but there are not enough homes to meet demand, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Its keenly-watched monthly residential market survey reported that buyer inquiries are up for the second month running, but there has been further fall in instructions.  Telegraph

Britains eight remaining coal-fired power plants will be forced to close by 2025, unless they take the unlikely step of investing vast sums in new technology to slash their carbon emissions. Ministers said the plans, which follow an initial pledge last autumn to phase out coal, would provide confidence to investors in new, cleaner gas-fired power plants and help to significantly reduce emissions from the UKs energy use. - Telegraph

What one analyst called significant headwinds, dominated by a customer exodus and including, ironically, a distinct lack of puff powering its wind farms have triggered a plunge in profits at SSE. The Perth-based energy supplier, one of the industrys so-called Big Six, said that pre-tax profits had slipped to 475 million in the six months to September 30, from 548 million a year earlier.  The Times

A record number of women have joined the upper ranks of Goldman Sachs as partners as it aims to propel more of them into senior management positions and close the gender gap at the top of the Wall Street bank. Nineteen Goldman Sachs managing directors were told yesterday that they had been promoted to its partnership, including four of the banks highest- flying Europe-based women bankers.  The Times
Construction company Hill & Smith Holdings and copper miners Evraz, Vedanta Resources and Kaz Minerals were all in the black following Trumps pledge to boost US infrastructure spending on Wednesday. The copper stocks in particular got a lift, as prices of the metal rallied hard.

Vedanta Resources also released positive half year results and plans to expand on its production.



Supergroup surged after the owner of clothing brand Superdry reported a bigger-than-expected jump in first-half revenue and said it expects full-year profit to be in line with market expectations of 84.6m.



Cloud-enabled end user and network security solutions provider Sophos Group rose after it reported that its like-for-like billings went up by 15.1% year-on-year to $282.3m.



On the downside, however, gold miner Centamin fell as gold prices gave back the gains made in the brief flight to safety following Trumps victory on Wednesday.



Transport company Go-ahead went ex-dividend on Thursday, sending its stock lower.

Water utility and waste management company Pennon was weaker, reversing course after an upgrade by Credit Suisse boosted its shares in the previous session.

Risers

Evraz (EVR) 255.70p 14.30%

Vedanta Resources (VED) 892.50p 14.28%

Kaz Minerals (KAZ) 353.30p 10.89%

Supergroup (SGP) 1,604.00p 10.85%

Hill & Smith Holdings (HILS) 1,258.00p 8.64%

Laird (LRD) 140.50p 7.83%

Keller Group (KLR) 784.00p 7.18%

Sophos Group (SOPH) 251.00p 6.95%

Amec Foster Wheeler (AMFW) 457.70p 6.84%

Hunting (HTG) 496.80p 6.82%

Fallers

Acacia Mining (ACA) 515.00p -5.07%

Halfords Group (HFD) 327.00p -4.86%

Centamin (DI) (CEY) 157.80p -3.96%

Go-Ahead Group (GOG) 2,059.00p -3.74%

Pennon Group (PNN) 787.50p -3.55%

Inmarsat (ISAT) 739.50p -2.83%

William Hill (WMH) 284.80p -2.47%

GVC Holdings (GVC) 640.50p -2.36%

NMC Health (NMC) 1,377.00p -2.06%

Paysafe Group (PAYS) 412.40p -2.00%
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Smith-Njigba's dad says return for Michigan game is best-case scenario

The best-case scenario is to play against Michigan on Nov. 26. Otherwise, his return would likely be for a College Football Playoff semifinal.
In Eau Galle a novel plan was adopted in making the exemption of $200 personal property.

 Friday, Nov. 6, 1891

Suppose five men owned one half of the personal property in Eau Galle and 65 men own the other half. Now the law gives each taxpayer $200 exemption. The exemption of the five big taxpayers at $200 would be $1,000. The exemption of the 65 small tax payers at $200 each would be $13,000. But the plan adopted by Eau Galle would give the five heavy tax payers $7,000 exemption instead of $1,000, and the 65 small tax payers $7,000 exemption instead of $13,000. No better scheme for making the poor man pay a portion of the rich mans taxes could be invented and its author ought to have a chromo.

Sunday, Nov. 8, 2015

For the first time in more than 15 years, a classic Greek tragedy will return to the University Theatre state at University of Wisconsin-Stout. Antigone will be performed at the Mabel Tainter Center for the Arts in Menomonie. In Antigone, two brothers who fought for opposite causes in a war are dead. Polynices, the brother who fought for the losing side, wont be given a proper burial by government decree. His sisters clash over what to do, with the character Antigone determined to defy government orders and see that Palynices body isnt left on the battlefield. Antiogones defiance has far reaching effects.

The Wisconsin state Senate has passed a bill designed to make an anti-heroin drug more readily available to people trained to use it. The Senate on Friday approved the measure that would make clear that pharmacies can hand out a heroin overdose antidote under a doctors standing order.

Wednesday, Nov. 13, 1991

Dunn County Treasurer Gladys Waller will conduct an educational session starting at 12:30 on Friday, in the courthouse auditorium for municipal in the county. Focus of the program will be the 1991 property tax bill (a fictitious tax statement is reproduced elsewhere in todays publication), which shows the latest wrinkle  the lottery credit.

Plans for Menomonies Winter Carnival are underway. Sponsored by the Greater Menomonie Area Chamber of Commerce, the carnival will be held, Feb 1-9, according to Sandy Ott, carnival committee chairperson. Committee members and their lead activities include: Karen Joyce, balloon race; Dick Neubauer, cutter parade; Bill Bale, snowmobile events; Linda Crane, publicity, and John Archer, photo contest.

Wednesday, Nov. 16, 1966

Highway and bridge projects that will be undertaken by the county highway department during 1967 were approved by the county board Saturday. Next years tax levy includes $135,000 for highway construction and $45,000 for bridges. Highway projects are: CTH C, $3,000, eliminate existing hazardous condition, commencing near intersection of CTH C and Z, then south. CTH H, $25,000, supplement to appropriation made in 1966. CTH P, $6,000, eliminate existing hazardous condition, various points along Dunn-Pierce county line. CTH Q, 1.4 miles, $40,000, align, grade, drain, sand lift and base course, commence about one-half mile north of I-94, then northeasterly. CTH Q, 1.0 miles, $30,000, relocation, grade, drain, sub-base and base course, commence near intersection with STH 64, then north. Unallocated, $31,000.

Wednesday, Nov. 9, 1966

Milk and butterfat production levels established by registered Holstein cows in this area have been reported by Holstein Friesian Association of America. The individual lactations were tested under official supervision. Vicinity cows listed in the Holstein reports are: Dix Phoebe 5255885, a four-year-old produced 16,170 pounds of milk and 613 pounds of butterfat in 314 days. Dix Regal Mooie 49753, a five-year-old, had 14,720 pounds of milk and 568 pounds of butterfat in 360 days. Both are owned by Harry C. Dix, Dix Farm, Menomonie.

Five state office holders and the congressman and state senator from this district were re-elected yesterday. Republican Holger B. Rasmusen, state senator from the 23rd district, defeated Democrat John Durand, 16,780 to 13,048. Rasmusen carried Dunn County, 3,712 to 2,993

Wednesday, Nov. 12, 1941

It was recently learned that Dunn County Agent, J. L. Wenstadt, suggested to the College of Agriculture that a livestock marketing conference be held at the Union Stock Yards in St. Paul, for the benefit of the fifteen county agents in northwest Wisconsin. The purpose of the school was to give the agents opportunity to get better acquainted with the marketing system employed at the yards and to learn about the important services rendered by the Union Stock Yards Company and Commission Agencies together with packer operations. Indirectly, Mr. Wenstadt stated, that producers of livestock in Dunn County will, together with that information they already may have gained, benefit by the results of such a conference.

Thursday, Nov. 9, 1916

Wisconsin, which went for Wilson four years ago, swung back into the Republican column in a magnificent manner Tuesday. The thirteen electoral votes of the state go to Hughes and Gov. Philipp and the entire Republican state ticket are elected by handsome pluralities. United States Senator La Follette is re-elected by a heavy majority and the state sends a solid Republican delegation of eleven members to the House of Representatives. The Democrats have lost the Second, Sixth and Ninth districts, Representatives Burke, Reilly and Konop retiring.

A genuine Caesarian operation was performed at the city hospital Sunday, the first of its kind in the history of Menomonie, so far as known, and it was entirely successful. The patient was Mrs. Emil Neubauer and Dr. B. J. Steves was in charge of the case. The child, an 8-pound boy.

Friday, Nov. 6, 1891

In Eau Galle a novel plan was adopted in making the exemption of $200 personal property. Instead of giving the individual taxpayer the benefit of the exemption as the law provides the assessor deducts from the total personal property in the town the sum of $14,000 or 70 exemptions at $200 each. The exemption law was passed for the benefit of the poor man and now let us see how it works on the Eau Galle plan.

One year ago this month work was begun on the Biographical and Genealogical History of the Chippewa Valley. This work has so far progressed that the publishers are beginning the work of illustrating it. A few of our representative men among the pioneers will be called on by Dr. Krudop with a view of securing illustrations for the work. We trust this part of the work will be very successful as death constantly is thinning the ranks of the pioneers of this valley and there is nothing so fitting to leave to posterity as a good steel-plate portrait which tells the story of a good mans life, and conveys a lesson to the coming generations.

Saturday, Nov. 10, 1866

The other day we asked the Old Captain if it would not be a good plan to encourage a certain capitalist and politician to pitch his tent among us. O, certainly, certainly, was his reply, with his reply, with that peculiar pull on the posterior patches of his pants. Tell him as a certain boy wrote back to his father:come on, dad, you can do well herea good many d-d mean men get office here. Of course we did not feel hit; nor did we forget that the Captain had held office ever since we knew him!

On the eve of a change of County officers, it was quite proper for the old County Board to wait for a fresh expression of public sentiment, on the subject of Public Buildings. It is hoped that the new Board understand the wants and wishes of the people, and that it will commence early and energetically to carry them out. This is a matter, in our opinion, quite outside of party politics; and it is therefore expected that a sound financial policy will be pursued.
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By RACHEL LA CORTE

Associated Press

As the nation elected a political outsider to the presidency, Washington voters stuck with the power structure they knew, easily re-electing Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, and seeming to maintain the current balance of power in the Legislature.

Inslee and lawmakers next year are tasked with solving a problem that has vexed them for years: complying with a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that found the state was not meeting its constitutional obligations on K-12 education.





. . .
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Seven states have legalized recreational pot and a recent poll shows 60 percent of Americans support the idea, but no one is sure where Donald Trump and a GOP Congress stand.



By PAUL ELIAS

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES  The number of Americans living in states with recreational marijuana more than tripled after at least three states voted to fully legalize the drug. But the election of Republican Donald Trump and GOP majorities in the Senate and House tempered advocates' excitement about an easing of federal restrictions.

There is a massive sense of momentum, and this will put a lot of pressure on the federal government, said Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-legalization group. What gives him real concern is Trump.





. . .
Despite the presidential upset much of the nation wasnt expecting, things at the local level ran relatively smoothly, Chippewa County Clerk Sandi Frion said of Tuesdays election night.

(The county) didnt have any major issues so that was a good thing, Frion said. Nobody ran out of ballots, which was my biggest fear.

As of 3 p.m. Wednesday, Frion said the county was at a 92 percent voter turnout rate, but she had yet to receive about half of the municipalities election same-day registration numbers. When she receives those, she expects the turnout rate to drop to somewhere around 80-85 percent.

Overall, however, the state didnt fair as well. According to the Associated Press, Wisconsins voter turnout was around 2.9 million, about 66 percent of the voting age population. That number is the lowest turnout in a presidential year since 1996 and below the predicted 69 percent.

In the 2012 presidential race, the Wisconsin Department of Administration reported the states average turnout to be 70 percent. Nationally, about 60 percent of the voting population age votes during presidential election years.

Frion said poll workers received many questions regarding proof of residency and voter I.D., but those are to be expected.

Overall we had a high election day registration turnout, which kind of slowed some of the polling locations down a bit, but nothing to where it prolonged the election, Frion said.

The only problem encountered was in the town of Lafayette, where polls were steady all day and didnt allow workers any time to count absentee ballots.

The towns results werent reported until around 3 a.m. Wednesday, the last of Chippewa Countys 44 precincts to report.

Sandra Harvey, Town of Lafayette clerk, said residents experienced minimal wait times thanks to adding two more lines for a total of four, and the process itself went smooth.

No one was in line when polls closed at 8 p.m., but that was the first chance poll workers had to begin counting absentee ballots.

Theres not much you can do when people are coming and going all of the time, Harvey said. (Absentee ballots) are something you have to be very diligent about, you cant just do whatever with them.

The ballots have to be removed from certificate envelopes and then poll workers feed them into the voting machines to be counted. Harvey said they had 1,433 absentee ballots to count after the polls closed.

In total, the town had approximately 3,494 voters including the absentee ballots. As of the 2010 census, Lafayettes town population was 5,765. Harvey said the voter turnout was about what she expected.

Everything went well, except for processing absentees, but thats time consuming, she said. We had things set up really well, people didnt have complaints.

Over in the village of Lake Hallie, Deputy Clerk Jenni Carli used the word smooth to describe the voting process.

After a bumpy primary election in April, Carli said the village did some readjusting. Like Lafayette, Lake Hallie increased the number of lines from one (in April) to four, meaning less wait times for residents.

They were also able to use the Chippewa Fire Districts portion of Lake Hallies municipal building to cast their ballots. Voters entered in the village hall, where they formed lines or began registering to vote, and then were directed to the fire station to complete the voting process.

When I woke up (Tuesday) morning I was nervous, but everything has been going so great, Carli said Tuesday. We have such a great group of poll workers. Its definitely exceeded my expectations.
Fort Rucker got a taste of the importance of diversity as it kicked off Native American Heritage Month at the post exchange Friday.

People were treated to authentic Native American cuisine, got the chance look at authentic artifacts, and were able to witness and hear the songs and dances of different tribes from across the country.

As the First Americans, Native Americans have helped shape the future of the United States through every turn of our history, said MSgt. Joseph Christensen, chief equal opportunity adviser and narrator for the event, as he read the presidential proclamation. Today, young American Indians and Alaska Natives embrace open-ended possibility and are determining their own destinies. During National Native American Heritage Month, we pledge to maintain the meaningful partnerships we have with tribal nations, and we renew our commitment to our nation-to-nation relationships as we seek to give all our children the future they deserve.

That message echoed what Fort Rucker officials hoped to convey with its kickoff ceremony that started with a traditional flag and veteran dance, with accompaniment by the Choctaw tribe drum group out of Mississippi.

At the beginning of a powwow, there is a grand entry when we bring in the colors  the American flag, some of the state flags and the Native American flag, said Richard Greybull, veteran and member of the Dakota tribe. Well have different dances and we all dance into the circle with the first song. Then, after the first song, well play the flag song, which is where we pay respect to our flag and all tribes.

After the flag song, we sing the veteran song, and that is to honor all the veterans, he said. No matter who you are, no matter what race or ethnic group, were singing for all Americans rights and the rights of all citizens, regardless of whether you agree with their views or not.

While the drums were pounding and tribe members were dancing in their authentic garb, people were able to sample some Native American cuisine, including black bean soup, pumpkin soup, wasna and hominy and chicken.

The tribute was also a chance for people to learn a little bit about the Native American tribes throughout the U.S. and the contributions theyve made to the development of the nation.

Chelsea Dillion, military family member, said the importance of celebrating diversity cant be understated because its that diversity that makes the U.S. so special, and it started with the Native Americans.

I think its important to honor the native people of this country because theyre the ones who made the first sacrifices for our country, she said. Theyre the ones who helped our ancestors to thrive in this country to make it what it is today.

To hear stories about how even though their people have been through so much tragedy and strife, theyre still able to get up and stand together not only within their own tribes, but with all Americans, is a testament to what this country is about and how we need to be to continue to thrive in the future, she continued. Its really an inspiration to be able to hear their stories, and I truly do believe that through learning about different cultures and seeing how diverse we are as a nation is something that can really bring us all together.

Margaret Thorne, military spouse, agreed and said its a great lesson for people to learn, especially for those who might not have had to face such hardship.

I think its just a great way to pay tribute to not just this culture but all cultures that have had to overcome adversity, she said. This gives a bit of perspective as to what its like to have to fight for freedoms that not many people are born into, and its really humbling.

Despite the adversity, Greybull, who also teaches at Fort Rucker Elementary School, said its not about any one persons struggle, but going above and beyond to serve your people.

People ask, Why do you serve as a Native American? he said. I served for my family and my people. Nobody can say that we didnt defend this country. We have a proud history of serving in this country. Were very proud of our heritage.
A record number of Alabamians cast ballots in the general elections on Tuesday, letting their voices be heard on federal elections and items pertaining just to the state of Alabama. Citizens of Alabama voted in favor of Amendment 2, which will secure the state parks funding and promises a sustainable future for the state parks.

An overwhelming percentage of Alabamians voted in favor of the Amendment and now for the first time ever, the parks will have secure funding allowing them to properly plan for the future including Lakepoint State Park in Eufaula.

Were proud that Amendment Two passed,Eufaula Mayor Jack B. Tibbs, Jr. stated. This will allow state parks, particularly Lakepoint State Park, to keep the revenues they generate as additional revenue and keep our parks healthy and allow them to continue improving. Lakepoint State Park is a major asset to the City of Eufaula and we are thankful that they are here.

Amendment 2 was included on the General Election ballot after $15 million was transferred from the parks budget to the General Fund between 2012 and 2015. These fund transfers crippled the state parks and depleted their reserve funds. Last year, five parks closed and numerous other facilities were shut down. Senator Clay Scofield and Representative Kerry Rich heard the pleas of thousands Alabamians and sponsored the bill that brought Amendment 2 before the citizens of Alabama.

Our coalition has been working for nearly two years to educate and engage citizens about the parks funding crisis, said Philip Darden, chair of Alabama State Parks Partners Coalition. We are thrilled for the passage of Amendment 2 and are excited to continue working to promote our parks and help them reach full stability, now that their funding is secured. Amendment 2 passed with the support of diverse organizations including tourism representatives, conservation groups, municipal governments and thousands of park volunteers who worked so hard to raise awareness about the importance of protecting the parks funding. We are very grateful for Senator Scofields leadership on this issue and his continued support of our parks.

The majority of the state park systems budget, about 90 percent, comes directly from guest fees. The passage of Amendment 2 will ensure that these guest fees are only used for the upkeep of the parks. As the parks funding was siphoned from the parks each year, park managers were left with difficult choices and multiple parks were closed and some facilities were shut down. For the last few years, the parks did not know their budget for the following year, making planning for routine maintenance each year - or even long-term planning - impossible for the parks.

In addition to protecting the park systems funding, Amendment 2 included language to open the option for concession agreements at all parks. Many parks already have concession agreements with private businesses, including zip lines, a wakeboarding course, restaurant management, allowing food trucks at parks and ATMs. There was a lot of misinformation about this part of Amendment 2 and we are glad the people of Alabama did their own research before voting.

Don't underestimate the importance of Amendment 2 for the parks, said Greg Lein, State Park Director. Despite a last ditch effort to misinform voters about Amendment 2, the voters heard our plea to protect the parks and I am so grateful for the support our parks have around the state. I'm very optimistic about the future of our parks and I can assure you now that the parks funding is protected, the parks will continue to serve citizens of our state and work to provide guests the best experience possible.

The future looks bright for Alabamas State Parks System. Secure funding for the parks benefits the state as a whole. The parks attract millions of tourists each year and contribute $375 million in economic impact to the entire state. When guests visit the parks they support local businesses and the tax revenues benefit the States ailing General Fund budget.
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Dutch dredging company Van Oord has been awarded two contracts by international contractor Subsea 7 for the construction of a landfall and the execution of subsea rock installation works in Egypt.

The projects are part of the West Nile Delta project, which comprises the development of a series of gas fields, located 65 km off the northern coast of Egypt.

Final client is oil and gas company BP.

BP's lng-plant at Idku, Egypt.

Landfall location

The landfall scope of work consists of the installation of a cofferdam, trenching and pipe pull activities and will be executed in 2017. The landfall location is at the Burullus terminal near Idku, 50 km from Alexandria.

Van Oord will deploy a trailing suction hopper dredger, backhoe dredger and 600 tonnes winch.

Flexible fall pipe vessel Stornes (on top photo) will be deployed this year to execute rock installation activities to prevent upheaval buckling.

Preparations on site have already started.

Two of Egypt's off shore gas fields (in red) near Idku.

Rising gas demand

In North Africa, and especially in Egypt, the demand for gas is rising for electricity generation. A string of sizable natural gas discoveries has been made in the eastern Mediterranean Sea over the past decade.

The West Nile Delta development will make an important contribution to Egypts economic development and will ensure the countrys energy supply for the long term.

Offshore infrastructure

Production from the West Nile Delta is expected to be around 1.2 billion cubic feet a day (bcf/d), equivalent to about 30% of Egypts current gas production. All the produced gas will be fed into the countrys national gas grid.

The offshore infrastructure necessary to transport fuel is being extended and improved continuously.

This news item was originally published on the website of Van Oord.

Read also on this website

 Van Oord signs agreement on construction deep-water port Porto Central, Brazil, 14 October 2016

 Van Oord completes ground improvement on reclaimed land for Al-Zour refinery, Kuwait, 5 September 2016

 New Suez Canal project finished with record-breaking dredge production, 6 August 2015

 Pure Water supplies CEDI water treatment systems for two power plants in Egypt, 12 March 2015

 Country: Egypt



More information

Van Oord

Rotterdam, the Netherlands

+31 88 826 00 00

www.vanoord.com

Video showing a subsea rock installation work by Van Oords vessel Stornes, covering a pipe on the seabed.


Yesterday, Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States of America. For many, it was an unexpected and alarming result. For others, it was a win against the establishment. But what does it mean for Australian business leaders and how can it help us improve?

Perhaps what has chilled people most about Trumps win was that he could effectively espouse behaviours of xenophobia, racism, misogyny and bullying and still be supported so strongly. Are economic concerns promoting such primitive reactions and a return to the wrongs of yesteryear? You might find yourself asking, is the same true in Australia?

Fortunately, the answer is no. While Trumps populism told us something worrying about what can win votes, we also saw that much of this country was appalled and stunned that he was even a prospect for president, let alone elected. People often keep their political views to themselves  this time, Australians have spoken with unprecedented candour about their dismay.

Why? Because while Australian corporate life still has a long way to go, we are already much better than this. And we want to be better still. Do we suffer from under-representation of women and non-white people in senior management? Absolutely. Is there a sense that this is wrong in every way, from equity and morality to sound commercial judgement? Absolutely.

Ethical leadership

During my time in boardrooms around Australia, I see senior executives regularly and consistently demonstrate that they do not want xenophobia, racism, misogyny or bullying in their organisations. They do not want these to be the values of their company and seek to consign them to the dustbin of history.

I see leaders who mentor Indigenous students and give diversity and inclusion equal time with financial results on their board agenda. They improve parental leave and return to work policies, include a hijab to their corporate wardrobe, provide practical support for persons with disabilities, speak out publicly about marriage equality and improve their environmental impact.

Could this simply be utilitarianism? Yes, but theres no shame in doing things that are both good conscience and good business. And theres much more to these changes than self-serving capitalism.

Many of these leaders would continue these practices even if it reduced their financial results. They think and act this way because they have become more enlightened than generations before them. Equally, they recognise that such ways of operating are intolerable to the new generations of talent they wish to attract and employ and, increasingly, to the customers they want to buy their products and services.

What this means for true leadership in Australia

While it is clear that Australian corporate leaders dont resemble Trump or seek to emulate him, the election experience has helped us understand why this is so and how we want to be better.

Firstly, it reminds us that we must not tolerate breaches of core values. The behaviours that a senior executive overlooks are the behaviours that are endorsed. Are we ever guilty of not taking action on a managers bad behaviour just because they have the art of the deal? True leaders are the ultimate stewards of high standards.

Secondly, it reminds us of the deceptive lures of populism and short-termism. Playing to peoples fear and anger may get you elected, but they are not the true measure of a leader. True leaders delay gratification and do what is best for the long term, irrespective of short-term incentives or short-term pain. Trump himself has immediately moved to more inclusive and aspirational language since winning. Even he may be recognising that what he did as a campaign strategy is not what he should continue once a substantive leader of people.

The third and most palpable issue is that of gender equality. 45 Presidents without a single woman amongst them is a travesty. I wont enter into any character comparisons between Clinton and Trump  we all understand how hard it is to find an unblemished soul in politics. What was clearly of concern though was double standards  its likely that if Clinton had said the things Trump did during the campaign, she would have been demonised and discarded. Its also questionable whether she would have been defeated if she had XY chromosomes.

Sadly, this is the point that is closer to the bone for Australian corporations and society. We might wince as we consider that while gender policies have improved, it is not the same as equality. We may appoint more female CEOs now but do more insidious forms of discrimination and gender bias persist? Of course they do. True leaders do more than the current efforts, which focus on improving representation ratios. True leaders remove gender as a differentiator of access to opportunities in all ways.

But well get there. Because we want to. Because we know deep down whats right. Because its good for business. Because we arent Trump and because we wouldnt want anyone to think we were. Because like every generation before us, we are getting a little better at embracing what brings us together, not what drives us apart, no matter what one election result might suggest.

About the author

Anthony Mitchell, is a director and co-founder of strategic advisory firm Bendelta. Anthony previously wrote Where leadership is blossoming in Australia. He also shared his thoughts on leadership with Dynamic Business in Follow the leader: a dangerous game when mediocrity prevails.
Intrepid local councillor did sixteen-day trek to Everest base camp for disaster relief

Ealing's Lib Dem leader Councillor Gary Malcolm had his 'head in the clouds' recently, but for a good reason.

Avid trekker and mountaineer, Gary's Nepal Trek has collected over 1500 for charity, Disaster Emergency Committee, which gives vital help when earthquakes, tsunamis and floods take place around the world.

He said: "I was inspired to visit Nepal to raise money and was glad that I successfully trekked to Everest Basecamp. The scenery was amazing and I hope the money raised will help many people who suffer when earthquakes occur."

He had to train hard for his sixteen-day trek in October to Everest Basecamp in Nepal!

Says Gary: "A Norwegian mountaineer friend was caught up in Nepal half way up Mt Everest when the earthquake struck and he told me that Nepal needs visitors, tourists and mountaineers so I thought trekking there to at least see Mt Everest would be a wonderful way to raise money for DEC who do loads of good work all around the world."

You can still donate to Gary through his Just Giving page.

9th November 2016
President Chakrabarti calls for equal sharing of the fruits of growth

The President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Sir Suma Charkabarti, has opened a conference on Reinvigorating Growth, Competitiveness and Investment - The EU from the Baltics, through Central Europe, to the Mediterranean in Budapest today.

In his opening address the President underlined the strong potential of the countries where the EBRD invests and called on businesses and policy-makers to realise that potential.

He paid tribute to the achievements of the transition countries, but added: We all know that the prospects for the world economy they are part of are not as bright as we would want.

Persistent sluggish growth, a slow-down in productivity and weak global trade have negative impacts on economic performance which, in turns, leads to disappointment among voters who see themselves as the victims of this process.

President Chakrabarti conceded: We are not blind to the flaws of globalisation as it has been practised in recent decades, in particular the way in which its benefits have been shared out unequally.

However, the answer is not an end of globalisation, but a new and better concept which goes beyond competitiveness and also includes criteria such as governance, resilience, integration and impact on the environment when assessing the performance of an economy.

The fruits of growth need to be shared out more equally if we are to avoid the sort of populism which will sabotage reforms  and hurt vulnerable members of society most of all, the EBRD President said.

He warned: "It is very clear that there is a backlash against globalisation, and not just in the United States. We need to make it work better, so it is more inclusive. Many people feel left out. Abandoning globalisation is not the answer, adapting it is. If we do that, then with more growth, enhanced competitiveness and new investment, the EU countries where we work will secure their rightful place within the wider world."

The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban spoke about the development of his country in the past six years and said the time when the transition region was attracting investment due to lower labour unit costs was coming to an end. The biggest challenge now was to find new ways of raising competitiveness in the face of global competition, for instance through reducing red-tape, low and simple taxes and improvements in education.

The conference also included a high-level panel with the President of Bulgaria, Rosen Plevneliev; the Vice President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, and EBRD President Chakrabarti about growth, productivity and investment. This was followed by four panels on Finance: Equity as a Source for Financing Growth; Green Economy Transition and Growth; Infrastructure and Innovation; and Productivity Growth. The conference concluded with a discussion between Hungarys Minister for National Economy, Mihaly Varga and EBRD Chief Economist Sergei Guriev about Growth and Inclusion  Lessons from 25 Years of Transition and the Road Ahead.

Sir Suma Chakrabarti was joined in Budapest by a delegation of senior EBRD management led by Alain Pilloux, Acting Vice President, Policy and Partnerships and Vice President Designate, Banking; Jonathan Charles, Managing Director, Communications; Jean-Marc Peterschmitt, Managing Director, Chief Operating Office for Banking; Sylvia Gansser-Potts, Managing Director, Central and South Eastern Europe; Vedrana Jelusic Kasic, Director, Regional Head of Croatia, Hungary, Slovak Republic and Slovenia; and Graeme Hutchinson, Associate Director, Regional Head Hungary and Slovak Republic.
Trump: 'Complicated business' of election over, pledges drive toward unity 09 November, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , |

NEW YORK (Christian Examiner)  Republican Donald Trump called for unity among Americans in the early morning hours as he thanked supporters for his historic win of the presidency.

Trump, who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College by a wide margin, took advantage of voter discontent in the traditionally Democrat stronghold known as the "rust-belt," an area hit hard by the Obama administration's war on coal and its failure to create factory jobs. He added Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and, likely, Michigan to the Republican column.

Michigan had not been called as of early morning.

Trump said the hard fought campaign, which he described as "complicated business," was over and that he had received a call from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conceding the election. He said Clinton should be thanked for her service to the country.

While there were some protests in California and Oregon over the outcome of the election, most cities were calm as the results of the election sunk in. Trump said he believed "it is time for America to bind the wounds of division" and citizens "have to get together."

I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I'm reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.

"To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people," Trump said.

"It is time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I'm reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country," Trump said.

Trump said his run for the White House was not a "campaign" like others, but a "great movement" made up of discontented voters who  he said during the campaign  have seen their lives grow more difficult because of stagnant wages, job losses, and soaring health care costs.

They are people, he said, "hard-working men and women who love their country and want a better, brighter future for themselves and for their family."

He also said the movement he led was diverse, pulling in people from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs.

"Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream. I've spent my entire life in business, looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world," Trump said.

"That is now what I want to do for our country. Tremendous potential. I've gotten to know our country so well. Tremendous potential. It is going to be a beautiful thing. Every single American will have the opportunity to realize his or her fullest potential. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer."

Trump said he wants to begin working to rebuild America's aging infrastructure, renew its promises to veterans, and double the growth of the U.S. economy. He also pledged to get along with other countries and restore relationships damaged by eight years of the Obama administration.

"No dream is too big, no challenge is too great. Nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach," Trump said.

"America will no longer settle for anything less than the best. We must reclaim our country's destiny and dream big and bold and daring. We have to do that. We're going to dream of things for our country, and beautiful things and successful things once again."

Trump's election rocked the world, with leaders in Russia, Germany, Iran and China congratulating the president-elect but warning that dialogue would be necessary to ensure relationships do not deteriorate further. To those leaders, Trump said he will seek "common ground, not hostility  partnership, not conflict."

"I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America's interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone. All people and all other nations," Trump said.

Trump thanked his family, former Republican presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Gov. Mike Huckabee, Dr. Ben Carson, and Chris Christi, New York police officers and the U.S. Secret Service for their roles in the campaign, and Gov. Mike Pence, his running mate.

Trump said he was excited about taking on the presidency, but even though the campaign was over, "this movement is now really just beginning."

"We're going to get to work immediately for the American people, and we're going to be doing a job that hopefully you will be so proud of your president," Trump said.

"I look very much forward to being your president, and hopefully at the end of two years or three years or four years or maybe even eight years you will say so many of you worked so hard for us, with you."
Hackers last week launched DDoS attacks against both presidential candidates campaign websites. The attacks were routed through HTTP Layer 7 of the OSI protocol.

There were at least four 30-second attacks reported.

The websites were not penetrated by a cyberintrusion, said John Costello, a senior analyst at Flashpoint.

They were attacked using their publicly available Web addresses and associated IPs, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The attackers were unsophisticated hackers and not a nation-state, Flashpoint said.

The attacks were not linked to the cyberintrusions on Democratic Party systems or the email breach affecting John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. The United States has accused Russia of perpetrating those attacks.

The Mirai botnet was responsible for the campaign website hacks, Flashpoint said. It is known to have been behind other recent DDoS attacks that took advantage of devices connected to the Internet of Things.

The botnets source code has been released, fragmenting it into smaller, competing botnets, Costello noted, which has significantly lowered the impact, efficacy, and damage of subsequent attacks. No single attacker has been able to gain control of enough devices to replicate the scale of attacks we saw against Dyn DNS, OVH, or Krebs on Security.

Are US Elections Cybersecure?

The attacks demonstrated that script kiddies and other basic threats were able to target and potentially disrupt portions of candidates websites without the respective campaigns noticing the attacks, said James Scott, senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.

That occurred because both the sites lacked appropriate mitigation precautions, he told the E-Commerce Times.

A greater prioritization and focus on cybersecurity and cyberhygiene is needed to secure the electoral process and Americas critical infrastructure, Scott remarked.

The Real Danger of Attacks

Taking down websites is penny-ante stuff, and Id make a distinction between attacks that disrupt the availability of websites and attacks that raise questions regarding the integrity of the U.S. election process, said Rick Holland, VP of strategy at Digital Shadows.

The real danger of attacks like those against the Democratic National Committee, which resulted in emails being stolen and leaked, is that they raise suspicions in the electorate that will have much longer-term implications for day-to-day governance of the nation, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Such leaks fuel the opposition, which could launch investigations and inquiries that make it difficult for Washington to function.

How to Secure Systems

Federal, state and local government officials could ensure the security of elections by implementing such measures as security websites and complex credential requirements, ICITs Scott suggested.

Federal agencies may offer assistance to candidates on request, but it is the responsibility of candidates to excel the minimum required security controls, he said.

Candidates and party officials also could set mandatory security guidelines in line with federal agency recommendations and trusted cybersecurity standards and guidelines, Scott added.

Data is a liability and needs to be handled as such, Digital Shadows Holland warned. Government officials need to implement data governance policies that address data retention.

Powerful malware such as Mirai will continue to develop and evolve, Scott said. Every day, these sophisticated [types of] malware become more accessible, and easier to acquire and utilize by less-sophisticated threat actors.

The federal government should designate the election systems themselves as critical infrastructure, Holland maintained. That would not be sufficient to eliminate the threat, but it would accelerate resiliency.
Three owners of Galaxy Note7 smartphones this week filed acomplaint in a federal court in Newark, New Jersey, that could become a class action lawsuit against Samsung.

Plaintiffs and the Class have suffered injury in fact, incurred millions of dollars in fees, and have otherwise been harmed by Samsungs conduct, the complaint states.

Samsung recalled the phones and stopped producing them after faulty batteries caused a number of the original products and their replacements to smoke and ignite.

The Department of Transportation last week banned the defective Galaxy Note7s from all U.S. flights.

Samsung on Friday warned that it would lose about $US3 billion during the current quarter and in the first quarter of 2017. The company earlier in the week had warned that it would take a hit of about $2.6 billion due to the recall impact.

The DoT, which oversees federal government policy for all commercial travel in the U.S., announced the ban under an emergency order with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).

The extraordinary move by the agencies means that Galaxy Note7 owners no longer can transport the devices in checked baggage, in carry-on luggage or on their person, when boarding U.S. flights. The ban also eliminate the phones from air cargo, effectively making it almost impossible to use it on long-distance trips.

Fire Hazard Continues

Samsung last week expanded its product recall after several of the reissued phones exhibited the same overheating and fire hazards that were found in the original Galaxy Note7 devices. Samsungs recall allows for customers either to get a new Samsung phone of a different model or a full refund from the retail store or the mobile carrier that issued the phone.

Samsung is offering up to $100 in bill credits for customers exhanging their Galaxy Note7 for another Samsung device, and up to $75 for customers who already exchanged their Note devices for another Samsung phone.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency that oversees products recalls, Samsung had received 96 reports of phones overheating in the U.S, including 23 since the original Sept.15 recall. The company received 13 reports of burns and 47 reports of property damage due to the overheating and fire risks.

The DoT recognized the inconvenience of the move, but said that passenger safety must take priority, Secretary Anthony Foxx said.

We are taking this additional step because even one fire incident inflight poses a high risk of severe injury and puts many lives at risk, he added.

Passengers attempting to fly with a Galaxy Note7 phone will be denied boarding, and anyone attempting to evade the ban by placing a device inside checked luggage will be subject to criminal prosecution in addition to fines, the DoT noted.

The PHMSA has issued a special permit to Samsung to ship the devices by ground in order to complete the product recall.

Samsung last week said it would focus on improving product safety by making significant changes to its quality assurance process.

Samsung had self-tested the lithium-ion batteries at a lab that it owns, The Wall Street Journal reported, noting that it is the only phone manufacturer with such a process.

Brand Damage

The second recall likely will do lasting damage to Samsung by pushing some of its longtime customers to other makers of Android devices  or, if they are willing to learn a new OS, to a proven rival in Apple, the maker of the iPhone 7, which just launched last month.

Because the switching time and pain of moving from Android to iOS is so high, they are more likely to lose these customers to Google if theyre on Verizon, or LG or Motorola if theyre on other carriers, observed Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

Theyll want another top-end phone, he told the E-Commerce Times, its not likely theyll be willing to configure an iPhone from scratch.

Samsung will suffer some short-term brand damage and lose a few customers to the iPhone, but a greater number to rival Android phone makers, said Jitesh Ubrani, a senior research analyst at IDC.

However, over the long haul, he told the E-Commerce Times, Samsungs brand can survive the crisis.
When the new president takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., cybersecurity will be on the shortlist for action. Whats a president to do?

TechNewsWorld asked more than a dozen experts what should be at the top of the new leader of the free worlds cyberagenda. Following are some of their responses.

The president has to set the tone early on cybersecurity  within the first 100 days  and say right off the bat that this matters, said Sam Curry, chief product officer at Cybereason.

The first priority should be protecting government systems, he explained.

New cabinet secretaries have to understand that their mission cant be done without secure systems, said Curry. Far too often, cybersecurity is not even on the list of priorities for initiatives and agencies and staffing.

All government agencies should be required to adopt a formal assumption of breach framework, recommended Jeffrey Carr, CEO of Taia Global.

This means that they acknowledge that they are currently in a state of breach, he explained, and must immediately act to identify and secure their critical assets as well as build in resiliency.

Share the Wealth

Information sharing is another issue that needs executive attention.

Some progress has been made in sharing cyberintelligence between public and private sectors during the current administration, but the next administration should ramp up those efforts, recommended Scott J. White, director of the cybersecurity program at The George Washington University.

The United States has the largest intelligence-gathering apparatus in the world, he pointed out.

Who is it gathering that intelligence for? If its gathering intelligence just for its own internal consumers in government, then were making a mistake, White continued. We have to be able to get real-time, threat-based cyberintelligence to the private sector.

Public-private cooperation is important in organizing the nations cybersecurity efforts, maintained Damien Van Puyvelde, an assistant professor at The University of Texas at El Paso.

This is something that President Obama has been focusing on, and its something Id expect the next president to focus on, he said. If the president wants a strong economy, then the president needs to make efforts to make sure the private sector is protected from cybercrime and cyberthreats.

Do No Harm

The new president should concentrate on initiatives that strengthen cybersecurity and not weaken it, maintained James Scott, a senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.

Critical infrastructure organizations protect their sensitive data through strict access controls and data encryption, he explained, yet legislation has been introduced in Congress to undermine those protections.

Legislation that would weaken those controls by imposing nonessential access, such as backdoors, or that would weaken consumer protections such as encryption, are demonstratively harmful to the cybersecurity of the nation, Scott said.

Legislators would better spend their time, attention and resources focusing on correcting or mitigating the fundamental root faults in systems and processes that enable attackers to compromise systems, and that prevent public and private sector organizations from mitigating the risk before harm is realized, he added.

New Civil Defense

The new president also should turn up the heat on protecting the nations infrastructure from cyberattack, recommended Scott Borg, CEO of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit.

The creation of a national cyber-recovery plan designed along the lines of the civil defense plans created for response to a nuclear attack is one thing he advocates.

We really havent acknowledged the extent of the damage that could be done by a cyberattack on our infrastructure, Borg said. Industrial control systems could be hijacked and cause massive physical damage. That could be done with a migrating piece of malware with no Internet connection, as was done with Stuxnet.

The Russians and Chinese already may have planted in U.S. industrial systems malware sleepers that can be triggered remotely. However, since its likely the United States has planted similar malware on those countries systems, something similar to the nuclear stalemate during the Cold War exists.

Im not particularly worried about the Russians or Chinese, Borg said. What Im worried about is some completely irresponsible agent without any involvement in the modern economy acquiring these capabilities. [*Correction  Oct. 17, 2016]

Dont Fumble

Above all else, the new administration should not set out to reinvent the wheel.

We should keep making progress where were making progress, said Jeff Greene, director of government affairs for North America at Symantec.

New administrations have a habit of coming in and wanting to start everything anew, he said.

Make improvements, add new policy, but dont do one of these complete fresh looks  that would set us back, Greene cautioned.

The momentum needs to continue and grow, said Cybereason s Curry. The handoff between administrations should not be a fumble.

Breach Diary

Oct. 3. U.S. Surgeon General warns 6,600 medical professionals in his commissioned corps that their personal information is at risk by a breach of the agencys personnel system.

Oct. 3. U.S. District Court Judge Andrea R. Wood dismisses class action lawsuit against Barnes & Noble related to a compromise of its point-of-sale systems in 2012. Plaintiffs failed to show they had suffered any actual damages because of the data breach, she found.

Oct. 3. Internet Insurance Group launches DataBreachCoverage.com to offer cyberliability insurance coverage options to small businesses nationwide.

Oct. 3. SANS Institute releases survey showing more information security professionals are concerned about unauthorized outsiders accessing data stored in a public cloud this year (62 percent) compared with last year (40 percent).

Oct. 4. Yahoo last year built a custom program to search all its customers incoming emails for information provided to it by U.S. intelligence officials, Reuters reports. Yahoo later denies the claims in the report.

Oct. 4. Amazon has alerted some of its customers that their passwords have been reset after discovering their Amazon email address and password corresponded to a login list posted online, The Sunday Express reports.

Oct. 4. Thomas White, aka The Cthulhu, posts to his website as a free download information from more than 68 million Dropbox accounts stolen in a 2012 data breach of the service.

Oct. 4. Personal data of more than 15 million users of websites run by C&Z Tech Limited, which include HaveAFling.mobi, HaveAnAffair.mobi and HookUpDating.mobi, is at risk after a database for the sites was found exposed to the Internet without a password.

Oct. 5. The FBI has arrested Harold T. Martin, a former employee of NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, and is investigating whether he stole and disclosed classified security code developed by the agency to compromise the networks of foreign governments, The New York Times reports.

Oct. 5. UK Information Commissioners Office orders TalkTalk to pay fine of Pounds 400,000 in connection with a 2015 data breach that affected 150,000 customers.

Oct. 5. Fancy Bears, the hackers who published online medical records stolen from the World Anti-Doping Agency, may have doctored some of the data in those records, the BBC reports.

Oct. 5. Australian Public Service Commission removes its annual employee census from public access on the Internet over security concerns about the database, which contains confidential information about the agencys 96,000 workers.

Oct. 6. Verizon wants the US$4.8 billion it agreed to pay for Yahoo reduced by $1 billion due to bad news about the company, including the theft of data in 2014 affecting 500 million accounts, the New York Post reports.

Oct. 6. American 1 Credit Union in Jackson, Michigan announces it will decline all purchases made at Wendys by its payment card holders because it doesnt believe the fast food chain has removed all the malware that infected its point-of-sale systems in more than 1,000 locations in 2015.

Oct. 6. Montana Department of Justice reports 110,000 citizens of the state were victims of data breaches in the last 12 months.

Oct. 6. Central Ohio Urology Group reports to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that 300,000 patients were affected by data breach in August, the eighth largest breach in the U.S. this year.

Oct. 7. U.S. government formally accuses Russia of a campaign of cyberattacks against Democratic Party organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election.

Upcoming Security Events

Oct. 17-19. CSX North America. The Cosmopolitan, 3708 Las Vegas Blvd. South, Las Vegas. Registration: before Aug. 11, ISACA member, $1,550; nonmember, $1,750. Before Oct. 13, member, $1,750; nonmember, $1,950. Onsite, member, $1,950; nonmember, $2,150.

Oct. 18. IT Security and Privacy Governance in the Cloud. 1 p.m. ET. Webinar moderated by Rebecca Herold, The Privacy Profesor. Free with registration.

Oct. 18-19. Edge2016 Security Conference. Crowne Plaza, 401 W. Summit Hill Drive, Knoxville, Tennessee. Registration: before Aug. 15, $250; after Aug. 15, $300; educators and students, $99.

Oct. 18-19. SecureWorld St. Louis. Americas Center Convention Complex, 701 Convention Plaza, St. Louis. Registration: conference pass, $325; SecureWorld Plus, $725; exhibits and open sessions, $30.

Oct. 18-19. Security of Things, A Smart Card Alliance Event. Hilton Rosemont Chicago OHare Hotel, 5550 N. River Rd., Rosemont, Illinois. Registration: members $775 before Oct. 8, $885; nonmembers, $895 before Oct. 8, $1,045.

Oct. 19. Crisis Communication After an Attack. 11 a.m. ET. Webinar by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and FireEye. Free with registration.

Oct. 20. Securing Cloud with Multifactor Authentication. 1 p.m. ET. Webinar by Vanguard Integrity Professionals. Free with registration.

Oct. 20. Los Angeles Cyber Security Summit. Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, 1700 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica, California. Registration: $250.

Oct. 20. B-Sides Raleigh. Marbles Kid Museum, 201 E. Hargett St., Raleigh, North Carolina. Registration: $20.

Oct. 22. B-Sides Jacksonville. Sheraton Hotel, 10605 Deerwood Park Blvd., Jacksonville, Florida. Registration: $10.

Oct. 27. SecureWorld Bay Area. San Jose Marriott, 301 S. Market St., San Jose, California. Registration: conference pass, $195; SecureWorld Plus, $625; exhibits and open sessions, $30.

Nov. 1-4. Black Hat Europe. Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, London, UK. Registration: before Sept. 3, Pounds 1,199 with VAT; before Oct. 29, Pounds 1,559 with VAT; after Oct. 28, Pounds 1,799 with VAT.

Nov. 9-10. SecureWorld Seattle. Meydenbauer Center, 11100 NE 6th St., Bellevue, Washington. Registration: conference pass, $325; SecureWorld Plus, $725; exhibits and open sessions, $30.

Nov. 12. B-Sides Jackson. Old Capitol Museum, 100 South State St., Jackson, Mississippi. Free.

Nov. 12. B-Sides Atlanta. Atlanta Tech Village, 3423 Piedmont Rd. NE, Atlanta, Georgia. Free.

Nov. 12. B-Sides Boise. Trailhead, 500 S. 8th St., Boise, Idaho. Cost: $10.

Nov. 12. B-Sides Charleston. Beatty Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina. Free.

Nov. 28-30. FireEye Cyber Defense Summit 2016. Washington Hilton, 1919 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. Registration: through Sept. 30, general admission, $495; government and academic, $295;Oct. 1- Nov. 21, $995/$595; Nov. 22-30, $1,500/$1,500.

*ECT News Network editors note  Oct. 17, 2016: Our original published version of this column incorrectly quoted Scott Borg, CEO of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, as saying, Im particularly worried about the Russians or Chinese. He actually said that he was not particularly worried about the Russians or Chinese (italics ours). We regret the error.
Google on Monday posted to the Internet a previously unpublicized flaw that could pose a security threat to users of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Google notified both Microsoft and Adobe of zero day vulnerabilities in their software on Oct. 21, wrote Neel Mehta and Billy Leonard, members of Googles Threat Analysis Group, in an online post.

Google has a policy of making critical vulnerabilities public seven days after it informs a software maker about them. Adobe was able to fix its vulnerability within seven days; Microsoft was not.

This [Windows] vulnerability is particularly serious because we know it is being actively exploited, wrote Mehta and Leonard.

However, Googles Chrome browser prevents exploitation of the vulnerability when running in Windows 10, they added.

Flaw Not Critical

Microsoft challenged Googles analysis of the Windows flaw in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by spokesperson Charlotte Heesacker.

We disagree with Googles characterization of a local elevation of privilege as critical and particularly serious, since the attack scenario they describe is fully mitigated by the deployment of the Adobe Flash update released last week, Microsoft said.

After cracking a system, hackers typically try to elevate their privileges in it to obtain access to increasingly sensitive data.

Additionally, our analysis indicates that this specific attack was never effective against the Windows 10 Anniversary Update due to security enhancements previously implemented, Microsoft noted.

The Windows vulnerability Googles team discovered is a local privilege escalation in the Windows kernel that can be used as a security sandbox escape triggered by a win32k.sys call, according to Mehta and Leonard.

The sandbox in Googles Chrome browser blocks win32k.sys calls using the Win32k lockdown mitigation on Windows 10, which prevents exploitation of the sandbox escape vulnerability, they explained in their post.

Short Deadline

Although Google contrasted Adobes quick action in patching its zero day vulnerability with Microsofts inaction, the comparison may be less than fair.

The time to patch code in Adobe Reader or Flash versus something that integrates into an operating system is considerably different, said Brian Martin, director of vulnerability intelligence at Risk Based Security.

What takes time is not so much changing the code as testing it after its changed, he explained.

If Microsoft patches code in one version of Windows, it will likely affect several other versions, Martin told TechNewsWorld.

Then they have platform issues  32-bit and 64-bit  and then the different versions  home, professional, server, whatever, he pointed out.

The amount of time it takes to patch it is one thing, he said. The amount of time to go through the full QA cycle is another. Seven days is generally considered unrealistic for an operating system.

To Disclose or Not

The short deadline was necessary because it saw the vulnerability being exploited by hackers, Googles team maintained. That logic, though can be a two-edged sword.

To me, this doesnt ultimately help achieve everyones goal, which should be keeping consumers and their data safe, said Udi Yavo, CTO of enSilo.

By disclosing a vulnerability early, without allowing time for a patch, Google opened up the small pool of people who found the vulnerability and knew how to exploit it, to all, he told TechNewsWorld.

However, keeping the vulnerability under wraps at all is questionable, suggested Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

Considering how closely the hacker community communicates, seven days may have been too much time, he told TechNewsWorld.

Google was being a friendly corporate citizen by letting Microsoft know about the vulnerability, but in my mind it would have been more appropriate to make it public knowledge once you see it in the wild, McGregor said.

A vulnerability can spread though the hacker community in milliseconds, he remarked. By not making the vulnerability public, the only people who dont know about it are the people who should know about it.
NEW YORK  US outdoor apparel brand Timberland and the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) have launched the results of a study which looks at the potential for smallholder cotton farming in Haiti. The results make a solid case bringing cotton farming back to Haiti while proposing a new model for introducing small-scale Haitian farmers to the global economy via exports. Cotton was once valuable agricultural export crop for Haiti but it has been hit hard by natural disasters, deforestation and various trade embargoes. The study looked at opportunities of smallholder cultivation of organic certification or participation in the Better Cotton Initiative.
Chinas Poyang Lake, which was swollen by El Nino rains earlier this year, has dried up dramatically since mid-September as the regions dry season arrived 54 days ahead of schedule.

The freshwater lake, which can grow to 1,737 square milesbig enough to cover an area larger than Rhode Islandsees regular seasonal variations but has started receding earlier each year since 1952. Xinhua, Chinas official news agency, said that diversions from the Yangtze River, a prolonged dry season and industrial activities are responsible.

This year, the water level in Poyang Lake dropped from 39.4 feet on Sept. 19 to 34.8 feet on Nov. 3, according to Xingzi Hydrological Station, which monitors the lake. Cattle are now grazing on the exposed lakebed. Tourists can walk large portions of the dried-up lake, while a large ship sits stranded on the bottom.

The largest freshwater lake in China, Poyang provides critical habitat for half a million migratory birds each year, including Siberian cranes. Less than 3,000 Siberian cranes remain in the wild and they are considered a critically endangered species.

The highly intelligent finless porpoise also calls the Poyang Lake home. Eight animals were removed from the lake in 2014 to secure habitats as the declining lake posed a threat to their survival. A healthy population also lives in the Yangtze River, under a conservation project led by WWF.

Uncounted numbers of dead fish lie on the dry Poyang lakebed. Local fisherman have seen their catch decrease and the fishing season shortened by two months due to the extended dry season.

In early 2012, the size of the Poyang Lake reached a low of 124 square miles. China Topix surmised that it might soon share the fate of the Aral Sea. Once the worlds fourth-largest salt-water lake, 60 percent of the Aral Sea disintegrated after decades of water diversion began under the Soviet Union.

Learn more here:
National Council of Catholic Women Surpasses One Million Works of Mercy in Jubilee Year



WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 /



"We have reached 1,094,315 and are still counting until the close of the Jubilee year," said NCCW President Sheila Hopkins. She had challenged NCCW members to reach a Million Works of Mercy by the close of the Jubilee Year, November 20, 2016. The call went out via social media (#worksofmercy, #millionworksofmercy); through the Connect, the NCCW e-newsletter; Catholic Woman magazine and at the annual convention and regional conferences.



"Council members are doing good deeds, serving those in need, and praying for others every day. It is who we are. It is our call and our mission, every day--in big and small ways," said Hopkins. "Making lightweight, waterproof mats for the homeless from grocery story bags, knitting caps for chemo patients and school children, collecting furniture for newly arrived immigrant families, sending cards to prisoners and the homebound, advocating for the unborn and elderly, gathering toiletries for women fleeing domestic violence, praying for those with no one to pray for them what a joy to know that each and every Work of Mercy reported helped someone in need. NCCW programs continue to help members answer the spiritual and corporal needs of families, parishes and communities."



Pope Francis wrote, "It is my burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty." (Misericordis Vultus, 15)



The National Council of Catholic Women, founded in 1920 by the U.S. Catholic bishops, acts through its membership to support, empower and educate all Catholic women in spirituality, leadership and service.



For more information, visit

Share Tweet Contact: Laraine Bennett, National Council of Catholic Women , 703-224-0990, lbennett@nccw.org WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- In honor of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW) answered Pope Francis' call to embrace works of mercy, both corporal and spiritual. The Million Works of Mercy initiative, proposed by supporting member Jane Carter, asked NCCW members to tally their works of mercy, performed either individually or as a council affiliate."We have reached 1,094,315 and are still counting until the close of the Jubilee year," said NCCW President Sheila Hopkins. She had challenged NCCW members to reach a Million Works of Mercy by the close of the Jubilee Year, November 20, 2016. The call went out via social media (#worksofmercy, #millionworksofmercy); through the Connect, the NCCW e-newsletter; Catholic Woman magazine and at the annual convention and regional conferences."Council members are doing good deeds, serving those in need, and praying for others every day. It is who we are. It is our call and our mission, every day--in big and small ways," said Hopkins. "Making lightweight, waterproof mats for the homeless from grocery story bags, knitting caps for chemo patients and school children, collecting furniture for newly arrived immigrant families, sending cards to prisoners and the homebound, advocating for the unborn and elderly, gathering toiletries for women fleeing domestic violence, praying for those with no one to pray for them what a joy to know that each and every Work of Mercy reported helped someone in need. NCCW programs continue to help members answer the spiritual and corporal needs of families, parishes and communities."Pope Francis wrote, "It is my burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty." (Misericordis Vultus, 15)The National Council of Catholic Women, founded in 1920 by the U.S. Catholic bishops, acts through its membership to support, empower and educate all Catholic women in spirituality, leadership and service.For more information, visit www.nccw.org . To speak directly with Sheila Hopkins, call (850) 570-7061 or schedule an interview through lbennett@nccw.org
On Wednesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally approved over-the-top use of Monsantos dicamba-based herbicide XtendiMax with VaporGrip Technology on dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybeans that have already been on the market for several growing seasons.

Cucumber plant injured by dicamba drift University of Arkansas

This means that farmers will no longer have to illegally spray their genetically modified (GMO) cotton and soy with older versions of an extremely volatile and drift-prone herbicide. Over the summer, such activities caused 10 states to report widespread damage on thousands of acres of non-target crops such as peaches, tomatoes, cantaloupes, watermelons, rice, cotton, peas, peanuts, alfalfa and soybeans. And last month, a dicamba drift dispute between Arkansas farmers resulted in one farmer being shot to death.

Although Monsanto said it warned farmers against illegal dicamba spraying, the company was sharply criticized for selling its latest batch of GMO seeds before securing EPA approval for the herbicide designed to go along with it. Bollgard II XtendFlex cotton was introduced in 2015 and Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans was introduced earlier this year.

We need to go after Monsanto. These farmers are being hung out to dry, said Bill Bader, owner of Bader Peaches, Missouris largest peach producer, who estimated a loss of 30,000 trees.

University of Arkansas weed specialist Bob Scott said in an interview with National Public Radio, This is a unique situation that Monsanto created.

Ryan Rubischko, who heads Monsantos North America dicamba portfolio, said the companys new XtendiMax weedkiller reduces volatility potential compared to dicamba formulations currently on the market today.

Monsanto spokesperson Kyel Richard told the St. Louis Dispatch that the product still needs approval from individual states before the product hits the shelves but still expects it to roll out by 2017.

Some growers have already expressed that they have no choice but to switch to the new Xtend system, as the St. Louis Dispatch writes:

With or without approval of the new herbicide, affected farmers have indicated they will be forced to switch to dicamba-resistant varieties as an insurance policy for future growing seasons. Some also question whether the release of the new, less-volatile variety will put an end to damage from drift, as scofflaw farmers may still be inclined to use off-label varieties if they are a cheaper alternative.

Weed experts are also concerned that the new product has very specific application instructions and are unclear about its chemical makeup. According to DTN:

University of Illinois weed scientist Aaron Hager told DTN that his biggest concern is that spray applicators understand that herbicide volatility and physical drift are different. The need to carefully follow label directions and keep this product physically on-target will be critical and require a lot of attention to detail both during application and clean out of sprayers, Hager said.

It doesnt take much of dicamba to cause damage to sensitive crops and we have a lot of sensitive crops to consider. Having a reduced-volatility formulation does not eliminate physical drift, he added.

XtendiMax herbicide is a diglycolamine (DGA) saltthe same salt used in Clarity herbicide. Monsanto has told DTN in past correspondence that it is the VaporGrip additive that prevents the formation of dicamba acid and lowers volatility, based on company tests. However, university weed scientists have complained that theyve not been allowed to test the new formulations to compare to older products such as Banvel and Clarity.

Environmentalists also worry about dicambas threat on biodiversity.

Once again the EPA is allowing for staggering increases in pesticide use that will undoubtedly harm our nations most imperiled plants and animals, said Nathan Donley, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. Iconic species like endangered whooping cranes are known to visit soybean fields, and now theyd be exposed to this toxic herbicide at levels theyve never seen before.

Another issue is that Monsanto is creating another cycle of herbicide resistance. Monsanto developed its Xtend system to address superweeds that have grown resistant to glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsantos former bread-and-butter, Roundup.

We cant spray our way out of this problem. We need to get off the pesticide treadmill, said Donley. Pesticide resistant superweeds are a serious threat to our farmers, and piling on more pesticides will just result in superweeds resistant to more pesticides. We cant fight evolutionits a losing strategy.

The Center for Biological Diversity said the new EPA decision will open the door for dicamba use to jump from less than 1 million pounds to more than 25 million annually on these two crops.

Breaking news: morning after the election, EPA rushes out decision that will massively increase use of toxic pesticide on GE crops #dicamba https://t.co/GRkYqMSSka  Lori Ann Burd (@LoriAnnBurd) November 9, 2016

Ronnie Citron-Fink of Moms Clean Air Force told EcoWatch she is worried about the health impacts of increased pesticide use.

We worry about pesticide exposure because children are more susceptible to chemicals through the air they breathe, the food they eat, and the water they drink. This is especially true in communities where homes, schools, and playgrounds are in close proximity to pesticide use, Citron-Fink said.

Monsanto expects to see 15 million Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybean acres and more than 3 million acres of Bollgard II XtendFlex cotton in 2017. According to AgWeb, the technology is also licensed to more than 100 additional brands. The company has invested more than $1 billion in a dicamba production facility in Luling, Louisiana, to meet the demand it predicts.

The EPA has registered the XtendiMax formula for use on dicamba-tolerant soybean and cotton for sale and use in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Elon Musks grand vision of a

Hyperloop system that can transport people and cargo through high-speed vacuum tubes is coming to life in the United Arab Emirates.

The near-supersonic railway would connect the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi with Dubai, the areas most populous city, in only 12 short minutes. This journey normally requires about two hours of travel by car or train.

Los Angeles-based Hyperloop One and Dubais Road and Transport Authority announced their new partnership Tuesday atop Dubais Burj Khalifa, the worlds tallest building.

We are here today to sign a historic agreement with our partners from (the Dubai) Road and Transport Authority  and we begin to evaluate the delivery of the worlds first hyperloop system across the country, Hyperloop One CEO, Rob Lloyd, told reporters.

The Roads and Transport Authority and Hyperloop One have agreed to develop a prototype of the hyperloop and the feasibility of building a hyperloop system that can link the two cities.

The Future of Global Transport: Hyperloop Ones New Vision in Collaboration with RTA and the Accelerators Program https://t.co/P58Kex2Yc4 pic.twitter.com/8XvW7z1CEX  Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) November 8, 2016

Hyperloop Ones vision consists of combining autonomous vehicles with Hyperloop technology, according to a company press release:

Individuals can commute for limited distances within the city in small self-driving vehicles. These vehicles can then board the Hyperloop train to travel for longer distancesincluding between citieswith speeds that can reach 1,200 kilometers per hour, exceeding aircraft speed. Hyperloop stations will be spread all around the city, providing easy and convenient access. This would effectively reduce travel time between Dubai and Abu Dhabi to less than 12 minutes, and between Dubai and Riyadh to less than 48 minutes.

The new technology is set to have positive implications on urban planning; it will economize parking spaces as it changes the way individuals commute within the city, as well as to and from logistical centers such as airports and portsnot to mention the impact it will have on shipping.

The deal is also meant to help city-state move forward with the Dubai Autonomous Transportation Strategy, which aims to render 25 percent of all transportations in the emirate driverless by 2030.

How the Hyperloop Ones system compares to other transport options. Hyperloop One

Although Tesla CEO Musk came up with the futuristic transport idea back in 2013, he is not affiliated with any hyperloop companies. He has, however, encouraged other private companies to turn his vision into reality. Besides Hyperloop One, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is another firm trying to bring the technology to life.

When asked about the projects cost, Hyperloop co-founder Josh Giegel told the Associated Press it would be somewhere between the cost of putting a road in and a high-speed rail.



The hyperloop features levitating pods powered by electricity and magnetism that can zip through low-friction pipes at speeds up to 750 mph. Hyperloop One

The Associated Press reported that at Tuesdays event, Hyperloop officials showed several circular station models for Dubai, including one at Emirates Towers on Dubais main artery, Sheikh Zayed Road. Dubais Jebel Ali port is also exploring the possibility of using the technology.

Hyperloop One is currently testing the transport system in the Nevada desert.

[instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BMhO3TEBwnh/?taken-by=hyperloopone expand=1]
(Facebook/Star Wars Rebels)Sabine and Ezra are surrounded by Mandalorian forces on Star Wars Rebels season 3 episode 7.

With the third season of "Star Wars Rebels" currently airing, the lead character of the series Ezra Bridger has been receiving a lot of backlash from some fans of the show.

Many have been following Ezra - who is played by Taylor Gray - and his story throughout the past seasons of "Star Wars Rebels." With that, they have witnessed the growth and development of the young character.

As it was hinted previously by the producer of the show, Dave Filoni, Ezra recently faced some internal conflicts. As he became stronger, Ezra began to ponder more on the idea of joining the dark side in order to become more skilled. Because of this, fans have been angry at the character's perspective, questioning his decisions.

The voice actor of the character was able to address the matter in an interview that can be found on YouTube. Gray explained that he enjoyed the fact that the fan base is so passionate about his character, as well as the story.

Though they criticize his character harshly, Gray explained that he found it progressive that fans have created their own theories about his character's conflicts.

With that, he confirmed that he had no negative feelings towards the fans, despite the comments they make on the characters. According to him, such feedback from viewers only mean that they truly care about the character, as well as the narrative.

Nevertheless, there is a lot to look forward to in the upcoming episodes of "Star Wars Rebels" season 3. Recent teasers for the new episodes show that there will be some challenges ahead due to Super Tactical Droid Kalani.

This is expected to bring on an epic battle that will involve the Clone War era droids. Because of this, the fate of many characters could be in danger, such as Kalani.

"Star Wars Rebels" season 3 airs on Disney XD every Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. EST.
(Photo: WCC / Peter Williams)The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby giving his massage to the World Council of Churches 10th Assembly in Busan, South Korea, on November 1, 2013.

UK government officials lack "religious literacy," and are therefore likely to view Evangelical Christians as extremists, the spiritual leader of the Church of England and the most senior bishop in the Anglican Communion has said.

Dr. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said that government officials often do not recognize a distinction between Islamic militants and traditional Christians, and are likely to see both groups as "a bit bonkers."

"It's fine to reject and condemn many of the things done in the name of religion but you still need to understand what it is that can so catch hold of someone that they think life itself is not worth living if that contradicts what they believe," said Welby, Catholic Culture reports.

The archbishop is a man who knows the secular world having spent years in corporate leadership in the banking and oil industries before turning to the Anglican priesthood.

The government thinks conservative Christians are 'extremists', says Welby who warned that UK government officials know so little about religion that conservative evangelicals would be counted as extremists by their own definition, reports the Catholic Herald.

His comments came in an address to head teachers of a Church of England school in the Anglican Diocese of Bath and Wells in the west of England.

Britain's Telegraph newspaper quoted Welby as saying: "Our government generally is desperately trying to catch up, to understand a world in which they have no grip on what it is to be religious at all."

The archbishop said, "The Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defense, our government generally, is desperately trying to catch up, to understand a world in which they have no grip on what it is to be religious at al."

Welby said, "Where religious illiteracy is prevalent and extremely destructive of understanding and where they can't see really the difference between an extremist Muslim group like the Muslim Brotherhood and a sort of conservative evangelical group in a Church of England church."

He went on to highlight the rise of religiously motivated violence, which he said is reaching levels not seen since the aftermath of the Reformation some 500 years ago.

Welby also highlighted the rise of religiously motivated violence, said the Telegraph reporting that the archbishop said this is now at the top the agenda in a way it had not been in Britain since the aftermath of the Reformation.

But while it is an issue which he has to confront virtually every day in his position, many in the Government appear to be struggling to understand it, he said.

The basic lack of "religious literacy" within the Government extends even to ministers, he noted
After more than a year of turmoil, including a number of violent incidents and a subsequent intervention by the Queensland State Government, the Aurukun State School has a new principal.The announcement comes after the states Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, undertook a major review and set out to implement 27 recommendations from a recent 67-page review into the school.Some of the key recommendations include the government to take the lead in education delivery, Years 7 and 8 to be introduced and an independent financial audit of the schools current financial arrangements.But yesterday, the school took another step forward with the appointment of Mike Ennis, principal of MacGregor State School, located in Brisbanes south. MacGregor beat 33 other applicants  three times the usual number  to get the job.Ennis, who spent part of his early teaching career at the Western Cape York community, will receive an executive principal remuneration package of $183,760 a year in his new role, which begins in 2017, the Courier Mail reported.The states Education Minister, Kate Jones, pointed to Ennis quality teaching and learning agenda, which she said would lead to improved student outcomes at the school.The merit selection appointment process took into account the qualities sought by the Aurukun community, including the need for integrity, fairness, quality and respect for the Indigenous people of the Wik lands, their culture, history and traditions, she said.Ennis told the Courier Mail said he looked forward to returning to Aurukun and working with children and the community to provide educational excellence.My wife Kay is an experienced primary and secondary teacher too and is returning to Aurukun with me. She will also work at the school as a teacher. We are both extremely excited to be returning to this wonderful community, he said.Speaking to parliament on Wednesday, Palaszczuk welcomed the appointment.We know how important education is for Queenslanders no matter where they live, Palaszczuk said.In particular, we want to make sure that we can deliver the best educational outcomes for the people who are living in Aurukun.
100,000 Children in the USA to Learn the True Meaning of Christmas Contact: Moises Esteves, VP of Communications and Marketing,



WARRENTON, Mo., Nov. 10, 2016 /



The program works by providing exceptional kits and helpful training to families, churches or other groups who will host a 90-minute party club to reach unchurched children.



"In our post-Christian culture, the beloved story of the Baby of Bethlehem, the angels, shepherds and wise men is one many children simply have never heard," said Ron Tant, Vice-President of USA Ministries. "That is what we are out to change."



Last year CEF held 2,559 Christmas Party Clubs all over the nation in homes, churches, hospitals, refugee camps, restaurants, libraries, daycares and even a car wash. Each evangelistic outreach included a Bible lesson, songs, snacks and games.



Altogether, 60,492 children attended CAA parties, each hearing a clear presentation of the Gospel. Of that number, 6,017 trusted Christ as Savior. Adults were also impacted. Over 4,000 parents and grandparents stayed for the parties, and 207 of them put their faith in Christ. Many of these party clubs are followed up with weekly Good News Clubs in public elementary schools all over the USA.



Christmas Across America provides an effective opportunity for churches to connect with and follow up on families in their communities, and pastors noted that hosting a party is made simple by CEF providing the needed free materials.



"It was truly a blessing to have a tool to reach so many at the same time. None of the children who came knew that Christmas has anything to do with Jesus. Thank you for making the Christmas Across America kit available and allowing our disciples to make more disciples," said one pastor.



The kits, available in English and Spanish, provide a Bible lesson with large, beautiful flashcards, visualized songs, a music CD, DVDs with training sessions and demonstrations, and promotional items. Kits also includes The Story of Jesus for Children DVDs and 30-page colorful booklets for the children. The kits are valued at $125, but are free to those who commit to hosting a party, being trained and completing background checks.



For more information about Christmas Across America program, go to

Share Tweet Contact: Moises Esteves, VP of Communications and Marketing, Child Evangelism Fellowship , 636-456-4321 ext 1311WARRENTON, Mo., Nov. 10, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Child Evangelism Fellowship will kick off their second annual Christmas Across America SM program this month with the goal of helping 100,000 children learn about and celebrate the birth of Jesus.The program works by providing exceptional kits and helpful training to families, churches or other groups who will host a 90-minute party club to reach unchurched children."In our post-Christian culture, the beloved story of the Baby of Bethlehem, the angels, shepherds and wise men is one many children simply have never heard," said Ron Tant, Vice-President of USA Ministries. "That is what we are out to change."Last year CEF held 2,559 Christmas Party Clubs all over the nation in homes, churches, hospitals, refugee camps, restaurants, libraries, daycares and even a car wash. Each evangelistic outreach included a Bible lesson, songs, snacks and games.Altogether, 60,492 children attended CAA parties, each hearing a clear presentation of the Gospel. Of that number, 6,017 trusted Christ as Savior. Adults were also impacted. Over 4,000 parents and grandparents stayed for the parties, and 207 of them put their faith in Christ. Many of these party clubs are followed up with weekly Good News Clubs in public elementary schools all over the USA.Christmas Across America provides an effective opportunity for churches to connect with and follow up on families in their communities, and pastors noted that hosting a party is made simple by CEF providing the needed free materials."It was truly a blessing to have a tool to reach so many at the same time. None of the children who came knew that Christmas has anything to do with Jesus. Thank you for making the Christmas Across America kit available and allowing our disciples to make more disciples," said one pastor.The kits, available in English and Spanish, provide a Bible lesson with large, beautiful flashcards, visualized songs, a music CD, DVDs with training sessions and demonstrations, and promotional items. Kits also includes The Story of Jesus for Children DVDs and 30-page colorful booklets for the children. The kits are valued at $125, but are free to those who commit to hosting a party, being trained and completing background checks.For more information about Christmas Across America program, go to www.christmasacrossamerica.com
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is supporting Gruppo Dolomiti Energia's 2017-2020 development plan with a EUR 100m loan. The operation will be guaranteed by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the guarantee fund set up as part of the Investment Plan for Europe (IPE)  the so-called Juncker Plan.

EIB resources will cover around half of the overall cost of Gruppo Dolomiti Energia's investment, which is aimed at renewing and developing gas and electricity distribution networks and strengthening and maintaining hydroelectric plants in the province of Trento in northern Italy, the main area in which Dolomiti Energia (1 400 employees, turnover of EUR 1.3bn in 2015) operates.

The Investment Plan for Europe provides significant additional added value to the EIB's lending activity for both large corporates and midcap companies. The Dolomiti Energia operation comes under several of our financing priorities, namely the development of electricity networks, energy efficiency and tackling climate change, said Miguel Morgado, EIB Director of Operations for Italy and the Balkans.

Beatrice Covassi, Head of the European Commission's Representation in Italy, said: "We are very pleased with this new project which comes to life in Italy thanks to the "Juncker Plan" to modernise and make more efficient energy networks and hydroelectric plants. Investment in energy is strategic for the future of Europe. That is why the Energy Union is one of the 10 priorities of the Juncker Commission. This project adds to the important number of projects already in the pipeline in Italy under the Investment Plan, of which Italy is today the major beneficiary."

Dolomiti Energia Holding Chairman Rudi Oss added: For us, obtaining this loan and the European Fund for Strategic Investments guarantee serves as confirmation of the value of our projects. The EIB's positive opinion of the Group's investment plan for the next four years will enable us to respond even more efficiently to local energy demand, contributing to growth and sustainability in the areas in which we operate.
home Entertainment 'Star Wars Rebels' season 3 episode 8 spoilers, news: Grand Admiral Thrawn returns; Rebels prepare for their biggest mission

Ezra and Sabine must team up to tame a rogue in the upcoming episode of Disney XD's hit animated series "Star Wars Rebels" season 3.

Titled "Iron Squadron," next week's episode will see the rebels face their formidable enemy from the Empire, Grand Admiral Thrawn. Also, Ezra and Sabine work on a special mission. To give viewers an idea of what's to come, the official synopsis for episode 8 reads:

"Ezra and Sabine team up to tame a rogue, young hotshot pilot and his crew who recklessly risk their lives in a fight to defend their home world from Imperial occupation."

According to spoiler reports, the Ghost crew will be heading to Atollon to establish a secret headquarters. Upon arriving in the location, the troop of rebels will replenish their resources as the plan their attack. Now stronger than ever, the Imperial Mandalorians have become more difficult to defeat as they leveled up, thanks to their wise and strategic leader Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Ezra, Sabine and the other members of the Ghost crew will help a group of insurgents called Iron Squadron as they fight against a troop of Imperial fighters. Grand Admiral Thrawn.found out about their actions, and his next move will be plotting an attack against them. As seen in the recent batch of promo clips from Disney XD, the Mandalorian master plans to manipulate both forces of the Iron Squadron and Ghost crew by using the commander's vessel as a bait.

There won't be a new episode of "Star Wars Rebels" this week since the program is currently on a break. After the latest episode titled "Imperial Supercommandos" aired last week, the show is set to return with a new episode on Nov. 19.

Keep tuning in to "Star Wars Rebels" season 3 every Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. ET on Disney XD.
With Donald J. Trump set to become the 45th President of the United States in January 2017, one question that will certainly gain some attention is the road ahead for lifting the Cuban Embargo. Its been something the outgoing President, Barack Obama has been trying to cement as a part of his legacy. Obama has put the wheels in motion to ease diplomatic relations under his executive powers, however a lifting of the Cuban Embargo still requires an Act of Congress. Trumps position on the Cuban Embargo will get considerable attention because it will effect how or if Cuban cigars are introduced into the marketplace. At the same time, Trump appears poised to take a different route than his outgoing predecessor.

Back in October, Trump did an interview with Jim DeFede of the CBS affiliate in Miami Florida. While Trump is open to re-establishing diplomatic relations, he does not feel President Obama has done a good job in terms of the current agreement that was place with Cuba. Trump was quoted in that interview as saying Look, Cuba has to treat us fairly and it has to treat the people of Cuba fairly and the people living here that were from Cuba or their families were from Cuba. The agreement President Obama signed is a very weak agreement. We get nothing. The people of Cuba get nothing and I would do whatever is necessary to get a good agreement. An agreement is fine. It has to be a strong, good agreement thats good for the Cuban people.

In that interview Trump said he would wait for a stronger agreement between Cuba and the U.S. before appointing a new ambassador.

Trump has been on the record stating he would rollback many of President Obamas executive actions, but it is unclear of Obamas recent easing of the Cuban restrictions would fall into this category.

Another question that will certainly surface is Trumps own business involvements in Cuba. There have been alleged reports that back in 1998 Trumps company explored some business opportunities in Cuba, thus violating the Cuban Embargo.

As for lifting the Cuban Embargo, that will take an act of Congress. While there is both a House of Representatives Bill and Senate Bill that was authored to lift the embargo, with a new Congress coming in, a new bill will need to be authored.

The cigar industry has primarily had a negative reaction to the easing of the Cuban trade restrictions. Many retailers and manufacturers feel this is unfair because while consumers can return overseas with cigars not subject to FDA regulations, the products U.S. cigar market is being subject to regulation  and the costs associated with compliance. Trump has also said for every new Federal Regulation enacted, there must be two regulations eliminated. However, in regards to the FDA regulations, removing them from the cigar industry would require an Act of Congress.
Two years ago, when Robert Caldwell made his return to the cigar industry, he unveiled a line called the Eastern Standard. Eastern Standard was cigar in that featured a unique Connecticut hybrid wrapper known as Dark Connecticut. This year, Caldwell has taken some steps to make Eastern Standard a full-fledged brand in his portfolio by introducing two new blends under the Eastern Standard line. One of those new blends is a maduro offering known as the Eastern Standard Midnight Express. The other is another Connecticut cigar, using a different Connecticut Shade wrapper known as Eastern Standard Dos Firmas  a.k.a. called the Caldwell Signature. At the 2016 IPCPR Trade Show, I had an opportunity to smoke this cigar in the Piramide vitola and informally declared this my best cigar I smoked during the trade show. Recently Ive gone through a more formal assessment of the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas Piramide. Now, three months later, my assessment of this cigar hasnt changed as this easily ranks as one of the best cigars produced by Caldwell.

The name Dos Firmas translates to two signatures, thus the name Caldwell Signature. The name is appropriate because the cigar carries the signatures of brand owner Robert Caldwell and William Ventura (owner of Tabacalera William Ventura where a good chunk of Caldwells production is made). While a new addition to the Caldwell portfolio, the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas has been around for sometime as it was a personal blend of the Ventura family,

Without further ado, lets break down, lets break down the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas Piramide. and see what this cigar brings to the table,

Blend Profile

Other than the use of what has been described as a special Connecticut Shade wrapper, the remainder of the blend is undisclosed.

Wrapper: Connecticut Shade

Binder: Not Disclosed

Filler: Not Disclosed

Country of Origin: Dominican Republic

Vitolas Available

The Eastern Standard Dos Firmas is available in four sizes:

46 x 4 7/8: 4 7/8 x 46

52 x 4 3/4: 4 3/4 x 52

Piramide: 5 1/8 x 50

Culebra: 6 x 30

Each of the four sizes are packaged in 20 count boxes with the exception of the Culebra. The Cuelebra consists of seven culebra units per box. Each culebra unit consists three panatela-sized cigars twisted together.

Appearance

While not quite as dark as the Dark Connecticut wrapper of the original Eastern Standards wrapper, the Connecticut Shade wrapper of Dos Firmas still was a shade or two darker than a typical Connecticut Shade wrapper. There was a light coating of oil on the wrapper. There were some some visible veins while most of the wrapper seams were on the thin side. The Piramide vitola is tapered from the footer to the tip with a sharper tapering toward the tip.

There are two bands on the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas. The primary band is a variation of the original Eastern Standard band. The band itself has a light beige color with sepia font. On the center of the band is a sketch of a bearded man surrounded by rounded sepia trim. To the left of the sketch are two lines of text  EASTERN and WE OWN with the lines of text divided by a short sepia separator. To the right of the sketch are two lines of text  STANDARD and THE NIGHT that also are divided by a short sepia separator. The remainder of the band has sepia trim near the edge.

There is a secondary band on the Dos Firmas that sites just below the primary band. It is also light beige in color with sepia font. The signatures of William Ventura and Robert Caldwell are featured on the band. On the far right is a small Caldwell bicycle logo.

The Culebra does not feature the banding of the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas.

Preparation for the Cigar Experience

As I typically do for figurado vitolas, I used my Credo Special T cutter with the 36 ring gauge hole to get an ideal cut on the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas Piramide. Once the tip was successful removed, I moved on to the pre-light draw. The dry draw delivered a mix of bittersweet cocoa and wood. Overall I considered this to be a satisfactory pre-light draw. At this point I was ready to light up the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas Piramide and move into the smoking phase.

Flavor Profile

The Eastern Standard Dos Firmas Piramide started with a mix of cocoa, cream, cedar, red pepper, and a very subtle orange sweetness. The cocoa and cream notes moved into the forefront early on with the cedar, pepper, and orange notes secondary. The cocoa notes delivered more in the way of sweetness as opposed to the bittersweet notes on the pre-light draw. This flavor profile held throughout the first third. Meanwhile the retro-hale produced a mix of red pepper and cedar notes.

As the Dos Firmas Piramide moved into the second third, the combination of cocoa and cream continued. There was a slight increase in the cedar and pepper spices, but these were still background notes. The orange note continued to diminish further into the background.

The cedar notes closed in on the cocoa notes during the last third. The creaminess from the first two thirds had diminished into the background. There was still a touch of red pepper from time to time and the orange notes had now dissipated. This is the way the Dos Firmas Piramide came to a close. The resulting nub was firm to the touch and cool in temperature.

Burn and Draw

One note on the construction  I did find the Dos Firmas Piramide to have a fragile wrapper. It is one that required some tlc when handling. In addition, I did find this wrapper to be one that could blister quite easily when putting the torch to it.

Overall I found the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas Piramide maintained a straight burn path from start to finish. The burn line required some touch-ups along the way, but this was a cigar that didnt require an excessive amount of them. The resulting ash had a salt and pepper color scheme. This was not an overly firm ash, but it was not a loose and flaky one either. The burn rate and burn temperature were both ideal.

The draw to the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas Piramide performed quite well. It was not too loose, nor was it too tight. The torpedo tip of the Dos Firmas Piramide.

Strength and Body

Overall I found the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas Piramide to perform as a medium strength, medium-bodied smoke from start to finish. The strength and body did increase in intensity toward the last third. Both came close to medium to full territory, but did not quite cross into that area of the spectrum. While she strength and body balanced each other nicely in the first half, I did find the strength had a slight edge in the second half.

Final Thoughts

There was something very special about the Eastern Standard Dos Firmas Piramide. Its a different smoke than the original Eastern Standard, but equally as intriguing. While Dos Firmas had a little more strength than I normally like on a Connecticut, this cigar clicked in the area that mattered most  flavor. I also thought that the Piramide format worked beautifully with this blend and as a result its the belle of the ball. While I little stronger than most Connecticuts, I could still see a novice trying and enjoying this cigar. As for myself, this is a cigar that I would easily smoke again. With this Piramide, it is definitely worth a fight for Chuck Norris over it.

Summary

Burn: Excellent

Draw: Excellent

Complexity: Medium

Strength: Medium

Body: Medium

Finish: Excellent

Assessment: 4.5-Fight Chuck Norris for Them

Score: 93

References

News: Caldwell Cigar Company Launches Eastern Standard Dos Firmas (Caldwell Signature) at 2016 IPCPR Trade Show

Price: $11.00

Source: Purchased *

Stogie Geeks Podcast: Episode 195, Episode 200

Stogie Feed: Eastern Standard Dos Firmas (Caldwell Signature) Piramide (Will), Eastern Standard Dos Firmas (Caldwell Signature) Piramide (Paul)

Brand Reference: Caldwell Cigar Co
Donald Trumps presidential victory stunned Gerard Araud, Frances ambassador to the United States. After, Brexit and this election, everything is possible from now on. A World is collapsing before our eyes, Dizzying, he wailed in a tweet. The collapsing world Araud was referring to is the globalized world of free trade and porous boundaries. On both sides of the Atlantic, elite disdain for national sovereigntyas manifested by support for mass immigrationhas fueled the rise of populists like Trump.

The United Kingdom Independence Party successfully mobilized the Brexit vote because its leader, Nigel Farage, understood that Britains other parties were more interested in cultural issues than in bread-and-butter practicalities. Farage, a member of the European Parliament, saw the vacuum and filled it. Who are you? he asked Herman von Rompuy, the former Belgian prime minister who in 2010 was elected by murky means to be the head of the European Council. Farage compared the new commissars charisma with a damp rag and his appearance to that of a low-grade bank clerk. He later apologized to bank clerks. It was a winning performance, but Faragewho has some of Trumps stylewas fined $4,400 for insulting such an exalted personage. He used the publicity to make an even stronger case for Brexit.

Brexit threatened the foundations of the European Union as it is run by the European Commission under the leadership of the imperious Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg. The Brexiteers victory was propelled by the workers in the formerly industrial areas of Northern England, a region long dominated by Labour. In the U.S., Trump took the comparable areas stretching from Pennsylvania to Ohio to Michigan to Wisconsin. His surprise win has shaken the intertwined world of the American oligarchs in Washington, New York, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley. They threw everything they had against him. They lost.

Not all Europeans are as glum as Araud. Geert Wilders, the right-wing Dutch politician and leading contender for that countrys prime ministership in next years election, is exultant. Wilders congratulated Trump on his historic and revolutionary win. With Trumps victory, he said, Americans are taking their country back. Wilders is currently on trial for supposedly blaspheming Islam. He was accused of hate speech for noting that crime in the Netherlands is disproportionately committed by Muslims from Morocco. He is boycotting the trial, which he has described as an attempt at judicial censorship.

Trump has had a broad influence on Europes nationalist leaders. Matteo Salvini, leader of Italys separatist Northern League, met with Trump while the Republican candidate was campaigning in Pennsylvania. They discussed the economy and Europes migrant crisis. Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, one of the few European leaders who spoke favorably of Trump during the campaign, wrote on Facebook : What great news. Democracy is still alive. In fractured Belgium, Mischael Modrikamen of the right-wing Peoples Party warns that, America should not become another Brussels, the site of numerous terrorist attacks and Islamic extra-territoriality. He despises Hillary Clinton, who is just the kind of politician we have here in Western Europe. Weak, globalist, obsessed by multiculturalism, despising ordinary people, but bending to elites and corporate interests. Modrikamen went on: Right now in Europe, we face migrant invasion, terrorism, violence, rapes. Our way of living is under attack, and industry jobs disappear fast. He sees Trump as the salvation not only of America, but of Europe as well.

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front in France and a candidate for the French presidency, congratulated Trump on Twitter and declared the American people free. Le Pen has an admiring but less exalted view of Trump. She sees herself as a future leader of Europea Europe not of the European Union, but a Europe of the Nations as envisioned by Charles de Gaulle. The world of E.U. bureaucrats is crumbling, as one of Le Pens aides put it. Ours is building. The French Socialist party is increasingly an organization of state functionaries and school teachers. Whats left of the French working class has been drawn into the anti-immigrant, anti-free trade postures of the National Front.

Elites on both sides of the Atlantic have overplayed their hands. While making grand gestures, theyve failed to demonstrate the basic competence to generate economic growth. Instead, theyve produced redistributive schemes that allow them to enrich themselves amid general stagnation. All the justified grievances of the forgotten working classes aside, it remains to be determined whether the new nationalist politicsnow on both sides of the Atlanticcan produce economies as rich as its rhetoric.

Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images
"No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth."



Plato





"This country has shed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other nations in the history of the world combined, and I'm tired of people feeling like they've got to apologize for America."

Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN)







In a time of universal deceit  telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

George Orwell, the author of 1984







"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.""Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.""A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example."Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.
Finally, some good news this week!

Blac Chyna, who has seemingly been pregnant for a decade, and Rob Kardashian just welcomed their very first child together.

E! confirmed Blac Chyna arrived at the hospital around 6:40 this morning with Blac's mom, Tokyo Toni, and Rob. Kris Jenner and Corey Gamble joined them, as well.

Their baby girl arrived at 9:18 Thursday morning via C-section, and she was named Dream Renee Kardashian. Renee is a family name -- it's Blac Chyna's middle name, too.

A source told E! that the baby girl "is gorgeous and has tons of hair!"

Here's hoping we'll see photos of the littlest Kardashian soon.
Mara Delta (formerly Delta Africa), the first multi-listed property fund to offer international property investors direct access to immediate high growth opportunities on the African continent outside of South Africa, continues to trailblaze across the continent.

The Company today announced that it has entered into negotiations to acquire a 13 560 m2 distribution facility in Nairobi, Kenya from Imperial Health Sciences Kenya Limited (Imperial Health Sciences) on a sale and leaseback basis secured by a renewable 10 year triple net lease.

The purchase consideration amounts to USD16 880 000 and will be funded on a debt free basis. Imperial Health Sciences is a subsidiary of JSE-listed global conglomerate Imperial Holdings Limited.

In addition, Mara Delta will also acquire a 20 220 m2 vacant plot of land adjacent to the distribution facility for a purchase consideration of USD2 996 000. Bronwyn Corbett, Chief Executive of Mara Delta commented: We are very excited about this transaction that will increase our exposure in Kenya to 5.4% of our total portfolio. The transaction is accretive at a purchase yield attributable to shareholders of 8.4%. In line with our risk mitigation framework, Mara Delta assumes no operational cost or risk as the acquisition is secured by a renewable, 10 year triple net lease.

Another very important consideration when acquiring an asset is counter party strength. In this regard Imperial Holdings Limited has underwritten the lease payments over the lease period.

The distribution centre currently services Imperials entire East African pharmaceutical distribution operation. We also acquired the vacant plot of land adjacent to the facility which offers excellent development and expansion potential. Our intention is to sell the land shortly after conclusion of the transaction to our development partner at cost, as Mara Delta wont assume development risk. In terms of the negotiations, Mara Delta will provide Imperial Health Sciences with a licence to occupy this property for a period of 2 years with an option to acquire the development.

The transaction is subject to suspensive conditions usually associated with transactions of this nature.
Contact: John M. Miller, National Coordinator, ETAN

john@etan.org; +1-917-690-4391

ETAN Urges Justice for Victims of the Santa Cruz Massacre on 25th Anniversary

Photo by Steve Cox, Generations of Resistance: East Timor November 2016 - On the 25th anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre, the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) urges the international community to commit to ending impunity for the human rights crimes committed during the occupation of Timor-Leste.

"The victims of the Santa Cruz massacre have waited too long for justice," said John M. Miller, National Coordinator of ETAN. Those responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes during Indonesias illegal occupation need to be held accountable for their crimes.

"We believed that an international tribunal is needed to credibly try those responsible for the Santa Cruz massacre and other crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by Indonesia during its illegal occupation of Timor-Leste," Miller added .

The victims of the Santa Cruz massacre have waited too long for justice. Those responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes during Indonesias illegal occupation need to be held accountable for their crimes. On November 12, 1991, U.S.-armed Indonesian troops opened fire on a peaceful pro-independence demonstration calling for self-determination and protesting atrocities committed by the Indonesian military. More than 271 East Timorese were killed or died soon after and an equal number disappeared and are believed to be dead.

The 1991 massacre -- witnessed and filmed by foreign journalists -- was a major turning point in Timor-Leste's struggle for liberation.

During more than two decades of U.S.-backed occupation, Indonesian soldiers committed serious crimes with impunity, taking as many as 184,000 Timorese lives and torturing, raping, and displacing countless others. Timor-Leste became independent in 2002.



"The East Timorese people will need to know the where the bodies of their relatives and friends are," said Miller. "Impunity for decades of systematic Indonesian military and police atrocities prevents both Timor-Leste and Indonesia from consolidating the rule of law as they transition from military dictatorship to democracy."

While some deeply flawed processes have prosecuted some involved in crimes committed in 1999, those responsible for giving the orders to torture, rape, and kill have yet to be brought to justice. Those from countries such as the United States, Britain, and Australia that actively aided in these crimes by providing weapons, training, and political support have yet to be held accountable.

ETAN continues to call on President Joko Widodo to fulfill his campaign promise to address human rights violations committed during and after the Suharto dictatorship, including by establishing credible judicial processes to investigate killings like the Santa Cruz massacre.

For more on the Santa Cruz massacre see ETANs backgrounder here: http://etan.org/factsheets/santa_cruz.htm

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) was founded in 199 following the Santa Cruz massacre. ETAN supports democracy, human rights and justice in Timor-Leste, West Papua and Indonesia. Website: www.etan.org Twitter: @etan009.

See also

Amnesty International, Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR), East-Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), Lao Hamutuk, TAPOL, Watch Indonesia! and Asosiasaun HAK: PUBLIC STATEMENT - Indonesia: Close gap between rhetoric and reality on 1965 mass human rights violations (October 1)

ANTI: Commemorating Referendum Day 30 August 1999 - 2016 and the International Day of the Enforced Disappearances (August 30)

ETAN/Tapol/Watch Indonesia!: Appointment of General (ret.) Wiranto as Minister confirms the deep-rooted impunity in Indonesia (July 27, 2016)

ETAN Backgrounder Breaking the Silence: The U.S. and Indonesia's Mass Violence (September 2015)
Younited Italia, Nicola Manzari e il nuovo Coo, Luca Faccini e Head of Growth e Domenico Petraroli e General Counsel
Donald Trump will become the 45th President of the United States following a surprising victory over his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton. Nationally, Mr Trump won with 47.5 percent of the votes, with Hillary Clinton taking 47.7 percent  yet, this translated into 279 electoral college votes for the Republicans and 228 for the Democrats. 270 votes were needed to claim the presidency.

President of European Council, Donald Tusk, has congratulated President-Elect on his victory and invited him to Europe for an early summit to chart EU-US relations. We should consolidate the bridges that we have been building across the Atlantic. Europeans trust that America, whose democratic ideals have always been a beacon of hope around the globe, will continue to invest in its partnerships with friends and allies, to help make our citizens and the people of the world more secure and more prosperous.

European leaders could not hide their concerns over the future of the transatlantic ties. Under Donald Trump, much is uncertain and according to some, his victory might be more shattering for the old continent than Britains decision to leave the EU. Donald Trump will likely shake Europes geopolitical order as his election is raising questions whether the US will continue to extend the unconditional security guarantee that has underpinned the continents security since the end of WWII. On top of security issues, the future of the TTIP  Transatlantic Trade and Investment Agreement  is likewise very vague and the US commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change will be very likely under much pressure under the new President.

Also Europes far-right leaders with views similar to Donald Trumps welcomed the US billionaires victory, saying that anti-immigrant Europeans could no longer be ignored by the political and media elites. With France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy all facing major ballot-box choices in the coming months, Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen and other Europes far-right leaders see Trumps sweeping victory as marking the beginning of their own historic rise to power allowing them to topple the post-Cold War globalized world order.

Faced with the surprising result of the US presidential elections, Europes mainstream politicians will now have to deal both with the pressure at home and from the worlds biggest superpower  if they were to cooperate with an anti-trade and anti-immigrant President Trump, Europes top political leaders will have little choice but to also accommodate far-right politicians at home.
Editors note: In celebration of the 20th anniversary of biochemist Michael Behes pathbreaking book Darwins Black Box and the release of the new documentary Revolutionary: Michael Behe and the Mystery of Molecular Machines, we are highlighting some of Behes greatest hits. The following was published here on August 20, 2014. Remember to get your copy of Revolutionary now! See the trailer here.

On his blog, Sandwalk, University of Toronto biochemistry professor Laurence Moran expressed uncertainty concerning the basic argument of my book The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism. So for anyone who wants a quick reprise of the books reasoning, below is a list of annotated bullet points plus some commentary summarizing it.

If the development of some particular adaptive biochemical feature requires more than one specific mutation to an organisms genome, and if the intermediate mutations are deleterious (and to a lesser extent even if they are neutral), then the probability of the multiple mutations randomly arising in a population and co-existing in a single individual so as to confer the adaptation will be many orders of magnitude less than for cases in which a single mutation is required.

The decreased probability means either that a much larger population size of organisms would be required on average to produce the multiple mutations in the same amount of time as needed for a single mutation, or that for the same population size a multiple-mutation feature would be expected to require many more generations to appear than a single mutation one.

As a matter of simple population genetics theory, the two points above should be uncontroversial. Now lets look at some empirical data.

In The Edge of Evolution I cited the development of chloroquine resistance in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum as a very likely real-life example of this phenomenon. The recent paper by Summers et al . confirms that two specific mutations are required to confer upon the protein PfCRT the ability to pump chloroquine, which is necessary but may not be sufficient for resistance in the wild.

I cited the development of chloroquine resistance in the malaria parasite as a very likely real-life example of this phenomenon. The recent paper by Summers . confirms that two specific mutations are required to confer upon the protein PfCRT the ability to pump chloroquine, which is necessary but may not be sufficient for resistance in the wild. The best estimate of the per-parasite occurrence of de novo resistance is Nicholas Whites value of 1 in 10 20 . This number is surely made up of several components, including: 1) the probability of the two required mutations identified by Summers et al. coexisting in a single pfcrt gene; 2) the value of the selection coefficient (which can be thought of as the likelihood that the de novo mutant will successfully recrudesce in a person treated by chloroquine and be transmitted to another person); and 3) the probability of any possible further PfCRT mutation needed to confer chloroquine resistance in the wild coexisting in the same gene with the other mutations.

. This number is surely made up of several components, including: 1) the probability of the two required mutations identified by Summers coexisting in a single gene; 2) the value of the selection coefficient (which can be thought of as the likelihood that the de novo mutant will successfully recrudesce in a person treated by chloroquine and be transmitted to another person); and 3) the probability of any possible further PfCRT mutation needed to confer chloroquine resistance in the wild coexisting in the same gene with the other mutations. The known point mutation rate of P. falciparum, combined with the apparent deleterious effect of the required mutations occurring singly, suggests that component 1 from the previous bullet point will account for the lions share of Whites estimate, probably at least a factor of 1 in 1015-1016 of it. The other factors would then account for 1 in 104-105. These values are somewhat flexible, accommodating the uncertainty in our knowledge of the exact values in the wild. In other words, a decrease in our best estimate of the value of one factor can be conceptually offset relatively easily without affecting the argument by supposing another factor is larger, to arrive at 1 in 1020.

These last three points, although based on inferences from empirical data rather than just pure theory, should also be pretty uncontroversial. Now lets pass on to the dicier stuff.

Any particular adaptive biochemical feature requiring the same mutational complexity as that needed for chloroquine resistance in malaria is forbiddingly unlikely to have arisen by Darwinian processes and fixed in the population of any class of large animals (such as, say, mammals), because of the much lower population sizes and longer generation times compared to that of malaria. (By the same mutational complexity I mean requiring 2-3 point mutations where at least one step consists of intermediates that are deleterious, plus a modest selection coefficient of, say, 1 in 10 3 to 1 in10 4 . Those factors will get you in the neighborhood of 1 in 10 20 .)

to 1 in10 . Those factors will get you in the neighborhood of 1 in 10 .) Any adaptive biological feature requiring a mutational pathway of twice that complexity (that is, 4-6 mutations with the intermediate steps being deleterious) is unlikely to have arisen by Darwinian processes during the history of life on Earth.

In the book I then go on to make a general argument that Darwinian processes could not have constructed the molecular foundation of life, but lets leave that aside for now. Lets just concentrate on the last two bullet points here.

Considered in the calmer context of the development of resistance to particular antibiotics (such as, say, a combination of chloroquine plus a second drug that is as difficult to evolve resistance to and works by an independent mechanism)  rather than in the highly charged context of intelligent design  even these two statements should seem reasonable to critics of ID. After all, many medical professionals searching for treatments for malaria are trying to do exactly that  to combine two very improbable mutational steps into an insuperable mutational pathway. If there were a second drug with the efficacy of chloroquine which had always been administered in combination with it (but worked by a different mechanism), resistance to the combination would be expected to arise with a frequency in the neighborhood of 1 in 1040  a medical triumph.

Where a critic might demur is on the question of how many ways exist to solve an evolutionary problem of that mutational complexity. I think thats due to a confusion about the need for particular mutations versus nonspecific mutations. While comparing the math of chloroquine resistance to mutations that have occurred in the primate line leading to humans, Professor Moran wrote, Does he really mean that there cant be any examples of two mutations occurring in the same gene since humans and chimps diverged? No, of course not. That overlooks the requirement for the great specificity needed to build biochemical systems. For example, to achieve chloroquine resistance malaria must at least acquire the mutations K76T plus either N75E or N326D in PfCRT  two very particular amino acid positions in a very particular gene  not just any two amino acids in any gene. That of course makes a huge difference to the probability.

Moran also writes, He seems to think that whenever we see such mutations they must have been the only possible way to evolve some new function or feature. Well, no, not the only possible way, but, yes, one of a very limited number of possibilities. (I wrote about this in my last article, too.)

In fact the number is limited enough that we can conclude with confidence that it wont affect my argument summarized above. For example, suppose there were ten, or a hundred different ways to address a particular biochemical challenge. That would barely move the dial on a log scale thats pointing at 1 in 1020.

Whats more, Nicholas Whites factor of 1 in 1020 already has built into it all the ways to evolve chloroquine resistance in P. falciparum. In the many malarial cells exposed to chloroquine there have surely occurred all possible single mutations and probably all possible double mutations  in every malarial gene  yet only a few mutational combinations in pfcrt are effective. In other words, mutation and selection have already searched all possible solutions of the entire genome whose probability is greater than 1 in 1020, including mutations to other genes. The observational evidence demonstrates that only a handful are effective. There is no justification for arbitrarily inflating probabilistic resources by citing imaginary alternative evolutionary routes.

To summarize, my argument concerns the evolutionary construction of biochemical features of specificity similar to malarial chloroquine resistance. The little-appreciated point I wanted to emphasize is that the likelihood of success decreases enormously if even a single mutational step of a pathway is disfavored. With more such steps, its improbability becomes prohibitive.
Hello all:



I am an anesthesiologist Doctor, I have completed my residency in Pakistan.



I already have an Australian PR. I want to know if i come to Australia, do i need to do the residency again or just have to give a licensing exam ?



My wife is a Pharmacist, he completed her degree in Pakistan and have 1 year experience in the field. Same question for her, does she need to give a licensing exam only or there is some mandatory training involved ?



Thank you.
Buying the car is easy , getting one at the right price is hard , services on car by Thais are nonexistent, they only fix , when they break down , if spending alot of cash , go for expat car , as they will have service history with main dealer , that you can check , All second hand cars here are well over priced , you will have to go and see lots of them , get your top 5 that you like and get price , after that you wait a week , then send your Thai wife in to do the work , getting price down , and they always do , me 440,000 Baht. Wife in to same car I picked last week , ps keep the reg as you check . Wifes bill 310,000 big saving , there's no extra money if you put in your name
Thursday, November 10, 2016

Most of the funeral products on display at the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) convention expo were exhibited in their finished form. Only Clark McMullen, founder and artist at Artistic Urns, brought his workshop to the showroom floor.

We brought the process with us here to show how we create a hand-turned wooden urn, said McMullen.

In the booth was a slice of a tree trunk, representing the timber they rescue from arborists, the trunk chunk from which they carve an urn, and the roughed out urn shape before it is finished. McMullens booth was coated with ribbons of wood shavings created as he used the lathe to sculpt a new urn, as demonstrated in this video.

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The companys tagline is As Unique As The Individual They Serve. Every urn created is unique  different in size, shape, color and character. There are no molds, no programmed cutting machines, no mass productions. Each piece is cut by hand, turned by hand and finished by hand. In fact, each urn is given its own unique serial number and signed by the artist who created it. No two are alike.

Artistic Urns sources rescued wood to use for their urns, which comes from downed trees. This may be due to storm damage or suburban backyard jobs done by local tree arborists. The company has saved the wood of hundreds of mature trees destined for local landfills.

The company is based in Georgia and all of their products are totally made in the U.S.A. Learn more at www.ArtisticWoodUrns.com.
San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp. and billionaire investor Carl Icahn suffered a setback Thursday as the Obama administration rejected a bid by refiners to shed the burden for satisfying U.S. biofuel mandates.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed denying the request Thursday, saying that shifting compliance responsibility for fulfilling the annual quotas to blenders would inject too much uncertainty into an 11-year-old program designed to force more renewable fuel into the U.S. gasoline and diesel supply.

Although the agency is opening a public comment period on the issue, the EPAs proposed rejection creates a higher obstacle for the independent refiners that had told the White House some facilities could shut down without the policy change.

The EPAs proposed rejection does not rule out a reversal by President-elect Donald Trump, analysts at ClearView Energy Partners LLC said in a research note to clients. A Trump administration seems likely to consider moving the point of obligation, ClearView said.

With the public comment period, the agency is also leaving the door open to the change, even as it counsels against the move. Thats a source of optimism for the refiners, CVR Energy Inc. CEO Jack Lipinski said in a telephone interview Thursday.

It effectively kicks the can down the road to the new administration, Lipinski said. Lipinski said he wants other parts of the fuel distribution system to share responsibility for the program.

On Wednesday, CVR shares surged 24 percent, the most in eight years, on speculation the Trump administration would be more open to making changes to the program. Icahn has a controlling stake in refiner CVR.

The situation is serious and merits full consideration by EPA, Valero said in an emailed statement. Todays decision by the agency creates an administrative mechanism for that full consideration.

The EPA could have denied the requests outright, instead of simply proposing a rejection, noted Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, one of the five entities formally seeking the shift.

A home run would have been them granting our petition, but EPA very, very rarely seeks a public comment on a proposed denial of something, Thompson said. They dont do that lightly, so the fact that EPA is saying today theyre going to open a 60-day public comment period on this issue tells us they believe there is merit to the petition.

Under current law, refiners and importers are obligated to meet annual quotas for using biodiesel and traditional renewable fuel. Refiners are affected unevenly by the mandates; those that do not have infrastructure to blend in the biofuels themselves must buy credits known as renewable identification numbers to comply.

Climbing RIN prices threaten some refiners with losses and have prompted Icahn to complain that the market for those credits is rigged.

Icahn blasted the arrangement on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday, suggesting that regulatory decisions by EPA staff in Ann Arbor, Michigan, could translate into bankruptcies for some refiners.

The EPA was literally making some decision with some guys up in Ann Arbor deciding which refineries are going to go bankrupt, just deciding, and I dont think they meant to, Icahn said.

Renewable identification numbers tracking 2016 compliance for ethanol blending traded at about 83 cents apiece, according to StarFuels Inc., a Jupiter, Florida-based brokerage. Theyve more than doubled in the past year. Green Plains Inc., the third-biggest U.S. ethanol producer, rose the most in more than a week, following the EPA announcement. Renewable Energy Group Inc., a U.S. biodiesel maker, also gained.

Refiners arguing for the change have pointed to the recent struggles of Philadelphia Energy Solutions Inc., which cut jobs and dropped a planned initial public offering, citing financial pressures including $250 million of RINs expenses for 2016. But refiners are up against strong market headwinds, including narrow margins, even without the obligation to buy RINs.

Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Valero, and two other refiners  HollyFrontier Corp. and Delta Air Lines Inc.s Monroe Energy  along with two industry trade groups had formally asked the EPA to shift the obligation away from refiners and importers so that it fell to blenders and other entities further along in the nations fuel distribution system. They argued the shift would align the burden for meeting the biofuel quotas with the blenders and fuel distributors that are best positioned to make decisions about how much renewable fuel is used. The change could drive more biofuels into the marketplace, they said.

The EPA was not convinced. The current structure of the RFS program is working to incentivize the production, distribution and use of renewable transportation fuels in the United States, the agency said in its 50-page filing.

While the EPA conceded that there are challenges with the program  including getting more next-generation advanced biofuels into the market  the agency said changing the point of obligation would not help overcome those obstacles and would only create new ones. Changing the point of obligation could also disrupt investments reasonably made by participants in the fuels industry in reliance on the regulatory structure the agency established in 2007 and confirmed in 2010.

The National Association of Truck Stop Owners, an Alexandria, Virginia-based trade group that also represents fuel retailers, applauded EPAs decision to not move the point of obligation, saying in an email that the current system is successfully achieving the agencys objectives of decreasing petroleum consumption.

The American Petroleum Institute and some refiners have also argued against the shift, casting it as a distraction from bigger efforts to overhaul the entire renewable fuel standard.

Stephen Brown, vice president and counsel of San Antonio-based Tesoro Corp., which had opposed the change, said EPA was making the correct decision.

Tesoro hopes that with this distraction set aside that interested stakeholders can now focus on the more important task at hand  comprehensive RFS reform, Brown said by email.
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Jose Martinez wasted no time after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election Tuesday, boarding a plane to Washington within hours to salvage international trade deals with Mexico.

After all, Trump called Mexicans rapists, promised to build a border wall and suggested exorbitant new taxes on Mexican imports. He said he wants to deport some 6 million undocumented immigrants and repeal the North American Free Trade Agreement as a way of returning sheen to the U.S. rust belt.

At least one Mexican newspaper called his victory a nightmare. It sent the peso to an all-time low of 20.7 pesos per U.S. dollar.

Martinez, who worked to preserve international trade as director of Free Trade Alliance San Antonio, set up some urgent face-to-face meetings with some of his contacts. Incoming Mexican Ambassador to the United States Carlos Manuel Sada Solana, a one-time consul general in San Antonio and personal friend, was at the top of his list.

With the billionaire president-elect, the clear priority now was to sell the economic benefits of cross-border trade. Like others in the trenches of border economics, Martinez took the stance that Trump was in a position to be won over.

From my point of view and from my background, its a great day for America, Martinez said in a cellphone call before boarding his plane. We needed some change and were going to get some change.

Martinez theorized that Trumps rallying points were mostly hot air. He said he largely avoided discussions on Trumps comments, because we just didnt know. And it was a lot of rhetoric, he said. So I hope that Mr. Trump is agreeable to at least some negotiation.

San Antonio and Texas border cities  which sit along a geographic nexus on the NAFTA superhighway  have thrived under the pact. Goods flow north and south through the city and border banks have a base of international clientele.

Mexican nationals fill U.S. shopping malls and invest heavily in high-rise condominiums on South Padre Island and second homes in the gated communities of northern San Antonio.

The U.S. and Mexico exchange over a half-trillion dollars in goods and services each year, with nearly 5 million U.S. jobs poised to evaporate should trade be halted with Mexico, according to a Nov. 4 essay by the Mexico Institute at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

What you have is a situation in which you know how a candidate campaigns and how theyre able to govern will be somewhat different. And thats normal; that happens during every campaign, institute Deputy Director Chris Wilson said.

He said Trumps administration will have to figure out how to keep his campaign promise to renegotiate NAFTA in a way that helps U.S. workers without putting at risk the 5 million U.S. jobs that already depend on U.S.-Mexico trade.

Mexico has every incentive to work with U.S. counterparts to ensure that we safely get to that place where a future President Trump can look his voters in the eye and say, I got you a better deal, and we ensure that we dont throw the U.S. and the Mexican economy into a recession, he said.

Trumps support came from Americans who felt displaced by trade agreements and immigration policies, said Mark Muro, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.

The election was dominated by a revolt of working-class whites who have felt demeaned by globalization and uneasy with lost power and increased diversity, he said. The tensions are both economic and racial, and the Southern border brought both kinds of scapegoating together.

Promises to bring back U.S. factory jobs overlook data that show those jobs were on the decline long before the NAFTA was signed, said Thomas Tunstall, senior research director at the University of Texas at San Antonios Institute for Economic Development.

In 1950, some 22 percent of U.S. jobs were in manufacturing. By 2000, the percentage had decreased to 12 percent. As of 2015, fewer than 8 percent of U.S. jobs were in manufacturing. U.S.-Mexico supply chains for making automobiles, electronics, and increasingly aerospace parts and equipment are at this point pretty well established, Tunstall said.

What people say in terms of rhetoric leading up to the election does not necessarily translate into policy, he said. Whatever Trump may think about NAFTA, its pretty well embedded into the system. A lot of official trade now occurs between especially Texas and Mexico but also between the U.S. and Mexico. And you cant just flip a switch and turn it all off.

While some of that decline is due to outsourcing, he added, more is due to automation, which is continuing to cut labor force needs and is having a similar effect on workers in Mexico and China.

Moodys Investors Services projected that Trumps stated policies on international trade would be positive for U.S. industries facing import competition, such as steel, but negative for sectors including autos, oil and technology.

A meaningful and protracted disruption to the flow of goods and services between the U.S. and China, Canada and Mexico, its three largest trading partners, could hurt corporate earnings, a credit negative, a report published Wednesday stated. Companies that derive a significant share of their business from exports to those countries or that rely on imports from one or more of these countries as imports for their own products or value chains would be the most vulnerable.

Fitch Ratings said its 2017 Mexican growth forecast of 2.6 percent was at risk until greater clarity emerges on the new administrations stance toward Mexico.

The advent of a Trump administration increases economic uncertainty in Mexico given its very close economic ties to the U.S., Fitch analysts wrote Wednesday.

Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Their report noted that Mexico sends about 80 percent of its exports to the U.S. and gets about 2 percent of its gross domestic product in the form of remittances, or money Mexican workers wire to families back home.

Mexico is by far Texas biggest trading partner, with 37 percent of Texas exports going to Mexico in 2015. Canada came in a distant second, accounting for 10.3 percent of Texas exports.

Trumps stance on Mexico calls into question Texas increasingly intertwined energy relationship with Mexico.

An energy boom in Mexico means our Texas industry has a lot to gain or lose depending on activity there, said Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

In a research note to clients Wednesday morning, Houston-based energy investment bank Tudor Pickering Holt joked: Will gas exports to Mexico go under or through the wall?

Its tricky, Webber said. The energy sector wants more trade and it was a resounding vote to step away from the world stage.

Mexican nationals and those who do business with them in San Antonio and along the border fear Trumps hostile tone could unravel lucrative ties that took decades to build up.

The promises in Trumps message are his biggest challenge, said Eduardo Bravo, a San Antonio publisher whos past chairman of the Association of Mexican Entrepreneurs, a networking organization with more than 25 chapters in the U.S. and Mexico. He cant build a wall, deport people and renegotiate NAFTA without deeply hurting the U.S. economy.

Its caused a lot of anxiety among investors and pressure on the Mexican economy. We cant forget the interconnection of the two economies, he said.

Bravo, however, sees this as an opportunity for Mexico.

There is a big challenge for Mexico, we need deep changes. The Mexican people are tired of corruption, impunity, human rights violations, narcotraffic, violence and poverty, he said. We should take this as an opportunity to push for a new era of cooperation and prosperity for both nations.

lbrezosky@express-news.net

Jennifer Hiller contributed to this report.
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Donald Trumps surprise presidential win produced mixed results for businesses operating in the Lone Star state, boosting the outlook for energy companies and farmers alike while dragging down the Mexican peso as trading prospects dimmed South of the border.

The growing realization that Trump was going to win the U.S. presidency sent global financial markets into a freefall overnight and the peso to its biggest drop in 20 years. For some industries, however, a Trump presidency  combined with the Republican control of both houses of Congress  will likely usher in an era of softer supervision and less onerous regulations.

Theres little doubt that a Trump presidency will be less hostile to the U.S. oil and gas business than the Obama administration has been and a Hillary Clinton administration would have been, said Karr Ingham, an Amarillo-based economist who specializes in oil.

Phil Stevens, chief lobbyist and consultant for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, said he thinks Trump will be more judicious to the industry.

Trump, though less predictable than Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, has always been pro-business, said Omar Garcia, president and chief executive officer of the South Texas Energy & Economic Roundtable (STEER), an organization that advocates for the development of oil and natural gas.

Loosening regulations for U.S. energy producers was one of his main campaign proposals. Clinton, on the other hand, vowed to toughen oversight on fracking.

The oil and gas part of it as it relates to South Texas I think will be in great shape, Garcia said. He has made energy a focal point of his campaign. Hed like to see America energy independent, and I think the Eagle Ford in South Texas plays a vital role in that.

Oil giant Exxon Mobils stock rose 1 percent Wednesday, while prices on corporate bonds for coal companies surged. Shares of San Antonio-based refiners Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp. rose by 6.7 percent and 4.1 percent respectively.

The markets in general were largely pricing in a Clinton victory, and so the reaction today is clearly people being surprised and you can see it in names like this, said UBS Securities analyst Spiro Dounis, who covers Valero and Tesoro. Some of Trumps biggest supporters oppose environmental rules that require refiners to produce a certain percentage of their gasoline from renewable fuels like ethanol, which can be produced from corn.

Dounis said that burden and cost could be shifted away from refiners to other companies, sending Valero and Tesoros shares higher.

A Clinton victory would have brought more consistency and certainty to global markets, executives said. They warned that more volatility is likely to follow as Trump lays out specific ideas for some of his more loosely defined campaign proposals over the next several months. And that may not be a bad thing.

We can still see uncertainty as the transition occurs between the campaign to actual policies and agenda, who will surround Trump and who will be in charge, said Amaury Conti, the research director for Sendero Wealth Management. Well have to see how the transition occurs from the rhetoric of the campaign to what governing will look like . . . But Trumps election may be more positive than investors have priced in.

Trumps pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act sent health care stocks soaring. Defense contractors and infrastructure companies also got a boost on hopes that Trump will spend more money on defense and on building a wall along the Mexican border. Shares of railroad company KCS, or Kansas City Southern Railway, which specializes in transporting freight between the U.S. and Mexico, plunged 10.9 percent.

Trumps anti-regulatory policies played well with his voter base  largely rural Americans who were driven by the sense that they were being over-regulated and over-governed, said Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, whos on Trumps agricultural advisory committee.

Trump has vowed to throw out the Environmental Protection Agencys redefinition of Waters of the United States, which farmers and ranchers saw as a way for the federal government to encroach on ponds and ditches with burdensome paperwork and expensive fines. He said the future Supreme Court makeup also weighed heavily in the vote, with farmers and ranchers hopeful a Republican would nominate justices more likely to side with the private landowner.

They dont want to lose private property cases, they dont want to lose eminent domain cases, they dont want to lose second amendment cases, they dont want to lose a lot of things, said Miller, who is said to be on Trumps short list for secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And then, what I was really excited about is trade. Opening up our agricultural exports, which he will do.

Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Local business owners were confused about the prospects of a Trump presidency, said Ramiro Cavazos, CEO and president of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The message (from the Trump campaign) kept changing daily, Cavazos said. This election and the results will take a while to sort out. It depends on who he hires to help him in his new role, Cavazos said.

James Kee, president and chief economist at South Texas Money Management, said investors received answers to big questions like who would be president and which party would control Congress.

That has been resolved, Kee said. Now the questions are what policies will be proposed and implemented, on taxes and regulations. Trade remains a big question mark. Theres always uncertainty at the point after an election. Trump has talked about simplifying Dodd-Frank. The market is thinking rationally about winners and losers.

Kee said the Federal Reserve is tilting toward an interest-rate hike during its December meeting. Well see what the international markets do the next few weeks, Kee said, explaining the Fed does not base its interest-rate moves on international markets, but it does monitor them.

Bernie Williams, vice president and chief investment officer for USAAs Wealth Management Investment Solutions said investors are worried about the stock markets volatile reactions. But we tell them they have to look through this and look long term, Williams said.

No one knows what will happen with U.S.-Mexico trade, he said. But the market shoots and asks questions later.

David Hendricks and Lynn Brezosky contributed to this article.
Youd think all the emphasis from home cooks and restaurants on local and organic produce would have Texas farmers jumping into the organics game.

Not exactly.

Heres whats happening: According to the National Center for Appropriate Technology, a nonprofit organization that, since 1976 has promoted sustainable farming, the entire state of Texas has only 305 crop and livestock operations certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Many of these are very small, selling less than $10,000 in ag products annually, and probably less than 200 farms have sold organic products in recent years, the organization stated in a report, Who Are The Organic Farmers in Texas?

And it gets worse. Texas has the lowest percentage of certified organic farms of any state in the nation and their numbers may be decreasing. According to government figures, only 0.07 percent of Texas farms are certified organic, compared to California, where 3.38 percent of farms are so certified.

This is all pretty crazy when you think about it. After all, many parts of Texas have a virtual yearlong growing season, labors cheap and Texas consumers buy lots of organic food, about $1 billion annually, according to NCATs estimate.

Why the gap between the demand and the supply?

Consider this experience from farmer Pedro Schambon: He had contracted with meal delivery company Blue Apron to grow turnips, but because he operates an organic farm and grows open-pollinated turnips that grow at different rates, they are not always the right size on the exact date Blue Apron wants them.

So the owner of My Fathers Farm in Seguin recently spent time on the phone trying to unload several plastic barrels filled with the unwanted, recently harvested turnips.

He called a friend with horses, but apparently turnips give horses diarrhea. So instead he looked for someone who raised pigs and would take the turnips off his hands.

Fortunately, Ive still got plenty of turnips that are the right size for Blue Apron, said Schambon. And I can sell the smaller ones to H-E-B.

Thats just one of the many headaches that apparently are keeping farmers from making the leap from traditional to organic farming  and has them missing out on benefiting from the demand for organic food.

In other words, Texas farmers are leaving a lot of money on the table.

Why?

Thats a complicated question, said Mike Morris, director of the southwest regional office of MCAT. He listed several factors.

Its technically difficult and time-consuming to switch from traditional farming methods to organic. For example, fields must undergo a three-year transition period during which no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides are used.

Many farmers see a drop in yields during this transition period, yet theyre unable to get the higher prices organic produce commands because theyre not yet certified.

It takes a lot of skill to operate a successful organic farm, and so these farmers need a lot of technical support, which isnt always available.

Generally, a farm can be certified organic if it does not grow genetically modified crops or use synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, and, if its raising livestock, doesnt use antibiotics and growth hormones. In addition to eschewing GMOs, My Fathers Farm relies on regular applications of organic pest control such as bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a naturally occurring soil-borne bacteria, and neem oil made from the fruit and seeds of the neem tree.

And weed control? He showed me his calloused palms and said, The best way is pulling them by hand.

The Schambons have been farming this land for five years and he said his organic produce sells for about 30 percent more than it would if it was traditionally grown.

Even with this premium, so few Texas farmers have made the leap that area retailers such as H-E-B often must look elsewhere to fill their shelves with organics.

Were deeply committed to sourcing locally and would love to buy more organic food produced in Texas, said grocery chain spokeswoman Julie Bedingfield. We expect the number of organic farms to grow, but in the meantime, well continue looking wherever we can to supply our customers with the organic products they demand.

Trouble is, they often have to look out of state.

I make deliveries to the H-E-B warehouse off Interstate 35 twice a week, said Schambon, and it ticks me off to see all those trucks from California and Mexico delivering organic food when we have the resources to grow it right here in Texas.

Schambon said he thinks the real reason more farmers arent growing organic is their mindset.

Theyre so invested in doing things the way theyve always done them, they cant conceive of doing it any other way.

The NCAT report (available at ncat.org) makes a dozen recommendations for accelerating the process of developing and supporting organic farms. These include providing more assistance to farmers making the transition, improving education about organic farming for agriculture extension, Farm Service Agency and bank employees, even launching an ugly produce campaign to sell lower-priced organic produce thats not nearly as cosmetically flawless as whats grown on traditional farms.

With such a campaign in place, Schambon at least would be able to sell his load of too-big turnips instead of fobbing them off on a pig farmer.

rmarini@express-news.net
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In a chest in Ernest Samussons home is an auburn kimono, decorated with orange and white flowers rising in waves. The 98-year-old retired Army colonel found the kimono between two wars, during a moment of transition in world history.

After the Japanese surrender and the end of World War II, Samusson and his unit were sent to Japanese-occupied Korea to prepare it for the American takeover.

Their former enemies greeted them as they arrived at Taegu Airfield, Samusson said. Their weapons were stacked, nice and neat. Samusson, a major at the time, met with the Japanese base commander, who gave them tea. Face to face with the men they had been fighting, they now had to interact as people, and not enemies.

I remember how funny a feeling it was, Samusson recalled. Japanese guarding us the whole time. Here we were...they had been the enemy.

Their mission as an advance party was to find lodging for American troops when they arrived later on. They were the first Americans many of the Koreans had seen. Children would run to get a look at them. The kids would just pile out the windows, just pile out the windows, Samusson said, and we were surrounded.

In another town, they met with more Japanese officers, who held a banquet for them.

I remember one dish more than any other, Samusson said. Here came a dish so big. They happened to put it in front of me first. They took off the cover and steam just flew up. And there was a whole chicken Im talking about head, feet, everything ... It was very good when you cut a piece off, but when I first looked at it, a whole chicken just lying there, staring at me.

He couldnt recall how the Japanese soldiers, who were preparing to head home, felt about the surrender.

They couldnt take everything with them to Japan. The Americans took over a department store. Anything the Japanese soldiers couldnt bring home, they could sell. The Japanese were probably robbed by some of the prices, Samusson said.

Samusson bought three kimonos. They reside in his home at the Army Residence Community in San Antonio, along with other mementos from a long military career. He would later return to Korea, during the carnage of the Korean War.

His favorite Japanese painting from the Korean department store is a peaceful pastoral scene. Thin trees stretch upward past rolling hills, but what Samusson finds significant about the painting is what lies in the middle of it: a person.

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Voters in outlying areas of Bexar County turned out in strong numbers and overwhelmingly supported Republican presidential winner Donald Trump, especially on the far, suburban North Side.

But Democrat Hillary Clinton, who lost the national election and Texas, still won the popular vote locally and seized more than twice as many voting precincts as Trump in other parts of Bexar County, according to an analysis of election data by the San Antonio Express-News.

Clinton also grabbed a higher percentage of voters in Bexar County than President Barack Obama did in 2012, and she earned about 54,000 more actual votes.

The analysis shows a county divided by geography and ideology. Some of the strongest turnout occurred in large precincts that ring Bexar County and lean conservative. Nestled in that sea of Trump supporters is an island of inner-city precincts that might be smaller in size, but collectively supported Clinton and other Democrats in high numbers.

Clinton won most precincts inside Loop 410, including all of downtown, but lost many smaller, suburban cities inside the loop like Olmos Park, Alamo Heights and Terrell Hills. She also won large areas on the far South Side and on the Northeast Side.

Trumps largest batch of support was north of Loop 1604 and up the U.S. 281 and Interstate 10 corridors. He also had sizable success on the far West Side, on the Medina County line, and in smaller, rural communities in southeast and southwest Bexar County.

Some of the countys highest voter turnout was in precincts in these far North and far West areas.

This pattern has emerged in past elections. Republican challenger Mitt Romney secured a similar suburban ring of support in his unsuccessful bid to unseat Obama four years ago.

It doesnt help that were the most economically segregated community in the United States, said Manuel Medina, chairman of the Bexar County Democratic Party, referring to past studies examining the economic divide in San Antonio.

Many of the precincts that favored Clinton were in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods such as Precinct 2045 near Woodlawn Lake, where 65 percent of the voters cast ballots. Most voters in that precinct preferred Clinton over Trump, 952 votes to 258.

Areas where Trump performed best, on the whole, have lower percentages of Hispanic voters compared to precincts Clinton won, according to some of the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.

St. Marys University political science professor Henry Flores wasnt surprised to see election results that closely mirror those from 2012.

Bexar County, dominated by the city itself  particularly within the boundaries of (Loop) 410 is a very Democratic city, Flores said.

He also noted political operatives in Bexar County tend to stay in areas where they already know they have support.

It comes from the thinking, you want to stay away from your opponents turf, so to speak, (because) what you might end up doing is antagonizing your opponents constituency and that will increase their turnout, Flores said.

Overall, Clinton won 474 voting precincts in Bexar County while Trump won 198. Out of 598,081 ballots cast in Bexar County, Clinton won 53.7 percent of the vote to Trumps 40.3 percent.

Most voters  475,000  cast their ballots during a surge of early voting and at least 250,000 of them were women. The average voter age during that period was 52.

Nationally, exit polls showed voters under age 45 voted for Clinton at higher rates than Trump, said John Hermann, associate professor of political science at Trinity University.

If the Bexar County vote was hardly surprising, the same could not be said for the outcome across the country: Trump secured more women voters than expected, he grabbed almost 30 percent of the Latino vote and, like Ronald Reagan, he attracted blue-collar Democrats in states like Michigan and Wisconsin, Hermann said.

You have angry Americans that are white, have less education, they believe they are disenfranchised, disaffected, whatever word you want to use, and they voted for Trump, Hermann said. He definitely struck a chord with them.

jtedesco@express-news.net
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WASHINGTON  At Hillary Clintons somber New York headquarters early Wednesday, Julian Castro warned of severe consequences for young Latinos under a Donald Trump presidency.

If theres one disturbing pattern that Donald Trump has shown during this campaign its that hes a bully and he likes to pick on people who cant fight back. Well, those folks are going to need every voice they can get, Castro, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told the New York Daily News.

For Castro and his twin brother, U.S. Rep. Joaquin, D-San Antonio, the question is whether and how they will continue to be that voice for Latinos  and which elective office either or both might seek in the new political landscape shaped by Trump.

The brothers both are widely seen as having promising political futures and, at 42, they have time to pursue opportunities. So for that reason, they likely will be cautious about which paths they choose and neither seems inclined to run for governor in 2018, according to allies of both.

The Latino population continues to expand in Texas. Victories Tuesday in state legislative races in San Antonio and elsewhere suggest that efforts to mobilize low-propensity voting Latinos can be successful.

According to Latino Decisions polling leading up to the election, 79 percent of Latinos in Texas believe Republicans either dont care much about Latino issues (31 percent) or are hostile (48 percent) toward Latinos. Attitudes formed by Trumps draconian proposals and callous remarks about Latinos could create lasting impressions, pollsters said.

Yet Latinos came up short in a race they focused on heavily when Democrat Pete Gallego failed Tuesday to unseat U.S. Rep. Will Hurd in a San Antonio-area race for Congress.

Julian Castro was among Cabinet secretaries in the Obama administration who expected an opportunity to work in a Hillary Clinton administration. He had reason, having been among finalists to become Clintons running mate before she picked Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine.

The former San Antonio mayor had campaigned for Clinton, who spoke highly of him. So it was possible he could have remained at HUD or secured another appointment, perhaps as commerce secretary.

Now, according to allies, he will likely return to San Antonio to finish an autobiography. Before Barack Obama selected him in mid-2014 to lead HUD, he had received an advance from his publisher, Little, Brown and Co. But he was prohibited at HUD from other work that yielded outside income.

His allies said he also may seek paid speaking opportunities and perhaps a part-time university teaching position.

Will he run for office anytime soon?

Clintons defeat opens the door for a new generation of White House aspirants in a Democratic Party that will be rethinking its appeal in the wake of startling losses Tuesday. Julian Castro, allies said, could well be aiming his sights on the 2020 presidential election.

Meanwhile, Joaquin Castros strength locally is such that he won re-election in his San Antonio congressional district without drawing a Republican challenger.

The congressman will return for his third term in the House with Republicans again controlling the chamber, but with him retaining significant committee assignments on Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Last summer, Joaquin Castro said he was considering a challenge in 2018 of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who at the time had raised the ire of conservatives for refusing to endorse Trump at the GOP nominating convention. Cruz later offered support for Trump and campaigned on his behalf, but he yet may draw a primary challenger.

Joaquin Castro is believed to still be considering the Senate race; he was unavailable Wednesday to comment. Had Clinton won Tuesday, it might have made it tougher with a Democrat in the White House to run statewide in Texas, as history has shown.

University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus noted that even with a Republican White House, Democrats can find it difficult in midterm elections to turn out voters.

Nonetheless, he noted pockets of Latino successes around Texas on Tuesday, adding his belief that the prospect of an energized Latino electorate and Cruzs perceived vulnerability together could be incentive for Joaquin Castro to make the race.

A Hispanic surname at the top of the ticket brings out Latino voters, Rottinghaus said of past statewide elections.
Jessica Azua woke up Wednesday morning to a slew of text messages, Facebook posts and missed phone calls from friends and family.

Some of the messages were from immigrants asking the San Antonio-based employee of the Texas Organizing Project about their future in the U.S. Others were from concerned friends wondering about Azua's future here.

Im still in shock, said the 25-year-old who came to the U.S. when she was 14 and who has permission to work under President Obamas deferred action policies. Tuesday nights election of Donald Trump has left her life in this country uncertain. I went to sleep last night and I already had a feeling that Trump was going to win because of the numbers, but they hadnt announced it formally, so when I woke up and I heard that he was the president-elect, I was disappointed, I was upset, I was still in shock  I cried. But I am not someone who gives up easily. So yes, Im a little scared about whats going to happen, but what I know is going to happen is Im going to keep fighting.

After eight years of policies that made it highly unlikely longtime residents of the U.S., particularly those with children born here, would get deported unless they committed criminal offenses, Trumps election leaves San Antonios immigrant community wondering whats next.

Despite receiving criticism from immigration activists for record deportation numbers, the Obama administration put in place what were called removal priorities instructing immigration agents to focus on those who recently entered the country illegally and immigrants convicted of serious crimes. Obama also implemented the deferred action program that gave work permits to 800,000 young immigrants here illegally. An expansion of the policy that could grant reprieves from deportation for an additional 5 million, including the parents of some U.S. citizens and green card holders, is tied up in litigation.

Those advocating restricting immigration to the U.S. cheered Trumps election and his promises to end Obama policies they say have encouraged more illegal immigration and begin widespread deportation. Such a reversal would be costly and potentially unpopular and is unlikely to happen overnight, however.

Eric Ruark, the director of research for NumbersUSA, which advocates for less immigration, said he thinks rather than canceling deferred action for those who already have it, Trumps administration will stop issuing renewals of the two-year work permits.

Really what the Obama administration was doing was removing violent criminal aliens, people who committed serious crimes in the United States, rather than people who violated immigration laws, he said. From what weve heard from the candidate Trump, we expect to see immigration law applied more evenly.

He also supports Trumps promise to implement a nationwide requirement that employers use E-verify, which Ruark said will reduce the pull factor of employment for immigrants who come here illegally.

Defenders of Obamas policies have said they allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to focus its limited resources, but Ruark said that ICE has devoted personnel away from deportations to looking through deportation cases and deciding whether they should be pursued or closed under the removal priorities.

ICE, which is requesting more than $6 billion for its 2017 budget, would need billions more to deport 11 million people, said Alonzo Pena, the agencys former deputy director.

Pena said theres a misconception that mass deportation would involve sending buses full of people to Mexico. In reality, it would involve coordinating flights overseas, confirming the countries of origin of those being deported and making sure those nations will take their citizens back. Under existing immigration laws, many of those facing deportation would be granted court hearings.

Theres no way that if tomorrow they said, Go round them all up that theyd have the resources to do that or the infrastructure that needs to be in place to do that, Pena said. That includes detention centers, courts, judges the administrative personnel. It just would not happen.

He warned about civil liberties concerns as well.

Are we going to have a mass discrimination now that anyone who looks a certain way, theyre going to be picked up and taken from their home? Pena asked. You have to be concerned about that now. That citizens who dont look like what people think of as American are going to be approached and asked for documents. You have a slippery slope.

Homero Garza has been living in limbo for two years now. When Obama announced the expansion of deferred action in November 2014 it looked like Garza, the parent of two U.S. citizen children who runs a painting company in San Antonio but doesnt have permission to be in the country, would get a permit to work here legally.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas judges injunction against the policy, killing any chance it would be implemented before the end of Obamas presidency. Now Trump has vowed to reverse Obamas executive actions on immigration.

Garza, who volunteers at the Abundant Life Church, said his faith keeps him from being scared. In fact, while he disagrees with Trump on immigration, Garza said he agrees with conservatives on issues like gay marriage and abortion. Hes more concerned about his 12-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter, who have only known life in the U.S., than he is about his own future.

Thats the only thing I feel bad about, because my kids are born here and if I have to go, I have to take my kids with me, he said. But Im thinking today about that, and I say, Well I lived in Mexico pretty close to Eagle Pass and I can bring my kids to Eagle Pass and continue in school. Im trying to think how I can have with my kids the same life.

Yessica Vazquez, who came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 6-years-old, said she has no connection to the country of her birth. She has deferred action and is planning to go to law school after graduating from the University of Texas at San Antonio in December. Now she doesnt know what the future holds for her, her 22-year old sister who also has deferred action and her parents, who are here illegally.

Vazquez said she has no way to square her legal status other than through marriage or an employer who sponsors her, and because shes lived in the U.S. without permission for more than a year she could be banned for returning for 10 years if she leaves and tries to come back legally.

(Trump) said that hes going to stop everything Obama did, get rid of everything Obama did. Its kind of nerve-racking to know that any time after he gets into office, he could be like, its over, Vazquez said. We just hope that  his advisers, they wake up and realize they cant do that. Theres people that have been here their whole life. I love this country. Were here to help. We want to be part of this nation.

Garza said hes not afraid of returning to Mexico, but he wonders how the U.S. will fare without the millions of people living here illegally.

What happens to this country when the people who do the hard jobs leave? he asked. The people who cut the grass. The people who build the houses. When the construction workers leave.

jbuch@express-news.net

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A San Antonio City Council committee wants an independent look on the impact of limiting outdoor watering to once a week year-round.

District 8 Councilman Ron Nirenberg had suggested making Stage 1 restrictions a new baseline for San Antonio Water System customers, even when there isnt a drought. Austins council passed a similar measure earlier this year.

SAWS officials opposed the idea after conducting an internal study of the potential effect on water use and customer rates. They claimed little water would be saved overall and customer bills would rise.

At the meeting, Nirenberg sparred with SAWS President and CEO Robert Puente over whether SAWS was doing enough to conserve water as it pursues additional expensive water supplies, especially the 142-mile, $2.8 billion Vista Ridge pipeline.

For me, this is about doing everything we can to make sure we arent buying additional supplies when we dont have to, Nirenberg said.

Puente showed a chart with a dramatic drop in per-customer water use from 225 gallons per day in the 1980s to 118 gallons per day in 2015.

We really believe in conservation because of that measure, Puente said, adding that SAWS would have already needed to build a Vista Ridge-sized project to meet current demand if it had not conserved.

Committee member District 9 Councilman Joe Krier said he had heard from constituents who think once-a-week watering in non-drought periods is a bad idea. He said it encourages them to water on their days of the week even when they do not need to. Restrictions also kill their lawns and landscaping if they are out of town on their watering day.

When its 100 degrees out, St. Augustine (grass) doesnt do well even with once-a-week watering, he said. Ive watched mine die.

Krier also questioned how the measure would affect SAWS revenues, its ability to maintain its 9,000 miles of water and sewer mains and pay its debt.

At the end of the day, youre in the business of selling water, arent you? Krier said.

Nirenberg saw SAWS mission differently  the utility must ask customers to live within the semi-arid regions means and not waste water, even if they can afford to, he said.

We have to remind ourselves that this is a municipally owned, publicly owned water utility, he said. You are not in the business of selling water. Youre in the business of delivering water.

Nirenbergs proposal did not pass the council's Transportation, Technology and Utilities Committee on Wednesday, but the panel did unanimously vote to ask SAWS for more data, as well as analysis on a new automated metering pilot program.

We respect and appreciate SAWS opinion but we want an independent opinion as well, said committee chair District 6 Councilman Ray Lopez. District 4 Councilman Rey Saldana and District 5 Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales also sit on the committee.

bgibbons@express-news.net

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A 46-acre tract in La Cantera the feds claimed was illegally bought for Mexican ex-Gov. Tomas Yarrington Ruvalcaba has been sold for $7 million to a luxury home developer from North Texas, court records show.

It signaled the end of the governments civil claim against the seller, a Mexican businessman that U.S. prosecutors never charged, even as they linked him to a corruption case against the former governor.

San Antonio resident Alberto Berlanga Bolado, a former official in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, accepted the cash offer Tuesday from Western Rim Investment Advisors Inc. and its representative, Marcus D. Hiles, court papers state.

As part of a court settlement, Berlanga agreed to hand over $1 million of the $7 million purchase price to federal prosecutors and $3.2 million to PlainsCapital Bank, which helped him with financing to acquire the land a few years ago.

Under orders of U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, Berlanga also placed $1.2 million in escrow as he continues fighting the bank in court over how much interest he owes. Berlanga made $1 million, not counting what he might get from the disputed $1.2 million, said his lawyer, Rolando Rios.

As part of the settlement, the government will drop the forfeiture lawsuit it filed in 2012 against the property and agree that Berlanga was never charged during its criminal investigation of Yarrington, who was governor of Tamaulipas from 1999 to 2005.

Rios said the feds wrongly targeted Berlanga because he was from Mexico with a lot of money and that the forfeiture case had put a cloud over the land and made it hard to get a better sale offer.

It was a long and difficult road, Rios said. My client was plastered in the paper like he was a criminal. In the end, he did nothing wrong and (prosecutors) admitted it.

A message seeking comment was left Wednesday with the buyer, Western Rim, which Rios said is planning a mixed-use luxury development of residences and businesses.

Berlanga was secretary of public works and urban development for Tamaulipas under Yarringtons successor. Berlanga maintains Berlanga was wrongly tainted by his past dealings with an ex-business partner, Mexican businessman Fernando Cano, whom he met in 1989. Berlanga has said he obtained the property with funds from five road construction-related businesses he runs in Mexico and by taking out a loan.

Yarrington and Cano are charged in federal court in Brownsville with financial and related crimes, and both are fugitives. The United States has asked Mexico for their arrests and extraditions.

The indictment against Yarrington said he used police and politicians to help Mexicos drug cartels in Tamaulipas and in 2007 became a full-fledged narcotics trafficker and conspired to smuggle drugs.

Yarrington, a longtime border politico who rubbed elbows with Texas governors, is also accused of using others to launder bribe money through properties in San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley.

Prosecutors have said the 46 acres near Six Flags Fiesta Texas and the upscale Shops at La Cantera and Eilan Hotel and Spa was acquired by Cano for Yarrington, though Yarringtons lawyer denies it.

I dont believe anything the feds tell me on that stuff, attorney Joel Androphy of Houston has said. Their word doesnt mean anything without proof.

At hearings in 2015 in the forfeiture case, federal prosecutors alleged that roughly $3 million used to acquire the San Antonio property was dirty money and that Berlanga was a nominee owner for Cano and Yarrington. Berlanga denied it but agreed to pay the government $1 million to settle the case shortly before a trial.

gcontreras@express-news.net
AUSTIN  Republicans working to further curb abortion, protect people who oppose gay marriage on religious grounds and pave the way for school choice are taking fresh energy from Donald Trumps election as president.

We have a good friend in the White House who will support school choice for every child, who will stand up for life, for liberty and the Second Amendment, said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who headed Trumps Texas campaign. And for the first time since 2008, we wont have a White House that we have to constantly sue to protect the rights of Texans.

That good friend also will have the responsibility of naming someone to fill the current vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court and others that might occur, making a difference when challenges to state law work their way through the court system.

Texas has been on the losing end of court battles to uphold abortion restrictions and ban gay marriage, and the prospect of Democrat Hillary Clinton naming more liberal Supreme Court members, and running an administration that could oppose Texas policies, had inspired dread among Texas Republicans.

Republicans who dominate the Legislature already are setting the table for the session that begins in January with a generous sprinkling of issues that will stir controversy and hit Texans on a personal level.

Patrick is pushing to ban transgender-friendly bathroom policies, a fight spurred when President Obama issued a directive for schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom associated with their gender identity. That issue also is being fought in court.

The lieutenant governor also has long sought to allow state support for parents to send their children to private schools if they choose, such as through giving businesses tax credits for donating to a scholarship fund.

A Senate committee under Patricks direction has discussed ways to accommodate people who oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds, with its charge including a look at local ordinances. The discussion has included ensuring protection for faith-based adoption groups that wont consider gay couples.

On a topic championed by Republicans, Gov. Greg Abbott has promised to do more to fight abortion in the next legislative session with an initiative that includes further targeting of Planned Parenthood.

One of the principle arguments that more pragmatic Republicans have used to restrain many of those type of initiatives was the argument that, Its bound to run afoul of the Supreme Court, or the Justice Department is going to oppose it  the administration is going to oppose it. They could say this is all symbolic, said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones. With Trump as president, some of those arguments are going to be a little tougher to make.

Advocates of such legislation welcome the change.

We expect to see less intrusion by the federal government on issues like religious freedom, and privacy and safety in bathrooms, said Jonathan M. Saenz, president Texas Values, which describes itself as dedicated to preserving and advancing family values.

Texans have done a very good job of governing themselves through the state Legislature. Their efforts are often challenged or attacked from Washington, Saenz said. I think a lot of us expect well see less of that.

Advocates for womens health care and abortion choice, and for ensuring the rights of lesbian gay, transgender and bisexual people, are girding for fresh battles.

We would expect  that there will be a significant number of proposed bills that would seek to allow discrimination against gay and transgender Texans, said Chuck Smith, CEO of Equality Texas, which works to secure full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Texans.

Smith expects such efforts next year to be similar to those in 2015, since the Legislatures makeup is similar, despite the potential for an economic and even political backlash.

North Carolina lost the chance to host public events that would have created big revenues for the state due to its so-called bathroom bill, and the Republican governor who presided over it, Pat McCrory, faced a tight re-election race that carried over into Wednesday in which his opponent has declared victory.

Yvonne Gutierrez, executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, said Abbotts anti-womens health agenda announced last year would restrict access to safe, legal abortion and hurt and shame women regardless of who is the White House.

This election was not won by attacking women's health. That's not what the majority of the American people want, and that's not even what Trump's own voters want. There is a lot on the table, and there is a lot at stake. We will keep fighting to protect women's health and reproductive rights and we will make sure Planned Parenthood's doors stay open, Gutierrez said.

Texas Democratic Party Deputy Executive Director Manny Garcia painted a dark picture.

There are millions of families aross Texas and the nation living in fear today because of the election of Republican Donald Trump, Garcia said. Now, the Republican Party is poised to carry through with their campaign promises to persecute, deport, and disrespect their fellow Americans and entire communities.

Republican Party of Texas spokesman Mike Joyce, however, said Trumps election signifies the American people's distaste for President Obama's policies and so he is likely to focus on issues like repealing Obamacare and undoing federal government overreach that expanded tenfold under President Obama.

Joyce said that social issues and education issues would probably be left to the states to decide for themselves.

Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, said she believes urban Republican lawmakers might have second thoughts after Tuesdays election, pointing to a Dallas-area Republican lawmaker losing a seat and others winning by smaller margins than they had previously. Democrats picked up several House seats, including two in San Antonio, but are still far outnumbered.

I think urban Republicans are now more subject to challenges by Democrats I think they are going to have to really watch their record because their constituencies have changed, Farrar said.

But Jones, the political scientist, said Republicans may be heartened by their performance in an election in which at the of the ticket, there was a candidate that supposedly fulfilled Texas Democrats dreams  he alienated Latino voters and Anglo women.  In spite of having Trump at the top of the ticket, the losses downballot were relatively minimal.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac
McALLEN -- The foundation of president-elect Donald Trump's unlikely rise was laid upon his pledge to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico, quickly becoming a rallying cry for his supporters and fueling the contentious debate over border security.

But as the results of Tuesdays election began to sink in, border residents were left to ponder what their future in the shadow of the wall might look like.

If they do build that wall right through my property I just want access to whatever is left on the south side, said Ruperto Escobar, a 72-year-old rancher in the tiny hamlet of Escobares. He worries that a wall through his property, which abuts the Rio Grande, would cut off his access to the river, the lifeblood of his farming operation. But, hey, if that's going to help our country grow and be a better place to live, then I'm for it.

A decade ago, President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act into law during a frenzied push to crack down on illegal immigration and police the border. The ambitious plan called for 670 miles of border fence, including nearly 56 miles of fence and wall stitched across the Rio Grande Valley. While fencing and barriers already stretch across much of the border from California to El Paso, if Trump's big, beautiful wall is built, much of it would land in the long swath of the Texas-Mexico border that remains open.

In the view of many U.S. Border Patrol agents, a wall is an important component of the infrastructure that compliments the manpower and technology, but isnt a panacea to stopping illegal immigration and securing the border.

A wall is one of the tools we use, but by no means is it all inclusive, said Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent and vice president of the local National Border Patrol Council. It's not going to stop everybody from coming across.

In fact, agents have found ladders hidden in the brush near sections of the existing border wall and there are places where tunnels have been dug under sections of the wall to gain access to the United States.

Though apprehensions of Central Americans have been surging in recent years, immigration apprehensions are far below the 1.6 million caught in 2000, and Mexican immigrants make up around half of those caught today. Meanwhile, spending on narcotics interdiction has done little to reduce U.S. drug addiction rates.

For Cabrera and many of his fellow agents, its not so much that Trump will build his wall  they believe that it could be beneficial in some areas  its that in him they believe they now have a voice they didnt have before at the highest levels of government.

You need the political will, Cabrera said on his return from a Trump celebration party in New York City. It seems right now that we're getting that political will to make a change.

Othal E. Brand Jr., president of the Hidalgo County Water Improvement District 3, and a lifelong border resident, grew up along the banks of the river. The water district he manages is on the south side of a section of fence, and requires a pass key to get to the pump house. He believes the wall has a place on the border, but that place is limited in scope.

I've lived along the river, Brand said. So I don't want anyone who hasn't lived down here talk to me about problems on the river.

And yet, if additional miles of wall is destined for the Texas border a number of legal obstacles remain in Trump's path, not to mention cost, which some have estimated will run into the tens of billions of dollars.

When the 18-foot rust-colored fence was built in deep South Texas, the meandering geography of the Rio Grande and a treaty with Mexico ensured the structure was not built along the banks of the river. Instead the fence cut through communities, agricultural land and wildlife refuges, marooning large tracts in a virtual no man's land. The path of the fence sparked a tangle of lawsuits, which the federal government pushed aside through the use of eminent domain.

During the last effort to build a border, wall the government faced very significant opposition from property owners, especially in Texas, where nearly all of the land by the river is privately owned.

Perhaps the most important impediment to quick border wall construction is the fact that the government has to take private property owners' land in order to build on it, said Denise Gilman, director of the immigration clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, and a member of the UT Working Group on Human rights and Border Wall. The government sued people to take their land, and those were protracted and costly proceedings.

In the Rio Grande Valley, only Starr County is without a border fence, at least for now. Joel Villarreal, the mayor of Rio Grande City, the county's largest city with around 15,000 residents, can't imagine how a wall would be any more efficient than the so-called virtual wall, made up of ground sensors, thousands of cameras and a bevy of state and federal law enforcement.

I do not believe it will be effective. People are going to go over it, through it or under it, Villarreal said. There's no doubt it will impact our area. When you're looking at the environment and ranchers, how is it going to be feasible?

anelsen@express-news.net

Twitter: @amnelsen
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AUSTIN  Donald Trumps presidency could have some Texas flavor, with the states longest-serving governor and two current officeholders among the names floated for top posts.

They include colorful Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who recently drew national headlines for a vulgar reference to Hillary Clinton from his Twitter account.

Miller is on a list of people being considered for agriculture secretary, along with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a former state agriculture commissioner, Politico reported Wednesday.

I think Ive got the best job on the planet being agriculture commissioner of the state of Texas, Miller told the Express-News. Im certainly flattered. Id want to pray about it and talk to my family about it.

But sure, yeah, who wouldnt want to be the secretary of agriculture for the largest agricultural country on the planet?

A member of Trumps agricultural advisory committee, Miller was an enthusiastic Trump supporter even though some other officials were decidedly more low-key as the Republican drew controversy over offensive remarks.

Miller is no stranger to controversy himself, most recently when a tweet from his account used a four-letter c-word to refer to Clinton. Miller apologized for the tweet, which quickly was deleted, and said it was a mistake by a staffer.

Perry, who has made it known hed be interested in a job in the Trump administration, hinted Wednesday that he might be on his way.

Just got a call to #makeamericagreatagain Saddle up & ride, bro!!, Perry wrote on Twitter and Instagram, with a photo of himself at a pay telephone with close friend and former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell.

Perry didnt give specifics, and his spokesman didnt respond to a request for comment. The former governor previously has said he would be open to an administration spot, perhaps as veterans affairs secretary. Politico mentioned him as a possibility for commerce secretary along with the agriculture secretary spot.

A harsh critic of Trump when the two competed for the GOP presidential nomination, Perry became one of Trumps staunch supporters after leaving the race.

Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett, who was among those listed earlier this year by Trump as a potential pick for the nations highest court, was part of a group whose names were highlighted again Wednesday by the Heritage Foundation.

The conservative think tank pointed out in an email that five of its suggestions for the U.S. Supreme Court had made Trumps list.

Willett reiterated Wednesday that its a rich honor to be listed among the other potential Trump picks.

A prolific user of Twitter, Willett before being put on Trumps list had poked fun at him through tweets, including one in which he suggested he wanted to weep when imagining Trumps high-court nominees. Willett said his jovial tweets are more observational than political.

Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson, said it makes sense for Texans to be under consideration by Trump.

Texas is a big, deep pool for Republican talent, and this is an administration that is going to be put together on the fly, Jillson said. I wouldnt be at all surprised to see a good number of Texas names - some serious, and some less so.

Jillson said each prospect highlighted so far has qualities that could be attractive to Trump.

Perry would be a credible person for a Trump administration, he said. Sid Miller stood with Trump when it looked like he was spiraling down.

Willett has been a very credible member of the Texas Supreme Court. Hes well-regarded and well-liked, Jillson said. But Jillson quipped that whether Trump, a huge user of Twitter himself, would allow a Twitter competitor in his administration, Im not sure.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac
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The civilian attorney defending Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl against charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy moved Wednesday to get the charges dismissed in the wake of Donald Trumps election victory, saying comments Trump and U.S. Sen. John McCain made jeopardized his clients chances of a fair trial.

The lawyer, Eugene Fidell, has hammered at the issue again and again over the course of Bergdahls case, citing the intense  and often blistering  publicity his client has faced since he was freed in May 2014 after nearly five years as a Taliban prisoner of war and brought to San Antonio, where he is stationed while awaiting trial.

The election of Trump and the re-election of McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, gave Fidell the occasion to raise the point anew with the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

I think theres a serious question as to whether he can get a fair trial with Mr. Trump in the White House as commander-in-chief, given what hes said about my client in the past, Fidell said by phone Wednesday.

Because Trump had denounced Bergdahl last year, Bergdahls lawyers had sent him a letter in March asking him to give a deposition before the servicemans trial, set for February at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, .

Were tired of Sgt. Bergdahl, whos a traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed, the Associated Press quoted Trump as saying Oct. 8, 2015 at an appearance in Las Vegas. Thirty years ago he would have been shot.

McCain was critical of the deal that saw five Taliban leaders released in exchange for Bergdahl, and warned last year that his Senate committee would hold a hearing if it comes out that (Bergdahl) has no punishment.

The Arizona Republican made the statement before Gen. Robert Abrams ordered a trial. Bergdahl, 30, of Hailey, Idaho, is accused of deserting his post in Afghanistan in 2009. The misbehavior accusation is the more serious charge, punishable by up to life in the stockade.

Fidell, a Yale Law School lecturer, asked in a writ of mandamus that the appeals court dismiss the charges and specifications, or limit the punishment that may be adjudged to no punishment.

He pointed to comments McCain made on Oct. 11, 2015 to the Boston Herald, which drew nationwide attention. It is well known, McCain said, that in the searches for Bergdahl, after  we know now  he deserted, there are allegations that some American soldiers were killed or wounded, or at the very least put their lives in danger, searching for what is clearly a deserter.

The Army has said no one was killed or injured in a search that ran for weeks and involved thousands of soldiers. Bergdahl has said he left Observation Post Mest to embark on a 19-mile trek, an action he knew would trigger a search, to alert commanders to problems he saw in his unit. The Taliban captured him within hours.

Bergdahls military lawyer, Army Lt. Col. Franklin Rosenblatt, framed the March letter to Trump as a request to interview you as soon as possible about your comments about Sergeant Bergdahl during frequent appearances in front of large audiences in advance of his court-martial. It was not a subpoena, but Fidell warned Wednesday he could pursue one.

You may recall that sitting presidents are not immune to being deposed, he added, in a reference to Bill Clinton.

Some observers said there are remedies for ensuring Bergdahl gets a fair trial from a military jury, if he doesnt opt to try the case before a judge.

One approach is for the judge to limit allowable evidence and possible penalties, said retired Army Lt. Col. Dru Brenner-Beck, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

She said much would depend on what Trump says now that he is president-elect.

I would certainly make the motion based on what hes already said, but I think it becomes very concerning if he continues in that same vein, Brenner-Beck said.

St. Marys University School of Law Professor Jeffrey Addicott said the judge can question the potential jurors about politicians comments.

I see no issue here, but the defense as usual will raise every possible objection in hopes of getting some relief on appeal, he said.

Texas College of Law professor Geoffrey Corn said the judge could grant the defense several peremptory challenges to prospective jurors, rather than just one, as normally allowed.

Still, military and constitutional law specialist Charles W. Gittins said Trumps ascent to the presidency raises a real command influence issue because he will be the commander-in-chief when the trial starts and his previous comments will have been heard by most of the potential (jury) members.

Whether that is enough to dismiss charges, I doubt it, Gittins added.

Rachel VanLandingham, an associate professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, said Fidell was on firm ground. McCain, more than Trump, undermined the militarys strict prohibition against unlawful command influence, she said.

He perverted justice by threatening the Army that hed hold a hearing on Bergdahl, for whom he prejudged as a deserter even as a general was deciding whether to prosecute the soldier, VanLandingham said. Senator McCain holds the future of that generals career in his hands, and therefore, in and of itself, the decision to prosecute was irrevocably tainted.

sigc@express-news.net
Marvin Pfeiffer /San Antonio Express-News

The Archdiocese of San Antonio expects hundreds of pilgrims for the closing of Holy Doors at parishes this month.

Pilgrimages starting at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 19 from 12 churches will converge at San Juan de los Lagos Catholic Church, 3231 El Paso. St., for a 10 a.m. Mass, among several in the archdiocese marking the end of the Catholic Churchs Jubilee Year of Mercy. Visitors are welcome to join in, said parish leader Diana Aguero.
Want to share a cup of coffee this morning? Sounds like a good plan because our gang is planted firmly around the breakfast table and weve got plenty of time to kid each other about yesterdays misses and other miss-haps that happen every day in the field.

In the Dakotas, one cant lock and load for the days hunt until mid-morning, so that gives us an opportunity to relax and for the pheasants to fill their crops with leftover grain and what seeds they can find.

Looking for birds

By mid-morning, the birds are tucked away for the day under the deepest and densest brush they can find. Thats where well look for them.

A look outside tells a North Dakota kind of story. Cut corn fields that stretch to the horizon, quilt like blocks of bare bean fields, an occasional deep green patch of late hay, and still other city-size fields of winter wheat poking out of the mud.

Its the blocks of the thickest of pencil-like reeds and toughest of thigh-high grass and head-high cattails that mark the pot holes and sloughs that provide the only visible features in this vast land of prairie and endless grain fields.

Then there are the PLOTS sections. Untilled and uncut grasslands, much like undisturbed nationally sponsored CRP land that North Dakota farmers here leave for wintering pheasants and other local wildlife.

Working partnership

PLOTS is a well-designed partnership between farmers and North Dakota wildlife officials that provide good hunting cover for local and non-resident hunters who have made the trip just for a few days of wild flushes and fast shooting.

Oh, what about that coffee?

Here are the directions

Go to the end of your drive then turn north and west. The quick way is by turnpike and other interstates. Drive about 15 hours, or until your eyes glaze over, then pull into St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Crash for a few hours, feast on the motels free breakfast, then resume the trek west. The sun will be popping up behind you so dont worry about the glare.

Look for signs

Eventually, youll see signs for Bismarck. Thats a good thing, because thats where you can actually turn the steering wheel.

Now its north for a couple hours, leave the pavement for gravel, then dirt, and finally, whoopee, you are here in Turtle Lake. Really.

Sorry, the coffee is cold. But on the other hand, if all goes as planned, the hunting is hot.

Last fall on this same week, we were chasing ducks on Devils Lake, just a short drive from here. We were weathered out that week but this trip looks a bit better; in fact it is global warming kind of week.

Blowing winds

The winds may be an issue  a typical Dakota challenge  but well deal with them if they do blow into town.

This summer the dry weather was kind to the pheasant population, so we should have plenty of birds to chase. Our host has several good-looking fields waiting for us and our accommodations are as good as any weve ever enjoyed.

Time now to load up. Lets go hunting.
When most of us hear the words Have I got a great deal for you! we grab our wallets because experience suggests any forthcoming deal wont be great.

Similarly, when someone says, Heres the straight talk, our baloney meters redline because we know the coming talk will be about as straight as a hounds hind leg.

They are wrong

We in agriculture, however, often use language like a great deal and straight talk to promote cheap food and arcane farm policy.

When someone outside of agriculture questions either view, we not only cling to our righteousness, we go a step further and tell them they are wrong.

In fact, its hard to think of any other sector in the American economy that insists on telling its customers they are wrong.

Need proof? For years nine out of 10 consumers have asked for country of origin labeling (COOL) on retail meat and poultry sold in the U.S.

Wrong! our hog and cattle groups declare; whats best for our meatpackers  global sourcing and no labeling  is whats best for you. Besides, COOL is illegal under the trading rules we helped write!

Little wonder trade took a beating in 2016 election campaigns; the straight talk used to sell these great deals was neither straight nor great.

Dannon

The latest example of agricultures righteousness comes courtesy of U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, or USFRA, an ag advocacy group funded by farm and commodity organizations and agribusiness.

In late October, USFRA began a straight talk campaign to counter yogurt maker Dannons effort to source its inputs, mostly milk, from farmers who choose to follow the companys new rules on animal welfare and other practices right down to the dirt.

Dannon, the American subsidiary of the French food giant Danone, made no bones about its motives in initiating its sustainable milk program last April.

It hoped to tap into the publics growing concern about the source of its food, noted the New York Times.

And, of course, make money doing it  just as companies including Nestle and General Millsand Unilever had done earlier, added the Times.

But USFRA did not begin straight talk campaigns against those food giants.

Tipping point

Dannon, however, crossed an unseen line, explained the online ag news service DTN Oct. 27, when it advocated that its milk-supplying farmers commit to sourcing only non-GMO feed for dairy cattle producing milk for three [Dannon] yogurt product lines.

That step, Randy Mooney, a Missouri dairy farmer and chairman of National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), told DTN, was the tipping point.

(NMPF, like Dairy Farmers of America, Dannons previous milk supplier, are both members of USFRA.)

Tipping point, shmipping point.

Sustainable

The fight, which Dannon said it welcomed, is not about genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Instead, its about the word sustainable. Dannon has its own definition to fit its own marketing plan, it says, that promotes simplicity and purity of products.

USFRA, too, has a definition of sustainable, noted DTN, and it includes biotechnology and practices that should define sustainable agriculture.

Moreover, USFRA explains, its Dannon campaign is the beginning of a new willingness to publicly call out food companies that criticize food produced with genetically modified organisms.

That should keep the hired hands at USFRA busy for years because calling out food companies that ask farmers and ranchers to deliver what the marketplace demands will be as unending as it will be unsuccessful.

Follow the market

The companies, after all, dont make the market; they follow the market. Thats the way the market works.

Thats, in fact, the way it has always worked.

What doesnt work  whats never worked  is telling your customer theyre wrong.

Show me someone who says the markets wrong, a friend once mused, and Ill show you someone whos on the wrong side of the market.

Exactly. The market is your partner, not your enemy.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.  The developer of a mushroom that is genetically modified to resist browning has received a Best of Whats New award from Popular Science magazine.

Yinong Yang, professor of plant pathology in Penn States College of Agricultural Sciences, edited the mushrooms genome using a revolutionary new tool known as CRISPR-Cas9.

This method enables researchers to create crop varieties with desirable traits without introducing foreign DNA.

Each year, Popular Science reviews thousands of new products and innovations and chooses the top 100 winners across 10 categories for inclusion in its annual Best of Whats New issue, the magazines best-read of the year.

Award

To win an award, a product or technology must represent a significant step forward in its category. Yangs achievement received recognition in the Engineering category.

In April 2016, the U.S. Department of Agricultures Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed to Yang that the anti-browning mushroom he developed would not be subject to USDA approval. The notification apparently cleared the way for the potential commercialization of the mushroom, which is the first CRISPR-Cas9 gene-edited crop deemed to require no regulatory review by USDA.

Yang explained that unlike most GMO crops, which receive DNA from foreign organisms such as bacteria or other plant species, this mushroom is transgene-free thanks to the CRISPR-Cas9 tool, making it exempt from USDA oversight.

Our genome-edited mushroom has small deletions in a specific gene but contains no foreign DNA integration in its genome, said Yang, who is also an affiliate of Penn States Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. Therefore, we believed that there was no scientifically valid basis to conclude that the CRISPR-edited mushroom is a regulated article based on the definition described in the regulations.

CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. Its a relatively new and revolutionary way to modify an organisms genome by precisely delivering a DNA-cutting enzyme  Cas9  to a targeted region of DNA.

The resulting modification can delete or replace specific DNA pieces, thereby promoting or disabling certain traits. In this case, the gene editing reduces production of a specific enzyme that causes mushrooms to turn brown.

The end product is a mushroom with longer shelf life that resists blemishes caused by handling or mechanical harvesting  but without DNA from a foreign organism.

This technology holds promise for precision breeding of crops with many desirable traits, such as low levels of food allergens or toxins, disease resistance, drought tolerance, and efficient nitrogen and phosphorous utilization, Yang said.

These agronomic traits not only help reduce pesticide, fertilizer and water usage, but also improve food quality and safety.

CRISPR-Cas9

In the long run, Yang noted, CRISPR-Cas9 could change the public dialogue about GMOs.

Theres too much divisiveness and hostility between pro- and anti-GMO camps, he said. I hope development of the new technology will facilitate rational and productive dialogue among diverse groups of people, with a common goal to achieve food safety, food security, and agricultural and environmental sustainability.

Yang is continuing to improve mushroom genome editing to optimize browning resistance and shelf life. He said the next step in possibly commercializing an anti-browning mushroom would be submitting it for review to the Food and Drug Administration.

Although legally not required, FDA approval is a prudent step to take prior to commercialization, according to Yang. Before taking it to the market, it is essential to demonstrate scientifically that a gene-edited crop is as safe as conventional and organic crops.

Featured in the November/December issue of Popular Science, Best of Whats New winners can be found online at www.popsci.com/best-whats-new.

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LEXINGTON, Ky. Thousands of bats lie, heaped high on cave floors, sometimes as many as 10,000 at one site. These fragile, winged mammals have succumbed to the ravages of white nose syndrome and dropped, flightless, from their roosts on cave ceilings.

Biologists report coming upon this tragic scene and finding, among the piles of tiny corpses, living bats, struggling to survive hibernation by burrowing among the bodies of their colony for residual warmth.

For those of us who expend our entire career working on them, like I have, its pretty heartbreaking, said Mike Lacki, professor of wildlife ecology and management in the University of Kentucky Department of Forestry.

Millions have died

White nose syndrome is decimating native bat populations in the eastern United States and Canada. Since 2006, when the evidence of the disease first showed up in North America, millions of bats have died when the cold-adapted, white fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, infected the skin of their muzzles, ears and wings during the critical hibernation period.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that bat populations in the Northeast have declined by 80 percent. In Kentucky, populations are declining at a similarly terrifying rate, Lacki said.

These bats play a fundamental, ecological role, and anyone whos gone into a white nose-affected cave and has seen the mass mortalities, it will get to you, he said.

Fighting back

Lacki is not about to sit back and watch these creatures pass into oblivion. He and John Lhotka, UK associate professor of silviculture, and Jeff Stringer, UK extension professor of hardwood silviculture and forest operations, are taking progressive measures to attempt the re-establishment of bat species.

With the support of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, their study began in May 2015. The crux of the multi-year project is to investigate three forest management procedures to determine which, if any, will provide the optimum environment for the survivors of white nose syndrome to successfully raise their young and begin to rebuild the populations.

Roosting environment

Though many bat species spend colder months in caves, many species, such as the northern long-eared and endangered Indiana bats, actually use forests for summer roosting and rearing young. Both species, native to Kentucky, have been severely impacted by the disease.

In 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the northern long-eared bat as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The northern long-eared bat was very common at one time and easily captured across forested landscapes during capture-and-release studies, Lacki said. That is no longer the case. It is one of the species that has been probably hit the hardest.

Important link

Bats ecological importance cannot be denied. They serve as the major predator of many pest species, such as mosquitoes, beetles, and moths that negatively impact agricultural crops and forest trees during their larval stage.

If you take bats out of the equation, there will be repercussions, either in reduced yields and an increased need for pesticides on farms or through burgeoning moth pests that might lead to increased levels of mortality of some tree species in our forests, he said.

Test sites

The research team is collecting data on three treatments at each of three sites in Eastern Kentucky: Kentucky Ridge State Forest in Bell County, private land in Breathitt County and Robinson Forest, the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environments research and education forest. The replication derived from multiple sites will help them draw conclusions at the end of the project that could be applied to a wider geographic region.

From April through September over the next two or three years  longer if possible  the research team will track the bats by acoustic detectors set out among the trees to record their calls. Some bats will carry small transmitters, as well.

With the data they collect, they will be able to match the patterns derived from the bats to each particular site, thereby determining the best management practice for bat habitat.

The crisis were facing with bats is as real as were portraying it, Lacki said. I used to see bats coming out of the forest all the time where I live. When dusk got to a certain point, my son and I would stand on the driveway and, whoosh, youd see them just shooting out of the trees. We dont see them at all anymore.

I put my acoustic detector out and  nothing. Theyre just not there. There have been more lost, I think, than we probably realize.
WOOSTER, Ohio  Jeffrey LeJeune, a scientist with Ohio State University, has started a three-month assignment in Rome to work with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to combat antibiotic resistance.

The FAO recruited LeJeune, head of the Food Animal Health Research Program in the universitys College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, to provide technical advice and to help launch and coordinate several of the initiatives outlined in a U.N. declaration on antibiotic resistance.

Planning

LeJeune participated in a U.N. gathering Sept. 21 when the entire assembly signed a political declaration requiring countries to create national plans to fight antibiotic resistance in medicine, agriculture and the environment.

The plans will be based on a blueprint on antimicrobial resistance developed in 2015 by the FAO, the U.N.s World Health Organization and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).

Its a big task, but its exciting. It happened really fast, LeJeune said. Within a year of expressing interest in the project, he was asked to join the team.

Implementation

With the Sept. 21 commitment from the U.N., the FAO is ready to go from planning to implementation, and thats where LeJeune will help.

LeJeune, a veterinarian and a microbiologist, has long been involved with an interdisciplinary group at Ohio State focusing on antibiotic resistance with a One Health approach to the problem, tackling it from the standpoints of human, animal and environmental health.

The team has representatives from colleges across campus at Ohio State: CFAES, the College of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Medicine, the College of Pharmacy, the College of Nursing and the College of Public Health.

You cant just look at antimicrobial resistance as a medical problem or a veterinary problem. Its all linked, and you have to understand all of the underlying causes of antibiotic resistance in order to get a handle on control strategies, LeJeune said.

Global plans

This is a global problem. Were not going to solve it independently, said LeJeune.

While with the FAO, LeJeune anticipates working with nations that have developed plans to work on antimicrobial resistance to make sure their plans are aligned with their capabilities and there are systems for monitoring and evaluation in place.

Different nations are at different levels of adopting programs to control antimicrobial use in agriculture, he said.

He expects to begin working with nations that have the least control measures in place, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. He will provide technical support and input and serve as a liaison for those countries to the FAO.

After two years, the U.N. secretary-general will gauge each countrys progress.

Resistance

The Sept. 21 gathering was only the fourth time the U.N. has convened to address a health issue, following action on Ebola in 2014, noncommunicable diseases in 2011 and HIV/AIDS in 2001.

Antibiotics and similar drugs, collectively known as antimicrobial agents, have been around for 70 years. But because theyve been used so extensively, organisms have built up resistance to the drugs, rendering them less effective  a problem considered by many to be the worlds most pressing public-health concern.

LeJeunes lab

LeJeunes laboratory has been working on understanding the ecology and mechanisms of how antibiotic resistance is spread, from bacteria to bacteria, from farm to farm, and around the world.

Researchers there also study how farm management practices affect disease transmission, including the tracking of wildlife such as birds, which are known to transmit antibiotic-resistant organisms, from one farm to another.

LeJeunes lab has also explored how bacteriophages  viruses that infect bacteria  can transmit antibiotic resistance from one bacterium to another, and it is developing educational materials to help agricultural workers protect themselves.
The Prairie Doc: Men, you can thank women for your good health
The bioethanol market is calling on the government to provide greater certainty to UK farmers by pushing forward with the introduction of E10 fuel, which will cultivate an alternative domestic market for their produce.

The government is being asked to increase the ethanol blending ratio in petrol from current levels (5%) to 10%, through the introduction of greener fuel, E10.

Vivergo Fuels, one of the UK's largest bioenthanol producers, takes up to 100,000 tonnes of animal feed grade wheat each month to create its ethanol, which is then blended into petrol.

The company operates a 350m plant at Salt End near Hull, and says E10 can play an even bigger role, helping boost the UK economy by supporting UK farmers and UK jobs, as well as helping to meet strict and legally-binding environmental targets.

'Allow farmers to sell wheat in the UK'

Mark Chesworth, Managing Director of Vivergo Fuels, said: It is essential that the UK government is supportive in terms of increasing the current bioethanol blending ratio in UK petrol, so that the industry can provide a long term, sustainable and secure domestic market for UK farmers. Increased demand for bioethanol will allow farmers to sell their wheat in the UK instead of exporting, increasing their earnings. This in turn will benefit the wider UK economy and support jobs throughout the supply chain, further boosting UK industry.

National Farmers Union President, Meurig Raymond, said: The UK biofuels industry is incredibly beneficial to farmers across the country, as it adds value to grain and oilseeds for feed and fuel markets. The process ensures that animal-grade wheat is bought at a fair price, and the bi-product of animal feed creates a collaborative process that benefits both the farmers and the biofuels industry.

By 2020, all European countries, including the UK, must ensure that 10% of transport fuel is sourced from renewable sources to reduce transports environmental impact, which is increasing year-on-year. This mandate is parallel to the UKs own strict carbon reduction goals.

"E10 will help to reduce global emission levels, mitigate the rapid rate of climate change, and improve air quality," Mr Chesworth concluded.
Dairy Crest, a leading British dairy company, has announced interim results for the six months ending in 30 September 2016, showing a profit increase of 19 per cent.

The company is famous for producing products such as Clover, Country Life, Frylight and Cathedral City. It buys milk from around 400 direct supplying dairy farmers in the South West.

Mark Allen, Chief Executive, said: We are pleased to have delivered a strong set of interim results in our first full trading period since the sale of Dairies.

We are also seeing the benefits of Dairy Crests transformation into a leaner and more focused organisation, with strong profit growth and significantly improved cash generation during the first half. Our expectations for the full year remain unchanged.

Looking further ahead, the significant investment at Davidstow has opened up attractive opportunities in high-margin, global infant formula markets as well as the potential to develop new functional ingredients. Combined with our continued focus on innovation within our key brands, this will underpin future growth and help us to maintain our strong track record of rewarding shareholders with higher dividends.
Parliament must vote on whether the UK can start the process of leaving the EU, the High Court has ruled.

This means the government cannot trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty - beginning formal exit negotiations with the EU - on its own.

The Farmers Union of Wales is calling for urgent clarity on Brexit following the High Court ruling.

The decision by the High Court means that the government cannot trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin formal exit negotiations with the EU on its own, which the Union says adds further to the confusion already surrounding Brexit planning.

FUW President Glyn Roberts said: "We need clarity. This decision has introduced more instability at a time when we can really do without it.

"The Brexit planning process has occupied us for many months now and we welcomed the Prime Ministers recent announcement about a timeline for Article 50 initiation.

"To throw that timeline away now is not in the least bit helpful. And of course it may have huge implications, not just on the timing of Brexit but possibly on the terms of Brexit.

'Best possible deal for agri-food sector'

Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament on Wednesday that the government will be doing everything possible to get the best deal for the farming sector once the country leaves the EU.

"We're very conscious of the importance of the food and agricultural sector across the United Kingdom but particularly of that sector to Northern Ireland and we will be doing everything we can ... to ensure we get the best deal possible for the agri-food sector," she told parliament at Prime Minister's Questions.

But the UK's four farming unions have reiterated that it is essential for the sector to maintain 'full, unfettered' access to the single market while having continued access to a 'flexible, competent and reliable' workforce.

In a joint statement, the four Presidents said: UK agriculture supplies the building blocks to the UKs largest manufacturing sector, food and drink.

Worth 108bn and employing 3.9m people spread across every parliamentary constituency, the industry is bigger than the automotive and aerospace sectors combined.

In common with other sectors of the economy, British farmers and food producers need the government to be acutely aware of whats at stake for this vitally important industry and the UK economy as a whole."

Could Brexit be stopped?

According to the Lord Chief Justice, the Prime Minister cannot trigger Article 50 herself, but can only be done with parliamentary approval.

A huge majority of MPs in Parliament are opposed to Brexit, but rejecting the vote of the people in a referendum would be seen as extraordinary, not least for the scores of Labour MPs whose constituents voted to leave.

If Theresa May would like Parliament to trigger Article 50 with a clear conscience, she may decide to call a general election.
Moo Holland, one of a herd of life sized painted cows, has moved to Lloyds Banking Group in Gresham Street, London ahead of its sale at Hampton Court Palace on 17th November.

Proceeds from Moo Holland will be donated to the Addington Fund, a charity that helps farmers throughout England and Wales that are in need.

Lloyds Bank have a long relationship with the Addington Fund charity, having been a huge support since the charity was set up during the Foot and Mouth crisis. This is the latest collaboration with the charity, with the bank agreeing to supervise Moo Holland until the auction in mid-November. Visitors to the bank will be treated to a viewing of the unique artwork, designed by respected artist, Jenny Leonard.

The incredible artwork on Moo Holland is by repsected artist, Jenny Leonard

The Addington Fund is incredibly grateful to Lloyds Bank for its generosity and support, explains Ian Bell, Chief Executive, Addington Fund. We hope to encourage interest in Moo Holland, to ensure we can raise vital funds for farmers in need of help.

This predominately results in the Addington Fund working to provide housing for farmers who are forced to leave their homes, adds Ian.

However, in certain counties, we also offer affordable housing to anyone currently working in, or retired from, an agricultural or a land based industry."

Andrew Naylor, head of Lloyds Bank Agriculture, says: "We are very pleased to have Moo Holland in our foyer at 10 Gresham Street here in the heart of London, she's a great reminder of one of Lloyds Bank's most important sectors - farming.

"We are also hoping that putting her on display like this will help her find a good home, and raise lots of money for the Addington Fund in the process."
Farmers are being encouraged to take part in a pilot study by University of Glasgow into agricultural workers who suffer from anxiety.

Previous research has indicated that farmers and crofters may be particularly vulnerable to these difficulties and that they may not want to, or be able to access formal health care services for support.

Once individuals agree to take part in the study, they will be asked to complete an initial questionnaire to assess their current wellbeing.

As a need to support those working in the agricultural industry has been identified, this study is being organised and funded by the Institute of Mental Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow.

'We know that people in rural communities can sometimes experience difficult and stressful times'

Allan Bowie, President of NFU Scotland commented: "We know farmers and crofters can work in isolated areas, and often can go days without speaking to someone.

"This can impact on health and wellbeing, particularly at this time of year, and its fantastic that tools are being researched to help improve accessibility to help for those within our industry, in an unobtrusive, confidential way.

"One in four people in Scotland will suffer from poor mental health at some point in their life. And we know with the pressures that are currently facing our industry, and every sector, it can have a significant impact on how we feel and how we cope in the running of our businesses.

"I would encourage as many people as possible to take part in this study if they fit the criteria, as it can only bode well for helping our industry to be the best it can be going forward, with suitable resources available, no matter where you are in Scotland."

Difficult stress

Mags Granger, of rural charity Royal Scottish Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RSABI), commented: "We know that people in rural communities can sometimes experience difficult and stressful times, and as a charity, RSABI has been working to improve the resources available for those people.

"This research by the University of Glasgow is very welcome and it is hoped that we will get enough farmers and crofters, and people working with the industry, who have suffered low mood and/or anxiety at some point in their lives to come forward to take part. This survey could result in practical help for farmers and crofters for the future."

Harriet Bowyer, of the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at University of Glasgow said: "The current study is investigating the usefulness of providing farmers and crofters with an online course that teaches key life skills based on cognitive behavioural therapy.

"Research suggests that online life skills training can help with low mood and anxiety, and that it works best if it is relevant to the people that are using it. Thats why this project has been designed specifically for farmers and crofters."
Yew Tree Dairy in Lancashire is breaking new ground in the British dairy industry with its new forward milk pricing offer.

The new contract will give farmers the option to lock in a long-term price for a portion of their milk, which allows them to fix a margin on at least some of their milk production.

It is understood that the fixed pricing offers will be made available to farmers supplying milk into Yew Trees ingredients business. Prices paid on milk going into these markets will be inherently volatile as they are directly linked into commodity market prices for cream, skimmed milk powder and brokered milk. The ability to fix the price for a portion of milk sales will, therefore, allow farmers to take some of this volatility out of their prices.

The dairy industry has called this an 'innovative approach', saying it will benefit farmers who are supplying into volatile markets, but it is restricted by exclusivity clauses in milk supply contracts.

AHDB Dairy said: "There are, undoubtedly, many farmers with milk production in excess of their buyers requirements who would welcome the ability to place this milk where it can achieve the best return  whether with their current buyer or another."
"But I estimate so far our yield is 1.7-1.8 tonnes to the hectare when we normally do about 1.3 and our oil is 47.5 to 48 per cent when it's normally 45-46pc.
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"...king of the hate left..."--

"As my friend Capper -- the best Wisconsin blogger ever -- says, there will be more. There's always more." - karoli

"...the psychiatrically attuned Capper..."--

"This is really great of you! I'm so proud to know someone like you"--

"Capper, a reasonable (and maybe even likeable) Lefty..."--

"capper, the Sidney Freedman of the hate left..."--

"I love capper because, well, what's not to love. But I also hate capper for alerting me to nonsense like this."---

"Capper, you really have a knack for this kind of writing. Really."--

"Crap. I agree with capper. Can Armageddon be far behind?"--

"capper is right. OMG, did I actually say that?"--
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visits troops at Fort Bragg

The commander of Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne Corps said, "Welcome Home," to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin when he arrived on post Tuesday.
COLUMBUS  A 30-year-old Columbus man is suspected of selling methamphetamine to a police informant equipped with an audio recording device during multiple drug transactions over a four-week period last month.

Platte County Court Judge Frank Skorupa scheduled a Nov. 23 felony first appearance hearing for Sergio Marino-Marino in connection with a series of four drug deals from Oct. 7-31.

Marino-Marino was arrested Monday afternoon following a traffic stop in the area of 23rd Street and Second Avenue on four counts of delivery of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance.

Skorupa set his bond at $500,000, 10 percent allowed for release, during a brief hearing on Tuesday.

Law enforcement authorities said the suspect was wanted on an outstanding drug warrant at the time of his arrest while returning to his vehicle parked outside a city business.

Nebraska State Patrol Investigator Keith Bignell wrote in his arrest statement that the suspect met with the confidential informant to buy meth while under police surveillance. The informant recorded the meetings with a digital audio device, the investigator said.

Following Marino-Marinos arrest, a search of the suspects vehicle revealed a plastic box with two plastic bags containing approximately 4 grams of meth and drug paraphernalia, Bignell wrote in his statement.

Marino-Marino remained in custody Wednesday at the Platte County Detention Facility.
New anti-corruption legislation adopted Tuesday by France allows companies to enter into negotiated settlements with magistrates.

The new system, allowing for a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA), aims to speed up lengthy legal procedures, VOA News said.

Fines can reach up to 30 percent of the companys annual revenue.

The new law requires a judge to review settlements in a public hearing.

Whistleblower protections are also part of the legislation.

France has had weak anti-corruption enforcement.

The OECD Working Group on Bribery said in 2014 that although 24 new corruption cases were opened since 2012, no French company had been convicted of a foreign bribery offense, despite international convictions of some French companies.

The gap in French enforcement has been filled in part by the United States. Three French companies are on the list of the ten biggest FCPA enforcement actions.

Alstom paid $772 million in 2014, Total SA paid $398 million in 2013, and Technip SA paid $338 million in 2010.

France is the only country that appears on the top ten list three times.

____

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
Billy Bob Thornton "never felt good enough" for Angelina Jolie.

Billy Bob Thornton

The 'Bad Santa' star married the 41-year-old actress in 2000, following just a two-month courtship, and he's not surprised their relationship hit the rocks shortly afterwards and they divorced in 2003 because he wasn't prepared to change himself to suit her.

Speaking in the November issue of GQ magazine, he said of the beauty: "I never felt good enough for her. I'm real uncomfortable around rich and important people. I like how I am."

Despite their divorce, which was finalised just three months after the actress adopted her first child Maddox, 15, from Cambodia, Billy and Angelina still try to find time to talk to one another.

However, the possibility of a romance reunion between them has well and truly sailed now, as the 61-year-old actor - who has been married six times - is wed to his longtime partner Connie Angland, who is the mother of his 12-year-old daughter Bella.

The couple dated for years before they eventually tied the knot in 2014 because he didn't want her to be seen as a number.

He explained: "I didn't want her to be called number six."

Angelina, on the other hand, went on to strike up a relationship with Brad Pitt after they fell for one another while starring opposite each other in the 2005 film 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith'.

Brad was married to Jennifer Aniston at the time but, despite denying they had an affair, Angelina was blamed for their divorce.

The couple refused to comment on the status of their relationship until the following year when they announced they were expecting a baby girl - named Shiloh, now aged 10 - together.

They then went on to adopt two more children Pax, 12, and Zahara, 11, together, before welcoming their twins Vivienne and Knox, eight, into the world in Nice, France, in 2008.

Following six years of dating, the couple announced their engagement in April 2012 before eventually tying the knot at their estate Chateau Miraval in Correns, France, in August 2014.

However, their marriage didn't last long as Angelina recently filed for divorce and requested physical custody of their children.

The 'By the Sea' star set the ball rolling in September after Brad allegedly got into an argument with Maddox on board a plane.

The 52-year-old actor was accused of child abuse but, following weeks of extensive investigations carried out by social services, he was cleared of the allegations and the case was closed.

The hunk is now fighting for joint custody of his children.
Kim Kardashian West has lost millions of dollars since she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris last month.

Kim Kardashian West

The 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' star - who is an avid user of social media - rakes in an estimated $300,000 for a single branded post on Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter but her silence online since the horrific ordeal, which saw her robbed of an estimated $8.5 million in jewellery, may have hurt her wages.

Krishna Subramanian, co-founder of social media management platform Captiv8, told Us Magazine: "Someone like Kim, with her following and reach across the social channels, could average around $300,000 for a single branded post."

But she's not just losing money from her lack of online activity, as the 36-year-old beauty has also cancelled appearances around the world since the robbery.

The source explained: "She has a number of business obligations that can no longer be postponed. She needs to get back out in public to make money again."

However, although she really wants to get back out there again, Kim is reportedly still dealing with the trauma and has been having counselling sessions every day.

An insider said recently: "She's [Kim has] been having nightmares and flashbacks. She's talking to a therapist every day, usually via Skype [online video], phone or in person."

Although she's largely stayed indoors with her two children North, three, and Saint, 11 months, over the past four weeks, Kim did step out for frozen yogurt with her best friend Jonathan Cheban on October 24, before attending her husband Kanye's 'Saint Pablo' concert in Los Angeles a few days later.

She also made an appearance at her half-sister Kendall Jenner's 21st birthday party last week but hired three off-duty police officers to keep an eye on her during the bash.

The brunette beauty's decision to hire officers came days after she reportedly sacked her personal guard Pascal Duvier.

Kim and Kanye decided to "let go" of the bodyguard after he failed to protect her from the robbers, who stole jewellery from her worth an estimated $8.5 million, because he was looking after her sister Kourtney Kardashian at the time instead.

The decision no doubt infuriated Pascal as he's protected the businesswoman since 2013 and her husband since 2012.
Eddie Redmayne "can't travel" anywhere without his wand.

Eddie Redmayne

The 34-year-old actor was given his own magical rod to use for 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' and he admits he can't put it down even though filming has wrapped.

Asked when he finally felt comfortable using a wand, he said: "It's consistently weird but also only weird to begin with because everything is so exciting, getting to jump into all those experiences. Then it becomes very natural very quickly. I took my wand everywhere. I have it in my case upstairs; I just can't travel without it."

And the father-of-one - who has four-month-old daughter Iris with his wife Hannah Bagshawe - enjoyed having a say on what the final product looked like and was amazed with how "intricate" the designs were.

He told USA Today: "When you enter the J. K. Rowling world, you get to go and meet people who design wands and we talked about my wand.

"They then come up with a selection of drawings and prototypes and it's so intricate. My wand is made of ash wood and then made of a shell at the bottom, a bit of mother of pearl."

Meanwhile, Eddie previously admitted he was worried about "screwing up" the movie, in which he plays magizoologist Newt Scamander.

He said: "Of course you feel pressure. Also, particularly because I loved the Potter films. There was something so warming about being able to dive back into that world every year or two. And if you've enjoyed something, you don't want to be the one who comes in and screws it up.

"But pressure's there with every film. With 'The Theory of Everything' it was knowing Stephen and Jane Hawking and the family would see the film. With 'The Danish Girl' it was all the people that I'd met in preparation for the film who came from the trans community. It's pressure here of a different type, which is called hard core fandom."
Una Healy says The Saturdays will reunite when the "time is right" and if their fans want them to.

Una Healy

The British girl group have been on hiatus since March 2015, but the 'All Fired Up' hitmaker hasn't ruled out the possibility of getting back together with Frankie Bridge, Mollie King, Rochelle Humes and Vanessa White, despite three of them launching solo careers.

Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz of a possible reunion, she said: "It's definitely not off the cards. We haven't made any definite plans but we always said we would come back together when the time is right.

"Right now is not the time for any of us because we are all starting out on our own ventures.

"We all support each other and when the time is right, If our fans want to see us back together again, I for one hope that day comes but I don't know when that will be."

The Irish beauty has hinted that while she is not sure when they'll get back together it will most likely be in 15 or even 20 years time when they celebrate reaching an anniversary milestone.

She told the Daily Star newspaper: "It's usually when a band is celebrating 15 or 20 years, but it would be a while before we get to that point.

"It will be more interesting then too because of our solo careers."

The 'Disco Love' hitmakers haven't released an album since 2013's 'Living For the Weekend', but 35-year-old Una recently announced her solo album 'The Waiting Game', which is released on February 10, 2017.
Edd Kimber has teamed up with Quaker Oats to celebrate the start of #PorridgeSeason by creating this delicious recipe. Check them out @QuakerOatsUK or visit www.quaker.co.uk.

Vegan PB& Porridge

(Contains nuts)

40g Quaker Oats

300ml soy milk

1 tsp smooth peanut butter

1 tsp seedless raspberry jam, lightly warmed up (makes it easier to drizzle)

1 tsp chopped salted peanuts

Method

Put the Quaker Gluten Free oats into a saucepan, pour in the semi-skimmed milk Bring it to the boil and simmer for 3-4 minutes, by stirring it continuously Once the porridge is ready stir in the maple syrup and the peanut butter Pour into a serving bowl and drizzle over the jam and the peanuts
Hardware and software solutions developer Gerber Technology has announced that it has developed a cloud-based solution especially for designers to facilitate the see-now-buy-now purchase model. This model allows designers to sell their designs immediately after they have been presented at a runway show as opposed to months after the designs are previewed.

The instant gratification model is now being used as a way for high-end designers to evolve with the ever-changing fast-fashion business brands.

Gerber Technology provides powerful and innovative hardware and software leveraging cloud-based solutions that are designed specifically for designers, enabling the shift to an immediate purchase model. This gives industry leaders the flexibility to stay ahead of the curve and be prepared for what is next, said Karsten Newbury, vice president and general manager, Software Solutions at Gerber Technology.

Hardware and software solutions developer Gerber Technology has announced that it has developed a cloud-based solution especially for designers to facilitate the see-now-buy-now purchase model. This model allows designers to sell their designs immediately after they have been presented at a runway show as opposed to months after the designs are previewed.#

The shift in control with the new method gives power back to the consumer and allows them to dictate exactly what they want and when they want it. It is a transformation that demands a conscious effort from designers to delve into their audiences conversations via social media, in order to listen, engage and gain consumer intelligence.

A change like the see-now-buy-now purchase model is felt during every step of the product lifecycle, as well as throughout the supply chain. So as a technology provider, one of our key missions is to provide our customers the business capability and agility to support these new consumer purchase models, added Newbury.

According to L2, a business intelligence firm, Tom Ford was among the first of brands to pioneer this shift. But a recent study by L2 on Fashion Week suggests that the idea of immediately buying runway items is no longer novel; 21 per cent of brands with a Fashion Week runway show in 2016 incorporated some sort of direct-to-consumer e-commerce within their presentation. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Shahid Kapoor has praised Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt by saying that the duo are absolutely outstanding in their achievements as well as their performances. He said,

"There are so many actresses over the years who've been absolutely outstanding in their achievements, in their performances. Maybe Nargisji, Madhubala, Madhuri Dixit, Kajol -- or among the contemporaries, people like Deepika, Alia. There have been so many fantastic actors over the years, and one learns from seeing their performances. And one enjoys working with the contemporary lot."

Shahid Kapoor and Alia Bhatt had last worked in the movie Udta Punjab and the film went on to do well despite facing several hurdles from the Censor Board. Alia was also appreciated for her raw performance and Shahid pulled it off really well as a musician named Tommy Singh, who is addicted to drugs.

The actor is currently shooting for the upcoming movie Rangoon and it also stars Saif Ali Khan and Kangana Ranaut. The film is a period film set during World War II and is scheduled to hit the theatres during the first quarter of 2017.

Wow! Nargis Fakhri Gets Hot & Philosophical On Twitter
After Student Of The Year and Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt are all geared up to score a hat trick with their upcoming film Badrinath Ki Dulhania.

The film helmed by Shashank Khaitan is already the talk of the town after the makers released a couple of stills from the film, which displayed some adorable chemistry between the lead couple.

Recently, we came across one more picture from the film where Alia is seen planting a kiss on Varun's nose. Too much cuteness in one frame naa?

Earlier, Varun had revealed that the film is not a continuation of the first movie and has a fresh story. He had also said that it's unlike any Dharma movie and will have plenty of dark twists and turns.

Currently, both the actors are shooting for the film in Singapore.

Produced by Karan Johar, Badrinath Ki Dulhania will hit the big screens on 10th March, 2017.
Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce headed by Sa Ra Govindu had called up for a meeting with various associations regarding Maasti Gudi mishap, yesterday. Members of producers, directors, stunt directors associations were a part of the meet.

Sa Ra Govindu, after the closed door meeting, briefed the media regarding the decisions taken by his team. Major outcome of the meet was to expel Duniya Vijay, director Nagshekar and Action Director Ravi Verma from all sort of film activities until further notice.

Ravi Verma, who is one of the most popular action directors, will be the most affected because of this decision taken by KFCC. He has close to a dozen films in different languages for which he has agreed to choreograph the action sequences.

With this decision, Ravi Verma will not be allowed to work in any of the film industries as the office bearers of KFCC clearly stated that they will be writing to the Film Federation of India and South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce about this.

Office bearers of Artists Association headed by Rebel Star Ambarish, were not present in the meet. KFCC had invited Ambarish and Doddanna to be part of this meeting but we hear that they could not be part of this meet because of prior commitments.

We hear that next meet will be held very soon to discuss the actions to be taken if the concerned are found guilty. Meanwhile, Duniya Vijay welcomed the decision of KFCC and said he will accept by the decision taken by the governing body of KFI.
This week was expected to pave way for the release of two promising Malayalam movies, in the form of Kattappanayile Hrithik Roshan and Ore Mukham. But, now what we hear is that the release of these movies has been postponed.

The makers of the film have decided to change the release date of the movies, owing to the demonetisation of 500 and 1000 rupee notes, which has come in to effect from November 9, midnight.

Due to the unavailability of 100 rupee notes in bulk, in the market, the makers of the films fear whether the audiences would opt to watch the movies. There are also certain issues in theatres, where they are finding it difficult to return the balance amount for the purchased tickets.

Both the films were expected to hit the theatres on November 11, 2016. Now, according to new reports, both the films would hit the theatres on November 18, 2016.

Kattappanayile Hrithik Roshan, which is the second directorial venture of Nadirshah, has Vishnu Unnikrishnan, Salim Kumar, Siddique, Siju Wilson, Rahul Madhav, Prayaga Martin etc. in important roles.

Ore Mukham, the trailer of which was released yesterday, has been directed by Sajith Jagadnandan. The film features Dhyan Sreenivasan, Aju Varghese, Prayaga Martin, Jewel Mary etc., in important roles.
Prathap Pothen, the senior actor-director revealed that he has absolutely no issues with young actor Dulquer Salmaan. Prathap also stated that he is still ready to work with Dulquer if he is ready.

The duo was supposed to team up for a love story, which was written by Anjali Menon. But the project was shelved at the last minute, due to Prathap's fallout with writer Anjali.

According to the actor-director, he was absolutely unimpressed with Anjali Menon's screenplay. He had conveyed his feelings to the lead actor Dulquer Salmaan, during the initial stage of the making.

The director states that he wasted almost one year for the project, and is not ready to do a new project anytime soon. Prathap Pothen revealed his decision, in the recent interview given to a popular TV channel.

The actor-director also reacted to the controversy regarding his post about Mammootty in the interview, stating that he was honestly praising the megastar through his Facebook post.

However, Dulquer Salmaan has not commented on the Prathap Pothen-Anjali Menon clash, yet. We hope that the senior actor-director will soon get another chance to work with Dulquer.
HONG KONG, CHINA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/09/16 -- Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks fell more than 40 percent to 97,700 attacks in the third quarter of the year, according to Nexusguard's "Q3 2016 APAC Threat Report." Nexusguard, the worldwide leader in DDoS security solutions, analyzes a network of vulnerable devices for new cyberthreats across national and organizational boundaries. The company scans attack data for trends in vectors, duration, sources and other characteristics to inform organizations across industries of the latest methods. Nexusguard's quarterly reports arm security professionals with the latest internet security information to help them anticipate threats to their networks.

Nexusguard's latest report reveals there was a sharp dip in distributed reflection denial of service (DrDoS) attacks, with DNS-based attacks falling 97 percent compared to the previous quarter. Recent DDoS attacks on cybercrime journalist Brian Krebs and OVH, a French internet hosting provider, broke records for speed and size. Nexusguard researchers attribute the reflection attack dip and these massive attacks to hackers favoring Mirai-style botnets of hijacked connected devices, demonstrating the power the internet of things (IoT) has to threaten major organizations. With increasing pressure on hosting and internet service providers to sustain fierce attacks against customers, Nexusguard analysts advise organizations to ensure they use signature-based detection to quickly identify and thwart botnets. Owners of IoT devices should protect all devices within their network with strong passwords to avoid being compromised.

"Few service providers can sustain the level of malicious traffic we saw in Q3 from IoT botnets, so these DDoS outages are causing companies to completely rethink their cybersecurity strategies," said Terrence Gareau, chief scientist for Nexusguard. "Hackers' preferences for botnets over reflection attacks are typical of cyclical behavior, where attackers will switch to methods that have fallen out of popularity to test security teams with unexpected vectors."

China and Australia rose to the list of top three countries targeted by DDoS attacks with the largest increases in malicious traffic -- 50 percent and 40 percent, respectively -- over last quarter. While DDoS attacks fell in average frequency during Q3, Nexusguard researchers predict the attention from recent botnet attacks will cause companies to strengthen their cybersecurity and rethink their service provider contracts in Q4 to deliver support and ensure business continuity despite supersized attacks.

Read the full "Q3 2016 APAC Threat Report " for more details.

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About Nexusguard

Founded in 2008, Nexusguard is the global leader in fighting malicious internet attacks. Nexusguard protects clients against a multitude of threats, including distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, to ensure uninterrupted internet service. Nexusguard provides comprehensive, highly customized solutions for customers of all sizes, across a range of industries, and also enables turnkey anti-DDoS solutions for service providers. Nexusguard delivers on its promise to maximize peace of mind by minimizing threats and improving uptime. Headquartered in San Francisco, Nexusguard's network of security experts extends globally. Visit www.nexusguard.com for more information.

Contact:

Crystal Ngan

Nexusguard

Senior Marketing Communications Executive

Email Contact

+852 3526 0626



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Nexusguard

Head of marketing

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In connection with AP Alternative Assets, L.P.'s ("AAA"; Euronext Amsterdam: AAA) equity investment in Athene Holding Ltd. ("Athene"), AAA, the largest shareholder of Athene, informs its investors that Athene plans to release its GAAP financial results for the third quarter of 2016 on November 11, 2016, prior to the start of trading on Euronext in Amsterdam. A summary of these results will also be included in an Athene presentation that will be posted on AAA's website at www.apolloalternativeassets.com.

In addition, AAA will host a conference call on November 11, 2016 at 4:30 p.m. CET (Amsterdam) 3:30 p.m. GMT (London) 10:30 a.m. EST (New York). During this call, members of Athene's senior management team will review information relating to Athene. All interested parties are welcome to participate. The call can be accessed by dialing 20-717-6857 within the Netherlands or +31-20-717-6857 outside of the Netherlands. Please dial in approximately 5 to 10 minutes prior to the call. When prompted, callers should reference "Athene". A presentation including a summary of Athene's financial results will be referenced during the conference call and will be available on AAA's website at www.apolloalternativeassets.com prior to the call.

An archived replay of the conference call will be available until December 11, 2016, via AAA's website at www.apolloalternativeassets.com.

About AP Alternative Assets

AP Alternative Assets was established by Apollo Global Management, LLC and its subsidiaries ("Apollo") and is a closed-end limited partnership established under the laws of Guernsey. Apollo is a leading global alternative investment manager with 26 years of experience investing across the capital structure of leveraged companies. AAA is managed by Apollo Alternative Assets, L.P. For more information about AP Alternative Assets, please visit www.apolloalternativeassets.com.

This announcement does not constitute or form part of an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for securities in the United States or in any other jurisdiction.

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and circumstances. Such statements are based on currently available operating, financial and competitive information and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from the historical experience and expressed or implied expectations of AAA. Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and AAA does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements unless required by law.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161109006448/en/

Contacts:

AP Alternative Assets, L.P

Gary M. Stein (New York) +1 (212) 822 0467
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The New Zealand dollar retreated from early highs against the other major currencies in the Asian session on Thursday. The NZ dollar fell to 0.7273 against the U.S. dollar and 76.59 against the yen, from early highs of 0.7305 and 77.24, respectively. Against the euro and the Australian dollar, the kiwi edged down to 1.5015 and 1.0516 from early highs of 1.4955 and 1.0476, respectively. If the kiwi extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 0.70 against the greenback, 72.00 against the yen, 1.56 against the euro and 1.07 against the aussie. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
UCART19 Phase 1 trial on-going

Successful cGMP Manufacturing for UCART123

Strong cash position of $295 million1 as of September 30, 2016

Additional grant of patent with broad claims covering fundamental use of gene editing technologies

Revenues and other income of $12 million2 in the 3rd quarter of 2016

Adjusted loss attributable to shareholders3 of $0.6 million2 in the 3rd quarter of 2016

Regulatory News:

Cellectis S.A. (Paris:ALCLS) (NASDAQ:CLLS) (Alternext: ALCLS Nasdaq: CLLS), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing immunotherapies based on gene edited CAR T-cells (UCART), today announced its results for the three-month period ended September 30, 2016 and for the nine-month period ended September 30, 2016.

Recent Corporate Highlights

UCART19 in collaboration with Servier Pfizer

On June 20, 2016, Cellectis announced that the first patient in Servier's UCART19 Phase 1 clinical trial had been dosed. The UCART19 Phase 1 clinical trial in ALL and CLL patients is conducted at two clinical sites in the UK at the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), part of UCL, for the pediatric arm of the trial, and at Kings College London for the adult arm of the study.

Interim data from the UCART19 Phase 1 clinical trial is expected to be announced at a scientific meeting in H1 2017.

UCART123

On November 15, 2016, Cellectis announced the successful completion of large scale production runs of UCART123, according to cGMP standards. Cellectis is planning to file an IND for a Phase 1 clinical trial in AML and BPDCN patients by YE 2016 in collaboration with the Weill Cornell Medical College and the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Weill Cornell will present pre-clinical data on UCART123 in an oral presentation at the 58th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition. The meeting will be held from December 3 to 6, 2016 in San Diego.

Pfizer Partnership

Cellectis and Pfizer are making advances in their partnered programs. Notably, Pfizer will present on the "Preclinical Evaluation of Allogeneic Anti-BCMA Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells with Safety Switch Domains and Lymphodepletion Resistance for the Treatment of Multiple Myeloma" in an oral presentation at ASH in December 2016.

IP Patent Portfolio

Issuance of U.S. patent 9,458,439 which claims gene inactivation by use of chimeric restriction endonucleases. This patent, granted by the USPTO to the Institut Pasteur and Boston Children's Hospital, naming Dr. Andre Choulika and Pr. Richard C. Mulligan as co-inventors, is exclusively licensed to Cellectis.

Award

Cellectis won EuropaBio's 2016 Most Innovative European Biotech SME Award for the healthcare category. The Awards program is a unique annual initiative that recognizes innovative biotech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe and the crucial role that they play in answering some of society's greatest challenges through biotechnology.

Conferences

Cellectis will participate in the upcoming Oppenheimer Life Sciences Summit being held in NYC on November 29, 2016 and will be presenting at the Piper Jaffray 28th Annual Health Care Conference on November 30, 2016 in NYC.

Calyxt Cellectis' plant science subsidiary

Calyxt expanded its patent portfolio with U.S. patent 9,458,439, which encompasses broad uses of technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9, Zinc Finger Nucleases and TAL-effector Nucleases for plant gene editing.

On October 20, 2016 Cellectis hosted, along with its agricultural biotech subsidiary Calyxt, the world's first dinner made with gene edited foods in New York.

Calyxt has completed the 2016 expansion of its high-oleic/no trans-fat soybean variety (CAL1501) in the U.S. with a production of 1,200 tons of beans. In Spring 2016, Calyxt planted 942 acres (381 hectares) in six U.S. states Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. To date, the Company has harvested approximately 45,000 bushels with the intent to use a substantial portion of the harvest for its first industrial scale crush.

Financial Results

Cellectis' consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board ("GAAP").

Third Quarter 2016 Financial Results

Cash: As of September 30, 2016, Cellectis had 264.0 million in total cash, cash equivalents and current financial assets compared to 269.7 million as of June 30, 2016. This decrease of 5.7 million notably reflects (i) the net cash flows used in operating activities of 1.7 million, which includes 9.2 million of cash receipts in the third quarter of 2016 in connection with the achievement of two milestones under our collaboration agreement with Servier that occurred during the second quarter of 2016, and (ii) capital expenditures of 2.2 million. The change was also attributable to the unrealized negative translation effect of exchange rate fluctuations on our U.S. dollar cash, cash equivalents and current financial assets of 1.6 million.

Revenues and Other Income: During the quarters ended September 30, 2015 and 2016, we recorded 10.0 million and 11.3 million, respectively, in revenues and other income. This is mainly due to (i) the increase of 2.5 million in collaboration revenues, notably due to the agreement to provide Servier with raw materials and batches of UCART19 products, partly offset by (ii) the decrease of 0.3 million in research tax credit and 0.8 million in subsidies.

Total Operating Expenses and Other Operating Income: Total operating expenses and other operating income for the third quarter of 2016 were 22.9 million, compared to 23.4 million for the third quarter of 2015. The non-cash stock-based compensation expenses included in these amounts were 12.1 million and 9.5 million, respectively.

R&D Expenses: For the quarters ended 2015 and 2016, research and development expenses decreased by 2.3 million from 16.2 million in 2015 to 13.8 million in 2016. Personnel expenses decreased by 1.1 million from 10.3 million in 2015 to 9.2 million in 2016, notably due to a 2.5 million decrease in social charges on stock options and free share grants, partly offset by a 0.4 million increase in wages and salaries, and a 0.9 million increase in non-cash stock based compensation expense. Purchases and external expenses and other expenses decreased by 1.2 million from 5.8 million in 2015 to 4.6 million in 2016.

SG&A Expenses: During the quarters ended 2015 and 2016, we recorded 6.9 million and 8.7 million, respectively, of selling, general and administrative expenses. The increase of 1.8 million primarily reflects (i) an increase of 0.9 million in personnel expenses from 5.7 million to 6.7 million, attributable, among other things, to an increase of 1.7 million of non-cash stock-based compensation expense, partly offset by a decrease of 1.0 million of social charges on stock options and free share grants, and (ii) an increase of 0.9 million in purchases and external expenses and other charges.

Financial Gain (Loss): The financial gain was 0.7 million for the third quarter of 2015 compared with a financial loss of 1.0 million for the third quarter of 2016. The change in financial result was primarily attributable to the effect of exchange rate fluctuations on our U.S. dollar cash and cash equivalent accounts.

Net Income (Loss) Attributable to Shareholders of Cellectis: During the three months ended September 30, 2015 and 2016, we recorded a net loss of 12.8 million (or 0.36 per share on both a basic and a diluted basis) and net loss of 12.6 million (or 0.36 per share on both a basic and a diluted basis), respectively. Adjusted loss attributable to shareholders of Cellectis for the third quarter of 2016 was 0.5 million (0.01 per share on both a basic and a diluted basis) compared to adjusted loss attributable to shareholders of Cellectis of 3.3 million (0.09 per share on both a basic and a diluted basis), for the third quarter of 2015. Adjusted loss attributable to shareholders of Cellectis for the third quarter of 2016 and 2015 excludes non-cash stock-based compensation expense of 12.1 million and 9.5 million, respectively. Please see "Note Regarding Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures" for reconciliation of GAAP net income (loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis to Adjusted income (loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis.

First Nine Months 2016 Financial Results

Cash: As of September 30, 2016, Cellectis had 264.0 million in total cash, cash equivalents and current financial assets compared to 314.2 million as of December 31, 2015. This decrease of 50.3 million was primarily driven by (i) 30.8 million of cash used in operating activities, notably in connection with the initiation of industrial Good Manufacturing Practice ("GMP") production of UCART123, increased expenses in materials required of GMP production of UCART 123 and other targets, a payment of 7.2 million of value added taxes related to proceeds received in the fourth quarter of 2015 from Servier, partly offset by cash receipts of 9.2 million in connection with the achievement of two milestones under our collaboration agreement with Servier that occurred during the second quarter of 2016 and (ii) 11.3 million of cash used in investment activities, primarily through Calyxt's land acquisition and greenhouse construction in an aggregate amount of 8.9 million. The decrease was also partially attributable to the negative unrealized translation effect of exchange rate fluctuations on our U.S. dollar cash, cash equivalents and current financial assets accounts of 7.4 million.

Cellectis expects that its cash, cash equivalents and Current financial assets of 264.0 million as of September 30, 2016 will be sufficient to fund its current operations through the end of 2018.

Revenues and Other Income: During the nine-month periods ended September 30, 2015 and 2016, we recorded 27.2 million and 38.9 million, respectively, in revenues and other income. This is mainly due to the increase of (i) 9.6 million in collaboration revenues mainly due to both the agreement to provide Servier with raw materials and additional batches of UCART19 products and the achievement of two milestones (totaling 11.7 million) under our collaboration agreement with Servier and (ii) 3.1 million in research tax credit, partly offset by a decrease of 0.9 million in research subsidies, resulting from the termination of research programs.

Total Operating Expenses and Other Operating Income: Total operating expenses and other operating income for the nine-month period ended September 30, 2016 were 80.9 million, compared to 56.3 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2015. The non-cash stock-based compensation expenses included in these amounts were 39.9 million and 17.5 million, respectively.

R&D Expenses: For the nine months ended September 30, 2015 and 2016, research and development expenses increased by 15.8 million from 36.4 million in 2015 to 52.2 million in 2016. Personnel expenses increased by 8.4 million from 24.3 million in 2015 to 32.7 million in 2016, notably due to a 1.9 million increase in wages and salaries, and a 12.6 million increase in non-cash stock based compensation expense, partly offset by a 6.1 million decrease in social charges on stock options and free share grants. Purchases and external expenses increased by 7.6 million from 11.0 million in 2015 to 18.6 million in 2016, due to increased expenses related to innovation and platform development, including payments to third parties participating in product development, purchases of biological raw materials and expenses associated with the use of laboratories and other facilities.

SG&A Expenses: During the nine months ended September 30, 2015 and 2016, we recorded 19.1 million and 27.8 million, respectively, of selling, general and administrative expenses. The increase of 8.7 million primarily reflects (i) an increase of 7.4 million in personnel expenses from 14.0 million to 21.4 million, attributable, among other things, to a 0.5 million increase in wages and salaries, and an increase of 9.9 million of non-cash stock-based compensation expense, partly offset by a decrease of 3.0 million of social charges on stock options and free share grants, and (ii) an increase of 1.0 million in purchases and external expenses.

Financial Gain (Loss): The financial gain was 0.5 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 compared with financial loss of 6.3 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016. The change in financial result was primarily attributable to the effect of exchange rate fluctuations on our U.S. dollar cash and cash equivalent accounts.

Net Income (Loss) Attributable to Shareholders of Cellectis: During the nine months ended September 30, 2015 and 2016, we recorded a net loss of 28.8 million (or 0.85 per share on both a basic and a diluted basis) and a net loss of 48.3 million (or 1.37 per share on both a basic and diluted basis), respectively. Adjusted loss attributable to shareholders of Cellectis for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 was 8.4 million (0.24 per share on both a basic and a diluted basis) compared to adjusted loss attributable to shareholders of Cellectis of 11.3 million (0.33 per share on both a basic and a diluted basis), for the nine months ended September 30, 2015. Adjusted loss attributable to shareholders of Cellectis for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015 excludes a non-cash stock-based compensation expense of 39.9 million and 17.5 million, respectively. Please see "Note Regarding Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures" for a reconciliation of GAAP net income (loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis to Adjusted income (loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis.

CELLECTIS S.A. STATEMENT OF CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL POSITION (unaudited) ( in thousands, except per share data) As of December 31, 2015 September 30, 2016 ASSETS Non-current assets Intangible assets 956 1 180 Property, plant, and equipment 5 043 15 141 Other non-current financial assets 845 612 Total non-current assets 6 844 16 933 Current assets Inventories and accumulated costs on orders in process 158 106 Trade receivables 6 035 11 382 Subsidies receivables 9 102 14 535 Other current assets 4 685 7 252 Cash and cash equivalent and Current financial assets 314 238 263 968 Total current assets 334 218 297 243 TOTAL ASSETS 341 062 314 177 LIABILITIES Shareholders' equity Share capital 1 759 1 767 Premiums related to the share capital 420 682 460 474 Treasury share reserve (184) (373) Currency translation adjustment (1 631) (1 933) Retained earnings (137 188) (158 032) Net income (loss) (20 544) (48 309) Total shareholders' equity Group Share 262 894 253 595 Non-controlling interests 725 1 471 Total shareholders' equity 263 619 255 066 Non-current liabilities Non-current financial liabilities 66 37 Non-current provisions 437 581 Total non-current liabilities 503 619 Current liabilities Current financial liabilities 1 921 1 922 Trade payables 6 611 9 176 Deferred revenues and deferred income 54 758 41 893 Current provisions 953 467 Other current liabilities 12 697 5 034 Total current liabilities 76 940 58 492 TOTAL LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY 341 062 314 177

CELLECTIS S.A. STATEMENT OF CONSOLIDATED OPERATIONS Third quarter (unaudited) ( in thousands, except per share data) For the three-month period

ended September 30, 2015 2016 Revenues and other income Revenues 7 600 10 091 Other income 2 379 1 215 Total revenues and other income 9 978 11 306 Operating expenses and other operating income (expenses) Royalty expenses (334) (311) Research and development expenses (1) (16 156) (13 824) Selling, general and administrative expenses (1) (6 921) (8 712) Other operating income 0 (6) Redundancy plan 24 3 Other operating expenses (37) (10) Total operating expenses and other operating income (expenses) (23 425) (22 860) Operating income (loss) (13 447) (11 555) Financial gain (loss) 680 (1 035) Income (loss) from continuing operations (12 766) (12 590) Net income (loss) (12 766) (12 590) Attributable to shareholders of Cellectis (12 766) (12 590) Attributable to non-controlling interests Basic earnings attributable to shareholders of Cellectis per share (/share) (0.36) (0.36) Diluted earnings attributable to shareholders of Cellectis per share (/share) (0.36) (0.36)

___________________

(1) Cellectis reclassified certain expenses related to the year ended December 31, 2015 from SG&A expenses to R&D expenses in the fourth quarter of 2015. This reclassification is effective starting in 2015, and is due to the increased level of efforts towards our R&D activities in order to develop product candidates and work toward clinical phases. Starting in 2015, we classify personnel and other costs related to information technology, human resources, business development, legal, intellectual property and general management in Research and development expense based on the time that employees spent contributing to research and development activities versus general and administrative activities. We approved the reclassification in Q4 2015 and assess the performance of the consolidated company based on this new classification.

CELLECTIS S.A. STATEMENT OF CONSOLIDATED OPERATIONS First Nine Months (unaudited) ( in thousands, except per share data) For the nine-month period

ended September 30, 2015 2016 Revenues and other income Revenues 23 356 32 892 Other income 3 845 6 053 Total revenues and other income 27 201 38 945 Operating expenses and other operating income (expenses) Royalty expenses (1 153) (1 035) Research and development expenses (1) (36 375) (52 220) Selling, general and administrative expenses (1) (19 145) (27 839) Other operating income 515 380 Redundancy plan 259 3 Other operating expenses (432) (216) Total operating expenses and other operating income (expenses) (56 331) (80 926) Operating income (loss) (29 130) (41 981) Financial gain (loss) 515 (6 328) Income (loss) from continuing operations (28 615) (48 309) Net income (loss) (28 615) (48 309) Attributable to shareholders of Cellectis (28 786) (48 309) Attributable to non-controlling interests 171 Basic earnings attributable to shareholders of Cellectis per share (/share) (0.85) (1.37) Diluted earnings attributable to shareholders of Cellectis per share (/share) (0.85) (1.37)

___________________

(1) Cellectis reclassified certain expenses related to the year ended December 31, 2015 from SG&A expenses to R&D expenses in the fourth quarter of 2015. This reclassification is effective starting in 2015, and is due to the increased level of efforts towards our R&D activities in order to develop product candidates and work toward clinical phases. Starting in 2015, we classify personnel and other costs related to information technology, human resources, business development, legal, intellectual property and general management in Research and development expense based on the time that employees spent contributing to research and development activities versus general and administrative activities. We approved the reclassification in Q4 2015 and assess the performance of the consolidated company based on this new classification.

Note Regarding Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Cellectis S.A. presents Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis in this press release. Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis is not a measure calculated in accordance with IFRS. We have included in this press release a reconciliation of this figure to Net Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated in accordance with IFRS. Because Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis excludes Non-cash stock-based compensation expense-a non-cash expense, we believe that this financial measure, when considered together with our IFRS financial statements, can enhance an overall understanding of Cellectis' financial performance. Moreover, our management views the Company's operations, and manages its business, based, in part, on this financial measure. In particular, we believe that the elimination of Non-cash stock-based expenses from Net Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis can provide a useful measure for period-to-period comparisons of our core businesses. Our use of Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our financial results as reported under IFRS. Some of these limitations are: (a) other companies, including companies in our industry which use similar stock-based compensation, may address the impact of Non-cash stock-based compensation expense differently; and (b) other companies may report Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders or similarly titled measures but calculate them differently, which reduces their usefulness as a comparative measure. Because of these and other limitations, you should consider Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis alongside our IFRS financial results, including Net Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis.

RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP NET INCOME Third quarter (unaudited) ( in thousands, except per share data) For the three-month period

ended September 30, 2015 2016 Net Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis (12 766) (12 590) Adjustment: Non-cash stock-based compensation expense 9 464 12 114 Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis (3 301) (475) Basic Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis (/share) (0.09) (0.01) Weighted average number of outstanding shares, basic (units) 35 094 503 35 333 572 Diluted Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis (/share) (0.09) (0.01) Weighted average number of outstanding shares, diluted (units) 35 475 034 35 713 432

RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP NET INCOME First nine months (unaudited) ( in thousands, except per share data) For the nine-month period

ended September 30, 2015 2016 Net Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis (28 786) (48 309) Adjustment: Non-cash stock-based compensation expense 17 481 39 911 Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis (11 305) (8 398) Basic Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis (/share) (0.33) (0.24) Weighted average number of outstanding shares, basic (units) 33 819 191 35 274 890 Diluted Adjusted Income (Loss) attributable to shareholders of Cellectis (/share) (0.33) (0.24) Weighted average number of outstanding shares, diluted (units) 34 152 422 35 695 907

As a foreign private issuer, we are not required under the Exchange Act to file periodic reports and financial statements with the SEC as frequently or as promptly as United States companies whose securities are registered under the Exchange Act. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we currently provide quarterly interim consolidated financial data to the SEC, and commencing with our first quarter interim report for the 2017 fiscal year, we intend to file our periodic reports within the deadlines applicable to domestic reporting companies.

About Cellectis

Cellectis is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing immunotherapies based on gene edited CAR T-cells (UCART). The company's mission is to develop a new generation of cancer therapies based on engineered T-cells. Cellectis capitalizes on its 16 years of expertise in genome engineering based on its flagship TALEN products and meganucleases and pioneering electroporation PulseAgile technology to create a new generation of immunotherapies. CAR technologies are designed to target surface antigens expressed on cells. Using its life-science-focused, pioneering genome-engineering technologies, Cellectis' goal is to create innovative products in multiple fields and with various target markets. Cellectis is listed on the Nasdaq market (ticker: CLLS) and on the NYSE Alternext market (ticker: ALCLS). To find out more about us, visit our website: www.cellectis.com

Talking about gene editing? We do it.

TALEN is a registered trademark owned by the Cellectis Group.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain "forward looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as "anticipate," "believe," "can," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "is designed to," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "objective," "should," or the negative of these and similar expressions and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the outlook for Cellectis' future business and financial performance. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances, many of which are beyond Cellectis' control. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially due to global political, economic, business, competitive, market, regulatory and other factors and risks. Cellectis expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any of these forward-looking statements, whether because of future events, new information, a change in its views or expectations, or otherwise.

1 Cash position amounted 264 million and was converted to Dollars using Euro-US Dollar exchange rate as of September 30, 2016: 1.1161

2 Converted from Euro to Dollars using Euro-US Dollar average exchange rate for the 3rd quarter of 2016: 1.1166

3 See the section related to the reconciliation of Gaap to non-Gaap net income. GAAP Net Loss attributable to shareholders amounted to $15 million (13 million) in the 3rd quarter of 2016

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122006146/en/

Contacts:

Media

Jennifer Moore, +1 917-580-1088

VP Communications

media@cellectis.com

or

Caitlin Kasunich, +1 212-896-1241

KCSA Strategic Communications

ckasunich@kcsa.com

or

Investor relations contact:

Simon Harnest, +1 646-385-9008

VP Corporate Strategy and Finance

simon.harnest@cellectis.com
Technavio analysts forecast the global next-generation biologics marketto grow at a CAGR of more than 14% during the forecast period, according to their latest report.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005223/en/

Technavio publishes a new market research report on the global next-generation biologics market from 2016-2020. (Graphic: Business Wire)

The research study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global next-generation biologicsmarketfor 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers revenue generated from the sales of next-generation biologics.

The global next-generation biologics market is expected to grow at a rapid pace during the forecast period due to the growing acceptance from physicians as well as individuals combined with the recent launches of novel monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). The increasing use of next-generation mAbs in treating diseases will have a positive impact on the market. The understanding of the disease at the molecular level increases the development and use of these drugs for difficult to diagnose diseases such as cancer and autoimmune diseases. They have a high affinity toward specific disease cells and areas that need treatment.

Request a sample report: http://www.technavio.com/request-a-sample?report=54721

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Technavio healthcare and life sciences research analysts highlight the following three factors that are contributing to the growth of the global next-generation biologics market:

Increase in demand for ADCs

Advanced technological innovations

Reimbursement support for next-generation biologics

Increase in demand for ADCs

Antibodies are increasingly becoming the preferred choice to treat diseases such as respiratory, oncology, and inflammatory diseases. Understanding diseases at a molecular level increases the development and use of antibodies. The use of ADCs, including radioimmunotherapy and antibody-directed enzyme prodrug therapy, is growing.

Sapna Jha, a lead cardiovascular and metabolic disorders research analyst at Technavio, says, "The increasing use of these antibodies in drug development increases revenue generation in the global next-generation biologics market, thereby contributing to market growth. ADCETRIS is a chimeric monoclonal immunoglobulin G1 antibody, which acts against CD30 expressed in HL and systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma."

Advanced technological innovations

Advancements in biological sciences have shown a positive influence on the global next-generation biologics market. There are novel technological advancements in terms of drug manufacture, development, and delivery. Also, the future landscape of the market is expected to be promising as there are novel products in the pipeline that are expected to revolutionize the market globally.

"The development of innovative insulin products and advances in insulin delivery technology have increased the life expectancy of individuals with diabetes. Automated injection devices such as insulin pumps and pens offer a safe and easy drug delivery option, thus increasing their demand in the market," adds Sapna

Reimbursement support for next-generation biologics

Biologic therapeutics are expensive and cannot be afforded by all; however, reimbursement of next-generation biologics is expected to fuel the market during the forecast period. Plans such as public reimbursement programs reduce the financial burden of treatments. The increasing demand for high cost drugs are important reasons for them to be included in reimbursement plans.

Funding can help various vendors and research institutes to build development in next-generation biologics with new discoveries, which boosts the global next-generation biologics market enormously. Research and clinical trials of biologicals are quite costly, which many research institutes and small companies cannot afford. To help their innovative idea, the respective governmental organizations provide funding worldwide.

Top vendors:

Biogen

F. Hoffmann-La Roche

Novo Nordisk

Sanofi

Takeda Pharmaceuticals

Browse Related Reports:

Global Biologic Therapeutics Market 2015-2019

Global Agricultural Biologicals Market 2016-2020

Global Spine Biologics Market 2016-2020

Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you.

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.

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LONDON, ENGLAND -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Condor Gold (AIM: CNR), the AIM-listed gold exploration company, is pleased to announce scout drilling has commenced on its flagship La India Project in Nicaragua, which hosts a high grade mineral resource of 18.08 Mtonnes at 4.0 g/t for 2.31 Moz gold. The Company has started a 4,000 m scout drilling programme to demonstrate the upside of the entire District, which contains approximately 104.5 km strike length of veins of which only 54.8 km have been trenched or mapped in any detail and only 13.2 km have been drill tested. Many veins have never been drill tested. As at 9th November, a drill rig has completed 87 m at the El Cacao target. The programme has been designed by Dr Warren Pratt, who joined Condor as a geological consultant in June 2016. Dr Pratt helped with due diligence on the La India Project on behalf of Ross Beaty, a successful mining entrepreneur who subsequently became a 7.1% shareholder in April 2016.

The first 2,000 m of drilling has three objectives. Firstly, to expand mineralisation and identify ore- shoots at El Cacao. Secondly, to expand mineralisation at the Cristalito-Tatescame target. Thirdly, to test for mineralisation on the Andrea Vein, which has never been drilled. The location of the remaining 2,000 m of drilling will depend on initial drilling results and may also be used to test other targets.

Soil sampling began again in June 2016 and has now covered over half of the district. It aims to identify new epithermal targets suitable for drilling.

Highlights:

-- Condor initiates 4,000 m of drilling to demonstrate District-scale gold potential. -- Drilling to identify a boiling level at El Cacao, current resource of 590 kt at 3.0 g/t gold for 58 koz gold. Previous shallow drilling including intercepts of 14.05 m at 6.1 g/t gold and 2.6 m at 88.7g/t gold. -- Drilling to test strike extension at Cristalito-Tatescame, current resource of 200 kt at 5.3 g/t gold for 34 koz gold. Precious shallow drilling included an intercept of 5.3 m at 9.4 g/t gold. -- Drilling to test the Andrea Vein, never drill-tested, but has been trenched for 2,300 m by Condor, has sheeted veins and vein breccias of 20 m width in places and rock chips up to 30 g/t gold

Mark Child, CEO comments:

"Condor's twin strategy remains to: 1) fully permit and construct a base case 1 Mtpa, 2,800 tpd processing plant with capacity to produce 100,000 oz gold pa from a single open pit on the La India Project. 2) demonstrate District-scale gold mineralisation. The existing resource of 18.08 Mtonnes at 4.0 g/t for 2.31 Moz gold occurs within seven areas (see Figure 1). Four of the smaller resources were excluded from the previous PFS and PEAs;; it now makes sense to consolidate and expand them. Over the last 3 years, Condor has steadily conducted fieldwork to demonstrate that La India Project is a true gold District as evidenced by 104.5 km strike length of veins of which only 13.2 km have been drill tested. This work includes aerial geophysics, a detailed structural model, mapping, rock-chip sampling and trenching. I am delighted that we have now prioritised several highly promising targets and are commencing scout drilling at El Cacao and Cristalito- Tatescame. Although each is currently relatively small, we believe that both have excellent potential to host much larger gold resources."

Drilling to test El Cacao

The resource is 590 kt at 3.0 g/t gold for 58 koz gold. It is open along strike in both directions and at depth. The vein strikes almost east-west and has a strike length of at least 600 m (Figure 1 and 2). Trenching every 20 m resulted in a total of 1,121 m tested. Between July 2007 and February 2008, Condor completed 2,170 m drilling on fences spaced at 40 m. These tested the vein to a maximum depth of 150 m.

Recent re-logging and mapping by Dr Pratt demonstrates that the vein shows many features of the top of an epithermal system. There is widespread phreatic breccia, abundant chalcedony, siliceous spirit levels (geopetal structures) and, in the West, sinter float. There is widespread kaolinite at surface, probably due to an acid sulfate ('steam- heated') overprint. All this suggests there is a good chance that the main boiling level, with higher grades, is deeper and has not been drilled yet.

The drill results below are from Condor's drilling on El Cacao concession in 2007 and are detailed in an RNS dated 8th November 2007:

-- CCRD002 14.05 m at 6.05g/t gold from 87 m -- CCRD004 5.55 m at 6.10g/t gold from 123.35 m -- CCRC006 13.83 m at 2.25g/t from 93.12 m -- CCRD006 2.60 m at 88.72g/t gold from 132.90 m

Drilling to test Cristalito-Tatescame

The Cristalito-Tatescame mineral resource is 200 kt at 5.3 g/t gold for 34 koz gold. It is open along strike in both directions and to depth (Figure 1 and 2). However, the Company feels the best potential is to the west. The vein was drill tested by Gold-Ore Resources Ltd in 2004-2005, through a joint venture with Glencairn. They drilled 10 holes for 1,063 m. Underground sampling of the 570 m level returned a weighted average of 1.6 m at 21.7 g/t gold. The drilling confirmed mineralisation over a 200 m strike length to a depth of 150 m. The best intersection was 5.3 m at 9.43 g/t gold from 94.6 m in drillhole DDT-09.

Recent geological mapping shows that felsic lava flows, a densely welded ignimbrite, and a microdiorite have potential to host good grades towards the west. In the drilling, gold grades improve markedly towards the west, with visible adularia and grey silver sulphides in drill core. These features are all considered very positive.

Drilling to test Andrea

The Andrea Vein has never been drill tested and is an excellent opportunity to contribute to the District gold resource. The vein zone is about 2.3 km long and has been trenched by Condor and lies within the 8 km Los Limones-Andrea mineralized corridor (Figure 2). It is arcuate, with a main north-northwest-striking portion, which dips west at about 50-60o, and east-southeast-striking tails at each end. The vein zone also anastomoses and splits. The geometry of these splits suggests there is a dextral strike slip component on an overall extensional vein (as at the La India Vein). Creek exposures indicate that the zone of sheeted veins and vein breccias exceeds 20 m width in places. Good sheeted vein swarms occur in both foot- and hanging wall. Rock chip samples from the Andrea Vein zone are very encouraging, with grades up to 30 g/t gold.

To view Figure 1: La India Project comprises 7 gold mineral resources, visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1075934_Figure1.pdf

To view Figure 2 showing an 8 km Andrea-Limones mineralised corridor, visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1075934_Figure2.pdf

Competent Person's Declaration

The information in this announcement that relates to the mineral potential, geology, exploration results and database is based on information compiled, and reviewed, by Dr Warren Pratt, Chartered Geologist (1994), Fellow of the Geological Society of London and Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists. Dr Pratt is a geologist with over twenty years of experience in the exploration and definition of precious metal mineral resources. Dr Pratt consults to Condor Gold plc on an ad hoc basis and has considerable experience in epithermal mineralization, the type of deposit under consideration, and sufficient experience in the type of activity that he is undertaking to qualify as a 'Competent Person' as defined in the June 2009 Edition of the AIM Note for Mining and Oil & Gas Companies. Dr Pratt consents to the inclusion in the announcement of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which it appears and confirms that this information is accurate and not false or misleading.

Technical Glossary

'chalcedony' = a cryptocrystalline form of silica composed partly of quartz. It has a waxy luster and may be transparent or translucent. It can be a wide variety of colours, but is commonly white to grey.

'adularia' = a low temperature form of potassic feldspar, common in low temperature hydrothermal (epithermal) deposits

'epithermal system' = mineral deposits formed from warm water at shallow depth.

'felsic lava flows' = lava flows containing a high content of siliceous minerals (quartz + feldspar).

'microdiorite' = a medium grained intrusive igneous rock of intermediate composition.

'phreatic breccia' = a fragmental rock formed by interaction of hot water and cold rock and consequent explosive activity.

'siliceous spirit levels' = open cavities within the vein that are filled by horizontally bedded and banded minerals and sand.

'sinter float' = loose boulders on the surface of finely banded chalcedony and quartz, formed from an ancient hot spring.

'welded ignimbrite' = a dense, compact volcanic rock formed by the welding of hot ash and pumice, commonly the result of a violent explosive eruption.

About Condor Gold plc:

Condor Gold plc was admitted to AIM on 31st May 2006. The Company is a gold exploration and development company with a focus on Central America.

Condor completed a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) and two Preliminary Economic Assessments (PEA) on La India Project in Nicaragua in December 2014. The PFS details an open pit gold mineral reserve of 6.9 Mtonnes at 3.0 g/t gold for 675,000 oz gold, producing 80,000 oz gold pa for 7 years. The PEA for the open pit only scenario details 100,000 oz gold production pa for 8 years whereas the PEA for a combination of open pit and underground details 140,000 oz gold production pa for 8 years. La India Project contains a total attributable mineral resource of 18.08 Mtonnes at 4.0 g/t for2.31 Moz gold and 2.68 Moz silver at 6.2 g/t to the CIM Code.

In El Salvador, Condor has an attributable 1,004,000 oz gold equivalent at 2.6 g/t JORC compliant resource. The resource calculations are compiled by independent geologists, SRK Consulting (UK) Limited for Nicaragua, and Ravensgate and Geosure for El Salvador.

Disclaimer

Neither the contents of the Company's website nor the contents of any website accessible from hyperlinks on the Company's website (or any other website) is incorporated into, or forms part of, this announcement.

Contacts:

Condor Gold plc

Mark Child

Executive Chairman and CEO

+44 (0) 20 74932784

www.condorgold.com



Beaumont Cornish Limited

Roland Cornish and James Biddle

+44 (0) 20 7628 3396



Numis Securities Limited

John Prior and James Black

+44 (0) 20 72601000



Farm Street Media

Simon Robinson

+44 (0) 7593 340107




On November 9th, AS Olainfarm signed an agreement with Otrais Eko Fonds, Karlis Kupcs and Toms Baumanis whereby it acquired 100% shares in private medical company SIA Klinika DiaMed. According to confidentiality clauses of the said agreement, the value of transaction is not being disclosed at this stage. The transaction will be registered with Latvian Company register within coming days. Liene Cipule will remain the director of SIA "Klinika DiaMed".Olaine, 2016-11-10 08:30 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- "Acquisition of DiaMed is the first step of Olainfarm in sector of health care services. From now on our group will not only provide top quality medicines for people that already need them , but we will also offer products and services targeted at preserving one's health. This will be a comprehensive approach to health, with both, prevention and treatment. Within a few coming years we plan to increase number of Olainfarm's health care institutions un Riga and in regions, where we plan to offer health care services including treatment, prevention, rehabilitation and introduction to healthy lifestyle under a supervision of high level specialists," says Valerijs Maligins, Chairman of the Board of AS Olainfarm.Karlis Kupcs, an ex-co-owner of SIA Klinika DiaMed, its Medical director, Head of Institute of Radiology of P. Stradins University Hospital said: "I am delighted that in ten years Klinika DiaMed from just an idea with one magnetic resonance device on its equipment list has developed into an important and highly valued private medical institution. We have developed a highly qualified team, providing health care services not only to people throughout Latvia, but also to our foreign patients. Jointly with Olainfarm, we could grow faster, improving the scope of our services and their availability to patients "."High performance standards of DiaMed are well respected by public and private health care institutions, general practitioners and other health professionals and by large companies, many of whom ask us to be a health care provides for their teams. Our advantage is not only an outstanding team of medical professionals, but also the fact that we are one of the every few offering services every day, including weekends. We have created a good bais for a further development, specifically in priority areas of diagnostics, small surgeries and rehabilitation. Being a part of Olainfarm group will boost DiaMed's managerial, organizational, intellectual and financial capacity for further growth. We plan to put particularly large effort in attracting foreign clients and in developing prevention and health promotion services," says Liene Cipule, Director of SIA Klinika DiaMed.SIA "Klinika DiaMed" has a ten-year experience in providing health care services. Clinic offers high precision visual diagnostics, consultations, treatment and rehabilitation. This allows providing an assistance of a wide range for different health conditions. SIA "Klinika DiaMed" offers small surgeries for treatment of blood vessels, neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, traumatology and orthopaedic surgeries. Its daytime inpatient unit performs complicated diagnostic examinations, surgeries and manipulations, and also conservative (non-surgical) treatment and rehabilitation. In DiaMed, you can also consult invasive radiologists, neurosurgeons, neurosonologists, neurologists, cardiologists, orthopaedists, oncologists, traumatologists, physiotherapists and other medical professionals.There are more than 70 people working in SIA "Klinika DiaMed". Medical doctors of DiaMed have been trained not only locally but also in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the USA. Sales of SIA "Klinika "DiaMed" last year exceeded one million euros.Group of AS "Olainfarm" consists from the parent company AS "Olainfarm", pharmacy chain of SIA "Latvijas aptieka", producer of eco-cosmetics SIA "Kiwi Cosmetics", producer of elastic and compression materials SIA "Tonus Elast'". AS "Olainfarm" also owns 96,69% shares in SIA Silvanols, leading Latvian producer of food supplements.JSC Olainfarm is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Latvia with more than 40 years of experience in production of medication and chemical and pharmaceutical products. A basic principle of company's operations is to produce reliable and effective top quality products for Latvia and the rest of the world. Products made by the Group are being exported to more than 35 countries of the world, including the Baltics, Russia, other CIS, Europe, Asia, North America and Australia.Information prepared by:Salvis Lapins JSC Olainfarm Member of the Management Board Rupnicu iela 5, Olaine, Latvia, LV 2114 Phone: +371 6 7013 717 Fax: +371 6 7013 777 E-mail: Salvis.Lapins@olainfarm.lv
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.
Fiskars Corporation Stock Exchange Release November 10, 2016 at 10:00 EETFiskars plans to increase efficiencies with the new organizational structureWith the planned new organizational structure announced today, Fiskars is proposing to reduce positions in areas where there are currently overlaps or potential to seek efficiencies."Based on our strategy to build global businesses and brands, we introduced today a new planned organizational structure that is better aligned with the strategy and would allow us to move faster. These proposed reductions are aimed to reduce overlaps and strengthen our competitiveness", said Kari Kauniskangas, President and CEO, Fiskars Corporation. "Unfortunately the planned changes may have an impact on employees. We will support our employees during the possible transition."Including the addition of a number of new positions, the net reduction of Fiskars' personnel is estimated to be 130 positions globally. The proposed reductions are expected to take place in 2017. Employees in manufacturing and distribution centre operations are not in scope of the proposed personnel reductions.Fiskars is on a transformation journey to become an integrated consumer goods company with a family of iconic lifestyle brands. In connection with the planned organizational structure Fiskars launches an Alignment program to proceed in the transformation. The program focuses on the planned structural changes, proposed headcount reductions announced today and the full integration of the English & Crystal Living business, acquired last year.The total costs of the planned program are approximately EUR 15 million in 2016-2017, which are planned to be recorded as adjustments to the operating profit. The targeted annual cost savings are approximately EUR 14 million, subject to the full implementation of the program. The targeted cost savings would be achieved gradually, starting next year and with the full effect in 2018.As the planning progresses, Fiskars will engage and work closely with its employees and employee representatives to ensure that they are fully informed and consulted about our proposals. Processes and timelines will vary from one country to another.FISKARS CORPORATIONKari Kauniskangas President and CEOMedia and analyst contacts: Head of Corporate Communications and Corporate Responsibility Maija Taimi, tel. +358 204 39 5031, communications@fiskars.comFiskars - Making the everyday extraordinary Fiskars serves consumers and customers around the world with a brand portfolio of globally recognized brands including Fiskars, Gerber, Iittala, Royal Copenhagen, Waterford, and Wedgwood. Building on our mission to create a family of iconic lifestyle brands, Fiskars' vision is to create a positive, lasting impact on our quality of life. Please visit www.fiskarsgroup.com for more information.Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=603791
Fiskars Corporation Stock Exchange Release November 10, 2016 at 10:00 EETFiskars introduces new organizational structure and leadership teamFiskars plans to change its organizational structure and Group Executive Board, with the aim to leverage the full potential of its strong brands, build company-wide capabilities and increase speed and alignment."Fiskars has changed fundamentally during the past years. Building on our strong position in the global consumer goods business today, we take a step further to increase our speed and agility, connect with the consumer and create value to our stakeholders. Based on our strategy to build global businesses and brands, we are now introducing our plan for a new organizational structure that is better aligned with the strategy and allows us to move faster", said Kari Kauniskangas, President and CEO, Fiskars Corporation."Fiskars' vision is to create a positive, lasting impact on the quality of life. Our strategic priorities will guide our work as we focus on growing the core brands and products, building omni-channel capabilities with our trade partners, own retail and digital channels, building and leveraging common capabilities to benefit from our competences and key business systems, as well as developing an inspiring work environment where people perform at their best and work together towards joint targets."Fiskars plans to shift from a region-based organization and form two strategic business units. As of January 1, 2017 Fiskars plans to have a new organizational structure, which features two Strategic Business Units (SBU): Living and Functional.-- SBU Living, led by Ulrik Garde Due, would consist of the Scandinavian Living business, including Iittala, Rorstrand, Royal Copenhagen and other brands as well as the English & Crystal Living business, including Waterford, Wedgwood, Royal Albert, Royal Doulton and other brands. -- SBU Functional, led by Kari Kauniskangas, would consist of brands including Fiskars, Gerber and Gilmour. The current Outdoor business would operate as a part of the SBU Functional.Each SBU would have accountability for the global consumer experience, including brands, product management, new product development, marketing and sales.New Leadership teams The planned organizational structure is supported by changes in Fiskars' leadership. Effective January 1, 2017, Fiskars Executive Leadership Team, previously Executive Board, will consist of the following members:-- Kari Kauniskangas, President and CEO, and in his role as the President, SBU Functional -- Teemu Kangas-Karki, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer -- Nina Ariluoma, Senior Vice President, Human Resources -- Ulrik Garde Due, President, SBU LivingThe Executive Leadership team will be responsible for the Group's strategy and priorities. Any changes in this team will be disclosed in a stock exchange release to the market.In addition, Fiskars will establish an Extended Leadership Team that will support the Executive Leadership Team in driving the company forward and is focused on executing Fiskars' strategic priorities.The Extended Leadership Team will consist of the Executive Leadership Team members, and:-- Thomas Enckell, President, Europe -- Risto Gaggl, Senior Vice President, Supply Chain -- Alexander Giftthaler, Senior Vice President, Functional EMEA -- Rob Kass, President, Outdoor business -- Alexander Matt, Senior Vice President, Brand and Marketing -- Maija Taimi, Head of Communications and Corporate Responsibility -- Paul Tonnesen, President, Functional Americas -- Leni Valsta, Head of Scandinavian Living business (acting) -- Frans Westerlund, Chief Information Officer, Head of Business Process & ITNew reporting structure Following the planned changes in the organizational structure, Fiskars plans to revise its financial reporting structure. As of Q1 2017, Fiskars' three primary reporting segments would be: Living, Functional and Other. In addition, Fiskars would report group-level net sales for three secondary reporting segments: Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific.Living segment offers premium and luxury products for tabletop, giftware and interior decor and consists of the English & Crystal Living and Scandinavian Living businesses.Functional segment provides tools for use in and around the house as well as outdoors, and consists of brands such as Fiskars, Gerber and Gilmour. The current Outdoor business will operate as a part of the SBU Functional.Other segment contains the Group's investment portfolio, the real estate unit, corporate headquarters and shared services.Long-term financial targetsBased on Fiskars' strategy to build global businesses and brands, the company plans to align its organizational structure with the strategy. In connection with this, Fiskars plans to establish long-term financial targets for the group. These targets would be communicated during the Q1 2017.The long term financial targets will be shared to help shareholders, analysts, investors and other stakeholders to be informed of Fiskars' ambitions beyond the current financial year.To provide a basis for comparison, Fiskars will present restated, unaudited financial quarterly results for 2015 before the Q1 2017 interim report is published.FISKARS CORPORATIONKari Kauniskangas President and CEOConference call and live webcast today, November 10, 2016 A conference call and live web cast for analysts and investors will be held at 2:00 p.m. EET. The conference call will be held in English. To participate in the conference call please dial 5-10 minutes prior to the start of the conference. Questions can be asked in English after the presentation only through conference call connection.Denmark: +45 35 15 80 92 Finland: +358 (0)9 7479 0360 France: +33 (0)1 70 70 17 76 Germany: +49 (0)69 2222 10763 Norway: +47 2350 0187 Sweden: +46 (0)8 5033 6546 UK: +44 (0)20 3364 5726 USA: +1 719 325 2238Event confirmation code: 150786The presentation can be followed as a live webcast at http://www.goodmood.fi/webcaster/accounts/fiskars/live/A recording of the web cast will be later available at www.fiskarsgroup.com/investorsPersonal details gathered during the event will not be used for any other purpose.Media and analyst contacts: Head of Corporate Communications and Corporate Responsibility Maija Taimi, tel. +358 204 39 5031, communications@fiskars.comFiskars - Making the everyday extraordinary Fiskars serves consumers and customers around the world with a brand portfolio of globally recognized brands including Fiskars, Gerber, Iittala, Royal Copenhagen, Waterford, and Wedgwood. Building on our mission to create a family of iconic lifestyle brands, Fiskars' vision is to create a positive, lasting impact on our quality of life. Please visit www.fiskarsgroup.com for more information.Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=603790
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- RewardStream Solutions Inc., ("RewardStream" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: REW)(FRANKFURT: JL4L) (WKN Number A2APX1), a world leader in referral marketing solutions for telecommunications, financial services and e-commerce providers, is pleased to announce the launch of Scholar's Choice Refer a Friend program powered by the RewardStream Magento E-Commerce integration. Scholar's Choice is the largest distributor of educational materials and toys in Canada.

"We are excited to introduce our referral program with Scholar's Choice and proud to be supporting the North American market," said Rob Goehring, Chief Executive Officer of RewardStream. "We know the importance of trust and how critical a credible referral can. Scholar's Choice has incredible brand equity and a loyal client base that can now be rewarded for their referral activities."

Scholar's Choice's online customers will now be able to refer their friends, fellow parents, and teachers using email, social media applications and word-of-mouth via their new refer a friend program to save $10 off their next purchase. Their referred friends also get rewarded with 20% off their next order. The RewardStream platform handles all of the online interactions, data analysis, fraud detection and reward management, making it a simple, integrated offering for Scholar's Choice via their Magento e-commerce platform.

RewardStream allows online consumers to seamlessly refer their friends to online stores to browse merchandise and shop. Advocates and their friends can be rewarded for their referrals and all activity is tracked in RewardStream's high-volume and scalable referral platform. RewardStream offers the largest number of referral options with support for email, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, text message, WhatsApp, face to face and many other social channels.

Scholar's Choice customers can learn more about the Refer a Friend program here: http://www.scholarschoice.ca/refer

About RewardStream Solutions Inc.

RewardStream specializes in the execution of automated referral marketing programs that help brands to acquire, engage, and retain their most valuable stakeholders - customers. By utilizing an innovative blend of marketing insight and proprietary technology, RewardStream turns an existing customer base into a powerful new sales channel for all of our clients. RewardStream delivers a scalable, real-time technology platform as the foundation of our client's referral program. The platform provides customer acquisition programs that deliver new, highly loyal customers at very low cost per acquisition rates. Our award-winning marketing solutions have powered loyalty and referral marketing programs across 39 countries for brands including Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, Envision Financial, Koodo Mobile and more. For more information please visit www.rewardstream.com.

Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking information, which involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual events to differ materially from current expectation. Important factors - including the availability of funds and the results of financing efforts - that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations are disclosed in the Company's documents filed from time to time on SEDAR (see www.sedar.com). Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

RewardStream Solutions Inc.

Rana Vig

Vice Chairman

Rana.vig@rewardstream.com

(604) 282-7572



Rob Goehring

CEO

Rob.goehring@rewardstream.com

(877) 692-0040




KAWASAKI (dpa-AFX) - Japanese car electronics maker Pioneer Corp. (PNCOF.PK) reported that its second-quarter net loss attributable to owners of the company was 305 million yen, compared to net income of 520 million yen a year ago. Net loss per share was 0.83 yen, compared to net income of 1.42 yen last year. Operating income for the quarter declined 43.3 percent to 1.14 billion yen from 2.01 billion yen in the prior-year quarter, reflecting lower sales. Consolidated net sales for the quarter decreased 16.3 percent to 95.07 billion yen from 113.58 billion yen a year ago, mainly due to the negative effects of the Japanese yen's appreciation. Looking ahead to fiscal 2017, the company affirmed its outlook for net income of 1.0 billion yen, operating income of 8.0 billion yen and net sales of 400 billion yen. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
MADRID, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Within the framework of the 21st Annual Meeting of the Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS), that is taking place from the 9th of November until the 12th of November at Lisbon (Portugal), PharmaMar (MCE:PHM) is going to present the clinical data for the treatment of sarcomas obtained from various studies carried out with Yondelis (trabectedin).

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150203/727958-b )



In this sense, it will be published, among others, the data from the Phase II randomized, non-comparative, TAUL study, that assess the activity of Yondelis in patients with metastatic or locally relapsed uterine leiomyosarcoma; the TR1US study that evaluates trabectedin as first line treatment, in advanced soft tissue sarcoma (STS) patients unfit to receive standard anthracycline-based chemotherapy; and the YonLife trial that studies the quality of life reported by the patients with STS who receive Yondelis. All of these studies have received financial support from PharmaMar.

"PharmaMar continues to support the clinical development of trabectedin for the treatment of soft tissue sarcomas and to generate data on the efficacy and safety of Yondelis in almost all subtypes, which are mainly rare and difficult to treat", explains Dr Nadia Badri, VP of Medical Affairs of the Oncology Business Unit at PharmaMar. "The role of trabectedin to treat patients with STS is still increasing as well as preclinical research to better understand the unique mechanism of action of the compound. It is important to note that there will be more than 20 presentations of studies with our drug in the meeting", she adds.

As well as the clinical evidence, PharmaMar will present an abstract on pharmacoeconomics that evaluates, in Spain, the benefit-cost ratio of trabectedin versus pazopanib for the treatment of patients with advanced, metastatic soft tissue sarcoma, after receiving one or two prior lines of chemotherapy.

To finalize, in the symposium entitled 'Rising options in advanced STS: present and future treatment sequences', the Company will gather a group of oncologists of international prestige to discuss on the necessities of defining the most convenient treatment sequences with the current drugs and for those to come, for patients with advanced STS, with the aim of improving their prognosis and quality of life.

Contact: Paula Fernandez, Media Relations, +34-638-79-62-15 or Investor Relations, +34-914444500
MOSCOW, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

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FICO  Credit Health Index for Russia has started to trend upward, following a seven-year decline

has started to trend upward, following a seven-year decline 15.5 percent of Russian credit accounts were delinquent in October, compared to 16.7 percent six months ago

of Russian credit accounts were delinquent in October, compared to 16.7 percent six months ago FICO Credit Health Index measures the percentage of delinquent consumer loans and credit cards reported to NBKI, Russia's largest credit bureau

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The bad rate of Russian consumer loans has decreased slightly for the second straight quarter, according to October data from analytic software company FICO and National Bureau of Credit Histories (NBKI), Russia's leading credit bureau. The FICO Credit Health Index stood at 91, its highest point since July 2015, when the seven-year decline ended.

"We are cautiously optimistic about this rise in the FICO Credit Health Index," said Evgeni Shtemanetyan, who directs FICO's operations in Russia. "Consumers' payments are stabilizing, showing that the country overall has a better credit habits and is learning to adjust to new types of credit. However, good customer risk management and collections practices are still very important for Russian lenders."

The FICO Credit Health Index measures Russia's overall credit health, based on the percentage of consumer loans and credit cards reported to NBKI that are delinquent by more than 60 days. The October 2016 index of 91 means that 15.5 percent of Russian credit accounts were delinquent, compared to 16.7 percent six months ago. However, the bad rate is still more than twice the level of the index's peak in January 2012, when just 7 percent of accounts were delinquent.

All eight federal regions have an average FICO Credit Health Index below the benchmark of 100, but have stabilized their indices over the past four quarters. Centralnyi, Severo - Kavkazskii and Severo-Zapadnyi have all experienced a slight increase since last quarter.

"As we said earlier, the peak of overdue debts occurred in 2015 and early 2016, and after that the situation with 'bad' debts has stabilized," said Alexander Vikulin, CEO of NBKI. "However, key risks remain the same - the decline in real incomes. If this trend continues, the likelihood of defaults for all retail credit products will only rise. Therefore, lenders need to continue to closely monitor market indicators such as the PTI (payment to income), as well as to put portfolios of all types of loans, including secured ones, on the 'signal' (online monitoring of the financial behavior of borrowers)."

FICO and NBKI share this data with Russian lenders to improve their understanding of the credit market, and help them extend credit to consumers safely and profitably. More than half of the top Russian banks use FICO Scores delivered by NBKI.

About NBKI

National Bureau of Credit Histories (NBKI) is the largest credit bureau in the Russian Federation. It was created in 2005, and counts among its shareholders major commercial banks and international companies CRIF and TransUnion. Its main specialty is an integrated center that stores and processes comprehensive data for creditors' decision making. As of April 2016, NBKI consolidates data about 77 million borrowers and 184 million loans from 3800 Russian creditors. The bureau provides the Russian market with modern high-tech solutions for risk assessment and control.

About FICO

FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956 and based in Silicon Valley, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 170 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Businesses in more than 100 countries use FICO solutions for a wide range of mission-critical applications, from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to helping people get credit, to ensuring that millions of airplanes and rental cars are in the right place at the right time. Learn more at http://www.fico.com.

For FICO news and media resources, visit www.fico.com/news.

FICO is a registered trademark of Fair Isaac Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.





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Margin improvement demonstrates strong execution on cost control initiatives while investing for growth

WALTHAM, Massachusetts, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --EuroSite Power Inc. (OTCQX: EUSP, the "Company"), an On-Site Utility solutions provider, offering clean electricity, heat, hot water and cooling solutions to healthcare, hospitality, housing and leisure centers in the United Kingdom (UK) and Europe, reported total revenues of $459,114 for the third quarter of 2016, compared to $421,991 for the same period in 2015, an increase of 8.8%. Gross margin excluding depreciation improved by over 19 percentage points compared with second quarter of 2015, to a strong 32.8%.

Overall gross margin grew by 19.3 percentage points to 8.5% for third quarter of 2016, a significant improvement over the (10.8)% overall gross margin reported last year. Notably, third quarter gross margins benefited from strong reductions in maintenance expense as well as lower fuel expense as a percent of total revenue. GAAP diluted loss per share (EPS) was $0.01 for the third quarter of 2016, in line with prior year results.

EuroSite Power's Managing Director Paul Hamblyn commented, "The significant improvement in our adjusted gross margins alongside improved overall gross margin demonstrates the value of the cost control initiatives put in place at the end of last year to drive our company toward profitability. Although the fluctuations in the value of the British pound do impact our financial statements in currency translation, the underlying core UK business continued its strong revenue growth and margin performance during the quarter."

One new installation was commissioned in the period bringing total operational systems at quarter end to 32, compared to just 28 operational systems at September30, 2015, with a total installed capacity of 3,509 kW and long term total contract value of operational systems of approximately GBP57.2 million on a local currency basis, or $74.2 million. Total systems under contract (both operating and in backlog) at quarter end was 39; totaling 4,498 kW of capacity for a combined lifetime contract value of approximately GBP70.3 million on a local currency basis, or $91.2 million.

Speaking about the results, Chief Executive Officer Dr. Elias Samaras noted, "These are exciting times at EuroSite Power, via a series of transactions executed over the last several months we are now a fully independent company. As such, the third quarter was about investing for growth. We have the in-house maintenance, gas purchase arrangement, and project financing agreements as well as an improved balance sheet. This has positioned the Company to actively pursue larger projects as well as acquisitions alongside geographic expansion. While these projects take time to develop, I am confident we have the pieces in place to deliver strong growth for shareholders going forward."

Mr. Hamblyn added, "Operationally we continued to execute on several of management's key initiatives during the third quarter. The significant reduction in fuel expense enjoyed in the second quarter carried through to the third quarter, again helping improve margins. Similarly, we continue to reap the benefits of bringing maintenance service in-house, generating ongoing improvement in gross profit as we take over maintenance of the TEDOM units as their warranty periods end. During the quarter we brought a further site into operational service at The Dome leisure center and began construction at the prestigious Celtic Manor Resort. Significantly, The Dome is the first operational system financed by our agreement with Societe Generale and represents our largest single system to date. In total, we now have customers enjoying the benefit of savings generated by our clean power systems at a total of 15 leisure centers in the UK. Notably, Haverhill Leisure Centre, among the first to adopt our On-Site Utility solution, recently reinvested the savings we have provided into a new Gym and refurbished Power Room - an excellent demonstration of the value we generate for customers."

Major Highlights:

Financial

Energy revenue increased by 12.0% to $459,114 for the third quarter of 2016, compared to $410,055 for the third quarter of 2015. On a local currency basis, energy revenue was GBP349,615 for Q3 2016, 30.6% growth over GBP267,703 in energy revenue for Q3 2015.

for the third quarter of 2016, compared to for the third quarter of 2015. On a local currency basis, energy revenue was GBP349,615 for Q3 2016, 30.6% growth over GBP267,703 in energy revenue for Q3 2015. Total revenue for the third quarter of 2016 grew by 8.8% to $459,114 compared to $421,991 for the third quarter of 2015. On a local currency basis, total revenue grew 28.4% to GBP349,615, up from GBP272,287 in Q3 2015.

compared to for the third quarter of 2015. On a local currency basis, total revenue grew 28.4% to GBP349,615, up from GBP272,287 in Q3 2015. Gross margin, excluding depreciation, improved to 32.8% for the third quarter of 2016, versus 13.5% for the third quarter of 2015. Overall gross margin improved to 8.5% for the third quarter of 2016, compared to (10.8)% for the third quarter of 2015.

Total revenue value of all contracted On-Site Utility energy agreements as of September 30, 2016 was approximately $91.2 million using various market assumptions and estimates made by management, compared to $103.3 million as of September 30, 2015 . Note that the change in value of our contracted agreements includes the significant adverse impact of the decline in the British pound in the interim period, masking the growth in contracted revenue. On a local currency basis, total revenue value of all contracted On-Site Utility energy agreements at the end of the most recent quarter was GBP70.33 million compared to GBP63.2 million on September 30, 2015 .

was approximately using various market assumptions and estimates made by management, compared to as of . Note that the change in value of our contracted agreements includes the significant adverse impact of the decline in the British pound in the interim period, masking the growth in contracted revenue. On a local currency basis, total revenue value of all contracted On-Site Utility energy agreements at the end of the most recent quarter was GBP70.33 million compared to GBP63.2 million on . In August of 2016, the Company appointed a new Director to the Board, Mr. Stelios Zavvos , who was also named Chairman of the Audit Committee.

Sales and Operations

Total energy production for the third quarter of 2016 of 7,549,821 kWh exceeds total generation for the prior comparable period by 2.07 million kWh, a 37.7% improvement over third quarter of 2015. Energy production primarily benefited from improved utilization rates as well as the operation of additional systems.

Total operational systems at September 30, 2016 was 32 with a total installed capacity of 3,509 kW, this favorably compares with just 28 systems totaling 2,753 kW of installed capacity at September 30, 2015 .

was 32 with a total installed capacity of 3,509 kW, this favorably compares with just 28 systems totaling 2,753 kW of installed capacity at . The current contracted project backlog is 7 systems for a total of 989 kW in capacity. This compares with September 30, 2015 contracted project backlog of 8 systems for a total of 1,014 kW in capacity.

contracted project backlog of 8 systems for a total of 1,014 kW in capacity. Operating expenses were higher as the Company continued to invest in additional personnel and marketing activities. General and Administrative expense includes an approximately $109,000 adverse swing related to the impact of currency exchange rate fluctuations caused by the fall in the value of the British pound in the period.

EuroSite Power will host a conference call and webcast today at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss the quarterly financial results in more detail. To listen to the audio portion, dial toll free(844) 492-3726 within the U.S., toll free (855) 669-9657 fromCanada, or +1 (412) 542-4187 from other international locations. Participants should ask to be joined to the EuroSite Power earnings call. We suggest participants begin dialing at least 10 minutes prior to the scheduled starting time. Alternately, to register for and listen to the live webcast, please go tohttp://investors.eurositepower.co.uk/EuroSite-Power-Inc-Third-Quarter-2016-Earnings-Conference-Call.

The earnings conference call will be recorded and available for playback one hour after the end of the call through Thursday, November 17, 2016. To listen to the playback,dial (877) 344-7529 within the U.S., (855) 669-9658 fromCanada, or +1 (412) 317-0088 from other international locationsand useReplay Access Code 10094776.

About EuroSite Power

EuroSite Power Inc. is committed to providing institutional, commercial and small industrial facilities with clean, reliable power, cooling, heat and hot water at lower costs than charged by conventional energy suppliers - without any capital or start-up costs to the energy user - through On-Site Utility energy solutions.For more information about our unique efficient power solutions please visit www.eurositepower.co.ukand follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, as disclosed on the Company's website and in Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including its annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015. This press release does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities by the Company, its subsidiaries or any associated party and is meant purely for informational purposes. The statements in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, even if subsequently made available by the Company on its website or otherwise. The Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements provided to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

EUROSITE POWER INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Unaudited)



September 30, 2016

December 31, 2015 ASSETS





Current assets:





Cash and cash equivalents $ 4,597,780



$ 587,819

Accounts receivable 216,845



303,782

UK energy tax incentives receivable -



369,485

Value added and other tax receivable 29,338



(5,297)

Inventory 192,133



137,093

Other current assets 79,423



57,152

Total current assets 5,115,519



1,450,034

Property and equipment, net 7,992,328



7,516,262

Other assets, long-term 9,883



11,004

TOTAL ASSETS $ 13,117,730



$ 8,977,300









LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY





Current liabilities:





Accounts payable $ 206,618



$ 313,293

Due to related party 57,988



98,979

Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 226,906



286,814

Note payable - bank, short-term 69,933



-

Total current liabilities 561,445



699,086

Long-term liabilities:





Convertible debentures -



1,585,264

Convertible debentures due to related parties 308,026



951,158

Note payable - bank 279,732



-

Note payable - related party -



2,000,000

Total liabilities 1,149,203



5,235,508

Commitments and contingencies (Note 6)





Stockholders' equity:





Common stock, $0.001 par value; 100,000,000 shares authorized; 82,265,056 and 65,747,100 issued and outstanding at September 30, 2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively. 82,265



65,747

Additional paid-in capital 22,116,857



12,224,064

Accumulated deficit (10,230,595)



(8,548,019)

Total stockholders' equity 11,968,527



3,741,792

TOTAL LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY $ 13,117,730



$ 8,977,300



EUROSITE POWER INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (Unaudited)



Three Months Ended

September 30, 2016

September 30, 2015







Revenues





Energy revenues $ 459,114



$ 410,055

Turnkey & other revenues -



11,936



459,114



421,991

Cost of sales





Fuel, maintenance and installation 308,511



365,097

Depreciation expense 111,761



102,485



420,272



467,582

Gross profit 38,842



(45,591)









Operating expenses





General and administrative 379,286



194,053

Selling 127,917



122,826

Engineering 110,593



87,853



617,796



404,732

Loss from operations (578,954)



(450,323)

Other income (expense)





Interest income 6,167



965

Interest expense, net of debt premium amortization (10,039)



(8,599)

Debt conversion expense -



-



(3,872)



(7,634)









Loss before income taxes (582,826)



(457,957)

Provision (benefit) for income taxes -



-

Net loss $ (582,826)



$ (457,957)









Net loss per share - basic and diluted $ (0.01)



$ (0.01)

Weighted-average shares outstanding - basic and diluted 82,265,056



65,747,100



EUROSITE POWER INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (Unaudited)



Nine Months Ended

September 30, 2016

September 30, 2015







Revenues





Energy revenues $ 1,784,844



$ 1,473,307

Turnkey & other revenues 1,739



39,711



1,786,583



1,513,018

Cost of sales





Fuel, maintenance and installation 1,160,274



1,192,276

Depreciation expense 341,482



289,621



1,501,756



1,481,897

Gross profit 284,827



31,121









Operating expenses





General and administrative 1,011,546



627,798

Selling 421,251



359,298

Engineering 289,089



162,008



1,721,886



1,149,104

Loss from operations (1,437,059)



(1,117,983)

Other income (expense)





Interest income 9,606



5,277

Interest and other expenses (30,341)



(32,625)

Debt conversion expense (224,782)



-



(245,517)



(27,348)









Loss before income taxes (1,682,576)



(1,145,331)

Benefit for income taxes -



2,188

Net loss $ (1,682,576)



$ (1,143,143)









Net loss per share - basic and diluted $ (0.02)



$ (0.02)

Weighted-average shares outstanding - basic and diluted 73,605,329



65,747,100



EUROSITE POWER INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (Unaudited)



Nine Months Ended

September 30, 2016

September 30, 2015







CASH FLOWS FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES:





Net loss $ (1,682,576)



$ (1,143,143)

Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash used in operating activities:





Depreciation 347,066



291,465

Non-cash debt conversion and interest expense 235,782



-

Amortization of convertible debt premium (44,132)



(72,216)

Stock-based compensation 243,175



57,217

Changes in operating assets and liabilities





(Increase) decrease in:





Accounts receivable 86,937



(51,605)

UK energy tax incentives receivable 369,485



636,661

Value added and other tax receivable (34,635)



3,025

Inventory (55,040)



(10,058)

Prepaid and other current assets (22,271)



(27,289)

Other assets, long-term 1,121



1,440

Increase (decrease) in:





Accounts payable (106,675)



178,702

Due to related party (40,991)



-

Accrued expenses and other current liabilities (59,908)



132,352

Net cash used in operating activities (762,662)



(3,449)









CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES:





Purchases of property and equipment (823,132)



(1,571,533)

Net cash used in investing activities (823,132)



(1,571,533)









CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES:





Payment on note payable - related party (2,000,000)



(1,000,000)

Proceeds from sale of common stock, net of costs 7,246,090



-

Proceeds from loan payable - bank 349,665



-

Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities 5,595,755



(1,000,000)









Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents 4,009,961



(2,574,982)

Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of the period 587,819



3,776,852

Cash and cash equivalents, end of the period $ 4,597,780



$ 1,201,870









Supplemental disclosures of cash flow information:





Taxes paid $ -



$ -

Interest paid $ 72,764



$ -

Common Stock exchanged for convertibles debentures, non-cash $ 2,184,264



$ -







Investor Contact: Media Contact: Ariel F. Babcock, CFA Paul Hamblyn +1 781.466.6413 +44 7920.859540 ariel.babcock@eurositepower.co.uk paul.hamblyn@eurositepower.co.uk

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eurosite-power-inc-reports-third-quarter-2016-financial-performance-300360245.html
Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne (EHL), the world's leading institution in hospitality management education, will be offering a new MBA in Hospitality as of September 2017. With 80% of the curriculum available through a novel distance learning platform, busy professionals will be given access to a unique learning experience without getting sidetracked from their career. This new program is part of EHL's broader commitment to defining industry standards, while catering to the needs and aspirations of its students. It is also the first time that EHL is offering digital learning, demonstrating its capacity to listen to the industry and produce an academic program adapted to the latest trends.

The new MBA in Hospitality is specifically designed for professionals whose time is scarce, but who wish to further their knowledge in hospitality and move on to positions with greater responsibility. The program offers the flexibility of taking anything from 12 to 36 months to complete, enabling students to maintain a professional and social life whilst amplifying their qualifications. EHL is developing a customized digital education platform for this MBA that will be accessible 24/7 and can be used regardless of the location or the device, offering students an optimal learning experience.

One of the historical strengths of an EHL education is the emphasis on blending theoretical knowledge and practical skills. This resonates in the new MBA, of which two of the modules require on-site presence for an immersive phase to further enrich the overall learning experience. This will allow students to not only meet and exchange in person with experienced faculty, but also with industry experts and their fellow EHL peers. Successful MBA graduates will also become part of the world's biggest hospitality alumni network, one of EHL's strongest assets.

"After an observation and development phase, which started about five years ago, we are proud to have produced a highly relevant, interactive and flexible program. Our new MBA blends access to world-class faculty and a prestigious industry network and offers students a unique combination of knowledge and practical experience. We believe that it is the right time for the industry, whose projected growth needs to be supported by a higher number of qualified professionals. This program is both versatile and exciting, and will provide future graduates with a set of highly transferable skills at a time when our industry is experiencing important changes," explained Michel Rochat, CEO of EHL.

The new MBA in Hospitality ambitions to be welcomed globally as the most personalized, blended hospitality learning experience. It represents another step in EHL's growth strategy, adding to EHL's world-wide footprint and further consolidating its position as a key industry influencer.

Applications to EHL's MBA in Hospitality are now open on mba.ehl.edu.

Find out more about the program

About Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne (EHL)

Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne (EHL) is an ambassador for traditional Swiss hospitality and has been a pioneer in hospitality education since 1893. It has created and inspired a unique professional community of 25,000 hospitality managers, united by the values and the legacy of EHL.

EHL offers five academic programs; a Bachelor, a Master of Science, an MBA, an Executive MBA and a Master Class. The academic portfolio is developed to evolve and adapt to the needs of both the industry and the students, and offers a wide range of possibilities that make an EHL education flexible and accessible to young talents from all around the world.

EHL is regularly recognized as the best hotel management school in the world, offering university studies to 2,289 enthusiastic and talented students from close to 90 different countries. EHL is a member of EHL SA, a Group dedicated to hospitality management education.

For more information, please visit our website or follow us on twitter @EHLnews

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005005/en/

Contacts:

Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne

Sherif Mamdouh, +41 21 785 10 53

Senior Communications Officer

communication@ehl.ch
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese yen extended its early slide against its most major counterparts in early European trading on Thursday. The yen declined to 81.77 versus the aussie, 77.28 versus the kiwi and 79.02 against the loonie, from its early highs of 80.40, 76.24 and 78.70, respectively. The yen fell to 131.81 against the pound, its lowest since October 6, from an early high of 131.06. The yen edged down to 107.60 against the Swiss franc and 115.80 against the euro, off its previous highs of 107.30 and 115.27,respectively. The yen is likely to find support around 85.00 against the aussie, 81.00 against the kiwi, 134.00 against the pound, 117.00 against the euro, 109.00 against the franc and 80.00 against the loonie. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - November 10, 2016) - Klondex Mines Ltd. (TSX: KDX) (NYSE MKT: KLDX) ("Klondex"or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on surface and underground drilling at its Fire Creek Mine, located in northern Nevada, USA. The following drill results are in addition to those included within the mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates released on September 12, 2016.

Fire Creek Mine Surface Drilling Highlights:

FCC-0020: 0.53 opt Au over 10.0 ft, or 18.01 g/t over 3.0 m -- West Zone

FCC-0033: 0.38 opt Au over 9.2 ft, or 13.15 g/t over 2.8 m -- Northwest Expansion and 0.65 opt Au over 1.5 ft, or 22.40 g/t over 0.5 m -- Northwest Expansion

FCC-0042: 0.39 opt Au over 1.3 ft, or 13.30 g/t over 0.4 m -- North Expansion

FCC-0053: 0.62 opt Au over 0.8 ft, or 21.30 g/t over 0.2 m -- Northwest Expansion

Fire Creek Mine Underground Drilling Highlights:

FCU-0649: 12.11 opt Au over 5.1 ft, or 415.33 g/t over 1.6 m -- Joyce Vein

FCU-0656: 6.71 opt Au over 5.0 ft, or 230.03 g/t over 1.5 m -- Hui Wu Vein

FCU-0661: 5.82 opt Au over 1.0 ft, or 199.52 g/t over 0.3 m -- Vein 18

FCU-0638: 3.98 opt Au over 6.8 ft, or 136.48 g/t over 2.1 m -- Vein 5

FCU-0668: 3.49 opt Au over 2.9 ft, or 119.51 g/t over 0.9 m -- Vein 13

Fire Creek Mine Surface Drilling Summary (Table 1):

14 surface holes totaling 19,801 ft (6,033 m) were drilled during the reporting period. These holes targeted vein extensions in the Northwest, North, Eastern and South Expansion areas, along strike and up and down dip. (Figure 1)

West Zone New Discovery

Hole FCC-0020 targeted a 6,500 ft (1,980 m) geophysical anomaly approximately 3,960 ft (1,207 m) west of the current mine workings. This intercept is approximately 400 ft (1,207 m) below surface and suggests a new mineralized structure that is open in all directions.

The Fire Creek District contains a number of similar geophysical anomalies that have not yet been tested, further suggesting additional growth potential of the Fire Creek land position. A follow-up drill program is in progress.

Fire Creek Mine Underground Drilling Summary (Table 2):

65 underground holes totaling 41,172 ft (12,549 m) were drilled during the reporting period. These holes tested vein extensions along strike and vertically which continues to suggest the continuity of this high grade vein system. (Figure 2) This drilling extended Vein 16 875 ft (266.7 m) to the south along strike and 175 ft (53.3 m) vertically and extended Vein 9 to the north along strike by 100 ft (30.5 m).

Until this year, this area had limited surface drilling with sparse results. Tighter sampling and underground drilling suggests that there could be a robust vein network within a short distance northeast of the main workings. West-ward directed drilling has continued to define and infill the resource model along the Karen and Honeyrunner veins. (Figure 3)

Infill, down-dip drilling continued on Karen, Hui Wu, Joyce and Vonnie veins. These drill results continue to highlight wide, high grade ore shoots near existing mine development, a portion of which may be in production in 2017. (Figure 4)

Brian Morris, Vice President Exploration stated, "These underground drill results continue to demonstrate the robust, high-grade nature of the vein system." Mr. Morris continued, "The new discovery in the West Zone is another example of our Fire Creek exploration team utilizing and confirming our understanding of the geophysical data set. This indicates that we may have a much larger, district-wide system at Fire Creek and suggests the potential to expand well beyond the current footprint."

Assays were performed by ALS Chemex of Reno, Nevada, as directed under the supervision of Klondex staff. This organization is an ISO 17025 accredited independent laboratory.

A description of the data verification methods, quality assurance program and quality control measures applied can be found in the technical reports titled "Technical Report for the Fire Creek Project, Lander County, Nevada," dated March 28, 2016 and with an effective date of June 30, 2015 which is available under the Company's issuer profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

About Klondex Mines Ltd. (www.klondexmines.com)

Klondex is a well-capitalized, junior-tier gold and silver mining company focused on exploration, development, and production in a safe, environmentally responsible, and cost-effective manner. The Company has 100% interests in three producing mineral properties: the Fire Creek Mine and the Midas Mine and ore milling facility, both of which are located in the state of Nevada, USA, and the True North Gold Mine (formerly the Rice Lake Mine) and mill in Manitoba, Canada. The Company also has 100% interests in two recently acquired projects, the Hollister mine and the Aurora mine and ore milling facility (formerly known as Esmeralda), also located in Nevada, USA.

Qualified Person

Scientific and technical information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Brian Morris (AIPG CPG-11786), a "qualified person" within the meaning of NI 43-101.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Information

This news release contains certain information that may constitute forward-looking information or forward-looking statements under applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation (collectively, "forward-looking information"), including but not limited to the exploration potential at the Fire Creek Mine and future exploration plans of Klondex. This forward-looking information entails various risks and uncertainties that are based on current expectations, and actual results may differ materially from those contained in such information. These uncertainties and risks include, but are not limited to, the strength of the global economy; the price of gold; operational, funding and liquidity risks; the degree to which mineral resource estimates are reflective of actual mineral resources; the degree to which mineral reserve estimates are reflective of actual mineral reserves; the degree to which factors which would make a mineral deposit commercially viable are present; the risks and hazards associated with underground operations; and the ability of Klondex to fund its substantial capital requirements and operations. Risks and uncertainties about the Company's business are more fully discussed in the Company's disclosure materials filed with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada and United States available at www.sedar.com and www.sec.gov, respectively. Readers are urged to read these materials. Klondex assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from such information unless required by law.

Cautionary Note to U.S. Investors Regarding the Use of Mining Terms

This news release has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the securities laws in effect in Canada, which differ from the requirements of U.S. securities laws. All resource and reserve estimates included or referred to in this news release have been prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators that establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. These standards differ significantly from the mineral reserve disclosure requirements of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC") set out in Industry Guide 7. Consequently, reserve and resource information contained in this news release is not comparable to similar information that would generally be disclosed by U.S. companies in accordance with the rules of the SEC.

In particular, the SEC's Industry Guide 7 applies different standards in order to classify mineralization as a reserve. As a result, the definitions of proven and probable reserves used in NI 43-101 differ from the definitions in SEC Industry Guide 7. Under SEC standards, mineralization may not be classified as a "reserve" unless the determination has been made that the mineralization could be economically and legally produced or extracted at the time the reserve determination is made. Under SEC Industry Guide 7 standards, a "final" or "bankable" feasibility study is required to report reserves, the three-year historical average price is used in any reserve or cash flow analysis to designate reserves and all necessary permits and government approvals must be filed with the appropriate governmental authority. Accordingly, mineral reserve estimates contained in this news release may not qualify as "reserves" under SEC standards.

For More Information

John Seaberg

Senior Vice President, Investor Relations & Corporate Development

O: 775-284-5757

M: 303-668-7991

jseaberg@klondexmines.com
Fiskars Corporation Stock Exchange Release November 10, 2016 at 13:30 EETCorrection to Fiskars' stock exchange release issued on November 10, 2016 at 10:00 EET: Fiskars introduces new organizational structure and leadership teamThe stock exchange release had an incorrect year regarding the restated, unaudited financial quarterly results. The correct statement is:To provide a basis for comparison, Fiskars will present restated, unaudited financial quarterly results for 2016 before the Q1 2017 interim report is published.The full release is below.Fiskars introduces new organizational structure and leadership teamFiskars plans to change its organizational structure and Group Executive Board, with the aim to leverage the full potential of its strong brands, build company-wide capabilities and increase speed and alignment."Fiskars has changed fundamentally during the past years. Building on our strong position in the global consumer goods business today, we take a step further to increase our speed and agility, connect with the consumer and create value to our stakeholders. Based on our strategy to build global businesses and brands, we are now introducing our plan for a new organizational structure that is better aligned with the strategy and allows us to move faster", said Kari Kauniskangas, President and CEO, Fiskars Corporation."Fiskars' vision is to create a positive, lasting impact on the quality of life. Our strategic priorities will guide our work as we focus on growing the core brands and products, building omni-channel capabilities with our trade partners, own retail and digital channels, building and leveraging common capabilities to benefit from our competences and key business systems, as well as developing an inspiring work environment where people perform at their best and work together towards joint targets."Fiskars plans to shift from a region-based organization and form two strategic business units. As of January 1, 2017 Fiskars plans to have a new organizational structure, which features two Strategic Business Units (SBU): Living and Functional.-- SBU Living, led by Ulrik Garde Due, would consist of the Scandinavian Living business, including Iittala, Rorstrand, Royal Copenhagen and other brands as well as the English & Crystal Living business, including Waterford, Wedgwood, Royal Albert, Royal Doulton and other brands. -- SBU Functional, led by Kari Kauniskangas, would consist of brands including Fiskars, Gerber and Gilmour. The current Outdoor business would operate as a part of the SBU Functional.Each SBU would have accountability for the global consumer experience, including brands, product management, new product development, marketing and sales.New Leadership teams The planned organizational structure is supported by changes in Fiskars' leadership. Effective January 1, 2017, Fiskars Executive Leadership Team, previously Executive Board, will consist of the following members:-- Kari Kauniskangas, President and CEO, and in his role as the President, SBU Functional -- Teemu Kangas-Karki, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer -- Nina Ariluoma, Senior Vice President, Human Resources -- Ulrik Garde Due, President, SBU LivingThe Executive Leadership team will be responsible for the Group's strategy and priorities. Any changes in this team will be disclosed in a stock exchange release to the market.In addition, Fiskars will establish an Extended Leadership Team that will support the Executive Leadership Team in driving the company forward and is focused on executing Fiskars' strategic priorities.The Extended Leadership Team will consist of the Executive Leadership Team members, and:-- Thomas Enckell, President, Europe -- Risto Gaggl, Senior Vice President, Supply Chain -- Alexander Giftthaler, Senior Vice President, Functional EMEA -- Rob Kass, President, Outdoor business -- Alexander Matt, Senior Vice President, Brand and Marketing -- Maija Taimi, Head of Communications and Corporate Responsibility -- Paul Tonnesen, President, Functional Americas -- Leni Valsta, Head of Scandinavian Living business (acting) -- Frans Westerlund, Chief Information Officer, Head of Business Process & ITNew reporting structure Following the planned changes in the organizational structure, Fiskars plans to revise its financial reporting structure. As of Q1 2017, Fiskars' three primary reporting segments would be: Living, Functional and Other. In addition, Fiskars would report group-level net sales for three secondary reporting segments: Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific.Living segment offers premium and luxury products for tabletop, giftware and interior decor and consists of the English & Crystal Living and Scandinavian Living businesses.Functional segment provides tools for use in and around the house as well as outdoors, and consists of brands such as Fiskars, Gerber and Gilmour. The current Outdoor business will operate as a part of the SBU Functional.Other segment contains the Group's investment portfolio, the real estate unit, corporate headquarters and shared services.Long-term financial targets Based on Fiskars' strategy to build global businesses and brands, the company plans to align its organizational structure with the strategy. In connection with this, Fiskars plans to establish long-term financial targets for the group. These targets would be communicated during the Q1 2017.The long term financial targets will be shared to help shareholders, analysts, investors and other stakeholders to be informed of Fiskars' ambitions beyond the current financial year.To provide a basis for comparison, Fiskars will present restated, unaudited financial quarterly results for 2016 before the Q1 2017 interim report is published.FISKARS CORPORATIONKari Kauniskangas President and CEOConference call and live webcast today, November 10, 2016 A conference call and live web cast for analysts and investors will be held at 2:00 p.m. EET. The conference call will be held in English. To participate in the conference call please dial 5-10 minutes prior to the start of the conference. Questions can be asked in English after the presentation only through conference call connection.Denmark: +45 35 15 80 92 Finland: +358 (0)9 7479 0360 France: +33 (0)1 70 70 17 76 Germany: +49 (0)69 2222 10763 Norway: +47 2350 0187 Sweden: +46 (0)8 5033 6546 UK: +44 (0)20 3364 5726 USA: +1 719 325 2238Event confirmation code: 150786The presentation can be followed as a live webcast at http://www.goodmood.fi/webcaster/accounts/fiskars/live/A recording of the web cast will be later available at www.fiskarsgroup.com/investorsPersonal details gathered during the event will not be used for any other purpose.Media and analyst contacts: Head of Corporate Communications and Corporate Responsibility Maija Taimi, tel. +358 204 39 5031, communications@fiskars.comFiskars - Making the everyday extraordinary Fiskars serves consumers and customers around the world with a brand portfolio of globally recognized brands including Fiskars, Gerber, Iittala, Royal Copenhagen, Waterford, and Wedgwood. Building on our mission to create a family of iconic lifestyle brands, Fiskars' vision is to create a positive, lasting impact on our quality of life. Please visit www.fiskarsgroup.com for more information.Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=603935
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Danube MICE Forum" conference to their offering.

Focused on the CEE region, participants will have the chance to get acquainted with corporate buyers, MICE specialists and travel companies specialized in corporate and business travel from all over Europe.

The organiser will present some of Europe's premier destinations and venues for MICE tourism in two cities, Vienna and Bratislava, both of which will be turned into beautiful winter wonderland during Christmas market season.

MICE Partnerships advantages:

A guaranteed 20 meetings at a central location of the host city

Pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings, an innovative format in an exclusive environment

Networking opportunities include reception, roundtable meetings and brainstorming sessions

Excellent seller/buyer ratio, liaise with elite buyers who have gone through a pre-qualification process in order to attend

Keynote addresses and case studies by industry experts, disclosing their insights which deliver the right perspective to be one step ahead in the MICE Industry

Networking events in a captive environment which will increase your contacts and business potential

Marketing support: News about exhibiting companies on the website and in newsletters

Benefit from a dynamic event, the balance between education and business

Who Should Attend:

Hotels

Destination management companies

Convention Bureaus

Spa resorts

Conference centres

Luxury and specialty venues

Exhibition centres

Technology solution providers

National and regional tourist offices

Resorts

Cruise lines

Airlines

Golf destinations

Event management specialists

Agenda:

Day 1 21 November

18:00 Viennese Christmas market at Rathaus Vienna

20:00 A Welcome to Vienna cocktail reception

Day 2 22 November

08:00 Transfers to Bratislava

09:30 Event registration welcome coffee

09:50 Key note presentations with MICE Hospitality experts

10:20 One-to-One business meetings

12:00 Networking Refreshment Break

12:20 One-to-One business meetings

14:00 Event luncheon at luxury venue

16:00 Hotel check-in and site visit

18:00 Tour of Bratislava

20:00 Networking Dinner with entertainment

Day 3 23 November

08:30 Event briefing welcome coffee

09:00 One-to-One business meetings

10:40 Networking Refreshment Break

11:00 One-to-One business meetings

12:40 Special farewell luncheon

14:30 End of event

For more information about this conference visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/ssscgc/danube_mice_forum

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005632/en/

Contacts:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

Related Topics: Travel and Tourism
EDMONTON, ALBERTA and NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- (TSX: STN)(NYSE: STN)

Stantec reported a strong 67.5% increase in gross revenue when comparing the third quarter of 2016 to the same period last year. The increase was mainly due to contributions from four strategic acquisitions completed year to date. In particular, the MWH Global, Inc. (MWH) acquisition added significantly to operating results.

Stantec's results were impacted by a slight decrease in gross margin because of the mix of projects and the lower-margin Construction Services business acquired from MWH. There were also downward pressures on fees in some sectors. Administrative and marketing expenses increased as a percentage of net revenue, mainly due to the positive impact of the fair value of share-based compensation in Q3 15, an increase in MWH-related integration activities in Q3 16, and an increase in administrative labor costs in Q3 16. Interest expense also increased, primarily due to an increase in Stantec's outstanding long-term debt resulting from the MWH acquisition.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Financial Summary ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- For the quarter ended September 30 (In millions of Canadian dollars, except for 2016 2015 % Change share amounts and %) Q3 Q3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gross revenue $1,257.3 $750.8 67.5 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adjusted EBITDA(1) $113.7 $93.6 21.5 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Diluted earnings per share $0.43 $0.53 (18.9) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adjusted diluted earnings per share (1) $0.55 $0.58 (5.2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cash dividends declared per common share $0.1125 $0.1050 7.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted diluted earnings per share are non-IFRS measures as defined in the Cautionary Statements.

"We are pleased with our progress to date on the MWH integration. Our progress in our revenue and cost synergies are in line with our expectations, and we are excited about the continued opportunities we see for leveraging our combined capabilities," says Stantec president and CEO Bob Gomes. "Outside of the continued stress in our Environmental Services and Energy & Resources business because of the challenging resource economy, we are satisfied with our performance to date."

MWH added $497.2 million in gross revenue during the quarter and $792.4 million in gross revenue since May 6, 2016. While moving forward with integrating MWH employees and systems, Stantec acquired New York City-based Edwards & Zuck, a 120-person premier buildings engineering firm, in September. This addition will continue to strengthen Stantec's buildings work in the United States. After the quarter, Stantec signed a letter of intent to acquire Edmonton, Alberta-based Architecture / Tkalcic Bengert (Arch / TB), a 60-person architecture, interior design, creative services, urban planning, and technical consulting firm that will play a significant role in enhancing and supporting Stantec's buildings practice in the Company's Canada Prairies & Territories geography.

Within Stantec's four Consulting Services reportable segments, growth was most significant in the Infrastructure business operating unit, which saw a 70.5% increase in gross revenue when comparing Q3 16 to Q3 15 due to contributions from acquisitions. Organic gross revenue in Infrastructure was stable during the quarter. Although the Buildings, Energy & Resources, and Environmental Services business operating units also experienced gross revenue growth due to contributions from acquisitions, each business operating unit saw some retraction in organic gross revenue.

Gross revenue for Construction Services was $249.3 million in the quarter and $390.0 million since the MWH acquisition on May 6, 2016.

Marie-Lucie Morin appointed to Stantec Board of Directors

Effective November 9, 2016, Marie-Lucie Morin was appointed to Stantec's board of directors. Ms. Morin brings to the role 30 years' experience in Canadian federal public service. She was previously appointed National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister and Associate Secretary to the Cabinet and has served as Deputy Minister for International Trade and as Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Ms. Morin also has a wealth of experience serving on corporate and not-for-profit boards. She is a lawyer and a graduate of the Universite de Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada.

Additional Company Activity

On November 9, 2016, Stantec declared a cash dividend of $0.1125 per share, payable on January 12, 2017, to shareholders of record on December 30, 2016.

Conference Call and Company Information

Stantec's third quarter conference call--to be held Thursday, November 10, at 2:00 PM MST (4:00 PM EST)--will be broadcast live and archived in the Investors section of stantec.com. Financial analysts wanting to participate by phone are invited to call 1-800-524-8290 and provide the operator with confirmation code 8288565.

About Stantec

We're active members of the communities we serve. That's why at Stantec, we always design with community in mind.

The Stantec community unites approximately 22,000 employees working in over 400 locations across six continents. Our work-engineering, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, surveying, environmental sciences, project management, and project economics, from initial project concept and planning through design, construction, and commissioning-begins at the intersection of community, creativity, and client relationships. With a long-term commitment to the people and places we serve, Stantec has the unique ability to connect to projects on a personal level and advance the quality of life in communities across the globe. Stantec trades on the TSX and the NYSE under the symbol STN. Visit us at stantec.com or find us on social media.

Cautionary Statements

Stantec's adjusted EBITDA and adjusted diluted earnings per share are non-IFRS measures. For a definition and explanation of non-IFRS measures, refer to the Critical Accounting Estimates, Developments, and Measures section of the Company's 2015 Annual Report and the Company's 2016 Third Quarter Management's Discussion and Analysis.

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the progress and benefit of the MWH acquisition and our expectation that the Edwards & Zuck and Architecture / Tkalcic Bengert acquisitions will strengthen our buildings practice. Any such statements represent the views of management only as of the date hereof and are presented for the purpose of assisting the Company's shareholders in understanding Stantec's operations, objectives, priorities, and anticipated financial performance as at and for the periods ended on the dates presented and may not be appropriate for other purposes. By their nature, forward-looking statements require us to make assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties.

We caution readers of this news release not to place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements since a number of factors could cause actual future results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, the risk of an economic downturn, changing market conditions for Stantec's services, disruptions in government funding, the risk that Stantec will not meet its growth or revenue targets, and the risk that the projects contemplated in this news release will not be completed when expected or at all. Investors and the public should carefully consider these factors, other uncertainties, and potential events, as well as the inherent uncertainty of forward-looking statements, when relying on these statements to make decisions with respect to our Company.

For more information about how other material risk factors could affect results, refer to the Risk Factors section and Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements in our 2015 Annual Report and the 2016 Third Quarter Management's Discussion and Analysis. Stantec's 40-F has been filed with the SEC, and you may obtain this document by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at sec.gov. You may obtain our complete audited annual consolidated financial statements and associated Management's Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2015 (which form our 2015 Annual Report) by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at sec.gov, on the CSA website at sedar.com, or at stantec.com. Alternatively, you may obtain a hard copy of the 2015 Annual Report free of charge from our Investor Contact noted below.

Design with community in mind Consolidated Statements of Financial Position (Unaudited) September 30 December 31 2016 2015 (In thousands of Canadian dollars) $ $ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASSETS Current Cash and deposits 143,521 67,342 Cash in escrow 9,313 8,646 Trade and other receivables 804,423 570,577 Unbilled revenue 504,819 228,970 Income taxes recoverable 46,552 19,727 Prepaid expenses 58,625 29,022 Other financial assets 18,505 26,722 Other assets 1,733 386 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total current assets 1,587,491 951,392 Non-current Property and equipment 214,181 158,085 Goodwill 1,801,421 966,480 Intangible assets 414,576 138,079 Investments in joint ventures and associates 8,396 4,467 Deferred tax assets 23,365 11,254 Other financial assets 154,123 111,479 Other assets 4,478 643 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total assets 4,208,031 2,341,879 ============================================================================ LIABILITIES AND EQUITY Current Bank indebtedness 20,434 - Trade and other payables 656,227 352,199 Billings in excess of costs 197,159 109,159 Income taxes payable 2,394 - Long-term debt 105,688 133,055 Provisions 43,154 22,878 Other financial liabilities 2,823 2,601 Other liabilities 21,654 12,162 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total current liabilities 1,049,533 632,054 Non-current Long-term debt 979,239 232,301 Provisions 76,417 62,572 Net employee defined benefit liability 36,569 - Deferred tax liabilities 54,371 21,256 Other financial liabilities 5,605 2,748 Other liabilities 75,771 67,688 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total liabilities 2,277,505 1,018,619 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shareholders' equity Share capital 868,326 289,118 Contributed surplus 18,236 15,788 Retained earnings 901,229 852,725 Accumulated other comprehensive income 141,568 165,629 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total shareholders' equity 1,929,359 1,323,260 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Non-controlling interests 1,167 - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total liabilities and equity 4,208,031 2,341,879 ============================================================================ Consolidated Statements of Income (Unaudited) For the quarter ended For the three quarters ended September 30 September 30 ---------------------------------------------------- (In thousands of Canadian dollars, 2016 2015 2016 2015 except per share $ $ $ $ amounts) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gross revenue 1,257,313 750,809 3,059,338 2,166,786 Less subconsultant/ subcontractor and other direct 385,101 130,705 781,152 360,480 expenses ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Net revenue 872,212 620,104 2,278,186 1,806,306 Direct payroll costs 399,139 282,345 1,049,068 820,616 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gross margin 473,073 337,759 1,229,118 985,690 Administrative and marketing expenses 358,255 244,113 971,562 740,539 Depreciation of property and equipment 13,794 11,621 36,398 33,625 Amortization of intangible assets 24,265 10,185 55,009 29,091 Net interest expense 7,667 2,700 21,598 8,229 Other net finance expense 1,991 852 5,643 2,429 Share of income from joint ventures and (688) (468) (1,764) (1,623) associates Foreign exchange loss (gain) 428 (297) 493 (331) Other (income) expense (56) 174 (184) (7,043) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Income before income taxes 67,417 68,879 140,363 180,774 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Income taxes Current 15,456 22,688 36,365 53,892 Deferred 2,692 (3,746) 2,937 (4,179) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total income taxes 18,148 18,942 39,302 49,713 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Net income for the period 49,269 49,937 101,061 131,061 ============================================================================ Weighted average number of shares outstanding - basic 113,930,264 94,293,901 104,659,351 94,063,837 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weighted average number of shares outstanding - diluted 114,245,008 94,765,391 105,024,751 94,533,446 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shares outstanding, end of the period 113,945,237 94,352,144 113,945,237 94,352,144 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Earnings per share Basic 0.43 0.53 0.97 1.39 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Diluted 0.43 0.53 0.96 1.39 ============================================================================

Contacts:

Media Contact

Stephanie Smith

Stantec Media Relations

780-917-7230

stephanie.smith2@stantec.com



Investor Contact

Sonia Kirby

Stantec Investor Relations

780-616-2785

sonia.kirby@stantec.com




MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Theratechnologies Inc. (Theratechnologies) (TSX: TH) today announced that it has been notified by its partner, TaiMed Biologics, Inc., of the preliminary results for the safety and efficacy secondary endpoints of the 24-week Phase III trial with ibalizumab in patients with multi-drug resistant (MDR) HIV-1 (TMB-301). This Phase III trial confirms the safety and efficacy results of ibalizumab observed in the previously completed Phase IIb study, despite the fact that the patient population in the Phase III trial had higher levels of MDR HIV-1 and more advanced disease at time of enrollment.

In the Phase III trial, after 24 weeks of treatment, the mean reduction in viral load was 1.6 log10 and a total of 48% of patients had a reduction in viral load of more than 2.0 log10 during this period. At the end of the treatment period using ibalizumab with optimized background regimen (OBR), the proportion of study participants with undetectable viral load (HIV-1 less than 50 copies/mL) was 43% (mean viral load reduction of 3.1 log10) and 53% of patients had a viral load lower than 400 copies/mL. The mean viral load of patients at baseline was 100,287 copies/mL. As previously announced, the preliminary results also indicated that 83% of patients enrolled in the Phase III trial (33/40, pless than 0.0001) have met the primary endpoint of a decrease of greater than or equal to 0.5 log10 in viral load following a 7-day treatment period with ibalizumab.

The safety results in this Phase III trial are consistent with the ones previously observed in the Phase IIb study. Other than for one case of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome, an inflammatory response in HIV-infected patients that may be triggered after changing to more active antiretroviral therapy (ART), no serious adverse events (SAEs) were considered to be related to ibalizumab. Most treatment-emergent adverse events reported were mild to moderate in severity. No notable trends in laboratory abnormalities were observed.

"The results of the Phase III trial of ibalizumab in MDR HIV-1 patients are particularly exciting, they confirm what we had previously observed with ibalizumab, but in a patient population with higher antiretroviral drug resistance and more advanced disease. " said Dr. Jacob Lalezari, Medical Director, Quest Clinical Research, a division of eStudySite. "If approved by the FDA, ibalizumab would be the first long-acting and the first biologic product to show such efficacy in patients with highly resistant HIV-1," added Dr. Lalezari.

"We are very pleased with the safety and efficacy results observed in the Phase III trial," said Christian Marsolais, Ph.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Theratechnologies Inc. "These results support the submission of the Biologics License Application (BLA) to the US FDA and the next step is the completion of the regulatory submission by our partner TaiMed Biologics, Inc.", added Dr. Marsolais.

Additional Study Information

Patients enrolled in the Phase III trial had high pre-existing levels of drug resistance and advanced clinical disease. Patients had a mean HIV-1 viral load of 100,287 copies/mL, with 18% having viral loads above 100,000 copies/mL. The median CD4 count was 73 cells/mm3 and nearly 30% had less than 10 CD4 cells/mm3. More than 85% of patients had more than one identified mutation conferring resistance to the Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (NRTI), Non-Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (NNRTI) or Protease Inhibitors (PI) and more than 60% of patients had resistance to at least one Integrase Inhibitor (INI). Study patients were infected with HIV-1 resistant to more than 75% of all drugs in the NRTI, NNRTI and PI classes and to 1-2 drugs from the INI class, on average. Finally, just over 50% of patients had HIV-1 with resistance to all available drugs from at least three classes of ART.

A total of 9 patients (23%) discontinued the Phase III trial prior to the completion of the 24 week study treatment (4 non-drug related deaths, 3 withdrawals, and 2 lost to follow-up). The statistical analyses method used for efficacy, intent-to-treat - missing equals failure (ITT-MEF), represents the most stringent and most conservative data handling convention. The ITT-MEF analysis methodology considers all patients enrolled in the study and any missing values are treated as failure (or no change) in the analysis of the results.

About TMB-301, ibalizumab Phase III study

TMB-301 is a single arm, 24-week study of ibalizumab plus optimized background regimen (OBR) in treatment-experienced patients infected with multi-drug resistant HIV-1. The primary objective of the study is to demonstrate the antiviral activity of ibalizumab seven days after the first dose of ibalizumab. Patients receiving their current failing antiretroviral therapy (ART), or no therapy, were monitored during a seven-day control period. Thereafter, a loading dose of 2,000 mg of intravenous (IV) ibalizumab was the only ART added to their regimen. The primary efficacy endpoint is the proportion of patients achieving a greater than or equal to 0.5 log10 decrease in HIV-1 RNA seven days after initiating ibalizumab therapy, day 14 of the study. Ibalizumab is continued at doses of 800 mg IV every two weeks through 24 weeks on study treatment. A total of 40 patients have been enrolled in the study. After completion of treatment, patients are offered participation in the expanded access study (TMB-311). For more information about TMB-301 and TMB-311, please refer to the ClinicalTrials.gov website (www.clinicaltrials.gov).

About Ibalizumab

Ibalizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody being developed for the potential treatment of HIV-1 infection. Unlike other antiretroviral agents, ibalizumab binds primarily to the second extracellular domain of the CD4 receptor, away from Major Histocompatibility Complex II molecule (MHC II) binding sites. It potentially prevents HIV virus from infecting CD4+ immune cells while preserving normal immunological function. Ibalizumab is active against HIV-1 resistant to all approved antiretroviral agents. Ibalizumab has been tested in Phase I and II clinical trials and the Phase III study is the last pivotal clinical study necessary for the completion of a Biologics License Application (BLA) to be filed with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Ibalizumab has received "Breakthrough Therapy" designation from the FDA. This designation is given if a therapy may provide a substantial improvement over what is currently available to address a serious and life-threatening condition. Ibalizumab also received "Orphan Drug" designation by the FDA.

About Theratechnologies

Theratechnologies (TSX: TH) is a specialty pharmaceutical company addressing unmet medical needs to promote healthy living and an improved quality of life among HIV patients. Further information about Theratechnologies is available on the Company's website at www.theratech.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information, or, collectively, forward-looking statements, within the meaning of applicable securities laws, that are based on our management's belief and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. You can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as "may", "will", "should", "could", "would", "outlook", "believe", "plan", "envisage", "anticipate", "expect" and "estimate" or the negatives of these terms, or variations of them. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, but are not limited to, the completion and filing of a BLA with the FDA for ibalizumab and the approval of ibalizumab as a treatment for HIV patients.

Forward-looking statements are based upon a number of assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Theratechnologies' control that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking information. These assumptions include but are not limited to, the following: all data required to file a BLA with the FDA will be available to support such filing, ibalizumab will be approved by the FDA as a treatment for HIV, and, if ibalizumab is approved, Theratechnologies will have set-up on time the necessary infrastructure to launch ibalizumab. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risk that the other data required to file a BLA with the FDA are not satisfactory enough to proceed with such filing, that the FDA does not approve ibalizumab as a treatment for HIV, that the FDA requires additional clinical trials to be conducted and that Theratechnologies is unable to have all the necessary infrastructure in place to successfully launch ibalizumab, if approved by the FDA.

We refer potential investors to the "Risk Factors" section of our Annual Information Form (AIF) dated February 24, 2016 for additional risks and uncertainties about Theratechnologies. The AIF is available on the Corporation's website at www.theratech.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

The reader is cautioned to consider these and other risks and uncertainties carefully and not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements reflect current expectations regarding future events and speak only as of the date of this press release and represent our expectations as of that date. We undertake no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable law.

Contacts:

Philippe Dubuc

Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Tel.: (514) 336-7800, ext. 297




CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Touchstone Exploration Inc. ("Touchstone" or the "Company") (TSX: TXP) announces its financial and operating results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016. Selected financial and operational information is outlined below and should be read in conjunction with Touchstone's September 30, 2016 unaudited interim consolidated financial statements and management discussion and analysis, both of which will be available at www.sedar.com and the Company's website at www.touchstoneexploration.com. Tabular amounts herein are in thousands of Canadian dollars and amounts in text are rounded to thousands of Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated.

2016 Third Quarter Highlights

-- Achieved average crude oil sales of 1,276 barrels per day, representing a decrease of 3% from the second quarter of 2016 and a decrease of 22% from the third quarter of 2015. -- Realized Trinidad operating netbacks before hedging of $2,232,000 ($19.02 per barrel), representing an increase of 14% from the second quarter of 2016 and an increase of 3% from the prior year comparative quarter. -- Reduced per barrel operating expenses by 2% and 17% from the second quarter of 2016 and the third quarter of 2015, respectively. -- Generated funds flow from operations of $1,567,000 ($0.02 per basic share) compared to $3,278,000 ($0.04 per basic share) recognized in the prior quarter and $313,000 ($0.01 per basic share) recognized in the third quarter of 2015. -- Recorded a net loss of $702,000 ($0.01 per basic share) versus a net loss of $2,553,000 ($0.03 per basic share) in the second quarter of 2016 and a net loss of $12,666,000 ($0.15 per basic share) recognized in the prior year comparative quarter.

2016 Third Quarter and Year to Date Financial and Operating Results Summary

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three months ended Nine months ended September 30, September 30, 2016(2) 2015 2016(2) 2015 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating Average daily oil production (barrels per day) Trinidad 1,276 1,538 1,319 1,634 Canada - 100 - 184 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Company total 1,276 1,638 1,319 1,818 Average realized oil prices before hedging ($ per barrel) Trinidad 52.56 57.11 46.89 60.86 Canada - 42.86 - 40.37 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Company total 52.56 56.24 46.89 58.78 Operating netback(1) ($000's) Petroleum revenue 6,169 8,476 16,952 29,181 Royalties (1,630) (2,722) (4,692) (8,856) Operating expenses (2,307) (4,032) (7,764) (12,740) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating netback prior to hedging 2,232 1,722 4,496 7,585 Realized gain on derivatives - 1,826 6,462 3,833 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating netback after hedging 2,232 3,548 10,958 11,418 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating netback(1) ($ per barrel) Brent benchmark price 59.75 65.94 55.07 69.56 Discount (7.19) (9.70) (8.18) (10.78) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Realized sales price 52.56 56.24 46.89 58.78 Royalties (13.89) (18.06) (12.98) (17.84) Operating expenses (19.65) (26.75) (21.48) (25.66) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating netback prior to hedging 19.02 11.43 12.43 15.28 Realized gain on derivatives - 12.12 17.87 7.72 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating netback after hedging 19.02 23.55 30.30 23.00 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Financial ($000's except share and per share amounts) Funds flow from operations(1) 1,567 313 5,764 1,500 Per share - basic and diluted(1) 0.02 0.01 0.07 0.02 Net loss (702) (12,666) (5,699) (22,299) Per share - basic and diluted (0.01) (0.15) (0.07) (0.27) Capital expenditures Exploration assets 847 154 1,476 633 Property and equipment 327 679 1,033 2,994 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Company total 1,174 833 2,509 3,627 Total assets - end of period 72,550 101,564 Net debt(1) - end of period 4,115 39 Weighted average shares outstanding Basic and diluted 83,137,143 83,080,866 83,116,705 83,078,150 Outstanding shares - end of period 83,137,143 83,087,143 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1)Refer to advisory regarding non-GAAP measures. (2)Effective December 31, 2015, the Company disposed of its remaining Canadian segment producing oil and gas assets.

During the third quarter of 2016, Touchstone continued to curtail operational and capital expenditures with no major well workovers performed in the quarter. Production in Trinidad decreased based on natural declines and reduced operational spending, as production volumes averaged 1,276 barrels per day during the third quarter of 2016 which represented a decrease of 3% and 22% from Trinidad average daily volumes delivered in the second quarter of 2016 and the third quarter of 2015, respectively.

Trinidad realized third quarter 2016 pricing for crude oil was $52.56 (US$40.24) per barrel versus $49.83 (US$38.60) per barrel received in the second quarter of 2016 and $57.11 (US$43.88) received in the prior year comparative quarter. The Company continued to manage controllable costs, as third quarter operating expenses and general and administrate spending decreased by 5% and 31% from the second quarter of 2016, respectively. In comparison with the prior year comparative quarter, third quarter 2016 operating expenses and general and administrative expenditures decreased by 31% and 58%, respectively.

Touchstone generated funds flow from operations of $1,567,000 ($0.02 per basic share) in the third quarter of 2016, which included the effects of a non-recurring net income taxes payable reversal of $819,000. This represented a decrease from the $3,278,000 ($0.04 per basic share) in funds flow from operations recorded in the second quarter of 2016, which was mainly attributable to $3,316,000 generated from the June 2016 liquidation of the Company's hedge book. Funds flow from operations increased $1,254,000 from the $313,000 generated in the third quarter of 2015, primarily based on the effects of the net income tax reversal and decreased operational and administrative spending. The Company recorded a net loss of $702,000 ($0.01 per basic share) in the third quarter versus net losses of $2,553,000 ($0.03 per basic share) and $12,666,000 ($0.15 per basic share) recognized in the second quarter of 2016 and the prior year comparative quarter, respectively.

Touchstone exited the third quarter with no debt and a negative working capital position of $4,115,000. As previously announced, the Company entered into escrow arrangements for a $15,000,000, five-year term loan agreement to replace Touchstone's existing bank loan. The term loan will be released from escrow and the funds will be advanced upon satisfaction of conditions precedent, including security registrations in favour of the lender. The proceeds will primarily be used to cash collateralize the Company's US$6,000,000 letter of credit currently secured by its existing credit facility. The term loan also requires that the Company maintain a minimum cash reserve balance of $5,000,000 at inception, the amount of which can be reduced if the Company meets certain financial thresholds or raises additional equity.

Touchstone is moving forward with a 10 well recompletion program commencing mid-November that will focus on perforating new zones in existing well bores. The previously announced high volume lift project is anticipated to be completed and on production prior to the end of 2016.

Resignation of Director

Touchstone announces that Mr. Trevor Mitzel has resigned from the Company's Board of Directors (the "Board"), effective November 9, 2016.

The Board of Touchstone, comprised of Messrs. Paul R. Baay, Kenneth R. McKinnon, Corey C. Ruttan, Thomas E. Valentine, John D. Wright and Dr. Harrie Vredenburg, thank Mr. Mitzel for his contribution to the Company since its formation in 2010.

Mr. Mitzel was the Chair of the Board's Audit Committee and a member of its Compensation Committee. The Board of Touchstone will replace the sub-committee vacancies on an interim basis with a current Board member in due course.

Advisories

Non-GAAP Measures: This news release contains terms commonly used in the oil and natural gas industry, such as funds flow from operations, funds flow from operations per share, operating netback, funds flow netback and net debt. These terms do not have a standardized meaning under International Financial Reporting Standards and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. Funds flow from operations includes all cash generated from operating activities and is calculated before changes in non-cash working capital. The Company calculates funds flow from operations per share by dividing funds flow from operations by the weighted average number of common shares outstanding during the applicable period. Operating netbacks are presented on a per barrel basis and are calculated by deducting royalties, operating expenses and realized gains/losses on derivative contracts from petroleum revenue. Funds flow netbacks are presented on a per barrel basis and are calculated by deducting royalties, operating expenses, realized gains/losses on derivative contracts, general and administrative expenses, net cash finance expenses and current income tax expenses from petroleum revenue. Net cash finance expenses include all cash finance expenses incurred during a period and exclude the amortization of prepaid bank loan fees. Net surplus/debt is calculated by summing the Company's working capital and non-current interest bearing liabilities. Working capital is defined as current assets less current liabilities. Management uses these non-GAAP measures for its own performance measurement and to provide stakeholders with measures to compare the Company's operations over time.

Forward-looking Statements: Certain information provided in this news release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Specifically, this news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the expected use of proceeds, closing and the timing of closing the term loan, sufficiency of resources to fund operations and plans related to and the timing of certain projects. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. Certain of these risks are set out in more detail in the Company's Annual Information Form dated March 24, 2016 which has been filed on SEDAR and can be accessed at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements made herein or otherwise, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Touchstone

Touchstone Exploration Inc. is a Calgary based company engaged in the business of acquiring interests in petroleum and natural gas rights, and the exploration, development, production and sale of petroleum and natural gas. Touchstone is currently active in onshore properties located in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The Company's common shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "TXP".

Contacts:

Mr. Paul Baay

President and Chief Executive Officer

403.750.4487



Mr. Scott Budau

Chief Financial Officer

403.750.4487



Mr. James Shipka

Chief Operating Officer

403.750.4487

www.touchstoneexploration.com








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HANOVER (dpa-AFX) - China Automotive Systems, Inc. (CAAS), a power steering components and systems supplier in China, Thursday said it has increased its revenue guidance for the full year 2016 to $450 million from previously expected $430 million. This target is based on the Company's current views on operating and market conditions, which are subject to change. In its third quarter, net income attributable to parent company's common shareholders climbed to $5.7 million from $4.3 million last year. Earnings per share were $0.18, higher than $0.13 last year. Net sales increased 4.2% to $94.6 million from $90.8 million in the same quarter of 2015. This increase was mainly due to higher volumes and a change in the product mix to more electric power steering systems. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Technavio's latest report on the global emerging display technology marketprovides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2017-2021. Technavio defines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170303005038/en/

Technavio has published a new report on the global emerging display technology market from 2017-2021.(Graphic: Business Wire)

Sunil Kumar Singh, a lead analyst from Technavio, specializing in research on displays sector, says, "The global digital holography market is expected to witness a gradual increase in the revenue during the forecast period. The market showed positive and increasing growth rate throughout the forecast period, primarily because of its growing popularity and rising awareness about its numerous applications across the globe

The global emerging display technology market was valued at USD 13.73 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach USD 40.87 billion by 2021, growing at a CAGR of 24.38% during the forecast period. Factors such as inherent advantages of OLED displays drive the market. Several benefits of OLED display such as low power consumption, eco-friendliness, bright picture, and flexibility have prompted manufacturers to adopt OLED technology across various devices. There is growing adoption of OLED in mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, which will be a major factor for the growth of the market.

Request a sample report: http://www.technavio.com/request-a-sample?report=56760

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

The top three emerging trends driving the global emerging display technology marketaccording to Technavio hardware and semiconductor research analysts are:

Growing popularity of curved displays

Unit shipments of curved monitors will witness a massive CAGR at 37.6% during the forecast period compared with that of curved TVs. Monitors are meant for single users, and benefits of curved displays are better experienced in monitors than TVs. Though production cost of these monitors is high due to wastage cost accrued while developing small-screen products, the market will be more sustainable than curved TVs.

"Since 2011, many display device manufacturers are working toward the enhancement of some display attributes such as weight, flexibility, resolution, and pixels. Vendors' efforts to promote curved display concept in TVs and monitors will create demand for curved devices, as end-users become aware of their functionalities," according to Sunil.

Increased development of flexible displays

Flexible displays are thin electronic display screens, which are lightweight, foldable, and bendable. These displays can be rolled up without losing their display capabilities, as they can be manipulated without breaking. So, when compared to its counterparts, flexible displays are more durable. Flexible displays are manufactured using plastic or other flexible substrate material.

Currently, many of the industry participants are working toward the development of flexible displays for smartphones, tablet computers, and advanced consumer electronic devices. Embedding the flexible displays into these devices makes them rugged and almost unbreakable.

Rise in demand for 3D display

3D displays portray images with depth perception with the help of various technologies such as multi-view, stereoscopic, and 2D-plus-depth displays. However, current 3D displays require special 3D glasses to view. Some display technologies that do not need special glasses include a polarized 3D system (or autostereoscopic system) and an active shutter 3D system.

The increase in bandwidth speed is boosting the prospects of the global 3D display market. The rapid development of infrastructure capable of supporting high-speed Internet worldwide will facilitate market growth, as it will lead to an increase in the adoption of 3D displays.

The key vendors are as follows:

RiTdisplay

Samsung

Pioneer

Segme

EON Reality

Lyncee Tec

RealView Imaging

LEIA

Holoxica

Zebra Imaging

Ovizio Imaging Systems

Avegant

MicroVision

Browse Related Reports:

Global 3D Display Market 2016-2020

Global Large-Area LCD Display Market 2016-2020

Global Flat Panel Display Equipment Market 2017-2021

Become a Technavio Insights member and access all three of these reports for a fraction of their original cost. As a Technavio Insights member, you will have immediate access to new reports as they're published in addition to all 6,000+ existing reports covering segments like computing deviceslighting, and sensors. This subscription nets you thousands in savings, while staying connected to Technavio's constant transforming research library, helping you make informed business decisions more efficiently.

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

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TORONTO, CANADA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN)(OTCQX: IVPAF) today announced its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2016. All figures are in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

HIGHLIGHTS

-- On October 12, 2016, Ivanhoe released an independently verified, initial Mineral Resource estimate for the extremely-high-grade Kakula Discovery on the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Kakula's Indicated Resources presently total 192 million tonnes at a grade of 3.45% copper, containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper. Inferred Resources total 101 million tonnes at a grade of 2.74% copper, containing 6.1 billion pounds of copper. Both estimates are at a 1.0% copper cut-off. -- The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. Kamoa-Kakula also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. -- With the addition of Kakula's Mineral Resources, Wood Mackenzie - a prominent, international industry research and consulting group - has independently demonstrated that the Kamoa-Kakula Project is the largest copper discovery in Zambia and the DRC, making it the largest copper discovery ever made on the African continent. In addition, Wood Mackenzie's research also shows that Kamoa-Kakula already ranks among the 10 largest copper deposits in the world. -- The Kakula Discovery remains open along trend to the northwest and the southeast, while the remainder of the Kakula Exploration Area remains untested. Ivanhoe expects that an updated Mineral Resource estimate for the Kakula Discovery will be issued in Q1 2017. -- With the initial Kakula estimate completed, Kamoa Copper has retained OreWin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, to prepare a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the development of the Kakula Deposit. The PEA, which is expected to be completed before the end of 2016, will concentrate on establishing the economic parameters of a potential four- million-tonne-per-year mining operation at Kakula. -- Recent bench-scale metallurgical flotation test work at XPS Consulting and Testwork Services laboratories in Falconbridge, Canada, achieved copper recoveries of 87.8% and produced a concentrate with an extremely high grade of 56% copper using the flowsheet developed during the Kamoa pre-feasibility study (PFS). The material tested was a composite of chalcocite-rich Kakula drill core, assaying 8.1% copper. -- Underground mine development at Kamoa's planned initial mining area at Kansoko Sud is progressing ahead of plan and within budgeted costs. The twin declines, incorporating both a service and a conveyor tunnel, each have advanced more than 365 metres since the first excavation blast was conducted in May of this year. Development of the underground mine is designed to reach the high-grade copper mineralization at the Kansoko Sud deposit during the first quarter of 2017. -- On October 25, 2016, Ivanhoe received the third of five scheduled $41.2 million installment payments from a Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. subsidiary as part of a strategic co-development agreement under which Zijin acquired 49.5% of Ivanhoe's majority stake in the Kamoa-Kakula copper discovery. Zijin agreed to pay $412 million for a 49.5% interest in Ivanhoe subsidiary Kamoa Holding Limited that presently owns 95% of the Kamoa-Kakula Project. The remaining $82.4 million is required to be paid in two further equal installments, every 3.5 months; the next installment is due February 8, 2017. -- Cordial negotiations are continuing between Ivanhoe, its Kamoa-Kakula joint-venture partner Zijin Mining and senior DRC government officials to complete the transfer to the DRC government of an additional 15% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project, on terms to be negotiated. Ivanhoe expects a mutually beneficial agreement to be achieved in the near future that will provide long-lasting, positive benefits to the DRC government and the Congolese people. -- On September 13, 2016, Ivanhoe announced that ongoing upgrading work financed by the company at the Mwadingusha hydropower plant has begun supplying an initial 11 megawatts (MW) of power to the DRC's national grid. The Kamoa-Kakula Project began drawing power from the national grid on October 30, 2016. -- Also in the DRC, Ivanhoe is making good progress on a pre-feasibility study for the redevelopment of the Kipushi zinc-copper-germanium-lead- silver mine. The comprehensive study is being prepared by OreWin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, and will refine the company's May 2016 preliminary economic assessment of Kipushi's proposed redevelopment. The upgraded mine is expected to produce an annual average of 530,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate over a 10-year mine life at a total cash cost, including copper by-product credits, of approximately $0.54 per pound of zinc. -- At the Platreef platinum-palladium-gold-nickel-copper project in South Africa, sinking of Shaft 1 has reached a depth of more than 120 metres below surface. Shaft 1, which is expected to reach the Flatreef Deposit in late 2017, will provide development access into the deposit and will be utilized to fast-track production during the project's first phase. -- The design has been completed for Platreef's Shaft 2, which will have a total hoisting capacity of six million tonnes per annum and an internal diameter of 10 metres; construction is expected to begin in 2017. When completed, Shaft 2 is expected to be the main production shaft at the Platreef Mine. -- The feasibility study for the first phase of mine development at Platreef, which is being managed by DRA Global, is expected to be completed in March 2017. -- On August 29, 2016, Ivanhoe announced that its board of directors had authorized the company to seek strategic advice at the project and corporate levels to help address unsolicited interest that the company and its projects have received. -- On September 12, 2016, Standard and Poor's (S&P) added Ivanhoe Mines to the S&P/TSX Composite Index, which is widely considered to be the leading indicator of broad market activity in Canadian equity markets. -- Ivanhoe Mines' three projects achieved a combined 10.4 million work hours free of lost-time injuries (LTIF) by the end of the third quarter of 2016. Ivanhoe had recorded 178,500 LTIF hours at Platreef, 4.67 million hours at Kipushi and 5.59 million hours at Kamoa-Kakula to the end of Q3 2016.

Principal projects and review of activities

1. Platreef Project

64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

South Africa

The Platreef Project is owned by Ivanplats (Pty) Ltd, which is 64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines. A 26% interest is held by Ivanplats' historically-disadvantaged broad-based, black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) partners, which include 20 local host communities with a total of approximately 150,000 people, project employees and local entrepreneurs. Ivanplats reconfirmed its Level 3 status in its second verification assessment on a B-BBEE scorecard. A Japanese consortium of ITOCHU Corporation and its affiliate, ITC Platinum, plus Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation and JGC Corporation, owns a 10% interest in Ivanplats, which it acquired in two tranches for a total investment of $290 million.

The Platreef Project hosts an underground deposit of thick, platinum-group metals, nickel, copper and gold mineralization in the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex, approximately 280 kilometres northeast of Johannesburg and eight kilometres from the town of Mokopane in Limpopo Province. Since 2007, Ivanhoe has focused its exploration activities on defining and advancing the down-dip extension of its original discovery at Platreef, now known as the Flatreef Deposit, which is amenable to highly mechanized, underground mining methods. The Flatreef area lies entirely on the Turfspruit and Macalacaskop properties, which form part of the company's mining right.

Health and safety at Platreef

The Platreef Project reached a total of 6,331,141 million hours in terms of the Mines Health and Safety Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) by the end of September 2016. The project recorded 178,552 work hours free of lost-time injuries (LTIF) up until the end of Q3 2016.

Unfortunately, the project suffered a lost-time injury during the quarter. A rock-drill operator was injured, booked off and returned to work seven days after the incident. The Platreef Project continues to strive toward its workplace objective of an environment that causes zero harm to any employees, contractors, sub-contractors or consultants.

Shaft 1 construction

Shaft 1, with an internal diameter of 7.25 metres, will provide initial access to the ore body and enable the initial underground capital development to take place during the development of Shaft 2, the main production shaft.

Following the successful commissioning and licencing of the stage and kibble winders and ancillary equipment, the permanent sinking phase started in July 2016. The initial sinking phase was completed to 107 metres below surface and the main sinking phase has been initiated.

A sinking rate of 45 metres per month is expected during the main phase, which includes a 300-millimetre concrete shaft lining and inserts. The current level is approximately 130 metres below surface; stations will be developed at the 450-, 750-, 850- and 950-metre levels. The main sinking phase is expected to reach its projected, final depth of 980 metres below surface in 2018.

To view Figure 1. Shaft 1 headgear and other related surface infrastructure, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002fig1.jpg

Project infrastructure

Work is complete on the internal substation, which has a capacity of five million volt-amperes (MVA). Construction is underway on the power transmission lines from Eskom, South Africa's public electricity utility, which are expected to supply the electricity for shaft sinking. Back-up generators have been installed to ensure continued sinking operations during any interruptions in Eskom's supply of electricity. The new transmission lines also are expected to provide power to an adjacent community near the Platreef Project, which will be a major, added community benefit.

To view Figure 2. Eskom's 5MVA line to Platreef Project, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f2.jpg

Other on-site work completed includes the storm-water pond management system, concrete batch plant, workshops, stores and an explosives magazine.

Construction of the intersection on the National Road (N11) highway for improved access to the Platreef mine site was completed in August 2016. The work included adding extra lanes to the existing roadway, exit and entry ramps, storm-water management and resurfacing of the intersection.

Platreef implementing a phased approach to a large, underground, mechanized mine

Ivanhoe plans to develop the Platreef Mine in phases. The initial annual rate of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) is designed to establish an operating platform to support future expansions. This is expected to be followed by a potential doubling of production to 8 Mtpa; and then a third expansion phase to a steady-state 12 Mtpa, which would establish Platreef among the largest platinum-group-metals mines in the world.

Ivanhoe has made good progress on advancing the feasibility study of the first phase, which began in August 2015. The study is being managed by DRA Global - with specialized sub-consultants including Stantec Consulting, Murray & Roberts Cementation, SRK, Golder Associates and Digby Wells Environmental - and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2017. There are expected to be opportunities to refine and modify the timing and capacities of subsequent phases of production to suit market conditions during the development and commissioning of the first phase.

Planned mining methods to incorporate highly productive, mechanized methods

The selected mining areas in the current mine plan occur at depths ranging from approximately 700 metres to 1,200 metres below the surface. The main access to the Flatreef Deposit and ventilation system is expected to be through four vertical shafts. Shaft 2 will host the main personnel transport cage, material and ore-handling systems; Shafts 1, 3 and 4 will provide ventilation to the underground workings. Shaft 1, now under development, also will be used for initial access to the deposit and early underground development.

Planned mining of the Flatreef Deposit is expected to use highly productive, mechanized methods, including long-hole stoping and drift-and-fill mining. Mined-out areas will be backfilled with a paste mixture that utilizes tailings from the process plant and cement. The ore will be hauled from the stopes to a series of ore passes that will connect to a main haulage level at Shaft 2, from where it will be hoisted to surface for processing.

Bulk water and electricity supply

The Olifants River Water Resource Development Project (ORWRDP) is designed to deliver water to the Eastern and Northern limbs of South Africa's Bushveld Complex. The project consists of the new De Hoop Dam, the raised wall of the Flag Boshielo Dam and related pipeline infrastructure that ultimately is expected to deliver water to Pruissen, southeast of the Northern Limb. The Pruissen Pipeline Project is expected to be developed to deliver water onward from Pruissen to the municipalities, communities and mining projects on the Northern Limb. Ivanhoe is a member of the ORWRDP's Joint Water Forum. The Minister of Water & Sanitation has directed that the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority serve as the implementing agent for the outstanding phases of the ORWRDP scheme, which include the Phase 2B pipeline from Flag Boshielo Dam to Mokopane.

The Platreef Project's water requirement for the first phase of development is projected to peak at approximately 10 million litres per day, which is expected to be serviced by the scheme. Ivanhoe also is investigating various alternative sources of bulk water, including an allocation of bulk grey-water from the local municipality.

The Platreef Project's electricity requirement for a four-million-tonne-per-year underground mine, concentrator and associated infrastructure has been estimated at approximately 100 million volt-amperes. An agreement has been reached with Eskom for the supply of phase-one power. Ivanhoe chose a self-build option for permanent power that will enable the company to manage the construction of the distribution lines from Eskom's Burutho sub-station to the Platreef Mine. The formulation of the self-build and electrical supply agreements are in progress.

Development of human resources and job skills

Work is progressing well on the further implementation of Ivanhoe's Social and Labour Plan (SLP), to which the company has pledged a total of R160 million ($11 million) during the first five years, until November 2019. The approved plan includes R67 million ($4 million) for the development of job skills among local residents and R88 million ($6 million) for local economic development projects. Additional internal training is ongoing to provide members of the current workforce with opportunities to expand their skills.

Ivanplats recently concluded a one-year deal with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) for annual wage increases without any labour disruption or work stoppage during negotiations.

2. Kipushi Project

68%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Kipushi copper-zinc-germanium-lead mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is adjacent to the town of Kipushi and approximately 30 kilometres southwest of Lubumbashi. It is located on the Central African Copperbelt, approximately 250 kilometres southeast of the Kamoa-Kakula Project and less than one kilometre from the Zambian border. Ivanhoe acquired its 68% interest in the Kipushi Project in November 2011; the balance of 32% is held by the state-owned mining company, La Generale des Carrieres et des Mines (Gecamines).

Health, safety and community development at Kipushi

The Kipushi Project achieved a total of 4,674,445 work hours free of lost-time injuries, equivalent to 1,512 days, to the end of Q3 2016. Malaria remains the most frequently occurring health concern at Kipushi; in Q3 2016, there was an average of 15 cases each month among employees, which is above the dry-season norm.

In an effort to reduce the incidence of malaria in the Kipushi community, a Water Sanitation and Health (WASH) program has been initiated in cooperation with the Territorial Administrator and the local community. The main emphasis of the program's first phase is cleaning storm drains in the municipality to prevent the accumulation of ponded water, where malarial mosquitos breed.

The Fionet program to combat malaria has distributed 150 Deki electronic readers in addition to the original 37 readers provided to medical-service providers in Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces. The Deki technology provides automated reading of Rapid Diagnostic Tests to remove the human-error factor and prescription of unnecessary medication and uploads data to a cloud server for analysis by the Ministry of Health in planning malaria-control measures. Data gathered up until September 30, 2016, indicate that 18,818 patients have been tested using the Deki reader, with more than half those testing negative for malaria.

Project development and infrastructure

The Kipushi Mine, which had been placed on care and maintenance in 1993, flooded in early 2011 due to a lack of pump maintenance over an extended period. At its peak, water reached 851 metres below the surface. A major milestone was reached in December 2013 when Ivanhoe restored access to the mine's principal haulage level at 1,150 metres below the surface. Since then, crews have been upgrading underground infrastructure to permanently stabilize the water levels.

Since completion of the drilling program, water levels have been lowered to approximately the 1,245-metre-level in Shaft 5. Engineering work has focused on upgrading of Shaft 5 conveyances and infrastructure, cleaning the shaft bottom to facilitate the installation of new hoist ropes, repairs and upgrades to the hoisting infrastructure and cleaning and stripping of the main pump station at the 1,200-metre-level.

To view Figure 3. Connecting discharge pipes to one of five pumps on the 1,200-metre-level, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f3.jpg

Pre-feasibility study underway at Kipushi

A pre-feasibility study (PFS) now underway will further refine the optimal development scenario for the existing underground mine at Kipushi. Orewin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, has been appointed the main contractor and Golder Associates, MDM, SRK, DRA and Grindrod have been engaged to complete various aspects of the PFS.

The PFS will refine the positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the redevelopment of the Kipushi Project that was announced on May 2, 2016. The PEA was prepared in compliance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Highlights of the PEA, prepared by OreWin and the MSA Group (Pty) Ltd, of Johannesburg, South Africa, include:

-- After-tax net present value at an 8% real discount rate is $533 million. -- After-tax real internal rate of return is 30.9%. -- After-tax project payback period is 2.2 years. -- Leveraging existing surface and underground infrastructure significantly lowers the redevelopment capital compared to a greenfield development project, as well as the time required to reinstate production. -- Life-of-mine average planned zinc concentrate production of 530,000 dry tonnes per annum - with a concentrate grade of 53% zinc - is expected to rank Kipushi, once in production, among the world's major zinc mines. -- Life-of-mine average cash cost of $0.54/lb. of zinc is expected to rank Kipushi, once in production, in the bottom quartile of the cash-cost curve for zinc producers globally.

3. Kamoa-Kakula Project

47%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project, a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines and Zijin Mining, is the largest copper discovery ever made on the African continent, with adjacent prospective exploration areas within the Central African Copperbelt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, approximately 25 kilometres west of the town of Kolwezi and about 270 kilometres west of Lubumbashi. Ivanhoe sold a 49.5% share interest in Kamoa Holding Limited, the company that presently owns 95% of Kamoa Copper SA, the owner of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, to Zijin Mining in December 2015 for an aggregate consideration of $412 million. In addition, Ivanhoe sold a 1% share interest in Kamoa Holding to privately-owned Crystal River Global Limited for $8.32 million - which Crystal River will pay through a non-interest-bearing, 10-year promissory note.

A 5%, non-dilutable interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project was transferred to the DRC government on September 11, 2012, for no consideration, pursuant to the DRC Mining Code. Ivanhoe also has offered to transfer an additional 15% interest to the DRC government on terms to be negotiated. Constructive and cordial negotiations over the offer are continuing between Ivanhoe Mines, Zijin and senior DRC government officials. Ivanhoe expects a mutually beneficial agreement to be achieved in the near future that will provide long-lasting, positive benefits to the DRC government and the Congolese people.

Subsequent to the sales to Zijin and Crystal River, Ivanhoe owns an effective 47% of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which will decrease to an effective 40% should the additional 15% interest be transferred to the DRC government.

Kamoa-Kakula already ranks among the 10 largest copper deposits in the world. On October 12, 2016, an initial Mineral Resource estimate for the extremely-high-grade Kakula Discovery was issued with an effective date of October 9, 2016. The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. Kamoa-Kakula now also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres.

Kamoa-Kakula studies

The mining portion of the feasibility study for a four-million-tonne-per-annum (4 Mtpa) mine at Kansoko Sud is progressing well; the work is being carried out by a number of specialist consultants, including Stantec for the mine, DRA for the underground engineering, KGHM Cuprum for geotechnical and mining method, SRK for the mine geotechnical and Golder for geohydrology.

With the initial Kakula Mineral Resource estimate completed, Kamoa Copper has retained OreWin, of Adelaide, Australia, to prepare a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the development of the Kakula Deposit. The PEA, which is expected to be completed before the end of 2016, will concentrate on establishing the economic parameters of potential mining operations at Kakula, including capital and operating costs for an underground mine.

The PEA will draw on recommendations from the Kamoa 2016 pre-feasibility study, including the potential to increase production to up to four million tonnes per year from the proposed initial mining area.

Recent bench-scale metallurgical flotation test work carried out at XPS Consulting and Testwork Services laboratories in Falconbridge, Canada, achieved copper recoveries of 87.8% and produced a concentrate with an extremely high grade of 56% copper using the flowsheet developed during the Kamoa pre-feasibility study. The material tested was a composite of recent, chalcocite-rich Kakula drill core, assaying 8.1% copper.

Kakula mineralization is characteristically bottom loaded. The Resource estimate demonstrates that opportunities exist to mine Kakula at much higher lateral and vertical cut-offs than at Kamoa's Kansoko Sud. The clear zonation and grades in the central high-grade core should provide sequencing opportunities to mine at significantly elevated grades.

Health and safety at Kamoa-Kakula

Health and safety remain key priorities for all people working at the Kamoa-Kakula Project, where an excellent safety record has been achieved. As of September 30, 2016, a total of 5,590,040 hours had been worked without a lost-time injury.

Exploration activities lead to a substantial expansion of the Kakula Discovery

On October 12, 2016 the company released the initial Resource estimate for its Kakula Discovery at the Kamoa-Kakula Project. Highlights of the initial Kakula Mineral Resource estimate, prepared by Ivanhoe Mines under the direction of Amec Foster Wheeler E&C Services Inc., of Reno, USA, in accordance with the 2014 CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves are:

-- Indicated Resources total 192 million tonnes at a grade of 3.45% copper, containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper at a 1% copper cut-off. At a 2% copper cut-off, Indicated Resources total 115 million tonnes at a 4.80% copper grade, containing 12.1 billion pounds of copper. At a higher cut- off of 3% copper, Indicated Resources total 66 million tonnes at a grade of 6.59% copper, containing 9.6 billion pounds of copper. -- Inferred Resources total 101 million tonnes at a grade of 2.74% copper, containing 6.1 billion pounds of copper at a 1% copper cut-off. At a 2% copper cut-off, Inferred Resources total 51 million tonnes at a 3.92% copper grade, containing 4.4 billion pounds of copper. At a higher cut- off of 3% copper, Inferred Resources total 27 million tonnes at a grade of 5.26% copper, containing 3.2 billion pounds of copper. -- The average true thickness of the selective mineralized zone (SMZ) at a 1% cut-off is 14.27 metres in the Indicated Resources area and 10.33 metres in the Inferred Resources area. At a higher 3% cut-off, the average true thickness of the SMZ is 5.91 metres in the Indicated Resources area and 5.15 metres in the Inferred Resources area.

The Kakula Mineral Resource has been defined by drilling covering a total area of 8.7 square kilometres within the larger 60-square-kilometre Kakula Exploration Area, as shown in Figure 4. The total areal extent of Indicated Resource is 4.6 square kilometres at a 1% cut-off and the areal extent of the Inferred Resource is 3.3 square kilometres at a 1% cut-off. The average dip of the mineralized zone in the Indicated Resource area is 13 degrees, while the average dip is 16 degrees in the Inferred Resource area.

The high-grade copper mineralization remains open for significant expansion along trend to the northwest. The remainder of the Kakula Exploration Area remains untested (see Figure 4). The Mineral Resource estimate is based on the results from approximately 24,000 metres of drilling in 65 holes. An additional 13 holes totalling more than 7,000 metres have been completed and assay results are pending.

Indicated Resources are defined when the drill-hole spacing approximates a 400-metre grid, while Inferred Resources are defined when the drill-hole spacing approximates an 800-metre grid.

To view Figure 4. Kamoa-Kakula Project map showing location of Kakula exploration and initial Kakula Resource outline, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f4.jpg

Updated Kamoa-Kakula Resource

Kakula's estimated Resources are in addition to the Mineral Resources delineated elsewhere on the Kamoa mining licence that were disclosed by Ivanhoe Mines in a news release on February 23, 2016.

The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum true thickness of three metres.

Kamoa-Kakula now also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum true thickness of three metres.

Exploration activities lead to significant expansion of the Kakula Discovery and a substantial increase in the planned scope of exploration activities for 2016 and 2017

During Q3 2016, a total of 19,418 metres of exploration drilling was completed at the new Kakula Discovery. A total of 17,702 metres was completed by the drilling contractor, Titan Drilling SARL, utilizing up to six drill rigs; an additional 1,716 metres was completed using company-owned drill rigs. Included in the drilling program were holes drilled for geotechnical studies as well as PQ drill holes for comminution test work.

In addition to the exploration program, 185 metres were completed for dewatering of the Kansoko Sud declines. A total of 220 metres was completed by Titan Drilling for cover drilling within the declines ahead of the mine development. This program is planned to continue for the duration of the decline development. Drilling for 2016 now totals 33,443 metres.

As a result of the ongoing success of the Kakula drilling program and the extension along trend of the central, high-grade, chalcocite-rich core to the northwest and southeast at relatively shallow depths, the Kakula drilling program was expanded in Q2 by an additional 9,000 metres, to a total of 34,000 metres.

With the completion of the initial Mineral Resource estimate and the significance of the discovery now firmly established, the Kakula exploration program has been significantly expanded by a further 60,000 metres. The expanded program is planned to run through to the end of Q2 2017 and will consist of infill drilling, resource expansion and exploration of the Kakula Discovery area. The expanded drill program will be completed by a combination of contractor drilling and company-owned rigs.

Mine development

Byrnecut Underground Congo SARL progressed well with the decline development at Kansoko during Q3 2016 and is advancing ahead of schedule. The twin declines, incorporating both a service and a conveyor tunnel, each have advanced more than 365 metres.

To view Figure 5. Kansoko box-cut sump being cleaned and equipped, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f5.jpg

Development of the underground mine is designed to reach the high-grade copper mineralization at the Kansoko Sud deposit during the first quarter of 2017. The development is ahead of schedule and within budgeted costs.

During the quarter, the settling and clean-water dams were constructed and equipped, and the first cross-cut between the declines was blasted. The box-cut sump also was cleaned and equipped with permanent pumps and a pump column.

To view Figure 6. Underground loading operation, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f6.jpg

In parallel with the Kamoa 2016 PFS, an alternative mining method - controlled-convergence room-and-pillar mining, developed by Poland-based KGHM - was investigated for potential use on the Kansoko deposits. Given the thick, mineralized widths encountered to date in the Kakula drilling program, controlled-convergence room-and-pillar mining also will be investigated for potential use at Kakula.

To help advance the ongoing exploration and development of the Kakula Deposit, the Kamoa engineering team has identified a possible location for a box cut at Kakula. The design of the box cut is underway and the preparation of tender documents for the excavation, support and civil works is underway.

A 10-kilometre road from the Kamoa mine site to Kakula is under construction to facilitate access for drill rigs and construction equipment during the rainy season.

To view Figure 7. The new Kakula access road under construction, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1076002f6.jpg

Hydroelectric power plant upgrading project

The Mwadingusha Unit 1 repair work was completed in August 2016 and the official inauguration ceremony took place on September 7, 2016, at the Mwadingusha power station. The Mwadingusha G1 unit, supplying 11MW, was synchronized to the national interconnected grid on September 6, 2016.

Selected quarterly financial information

The following table summarizes selected financial information for the prior eight quarters. Ivanhoe had no operating revenue in any financial reporting period and did not declare or pay any dividend or distribution in any financial reporting period.

3 Months ended ------------------------------------------------------- September 30, June 30, March 31, December 31, 2016 2016 2016 2015 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure (i) 7,769 8,233 6,917 10,271 General administrative expenditure (i) 4,213 3,657 3,693 5,833 Share-based payments 1,750 1,312 1,473 2,345 Gain on partial sale of subsidiary - - - (357,671) Re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in joint venture - - - (376,148) Finance income (7,239) (7,367) (8,469) (1,191) Finance costs 454 445 428 1,556 Mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants - - - (429) Loss (gain) from subsidiary held for partial sale - - - 755 Total comprehensive loss (gain) attributable to: Owners of the Company (1,860) 6,568 4,203 (717,213) Non-controlling interest 2,445 3,483 2,897 2,468 Loss (profit) per share (basic and diluted) 0.00 0.01 0.01 (0.92) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Months ended ------------------------------------------------------- September 30, June 30, March 31, December 31, 2015 2015 2015 2014 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure (i) 8,553 9,009 12,918 21,178 General administrative expenditure (i) 4,430 1,323 5,859 8,987 Share-based payments 1,655 1,736 1,986 2,245 Finance income (273) (445) (295) (288) Finance costs 36 48 34 382 Mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants (970) (1,334) (4,212) (2,316) Loss from subsidiary held for partial sale (7,958) 2,675 209 4,813 Total comprehensive loss attributable to: Owners of the Company 9,420 11,008 15,511 31,649 Non-controlling interest 3,439 3,564 3,498 5,434 Loss per share (basic and diluted) 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.05 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discussion of results of operations

Review of the three months ended September 30, 2016 vs. September 30, 2015

The company's total comprehensive loss for Q3 2016 of $0.6 million was $12.3 million lower than for the same period in 2015 ($12.9 million). The decrease mainly was due to exchange gains on translation of foreign operations recognized in Q3 2016 of $10.8 million resulting from the strengthening of the South African Rand by 10% from June 30, 2016, to September 30, 2016.

Finance income increased by $7.0 million in Q3 2016 when compared to the same period in 2015 and mainly included interest earned on loans to the Kamoa joint venture that amounted to $4.2 million and deemed income on the purchase price receivable from the partial sale of the Kamoa-Kakula Project that amounted to $2.3 million.

Exploration and project expenditures for the three months ending September 30, 2016, amounted to $7.8 million and were $0.8 million less than for the same period in 2015 ($8.6 million).

With the focus at the Platreef Project on development, and the Kamoa-Kakula Project being accounted for as a joint venture, $7.5 million of the total $7.8 million exploration and project expenditure related to the Kipushi Project. Expenditure at the Kipushi Project decreased by $0.4 million compared to the same period in 2015.

Review of the nine months ended September 30, 2016 vs. September 30, 2015

The company's total comprehensive loss of $17.7 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016, was $28.7 million lower than for the same period in 2015 ($46.4 million). The decrease was due to exchange gains on translation of foreign operations of $10.4 million recognized in the first nine months of 2016 compared to an exchange loss on translation of foreign operations of $11.7 million for the same period in 2015.

The increase in finance income of $22.1 million, together with a $7.6 million decrease in exploration and project expenditure, also contributed to the decreased comprehensive loss for the period, but was partly offset by the company's share of losses from its Kamoa joint venture that amounted to $15.8 million.

Finance income for the nine months ending September 30, 2016, amounted to $23.1 million, which was $22.1 million more than for the same period in 2015 ($1.0 million). The increase mainly was due to interest earned on loans to the Kamoa joint venture that amounted to $11.5 million for the nine months ending September 30, 2016, together with deemed finance income on the purchase price receivable from the partial sale of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which amounted to $9.5 million.

Exploration and project expenditures for the nine months ending September 30, 2016, amounted to $22.9 million and were $7.6 million less than for the same period in 2015 ($30.5 million). The $4.1 million retrenchment costs incurred in 2015 relating to the closure of Ivanhoe's regional exploration company in the DRC was the main reason for the decrease, together with reduced expenditure at the Kipushi Project.

With the focus at the Platreef Project on development and the Kamoa-Kakula Project being accounted for as a joint venture, $22.2 million of the total $22.9 million exploration and project expenditure related to the Kipushi Project. Expenditure at the Kipushi Project decreased by $2.8 million compared to the same period in 2015.

Financial position as at September 30, 2016 vs. December 31, 2015

The company's total assets decreased by $16.4 million, from $1,022.6 million as at December 31, 2015, to $1,006.2 million as at September 30, 2016. This resulted from the company utilizing its cash resources in its operations.

The remaining purchase price receivable due to the company as a result of the sale of 49.5% of Kamoa Holding decreased as the company received $93.1 million from Zijin during the nine months ending September 30, 2016. The present value of the remaining consideration receivable, net of transaction costs, was $113.4 million as at September 30, 2016. Ivanhoe received $41.2 million of the remaining consideration receivable subsequent to September 30, 2016, on October 25, 2016, and the next of the two remaining installments is due on February 8, 2017.

The company's investment in the Kamoa Holding joint venture increased by $43.8 million from $412.0 as at December 31, 2015, to $455.8 million as at September 30, 2016, with the current shareholders funding the operations equivalent to their proportionate shareholding interest. At Kamoa-Kakula, the focus remained on development, together with an exploration program at the Kakula Discovery.

Property, plant and equipment increased by $37.7 million, with a total of $32.4 million being spent on project development and to acquire other property, plant and equipment, $29.7 million of which pertained to development costs of the Platreef Project.

The company utilized $24.8 million of its cash resources in its operations and earned interest income of $2.1 million on cash balances in the nine months ended September 30, 2016; the company's portion of the Kamoa joint venture cash calls amounted to $47.1 million.

The company's total liabilities decreased to $40.9 million as at September 30, 2016, from $43.8 million as at December 31, 2015. This mainly was due to the decrease in trade and other payables of $3.9 million.

Liquidity and capital resources

The company had $275.9 million in cash and cash equivalents as at September 30, 2016. Certain of the company's cash and cash equivalents, having an aggregate value of $29.1 million, are subject to contractual restrictions as to their use and are reserved for the Platreef Project.

As at September 30, 2016, the company had consolidated working capital of approximately $401.9 million, compared to $424.6 million at December 31, 2015. The Platreef Project working capital is restricted and amounted to $28.8 million at September 30, 2016, and $53.2 million at December 31, 2015. Excluding the Platreef Project working capital, the resultant working capital was $373.1 million at September 30, 2016, and $371.4 million at December 31, 2015. The company believes it has sufficient resources to cover its short-term cash requirements. However, the company's access to financing always is uncertain and there can be no assurance that additional funding will be available to the company in the near future.

On December 8, 2015, Zijin completed its investment in Ivanhoe's Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project. Zijin, through a subsidiary company, has acquired a 49.5% interest in Kamoa Holding for a total of $412 million in a series of payments. Ivanhoe received an initial $206 million from Zijin on December 8, 2015 and a further $41.2 million on each of March 23, 2016, July 8, 2016, and October 25, 2016; the remaining $82.4 million is scheduled to be received in two equal installments, payable every 3.5 months from the previous installment. Upon closing of the transaction, each shareholder is required to fund Kamoa Holding in an amount equivalent to its proportionate shareholding interest.

The company's main objectives for 2016 at the Platreef Project remain the continuation of the phase one feasibility study and Shaft 1 construction. At Kipushi, the principal objective is the continued upgrading of mining infrastructure, now that the preliminary economic assessment has been successfully completed. At the Kamoa-Kakula Project, priorities are the continuation of drilling and the construction of the twin declines at Kamoa. The company expects to spend $14 million on further development at the Platreef Project; $8 million at the Kipushi Project; and $5 million on corporate overheads for the remainder of 2016. The company's proportionate funding of the Kamoa-Kakula Project for Q4 2016 already has been advanced in September; however, funding for Q1 2017 is expected to be advanced in December 2016.

This release should be read in conjunction with Ivanhoe Mines' unaudited, condensed, consolidated interim financial statements for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016, and Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) report available at www.ivanhoemines.com and at www.sedar.com.

Qualified Person

Disclosures of a scientific or technical nature in this news release have been reviewed and approved by Stephen Torr, who is considered, by virtue of his education, experience and professional association, a Qualified Person under the terms of NI 43-101. Mr. Torr is not considered independent under NI 43-101 as he is the Vice President, Project Geology and Evaluation. Mr. Torr has verified the technical data disclosed in this release.

Ivanhoe has prepared a current independent, NI 43-101-compliant technical report for each of the Platreef Project, the Kipushi Project and the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which are available under the company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. These technical reports include relevant information regarding the effective dates and the assumptions, parameters and methods of the mineral resource estimates on the Platreef Project, the Kipushi Project and the Kamoa-Kakula Project cited in this release, as well as information regarding data verification, exploration procedures and other matters relevant to the scientific and technical disclosure contained in this release in respect of the Platreef Project, Kipushi Project and Kamoa-Kakula Project.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including without limitation, the timing and results of: (i) statements regarding Shaft 1 providing initial access for early underground development at the Flatreef Deposit; (ii) statements regarding the station development of Shaft 1 at the 450, 750, 850 and 950 metre levels; (iii) statements regarding the sinking of Shaft 1, including that a sinking rate of 45 metres per month is expected; statements regarding Shaft 1 reaching the planned, final depth at 980 metres below surface in 2018; (iv) statements regarding the timing of the commencement of Shaft 2 development, including that construction is to commence in 2017; (v) statements regarding the operational and technical capacity of Shaft 1; (vi) statements regarding the internal diameter and hoisting capacity of Shaft 2; (vii) statements regarding the Company's plans to develop the Platreef Mine in three phases: an initial annual rate of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) to establish an operating platform to support future expansions; followed by a doubling of production to eight Mtpa; and then a third expansion phase to a steady-state 12 Mtpa; (viii) statements regarding the planned underground mining methods of the Platreef Project; (ix) statements regarding peak water use of 10 million litres per day at the Platreef Project and development of the Pruissen Pipeline Project; (x) statements regarding the Platreef Project's electricity requirement of 100 million volt-amperes; (xi) statements regarding the completion of a feasibility study at the Platreef Project in the first half of 2017; (xii) statements regarding the declines having been designed to intersect the high-grade copper mineralization in the Kansoko Sud area during the first quarter of 2017; (xiii) statements regarding the timing, size and objectives of drilling and other exploration programs for 2016 and future periods; (xiv) statements regarding the expectation to have a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) of the Kakula Discovery at the Kamoa-Kakula Project completed before the end of 2016; (xv) statements regarding the implementation of Social and Labour Plan at the Platreef Project; (xvi) statements that the expanded 60,000 metres of drilling at the Kakula Discovery will run through Q2 2017; and (xvii) statements regarding expected further expenditure in 2016 of $14 million on further development at the Platreef Project; $8 million at the Kipushi Project; and $5 million on corporate overheads - as well as its proportionate funding of the Kamoa-Kakula Project for Q1 2017 expected to be advanced in December 2016.

Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements reflect the company's current expectations regarding future events, performance and results and speak only as of the date of this news release.

As well, the results of the pre-feasibility study of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, the pre-feasibility study of the Platreef Project and the preliminary economic assessment of the Kipushi Project constitute forward-looking information, and include future estimates of internal rates of return, net present value, future production, estimates of cash cost, proposed mining plans and methods, mine life estimates, cash flow forecasts, metal recoveries, estimates of capital and operating costs and the size and timing of phased development of the projects. Furthermore, with respect to this specific forward-looking information concerning the development of the Kamoa-Kakula, Platreef and Kipushi Projects, the company has based its assumptions and analysis on certain factors that are inherently uncertain. Uncertainties include: (i) the adequacy of infrastructure; (ii) geological characteristics; (iii) metallurgical characteristics of the mineralization; (iv) the ability to develop adequate processing capacity; (v) the price of copper, nickel, zinc, platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold; (vi) the availability of equipment and facilities necessary to complete development; (vii) the cost of consumables and mining and processing equipment; (viii) unforeseen technological and engineering problems; (ix) accidents or acts of sabotage or terrorism; (x) currency fluctuations; (xi) changes in regulations; (xii) the compliance by joint venture partners with terms of agreements, (xiii) the availability and productivity of skilled labour; (xiv) the regulation of the mining industry by various governmental agencies; and (xiv) political factors.

This news release also contains references to estimates of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The estimation of Mineral Resources is inherently uncertain and involves subjective judgments about many relevant factors. Estimates of Mineral Reserves provide more certainty but still involve similar subjective judgements. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The accuracy of any such estimates is a function of the quantity and quality of available data, and of the assumptions made and judgments used in engineering and geological interpretation (including estimated future production from the company's projects, the anticipated tonnages and grades that will be mined and the estimated level of recovery that will be realized), which may prove to be unreliable and depend, to a certain extent, upon the analysis of drilling results and statistical inferences that ultimately may prove to be inaccurate. Mineral Resource or Mineral Reserve estimates may have to be re-estimated based on: (i) fluctuations in copper, nickel, zinc, platinum group elements (PGE), gold or other mineral prices; (ii) results of drilling; (iii) metallurgical testing and other studies; (iv) proposed mining operations, including dilution; (v) the evaluation of mine plans subsequent to the date of any estimates and/or changes in mine plans; (vi) the possible failure to receive required permits, approvals and licenses; and (vii) changes in law or regulation.

Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indicators of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed below and under "Risk Factors", as well as unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to contracts with the company to perform as agreed; social or labour unrest; changes in commodity prices; and the failure of exploration programs or studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued exploration, studies, development or operations.

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Subject to applicable securities laws, the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this news release.

The company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the factors set forth in the "Risk Factors" section and elsewhere in the company's MD&A.

Contacts:

Ivanhoe Mines - Investors:

Bill Trenaman

+1.604.331.9834



Ivanhoe Mines - Media

North America:

Bob Williamson

+1.604.512.4856



South Africa:

Jeremy Michaels

+27.82.939.4812






HOUSTON (dpa-AFX) - ConocoPhillips (COP) announced a $3 billion share repurchase program and the initiation of a $5 billion to $8 billion divestiture program, which will focus primarily on North American natural gas.



The company said it will hold an Analyst and Investor Meeting today to outline the company's strategy and discuss several planned actions for accelerating the company's value proposition of a strong balance sheet, growing dividend and disciplined growth.



The company will also provide details on its 2017 operating plan, which further reduces capital expenditures and adjusted operating costs compared with 2016, while delivering modest production growth.



Ryan Lance, chairman and chief executive officer said, 'The acceleration actions we've announced today will allow us to achieve our value proposition priorities at Brent prices of about $50 per barrel. These priorities include a debt target of $20 billion, a 20 to 30 percent payout of operating cash flows to shareholders, and modest production growth to drive margin and cash flow expansion.'



The company's 2017 operating plan includes capital expenditures guidance of $5 billion, a decrease of 4 percent compared with 2016 guidance of $5.2 billion and more than 50 percent lower than 2015 capital expenditures and investments of $10.1 billion. Spending in 2017 will focus primarily on flexible unconventional development programs in the Lower 48, conventional projects in Europe, Asia Pacific and Alaska, and base asset maintenance. Approximately $0.6 billion is included for exploration, which is primarily focused on unconventionals, appraisal of the Barossa discovery, and the closeout of deepwater Gulf of Mexico and Nova Scotia drilling obligations.



Full-year 2017 production is expected to be 1,540 to 1,570 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (MBOED), which results in flat to 2 percent growth compared with expected full-year 2016 production of approximately 1,540 MBOED when adjusted for 2016 expected dispositions. Growth is expected to come primarily from ramp up at APLNG in Australia, Surmont 2 in Canada and Kebabangan in Malaysia, as well as increased activity in the Lower 48 unconventionals, partly offset by normal field decline. The company's production outlook excludes Libya.



The company continues to achieve cost reductions across the business. Guidance for 2017 production and operating expenses is approximately $5.2 billion, which results in adjusted operating cost guidance of $6 billion, a 9 percent improvement compared with 2016 adjusted operating cost guidance.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Medacta International, the privately held family-owned global leader in the design of innovative joint replacement and spine surgery products, announced it will showcase its new MasterLoc Hip System and GMK Sphere Knee at the 26th American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS) Annual Meeting, held November 10-13, 2016 in Dallas, Texas.

"Medacta's commitment to surgical innovation is on display at this year's AAHKS Annual Meeting, including our new MasterLoc cementless tapered wedge implant," said Francesco Siccardi, Executive Vice President of Medacta International. "The launch of MasterLoc brings Medacta into the proximally coated, flat tapered wedge hip market and allows us to provide yet another option for our surgeon partners considering minimally invasive hip replacement."

MasterLoc Hip System 40 Years of Clinical Evolution

The MasterLoc Hip System is the newest addition to the company's cementless implant portfolio. The implant features Medacta's Mectagrip plasma-sprayed titanium coating, designed to enhance initial fixation due to its high coefficient of friction and the potential long-term stability inherent to titanium plasma-sprayed devices.

The MasterLoc cementless tapered wedge implant is the result of 40 years of clinical evolution since initial designs were described in the 1970s. The MasterLoc was designed to be implanted through all minimally invasive, muscle-sparing techniques, including Medacta's Anterior Minimally Invasive Surgery (AMIS) technique. It can also be coupled with any of Medacta's acetabular products, including the recently announced Mpact Double Mobility Acetabular System.

GMK Sphere Knee 20,000 Implants To-Date

Medacta's GMK Sphere is an innovative primary total knee system designed to deliver maximum functional stability along with patient-specific kinematics to improve patient satisfaction. In the past five years, more than 20,000 GMK Sphere Knees have been implanted worldwide.

"The GMK Sphere has become our most popular knee product, capturing over half of Medacta's knee business," continued Siccardi. "The surgeon and patient feedback we've received has been incredibly encouraging and we look forward to even more success ahead."

In addition to the MasterLoc Hip System and GMK Sphere Knee, Medacta will also be showcasing its recently launched GMK Efficiency Single Use Knee Instruments, Mpact Double Mobility Acetabular System and GMK Revision Knee System, along with its entire hip and knee portfolio. Visit Medacta on-site at the AAHKS Annual Meeting or at www.Medacta.com to learn more.

About Medacta

Medacta International is a world leading manufacturer of orthopedic implants, neurosurgical systems, and instrumentation. Medacta's revolutionary approach and responsible innovation have resulted in standard of care breakthroughs in hip replacement with the AMIS system and total knee replacement with MyKnee patient matched technology. Over the last 10 years, Medacta has grown dramatically by taking a holistic approach and placing value on all aspects of the care experience from design to training to sustainability. Medacta is headquartered in Castel San Pietro, Switzerland, and operates in over 30 countries. To learn more about Medacta International, please visit www.medacta.com or follow @Medacta on Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005252/en/

Contacts:

For Medacta International, Inc.

Jill Bongiorni, 516-729-2250

Jill@torchcomllc.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Candente Copper Corp. (TSX: DNT)(LMA: DNT) ("Candente Copper", "Candente", "Company") is pleased to announce that Compania Minera Zahena S.A.C. ("Zahena") has commenced diamond drilling on Candente's Arikepay copper-gold porphyry project, located in southern Peru.

Zahena plans to drill a minimum of 3,000 metres ("m") and possibly 5,000m by the end of 2016. A second drill is currently being mobilized to the project. Drill holes are planned to extend to depths of 600m to 800m. "We are very excited that drilling at Arikepay is underway," commented Joanne Freeze, P.Geo., Candente Copper's CEO. "The drill depths anticipated by Zahena will be at least 300m to 500m deeper than the Company's initial reverse circulation ("RC") drilling program and will provide an excellent deep test of the robust Arikepay porphyry system."

Candente Copper drilled 3,630m in 14 widely spaced RC holes to a maximum machine depth of 300m in 2012. The drilling in 2012 defined a mineralized porphyry system that extends laterally at least 2,200m by 700m to 1,200m and vertically to a depth of at least 300m. Within the mineralized porphyry system is a zone of significant copper, gold and silver mineralization that measures approximately 1,200m by 800m and is open to depth. Approximately two-thirds of the mineralized porphyry system is covered by recent gravel cover deposits.

Zahena has the right to earn up to 100% interest in the Arikepay property from Candente Copper by completing the following terms:

Zahena can earn a 75% interest in Arikepay by making US$5 million ("M") in exploration expenditures and US$4M in payments to Candente within 4 years ("First Option").

Upon completion of the First Option, Zahena can earn an additional 25% interest, by completing a bankable feasibility study and by paying Candente US$10M within 5 years of earning its initial 75% interest ("Second Option"). Completion of the Second Option would result in Zahena earning 100% interest in Arikepay subject to a 2% Net Smelter Return ("NSR") to Candente. A final payment of USD$5M would be made to Candente 60 days from the start of commercial production or within 4 years of completion of the bankable feasibility study, whichever occurs first. Payments for First and Second Option total US$19M.

Zahena would retain the right to purchase 1% of the NSR for an additional USD$5M at any time up to 60 days from the start of commercial production, leaving Candente with a 1% NSR.

USD$50,000 was received by Cobriza Metals, (a subsidiary of the Company) upon signing the Agreement (on November 28, 2013), and a USD$200,000 first anniversary payment was received by the Company in March, 2016. Payments of $750,000, $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 are due on March 13 of 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively .

About Candente Copper

Candente Copper is a mineral exploration company engaged in acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties. The Company is currently focused on its 100% owned Canariaco project, which includes the Feasibility stage Canariaco Norte deposit as well as the Canariaco Sur deposit and Quebrada Verde prospect where additional drilling could increase resources and identify stand-alone new deposits, located within the western Cordillera of the Peruvian Andes in the Department of Lambayeque in Northern Peru.

Joanne C. Freeze, P.Geo., CEO, and Michael Thicke, P.Geo., VP Exploration, are the Qualified Persons as defined by National Instrument 43-101 for the projects discussed above. They have reviewed and approved the contents of this release.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Candente Copper relies upon litigation protection for forward-looking statements.

On behalf of the Board of Candente Copper Corp.,

Joanne C. Freeze, P.Geo., CEO, Director

NR-085

Contacts:

Walter Spagnuolo

Manager, Investor Relations

mobile: +1 (604) 306-8477

local: + 1 (604) 689-1957 ext 3

info@candentecopper.com

www.candentecopper.com




This information is disclosed pursuant to o the 82 section 2 and 83 section 3 of the Minister of Finance Regulation of 19 February 2009 on current and periodic information provided by the securities issuers and conditions on which information required under law applicable in a state not being a member state may be recognized as equivalent, and was submitted for publication on 10th November 2016 at 8:00 am CET, in reference to Arctic Paper's Capital Group consolidated report for third quarter 2016 filed with the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Alexandria Minerals Corporation (TSX VENTURE: AZX)(FRANKFURT: A9D)(OTC PINK: ALXDF) ("AZX" or the "Company") is pleased to announce assay results from two holes of its recently completed 11-hole drill program on its Orenada project in Val d'Or, Quebec. The holes intersected multiple high-grade veins with assays up to 9.48 g/t gold over 1.3 meters.

Highlights

-- Multiple veins were intersected in 2 holes spaced 1 kilometer apart, with assays up to 9.48 g/t gold over 1.3 meters, 8.01 g/t gold over 0.9 meters and 7.05 g/t gold over 0.5 meters, -- The veins occur in broad alteration envelopes with grades up to 1.24 g/t gold over 52.9 meters, -- A total of 4,208 meters of drilling was completed at Orenada, with five holes completed at Zone 4 and six holes at Zone 2, -- Zone 4 holes were designed to confirm the vein sets and to add to known mineralization, -- The first-pass Zone 2 drill holes were intended to confirm the presence of high grade veins, -- Assays are pending for the remaining nine holes

These holes are part of the first drill program testing a new geologic model developed after discovering and verifying south-dipping, high-grade veins at Orenada Zone 4. The distribution, continuity and extent of these veins have potential importance for the grade and size of future resource estimations.

The veins were first recognized from underground mapping at Zone 4, and were verified by a two-hole drill program in 2015. Diamond Drill Hole OAX-15-54 from that 2015 program intersected multiple veins, with results such as 17.0 g/t gold over 3.4 meters, including 131 g/t gold over 0.4 meters, and 15.2 g/t gold over 1.6 meters (see Press Release, April 30, 2015).

In the current drill program at Zone 4, drill hole OAX-16-79 also intersected multiple veins, with assays up to 8.01 g/t gold over 0.9 meters and 7.05 g/t gold over 0.5 meters, within two broad mineralized envelopes grading 1.24 g/t gold over 52.9 meters and 1.15 g/t gold over 25.8 meters (see Table 1 below). An in-fill hole, OAX-16-79 was designed to aid the correlation of veins with veins in previous holes to help create a more robust geologic model.

Assays are pending for four other drill holes at Zone 4, which are step-out holes, designed to discover new gold mineralization outside the current gold mineralization boundaries.

Zone 2 is located 600 meters east of Zone 4 along the Cadillac Break Shear Zone. The six drill holes drilled there are the first oriented drill holes to be completed, and were designed to identify high grade veins in order to aid in the preparation of a new geologic model for Zone 2. Drill hole OAX-16-74 intersected multiple veins, with assays up to 9.48 g/t gold over 1.3 meters and 5.14 g/t gold over 3.5 meters (See Table 2 below). These veins occur within two broader envelopes grading 1.14 g/t gold over 13.3 meters and 2.88 g/t gold over 10.8 meters. Assays are pending for the remaining holes.

Gold mineralization at Orenada Zone 4 and Zone 2 is hosted within the Cadillac Break Shear Zone, a 300-kilometer-long fault zone in northern Quebec and Ontario, Canada, which is the location of numerous gold mines with a prolific production of some 100,000,000 ounces of gold. Alexandria's Val d'Or property which straddles the Cadillac Break, is 35 kilometers long, representing approximately 10% of the known length of the important gold-bearing fault zone. Currently the Company has focused its exploration activities on the western half of this property package, with particular emphasis on gold targets around a known gold-copper bearing intrusion.

Program design, management, and Quality Control/Quality Assurance are conducted by Alexandria's exploration group of which Phillippe Berthelot, P.Geo, is the Company's Qualified Person. Mr. Berthelot has reviewed the results in this press release. The QA/QC program is consistent with National Instrument ("NI") 43-101 and industry best practices and has been previously addressed in NI 43-101 reports found on the Company's website or on www.sedar.com.

Table 1. Zone 4 Selected Assay Results, Diamond Drill Hole OAX-16-79 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hole # From To Core Au (m) (m) Length (m) (g/t) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- OAX-16-079 158.7 184.5 25.8 1.15 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 170.9 172.0 1.1 2.89 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 176.0 176.8 0.8 3.36 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 176.8 178.3 1.5 2.79 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 178.3 179.5 1.2 5.14 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- OAX-16-079 205.0 257.9 52.9 1.24 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 209.2 210.1 0.9 8.01 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 217.0 217.5 0.5 7.05 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 218.5 219.6 1.1 2.87 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 235.4 236.8 1.4 3.71 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 238.0 239.8 1.8 5.18 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 240.9 241.7 0.8 2.79 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- incl. 242.4 243.3 0.9 3.62 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table 2. Zone 2 Selected Assay Results, Diamond Drill Hole OAX-16-74 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hole # From To Core Au (m) (m) Length (m) (g/t) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- OAX-16-074 38.0 38.5 0.5 3.44 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- OAX-16-074 109.7 123.0 13.3 1.14 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Incl. 109.7 111.5 1.8 4.26 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Incl. 110.6 111.5 1.1 5.97 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- OAX-16-074 202.5 213.3 10.8 2.88 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Incl. 202.5 209.8 7.3 3.84 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Incl. 205.0 208.5 3.5 5.18 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Incl. 207.2 208.5 1.3 9.48 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Further information about the Company is available on the Company's website, www.azx.ca, or our social media sites listed below:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlexandriaMinerals

Twitter: https://twitter.com/azxmineralscorp

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/AlexandriaMinerals

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/alexandriaminerals/

About Alexandria Minerals Corporation

Alexandria Minerals Corporation is a Toronto-based junior gold exploration and development company with strategic properties located in the world-class mining districts of Val d'Or, Quebec, Red Lake, Ontario and Snow Lake-Flin Flon, Manitoba. Alexandria's focus is on its flagship property, the large Cadillac Break Property package in Val d'Or, which hosts important, near-surface, gold resources along the prolific, gold-producing Cadillac Break, all of which have significant growth potential.

WARNING: This News Release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Alexandria Minerals Corporation relies upon litigation protection for forward-looking statements. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Alexandria Minerals Corporation

Mary Vorvis

Vice President, Corporate Development

and Investor Relations

(416) 305-4999



Alexandria Minerals Corporation

Eric Owens

President/CEO

416-363-9372

info@azx.ca

www.azx.ca




TORONTO, ONTARIO and MUNICH, GERMANY -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- TANTALEX Resources Corporation (CSE: TTX)(CSE: TTX.CN)(FRANKFURT: 1T0) ("TANTALEX" or the "Corporation"), is pleased to announce that Mr. Gary Pearse, MSc, P. Eng., will act as the Company's Qualified Person and senior technical advisor to the President and CEO on the Tantalex lithium/tantalum project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Mr. Pearse has more than 40 years of technical experience in rare earths and lithium projects and has advised on exploration and development programs of multiple world class lithium pegmatite and lithium salts projects, including all the major hard rock projects in Canada.

Gary Pearse is one of the world's notable experts in lithium rare earths and other high tech minerals. He will work closely with the Corporation's V-P Operations Mr. Eric Allard. Mr. Pearse is an engineer, economic geologist, metallurgist and mineral economist with over 40 years' experience including geological survey work in Canada and Nigeria and exploration and development in North America and Africa. For much of his career he has worked as a rare metals and industrial minerals consultant, in project management, feasibility, and development. He is especially recognized for his thorough knowledge of rare metal pegmatites and alkaline hosts and for his knowledge of the chemistry and metallurgy of rare-earth and high-tech metals. This work led to novel mineral concentration and hydrometallurgical processes for producing high purity lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate. Mr. Pearse has published more than 100 technical papers on a broad range of mineral industry topics and has delivered numerous oral presentations at international conferences and symposia. Some of his work has been selected for inclusion in reference texts on Canadian mineral economics, some reprinted in books and newspaper articles.

Dave Gagnon, Chief Executive Officer of TANTALEX comments, "We are very pleased that Gary will be providing critical technical direction as we begin our exploration program on our lithium/tantalum project. His extensive knowledge and work experience with industrial minerals, especially Lithium, is unmatched in the industry and will prove to be an invaluable asset to our team."

Mr. Pearse adds, "Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to review a number of projects and the TANTALEX project is of great interest to me. I believe that Dave has assembled an excellent land package and is building a team to properly explore and reveal the true potential of this project. I look forward to contributing to this exciting undertaking."

About TANTALEX Resources Corporation

TANTALEX is a mining company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and distribution of Lithium, Tantalum and other high-tech mineral properties in Africa. The Corporation is listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange (symbol: TTX) and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (symbol: 1T0).

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

The information in this news release includes certain information and statements about management's view of future events, expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward looking statements. These statements are based upon assumptions that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Because of these risks and uncertainties and as a result of a variety of factors, the actual results, expectations, achievements or performance may differ materially from those anticipated and indicated by these forward looking statements. Although TANTALEX believes that the expectations reflected in forward looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward looking statements will prove to be correct. Except as required by law, TANTALEX disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward looking statements or otherwise.

The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) has not reviewed this news release and does not accept responsibility for its adequacy or accuracy.

For further information, please contacts Investor relations: ir@tantalex.ca

Or visit us at: WWW.TANTALEX.CA

Contacts:

TANTALEX Resources Corporation

Dave Gagnon

Chief Executive Officer

+16479637476

+37254728653

dg@tantalex.ca



TANTALEX Resources Corporation

Kyle Appleby

Chief Financial Officer

+14164179176

ka@tantalex.ca



TANTALEX Resources Corporation

Christina Lalli

Manager, Investor Relations

+14379924114

cl@tantalex.ca




NEW CANCER CENTRES PLANNED FOR WINDSOR, CAMBRIDGE AND BRIGHTON

On October 21, a consortium consisting of China Resources Group and Macquarie Capital became the new majority shareholders of GenesisCare.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005791/en/

Windsor Diagnostic and Oncology Centre, due to open in October 2017 (Photo: Business Wire)

This is the fourth private equity investor that GenesisCare has had since it was formed. The consortium will work alongside doctors and management to support growth plans in Australia, the UK and Spain. Management and doctors will control the Board and in agreement with the consortium the company will remain Australian based with the same Executive Management Team and with the same strategy of providing high quality care for patients.

Importantly, the new investor has endorsed plans to invest in the UK and in Europe. Following the acquisition of Cancer Partners UK in 2015, and the recent acquisitions of IMOncology and the Oncosur Group in Spain earlier this year, GenesisCare now operates ten oncology treatment centres in the UK, 17 oncology treatment centres in Spain and 27 centres in Australia. Across these 54 centres, the GenesisCare network is the largest private oncology provider in Australia, Spain and the UK providing care to almost 30,000 cancer patients each year.

To support this growth, earlier this year GenesisCare announced the formation of a multi-year strategic partnership Elekta, the Swedish medical equipment manufacturer. The partnership, initially over eight years, will include an investment of AUD$132 million (USD$100 million) in a suite of solutions across the Elekta portfolio such as Leksell Gamma Knife Icon radiosurgery systems, Versa HD linear accelerators, brachytherapy systems, Mosaiq software.

Dan Collins, Managing Director, GenesisCare said:

"By investing in the latest technology we are providing our patients with access to more efficient and effective care. This will enable our physicians and staff to offer a smoother patient experience and improve patient outcomes. The suite of advanced technology solutions, global influence and commitment to innovation offered by Elekta will support us as we expand globally."

John Allen, Executive Manager-International, GenesisCare explained:

"GenesisCare is delighted that our new investors are fully aligned with our ambitious plans for expansion across the UK and have committed the required investment to support our strategy to open new state of the art radiotherapy facilities, thereby ensuring our patients have access to the very latest technologies available."

Paul Gearing, Director of Business Development, GenesisCare UK said:

"We are excited to have our new owner's full support. Now our focus turns to the delivery of our growth strategy which starts today, by announcing our commitment to accelerate plans to begin building new facilities in Windsor, Brighton and Cambridge in early 2017."

Opening in October 2017, the Windsor Diagnostic and Oncology Centre will offer communities across Berkshire, West London and further afield, access to the latest diagnostic and radiotherapy techniques utilising market leading equipment to deliver a range of world-class oncology treatments. Importantly for patients, the centre will provide onsite access to holistic care services such as acupuncture, aromatherapy, counselling, and exercise programs.

Dan Collins, Managing Director, GenesisCare said:

"Our goal is to improve access for patients in Windsor to essential cancer care and ensure they get the best possible treatment outcomes. The range of services available at the centre will ensure that patients and their families receive an integrated pathway before, during and after treatment. Across our organisation, we work closely with our consultants and value their clinical expertise; our close alignment ensures that patients receive the best clinical care in a first class environment."

Dr Vincent Khoo, Chief Medical Officer of GenesisCare UK and Clinical Oncologist from The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust added:

"I am very pleased that GenesisCare is committing to build its next three centres. I see many patients who have to travel into London to access the latest technologies and this is no longer necessary as result of the Windsor development and GenesisCare's provision of the latest radiotherapy techniques.

The Windsor centre is planned to open to patients in October 2017. In partnership with Elekta, a Versa HD Linac will be installed initially delivering stereotactic services. GenesisCare has provisioned space for the inclusion of an MR Linac when commercially available. Patients will also benefit at opening from access to diagnostic services such as 4 dimensional CT, MRI as well as PETCT services which will be introduced at a later date.

Francois Pointurier, Elekta's Senior Vice President for Region EMEA, said:

"We are proud to continue to partner with GenesisCare as they expand across Europe. GenesisCare will receive the most advanced and recognised cancer treatment solutions on the market. We look forward to providing these platforms to support GenesisCare's vision to provide accurate, efficient and the highest level quality treatment".

Paul Gearing, Director of Business Development, GenesisCare UK, said:

"We have had great success in launching our services across our UK network to date and most recently in Maidstone and Chelmsford. Both continue to exceed all expectations and most importantly attract wonderful patient feedback; we are focussed on continuing this success in Windsor, Brighton and Cambridge".

GenesisCare in the UK provides treatments to hundreds of private patients as well as undertaking overflow support for three National Health Service (NHS) Trust hospitals by delivering treatment to patients on their behalf.

We are committed to continue to work with our NHS colleagues to ensure patients are offered local, fast access to our advanced treatment techniques and technology, especially at a time when the NHS is under severe and sustained financial pressure, now more than ever that support is needed.

Further announcements regarding GenesisCare's new facilities in Brighton and Cambridge are expected in the coming weeks.

-ENDS-

About GenesisCare

GenesisCare provides high quality specialist care to patients with cancer and cardiovascular disease, the two largest disease burdens globally.

The organisation exists to improve quality and access for patients and communities in need. The group is the largest provider of radiotherapy across Australia, operating 27 cancer centres in major metropolitan and also regional settings (including in tertiary teaching public hospitals). 80 locations provide cardiology or sleep services. GenesisCare employs over 1700 highly trained health professionals and support staff including more than 150 physicians and leads, or participates, in approximately 100 clinical trials.

Cancer care is provided for all tumour groups with the latest techniques including intensity modulated radiotherapy, volumetric arc therapy, stereotactic radiotherapy and radiosurgery, low dose rate and high dose rate brachytherapy.

The GenesisCare medical team is comprised of some of the world's most experienced specialists with many dedicating time as consultants in public hospitals or participating in research and teaching. GenesisCare adopts internationally proven medical technologies integrated with electronic healthcare records to improve patient clinical outcomes and their service experience.

In July 2015 GenesisCare acquired the United Kingdom's leading provider of private cancer services, CancerPartners UK. Having recently opened two new cancer treatment centre in Maidstone and Chelmsford, the renamed GenesisCare UK now operates ten clinics, undertaking overflow support for three National Health Service Trust hospitals.

GenesisCare also acquired IMOncology in July 2016 and operates 12 treatment centres in 5 regions including Madrid, Sevilla, Murcia, Alicante and Castilla la Mancha. The well-established healthcare network provides high quality radiotherapy services and medical oncology services for both privately insured patients and on behalf of the Spanish National Health Service.

Website: www.genesiscare.co.uk

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005791/en/

Contacts:

GenesisCare

Beth Rankine

UK Marketing and Communications Manager

Mobile: 07809 603 751

Email: beth.rankine@genesiscare.co.uk
Shell International Finance B.V. and Royal Dutch Shell plc

10 November 2016

Publication of Prospectus Supplement

The following documents (the "Documents") are available for viewing:

Prospectus Supplement dated 7 November 2016

Royal Dutch Shell plc unaudited consolidated interim financial statements for the nine month period ended 30 September 2016

The Documents must be read in conjunction with the Information Memorandum dated 9 August 2016, as supplemented by the first supplement dated 24 August 2016, relating to the Programme. The Information Memorandum constitutes a base prospectus for the purposes of Article 5.4 of Directive 2003/71/EC as amended. Full information on Shell International Finance B.V. and Royal Dutch Shell plc is only available on the basis of the Information Memorandum.

The Documents are available for viewing at the 'Financial Reporting' section of Shell's website. To view the Documents, please paste the following URLs into the address bar of your browser.

Royal Dutch Shell plc unaudited consolidated interim financial statements for the nine month period ended 30 September 2016

http://www.shell.com/investors/financial-reporting/quarterly-results/2016/q3-2016

Prospectus Supplement dated 7 November 2016

http://www.shell.com/investors/financial-reporting/euro-medium-term-note-programme.html Other content available on Shell's website and the content of any other website accessible from hyperlinks on Shell's website is not incorporated into, and does not forms part of, this announcement.

The Documents have also been submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/nsm.

Enquiries:

Shell Media Relations

International, UK, European Press: +44 (0)207 934 5550

Shell Investor Relations

Europe: + 31 (0)70 377 3996

DISCLAIMER - INTENDED ADDRESSEES

Please note that the information contained in the Information Memorandum may be addressed to and/or targeted at persons who are residents of particular countries (specified in the Information Memorandum) only and is not intended for use and should not be relied upon by any person outside these countries and/or to whom the offer contained in the Information Memorandum is not addressed. Prior to relying on the information contained in the Information Memorandum, you must ascertain from the Information Memorandum whether or not you are part of the intended addressees of the information contained therein.

This publication does not constitute an offering of the securities described in the Information Memorandum for sale in the United States. This is not for distribution in the United States. The securities have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act") or under any relevant securities laws of any state of the United States and are subject to U.S. tax law requirements. Subject to certain exceptions, the securities may not be offered or sold within the United States or to or for the account or benefit of U.S. persons, as such terms are defined in Regulation S under the Securities Act. There will be no public offering of the securities in the United States.

Your right to access this service is conditional upon complying with the above requirement.
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Labor Department releases U.S. weekly jobless claims for the week ended November 5 at 8:30 am ET Thursday. Ahead of the data, the greenback showed mixed trading against its major rivals. While the greenback rose against the euro and the Japanese yen, it held steady against the pound and the franc. As of 8:25 am ET, the greenback was worth 106.77 against the yen, 1.2432 against the pound, 0.9875 against the franc and 1.0895 against the euro. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Veresen Inc. ("Veresen") (TSX: VSN) announced today that it has closed its previously announced offering of $350 million senior unsecured medium term notes, Series 5 (the "Notes"). The Notes have a fixed coupon rate of 3.43% per annum, payable semi-annually, and will mature on November 10, 2021.

Veresen intends to use the net proceeds from the sale of the Notes to reduce outstanding indebtedness under its revolving credit facility and for general corporate purposes. The company expects to repay all of the outstanding $300 million 3.95% senior unsecured medium term notes, Series 2, due March 14, 2017 upon maturity using its revolving credit facility.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the Notes in any jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The Notes have not been approved or disapproved by any regulatory authority. The Notes have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any securities laws of any state of the United States and may not be offered, sold or delivered in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, United States persons unless an exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act is available.

About Veresen Inc.

Veresen is a publicly-traded dividend paying corporation based in Calgary, Alberta that owns and operates energy infrastructure assets across North America. Veresen is engaged in three principal businesses: a pipeline transportation business comprised of interests in the Alliance Pipeline, the Ruby Pipeline and the Alberta Ethane Gathering System; a midstream business which includes a partnership interest in Veresen Midstream Limited Partnership which owns assets in western Canada, and an ownership interest in Aux Sable which owns a world-class natural gas liquids (NGL) extraction facility near Chicago and other natural gas and NGL processing infrastructure; and a power business comprised of a portfolio of assets in Canada. Veresen is also working to advance Jordan Cove LNG, a six million tonne per annum natural gas liquefaction facility proposed to be constructed in Coos Bay, Oregon, and the associated Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline. In the normal course of business, Veresen regularly evaluates and pursues acquisition and development opportunities.

Veresen's Common Shares, Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Shares, Series A, Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Shares, Series C, and Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Shares, Series E trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols "VSN", "VSN.PR.A", "VSN.PR.C" and "VSN.PR.E", respectively. For further information, please visit www.vereseninc.com.

Forward-Looking Information

Certain information contained herein relating to, but not limited to, Veresen and its businesses, constitutes forward-looking information under applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, which address activities, events or developments that Veresen expects or anticipates may or will occur in the future, are forward-looking information. Forward-looking information typically contains statements with words such as "will", "may", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "potential", "plan", "intend", "target", "project", "forecast" or similar words suggesting future outcomes or outlook. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the anticipated use of the proceeds from the issuance of the Notes and the anticipated repayment of the outstanding $300 million 3.95% senior unsecured medium term notes, Series 2, due March 14, 2017. The forward-looking information included herein involves significant risks, uncertainties and other factors. Additional information on risks, uncertainties and factors that could affect the foregoing forward-looking information and/or Veresen's operations or financial results is included in its filings with the securities commission or similar authority in each of the provinces of Canada, as may be updated from time to time. Readers are also cautioned that such additional information is not exhaustive.

The impact of any one risk, uncertainty or factor on a particular forward-looking statement is not determinable with certainty as these factors are independent and management's future course of action would depend on its assessment of all information at that time. Although Veresen believes that the expectations conveyed by the forward-looking information are reasonable based on information available on the date of preparation, no assurances can be given as to future results, levels of activity and achievements. Undue reliance should not be placed on the information contained herein, as actual results achieved will vary from the information provided herein and the variations may be material. Veresen makes no representation that actual results achieved will be the same in whole or in part as those set out in the forward-looking information. Furthermore, the forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date hereof, and Veresen does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws. Any forward-looking information contained herein is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

Contacts:

Veresen Inc.

Mark Chyc-Cies

Director, Corporate Planning & Investor Relations

(403) 213-3633

investor-relations@vereseninc.com




OAKVILLE, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Saint Jean Carbon Inc. ("Saint Jean" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: SJL), a carbon science company engaged in the exploration of natural graphite properties and related carbon products, is pleased to announce that the Company has a new Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Dr. Zhongwei Chen PhD, MSChE, BS, Canadian Research Chair and Professor in Advanced Materials for Clean Energy Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Waterloo. Dr. Zhongwei Chen will lead the technology planning, engineering and implementation of all of the Company's clean energy storage and energy creation initiatives.

Dr. Zhongwei Chen's research work covers advanced materials and electrodes for PEM fuel cells, lithium ion batteries and zinc-air batteries. His education; PhD, University of California - Riverside, MSChE, East China University of Science and Technology, China, BS, Nanjing University of Technology, China. His honours and awards; Early Researcher Award, Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, Ontario, Canada (2012), NSERC Discovery Accelerator Award (2014), Canada Research Chair in Advanced Materials for Clean Energy (2014), and E.W.R Steacie Memorial Fellowship (2016). Please follow the link to the full website for complete in-depth details. http://chemeng.uwaterloo.ca/zchen/index.html

Dr. Zhongwei Chen, CTO, commented: "I have had the opportunity to work very closely with Saint Jean Carbon over the last year, specifically with their advanced spherical coated graphite for lithium-ion batteries and the very promising results have me hopeful that we, together with my global partners, will build the best and most advanced graphite electrode materials for the growing electric car and mass energy storage industries. We feel it is imperative to make sure that in every step we take towards future supply, we demonstrate our team strengths and constant superior technological advancements."

Paul Ogilvie, CEO, commented: "On behalf of the Board of Directors, Shareholders and Stakeholders, I am honoured that Zhongwei has chosen our Company, over the hundreds of other possible suitors. We feel our working relationship over the last year has proven a very strong bond between our raw material and his engineering excellence. We are in a constant drive to move forward as fast as we can with the very best people, and with this appointment, we have just topped our own expectations."

About Saint Jean Carbon

Saint Jean is a publicly traded carbon science company, with interest in graphite mining claims in the province of Quebec in Canada. For the latest information on Saint Jean's properties and news please refer to the website: http://www.saintjeancarbon.com/

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Saint Jean Carbon Inc.

Paul Ogilvie, CEO and Director

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: This news release contains forward-looking statements, within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, concerning Saint Jean's business and affairs. In certain cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "intends" "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved".

These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, and are naturally subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances that may cause actual results to differ materially. The forward-looking statements in this news release assume, inter alia, that the conditions for completion of the Transaction, including regulatory and shareholder approvals, if necessary, will be met.

Although Saint Jean believes that the expectations represented in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that these expectations will prove to be correct.

Statements of past performance should not be construed as an indication of future performance. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors, including those discussed above, could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Any such forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.

All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information is provided as of the date of this press release, and Saint Jean assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

Contacts:

Saint Jean Carbon Inc.

Information Contact :

(905) 844-1200

info@saintjeancarbon.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Columbus Gold Corp. (TSX: CGT)(OTCQX: CBGDF)("Columbus") is pleased to announce that preparations are underway for an exploration drilling program at its 100% owned Montagne d'Or Gold Deposit in French Guiana. Montagne d'Or hosts Indicated mineral resources of 3.9 million ounces (83.2 million tonnes grading 1.45 g/t gold) and Inferred mineral resources of 1.1 million ounces (22.4 million tonnes grading 1.55 g/t gold) using a cut-off grade of 0.4 g/t gold (refer to News Release dated April 21, 2015)(i).

In anticipation of the completion of a Bankable Feasibility Study on the Montagne d'Or gold deposit in the first quarter of 2017, an exploration focused drilling program is being planned for commencement in January, with the objective of assessing expansion potential.

Drilling equipment is scheduled to be mobilized on site during the month of December in combination with access road and drill pad construction. The program will consist of 41 core holes, for a total 6,750 meters, designed as a first pass investigation of exploration targets on strike of, and in very close proximity of the currently defined mineral resources that form the deposit. Three separate targets will be tested OUTSIDE OF the deposit envelope:

-- the west extension of the Montagne d'Or deposit (holes 03 to 25); -- the Gustave geochemical anomaly 750 meters east of the Montagne d'Or deposit (holes 30 to 38); and -- mesothermal quartz-gold vein systems (holes 39 to 41).

In addition, WITHIN the deposit envelope:

-- two holes (holes 01 & 02) will test the depth extension of the gold mineralization. To date the vertical depth of drilling has averaged only about 250 meters; and -- four drill holes (holes 26 to 29) will assess the east strike extent of a favorable mafic volcanic/felsic volcanoclastic contact.

Please refer to the following map for the locations of the target areas and planned drill holes:

www.columbusgoldcorp.com/i/nr/2016-11-10-map.pdf

Depth extension of the Montagne d'Or deposit

Two deep drill holes (01 and 02), of 740 and 760 meters in length, will test the down-dip extent of the principal UFZ and secondary LFZ mineralized zones on drill sections 2890mE and 3100mE, within the west-central segment of the deposit. This segment displays the best continuity and average grade of the gold mineralized envelopes within the drilled-out area. The UFZ is projected to be intersected at -350 meters of vertical depth from surface (-100m ASL elevation), 100 meters below the intersection of 2.88 g/t gold over 67.0 meters obtained in hole MO-12-72, on drill section 3010mE at 250 meters vertical depth (0m ASL elevation). A cross section is available at the following link:

www.columbusgoldcorp.com/i/nr/2016-11-10-xsection.pdf

West extension of the Montagne d'Or deposit

Magnetic, electromagnetic and radiometric airborne geophysical survey data has traced the prospective volcano-sedimentary sequence hosting the Montagne d'Or gold deposit for up to 5 km to the west. Twenty-three (23) holes on four drill fences, located on sections 2200mE, 2000mE, 1600mE and 1150mE, are planned to test the soil-gold anomaly and rock chip gold values obtained along the western projection of the drill-defined mineral resources. The planned drill fences represent 200-, 200-, 400- and 450-meter step-outs, respectively, for a total strike distance of 1,250 meters from the western limit of the Montagne d'Or mineral resources at 2400mE. Drill hole fences 1600mE and 1150mE are located outside mining concession C02/46 on the "Cigaline" Exclusive Exploration Permits ("PER") granted to Columbus recently in July 2016 (refer to news release dated July 27th, 2016).

Drill hole fences 2200mE and 2000mE (holes 03 to 14) will test the principal UFZ and secondary LFZ zones at 200-meter spacing along strike from drill section 2400mE. The holes will also test the WSW extent of an ENE-trending gold mineralized structure intersected in historical hole MO-97-29 and MO-97-30, which returned intercepts of 10.96 g/t gold over 3.0 meters and 11.58 g/t gold over 4.5 meters, respectively.

Drill hole fence 1600mE (holes 15 to 20) was designed to traverse the entire thickness of the prospective volcano-sedimentary sequence, 800 meters on strike from the Montagne d'Or mineral resources. The area geology is masked by a layer of displaced material (landslide) originating from the upper elevations of the Dekou-Dekou massif to the south. Note that the truncation of the soil-gold anomaly over this area is a result of the landslide cover.

Drill hole fence 1150mE (holes 21 to 25) will the test the soil-gold anomaly and rock chip gold values obtained from sulphide mineralized volcanics exposed in drainages. The ore type is comparable to Montagne d'Or.

Gustave geochemical anomaly

Drill hole fence 30 to 35 will traverse a broad northwesterly-aligned soil-gold anomaly. The geochemical anomaly, located 500 meters to the east of the eastern limit of the Montagne d'Or mineral resources, straddles the boundary between mining concession C02/46 and the "Bernard" Exclusive Exploration Permits ("PER") granted to Columbus in July 2016. Holes 36 to 38, on the same fence as holes 30 to 35, will investigate a cross-cutting WNW-ESE aligned soil-gold anomaly.

The highest values within the Gustave soil-gold anomaly are centered on a quartz vein uncovered at the southwest limit of the trend, referred to as the "Gustave" vein. The Gustave vein, oriented N40 degrees W and dipping 60 degrees to the NE, was tested with two core holes in historical drilling in 1997 (MO-97-47 and -48). An intersection of 31.94 g/t gold over 3.5 meters was returned in hole MO-97-48 within the immediate wall of the vein.

Mesothermal quartz-gold vein systems

Drill holes 39, 40 and 41 will investigate soil-gold anomalies obtained on prominent linear N-S, NNE- and NNW-aligned topographic highs, where quartz vein debris is exposed along the flanks. The ridges are interpreted to be cored by resistant quartz veins. Within Columbus' claim block, these structural orientations are known to host quartz-gold veins and stockworks, such as at the Elysee prospect, located 10 km to the west-northwest of the Montagne d'Or deposit.

A Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA")(ii) for the Montagne d'Or deposit was completed by SRK Consulting (U.S.) Inc. in July 2015 (refer to News Releases dated July 8, 2015 and August 4, 2015). The PEA estimates approximately 273,000 ounces of gold produced per year in the first 10 years of production at an All-In Sustaining Capital Cost per ounce of US$711, and a mined head-grade of 2.0 g/t gold. A Bankable Feasibility Study ("BFS") and Environmental and Social Impact Assessment ("ESIA") is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2017. The studies are being funded by Nord Gold S.E. (LSE: NORD LI) pursuant to which they can earn a 50.01% interest (for a total of 55.01%) in Montagne d'Or.

Rock Lefrancois, Chief Operating Officer for Columbus and Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed this news release and is responsible for the technical information reported herein.

(i) Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

(ii) The PEA is preliminary in nature; it includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. The PEA estimates economic results using a US$1,200/oz gold price, and an NPV 8%. Initial Capital Cost are estimated at US$366 million for a 13-year mine life. For the first 11 years, the annual recovered gold production is approximately 265,000 oz/year. The NPV 8% changes by approximately US$1.1 million per dollar change in gold price; and makes taxation assumptions on the French tax code.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD,

Robert F. Giustra, Chairman & CEO

This release contains forward-looking information and statements, as defined by law including without limitation Canadian securities laws and the "safe harbor" provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("forward-looking statements"), respecting Columbus: the expected exploration potential provided by the new exploration permits; the extent of and anticipated timeline to commence a first phase exploration program under the new permits; the estimation of mineral resources; the realization of mineral resource estimates; the realization of the expected economics of the Montagne d'Or deposit; and general exploration plans. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including: the actual results of current and future exploration activities; changes in project parameters and/or economic assessments as plans continue to be refined; future prices of metals; possible variations of mineral grade or rates of recovery; ability to acquire necessary permits and other authorizations; environmental compliance; cost increases; availability of qualified workers and drill equipment; competition for mining properties; risks associated with exploration projects including, without limitation, the accuracy of interpretations; mineral reserve and resource estimates (including the risk of assumption and methodology errors and ability to complete a new resource estimate by the proposed target date or at all); the ability to meet proposed schedules for the completion of metallurgical tests; the ability to complete the feasibility study by the stated deadline or at all; dependence on third parties for services; non-performance by contractual counterparties; title risks; risks associated with Nord Gold S.E. electing not to exercise its option and make the related option payments; and general business and economic conditions. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions that may prove to be incorrect, including without limitation assumptions about the following: that the proposed drilling program will be completed in full and to plan; the assumptions contained in Columbus' Preliminary Economic Assessment are accurate and complete; that the mineral resource update is positive; that the results of the Feasibility Study will be positive; general business and economic conditions; the timing and receipt of required approvals and permits; the availability of financing; power prices; the ability to procure equipment and supplies including, without limitation, drill rigs; and ongoing relations with employees, partners, optionees and joint venturers. The foregoing list is not exhaustive and Columbus undertakes no obligation to update any of the foregoing except as required by law.

Contacts:

Investor Relations

(604) 634-0970

1-888-818-1364

info@columbusgold.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA and QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- B-TEMIA Inc., a leader in the human augmentation market with its proprietary dermoskeletal technology, and HealthLinc Medical Equipment Ltd. (dba HME Mobility & Accessibility), one of British Columbia's largest home medical equipment providers, today announce that they executed an agreement whereby HME Mobility & Accessibility will be the distributor of the Keeogo powered walking assistance device in British Columbia.

"B-TEMIA is proud to partner with HME Mobility & Accessibility which has a long history of servicing home users for their mobility and accessibility needs. With HME, we will now be able to make available our acquisition process of the Keoogo to potential customers who have been asking for a point of sale in B.C.," stated Stephane Bedard, Founder and CEO of B-TEMIA. "Moreover, this partnership represents a key milestone in our strategic expansion in the Canadian market."

"On behalf of management and staff at HME Mobility and Accessibility, it gives me great pride to announce our ground-breaking partnership agreement with B-TEMIA as we introduce Keeogo to British Columbia," said Cameron Fleming, one of HME's two principals. "The founders and developers at B-TEMIA are justly proud of their wonderful technology and outstanding products, and similarly we at HME are extremely pleased to be able to offer Keeogo to our many clients, both new and long-standing."

About Keeogo

Keeogo is a powered walking assistance device developed by B-TEMIA. It has been used by individuals with degenerative medical conditions such as knee/hip osteoarthritis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, stroke, incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI) and other conditions that limit mobility. Used as rehabilitation equipment or as a daily commodity for walking, Keeogo is commercially available for purchase or rental in Canada. It is currently under investigation in a multicenter pivotal clinical trial aiming for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance, a prerequisite to enter the US market.

About B-TEMIA

Founded in 2010, B-TEMIA Inc. is a medical device manufacturer that develops and markets cutting-edge products for the growing market of human augmentation systems. B-TEMIA operates through two wholly-owned subsidiaries, B-TEMIA Inc. and B-TEMIA USA Inc., in the medical, industrial and military fields. B-TEMIA owns a patented technology called Dermoskeleton that restores, maintains or enhances the mobility of users.

About HME Mobility & Accessibility

HME Mobility & Accessibility began as a local medical equipment rental company and during the past 20 years has grown to become one of the largest independent dealers of Mobility and Home Medical Equipment in British Columbia. With over 40 staff and 20 years in business HME is fully active in products that promote independence through mobility and accessibility.

Contacts:

Source:

B-TEMIA Inc.

(418) 653-1010

info@b-temia.com

www.b-temia.com

www.keeogo.com



Media:

Jean-Pierre Trudel

Jean-Pierre Trudel and Associates

(514) 347-6111

jp.trudel@videotron.ca



HME Mobility & Accessibility

(604) 821-0075

info@hmebc.com

www.hmebc.com

www.hmeinnovation.com



British Columbia Media:

Kristy Fredericks

(778) 877-4569

kristy@hmebc.com




Opens new office in Sweden and increases headcount by 51% year over year

Rimini Street, Inc., the leading global provider of independent enterprise software support services for SAP SE's (NYSE:SAP) Business Suite, BusinessObjects and HANA Database software and Oracle Corporation's (NYSE:ORCL) Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, E-Business Suite, Oracle Database, Oracle Middleware, Hyperion, Oracle Retail, Oracle Agile PLM and Oracle ATG Web Commerce software, today announced its expanded presence and investment in Europe in response to increasing demand for the Company's premium-level Oracle and SAP enterprise software support. The Company announced that its revenue in the region increased by 67% for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2016. Rimini Street also increased its total signed clients in the region by 41% year over year as of September 30, 2016. To meet this growing client demand, the Company expanded its presence in Europe with a new office in Stockholm, Sweden and doubled its current office space in London, England. Rimini Street also increased its workforce by 51% year over year as of September 30, 2016.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005359/en/

Rimini Street Increases Revenue in Europe by 67% and Expands European Operations (Graphic: Business Wire)

Market Conditions a "Perfect Storm" in the Region

A common denominator throughout the region is the pressure CIOs face to maximize the ROI across their entire IT landscape. At the same time, CIOs are getting the directive from their CEO and the business that they need to invest more in digital transformation initiatives such as mobile, big data, and cloud that will help the business grow and evolve to stay competitive. According to Gartner's annual CIO Agenda Report, of the CIOs surveyed in Germany, 42% expect their IT budgets to remain flat.1 In France, 24% of the CIOs surveyed said that they are faced with a decrease of their IT spending.2 And according to a recent study conducted by Deloitte, 58% of UK CFOs expected Brexit to lower their capital spending for the next three years.3 The challenge of reducing spend on capital investment such as existing IT infrastructure, while at the same time searching for ways to liberate funds that can be redirected into strategic growth initiatives, has accelerated demand for Rimini Street's award-winning enterprise software support. Clients immediately save 50% on their annual maintenance fees by making the switch from the vendor to Rimini Street, and can save up to 90% on their total cost of maintenance which frees up precious funds for other key initiatives.

"With Oracle, we were always tiptoeing around any customizations that we added because invariably we were told, 'we can't help you since you've customized that particular part of the application.' This meant we had to employ a self-support approach, which increased our total cost of maintenance beyond even the high annual support fees from the vendor," said Randy Martin, director of Corporate Systems, Atkins. "With Rimini Street, customization support is included as a standard component of their service and support model. In addition, by making the move to Rimini Street support we have been able to redirect resources to more strategic initiatives across the organization."

Rimini Street opened its European headquarters in London in 2012, and recently doubled the size of its office to accommodate growth. The Company opened its office in Stockholm in May 2016. Rimini Street now services more than 168 global organizations with operations in Europe including local brands Albani Group GmbH, Atkins Global PLC, Aurivo Co-operative Society Ltd, Brand Energy and Infrastructure Services, Cape PLC, and Vinci Energies Systemes d'Information.

"We have had significant growth throughout Europe as CIOs continue to recognize the importance of shifting investment from maintenance to digitalization for their companies' future," said Jill Harrison, managing director, Rimini Street Europe. "Our conversations with CIOs are focused on how they can maximize the ROI on their stable, ERP system and at the same time liberate funds and free up resource for more strategic programs that will really make a difference for their business. Independent support from Rimini Street helps these companies break free from the mandatory evolution path the vendors dictate they follow-a path that creates significant burden on their resources and provides little value to their business."

About Rimini Street, Inc.

Rimini Street is the global leader in providing independent enterprise software support services. The company has redefined enterprise support services since 2005 with an innovative, award-winning program that enables Oracle and SAP licensees to save up to 90 percent on total support costs. Clients can remain on their current software release without any required upgrades for a minimum of 15 years. Over 1,600 global, Fortune 500, midmarket, and public sector organizations from a broad range of industries have selected Rimini Street as their trusted, independent support provider. To learn more, please visit http://www.riministreet.com/.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements. The words "believe," "may," "will," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "expect," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and are based on various assumptions. If the risks materialize or our assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. Rimini Street assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information, which speak only as of the date of this press release.

Rimini Street and the Rimini Street logo are trademarks of Rimini Street, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.

1 Gartner, February 2016 CIO Agenda: A Germany and DACH Region Perspective.

2 Gartner, February 2016 CIO Agenda: A France Perspective.

3 Deloitte, The Deloitte CFO Survey, Q2 2016.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005359/en/

Contacts:

Rimini Street, Inc.

Michelle McGlocklin, +1 925-523-8414

mmcglocklin@riministreet.com
NEWPORT BEACH, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- ADVANTIS CORPORATION (OTC PINK: ADVT) CEO, Christopher Swartz applauded the passage of California's recreational marijuana law, Proposition 64, and detailed how Advantis is positioned to benefit once it goes into effect.

"Advantis product lines have just been introduced to a whole new consumer base," Advantis CEO, Christopher Swartz, said, "and we are positioned to take full advantage of it." Swartz highlighted ways that Advantis will be able to grow with the industry. "While we have been expanding our base within the medical marijuana industry, several of our partners will easily add or transition their operations to fit with the new opportunities (the passage of Prop 64) presented. Our packaging already has a firm foothold in the industry -- the first Amstercans are being delivered to Speedweed, California's largest medical marijuana delivery service, this week. We are now selling the Rosin6 press,(www.Rosin6.com) which will revolutionize the extraction process by creating the highest, purest yields." The rosin6 press is a portable, safe rosin extraction machine that is environmentally safe and does not use in chemicals in its manufacturing process.

Part of Proposition 64 requires child resistant packaging to contain lengthy disclosures about the products contained within them. "The entire industry is mandated to change in our direction," Swartz explained, "because we are currently the only company that will be able to provide a child resistant package with enough space on it to print the required disclosures and still have a brand name -- the current packaging used in dispensaries simply does not comply with the new regulations." Swartz added that once Proposition 64 goes into effect, Advantis will be well positioned to expand into the recreational market. "As we have been expanding in the medical marijuana space, it has opened the door to several new partnerships that will make us first in the recreational cannabis space; and we are working with these potential partners to develop or produce several new product lines for the industry." Swartz concluded with the progress he sees in the near future, saying, "Natural Elements already doubled their order of Amstercans and I'm sure Speedweed will be ordering hundreds of thousands more as their members clamor for the quality and freshness that Amstercan ensures and represents. Amstercans will be a household name in the industry by the time the recreational use law goes into effect."

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Forward Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements made by ADVANTIS CORPORATION. All such statements included in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct.Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these statements. The following risk factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, economic conditions, changes in the law or regulations, demand for products of the Company, the effects of competition and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or represented in the forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by the words: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, and similar expressions or which by their nature refer to future events. The Company is not entitled to rely on the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 because it is not registered under either Act.

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For further information, contact:



Media Relations Contact:

Woo Kim

Director Organization:

Advantis Corporation Phone: 949.354.3585

Address: 1048 Irvine Blvd #900 Newport Beach Ca. 92660

E-mail: info@advantiscorp.com




DENVER, CO--(Marketwired - November 10, 2016) - Foothills Exploration, Inc. (OTCQB: FTXP) (the "Company" or "FTXP"), an independent oil and gas exploration company engaged in the acquisition and development of oil and gas properties in the Rockies, and Gulf Coast, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a farm-out agreement with Koch Exploration Company, LLC ("Koch"), a subsidiary of Koch Industries, Inc., in relation to the Ironwood and Paw Paw Prospects located in the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming.

"We're pleased to have reached an agreement with Koch Exploration Company, LLC. This adds to our existing developmental acreage inventory in Wyoming, bringing the total up to over 50,000 acres," commented B.P. Allaire, Chief Executive Officer. "The Company has already completed detailed work on the Paw Paw prospect, including geological analysis, 3-D seismic interpretation and we are now in midst of preparations to commence drilling operations. Key to this agreement will be the ability for the Company to drill our first well before the end of 2016," added Allaire.

The Ironwood and Paw Paw prospects cover about 10,583 acres with total possible recoverable reserves from the two prospects amounting to approximately 7 million barrels of oil. The farm-out agreement provides the Company with access to an immediate drilling prospect, defined by 3-D seismic with short and long-term production potential. The team at FTXP believes that the Paw Paw and Ironwood prospects considerably increase the Company's potential scope of operations in the Rockies.

Ironwood Prospect

The Ironwood Prospect is a 6,115 acre updip field extension play. The adjacent Cotton Creek Field produced approximately 67 million barrels of oil ("MMBO") and 68 billion cubic feet of gas ("BCFG") primarily from the Phosphoria formation. Koch's evaluations and the Company's preliminary analyses both indicate that the play has a potential estimated ultimate recovery ("EUR") of 5MMBO. The Ironwood prospect has both vertical and horizontal development opportunities, with a potential of 9 vertical wells using 80-acre spacing or 12 horizontal wells on 320-acre spacing. The Company anticipates drilling its first well on this prospect during the first half of 2017.

Paw Paw Prospect

The Paw Paw prospect covers 4,467 acres and is a direct analog to the highly productive Enigma Field (EUR 3.788 million barrels of oil, Tensleep Formation) located only two miles away. The Tensleep Formation has a history of prolific production and there are two nearby analogues. The Paw Paw prospect has a potential primary and secondary recovery of up to 2 million barrels of oil. The Company plans to complete drilling a test well on the Paw Paw prospect targeting the Tensleep Formation before the end of 2016

"We think this is an attractive opportunity for the Company to increase its acreage position in the Rockies while applying our internal expertise in interpreting 2-D and 3-D seismic data to develop two prospects with significant long-term revenue potential" said Mr. Allaire. FTXP intends to drill a conventional 4,500 foot well on the Paw Paw prospect to test the Tensleep Formation before December 13, 2016. "As part of the agreement between us," noted Mr. Allaire, "Koch will build the drill site location and conduct temporary operations for the benefit of FTXP to the point of conductor pipe." FTXP will reimburse Koch for all costs that it incurs on the Company's behalf and FTXP will assume well operations once all rights and permits have been transferred. FTXP will earn a 100% working interest on the initial Paw Paw well until payout. After payout Koch will back in for a 25% working interest on the initial well and any subsequent wells drilled on the prospect. For any subsequent wells drilled on the Paw Paw prospect, Koch has agreed to pay its proportionate 25% share of the drilling and completion costs with FTXP paying the remaining share.

In order to earn a 75% working interest in the Ironwood prospect, the Company has agreed to pay 100% of the costs to drill and complete (to the tanks) a test well to the Phosphoria Formation on or before July 1, 2017. Koch agreed to pay its proportionate 25% interest on any additional wells drilled on the Ironwood prospect after the initial test well.

About the Company

FTXP, through its wholly owned subsidiary Foothills Petroleum, Inc., a Nevada corporation ("Foothills"), is an early stage, independent oil and gas exploration and development company engaged in the acquisition and development of oil and gas properties in the Rockies and Gulf Coast. Foothills intends to acquire dislocated and underdeveloped oil and gas assets and seeks to maximize those assets to create shareholder value. Foothills maintains its principal executive office in Denver, Colorado.

Forward Looking Statements

All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this release that address activities, events or developments that we expect, believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on certain assumptions we made based on management's experience, perception of historical trends and technical analyses, current conditions, capital plans, drilling plans, production expectations, our abilities to raise adequate additional capital to support our acquisition, development and drilling activities, anticipated future developments, and other factors believed to be appropriate and reasonable by management. When used in this release, words such as "will," "possible," "potential," "believe," "estimate," "intend," "expect," "may," "should," "anticipate," "could," "plan," "predict," "project," "profile," "model," "strategy," "future" or their negatives or the statements that include these words or other words that convey the uncertainty of future events or outcomes, are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain such identifying words. In particular, statements, express or implied, concerning our future operating results and returns or our ability to acquire or develop proven or probable reserves, our ability to replace or increase reserves, increase production, or generate income or cash flows are forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance. Such statements are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. While forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and analyses made by us that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, whether actual results and developments will meet our expectations and predictions depend on a number of risks and uncertainties which could cause our actual results, performance, and financial condition to differ materially from our expectations. As a result no assurance can be given that these assumptions are accurate or that any of these expectations will be achieved (in full or at all) or will prove to have been correct. We are currently a pre-revenue company and our securities are subject to considerable risk. Investors are cautioned to review FTXP's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of risk and other factors that affect our business. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this news release speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future development or otherwise, except as may be required by law.
CHICAGO, LONDON and PUNE, India, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

ALCOR M&A, a global leader in Cross-border Mergers and Acquisition leader, working in close tandem with the India Prime Minister, Modi - Make in India Campaign, along with the British Government led by PM Teresa May, post BREXIT, structured a M&A deal between the 3500 crore Badve Engineering in India and PVI from UK who is a world leader in resistive ink technology. Interestingly this is one of the first deals post BREXIT between UK and India. The deal will help the 20 million two-wheelers, the 1 million three-wheelers and the 4 million four wheelers in India move onto to the better 'wireless and ink based accelerator technology' which is not only safe but also cost effective. The Joint Venture company will design and manufacture automotive controls sensors, printed circuit boards (PCBs) for accelerator pedals and clutch assemblies for automotive applications. The JV company will be the first company in India to supply sensor-controlled electronic ABC assemblies to four-wheelers, as well as two-wheeler market in India and the Asian subcontinent.

Mr. George Molakal, CEO of ALCOR Fund - Chicago congratulated the team and both the companies for using ALCOR investment strategies, relevant market research, the asset management, and the corporate finance advisory to realize the business potential to enter and capitalize on these huge virgin markets of this kind of revolutionary technology.

ALCOR M&A's global cross-cultural Harvard-educated team worked closely with the management of Badve for planning the equity capital management and also PVI to establish the corporate governance system, business strategy, IP Protection and controls, private equity funding and understand the market potential, build the financial model, create the term sheets, debate the JV agreement points and structure the deal within a couple of months. Thomas Mathew, the South Asia Director of ALCOR M&A, said, "British Technology firms have great potential to globalize their products through Joint Ventures and co-investments. ALCOR M&A, the global cross border Mergers and Acquisitions leader, can have these Joint Ventures with equity and debt investments executed within four to six months across the globe. Mr. Thomas also was surprised at the energy of Mr. Shrikant Badve and also the speed of Mr. Leigh Platts who worked closely to execute the deal in speed."

Raghvendra Adukia and Tushar Nayak who closely worked with Mr. Shrikant Badve's and his team of N Joshi, Sunil LG, Mahesh Chengta, Abhijit Kawalgikar, Raghunath Yemul and Lalit Popale praised the Badve team for a speedy response, which makes it easier to enable the JV to success. Mrs Supria Badve also expressed the Corporate Social Responsibility CSR activities for the Joint Venture and staff.

This JV will help PVI investment strategies and business principles with the Global industry experience to enter and expand in the Indian and South Asian market, which is one of the fastest-growing automobile markets in the world. PVI will bring its exclusive design and sensor printing technology to the JV company by keeping its intellectual property related to its proprietary PCB technology in Swindon, England.

Leigh Platts, the Vice President and COO of PVI stated that "the potential of the latest extreme high rel-low cost sensor technology, which will be introduced through the JV for the Indian market is tremendous. Given the scope of the 20 million two-wheelers and being present as a key domestic OEM technology supplier at the genesis of the fast growing automotive and off-highway Industries is priceless."

Prompted by cutting-edge technology, this hi-tech venture will revolutionize the Indian automobile industry by introducing the complete product range of electronic accelerators, brakes, clutch assemblies et al. The corporate finance, the investment strategies are in full execution for the industry and built by ALCOR M&A. The sensor technologies have a potential to change the face of four-wheeler and two-wheeler industries in the short term and heavy vehicle industry in the long term.

ALCOR M&A prides itself to be have enabled one of the first post BREXIT transactions between UK and India which will enable PVI - Badve to be a 'pioneer' in the industry.

Shrikant Badve, Managing Director, Badve Group stated, "I am pleased that Badve Engineering is working actively with the PM Modi's "Make in India initiative" and by bringing this cutting edge technology into India, Badve group is moving from being one of the largest automotive components suppliers to an automotive technology company."

Dr. Sena Yaddehige the Scientist and Chairman of PVI and a host of 52 companies worldwide, with more than 50,000 employees said "I am pleased to enter and support the Indian Automotive market with advanced Technology and we look forward to introducing many more innovations in India. This strategic entry will help PVI to establish itself as the world leader.

Speaking on occasion, Meenakshi Gore and Lumawant Ghodage, Directors of ALCOR Mergers and Acquisitions- said, "ALCOR has seen India as a great destination to invest and to bring in a range of 'cross-border' deals to address the growth areas for Indian companies, through technology, investments, and new businesses. This JV, besides bringing in foreign earnings for India, will generate revenues for the state and increase employment for local population".

About ALCOR M&A :

ALCOR Fund through its portfolio, ALCOR Mergers and Acquisitions Pvt. Ltd. offers a range of Investment services with an investment range of US$10mn to US$500mn along with an array of investment banking services such as Joint Ventures, Acquisitions, and Mergers. ALCOR augmented with an elite Board of Harvard and Oxford alumni; extends its dynamic leadership for M&A advisory, buy-side & sell-side advisory, JV advisory & execution, strategic alliance, management buyouts & leveraged buyouts, Corporate Finance & Restructuring and Business Growth Consultancy. ALCOR Fund has several portfolio companies in emerging markets.

For further information, please contact:

ALCOR Mergers and Acquisitions Pvt. Ltd.

Name: Tom Jones

Tel: +1-800-507-4489

Email:gmolakal@alcorfund.com


Hillary Clinton, the safe pair of hands who was reliable, and shocked when Trump, in debate, said he might not endorse the winner of the election, refused to endorse Trump post election and so violence on US streets is occurring as her supporters run amok. Apparently HRC was willing to accept democracy so long as it agreed with her. Trump is President elect, not President, and so cannot yet drain the swamp. The illiberal and partisan press are manoeuvring to bring down a Trump administration. The Democrats are too weak to be a stumbling block in congress, so it is up to the press to oppose Trump, apparently.



Doing his bit from Melbourne on 3aw, Neil Mitchell interviews former NSW Premier Bob Carr, who got it dead wrong yesterday, again. Carr feeds the opening statements of Mitchell, who claimed he was confused and did not know what Trump stood for. Mitchell fears nuclear war. Mitchell fears a war on Mexicans and Russia and China. Mitchell thinks Trump will disgrace women and abuse the law. Bob Carr assures Mitchell that nuclear war is more likely under Trump and Australia is a larger target because of Pine Gap. Meanwhile, Mitchell wont talk with me on or off air. I can tell Mitchell what Trumps first hundred day plan is. No mention of nuclear war, war on Mexicans, women or blacks, but maybe things have been added recently? Trump wants to cut taxes to promote growth and strengthen the US economy. Trump wants to negotiate internationally from positions of strength. Bob Carr is simply out of his depth on political commentary. We are being told that the lesson of Brexit and the Trump election is that political elites need to listen to the average person. One gets the feeling that Mitchell never listens to the exceptional or gifted, and only really interviews himself or people that are safe for him.



IPA Review (Aug 2016) features a Matthew Lesh article Triggering Censorship. Political correctness censors free thought. It always has. A terrible status of illiberalism is developed and rampant under the left wing internationally. The world is smaller in the twenty first century, but not closer together. Freedom of thought is further away thanks to the unfettered power of political correctness employing tools like Triggering and legislation that prevents discussion and authorities who produce purity statements and persecute innocent people mercilessly. Isaac Newton would have faced charges of witchcraft had his research into alchemy been known. Imagine his groundbreaking research into lenses, into calculus and into modern banking never done for breaking a PC regulation? PC is pernicious, and it is up to good people to stand up and hold open the door of inquiry. It is not disturbing that PC exists at universities. It is heart wrenching it remain unopposed by authorities or individuals of consequence with vision. Clearly HRC (Human Rights Committee) in Australia has a depraved indifference to their responsibility. Malcolm Turnbull stood up today to remind us he is incompetent with his fulsome greeting of President elect Trumps success. If the PM cannot champion free thought, who will?



I don't feel valued by the IPA. But I must note, and maybe gloat a little, I was right about Trump's win. I predicted it months ago. I was right in how it would progress. I was right in how it would be successful. The first GOP triple crown win of both houses of congress and White House since 1928. A Reagan like economic plan. We should be cheering. .. just a note for those grieving .. The world will keep turning.





Here's text from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers:

Frodo: "I can't do this, Sam..."

Sam: "I know... It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here... But we are... It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the ending, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr Frodo, I do understand... I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only the didn't. They kept going, because they were holding onto something...

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr Frodo... And it's worth fighting for.

=== from 2015 ===

Burma, or Myanmar, has had a win for freedom and democracy. An estimated 80% supported the party of Aung San Suu Kyi (not her name, so much as her title). It remains to be seen if the party can redirect the nation towards good things. A military that is connected to the opposition, a public service that is partial to the communists, a judiciary and police that have turned blind eyes to corruption and state sanctioned street killings are obstacles to the new government. The people want better. They want foreign aid and communication. They want to be proud in their history, and connected with the world.



The cold war Obama has initiated, to deal with Syria, Ukraine and North Korea, is now entering sport with accusations that Russia has cheated better than the US. There is no evidence Obama has used performance enhancing drugs. But, swap out questions of birthplace and academic record and instead look at the same answers as with questions about the use of performance enhancing drugs and no court would hesitate to convict.



For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.

From 2014

Live free or die Freedom regardless of race, creed or gender is a cultural asset. An asset the ABC denies with their criticism of Julie Bishop for saying she is a woman, but not a feminist. The totalitarian left prefer their own social order. ABC is out of control, praising ALP Icons without reference to reality, but trashing the virtuous conservatives out of hand.



Libya has a city joining ISIL. It seems that Gillard's intervention there worked as well as her others.



A vote for ALP in Victoria is a vote for a corrupt CFMEU to play a role in that government.

Not sorry to be wrong Bill Shorten got a simple fact wrong three times in three interviews over 72 hours. It is like Rudd's "Michelle Corby" moment. Illustrative that he cannot lead, but still the press will follow him. China does not have a tariff on Iron Ore. The free trade agreement with China is good. Shorten doesn't want to say it.



CIA fact checks Argo. Nineteen things Argo got wrong .. and the reality shows the CIA to be more impressive.



Lambie, the PUP Tasmanian senator is arguing selfishly to hurt Australia. Soldiers get sacrifice. But they want it to be for something worthwhile. Meanwhile Lambie is trying to wreck the joint.

Embrace life Hearing is a sense, and for those without it, a gift that should never be held from their reach. Anthony Watts writes movingly about receiving his gift.

From 2013

The Abbott government has been stunningly effective very quickly. And the media who viciously attacked him have not got good explanations for it. But one can detect heaps of stretch marks on trumped up issues. One such issue involves a convicted terrorist and anti semite who regrets his confession. Another issue is on that of boat people. No one wants people to drown after subjecting themselves to piracy. Boats have stopped for three weeks recently. That is because of Abbott's effective policy reinstating a Pacific Solution Rudd had stopped.



One can understand why so called moderates in the Islamic community have failed to speak out over their communities atrocities committed around the world on everyone, including other Islamic peoples. Speaking out can have one killed by stoning, hanging, crucifixion, disembowelling and result in the slaughter of their families and loved ones. It is gratifying to hear of a doctor asking for those who know of their loved ones involved in local shootings to speak out, because it is better to be in prison than dead. Quite so.

It is heartbreaking to see little weight given a victim impact statement. Killing someone is a serious crime even if life for the killer was hard. It doesn't excuse AGW believers either, even though they have silenced their critics after stealing $trillions from the world economy and thrown the poorest deeper into poverty. Many will have died from deprivation as a result of their actions, and none saved for their belief. A very poor return from their religion.

Historical perspective on this day

=== Publishing News === This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up. === I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January.



Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?



January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost. If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc === Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August , September , October, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4 The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows a free kindle version.

List of available items at Create Space July

June

May

April

March

February

January

December

November

October

September

August

Collected writings The Amazon Author Page for David Ball UK .. http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B01683ZOWG

French .. http://www.amazon.fr/-/e/B01683ZOWG

Japan .. http://www.amazon.co.jp/-/e/B01683ZOWG

German .. http://www.amazon.de/-/e/B01683ZOWG

Tim Blair

The pansification of higher education continues: More and more colleges and universities are allowing students to choose their own gender pronouns, meaning instead of just he and she, the options now include pronouns like ze, which are intended to be gender neutral. Great. So now well have entire campuses sounding like common island midgets . What a binary-busting breakthrough! According to Van Bailey , director of Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Queer student life at Harvard, the kids just love their new pronouns: The students are excited about it. Theyre excited to have the control and the options. Theyre excited that that doesnt have to be a barrier to their classroom experience. You know, because that can be a really kind of chilling experience for a student. Hes talking about the chilling experience of being referred to as he or she. These people arent even fit for lab experiments. (Via Adam I.)

===

Tim Blair

===

Tim Blair

At the UN, a peaceful and democratic nation denounces Australias brutal human rights violations: We still have serious concerns at the continued reports of  violence against refugees and asylum seekers and violation of the human rights of Indigenous peoples in Australia. Thank you, North Korea (Via Puzzled.)

===

Tim Blair

An important press release from our friends at the Climate Council: Earth is careening towards dangerous climate change with new research showing weve crossed the halfway point towards a global temperature rise of 2C. Figures from January to September this year are already 1.02C above the average between 1850 and 1900. If temperatures remain as predicted, 2015 will be the first year to breach this key threshold. Well, lets all go back to living like we did in 1850 then. I look forward to the Climate Councils next message arriving via recyclable mammal rather than coal-fuelled electricity.

===

Tim Blair

Not for the first time, the New York Times thinks its found an awesome conservative contradiction: In a past life he was Frances leading advocate for journalists, fighting to spring them from dictators worldwide, a fearless defender of freedom of the press on four continents and a hero to free-speech advocates. That was then. Now, Robert Menard, the man who founded Reporters Sans Frontieres  Reporters Without Borders  has become a symbol of right-wing extremism in France. No longer a journalists advocate but the mayor of the largest city under far-right control in France, he says there are too many immigrants in his town, too many veils, too many Muslim children and too much culture that is not French. So Menard was a free-speech advocate and he evidently remains a free-speech advocate. The piece continues: Old colleagues at Reporters Sans Frontieres are scratching their heads, stupefied at his apparent transformation. A number of them have denounced him. Oh, boo-hoo. But to Mr. Menard, it is all straightforward. He wants most if not all of the immigrants to go somewhere else. I dont want this city to be majority-Muslim, at all, he said. There is a majority of the Muslim population that is incapable of living within the norms of this country. I love this country, he said, ticking off Frances prowess in literature, art and architecture, even its way of looking at women. I am as attached to them as to my own eyes, he said. As am I. This fellow represents the best qualities of France.

===

Tim Blair

Fifteen years ago journalist Andrew Rule proposed a television documentary on the family of 2015 Melbourne Cup winner Michelle Payne . Even then his pitch was strong. Yet nobody was interested The sort of people now desperate to hitch themselves to the Payne bandwagon could hardly hide their disdain behind corporate weasel words. One said the Paynes story had limiited appeal. Others agreed. The truth is that it was a chance to capture something that could never really be recaptured once those motherless kids all left home and scattered far and wide. Only Neil Kearney of Channel 7 had the instincts 15 years ago to pull together parts of a truly remarkable Australian story that became a world-beater just after 3pm last Tuesday. Kearney knew it deserved more than anyone could do in eight minutes of current affairs television, which put him lengths ahead of the ABC, SBS and the people who ran racing. Limted appeal never stopped decades of global warming propaganda.

===

Tim Blair

Barack Obama was pro oil in 2012: American oil production is the highest that its been in eight years. Thats right, eight years. Not only that, last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years. (Applause) But Obama is against oil in 2015: Today, were continuing to lead by example, because, ultimately, if were going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable, but uninhabitable, in our lifetimes, were going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground, rather than burn them. Watch Obama lead by example over the next three decades, during which hell never fly anywhere to collect huge speaking fees talking about climate change. (Via A.R.M. Jones.)

===

Tim Blair

Back in the day, leftists were in thrall to the authority of peer review. Times have changed Two large publishers of scientific journals, Sage and Springer, have retracted more than 100 papers in the last year because of bogus peer review. The quality of peer review depends on the quality of the peers.

===



Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been confronted by Liberal MPs about plans to raise the GST.

Liberal senator Cory Bernardi raised the issue in the Liberal party room on Tuesday morning to warn the Prime Minister that any increase to the GST must not simply be a revenue grab. He was joined by Liberal backbenchers Angus Taylor and Luke Howarth as well as Nationals senator Matt Canavan, who also voiced concerns at the joint-partyroom meeting

Mr Turnbull has opened a debate about tax reform but has not specified whether he wants to raise the GST, potentially from 10 per cent to as high as 15 per cent. But that has spooked many Liberal backbenchers who are concerned an increase in the GST will not result in corresponding tax cuts. Turnbulls response?

Mr Turnbull, who spoke on the issue for 25 minutes.... But of course. And his strategy is straight from Mr Micawber - waiting for something to turn up:

[He] said his aim was to promote economic growth, which he said would eventually repair the deficit by expanding at a faster rate than government spending. Except, of course, the Reserve Bank says growth is slowing, not increasing.

UPDATE

Terry McCrann warns that Turnbull may need to dash to an early election before the bad economic news gets out:

Theres a very strong argument the Government cant  politically  afford to bring down the Budget before the election.

That would force it to shock voters by revealing its own big deficits and gloomy figures for the economy  forcing either a replay of 2014, not exactly what youd consider the ideal pre-election exercise, or the abandonment of the core promise of deficit elimination.

That instead they would be wise to fight an election on the much better figures we will see in the 2015 Budgets midyear update over the next month or so. That would also obviously ride the new Prime Ministers (honeymoon or otherwise) popularity, in an election before May

The current Budget assumes pretty healthy growth in the economy and relatively strong growth in the local economy and sustained jobs increase  both critical to generating more tax revenue and reducing demands on the spending side.

They in turn are built on the assumption of a pretty healthy world economy  and especially that of China. The Budget estimated world growth of 3.5 per cent this year, rising to 3.75 per cent next year. China would slow, but only from 6.75 to 6.5 per cent.

Last week, the IMF released its latest forecasts. They had world growth of just 3.1 per cent this year, picking up to 3.5 per cent in 2016. China was projected to fall from 6.8 to 6.3 per cent

Then the second thing kicks in. The 2015 Budget  and the coming update  are both built on estimates for 2015-16 and 2016-17 and what are called projections for 2017-18 and 2018-19.

The projections assume the economy pretty much whirrs back to strong growth. Thats the key reason why the (projected) deficit suddenly drops sharply; from $26 billion in 2016-17, to $14 billion in 2017-18 and to just $7 billion in 2018-19  all without any tax increases or spending cuts.

But, a formal Budget next May would have to make actual estimates for that key 2017-18 year, not just factor in upbeat projections. If the gloomy scenario is developing, suddenly the deficit would not be falling; indeed it could even be increasing. I dont think even the new Turnbull-Morrison government could credibly bring down a Budget that, for examples sake, projected $40 billion deficits out to the forecasting horizon. Cory Bernardi is someone to rely on these matters. To see Angus Taylor step up lately, too, is very interesting:Turnbulls response?But of course. And his strategy is straight from Mr Micawber - waiting for something to turn up:Except, of course, the Reserve Bank says growth is slowing, not increasing.UPDATE

===



Its criticism has been reserved for the royal commission  a witch hunt, a political stunt"

It helps that at least 50 per cent of Labors MPs have been union officials. They understand how these things work, theyve seen it and theyre not going to get too pious about it. And so the unions are allowed to rot, contaminating even Labor.

UPDATE

Guilty of poor taste, at least:

Derrick Belan has stridently denied any misuse of union money while he was NSW boss of the National Union of Workers despite admitting he used the branch credit card while on holidays and to pay for a tattoo of his mother and late father and predecessor, Frank. Taking the stand at the trade union royal commission this afternoon amid revelations the union agreed to give Mr Belan a $328,000 termination payment, the former union boss said he used union funds when he ran out of money but asked his book keeper niece, Danielle OBrien to repay the money from his wages.



Mr Belan said he was embarrassed and humiliated by whats come out but stated I am not a thief. Former Treasurer Peter Costello is astonished at Labors silence over yet another union scandal involving the alleged misuse of members money:And so the unions are allowed to rot, contaminating even Labor.UPDATEGuilty of poor taste, at least:

===



DUMPING East West Link could cost Victorian taxpayers $221 million more than the Andrews Government previously admitted.

The potential new costs, buried in financial reports and which have already increased by $26 million this year, are related to a deal done with the consortium contracted to build the ill-fated toll road.

Treasurer Tim Pallas blamed worsening financial situations in China and Greece for the increase in the governments liability.

The revelation means the total amount of taxpayer money wasted on a non-existent road could now rise to $861 million.

That figure includes money spent setting up the deal and on geotechnical work, the settlement with the consortium, and costs to take on a multi-billion loan. Before the election, Premier Daniel Andrews said no compensation would be paid for walking away from the EWL, and that the contracts are not worth the paper theyre written on. An utter disgrace. Taking almost $1 billion of taxpayers money and flushing it down the toilet:

===



In a past life he was Frances leading advocate for journalists, fighting to spring them from dictators worldwide, a fearless defender of freedom of the press on four continents and a hero to free-speech advocates.

That was then. Now, Robert Menard, the man who founded Reporters Sans Frontieres  Reporters Without Borders  has become a symbol of right-wing extremism in France.

No longer a journalists advocate but the mayor of the largest city under far-right control in France, he says there are too many immigrants in his town, too many veils, too many Muslim children and too much culture that is not French Old colleagues at Reporters Sans Frontieres are scratching their heads, stupefied at his apparent transformation. A number of them have denounced him. I really cant seen a happy future for Western civilisation when so many of its alleged custodians see nothing Western worth defending. The New York Times somehow sees a contradiction between defending free speech and resisting a culture that endangers it I really cant seen a happy future for Western civilisation when so many of its alleged custodians see nothing Western worth defending.

===

Jake Bailey, facing death, delivers the school captains graduation address at Christchurch Boys High School:

None of us gets out of life alive  so be gallant, be great, be gracious and be grateful for the opportunities that you have

Forget about longterm dreams  lets be passionately dedicated to the pursuit of short-term goals. Work with passion and pride on what is in front of us. We dont know where we might end up or when it might end up. (Thanks to reader Jessica.) Jake Bailey, facing death, delivers the school captains graduation address at Christchurch Boys High School:(Thanks to reader Jessica.)

===



For instance, here is what the latest disaster porn from a green groups study claims - and note the caveat:

Carbon emissions causing 4 degrees Celsius of warming ... could lock in enough eventual sea level rise to submerge land currently home to 470 to 760 million people globally

The sea levels described could possibly, but with low probability, occur sooner than 200 years from now (Kopp et al. 2014), or be reached as far as 2,000 years in the future (Levermann et al. 2013). So this could take 2000 years to manifest itself, provided the atmosphere suddenly warms by 4 degrees after essentially no warming for 18 years.

But here is

This means major cities such as London, New York, Shangai and Sydney could end up underwater by 2100  if we dont change our ways. How could a journalist write such garbage, both inherently ludicrous and unsupported by the evidence of the very report being quoted?

Funnily enough, even when news.com.au shows a mocked-up picture of this most apocalyptic scenario of Sydney underwater by 2100, we see nothing of the kind. Just a few forecourt umbrellas are submerged:

UPDATE

No, contrary to what

An increasing number of atoll studies are not supporting claims of Pacific island leaders that islands are sinking. Scientific studies published this year show, for example, that land area in Tuvalus capital atoll of Funafuti grew seven percent over the past century despite significant sea level rise. Another study reported that 23 of 27 atoll islands across Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Federated States of Micronesia either increased in area or remained stable over recent decades.

Speaking about Kiribati, Canadian climatologist Simon Donner commented in the Scientific American: Right now it is clear that no one needs to immediately wall in the islands or evacuate all the inhabitants. What the people of Kiribati and other low-lying countries need instead are well-thought-out, customized adaption plans and consistent international aid  not a breathless rush for a quick fix that makes the rest of the world feel good but obliges the island residents to play the part of helpless victim.

These same climate scientists who are conducting ongoing research in Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands acknowledge the documented fact of sea level rise in the Pacific, and the potential threat this poses. But they are making the point, as articulated by Donner, that the politicized public discourse on climate change is less nuanced than the science of reef islands. A recent report carried in Geology, the publication of the Geological Society of America, says Tuvalu has experienced some of the highest rates of sea level rise over the past 60 years. At the same time, no islands have been lost, the majority have enlarged, and there has been a 7.3 percent increase in net island area over the past century. (Thanks to readers The Lone Gunman and Ken.) I doubt journalists even register the warming scares they mindlessly repeat. Never ask themselves whether the scares are remotely credible.For instance, here is what the latest disaster porn from a green groups study claims - and note the caveat:So this could take 2000 years to manifest itself, provided the atmosphere suddenly warms by 4 degrees after essentially no warming for 18 years.But here is how news.com.au, a hotbed of alarmism in the Murdoch media, reported this same survey How could a journalist write such garbage, both inherently ludicrous and unsupported by the evidence of the very report being quoted?Funnily enough, even when news.com.au shows a mocked-up picture of this most apocalyptic scenario of Sydney underwater by 2100, we see nothing of the kind. Just a few forecourt umbrellas are submerged:UPDATENo, contrary to what almost every journalist on the subject claims , global warming is not drowning Pacific islands. From the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (Thanks to readers The Lone Gunman and Ken.)

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How do I feel about some person like that doing the usual encyclical? Its what put me off broadcasting them as I used to.

Now all of the people who are deniers have been on the programs that my colleagues and I put out. We did so because most of us frankly like and enjoy contrarian views. We like a variety of opinion.

But then you find  as I did  that the people you are inviting in to give their contrarian views are always saying the same bloody thing. You can actually mouth the paragraphs. Here it comes again  just as if they were politicians rather than people considering science.... [T]hose deniers  I have not noted saying anything new in bloody years. Here it comes again. Favourite phrases are ... CO2 is a colourless harmless gas ... its good for growing plants ... and on and on it goes. Its shameless. Those favourite phrases are repeated because they are true and remain true.

But the favourite phrases of warming alarmists such as Williams are ludicrous and remain ludicrous, yet still get a run in the ABC and Fairfax.

For instance:

Williams in 2007:

Andrew Bolt: Im telling you, theres a lot of fear out there. So what I do is, when I see an outlandish claim being made...so Tim Flannery suggesting rising seas this next century eight stories high, Professor Mike Archer, dean of engineering at the University of NSW

Robyn Williams: Dean of science.

Andrew Bolt: Dean of science...suggesting rising seas this next century of up to 100 metres, or Al Gore six metres. When I see things like that I know these are false. You mentioned the IPCC report; that suggests, at worst on best scenarios, 59 centimetres.

Robyn Williams: Well, whether you take the surge or whether you take the actual average rise are different things.

Andrew Bolt: I ask you, Robyn, 100 metres in the next century...do you really think that? Robyn Williams: It is possible, yes. The increase of melting that theyve noticed in Greenland and the amount that weve seen from the western part of Antarctica, if those increases of three times the expected rate continue, it will be huge. Sydney Morning Herald in 2015:

Hundreds of millions of people around the world are living in places that could eventually be submerged by rising sea levels triggered by unchecked climate change, new global maps suggest.

An estimated 627 million people live in these places, including about 1.9 million in Australia and many more in the worlds great metropolises such as Tokyo, New York and Shanghai. Except even the Sydney Morning Herald admits that latest scare might not happen until 2000 years from now, and only then if warming shoots up 4 degrees this century, after being essentially stable for the past 18 years:

That analysis - carried out by researchers at Climate Central - found that four degrees of warming could lock-in 8.9 metres of long-term sea level rise in the centuries to follow. But wait: so the worst claim now is a sea level rise of 8.9 metres perhaps 2000 years from now? How does that square with Williams warning of 100 metres in just 93 years?

No wonder he wont interview more sceptics.

(Thanks to reader Mark.) Robyn Williams, the ABCs chief science presenter, says he wont broadcast the views of sceptics of the man-made warming scare Those favourite phrases are repeated because they are true and remain true.But the favourite phrases of warming alarmists such as Williams are ludicrous and remain ludicrous, yet still get a run in the ABC and Fairfax.For instance:Except even the Sydney Morning Herald admits that latest scare might not happen until 2000 years from now, and only then if warming shoots up 4 degrees this century, after being essentially stable for the past 18 years:But wait: so the worst claim now is a sea level rise of 8.9 metres perhaps 2000 years from now? How does that square with Williams warning of 100 metres in just 93 years?No wonder he wont interview more sceptics.(Thanks to reader Mark.)

===



Hope Sarah Hanson-Young is reading and learning.

But in case you think the thread is just one big attack on asylum seekers:

I think theres huge misconceptions on both sides about this issue. The right would have you believe theyre all dole bludging terrorists who are here to have as many babies as they can and muslimatically take over the country. The left would have you believe theyre all innocent little angels who have never hurt a fly and are all escaping the evil sunni/shia warlords who are trying to decapitate them for being gay and drinking whisky. But read on.

(Thanks to reader Buster G.) Fascinating. A man claiming - plausibly - to have been a former detention centre worker on Christmas Island and elsewhere conducts a Q&A session Hope Sarah Hanson-Young is reading and learning.But in case you think the thread is just one big attack on asylum seekers:(Thanks to reader Buster G.)

===



The UN Human Rights Councils official review of Australias human rights policies took place at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on Monday Countries including Brazil, Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Bangladesh - even Rwanda, Iran and North Korea - expressed concern over Australias treatment of refugees. And this:

Countries taking part in the review also noted Australias inadequate treatment of Indigenous people, the high level of violence against women, and the spread of Islamophobia. We have a high level of violence against women compared to whom? In what way is our treatment of Aborigines - as opposed to the outcomes - inadequate? And what is the distinction between Islamophobia and a well-founded concern on the rise of Islamist violence?

So much posturing, but check out some of the judges of our human rights - A farce. A posturing. Here a review of a policy that has saved lives and secured our borders, conducted by a discredited body including a gaggle of dictators and authoritarians:And this:We have a high level of violence against women compared to whom? In what way is our treatment of Aborigines - as opposed to the outcomes - inadequate? And what is the distinction between Islamophobia and a well-founded concern on the rise of Islamist violence?So much posturing, but check out some of the judges of our human rights - countries on the Human Rights Council that will determine if we meet their exacting standards: Algeria, China, Congo, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

===



- countries really do back up their promises with action this time.

- the climate really is as sensitive to mans emissions as alarmists claim. Hardly worth the trillions of dollars, you might think:

Paris is being sold as the summit where we can help heal the planet and save the world. It is no such thing. If all nations keep all their promises, temperatures will be cut by just 0.05C (0.09F). Even if every government on the planet not only keeps every Paris promise, reduces all emissions by 2030, and shifts no emissions to other countries, but also keeps these emission reductions throughout the rest of the century, temperatures will be reduced by just 0.17C (0.3F) by the year 2100.

And lets be clear, that is very optimistic. Consider the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, never ratified by the US, and eventually abandoned by Canada and Russia and Japan. After several renegotiations, the Kyoto Protocol had been weakened to the point that the hot air left from the collapse of the Soviet Union exceeded the entire promised reductions, leaving the treaty essentially toothless.

The only reason Kyoto goals were almost achieved was the global 2008 recession. Moreover, emissions were shifted from one country to another. The EU, the most climate-engaged bloc, saw an increase in its emission imports from China alone equaling its entire domestic CO? reductions. In total, 40% of all emissions were likely shifted away from the areas that made promises.

Negotiators in Paris are trying to tackle global warming in the same way that has failed for 30 years: by making promises that are individually expensive, will have little impact even in a hundred years and that many governments will try to shirk from. Bjorn Lomborg measures the difference the Paris climate talks will make to the worlds climate if:Hardly worth the trillions of dollars, you might think:

===



The latest Newspoll, taken exclusively for The Australian, reveals the government is still making gains eight weeks after Mr Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott as Prime Minister, extending its lead over Labor to 53 per cent to 47 per cent after preferences. Interestingly, the Greens vote hasnt been this low since July last year. Not making decisions, not offending anyone and just letting things drift is proving a winning strategy for Malcolm Turnbull, particularly against an Opposition Leader so unelectable as Bill Shorten:Interestingly, the Greens vote hasnt been this low since July last year.

===



One of the great obscenities of our time is the fact that the law of Australia is about to weigh the welfare of millions against the welfare of a godforsaken bird.

This is the ugly reality behind the latest move by green ideologues to derail Adanis Carmichael coal project in Queensland

Now its the turn of something called the black-throated finch, set to become one of the two key aspects of the latest challenge.

The other, equally ludicrous argument, is that the government should have taken account of the fact that people elsewhere in the world will burn the coal. And, because this would allegedly harm the Great Barrier Reef.. This is not access to justice. Its a sickening display of First World self-indulgence. Blame Labor for letting this happen:

Months ago, ...Attorney-General George Brandis developed a solution that could have stopped the latest challenge  had it been enacted in time.

The Brandis plan would have removed the special treatment for green activists that is part of the main federal environmental law.

Instead of having standing to intervene in any development simply because they are green activists, Brandis wanted them to be treated like everyone else [by limiting legal challenges to those directly affected]. The great tragedy is this reform is stuck in a senate committee Had federal Labor done a deal with the government, this ridiculous argument about some finch would never have happened. Chris Merritt on the latest disgraceful attempt by the Australian Conservation Foundation to block a coal mine that will give Australians jobs and raise taxes for the poor Blame Labor for letting this happen:

===

How depraved can some people be ?

Take a good look at the enemy folks.

This is the new terrorist song celebrating the dead assassin who killed a two month old baby.

The parents had been struggling for years to have a child.

These are the same type of people Bob Carr admires and supports.

These are the same type of people that the ALP are chasing for votes.

Remember a vote for the Australian Labor Party is a vote for sharia law.

Translation:

Run over the two-month-old baby

That is how we get them

For Al-Aqsa we will run over settlers

Run over settlers

Make the road become a trap

God will help you

The whole Arab nation calls you

Bless you Akari Ibrahim

Run over>

===

Larry Pickering ===

TALKING TOUGH IS NOT ENOUGH



Tony Abbott: "... and if any boat ever set out from Australia to Indonesia to enter that country illegally, we would do our damnedest to stop it." Well thats pretty tough talk to a Liberal Party Conference but did the Indonesians hear that expression of gross unfairness?



The Fairfax press this morning is still insisting this boat debacle was a mid-ocean backdown. I t was certainly a backdown but it was not mid-ocean and thats what makes the difference.



We have international maritime obligations on the open sea, but not within Indonesian waters once we have established that a distress call was a sham and we have informed Indonesian authorities.



Although within sight of their shoreline, the Indonesians chose not to respond to the distress call, leaving the onus on Australia to deal with the false mayday.



HMAS Ballarat determined that the boat was not in distress and left the scene, as it should have done.



Upon responding to a further call, HMAS Ballarat found the boats engine had been disabled. [Indonesian search and rescue vessels had still not arrived, nor did they intend to.]



We again informed the Indonesians of the situation and again they refused to act, saying they would not accept the boat being returned to an Indonesian port.



Okay, this is what should have happened:



There is little doubt the people on this boat were the very same people who had been returned to Indonesia on two previous occasions.



We had no right to be in Indonesian waters without reason. It was found that the boats distress call was false and we quite properly departed the scene after again informing the Indonesians of the situation.



Responding to a second call the Australian crew discovered the boats engine had been sabotaged. This was also reported to the Indonesians who continued to ignore the call.



As there were no lives at risk and the boat was seaworthy, our responsibility had ended there as would have an Indonesian patrol boat attending a false distress call from a boat off the Gold Coast.



HMAS Ballarat should then have drained the fuel, leaving sufficient only to return to shore if the engine had miraculously become serviceable, and left. But they didnt leave and the Indonesians knew they wouldnt.



This petty game of brinkmanship has to stop. As The Pickering Post has reported ad nauseam, this is not a regional problem, it is an Indonesian Immigration and Customs problem.



They know who these people are and what their intentions are. Its a problem of bribery within the Indonesian system, including the military.



The Daily Telegraph tried to justify Abbotts capitulation suggesting he needed focus on the Carbon Tax Repeal Bill. Instead Fairfax and the ABC have been handed the opportunity to re-state their case that a naive Abbott cannot turn boats around.



He can, he should and he must! We have no reason to fear Indonesia, no other country will side with them in this matter, but our allies will side with us.



Its time Abbott righted the wrong of this Rudd inspired treachery and Indonesian bastardry.



Thank Christ he is now making noises in that direction... albeit to a Liberal Party Conference.

===















=== David Daniel Ball I imagine it has a particular taste .. ? Jason FoNg It tastes like a photographed Greek beer of the kind drunk by right-wing conservatives in Melbourne David Daniel Ball My wife brews something similar? Jason FoNg Your wife is already the proud sole owner of Carlton United Breweries. Bringing a Beretta to the annual shareholder meeting worked wonders.

NIV Come now, let us settle the matter, says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. Isaiah 1:18 === Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"So walk ye in him."

Colossians 2:6 If we have received Christ himself in our inmost hearts, our new life will manifest its intimate acquaintance with him by a walk of faith in him. Walking implies action. Our religion is not to be confined to our closet; we must carry out into practical effect that which we believe. If a man walks in Christ, then he so acts as Christ would act; for Christ being in him, his hope, his love, his joy, his life, he is the reflex of the image of Jesus; and men say of that man, "He is like his Master; he lives like Jesus Christ." Walking signifies progress. "So walk ye in him"; proceed from grace to grace, run forward until you reach the uttermost degree of knowledge that a man can attain concerning our Beloved. Walking implies continuance. There must be a perpetual abiding in Christ. How many Christians think that in the morning and evening they ought to come into the company of Jesus, and may then give their hearts to the world all the day: but this is poor living; we should always be with him, treading in his steps and doing his will. Walking also implies habit. When we speak of a man's walk and conversation, we mean his habits, the constant tenor of his life. Now, if we sometimes enjoy Christ, and then forget him; sometimes call him ours, and anon lose our hold, that is not a habit; we do not walk in him. We must keep to him, cling to him, never let him go, but live and have our being in him. "As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him"; persevere in the same way in which ye have begun, and, as at the first Christ Jesus was the trust of your faith, the source of your life, the principle of your action, and the joy of your spirit, so let him be the same till life's end; the same when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and enter into the joy and the rest which remain for the people of God. O Holy Spirit, enable us to obey this heavenly precept.

Evening

"His place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure."

Isaiah 33:16

Do you doubt, O Christian, do you doubt as to whether God will fulfil his promise? Shall the munitions of rock be carried by storm? Shall the storehouses of heaven fail? Do you think that your heavenly Father, though he knoweth that you have need of food and raiment, will yet forget you? When not a sparrow falls to the ground without your Father, and the very hairs of your head are all numbered, will you mistrust and doubt him? Perhaps your affliction will continue upon you till you dare to trust your God, and then it shall end. Full many there be who have been tried and sore vexed till at last they have been driven in sheer desperation to exercise faith in God, and the moment of their faith has been the instant of their deliverance; they have seen whether God would keep his promise or not. Oh, I pray you, doubt him no longer! Please not Satan, and vex not yourself by indulging any more those hard thoughts of God. Think it not a light matter to doubt Jehovah. Remember, it is a sin; and not a little sin either, but in the highest degree criminal. The angels never doubted him, nor the devils either: we alone, out of all the beings that God has fashioned, dishonour him by unbelief, and tarnish his honour by mistrust. Shame upon us for this! Our God does not deserve to be so basely suspected; in our past life we have proved him to be true and faithful to his word, and with so many instances of his love and of his kindness as we have received, and are daily receiving, at his hands, it is base and inexcusable that we suffer a doubt to sojourn within our heart. May we henceforth wage constant war against doubts of our God--enemies to our peace and to his honour; and with an unstaggering faith believe that what he has promised he will also perform. "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief." ===

Today's reading: Jeremiah 46-47, Hebrews 6 (NIV) View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Jeremiah 46-47

A Message About Egypt

1 This is the word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations:

2 Concerning Egypt: This is the message against the army of Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt, which was defeated at Carchemish on the Euphrates River by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: 3 Prepare your shields, both large and small,

and march out for battle!

4 Harness the horses,

mount the steeds!

Take your positions

with helmets on!

Polish your spears,

put on your armor!

5 What do I see?

They are terrified,

they are retreating,

their warriors are defeated.

They flee in haste

without looking back,

and there is terror on every side, declares the LORD.

6 The swift cannot flee

nor the strong escape.

In the north by the River Euphrates

they stumble and fall.... ...read the rest on Bible Gateway Today's New Testament reading: Hebrews 6 1 Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3And God permitting, we will do so. 4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.... ...read the rest on Bible Gateway ===

Abdon



[Ab'don] - servile, service or cloud of judgment .

A son of Hillel, the Pirathonite, Abdon judged Israel for eight years, and because of a plurality of wives, had forty sons and thirty nephews, who rode seventy ass colts (Judg. 12:13-15). Perhaps the same as Bedan in 1 Samuel 12:11. A Benjamite in Jerusalem (1 Chron. 8:23). The first-born of Jehiel from Maachah (1 Chron. 8:30; 9:36). A son of Micah sent with others by king Josiah to Huldah the prophetess to enquire of Jehovah regarding the Book of the Law found in the Temple (2 Chron. 34:20). Called Achbor in 2 Kings 22:12. Also the name of a Levitical city in Asher (Josh. 21:30; 1 Chron. 6:74). ===

===Tim Blair===Andrew Bolt===
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Editor's note - There is a photo associated with this release.

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New events, offers and content will be released on Fairmontcocktails.com on an ongoing basis, giving Fairmont guests new ideas to inspire their cocktail journey.

About Fairmont

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts connects guests to the very best of its destinations worldwide, providing travelers with memorable travel experiences, thoughtful and attentive service and luxury hotels that are truly unforgettable. Each Fairmont property reflects the locale's energy, culture and history through locally inspired cuisine, spirited bars and lounges and distinctive design and decor. With more than 70 hotels globally, and many more in development, the Fairmont collection boasts some of the most iconic and distinctive hotels in the world. This extraordinary collection includes The Plaza in New York, The Savoy in London, Fairmont Grand Del Mar, Dubai's Fairmont The Palm, Fairmont Peace Hotel in Shanghai, Fairmont San Francisco and Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City. Fairmont is part of AccorHotels, a world-leading travel & lifestyle group and digital innovator offering unique experiences in more than 4,000 hotels, resorts and residences, as well as in over 2,600 of the finest private homes around the globe. For more information or reservations, please visit fairmont.com. Become a fan of Fairmont. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Fairmont Moments.

To view the photo associated with this release, please click on the following link: http://file.marketwire.com/release/FAIRMONT%20STORE-227.jpg

Contacts:

Mike Taylor

(416) 874 2457

mike.taylor@accor.com




Major Companies like CSOB and Skoda Have Expressed Interest in Pursuing or Expanding Business in Iran

Ahead of an official visit on November 11 by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and an accompanying business delegation, global advocacy organization United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) issued a warning to Czech companies interested in pursuing business deals with Iran.

"As Iranian delegations continue their attempts to draw in new business around the world, Eastern European companies must remain vigilant and attuned to the commercial risks that so blatantly continue to plague Iran," said former Foreign Minister of Poland and UANI Advisory Board member Radoslaw Sikorski. "No potential business is worth the consequences of working with a brutal regime that refuses to change and continues to sponsor terrorism, engage in illicit financial activity, and commit egregious human rights abuses."

UANI is currently spearheading a worldwide campaign, alerting businesses across six continents and a multitude of economic sectors of the many severe risks they face in any business relationship with Tehran. Two Czech companies have been identified as part of this campaign: Ceskoslovenska Obchodni Banka (CSOB) and Volkswagen-owned Skoda Auto. UANI has corresponded with both companies, sending letters to the CEOs and Board chairmen outlining the components of its Iran Business Risk Matrix. CSOB has announced that its portfolio with Iranian banks is "gradually expanding," while Skoda is "linking up with local partners" in Iran to increase exports of its automobiles. The financial and automotive sectors are two of the riskiest industries identified in UANI's global campaign.

Some of the risks outlined in the letters include:

Inadvertently supporting state-sponsored terrorism: In a recent report, the U.S. State Department found Iran to be the leading state-sponsor of terror worldwide. By engaging in business activities in or with Iran, foreign companies face the risk of blood on their hands with funds, technology, or equipment often being misappropriated to support a range of terrorist activities around the world.

Banking money laundering risk: Iranian financial institutions remain locked out of the U.S. financial system, and therefore cut off from much of the global financial system. Harsh penalties remain for those institutions that directly or indirectly facilitate prohibited transactions.

Supporting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) front companies: Doing business in Iran means dealing with businesses that are covertly managed or owned by the IRGC, a terrorist organization which is sanctioned by the United States and international community. The IRGC largely dominate and profit from the automobile and banking industries in Iran.

In addition to CSOB and Skoda, UANI has written to the following Czech companies: Ceska Sporitelna, Mavel, Inekon Group, UNIS, Tatra Trucks, AZD Praha, and SOR Libchavy.

Media interested in speaking with former Minister Sikorski, or to request copies of the letters sent to Czech companies, please contact: press@uani.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005921/en/

Contacts:

UANI

Steven Cohen, 212-922-0063

press@uani.com
LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Prudential plc (PRU.L), the UK-based financial services group, said that it has reached an agreement to sell 100% of its life insurance subsidiary in Korea, PCA Life Insurance Co., Ltd. or 'PCA Life Korea', to Mirae Asset Life Insurance Co., Ltd. for KRW 170 billion or equivalent to 119 million pounds. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval. Prudential said it remains committed to the Korean market through Eastspring Investments, its Asian asset management business. Prudential noted that it is well positioned in Asia, with top three positions in eight out of 12 life markets, and through Eastspring Investments, one of the region's largest asset managers. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- BMO Capital Markets, the investment and corporate banking arm of BMO Financial Group (TSX: BMO)(NYSE: BMO), has launched Canada's first principal protected notes linked to an environmental, social and governance-themed index.

The BMO Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) index is a proprietary, quantitative and socially screened index that seeks to provide exposure to select components of the Jantzi Social Index (JSI), a stock index of Canadian companies that comply with a set of broad ESG screening criteria.

"The new product offers our clients a socially responsible investment while providing protection of their principal at maturity," said Jerome Cloutier, Managing Director, Global Structured Products, of the two series of notes launched on Oct. 31.

A proprietary, quantitative rules-based screen is used to select the BMO ESG Index components from the JSI. At maturity, investors in BMO Environmental, Social & Governance Index Linked Principal Protected Deposit Notes will receive the amount of their original deposit plus a variable amount that reflects the price return on the equities in the BMO ESG Index over the term of the note.

About BMO Capital Markets

BMO Capital Markets is a leading, full-service North American financial services provider. With more than 2,200 employees operating in 30 locations, including 16 in North America, BMO Capital Markets offers corporate, institutional and government clients access to a complete range of investment and corporate banking products and services. BMO Capital Markets is a member of BMO Financial Group (NYSE: BMO)(TSX: BMO), one of the largest diversified financial services providers in North America, with total assets of CDN $692 billion as of July 31, 2016, and over 45,000 employees.

Contacts:

Media Contacts:

Pav Jordan, Toronto

(416) 867-3996

pav.jordan@bmo.com



Internet: www.bmo.com

Twitter: @BMOMedia




KEENE, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Department of Canadian Heritage

The Honourable Maryam Monsef, Minister of Democratic Institutions and Member of Parliament (Peterborough-Kawartha), on behalf of the Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, today announced $970,000 in funding for the construction of a new agricultural heritage building at Lang Pioneer Village Museum.

The funding was provided to the Corporation of the County of Peterborough through the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund. It will support the construction of a new facility that will focus on local agricultural heritage and allow visitors to experience enhanced programming in a modern, fully accessible cultural space.

Quotes

"The Government of Canada is committed to investing in cultural infrastructure, because we understand how essential these facilities are for our country's heritage organizations. Support for cultural spaces allows organizations like the Lang Pioneer Village Museum to unite Canadians by preserving and celebrating our heritage."

-The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage

"Providing Canadians with access to arts and culture is a priority for our government, and I am proud that we are supporting the construction of the new facility at the Lang Pioneer Village Museum. I know how important this project is to the people of the County of Peterborough. It will give residents and visitors improved access to our rich local history. I look forward to visiting the space once construction is complete."

-The Honourable Maryam Monsef, Minister of Democratic Institutions and Member of Parliament (Peterborough-Kawartha)

"We have a strong, proud and innovative agricultural community. This new facility will offer a venue to educate and show the many visitors to our living history museum the economic impact agriculture played 150 years ago and continues to do the same today within our region. We would like to thank the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund, the federal government and our Member of Parliament, the Honourable Maryam Monsef, who shares our vision and believes in the importance of celebrating our historical culture. Thank you for your support and investing into our project with this funding. We are now able to 'Raise the Barn.'"

-J. Murray Jones, Warden, County of Peterborough

"This is an important community project. There are many great agricultural stories to be told in our history, and I am proud to be part of this historic build that will be the newest addition to Lang Pioneer Village Museum. We look forward to bringing this project to life."

- Jim Glenn, Chair of the Peterborough County Agricultural Heritage Building Committee

Quick Facts

-- Lang Pioneer Village Museum, owned and operated by the Corporation of the County of Peterborough, is an outdoor "living museum" near Keene, Ontario, featuring over 25 restored and recreated buildings typical of a small 19th-century village. It opened to the public in August 1967 to preserve the rich heritage of Peterborough County. It will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2017. -- Funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund will support the construction of a new agricultural heritage building at the Museum. -- The new facility, resembling a barn from around 1910, will display artifacts from the Museum's collection. Along with a multi-purpose room, it will also house a restoration workshop, conservation lab, accessible washroom facilities, and an "Agricultural Wall of Fame" that will celebrate local community members.

Associated Links

Lang Pioneer Village Museum

County of Peterborough

Canada Cultural Spaces Fund

Stay Connected

Follow us on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Flickr.

Contacts:

Pierre-Olivier Herbert

Press Secretary

Office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage

819-997-7788



Media Relations

Canadian Heritage

819-994-9101

1-866-569-6155

PCH.media-media.PCH@Canada.ca




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Cordoba Minerals Corp. (TSX VENTURE: CDB)(OTCQX: CDBMF) ("Cordoba" or the "Company") announced today that High Power Exploration Inc. ("HPX"), a private mineral exploration company indirectly controlled by mining entrepreneur Robert Friedland's Ivanhoe Industries, LLC, has completed Phase two of the Joint Venture Agreement ("JV Agreement") and has now earned a 51% interest in the San Matias Copper-Gold Project ("San Matias", or "San Matias Project") in Colombia. HPX has earned its 51% interest in the project by spending a cumulative total of C$19 million in exploration expenditures.

Phase Three of the Joint Venture Agreement has now commenced. HPX can increase its ownership in the San Matias Project to 65% by completing a Feasibility Study on the project.

Mario Stifano, President and CEO of Cordoba, commented: "We are pleased that our partner HPX has committed to moving the highly prospective San Matias Copper-Gold project to the feasibility stage as we continue with our aggressive exploration program."

About San Matias Project

The San Matias Copper-Gold Project comprises a 20,000-hectare land package on the inferred northern extension of the richly endowed Mid-Cauca Belt in Colombia. The project contains several known areas of porphyry copper-gold mineralization, copper-gold skarn mineralization and vein-hosted, gold-copper mineralization. Porphyry mineralization at the San Matias Project incorporates high-grade zones of copper-gold mineralization hosted by diorite porphyries containing secondary biotite alteration and various orientations of sheeted and stockwork quartz-magnetite veins with chalcopyrite and bornite. The copper-gold skarn mineralization at Alacran is associated with stratabound replacement of a marine volcano-sedimentary sequence. The nature of mineralization encountered at San Matias is similar to other large high-grade copper-gold deposits.

About High Power Exploration

HPX is a privately owned, metals-focused exploration company deploying proprietary in-house geophysical technologies to rapidly evaluate buried geophysical targets. The HPX technology cluster comprises geological and geophysical systems for targeting, modelling, survey optimization, acquisition, processing and interpretation. HPX has a highly experienced board and management team led by Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Friedland, President Eric Finlayson, a former head of exploration at Rio Tinto, and co-chaired by Ian Cockerill, a former Chief Executive Officer of Gold Fields Ltd. For further information, please visit www.hpxploration.com.

About Cordoba Minerals

Cordoba Minerals Corp. is a Toronto-based mineral exploration company focused on the exploration and acquisition of copper and gold projects in Colombia. Cordoba has a joint venture with High Power Exploration on the highly prospective, district-scale San Matias Copper-Gold Project located at sea level with excellent infrastructure and near operating open-pit mines in the Department of Cordoba. For further information, please visit www.cordobaminerals.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE COMPANY

Mario Stifano, President and CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include predictions, projections and forecasts and are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "forecast", "expect", "potential", "project", "target", "schedule", budget" and "intend" and statements that an event or result "may", "will", "should", "could" or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions and includes the negatives thereof. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the potential of the Company's properties are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Company's expectations include actual exploration results, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, future metal prices, availability of capital and financing on acceptable terms, general economic, market or business conditions, uninsured risks, regulatory changes, delays or inability to receive required approvals, and other exploration or other risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulators. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause such actions, events or results to differ materially from those anticipated. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and accordingly readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date of this news release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contacts:

Cordoba Minerals Corp.

info@cordobamineralscorp.com

www.cordobaminerals.com




OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Today, as part of the Government's strong commitment to supply management, the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, and the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of International Trade, announced an investment of $350 million for two new programs to support the competitiveness of the dairy sector, in anticipation of the entry into force of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

CETA will create more jobs and growth for Canadian families, will generate economic opportunities for the middle class, and will present substantial market opportunities for many segments of Canada's agricultural sector. The Government is supporting the continued strength of the dairy sector by helping to ensure that dairy producers and processors continue to innovate and improve productivity.

The two new programs are:

-- $250 million over five years for a Dairy Farm Investment Program that will provide targeted contributions to help Canadian dairy farmers update farm technologies and systems and improve productivity through upgrades to their equipment. This could include the adoption of robotic milkers, automated feeding systems, and herd management tools. -- $100 million over four years for a Dairy Processing Investment Fund that will help dairy processors modernize their operations and, in turn, improve efficiency and productivity, as well as diversify their products to pursue new market opportunities.

These programs will complement the dairy sector's ongoing investment efforts, helping both current and future generations of dairy farmers and processors to remain profitable for the long term, within a strong supply management system.

During consultations, stakeholders shared their views on the anticipated impacts of CETA. These programs were informed by this feedback and by the Government's over-arching priorities to build competitiveness and innovation in our economic sectors.

In the coming weeks, the Government will engage with the dairy sector to seek input that will inform program design to help ensure programs respond to the needs of producers and processors. Input can also be provided online. Programs will be in place when CETA comes into force.

Quotes

"The Government strongly supports supply management. Canada's dairy producers and processors are vital to the prosperity and clean growth of our nation. They create jobs and offer high-quality products for Canadian consumers. These programs will help Canada's dairy sector become more productive in order to help it adapt to the anticipated impacts from CETA."

-- The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, P.C., M.P., Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

"This is an opportunity for Canadian dairy producers and processors to modernize their operations and become more competitive in Canada and in international markets. I encourage producers to leverage the new market access provided by CETA and other free trade agreements in order to grow their business."

-- The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, P.C., M.P., Minister of International Trade

Additional links

-- Online consultations for new dairy programs -- Statement by Government of Canada on dairy industry and Canada-European Union trade deal -- Learn more about the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)

Follow us on Twitter: @AAFC_Canada

Like us on Facebook: CanadianAgriculture

BACKGROUNDER

The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will provide Canada access to the world's largest agriculture and agri-food market. Upon entry into force, the agreement will present substantial market opportunities for many segments of Canada's agricultural sector, such as pork, beef, maple syrup, horticulture and processed foods, to name a few.

CETA will also provide greater access for European cheeses to Canada, more specifically, duty-free imports of 17,700 tonnes of cheese, representing about four per cent of Canada's cheese production. While dairy producers and cheese processors will continue to see their income increase in future years, they are expected to see a loss in anticipated income growth as a result of this new access for European cheeses.

As such, the Government is supporting the continued strength of the dairy sector, and in turn the Canadian economy by providing opportunities for dairy producers and processors to innovate and boost productivity.

The two new programs announced today are intended to help the dairy sector adapt to new market opportunities and challenges. The precise terms and conditions of the programs will be finalized following discussion with industry.

1. Dairy Farm Investment Program: will help dairy farmers in their efforts to further modernize their operations and improve productivity. The investments in new equipment are expected to complement the investment efforts deployed by our Canadian dairy farmers.

For example, the program could support activities such as the adoption of robotic milkers, automated feeding systems, herd management tools, or other equipment upgrades.

2. Dairy Processing Investment Fund: is intended to support the dairy processing sector as it seeks to improve efficiencies and productivity to respond to the new market environment resulting from CETA. This initiative is separate from the government's commitment to the Agri-Food Value Added Investment Fund. This funding envelope is specific to the dairy processing sector, and is intended to support the dairy processing sector as it seeks to adjust to new market conditions created by CETA.

The program will help dairy processors by supporting access to technical expertise and the purchase of new equipment in order to expand processing capacity, enhance efficiencies and productivity, and diversify product lines to maintain and capture new market opportunities.

Contacts:

Guy Gallant

Director of Communications

The Office of the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay

613-773-1059



Media Relations

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Ottawa, Ontario

613-773-7972

1-866-345-7972




DUBLIN, November 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Acasta Enterprises Inc. to commit US$100 millionto Stellwagen Capital's Investment Vehicles

Stellwagen Group ("Stellwagen") and Acasta Enterprises Inc., a Toronto, Canada based public company ("Acasta", and together with Stellwagen, the "Parties"), today announced that the Parties have entered into definitive agreements by which Acasta would acquire Stellwagen for approximately US$270 million plus future consideration contingent on the operating performance of Stellwagen over the next three to five years, and will commit to investing US$100 million into Stellwagen Capital's Senior Loan Company or another strategic investment. These agreements are subject to certain conditions, including regulatory approval and approval by Acasta's shareholders.

Stellwagen's world-class leadership team is executing on a highly profitable entrepreneurial business model. The Group is uniquely positioned to leverage innovative financial engineering and technology to modernize aircraft lending and leasing, largely unchanged for decades. Stellwagen's aviation finance and management businesses have experienced significant growth over the past three years and will draw upon the relationships and the expertise of Acasta to drive the growth of its existing businesses and the new asset management and technology businesses.

"Aircraft asset management and financing is an extremely attractive industry, with strong returns and much less volatility than the airline sector as a whole. The newly launched technology business also gives us a high level of confidence that the Stellwagen team can deliver, and is validated by the traction they have already received in the market," said Michael Neal, an Acasta Founder and Advisor, and current member of JP Morgan's Board of Directors. As the former CEO of GE Capital, Mr. Neal oversaw GE Capital Aviation Services' $46 billion commercial aircraft and financing business unit.

Speaking today, Douglas Brennan, CEO of the Stellwagen Group, said: "Acasta's leadership includes some of the most highly respected individuals in the global aviation and finance industries. Under the leadership of Anthony Melman and the Board of Directors of Acasta, our partnership will accelerate our business model by delivering permanent capital into our Group, fulfilling our goal to provide stable and flexible capital to the aircraft industry - on the one hand - and better risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders and aircraft investors - on the other."

Stellwagen Capital's CEO, Howard Millar commented: "I am pleased to have such a strong capital partner. We plan to have $5 billion in assets under management within three years, and believe that Acasta is the right partner to enable us to deliver these targets." Stellwagen is launching a series of aircraft related investment vehicles, the first of which is a senior secured aircraft loan company designed to meet the increasing demand caused by the retreat of the aviation banks.".

ABOUT STELLWAGEN

Headquartered in Dublin, the Stellwagen Group provides best-in-class asset management, financial and technology solutions to the global aviation industry.

ABOUT ACASTA ENTERPRISES INC

Acasta is a special purpose acquisition corporation that raised $402.5 million in an initial public offering in July 2015, with the purpose of effecting a qualifying acquisition. With the approval of the acquisition of Stellwagen, concurrent with other transactions announced in Acasta's press release dated 10 November 2016, Acasta will become a private equity manager fund and will launch a private equity fund to pursue further market opportunities.

http://www.acastaenterprises.com

For further information, please contact:

Pauline McAlester

Murray Consultants

Tel: +353-1-4980300 / +353-87-2558300

pmcalester@murrayconsultants.ie


CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Canoe Financial LP (Canoe) is pleased to announce that Canoe Energy Class Series A, managed by Rafi G. Tahmazian and David Szybunka, was presented with the award for best Energy Equity Fund over three- and five-year periods at the Lipper Fund Awards gala on November 9, 2016. The annual Lipper awards recognize consistently strong risk-adjusted returns compared to industry peers.

"Since the inception of Canoe, our focus has been to deliver strong absolute returns in all of our investment strategies through our consistent, disciplined, active investment process," said Darcy Hulston, president and chief executive officer of Canoe Financial. "We are honoured to be recognized by Lipper again this year for our outstanding fund performance."

Canoe Energy Class (Series A), earned best fund performance over three and five years in the Energy Equity category. The Fund has a 5-star Overall Morningstar Rating, and is also a top-quartile performer in the Energy Equity category over one, two, three and five years, and since its inception (February 18, 2011).(i)

(i)as at October 31, 2016.

About the Lipper Fund Awards

The Lipper Fund Awards program honors funds that have excelled in delivering consistently strong risk-adjusted performance, relative to peers. Lipper Fund Awards are part of the broader Thomson Reuters Awards for Excellence program. Please visit excellence.thomsonreuters.com/award/lipper for more details about the Lipper Fund Awards. If you have specific questions about the event, please send an email to markets.awards@thomsonreuters.com.

About Canoe Financial LP

Founded in 2008, Canoe Financial LP is an employee-owned investment management firm focused on building financial wealth for Canadians. Canoe is one of Canada's fastest-growing independent mutual fund companies and manages approximately $4.0 billion in assets across a diversified range of award-winning mutual funds, flow-through limited partnerships and private energy equity products. Canoe has expanded from its Calgary head office to across Canada, including a significant presence in Toronto and offices in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal. To learn more about Canoe Financial and its investment products, visit www.canoefinancial.com.

Canoe Energy Class was awarded the best energy equity fund for the three-year period ending July 31, 2016 out of a total of 17 funds, and for the five-year period ending July 31, 2016 out of a total of 15 funds. The Lipper Fund Awards, granted annually, are part of the Thomson Reuters Awards for Excellence awarded by Lipper, Inc. and highlight funds that have excelled in delivering consistently strong risk-adjusted performance relative to their peers. The Lipper Fund Awards are based on the Lipper Ratings for Consistent Return, which is a risk-adjusted performance measure calculated over 36, 60 and 120 month periods. The highest 20% of funds in each category are named Lipper Leaders for Consistent Return and receive a score of 5, the next 20% receive a score of 4, the middle 20% are scored 3, the next 20% are scored 2 and the lowest 20% are scored 1. The highest Lipper Leader for Consistent Return in each category wins the Lipper Fund Award. Lipper Leader ratings change monthly. For more information, see www.lipperweb.com. Although Lipper makes reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data contained herein, the accuracy is not guaranteed by Lipper. Performance for Canoe Energy Class Series A for the period ended October 31, 2016 is as follows: 21.2% (1 year), 2.5% (3 years), 7.9% (5 years), and 5.5% (since inception on February 18, 2011). The corresponding Lipper Leader ratings of the Fund for the same period are as follows: N/A (1 year), 5 (3 years), 5 (5 years).

 (2015) Morningstar Research Inc. All Rights Reserved. The information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Important information regarding the Funds, including conditions of purchase, investment strategy, distribution policy, management fees, and expenses, are set out in the Funds' Simplified Prospectus, Annual Information Form and Fund Facts which are available on Canoe Financial's website at www.canoefinancial.com or SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments. Please read the prospectus before investing. The indicated rates of return are the historical and annual compounded total returns including changes in unit value and reinvestment of all distributions and do not take into account sales, redemption, distribution, or optional charges or income taxes payable by any security holder that would have reduced returns. The indices cited are widely accepted benchmarks for investment performance within their relevant regions, sectors or asset class, represent non-managed investment portfolios, and are not necessarily indicative of future investment returns. Mutual funds are not guaranteed and their values change frequently. This communication is for information purposes only and is not to be construed as a public offering to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. Investors should consult with a financial advisor prior to making any investment decisions.

Contacts:

Canoe Financial LP

Investor Relations

1-877-434-2796

info@canoefinancial.com

www.canoefinancial.com




COSTA MESA, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Insight Investments, LLC today announced that it has rebranded its Insight Systems Exchange (ISE) subsidiary as 2NDGEAR. The IT equipment supplier's new brand is designed to reflect the evolution and growth of the business which now offers new information technology (IT) equipment and support services, in addition to the recertified and refurbished equipment that the company is known for. With the expansion of its equipment and service offerings, the company has seen continuous revenue growth throughout 2016.

"Technology decisions have become increasingly complex, and demand for a true partner that can solve challenges and deliver the right equipment is at an all-time high. 2NDGEAR's commitment to service has created outstanding customer confidence and trust that has made them a top provider in the U.S.," said John Ford, chairman and CEO of Insight Investments, LLC. "We are proud to have 2NDGEAR as part of our overall organization that includes two other complementary business units, Insight Financial Services, and Red8. All three work extremely well together to create maximum value for our customers."

2NDGEAR offers recertified and refurbished laptops, tablets, servers and networking hardware, as well as new equipment from valued partners including Dell, HP, Lenovo, and more. 2NDGEAR also provides flexible warranty coverage and dedicated IT support services for installation, relocation and other customized needs. Founded in 1987, 2NDGEAR has helped thousands of businesses and more than 3500 schools across the U.S. acquire brand-name computers affordably.

"We are currently doubling the amount of business from new and existing offerings each quarter. With this kind of growth and transformation, we felt it was important to also take our brand to the next level," said Leroy Wyman, general manager of 2NDGEAR. "We feel our new name reflects that we are an energetic, resourceful and holistic organization committed to exceptional service. By supporting the full technology lifecycle, we continue to support our customers' individual needs in the best way possible."

Building on its momentum, the new name will position 2NDGEAR for growth in the future. With the rebranding, the company has also launched a new website and Twitter account.

About 2NDGEAR

2NDGEAR, a subsidiary of Insight Investments, LLC, is a leading supplier of new, recertified and refurbished IT equipment and software from partners including Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, Adobe and more. Offering IT implementation and support services including data destruction, imaging, deployment, office technology relocation, asset liquidation and warehouse outsourcing, 2NDGEAR supports the entire IT lifecycle. An established company respected for its uncommon dedication to service, 2NDGEAR has served thousands of businesses and educational institutions across the U.S. For more information, visit www.2NDGEAR.com.

About Insight Investments, LLC

Based in Costa Mesa, California, Insight Investments, LLC helps companies worldwide better control their technology acquisition, leasing, and management requirements. Since 1987, the company has provided a wide array of solutions designed to fit specific customer needs including new and used equipment acquisition, custom leasing and financing, asset management, off-lease portfolio management, excess equipment disposal, and IT solutions for the software defined data center. For more information, visit www.insightinvestments.com.

Contact:

Christy Kemp

303-898-3390

Email Contact




Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier

Those who habitually put items in their recycling bins that don't belong there are the target of the ordinance amendment, not those who make an occasional, accidental mistake, said Public Works Director Jeff Demers.
WISeKey to secure smart public lighting solution against hacking

WISeKey International Holding Ltd (SIX:WIHN) (WISeKey" or the "Company") and Wellness Telecom, a Spanish based company that specializes in New Technologies for Smart Cities today announced, at the Smart City Expo World Congress, their new partnership aiming to combine WISeKey's Vertical Cybersecurity Platform Root of Trust to Chip within Wellness Telecom solutions portfolio for Smart Cities such as WeLight, the smart public lighting solution, as well as Quamtra, the smart waste management solution.

WISeKey's IoT Cybersecurity will be combined with Wellness Telecom's platform, to prevent effects of attacks on the smart city network including but not limited to DDoS and protecting the data from cyberattacks. Every WeLight or Quamtra sensor from the Wellness Telecom ecosystem would be equipped with and unique digital certificate issued by the WISeKey's Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust ("RoT") integrating strong authentication and data encryption securely loaded into a WISeKey's latest generation cryptographic chip tamper proof secure element. WISeKey is a member of Microsoft CityNext, a global initiative empowering cities, businesses and citizens to re-imagine their futures and cultivate vibrant communities.

Through the Microsoft CityNext initiative, WISeKey helps to engage cities around the world to cooperate in and contribute to the security for the development, dissemination, and implementation of cyber security advancement, with a focus on the improvement of current conditions and mitigation of potential risks during the development of their smart cities. Beside the recent massive DDoS attacks, WISeKey and Wellness decided to team-up to bring a joint value proposal into Smart Cities projects to assuring its customer, a platform including secured access to trusted data that can be valued for smart city services.

Recently hackers used drones to hack and infect light bulbs in an office tower with a virus that let them turn the lights on and off, and flash an "SOS" message in Morse code, while last month hackers hijacked millions of connected devices and were able to cut off access to popular websites like Twitter and Amazon. The hacking of ordinary devices controlled via an online network, and tuning those devices hostile by taking over control and cause them to operate in dangerous and insecure way, makes the need to protect IoT devices even more critical in order to avoid a potential massive DDOS attack.

WISeKey is championing the ever-changing landscape of cyber-security for smart cities. The number of connected devices- a.k.a. Internet of Things- requiring digital identification and security now tops 4 billion globally and continues to rise rapidly; this number is expected to reach 50 billion by 2020. This trend shows that cybersecurity is a key asset in ensuring protection of this infrastructure.

In that regard, recently WISeKey signed an agreement with Bajaj Electricals Limited (BEL), India's leading consumer durable and lighting to create the first ever IoT Trusted Platform connecting to a secure cloud approximately 100 million consumer industrial products in the first phase of WISeLight IoT Platform, enabling a digitally certified eco-system for connected objects. The WISeLight IoT Platform will shift this sector from a hardware-centric model, as the world moves, to delivering IoT lighting secured with sensors and embedded microchips, detecting and interacting with its environment in real-time. This will be enabled using crypto-based asymmetric keys based in the cloud and on each product, the handshake of which will produce a Certified Authority issued Digital Certificate.

At the heart of WISeKey's technology is the OISTE-WISeKey Cryptographic Root of Trust, which has been actively used since 1999 by over 2.6 billion desktops, browsers, mobile devices, SSL certificates and Internet of Things' devices. The OISTE WISeKey Cryptographic Root of Trust is ubiquitous and universal, and a pioneer in the identification of objects.

Carlos Moreira, Founder and CEO of WISeKey commented, "We are thrilled to partner with Wellness Telecom and continue our tremendous efforts to empower and protect our cities and citizens. Our teams will quickly integrate and install our strong authentication data encryption and IoT cryptographic chip into millions of Wellness Telecom's IoT devices."

"With this partnership we will be able to provide our IoT devices with a layer of security that will make them more robust and secure. Almost 2 million people are already enjoying the benefits of having our Smart Solutions in their municipalities and with this completes our value proposition to the market," said David Garcia Ternero, Wellnesss Telecom CEO.

WISeKey will be present at the Smart City Expo World Congress on the Swiss Pavilion Booth B278. To book a meeting with WISeKey Tech Team please go to https://www.wisekey.com/events/meeting-wisekey-at-events/.

About WISeKey

WISeKey (SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global digital security and CyberSecurity company. Working at the forefront of information cybersecurity, identity management, and mobile security, WISeKey's mission is to facilitate the global growth of secure electronic transactions by providing individuals, businesses, cities, citizens, objects, and governments with advanced technology and services that authenticate and protect digital identity across the full spectrum of personal, business and administrative transactions online. At the heart of this 4th Industrial Revolution strategy is the OISTE-WISeKey Cryptographic Root of Trust which has been actively used since 1999 by over 2.6 billion desktops, browsers, mobile devices, SSL certificates and Internet of Things' devices. The OISTE WISeKey Cryptographic Root of Trust is ubiquitous and universal, and a pioneer in the identification of objects. WISeKey is a Global Growth Partner of the World Economic Forum. More articles can be found at https://www.wisekey.com/media-corner/.

Interested about Latest News about WISeKey subscribe to our Newsletter or visit WISeKey Investors Corner.

About Wellness Telecom

Wellness Telecom is working on the convergence of their IoT solutions and its expert capabilities in sensors, communications, Cybersecurity, Big Data Analytics and Dashboard to offer the market a complete architecture on which to build and operate IoT applications covering from the real time sensors to analysis of the information. The company has a portfolio of technological solutions aimed at Smart Cities that are already present in more than 150 cities and focus on improving several of the most critical management areas of a municipality: street lighting, energy management, waste collection and mobility and traffic, among others. All developments offer the ability to obtain real-time data and use and implement policies and therefore savings.

For more information visit: www.wtelecom.es

Disclaimer:

This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005866/en/

Contacts:

WISEKEY INTERNATIONAL HOLDING LTD.

Investor Relations (Switzerland)

Natalia Loboda, +41-44-575-2006

nloboda@wisekey.com

or

MarkCom & Event Manager

Youmna Abisaleh, +41-22-594-3040

yabisaleh@wisekey.com

or

Investor Relations (United States)

The Equity Group, Inc.

Lena Cati, 212-836-9611

lcati@equityny.com

or

WELLNESS TELECOM

Investor Relations (Spain)

David Garcia Ternero, +34-678-778-167

CEO

dgarcia@wtelecom.es

or

MarkCom & Event Manager

Alejandra Ruiz, +34-954-151-706

aruiz@wtelecom.es
EDMONTON, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Western Economic Diversification Canada

The Governments of Canada and Alberta will invest a combined $3 million in Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC) to develop an international investment attraction program to encourage companies to locate and grow their businesses in the Edmonton region.

The Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, Minister of Infrastructure and Communities and Member of Parliament for Edmonton Mill Woods, on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for Western Economic Diversification Canada, with the Honourable Deron Bilous, Minister of Alberta Economic Development and Trade, made the announcement today at the new Enbridge Centre building in Edmonton.

EEDC's attraction program will help diversify the western Canadian economy by targeting companies that build on the region's strengths in health and life sciences, advanced logistics and manufacturing. It will also focus on digital information, communication technology, and food and agri-industrial production.

The investment will help accelerate growth in these sectors through new foreign investments and increased trade opportunities.

Quick Facts

-- The Government of Canada will invest $1 million through Western Economic Diversification Canada's Western Diversification Program (WDP), while the Government of Alberta will contribute $2 million towards this initiative. -- Over the next five years the Government of Canada will allocate $218 million to create a new federal body, the Invest in Canada Hub, to increase the number of trade commissioners focused on investment attraction in strategic markets.

Quotes

"Around the world, leading companies are looking for stable places to invest and grow their businesses. Today's announcement and partnership with the Government of Alberta and Edmonton Economic Development Corporation will help to strengthen trade and investment opportunities in Edmonton."

- The Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, Minister of Infrastructure and Communities and

"Alberta's per capita investment is expected to double the Canadian average this year, investment that helps create new jobs and diversify our economy. Together we want to show even more national and international investors that with our young, highly skilled workforce, world-class infrastructure to get our products to market and lowest overall tax in the country, Alberta is a great place to do business."

- The Honourable Deron Bilous, Minister of Alberta Economic Development and Trade

"The major investment attraction strategy developed by our Trade and Investment division comes at an important time as we move our economy forward. We look forward to working with Western Economic Diversification Canada, the Government of Alberta, our regional partners and other cities in the province on a co-ordinated effort to attract businesses and jobs to our Metro Edmonton region."

- Brad Ferguson, President and CEO, Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC)

Additional Links

Western Economic Diversification Canada

Alberta Economic Development and Trade

Edmonton Economic Development Corporation

Stay Connected

Follow us on Twitter: @WD_Canada, @MinisterISED, @EEDC, @AB_EDT

WD Homepage

WD Toll-Free Number: 1-888-338-WEST (9378)

TTY (telecommunications device for the hearing impaired): 1-877-303-3388

IF THERE IS A DISCREPANCY BETWEEN ANY PRINTED VERSION AND THE ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THIS NEWS RELEASE, THE ELECTRONIC VERSION WILL PREVAIL.

Contacts:

Donna Kinley

Regional Communications Manager

Western Economic Diversification Canada

780-902-2984

donna.kinley@canada.ca



Jean-Marc Prevost

Press Secretary

Economic Development and Trade

587-988-4119

jean-marc.prevost@gov.ab.ca



Kassandra Kitz

Stakeholder Communications Specialist

780-399-9247

media@edmonton.com




AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE -- (Marketwired) -- 04/26/17 -- SuperSonic Imagine (EURONEXT PARIS: SSI) (FR0010526814), a company specializing in ultrasound medical imaging, today announced the installation of its flagship Aixplorer ultrasound system at SurgOne, P.C., a comprehensive general surgery group serving greater Denver. Physicians at SurgOne will use Aixplorer to assess liver disease and characterize liver tissue in its hepatobiliary and transplant specialty services.

Real-time ShearWave Elastography (SWE), available only on the Aixplorer ultrasound system, is a 60-second non-invasive exam that can be used for imaging patients with liver disease, and does require a physician's referral. SWE offers the advantage of real-time imaging of liver anatomy, while also providing not only a color-coded map of liver stiffness, but also a quantification tool for the measurement of an important parameter for liver diagnostics.

Over 100 international publications have demonstrated the accuracy, reliability and effectiveness of SuperSonic Imagine's SWE in this area.

Less than 2 weeks ago, the results of an international multicenter study on 1134 patients were published in Hepatology, and confirmed the benefit of SWE in the non-invasive assesment of liver fibrosis(1), including for patients with diseases such as hepatitis C that may require repeated follow-up evaluations. Although biopsy has been considered the standard for assessing liver fibrosis severity, the drawbacks of this invasive approach include significant incidence of morbidity, high procedure costs due to longer hospitalisation, and clinical shortcomings. Fibrosis is even sometimes underestimated in 10-30% of cases.(2,3)

"We are proud to bring this innovative imaging platform to our patients with chronic liver disease. Not only does it allow me to evaluate liver fibrosis very precisely and reliably, but it also offers a non-invasive and painless experience for our patients," commented Dr. W. Ben Vernon, whose surgical specialties at SurgOne include transplant and hepatobiliary procedures. SWE is performed at the SurgOne offices adjacent to HealthOne Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center.

"SuperSonic Imagine SWE's highly accurate assessment of liver stiffness, combined with the known benefit of ultrasound imaging makes our product a valuable addition to esteemed practices like SurgOne. We are privileged to work with this facility and others like it that need innovative diagnostic solutions," said Alex Exposito, Director of North America Sales.

(1) Assessment of biopsy-proven liver fibrosis by 2D-shear wave elastography: An individual patient data based meta-analysis. Herrmann E, de Ledinghen V, Cassinotto C, Chu WC, Leung VY, Ferraioli G, Filice C, Castera L, Vilgrain V, Ronot M, Dumortier J, Guibal A, Pol S, Trebicka J, Jansen C, Strassburg C, Zheng R, Zheng J, Francque S, Vanwolleghem T, Vonghia L, Manesis EK, Zoumpoulis P, Sporea I, Thiele M, Krag A, Cohen-Bacrie C, Criton A, Gay J, Deffieux T, Friedrich-Rust M. Hepatology. 2017 Mar 31. doi: 10.1002/hep.29179. Le lien PubMed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28370257

(2) Sampling error and intraobserver variation in liver biopsy in patients with chronic HCV infection. Regev A, Berho, M, Jeffers LJ, Milikowski C, Molina EG, Pyrsopoulos NT, Feng ZZ, Reddy KR, Schiff ER. Am J Gastroenterol. 2002 Oct;97(10):2614-8.

(3) Sources of variability in histological scoring of chronic viral hepatitis. Rousselet MC, Michalak S, Dupre F, Croue, A, Bedossa P, Saint-Andre JP, Cales P; Hepatitis Network 49. Hepatology. 2005 Feb;41(2):257-64.

About SuperSonic Imagine

Founded in 2005 and based in Aix-en-Provence (France), SuperSonic Imagine is a company specializing in medical imaging. The company designs, develops and markets a revolutionary ultrasound system, Aixplorer, with an UltraFast platform that can acquire images 200 times faster than conventional ultrasound systems. In addition to providing exceptional image quality, this unique technology is the foundation of several innovations which have changed the paradigm of ultrasound imaging: ShearWave Elastography (SWE), UltraFast Doppler and more recently Angio PL.U.S - Planewave UltraSensitive Imaging.

ShearWave Elastography allows physicians to visualize and analyze the stiffness of tissue in a real-time, reliable, reproducible and non-invasive manner. This criteria has become an important parameter in diagnosing potentially malignant tissue or other diseased tissue. As of today, over 300 peer-reviewed publications have demonstrated the value of SWE for the clinical management of patients with a wide range of diseases. UltraFast Doppler combines Color Flow Imaging and Pulsed Wave Doppler into one simple exam, providing physicians with exam results simultaneously and helping to increase patient throughput. The latest innovation, Angio PL.U.S, provides a new level of microvascular imaging through significantly improved color sensitivity and spatial resolution while maintaining exceptional 2D imaging.

SuperSonic Imagine has been granted regulatory clearances for the commercialization of Aixplorer in key global markets. SuperSonic Imagine is a listed company since April 2014 on the Euronext, symbol SSI. For more information about SuperSonic Imagine, please go to www.supersonicimagine.com.

Contact information:



SuperSonic Imagine

Marketing & Communication

Emmanuelle Vella

Email Contact

+33 4 86 79 03 27



NewCap

Investor Relations - EU

Pierre Laurent / Florent Alba

Email Contact

+33144719855



Pascale Communication

Media Relations - US

Amy Phillips

Email Contact

+1 412 327 9499




Regulatory News:

EUROPCAR GROUPE (Paris:EUCAR) announces today the launch of its first share ownership plan reserved to employees of the Europcar Group in 10 countries (the "Offer").

In accordance with the applicable law, this press release is intended to present the main characteristics of the Offer, as described below.

In accordance with the thirteenth and fourteenth resolutions of the Combined General shareholders' Meeting of the EUROPCAR GROUPE (hereafter referred to as "EUROPCAR" or the "Company") dated May 10, 2016, the Company's Management Board decided on August 31, 2016 to carry out a share capital increase benefiting the members of the EUROPCAR's Group Savings Plan (the "Plan d'Epargne Groupe" or "PEG ") or the EUROPCAR's International Group Savings Plan (the "Plan d'Epargne Groupe International" or "PEGI"), under the provisions of articles L. 225-129, L. 225-129-2 to L. 225-129-6, L. 225-138 and L. 225-138-1 of the French Commercial Code and articles L. 3332-18 et. Seq. of the French Labor Code (hereafter referred to as the "Offer").

1. INFORMATION ON THE ISSUER

EUROPCAR is a French societe anonyme with a share capital of EUR 143,409,298, having its registered office 2, rue Rene Caudron, 78960 Voisins le Bretonneux (France), and registered with the Registry of Trade and Companies of Versailles under number 489 099 903.

The Company's shares are admitted to trading on the Euronext Paris market (Compartment A) under ISIN code FR0012789949. EUROPCAR is part of the SBF120 stock index.

Information regarding the Company, especially the 2015 registration document filed with the Autorites des Marches Financiers on April 14, 2016 under number R.16-021, is available on its website (www.europcar-group.com).

2. GROUNDS FOR THE OFFER

The Offer hereunder reflects the EUROPCAR Group's desire to fully involve its employees in the development and profits of the Group by allowing them to subscribe EUROPCAR shares (the "Shares").

3. NATURE OF THE NEW SHARES

The Shares offered in the context of the Offer are ordinary shares of the Company.

4. QUOTATION OF THE NEW SHARES

Admission to trading on the Euronext Paris market of the Shares newly issued in the context of the Offer, on the same quotation line as the existing shares, shall be requested immediately following their issuance expected on February 23, 2017.

5. SCOPE OF THE OFFER

Fall within the scope of the Offer companies of which EUROPCAR directly or indirectly holds 100% of the share capital and members of the PEG or the PEGI, whose registered office are in one of the following countries: Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and United States, subject to obtaining local authorizations in some of these countries.

6. TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE OFFER

Beneficiaries

The beneficiaries are the employees of the companies included in the scope of the Offer, with at least three months' seniority, consecutive or not, at the end of the subscription/revocation period (expected on January 24, 2017), acquired since January 1, 2016.

Investment formulas

Favorable subscription conditions are offered: (i) a Share subscription price at a discount of 15% and (ii) a 100% employer matching contribution in cash (subject to EUR 1,000 gross limit).

By subscribing to the Offer, the employee will receive at maturity (expected on February 23, 2022) or earlier in the event of early release (as stated below), for each share subscribed, an amount corresponding to his initial investment (comprising his personal contribution and the net employer contribution) increased by a multiple of the protected average increase of the EUROPCAR share price compared with the reference price, subject to a possible unwinding of the underlying transaction and any applicable taxes and social security payments.

Depending on the local legal and tax constraints, the subscription is carried out using one of the following formulas:

through the FCPE EUROPCAR MULTIPLE 2017; or

through a direct subscription of Shares carrying a "Stock Appreciation Right" (SAR) allocation by the employer.

Maximum number of Shares offered

The Management board decided on August 31, 2016 to make use of the powers granted to it by the thirteenth and fourteenth resolutions of the Combined General Shareholders' Meeting held May 10, 2016 to carry out a share capital increase benefiting the members of the PEG and the PEGI and a share capital increase benefiting a financial institution, for a maximum nominal amount of 2% of the share capital at the date of said decision, i.e. a total of 2,868,185 shares for a maximum nominal amount of EUR 2,868,185.

Subscription reduction process

The amount of individual subscriptions may be reduced if the total number of EUROPCAR Shares requested exceeds the maximum number of Shares offered in the context of the Offer. In this case, the reduction of the reservations will be carried out by capping the reservations with the highest amounts, until the total amount of the share capital increase respects the ceiling set by the Management board on August 31, 2016.

Indicative time schedule of the transaction and Subscription price

The reservation period shall run from December 5 to 19, 2016 inclusive.

On January 20, 2017, EUROPCAR's Management board, with power to delegate, will set out the subscription/revocation period and will set the subscription price for the newly issued Shares, which will be equal to the average opening price of the EUROPCAR shares on the Euronext Paris market during the twenty trading days prior to this decision (the "Reference Price"), with a 15% discount and rounded up to the nearest euro cent (the "Subscription Price").

The Subscription Price will be set in Euros. The subscriptions will be paid in Euros, after applying the appropriate exchange rates as set forth by the Management board on January 20, 2017.

Once the Subscription Price is set, it will be immediately communicated to all beneficiaries. A subscription/revocation period shall run from January 20 to 24 2017 inclusive, allowing the beneficiaries to subscribe Shares in the event no reservation has been made during the reservation period, or allowing them to cancel their reservation.

The share capital increase and the settlement-delivery of the Shares are expected on February 23, 2017.

The dates set forth above are for reference only and are subject to change.

Maximum and minimum subscription per subscriber

Beneficiaries of the Offer cannot invest, in accordance with the provisions of the PEG and the PEGI as well as with the provisions of article L.3332-10 of the French labor code, over a quarter of their annual gross income for the year 2017. To assess whether this ceiling is respected, account should be taken of (i) ten times the employee's personal contribution (excluding the employer contribution) and (ii) nine times the net amount of the employer contribution.

The minimum subscription price per subscriber is EUR 15.

Rights attached to the Shares

The contemplated EUROPCAR share capital increase will be carried out without preferential subscription rights for existing shareholders.

The newly issued Shares are fully assimilated to the existing ordinary shares and will carry rights as of January 1, 2017. These shares will give right to the dividends allocated for the financial year ending December 31, 2016.

The voting rights attached to the Shares will be carried out by the Supervisory Board of the FCPE (French employee mutual fund, i.e. a Fonds Commun de Placement d'Entreprise) for the shares subscribed to and held via a FCPE or directly for the shares directly held by employees.

The rights attached to the EUROPCAR ordinary shares are detailed in EUROPCAR's articles of association.

Lock-up period of the Shares and FCPE units

The beneficiaries subscribing to the Offer will have to hold either all Shares directly or hold the corresponding FCPE units, during a five-year period, except for the 9 early release cases provided for in article R.3324-22 of the French labor code.

In some countries, there may be fewer early release cases due to the local legal and tax constraints.

7. HEDGING TRANSACTIONS

The underlying financial mechanism requires hedging transactions to be carried out on the market by the financial institutions structuring this Offer. Hedging transactions may therefore be carried out by these institutions from the date of this press release and during the entire Offer period, but their impact on the Share price should be limited.

8. SPECIFIC NOTE ABOUT THE OFFER

This document is not to be considered as an offer to sell or any form of solicitation for the purchase of EUROPCAR shares. The share capital increase reserved to EUROPCAR employees will only be carried out in countries where such an offer has been registered with the competent local authorities and in countries where all registration proceedings and/or notices have been carried out and authorizations obtained.

In particular, the Shares have not been and will not be registered in the United States under the terms of the Securities Act 1933 and will only be offered in the United States in a context that doesn't require registration under the terms of the Securities Act 1933.

This document is not destined to countries in which such procedures are required and have not yet been carried out or in which the necessary authorizations have not been obtained. Copies of this document will therefore not be sent to those countries.

Shares that may be subscribed in the context of this Offer are subject to no recommendation from any governmental market authorities or regulatory authorities. No advice or recommendation to invest is given by EUROPCAR GROUPE S.A. or by an employer. The decision to invest is a personal decision, which must be taken by each employee taking into account his financial resources, his investment objectives, his personal tax situation, other investment alternatives and the fact that the value of a listed share fluctuates. In this regard, employees are invited to consider diversifying their investment portfolio to ensure that the considered risk is not too concentrated in a single investment.

The Offer is made on a voluntary basis and does not constitute legal ground for future claims. Nor EUROPCAR nor the employers are obliged to reiterate the Offer or make similar offerings in the future. The terms and conditions of the Offer are not part of the employees' employment contracts.

EUROPCAR waives any obligation or undertaking to release an update or revised version of the forward-looking information contained in this press release following possible changes in the forecast or in the course of events, or changes in the conditions or circumstances used to obtain said information.

9. SPECIFIC NOTE REGARDING ANY "U.S PERSON"

The FCPE units may not be offered or sold, directly or indirectly, in the United States of America (including in U.S territories and possessions), to or for the benefit of a "U.S Person", as such is defined by U.S regulation, and available on the Management Company's website: www.amundi.com.

Persons wishing to subscribe FCPE units attest, when subscribing, that they are not a "U.S Person". Any FCPE unit holder must immediately inform the FCPE's Management Company in the event he or she were to become a "U.S Person".

The management company may impose restrictions to (i) the holding of FCPE units by a "U.S Person" and especially carry out the compulsory redemption of the held units, or (ii) to the transfer of units to a "U.S Person". This power also extends to any person (a) who appears to be, directly or indirectly, in violation with laws and regulations of any country or governmental authority, or (b) who might, in the management company's opinion, cause damages to the FCPE that it would not have otherwise suffered.

10. EMPLOYEE CONTACTS

For any question relating to the Offer, the beneficiaries may consult the documents made available to them on the website dedicated to this Offer and/or address any question regarding this Offer to their human resources manager.

In France, this press release constitutes the information document required pursuant to articles 212-4 5 and 212-5 6 of the General Regulations French Market Authority ("Autorite des Marches Financiers" or "AMF"), article 19 of the AMF Instruction dated October 21, 2016 (DOC-2016-04) and article 3.1 of the AMF Guide relating to employee savings funds (DOC-2012-10) as amended on March 14, 2016.

About Europcar Groupe

Europcar Groupe is a listed company on Euronext Paris (EUCAR). Europcar is the European leader in the Vehicle renting market and one of the main actors in the mobility sector. Present in over 140 countries, Europcar offers its customers on of the largest car rental networks, either directly or through its franchises and partners. The group operates under the Europcar and InterRent brands, InterRent being the low cost brand of the Group. Customer satisfaction is at the heart of the Group's mission: this commitment fosters the continuous development of new services. The "Europcar Lab" was therefore created to better understand the challenges of tomorrow's mobility through innovation and through strategic investments such as those carried out for Ubeeqo and E-Car Club.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006204/en/

Contacts:

Europcar Press Relations

Nathalie Poujol, Tel. +33 1 30 44 98 82

europcarpressoffice@europcar.com

or

Europcar / Investor Relations

Aurelia Cheval, Tel. +33 1 30 44 98 98

Investor.relations@europcar.com

or

Havas Paris

Jean-Baptiste Froville, Tel. +33 1 58 47 95 39

jean-baptiste.froville@havasww.com
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Nutritional High International Inc. (the "Company" or "Nutritional High") (CSE: EAT)(OTCQB: SPLIF) is pleased to announce it has increased the size of the non-brokered private placement (the "Offering") of units of the Company ("Units") to gross proceeds of $5 million. (See press releases dated October 26, 2016 and November 9, 2016).

Each Unit consists of one common share ("Common Share") of the Company and one-half of one Common Share purchase warrant ("Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase a Common Share at $0.22 per share for a period of 18 months from closing.

All securities issued in connection with this Offering are subject to a four-month hold period from the date of issuance in accordance with applicable securities laws. The Company engaged First Republic Capital Corporation ("First Republic") as the Lead Finder for the Offering.

Existing Security Holder Exemption

Given the strong demand for the Offering, the Company has determined that the Offering shall be offered to existing shareholders of the Company ("Existing Security Holders"), in addition to investors that qualify as Accredited Investors under applicable securities legislation (the "Existing Security Holder Exemption").

Existing shareholder wishing to purchase under the Existing Security Holder Exemption are reminded that in order to participate, a qualified shareholder must deliver (a) an executed subscription agreement in the required form, which will include requirements of the Existing Security Holder Exemption (e.g., that the subscriber was as of November 7, 2016 and continues to be as of the date of closing, a shareholder of the Company), (b) pay the subscription amount by November 14, 2016, or such other date as the Company may designate (payment instructions are contained in the subscription agreement), (c) there is a minimum subscription amount of $10,000, and (d) subscriptions will be accepted by the Company on a 'first come, first served' basis. Therefore, if the Offering is over-subscribed it is possible that a shareholder's subscription may not be accepted by the Company.

Further terms and conditions shall be set out in the form of subscription agreement that will be made available to interested shareholders, who are directed to contact the First Republic or the Company as follows:

Song Lee First Republic Capital Corporation song@firstrepubliccapital.com or Margaret (Kookie) Miller Branson Corporate Services Email: kmiller@bransonservices.com

About Nutritional High International Inc.

Nutritional High is focused on developing, manufacturing and distributing products and nationally recognized brands in the hemp and marijuana-infused products industries, including edibles and oil extracts for nutritional, medical and adult recreational use. The Company works exclusively through licensed facilities in jurisdictions where such activity is permitted and regulated by state law.

For updates on the Company's activities and highlights of the Company's press releases and other media coverage, please follow Nutritional High on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+.

NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR OTC MARKETS GROUP INC., NOR THEIR REGULATIONS SERVICES PROVIDERS HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Such statements include submission of the relevant documentation within the required timeframe and to the satisfaction of the relevant regulators, completing the acquisition of the applicable real estate and raising sufficient financing to complete the Company's business strategy. There is no certainty that any of these events will occur. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be correct. We assume no responsibility to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

Company's securities have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or applicable state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold to, or for the account or benefit of, persons in the United States or "U.S. Persons", as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act, absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in the United States or any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Additionally, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained herein. All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments, except as required by law.

Contacts:

Nutritional High International Inc.

David Posner

Chairman of the Board

647-985-6727

dposner@nutritionalhigh.com



Boom Capital Markets Inc.

Steven Low

(647) 620-5101

steve@boomcapitalmarkets.com

www.boomcapitalmarkets.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Khan Resources Inc. ("Khan" or the "Company") (CSE: KRI) is pleased to announce that the shareholders of Khan have approved the special resolution for the voluntary liquidation and dissolution of Khan. The special resolution was approved by 99.95% of the shares voted in person or represented by proxy at the special meeting.

Pursuant to the winding up, Khan will make an initial distribution of CDN$0.85 per share by way of a return of capital, to be paid November 29, 2016 to shareholders of record at November 22, 2016. The shares will trade ex-distribution on November 18, 2016.

Any further distribution of cash will be made in one or more instalments following receipt of funds pursuant to the liquidation of the remaining assets of Khan and the winding up of its remaining subsidiary, and the satisfaction of all liabilities, including expenses of the winding up, on a distribution date to be determined pursuant to the plan of liquidation and dissolution. As previously disclosed, Khan anticipates that any further distributions of cash as part of the winding up would aggregate between CDN$0.01 and $0.08.

Full details of the winding up and certain other matters are set out in the management information circular of Khan dated October 5, 2016. A copy of the circular and other meeting materials can be found on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Forward-Looking Statements and Information

Certain information in this press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws including, among others, statements relating to Khan's objectives, beliefs, plans, estimates and intentions, and similar statements concerning anticipated future events, results, circumstances, performance or expectations that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by words such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "should", "plans" or "continue" or similar expressions suggesting future outcomes or events. Such forward-looking statements reflect Khan's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of presenting information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future, and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. These statements are not guarantees of future results and are based on Khan's estimates and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Those risks and uncertainties include, among other things, risks related to the availability of cash for distributions in connection with the winding up. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon what management believes are reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements. The forward-looking statements are made only as of the date on which such statements are or were made and Khan assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances, except as required by applicable law.

Contacts:

Khan Resources Inc.

Grant Edey

Chairman & CEO

416.360.3405

gedey@rogers.com



Khan Resources Inc.

Marilyn Barton

Manager, Administration

416.360.3405

mbarton@khanresources.com




Fitch rates Bunge Finance Europe B.V.'s (BFE) EUR200 million senior unsecured notes 'BBB'. The notes are being issued under the same terms as the previous EUR600 million BFE notes due 2023 issued in June 2016. The notes are fully and unconditionally guaranteed by Bunge Ltd. (Bunge). Bunge intends to use net proceeds from the issuance for general corporate purposes, including repayment of outstanding indebtedness such as borrowings under Bunge's revolving credit facilities. The Rating Outlook is Stable.

A full list of ratings follows at the end of this release.

KEY RATING DRIVERS

Agribusiness Segment Concentration

Bunge has a leading position in oilseed processing and logistics that supports the approximate $40 billion in consolidated annual revenues. Bunge has considerable geographical diversification with its global asset footprint covering all major export and import markets although it has substantial exposure to South America including approximately 36% of its total processing capacity. While there is some diversification of the business portfolio provided by the food and ingredients businesses, the agribusiness segment currently represents more than 80% of operating income.

In an effort to offset earnings concentration and help reduce volatility, over the longer term, Bunge targets increasing the value added contribution of the food and ingredients businesses (edible oil and milling products) to approximately 35% of total operating income through a combination of organic growth and asset purchases. This compares to 16% in 2015.

Fitch views Bunge's business risk profile as weaker relative to its peers, Cargill or ADM, due to smaller operational scale and less geographic and commodity diversification. Bunge also has experienced challenges with driving sustained growth in operational earnings as EBITDA has vacillated in the $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion range during the past six years. When combined with moderately higher average leverage, these factors result in a three notch ratings differential between Bunge and its peers (ADM and Cargill).

Earnings Pressure Expected to Reverse in 2017

In the first nine months of 2016, EBIT in the Agribusiness segment declined to $533 million from $863 million driven primarily by lower gross profit from grain origination and oilseed processing in South America, weaker soy and canola oilseeds processing in North America and weaker softseeds processing in Europe.

South America weakness has been negatively affected by adverse weather and weakening of the U.S. dollar against key grain growing region currencies. Consequently, South American farmers have been unwilling to sell grains, thus creating limited merchandising and crushing opportunities that will likely extend into 2017. Brazilian farmers have also chosen to defer a higher portion of sales for next year's production that typically occurs in the third quarter of 2016, in hope of higher commodity prices.

Based on the current trajectory, the remaining Food Ingredients, Fertilizer and Sugar Bioenergy segments are expected to partially offset the weakness in the agribusiness segment and contribute in aggregate at least $320 million in EBIT in 2016 versus $175 million in 2015. As such, Fitch expects Bunge's overall operating income will decline in the low-double digit range in 2016 and that EBITDA will be around $1.7 billion, at the lower end of average EBITDA over the last four years.

However, several factors support an improved earnings outlook in 2017 that is underpinned by a favorable long-term outlook for the agriculture industry given higher consumption of protein in developing countries and increasing demand for biofuels. The earnings recovery reflects the expectations that South American farmers will need to commercialize their crops leading to increased capacity utilization particularly in crush, a return to normal pricing patterns in South America, meal demand returns to more normalized levels, benefits flow through from cost initiatives and contributions ramp-up from bolt-on acquisitions. The Food Ingredients, Fertilizer and Sugar Bioenergy segments are also expected to realize in aggregate double-digit EBIT growth.

The outlook assumes a commodity price environment should remain low in 2017 absent weather dislocations in the southern and northern hemisphere. Processors and ingredient users are thus expected to experience improved margins while farm level margins will remain challenged.

Exposure to Commodity Volatility

Bunge along with other agricultural processors are subject to variations with commodity pricing that can be affected by a range of unpredictable macro environmental conditions that include weather, crop disease outbreaks, and government agricultural policy changes. Thus, Bunge can be exposed to periods of volatile agricultural commodity pricing swings stemming from periodic supply/demand imbalances, timing of cash payments or foreign exchange movements that can negatively affect U.S. exports. Consequently, operating earnings can be pressured and/or debt can increase, which can quickly increase leverage. During the past several years, global grain supplies have been replenished from large harvests of key crops, limiting volatility and resulting in lower prices.

RMI Supports Ratings

Agricultural commodity trading and processing companies maintain substantial grain and oilseed inventories that are hedged and could readily be converted into cash to enhance their liquidity and reduce debt. This high level of liquid readily marketable inventories (RMI), when combined with cash and short-term marketable securities, provides substantial financial flexibility during periods of earnings volatility associated with agricultural cycles, partially mitigating financial risk. Commercial paper, accounts receivable securitizations and bank credit facilities are generally used to finance seasonal working capital needs, primarily related to RMI.

For credit purposes, Fitch calculates RMI adjusted leverage by first subtracting the minimum or base level inventory required to operate a downstream processing facility. This inventory is not generally readily available for liquidation purposes with a going concern entity. An additional 10% discount is taken for the remaining merchandisable inventory (reported RMI less minimum base processing inventory) to account for potential basis risk loss on their hedging positions.

Leverage Expected to Moderate

RMI adjusted leverage (total debt with equity credit less RMI EBITDA less RMI interest) increased modestly to 1.8x and gross leverage increased to 3.4x for the latest-12-month (LTM) period as of Sept. 30, 2016, from 1.7x and 2.9x, respectively in 2015. This was primarily driven by working capital usage due to increases with RMI and softer LTM EBITDA. Bunge's reported RMI increased during the first three quarters of 2016 by approximately $600 million to $4.2 billion. Fitch expects debt levels to further decline from the peak at the end of the first half in 2016 as RMI levels normalize, partially offset by EBITDA pressure resulting in RMI adjusted leverage in the upper 1x range. For 2017, Fitch expects RMI leverage should decline modestly to less than 1.8x given the recovery in EBITDA and stable debt levels.

KEY ASSUMPTIONS

Key assumptions within Fitch's rating case in 2016 for Bunge include:

--EBITDA declining from 2015 levels to around $1.7 billion;

--Capital spending to remain below historical levels at approximately $850 million;

--Free cash flow (FCF) modestly negative due to increased working capital requirements;

--Modest acquisition activity focused on bolt-on purchases;

--RMI adjusted leverage in the upper 1x range and gross debt leverage in the 3.3x-3.4x range.

In 2017, Fitch's assumptions include:

--EBITDA recovering to around the $1.9 billion range;

--Capital spending of approximately $750 million;

--RMI adjusted leverage of less than 1.8x and gross debt leverage of less than 3x.

Fitch's assumption also includes that commodity prices remain relatively stable over the forecast period.

RATING SENSITIVITIES

Future developments that may individually or collectively, lead to a negative rating action:

--RMI adjusted leverage sustained above 2x range driven by EBITDA compression and/or a meaningfully higher debt levels most likely from changing macro environmental conditions or increase in working capital;

--Gross leverage sustained above 3.5x;

--A material increase in leverage from a significant debt financed acquisition, with lack of meaningful deleverage that returns RMI adjusted leverage to below 2x 24 months post transaction;

--Change in financial policy;

--Lack of FCF generation lasting over two years.

Given the inherent earnings volatility within the business, the significant periodic supply/demand imbalances and where Bunge is expected to manage its capital structure, Fitch views a positive rating action as unlikely over the intermediate term.

Future developments that could, individually or collectively, lead to a positive rating action include:

--Materially improved diversification and profitability of the corporate portfolio with increased contribution from the value-added food and ingredients businesses such that Bunge can achieve EBITDA growth over a multiyear period and exhibit more stability over the commodity pricing cycle;

--A commitment to operate RMI adjusted leverage consistently below 1.5x coupled with improved consistency with FCF generation.

LIQUIDITY

Bunge's internal sources of liquidity include $297 million of cash and cash equivalents, $179 million of marketable securities and short-term investments as of the third quarter 2016. FCF can fluctuate from positive to negative from year to year due to numerous factors. For 2016, Fitch expects FCF could remain modestly negative.

A key credit concern of commodity processors is access to sufficient liquidity given historically volatile working capital needs. Bunge has abundant sources of external liquidity provided by various credit facilities available to fund its operations globally, with approximately $5 billion in capacity under its revolving bank agreements and commercial paper program, of which $4.6 billion was available at the end of the third quarter of 2016. In addition to the committed credit facilities, Bunge through its financing subsidiaries will from time-to-time enter into bilateral short-term credit lines as necessary. As of Sept. 30, 2016, there were no borrowings outstanding.

The bank commitments at Bunge Limited Finance Corp. (BLFC) are comprised of unsecured bilateral three-year agreements of $200 million maturing in June 2019 and $500 million maturing September 2019 with no borrowings outstanding, a $865 million five-year CoBank revolving credit agreement maturing May 30, 2018 with no borrowing outstandings, and a five-year syndicated unsecured revolver totalling $1.1 billion maturing in November 2019 with no borrowings outstanding. In addition, Bunge has a three-year $1.75 billion revolving credit facility established by Bunge Finance Europe B.V. (BFE) with $377 million in borrowings outstanding. The revolver, which can be expanded by $250 million, matures in August 2018 and can be extended by two one-year periods. A $600 million liquidity facility at Bunge Asset Funding Corp. (BAFC) backstops a $600 million commercial paper program that had no borrowings outstanding.

Bunge also participates in a receivables securitization program that provides funding up to $700 million. Bunge subsidiaries sell receivables to a bankruptcy remote entity (Bunge Securitization B.V.) that subsequently sells the receivables. Receivables sold under the program (and derecognized on the balance sheet) were $604 million and $524 million as of Sept. 30, 2016 and Dec. 31, 2015, respectively.

Bunge has material maturities in the next 12 months including $250 million of unsecured notes due in April 2017 and $600 million of unsecured notes due in June 2017. Earlier in 2016, Bunge issued EUR600 million and US$700 million of senior notes in the European and U.S public debt markets respectively, which when combined with this EUR200 million issuance are expected to be sufficient financings to repay next year's debt maturities and recent bolt-on acquisitions.

Fitch currently rates Bunge and its subsidiaries as follows:

Bunge Limited

--Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'BBB';

--Preference shares 'BB+'.

Bunge Limited Finance Corp. (BLFC)

--Long-Term IDR 'BBB';

--Senior unsecured bank facility 'BBB';

--Senior unsecured notes 'BBB'.

Bunge Finance Europe B.V. (BFE)

--Long-Term IDR 'BBB';

--Senior unsecured bank facility 'BBB';

--Senior unsecured notes 'BBB'.

Bunge N.A. Finance L.P. (BNAF)

--Senior unsecured notes 'BBB'.

The Rating Outlook is Stable.

Date of Relevant Rating Committee: Oct. 4, 2016

Summary of Financial Statement Adjustments Financial statement adjustments that depart materially from those contained in the published financial statements of the relevant rated entity or obligor are disclosed below:

--Financial statement adjustments for adding back off-balance sheet receivables securitization.

--Fitch grants 50% equity credit to Bunge's 4.875% cumulative convertible preferred shares after considering the junior ranking, the permanence (non-redeemable by the company), the option to defer the dividend and cumulative coupon deferral.

--Reported RMI is reduced by determining the base level of processing RMI required that supports Bunge's processing facilities (approximately $3.2 billion is considered merchandisable as reported for the third quarter 2016) along with a discretionary 10% of the remaining RMI to determine adjusted RMI available for credit purposes.

Additional information is available on www.fitchratings.com.

ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTPS://WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEB SITE AT WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA, AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE, AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE CODE OF CONDUCT SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE.

Copyright 2016 by Fitch Ratings, Inc., Fitch Ratings Ltd. and its subsidiaries. 33 Whitehall Street, NY, NY 10004. Telephone: 1-800-753-4824, (212) 908-0500. Fax: (212) 480-4435. Reproduction or retransmission in whole or in part is prohibited except by permission. All rights reserved. In issuing and maintaining its ratings and in making other reports (including forecast information), Fitch relies on factual information it receives from issuers and underwriters and from other sources Fitch believes to be credible. Fitch conducts a reasonable investigation of the factual information relied upon by it in accordance with its ratings methodology, and obtains reasonable verification of that information from independent sources, to the extent such sources are available for a given security or in a given jurisdiction. The manner of Fitch's factual investigation and the scope of the third-party verification it obtains will vary depending on the nature of the rated security and its issuer, the requirements and practices in the jurisdiction in which the rated security is offered and sold and/or the issuer is located, the availability and nature of relevant public information, access to the management of the issuer and its advisers, the availability of pre-existing third-party verifications such as audit reports, agreed-upon procedures letters, appraisals, actuarial reports, engineering reports, legal opinions and other reports provided by third parties, the availability of independent and competent third-party verification sources with respect to the particular security or in the particular jurisdiction of the issuer, and a variety of other factors. Users of Fitch's ratings and reports should understand that neither an enhanced factual investigation nor any third-party verification can ensure that all of the information Fitch relies on in connection with a rating or a report will be accurate and complete. Ultimately, the issuer and its advisers are responsible for the accuracy of the information they provide to Fitch and to the market in offering documents and other reports. In issuing its ratings and its reports, Fitch must rely on the work of experts, including independent auditors with respect to financial statements and attorneys with respect to legal and tax matters. Further, ratings and forecasts of financial and other information are inherently forward-looking and embody assumptions and predictions about future events that by their nature cannot be verified as facts. As a result, despite any verification of current facts, ratings and forecasts can be affected by future events or conditions that were not anticipated at the time a rating or forecast was issued or affirmed.

The information in this report is provided "as is" without any representation or warranty of any kind, and Fitch does not represent or warrant that the report or any of its contents will meet any of the requirements of a recipient of the report. A Fitch rating is an opinion as to the creditworthiness of a security. This opinion and reports made by Fitch are based on established criteria and methodologies that Fitch is continuously evaluating and updating. Therefore, ratings and reports are the collective work product of Fitch and no individual, or group of individuals, is solely responsible for a rating or a report. The rating does not address the risk of loss due to risks other than credit risk, unless such risk is specifically mentioned. Fitch is not engaged in the offer or sale of any security. All Fitch reports have shared authorship. Individuals identified in a Fitch report were involved in, but are not solely responsible for, the opinions stated therein. The individuals are named for contact purposes only. A report providing a Fitch rating is neither a prospectus nor a substitute for the information assembled, verified and presented to investors by the issuer and its agents in connection with the sale of the securities. Ratings may be changed or withdrawn at any time for any reason in the sole discretion of Fitch. Fitch does not provide investment advice of any sort. Ratings are not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Ratings do not comment on the adequacy of market price, the suitability of any security for a particular investor, or the tax-exempt nature or taxability of payments made in respect to any security. Fitch receives fees from issuers, insurers, guarantors, other obligors, and underwriters for rating securities. Such fees generally vary from US$1,000 to US$750,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent) per issue. In certain cases, Fitch will rate all or a number of issues issued by a particular issuer, or insured or guaranteed by a particular insurer or guarantor, for a single annual fee. Such fees are expected to vary from US$10,000 to US$1,500,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent). The assignment, publication, or dissemination of a rating by Fitch shall not constitute a consent by Fitch to use its name as an expert in connection with any registration statement filed under the United States securities laws, the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 of the United Kingdom, or the securities laws of any particular jurisdiction. Due to the relative efficiency of electronic publishing and distribution, Fitch research may be available to electronic subscribers up to three days earlier than to print subscribers.

For Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea only: Fitch Australia Pty Ltd holds an Australian financial services license (AFS license no. 337123) which authorizes it to provide credit ratings to wholesale clients only. Credit ratings information published by Fitch is not intended to be used by persons who are retail clients within the meaning of the Corporations Act 2001.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006310/en/

Contacts:

Fitch Ratings

Primary Analyst:

Bill Densmore, +1-312-368-3125

Senior Director

Fitch Ratings, Inc.

70 W. Madison St.

Chicago, IL 60602

or

Secondary Analyst:

Carla Norfleet Taylor, CFA, +1-312-368-3195

Senior Director

or

Committee Chairperson:

Monica Aggarwal, CFA, +1-212-908-0282

Managing Director

or

Media Relations:

Alyssa Castelli, +1-212-908-0540

New York

alyssa.castelli@fitchratings.com
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, 2016-11-10 19:58 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX-V:ABN) (OTCBB:ABNAF) (Frankfurt:E2L2) ("Aben" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a summary of analytical results from the September 2016 surface sampling program at the Company's 23,000 hectare Forrest Kerr Project, located within B.C.'s prolific Golden Triangle region.B.C.'s Golden Triangle map: http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Golden_Triangle_map.jpgA total of 362 soil, 35 rock and 11 stream-sediment samples were collected between September 8--19, 2016 and transported to AGAT Labs for multi-element analysis. Samples were sourced from various mineralized zones throughout the Forrest Kerr claim package with a focus on areas that will promote a greater understanding and help define existing mineralization patterns in advance of a planned drill program in 2017.Rock samples were sourced from both outcrop and talus from various areas across the Forrest Kerr Property and showed a range of values from 0.002 to 48.1 g/t gold (0.00006 to 1.4 oz/ton gold).Several rock grab samples were collected from two distinct zones located in the northern portion of the claim block. Samples from the Wedge zone returned high base- and precious-metal values over a strike length exceeding 2 kilometers. The results confirmed historically reported values from drilling and surface sampling in this area. At the Boundary Zone, rock samples taken from subcrop in the vicinity of diamond drill hole RG91-16 (73 g/t gold (2.15 oz/ton gold), 14.7g/t silver (0.43 oz/ton silver), 0.32% copper over 3.7m) showed correspondingly strong gold and copper mineralization (Sample 6632019). The prime objective of the rock sampling program was to both confirm previously reported mineralization and to provide further information about the association of base- and precious-metal mineralization with recognised alteration assemblages. The table below shows assay results from select rock samples.Sample Easting Northing Area Au Au Cu (%) Pb (%) Zn (%) # (g/ton) (oz/ton) 6632018 400035 6310931 Boundar 0.249 0.007 25.200 0.0025 0.024 y 6632019 400031 6310940 Boundar 9.660 0.282 14.500 0.027 0.036 y 6632021 399961 6311090 Boundar 0.005 0.00015 0.039 0.011 0.024 y 6632010 400246 6317737 S.Wedge 41.30 1.205 0.165 0.987 0.842 6632026 399883 6318949 Wedge 48.10 1.403 1.120 0.609 9.570 6632029 399926 6319104 Wedge 11.90 0.347 0.512 0.599 10.300 6632030 399889 6319238 Wedge 1.71 0.050 0.645 1.780 5.700 6632031 399911 6319408 Wedge 2.00 0.058 1.560 0.087 0.657 6632033 399967 6319487 Wedge 18.10 0.528 1.270 0.190 0.021 6632034 399970 6319490 Wedge 1.67 0.049 0.368 0.189 0.124Soil geochemical surveys were completed on six separate grids located adjacent to known mineralized zones in order to test for potential extensions of existing soil anomalies and assess their continuity across mapped geologic structures. The results successfully show an increase in the areal extent of anomalous levels of gold, copper, lead and zinc in soil while also better delineating the location of controlling structures. The soil data will be added to Aben's existing database of more than 18,000 property-wide soil samples and evaluated as a whole going forward. Eleven stream-sediment samples were taken from a drainage on the Beauty 10 claim, which is located 2.5 kilometers east of the main Aben land package in an area considered highly prospective for silver mineralization. The assay results from the 11 silt samples show consistently elevated levels of zinc. Analytical results for silver (Ag) have not yet been received.The Forrest Kerr Gold Project is located in the heart of the Golden Triangle of British Columbia and is considered to hold significant potential for precious metal mineralization. Numerous mineralized occurrences are documented throughout the project area and sound, systematic fieldwork conducted from the late 1980's to the mid 2000's provide a solid framework for ongoing fieldwork. With little activity in the area during the past decade, the area is ripe for modern exploration techniques. The area has recently seen major infrastructure improvements including roads and hydro-electric facilities. In addition, rapid melting rates of glaciers in parts of the property area are expected to provide new exposures in areas that were inaccessible during previous exploration campaigns.The Golden Triangle is host to significant mineral deposits including Galore Creek, Copper Canyon, Schaft Creek, Valley of the Kings, Snowfield, KSM, Snip, Granduc, Red-Chris and numerous others.Aben's Forrest Kerr land package is located along the Forrest Kerr Fault, immediately north of the Iskut River and southward of More Creek, with recent hydro-electric power and road access afforded to the northern and southern areas of the property. The claims consist of a 40km-long, north-south belt overlying rocks of the Hazelton and Stuhini Groups, a complex assemblage of volcanic accumulations with intervening sedimentary sequences which are host to numerous significant gold deposits in B.C.'s Golden Triangle area.Forrest Kerr project, B.C., Golden Triangle claims map: http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Forrest_Kerr_Project_map_small.jpgCornell McDowell, P.Geo., V.P. of Exploration of Aben Resources, has reviewed and approved the technical aspects of this news release and is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.Quality Control and Quality Assurance:All samples were sealed and delivered to AGAT Laboratories preparation facility in Terrace, B.C. by Aben personnel. Multi-element analysis was completed by hydrogen peroxide fusion with an ICP-OES finish, while each sample was fire-assayed for gold with an ICP-OES finish. In addition to the in-house QA/QC performed by AGAT on 10% of the samples, four field blanks and one duplicate sample were inserted into the sample stream by Aben personnel. All QA/QC samples returned values well within acceptable parameters.About Aben Resources:Aben Resources is a Canadian gold exploration company developing projects in British Columbia, the Yukon and North West Territories.For further information on Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX-V:ABN), visit our Company's web site at www.abenresources.com.Aben Resources has approx. 30 million shares issued and outstanding.ABEN RESOURCES LTD."Jim Pettit" ____________________________ JAMES G. PETTIT PresidentFor further information contact myself or: Don Myers Aben Resources Ltd. Corporate Communications Telephone: 604-687-3376 Toll Free: 800-567-8181 Facsimile: 604-687-3119 Email: info@abenresources.comNeither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that management of the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although management believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, include market prices, exploration and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com for further information.
BARC's annual BI Survey results are launched on the new bi-survey.com website. Major findings this year include the continued surge in the use of business intelligence (BI) in production/operations departments, customer analysis is named as the #1 investment area in new BI projects, and several trends including collaboration and sensor data analysis are now established as critical BI components for many organizations.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006346/en/

Figure 1: Which departments are using BI? Timeline (n=changing basis) (Photo: Business Wire)

Departments using BI

Finance, management and sales departments continue to lead the way in the use of BI, but with little variation in usage rates since 2014.

Elsewhere, production/operations departments continue a strong upwards trajectory, rising from 20% to 53% usage in the last eight years (see Figure 1).

"While BI has always been strong in sales and finance, production and operations departments have traditionally been more cautious about adopting it," said Carsten Bange, CEO of BARC. "But with the general trend for using data to support decision-making, this has all changed. Technology for areas such as event processing and real-time data integration and visualization has become more widely available in recent years. Also, the wave of big data from the Internet of Things and the Industrial Internet has increased awareness and demand for analytics, and will likely continue to drive further BI usage in production and operations."

BI trends

It is clear that some BI trends that began with a buzz a few years ago now serve as critical BI components for a growing number of companies. Areas such as collaboration and spatial/location analysis are reported as "in use" by more than 20 percent of respondents. At 12 percent, cloud BI is now in double-digits with more companies planning to leverage it over the longer term. Social media analysis is the only listed trend in use by less than 10 percent of Survey respondents this year.

Sensor data analysis is also on the rise. Telecoms, utilities, and transportation companies with thousands or millions of electronic devices and sensors are capable of generating huge volumes of data. Sensor-intensive companies planning to harness these insights to provide smarter and more efficient products and services will need expanded data management, integration and analytics solutions. This year, the transport and telecoms industries lead the way in leveraging sensor data, while the most significant new investments in this area are planned in the manufacturing and utilities industries.

Customer analysis a major investment area

40% of companies are now putting their BI budgets into customer behavior analysis, and 32% are investing in developing a unified view of customers. "With areas such as accounting and finance more or less under control, companies are moving to other areas of the enterprise, in particular to gain a better understanding of customer, market and competitive dynamics," said Carsten Bange.

About The BI Survey 16

The BI Survey 16 is based on opinion from over 3,000 BI professionals worldwide about their software selection, implementation and usage. Detailed feedback on 37 BI products from 30 vendors is analyzed and compared, including international giants IBM, Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL) and SAP, as well as BI specialists such as Information Builders, MicroStrategy (MSTR), Qlik, SAS Institute and Tableau (DATA).

Home: www.bi-survey.com

About BARC Business Application Research Center a CXP Group Company

The Business Application Research Centre (BARC) is an analyst and consulting firm for enterprise software with a focus on Business Intelligence (BI), Data Management (DM), Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). For over twenty years, BARC analysts have combined extensive market, product and implementation knowledge to advise clients.

Along with CXP and PAC, BARC forms part of the CXP Group the leading European IT research and consulting firm with staff in eight countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110006346/en/

Contacts:

BARC

Mark Handford

Tel: +44 (0) 1536 772451

Email: mhandford@barc-research.com
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Nutritional High International Inc. (the "Company" or "Nutritional High") (CSE: EAT)(CSE: EAT.CN)(CNSX: EAT)(OTCQB: SPLIF)(FRANKFURT: 2NU) wishes to congratulate the voters in the states, which have successfully passed measures to legalize cannabis for medical or adult recreational use.

Jim Frazier, CEO of Nutritional High commented - "We are witnessing a truly historical moment as the days of cannabis prohibition are coming to an end. We are excited with the plethora of new opportunities that passage of ballot measures presents, especially the successful passage of Proposition 64 in the State of California, which has effectively created the largest legal cannabis market in the United States. Residing in the State of Florida, I am also excited about the passage of Amendment 2, which legalized medical cannabis for patients suffering from debilitating diseases. We look forward to replicating the model we've built in Colorado in other states as well."

Key Highlights

Proposition 64 has successfully passed with 56% of the voters voting in its favor, which has legalized cannabis for recreational use in the State of California. The Company continues to pursue opportunities in the state in line with the strategy outlined in our press release dated November 2, 2016.

The States of Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine have passed the ballot measures, which legalized cannabis for recreational use. Nutritional High continues to monitor the regulatory framework that is being enacted as a result of these measures and expects to provide updates to our shareholders as they materialize.

Breaking ground in the medical cannabis market, we also congratulate the voters in the states of Florida, Arkansas and North Dakota, which have passed

Also a key development in our flagship State of Colorado, and specifically the Pueblo County, where voters have defeated Propositions 200 and 300, which would have banned all adult use cannabis businesses in the county. We look forward to Palo Verde launching its MIPs facility in short order and to working with Palo Verde's team in in making a significant contribution to the local economy.

About Nutritional High International Inc.

Nutritional High is focused on developing, manufacturing and distributing products and nationally recognized brands in the hemp and marijuana-infused products industries, including edibles and oil extracts for nutritional, medical and adult recreational use. The Company works exclusively through licensed facilities in jurisdictions where such activity is permitted and regulated by state law.

For updates on the Company's activities and highlights of the Company's press releases and other media coverage, please follow Nutritional High on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+

NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR OTC MARKETS GROUP INC., NOR THEIR REGULATIONS SERVICES PROVIDERS HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Such statements include submission of the relevant documentation within the required timeframe and to the satisfaction of the relevant regulators, completing the acquisition of the applicable real estate and raising sufficient financing to complete the Company's business strategy. There is no certainty that any of these events will occur. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be correct. We assume no responsibility to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

Company's securities have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or applicable state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold to, or for the account or benefit of, persons in the United States or "U.S. Persons", as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act, absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in the United States or any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Additionally, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained herein. All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments, except as required by law.

Contacts:

David Posner, Chairman

Nutritional High International Inc.

647-985-6727

dposner@nutritionalhigh.com



Steven Low

Boom Capital Markets Inc.

(647) 620-5101

steve@boomcapitalmarkets.com

www.boomcapitalmarkets.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. ("Sabina") or (the "Company") (TSX: SBB) reported today the financial results for the third quarter of 2016. All figures in C$ unless otherwise specified.

"Since receiving the recommendation from the Nunavut Impact Review Board ("NIRB") in mid-June we have been working diligently to prepare for the next step of the environmental assessment process," said Bruce McLeod, Sabina's President and CEO. "We have continued to work with the communities, the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, the Governments of Nunavut and Northwest Territories as well as the various regulatory agencies to finalize and strengthen commitments that we believe will address issues outlined in the NIRB recommendation report. We are well positioned to proceed on any of the three possible decisions from the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, which we expect before the end of the year."

Q3 Highlights

-- The Company had cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments of $41.5 million at September 30, 2016. -- On July 20, 2016, the Company submitted a response to the NIRB report to the Minister of INAC detailing what the Company believes are strong grounds for the Minister to reject the NIRB recommendation or send it back to NIRB for further review. The Company believes that the NIRB report does not fully consider the support of the Project by the local communities and Inuit representatives in the region or the evidence presented on the Project. -- In July, 2016, the Company completed a series of meetings in communities in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut. Following these meeting, the Company continued to receive broad positive support for the Project from community members, hamlet councils, advisory committees and Inuit organizations. This support has been evidenced by numerous letters to the Minister in favour of the advancement of the Project and urging the Minister to reject the NIRB recommendation. The letters of support are publicly available on the NIRB website. -- In July, 2016 the Government of Canada requested feedback on the NIRB report from certain indigenous groups and territorial governments. On August 30, 2016, the Company reported that the Kitikmeot Inuit Association ("KIA") and the Government of Nunavut ("GN") had asked the Minister to send the Back River project back to NIRB for further consideration. The KIA is the designated Inuit organization responsible for the lands and the people of the Kitikmeot region. In its letter to the Minister, the KIA acknowledged that Sabina had proposed plans to conduct careful and comprehensive caribou monitoring and mitigation programs. And while KIA is satisfied with these plans, the KIA noted that the final details of these plans were the subject of a joint submission by Sabina, KIA and the Government of Nunavut on the final day of the hearing. That meant the (NIRB) Board did not have the benefit of a full airing of these revised plans. Thus, the KIA further recommended that the Minister instruct the NIRB to focus any further investigations on matters related to the Project's impacts on caribou and the best approaches to mitigation of such impacts. -- During the quarter, the Company completed an exploration program which was comprised of geological mapping, rock and till sampling, prospecting and review of select historic drill core. The field work was complete at numerous areas at the Goose, George and Boulder properties. Results of the program have been received and are being used to update exploration models and advance priority targets and concept areas for future exploration. -- A long-term strategic review on the Company's Wishbone property in Nunavut, resulted in a write down of $5.2 million for certain non-core mineral claims on the property. While the retained Wishbone claims remain as long term exploration opportunities, the Company's immediate focus is on the Back River deposits and exploration opportunities proximal to existing resources. -- For the three months ended September 30, 2016, the Company reported a net loss of $3.7 million or $0.02 per share.

Financial Results

For the three-month period ended September 30, 2016, the Company reported a net loss of $3.7 million, unfavourable by $2.8 million compared to the same period of 2015. The difference quarter over quarter was largely the result of a $5.2 million write-down of the Wishbone properties partially offset by a $1.4 million deferred income tax recovery. In Q3, 2016, the Company completed an assessment of long-term strategic exploration opportunities on its Wishbone property which resulted in a write-down for certain non-core mineral claims which the Company determined had lower exploration potential. In Q3, 2016, the Company realized a gain of $0.5 million on the sale of a portion of its equity investment in in Pure Gold Mining Inc. In Q3, 2015, the Company recorded an impairment loss of $0.2 million on its equity investment in Pure Gold.

For the nine-month period ended September 30, 2016, the Company recorded a net loss of $4.1 million, favourable by $0.8 million compared to the same period of 2015.

For the nine-month period in 2016, operating expenses, excluding write downs, were $2.3 million compared to $3.6 million in the same period in 2015.

The Company expects to end the year with approximately $38 million in cash.

For the full September 30, 2016 interim financial statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis, please see the Company website at www.sabinagoldsilver.com or retrieve them from www.sedar.com.

SABINA GOLD & SILVER CORP.

Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. is an emerging precious metals company with district scale, world class undeveloped assets in one of the world's newest, politically stable mining jurisdictions: Nunavut, Canada.

Sabina recently released a Feasibility Study on its 100% owned Back River Gold Project which presents a project that has been designed on a fit-for purpose basis, with the potential to produce approx. 200,000 ounces a year for approx. 11 years with a rapid payback of 2.9 years. At a US$1,150 gold price and a 0.80 exchange rate, the Study delivers a potential after tax internal rate of return of approximately 24.2% with an initial CAPEX of $415 million.

In addition to Back River, Sabina also owns a significant silver royalty on Glencore's Hackett River Project. The silver royalty on Hackett River's silver production is comprised of 22.5% of the first 190 million ounces produced and 12.5% of all silver produced thereafter.

All news releases and further information can be found on the Company's website at www.sabinagoldsilver.com or on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. All technical reports have been filed on www.sedar.com.

Contacts:

Sabina Gold & Silver Corp.

Nicole Hoeller

Vice-President, Communications

1 888 648-4218

nhoeller@sabinagoldsilver.com

www.sabinagoldsilver.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Pala Investments Limited ("Pala") is pleased to announce that it has reached an agreement with Melior Resources Inc. ("Melior") to grant Melior a put option (the "Put Option") to require Pala to purchase 47,272,727 Asian Mineral Resources Limited ("AMR") common shares owned by Melior (the "Put Option Shares").

Under the terms of the Put Option, the price per AMR common share (an "AMR Share") will be equal to the lesser of (i) CAD$0.024 and (ii) the 30-day VWAP of the AMR Shares traded on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") calculated as of market close on the day prior to the day the AMR Put Option is exercised by Melior less 10%. The Put Option may be exercised by Melior at any time following the closing of the previously announced acquisition by AMR of Kasbah Resources Limited ("Kasbah") pursuant to an Australian scheme of arrangement (the "Scheme"), until February 28, 2017. The exercise of the Put Option remains subject to approval of the TSXV pursuant to TSXV Policy 5.3 - Acquisitions and Dispositions of Non-Cash Assets.

Pala currently owns or controls, directly or indirectly, a total of 569,813,827 AMR Shares and 54,166,667 common share purchase warrants of AMR, representing 74% of the issued and outstanding AMR Shares on a partially diluted basis. The Put Option Shares represent 6% of the currently outstanding AMR Shares, on a non-diluted basis. Following the implementation of the Scheme and the exercise of the Put Option and the acquisition of the Put Option Shares by Pala, Pala would hold a total of 617,086,554 common shares in the combined entity, representing approximately 40.8% of the total outstanding common shares of the combined entity on an undiluted basis, or 37.1% on a fully diluted basis (in each case, based on 788,920,842 AMR Shares currently outstanding, 556,005,435 Kasbah shares currently outstanding which shall be exchanged for AMR Shares, 54,166,667 outstanding AMR common share purchase warrants held by Pala, 21,298,284 outstanding share purchase options for AMR Shares and 222,402,174 outstanding share purchase warrants for Kasbah shares).

Pala has granted the Put Option and upon its exercise by Melior, Pala will acquire these securities for investment purposes and may increase or decrease the investment in the securities of AMR depending on its evaluation of the business, prospects and financial condition of AMR, the market for AMR's securities, general economic and tax conditions and other factors.

Pala is relying on the private agreement exemption under section 4.2(1) of National Instrument 62-104 - Take-Over Bids and Issuer Bids ("NI 62-104") in connection with the granting of the Put Option and acquisition of the Put Option Shares.

Pala's address is 12 Castle Street, St. Helier, Jersey JE2 3RT. For further information please refer to the Early Warning Report posted on SEDAR or contact John Nagulendran at +41 41 560 9070.

About Pala

Pala is an investment company focused exclusively on the mining sector with a strong track record of successful investments and value creation. Pala's team has extensive experience within the sector and seeks to assist companies in which it has long-term shareholdings by providing strategic advice and innovative solutions in development, production, turnaround and advanced exploration situations. Pala invests across all geographies and in all mining commodities as well as mining services and consumables. For more information, visit www.pala.com.

Certain statements in the press release are forward-looking statements and are prospective in nature, including statements with respect to Pala's future intentions regarding the securities of AMR that it owns. Forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts, but rather on current expectations and projections about future events, and are therefore subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "may", "should", "will", "could", "intend", "estimate", "plan", "anticipate", "expect", "believe" or "continue", or the negative thereof or similar variations. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. Such forward-looking statements should therefore be construed in light of such factors, and Pala is not under any obligation, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

Contacts:

John Nagulendran

+41 41 560 9070




ST. LOUIS PARK, MN--(Marketwired - November 10, 2016) - Center for Diagnostic (CDI) announced that it has formed a new partnership to bring the EPIC Imaging centers in Portland, Oregon into the CDI national provider network for medical imaging and related services.

Under the agreement, CDI will partner with EPIC's existing ownership and operate all four EPIC Imaging centers in the Portland market, expanding a Pacific Northwest presence that includes free-standing, independent, outpatient imaging centers in Seattle and Northern California. EPIC Imaging has more than a 50 year history in the Portland area, delivering high-quality diagnostic imaging featuring sub-specialized radiologists with advanced training in women's imaging, ENT, head and neck, oncology, musculoskeletal imaging, abdominal and intestinal disorders and interventional radiology.

"EPIC Imaging is a natural fit for CDI," said Rick Long, CDI President and Chief Executive Officer. "We share a long history and commitment to quality, value, access and service excellence. And we're thrilled to have them part of our network while maintaining the same great center staff and strong local clinical teams, including their sub- specialized radiologists that are so well-known and respected in the community."

"Partnering with CDI allows us to extend and expand the breadth of our high-quality diagnostic imaging services and procedures in Portland," said John Griffith, Vice President Operations and Business Development for the Portland centers. "By tapping into CDI's robust operational platforms and best practice sharing, our patients and the medical providers locally will have even greater access to state-of-the-art, industry-leading care and services."

EPIC Imaging's advanced diagnostic imaging technology includes MRI, CT, mammography, ultrasound, PET/CT, Digital X-ray and digital fluoroscopy, as well as an interventional practice specializing in pelvic congestion syndrome, uterine fibroid embolization, varicose veins, infertility and spinal fracture. Patients can schedule appointments by calling (503) 253-1105.

About Center for Diagnostic Imaging (CDI)

CDI is one of the nation's leading providers of high-quality diagnostic imaging and interventional radiology services through its network of imaging centers, ambulatory surgery centers, and mobile imaging solutions. The organization, with nearly 2,000 associates nationally, is committed to delivering clinical excellence in communities across the U.S. driven by its affiliated subspecialized radiologists network, compassionate, safe and cost-efficient care, and superior service to referring providers and patients. CDI, which includes Insight Imaging and many market-based partnerships, is one of the nation's largest provider networks for radiology services and solutions. For more information on our locations, partners and services, visit myCDI.com.

Contact:

Matt Malloy

Vice President, Marketing & Corporate Communications

952-738-4867

Matt.Malloy@cdirad.com
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Travelers to Jacksonville, Fla. will find newly renovated accommodations designed to create a home-like experience at the SpringHill Suites Jacksonville Airport. The hotel went through a complete property renovation, embracing the newest SpringHill by Marriott standard.

Teaming up with professional designers at the modern home brand, West Elm, a renovation of the hotel lobby and its 104 suites was completed using a monochromatic palette, ceramic vases, wood and lacquer trays and artful accents mixed and matched for a simple yet striking look that adds more style to every stay. Unique details include trays created from reclaimed wood bringing together both a rustic and chic style.

Additionally, West Elm worked with SpringHill Suites in co-developing an exclusive furniture collection along with a new Palettes decor package for the Marriott branded hotel. Both were used for renovations throughout the property.

"With the renovation, our lodging has a modern, stylish, up-to-date feel," said Melissa Duncan, general manager of the business hotel near Jackson International Airport (JAX). "SpringHill Suites partnered with West Elm on all of the furnishings, which gives guests more of a feeling of home while staying with us, instead of a hotel room."

"My favorite is the huge three-in-one trundle sofa, topped with the hand-crafted pillows," said Duncan in expressing her excitement for the new look. "It is a sofa that you would buy for your home, and all of our guests have loved the new look and feel of the rooms."

The stylish new renovation maximizes lobby space efficiency and functionality. Using a neutral decor palette with two lobby accent color schemes, the West Elm designs implement the use of an architectural focal wall that serves as both a functional and design element. The creative collaboration channels the same contemporary aesthetic and functional design details that define West Elm's collection -- just scaled down for smaller spaces.

In addition to trendy new designs, the spacious studio suites include a pantry area with wet bar, mini-refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker / tea service and silverware. Marble bathrooms with Paul Mitchell amenities are standard along with Marriott luxury bedding, plug-in technology and premium movie channels. Guests also enjoy complimentary high-speed Internet access.

About the SpringHill Suites Jacksonville Airport

The SpringHill Suites Jacksonville Airport welcomes guests to discover the comfort of extra space with refreshing amenities designed to revitalize, energize and renew! Whether spending one night or a week, the hotel's stylish new accommodations put travelers in the heart of popular activities. Located just minutes from EverBank Field, the Zoo and other top attractions, the hotel is also convenient to the Jacksonville cruise port and less than two miles from the airport so guests can make the most of their travel time. Free parking and complimentary airport shuttle service also add value to your Florida travel experience.

About Baywood Hotels

Established in 1975, Baywood Hotels, Inc. is a fast-growing and privately-owned hospitality management company, operating over $800 million in assets and employing over 1,000 associates nationwide. The company is headquartered in Greenbelt, Maryland, and has regional offices in Chantilly, VA, Miami, FL and San Antonio, TX. In each of its regions, the private hotel ownership company is consistently recognized as an innovative leader in the hotel industry, focusing on product concept and development and the outstanding management of its assets. The focused vision, strong values and aggressive long-range strategy of Baywood Hotels has helped the company develop reputable and well-branded hotels in areas where Baywood has competitive expertise and partnerships. Baywood Hotels' portfolio includes well-known brands, such as Marriott, Hilton and InterContinental Hotels Group, as well as several independent brands. Baywood Hotels employs over 1,000 associates nationwide.

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3079130



SpringHill Suites Jacksonville Airport

13550 Airport Court

Jacksonville Florida 32218 USA

904-741-8002

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/jaxjk-springhill-suites-jacksonville-airport/




SAINT-LAURENT, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- IntelGenx Technologies Corp. (TSX VENTURE: IGX)(OTCQX: IGXT) (the "Company" or "IntelGenx") today reported its third quarter 2016 financial results for the three-month and nine-month periods ended September 30, 2016. All amounts are in U.S. Dollars unless otherwise stated. The Company will host a conference call today at 4:30 p.m. EST to provide a corporate update.

2016 Third Quarter Financial Highlights:

-- Revenue was $1.8 million, compared to $2.4 million over the same period last year -- Net comprehensive income was $62 thousand, compared to net comprehensive income of $1.2 million over the same period last year -- Adjusted EBITDA was $311 thousand, compared to adjusted EBITDA of $1.4 million over the same period last year -- Cash and short-term investments totaled $5.7 million as at September 30, 2016 compared to the balance of $2.9 million as at December 31, 2015

Recent Highlights:

-- Signed commercialization term sheet for Rizaport with Pharmatronic for Korea -- Announced the successful completion of a phase 1 clinical study of Montelukast that demonstrated a significantly improved pharmacokinetic profile - bioavailability increased by 52% against the reference product. Montelukast is approved for the treatment of asthma and has shown promising results in the treatment of degenerative diseases of the brain, such as mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease, the most prominent form of dementia -- Signed a development and commercialization agreement with Chemo Group for three generic products -- Monetized its royalty on future sales of Forfivo XLr to SWK Holdings Corporation for $6 million (CAD$8 million) - the largest influx of capital in the history of the company

"We are most pleased by our progress in executing our business plan and transforming IntelGenx into a global leader in pharmaceutical oral films," said Dr. Horst G. Zerbe, President and CEO of IntelGenx. "The completion of the definitive agreement with Chemo Group is a significant achievement for the Company. This important strategic partnership offers IntelGenx an opportunity to expand its global reach with its innovative product pipeline. The excellent results from our recently completed phase 1 study with Montelukast demonstrating a significantly increased bioavailability of the drug further confirms that this important drug repurposing opportunity has the potential to significantly accelerate IntelGenx' long-term growth."

Financial Results:

Total revenues for the three-month period ended September 30, 2016 amounted to $1.8 million, representing a decrease of $564 thousand or 24% compared to $2.4 million for the three-month period ended September 30, 2015. The decrease for the three-month period ended September 30, 2016 compared to the last year's corresponding period is mainly attributable to a decrease in royalties of $248 thousand as well as a decrease in milestone revenues of $1.7 million and a decrease in deferred license revenues of $409 thousand, offset by an increase in upfront and deferred revenue on monetization of $1.8 million. Going forward, the royalty revenue should diminish due to the Company's strategic decision to monetize the royalty on future sales of Forfivo XL.

Operating costs and expenses were $1.7 million for the three-month period ended September 30, 2016 compared to $1 million for the corresponding period of 2015. The increase for the three-month period ended September 30, 2016 is mainly attributable to an increase in Research and Development expenses of $114 thousand and Selling, General and Administrative of $519 thousand. The increase in expenses relates to the investment into additional hiring's to strengthen IntelGenx's team as it executes its strategic plan to establish its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.

For the third quarter of 2016, the Company generated operating income of $88 thousand compared to operating income of $1.4 million for the comparable period of 2015.

Net comprehensive income was $62 thousand or $0.00 on a basic and diluted per share basis for the third quarter of 2016 compared to net comprehensive income of $1.2 million or $0.02 on a basic and diluted per share basis for the comparable period of 2015.

"We are pleased that the company is well funded to advance our current innovative pipeline forward," said Andre Godin, Executive Vice-President and CFO of IntelGenx. "The Company is working hard to bring further visibility to the marketplace in building a stronger presence in the capital markets."

Cash and short-term investments as at September 30, 2016 was $5.7 million, representing an increase of $2.8 million compared with the balance of $2.9 million as at December 31, 2015. The increase in cash relates to the monetization of its royalty on future sales of Forfivo XL to SWK Holdings Corporation for $6 million (CAD$8 million).

Conference Call Notice:

IntelGenx will host a conference call to discuss its third quarter results on Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 4:30 p.m. EST. The dial-in number for the conference call is 1-877-201-0168 (Canada and United States) or (647) 788-4901 (International), conference ID 97287160. The call will be audio-cast live and archived for twelve months at: www.intelgenx.com.

About IntelGenx:

IntelGenx is a leading oral drug delivery company focused on the development and manufacturing of innovative pharmaceutical oral films based on its proprietary VersaFilm technology platform. Established in 2003, the Montreal-based company is listed on the TSX-V and OTC-QX.

IntelGenx highly skilled team provides comprehensive pharmaceuticals services to pharmaceutical partners, including R&D, analytical method development, clinical monitoring, IP and regulatory services. IntelGenx state-of-the art manufacturing facility, established for the VersaFilm technology platform, supports lab-scale to pilot and commercial-scale production, offering full service capabilities to our clients. More information is available about the company at: www.intelgenx.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This document may contain forward-looking information about IntelGenx' operating results and business prospects that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Statements that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements about IntelGenx' plans, objectives, expectations, strategies, intentions or other characterizations of future events or circumstances and are generally identified by the words "may," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "could," "would," and similar expressions. All forward looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Because these forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, IntelGenx' actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in IntelGenx' annual report on Form 10-K, filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov, and also filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and www.sedar.com. IntelGenx assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange), nor the OTCQX accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Source: IntelGenx Technologies Corp.

Contacts:

IntelGenx Corp.

Edward Miller

Director, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

+1 514-331-7440 (ext. 217)

edward@intelgenx.com

www.intelgenx.com




The global pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market is expected to grow at a CAGR of close to 7% during the period 2016-2020, according to Technavio's latest report.

In this report, Technavio covers the market outlook and growth prospects of the globalpharmaceutical contract manufacturingmarketfor 2016-2020. The global pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market is categorized into the following three segments based on type of contract manufacturing: active pharmaceutical ingredient (API)/bulk drug contract manufacturing, final dosage form (FDF), and others (includes packaging and distribution).

"The global pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market is highly fragmented and is moving toward consolidation through vertical integration, and alliances and acquisitions. This ongoing consolidation will emerge into a handful of integrated players providing end-to-end services for the drug development while maintaining the advantages of low cost and high productivity," says Sapna Jha, a lead cardiovascular and metabolic disorders research expert from Technavio.

Technavio's healthcare and life sciences research analysts segment the global pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market into the following regions:

Americas

APAC

EMEA

In 2015, with a market share of over 39%, the Americas dominated the global pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market, followed by APAC with over 32% and EMEA with over 28%.

Americas: government support to strengthen market

The pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market in the Americas is growing due to the increasing older population and higher uptake of biologicals, leading to a rising demand-supply gap. Also, growing demand for generics and favorable initiatives taken by the governments in the pharmaceutical field and various research initiatives taken by biotechnological companies are major factors driving the growth of the market. The demand for generics is increasing not only in developed markets but also in underdeveloped and developing countries such as Mexico and Brazil.

Government support has been an important tool for the domestic players in the less developed markets of the Americas, such as Brazil and Mexico. Brazil's health authority National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) permits the procurement or manufacturing of APIs only for vendors registered with ANVISA. Furthermore, foreign companies find it difficult to expand their generics market in Brazil, as approximately 80% of the market is dominated by the four local vendors such as Medley, Eurofarma, Biosintetica, and EMS. According to the research reports published in 2015, more than 85% of the drugs used in Mexico were manufactured domestically, to help restrict rising healthcare costs.

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APAC: India emerges as the fastest growing market in the region

The pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market in APAC will grow at a significant rate during the forecast period due to better market penetration of generics and growing adoption of advancedtechnologies in emerging economies, especially in India and China.

The rising number of initiatives undertaken by major vendors to assist patients in these countries will result in increased sales in these regions. India is estimated to be the fastest growing pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market due to its quality manufacturing capabilities and cost competitiveness.

EMEA: substitution of branded drugs with generics helps boost market

The pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market in EMEA is growing at a fast pace, but relatively slower than APAC. The market will typically witness significant growth in countries such as Germany, the UK, Spain, France, and Italy. In Europe, physicians are offered incentives for substituting branded drugs with generics, which contributes to the growth of the pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market in the region.

"Moreover, rising government support post the financial crisis along with a strong pipeline of patent expiries of top-selling branded drugs will have a positive impact on the growth of the pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market in Europe during the forecast period," says Sapna. In MEA as well, the outsourcing companies are expanding their capacity to make the process of clinical trials more efficient.

The top vendors in the global pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market as highlighted in the report are:

Catalent

Lonza

Pfizer CentreOne

Browse Related Reports:

Global Pharmaceutical Caps and Closures Market 2016-2020

Regenerative Medicine Market in Japan 2016-2020

Global Biologic Therapeutics Market 2015-2019

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ACHESON, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- ENTREC Corporation ("ENTREC" or the "Company") (TSX: ENT), a heavy haul transportation and crane solutions provider, today announced financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2016.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended $ thousands, except per share Sept 30 Sept 30 Sept 30 Sept 30 amounts and margin percent 2016 2015 2016 2015 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Revenue 28,394 41,187 84,043 130,466 Gross profit 5,594 11,494 15,082 32,917 Gross margin 19.7% 27.9% 17.9% 25.2% Adjusted EBITDA(1) 2,552 7,417 4,677 19,407 Adjusted EBITDA margin(1) 9.0% 18.0% 5.6% 14.9% Per share(1) 0.02 0.07 0.04 0.18 Adjusted net loss(1) (3,539) (1,848) (15,577) (8,831) Per share(1) (0.03) (0.02) (0.14) (0.08) Net loss (5,070) (2,299) (13,097) (10,134) Per share - basic (0.05) (0.02) (0.12) (0.09) Per share - diluted (0.05) (0.02) (0.12) (0.09) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cash (used in) provided by operating activities (1,993) 10,847 2,247 30,127 Funds from operations(1) 883 5,331 (1,104) 11,710 Per share(1) 0.01 0.05 (0.01) 0.11 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Basic weighted average shares outstanding 109,469 107,699 108,648 107,591 Total shares outstanding 109,473 107,708 109,473 107,708 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- As at Sept 30 Dec 31 $ thousands 2016 2015 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Working capital(1) 16,183 17,021 Total assets 254,152 284,479 Total liabilities 184,447 203,373 Shareholders' equity 69,705 81,106 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note 1: See "Non-IFRS Financial Measures" section of the Company's Management Discussion & Analysis for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016.

Business Highlights for the Three and Nine Months Ended September 30, 2016

-- Revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2016 declined to $28.4 million from $41.2 million in 2015, reflecting lower activity levels and pricing in the oil and gas industry; -- Adjusted EBITDA declined to $2.6 million during the three months ended September 30, 2016 from $7.4 million in 2015, while adjusted net loss increased to $3.5 million from $1.8 million a year earlier; -- During the nine months ended September 30, 2016, ENTREC reduced its long-term debt, notes payable and finance lease obligations by $10.6 million; -- In March 2016, ENTREC expanded its operations into the Permian Basis with a new location in Midland Texas; -- In May 2016, ENTREC acquired the business and assets of HighMark Crane Ltd., expanding its operations into Manitoba and Newfoundland & Labrador; -- In June 2016, ENTREC amended the terms of its convertible debentures to extend the maturity date from October 31, 2017 to June 30, 2021; and -- In October 2016, ENTREC expanded its operations into the Province of Saskatchewan with new locations in Estevan and Swift Current.

Revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2016 decreased by 31% to $28.4 million from $41.2 million in 2015. On a year-to-date basis, revenue declined by 36% to $84.0 million from $130.5 million in 2015. With the depressed commodity price environment for oil and natural gas, activity levels and pricing for crane and specialized transportation services throughout western Canada and in North Dakota continued to be weak.

With the lower revenue, adjusted EBITDA also declined to $2.6 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2016 from $7.4 million in 2015. On a year-to-date basis adjusted EBITDA declined to $4.7 million from $19.4 million a year earlier. The lower adjusted EBITDA reflected reduced equipment utilization levels as well as lower pricing. Partially offsetting the lower adjusted EBITDA were decreases in direct costs and general and administrative expenses through cost saving initiatives.

"As we look ahead into 2017, the outlook for our business is beginning to improve," commented John M. Stevens, ENTREC's President and Chief Executive officer. "Our ongoing strategy to grow through geographic and industry diversification should begin to pay dividends in the year ahead. Despite industry headwinds, we are cautiously optimistic that we will achieve growth in many of our end markets over the next year and that revenue in fiscal 2017 could be higher than 2016. Unfortunately, even with higher activity levels in 2017, we believe that low pricing for our services will continue until at least a sustained recovery in activity levels is achieved. This will require us to continue to focus on cost containment and efficiencies in our business."

ENTREC expects that revenue from its recent expansion in the Permian Basis will accelerate as the Company goes into 2017. As oil prices recover, ENTREC believes this area will be one of the first regions in North America to experience higher oilfield activity levels due to lower production costs for producers. With oil prices recently ranging between $45 and $50 USD/barrel, ENTREC is already starting to see signs of more activity.

ENTREC is continuing to grow its presence in the market for MRO work in the Alberta oil sands region - which is typically less susceptible to changes in near-term commodity prices. This work could contribute to 20-25% or more of the Company's consolidated revenue in fiscal 2017. However, offsetting this growth, the Company expects construction-related activity in the Alberta oil sands region could be quite weak over the next few years.

Revenue from power projects could also increase in 2017. The Company's recent expansion into Manitoba and Newfoundland & Labrador, through its acquisition of HighMark, strongly positions ENTREC to capture more power-related opportunities. In addition, ENTREC is targeting a number of infrastructure projects, which along with increased power work, will further diversify ENTREC's revenue outside oil & gas. Lastly, with the recent improvement in oil prices, ENTREC could experience higher activity levels in the conventional oil and gas industry as it moves into 2017.

Despite the various growth areas identified above, ENTREC's overall outlook continues to be very cautious as there remains significant uncertainty as to the magnitude and timing of any future recovery in activity levels in the oil and gas industry.

"Over the longer-term, our competitive position continues to be positive," said Mr. Stevens. "Despite short-term uncertainties and challenges, we are well-positioned geographically, with a complete range of crane and specialized transportation services in each of our key markets in Canada, North Dakota, and Texas. We also continue to be the industry leader in customer service, employee engagement and safety, which will be key contributors to our success in the long-term."

A complete set of ENTREC's most recent financial statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis will be filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) and posted on the Company's website (www.entrec.com).

About ENTREC

ENTREC is a heavy haul transportation and crane solutions provider to the oil and natural gas, construction, petrochemical, mining and power generation industries. ENTREC is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol ENT.

Non-IFRS Financial Measures

Adjusted EBITDA is defined as earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation, amortization, loss (gain) on disposal of property, plant and equipment, foreign exchange loss (gain) on long-term debt, loss (gain) on change in fair value of embedded derivatives and convertible debentures, share-based compensation, bargain purchase gains, impairment of long-lived assets, and non-recurring business acquisition and integration costs. In addition to net income, Adjusted EBITDA is a useful measure as it provides an indication of the financial results generated by ENTREC's principal business activities prior to consideration of how these activities are financed or how the results are taxed in various jurisdictions and before certain non-cash expenses. Adjusted EBITDA also illustrates what ENTREC's EBITDA is, excluding the effect of non-recurring business acquisition and integration costs. Adjusted EBITDA margin is calculated as adjusted EBITDA divided by revenue. Per share amounts are calculated as adjusted EBITDA divided by the basic weighted average number of shares outstanding during the period.

Adjusted net loss is calculated excluding the after-tax amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, impairment of long-lived assets, notional interest accretion expense arising from convertible debentures, loss (gain) on change in fair value of embedded derivatives and convertible debentures, foreign exchange loss (gain) on long-term debt, and bargain purchase gains. These exclusions represent non-cash charges the Company does not consider indicative of ongoing business performance. ENTREC also believes the elimination of amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets provides management and investors an improved view of its business results by providing a degree of comparability to internally developed intangible assets for which the related costs are expensed as incurred. Adjusted loss per share is calculated as adjusted net loss divided by the basic weighted average number of shares outstanding during the applicable period.

Funds from operations is derived from the consolidated statement of cash flows and is calculated as cash provided by operating activities before changes in non-cash operating working capital. Per share amounts refer to funds from operations divided by the weighted average number of shares outstanding during the period. ENTREC believes funds from operations is a useful supplement measure as it provides an indication of its ability to generate cash flow and is a useful measure in analyzing its operating performance.

Working capital is calculated as current assets less current liabilities. Working capital ratio is calculated as current assets divided by current liabilities. ENTREC believes working capital is a useful supplemental measure as it provides an indication of its ability to settle its debts as they come due.

Please see ENTREC's Management Discussion & Analysis for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016 for reconciliations of each of adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net loss to net loss, and reconciliations of funds from operations to cash (used in) provided by operating activities, the most directly comparable financial measures calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS.

Forward-looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements which reflect ENTREC's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to ENTREC. These statements require ENTREC to make assumptions it believes are reasonable and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results and developments may differ materially from the results and developments discussed in the forward-looking statements as certain of these risks and uncertainties are beyond ENTREC's control.

Examples of forward-looking statements in this press release and the key assumptions and risk factors involved in such statements include, but are not limited to the following: (i) ENTREC's belief that the outlook for its business is beginning to improve and that revenue in fiscal 2017 could be higher than 2016. This belief is based on the assumption the Company is able to achieve revenue growth from many of its end markets in 2017. The risks most likely to affect this assumption include volatility of the oil and natural gas sector, Alberta oil sands exposure, economy and cyclicality, and competition; (ii) ENTREC's anticipation that low pricing for its services will continue until at least a sustained recovery in activity levels is achieved; (iii) ENTREC's anticipation that its revenue growth from the Midland Texas region will accelerate as the Company goes into 2017. This expectation is subject to the assumption that oil prices will be sustained at a level that will allow oil producers in the region to achieve sufficient economic returns in order to increase their activity levels.

The risks most likely to affect ENTREC's revenue growth form this region include volatility of the oil and natural gas sector, economy and cyclicality, and competition; (iv) ENTREC's anticipation that MRO work in the Alberta oil sands region will be less susceptible to changes in near-term commodity prices and could contribute to 20-25% or more of its consolidated revenue in 2017. This anticipation is based on the assumption that MRO customers will continue to utilize its services for their ongoing operational activities in the Alberta oil sands and that these activity levels will increase from 2016. The risks most likely to affect this assumption include volatility of the oil and natural gas sector, Alberta oil sands exposure, economy and cyclicality, and competition; (v) ENTREC's expectation that construction-related activity in the Alberta oil sands could be quite weak over the next few years. This expectation is based on the assumption that low oil prices will deter oil and gas companies from making large construction investments in the Alberta oil sands region;(vi) ENTREC's belief that revenue from power and infrastructure projects could also increase in 2017 and that the acquisition of HighMark strongly positions the Company to capture more power-related opportunities. This belief is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including economy and cyclicality and competition; and (vii) ENTREC's belief that with the recent improvement in oil prices, it could experience higher activity levels in the conventional oil and gas industry as the Company moves into 2017. This belief is subject to the assumption that oil prices could be high enough in 2017 to encourage additional spending by oil and gas companies. The risks most likely to affect revenue growth form this industry include volatility of the oil and natural gas sector, economy and cyclicality, and competition.

Consequently, all of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and other cautionary statements or factors contained herein, and there can be no assurance that the actual results or developments will be realized or, even if substantially realized, that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, ENTREC. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release. Except as required by applicable securities legislation, ENTREC assumes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent information, events, or circumstances.

Contacts:

John M. Stevens

President & CEO

(780) 960-5625



Jason Vandenberg

CFO

(780) 960-5630

www.entrec.com




LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- Further to the announcements dated April 11, May 5, June 23, and August 18, 2016, Orsu ("Orsu" or the "Company"), the London-based TSX listed company (TSX: OSU) today announces an agreement to extend the Longstop date for completion of the conditional sale of its Karchiga Project to January 31, 2017, which date is extendable by mutual consent of the parties.

In addition, the parties have agreed that Orsu will no longer be entitled to any deferred consideration in return for Orsu no longer being required to maintain at least US$2 million of the proceeds in liquid assets in relation to the tax indemnity given in the agreement, and have amended the agreement to that effect. Management believes that this change is in the best interests of the Company as the restriction on use of a substantial portion of the proceeds would have potentially compromised its ability to utilise the proceeds effectively to the benefit of the Company and its stakeholders.

The amendment agreement will be filed on the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.SEDAR.com.

For further information regarding the proposed transaction, please see the Company's management information circular dated May 19, 2016, which is available on the Company's profile at www.SEDAR.com.

Contacts:

Orsu Metals Corporation

Doris Meyer

Corporate Secretary

+1-604-536-2711 ext 6

www.orsumetals.com




CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/16 -- BACANORA MINERALS LTD. ("Bacanora" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: BCN)(AIM: BCN), the Canadian and London listed lithium company developing the Sonora Lithium Project(1) ("Project") in northern state of Sonora, Mexico, is pleased to provide an update on activities being undertaken as part of the Company's upcoming definitive Feasibility Study ("FS").

The FS is aimed at establishing the Company's production plan for a 35,000 ("tpa") lithium carbonate operation at the Project (production is contemplated to ramp up following an initial phase of producing 17,500 tpa). The Company's strategy is to position itself to satisfy continued growth for lithium carbonate in the fast growing sectors of electric vehicles and energy storage. The FS is targeted for completion in late Q1, 2017 and the Company is fully financed through this process.

Overview

-- Resource upgrade and mine planning work has commenced following completion of infill drilling programme -- Preliminary reserve model and mine plan are being prepared by International Mining Consultants ("IMC") -- Ausenco Limited is approximately 35% of the way through the FS process engineering: -- The initial process flow sheet has been finalised -- Quotations are being sought from international vendors for larger equipment and machinery -- Development and optimisation of preliminary operating cost models has commenced -- The expanded Pilot Plant has been operating since May 2016, producing battery grade samples of lithium carbonate which has been supporting the following: -- Distribution of battery-grade lithium carbonate samples to potential off-takers in Asia and Europe -- Flow sheet development and optimisation of lithium recoveries and reagent consumption -- Operator training -- The Company is working with the SignumBox Group in Santiago to develop long-term lithium pricing scenarios and supply-demand models.

(1) The Sonora Lithium Project is comprised of the following lithium properties: La Ventana lithium concession, which is 100 percent owned by Bacanora, and the El Sauz and Fleur concessions, which are held by Mexilit S.A. de C.V. ("Mexilit"). The Megalit concession, which is held by Megalit S.A de C.V ("Megalit"), is not included in the Sonora Project Technical Reports at this time. Mexilit and Megalit are owned 70 percent by Bacanora and 30 percent by Rare Earth Minerals Plc.

Exploration and Resources

The infil drilling programme to upgrade the resource classifications has been completed. A total of 3,896 metres in 31 NQ-Core infill holes for resource estimations were drilled in the Ventana area. A total of 1,870 samples were collected from the drill core and analysed in ALS-Chemex for a multi-element suite. Duplicated samples, standards and blanks were intercalated with the samples for QA/QC analysis.

Intercepts of the Upper Clay range from 11 to 49 metres in length and those for the Lower Clay range from 7 to 26 metres; the average thickness, including all of the drilling in this zone is for the upper clay unit of 30.7 metres and for the lower clay 20.7 metres. This is consistent along the deposit within the first 20-years pit area.

Also, a total of 1,566 metres in 18 HQ-Geotechnical holes were drilled in the projected 20-years pit area, tailings and plant facilities locations. Rock mechanics, hydrology and pit slope stability studies are being conducted by Ausenco.

Analyses received for the recent infill drillholes indicate that lithium content in the Upper Clay Unit varies from 25 ppm to 6,900 ppm Li with a weighted average of 1,791 ppm Li; for the Lower Clay Unit lithium content varies from 172 ppm to 10,000 ppm with a weighted average of 4,345 ppm Li. As previously announced, the Company has retained SRK Consulting (UK) Limited to provide an updated independent lithium resource estimate.

Table 1. Drill intersections. Infill and geotechnical drillholes

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Capping Upper Upper Lower Depth Hole/Unit Basalt Sandstone Clay Ignimbrite Clay Basement (m) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-40 95 7.5 36.85 5.15 21 11.4 176.9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-41 106 25.5 16.9 25.6 5.05 179.05 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-42 20.1 8.1 32.2 6.6 11.4 9.15 87.55 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-43 59.5 11.95 40.95 18.25 18.25 6.1 155 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-44 71.8 14.3 40.73 12.76 21.95 4.41 165.95 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-45 14.94 21.52 13.95 50.41 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-46 13.18 20.82 10.8 44.8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-47 15 22.8 7.1 44.9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-48 14 22.4 5.25 41.65 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-49 14.14 15.51 14.07 1.18 44.9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-50 4.29 14.58 26.33 15.45 10.38 4.37 75.4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-51 12.35 22.7 9.85 44.9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-52 12.93 19.32 6.55 38.8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-53 126.8 1.15 38.83 16.89 20.88 4.85 209.4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-54 100.93 11.07 36.92 16.63 19.48 6.17 191.2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-55 32.25 19.83 30.22 15.8 24.2 8 130.3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-56 5.05 26.35 27.7 14.88 21.52 7.15 102.65 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-57 2.6 6.7 6.5 19.8 9.15 44.75 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-58 40.4 4.5 17.9 11.65 21.35 4 99.8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-59 45.86 25.49 12.6 15.8 11.25 111 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-60 145.34 15.31 11 12.12 26.08 5.7 215.55 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-61 96.67 22.16 35.03 12.2 20.72 10.47 197.25 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-62 91.67 11.78 7.11 5.42 17.27 133.25 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-63 2.41 5.59 21.57 12.28 41.85 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-64 87 18.4 19.6 24.5 7.55 157.05 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-65 128.45 21.7 7.65 14.3 172.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-66 99.17 7.51 49.24 15.78 26.95 7.75 206.4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-67 141.24 4.11 11.72 12.2 24.63 11.8 205.7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-68 133.65 16.27 33.53 13.13 20.22 7.35 224.15 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-69 154.25 16.15 32.9 15.95 22.08 13.92 255.25 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LV-70 15.74 23.48 9.03 48.25 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUS-SL-16-01 136.10 7.75 26.40 12.20 182.45 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUS-SL-16-02 164.65 15.69 29.26 209.6 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUS-SL-16-03A 132.8 22.7 36.7 8.25 200.45 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUS-SL-16-03B 95.9 13.5 30.1 10.45 23.9 35.7 209.55 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUS-SL-16-04 26.65 32.15 53.30 112.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-01 81.65 81.65 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-02 99.90 99.9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-03 41.95 41.95 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-04 61.95 4.60 28.80 95.35 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-05 32.90 32.9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-06 32.80 32.8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-07 32.90 32.9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-08 32.80 32.8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-09 32.65 32.65 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-10 32.80 32.8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-11 39.00 39 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-14 51.10 51.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BH-16-15 51.10 51.1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lithium Pricing, Industry Operating Costs and Consumable Pricing

Over the past 12 months there has been a significant strengthening in the selling price of lithium products. Increasing demand from the vehicle electrification and the renewable energy industry has seen lithium prices rise above the pricing used by Bacanora in the Pre-Feasibility Study cashflows. Bacanora are currently working with SignumBox to develop long-term lithium pricing scenarios and supply-demand models.

In tandem with rising prices for lithium carbonate products, average operating costs ($/t Li2CO3) have been increasing as a result of increasing operating costs. The recent HSBC Lithium Global Sector Playbook of October 2016 includes a comprehensive overview of the various operating costs of the major lithium producers.

To view the Lithium Production Operating Cost Comparison please click the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Bacanora910.pdf

This HSBC report indicates that brine production costs are now between $3,000/t and $4,500/t Li2CO3 for the producers that were studied, with Australian hard rock conversion costs significantly higher.

Martin Vidal is the Qualified Person pursuant to National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and the AIM Note for Mining and Oil and Gas Companies who has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this announcement.

ABOUT BACANORA:

Bacanora is a Canadian and London listed minerals explorer (TSX VENTURE: BCN)(AIM: BCN). The Company explores and develops industrial mineral projects, with a primary focus on lithium. The Sonora Lithium Project, which consists of ten mining concession areas covering approximately 100 thousand hectares in the northeast of Sonora State. The Company, through drilling and exploration work to date, has established an Indicated Mineral Resource (in accordance with NI 43-101) of 4.5 million tonnes (lithium carbonate equivalent) and 2.7 million tonnes Inferred. A Pre-Feasibility Study completed in Q1 2016 demonstrated the positive economics associated with becoming a 35,000 tpa lithium carbonate and 50,000 tpa SOP producer in Mexico. The Company is led by a team with lithium expertise which have proven mine development, construction and operational experience.

Reader Advisory

Except for statements of historical fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. We cannot guarantee future results, performance or achievements. Consequently, there is no representation that the actual results achieved will be the same, in whole or in part, as those set out in the forward-looking information.

Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: commodity price volatility; general economic conditions in Canada, the United States, Mexico and globally; industry conditions, governmental regulation, including environmental regulation; unanticipated operating events or performance; failure to obtain industry partner and other third party consents and approvals, if and when required; the availability of capital on acceptable terms; the need to obtain required approvals from regulatory authorities; stock market volatility; competition for, among other things, capital, skilled personnel and supplies; changes in tax laws; and the other risk factors disclosed under our profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive.

The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. We undertake no duty to update any of the forward-looking information to conform such information to actual results or to changes in our expectations except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Bacanora Minerals Ltd.

Peter Secker

CEO

info@bacanoraminerals.com



Cairn Financial Advisers LLP, Nomad

Sandy Jamieson/Liam Murray

+44 (0) 20 7148 7900



Numis Securities Ltd, Broker

John Prior/James Black/Paul Gillam

+44 (0) 20 7260 1000



St Brides Partners, Financial PR Adviser

Hugo de Salis/Frank Buhagiar /Elisabeth Cowell

+44 (0) 20 7236 1177




LatAm Autos Ltdhas signed a co-marketing agreement with eBay Mexico to release a new digital auto-classifieds product in Mexico.LatAm Autos is an online auto classifieds platform which is publicly listed in Australia, and operates in six Latin American countries  including Mexico, Argentina and Ecuador.The two companies have been developing a new product for automotive dealers which allows them to jointly promote across both the LatAm Autos and eBay Mexico platforms for an additional fee.LatAm says the new product will be co-branded and use a revenue sharing agreement under this partnership. LatAm will receive most of this joint venture revenue.LatAm posted a net loss of $6.6 million at 30 June 2016.
Job Today, a London, UK-based mobile jobs marketplace, raised $20m in funding.

The round was led by new investor Flint Capital, with participation from other new investors Astremedia, Channel 4, German Media Pool VC, and existing investors Accel Partners, Mangrove Capital, and Felix Capital.

The company, which has raised $30m in total funding, intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations to the US and across major European countries.

Led by Eugene Mizin, CEO, and Polina Montano, COO, Job Today provides a mobile jobs marketplace for the hospitality, retail, and services sectors. The app is used by small businesses such as restaurants and shops and has attracted large brands including McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Subway, and Holiday Inn.

A year after launch, the company now processes close to one million job applications every week in its primary markets of the UK and Spain.

FinSMEs

10/11/2016
Boston, San Francisco, and Dublin-based technology and healthcare venture capital firm Polaris Partners added cyber security executive and entrepreneur Brendan Hannigan as a Venture Partner.

In his role at Polaris, based out of their Boston office, Hannigan will concentrate his efforts on both he focuses on funding and founding companies in the technology sector with a concentration in cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity.

A 25 year technology industry veteran, Hannigan was General Manager of IBM Security. Before IBM, he served as President and CEO of Q1 Labs, a Polaris-backed security intelligence and analytics company which was acquired by IBM in 2011.

Previously, Hannigan was Vice President of Marketing and Technology at Sockeye Networks, another Polaris-backed company sold to Internap in 2003, and before that, was head of Network Industry Research at Forrester Research.

Before Forrester, he served in a variety of senior engineering roles at Digital Equipment Corp., Wellfleet Communications and Motorola. He currently serves on the board of Bitsight Technologies, a security ratings and third party risk technology company. Hannigan graduated with honors in computer science from University College Dublin in Ireland.

FinSMEs

10/11/2016
The arrest and taking into judicial custody of Kannada film Mastigudi's producer Sundar Gowda, and naming him as an accused in the tragic case of two actors death during shooting, has generated a debate among the film fraternity in Karnataka.

President of the Karnataka Film Chamber S R Govindu gave a public statement asking why a producer should be punished when all he did was provide funds and trust that the director, the stunt director and the rest would do the job well. Many other producers also openly expressed their dissatisfaction at Sundar Gowda being remanded to Ramanagar jail for 14 days. None of them had any idea about the responsibilities of a producer. Strange.

The Film Chamber, after a meeting, has issued a ban on the three  director Nagashekhar, lead actor Duniya Vijay and stunt director Ravi Verma, till further notice. Why Vijay? Because he was also party to it; he did not insist that the co-actors also be provided with life jackets like him.

The fact is, there is widespread talk from the stuntmen. They claim the actors should not have been made to jump at all because it is the job of trained stuntmen. This was a stunt that had to be executed by a trained professional. They are licensed to do it.

There is a registered All Karnataka Stunt Actors Association with 150 card-holding members, who are insured to cover any mishap. They are accusing the stunt director of not calling them to save some money.

All of them state in unison that Kannada film producers always compromise on safety, that they spend on heroes but not on stuntmen. In fact veteran stuntman Different Danny, who has worked in over 550 films, has often said, "there is no respect for technicians in Kannada film industry". The most that a stuntman gets at the end of a hard, almost impossible stunt is a mere pain-killer injection.

Also read: Kannada stunt actors death was no accident; it was deliberate ignorance of danger

On the tragedy at Thippagondanahalli, the man who was supposed to drive the motor boat has also made a statement. He had asked for Rs 25,000 for a days service and the production team did not want to spare that money. If a motor boat was ready as standby they could have saved the actors. The chopper was hired but not the motor boat. So far only the body of Uday has been found and brought up. Search is still going on for finding Anils body.

Coming back to the primary question about who should be held responsible for the film shoot, the producer cannot escape saying he is only a financier and hence should not be blamed in case of mishap. All producers are fully responsible for the work, from beginning to end, for the entire unit. Whenever a mishap has happened in the past, the producers have taken care of it all.

For instance when Amyra Dastur hit hero Diganth with a stiletto, causing grave injury to his eye, almost losing his sight, the producer immediately got him admitted to a hospital in Scotland, where they were shooting, and took care of the surgery and the complete hospital stay.

There are several instances in the Kannada film industry when the producers have failed to provide safety/security to their actors. Especially after the neo-rich/real estate guy-turned producer have flooded the Kannada film market, a basic sense of film-making etiquette has been lost. The primary rule is that the producer is responsible for the safety of the entire unit  from hero to the last set boy.

In the case of Mastigudi too, the director and stunt director cannot decide on their own to shoot at Thippagondanahalli reservoir, hire a chopper, invite the television channels for publicity, without involving the producer. Hence the producer is well aware of the risk being taken. He should have warned both the director Nagashekhar and the stunt director Ravi Verma to take all necessary precaution.

However, it is also true that it was the responsibility of both the director and the stunt director to take all precaution.
Raoul Coutard, the renowned cinematographer who worked with directors including Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut during the French New Wave movement, died Tuesday aged 92, his family told AFP.

The Frenchman shot some of the biggest French films of the second half of the 20th century, including Breathless (1960), Contempt (1963), Pierrot le Fou (1965) and Jules and Jim (1962), along with 'Z' alongside Greek director Costa-Gavras.

Born in Paris on 16 September 1924, Coutard was a sergeant in the colonial infantry during the Indochina War, commanding a section in Laos before becoming an army photographer and then, while still in Southeast Asia, a photographer for Paris Match and Life magazines.

It was there that he met French filmmaker Pierre Schoendoerffer, with whom he collaborated on his first films including The Devil's Pass (1958) and Ramuntcho (1959).

But it was with the film Breathless -- a collaboration with Godard -- that he began to break new ground, marking the start of the New Wave movement.

The cinematographer became famous for his work shot with a handheld camera and his use of natural light, causing controversy within the profession at the time.

"The images were not polished, union rules were not respected and I was doing both lighting and framing, which was not done at the time at all," he said.

Suffering from a long illness, Coutard lived for several years close to Bayonne in the Basque Country region of southwest France and died at a clinic on Tuesday night.
Shah Rukh Khan is clocking his 25 years in the industry, and on this occasion a book titled 'SRK 25 Years Of A Life, which traces his career, was unveiled by the actor along with journalist-turned-author, Samar Khan.

One of the several anecdotes of the day was how Shah Rukh's nose got him the role in Hema Malinis film Dil Aashna Hai, the third film of his career which was released in 1992.

I was an odd looking boy, I spoke too fast and I was not from a film background, but they gave me an opportunity. Tell me, who gets an opportunity in his life to sit across the dream girl and she says, 'I like your nose, its very aristocratic and you got into my film because of that.' Woh naak jisko main chupata phirta tha, woh naak Hema Malini ko pasand aayee (Hema Malini liked the same nose I was so embarrassed about)," he said.

Shah Rukh further recalled that a prominent film magazine had a screaming headline while quoting him: Hema Malini doesnt know how to direct.

Either I was wrongly quoted or maybe I was badtameez and I actually said it. I say lot of things and later wonder how I said this. But I didnt mean it, I didnt feel it. Next day I went on the sets quietly, trying to hide myself from Hemaji. But she called me and to my utter surprise, said, Either you are very famous or Im very famous. But I have stopped working, so its to be your fame and when you are famous, people write all kinds of nonsense. Go and get ready.

Shah Rukh has written the foreword for Samars book:

"After all these years, sometimes Im not sure whether I gave form and shape to the characters I played or whether they unwittingly give me more facets than there ever had existed. Whether it was a Rahul, Raj, Mohan or Aryan, each of them took a piece of me and departed, leaving behind a little of themselves. Call it destiny or sheer fluke, they were characters that others didnt take up and that eventually found their way to me.

When Samar asked him about his belief in his directors, and how he never questioned them about scenes or dialogues or the way he looked, Shah Rukh said, Film is a directors medium so I have always believed in the filmmakers. The audience is watching the film through their eyes and not mine. Also, you have to believe in yourself as an actor. Whatever they make me do, I will do to the best of my capability. I find it very wrong when actors say that my character wont say these lines. When you are playing the character, how dare you say that? Also, its not your duty to believe in what you are portraying, its your duty in making others believe in this is who you are.

He further said, I remember my mother was a very social lady and I would notice that she would adapt herself very well to whoever she was talking to, be it a worker, an army man or a businessman and thats how actors have to be.

Talking about working with new directors, Shah Rukh Khan said, Im always drawn to people who are new and making new films because I still feel like a newcomer. I dont feel like some thespian. He continues, 25 years? I feel so old. I feel so awkward as I sit here. Pacchis saal toh bohot bada hogaya (25 years has been a little too much). I find it very awkward I am spending 25 years here. But I have always felt that a new director would make new kind of cinema."

Shah Rukh Khan has also said that he still believes in pushing boundaries. "Lot has been left for me to achieve. There are times when I wake up in the middle of the night and think that Ive not done anything and would love to take up new challenges.

When the author spoke to Shah Rukhs directors like Mani Ratnam and Kundan Shah, they remembered him as a simple middle class boy from Delhi. While Abbas-Mustan, who directed Shah Rukh Khan in Baazigar, said, there was a kind of danger in his eyes (sic), Aditya Chopra felt that the only thing Shah Rukh doesnt know to do in front of the camera is to smile, and thats the only time hes acting.

Hes more the sorrowing kind, felt Chopra. Shah Rukh corrected him by saying, Not smile, laugh, I cant laugh. I have lot of problem laughing in front of the camera. I find it very difficult to laugh on camera and thats the very many problems I have. He further adds, But the description given by my directors make me sound like a middle class psychopath  a simple, middle-class psychopath.

On the professional front, Shah Rukh Khan was last seen in Fan and will be next seen in Dear Zindagi alongside Alia Bhatt. He just finished shooting for Imtiaz Alis The Ring and will start shooting for Aanand L Rais film soon.
Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what Ive tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Robert Frost predicted the end of the world through hatred and passionate distaste. After Trump being elected the 45th President of the United States of America, many fear a dystopian future ahead of them. Dystopian stories, Laura Miller wrote in The New Yorker in 2010, have one ultimate purpose: to warn us about the dangers of some current trend. The term of Trump's presidency has notes of a dystopian future, or so it seems.

The Boston Globe had come out with a mock front page dating 9 April 2017. The headline screamed 'Deportations Begin' and another front page headline screamed 'New Libel Law Targets 'Absolute Scum' In Press'. Clearly, the daily had decided that Trumps presidency will spell trouble for the country. A story on Fusion titled Welcome to 'Trumps America: an illustrated dystopia' stated the country's future if Trump won presidency: All Muslims in America are required to carry an ID card, raids are conducted at random (kindergartens, malls, etc) and press conferences are banned from the White House.

Indian website Arre published a video of how Trump's presidency would end. Keeping in tune with the theme of a dystopian future, here are a few films, TV series and albums that predicted a dark fate for their homeland, but they are nothing as compared to what really happened, because to paraphrase Mark Twain, reality is stranger than fiction:

The Simpsons

The Simpsons didn't only predict a dystopian future, they predicted Donald Trump will be elected President.

The first reference is found in a March 2000 episode called Bart to the Future (S11E17);a sequel to the next Lisa's Wedding (S6E19). Bart gets a chance to see his future. He is a poor slacker while Lisa has become the first female president. Funny enough, the first scene of Lisa in the oval office reveals that her presidency is based on recovering from the massive failures of her predecessor, President Trump.

"It was a warning to America," writer Dan Greaney told The Hollywood Reporter.

"And that just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane."

The Simpsons again

The 25th season of the show in 2015 had an episode titled 'Trumptastic Voyage' where Homer is paid $50 to pretend to be a Trump supporter. This was released to mock Trump's then just announced bid to run for presidency.

He ends up on an escalator in Trump Tower with Trump and is transported into The Apprentices stars hair where he goes on a journey. He defines Trump's hair as a 'gravity defying combover' and says 'I can't believe it was once on his ass.'

As Homer soars through Trumps 'ginger forest,' a campaign sign that reads 'Trump 2016' switches to 'Trump 2020,' 'Trump 2024,' and 'Trump 2028.' Big Foot, an alien and Amelia Earheart make an appearance, as does a saddened and sunken Lady Liberty.

Black Ribbons by Shooter Jennings

The 2010 concept album by Shooter Jennings predicts a dark future. The album dialogue is written and narrated by horror mastermind Stephen King. The story is set in the near future and is a broadcast by fictional disc jockey 'Will 'o the Wisp' during his last night on the air before the U.S. Government takes control of the airwaves. He has vowed to play the one band the American government does not want him to play.

Shooter Jennings commented to Rolling Stones Country after the election polls, "We're pretty close to that now. With the shootings of cops and of black people and the Trump versus the Clinton camps, we are very divided. And that's the way they like us. Divide and conquer, man."

Back to the Future

Back to the Future gives you a sense of premonition in a lot of its predictions about America's future. But did you know that a character from the second film was modelled after president elect Donald Trump?

When Doc (Christopher Lloyd) urges Marty (Michael J. Fox) to travel to the future (Oct. 21, 2015) to save his children. The movies villain, Biff Tannen, then witnesses Marty and Docs disappearance in the time machine. Later on Biff steals the Almanac and time machine and goes back in time to alter the past, making him a successful businessman, who then tries to influence US politics. Biff, who prefers the title 'America's greatest folk hero' manages to convert his governing area in California where violence is common and dissent is suppressed.

Sounds familiar?

Bob Gale, the genius behind the film had commented in The Daily Beast interview that Biff is based on Donald Trump.

Blade Runner

Ridley Scotts Blade Runner is a classic example of a work of dystopian fiction. In the film, Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, is a 'blade runner' a bounty hunter whose mission is to track and retire escaped engineered cyborgs, physically indistinguishable from humans. These cyborgs are being used as slave labor by the Tyrell Corporation on off-world colonies. As the film progresses, Deckard, while hunting four replicants, begins to question the morality of his job and, consequently, what it means to really be 'human'.

The world in the future isn't a friendly, feminist society that we hope the future will be. It is dirty, heavily polluted, and grimy  its streets filled with trash and overcrowded with the impoverished.

With Trump's take on climate change, can this be the distant future?
Even as uncertainty prevailed in the last few weeks over who will replace the recently expelled Tata Sons'chairman Cyrus Mistry at other group companies, the Tata Group today took the first step in clearing the air.

The board of Tata Sons said it has appointed 69 year-old Ishaat Hussain as interim chairman of the group's software company Tata Consultancy Services. He will replace current chairman and ousted chief of Tata Sons, Cyrus Mistry, who continues to hold key posts in several Tata group companies.

In a release issued to the BSE, TCS said, "Mistry has ceased to be the chairman of board of directors of the company and Hussain is the new chairman of the company."

The company has been further informed that Hussain shall hold office as chairman until a new chairman is appointed in his place, the release added.

Surprisingly, Tata Sons zeroed in on Ishaat Hussain as TCS chairman who was one of the two board members to have abstained from the holding company's board meeting late last month which decided to pull the plug on Cyrus Mistry. Farida Khambata was the other board member who did not participate in that board meeting.

Another group company Tata Chemicals will also hold a board meeting later today to decide on Mistry.

A short profile of Ishaat Hussain

One of the oldest member of the Tata Group, Ishaat Hussain graduated in economics from St Stephens College, New Delhi. He is also a chartered accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (FCA).

Hussain held the position of senior vice president and executive director of finance at Tata Steel for around 10 years. Later, he was on the board of the Indian Tube Company in 1981, which later paved his entry into Tata Steel in 1983 after the former was merged with the steel arm.

After having worked with the group for several years, Hussain was rewarded with an executive board position at Tata Sons in July 1999, before taking over as finance director of the holding company in July 2000.

Hussain also holds directors' position in several Tata group firms such as Tata Industries, Tata Steel and Voltas. Besides, he is also the chairman of Voltas and Tata Sky.

Hussain is also a member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) committee on insider trading and primary capital markets. He is also a member of the Confederation of Indian Industries finance committee.
Guwahati: They may have retired from their bank jobs but their urge to serve customers remains resolute as was evident from the exemplary response by two former employees of United Bank of India (UBI) to the stupendous rush at a bank branch in Guwahati on Thursday.

Former employees Pronay Bhuyan and Namita Lahkar had gone to the bank's Narengi Tiniali branch to deposit their old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and withdraw money. But the huge rush and shortage of staff brought out the banker in them and they readily volunteeered to help for the day.

"When we entered the bank we were really shocked to see that there were only three staff members - the manager, cashier and the peon to cater to the hundreds of customers who had queued up outside," Bhuyan, a former manager of the branch, said.

Lahkar, who retired after 35 years of service, said they realised it would be next to impossible for the three employees to serve so many people and soon there would have been chaos at the branch. "Bhuyan and I did not hesitate to offer our services and the present manager very gratefully accepted our help," she said.

"We have always believed that needs of the customer are supreme and cannot be compromised on at any cost. I have retired from the bank but today I felt privileged to be of help again after five years," she added.

Bhuyan said he and Lahkar were very happy to serve the customers and soothe their fears regarding the ongoing changes. "We are short of staff no doubt and are very grateful to both Bhuyan Sir and Madam. We cannot thank them enough for helping us out during this transition phase," the bank branch manager Bapukan Baishya said.

Hemanta Kalita, a customer, said none realised that the two elders were no longer in the service of the bank but were helping out. "They attended to all our queries, took in the deposits and issued the cash with such patience and efficiency that it did not occur to us for a moment that they were retired employees."
Lets agree: demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will be disruptive in the short term. It may be three months before business and retail transactions return to normal.

However, the question is this: is it worth spending thousands of crores in printing new currency and forcing banks to focus on handling so much cash instead of fixing their balance sheets, all for an inconclusive attack on black money?

The answer is a yes, but.

Yes, it is good to take a swipe at the hoards of black money held in currency notes (though the bulk of it must be held in real estate and gold). It is worth imposing a cost on crooks. But, this alone will not be enough. You must target other things and cash in general. You must force Indians to think less cash, more digital money.

This mornings newspapers were stuffed with front-page ads from Freecharge, PayTM, Ola Money, Snapdeal, Uber, and Big Bazaar, among others, exhorting customers to substitute cash with other forms of payment, including e-wallets, mobile money, credit cards and electronic money transfers.

This is exactly what needs to be done.

Another Times of India report says that the Tirupati temple, Indias richest, is now setting up debit and credit card swiping machines. Even God can do with less cash.

While government ads talk about fighting black money, fake currency and terror funding, it is private businesses that are focusing on shifting focus from hard cash to virtual money.

The whole demonetisation exercise would be sub-optimal if it is seen merely as an attack on black money, and not physical money itself.

There are two broad issues here.

First, smaller value transactions need to be digitised.

Second, the stock of illegal cash generated by evading tax must be both diminished and prevented from accumulating further.

The first challenge needs political will and systematic efforts at financial literacy and promotion of digital money. This needs not only private sector effort but direct government intervention to popularise digital and mobile payments.

But this is exactly what government seems unable to do. After opening more than 250 million Jan Dhan accounts, more than a quarter of them have either zero balances or are operated infrequently.

When an initiative is top-down, the people pushing it (bankers in this case) will game the system. They will open the accounts and say mission accomplished when the real mission should be about having active accounts and not dormant ones. Top-down schemes need a strong push for usage, and this cant be done without a long-term campaign of financial literacy that will explain how to open and maintain bank accounts, how to pay and receive money using mobile phones, and how to use debit cards, among other things. Putting a little amount of cash in these accounts (not Re 1, but something more substantial) will work wonders. The pump must be primed before it will be used.

Given the huge commercial interest in mobile money, as evidenced by todays ads in various newspapers, this literacy programme can be done through a public-private partnership, with a marketing professional at the top.

In dealing with the other issue, reducing the hoard of black money and tapering down the generation of future flows, several steps need to be taken.

The most important one is real estate reform  and states must partner this initiative. The bulk of the black money is held in real estate, for this is where crooked politicians, builders, and businessmen are invested. A simple way to demolish black money in real estate is to reduce stamp duties dramatically, allow the vertical building to bring down prices of land, invest in infrastructure and mass transport, and create transparent and time-bound methods of giving building permissions.

If floor-space indices are boosted dramatically, real estate prices will fall, and benami owners will be forced to accept losses on their black money. As prices fall, more genuine buyers will be encouraged to buy property and the realty industry will revive, especially if transaction costs, including stamp duties, are rationalised.

The way to drain the swamp  to use Donald Trumps apt term  is to make the real estate market function like a real market, by opening up supplies. Realtors and their hidden benefactors make money by bottling up land availability, not by allowing the land markets to function. Once real estate stops being a one-way bet to enormous gains, black money will have nowhere to hide.

As for gold, its price is artificially high in India precisely because the government wants to discourage its imports. If gold can come in and go freely, with minimal restrictions and duties, Indian prices will equate with global ones, and black money holders will take note. Indians will still buy gold, but the metal will stop looking overly attractive to black money holders.

You cannot demonetise gold the way you did with currency notes. But when the gold market operates for real, it will no longer give buyers a guaranteed gain in future. Gold prices can go up or down.

Another important area to focus on is state funding of elections. The demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will impact the funding of the forthcoming round of elections, including Uttar Pradesh, but future elections will surely draw more black money as everyone adjusts to the new notes. The only way to end this need for black money is to fund elections through the state. It is a small price to pay for the elimination of dirty money.

Narendra Modi should thus take this opportunity to go the whole hog. He must attack cash, both when used for ordinary transactions and when used to hide illegal wealth from the taxman. Right now, a lot of the hoard is held in brick and mortar, not just cash.
By Gabriela Baczynska

| BRUSSELS

BRUSSELS The European Union is likely to extend economic sanctions on Russia over Ukraine in December but could find it much harder to renew them in the future if Donald Trump succeeds in warming up relations with Russia. Trump, who will take over as U.S. president in January, has said he wants a "good relationship" with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, alarming some in the EU who fear a policy shift that softens the U.S. stance on the Ukraine crisis. The sanctions were first imposed shortly after Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and rolled over for six-month periods since then.Five European diplomats told Reuters they expected EU leaders to extend the main economic sanctions in Brussels next month -- before Trump takes office. The decision requires unanimity among the 28 member states and the economic sanctions are now in place until the late January, 2017. "The roll-over in December should still happen. There is no change on the ground in Ukraine ... there is really no argument not to extend them," said a European diplomat."But then, after Trump's inauguration, who knows where he takes us. It may become way more difficult." Under President Barack Obama, the United States has also imposed sanctions on Russia and has urged the bloc to remain united over them. But the measures' effectiveness has been increasingly questioned by EU member states Italy, Hungary, Greece and Cyprus, all of which have close business ties with Moscow. During his election campaign, Trump adopted a more open-minded stance on Putin than current U.S. officials who consider him an autocrat bent on suppressing dissent at home while bullying his neighbours and projecting Russia's power abroad.

Trump has not said what he would do to revive ties with Russia. EU diplomats fear a softening of the U.S. position would be seized on by the Kremlin in the hope of weakening the bloc's own resolve on sanctions."After Trump is inaugurated in January, if there really is a rapprochement with Putin, it would deepen divisions within the EU on Russia and would make keeping sanctions in place more difficult," a diplomat in Brussels said.Another envoy said: "The EU must make its own decision in December but the complication comes if in January the United States signals that it is going to change its policy. That could affect EU unity."

TOUGH TASK AHEAD FOR TRUMP ON RUSSIA

The economic sanctions include restrictions on the access of Russia's banking sector to international money markets, an embargo on most arms trading with Russia and the sale of some energy-related equipment and technology.They have exacerbated a Russia's economic woes but failed to force a change of policy in Moscow. Critics of the policy inside the EU are increasingly upset at the lost trade and economic benefits that stem from putting sanctions on Russia. Britain's vote in June to leave the EU has further weakened the voices of those who strongly favour sanctions, including member states from eastern Europe which were once part of the Soviet bloc and fear a cosy relationship between Trump's Washington and Putin's Moscow could undermine their security.Despite the concerns in Brussels about Trump, some diplomats say that delivering meaningful rapprochement between Russia and the United States will be hard, not least because of the tough views on Moscow held by many Republicans in the U.S. Congress.

"Even assuming Trump reaches out to Putin, what do they really stand to gain? He's a very difficult partner, it's hard to get anything back from him. And the Republicans are very pragmatic," said one EU envoy."We'll have to see, but there is a chance that for all the talk there won't be such a massive shift in real policy."Officials in Brussels said the fate of Russia sanctions would also not be a priority for Trump and that for Europe the future of ties with the Western NATO alliance were more vital. Trump said during the presidential campaign that he would make the United States' defence of its Western allies conditional, casting doubt on the key pillar of the alliance. On Wednesday, NATO responded to Trump's victory by pledging unwavering defence. "In reality, sanctions on Russia may not be the biggest fish to fry. The first question is what he does on NATO, as this has broad repercussions for the whole European security, including Russia ties," said an EU official. (Additional reporting by Robin Emmott, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
India withdrew the legal tender status of existing 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee bank notes this week in a shock move targeted at cracking down on fake currency and wealth hidden from the tax authorities.Queues formed as banks reopened after a one-day holiday and people tried to swap their old notes for smaller bills and for new 500 and 2,000 rupee notes, which are being rushed into circulation and are designed to be harder to forge.** The old bank notes can be exchanged for value at any of the 19 offices of the Reserve Bank of India, any bank branches or any head post office or sub-post office until Dec 30.** People can get up to 4,000 Indian rupees ($60) per person in cash when they exchange their old notes. Anything beyond that amount can be credited to their bank accounts. ** The notes can be exchanged at any bank branch, but only after showing a valid proof of identity such as a passport or driving licence.

** Some automated teller machines, or ATMs, started functioning on Thursday, after being shut for a day for recalculation. A maximum of 2,000 rupees on one card can be withdrawn from ATMs in a single day. That limit will be raised to 4,000 rupees from Nov. 19 onwards.** From bank branches, one can withdraw a maximum 10,000 rupees a day. The weekly cap is 20,000 rupees, including withdrawals from ATMs.

** The tax office will take note of deposits made above a threshold of 250,000 rupees in a bank account and will match it with the income declared by the account holders.

** In case of a mismatch, the tax office will ask the account holders to pay extra taxes plus a penalty of 200 percent of the tax payable.** Some banks have extended their hours to facilitate the exchange programme. All banks will remain open on Saturday, Nov. 12 and Sunday, Nov. 13 to help meet heavy demand.($1 = 66.3599 Indian rupees) (Compiled by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
CHICAGO A London-based trader pleaded guilty to wire fraud and spoofing on Wednesday after being extradited to the United States to face federal charges related to his role in the 2010 Wall Street "flash crash." Navinder Sarao, 37, who traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) from his parents' home near London's Heathrow Airport, appeared in federal court in Chicago after losing a legal challenge to his extradition.Sarao agreed to pay the U.S. government $12.8 million, the amount prosecutors said he earned from illegal trading. He will be released on a $750,000 bond and will be allowed to return to the U.K. pending sentencing in the United States, U.S. judge Virginia Kendall said.

Sarao used an automated trading program to spoof markets by generating large sell orders that pushed down prices, and then cancelled the trades and bought contracts at lower prices.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Writing by Jo Winterbottom; Editing by Leslie Adler)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Rajendra Jadhav

| MUMBAI

MUMBAI India's surprise move to abolish high-value bank notes has started to disrupt cash-based gold smuggling and should benefit official importers of the metal in the world's second biggest consumer, industry officials said.A drop in smuggling will allow banks and refiners to charge a premium over official local prices, which include a 10 percent import tax. For most of 2016 gold traded at a discount in India as smugglers undercut official importers.Official importers welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi move this week to declare 500 and 1,000 rupee bills illegal and make them worthless for holders of unaccounted wealth.Dealers charged a premium of up to $6 an ounce over official domestic prices on Thursday, compared to a discount of $3 an ounce last week.

"Smugglers grabbed market share by offering discounts," said Surendra Mehta, the secretary of the India Bullion and Jewellers Association. "Now banks and refiners can claim back the business."Smugglers offered a discount as high as $100 an ounce in July, forcing banks and refiners to scale down their operations.That resulted in an 84 percent dive in imports of gold-silver alloy, dore, to 11.1 tonnes in the third quarter from a year ago.

Gold smuggling could rise up to 160 tonnes in 2016 from 100-120 tonnes in 2015, the World Gold Council estimated earlier this week.But Bachhraj Bamalwa, director of the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation, said that will now change as he expects smuggling to fall sharply in the next few months. That will make dore refining economical again.

"Business is becoming normal after a long time," said a gold dealer at a bank in Mumbai.However, Modi's move to rein in the black economy could lower gold imports by 100-150 tonnes next year from an annual average of about 800 tonnes, Mehta said. And that will be bad news for gold prices worldwide, though the shock election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States has given a boost to prices. (Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav, editing by David Evans)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Zeba Siddiqui

| MUMBAI

MUMBAI Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd does not expect pressure on generic drug prices in the United States to abate anytime soon, its managing director said on Thursday, signalling a challenging year ahead in the company's largest market.Dilip Shanghvi's comments followed publication of Sun Pharma's second-quarter results in which profit more than doubled from a year earlier, driven by higher sales in nearly all its markets.The United States began an investigation into generic drug prices last year and the possibility of another U.S. probe hit Indian pharmaceutical stocks last week. Sun, the world's fifth biggest generic drug maker, did not comment on this on Thursday, but said it believed pricing pressures would continue. Like most of its Indian rivals, Sun has had a tough year in the United States due to few regulatory approvals to launch new products, and regulatory restrictions over its Halol drug factory in Gujarat that caused supply constraints.

Sun has now completed an overhaul of that facility and is awaiting an FDA re-inspection, Shanghvi told analysts on a conference call. But he said he was not sure if the plant would win regulatory clearance in the next five months. "Looking at the experience of some other sites, it may take more than three months post-reinspection to get clearance," Shanghvi said. Analysts are waiting for Sun's tildrakizumab, an experimental psoriasis drug that showed positive results in late-stage trials, to be put forward for U.S. approval. Shanghvi said the company is also considering testing the same compound in other disease areas.

Sun reported that July-September profit rose to 22.35 billion rupees ($335.8 million) from 10.29 billion rupees a year earlier. Analysts expected an average profit of 16.46 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.Sales in its largest market, the United States, rose 9 percent, while those in India rose 11 percent. In emerging markets, Sun's sales rose 22 percent, the company said in a statement.

"The synergies from the Ranbaxy acquisition are gaining momentum and we are on track to achieve the targeted benefits," Shanghvi said.Sun has earlier said it expects to reap $300 million in synergies by fiscal 2018 from its purchase of rival Ranbaxy Laboratories last year.($1 = 66.5600 rupees) (Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai; Editing by Keith Weir and Jane Merriman)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
New Delhi: Paving the way for trial, a court here on Thursday framed charges against former Congress MP Vijay Darda, and six others accused in a coal block allocation case.

Prosecutors have alleged that Darda committed irregularities in allocating Fatehpur (East) coal block in Chhattisgarh to JLD Yavatmal Energy Ltd.

Special Judge Bharat Parashar framed charges against Darda, his son Devendra Darda, former Coal Secretary HC Gupta, former Coal Ministry officials KS Kropha and KC Samria, the company JLD Yavatmal Energy Ltd and its Director Manoj Kumar Jayaswal.

After all the accused pleaded not guilty and claimed trial, the court fixed December 16 for admission and denial of document and set 20 February for statement recording of the prosecution witnesses in the case.

The court framed charges dealing with criminal conspiracy, cheating under the Indian Penal Code and various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had alleged that JLD Yavatmal had wrongfully concealed previous allocation of four coal blocks to its group companies in 1999-2005.
Islamabad: Two more Indian High Commission officials, out of the eight accused by Pakistan of being members of Indian intelligence agencies, on Thursday left for India.

"Balbir Singh and Jayabalan Senthil left via Dubai-bound Emirates flight EK 615," sources said.

Both the staffers were named as undercover agents of Indian intelligence agencies. With this, the number of Indian High Commission officials leaving Pakistan has reached five.

Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria last week had alleged that several Indian diplomats and staffers were involved in "coordinating terrorist and subversive activities in Pakistan under the garb of diplomatic assignments".

Last month, Pakistan had declared Indian High Commission official Surjeet Singh 'persona non-grata' after India's action against Pakistan High Commission official Mehmood Akhtar following Indian police's busting of an ISI-run spy ring.

On 2 November, Pakistan had pulled out six of its officials in the wake of the spy scandal.
Bangkok: En route Japan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday made a surprise stopover in the Thai capital to pay his respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illness.

Prime Minister Modi layed a wreath and payed his final respects to the late King Bhumibol, whose body is lying in state at the Grand Palace complex in Bangkok. Modi was received at the airport by Thai Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith.

Bhumibol, the world's longest ruling monarch, died aged 88 on 13 October. He was adored by many of his subjects and seen as an anchor of stability in a kingdom rocked by turbulent politics.

A one-year mourning period had been announced in Thailand following the monarch's death. Thousands of Thais are still streaming into the gates of Bangkok's Grand Palace to pay their respects to the late King.

After laying the wreath, Modi will head to Japan for a three-day visit during which the two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in areas like trade, investment and security.
Banks are reopening today and people are queuing up at the banks to deposit and exchange the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes that they have.

But before you rush with your money, check out below what all things you can do at the branches today:

Deposit cash: Old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes can be deposited into their bank accounts and/or exchanged. There will not be any limit on the quantity or value. However, if your account is not Know Your Customer (KYC) norms compliant, the maximum value is Rs 50,000.

Exchange is possible: Old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes worth Rs 4,000 or below can be exchanged for any denomination having legal tender, i.e Rs 100, Rs 50 etc. But you gave to submit a requisition slip with proof of identity and along with the notes to be exchanged.

Deposit in third-party accounts: The equivalent value of the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 tendered can be credited to a third-party account only if you have a proof of authorisation from the account holder. You will also have to produce a valid proof of identity.

Withdraw cash: Up to Rs 10,000 can be withdrawn from your bank account, subject to an overall limit of Rs 20,000 in a week for the first fortnight, i.e. until the end of business hours on 24 November 2016.

What are experts saying?

Mumbai-based certified financial planner Pankaj Mathpal says the first rule is don't panic. "If you have small amount of cash which is in the form of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes which you had kept for your daily expenses, you should exchange that amount (up to the permissible limit). If you have larger amount of cash savings in invalid currency, you should deposit that amount in the bank," he say.

The banks will not refuse accepting any larger amount. But, if that amount is black money or you are unable to prove where the money has come from, you should be prepared for consequences of tax evasion.

"This means, not only will you pay the tax on that money, but also 200 percent. Banks have been informed to give the data of deposits to IT department," Mathpal says.

In short, if you thought you could take sackful of cash to your bank and whiten them, it is just an illusion.
The decision to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency denomination by the government from Tuesday midnight was welcomed from almost all walks of life across the country.

Even as the government's war against black money and fake currencies floating in the system is on, common man has been facing the hardship who now needs to exchange old currency notes with the new one at their respective bank branches.

Since the government decision has resulted in a panic-like situation for the commoners, here are some of the few notable questions and answers for the them.

1) Will ATMs be working today?

Bank ATMs will start working from Friday (November 11), and dispense the new Rs 100 and Rs 2,000 notes. However, withdrawal limits at ATMs will be fixed at Rs 2,000 a day till 18 November and Rs 4,000 from 19 November.

2) Will the banks be working today?

As the banks were shut for any kind of transaction on Wednesday as per the government order, banks will open their branches starting today. In fact, for public convenience, banks will remain open this coming Saturday and Sunday as well, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das tweeted earlier.

Banks will be operating for extra two hours on Thursday (10 November) and Friday (11 November). Starting today till 13 November i.e Sunday, banks will be open till 9 pm to help customers queuing up to deposit their Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

The RBI also announced that the new notes of Rs 2000 and Rs 500 would be available from this Friday (11 November). The new Rs 500 bank notes will have extra security features, besides having different colour and size. The Rs 500 bank notes will be stone grey in colour with the predominant new theme of the Indian heritage site Red Fort.

The new Rs 2,000 notes will be of magenta colour with Mangalayam imprinted on the reverse. The higher value currency notes will have other designs, geometric pattern aligning with the overall scheme both on the obverse and reverse.

The nation's largest lender State Bank of India was among the first to announce an extension in banking hours, till 1800 hrs tomorrow and also said each of its branches will be having a dedicated 'exchange counter' to change the currency notes.

3) How much money can I withdraw today?

One can withdraw up to Rs 10,000 from the bank. However, public can exchange their Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with lower denomination currency notes at designated banks and post offices on production of valid government identity cards like PAN, Aadhaar and Election Card from 10 November to 24 November with a daily limit of Rs 4,000. However, one can deposit any amount with the bank, but any amount exceeding Rs 2.5 lakh will attract I-T scrutiny.

4) Can I exchange Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 notes today?

Yes, you can exchange Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes starting today at your designated bank branches. Those unable to deposit Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes till 30 December this year can do so in designated RBI offices till 31 March next year after filling a declaration form along with proof and reasons.
In order to avoid inconveniences at the toll plazas, the government has suspended toll plazas on National Highways across the country until 11 November midnight.

Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari announced the decision on the Twitter late Wednesday.

It has been decided to suspend Toll across all National Highways till midnight of 11th November to facilitate smooth traffic movement  Nitin Gadkari (@nitin_gadkari) November 9, 2016

After the government announced the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes the highway toll plazas were witnessing long queues and snarls as they refused to accept the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) Chairman Raghav Chandra had earlier took up the matter with the Prime Minister's Office after being flooded by calls from states over the grim situation at toll plazas, the PTI reported.

In response, the government initially issued instructions to all 365 toll plazas across the country to start accepting currency denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 till 11 November midnight to ease the situation of jams and long queues at toll booths.

Chandra said he contacted the PMO as well as the Finance Ministry to apprise them of the condition at the plazas after being inundated by calls from commuters as well as state government officials over traffic congestion.

"Several Chief Secretaries including Chief Secretaries of Haryana and Gujarat besides commuters contacted us about the situation. Many travelers narrated their plights," he said.

Chandra also said that they are are strictly monitoring the situation and keeping a close eye so that commuters can travel without any inconveniences.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi last night announced the decision to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes from last midnight.

Declaring a "decisive" war against black money and corruption, Modi also listed a raft of steps to assure commoners that their money is safe.

In his first televised address to the nation two-and-a-half-years after assuming office, he had announced a 50-day window from November 10 to December 30 for those having these notes to deposit them in their bank and post office accounts "without any limit".

RBI said the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination bank notes can also be transacted at international airports, for arriving and departing passengers, who possess specified bank notes.

However, the value of bank notes possessed by passengers should not exceed Rs 5,000 rupees to exchange them for notes which are legal tender.

Besides, foreign tourists will also be allowed to exchange foreign currency or specified bank notes, the value of which does not exceed Rs 5,000, to exchange them for notes which are legal tender, RBI said in a notification.

With PTI
Following the immediate ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes that came like a bolt from the blue for many 'cash-strapped' Indians, the rush to banks on Thursday, when they all reopened, was quite obvious. Name any bank in any state, the crowd at the counters was massive when most sought to deposit the abolished Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes before the deadline.

Retired banker Namita Lahkar and her former colleague, from United Bank of India in Guwahati, another retired manager Pranab Bhuyan were at the Narengi Tiniali Branch to deposit their 500-s and 1,000-s. Seeing the hard time that the cashier and the branch manager were facing, amid the surging crowd, the two retired officers decided to pitch in.

"I went to the bank before 10 am. But it was total chaos there as only two people were handling it. They were literally helpless. I have worked for 35 years in UBI before I retired in 2012. I felt bad and offered to help them. The rush was so much that I and my former colleague had to work till 6 pm," Namita told Firstpost from Guwahati.

"The workload was four times than on an usual day," she said explaining the toll that the sudden decision to scrap the bigger denomination currency notes on the bankers.

Namita was graceful enough to help even more if required. "If they call us again tomorrow, we will go," she said. "Things should be normal within a month," Namita said.

Her selfless and voluntary service was known when her son Trideep Lahkar, a journalist from a news agency shared it on his Facebook account praising his mother.

"She went to the bank to deposit the banned currency notes and withdraw the new ones. When she reached the Narengi Tiniali Branch of United Bank of India this morning, it was a sea of people with just two existing staff - a cashier and the manager. They were clueless on how to handle such a huge crowd.

"She retired from the same bank five years ago. She, along with a former manager who also came to take new notes, realised that it would be next to impossible for just two employees to handle such a huge and maddening rush. And today is just the first day!

"She and the retired manager voluntarily offered their services again, after many years. The existing two staff of the branch didn't believe it and they had nothing to say. Their faces said everything with spontaneous smile of relief.

She is my mother Namita Lahkar," Trideep wrote on his Facebook timeline. The post had got over 1,4oo likes and at least 210 shares when this piece was being posted.
Donald Trumps electoral victory on Wednesday, making him the 45th President of the United States, has many implications. But the one implication that should be noted in particular is the lesson that it provides to journalists or the media as a whole. This lesson is significant to Indian journalists as well, particularly the political pundits, now that they will be covering the upcoming Assembly elections in important states like Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

This lesson, however, is not exactly new. It was the takeaway from our last General elections in 2014, that resulted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's unprecedented victory. This lesson has now been re-validated by Trumps 'against all odds' victory. In fact, there are many commonalities between Modis 2014 victory and Trumps recent triumph.

The lesson is that the media should observe, report and analyse the polls as dispassionately as possible, and not become an active player in the polls by furthering the causes of a particular candidate (or party)  by demonising his or her rival.

This lesson is vitally important for the credibility of the media itself, because the candidate it demonises eventually succeeds, as was the case with Trump. But this lesson also has a corollary; the standard tools used by most journalists (and academicians) in explaining such elections need a fine-tuning.

Almost all the major media houses in the United States (including the British magazine the Economist, that sells the most in America) had formally endorsed Hillary Clinton through their respective editorial boards. And their reporters had gone to every possible length to demonise Trump.

It has now come to light that a senior CNN analyst had leaked the questions of the Presidential debate to Hillary wee in advance. In fact, another analyst of the same channel cried live on television when Trump overtook Hillary during the vote count.

It is also noteworthy in this context how a well known Indian TV anchor, who was covering the US elections for her channel, had tweeted how thrilled she was about Hillary's impending victory and how she was eager to hear her D-Day speech!

Invariably, the mainstream US media highlighted how Hillary had a distinguished service to the country as first lady, as a senator from New York, and as Secretary of State; thereby enforcing that she had every right to be taken seriously as a White House contender.

In contrast, the media lambasted Trump, saying that he was not a man of ideas and had no record in public service and no qualifications for the job. In an article published in The Atlantic, it was said that,  His (Trump) affect is that of an infomercial huckster; he traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of Americas nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.

In other words, for the mainstream American media, Trump's major drawback was the fact that he was never a part of the 'New York-Washington establishment'; he was a complete outsider having no political, electoral or intellectual experience.

The 'New York-Washington establishment' comprised seasoned Democrats as well as Republicans, media, think-tanks, bureaucrats and academic elites; much like our Delhi establishment that includes many veteran Congress, BJP leaders.

For the American media, Trump was a highly divisive figure based on his views on immigrants, Muslims and Women (see the way they tore into Trump for a private comment on women, way back in 2005). And here, Trump's 'disqualification' was compounded by the fact that he was opposed by the top leadership in his own Republican party.

Did we not witness a similar trend in India in 2013 and 2014? No other prime ministerial candidate in India had ever been subjected to such rigorous public and judicial scrutiny as Modi was for his alleged role in the Gujarat riots in 2002.

Modis critics within the party, let alone his enemies outside, systematically fed the overwhelming sections of the national media to propagate the theory that Modi was a deeply divisive figure and that he would be a political disaster for the BJP outside Gujarat.

There was a similar vitriolic campaign suggesting that BJP would disintegrate if Modi became the prime ministerial candidate. It was also said that allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would desert if he was chosen.

In fact, certain anti-Modi elements in the BJP did misguide the Janata Dal (United) (one of the BJPs longstanding allies) leader and now Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, to part ways with the party over Modi, thinking that by so doing his anointment as the prime ministerial candidate of the alliance would be stalled.

But Modi then and Trump now did end up winning, meaning that they fought the odds by evolving a campaigning style that negated conventions. They travelled to every nook and corner of their respective countries. They held massive rallies instead of focusing on door-knocking and get-out-the-vote operations.

Most importantly, they did not seek votes on the basis of people's identities  they talked of all. That would explain why the standard or conventional analysis that Hillary would easily win because of the support of women, blacks, Muslims and Hispanics proved to be so off the mark.

And that also explains why in Modis case, the limitations of the often lauded identity politics of caste, creed and region were badly exposed. The results of the 2014 election proved beyond any shadow of doubt that people do not necessarily vote on the basis of caste lines.

In fact, this is the precise reason why the theory that in the forthcoming election in Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati will get all the Dalit votes or the BJP will not get any Muslim votes or all the Yadav votes will go to the ruling Samajwadi party, doesn't necessarily hold true. Voting behaviours the world over are changing and this needs to be looked at afresh by the analysts, who, in turn, must look beyond the conventional theories.

There is another striking similarity between the 2014 elections in India and the just concluded elections in the United States. That the dominant sections within both the Indian and American intelligentsia, including the media, glorify identity politics. They talk of minorities and groups, and laud the phenomenon as consolidation for their respective rights. If somebody opposes this trend, he or she is branded as communal and racist. Viewed thus, voting for a Modi or a Trump, people at large seem to have rejected this phenomenon and its champions.

Though we all must be proud of our multi-cultural and pluralistic values and cherish them at all cost, you cannot afford to do that by degrading and insulting the majority community and concentrating all the time on the minorities and groups.

And that brings about an important point. Some American journalists seem to be quick learners and have started admitting to their mistakes. Margaret Sullivan, a columnist for The Washington Post, just wrote an article titled, The media didnt want to believe Trump could win. So they looked the other way.

In her piece she said, To put it bluntly, the media missed the story. In the end, a huge number of American voters wanted something different. And although these voters shouted and screamed it, most journalists just werent listening. They didnt get it. They didnt get that the huge, enthusiastic crowds at Donald Trumps rallies would really translate into that many votes. They couldnt believe that the America they knew could embrace someone who mocked a disabled man, bragged about sexually assaulting women, and spouted misogyny, racism and anti-Semitism.

Journalists in India should take cues from their American counterparts, particularly those covering the upcoming Assembly elections.
Sydney: Australia ratified the Paris climate agreement on Thursday, amid fears US president-elect Donald Trump could follow through on his pledge to "cancel" the landmark pact aimed at tackling global warming.

More than 100 nations representing 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions have inked the historic Paris Agreement, the world's first universal climate pact, which came into force in early November.

Australia's approval of the binding deal was delayed by national elections in July and its announcement Thursday came ahead of the departure of the country's foreign and environment ministers for UN climate talks in Marrakesh.

"Ratification of the agreement confirms Australia's ambitious and responsible target to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2030," Turnbull said in a joint statement with the two ministers.

"We are on track to meet and indeed beat our 2020 targets... and are committed to meeting our 2030 targets under the agreement."

With its heavy use of coal-fired power and relatively small population of 24 million, Australia is considered one of the world's worst per capita greenhouse gas polluters.

When asked if Canberra would follow the United States if it exited the treaty, the prime minister stressed Australia's commitment to the "watershed" agreement.

"We have ratified the agreement. It will  it takes four years to withdraw  if a country sought to withdraw from the agreement it takes four years," he added.

"Secondly, this is a global agreement. When Australia makes a commitment to a global agreement, we follow through and that is exactly what we are doing."

Climate change denier Trump, who has made no secret of his disregard for the United Nations, pledged earlier this year to withdraw from the Paris climate deal. In contrast, current US President Barack Obama has been a champion of the pact.

The US is the world's second-largest greenhouse gas polluter after China, producing 13 percent of global emissions.

France's environment minister and outgoing head of the UN climate forum Segolene Royal said Wednesday that Trump "cannot prevent the implementation" of the pact.

"He cannot  contrary to his assertions  undo the Paris Agreement," she told French radio station RTL.
By Fathin Ungku

| JOHOR BAHRU, Malaysia

JOHOR BAHRU, Malaysia When Malaysian officials went to an island near the site of a boat accident that killed dozens of Indonesians on their way home last week, they were told the vessel was plying illegally with more than double the permitted number of passengers aboard.For Paul Khiu, commander of the marine police in Johor state at the southern tip of peninsula Malaysia, the discovery came as no surprise. "These boats can take 30 to 50 people, but they always overload," Khiu told Reuters on his return from Batam island, on the other side of the Singapore Strait. The boat had come from Johor, a one-hour voyage, carrying Indonesian workers and their families before it capsized near Batam.Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians are illegal migrants in Malaysia, doing construction, plantation and domestic work that pays much more than they could earn at home. Some have lived in Malaysia for years and have also brought over their families. Advocacy groups say the illegal workers are subjected to many abuses and the two governments are doing little to address the situation. Between 600 and 700 illegal Indonesian workers die in Malaysia each year of various causes, including disease, work accidents, drowning and starvation, said Anis Hidayah of the Migrant Care group. A spokesman for Indonesia's foreign ministry, Armanatha Nasir, said illegal workers remained "a challenge" but both governments were committed to finding a solution.Malaysia's Home Affairs Ministry said it would soon be meeting Indonesian Embassy officials for preliminary talks on the illegal workers issue, but did not give any further details.The government had said in March that it would stop bringing in new foreign workers in a bid to encourage businesses to hire locally and also to stop illegal migration.It had launched a major exercise to legalise foreign workers in 2011, including an amnesty that expired in 2014.DANGEROUS CROSSING

Some of the migrants make the illegal crossing across the Strait of Malacca separating Indonesia's Sumatra from peninsular Malaysia, but most slip over the sprawling land border between the two countries on the island of Borneo.There are few controls along the 2,000-km (1,200-mile) border which experts say is virtually impossible to police. The to-and-fro movement has become a lively business, and there are towns on both sides to cater for the migrants.The sea route is more dangerous. Officials said that more than half of the 101 people on board the high-speed boat died after it hit a reef off Batam and sank, many of them infants and children. Forty-one people survived and six remain missing.Migrant Care puts the number of Indonesians living in Malaysia at more than 1 million, but other estimates put it even higher.Hidayah, at Migrant Care, said government regulation in the plantation, construction and domestic helper sectors was poor."There is no policy on protection of domestic helpers. There is no regulation of working hours. There are no holidays," she said, adding the situation was much the same in the construction and plantation sectors.

Because of the prohibitive costs and bureaucracy required to enter Malaysia legally, most workers opt for illicit ways to get in, Hidayah said.SHORT-LIVED REACTION

When tragedies such as last week's accident strike, government action is reactive and short-lived, activists say."Despite the need for sustained political attention, often these issues are only addressed in the wake of some particularly egregious incident that sparks public outcry," said Paul Dillon, Jakarta-based programme director at the International Organization for Migration.A 64-year-old Indonesian metalworker, who has lived illegally in Malaysia for nine years, said that on a night-time journey home last year, his boat capsized.

"I could have gone the normal, legal route ... but I just couldn't afford it at that time," the worker told Reuters from a sparsely furnished housing block in Johor he shares with six others. "I thought I was going to die," he said of the ordeal which he and 35 others survived by swimming 1 km (a half mile) to shore.Since that incident he has been considering getting documentation, regardless of the costs. Indonesia has in recent years tried to stop unskilled workers, especially domestic workers, going overseas after a string of physical abuse cases. There is now a moratorium on domestic workers going to 21 countries in the Middle East, and government officials have also discussed banning them from Malaysia and Singapore.But a persistent shortage of jobs at home means Indonesians are still desperate to work overseas."The point is availability of work. For that reason, the most important thing is to create as many jobs as possible domestically," said Hermono, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, of the National Migrant Workers' Protection Agency.Indonesian migrant workers contributed around $9.6 billion in remittances in 2015, according to the World Bank. Activists say a ban would only cut off these economically critical inflows and force low-skilled workers to resort to illegal and dangerous means of travel."People need to earn and if the jobs are elsewhere, you should be ensuring people can go legitimately and work safely," said Dee Jupp, an independent researcher who has done studies on Indonesian migrant workers. "Recognising this will give legitimacy and allow it to be regulated and safer." (Additional reporting by Hidayat Setiaji, Fergus Jensen and Kanupriya Kapoor in JAKARTA, A.Ananthalakshmi in KUALA LUMPUR; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Alex Richardson)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Steve Holland and John Whitesides

Republican Donald Trump put aside the celebrations and focused on Wednesday on his 73-day transition to the White House as rival Hillary Clinton promised to bury the bitterness of their long presidential race and work to unify a divided country.After Trump's stunning upset of the heavily favoured Clinton, Democratic President Barack Obama and leading figures in the Republican Party who had struggled to make peace with Trump all vowed to move past the ugliness of the campaign to seek common ground."Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead," Clinton, the Democratic nominee, said in a concession speech in New York, joined by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea.With a row of American flags in the background, she told supporters her loss was painful "and it will be for a long time," and that she had offered to work with Trump as he prepares to begin his four-year term on Jan. 20.A wealthy New York real estate developer and former reality TV host, Trump rode a wave of anger toward Washington insiders to win Tuesday's election against Clinton, whose establishment resume included stints as a first lady, U.S. senator and Obama's secretary of state. Trump's victory marked a crushing end to Clinton's second quest to be the first woman elected president. She also failed in a White House bid in 2008. Obama, who campaigned hard against Trump, invited him to the White House for a meeting on Thursday after a brutal night for the Democratic Party, which also fell short of recapturing majorities in both chambers of Congress."We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country," Obama said at the White House, adding he and his staff would work with Trump to ensure a successful transition. "We are not Democrats first, we are not Republicans first, we are Americans first."Trump and his senior aides met at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday to begin the transition. "They are hunkered down in meetings, plotting the next steps, the transition, the first 100 days, key staff positions," said a source close to Trump's campaign.Potential choices in a Trump administration included Republican figures who eagerly supported Trump even when he faced opprobrium from other senior Republicans.Possible names included Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff, RNC spokesman Sean Spicer as White House spokesman, U.S. Senators Jeff Sessions and Bob Corker in possible roles as secretary of state or defence secretary, and former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich as secretary of state, a source close to the campaign said.Trump will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of the U.S. Congress that could help him implement his legislative agenda and appoint a Supreme Court justice to fill the vacancy created by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.In the Senate, Democrats secured a second gain on Wednesday, when Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte conceded defeat in New Hampshire to challenger Maggie Hassan, the state's Democratic governor. But the Republicans retained their majority."Now, Donald Trump will lead a unified Republican government and we will work hand-in-hand on a positive agenda to tackle this country's big challenges," House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who had a strained relationship with Trump, told reporters, saying Trump had earned a mandate in the election.TRUMP PRIORITIES

In an Oct. 25 Reuters interview, Trump said his top priorities when he took office would be building stronger borders, repealing Obama's national healthcare plan, aiding military veterans and working to create more jobs.In his victory speech early on Wednesday, he also promised to embark on a project to rebuild American infrastructure and to double U.S. economic growth.Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday that repealing the healthcare plan known as Obamacare would be a "pretty high item" on the agenda. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that she spoke to Trump about passing a "robust" jobs bill.Worried that a Trump victory could cause economic and global uncertainty, investors initially fled stocks worldwide, but Wall Street made a dramatic turnaround and the U.S. dollar hit its highest level against the Japanese yen in nearly four months. The Mexican peso recouped some losses after falling to a record low. The currency has been vulnerable to Trump's threats to rip up a free trade agreement with Mexico and to tax money sent home by migrants to pay to build a border wall.Scattered protests broke out across the country over Trump's triumph. In Berkeley, California, outside San Francisco, some 1,500 high school students and teachers walked out of classes chanting: "Not our president." Smaller groups of students walked out of classes in nearby Oakland and in Seattle, while several hundred students protested at the University of Texas, according to local reports.Speaking to cheering supporters in a New York hotel ballroom after his victory, Trump said it was time to heal divisions after a campaign that exposed deep differences among Americans."It is time for us to come together as one united people," Trump said. "I will be president for all Americans."

His comments departed sharply from his campaign rhetoric in which he repeatedly branded Clinton as "Crooked Hillary" amid supporters' chants of "lock her up."Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, did not rule out on Wednesday the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton's past conduct, a threat Trump made in an election debate last month.White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it hoped the tradition of not using the criminal justice system to extract revenge on political opponents would continue under Trump.Senior House Republican Jason Chaffetz plans to continue investigating Clinton's use of a private rather than government email server while she was secretary of state, a Chaffetz aide said. FBI Director James Comey has said a year-long probe by the agency into the setup revealed nothing to merit criminal charges. Despite losing the state-by-state electoral battle that determines the U.S. presidency, Clinton narrowly led Trump in the nationwide popular vote, according to U.S. media tallies.Fuelling his upset was Trump's avid support among white non-college educated workers. He ran up big leads in rural areas, beating Clinton by 27 percentage points among voters outside of urban areas, a Reuters/Ipsos Election Day poll found.While Clinton, 69, won Hispanics and black and young voters, she did not win those groups by greater margins than Obama did in 2012. Younger blacks did not support Clinton like they did Obama. She won eight of 10 black voters between the ages of 35 and 54. Obama won almost 100 percent of those voters in 2012.At 70, Trump will be the oldest first-term U.S. president. The presidency will be Trump's first elected office, and it remains to be seen how he will work with Congress. During the campaign, Trump was the target of sharp disapproval, not just from Democrats but from many in his own party.

GOOD NEWS FOR RUSSIA

Foreign leaders pledged to work with Trump, but some officials expressed alarm the vote could mark the end of an era in which Washington promoted democratic values and was seen by its allies as a guarantor of peace.During the campaign, Trump expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, questioned central tenets of the NATO military alliance and suggested that Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons to shoulder their own defence burden.Russia and Putin appeared to be winners from Trump's victory. Defying years of U.S. foreign policy orthodoxy, the Republican had promised much warmer relations with Moscow, despite Russia's intervention in the Syrian civil war and its seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region. Russia's parliament erupted in applause after a lawmaker announced that Trump had been elected, and Putin told foreign ambassadors he was ready to fully restore ties with Washington.Russia is hoping that improved relations could yield an elusive prize: the lifting or easing of sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union to punish Moscow for its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who sparred with Obama, spoke by phone to Trump, who proposed they meet "at the first opportunity," Netanyahu's office said. Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing and Washington shared responsibility for promoting global development and prosperity.Iran urged Trump to stay committed to the nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers, which Trump has sharply criticized. Several authoritarian and right-wing leaders hailed Trump's victory.Other officials abroad, some with senior roles in government, took the unusual step of denouncing the outcome, calling it a worrying signal for liberal democracy and tolerance in the world."Trump is the pioneer of a new authoritarian and chauvinist international movement. He is also a warning for us," German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said in an interview with the Funke newspaper group.U.S. neighbour Mexico was pitched into deep uncertainty by the victory for Trump, who has often accused it of stealing U.S. jobs and sending criminals across the U.S. border.Trump campaigned on a pledge to take the country on a more isolationist, protectionist "America First" path. He wants to rewrite international trade deals to reduce trade deficits and has taken positions that raise the possibility of damaging relations with America's most trusted allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. (Reporting by Steve Holland in New York and John Whitesides in Washington; Writing by John Whitesides, Alistair Bell and Frances Kerry; Additional reporting by Amanda Becker, Emily Stephenson and Christopher Kahn in New York, Susan Cornwell in Washington, Letitia Stein in St. Petersburg, Fla., Luciana Lopez in Miami, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Kim Palmer in Ohio; Editing by Howard Goller and Peter Cooney)

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By Alastair Macdonald and Gabriela Baczynska

| BRUSSELS

BRUSSELS For Europe, already reeling from Britain's decision to leave its 28-member club, Donald Trump's election introduces a host of new uncertainties it is ill-equipped to tackle.Preoccupied by a growing anti-establishment mood across the continent, the European Union's leaders gave little thought to the idea a man dubbed "the pioneer of a new authoritarian and chauvinist international movement" by Germany's deputy chancellor could take power in the United States.The day before, one of the EU's leaders had confided a contingency plan of "crossing ourselves and praying". The day after, as they pledged to work with Trump, a senior EU diplomat summed up their dilemma."Since we have refused to really think through this scenario, we have a list of questions that need to be answered, but almost everything is a big unknown," the envoy told Reuters.For some, Europe must now step up and take more responsibility, both for its own security and the wider world, if the entrepreneur makes good on campaign talk of limiting U.S. defence commitments and other engagements abroad.Trade relations, climate change, Russia and tackling Islamic State are all areas where Europe may have to forge its own path if a Trump-led Washington pulls back from the global stage."This is another wake-up call," said Manfred Weber, a German ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel who leads conservatives in the European Parliament. "It is now up to Europe. We must be more self-confident and assume more responsibility. "We do not know what to expect from the USA."Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders told Reuters a Trump White House "may help some people in Europe understand that we need to reinforce defence cooperation among Europeans".But EU leaders know that eurosceptic radicals, inspired by Trump and Britain's vote to leave the bloc in June, could exploit any attempt to tighten cooperation to condemn them to the same ignominious electoral fate as Hillary Clinton.East Europeans fret President Vladimir Putin may use Trump's vow to improve ties with sanctions-hit Moscow to extend Russian influence, as in Ukraine. The Norwegian head of NATO felt obliged to spell out that Trump could not renege on security guarantees.

"PUTTING ON A BRAVE FACE"

"Europe cannot blink after Brexit, after the election of Donald Trump," French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said of the political earthquake in Washington, which, 27 years to the day since the fall of the Berlin Wall, continues to provide the lion's share of military muscle to defending the continent."Europe must stand together more, be more active and go more on the offensive," Ayrault said. "Even just to protect itself."Privately, senior officials question its ability to do that."Europe will need to do more to take care of its own - but are we capable?" a senior European diplomat asked. The EU has been riven with tensions over economic policy, the Syrian refugee crisis and Britain's exit, and remains very divided.

Another senior EU diplomat told Reuters: "This changes the business model of the EU. But we have no idea how." He dismissed suggestions a U.S. withdrawal from some engagements could offer benefits by obliging Europeans to invest more in their cooperation and spend more on their own defence: "That's not a silver lining. That's putting on a brave face."EU foreign ministers called a special meeting over dinner on Sunday to discuss what Trump's America will mean for Europe. Giles Merritt of pro-EU Brussels think-tank Friends of Europe said leaders had no time to lose to "head off trouble" and could revive their own Union by helping defend global stability. They "must ... fashion a common European response ... before President Trump sets foot in the Oval Office", he said.

CHANGE THE WHOLE SYSTEM?

It was a result few in Europe had wanted, barring Hungary's authoritarian prime minister Viktor Orban. European leaders -- and Obama Administration envoys -- were reduced to highlighting the lowest common denominators of shared history and ideals in giving assurances of continued cooperation.After a U.S. campaign marked by accusations of racism and sexism, Merkel, preparing for her own election battle next year, said she would work with Trump on the basis of shared values that included "respecting ... people's dignity regardless of their origin, the colour of their skin, religion (or) gender".Donald Tusk, the former Polish premier who chairs EU summits, responded to what he called "new challenges" and "uncertainty over the future of our Transatlantic relations" by stressing centuries of blood ties across the ocean.French President Francois Hollande stressed a need for even stronger Transatlantic cooperation to tackle climate change, Islamist security threats and the global economy.Washington's ambassador to NATO could offer no detail on the incoming administration's policy but reassured European peers in Brussels that NATO had always been a "bipartisan venture".Anthony Gardner, outgoing President Barack Obama's envoy to the EU, said change was possible in areas including sanctions on Russia, support for Ukraine, nuclear proliferation, trade, NATO and the Middle East, but added: "Let's wait to see who appoints as his key advisers."He did not see Washington abandoning a key partner for the past 50 years, but his reassurance did not quell a sense of near panic among some senior officials in Brussels.One said grimly: "This is bad. Brexit was a stupid and damaging mistake but the people running it are not complete lunatics. Now we have a populist in power who can change the whole system as we know it." (Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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DUBAI Fourteen civilians were injured on Thursday by projectiles fired by Yemen's Houthi group into Saudi Arabia, Saudi civil defence reported, the latest in a series of cross-border attacks by the Iran-allied group.State news agency SPA quoted a civil defence spokesman as saying that 13 Saudi citizens and an expatriate from Bangladesh were injured in the attack in Dhahran al-Janoub province in the Asir region, near the border with Yemen. "The victims suffered various injuries and were taken to hospital for treatment," the agency said, quoting the civil defence spokesman, Colonel Mohammed al-Assemi.Three houses were also damaged in the attack, the agency reported, quoting Assemi.

Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab coalition trying to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi who was ousted by the Iran-aligned Houthi group last year.The fighting has killed more than 10,000 people in Yemen and hundreds in Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis regularly fire rockets across the border into Saudi Arabia in what they say was a response to Saudi-led air strikes on the country, often resulting in deaths or injuries to civilians.

Saudi Arabia regard the Houthis as a pawn for non-Arab Iran which Riyadh says is trying to extend its influence into Arab lands. (Reporting by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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By Emily Flitter

| NEW YORK

NEW YORK Some of the most controversial proposals Donald Trump made while running for U.S. president disappeared from his campaign website on Thursday, but a spokesman said what some observers took as a softening of Trump's policies was due to a technical glitch.The link to Trump's Dec. 7 proposal titled: "Donald J. Trump statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration," in which he called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" vanished temporarily from the website but later reappeared.So too did a list of Trump's potential Supreme Court justice picks as president and certain details of his economic, defence and regulatory reform plans."The website was temporarily redirecting all specific press release pages to the home page," Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email. Links to Trump's policy proposals, including the Muslim ban, were working again by 3:30 p.m. EST (2030 GMT).The links, which had redirected readers to a campaign fundraising page, appeared to have been removed around Election Day on Tuesday, when Trump won a historic upset against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, according to a website that records historic snapshots of web pages.

In an appearance on CNBC on Thursday, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal praised Trump for removing the Muslim ban proposal from his website and also said Trump had deleted statements offensive to Muslims from his Twitter account.The prince could not be reached for comment after the links were restored.Several tweets attacking Muslims that Trump sent while campaigning for president remained in his feed on Thursday, including a March 22 tweet in which Trump wrote:

"Incompetent Hillary, despite the horrible attack in Brussels today, wants borders to be weak and open-and let the Muslims flow in. No way!"After initially praising the removal of the Muslim ban proposal at a news conference with other civil rights leaders on Thursday, Samer Khalaf, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said in a follow-up interview the group was hoping to see better behaviour from Trump."False hope just came over us," Khalaf said, but "we didn't really think it was monumental that they took down the language."

Khalaf said Trump's policies were more important than any statements. "Hes elected, he said some horrible things, now we have to see what his policies are. If theyre good policies were going to commend him for it. If theyre horrible policies were going to challenge him on it."Despite the temporary glitch, most of Trump's core policy positions had remained on his website, including his central immigration promise to build an "impenetrable physical wall" on the border with Mexico and make Mexico pay for its construction.It was not the first time the Trump campaign blamed technical difficulties for changes to its website. The campaign this year also replaced the part of the site describing Trump's healthcare policy with a different version. When contacted about it by Reuters in September, the campaign put the original page back up. (Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson and Julia Harte in Washington, Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Tom Brown)

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By Peter Eisler

| BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania

BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania The unravelling of the coalition that was supposed to carry Hillary Clinton to the White House had a lot to do with voters like Jim McAndrew in counties like Northampton, Pennsylvania.McAndrew, 69, a retired steel worker, voted Democrat in every presidential election for half a century. This year he stayed home. And Northampton County, a heavily white, heavily Democratic, largely working class area that backed President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, went for Donald Trump, a Republican.McAndrew, who voted for Obama in the two previous races, was intrigued by Trump, but decided eventually that all he does is insult everybody ... women, black people, white people, rich, poor. Hes an idiot. He considered Clinton, but was concerned by the scandal over her handling of classified material on a private email server as secretary of state.I hated both of them, so I just said, the hell with it, McAndrew said. His wife, also a life-long Democrat, went to the polls without him - and voted Republican. First time ever," he said.Trumps ability to flip reliably Democratic counties like Northampton helped drive his victory in the presidential election this week. It was critical to his win in Pennsylvania and other Rust Belt states, a bulwark in the Democrats electoral strategy for winning the White House, and it helped fuel his victories in critical swing states, such as Florida and North Carolina.Its not that Trumps economic populism and "America First" messages generated widespread enthusiasm; he won some of those counties with far fewer votes than Mitt Romney captured as the Republican nominee in 2012. Nationwide, Trumps 59.7 million votes are about 1.2 million behind the 60.9 million Romney got when he lost four years ago, based on initial projections.But Clintons troubles holding on to Democratic voters were far more stark. Some crossed party lines for Trump or backed an independent. Many just stayed home. Clinton won the popular vote with 59.9 million votes, 6 million fewer than the 65.9 million Obama won in 2012. And her weakness in traditionally Democratic areas helped cost her the electoral college that chooses the winner of the election.Clinton came across as a status quo candidate unlikely to shake up the Washington establishment, says Mike Sly, 74, a retiree and independent voter in Pinellas County, Florida, who backed Obama in 2012 and voted for Trump this year. Clintons message failed to convince him that she would address his concerns about the state of the economy and rising health insurance premiums under Obamas Affordable Care Act.The race came down to basically what change do I think is going to happen, and how I think it is going to happen, Sly says. I felt that Hillary really carried too much baggage to be trusted.

NEW COALITIONS

Clintons loss in Florida, a key battleground state, stemmed partly from her inability to hold voters like Sly in white, middle- and working-class areas that previously went Democrat. In vote-rich Pinellas, a beach community popular with retirees in the Tampa Bay region, Trump won 48 percent of the vote, besting Clintons 47 percent. In 2012, Obama won 52 percent.Nationally, initial projections show low voter turnout of just over 55 percent, the worst since the contested election of 2000, when Republican George W. Bush defeated then-Democratic Vice President Al Gore. In Obamas first victory, turnout was more than 62 percent.Clinton beat Trump among black and Hispanic voters, but her effort to forge a winning coalition by leveraging that strength in diverse, urban areas was upended by Trumps strength among whites. Meanwhile, Trump still managed to hold roughly the same level of minority support that Romney got in 2012.The pattern held true not only in rural areas, but also in many suburbs, particularly in the Rust Belt and the South, that tipped towards Obama in the previous two presidential races.It was pretty much a base election, but one group was better at turning out their voters than the other, says Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political science professor.

In Gates County, North Carolina, Trumps vows to crack down on illegal immigration and police Muslim communities for radicalism resonated, says Eric J. Earhart, 49, pastor of the evangelical Upper Room Assembly church. There has been a definite shift over the past eight years away from us being a Judeo-Christian nation, Earhart adds, and many congregants worry about that.The rural county of 12,000 people went for Obama in 2012 with 52 percent of the vote, but it flipped into Trumps column in this years race, giving him 53 percent.Thomas Hill, 38, chairman of the Gates County Republican Party, says voters also were attracted to Trumps blunt speaking and his pledge to bring back manufacturing jobs that went overseas. Trumps economic message, which included a promise to kill free trade agreements that are unpopular among many working-class voters in industrial areas, also succeeded in Macomb County, Michigan, a predominantly white area north of Detroit. The number of voters casting ballots in the county jumped by more than 14,000 over 2012, and Trump captured 53 percent of the vote to Clintons 42 percent.Four years ago, Obama won the county with just under 52 percent of the vote. Youve got a lot of blue collar workers here (and) ... a lot of union guys, and they went Republican, says David Phair, 59, a construction worker and Trump voter who didnt cast a ballot in 2012. Theyre tired of politicians.Phair also liked Trumps promise to end illegal immigration. Im looking forward to how hes going to handle illegal aliens.

DEFYING EXPECTATIONS

In Pennsylvania, Northampton County and neighbouring Lehigh County, once reliant on steel companies, have bounced back from the industrys decline.In Bethlehem, which straddles the two counties, new development has mushroomed around the old steel mill, including a Sands casino resort with 2,400 employees. E-commerce companies, white collar firms and big corporations, such as Olympus, the Japanese imaging giant, have also moved to the region. Lehigh and Northampton counties have a larger share of households than the state as a whole that earn more than $75,000, about 36 percent.All that suggests ripe country for Clinton. But the counties also are whiter and older than the country as a whole. And Trump dominated voting among older whites.Around the table where McAndrew has a weekly poker game in the basement of the United Steel Workers office in Bethlehem, the retired men of the citys steel mills have different opinions on why Clinton failed to match Obamas success in the region.But they agree that she didnt offer a compelling message. Among the five at the table, all lifelong Democrats, only three cast votes for Clinton.She was going to continue everything the way it is and a lot of people think there are things that need to be changed, says Ken Rayden, 80, who voted for Clinton, but mainly out of party loyalty. She didnt show the people anything new. (Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Florida, Howard Schneider in Washington, DC, Gary Robertson in North Carolina, and Tim Branfalt in Michigan. Editing by Jason Szep and Ross Colvin)

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By Ian Simpson and Gina Cherelus

| WASHINGTON/NEW YORK

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK Demonstrators took to streets across the country for a second day on Thursday to protest Republican Donald Trump's election victory, voicing worries that Trump would strike a blow against civil rights.Trump's marquee buildings in New York and Washington were targets of protesters, and police put up security fences around the president-elect's hotel in Washington, not far from the White House, and shielded New York's Trump Tower with a line of concrete blocks.About 100 protesters marched from the White House, where Trump had his first transition meeting with President Barack Obama on Thursday, to the newly opened Trump International Hotel, chanting "love Trumps hate.""This generation deserves better than Donald Trump," said Lily Morton, 17, marching with about 100 classmates from the Georgetown Day School. "The queer people, coloured people, women, girls, everyone that is going to be affected by this, we need to protest to help them."After the students marched on, 72-year-old John Allen, of Silver Spring, Maryland, remained behind to protest at the hotel."We are not going back to this racist white supremacist oligarchy," Allen said.A Trump campaign representative did not respond to requests for comment on the protests. In his acceptance speech early Wednesday, when Trump stuck a far more sedate tone than he had at many of his campaign events, Trump said he would be a president for all Americans.Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, called the demonstrators "a bunch of spoiled cry-babies," in an interview with Fox News.

Protesters cited a list of objections to Trump, including his campaign rhetoric critical of immigrants and Muslims, as well as allegations that he had sexually abused women and bragged about it. Trump has denied those allegations.White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said Obama supported the demonstrators' right to express themselves peacefully.Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer urged the protesters to give Trump a chance once he is sworn into office in January."I hope that people get it out of their systems. They go out, they exercise ... their right to free speech, but then they give this man that was just elected very historically and his new vice president an opportunity to govern," Spicer said in an interview on MSNBC

In San Francisco, more than 1,000 students walked out of classes on Thursday morning and marched through the citys financial district carrying rainbow flags representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, Mexican flags and signs decrying Trump.Several hundred students at Texas State University in San Marcos took to the campus to protest Trump's election, with many saying they fear he will infringe the civil rights of minorities and the LGBT community.Civil rights groups and police reported an uptick in attacks on members of minority groups, in some cases carried out by people claiming to support Trump. There were also reports of Trump opponents lashing out violently against people carrying signs indicating support for Trump.

"#NOTMYPRESIDENT"

Organizers used social media to plan and schedule many of the protests. A Facebook group using the name "#NotMyPresident," formed by college and high school students, called for an anti-Trump rally on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.In New York's Washington Square park, several hundred people gathered to protest Trump's election. Three miles (5 km) to the north at the gilt Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, where Trump lives, 29-year-old Alex Conway stood holding a sign with the "not my president" slogan."This sign is not to say he isn't the president of the United States, but for two days I can use my emotion to be against this outcome and to express that he's not mine," said Conway, who works in the film industry.More anti-Trump demonstrations are planned heading into the weekend.The United States has seen waves of large-scale, sometimes violent protests in the past few years. Cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Chicago have been rocked by demonstrations following high-profile police killings of unarmed black men and teens. Those followed a wave of large-scale protest encampments, starting with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York in 2011. (Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York and Ian Simpson in Washington; Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Leslie Adler)

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Tokyo: A Japanese official says Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet with US President-elect Donald Trump next week.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters Thursday that Abe and Trump had talked by telephone and confirmed the importance of the Japan-US alliance and their commitment for cooperation.

Their meeting "marks a very good start for building trust," Suga said. Their talks are being arranged for 17 November in New York.

Officials said Abe and Trump also confirmed their resolve to cooperate in ensuring peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, but did not discuss the trans-Pacific trade pact and other contentious issues such as the cost of American troops in Japan.

Kyodo News agency additionally reported that Trump praised the Japanese premier's "Abenomics" economic measures.
By Gina Cherelus

| NEW YORK

NEW YORK A second round of protests was planned across the United States on Thursday a day after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of big cities after Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election.An anti-Trump rally was planned at New York City's Union Square Park for a second straight night and organizers urged demonstrators to join events in Washington D.C., Baltimore, the University of Wisconsin and elsewhere.There were protests in at least 10 cities on Wednesday, including one that filled streets in midtown Manhattan with demonstrators marching to Trump Tower, the president-elect's gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Many chanted "Not my president!" and blasted his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, said the demonstrators were "a bunch of spoiled cry-babies." "If you're looking at the real left-wing loonies on the campus, it's the professors not the students," Giuliani said on Fox News on Thursday. "So these are the ones who are more influenced by the professors." He said he would encourage Trump to listen to these voices and tell them to wait a year."Calm down, things are not as bad as you think," Giuliani said.

More demonstrations are planned heading into the weekend, according to organizers' online posts. One urged protesters to rally in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.On Wednesday night, protests in Los Angeles and Oakland, California, each drew several thousand people. More than a dozen people were arrested by Los Angeles police when demonstrators tried to block a major highway intersection, a local CBS affiliate reported.The Oakland demonstrators also blocked traffic, threw objects at police and smashed store front windows. Police responded by throwing chemical irritants at the protesters, according to a Reuters witness.

'ENJOY YOUR RIGHTS'

Protesters also gathered in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, late on Wednesday. Some 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower in downtown Chicago, shouting slogans including "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA." There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there."I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said Adriana Rizzo, 22, in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."

In Seattle, police responded to a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of an anti-Trump protest. Authorities said it was unrelated to the demonstration.A Trump campaign representative did not respond to requests for comment on the protests. Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans, saying: "It is time for us to come together as one united people."Among the demonstrators earlier on Wednesday were hundreds of high school and college students who walked out of class in cities including Seattle, Phoenix and San Francisco's Bay Area.About 300 mostly Latino high school students marched to City Hall in Los Angeles where they chanted in Spanish "the people united will never be defeated." Some waved signs with slogans such as "Immigrants Make America Great."Many of those students were members of the "Dreamers" generation - children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration. (Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington, Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago, Alexander Besant in New York, Noah Berger and Stephen Lam in Oakland, Curtis Skinner in Berkeley, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Bill Trott)

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By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama greeted President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, the first public step in a transition of power after the Republican businessman's surprise victory in a bitterly fought election campaign.There is no love lost between the two men, who have had almost no one-on-one contact previously. Trump led the "birther" movement that questioned Obama's U.S. citizenship and has pledged to overturn the Democrat's signature policy achievements after he takes office on Jan. 20Obama campaigned vigorously for Trump's Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and called Trump both temperamentally unfit for the presidency and dangerously unprepared to have access to U.S. nuclear codes.Obama and Trump will seek to put their tensions behind them, at least for the cameras, during their Oval Office meeting. Trump's motorcade took a South Lawn entrance into the White House, out of view of television cameras. First lady Michelle Obama will also meet privately with Trump's wife, Melania, in the White House residence. On Wednesday, Obama said that despite his major differences with Trump, he would follow the lead of former Republican President George W. Bush in 2008 and ensure a smooth handover to Trump. "Eight years ago, President Bush and I had some pretty significant differences, but President Bushs team could not have been more professional or more gracious in making sure we had a smooth transition," Obama said. "So I have instructed my team to follow the example that President Bushs team set."After an unexpected election win on Tuesday that stunned the world, Trump spent Wednesday focusing on the transition during meetings with his staff at Trump Tower in New York. While Democratic politicians in Washington were urging cooperation with the newly-elected president, anti-Trump demonstrations broke out in cities across the United States. "Not my president," shouted hundreds in New York. Demonstrators sat down on a highway interchange in Los Angeles blocking traffic and 1,800 people in Chicago chanted "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA" outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

TRANSFER OF POWER

Republican Chris Christie, who is leading Trump's transition team, told NBC's "Today" program, "We heard a lot about the peaceful transfer of power during this election, and I think you'll see that symbolized today."During the campaign, Trump hinted that he might not accept the result if he lost to Clinton.Asked whether Trump would apologize to the president for questioning his birthplace and legitimacy, the New Jersey governor, who could end up with a job in the Trump administration, said the controversy was just politics, adding: "They have a lot more important things to talk about."

Upon taking office, Trump will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of the U.S. Congress that could help him implement his legislative agenda and scrap or roll back Obama policies that he dislikes, such as the "Obamacare" healthcare law, the nuclear deal with Iran and U.S. participation in the Paris agreement to fight global warming.White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama would brief Trump about the benefits of those policies during their meeting. Later on Thursday, Trump will hold separate meetings with the Republican leaders in Congress: U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.Ryan and Trump shared a strained relationship during the campaign, although they both ultimately said they supported each other. McConnell also kept a distance from Trump for most of the campaign. Trump and Ryan will "discuss how they can hit the ground running in a Trump administration," a Republican source said.

Trump's advisers are considering JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon for the post of Treasury Secretary, CNBC reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.FOREIGN CONTACTS

The White House has laid out its plan to ensure a smooth transition, including giving representatives selected by Trump briefings on the work of U.S. federal agencies.Trump and his senior aides will also start to receive daily briefings by U.S. intelligence officials, the White House said. The Obama administration also plans two "interagency exercises" for Trump's team aimed at handling and responding "to major domestic incidents." Beginning to reach out to foreign leaders, Trump held a telephone call with Theresa May, the British prime minister's office said on Thursday. The incoming U.S. leader invited May to visit as soon as possible.Trump aides were in touch with Russian government officials during the presidential campaign, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency on Thursday. And Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was ready to fully restore ties with Washington following tense relations with the Obama administration. {nL8N1DB5VV]During one presidential debate last month, Clinton called Trump a puppet of Putin. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton, Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; Writing by Richard Cowan; Editing by Alistair Bell)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Mazar-i-Sharif: A powerful Taliban truck bomb struck the German consulate in Afghanistan's northern Mazar-i-Sharif city, killing four people and wounding more than 100 in a major militant assault in the war-torn country.

Four dead, two civilians and two unidentified bodies, were brought to the Balkh hospital and around 115 people were wounded, said Dr Noor Mohammad Faiz told AP.

"The blast was too loud and powerful, which shattered windows, and many civilians were wounded inside their homes," he said.

The Taliban called it a "revenge attack" for recent US airstrikes in the volatile province of Kunduz earlier this month that left up to 32 civilians dead.

Sporadic gunfire rattled the usually tranquil city after the huge explosion on Thursday, which smashed windows of nearby shops and left terrified local residents fleeing for cover.

German officials in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif were not immediately reachable for comment.

"The suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the wall of German consulate in the city," local police chief Sayed Kamal Sadat told AFP.

Afghan special forces cordoned off the area as helicopters were seen flying over the consulate and ambulances with wailing sirens rushed to the area.

The carnage underscores worsening insecurity in Afghanistan as Taliban insurgents ramp up nationwide attacks despite repeated government attempts to jumpstart stalled peace negotiations.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the "martyrdom attack" on the German consulate had left "tens of invaders" dead. The insurgents are routinely known to exaggerate battlefield claims.

Mujahid said the assault was in retaliation for American air strikes in Kunduz.

US forces conceded last week that its air strikes "very likely" resulted in civilian casualties in Kunduz, pledging a full investigation into the incident.

The strikes killed several children, after a Taliban assault left two American soldiers and three Afghan special forces soldiers dead near Kunduz city.

The strikes triggered impassioned protests in Kunduz city, with the victims' relatives parading mutilated bodies of dead children piled into open trucks through the streets.

Civilian casualties caused by Nato forces have been one of the most contentious issues in the 15-year campaign against the insurgents, prompting strong public and government criticism.

Afghanistan's worsening conflict has prompted US forces to step up airstrikes to support their struggling Afghan counterparts, fuelling the perception that they are increasingly being drawn back into the conflict.

The latest attack in Mazar-i-Sharif comes just two days after a bitter US presidential election.

Afghanistan got scarcely a passing mention in the election campaign  even though the situation there will be an urgent matter for the new president.

President-elect Donald Trump is set to inherit America's longest war with no end in sight.

With inputs from agencies
Moscow: In careful phrasing befitting the spy he once was, Vladimir Putin has made it clear he expects a great deal from President-elect Donald Trump. And, the billionaire businessman may expect a transactional relationship with Putin.

Although the Kremlin clearly detested Hillary Clinton, Putin's public statements on Trump's victory steered clear of gloating. Other Russians were less fastidious, suggesting that Putin in private could be delighted  and perhaps harbouring unreasonable expectations.

Trump's rise to the White House puts two men into seats of global power who are paradoxically both remarkably similar and wildly different.

Trump's praise of the Russian president as a strong leader, his suggestion that the US could abandon its NATO commitments and his vehement complaints about allegedly biased news media all appear to parallel Putin's view of the world.

Trump has repeatedly called for better relations with Russia, frequently musing about a rosy world in which Russia and the US get along. On Wednesday, Putin did the same, hoping that the "degraded" relations between the two powers would improve once Trump takes over. Putin noted, however, that the tension "is not our fault".

The US government believes Putin might have interfered in the election that resulted in Trump's victory. The intelligence community has concluded that Russia was responsible for hacking into the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and gave them to WikiLeaks, which released them. Some embarrassed and damaged the Clinton campaign.

Russia, it appears, wants Trump to play the overture, and only then decide whether to applaud.

Trump made no specific mention of Russia in his first post-election comments but made clear that he wants good relations with all nations.

"We will get along with all other nations willing to get along with us," Trump said. "I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America's interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone  all people and all other nations. We will seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict."

Putin would be most pleased if the US dropped the sanctions imposed for Russia's annexation of Crimea and its involvement in the continuing war in eastern Ukraine. That could appeal to Trump's sense that he is the master of the deal.

"I believe that Trump is a practical man; he will lift sanctions on Russia that are harmful to US business," Putin aide Sergei Glazyev told the state news agency ITAR Tass.

The US sanctions have been a strong factor in Russia's economic decline over the past two years, along with a plunge in prices for oil, its major export.

"I don't see the US dropping sanctions ahead of the Europeans... and Europe doesn't seem to be in any mood to drop sanctions any time soon," Chris Weafer, an analyst at the Moscow-based Macro-Advisory, argued in a written commentary. He noted that US presidents, even with a cooperative Congress, have less capacity than the Russian president to unilaterally impose measures.

The outgoing Obama administration signalled on Wednesday that it was not considering any change in sanctions policy to Russia.

Even if there is no short-term tactical gain for Russia, Trump's election appears to be a clear symbolic victory for the Kremlin in its resistance to pressure to establish Western-style democracy. Putin openly blamed Clinton as fomenting massive protests in Russia in 2011-2012 and Russian authorities generally bristled at the Democratic Party's emphasis on human rights and media freedom.

Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, agreed that Trump's pragmatism is more to Putin's taste.

"Trump's approach has a better chance of succeeding, and certainly an approach that is overly loaded with morals and values does not get you anywhere with the Kremlin," Trenin told The Associated Press.
On Thursday, President Barack Obama will host Donald Trump in the Oval Office, hoping to ease a smooth transition of power and steady nerves after an election that has shocked the world.

This was something which was unimaginable for many people in the United States. While it is true that Trump has won the election, there are a lot of people who were shocked by this victory.

And now, as Obama's term comes to an end, people are expressing sadness over that fact and #ThankObamaIn4Words has started trending on Twitter.

Here are some of the most moving tweets:

4 words is not nearly enough to explain the amount of love and respect I have for you, Barack. #ThankObamaIn4Words pic.twitter.com/izyXMDKzP0  antonio (@antoniodelotero) November 10, 2016

#ThankObamaIn4Words You made America great. He'll make America break Please take America back Trumps is too wack.  Emily Rose  (@Emily_Rozie) November 10, 2016

#ThankObamaIn4Words For Caring About Others  Boycott Trump SCION (@puppymnkey) November 10, 2016

We've let you down #ThankObamaIn4Words  Boycott Trump SCION (@puppymnkey) November 10, 2016

We still need you

Don't leave us please

4 more years please

You're the best, Obama

We all love you

The list goes on

#ThankObamaIn4Words  David Bush (@iDavidBush) November 10, 2016

My President is Black #ThankObamaIn4Words  AfroGum (@AfroGumOfficiaI) November 10, 2016

#ThankObamaIn4Words You're forever the best  Niall Horan (@NJHiOfficial) November 9, 2016

#ThankObamaIn4Words There's way more than four words that I could say.. but

"You are my hero"  pic.twitter.com/NyDlT53Fba  abigail (@abigail_069) November 10, 2016

You deserve happiness Obama #ThankObamaIn4Words  Rebeca Sanchez (@izulii1111) November 10, 2016

Made America great again #ThankObamaIn4Words  Lilary Autumn Mitten (@lilschiebs) November 10, 2016

I wanna look through #ThankObamaIn4Words and remember the good times but trump supporters keep trolling it. You won now let us grieve.  Lamesa Nashrat (@lamegame96) November 10, 2016

However, as the above tweet suggests, there were also a considerable number of tweets against Obama and in support of Trump:

The age of "give them all a trophy" has birthed this garbage. #ThankObamaIn4Words #TrumpProtest  One Bad Hombre (@Patriot18D) November 10, 2016

#ThankObamaIn4Words You destroyed Democrats nationwide  Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 10, 2016
What is it with us that we so lack in self-esteem we have to sit at the back of the bus. Just, volunteer to do it!

An erudite man like Shashi Tharoor says we must get to Washington first and reach out to Donald Trump. Why? Why should we reach out and if we are doing it are we supposed to carry a begging bowl and who, indeed, are we trying to outpace?

Do we jump the queue to snitch about Pakistan or bunny hop over to China pleased, "Uncle, Uncle, make us your favoured ones"?

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has a Trump party in Mumbai and it becomes big news. An ultra-right Hindu group (Hindu Sena) led by a guy called Vishnu Gupta dances in the streets and distributes sweets to celebrate their new messiahs anointing.

Why this frenzy and concern?

Last week, Indians were by and large badmouthing the clown and now there is all this desperate dredging for virtue in the same man. We didnt vote him into power, America did and we dont have to act like natives celebrating the arrival of the massa.

It has absolutely nothing to do with us directly and we can simply acknowledge the fact that he won without making idiots of ourselves.

There are these photographs of Indians jumping up and down with joy and throwing gulal in New Delhi and I am thinking how many Bobs and Buds and Brocks did it for us when we elected a prime minister.

Sure, enjoy the mass media coverage, have an opinion, even be political, it is the most powerful job in the world but stop surrendering so much space to Caesar and behaving like inferior petitioners.

Many years ago, a senior executive applied for a prestigious job in an exclusive company on a dare and a sizeable bet made in a bar. He was shortlisted and just as a lark he went for the interview and said his piece and was brutally candid, told the panel where they were wrong, what flaws the company had, how he would clean the mess and had a great time doing it.

He came out laughing and shared the fun he had been having in those 45 minutes saying it like it is.

He got the job. And he was stunned. Because he didnt want it, just the challenge of it.

It was the journey, not the getting there.

Trump reminds me of that executive. He went into the fight for the fun of it, as a challenge. Almost as if to say, "Okay lets do it, I can afford it." So he was outrageous, he was controversial and he had a blast because he did not really expect to win.

Maybe he didnt even want to win. He was just smarting from all the jibes he faced and the caricature he was being made into.

Even until yesterday, the predictions did not favour him. He didnt realise he was hitting a national nerve, catching the pulse, he was just having a blast. It is said you should be careful what you ask for, you might get it. Trump has got it, but did he really want it.

The odds are that even as the votes were coming in he was writing his concession speech. Then, when he found he was winning he must have retired to him room and said, "Sheesh, its awesome. Swunnerful, but do I really want it?"

What if he just did this as a bet to himself, to prove a point, so that for all the roastings he has been given by media, political entities, Hollywood, the worlds leaders, they all have to eat humble pie and crow.

What fun, what true revenge, but once the novelty wears off and politics and governance kick in and Trump has to surrender the personal freedom to lead the free world will he be comfortable in the claustrophobic environment of being POTUS?
By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama will host President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday to take the first public step in a transition of power after a bitterly fought election campaign that ended with the Republican businessman's surprise victory.The two men have had almost no one-on-one contact previously. Trump led the "birther" movement that questioned Obama's U.S. citizenship and has pledged to overturn the Democrat's signature policy achievements after he takes office on Jan. 20Obama campaigned vigorously for Trump's Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and called Trump both temperamentally unfit for the presidency and dangerously unprepared to have access to U.S. nuclear codes.They will seek to put that history behind them, at least for the cameras, during a meeting in the Oval Office at 11 a.m. (1600 GMT.) First lady Michelle Obama will also meet privately with Trump's wife, Melania, in the White House residence.Trump's private plane, emblazoned with his surname on the side, landed at Washington's Reagan National Airport after a short flight from New York.On Wednesday, Obama said that despite his major differences with the New York real estate magnate, he would follow the lead of former Republican President George W. Bush in 2008 and ensure a smooth handover to Trump."Eight years ago, President Bush and I had some pretty significant differences, but President Bushs team could not have been more professional or more gracious in making sure we had a smooth transition," Obama said. "So I have instructed my team to follow the example that President Bushs team set."Trump spent Wednesday focusing on that transition during meetings with his staff at Trump Tower in New York.While Democratic politicians in Washington were urging cooperation with the newly-elected president, anti-Trump demonstrators across the United States late on Wednesday were showing no sign of conciliation.

"Not my president," shouted hundreds in New York. Demonstrators sat down on a highway interchange in Los Angeles blocking traffic and 1,800 people in Chicago chanted "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA" outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower.Republican Chris Christie, who is leading Trump's transition team, on Thursday told NBC's "Today" program, "We heard a lot about the peaceful transfer of power during this election, and I think you'll see that symbolized today."During the campaign Trump hinted that he might not accept the result if he lost to Clinton.Asked whether Trump would apologize to the president for questioning his birthplace and legitimacy, the New Jersey governor, who could end up with a job in the Trump administration, said the controversy was just politics, adding: "They have a lot more important things to talk about."

After taking office, Trump will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of the U.S. Congress that could help him implement his legislative agenda and scrap or roll back Obama policies that he dislikes, such as the "Obamacare" healthcare law, the nuclear deal with Iran and U.S. participation in the Paris agreement to fight global warming.TRANSITION OF POWER

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama would brief Trump about the benefits of those policies during their meeting.Trump said after his victory that he would work to heal the divisions set off by the bitter campaign. Clinton urged her disappointed supporters to give Trump an "open mind" and Obama said he was rooting for his successor.

The White House has laid out its plan to ensure a smooth transition, including giving representatives selected by Trump briefings on the work of U.S. federal agencies.Trump and his senior aides will also start to receive daily briefings by U.S. intelligence officials, the White House said. The Obama administration also plans two "interagency exercises" for Trump's team aimed at handling and responding "to major domestic incidents." Later on Thursday, Trump will hold separate meetings with the Republican leaders in Congress, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.Ryan and Trump shared a strained relationship during the campaign, although they both ultimately said they supported each other. McConnell also kept a distance from Trump for most of the campaign. Trump and Ryan will "discuss how they can hit the ground running in a Trump administration" at the meeting, which will also include Vice President-elect Mike Pence, according to a Republican source.Pence, who served in the House, is expected to be a conduit between U.S. lawmakers and Trump, who has never before held public office. Vice President Joe Biden will hold a separate meeting with Pence at the White House on Thursday. (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Peter Cooney and Alistair Bell)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Check out the new FoneArena Daily video that gives you a quick roundup of todays technology news.

Asus has launched Zenfone 3 Max (ZC520TL and ZC553KL) in India starting at Rs. 12999. The phones come with 4100mAh battery and fingerprint sensor.

OnePlus announced that the new OnePlus smartphone is coming on November 15th. The company is expected to announce OnePlus 3T.

Amazon India has disabled COD while Flipkart and Snapdeal have restricted order up to Rs. 2000. The move comes from e-commerce companies following Government of Indias ban on Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes from today. The extreme bold move is a measure from the government to fight corruption and black money issue in the country.

Xiaomi has announced Mi Portable Bluetooth Mouse with aluminium shell. It also includes a dongle and comes with dual-mode connection so that you can connect it to two laptops or PCs.

Todays Deal  Offers on Routers available on Flipkart.
Concerns over food safety have been raised since the seafood market in Wuhan, China, was identified as the initial source of SARS-CoV-2. During the pandemic, food safety... Read More
Available this past summer, the loyalty program Chiptopia yielded some intriguing numbers for Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG -1.38%). For example, over 75,000 people managed to earn the program's biggest reward: a catered meal for 20 people. That amounts to about $18 million in free food!

In the accompanying video from Industry Focus: Consumer Goods, Vincent Shen and Asit Sharma break down the details behind Chiptopia and how it delivered for the struggling fast casual chain.

A full transcript follows the video.

This podcast was recorded on Nov. 1, 2016.

Vincent Shen: I want to take our conversation now to our second company. Whereas Dunkin' Brands has, I think, instituted a very competitive program even against a very well-established incumbent with its own very competitive and successful offering, we have Chipotle. Chipotle obviously has experienced a ton of challenges, we've talked about them on the show previously together, in the past year, with food safety scandals. Over the summer, July, August, and September, they had their temporary Chiptopia program. During those three months, essentially, based on the frequency with which you visited their locations, you could reach one of three tiers: mild, medium, or hot. Each one came with its own benefits. Going four times in a month, you would reach mild status. Another four times on top of that, medium. Another four times on top of that, you'd reach hot.

The big carrot that they offered to members of Chiptopia were the catered meal for 20. Basically, if you can reach hot status with 12 visits each month for each month of the program, at the end of the program, they will give you a catered meal for 20, which is about a $240 value. I think this was obviously reserved for the real die-hard fans. With this show, today, I was with my brother over the weekend, he mentioned that he had just recently eaten his last free meal that he got from Chiptopia. I think he was a regular medium level member over the three months. But, 75,000 people actually managed to reach that hot status, and to get that catered meal for 20. 75,000 people, a $240 value. I think the company said that over the next six months, they're going to have to give out about $18 million in free food, on top of the approximately $2 million in free burritos those customers were already getting, assuming you're paying about $9 per meal.

The program overall attracted about 6 million people, with 2.5 million actually earning rewards through the program. What were your thoughts on Chiptopia? The company recently released earnings -- the stock took quite a hit, I think they're down about 11% since they release earnings last week. What do you think about the program? And do you think this will be a preview of something they establish on a more permanent basis in terms of a loyalty program?

Asit Sharma: First, on a personal level, I reached medium status in our household. My youngest is a Chipotle freak. We didn't obtain the highest reward simply because I had to say no after a while. But this, I think if you extrapolate this, I think it's very indicative of Chipotle's approach and how it's very different from Dunkin's. Chipotle started with the premise that we do have this core of really loyal customers. So, they weren't trying to build loyalty. They hit a rough patch with their norovirus and E. coli scare, and they're still modeling in the revenue trough, honestly. So their proposition was, why don't we -- I'm going to use this key word today -- activate some of these loyal customers. If you are a casual eater of Chipotle and happened to look at the rewards chart that Vince was talking about, it really rewarded very frequent visits. It wasn't really just a dollar spend. You had to show up at Chipotle. What they were trying to do was rekindle the fire and enthusiasm of their peak visitors. This is one of the reasons, in the first place, to institute a loyalty program. It's much cheaper to get a current customer to spend again than it is to go out and acquire a new customer. So, for Chipotle, this made all the more sense. And I think this was a tremendous cost they undertook. I, too, was really surprised by those statistics, hearing them on the conference call. Yet, it's exactly what Chipotle needed to do, which was to solidify -- if I can use this phrase in the political season -- they needed to solidify their base. This cost they're incurring now is really an investment in stabilizing of revenue. As they add items to their menu, they'll be able to have newer customers come on.

But, my personal take is, it was a very appropriate action for Chipotle. I'm going to make a prediction that we'll see a revival of Chiptopia. It may not be called that. But you'll see a program leaning toward rewarding frequency. Chipotle wants you back in the stores. It's a little less concerned in the near-term with how much you spend. They want you to have that experience so that you begin to build a deeper innate trust in their product once again, just like they enjoyed before all this food scare came and walloped the company.
FMC Corp. (FMC 0.57%) kicked off the third-quarter earnings season for the big lithium players on Nov. 2 by posting strong adjusted earnings growth, driven in part by continued strength in its lithium business. Lithium companies have been benefiting from the sharp rise in the price of this commodity over the last year or so, thanks largely to increasing demand for lithium-ion batteries to power electric vehicles and various electronic gadgets.

The Philadelphia-based specialty chemical company's revenue declined 2.8% year over year to $807.7 million  topping the $795 million analysts were looking for -- while adjusted earnings per share jumped 60% to $0.67, beating Wall Street's estimates of $0.59. GAAP EPS came in at $0.59 compared to a $0.02 loss in the year-ago period. FMC also raised its full-year 2016 earnings guidance.

FMC's stock soared 10.5% on the day following the earnings release, and it's gained more ground through Tuesday, Nov. 8. The stock has returned 32% over the one-year period through Tuesday, significantly outpacing the S&P 500's 4.2% return. The lithium industry's other two big publicly traded players, Albemarle Corporation (ALB -0.31%) and Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile, or SQM, have performed even better, returning about 66% and 59%, respectively, over this period. This is largely because lithium makes up a bigger portion of these two companies' total revenue. FMC's lithium business accounted for 8.7% of its revenue in the quarter, while Albemarle's lithium products accounted for 25.4% of its revenue when it reported its Q3 results on Monday. SQM reports on Thanksgiving Eve, Nov. 23.

FMC's results by business

Segment Q3 2016 Revenue Growth (YOY) Q3 2016 Earnings Growth (YOY) Agricultural solutions $559 million (3%) $90 million 52% Health and nutrition $179 million (9%) $45 million (4%) Lithium $70 million 22% $18 million 800%

Agricultural solutions' revenue declined primarily because of lower sales volume from market weakness and product rationalization, offset partially by price increases. Earnings increased because of better pricing and positive foreign exchange, offset partially by lower sales volumes and higher costs.

Health and nutrition's revenue and earnings declined largely because of lower revenue in its omega-3 business and timing of sales to certain pharmaceutical customers in Asia and Europe. FMC's omega-3 business manufactures high-purity omega-3 fatty acid concentrates used in nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and food.

CEO Pierre Brondeau said on the analyst conference call that the company does not see any notable improvement with respect to the oversupply of omega-3 in the market. He said the company is more in damage-control mode with this business, rather than expecting any growth. That said, the overall segment has been rebounding solidly from last year, as its 52% year-over-year earnings growth shows.

The lithium segment's revenue and earnings soared thanks to higher prices, improved product mix, and lower operating costs in part resulting from the devaluation of the Argentinean peso. (FMC's internal source for lithium is the Salar del Hombre Muerto in Argentina, which it owns. A "salar" is a dried lakebed with an underground reservoir of mineral-containing brine.)

The size of the contribution from each of the drivers of the year-over-year earnings growth is shown in the chart below. For instance, higher prices for the company's lithium products combined with an improved product mix contributed $12 million to earnings as compared with the year-ago period.

FMC's lithium strategy is to focus on higher-value downstream specialty products. The company, which is very vertically integrated, produces lithium carbonate from the lithium chloride that it extracts from brine and then further refines the carbonate into various other lithium products, including lithium hydroxide and lithium metals.

What management had to say

Brondeau said in the press release:

FMC delivered another strong quarter, reporting adjusted earnings per share above the top end of guidance. Ag Solutions had a solid quarter, particularly in Latin America, reporting segment earnings at the top end of prior guidance. Lithium outperformed, increasing earnings by $16 million compared to the prior year quarter. Lithium's performance reflects the success of FMC's strategy to focus on higher value downstream specialty products. Health and Nutrition delivered strong margins, but revenue was below expectations.

Looking ahead

Based on the lithium segment's performance to date in 2016 and its expected Q4 performance, FMC Corp. increased its guidance for full-year 2016 adjusted EPS by $0.06 at the midpoint of the range to $2.76 to $2.86. At the midpoint, this represents year-over-year growth of 13.8%.

Here's the company's full outlook for Q4 and full-year 2016:

Ag Solution's operating margin outlook for 2016 of 17% to 18% is low compared to the expected operating margins of the other two segments. This is largely due to the 2015 acquisition of Cheminova, which is helping FMC create a more global business, providing it with a direct access to European markets, and helping it expand its global fungicide business. Prior to the acquisition, Ag Solutions consistently delivered operating margins between 20% and 25%. FMC is making solid progress on its goal of returning margins to that level, as it expanded the segment's operating margin by 600 basis points in the quarter.
OPEC's job of trying to prop up oil prices has just got much harder.

With Donald Trump winning the U.S. presidential election, the 14-country oil-producing cartel may have to battle a sourer outlook for the global economy and weaker demand for crude.

It also faces the prospect of increased U.S. oil output - a major bugbear for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries - given Trump's pledge to open all federal land and waters for fossil fuel exploration.

OPEC's internal dynamic could change, with Trump promising to tighten policies on Iran just as oil companies begin slowly to return to the Islamic Republic.

"Buckle up your seatbelts for a more turbulent and uncertain global economy that is ahead," Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. oil historian Daniel Yergin, vice-chairman of the IHS Markit think tank, told Reuters.

"The outcome of the U.S. election adds to the challenges for the oil exporters because it will likely lead to weaker economic growth in an already fragile global economy. And that means additional pressure on oil demand," Yergin said.

Oil prices fell almost 4 percent early on Wednesday but recovered to trade up slightly at around $46 per barrel by 1055 GMT [O/R].

OPEC will meet on Nov. 30 in an effort to curtail output and reduce the global oil glut that has seen prices more than halve since 2014.

OPEC sources said they expected oil to remain weak in the days and weeks ahead due to worries about the global economy and uncertainty about Trump's policies for the Middle East.

"Oil is doomed," one of the sources said.

A second source said the OPEC meeting in November might fail to have a strong impact on prices even if it strikes a deal to limit output: "I dont think prices will go up much more than the current levels."

Trump has promised to double U.S. economic growth but also pledged protectionist trade policies.

"This will have huge negative implications for Asia, given how much their GDP is tied to trade with the U.S. Hence it is negative for growth and oil demand, at least due to the uncertainty that Trump creates," said Amrita Sen, of the think tank Energy Aspects.

Trump's energy policies have been limited in detail so far.

But what he has said will be seen as supportive for the share prices of U.S. independent oil and gas producers as well as oil majors with large exposure to the U.S. shale industry such as Chevron , ExxonMobil and Shell .

"Trump has vowed to lead a fossil-fuel revival to underpin job growth and has also put man-made climate change denial at the forefront of his energy policy," JBC Energy analysts said in a note.

Trump said he was in favor of removing oil-sector regulations, opening federal land to drilling, and vowed to revive a major trans-Canadian and trans-U.S. oil pipeline project while pledging to support the coal industry.

The stocks of oil majors BP and Shell were down in line with the price of crude, while France's Total underperformed peers.

Earlier this week, Total signed a deal with Iran to help it develop a huge gas field, becoming the first Western energy company to ink a major deal with Tehran since the lifting of international sanctions this year.

Trump has criticized the West's nuclear deal with Iran, adding to uncertainty and frustrating Tehran's push for foreign investment to revive its economy.

An executive from an oil major negotiating with Iran said that given Tehran wanted to repay investments slowly, maybe over five to 10 years, many oil firms would take a slow approach in finalizing deals until Trump's policies became clearer.

"It is a significant amount of money that will be put at risk should sanctions be brought back," the executive said.

(Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson)
BayernLB [BAYLB.UL] entered into a partnership with Standard Chartered on Thursday to get a foothold in Asia as the German bank seeks to capitalize on struggles at larger rivals.

BayernLB expects the cooperation - through which Standard Chartered will help finance Asian operations for German companies - to attract export-oriented small and medium-sized businesses, commonly referred to as the Mittelstand.

BayernLB, a local government owned lender, will in turn help provide loans for clients of Standard Chartered looking to move into the German market. Standard Chartered is based in London but has geared its business heavily towards Asia.

No financial targets for the partnership were given.

BayernLB hopes the deal will give it another leg up as Germany's two biggest banks, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank , restructure to cut costs.

BayernLB's A2credit rating from Moody's on its long-term unsecured debt is a key advantage in the fight for corporate clients in Germany, BayernLB's corporate banking head Michael Buecker told media in Frankfurt.

"The single-A rating has such importance you can't imagine," Buecker said. "A lot of other banks now still have to detoxify."

Deutsche Bank has a Baa2 rating while Commerzbank has a Baa1 rating.

BayernLB has also had to recover from major setbacks in recent years, including at the height of the financial crisis when the German federal state of Bavaria which owns the bank funded a 10-billion-euro ($11 billion) bailout of the lender.

($1 = 0.9174 euros)

(Reporting by Joshua Franklin and Andreas Kroener; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
Image source: salesforce.com.

salesforce.com's (NYSE: CRM) recent interest in purchasing LinkedIn and Twitter made waves in the tech and investing world. With that talk now in the past, it's worth noting that the company has nonetheless been on a purchasing streak this year.

Since June, the customer relationship management behemoth has purchased six smaller tech companies, bringing the 2016 total to nine.

What the company is buying

At its investor day back on Oct. 4, Salesforce talked about its innovation in software over the years. Developments have included social and mobile software tools, and more recently, focus has shifted to the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence.

The purchases of smaller companies and start-ups made this year have especially focused on artificial intelligence, with six of the nine being AI companies. Demandware is a divergence from that trend. The e-commerce services platform was purchased to start a new commerce-cloud segment at Salesforce.

While most of the buyouts were for small or undisclosed amounts, the Demandware acquisition was for a cool $2.8 billion, the most Salesforce has ever forked out in a single purchase. Quip and Krux also fetched handsome sums of about $750 million and $800 million, respectively.

Company Acquired What the Software Foes PredictionIO An open-source machine-learning server for software developers and data scientists MetaMind Now part of Salesforce Einstein, the software delivers AI capabilities for sales, service, and marketing professionals. Implisit An Israeli start-up designed to help sales teams by capturing and analyzing prospect communication data. Demandware Integrated into Salesforce's commerce cloud, DemandWare is an on-demand e-commerce platform for retailers. Coolan Another AI start-up focused on data-center predictive analytics. Quip The software helps business teams create Word documents and spreadsheets in real time alongside a communication tool. BeyondCore BeyondCore analyzes data from things such as databases or files to improve business decision-making. HeyWire The service allows businesses to connect with mobile clients via text message. Krux The AI software helps marketers and media companies deliver relevant experiences by analyzing customer data and behavior.

Data source: Crunchbase.

It's been a busy year for Salesforce. Even when excluding the lost bid for LinkedIn to rival software giant Microsoft and investors' critical view of a Twitter purchase, 2016 will set a new record for Salesforce in number of acquisitions. Why all of the activity?

How the purchases feed into business strategy

Company founder and CEO Marc Benioff has been criticized for acquisitions in the past, accused of overpaying for companies and making purchases that don't really add much in the way of growth. At a recent technology conference, though, Benioff was asked about his strategy of innovating.

Rather than doing everything organically, Benioff admitted that innovation will often come from someone other than himself or from someone within his company. As a result, Salesforce is always on the lookout for innovators in the software space that can help the company grow.

This feeds into the merger-and-acquisition strategy outlined at Salesforce's Investor Day. Some of the purchases made, such as Demandware, help start up a new product segment. Others help augment and push growth in existing segments, such as the addition of BeyondCore to Salesforce's small but growing pure analytics-cloud service. Krux, as another example, was added to the marketing cloud to help with the segment's AI-predictive capabilities.

While the business currently runs at a loss, growing profits is not at the heart of the strategy here. Salesforce is the world's fourth largest enterprise-software company, but top-line growth is still the objective here. The better than 20% revenue growth rate over the last couple of years would indicate this, and trailing one-year revenue was just under $7.5 billion at the end of the last quarter.

The company has made reaching $20 billion in annual revenue an objective. If Salesforce keeps up its recent pace of top-line growth and its acquisitions can be credited, don't expect the spending spree to let up anytime soon.

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The new regulations treat e-cigs and vapor products just the same as combustible cigarettes, even though they contain no tobacco. Most devices are powered by a battery thatheats a liquid nicotine solution to create a vapor, not smoke, that is then inhaled. Tobacco itself isn't burned, and that's where the vast majority of toxic chemicals associated with smoking are created.

Even with the next generation of e-cigs being developed that do use tobacco, it's only being used for flavor. Both theMarlboro-Brand HeatSticks fromPhilip Morris International(NYSE: PM)and British American Tobacco's (NYSEMKT: BTI) new iFuse heat up a liquid to create a vapor, which is then drawn throughreal tobacco

Data source: Statistic Brain, Wells Fargo. Chart by author.

A heavy burden on the industry

All of the above is of no consequence to the FDA, which treats e-cigs just like regular cigarettes anyway.The regulationswill be so onerous and costly, that it's expected only the largest tobacco companies will be able to comply.Even by the agency's own estimates, it will cost e-cig manufacturers several hundred thousands of dollars per product and take 5,000 hours to comply. Third-party estimates, however, put the cost closer to $3 million to $20 million per product.

Additionally e-cig makers have to register with the FDA, after which the regulatory agency will begin a two-year review of their products and determine those that will be allowed to survive and which ones will be banned. Vape store owners expect that within two years, the industry will be destroyed.

While there was a rush by manufacturers to get new products onto the market before the changes went into effect, it's still expected that whatever growth the industry might have enjoyed will eventually be wiped out by strict regulations.

Image source: Getty Images.

A burningquestion on safety

But the industry has a more immediate problem to contend with. It appears the lithium-ion batteries used to power these devices have the potential to explode.

Earlier this year there was a spate of news stories reporting incidents of e-cig users who were injured by exploding batteries. Although the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association admits such incidents can happen, it maintains their occurrence is rare and preventable: Only use the chargers that come with the device, and don't put them in your pocket, since coins can cause short-circuiting.

It's a well-documented phenomenon that other devices such as laptops and cellphones that use lithium-ion batteries to power them are also susceptible to fire and explosions. Most U.S. airlines ended up banning the batteries as cargo on passenger flights because of the risks associated with them, and the U.S. Postal Service bannedhoverboardsfrom being shipped by airplane because their batteries reportedly overheated and caused fires.

Most recently, Samsung just stopped production on and recalled every single Galaxy Note 7 smartphone manufactured -- some 1 million total -- because of numerous reports they caught fire while charging.

"Flaming rocket" behavior

Electronic cigarettes, however, may have a greater propensity for combustibility. The U.S. Fire Administration says the shape and design of electronic cigarettes "make them more likely than other products with lithium-ion batteries to behave like 'flaming rockets' when a battery fails."

The culprit seems to be the lithium-ion batteries that can overheat, catch fire, or even explode, resulting in injury or death. Image source: Getty Images.

And because of their prevalence, such incidents are happening more frequently. Between October 2015 and June 2016, the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle treated 15 patients for injuries from exploding e-cigarettes. In comparison, during the five-year period between 2009 and 2014, it treated just 25 such injuries.

According to a comprehensive list

While that still means e-cig explosions remain few and far between -- considering the millions of people using them on a daily basis, the relative handful of incidents is small -- it's a problem the industry doesn't need.

A social pariah

Electronic cigarettes and personal vaping devices are increasingly being treated like cigarettes in social settings, with users being banned from vaping in public places just like tobacco users, or relegated to segregated areas. And not just in the U.S., but in Europe and Asia, too, the regulations are becoming more strict. The Philippines just enacted a complete ban

Because of concerns about quality and taste (hence the reason Philip Morris and British American use real tobacco for flavor), the growth trajectory of the devices has already declined significantly. After years of triple-digit growth, e-cig sales fell 6% in the first quarter of 2016.

If exploding e-cigs become any more of a phenomenon, that could stub out any chance of survival for the industry, even before the FDA regulations have an opportunity to wreak havoc.

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TIJUANA, Mexico/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - From avocado orchards to border factories, Mexican exporters who have prospered under two decades of NAFTA face the prospect of an abrupt end to the boom if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump carries out his threats to ditch the free trade pact.

"Our main partner where we export is the United States. So if we take that away were going to have a lot of unemployment, were going to have a really big trade deficit," said Hinojosa, who runs a company that collects factory waste.

(We) couldnt believe what was unfolding before our eyes, said Marcello Hinojosa, president of the Canacintra industrial chamber in Tijuana, the border city whose economy is based on a mix of U.S. tourism and assembly plants.

So business leaders there were stunned as Trump romped to victory on Tuesday night, upsetting the widespread expectation in Mexico that his candidacy would fade.

Since the treaty took effect in 1994, Mexican exports to the United States have jumped six-fold to some $320 billion a year, transforming a once-closed economy into a hub for investment and a workshop for some of the world's biggest companies.

Trump says the North American Free Trade Agreement favors Mexico at the expense of U.S. workers and has vowed to either rewrite or withdraw from the deal, as well as build a giant border wall and possibly slap steep tariffs on imports.

Further south, on the outskirts of the city of Leon, Rosendo Castillo, business director of leather exporter WYNY, whose customers include global retailers like Hugo Boss and Inditex's Zara unit, fretted about a potential blow to sales that are six times higher than when NAFTA began.

"It would really jeopardize the business" if the deal were rescinded, Castillo said, adding that WYNY, whose sales reached $120 million last year, was "not very successful" before NAFTA.

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 35 percent on Mexican-made goods and said he would scrap NAFTA if he cannot renegotiate what he calls the "worst deal ever."

His victory has also put new pressure on automakers and other manufacturers that have become dependent on open trade with Mexico.

 If NAFTA is scrapped, "it would be terrible" for the members of the Automotive Cluster of Nuevo Leon, said the group's director, Manuel Montoya. Nuevo Leon is a northern state bordering the United States.

 And it would hurt consumers, he said.

 "Cars made in Mexico are $3,000 cheaper than in the United States, I don't know if North Americans are prepared to pay $3,000 more for every car they buy," Montoya said.

 In announcing his campaign in June 2015, Trump vowed to block Ford from opening a new plant in Mexico and threatened to impose tariffs on cars it shipped back across the border.

Those moves could add $5,000 or more to the price of a small car from Mexico said Charles Chesbrough, senior economist at the Detroit-based Original Equipment Suppliers Association trade group.

A relative minnow in manufacturing before NAFTA, Mexico has become one of the world's biggest and fastest-growing carmakers, surging past wealthier European economies and establishing itself as an indispensable part of the global supply chain.

 Excluding China, Mexico and the United States are the only two of the world's top 10 automakers to have increased motor vehicle production in each of the last five years, according to data from international trade body OICA.

During the campaign, Trump raged against U.S. carmakers like General Motors Corp and Ford Motor Co for investing in Mexico.

Ford on Wednesday vowed to work with Trump "to support economic growth and jobs." GM similarly said it looked forward to working with Trump on "policies that support a strong and competitive U.S. manufacturing base."

 

GREEN GOLD

NAFTA brought mixed results for Mexican agriculture, with the sector suffering a net loss of 1.9 million jobs between 1991 to 2007 in the face of competition from U.S. agribusiness, according to a 2014 study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

But there have been clear winners too, such as avocado farmers who since 2007 have been able to sell their fashionable fruit north of the border, triggering a "green gold" rush that some say has stemmed migration and crime in some of Mexico's most troubled regions.

Mexico exported more than 1.7 billion pounds (771,000 tonnes) of the fruit to the United States in 2015, more than six times the amount a decade earlier, according to the Hass Avocado Board.

The United States has overtaken Mexico as the world's top avocado consumer, said Ramon Paz, spokesman for an avocado growers group in Michoacan state.

Paz said his members were so worried about protectionism under Trump that they had hired lobbyists in Washington.

"We would have to redirect out production to other places," if NAFTA was scuttled, said Paz. "In particular Europe, Canada, Japan and China."

He said growers were also worried about Trump's position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country trade deal from which the president-elect has vowed to withdraw.

"That is generally bad news," said Paz, adding that TPP, which Mexico has also signed, would open up the possibility of exporting to new markets like Australia.

 Even farmers who might see some benefits from a protectionist turn in U.S. policy are spooked by Trump's threat to scrap the treaty.

If Trump started a trade war that slowed such imports, it would probably boost local demand for domestic potatoes, which have battled to compete with processed imports from the United States and Canada, said Bosco de la Vega, a partner in Agro Groppo, a potato producer in the northern state of Sinaloa.

But the repercussions for the rest of the economy would be far more serious, he added.

The competitiveness of the entire continent depends on avoiding moves that hurt producers and consumers alike, said Jaime Serra, who as trade minister in the early 1990s led Mexico's NAFTA negotiations.

 "The prevailing rhetoric in the United States is completely myopic," said Serra. "It's not that we're on one side of the table and the others are on the opposite side: we're both on the same side of the table now."

(Additional reporting by Adriana Barrera and Dave Graham in Mexico, Paul Lienert in Detroit and Meredith Davis in Chicago; Editing by Christian Plumb and James Dalgleish)
Earnings per share increased for a second straight quarter at Kohl's. Image source: The Motley Fool.

Comparable store sales did fall again, sinking 1.7% year over year. However, that was slightly better than the 1.8% decrease recorded in Q2 and significantly better than the first quarter's 3.9% decline.

Three months ago, Kohl's reported strong back-to-school sales near the end of Q2, and this trend continued into the beginning of Q3. September was weak, but sales trends accelerated again in October, with comp sales nearly flat during the month. This could be a good sign for the upcoming high-volume holiday shopping season.

Cost performance was equally strong. Kohl's reduced its selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses by 1.7% in the quarter. Some of that improvement was due to the timing of various costs, but some of it reflects more efficient spending.

Finally, Kohl's cash flow was particularly impressive. The company is working hard to reduce its inventory without impacting sales. As a result, Kohl's has generated nearly $700 million of free cash flow year to date, compared to negative free cash flow in the first nine months of fiscal 2015. Investors applauded, sending the stock up as much as 15% on Thursday morning, to a new 52-week high.

Kohl's stock performance. Data source:YCharts

Macy's turnaround continues, but costs rise

Macy's also reported that sales trends are improving. For Q3, comparable store sales (including licensed departments) decreased 2.7% year over year. That was roughly in line with the Q2 decline of 2.6% and much better than Q1's 5.6% comp sales slump.

However, unlike Kohl's, costs increased significantly at Macy's in Q3. SG&A was up 5.2% year over year, driven by a combination of strategic investments to drive a return to sales growth, lower credit card income, and lower asset sale gains compared to Q3 2015.

As a result, Macy's adjusted EPS plunged to just $0.12 last quarter, down from $0.56 a year earlier, falling far short of analysts' estimates. Nevertheless, Macy's maintained its full-year guidance for adjusted EPS of $3.15-$3.40, due to its improving sales trends. The company expects comp sales to fall just 0.5%-2% in Q4.

Macy's made up for its mixed operating results by making a lot of progress on monetizing its real estate. During Q3, the company signed contracts to sell its men's store in San Francisco and its downtown store in Portland, Oregon, for combined proceeds of about $300 million. It also formed a strategic alliance with Brookfield Asset Management to explore development options for about 50 properties that Macy's owns.

Investors were pleased enough about the real estate progress and stabilizing sales trend to send Macy's stock up more than 8% on Thursday morning.

Macy's stock performance. Data source:YCharts

Comparisons get easier

Department stores will face very easy year-over-year comparisons for the next two quarters. Having two extra days between Thanksgiving and Christmas could also boost sales in Q4

Both Kohl's and Macy's still trade at reasonable valuations -- as do most of their department store peers. If they can continue to execute on their efforts to reverse the recent declines in their earnings and cash flow, both stocks could rise even further in the next year or two.

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Oil prices steadied on Thursday as markets recovered from their initial shock at U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's surprise victory, but investors were cautious ahead of a key OPEC meeting to decide on production.

Most markets shook off post-election losses and bounced back on Thursday.

But the oil market is heavily oversupplied and investors are focusing on a gathering of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Nov. 30, which may lead to output cuts.

Brent crude was up 30 cents at $46.66 a barrel by 1100 GMT. U.S. light crude was down 10 cents at $45.17.

"If no agreement is reached and some individual members continue to expand their production then the market will remain in surplus throughout the year, with little prospect of oil prices rising significantly higher," the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its monthly report on Thursday.

"If the supply surplus persists in 2017 there must be some risk of prices falling back," the IEA added.

Carsten Fritsch, senior oil and commodities analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, agreed:

"We are still in an oversupplied market and that is not going to change for the foreseeable future unless OPEC cuts."

The market was dampened by a 2.4-million-barrel rise in U.S. crude inventories to 485 million barrels last week, reported by the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday.

Investors are still assessing the long-term impact of a Trump presidency on world oil supply and demand.

BMI Research said the billionaire's expected pro oil and gas industry policies might mean U.S. "production of oil and gas could recover at a faster rate in 2017 as developers grow more encouraged".

Goldman Sachs said a Trump presidency would likely result in higher investment and, in time, increased U.S. oil output as the president-elect has said he would deregulate fossil fuel production.

Internationally, the bank said Trump's threat of renewed U.S. sanctions against OPEC member Iran would "further incentivise Iran to maximize production in the short term rather than comply to an OPEC freeze".

This reinforced traders' doubts over the ability of OPEC and other producers such as Russia to trim output to prop up prices.

(Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein in Singapore; editing by Dale Hudson and Jason Neely)
California's ban on single-use plastic carryout bags will stay in effect after voters narrowly approved the policy.

Proposition 67 was placed on Tuesday's ballot by plastic bag industry supporters to try to overturn a ban approved by the state legislature two years ago. The item was approved with a 52 percent majority.

A coalition of environmental groups, grocers and others led the campaign to uphold the statewide ban.

Voters rejected a second measure, Proposition 65, which proposed to create an environmental fund with proceeds from a 10-cent charge for alternative bags.

Environmental groups and other critics said it was put on the ballot to confuse voters.
Donald Trump is scheduled to face trial this month in a class-action lawsuit against him and his now-defunct Trump University, potentially taking the witness stand weeks before his inauguration as president of the United States.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the Indiana-born jurist who was accused of bias by Trump during the campaign for his Mexican heritage, will hold a hearing Thursday on jury instructions and what evidence to allow at trial.

Among the flurry of requests from both sides to be considered Thursday is a highly unusual petition by Trump's attorneys to exclude any statements made by or about their client during the presidential campaign.

The trial begins Nov. 28.
While President-elect Donald Trump has been a major presence on Twitter, he has acknowledged not actually posting the tweets himself.

The business leader crafts them, but generally says them out loud for a member of his staff to tweet. "During the day, I'm in the office, I just shout it out to one of the young ladies who are tremendous," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper in April.

In addition, the about-to-be commander in chief reportedly does not use a computer and he openly questioned spending tens of millions on digital ads to support his campaign, the The New York Times reported. That, plus Trump's well-publicized fights with Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon founder/CEO Jeff Bezos have made much of the tech industry wary of how a Trump presidency would impact their industry.

That's why in July, the day before Trump named Mike Pence as his running mate, more than 100 noted technology leaders wrote a letter condemning the president-elect's candidacy. The public post did not mince words, saying high up in the letter that "we have listened to Donald Trump over the past year and we have concluded ... Trump would be a disaster for innovation."

Trump has been very active on Twitter, although he does not post his own tweets. Image source: Donald J. Trump for President.

What is the technology industry worried about?

The letter clearly took issue with how Trump conducted his campaign. More directly, the letter's signatories, which included Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, Expedia Chairman Barry Diller, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield, and many more names from established companies as well as emerging players, called Trump out on immigration.

The letter also said that 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, expressing concerns that Trump had been "hostile" toward immigration.

The letter also brought up Trump's often-stated desire to shut down parts of the internet as a security strategy. The technology leaders who signed the letter wrote that Trump demonstrated "both poor judgment and ignorance about how technology works."

What will this mean for President Trump?

While Trump has clearly not embraced technology in his personal life the way his Oval Office predecessor, Barack Obama, has, he has been willing to adapt his policies. The next president has also expressed a willingness to listen to outside advisors. He has made statements about closing part of the internet, but in the same speech he also talked about going to see Bill Gates and a "lot of different people that really understand what's happening."

It's worth noting that Gates has not been a Trump supporter, but he would be a very reasonable person for the president-elect to consult. It's easy to see why so many tech leaders were concerned -- and likely are still very concerned -- but Trump, for all his bombast, has shown signs that while he's prone to speaking his mind and saying things that outrage people, he also speaks a little louder (sometimes maybe a lot louder) than he acts.

The election is over and the technology community can have a role in what happens next. That means being willing to work with someone as president that they did not support if he chooses to address their concerns.

Trump may be naive about how the internet actually works and he may never be the president who has meetings via virtual reality headset. But it's possible that the actual results will be better than these tech leaders feared, in part because they spoke out to express their concerns and the next president will have to address them or risk further alienating a powerful opposition.

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Daniel Kline owns shares of Apple. He shares all of these fears and then some, but believes that people are better than we have shown. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple and Twitter. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Some never Trumpers are dialing back their feelings toward the now President-elect following Tuesdays 2016 election results.

Former Republican Governor of New Jersey Christie Whitman, who said previously she could not get behind the GOP nominee, joined the FOX Business Network to react to Trumps victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Obviously I wish him well. Lord, I hope that the rhetoric of last night that he gave at his acceptance speech and in Hillarys concession speech is how we go forward. Thats what we need desperately. We need to bring the country together, Whitman said.

According to the former governor, part of the problem was the discord of this years historic presidential campaign  one which saw the first woman to win a major partys nomination and a billionaire businessman with no prior political experience to win the other.

This has been an extraordinarily divisive campaign with some of the harshest rhetoric and most divisive rhetoric I think weve ever heard, and weve got to get over that, Whitman said. If Donald Trump is going to succeed at what he says he wants to do, he is gonna need to reach out to those people who were not for him.

Whitman, who also served in the George W. Bush administration, explained what else she would advise the next president to do when he steps into the Oval Office.

He needs to find out this strike of balance that ensures that while we want to grow our economy  we need to desperatelyWe have some protections in place to keep us healthy, to keep our environment healthy. We need to readjust those, make sure theyre in the right place. We need not to walk away from them entirely. And thats going to be his challenge throughout, is finding that way of bringing people together.

Whitman commented on the possibility of the states current governor and Trump supporter, Chris Christie, having a place in the presidential administration.

I suspect it would be more likely to be Chief of Staff, Whitman said. I dont know if Trump would go ahead given all the Bridgegate fuss and furor thats been going on that he would risk putting him up for Senate confirmation. It just might be a battle he doesnt want to fight.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will seek to establish good personal ties and pitch the importance of the bilateral security alliance when he meets U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in New York next week, officials said on Thursday.

A Japanese government official said the pair had already talked by telephone and confirmed close cooperation, stressing the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance in the Asia-Pacific.

Abe will meet Trump in New York next Thursday before going to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru.

"Trump may take longer than usual to build his administration as he searches for people to fill key policy positions," Tetsuya Otsuru, a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official, said in a speech in Tokyo. "We want to safeguard our alliance with the United States during the transition."

Trump's unexpected victory has fanned Japan's anxiety about Washington's commitment to security arrangements in the face of a rising China and a volatile North Korea.

His "America First" rhetoric and calls for Japan and South Korea to pay more of the cost for U.S. troops in the region or face their possible withdrawal have worried officials.

Trump's transition team did not respond to requests for comment, but an adviser to the president-elect, who did not want to be identified by name, played down concerns about any changes in approach to alliances in Asia.

"I think what we are going to see is a very mainstream Republican administration," he said, adding that sharing the costs of sustaining combined defense was a matter for negotiation, as it always had been.

Trump's election win has also dashed hopes for U.S. approval of a 12-nation pan-Pacific trade pact that was a linchpin of Washington's "pivot" to the region.

During his campaign, Trump took a protectionist stance on trade and labeled the TPP a "disaster." There is now little chance of it coming up for vote in Washington before his inauguration in January.

In an opinion piece published on Monday, Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Alexander Gray reiterated his opposition to major trade deals.

"Trump will never again sacrifice the U.S. economy on the altar of foreign policy by entering into bad trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement, allowing China into the World Trade Organization, and passing the proposed TPP," they wrote. "These deals only weaken our manufacturing base and ability to defend ourselves and our allies."

'DECIDEDLY UNREASSURING'

Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University's Japan campus, said Trump as a candidate had been "decidedly unreassuring" on Abe's trade and security concerns.

"Abe will politely try to explain why the alliance is so important and that Trump needs to retreat from some of his assertive rhetoric," Kingston said.

Japanese companies play a key role in the U.S. economy, employing more than 800,000 American workers. They contributed $78 billion to U.S. exports in 2014, according to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.

Japanese officials said they had already been in touch with Trump's advisers but acknowledged they had a better understanding of the policies of defeated Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

"We are certainly concerned about the comments he has made to date about the alliance and the U.S. role in the Pacific," said a Japanese government source. "I hope our team starts working as soon as possible to rectify his perceptions."

Abe was quick to offer Trump congratulations, praising his "extraordinary talents" as a businessman.

"I very much look forward to closely cooperating with you to further strengthen the bond of the Japan-U.S. alliance," Abe said in a statement after Trump's win was confirmed.

Abe and U.S. President Barack Obama never really appeared to click personally. A ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker said he hoped Abe and Trump could develop the close personal "Ron-Yasu" ties seen between then-President Ronald Reagan and former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in the 1980s.

Trump is a practical businessman and he thinks in terms of profit and loss," Masashi Adachi, head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Partys foreign policy panel, told Reuters.

"If we explain that the U.S.-Japan alliance is in U.S. interests, he will understand its importance on balance."

(Additional reporting by Kaori Kaneko, Nobuhiro Kubo and Tim Kelly in Tokyo, and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Joseph Radford and Peter Cooney)
An investigation into whether or not Brad Pitt was abusive toward his son on a private flight in September has been closed, a representative for Angelina Jolie told FOX411.

"The job of the [Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services] is to make sure the children are in a safe and secure situation. As we said earlier this week, childcare professionals encouraged a legal agreement accepted and signed by both sides that was in the best interest of the children," Jolie's rep told us. "Angelina said from the beginning that she felt she had to take action for the health of the family and is relieved that after their 8-week involvement, the DCFS is now satisfied the safeguards are put in place that will allow the children to heal."

A source with knowledge of the situation told us that Pitt and Jolie agreed to a custody agreement "encouraged by childcare professionals." The agreement gives Jolie full custody of the pair's six children with "therapeutic visits" allowed for Pitt. However, reports earlier this week indicated the arrangement is being contested as Pitt filed for joint custody in court Friday.

California law favors joint custody, although details about custody arrangements are rarely made public in celebrity divorce cases.

The source insisted that Jolie never accused Pitt of child abuse nor did she call the DFCS on her estranged husband.

A department spokesman said the agency could not confirm or deny it investigated Pitt.

A representative for Pitt declined comment. During a Q&A for his new movie "Allied," Pitt said, "It's really sweet, everyone has been really kind out here. It's really nice to have all the support."

Pitt and Jolie were married for two years and together for 12 years after becoming close while filming 2005's "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Liam Neeson got a little break from being famous. Sitting on the floor of a community center courtyard with two dozen local teens, he listened attentively as young Syrian refugees  who had no idea that he's a Hollywood star  talked about the struggles of exile.

A 15-year-old girl said she was bullied in school. A boy of the same age said he used to get into fights.

"They are all our children," Neeson, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. child agency, later told The Associated Press. "They want peace, they want to be recognized."

Neeson's visit to Jordan this week was his first to the troubled Middle East on behalf of UNICEF, one of a number of U.N. agencies and aid groups trying to ease the plight of displaced Syrians and their overburdened host communities.

Nearly 5 million Syrians, half of them children, have fled civil war at home since 2011 and settled in neighboring countries, mainly in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Jordan hosts close to 660,000 displaced Syrians. Most live in Jordan's poorest communities where locals often complain that the influx is pushing up rents and driving down wages.

On Tuesday, Neeson and his son Micheal, 21, visited a community center in a working-class neighborhood of Jordan's capital of Amman. At the center, operated by the community development group Johud, Syrian and Jordanian teens get to know each other in after-school sessions. The program is funded by UNICEF and run by the Jordan-based group Generations For Peace.

After watching the teens compete in a relay race, the 64-year-old actor sat in a circle with them on the tiled floor of the courtyard to hear their stories.

Ahmed, a 15-year-old Syrian, said he used to get into fights with a Jordanian boy from the neighborhood. Now they are like brothers, he said. Reema Mohammed, 15, a refugee from the Syrian capital of Damascus, said a Jordanian girl in her school used to bully her and that the center's program helped her handle the situation.

Neeson later said in an interview that he was particularly inspired by the Syrian girls, including those he met during a tour of Zaatari, Jordan's largest camp for Syrian refugees, on Monday.

"I thought they would be more oppressed because of their culture, and of course because of the ordeals they have been going through, coming from Syria, the horrors there," he said. "These girls I met, yesterday and ... again here today, they are so positive, so eager and keen to learn."

"I asked them ... what their goals were in life, in an ideal world what would they want to be," he said, adding that responses included mathematician, engineer, police inspector and teacher. "To see these girls being empowered by education and the focus in their eyes was incredibly humbling and very moving," he said.

Still, UNICEF says that about 700,000 school-age Syrian refugees across the region are missing out on education, either because there is no space for them in overcrowded local schools or because they have to work and support their families. In Jordan and Lebanon, many schools are running double shifts to try to accommodate the refugee children.

Asked about the backlash against Syrian refugees in Europe and the U.S., Neeson said that "we in the West tend to have a bias" against Muslims, a "sweeping generalization because of what these fanatical fundamentalist groups will do in the name of God, in the name of Allah."

Neeson said he grew up with violent conflict  between Protestants and Catholics  in his native Northern Ireland.

"I kind of grew up cautious, very, very cautious," he said. "I have kind of seen it in some of the kids here, in their eyes but once you engage them and talk to them that rapidly disappears."

Neeson has appeared in more than 70 films, including the 1993 Best Picture winner "Schindler's List," the action trilogy "Taken," George Lucas' "Star Wars: Episode 1  Phantom Menace" and Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York."

His upcoming releases include another Scorsese film, "The Silence," about two Jesuit priests who face persecution in 17th century Japan, and "Felt" about the FBI agent who under the name "Deep Throat" helped uncover the Watergate scandal.

Next summer, Neeon will start shooting "The Trainer," set in Ireland and centered on the relationship between a horse trainer and a troubled refugee from Eastern Europe.

In Jordan, Neeson took his apparent lack of celebrity status among the local teens in stride.

"I was appalled," he said, jokingly, when asked how he felt when he realized they really didn't know who he was. "It is kind of refreshing ... (the kids) saying, ok, thanks for coming to our school, but who are you?" he said, laughing.
What's that cough? Everybody coughs; it's the number one illness-related reason people go to the doctor, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most cases of cough are temporary, says Peter Dicpinigaitis, MD, director of the Montefiore Cough Center and professor of clinical medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. But even a short-term cough can be a sign of a bigger health issue that needs to be addressed by a doctor. Here's how to narrow down the possible culpritsfrom asthma to pneumonia to whooping coughso you can get better, fast.

A cold virus

A cough you've had for three weeks or less is most likely due to the common cold. Unfortunately, this coughwhich is mainly a dry cough, with some clear mucuscan persist for a month or more after the rest of your symptoms are gone. "The virus irritates nerve endings in your air passages, and they can stay sensitive for quite some time," says Dr. Dicpinigaitis.

How to treat a cold virus cough: There's no cure for viral infections, so you'll have to wait this one out. If your barking is serious and over-the-counter cough suppressants don't provide relief, your doc may prescribe medicine to calm your cough reflex, says Gerard W. Frank, MD, clinical professor of medicine in pulmonary disease at UCLA. Over-the-counter decongestants or expectorants can also help thin out mucus so you can cough up more of it.

RELATED: 10 Biggest Myths About The Flu

Postnasal drip

If you've got a cough (wet or dry) that has lasted eight weeks or longer, you could be suffering from chronic postnasal dripmucus that accumulates in the sinuses and drips down the back of the throat, creating a tickling sensation that triggers a cough. There's no test for postnasal drip, says Dr. Frank, but you may also have a runny nose or congestion (from allergies or lingering cold symptoms, for example). Other signs include frequent throat clearing and a sore throat. Because it's so common, doctors will often try treating it even if they're not sure of a diagnosis, says Dr. Frank.

How to treat a postnasal drip cough: A nasal saline rinse may help clear up the problem, or your MD may recommend steroids or antihistamines to reduce inflammation. Pay attention to the color of your mucus: "Coughing up yellow or green mucus means your immune system has really kicked in, which could suggest a bacterial infection, like sinusitis," says Dr. Frank. In that case, you'll need antibiotics.

Asthma

Asthma usually shows up as wheezing and shortness of breath. But in people with cough-variant asthma, a dry, persistent cough may be the only sign. It's often worse at night, during or shortly after exercise, when you're breathing cold air or when you're around an allergen, like pet dander or pollen.

How to treat an asthma cough: Your doctor may give you breathing tests to diagnose asthma or recommend using an inhaler twice a day for a few weeks to see if your cough subsides. Antihistamines or allergy shots may also help.

RELATED: 22 Ways to Survive Cold and Flu Season

Acid reflux

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is linked to an estimated 25 percent of chronic cough cases. When acid flows back up into the esophagus, it can irritate nerve endings, triggering a persistent cough. But it can be hard to diagnose. "Not everyone with GERD gets heartburn," says Dr. Dicpinigaitus. "If you're coughing after a meal, when you lie down at night, or upon arising in the morning, or if you have an intermittently hoarse voice along with the cough, these are hints it might be reflux."

How to treat a chronic cough due to GERD: Most cases of GERD are relatively easy to remedy with antacid medications, but cough-prevalent GERD can be more stubborn, and you'll need to get checked out by your MD, says Dr. Dicpinigaitis. You might require larger doses of Rx medicine, and it may take six to eight weeks for you to feel better. Overweight? Slimming down sometimes helps with GERD. Try elevating the head of your bed when you sleep, too.

Pneumonia

Sometimes a cough may signal a more severe illness. Pneumonia can develop when a respiratory infection spreads to the lungs, causing the lungs' air sacs to fill with pus. This makes it hard to breathe and produces a wet-sounding, sometimes painful cough. Your condition can become life-threatening in a matter of days. If you're coughing up lots of green phlegm or blood, are short of breath and/or have chest discomfort, go to your doctoror an ER if you can't be seen right away. Fever and chills are other warning signs.

How to treat pneumonia: A chest X-ray is the only way to know for sure whether you have pneumonia, but some doctors will diagnose it by listening to your lungs with a stethoscope, says Dr. Frank. Most serious cases in adults are bacterial and treated with antibiotics.

RELATED: How to Ward Off a Cold, According to 7 Health Editors

Whooping cough

This highly contagious disease is making a comeback, with more than 18,000 cases in the U.S. reported in 2015. The name comes from the "whoop" sounds some people make as they gasp for breath after a long, intense fit of coughing. You can get whooping cough, aka pertussis, even if you've been vaccinated (because the shot's protection weakens over time).

How to treat whooping cough: If you start them within three weeks of infection, antibiotics may lessen symptoms. They can also keep you from spreading the bacteria to other peoplewhich is crucial because an infection can lead to serious illness, even death, in babies.

Other causes

For coughs that don't respond to the treatments above, your doctor may order a chest X-ray or a CT scan of your lungs or sinuses. This can help rule out serious conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or lung cancer.

If your hacking appears only at certain times or places, consider allergies or sensitivity to irritants like mold, pollution, or smoke. Think about your meds, too: Up to 20% of people who take ACE inhibitors (for conditions such as high blood pressure) develop a dry cough.

Finally, some chronic cough can be explained by cough hypersensitivity syndrome. This means you may develop a cough as a result of triggers that don't cause coughing in most people, says Dr. Dicpinigaitis. Women tend to have a more sensitive cough reflex than men. But in most cases, the culprit (and the cure) is there; you just need some trial and error to find it.

Homemade remedies for coughing

Need short-term relief while you're riding out a cold or the flu? A few treatments that are worth trying:

Honey: "Thick, sweet liquids, even without medication, can soothe and diminish cough," says Dr. Dicipinigaitis.

Cough drops: "Menthol, found in many over-the-counter lozenges, creates a cooling sensation and has been shown to help suppress coughing. Other cough drops may coat your throat and alleviate soreness, but there's little evidence to suggest they prevent hacking any better than hard candy.

RELATED: 31 Superfood Secrets for a Long and Healthy Life

Steamy showers: Taking a hot shower or inhaling steam from a bowl of hot water (be careful not to burn your face!) may help loosen mucus and make it easier to cough up, says Dr. Frank.

Coffee: Caffeine is a bronchodilator, meaning it can help open airways, and has been studied (with inconclusive results) as a potential asthma remedybut it should never take the place of an inhaler for someone who needs one, warns Dr. Frank. It may help ease a cough, though: In one study, coughers got more relief from drinking a imxture of instant coffee and honey than mixtures containing a common expectorant or a steroid.

This article originally appeared on Health.com.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said on Thursday it had temporarily categorized a synthetic opioid nicknamed "pink" as a dangerous drug, after receiving at least 46 reports of deaths associated with its use.

The abuse of opioids - a class of drugs that includes heroin and prescription painkillers - has reached epidemic proportions in the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 78 Americans die every day from opioid overdose.

"Pink", known to chemists as U-47700, comes from a family of deadly synthetic opioids that are far more potent than heroin, and is usually imported to the United States mainly from China.

It gets its name from the pink-purple hue that comes from the way it is cut or processed.

The DEA said it had temporarily categorized U-47700 as a "Schedule 1" substance, effective Nov. 14, classifying it as a dangerous addictive drug with no medicinal use, placing it on par with heroin, cannabis and LSD.

The scheduling will last for two years, with a possible one-year extension if the DEA requires more data to determine whether it should be permanently scheduled, the agency said.

Of the 46 fatalities, 31 occurred in New York and 10 in North Carolina, the DEA said, from reports it received between Oct. 2015 and Sept. 2016.

Law enforcement agencies have seized the drug in powder form and counterfeit tablets that mimic prescription opioid painkillers, the agency said. (http://bit.ly/2eFLSr3)

Since substances like U-47700 are often made in illicit labs overseas, their identity, purity, and quantity are unknown, creating a 'Russian roulette' scenario for users, the DEA said.

In March, law enforcement agencies in Ohio seized 500 blue pills that visually appeared to be short-acting oxycodone pills, but a laboratory analysis confirmed they were U-47700. (http://bit.ly/2emt8BD)
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A man in China who has gone without his right ear for the past year will soon have a new appendage after doctors grow the body part on his arm using part of his rib cartilage.

On Tuesday, a team led by Dr. Guo Shuzhong, a reconstructive surgery specialist, completed the second phase of a three-part reconstruction plan, China Daily reported.

In the first phase, doctors buried a skin expander under the skin of the patient, only identified as Ji. They then injected water into the area to expand the skin.

This week, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University team took part of Jis rib cartilage and buried it under the expanded skin. Now, doctors will wait for the ear to grow completely to perfectly fit Jis head.

"The third phase of the operation, to transplant the new ear onto Ji's head, will be carried out in three or four months," Guos colleague, Shu Maoguo, told China Daily.

Ji told China Daily the ear growing on his right arm looks exactly as the same as my old ear.
Editor's note: The following column originally appeared on TheResurgent.com.



For eight years the left has refused to hold itself accountable. Having once declared dissent patriotic, dissent for the last eight years has been homophobic, bigoted, and racist. Conservatives and people of faith have been hounded from their jobs, silenced, and punished for refusing to go along with the lefts agenda. The left demanded cultural homogeneity and is outraged that Americans refuse to go along with their anti-Christian secular agenda.

On Tuesday, Americans had enough and decided to seek fundamental change.

Today, the left is protesting in the streets because of American democratic action. The left accuses Donald Trump of totalitarianism, but it is the left refusing to accept a democratic act. The left blasted Trump for suggesting the election was rigged. But they are okay with protesting a fair election and declaring it illegitimate because they hate the outcome.

GREGG JARRETT: WILL TRUMP FULFILL HIS VOW TO PURSUE A CRIMINAL CASE AGAINST HILLARY?

A week ago the Democratic Party insisted that everyone accept the legitimacy of the election. What we are seeing today is that much of the left think that, like so many other things, it is a one way street.

For eight years I have watched parts of the right descend to madness as they presumed the worst about their opponents. Parts of the right had become convinced that the Clintons kill people and Barack Obama would refuse to vacate the White House. During all this, the left became convinced, by their own rhetorical overreach, that conservatives want to put black people back on plantations, castrate gays, and forcibly impregnate women.

Wednesday night, their chickens came home to roost. Professional leftwing activists who have no skill other than agitation have trained a large group of people to do nothing but protest. Instead of trying to unite the country, they have flown into hysterics and temper tantrums.

A week ago the Democratic Party insisted that everyone accept the legitimacy of the election. What we are seeing today is that much of the left think that, like so many other things, it is a one way street.

This is what happens when you presume the worst about your neighbor. The left may love humanity as a concept, but they are prone to think the absolute worst of their neighbors and that contempt for those who see things differently is on full display in the streets of America.

Trump Derangement Syndrome has begun.


If Hillary Clinton thought losing the presidency was a nightmare, it is nothing compared to what she could now face: a legal inferno that may be hard to extinguish.

Instead of living comfortably in the White House, Clinton must now confront the real and serious threat of living in smaller confines. And I dont mean Chappaqua.

Once in office, President Donald Trump may feel compelled to fulfill his campaign promise to voters that his administration will pursue what he described as Clintons criminality. He repeatedly vowed to prosecute Clinton and, if elected, to put her behind bars.

ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTS: LEFT FREAKS OUT WITH HYSTERICS, TEMPER TANTRUMS AFTER A FAIR ELECTION

He said it to her face in the second debate, to which she responded, Its a good thing somebody like Trump is not in charge.

Soon, he will be in charge. And Clinton may find herself in jeopardy, staring in the mirror wondering what went wrong and whom to blame.

Promises, Promises

In front of a television audience of 66 million Americans, Trump promised this:

I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. People have been, their lives have been destroyed for doing one-fifth of what youve done, and its a disgrace, and honestly, you ought to be ashamed.

Shame is the least of Clintons worries right now. Indictment, conviction and incarceration seem more pressing.

Will Trump make good on his pledge? How could he not? The debate aside, Trump made the term crooked Hillary a staple of his campaign rhetoric. Amid raucous chants of lock her up, he assured his supporters that a special prosecutor would be appointed in a Trump administration.

Thats the trouble with campaign promises. Theyre like taxes, youre stuck with them. If you break your promise and reverse course, youre accused of insincerity at best, lying at worst. Ask Bush 41 about his infamous pledge, read my lips: no new taxes. His subsequent flip-flop so angered his supporters that he lost re-election to a guy from Arkansas named Bill Clinton.

A Special Prosecutor

Can Trump instruct his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor? No. Under the law, a president is not empowered to do so. He does not have the legal authority to direct an Attorney General to do anything other than pass the chips and guacamole.

Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School dove off the deep end when he described Trumps promise to have the Democratic nominee investigated criminally as an impeachable offense. In an email to Fortune, Tribe claimed that vows to use a nations criminal justice system against ones vanquished political opponent is incompatible with the survival of a stable constitutional republic. Say what?

By Tribes reasoning, any suspected criminal could run for president and then get a free pass. Since when does running for office absolve you of criminal consequences?

If someone has committed serious crimes that compromise national security, that person is not entitled to the equivalent of immunity simply because he or she is a candidate for high office. The threat to the constitution reposes in a justice system that refuses to pursue politicians who break the law because some scholarly elites might regard it as bad form. Trump may be guilty of politicizing a criminal investigation of Clinton, but that does not render a potential prosecution any less legitimate or sound in a court of law.

The New Attorney General

It matters not that Trump is prohibited by law from instructing his Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor. All he needs to do is select someone who shares his values or point of view. Which is pretty much what most presidents do anyway.

It is no secret that Trump has been thinking about Rudy Giuliani as his pick to preside over the Department of Justice. The former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York has made his opinions on Clinton well known. A month ago, he said he believed Clinton acted intentionally and with criminal intent in the mishandling of classified emails and the deletion of some 33,000 emails after receiving a subpoena from Congress.

Giuliani also issued a list of 15 federal felony statutes which he is convinced Clinton violated. In one of his more animated moments, he referred to her as the biggest criminal to run for the White House. Her indictment was a no brainer, he said.

Giuliani is hardly impartial. But he doesnt need to be. He has the authority to appoint a neutral Special Prosecutor who would operate independently. Assuming someone with a reputation for dispassion and integrity is chosen, a sense of fairness would lend credibility to the investigation and ultimate decision on whether to prosecute Clinton.

Clintons Only Hope

The Democratic nominee may have gleaned a glimmer of hope that all is not lost when Trump delivered his victory speech upon winning the election. He promised reconciliation and harmony. He spoke of healing the nations divisive wounds and unifying its people.

It will be hard to accomplish all of that if Trump is determined to fulfill his other promise to seek prosecution of Clinton. Her supporters --and there are many, judging by her nearly equal popular vote-- will declare war on Trump. Hell be branded as vindictive and petty, regardless of whether a Special Prosecutor is legally justified. Democrats in Congress will do their best to obstruct.

In other words, adherence to one promise threatens the achievement of another.

A statesman might choose a gracious course. Forgive and forget. Lets move on. Clinton lost the presidency. Like Nixon, perhaps that is enough punishment.

But Trump has shown little evidence that he can forgive his perceived enemies. Or the slings and arrows of a heated campaign. He has vowed to punish his female accusers, the media, his political opponents, the list goes on.

So, perhaps Clintons only real hope may rest in the hands of the man she hoped to succeed. President Obama could pardon Clinton. It would not absolve her, but it would end any and all investigations and future prosecutions.

But the ghost of Gerald Ford is a haunting reminder to presidents who consider political pardons. Unlike Ford, Obama is not running for anything so the risk is not as severe. However, Obama seems to care deeply about his legacy. Why would he jeopardize that? For the good of the nation?

And if Trumps pursuit of a criminal case against Clinton might sow the seeds of the new presidents destruction, why would Obama want to save Trump from himself?

Which brings us back to Hillary Clinton and the face in the mirror peering back at her.

In Search Of Blame

Losing out on the most powerful position in the world is probably a very hard thing. But Clinton has only herself to blame. She created her own mess. Her bad decisions abound.

She deliberately chose to conduct all of her state department business exclusively on a private, unauthorized and unsecured email server housed in the basement of her home. Why would she risk Americas national security with such a reckless decision? Did she really think it could be kept hidden in perpetuity? Perhaps she was driven by an obsession with secrecy. Or maybe an abiding conviction that laws dont apply to her. You know laws are for the little people.

She deliberately chose to maintain close ties to her foundation while serving as Secretary of State, accepting tens of millions of dollars from foreign donors who gained special access. Why would she risk such an obvious conflict of interest? Did she not realize that leveraging her charity for personal enrichment might raise the specter of corruption, bribery and fraud? Perhaps she was seduced by greed. Or a sense of privilege. Or a mistaken belief that laws are meant to be bent and broken by someone who is clever.

What is baffling and inexplicable is that Clinton knew her actions would be under the public microscope. Surely she was planning to run again for president in 2016. Why would she jeopardize her dream by engaging in such inherently suspicious behavior? Why would she give her critics so much ammunition to undermine her chances of succeeding?

In search of blame, Clinton may round up the usual suspects. A vast right-wing conspiracy. An intrusive media. Overzealous FBI agents. James Comey. Russian hackers. Wikileaks. Obamacare. ISIS. The boogeyman. She may even blame her husband for failing to stop her from her own worst instincts. Who knows.

George Bernard Shaw observed, People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I dont believe in circumstances.

If Hillary Clinton ever pauses long enough for a true moment of honesty and introspection, she need only glance in the mirror in her search for blame.
Im just an ordinary guy. I'm a S.O.B. (son of a butcher), small businessman, homeschool dad and Vegas oddsmaker-turned-political pundit. But Tuesday night I was on Romanian TV, Israeli TV, Australian TV and BBC World News explaining how I knew Trump would win big.

Ive actually been predicting Trump would win the GOP nomination and presidency since Spring of 2015. When I first made that prediction, I was in an exclusive club of two -- me and Donald Trump.

For the past few weeks Ive predicted a smashing Brexit-like Trump victory over Hillary.

When I appeared on Fox & Friends three weeks ago, the two political experts on the show with me both predicted that Trump had no path to victoryand would almost certainly lose in a landslide, causing the GOP to lose the Congress too. They rolled their eyes when I told them Trump would win in a Brexit-like upset.

How did I know?

The answer is simple. I wrote the book ANGRY WHITE MALE to describe the coming Donald Trump victory, led by 40 million angry white males. I wrote and talked about this ANGRY WHITE MALE revolution in hundreds of media interviews and commentaries -- including right here at Fox News.

But I was only partially correct. I was opening speaker for Donald Trump one week ago in Las Vegas. There were 10,000 fans in the audience. Over 60 percent were women. No, these were not Harvard or Vassar women. They were working class women- waitresses, secretaries and casino employees.

These women were screaming for Trump like he was Elvis or The Beatles in Las Vegas. I suddenly realized there are plenty of angry white females too- and they like Donald as much as the guys do!

This election was about angry white men and women. I predicted theyd come out Tuesday in numbers never before seen in history. And that was exactly what happened.

This was"THE ANGRY WHITE VOTER" ELECTION

My final prediction? It was the same one I personally told to Donald Trump a week ago. When I saw Donald backstage I told him, "Here's my prediction...You will win by a 10-point landslidebut Democrats cheat by 8 pointsso you'll win by 2."

Thats almost exactly the final vote percentage.

This was our Brexit- starring Donald Trump. In every poll before the shocking Brexit result, Brexit was trailing by an average of 4.4 points. But a few million white working class voters either werent on the pollsters' radar, or werent talking publicly about their vote. Brexit passed- shocking the so-called "experts."

Skip ahead to Tuesday. The Real Clear Politics average of all polls showed Hillary leading by 2.6 points. That was dramatically LOWER than the 4.4 point average before Brexit. Why didnt anyone else notice that?

How about the betting odds? Brexit was a 4 to 1 underdog going into election day in the UK. Trump was exactly a 4 to 1 underdog going into Tuesday.

The betting patterns were also alike. Most of the big money was bet against Brexit. But 65% of the small bets were bet by working stiffs on Brexit. Fast forward to Tuesdays presidential election. The big money was on Hillary, but 65 percent of the small bets were placed on Trump. How did everyone miss the similarities?

So I made the biggest bet of my life on Trump as a 6 to 1 underdog three weeks ago. To me, it was simple.

#1) This was our Brexit.

#2) This was THE ANGRY WHITE VOTER ELECTION.

#3) Trump was the whisper candidate. Everywhere I went, strangers whispered in my ear that they loved Trump. They didnt want anyone to know. They certainly weren't telling pollsters.

#4) Hillary was the ghost candidate. How could she win the election when no one showed up at her rallies....no one bought her campaign merchandise...no one bought her new book. Her support was a mile wide and  inch thick. In short, Hillarys voters didnt like her. They had no passion, enthusiasm, or intensity. So the polls didnt matter. Her voters would not show up.

But the best sign of all that Trump was on his way to a Brexit victory was the mock presidential election in ultra-liberal Minnesota. High school kids across the state gave Trump a 34 percent to 32 percent victory a few days ago. In Minnesota!

I knew something special and shocking was about to happen. Democrats, the Washington, D.C. establishment elite, career politicians, crony capitalist CEOs and the mainstream media never had a clue what was about to hit them.

This was our Brexit, starring Donald Trump. I called it Trexit.

It was the bet of my life...and I won -- and so did America.
The forgotten man decided the presidential election. Donald Trump persuaded the forgotten man to repose his anger and frustration and power into Trumps hands. Who is the forgotten man? What does he want from government? Why did he vote for Trump?

When the tide began to turn against Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night, I planned to write this column about the unwarranted and unlawful injection of the FBI into the political process. At the time, I was seated with the Fox News number crunchers and generally was exposed to trends and vote totals -- and the number crunchers lucid explanation of them -- long before they were revealed on-air. I am more an ideas guy than a numbers guy.

On Tuesday night, the numbers were so overwhelming it was clear that the FBI had nothing to do with the outcome of the presidential election. The numbers on Tuesday told a tale that needs to be related. What the FBI did and failed to do assaulted the rule of law, but that is for another column.



ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTS: LEFT FREAKS OUT WITH HYSTERICS, TEMPER TANTRUMS AFTER A FAIR ELECTION

On Tuesday night, they found a home.

The forgotten man believes that the Obama administration doesnt care about him. The forgotten man knows that the government put into place regulations of economic activity that put him out of work or into a lower-paying job. These forgotten men and women resent the Obama administration's telling them they must have health insurance or they will be taxed for it and then so incompetently manipulating the marketplace as to cause the cost of that insurance -- often an unwanted product -- to skyrocket.

These good folks cringed when their family doctor told them that he could no longer afford to treat them because the feds had overregulated the practice of medicine. They simply couldnt believe that their own government would make the practice of medicine so expensive that doctors in droves could not afford to stay in business. And they were outraged when their doctors told them the feds could see their medical records and dictate their medical treatment.

The forgotten man has profound resentment for a government that is telling him how to live. The forgotten mans union dues have shot up. His union leaders use his dues to support political candidates he doesnt know or like. Yet he has usually voted for the Democrats -- out of a traditional belief that the Democrats would think of him and his needs when framing federal legislation. They havent.

The forgotten man speaks his mind but isnt drawn to lofty arguments about the freedom of speech. The forgotten man wants the government to work but couldnt tell you which aspects of its behavior are unconstitutional. The forgotten man wants elected officials who dont and wont forget him. The forgotten man hopes he never sees a judge in a courtroom, but if he does, he wants to be judged by someone who understands him.

The forgotten man wants sexual freedom and privacy, but not babies being ripped from the womb for convenience. The forgotten man doesnt want war but loathes military defeat even more. The forgotten man wants inexpensive goods but will pay more if they are made here by people like him. The forgotten man doesnt want the government to take so much money from those who work hard that they lose their incentive to work or close up their businesses and kill jobs. The forgotten man wants everyone to be able to keep the lions share of what he earns. The forgotten man forgives but doesnt forget.

Trump got all that. Trump tapped into all that as no presidential candidate had since Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The forgotten man viewed Clinton as having no interest in him. The forgotten man believed that Clinton would work for special interests and not for him. The forgotten man saw that what Trump grasped, Clinton overlooked; what Trump understood, Clinton ignored; and what Trump turned into votes, Clinton took for granted.

I doubt that the forgotten man saw what I did recently. At the Al Smith dinner in New York City last month -- a 1,500-person black-tie fundraiser for the Archdiocese of New York at which Trumps speech was mediocre and Clintons was stellar -- I tried to shake the hands of both of them but ran into a Secret Service roadblock around the head table. Trump waved to me with a twinkle in his eye. When I saw Clinton, I saw a lonely face without joy. On Wednesday morning, it dawned on me that she was doomed and she knew it.

The forgotten man knew it, as well.
To most journalists, the election of Donald Trump is Mourning in America. Trump won despite a massive effort by the liberal media establishment to discredit and destroy him, and they were still at it early Wednesday morning, even as it became obvious that theyd utterly failed to derail his candidacy.

On CBS, Slate columnist Jamelle Bouie painted the anti-Washington wave that carried Trump to victory as a racist push-back against the advancement of African-Americans, of Hispanics, of women, of Muslim-Americans.

On MSNBC, co-anchor Rachel Maddow also played the race card: Im thinking about President Obama too. I mean, to have the first African American President succeeded by a guy who was endorsed by the KKK....its a big deal.

ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTS: LEFT FREAKS OUT WITH HYSTERICS, TEMPER TANTRUMS AFTER A FAIR ELECTION

The Stop Trump effort among journalists has played out in newspapers and on TV screens for months now. Just look at the broadcast networks: The Media Research Center analyzed the spin of ABC, CBS and NBC evening news coverage from July 29 through October 20, and found an astonishing 91% of the coverage was hostile to Trump.

The networks spent far more airtime airing the details of Trumps controversies than trying to hold Hillary Clinton accountable for her scandals. The GOP nominee was slammed as embodying the politics of fear, a dangerous and vulgar misogynistic bully who had insulted vast swaths of the American electorate. Reporters also bluntly called out Trump for lying in his public remarks in a way they never did with Clinton, despite her own robust record of false statements.



It wasnt just TV of course; this anti-Trump attitude permeated elite journalistic circles. Go back to May 4, when Trump clinched the GOP nomination by knocking off Ted Cruz and John Kasich in the Indiana primary. The gang on CBS This Morning greeted RNC chairman Reince Preibus with a copy of the New York Daily News; co-host Charlie Rose laughingly read him the headline: It says, Republican Party 1854-2016; Dearly beloved, were gathered here today to mourn the GOP. A once great political party killed by epidemic of Trump.

Co-host Gayle King helpfully added: Theres an elephant, Reince, in a coffin, just to make the picture really clear for you.

Over the next six months, the Trump bashing reached epic levels. On MSNBC, host Lawrence ODonnell derided Trump as an imbecile candidate, while NPRs Bob Garfield slammed him for racism, xenophobia, misogyny, incitement, breathtaking ignorance on issues, both foreign and domestic, and a nuclear recklessness, reminiscent of a raving meth head with a machete on an episode of Cops.

CBS Sunday Morning contributor Nancy Giles, on MSNBC in June, speculated that Trump was clinically insane. MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski floated the same smear in late August: Its time to hear from somebody in the mental health community...Theres not anybody at this table who doesnt think he has some sort of problem.

ABC permitted left-wing author and MSNBC analyst Michael Eric Dyson to appear on This Week in June to claim Trumps nationalism is really a white racist supremacist nationalism that wreaks terror on the American democratic experiment. Over on CNN, journalist Carl Bernstein agreed that Trumps coalition includes an awful lot of bigots and nativists and a lot of hateful people.

Whats the worst-case scenario for America if he [Donald Trump] wins? MSNBCs Rachel Maddow mused to Rolling Stone, just days before co-anchoring her networks coverage of the GOP convention. Ive been reading a lot about what it was like when Hitler first became chancellor....I think thats possibly where we are.

The New Yorkers Adam Gopnik, appearing on HBOs Real Time in September, suggested the end of American democracy: American democracy will be in greater danger than its been since 1860, if Donald Trump were elected president.

On CBS following the second presidential debate, ex-Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer was disdainful: I just hope to God I dont see another campaign like this one. America can do better than what we have seen here tonight. This was just disgraceful....This was WrestleMania, this wasnt about presidential politics....I think Donald Trump gets most of the blame here.

Appearing on CBSs Face the Nation on October 16, former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham sneered: To paraphrase Henry Adams, the movement from George H. W. Bush to Donald Trump disproves Darwin.

The anti-Trump venom was welcomed by a number of leading journalists, who openly lobbied their brethren to drop any pretense of objectivity and become full-throated anti-Trump partisans.

Back on August 8, in an obvious signal to campaign journalists, the New York Times published a front-page news analysis by media writer Jim Rutenberg suggesting objectivity was impossible if reporters believed Trump is a demagogue playing to the nations worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes.

Rutenberg offered a conscience-clearing get-out-of-jail free card for reporters who wanted to tilt the scales: It is journalisms job to be true to the readers and viewers, and true to the facts, in a way that will stand up to historys judgment. To do anything less would be untenable.

In a piece for Time.com, Fusion anchor Jorge Ramos echoed Rutenberg: If a candidate is making racist and sexist remarks, we cannot hide in the principle of neutrality. Thats a false equivalence.

The Washington Posts Dana Milbank agreed: In an ordinary presidential campaign, press neutrality is essential. But in Trump....attempting neutrality legitimized the illegitimate.

You dont have to be a Trump fan to see this kind of thinking as a dangerous corruption of the news medias role in our system. Reporters are supposed to supply honest and balanced information about both candidates, and then voters get to decide which is the better choice. Throwing those rules away means either that journalists have no faith in voters to select the correct candidate, or arrogantly presume to make the choice themselves.

Journalisms own credibility appears to be the final casualty of reporters over-the-top campaign bias. According to a USA Today poll released October 26: By nearly 10-1, all those surveyed say the news media, including major newspapers and TV stations, would like to see Clinton rather than Trump elected. That includes 82 percent of Trump supporters and 74 percent of Clinton supporters.

An Associated Press poll found the same 10-to-1 perception of an anti-Trump bias in the media: Overall, 56 percent of likely voters say the media is biased against Trump, just 5 percent say its biased in his favor.

Now that Trump has won, journalists need to recognize that their unprecedented attempt to take destroy a presidential candidate has resulted in serious, perhaps permanent damage to their credibility.


More than 15 years have passed since terrorists knocked down the World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people. And I believe it has taken that long for America to begin to snap out of its version of Stockholm Syndrome and elect a president who doesnt try to appease our enemies by apologizing for what America represents and dissolving our patriotism in a meaningless ocean of globalism.

"Stockholm Syndome," by the way, is the name given to a phenomenon that gripped hostages taken during a bank robbery in Sweden. The hostages unconsciously adopted the perspectives and demands of their captors, presumably because they intuited that they might not be killed by those who considered them alliesalbeit newly-fashioned ones.

WILL TRUMP FULFILL HIS VOW TO PURSUE A CRIMINAL CASE AGAINST HILLARY?

I think Barack Obamas election was fueled, in large measure, by a similar unconscious phenomenon that followed the destruction of the World Trade Center: We hid behind a leader who never seemed, to me, to like us Americans very muchat least not in our desire for individual autonomy, our insistence on the rights guaranteed by our Constitution and our sense that the world would be better off, if more of the world adopted our core values.

Im not sure that any other candidate could haveat this moment in historyshaken us out of our contempt for our national character, our complacency about losing our fundamental rights and our turning away from our manifest destiny as Americans and America.

Hillary Clinton, in serving with Barack Obama, in touting open borders (if only in private meetings), in refusing to use the words radical Islamic terrorism and in accepting large payments from foreign nations to whom she could be indebted, seemed to promise more of the samea diluting, rather than crystallizing, of our national identity.

Clinton promised a longer run of Stockholm Syndromefurther denial that the America is truly great and that the world relies on our ingenuity and ideals and ideas to fuel freedom here and, everywhere.

Donald Trump won not only because he promised the middle class jobs, but because it turns out the brainwashing of an entire population to deny their core beliefs and sense of self doesnt work, forever.

The truth about an individual or a people has a stubborn way of declaring itself, even after being suppressed, for decades, or longer.

Our Stockholm Syndrome could have gone on for another four or eight years, or even longer, of course, but not in the face of someone as blatantly, unapologetically American as Donald Trumpa brash, multi-billionaire entrepreneur and celebrity who strode onto the American political stage like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood and reminded us of what he had lostnamely, ourselves.

His outsized persona was powerful enough medicine to cure our Stockholm Syndrome and remind us that we had been taken hostage and told to parrot a pathological, party line of self-loathing.

Im not sure that any other candidate could haveat this moment in historyshaken us out of our contempt for our national character, our complacency about losing our fundamental rights and our turning away from our manifest destiny as Americans and America.

A country that was lost and wandering has found its way home, again, thanks to an unlikely hero who is hyperbolically American and apologizes to no one for it.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that a preemptive pardon of Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information would "seal [President Barack] Obama's legacy as one of the worst presidents ever."

"Then he should also pardon [Kristian Saucier] whos spending a year in jail taking pictures of the submarine," Giuliani told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly on "The O'Reilly Factor". "And he should pardon Petraeus and he should pardon [Gen. James] Cartwright."

SAILOR GETS YEAR IN PRISON FOR TAKING PHOTOS OF NUCLEAR SUBMARINE

Giuliani, an adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, did not rule out investigating Clinton if named attorney general in a Trump administration.

"Theres one tradition in America [which is] the elections over, we forget about it. Theres another tradition in America, which is equal justice under the law. And it would depend on how bad the violations are."

FORMER GENERAL PLEADS GUILTY IN FALSE LEAK PROBE

The former New York mayor gave no indications of who would hold critical positions in a Trump administration, saying that campaign manager KellyAnne Conway would be "a good choice" for chief of staff, while New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would be "fabulous" as head of the Department of Homeland Security.

Giuliani also described watching the election returns with the GOP nominee at Trump Tower.

"[Trump] was very calm. I think he realized the turning point [was] when the exit polls turned out to be so far off our own calculations," he said. "Once he saw Florida turn and he knew he had Ohio  I always believed if he won Florida and Ohio the rest will fall in."
In the cornucopia of pro-Clinton polling that preceded the 2016 presidential election, two polls stood out as outliers: the USC/LA Times tracking poll and the Investor's Business Daily/TIPP tracking poll.

Both polls attempted to measure the national popular vote, but wound up capturing the scale of Donald Trump's victory in the Electoral College.

"As far as I was concerned, I was anticipating a Trump win," said Raghavan Mayur, President of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, which conducts the IBD/TIPP poll. The final poll, released on Election Day, showed Trump with a two-percentage point lead over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Mayur compared Tuesday's election to 2004, when enthusiasm among Republicans helped George W. Bush get re-elected president despite exit polls favoring then-Sen. John Kerry. He also saw "very robust enthusiasm" for Trump among independents, which canceled out the registration advantage held by Democrats.

"Since Sept. 1, the number of Republicans [in the poll sample] was much higher than the number of Democrats," Mayur said. "It was a new phenomenon in the data [and] I was not sure what is happening here."

"Day after day, I was weighing down Republicans until the final four or five days [of the race]," Mayur continued. "What I am seeing is ... a good amount of enthusiasm ... so I was going to predict who would show up."

"Polling is as much an art as science," said IBD Commentary Editor Terry Jones. "It requires judgement ... [Mayur] sort of sensed this move and our polling responded to great enthusiasm.

"If you turn [voters] out, you'll get them enthused, and last night we saw that."

The USC/LA Times tracking poll, notable for interviewing the same 3,200 respondents over a period of several months, gave Trump a 3.2-percentage point lead the day before the election. Since it premiered in early July, the poll results were about six percentage points more favorable to the real estate mogul than the national average.

"To be honest, I was surprised," University of Southern California economist Arie Kapteyn, who developed the poll, told the Los Angeles Times. "I thought Clinton would win. But that shouldnt change the numbers."

The poll surveyed voters on their likelihood, on a scale of 0-100, of supporting a certain candidate, as well as their likelihood of actually going to the polls. That helped Kapteyn and colleague Jill Darling detect white voters who sat out the 2012 election, but broke for Trump on Election Day.

The pollsters' decision to weigh the sample based on voters' self-reported 2012 choices raised eyebrows and skewed the results toward Trump, according to former U.S. Treasury economist Ernie Tedeschi.

The problem, according to Tedeschi, is that many people will incorrectly claim to have voted for Obama in 2012, when they actually voted for Romney or another candidate.

On Election Day, Tedeschi ran his own version of the poll that gave more weight to census factors, such as marital status. The result showed Clinton leading the popular vote by just under 2 points, closer to the likely final outcome of the election.

"It was an exercise to try to figure out what made the poll an outlier," Tedeschi said. "I actually like the poll [method] a lot.

"If they had looked around and thought 'Boy, we're really out of line' and changed it," he added. "That is in and of itself a form of bias."
New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan won her states U.S. Senate seat, defeating Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte in one of the most expensive races this year.

Ms. Hassan had 48.0% of the vote, compared with 47.9% for Ms. Ayottea difference of just 716 votes with all precincts reportingwhen Ms. Ayotte conceded Wednesday.

It has been a tremendous privilege to serve New Hampshire in the Senate, Ms. Ayotte said in a statement. This is a critical time for New Hampshire and our country, and now more than ever, we need to work together to address our challenges.

Ms. Hassan, a well-liked governor, presented a potent threat to the popular Republican senator from the beginning of her campaign. An early ad depicting her upbeat family getting her son, who has cerebral palsy, off to school showed a warm personal side. Ms. Hassan, 58 years old, also touted her pragmatism, emphasizing themes like cutting wasteful spending, which made her sound almost like a Republican. Breaking with her party, Ms. Hassan was the only Democratic governor to call for a temporary ban on Syrian refugees.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.
Donald Trump's election has thrust Chris Christie into a powerful role as chairman of the president-elect's transition team -- but the governor's growing political baggage has left his own prospects for landing a plum post in the Trump administration in doubt.

So far, Christie's early and unwavering loyalty to Trump ever since the primary campaign has been rewarded. There are no public indications his transition team post is in jeopardy, and Trump expressed gratitude for the New Jersey governor's support in his election night acceptance speech.

Governor Chris Christie, folks, was unbelievable, Trump said. Thank you, Chris.

Trump, after all, knew Christie was politically wounded when he tapped the governor for the vital transition role back in May. Then, Christie was deep in the fallout surrounding Bridgegate  the scandal involving members of Christies staff who shut down several lanes of the George Washington Bridge in September 2013 in order to punish a political rival.

However, in just the past month, two more aides were found guilty of involvement in a trial where Christie's own knowledge of the closures repeatedly was called into question.

The case has been a significant drag on Christies reputation, with a recent poll finding the governors approval rating has sunk to just 21 percent.

"Trump is loyal to his team that helped get him elected. However, the louder the volume in the media about Christie being a liability, the more precarious it will be, Republican strategist Ron Bonjean told FoxNews.com.

Another hurdle for Christie is potential opposition from Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner. As a U.S. attorney, Christie prosecuted Jareds father Charles for witness tampering, tax evasion and illegal campaign contributions  which led to him serving 14 months in jail.

Kushners influence in Trumps inner circle cannot be overstated. In Trumps first meeting with President Obama Thursday, Kushner was seen taking a private walk with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, indicating an enduring role for Kushner as Trump prepares to take office. In July, there were multiple reports that Kushner had been key in dissuading his father-in-law from picking Christie as running mate.

While Christie has been floated as a possible attorney general pick, Bonjean questioned whether he'd get through Senate confirmation. The Senate will remain in Republican hands next year, but their majority is slim.

The transition position is such a short-term assignment that if Trump were to name him to a Cabinet post, the key is whether Christie could survive Senate confirmation because of his Bridgegate troubles. If it looks like a dark prospect, Christie may be asked to take on an outside advisory role, Bonjean said.

Christie, however, has maintained his innocence in the bridge scandal and said on "The Today Show" Thursday that the trials outcome vindicated his actions in the wake of the scandal.

What happened last week with the verdict was they confirmed what I knew and what I did in January of 2014 ... its my view there were three people responsible for what happened there, he said, before noting it was those three who were found guilty.

Christie, once the rising star of the Republican Party, has steadily seen his popularity and status in the party itself decline since the 2012 election.

Though he comfortably won re-election in 2013, he was then hit by the Bridgegate scandal in early 2014. He struggled to gain traction in the 2016 presidential primaries and took heat in some corners for endorsing Trump so soon after dropping out. Others accused him of ignoring his responsibilities in New Jersey in order to dabble in national politics.

At the same time, Christie is now among a select group of high-profile Republicans who whole-heartedly backed the winning candidate.

Pollster Adam Geller, who has done polling for both Christie and the Trump campaign, told FoxNews.com he doesnt believe Christies low numbers will hurt him in the eyes of the new president-elect.

Governor Christies approvals arent what they were two years ago. But in terms of the importance of public polling, President-elect Trump just won an election where polls said hed lose -- he will pay no mind as to what those polls say about Governor Christie in New Jersey.

Geller said that Trump places a lot of value on loyalty, and that bodes well for Christie not only in the months ahead, but for a possible post in the new Trump administration. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Christie was being discussed for a possible job as attorney general, as part of a list being drawn up by the transition team to fill posts in the new administration.

I would speculate that President-elect Trump rewards loyalty and there are few people who have been as loyal as Governor Christie, he said.
Despite the conciliatory tone struck in President-elect Donald Trumps victory speech early Wednesday morning, the man who could run his Justice Department left the door wide open to prosecuting Hillary Clinton.

Rudy Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, New York City mayor and a name on Trump's short list for attorney general, said Wednesday on Fox News' The OReilly Factor that Clinton was a legitimate target to be investigated and disputed that any prosecution would be political payback.

Theres one tradition in America, right? Election is over. We forget about it. There is another tradition in America which is equal justice under the law, Giuliani said. And it would depend on how bad the violations are.

CLINTON AIDE SAYS FOUNDATION PAID FOR CHELSEA'S WEDDING

FBI Director James Comey said on Sunday that recent revelations in the investigation into Clintons private, homebrew server did not cause him to change his recommendation to the Department of Justice to not pursue charges against the former secretary of state.

However, multiple reports indicate some in the FBI are also investigating the Clinton Foundation -- which has been the subject of scrutiny for whether donors got favorable treatment from the Clinton State Department -- something Giuliani noted on OReilly. Giuliani also said during a Thursday morning appearance on Fox & Friends that there were deep, disturbing issues regarding Clintons conduct.

Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, first raised the prospect of prosecuting his Democratic opponent during an Oct. 9 debate.

If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception, Trump told Clinton.

But in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, with the election clinched, Trump gave kudos to Clinton for running a tough campaign, leaving out of his remarks any mention of the various scandals that often peppered speeches at his previous rallies.

I mean, she fought very hard, Trump said to a crowd who, just hours earlier, had chanted Lock her up! when Clinton appeared on a TV screen. Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely.

Also complicating a prospective prosecution is the possibility that President Obama, on his way out of the Oval Office, could preemptively pardon Clinton for any federal crimes she may have committed (state and civil offenses would be exempt from such a pardon). The act would be reminiscent of President Ford pardoning President Nixon for all offenses against the United States during Nixons term in office after Nixon had resigned in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.

Doing so would be a double-edged sword for Obama.

So, the president can offer the pardon but the pardon carries an implication of guilt; if she accepts the pardon, her acceptance carries a confession of guilt, Chapman University Law Professor Ronald Rotunda told FoxNews.com in an email.

Rotunda, however, noted that a pardon of just Clinton would leave any co-conspirators  potentially including former President Bill Clinton and top aides and foundation officials  open to prosecution. And if Clinton hypothetically confessed her guilt in the U.S., Clinton Foundation trustees around the world would also be at risk, according to charity fraud expert Charles Ortel.

Then theres the potential battle over whether such a wide-ranging, non-specific presidential pardon is even legal. Fords pardon of Nixon was not challenged in court; however, Trump or Giuliani, who has been named as a leading attorney general candidate in numerous reports, could seek to do so.

Should Obama pardon Clinton, however, it could also prove beneficial for Trump, sparing the new president from having to undertake a messy and divisive legal fight so early in his administration. But Giuliani said the legal system, not Obama, should make the ultimate call.

Said Giuliani: I think President Obama should leave it to the system we all believe in to determine is she innocent or is she guilty?

FoxNews.coms Malia Zimmerman contributed to this report.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich slammed Republicans who refused to back Donald Trump during the general election as "whiny, sniveling negative cowards" Wednesday night, less than 24 hours after Trump was elected president.

"[A] Donald Trump [administration is] going to be among the most extraordinary, creative, inventive, exciting periods in all of American political history," Gingrich told Fox News' Sean Hannity on "Hannity". "Let [the 'Never Trump' movement] drift off into the ashbin of history while we go ahead and work with Donald Trump and with the House and Senate Republicans to create a dramatically new future."

A number of Republican officials, including Senators Ben Sasse and Mike Lee, refused to back the real estate mogul for president, citing concerns about his temperament and past indiscretions.

Gingrich also warned that some GOP lawmakers would try to sidetrack Trump's agenda in Congress.

"Their technique will be to say Oh, be reasonable. Dont push too hard. Dont force the issue. Find a compromise with Democrats. Maybe he shouldnt name one of the [potential Supreme Court] justices who are conservative whos on his list. Maybe he should find a nice moderate acceptable to the Democrats,'" said Gingrich. "Down that road is a disaster. And so we have to be aware that the danger is not that theyre going to actively fight. The danger is that theyre going to opt for honeyed words of subversion."

Gingrich identified border security and infrastructure as two issues that were likely to be the first priority of a Trump administration.

"I would suggest," he said, "that a really dramatic infrastructure program will get at least half the Democrats to sign up for it and be exactly in the job-creating direction that Donald Trump has talked about for a year-and-a-half.
The Illinois congressman who resigned amid scrutiny of lavish spending  including remodeling his Capitol Hill office in the style of the television series "Downton Abbey"  was indicted Thursday on 24 federal counts ranging from theft of government funds to filing false federal income tax returns.

The 52-page indictment alleges that Aaron Schock spent $40,000 in government funds to redecorate his Washington office, including $5,000 on a chandelier, and asked the House to reimburse him for nearly $30,000 worth of camera equipment. It also accuses him of running up a $140,000 mileage tab over six years, reimbursements for 150,000 more miles than his vehicles actually traveled.

The 35-year-old Republican from Peoria is charged with nine counts of wire fraud, five of falsification of election commission filings, six of filing false federal income tax returns, two of making false statements and one each of mail fraud and theft of government funds. A conviction on just one count of wire fraud alone carries a maximum 20 year prison sentence.

"Mr. Schock held public office at the time of the alleged offenses, but public office does not exempt him or anyone else from accountability for alleged intentional misuse of public funds and campaign funds," the U.S. attorney in Springfield, Jim Lewis, said in a statement announcing the indictment.

Before the charges were announced, Schock's attorney, George Terwilliger, called the indictment a "misuse" of prosecutorial power by the Justice Department.

"This indictment will look bad, but underneath it is just made-up allegations of criminal activity arising from unintentional administrative errors," Terwilliger said in a statement. "These charges are the culmination of an effort to find something, anything, to take down Aaron Schock.

Once a rising star and prodigious fundraiser for the GOP, resigned in March 2015 amid intensifying scrutiny over real estate deals, extensive travel that he documented on his social media accounts and other spending documented by The Associated Press and other media outlets. The reports raised questions about improper mileage reimbursements, trips on donors' aircraft and more.

The former congressman downplayed the allegations in June, saying any wrongdoing was "honest mistakes."

In his own statement Thursday, which was obtained by The Associated Press, Schock said he never intentionally did anything wrong and that he was eager to defend his name and reputation.

"As I have said before, we might have made errors among a few of the thousands and thousands of financial transactions we conducted, but they were honest mistakes  no one intended to break any law," he said.

The charges are the culmination of 19-month investigation that included two grand juries that Schock said "poked, prodded, and probed every aspect of my professional, political, and personal life."

"Like many Americans, I wanted to have faith in the integrity of our Justice Department," he said. "But after this experience, I am forced to join millions of other Americans who have sadly concluded that our federal justice system is broken and too often driven by politics instead of facts."

Schock began his career as a successful 19-year-old write-in candidate for school board and became the youngest legislator ever elected to the Illinois General Assembly at 23. In Congress, he replaced Republican Ray LaHood, who became President Barack Obama's Transportation secretary. Ray LaHood's son, Republican Darrin LaHood, took Schock's congressional seat after a special election in September 2015, following Schock's resignation.
President Obama hosted President-elect Donald Trump at the White House for their first formal meeting Thursday, as the outgoing president and the CEO poised to replace him sought to set aside their many differences and chart a peaceful transition of power in January.

Obama called their discussion "excellent" and "wide-ranging," while stressing the need to "come together" to face common challenges.

Trump called the meeting a great honor and said he looked forward to talking with Obama many, many more times.

I could have gone a lot longer, Trump told reporters of the 90-minute meeting, which originally was planned as a brief sit-down. We discussed a lot of different situations  some wonderful and some difficulties.

It was the first time the president and the president-elect have met face-to-face.

Trump also met with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Trump told reporters they spoke about immigration, health care and big-league jobs.

When a reporter asked if he would ask Congress to ban Muslims -- a reference to his primary campaign pledge, since revised, to suspend Muslim immigration -- Trump said, "Thank you everybody," and walked away.

Earlier at the White House, many anticipated an awkward first meeting between the outgoing and incoming president. Trump was behind the birther controversy where he questioned the citizenship of Obama. Trump also ran on a platform that included repealing and replacing Obamas signature health care law  the Affordable Care Act. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, also has vowed dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

For his part, Obama aggressively campaigned for Hillary Clinton and against Trump in the weeks leading up to the election.

Obama, though, vowed Wednesday and again Thursday to do everything he can to facilitate a peaceful and orderly transition.

First lady Michelle Obama met with Melania Trump privately in the White House residence, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Obama and Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.

The show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought."

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama -- one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
House Speaker Paul Ryan vowed Wednesday to help lead a unified Republican government with Donald Trump as president, promising Americans that the entire party can now work hand in hand to solve the countrys problems.

Ryans remarks extended an olive branch to Trump, the GOP president-elect with whom hes had an up-and-down relationship since the start of the 2016 election cycle.

The Wisconsin congressman and leader of the GOP-controlled House said that hed already spoken twice with Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, a former House member whom Ryan praised for his like-minded conservative principles.

Ryans comments also came before returning to Capitol Hill next week to address challenges like ObamaCare and passing a federal budget to avoid a looming government shutdown. And they came amid a divided House Republican Conference, which had already been at odds over the populist, anti-establishment message that Trump will bring to Washington in January.

With a unified Republican government, we can fix these problems, Ryan said Wednesday at a press conference in Wisconsin. What I see is great potential. What I see is a unified government.

Ryan and Trump have had an uneasy relationship since the start of Trumps improbable outsider campaign, which began with him vanquishing 16 major candidates in the GOP presidential primaries.

The relationship was at its worst in early October when Ryan said he would stop campaigning for Trump after the release of a 2005 audiotape in which Trump is heard making lewd comments regarding women.

However, Ryan voted for Trump and on Wednesday said hed spoken to the president-elect twice since he was declared the winner overnight.

He turned politics on its head, Ryan said from Wisconsin. We will work hand in hand.

He also thanked Trump for pulling several House and Senate Republicans over the finish line this election cycle to give the GOP control of the White House and both chambers.

Donald Trump provided a lot of coattails, Ryan also said.

Still, Ryan returns to Capitol Hill amid a Republican caucus divided over him abandoning Trump in the final stretch of a then-close race with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Ryan, who in fall 2015 accepted the job of leading the GOP-led House, was already under fire from the chambers most conservative wing -- in large part for relying on House Democrats to pass legislation when he couldnt get the support of rank-and-file Republicans.

During the months-long Capitol Hill recess that ends next week, there have been rumblings about detractors trying to end Ryans roughly 14-month-long leadership of the GOP-controlled House.

However, the House Freedom Caucus, part of the chambers most conservative faction, has dismissed news reports about an attempt to replace Ryan.

The group is scheduled to meet Nov. 15, upon returning to Capitol Hill.

Virginia GOP Rep. Dave Brat told FoxNews.com on Wednesday that Ryan had indeed identified that Trump had tapped into something the other politicians had missed. However, he urged the speaker to identify exactly what resonated with voters and present that to them.

We have to put some meat on the bone, said Brat, who in 2014 ousted House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a Tea Party-backed effort in which pollsters also gave him low odds of winning. What is that new thing? What animated this election?

Meanwhile, the conservative group Freedom Works has proposed postponing the House Republicans vote this month to re-appoint Ryan.

The group argues that such a vote should be held after seeing whether Ryan holds to conservative principles during Congress lame duck session. The full vote would be held in January.

Ryan on Wednesday also argued that Republicans, with Trump in the White House, now have the opportunity to repeal and replace ObamaCare, outgoing President Obamas 2010 universal health-care law that has become increasingly expensive for many Americans.

We werent able to pass legislation, but with a unified Republican government, we can fix these problems, he said.

Republicans went into Election Day with a 54-to-46 majority in the Senate, with Democrats needing to gain just five seats to retake control of the chamber.

As of Wednesday, the GOP still had at least a 51-seat majority in the upper chamber.

We look forward to working with him, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday after Trumps victory. Well be enthusiastically supportive of almost all of his things. And when we have differences, we talk about them privately.

Republicans were expected to keep control of the House. They entered Election Day with a 59-seat House advantage, so Democrats would have had to gain 30 seats to take control of the chamber. They were expected to pick up 10 to 20 seats, but gained no more than nine.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., congratulated Trump and urged him to offer a robust infrastructure jobs bill that Congress can quickly pass and to protect and defend Americans in a manner that is strong and smart, and that honors the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform.

Fox News Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
With the presidential election over, the focus in Washington, D.C., can finally turn back to policy and legislation.

Most of the conversations between President-elect Trump and Congress will probably involve immigration, health care, the economy and other similarly high-profile issues. But the nation's future path in space will also be under consideration  and it will probably generate some spirited debate.

One of the hottest topics will likely be the direction of NASA's human-spaceflight program, said Brian Weeden, a technical adviser for the nonprofit Secure World Foundation. [Gallery: 50 Years of Presidential Visions for Space Exploration]

In his first term, President Barack Obama canceled George W. Bush's moon-oriented Constellation program and instructed NASA to get astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

To meet the first part of that directive, NASA devised the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which will pluck a boulder off a near-Earth asteroid using a robotic probe. This spacecraft will then haul the boulder to lunar orbit, where it will be visited by astronauts.

But ARM has its share of detractors, and some of them occupy positions of power on Capitol Hill. For example, earlier this year, the House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee proposed denying funding to the mission.

"The Committee believes that neither a robotic nor a crewed mission to an asteroid appreciably contribute[s] to the overarching mission to Mars," committee members wrote in a report. "Instead, NASA is encouraged to develop plans to return to the moon to test capabilities that will be needed for Mars, including habitation modules, lunar prospecting and landing and ascent vehicles."

This asteroid-versus-moon argument isn't likely to end anytime soon, especially since most of the international human-spaceflight community prefers the lunar option, Weeden said.

And that brings up another issue, he added: Just how much international cooperation will there be on NASA's envisioned journey to Mars and other big projects? Who will the partners be? Could China be involved, even though U.S. law currently prohibits NASA from working with China to any significant degree?

"That's a very big civil-space public policy question that the next administration will most definitely be tackling," Weeden said last week during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group. [5 Manned Mission to Mars Ideas]

Also potentially on the docket, he said, will be the further mapping out of NASA's relationship with the private sector.

The George W. Bush and Obama administrations set NASA on a path that hands over many activities in low-Earth orbit (LEO) to private companies, theoretically freeing up the space agency to focus on more ambitious efforts, like getting people to Mars. For example, SpaceX and Orbital ATK currently fly robotic cargo missions to the International Space Station for NASA, and SpaceX and Boeing should start flying American astronauts to and from the orbiting lab in a year or two.

"That raises a bigger question about, Are there activities NASA has historically done that are perhaps better suited for the private sector to do?" Weeden said. "If so, how do you make that transition, and what does that mean for the future of NASA and NASA's workforce, and how NASA is organized?"

As the cancellation of Constellation and the push to scrap ARM show, NASA is often pulled this way and that by the president and Congress  not an ideal situation for an agency that's trying to plan out a crewed Mars mission and other activities 20 or 30 years in the future. So the next administration may investigate ways to ensure more policy stability for NASA, Weeden said.

The NASA administrator is currently nominated by, and serves at the pleasure of, the president. Some people have suggested that the NASA chief should instead be appointed by a panel, and/or serve a fixed term. Such changes would help shield the agency from partisan politics, the idea goes.

There are other important space-policy questions that must be dealt with at some point, Weeden said. For example, which federal agency (or agencies) should regulate the nascent asteroid-mining industry and other near-future space activities, such as private space stations and commercial moon outposts? Should the United States be in charge of cleaning up space junk, or should an international coalition lead this effort?

Then there's the national-security realm. Much of the United States' military might is based on the nation's dominance in space; for example, sharp-eyed spy satellites often give American warfighters a clearer view of the battlefield than their adversaries can get.

But other countries are increasingly contesting this dominance by developing their own advanced spacecraft and, in some cases, anti-satellite capabilities, experts have said.

"There's much more of a case that in future conflicts, there's probably going to be a space element of the conflict," Weeden said.

So the U.S. military is assessing how best to deal with this developing situation, he added.

"There's a discussion about, should the U.S. develop new offensive counterspace capabilities of its own, in part to deter adversaries, or perhaps to counter their own capabilities?" Weeden said. "And related to that: How might the U.S. deter potential adversaries such as Russia and China from kinetic attacks on space [assets] in a future conflict? And then, how best to leverage commercial industries and allies in that mix of resilience and assurance?"

President-elect Trump and Congress will therefore have a lot to talk about when it comes to space. And they may have fewer arguments than we're used to seeing, now that the presidency, House and Senate are all in Republican hands.
Dead puffins are washing up on the shores of an island in the Bering Sea at an alarming rate, National Geographic reports. "In 10 years of monitoring, we've only seen six puffins wash intotal," a professor who coordinates a West Coast volunteer bird-monitoring network says.

In just shy of three weeks, they've seen 250. Scientists believe the actual number of dead puffins is much higher, to the point that half the puffin population in the North Pacific may be dead.

The cause is no great mystery: The birds are simply starving to death. And scientists are concerned what that means for other animal populations in the Bering Sea, which provides a good chunk of North America's seafood, from crab to salmon to the pollock found in fish sticks.

The culprit appears to be water temperatures that were "off-the-charts warm" this year, according to NOAA ecologist Nata Mantua. Even the normally chill water found at the bottom of the Bering Sea was 6 degrees Celsius above normal.

The warm water not only killed off the fatty zooplankton fish rely on for food, but almost all zoo plankton; that hurt fish populations, which meant less food for mammals and birds.

In August, the Portland Press Herald reported on the woes plaguing the largest puffin colony in the Gulf of Maine. On Machias Seal Island, 60% of puffin nests that hold eggs produce viable chicks who ultimately enter the sea; this year it was 12%, and those who didn't starve to death were notably small.

Scientists theorize a warming gulf impacted the food supply there, too. (There's other drama happening at Machias Seal Island.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: Puffins Are Starving to Death in Incredible Numbers
The historic eruption of the Greek volcano Thera in about 1650 B.C. triggered massive tsunamis and led to the end of the dominant civilization in the Mediterranean. Now, researchers say these destructive tsunamis may have been generated by the flow of volcanic material into the sea, challenging previous explanations, according to a new study.

Studies of the Bronze Age disaster led scientists to think the collapse of the volcanic crater (called the caldera) into the sea caused tsunamis after the eruption of Thera, on the island now known as Santorini. However, in the new study, scientists used volcanic and seismic data, along with detailed mapping of the seafloor, to disprove this theory and offer a new explanation.

Their research revealed that the caldera was not connected to the sea when it collapsed and, therefore, could not have caused the tsunamis. Instead, the researchers propose that large volumes of volcanic material flowing rapidly into the sea could have displaced enough water to create tsunamis. [The 11 Biggest Volcanic Eruptions in History]

Pyroclastic flows are fast-moving currents of volcanic material (rock fragments; lava; and hot, expanding gases) that flow down a volcano after an eruption. These flows can reach scorching temperatures of more than 750 degrees Fahrenheit and move at speeds of up to 45 mph, the researchers said. As this material flows into the ocean, it solidifies and displaces massive amounts of water, they added.

"This violent entry of the pyroclastic flows into the sea triggered more than one tsunami," said study lead author Paraskevi Nomikou, a geologist and oceanographer at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece.

Deposits of volcanic material up to 200 feet thick were found offshore Santorini, supporting the new theory, the researchers said.

Another famous volcano similarly triggered tsunamis: the eruption of Krakatoa, in Indonesia, in 1883. Tsunamis following the explosive Krakatoa eruption occurred when pyroclastic flows entered the sea, not because the caldera collapsed, Nomikou said. This well-recorded eruption caused more than 35,000 deaths and has been studied extensively by volcanologists. But the eruption of Thera may have been many times larger, and more destructive, according to the new study.

In fact, the eruption of Thera did more than blow a hole into the island and trigger tsunamis and flooding. The eruption also set off the decline of the Minoan culture, the dominant civilization in the Mediterranean at the time, the researchers said.

"The eruption was the beginning of the end of the Minoan civilization," Nomikou told Live Science. "The eruption occurred in 1650 B.C., and the end of the Minoan civilization was at 1450 [B.C.], so the civilization was destroyed completely, disappeared completely after 200 years."

To further understand just how violent and destructive the eruption of Thera was, Nomikou and her colleagues plan to continue their research on the pyroclastic flows.

"We know now that these flows caused so much damage in the area around Santorini like in Crete," Nomikou said. "So we need to better understand these flows and have the total volume of the eruption, because we believe that this was the most catastrophic event during the last 10,000 years."

The new research was detailed in a study published online in the journal Nature.

Original article on Live Science.
Donald Trump victory in Tuesdays presidential election is already being met with mixed reactions from leaders around the world.

But the New York businessman's big win could be a tourism boon to one Central European country in particular.

Thats the hope of some in the small Slovenian town of Sevnica, the birthplace of future first lady Melania Trump.

Already a success? Trump uses official DC hotel opening to plug brand triumphs

Sometimes the pressure of the media was too hard. The people of Sevnica are not used to it. On the other hand, the global attention is positive because Sevnica is developing into a tourist destination, Sevnica mayor Srecko Ocvirk told Reuters Wednesday.

The town, which has fewer than 5,000 people, is located in the foothills of the Alps, and has largely operated under the radar of foreign visitors until recently. But local residents supported Trumps campaign, Ocvirk said. And now, with the defeat of Hillary Clinton, Ocvirk says Sevnica is very satisfied with the result.

Melania Knauss was born in Slovenia in 1970 and lived in an apartment block in Sevnica before her modeling career took her to Milan and, later, to the U.S.

After being thrust into the national spotlight, Trump's wife has wrought renewed interest in the small European country. Slovenia, a former Yugoslav republic is about the size of New Jersey, has a population of around 2 million people.

Inside the Benjamin, Trump's DC hotel bar that serves wine by the spoon

While Trumps win may help boost foreign foot traffic in Slovenia, foreign arrivals to the U.S. may be headed on a downward trajectory.

According to the Independent, a top travel industry figure has cautioned that prospective British visitors to the U.S. may elect to stay home following Trumps upset win.

Following confirmation of a win for Donald Trump in the presidential election today, were now forecasting an unstable 2017 for U.S. tourism, with over one million UK travelers set to reconsider the country as a holiday destination, said Joel Brandon-Bravo, the U.K. managing director for Travelzoo.

In a Travelzoo survey conducted prior to the election, one in five respondents said they would definitely not consider traveling to America if Trump were to be elected. One in nine, meanwhile, said they would probably not travel to the U.S.
A cruise vacation can be one most inexpensive ways to see several different countries in a short period of time-- if you know how to book your trip.

As is the case with all vacations, travel companies have unofficial secrets that only people in the industry or frequent cruise-goers know. These can vary from what you can get off the menu to getting a good all-inclusive deal.

The cruise industry brings in almost $38 billion annually in the U.S. More than 20 million people go on cruises every year and the numbers are rising.

But how do you know if you're really getting the most bang for your buck?

Passengers can easily spend more than $500 during one week on a cruise, in addition to the $2,000 or more they spend for a cabin. And thats not even including airfare. Life at sea can be affordable--- if you take certain steps to prepare.

Research, but DON'T Book Online

Many deals, including specials for military members, seniors, etc., may not be available online, The Cruise Guys' Stewart Chiron says. Beware of sales with restrictive offers where deposits are non-refundable. Shipboard credits and worthless coupon books are mere distractions. Consider offers based on merit, not hype.

Always Use a Cruise Agent

There isnt one advantage to booking directly with any cruise line, Chiron says. Youll never receive the objective advice that an experienced cruise agent can provide, and a true cruise specialist will be able to match you with the best deal, he adds. Work with them to reduce your costs. Agents are often aware of even better deals on similar ships and sailing dates.

Be Flexible With Your Dates

Similar to when booking a flight, traveling in the middle of the week is less expensive than on Friday night. Cruise prices may vary by ship and sailing date. If possible, check a few dates before and after your desired sailing date to ensure maximum savings, Chiron says.

Book Early

Book your cruise as soon as possible, Chiron says. Some of the most desired specialty itineraries like Europe and Alaska require advance booking to avoid paying higher air and cruise fares. Early booking means larger discounts and better cabin availability. The difference can easily be thousands of dollars.

Consider Travel Insurance

A cruise is an investment of money and time and should be protected, Chiron says. Besides providing protection for cancellation, policies also cover interruption and travel delay and are worth serious consideration. Purchasing travel insurance isnt necessary on most cruises until final payment time as there is no risk up until that point."

More from The Active Times

Disney Cruise Hacks You Need to Know Before Sailing

15 Reasons You Should Never Take a Cruise

The World's Most Dangerous Cruise Ports

15 Things You Should Never do on a Cruise

Be Skeptical About Airfare Deals

Statistics show that 75 percent of airfares booked in conjunction with a cruise are not booked by the cruise lines, Chiron says. Do some research and see if you can save money by buying a package. You dont have control of the schedule and flights can be delayed, Chiron says. As a rule of thumb, do it yourself."

Last-Minute Deals Are Possible, But Risky

Last-minute deals are unlikely but not unheard off. As long as you are very flexible with your dates and can leave at any moment, you may be able to save a lot of money. You can even come across half-off discounts. A seven-day cruise may cost just $1,199, Chiron says. But in general, this is not the 80s, you cant just show up and negotiate a deal, he adds. Ships usually sell in full.

Visit the Spa While in Port

The best day for a deal is when the ship is in port and everybody else is off on excursions, Chiron says. You have more competition when youre at sea  everybody wants a massage. Consider off-peak times and book your service in advance.

Book a Guarantee Cabin

Do the math: Booking a specific cabin may cost about $2,000, while a guarantee cabin is just $900. Ill take my chances, Chiron says. The guarantee cabin means youll get a certain type of cabin. Suite guarantees are always good and you cant go wrong with booking a guarantee room with a balcony. The difference can be hundreds of dollars.

All-Inclusive Is a Very Misleading Term

There really is no such thing, Chiron, says. The price includes the cabin, meals, buffet, room service and certain ship board activities. But you pay extra for the spa, tips, certain restaurants, and casinos. Also, a lot of people dont drink much, so why pay a lot for something youre not going to use? Plus, specific drinks and brands are often not included in the package deals.

Check out more of cruising industry's most shocking secrets.
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A bond hearing is set for an Ohio man accused of trying to travel to Libya to join the Islamic State group.

A federal prosecutor in Columbus says Aaron Daniels wired $250 to an Islamic State group operative in January and told an undercover informant about his interest in traveling overseas to commit jihad.

Daniels' court-appointed attorney has declined to comment.

Daniels was taken into custody Monday at John Glenn Columbus International Airport after a months-long investigation.

Prosecutors want the 20-year-old Daniels kept in jail. Magistrate Judge Terence Kemp scheduled a Thursday morning hearing.
Kirk Douglas has received an early 100th birthday present  an award from the World Jewish Congress for his strong support for Israel, including starring in the first Hollywood feature film shot in the newly established nation.

Ronald Lauder, the organization's president, said Douglas, who was born Dec. 9, 1916, was "always proud of his Jewish roots."

He pointed to Douglas' starring roles as a Holocaust survivor in the 1953 movie "Juggler," and as Jewish U.S. Army Col. David "Mickey" Marcus, who helped save the Jewish state in 1948 in the 1966 movie "Cast A Giant Shadow."

Oscar-winning actor and producer Michael Douglas accepted the award at a dinner at the Pierre Hotel on Wednesday, telling over 400 guests that his father will be "so proud and so humbled."
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The Latest on a downtown Seattle shooting (all times local):

8 p.m.

Authorities say a man escaped on foot after firing into a crowd and wounding five people outside a convenience store in downtown Seattle.

Seattle Assistant Police Chief Robert Merner says four men and one woman were hurt Wednesday evening after an argument of some kind near Pine Street and Third Avenue at a busy intersection.

Merner says all five people shot were taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg told The Associated Press that two men and one woman were in critical condition and that two men were in serious condition Wednesday night.

Merner says authorities were searching for and trying to identify the gunman.

Merner says officers don't believe the incident is related to anti-Trump protests happening near the area at the time.

____

7:30 p.m.

Authorities say five people with gunshot wounds have been taken to a hospital after a shooting in downtown Seattle.

Seattle Police tweeted that officers are investigating the incident which took place Wednesday evening near Pine Street and Third Avenue.

The Seattle Fire Department said on Twitter that two of the five people shot have life-threatening injuries.

No further information was immediately available.
Authorities in California found no evidence of gunfire after reports of shots fired at LA Valley College on Wednesday night.

Los Angeles police began to scale back their presence at around 9 p.m. after investigating reports that shots had been fired on the Valley Glen campus. Several buildings had been evacuated.

LA Valley College said on Twitter that the school was placed on lock down at around 7:30 p.m. At least 30 patrol cars arrived on campus.

Police began doing a room-by-room search, officials said.

Click for more from CBS Los Angeles.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has warned more than 2,100 veterans in Eastern Colorado and parts of Kansas that their personal information may have been compromised when an employee emailed documents to himself.

An agency employee told The Associated Press that he is the person who emailed the information to himself, describing it as unauthorized wait lists used by VA health care facilities in Colorado. The employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears retaliation, said he wanted to document the lists because they could have been used to conceal lengthy delays in providing care.

In Wednesday's warning to veterans, the VA said the potentially compromised information included veterans' full names, the last four digits of their Social Security numbers and medical diagnoses. The agency said the employee emailed it to himself in unencrypted form.

The VA said it is investigating. The agency didn't identify the employee.

The VA's internal watchdog, the Office of Inspector General, announced last month it was looking into the employee's claims at the request of Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Cory Gardner of Colorado.

Johnson and Gardner said the employee came to them with the allegations and described him as a whistleblower. The whistleblower also provided redacted copies of the information to The AP.

The VA said Wednesday that it takes the allegations of unauthorized wait lists very seriously and will work with the inspector general.

Unofficial wait lists have been used by VA facilities elsewhere to hide how long it takes veterans to get health care appointments. The discovery of the lists created a nationwide scandal when 40 veterans died while waiting for appointments at a Phoenix VA hospital.

The scandal led Congress to fund the Veterans Choice program, which allows veterans to seek private care at government expense if they have waited 30 days or longer. It also led to the ouster of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

Wait times have been an issue in Colorado as well. In February, the inspector general said workers at a Colorado Springs VA clinic reported some veterans got appointments sooner than they actually did, while at least 288 people had to wait longer than the 30-day target. Investigators didn't say whether the records were deliberately falsified.

The inspector general's office said in May that it found no indication of improper scheduling lists at an endoscopy clinic in Grand Junction and clinics for prosthetics and audiology in Denver.

___

Follow Dan Elliott at http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/dan-elliott
The gunman who opened fire on two police officers southwest of Pittsburgh, killing one and wounding the other, apparently killed himself in the home where he was hiding out Thursday morning, CBS Pittsburgh reported.

The gunman, named by local media as Michael Cwiklinski, was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside the house in the town of Canonsburg. Police also recovered the body of a woman who was six months pregnant and had a Protection From Abuse order against the suspected killer.

POLICE SEE HEIGHTENED THREAT OF AMBUSH

State Police Trooper Melinda Bondarenka told reporters that the officers were immediately met with gunfire when they arrived at the scene at about 3:15 a.m. Bonderanka said the police were ambushed upon their arrival.

Neighbors told reporters that police were often called to fights at the home where the shooting unfolded.

PSP Tpr. Melinda Bondarenka speaking about two officers shot in Canonsburg pic.twitter.com/bhuxh0SBUV  Megan (@meganguzaTrib) November 10, 2016

CONVICTED FELON WHO KILLED ARIZONA POLICE OFFICER IS SHOT DEAD AFTER STANDOFF

The officer who died was identified as 52-year-old Scott Leslie Bashioum, according to the CBS report. He died at a nearby hospital.

The scene was chaotic, according to witnesses.

It woke me from bed about 3:30, 4 oclock this morning, one neighbor told the station. I could hear what I thought was firecrackers and then I heard somebody say, My partners down, or something like that. Then, all hell broke loose. I had my porch light on and he came and told us to turn the light off and stay put.

Classes at nearby schools were delayed or canceled amid the heavy police presence. Homes in the Canonsburg area were evacuated.

Last week, a New York City police sergeant was shot and killed and a second one was wounded in a gunfight on a street with an armed man who had broken into his estranged wife's home.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Authorities in Seattle were searching for a gunman Thursday who opened fire on a group of people outside a convenience store after an argument, wounding five people.

Four men and a woman were hurt outside a 7-Eleven near a busy bus stop, Seattle Assistant Police Chief Robert Merner said.

"There was some type of argument that took place, a suspect walked away and then fired into crowd striking those individuals," Merner said.

Two men were in serious condition in intensive care Thursday at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle but their conditions had been upgraded from critical, said spokeswoman Susan Gregg. A woman and a man were in satisfactory condition at the hospital and a man was released.



The five people who were shot range in age from 20s to 50s and sustained injuries to their legs, chest and neck, Gregg said.

Authorities were searching for and trying to identify the gunman who ran from the scene, Merner said. Streets in the area were closed while police investigated and interviewed witnesses.

Merner said officers didn't believe the incident was related to anti-Trump protests happening near the area at the time.

"As far as we know, it seems to be a personal argument," he said.

Members of the police's gang unit and homicide unit were assisting in the investigation, according to Q13 Fox.

The manager of the 7-Eleven, Sharon Keith, told reporters she heard what sounded like firecrackers and told everyone to get down while she went to lock the door.

She said she could see multiple people on the ground outside afterward.

"How do you describe that, there were multiple people down, a lot of blood," she said, her voice breaking.

Police were also investigating an exchange of gunfire earlier in the day in Seattle that wounded two men.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said in a statement Wednesday night that he was thankful all the victims were alive and receiving treatment.

"Seattle Police do not currently believe the shootings are linked, nor do they believe there is any tie to tonight's march," Murray said. "However, gun violence remains an epidemic in our country that we must work to address in any way we can. Today's shootings are a reminder of how much work we have left to do."

Click for more from Q13 Fox.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A man has been sentenced to at least 14 years in prison for his role in the killing of a 13-year-old Detroit boy who was abducted, beaten and choked after he picked up money that he found on the ground.

Earnest Coleman returned to court Thursday, less than a month after pleading guilty to torture and illegal possession of a gun.

Deontae Mitchell's body was discovered in a vacant lot in Detroit last May. Police say he was grabbed after picking up money outside a market.

Two more people will be sentenced on Nov. 18. Gregory Walker and Lillian Roberts pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and kidnapping, although Roberts' sentence is likely to be lower.

Walker's plea deal calls for 40 to 60 years in prison.
Dozens of members of the Delta chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi at Tufts University quit in protest after its national headquarters denied a prospective member because they identified as transgender.

One member, Kristin Reeves, told New England Cable News that the national headquarters told the Tufts chapter that accepting a transgender student wouldve infringed on the organizations Title 9 status as a single-sex organization. Reeves and 46 others decided to quit in protest.

"The reality is they threatened to sue us," Reeves told the station. "They had to question whether or not they wanted to allow a transgender woman." She added that the headquarters eventually had allowed the transgender student to join the chapter, but the damage was already done.

However, Alpha Omicron Pi denied threatening to sue the Tufts chapter and denied that they discriminated against the transgender student.

"We're hoping to move on from this event and that we will come with a very well-researched and organized policy in the future," spokesperson Courtney West said.

The anonymous student wrote an op-ed piece in the Tufts Daily, the schools newspaper, thanking the sorority who stood up for her.

Alpha Omicron Pi is a Tennessee-based and has 139 chapters in the U.S. and Canada.

Click for more from NECN.
The husband of a Northern California mom who vanished while jogging passed a polygraph test and "has no involvement" with his wife's disappearance, the Shasta County Sheriff's Office confirmed on Wednesday.

Sherri Papini, 34, was last seen going for a jog Nov. 2 in the town of Mountain Gate in Shasta County. Her husband found her phone and investigators said they spotted her earbuds along with strands of her hair, but other clues have been few and far between.

MISSING TEXAS TEEN'S BOYFRIEND DETAINED; 2 OF HER RELATIVES FOUND SHOT TO DEATH

Her husband, Keith Papini, reported her missing when he came home from work and discovered that she hadn't picked up their two children, ages 2 and 4, from daycare.

"Sheriff's Office Detectives have confirmed his whereabouts on the day in question and there is no physical evidence at this time suggesting he had any involvement," Lt. Anthony Bertain said.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT RELATIVE CHARGED WITH KILLING 10-YEAR-OLD TEXAS GIRL FOUND IN WELL

Relatives said they believed somebody kidnapped the mother and took her out of town. Still, investigators say they're working to determine whether or not her disappearance was "voluntary," the Redding Record Searchlight reported.

Papini is described as being 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighing about 100 pounds. She was last seen wearing pink running clothes, deputies said.

The sheriff's office is dedicating nearly all its investigators to the case as well as some Redding police detectives, the newspaper added.

Officials announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts. Police say they have received more than 200 tips since Papini vanished.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An Ohio man accused of trying to travel to Libya to join the Islamic State group has been formally indicted.

A federal prosecutor in Columbus says Aaron Daniels wired $250 to an IS group operative in January and told an undercover informant about his interest in traveling overseas to commit jihad.

The 20-year-old Daniels was taken into custody Monday at John Glenn Columbus International Airport after a monthslong investigation.

An indictment Thursday charged Daniels with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

A message was left with Daniels' court-appointed attorneys.

Daniels remains in jail while his lawyers and prosecutors file arguments over holding him without bond or putting him on home arrest with electronic monitoring.
A Fort Worth police officers 8-year-old daughter is touching several hearts with a simple handwritten note she wrote for her dad as he traveled to a fellow officers funeral.

In the age of social media and texts, 8-year-old Emily still believes in writing a handwritten note. Before her dad, Fort Worth Police Sgt. Pablo Mendoza, left to attend a New York police officers funeral, she slipped a note she wrote on one of her index cards into his suitcase.

The note read:

Dear Dad, Im sorry about NYPD officer. I pray and hope this violence stops. You are my hero. Be careful and be safe. Grace, Mom and I are going to miss you. WE LOVE YOU!!

Mendoza traveled to New York with three other Fort Worth officers for the funeral of Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo, who was shot and killed last week. Mendoza said when he found his daughters note, it brought tears to his eyes.

"My daughters, they see the news and what's going on  the violence toward police, Mendoza said. So they pray for me and other police officers on a nightly basis."

Click for more from Fox 4.
With tens of thousands of people taking to the streets to protest Donald Trumps presidential election victory, questions are swirling about whether the anger is as organic as advertised.

From coast to coast, demonstrators are burning flags and effigies of the president-elect while declaring that they refuse to accept Trumps victory. But observers online are claiming that, in some cases, protesters were bused to the scenes - a telltale sign of coordination.

Anti-Trump protestors in Austin today are not as organic as they seem, one local in the Texas capitol tweeted Wednesday, along with photos offered as evidence.

Anti-Trump protestors in Austin today are not as organic as they seem. Here are the busses they came in. #fakeprotests #trump2016 #austin pic.twitter.com/VxhP7t6OUI  erictucker (@erictucker) November 10, 2016

Others claimed to have found ads posted on CraigsList in which a Seattle-based non-profit was soliciting Full-Time Activists.

We are looking for motivated individuals who are seeking Full-Time, Part-Time, and Permanent positions, reads a line from the ad from Washington CAN! posted on Wednesday.

Rumors have also been circulating that the new batch of anti-Trump protesters has been bankrolled by individuals like billionaire liberal activist George Soros and groups like Moveon.org.

WTF, @georgesoros busing in & paying #protestors to destroy cities is domestic #terrorism. #fakeProtests #BlueLivesMatter have tough days, read one tweet in response to the viral picture of buses in Austin.

Another theory floated on social media is that many of the signs that were distributed at rallies across the country appeared to be exactly the same, indicating they were printed and distributed by an organized group.

Trump tweeted about the protesters Thursday night:

Wednesdays protests occurred in nearly every major city, and more are expected to come in the days leading up to President-elect Donald Trumps inauguration.

Some of the most troubling dissent was in the city of New

Orleans where protesters wound up defacing the Lee Memorial, spray painting Die Whites Die and F--- Trump and F--- White People.

Other messages scrawled on the memorial included "F--- Pence" and "We are ungovernable" next to a symbol of the letter "A" in a circle -- protester shorthand for anarchy.

In Chicago, several thousand people marched through the Loop. They gathered outside Trump Tower, chanting Not my president! One resident, Michael Burke, told The Associated Press that the president-elect will divide the nation and stir up a deep-seated hatred.

Hundreds of protesters gathered near Philadelphia's City Hall despite chilly, wet weather. Participants  who included both supporters of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost to Clinton in the primary  expressed anger at both Republicans and Democrats over the election's outcome.

In Boston, thousands of anti-Trump protesters streamed through downtown, chanting "Trump's a racist," and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump" and "Abolish Electoral College." Clinton appeared to be on pace to win the popular vote, despite losing the electoral count that decides the presidential race.

In the Midwest, protesters gathered in Minneapolis, Omaha, Nebraska and Kansas City. Mo. The Des Moines Register also reported that Iowas capital city saw some people protest as well, though it was kept to small numbers.

On the West Coast, some of the protests became unruly with fires being started. Thousands of protesters burned a giant papier mache Trump head in Los Angeles and started fires in Oakland intersections.

Los Angeles demonstrators also beat a Trump pinata and sprayed the Los Angeles Times building and news vans with anti-Trump profanity. One protester outside LA City Hall read a sign that simply said "this is very bad."

Late in the evening Wednesday, several hundred people blocked one of the city's busiest freeways, U.S. 101 between downtown and Hollywood.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Portuguese rule in Angola ended in 1975, but separatists in one Angolan province want the former colonizers to return.

The Portuguese news agency Lusa reported Thursday that a separatist group in Angola's oil-rich Cabinda province wants Portugal to oversee a referendum there on the region's political future.

Militants of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda have carried out kidnappings and other attacks over the years. They say the Cabinda enclave was never part of Angolan territory.

Governments in Portugal, a major trade partner of Angola, have not commented in recent years on the claims and demands of Cabindan separatists.

Lusa reports that the Angolan interior minister, Angelo da Veiga Tavares, said last month that the situation in Cabinda is calm despite "speculation" about alleged rebel operations.
An Afghan official says the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif has come under attack.

Sher Jan Durrani, the spokesman for the police chief of Balkh province, said Friday a gun battle is going on at the consulate.

The Taliban issued a statement saying they had sent suicide attackers to the consulate.

Walter Hassmann, the German ambassador to Afghanistan, says the "incident is ongoing" and provided no further details.

Residents in the city reported hearing a huge explosion near the consulate which shattered windows in buildings nearby.

Germany has 938 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh, as part of NATO's Resolute Support mission.

The Taliban's insurgency has spread from their southern heartland across the country in the past two years.
Iran violated one of the terms of its nuclear deal signed with six world powers by exceeding a limit on its heavy water stockpile, according to a report from United Nations monitors on Wednesday -- the same day the rogue nation demanded the U.S. stick to the deal, no matter what.

The confidential report by the U.N.'s atomic watchdog, seen by The Associated Press, came out shortly after Iran issued its warning to the U.S. following the election of Donald Trump. The president-elect earlier described the Iran agreement as "the worst deal ever negotiated."

PUTIN CONGRATULATES TRUMP VIA TELEGRAM AS WORLD LEADERS REACT TO ELECTION VICTORY



The deal specifies a heavy water limit of 143.3 tons. The International Atomic Energy Agency report found that Iran's stockpile exceeded that amount by 0.10 metric tons. It marked the second time Iran stepped over the limit, according to investigators.

Heavy water is a potential proliferation concern because it is used in reactors that produce substantial amounts of plutonium, a potential path to nuclear weapons.

IRANIAN THUG BLINDED FOR THROWING ACID IN 4-YEAR-OLD GIRL'S FACE

The report noted that Tehran had announced plans to export 5.5 tons to an unspecified country, bringing it back under the limit -- but did not specify which nation would receive that shipment.

The State Dept. acknowledged that under Trump, the U.S. could move to scrap the deal. However, it could easily rankle European nations who signed on and already started doing business with the Islamic Republic, USA Today notes.

In addition, analysts warn the move could deal a blow to Shiite militias fighting the Islamic State in Iraq. Iran continues to support the Shiite fighters.

"It's important to note that Iran made no effort to hide this, hide what it was doing from the IAEA," State Dept. spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

Iran also overstepped the limit in February, the IAEA added.

Meanwhile, the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces criticized Trump for the president-elect's harsh words about confronting Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri said, "The person who has recently achieved power, has talked off the top of his head! Threatening Iran in the Persian Gulf is just a joke."

He said American presidential candidates during their campaigns "eat too much sugar," a reference to a Farsi proverb about people who talk nonsense.

In September, Trump said Iranian ships trying to provoke the U.S. "will be shot out of the water." In January, Iran took 10 American sailors prisoner after their ship veered off course into Iranian waters; they were released a day later.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency is reporting that the armed forces chief of staff has criticized Donald Trump for his past harsh words about confronting Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf.

The Thursday report quotes Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri as saying, "The person who has recently achieved power, has talked off the top of his head! Threatening Iran in the Persian Gulf is just a joke."

He said American presidential candidates during their campaigns "eat too much sugar," a reference to a Farsi proverb about those who talk nonsense.

In September, Trump said Iranian ships trying to provoke the U.S. "will be shot out of the water."

In January, Iran took 10 American sailors prisoner ship veered off course into Iranian waters; they were released a day later.
The Russian and Israeli leaders have declared themselves partners in a battle against global terrorism.

Dmitry Medvedev told his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, that terrorism threatens Israel in a "very unique way." But Russia also suffers from terror with what he called "common roots," he added at a meeting in Jerusalem on Thursday.

"This is why there is a need to fight terror together," Medvedev said.

Netanyahu said the two countries, along with the United States and other nations, share a struggle against radical Islam and the Islamic State group.

Netanyahu also said Israel would not allow Iran to turn neighboring Syria into a base of military operations. Both Russia and Iran have backed Syrian President Bashar Assad in his war against rebel groups.
A driving storm had just swept through a sprawling refugee camp in the small Iraqi-Kurdistan border town of Zakho, and while the other children his age squealed as they played in the puddles outside, 8-year-old Zed sat with his back against his family's tent wall, arms folded, eyes angry.

"We are trying to convert him back to Yazidi, his mother, Seve, told FoxNews.com. But sometimes he does not agree. When he gets angry, he recites verses from the Koran.

"And he yells we should never have escaped, we should never have come back here," she added.

Zeds entire family, including his mother, father and three sisters, were ambushed and captured by ISIS while fleeing the terror army as it overran their village near Sinjar two years ago. They were made to convert to Islam, traded at the market for the equivalent of $50, and moved from Mosul to Raqqa. There, Seve was held as a sex slave as her young girls - now between 5 and 10 years old, including one with special needs - looked on, their tiny bodies starved and beaten.

Seves husband has not been heard from since. Zed was forced into a "caliphate cubs" jihadist training camp.

"They were breaking his teeth every day, his teeth are all broken. They took him to training and were making him use a large weapon for three to four hours a day," Seve said. "Only, he was too small. He couldn't hold the weapon, let alone shoot it. Eventually they brought him back to me. But normally, those children are never coming back."

She doesn't know how long her family was in the grip of ISIS, her recollection dulled by the fear and hopelessness of the ordeal.

Zed is not the only one whose brainwashing remains effective. Many of the returnees still adhere to the Muslim call to prayer when it chimes from a nearby mosque. Many forget what it means to be Yazidi. And many are extremely violent toward their loved ones.

"He beats his siblings," Seve continued, as her silent son fidgeted and slumped in the corner.

With the assistance of smugglers and a network of rescuers, the family finally made it out of Syria and to the relative safety of the camp on June 2. They are now safe, but the family may never be whole again.

For every Yazidi in Iraq, life is made up of two parts. There is the quiet, peaceful farming life in mountain villages before Aug. 3, 2014, and then there is the lesser life from that day on - the day the genocide of their ancient religion at the fist of ISIS systematically started.

Their men are missing and in many cases, presumed dead. Their women have endured the unspeakable degradation of sexual slavery. There homes have been destroyed. And many children of this ancient faith which predates Islam and Christianity, have become terrorists, weaponized against the people they once loved, and who still love them.

The Yazidi boys were turned against their own by twisted training regimes that included Islamist indoctrination, weapons instruction and classes on the finer points of beheading and becoming suicide bombers and human shields.

Now housed in camps, their homes sacked and destroyed, the peaceful, traditional community is trying to heal with next to no help.

"Psychologically, they are hurting. They have been influenced a lot, especially the young boys [ages] four to five," said Hussein Al-Qaidy, director of the Office of Kidnapped Affairs, which operates under the Kurdish Regional Government's Prime Minister's Office. "They forget how to speak Kurdish. Some still insist on praying five times a day. Many no longer have fathers and mothers. This is a difficult thing."

According to Al-Qaidy, they formerly had a few basic program agreements with European non-governmental organizations for help in de-radicalization. But funding has dried up, and this devastated, endangered ethnic populace is broken and largely on its own.

As it stands, there are just over 700 children who have been rescued or fled ISIS camps, with thousands still missing. According to one Kurdish official, ISIS operatives have been busy shuffling many of these boys to Raqqa in recent days as Iraqi forces move into Mosul. But, Al-Qaidy said, many of these minors are being executed or used as cannon fodder by the brutal terrorists.

Al-Qaidys office, a cement building nearby in Duhok's city center, is the hub of functions in the war with ISIS that is as somber as it is necessary. People, mostly Yazidi, float through the tiny waiting room looking for news on their loved ones, their eyes haunting and desperate.

One aging man, dressed in his finest suit, pulls out his phone and starts showing us photographs of smiling children. All eight have been missing since ISIS marauded through their village three summers ago. Another man, in farmers trousers, stares out into the desert sunshine - nervously pulling at strands of hair.

At the office, a rescued boy named Ahmed, who is 16, but looks no older than 12, lifts his shirt. It has been more than 18 months since he and his little brother escaped the jihadist bivouac, walking days in the sweltering Iraq heat and finally reaching safety, and yet his ribs are still raw and blue from the daily lashings.

The timid, gentle teen drew a picture for FoxNews.com. In black ink, it showed an ISIS member holding up the jihadist flag. Switching to a red pen, he drew a large X through it. But Ahmed is a rare exception  a teenage Yazidi boy who made it through ISIS captivity with his heritage intact.

These young, conscripted jihadists pose a real threat to their friends and families, yet community leaders are firm in welcoming them back. They hope more boys will return after the liberation of Mosul and then Raqqa, ISIS Syrian stronghold. Time, and the embrace of their people, will heal the boys, they believe.

"These children are victims, what happened to them was not their fault," Al-Qaidy said.

Baba Chawish, a leading Yazidi spiritual authority and guardian of their holiest site, Lalish, has repeatedly called for the community not to ostracize the returnees, and ensure they are embraced.

However, the sense of helplessness is at times overwhelming.

"As a community we don't have a problem accepting them back," says Col. Marwan Sabri, who heads the Peshmerga Yazidi brigade in the Northern Iraq area. "But we have no experience in this and no resources to help. We don't know how to help them."

A senior Kurdish intelligence official told FoxNews.com that returning Yazidi boys won't face repercussions despite what they may been made do in the service of ISIS. But the official expressed concern that de-radicalization and psychological help is pivotal.

Atop the barren Sinjar Mountain, where thousands of Yazidis fled amid the ISIS assault and subsequently died of dehydration in the scorch of summer, a 36-year-old Syrian Kurdish nurse named Khansa Ali - a refugee herself from Rojava - is doing her best to save children, working out of a shoebox clinic with a few medicine bottles and beds.

"Psychological problems are the number one thing. They come here - broken and in shock," Ali, who locals call a "hero doctor," said from the clinic, where she lives. "But all we can do is try to sit with them. Talk to them."

And down in the masticated streets of the mountain foot village of Snoni, once occupied by ISIS, local school teachers are encountering similar frustrations. Depression, isolation, fear, says 6th grade teacher Hadi Mured, are just a few of the symptoms plaguing the survivors.

Professional and long-term psychological and de-radicalization programs, experts agree, are desperately needed.

"Many have been forced to kill, and they are now desensitized to killing," said Dr. Anne Speckhard, adjunct associate professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine and director of the International Center for Violent Extremism.

"They will need programs similar to other forcibly conscripted child soldiers. PTSD and deprogramming-type therapy will be needed intensively at the beginning. They will need to be restored to safety and security to be able to participate in therapy in a meaningful way."

That, she noted, is particularly challenging, given that many have lost their family to the genocide.

"But this can be treated," Speckhard said.

As a FoxNews.com reporter rose to leave the humble canvas home, Zed, who has just started first grade at the camp, suddenly - as if slowly warming back to life - had something to say.

Today, he learned the English alphabet, he said. And he wanted to practice it.
The Russian military says extending breaks in the fighting in Aleppo would play into the hands of the militants.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a statement Thursday that the ministry had received a request from U.N. official Jan Egeland to extend the "humanitarian pause" in Aleppo.

Konashenkov criticized the U.N. for failing to make use of the 10-hour pause to deliver aid, despite being given advance notice. He added that extending the halts would only help the "terrorists" restore their capabilities.

Russia has repeatedly introduced such breaks to allow both fighters and civilians to leave Aleppo's rebel-held eastern part. But militants have refused to leave, and during the last such halt on Friday they fired at one of humanitarian corridors, wounding two Russian servicemen.
Spanish police say they have arrested 56 men in a nationwide operation against internet child pornography.

A police statement Thursday said the detainees are suspected of distributing abusive images involving children on peer-to-peer internet file-sharing sites. Those arrested were mostly Spaniards, aged between 40 and 60.

It said officers seized some 170 hard discs and 600 CDs and DVDs containing child pornographic material in nearly 40 house raids.

Police said the arrests took place over several months in provinces across Spain.

The statement said the operation was the result of an 18-month investigation.
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British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson has urged Kosovo to continue its talks with Serbia since both nations "share a vital interest in a normal relationship."

Both nations want to join the 28-nation European Union, although their applications are at different stages.

As part of a Balkans tour, Johnson was in the Kosovo capital of Pristina on Thursday, meeting with top political leaders. He urged them to continue cooperating with the special court on war crime, created last year following pressure from Kosovo's Western backers.

Kosovo broke away from Serbia and declared independence in 2008. Britain was among the first countries to recognize their independence. Now 112 countries do but not Serbia.
A Saturday program at Stratford Hall will focus on Virginias enslaved plantation cooks. Reading about the event reminded me of a conversation at a meeting some 25 years ago.

It took place at another historic home/museum, and centered on whether it was wise to openly discuss what life was like for slaves, as the topic could be upsetting.

The memory of how nervous the discussion made that propertys caretakers seems odd today, when programs about enslaved people on plantations in Virginia and elsewhere are typically some of the most popular.

Yes, the topic is still difficult, as the notion of one group of people owning and using others as tools of commerce is so abhorrent.

And yet, how can we learn from history if we dont consider it?

Stratford Hall, the home of the Lees in Virginia and the birthplace of Robert E. Lee, is offering a unique look at some of the most important slaves on a plantation, the cooks.

The session, scheduled from 10 a.m. until noon Saturday at Stratfords DuPont Library, is called Cooking for the Big House.

It will be presented by historian Kelley Deetz, wholl draw from her work When Her Thousand Chimneys Smoked: Virginias Enslaved Cooks and Their Kitchens.

Jon Bachman, educational events coordinator at Stratford, said Deetz, now a research associate at the James River Institute for Archaeology, will offer a wide-ranging examination of these cooks.

These workers made major contributions to Virginias rich cultural traditions, noted Bachman, who said its hard to overestimate the importance of food and the meals that were at the center of social gatherings in Colonial days.

In a description of her talk, Deetz noted that enslaved cooks in that period were highly skilled, trained and professional at creating meals that made Virginia well known for its cuisine and hospitality.

She added, They were at the core of Virginias domesticity and culinary pride, as well as the center of the plantation community.

Deetz said that archaeological and historical records shed light on the role of the cooks.

The historian, who has a Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and previously taught at the University of Virginia, said much of her talk will be on enslaved cooks in the state of Virginia in general.

Shell also focus on public history narratives and the importance of including the voices of the enslaved, and will make an effort to talk specifically about the kitchens at Stratford.

Deetz said the program will also touch on the myth that enslaved cooks were passive and detached from other plantation slaves and more culturally white. The presentation will include slides.

Shell squeeze in as much as she can about what the lives of plantation cooks were like, covering details like housing, food, talent, family, labor, power and negotiation.

Deetz noted that she typically ends her talks with a public history/plantation museum segment that critiques many museums, while offering advice on how they can improve their narratives.

My pitch is that kitchens, food and enslaved cooks are the gateway drug for people that are uncomfortable discussing slavery in public, she said. We all eat, we all cook, and the legacy of the historical relationships formed during slavery is very well and alive today. These historic kitchens are ideal spaces to bring together diverse groups of people and to share common stories.

Bachman, who with other staffers has made an effort to be inclusive of all races in historical programs that feature Stratford and Westmoreland County, said he thinks its important to tell all of the plantations stories.

Its important to explore our shared history, he said, saying its an exercise that can build bridges within the community.

He said tickets for Saturdays program at Stratfords DuPont Library are $25 a person, that discounts are available for groups and that preregistration is encouraged by calling 804/493-1972 or emailing jbachman@stratfordhall.org.
IC Media Direct - Argues For Prominence of Online Reputation in 21st Century

Optimizing SEO is more fundamental now than it was towards the end of the 20th century, not long after Google launched.

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The importance of building a successful online brand for businesses and individuals has been recently revealed by the leading public relations and reputation management firm, IC Media Direct. Online reputation management is increasingly vital in the 21st Century as more companies understand the importance of focusing on their digital footprint. Rising above the competition is challenging, especially with the quick pace at which technology changes - and the pressure on businesses to keep up.

Optimizing SEO is more fundamental now than it was towards the end of the 20th century, not long after Google launched. Ensuring positive content is in the number one spot is imperative, since 33 percent of people always click on the search engine's top result after inputting a word or term. IC Media Direct emphasizes that businesses and individuals should adapt to new ways of controlling their online reputation through a smart content management plan. In comparison to SEO, content marketing is a relatively new technique, but is also key for companies hoping to create a positive image. It allows firms to take full control of their branding by formulating a distinctive voice and a clear message through content - whether on websites, blogs, or social media platforms - while also promoting their products or services. Trust is key for attracting consumers, and content marketing cultivates a brand that seems reliable and likable while also boosting sales.

IC Media Direct experts advise companies to choose wisely when it comes to connecting with their target customers, with a consistently multiplying array of social media channels to choose from. Teens are moving from sites like Facebook, for example, in favor of newer options like Snapchat and Instagram. With live-streaming apps set to excel in 2016, digital natives are migrating to Periscope in striking numbers. With two decades of experience providing companies with the tools to achieve success, IC Media Direct has in-house staff trained in the latest technological and media advances to provide forward-thinking strategies for brands to utilize in the most effective manner.

Founded in 1996, IC Media Direct is a full-service reputation management, marketing and public relations company. With offices in New York and Washington DC, the firm operates globally, serving a range of clients. Experts in formulating campaigns and navigating SEO, the company has generated effective online reputation management strategies for countless clients, including Olympic athletes, celebrities, politicians and Fortune 500 companies. A leading force within the industry, IC Media Direct is an award-winning firm and has been recognized repeatedly by the Small Business Institute for Excellence in Commerce.

ICMediaDirect - PR and Marketing News: http://icmediadirectnews.com

IC Media Direct Provides Expertise On Ways to Recover From Negative Online Reviews: http://www.nbcrightnow.com/story/33655581/ic-media-direct-provides-expertise-on-ways-to-recover-from-negative-online-reviews

IC Media Direct -- Reputation Management -- ICMediaDirect Experts Highlight Significance of Google Reputation: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/ic-media-direct-reputation-management-icmediadirect-experts-highlight-significance-google-2120113.htm

For more information, please visit http://www.ICMediaDirect.com

Contact Info:

Name: ICMD

Email: pr@icmediadirect.com

Organization: ICMediaDirect.com

Phone: (800) 595-0821

Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3QHOeY8qAM

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/ic-media-direct-argues-for-prominence-of-online-reputation-in-21st-century/144829

Release ID: 144829

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Foothills Painting Announces the Expansion of Operations to Boulder

Foothills Painting Expands Painting Service to Include Boulder, Colorado.

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Foothills Painting Boulder is thrilled to announce that due to unprecedented growth, it has expanded operations to Boulder, Colorado. The company, which operates in many other areas of the state, offers quality painting services courtesy of its many experienced painters. Its professional staff has a strong attention for detail and is focused on offering a high degree of customer service. Experienced in both residential and commercial painting, they are skilled giving interiors an upgrade, but are perhaps best known for their exterior work having painted over 500 homes in the past six years.

Foothills Boulder painters are steadfast in their belief that quality and trust should not have to be compromised when a customer decides to paint their home or business. This is why their price quotes are not only obligation-free, but free of hidden costs as well. Also, unlike its competitors, Foothills Painters Boulder offers a variety of payment options to be able to relieve some of the burden associated with the affording the costs of your painting project as well.

At Foothills Painters Boulder, whether the customer's home's interior walls need refreshing or they're looking to create a certain look aligned with their business customer's image; they can handle any number of fresh looks. And, when it comes to painting exteriors, that's their specialty. No matter whether the customer is experiencing chipping or fading of its home of business, they are experienced in painting any number of surfaces to include stucco, wood or trim.

"When you hire a painter to paint your business' interior or home's exterior, you should not have to give up on receiving professional service in exchange for paying an affordable price for your paint job. Foothills Painting Boulder understands that and keeps their customer's interests at the forefront throughout the entire process. This starts with providing an all-inclusive price quote for their painting task and not straying from it, working with customers to make sure color choices end up with desired results and ensuring customer satisfaction up until the very end. If you live in Boulder and you're looking for a quality painting job done by experienced painters at an affordable price, we are the company to call. " - Foothills Painting Boulder

About Foothills Painting Boulder: Foothills Painting was originally founded in Fort Collins, Colorado in 2010 quickly expanding to include Denver, Loveland, and now Boulder. The company's rapid growth is a testament to its high degree of customer satisfaction and its competitive pricing that is unmatched in among other Boulder painters. The Foothills experience promises high quality painting completed by experienced painters, no matter how small or large the interior or exterior residential or commercial painting task is.

For more information, please visit http://foothillspaintingboulder.com/

Contact Info:

Name: PRWhirlWind

Organization: PRWhirlWind

Address: 2480 Kittredge Loop Drive Suite 949 Boulder CO 80310

Phone: 303-390-4305

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/foothills-painting-announces-the-expansion-of-operations-to-boulder/144900

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Foothills Painting Announces Expansion to Loveland

Foothills Painting Expands Painting Services to the Residents of Loveland, CO.

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Foothills Painting is pleased to announce the expansion of its painting service to the residents of Loveland, Colorado. Originally started in 2010 in Fort Collins, the company has expanded quickly to the Denver area as well. Foothills Painting specializes in both residential and commercial painting projects. Its many skilled painters on staff have logged more than 500 homes since the company's inception just six short years ago. Their staff works closely with customers to select colors and does not consider a job complete until the customer is fully satisfied.

Loveland painters simply cannot compare when it comes to the experience and customer service that Foothills Painting offers. Their high degree of customer service starts with a free quote. Once the price is quoted a price, the project is covered from start to finish. There are no hidden costs that must be paid once the job is finished. And because the cost of painting your home can be expensive, a number of payment plans are available to help make it more affordable.

Foothills Painters Loveland hire only the most experienced painters who can work with the customer, no matter how large or small the painting project. They are skilled in helping customers pick interior paint colors for a few rooms that can give their homes much needed facelift or they can help select colors to give each room in the home its own character. They also specialize in exterior painting, something that can give every home increased curb appeal. If customers are looking to sell, either one of these options can go a long way in improving the value of the home.

"If you're live in Loveland and you're looking to freshen up the look of your home's interior or exterior, then you're in luck. We started in Fort Collins in 2010, quickly expanded into Denver and now we're expanding again into Loveland. Our team of experienced painters are skilled in painting residential as well as commercial properties, all done to your satisfaction. If you're looking to improve the look of your home as well as its value, contact us to see how we can help. " - Foothills Painting Loveland

About Foothills Painting Loveland: Founded in Fort Collins in 2010 by a CSU graduate, Foothills Painting first dominated Fort Collins and Denver and now has expanded again to include painting service to Loveland. Their experienced painters are customer oriented at every step whether it be providing customers with quotes, helping them select their paint colors or not being done with a job until they're able to confirm that the customer completely satisfied.

For more information, please visit http://foothillspaintingloveland.com/

Contact Info:

Name: PRWhirlWind

Organization: PRWhirlWind

Address: 2311 North Garfield Ave Loveland CO 80538

Phone: 970-239-3175

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/foothills-painting-announces-expansion-to-loveland/144898

Release ID: 144898

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The Hammock Expert Launches Website To Share Expert Insight Into Comfortable Outdoor Sleeping

The Hammock Expert has created a website to share his advice and guidance with individuals throughout the world on the best hammocks available for purchase online.

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Sleeping in a hammock is reported to be one of the most comfortable ways to sleep, and is still a favourite on naval vessels, desert islands, and for those adventuring in the great outdoors. The hammock is capable of providing comfort and shelter in even the harshest environments. To help more people make the most of hammocks, The Hammock Expert has created a brand new website, which will review the best hammocks available on the online market today. The site has been launched with a comprehensive guide to the best hammocks of 2016.

The guide has been formed out of a huge range of reviews completed ahead of the site's launch, all of which can be read in full on the website. The comparison review takes the top-rated items across these reviews and ranks them according to the editor's star rating, as well as breaking down their scores for comfort, weight, durability and versatility. This ensures individuals can choose the right hammock based on their own priorities.

The website also features a more thorough breakdown of the editor's top four picks, describing their unique selling points and advantages. There is even a buying guide for those who wish to review all products independently, outlining what is essential in a good hammock, and what to watch out for in a bad one.

A spokesperson for TheHammockExpert.Com explained, "Because a hammock is off the ground, it is safer, dryer and warmer than camping, and a hammock requires a fraction of the weight of a tent. A great hammock can be slung up almost anywhere in a short amount of time, can provide good clearance from the ground and great stability, with a weatherproof exterior and warm, comfortable interior. A good hammock should also provide shelter, such as a mosquito net, for unwanted visitors in the night."

About The Hammock Expert: The Hammock Expert is an online resource center dedicated to helping people find the best available information, advice and reviews on sleeping in hammocks in the great outdoors. The website is regularly updated with actionable, insightful and impartial reviews designed to help people make informed consumer decisions. The site also offers comparison studies and buying guides.

For more information, please visit http://thehammockexpert.com/

Contact Info:

Name: Paul Jones

Email: paul@thehammockexpert.com

Organization: The Hammock Expert

Address: 1 Webster Street San Francisco, CA 94115

Phone: (415) 921-6543

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/the-hammock-expert-launches-website-to-share-expert-insight-into-comfortable-outdoor-sleeping/144926

Release ID: 144926

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China IVD Market and Analysis Forecast to 2020 Now Available at MarketReportsOnline.com

MarketReportsOnline.com adds "China IVD Market and Forecast to 2020" report to its research store.

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China In-Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) market is among the fastest growing in the world. It is anticipated that China IVD market will more than triple by 2020 from the 2014 level. With an aging population, a rapidly growing middle class and a government encouraging preventive care, China has the potential for more dramatic growth in the future. Further, the average Chinese consumer is now willing and able to pay more for healthcare than a decade years ago. Hence, China has the potential for more dramatic growth in the future.

Complete report available at http://www.marketreportsonline.com/481213.html.

China IVD Market Segment Wise Analysis: Immunoassay is the leading segment in China IVD market. Immunoassay is likely to maintain its dominant position in the forecasting period as well. Clinical Chemistry holds the 2nd position in China IVD market being followed by Molecular Testing. SMBG market accounted for XXX percent market share in 2014. Microbiology and Hematology market are competing closely with XXX percent and XXX percent market share respectively in 2014.

China IVD Market Company Analysis: In China IVD market, Roche Diagnostics is the leader with XXX percent market share in 2014. Sysmex Corporation and Mindary Medical are other top two players in the China IVD market. At present many local players are present in China IVD market and their combined market share was XXX percent in 2014.

"China IVD Market and Forecast to 2020" is a 86 page report with 34 Figures and 1 Table. This report studies in details the China IVD Market - Application Segment Wise, China IVD Market - Company Sales, Development Environment and Regulatory Status in China IVD market and Driving Factors and Challenges for China IVD Market.

The China In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) Market has been analyzed from 4 View Points:

o Market and Forecast (2007 - 2020)

o Segment Wise Market & Forecast (2007 - 2020)

o Development Environment and Regulatory Status in China IVD market

o Company Wise IVD Sales & Forecast (2010 - 2020)

China IVD Market - 8 Application Segments Covered in the Report:

1. Clinical Chemistry Market

2. Immunoassay Market

3. Hematology Market

4. Coagulation Market

5. Microbiology Market

6. Molecular Testing Market

7. Self-Monitoring of Blood Glucose (SMBG) Market

8. Point of Care Testing (POCT) Market

Purchase a copy of this "China IVD Market" research report at USD 1000 (Single User License) http://www.marketreportsonline.com/contacts/purchase.php?name=481213.

The Companies covered in the report are as follows:

o Roche Diagnostic

o Sysmex Corporation

o Mindray Medical International Limited

o Shanghai Kehua Bio-Engineering Co. Ltd.

o Others

Profiles of Private Clinical Labs and Diagnostic Services Companies in China

o Zhejiang Di'an Diagnostics Technology Co., Ltd

o ADICON Clinical Laboratories

o Guangzhou Kingmed Diagnostics Center Co. Ltd.

o Kindstar Global (Privately held)

o BGI-Shenzhen (Privately held)

o OriGene Technologies (Privately held)

Major Points from Table of Contents (http://www.marketreportsonline.com/481213-toc.html) provided in China IVD Market:

1. Executive Summary

2. China IVD Market and Market Share Analysis (2007 - 2020)

3. China IVD - Segments Wise Market and Forecast (2007 - 2020)

4. Development Environment of Chinese IVD Industry

5. Profile of In-vitro Diagnostic Reagents Registration Control

6. China IVD Market - Company Wise Sales Analysis (2010 - 2020)

7. Profiles of Select Private Clinical Labs and Diagnostic Services Companies

8. China IVD Industry Drivers

9. China IVD Industry Challenge

Other Related Reports on IVD (In Vitro Diagnostics) Market:

China In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) Market, Forecast & Companies Analysis: This is 3rd edition report on In Vitro Diagnostics sector by Renub Research. Report titled "China In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) Market, Forecast & Companies Analysis" provides a comprehensive assessment of the fast-evolving, high-growth IVD Market in China. This 77 page report with 34 Figures studies the China IVD market from 4 view points: 1) Market and Forecast, 2) Segment Wise Market & Forecast, 3) Development Environment & Regulatory Status in China IVD market, 4) Company Wise IVD Sales & Forecast

Complete report available at http://www.marketreportsonline.com/376729.html.

Global In-Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) Market Report: 2015 Edition: The diagnostic industry is widely classified into two types: In-vitro diagnostics and In-vivo diagnostics. In-vitro tests are executed in glass test tubes, while In-vivo diagnostics tests are executed inside a patient's body. IVD products are indeed designed and produced for collecting samples derived from the patient's body and scrutinizing them outside, which are commonly conducted in hospitals, clinics and labs and in personal settings. Apart from the application of IVDs in medical diagnosis and health screening such as checking blood of signs for infections, or urine for the presence of glucose, they are also used in genetic testing, genomics, veterinary diagnostics, food testing, environmental testing, and research. Complete report with table of contents available at http://www.marketreportsonline.com/434386.html.

China In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) - Opportunity Assessment, Competitive Landscape and Market Forecasts to 2021: The in-vitro diagnostics(IVD) market in China has been growing rapidly in the past few years and is expected to grow steadily in the next few years, with major growth potential in segments such as infectious disease testing, chronic disease testing and diagnosis in early stages of disease. Roche is the leading company with more than XX% market share in the China IVD market and is expected to hold its strong position in the market. Sysmex Corporation and Abbott Laboratories are the other top two players in the China IVD market. Mindray and Shanghai Kehua Bioengineering(KHB) are another major participant in this market with a good hold in clinical chemistry, immunoassay and molecular testing segments providing varieties of reagents nationwide and semi-auto and automatic biochemistry analyzers to low and mid-end market users. Complete report available at http://www.marketreportsonline.com/496440.html.

For more information, please visit http://www.marketreportsonline.com/contacts/purchase.php?name=481213

Contact Info:

Name: Ritesh Tiwari

Email: sales@marketreportsonline.com

Organization: Market Reports Online

Phone: + 1 888 391 5441

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/china-ivd-market-and-analysis-forecast-to-2020-now-available-at-marketreportsonline-com/144662

Release ID: 144662

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Nocturia Therapeutic and Overview Pipeline Review H2

WiseGuyReports.com adds "Nocturia - Pipeline Review, H2 2016" reports to its database.

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The report provides comprehensive information on the therapeutics under development for Nocturia, complete with analysis by stage of development, drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type. The report also covers the descriptive pharmacological action of the therapeutics, its complete research and development history and latest news and press releases. Additionally, the report provides an overview of key players involved in therapeutic development for Nocturia and features dormant and discontinued projects.

Get Sample Report @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/606188-nocturia-pipeline-review-h2-2016

Report features investigational drugs from across globe covering over 20 therapy areas and nearly 3,000 indications. Drug profiles featured in the report undergoes periodic review following a stringent set of processes to ensure that all the profiles are updated with the latest set of information. Additionally, various dynamic tracking processes ensure that the most recent developments are captured on a real time basis.

The report helps in identifying and tracking emerging players in the market and their portfolios, enhances decision making capabilities and helps to create effective counter strategies to gain competitive advantage.

Scope

- The report provides a snapshot of the global therapeutic landscape of Nocturia

- The report reviews pipeline therapeutics for Nocturia by companies and universities/research institutes based on information derived from company and industry-specific sources

- The report covers pipeline products based on various stages of development ranging from pre-registration till discovery and undisclosed stages

- The report features descriptive drug profiles for the pipeline products which includes, product description, descriptive MoA, R&D brief, licensing and collaboration details & other developmental activities

- The report reviews key players involved Nocturia therapeutics and enlists all their major and minor projects

- The report assesses Nocturia therapeutics based on drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type

- The report summarizes all the dormant and discontinued pipeline projects

- The report reviews latest news related to pipeline therapeutics for Nocturia

Reasons to buy

- Gain strategically significant competitor information, analysis, and insights to formulate effective R&D strategies

- Identify emerging players with potentially strong product portfolio and create effective counter-strategies to gain competitive advantage

- Identify and understand important and diverse types of therapeutics under development for Nocturia

- Identify potential new clients or partners in the target demographic

- Develop strategic initiatives by understanding the focus areas of leading companies

- Plan mergers and acquisitions effectively by identifying key players and it's most promising pipeline therapeutics

- Devise corrective measures for pipeline projects by understanding Nocturia pipeline depth and focus of Indication therapeutics

- Develop and design in-licensing and out-licensing strategies by identifying prospective partners with the most attractive projects to enhance and expand business potential and scope

- Modify the therapeutic portfolio by identifying discontinued projects and understanding the factors that drove them from pipeline

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 2

List of Tables 4

List of Figures 4

Introduction 5

Nocturia Overview 6

Therapeutics Development 7

Pipeline Products for Nocturia - Overview 7

Nocturia - Therapeutics under Development by Companies 8

Nocturia - Pipeline Products Glance 9

Late Stage Products 9

Clinical Stage Products 10

Nocturia - Products under Development by Companies 11

Nocturia - Companies Involved in Therapeutics Development 12

Allergan Plc 12

Astellas Pharma Inc. 13

Vantia Therapeutics 14

Nocturia - Therapeutics Assessment 15

Assessment by Monotherapy Products 15

Assessment by Target 16

Assessment by Mechanism of Action 18

Assessment by Route of Administration 20

Assessment by Molecule Type 22

Drug Profiles 24

ASP-7035 - Drug Profile 24

Product Description 24

Mechanism Of Action 24

R&D Progress 24

ASP-7398 - Drug Profile 25

Product Description 25

Mechanism Of Action 25

R&D Progress 25

desmopressin acetate - Drug Profile 26

Product Description 26

Mechanism Of Action 26

R&D Progress 26

fedovapagon - Drug Profile 28

Product Description 28

Mechanism Of Action 28

R&D Progress 28

Paxerol - Drug Profile 29

Product Description 29

Mechanism Of Action 29

R&D Progress 29

Nocturia - Dormant Projects 30

Nocturia - Product Development Milestones 31

Featured News & Press Releases 31

May 08, 2016: Studies Demonstrate New Options to Help Prevent and Treat Nocturia 31

May 03, 2016: Allergan Presents New Data on SER120 at the American Urological Association Meeting in San Diego 32

Appendix 33

Methodology 33

Access Report @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/606188-nocturia-pipeline-review-h2-2016

Get in touch:

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/4828928

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For more information, please visit http://www.wiseguyreports.com

Contact Info:

Name: Norah Trent

Email: sales@wiseguyreports.com

Organization: WiseGuy Reports

Address: Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune - 411028 Maharashtra, India

Phone: +1-646-845-9349 (US) +44 208 133 9349 (UK)

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/nocturia-therapeutic-and-overview-pipeline-review-h2/144984

Release ID: 144984

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D&G Smith Homes Introduces 24-Hour Guarantee

The company is promising to provide an all-cash offer for qualified homes within 24 hours of inquiry, reports www.bettercallsmith.com.

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D&G Smith Homes, a premier real estate investment firm serving Houston, Texas and the surrounding areas, recently announced the introduction of their 24-hour guarantee. In an effort to facilitate speedier investments and transactions, the company is promising homeowners who want to sell their homes quickly a cash offer within 24 hours of their inquiry. Taking advantage of the offer is as simple as visiting the D&G Smith Homes website and submitting a short questionnaire.

George, D&G Smith Homes' Senior Managing Partner, commented "When a homeowner finds themselves facing the threat of foreclosure or the financial burden of an unwanted home, they often begin looking for quick ways to solve their problems. Rather than have homeowners try their luck going the slower traditional route, we seek to provide them with an immediate solution by outright purchasing their home as-is. Since our business has been built on the premise of providing quick turnaround, we introduced a 24-hour quote guarantee as a way of ensuring homeowners can start and complete the selling process with as little delay as possible."

At http://www.bettercallsmith.com, homeowners facing foreclosure or needing to get rid of a property due to probate or job relocation can discover the simple 4-step process to sell their home to D&G Smith Homes. The D&G team has spent many years refining this process and has the experience necessary to quickly determine a home's value, make a fair offer to the homeowner, and ensure closing and cash in hand in as little as one week. D&G Smith Homes buys houses in any condition with no fees or commissions involved.

As George further commented, "When families are backed into a corner financially, our team takes on the task of getting them out of that situation as quickly as we possibly can. For us, this includes giving them the most timely response when they come to us for a quote. Our process ensures that families don't face steep fees or communication hassles so that they can get rid of their properties and finally get on with their lives."

Houston area residents who are interested in selling their homes quickly should visit http://www.bettercallsmith.com for more information about D&G Smith Homes' 24-hour quote guarantee.

About D&G Smith Homes:

D&G Smith Homes is a full-service house buyer in Houston, TX. Unlike real estate brokers and agents, they position themselves to actually buy the property from the seller. The D&G Smith Homes team buys all kinds of houses as-is, in any shape or condition, no matter what a homeowner's situation is. No need to fix up, clean up, waste time showing, or have open house weekends. The company buys houses with no hassle to get homeowners moving on as fast as they'd like.

For more information, please visit http://www.bettercallsmith.com

Contact Info:

Name: George

Organization: D&G Smith Homes

Phone: 1-832-773-0081

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/dg-smith-homes-introduces-24-hour-guarantee/145002

Release ID: 145002

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Ehud Segev Joins List of Worlds Top Mentalists

Mentalist Ehud Segev has now joined the scanty list of the worlds top mentalists.

November 10, 2016 (FPRC) -- Ehud Segev, also known as The Mentalizer, has joined an exclusive list of the worlds best mentalists. Thats according to bestmentalist.com, a high-profile website that recognizes the contributions of magicians, mentalists, and mystifiers around the world. Other top professionals who have also appeared alongside Ehud include Uri Geller (mystifier), Marc Helfand (magician and mentalist), The Amazing Kreskin (thought reader), Marc Salem (non-verbal communication), David Blaine (illusionist and endurance artist), and Derren Brown (psychological illusionist).



Bestmentlist.com is one among many sites that focus on the worlds leading mentalists. However, this site is unique in that it outlines each mentalists work and compares it with the accomplishments of the others. It conducts an intense background study of each candidate, brings out to scrutiny, and subjects it to massive analysis before featuring someone on their whos who list. Bestmentalist.com focuses on a diverse audience that includes individuals who are conducting research on mentalism, as well as mentalism fanatics. Their annual list is also a great tool for individuals who are looking to hire the best mentalist or magician for a specific event.



Ehud Segev is a globally acclaimed performer and entertainer. Ehud Started studying mentalism when he was still a young boy growing up in Israel. While most of his peers spent their time playing outside, Ehud studied complicated books on subjects such as body language, mind-reading, and mysticism. Mr. Segev at one time predicted the winner in a mayors contest, attracting massive coverage from Israel media.



Ever since he was 20 years old, Ehud has traveled the world, entertaining and educating audiences in multiple cities. He has also been featured on various TV stations both locally (in Israel) and internationally. He featured on NBCs hit show, Phenomenon, which brought together the industrys top names for a viewer-determined contest. Mr. Segev also won an exclusive contract entertaining United States soldiers stationed in far away basis. He did such a good job on this one that the Department of Homeland Security awarded him an EB-1 classification, open up permanent U.S residence for him. Most of Ehuds work has been done in cities such as New York, New Delhi, and London, where he enjoys thousands of fans.



In addition to performing incredible feats that border on the supernatural, as well as read minds, Ehud also educates children. Recently, he launched Ponzey.com, which is a childrens book series that will focus on instilling good morals. In this series, Ehud will be starring as Professor Ponzey and using his immense understanding of psychology to instill positive values in kids. The first book under the Ponzey serious, Professor Ponzey and the Truth Potion, has already been published on Amazons Kindle ebook marketplace.





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Visual 2000 Announces Partnership with Mexcostura

Visual 2000 provides End2End software for apparel, footwear and fashion accessory companies is excited to partner with Mexcostura, a progressive and well-established technology supplier to the Mexican AFA industry.

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Montreal, Canada - November 10th 2016 - Visual 2000 International Inc. is pleased to announce an official partnership with Mexcostura Mexico-based corporation with strong roots and deep knowledge of the AFA market.

The Visual 2000 suite of omni-channel software, tailor-made for the apparel, footwear and fashion accessories industry is expanding quickly to new markets. To support the demand of emerging fashion capital, Visual 2000 is proud to partner with experienced and passionate professionals.

The CEO of Mexcostura, Alejandro Faes Noriega, has served on the board of several trade associations, including the International Apparel Federation, National Apparel Manufacturers Association of Mexico, and CONCAMIN, Mexico's largest manufacturing association.

"Mexcostura has positioned itself as a technology leader in the apparel and footwear industry in Mexico," explains Alejandro Faes. "We foresee a change in the needs of our customer base and this partnership with Visual 2000 will enable Mexican companies to enhance their processes and access critical information in real time. The Visual 2000 End2End solution provides a complete toolset for the apparel industry."

Charles Benoualid, VP of Research and Development of Visual 2000, comments, "We are excited about this new venture in Mexico. Mexcostura is a progressive and well-established technology supplier to the Mexican Apparel industry. Together we will provide our expertise and build strong partnerships with our future customers."

This new partnership will lead both companies to an even stronger positioning in the thriving textile industry. According to the United States Department of Commerce International Trade Administration, it currently accounts for 6 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product and nearly 20 percent of all manufacturing employment.

More information about Visual 2000 can be found on their website at www.visual-2000.com.

About Visual 2000 International

Visual 2000 provides End2End software for apparel, footwear and fashion accessory companies. More than 600 companies around the world take advantage of Visual 2000?s End2End advanced ERP, PLM, supply chain management, warehouse optimization and business intelligence software.

About Mexcostura

Mexcostura has been very active in the Apparel and Footwear industry for several decades and has established strong business relationship with multiple manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and distributors.

For more information, please visit http://www.visual-2000.com/

Contact Info:

Name: Julien Belisle

Email: julien@visual-2000.com

Organization: Visual 2000 International Inc.

Address: 8960 Av du Parc, Montreal, QC H2N 1Y8



Release ID: 145161

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Free Freightnet Membership

List your company in the Freightnet directory. It's Free, it's Easy and your company can be displayed in front of potential freight buyers within 24 hours.
Food parcels are being delivered to cash-strapped hill farmers in northern England who are still waiting to receive last years subsidy payments.

County Durham sheep and cattle producer Greg Dalton said food parcels collected by schoolchildren at a local harvest festival had been delivered to upland farmers.

They were collecting food parcels in boxes for local farming families  not for the impoverished of inner-city London or Newcastle, but actually for local farming families, he told Farmers Weekly.

Listen to the interview with Greg Dalton.

There are reports of bailiffs turning up at doors wanting bills paid and people having to go to farming charities for handouts.

Mr Dalton, whose wife is deputy head teacher at a local school, is the northern regional chairman for the National Sheep Association.

See also: Sheep farmers still waiting for BPS statements

Subsidy payments represented about 40-45% of the farms business income  but on many upland farmers it would be higher still, he said.

Scores of upland farmers with grazing rights across common land were still waiting for their basic payment from 2015, said Mr Dalton.

It is a vital part of their income, he said.

Government response

Mr Dalton raised the issue of late subsidy payments with Defra minister George Eustice at the Northern Farming Conference on Wednesday (9 November).

Mr Eustice said: If there are any payments outstanding, then write to me.

He added: The truth is we made part payments to everyone with common land who had been caught up in this situation.

The government had faced a legal challenge of the methodology used to pay farmers with commons land, which had contributed to the delays.

As a result of the legal challenge, Defra had been required to assess all claims relating to common land before any payment could be made, said Mr Eustice.

That means nobody could be paid until everyone had got their application in and had been assessed  and it makes it far more complicated and far more difficult.

In recognition of the situation, the Rural Payments Agency had made a part payment to affected farmers earlier this spring, said Mr Eustice.

I am told everyone has now had their second payment  [although] I know there are still some who have had their second instalment and dont believe they have had enough.

If that is the case, they should continue their dialogue with the RPA on this point. But as far as I am aware, everyone on common land has received their 2015 payment.

If anyone thinks they havent, they should get in touch.
Defra minister George Eustice has pledged that the government wont pull the rug from under farmers as the UK moves to a new post-Brexit agricultural policy.

Speaking at this weeks Northern Farming Conference, Mr Eustice faced repeated calls from delegates to provide farmers with long-term certainty so growers and livestock producers felt confident to invest in their businesses.

The government has pledged to maintain existing levels of farm support until 2020. But beyond that remains unclear.

It is also unclear whether the UK will retain access to the European single market post-Brexit  and whether farmers will be able to employ overseas workers.

See also: Exclusive: Leadsom pledges best Brexit deal for farmers

On trade, Mr Eustice said he recognised there was anxiety and concern. I completely understand that having access to the single markets is important  particularly sheep. I think we can get the right kind of access to the single market.

The UK had a 60bn annual trade deficit with the EU  and more than 10bn alone in terms of food and drink. The truth is, they need access to our market too, and the sensible thing for anyone to do is to agree an access arrangement to the single market that gives us tariff-free trade.

Seasonal workers

On labour, Mr Eustice said. We in Defra are working very closely with the Home Office on this issue. Just because we want to have controlled immigration going forward  we dont want a complete free-for-all  it doesnt mean we are going to pull up the drawbridge.

There would be many opportunities to put in place work permit arrangements, Mr Eustice told conference delegates at Hexham Auction Mart, Northumberland. This would enable migrant workers to come to the UK. We are looking at all these issues as we devise future policy.

And on subsidies, Mr Eustice said the right approach was to design a post-2020 policy and then work out how much funding was needed. It is not a question of whether we will support farming and the countryside  we will. It is how we support it that is the question.

Tough times

The conference also heard from Peter Kendall, chairman of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. Urging farmers to prepare for tough times ahead, he said: I dont believe there is going to be a shedload more money  plan for less support and more competition.

David Harvey, Emeritus Professor of Agricultural Economics at Newcastle University, said it was important that payments to farmers remained  at least in some form. Removing direct payments would compromise some farms beyond survival, he warned.

Quite a lot of farms are going to be in quite a lot of serious trouble if those payments stop, Prof Harvey told delegates. That is not just bad news for those farmers, it is bad news for the country as a whole.
(Associated Press) - The federal government is introducing new laws to help curb illegal online gambling services based overseas.

A new bill put to parliament on Thursday makes it clear that only people or companies who hold a licence in Australia can offer its products to Australians.

It also prohibits "click to call" in-play betting and gives new powers to Australian Communications and Media Authority so they can enforce new civil penalties and be responsible for the entire complaint handling process.

"The combination of clearer legislation, stronger enforcement measures and awareness-raising activities will assist to ensure Australians are protected from these illegal gambling services," Human Services Minister Alan Tudge said.

The draft laws follow a 2015 review led by former NSW premier Barry O'Farrell, which estimated up to $400 million was being spent on illegal offshore wagering.

The Turnbull government in April accepted 18 of the report's 19 recommendations, with this legislation the first of three stages.
Microsoft Surface Phone 2017 Release Date, News & Update: 3 Variants Bear Similar Features As iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy S8

Microsoft Surface Phone is believed to be in the works. The handset is expected to roll out in three variants with an 8GB model reportedly in the works. The device is also expected to follow suit with the fingerprint scanner trend for 2017.

The upcoming Microsoft Surface Phone is rumored to roll out in three variants, Windows Central reported. Rumor has it that the handsets will be paced with 4GB RAM, possibly a 6GB RAM and the premium variant will get 8GB RAM. Additionally, the upcoming Windows handset is rumored to be powered by the Intel Kaby Lake.

The new Microsoft Surface Phone is also speculated to feature a fingerprint scanner in the display which is also rumored for other upcoming phones in 2017 like the iPhone 8 and the Samsung Galaxy S8. Rumor has it that the handset will be launched in Spring 2017. However, Microsoft is yet to acknowledge the existence of the upcoming device.

On that note, it is said that the Washington-based company is only waiting for the right time to announce the Microsoft Surface Phone. Recent reports have noted that the company has recently acquired surfacephone.com as a domain name. Moreover, the company is expected to introduce three new smartphones in the Surface Phone line-up for 2017, according to report.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is slated to release the Microsoft Surface Phone in January 2017. The handset is reportedly purely based on Windows 10 mobile. However with the moderate success of the Lumia phones, the company is believed to be more patient for their next handset.

The Microsoft Surface Phone in 2017 is believed to sport an all-metal body. A 20MP Carl Zeiss rear camera coupled with a range of sensors. A fingerprint sensor is also rumored for the phone. The handset is also rumored to be packed with a standard 512GB internal storage and the new-generation Intel Atom X3 processors as well. Watch video about Microsoft Surface Phone with Windows 10 - A pretty good looking Concept - 2016 I 2017 
Samsung Galaxy J5 Latest News And Update: Another Explosion?

Samsung is under huge tension since its "Galaxy Note 7" impact and lastly, the firm chose to execute off the premium gadget. Presently, it is by all accounts setting another major catastrophe for its mobile devices. Samsung Galaxy J5, the mid-level cell phone is additionally confronting a similar issue of Note 7. In France, a "Samsung Galaxy J5" allegedly detonated a week ago, which can assist scale back the fortunes of the firm if talk over again.

Lamya Bouyirdane, who claimed the gadget addressed the media that before her "Samsung Galaxy J5" detonated, it turned out to be exceptionally hot and vapor left it. She dropped the telephone to the floor and it burst into flames and exploded. Strangely, the picture of the "Samsung Galaxy J5" that exploded was also seen, as per CNET.

Nonetheless, this can be considered as the principal case that a "Samsung Galaxy J5" blew off since it discharged in April. The worries are because of the issues Samsung gadgets confronted as of late, per Yahoo.com. Aside from Note 7 impact, Samsung Washing machines likewise considered the damage dangers. Now of time, it can be considered as a detached occurrence, considering the "Samsung Galaxy J5" is as of now accessible on the market for over 6 months.

A Samsung Galaxy J5 unit reportedly explodes in France https://t.co/S2yfM8eFzR pic.twitter.com/FHsdKB2USD  Neowin (@NeowinFeed) November 8, 2016

Facilitate addressing the media, Bouyirdane affirmed that she obtained the "Samsung Galaxy J5" in June and her child was holding the telephone just before the impact. She additionally reported that she wants to indict Samsung on the issue.

Samsung representative however liberally reacted that it will research the matter yet it sees client security as the top need. He likewise said that the issue of Note 7 can't be blended with "Samsung Galaxy J5", as it was particular to the gadget.

It is not dangerous to assume that all the electronic gadget producers need to search for appropriate R&D and testing to make the gadgets sheltered and secure. It ought to be comprehended that when complex gadgets are made, it additionally builds the dangers of different specialized issues, producing abandons and so forth.

Additionally, it is accounted for that worldwide climatic changes influencing the electronic gadgets particularly batteries. The most recent occurrences on Samsung Galaxy J5 and Galaxy Note 7 blast ought to urge the company to make restorative steps.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8: Will Assure Customers Phone Has Excellent Features? Find Out Why

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is the supposed 2017 lead cell phone that is going to set the cell phone to advertise ablaze because of its superb components and top of the line specs. The cell phone is likewise said to get back the 100 percent trust of Samsung's shoppers who turned their back after the Galaxy Note 7 disaster.

The successor of the most dubious Galaxy Note 7 is going to be propelled by Samsung in 2017 stuffed with new and energizing components and also top of the line inside specs. As indicated by The Wall Street Journal, the up and coming to Galaxy Note 8 will highlight an enhanced computerized colleague that can be actuated through squeezing the catch along the edge of the telephone.

Likewise, this recently created AI highlight is said to match Siri of Apple and Google Assistant. Samsung is predicting an incredible edge on the new computerized collaborator most particularly when they wanted to have an AI that can answer questions for taxi rides, pizza orders, and adjacent eatery.

Besides, Galaxy Note 8 is additionally anticipated that would accompany a redesigned camera, expanded capacity and a top quality show. As per Value Walk, the experts are anticipating the Galaxy Note 8 as the principal Samsung gadget to highlight a 4K show determination which falls under the class of ultra-top-quality.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Confirmed: Is it Safe or Will it Explode? https://t.co/Wdagn6eRMM pic.twitter.com/kAEYC7E2b3  Tech PLZ (@TechPLZTm) October 30, 2016

An upgraded camera highlight is likewise expected come in Galaxy Note 8 particularly in the UI with regards to the optical zoom include. Then again, the 2017 leader cell phone is additionally accepted to have an expanded stockpiling limit because of the way that Samsung is lingering behind nearest equals on this matter.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Release Date: Next Samsung Note Instalment Confirmed? What We Know So Far https://t.co/wABHtJcDtg #samsung #galaxy pic.twitter.com/3ovF5y9dGw  Wrighter (@Wrighter) October 29, 2016

Samsung, for the most part, dispatches its new cell phones amid the Mobile World Congress, hence, it is expected that the South Korean tech organization will present the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 amid the MWC in February 2017. Notwithstanding, another gossip guarantees that Samsung will present the Galaxy S8 amid the MWC and not the Note 8.
Nokia New Phone Release Date, Features & Update: Nokia To Release Android Phone Before End Of 2016?

Nokia has been the cellphone pioneer for more than a decade before smartphones took the spotlight which led to its eviction from its throne. Surely, fans miss their old Nokia devices and the memories associated with it but as time went by, Nokia was no longer able to cope with life's increasing intricacies, which were met by other brands.

Rumors, however, say that fans might be seeing their favorite brand return to the market sooner than expected and that Nokia could be back to compete with current generation smartphones. Forbes reports that HMD Global Oy has licensed the pioneering brand name from the former Finnish powerhouse and is expected to be announcing a number of Android handsets before the year ends.

There are a lot of leaks but what could be the new styling has been revealed recently and it shows a prominent Nokia logo on a rear chassis plate where two cutouts can be seen. This design follows pretty much the standard for mid-range Android devices and would make it feel like it has some design cues of the iPhone 7 and gives off a minimalistic look.

While this return might get a lot of people excited, it is however important to note that this does not mean the full-blown return of Nokia. The acquisition of the license by HMD would offer Nokia input to the process but there will be no involvement in the day-to-day running of internal matters in the company. A post by Nokia Power User shows that like most other smartphone lines, the upcoming product line of Nokia will feature some high-end and midrange models.

These models, however, would not have very significant differences since the lower-end variants will be featuring a metal frame and polycarbonate back while the high-end ones will showcase an all-metal body. The upcoming Nokia Android phone will come in different colors including black, gold and white for the high-end variant and a fingerprint scanner which will not be available in the low-end variant.

As for its hardware, it will be manufactured by a subsidiary of Foxconn called FIH Mobile and considering all other circumstances, it looks like an excellent choice. There would be no need to FMH to spend more on rebuilding Nokia's industrial efforts and distribution chain when there are loads of efficient options available right now.
Trump Won Election News & Updates: Hollywood Celebrities Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lindsay Lohan Protest Over Presidential Election Result; Trump Furious?

It is but of no doubt that the United States of America is now a hashtag trending topic all over the world. As Donald Trump won the presidential election which definitely shocked a lot of Americans, especially Holywood Celebrities, known personalities are expressing their disappointments and even doubts for the election result on Tweeter.

CBS Local reported how Hollywood celebrities, including Katy Perry, Lindsay Lohan, and Lady Gaga, showed dismay and even doubts over the results . It can be remembered that Hillary Clinton has been the of most Hollywood celebrities and there were even such time that a landslide both for Hillary will happen.

WE WILL NEVER BE SILENCED. #LOVETRUMPSHATE  KATY PERRY (@katyperry) Nobyembre 9, 2016

Accordint to The Nation, Lady Gaga protested just outide the Trum Tower in New York right after Donald Trump was proclaimed to be the new President of the United States of America.

The chaos in USA is the result of Trump's irresponsible campaigning. He is not a role model, look at this mess he created. #LoveTrumpsHate  #CountryOfKindness (@ladygaga) Nobyembre 10, 2016

Linsay Lohat even asked her fans to retweet her as a recount campaign for the Presidential election result where trump won.

Retweet if you want a recount  Lindsay Lohan (@lindsaylohan) Nobyembre 9, 2016

This is one of those patches on the American history of voting that the supporters of a Presidential candidate, this time Hillary Clinton, are supportive showing an all out support, and hate over the winning president. Hillary Clinton would have created a history of being the first ever female president of America if ever she won the presidential election.

It is unsure when will this chaos over Donald Trump's success as newest president of one of the most powerful countries in the world would continue. There are reports claiming that the new president became furious with Hollywood's protests, however, this has yet to be confirmed. One this is for sure, his won will change as lot in the way policies and rules are now in our beloved country.

Share us your thoughts below!

Stay tuned for more of your "Trump " updates!

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Civilization 6 Cheats, Tips & Tricks: Ultimate Guide to Achieve Victory in All Categories of Civilization VI! More Game Hacks, Gameplay Details

"Civilization 6" has grown to be one of the most successful 4X video game out in the market today. With this, we have made a guide on how to ensure victory in four departments of "Civilization 6."

Domination

First up is to achieve victory by Domination. To achieve victory in this field, players of "Civilization 6" must be able to capture all the capital cities in the enemies' civs. These adversaries could be either other players or against the AI.

Military strength is a huge factor in order for the enemies to concede to the militancy in "Civilization 6." The best choice here is Tomyris of Scythia. His units have +5 combat power and heals up to 50 points once the other units have been eliminated.

Culture

The second field to dominate in is Culture. The best option for "Civilization 6" in this area is the Greece civ. Also, stealing or spying on other civs will effectively weaken their tourism industry along with the sabotage. As horrendous as it may be, this act gives the players an edge over the opponents. Building Theater Spaces and the Eiffel Tower will then add +2 to each tile in the capital. Broadcast Centers, amphitheaters, and museums are also the most efficient ways to develop culture in "Civilization 6."

Religion

The third area to reign in "Civilization 6" is in Religion. India's Gandhi is the best choice in this department. Spreading the player's religion across the entire map and converting subjects from other civs up to half of their population will certainly give any player a religious advantage.

Science

Sometimes overlooked, Science is the last category players could master in "Civilization 6." Exploring space is one of the best ways to excel in this field. Players could then build orbiting satellites, land on the moon, and eventually colonize Mars. The Russian and United States civs both excel in this category.
Samsung Galaxy S8 Release Date, Specs & Update: Official Launch In April 2017? Bigger & Better Screens To Attract Note 7 Users

Samsung has been busy working on the Galaxy S8, which was initially believed to be unveiled at MWC 2017. The latest news revealed that the Samsung Galaxy S8 may be launched in April 2017 instead, to ensure that they come up with the best model yet.

GSM Arena reported that the company may order the first batches of parts for the Samsung Galaxy S8 in January 2017 to assemble the first prototypes and initiate testing. More orders are bound to be made in February, after Samsung polishes the potential units for testing.

Mass production is expected to begin in March, resulting to the official launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8 in April. Samsung is also said to be closely looking at the battery of the upcoming smartphone to guarantee that it does not end up like the failed Samsung Note 7.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 is said to feature a 5.1-inch QHD display, with a 90 screen-to-body ratio and iris scanner. The device will also include a dual camera, consisting of 12-megapixel and 13-megapixel sensors, although it remains uncertain how these will function.

There have been different versions of dual camera setups, with some using the second sensor for depth sensing, low-light photography enhancement or offering various focal lengths. BGR revealed that the Samsung Galaxy S8 may arrive in two sizes with curved displays.

One Samsung Galaxy S8 may feature a 5.7-inch screen, while the second may have a bigger 6.2-inch screen. The larger display can be made by removing the top and bottom bezels of the smartphone.

Samsung may have decided to feature bigger screens for the Samsung Galaxy S8 to appeal to Note fans. This would be a huge increase from the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, which have 5.1-inch and 5.5-inch displays, respectively.

There are also talks that the Samsung Galaxy S8 will showcase a next-generation M8 2K OLED display that will be more efficient than that of the S7. The Samsung Galaxy S8 screen may also integrate the home button with the fingerprint sensor and other buttons.

There may be as many as four cameras in the new Samsung Galaxy S8. There may also be a new 3-coil wireless charging within the unit, which offers improved range and faster charging times. More updates and details on the Samsung Galaxy S8 are expected soon.
'The Walking Dead' Season 7 Episode 4 Predictions SPOILERS: Will Maggie Move To Hilltop While Rick Deals With Negan In 'Service'?

It certainly looks like "The Walking Dead" Season 7 has been going out of its way to avoid dealing with the deaths of Abraham and Glenn. However, the series might finally deal with the consequences in "Service", which brings the focus back to Alexandria.

But what will happen in "The Walking Dead" Season 7 Episode 4? Is Maggie set to leave for Hilltop in "Service"? And how will Rick deal with Negan's first visit to Alexandria in the AMC series?

'The Walking Dead' Season 7 Episode 4 Predictions: Maggie Abandons Alexandria For Hilltop?

There is little doubt that Maggie is the one character who was deeply affected by the deaths in "The Walking Dead" Season 7 premiere. There are speculations that Glenn's widow will decide to leave Alexandria and join Jesus in Hilltop. After all, this is already something that Maggie has done in the comic book series.

Maggie's possible move to Hilltop could mean that "The Walking Dead" Season 7 will follow her comic book storyline. Unfortunately, this also means that Rick Grimes will lose another important member of his original group who could help him deal with Negan.

Rick Prepares For Negan's First Visit To Alexandria In 'The Walking Dead' Season 7 Episode 4

The promo for "The Walking Dead" Season 7 Episode 4 shows Negan making his way to Alexandria. The broken Rick Grimes has obviously still haven't gotten over what happened in the premiere. "I'm not in charge anymore," Rick tells the Alexandrians, stating that Negan has officially taken over the community.

There is no sign of Maggie in the promo for "The Walking Dead" Season 7 Episode 4, which suggests that she might no longer be in Alexandria. However, it certainly looks like there will be a lot of Negan in "Service".

"The Walking Dead" Season 7 Episode 4 is titled "Service". The episode wil air on AMC on November 13.
Samsung Galaxy S8 Release Date, Specs, Features, News & Update: Early 2017 Launch Expected Alongside Samsung Galaxy Note 8; Display Features Revealed

Samsung Galaxy S8 has immediately become the focus of the company following the downfall of its Galaxy Note 7. Although the South Korean tech giant has yet to provide the official details of the development and release of its upcoming flagship smartphone, several rumors and speculations have revealed that it will arrive in two variants.

Samsung Galaxy S8 Specs, Features

Apparently Samsung wants to go big as they plan to release its new flagship with bigger display system - a 5.7-inch and 6.2-inch Samsung Galaxy S8. According to reports, the company is trying its best to win back the customers it lost after the Galaxy Note 7 controversy. In order to do that, the company believes that it must continue to manufacture smartphones with bigger screens.

There are speculations all over the Internet suggesting that Samsung Galaxy S8 will carry a screen that occupies most of the space. The two variations of the handset currently have code names, Dream and Dream 2 and according to the latest report, both variants will carry the curved display technology.

In a report by The Investor, the tech giant is planning to get all the advantage against the new iPhone 7 and the upcoming iPhone 8. The company believes that people like the idea of smartphones with bigger screens for optimal usage of the device. A Samsung Galaxy S8 with bigger display than the rest of the competition will definitely give the company leverage in terms of attracting consumers.

Meanwhile, according to the tech expert and know tipster Evan Blass, Samsung Galaxy S8 will arrive with model numbers SM-G950 & SM-G955. However, he revealed that another smartphone is in the works with model number SM-N950, which many predict as the new Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

Although there is still no official announcement, tech fans are hoping that Samsung will release both Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy Note 8 early next year. Stay tuned for more news and updates about Samsung Galaxy 8.
OnePlus 4 Release Date, Specs, Features, News & Update: Flagship to Have Snapdragon 831, 4K Display & Better Camera? More Details Revealed!

OnePlus is gearing up for the launch of what is believed to be an improved version of the OnePlus 3, dubbed as OnePlus 3T. However, tech aficionados and fans are also looking forward to the next flagship of the company, the OnePlus 4. The next smartphone in the series is expected to arrive in summer 2017.

OnePlus hasn't explicitly confirmed that there will be a OnePlus 3, but due to the success of the lineup and the 2016 OnePlus 3, it is assumed that the company will release a new iteration. Although OnePlus 3 is already considered a decent smartphone with quality specs, there is still a need to improve the device -- maybe via OnePlus 4.

OnePlus 4 is still in the rumor stage but despite that, it is believed to be a strong rival against Samsung Galaxy S8. Since OnePlus 3T is already confirmed to run on a Snapdragon 821 chipset, there's a big possibility that upcoming flagship will have a Snapdragon 830 on board - the same chipset to be used in the Galaxy S8. The smartphone is also expected to have an AMOLED display, as hinted by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei.

There had been rumors that the Chinese phone manufacturer ditch the AMOLED display for an LCD panel, but in his tweet last month, he confirmed that the company will keep using the former. OnePlus 3's display size will reportedly be carried over to OnePlus 4, but it is unclear if the company will have a 4K or a Quad HD display.

As previously reported by GamenGuide, it's also likely that OnePlus 4 will keep the standard 3.5mm headphone jack instead of following in the footsteps of Apple. Other rumored specs include an 8 GB RAM, a 3,500 to 4,000 mAh battery, and a 23-megapixel main camera. As of the moment, OnePlus hasn't confirmed anything yet so readers should take this report with a pinch of salt and stay tuned to GamenGuide for more updates for OnePlus 4.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 Release Date, Specs, Features, News & Update: March 2017 Launching Alongside Samsung Galaxy S8 Confirmed? Price Details Revealed

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 has become a favorite subject of numerous reports and speculations all over the Internet. Despite the continued silence from the company regarding its development and release date, several reports online have revealed its impressive specs and features.

During Samsung's September event many tech fans expected the South Korean tech giant to announce the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3. However, the company focused more on its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, which eventually ended in disappointment. Now new reports have emerged suggesting that the highly anticipated tablet will arrive anytime soon.

Samsung is currently giving out discounts for the current Galaxy Tab iteration, which has an 8-inch display. Although the company has been known to offer discounts and price cuts, the recent offering appears to be a preparation for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab S3. It is definitely interesting especially the amount of discount Samsung is giving out as fans can now get the Galaxy Tab S2 for $250, which is more than a hundred dollar off from its $399 original price.

In a report by Neurogadget, despite the lack of official information from the company, the new Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 might come out in March 2017. According to the publication, Samsung will launch the much-awaited tablet alongside its flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S8, in the first quarter next year.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 Specs, Features

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 is expected to run on Exynos 8890 paired with the amazing graphics technology of Adreno 510 GPU. The device will also run on a sizable amount of RAM and internal storage; however, no reports have revealed whether the new tablet will have an extended storage capacity through microSD.

Meanwhile, GSM Arena said that Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 will arrive in two variations; however, this has yet to be confirmed by the company. Stay tuned for more news and updates with regard to the development and release of Samsung Galaxy Tab S3.
A second route, which will service downtown to Alamitos Beach, will launch on Nov. 10.
I received an interesting email this afternoon from an organization called Jeffersonians for Jefferson, which shared its view of what happened at a city council meeting this week in that community.

Several residents there are asking the council to retain their right to vote on annexation issues. SB 1573, enacted in March with the governors signature, gives cities the right to annex land without it going on the ballot. The legislature affected 35 cities in Oregon, including Philomath, whose charters require public votes on annexation.

Jefferson is a town of about 3,000 people located between Albany and Salem.

At issue is a 14.76-acre annexation request from the Hamby Family Partnership LLC, led by Nancy Hamby. The property, owned by Joan and Ellis Hamby since the 1970s, was viewed as land for future residential development when the citys comprehensive plan was created in 1979.

Jeffersonians for Jefferson  a local group fighting for the ability of voters to decide annexations  said through a press release that the annexation had lost on the ballot in 2010 with plans for development of a tract of 60 to 65 houses.

Last night, the city council held a public hearing on the Hamby annexation in which almost all who attended voiced their desire to have the right to vote on the issue, the press release reads. The city council has held to the position that the new law supersedes a 100-year-old constitutional right giving voters the final say in annexations.

According to the release, the council tabled the matter to consider all the information submitted to it by J4J and its attorney, David Coulombe, whose firm is also handling the Corvallis case. The League of Oregon Cities has petitioned the Benton County Circuit Court to intervene seeking to invalidate the unconstitutional law and enjoin state officials from enforcing it.

This is a particular issue that surfaced here in Philomath, so I thought many of you might be interested in the Jefferson situation. As most of you probably know, Philomaths city council did defend its city charter and has forwarded two annexation requests to be voted upon by residents while joining the Corvallis fight against SB 1573.
PHILOMATH  About 40 people filled the community room at Philomath High School Wednesday evening to discuss plans to upgrade Bonneville Power Administration radio equipment on Marys Peak, but many of those in attendance wanted to talk about a larger vision: relocating all of the communications gear currently housed in a multiagency compound on the summit to another location entirely.

The immediate issue is a process launched by the federal electricity marketing agency to develop alternatives to address its communications needs on Marys Peak, where it has a radio installation inside a fenced half-acre compound on U.S. Forest Service land. The BPA and the Forest Service are jointly developing an environmental assessment that will outline a set of alternative actions, and ultimately the Forest Service will decide whether to grant a special use permit for any changes to the BPA facilities on the Marys Peak site.

Molly Kovaka, a project manager for the BPA, said Marys Peak is one of 65 repeater stations the agency uses to provide radio communications for maintenance and repair workers throughout its 310,000-square-mile service area, where it maintains a far-flung grid of electric power transmission lines for the entire Pacific Northwest.

We use our VHF radio network on a daily basis to connect people out in the field  back to our control center, Kovaka said.

But that equipment is aging, and the agency wants to update it.

Our technology and our hardware at those sites have not been changed since the 1990s, Kovaka said. BPA has a systemwide project to replace all that.

If the agency is going to put new equipment at the Marys Peak site, she added, it will need to modernize some of the infrastructure there. That includes an unstable wooden mast for a radio dish that gets blown around and misaligned during winter storms and a black-painted cinder block building that soaks up heat in the summer, causing some of the equipment inside to malfunction. The BPA also wants a more reliable backup power source than the propane generator it has now.

Marys Peak provides an ideal location for repeater stations because, at 4,097 feet above sea level, it is the highest point in the Oregon Coast Range, allowing radio waves to travel unimpeded in any direction. Besides the BPA, at least 10 other government entities use the summit as a relay point for their transmissions, including public safety agencies such as the Oregon State Police and Benton County Sheriffs Office.

But the mountaintop is also the site of sensitive plant communities found nowhere else in the Coast Range, and its location 15 miles west of Corvallis makes it a popular outdoor recreation destination for mid-valley residents.

Some recreational users and groups such as the nonprofit Marys Peak Alliance have seized on the environmental assessment process for the BPA proposal to pressure the Forest Service to get rid of the antenna farm altogether and restore the summit to a more natural state.

A number of people at Wednesdays meeting buttonholed Siuslaw National Forest Supervisor Jerry Ingersoll, the man charged with making a decision on any special use permit request from the BPA, to urge him to move the communications gear.

Within 30 years, this could all be moved somewhere else and that meadow could be restored, said Bob Lillie, a retired Oregon State University professor whos working on a book about the mountains geology.

Its such a special place geologically, ecologically, culturally and spiritually, he added. Its an island in the sky.

Marys Peak Alliance member Dave Eckert said he would like to see the communications gear on the summit relocated to a nearby but less prominent location owned by the city of Corvallis, which already houses radio repeaters for users such as the federal Aviation Administration and Consumers Power.

Id love to see them put it on West Point, Eckert said.

But Ingersoll cautioned that his agency is not prepared to consider a mass relocation at the moment.

A major plan for a move and a reconstruction is beyond our resources, he said.

And theres another consideration as well: The West Point site is several hundred feet below the summit, which would block some radio transmissions to and from that location.

Dennis Brigante, a regional communications supervisor based in the Forest Services Medford office, said that could compromise vital communications networks for some agencies unless additional relay stations were built on neighboring peaks.

Youd have to add more hilltops to cover the same area, Brigante said. It just depends on whats compromised for what.

BPA officials will accept public comments on the initial scoping phase of the project until Dec. 2 and expect to release a set of proposed alternatives in the spring. After more public comment and analysis, they hope to release a draft environmental analysis in the summer of 2018. A final decision is expected from the Forest Service in the fall of 2018.
This log includes incidents in which there might have been a public disturbance or a risk to the public. Information comes from the Corvallis Police Department, the Benton County Sheriffs Office and Oregon State Police. It does not include all calls for service. The status of incidents might change after further investigation. Locations are approximate. People arrested or suspected in crimes are considered innocent until proven otherwise.

Corvallis Police Department

MONDAY, NOV. 7

METH: 11:44 p.m., Northwest Van Buren Avenue and Seventh Street. An officer arrested and charged Alan Edward Thayer, 37, of Corvallis, with possession of methamphetamine after reportedly stopping Thayer on his bicycle for a violation.

Benton County Sheriff's Office

MONDAY, OCT. 31

METH: 11:08 p.m., Northwest First Street and Harrison Boulevard. A deputy arrested and charged Kimberly Jean Wheeler, 44, of Corvallis, with possession of methamphetamine after reportedly contacting Wheeler on the street.

ASSAULT: 6 p.m., 2000 block of Southwest 53rd Street. A woman reported that Winston Douglas Allen, 37, of Corvallis, assaulted her with a badminton racket the day before and kicked her a short time before the deputy arrived on scene. Allen was arrested and charged with fourth-degree assault and harassment.
More than 300 people marched across the Oregon State University campus Wednesday night.

While billed by organizers as a peace march, the event came a day after Donald Trump was elected president after a highly divisive campaign and had similarities to some of the anti-Trump rallies reported Wednesday throughout the country.

Participants chanted statements like Love, not hate, Dont lose hope, Build bridges, not walls and This is what democracy looks like.

Many marchers carried candles while a few dozen brandished signs with slogans such as Diversity is what makes us great and Loves trumps hate.

In the vanguard was a group of several people holding a banner that read We build bridges.

The march, which began as a peace rally on the steps of the Memorial Union Quad at about 7 p.m., was organized on social media by OSU students Hana Maaiah and Arianna Hall. The pair said they wanted to spread messages of love after reading dozens of comments from friends on social media expressing fear and anxiety as a result of Tuesday nights election.

We wanted people to be able to come together and share their thoughts, Hall said. This election got a lot of fear out of people about the whole system. But we didnt want to act out of fear and hatred. We wanted to gravitate that toward something more positive.

Maaiah, who emigrated to the U.S. from Jordan, said that while growing up in Nebraska, she developed friendships with many conservatives who voted for Trump in this election. But rather than grow more divided, Maaiah said many of those same friends expressed support when she mentioned a peace rally and she said several people who voted for Trump took part in the rally as well.

Many of my friends told me that they understood the passion and the energy we had, but they also told me that a protest was not the way to go, she said. So we wanted to come up with this idea of a peaceful rally and let people know were angry at a system and the last thing we want to do is divide people even more.

Maaiah said those joining the demonstration were invited to make their own signs and speak for themselves and that many of the anti-Trump statements and the marching itself were not part of the original intention for the demonstration.

This gained momentum so we decided to take it to the streets, Maaiah said. There are Trump undertones but that was not our focus. We wanted everyone to bring whatever they wanted.

The march concluded on the Memorial Union Quad around 8 p.m. when OSU student Tabitha Pitzer, who carried a megaphone and led chants during the march, continued the demonstration by inviting those gathered to share stories, sing songs, hug each other and continue spreading more messages of unity.

We know we have many members on campus of underrepresented communities who are legitimately fearing for their safety right now, Pitzer said as the demonstration wrapped up. We wanted to come together and support those people because there have been a lot of hateful messages out there. Were not out here being anti-Donald Trump, were anti-hate and those messages of hate.

Pitzer said that all people were welcome at the rally as long as they were spreading messages of coming together as a community.

This is just one small step in our journey to equality and equity and its never too late to get involved, she said. This is definitely going to be an interesting time in American history and I think what we need now more than anything is more compassion.

Earlier in the day, a group of about a half-dozen students gathered on the Memorial Union Quad at OSU carrying signs, with a goal of making the campus feel inclusive in the wake of Tuesday's election.

One sign pledged solidarity with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. Another added minorities, women, immigrants, Muslims, people with disabilities, people of color and prisoners of war to its message of support.

Another simply said, Love not hate.

Evan Jones, a senior in political science, said he and two friends went out to the quad at 1:45 a.m. Wednesday with the signs after they realized that Donald Trump would win the presidency. They were joined by several other people who saw them as they passed by.

Were here to make sure people feel welcome on our campus, he said. We want this campus to be an inclusive place.

Pitzer, who is a fourth-year political science student who went out with Jones in the early-morning hours, said she and her fellow organizers have many friends who have felt afraid in the wake of Trumps win.

The fear is real and thats what were trying to tackle, she said.

Justyn Jacobs, a fourth-year student in political science who was also in the initial group of three, said the students came out to counteract that fear with a message of love.

There is a large group of people who do not agree with what hes said and we are not going to let that continue to be the rhetoric, she said.
Does Tuesday night's election mark the point of no return for legalizing recreational marijuana in the United States?

Surveying results from elections held throughout Oregon and across the county, it looks to us as if that could be the case.

Close to home, in Linn County, voters in a number of communities (including the county as a whole) chose to reject bans on recreational sales of pot. Those bans previously had been approved by officials in those jurisdictions  but, in Linn County, the bans needed to be affirmed by voters. (Neither the city of Corvallis nor Benton County approved similar bans.)

We expected city of Albany voters to reject the ban, as they did, because voters there two years ago narrowly were in favor of the statewide initiative to allow recreational pot sales. But we were surprised by the relatively large margin, 59 to 41 percent, by which the ban was rejected in Albany. That's nearly a 10-point shift on the issue in just two years.

We also were surprised that Linn County voters rejected the countywide ban, although the vote was closer there.

The results in Albany and Linn County bucked the state trend a bit: Although two dozen locales around the state rejected the bans, they were affirmed in about three dozen other locations.

Meanwhile, across the nation, voters in California, Massachusetts and Nevada approved recreational sales of marijuana. One implication of these votes: The three states along the West Coast now allow recreational sales, forming a "Pacific Green Wall," so to speak. More than 1 in 5 Americans live in a state where recreational sales either are legal or will be soon. (A measure to legalize recreational sales failed in Arizona.)

Voters in Florida, North Dakota and Arkansas passed medical marijuana measures, pushing the number of states with such laws past two dozen.

It all adds to the momentum across the nation for legalization, and increases pressure on the federal government to relax at least some of its restrictions on marijuana, including its ludicrous listing as a highly addictive drug with no medicinal benefits.

There is a potential trouble spot: The Barack Obama administration has adopted a policy of general noninterference with state marijuana laws, but that, of course, could change under Donald Trump's administration.

It's not clear what Trump thinks about the issue: As The Washington Post reported, he has spoken frequently about the negative effects of legalization but also has said that recreational and medical marijuana should be dealt with at the state level. Our guess now is that the Trump administration will be reluctant to devote much bandwidth to an attempt to roll back what appears to be a rising tide of support for legalization.

One other note is worth making about Tuesday's pot election: Even communities that affirmed the bans enthusiastically endorsed a 3 percent local tax on recreational sales, in the event that at some point, those communities allow the sales. That's crafty thinking: If it's true that legalization finally has reached some kind of critical mass, why leave any possible tax revenue on the table?
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Beethoven 2020 : 27 million euro for Beethoven celebrations

Beethoven sculpture at the Munsterplatz. Foto: dpa

Bonn The federal government is making 27 million euro available for festivities surrounding the 250th Birthday of Beethoven.

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The federal government is making 27 million euro available for festivities surrounding the 250th Birthday of Beethoven. Festivities are being planned for the year 2020 to celebrate the 250th Birthday of Beethoven. On Thursday, the budget committee of the Bundestag decided to spend 27 million euro on the event.

Around 21 million euro will be directed to Bonn, where the organizers, Beethoven Jubilaums GmbH and the Kunsthalle (Art Museum) have already begun with preparations for 2020. The federal government recognized that the Beethoven City of Bonn will play a special role in the anniversary celebrations, explained Bonns Mayor Ashok Sridharan.
Ford Germany in Cologne : CEO Berhard Mattes of Ford Germany on what the U.S. election means

Cologne Berhard Mattes is CEO of Ford Germany, based in Cologne and president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany. Ralf Arenz and Jens Meifert of GA spoke with him after the U.S. election.

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Did you see a Trump victory coming?

Bernhard Mattes: No, I had thought the Democrats would win by a small margin and that they would reach a majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Neither happened. We have to deal with that.

What do you expect from Donald Trump? Or should we ask, what are you afraid of?

Mattes: The expectation is clear: that his comments about trade restrictions and protectionism veer into a more weltoffenere (open-minded or more liberal) direction. Isolation is not a model for the future. The USA is well-connected in a global world, there should be no barriers. Trump announced he would unite the country. I hope he really means that. The division is deep, and it runs through the whole nation.

Does the trade agreement TTIP still have a chance?

Mattes: I dont see a conclusion being reached before the end of the Obama administration. But I think, also with Trump, there ought to be a willingness to consider the merits of the trade agreement. The Europeans should keep TTIP on the agenda.

Do you expect a worsening of relations with Germany?

Mattes: Trump made immigration into one of his themes and used it in context with the wave of refugees in Europe. There was criticism of the willingness of the Chancellor to take in so many refugees.

How should the German government deal with the new president?

Mattes: My hope is that lines of communication are kept open and intensified. Only when we from Europe stay involved in an intensive dialogue (with the U.S.) will we be able to solve the big tasks together. Look at the questions concerning refugees, the war in Syria, the fight against ISIS, these are problems we can only solve together. Dialogue can only happen when both sides come together.

Do you see any consequences for Ford, for your company?
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.
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Protecting the worlds oceans  an important goal of Germanys climate diplomacy

The worlds oceans are vital to our survival. They regulate the global climate and are a source of food and income for billions of people. Only a very small part of the seas enjoys legal protection, however. Our diplomats are working in New York right now to change this state of affairs.
CLB 6 exercise prepares Battalion for future deployment

US Marine Corps News

By Lance Cpl. Victoria Ross | November 9, 2016

Between tents dotting a field, a command operation center buzzed with activity, such as Marines leaving on patrol or discussing combat tactics. Combat Logistics Battalion 6 conducted a command post exercise at Bogue Marine Corps Auxiliary Landing Field, N.C., Nov. 1-4, for their future deployment with Special-Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force, Crisis Response-Africa.

Combat Logistics Battalion 6 conducted the training in preparation for their upcoming Marine Corps Combat Readiness Evaluation. They must complete their mission essential tasks and be deemed proficient before given their deployment specific tasks.



"It's designed to establish the combat operations center as well as get back to the basics; getting Marines familiar with land navigation, and conducting their readiness and training standards under a CBRN environment, patrolling classes and practical application," said 1st Lt. John Vroom, the logistics and current operations officer with CLB 6.

Many skillsets are needed to support a command post; engineers, electricians, communication specialist all help run a command center. For example, CLB 6 must prove that they can make potable water for their Marines in the field.

"The training focuses on headquarters and support operations," said Sgt. Jarod Carroll, the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear chief and training non-commissioned officer. "[We] set up the command operation center, got communications, and got services up for the COC and the surrounding work spaces."

Combat Logistics Battalion 6 recently received many Marines fresh from their occupation schools that got the opportunity to go hands-on with gear required for the field.

"Because I'm a water [support technician], we set up tactical water purification systems, which I haven't touched since the schoolhouse, so it was nice to get hands-on experience with that again," said Lance Cpl. Joshua Geis, a water support technician with CLB 6.

Marines also reviewed patrolling tactics and got used to the stress of working in a contaminated scenario.

"Training like this puts Marines, especially newer ones, under a different kind of stress than what they would typically see in a garrison type setting," added Carroll.

Marines on patrol were ambushed by role-players and were hit with CS grenades, commonly known as tear gas, to test what they previously learned and to build confidence in the gear and their abilities.

"I was impressed," said Carroll. "When we started hitting them with the CS, they immediately stopped what they were doing, masked up, and I heard them passing the alarm by yelling and doing hand-and-arm signals."

Combat logistics Battalion 6 rounded out the training exercise on a machine gun range. Marines reviewed the parts and operation of the M240B medium machine gun before participating in a live-fire range to allow Marines to get comfortable operating the weapon.

"We've established a good foundation for the next battalion field exercise," said Vroom.



Marines hurried to pack their equipment away into trucks after four days in the field. The Marines initially arrived ready to train for supporting operations, but they left with something more, the confidence to ensure mission accomplishment and continue their training for their upcoming deployment with Special-Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force, Crisis Response, Africa.

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Joint press point with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bakir Izetbegovic

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

09 Nov. 2016

(As delivered)

Mr. Chairman,

First of all let me welcome you to the NATO Headquarters. It's great to meet you again and Bosnia and Herzegovina is an important partner for the NATO Alliance. And Bosnia and Herzegovina is a candidate for NATO membership and our partnership dates back many years. And your country makes a significant contribution to our common security. Through a clear commitment to regional dialogue and cooperation. And through participation in NATO's mission in Afghanistan.

I want to take our relationship forward and we want to do that together. NATO is and remains committed to stability in the Western Balkans.

Today we discussed the crucial reforms that Bosnia and Herzegovina is making. And I welcome what has been achieved so far in reforming the defence and security sector. And I count on you to continue on the path of reforms.

Full integration into the Euro-Atlantic family takes time and effort. But it is worth it. Because it leads to greater security and greater prosperity. Activation of the Membership Action Plan remains an important issue. It will be a positive step for your reform agenda. NATO stands ready to activate the Membership Action Plan, once all defence properties have been registered to the state. Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to keep moving forward with this effort.

I welcome the recent guidance by the presidency on your defence review. We would like to see the review completed as soon as possible. Including a plan for modernization of the armed forces. Bosnia and Herzegovina has the necessary tools to move towards NATO membership. We will continue to help you move towards the Alliance. I call upon all leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina to work constructively for the benefit of all citizens. And to undertake the reforms that are necessary for your country to realise its Euro-Atlantic aspirations.

Let me then also add a few words about the US elections. I congratulate Donald Trump on his election as the next President of the United States. And I look forward to working with him. And it is important that the transatlantic bond remains strong and we face a challenging security environment, hybrid warfare, cyber attacks and the threat of terrorism. US leadership is as important as ever. Our Alliance has brought together America's closest friends in times of peace and of conflict for almost 70 years. A strong NATO is good for the United States and it is good for Europe. NATO has responded with determination to the new security situation. But we have more work to do. And I look forward to meeting Mr. Trump soon and to welcome him to Brussels for the NATO Summit next year, to discuss the way forward.

So with that, Mr Chairman, I give the floor to you.

MODERATOR: Reuters.

Q: Robin Emmott from Reuters here. Secretary General, what does an election victory for Donald, Donald Trump's election victory, sorry what does that mean for NATO, given that he explicitly set conditions for defending allies basically saying, those who don't pay up will not be defended, thank you?

JENS STOLTENBERG (NATO Secretary General): NATO's security guarantee is Treaty commitment and all allies have made solemn commitment, a solemn commitment to defend each other. And this is something which is absolute and it's unconditioned. The NATO security guarantees are important for Europe, but they are also important for the United States, so a strong NATO is important for Europe, but it's also important for the United States and we have to remember that the only time that we have invoked Article 5, our Collective Defense clause, is after an attack on the United States, after 9/11 and thousands of NATO soldiers also from Europe, Canada and also partner nations, have been deployed and have contributed to the efforts of the whole Alliance, to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and, and NATO continues to provide support, not only for the efforts of our mission in Afghanistan, but also provide support to the US-led coalition fighting ISIL. We have just decided to provide, for instance, AWACS surveillance planes as a direct support to the coalition fighting ISIL and we train Iraqi officers. That just underlines that NATO is important, both for collective defense in Europe, but also to provide help and pay and play a key role in the fight against international terrorism, and therefore I'm looking forward to work with President-elect Trump; and I look forward to welcoming him to Brussels at our next Summit next year and also to meet him soon, to discuss the way forward and how we can strengthen the Trans-Atlantic bond in challenging times, with a new and more challenging security environment.

MODERATOR: Bosnian TV.

Q: Elliot Busrab (sic) Bosnia State Television. Since anyone will ask you about American election I will stick to Bosnia. So Bosnia membership action plan (MAP) and Italian pre-conditions European Union, recently switched to the more realistic approach to Bosnia. Is it the time for NATO to do the same? I'm not talking about a change in Italian pre-conditions, but changing the way how NATO is considering their efforts from Bosnia-side, thank you. So there's the question for both of us.

JENS STOLTENBERG: So, NATO remains fully supported of the membership aspiration of Bosnia Herzegovina and we will continue to support Bosnia Herzegovina implementing the necessary reforms and I just discussed with Chairman Izetbegovic how we can step up and increase our support for Bosnia Herzegovina. We have the different partnership programs which are addressing exactly how we can help Bosnia Herzegovina, and we are working on the implementation of the different elements in that plan to make sure that we are delivering as much support as possible in support of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Euro-Atlantic integration. We still, of course, focus on the importance of implementing what is called Tallinn conditions, the registration of defense properties by the State and the Chairman updated me on progress which has been done there and, we will also add the Foreign Ministerial Meeting of NATO in December. Have a report on the Western Balkans including the progress which Bosnia Herzegovina is making on implementing the necessary defense reforms.

BAKIR IZETBEGOVIC (Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia Herzegovina): Speaking foreign language.

TRANSLATOR: Well it's exactly the same idea in the parallel that I drew as Mr. Stoltenberg. I drew a comparison between what the EU did, and what NATO has not done so far. So, they changed the sequence of the priorities from those easier ones to the most, to the more, from the more, difficult ones when we (inaudible) order. Progress has been made in Bosnia Herzegovina. So I asked Mr. Stoltenberg to do the same on behalf of NATO, so if you have the, so we have these forces in Bosnia Herzegovina why do we, why should we, put in their hands the mechanisms that can allow them to do that so we have the armed forces in all of the military sites. There is the court decision that this is state-owned property and registration has begun in Federation and (inaudible) and the EU should do a similar approach and send a similar message about prospective of Bosnia Herzegovina West Balkans. So the opponents to these efforts should not play with white players in this chess game.

Q: Trump has articulated a different sort of approach to Russia. a) do you expect NATO to change its tone or make any adjustments to the enhanced forward presence, as the Trump Administration takes effect, and to follow up on your last response Mr. Trump has talked about a larger counter terrorism role for NATO which seems to suggest not just the kinds of training that's been done in Afghanistan or in Jordan, but a actual bigger role in European counter terrorism. This is not something that's necessarily popular with other allies. Is there room for NATO to do more than what it's doing now to fight terrorism?

JENS STOLTENBERG: NATO has already decided to step up its efforts to provide support to the coalition fighting ISIL and we decided to maintain our presence in Afghanistan which is our biggest military operation and it's and we are in Afghanistan to fight terrorism to prevent Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for international terrorists. Then, of course, we will always assess how we can do more both to stabilize our neighbourhood to fight terrorism but also of course provide the necessary collective defense in Europe, making sure that we provide the necessary deterrents. And that's the reason why I'm looking forward to meet President-elect Trump, to sit down with him and to discuss the way forward and also to welcoming President-elect Trump to our next Summit here in Brussels because that provides the platform that provides the opportunities to sit down with a new US President and discuss how we can all live up to what is our Treaty commitment, to provide collective defense based on the idea of all for one, one for all and to be able to do that we have to respond and to adapt to a more demanding security environment, including hybrid threats, terrorist threats, cyber-attacks and many other kinds of threats and challenges. So this is something we are working on at NATO, we have made important decisions, we are implementing decisions and I congratulate Donald Trump on his election as President and I'm looking forward to work with him on all these important issues and to discuss the way forward when we meet.

MODERATOR: This concludes this press point. The Secretary General will be back at around 11:30 with the President of Finland. Thank you very much.

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NATO Secretary General congratulates US President-elect Donald Trump

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

09 Nov. 2016

Press Release (2016) 166

Issued on 09 Nov. 2016

I congratulate Donald Trump on his election as the next President of the United States. And I look forward to working with President-elect Trump.

We face a challenging new security environment, including hybrid warfare, cyber attacks, the threat of terrorism. US leadership is as important as ever. Our Alliance has brought together America's closest friends in times of peace and of conflict for almost 70 years. A strong NATO is good for the United States, and good for Europe.

NATO has responded with determination to the new security situation. But we have more work to do. And I look forward to meeting Mr. Trump soon, and welcoming him to Brussels for the NATO Summit next year to discuss the way forward.

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Secretary Mabus Names Newest Arleigh-Burke Class Destroyer

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS161109-14

Release Date: 11/9/2016 2:31:00 PM

From Secretary of the Navy Public Affairs

CHERRY POINT, N.C. (NNS) -- In a ceremony Nov. 9, at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced that the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, DDG 121, will be named Frank E. Petersen Jr., in honor of the Marine Corps lieutenant general who was the first African-American Marine Corps aviator and the first African-American Marine Corps general officer.

In 1950, two years after President Harry S. Truman desegregated the armed forces, Petersen enlisted in the Navy.

In 1952, Petersen was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He would go on to fly 350 combat missions during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He also went on to become the first African-American in the Marine Corps to command a fighter squadron, an air group and a major base.

Petersen retired from the Marine Corps in 1988 after 38 years of service. At the time of his retirement he was, by date of designation, the senior-ranking aviator in the Marine Corps and the United States Navy.

Petersen died last year at his home in Stevensville, Maryland, near Annapolis, at the age of 83. This is the first ship to be named for Petersen.

"The courage and perseverance of Lt. Gen. Petersen throughout his distinguished and ground-breaking career make him especially deserving of this honor," said Mabus. "Those who serve aboard DDG 121 will, for decades, carry on the storied legacy of this Marine Corps hero."

Arleigh Burke-class destroyers conduct a variety of operations from peacetime presence and crisis response to sea control and power projection. DDG 121 will be capable of fighting air, surface and subsurface battles simultaneously, and will contain a combination of offensive and defensive weapon systems designed to support maritime warfare including integrated air and missile defense and vertical launch capabilities.

Construction began on the future USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121) April 27 at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and the ship is expected to enter the Navy fleet in 2020.

Frank E. Petersen, Jr. will be built in the Flight IIA configuration with the AEGIS Baseline 9 Combat System which includes Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) capability. This system delivers quick reaction time, high firepower and increased electronic countermeasures capability for Anti-Air Warfare.

The ship will be 509 feet long, have a beam length of 59 feet and be capable of operating at speeds in excess of 30 knots.

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SECNAV Names Next Amphibious Assault Ship

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS161109-07

Release Date: 11/9/2016 11:02:00 AM

From Secretary of the Navy Public Affairs

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (NNS) -- Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced November 9 that the name of the next America-class amphibious assault ship will be USS Bougainville (LHA 8).

The naming ceremony took place at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

LHA-8 will be the second ship to be named after Bougainville, an island in the northern Solomons, which was the location of a World War II campaign in 1943-1944 during which allies secured a strategic airfield from Japan. Success at Bougainville isolated all Japanese forces left in the Solomons.

The first Bougainville was an escort carrier that was launched in 1944, a year after the Bougainville campaign began. It was decommissioned for the first time in 1946. It was then brought back into service for five years before earning two battle stars for its service in World War II and being struck from the naval register in 1960.

Amphibious assault ships maintain presence by serving as the cornerstone of amphibious readiness groups/expeditionary strike groups.

Amphibious warships are designed to support the Marine Corps tenets of Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS) and Ship to Objective Maneuver (STOM). They must be capable of sailing into harm's way and enable rapid combat power buildup ashore in the face of opposition. Because of their inherent capabilities, these ships have been and will continue to be called upon to also support humanitarian and other contingency missions on short notice. The United States maintains the largest and most capable amphibious force in the world.

As an LHA-variant of the America-class amphibious assault ship, USS Bougainville will be built by Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc., in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

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MK VI Crew Participates in USS Carl Vinson's COMPTUEX; a First for the Patrol Boat

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS161109-10

Release Date: 11/9/2016 1:41:00 PM

By Lt. Cmdr. Jennifer Cragg, Navy Expeditionary Combat Command Public Affairs

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Sailors assigned to Coastal Riverine Squadron (CRS) 3 Mark VI boat crew provided exercise support during USS Carl Vinson's (CVN 70) Composite Unit Training Exercise (COMPTUEX), Nov. 4, marking a first for the patrol boat.

Operating off the California coast, the MK VI crew assisted with the COMPTUEX, which aligned with the squadron's ongoing pre-deployment training.

"The event also coincided with our Final Evaluation Problem as we reach the end of our training cycle and prepare to step off for the squadron's upcoming deployment," said Cmdr. Mark Postill, commanding officer, CRS 3.

The MK VI is an 85-foot combatant craft that provides a persistent capability to patrol shallow littoral areas for the purpose of force protection for U.S. and coalition forces, as well as safeguarding critical infrastructure. The MK VI patrol boats are deployed in two separate strategic areas of operation: Commander, Task Force (CTF) 56 in Bahrain and CTF 75 in Guam.

"The opportunity to work with the strike group provided excellent fleet integration training for our MK VI crews," said Postill.

Capt. David Miller, commander, Coastal Riverine Group (CRG) 1, further emphasized the importance of incorporating MK VI into the exercise.

"MK VI is a real game changer for the Coastal Riverine Force and the Navy at large. We have only begun to scratch the surface of its ability to integrate and operate with other naval forces," said Miller. "The strength in participating in COMPTUEX is that we can provide real-world training for the strike group and our Coastal Riverine Sailors while gaining valuable insight into MK VI interoperability."

The MK VI patrol boats are globally transportable and can operate from amphibious ship well decks to forward locations, while partnering with allied navies at a new and enhanced effectiveness. The MK VI will also provide enhanced capabilities such as superior speed, range and maneuverability. The MK VI can also reach speeds in excess of 35 knots and has a range of more than 600 nautical miles.

CRS 3 is part of the Coastal Riverine Force which operates in harbors, rivers and bays, across the littorals and ashore. The primary mission is to conduct maritime security operations across all phases of military operations by defending high value assets, critical maritime infrastructure, ports and harbors both inland and on coastal waterways against enemies and when commanded conduct offensive combat operations.

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First F-35B Power Module, Engine Swap Take Place on USS America

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS161109-08

Release Date: 11/9/2016 12:49:00 PM

By Petty Officer 1st Class Benjamin Wooddy, USS America (LHA 6) Public Affairs

PACIFIC OCEAN (NNS) -- The F-35B Lightning II completed a new milestone during its third and final Developmental Test Phase (DT-III) by successfully completing the first power module and engine swap at sea in the hangar bay of amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6).

Mark Schroeder, the maintenance and logistics department head for the F-35 Pax (Patuxent) River Integrated Test Force (ITF), said the initial at-sea power module and engine swap went well and he attributes this success to embarked Marines assigned to Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron (VMX) 1, who developed the new engine removal and replacement (R&R) process. VMX-1 teamed with the Pax River ITF for DT-III to conduct integrated test across the spectrum of flight and maintenance events.

"Any time [the Navy or Marine Corps] acquire new aircraft, they are concurrently going to acquire the training resources that it takes to operate and maintain the jet," he said. "Marine maintainers who come to work on the F-35B have typically transferred out of an AV-8B Harrier or F/A-18 Hornet squadron as those aircraft wind down and migrate out of the fleet. The people here now will be the ones to bring the new generation of aircraft to the Marine Corps."

The Marines who comprise the VMX-1 maintenance team have been learning and testing F-35B maintenance procedures for approximately two years. During the engine swap on America, the team spent a week on the initial swap, making sure to account and track for each step of the process by entering each maintenance step into the Autonomic Logistic Information System (ALIS) -- a system which gives the F-35 team the ability to plan ahead, maintain, and sustain aircraft subsystems over the life of the aircraft.

The maintainers performing the engine swap had little difficulty throughout the process, but he explained although the meticulous process of performing a maintenance step, stopping to catalog the process, and stopping again to train takes time -- it's what they do.

"We are a test squadron; that's what we are and what we do," said Marine Staff Sgt. Mark Veliz, a F-35B power line mechanic. "Taking a week to test an engine swap is how we find obstacles and how we fix them."

Tests such as an engine swap are important, as those involved with the F-35B learn more about the aircraft and its capabilities. Results from early tests allow those assessing the aircraft to make adjustments to improve the efficiency of such actions for fleet maintainers.

"Testing the ability to swap entire engines or engine components at sea is vital, as this is the last opportunity for the Marine Corps to perform these shipboard maintenance actions in a sterile test environment before they deploy with the F-35B in 2018," said Lt. Col. Richard Rusnok, VMX-1 F-35B det. officer-in-charge (OIC). "During this short-term deployment, the team not only proved the engine maintenance construct, but also gained critical hands-on experience dealing with the confined space and deck motion aboard ship -- something that cannot be replicated ashore. Ultimately, the success of this evolution was a team effort between Sailors, Marines, government civilians, and contractor personnel. Together we demonstrated the synergy of the entire team as we supported the F-35B at sea."

"My guys handled it well," Veliz agreed. "It's an engine we know we can handle no matter where we are."

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Clinton wishes Trump success, calls on America to unite

Iran Press TV

Wed Nov 9, 2016 5:45PM

US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has addressed her supporters for the first time since losing the White House race to Donald Trump, wishing success for the Republican president-elect.

Taking a relatively small stage at the New Yorker Hotel in New York City on Wednesday morning, Clinton congratulated Trump for his victory and offered to work with him after losing a tight race to him on Tuesday.

"Last night I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country," the former secretary of state said to her emotional supporters. "I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans."

"This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, and I'm sorry we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country," the former first lady said as she was flanked by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton said the defeat was "painful," specially after a race that showed "our nation is more deeply divided than we thought."

She called on her supporters to back Trump, as all Americans "owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

She pointed to the US Constitution's order for a "peaceful transfer of power," and indirectly reminded Trump of other constitutional values such as "the principle we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression."

She also extended her gratitude to President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle who did everything they could get Clinton elected.

Despite winning the popular vote by a narrow margin, Clinton was unable to defeat Trump, who pulled off an improbable victory by winning 289 electoral votes. Clinton won 228.

This year's race for the White House was undoubtedly the darkest in the history of US elections, with the candidates attacking each other on any level imaginable.

Trump took a reconciliatory tone in his standing speech on Tuesday night, giving Clinton credit for her track record by saying, "We owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country."

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Cross-border firing kills three Indian soldiers in Kashmir: Army

Iran Press TV

Wed Nov 9, 2016 5:12PM

At least three Indian soldiers have been killed in an exchange of fire with Pakistani forces along the de facto border dividing the disputed region of Kashmir.

Indian army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said one soldier died after coming under Pakistani sniper fire in Machhal sector on Wednesday.

Kalia added that Indian soldiers retaliated by targeting the Pakistani army posts across the Line of Control (LoC).

An Indian army statement earlier said that at least two soldiers had been killed in Pakistani firing in Naushera sector.

In a separate incident, Indian troops shot dead two suspected militants in a firefight in Sopore area of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Six civilians on the Pakistani side of Kashmir have been killed in the ongoing skirmishes between the two countries across the LoC since November 7.

Indian and Pakistani forces have been engaged in similar clashes and traded fire across the de facto border in the disputed region over the past months. Each side accuses the other of provocation.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been strained in recent months, with New Delhi blaming Islamabad for a raid on an army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir in September, which killed 19 soldiers.

The Indian army blamed Pakistan-based militants for the assault. Islamabad denies any role in the deadly incident.

Diplomatic tensions generated between the two sides in late October, when India ordered one employee of the Pakistani High Commission out of the country, saying he was a suspected spy. Islamabad expelled an Indian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan, but claimed in full by both, since the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947.

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Notion of Palestinian state over after Trump win: Israeli minister

Iran Press TV

Wed Nov 9, 2016 1:19PM

Hard-line Israeli politician Naftali Bennett has said that the idea of a Palestinian state is over after Donald Trump's election as the 45th president of the United States.

The education minister, who heads the hard-line Jewish Home party, said on Wednesday, "Trump's victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state."

Bennett, known for his routine expressions of extremist viewpoints, also said, "This is the position of the president-elect ... The era of a Palestinian state is over."

Bennett has a history of making controversial remarks even by the standards of the hawkish Israeli regime itself.

In early October, Bennett said Israelis must "give their lives" to ensure the annexation of the occupied West Bank.

"We have to mark the dream, and the dream is that Judea and Samaria will be part" of Israel, Bennett said on October 6, using an Israeli name for the occupied territory.

Meanwhile, reacting to Trump's win, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, also with the Jewish Home, called on Trump to follow through on his promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds. Trump has also pledged to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel's capital.

Premier Netanyahu himself caused controversy when he ruled out a Palestinian state ahead of a 2015 general election, but later backtracked.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds, which are regarded by the United Nations and most countries as illegal.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their future independent state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital. However, the presence and continued expansion of the illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine have dimmed such a prospect.

The occupied territories have been the scene of heightened tensions since August 2015, when Tel Aviv imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Almost 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in what is regarded as the third Palestinian Intifada since October 2015.

The Israeli regime continues to carry out attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip from time to time.

Tel Aviv launched its latest war on Gaza in early July 2014. The 50-day military aggression, which ended on August 26, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children.

Gaza has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

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Donald Trump's shocking rise to US presidency elicits global reactions

Iran Press TV

Wed Nov 9, 2016 9:32AM

The victory of billionaire populist Donald J. Trump in the US presidential election is prompting responses from politicians worldwide, ranging from messages of congratulation to tacit expressions of discomfort.

Trump won more than 270 electoral votes in the 2016 presidential election on Wednesday, enough to make him the 45th president of the United States even as vote counting continued in a number of states.

His rise to the presidency wildly contrasted most forecasts within the United States, which had projected a strong win by his rival, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

A former secretary of state and first lady, Clinton was one of the first people to congratulate Trump on Wednesday.

Iran reacts

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic would make no changes to its policies in the wake of Trump's win.

"The position of the United States has been weakened within the international community and in the world's public opinion as a result of wrongful policies, and a wider gap with the global community and Europe will further harm that position," President Rouhani said on Wednesday, referring to the potential prospect of a Trump presidency distancing the US from the world.

Speaking during a visit to Romania on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the Islamic Republic expected the US president-elect to honor a nuclear deal negotiated with Iran under the outgoing US administration.

"It is our norm not to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries," Foreign Minister Zarif said, commenting on Trump's win.

"Since Iran and the US have no political relations, what is important is that America's next president is bound by the multilateral commitments of the JCPOA," he said, referring to the nuclear deal. "We are certain the international community would expect the same thing from the United States of America."

The agreement was struck between Iran on the one side and the US, France, China, Britain, Russia, and Germany on the other in June 2015.

Trump has previously slammed the deal, threatening that he would renegotiate its terms.

In practice, however, the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), runs little risk of being scrapped out of hand by any level-headed American government as it has been endorsed by a United Nations Security Council resolution, meaning that it has effectively become international law.

Zarif said the president of the US should "grasp the realities of the world today and connect his policies with those realities."

Amnesty raps Trump's "poisonous rhetoric"

Also on Wednesday, the prominent international rights organization, Amnesty International, urged US president-elect to commit to upholding human rights, while criticizing his "poisonous rhetoric."

Trump has "raised serious concerns about the strength of commitment we can expect to see from the United States towards human rights in the future," said Salil Shetty, secretary general of the London-based group.

Shetty added, "He must now put this behind him and both reaffirm and abide by the United States' obligations on human rights, at home and abroad."

Meanwhile, executive director of Amnesty International USA, Margaret Huang, slammed Trump for using "disturbing and, at times, poisonous rhetoric" during his election campaign.

"This rhetoric cannot and must not become government policy. The xenophobic, sexist and other hateful remarks made by Trump have no place in government. From internment camps to the use of torture, we have seen disastrous results when those we elect to represent us flout the United States' obligations to uphold human rights," she added.

Russia 'hopes for joint work'

Separately, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump in a message on Wednesday, the Kremlin said in a statement.

"Putin expressed hope for joint work to restore Russian-American relations from their state of crisis, and also to address pressing international issues and search for effective responses to challenges concerning global security," according to the statement.

Outgoing US President Barack Obama has had cold relations with the Russian head of state. The two leaders differed over a number of issues, prominently the Ukrainian and Syrian crises.

However, during his presidential campaign, Trump had repeatedly praised Putin and voiced willingness to work with him.

China 'highly values' US relations

The Chinese president also congratulated Trump on his election win, saying he looked forward to working with as the US president.

"I highly value China-US relations, and look forward to working together with you, and holding fast to mutual respect and non-conflict, non-confrontation," China's CCTV quoted President Xi Jinping as saying in a congratulatory message to Trump on Wednesday.

The two countries have an important responsibility to promote global prosperity and safeguard world peace and stability, the CCTV report said.

"Developing longterm stable and healthy Sino-US relations in accordance with the benefit of both countries' peoples is also the international community's common expectation," it added.

'Not what most Germans wanted'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday congratulated Trump on his election victory and offered to work closely with him on the basis of common values.

"Germany and America are bound together by values  democracy, freedom, respecting the rule of law, people's dignity regardless of their origin, the color of their skin, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views," Merkel said.

"On the basis of these values, I am offering to work closely with the future president of the United States Donald Trump," she added.

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said his country respected the outcome of the US presidential election even though it was not favored by most Germans.

"The result is not to be underestimated. The result is different from what most people in Germany desired. But of course, we have to accept it," Steinmeier said.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen also described Trump's victory as a "huge shock," saying the election result was "not a vote for him but rather against Washington, against the establishment."

"It was a big shock when I saw the way things are heading," she said.

Trump has previously upset the German leadership, strong believers in the military power of NATO, by saying that in the event of a military confrontation between NATO members and Russia, American aid would not be forthcoming unless the members of the alliance pay up for Washington's support .

Reacting to news of Trump's win earlier in the day, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party described the American president-elect as "the voice of anger."

"We're realizing now that we have no idea what this American president will do if the voice of anger enters office and the voice of anger becomes the most powerful man in the world," said Norbert Roettgen, who is a member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the head of the German parliament's foreign affairs committee.

NATO speaks well of 'American leadership'

NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg attempted to strike a softer tone, saying the leadership of the US is "as important as ever" for the military alliance.

He said NATO is looking forward to working with the new American president.

France urges 'European unity'

French President Francois Hollande said Trump's victory showed that France must be stronger and that Europe must be united.

"I congratulate him as is natural between two democratic heads of state," said Hollande.

"This American election opens a period of uncertainty," he added, however. France would be vigilant and frank in its talks with the new US administration on international issues, he said.

Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of France also said Trump's personality traits "raised concern."

Ayrault said Trump had to clarify his position on key foreign policy issues, including the nuclear deal with Iran, the long-running conflict in Syria, and climate change.

Marine Le Pen, the French far-right National Front party leader, however, congratulated Trump "and... the free American people!"

Iraq hopes for 'continued US support'

The Iraqi prime minister's office issued a statement, congratulating Trump "on the occasion of his victory in the American presidential election," and expressing hope for continued US and international support in the Arab country's war against terror.

"We look forward to the continued support of the world and the United States in standing with Iraq in its confrontation with terrorism," Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in the statement.

Iraqi President Fuad Masum and other senior Iraqi officials, including Parliament Speaker Salim al-Juburi and leaders of the country's Kurdistan region, also congratulated Trump on his election win.

After months of preparation, Iraqi army soldiers, backed by volunteer fighters and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, launched an operation on October 17 to retake the strategic city of Mosul from the Daesh terrorists, who overran the city in 2014, the year the Takfiris began their campaign of death and destruction in northern and western Iraq.

Abadi has vowed that the country's second largest city will be fully recaptured by year-end.

Saudi hopes to see 'stability' in ME after Trump's election

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud said Trump had a "mission to achieve security and stability in the Middle East and worldwide," and wished his "excellency success" in accomplishing his mission.

In a message of congratulations carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, he also hailed the two "friendly" countries' relations as "historic and tight", adding that "all parties aspire to develop and reinforce" the existing ties.

Trump had earlier suggested that the United States should consider ditching Riyadh, because Washington was increasingly getting less dependent on the Saudi oil.

"The primary reason we are with Saudi Arabia is because we need the oil," Trump said in an interview last year. "Now, we don't need the oil so much."

Palestine 'expects consistency'

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed hope that peace "will be achieved" during Trump's presidency, after congratulating his victory in the election.

Saeb Erekat, an aide to Abbas, said he did not expect a change in US policies over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under Trump.

He said both Republican and Democratic parties in the US were committed to the so-called two-state solution for the conflict and that he though "this will not change with the coming administration."

The Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds and the Gaza Strip, with East al-Quds as the capital. They are also demanding that Israel withdraw from the Palestinian lands occupied in a 1967 war.

Israel 'must kill idea of Palestinian state' under Trump

Meanwhile, an Israeli minister said that Tel Aviv should take the advantage of with Trump's presidency and put an end to the idea of an independent Palestinian state.

"Trump's victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state," said extremist Education Minister Naftali Bennett.

"This is the position of the president-elect," he claimed, adding, "The era of a Palestinian state is over."

Turkey 'hopes Mideast will benefit'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped the election of Trump would prove "beneficial" to the Middle East.

"I hope that this choice of the American people will lead to beneficial steps being taken for the world concerning basic rights and freedoms, democracy and developments in our region," Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul.

Turkey's Justice Minister Bekiz Bozdag also expressed hope on Wednesday that "under the new presidential term, the Turkish-US relations will be much better. That is our expectation."

Ankara has been dissatisfied with the outgoing US administration because of the latter's refusal to extradite a Turkish opposition cleric based in the US back to Turkey. Fethullah Gullen, the cleric, is wanted by Ankara over the accusation that he masterminded a failed coup in Turkey back in July.

'Mexico, US allies'

Mexican President Pena Nieto, who was criticized for hosting Trump in Mexico in August, said he was ready to work with the business mogul to develop bilateral relations.

"Mexico and the United States are friends, partners and allies and we should keep collaborating for the competitiveness and development of North America," the Mexican president said on his Twitter account.

Trump has repeatedly called Mexican immigrants "rapists" and pledged to build a wall along the southern border to prevent more Mexicans from entering the US illegally. He has also vowed to force Mexico to cover the cost of the construction of his proposed wall.

The US president-elect has also threatened to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has boosted the level of US trade with Mexico and Canada.

Meanwhile, the Mexican foreign minister said his country would not pay for the Trump-proposed wall.

"Paying for a wall is not part of our vision," Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu told local media, adding, "There has been a fluid, daily communication with different members of the [Trump] campaign" since his visit to Mexico in August.

Japan seeks continued alliance

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed "heartfelt congratulations" on Trump's election, saying the two countries are "unshakeable allies connected by common values such as freedom, democracy, basic human rights and rule of law."

"The stability of the Asia-Pacific region, which is the driving force of the global economy, brings peace and prosperity to the United States," Abe added.

Japan has relied on consistent US support in a regional dispute involving China and territory in the East China Sea.

Canada wants "to work closely" with Trump

Later on Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a congratulatory message addressed at Donald Trump, felicitating him on winning the US presidential race.

Stressing his country's willingness to have close friendship and ties with the US, Trudeau said he looked forward to working very closely with Trump and his administration on matters of trade, investment, international peace and security.

Ukraine: We hope Washington would continue to support Kiev

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressed hope that the United States would continue to support his country in its standoff with Russia following the victory of Donald Trump as the United States' 45th president.

A statement released by Poroshenko's office said Ukraine expected Trump administration to continue Washington's support for Kiev in what it called the fight against Russia, and with regard to Ukrainian government's effort to implement reforms in the country.

Czech president says "very happy" with Trump's victory

Czech President Milos Zeman announced on Wednesday that he was "very happy" with Donald Trump's victory in US presidential election.

Zeman added, "I would like to cordially congratulate Donald Trump. I had, as one of few European politicians, declared public support for this candidate... because I agree with his opinions on migration as well as the fight against  terrorism."

The Czech president further noted, "I appreciate Donald Trump's public demeanor, he speaks clearly, sometimes roughly, but understandably, and avoids what is sometimes called political correctness."

WTO says ready to work with Trump

In another development, the head of the World Trade Organization also announced on Wednesday that he was ready to work with Trump's administration following his election win.

"Congratulations to President-elect @realDonaldTrump on his victory. The WTO stands ready to work with the new administration," Roberto Azevedo, director general of the Geneva-based WTO said on Twitter.

UN counts on Trump for advancing human rights: Ban

Later on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the world body will count on new US administration to help combat climate change and advance human rights worldwide.

Congratulating Donald Trump on his election win, Ban said, "The United Nations will count on the new administration to strengthen the bonds of international cooperation as we strive together to uphold shared ideals, combat climate change, advance human rights."

He added, "People everywhere look to the United States to use its remarkable power to help lift humanity up and to work for the common good."

EU leaders warn US against isolation

The European Union's leaders on Wednesday invited US President-elect to their forthcoming summit, warning Washington against adopting policies that would lead to its isolation.

"I do not believe that any country today can be great in isolation," European Council chief, Donald Tusk, told reporters in Brussels, in a clear reference to Trump's campaign slogan of "Make America Great Again."

He added, "Europe and the United States simply have no option but to cooperate as closely as possible."

Tusk and European Commission chief, Jean-Claude Juncker, also said in a letter to Trump that they were willing to discuss "unprecedented challenges" facing the world and Europe, including terrorism, the conflict in Ukraine, and trouble in EU's relations with the United States.

"We would take this opportunity to invite you to visit Europe for an EU-US summit at your earliest convenience. This conversation would allow for us to chart the course of our relations for the next four years," they said in the letter.

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Hungary Expects Less Criticism From Overseas as Trump Wins Presidency - MP

Sputnik News

20:28 09.11.2016

Budapest expects less criticism from overseas after Donald Trump has been elected the next US president, a Hungarian lawmaker told Sputnik.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The presidency of Donald Trump will bring an improvement to the relations between Budapest and Washington as the newly elected president is not likely to criticize the government of Hungary over the country's domestic matters, Marton Gyongyosi, the vice chairman of the Hungarian National Assembly's Committee on Foreign Affairs, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"As far as US-Hungarian relations are concerned, an improvement is expected. We expect fewer criticisms concerning the Hungarian domestic affairs from overseas," the lawmaker from the opposition Jobbik party said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had endorsed Trump long before his victory, praising the Republican candidate for his tough stance on migration.

Asked about the possible changes Trump's victory may signify for the European Union and the rest of the world, Gyongyosi said foreign policy under the 45th US president would likely be more balanced.

"I expect a much more balanced approach to Central-Eastern Europe and much of the world under Trump, in comparison to what Clinton would have brought. I trust that Trump would seek to find a compromise with other powers, including Russia," the lawmaker asserted.

Earlier on Wednesday, a wide range of Hungarian top officials congratulated Trump on his victory. According to a report by Hungarian news portal origo.hu, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto stressed that the world economy and global politics had entered a new era, posing historical challenges for the whole world, the tackling of which would require a new and courageous approach, and innovative politics, thus indicating what is expected from Trump.

 Sputnik

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World Leaders Congratulate Donald Trump on US Presidency

Sputnik News

19:27 09.11.2016

The leaders of countries worldwide congratulated GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on his victory in the US presidential elections, as Trump leads with 276 electoral votes against Democrat Hillary Clinton's 228 votes out of 270 needed to win.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Trump gained 47.5 percent or 59.215 million in the popular vote, while Clinton scored 47.7 percent or 59.390 million votes, according to CNN.

The final results of the elections are still pending as three states  Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire  still have not declared the results.

Earlier in the day, Trump told his supporters that Clinton conceded her defeat in the elections over a phone call. Congratulations of the world leaders followed shortly afterwards.

European Leaders

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump on his victory in the US presidential election, voicing hope that joint work would resolve the crisis in bilateral ties, the Kremlin said.

"In a telegram, Putin expressed hope toward joint work to lift Russian-US relations from the state of crisis, as well as to address the pressing issues of the international agenda and the search for effective responses to global security challenges," the Kremlin said.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May congratulated Trump on being elected the new US president, adding she looked forward to building trade, security and defense ties.

"I would like to congratulate Donald Trump on being elected the next President of the United States following a hard-fought campaign. Britain and the United States have an enduring and special relationship based on the values of freedom, democracy and enterprise. We are, and will remain, strong and close partners on trade, security and defence," May said in a statement.

The UK prime minister added that she was looking forward to working with Trump "to ensure security and prosperity of our nations in years ahead."

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban congratulated the people of the United States on the outcome of the presidential elections.

"Congratulations. What a great news. Democracy is still alive," Orban posted on his official Facebook account commenting on the results of the elections.

The Spanish government congratulated the GOP nominee on being elected the next president, expressing its desire to strengthen transatlantic ties and friendship.

"The Government of Spain expresses its sincere congratulations to Donald Trump in relation to his election as the 45th president of the United States," the statement read.

According to the statement, the United States has always been a strategic ally of Spain.

"The aim of the Spanish government is the continuation of the process of strengthening transatlantic ties between Europe and the United States, as well as the deepening of friendship between our countries and peoples," the statement read.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulated Trump as well.

"I congratulated the winner of the US presidential elections Trump on his victory," Merkel said adding that she carefully followed the campaign.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi also congratulated the US president-elect.

"The world welcomes the election of Trump. On behalf of Italy, I congratulate him and wish him a good job," Renzi said adding that he hoped that friendship between the two countries would remain in place.

French President Francois Hollande gave one of the most reserved congratulations.

"The US residents voted for Donald Trump. I congratulate him, because it is natural for the relations of presidents of two democratic countries. My thoughts are also with Hillary Clinton, with whom I had worked during the administration of President [Barack] Obama. This election opens a period of uncertainty, we must state this clearly," Hollande said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was among the last European leaders to congratulate Trump on US election victory. He said he hoped for Washington's support in conducting reforms and restoring territorial integrity, and invited Trump to Ukraine, the Ukrainian presidential press service said.

"I sincerely congratulate Donald Trump on election as president of the United States and the friendly US people on democratic will expression. This is a symbol of true democracy, when no one knows the election outcome up to the last moment," Poroshenko said at a meeting with US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

"The president invited US President-elect Donald Trump to visit Ukraine," the statement said.

Other Leaders

Outgoing US President Barack Obama called Trump to congratulate him on winning the election and invited him to the White House to discuss the transition on Thursday, US media quoted a statement by the press secretary as saying.

"From the White House residence, the President phoned Donald Trump to congratulate him on his victory early this morning," the statement circulated by NBC News said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the prominent tycoon on his victory, which he hoped would take their bilateral relations to a new high.

"Congratulations, Donald Trump, on being elected as the 45th US President," Modi tweeted. "We look forward to working with you closely to take India-US bilateral ties to a new height."

The Indian head of state said New Delhi appreciated friendly remarks that the Republican had made during his election campaign.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refrained from congratulating Trump himself.

"I hope the choice of American people will lead to good steps for basic rights and freedoms, democracy and future of our region and the world" Erdogan said.

"The government of Afghanistan hopes that relations between the countries will develop in the interests of the two countries and the two peoples to a greater extent than before, through strong cooperation with the new US president," Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's administration said in a statement.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi became the first leader to personally congratulate Trump on being elected the 45th president of the United States in a phone call, the Egyptian presidential administration said.

"Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi held a phone conversation with US President-elect Donald Trump, congratulating him on being elected US president, wished him success and luck in performing his duties  In his turn, Trump expressed gratitude to the Egyptian president, noting that it was the first international call with congratulations on winning the elections he has received," the administration said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Trump and expressed certainty that the US-Israeli relationship would only strengthen.

"I congratulate Donald Trump on being elected the 45th President of the United States of America," Netanyahu said on his Twitter.

The Israeli prime minister noted the importance of relationship between the two countries and the good prospects for its future.

"The ironclad bond between the United States and Israel is rooted in shared values, buttressed by shared interests and driven by a shared destiny. I am confident that President-elect Trump and I will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between our two countries and bring it to even greater heights," Netanyahu said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also congratulated Trump on being elected new US president and expressed hope that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be settled during his presidency.

"[Abbas] congratulates the elected American president, Donald Trump, and hopes that peace will be achieved during his term," the official statement said.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto also decided to congratulate the United States on its electoral process, expressing readiness to work with US President-elect Donald Trump to improve bilateral relations.

"I congratulate the United States on its electoral process and reiterate to Donald Trump the readiness to work together in favor of bilateral relations. Mexico and the United States are friends, partners and allies who should continue cooperating for competitiveness and development of North America," Pena Nieto said on Twitter.

He expressed his confidence that the two countries would continue strengthening their ties of cooperation and mutual respect.

The Canadian government looks forward to cooperating with Trump and the new administration on issues of importance to both countries, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

"I would like to congratulate Donald J. Trump on his election as the next President of the United States," Trudeau stated. "We look forward to working very closely with President-elect Trump, his administration and with the United States Congress in the years ahead, including on issues such as trade, investment and international peace and security."

United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan congratulated Trump and expressed hope for the development of relations between the two countries.

"Our countries and friendly nations are united in strategic relations, we expect to enhance them in different spheres," Al Nahyan said in a congratulatory telegram for Trump.

UAE Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum also sent congratulations to the new US president.

"We send our congratulations and best wishes to the elected president Donald Trump and the US people. We look forward to share our message of hope, peace, tolerance and development for building better world," Al Maktoum said.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia congratulated Trump and expressed hope he would be able to bring peace to the Middle East.

"On behalf of the people and the Government of the Kingdom, and on our behalf, I would like to convey my warmest congratulations and wish the friendly people of the United States progress and prosperity. We wish you success on this new post, which would lead to security and stability in the Middle East and around the world," Salman said as quoted by Al Ekhbariya broadcaster.

King pointed out strong historical relations between the two friendly countries and expressed hope that they would further develop in all areas.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev congratulated Trump on the US presidential election victory and said he hoped Trump would help the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement efforts.

"I congratulate you on your election as US president. I hope US-Azerbaijani relations will keep successfully developing in future. I hope that under your leadership, the United States will make a contribution to peaceful settlement of the conflict, while being a country co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group," the Azerbaijani presidential press service quoted Aliyev's congratulatory telegram.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also sent a congratulatory telegram.

"I attach great significance to Chinese-US relations, and expect that we will, jointly with you, stick to the principle of prevention of confrontation, mutual respect, mutually beneficial cooperation," the Xinhua agency quoted Xi's telegram to Trump as saying.

 Sputnik

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Mexico Refuses to Pay for Building Trump's Wall Along Border With US

Sputnik News

18:25 09.11.2016

Mexico will not pay for the construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border, as has been suggested by US president-elect Donald Trump, Mexican Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu said on Wednesday.

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik)  In announcing his presidential bid on June 16, Trump said illegal immigrants from Mexico brought mostly drugs and crime to the United States, and characterized Mexican immigrants as rapists. He has repeatedly spoken about building a wall between Mexico and the United States, saying the former will pay for the construction.

"Paying for the wall is beyond our vision, our vision is integration, as by working together Mexico and the United States become more competitive," Massieu was quoted as saying by Televisa channel.

According to the minister, the Mexican government would shortly establish a dialogue with Trump's transition team in the nearest future.

Trump gained 276 Electoral College votes in Tuesday election, surpassing Clinton's 218 and the 270 needed to win the election.

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Trump to Take 'Tough Line' on US-China Trade Relations, Likely to Kill TPP

Sputnik News

18:08 09.11.2016(updated 18:09 09.11.2016)

Donald Trump, who won the US presidential elections, will take a hard line on trade relations with China and is likely to abandon the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty, experts told Sputnik on Wednesday.

Trump's Hard Line on Trade Relations With China

"I think DT [Donald Trump] would take a tough line on trade with China. HC [Hillary Clinton] would not," Dr. Gregory Moore, the head of School of International Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, said.

Moore's view was supported by Vice Dean of the Institute of International Affairs at China's Fudan University Shen Dingli, who said that Trump's rhetoric on trade relations with China would not be appreciated by Beijing.

At the same time, he said China and the United States could "use a third-party mechanism, for example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) arbitration, which has been used many times before to settle such trade disputes," Dingli said.

In 2015, Trump stressed in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that China was a "currency manipulator" and promised to trigger "a series of actions that will start the process of imposing countervailing duties on cheap Chinese imports."

China currently ranks as the United States' second largest trading partner. The multilateral TPP trade agreement has been characterized by the outgoing US President Barack Obama administration as a way to impose US trade and labor standards in the Asia Pacific, where China maintains strong economic influence.

TPP 'Probably Dead' After Trump's Victory

"With DT, yes, the TPP is probably dead. With HC, I think in her heart she believes in it, but has to suppress support for it because of the leftists in the US she seeks to win support," Moore said.

In June, the new US presidential-elect said in his jobs plan speech, posted on the Politico website, that TPP would be "the death blow for American manufacturing," namely by making it easier for US trading competitors to ship cheap subsidized goods into the country's markets and allowing other states to "put barriers in front of the US exports." He said that there was "no way to fix it [the treaty]."

The TPP would link the United States with the economies of 11 other Pacific Rim nations in a trade zone with lower tariffs and fewer import restrictions. Critics of the TPP agreement claim it undermines domestic companies, laws, regulations and institutions through an extra-judicial process that stacks the deck in favor of multinational corporations.

Trump to Withdraw US Forces From Asia-Pacific

Besides Trump's rough rhetoric on trade relations with China, there is actually one aspect in his policy toward the Asia-Pacific region, which may have a positive effect on bilateral relations of Washington and Beijing.

"Trump's victory in the US presidential election means that the US military forces are more likely to leave the Asia-Pacific region, and this is what China would prefer to see," Dingli said.

According to The Washington Post, when asked whether he would withdraw US forces from South Korea and Japan if they did not increase their payments to cover costs of US troops, Trump said that he would be willing to do it as the United States "cannot afford to be losing vast amounts of billions of dollars on all of this."

The United States has numerous military bases in South Korea and Japan  28,000 and 54,500 troops in each country, respectively, in order to guard against the threat of North Korea and keep watch on China. The strategy of "rebalancing" was said to be a key priority of the Obama administration toward the Asia-Pacific region.

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PACE Group 'Confident' Trump's Team to Uphold Human Rights, Democracy in US

Sputnik News

17:52 09.11.2016

The victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections proves there is a working democracy, which the president-elect's administration will surely uphold, along with human rights and the rule of law, Tobias Zech, Vice-Chairperson of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Group of the European People's Party told Sputnik.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, Republican presidential nominee Trump won the US presidency despite most of the analysts and opinion polls predicting his defeat to Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton.

"The victory of Mr Trump shows that the democratic system in the U.S. works. Even though a lot of media outlets in the States and all over the world wished otherwise the American people decided and elected Donald Trump as their next leader. That's how it works. I am very confident that our American partners will continue and in some cases improve their efforts to uphold the core principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law," Zech said on Wednesday.

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Fear and Loathing Spread in Scandinavia as Trump Sweeps to Victory

Sputnik News

17:21 09.11.2016

In the weeks leading up to the US presidential election, the Nordic countries made no secret of their political sympathies, with state media and top-notch politicians voicing almost unanimous support for Hillary Clinton. Today, Nordic politicians had to swallow their words and accept the defeat of their favorite.

While all the Nordic countries relayed their official congratulations to Donald Trump for his unanticipated victory, their cordiality is underscored by a genuine concern for their future relations with the US.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said that the US election result "worries a lot of individuals, as well as markets," again making no effort to conceal his sympathies.

"I would have preferred Hillary Clinton to win, for a number of reasons. In any case, Sweden will strive to have good relations with the US," Lofven told Swedish national broadcaster SVT.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom admitted to SVT that she felt "great uncertainty" about what a Trump presidency would mean for Sweden and the world. "There are rather extravagant statements about one thing and the other. Everything from building a wall against Mexico to security politics," Wallstrom said.

"I want to congratulate Donald Trump on his election victory," Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg said at a press conference in Oslo, adding that she was happy that Trump in his acceptance speech pointed out the need for "working together." However, Solberg also admitted that it was difficult to predict how the new president will change the US, as Trump's election campaign gave out no clues about that.

Even if Trump's statements created some uncertainty about the future of US involvement in the NATO military alliance, Erna Solberg chose to downplay these concerns.

"I believe that it is in America's interest to maintain NATO cooperation, and so it is in our own interest as well. Since our interests coincide, I think we will see continued, good cooperation within NATO," Solberg said, as quoted by Norwegian daily Verdens Gang.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto congratulated Trump and pledged to immediately initiate cooperation with the new US administration. Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila stressed the importance of the Free Trade Agreement, which "is still lying on the table," Finnish national broadcaster Yle reported.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lkke Rasmussen pointed out the importance of TTIP on his Twitter account, which is currently being negotiated between the EU and the US, despite the fact that Donald Trump had repeatedly spoken out against free trade. Nevertheless, Lkke Rasmussen expressed hope that the US will keep up the open and constructive cooperation.

Former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, a renowned hawk and a loyal US ally in his own right, urged his followers on Twitter to "fasten seatbelts."

The Nordic parties, which are generally more left-leaning than their counterparts in mainland Europe, did not even try to conceal their disappointment.

"These are terrible and frightening results, of which we currently cannot see all the consequences. We have a climate change denier as US president," Mogens Lykketoft of the Danish Social Democratic Party said, as quoted by Swedish media outlet Nytt fran Oresund.

Annie Loof, the leader of the Swedish Centre Party, lamented the spread of populism. "I'm saddened and very worried. There's a big knot in my stomach right now," she was quoted as saying by the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet.

In the Nordic media, Trump has previously generally been labeled as "hate-monger" and a "chauvinist" with "dictatorial ways." Most notably, the Nordic countries were distressed by Trump's repeated pledges to mend fences with Russia, which for many Nordic authors remains evil personified.

In Sweden, Trump's victory is feared to possibly pave the way for anti-immigration movements, of which the local Sweden Democrats, very much political outcasts in their own country, are perhaps the most vivid example. Remarkably, Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson admitted that he had not been particularly impressed with either Trump or Clinton.

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Dutch Sub's Attempt to Approach Russian Naval Group Could Have Led to Accident

Sputnik News

16:42 09.11.2016(updated 19:17 09.11.2016)

A Dutch submarine was detected in Eastern Mediterranean at an attempt to approach and monitor the Russian Northern Fleet's group, the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said Wednesday.

"On November 9 at 06:50 a.m. Moscow Time [03:50 GMT], Russia's Severomorsk and Vice-Admiral Kulakov anti-submarine destroyers detected a diesel-electric submarine of the Dutch navy (presumably Walrusklasse) which tried to approach and track the aircraft carrier group of the Northern Fleet," he said.

Konashenkov underscored that the destroyers detected the sub at a distance of 20 kilometers using sonar systems and information provided by Ka-27 anti-submarine helicopters.

"Despite the submarine's maneuvering, we established a stable sonar contact with it. The ships had been tracking it for one hour and forced it to leave the area where the naval group was located."

"Such 'clumsy' attempts to maneuver in close vicinity to the Russian ships could have led to serious navigation accidents," Konashenkov said.

The spokesman added that the Russian naval group has been regularly detecting NATO submarines along its course. In early November, nuclear submarine Virginia was noticed at an attempt to spy on the Russian ships.

"It is noteworthy that submarines of such class, having big displacement, are not fit for reconnaissance," the spokesman observed.

On October 15, Russia's Northern Fleet's press service said that a group of warships headed by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, accompanied by the Pyotr Veliky battle cruiser, the Severomorsk and Vice-Admiral Kulakov anti-submarine destroyers and support vessels had been sent to the Mediterranean to hold drills and strengthen capabilities.

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Africans React to Trump Victory

By Jill Craig November 09, 2016

Feelings about Donald Trump's U.S. election win are mixed in Africa.

In Kenya, where President Barack Obama has familial roots, many were hoping Hillary Clinton could carry on his legacy, but were prepared for disappointment.

"Personally, I think it [Trump's win] was expected because I don't think America was ready for a female president just yet," said Jamila Wafula, a student at Jomo Kenyatta University near Nairobi. "We were really hoping that Clinton would win, but it was expected for Trump to win."

Sara Asafu-Adjaye, a Ghanaian social activist, says she would have loved to have seen the first female U.S. president.

"Not only is it that she is a woman. She's a competent woman," said Asafu-Adjaye. "And the fact that millions, over 48 percent of Americans believe that she's not the better person for the job, it scares me."

Charles Eboune, an international relations expert in Cameroon, was dismayed Clinton's decades of experience in Washington was not enough to carry her to victory.

"[If] you look at the caliber of the lady who was in front of him in the election and all those who backed her, it was another translation that [the] majority is not always right," said Eboune.

Change in style

Now, Africans have to adjust to the fact that a president with a very different style and priorities from both Obama and Clinton is going to take office.

More than a few Africans are worried about the policy changes Trump may implement.

"It might slow down immigration, probably from African countries toward the U.S.," said Francis Kouame in Ivory Coast. "It is going to make it more difficult. Really, I'm not happy that he won."

A Congolese newspaper reported the election results as "The Trump Surprise," while a popular Senegalese website displayed a photo of Trump, with a headline playing on the president-elect's last name and the French verb se tromper, "to make a mistake."

But an administrative worker in Dakar tries to remain optimistic about America's choice of president.

"I am a little disappointed, because I supported Hillary Clinton, but I see that the people of the United States have chosen their president," said Moussa Traore. "Donald Trump is not bad. The essential is that the people are a little unhappy to hear this, but maybe there will be change."

Keith Benon Robe was active in Uganda's opposition during his country's presidential elections earlier this year. He says he is excited because he believes Trump will stand up to Africa's dictators.

"I jumped off my feet in celebration. I was so joyous and I'm still, it's just unbelievable," said Robe. "I'm sure the economy will be better, better than it is right now. And I trust him because he's a businessman; he's going to change everything. But the main point is he's going to help us change this regime, which we're tired of."

A good example

The fact that Trump was legitimately elected was not lost on some Africans, who have seen many rigged or suspect elections in their time.

Stanley, a history teacher at the Institut Superieur Pedagogique de la Gombe in Kinshasa who preferred not to give his last name, says that regardless of winner, the American election cycle sets a good example for other countries.

"The lessons which I draw as a Congolese citizen, as an African, is that it's a handover of power, clear and clean, without problem. Mrs. Clinton has even called Trump to congratulate him," said Stanley.

African leaders and politicians in Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, the Democratic Republic on Congo and Somalia, to name a few, have already sent or tweeted messages to Trump, congratulating him on his victory. Malik Obama, President Obama's half-brother, has also congratulated Trump.

Thuso Khumalo reported from Johannesburg. Lizabeth Paulat reported from Kampala. William Clowes reported from Kinshasa. Emilie Iob reported from Abidjan. Ricci Shryock reported from Dakar. Moki Edwin Kindzeka reported from Cameroon. Francisca Kakra Forson reported from Accra.

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Further cooperation seen as Li, Putin meet

People's Daily Online

(China Daily) 08:15, November 09, 2016

Premier Li Keqiang met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday in Moscow, continuing bilateral high-level exchanges and signaling a desire for further cooperation.

A major characteristic of the China-Russia relationship is that high-level meetings are frequent between leaders of the two countries, which has become the "locomotive" that pulls bilateral ties forward, Jiang Yi, a Central Asian studies researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said on Tuesday.

In June, Li vowed to further link China's Belt and Road Initiative with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and to form an industrial chain for cooperation in gas, nuclear power and electricity. Putin pledged willingness to promote production capacity and third-party market cooperation.

Before his arrival in Moscow on Tuesday, Li visited the Russian coastal city of St. Petersburg, where he attended the 21st China-Russian Prime Ministers' Regular Meeting with his counterpart, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. More than 20 agreements were signed to boost bilateral cooperation in fields such as high-speed railway and nuclear power stations.

A joint statement released after their meeting emphasized further cooperation in major projects, including the 280-seat, wide-body commercial aircraft that is being jointly developed with Russia. The plane will make its first test flight by 2020 and be delivered in 10 years, according to an announcement last week by Commercial Aircraft Corp of China.

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It is ridiculous to say J-20 copied U.S. fighter jet: Chinese media

People's Daily Online

By Sun Wenyu (People's Daily Online) 16:51, November 09, 2016

To say that the J-20 jet, China's new-generation stealth fighter, copied the technologies of U.S. F-117A fighter, which the U.S. Air Force first flew in the 1980s, is simply ludicrous, People's Frontline said in a commentary. The newspaper argued that such voices reflect the jealousy of the U.S.

The original remarks were made by U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein in August. People's Frontline refuted Goldfein's claim, remarking that if the two models do share similarities, it is only that they both have wheels and wings.

The article exposed the truth behind the dismantled F-117. The aircraft sacrificed aerodynamic design for stealth, rendering it unable to fly at supersonic speeds. In addition, the F-117 could only cover a range of 1,000 kilometers with two land-attack missiles. Its performance is not even compatible with the J-5 and J-6.

Though the F-117 was a point of pride for U.S. military experts, it was shot down by Yugoslavia's SAM missile. Therefore, the U.S. decided to dismantle the aircraft and started development of the F-22, the paper added.

If, as Goldfein stated, China really had copied the technology of the F-117, then that would indicate that the J-20 is not competitive. But if that were the case, the U.S. government would not continually speak about a "China threat," People's Frontline mused.

It's not reasonable to compare the J-20 to the F-22 and F-35 either, the article said, adding that the latter has been frequently challenged by technical defects. In addition, the expensive F-22 fails to provide sufficient oxygen for the pilot. CNN commented that the F-20 would pose a threat to the U.S. in certain operational scenarios, such as a confrontation over Taiwan or the Diaoyu Islands.

As China makes progress on manned space flight, navigation satellites, early-warning satellites, remote-sensing satellites, aircraft carriers, major stealth destroyers, stealth aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and large aircraft, the U.S., as a major military power, has exposed its fear through its remarks about China's achievement.

China hopes to safeguard world peace through the development of cutting-edge weapons. Therefore, it doesn't matter what the U.S. hegemony says, the paper stated.

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India Stocks Up on Russian, Israeli Ammunition as Borders Remain Tense

Sputnik News

21:08 09.11.2016

Since the Uri attack that killed 19 troops in September, unabated tension and skirmishes on the border with Pakistan force India to purchase ammunition from its reliable suppliers.

NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  India has fast-tracked the procurement of $760 million of ammunition from Russia and Israel as it battles Pakistani soldiers on the border and armed militants in the state of Jammu & Kashmir.

India had dispatched senior officials to Russia and Israel for firming delivery contracts for howitzer shells, tank ammunition and missiles for helicopter gunships and fighter aircraft.

Some of the ammunition will shore up the war reserves that have declined to dangerously low levels.

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Putin Receiving Credentials From Ambassadors, Commenting on Trump's Victory

Sputnik News

13:34 09.11.2016(updated 18:47 09.11.2016)

President Vladimir Putin is received credentials from ambassadors to Russia. He commented on the results of the US presidential election.

"I would like to congratulate the American people on the end of the presidential campaign, and I would like to congratulate Mr. Donald Trump on winning this election," Putin said.

Donald Trump won the US presidential election triumphing over his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.

The Russian leader said Moscow was ready to do its outmost to return relations with Washington on the trajectory of sustainable development. Restoring the ties would not be easy, but Russia is ready to follow its course, he said.

"We heard election campaign statements by the US presidential candidate, which were aimed to restore relations between Russia and the United States. We are aware that this will be a difficult path, with account for degradation the Russia-US relations have unfortunately faced," Putin said.

"It is not our fault that the Russian-US ties are in such a state," he said. "But Russia is ready and wants to restore full-format relations with the United States. We are proceeding from the assumption that it will not be an easy path, but we are ready to complete our part of it."

Putin said that people from both Russia and the US would benefit from better relations. They would also improve the global climate.

"We are ready to do everything to bring back Russian-US relations on a sustainable development path. This would benefit both the Russian and the US people and would positively impact the overall climate in global affairs, given the particular responsibilities of Russia and the US in maintaining global stability and security," Putin said.

On Syria

Russia promotes the launch of intra-Syrian dialogue in light of the common agreement that a political solution is the only course toward conflict resolution, Vladimir Putin said at the credentials presenting ceremony.

"Together with the interested countries, Russia promotes the launch of intra-Syrian dialogue. We believe the the solution to the Syrian conflict must be political. It is the only way to stop the bloodshed, to ensure the return of millions of refugees, to revive the economy and the social sector of the country," Putin said.

The world's ability to jointly combat terrorism and face other security challenges is being determined in Syria, Putin said.

"By and large, the international community's ability and willingness to join forces and together confront the terrorist threat common to us all is being determined on Syrian soil, as well as to adequately respond to other challenges to global security and stability," the president said.

On Poland

Relations between Russia and Poland can hardly be called satisfactory, but restoration of political dialogue is possible, and Moscow is ready for that, Putin said.

"Mr. Ambassador: we know that the state of Russian-Polish relations can hardly be called satisfactory today. At the same time, we believe restoration of political dialogue is only possible on the basis of mutual respect and pragmatism," Putin said addressing Poland's new ambassador to Russia, Wlodzimierz Marciniak.

 Sputnik

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Putin Congratulates Trump on Victory in US Presidential Election - Kremlin

Sputnik News

11:34 09.11.2016(updated 13:49 09.11.2016)

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his victory in the US presidential election, voicing hope that joint work will resolve the crisis in bilateral ties, the Kremlin said Wednesday.

According to Kremlin, President Putin sent a telegram to Donald Trump, congratulating him on his victory in the US presidential election and wishing him success in taking on the serious task of being head of state.

"In a telegram, Putin expressed hope toward joint work to lift Russian-US relations from the state of crisis, as well as to address the pressing issues of the international agenda and the search for effective responses to global security challenges," the Kremlin said.

In the telegram, Putin expressed hope that the crisis in US-Russia relations will be overcome through joint work.

Putin also said he hopes that dialogue between Moscow and Washington, taking into account positions of both countries, meets the interests of the US and Russia.

 Sputnik

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Syrian troops down 14 drones operated by militants

Iran Press TV

Wed Nov 9, 2016 3:37PM

Syrian army soldiers and allied fighters have shot down 14 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operated by foreign-backed terrorists in the southwestern province of Dara'a.

An unidentified military source said on Wednesday that the drones intended to carry out reconnaissance missions and target a number of Syrian army positions.

The development came amid latest gains made by the Syrian forces against Takfiri elements operating in the Arab country.

Also on Wednesday, the Syrian army units and allies wrested control of al-Hikma school on the western outskirts of Aleppo.

An unnamed military source said that the advance came after clashes with terrorists, mostly from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front. The fighting inflicted dozens of casualties on the terrorists and destroyed their equipment.

Elsewhere, the Syrian troops foiled an attack on a number of military posts to the east of Hadir on the northern outskirts of Quneitra province. The fighting killed scores of the terrorists and destroyed their vehicles, some of which were equipped with heavy machine guns.

A number of other militants further lost their lives after another Syrian army unit targeted gatherings of militants and their supply routes in the countryside of Quneitra.

Clashes were also reported with Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in Mashara in eastern Quneitra.

Meanwhile, another military source said the Syrian forces had destroyed a Daesh vehicle equipped with a heavy machine gun, a mortar launcher and a bulldozer in al-Tharda Mountain and along the eastern barricade of Dayr al-Zawr Airport.

The airport's garrison targeted Daesh hideouts with artillery fire in Dayr al-Zawr's al-Orfi neighborhood, killing nine terrorists and obliterating their arms and munitions.

Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies. Backed by Russian air cover, the Syrian military is engaged in an operation to rid the country of Daesh and other terrorist groups.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura have put the death toll from the conflict at more than 300,000 and 400,000, respectively. This is while the UN has stopped its official casualty count in the Arab country, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.

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US-led coalition airstrike kills 23 civilians in Syria's Raqqah

Iran Press TV

Wed Nov 9, 2016 10:44AM

An airstrike by the US-led coalition purportedly fighting Daesh in Syria has killed at least 23 people, including a child, in a town near the Daesh-held northeastern city of Raqqah.

The strike targeted the village of al-Heesha, about 40 kilometers north of Raqqah, early on Wednesday, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Raqqah, on the northern bank of the Euphrates River, was overrun by the Takfiri terrorists in March 2013 and was proclaimed the terrorist group's so-called headquarters the following year.

The attack is not the first US-led airstrike to leave civilian casualties.

In mid October, at least 15 civilians were killed when a US-led attack hit areas in the Daham Village near Suluk in the northeastern countryside of Raqqah.

Since 2014, the United States has been leading a bombing campaign in Syria and neighboring Iraq with the declared objective of hitting Daesh.

In a separate development, foreign-backed militants carried out mortar attacks on the village of Hadar in Syria's southwestern Quneitra Province, leaving at least one civilian dead and several others injured, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

On Wednesday Syrian forces continued targeting terrorists across the country, advancing further in Aleppo's western countryside.

A military source said that army units and allied forces managed to regain control over the al-Hikma School in the 1070 Apartments district to the west of Aleppo.

A number of terrorists were killed or injured during the operation, the source said, without specifying how many.

The 1070 Apartments district, a strategic neighborhood on the southwestern outskirts of Aleppo, and its surrounding hills were liberated on Tuesday.

The recapturing of the area is considered as the most significant gain by the government in Aleppo since September.

Aleppo has been divided over the past four years between government forces in the west and foreign-backed terrorists in the east, making it a frontline battleground.

Backed by Russian air cover, the Syrian army launched operations to reunite Aleppo in September.

Separately, a military source said that the Syrian forces shot down 14 spy drones operated by militants on the suburbs of the country's southwestern city of Dara'a.

Syrian fighter jets also struck militant positions in the East Ghouta region of Damascus, inflicting heavy losses on them.

Since March 2011, Syria has been gripped by a foreign-backed militancy. Parts of the country and neighboring Iraq are controlled by Daesh terrorists.

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Militants' Attack on Aleppo University Campus Leaves Six Dead, 20 Injured

Sputnik News

20:12 09.11.2016

Aleppo university campus was attacked by Jihadists, six people were killed, at least 20 people were wounded, according to a source.

DAMASCUS (Sputnik)  Jihadists based in Aleppo have attacked on Wednesday a city university campus leaving at least six people dead, Arabic media reported, citing its sources.

According to the Al Mayadeen television broadcaster, the missile attack has also left at least 20 people with wounds of different severity.

The Sana news agency reported, citing a military source that another four people, including three women, had been injured throughout the day as a result of attacks by militants.

Over recent months, Aleppo has been a major battleground in Syria, engaging government forces, jihadists, and numerous opposition groups. Militant-held eastern Aleppo is encircled by government forces and the fighting has affected thousands of civilians still trapped in the city.

 Sputnik

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Syrian Armed Forces Repel Militants' Attack in Damascus Neighborhood

Sputnik News

16:05 09.11.2016(updated 16:07 09.11.2016)

Violent clashes between Syrian Armed forces and Jabhat Fatah al Sham, formerly known as Nusra Front, occurred in the town of Khan al-Shih, one of the main terrorist's strongholds not far from Damascus, according to milita source.

DAMASCUS (Sputnik)  The Syrian Armed Forces withstood earlier on Wednesday a powerful assault of terrorists on their positions southwest of Damascus, a militia source told RIA Novosti.

"The extremists' attack was successfully repelled. The militants suffered heavy losses and were put to flight," the source said.

According to the source, violent clashes with Jabhat Fatah al Sham, formerly known as Nusra Front, occurred in the town of Khan al-Shih, one of the main terrorist's strongholds not far from Damascus.

In early October, the army came close to this area, however, they failed to liberate it.

Syria's civil war between government forces and a wide range of insurgents, including opposition groups and terrorists, such as Islamic State and Jabhat Fatah al Sham, both outlawed in Russia and many other countries, has been raging since March 2011.

 Sputnik

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US Syria Policy Unlikely to Change After Trump Victory - PYD Kurdish Party

Sputnik News

14:45 09.11.2016

Syria's Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) co-chairman Saleh Muslim stated that US strategy in Syria wouldn't be changed after Donald Trump's victory in the presidential elections.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The United States is likely to pursue Barak Obama administration's policy in Syria after Donald Trump's victory in the presidential elections, Syria's Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) co-chairman Saleh Muslim told Sputnik Wednesday.

"We think that US strategy in Syria wouldn't be changed," Saleh Muslim said.

On October 27, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said in a press briefing that US support for Turkey's fight against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was "unwavering."

Turkish forces regularly come into confrontation with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, and its military wing People's Protection Units (YPG) operating in Syria, which Ankara considers to be an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), outlawed in Turkey.

The US-led coalition of more than 60 nations has been conducting airstrikes against the Daesh in Syria and Iraq since 2014. The strikes in Syria have not been authorized by Assad's government or the UN Security Council. Ahead of the election, Trump has said that the United States should stop trying to get rid of Syrian President Bashar Assad and should instead start looking for a diplomatic solution jointly with Russia.

 Sputnik

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Syrian Army Gains Strategic Hikmah Height in Southwest Aleppo - Militia

Sputnik News

10:45 09.11.2016(updated 10:54 09.11.2016)

According to a source in the Syrian militia, Syrian government army and militia troops established control over the strategic Hikmah height in southwestern Aleppo.

DAMASCUS (Sputnik)  The Syrian government army and militia troops established control over the strategic Hikmah height in southwestern Aleppo, a source in the Syrian militia told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

"Our troops arrived at the school walls at the Hikmah height overnight. The resistance was strong, We were able to break through the enemy defenses together with army units. We have cleared nearly everything now," the source said.

 Sputnik

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Turkish Army Destroys 90 Daesh Targets in Northern Syria  General Staff

Sputnik News

10:11 09.11.2016(updated 10:18 09.11.2016)

Turkey's General Staff said that Turkish forces have destroyed a total of 90 Islamic State (IS) terrorist group targets alongside five Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) positions in the past 24 hours as part of the Euphrates Shield operation in northern Syria.

ANKARA (Sputnik)  Turkish forces have destroyed a total of 90 Daesh terrorist group targets alongside five Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) positions in the past 24 hours as part of the Euphrates Shield operation in northern Syria, Turkey's General Staff said in a statement on Tuesday.

"Our armed forces destroyed 90 Daesh targets and five targets of PYD-Kurdistan Workers' Party [PKK] During the operations, two opposition fighters were killed and 26 were injured, no injuries among Turkish troops have been reported," the statement read.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) armed opposition group took over seven inhabited areas near the northern Syrian town of Al Rai in the Aleppo governorate, the General Staff added, noting that the total area under FSA control in northern Syria now amounts to 1,500 square kilometers (579 square miles), containing 186 inhabited locations.

The Turkish military launched an operation to clear the Syrian border town of Jarabulus and the surrounding area of the Islamic State, outlawed in Russia and multiple other countries, on August 24 prompting accusations of invasion from Damascus and Syrian Kurds.

Turkish forces regularly come into confrontation with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its military wing People's Protection Units (YPG) operating in Syria, which Ankara considers to be an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), outlawed in Turkey.

 Sputnik

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Ankara Cautiously Welcomes Trump Victory

By Dorian Jones November 09, 2016

Turkey has cautiously welcomed Donald Trump's presidential victory.

"The election marks the beginning of a new era in the United States," declared President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a meeting of businessmen in Istanbul. "Personally and on behalf of the nation, I wish to consider this decision by the American people a positive sign and wish them a successful future."

The warm words are in stark contrast to Erdogan describing Trump as an "Islamophobe," in response to Trump's call to ban Muslims visiting or immigrating to the United States. Members of Erdogan's ruling AK Party had even called for Istanbul's Trump Tower to be renamed. The Turkish president, a devout Muslim, likes to portray himself as a defender of Muslims throughout the world.

On the surface, it appears the two leaders have little in common but observers in Turkey point out both view themselves as strong men who are outside the establishment, with a common touch, and who care little about making waves with provocative statements.

"They seem to share similar traits and they [are] both riding the wave of popularism - there is no doubt about that," observes political columnist Semih Idiz of Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News and Al Monitor website. "Trump has also signaled that it's not up to America to interfere in other countries and tell them that their democracy is good or bad."

Issues 'won't disappear overnight'

A new approach from Washington on human rights will likely be welcomed in Ankara. U.S. President Barack Obama's administration made little secret of its growing concerns over human rights in Turkey, exacerbated by an ongoing crackdown following July's coup attempt. Relations have markedly deteriorated, with Erdogan's chief international relations adviser, Ayse Sozen Usluer, describing ties, diplomatically, as going through "turbulence."

Awaiting Trump are disputes and tensions between the two NATO allies. "Issues that existed under the Obama administration won't disappear overnight," warns columnist Idiz. "Starting with the Fethullah Gulen problem and then the Syrian Kurds, which Turkey describes as terrorists and which America is allied at the moment."

Officials in Turkey blame U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen for July's failed military takeover. Ankara has made little secret of its anger over Washington's insistence that any extradition of Gulen will be subject to judicial process.

Sources close to Erdogan suggest that Trump's businesslike approach could offer its best chance of having Gulen sent back to Turkey, Ankara's No. 1 diplomatic priority. In congratulating Trump on his victory, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim wasted little time in sending a message to the president-elect. "I am openly calling on the new president from here about the urgent extradition of Fethullah Gulen," Yildirim said, adding that a "new beginning" in bilateral relations was in the offing.

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Ukrainians Awake To 'Nightmare' Of Trump Victory

Christopher Miller November 09, 2016

KYIV -- Ukrainians have expressed disbelief and worry after they awoke to discover that a U.S. election outcome many had feared -- a Donald Trump presidency -- had become reality.

"Tell me I'm sleeping and this is a terrible nightmare!" a shocked Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Kyiv-based NGO Anticorruption Action Center, wrote on Facebook on November 9.

"Please someone tell me this is not happening..." tweeted civil activist Kateryna Kruk as it became apparent that Republican candidate Trump was closing in on a victory over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

"It's 5 A.M. in Kyiv, but I am scared to go to bed now. With Trump in the office, Putin can easily turn Syria, Ukraine into his new Chechnyas," tweeted Myroslava Petsa, a Ukrainian journalist at the Poroshenko-owned Kanal 5 news station, referring to places where many thousands of civilians were killed during Russia military operations.

Kyiv considers Washington to be its strongest ally in its fight against a revanchist Russia, and Trump's statements during the campaign have prompted concerns that he may be more accepting of Russia's actions in Ukraine than the current administration.

Many ordinary Ukrainians fear that Trump might end U.S. sanctions against Russia over its interference in Ukraine, formally recognize Russia's 2014 seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, and allow the Kremlin to restore its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

Some want specific answers from Trump regarding his position on Ukraine, and they want their leaders to pry them from him.

"Ukraine's [Petro] Poroshenko [and] Pavlo Klimkin must now demand [of] Trump full clarity, explanation of his stance on Ukraine's sovereignty!" wrote Serhiy Kiral, a parliament deputy of the pro-European Samopomich party, referring to the president and foreign minister, respectively.

There have been signs that relations between a Trump White House and Kyiv might not be as warm as relations between Ukraine and the administration of outgoing President Barack Obama have been.

During his campaign, Trump snubbed Poroshenko when the Ukrainian leader visited New York in September, failing to reply to a request for a sit-down on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

As of midday local time in Kyiv, the only message of congratulations from a member of Ukraine's government to Trump had come from a tweet by Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman that did not name the president-elect.

"Congratulations to the president of the United States with a victory in the election. I hope that the new administration will continue to support the course of Ukraine," Hroysman wrote.

Poroshenko's statement came in the late afternoon during a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

In passing on his congratulations to Trump on behalf of Ukraine, the president reiterated to Yovanovitch the importance of keeping U.S. sanctions against Russia in place and said he looked forward to working with the new Trump administration "in our fight against Russian aggression, in our fight for freedom and democracy, and sovereignty and territorial integrity, where the United States remains our reliable partner."

At least one Ukrainian politician appeared to seize on the opportunity to promote his closeness to the U.S. president-elect.

On Facebook, Mikheil Saakashvili, the firebrand former Georgian president who resigned as governor of Ukraine's Odesa region on November 7, shared a photograph of himself with Trump during the opening of Trump Tower in Batumi, Georgia, in 2012, when he was head of state.

"I've known [Trump] for more than 20 years, we are friends. I accurately predicted [his win]," Saakashvili wrote. He added a word of caution as to not place himself too close to the controversial Trump, saying the American businessman turned politician had "a strong personality with unpredictable policy...we must be careful."

Lithuanian-born former Ukrainian Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius took an optimistic approach, tweeting: "Life goes on. Everything will be fine."

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-reactions- trump-victory/28106405.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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English Russian Latvian

Riga, Latvia, 2016-11-09 07:42 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Due to relatively positive trends on the real estate market and consistent implementation of the companys business strategy, Pillar group continued decreasing its property portfolio. This year, 150 properties have been sold for EUR 9.3 million.

Over nine months, 82 uniform apartments have been sold by Pillar: 58 of those in Riga and 24  outside Riga. In total, 12 apartments in new projects have been sold, as well as 30 private houses, 22 land plots, and other properties.

Thus, Pillar allocates increasingly more resources to the following cycle of operations, which involves development of large-scale New Hanza City (NHC) project. Therefore, on 4 July this year, Pillar started the construction of NHC infrastructure, which includes the first stage of laying the streets and engineering systems, incl. water supply, sewage, heat, and electricity supply systems. These works are planned to be completed by summer 2017. The functions of the general contractor of this project are performed by Pillar Contractor, SIA. Following the installation of engineering systems  in Q2 2017  it is planned to begin the construction of the ABLV central office and an additional office building.

In the second half of the year, the best idea for reconstruction of the warehouse building of the former Riga railway goods station, located on NHC territory, was chosen  the solution proposed by the architecture bureau Sudraba arhitektura, the author of which is architect Reinis Liepins. After the reconstruction, the building is supposed to become a multifunctional cultural centre, in which premises will admit up to 1000 visitors.

Two more residential buildings on NHC territory are currently being designed  these will be premium class and middle class apartment blocks, consisting approximately of 100 apartments each.

Pillar Chief Executive Officer Ieva Valtere noted: Residential property market development scenario allows forecasting that the properties we currently have will be sold during the following two years. Moderate growth is observed on the market, and the demand is traditionally higher in the segment of uniform apartments. The properties remaining in our portfolio are mostly those apartments. Therefore, we have considerably increased our capacity of NHC development, also raising appropriate labour resources.

Pillar group, established in 2008, is owned by the largest private bank in Latvia ABLV Bank, AS and it includes companies that operate in the field of real estate development, management, and trade. Pillar group includes Pillar Management, SIA, Pillar Holding Company, KS, New Hanza City, SIA, and other companies. In total, Pillar supervises about 300 properties worth approximately EUR 38 million. So far, the company has invested a total of EUR 20 million in renovation of properties. Since 2013, Pillar has been the major sponsor of the Annual Award in Latvian Architecture organized by the Latvian Association of Architects.
1931-2016Herbert Carroll Etheridge died peacefully on Sunday, November 6, 2016, in Gretna, Virginia, after a lengthy illness. He was 85 years old.Born on January 28, 1931 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Etheridge was the youngest child of Emma and Herbert Etheridge. He was orphaned at age 4 and grew up on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with his adoptive parents, Tom and Annie Baum, who built the Orville and Wilbur Wright Hotels, among the first along that stretch of coast.As a boy, he watched German U-boats sink ships from his bedroom window. Those early experiences led to a lifelong quest for adventure and later, an avid interest in photography.During his teenage years, he attended Oak Ridge Military Academy near Greensboro, North Carolina.He was an early enthusiast of scuba diving and searched for hidden treasures off the North Carolina coast, known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" for its turbulent tides and abundant shipwrecks.In the 1950s, he married Helen Lee Heard and started a family in Danville, Virginia. There he was a volunteer member of the Danville Life Saving Crew. His hobbies included fishing, hunting and collecting Native American artifacts. For many years, he worked at Memorial Hospital (now Danville Regional Medical Center). Later he taught at Danville Community College, launching the school's first curriculum in still photography and video production.His search for scenic beauty and cultural diversity later took him on travels across the country and to the frozen tundra of the Yukon Territory.Until his retirement in 2005, Etheridge produced films and videos for government, corporations, organizations, colleges and individuals. Etheridge also wrote the book, "Once More the Wind," recounting his journey sailing from Seattle to Alaska in the late 1970s.He is predeceased by three sisters, Wilma Heilman, Theresa Garrison and Mary Merritt.He is survived by his four children, Patricia Etheridge, Tom Etheridge, Annie Etheridge and Janet Boddington. There are five grandchildren, Coleman Burke, William Burke, Max Boddington, Micah Plott and Julia Plott.There will be no public service. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations go the Danville Life Saving Crew, http://www.dlsc.org.Colbert-Moran Funeral Home, Gretna is assisting the family. Condolences may be sent to the family by visiting www.colbertmoran.com.
GREENSBORO  The HondaJet has set two speed records against jets in its class.

Greensboro-based Honda Aircraft Co. said it set records from Teterboro, N.J., to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Boston to Palm Beach, Fla. The U.S. National Aeronautic Association certified the records, according to a Honda news release.

In setting the record between New Jersey and Florida, the HondaJet flew from Teterboro Airport at 2:15 p.m. on April 9 and landed at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport at 4:06 p.m. Despite average headwinds of nearly 70 mph, the 960 nautical-mile flight took 2 hours and 51 minutes at a cruising altitude of 43,000 feet. Factoring the considerable headwind of 60 knots and high temperatures, the HondaJet achieved an average true air speed of 396 knots (456 mph) and maximum ground speed of 414 knots (478 mph) for this flight.

For the Boston to Palm Beach record, the HondaJet departed New Bedford Regional Airport at 7:18 a.m. on July 19, 2016, and landed at Palm Beach International Airport at 9:16 a.m. The 1,060-nautical-mile flight took 2 hours and 58 minutes. Factoring average 30 knot headwind, the HondaJet achieved an average true air speed of 385 knots and a maximum ground speed of 422 knots (486 mph).

The HondaJet is the first aircraft in its class to officially achieve the Boston to Palm Beach record.

HondaJet competes in a class of four commercially available very light jets, or jets that weigh less than 10,000 pounds.

Other competitors in the very light jet category are the Embraer Phenom 100, Citation M2 and Citation Mustang, according to Honda Aircraft spokeswoman Kristy Kennedy.

The company received type certification from the Federal Aviation Administration on Dec. 8, 2015, and delivered the first HondaJet on Dec. 23.

The jet is manufactured at the companys world headquarters at Piedmont Triad International Airport.

In late 2015, Honda employed about 1,700 people and made about four of the jets a month.

The HondaJet can seat up to seven people, including one or two pilots.

Honda Aircraft has dealerships in North America, South America and Europe, and it has said for years that it has orders for more than 100 of the $4.5 million aircraft.
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.
Toronto, Ontario (FSCwire) - Stans Energy Corp. (TSX-V: HRE, OTC Pink: HREEF), ("Stans" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has closed the first tranche of its non-brokered private placement (the Placement).

As announced on October 4, 2016, the Placement comprised an offering for up to $600,000 consisting of up to 12,000,000 units at a price of $0.05 per Unit. Each Unit consisted of one common share in the capital of the Company and one share purchase warrant (each whole warrant a Warrant). Each Warrant will be exercisable to acquire one additional common share of the Company for a period of 60 months at a price of $0.06 per common share.

6,050,000 common shares for gross proceeds of $302,500.00 were issued in this placement. Finders Fees of $2,000 were paid to Cannacord Gennuity. The Finders Fee represented 5% of the gross proceeds collected by Cannacord Gennuity with an allotment for 40,000 finders warrants which represented 5% of the shares issued to Cannacord Genuity clients who participated in Placement. The Finders Warrant are exercisable to acquire one common share of the Company at a price of $0.06 commencing on November 10, 2016 for a period of 60 months.

Combined Insider participation in the Placement totalled $45,000. Stans intends to use the gross proceeds from the Offering to fund the legal and technical due diligence for the Pervomayskiy Lithium Mineralization Stockpile (the Stockpile) and Zaibaikalsky Mill (the Mill) and associated infrastructure.

AMC Consultants have been retained by the Company to conduct geological confirmation work on the Stockpile with a focus on producing an NI 43-101 compliant resource. Furthermore an engineering evaluation on the Mill will be conducted with the eventual intent to produce an NI 43-101 compliant Preliminary Economic Assessment for the production of lithium carbonate from the Stockpile.

Norton Rose Fulbright has also been retained by Stans to assist with the structure and oversight of a purchase option agreement for the Stockpile and Mill. This legal due diligence will be conducted from their Moscow offices in conjunction with Stans Moscow based team.

The Company also reports that COO, Boris Aryev, has been issued 200,000 shares to partially settle debts owed from salary arrears dating from April 2016 through July 2016.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Closing of the Offering will be subject to certain closing conditions, including the approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

About Stans Energy

Stans Energy Corp. is a resource development company focused on advancing rare and specialty metals properties and processing technologies Stans is now transitioning into a supplier of materials and technologies that will assist in satisfying the future energy supply, storage and transmission needs of the world. Previously, the Company acquired, among other things, the right to mine the past producing rare earth mine, Kutessay II, in the Kyrgyz Republic Due to the expropriation actions taken by the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Company is undertaking international arbitration litigation to protect the Companys rights and recover damages estimated at over US$210,000,000, caused by the Republic.

We seek safe harbour.

Contact Details

Rodney Irwin David Vinokurov Stans Energy Corp. Stans Energy Corp. Interim President & CEO VP Corporate Development rodney@stansenergy.com david@stansenergy.com 647-426-1865 647-426-1865

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: This document includes forward-looking statements as well as historical information. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, use of proceeds from the Offering, the completion of the Offering, the continued advancement of the company's general business development, research development and the company's development of mineral exploration projects. When used in this press release, the words will, shall, "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "intent", "may", "project", "plan", "should" and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements. Although Stans Energy Corp. believes that their expectations reflected in these forward looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties and no assurance can be given that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statement. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements include the potential that fluctuations in the marketplace for the sale of minerals, the inability to implement corporate strategies, the ability to obtain financing and other risks disclosed in our filings made with Canadian Securities Regulators.

To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/Stans11092016_0.pdfSource: Stans Energy Corp. (TSX Venture:HRE, OTCQB:HREEF)

To follow Stans Energy Corp. on your favorite social media platform or financial websites, please click on the icons below.

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Copyright  2016 Filing Services Canada Inc.
- Increased domestic and international drilling activity drives higher revenue despite continued domestic pricing pressures -

VAL-D'OR, QC, Nov. 9, 2016 /CNW/ - Orbit Garant Drilling Inc. (TSX: OGD) ("Orbit Garant" or the "Company") today announced its financial results for the three-month period ended September 30, 2016 ("Q1 FY2017"). All dollar amounts are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. Percentage calculations are based on numbers in the financial statements and may not correspond to rounded figures presented in this news release.

Summary







($ amounts in millions, except per share amounts) Three months

ended

September 30,

2016 Three months

ended

September 30,

2015 Revenue $30.5 $24.3 Gross Profit $2.9 $3.3 Gross Margin (%) 9.4 13.7 Adjusted Gross Margin (%)1 17.8 22.2 EBITDA2 $2.4 $2.6 Net loss $0.2 $0.2 Net loss per share





- Basic and diluted $0.01 $0.01 Total metres drilled 318,382 259,462



1 In accordance with IFRS, reported gross profit and margin include certain depreciation expenses. For comparative purposes, adjusted gross margin is also shown excluding these depreciation expenses. 2 EBITDA is defined as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

"The first quarter of fiscal 2017 was highlighted by solid operating performance and continued growth in drilling activity. Despite challenging market conditions, we delivered our ninth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in domestic drilling revenue, and our seventh straight quarter of year-over-year growth in international drilling revenue," said Eric Alexandre, President & CEO of Orbit Garant. "In Canada, we continued to face pricing pressure in the quarter. In addition, our mobilization costs were higher during the quarter as we work to meet increased demand. These factors combined to reduce margins in the quarter. However, we are seeing drill utilization rates rising as customers increase exploration and resource development spending, and historically that has been a predecessor to pricing recovery. Indeed, we are starting to see opportunities to increase pricing."

"Meanwhile, we remain very active on the international front, particularly in Chile where we have secured two new contracts with major mining companies that will begin during the second quarter of fiscal 2017. We will continue to seek new opportunities abroad, in line with our long-term goal of generating 25% of our total revenue from outside Canada," continued Mr. Alexandre.

"We are also pleased to have formed a partnership earlier this week with the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi. Orbit Garant is now a preferred mineral drilling partner of the people of Waswanipi, and this should open up new opportunities for us in Northern Quebec."

First Quarter Results

For the three months ended September 30, 2016 ("Q1 FY2017") revenue totaled $30.5 million, an increase of 25.6% from the three-month period ended September 30, 2015 ("Q1 FY2016"). Drilling Canada revenue was $25.4 million, up 7.0% from $23.8 million in Q1 FY2016, reflecting increased metres drilled during the quarter. Drilling International revenue was $5.1 million, compared to $0.5 million in Q1 FY2016, reflecting the Company's acquisition of Chile-based Captagua Ingenieria S.A (renamed "OG Chile") in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, and to a lesser extent, new project revenues in Ghana.

Orbit Garant's fleet drilled a total of 318,382 metres in Q1 FY2017, an increase of 22.7% from 259,462 metres drilled in Q1 FY2016. Consolidated average revenue per metre drilled was $95.58, up 5.0% from $91.15 in Q1 FY2016. The increase in consolidated average revenue per metre drilled is attributable to an increase in international specialized drilling activity, including a high proportion of specialized drilling activity in Chile.

Gross profit for Q1 FY2017 was $2.9 million, compared to $3.3 million in Q1 FY2016. Gross margin for Q1 FY2017 was 9.4%, compared to 13.7% in Q1 FY2016. In accordance with IFRS, depreciation expenses totalling $2.6 million are included in cost of contract revenue for Q1 FY2017, compared to $2.0 million in Q1 FY2016. Adjusted gross margin, excluding depreciation expenses, was 17.8% in Q1 FY2017, compared to 22.2% in Q1 FY2016. The decrease in gross profit, gross margin and adjusted gross margin was primarily attributable to continued domestic pricing pressures, and increased project mobilization and start-up costs.

General and administrative (G&A) expenses were $3.4 million (representing 11.1% of revenue) in Q1 FY2017, compared to $3.1 million (representing 12.9% of revenue) in Q1 FY2016. Increased G&A expenses are primarily attributable to the Company's expanded international operations. Decreased G&A expenses as a percentage of revenue reflect the Company's financial discipline in growing its business.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ("EBITDA")1 was $2.4 million in Q1 FY2017, compared to $2.6 million in Q1 FY2016.

The Company's net loss for Q1 FY2017 was $0.2 million, or $0.01 per share. The Company also had a net loss of $0.2 million, or $0.01 per share, in Q1 FY2016.

During Q1 FY2017, the company used a net amount of $1.7 million on its $25.0 million revolving Credit Facility. In Q1 FY2016, the Company repaid a net amount of $1.9 million. As at September 30, 2016, the Company's long-term debt from its revolving credit facility was $9.2 million, compared to $7.4 million as at June 30, 2016. The Company's debt was incurred to support the acquisition of capital assets, principally property, plant and equipment. Orbit Garant had working capital of $45.5 million as at September 30, 2016 ($42.9 million as at June 30, 2016) and 35,101,419 shares outstanding.

Orbit Garant's audited consolidated financial statements and management's discussion and analysis for the first quarter ended September 30, 2016 are available via the Company's website at www.orbitgarant.com or SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Conference call

Eric Alexandre, President and CEO, and Alain Laplante, Vice President and CFO, will host a conference call for analysts and investors on Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. (ET). The dial-in numbers for the conference call are 647-427-7450 or 1-888-231-8191. A live webcast of the call will be available on Orbit Garant's website at: http://www.orbitgarant.com/en/sites/fog/investors.aspx.

To access a replay of the conference call dial 416-849-0833 or 1-855-859-2056, passcode: 4710191. The replay will be available until November 17, 2016. The webcast will be archived following conclusion of the call.

About Orbit Garant

Headquartered in Val-d'Or, Quebec, Orbit Garant is one of the largest Canadian-based mineral drilling companies, providing both underground and surface drilling services in Canada and internationally through its 226 drill rigs and more than 900 employees. Orbit Garant provides services to major, intermediate and junior mining companies, through each stage of mining exploration, development and production. The Company also provides geotechnical drilling services to mining or mineral exploration companies, engineering and environmental consultant firms, and government agencies. For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.orbitgarant.com.

(1) Management believes that EBITDA is a useful supplemental measure of operating performance before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. However, EBITDA is not a recognized earnings measure under IFRS and does not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. Investors are cautioned that EBITDA should not be construed as an alternative to net income or loss (which is determined in accordance with IFRS) as an indicator of the performance of the Company or as a measure of liquidity and cash flows. The Company's method of calculating EBITDA may differ materially from the methods used by other public companies and, accordingly, may not be comparable to similarly named measures used by other public companies.

Forward-looking information

This news release may contain forward-looking statements (within the meaning of applicable securities laws) relating to business of Orbit Garant Drilling Inc. (the "Company") and the environment in which it operates. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as "believe", "anticipate", "expect", "intend", "plan", "will", "may" and other similar expressions. These statements are based on the Company's expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections. They are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to control or predict. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the Company's regulatory filings available at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate as actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Readers, therefore, should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. Further, a forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any such statement or to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances.

SOURCE Orbit Garant Drilling Inc.
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Ilhan Omar made history Tuesday night as the nation's first Somali-American legislator, with a commanding win in a state House race.Omar, who faced only nominal Republican opposition in a heavily DFL Minneapolis district, continues an unlikely political journey that began amid the Somali civil war and a Kenyan refugee camp."It's the beginning of something new," Omar said. "This district has a legacy of making history. I am excited for our progressive values and to be able to be on the ground at the Capitol representing the diverse people of my district and being a champion with them and for them."Omar, a 34-year-old Muslim-American woman who proudly wears the hijab, is suddenly thrust into leadership of a rapidly emerging DFL coalition that is younger, more urban and more racially and ethnically diverse than at any time in its history.House Minority Leader Paul Thissen said Omar's victory is a statement about the state's future: "It says something important about the future of Minnesota, and what it means to be a Minnesotan."Omar, who is also director of policy at Women Organizing Women Network -- a group dedicated to pushing East African women into civic leadership -- is credited with being a talented organizer and leader of a multiracial coalition that includes Minneapolis progressives. That in turn helped her defeat Rep. Phyllis Kahn -- the House's longest serving member -- in a three-way DFL primary that included another formidable Somali-American opponent.Omar's nascent political career hit an almost immediate snag, however, just days after the primary victory, when questions arose about her marital status. She lives with Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her three children, but is legally married to another man, with whom she says she is in divorce proceedings.Conservative websites have speculated that the legal marriage was to her brother for the purpose of committing immigration fraud. Omar declined interviews during the media maelstrom this summer, instead releasing a statement saying there was no immigration fraud, but a more conventional story about trouble in her relationship with Hirsi, which has since resolved itself.Omar said the district has rallied around her in the face of the scrutiny.She said her family has remained steadfastly with her, and alleged the marriage story was a "political con" meant to derail the progress of the kinds of people she will represent, including the Somali-American community."I feel like I have answered all of the questions -- mostly rumors -- in the statements that I have put out," she said.DFL leaders have stood by her, and local supporters remain committed as ever.Hodan Adan, a mom who lives in the district and an Omar supporter, said an East African Muslim woman at the Capitol will inspire other women in the Somali emigre community, who are working hard to find their niche in Minnesota."We're a minority in this country," Adan said. "I am glad we see a role model for many women and students. I want a woman and someone from our community to win."Omar's story is just the latest in a long line of oppressed people coming to the United States, grabbing hold of the country's democratic levers and demanding equality and opportunity -- mirroring the journey of Irish, Jewish and other immigrant groups.She immigrated to the United States as a preteen, knowing only a few words of English, living with her family in Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside area. They escaped the Somali civil war when she was 8 and spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp.She will face significant challenges in St. Paul, where a closely divided House filled with long-serving members will require coalitions with suburban and rural members, including Republicans, if she is to move legislation. Omar said she wants to help women entrepreneurs, pursue criminal justice reform and ensure clean air and water.Omar said her victory is evidence that she can break barriers: "Throughout this campaign those divisions have started to melt away. People are starting to see themselves as part of a community.
In a blow to Atlantic City elected officials, New Jersey's Local Finance Board voted 5-0 Wednesday to grant its director, Timothy Cunningham, far-reaching governing powers over the beleaguered city.The vote, a by-product of the state's Municipal Stabilization and Recovery Act, was the worst-case scenario for the city, which has been fighting a takeover for the last year, even as it barely escaped going broke.The city's mayor, Don Guardian, called the decision "devastating."Cunningham, who recused himself for the vote because of the powers the takeover gives him, seemed equally stunned by the power shift. He said he may appoint a designee to handle day-to-day operations."I'm still absorbing the magnitude of the responsibility," Cunningham, 44, told reporters after the meeting. He said Atlantic City's problems had kept him up nights, but declined to give specifics of how he would proceed.He cited his two years with the Local Finance Board and prior to that, as deputy county administrator with Passaic County.The law gives the state up to five years to oversee Atlantic City, giving Trenton the power to hire and fire, sell off assets, veto council minutes, eliminate departments and nullify union contracts.The Local Finance Board specifically excluded the power to declare bankruptcy from their resolution placing power into the state's hands.Cunningham said unions should consider their contracts still in place, but did not give specifics of how he would proceed.After meeting privately with Cunningham, Mayor Guardian said the city was told to continue operating "business as usual." He said it still was not clear how far the state intended to go in usurping their control of day to day operations.Guardian and City Council President Marty Small said they would defer any decision on whether to appeal the takeover to court to see how it first played out.Prior to the ruling, Activist Steve Young told the board the takeover was an example of how "the whole country will turn out under guise of Gov. Chris Christie and President-elect Donald Trump."Guardian said he still believed the city's coveted Municipal Utility Authority was at the heart of the state's move to take power away from elected officials. At least two private companies have sought to buy the MUA.Earlier this month, the state of New Jersey rejected Atlantic City's recovery plan, saying it was not likely to achieve financial stability for the resort city, triggering an imminent state takeover.The state called the plan "ambitious" but "deficient" and "speculative." It criticized the plan for failing to include a balanced budget for 2017 "that complies with all conditions of the Local Budget Law."It also found fault with a key piece of the plan that called for the city's Municipal Utilities Authority to issue $110 million worth of bonds to purchase the city's old municipal airstrip, Bader Field. That plan would have allowed the city to pay off some of its crushing $500 million debt _ much of that owed to casinos who successfully appealed tax assessments.State officials have called for the MUA to either be run by the county or sold to a private company or otherwise monetized.The city has promised to fight any takeover in court, which the state law allows them to do. They have also said that they would fight a takeover on civil rights grounds, and said they had the support of groups such as the ACLU, the NAACP, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)The city has been on the verge of default since its casino industry began to crater, with five casinos closing since 2014 and the city's ratable base collapsing from $20 billion in 2010 to $6 billion currently.City officials say they have cut the payroll, imposed other cost saving measures and created a plan that would allow them to settle debt with Borgata, the city's largest taxpayer which is owed about $150 million from successful tax appeals.The action Wednesday caps a nearly year-long tug of war with the state over the future of Atlantic City, during which the city teetered on the edge of bankruptcy but managed to pull back from the brink and pay its bills. City workers agreed to defer paychecks in April and then to a monthly, instead of bimonthly, pay schedule. Many of the city's taxpayers even showed up early to pay taxes.At various times, both Christie and State Sen. President Stephen Sweeney called for an outright takeover, but Sweeney was unable to get the Assembly to embrace his Senate takeover legislation. The battle also included a January press appearance by all three men _ Christie, Sweeney and Guardian _ which promised a kumbaya moment but ended up being interpreted as a betrayal by Atlantic City.Although Sweeney had assured them that the governor was agreeing to a compromise plan, Christie at the press conference read language from the stronger bill calling for a vast takeover and did not waver from that.Eventually, after forging alliances with North Jersey legislators, including, crucially, Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, a Democrat, Guardian was able to get the 150-day reprieve written into the takeover bill. At the time, most thought it would lead to an inevitable takeover, including Christie, who mocked the deadline and A.C.'s ability to meet the terms by saying, "Tick tock, tick tock."On Wednesday, time ran out.
Overnight, it seemed, Gov. Christie's fortunes reversed.The governor, battling historically bad approval ratings and coming off convictions of two of his former aides in a federal trial, was back on the winning team.Donald Trump's election early Wednesday was also a victory for Christie, who was among the first Republican leaders to endorse the real estate mogul after ending his own presidential bid -- and who early on was named chairman of Trump's White House transition team. Christie was given the responsibility of charting a plan for the president-elect's first 100 days in office.Now, the governor's future is once again an open question."He has an opportunity to be at the epicenter of a presidential administration," said Bruce Haynes, a GOP strategist in Washington. "It's not too small of an observation to say that Tuesday night has potentially changed the entire trajectory of Chris Christie's political life."The governor was on stage as Trump claimed victory early Wednesday morning. "Gov. Chris Christie, folks, was unbelievable," Trump said.Christie didn't have a public schedule Wednesday in New Jersey. A spokesman for the governor said he could not comment on where the governor was, his plans over the next few days, or how his transition duties might change now that Trump has been elected.Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester) said he wouldn't be surprised if Christie resigned before his term ends in January 2018 to join Trump. In that scenario, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno would become governor. The 2017 gubernatorial primaries are in June.Given Christie's early and steadfast support for Trump, the governor would probably get "whatever he wants" in a Trump administration, Sweeney said.Christie faded from public view in the final weeks of Trump's campaign while testimony in the trial over the George Washington Bridge lane closures cast doubt on the governor's version of events in the scandal.But throughout the campaign, he stood by Trump, even as other Republicans wavered or jumped ship.As members of both parties attacked Trump for saying a Mexican-American judge couldn't fairly oversee a lawsuit involving one of the New Yorker's businesses because Trump had proposed building a wall on the southern border, Christie said he knew Trump wasn't racist.And while Christie criticized Trump's comments in the 2005 Access Hollywood videotape -- calling the businessman's boast about grabbing women by the genitals "indefensible" -- he said he took Trump at his word that he hadn't sexually assaulted anyone."He made a decision to support Donald Trump. And he stuck with him, through thick and thin," said Jon Bramnick, the Republican minority leader of the New Jersey Assembly and a close Christie ally. "I think that works well long-term, if that's the type of person you are."Trump's election could not have come at a better time for Christie.On Friday, a federal jury convicted Christie's former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, and Christie's former top executive appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Bill Baroni, of intentionally misusing agency resources as part of an illicit political payback scheme.Prosecutors accused Kelly and Baroni of conspiring with former Port Authority official David Wildstein to cause massive traffic jams near the George Washington Bridge in September 2013 to punish a local mayor for his refusal to endorse Christie's reelection campaign that year.Although prosecutors brought charges against only those three individuals, Christie was often the center of attention during six weeks of testimony, depicted at times as a recklessly ambitious, abusive boss.The trial commenced just months after Christie's mentor and top appointee at the Port Authority, chairman David Samson, pleaded guilty to bribing United Airlines to initiate a money-losing route from Newark to an airport close to Samson's South Carolina vacation home.Including Samson, four top Christie allies have been convicted of federal crimes. A fifth has pleaded not guilty in the United Airlines scheme.Meantime, Christie's approval rating in New Jersey dropped to an all-time low of 20 percent, and the Republicans and Democrats hoping to succeed him as governor have been running away from his policies.Yet around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, Christie stood on stage at a New York victory party with Trump and other supporters of the president-elect."I would never count Chris Christie out," said Mike DuHaime, who was the chief political strategist for Christie's gubernatorial and presidential campaigns, and has known him for close to 20 years."Gov. Christie has been very level-headed throughout" his career, DuHaime said, and "understands better than most the nature of the ebbs and flows of politics."DuHaime said it would be premature to speculate on whether Christie would take a job in Trump's administration, adding the governor was focusing on the transition.Competition for high-level administration jobs "can often be brutal," said Haynes, the Republican strategist in Washington. Christie "has to worry as much about what fellow Republicans might do to him as Democrats."While the bridge scandal could present a hurdle for Christie, "I don't know that his hurdles are any higher" than those facing other potential Trump appointees, including former House speaker Newt Gingrich and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Haynes said.The governor has told reporters on several occasions that he was looking forward to working in the private sector after more than a decade in public office.Now that Trump has pulled off a stunning victory, Christie may well have a shot at rehabilitating his public image with a new job in Washington."I can't tell you how many times I've been told my political career is over," Christie told Charlie Rose in CBS Monday interview. "Here I am."
Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election sparked protests across the nation Wednesday, with crowds marching through city streets, rallying at college campuses and staging walkouts at schools in an open disavowal of the president-elect.Students at several San Francisco Bay Area high schools got up from their seats in the middle of class and filed out. A throng of more than 1,000 young protesters gathered on the steps of Los Angeles' City Hall, burning a giant Trump head in effigy and blocking traffic."I expected better of my electorate," Vishal Singh, 23, said in downtown Los Angeles late Wednesday. He said he was reeling in shock over the support for a man he saw as opposed to immigrants and LGBT rights. "I thought this country was different."Thousands of protesters blocked traffic in downtown Portland, Ore.; Chicago; Boston and Philadelphia, with some torching flags. Demonstrators in Oakland, Calif., smashed windows at five businesses and ignited trash containers and tires, police said.In New York City, thousands clustered in front of Trump's flagship building, the Trump Tower, and repeated a common refrain: "Not My President."The demonstrators were mostly young, and some said they came out spontaneously, hoping to vent their shock and disappointment at Trump's upset victory over Hillary Clinton."I've been sad and angry all day," said Claire Mordowanec, 22, of Brooklyn. "If I didn't come out, how would I explain to my kids one day that I didn't stand up for what's right?"The unrest began early Wednesday, soon after Trump delivered his victory speech. Shortly after midnight on the University of California, Los Angeles campus, an estimated 2,000 people rallied, according to UCLA police Sgt. Miguel Banuelos.N.J. Omorogieva, 19, said she was heartbroken by the election's result when she spotted the growing crowd."Of course, I joined in," she said. "To give hugs to people who were overcome by devastation."At Berkeley (Calif.) High School, about 1,500 students _ half the entire student body _ walked out of class after first period began at 8 a.m., Berkeley Unified School District officials said.Students tweeted "#NotMyPresident" and pledged to unify. Others chanted "Si, se puede," Spanish for "Yes, we can," and waved Mexican flags, according to posts on social media."It's not the first time we've had a walkout," said Berkeley Unified spokesman Charles Burress. "We know what to expect, we know what we need to do."School officials accompanied students as they marched, and there were no plans to discipline the students, Burress said.In downtown Los Angeles early Wednesday, a crowd gathered near City Hall and property was defaced, including a fence scrawled with graffiti insulting the incoming commander in chief.The mood was more buoyant at the president-elect's star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, where a small crowd of about 30 Trump supporters gathered early Wednesday to celebrate.Diane Mendez, 23, a Trump supporter who volunteered at a polling place, said she came to observe what she saw as a turning point."He said he would bring jobs back to America. We all need jobs," Mendez said. "Who doesn't need jobs?"
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GIS - 10 November, 2016: The Mauritius Museums Council (MMC) mounted an exhibition in the context of activities to mark the 182nd Anniversary of the arrival of Indentured Labourers in Mauritius. The theme of the exhibition is: An overview on the History of Indentured Labourers in Colonial Mauritius- They Came to Mauritius Shores. The exhibition is being held at the National History Museum, in Mahebourg and was inaugurated yesterday by the Minister of Arts and Culture, Mr Santaram Baboo. It serves as means to showcase part of the Mauritian history and to acknowledge the achievements of our ancestors. It is also an opportunity to honour the memory of our ancestors who through blood, sweat and tears laid the foundation of Mauritius.

Twelve panels are exhibited. They portray the resilience of our forefathers, the Indian Immigrants in the 17th and 18th centuries who, through their perseverance, dedication, hardships and hard work have contributed significantly to make of Mauritius where it stands today .

The twelve panels relate to the following topics: Indian Immigrants in the 17th and 18th centuries; Indenture system and Indian Labour Immigration; Origins of Indian Immigrants: Regions and Districts; Working conditions in Mauritius; Aapravasi Ghat, the Immigration Depot; The Vagrant Depot; Powder Mills: The Indian Orphan Asylum; Quarantine Stations and the sacrifice of Dr Idrice Goomany; The Sugar Estate Camps; From camps to villages  A new pattern of life; Personalities that fought for the upliftment of the indentured labourers; and Our living heritage.

In his address, the Minister of Arts and Culture lauded the initiative of the MMC who through the event is retracing the history of Mauritius and giving the population an insight of the peaceful co-existence, mutual understanding and the sharing of common values being transmitted by our ancestors for the benefit of humanity.

According to him, our ancestors represent the guiding star for the world to follow hence the importance to commemorate their hardship, revive history and acknowledge our roots thus making of Mauritius a full-fledged successful multicultural nation. He recalled the resilience and hard work of the Indentured Labourers who cultivated the sugar cane fields, built places of worship, schools, roads and edifices which still stand as a testimony benefitting all of us today.

Minister Baboo concluded by appealing to everybody to bring their children, friends and relatives to discover the history being portrayed as well as acknowledged the achievements of our ancestors.

The Indentured labour system was introduced after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834 as there was the urgent need to replace the local labourers liberated from slavery by an indentured workforce.

Mauritius was the first British Colony to embark on the Great Experiment of importing an indentured labour workforce of almost half a million men, women, and children from India, Eastern Africa, Madagascar, China and Southeast Asia.
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GIS - 10 November, 2016: The Information and Communication Technologies (Amendment) Bill, in view of the implementation of live broadcasting of the proceedings of the National Assembly in the near future, will be introduced shortly in the National Assembly.

The Bill amends the Information and Communication Technologies Act to exempt MultiCarrier (Mauritius) Ltd, which will operate the transmission stations for the broadcast of the proceedings of the National Assembly, from the payment of any fee to the Information and Communication Technologies Authority.

Furthermore, the Bill will amend the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act to provide that the National Assembly shall be exempt from being licensed with the Independent Broadcasting Authority, for the broadcast of its proceedings.

It will also amend the National Assembly (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act to provide that no civil or criminal proceedings against any person for broadcasting the proceedings of the National Assembly.
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GIS  10 November, 2016: A Salon de LEmploi et des Petites Entreprises organised by the Ministry of Social Security, National Solidarity and Reform Institutions was held yesterday at the Social Welfare Centre of Quartier Militaire in the presence of the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Jugnauth and other eminent personalities so as to promote Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Mauritius.

The Salon offered a platform for various institutions like Development Bank of Mauritius, Mybiz, MauBank and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority to provide additional information related to the setting up of SMEs. Employers and job seekers had the opportunity to network. A Careers Guidance was organised for young individuals and aspiring entrepreneurs. A Planters meet was also scheduled in order to create more awareness on Bio Farming practices.

On this occasion, Minister Pravind Jugnauth referred to the event as an intermediary for youngsters, unemployed and various institutions to work together for the setting up of more SMEs. He stated that education, training and proper information flow is a vital pathway for the setting up of an enterprise. He appealed to the youth to take advantage of free education in Mauritius and to use the acquired knowledge in entrepreneurial sectors. He underlined that a National Incubator Scheme has been launched to support, mentor and stimulate young entrepreneurs to come up with modern and innovative business ideas.

The Minister further stated that SMEs contribute significantly to the economy and employ around 54% of total workforce in Mauritius. There is a need to invest more in SMEs and expand existing ones. One of the budgetary measures i.e the suspension of payment of trade fees for licenses up to Rs 5, 000 for 3 years for all SMEs (excluding gambling, sales of liquor and cigarettes) has been made so as to financially support SMEs and encourage aspiring entrepreneurs, he said.

He also added that two new SME industrial Parks will be set up at Plaine Magnien and Vuillemin and invited local SMEs to tap international markets.
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GIS - 10 November, 2016: Four Mauritian enterprises participated for the first time in SEAFEX from 7 to 9 November 2016 in Dubai. The participants were: Ferme Marine de Mahebourg (farmed fresh fish); Princes Tuna (Mauritius) (preserved tuna); SAPMER Premium Seaproducts (frozen tuna loins and steaks); and Seskel Enterprise (salted fish). Four Mauritian enterprises participated for the first time in SEAFEX from 7 to 9 November 2016 in Dubai. The participants were: Ferme Marine de Mahebourg (farmed fresh fish); Princes Tuna (Mauritius) (preserved tuna); SAPMER Premium Seaproducts (frozen tuna loins and steaks); and Seskel Enterprise (salted fish).

The main objectives were to help the main seafood exporters diversify into new and emerging markets and position Mauritius as a reliable supplier for sustainable seafood in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The trend towards sustainable resources was highlighted at SEAFEX 2016.

SEAFEX is one of the leading international fair for seafood products targeting the MENA seafood market, now valued at USD 272 million according to a recent report by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation. The Global Corporate Challenge demand for fresh fish is expected to grow by 8% per annum up to 2030.

SEAFEX 2016 featured over 145 brands from more than 25 countries, and hence was an ideal platform to create awareness of Made in Mauritius products and to network with global industry leaders from the entire seafood supply chain.

Mauritian Seafood Industry

The Mauritian Seafood Industry is an emerging sector of the economy and currently stands as the 2nd strongest pillar of the manufacturing sector. Over the last decade, Mauritius has engaged in an ambitious programme to develop the Italy, Spain and Netherlands markets whilst frozen tuna steaks and loins are mainly exported to France and Japan.

A specialised sub-sector of the seafood industry, sustainable aquaculture ranks highly on Governments agenda. Around 30 sites have been earmarked around the island for the setting-up of in-lagoon fish breeding. Farming of high-value and niche products such as Cobia (Rachycendron Canadum), sea cucumber, oyster and oyster pearls, crabs, sea-urchins and other shellfish are being encouraged.

Red Drum (Sciaenops Ocellatus) and European Seabass (Dicentrachus Labrax) are currently cultivated under aquaculture within the sheltered lagoon on the Eastern coast of Mauritius. The farm, approved Sustainable Aquaculture by the organisation Friend of the Sea, aims to increase its annual production from 700 tons to 3000 tons by 2018. Main export destinations include the United States of America (USA), Italy, South Africa, Spain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Mauritius has been positioning itself as a favourable destination for sustainable aquaculture and higher value-added seafood processing. In 2006, the Seafood Hub project was launched and facilities were extended for trading, transshipment, storage and warehousing, processing, distribution and re-export of fresh chilled and frozen raw as well as value-added seafood products.

In 2015, exports of seafood from Mauritius amounted to  337 M (Rs 13 billion), representing 16% of total exports. Today, the seafood industry employs nearly 12,000 people directly and contributes 1.5% to total gross domestic product.

Fish products exported from Mauritius include canned tuna, pre-cooked vacuum packed tuna loins, frozen tuna loins and steaks, frozen fish fillets, fresh chilled whole fish or fish fillets, salted fish, fish oil and fish meal. Mauritius offers high value-added seafood processing that complies with EU Regulations, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) and British Retail Consortium (BRC) standards.

The prime market for Mauritian canned tuna and pre-cooked tuna loins is the EU (mainly UK). The culture of pearls, crabs, sea-urchins and other shellfish are being encouraged. Mauritius has exported fresh fish to the tune of Rs 8.2 million to the UAE in 2015. In 2014, Rs 11.5 million of preserved tuna was exported to Israel and Rs 3.5 million of frozen tuna to Oman.
The surprising victory that was the election of Donald J. Trump as president on Nov. 8 undercut the medias focus on the gubernatorial elections happening in a dozen states. While the races were arguably not as nail-biting as the presidential showdown, the changes to state leadership will no doubt reverberate through the public-sector technology community, and at some level, upset the apple carts of at least a few CIOs.Though the executives planted in states that did not change from one party to another may have slightly less to worry about in the coming months, those staring down the barrel of new administrationsnew ideologies will likely be faced with circulating their resumes before January. But this is not to say that new governors in states that held wont want to rebrand the administration with their own people.Just like many experts overlooked the possibility of a Trump victory over the arguably more experienced and battle-hardened former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, election night also brought about some surprising results in states like Missouri, New Hampshire and Vermont.In Delaware, voters opted to carry over their Democratic leanings with the election of John Carney as the governor-elect. Carney will replace Democrat Jack Markell, who held the states highest office since his election in 2008. State CIO James Collins, who was appointed by Markell in 2014, most notably worked to open the states data sets under Executive Order 57 and has been a champion for data analytics in government. Despite the holding of ideological territory, it is uncertain what kind of cabinet Governor-Elect Carney will bring to the state.The home state of Gov. and Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence held its status as a Republican-governed territory with the election of Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb to the governorship on election night. The fact that Holcomb is simply moving up a rung on the leadership ladder could signal that state CIO Dewand Neely is on safer ground than many others with incoming unknowns. Neely was initially appointed by Pence in 2015, and is perhaps best known for his role in targeting opioid addiction through the use of data analytics Missouri was one Democratic territory that did not fare well in the Republican takeover of 2016. Voters replaced two-term outgoing Democrat Jay Nixon with Republican Eric Greitens, who won out over Democratic challenger Chris Koster in a 51 percent to 45 percent showdown. State CIO Rich Kliethermes was appointed by Nixon in 2015, and will likely face replacement under a new administration. The executive replaced former state CIO Tim Robyn last year and has spent his time working on initiatives to improve the states use of metrics and better its data management standing.Montana CIO Ron Baldwin wont likely have anything to worry about as the post-election dust settles. Baldwin, who was appointed by Gov. Steve Bullock in 2013, will likely remain as part of his cabinet, barring some unforeseen reorganization on the part of the administration. Bullock beat out Republican challenger Greg Gianforte in a tight race50 percent to 47 percent.Despite Democrats losing their gubernatorial hold on the state, New Hampshires CIO Denis Goulet doesnt have a thing to worry about, at least with regard to his tenure at the state. According to a 2015 conversation with Goulet, he holds a termed position of four years that will carry over halfway into the next administration. With Gov. Maggie Hassan running for the Senate, the race came down to Republican Chris Sununu taking the title of governor-elect in a tight 49 percent to 47 percent race against Democratic challenger Colin Van Ostern.Republican incumbent Gov. Pat McCrory is locked neck-in-neck with Democratic challenger and Attorney General Roy Cooper, who leads McCrory by 4,772 votes per the most recent Associated Press count. While a McCrory victory would likely signal no change in the administration or for state CIO Keith Werner, a defeat by Cooper would almost certainly mean a sweeping regime change. Werner was appointed to the executive office in 2015. The next governor of North Carolina won't be determined officially until sometime between Nov. 18 and Nov. 29 Unsurprisingly, North Dakota voters signaled their Republican Party alliance with the sweeping defeat of Democrat candidate and state Congressman Marvin Nelson. Governor-Elect Doug Burgum garnered a whopping 77 percent of the vote, while Nelson struggled through the race with only 19 percent. This turn of events could be some signal of the safety of CIO Mike Ressler, who has held the post since 2013, but it also could signal an administrative shift toward a new executive team.Democratic Gov. Kate Brown held onto her title despite opposition from Republican challenger Bud Pierce. Brown stepped into the governorship following the resignation of former Gov. John Kitzhaber and his allegations of influence-peddling in 2015. The voters' clear choice to retain Brown signals a safe future for Oregon CIO Alex Pettit, who was initially appointed in 2014. At present, there are no signs the administration plans to change its direction in the coming months.Utah CIO Michael Hussey seems to be in the same position as Montanas Ron Baldwin. Incumbent Republican Gov. Gary Herbert held his title over Democratic challenger Mike Weinholtz by a large margin. For the sitting CIO, the rollover of the administration signals a likely continuation of his tenure. Hussey was appointed to the states chief IT role in 2015.Democratically led Vermont fell to Republican leadership after Tuesdays votes were tallied. The race between Governor-Elect Phil Scott and Democrat Sue Minter came down to a nine-point split and signaled a very real shift away from Gov. Peter Shumlin. The move will no doubt mean some career disruption for state CIO Richard Boes, who was appointed in 2011.Washington incumbent Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, held his position over Republican challenger Bill Bryant. Inslee has been governor since 2013 and won the state with a 12-point lead. The win will likely mean no impact to state CIO Michael Cockrill , who has also been at his post since being appointed in 2013.The impending term expiration of Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin set the stage for a fresh administration for either side of the ideological aisle, but ultimately fell to a Democrat Jim Justice by a margin of seven percentage points. While state leadership did not fall to the other party, it does not mean state CIO Gale Given is safe from disruption. Given started her tenure in 2012. It remains to be seen whether she will be kept on to lead the states technology efforts.
After months of searching for retired CIO Debbie Cotton s replacement, the city of Phoenix has selected its man, someone who has taken the city of Virginia Beach, Va., to new technological heights  including taking the top spot for its population category in the 2016 Digital Cities Survey Phoenix announced Wednesday, Nov. 9, that Matthew Arvay will take over as the CIO the first week of January. He is slated to depart from Virginia Beach Dec. 2, according to Phoenix city spokesperson Tamra Ingersoll.Arvay, who has been with the local government since 2012, is known for connecting communities digitally, Phoenix City Manager Ed Zuercher said in a press release, "and his role in Phoenix will be to link residents and visitors to government services and advance the business of the city. His commitment to public service and strengthening technology within cities will ensure Phoenix remains a digital leader."Cotton retired from public service in July 2016 after serving more than two-and-a-half years as the citys CIO. She was replaced on an interim basis by Jane Huff, who formerly served as the deputy assistant director for the Arizona Department of Economic Security, and as the assistant director and CIO for the states Department of Revenue.During his time at Virginia Beach, Arvay worked to map the municipal governments five-year master plan and the six-year infrastructure modernization and life cycle master plan.Technology efforts in the city included boosting the connectivity for residents and city agencies through an expanded fiber-optic network. Arvay also provided assistance in ongoing efforts to replace the citys outdated computer-aided dispatch system (CAD) with a modernized CAD911 and records management system.This will give us a fully integrated system for police, fire, emergency medical and emergency communications, Arvay told Government Technology . It will give our public safety community the modern tools they need to excel at the jobs they do every day.While his December departure will likely mean he will not see these projects through to completion, Arizonas capitol city has its own projects to tackle. Ingersoll toldthat connecting citizens to city services will remain the focus of the Information Technology Departments ongoing initiatives.This past year, we have done a lot of open data, a lot of GIS and a lot of Web-based development that is going to make the connectivity with the city and the residents easier, and thats obviously our priority, she said. We are in the process of launching a new Web-based system for all reporting so that people who have issues can report for their services.  So, we are definitely trying to make the ease, and the GIS, and the open data a priority in our city.
(TNS) -- An Atlanta defense contractor that has grown rapidly with the rise of cyber attacks and terrorism is opening a new engineering center in Duluth, Ga.Envistacom said the new center will open early next year with about 20 engineering and other technical workers, but is expected to grow to as many as 70 employees by next fall.A new and dedicated engineering facility is key to furthering our track record of innovation in technology development and its application to meet customer needs as they face rising global threats, said Alyssa Carson, Envistacoms president and founder.The privately-owned company, which was launched in Atlanta in 2011, has about 120 employees now and its expected to grow to more than 160 within a year.We are one of the fastest growing companies in Atlanta, said Envistacom Vice President Nelson Santini.Earlier this year, the Association for Corporate Growths Atlanta chapter named Envistacom as one of the 40 fastest-growing companies in Georgia.The company initially supplied satellite communications systems for the military, said Santini.But it has since branched out to supply equipment and experts to operate cybersecurity and counter-terrorism software and communications equipment in Chantilly, Va., Iraq, and other locations for the military, FBI, National Security Agency and other government customers under multi-year contracts. The National Reconnaissance Office, a U.S. intelligence agency that builds and operates spy satellites, in based in Chantilly.Santini said the new jobs in Duluth will be highly technical, engineering types.  Most of the new hires will have salaries in the $50,000 to $100,000 range, the company said. Many of the firms employees are military veterans, Santini said.He said only a handful of employees are transferring from Envistacoms headquarters at Six Concourse Parkway, the distinctive buildings on the Northside Perimeter locally known as the King and Queen.Its all new work coming into the (Duluth) area, said Santini. He said the Duluth location was chosen because some of its suppliers are nearby, and it has easy access to the Interstate 85 corridor and Hartsfield-Jackson airport.
Bernie Ecclestone insists he has no fear for his personal security ahead of this weekend's Brazilian grand prix.

Earlier this year, the mother of the F1 supremo's Brazilian wife was kidnapped and threatened with beheading by a group linked with a helicopter pilot who formerly worked with Ecclestone.

So when asked if he is worried as he returns to Sao Paulo for the grand prix, the 86-year-old insisted: "I'm not afraid. Why should I be?

"In the last eight years, this was one of the biggest abductions," Ecclestone told the German newspaper Bild. "Brazil is not as dangerous as many people think."

In fact, the Briton revealed he is not planning to implement any extra security measures for his travels in the sprawling metropolis this week.

"No," said Ecclestone. "There's no need to be frightened or worried."

Bild also asked Ecclestone about reports some drivers are calling for the return of gravel traps in F1, to stop cars from cutting corners.

"We walked away from gravel because then you have trucks and cranes on the track removing cars that are stuck," he said.

And he also played down claims that Sebastian Vettel can be a Michael Schumacher-like figure for Ferrari, amid the Italian team's current crisis.

"No," said Bernie. "He does not have the charisma and power that Michael did. Vettel is not Michael. He was special."

Finally, Ecclestone eased the fears of German F1 fans who worry that F1's new owner Liberty might take the sport off free-to-air television.

"No," he said. "RTL will get formula one again for the next three years."

But he warned that the future of the uncertain German grand prix is another matter entirely.

"The organiser, whether it's Hockenheim or the Nurburgring, can't even pay a strongly reduced fee," said Ecclestone.

"It's not fair on the other organisers in Europe if we make an exception for them. Maybe it's the Germans who do not like formula one," he added.

(GMM)
Felipe Massa is not convinced privatisation is the answer as Interlagos looks to safeguard the future of the Brazilian grand prix.

While Nico Rosberg has a chance to seal the 2016 title at Interlagos this weekend, the future of the race in Sao Paulo is in doubt, after Bernie Ecclestone and the FIA published the 2017 calendar with an asterisk for Brazil.

Recent reports have suggested the brand new mayor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, wants to privatise the Interlagos track, which has hosted F1 since 1990.

"I'd like to talk to the mayor," said Massa, who will contest his last home race in Sao Paulo, his native city, this weekend before retiring.

"I want to hear his ideas before responding about something I don't know about. If the privatisation happens for the good of the circuit, I am completely in favour," he told Brazilian journalists in a pre-weekend dinner.

"If the privatisation is for something else, as happened to the track in Rio de Janeiro, then I am not in favour," Massa added.

Massa, 35, also admitted he is worried about the future of Brazilian drivers in F1, with only Felipe Nasr left to carry the banner beyond 2016.

But there is a chance there will be no Brazilians on the grid at all next year.

"I hope that does not happen but there is a possibility," said Massa, "because Felipe has not signed a contract."

(GMM)
LOS ANGELES  Its difficult to think of anyone better than the snarky Robert Downey Jr. to play the cocky Iron Man. Or anyone other than Chris Hemsworth to give Thor his godlike swagger.

It seems obvious now, but before they were cast, it was the directors and producers tasked with finding just the right actors to bring the comic book characters to life. That was the task director Scott Derrickson faced in finding someone to play Doctor Strange. He and Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios, wanted British actor Benedict Cumberbatch. There was just one problem.

I flew to London, met with him, explained the movie. I think I had some of my concept art at that point, Derrickson says. Benedict really wanted to do it, but he was doing Hamlet in theater in London. We were a summer release movie, so it wasnt going to work. I came back, and I met with a bunch of other actors, good actors, but I just felt like it had to be Benedict, and Kevin, to his credit, agreed, and so we pushed the schedule for him.

The Doctor Strange release date moved to November, making it one of the films kicking off the holiday movie season.

Cumberbatch was flattered. The delay ended up also being a huge motivation for the British actor, who felt an immense responsibility to show their confidence in him was not misplaced.

The production team had no worries. Cumberbatch has already shown through his work in such productions such as War Horse, 12 Years a Slave, The Imitation Game and August: Osage County that he can handle a large array of acting challenges.

Cumberbatch had one slight advantage since he has been playing Sherlock Holmes in the BBC production, Sherlock. Doctor Strange and Holmes are both men who are extremely smart, confident and gifted. They both dance along the line between pure confidence and egomania.

The actor sees parallels, but he suggests theres one huge difference between the evil-fighting characters.

In the Venn diagram of similarities, there is the crossover of clever and arrogant I suppose, and workaholic. But, Strange is a materialist. Hes egocentric, yes, but hes got charm, and hes witty, hes liked by his colleagues, hes had relationships with them, Cumberbatch says. Hes not this sort of cut off outsider sociopathic asexual obsessive that Sherlock is. So yeah, theres a world of difference. He lives in New York and eats bagels every now and again so thats also different. You know, hes a man of the world, as opposed to Sherlock who isnt.

Once the production team had Cumberbatch on board, they turned to bringing Doctor Strange out of the 60s and into the modern world.

When Steve Ditko created the character for Strange Tales No. 110 in 1963, the world was headed into a period of mind expansion and metaphysical thinking.

The comic reflects that thinking through abstract and surreal drawings, so Derrickson goes all out on the visuals.

I remember in some of my early meetings saying that I felt like that my goal was for every set piece in the movie to be the weirdest set piece in any other movie. Each one of them would be uniquely odd and unusual and refreshing, Derrickson says.

He also needed Cumberbatch to give these weird worlds enough seriousness to hold the attention of the audience  and to do it while wearing a colorful superhero costume.

Cumberbatch fully embraced the strange look.

I was sort of giddy like a child at Halloween. It really was the penny-drop moment for me. This film had lots of alluring qualities, lots of things that made me really want to go to it, and this character in particular, his origin story and where he was going to lie within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Cumberbatch says. But the journey he goes on was sort of supremely important to me.
GREENSBORO  Jan Van Dyke would have beamed at the sight.

The NC Dance Festival that Van Dyke co-founded will come to town Saturday, as the inaugural event in a new venue that the modern dance virtuoso helped make possible.

The Van Dyke Performance Space in the downtown Greensboro Cultural Center will host the 26th annual festival, a showcase of modern dancers and choreographers from across the state.

The Greensboro-based nonprofit Dance Project, which Van Dyke led until her death in July 2015, organizes the festival. This years tour already has made stops in Raleigh and Boone.

Now, festival dancers from Greensboro and beyond will bring new and repertory works to a venue created with Van Dykes $1 million gift before she died of cancer.

I think she would have been delighted, said Danielle Kinne of Greensboro, who has choreographed a new work with a local theme that she will premiere. This theater has been a long-time dream of hers.

Van Dykes presence will be felt. The performance will show rare video footage of her performing a lively solo, part of her 1977 Fleetwood Mac Suite.

Her proteges discovered it in the archives of George Washington University, where Van Dyke received her masters degree.

For a quarter-century, the festival found a performance stage at UNC-Greensboro, where Van Dyke taught dancers for 23 years.

We really value the long relationship we have had  and continue to have  with UNCG, said Anne Morris, who now leads the Dance Project with Lauren Trollinger Joyner. Having the support of the Dance Department as a presenting partner was crucial to the growth and success of the festival over the years.

Van Dyke often lamented the lack of an appropriate dance performance space outside of UNCG.

Her gift enabled ArtsGreensboro and the city to expand the cultural centers former ground-floor rehearsal hall into a 7,500-square-foot venue with movable seating that can hold 200 to 400-plus patrons.

With the venue, Dance Project creates more of a home base for itself in the cultural center, which also houses its studios and offices.

Performing downtown in the new venue will give dance and the festival a more visible local presence.

Its important to us to be cultivating audience members in the wider community, and the new space helps us do that, Morris said.

The NC Dance Festival supports creation of new choreography and the presentation of high-quality repertory, as well as strengthening relationships among dancers and educating the public about modern and contemporary dance.

It will feature works by artists from other cities: Renay Aumiller and Kristi Vincent Johnson of Durham, E.E. Balcos and Eric Mullis of Charlotte, and Lindsay Kelley Brewer of Asheville.

Greensboro performers add a local flair.

The Van Dyke Dance Group will perform a trio, Full Circle, the first dance that Van Dyke choreographed after moving to Greensboro in 1989.

Alexandra Joy Warren of Greensboro has choreographed a solo, Fit the Description, to be performed by Emmanuel Mallette.

Kinne will premiere Greensboro Moves.

To gather material, Kinne, four professional dancers and high school Dance Project students went into the community.

They interviewed people at events about how they move through the city.

Do they drive, walk, ride bikes? Kinne said. Do they have a favorite place to go?

Because Greensboro is in the middle of Raleigh and Winston, there is a lot of passing through Greensboro to go to another place, or going somewhere else and stopping here, Kinne said. There is a lot of crossing paths, a lot of commuting that happens from Greensboro.

Kinne and dancers brought the information back to the studio, and used it to create movement in an eight-minute work.

Its kind of like a scene at the park or coffee shop, Kinne said at a rehearsal.

Local musician Nicholas Rich will compose music for the performance.

Dancers will wear denim shirts to recognize Wranglers presence in the city.

Their pants will be primary colors, inspired by the colorful lights on the Greene Street Parking Garage.

Dance Project received a $4,700 grant from Spark Grant from Action Greensboro and Downtown Greensboro Inc. to finance Kinnes work.

Kinne is pleased with the result.

For me, in any work that I make, my hope is that someone leaves there with some kind of impression or thought, Kinne said. Its never, I want you to think this when you leave, but I want to have something that lingers with them, to make them think about a work or something that they remember that happened throughout the work.

I hope that people see a little bit of Greensboro, she said.
Police-involved shootings of African American citizens have been at the forefront of the nations conscience in recent years. The Black Lives Matter movement was launched in response to several of these high-profile shootings.

Now, local playwright Kamilah Bush and Bennett College have created a new, original play, titled What. that explores the serious issues raised by these incidents, including racism, police brutality, acceptable forms of protest and the impact of such incidents on survivors and loved ones.

Bush said she had been thinking about these issues for some time, but the 2015 death of Walter Scott in North Charleston, S.C., brought those thoughts together. Scott, an African American man, was stopped by police for a broken tail light and shot from behind when he tried to run. The police officer now faces murder charges.

Its the idea that Walter Scott was on his way somewhere, Bush said. Maybe even to get a new bulb for his tail light.

That question served as a launching point and raised other questions in her mind, such as what happens to a spouse when a partner is killed suddenly.

What. tells the story of two young couples who struggle with issues common to many couples. Over the course of the play, one of these young people is killed in a police stop, and the others must deal with the consequences.

These people are not unlike the people I know  young, funny, college-educated, Bush said. They have the kinds of conversations my friends and I have all the time.

But What. is about more than social or political issues. Bennett student/actor Cassidy Wise, who portrays Liddy in the production, said the relationships between the characters are central to the play.

I hope the audience takes away the beauty of friendship and that real friendships can exist, Wise said. You need friends or loved ones the most when you are going through something. Dont try and go through things alone.

Bennett Associate Professor of Theater and Speech Beth Ritson is directing the play. Ritson appeared in Triad Stages production of Arms and the Man, and Bush was the assistant director for that production. They talked about Bushs current work, and that led to Bennett staging What. In addition to Wise, other performers include Bennett students Sekethia Ferguson and Tyana Gladden and N.C. A&T students Xavier Harris and Aaron Honesty.

Although What. deals head-on with highly charged, controversial subject matter, Bush said she has no intentions of telling the audience what to think.

I dont have all the answers, Bush said. Thats never my goal in writing  its just to ask the questions.
The next League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad meeting will be held at noon Tuesday at Holy Trinity Church, Haywood Duke Room, 607 N. Greene St. in Greensboro.

Dreams Deferred: County, State, and National Policies of Exclusion is the scheduled topic.

Panelists will be Ann Marie Dooley, a league member and immigration attorney; Raul Pinto, a staff attorney at the N.C. Justice Center; Alexandra Sirota, a public policy analyst and project director for the N.C. Budget and Tax Center; and Luis Flores, an honors graduate of UNC-Greensboro Middle College.

An optional buffet lunch is $11.

Reservations, with or without lunch, must be made today. Email reservations@lwvpt.org.

2 McDonalds will host

a Coffee with a Cop

Two Greensboro-area McDonalds will host Coffee with a Cop, a chance to meet with event local law enforcement officials.

The coffees will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday at the restaurants at 1101 Summit Ave. and 617 Green Valley Road.

Coffee with a Cop brings police and the community members they serve together over a free cup of coffee to learn more about each other and build relationships in an informal, neutral environment.

All Coffee with a Cop attendees will receive a free small cup of McCafe coffee, courtesy of McDonalds.

For information, call (336) 274-7328 or (336) 855-3347.

Beltone hearing aid sales to help veterans

Beltone has announced that for every 100 hearing aids sold Friday and Saturday, the company will donate a set of hearing aids to a veteran in need.

Any Beltone hearing aid center throughout the nation that sells hearing aids on those two days will be entered into a drawing to receive a set of hearing aids to give to a local veteran of their choice.

To learn more, visit the Beltone Hearing Care Center at 1614-B W. Friendly Ave. in Greensboro or call (336) 389-1515.

Veterans Walk to be

held Friday in Madison

The Madison American Legion chapter will hold a Veterans Walk starting at 9 a.m. Friday at the Beulah Baptist Church parking lot, 105 Wall St. in Madison.

The walk will proceed down Market Street to the World War I Town Clock.

All veterans from Madison, Mayodan and Stoneville, or dependents and military-affiliated people are welcome to participate in the walk.

After the walk, leaders will share patriotic, inspirational comments and prayers. Refreshments will be available.

For information, contact Madison Mayor David Myers at (760) 458-2222.
When it comes to the ballot box, as goes Guilford County so goes practically nobody else.

At least not in the 2016 general election, wherein Guilford voters picked the apparent loser in 10 of 14 races at the top of Tuesdays ballot.

According to complete but unofficial returns, Guilford voters sided with the losers in the presidential contest, the U.S. Senate and two U.S. House races, as well as six of 10 Council of State contests.

The phenomenon is a result of the electoral landscape aligning to pit a unique slate of offices that were up for grabs against the Democratic political leanings of a largely urban Guilford populace, said Martin Kifer, a political science professor at High Point University and director of the HPU Poll.

Were talking about partisan voting and the role it plays, Kifer said Wednesday. It has to do with racial diversity and it has to do with being urban.

Those factors translated into a strong Democratic outpouring Tuesday in races ultimately weighted toward Republican success at the statewide or multi-county district levels.

So the complete, but unofficial results show that Guilford gave losing Democratic candidate:

Hillary Clinton 58 percent of its presidential vote.

Debora Ross 56 percent of its U.S. Senate ballots.

Bruce Davis, of High Point, 60 percent of county votes in the redrawn 13th Congressional District.

Pete Glidewell, of Elon, 51 percent of the action in the redrawn 6th Congressional District.

Across those four federal races and Council of State contests that run the gamut from governor to insurance commissioner and state treasurer, Guilford voters picked winners only 29 percent of the time as they voted straight Democrat in all 14, ballot-topping races.

Guilford County, like every large population county in the state, is far less conservative than rural and suburban areas, Elon University political science professor Jason Husser said in an email Wednesday.

As a result, the total vote in Guilford County will very often be more Democratic than the state average, added Husser, who also directs the Elon University Poll. When an election cycle is a good year for Republicans, the winning candidates in Guilford, Wake, and Mecklenburg counties will often be different than the winners statewide.

Indeed, Guilford voters picked the winning candidate only in the four Council of State races won by Democrats, according to the unofficial returns  Attorney General Roy Cooper in his apparent win in the governors race, Josh Stein running for Coopers current office, incumbent State Auditor Beth Wood, and incumbent Secretary of State Elaine Marshall.

So, its a simple outgrowth of the glut of urban Democrats? Perhaps, but Guilford served as a particularly stark example Tuesday, with its 29 percent success rate in the marquee federal and state races, compared with 43 percent in Mecklenburg, 46 percent in Forsyth, and 50 percent in Wake counties.

Each of the other three counties voted for at least one Republican who went on to win in a high-profile, statewide or federal race.

Meanwhile, Guilford voters thumbed their noses at homegrown GOP candidates in two of the races, snubbing both U.S. Rep. Mark Walker of Greensboro in the 6th District and longtime Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Troxler of Browns Summit.

Troxler, heading into his fourth term, said his native county has a strong reputation for being singularly unwelcoming to statewide Republican candidates.

Hes never carried the county where he grew up and operates a family-owned farm raising such crops as tobacco, wheat, vegetables and soybeans.

I dont know the last time a statewide Republican won (Guilford), said Troxler, who has held office since 2005 and who has mounted five, statewide election campaigns over the years.

Guilford voters turned him away this time even though their Democratic counterparts in both Forsyth and Wake counties gave the nod to Troxlers re-election bid in their countywide balloting  albeit by razor thin margins of less than 1 percentage point.

But he said hes grateful nonetheless to Guilford voters in the apparent statewide victory over his challenger, Yadkin County Democrat Walter Smith.

I only lost (Guilford) by 12,000 votes, Troxler said.

That sounds like a lot, he acknowledged, until you consider that his fellow GOP candidate, incumbent Gov. Pat McCrory, lost Guilford by five times that many votes.
GREENSBORO  The Rev. Mark Sandlin has scrapped the weekend sermon.

Now hes pulling his Sunday morning message from biblical Scriptures where Jesus works with those who have been marginalized and felt forgotten. Where Jesus instructs neighbors to love one another. Even those they might disagree with.

The things we are supposed to be working toward, said Sandlin, the interim pastor at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant.

The especially nasty tone of this presidential race and the numbness many felt after Donald Trumps stunning election to the countrys highest office has Sandlin and others trying to play a part in the nations healing.

I think that focusing on our immediate and local community is a big part of whats going to bring us through this, Sandlin said of the divisions in how people see each other. Its much harder to see them as different or not as good or not as deserving when we see them face to face and work with them hand in hand.

The Rev. Julie Peeples decided to open the doors of Congregational United Church of Christ on Wednesday night for those who wanted to pray.

Somehow, by the grace of God, we will survive even this, Peeples said.

She recalled the elementary school teacher who told her that a young African American girl weeks ago had asked that if Trump won, would blacks be made slaves again? Peeples was thinking about that child after the results came in Tuesday night.

Of course, thats not going to happen but the fear is real, Peeples explained. We are grieving and angry. There are folks who are terrified they are going to be deported, that they are going to be targeted, that they are going to be profiled.

There are people who are now fearful for their lives.

Some of them contacted her as the reality of a Trump administration set in. So many of them had taken the divisive rhetoric to heart.

We need to grieve, yes, but we need to stand together, Peeples said. Weve got a lot of work.

Congressman Mark Walker, who won his second term Tuesday representing North Carolinas 6th District, which includes Greensboro, said he wants to be part of the healing.

Walker was a Baptist minister for 16 years before moving into politics. Sitting in his Greensboro office on Wednesday, he mentioned a poignant photo of young female Hillary Clinton supporters, who were in tears election night.

There are issues that he wont compromise on, such as abortion, but he said there are ways of working together.

Especially in the political world, there are lots of promises that are made ... but theres an old adage talking about what you do versus what you say, Walker said. I hope our actions are already saying we are trying to reach out.
Claudia Quinonez was driving home from an election watch party early Wednesday morning when a friend broke the news: Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States. Quinonez, 21, pulled over to the side of the road and wept.

She was 11 when she and her mother moved to Maryland from Bolivia in pursuit of a better life. They had visas, but overstayed them, leaving them undocumented.

Under a controversial policy designed by President Barack Obama's administration, Quinonez had become a dreamer, protected from deportation and given a work permit. She found a job and earned a scholarship to attend college.

"I felt like I was going to achieve my American Dream," she said during an interview at CASA de Maryland, an immigration advocacy group.

"But now that Donald Trump has been elected president, I don't feel safe," she said, again on the verge of tears. "I can be deported. Even my mother can be deported."

More than 11 million undocumented immigrants woke up to the same reality Wednesday morning: a newly elected president who has vowed to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. A president who has described some Latinos as rapists,killers and drug dealers. A president who has vowed to begin deportations within his first hour in office.

Trump's victory came a shock to many Americans. For undocumented immigrants, however, their futures have taken a startling turn, from the promise of immigration reform under Hillary Clinton to the threat of deportation under Trump.

"We are now facing an entirely different system of reality to what we are used to," said Jose Antonio Vargas, a former Washington Post reporter-turned-activist who is perhaps the country's most prominent undocumented immigrant. While the Obama administration deported record numbers of immigrants, it also tried to help others remain in the United States.

"Under the Trump administration, the level of fear and anxiety among undocumented people will only get deeper and more prevalent," said Vargas the founder and chief executive of Define American. On Election Day, a man who recognized Vargas outside of Fox News patted him on the back. "Get ready to be deported," the man told Vargas, who described himself on Facebook as "rattled" by the encounter.

Across the country, people are asking themselves what a Trump presidency will look like. How will he handle the Islamic State, the U.S. relationship with Russia, education policy?

On immigration, however, Trump has been explicit. The Republican made it one of his central issues, focusing on it in campaign speeches and connecting it to both national security and the economy. He promised not only to "build the wall" and deport the "bad hombres," but also to triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to carry out mass roundups reminiscent of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1954 initiative "Operation Wetback," which removed hundreds of thousands of Mexicans from the United States.

The question is how far will President Trump go to deliver.

"Trump will keep his promises to his base," said Corey Stewart, chairman of Prince William's Board of County Supervisors and the former head of Trump's Virginia campaign. "He's got to build the wall and he's got to provide for better internal immigration enforcement. That was the main promise of his campaign. He's got to keep it, and he will keep it."

David Martin, a former deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama, said the president's Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program, in limbo after the Supreme Court reached a 4-4 tie on a case challenging it, "won't see the light of day."

Dreamers like Quinonez, who essentially outed themselves as undocumented, could see their protections stripped. ICE raids on factories and construction sites - already occurring under Obama - could be accelerated. "And I certainly think we're going to see some wall-building," Martin said.

But Trump's immigration policies will also face political and financial pressures, Martin said. ICE agents and giant walls are expensive. Deporting university students can be politically damaging. "Now that it's more than just rhetoric, we'll see what he prioritizes," Martin said.

Trump's victory has already upended conventional political wisdom, according to Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank.

"A lot of Republican brain trusts and Democrats have been saying for years that Republicans cannot win the presidency without embracing comprehensive immigration reform," he said. "Well, so much for that."

For Brenda Barrios, 31, who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, Trump's election is a "nightmare." She allowed her 10-year-old American-born son, Frankie, to stay up an hour past his bedtime to watch election results on Univision.

"When he saw the map go red, and red, and red, and red, he asked me, 'Mommy, is Donald Trump going to win?' " she said. "I told him not to worry."

But the next morning, when Frankie woke up from school, the first question out of his mouth was: Who won? When Barrios told him it was Trump, Frankie burst into tears.

"He is afraid his mom is going to be sent to another country," she said. For Barrios, that pain is all too real. Her parents immigrated illegally to the United States when she was 5, leaving her and her sister behind in Guatemala. When she and her sister joined them in 2003, Barrios finally felt like she had a family. But it didn't last. Her father was deported in early 2005. Barrios's mom went with him. She hasn't seen them since.

With Trump as president, Barrios shares her son's fear that her own family will be torn apart. She fears ICE will arrest her husband, who is a carpenter and plumber, while he is at work. Or that they will come for her.

"I'm afraid of ICE coming to my door, to the park when I am there with my kids," she said. "I'm even scared to take the kids to school since you never know who is watching now."

Not all undocumented immigrants are distraught, however. As a Mexican-born construction worker, Jose Pina said he already lives with the threat of being detained and deported every time he goes to work.

"That's our reality now," he said in Spanish. "We've always had that fear. It's the risk you take crossing the border."

Pina, 38, sneaked into the United States in 1998. He and his childhood sweetheart, who also entered the country illegally, have an 8-year-old daughter, Heather. She was born on the Fourth of July.

Sitting next to her parents in a green "Life is Good" hoodie, Heather said she thought Donald Trump was "mean because he said he didn't want immigrants and the kids who are immigrants."

Asked if she was scared what might happen to her family now, Heather tentatively shook her head.

"We can fight against what is happening," she said, her voice caught somewhere between a statement and a question.
Ethan Allen Interiors is closing its Norwalk store, for the time being leaving the furniture chain with three locations on the doorstep of its home office in southwestern Connecticut.

The closure is part of a continuing overhaul since the recession by Danbury-based Ethan Allen (NYSE: ETH) under CEO Farooq Kathwari, in which the company has scrapped the notion of it being a furniture store in favor of a design-center concept working in close consultation with customers on their home or commercial decor.

As a result, Ethan Allen has been hiring more independent interior designers and encouraging them to get into customers homes. Last summer the company codified the goal in the acronym IDEAL for Interior Designers with an Entrepreneurial Attitude and Lifestyle, while offering discounts to professional designers who purchase furniture on behalf of customers as a way to boost sales and drive repeat business.

In its first fiscal quarter ending in September, Ethan Allen sales inched up 2 percent from a year earlier to $193 million, though profits softened 13 percent to $10.6 million.

The Norwalk Ethan Allen store is at 512 Main Ave. just south of the state Department of Motor Vehicles office, with the company hanging banners of a relocation sale as a precursor to closing the location. In addition to its Danbury headquarters showroom, Ethan Allen has two remaining sites in the region, one on Stamfords border with Greenwich and the other in Milford.

Even as the company closes out its Norwalk store, Ethan Allen opened in October a new store on Broadway in New York City, where Kathwari emphasized a new magical home marketing partnership with Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS), setting aside space for participating stores. Kathwari said the idea occurred to him on a trip last year to Disneys Orlando, Fla., theme parks; both companies will begin pushing the promotion in earnest on Nov. 18.

Its a very, very important date  its Mickey Mouses birthday, Kathwari said last month in Manhattan while leading a tour of the new store. Well have a 140-page storybook that will be available for our design centers in January.  We decided that our folks should be the main actors in all our advertising for the Disney program.

Between August and September, Ethan Allen opened two new showrooms while seeing the closure of two independent affiliates to maintain a retail presence of just under 300 design centers in all, 64 percent of them in the United States. As of June, Ethan Allen had about 5,200 employees in all, up 200 from a year earlier.

At the New York City event in October, Kathwari said the presidential election has contributed to a tough macroeconomic environment.

Well be glad its over, Kathwari said at the time. It really has impacted customers and clients  its taken a tremendous amount of attention from ... discretionary budgets.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-354-1047; www.twitter.com/casoulman
Don't blame us for Trump's stunning upset victory, say millennials. After all, they solidly supported Hillary Clinton at the polls, while older Americans  especially older white Americans  cast their ballots for the billionaire.

But how blameless are they really?

Some millennials, like Theresa Caney, posted electoral maps on social media that seemed to suggest that if it had been up to voters aged 18 to 34, Clinton, not Trump, would be president-elect.

A more recent SurveyMonkey millennial vote map (below), updated on Election Day, is still largely a sea of blue, with the exceptions in North Dakota, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Indiana and Arkansas. Six other states - Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky and Louisiana  were too close to call at the time.

SurveyMonkey

While many millennials did vote for Clinton, a huge number did not. The key takeaway is that Clinton significantly underperformed with the group compared to Barack Obama in the two previous elections.

In 2012, President Obama won 60 percent of the millennial vote. Mitt Romney tallied 37 percent. Obama did even better in 2008, with 66 percent.

According to exit polls Tuesday, Clinton's numbers were 53 percent of voters aged 25-29 and 56 percent of those 18-24.

Pick whichever reason you want for the reduced margin  millennials' allegiance to Sen. Bernie Sanders, general mistrust of Clinton, a weak job market or the email scandal. Perhaps American millennials were simply gripped by same apathy that affected UK millennials during the Brexit vote when only 36 percent of young people turned out despite polls showing 73 percent of them supported Remain.

While fewer young voters rallied around Clinton, they didn't flock to Trump either. Trump did about as well as Romney and John McCain with millennials.

As millennial Emma Lord wrote for Bustle: "Sure, it was the Baby Boomers' votes that influenced this election  but only because we weren't there to stop them. It is, quite frankly, terrifying that we are looking at Millennial electoral maps like this with 'hope for the future'; if we had all done our civic duty, that future would have been today."

Millennials now number 75.4 million in the U.S., surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (ages 51-69). They represent the largest share of the electorate today.
GREENWICH  On a rare night when town voters backed a Democrat for president, one Greenwichite bucked the trend in high fashion, celebrating along with the new president-elect at Trump headquarters in Manhattan.

Mike Mason, chairman of the town Board of Estimate and Taxation, is a longtime friend of the Trump family, and spent Tuesday night cheering national returns in the VIP section alongside the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin and Orrin Hatch.

Back home Wednesday, Mason said he is optimistic for the countrys future under a Trump presidency.

I have a lot of big hopes for him. Hes not a politician. Hes not part of the establishment. People made it clear that was what they wanted, Mason said. I think he had an economic message that resonated and I think people are very worried about violence in the streets and terrorism which are two issues he has spoken to a lot.

He acknowledged that the nation is sharply divided after a particularly bitter election season.

America voted to make a change but unless people go along with that change, then its not going to change, Mason said.

Happy with the outcome, Mason was nonetheless on unfamiliar turf for a Greenwich Republican on Election Night. Voters here backed Democrat Hillary Clinton over Republican Donald Trump by a split of 57 percent to 39 percent.

More Information Greenwich votes The following are percentage breakdowns of Greenwich voters' support in state and national elections Tuesday. President Hillary Clinton 57% Donald Trump 39% Gary Johnson 3% Jill Stein 1% U.S. Senate Richard Blumenthal 55% Dan Carter 44% U.S. House Jim Himes 53% John Shaban 47% State Senate L. Scott Frantz 62% John Blankley 37% Edward Heflin 1% State House Fred Camillo 60% Dita Bhargava 40% See More Collapse

It was only the third time in more than 50 years that Greenwich has backed a Democrat for the White House. The town went for Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and didnt go blue again until Barack Obamas defeat of John McCain in 2008, when 54 percent of town voters backed the nations first African-American president.

Greenwich Republican Town Committee Chairman Stephen Walko on Wednesday said it was tough to explain the many factors behind the Greenwich vote, offering only that it was an interesting election and saying he felt personality played a big part in the result.

Democratic Town Committee Chairman Jeff Ramer was not as reticent.

Greenwich is a grown-up, sophisticated town in which people are, generally speaking, thoughtful and moderate, Ramer said.

The results come in a year when voter registration numbers show a long-term shift in town. Over the past 20 years, the ranks of registered Republicans in Greenwich have shrunk by 19 percent, while unaffiliated voters and Democrats have gone up by 10 percent and 39 percent, respectively.

Unaffiliateds are now within 10 people of becoming the largest voting block in Greenwich. And where Republicans once enjoyed a more than two-to-one advantage over Democrats in town, the gap is now 13,379 to 9,772.

Town voters also backed Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives  both of whom happen to be Greenwich residents.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal earned 55 percent of the town vote to help win a second term over Republican state Rep. Dan Carter, a change from his first Senate race in 2010, when Blumenthal won the election but lost in Greenwich to Republican Linda McMahon, also a Greenwich resident.

Blumenthal on Wednesday joked that he hoped everyone in his family had voted for him.

My goal is to work for every resident of the state, Blumenthal said. Greenwich means a lot to me because it is my home and because Ive come to know and deeply respect so many people this stupendous town.

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes also could put his hometown in the win column this year, capturing 53 percent of the vote here over state Rep. John Shaban. First elected to Congress in 2008, Himes has carried Greenwich only one other time, in 2012.

Republicans know me and while they might not always agree with me, they know that I am someone who is going to think for himself, said Himes, who also notched victories in other traditionally Republican strongholds Darien and New Canaan.

But the Greenwich legislators will be sworn into new terms in Washington under quite different circumstances than they have known.

Looking ahead to January and President Donald Trump, Himes said he hopes Democrats do not repeat the original sin of Republicans in 2009, when they pledged to make Obama a one-term president by fighting to block every measure he proposed.

In (Trumps) speech last night he talked about reconciliation, economic opportunity and infrastructure investment, Himes said. If hes serious about that then those are issues I would be happy to work with him on. But if hes going to be the kind of autocrat he acted like during the campaign, then it is very important for me in Congress to work as a check on that.

Mason said he believes Trump is capable of healing a divided nation.

I am totally convinced that he is going to make bringing people together his number one effort, the BET chairman said.

If the presidential and congressional votes in Greenwich were something of a surprise Tuesday, those for the State House definitely were not. The town GOP has long controlled Greenwichs seats in the General Assembly. A Democrat from here has not been elected to the state House of Representatives in more than 100 years; to the state Senate in almost 90.

Local voters in clear fashion said 2016 was not the year either of those streaks would end.

Republican state Sen. L. Scott Frantz, 36th District, and Republican state Rep. Fred Camillo, 151st District, both cruised to fifth terms. Camillo captured 60 percent of the local vote over Democratic challenger Dita Bhargava. Frantz took 62 percent of the tally against Democratic BET member John Blankley.

Frantzs and Camillos victories were part of a big night for Republicans in the state Legislature. The state Senate is now evenly split with 18 Democrats and 18 Republicans, erasing the Democratic majority, and the Republicans made gains in the House to where Democrats now enjoy only a seven-seat majority.

RTC Chairman Walko, himself a former state representative from the 150th District, said voters voiced their concerns about the economic direction of the state.

You are going to have a better government and a more robust conversation in Hartford now, Walko said. Thats something thats going to benefit every voter in every town no matter if theyre Republicans, Democrats or unaffiliated voters.

DTC Chair Ramer noted the historic challenge Greenwich Democrats face in running for state office. He said Democrats typically get between 37 and 38 percent of the vote, something Bhargava exceeded by earning 40 percent.

Ramer praised both her and Blankley for their runs

They both worked extremely hard, Ramer said.

kborsuk@scni.com
There are more entrepreneurs in the United States than ever before. And many of them are immigrants, whose proportion of the U.S. population is the highest in history.

Related: 2 Immigrant Entrepreneurs Who Prove the American Dream Endures

According to the Migration Institute, immigrants in the United States and their U.S.-born children now number approximately 81 million people, or 26 percent of the overall U.S. population.

And many of them have started their own companies, spurred by the financial crash of 2008. That's evidence that the long tradition of the American Dream lives on: Immigrants continue to come to this country to make their dreams come true.

Related:

These stories are inspirational, but what many entrepreneurs dont realize is how essential they themselves are to the success of entrepreneurship itself.

Tomas Gorny's inspiring story

One story that has inspired people is that of Tomas Gorny, the current CEO of Nextiva, a company changing the way cloud communications are used.

Gorny came to America in 1996. Settling down in Hollywood, California, he spoke little English and had little money to his name. But his determination encouraged him on.

For a time, he worked as part of Internet Communications, a web-hosting company, while supplementing his income with a number of part-time jobs. But fate smiled on him: Two years later, after he had become a partner, and Internet Communications sold, Gorny was a millionaire.

Stories like this inspire new entrepreneurs. They inspire domestic entrepreneurs. They think that if an immigrant with no money and no connections can make it, why cant they?

A new way of doing things

Immigrants bring different experience and philosophical approaches from their native countries. And this is a good thing: Its easy to let your company grow stale because you follow a standard playbook that youve always known.

Related: Robert Herjavec to Immigrant Entrepreneurs: 'People Don't Care About Your Color, Religion or Sex. They Care About the Value You Add.'

Bringing an immigrant into your company could completely change your way of doing things.

Thats precisely what Tomas Gorny did with Internet Communications. He rose up the ranks to become a partner, because he did things differently than his coworkers. It was hard work that led to him to achieve success, but not work that was hard as starting over in a new country.

Immigrants can revolutionize the entrepreneurial landscape because of these new ways they bring to the table.

Immigrants already make up a huge proportion of Americas startup community

The National Foundation for American Policy recently conducted a survey of 87 different startups, finding that 44 startups, or more than half, had at least one immigrant founder. This is an obvious reason why immigrants are essential for entrepreneurship: According to the National Foundation study, they already make up a massive proportion of the startup community.

So, if immigrants were to disappear or be restricted -- as statements during the presidential election indicated -- many of those startups employing talented young Americans today would simply disappear. A lot of jobs might disappear, and potentially many new ideas.

If the United States lost such startups, their founders might move them to other countries, which would benefit instead of us, thus weakening American business as a whole.

Because they have everything to lose

Entrepreneurs in the United States are different from those in other countries because of the visa issues they have: Its extremely difficult to get the relevant visa to stay and work in this country in the first place. Unlike other countries, the United States has no specific visa scheme for immigrant entrepreneurs.

Those who do gain entry are often driven more than anyone else because they have everything to lose. After the long process of obtaining the relevant visa, they are putting all that they've built on the line. Domestic entrepreneurs know they can easily switch careers if things don't work out; so they may be less strongly motivated to succeed, unlike immigrant entrepreneurs with low funds and few connections.

Are immigrants better for U.S. entrepreneurship?

Some of the greatest companies -- like Google and Goldman Sachs -- have been created by immigrant entrepreneurs. Without immigrant entrepreneurs, these companies might have been established in other countries country or never established at all.

Theres no doubt that immigrants are essential for entrepreneurship in this nation simply because they bring so much to the table. Many bring different talents and different experiences that a U.S.-born entrepreneur could never hope to contribute.

These immigrant-owned businesses also employ young people just out of college who get the chance to ply their skills for the first time. People like Gorny only gained the confidence and funding necessary to start their own ventures because they got a start at another company first.

To lose immigrant entrepreneurs, or to constrain them in any way, would be a significant blow to the future of U.S. entrepreneurship. It relies on the input of immigrants to succeed.

Related: Lessons on Overcoming Obstacles From a Pair of Immigrant Entrepreneurs

What do you think are the biggest benefits that immigrant entrepreneurs have brought to US entrepreneurship?

Related:



Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Over the course of seven years, Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba took a 23-year-old holiday celebrating singlehood and turned it into the biggest shopping day of the year.

Ma: #Double11 reflects huge domestic demand in #China . Consumption, along w/tech and services, are 3 driving forces of China's new economy. pic.twitter.com/kioF5xT2YR

Singles Day, a celebration of simply being single, is held in China on Nov. 11 (the date is all ones, get it?). The holiday was started by college students at Nanjing University in 1993, but in 2009, Alibaba, the world's largest retailer, decided to take advantage and started offering online deals to coincide with the holiday.

This year's sales have already broken last year's record, bringing in $15 billion 20 hours into the day-long event, with final sales expected to be around $20 billion. By 1 a.m. in China, mobile purchases accounted for 84 percent of all sales. And the company reports that the top U.S.-based brands have been Apple, Nike, New Balance, Playboy and Skechers. And dont think that Alibabas customers are limited only to China. The company reported that approaching midnight EST on Nov. 10, the United States was number one in sales to China.

Related: How Jack Ma Overcame His 7 Biggest Failures

For the first time this year, companies such as Apple and Target were available to customers on Tmall, Alibaba's massive online store, joining brands such as Gap, Starbucks, Costco, Macy's and Zara.

The company brought in $7 million during the first Singles Day sales event in 2009, which included 27 merchants. In 2014, consumers spent $9.3 billion on Nov. 11. It took only 12 hours to surpass that figure in 2015 -- the final tally for 2015's sales was a whopping $14.3 billion. Thirty-thousand brands from 25 different countries sold items on Alibaba's multiple online marketplaces and 120,000 orders were made every minute last year. Single's Day sales were three times more than Cyber Monday and Black Friday combined in 2015.

Related: Alibaba Expects to Nearly Double Transactions Volume to More Than $900 Billion by 2020

Purchases through Alibaba and its businesses make up 80 percent of China's online sales. The company has also trademarked the phrase Double 11. Last year, Alibaba held a three-hour television special called the Tmall Double-11 Night Carnival that featured big name stars such as Kevin Spacey and James Bond actor Daniel Craig. This year's extravaganza included NBA star Kobe Bryant and Victoria and David Beckham, a fashion show and virtual reality shopping experiences.

Related:

Alibaba Just Made $15 Billion in 20 Hours on Singles Day. Here's Everything You Need to Know.

Alibaba Singles' Day Sales Pass 2015 Total, But Growth Rate Slows

Judge Orders Amazon Refunds for Children's In-app Purchases



Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
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(After a grueling election, Hillary Clinton was favored to win the presidency going into Tuesday's presidential election. The world was stunned by the eventual victory of Donald Trump, see how newspapers around the globe presented the news on their front pages, above.)



LONDON - Allies recoiled. Adversaries rejoiced. And on the day after U.S. voters made Donald Trump the country's 45th president, the world was left to collectively wonder: What happened to America?

The question hung in the air even as once-unthinkable congratulatory messages poured into Trump Tower from capitals across the globe.

Foreign leaders who had spent months disparaging the Republican nominee as unfit for office were forced to reckon with the reality that he will soon govern the world's sole superpower. U.S. foes who may have only dreamed of a Trump presidency seemed to scarcely believe their good fortune.

Through it all on Wednesday was a palpable sense that Trump's stunning victory could fundamentally transform the global order - though in this endlessly unpredictable year, no one dared forecast exactly how.

"We have no idea what this American president is going to do, when this voice of anger will be the most powerful man in the world," Norbert Rottgen, chairman of the German parliament's foreign affairs committee, told public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. "Whether he knows his allies and friends, how he is going to approach Vladimir Putin, an authoritarian ruler, how he is going to act when it comes to the question of nuclear armament, all these questions are completely open."

That profound uncertainty was masked by a succession of bland statements from Trump's soon-to-be counterparts among the ranks of global leaders.

Through gritted teeth, democratically elected allies congratulated Trump on his victory and promised business as usual.

In Britain - where the Parliament in January debated banning Trump from even visiting the country - Prime Minister Theresa May said her nation and the United States had "an enduring and special relationship based on the values of freedom, democracy and enterprise." That, she insisted, would carry forward under Trump.

Global autocrats were far more enthusiastic.

News of the Republican's victory was greeted with broad smiles and a round of applause in the lower house of the Russian parliament. In a Moscow ceremony to welcome new ambassadors, Putin referenced Trump's call for warmer ties and said "Russia is ready and willing to restore full-fledged relations with the United States."

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, whose record of imprisoning opponents and restricting speech has earned him condemnation from human rights groups, said he "looks forward to the presidency of President Donald Trump to inject a new spirit into the trajectory of Egyptian-American relations."

In a later statement, Sissi's office boasted that the Egyptian president was the first world leader to reach Trump by phone and personally congratulate him.

Burundi's controversial leader, Pierre Nkurunziza, who has been accused of directing the killing of civilians, said of Trump, "Your victory is the victory of all Americans."

Democracy activists and human rights campaigners, meanwhile, were despairing.

In Brazil, analysts noted that the United States now has the kind of leader more commonly associated with Latin America - a "caudilho," an authoritarian and charismatic figure often linked to military or landowning elites who responds to a desire for "dramatic solutions."

"The North American electorate broke open the shell of the serpent's egg that Donald Trump incubated during the campaign this Tuesday," wrote Clovis Rossi, a columnist for Brazil's Folha de S.Paulo newspaper." Therefore all of the demons that the politically correct had buried or at least eased in United States society are loose."

In the Middle East, Trump's win was seen as a decisive victory for Syrian President Bashar Assad, Egypt's Sissi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other leaders who routinely flout the rights of their political opponents.

"[Trump] is not going to talk about human rights, definitely," said Hisyar Ozsoy, a parliament member representing Turkey's opposition pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, or HDP, whose leaders have recently been arrested. "He will remain deaf and blind to whatever happens here if he wants to work with Turkey."

Erdogan, who had criticized Trump during the presidential campaign for showing intolerance toward Muslims, said that the Republican's victory was a "positive sign" and the "beginning of a new era in the United States."

There was no such optimism among the United States' closest democratic allies.

In Europe, there was never any secret about the continent's overwhelming preference for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

For months, leaders have spoken openly of their contempt for Trump and their fear of the consequences should he be elected - views that, according to pre-election polls, were reflected in a European public that saw a Trump win as a reason to be "afraid." On Wednesday, the terms "shock" and "nightmare" were trending on Twitter in Germany.

Trump's win had many European nations scrambling to understand his intentions on foreign policy, which have been only loosely sketched out.

Envoys from major U.S. allies typically meet campaign advisers to Democrats and Republicans ahead of elections to try to understand how elections will affect them. That was easy to do with the Clinton campaign, which was studded with veterans from her decades in the public eye. But countries such as Germany - Europe's dominant power - have not been able to secure meetings with the Trump campaign, officials said.

In Brussels, diplomats fretted about the consequences for NATO, which was the target of sharp rhetoric from Trump during the campaign as he questioned the priorities of the military alliance. While the Obama administration has committed a battalion of troops to Eastern Europe to deter a resurgent Russia, Trump has proposed a radically different approach to the Kremlin.

But mainstream leaders who just a day before were openly criticizing Trump moved quickly Wednesday to play nice, recognizing that they had no choice but to work with the new American president.

"It wasn't what we were expecting," said David McAllister, a German lawmaker who is the head of the European Parliament's delegation to the United States. "We Europeans need the Americans to guarantee our security, and we have a huge interest in transatlantic relations."

The quiet grimaces from Europe's mainstream contrasted vividly with the cheers from the continent's far right.

Trump's win was immediately seen as possible harbinger of a far-right victory in France's 2017 presidential election, which analysts now say could represent a third chapter in a string of stunning populist upheavals.

"It's a divine surprise for the National Front," said Dominique Moisi, a co-founder of the French Institute for International Relations. "Suddenly the possibility that after Brexit and after Trump there could be Marine Le Pen is striking the French."

To many in Britain, Trump's victory was stunning - but also familiar, coming as it did less than five months after the country voted to leave the European Union.

"Trump said himself that his election would be 'Brexit plus plus.' and he was right," said Thomas Roulet, a management professor at King's College London.

Nowhere was the result felt more keenly than in Mexico, where the peso crumbled. "It feels like our nightmare is here," tweeted Jorge Guajardo, who was Mexico's ambassador to China from 2007 to 2013.

Trump's disdain for Mexican immigrants and his pledges to build a wall along the Mexican border and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement have made him a figure of hate for many Mexicans.

"Mexico will have a very big problem having good relations with him," said Raul Benitez Manaut, a professor at Mexico's National Autonomous University. "Mexicans are very nationalistic, and they feel aggrieved by Trump."

In South Africa, as well, many were angered by the election of a man who had called their nation "a crime-ridden mess that is just waiting to explode."

A Trump victory "is a victory for right-wing racist politics. It doesn't bode well for the world," Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille told the country's Business Day newspaper.

Trump's victory was also deeply concerning to the governments in Japan and South Korea, Washington's two closest allies in Asia. On the campaign trail, Trump had repeatedly pledged to upend the American military pacts with both countries, saying neither was paying enough for its defense against a nuclear-armed North Korea and a strengthening China.

"The current situation seems like the beginning of the U.S.'s decline and a beginning of the failure of democracy," said Hasung Jang, a professor of finance at Korea University in Seoul.

China's state media made a similar point.

"The probably most divisive and scandalous election in American history has eroded voters' faith in the two-party system, as many voters called it a game of money, power, and influence," wrote the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Meanwhile, governments that have been out of favor under President Barack Obama foresaw new opportunities under Trump. Israeli politicians called for Trump to make good on his campaign promise to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, a long-running source of contention. And they predicted an even bigger triumph in the region's decades of conflict.

"The era of the Palestinian state is over," said Education Minister Naftali Bennett.

Others in countries on the outs with Obama were far less sanguine.

In the Philippines, the mood was somber at the U.S. Embassy's election party, with a crowd of Filipino Americans and students eager to study in the United States expressing fear, shock and disappointment.

"The U.S. is known as a country for immigrants, as the land of the free, but he wants to build a wall," said Carlos Llamas, a 19-year-old college junior studying consular and diplomatic affairs. "As president you are chief diplomat for your country, but he doesn't act like that."

---

Denyer reported from Beijing. The Washington Post's Joshua Partlow in Mexico City; Michael Birnbaum in Brussels; Loveday Morris and William Booth in Irbil, Iraq; Erin Cunningham in Istanbul; Emily Rauhala in Manila; Rama Lakshmi in New Delhi; Yuki Oda in Tokyo; Yoonjung Seo in Seoul; Congcong Zhang, Luna Lin and Jin Xin in Beijing; Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin; Sudarsan Raghavan in Cairo; Pamela Constable in Kabul; Louisa Loveluck and Liz Sly in Beirut; Kevin Sieff in Nairobi; Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro; and James McAuley in Paris contributed to this report.
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The huge 4.3 million expansion of Grimsby's Primark store is well on track for opening next summer.

The mammoth expansion is halfway through physical construction. It is the largest project at Freshney Place since the roof was put on the shopping centre more than 25 years ago, and it will see the affordable fashion outlet more than treble in size.

An extra 27,000 sq ft of retail space is being created, with 120 people set to work there when it opens.

The shopping centre's east car park and over-shop service area is being dramatically modified as well as the store's former footprint and neighbouring units, and with Primark temporarily relocated within the former WH Smith, not an hour's trading has been lost.

(Image: Rick Byrne)

It is a complex project, which has already seen 75 tonnes of Scunthorpe steel installed as the building is strengthened to cope with the additions.

Currently pre-set concrete is being drilled with multiple holes, with air then blown in, before a remote control sledge hammer paves the way for expansion into what was the car park.

Prior to this phase the heavy steel sections had been hoisted on scissor lifts and then dragged across from Frederick Ward Way on trolleys, and into position, then attached together with huge bolts.

Amanda Austin, Freshney Place centre director, said: "People cannot wait for it to open, and by seeing this, hopefully they can now appreciate why it is taking so long. In real terms, when we consider what is being achieved, it isn't a long time, but we fully understand how hard it is to appreciate and understand.

"We are trading while we live and breathe this, which is impressive in itself, as it is no greenfield development. It is going really, really well."

The total cost of the development is being wholly met by the centre's owners BMO  Bank of Montreal Financial Group.

Mrs Austin said: "Clearly this represents a sizeable investment. It will serve to underline and strengthen Grimsby's shopping credentials, undoubtedly attracting more shoppers not just to Freshney Place, but also to the town.

"The redevelopment is expected to take approximately one year to complete and we are now half-way through the work, although no opening date has been agreed as yet."

Work began on June 21, with a handover envisaged for late April 2017 , and then a fit-out period for Primark.

'Year of progress'

Stephen Throp, project manager for Savills, told how work began 18 months prior to the first hard hat being donned, as the technicalities were worked through.

He said: "We have put an intermediate deck in, we are demolishing section of levels two and four of the car park to create two floor plates of almost 20,000 sq ft. We have demolished the existing 5,000 sq ft storage area, which sat above, and also included remote storage for other shops, to create a further 10,000 sq ft of storage and welfare facilities.

"Progress is very good on what is a complicated build."

Pontefract-based Harris Construction Management is the principal contractor, working alongside CLS Demolition from Brigg, brick layers from Lincoln and groundwork from Grimsby aiding the project.

Paul Taylor, business development manager for Harris, said: "It is a very interesting job. It is the sort of project that as the contractor you continue to be interested in as you demonstrate you can provide a solution to quite demanding technical challenges."

In total 250 people will have worked on site. "We have tried to be as local as we can," Mr Taylor said.

The works dwarf the reconfiguration of the former food hall to create TK Maxx in 2001.

It comes as Primark's owner, Associated British Foods, recorded revenue of 13.4 billion for the 53 weeks to September 17, a five per cent increase year on year.

Pre-tax profit also went up by five per cent to top 1 billion for the latest full-year period.

Chief executive George Watson said it was a "year of progress" with a "substantial expansion in Primark's selling space" when announcing the results. It is expanding internationally as well as domestically.
Extra Christmassy. Photo: Starbucks

Starbucks has finally revealed its 2016 holiday cups, and theyre going to please the pro-Christmas crowd. Last years ombre design sent some Evangelicals into a fury, because moving from cups with ornaments to cups that are all red proved people at Starbucks hate Jesus.

With everything thats going on in our country, this time the chain says it opted to make 13 excessively festive cups. The cups are red as always, and festooned all over the sides are Christmas trees, Christmas lights, Santa, poinsettias, ornaments, candy canes, snowflakes, love and joy, bad Christmas sweaters, reindeer, plain deer, wreaths, and sleigh rides  although this list isnt even exhaustive.



To fully appreciate the designs, a little compare-and-contrast with the cup from last year might be helpful:



Schultz hopes the cups manage to avoid repeating last years drama. But the funniest part is its sorta, kinda a trick: In 2015, the company advertised those boring red cups as blank canvases that customers were free to personalize however they wanted. Lost on most critics was the fact that if theyd just produced a writing implement, scenes straight out of the Crusades couldve festooned their Venti gingerbread lattes. All 13 of the new cups, hilariously, are ones DIY doodlers did exactly that with last year, then shared on Instagram. Starbucks apparently more or less treated those posts as entries for the 2016 designs, and just rounded up the top 13.

Also, coincidentally, all 13 of them are by women, 6 of whom arent even American:
It's been months that Microsoft Surface Pro 3 users have been complaining that their device is reporting lower battery capacity than expected. The company released a fix for the issue back in August this year, but just a few weeks later some users again started complaining about battery life-related problems.

Now, the Redmond, Washington-based firm has rolled out a new update that it claims fixes these latest issues.

"v38.10.90.0 corrects an error that may occur on a limited number of Surface Pro 3 devices where the full charge capacity of the battery is misreported to the operating system and device firmware," Microsoft explains on its website. "This update corrects the firmware component that functions as a "fuel gauge" so that the battery capacity is accurately reported."

"Once this fix is applied to a Surface Pro 3, the reported full charge capacity will self-correct over the next several charge and discharge cycles. Surface Pro 3 devices that previously experienced the problem can now operate on battery power, and the issue wont occur on devices that haven't experienced the issue."

Source | Via
Googles phone hasnt had major issues or bugs upon its release. However, a small number of folks, namely in South America, whose carriers primarily use Band 4. Some other reports of the same issue have come from Telus and Bell customers in Canada, despite these reports, there havent been any issues reported from the US.

What most of the reports had in common was the reliance on Band 4 to connect to LTE. The Pixels affected were not able to connect to the LTE network and the connection would fall back to HSPA+. The Google Product Forum was filled with replies and gets pretty long.

Google Pixel

Some users reported that they were able to use the band when they manually registered their SIM card to another IMEI number. One member writes that he purchased two Pixels which both worked fine for the first few days. During this time, his Note7 was still registered to the SIM, once the Note 7s were returned, the Pixels became the registered IMEI and LTE dropped. Sure enough, when registering an IMEI with a Moto Nexus 6 LTE works just fine.

Some users are also reporting that Google is swapping out their devices. So itll be interesting to see if a hardware swap will fix the issue, which it likely wont as the nature if the issue isnt obvious. Google has noted the issues that are being reported, but still hasnt released any concrete information as to what is the root of these failing LTE connections.

There is also a possibility that the issue is traced back to Qualcomms X12 modems compatibility and whatnot. We also hope that the issue can be resolved with a simple software update.

Are any of our readers denied an LTE connection on a Google Pixel or Pixel XL? Tell us which carrier you are having issues with.

Source | Via




Haiti - FLASH : Deportation flights of Haitians from USA resumed





In accordance with the memorandum of 20 November on the "Policies for the Apprehension, Detention and Removal of Undocumented Immigrants" https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18700-haiti-flash-usa-resumption-of-regular-deportations-to-haiti.html the United States resumed, as announced, the deportation flights of Haitians to their home countries despite the post-Matthew recovery situation and the recent floods in Haiti.



Inspector Gary Desrosiers deputy spokesman of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) in charge of welcoming the deportees during their return to Haiti, confirmed that the resumption of such flights. The first flight arrived last Thursday in Port-au-Prince with 30 Haitians on board another flight arrived Tuesday this week with 40 other compatriots. Gary Desrosiers said these Haitians were subject to removal proceedings after entering illegally in the US and jailed.



Pierre Esperance, the Executive Director of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH) recalled "These are not criminals deported, but people who went to Brazil and crossed from Mexico to San Diego, California" describing the recovery of these flights as unacceptable, adding "[...] the US Government did not show solidarity with Haiti [...] the country is in an extremely complicated situation. You have a hurricane, continuous floods, elections coming and the public treasury bankrupt... this is not the time to start repatriating people [...]"



Following the resumption of the deportation of Haitian nationals from the United States Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke declared Wednesday, Nov. 9 "Earlier today, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that removal proceedings have resumed for Haitian nationals in the United States who lack Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The majority of the people DHS intends to remove have not been accused of any crime [...] In this period of turmoil, the forced removal of Haitian nationals will only exacerbate the difficulties of rebuilding Haiti and deny families access to remittances from relatives in the United States. I am deeply saddened that these deportations have resumed, and I call on President Obama and his administration to end this policy immediately."



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18943-haiti-usa-deportations-of-haitians-congresswoman-wilson-continues-the-struggle.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18928-haiti-usa-deportations-of-haitians-the-secretary-jeh-johnson-specifies.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18700-haiti-flash-usa-resumption-of-regular-deportations-to-haiti.html



HL/ S/ HaitiLibre


















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Leavitt, Yamane & Soldner Obtains $1M Settlement in Wrongful Death Case

Leavitt, Yamane & Soldner recently obtained a $1 million settlement for the estate and surviving sons of a woman who was struck and killed by a city refuse truck in 2014

News Release from Leavitt, Yamane & Soldner

HONOLULU, Nov. 8, 2016 -- Attorney Michael Cruise of Honolulu personal injury law firm Leavitt, Yamane & Soldner recently obtained a $1 million settlement for the estate and surviving sons of 70-year-old Barbara N. Kato, a Honolulu woman who was struck and killed by a garbage truck while crossing the street at a crosswalk. According to court documents, the accident occurred in the early morning hours of February 27, 2014 as she crossed North King Street at Gulick Avenue. The driver of the truck, Denise A. Kekumu, had been attempting to turn left onto Gulick when she struck the pedestrian. Ms. Kato died three hours later.

Kekumu had a history of eight prior avoidable accidents while driving a garbage truck, including hitting walls and parked cars. Because a driver's violations are expunged after two years under a union contract, Kekumu's driving skills never got the attention they needed. According to Cruise, the city "end[s] up with at least some drivers that have pretty bad driving histories and they're not getting retrained ... it's a public safety issue."

The Honolulu City Council unanimously approved the settlement on November 2, 2016, calling the accident a "clear case of negligence." Mr. Cruise, the attorney for Ms. Kato's estate and her sons, Keith and Kevin, said that he hopes that the city will take action to prevent another accident like this from occurring in the future. He pointed out that this accident was the third within 12 months involving a pedestrian struck by a city refuse truck.

Kekumu has been disciplined as a result of the incident.

Leavitt, Yamane & Soldner has proudly served injured people and their families in Hawaii since 1971. With over a century of combined legal experience, we are Hawaii's trusted injury attorneys. We handle the full range of personal injury cases, including car accidents, truck accidents, pedestrian accidents, defective products, premises liability, construction accidents, wrongful death, and more. To learn more about the types of cases we handle and to schedule a free evaluation of your potential case, please visit www.lyslaw.com.

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The AIGroup 2015 Absenteesim and Presenteeism survey estimated the direct cost of employee absenteeism in Australia was $578 per day, representing an annual cost to the economy of $44 billion, with additional presenteeism costs in the vicinity of $35 billion.



Indeed, organisational health may well be the greatest disruptor for future business growth and development, according to Dr Jenny Brockis, medical practitioner and author of the book Future Brain: The 12 Keys To Create Your High Performance Brain.



It's time to invest in the new era of thinking to achieve high mental performance based on greater cognitive health, said Brockis.



While some corporate wellness programs focus on improving mental wellbeing and physical health, managing the common workplace maladies of change resistance, high stress levels and exhaustion requires a more holistic approach to elevate cognitive health and mental performance.



Brockis explained that brain-savvy leaders recognise how elevating brain fitness enables individuals to develop the skill sets required for increased cognitive stamina, stress resistance and the ability to handle complex tasks more quickly and easily.



There are four ways leaders can utilise brain fitness principles to boost workplace contribution, performance and satisfaction.



Be brain aware



The recent findings from the brain science have increased our understanding of how the brain operates at its best.



Making the conscious choice to use the brain in the way it was designed helps maintain mental energy levels and reduce stress. Discouraging workplace practices shown not to be helpful such as multitasking leads to greater productivity and efficiency.



Research from Stanford has shown how multitasking leads to greater difficulty in organising our thoughts, reduces memory and worse still is associated with a drop in IQ of between 10-15 points. It's the one brain function that gets worse with practice.



Safety first



Providing a brain safe environment is about recognising and reducing threat alerts such as relationship issues, workload overload and time poverty that push people into survival mode, nudging them instead towards more rewarding behaviours and ways of thinking such as a growth oriented mindset.



Creating a positive company culture as achieved by the Pensar Construction Group in Brisbane where employees are more engaged with their work, contributes to greater commercial success.



Commit to wellbeing



While it's commonly accepted that exercise, sleep and eating healthily are essential to wellbeing and performance, what matters is embedding these into workplace culture as being expected and valued.



The National Preventative Health Taskforce that has Australia firmly in its sights to be the healthiest nation by 2020 emphasise this requires everyone getting on board and taking responsibility at an individual and organisational level.



Providing flexitime, nap rooms and physical activity programs are a good start.



Be human



Providing a workplace designed for people, is about recognising people are not their job description or a resource.



We are human and connection at the human level is as important to our survival and ability to flourish as having access to food, water and shelter. Connection leads to mutual trust, respect and greater relatedness that increases confidence, competence and capability.




Governor Pat McCrory has declared a State of Emergency to help the state combat more than 20 active wildfires in western North Carolina prompted by the lingering drought that has impacted the region since late spring.

As eastern North Carolina was underwater due to flooding from Hurricane Matthew, the western part of the state has been suffering from a severe drought and now hundreds of acres are burning, said Governor McCrory. This declaration will help facilitate evacuations as needed and provide further state assets to help combat the wildfires and support North Carolinians displaced by the fires. This is extremely dangerous work and I especially want to thank the firefighters, first responders, sheriffs and other emergency personnel that have risked their own lives to protect our citizens and property.

Forest wildfires are burning in several western North Carolina counties that are experiencing extreme drought. The State of Emergency is in effect for 25 counties including Alexander, Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba, Cherokee, Clay, Cleveland, Gaston, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Lincoln, Macon, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Swain, Transylvania, Watauga and Yancey counties.

The N.C. Forest Service has issued a burning ban on all open burning and cancelled burning permits in 25 counties in the western part of the state. To date, there have been evacuations ordered in Clay, Graham, Macon, Rutherford and Swain counties.

In support of the U.S. Forest Service, N.C. Emergency Managements Helo-Aquatic Rescue Team has deployed a N.C. National Guard Blackhawk helicopter and local rescue technicians to perform any rescues necessary from wildfire fighting operations.

Last week in Clay County, the governor highlighted that the top priority for the state is to avoid any harm to structures, people and livestock in the area. He also noted that these wildfires are some of the most serious fires to occur in North Carolina in nearly two decades.

With more crews and equipment arriving to fight fires in the area, emergency management officials are encouraging motorists to exercise caution when driving. Homeowners can also prevent property damage from fires by keeping flammable materials such as woodpiles or dead leaves away from their homes or propane tanks.

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The Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests are implementing a TOTAL FIRE BAN due to the extremely dry conditions, high fire danger, and little chance of rain in the immediate forecast.

Beginning on November 10, 2016, the following restrictions are in place for the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests until further notice:

Building, maintaining, attending or using a fire or campfire (including charcoal based fire whether in a grill or not) is NOT ALLOWED anywhere on the National Forest.

The use of commercially available portable lanterns, stoves, or heating equipment that utilize gas or pressurized liquid fuel is allowed.

The updated order expands the restrictions issued on October 28, 2016, to include restrictions in fee-area campgrounds. This restriction only pertains to the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests, however, the State of North Carolina has also issued a burn ban for 25 western counties.

Everyone has a part to play in preventing wildfires. Do not have open flame anywhere on the forest and be very cautious about activities that could produce fires such as extinguishing tobacco products or operating equipment without a spark arrestor. For more tips, go to https://smokeybear.com/en/prevention-how-tos.

More than 20 wildfires are burning on over 17,000 acres across the Nantahala National Forest. All fires are being investigated for suspected arson. Please call the National Forests of North Carolina at 828-257-4200 if you have information about persons setting fires or bragging about setting fires. If you see someone starting a fire, call 911.

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I don't think any major changes will take place between us, he said in an interview on YLE TV1 on Wednesday.

Donald Trump's victory in yesterday's presidential elections should only have an indirect impact on the relations between Finland and the United States, estimates Timo Soini (PS), the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

I don't think it'll have a direct link to the standing of Finland, but indirectly a change in the security landscape and structure  if it occurs in our near environment, in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere  will have an impact on us. The changes will be indirect, not direct, between Finland and the United States, assured Soini.

Finland should also not be concerned about the President-elect having a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Soini.

How people get along is never inconsequential. It's naturally crucial for Finland that we can continue our rules-based co-operation and our work in international co-operation associations and organisations, he said.

Trump's ascension to power is similarly unlikely to undermine one of the key principles of Nato, the principle of collective defence, despite his declaration that unless members of the defence alliance take care of their financial obligations they will not receive assistance, gauged Soini.

[The statements] were quite a strong rhetorical way to apply pressure [on member states] to put money into [the alliance]. We'd be faced with major questions if the relevance of Article 5 was really toned down, diluted. At this point, I doubt it'll come to that, he added.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Heikki Saukkomaa  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
German manufacturer bringing 46 jobs to Mills River

Related Stories

MILLS RIVER  A German company that makes specialty nonwoven material used in many technical applications will begin hiring 46 employees in late 2017 and will begin operations in mid-2018, the Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development announced.

Norafin Industries announced plans to build their first North American manufacturing facilityon a 14-acre site on School House in Mills Road, adding to the community's run of new plant openings over the past several years. Norafin will invest $18.1 million on the 75,000-square-foot plant. The establishment of a North American manufacturing facility will allow Norafin to better serve existing clients, penetrate new markets, and provide a solid platform for continued future growth, the partnership said. The company has maintained a sales presence in Asheville over the past decade.

Norafin was established in 1980 in East Germany, making Mildenau, Germany their headquarters since 1997. Norafin is a leading manufacturer of specialty spunlace nonwovens used in many technical applications. One such application is heat and flame resistance barriers used in protective apparel for firefighters. When you see the guys going out and attacking the fire, those suits often contain 2-3 layers of Norafin product, stated Andre Lang, President of Norafin. Other applications serving industrial, medical, and filtration markets require different, but equally as demanding, performance criteria.

The company began their search for a North American location in March 2016. They explored sites throughout western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina before settling on the land in the farm community.

We learned that this site reminds them of their home in the Saxony region of Germany  the mountains, the valley and the community, shared Henderson County Commission Chairman Tommy Thompson.

The company plans to start site work in early 2017, which will be followed by vertical construction. By late 2017, the company will begin hiring, with production expected to begin by mid-2018.

We are grateful, as always, to have our community and state supporting quality jobs in Henderson County. The Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina went above and beyond to help quantify our cost advantage, which pairs well with our unparalleled quality of life, said Will Buie, Chair of the Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development.
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Sweta Chawla from California and Lori McMahon from New York pictured in Dublin's Trinity College.

As it became clear that Donald Trump would become the 45th President of the USA, his supporters were few and far between in Dublin.

Among the Americans taking in the popular tourist spots around the capital yesterday, none were willing to show their support for the President-elect.

Instead, those on holiday or living here said they were stunned by the election result.

Lori McMahon, from New York, moved to Donegal five years ago.

She said Trump's win left her "saddened" but she was not surprised.

"I went home in August but did not expect to see such large Trump support.

Worried

"I expected everyone would be speaking about Hillary but there was very little conversation about her.

"It was all about Trump and people wanted to get him into office. I couldn't believe it.

"I am worried about the perception of his hatred and the words he uses to describe women. There are people who say 'yes, that's our future' and that is worrying."

Sweta Chawla, from California, was visiting the Book of Kells in Trinity College.

She said her experience of the election was different.

"In California, it was very pro-Hillary, so that is why it was so shocking and surprising for me. I did not think it was a reality.

"I didn't think either candidate was symbolic of what was best for the country. I voted for Hillary but I did not feel good about it."

However, she said she hopes the election result will have some positive consequences.

"I think it will be a humbling experience for Trump," she said.

"There is a lot of sensationalism about the negativity coming from Trump.

"This is more about people being fed up with the establishment and could turn out to be a positive thing for someone who is so vocal against the establishment to be in it."

Retired couple Valerie and Gregory Connor, from New York, were enjoying their holiday in Dublin but said the election result was worrying. Both voted for Mrs Clinton before leaving the US.

Mr Connor is concerned that Trump will replace the late Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia with one of his own.

Concerned

"I am worried because there is still an opening in the Supreme Court and he can go ahead and fill that so we will have a Trump-appointed judge.

"I don't believe he is qualified and should not be involved in the presidency.

Mrs Connor added: "A lot of millenials probably didn't come out to vote because they were supporting Bernie Sanders."
The family of a young woman who went missing 21 years ago have said they do not want revenge - they just want to know where her body is.

Jo Jo Dollard was only 21-years-old when she disappeared on November 9, 1995.

The single woman was making her way from Dublin to her home in Callan, Co Kilkenny.

Jo Jo, who had missed a direct bus home, managed to thumb several lifts before being dropped off in the village of Moone in Co Kildare, where she was last seen alive.

Monument

She made a call from a telephone box in the village that night, but never arrived home.

Her sister Kathleen Bergin has campaigned tirelessly for information on Jo Jo and her family managed to get a national monument erected in the grounds of Kilkenny Castle, to remember all missing people.

Kathleen and her family were driving forces behind Operation Trace, set up by former Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne in 1998 to investigate the cases of six young women who disappeared from the Leinster area over a five-year period.

"In the early years we never thought it would go on this like. Words would never describe what this is like. We can't close the door and say this all has gone away. It has had a devastating effect on our family. It's torture, it's affected not only the family but also her friends. Two of her friends now have babies and they make us think that Jo Jo should be alive to see and experience this.

"Jo Jo was a tomboy growing up. She lost her parents very young. Dad passed away before she was born and Mum when she was 12-years-old. She had it tough, but she was always so kind and was the baby of the family - Jo Jo was the youngest of five. We all admired her because she had a hard start in life.

"We try our best to keep this campaign alive. We know in our hearts that someone has information. This just hurts so much and is so difficult that someone knows more than we do.

"We've gotten so much great support and it's difficult to keep this search alive. We continue to cling on to hope for Jo Jo. We want her to be found before all of us (family) pass away.

"It's just to know where she is and that she is not out there all alone. It's time she was brought back to us - her family."

The family claim that gardai told them several years ago that they had "specific information" about a chief suspect.

Fr Willie Purcell from Callan, and who has been vocal in his hope for Jo Jo's return, added: "They have done so much to survive through this. Not only the family but everyone involved in the search are constantly hoping a phone call will be made or a door bell will ring with someone telling us where she is.

"We will never give up on Jo Jo, not just for her family but for Jo Jo herself."

Remembered

Jo Jo will be remembered at 2pm on Sunday in the grounds of Kilkenny Castle, where the missing persons monument was unveiled in 2002 by former President Mary McAleese.

Local Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness added he hoped the fresh appeal will be followed through by the gardai.

"When Jo Jo went missing 21 years ago search methods were different. A lot more could be done to find her now and I hope the search will go beyond our legal jurisdiction," he said.

"We want more engagement with the police on this, but the authorities do not seem to be listening to us as we have been appealing for this for years.

"It is deeply unfair for the family to carry this burden. The gardai need to relaunch a more public search for Jo Jo."
Who were the top Washington County football performers in Week 9?

Big plays and turnovers were plenty as the winners overwhelmed the losers in the final week of Washington County's regular season.
RALEIGH  Tens of thousands of uncounted provisional ballots could decide North Carolina's governor's race, some which wouldn't have been counted if the courts had upheld a Republican-backed law that limited voting access.

With nearly 4.7 million ballots cast, GOP Gov. Pat McCrory trailed Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper by about 5,000 votes  even though Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and Donald Trump secured victories by comfortable margins. McCrory was dogged throughout the campaign by his support for a law limiting LGBT rights  a prime example, according to Democrats, of the state's rightward shift under his watch.

Cooper had declared victory, though the race remained too close to call Wednesday. County boards are supposed to decide in the next several days which mailed absentee ballots and provisional votes cast during early voting or on Election Day should be added to the race totals. The trailing candidate could then ask for a recount.

Claiming an outcome before the process has concluded is irresponsible and disrespectful to the voters of North Carolina whose voices have yet to be heard, McCrory consultant Chris LaCivita said in a release. Republicans were sending volunteers and lawyers out across the state to help McCrory's cause, state Chairman Robin Hayes said.

County election boards told the State Board of Elections by late Wednesday there were 26,600 provisional ballots  those that weren't immediately counted at voting locations for various reasons. For example, precinct officials may have had no record of a person's registration or a different address from what the voter gave.

The number of provisionals was expected to increase. There were more than 33,000 provisional ballots cast in the November 2012 election. County election boards  three people, of which two are registered Republicans  will evaluate and decide by the end of next week which provisional ballots should be counted by determining voter eligibility. Mail-in, military and overseas ballots also will continue to trickle in over the next week.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last July struck down several parts of a 2013 ballot access law approved by the Republican-led General Assembly and signed by McCrory that had scaled back the number of early in-person voting days and eliminated same-day registration during the early voting period.

The ruling also voided a section that rejected the counting of provisional ballots cast on Election Day when a person failed to vote in their home precinct. Now, registrants who visited the wrong precinct in their county will have most or some of their ballot choices count. Four years ago, about 6,700 out-of-precinct ballots were counted statewide with about 45 percent of them cast by Democrats, according to election advocacy group Democracy North Carolina. The rest were essentially divided by Republicans and unaffiliated voters.

Attorney Marshall Hurley, a veteran of previous contested elections, said the results of out-of-precinct ballots that get counted generally mirror the results of the area where they are voting: A blue county is likely to stay a blue county, and vice versa. A trial court judge in April found that registered voters who were black disproportionately use out-of-precinct voting. Black voters in North Carolina have historically favored Democratic candidates in state races, including those for governor.

Counties are supposed to finalize their results Nov. 18, after which the trailing candidate in the race can request a statewide recount. On Nov. 29, the state board meets to officially declare victors. Historically, recounts in North Carolina rarely have changed the outcome of a race.

Digging into which ballots are counted and excluded under legal rules has caused elections to linger longer if challenged in court, Hurley said. When Hurley represented now-Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler in his contested November 2004 election, Troxler didn't finally take office until that February.

The process can go in different directions depending on what is found during the recount and the canvasses, Hurley said. You don't know what you're getting into.

Associated Press writer Emery P. Dalesio in Raleigh contributed to this report.
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About

Hinduism Today Magazine is a nonprofit educational activity of Himalayan Academy with the following purposes: 1. To foster Hindu solidarity as a unity in diversity among all sects and lineages; 2. To inform and inspire Hindus worldwide and people interested in Hinduism; 3. To dispel myths, illusions and misinformation about Hinduism; 4. To protect, preserve and promote the sacred Vedas and the Hindu religion; 5. To nurture and monitor the ongoing spiritual Hindu renaissance; 6. To publish a resource for Hindu leaders and educators who promote Sanatana Dharma.
With the news of Donald Trump winning the 45th US presidency, the mood in many universities and Womens Studies departments seems somber. Are we witnessing a resounding triumph of institutional misogyny, where grabbing women by their p****, body-shaming them and hurling invectives is par for the course--and does this mean America is still not ready for a female President?

Did racism and homophobia compound the sexism such that the victory of a KKK-endorsed candidate reflects a largely white, working (and even middle) class heterosexual male backlash against the increased visibility of women, racial and sexual minorities in the public sphere? (Clinton won more counties where less than 50% of the population is white.)

Was the backlash also against legislation like the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, that had faced staunch opposition from ultra-conservative quarters right from its inception, including for its free reproductive health services? The president-elect has indicated that he will repeal the law, and may have the required votes to overcome any potential Democratic filibuster in the Senate, but the point to note is that even smaller legislative changes could weaken the Act in a way that has damaging consequences, especially for economically underprivileged women.

Does the electoral verdict then signal a monumental failure of President Obamas hopeful message of diversity and equity against a backdrop of unemployment, social uncertainty, terrorism, and the excesses of partisan politics, as several commentators in the United States and India suggest? Finally, along with low voter turnout in many instances, were vast numbers of undecided voters, unencumbered by ideology and unattached to either candidate, voting against an elite establishment and for change? The answers may well be yes, but there is more.

At the farmers market in Kerry Town, an old white woman selling me artichokes says Trump is authentic. She does not have fancy degrees from Oxford and Harvard like many of us, but her remark is intriguing. Authenticity implies working through choices, the layers of existential angst that keep us in bad faith, and bring actions in line with stated values. Sexually predatory behavior by entitled males was critiqued frequently in this election; the unfortunate truth, however, is that while the Obamas appeared authentic in this regard, the Clintons did not.

Nor do affirmations of womens rights and human rights ring authentic when it comes to American governments condoning the rights abuses of ally-nations and their funding of Wahhabi-Salafi terrorism (a model for others.) This is also true in India where, caught between various religious brotherhoods and their brocialist counterparts, issues such as the abolition of triple talaq end up being opposed in-toto, even by those who support womens rights. Those interested in a gender analysis might also want to re-examine past and present faultlines within feminist thought. There are multiple feminisms, including liberal, socialist, postmodern, postcolonial, feminisms of faith (such as the work of Margaret Farley, a Catholic feminist who taught at Yale Divinity School, and suffered backlash from the Vatican for her book Just Love), their intersections. When to emphasize difference and when to pull together is an important lesson in the real world. That lovely line from a ghazal Dil bhi ik zid pe adaa hai kisi bachche ki tarah, ya toh sab kuch hi ise chahiye ya kuch bhi nahin rarely works in a deliberative democracy. Speaking of which, the democratic mandate must be respected. While political pundits may be more cynical, educators will always speak of hope.

(The writer is a lecturer in Womens Studies at the University of Michigan and also a visiting fellow at the universitys Center for the Education of Women. The views expressed are personal.)
Water has an uncanny history of inflaming passions in Punjab.

Thursdays verdict by a five-member constitutional bench of Supreme Court rejecting the validity of the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act is yet another watershed in the protracted dispute over sharing of river waters between Punjab and Haryana.

Coming ahead of the Punjab assembly elections expected early next year, the SCs extraordinarily unanimous stand on the Presidential reference on the Act has resurrected the long dormant but potentially emotive issue.

The Supreme Courts action has quickly stirred up turbulence in Punjabs political waters that is set to resonate heavily during a surcharged poll campaign.

In fact, an unfavourable verdict was a possibility that the ruling SAD-BJP government and principal opposition Congress were both anticipating ahead of the SC closure on the Presidential reference that has upheld Haryanas case and dealt a major legal setback to Punjabs stand on the dispute.

Read | Wont give a drop: Punjab calls emergency session after SC Sutlej order

Not surprisingly, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal has lately been upping the ante on his not-even-a-drop-to-spare bellicosity. On November 1, he escalated his stand on the water tangle to a new level, asserting that his government will not accept an adverse Supreme Court judgment on the SYL issue  all this in the presence of Union minister Arun Jaitley and BJP chief Amit Shah.

The reference had arisen out of Haryanas petition challenging the 2004 Act, wherein Punjab had unilaterally annulled all its inter-state river agreements with neighbouring states. The overriding objective of the Act, passed by the Capt Amarinder Singh-led Congress government, was to forestall the SC direction to the Centre to complete the contentious Sutlej Yamuna Link canal to carry Haryanas share out of Punjab rivers.

CM Badal and his deputy Sukhbir at a press conference in Chandigarh on Thursday. (HT Photo)

The legal tangle has since then been a ticking time bomb. Its eruption has not only uncorked a torrent of political reactions, but also added fire and brimstone to the parties competitive pro-Punjab pitch.

In a premeditated and well-choreographed move, Punjab Congress chief and Amritsar MP Captain Amarinder Singh drew first blood by announcing his resignation from the Lok Sabha and that of all 43-odd Congress MLAs from the Punjab assembly. His martyrs stroke is aimed at buffing up his widely acknowledged credentials as a fighter for Punjabs interests.

This is the second time that the scion of erstwhile Patiala royalty has resigned from Parliament, taking a moral stand on an issue concerning Punjab and the Sikhs. In 1984, he had quit the Lok Sabha in protest against Operation Bluestar.

And the Akalis, who style themselves as unrivalled champions of Punjabs interest, were quick to unveil a double-barrel strategy. While keeping their legal option under wraps  that may include a fresh ordinance to scrap the inter-state water treaties  they have sounded the bugle for morcha politics. Clearly, Punjab is in the throes of a fresh turbulence over water.

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Theres no denying that mankind in its quest for development and progress and in pursuit of new unconquered avenues aided by science, had spurned nature and wildlife long back  almost as if they were nugatory.

However, one doesnt need to go far to confirm the same. The damage has been done! Its evident in the dwindling flora of Delhi; different species of birds that one could find flying across the Delhi sky, and even the monotonous chirping of sparrows that one was so accustomed to hear in the morning, are all things of the past.

Egg Art Studios ongoing exhibition titled The Lair in the Capital explores mans neglect and its reciprocative consequences on the wildlife and nature. The predominant themes of the exhibition are wildlife conservation and the need to save nature.

Amrita Varma, curator of the exhibition says, This exhibition has been a product of half a years work to get together a truly intimate connection between man and nature through images in various mediums, from national and international artists. She has brought together 29 like-minded artists and photographers from India and abroad for the same.

Artwork titled Machli by artist Vijay Kumawat done with diesel soot on paper.

The austerity and adroitness shown in the drawings, the vividness of the paintings, figures and objects moulded to convey meaningful messages and photographs that leave one in awe are all part of this exhibition.

The divergence in this exhibition happens through the quality of artworks where instead of just lamenting the disjunct between man and environment, we look at the subtler reasons and perspectives with a light of hope to make a better world, says Varma.

Artwork by Delhi-based artist Bipasha Sen Gupta.

Delhi-based artist Bipasha Sen Guptas 10 pieces are on legendary creatures from Indian mythology and are executed with tea stains and pigment on paper. While artist Vijay Kumawats works are all done with diesel soot on paper  realism prevails in all his works.

Having lived in jungles for years, he knows his subjects (tigers) really well. His work titled Machli is about the famous Bengal tigress that passed away in August this year in Ranthambore. The background has been done beautifully in blur to bring alive the animal on canvas.

Untitled artwork by Kashimir-based artist Omar Khan.

Artist Tapasya Guptas sculpture titled Soul Search done with fiber glass and steel is about how man can make a difference to the world. Another interesting work is by Kashmir-based artist Omar Khan who has painted a leopard to highlight the plight of the animals living in wildlife sanctuaries. The green of leopards eyes reflects yearning to return to forest.

Photographer Prarthana Modi works in black and white allude a painting-like effect. She says, I prefer black and white photographs more than the colour ones as I feel the latter manage to capture detailing better. One of her works has a lioness sprawling about on a branch of the tree. There is a look of contentment on the face of the animal as it looks at ground.

The work that stands out and speaks volumes is by tribal artist Ashish Kachhwaha, who is from Kanha (Madhya Pradesh). In this work, a lone tree stands in a corner among many tree stumps. The tree is being pulled down by a human hand through a rope and nature is mourning the death of the tree.

And photographer Sanjeet Mangats work, Sunset Dream has a lone elephant walking towards a shore. The setting, the sky, the sunset and the loneliness that pervade the work, questions the viewer: where are we heading?

Photograph titled Sunset dream by Sangeet Mangat.

The contemplation of the physical aspects of nature and the wildlife captured in the wilderness make this exhibition all the more alluring and at the same time help the viewer connect with the accent of high pictorial harmony.

Catch It Live

What: The Lair

On till: 17 December

Where: Egg Art Studio, Barakhamba Road

Nearest Metro: Barakhamba Road on Blue Line

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It has been nine years since Sonam Kapoor made her Bollywood debut with Saawariya (2007). Ever since, the actor has steadily created a niche for herself in the industry. In a telephonic interview from Los Angeles, USA, Sonam shares with HT Cafe her thoughts on completing nine years in B-Town.

You complete nine years in Bollywood on November 9. How has the journey been?

It has been a pretty interesting journey. I know its a generic thing to say, but I have learnt a lot. Isnt that the whole point of growing up? To learn with every step that you take? Its been a satisfying and fulfilling journey. As a human being, I feel evolution is the most important thing.

You are being looked at as a hot contender for all the awards next year, thanks to your performance in Neerja.

I dont know how it will work out. I feel a movie is much more precious than any award. Its something (awards) that I am not yet thinking about. When you think about the fruits of labour, they never come to you.

So, its best to enjoy the process. The appreciation [you get for a movie] is as rewarding as the process [of making one], but its also like a cherry on top, or an added benefit. Playing Neerja and working with Ram (Madhvani; director) and all the actors, besides meeting the Bhanot family, is a reward in itself.

Sonam Kapoor says playing Neerja and working with director Ram Madhvani and all the actors, besides meeting the Bhanot family, is a reward in itself. (HT Photo)

All along, you have been called too bold, forthright, outspoken and even tactless for your honest opinions.

Out of 100 journalists, only one or two people will say that about me, and thats an opinion. I cant grudge them for having an opinion. I dont take anything personally. Honestly, some people are very judgmental, but I am not at all judgmental. Its a reflection of who they are, and they are sexist.

If a man says the same thing, its cool. But [coming] from a woman, it sounds tactless. Recently, I had gone to a charity gala, and one or two people wrote that I was dressed like Kate Middleton for a charity gala. But I was dressed like Sonam Kapoor, and how I dress has got nothing to do with what I am trying to do for people.

Its something I am passionate about. So, as a journalist, you are being very judgmental, and thats a reflection of the persons narrow-mindedness and preconceived notions! How can I be upset about that? I feel sorry for [the journalist], as it has got nothing to do with me.

Sonam Kapoor says doing films such as Neerja and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo have made her career satisfying because she has done these movies on her own terms. (HT Photo)

Even after the success of Neerja and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015), you dont seem to be in a rush to sign films?

I have never been in a rush. I do one or two films in a year. For me, its important to be passionate about what I do. I need to wake up in the morning and feel strongly about going to work. If I were in the rat race, I would have been in an entirely different position (smiles).

I feel doing films such as Neerja and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo have made my career satisfying because I have done these movies on my own terms and without playing any game. But, I am still a contender.

I have been reading a lot of scripts, and I have got several offers. But I need to be passionate about what I do. I want to go to work and be like, Oh my God, this is something that I am dying to do.

Your personal life seems to be back in the news

My personal life is never in the news, unless people want to make speculations. I will never discuss it because there is a lot of sanctity to it. I give my personal life a lot of respect, and discussing it takes that away. When the time is right, I might be open about it.

I am open about my life with the people I love and care about. I will never hide anything from them. But, I wont discuss it with the media. My personal life is nobodys business, but my own.

Sonam Kapoor started off her career alongside Ranbir Kapoor with Saawariya in 2007. (HT Photo)

You have also been doing a lot of charity work. Is it a good idea for celebs to use their influence for social causes?

I have been doing it for many years, but its getting a lot of media coverage now. I am happy about helping out a certain foundation or a charitable organisation. Sometimes, you lose hope and feel, What is all this (fame and money) for?

Since you have taken so much [from society], you want to give back, and thats what I have been trying to do. I am sensitive towards people and towards the world. I dont ever want to be desensitised [towards society]. So, not just me, but everyone should give back in whatever capacity they can.

You said in an interview that Shah Rukh Khan doesnt want to work with you.

No, I didnt say it like that (smiles).

Apparently, you also said that male stars take the casting calls in a film, which Shraddha Kapoor has refuted in an interview.

I have known Shraddha since we were kids. She is my age and we have grown up together. So I think she is reacting to a statement that has been misquoted.

Sonam Kapoor says she will work with Shah Rukh Khan when he wants to, and whenever theres a role and an opportunity. (HT Photo)

So, what did you really say?

Somebody asked me if I would like to work with SRK, and I said, Of course, I would love to work with him when he wants to. I have just not had the opportunity. He is in a unique position, where he takes the calls [about the actresses he wants to work with].

Yes, a lot of calls are taken by directors and I only work with those directors who take that call. So, all I said was that I will work with him when he wants to, and whenever theres a role and an opportunity. But whatever I said was misinterpreted.

Even Mr Khan called me up and asked if the statement was true. And I said, No, its not. I didnt say it like that. You have known me for many years and it (the statement) is not what [the reports say] it is. Since film-making is a collaborative effort, I will work with him when the director, actor, the rest of the cast and everyone else is in consensus about working with me. Till now, I have not had that chance. Thats all I said.

Is it true that you have been auditioning for work in Hollywood?

If there is something that excites me, and if there is a good opportunity, then why not? I am in Los Angeles, to gauge at the possibilities. I am not going to hide it (trying to bag a film in the West) from anybody, and then suddenly announce that I have signed a [Hollywood] film.

I am trying my best to sign good films. I am doing the same in Mumbai as well. But I have to see what I enjoy doing, and who I can work with or what I can work on.

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Delhi smog found a new victim in Bollywood actress Bipasha Basu. Were used to seeing her happy Instagrams, but on Wednesday she shared a scary health update with her friends and fans.

The Raaz actress in an Instagram post revealed she was suffering from bad throat after her recent visit to Delhi.

Help! #delhismog ! Came back from Delhi with a horrible throat pain! It's really scary the conditions out there! A video posted by bipashabasusinghgrover (@bipashabasu) on Nov 8, 2016 at 5:56am PST

The model-turned-actress, and her husband actor Karan Singh Grover, were visiting her in-laws on a family trip.

In between Instas of Karan hugging his mother and selfies of the couple smiling, Bips posted a short clip of herself, captioning it Help! #delhismog ! Came back from Delhi with a horrible throat pain! Its really scary the conditions out there!

Identical! Mom and Son  A photo posted by bipashabasusinghgrover (@bipashabasu) on Nov 7, 2016 at 6:37am PST

In Delhi! Family time! A photo posted by bipashabasusinghgrover (@bipashabasu) on Nov 7, 2016 at 6:24am PST

Bipasha isnt the only celebrity fussing about Delhis severe air quality.

On Sunday, a masked protest, #MyRightToBreathe, was organised at Jantar Mantar in the Capital, and was supported by actors such as Twinkle Khanna, Sonu Sood, Dia Mirza and Randeep Hooda.

The air quality in Delhi is so terrible that it is off the graph and the other cities will reach that level soon enough #myrighttobreathe pic.twitter.com/ZAywj1OcZL  Twinkle Khanna (@mrsfunnybones) November 6, 2016

The air quality in Delhi continued to remain severe on Wednesday and the weather experts have predicted hazy days from Friday.
Actor Tanishaa Mukerji was recently in the Capital where she voiced her concern against the growing pollution in Delhi and around the country.

I think Delhi has got to do something about pollution. Progress and commercialism is one thing but if we have no world or environment then there is no point of progress. We are all responsible for the pollution.

Its not that I dont use a car or dont have an air conditioner but all of us have to be a little careful. As children we used to do car pooling but today, I dont see that happening. People have become so individualistic and spoilt that they dont want to do anything out of their comfort zones, says Mukerji. Post Diwali, the pollution level in Delhi shot up to dangerous levels.

The actor recently launched an NGO in Mumbai which encourages people to plant trees. Since childhood she has had an inclination towards environment. I have always been involved in making environment better. Also, when I was studying in Australia, I got to know about the hole in ozone layer over Australia and how they made some big changes to make amends. We also need to have some kind of a system in place. India is a beautiful country and we must do whatever we can to protect it, says the actor.

About the need for celebrities support and involvement in social causes, she says, I cannot speak for others but if you have a reach and if you feel strongly about it, then one must take action. At the end of the day its a very personal thing. If you feel like doing it, only then will you be able to take action and make the difference. You cant do this for the heck of doing it and wont be real. If you really want to give back to the society, it should come from within, she says.

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Long queues, and chaos, were seen as banks opened on Thursday, the first day following the governments surprise move to do away with 500 and 1,000 rupee banknotes.

The late Tuesday evening decision -- variously described as war on black money, a surgical strike and boldest move ever  has caused panic and anxiety.

A few points on what, why and how of the big change

1. Banknotes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 have ceased seized to be legal tenders for transactions. The notes in circulation can be deposited in post offices or banks where you have accounts by December 30.

2. There is no limit on the deposit amount but those above Rs 2.5 lakh could attract tax and a 200% penalty in case of income mismatch, the government has said.

Read more| Take a look at the new Rs 500, Rs 2000 notes to be circulated soon

3. A sum of Rs 4,000 can be exchanged over the counter at any bank branch or post office with a valid identity proof ---- passport, Aadhaar card, driving licence, voter card and PAN card etc.

4. You can withdraw up to Rs 10,000 a day or Rs 20,000 in a week (including withdrawals from ATMs) through a withdrawal slip or a cheque up to November 24, after which the limits could be reviewed.

5. Banks will work an extra two hours on November 10 and 11. They will also be open for business over the weekend.

6. There is no restriction on non-cash payments by cheques, demand drafts, debit or credit cards and electronic fund transfers.

Read more| Rs 500, Rs 1000 junked: How PMs currency shakeup can help Indian economy

7. Some ATMs will begin operations on Thursday but withdrawals will be limited to Rs 2,000 a day per card till November 18 and Rs 4,000 a day thereafter.

8. New set of currency notes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 will be introduced from November 10.

9. Old Rs 500, Rs 1,000 will be accepted till November 11 at government hospitals, their pharmacies, and crematoriums. They can also be used to buy air, bus, rail and Metro tickets and fuel during the period.

10. The government will re-introduce all currency note denominations with new designs and feature.

Why such a drastic move

11. The government says it is a crackdown on corruption and counterfeit currency.

12. It could help bring billions of dollars-worth of unaccounted for cash back into the economy, and choke the flow of fake high-value banknotes militant groups use to fund attacks against India.

13. The decision is also an attempt by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fulfil his election promise of curbing tax evasion and bringing back illegal money stashed overseas. It gives his Bharatiya Janata Party a talking point ahead of the five state elections due early next year.

Read more| Govt says deposits above Rs 2.5 lakh to be taxed: Your 4 questions answered

14 The decision to high-value notes comes just over a month after the government raised nearly $10 billion (around Rs 66, 000 crore) through a tax amnesty scheme.

15. India has struggled to curb corruption and slush funds in the economy, or black money, especially in the real estate sector  realty stocks ended 17.5% lower on Wednesday.

16. India ranked 76th among 168 countries in Transparency Internationals 2015 index on corruption, which is estimated to cost the country 1-2% of gross domestic product every year.

17. The move will also boost tax revenue in a country, says the government. Only 3% of Indias population pays tax.

LIVE: People queue up outside banks to exchange Rs 500, Rs 1000 notes
People across the country queued up outside banks and ATMs on Thursday to get new currency notes in exchange of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes that have been abolished by the government.

Delhi Police have made adequate arrangements to ensure law and order and smooth demonetisation process in the national capital.

Fearing a jump in footfalls to deposit or withdraw cash following the demonetisation, banks will remain open this Saturday and Sunday and its staff will do overtime till 9 pm for the next three days to clear the rush.

The government on Tuesday had demonetised the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as part of its efforts to clamp down against the black money, fake currency and terror financing.

Take a look at what happened on Thursday

Minister of state for home affairs says the govt decision will stop terror funding and circulation of fake currency. This step will break the bones of terror organisation, he says.

 Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal questions the governments move to scrap Rs 1000 notes and introduce Rs 2000 notes instead. I dont understand one thing, how you end corruption by banning Rs 1000 notes and introducing Rs 2000 notes, ANI quoted him as saying.

 Reports emerge of customers requesting banks to issue more than Rs 4,000.

Chennai-Man carries the wedding card of his friend's daughter to bank,requests them to grant him over Rs 4000,authorities denied his request pic.twitter.com/8KKZYhL6rB  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

My friend's daughter is going to get married tomorrow and her reception is scheduled to take place today evening..(ctd): Customer pic.twitter.com/8SqJkVa9TD  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

 Arun Jaitley says nobody would be harassed over smaller deposits -- less than Rs 2.5 lakh.

State Bank of Patiala officials deposit Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination notes, in Patiala. (Bharat Bhushan /HT Photo)

People stands in queue outside a post office to deposit and exchange Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes, in Ahmedabad. (AP Photo)

In Ranchi, Old HB road connecting Lalpur-Kokar choked for hours after the customers queue extended up to the main road half-an-hour before the banks opening. With opening of the bank, security personnel were deputed to prevent any untoward incident. Fifty-year-old Geeta Devi said, I have no money at home. I came early so that ration for lunch could be purchased.

A person stands with his documents in a queue outside a branch of the State Bank of India as people wait to exchange old high denomination bank notes in Old Delhi. (Reuters Photo)

There were unprecedented traffic jams and long queues outside the banks in Jaipur. Banks witnessed chaos as people rushed to submit identity proofs and fill forms. I had come to bank at 10 and since then I am running from one counter to other for fulfilling the formalities. The staff is cooperating but it is taking too much time, said a customer, waiting at the counter to deposit money.

A customer fills up documents at Bank of Baroda to deposit and exchange Rs 500 and Rs 1000 banknotes, in Lucknow. (Arun Sharma/ HT Photo)

 Trying to ensure requisite replacement currency is available with people at the earliest; no need for people to rush, says finance minister Arun Jaitley.

Peope stand outside Reserve Bank of India to exchange banned Rs 500 and Rs 1000 bnaknotes, at Parliament Street in New Delhi. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

Over 3000 paramilitary and police personnel, quick reaction teams deployed in Delhi for security in banks.

A visually challenged person counts Rs 500 notes outside the Reserve Bank of India at Parliament Street, New Delhi. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

Banks witnessed highest-ever footfall as long queues were formed hours before the branches opened. I am standing in the queue since 8.45 am and waiting for the bank to open. The bank said they did not have R 2000 notes so I got R 4000 in denomination of R 100 currency notes, said Abhijit Sachdeva, a resident of Ghaziabad.

People wait in a long queue outside a bank at Gurgaon's First India Place to exchange & deposit currency notes. @HTGurgaon @htTweets pic.twitter.com/FvEeGd8iGo  Gulam Jeelani (@jeelanikash) November 10, 2016

People stand in queue as they wait to enter a bank in Kolkata. (Reuters Photo)

People queue up outside ICICI Bank in Connaught place in New Delhi. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

A man counts 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes outside a branch of Bank of India in Mumbai. (Reuters Photo)

Siliguri (West Bengal): Huge crowd gathered outside banks as it reopens for the first time after Govt withdraws Rs 500/1000 notes pic.twitter.com/tlAxc3gasn  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

A close look of the new Rs 2000 bank note issued by the government. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

Peopel queue up outside Reserve Bank of India to exchange banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, in New Delhi. (ANI Photo)

People form a queue outside a bank in Chennai to exchange old currency notes. (ANI Photo)

A long queue can be seen outside a SBI bank branch in Lucknow. (HT Photo)

People show new Rs 2000 bank notes outside a bank in Ghaziabad. (HT Photo)
The mobile wallets, or any form of digital money has never been more relevant to Indias underbelly  after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that notes of 500 and 1,000 will become illegal.

Only Paytm users call or message me, otherwise dont disturb  I also accept Airtel Money and MobiKwik, said Shalu (name changed on request).

Shalu is not the usual merchant who accepts Paytm money transfer  she is an escort operating in south Delhi, who charges anything between 1,000 to 15,000 depending on the service  lowest for phone sex and the highest for an entire night.

Shalu is not new to the internet  she has been using Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram (the other two are owned by Facebook) for a few years, now. Then she started buying stuff from Flipkart and Snapdeal, and is on dating apps such as Tinder and Happn, where she finds some of her clients.

If people can buy clothes on the internet, why cant people buy sex online  I take all kinds of payments  I even have a card swiping machine at my house, she said.

Only 25-30% of her customers pay by cash, as Shalu finds it much easier to handle digital money. She calls herself a symbol of changing India, or maybe for many, the biggest change in the countrys prostitution business (at least for the tech savvy), which has so far been dominated by cash  a large source of Indias black money.

Prostitution is one of the oldest businesses, dating back to second century B.C., which involve about 0.5% of Indias female population as sex workers. The business is not small, as some brothels (like in Kolkatas red-light area) have an annual revenue of up to 14.4 crore  more than some small and medium businesses.

Mobile wallets are an effective medium, as mobile wallets such as Paytm, MobiKwik and Freecharge want to get as many small businesses to use the wallet.

Shalu explains. I am independent, but some of my friends in the profession who use Paytm keep their commission and transfer the rest of the money to their handler.

The number of sex workers using digital money is few, but is growing fast. Kajal (name changed), who has about 50-60 escorts under her, said that one year ago Paytm was an alien concept in this business, but a lot of people are willing to experiment now.

Once the money is in the wallet, Kajal said she and her girls use it for various things, which include shopping, paying bills, buying grocery and even sending money to their family.

The number of people using these wallets will increase as more people download their apps  Paytms downloads rose by 400% and MobiKwiks by 40%, since the time of the announcement.

Payal, a transgender in Delhi, said if the money was transferred to a mobile wallet, clients dont haggle after the act. She is not sure if she can transfer the money into the bank. Can I do that as well? she asks. If that is allowed, I would like to stop taking cash, Payal said.

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Donald Trumps win in the US presidential elections may create a new set of opportunities for Indian generic drug makers. Trump is expected to remove the restrictions on drug imports as he said this would give American patients greater access to drugs manufactured abroad.

The market for generics will remain strong in the United States as our reasonable pricing supports their agenda of keeping healthcare costs low, said RC Juneja, chief executive officer at Makind Pharma.

Trumps proposal to lift entry barriers for drug makers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper products may create new opportunities for Indian firms, said DG Shah, secretary general of Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance.

Also, Trumps healthcare website promises that he will not not allow people to die on the sidewalks and the streets of our country for lack of access to proper healthcare.

However, his stance on intellectual property rights (IPRs) is still unclear. Big pharma, including the American drug makers, have lobbied their governments to force India to dilute the provisions over the IPR.

The domestic IPR provisions have served Indian consumers well by keeping the price of some important drugs under check as the patent offices rulings have by and large been upheld by the highest courts.

Trumps views on IPR arent clear yet. He may push the matter as well, said Hitesh Sharma, national leader, life sciences at consultancy E&Y.

On the other hand, Democrat party candidate Hillary Clinton had proposed to deny tax breaks to drug companies in a bid to end profiteering.

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In the aftermath of Narendra Modis victory in the 2012 Gujarat assembly elections, a much-respected writer-activist known for his liberal views had accosted me at a dinner: I heard you on television suggest that Narendra Modi could be the BJPs prime ministerial choice in 2014. You are wrong, India will never accept a divisive figure like him. In July 2013, when we did an election tracker poll claiming that Mr Modi was the preferred prime ministerial choice by some distance, the same gentleman rang me up: Change your pollsters, they are being influenced by media hype. In May 2014, when Mr Modi won a spectacular victory to become prime minister, I received an sms from my friend again: How could this happen? This is not the India I know. I am depressed.

Read: People want the truth, says Indias Donald Trump Subramanian Swamy

The Indian liberals plight in 2014 is perhaps mirrored in the US in 2016. I have little doubt that many Americans are depressed at Donald Trumps famous triumph. In Washington last month, a journalist-friend was happy to buy me a drink, relieved he said that the Trump campaign had come unstuck by sex tape revelations. Now, as he, like so many other pollsters and pundits, are wiping the egg off their face after getting the US election verdict so horribly wrong, the question should be asked: do we in the media and the opinion industry allow our personal biases to influence our professional judgment?

Lets be honest: much of the Delhi-based mainstream media like the Washington press corps have a liberal outlook. Nothing wrong with that per se. Believing in the values of tolerance, equality, individual liberties should be central to a profession like journalism. But what happens when populist right-wing demagogues, be it a Modi or a Trump, strike a chord with millions of voters in a democracy. Do we disregard their views simply because they do not match our beliefs and compromise our credibility in the process?

Read: Not an ordinary election: News media rewrites playbook for liar Trump

In countries as large as India and the United States, Lutyens Delhi and Capitol Hill Washington can never represent the popular mood. In the 2016 US presidential election, Americas rust belt  once industrial power-house states like Michigan and Ohio  became its Hindi heartland, reflecting the plight and concerns of the working class over identity and job losses. The Trump slogan Make America Great Again resonated most powerfully here in the manner that the achche din war cry echoed in the bastis of a UP and Bihar in 2014.

And yet, the fact is, a large section of the media wasnt willing to accept the dominant sentiment on the ground. As the iconoclastic liberal film-maker Michael Moore, while predicting a Trump win in July this year, had forewarned his ideological fellow-travellers, If you think Trump cant win, you need to exit that bubble right now. You need to stop living in denial and face the truth which you know deep down is very, very real.

Read: Lessons of Trump victory: The medias liberal values must not colour its judgement on elections

Moore is not wrong. Many of us in the television business in particular live in an air-conditioned studio bubble, a comfort zone where we are surrounded by familiar talking heads and predictable voices. Pundits with pre-decided opinions are given disproportionate air time and saliency in preference to the real people in the bazaars and mohallas of a vast country. A studio-driven media model can falter at election time if it gets disconnected from people. As can pollsters who get trapped in statistical jugglery and computer data.

Pollsters and journalists cannot afford to live in denial mode: an edit page article, a studio debate or an opinion poll might gainfully analyse an issue but can it really get into the minds  the anger and the frustrations  of millions of faceless voters? Which is why we need to shed our ideological blinkers (and possibly, our intellectual laziness) and become the eyes and ears of society rather than simply an echo chamber of the elite studio chatterati.

At the same time, let not the Trump win become another stick to beat the liberal media with , or, indeed, an exercise in self-flagellation. Lets not forget that many of us in this country did predict a Modi victory in 2014 even if one may have had reservations over the brand of politics he represented. Lets also not allow the toxic chamber of social medias cheerleading armies to push us on the defensive and threaten a deeper commitment to truth-telling as journalists. So if politicians like Trump revels in sexist remarks, espouses bigotry, resorts to hate speech, they must be exposed journalistically. Our liberal values must not colour our judgment on who is winning or losing an election. That is at the heart of being a true journalist rather than a noisy propagandist.

Post-script: Last month, I interviewed under-graduate students in Washingtons prestigious Georgetown University, the overwhelming majority of whom were Clinton supporters. I immediately tweeted how Americas millennials were with Clinton, forgetting a cardinal principle: a presidential race is not a school monitor election, so rushing to instant judgments based on small focus groups is injurious to professional health!

Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and an author

The views expressed are personal

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Like hope, wishful thinking springs eternal. As I write this, in New York on the day after a native son of this city has been elected President of the United States, a parade of pundits has gone through the turnstiles of news TV, many of them suitably shame-faced about predicting the other outcome, all of them offering the parting palliative that President Donald Trump will be a better man than Candidate Donald Trump.

Their assumption is that the onerous responsibility of the highest office will have a maturing, moderating influence on Trump, obliging him to abandon some of his more extremist views and promises  or, failing that, that his radical instincts will be restrained by the complex realities that come with ruling a diverse, deeply divided nation, and leading a messy, mixed-up world.

Read: Five shot in downtown Seattle near scene of protests against Trump presidency

Thats the kind of positivist delusion that persuaded the teachers of Visakha Valley School in Visakhapatnam that making the Class XI troublemaker the school vice-captain would somehow turn him into a model student. It didnt work: the power went to my head, and I was an even greater nuisance.

It wont work with Trump either. For one thing, he wasnt simply assigned authority, he won a mandate the hard way  in fact, the hardest way. For another, theres no reason to think that those who gave him that mandate want him to alter his behaviour, or soften his edges, once hes occupied the White House. The opposite is true: they WANT him to be a troublemaker, because they believe that is what it will take to Make America Great Again.

Read: Disbelief, questions at United Nations after Trump victory

Trump has always known this is what the electorate wanted. That is why he disregarded the advice of the punditrocracy and the Republican Party establishment to pivot to the centre after winning the primaries. The conventional wisdom in American presidential politics is that smart candidates win primaries by appealing to their partys extremists, and then adopt more middle-of-the-road positions in the general election. Trump refused to do any such thing: he stayed extreme throughout the campaign, and profited handsomely by his stubborn refusal to play by the political playbook.

If he has no voter-imposed impetus to restrain himself, theres little hope that the Republican Party will be able to impose moderation on Trump, either. His victory came despite the best efforts of the party grandees, and he is in no way beholden to them, quite the contrary. It is more likely that Republicans in Congress will take their cues from their President and his supporters, and tack toward more extremist positions. Consider the osmosis effect Trump has had on former Republican moderates like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, both of whom slipped farther and farther toward the lunatic fringe after joining his campaign.

Read: Trump victory: Towards an inward-looking America

Nor is Trump likely to find much motivation for moderation as he looks across the wider world. Instead, he will find that leaders who say and do outrageous things  Trump would likely describe them as tough  are not only getting away with it, theyre being rewarded for it, with public approbation. From Russias Vladimir Putin and Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, leaders who resist compromise are being lauded by their electorate.

Shortly after his swearing-in, Trump could very well be joined in the club of leaders who openly espouse bigotry by the odious Marine Le Pen of France. That would mean four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council would be ruled by radical or rejectionist right-wingers: the US, Russia, France and the UK. That would leave Chinas autocratic Xi Jinping as the representative of liberal progressivism!

Read: Caution, optimism: What a Trump administration could mean for India

Some pundits have suggested economic necessity could force Trump down a conciliatory path. He is a businessman, after all, and who better to recognise the logic of markets and trade? The trouble is, Trumps track record in business is replete with examples of reckless risk-taking, followed by bankruptcy. You can do that with a real-estate company and hurt a few thousand people. But managing a country is another matter. Trumps positions on international trade treaties suggest he is of a mind to play fast and loose with the American economy, and, by extension, the worlds. This doesnt allow for much confidence.

That only leaves the possibility that Trump might become more moderate because that is just the right thing to do. Go ahead and chortle. It is laughable to expect high-minded altruism from any modern politician, never mind from a racist, misogynist and tax fraud. If Trump has a moral compass, he has kept it well hidden for decades, and were he to produce it now, it might be an even bigger surprise than his election victory.

Earlier this year, I was in London for the Brexit referendum. Then, too, shell-shocked pundits struggled to offer some reason for optimism. But for me, the most memorable comment came from an Afro-Caribbean woman interviewed on BBC radio. She was asked if she thought Boris Johnson, who led a nasty campaign for Britain to leave Europe, might now feel conciliatory in victory. This is the real world, not DisneyWorld, she snorted. The monster doesnt become a loveable rogue in the end. He stays a monster.

Read: Donald Trump: If hes bad for the US, hes bad for us

So lets not kid ourselves: There will be no moderating influence on Trump, not from within the American political system he has so expertly dismantled, nor from the wider world. There will be no pivot to the centre. With President Donald Trump, what we have seen  and what he has said  is exactly what we will get.

(Bobby Ghosh is editor-in-chief of Hindustan Times. He has spent over two decades covering international affairs, including long stints as correspondent and editor in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the US. He tweets as @ghoshworld)

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New Delhi

A 17-year-old boy allegedly murdered his friend, a 16-year-old, in southeast Delhis Jaitpur for bullying him when he was a child.The victim was hit 22 times with a brick.

Police said the suspect dumped the victims body in a pit beside the Yamuna and later reached the Juvenile Justice Board to surrender. But he was handed over to the police.

During counselling, the accused said he got the idea of killing his friend from a television show, police said.

Both lived in a labour camp near a power plant in southeast Delhis Jaitpur. The parents of both teenagers worked are labourers at construction sites.

The accused called his friend last week for a party in a forested area near the Yamuna on October 31. After having a few drinks, the accused youth told his friend to lie down and offered to perform a magic trick, police said.

He covered the face of victim with a cloth and hit his head with a brick 22 times. After dumping the body, he washed the blood stains.

The victims parents started looking for him and went to the Jaitpur police station to register a missing complaint. The police registered a case of kidnapping.

Meanwhile, the suspect joined victims parents to look for him and misguided them.

On November 3, he reached the juvenile justice board to surrender. Officials informed the police about his claims following which he was interrogated.

During questioning, he told the police that the victim used to be his neighbour and bullied him since his childhood for petty reasons and he felt humiliated. He said he had tried to kill him earlier too.

A case of murder was registered. Both the accused and victim had dropped out of school and helped their parents.
Smog may return to Delhi as the wind is slowing down. On Thursday, the smog cover was thicker and longer compared to the previous day.

According to data recorded at the IGI Airport, visibility has not been more than 800 m since 9 pm on Wednesday.

Even during the daytime on Thursday, the visibility was recorded at 600-800m; compared to Wednesdays visibility of 1200-1500m at the same time.

The wind speed reduced considerably in the past few days. Experts had earlier said the cloud of smog had lifted on Tuesday due to wind. The strong and continued winds helped disperse the smog-causing elements over a larger area, said a weather expert.

As wind has been a determining factor in Delhis air quality, the slowing speed had raised concerns. If wind speed drops below 6 kmph, and this continues for a few days, we may have reason to be worried. The pollutants may once again get trapped within the air, explained the expert.

Read: NGT pulls up Delhi, Punjab and Haryana govts over air pollution, smog cover

But it was too early to confirm anything, he cautioned. Wind has definitely weakened. There was close to no wind during the early hours of Thursday, which impacted visibility. But we do not have enough data to state whether Thursday was a one-off, or if this pattern of slowing winds will persist. We do not have to panic yet. We will have more information in a day or two, he claimed.

Delhi residents can enjoy a cool day on Friday, with the maximum and minimum temperatures expected to be 29 and 12 degrees Celsius, respectively. Some moderate to shallow fog has also been predicted.

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As the election juggernaut powers on in Uttar Pradesh, on the wheels of various raths, we can expect to see the issue of the surgical strikes and the stepped up drive against black money take pride of place in campaign speeches. So it comes as a welcome development that BJP president Amit Shah has asked his partymen to make the respect of women, besides development, an issue in next years assembly poll in the state.

Of course in attacking the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress for not speaking up on the issue of triple talaq, he is seeking to score a political point. And certainly, the BJP must go beyond just talking about respect for women.

Read | Cops apathetic to victims: Womens panel

Many Hindutva organisations feel that the best way to show respect for women is to extend protection for them under a patriarchal system and confine them to traditional roles at home. UP, which the BJP is hoping to capture electorally, is among the worst when it comes to crimes against women. In the four years leading to 2015, violent crimes against women increased by a staggering 34% across India , with UP, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Rajasthan at the bottom of the heap.

Mr Shah is right when he raises the issue of triple talaq being against womens rights. But at the same time, his party should lead from the front in seeking a change in all personal laws that discriminate against women as well as traditional practices that have inbuilt gender biases.

Few political parties have taken up the issue of womens rights and violence against them. States ruled by the BJP, like Rajasthan and Haryana, have among the worst sex ratios. This is largely the result of female foeticide, a horrific form of violence against women. The figures for all crimes, including trafficking, rape, domestic violence and stalking have gone up.

At the same time, the criminal justice system is so difficult for women to negotiate that many cases just fall by the wayside. There are strong and adequate laws to protect women but awareness is still very patchy.

Read | Social change due to liquor ban transcending Bihar: Nitish

If the BJP takes up this issue, other parties will have to follow suit.

The issue of gender rights goes far beyond just respect and personal laws. The one thing that the states should do is to make it easier for women to report crimes at the police stations. This is what women find most difficult thanks to the indifference on the part of the police or downright hostility.

These are issues which should be taken up by political parties during elections. If Mr Shah is serious, hopefully we will see a difference in political discourse on gender rights.
President-elect Donald Trump should consider the fate of British prime minister Theresa May if he seriously contemplates a steady withdrawal of the United States from the international system. Londons continuing struggles with the aftermath of the Brexit vote is, on a small scale, a reminder of the difficulties of reversing an existing state of globalisation and the often unexpected costs of such a decision. Ms May, to her credit, did not support the decision to withdraw from the European Union. Less impressive, however, is her insistence that as prime minister she will implement the referendums verdict and, it seems, do so through confrontational negotiations.

Read: Bigger than Brexit? Trump win a challenge to May

Ms May has repeatedly visited European capitals to try and make the case for a new Anglo-European understanding that allows the free flow of trade and investment across the English Channel but places barriers to the free movement of people. Rightly, the EU has scoffed at this arrangement as it would violate some of their basic principles. More to the point, it would only feed and encourage similar anti-immigrant political sentiments in other European countries. She has gotten little for her travels. An irritated Barack Obama told her that if Britain wanted to negotiate a new trade agreement with the United States, it would have to go to the back of the queue. A Narendra Modi government had even less to offer, given its general antipathy to any trade agreement at all and generally protectionist attitude to international economics. The only concession New Delhi was interested in paralleled the interests of the EU  a more liberal immigration policy. Presumably by accident, the British government announced further restrictions on Indian visas just before she arrived. Her India visit left no impression with the Modi government other than the sense of a once great power that had lost any shred of strategic thinking, economic or political.

Read: Visa issue: British PM Theresa May touches raw nerve on illegal Indians

It would be nice to think a President Trump would draw a lesson from the limbo that now envelopes British foreign and economic policy. A US trade war with China or a labour war with Mexico would, by all accounts, would result in global economic chaos. It would bring none of the jobs that were lost to these countries earlier back to the US  high wages, robots and technology mean these jobs are gone forever. Economic realities change so rapidly that it is impossible to simply turn the clock back. A new economic strategy is needed for the US to help its sagging working-class population. And real political leadership is needed to bridge the deep rifts that afflict the national parties of both the US and the UK over issues like migration. So far, neither Trump nor May has come up with any ideas on resolving either problem.
According to a new study, a weight loss condition that affects cancer patients could make immunotherapy ineffective. It explains why the approach of boosting a patients immune system to treat the disease fails in a lot of people.

Cancer immunotherapies involve activating a patients immune cells to recognise and destroy cancer cells. They have shown great promise in some cancers, but so far have only been effective in a minority of patients with cancer. The reasons behind these limitations are not clear.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have found evidence that the mechanism behind a weight loss condition which affects patients with cancer could also be making immunotherapies ineffective.

The condition, known as cancer cachexia, causes loss of appetite, weight loss and wasting in most patients with cancer towards the end of their lives.

However, cachexia often starts to affect patients with certain cancers, such as pancreatic cancer, much earlier in the course of their disease.

Scientists found that that even at the early stages of cancer development in mice, before cachexia is apparent, a protein released by the cancer changes the way the body, in particular the liver, processes its own nutrient stores.

The consequences of this alteration are revealed at times of reduced food intake, where this messaging protein renders the liver incapable of generating sources of energy that the rest of the body can use, said Thomas Flint, from the University of Cambridges School of Clinical Medicine.

This inability to generate energy sources triggers a second messaging process in the body -- a hormonal response -- that suppresses the immune cell reaction to cancers, and causes failure of anti-cancer immunotherapies, Flint said.

Cancer immunotherapy might completely transform how we treat cancer in the future -- if we can make it work for more patients, said Tobias Janowitz, from University of Cambridge.

The condition, known as cancer cachexia, causes loss of appetite, weight loss and wasting in most patients with cancer towards the end of their lives. (Shutterstock)

Our work suggests that a combination therapy that either involves correction of the metabolic abnormalities, or that targets the resulting hormonal response, may protect the patients immune system and help make effective immunotherapy a reality for more patients, said Janowitz.

If the phenomenon that we have described helps us to divide patients into likely responders and non-responders to immunotherapy, then we can use those findings in early stage clinical trials to get better information on the use of new immunotherapies, said Duncan Jodrell, from the Cambridge Cancer Centre.

Understanding the complicated biological processes at the heart of cancer is crucial for tackling the disease -- and this study sheds light on why many cancer patients suffer from both loss of weight and appetite, and how their immune systems are affected by this process, said Nell Barrie, from Cancer Research UK.

The research was published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
An investigation into whether Brad Pitt was abusive toward his son on a private flight in September says the case has been closed with no finding of abuse by the actor, a source familiar with the inquiry said Wednesday.

The source, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Associated Press that the investigation was closed within the past few days.

Multiples sources have said the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services had been looking into allegations Pitt was abusive toward his 15-year-old son on the flight in mid-September. Pitts wife, Angelina Jolie Pitt, filed for divorce days after the incident, and her attorney said it was for the health of the family.

A department spokesman said the agency could not confirm it investigated Pitt.

Custody of the actors six children has been the primary issue in their divorce. Jolie Pitt is seeking sole custody of the children, while Pitt is seeking joint custody.

Actor Brad Pitt attends the fan event for Paramount Pictures' Allied at Regency Village Theatre on November 9, 2016. (AFP)

Pitt has had visitation with his children under terms agreed upon by the former couple. Jolie Pitts representatives said Monday that an agreement on custody had been reached, although a final agreement will be part of the couples divorce judgment when it is entered.

California law favours joint custody, although details about custody arrangements are rarely made public in celebrity divorce cases.

A representative for Jolie said the actress is relieved that the inquiry is over and that the custody arrangements in place will allow the children to heal.

A representative for Pitt declined comment.

Pitt and Jolie were married for two years and together for 12 years after becoming close while filming 2005s Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
An 11-year-old class 6 student was allegedly gang-raped by four boys from class 10 in the washroom of a private school in this Haryana town last month.

Police said on Thursday the girls parents lodged an FIR against the accused on November 9. The family alleged in the complaint that the girl was raped by a senior and three of his friends, whom she couldnt identify, in the school toilet before lunch break on October 14.

The accused are students of the same school. The girls family reported the matter after 26 days of the incident and police started investigation after that. Police teams went to the main suspects home twice, but no one was there, investigation officer Sheela Devi said.

The boys were charged with rape and criminal intimidation under provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. Only one of the suspects has been identified so far, and no one has been arrested yet.

Police teams are searching for the accused and will arrest him as soon as possible, Devi said.

The girl fainted in court when the police took her there to register her statement before a magistrate. She was taken to hospital for treatment and medical examination.
The Modi governments decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes is bad news indeed for the ongoing agitation in Kashmir that is funded largely through illegal hawala channels. Home ministry officials told Hindustan Times that separatist leaders in the state have communicated their concerns to the agitating cadres.

The J&K police has reported to New Delhi that separatists are flummoxed by the move as a result of which the four-month long agitation may be on the backburner. The separatist leaders rely on hawala channels through Bangladesh, Nepal and Dubai for funding the agitation. It is these sources that have dried up, a home ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

Other officials say that CM Mehbooba Mufti Sayeeds support for a dialogue between civil society leaders and hardliners like SAS Geelani has weakened the impact of the demonetisation move that would otherwise have pushed separatists on the backfoot. The Centre is opposed to any dialogue or any engagement with separatists.

Top intelligence officials say the Kashmir agitation will be on the backburner for at least four to five months, the time required to replenish separatist coffers through the black money route. The demonetisation move has put hawala operations on hold as the new banknotes are still to be available in large numbers, said a senior official.

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In an embarrassment to the Karnataka government, a minister was allegedly caught viewing pornographic content on his phone on Thursday during the Tipu Jayanti celebrations.

Primary and higher education minister, Tanveer Sait, was caught going through seemingly pornographic photos on his phone at a state-sponsored celebration in Raichur, leading to the BJP demanding his resignation. The RSS, Christian organisations and a section of historians also condemned it.

The incident came to light after a regional Kannada channel, TV 9, caught images of Sait scrolling through what appeared to be photos of semi-clad women on his phone.

Sait denied the charges, saying he was looking at pictures of the Tipu Jayanti celebrations in Mysore when the images popped up on a WhatsApp group.

This isnt the first time a Karnataka minister has been caught this way; in 2012, two BJP ministers -- Laxman Savadi and CC Patil -- were caught watching porn clips during a legislative session. The clip had been forwarded by a colleague, Krishna Palemar. All three resigned from their posts following the scandal.

Tanveer Sait should be sacked immediately who was caught on camera watching pictures which were allegedly porn, state BJP president, BS Yeddyurappa tweeted.

The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president, G Parameshwara, said he was unaware of the incident.
Opposition parties came on the same page on Thursday to launch an attack on the Modi government.

Uttar Pradesh political stalwarts Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati demanded immediate rollback of the Centres decision to abolish high-value notes, likening the move to the period of Emergency in the late 1970s.

Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati  bitter rivals facing tough assembly elections next year  seldom speak the same language on any subject.

But they were on the same page on Thursday against the Narendra Modi-led NDA governments decision to pull 500- and 1,000 rupee notes out of circulation.

The Modi government has slapped Emergency without sending people to jail and the BJP cares only about elections, not the problems faced by common people. The government has spread anarchy in the entire country, common man is not even able to buy daily products, Yadav said.

Both Yadav and Mayawati called the move anti-poor, saying it served the interests of only big industrialists who backed the BJP.

The Centres decision is considered a blitz against black money that has blighted various sectors, including the electoral process as politicians are accused of bribing voters with illicit funds.

But the two Uttar Pradesh parties, which have been ruling the state alternately since 2003, said demonetization exercise is the BJPs ploy to divert peoples attention from failures of the BJP government at the Centre before elections in the state.

Just before UP elections, Modi has realised the problem of black money after remaining in the saddle at the Centre for two-and-a-half years  90% people are unhappy with this decision, Mayawati said.

Yadav too said as much, alleging that Prime Minister Modi took the hasty decision to hide his failure in bringing back Indian money stashed in foreign countries that he had promised to do in his campaign speeches before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

The 76-year-old chief of UPs ruling party accused the Centre of unleashing untold hardship on the people, especially farmers and daily wage-earners.

They dont have money to buy even one square meal now. The hasty decision was taken at the behest of a few big business houses. I know their names, but wont like to reveal them, Yadav said.

He, however, clarified that his party too is against black money and its use in elections.

We are against black money. SP has fought against it. We do not want use of black money in elections, he said.

For her part, Mayawati called the Centres decision anti-Dalit and anti-poor.

It hurt the poorest of the poor as they dont money to buy food. Modi took the decision to harass people after making his party economically strong by helping industrialists and capitalists.

She said the people will punish the BJP in the UP elections.

Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal too lashed out at PM Narendra Modi and challenged him to make public the names of the 648 Indians with Swiss bank accounts whose details, he said, were given to New Delhi during the earlier UPA rule.

Insisting that the demonetisation will not check corruption, Kejriwal asserted that the problem of black money could be tackled if Modi ordered the arrest of Indians alleged to have maintained Swiss bank accounts.

But you wont arrest them because they are your friends, he said.

(With agency inputs)
Jharkhand government plans to crack down on misuse of funds and what it calls forcible conversions of tribals by Christian missionaries after a report accused the Church of inciting the states sizeable population to block development schemes.

Alarm bells were set ringing in the power corridors of Ranchi last month after a massive tribal protest against proposed changes in the states land acquisition law  demonstrations that the government says were planned and funded by Christian missionaries with foreign money. On September 15, more than 100,00 tribals converged in Ranchi to protest against two ordinances that proposed acquisition of tribal agricultural land for development purposes such as roads, schools, hospitals and flyovers.

Never before had the state seen such a huge congregation of tribals  who account for more than a quarter of the states population  in the capital on a non-political platform daring the government. A little known Adivasi Buddhijivi Manch (ABM)  Tribal Intellectual Cell  headed the protests.

A shocked state government asked its special branch to probe the protests. The branchs report  a copy of which is with HT  says the rally was conceived and executed by the churches, who are allegedly using foreign funds meant for development work to incite tribal unrest. The report comes roughly a year after the 2011 census threw up a surprise when it recorded Christians as the fastest-growing religious group in the state. Christians grew up a staggering 29.7% while Hindus grew by 21. 1%. The Muslims were behind Christians, registering a rise of 28. 4%. The figures for Jharkhand were in sharp contrast to pan-India numbers that showed a sharp fall in the decadal growth rate across all major religions.

The Conversion Cycle

The census figures and now the report have energized right-wing groups, who have argued for years that the Church spearheaded conversions  both forcible and through allurements  across the tribal belt. Senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) functionary Indresh Kumar has demanded a surgical strike against conversion. Government sources say chief minister Raghubar Das has taken the report very seriously and has instructed senior authorities to check conversions while ensuring that NGOs do not misuse government money for religious conversions.

He vented his feelings on October 18 at Mudma village near Ranchi while addressing a tribal festival, Jatra. My government will not spare anyone trying to destroy tribal customs and traditions. If you come across people trying to convert you in the name of religion through force or allurement, please call 181 and we will ensure action within 24 hours, the CM said. He said tribals had the full freedom to practice their Sarna religion and any effort to lure the community women into another religion will not be tolerated.

Special branch Report

The report says priests and tribal Christian leaders raised money, shut government schools to ensure participation of teachers and children, forced villagers to donate and imposed `100 fine against those who skipped the September 15 rally.

The document says over the last three years, more than 100 Christian religious groups and NGOs affiliated to the Church got `310 crores of foreign funds, mobilized through the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), which was used for conversions.

The report mentions an alleged instance of conversion of around 300 Asurs, a particular vulnerable tribal group (PVTG) in Gumlas Bishunpur block in October last year. It says Christian NGOs frequently misuse government funds earmarked for upliftment of PVTGs.

The counterpoint

However, many Christian groups and tribals say the report is fabricated and is being used by the ruling BJP to target minorities. The CM doesnt have any understanding of tribal society, said ABM president Premchand Murmu, the man who apparently led the September 15 protests. He said if conversions were happening, the Christian population in the state would not have been merely 0.43%. Christians constitute merely 5.8% of the total tribal population while 37% tribals were enlisted as Hindus in the census columns against their wishes, he said.

He accused the state government of turning a blind eye towards the alleged forcible conversions of tribals, who mostly follow the Sarna religion, into Hindus by the RSS and other right wing groups.

The Chief Minister is threatening the minority community in the state. Instead of finding a solution to the rising protests over controversial land ordinance, he is trying to divert attention by raising the conversion issue, Adivasi Sangharsh Morcha (ASM) convener Karma Oraon told reporters.

Others say the issue has been blown up for political reasons and that most conversions happened without allurement. There was no force or allurement. I converted out of my will. I like going to church, said Kamal Lohra in Gumla districts Badri panchayat. He converted to Christianity two months ago.

But the matter is unlikely to die soon. The chief minister, insiders say, has directed all tribal BJP legislators and parliamentarians to raise the matter at all public forums and check conversions in their respective constituencies. The battle lines, for now, have been drawn.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi left for a three-day visit to Japan on Thursday morning as India looks to sign a pact to boost nuclear energy production.

According to officials, all efforts were being made to seal the nuclear pact, which has to be cleared by the Japanese parliament.

If it is done, this would be Japans first civil nuclear cooperation pact with a country that has not joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Japan, the only country to have suffered nuclear bombings, has been seeking assurance from India that it will not be used for military purposes or nuclear tests.

Our partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order, Modi said in a statement before leaving.

Modis visit, from November 10-12 for the Annual Summit, will be his second trip to that country as the Prime Minister.

During the visit, Modi will also call on Emperor Akihito. India is looking forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of the Indo-Japan bilateral cooperation. The PM will meet his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on 11 November.

Today, Japan is one of the top investors in India. But many Japanese companies, which are household names in India, have been committed to the potential of Indian economy for several decades. In Tokyo, I will have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties, he added.

As China continues to step up its activities in the East and South China seas and the Indian Ocean, India and Japan are set to step up their maritime security cooperation as well.

The other area of focus will be the cooperation on the high-speed rails --- a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On 12 November, Prime Minister Abe and I will travel to Kobe on the famed Shinkansen  the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway. Both of us will also visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed railway is manufactured, the PM said.

The High Speed Railway cooperation between India and Japan is a shining example of the strength of our cooperation. It will not only boost our trade and investment ties, but will also create skilled jobs in India, improve our infrastructure and give a boost to our Make in India mission, the PM said.
Ruling Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Thursday put an end to the talk of a grand alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the 2017 assembly election, saying there would only be mergers and no tie-ups.

For the last few weeks, there has been talk of Mulayam seeking a Bihar-like alliance of socialist outfits in Uttar Pradesh to take on the BJP, which is looking to oust the Samajwadi Party to make a comeback in Indias most populous state.

There would be no alliance. Only mergers. Political parties willing to merge their outfits with SP are welcome, Yadav said a day after he met Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav and Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh in New Delhi. He had also met Congress poll strategist Prashant Kishor.

The Samajwadi Party, which recently turned 25, is battling a damaging power struggle in the Yadav clan. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav have faced off on a number of occasions. Mulayam has tried to play the peacemaker more than once but the party is increasingly looking divided.

Some party leaders wanted to repeat the Bihar grand alliance, or Mahagatbandhan, that saw Nitish Kumar return as the chief minister. His JD(U) joined hands with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress and decimated the BJP to retain power.

The SP, too, was to be part of the alliance but it walked out at the last moment, straining ties between Kumar and Mulayam. The Bihar chief minister recently set an impossible condition for a tie-up. He said the SP should join hands with archrival Bahujan Samaj Party for the alliance to materialise.
Soon after his arrival in Tokyo on Thursday for the annual India-Japan bilateral summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with members of the Indian community in Japan.

The Indian community extends a very warm welcome to the Prime Minister on his arrival in Tokyo, the Prime Ministers Office tweeted.

According to the external affairs ministry, in recent years, there has been a change in the composition of the Indian community in Japan with the arrival of a large number of professionals.

These include IT professionals and engineers working for Indian and Japanese firms as well as professionals in management, finance, education, and science and technology research who are engaged with multinational as well as Indian and Japanese organisations, a ministry brief on Japan states.

On Friday, Modi will call on Emperor Akihito and attend the bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

On Saturday, the Prime Minister will travel by the Shinkansen high-speed rail to Kobe.

Japan has committed to build a high-speed rail system between Ahmedabad and Mumbai.

This is Modis second visit to Japan in two years.
Prime Minister Narendra Modis decision to scrap high-value rupee notes has not only clamped down on black money but also demolished Pakistans efforts to pump in fake currency into India.

The new currency notes come with tighter security features that government sources believe Pakistan would not be able to replicate easily.

Fake Indian currency notes seized between 2011 and 2015. (HT Graphics)

Investigation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into various Fake India Currency Notes (FICNs) rackets busted has provided evidence of Pakistans role. A study estimated that fake currency worth `70 crore enters India every year. The Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) estimated that overall there are 250 fake notes in around 10 lakh pieces.

A panel constituted by the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited (SPMCIL) had told the NIA that the numbering box in the FICNs was unique as it was manufactured by only two companies  Atlantic 2 Asia and Leibenger. Besides a special printing machine called Numerata is used to print to these numbers.

The experts said Pakistan was also using same numbering box in its currency notes with similar fonts. Numerata is a very costly machine which be afforded by only sovereign states only, said an investigator. An ISI study pegged the quantum of counterfeit currency circulating in the nation at `400 crore at any time.

We have shut the Pakistani shop of fake Indian currency, said MOS home Kiren Rijiju.

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At least one militant was killed in an infiltration bid foiled by the army in Rampur sector of Jammu and Kashmirs Baramulla district.

One AK-47 was also recovered. Search operation is currently underway.

On Wednesday, a soldier was killed in firing by the Pakistan Army in Machhal Sector of Jammu and Kashmirs Kupwara district.

In retaliation to the firing, the Indian forces carried out fire assault with heavy weapons on many Pakistani posts.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Pakistan Army initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing on Indian Army posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Naushera Sector.

In the ensuing shelling, a non-commissioned officer Naik Prem Singh was killed and Naik Harindra Kumar Yadav was admitted to a hospital with grievous injuries where he later succumbed to them.

Singh, 26 , hailed from Shahar in Barmer district of Rajasthan and is survived by his wife .

Yadav, 30 , is survived by his wife and three children. He hailed from Ballia district, Uttar Pradesh.
Pakistan on Thursday summoned Indian high commissioner Gautam Bambawale to the Foreign Office to protest over alleged ceasefire violations and use of artillery by the Indian forces, saying that such weaponry had been used after 13 years.

Foreign secretary Aizaz Chaudhry summoned Bambawale and condemned the unprovoked ceasefire violations on the LOC and the Working Boundary, said a statement issued by the Foreign Office in the evening.

He deplored the use of artillery by the Indian Forces in Shahkot and Jura sectors on the LoC on November 9, 2016 and highlighted that such weaponry had been used after 13 years, reflecting Indias intention to further escalate tensions and undermine regional peace and security, the statement said.

The foreign secretary observed that the indiscriminate firing and shelling from the Indian side deliberately targeting villages and civilian populated areas has resulted in the death of 26 civilians in the last two months, it said.

It said 107 people were also injured.

The statement said the UN Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has the UN mandated responsibility for maintaining peace and tranquility at the LoC and the Working Boundary.

While Pakistan is fully cooperating and providing full access to UNMOGIP, we urge India to permit the UNMOGIP to visit and observe the LoC and the Working Boundary, it said.

The foreign secretary urged India to investigate the continued incidents of unprovoked ceasefire violations on the LoC and the Working Boundary and ensure respect for the 2003 Ceasefire Understanding, in letter and spirit, it added.

Foreign Office had summoned Indian deputy high commissioner JP Singh on Wednesday for the sixth time in over two weeks for alleged ceasefire violations.

On October 27, the foreign secretary had summoned Bambawale to foreign ministry and conveyed the decision of the Government of Pakistan to declare an Indian High Commission official as persona non-grata.
Union home minister Rajnath Singh has described the bold step of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demonetise Rs. 500 and 1000 currency notes as surgical strike on corruption and a move to stop fake currency being printed in Pakistan to promote terrorism in India.

Addressing a parivartan rally in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, Singh said, Yesterday was a historic day in the history of India. Our Prime Minister openly announced that they are doing surgical strike on corruption so that nobody dares to do corruption. I can understand that the people must be facing problems. But I would assure you that it will be beneficial.

I know about the countrys economy. Some people might face some problems. But it will be only for few days. I can assure you that in coming time India would be an economic superpower, he added.

Rajnath further said that fake currency was being printed in Pakistan and was then sent to India to destroy its economy.

Such was Pakistans attempts...In India, fake currency was helping terrorists to grow. It further gives strength to terrorists and Pakistan. By scrapping Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, Narendra Modi ji has taken away that strength, Singh said.

Read more| Scrapping of high value notes: PM unleashes BJP trump card ahead of state polls

Singh also spoke about the US presidential results, linking president-elect Donald Trump to Prime Minister Modi.

How did Trump fight his election? Trump said that if he becomes the president of the U.S., he would follow and work according to Narendra Modis policies. That Trump has won in America, Singh said, adding that after the Modi Government came to power at the Centre, India had increased its global standing and has become the fastest growing economy in the world.
Punjab plunged into a political crisis after the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a state law scrapping water-sharing agreements with other states is unconstitutional.

The court also ruled that the Sutlej Yamuna canal (SYL canal), which is at the centre of a row between Punjab and Haryana, has to be completed.

Holding that the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, was not in conformity with the provisions of the constitution, the court answered in the negative all the four questions referred to it in a presidential reference.

A constitution bench of the court ruled that Punjab could not have taken a unilateral decision to terminate the agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh to share of the Ravi-Beas river waters.

The state government will hold an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the courts verdict and all Punjab Congress MLAs announced they will resign in protest. Amarinder Singh, the partys chief ministerial candidate, said he will resign as MP.

Amarinder, who is also former Punjab chief minister, sent his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker, copy of which was released to the media, and has also sought a personal meeting with the Speaker next week.

The party MLAs also sent their resignations to the Speaker, Punjab Assembly, and will meet him on Friday morning to personally hand over their papers.

Captain Amarinder Singh's resignation letter as MP to Lok Sabha speaker protesting the Sutlej Yamuna link canal row Verdict. pic.twitter.com/C9WWOYr1bG  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

Hours before, Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal said his government wont allow the states water to be snatched.

Whether it be the Union government or Iraqi government or the American government, if anyone comes to snatch our water, we will not let anybody enter Punjab to implement orders against Punjabis, Sukhbir said in Adampur.

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The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a 2004 Punjab law terminating all water-sharing arrangements with neighbouring states, a ruling that prompted all Congress MLAs to quit even as the SAD-BJP government vowed to defy the judicial ruling.

Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh also resigned from the Lok Sabha shortly after the top court declared as illegal and unconstitutional the legislation scrapping the agreements for sharing excess water of the Beas and Sutlej rivers with several northern states including Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi.

At the heart of the dispute is the 212-km-long Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal that would bring water from the rivers to the dry and arid areas in the southern part of Haryana, which had also moved the top court opposing the 2004 law.

We have passed a resolution declaring that not a single drop of water from Punjab rivers would be allowed to go out of the state, deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal told reporters following an emergency meeting of the Punjab governments cabinet on Thursday eveningt. He said that he has asked the state advocate-general to find out ways to legally challenge SCs water-sharing verdict.

Badal also said an emergency session of the assembly will be held on November 16 to discuss the fall-out of the court verdict.

Badal said the cabinet has decided to call on President Pranab Mukherjee soon, urging him not to accept the advice of the Supreme Court while the SAD will launch a statewide campaign from December 8 to protest the injustice done to Punjab.

Chief minister Prakash Singh Badal said the SAD-BJP govt will not resign over the Supreme Courts verdict.

I will not resign. It will lead to Governors rule, clearing the way for implementation of Supreme Court order, Prakash Singh Badal said. Haryanvis are our brothers, but we have to take a stand for Punjab, its our duty, the Punjab CM said during the press conference.

SADs partner BJP also said, Punjab does not have any surplus water to share with any other state.

Read | Twitter war erupts among parties over Supreme Court verdict on SYL

Assembly elections are due in the state early next year and opposition parties led by the Congress pounced on the adverse court ruling to attack the SAD-BJP government.

Amarinder Singh, whose government had enacted the Termination of River Waters Act in 2004, blamed the Akalis for bringing the people of Punjab to this pitiable situation, where they face imminent devastation due to acute water scarcity.

He said Badal and his team failed to defend Punjabs stand in the court, leading to such disastrous consequences.

Earlier, a five-judge bench headed by AR Dave said the Punjab law cannot be allowed to remain.

We are of the view that the Punjab Act cannot be considered to be legal and valid and the state of Punjab can not absolve itself from its duties/liabilities arising out of the agreement in question, said the bench while responding to a Presidential reference on the validity of the legislation.

The top courts ruling came in response to a reference made by former President APJ Abdul Kalam on the request of the Centre.

Referring to a 1981 water-sharing agreement, the bench said it had legal sanction after the SC upheld it in 2002.

Once an arrangement is a binding decree, a party cannot unilaterally act in a manner to nullify the effect of the judgment, the court said.
A war inside Indias biggest business group got murkier on Thursday as Tata Sons accused ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry of trying to wrest control of group firms and doing little to fix problem areas.

A blistering nine-page statement issued by the holding company of the $103 billion conglomerate said dividends of 40 group firms, excluding Tata Consultancy Services, declined during Mistrys four-year tenure while staff expenses zoomed.

The Tata Sons shocked the corporate world last month when it removed Mistry -- the single largest individual shareholder in the group that operates in 150 countries.

Ratan Tata, patriarch of the salt-to-software conglomerate, will take over as interim chairman for four months while a company-appointed search panel finds Mistrys replacement. Since then, a bruising war of words has erupted between the two sides.

Read: Ishaat Hussain to replace Cyrus Mistry as TCS interim chairman

Statement from Tata Sons https://t.co/dOBQWV0GNT  Tata Group (@TataCompanies) November 10, 2016

The statement alleged Mistry tried to gain control of Indian Hotels Co (IHCL) with the help of independent directors after ensuring he was the only Tata Sons representative on board.

The trust reposed by Tata Sons in Mr Mistry has been betrayed by his desire to seek to control main operating companies. It is unfortunate that Tata Sons acting in good faith did not anticipate such devious moves by Mr Mistry.

The statement said Mistry was appointed chairman in 2012  replacing Ratan Tata  because of his recorded views and plans but hardly any of his major views have been implemented.

Even the then existing structure of the group which had stood the test of a long period of nearly 100 years seem to have been consciously dismantled.

Read: Cyrus Mistry removed as Tata Sons chief, Ratan Tata is interim chairman

Here is the full statement

Mistrys camp has repeatedly alleged interference from Ratan Tata and that the ousted chairman was saddled with poorly performing legacies.

But Thursdays statement refuted the charge, saying Mistry did little to help problem areas and was intolerant to criticism.

It said the three major problem areas -- Tata Steel Europe, Tata Teleservices/Docomo and the Indian operations of Tata Motors  didnt show any noticeable improvement. There are a few other companies which are also having different problems  and are these also to be excused as legacy issues?

In addition, there were some significant issues of conflict of interest in relation to the Shapoorji Pallonji Group which he did not fully address.

The Tata Sons statement said there was little or no profit on sale of investments during these years despite a planned list of divestments indicated from time to time.

The document said the media was fed with total group figures over the past four years as evidence of progress but the good picture was largely due to the just two companies -- TCS and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) which is a wholly-owned UK subsidiary of Tata Motors.

These two jewels in the Tata crown were inherited by the new chairman from the previous chairman, Mr. RN Tatafor which Mr. Mistry cannot take credit.

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Three Madhya Pradesh policemen, who the government said were injured in a controversial encounter with a group of Islamist radicals, appear to have gone missing.

Repeated attempts to trace them ran into a police wall or angry and anxious family members.

An HT investigation, however, found that none of them were seriously injured and one of them has been attending office without a break since the encounter on the outskirts of Bhopal on October 31. A family member of another cop told an HT reporter that the policeman had gone to hospital alone on his motorcycle.

The three were said to have been injured when fired upon by eight SIMI members who allegedly escaped from Bhopal jail and were shot dead by police in the encounter, which has come under a cloud following contradictory statements by police officials and surfacing of amateur video clips.

Read: Surround, finish them all: Cops alleged conversation on SIMI encounter

They received cut injuries on hand and feet, was the curt reply of SP (north) Arvind Saxena when asked about the nature of injuries. It was only after repeated requests that he revealed their names  special task force head constable Narayan Singh and crime branch constables Dinesh Khatri and Mayand Singh. But he refused to give their residential addresses.

Even the police department is not disturbing them, we cannot allow you to meet them. They are recovering at home, he said, adding that a judicial inquiry has been instituted and their statements will be recorded soon.

Officials of the crime branch, which is investigating the encounter, also refused to give any details.

HT managed to meet the family members of two of the policemen.

Read: Cops murdered my son: SIMI operatives mother says encounter staged

At Narayan Singhs house, a woman who identified herself as his wife Sita, said the head constable has been attending duty regularly. Singhs wife and their 11-year-old daughter Ankita said he was injured while chasing the SIMI operatives, and received a cut below the elbow joint. He was carrying a gunand fell because the surface was uneven, Sita said.

At constable Dinesh Khatris house, a person identifying himself as his brother Suraj, came out and bolted the door from outside, preventing the HT team from meeting anyone else.

He (Dinesh Khatri) is not at home. He has gone to the hospital to dress his wound, Suraj said, claiming his brother had injured his palms. The injury is not that serious, he said. We dont know how he was injured, Suraj said before shutting the door.

The third  constable Mayand Singh  remained unreachable. Although police claimed that he received cuts on his leg, they did not give details of the hospital he was referred to.

Polices unwillingness to share details has raised more questions about the authenticity of the encounter, which has put the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government on the back foot for alleged human rights violations by the police. From the beginning, there have been several questions that remain unanswered, former IPS officer Arun Gurtoo said.

Congress spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi also raised questions over the three missing policemen. If they are heroes of the encounter, we should reward them, and not force them into hiding.

Read: Not just 8, all 29 SIMI men might have planned to escape Bhopal jail on Diwali
Amidst growing anger over having to pay toll on poorly-maintained highways, Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday made it clear that there is no plan to scrap the user charge.

If you want good service, you will have to pay toll, Gadkari said at the Economic Editors Conference in New Delhi. He said that since 2014 his ministry had abolished toll worth up to `100 crore on 67 highway projects where either the cost had been recovered or projects where collection of toll had become unviable.

His remarks came on the heels of the Supreme Court refusing to stay the Allahabad high courts order asking the operator of the DND flyway between Delhi and Noida to stop collecting the user charge. Before this, the government had to shut the Delhi-Gurgaon toll plazas due to massive traffic jams.

On the highways sector, Gadkari said that as against the target of constructing 15,000km in 2016-17, the ministry has already completed 3,591km. This comes to building around 22km per day. We hope to reach 42km per day by March end. There will be investment worth `25 lakh crore in highways and shipping in five years. Highway projects worth approximately `3.17 lakh crore has already been awarded, he said.
Six Indian High Commission officials, out of the eight accused by Pakistan of being members of Indian intelligence agencies, have left the country, the foreign office said, with three diplomats leaving on Thursday.

Six out of eight Indian diplomats found involved in subversive activities in Pakistan have left, foreign office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria told reporters during a briefing.

He did not name those who have left.

Three Indian officials, accused of working for the Intelligence Bureau, left Pakistan early today, said security sources. Balbir Singh and Jayabalan Senthil left via Dubai-bound Emirates flight EK 615, they said.

The name of the third official who left Pakistan on Thursday was not know yet.

Zakaria had last week identified eight Indian High Commission officials by name and designation. He had alleged that several Indian diplomats and staffers were involved in coordinating terrorist and subversive activities in Pakistan under the garb of diplomatic assignments.

Those named were Rajesh Kumar Agnihotri (Commercial Counsellor), Anurag Singh (First Secretary Commercial), Amerdeep Singh Bhatti (Attache Visa) and three staffers - Dharmendra Sodhi, Vijay Kumar Verma and Madhavan Nanda Kumar.

Singh, Verma and Kumar had left Pakistan on Tuesday.

Last month, Pakistan had declared Indian High Commission official Surjeet Singh persona non-grata after Indias action against Pakistan High Commission official Mehmood Akhtar following Indian polices busting of an ISI-run spy ring.

On November 2, Pakistan had pulled out six of its officials in the wake of the spy scandal.
When former prime minister Morarji Desai declared high denomination currency notes illegal in 1978, a little over Rs 125 crore of such notes came into the banking system. But the remaining Rs 20 crore stacked up in black was lost.

If that story were to be repeated today, the economy would lose Rs 2 lakh crore worth of money in circulation.

But wait, times have changed. In 1978, notes of high-denomination  Rs 1,000, Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000  were just a min-iscule proportion (2%) of the total currency in circulation.

Cut to 2016, notes of the two denominations that are no longer legal tender, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, are used in daily transactions and their possession is widespread.

Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes now form 86% of the total currency in circulation  whose total value is Rs 14 lakh crore.

Read: Banks open, hundreds form queues to exchange Rs 500, Rs 1000 notes

In contrast with 1978, when only banks and the super rich held banknotes of Rs 1000, Rs 5000 and Rs 10000, today Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes are in everybodys wallet.

The stated objective of the demonetisation of currency by the Modi government has been described as a surgical strike on black money. But given that tax authorities will keep a hawkish watch on the money being taken for deposits and exchange, much of the illicit wealth in the form of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes could be destroyed.

Sample this: Banks will monitor all deposits of Rs 2.5 lakh and above. In case of a mismatch between declared income and deposits, the taxman will take 90% of the money in taxes and penalty.

This may force many people to destroy wads of cash they hold illegally.

If the corresponding faction of high-denomination currency eventually destroyed due to the governments move is 1% of the total value, it would amount to Rs 14,850 crore.

Read: Banks open, Rs 500, Rs 1000 notes banned: The big change in 17 points

At 2%, it would be Rs 29,700 crore, at 3% it would Rs 44,500 crore, at 5% it would be Rs 70000 crore and at 10%, Rs 1.4 lakh crore. This is 1% of Indias GDP, which is estimated at current prices at Rs 135.76 lakh crore for 2015-16.

It remains to be seen where the score will settle finally.

But the Rs 20 crore in black money pushed out of circulation in 1978 was just a fraction of the estimated black money in the economy. A study released months later said six commodities including steel and cement had generated Rs 840 crore of black money during the preceding decade.

No wonder then, then finance minister HM Patel made just a fleeting reference to the demonetisation scheme when he rose in Parliament to present his Budget proposals just six weeks later.

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Police on Wednesday arrested five persons for allegedly assaulting and parading naked a tribal woman and her paramour at a Madhya Pradesh village. The husband of the woman is among the accused.

Though the incident at Meghlakhali village in Ratlam district occurred on Monday, it came to the fore on Tuesday evening after video-clippings of the incident filmed by some villagers went viral, drawing attention of police officials.

Madhya Pradesh recorded 12,887 casesthe second highest in the country after Maharashtraof sexual offences against women in 2015, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data released earlier this year.

Ratlam superintendent of police Avinash Sharma said 13 people have been booked under different sections of IPC and the IT Act.

While the victims husband and four relatives were arrested, eight others are on the run. Both the victims and the accused are tribal, the SP said.

The SP said the woman later claimed that Bahadur Madhai (24), a father of three, with whom she had eloped, allegedly raped her. She also wants to go back to her husband, he added.

Sharma said the woman, a mother of two, was married to a Meghlakhali villager. But a few months back she fell in love with Bahadur and eloped with him on October 28 from Dhabhaipada village, where she went to meet some of her relatives.

Later their relatives lodged a missing complaint at Deendayal Nagar police station.

On Monday the relatives managed to locate them at Maudipada village and forcibly brought the couple to Meghlakhali village. There womans husband and some of her in-laws stripped them naked to their waists and paraded them in the village.

Some villagers filmed the act, which continued for an hour in public view.

As video clips of the incident went viral in WhatsApp and other social media, local police swung into action and booked all the accused on charges of sexual harassment, obscenity and criminal conspiracy.
Did you know that the placement and colour of jewellery defines a person who wears it? Expect to find an answer to this and many such interesting facts when you enter the Village Jewel Museum and Eco-lodge in Mangar village, near Faridabad.

A part of the Kalakar Trust activities, this museum was created to foster and preserve Indian art and support its artists. The idea was to build a permanent venue for display of tribal artefacts. Sterre Sharma, trustee, Kalakar Trust, shares, There was a lack of venue in India when exhibiting tribal jewellery and knowing their history is concerned.

The jewellery on display is made of glass, bone, brass, white metal, silver and gold plate. The collection, which consists of prayer beads, necklaces and amulets, also has local pieces such as Hanuman ji ka Mandaliya, Sketcha and Jondhali Haar. These culture-laden exquisite pieces are gathered from all across the Indian sub continent. These have been collected over a period of 35 years, says Sterre, who is an artist and jewellery collector.

The articles on display at the village jewel museum in Mangar were collected over the course of 35 years from different areas of the sub continent (Manoj Verma/HT)

We have been working over the years, to get the meaning, local names and significance behind each piece. We hope that visitors also develop a passion and contribute to the museum so that we can expand the collection, says Sterre, whose interactive 5 metre long water colour painting on the life of Katputli Colony slum also adorns the museum.

A wide collection of prayer beads is on display at the museum. (Manoj Verma/HT Photo)

The Kalakar Trust has worked for 25 years in Katputli Colony in West Delhi and the museum is an off-shoot of that project.Not just jewellery, one can also experience village life at the eco-lodge that is a perfect getaway running on 80% solar energy. With nominal prices and traditional setting, it gives opportunity for artists to participate in exchange programmes and workshops.

She adds, One can also enjoy a variety of workshops such as conch shell blowing, folk dance, dhol drumming, puppet-making and yoga courses. Children visiting the place get a chance to experience village life.

The Village Jewel Eco-lodge runs on 80 per cent solar energy with electricity set aside for emergencies. There are six rooms with traditional twin beds, each with en-suite bathrooms.There are four twin carved traditional rope beds per room. (Manoj Verma/HT Photo)

Situated on the outskirts of Delhi, the village is about a 20-minute drive from the Gurgaon-Faridabad highway. The museum opens for public viewing from November 12. And, the eco-lodge is open from September 15 of this year to April 15 of the next year.

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Amid concerns over the circulation of fake currency in the economy, which lead to the demonetisation of higher denomination notes, the Mumbai police arrested 19 people  in 10 separate cases  who possessed fake Indian currency notes (FICN) worth Rs10.56 lakh this year. Many of the accused are Bangladeshi nationals.

Mumbai is one of the metros that houses several illegal Bangladeshi migrants and sees a heavy inflow of FICN, said officials.

Investigators said Bangladeshis cross over to India on foot, bearing small amounts of FICN. It is circulated in India when they use it to buy day-to-day items. This is the best way to pump fake currency notes into the market. Nobody suspects such a move, said a crime branch officer.

The border most notorious for FICN smuggling is the porous 172km-long international Indo-Bangla border that West Bengals Malda district shares with the neighbouring state. At least 80% of FICN enters the country through this border. These notes are printed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and are taken to Nepal and Bangladesh to be smuggled into India.

The smugglers have a well-oiled network that thrives in border areas. There are several means of smuggling FICN.

One of the most infamous means of smuggling FICN is along the porous Malda border, which has wall-fencing separating the two countries. The smugglers package stacks of FICN and throw it across the wall. The stacks are collected by their aides on Indian side, most of whom are locals from the neighbouring villages and from Chhattisgarh. The money is divided into smaller stacks and distributed to carriers who fan out to metros, said a crime branch officer.

Investigators said that as handlers are frequently arrested, smugglers now hand over smaller amounts of the counterfeit currency at a time, to avoid losses. One has to shell out Rs45,000 to acquire fake currency worth Rs1 lakh in denominations of Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes. This has led to these notes being banned from circulation, officials said.

The Bangladeshi migrants, who act as carriers of the counterfeit currency, make frequent trips to their native place and return possessing FICN. They cross over to Indian side by doling out anywhere between Rs2,000 to Rs5,000, said police.

The police have started applying the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) to the accused since 2014, as opposed to applying only counterfeiting, under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code section 489 (B).

Earlier, counterfeiters would face a jail term of only two years. Now, they face a minimum of seven years in prison under the UAPA.

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Days after a 16-year-old girl was harassed by her teacher who sent her obscene text messages, a special investigation team of the crime branch raided the school in Ghatkopar on Thursday.

The officials seized computers and documents that were used by the accused and other people to commit the offence and tamper with the victims answer sheets in order to harass her.

The teacher was identified as Parag Shah, an employee of the school since the past seven years. He had been targeting the victim, the daughter of a lawyer, since 2015. Investigations revealed that Shah got himself appointed the victims class teacher so he could keep close tabs on her.

He would harass her by expressing his love for her and asking her out on dates. During the prelims of her secondary school certificate (SSC) examination, he threatened to punish her for copying if she continued to give him the cold shoulder. She did not appear for three of her papers owing to the threat, said a police officer.

She did not tell her parents of the harassment as it was a crucial academic year. Shah had also threatened to target the victims younger sister, a 12-year-old studying in the same school.

The school authorities tampered with the final examination papers before evaluating them, which led to the victim scoring fewer marks. The tampering came to light when the answer sheets were re-evaluated, said officials.

Police said the incident was brought to the notice of the victims mother by one of her friends, after she bunked her prelims. When her mother confronted the school with the set of text messages and details of Shahs harassment, they tried to cover up, stating it was not that serious.

The parents sought Shahs termination and a police complaint by the school. The school only terminated Shahs employment after a lot of pressure. The parents then decided to lodge a complaint themselves, added the officer.

The victims mother approached the Mumbai police commissioner with the evidence. Following this, a case was registered and Shah was arrested. The police is investigating the school for its negligence and inability to curb the incident.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modis announcement, which he thought was a way to declare war on black money, turned out be harrowing for many. Here are a few people who landed in trouble because of this uncalled for change.

Shabana Pathan with her eight-year-old daughter Arshiya. (HT Photo)

Latur labourer asked to leave 1,000 note with chemist for 3 days

At the time the announcement was made, Shabana Pathan, 27, was travelling to Mumbai from Latur with her eight-year-old daughter Arshiya, a kidney patient who was due for her routine check-up at KEM Hospital in Parel.

With one note of Rs1,000 and two notes of Rs100, Pathan had a hard time managing her travel to the hospital from the station. We reached Mumbai at 7am and realised that people were not accepting cash. I couldnt figure out why. We took a share rickshaw and somehow reached the hospital, said Pathan, a widow, who works as a labourer for a Rs200 daily wage.

After meeting the doctor, when Pathan went to buy medicines, the pharmacist asked her to leave her Rs 1,000 note with the shop and come back later for change. They asked me to collect the change money three days later. But, that is all the money I have. If I leave it here, how do I pay for our stay here and our food, said Pathan.

After repeated requests to the pharmacists and citing her problem, the pharmacist returned the change, but other patients were compelled to collect the change later. We do not have any change left and most of them are paying in cash, said the pharmacist.

Cassandra Nazareth, a resident of Borivli, who decided to halt midway on her way to Mumbai from Goa after facing problems. (HT Photo)

Travellers stranded with no food, petrol

Cassandra Nazareth, 55, a resident of Borivli, who was on her way to Mumbai after vacationing in Goa, said she came to know about the currency ban enroute. We had withdrawn cash in Rs500 and Rs1,000 denominations since we were on vacation and one cannot use plastic money everywhere. Now, we cant buy eatables or have dinner or lunch at restaurants that do not accept cards. Secondly, the petrol pumps have long queues of motorists and its taking hours to fill petrol in vehicles, said Nazareth. She added that they have been informed about the long queues at toll booths since most motorists who have been travelling from last night dont have currency in small denominations. A friend of ours who was supposed to meet us at Kolhapur came four hours late due to toll booth queues. We are thinking of halting midway for a day, said Nazareth who was heading to Kolhapur.

Never visited a bank, Bandra house help panics

Najma K, a 30-year-old house help from Bandra, received her salary two days ago in entirely Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes. She was scheduled to take a train to Kolkata on Thursday, for her annual visit to her family, and had planned to take the cash with her.

Now I dont know what to do with that money, she said. I dont have a bank account, and I called home no one there knows how to exchange the notes in our village. We are all very nervous.

Najmas employers have explained to her that she can go to any bank in the country and exchange the notes, but Najma said shes never been inside a bank and the idea of walking in to one is unnerving.

Wed like to help Najma but with the banks closed, we cant help her exchange the notes in the city before her departure date, and we cant part with that much in hundreds because we have our own cash crisis on our hands, says homemaker Fathima Mansood, 35. We dont know how much well be able to withdraw. Were worried that banks might not even hand out the minimum cash allowed because theres bound to be long queues at all ATMs and counters. With the timeline still vague and the dates tentative, we are scared to take any chances with the usable money we do have.

That leaves Najma stuck with no cash she can use. Im planning to cancel my tickets, she says. I will have to first find someone to help me out with this.

Wedding in limbo with florist, caterers payments stuck

Charmi Dedhia, 26, a content writer from Sion, had extensive plans for her younger brothers wedding, scheduled for November 29. She and her family had withdrawn large sums of money to pay the caterer, florist, jewellers and decorators. Now, theyre stuck with piles of illegal Rs 500 and Rs1,000 notes that no one will accept, and mounting dues.

Over the next two days, I was supposed to make payments for the decor, caterers, jewellers and all kinds of other services, says Dedhia. Now, none of my payments are being accepted  and the banks are closed, so I cant even withdraw more money to make payments. The caterer is threatening to pull out from the wedding, because even when the banks do open I can only withdraw Rs4,000 per card and thats not enough.

As a desperate step, Dedhia will try to crack deals with service providers to take the large denominations as a concession, and charge her for their inconvenience. I will have to negotiate and ask the jewellers and wedding planners to take payments later, because their fee is huge and they are not willing to take the old notes anyway, Dedhia said.
Underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahims aide, Abdul Rauf alias Dawood Merchant, was deported to India late on Wednesday and handed over to a team of Mumbai crime branch officials. The process of handing him over to the Indian authorities was completed along the Indo-Bangladesh border in the presence of border security forces.

Mumbai crime branch officials, along with Merchant, left for the city by a morning IndiGo flight that landed at Mumbais domestic terminal around 11.25am. He was handed over to the Indian authorities in Meghalaya late on Wednesday night and was then taken to the Guwahati airport via road.

Merchant was produced before the high court on Thursday. He will be handed over to the Mumbra police, who had registered a case against him after he jumped a fortnight-long parole and fled the country in 2009.

he is accused in 10 cases including murder, violation of the Arms Act, attempt to murder and assault.

A four-member team of the crime branch left for West Bengal a few days ago, after the Bangladeshi governments informed us regarding Merchants deportation. There was close coordination between the Interpols of both countries. Secrecy was maintained on the date of exchange, considering the sensitivity of the matter, said a police officer.

The official termed Merchant as a prized catch, as he had met Dawoods aides in Dubai a few years ago. He was expected to know several intricate details pertaining to the gang and its activities, he said.

Merchant was convicted in the 1997 murder of singer Gulshan Kumar  and was sentenced for life in 2002. He jumped parole in 2009 and went absconding when released to meet his family.

Merchant was re-arrested in Bangladesh after he entered the country without valid documents. He was convicted for intruding and illegally staying in Bangladesh and given a five-year prison term. When he completed the sentence, he was arrested again  in December 2014  over possible terror links.

He completed his jail term a few days ago, following which the government there decided to hand him over to India citing his criminal conviction and diplomatic communication between the two countries

Mumbai police however stated that Merchant was arrested by the Border Security Force (BSF), while he was trying to cross over into India illegally.

Merchants parents stay in south Mumbai and the family runs a transport business.

How the operation unfolded

Bangladeshi authorities deported Abdul Rauf alias Dawood Merchant to India late on Wednesday

Merchant, convicted in Gulshan Kumar murder case, was handed over to India in Dawki, along the Indo-Bangla border

He was produced before a local court there and a transit remand was sought to bring him to Mumbai

He was flown by a four-member Mumbai crime branch Unit 9 team to Mumbai from Guwahati

The sessions court asked him to appear before the high court, which had asked the Mumbai police commissioner to find and produce Merchant before the court in 2010

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Following the opposition by political parties to transfer the assistant municipal commissioner of R Central ward Kishor Gandhi, top civic authorities have put his transfer order on hold.

Except BJP, all other parties had opposed Gandhis transfer alleging that the action was being taken at the behest of a political leader.

The transfer orders were issued last Thursday and saw serious opposition from local corporators and citizens groups. They organised several protests outside R central ward (which comprises of Borivali east and west) office for the past few days along with conducting a hunger strike for a day. The protests attracted the intervention of mayor Snehal Ambekar and leader of House Trushna Vishwasrao. Late on Tuesday, Ambekar asked the corporators to put stop the protests as Gandhi would continue as the R central ward officer.

The local corporators of Shiv Sena, Congress, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena parties had alleged that the transfer order was issued by the civic administration due to pressure from the BJP. Corporators said that because Gandhi was targeted because he had taken action against an illegal structure which belonged to a proprietor who had strong connections with a local BJP bigwig. The corporators said that it was the reason why none of the BJP leaders protested Gandhis transfer. Gandhi had also carried out demolition drives at various places in the past few months leading to support from all political parties as several open spaces were saved.

Sheetal Mhatre, Ward committee chairman of R central and R North wards, said, The mayor and leader of House met us and assured that Gandhis transfer order has been put on hold. It is important that these officers continue their work and put an end to encroachment in our area where public open spaces are likely to be gobbled up.

Commenting on this, Gandhi, said, I was on leave on Monday and Tuesday so I did not go to work. I have not received any stay or cancellation order on my transfer but as no one has officially been appointed to replace me, I continue to hold my post.
Two days after the government discontinued high denomination currency, a plastic bag full of now-withdrawn Rs1,000 notes with a face value of Rs52,000 was found dumped in the garbage at Punes Law College road on Thursday. According to police officials, a sanitation worker discovered 52 notes of Rs1,000 denomination bills, which along with Rs500 notes, were demonetised by the government to curb black money.

According to the worker, Shantabai Ovhal, she spotted the plastic bag when she went to collect garbage at the roadside.

In the morning when I went to collect garbage at Prabhat road, I found notes in the bag, which I handed over to my contractor. Later, we gave the bag to police officials at Prabhat Road chowky, said Ovhal.

Police officials said they are investigating to nail the culprit.

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Aapna Punjab Party (APP) president Sucha Singh Chhotepur on Wednesday released his partys first list of 15 candidates for the state assembly elections in Chandigarh. Of the 15 nominees, seven will be fielded on reserved seats.

All candidates are former members of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), many rebel ticket hopefuls. Chhotepur, former Punjab convener of the AAP, created the APP following a fall out with the AAP in August.

The list includes a mix of matriculates, post graduates lawyers, doctors. Former additional secretary, government of India, Hardip Singh Kingra, who was head of the finance committee of the AAP and who resigned from the party after he was ignored by in distribution of tickets, is the APP candidate from Faridkot.

Puneet Bhardwaj, the engineer son of former bureaucrat R R Bhardwaj, who headed the intellectual wing of the AAP but later threw his weight behind Chhotepur, will be the partys candidate from Dera Bassi.

Two former Congressmen, who later joined the AAP and are now with the APP, are also on the list. Gurwinder Mamanke, a former general secretary of the Congress and retired chairman of the improvement trust, is the partys candidate from Tarn Taran while Jarnail Singh Akalgarh, who remained the member of the block samiti twice, has been fielded from Nabha.

Sarwan Singh Sewak, a giani and missionary, is the APP candidate from Dinanagar. Baljit Singh Bhatti, who fought the 2012 assembly polls as an independent, will be the APP candidate from Baba Bakala while Gurwinder Sahi, an NRI and the APPs Kapurthala district president, has been fielded from Bholath.

Jugal Kishore, a homeopath and has been active in social work, is the partys choice from Jalandhar (West). Ashwani Joshi, a former navy engineer, is the partys choice from Nawanshahr, while Major Jarnail Singh, a former army officer, who has worked with the AAP for two years engaging with Dalits and social groups, will contest from Balachaur.

Manjinder Singh Romi, a postgraduate who runs a media house, will contest from Bassi Pathana, while Surinder Divedi, a medical practitioner will contest Kotkapura.

Harpal Singh, a PhD in Punjabi, who left his job as school principal to join politics, will contest from Jaitu while Jaswinder Singh Shinda a social worker graduate will contest Bathinda. Saranjit S Jogipur former chairman of the zila parishad will contest from Ghanaur.

There is no woman in the first list declared by the party. We will give due representation to women in the next lists, said Chhotepur addressing a press conference here. He added that the next list will be out within a fortnight. He said his party is yet to be assigned a symbol.

This is a purely APP list and does not take into account the wishes of the parties and groups that APP is aligned with, he said referring to Yogendra Yadavs Swaraj India and the Punjab Front of suspended AAP MP Dr Dharamvira Gandhi. He said that the next set of lists will include joint candidates. However if any of those supporting APP has any objection to any candidate it can be brought to our notice, said Chhotepur.

When asked about the ongoing talks with the Navjot Singh Sidhu-led Awaaz-e Punjab, Chhotepur said Sidhu was welcome to join his party. We have been talking to the Bains brothers and Pargat Singh and the doors of the APP are open for them, he said.
With new tourist destinations adding up in Amritsar, the state government is planning to make these ventures a crowd-puller and ensure that the holy city becomes an ideal tourist hub.

Amritsar recently witnessed high-profile inaugurations of projects such as heritage stretch from Town Hall to Golden Temple, Partition Museum, Sadda Pind and War Memorial. It is now calling for an aggressive publicity campaign to ensure that more tourists should visit the city for at least a couple of days.

Earlier when a tourist landed in the city, they visited the Golden Temple, Jallianwala Bagh, Attari border, and Durgiana Temple; and then leave the city. But with the new tourist destinations, including Golden Temple Interpretation Center, Sadda Pind, Heritage Street, War Memorial, Ram Tirath Complex, Gobind fort (still in pipeline) and Partition Museum, adding up; they will have more places to go to and will thus be held back in the city for more than a day. But there is dire need for an insistent action plan from the tourism department of the state.

Deputy commissioner Varun Roojam said, State government is already thinking on these lines, thus Amritsar will soon be having tourist information centres that will be providing tourists with detailed information about the new tourism circuit. I will ensure that the tourism department puts up information centres at airport, bus stand and railway station, with an efficient and multi-lingual staff that can communicate well with international tourists as well.

Roojam said state government has designed all projects with a vision that when tourists step into the city, they should have many tourist destinations to visit so that their stay in the city can be increased, which will overall be beneficial to the economy as well.

I had a meeting with officials of tourism department regarding the need to run a publicity campaign at largescale, so that people in India and across the globe will know what all we have for them to visit. We have rich heritage and culture to showcase and the tourism department is working on promoting the same. Things are still in pipeline, but the ground work will start soon, said the DC.

VISITORS THRONG SADDA PIND

State governments ambitious heritage village project, now known as Sadda Pind, which was inaugurated by chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on November 5, has witnessed an opening with much fanfare, said Ish Gambhir, managing director JMD Heritage Lawns. Gambhir said that on the weekend, as well as Monday, thousands of tourists visited the place. Our state needs to do publicity campaigns. The tourism department should come up with an aggressive plan for campaigning, said Gambhir.

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The aftermath of Prime Minister Narendra Modis announcement to discontinue Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 bills was visible as a number of private hospitals in the city refused to accept cash, creating hassle for patients on Wednesday.

At Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH), out patient departments (OPDs) were closed at 1pm instead of 3pm due to which several patients had to return without treatment. The hospital authorities did not perform any surgery. After 1pm, the chemist shops outside the hospital also refused to accept cash and asked the patients to pay through debit or credit card.

A patient, Reena Sharma, said, I visited the DMCH OPD at 1:30pm, but it was closed and I was asked to return on Thursday. When I went to the chemist to buy medicine, the chemist refused to accept the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

The situation was different at Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMCH), as the hospital authorities accepted cash from patients. Though the hospitals OPD remained open from 9am to 3pm.

Most of the private hospitals have displayed a notice stating that they will accept fees through debit card, cheque and credit card only.

Sandeep Sharma, medical superintendent of DMCH, said, We did not accept cash and all the patients were asked to pay through cheque, debit card and credit card. We have not denied treatment to anyone, and the patients who were already admitted in the hospital were treated today.

He also denied the allegations that the OPD was closed at 1pm .
The crime investigation agency (CIA) staff of Ludhiana police arrested an imposter who was posing as an inspector of Punjab police on Tuesday evening.

The police arrested the accused identified as Robin, a resident of Jasdev Singh Nagar and impounded a Ford Endeavour car with red beacon driven by him near Gill bypass. The accused had been facing the allegations of extorting money by posing as a cop.

Kulwinder Singh of CIA-1 stated that following a tip-off, police installed a check-post near Gill bypass and stopped the Ford Endeavour car. Police arrested the driver of the car, Robin and recovered a fake identity card of police and red beacon, Singh, who is investigating the matter, said.

The police have registered a case under the Sections 171 (wearing garb or carrying token used by public servant with fraudulent intent) and 473 (making or possessing counterfeit seal) of the Indian Penal Code.
Hari Singh Zira, 75, Shiromani Akali Dal

Hari Singh Zira (HT Photo)

Constituency: Zira

Education: Under matric

Assets declared in last polls: Rs 5.5 cr

Electoral record

2012: Defeated Naresh Kataria of Congress by a margin of 11,967 votes

2007: Lost to Naresh Kataria of Congress by 12,372 votes

Assembly record

Questions asked: 47

Call attention moved: 0

Power punch Being a veteran Akali, he connects well with chief minister

What next Likely to get the Akali Dal ticket again

How he performed

Credit goes to the MLA for improving the basic infrastructure, including laying pucca streets and installing solar lights in the town. He also claims to have got constructed 58-km roads in rural areas under the Prime Minister Gramin Sadak Yojana. He also got a sewerage treatment plant established at Makhu. But the residents rue that area remained deprived of a major industrial project that could have generated employment. Illegal sand mining in various parts of the segment too is a burning issue. No steps were taken to make functional the only sugar mill. As the government failed to repair two bridges at Keimwali and Jattawali on Rajasthan Feeder, villagers contributed from their own pockets to construct a iron bridge, which goes against him..

Voter speak

He is not shrewd like politicians generally are known for. Area saw some development, but remained deprived of any big project to generate employment..

Urvashi Chaudary, 24, student

His close aides are into illegal sand mining. The MLA shifted all main offices from the heart of town to an area adjoining to his land for obvious reasons. Sugar mill is lying defunct.

Gurbhej Singh, 27, transporter.

By the way

Known for his straight-forward outlook

Joginder Singh Jindu, 70, Shiromani Akali Dal

Joginder Singh Jindu (HT Photo)

Constituency: Ferozepur (Rural)

Education: Under matric

Assets declared in last polls: Rs 2.5 cr

Electoral record

2012: Defeated Congress greenhorn Satkar Kaur by 162 votes

2007: Did not contest; the constituency came up after delimitation

Assembly record

Questions asked: 47

Call attention moved: 0

Power punch He belongs to the extended Majithia clan

What next Likely to get the Akali Dal ticket again

How he performed

Even though he was a first-time MLA, he mingled well with all sections of society and tried his best to deliver to their satisfaction in this newly carved segment. He claimed to have ushered in an era of development in the area. He lists the maiden government degree college, a meritorious school, a multi-crore skill centre as his main achievements. He takes credit for pumping in `40 crore into infrastructure development. Sewerage was laid in semi-rural areas, including Talwandi Bhai, Mudki and Mamdot. During the recent rise in tension between India and Pakistan, he led from the front to help border natives to move to safer places. He gets support from his sons (both members of Cantonment Board) as they attend to people in his absence..

Voter speak

The MLA might be making tall claims of development works, but at the ground level, electorate failed to get any benefit as the works were not executed properly.

Harjinder Singh, 36, shopkeeper.

He fetched a number of projects for the rural areas and remained accessible round the clock to the public. He kept himself away from controversies and performed well.

Ravi Sharma, 33, farmer.

By the way

A former wrestler, he is health freak, but foodie.

Tomorrow: Ferozepur (urban), Guruharsahai, Jalalabad, Fazilka
As staff at the petrol filling stations denied selling petrol for less than Rs 500, the vehicle occupants had a harrowing time as a huge rush was witnessed at almost every petrol pump in the city.

People were seen negotiating with the petrol pump staff, while some of them got into heated verbal exchange with the latter. While most of vehicle occupants settled to shell out Rs 500 for petrol, a few of them chose to return without filling their vehicle tanks. Some of the vehicle occupants teamed up with others to buy petrol for less than `500 and paid collectively. The commuters were seen lining up at the petrol pumps but, for some of them it was worthless, as they couldnt manage to get petrol.

Harpal Singh, who had come on his two-wheeler to the Bharatnagar petrol pump, said, I wanted to get petrol for Rs 100 but after waiting in the queue for more than half an hour, I had to leave without taking petrol as I had only Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. When the staff forced me to buy petrol of Rs 500, I had to refuse them as I had to run other household errands for the day.

At a petrol filling station on the Cemetery Road a few vehicle owners were seen teaming up with others to get petrol as per their requirement and then paying the ones carrying Rs 500 notes (making final payment to the petrol pump staff).

Manoj Kumar, one of the commuters, got irate when he was denied petrol at a filling station near Jalandhar Bypass. A verbal altercation ensued between the owners of the petrol pump including staff and Kumar who was later joined by five more people. The situation was turning awry and both the parties were ready to launch physical assault on each other but the matter was brought under control with the intervention of other commuters present at the petrol pump.

Meanwhile, executive members of Ludhiana Petroleum Dealers Association in a press release announced that in view of customers convenience, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum will be accepting Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
With about three months left in the assembly polls, every political party in Punjab is in a race, of a different kind: to free farmers of their debts.

While the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are promising the moon to debt-ridden farmers, the ruling SAD-BJP is smug in its claim that whatever could have been done to ease the farmers of the debt trap has already been done by them.

Party leaders are engaged in a daily slugfest over whose offer is the fairest of them all.

The spurt in suicides by debt-ridden farmers for the past one year has become a volatile election issue and the aim is to woo the farmers  the most important section of the state electorate which can make or break the political fortunes of these parties. It is no surprise that the Congress and AAP have gone to ludicrous heights in issuing farm loan waiver forms to farmers just to back their tall and seemingly impossible poll promise.

Also read| SAD decides to stonewall anti-Punjab verdict on SYL

Though the Congress is yet to release its poll manifesto, state party chief Captain Amarinder Singh has held out an all- encompassing blanket promise: every kind of farm debt of every farmer in Punjab will be waived off. It would be taken upon by the government if the Congress comes to power.

The Congress has estimated that the total debt burden of farmers, including both the loans taken from arhtiyas (commission agents) and banks (institutional), is about Rs 70000 crore. The mathematics they have worked out is that the entire loan amount will be waived off, on their request, by the Centre as its coffers have Rs 300 lakh crore to spare in the wake of the reduction in global oil prices.

Also read| SC shoots down Punjab law scrapping water-sharing agreements

The Centre has waived off over Rs 100 lakh crore of corporate debts and Rs 70,000 crore for Punjab farmers is not impossible, Congress leaders contend.

In its farmers manifesto, released by national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP promises to re-enact the Sir Chhotu Ram Act-1934 to take care of the loans taken by farmers from commission agents. The Act ensured that the sum of interest payable did not exceed the principal amount and all debts where a farmer had paid a sum twice the amount of the principal would be deemed to be wholly discharged. Also, no indebted farmer would be dispossessed of his land holdings.

For bank loans, the AAP has promised to waive off entire loan amounts of poor farmers, farm labourers and scheduled caste (SC) farmers. For others, interest on loans will be waived off.

The Congress and AAP are also competing with each other to claim credit for the original idea of farm debts.

In a bid to show the seriousness of their claims, Congress ticket hopefuls have started getting farmer demand forms filled by debt-ridden farmers listing out the debt amount while stating that they supported the debt-free movement of the Congress.

The exercise, say Congress leaders, has been undertaken to assess the debt before it comes to power so that the debt waiver promise could be fulfilled at the earliest!

The AAP also issued a form which is an undertaking by Kejriwal, promising to waive off whatever the loan amount (to be filled by the farmer) if his party came to power in Punjab.

The Congress lashed out at AAP, alleging the latter had copied their brainchild, but the AAP maintained that it was their idea and it is Congress which had copied it.

The Akalis have called the Congress promise impossible to fulfil and a part of AAPs claim to re-enact the Sir Chhotu Ram Act a cut and paste job of their recently passed Punjab Settlement of Agricultural Indebtedness Bill, 2016.

WHO IS SAYING WHAT

Congress: All farm loans, including those taken from corporate banks, cooperatives or arhtiyas, to be waived off completely

AAP: Re-enactment of Sir Chhotu Ram Act for arhtiya loans and setting up of a bank debt settlement committee to work out the modalities of the waive-off plan

SAD-BJP: The implementable portions of the Sir Chhotu Ram Act have been incorporated in the Punjab Settlement of Agricultural Indebtedness Act, 2016.
Scuttling the move of the Punjab government to withdraw a corruption case against senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and cabinet minister Tota Singh before the assembly elections, a local court for a second time dismissed the application seeking withdrawal of case against him, saying the application does not qualify to be considered to have been moved in public interest.

The state vigilance bureau had moved the court in October. Rejecting the plea, the court set December 2 as next date for final arguments. Three years ago too the SAD-BJP government had moved an application to withdraw the case.

Tota Singh, MLA from Dharamkot, is facing trial in a case registered by the VB pertaining to recruitment of 134 clerks by the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) during 2000 and 2001 when Tota Singh was education minister.

Without going into the merits of the case the court only examined the application on the yardstick of whether the application moved is in public interest or not. The prosecutions submission that the trial of Tota Singh would be a futile exercise as there is no iota of evidence against him failed to impress the court.
The Punjab government has no option other than adopting delaying tactics over the Supreme Court verdict on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, but it has no escape route now, say legal experts.

Former Jammu and Kashmir high court chief justice MM Kumar said the state government has to implement the verdict in letter and spirit, as the apex court has answered a Presidential reference and it is binding on government(s).

Emotional issues cannot be mixed with legal aspects. By and large, the issue stands settled. The SC has considered the issue after hearing all parties and given its verdict. The chapter closes here and now, he added.

Also read | SYL verdict: Amarinder quits as MP, all 42 Punjab Cong MLAs resign too

A senior advocate with the Punjab and Haryana high court said the state government can take the matter to its assembly again to enact a new law as part of delaying tactics, but it would mean nothing. Eventually, when the matter reaches Supreme Court again, it may pass strictures against the government for not honouring its verdict, he said on the condition of anonymity.

Like any other party in a court dispute, the Punjab government has the options of seeking a review and later filing curative petitions, but a major shift in the verdict of the apex court is a remote possibility.

They have now limited choices. Legal options have been exhausted. I have been there for some years. The options of review and curative petitions are there with any litigant. But it is very unusual to succeed after this, said a retired SC judge, who wished not to be named.

Harbhagwan Singh, who was Punjab advocate general when the Act was passed by the state assembly in 2004, sounded a word of caution to the state government. I would say, go as per law. Dont take the matter to streets. It is not a dispute between two countries, but between two states of one country, he said, asking the Punjab government to implement the verdict.

As for the Union government, experts said it was expected to continue with its neutral stand.

They will open Pandoras box if they take any side in this dispute. They (BJP) are in government in both the states. Even otherwise, there is a remote possibility of them taking the matter to Parliament. But they will not do so. There are so many other water disputes between the states, another senior advocate said.

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Of the first 100 toppers in the scam involving the UT teachers recruitment held in 2015 wherein candidates allegedly paid lakhs to get jobs of trained graduate teachers (TGTs) and junior basic training (JBT) teachers in Chandigarh government schools, 85 are from Haryana.

This despite the fact that there was a Punjabi language test carrying 25 marks and the Haryana topper scored as high as 162 marks out of 200.

The special investigation team (SIT) probing the case said most of the Haryana toppers are from Rohtak, Sonepat and Rewari while the remaining 15 who made it to top 100 are from Chandigarh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and New Delhi.

Maximum candidates among top 250 are from Haryana despite candidates from there are not well versed with the Punjabi language, a senior official said.

Another official said that Haryana candidates were not given answer keys of Punjabi section so that no one doubts the authenticity of the results.

We have identified 25 candidates so far. There are several modules operating in the region, especially in Haryana. The number of beneficiaries is likely to go up, the official said.

Police claimed that of the 25 alleged beneficiaries it has identified in the teachers recruitment scam, 17 have joined as teachers in city government schools, three are on leave and five could not join due to age bar.

This has been revealed by the main accused, Brijender Nain, who is in police custody.

On July 29, the UT police had registered an FIR (first information report) in the alleged leak of question papers of selection tests for the recruitment of 1,150 junior basic training (JBT) teachers, trained graduate teachers (TGTs) and nursery training teachers (NTTs) in Chandigarh in January and February last year.

The tests were held at Panjab University (PU).

We cant rule out the possibility of the involvement of PU employees in the paper leak but we are not sure about it as of now. There is a possibility of paper leak from the place of printing also, said an officer.

Earlier, the Punjab vigilance bureau had blown the lid of the scam with the arrest of Dinesh Yadav and had written to the UT education secretary and inspector general of police (IGP) to register a case in this connection.

GMSSS-21 TEACHER, MIDDLEMAN HELD

The special investigating team (SIT) of the UT police has arrested a beneficiary school teacher and a middleman in the teachers recruitment scam. The accused have been identified as Sandeep Kumar (26), who teaches at Government Model Senior Secondary School (GMSSS), Sector 21, and Sampuran (45) of Sonepat. This is the first arrest of a beneficiary teacher in the UT teachers recruitmentcase so far as only middlemen were arrested by the Chandigarh police and the Punjab vigilance bureau.

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Soon after the Supreme Court passed its verdict on sharing of water from the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal by states including Punjab and Haryana, Punjab leaders took to social media to condemn the decision.

Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh tweeted, (I) have resigned from the Lok Sabha in protest of the SC verdict on SYL. The entire CLP (Congress legislature party) stands with me as we continue our fight for Punjab.

All the party MLAs quit their Assembly seats in wake of SYL verdict & in protest against the injustice meted out to the people of the state  Punjab Congress (@punjabpcc) November 10, 2016

Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal tweeted,

For Punjab SYL is not just an emotive issue but a matter of survival as Punjab is an agrarian state. #AkalisAgainstSYL  Harsimrat Kaur Badal (@HarsimratBadal_) November 10, 2016

Our stand on the SYL issue is clear that we won't allow a single drop of water as it is the lifeline of our farmers. #AkalisAgainstSYL  Harsimrat Kaur Badal (@HarsimratBadal_) November 10, 2016

Punjab revenue and rehabilitation minister Bikram Singh Majithia tweeted, Not a single drop of Punjabs water would be allowed to drain out to another state, as the water flowing from its soil is ours. He further tweeted:

Punjab Govt. is utmost vigilant to safeguard this crucial lifeline of the Punjab economy. We won't give out our waters. #AkalisAgainstSYL  Bikram Majithia (@bsmajithia) November 10, 2016

I call upon the masses to join hands with the Punjab Government to safeguard the precious treasure of the state-its water. #AkalisAgainstSYL  Bikram Majithia (@bsmajithia) November 10, 2016

Aapna Punjab Party (APP) president Sucha Singh Chhotepur tweeted:

Meanwhile, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar tweeted,

Read | Khattar hails SC decision on SYL, terms it gift to Haryana in golden jubilee year

Heartily welcome today's landmark Supreme Court verdict on SYL water sharing agreements. A hugely positive step for the people of Haryana!  Manohar Lal (@mlkhattar) November 10, 2016

Many leaders also commented on Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh, doubting his intentions behind his resignation from the Lok Sabha.

Read | SC verdict on SYL: Amarinder quits as MP, all 42 Punjab Cong MLAs resign too

Aam Aadmi Party leader and Supreme Court lawyer HS Phoolka tweeted:

Badal compromised wd rights of Pb- Modi-Badal govt should have withdrawn reference from SC.But Badal didn't force Modi.Badal govt sud resign  H S Phoolka (@hsphoolka) November 10, 2016

#ShameOnCong - Resignation of Capt is a drama , He was with Mrs. Gandhi when SYL started. Capt should quit cong if he is sincere with PB.  H S Phoolka (@hsphoolka) November 10, 2016

I Challenge @capt_amarinder for debate on SYL. Please stop playing wd rights of Pb. Shameful-AICC has welcome SYL verdict. Resign from Cong.  H S Phoolka (@hsphoolka) November 10, 2016

Sangrur AAP MP Bhagwant Mann tweeted that Punjab does not have water  neither for the crops, nor for drinking. In fact, now even the tears of Punjabis have dried out. Politicians should have mercy on us.

AAP suspects that Akali-Cong combine along with the BJP connived to unsettle the situation in Punjab due to SYL - the timing says it all  Kanwar Sandhu (@SandhuKanwar) November 10, 2016

What good is amarinder's resignation from the parliament? He never even went there! Maybe he should resign from going to his palace instead!  Kanwar Sandhu (@SandhuKanwar) November 10, 2016

AAP leader Kanwar Sandhu further tweeted, Indira Gandhi initiated it-Amarinder followed through.Badal helped acquire the land-Devi Lal praised him for it. Is Punjab a joke to them?

Meanwhile, while many AAP leaders tweeted on the issue, Delhi chief minister and AAP convener chose to retweet them instead of commenting himself on the issue.

.@capt_amarinder challenged AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal to clarify his stand on the SYL issue in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict.  Punjab Congress (@punjabpcc) November 10, 2016

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Almost all political parties of Punjab call elections a game of cash. Each had asked the chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidi during his recent visit to the state to curb use of money and muscle power.

But the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes by the Narendra Modi government barely a few months before the high-octane elections in Punjab will hit them where it hurts the most  old notes are no good for votes in polls early next year!

And the EC is smiling. We are happy with the development. It will squeeze the availability of cash as the issue of new notes will be regulated by the RBI. It will make our job easier as new currency notes will not be available in such large numbers, Punjab chief electoral officer VK Singh said.

It is no secret that being cash-rich is an added qualification for Punjab candidates. Those fielded by both the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Congress in the last few elections have been moneybags  from liquor barons to realtors. In fact, they are appointed as party treasurers.

The SAD has realtor NK Sharma as its treasurer and Congress earlier had MLA Amrik Dhillon who has stakes in states flourishing liquor business. Then there are candidates who hail from affluent political dynasties.

In the 2012 Punjab elections, the cash seizures at the check posts and flying squads of EC amounted to Rs 12 crore. In Uttar Pradesh, which goes to polls with Punjab, Rs 37.46 crore was seized in 2012 accounting for 72% of the total cash seizures of five states where polls were held.

But Punjab topped the chart in drug seizures as huge quantities of smack, opium and poppy husk were recovered, forcing the then chief election commissioner SY Quraishi to sound former PM Manmohan Singh about it. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Rs 14 crore was seized in Punjab.

Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh had accused the ruling Akalis of using cops to distribute cash in their vans in the 2012 state polls. The ruling Badal family rebel Manpreet Badal had blamed his going for a duck to not having money power.

Some Congress supporters took to the social media to take potshots at the ruling SAD on demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. One such tweet described it as Modis surgical strike against the Badals, another asked, What will happen to truckloads of cash the Akalis have stashed for elections. The second was re-tweeted by Punjab Da Captain team and the Punjab Pradesh Punjab Congress Committee (PPCC).

As far as the impact of the move on the Punjab elections is concerned, Amarinder said the Congress had no cause for concern. It was the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that needed to worry. While Badals stand to lose thousands of crores of rupees of their black money as a result of the demonetisation, Kejriwal would end up losing hundreds of crores, he said in a statement.

According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR)  a non-political group aiming at governmental and electoral reforms  political parties receive 75% of their cash from unknown sources. Neither the expenditure declared by the parties nor assets declared by candidates reflect the affluence.

The ADR, after dipping into affidavits filed by candidates contesting elections  Lok Sabha as well as assembly in Punjab since 2006 to 2014  had stated that the average assets of 264 Congress candidates was Rs 8.35 crore; that of 52 BJP candidates Rs 8.55 crore; of 213 Akali nominees Rs 7.45 crore and of 14 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidates Rs 3.81 crore. What does not add up is the figure of all parties is less than Rs 12 crore seized by the EC in the 2012 polls.

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The two actors with the hero, Vijay, jumped off a helicopter into the lake while performing a stunt scene during the filming of a Kannada movie Masti Gudi on Monday. While Vijay swam to the shore and safety, the other two actors drowned, according to the official.

A team of the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) found Udays body in the TG Halli in the middle of the lake around 4 pm while the search is on to trace Anils body, Bengaluru Deputy Commissioner V Shankar told reporters at the spot.

Though the body was bloated and decomposed, it was identified as that of Uday from the long hair he sported, unlike Anil.

Udays body has been sent to the state-run government hospital in the city for autopsy and will be handed over to the family later, said Shankar.

Scuba divers from the naval base at Karwar in the states northwest coast have joined the search and helped NDRF personnel in locating Udays body stuck in the silt and marshy backwaters of the lake.

We are confident of tracing Anils body soon though poor visibility inside the lake, surface winds and polluted waters have been posing a challenge in the search and recovery exercise, said Shankar.

The Thippagondanahalli (TG Halli) lake is about 40 km northwest of Bengaluru at the confluence of Arkavathy and Kumudavathi rivers in Ramanagara district. It is one of the sources of drinking water supply to Bengaluru.

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Her fans might be happy to see her on the list of sexiest women, but television actor Drashti Dhami says she doesnt consider herself sexy.

If I have to use an adjective to define myself, then I might use cute but I dont think Im sexy. If people think that Im sexy, then Im happy, says the 31-year-old actor who has been listed thrice among the list of 50 Sexiest Asian Women by a UK-based newspaper.

The actor has recently returned from Austria where she was shooting and is happy to be back home. I was there for 12-13 days and it was like living out of a box! Im happy to be back home to my family and friends. Among all the places we visited, I liked Innisbruck the most. I would love to go back there with my husband (businessman Neeraj Khemka), she says.

She has been a popular contestant, and later a judge in the dance reality show Jhalak Dikhla Jaa. Dhami says, Im open to reality shows even now. But it depends if something interesting comes my way, then why not.

However, she refuses to be a part of the reality show Bigg Boss. She says, No. When I couldnt stay away from my family for a few days when I was shooting outside India, how will I stay in that house for so many days?

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President Xi Jinping led China in congratulating Donald Trump on becoming president-elect of the US against a backdrop of uncertainty about the future of bilateral relations already fraught with mistrust and competition.

Chinese mainland stock markets fell on Wednesday as Trump overtook and then defeated rival Hillary Clinton in the polls. The fall reflected Chinese investors concerns about Trump becoming the leader of the worlds largest economy.

Editorials in the state media talked about upheavals in diplomatic and economic relations, citing Trumps anti-China rhetoric throughout his often divisive campaign.

Xi, of course, sent a congratulatory message to Trump that talked about working together to maintain world peace and stability.

In his message, Xi was quoted by state media as saying that while China is the world's largest developing country and the US the largest developed power, both, as the world's top economies, bear the special responsibility of maintaining global peace and stability and boosting development and prosperity. They also share extensive interests, he said.

I highly value the relations between China and the US and I am looking forward to working together with you to expand China-US cooperation in every field, at the bilateral, regional and global levels, on the basis of the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, with differences controlled in a constructive manner, so as to push China-US relations further forward from a new starting point, better benefiting the peoples of the two countries and other countries, Xi said.

Asked about Trumps persistent anti-China rhetoric, foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said Beijing was waiting to see how the real estate mogul deals with bilateral ties.

Just elected yesterday. We are waiting to see what policies he will adopt on China, Lu said, adding China is looking forward to develop principles of non-confrontation.

An editorial in the nationalistic Global Times expressed some of the apprehensions that China has after Trumps win.

What a Trump victory will mean for Sino-US relations is far from clear. China is more familiar with Clinton, a former secretary of state and former first lady, but Beijing has no experience with Trump. Throughout his campaign, Trump regularly railed against China and displayed his intent to drastically adjust US foreign trade policy, both of which increase the uncertainty in Sino-US relations, the piece said.

China and the US are economically interdependent, so economic and political tensions can be a double-edged sword. If Trump follows his campaign stance and imposes pressure on China over a host of economic issues, US firms doing business in China may get caught in the fallout, it added.

The state media also expressed doubts over Trumps climate change policies.

The President-elect has widely been seen as a climate change skeptic. He has said time and again that climate change is a hoax -- a hoax invented by China to harm US industries. He also pledged to cancel the landmark Paris climate agreement and stop all payments of US tax dollars to UN global warming programs, official website China.org said.

It added: The election results have thus put a big question mark on the fate of the Paris Agreement and the cause of tackling climate change in the US as well as the world at large. The US contributes around 16% of the world's carbon emissions, and the Obama administration pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28% below its 2005 level by 2025 and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28%.
Chinese state media has warned the US president-elect against isolationism and interventionism, calling instead for the United States to actively work with China to maintain the international status quo.

President-elect Donald Trump threatened to tear up trade deals and pursue a more unilateral foreign policy under his America First principle during a tempestuous election campaign.

But China and other foreign governments are uncertain how much of Trumps rhetoric will be translated into policy because he has at times made contradictory statements and provided few details of how he would deal with the world.

Trump often targeted China in the campaign, blaming Beijing for U.S. job losses and vowing to impose 45 percent tariffs on Chinese imports. The Republican also promised to call China a currency manipulator on his first day in office.

U.S. isolationist policies had accelerated the countrys economic crisis during the Great Depression, warned a commentary by Chinas official Xinhua News Agency, though it added that election talk is just election talk.

The commentary also cautioned against any tilt towards intervention.

Potential pragmatist

The Chinese media in the past have criticised the United States and other Western powers for intervening in Afghanistan and Iraq and meddling in international hot spots such as Ukraine.

History has proven that U.S. overseas military interventionism causes them to pay disastrous political and economic costs, the commentary said.

Hillary Clinton was widely seen in China as the more hawkish of the two candidates, while some Chinese commentators saw Trump as a potential pragmatist on foreign policy.

But Beijing fears the unpredictability of a Trump presidency as it seeks to maintain an equilibrium in Sino-U.S. relations while dealing with the daunting tasks of a reform agenda to combat a slowing economy at home.

A second Xinhua commentary published on Thursday morning said the new U.S. president and China should jointly build a new model of major power relations. That echoes the position of Chinese President Xi Jinping that says global powers should work to accommodate, not contain, a rising China in the international system.

Shock of heresy

Trumps victory was watched closely on the Chinese internet with the tag Trump has won becoming the most-searched term on Weibo, a popular Chinese microblog service, on Wednesday afternoon in Asia, well before the race was conceded.

Some of the posts agreed that Trump might be just the change agent the United States needs now.

The U.S. has chosen indeterminacy in order to create change, according to a post by Tsinghua University professor Sun Liping on Thursday that has been shared over a thousand times.

When the usual, determined method has already been unable to solve the problems, then you need the shock of heresy instead.

Chinese state media had previously said the U.S. election process reflects a troubled political system, and showed an increasingly divided, disillusioned and indignant U.S. citizenry.

This election has also made clear that the U.S. political system is already caught in a predicament, a third Xinhua commentary said. As for when it will exit this predicament, the answer is still unknown.

The Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling partys Peoples Daily newspaper, said Trumps victory had dealt a heavy blow to the heart of U.S. politics but that he would be unable to make many changes in U.S. foreign policy.

In an elite-controlled U.S., most of those holding power dont support Trump. And U.S. allies across the world will pressure Washington to restrain Trump from isolationism, it said.
Latino voters were supposed to be Hillary Clintons secret weapon to win the White House -- but even high turnout by voters in the fastest-growing US minority wasnt enough for her to seal the deal.

What happened? For starters, fewer Latinos and African-

Americans -- groups that traditionally vote for Democrats -- voted for Clinton than for Barack Obama in 2012.

And the increase of the Latino vote was mitigated by a higher turnout among white non-Hispanics and less educated people that supported Republican Donald Trump across the country.

The Latino vote was no doubt a record, but we have to wait until April or May to have the definitive figures, said Mark Hugo Lopez, director of Hispanic Research at the Pew Research Center (PRC).

More than 27 million Latinos were registered to vote, but Lopez estimates that less than half -- some 13 million -- actually cast ballots.

- Hillary is not Obama -

A good 65 percent of self-declared Latino voters said that they supported Clinton, a former first lady, senator and secretary of state, while 29 percent supported Trump, a real estate businessman and reality TV star with zero political experience.

The white, black and Hispanic vote in 2012 and 2016 US presidential elections. (AFP Photo)

Moreover, many of Trumps proposals could be considered anti-Latino: he proposed deporting the 11 million undocumented migrants in the country, the bulk of whom are from Latin America; build a wall on the US border with Mexico; and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement -- which includes Canada and Mexico -- which he blasted as a disaster.

In the 2012 election, Obama won 72 percent of Latino voters, against rival Mitt Romney who won 27 percent.

Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama, they are different candidates, said Lopez. The Hispanic electorate is conservative, the Cuban-Americans are traditionally Republicans, there are some against abortion.

In general, Latinos who voted for Trump are more likely to be Cuban-Americans, to have a higher income, to have a higher college education than other Hispanics, and tend to live in conservative states like Florida, Arizona or Texas.

On average, Clinton voters tend to have higher education and live in states that reliably vote for Democrats like New York and California.

Democrats were hoping that the Latino vote would be decisive for the first time in US history and help push Clinton to victories in places such as Arizona and Florida, two states that she nevertheless lost on Tuesday.

- Defeat in Florida -

If Trump had lost Florida, it would have been over for him. Both candidates focused heavily on the far southeastern US state -- Trump focusing on the most conservative enclaves, and Clinton focusing on votes from the Puerto Rican community, African-Americans and young Latinos.

Read more| Thousands take to streets in US to protest Donald Trump presidency

In Florida, Clinton was counting on a higher turnout and percentage of votes from Latinos and African Americans that she had, said University of Miami political scientist Gregory Koger.

On the other hand white voter turnout was higher than expected for Trump, he said. And the Trump campaign targeted rural voters, people in small towns, and they turnout for him in large numbers.

For Daniel Smith at the University of Florida, Clinton lost in the state for another related reason: it was the failure to persuade white educated women, he told AFP.

These white women, Independent, even moderate Republicans didnt necessarily like Donald Trump but they disliked Hillary more, he said.

Clinton lost white middle class and upper middle class women, and she split the white Independent women with Trump.

Hispanic demonstrators protest in front of the White House as the polls are counted in the U.S. presidential election in Washington on November 9. (Reuters)

Clinton was also unable to gain traction among conservative Cuban-Americans in Miami, who are reliable voters. Trump however promised to maintain the embargo against Cuba, an issue dear to their heart but behind the times given the US opening towards the communist island.

Younger Cuban-Americans are in general Democrats, or abstain from voting.

In Florida, 52 percent of Cuban-Americans voted for Trump against 47 percent for Clinton, according to exit polls by the group Latino Decision.

- Diverse community -

Lopez said that there was a nationwide Trump effect: more Latinos came out to specifically vote against him, fueled by anger over his harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric.

But this turnout was not as big as people said it would be, Lopez said.

Nevertheless, the Latino vote has grown in importance, and it continues to have a bigger role in a campaign.

Looking at demographic trends that will continue for at least 20 years, he said.

Read more| Trump victory: Towards an inward-looking America

And yet, there is no monolithic Latino vote in the United States. The community is geographically and politically diverse.

Indeed, more than half of US Hispanics are Mexican-American.

Yet not all Latinos are immigrants, and not all are Mexicans.

For example Cubans, who have enjoyed a special immigration status since the 1960s, were not offended by Trumps talk about Mexico sending criminals, drug dealers, rapists.

Twenty-five percent of third-generation Latinos even support building a wall on the US border with Mexico, and also support Trumps proposal for a mass deportation of undocumented migrants.

They also tend to be more conservative, and to be less religious than other Latinos.
Donald J Trump is the 45th President of the United States of America. This news shocked the world, making interesting headlines and cover page stories.

Heres a glimpse how international newspapers broke the news to their countries:

1) Libration, France:

A la une de Libe demain : American Psycho https://t.co/lrnuoCHq7b pic.twitter.com/4jExZuqqRr  Liberation (@libe) November 9, 2016

2) The Times of London chose to go with Trump Surge, an outsider within reach of the White House.

Our latest edition: Trump the outsider within reach of the White House https://t.co/Dinai8V7Nj #tomorrowspaperstodays pic.twitter.com/8h7oWy7fb9  The Times of London (@thetimes) November 9, 2016

3) BBCs Wednesday i-Front page called the news as Disunited States.

4) The Guardian commented on Americas wait to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Guardian front page, Thursday 10 November 2016: Trump wins. Now the world waits pic.twitter.com/MXqJQ9Aw4r  Guardian news (@guardiannews) November 9, 2016

5) The Telegraph commented on Americas divide.

6) Metro, they kept it simple.

7) The New Zealand Herald said it all in two words.

8) Le Journal De Quebec expanded OMG:

La UNE de votre Journal, edition du 9 novembre 2016 pic.twitter.com/ATSAuXX1F5  Le Journal de Quebec (@JdeQuebec) November 9, 2016

9) Mexico Citys daily newspaper said, Lets Shake!

10) NewsBrands Irelands newspapers had an interesting take.

11) The Daily Telegraph wished America well.

Tomorrow's Daily Telegraph front page today: 'Trump's American revolution' pic.twitter.com/7QF3zpPMhS  Telegraph Politics (@TelePolitics) November 9, 2016

12) The Daily Mirror asked for answers.

13) The Financial Times stuck to its essentials.

FT: Trump moves to reassure shocked allies and nervous investors #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/gOIypEc4TE  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 9, 2016

14) UKs The Independent told the bitter truth.

15) The Times said, The New World.

16) City AM:

17) UKs The Daily Mail dramatized the situation a little too much:

18) UKs The Sun mocked the news with animated references.

Tomorrow's front page: The Simpsons' most absurd prediction in its 27-year history has come true https://t.co/dvpjgCQwMH pic.twitter.com/PYINTerjlL  The Sun (@TheSun) November 9, 2016

19) Queenslands Courier-Mail did a historic 20-page wrap on Donald Trumps victory:

The front and back pages of tomorrow's The Courier-Mail @couriermail featuring an historic 20-page wrap on the Donald Trump election victory pic.twitter.com/GVGmyqc3TJ  The Courier-Mail (@couriermail) November 9, 2016

20) Australias The Daily Telegraph said it.

21) Australias The Sydney Morning Herald called it a revolution.

22) The West Australian wrote what the world felt.

In the first edition of The West Australian tomorrow: pic.twitter.com/gIlxreH2rU  The West Australian (@westaustralian) November 9, 2016

23) Australias The Advertiser said, Trump Towers.

The Advertiser's front page for November 10, 2016. Live updates throughout the night here: https://t.co/J16s7myzcU #ElectionNight pic.twitter.com/jpy6oxERtO  The Advertiser (@theTiser) November 9, 2016

24) Brazilian newspaper, O Povo, said, Trump Surprises and Wins.

Bom dia, amigos leitores! Esta e a #CapaDoDia do O POVO. Acesse todo nosso conteudo em https://t.co/2Iw9Zm5EUP pic.twitter.com/fiQEYLK2qI  O POVO Online (@opovoonline) November 9, 2016

25) Vanguardia, the Mexican paper, called Trump a threat.

26) Mexican paper, Periodico Excelsior, ran the headline that translates, to start trembling.

27) Het Parool of The Netherlands posted an illustration, worth a thousand words.

De voorpagina van Het Parool op woensdag 9 november 2016.https://t.co/s8uqQiHbA5 pic.twitter.com/OtdBTAd5FB  Het Parool (@parool) November 9, 2016

28) Spanish newspaper, EL PAIS:

La edicion impresa de @el_pais ya habla de la victoria de #Trump tras la #ElectionNight pic.twitter.com/XIeVoB4Ki6  Oscar Augusto (@Oscar_jmora) November 9, 2016

29) Heres the Times of India front page.

(A screenshot of Times of Indias Wednesdays front page. )

Heres a curated list of American newspapers as well:

1) The New York Times :

The front page of The New York Times, Nov. 9, 2016.



Follow https://t.co/jsy0bgJzAA for live updates. pic.twitter.com/lh2GR0tGbT  The New York Times (@nytimes) November 9, 2016

2) The Washington Post:

Trump triumphs: Here is the front page of Wednesday's Washington Post pic.twitter.com/xKbpEzPNXK  Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 9, 2016

Wednesday morning's front page: pic.twitter.com/pAbnSzwL3G  Los Angeles Times (@latimes) November 9, 2016

4) The Times Tribune:

5) The Birmingham News:

6) Hartford Courant:

Check out the Courant's front page for Nov. 9, 2016 pic.twitter.com/JfHeo4TKtn  Hartford Courant (@hartfordcourant) November 9, 2016

9) The Wall Street Journal:

The front page of The Wall Street Journal pic.twitter.com/vFpldfwwqu  Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 9, 2016

10) The Arizona Republic:

11) The Kansas Star:

12) The Dallas Morning News:

Today's front page: Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States pic.twitter.com/UkqC1SjiBI  Dallas Morning News (@dallasnews) November 9, 2016

13) The Orlando Sentinel:

Here's a look at our front page pic.twitter.com/zbSsPICT7h  Orlando Sentinel (@orlandosentinel) November 9, 2016

14) USA Today:

A look at @USATODAY's front page: President Trump. A Republican House and Senate. And a divided nation. pic.twitter.com/mNIL5f5eui  USA TODAY (@USATODAY) November 9, 2016

15) The Miami Herald:

16) The Denver Post:

The front page of The Denver Post on November 9, 2016 https://t.co/Aggx0dtUtV pic.twitter.com/MXSzKkJIXb  The Denver Post (@denverpost) November 9, 2016

And then, Newsuem, a museum dedicated to free expression & the First Amendment, curated shots of Wednesdays A1 pages highlighting Trumps victory.

News crews already outside the Newseum getting shots of Today's Front Pages. As one might expect, Trump's win is dominating all A1's today pic.twitter.com/4bmHeZXi8h  Newseum (@Newseum) November 9, 2016

One might say, this election result was recorded well in world history.

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Bernie Sanders, who galvanized young Americans during this years Democratic primary race, said Wednesday that he is ready to work with president-elect Donald Trump if he wants to improve the lives of working families.

Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media, the Vermont senator said in a statement following the Republican billionaires surprise victory, which has sent shockwaves through the United States and around the world.

To the degree that Mr Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him, added Sanders, the left-leaning independent who called for a political revolution during his surprisingly strong but ultimately failed populist primary challenge to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him, he said.

Like Sanders -- who denounced what he called the corrupt influence of the countrys wealthy elites on politics, and advocated free public college education and universal health care -- Trump honed a populist appeal to Americans who feel left behind by economic globalization and mounting inequity.

Unlike Sanders, however, Trump proposes slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and has said that schemes to avoid paying millions of dollars in personal income tax proves he is smart.

After his primary loss, Sanders called on his supporters to rally behind Clinton, campaigning against Trump, whom he called a danger and a demagogue.

The other main voice of left-wing Democrats, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren -- who waged a bitter personal war of words against Trump during the campaign -- said Wednesday that she is intensely frustrated by his victory.

However, she also offered the Republican an olive branch.

President-elect Trump promised to rebuild our economy for working people, she said, and I offer to put aside our differences and work with him on that task.
A top Russian diplomat says Moscow had contacts with the campaign of Donald Trump ahead of his election as US President.

Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency on Thursday that there were contacts with influential people in Trumps circle. I dont say that all of them, but a whole array of them, supported contacts with Russian representatives.

The report did not give further details.

Trumps relations with Russia were one of the most contentious issues of the campaign, especially in light of his favourable remarks about President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader, and persistent contention by his opponents that Russia was responsible for hackers purloining emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clintons campaign staff.
Demonstrators marched in cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest against Republican Donald Trumps surprise presidential election win, blasting his controversial campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

In New York, thousands of protesters filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, Trumps gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted Not my president.

A demonstration of about 6,000 people blocked traffic in Oakland, California, police said. Protesters threw objects at police in riot gear, burned trash in the middle of an intersection, set off fireworks and smashed store front windows.

Police responded by throwing chemical irritants at the protesters, according to a Reuters witness.

In downtown Chicago, an estimated 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA.

Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there.

Im just really terrified about what is happening in this country, said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: Enjoy your rights while you can.

In Seattle, police responded to a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of anti-Trump protests. Police said it was unrelated to the demonstrations.

Protesters march against Republican Donald Trump's victory in US presidential election in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US. (Reuters Photo)

Protesters railed against Trumps campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally.

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston and Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday evening, and organizers planned rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland, California.

In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said.

A representative of the Trump campaign did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the protests. Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans, saying: It is time for us to come together as one united people.

Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form.

Demonstrators rally outside Los Angeles City Hall to protest the presidential election win of Donald Trump in Los Angeles, California. (AFP Photo)

Dreamers fear deportation

Earlier on Wednesday, some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, in a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other Bay Area cities - Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito.

A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally.

Chanting in Spanish the people united will never be defeated, the group held signs with slogans such as Not Supporting Racism, Not My President and Immigrants Make America Great.

Many of those students were members of the Dreamers generation, children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration.

A child should not live in fear that they will be deported, said Stephanie Hipolito, one of the student organizers of the walkout. She said her parents were U.S. citizens.

There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence.

Wednesdays demonstrations followed a night of protests in the San Francisco area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trumps victory against heavily favored Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Demonstrators smashed storefront windows and set garbage and tires ablaze late on Tuesday in downtown Oakland.

For full coverage on US presidential election, click here
US President-elect Donald Trump began putting together his administration with a series of meetings in Washington DC on Thursday, starting with one with President Barack Obama at the White House, which is a tradition symbolising smooth transfer of power.

Trump will have a luncheon meeting with the Republican leadership in Capitol Hill, home to US legislature, which will be instrumental in delivering on many of his elections promises, such as repealing Obamacare and overhauling the tax code. His transition team, headed by New Jersey governor Chris Christie will be sifting through mountains of applications for the 4,000 political appointments the new administration will make across the federal government.

Casting a shadow over all of these is speculation about Trumps cabinet; specially the most important positions of chief of staff, secretary of state, defence secretary, attorney general, national security adviser and treasury secretary. Trump will be inaugurated on January 20, and as is the tradition, his administration will be underway past noon. Before that, he needs to have his men and women in place, most of them at least, as new appointments will continue to be made.

The meeting with President Obama, which will be subjected to intense scrutiny for the body language between two men who just dont like each other and other optics, although their personal chemistry is unlikely to be of any consequence.

It is no secret that the President-elect and I have some pretty significant differences, Obama said in remarks from the White House on Wednesday. But remember, eight years ago, President Bush and I had some pretty significant differences.

He continued: But President Bushs team could not have been more professional or more gracious in making sure we had a smooth transition so that we could hit the ground running.

The transition process has been underway since the conventions of the two parties declared their official nominees. Transitions of both candidates were already in place working out a federal government building in DC processing applications.

Trump will start getting the daily intelligence briefing that the president gets, not the abridged, sporadic and stripped-down version both he and Clinton received as nominees.

Starting this week, Agency Review teams appointed by Trump will begin getting detailed briefings on the organization structure, budget, responsibilities by members of the current administration, according to a White House fact-sheet.

After his meeting with Obama, Trump will head for Capitol Hill to meet House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan, with whom he has had a prickly relationship so far, and senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

They will have lunch at the Capital Hill Club, across the Hill, and discuss the way forward.

Ryan is up for re-election and Trumps support will be important. They have spoken a few times after election night, and Ryan is signalling a full embrace.

He was a reluctant supporter during the campaign phase, and had distanced himself from the nominee after the surfacing of the tapes in which the latter bragged about groping women and forcing himself on them.

With Republicans retaining control of both chambers of Congress, Trump will have as easy a time as Obama had in his first term with Democrats controlling both the senate and the House, and will be able to push his agenda without pushback.

Speculation is under way about Donald Trumps cabinet, with former Speaker Newt Gingrich among those reportedly being eyed as secretary of state and former New York mayor leading the race for attorney general, the countrys top prosecutor.

Trump has himself not said anything yet and according to his campaign he hadnt had the time or inclination think about it during campaigning. But leaks from his campaign do point to some of those being considered.

Gingrich, who has spoken glowingly of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and calling him and Trump a natural fit, is reportedly leading the secretary of state guessing game, with Senator Bob Corker. Senator Jeff Sessions, an early supporter, retired general Michael Flynn and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and former Senator Jim Talent are apparently among those being looked at for the secretary of defence slot. A long time Trump-friend and a Goldman Sachs veteran Steven Mnuchin is the only name that has been heard for the position of treasury secretary, that practically makes him a shoo-in. Trump himself has indicated he wants to give him that job.

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is a leading contender for the position of attorney general, and he has not been coy about it, saying in a TV interview on Thursday he is eminently qualified for it, given his long experience.

The Republican National Committee chairman, who is being credited with crafting Trumps get-out-the-vote machine, is being spoken of as the all-important White House position of chief of staff, controlling access to the president.
Despite sex assault allegations hounding him, fat-shaming a former beauty queen and his controversial abortion stand, a large number of women voters helped put Donald Trump in the White House.

Though his rival, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, clinched 54% of the female vote, Trump was backed by 42% of women voters, which contributed to his stunning victory, according to CNN exit polls.

Some 53% of white women voters supported the Republican candidate, CNN said, the majority of them (62%) non-college educated.

The results upended predictions that sexist and degrading comments Trump made against women would sway female voters -- who accounted for about 52% of the electorate Tuesday -- in favour of a candidate that could have broken the glass ceiling.

Read: Rallies against Trump in US, cops say Seattle shooting not related to protests

Experts said the outcome is not surprising, and reflects an election in which issues about the economy, jobs and immigration were much higher on all voters priority list than gender issues.

At the heart of it is what was driving all voters, said Diane Heith, professor and chair of the Department of Government and Politics at St. Johns University in New York.

Heith said although the leaked Access Hollywood tape in which Trump boasted about groping women, and his disparaging comments about a former Miss Universe had made many women cringe, it was not enough to turn them against the candidate.

There was no sisterhood created, Heith said. The issue of how he treated women did not overshadow the attitudes these individuals already had -- being disaffected and how they had been treated by the establishment elite of which Hillary was absolutely part of.

Tough to cope

Still, the real estate magnates shock win has left many women struggling to cope with the election of a president whose misogynistic behavior was disregarded at the polls.

More than half of white women voted for the man who bragged about committing sexual assault on tape, who said he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade ... who has spent 30-plus years in the public eye reducing women to their sexual attributes, wrote LV Anderson in an article in the online current affairs magazine Slate.

White women sold out their fellow women, their country, and themselves last night, added the author. Most white women dont want to be part of an intersectional feminist sisterhood. Most white women just want to be one of the guys. And we will all suffer for it.

Read: Lets not kid ourselves, with Trump, what we have seen is what we will get

One issue of particular concern for women -- both Democrats and Republicans -- will be how Trump deals with abortion rights while in the White House.

Trump moved further and further to the right on abortion during his campaign, at one point suggesting that women who seek to terminate their pregnancy should be subject to some form of punishment should abortion be outlawed.

He backtracked on his remarks following an outcry. But its unclear where he really stands on the issue, especially considering his running mate Mike Pences views on abortion.

As governor of Indiana, Pence pushed for some of the most abortion-restrictive regulations in the country and has fought to defund Planned Parenthood, which offers reproductive health services, including abortions, to mostly lower-income Americans.

Angry white women

American women who are seeking reproductive freedom should be concerned about a Trump-Pence presidency, Heith said.

Juliet Williams, professor of gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Trumps shocking win could be attributed to a disconnect -- both among Republicans and Democrats -- when it came to womens voting.

A narrative about this election took hold very early on and that narrative was that Trump was mobilizing the angry white man vote, with angry white men (such as) coal miners in West Virginia or unemployed auto workers in Michigan, Williams said.

Frankly, all of us on the right and the left really should have wondered what the angry white vote means, she added.

What we learned yesterday is that angry white women have political power too ... and if you allow yourself to forget about women, you are going to lose. This is what happened to Hillary.
They had been in the same room before, been at the opposite ends of an argument, and traded insults and nasty words, but they had never met. Until Thursday, when President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump finally met, at the White House no less.

Good man, Trump said about Obama in response to a question, a man he had made a career out of rubbishing, questioning his birthplace and claiming he was disqualified for office. But, on meeting his predecessor, Trump went on to say he planned to meet Obama more often, and turn to him for counsel.

True to his personality, Obama was restrained and less effusive and more professional, stating it was his intent to make Trump and his wife Melanias transition as smooth as possible.

We talked about some organizational issues in setting up the White House, Obama said in brief remarks with Trump seated on his right. We talked about foreign policy. We talked about domestic policy.

He continued: As I said last night, my number one priority in the next coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President-elect is successful and I have been very encouraged by the interest of President-elect Trump wanting to work with my team around many of the issues that this great country faces.

I believe that it is important for all, regardless of party and regardless of political preferences, to now come together, work together to deal with the many challenges we face.

Trump spoke next and started out saying they had never met before. This was a meeting that was going to last for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and we were just going to get to know each other. We had never met each other. I have great respect. The meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half. And it could have -- as far as Im concerned, it could have gone on for a lot longer.

He said the two of them discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties, and the he very much look forward to dealing with the President in the future, including counsel.

He (Obama) explained some of the difficulties, some of the high-flying assets and some of the really great things that have been achieved. So, Mr. President, it was a great honour being with you, and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future.

First lady Michelle Obama also meet privately in the White House residence with Trumps wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

No details were available of the First Ladys meet with her successor, but pundits speculated it could have included discussions about a school for Barron, Trumps 10-year-old son.
More than 5,000 civilians have fled their homes since the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces launched an offensive on the Islamic State groups Syrian bastion Raqa, an SDF spokeswoman said Thursday.

More than 5,000 displaced people have arrived in regions liberated and secured by our forces. They are coming from combat zones through a corridor we opened for them, Jihan Sheikh Ahmed told AFP.

Supported by US-led coalition air strikes, the SDF launched the offensive on Saturday, upping pressure on the jihadists who are also battling Iraqi forces in their bastion of Mosul.

The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces, has been pushing south from areas near the Turkish border towards Raqa, seizing a string of villages and moving to positions about 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the city.

An AFP correspondent in the area has seen dozens of families fleeing towards SDF lines in recent days.

Many have been arriving in trucks and cars around Ain Issa, the main staging point for the operation some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Raqa, loaded down with belongings and in some cases with livestock including cows and sheep.

SDF forces have been stopping them a few kilometres (miles) from Ain Issa, checking their identities and searching their belongings.

Ahmed appealed for aid in dealing with the influx, which is likely to rise as SDF forces approach Raqa.

We need international help because our capacities are limited and, with winter coming, there is no camp to host them, she said.

Raqa had a population of some 240,000 before the eruption of Syrias civil war in 2011 but more than 80,000 people have since fled there from other parts of the country.
Minnesota voters have elected the first Somali American Muslim woman legislator in a state where the uneasy assimilation of large numbers of Somali refugees became an issue in the US presidential campaign.

Ilhan Omar, a 33-year-old former refugee who wears the hijab, ran uncontested for a seat in the legislature of the Midwestern state, home to a sizeable Somali population.

Her victory is notable in a campaign season that saw Republican Donald Trump disparage Muslim immigrants and refugees before going on to win the White House.

Even though his message is supposed to function as a fear element in making sure that we dont vote, so we dont see ourselves as part of the American system, its had the opposite effect, Omar told AFP about Trump.

Trump ended up losing Minnesota to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton 45 to 47 percent.

But in the campaigns final week the real estate magnate had blamed the Somali community for Minnesotas travails.

Here in Minnesota, youve seen firsthand the problems caused with faulty refugee vetting, with very large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval, Trump told a rally near Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Some of them (are) joining ISIS (the Islamic State group) and spreading their extremist views all over our country and all over the world.

Nearly a third of Somali refugees resettled in the United States live in Minnesota. They number around 25,000 according to 2010 data, the latest available.

Some of the communitys young men have been lured by extremist groups -- notably Somalias Shabaab militants -- to fight overseas.

In one incident that sent shockwaves through the country, members of the city of St Clouds close-knit Somali refugee community expressed shock after one of their own stabbed 10 people at a mall there in September.

Ilhan Omar, candidate for State Representative for District 60B in Minnesota, gives an acceptance speech on election night in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (AFP Photo)

Building bridges

Omar entered her campaign rally late Tuesday to the Rocky Balboa soundtrack.

After Omars victory speech, her supporters, many young immigrants or first generation Americans, clustered around her and waited for their turn to take a selfie with the newly elected state representative.

She learned of Trumps pending White House victory from an AFP reporter.

Its going to be very tough, we have to figure out how to organize the community to prepare for whats to come. We have to amplify our voices of love against the rhetoric of hate, Omar said.

Omars political assent had less to do with her Somali community, though, than with her efforts to broaden her support to include other minority groups such as other East African immigrants, white liberals and college students.

Thats a very important transition that weve seen in America, as Germans, the Irish Catholics and the Jews and others have come to the country, said Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota.

The politics starts off as purely ethnic, and then it evolves into coalition building.

That Omar, as a Somali-American, appears to now be making a similar transition is a very positive development, Jacobs said.

Omar, who takes office January 3, says among her priorities are increasing funding and access to education, as well as criminal justice reform.

Memoona Ghan, a 35-year-old woman from Maple Grove, Minnesota, said her victory felt like rebuke to Trump and inspiration for the Muslim community in the state.

Seeing her up there is quite inspiring, not only for us but for the youth as well. Its a source of pride for all Muslims, not just the Somali community, that Ilhan is up there, and winning, said Ghan.

Read | Trump victory: Towards an inward-looking America
Donald Trumps surprise election as US president has Pakistanis wary that he may accelerate what they see as a shift in American policy to favour arch-foe India in the long rivalry between nuclear-armed neighbours, analysts said on Wednesday.

Historical allies in the region, Islamabad and Washington have seen relations sour over US accusations that Pakistan shelters Islamist militants, a charge Pakistan denies.

They hit new lows in May when a US drone killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban movement on Pakistani territory.

At the same time, Pakistans ties with India have also deteriorated this year, with New Delhi saying Pakistan-based militants killed 19 of soldiers in a September attack on an army base in northern Kashmirs Uri.

Read: Donald Trump: If hes bad for the US, hes bad for us

To many Pakistanis, Trumps anti-Muslim rhetoric -- he once proposed banning Muslims entering the United States -- and business ties to India are signs that his administration could shift further toward New Delhi.

America will not abandon Pakistan, but definitely, Trump will be a tougher president than Hillary Clinton for Pakistan, said Hasan Askari Rizvi, Lahore-based foreign policy analyst.

I think India will have a better and smoother interaction compared to Pakistan.

Trump has yet to lay out a detailed policy for South Asia, although he recently offered to mediate between India and Pakistan in their dispute over the divided territory of Kashmir.

He also told Fox News in May he would favour keeping nearly 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan because its adjacent and right next to Pakistan which has nuclear weapons.

Read: All the presidents men: Whos in line for a Trump cabinet spot?

Congratulations, assurances

On Wednesday, a US diplomat in Pakistan sought to assure the country that Trumps election did not signal a drastic policy change.

Our foreign policy is based on national interest and they dont change when the government changes, Grace Shelton, US consul general in Karachi, told Geo News television.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Trump.

Your election is indeed the triumph of the American people and their enduring faith in the ideals of democracy, freedom, human rights and free enterprise, Sharif said in a statement.

Still, the uncertainty of a Trump presidency has many Pakistanis on edge, even if the country has leaned towards China in recent years for investment and diplomatic support.

Trump is a bit of a wild card, said Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and former ambassador to the United States.

Pakistan obviously cannot rule out engaging with whomever America elects, but his anti-Muslim rhetoric may cast a shadow on relations in times of uncertainty.

Read: The good side of Niagara Falls: Canada welcomes American asylum seekers

India hopeful

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also congratulated Trump on Wednesday.

We look forward to working with you closely to take India-US bilateral ties to a new height, Modi said in a tweet.

Trump has partnered with Indian businessmen on a handful of real estate ventures, but apart from courting the Indian-American vote he has not articulated how he would develop the bilateral relationship.

India-US ties have flourished under President Barack Obama and Modi, who came to power in 2014, with the two countries striking key defence agreements this year.

The Modi government has also waged a campaign to isolate Pakistan diplomatically.

Shaurya Doval, director of the India Foundation, a think-tank close to Modis government, called Trumps election a very positive development, but added that India and the United States would have continued to grow closer under a Hillary Clinton presidency as well.

My sense is that India-US relations are not dependent on individuals  there are strong institutions and processes there, he said.

One fringe Hindu nationalist group in India held a victory gathering at New Delhis speakers corner on Wednesday.

Hes an American nationalist. We are Indian nationalists. Only he can understand us, Rashmi Gupta of the Hindu Sena, or Hindu Army, told Reuters. We expect him to support us when it comes to terrorist attacks on India from Pakistan.

Read: What Trump presidency would mean for India, the world: Shashi Tharoor explains

Afghanistan war

Trump will also have to decide whether to maintain the number of US troops in Afghanistan or change the scope of the mission, 15 years after a US-led campaign toppled the hardline Islamist Taliban government.

The United States has spent some $115 billion in aid for Afghanistan since 2002, but the country is still caught in conflict, with a third of the country out of government control and thousands of Afghan civilians, soldiers and police dying every year.

Afghan officials have voiced concern that the conflict is being forgotten in Washington, and warned privately that the West will pay a huge price if that continues.

The people of Afghanistan are tired of war. We want (Trump) to invest heavily in bringing peace to war-torn Afghanistan and stabilize our region, said Umer Daudzai, former Afghan minister of interior.

Obamas original aim of pulling out of Afghanistan entirely has been put on hold in the face of mounting gains by Taliban militants, with US air power and special forces still regularly involved in combat.

As recently as last week, two US Green Berets were killed near the northern city of Kunduz.

Although Afghan security forces have been fighting largely alone since the end of the main NATO-led combat mission in 2014, their performance has been patchy and they continue to rely heavily on US air power.

The Taliban on Wednesday urged Trump to withdraw all US troops.

They should not cause damage to their economy and their military in this failed war, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said of the American government in a statement.

Full coverage: US presidential election
British Muslims on Thursday expressed fears that Donald Trumps election as the next US President would lead to backlash against Muslims around the world.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said Trump must ensure his win does not pave the way for bigotry.

The people of the United States have clearly spoken and I congratulate Mr Trump. There is however, a justifiable concern about his election, said MCB secretary-general Harun Khan.

He added: It is hugely worrying that a man who has openly called for discrimination against Muslims and other minorities has become the leader of a superpower nation.

We hope the bombast and rhetoric we have seen from Mr Trump in the last few months gives way to a more reconciliatory approach.

The President-elect must demonstrate that his election is not a green light for bigotry for the rest of the world.

On the campaign trail, Trump had made the call for a total and complete shutdown of Americas borders to Muslims in December last year in the wake of the San Bernardino terror attack.

Meanwhile, it emerged that Trumps team has removed the statement on his website to ban all Muslims from the US.
US-backed forces pressed offensives on the Islamic State groups strongholds in Syria and Iraq, as an air strike by the American-led coalition reportedly killed 20 civilians near the Syrian city of Raqqa.

Supported by coalition air raids, Iraqi forces have pushed into ISs Mosul stronghold and a Kurdish-Arab militia alliance has been advancing on the jihadists de facto Syrian capital Raqqa.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday that a coalition strike overnight had hit the IS-held village of Al-Heisha, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Raqqa.

Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring group, said nine women and two children were among the 20 civilians killed and that 32 others had been wounded.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the militia alliance that Washington is supporting in the assault, denied the civilian deaths.

There is no such thing, and any such claims are IS news, SDF spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed told AFP.

Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, told AFP it appeared there had been strikes in the area.

After an initial assessment... the coalition confirms it did conduct strikes in the area described in the allegation, he said.

However, more specific information is needed to conclusively determine responsibility for civilian casualties.

The Observatory said the latest deaths brought the number of civilians killed since US-led air strikes in Syria began in September 2014 to 680, including 169 children.

Meanwhile the Pentagon said late Wednesday that US air strikes in both Syria and Iraq may have killed 119 civilians since 2014, a figure far lower than estimates by a number of monitoring groups.

We left everything behind

Some 200 families had fled Al-Heisha, according to an SDF official.

Daesh fighters brought heavy weapons to our village and stayed among us so that if there were strikes they would hit us, 45-year-old Saada al-Aboud said after fleeing the town, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

They wouldnt let us leave. We had to escape by running out into the fields, with our children and old people. What else could we do? We left everything behind.

The SDF launched the drive towards Raqqa on Saturday, upping pressure on the jihadists three weeks after Iraqi forces began their assault on Mosul.

Raqqa and Mosul are the last major cities in Syria and Iraq under IS control, after the jihadists suffered losses that greatly reduced the size of the self-styled caliphate they declared in mid-2014 following their seizure of large parts of both countries.

The US-led coalition, which launched its air campaign against IS two years ago, hopes that driving the group from the two cities will deal it a knockout blow.

The SDF has been pushing south from areas near the Turkish border towards Raqqa, seizing a string of villages and moving to positions about 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the city.

An AFP correspondent east of Ain Issa, the main staging point for the offensive, said coalition aircraft could be seen on Wednesday carrying out repeated air strikes in the distance and that IS fighters were shelling SDF positions.

Elsewhere in Syria, the Observatory said, eight civilians were killed in rebel rocket attacks on the Furqan and university districts of government-held western Aleppo, while state news agency SANA gave a death toll of six, with students among those killed.

Eight more civilians were killed Wednesday in air strikes on a village in Idlib province of northwest Syria, according to the Observatory.

42,000 forced from homes

In Iraq, an official said Tuesday that Kurdish peshmerga fighters had seized the town of Bashiqa near Mosul, which would be a final step in securing the eastern approaches to the city.

There were still pockets of resistance in the town, officials said, and an AFP correspondent in Bashiqa reported continued air strikes, gunfire and explosions.

The peshmerga and Iraqi federal forces have been advancing on Mosul from the north, east and south since October 17, and last week pushed into the citys eastern outskirts.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he hoped for enduring US support following Donald Trumps presidential election win.

We look forward to the continued support of the world and the United States in standing with Iraq in its confrontation with terrorism, Abadi said in a statement congratulating Trump.

Officials are warning of long and bloody battles ahead in Mosul and Raqqa, with IS expected to put up fierce resistance and to use trapped civilians as human shields.

More than a million people are believed to be in Mosul. Raqqa in 2011 had a pre-war population of some 240,000, and more than 80,000 people have since fled there from elsewhere in Syria.

The International Organization for Migration said Wednesday that nearly 42,000 people had fled their homes since the start of the Mosul operation.
A hand grenade was thrown outside the French Embassy in central Athens wounding a policeman early Thursday, police said, days before outgoing US President Barack Obama is due to visit the Greek capital.

Authorities said the policeman, who had been on guard outside the embassy, was wounded when unknown assailants threw a hand grenade outside the embassy building, located opposite Parliament on a major avenue.

Police shut down the area to vehicles and pedestrians for several hours while anti-terrorism forensics experts combed the scene for evidence.

The government condemned the attack and described it as an act of terrorism, adding that the police would track down the culprits.

The relations of friendship and solidarity between Greece and France cant be affected in the slightest by such terrorist acts, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said in a statement released by his office.

Greece has a history of domestic militants who periodically carry out bomb or shooting attacks against authorities, diplomatic locations or businesses. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursdays attack, and it was unclear why the French Embassy was targeted.

Police said the attack was apparently carried out by two people on a motorbike. A bike matching the description was later found in a central Athens neighbourhood popular with anarchists and was being examined to determine whether it was the one used in the attack.

Authorities said it appeared the policeman had only been slightly wounded because he had been inside an armoured guard post outside the embassy entrance.

The attack came days before Obama arrives in Athens on Nov. 15 for an expected overnight visit. Left-wing organizations have announced they will hold protests during Obamas stay.

The US has frequently been regarded with misgivings in Greece, in part because of Washingtons supportive stance during the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1967-1974.
Israel President Reuven Rivlins visit to India next week is expected to set the stage for Prime Minister Narendra Modis long-awaited trip to Tel Aviv sometime in 2017.

A visit by Prime Minister Modi will happen for sure, and it will be a very important one, Israel ambassador Daniel Carmon said on Thursday. Refusing to get into specifics, he said the Indian leaders visit will take place on the nearest possible date and during the relevant period.

India had been awaiting Rivlins visit to reciprocate President Pranab Mukherjees visit to Israel in October last year, the first by an Indian head of state. Israeli and Indian officials had indicated that Modi would travel to Israel once the presidents visit had been reciprocated.

President Pranab Mukherjee with President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a banquet at President House, Jerusalem in October last year. (PTI)

Carmons remark about a relevant period was an apparent reference to 2017, when the two countries will mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. Modi will be the first Indian premier to visit Israel.

During Rivlins visit, the two sides will sign 15 memorandums of understanding between universities to boost academic and research cooperation, Carmon said. The Israeli President will be accompanied by a large delegation of businessmen, including representatives of defence firms, and 12 chancellors of universities.

Rivlin will be the first Israeli head of state to visit India since early 1997, when Ezer Weizman had travelled to New Delhi and negotiated one of the first defence deals between the two countries. Since then Israel has emerged as one of the key suppliers of hi-tech military hardware to India.

In a bid to address the sensitivities of countries in the Arab world, minister of state for external affairs MJ Akbar visited Palestine this week to co-chair the first meeting of a bilateral joint commission.

Carmon was reluctant to get into the specifics of defence cooperation, saying it had progressed beyond a buyer-to-seller relationship to joint development of systems. Our defence cooperation is the type of cooperation which helps our relationship and is in the national interests of both sides, he said.

Israel was one of the first countries to adopt the Make in India programme and there are plans for joint ventures, he added.

Carmon also referred to cooperation in other areas such as water management and agriculture, noting that Israel is helping India set up 40 centres of excellence in agriculture in nine states. Fifteen of these centres are fully operational in states like Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, he said.

During his visit, Rivlin will meet Mukherjee, vice president Hamid Ansari, Modi and other government officials in Delhi. Rivlin will also travel to Mumbai and inaugurate the AgroTech conference in Chandigarh with Mukherjee.

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is to meet US president-elect Donald Trump next week in New York, officials said Thursday, after phone talks between the two following the billionaires shock election win.

Abe and Trump spoke for about 20 minutes and tentatively set a date of November 17 for the meeting, just before Abe goes to Peru for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, a Japanese foreign ministry official told AFP.

During his election campaign, Trump raised eyebrows in Japan by calling on the country to pay more to support the cost of stationing US forces.

He even suggested that Japan might want to become a nuclear power to counter unpredictable neighbour North Korea, which has repeatedly conducted nuclear and ballistic missile tests to international condemnations and prompting UN sanctions.

That statement shocked many in Japan, the only country in the world to be have been attacked with nuclear weapons.

A woman gives out extra editions of a newpaper reporting the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election in Tokyo on November 9. (AFP Photo)

Trump has also rejected the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal pushed by President Barack Obama and which Abe hopes his parliament will ratify soon.

Abe congratulated Trump soon after his victory on Wednesday, vowing that the countries would maintain their close relationship, calling them unshakeable allies.

During their phone talks, Abe talked about the importance of the bilateral relationship and the Japan-US alliance, which he stressed underpins the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region, the foreign ministry official said.

In response, Trump said he hoped to strengthen the US-Japan relationship further, the official said.

Trump also said he appreciated Abes economic policy and looked forward to working with him, she said.

She declined to elaborate on what else they discussed.

Read more| All the presidents men: Whos in line for a Trump cabinet spot?
Maureen Travis, one of the first employees of the Indian high commission in London after 1947 and who witnessed history in her years working with 25 high commissioners, died on Thursday

Travis was one of several British citizens employed in the high commission after Indias independence but over the years, until Thursday, Travis was the only Briton left. She was highly respected by the India House staff, who admired her quiet dedication to looking after the library, which has more than 20,000 books.

"We are saddened by this loss. She will be greatly missed by members of the high commission, Srinivas Gotru, director of the Nehru Centre, told Hindustan Times.

Travis, who was in her 90s, joined the high commission on September 6,1948. She hailed from Hampshire and had never visited India but always enjoyed the company of her Indian colleagues. For over 68 years, she worked from 11 am to 6 pm, five days a week.

The officers have been good to me. I remember VK Krishna Menon (Indias first high commissioner). He was charismatic, you either liked or disliked him very much. I admired him. During his time, he got us British employees to swear our loyalty to India, she told Hindustan Times in 2014.

Wistful about her long years in India House, Travis recalled how she continued in her job after reaching retirement age: "lt is through Salman Haidar (former envoy) that I am here now because when the time came in the late 1980s that I should be retired, he called me upstairs and said, 'Well now what are you going to do?' I said, 'I havent made any plans. Well, why dont you stay?' So I said, 'Okay, I will stay.

"And I have been ever since. I have spent a good part of my life here and I have been very happy. I love my job, it is wonderful. I like the research. I like helping people.

Travis could not bear the idea of computers and insisted on retaining the charm of an old-style card-based catalogue of books. She read every book in the library, most of them related to India, typed their details on a card, including a synopsis, and knew exactly where each book is shelved.

I am too old to go (to India) now. India has come to me (over the decades). Ive read so much about India, Travis, who attended cultural events in the Nehru Centre until recently, had said.

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A Louisiana college student was assaulted and robbed of her wallet and Muslim headscarf by two men, one of whom was wearing a white Trump hat, authorities said on Thursday.

The 18-year-old woman told investigators she was walking near the University of Louisiana at Lafayettes campus Wednesday morning  hours after Donald Trumps presidential victory  when she was accosted by two white men who drove up in a gray sedan, Lafayette police said in a statement.

The student said the men struck her with a metal object, knocking her down, and stole her wallet and the headscarf, known as a hijab. She also said the men shouted racial obscenities as they struck her several times in the back.

Police havent identified any suspects. The student declined medical treatment.

Lafayette police department spokesperson Cpl. Karl Ratcliff said investigators havent found witnesses or surveillance video to assist them.

Basically, all we have is her statement, Ratcliff said. At this point, theres not really much else we can do with it.

The universitys police department issued a statement notifying staff and students about the students reported attack. In a separate statement that didnt mention the incident, university president E. Joseph Savoie called for unity after a long, contentious presidential campaign.

With the election behind us, we must now concentrate on trying to find common ground that will enable us to move forward - together - as a nation, Savoie said.

Kareem Attia, a 23-year-old graduate student who is president of the universitys Muslim Student Association, said he didnt want to jump to any conclusions about whether the election results inspired the alleged attack.

I dont think thats proper, he said. But I will say a hate crime is a hate crime. Its not within our religion to accept it. Its not within our species of humans to accept that, either.
The battle for Iraqs second city Mosul neared the remains of ancient Nimrud on Thursday, the military said, raising fears for the famed heritage site already ravaged by jihadist bombs and sledgehammers.

Troops and allied militia were advancing on two villages held by the Islamic State group near the ancient site some 30km south of Mosul, the joint operations command said.

Units of the 9th Armoured Division and the Hashed al-Ashaeri (tribal militia) are beginning to advance to liberate the villages of Abbas Rajab and Al-Nomaniyah, toward Nimrud, it said.

Nimrud was the one of the great centres of the ancient Middle East. Founded in the 13th century BC, it became the capital of the Assyrian empire, whose rulers built vast palaces and monuments that have drawn archaeologists from around the world for more than 150 years.

Many of its monumental stone sculptures and reliefs were taken way for display in museums around the world but some of the more massive structures remained in place when the jihadists swept through in mid-2014.

In April last year, IS posted video on the internet of its fighters sledgehammering monuments before planting explosives around the site and blowing it up.

It was part of a campaign of destruction by the jihadists against heritage sites under their control that also took in ancient Nineveh on the outskirts of Mosul, Hatra in the desert to the south and Palmyra in neighbouring Syria,

IS says the ancient monuments are idols that violate the teachings of its extreme form of Sunni Islam.

But that has not stopped the group from trafficking artefacts it purports to revile on the black market to fund its operations.

It is unclear what still remains of Nimruds ancient ruins as Iraqi forces move closer.

But it is just one of a number of treasured heritage sites that are threatened with further damage by the offensive that the government launched on October 17 to retake Mosul, the jihadists last major stronghold in Iraq.

The area where ancient Hatra is located may see fighting between IS and pro-government militias who aim to retake the town of Tal Afar, which commands Mosuls western approaches.

Ancient Nineveh is also in the path of advancing troops.
By J. Keeler Johnson ("Keelerman") Twitter: @J_Keelerman

With the Breeders' Cup behind us, and with the end of the year less than two months away, it's time to start turning our attention to 2017 and begin analyzing the horses that could be poised to make a big impact next year. On Saturday, Aqueduct will host the $150,000 Discovery Handicap (gr. III), one of just two graded stakes races for three-year-old colts scheduled to be run before the end of the year. As a result, the race has drawn a deep field of talented horses that could develop into major stakes winners in 2017, following in the footsteps (or hoofprints!) of previous Discovery Handicap winners like Protonico, Redeemed, Haynesfield, and Left Bank. Let's take a look at the entries!

Discovery Handicap (gr. III)

Despite drawing a large field of eleven horses, the nine-furlong Discovery Handicap looks like a fairly paceless race; most of the horses do their best running from off the pace, and when you consider that this race hasn't unfolded at a fast pace since 2005, I think there's a good chance that this race will be won by a forwardly-placed runner.

In my opinion, the most likely candidate is Sticksstatelydude. He showed promise last year by placing fourth in the Breeders' Futurity (gr. I) behind Brody's Cause and Exaggerator, but was sidelined after that and did not run again until June 19th, when he finished second in a 6 -furlong allowance optional claiming race at Churchill Downs. But that turned out to be a strong race, as the victorious Threefiveindia came back to place in the Gallant Bob Stakes (gr. III) and Bold Ruler Handicap (gr. III) while third-place finisher Twizz won an Ellis Park allowance race in his next start.

With that comeback effort under his belt, Sticksstatelydude shipped to Belmont Park and turned in a huge effort in a one-mile allowance race, sprinting to the lead through fractions of :22.78, :45.43, and 1:09.18 before pulling away to win by 3  lengths in the time of 1:34.04, which was good enough for a Beyer speed figure of 103.

Since that race, Sticksstatelydude hasn't enjoyed the best of luck. In the Smarty Jones Stakes (gr. III), he endured a nightmare trip over a biased track, but ran surprisingly well under the circumstances to finish fourth. Just twenty days later, he contested the Oklahoma Derby (gr. III) and looked like a winner in the homestretch until the talented Texas Chrome got a perfect trip up the rail to win by half a length.

Sticksstatelydude has shown strong tactical speed throughout his career, and his big win earlier this year at Belmont, as well as his near-miss going nine furlongs in the Oklahoma Derby, suggests that he's got the talent to win a race like this. From post position four, he has options to take the lead if the pace is slow or concede the early advantage to Adulator if that rival shows speed from the rail post. With a good trip, I think Sticksstatelydude will be tough to beat.

Speaking of Adulator, he's been very competitive while facing older horses in allowance races this year, winning one and placing second in three others while defeating horses like Keen Ice and Stormin Monarcho. Last time out, he had the difficult task of trying to keep the speedy Wake Up in Malibu honest on the lead without getting tired out in a speed duel, and while he couldn't quite catch his rival, he closed ground late to finish just 1  lengths behind while well clear of the rest of the field. Drawing the rail could force Adulator's hand and require him to show more speed than usual, but in a race that doesn't have much pace on paper, that might not be a bad thing.

Two other horses that warrant a lot of respect are Gift Box and Governor Malibu, and I wouldn't underestimate either of them. Gift Box has never finished out of the superfecta and was a dominant winner of a 4 -length allowance optional claiming race on May 26th, in which he crushed a quality field that included recent Aqueduct allowance winner Realm. Gift Box has also been a capable performer in stakes races, finishing second in the Curlin Stakes behind future Pennsylvania Derby (gr. II) winner Connect and fourth in the Travers Stakes (gr. I) behind Arrogate, American Freedom, and Gun Runner. Gift Box didn't get the best of trips in the Travers and should be competitive while cutting back in distance and dropping in class for the Discovery Handicap.

As for Governor Malibu, he was fifth in the Travers but had previously finished second in the Peter Pan Stakes (gr. II) and Jim Dandy Stakes (gr. II), both at nine furlongs, and he also ran well when fourth in the Belmont Stakes (gr. I) despite a troubled trip. In his two most recent races, he's faced New York-bred older horses while racing on wet tracks and ran well in both, winning an allowance optional claiming race by 7  lengths before finishing second to the talented Royal Posse in the Empire Classic Handicap.

I think Governor Malibu has the talent to win a graded stakes race, but his off-the-pace running style could cause some trouble as he attempts to negotiate traffic and rally into what should be a modest pace. Since he'll likely be a short price, I think he could be one to place against in this race, at least for the top spot.

Now it's your turn! Who do you like in the Discovery Handicap?

*****

J. Keeler Johnson (also known as "Keelerman") is a writer, blogger, videographer, handicapper, and all-around horse racing enthusiast. A great fan of racing history, he considers Dr. Fager to be the greatest racehorse ever produced in America, but counts Zenyatta as his all-time favorite. He is the founder of the horse racing website www.theturfboard.com.
Not my President.

Not my President.

Not my President.

Not my President.

It had been 18-odd hours since Donald Trump was elected as the next president of the United States. And thousands of New Yorkers were outraged.

On Wednesday evening, all of us  Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, Americans and immigrants, queers and feminists  picketed Trump Tower, on fifth avenue in Manhattan.

There were people everywhere, for as far as you could see down the street. Some even climbed poles on the sidewalk sheds  possibly to see as far as they could down the street.

Protestors on a signpost shout slogans during a demonstration on 5th Avenue near Trump Tower on November 9, 2016 in New York. (AFP)

Unified chants of F*ck Trump; F*ck you, Donald, Love trumps hate, hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go, and Donald Trump, go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay filled the air.

But this was more than an anti-Trump protest. It was a display of New York Citys cultural diversity.

There were screams of Black lives matter, referring to the movement that campaigns against systemic violence towards African-Americans and Break the wall, challenging Trumps plan of building a wall to keep Mexicans out of America.

There were shouts of P*ssy grabs back, alluding to a recently leaked 2005 tape of Trump saying you can grab [women] by the p*ssy. There were chants of Muslims are not terrorists and Refugees, welcome.

Video | New Yorkers take out rallies against Trump

And most importantly, they challenged the slogan of Trumps campaign, Make America Great Again by casually screaming, America was never great.

We were cheering now, but until a few hours ago, this crowd had been in mourning.

A few minutes after 5pm, a few hundred people gathered at Union Square, a historic landmark for demonstrations. It began with dissonance: someone blamed Hillary Clinton, someone eulogized about Bernie Sanders, a young woman told us that she was planning to have a bay this year  but will not, not in this political environment. There were lots of tears.

Within the hour, the crowd doubled, maybe tripled. There were speeches  about the failure of the system, the failure of the Democratic party and the absence of the Left in American Politics.

A protestor holds a placard during in a demonstration on 5th Avenue across from Trump Tower on November 9, 2016 in New York. (AFP)

People poured in by the thousands, the police was everywhere. It was raining. The idea that we should all march through midtown Manhattan  all the way to Trump Tower, 40 blocks away  for some three-odd kilometers sounded ludicrous. The cops wanted us all on the sidewalks.

But we took to the streets.

Whose streets?

Our streets.

For ninety minutes, thousands of us walked, skipped, hopped and  at one point  ran along the way. Human chains of protestors stopped the traffic to let us pass. Buses, cabs and cars honked to the tune of the slogans. People, stuck in traffic, emerged from the sun roofs of their cars to join in the cheering, others flashed the peace V-sign, most took pictures. There were no snarly comments about the blocked roads. Instead, there was support from the sidewalks and the stores. Tourists and New Yorkers joined in the sloganeering, even if they didnt join in the march.

A protestor holds a placard during in a demonstration on 5th Avenue across from Trump Tower on November 9, 2016 in New York. (AFP)

Groups of people walked holding hands. The signs ranged from End Rape Culture to America Needs a Hug. Some people waved rainbow flags (showing support from the queer community), some carried bunches of flowers (a symbol of anti-Vietnam War protest in the 1970s). Some just held up their middle fingers to the Trump Tower.

In case they hadnt made it clear already, they spelled out their message to Donald Trump, a native New Yorker: New York Hates You, they said, over and over again.

(The author is a former journalist with Hindustan Times. She is now a student of Columbia Journalism School. )
Pakistani foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz says his country would like to work with US President-elect Donald Trump on the common interest of combatting terrorism.

In an interview with Pakistans Geo News channel Thursday, he says that helping negotiate a political settlement in Afghanistan is another area where the two countries could work together.

The US president-elect has publicly criticized Pakistan in the past for battling some Islamic militant groups while tolerating others.

Aziz acknowledged that perception, but said such policies were in the past.

Local and al-Qaida linked Islamic militants who have had long used Pakistans lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border as safe havens. The Afghan government frequently accuses Islamabad of sheltering the senior leadership of the Taliban.
Russias security service said Thursday it had detained several people in Crimea, accusing them of being saboteurs sent by Kiev to the Moscow-annexed peninsula to attack infrastructure targets.

Russias FSB security service on Wednesday detained members of a sabotage-terrorist group from the main intelligence directorate of the Ukrainian defence ministry, it said in a statement.

The group planned to carry out acts of sabotage on objects of military and public infrastructure, and had in its possession powerful explosive devices, weapons, ammunition and communication equipment, the FSB said.

Ukraines defence ministry dismissed the allegations in a statement on its website, calling them yet another fake report aimed at discrediting Kiev and covering up repressive actions against Crimeans critical of Moscow rule.

Moscow seized and annexed the Black Sea peninsula in 2014 and effectively made it part of Russian territory despite an outcry from the international community which was followed by sanctions.

Earlier this year, the FSB announced that it had thwarted terrorist attacks in Crimea, and Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered additional security measures.

Ukraine has dismissed the accusations of plotting attacks as fantasies concocted by Moscow to boost its military buildup and create a pretext for threatening Kiev.

Kiev is still fighting a pro-Russian insurgency in the eastern regions of Lugansk and Donetsk, parts of which have declared independence. Nearly 10,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted in April 2014.
After weathering scandals that would have ended most political careers, South Africas President Jacob Zuma secured a resounding victory on Thursday in a no-confidence vote against him in parliament.

The 214-126 result means Zuma has survived six votes of no-confidence since 2010 thanks to the ANC partys large parliamentary majority.

But the heated debate before the vote drew further attention to his mounting troubles after a year of setbacks and humiliating court rulings.

Homestead scandal

The multi-million dollar graft scandal stands out as one of the biggest blights on Zumas presidency after he was found to have benefitted from taxpayer-funded upgrades to Nkandla, his private rural homestead.

A probe by the public watchdog revealed that the upgrades included a litany of non-security renovations, including a swimming pool and chicken coop.

On March 31 this year, the scandal came to a dramatic climax when the Constitutional Court found the president guilty of violating his oath of office by refusing to pay back the money.

Defeated in court and facing mounting public criticism, he relented and paid $542,000 (500,000 euros), a sum set by the treasury.

783 fraud charges

A high court ruling on June 24 dealt Zuma another heavy blow when it rejected his application to appeal against a decision to reinstate nearly 800 corruption charges that were dropped in 2009.

The 783 criminal charges relate to allegations of corruption, racketeering and money laundering over a multi-billion dollar arms procurement deal by the government in the late 1990s.

The dropping of the charges paved the way for him to become president of the ANC and, soon afterwards, to take power nationally following elections.

The main opposition Democratic Alliance party has pushed for the charges to be reinstated, with more court hearings expected soon.

Election setback

Under Zumas leadership, the ANC suffered a major election humiliation in municipal elections on August 3, losing control of three cities, including the administrative capital Pretoria and the economic hub Johannesburg.

The ANC, in power nationally since 1994, recorded 53 percent of the votes -- still easily the biggest party -- as opposition parties made significant gains.

Factionalism under Zuma was blamed for the poor showing at the polls, which could point to deeper trouble at the next general election in 2019.

The ANC has been accused of losing touch with the masses, with the government failing to tackle high unemployment, corruption and slowing economic growth.

Bought by a family?

On November 2, a much-awaited report was released probing links between Zuma and the politically-connected Gupta business family. It detailed damaging allegations of their influence over his government.

Zuma was quizzed by the watchdog over the accusations and he then went to court to try to block the reports release.

His lawyers abandoned his legal fight in a dramatic U-turn, and the report was unveiled. It ordered a judicial investigation into alleged graft and possible criminal activity.

The report -- including accounts of bribes and suggestions that Zuma had broken the executive ethics law -- led to unprecedented calls from within the ANC for him to resign.
A billionaire Saudi prince has congratulated US president-elect Donald Trump after previously calling him a disgrace who should have pulled out of the race.

President elect @realDonaldTrump whatever the past differences, America has spoken, congratulations & best wishes for your presidency, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said on his official Twitter account, after US election results on Wednesday confirmed Trumps unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton.

Alwaleed is an unusually outspoken member of the Saudi royal family who chairs Kingdom Holding Co. The diversified firms interests include US-based giants Citigroup and Time Warner.

Late last year Alwaleed took exception to what his office called Trumps anti-Islam statement, a proposal that all Muslims should be temporarily barred from entering the United States.

You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America, Alwaleed tweeted to Trump, referring to the Republican Party.

Withdraw from the US presidential race as you will never win.

Trump hit back, also on Twitter.

Dopey Prince Alwaleed Talal wants to control our US politicians with daddys money. Cant do it when I get elected, he wrote at the time.

Trump later modified his stance on Muslims to urge an immigration ban from countries with a proven history of terrorism and for extreme vetting of immigrants.
Global police cooperation agency Interpol elected a senior Chinese public security official as president, Chinese state media said on Thursday, in what could be a boost to Beijings domestic anti-graft crackdown.

The move hands China another leading spot on an international agency and will likely help facilitate its high-profile efforts to track down Chinese fugitive officials who have fled the country.

Vice-public security minister Meng Hongwei was chosen for a four-year term at the agencys 85th members meeting in Indonesia, the official Xinhua news agency said.

He is the first Chinese official to take the post, Xinhua said. His predecessor was Mireille Ballestrazzi from France.

China has worked bilaterally with countries around the world, and through the France-based organisation, to chase down Chinese suspects as part of President Xi Jinpings sweeping campaign against corruption.

In 2014, China issued an Interpol red notice, the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant, for its 100 most-wanted corruption suspects who have fled overseas. It has said it has brought back at least one-third of them so far.

China has been seeking more international cooperation to hunt down suspected fugitives since Xi began the drive against deeply rooted graft about four years ago.

Western countries, however, have been reluctant to help, or to sign extradition treaties, not wanting to send people back to a country where rights groups say mistreatment of criminal suspects remains a problem. They also complain China is unwilling to provide proof of their crimes.

Critics have also said Xis graft crackdown is as much about taking action against his political enemies as it is about going after corruption, accusations the government strongly denies.

Duan Daqi, a Chinese national, is currently an Interpol vice president whose term ends in 2018.

Other Chinese nationals have previously served in senior positions in world organisations, including Zhu Min, who was deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund from 2011 to 2016.

Justin Lin, also known as Lin Yifu, served as chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank from 2008 to 2012, and Margaret Chan, a resident of Hong Kong which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, is director-general of the World Health Organisation.
Su Shan and her partner are raising 5-month-old twins together, but only one of the women is their legal parent. That could soon change as Taiwan appears set to become the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.

Now, if something happens to the child, the other partner is nothing but a stranger, said Su, a 35-year-old software engineer in Taipei. By contrast, either partner in a legally recognized marriage could make legal, medical and educational decisions, she says.

Taiwanese lawmakers are currently working on three bills in support of marriage equality, one of which is already listed for review and could be passed within months. Same-sex marriage also has the prominent support of President Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwans first female head of state.

About 80 percent of Taiwanese between ages 20 and 29 support same-sex marriage, said Tseng Yen-jung, spokeswoman for the group Taiwan LGBT Family Rights Advocacy , citing local university studies. Taiwans United Daily News found in a survey taken four years ago that 55 percent of the public supported same-sex marriage, with 37 percent opposed.

A participant holds a placard during a gay and lesbian parade in Taipei, Taiwan (AP File Photo)

Thats seen as a reflection of Taiwans ready acceptance of multi-party democracy and other inclusive attitudes, as well as the fact that Taiwans 23 million people largely follow Buddhism and traditional Chinese religions that take no strong positions on sexual orientation or gay marriage.

Gay and lesbian relationships began to find wide acceptance in the 1990s, aided by the already well-established feminist movement, said Jens Damm, associate Professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Studies at Chang Jung University in Taiwan.

The elite became in favor of a kind of gender equality, Damm said.

Still, same-sex marriage still had to overcome traditional perceptions of gender roles and the strong pressure on children to marry and have kids. The self-ruled island also lacks many openly gay and lesbian celebrities to lead the way; the writer and television talk show host Kevin Tsai is among the few exceptions.

Taiwan would join Canada, Colombia, Ireland, the United States and 16 other countries that have legalized same-sex marriage over the past 15 years, according to the Washington, D.C.-based LGBT rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign . But it would be a notable exception among Asian and Middle Eastern countries, at least 20 of which continue to ban same-sex intercourse.

Its a big step forward for the history of human rights, said Yu Mei-nu, a ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker who is sponsoring the same-sex marriage bill now in line for parliamentary debate. If Taiwan can get this passed ... it will give other Asian countries a model.

Taiwans Justice Ministry has not backed a specific bill, but pledged on its website last month to maintain an attitude of openness toward same-sex marriage. President Tsai said as recently as October that she supports same-sex marriage.

Domestic gays and lesbians have also formed an effective lobby in recent years. An annual Gay Pride march in Taipei last month drew tens of thousands of people, many pushing for gay marriage. About 100 people have separately formed a group pushing for the cause.

For Log Chen, a Tarot card fortune teller in Taipei, legalized marriage would mean she and her partner of three years could make future plans with more confidence.

In case something happens to my partner, I will not be left with nothing, Chen, 32, said.

Chalynn Hsueh, left, and Log Chen speak during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press in Taipei, Taiwan. (AP File)

While practical issues such as sharing assets and medical benefits are motivating factors, simple love and respect are also a strong impetus, said Jay Lin, founder and director of the Taiwan International Queer Film Festival.

There are lots of people who have been loving and committed to each other for decades and theyd like to put a ring around their finger, said the father of 4-month-old twin boys, who said he would consider marrying his partner.

Still, as legalization grows closer, opposition to same-sex marriage is hardening among a small minority of fundamentalist churches and conservative politicians. That includes some members of the main opposition Nationalist Partys Central Standing Committee, party spokesman Hu Wen-chi said.

During their time in power, the Nationalists stopped earlier efforts to pass same-sex marriage bills, including one introduced in 2013 that met opposition from Christian groups that gathered signatures from about 400,000 naysayers.

Legalizing same-sex marriages would burden Taiwans welfare system and be tough on children, said Chen Chih-hung, chairman of the year-old political party Faith And Hope League, which has no seats in parliament.

The death of a same-sex spouse would leave the survivor dependent on government support as many couples would not have children to support them in old age, Chen said. Children of such couples would find it difficult to socialize with children from more mainstream families, he said, although that argument has been refuted by many social scientists.

Su, the software engineer, said she and her partner, also 35, find little sign of such concerns among the people they meet. Most Taiwanese are highly accepting of their relationship and their right to raise children, she says.

We go to the market with our kids and people say how cute, she said. When they find there are two mamas, they feel intrigued. Maybe they have seen news about this type of family but dont have friends near them who are doing it.
The Pentagon said Wednesday that US air strikes in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State group may have killed 119 civilians since 2014, a figure far lower than casualty estimates by monitoring groups.

The figures released by Centcom, the US military command in the Middle East, came from a months-long review of reports and databases, it said, adding that the deaths and injuries stemmed from 24 air strikes.

London-based NGO Airways estimates coalition bombing has killed 1,787 civilians since the air campaign to destroy the Islamic State group began in August 2014.

We have teams who work full time to prevent unintended civilian casualties, Colonel John Thomas was quoted as saying in the Centcom statement.

We do all we can to minimize those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time.

The Pentagons investigation found that in each of these strikes the right processes were followed; each complied with Law of Armed Conflict and significant precautions were taken, despite the unfortunate outcome, Thomas said.

The United States, which carries out 80 percent of the coalition bombing, says it uses precision-guided munitions that limit civilian casualties.

Meanwhile Russia is accused of using conventional bombs that are much more deadly to civilian populations.

Amnesty International estimates that there have been at least 300 civilian victims in Syria alone from coalition strikes.

The number of casualties has risen sharply since the start of the coalitions campaign in late 2015 to lay the groundwork to take back IS strongholds in Mosul, Iraq and Raqa, Syria.
From the world of J.K. Rowling's book series comes the movies "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" and "Fantastic Beasts 2" with Johnny Depp in both the movies, according to reports.

The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Depp will be seen in a cameo role in the first movie, which will be released on Nov. 18. However, in the second Fantastic Beasts movie, he will have a meatier role as Grindelwald.

As The Leaky Cauldron reported, David Yates explained his reasons behind casting Johnny Depp. He said he has to go for the best actor and who is most inspired, interesting and fit for the character.

When they came around the character of Grindelwald, they believed Depp is the right one. Yates stated that Depp is fearless, imaginative and ambitious, and they are waiting to see what he will do with this role.

Praising Depp's artistic ability, Yates further said that Johnny Depp is a real artist and a brilliant actor. His movie characters have always been very popular.

For his part, David Heyman added, "Grindelwald is an iconic character, so it was important to have someone who had that weight. There's a reason why he has that weight. It's because, you know, he's (Johnny Depp) a fine actor who makes unexpected choices."

Yates and Heyman also announced that there will be a comeback of Dumbledore in the second Fantastic Beasts movie. Although, casting for the role hasn't been finalized yet.

The second movie will be shot primarily in Europe. Yates confirmed the news saying that the shooting will be done in U.K. and Paris.

However, he is not sure where rests of the Fantastic Beasts movies are taking place.

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The government was hiding a lot of things related to aliens with sources revealing that the agency tasked to investigate it has not even revealed half the truth to the public.

According to Malcolm Robinson, an expert in UFO and paranormal experiences, he has two marvelous UFO photographs in Scotland.

Robinson, who also founded Scotland's Strange Phenomena Investigations society in 1979, claimed that the ministry of defense has operated a UFO for 30 long years until it stopped in 2009.

The reason for the termination of the project is that the agency was allegedly not generating helpful output to the country's defense and their staff was re-assigned to more important activities, per Daily Mail.

The files from the last two years of the project are publicly available to the National Archives website. Those files contained 25 findings in over 4,400 pages. On one page, two young boys from Staffordshire were quoted saying, "We want you, come with us," came out from a lemon-shaped head.

From a recorded sighting, there are sketches of UFO. Some of those include the portrayal of the lightings and its colors from an unidentified spacecraft.

Robinson urged the government to launch investigations to various UFO sightings, which includes cold case police files from Bonnybridge in Scotland. At least 300 sightings were revealed.

Robinson said the ministry of defense has slowly released the files about the UFO sightings in the UK. He believed that the facts about UFO should be revealed to the public.

Robinson has many paranormal experiences including being slapped by a ghost and being shouted by a ghost to get out of the ghost's house.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
As for Kate Middleton, it shouldnt be surprising that she would want to have a third child. Back in September, she reportedly said that she and her husband want to expand their family.

According to reports, Kate Middleton and Prince William while they dont have a specific date in mind, they are hoping sooner rather than later. Interesting thing is that Us Weekly reported that Prince William and his wife were looking at Christmas as a nice holiday for her to become pregnant.

On the other hand, back in July, reports indicated that Kate Middleton was four months pregnant and probably should give birth around the holidays.

If thats true, that is the great thing for the royal couple but can cause a bit of a problem for Kate sisters wedding. So, Middletons alleged pregnancy could be the possible reason for conflict with Pippa.

As we know, Kate has decided that she wont be Pippas maid of honor. Its really strange decision given that Pippa was her maid of honor at her wedding. So, it looks like those speculations that Kate has plans for baby number three are maybe true.

Even more, according to People magazine, which spoke to Royal expert, Jude Wade, reported that Kate didnt want to dazzle her sister. Its a tricky situation for Pippa. She would want her sister by her side, as who else would she trust to make things go well?

As for Kate Middleton being pregnant, new reports reveal that the royal couple is expecting another little boy. Judging by those reports, she wore a blue Mulberry coat while visiting the Nelson Trust Womens Center in Gloucestershire. There are people which have their speculations about how the color of her outfit is proof that Kate is expecting a boy.

During the visit, Middletons interaction with children was noticeable. The mother of Princess Charlotte and Prince George was clearly enthusiastic when accepting flowers from a young girl and while meeting a baby boy.

It is noted the Duchess of Cambridges maternal instincts appeared to be in high gear causing additional speculation about another Royal baby.

On the other hand, there are rumors that Kate Middleton is expecting another girl and that she plans to name her Diana after Prince Williams late mother, Princess Diana.

Kate knows how much Diana meant to William and indeed, the citizens of England. It will be the perfect way to show their affection for such a beloved icon.

Prince William nor Kate Middleton have confirmed the pregnancy yet. Do you think Kate Middleton is pregnant?

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A paranormal investigator claimed that the British government is hiding the truth about UFOs and aliens. There have been hundreds of UFO sightings across the continents and the United Kingdom is just one of the countries known as a UFO hotspot.

The founder of the Strange Phenomena Investigations that is responsible for carrying out UFO and Paranormal Research, Malcolm Robinson, has recently revealed that the former Ministry of Defense (MoD) has disclosed several cold case police files from Bonnybridge showing evidence of at least 300 UFO sightings at UK's own "Area 51".

The United Kingdom also has its own Area 51 just like in the U.S. This Area 51 is allegedly considered as a secret military base where the remains of the UFO space crafts are stored. According to a report published by TIME Magazine, UK possibly houses a top secret facility which is similar to Area 51 that stores evidences about UFO and alien sightings.

According to the reports, Malcolm has already submitted the case files about UFO sightings to the former British Prime Minister, David Cameron. He has also requested the government to launch a formal inquiry about extraterrestrial sightings. However, the request was ignored.

The Mystery behind Area 51

In 2013, CNN reported that the Central Intelligence Agency has finally admitted that the Area 51 in Las Vegas, Nevada in the United States is storing debris of extraterrestrial aircraft. And on 2014, the former Area 51 scientist, Boyd Bushman has exposed the evidence of aliens and UFOs before his last breath.

Now, it is not just the United States that stores UFO and aliens evidence. According to Robinson, the governments including Britain had covered up many sightings and files about UFOs and aliens. He claimed that the manager of the defunct UFO desk, Nick Pope have lots of evidence, but refused to divulge half of it to the world.

UFO Department and Hotline was Shut Down

In 2009, the UFO department and hotline were closed because it no longer served its defense purpose. Documents were taken away and were later revealed from the Freedom of Information. Mr. Robinson said that the Ministry of Defence has slowly unveiled the government files about UFO sightings in the UK.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
CHAMBERSBURG  Franklin County District Attorney Matthew Fogal issued a news release, calling actions by officers in last weeks police-involved shooting at Chambersburg Hospital absolutely and unequivocally justified under the circumstances.

A patient, armed with a knife, threatened to kill hospital staff last Thursday before he attacked law enforcement officers, authorities said.

Police identified the patient as 64-year-old Dennis Kirk.

Kirks behavior prompted several code greens at the hospital, which designates violent behavior.

He was under constant supervision given that he was prone to falls. The nurse assigned to supervising him last Thursday morning was threatened when Kirk become agitated, believing he was being properly detained, according to a release.

Kirk pulled out two knives and moved toward the nurse with the tip of one of the knives facing himself, investigators said.

The nurse left the room safely while other staff called for a code green. Kirk was kept in his room by staff.

Two deputy sheriffs from the Franklin County Sheriffs Office were already in the hospital and responded to the incident. They allege that Kirk shouted expletives and told them to Come in here and die.

Four police officers from the Chambersburg Police Department then arrived, authorities said. Kirk continued to respond with expletives and called the officers pigs. As he walked away from the door and to the far end of the room, officers entered and used a Taser.

A release states the Taser was unable to penetrate Kirks leather coat he was wearing. Another Taser was used as officers demanded Kirk to put down the knives and get on the ground. As he continued towards the officers, Kirk was again subject to another Taser deployment.

Once Kirk moved close enough to make contact with an officers arm, another officer fired two rounds from his firearm.

Hospital staff treated Kirk right away, but he died of his gunshot wounds.

Fogals news release, issued Wednesday, included the following reasoning behind the justification of the fatal shooting:

Every citizen is permitted to use force to prevent injury to themselves and others, and every citizen is even permitted to use deadly force to prevent the death or serious bodily injury of themselves or others. Police officers are certainly likewise permitted to use deadly force under the same circumstances as every other citizen. Here the use of deadly force was not only permitted, it was necessary in order to protect another from being stabbed. Certainly, no one delights in taking the life of another, but the actions of all of these law enforcement officers were utterly reasonable, appropriate and correct. Given the real threat that the deceased voiced and later attempted to act upon, I am very happy that no officers were injured or worse. Our community has been once again reminded of the perils and risks our law enforcement officers undertake every single day when they go to work. Their selfless service and dedication to protecting all of us deserves our respect and admiration.

No other patients, visitors or staff members were injured.
R ental rates in London are finally showing signs of cooling down, with room rates up by just two per cent in the past year, compared to the seven per cent hike recorded between 2014 and 2015.

However, the capital is still the most expensive city to rent a room in the UK, now costing an average of 741 a month, according to the latest London Rental Index from SpareRoom.co.uk.

Nervousness surrounding Brexit has no doubt played a part, but the two per cent growth in rents reflects an issue even closer to home - Londoners simply cant afford to keep paying more," says Spareroom's Matt Hutchinson.

Rents have fallen by an average of one per cent in London's most expensive areas - east central and west London postcodes, including St Pauls, Holland Park, Chelsea and West Brompton - where room rents continue to top 1,000 a month.

It's little surprise that the cheapest areas are located in the up-and-coming areas on the fringes of the city - south east London's Thamesmead and Abbey Wood, east London's Manor Park and north London's Edmonton, where room rents average under 550 a month.

At almost half the central London room rent rates, prices in these areas are not expected to remain stable for long.

Anyone hoping to nab a bargain in the relatively affordable areas of East and South East London needs to move fast," advises Hutchinson.

"Although theres currently a high supply of rooms, rents are starting to increase far more quickly in these areas, with nine per cent increases in West Norwood (617) and a 10 per cent increase in East Ham (566)."

With almost half of London's total room supply found in east London, it's one of the least competitive areas to find a room - with just three people looking for every room available, compared to the London average of five.

Follow Lizzie Rivera on Twitter @LizzieRivs
Could a resolution be the key in solving Carlisles argument over the necessity of the proposed anti-discrimination ordinance?

Carlisle Borough Councilman Perry Heath thinks so, and thats why he recently proposed a resolution after the ordinance was first introduced during a June Employee Relations and Citizen Participation Committee meeting.

The purpose is to make a statement, and that statement is that the borough of Carlisle is inclusive, its diverse, its tolerant, its respectful, and it is the place all of us call home, Heath said. Its a statement of what the community is and what it stands for.

Heath believes that a resolution, rather than a borough-enforced ordinance, is a better solution in addressing the situation at hand one of much controversy and a seeming split in the community on whether an ordinance protecting the rights of those in the LGBTQ community, which would also create a human rights commission, is necessary.

For Heath, his stance against the ordinance is based not in opposition to those in the LGBTQ community, but in the enforcement of the ordinance if it were to be passed and possible unforeseen consequences.

It does not give respect to freedom of conscience and independent thinking. In my view, this proposed ordinance actually creates another discriminated-against class: those who believe otherwise about the LGBTQ community are now, in the proposed ordinance, being forced to accept things they dont believe in, he said. Thats my whole problem with the ordinance, the enforcement provisions that say this is how you must think, act.

The resolution accommodates all people.

Instead of a borough-created Human Rights Commission, Heath believes that the states HRC should handle such matters.

The Pennsylvania HRC is empowered, by the 1955 Human Rights Act, to hear and adjudicate allegations of discrimination based on a number of factors, including race, religion and gender. This power has been interpreted to include gender presentation and sexuality, although it is not explicitly stated as such.

Heath will present his resolution for a vote to move the item onto the December agenda for Carlisle Borough Council. So far, he said hes received positive feedback on the resolution from residents.
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A 20.1% year-on-year increase in profit per room in September helped Cairo hoteliers to achieve a 39.8% increase in profit for Q3 2016, according to the latest data from HotStats.

A 20.1% year-on-year increase in profit per room in September helped Cairo hoteliers to achieve a 39.8% increase in profit for Q3 2016, according to the latest data from HotStats.

Having recovered quickly from the downturn in hotel performance in June, further to the May attack on police outside the city, Q3 2016 has been a particularly positive period for Cairo hoteliers. A 16.3% year-on-year increase in occupancy, in addition to a 4.6% uplift in achieved average room rate, fuelled a 36.9% increase in RevPAR (Revenue per Available Room), to $87.10.

Whilst the market mix of hotels in Cairo has remained broadly in line with historic levels, significant rate growth has been recorded across segments typically associated with major conferences and events in the city, including Best Available Rate (+28.9%) and Residential Conference (+77.4%).

Key events during September, including the 30th International Sahara Expo at the Cairo International Conference Centre, as well as the Euromoney Egypt Conference, which alone attracted 900 delegates to the city, helped drive demand and enabled hotel management to leverage price.

Despite cost increases in payroll (+17.2%) and overheads (+13.5%) on a per available room basis, a 19.4% increase in TRevPAR (Total Revenue per Available Room) was successfully converted to a 20.1% increase in profit per room for the month to $72.57.

Change of Strategy for Dubai Hotels Brings Return to Profit Growth

A change in strategy has enabled a change in fortune for hotels in Dubai as a 0.4% increase in profit per room in September contributed to a positive period of year-on-year profit growth in Q3 2016.

Further to the 13.0% year-on-year decline in profit per room in H1 2016, as a result of an 11.3% drop in RevPAR due to declines in both occupancy (-3.2 percentage points) and achieved average room rate (-7.8%), Dubai hotels have reduced rates to drive volume and are cutting costs to grow profit in Q3.

As a result, in the last three months profit per room at hotels in Dubai has increased by 7.8% to $62.14. And whilst achieved average room rate in the city has continued to decline, by 6.5%, a 5.3 percentage point increase in occupancy enabled a 0.6% RevPAR increase.

A 3.0% reduction in payroll as well as a 0.1% saving in overheads on a per available room basis were critical to achieve the profit per room increase for Q3 2016. Despite the growth, profit conversion at Dubai hotels remains low at just 27.8% of total revenue.

September Profit Drop Marks Abrupt End to Positive Summer of Performance for Jeddah Hotels

The positive period of operation enjoyed by hotels in Jeddah during the summer came to an abrupt end in September as year-on-year profit levels dropped by 11.0% on the back of a 9.2% fall in TrevPAR to $367.43.

Hotels in Jeddah enjoyed a strong period of operation from May to August 2016, with RevPAR increasing by an average of 23.5% year-on-year over the four-month period, contributing to a 26.3% increase in profit per room. The growth over the summer was, in part, fuelled by the Jeddah Ghair, the annual festival which attracts more than one million visitors to the city.

However, at 73.6% in September, occupancy levels in the Saudi city were 10.1 percentage points below the same period in 2015, but also 9.9 percentage points below the average achieved during the four-month summer period, at 83.5%.

The drop in revenue from ancillary departments, including Food and Beverage (-13.3%) and Conference and Banqueting (-28.2%) on a per available room basis, also contributed to the drop in top and bottom line performance.

Click here ( Adobe Acrobat PDF file) to view full the report.



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Our unique profit and loss benchmarking service which enables monthly comparison of hotels performance against their competitors. It is distinguished by the fact that it provides in excess of 100 performance metric comparisons covering 70 areas of hotel revenue, cost, profit and statistics providing far deeper insight into the hotel operation than any other tool.

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[Update: Bernie Sanders has released an official statement on his Facebook page]

After polite messages of peace from Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and even Elizabeth Warren, one major player in this past presidential election has not given Donald Trump a pat on the back for a race well played. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who came around to supporting Hillary Clinton after a brutally fought primary season, is no fan of Donald Trump, and apparently, he wont pretend to be one either.

In response to the Trump victory, one of Bernie Sanderss top advisors told CNN: We have nothing polite to say right now. See that video below.

In other news, top Sanders surrogate Ugly God has reminded America on Twitter not to lose hope. Peep his tweet to the people below.

Bernie Sanders
Massachusetts, Nevada, Maine and California have all said "yes" to its recreational use.

Along with Donald Trump, Tuesdays big winner in the United States was the marijuana industry.

Courtesy of referenda attached to the Presidential ballot, recreational marijuana is now legal in Massachusetts, Nevada, Maine and California, the sixth largest economy in the world, where Proposition 64 was supported by 56% of voters.

They join Washington D.C., Colorado, Alaska, Oregon and Washington state in allowing anyone over the age of 18 to freely smoke pot.

Saying yes to medicinal marijuana were Florida, Arkansas, North Dakota and Maine. The only fly in the marijuana ointment was in Arizona where Proposition 205 to legalise across the board was defeated 52.2%-47.8%.

I am celebrating with the folk and states that have legalised medicinal marijuana, which is a wonderful thing for particular people, enthused Whoopi Goldberg on ABC. There might have been states that had fun marijuana thats a whole other thing! Its a very big deal because it makes it easier for a lot of families with children who have issues.

We are very excited that citizens of California voted to end the failed policy of marijuana prohibition, reflects Nate Bradley, executive director of the California Cannabis Industry Association. Proposition 64 will allow California to take its rightful place as the centre of cannabis innovation, research and development.

FBI figures show that 643,000 people were arrested for marijuana offences in 2015, with over 12,000 people currently residing in federal prisons having been found guilty of either possession or supply.

Id separate out the issue of decriminalisation of marijuana from encouraging its use, President Obama said last year. There is no doubt that our criminal justice system generally is so heavily skewed toward cracking down on nonviolent drug offenders that it has not just had a terrible effect on many communities, particularly communities of colour, rendering a lot of folks unemployable because they got felony records, disproportionate prison sentences. It costs a huge amount of money to states. And a lot of states are starting to figure that out.

In Washington state, where theres 37% excise on marijuana, theyre expecting to raise over $250 million dollars this year in taxes, with a large chunk of the money earmarked for the public school system.

So mainstream and respectable has it become that that the NFL Players Association are considering marijuana as a pain-management mechanism.

In Colorado, a state with a similar population to Ireland, the marijuana industry is worth over $1 billion a year with $140 million likely to go in to the public coffers in 2016 as a result.

Theres been no evidence of negative effects, with addiction to hard drugs down in a couple of states and no increase in people driving under the influence of marijuana.

In light of the promises he made this week to Vera Twomey in relation to her six-year-old daughter, Ava Barry, who has a catastrophic form of epilepsy, the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, should get himself on a plane to Denver pronto and see how it should be done.
There I was in the pub, not minding my own business. Nope, instead Id fallen into conversation with three strangers. One, a young woman in her first year at UCD and an avid reader of this fine publication, recognised me and the talk turned, as it often does, to sex and sexuality.

Laura described herself as a hetero-romantic bisexual, to which I had two reactions. The first was snap because thats how I identify too; the other was the wish that Id been that clued up in my early twenties  hell, my late twenties even!

At various points in my life I have described myself as either straight or bi. This wasnt an example of sexual fluidity  merely confusion. I didnt have the vocabulary to define exactly what my sexual orientation was. Eventually, I decided to throw my lot in with Team Straight. This seemed easier and, lets be honest, its generally been a whole lot more socially acceptable. But more importantly, the vast majority of my relationships had been with men, and I knew that if I was going to get into anything committed, it was almost certainly going to be with a man. Thats what hetero-romantic means.
There was an Irish winner tonight, as the novel Solar Bones found favour with the judges, in an award which aims to reward genuine innovation...

The Irish writer Mike McCormack has won the Goldsmiths Prize for his novel Solar Bones. The announcement was made tonight

The Prize was established in 2013, to celebrate the qualities of creative daring associated with Goldsmiths University and to reward fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form. The annual prize, which is run by Goldsmiths in association with New Statesman, is worth 10,000 and is awarded to a book that is deemed genuinely novel' and which embodies "the spirit of invention that characterises the genre at its best."

A unique work which is well deserving of the prize, Solar Bones was written in a single novel length sentence. The work was praised by the judges for its "remarkable narrative which unfolds in one unbroken sentence and as a formally innovative novel which is also a moving and compelling read. It follows the stream-of-consciousness recollections of a man named Marcus Conway, a middle-aged engineer from the west of Ireland, briefly returned from the dead on All Souls Day, November 2008.

It is McCormacks third novel, after Crowes Requiem (1998) and Notes From A Coma (2005), both od which were critically well received. The book has also been shortlisted for the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards 2016. Solar Bones is published by Tramp Press.

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This is McCormacks second major award. In 1996, he won the Rooney Prize for his debut collection of short stories, Getting It In The Head. However, he has struggled to earn a living from his writing  a subject he spoke about with admirable candour in an interview in Hot Press recently, that was conducted by Olaf Tyarnsen.

New Statesman Culture Editor Tom Gatti said: The New Statesman is delighted to continue to grow its partnership with the Goldsmiths Prize, which, with Solar Bones, has once again shone a spotlight on a thrilling piece of writing from out of left field. For those who care not only about the state of the novel but its future, this prize is essential.

McCormack ws born in London in 1965. He grew up on a farm in Louisburgh in Co. Mayo. He studied English and Philosophy at University College Galway  now known as NUIG. He currently lectures and teaches to supplement the income he earns as a writer.
It's been eleven years since we last heard a brand new studio album!

Splitting in 2006, the Armenian-American heavy metal band stopped producing music, but got together for a reunion tour in 2010. The news of a new album means that more touring will take place in the new year, and who knows, maybe more record ideas!

The musicians - comprised of Serj Tankian, Shavo Odadjian, Daron Malakian, and John Dolmayan - announced that they will be embarking on a European tour in June. So far, S.O.D have France, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic on the list. They are also going to headline the 2017 Download Festival in England, where musicians Biffy Clyro and Aerosmith will also play.

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The new album will have 15-songs, of which John comments, "Our playing ability is better than it ever has been and we're trying new things. We're not trying to make 'Toxicity Part II', just because it was by far our biggest album. This needs to be something for a new generation of SOAD fans, so everyone can see we're not resting on our laurels. I'm not gonna put my name on an album I'm not 100 percent proud of.''
Unarmed robbery suspect arraigned, following standoff A Houghton Lake Heights man, who was in a standoff with Michigan State Police troopers, has been arraigned on an...

AAAAAHHHHH! Roscommon County children and their families have four days of Halloween fun coming with everything they need to have a...
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Local Latino business leaders reacted to the election of Donald Trump with cautious optimism and a desire to move past the often-hostile rhetoric of the presidential campaign.

"Let's not panic. Let's work together to make things right," Robert Tijerina, CEO and founder of Private One Aviation and Premium Spirits, said Wednesday.

Tijerina said he hopes his private jet and tequila companies will benefit from policy changes under the upcoming Republican administration. He said he wants to hire more employees for both businesses but that the current tax system for small-business owners and financial burdens related to the Affordable Care Act make that difficult. He didn't expect more than the status quo from Hillary Clinton.

Still, Trump's election despite a surge in Hispanic voters is a call to action to become fully engaged in all local and national campaigns, Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Laura Murillo said. She said it will be especially critical for Latino business owners to pay close attention to policy changes over the coming months.

"Public policy will have an impact, and we have to be aware of what's going on," she said.

Patricia Boral, CEO of Houston-based online marketing firm Boral Branding, said she still worries about the fate of Latinos who live in the U.S. illegally but contribute to the economy and how a Trump presidency would affect international investments, particularly from Latin American countries.

Boral said Trump's business background is encouraging for small-business owners, but she is concerned about his campaign comments that were decried as racist or sexist.

"Is he going to help women in business and minority businesses?" she asked.

Boral and Humberto Tancredi, owner of the Studio 80 disco bar in Katy, agreed that people should remain confident in our democracy and that Congress and the Supreme Court will provide checks and balances.

Yet Tancredi, who fled political persecution in Venezuela with his family three years ago, can't help but see parallels with Hugo Chavez's rise to power in a populist movement. He watched politics divide Venezuela and turn a wealthy nation into a downtrodden one and prays that his new home will avoid a similar fate.

"The institutions will deter any attempt of Trump to go against democracy," he said.
Union Government launches Healthy India Initiative magazine and No More Tension mobile App

Published: November 10, 2016

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has launched Healthy India Initiative magazine and No More Tension mobile App.

It was launched by Union Health Minister J P Nadda for promotion of health and to strengthen the health communications programmes.

Key Facts

Healthy India Magazine: It will be a quarterly magazine. It will cater to health related information and raise awareness about healthy living.

It will be a quarterly magazine. It will cater to health related information and raise awareness about healthy living. The magazine will cover different aspect of health including women and child health, elderly health, daily nutritional needs, seasonal ailments, safe medication practices and home remedies for healthy living.

No More Tension App: It will help users to manage stress and will also provide information regarding stress, symptoms and its management.

help users to manage stress and will also provide information regarding stress, symptoms and its management. The application will allow user to measure their stress level and learn various techniques like yoga and meditation to reduce stress from their lives.

Month: Current Affairs - November, 2016

Topics: Government Initiatives  National  PublicHealth  Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

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OPEC members need to recalculate the potential benefits of cutting back oil production later this year now that Donald Trump is headed to the White House.

Iran's insistence on selling more than 3 million barrels of crude a day has been the biggest sticking points to reimposing production quotas on the oil cartel's 14 member countries. But Iran's ultimate goal of producing 5 million barrels a day in 2020 is in serious doubt while Trump is in office.

After nearly a decade of international economic sanctions for its nuclear energy program, Iran's oil and natural gas infrastructure is in a shambles. The government's budget is a mess, and the economy had barely recovered since the sanctions were lifted in January.

That's why the government celebrated a $4.8 billion investment contract with French oil giant Total and the China National Petroleum Corporation on Tuesday. The cash would finance the development of Phase 11 of the South Pars natural gas field.

That is likely the last international investment in Iran's petroleum sector for a very long time.

"My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran," Trump told the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC in March. That means reimposing economic sanctions that would penalize any company with a U.S. presence that does business with Iran.

Just the threat of new sanctions diminishes Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's negotiating position with OPEC's de facto leader Saudi Arabia. If Iran can't pump more oil, why shouldn't another OPEC member get to pump more instead? Saudi will pressure Iran to accept a cap on production in line with its pumping capacity.

Rouhani should probably accept the deal, even if it makes him look weak ahead of elections on May 19. Any OPEC deal would raise global oil prices and generate more money for Iran. Rouhani is better off taking the bird in hand rather than the two in the sky.

Cliff Kupchan, a keen Iran observer and chairman of the Eurasia Group, wrote that most foreign corporations were unlikely to invest in Iran anyway before Rouhani's May 19 re-election campaign. Not to mention, Iran's oil fields aren't the exactly the best investment.

"Capital spending by international oil companies is down sharply across the board amid low oil prices and a glutted market for liquefied natural gas," he wrote. "There are plenty of opportunities to develop hydrocarbons reserves in locations without the risks Iran poses, particularly the US, as shale oil returns to growth in 2018 and beyond."

The chances of OPEC reaching a deal on Nov. 30 are therefore improved. But I still wonder how long a deal will hold. OPEC countries tend to cheat pretty quickly after agreeing on quotas, and the cartel produced at record levels in October.

That won't stop oil traders from driving up the price of oil if OPEC announced a deal. Who would have thought that Trump's first impact on the oil market could be to boost prices for U.S. consumers at the pump?
For the past several years, Dweezil Zappa passed through Houston playing music composed by and originally recorded by his father, Frank Zappa. The tour's name spoke to that: Zappa Plays Zappa.

This week, the younger Zappa will be doing what he's done for the past decade, but the tour now goes under the more cumbersome title Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever the (Expletive) He Wants! The Cease and Desist Tour. Frank Zappa died in 1993 at age 52. And last year, Frank's widow and Dweezil's mother, Gail Zappa, died, leaving two of her four children in charge of the Zappa trust. The months since have been contentious, to say the least, with siblings fighting over branding.

Which is a shame because Dweezil Zappa is among very few touring guitarists capable of presenting his iconoclastic father's complicated music. And the strength of Frank Zappa's early career means there are a slew of brilliant recordings that will be celebrating their 50th anniversary in the coming years, starting this year with "Freak Out!," his 1966 debut.

Resolution looks to be remote at this point. But Dweezil continues to play shows based on his father's compositions. He talked about the family fight as well as his father's legacy.

More Information Dweezil Zappa When: 8 p.m. Thursday Where: Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel Tickets: $28-$79; 713-225-5483, warehouselive.com See More Collapse

Q: As tour names go, "Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever the (Expletive) He Wants! The Cease and Desist Tour" is among the more unwieldy ones. I imagine that affects T-shirts and merch, too.

A: The issue was, I had to change the name because my brother Ahmet and my sister Diva. Long story short, my mom trademarked Zappa Plays Zappa two years after I started playing it. The way she had it trademarked, one Zappa refers to Frank Zappa and the other was not necessarily me, but a member of the Zappa family.

Her intent was anyone in the family at any time could go on tour and call it Zappa Plays Zappa. Except nobody else in the family can play the music or has shown any interest in doing so. Then I received a cease and desist saying I couldn't use the name or play the music.  So I changed the name to Dweezil Zappa Plays the Music of Frank Zappa. They sent another cease and desist, which is completely bogus. For example, if you're a garage that fixes cars, you can have a Volkswagen or Mercedes logo on your garage. It indicates what you do. If I say I'm playing the music of Frank Zappa, it's merely an action, and I have the right to say I'm performing it because I'm describing an action. Meanwhile, there's countless other bands using pictures of Frank and playing his music, and they don't get a cease and desist.

So I changed it to the Cease and Desist Tour, and I'll play whatever the (expletive) I want. It's making lemonade out of lemons thrown my way. That's how it ended up where it is. They've taken it to the next level, trying to get a trademark for the surname Zappa so they can strip me of my last name. To prevent me from using it in any way for music or live performance. I am obviously opposing that.

Q: "Zappa" isn't exactly a new brand name with regard to your music.

A: I've used it for over 30 years in the field of music. Their argument is it's confusing the audience, which is not a good argument. What they intend to do is take it and transform it into merely a brand name. They want to make yoga pants and wine and beer and just call it "Zappa."

Q: I hate to speak for the deceased, but yoga pants with Frank Zappa's face seem antithetical to content in some of the music he made.

A: Exactly. Just the song "Cosmic Debris" indicates he's not really interested in something like yoga pants with his name on it. I don't understand it. They have embarked on a systematic plan to dismantle and monetize his life for their own purposes.

Q: The music itself offers something cheerier to talk about. Fifty years after "Freak Out!" it feels like we still haven't caught up to what he was doing.

A: Absolutely. It's hard to put into perspective for people. I try to do it on stage by giving examples of things, telling stories. "OK, let's imagine it's 1966 and you're an 11-year-old kid. You've got your money saved up to buy a record. You select Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. "This looks interesting!" Then the parents come in and find the record and immediately hope to cleanse your soul. There are terrifying sounds coming out of the speakers. That record is so subversive and dangerous sounding compared to everything else then. And 50 years later, nothing has changed. It's as dangerous and subversive as anything created in music.

Q: The number of people who were fans in 1966 still inclined to go to shows is probably declining. Do you notice a younger crowd coming out?

A: When I started this in 2006, the majority of the audience was in its mid-60s. It ranged from people who were maybe 10 years younger than Frank to people who were maybe 10 years older. It was core followers. And it went on down maybe to people in their late 40s. Flash forward 10 years, and you can't say it's the same audience. Some of that original audience isn't even alive anymore. We don't have 80-year-olds at the show. We still get people in their 60s and 40s, but also some in their 30s and 20s.

I meet kids that grew up on this music. I say, "Me, too!" There's a lot of music that isn't going forward to a new generation. Elvis, even the Beach Boys. Tons of early country acts. But I also don't want it to be nostalgia music. Just good music. That's been my goal. To let people who maybe have never heard it to hear it and realize it was ahead of its time.

Q: You have to contend with the songs people know, which created a perception of him as a novelty musician.

A: That's the challenge. Even in Frank's heyday, the idea of what he was was based on a small amount of music that got on the radio. And it was the wrong impression, the comedic narratives. That's what people started to think. "Oh, it's the guy on 'Crossfire' with the kids with weird names." So he was relegated further into this obscure thing. So his music is the only work I've consistently done for the past decade and a half. I started learning the music two years before I even went out on tour. I've been devoting my life to this for a long time. And I see people discovering his music through the process.

Q: Was he ever Dad? Or have you always called him Frank?

A: I pretty much always called him Frank. It's not like I was instructed to do otherwise. I don't have any recollection as to how or why it was that way. My kids call me Dad. Occasionally, they'll call me by my first name for fun, as a joke. But it was always just Frank. I never really gave it much thought.
Max's Wine Dive began business in December 2006 with a serious lowbrow/highbrow premise: "Fried chicken and champagne  why the hell not?"

The slogan epitomized the new business' clever stab at providing elevated comfort food with fine wine in a casual setting.
Devastation versus joy. Unity vs bitterness. In Houston Wednesday, Latinos express wildly divergent opinions about Donald Trump becoming the president-elect of the United States.

The majority of Latinos in Houston and Texas didn't support the candidate. "The community is devastated," said Carlos Duarte, Texas director of Mi Familia Vota (My Family Votes), a national organization dedicated to promoting political participation.

In surveys and exit polls, between 78 and 80 percent of Hispanic registered voters around the country say that they supported Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton, either because they liked her of because they didn't like Trump.

Carlos Duarte delineated their position in this video:

On the other side of the spectrum, Latino Trump supporters felt "overjoyed by the news" that the real estate mogul had been elected, said Valente Gonzalez, district co-Chair for the Trump presidential campaign.

After the election, the Republican National Committee aimed for conciliation with Latinos. Asked what Latinos should expect from the president-elect, NRC Hispanic press secretary Sofia Boza said:

"Last night Mr. Trump said he was going to put America's interest first. He wants to seek common ground and work hard for all Americans. He wants us to come together and unify our country. This is the first step towards making America great again. "A recent Pew poll shows the top issues for Hispanics are the economy, healthcare, and education. Without a doubt, Mr. Trump's message resonated with Hispanics around the country, and we can expect these issues to be a priority in his presidency. Hispanics, like most of Americans, want a new direction for our country- and Mr. Trump represents that change."

But the polarization between the Hispanics is profound. Those who were against Trump are looking for the next step: a fight for unity and pushing policies they feel are of their community interest, as Duarte said in this video:

Trump supporters such as Gonzalez, a member of the Latino Trump Coalition from Houston, express a victorious but bitter point of view.

The following is an edited version of a personal statement sent to us by Valente Gonzalez:

"All my life I have seen a lowering of standards by Democrats. I have seen diversity touted as a strength, and unity becomes a forgotten word and that has led to division and resentment. In my heart I am an American, I grew up pledging allegiance to the flag and believed that my country was great... All that was replaced by Democrats and the liberal news media who told me what I should believe about myself, and who I was supposed to be. To them I am a Hispanic and a Latino, or a White guy when I am not saying the things they like... "As a Latino, the Democrats think that I am supposed to appreciate when they speak to me in Spanish, when they pander to me with calling me a Taco Bowl, or when they label me deplorable and irredeemable, or when they say I should support illegal immigrants getting free tuition to a public university, or when Tim Kaine spoke in Spanish at a rally attended to by 30 people, or that Tim was Catholic, I am not a Catholic. Even Barak Obama came out and told illegals to vote in our election. "I feared that I would be painted even more closely with such divisive people. I never was a flag waving Mexican invader running down innocent motorists and blocking intersections, nor do I approve of their actions. I felt great that Donald J Trump did not promote or pander to any of these things that Democrats say that I should idealize. "The Democrats lost for a reason, it was because they did not love America the same way I loved America. They loved it less because they thought less of me and people like me when we held up America as wonderful, they did not encourage their voters to participate and assimilate and be a part of America to help build up our country, but rather looked for more ways to further divide and breed resentment, to have no common bond between peoples. "I have been ridiculed and cursed by liberals who call me all sorts of names with hate filled hearts. No Trump supporter ever called mean names and had awful denigrating heritage insults hurled at me by liberals. "So when I heard Donald J Trump won, I thought, that was great because the liberals and the Democrats earned their loss, they earned it by taking for granted the country I love and the culture I am a part of. They earned their loss because I am an American, and I only want to make America great again and want it to be around for others who want to make it great also. And for this your readers will burn your newspaper, call me names, kill babies, or block intersections, or slit their wrists and seek out a safe space, or issue a trigger warning, or drink more human breast milk mixed with sperm and blood, but mostly blood (see Spirit Cooking). "So yes I am glad that Mr. Trump was elected president because he is my voice and I cannot support the level of inhuman hate that I felt this election while standing up for the ideals that I believe in... "The left is out of control and has made it a point to disarm people for a reason, it is because they are the hateful ones they are the ones that you need to be afraid of, not Donald J Trump. The Republican candidate held himself to standards to win my love and support, the Democrats, on the other hand, held themselves to no standards, they lost me and tried to pander to me because they thought I was an invader and a taker. I am neither. I am just an American, and a Latino or Hispanic or whatever special race or ethnic group they want to assign me to these days. "Thank you Donald J Trump!"

OTHER OPINIONS FROM LATINOS:

Carla Perez, a student at the University of Houston's School of Law. She came to the U.S. when she was two years old with her parents and is now a beneficiary of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), an Obama executive order that Trump said he is going to cancel:

"This election for me and many of my fellow Americans has been a pretty stressful. I don't like Mr. Trump. The man embodies a lot of hatred towards not just immigrants but Muslim people, other people of color, women. He took his message of hate to the mainstream and now his xenophobia has become normalized. "But I have learned a lot by working for my community, mobilizing the vote, knocking doors... Its been great for me to see in this election cycle a coming together with other immigrants who are not Latinos. Some African immigrants, some Asian immigrants, we have come together particularly in this campaign. And I can tell you that we are here to stay not only at the national level but here in Houston. "We have realized that we work better with our intersections when we are together, and just because Trump won doesn't mean that we are going to stop."

Adonias Arevalo Melara, a University of Houston student and an activist from United We Dream and the Latino LGBT community:

"We have only finished working one challenge and will continue to work against the deportation and separation of our families, no matter who is in the White House or Congress. "We knocked more than 10,000 doors during this election. We helped more than 2,000 people to go to the polls; we have been working non-stop, and nobody is going to spot us now."

Dani Marrero Hi, organizer for a coalition of Latinos, immigrants, LGBT people, and communities of color in the Rio Grande Valley that are getting together against Donald Trump immigration policies:

"Donald Trump has made militarizing border communities and attacking people of color a central talking point in his entire campaign.... (We are organizing to) mark the beginning of a long fight to resist any policies and actions that will terrorize our border community. "We cannot change the reality of the result of the election, but we can organize to protect, educate, and mobilize, and that's exactly what we're going to do."

....

Olivia.tallet@chron.com

Twitter: @oliviaptallet
The couple sat four hours in near-silence watching the returns come in. Murray Pawloski, a Trump supporter, occupied on one sofa in their Katy living room and flipped between Fox News and CNN, which his wife preferred. Nicole, who backed Clinton, sat on their other sofa so she could reach the table where she kept her glass of red wine.

The Pawloskis' partisan divide  like the rest of the country, more bitter this year  is rare. A Pew Research Center survey last month found only 3 percent of Trump or Clinton supporters said their partners planned to vote for the other candidate. The family's trials and tribulations this election season, described in a previous story, echo the rancor permeating the nation as a whole.

Like the pollsters and the pundits, both the Pawloskis expected Hillary Clinton to win the presidency, but only one of them was happy about it.

"It was just that very uneasy feeling of, well, he'll lose," said Murray, a wine distributor who favored Trump for his business experience and promises to shake up the status quo. "I totally thought he would."

Nicole, on the other hand, had thought about going to a party store for celebratory decorations. She generally agrees with Democrats on social and economic issues, and she was thrilled that America might finally be electing its first woman president.

The couple, together for 21 years and married for nearly a decade, traded a few words as early battleground states went to Trump.

"I can't believe this is happening," Nicole said.

Previously: Sleeping with the enemy: He's for Trump. She's for Clinton.

Every once in a while, when a battleground state went to the GOP nominee, Murray limited himself to "Wow." He was, she said, "trying to be nice about it but still trying to make sure I knew."

The depth of her reaction surprised him. He hadn't realized how much she cared.

Around midnight, it became clear Trump would carry Pennsylvania.

Nicole talked with her best friend, who had been excited to tell her young daughter in the morning about the first "girl president." Nicole cried.

Murray told her, "He's going to win."

She went to bed.

Murray stayed up till 1 a.m. He went to bed hopeful but half-expecting the Clintons to pull out a victory. Around 2:30 a friend texted him: "You're going to have to move out of your house."

He had to leave for work early Wednesday. Nicole told him that it felt like the country was being set back by 50 years, but otherwise, they didn't talk much. Except for responding to a group message from Murray's sister, they didn't communicate any more all day.

Several friends half-jokingly offered to let Murray crash in their spare rooms while his wife comes to terms with the outcome. He was well aware of her mood: "bummed."

As with the nation, it's not clear whether the election's end will salve the couple's political disagreements.

Nicole thinks their marriage will be fine. They share an obvious affection and agree on many core values, including social issues.

"But I also didn't think that Donald Trump would ever be president," she said. "So I didn't ever think I would lose this battle and have to face someone that wanted him there."

Murray has no immediate plans to gloat: "The less talking, the better."

Bookmark Gray Matters. We're trying to be nice about it but still trying to make sure you know.
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MD Anderson Cancer Center is creating an endowed chair in recognition of Vice President Joe Biden's late son Beau, a former patient at the Houston hospital.

Officials said Monday the plan is to hire one of the world's most distinguished neuro-oncologists to occupy the Beau Biden Chair for Brain Cancer Research, which will be formally announced at a gala dinner Thursday celebrating MD Anderson's 75th anniversary. Vice President Biden will be there.

"Brain cancer is a devastating problem," said Dr. Ethan Dmitrovsky, MD Anderson's provost. "This new position will address an unmet medical need to develop advances in brain cancer biology and therapy."

Most primary brain tumors have no known cause and are linked to no known risk factors. Five-year survival rates hover around 5 percent in adult cases of glioblastoma, the most common type.

Biden died of glioblastoma at 46 years of age in May 2015, less than two years after his initial diagnosis and treatment at MD Anderson. He was discharged and returned to Delaware, where he was attorney general, after MD Anderson doctors removed a small lesion from his brain in August 2013. The cancer reportedly returned in spring 2015.

Vice President Biden has said the experience was one of the primary inspirations for the Obama administration's "cancer moonshot" initiative, which he heads. The administration is aiming to spend $1 billion on the initiative, an effort to double the pace of research.

Dmitrovsky said a recipient of the Biden Chair should be identified in the next few months, after the imminent completion of fund-raising. He said about $1 million will endow the chair.

Dmitrovsky added that the chair also honors Dr. Alfred Yung, Biden's doctor and long one of the most renowned figures in brain cancer research and care. Yung and Biden had a "very warm and meaningful relationship," said Dmitrovsky.
In his seven years as a high school educator, Bryan Henry said, Wednesday was his most difficult day.

The Kingwood High School teacher said he had barely processed Donald Trump's shocking victory in the presidential election when he walked into the Humble ISD school Wednesday morning. His emotions, and disappointment, were still raw.

"Most people today who are disappointed about the election results - they don't have to go stand before 150 teens and teach U.S. government," Henry said. "What was hard for me was how disappointed and genuinely concerned a lot of my students were, and the fact that on some level my job isn't to affirm their fears and anxieties, but to actually give them some perspective on it that makes it easier to accept."

Across the Houston area and country, teachers wrestled with how to discuss the results of the presidential election with their students. The celebrity billionaire's victory caught many teachers and others off guard, especially as polls and media outlets had made it seem that a Hillary Clinton win was almost assured.

Students 'scared' and 'shocked'

The strong rhetoric surrounding the contest had already caused tensions to flare in classrooms nationwide.

Earlier this year, students taunted black and Hispanic student athletes during games in Wisconsin and Indiana, making signs and chanting phrases like "build the wall" and "Trump, Trump, Trump." In northern Virginia, a mother posted on Facebook in March that her son's classmates picked on him because of his darker skin tone and said he would be sent home under President Trump.

Such actions and divisiveness have tempted some teachers to shy away from talking about the election altogether. A study by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 40 percent of the 5,000 teachers it surveyed were hesitant to teach about the presidential race or election at all.

The campaign was not a topic that Henry and some other history teachers shied away from, they told the Chronicle. They used it in their lesson plans to discuss everything from the inner workings of Congress to the electoral college and the courts.

But feelings of excitement and despair Wednesday were too heavy to have students dive into lesson plans. Instead, many teachers began class by having students discuss their feelings on the results.

"Scared" and "shocked" were two words that came up a lot in Evguenia Volkova's class at Kerr High School in Alief ISD Wednesday afternoon.

The high school is diverse, with a student makeup that is 12 percent black, 63 percent Asian, 19 percent Hispanic and a little more than 4 percent white.

Volkova had planned to continue teaching about the Supreme Court with her Advanced Placement government and economics students on Wednesday. She wanted to keep things as normal as possible.

But that all changed Wednesday morning, when Volkova awoke to the news that Trump had been elected president. She scrapped her original plan and asked her students, some of whom had been crying as they walked into class, to come up with potential effects of a Trump presidency.

"It's still so raw right now, we're trying to get through the emotions," Volkova said. "It might take us more than a day to get back to business as usual."

Students sat in groups of four and created lists of the possible effects of a Trump presidency.

Kenneith Onigbinde, 18, wondered how Trump's tax policies would affect the national debt. But after discussing the electoral college and the GOP's retention of its majorities in both chambers of Congress, the conversation moved on to Trump's tone and actions. Trump has spoken of Mexico sending rapists across the border, called for a temporary ban on immigration by Muslims and mocked the looks of women while boasting in a 2005 audio recording of his aggressive sexual behavior toward women.

"People are going to think it's socially acceptable to do and say the things Trump did during his candidacy," Onigbinde said.

"The president said it, so it must be okay," 18-year-old Hoang Nguyen imagined some saying.

"Exactly," Onigbinde said.

Giving space to vent

At the table next to them, four students watched Clinton's concession speech on a classmate's iPhone. They sat stone-faced until Clinton mentioned the Obamas. Aura Morales, 18, whimpered at the mention.

Tears welled in her eyes when she described how she felt about the election results.

"As a minority, it hurts," Morales said. "It truly hurts to know this country I've been raised in is turning its back on me."

She wondered how a Trump presidency would affect her as a Latina and her family.

Peggy Jackson, president of the National Council for the Social Studies, said students across grade levels are wrestling with similar questions. She said it's important to allow students to talk through their questions and concerns.

"You have to let kids vent, that's what they want to do today," Jackson said. "High schoolers, middle schoolers and even fifth-graders, they want to know why Trump won, why Hillary didn't win, and how is it going to be different for us in the future."

Jackson has methods for keeping classroom discussions on controversial subjects simple. Only one student is allowed to speak at a time. The desks are set up in a circle, so students can look at each other when they're talking. She gives them each three Post-It notes; when they want to speak or ask a question, they must turn one of them in. Once they run out of the sticky notes, they're done.

Students also must back up their opinions with facts.

"When I'm teaching controversial issues, I'm not going to teach them what to think," Jackson said. "I'm going to teach them how to think."

'Open the classroom up'

Teachers like Henry and Volkova, who both supported Clinton, said they often argued for viewpoints different than their own in classes so students could reason and debate. They never divulged who they planned to vote for, but that was more difficult to keep a secret Wednesday.

Their expressions gave them away.

Fears were more muted in Henry's class, which is located in predominantly white, middle-class Humble. He guessed about half or more of his students have conservative leanings, while the rest are more liberal.

Even though a slim majority of his students supported Trump, Henry said they were gracious in allowing Clinton backers space to vent.

"The Trump supporters didn't feel a need to respond. Maybe it's because they won, but there wasn't a whole lot of back and forth today," Henry said. "I think it was important to open the space up because the type of communication that's going to take place with other people - face to face in the classroom - is going to be a little bit more level-headed and rational than someone venting frustration on Twitter or Facebook. Social media is so insulated, we create these bubbles where we're only exposed to what we agree with. I wanted to open the classroom up so people could hear others' thoughts."
Hearing shouting late Sunday night from his next-door neighbor, an off-duty Montgomery County sheriff's deputy went to investigate. He stumbled into the midst of 25-year-old Alexandria Vera being shoved around by her drunk and belligerent brother.

For her safety, the sheriff urged Vera to leave. But she hesitated.

With uncertainty, she pointed toward a GPS monitoring device strapped to her ankle. If she left the residence, she would risk violating conditions of bail for an alleged sexual crime that has garnered her much unwanted publicity.

"Ma'am, I think the court will understand," the deputy told Vera after she expressed her concern. She decided to leave.

Five months earlier, in June, the former middle school teacher was charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child after accusations arose that she was having a long-term sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy.

For $100,000, the former Aldine ISD teacher was granted bail with a requirement to wear the GPS ankle monitor, abide by an 8 p.m. curfew, stay away from schools, and have no contact with the teen who allegedly impregnated her.

On Wednesday, prosecutors argued in front of Judge Michael McSpadden of 209th State District Court that Vera violated terms of her bond condition Sunday when she failed to remain in her residence during curfew.

Ricardo Rodriguez, Vera's lawyer, explained that she was forced to leave the residence.

"This is an abusive brother who didn't want her there," Rodriguez said to the judge. "She did not feel safe."

Denying a request to revoke her bond, McSpadden agreed.

"I don't want you in danger," he said.

Still, he re-emphasized the court's "zero tolerance" stance when it comes to abiding by bond conditions. This is Vera's third technical violation, though the first two were resolved without consequence.

Vera, who now works at a car wash, is in the process of moving out of her brother's residence and in with a family friend. She will be required to leave the new residence when children visit.

Vera is set to next appear in court Nov. 16.

Vera met the underage student in summer school last year at Stovall Middle School, according to court records. The relationship apparently had the blessing of the boy's family, court documents show.

In early June, Vera turned herself in following a May 27 charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child.

Prosecutors have said officials with Child Protective Services learned during their investigation that Vera had an abortion after being impregnated by the teen.

She faces a punishment range of 25 years in prison to life if convicted.
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WASHINGTON - On the campaign trail, Donald Trump made a virtue of his unpredictability, all the better to keep America's enemies off balance, he said. His relationship with Congress may be little different.

Arriving in Washington on Thursday more by dint of personality than policy specifics, the president-elect has become the titular head of a divided Republican Party undergoing a rapid transformation, partly due to the surprising groundswell of conservative grass-roots support that propelled the anti-Washington business mogul to victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The new center of gravity in the Republican Party came into full display Wednesday as congressional leaders who rarely uttered Trump's name during the campaign lined up publicly behind him.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had vowed not to defend Trump's controversial pronouncements a month ago, credited the president-elect with helping preserve GOP majorities in both houses and pledged to advance his agenda in Congress.

Ryan's speakership could be challenged this month by members of the hard-right Freedom Caucus who think he betrayed the Republican ticket. Ryan, for his part, told reporters in Wisconsin on Wednesday that Trump had "earned a mandate" from voters, and said "intra-party issues" would not block him from getting his policies through Congress.

Trump will bring one-party rule to Washington for the first time since 2010, when the Democrats used control of the White House and both congressional chambers to pass the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

With the tables turned, Republicans are expected to rally around Trump's call to repeal President Barack Obama's signature health care law, a top GOP target for the past six years. There is less clarity about what Republicans would replace it with, a dilemma that could produce the first sparks of Trump's presidency.

Republican unity also could be tested on the signature proposal of Trump's campaign: his plan for a massive wall on the Mexican border. Although border security has been a popular GOP talking point, there has been little discussion about the tens of billions of dollars needed to construct the wall Trump has promised - albeit by sticking Mexico with the tab.

Trump's first order of business, however, may be picking a Supreme Court justice to replace the late conservative Antonin Scalia, an issue that animated social conservatives and brought many reluctant evangelicals into the GOP fold.

Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who fought a bitter primary battle with Trump, cited the high court nomination as a reason for reluctantly agreeing to vote for Trump, whose candidacy he was late to endorse.

'Eager' to help Trump

Cruz issued a statement Wednesday congratulating Trump on "an amazing victory," adding that he was eager to work with his former rival to enact a conservative agenda.

Cruz pointedly recalled that Trump had named a specific roster of 21 potential nominees. "I look forward to working with the new administration to confirm conservative justices from the strong list of 21 jurists that was promised," he said.

That could be an easy area of agreement among Republicans, though it could test their resolve in staring down a potential Democratic filibuster. Republicans largely have ignored Obama's choice of federal judge Merrick Garland since his nomination in March. A Democratic move to block any Trump nominee could tempt Republicans to change the 60-vote filibuster rule. The maneuver is commonly referred to as the "nuclear option," and analysts say it easily could poison what little partisan comity is left on Capitol Hill.

As Republicans seek ways to break through the political gridlock - another of Trump's promises - they could face a bigger test still on Trump's protectionist trade agenda, a keystone of his appeal to working class voters.

A key player in that debate will be Texas U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, a free trade advocate who has been tasked with helping shape the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade pact between the United States and other Pacific Rim nations.

Brady, a former U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive from The Woodlands, already has been squeezed between the GOP's traditional pro-business wing and the grass-roots insurgents who have turned against the sort of trade deals that used to have bipartisan support.

Trump campaigned against the Pacific Rim deal, which Obama has promoted with the aid of the Congress' GOP old guard. He also has threatened to slap tariffs on countries like China and Mexico, while renegotiating NAFTA, CAFTA, and other trade deals that passed with the support of corporate America and the Republican leadership.

Brady said in an interview Wednesday that despite Trump's hard line on trade, he does not consider him an "isolationist."

"He's an enforcement-first leader, and that fits with our trade agenda," Brady said.

Nevertheless, Brady said the Pacific Rim deal remains "on hold" until Trump finalizes his trade agenda.

Pacific treaty 'dead'

For tea party groups that rallied to Trump's cause, the latest trade deal is an immediate political marker.

"The Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead," said Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government. "Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin killed it," he added, naming all the battleground states that moved into Trump's column on Tuesday.

Brady has sought to play conciliator in the trade debate, even as he has become a champion for Trump's proposed tax cuts, which he says match the "Better Way" agenda he has pushed with Ryan and other GOP House leaders.

On his infrastructure plan and corporate and individual tax cuts, Trump can expect willing partners in congressional Republicans, as well as the business community. Major points of divergence include Social Security and Medicare reforms that Republicans have discussed for years to rein in entitlement spending, the real driver of the nation's mounting debt. On the stump, Trump has shown little interest in GOP reforms, saying he wants to "keep Social Security intact."

Issues like immigration reform that used to get some Republican votes - even with a path to citizenship for long-time undocumented immigrants - look like they would be dead on arrival in Trump's administration.

Meanwhile, analysts say Trump and his allies in Congress have about 18 months to show results before the 2018 midterm elections, a perennial challenge for the power in power.
Kim Ogg, still hoarse from shouting over the jubilant victory party crowd after winning her race for Harris County District Attorney, said Wednesday that her first order of business would be to evaluate and secure all of the evidence used in thousands of pending criminal cases.

Ogg, who will take over the largest district attorney's office in Texas on Jan. 1, hopes to ward off the problems of unauthorized evidence destruction that emerged after it was discovered that deputies at the Precinct 4 Constable's Office threw away evidence in hundreds of cases. Scores of cases that may have been affected have yet to be resolved.

"It's so we know that cases that are pled or tried, after I take office, have the real evidence to back them up," she said Wednesday.

Ogg, a Democrat, enthusiastically outlined several of her priorities while other corners of Houston's criminal courthouse were more somber.

A complete Democratic sweep of judicial races ousted all of the county's GOP judges, including some courthouse favorites, a harsh reality of the partisan judiciary system in Texas.

"A lot of good judges are going to be gone," said Tyler Flood, president of Harris County's Criminal Lawyers Association. "We had several excellent, very qualified judges that lost their elections and were replaced by people, who may do a very good job, but aren't experienced."

But when it came to the DA's race, Flood said the members of the defense lawyers organization were excited about a change.

"It's a new day in Harris County," he said "I'm hoping Kim will bring transparency to a very secretive regime."

Ogg sketched out broad agenda items Wednesday but said little about specific plans or possible command staff. She said she is putting together a transition team and was not ready to announce who would be helping her helm the agency, which employs about 600 people including 300 lawyers.

In addition to evaluating the security and veracity of evidence, Ogg said she would be reviewing the pending capital murder cases, including a handful of death penalty cases currently scheduled to go to trial in 2017.

Under her administration, she said, a team of prosecutors will look at the evidence, both damning and mitigating, before deciding whether to seek the death penalty.

"It's a grave responsibility to undertake taking somebody's life," she said. "And I want more minds, and hearts, looking at these cases than just mine. So we'll have a team."

The historically high rate of death penalty cases in Harris County has come under scrutiny as some jurisdictions across the country have considered banning it, often for financial reasons.

In the judicial races, eleven Republican judges were unseated by Democratic challengers out of 24 judicial positions on the Tuesday ballot.

One of those Republicans, state District Judge Ryan Patrick - the son of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick - had been on the bench for one four-year term.

"It's an interesting way to run our judicial system with these big sweeps back and forth," he said. "I think we need to have this conversation in Austin about whether this is how we want to continue to elect our judiciary."

Patrick, 37, noted that he was the beneficiary of two earlier partisan elections, when a Democrat swept into the position in 2008 and he won with a group of Republicans in 2012.

Because some of Houston's judges volunteer for specialized dockets, such as drug courts, or fill administrative roles on county advisory boards, losing a judge sometimes leaves other holes across government, said Patrick, who has been helping implement technology in the court system.

"Last night (Tuesday) we lost all of our mental health docket judges," he said.

He said he is mulling a different system, such as appointed judges or non-partisan races.

"More than anything, people here want consistency and stability and I think we're losing that," he said.
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It's morning in America!

No, that's not quite appropriate. For some, it feels more like those dark hours in September 2008 when people all over Houston braced ourselves for a direct hit from a hurricane roughly the size of Texas.

Donald Trump will be president. It's really happening. I pinched myself a dozen times, but the headlines didn't change. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but the Byzantine electoral college system gave the billionaire reality TV star the edge. So there you go.

In the face of this reality, some of us want to hunker down. Some want to wallow in grief. Some want to flee - maybe move to Canada, if that country's immigration website ever stops crashing, or just recoil politically. A longtime Harris County GOP precinct chair emailed me a copy of his resignation Wednesday, saying he felt like his party had left him.

Grief-stricken friends have written, saying they're embarrassed to be American. I'm not to that point, but it was hard to explain to my 7- and 4-year-old girls what just happened.

If half of us have chosen as our leader someone who unabashedly bullies, lies and brags about not reading books, who irresponsibility sows distrust in elections, and the journalists who cover them, what does that say about Americans? Does it cheapen the democratic process? Does it tarnish the dream?

Only if we let it.

The election is over, but we've got one choice left. How to respond. For me, that means setting aside the anger, giving democracy the benefit of the doubt, celebrating the peaceful transition of power that doesn't happen in every country, and resisting the temptation to vilify millions of voters who exercised their constitutional rights.

Every Trump voter isn't a racist or a sexist. Some were just so fed up with the status quo, they were willing to overlook his brash style and crude rhetoric.

"It's just this desperate cry on the part of many more Americans than we expected who are willing to take this kind of risk to say, 'I want something different,' " said Rice sociologist Stephen Klineberg.

I called Klineberg because he's probably the most optimistic human being I know, and I needed a little optimism Wednesday. He pointed out that his annual Houston-area survey shows less antagonism toward immigrants and more acceptance of diversity. He pointed to the great blue wave in Harris County, where Clinton won by a greater margin than Barack Obama in 2012.

"Harris County is where all of America and all of Texas is going to be as the future unfolds," Klineberg said, adding that, nationally: "What's happening is a last protest - understandable - of folks who feel the country is passing them by."

We may disagree with Trump voters on how to address the inequities that exist - some of us believe it's more an issue of education than trade policy - but we have to respect that the inequities are real.

And while it's easy to stereotype Trump voters as the twisted faces sporting Confederate flags or the guy in a T-shirt advocating the lynching of journalists, the coalition he built was much bigger, much more diverse. Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice, said initial exit polling suggests one-third of Latino voters in Texas voted for Trump.

Some Americans didn't vote for Trump so much as they voted against Clinton, whom they view as corrupt and inauthentic. Some wanted a Supreme Court that represents their values.

Take Mike, a 56-year-old voter I met at the Heights-area Love Park Community Center who didn't want to give his last name because he runs a psychiatric treatment center. He described the campaign as "very frustrating, almost comical to me, and at times, baffling and even sad."

In the end, he's deeply conservative and concerned about the balance of the Supreme Court, so he voted for Trump. He said he hesitated before pressing the button: "A little bit came up in my throat, and I had to swallow it."

Quite a few of us are swallowing hard this week. In those moments, it's helpful to think of the one thing most Americans - Trump supporters and foes - have in common. And that's a disgust for Washington gridlock and a deep desire for change.

Trump promises to shake up the status quo, and at this point, he's got a clear road. He's got a Republican-controlled Congress. The pesky Democrats don't have much power to stonewall. He's white. Nobody doubts his citizenship. He's good to go.

No excuses. Trump gets his chance to deliver.

Hopefully, like Ike in 2008, he'll avoid catastrophic damage by slowing down and shifting course a bit.

But if he can't - if the wall doesn't get built, and the coal miners don't all find themselves gainfully employed, and Washington doesn't hum like a well-oiled corporate machine, there may be consequences.

That's the thing about democracy. What the voters giveth, the voters can take away.
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Ed Gonzalez will have a lot to do when he assumes the position of the county's top cop in January.

He'll have to rein in overtime pay, manage the Harris County jail population and win over the thousands of employees who backed his opponent in Tuesday's election.

First, though, he plans to reactivate his peace officer's license, which has been inactive since 2012.

"He will have to mail his application and pay a fee of $150 and take 40 hours of training including the basic state and federal law update," said Gretchen Grigsby, spokeswoman for the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. "Texas law will give him two years to do that."

Gonzalez said Wednesday the requirement would be one of his first priorities.

"The goal is to have it done as soon as possible, near the beginning of the year," he said.

The 15-year Houston Police Department veteran was a homicide investigator and hostage negotiator who later served on the Houston City Council. On Tuesday, he bested Republican Sheriff Ron Hickman in a Democratic wave that also brought a new district attorney and all Democratic judges to Harris County, even as Republican Donald Trump claimed the presidency in the nationwide election.

Gonzalez won by 6 percentage points with nearly 53 percent of the vote, drawing 679,232 votes to Hickman's 606,570.

The county's third sheriff in the last two years, Gonzalez will now turn his attention to managing the office and a sometimes-scandal-prone jail of nearly 10,000 inmates. The move could bring yet another seismic shift among the highest echelons of the department's command staff.

"I haven't finalized in my mind yet any thoughts on who I might keep or might not keep or bring in or anything like that," Gonzalez said.

He said he hoped to meet with Hickman soon to assess operations at the department and have a transition framework in place within a week or so.

Observers will also be watching to see how Gonzalez fulfills pledges he made during the campaign to bulk up jail diversion programs and fight crime more effectively.

With county budget talks beginning in March, Gonzalez will have just a few months to get up to speed on the internal workings of a department of more than 4,600 employees and budget of approximately $483 million.

Harris County Budget Officer William Jackson said he would be meeting with Gonzalez and other newly elected officials to guide them through the budget process after they take office in January.

"Commissioner's Court only approves the budget as a single number at the top," Jackson said, explaining that if Gonzalez had different priorities, he will have flexibility to shift funds within his budget.

Gonzalez will also have address approximately 300 vacancies within the department, which has contributed to a crunch in staffing in both patrol and detentions, and said he would not rule out re-implementing measures former Sheriff Adrian Garcia - Hickman's predecessor - had used to try to address jail overcrowding or other issues at the sheriff's office.

"Everything needs to be considered and be on the table," Gonzalez said, noting that Hickman's reforms had caused both jail and patrol overtime to spike. "All that needs to be looked at."

He will also have win over his new workforce.

Local law enforcement groups, including the Harris County Deputies Organization, supported Hickman.

HCDO President David Cuevas said that he is looking forward to working with Gonzalez and hopes to meet with him soon to discuss jail overcrowding, staff funding and safety.

"We're going to welcome the sheriff-elect and I'm looking forward to sitting down with him and discussing the issues within the agency where we can sit down and work on together," he said. "Ed is a professional. I'm a professional ... We have to put our political differences aside and we have to do our best for our employees, the county, and the citizens. Period."
For local supporters of Donald Trump, Tuesday night's presidential election results affirmed the narrative their candidate propagated for months - that the polls and pundits were totally wrong. For those who'd voted against Trump, and who'd trusted the polls, Wednesday morning dawned with a dazed stupor of unpleasant surprise.

Since summer of last year, experts had asserted that Trump didn't have a chance because his style fell so far outside the spectrum of traditional American politics.

Until the last hours of the race, virtually all major polls backed them up, in what pollsters were quick to admit Tuesday night was a major stumble. Of the 177 most recent national polls posted on the website RealClearPolitics, 159 predicted victory for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

But Trump, for his part, hadn't given much public credence to the polls since they turned against him when the primary ended.

"Some certain people may have been surprised," said Gary Lorne, 61, a retired manager and Trump supporter from Kingwood, as he strolled with his wife in Houston's Galleria. But not him.

"Trump said it all along: those polls were phony."

Other Trump fans echoed that notion. Jeana Blackford, a 43-year-old homemaker and Houston-area organizer for Trump, had long insisted that the polls were getting it wrong.

"We knew there were a lot of secret Trump supporters out there," she said.

'It's not funny now'

For voters who'd expected the landslide Trump loss that most polls had predicted, Tuesday night raised a new set of questions. Many said they'd never seriously considered that Trump would win, especially given his brash demeanor that instigated incessant controversy throughout the campaign.

"It was funny," said Brandon Myers, a 24-year-old food service worker, as he walked up to a Montrose Starbucks on Wednesday morning. "It's not funny now."

Myers, a Democrat, realized Tuesday night that he'd underestimated how many Americans saw Trump in a completely different light than he did.

"Makes me want to question people's morals," he said.

Londoner not shocked

The Tuesday consternation drew swift comparison to "Brexit," when the United Kingdom voted in June to leave the European Union despite a chorus of polls predicting the opposite referendum result.

Given that experience, Londoner Neal Harper said he was not shocked with Trump's win. He's 29, living in Houston and awaiting a green card.

Lessons learned from the Brexit vote, he said, should apply to America, namely that people shouldn't judge public opinion"based just on people in your own social groups."

Mike Roberts, a 57-year-old store manager at the Galleria, left the presidential pick blank on his ballot. He didn't like either candidate but didn't think that Trump "had a chance."

To him, the election results bucked a media narrative that it was mainly "under-educated white men" who supported Trump.

"There must have been others," he said.

Hispanics concerned

Amid the surprise, some people also had to confront the imminent possibility of some of Trump's policy proposals from the campaign trail. His most prominent - deportations of unauthorized people and a wall on the Mexican border - were assessed as having particular impact on immigrant communities.

Emilio Leal, sitting at a bus stop on Canal Street in Houston's East End, said he'd expected a surging turnout of Hispanic and other minority voters would easily beat Trump - a forecast made by many pundits and polls as well.

"The whole world was illusioned," he said in Spanish.

Leal did not vote because he is not a citizen. He worried there would be widespread deportations in his community. He didn't think it was possible for Trump to orchestrate the types of large-scale deportations the candidate had described, but he also hadn't thought it was possible for Trump to win the election.

For fans of Trump, the election results - and the surprise they stirred in pundits and pollsters - legitimized the president-elect's searing campaign trail condemnation of American media. As a result, some fans voiced hope that once-fringe websites could make inroads into the American mainstream.

"I think Breitbart should become the new CNN and people shouldn't marginalize media outlets like InfoWars anymore," said Cooper Jackson, a 30-year-old Trump supporter who served as an election judge Tuesday, then watched the election results at the Harris County GOP headquarters. "CNN is the new InfoWars to me. They're the new conspiracy theorists to me."

InfoWars and Breitbart pitch themselves as far-right alternatives to mainstream news. Both were early backers of the Trump campaign, and Trump's campaign chair was formerly executive chairman of Breitbart.

Hopes for healing

Jackson also said he knew that some folks were uncomfortable with the election results, but hoped for healing of the divisions in the American electorate.

"I want everyone to feel included," he said. "I don't want anyone to feel a threat."

Harris County backed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by a 12-point margin over Trump. Voters who didn't expect a President Trump had accepted the election outcome on Wednesday. Myer, at the Starbucks, said his focus would be to "try and adapt to whatever happens."

Hattie Porter, a 76-year old retired employee of Houston ISD and a home health care worker, also said she was wary of what's to come. Her remedy, in the meantime, is to pray for Trump. "He's our president no matter what, and we're still going to have to respect that," she said.

That's the same sentiment Sameer Valury, 24, voiced as he shopped in a Bellaire grocery store.

"I guess we have to accept the results," he said. "I would definitely hope the country will come together."

Cindy George and Andrew Kragie contributed to this report.
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A predominantly white neighborhood on Chicago's southwest side has been rocked by confrontations between protesters and police supporters for the second time since the weekend's fatal shooting of a black man by police.

Joshua Beal, 25, of Indianapolis, was fatally shot Saturday during a confrontation over whether a funeral caravan was blocking a fire lane.

Tuesday night's clashes followed a court hearing at which the dead man's brother, Michael Beal, was ordered held on charges of felony aggravated battery to a police officer and attempting to disarm a police officer. His bond was set at $500,000.

Authorities said Michael Beal, 28, tackled an off-duty police officer seconds after the shooting, put him in a headlock and threatened to kill him. His attorney, Barry Spector, said his client didn't know the man was an off-duty officer.

The shooting and subsequent demonstrations have roiled the mostly white Mount Greenwood neighborhood, which is home to many police, fire and city workers.

Police supporters and Beal advocates shouted slurs at each other Tuesday, the Chicago Tribune reported. Tuesday's heated confrontation came two days after a similar protest in which police supporters used slurs and held signs including one reading: "You are animals, #gohome."

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has called for peaceful protest "without it spilling over to anywhere that in any way demonizes anybody for their race, their ethnicity or their culture."

Meanwhile, a Cincinnati jury will resume deliberations Thursday in the murder trial of a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man during a traffic stop over a missing front license plate in Ohio.

Hamilton County Judge Megan Shanahan sequestered the jurors for the night after they wrapped up Wednesday more than four hours after she completed her instructions to the panel of 10 whites and two blacks.

An attorney for Ray Tensing, a now-fired University of Cincinnati police officer, said in closing arguments that prosecutors had tried to inject race as "a smoke screen" in the trial. Tensing has said he shot Sam DuBose while being dragged by DuBose's car as he tried to drive away on July 19, 2015.
SHAH MARAI/Staff

KABUL, Afghanistan - Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed Afghan woman whose photograph as a young refugee girl was published on the cover of National Geographic magazine three decades ago, received a warm welcome on Wednesday from Afghanistan's president after she was deported from Pakistan.

Long the face of Afghanistan's millions of refugees abroad, Gula, now 44 and the mother of several children, has become the most public example of what has become, in effect, the forced return of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees and migrants from Pakistan, as well as Iran and Europe.
Some tricky genie or cursed monkey paw must have granted the misguided wish of a young, idealistic staffer: Please let Democrats sweep Harris County.

Now we live in a bizarre political reality where Hillary Clinton can win here by more than 12 points but lose the Electoral College. The 2008 Obama sweep only won Harris County by about two.

Even neighboring Fort Bend County went blue, if only at the top of the ticket. Diverse and prosperous suburban voters lined up behind Clinton but switched their allegiance down the ballot. National pollsters looking for those supposed crossover Republicans should hitch a ride on the Southwest Freeway.

Back in downtown, the Harris County Criminal Justice Center has new leadership as Kim Ogg and Ed Gonzalez prepare to take over as district attorney and sheriff, along with eight new Democratic judges in criminal district courts.

Unlike the presidential mismatch of Electoral College and total vote, Ogg has a clear popular mandate to clean house and enact the key policies of her campaign platform. Expect to see a sprint where the outgoing incumbent has tip-toed: cite-and-release for low-level marijuana possession, personal recognizance bonds, diversion courts.

Other large Texas counties have embraced these tactics and it shouldn't be difficult for Harris County to catch up.

We also encourage Ogg to refuse to pursue the death penalty.

Outgoing District Attorney Devon Anderson had enough trouble herding the cats of our criminal justice system. Ogg benefits from winning office alongside other like-minded politicians eager for reform. The real challenge will be the people who hold her purse strings: Commissioners Court.

Republicans still control county government, and they might not want to play nice with a team that kicked out plenty of excellent incumbent judges. (Maybe it is time to reevaluate our partisan judicial elections?)

But no matter what party is in charge, taxpayers deserve a criminal justice system that focuses on rehabilitation, keeps innocent people out of jail and allows the police to focus on the truly dangerous.
The Parkland Health Center Foundation hosted its first annual Foundation Celebration banquet on Oct. 6. A highlight of the festive evening was the presentation of the first annual Joyce Buchheit Excellence in HealthCare Award to Dr. Edward DuMontier.

DuMontier recently retired from Medical Arts Clinic after serving as a physician in the area for 27 years. The elegant banquet was attended by Foundation board members, hospital staff, and numerous colleagues, friends and family members of the honoree.

DuMontier was selected for the prestigious Joyce Buchheit Excellence in HealthCare Award following an exemplary career as a physician during which he cared for and saved the lives of countless patients. DuMontier is known for giving unselfishly of his time for the advancement of health care in our region.

Born in OFallon, Missouri, DuMontier earned his Bachelor of Science degree and Doctor of Medicine degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He did further study at University of Arkansas College of Medicine in Little Rock, and completed his family practice residency program there. He served in the United States Army and was the Chief of Family Practice at the 5th General Hospital in Stuttgart, Germany. His next step was to care for patients at Hays Army Community Hospital at Fort Ord in Monterey, California.

DuMontier, his wife Carol and their three children made their home in Farmington, Missouri where Dr. Du began seeing patients at Medical Arts Clinic in 1989. During his 27 year career in Farmington, he was on the staff of Parkland Health Center, serving as Chief of Staff in 2000-01 and again in 2006-07. In addition, he served as adviser of the cardiopulmonary department and chaired numerous vital committees over the years. DuMontier is also a longstanding member of Parkland Health Centers Board of Directors.

DuMontier retired from Medical Arts Clinic on July 28, 2016, and will continue to see patients on a part time basis through the Veterans Administration. In addition to his many unique interests, he and Carol have two grandchildren.

Tom Karl, president of Parkland Health Center, said, Dr. DuMontier has sacrificed personal time with his family and friends, and given unselfishly of his time for the advancement of health care in our region. He is truly deserving of this award and recognition.

Joyce (Wood) Buchheit is a member of the Parkland Health Center Foundation Board of Directors and the BJC HealthCare Board of Directors, as well as a past member of the Parkland Health Center Board of Directors. Her leadership and support of Parkland Health Center and the Foundation have had an immeasurable impact on health care in St. Francois County. In 2010, the Missouri Hospital Association presented Mrs. Buchheit with the Excellence in Governance Award in recognition of her contributions to the health care community.

The Joyce Buchheit Excellence in HealthCare Award will be awarded each year by the Foundation in recognition of an individual or a groups efforts to advance health care in our area.

Following the banquet, Mrs. Buchheit reflected, I was very pleased to have the award named for me, and I cannot think of anyone more deserving of being the first recipient of the award than Dr. DuMontier. His career has been focused upon providing the best diagnosis and treatment for the most patients and in the most appropriate setting. I was also very pleased to see the broad community support for the Foundation.

The Parkland Health Center Foundation is a 501(c)3 charitable organization that was established in 2009. Its mission is to secure philanthropic support to enhance Parklands ability to provide extraordinary care. The Foundation has provided multiple philanthropic gifts to the hospital, including the Sentinelle Vanguard S-Series breast coil that enables breast MRIs; a digital radiology room equipped with Siemens Ysio Wi-D digital X-ray equipment; expansion of the Cancer Center, and the Vocera Voice Communication Project.

Jill Colson, chairperson of the Parkland Health Center Foundation Board, said, A contribution to the Parkland Health Center Foundation is an important investment in caring for people right here in our own community. A gift to the Foundation will be put to excellent use, directly improving the patient experience at Parkland Health Center.

Parkland Health Center is part of BJC HealthCare which also includes St. Louis Childrens Hospital and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the teaching hospitals for Washington University School of Medicine. For additional information about Parkland Health Center or the Foundation, please call 756-6451 or visit www.parklandhealthcenter.org.
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Hundreds of local scouts will be canvassing neighborhoods this weekend as they deliver more than one million "Scouting for Food" bags to local residents throughout the region on Saturday on bag distribution day.

They'll return the following Saturday, Nov. 19, for bag collection day to retrieve the bags filled with donated non-perishable food items. Collection day is only accomplished through the help of over 30,000 scouts, parents, and other volunteers and they are looking to collect more than 2 million food items this year. They have collected more than 50 million food items in the 31-year history of this national food drive.

"Scouting for Food comes at an important time of the year as colder temperatures settle in and many families are forced to cut their food budget in order to keep the heat on. said Gene Bannister, local scoutmaster. "It also helps to make the holidays a little brighter for those families in need. Our scouts, located here in the Parkland and throughout the southeast Missouri area, and southern Illinois as well as the city and county of St. Louis, collects approximately 2 million donated food items during Scouting for Food. The food is delivered to a network of hundreds of food pantries throughout the region and all local collections stay at local food pantries helping to provided more than half a million meals each year for families in need."

According to Bannister, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America are known for their generosity when it comes to providing service to their local communities.

"No matter what the service project, they always rally to provide scouts, young and old, family members, relatives, neighbors and friends to come together to get the job done," he said. "Be it building park benches, diaper drives, repairing historic cemeteries, erecting veteran memorials, clearing timber, planting trees, marking trails, blood drives, food drives, no matter what the project, and scouts can be creative when coming up with new ways to serve their community, the scouts have been around for over a hundred years helping their neighbors and learning the beauty of community service.

"The terms 'Boy Scouts' and 'community service' go hand in hand. Immediately following the founding of the Boy Scouts in 1910, World War One erupted in Europe and soon engulfed our own nation. The Boy Scouts answered their nations call and helped sell almost 2.5 million war stamps and war bonds and helping to distribute over 300 million pieces of government literature; fliers, posters, and other paper needs in the age before computers and cell phones.

"Then, while World War II ravaged the world, here at home the Boy Scouts once again came running at the bugles call and in 1942 alone, 28 service projects that were requested by the government were carried out by the Boy Scouts of America including collecting over 30 million pounds of rubber during a two-week drive, distributing pledges for war bonds, working on farms and in harvest camps and even volunteering as government dispatch bearers; by the end of the war, over 69 national service projects were conducted during the four-years the United States was actively engaged in the war."

Scoutings dedication to service continued during peace time, with voter registration pushes in the 1950s and 1960s.

"By the 1970s, the Cub Scouts were conducting national Safe Bicycle Driving service programs and the Boy Scouts were involved in ecological service projects," Bannister said. "Most of these projects began as the dream of one individual and in 1985 a local Eagle Scout Project turned into a St. Louis Area Council food drive that created a new mission for Scouting, Scouting for Food and that would finally, in 1988, become a national-level Scouting for Food drive that collected more than 65 million containers of food across the country that year.

Scouting for Food is a program with a rich tradition here in the Ozark Trailblazers District, Bannister said, This program began right here in our area, an Eagle Scout project from a young man born and raised here and that shows our area knows how to help their neighbors, how to give back because they know what it is like to have hard times, to need a hand up and not a hand out.

"All donations are appreciated, however try to not put glass items in the bags for the scouts to pick up. They can get broken and hurt someone ... Our scouts will be out the on both Saturdays and are instructed to watch for cars, but motorists need to keep their eyes open too as they walk through your neighborhood.
OTTAWA  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump spoke on the phone late Wednesday evening and extended invitations to visit each other's capitals in the new year.

A short read-out from the Prime Ministers Office said Trudeau called Trump to congratulate the Republican candidate on his victory.

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The Prime Minister and the President-elect reiterated the importance of the Canada-United States bilateral relationship, and discussed various areas of mutual interest, the statement said, without elaborating on the subject matter.

The Prime Minister invited the President-elect to visit Canada at his earliest opportunity. The president-elect offered the same to the Prime Minister, the note added.

Trudeau called president-elect Donald Trump to congratulate him on his election victory. (Photos: Getty)

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A senior source described the chat as a very good call and suggested it went better than the Liberal leader had expected.

Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Canada is typically the first foreign visit a newly elected president makes. U.S. President Barack Obama made Ottawa his first official visit, as did former presidents Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Former president George W. Bush, however, chose to visit Mexico instead.

Chris Sands, director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, told The Huffington Post Canada that it doesnt really matter if Trump snubs Canada as his first state visit. The trips are often a way for the Secret Service to test operations in a friendly and close country, he said.

Whether it is first or not, isnt as important as whether it happens, he said.

The Trudeau government, who expected Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton would win, was quick to extend an olive branch of sorts to the Trump team.

NAFTA has room for improvement: ambassador

Canadas ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton, told reporters the federal government was ready to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if the Trump administration wanted to discuss it.

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"I think any agreement can be improved,'' MacNaughton said.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to renegotiate NAFTA to get a better deal for American workers or to tear it up if an new agreement couldnt be had.

MacNaughton said Canada also had a number of NAFTA irritants it would like to see addressed, he noted in particular that hed love to see a deal on softwood lumber.

The Trudeau government has not been able to reach a new arrangement with the Obama administration on the recently expired pact.

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Warning: Graphic photo below

When Calgary's Chris Ball started watching the U.S. election results come in at a bar in California on Tuesday, he probably didn't expect his night to end with a trip to the ER.

Ball, a film producer, said he was attacked for being gay, and his friend believes they were Trump supporters.

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He told Metro Calgary that as the polls came in, tensions began to rise in the bar in Santa Monica and people started yelling at him.

"People started launching homophobic slurs at me from afar," he told the newspaper. "I mean, I kind of got into it, but I didnt want to provoke them.

"They were saying things like, 'We got a new president you f*cking faggots.'"

After he left the bar, a group of men attacked him and smashed a bottle over his head.

Ball's friend, Noah Kentis, posted a photo to Facebook that shows Ball covered in blood from a wound on his head.

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"Who cares what the guy behind the podium says, don't smash a beer bottle in someone's face," wrote Kentis, who described the attackers as Trump supporters.

Ball told Metro that five staples were needed to close the gash on his head, and that the Facebook picture made the wound look worse than it was.

"Thank you everyone for the support and good vibes," Ball posted on his Facebook profile Wednesday. "Just wanted to say I'm alive and well. And still very gay."

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Ball told Metro that he feels the attack was fuelled by homophobia, and not politics.

However, Lt. Saul Rodriguez of the Santa Monica police said there has no report to the department of such an attack, and that local hospital records revealed no one admitted or treated for such an incident.

"We encourage the alleged victim to come forward and work with us if a crime did in fact take place," Rodriguez said in an email to The Huffington Post Canada on Thursday.

Repeated attempts to reach Ball for comment have not yet been returned.

Luckily the staples are the same colour as my grey hair! A photo posted by Chris Ball (@chris.bawl) on Nov 10, 2016 at 3:11pm PST

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Americans fleeing a Trump presidency ought to know one thing about Canada: the housing can be crazy expensive up here.

And a new infographic by Rentseeker hammers this point home.

The real estate and apartment-seeking website has published a graphic that demonstrates how much it costs to buy a home in various cities in Canada and the U.S.

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The top of the graphic shows what it costs to buy an average-priced home in cities from Vancouver to St. John's; the lower half, what it costs throughout America.

Canadian homes are valued in loonies, American homes in U.S. dollars.

Methodology

Rentseeker arrived at the numbers using the calculator provided by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), which allows you to figure out how much you'd be paying for a home with a specific down payment.

If anything, it's a reminder that, in some Canadian cities, you'll be paying through the nose to escape Trump.

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One South Carolina realtors billboards have been great for business.

Jeff Cook put up ads over the summer offering to help Charleston residents sell their homes and move to Canada after the U.S. presidential election.

Spotted in Charleston: "Moving to Canada?" billboard using presidential race in a real estate ad. cc @RobertMaguire_pic.twitter.com/MIgDI7WOzN  Anna Massoglia (@annalecta) July 24, 2016

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Cook told The Post and Courier in July a few people walked into his office, referring to the billboard as the reason they wanted to sell with him.

Theyre ticked off about politics, he said.

But as the election results started to roll in Tuesday evening, interest reached a new level.

"I mean, every minute we probably had five to ten callers," Cook told WCIV.

Overnight, his office received 380 phone calls.

He said a lot of people want help with immigration papers, which isnt part of his business.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada is the best bet for information on how to immigrate. And it turn out, a lot of Americans visited the site on election night. More than 200,000 users were trying to access it when it crashed.

While Jeff Cooks ads started as a joke to drum up business, he soon realized there was a real demand.

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We found out very quickly there's a lot of people that are very, very serious about wanting to sell their home because they're scared of what the future is going to hold."

But Charleston homeowners who manage to immigrate may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Homes are a lot pricier in Canada than they are in the South Carolina city.

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An Idaho mother who gave her child a marijuana smoothie to help her cope with a medical condition has lost custody of her kid.

Kelsey Osborne's three-year-old daughter, Madyson, has a history of seizures. The girl had been having "particularly bad" ones after taking prescription medication last month, according to KTNV.

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Osborne said she gave Madyson a smoothie with a tablespoon of marijuana butter, and the girl's symptoms stopped within an hour.

The mom took her to the doctor after the incident, where she tested positive for marijuana, reported KTLA 5.

"It was my last resort."

The drug is illegal in the state, and Osborne was charged with misdemeanour injury to a child, the network reported. Even in states where marijuana is legal, it's against the law to give it to children.

The mom pleaded not guilty, but lost custod of her children. according to KTVB.

Madyson and her brother, Ryker, have been living with their father.

"It was my last resort," Osborne told KTVB. "I didn't ever think it would come down to this, but it did."

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The mom said she's fighting to regain custody of the kids.

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Nanaimo bars are a popular Canadian dessert that require no baking to prepare. The recipe was first printed in Edith Adams' cookbook in 1953 using the name "Nanaimo Bars" after the city of Nanaimo, British Columbia. This cookbook is now kept at the Nanaimo museum.

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Nanaimo bars consist of three layers: the bottom layer is traditionally made with graham cracker crumbs, cocoa, almonds, coconut and held together with egg; the creamy centre is a sweet custard that is made with powdered sugar, custard powder, butter and cream; and the final layer is a chocolate topping that combines chocolate and butter.

Although the traditional Nanaimo bar recipe is full of common allergens, such as wheat, milk, eggs and tree nuts, an allergy-friendly Nanaimo bar can easily be made without sacrificing taste.

Here's how I made gluten-free, nut-free, vegan Nanaimo bars:

In order to ensure that my allergy-friendly version of the Nanaimo bar tasted authentic, I used the official Nanaimo bar recipe from the City Of Nanaimo website as my starting point.

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The bottom layer is the nutty, chocolate-y graham cracker base of the Nanaimo bar that makes up most of the flavour. I replaced the butter in the recipe with dairy-free, soy-free vegan butter. If you are unable to find vegan butter, you can use coconut oil as a substitute. I decided to use maple syrup instead of sugar, and slightly increased the quantity of sweetener to account for the fact that I would not use graham crackers in my recipe. I've had a difficult time finding gluten-free graham crackers that were also egg-free, so I replace the graham crackers with gluten-free oats.

The original recipe calls for finely chopped almonds and an egg to bind the ingredients together. I decided to replace the almond with shelled hemp seeds, which are completely nut-free, high in protein and also have a rich nutty taste. I replaced the egg with ground flax seed and water, which thickens and becomes an excellent binder, and also has a nutty flavour.

The creamy custard is traditionally made with butter, cream, icing sugar and custard powder. The butter and cream in this recipe was replaced with vegan, soy-free butter and coconut coffee cream. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Bird's Custard Powder, which is a common custard powder brand, is dairy- and egg-free and is easily found in the baking aisle of grocery stores. A fun fact about Bird's Custard Powder: it was invented by Sir Alfred Bird in 1837 because his wife had an egg allergy. Custard powder is essentially cornstarch with colour and flavouring, and becomes custard when you add warm milk. It's important to read ingredient lists, as instant custard powder often contains dairy or modified milk ingredients.

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The Nanaimo bar is topped with a thin and soft chocolate layer. I used about half a bag of Enjoy Life dairy-free chocolate chips with vegetable oil instead of butter.

I refrigerated the final product for about two hours. It helps to run your knife under very hot water before cutting small bars, as it helps cut through the top chocolate layer. This recipe yields about 20 or more small Nanaimo bars. Serve the bars cold or at room temperature.

Bottom cookie layer:

1/2 cup vegan butter

1/3 cup maple syrup

5 tbsp. cocoa

1 tbsp. ground flax seed

3 tbsp. warm water

1 1/4 cups gluten-free oats

1/2 cup hemp seeds

1 cup shredded coconut

Melt vegan butter on a double boiler with maple syrup and cocoa. Mix ground flax seed with three tablespoons of warm water in small bowl, and allow to stand for one minute. Add flax mixture to the double boiler, and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in oats, hemp seeds and coconut. Press firmly into a parchment-lined 8" x 8" pan.

Middle custard layer:

1/2 cup vegan butter

2 tbsp. and 2 tsp. coconut coffee cream

2 tbsp. dairy-free custard powder

2 cups icing sugar (sifted)

Cream butter, cream, custard powder and icing sugar together well. Beat until light. Spread over top bottom cookie layer.

Top chocolate layer:

4 oz of dairy-free chocolate chips

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

Melt chocolate and butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, but still liquid, pour over custard layer, and chill in refrigerator for two hours or longer. Enjoy the bars cold or at room temperature.
Donald Trumps stunning ascent to the White House has made Canada the lone champion of multiculturalism among major Western democracies, says Stephen Marche.

In a column published in The Walrus, the Toronto author mused on an America careening toward an uncertain future, led by a man who has never held a position in elected office.

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Marche writes:

We are increasingly alone. This loneliness is going to define us in the coming months and years, possibly forever. We are the last country on earth to believe in multiculturalism. We are one of the last countries on earth to believe in the freedom of trade. The irony of our situation is obvious: We are most open to the world at the exact moment the world has closed.

He argues that with unexpected voting results awarding Trump the presidency; the United Kingdoms approval of its Brexit; and rise of nationalism in an increasingly divided Europe  Canada can no longer rely on these countries as progressive role models.

Canada became the first country to adopt multiculturalism as a national policy back in 1971. A decade later, it became enshrined into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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Marche made mention of how the Conservative Partys 2015 election campaign, marked with anti-Muslim politics, didnt gel with Canadians. That rejection of race-baiting party tactics puts Canada in a unique place in the world, he said.

We must make it work better and we must make it work for everyone.

The Huffington Post Canada reached out to Heritage Minister Melanie Jolys office for comment about the countrys new position in the world, but did not receive a response before publication.

Uncertainty for Canada-U.S. relations

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Trump to congratulate him on his election victory late Wednesday and invited the president-elect to visit Canada at his earliest opportunity.

When asked about Trump, Trudeau told reporters in Sydney, N.S. on Thursday that the expectations of his office compel him to work constructively with world leaders, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.

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Canadians expect me to stand up for Canadian rights, Canadian opportunities, Canadian jobs and Canadian values, he said, pledging to continue to work in a way that will benefit Canada and its position in the world.

The prime ministers former foreign policy advisor Roland Paris told The Huffington Post Canada that Trudeau is the countrys greatest asset on the global stage.

[Trudeau] enjoys a platform and visibility in the United States that no Canadian leader in history has enjoyed  including his own father  and we dont know how long that will last, so [he]  needs to be put to good use.

Trump: I will make America better and stronger

Trump launched his bid for the presidency 18 months ago by descending an escalator in the gilded lobby of his namesake Manhattan tower. One of the first things he promised was to build a great wall separating the U.S. from Mexico to halt illegal immigration.

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And I will have Mexico pay for that wall, he said at the time during his 45-minute speech.

Trump ended things by declaring the American dream dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, he said.

Over the course of his campaign, his xenophobia includes support toward a national registry of the countrys Muslims. When pressed for the specifics of how such a plan would be implemented, Trump drew a blank.

Different places. You sign up at different places. But its all about management. Our country has no management, he said, reported the New York Times.

According to the Independent, Trumps statement promising to ban all Muslims from entering the United States has been erased from his website less than 48 hours after his election day victory.

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But mention of the controversial ban eventually returned to Trumps website by Thursday afternoon.

Citing concerns about safety, he made the reactionary Muslim ban promise in wake of terrorist attacks in Paris last year. He had justified his call as a means of giving himself and U.S. authorities time to sort out what the hell was going on.

Trump will be sworn into office as the 45th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2017.

With files from Althia Raj

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he delivered the same message to his kids after Donald Trumps victory that he has been telling Canadians for months.

At an event in Nova Scotia on Thursday, Trudeau was specifically asked what he told his daughter after Trump won the American presidency this week.

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Several women have accused Trump of sexual assault and the brash Republican has a long track record of stomach-churning, offensive comments about women. He defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton, the first woman nominated to lead a major American political party.

I told my kids that the relationship between Canada and the U.S. is a deep and positive one, Trudeau said, adding that was the same message he gave tens of thousands of kids at a WE Day event in Ottawa the day before.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gives a thumbs up as he sits with his daughter Ella-Grace at an event in Ottawa in December 2015. (Photo: Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

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Trudeau has two sons and a daughter: Xavier, 9, Ella-Grace 7, and Hadrian, 2.

Trudeau suggested people in this country are used to making things work, even when they dont see eye-to-eye.

Were Canadians. We work hard to get along with people, we work hard to push our interests, he said. Thats what I told my kids, thats what I told the kids gathered at WE Day and thats what I tell Canadians.

Were going to work constructively on this important relationship because thats what people expect.

"Were Canadians. We work hard to get along with people, we work hard to push our interests."

Trudeau did not budge from those sentiments whenever he was asked about Trump in the last year. The prime minister maintained he did not want to interfere in another countrys election and repeatedly said he would work with either Trump or Clinton.

After a tape was released of Trump bragging about grabbing women by the genitals, Trudeau was asked for his response as a proud feminist prime minister. Again, he said he didnt want to insert himself in the campaign but suggested people know where he stands.

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Ive been very, very clear in my approach as a feminist, as someone who has stood clearly and strongly all my life around issues of sexual harassment, standing against violence against women, that I dont need to make any further comment at this time, Trudeau said last month.

However, his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, told a forum of girls that such language of aggression and violence or rape culture should not be considered normal in society.

"The good news is we don't agree with that. And a lot of people don't agree with that as well," she said.

Trudeau spoke with Trump late Wednesday evening and extended an invitation to visit Ottawa once he takes office.

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The prime minister told reporters Thursday that Trump expressed warmth towards Canada during their chat.

It was a brief call but a strong beginning to what is going to be a constructive relationship, he said.

Conservatives have already called on Trudeau to take immediate action to press Trump on approving the Keystone XL pipeline.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, meanwhile, told reporters this in Montreal that Trudeau needs to stand up to the incoming president.

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I think when you see the type of racist, sexist comments that were made by Mr. Trump during the campaign those are things we dont want here in Canada, Mulcair said.

But The Canadian Press reports that Mulcair refused to call Trump a fascist, as he did last year, and noted the party has taken down an online petition to ban Trump from entering Canada

With files from The Canadian Press

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There are some silver linings in the U.S. election results.

Americans may not have gotten their first female president, but the election finale did include some wins for diversity.

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On Tuesday, Ilhan Omar became the first Somali-American Muslim woman to be elected to public office. Omar, who lived in a Kenyan refugee camp for four years before immigrating to the U.S., defeated her Republican opponent to win a seat in Minnesota's legislature.

Tonight, we are celebrating this win, our win. But our work wont stop, she said after the election, according to The Guardian.

We will continue to build a more prosperous and equitable district, state and nation where each and every one of us has opportunities to thrive and move forward together.

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Over in Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto's victory made her the first Latina to be elected to the U.S. Senate. NBC News reports the 52-year-old Democratic nominee scored 49 per cent of the vote, while her Republican rival Joe Heck received 44 per cent.

"I want you to know this isn't my win, it is our win. We did this together," she said after her win.

"The multicoloured fabric of Nevada, the diversity here, is our strength and I can see from your faces that we are going to continue to be strong and continue to fight for our families, for our future  here in Nevada and across this country."

Kamala Harris' victory in California is a diversity win on two fronts. Harris, born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, became the first Indian-American senator and the second black woman to be elected to the legislative chamber, according to the Los Angeles Times.

She is also the first black senator from California.

After her election night victory, Harris said she will "fight for who we are and for our ideals," according to the Associated Press. She has vowed to push on immigration reform and fighting climate change.

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Kate Brown was already America's first openly bisexual governor, but on Tuesday she was officially elected to her position.

Brown became Oregon governor in 2015 after John Kitzhaber was forced to resign amid a scandal that involved his fiancee.

During this week's gubernatorial election, Brown was elected to serve the remainder of Kitzhaber's term with 51 per cent of the vote, while her Republican opponent Bud Pierce received 44 per cent.

'You cant be what you cant see'

Brown did not disclose her sexual orientation herself. She was outed in 1995 in a story about LGBTQ legislators. But since then, she has had no trouble discussing the topic.

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It doesnt bother me ... because what I think is really important is that kids see role models, Brown told The Huffington Post in October. You cant be what you cant see."

Another significant senate race for the Democrats was won by Tammy Duckworth. The Iraq War veteran and two-term congresswoman reclaimed the Illinois seat that was once held by Barack Obama.

Duckworth becomes the first female senator to have seen combat and just the second Asian-American senator.

She is going to be a great senator for Illinois, Obama said to attendees at a fundraiser for Duckworth in October.

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I cannot think of a better person to represent this state that I love.

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ShutterStock mother consoling grown up...

One of the gifts of the last Canadian election was the engagement of youth in social issues and the political process. It may have had something to do with Justin Trudeau being younger and appealing to young people -- but it may also have had something to do with open discussions around issues that are close to the hearts of our Canadian youth.

As a Child and Family Therapist I have had many opportunities to talk with young people and hear their thoughts and feelings about the world. And as a mother of 17 year old twins I have my own direct conduit to observe what is relevant to young people today.

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With the election of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada there was a swell of political passion from young people, even those too young to vote. Justin was speaking their language -- one of inclusion, diversity and tolerance.

I felt proud of our young Canadians, as this next generation of voters appeared concerned and caring about others, and wanted a political voice that reflected their values of compassion and world citizenship. The passion I witnessed in our youth warmed my heart and gave me hope for a future where our Canadian citizens would also be citizens of the world.

As a middle-aged Canadian who has always exercised my democratic right to vote, I felt grateful that the next generation was getting involved in the political process, as they are the holders of the future.

As a Parent Educator I feel proud of Canadian parents, as we must be doing something right when our youth are so engaged in this process. The youth wanted to vote, and they were excited to move into a future in which their voices mattered.

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They were not afraid to engage in conversations about issues that were important to them. As a parent I felt encouraged that my own children spoke with compassion and caring for others, and that they were looking forward to the time when they were old enough to cast their vote for the future.

But then the political bomb hit, and it hit hard.

On November 8, 2016 the American election took an unexpected turn and Donald Trump was voted in as President of the United States. It was no longer a joke, it was real. Many young people had spent the long electoral process watching YouTube documentaries, reading articles on their newsfeeds, and laughing along -- they never considered that the American people would actually vote Donald Trump in as President.

He was seen as the antitheses to our Prime Minister who had walked in the Gay Pride parade with his young family and welcomed refugees from Syria. For many young people, Donald Trump was just a bad joke that would soon go away, and we would just have some classic Saturday Night Live skits to remember this time by.

But the unbelievable happened. As the results began to become undeniable and there was no avoiding the dreaded outcome, I witnessed my children and their friends reaching out to ask each other in shock and asking their parents "How could this happen?"

The pain and confusion of our young people, and ourselves, began to emerge on social media channels. The themes were the same everywhere. Disbelief, anger, sadness, confusion... and of course, the worst of it all... fear. Children of all ages looked to their parents for answers, and all we could do was look on in disbelief ourselves. Our children were trying to understand how someone who was seen as a bully, and was openly racist and sexist could be elected to one of the most powerful positions in the world.

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As I read the words my 17 year old daughter posted on her Facebook last night, I knew she was suffering and that I needed to find a way to help her through this confusing turn of events. This was not a joke to her; she was fearful for the future. These were some of her words, and I share them with you with her permission. I feel they reflect the fears of many young people.

"I am absolutely appalled at the results of this election, and I am thoroughly stunned. Racism and Sexism are still so present in society. I know that myself and many others thought this day to be impossible, but it is not. Donald Trump is president of the United States and I fear for the lives and rights of so many minority groups in the United States. I am stunned. I am appalled. I am mournful."

So how do we help our children and youth make sense of something that makes no sense to us? How do we explain how a bully can win, and how do we assist them in working through their anxiety and fear?

1.Let your children talk, and express what they are feeling. Listen to them. Validate their feelings. This is not a time to pretend everything is ok. Acknowledge that this is a shock, and that many people are feeling what they feel.

2.Let your children know what your values are. Remind them that each and every person can make a difference.

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3.Encourage your children to do something to help someone else. When we are feeling sad, scared or overwhelmed it helps us tremendously to help others.

4.Encourage them to look to the helpers in the world. There are people that are trying to make the world a better place for others. Talk about the leaders and helpers you admire.

5.Remind our children that they are Canadian. We have made our values of inclusion and compassion known in the world forum, and we will uphold our personal and national values. Be proud to be a Canadian, and remind our children that we value kindness and contribution.

6.Remind your children that there are boundaries in place. Although the USA is our neighbour, we do have boundaries and we are a different country with a different history.

7.Remind your children that this is still democracy. As a country the Americans have a right to choose their own President, as we have a right to choose our own politicians and processes.

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8.Reassure our children that the United States has a system that has worked well for over 200 years. There are checks and balances within the system to prevent things from going too haywire.

9.Look for ways to grow compassion and empathy. This is now a call to action for all parents - to be conscious of continuing to build and grow the values that are needed in this world, now more than ever.
Joe Raedle via Getty Images BOCA RATON, FL - MAY 30: Melissa Lipman, a veterinarian technician volunteer, cares for a dog rescued from the ruins after a deadly tornado struck near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at the Tri County Humane Society in Boca Raton on May 30, 2013 in Boca Raton, Florida. Workers at the animal shelter brought 65 dogs and 15 cats back from the disaster zone last night with plans to treat the animals for injuries, give them needed shots and adopt them out to families in about a week. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Every SPCA and humane society in Canada has its own story about the core issues in its community, the reason it got started in the first place and why the organization continues its much-needed work to this day. But we also have a collective story showing that these organizations face identical struggles against outdated laws and inadequate funding across Canada.

Canada's humane societies and SPCAs have been telling their own individual stories since the 1800s, but we haven't had the chance to tell the collective, Canadian story until now. A new, first-of-its-kind sector report just released by the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies gives us that bigger picture view, and it has unearthed some critical information about the state of our sector across Canada.

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For more than 100 years, our sector has been educating the public, rescuing and adopting out animals, laying charges against animal abusers and fighting for social and legislative change toward a more humane Canada. But without national research and statistics, we haven't been able to show the public and the government the hard facts about the situation we're up against -- especially when it comes to funding.

When you look at the scope of the work that's accomplished in the face of these financial and logistical obstacles, it's truly amazing.

Canada had 125 humane societies and SPCAs at the time of this report, employing close to 2,000 staff who are supported by an estimated 26,000 volunteers. That's 13 times more volunteers than staff, which tells you a lot about the circumstances our sector is facing financially. When you look at the scope of the work that's accomplished in the face of these financial and logistical obstacles, it's truly amazing.

Our report on the sector shows that 93 per cent of Canada's humane societies and SPCAs operate animal shelters, and these organizations spent an estimated $118.4 million sheltering more than 278,000 animals in 2014. Sixty-seven per cent of responding humane societies and SPCAs indicated that they also deliver humane education programs in their communities. On the enforcement side, an estimated 103,000 animal cruelty investigations were completed across Canada in 2014. That may not sound like a lot until you hear that there are only an estimated 142 enforcement officers doing this investigative work in all of Canada, which means they are extremely overworked.

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Despite our sector's mandate to enforce animal cruelty laws, humane societies and SPCAs in Canada are not adequately funded to carry out that work. In fact, less than 50 per cent of the costs of enforcing provincial or federal animal cruelty legislation are covered by government funding. The sector as a whole spent $10.8 million per year on enforcement and received only $4.5 million in funding from all levels of government combined. When you consider that seven of our 13 provinces and territories empower humane societies and SPCAs to enforce both federal and provincial animal cruelty law, that is a troubling picture.

When you look at the scope of the work that's accomplished in the face of these financial and logistical obstacles, it's truly amazing.

Broader organizational funding is just as bleak. The sector reported total revenues of $187.8 million in 2014. That same year, municipal governments contributed a total of $25.6 million, provinces and territories committed $12.9 million and the federal government contributed just $271,000 (the latter is roughly 0.1 per cent of overall organizational spending for Canada's humane societies and SPCAs). Yet our sector is still expected to stay on top of the avalanche of demand from the community on a shoestring budget.

By contrast, 45 per cent of the total sector revenue comes directly from donations, and 85 per cent of that is from individual donors. What that means is that the responsibility of protecting animals in Canadian society is falling mainly to individual donors and the charities they support.

Animals need our protection, and they are worthy of it. The 2,000 staff and 26,000 volunteers who work in Canada's SPCAs and humane societies know this well and take on that difficult, heart-breaking work every day of the year.

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The demonstrated link between violence against animals and violence against people provides further motivation to address the state of animal protection in Canada. Over the last few decades, this correlation has come to be known as The Violence Link, and the research on it is helping us to understand just how reliably animal abuse can predict future violence against human beings.

There are many good reasons to step up our societal response to animal cruelty and neglect, and the majority of Canadians want to see our federal government take a stand on this issue. Stepping up starts with better laws and adequate governmental funding for humane societies and SPCAs.

In order to effectively protect animals and our larger communities, we need three things: an engaged government, a committed public and a well-funded sector. It is clear that the public is committed, but the other two pieces of the puzzle are up to our elected representatives. All levels of government must commit to supporting our sector financially and legislatively as we work to improve the lives of the most neglected and abused animals in Canada.

To get a free copy of the CFHS report Humane Societies and SPCAs in Canada: A comprehensive look at the sector, send an email to info@cfhs.ca. It is available in French and English.

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Topher Seguin / Reuters Residents look over the damage in the Timberlea neighbourhood as thousands of evacuees who fled a massive wildfire begin to trickle back to their homes in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada June 2, 2016. REUTERS/Topher Seguin

Six months after the Alberta wildfires, signs of hope and renewal are everywhere in Fort McMurray, but sadly, so are fresh stories of loss, desperation, and family violence.

It's been half a year since almost 90,000 people were forced to flee their homes in the Wood Buffalo region, but now some of the stories I hear highlight the challenges associated with recovering from a disaster, and are terribly familiar.

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These are stories about people trying hard to find their 'new normal' in the wake of Canada's largest disaster, but finding the process even more difficult than their terrifying evacuation last May. Thankfully, many groups and resources are already helping people cope with these current challenges.

I am hearing about families living in hotel rooms or rental properties as they wait for home repairs, rebuilds or the resolution of insurance claims. I am learning about people getting help for family violence, addiction, and marital breakdown. Job losses are increasing the turmoil. And now, some people are asking for help for the first time, having watched their savings dwindle to nothing.

People in Wood Buffalo are experiencing the pain and upheaval that can come months after a disaster, as people struggle to recover. At the Canadian Red Cross, we have seen this fallout before, and our experience has prepared us to help.

That's why Red Cross, along with other community and government partners, is already providing support, and will continue to help for months and even years, if necessary. That's why we also recognize that recovery is a unique and personal process. Certainly, the stories that I am hearing clearly illustrate this.

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For instance, I was recently told about:

Several women with children who needed support after their husbands left town without warning because they couldn't find work or the energy to support young families.

An older man, who is financially stable after the fires, but could no longer face emotional challenges until he received counselling.

And in one case, young parents were helped with a plane ticket, so they could pick up their baby after months of separation. Wildfires destroyed their home when they were visiting relatives, so they left the child until it was safe to return.

Of course, there are many stories of resilience and incredible strength.

Everett Snow lost everything in the wildfires. But during the evacuation, he delivered donated supplies to other people in Boyle and Lac La Biche, and later to the food bank in Fort McMurray. His spirit was challenged, but not broken. His mother was a Red Cross volunteer, and Snow never imagined needing help himself. But generous donations from Canadians are now helping him get back on his feet.

Chad Bowie, a Fort McMurray teacher, and his colleagues risked their lives trying to extinguish embers on their school roof before they were evacuated. When they returned in August, their classroom materials, usually purchased by teachers, were smoke damaged and had to be discarded. But now, with help from the Alberta Teachers' Association and Red Cross, their materials are being replaced and school spirit is high.

At Red Cross, we are very grateful that we could help these people and thousands more because one million Canadians rallied from coast to coast to donate after the wildfires. Canadians gave $185 million, which was matched with $104 million from the Government of Canada and $30 million from the Government of Alberta.

To date, the Red Cross has already spent $178 million of this total, primarily to assist families and individuals, as well as small businesses and community groups. And we will continue to help people in need. In Fort McMurray, for example, caseworkers are still seeing dozens of people every day, providing funds for such basics as food, rent, school and work supplies. This is what Red Cross does when disaster strikes.

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After making many trips to Fort McMurray, it is not the rows of charred houses or ashen forests that leave the most lasting impression with me. It is my encounters with people, their strength and human spirit that prevail. We know disaster recovery is extremely difficult, and in many ways, the hard work is just beginning for many people. But we also know that with support, people will get past this challenging period, and eventually discover that they are safely home again.

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By Vjosa Isai

The festive transformation of storefront windows and winter drink menus are already in motion, signalling this year's holiday season is upon us once again. While it may be too soon for Christmas shopping, anyone thinking of a holiday getaway would benefit from an early start to planning, especially if you're bringing along a furry friend.

Airlines have pet policies in place to designate which animals are permitted in the cabin versus cargo hold, a vital consideration for pet owners. These guidelines are often based on the pet's weight, age, carrier size, and whether the flight is international or domestic.

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Breed is also a major consideration. Some airlines, including WestJet, recommend that travellers with snub-nose (or brachycephalic) pets consult with a veterinarian before flying. According to WestJet's pet policies, "These types of pets suffer from respiratory problems that increase with stress and heat, and may not be suitable for travel in checked baggage."

Unfortunately, the whole experience of travelling with your pet can be rendered much more stressful with airlines that don't allow pets in the cabin (British Airways, Emirates, Air Asia, Air New Zealand, or Qantas to name a few, although some make exceptions for service animals). This restriction can force a pet owner's hand at making a decision that may leave them ill-at-ease during the flight, knowing their pet is in a pressurized and cooler-temperature part of the plane, with no access to them for the duration of the flight.

But is this fear warranted?

"Travelling in cargo isn't necessarily unsafe," said Get Leashed Magazine's veterinarian-in-residence, Dr. Sheldon. "If it's a onetime thing, and you're flying internationally and this is the only way, flying your pet in cargo is most likely going to be safe."

However, Dr. Sheldon strongly suggests avoiding having your pet in the cargo hold for for more frequent trips, saying it could increase health risks to your pet.

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"If it's constant type of travel, I would never suggest you bringing your pet back and forth in cargo. You're increasing the risk and your pet would be much better off left in someone's care instead."

Echoing WestJet's recommendation on snub-nose breeds, Dr. Sheldon said dogs like pugs and bulldogs are not suited for the cargo hold due to breathing problems. Stress caused by noises, the cool temperature, and confined space in cargo can aggravate respiratory and cardiac issues, he said.

Other breeds without the "pushed-in" facial appearance, including poodles and Yorkies who have a tracheal collapse, can also be negatively affected by travelling in cargo.

"If the pet has a breathing problem, or an underlying condition you are unaware of, you could end up with a deceased pet on arrival," Dr. Sheldon said.

This frightening reality has pushed airlines like Delta to change their pet policies.

Delta Airlines banned all pets from travelling in its cargo hold as of March 1, 2016, after a total of 74 pet deaths were reported between May 2005 and September 2015.

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According to MarketWatch, Delta banned snub-nosed dogs and cats from being checked in with baggage in 2011 due to respiratory issues. However, even after this initial ban, the airline experienced another 24 deaths leading up to the ban on all pets in cargo.

Another 14 animals went missing during this 10-year period.

"If an airline can lose luggage, they can lose your pet," Dr. Sheldon said. And as with any type of travel, delays can cause stressful situations for both pet and owner.

Elizabeth Taylor & Chance always fly in cabin

"Operations do not always run smoothly; you're sometimes delayed waiting for hours on board and you may not know what's going on. That situation alone is concerning."

If you're anything like me, the very thought of a beloved pet under my care being just beyond reach when they might need me most is enough for me to call a no-go to cargo hold travelling.

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I can't control when the flight will land, how long it will stay on the tarmac, or who will handle my pet. I can't be there to comfort them during turbulence, or make sure they don't go missing in between flights. While it may not be high-risk to every animal's health, there are too many factors that I would rather find an alternative for in order to avoid a potentially stressful trip for myself and my animal.

But as much as I would rather avoid it, there could be a time when my pet has to travel in cargo. And the best person to go to if you're experiencing travel anxiety for your pet is your veterinarian.

Dr. Sheldon recommends seeing a vet before travelling to make sure your pet receives a clean bill of health.

The holidays see some of the busiest travel days of the year with the heaviest luggage. So be sure to get started early on planning your pets travel itinerary or holiday accommodations.

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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Delaware, Ohio, U.S. October 20, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

It is hard to say anything positive about what happened on election night in the United States. A candidate who based his campaign on racism, xenophobia and know-nothing politics that disregarded facts, won the presidency. Intolerance for ethnic and social diversity, not to mention a closed mind to knowledge and learning, can point to a society in decline.

Donald Trump, supremely unqualified to be president of the United States, defeated a woman who worked hard, prepared diligently for debates, and was highly qualified for the office. This must have been a painful reminder for many women who have lost out on promotions to much less qualified men, as well as women who have had to work harder for less.

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Barack Obama, because he was non-white and had a non-Anglo-Saxon name, faced questions about whether he was actually American (birtherism) and whether he was loyal to the United States. Meanwhile, Donald Trump ran a campaign stating America was essentially "not great" and he appeared to openly collaborate with a less-than-friendly foreign government, Vladimir Putin's in Russia.

Canada stands alone with the politics of ethnic division being swiftly rejected in the 2015 election.

This is a painful reminder to many visible minorities how their loyalty and identity in North America can be constantly questioned. How no matter how hard they try to be a part of the community, they can be seen as "foreign" and "outsiders," and never quite "one of us."

Furthermore, the fact that Donald Trump's campaign was openly based on hostility to Mexicans and Muslims makes members of these groups feel increasingly under siege and unwelcome.

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Also, the next president of the United States is someone who openly bragged about sexually assaulting women, and then multiple women came forward saying he sexually assaulted them. That Trump could be considered fit to be president, be seen as someone who can set an example for the country, is appalling. This sets a horrible example.

The United States is a deeply divided country, it is hard to know if this divide can be bridged. It is hard to know how a Donald Trump presidency will play out. He could potentially undermine America's democratic institutions given his authoritarian tendencies. Also, the very unity of the United States could be under threat (already there is a California independence movement -- #Calexit -- gaining some momentum in the aftermath of Trump's victory).

On the other hand, the ever-unprincipled Trump may strike a conciliatory tone and govern as a moderate. However, that will not take away from the fact that he campaigned on racism and hate, that he was endorsed by hate groups including the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan.

So what does this mean for Canada?

An article in the Walrus stated that with xenophobic politics on the rise in Europe, and now the United States, Canada stands alone with the politics of ethnic division being swiftly rejected in the 2015 election, and with an official policy of multiculturalism. However, the article warned we cannot take this for granted.

The fact is American media permeates Canada. Donald Trump and his hateful rhetoric is broadcast widely here, it influences children in the schoolyard, and it mainstreams racism and sexism. The struggles and gains in human rights of the past several decades could be rolled back.

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Many of us are angry, hurt and afraid. However, we must channel this into action. We must make our voices heard and press policy makers here in Canada to uphold the values of diversity and multiculturalism, to not be tempted to pander to xenophobic elements. We must condemn those politicians who try to play on ethnic and social divisions.

Policy makers must continue to pursue conciliation with First Nations, and must continue to uphold multiculturalism and human rights.

Canada stands alone with the politics of ethnic division being swiftly rejected in the 2015 election.

Public and private sector leaders must press for diversity in leadership -- representation of women and cultural and ethnic minorities -- and recognize the strength of diversity of viewpoints and perspectives this brings.

We must see diversity as a strength. When one is at the mall or downtown and sees people from various cultural backgrounds, speaking different languages, it should be recognized as a strength: an exchange of culture and ideas enriches us and our society, and if people from diverse backgrounds and from around the world want to be here, that is a sign that our community must be a great place to live that people want to come to.

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We must try to be friends with people of other ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds, to try to learn about and understand each other. We must not see each other as hostile or opposed based on ethnic or cultural differences. Extending the hand of friendship and kindness is very effective.

In whatever way we can, we must uphold multiculturalism, as well as civil and human rights. Despair and anger at Trump's election must give way to action. We must be vigilant about his rhetoric of hate and division coming to our side of the border.

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"The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything." - George Carlin

People in America are taking to the streets to protest Donald Trump being elected president. But instead of it being a working example of how civil disobedience can spotlight a heinous injustice, the protesters are instead shining a light on something more dangerous, even more hideous than a bombastic scumbag occupying the White House; they are unwitting participants of widespread political ignorance, a naive civilian populace too offended to understand that they are the problem.

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In essence, people are protesting their own stupidity under the guise of hating president-elect Trump. They think that having a repugnant president is all one needs to grab a sign and shout slogans, when what they really need is a legit excuse to hit the streets.

Demonstrators chant as they march during a rally against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in New York. Photo: Getty Images

There are no accusations of voter fraud, of voter suppression, of hacking electronic voting machines. There is just an election result they disagree with vehemently, and so march they must, to show everyone they are on the right side of history, the left side of decency.

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The thing is, they are on the wrong side of clever, and they planted their flag there a long time ago.

It was not just an attempt to repudiate the republican candidate; it was a message soaked in a superiority complex dressed up as political savvy...

You can't bully people to vote against a bully. Probably the most surreal facet of this election was listening to people expose themselves as the guardians of good behaviour as they shamed men and women into voting for a person whose ethics were eroded with every leaked document, every false statement she made.

The snickering of Hillary Clinton voters in the run-up to the election was just as gross as a close-up of Donald Trump's pasty liver lips, while their words were just as ridiculous, just as slanderous. "A vote for Trump is a vote for misogyny" is not an honest or effective way to sway somebody to your camp.

It was not just an attempt to repudiate the republican candidate; it was a message soaked in a superiority complex dressed up as political savvy and delivered by messengers who seemed to all stop taking their anxiety meds after the primary was over. They are a posse of frantic doomsday preachers whose empty rhetoric helped cement the Trump presidency, and now that he has won they are doubling down by protesting democracy itself.

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Meanwhile, the one group of voters who actually have legit reasons to hit the streets against injustice are the ones being blamed for snatching victory from the democrats. Entitlement doesn't even begin to describe Clinton and her stable of hyper-charged supporters, the loyalty so visceral and potent that actual evidence of subverting the primary process was brushed aside as a normal part of crowning a nominee.

This was a display of pathological indifference and rabid entitlement where the offenders were acting like the offended, the bullies acting like victims, as they pranced around campaign offices like giddy little know-it-alls assigned to protect America from the Orange Godzilla and his apocalyptic vision.

So try being a Bernie Sanders supporter in that climate, where your candidate was demeaned and abused by these rabid Clintonian soldiers. Then, after the WikiLeaks revelations, after the resignations at the DNC, after the curtain was lifted revealing cheaters and manipulators working against the Sanders candidacy, Sanders supporters are lectured about the future being at stake.

This goes well beyond cognitive dissonance; this was a display of pathological indifference and rabid entitlement where the offenders were acting like the offended, the bullies acting like victims, as they pranced around campaign offices like giddy little know-it-alls assigned to protect America from the Orange Godzilla and his apocalyptic vision.

No. This was madness. Clinton cheated the democratic process and her supporters turned around and acted like they were now the spokespeople for righteousness. Meanwhile, regular voters who saw this hypocrisy were left to untangle the false choice in front of them. And if you want to get down to the data and find out how Trump really won, you can start at the DNC. Their poisonous strategy of subverting the legitimacy of the primary translated into a low voter turnout, costing them the election as well as their reputation of being the party of progressive ideals.

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Supporters hold signs during a Democratic campaign rally. (Photo: Getty Images)

They did this. Every Democratic voter with a penchant for labeling political opposites as racists or sexists can also be credited with the Trump victory. Every journalist colluding with John Podesta can rest easy knowing their lack of ethics thwarted the very campaign they were tasked with assisting.

Every Democratic voter with a penchant for labeling political opposites as racists or sexists can also be credited with the Trump victory.

Every finger that was pointed at an undecided voter, citizens who were shamed and goaded into believing that being undecided meant they must harbour unconscious hatred towards women or Mexicans or Muslims, contributed to Clinton's loss. This is on every democratic operative who thought the ends justified the means as they engaged in dirty tricks and then acted indignant towards the process itself.

Perhaps the only bright spot in this sordid election year is the distant possibility of it being the last or next-to-last election featuring two parties, as the electorate seems to be weary of their most important choice not really being a choice at all. Worse still, actual bigots or the professionally triggered often champions this two-party system, which should be enough for most rational thinkers to want another option when deciding the leader of the free world.

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I know I would.

For now we will have to wait out the people protesting outside the Trump buildings in various cities across the country, and pretend they are marching for something other than their own self-pity. Because if they wanted to ensure a Trump-less White House, they should have been on the streets protesting the torching of democracy when they found out their side was the source of the blaze.

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scarletsails via Getty Images New York, NY USA - July 16, 2016: Donald Trump speaks during introduction Governor Mike Pence as running for vice president at Hilton hotel Midtown Manhattan

Like so many Canadians today, I am in stunned by the news coming out of the U.S. With this presidential decision, the United States of America has put LGBT rights, immigrant rights, and reproductive rights on the line.

In the bright light of day, feminists in North America and around the world are wondering where we go from here. And where we go depends so much on Canada's readiness to step up.

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The American election is just one heartbreaking example of the ways that the geopolitical climate globally is steadily and perniciously shifting to the right. The devastation we felt this morning is amplified because of last month's halted peace deal in Colombia.

Because of Brexit.

Because of xenophobic attacks on immigrants fleeing war zones in Burundi and Syria.

With our self-proclaimed feminist Prime Minister, Canada has never been more needed. As human rights defenders, we are in the most privileged position of having a legitimate voice in this country. This means we must be diligent in raising Canadian consciousness about the millions of women and girls around the world whose rights and lives may be at stake if U.S. policies and international commitments -- those preventing violence, providing access to reproductive health, and protecting the rights of sexual minorities, refugees and other marginalized populations -- start to erode.

The Canadian feminists I know and love woke up ready to fight alongside the women who are the most threatened by regressive policies: From the immigrant women at the American border to the immigrant women at the Ugandan border.

From the lesbians in the state of Georgia to the lesbians in the country of Georgia.

From Indigenous women in North Dakota to Indigenous women in northern Guatemala.

Today we got a wake up call that is too big, too close to home, and too consequential to ignore.

As an increasingly isolated beacon of progressive values in North America and even the world, Canadians have a role to play in preventing the reversal of critical progress for women's rights. Especially now, we must first hold our Government to account for their stated priorities to advance the rights of women and girls.

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To do this, we can derive energy from the courageous women around the world who fight for their rights in the most restrictive contexts and who never back down.

For example, last month, the women in Colombia who were most impacted by forced disappearances, displacement and unspeakable violence voted for peace no matter how imperfect. And when peace didn't come, they took comfort in each other. Then they took stock. Then they took action.

Let us do the same. And let this moment be our Canadian rallying cry.

As individuals, we can listen to and comfort each other, seek ways to heal inequalities within our own borders, and support the women and girls around the globe who work each and every day -- even the hardest of days -- at the grassroots level.

We stand on the shoulders of many women who have fought long and hard to ensure that Canada is on the right side of history. Now more than ever, Canadian women and men have the privilege and the opportunity to shape the kind of country others look to -- one that celebrates diversity, inclusion and human rights.

Let's lean immediately into this and be our best Canadian selves.
Buena Vista Images via Getty Images Parliament Hill, Peace Tower, Ottawa,

On Oct. 26 2016, the House of Commons, Canada's Parliament, adopted unanimously a motion to condemn all forms of Islamophobia in the country.

The fact that the motion received no objection from any of the federal parties shows that the Liberal, NDP, Conservative and Bloc Quebecois members have a clear understanding that Islamophobia is a severe form of bigotry and is not a simple subject that can be ignored anymore. It has become a critical illness that raises concerns and requires a forceful push back from the federal legislators that represent all Canadians to denounce Islamophobia.

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Canada, united in standing up for human values, will be on record as the first country in the Western world to adopt a motion that contains clear wordings expressing denunciation of any sort of bigotry towards citizens based on their religious and cultural background. This move has sent a strong message to xenophobes that their acts of violence, whether verbal, moral or physical, have been rejected, and that their beliefs stand against everything that Canada prides itself on: inclusion, equality and peace. Moreover, Canada can now be provided as an actual example to the world that nations are stronger through the diversity of their population.

This move has sent a strong message to xenophobes that their acts of violence, whether verbal, moral or physical, have been rejected.

It's rational to say that the notion of inclusion of all people that share a common land within an identified border is the most effective tool and approach to secure peace, harmony, equality and fairness.

Democratic states have carried titles of freedom, liberty and human rights slogans for a long period of time. We have been witnessing for the last two decades or so that some governments try or adapt official policies that lead to social friction amongst cultural, religious or ethnic lines. These strategies, despite appearing to be pay off through some political gains for a very limited period of time, certainly will end in devastating consequences that lead to social tensions that can be easily avoided.

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By the same token, exclusion of groups of citizens because of their social, spiritual or intellectual convictions, skin colour or political views may lead to feelings of isolation and negligence, especially in the youth segment of society. This may lead some of youth to turn to inappropriate actions, creating a generation that is looked at and dealt with as second-class citizens and under siege at all times.

Canada has proudly taken a step in enhancing human values.

Anti-Semitism, racial profiling, islamophobia, bashing of any culture or race are all characteristics of bigots and portraits of racists. They are the individuals who rush to express their hatred and hostility toward any inclusive move and mind-opening exchange toward citizens of all faith, beliefs and views. Societies across the universe have suffered at the hands of these extremists elements that target all those who do not belong to their line of philosophy.

Canada has proudly taken a step in enhancing human values by condemning Islamophobia. The concepts of hate speech, bigotry and stereotyping have received a blow from the moral gesture taken by the House of Commons, the house that represents citizens from coast to coast, in unanimous consent without the opposition of any of the legislators on the floor.

The next step is for the federal government to set up policies and orientations to address and deal profoundly at all levels, social, economical and political, with Islamophobia symptoms that present themselves strongly in our society. Canada is exceptional in its values and human standards, and can remain the multicultural icon of the world with the continued condemning of bigotry.

Samer Majzoub is the president of the Canadian Muslim Forum (FMC-CMF).

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Raleigh News & Observer via Getty Images Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to his supporters at Dorton Arena Monday, Nov. 7, 2016 in Raleigh N.C. It's the final day before Election Day. (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News & Observer/TNS via Getty Images)

Well, Americans have spoken. They elected Donald J. Trump as their president.

Before anyone accuses me of being a Trump supporter, let me be clear: I am not, and neither was I a supporter of the other choices on the ballot (and regardless, I have no say: I am not an American citizen).

But he was the person on the ballot and he won. Since, much chagrin has ensued in rooms where intellectuals, media and politicians congregate. They tried everything to stop Trump's win. From initially making fun of him to then presenting him as the biggest threat that the U.S. ever faced, and it all failed: he won decisively.

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The question is why? Why did the Americans elect a man with no previous government experience, facing a number of lawsuits and allegations of sexual abuse and with a history of making polarizing statements?

We're seeing more individuals and parties describing themselves as "anti-establishment" making progress in popular votes.

The answer is simple: they wanted someone that was not part of the "establishment," someone that said things without being "politically correct," someone that wasn't part of the political system that keeps promising them things and fails to deliver, someone that talked about issues they face on a day-to-day basis rather than large pie-in-the-sky projects.

The anti-establishment movements (there's not a "single" movement -- there are lots of groups opposing the establishment) are getting stronger and are responding to the concerns expressed by various segments of the population.

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Americans are facing difficult economic conditions, security concerns and a changing world. The establishment and the media is trying to tell them all is fine -- or will be -- and that the direction being taken is the right one.

But these reassurances don't pay bills and feed families.

Internationally, we're seeing more individuals and parties describing themselves as "anti-establishment" making progress in popular votes. In France and a number of other European countries, the far right and far left have both elected members and are even leading governments (such as in Greece). The recent Brexit vote in the U.K. was also a strong repudiation of the establishment. And this is not limited to the Western world; in the Philippines, the population gave a strong mandate to someone who makes Trump look like a saint.

In Canada, many are deriding the fact that Americans voted for "someone like Trump," notwithstanding the fact that Trump is a successful business leader and visibly has a good sense of what the pulse of the nation is. Canadians making snide comments about Trump should reflect on the fact that Canada has also elected individuals that earned the same comments. Rob Ford, the late former mayor of Toronto, earned a strong mandate from the population despite the media, the political establishment and intellectuals strongly campaigning against him

So, what is happening? First, the population recognizes that the media is now part of the system, not just a neutral observer of the system. Therefore their reports and warnings, like the assured economic crisis that would ensue should he win, are dismissed. The fact is that things continue to move forward. Businesses adapt and stocks, just a few hours after Trump's election, were already recovering.

For those who think this sounds familiar, let me reassure you, you're right: the European and British media tried the same tactic before the "Brexit" vote and it didn't work. American media will have to concentrate on their core mandate if they wish to regain their role and credibility.

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The "great unwashed" are marching. And they're angry.

The next thing is that politicians will need to rethink the way they communicate with voters. But, most importantly, they will need to look at promises made and the delivery on these promises. In the past, as populations looked at promises broken by one party, they turned to another who would promise similar things but, once in power, also fail to deliver.

Lately, they're turning to candidates that are denouncing the political establishment and pointing out the failures of the whole system. Trump and other leaders of the "anti-establishment" movements (which includes Bernie Sanders) have attacked the platitudes of the political class, corruption (financial or intellectual) of political elites and offered a change.

We will know in a few years what that promise of change means and whether it can be delivered.

To all those that derided the supporters of Trump and even Sanders, who called them despicable (Trump) or idealistic (Sanders), who dismissed them as impractical or racist -- change your ways, or at least your thinking. The "great unwashed" are marching. And they're angry.

The "great unwashed" have spoken in the U.S. election and, hopefully, they will be heard. They didn't vote for Trump: they voted with their hearts and guts for a significant change in the way the country is governed. Hopefully their message is heard by the establishment, the political elite, the media and intellectuals.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not represent the views and opinions of Flagship Solutions and its clients.

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There is so much weeping and gnashing of teeth, so many people thrashing about, looking to hang the blame on someone or something for Donald Trump's shocking victory on election night, that the outcome bears further reflection.

I reject the notion that it was a "white-lash" by voters, a racist reflex against minorities and people of colour. The electoral rebellion goes much deeper than that. It was, in large measure, the working class all across America, white, black and Latino, sending a big "F**k you!" to politicians and insiders who have used "free" trade agreements to ship American jobs offshore.

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The so-called "rust belt unionized states" plunged the dagger into Hillary Clinton's heart. That is not to say that the misogynist, bigoted messenger they chose to deliver the message will actually honour his rhetorical promises to right the wrongs inflicted on working people.

You cannot purport to represent the interests of workers by giving Justin Trudeau a free pass on CETA.

Still, there are lessons for the New Democratic Party and the Canadian Labour Congress in the stunning defeat of Hillary Clinton. The NDP should grow a backbone and learn to more vigorously fight trade agreements such as the CETA and TPP because workers in this country are suffering just as much as their American counterparts. They feel the ill effects of such trade agreements in terms of lost good jobs, the rise of precarious part-time work and the deepening of tremendous inequality.

The lesson for the CLC is that you cannot purport to represent the interests of workers and at the same time suck up to the Liberal government by giving Justin Trudeau a free pass on CETA. Workers rightly expect their unions and the NDP to fight on their behalf against these rotten trade arrangements that ship their jobs overseas.

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When unions and their allies protested CETA on the streets of Europe, they should have a seen a comparable mobilization of unions on this side of the pond. The lack of serious opposition by both the NDP and the CLC only emboldened the new federal Liberal government to push for the resurrection of the nearly interred CETA.

The lack of CLC mobilization of workers and allies against CETA reminds me of the inaction of the American labour movement (AFL-CIO) against NAFTA in 1993. Then, the AFL-CIO was enthralled by a newly elected and popular president by the name of Bill Clinton. Clinton was a huge booster of "free trade," but faced a skeptical union leadership that raised legitimate concerns about labour rights and demanded protection against jobs being shipped to Mexico.

The Canadian and Mexican labour movements worked together to try to defeat NAFTA, but were hampered by the lack of mobilization on the part of the AFL-CIO. Instead of working with Canadian and Mexican unions to defeat North American Free Trade Agreement, the AFL-CIO agreed to a "side deal" on labour rights that Clinton cajoled them to accept.

The consequences were disastrous. The side deal proved to be totally useless in preventing the loss of good-paying jobs to Mexico. According to Public Citizen, a non-profit, non-partisan public interest group, the U.S. has lost 5 million jobs since NAFTA was implemented in 1994, along with 55,000 factory closures.

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Fast forward to 2016 and the campaign to defeat CETA. Unions across Europe mobilized their members. They brought hundreds of thousands of workers and their families onto the streets of several European capitals. The Canadian labour movement had the opportunity to join forces with our allies in Europe -- to bury CETA, once and for all.

Sadly, we let them down by emulating the great failure of the AFL-CIO in 1993. Justin Trudeau resurrected CETA from its deathbed. The protest from the CLC was minimal. It took the form of a news release, embroidered by a set of demands never implemented.

Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, got it right (except for trying to reform the Wall Street-controlled Democratic Party). Sanders challenged the bad trade agreements that enrich a tiny handful of people at the top, who disappear middle-income jobs by shipping them offshore to make a bigger buck. His campaign caught fire. It energized millions because he connected with them. He empathized with feelings of abandonment and hopelessness experienced by young Americans.

Blue collar workers saw through Clinton's charade on "free trade."

Hillary Clinton -- just like her husband, Bill -- is correctly viewed as being in bed with Wall Street types. Her leaked emails confirm that she advanced one opinion whilst speaking behind closed doors to the muckety mucks of Goldman Sachs, and she presented a different opinion when speaking to folks on Main Street.

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Blue collar workers saw through Clinton's charade on "free trade," among other issues. That is why so many in the key "rust belt states" stayed home or voted for Trump on election day, rather than vote for someone they just couldn't stomach or trust.

If there is a silver lining in this very dark cloud, it may be that the latest incarnation of a free trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), may be dead on arrival -- that is, if Trump keeps his word. But what an irony it is, and how poorly it reflects on the NDP and CLC leadership, that it may take a right-wing, bigoted billionaire to kill a rotten trade deal.

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Friday morning's reaction to the Article 50 judgment has made me deeply reflective about the state of our politics. The Brexit era has been characterised by political announcements redolent of the deepest farce from 'The Thick Of It'. The EU Referendum has changed everything about British public life, and it is difficult to get a stable sense of what is actually going on as we lurch from one episodic crisis to the next.

We can see this instability everywhere; parliamentary sovereignty's greatest proponents are at odds with that principle today; parties across the political spectrum have undergone coup after coup this year; politicians of the highest seniority have actively supported antipathy to the judiciary.

In anticipation of the chaos that EU withdrawal will inevitably cause, many have resorted to demagoguery and tribalism. Well-drilled representatives of soft/hard, red/blue and staunch/moderate compete in Brexit adversarialism to no clear result, bar the confusion of the electorate.

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But no more.

These camps can end their aimless war by using the High Court judgment as a roadmap to Brexit. The strength of its analysis will allow decision-makers to navigate this unprecedented territory whilst respecting the fundamental aspects of the British constitution, with the rule of law at the centre.

Here I muse over the strengths of the judgment, its (limited) political effects, and lessons that this saga holds for our society and polity.

A judgment that should be upheld on appeal

Though the Twitter-friendly and eloquent "stifling the will of the British people" is ubiquitous, it is not a responsible description of what the High Court did last Friday.

The legal blogosphere has underlined a number of times that frustration of the referendum result cannot be read from the case. Such comment is a grotesque caricature. The merits of leaving the European Union were not examined by the court, and never will be. The mere whiff of decision-making for political reasons was debunked in the first few paragraphs of the judgment, available here. This was a question of the process by which an Article 50 notification can be given.

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That process needed legal delineation. Article 50(1) TEU is almost tautological. It tells us nothing beyond the fact that a Member State leaving the EU should do so "in accordance with its own constitutional requirements." We have no written constitution to turn to, so this provision was always likely to lead to a lot of head-scratching.

The substantive question of those constitutional arrangements is whether Theresa May and her ministers, i.e. the executive, could trigger Article 50, or if this would need to be done by Parliament. A potential consequence of the latter is, due to many MPs expressing anti-Brexit views, the blocking of withdrawal. This political possibility is irrelevant to the interpretation of our constitution and shall be addressed later.

The starting point for those advocating the executive's right to trigger Article 50 is its constitutional right to act on the international plane. Ministers are permitted to make treaties with other nations as part of their conventional powers under the 'royal prerogative'. As Article 50 is a communication to the European Council, in the government's submission, the powers the executive have to give such a notification are long-established.

There are clear limits to the exercise of the royal prerogative powers, and the judges disagreed with the executive on how such limits would apply in this specific situation. Although the prerogative allows the executive to act with freedom internationally, it does not permit actions which would alter domestic law, i.e. changing the rights and obligations of British citizens. That argument was of critical value in this case, because Gina Miller's rights under EU law in this country, in other Member States, and regarding the EU itself would be removed if the executive gave such a notice.

Opponents contend that this restriction has been inconsistently applied. They point to ministers that have regularly signed up to international instruments that affect our rights in this country, noting that this has happened many times at the European Union. They say that if triggering Article 50 is outside of the powers of the executive, Blair and Thatcher were wrong in signing treaties that deepened our connection to Europe.

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The difference between these "more EU" acts and the "scrap EU" act of triggering Article 50 is that Parliament expressly empowered ministers to create the former via the European Communities Act 1972, whilst also making EU law directly effective in the U.K. If the executive were able to trigger Article 50, this would make this "constitutional statute" useless, depriving it of its effects. The only thing powerful enough to do that is an Act of Parliament, and the High Court underlined this principle in this case.

The sovereignty of parliament is inviolable. That is uncontroversial. One of the characteristics that the late Lord Bingham ascribed to the rule of law is the maintenance of limits on the exercise of executive acts, ensuring that ministers act within their legal powers, and this is absolutely relevant to this case. The counterfactual situation where Gina Miller did not bring her case, or the court ruled in favour of the executive, is quite sombre.

In that scenario, the executive would have drained an important constitutional statute of its effectiveness. This would have undermined our democracy, which elects parliamentarians on the basis that they are sovereign under our constitution. Worse still, it might have permitted the executive to effect change in other combinations of international and domestic legislation, such as the link between the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998. That would have been clearly unsatisfactory for anyone that respects our legal order.

The judiciary thus performed its role in holding the executive to account excellently in this case. The points it raises about the necessity of involving Parliament in this process will ensure that the constitution is upheld throughout Brexit.

Brexit means Brexit

It is important to separate the legal and the political when talking about Brexit. The above is a comment on the reasons for the Miller decision, and below I discuss its wider impact on the executive's Brexit plan.

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Though many have expressed the view that the judgment has thrown May's broad timeline for withdrawal into disarray, I take a different view. We have much more clarity about the next steps for Brexit as a result of the High Court's insight. The ruling could take us down one of two possible paths; the government's appeal will either succeed or fail. If the former takes place, the Prime Minister may trigger Article 50 as she wishes. If the latter takes place, there is a persuasive argument that Parliament need only give authorisation for the triggering of Article 50, leaving the process of negotiation with the EU to the government. Several of the options mooted, including a one-line bill, could be expedited and executed by Parliament within the course of a day.

What we do know is that as a matter of political destiny, Brexit will happen despite the best efforts of any campaigners. There is simply no precedent for Parliament rejecting the outcome of a democratic mandate on this scale. Despite Theresa May's paper-thin majority, the House of Commons will vote reluctantly, but certainly, in favour of a resolution or bill actioning Article 50 next year. The mood amongst MPs post-referendum has been deciding how and when Brexit will happen, despite reports otherwise.

It is notable that leading lights of the Remain campaign, including Vote Leave Watch founder and chairman Chuka Umunna, have not committed to voting against Brexit. MPs' minds will be focused by the electoral arithmetic of June 23rd; the vast majority of MPs represent communities that voted to leave, or themselves supported the Leave campaign. Acting in rational self-interest and self-preservation, it is highly unlikely that they would risk the political suicide of not triggering Article 50. MPs such as David Lammy and Catherine West have been vociferous in denouncing Brexit plans because their constituents' voting permits them to do so. The next election, be it in 2020 or sooner, focuses the minds of the rest of Parliament.

Underlining the rule of law concept

There has never been a more pressing need for education around the rule of law, and we must foster respect for the principles that our country is built on. In the last few days, politicians have made it abundantly clear that their understanding of our peculiar constitution is scant. In dealing with the inevitable challenges that the uncharted waters of life outside the European project will pose, it is crucial that rule of law principles are foregrounded in the administration of government.

We should learn from our worst moments. The tragic death of Jo Cox this summer should have underlined the need for compassionate, issue-focused debate that questions the politics and not the person. Jumping to judges' qualifications and demographic factors, as well as accusing them of bias, instead of reading the judgment is the wrong route. Instead there should have been a concerted effort by the media to make legal arguments about the judgment.

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Similarly, Nigel Farage has promised to lead a march of 100,000 through Parliament Square on one of the potential hearing dates in the appeal of this case. This is at best an irrelevance based on misunderstanding, and at its worst a perverse attempt to coerce the judiciary. The rule of law ensures that the law is supreme in resolving disputes. As Farage's idol Thatcher so eloquently put it, "the rule of law must prevail over the rule of mob."

The rule of law is a non-partisan principle that unites and bridges us across the political divide, allowing us to live in a fair and just society. Education regarding its content is essential not just for our children, but for our leaders as well. For this reason, the Bingham Centre is calling for the Lord Chancellor to give a lecture on the substance of the rule of law.

I want to live in a world where the rule of law and its principles are ubiquitous, where decision-makers think twice before cutting services because of access to justice concerns, and where the law is so clearly expressed that everyone can understand it. That, amongst other ideals, is what the rule of law safeguards.

What you can do

I am currently working on a project that seeks to teach the principles of the rule of law through citizenship education. The ultimate aim is a country where every secondary school student understands the practicalities of the rule of law and how these principles relate to their lives.

Anyone can take part in the project. As it develops, there will be scope for legal practitioners and academics to contribute to factual briefings on rule of law topics. Teachers can deliver the course in their schools using the free resources that we have created. It could even be taught in non-traditional educational environments such as youth clubs. As it grows, flexible opportunities for involvement will develop. All willing volunteers will be given meaningful roles.

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So now we know. The 45th President of the United States will be Donald Trump, a billionaire who has presented himself as an insurgent anti-establishment figure who promised change. And what did the Democratic Party machine do? Instead of choosing their own insurgent who defined himself as a democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, they chose the establishment- personified figure, Hillary Clinton. How dumb was that? The success of the Trump campaign has, in my view, been a vote against Clinton rather than for Trump, and can be summarized as "anyone but Clinton". One of the best responses to Trump's success came from the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn:

"Trump's election is an unmistakable rejection of a political establishment and an economic system that simply isn't working for most people. It is one that has delivered escalating inequality and stagnating or falling living standards for the majority, both in the US and Britain. This is a rejection of a failed economic consensus and a governing elite that has been seen not to have listened. And the public anger that has propelled Donald Trump to office has been reflected in political upheavals across the world."

I don't know what a Trump presidency will mean for America and the world in detail, no-one knows, but I think we can be sure of one thing, that demonization of Russia and Putin will stop. The Clinton team and establishment figures that supported her have made Russia enemy number one in their campaign. I hope a more mature dialogue between the two heavily nuclear-armed states will begin that respects the interests of both nations.

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Hillary Clinton was advocating stronger military intervention in Syria, and the enforcement of no-fly zones that would have put America on a collision course with Russia. What a catastrophe for the whole world that would have been!

Let us de-escalate the conflict and let the Syrian people decide who will govern them. The insistence by the US and the West that Assad must go first has been the stumbling block to ending the unbearable suffering of the Syrian people. It is not up to the Americans, the West, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia or anyone else to decide how Syria should be governed and by whom. Let us have elections in Syria supervised by international bodies to ensure that they are fair and free. Russia says they want parliamentary and presidential elections in Syria, and so let us take the Russians at their word and work for that to happen

I was listening this morning to someone on the Today programme talking about the US becoming isolationist under President Trump; this is not a bad thing, in my view, when it comes to foreign policy. Interventionist US led to the catastrophic Iraq war and the continuing suffering of its people. Interventionism destroyed the Libyan state, and now lawlessness and anarchy are blighting the lives of its people. Military interventions abroad and particularly in the Middle East, rarely if ever, produce good outcomes for the people who have the misfortune of being interfered with. Commentators should stop making statements as if they are evident truths, no explanations required. Serious journalists should not let them get away with it.

What lessons do we learn from America as it elects President Trump? Well, the anger with establishment figures and politics as usual is deep and profound. This is reflected here in Britain by the Brexit vote. The lesson for the Parliamentary Labour Party is this; stop undermining Jeremy Corbyn. Any other Labour politician chosen as leader will be seen as an establishment figure and Labour will be punished for it. The only person in the Labour Party capable of winning the next general election is Jeremy Corbyn. As I said in a previous article, my advice to Labour MPs is to embrace the insurgent Jeremy Corbyn and win the next general election.

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The Times newspaper was for many years also known as "The Thunderer" but for the last 50 years it has supplied a gentler, more light-hearted section in its daily "diary" page - a witty collection of individual anecdotal paragraphs, many of them insider gossip, intended to provide an "antidote" to the news.

The column started life in 1966 - the same year it resumed putting news on its front page after many years of front-page advertising. It started life as PHS - the initials of the newspaper's then home in Printing House Square, just off Fleet Street. Its current name, TMS, derives from Thomas More Square in where the newspaper was based during the confrontational union battles in Wapping during the early 1980s.

Since 2013, the TMS diary has been in the care of the witty Patrick Kidd (his punchlines are rather good), who somehow finds time to write a regular Parliamentary Sketch for the newspaper too. In 2016 Kidd also managed to put together some of the best items from 50 years of the diary in a book entitled Diary at 50.

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I found it fascinating to look back at some of the earlier items, and note (with help from Kidd's footnotes) when people who would go on to be famous and/or infamous were first mentioned in the diary. Margaret Thatcher's name, for example, first appeared in 1966 itself, but her talents were not discussed till 1968, when readers were told she was "the daughter of a Grantham grocer who became a golden-voiced local alderman" who "used a brilliant Oxford career to make herself an industrial chemist" - add "she is a blonde bluestocking of peat charm, and not only Tories in the house think she has a better brain , if less demagogic skill, than Barbara Castle, to whom she is the Tory Party's answer."

Jeremy Corbyn got his first mention in 1983 - 32 years before he became the "surprising" leader of the Labour party.

Many "diary paragraphs" as they are commonly referred to, are apocryphal (and it's worth reminding readers here that this doesn't mean they didn't happen - just that they might not have done). The following, for me at least, falls into that category.

In 1998, it was reported that Lord Puttnam, the film producer who made his name with Chariots of Fire, found himself giving a talk to an audience of just one at Tiverton Labour Society. The lone listener, readers were told, "applauded wildly." But when Puttnam told him there wasn't much point in having a question and answer session, and he was off to catch his train, his listener pleaded with him not to. "I'm the next speaker!" he said.

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Jonathan Aitken, the former cabinet minister jailed for perjury in 1999 was seen by the prison psychiatrist who was unaware of his patient's fame. "Does anyone other than your family know you are in prison" he asked. "About 20 million people" said Aitken. At which point the psychiatrist asked: "Have you ever suffered from delusions?"

In another example of unappreciated fame, in 2015 readers were told that when Sir Bob Kerslake, the former chief mandarin, was buying a flat, was asked by an estate agent what his job title was. "Permanent secretary" he replied. "That's a good job" said the agent. "And isn't it great they've made it permanent?"

There are some excellent train stories. This early (1966) tale, for example. "Two harassed mothers were travelling on the London underground the other day, each with half a dozen small and rebellious children milling around her. The train stopped and as the door was about to close, one of the mothers had still not removed all her small charges from the train. A man in a bowler hat, eager to help, seized on the nearest child and deposited it on the platform. The doors closed, but to his horror he found himself faced by the outraged mother of the second contingent. He had thrown out the wrong child."

Two years later, diary readers learnt that Alan Civil, a celebrated French horn player travelling on the London underground found himself next to blaring personal stereo. When he asked the owner would mind turning down the volume, he replied: "It's a free world, isn't it?" Civil, as if agreeing, reached for his horn and "proceeded to give the entire carriage a rendition of the rondo from Mozart's Horn Concerto No 4.

One of my favourites features in "The Americans" section. And involves students at Brigham Young University in Utah protesting about a planned appearance by Vice-President Dick Cheney in terms of persona integrity. "Cheney just doesn't measure up" said one professor at the university, which was named after a Mormon who had 52 wives and 57 known children (2007).

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Rick Wilking / Reuters

On Wednesday, the United States elected a coal-loving, oil and gas-funded climate denier as President. Here are 10 developments you can count on in the energy and climate world.

1. With its actions, the American electorate guaranteed that global warming will exceed the 2C threshold that all nations, including the US, agreed would be a disaster to us all. Limiting climate change to 2C over pre-industrial levels requires herculean efforts as it is; sadly, these aren't going to be made at the necessary scale without enlightened leadership in the richest country in the world.

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2. The global day-to-day fight against the preeminent issue of our time, climate change, will experience a major and tragic set-back. A few years ago, we could have counted on a strong Europe to counter-balance a US administration practising, potentially, an active form of climate denial. But Europe is probably too weak to do so today. Action (or inaction) by China and India especially become key areas to watch.

3. All may not be lost however: There is not much a President Trump can do to stop US states that so wish to act to combat climate change. California and New York for example will continue with their green policies, whatever the administration says.

4. Poorer nations that have done the least to cause climate change will hurt first and most: Since 1996, the ten countries most affected by warming have been Honduras, Myanmar, Haiti, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Guatemala and Thailand, in that order. The fate of their combined population of 700 million was forgotten in an election that trivialised real issues while promoting hate.

5. The news that Trump was going to be the next US President was greeted with hysteria in the energy corner of the financial world. Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world's biggest manufacturer of wind turbines, plunged up to 13 per cent, while the shares of major US coal producer Peabody Energy surged 49 percent. The oil, gas and coal industries evidently won the elections too.

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Except it's not that simple.

In the US, renewable energy will suffer a temporary set-back, then recover. Congress is unlikely to repeal the investment tax credit legislation they enacted last year with strong bi-partisan support and this should keep US renewables going for two or three more years. During that period, renewable energy and battery costs will keep going down while the clean energy industry keeps creating more jobs. My guess is that the author of "art of the deal" would be hard-pressed to then move against the industry on nonsensical ideological grounds when business sense would dictate otherwise.

Furthermore, I can't see how the Trump administration can promise to overhaul and modernise the entire infrastructure of the United States, while ignoring clean and renewable energies, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and rapidly evolving energy-storage technologies. This would guarantee economic supremacy to Europe or China.

6. While uncertainty reigns, however, the stock market is likely to choose to be cautious in valuing US renewable companies. Investors looking for exposure to renewables will shun US stocks in favour of companies contracting and building clean energy projects outside the US.

7. Outside the US, the growth of renewable energy won't be affected: Not even the US administration can stop the decline in the cost of solar and wind power driven by China, India and Europe building clean energy infrastructure rapidly and at scale.

8. The Green Climate Fund (or GCF), the UN institution intended to mysteriously collect and then spend $100 billion a year on climate change efforts worldwide, will lose $2.5 billion of funding committed (but not yet paid) by the United States. Other countries are unlikely to step up into the void left by the US, and the GCF will have to scale down its ambition to help poor countries in their efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change on their citizens.

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9. Coal will experience a dead-cat bounce. The Trump administration can try to re-invigorate the coal industry all it wants, that won't work. No one wants a coal plant nearby anymore. Even power companies don't want them: They prefer cheaper and cleaner natural gas alternatives. Renewable energy creates better, safer jobs than coal (or oil and gas) and this will eventually dawn on the administration.

10. OPEC will get a run for its money from a re-invigorated US oil and gas industry flexing its muscles in the export markets. Meanwhile, however, oil and gas will continue to damage our health and that of the environment: Oklahoma for example had 1,000 oil and gas-induced earthquakes in 2015, up from two in 2008. There will be a point beyond which its people will simply kick the oil and gas industry out of their backyard.
As the world reels from the news of President Trump, and the UK remains immersed in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, politics seems to be the hot topic in every household... or at least that's what we are led to believe.

Yet in many households a billionaire celebrity president, or a protracted debate about the EU, isn't the most pressing issue of the day. For some people life is actually about the absolute basics that the rest of us take for granted, yet the needs and concerns of these individuals are rarely reflected in the news agenda.

So, I have a challenge for our leading politicians and policy makers. I'd like a few days with them, and I'd like to chain them to their beds - not in a Fifty Shades of Grey way - and give them a simple choice. They can:

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Be helped out of bed

Use the toilet

Have a wash

Get dressed

Have a hot drink

Have a hot meal

Take any medication they need

But, crucially, they can't do it all. They may only have one choice, or two, or possibly three. They are incapacitated and need the help of another individual - a fellow policy maker in the role of care worker - to achieve the choice(s) they have made. The person in the role of care worker is on the clock, rushing between visits, tired, stressed, hungry, needing the toilet and a hot drink themselves, and being paid the minimum amount legally stipulated.

Whatever 'care tasks' can't be achieved in the time allowed the 'care recipient' must wait for. It may be many hours, possibly even days, before they can complete this list. In reality, this may mean remaining in bed, lying in soiled clothes or sheets, itching from skin that needs washing, hair hanging lank and greasy, feeling cold from a lack of heating, hot drinks or food, and becoming unwell because they can't reach the medication they need.

It will undoubtedly feel inhumane, desperate and miserable. They may begin to wonder how their life became what it is, what they did wrong, why their community and our society as a whole doesn't value them more. Why no one cares.

I think most of us would agree that the daily 'tasks' I listed above are the fundamental elements of an average day - seven things that the majority of us do automatically. We do them with ease, and then move on to what we consider is important in our day. Yet if you cannot do any of these 'tasks' independently, the need you have for care and support IS the most important aspect of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

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I'm not sure what it will take for our society to wake up and realise this. Occasionally a news bulletin highlights the plight of our older, infirm and disabled citizens as they rely upon, and often wait for, the most basic care and support any of us can imagine. This article from BBC News, detailing another report on the perilous state of social care, was augmented by a filmed snapshot that went out on news bulletins last month and brought tears to my eyes.

My emotions were partly anger, partly sadness, but mostly frustration. I consider myself immensely fortunate to have never been in the position of someone dependent upon care and support, but in reality this could be any of us in the future. If it was YOU, what would you want? A choice of two or three essential tasks from a list of seven, or to have all seven automatically as your minimum human right?

Whilst I agree with this very well-reasoned article that social care isn't all about funding and that innovation is vital, until we place more societal and therefore more political emphasis on the fundamental elements of life, many of our fellow citizens will continue to be forced to make choices that none of us would ever want to make in our daily lives.

In that climate, it seems a luxury to be gripped by Brexit hysteria, obsessed with finding money for big infrastructure projects to expand our airports, railways and roads, or nervously eyeing up the new political landscape in the US. Instead, I suggest trying this:

When you wake up in your bed tomorrow, don't move. Lie still. Don't grab your smartphone, tablet or TV remote to see what the world is waking up to. Instead run through my list of seven essential elements of beginning your day, and ask yourself this:

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To listen to some Brexit leaders and supporters, reacting to the High Court judgement on Parliament having a say on Article 50, is to imagine that the law and democracy in this country stopped the second the EU referendum vote was done.

For all the Brexiteer referendum arguments about the sovereignty of the British Parliament and the evil of the laws forced on us by the EU - you would thing they would rejoice in the notion that Parliament and our justice system will have a say in how we carry out leaving the EU.

Some of this is just cynical politics; but such is the paranoia and the lack of faith in our democracy that so many leave supporters fear their wishes will be ignored - and in some ways who can blame people for feeling that way given the arguments about the legal standing of the referendum decision - that it is only 'advisory'?

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The vote for the UK to leave the EU was one of the worst democratic decisions made in this country's history - but it should be respected, because if it isn't why should people expect any future vote to the respected? If people don't see that their vote counts for something then the whole democratic system starts to fall down - or we end up with someone like Trump in charge.

Any argument that it is 'advisory only' would not lessen the sense of betrayal of ignoring the result even if this is the actual legal status of the vote.

The 33 million people who voted had every reason to think they were decision makers and would surely not have engaged with the referendum which such passion if they thought otherwise.

The court case was brought by a group of claimants led by Gina Miller, an City investment fund manager. She has challenged the right of the Government to take away her rights under EU law without involving Parliament - she says she isn't trying to overturn the vote to leave the EU and she had a lawful right to bring the action.

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But why the anger from some quarters about the ruling by the High Court? Most commentators have acknowledged that Parliament is unlikely to overturn the Referendum Vote and that Theresa May's Government has a majority anyway.

One of the problems is the way The May Government is conducting itself on this most important issue. Brexit Secretary David Davies, speaking to the BBC, said "The people are the ones Parliament represents - 17.4m of them, the biggest mandate in history, voted for us to leave the European Union. We are going to deliver on that mandate in the best way possible for the British national interest,"

This is a mistake, and a betrayal of millions of citizens, by the ideologically driven Brexit Secretary - because he and they are meant to represent the whole country - including the 16 million people who voted to remain in the EU, not to mention the millions that did not vote either way, and he is failing in his duty to do otherwise. This Government is sowing mistrust by not respecting the views of all those voters.

This matters now more than ever because whilst we now should leave the EU we should do so in a way that does least damage to the economic future of UK citizens and because there are very uncertain times ahead.

The vote was won by the leave campaign - but it was a vote to leave the EU - nothing more. Our leaving the EU will have a profound effect on both our economic futures and our legal rights as citizens.

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It was not a vote on wether we should totally exclude the possibility of membership of the Single Market after Brexit.

It was not a vote on wether we should restrict immigration in such a way that damages our businesses and universities through a lack of skilled and clever immigrants from abroad.

It was not a vote for this country to become less tolerant and less welcoming to those that need help.

Nor was it a vote to exclude our elected representatives in Parliament from the process. It was not a vote to ignore the law or to justify the abuse Judges or for ruthless and vindictive tabloid editors to abuse the freedom of the press by bullying those who take a different view from them.

It certainly was not a vote to to authorise ideologically driven Ministers to decide on this nations future in secret meetings without proper oversight or challenge.

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The Government should ensure we leave the EU in the name of the 17 million who voted for that but they should ensure the least damaging exit deal in the name of the 16 million who voted remain.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

So, Donald Trump, reality TV aficionado, Twitter troll extraordinaire has been elected the 45 President of the United States. As is becoming all too thematic in the exercise of Western democracy, the underdogs defied the odds and pulled off an upset on Tuesday night.

As the dust settles, and the losing side tries to make sense of the election, it would be easy to comfort ourselves by ruing the loss of Bernie Sanders or to pass off the result of the election as the resurrected endemic of racism in the West. That's the comfortable choice, but in truth, neither is accurate, certainly not in their entirety. Both of these assessments are too reductionist, there are much bigger forces at play.

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Trump's victory is a knife to the liberal core of the 'metropolitan elite' - of that much I am certain. There is a palpable anger in many Western countries towards the status quo. It speaks volumes that 18% of people who viewed Donald Trump as incapable of holding office voted for him anyway, along with 34% of people who would have been 'concerned' if he were triumphant. This Presidential election was less about pitting Clinton against Trump or liberalism against conservatism, but served more accurately as a referendum on conventional Western politics.

Of course, it would be negligent of me to paint this result purely as the mutiny of the working classes as a whole - that was not the case. In fact, the majority of Black, Latino and Asian proletariat voted Democrat; instead, this was very much the solitary revolt of the white working classes.

In essence, this result was a middle finger to globalisation, to neo-liberalism, and to the perceptions of 'enforced multiculturalism'. You could be forgiven, as a blue collar worker in a forgotten town of a forgotten American state that has seen generations and generations of manual labourers lose the industries that defined them to cheaper labour overseas, for thinking that globalisation hasn't worked for you. A plurality of American voters believe that today's economic philosophies detract from the US job market, and 65% of them made their voices heard by backing Trump on Tuesday.

This has been coupled with the rise of immigration and the transformation of predominantly white towns, counties, states and countries into multicultural hubs. All of a sudden, from these two issues alone, these insecure demographics are provided with a visible and tangible scapegoat, one that has successfully been harnessed and weaponised. That is why 84% of people who want immigrants deported voted for Donald Trump too.

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Perhaps, the right-wing populist rhetoric about multiculturalism and immigration espoused by Donald Trump is intrinsically associated with a time of industrial boom. It is linked to a previous era where things seemed simpler and more prosperous to white blue collar labourers. Donald Trump's campaign provided a nationwide nostalgia therapy, offering hopes of a modern renaissance in flourishing manual labour and destigmatised bigotry.

But for many voters, Trump's rhetoric was not a major factor in their decision. People across the world are pissed off, they want an alternative to a system that doesn't work for them, they want to be heard not patronised, and inspired not ignored. That is why Brexit happened in the UK, why Labour elected Jeremy Corbyn twice, why Beppe Grillo, Marine Le Pen, and Podemos and Citizens are doing so well in Italy, France and Spain respectively.

When voters are disillusioned to the extent we are seeing now, they want the biggest caricature going to represent them. Somewhat ironically, it was Bill Clinton who argued that the reason for Corbyn's success in the UK was because they were angry but didn't expect change, so let the "maddest man in the room" front their crusade. It's a phenomenon happening all over the disillusioned West.

Peter Thiel has correctly argued that only the media took Trump's rhetoric literally. He called for a wall, and the media scrambled around for the logistics, how would they build it? Who would foot the bill? He proclaimed he would destroy ISIS and adversaries demanded a stringent, extensive intervention strategy - neither came. But a lot of Donald Trump supporters weren't perturbed by the specifics - they heard a man speaking passionately about two major concerns, immigration and security, and picked up a placard. They took his desire literally, not his methodology. His words were symbolic of real concerns being heard, and what was perceived as a 'real person' being prepared to make big decisions to address them.

What always seems to pass over the liberal-led autopsy of these events is that a large portion of Donald Trump's voters feel that years of business as usual has left them with absolutely nothing. Let's say that life is like a box, and right now theirs is empty. If you put a mystery box in front of them, that they couldn't possibly know the contents of, whether good or bad, they're going to open it - every single time. Such is the gravity of their desperation.

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Deconstructing the rationale behind Tuesday's shock vote does by no means excuse it, or make it legitimate. What is frightening about this international trend towards right-wing populism is how successful dissenting conservative elites have been at tapping in to the undercurrent of dissatisfaction of the working class, with whom they have little in common.

In the United Kingdom's EU membership referendum, Nigel Farage, an ex-City banker, and Boris Johnson, a privately-educated career politician led what was labelled as a 'working class revolution'. The same scenario has reared its head in the States.

A white, misogynistic man born in to immense wealth, like Donald Trump, is by no means "anti-establishment" - in fact he's the very antithesis of the term. These candidates are not the downtrodden; these are the egotistical, power-hungry nativist zealots who are posing the greatest threat to western liberal democracies - not the isolated working classes they purport to represent.

It is worth reiterating that this animosity for the establishment does not justify the support for a campaign that has called for a blanket ban on Muslim migration, a state-funded roll out of electric shock gay conversion 'therapies', and one which has been rife with misogyny. How can we continue to press ahead with making women feel comfortable about standing up to their sexual attackers, if the world's most powerful democracy just made one of them their President? That is a legitimate question highlighting the moral quagmire we now find ourselves in.

We have seen an undercurrent of the nefarious entitlement of the white, heterosexual voters who have voted to reverse progress for ethnic minorities and queer communities, as spearheaded by VP-elect Mike Pence. They've seen this progress of rights for minorities whilst their liberties have remained stagnant. I guess when you're used to preferential treatment, equality feels like persecution.

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These are things that we cannot ignore no matter how frustrated and isolated so many people feel. We cannot cower and back down on things we know to be morally wrong. There's a reverberation of hateful, divisive ideology abound in Western politics, and it's one that liberals must fight back against without concession.

It is crucial to understand that millions of people who didn't support Trump's rhetoric threw their weight behind him anyway. It is fact that 29% of the people concerned about Trump's treatment of women, held their nose and voted for him anyway - this shows just how deep the craving for change truly is.

We know that Donald Trump and his brand of politics is wrong, we know it. But we can no longer treat the people who feel so isolated from the mainstream that they support populism of this ilk with contempt. It serves nobody; people will not be shamed in to voting the 'correct' way.

We have entered the post-truth, post-fact era. The rational politics offered by Hillary Clinton's campaign and centrists and liberals in general are fundamentally failing to mobilise support. It is clear now more than ever that people are voting with their hearts and guts. The great challenge for liberals and moderates everywhere is to inject the same passion in our message that can bring us victory again - it's the only way.

Sneering at those who disagree with our world view will do us no favours. They are tired of the middle classes looking down on their frustrations, dismissing them without recoil and generally denigrating their reality.

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What is embryo adoption, and why does it matter? At Institut Marques, we've trail-blazed the use of donated embryos in assisted reproduction treatment for more than a decade, yet it's now that we're seeing more and more patients coming to us to learn about the possibilities it offers.

For those who dream of parenthood, but are struggling to conceive, the journey to becoming a proud mother or father can be a stressful and, often, overwhelming process.

Thankfully, there are more options open to prospective parents than there have ever been, as medicine and research continue to make leaps forward. Embryo adoption is particularly close to my heart through the work that we do at Institut Marques.

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Rather than traditional IVF, which involves fertilising the eggs of a prospective mother, embryo adoption is a treatment which helps women to fall pregnant with embryos whose parents have not chosen their destination.

In Spain, those embryos fall under the care of a fertility centre after four years. These have now become a golden gift for those who don't have the means to adopt or go through more traditional and expensive routes.

Adoption of babies is, of course, the most traditional process of all. However, this is rightly becoming a much more stringent process, particularly for global adoptions. Across the world, developing countries have tightened up on 'adoption tourism', the practice of foreigners adopting children from countries and taking them to other countries to raise as their own.

As medicine, contraception and healthcare improves, there are now also fewer children who are available for adoption. It has become tougher for prospective parents to adopt. Nowadays, people are looking for other options.

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There are some interesting statistics around the patients that have taken part in the Institut Marques embryo adoption programme since it was launched it in 2004. Almost three quarters are parents who've gone through the traditional treatments without success, trying on average for more than four years.

Embryo adoption is giving couples (and singles for that matter - a fifth of patients are single women) another ray of hope in their efforts to have a baby.

While Spain remains the most liberal when it comes to assisted reproduction law, the thirst for embryo adoption is worldwide. We've helped patients from more than 33 countries, from Great Britain to Guatemala, Norway to New Zealand. We've just opened a new clinic in Clane, Ireland, which receives eggs from our Barcelona HQ and carries out embryo adoption for UK and Ireland patients. Now, they don't have to travel so far for the treatment.

Plus, as new techniques and developments drive up the number of successful treatments, the journey for those going through the assisted reproduction process is now shorter and therefore cheaper. We've seen fascinating results through clinical trials into the use of music in IVF - now proven to increase chances of success by 5%.
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Every day 17 people are diagnosed with HIV here in the UK. I was one of these people in 1996.

Today I am healthy and will live into older age, but I'm on treatment for life and the virus is still stigmatised in a way that many other health conditions aren't. Meanwhile the HIV epidemic has not gone away in the UK.

Pre Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP, is nothing short of a game-changer for HIV - a HIV drug taken by HIV negative people to stop infection. This is something I could only dream about twenty years ago. If used alongside condoms, regular testing and treatment, it could be the vital piece of the puzzle to help end the HIV epidemic here in the UK for good.

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That's why here at Terrence Higgins Trust we're relieved that the Court of Appeal upheld a High Court judgement which ruled NHS England has the legal power to fund PrEP.

Two courts have now ruled that NHS England has the legal power to fund PrEP. It's time for NHS England to do the right thing and respect its legal duty to consider funding this highly effective treatment.

No doubt there will be a great deal of public and media commentary surrounding this latest development in what continues to be a hard-fought battle to see PrEP available to those at risk.

But it is vital to listen to the voices of those who could benefit the most - people who, without PrEP, may have become HIV positive.

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Randeep, a former biology teacher who now works for a health tech startup, is one of the people here in the UK who knows the power of PrEP. He told me that the fear of HIV has always hung over him, but being on PrEP as part of the PROUD trial gave him the reassurance he wasn't going to become HIV positive. He told me, 'PrEP and condoms aren't mutually exclusive - condoms can break. PrEP offers another layer of protection for those most at risk.'

Randeep know knows he cannot acquire HIV, or pass it onto others, and won't need lifelong HIV treatment from the NHS. For him, PrEP was for a year. He's now in a relationship and doesn't need PrEP, but in the future he may need to protect himself again.

This is a powerful reminder that this isn't about replacing condoms, or offering PrEP for everyone, for life - it's about protecting people for as long as they're at risk.

It is also important to recognise the personal and active decision that people are taking by accessing PrEP. Far from being irresponsible risk-takers, people who take PrEP are acting responsibly to protect themselves and others against HIV.

People like Jamm, who lives in Brighton and who has taken control of his sexual heath by buying generic PrEP from the internet from India. He describes himself as 'lucky' that he can afford to protect himself this way, but many can't.

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The NICE review has pointed to reassuring evidence from major trials which shows PrEP did not lead to increased sexual risk taking. In the PROUD trial, there was not a statistically significant increase in other STIs.

Deeming people as 'promiscuous' for taking control of their sexual health is reminiscent of how women were treated in the 1960s for taking the contraceptive pill - this is unacceptable.

The reality is that many people taking PrEP have told us they are more aware than ever of other STIs and their overall sexual health has improved, as they more regularly attend sexual health clinics. This is backed up by World Health Organisation guidelines which say that PrEP increases opportunities for access to other sexual health services.

And as Jamm put it, PrEP 'mathematically makes sense' - it's using prevention to stop people becoming HIV positive will save the NHS money. The longer PrEP isn't available, the more money the NHS has to spend.

Today, after two years of confusion and buck-passing, we finally have clarity on who has the power to fund PrEP. The next stage in the process will see PrEP have a fair chance of being considered for funding as part of NHS England's specialised commissioning process. This requires leadership from NHS England and from Gilead, the manufacturer of PrEP, to make this prevention both available and affordable.

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When my youngest child was six years old, she started attending taekwondo classes from a small dojang in a nondescript suburb of Kuala Lumpur. At that time, there were taekwondo classes at her international school, but we wanted her to learn something of the country she was living in, within a local environment.

Three times a week, she went off to Master Yeow. We paid 10 for the whole month (note: ten years on, the fees are now 20 a month). After five years of training, G came home with the trophy - she had won in the finals of a national sparring tournament after two attempts (she won a bronze and then silver in previous years).

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However, the greatest prize from her years of commitment to the dojang was what she learned: persistence, hard work, respect, don't cry and you can't run away. All these balanced our rather laid-back attitude towards parenting as well as her international school's more liberal take on treating children.

There were times when it was difficult to watch and not interfere. Once, she was late because of us, her parents, faffing around. No excuses, she had to run a barrage of 20 students punching her. Till this day, I have not heard my daughter using excuses or blaming others once when things go wrong. She took it all like a black belt.

And that was what Master Yeow said to her: it's easy to get the black belt, but it is more difficult to wear it on the inside.

When she was training for her Second Dan (Instructors' Belt), she had to fight a heavyweight Korean boy on a weekly basis. Several times, he hit her so hard that she cried, but she always stood up and faced him with tears running down her face. She would not surrender. When her father offered to intervene on her behalf, she refused. It hurt me so much to see this brave little girl climbing up the stairs to the dojang with fear in her heart but trying to be brave.

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In London, she attended fight nights in the community centre not far from where her paternal grandfather used to box. Her father is full of pride, walking his little daughter down the same path in the estate. And she, for her part, would saunter around in her full uniform, often eliciting jeers from the rough kids loitering around.

On her first session, the instructor asked the other students, "Georgina is from Malaysia. She is a champion. Who wants to fight her?" Every single hand in the class shot up, so she spent the whole night fighting the boys and girls in London, whilst still jet-lagged. At the end of the evening, she said to her proud grandmother who was watching, "Nanny, I have beaten all the English boys. Grandad would have been proud of me. Can I have some crisps now?"

Like at Master Yeow's dojang, she learned the important stuff at the Tan'Gun Taekwondo Academy. I saw this posted on its Facebook page recently:

Truth indeed, for I have met a few adults, despite being fully grown folks on the outside (over six feet tall), who are really frightened little kids on the inside, lashing out childishly with words at the world and generally behaving unkindly, living disharmonious lives.

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Thus, I strongly advocate internal taekwondo (which can only be accessed after years of commitment - that being a lesson in itself) as a path for growth and self-realisation.

This is one of my favourite photographs of all time - G's dad proudly leading the way to her taekwondo class along the same streets where he grew up and fought his own battles before earning his internal black belt.
Like most people today across the globe, I can't think of much else other than the fact that Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States. I went to sleep the night before whilst Hillary had a comfortable lead, safe in the knowledge that the Democrats would be elected, everything would make sense and no political hegemony would be smashed that night. Boy was I wrong.

The outcome of this election is incomprehensibly huge. Whilst watching Trump's first speech it began to set in a little bit, and I instantly started crying -- for once he sounded humble, even reasonable -- the contrast of which with the vitriolic and hateful things he has said about women, BME and Hispanic people, immigrants, the disabled and other vulnerable groups of people a country's leader should fight to protect, was too much to take. Trump is a malicious demagogue, and it's hardly news to say it.

The Brexit-like anger, disappointment, confusion and upset I have seen from friends whose very identities are threatened with erasure by Trump's presidency has been genuinely heartbreaking. For anyone who has tried to keep on fighting injustice despite constant setbacks and backlash, today's election results are a punch in the stomach: half of the American electorate are willing to be lead by a man who uttered the words "grab them by the pussy".

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And even if we were able to laugh off Trump and his guaranteed incompetency as President, the fact remains that now every major area of the US's political makeup is Republican-run, meaning that we should expect concrete changes to the policy Obama and other liberal Americans have dedicated their lives to bringing about. Even if Trump himself proves to be all talk, decisions on abortion, LGBT rights, Iran, Syria, gun laws and healthcare -- to name but a few -- are now firmly under the control of people far more ideologically right than we in the UK can truly comprehend.

The next step, however, after a shock of this proportion, is to try to understand it -- and then try to find a way to move forward. Clearly, the way in which we (and for this purpose I refer to Western modes of thought) understand politics is out of date. For one thing, grouping people, parties and policy into the left and right wings is no longer always helpful: Brexit was not a left versus right issue because some of the major factors, such as its bureaucracy and its being an undemocratic body, didn't fit neatly into either ideology.

Nor do I believe that Donald Trump was elected because he is right-wing or even because he is Republican. Immigration was a major part of his campaign, as was the case with Brexit, but his simple message (make America great again, in case you hadn't heard), focus on the economy as a self-proclaimed billionaire and businessman and anti-establishment rhetoric were what I think clinched it for him. His bigotry was rather an inconvenient truth than a selling point of his campaign, and was successfully held against him in cases such as the aforementioned pussy-grabbing video; he also held off from pushing a 'God loves America' religious narrative, unlike some of his Republican competitors.

The terms left and right wing suggest a comfortable marriage between being economically and socially left or right, which we're just not seeing any more. Brexiters and Trump supporters (and Ukippers while we're at it) may have been portrayed by the MSM as a bunch of racist Little Englanders and idiot rednecks whose views are to be abhorred without being understood, but such condescending stereotypes are partly why we're in this mess. It is fully legitimate to want to revolt against the political establishment as you see your interests systematically ignored and your identity erased, which is something Hillary Clinton and others don't seem to have grasped.

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For this, liberals are guilty. Wealth inequality means that class is more relevant than ever, as I argue here, but it's being ignored. Maps showing the black, youth or female vote, or those of another randomly homogenised group have abounded on social media, but (as a friend pointed out) no-one seems to be talking about the fact that America's cities voted Democrat and its rural areas voted Trump. Race was an enormous factor in this election -- Trump was voted in by white people -- but so was class. And Hillary hammered in the final nail in her coffin when she ignored this fact, instead pushing her vague 'I'm with her' slogan and second-wave I'm-a-woman-therefore-good narrative.

Nothing short of a political revolution, reminiscent of Farage's "earthquake" has been brought about, and we've seen it across Europe, the UK and America. Polls and two-party politics just won't cut it any more, personality -- or rather brand -- is more important than ever and the homogenising of groups of voters is surely out of date. This is a truly welcome change for me and a step in the right direction as to how a democracy should work: people can vote for figures to whom they relate and choices they want to see, even if they aren't to the taste of the political establishment.

However. The left and right wing aren't so out of date that we're not still seeing right-wing social policy alongside these astronomical changes: the campaigns of Trump, Farage and others do still peddle a divisive narrative in terms of race and immigration, and their victories do spell short-term disaster for social justice. Although those who voted for these changes ought not to be swept aside as bigots and should have their own repressed interests now addressed, it's still no excuse for hatefulness.

So what we (here being social justice activists, and those on the traditional left) must now do is harness the energy of real change and anti-establishmentism and pull it back, hard, towards us. We've realised too late the sway Bernie Sanders could have held -- don't let the same happen to Jeremy Corbyn. Now is the time for radical change and the interests of ordinary people to be championed in politics, and for the David Camerons and Hillary Clintons of the world to be rejected as out of touch.

Within the current left-wing, we're seeing a microcosm of these wider trends in politics, in which an exclusive, liberal elite has hegemonic power at the core, and those whose interests clash at all with their ways of thinking (fear over immigration amongst the working-class, for instance, because they're having difficulty finding a job and supporting their family) are sidelined. And thus those who were once Labour-supports are rebelling against that middle-class Guardianista core, turning away from Labour or liberal modes of thought and towards Ukip or similar. The Left must acknowledge, accept and work with these kinds of qualms even if they do sit uncomfortably with accepted ideas about immigration or nationality.

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The price for not doing so is high and not just because of its sour implications for social justice. The likes of Farage and Trump are not truly anti-establishment: the one went to Dulwich College, of all places, and the other received a small loan of a million dollars. If the current tide of political change isn't turned back by a serious rethink of liberal strategies, the political establishment will become quite comfortable with letting Farage or Trump or whoever be their poster-boy whilst quietly upholding the same old economic models which keep the rich rich and screw over everyone else.
The liberal order has collapsed and no one should mourn its demise, for on its tombstone is engraved the disaster of Afghanistan, the murder of Iraq and Libya, and the unleashing of an upsurge in global terrorism and religious fanaticism on the back of the destabilisation wrought across the Middle East in the wake of 9/11. Married to a refugee crisis of biblical dimension and the closest we have ever been to direct military confrontation with Russia since the Cold War, these are the fruits of this liberal order abroad. Meanwhile at home its moral and intellectual conceit has produced obscene levels of inequality, alienation, and poverty, exacerbated by the worst economic recession since the 1930s and the implementation of that mass experiment in human despair, otherwise known as austerity, in response.

Tony Blair, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton epitomise this failed liberal order - leaders who perfected the art of speaking left while acting right, presenting themselves as champions of the masses, of ordinary working people, while worshipping at the altar of the free market, cosying up to the banks, corporations, and vested interests.

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However just as the collapse of the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1930s under similar conditions of economic depression and dislocation gave way to fascism, so the collapse of the liberal order in our time has given way to nativism, white supremacy, xenophobia, racism, and proto-fascism, rather than anything good or more progressive. All across Europe we are witnessing the rise of the far right - across Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, in France, Holland, and elsewhere the far right has filled the space opened up by the collapse of the centre ground. Brexit in the UK is merely its British manifestation, while in the US Donald Trump's election leaves no doubt that not since the 1930s has right wing populism managed to gain such traction and support in the West.

It was Bertolt Brecht who in the 1940s warned of the danger of allowing ourselves to become complacent with regard to the prospect of fascism ever rising again after the Second World War. In words that resonate today, he said, "The womb from which this monster emerged remains fertile."

So, yes, the arrival of Brexit and Donald Trump in our midst is a case of history repeating itself, a symptom of the extent to which the benighted white working class in both countries has been won to the narrative of the right when it comes to the economy, immigration, low pay, and swingeing cuts to public spending. Trump, echoing Mussolini vis-a-vis Italy in the 1930s, is promising national renewal and to make America great again. It is the kind of empty and abstract sloganeering that raises hopes prior to crushing them under a juggernaut of authoritarianism in the form of attacks on civil liberties, workers' rights, and welfare. Making the trains run on time is one thing, unleashing the dogs of racism and bigotry is another.

In the UK Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader of the Labour Party, and the huge spike in people joining Labour in response, allowed us to hope that a rejuvenated left could and would win the hearts and minds of a working class left battered and bruised after six years of austerity. We were wrong. Corbyn failed to understand the danger posed by Brexit, the fact that the 'actual' political forces driving it were of the right and far right, which told in the dispassionate and lacklustre nature of the campaign he led to remain.

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In the US Bernie Sanders counterposed the ugly politics of nativism and white supremacy championed by Trump with a vision of a society underpinned by social solidarity, wealth redistribution, and justice for the poor and minorities. Yet the manner in which he folded his tent after Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Party nomination in decidedly dubious circumstances was tantamount to a betrayal of the passion, commitment, and hope that millions across America had placed in him as an alternative to the machine politics of his opponent. Worse, his endorsement of a candidate whose character and integrity he had spent weeks shredding in debate after debate, exposing Clinton's connections to Wall Street and her hawkish foreign policy, only left his reputation damaged.

Politics is not a parlour game, which is why both Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders are fully deserving of criticism for taking positions and an approach which has suggested that for them it is.

So what now? Demoralisation and defeatism is never an option, and never more so than today. Determined opposition to Brexit in the UK and to Trump in the US must emerge - strong, determined, assertive and confident in its own strength of purpose and arguments. Brexit is not inevitable and, no, we should not accept the result of a referendum that has taken us to the edge of a political, economic, and constitutional cliff. There is a glaring need for a second referendum, both on constitutional and legal grounds, and in light of events. The days of conceding to the right on immigration, on the economy, and on multiculturalism are over.
The day after the referendum result Nicola Sturgeon stated her distinctly Scottish vision for negotiations to leave the EU. A few days later, Cornwall set out their version of what Brexit should look like. With everything up in the air, now is clearly the time for the North East to set out its stall for what we want going forward into the negotiations to leave the EU.

The strength of the leave vote in the North East told us that they are crying out to be listened to by politicians. Amongst many other things, this was a vote to be heard by the political establishment.

That is why, after the result, I and my fellow North East Labour MEP Paul Brannen decided to undertake an extensive consultation listening exercise with people of the North. We asked stakeholders from all sectors: the region's political leaders, businesses, universities and trade unions as well as the general public what they thought the motivations were to vote for leave, what they want out of exit negotiations, and what they think the government's priorities should be going forward.

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The consultation has been an open process, casting the net far and wide. We were keen to listen to and understand why people voted the way they did. The process was led by an open survey where we attempted to gauge the opinion of a broad section of the public, both leave and remain, on their feelings of the result, what their main concerns were, what they felt the main positives were, and what they wanted us, as elected officials, to campaign for.

This was followed by a series of meetings with key and diverse stakeholders. Every sector from business to trade unions, culture to education has been consulted on how Brexit will affect them, and what the government should be doing to support them. Again we wanted to invite the views of remain supporters and those who supported leave.

Next week, we will present our interim findings. We will then put these findings back to the region to set in place a plan for the North-East. This plan for the North East will be presented to key actors on all sides of negotiations including European Negotiators, civil servants and members of the British Government.

Next Friday on the 18th November at the Centre for Life we will present these findings as a basis for further discussion. There will be a Q&A and a questionnaire to fill out to begin this second stage of the consultation. We hope that this will mean that, when we present our findings to negotiating teams, it will be as full and fair representation of the views of the North-East as possible.

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If you are interested in joining us for this event then you can do so by emailing us at: office@northeastlabour.eu

The event runs from 9:00-10:30 on Friday 18th November and breakfast will be provided.
We all woke up to the American presidency decision and for most us, we felt shock, bewilderment and an overwhelming sense of fear. Turning on social media and reading the headlines, we asked a shared question of WHY? 2016 has been an interesting year - I felt grief at the loss of Bowie and Prince even though I didn't know them, I felt bereft at the Referendum vote but this time I feel different. This time I refuse to let "The Fear" win.

This time I want to show the world that love is possible and that it will ultimately win. Here are just 6 ways we can share that light and to quote Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid's Tale (where we see a totalitarian state in the USA)

"Don't let the bastards grind you down"

Leave a surprise gift for a stranger

Emma Watson recently left books with a personalised message inside, on the underground to spread to joy of words. This is such a wonderful idea and will work for most gifts. Leave a box of chocolates on a park bench, a de-icing kit on a stranger's car, or even a 5 note inside a magazine in your local shop - just remember to leave a handwritten note to share the love.

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Give your time away for free

Our time is precious so how about sharing just a bit of it with someone that needs it, before they ask. Offer to babysit for a couple who haven't had a night out in months, bake a cake to take to a friend or how about offering to sweep the leaves for an elderly neighbour. Get your children involved so they too can see how important it is to be abundant with their time.

Buy an extra tin of beans

The Trussell Trust has recently reported that over 500,000 emergency three day food parcels were given out in the first half of 2016, with over 188,500 to children. So this week when you go food shopping this week, buy something extra to give to your local food bank. It doesn't have to be much, a tin of beans or some long-life milk - you can make a small difference for as little as 50p.

Make a mix tape

Remember making tapes for your friends back in the 90s? Spend an hour or two creating a playlist for someone that is struggling to show that you recognise this, choose uplifting tracks that will take them to a happier place. Research taken earlier this year by Durham University and University of Jyvaskyla in Finland, revealed that even sharing sad songs can help us to feel better. David Nield writing for Science Alert describes this as,

People like to listen to music that mirrors the tone of their current life circumstances - the songs act as a sort of tuning fork for our own situations, and they resonate with us.

Create a Pay What You Want scheme

For businesses, large and small, find something that you can afford to give away and create a Pay What You Want system. You will be surprised that many people will pay you more than you wanted in the first place but it also gives people the opportunity to spend only what they can afford. Whether it be an hours training or your new book - your customers will have appreciated it and more than likely come back to you in the future.

Talk to your kids

Finally, we tell our children that bullies will never win yet sometimes they seem to which is a message that they will not understand. Sit down with them tonight and read to them, share the positive stories in the news and show them, really show them, that love makes the world go around.

And after you have done these 6 things, give someone a hug.

And breathe.
The British tabloids have turned increasingly hateful of late and it's got absolutely nothing to do with their subject matter. Like a jilted lover they have realised that our news sources are more freely available, and in short, we just don't need them anymore. This sorely rejected ex is desperate to get you back and it has tried everything from offering you cheap holidays to money off your shopping and even their FREE pull-out posters of the Queen don't do the trick.

You've had it with queuing in the newsagents for your 60p red-top and now you can pay at the pump, they just sit there staring at you from their rain protected stand, begging you to pay at the kiosk and buy one on the way. But because you won't, they're getting angry so they start screaming out the worst things possible to get a reaction. Whether they're attacking the Brexit ruling high court judges or demonising the working class, depreciating refugee children and mocking minorities, beyond the headlines they are only really saying one thing "PAY ATTENTION OR THE TABLOID WILL DIE".

For every appalling inhumane headline, there is someone with a compassionate heart and good-old common decency using their keyboard in defence. It's encouraging to think that there are righteous people are out there, clued up on the facts and ready to right any wrongs in an instant. These people are worth their weight in gold, but to whom?

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The answer, unfortunately, is the tabloids themselves. Your reaction is generating valuable traffic. Traffic that causes a big nasty pile up behind their every abhorrent headline and the only people reaping the benefits of your valid and considerate opinion is the newspapers and their countless media outlets. But they don't actually give a flying fuck at what you're saying as long as you click, because a click to them is money in their right-wing wank bank.

With Facebook rolling out their new anti-click-bait algorithm, journalists are having to be particularly creative with their articles and often attempt to hijack naturally viral stories, for example take the recent story of the tampon tax nitwit and self proclaimed "meninist" who thinks women should pay for sanitary products as they "should be holding their periods in their bladder". Quite clearly that kid was not worth the time of day, however, the newspapers and websites leapt on it because the preposterous subject had immense value in shares. People from all walks of life shared that very story and it quickly went viral along with millions of people commenting on how dumb the poor lad was. It turns out that the subject of the story was slightly more savvy than initially thought and 15 minutes of fame was all he was after. This became clear when his appeal for "media enquiries" died a quick death. I'd like to think that his whole 'meninist' thing was an attention seeking act from someone seeking more Facebook action and snapchat followers but, whatever his motive, the papers went for this lad because they thought that his extraordinary stupidity would solicit a huge response from their easily outraged readers and it most certainly did.

The vulnerable members of society are always an easy target. They've already attacked those on benefits. Next they attacked immigrants, claiming that they're coming here for the benefits. (If our benefit system looks appealing to some, you have to ask yourself what conditions they're escaping from). They encouraged Brexit with indisputable lies and divided the country in two. Then they went for the refugee children with some appallingly misleading and inaccurate headlines. The stories were repugnant and downright inhumane and made many feel desperately sad at our savage state of affairs. BUT we all reacted to them in one way or another. Whether in defence of the tabloids or not, millions took to their keyboards to express their opinion. Then good old Gary Lineker got involved, adding further fuel to the fire whilst the tabloid owners and it's many employees warmed their frosty hands on the flames. Lily Allen, for nothing more than an act of kindness, also found herself in the mix. Here we have two popular celebrity tweeting targets (with over 10 million followers between them) and a hugely divisive topic that guaranteed that the tabloids, regardless of physical sales were right up there where they needed to be, trending.

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To put it simply, struggling media outlets have got us sussed. They're drowning but they need our help to keep them afloat and that is exactly what your reaction is doing. They don't care about the contents of your comments or the expression of your emojis. They just want your clicks and when you're cross, angry or filled with unbridled rage, you give clicks in abundance. Think of the red tops as a big steaming pile of excrement. The bigger the shit, the more we flock to it like greatly opinionated flies and that is exactly where they want us. If you think about it, they're never going to get your reaction by being gracious and friendly as they need news that will encourage an explosive reaction and you can't start a fire unless the material is incendiary. Also you need to consider, what is actually going on behind these headlines? Whilst we're angry and fighting among ourselves what are we missing?

But what, as decent human beings, can we actually do? It's in our nature to react, a reaction, one would assume should throw a wet tea-towel on the blaze to put it out but, where the right-wing media is concerned, the tea towels are all petrol soaked. The only solution to the problem to do nothing! The moment you see the article on the newsstand turn away, when you see it online don't even bother to read beyond the headline, just ignore it and whatever you do, don't click! Let's start a silent revolution, using something similar to the controlled crying method. Those without children may be unfamiliar of this technique but here I'll apply it to the papers and you'll get the general gist. When the struggling tabloid is screaming its inhumane headlines at you, simply turn away, leave it alone. When the terminally ill media outlet is scraping racist right-wing shit from down the back of its nappy and throwing it at your face, just grit your teeth and bear it. Do nothing, absolutely nothing, don't react and eventually, hopefully, the noise will stop and everything will return to calm and we just may enjoy reading some good news for a change.
Rum has a variety of styles.

Image  Whisky For Everyone

A few weeks ago, someone asked me about which spirit would be the 'next whisky'. By that they meant, which spirit would come out of the shadows in a similar way that whisky started to do about ten years ago? Whisky has become the 'new Cognac'. My prediction skills have never been good, but after some discussion we came to our conclusion - rum.

Whisky and rum have a lot of similarities if you think about it - both are distilled from a raw product that has been fermented with yeast, molasses in the case of rum and grain in the case of whisky, and then aged in oak casks for a maturation period. Both also have a diversity of styles.

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Rum, like whisky before it, has long been seen as a drink for an ageing population or simply a mixer and cocktail ingredient. Add scenes of pirates swigging from the bottle in movies and you have a misinterpreted drink. Is now the time for rum to stand up and be counted, and for consumers to appreciate fully the quality of products on the market?

Whisky finally began to shake its old fashioned image in the mid 2000s and this was driven by education, brand stories, heritage and history of the distilleries and liquids. This, along with innovative new products and ones designed to appeal to a younger and wider audience of drinkers, has helped the whisky category achieve the worldwide growth and position that it has today.

Rum is made around the world but has a deep heritage that is engrained in the culture of the Caribbean and Central America in particular. Whisky is similarly intertwined in to the fabric of Scottish, Irish or American society and history. Can the rum companies pull on this history and the stories from their individual brands to promote their products to encourage new consumers?

Many of the rum distilleries are older than their whisky counterparts across the world. For example, Glenturret, which is Scotland's oldest that is still in production, began distilling in the Highlands in 1775. Bowmore on the famous whisky island of Islay was established in 1779 and Jack Daniel's in Tennessee has just celebrated its 150th anniversary after starting in 1866.

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For example and to compare, Appleton Estate in Jamaica was officially founded in 1749. Records show evidence of rum production on the site even earlier than that, maybe even as far back as 1655 when the estate was set up after the English captured Jamaica from the Spanish.

Appleton Estate seems like one of the key candidates that could push this potential drive of the rum category forwards. It is one of few places to grow and process the sugar, separate and ferment the molasses, distil and then mature the rum all on the same site.

They are historically innovative having been at the forefront of experimentation in the 1940s to develop their rums to fill a void. This had been created by a combination of Prohibition in the USA, which had all but eradicated American whiskey from the market place, and World War II that saw much lower whisky production levels in Scotland.

The current Master Blender, Joy Spence, was also the first woman ever to hold such a role in any spirits category in the world when she was appointed in 1997. Next year, she celebrates her 20th anniversary and 35 years at Appleton Estate in total.

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Joy Spence is a spirits industry legend.

Image  Campari/Appleton Estate

So, what is stopping people buying a bottle of rum and sitting down to sip and savour it like a fine Scotch single malt? Can rum be the 'new whisky', the same way that whisky became the 'new Cognac'? The products, history and manufacturing methods are so similar, so is it simply a matter of perception that rum cannot be consumed this way?

When talking with Joy Spence a couple of weeks ago, she felt that it is rum's time to shine and for Europeans to follow the Caribbean way of drinking it neat or with some ice. She sees no reason as to why the category should not grow and that it was important for rum companies to look at how whisky achieved such growth with the use of consumer engagement.
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The rise and rise of Donald J. Trump proclaimed by some editorials as the 'The End of Western World' was inevitable if not foreseeable for those with their eyes open. The foundation of the America as we know it, was based on land grabbing and use of free slave labour. The proceeds were invested in white people whose standard of living began to rise enabling comfortable lives at expense of Native Americans and blacks who although emancipated still enslaved by a racial judiciary and structures which ultimately gave whites unfair advantage. The white people prevailed. Globalisation and free trade changed all that, and in the meantime, a neo-liberal political elite began to emerge finding greater ways to enrich themselves; only focusing on the super elite who commanded preferential treatment at all cost. Those who struck it lucky in the gold rush and oil drilling in America sort to go further afield in the form of the multinationals we know of today, and the focus shifted from the maintenance of white people to the enrichment of the global elite. The average white middle Americans standard of living reached stagnation in the late sixties early seventies and as America sort to dominate the world militarily creating and funding unending wars costing billions of dollars, and thus, slowly the American decline began, and as decades went by, the middle, especially white men who felt the gradual erosion of their status began to feel marginalised. That money had to come from somewhere, the public purse. Now America is the super power and its core structure cannot sustain that status. The state of education in America is in shambles, basic infrastructure crumbled after decades of neglect, and with basic healthcare provision non-existent for most, morale could not have been lower.

The older white people nostalgic of the yester years when the unfair advantage gave them a certain standard of living felt lost and disillusioned and when they complained, their governments turned a blind eye, until Donald J. Trump came along promising to re-ignite the spark of yesterday. He promised to make America great again, his rhetoric resonated with millions of the forgotten whites who lay on way side after the erosion of industry in America, the more uncouth he got the higher he rose, misogyny and racism did not offend because finally someone listened to the forgotten. He epitomises the American dream they so aspire to. They should pray that he lives long enough to unwind the structures laid down by successive governments whose roots are buried deep in the global structures of elitism. Will the corporations that have made billions from outsourcing facilitate their return to the United States slashing their margins? Will he seriously bring back coal mining despite the clear evidences of the global warming? Will he pull out all the military from their strategic locations around the world? will he deport all the 11 million illegal migrants working in America? Above all will he really build that wall? of course not, but Donald Trump may go down in history as the man who destroyed the western ideas of global dominance. One of the commentators thinking out loud said the World's political elite were in shock and afraid that Donald Trump would bring peace to the world as if that was a horrific thought. His main interests lie in America. As surprising as that statement might be to some, a world in chaos always paves the way for theft of recourses by those global elites. His talk of dismantling NATO has sent shock waves reverberating around Europe. His comradeship with Russia causes great unease as the tensions had risen to uncomfortable levels and World War 3 may indeed be averted.

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Donald Trump has snatched victory from establishment favourite Clinton. Britain is careering towards a Brexit - unless the recent High Court judgement puts a brake on it. Social media is millennials' primary source of news.

'The Elites' as we know them are dead. Their influence has been diminished and their future is compromised.

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2016 has been the year of shock news, and alongside the surprise headlines we've seen a bubbling of resistance against 'the man', the coming to a head of anti-establishment feeling across multiple areas of life.

What's changing? Technology.

Elites are losing their grasp on what makes them Elites, thanks to advances in the tech sphere.

The defining characteristics of Elites have traditionally been threefold. The first is their institutionalised access to information. The second, their exercise of influence. Thirdly, they controlled opinion and expertise in the public sphere.

Now, we're seeing the demise of these three assets - and with them the demise of the establishment. It's clear that we're in the middle of a seismic change to the way information, influence and control is spread within society.

Take information and the way it is accessed. Traditionally, Elite owners of news establishments would control the information presented to the public, packaged neatly in ways that were beneficial to their own interests.

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Now - thanks to the Internet - the success of social media and rise in personal blogs means that very little information is curated in this way. Today, we are all publishers. Information is rarely subject to any oversight or editorial scrutiny - the Elite have lost their control. The political establishment no longer manipulate access to information through a compliant press - we all have more ways to get hold of news and communication.

As this control of information and influence has ebbed away from the traditional political establishment, we've seen outsiders rise in popularity, using social media to channel their own information and build their own influence.

In recent months this has come to a head. Jeremy Corbyn once again won the popular vote of Labour party members, explicitly against the wishes of the party's Elite. The Brexit vote was seen as a rebellion against the establishment and against expert advice from both sides of the political divide. In the US, Donald Trump's nomination defied the Republican party Elite - and now he has succeeded where they couldn't.

But beyond politics, Elites have also seen their influence reduced by advancements in tech.

In the legal profession, perhaps one of the sectors most under the influence of Elites, there is considerable pressure to streamline procedure and make access to justice more affordable, partly through the use of new technology.

Taking justice online will enable the Facebook generation to deal with disputes in the way they know best - with less formality, lower cost and at the tap of a smartphone. Recently, we've seen the launch of a wholly online platform, which will entirely bypass the legal Elites.

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Even the wealthy need to be aware of the risks and have contingency plans in place. The digitally savvy pose a threat to the security and privacy that money alone cannot easily protect against.

The Panama Papers were a prime example: the rapid dissemination of alleged tax avoidance data resulting from the leak of documents from the Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca led almost immediately to a crackdown on complex tax avoidance schemes. The influence of the wealthy Elites to further their own means has been exposed and shamed by the exploitation of technology.
By Richard Carr and Bradley W. Hart

Let's concede something straight off: virtually no one expected this. Not the Trump campaign which, according to CNN, believed it had lost when the early returns started coming in. Certainly not the Clinton campaign, which was about ready to start its victory celebrations when the polls began closing on the East Coast. Not the media, which reflexively believed its own polling. Indeed, one of the few people who called this was the filmmaker Michael Moore, who predicted almost this exact outcome months ago after nearly a decade out of the mainstream spotlight.

How did all this happen? What does it mean?

There are several key patterns that we can identify from Trump's startling victory and they're not unique to the United States.

First off, the bonus of Florida aside, this was only possible because of the Upper Midwest. Nowhere else. This is a region that's been hit hard by deindustrialization and the 'trade deals' the President Elect so often excoriates. In fact, it's exactly the area where he said he would win the election. That doesn't make him a great political tactician, but it does mean that he was correct about his message resonating there.

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The same phenomenon has taken place in both England's industrial north and socially conservative coastal towns in the south, where former Labour Party voters have gradually defected to UKIP since the great economic crash. From Macomb County, Michigan to Clacton, Essex the old divides of left and right have fallen by the wayside. Trump Democrats and Red UKIP are two sides of the same coin.

The fact of the matter is that the centre left has lost these voters, and without them it cannot expect to win on either side of the Atlantic. And without power it cannot achieve anything bar carping in the wilderness. End of story.

So, what does it need to get these voters back?

1.Picking the right leader

It's time to face facts. Hillary Clinton, like Labour's previous leader Ed Miliband, was an ineffective party leader and an even weaker candidate, and not only because of the (mostly exaggerated) email scandal that plagued her until the end. Democrats, like Labour, largely deluded themselves to this fact.

The widely-spread social media assertion that she was 'the most qualified Presidential candidate in history' may have been a minor point, but it spoke a wider truth. If liberal America could not remember that two-term Vice Presidents Al Gore and George H.W. Bush (the latter a former head of the CIA and a World War Two veteran) were also 'the most qualified candidates ever', then perhaps a truly critical analysis of Hillary's flaws was too much to ask. Re-tweeting #ImWithHer to the politically likeminded replaced substantive analysis of America and what could be done to improve the lot of millions of voters. Dignity in defeat does not change that.

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Picking the wrong candidate is scarcely the preserve of the Democratic primaries. Following the selection of Miliband as Labour leader in 2010, the British left had to endure five years of having to pretend that a man with a penchant for phrases such as 'pre-distribution' and 'the relational state' had a real connection with the electorate.

Moreover, his replacement with Jeremy Corbyn suggests Labour have repeated the mistakes of their loss to Margaret Thatcher in 1979 - getting rid of a bumbling social democrat with a man far to the left of even Miliband's unelectable position. At the same time, whilst Francois Hollande had enough to get past Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, he holds scarcely any realistic prospect of retaining the French Presidency next year. Leadership remains key across the west. With the arguable exception of 1988 in the US and 1992 in the UK, the most charismatic candidate has emerged at the top of both nation's elections since at least the 1970s. The left needs a convincing salesman or woman more than ever.

2.Revising perspectives on identity politics

Leaving aside the identity-politics assertion that Hillary somehow deserved to win on account of her gender, the patchwork strategy many on the left held of 'middle class liberals added to ethnic minorities' must now be consigned to the dustbin of history. Occasionally a Barack Obama may emerge capable of mobilising these demographics by the force of his charisma, but this is the exception, not the rule. Around 30% of Latino voters in the US appear to have cast their ballots for a man who is promising to build a physical barrier with Latin America. The appeal of right-wing populism cannot be overcome simply by relying on people to vote with 'their group'.

Again, Donald Trump won this election with the support of white voters in the upper Midwest. The pivot by the left in recent years to talk about 'white privilege' and deconstruct its implications certainly does not resonant with white voters who feel economically dispossessed and hardly see themselves benefitting from racial privilege. That is not to say that it is an invalid construct, but it's one that doesn't win many votes. The notion that the elites are not 'for them' and instead will prioritise 'protected groups' has now seen both Trump and Reagan over the line. When Middle Class Dreams lay in tatters, the 1960s can no longer be the entire inspiration for social attitudes on the left.

The fixation on identity politics has had a number of odd outcomes. In 2015 the British Labour Party went into the General Election able to commit to a gender equal Cabinet of about twenty people but unable to say whether it would legislate for a Living Wage for millions of working Britons. Whilst their general economic platform saw Labour lose ground to the Tories, it is unlikely the four million UKIP voters who backed Nigel Farage cared much about the number of women in boardrooms. These issues may well be settled on the left - if so, it needs to move on to more day-to-day concerns.

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Labour's pre-2015 work on reforming the welfare system through a carrot-and-stick jobs guarantee offers some hope here (oddly resembling the America Works programme of House of Cards' Frank Underwood), and the left cannot just be a force of soothing words. Voters have overwhelmingly rejected that, while at the same time expecting the state to preserve the programs that benefit them (Medicare and Social Security, in the US). It's no accident that Trump has bucked with GOP convention to say that he'll actually increase funding to those programs rather than enact cuts. This will itself attract some Democrats to his governing coalition, possibly for the rest of their voting lives. This may very well not be a unique event.

3.Accepting Iraq is no longer the be-all and end-all

The electoral effects of Iraq were always opaque. After all, George W. Bush and Tony Blair were able to comfortably win re-election in 2004/5 despite the controversial nature of the conflict in both America and Britain. But it has certainly inhibited the foreign policy offering of the left. Labour's long standing regret for the Iraq War saw it lose votes amongst the middle class to the Liberal Democrats in 2010, before Ed Miliband's opposition to the bombing of Assad's Syria in 2013 appeared, to some, to put tactical advantage before the national interest. A return to post-9/11 liberal intervention may indeed be beyond the pale, but some greater muscularity on diplomacy maybe needed for presentational as much as policy reasons.

On the other hand, foreign policy itself hardly even featured in the American election, beyond Trump's innuendoes about Benghazi and statements about how the US should 'take the oil' from ISIS (an increasingly irrelevant point as it loses territory on a daily basis). Voters have concerns they feel are more pressing than foreign policy at this point. Migration has trumped Mosul, and social security is more important to voters than the plight of Syria. Here again Corbyn's Labour - whose base was forged in part in anger at the War on Terror - is ill at ease.

4.Resolving the free trade versus tariffs dilemma

Economically, the debate goes back to early twentieth century dilemmas over free trade versus the imposition of tariffs. Nearly all mainstream economists agree that tariffs are ultimately damaging to national and world economies, but that message doesn't resonate with voters who have seen their local industries dry up and jobs 'go overseas'. We are entering a new age of protectionism, and that has major implications. The day after the US election, US Steel's stock price skyrocketed more than 19%. Part of that is probably the expectation that 'building a wall' with Mexico would require a huge amount of steel, but it also suggests that investors expect it to be built with American steel. That's the same reason people in former manufacturing regions voted for Trump. Elites can scoff at the notion that steel will ever be a viable industry in urban Pennsylvania or point out that new manufacturing methods have made large foundries obsolete. Trump's voters don't care.

For Britain, the position is complicated by the imminent exit from the European Union. As yet, the UK government has not yet made it clear whether it will prioritise remaining within the free trade European Single Market or forgo these economic benefits in order to claim full autonomy over its borders. There is an argument for either - the former would see more play amongst Conservative voters in the south of England, the latter help claw back some northern English voters who have turned to Nigel Farage and UKIP.

What there is no argument for is the present sympathy John McDonnell, Corbyn and others on the British hard left clearly have for universal open borders being combined with an antipathy towards free market capitalism. This is the worst of both worlds - and certainly the latter goes steadfastly against the 1990s pragmatism of a Clinton or a Blair.

What the British left will do if Theresa May indeed goes to the front of Donald Trump's queue for a new free trade agreement remains to be seen. Trump himself is a well-known Anglophile and has extensive corporate interests in Scotland. He will have a strong inclination to do business with Britain, especially if it gives him a chance to demonstrate his ability to negotiate 'great' trade agreements that benefit his constituents.

5.Realising that whilst Millennials may control the future, they don't control the present.

Millennials voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. And had almost no impact at all on the overall outcome. Our Facebook feeds are overwhelmed with young people talking about how 'everything they believed was true' has suddenly been smashed. A lot of memes and retweets did not deliver the outcome many considered inevitable.

The problem here is that those assumptions were fundamentally wrong. Educated young people increasingly live in a self-referential, cloistered world of social media users who think like them, eat like them, shop like them and vote like them. That's not most people in the US, Britain, Europe, or anywhere. The world has become better connected but at the same time more socially isolated. The shock at the Brexit victory or that of Trump is not just an error of polling, but a product of the near certainty young liberal voters have that the world thinks as they do. This then applies a pressure on politicians to view the world through a similar prism regardless of the facts on the ground.

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The fact that many Millennials couldn't be bothered to even cast ballots -- exit polling suggests only 19% of the electorate was under the age of 30 -- also does little to generate sympathy. By Wednesday morning a hypothetical map was circulating in various corners of the Internet showing what would have happened if only Millennials had voted (an overwhelming Clinton win) and suggesting that this is the 'future' of the United States. That may be a comforting sentiment for the left, but it's hardly an inevitable outcome unless those voters actually go to the polls and can attract support from the country's other demographic groups. Trump's votes came overwhelmingly from voters over the age of 45 who saw his flaws but backed him anyway. Yes, these voters are on the older end of the spectrum. But they will remain a political force for the next several decades at least, and that means it's essential to form an inter-generational coalition that can unite to actually win.

We don't know what the consequences of this election will be, but it's probably fair to say that as with Brexit, the world has just pivoted slightly on its axis. This is the original meaning of the term 'Revolution' as it was understood by the Enlightenment philosophers.
Justice Secretary Liz Truss and her Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah are both former Education Ministers and proud of it. So how strongly does that commitment to education show through in their latest major announcements on prison reform?

Given the mounting evidence of unstable and unsafe conditions in our prisons, safety, and not education, was quite rightly the central focus of Prison Safety and Reform, the White Paper published on 3 November. But at its launch, Justice Secretary Liz Truss was at pains to emphasise that the Government's approach is not confined to addressing concerns over violence and staffing but is also intent on major changes to help prisoners make a constructive return to society. For the first time, the paper proposes to imbed into British law the fact that prisons should be places of rehabilitation. And by any reckoning, education has a vital role to play in this.

Commentators on prison education have been keen to search the White Paper for signs of the new Justice Secretary's attitude towards the Unlocking Potential review, led by Dame Sally Coates and championed by Truss's predecessor Michael Gove. For those who believe passionately in the power of educational aspirations to transform lives, this review engendered a real sense of optimism by advocating an engaging and inclusive approach to education, criticising the uninspiring, target-driven approach that has characterised much on offer to date.

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Coates' review is approvingly name-checked in the White Paper and many of her recommendations are echoed. For example, the paper calls for education to be one of the ways in which a prison's success is measured. It supports empowering governors to control education budgets; backs the need for personalised learning plans which follow a prisoner throughout his or her sentence, and supports a wider use of release on temporary licence.

This is all to be welcomed. But as someone who advocates for the improvement of education in prisons, it is what is missing that makes reading the White Paper a tad deflating. On two major aspects of the Coates vision, the White Paper is silent. Worryingly, it lacks any explicit mention of learning to higher levels or learning for the sake of personal and social growth and development, concentrating instead on the need for prisoners to be taught "basic skills" that will "help them find work when they get out".

This is not to degrade the importance of basic skills. Yes, these are hugely important for the many prisoners who enter prison failed by their mainstream education. Yes, skills to get employment on release are exactly what a large number of prisoners are desperately keen to acquire to help them change their lives for the better. But the self-development and the hope offered by learning that is genuinely aspirational rather than simply a means to an economic end can offer so much more. As Coates has it: "Education should be aspirational. It must offer a learning journey that is truly transformational and enables progression to higher levels."

The other major missing piece is the use of ICT to support education. In Unlocking Potential, Dame Sally stresses the value of technology to engage prisoners in independent and higher-level learning, calling prisons' current attitude overly prohibitive. The White Paper however contains no mention of involving ICT in learning, and Truss has not included reference to technology in her public statements.

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In some ways, these omissions are understandable. Arguments about the value of providing secure access to digital learning set against the need to manage genuine risks are relatively complex. On the other hand, it is relatively easy to make the case that prisoners are less likely to reoffend if they leave prison able to read and write and with some skills to get them a job. That a prisoner might need to develop as an artist or an academic, or as a person - gaining hope and vision for their future life, or an ambition to be truly different and to contribute fully to society on release, is a more difficult argument to make.

But these arguments are the ones most worth making. We need to retain an emphasis on diverse, creative and higher-level learning that was championed by Coates, and the needs of specific groups and the great opportunities offered by digital learning should not be allowed simply to fade from view. We live in a digital world which offers vast opportunities on what it is possible to learn, to become passionate about and to build a career from. We need to allow people in prisons the chance to realise this.

As Justice Secretary, Truss seems careful to tune her messages to potential concerns of the general public, focusing on aspects of reform that are less politically sensitive. But if she is to meet her new responsibility to ensure prisons are places of rehabilitation, she must use the 'detailed education strategy' promised next year to push some of the more far-reaching measures advocated by Coates, even if this requires a bold statement of why they are important and justified. Education has a huge potential to change lives that is simply not being harnessed in our prisons. At the point when the Justice Secretary herself has branded jails "the nurseries of crime", it will take more than ABCs to give prisoners the skills, and the resolve, to turn their lives around.
Matt Crossick/Matt Crossick

There is a myth about the Liberal Democrats that their main artery of support stems from the Labour Party, when in fact their appeal is as much to the Conservatives voters. If the Lib-Dems were to enter a progressive alliance many 'shy Conservatives', of whom vast amounts were Lib Dem voters who gave the conservatives their general election victory, would find it difficult to vote for an alliance with Labour in its current form. An alliance would in fact make a Conservative government more likely. The main way the Lib -Dems can help stop a Conservative government is by having a revival across the South in seats where they are in direct competition with the Conservatives.

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In the overall tally at the 2010 general election the Lib Dems held 36 seats where the Conservatives were in second place, compared to 18 where Labour was. On top of this when you look at the Labour seats the Lib Dem held in 2010, the vast majority of them had since the post war period been relatively close races with the Conservatives, but since the early to late 1990's the Lib- Dems had been vying with the Conservatives for second place, an example of this is Leeds North West

The Conservatives won the 2015 general election because of the Liberal Democrats. Going into the general election the Lib Dems had 57 seats. All the Labour seats that the Lib Dems held bar one, went back into Labour hands, whereas the Liberals lost 27 seats to the Conservatives. The Conservatives could not have achieved a majority with the seats that they won from Labour. It was the Lib Dem voters that got them over the finishing line.

These 'shy conservatives' voters were not voting against the Coalition austerity otherwise they wouldn't have voted for the Tories. They are socially liberal but fiscally conservative. When they feel the Conservatives are not too nasty they float back to them.

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They don't want an overtly left wing government in power. Just look at

Saatchi and Saatchi's campaign, with the image of Ed Miliband in Alex Salmonds pocket. Firstly, it played into the idea of nationalism and fears of the unions . Secondly, and more importantly, it insinuated that you would be getting a radical left wing government if you voted anything but Conservative. These are voters that not even Blair could win over in 1997 in constituencies such as Clochester, Portsmouth South and Eastleigh. Corbyn will not get anywhere close to these voters and if the Liberals were in an alliance with Labour it would likely increase the chances of these voters continuing their support for the Conservatives.
PAUL FAITH via Getty Images

In 2003, in the middle of studying for an MA in English, I finally made a much anticipated trip to Canada with my then partner. I had been enthralled by this vast, unknowable country since I had started reading the novels of Margaret Atwood at the age of 15. Now, aged 25, I was finally going to visit Toronto, the scene of many of Atwood's earlier novels, as welI as travel around much of the country.

In Toronto, I met Atwood herself, doing a few days of work experience with her assistants, who were housed in the office in the basement of her home. I also visited the archives at the University of Toronto's library, and looked through Atwood's unpublished papers and letters. In one of Atwood's letters, written when she was heavily pregnant with her daughter, Atwood observed that she couldn't imagine how awful it would be to be forcibly pregnant. She commented that there is a word for being made to have sex against your will, but not for being pregnant against your will. She concluded that there needed to be.

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Fast forward a few weeks and I was in Newfoundland, the furthest East it is possible to go in Canada. I felt distinctly odd. I urinated on a stick in a run-down motel and, unlike the pregnancy test I had taken a couple of weeks before, the test came back positive. As I saw that line flush up on the stick with all its grim inevitability, it is was as though I stepped aside from my body. I went into organising mode. I needed an abortion. I did not want to be pregnant. I did not want a baby yet. One day, but not then. My MA. My travels. No, not then.

But procuring an abortion in Newfoundland proved to be all but impossible. Medical staff repeatedly asked me whether I wanted a boy or a girl. Neither, I wanted an abortion. What names had I thought of, they ask? An abortion I had booked was 'cancelled' at the last minute due to lack of staff. They 'might' be able to do one in a week, maybe two...In the end, we gave up on our travels and flew home to London. I had a termination, 6 weeks pregnant, at a private clinic. The whole thing was so much traumatic than it needed to be.

Women in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland face the same battles if they should need to access abortion care. After a public vote in 1983, the controversial 8th amendment was written into the Irish constitution, equating the right to life of the unborn with the mother's right to life.

As a result of this law, approximately 12 women a day travel from Ireland to England to access abortion. Imagine travelling, often in secret, whilst feeling afraid, quite possibly sick, and having to find the extra money for flights and a night in a hotel.

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And those are the lucky ones. For women living in poverty, and notably migrant women, the barriers may prove too much. In 2016 we have women resorting to drinking bleach in order to try to end their pregnancy. In 2016. Just across the Irish Sea. No feminist - no human with an ounce of compassion - can tolerate this. Indeed, in the words of Ruth Fletcher, senior lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University, London, speaking to the packed inaugural meeting of Repeal the 8th London this week, "We should be angry. It is entirely rational we should be angry."

Four years ago, the horrifying - and preventable - death in an Irish hospital of Savita Halappanavar, a young Indian woman who sought and was refused an abortion after she began to miscarry, made international headlines. It also kick-started a louder campaign within Northern Ireland to demand that women there have the same access to abortion as women in England, Scotland and Wales.

In August, a woman and her friend who needed an abortion, did something brave. They documented, via Twitter, that journey to England. In tweets directed at the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny, provided a running commentary of their experience as they boarded planes, trains and then sat in an abortion clinic waiting room a room. They weren't the only Irish women in the waiting room, unsurprisingly.

Campaigners are demanding a referendum that would give people a chance to repeal the 8th amendment.

The campaign to allow abortion to take place in Ireland is gathering pace, both in mainland UK and in the country itself, with the move to allow same-sex marriage viewed as evidence the time is ripe for change. Indeed, the results of a telephone poll conducted earlier this year are encouraging, suggesting that 87% of people in Ireland want access to abortion expanded. Women have even presented themselves at police stations, 'admitted' they have had abortions and asked to be prosecuted as a way of challenging their country's misogynistic law.

At the same time, a backlash has sprung up, which has seen Dr Caroline Gannon, one of the country's only two paediatric pathologists, resigning over interventions by Northern Ireland's attorney general on abortion laws surrounding fatal foetal abnormality. One such intervention in 2015 saw the Attorney General appealing a High Court judgement which ruled that Northern Ireland's almost outright ban on abortion breaches human rights law.

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Dr Gannon investigated the deaths of babies including those in the womb or stillbirths. She said the final straw was having to advise a couple, who had procured an abortion in England due to a foetal abnormality and who wanted a post-mortem, to use a picnic cooler bag to transport their baby's remains back to Northern Ireland.

Since having an abortion in 2003, I have gone on to have two planned pregnancies, and now have two children, aged five and nine. I know how hard it is to be pregnant; with my first pregnancy, I was sick two or three times a day for 20 weeks, and was hospitalised as a result. (The same thing happened with my second pregnancy, but for a mere 10 weeks that time).

No woman should have to go through that against her will. No woman should have to scrabble about for money and shroud herself in secrecy at this already difficult time in her life. One on three women will have a termination at some point in their lives. It's not something that should be in any way taboo or indeed be legislated against.

For more information on the campaign to repeal the 8th amendment:

repeal.ie

x-ileproject.com
I'll be at this week's Scotland's Towns Partnership conference in Kirkcaldy. It promises to be a good gathering of like-minded folk from across the country - following from the first ever World Towns Leadership Summit in Edinburgh this summer.

STP says "great challenges remain for Scotland's diverse towns" and highlights the need for towns to utilise partnerships and innovation. In particular, towns are asked to explore "opportunities offered by new developments in the digital, creative, housing and planning spheres".

In the same week, two pieces of news have hit home: first, M&S are planning store closures. In July, the group posted its worst quarterly sales figures for a decade. This week - an 88% fall in half-year profits. The result? Smaller branches in what they perceive as weaker towns are expected to bear the brunt. Second, Retail Week has published the results of a survey that shows a major mismatch between customer and retailer expectations over Black Friday.

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Putting the whys and wherefores of Black Friday to one side, the mismatch is not just a gap ... it is a chasm. Versus last year, 90% of retailers expect us to spend either the same or more. These are the major players ... 20 multiples who account for almost half of all the UK's retail sector turnover. They should know their stuff.

The customer? We beg to differ: 74% say less. Only 14% expect to splash more cash. Is it any wonder the more traditional high street multiples continue to struggle? I like surveys. Polls have had a rough ride over recent years when it comes to politics, but folk ask questions of customers all too infrequently. The customer knows: always has ... always will.

Back to Kirkcaldy - the home of Adam Smith. The conference is being held in the theatre that bears his name. Some 240 years ago, Smith wrote of 'the invisible hand' ... the unseen forces that balance supply and demand in a free market. He also wrote of the division of labour. His arguments predicted our country's industrial evolution and our ability to undersell and out-produce all of our competitors. In his day, Kirkcaldy built ships, made pins and nails ... and was a successful port.

Roll the clock forward to another economist - former Kirkcaldy MP, Gordon Brown. His book, 'My Scotland, Our Britain' spoke of his ancestors' pre-industrial work, primarily employed on the land and moving from farm to farm to find jobs. Many hark back to what is seen as Kirkcaldy's heyday when coalmines surrounded the town. Just before the Great War, mining employed close to 30,000 men in the county, producing close to 10 million tons of the black stuff.

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But before the mines came linoleum and canvas: before the canvas and the queer-like smell? It was pottery, flax and linen weaving that made the town tick. Kirkcaldy has always evolved. Places do. Just last year, the credit data group Experian published a study highlighting Kirkcaldy as the home to Britain's best-performing micro-businesses (those with a turnover below 100,000). It outperformed everywhere. Those businesses are clearly listening to their customers.

And yet the headlines often do Kirkcaldy down, especially when it comes to the high street and retail. The closures of among others McDonalds & Tesco were seen by some as the death knell. The high street is the town's face; it bears its scars for all to see ... but the closure of national retailers should not be seen in such a way, especially when they fail to consult with their customers.

Tesco closed in 2015 and cost 180 jobs. In the same year, two men opened a coffee shop on the high street in the premises that had remained empty since McDonald's shut in 2011. The enterprising duo had been running a mobile coffee shop in the town for a couple of years. Their customers loved what they did - so they took the plunge and opened the Cupcake Coffee Box. Two years on, listening to their customers, the company employs a dozen people and has recently expanded to open an ice cream parlour. OK, that's not replaced Tesco ... but other small independents are investing too. They believe in their town. Tesco - and others - do not.

The town's Business Improvement District has been fundamental in helping to create an environment where businesses can start up. The BID can do little to affect closures: that buck stops at the local authority's door and has more to do with business rates and a disproportionate focus on out of town development ... still.
There's spectacle in every modern crisis. Take refugees: we watch, engulfed in the torrent of media, agog; we see crisis news spread through our social networks, each share and emoticon like the impact wave of a fly caught in a web; we get to know how each of us is living this one through a like here, a share there.

The refugee crisis has been literally "spectacular" in this way. That's one of the reasons that Sophie Besse's new play, "Borderline", (3 Jan to 9 Jan 2017 at The Cockpit, London) is powerful and important: we sit and take in the spectacle of the refugee crisis as an audience, all together in the dark; we can see ourselves in its peripheral actors - volunteers, customs officials, dog-handlers, the man from the ministry - and it is uncomfortable. We see ourselves doing what most of us have done throughout the crisis: watch, feel appalled, but for us it's still just spectacle. And yet, in that theatre, in a special ways it's not just spectacle: first, Sophie has assembled a cast, some of them professionals, half of them refugees, whose story is the one being told. Second, we're all watching together: not at our private Facebook streams; we're watching this time in the full awareness that it's a spectacle and that as the audience, we're up to our necks in it.

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Sophie Besse is a Frenchwoman in London who runs a theatre company, PSYCHEdelight. She has been a regular visitor to the Jungle where she has run theatre workshops (she has written regularly about her visits). Her previous play was very personal, a tragi-comedy about fertility and adoption. A bi-cultural couple is torn apart by biologically fated childlessness. But love through adoption - overcoming the unacceptable "given" order of things - turns the tragedy around into a story of hope and love. I can't help thinking that this is what Sophie is doing again: out of the trauma of the experiences of her actors, out of the unacceptability of the way we've treated them, she wants theatre to transform the story to one of love and hope.

Tragedy, love, hope ... but also laughs - there are moments of high comedy amidst the poignance. A well-meaning hipsterish woman (Lujza Richter) armed with her ukelele wonders around the camp pining for "a Syrian". No other identity will do: "They have suffered SO much ... What they've been through... I can feel... I can feel that they are the ones who need me the most" she whimpers, as she dismisses the wrong kind of needy: too black, not been bombed enough, etc. She eventually finds him,, and as she croons her solace with appalling musicianship, she notes, as an aside, "This is so Glastonbury!...". The bemused object of her attentions, a Syrian Jungle resident (Baraa Halabieh) points out: "Is that a camp?"

I ask the refugee-actors what the play means to them. It's hard to tell and it's hard to pry. I remember the few productions I have been involved in - the sense of purpose, camaraderie, achievement; the intimate sense of familiarity with a part or a playwright; the adrenalin of performance and its anticipation. And the bonds it forms between all those involved. Sophie tells me that she was shocked when Mohand told her that he misses Calais. No one to talk to in Bradford, where the Home Office have made accommodation available to him as his case is processed. Calais was hell but there was camaraderie. There were NGO helpers doing things. These refugees are in England now ... but they feel lost. In the camp, they had made something that was their own. Sophie is providing them with a glimpse that caring, connection camaraderie and self-creation are possible again here, even outside a self-made encampment.

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This doesn't make the play something that is for them rather than for us. A lot of the work is improvised. I went to one of the rehearsals, where Remy was teaching the actors the principles of improvisation.

"Someone starts - anyone. With some theme in mind. Then you can do one of three things", he says. "1. either join them, do something that's broadly the same, add to their volume and their voice - that's unison; or, 2, you do something different - but just a bit different; something in harmony; or, 3, you give them something to push against, something different, but something that can be built on - that's counterpoint. Now," he continues, "you're going to show me - you're going to make a ... what do you call it ... that machine that makes electricity ... a generator".

Mohammad - a young Sudanese man - steps out from the assembled group and goes down on one knee; his arms turn rhythmically, like a piston. A few seconds later, Basel, tall, with beard, glasses and a square jaw, places himself as a mirror image of Mohammad; he makes the same movements. They remind me of the big flat twin engine I had on an old-fashioned BMW motorbike many years ago. Emily, straight out of a fashion magazine, tom-boy hair jet black with short points coming in front of her ears, comes forward to start making a rhythmic sputtering sound ... and so it goes, the engine gets more and more complicated, but each seems to be making a contribution to the operation of the whole thing. Remy watches and lets it run, mechanically, for 30 seconds.

"OK. Stop. There was one thing I didn't say. You can do those 3 things - the same, the different, and the counter - and you did that. Good. But also, you shouldn't let anyone stay alone. YY - he was making the noise of the exhaust ... but no one supported him. No one thought how they could do the same, or slightly different, or give him counterpoint. You left him alone. Now do it again. Let yourself be free in your heart; experiment; keep to the three rules; but if someone is left alone, do something for them ..."

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Left alone ... do something for them ... Well, already this was getting poignant. Most of them have come quite recently from Calais's Jungle, and before that from the hell that their home has become. Acting alongside them are men and women from England, France, Wales and Chile. The three ways of joining represent a sort of humanistic ideal: work out how you can complement what each is freely doing; have an eye to what we're all jointly making; and look out to see if anyone needs support. The improvisation ensemble becomes the ideal for society as a whole, that elusive marriage of freedom, equality and collectivity. And by miming a machine, you're reminded that the cold and methodical mechanical contraption is itself a human artefact, made of human desires and brought together by much human coordination, by something shared rather than by a spooky invisible hand.
An avalanche of post-mortem election analysis is being unleashed. However, much of it seems to operate in a vacuum. There are various critiques of Trump. He may certainly be appalling and objectionable but there is a huge amount of hypocrisy at play here, which needs to be unmasked. Let's take the points one by one.

1)TRUMP IS A RACIST & A MISOGYNIST

Yes he clearly ran a divisive, xenophobic and sexist campaign. His conciliatory victory speech provides a ray of hope. He has stated that he will govern for all citizens. He was also generous towards Hillary - no suggestion of imprisoning his opponent for example.

And if we really want to discuss racism then it is worth recalling that the Bush and Obama War on Terror is responsible for 1.3 million deaths according to Physicians for Social Responsibility. Obama, so beloved of urbane cosmopolitans, is thus the black Nobel peace president, who has bombed seven Muslim countries.

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2)TRUMP IS A PROTO-FASCIST DEMAGOGUE

Segments of the Trump movement, including the alt-right, are deeply worrying and appear to be laying the foundations for a far-right mass movement. If Trump goes on to deport millions of immigrants, build a wall and bar Muslims from entering the country then we will have fascism in our time.

However, there is a one word response to all of this - Snowden. Trump did not create a big brother mass surveillance state. The NSA did. Post 9/11, there has been a steady erosion of civil liberties. Obama extended the Bush national security doctrine. Again, liberals might want to look themselves in the mirror when they acquiesced by rehashing arguments around "not worrying if you have nothing to hide".

3)THE TRUMP MOVEMENT

The Trump phenomenon did not just happen overnight. It is the product of decades of the decay of democracy - a dysfunctional neoliberal economic system only working for the elite and leaving millions of disenfranchised people behind. And a broken political system captured by vested interests embodied in the personage of Hillary. On the other hand, Trump presented himself as beholden to none of these interests. The Trump constituency did not have any progressive alternative and so were naturally drawn to him.

Let's remember that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) made a cynical calculation when they chose to sabotage the democratic process and work against Bernie to ensure Clinton got the nomination. They were prepared to risk a Trump victory rather than have Bernie win. So the DNC are complicit.

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4)TRUMP IS DANGEROUS

Well let's start with Clinton. She is a liberal war hawk and her record speaks for itself. She supported the Iraq war. And unforgivably she did not learn the lesson. As Secretary of State, she overrode the Pentagon's warnings about the consequences of the NATO bombing of Libya. This has unleashed anarchic chaos in Libya and across Africa not to mention uncorking the migrant crisis.

She also pushed for the destabilisation of Syria by supporting Islamist groups against Assad. As her emails show, she was fully cognizant that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were arming ISIS specifically. At the same time that the Clinton foundation received donations from Saudi Arabia, the US State department negotiated arms deals to Saudi. In other words, Clinton is part of a global network elite of the military-industrial complex and Middle Eastern client states guaranteeing the geopolitical hegemony responsible for much of the current instability and chaos in the region. Frankly Trump's isolationism is refreshing.

As the New York Times pointed out recently, Clinton is also a hawk on Russia. Yes Putin is an authoritarian ruler abusing human rights. But the current tit for tat escalation of war games is terrifying. Only last week, UK defence secretary Michael Fallon stated that the UK would be ready for war with Russia in 2 years. Turning the new cold war into a hot war would be apocalyptic.

Trump is in favour of rapprochement with Russia. As John Mearsheimer points out in the US foreign policy bible Foreign Affairs, NATO expansionism right up to the borders of Russia has provoked Putin. Clinton was also one of the architects of the Pivot to Asia policy, which aimed to surround China with US naval bases alongside the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement excluding China.

5)FREE TRADE

Clinton was previously in favour of free trade agreements but was forced to back down due to populist pressure.

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Trump has stated that he is anti TTIP, TPP and may even reverse NAFTA. Perhaps metropolitans do not really get what these trade agreements would mean so let me spell out just how bad they are. They would open up public services to corporate takeover. They would likely make public or state ownership difficult. They would then lock in privatisation through Investor-State Dispute Settlement clauses. They would also enforce enclosure of the commons through intellectual property rights. So drug patents would be extended to combat cheap generic medicines. Patenting of the human genome would be enforced. Farmers would have to buy seeds from corporations. I don't know about you but that sounds like a dystopian world to me.

Trump clearly connected with the millions left behind. His policy proposals gave them hope that neoliberal globalisation is not some irresistible force of nature. Protectionism may not exactly be progressive but it appears preferable to the unsustainable status quo of wage stagnation and decimation of well-paid manufacturing jobs.

Trump visited Flint, Michigan during the water crisis. He pointed out it used to be the case that water in Mexico was undrinkable and cars were made in Michigan but now it was the other way round. This was manna for the people of Michigan. No Washington politician would have dreamt of saying this. Clinton had not even bothered to visit Wisconsin since April. Such astonishing complacency helped hand the state to Trump.

That the wealthiest country in the world cannot even provide clean, drinking water to citizens in its aptly named rust belt is hard to compute. Metropolitans simply have no frame of reference. Clinton dismissed the same people as a "basket of deplorables" underlining just how out of touch she is. Towards the end of the campaign, she was hobnobbing with the super-rich in the Hamptons. Because the Clintons now prefer to be amongst their own. Bill Clinton has clearly forgotten about his modest background growing up in Arkansas. Together, the Clintons have made close to a quarter of a billion dollars since leaving the White House in 2001, according to the Financial Times.

6)DOMESTIC POLICY

Trump has promised public investment spending on infrastructure helping in the process to create jobs. The appalling state of national infrastructure is in desperate need of this. Here, he almost sounds Rooseveltian in promising some kind of New Deal.

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However, he will come into conflict with the likes of Paul Ryan and the Republican party hell-bent on welfare cuts and deficit reduction fetishism. Confusingly, Trump plans to lower taxes. This is a hangover from neoliberal trickle-down economics that does not fit into the rest of the paradigm. It's not at all clear how he will square this circle.

His plans to repeal Obamacare are also a regressive step unless he replaces it with universal healthcare, which seems highly unlikely. He has also previously called climate change a hoax, which is very concerning.

7)TRUMP IS AN AFFRONT TO OUR VALUES

Is he? Or is he really the explicit, uncensored, unfiltered embodiment of those values, which makes him so unpalatable?

Well a brief history lesson may be in order for those with amnesia. The US is a settler state founded on the extermination of the indigenous natives. It was then built on slavery and a legacy of race war including mass lynchings and Jim Crow segregation right up to the present day with the mass incarceration of and police brutality against black males.

The US is the only country to drop the nuclear bomb. Not North Korea or Russia or Iran. Watch JFK and LBJ defence secretary Robert McNamara in The Fog of War explaining how mass atrocities were unnecessarily committed through the firebombing of Japanese cities during WW2. This is why the gung-ho US general Curtis Le May pointed out that, if the allies had lost the war, they would have been prosecuted for war crimes. The US war in Korea was responsible for a million deaths and Vietnam for a further 2-3 million. And now 1.3 million killed in the war on terror.

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Karen Zheng, Analyst, Paid Search, Merkle US; Hermes Ma, Senior Manager, Agency Services, Merkle, China, Louis Gao, Senior Analyst, Paid Search, Merkle, China

Singles Day, Chinas biggest e-commerce day annually, takes place on November 11. For just one single day, Tmall (the main shopping platform under Alibaba Group), will generate sales that eclipse the entirety of US e-commerce revenue on Cyber Monday and Black Friday combined ($5.8 Billion). For example, in 2015, Tmall witnessed 91.2 billion RMB in sales, which is equivalent to $14.3 billion USD, breaking the previous record (also owned by Tmall) only halfway through the day. In total, 2016 Tmall singles day sales beat the previous ecommerce record by 59.7% and beat Black Friday/Cyber Monday revenue by 146%.

The massive ecommerce activity on Singles Day is not limited to Tmall alone as the online shopping heat expands across the entire Chinese ecommerce space. This presents a massive opportunity for ecommerce advertisers considering expansion into China.

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Baidu, the No.1 search engine in China, is an inseparable part of the e-commerce ecosystem. Last year, Merkle announced its official partnership with Baidu, which means Merkle is Baidus first US-headquartered reseller for brands seeking growth in China (learn more about Merkle & Baidu partnership here. In addition to its basic search engine function, it offers a wide range of services including Baidu Map, Baidu Cloud (a cloud storage service), Baidu Encyclopedia, Baidu Experience, MP3 Search, travel-booking, and so on.

As part of the Merkle search team, we are most interested in Baidus primary advertising product, similar to Google AdWords, which is called Baidu Tuiguang (which means promoting or advertising in Chinese). This platform allows advertisers to show their ads on Baidu search results pages and on other websites that belong to Baidu Union (similar to Google Display Network). If you have experience with both Google AdWords and Baidu Tuiguang, youll find them very similar in terms of keyword creation, campaign management, and bidding adjustments. There are even additional targeting features and products that mirror previous/current Google betas. For example, our team is testing a product called Brand Industry Bidding that functions similarly to Googles Target Outranking Share Bidding product, by enabling advertisers to bid on relevant domains as opposed to keywords (more to come in a separate blog post). However, the disappointment is that Baidus tools are all in Chinese, which poses a big challenge for non-Chinese speakers. Thats why we wanted to share what we learned about Baidu Tuiguang here, so that anyone interested in using Baidu to promote their brands wont be deterred by the language barrier.

An earlier report from Boston Consulting Group shows that Chinese consumers care more about brands than Westerners do, which means getting their brand names in front of potential customers is even more crucial for advertisers extending their businesses in China. To better serve advertisers to achieve that, Baidu offers different solutions for businesses at different scales. Wed like to introduce you to the following three types of brand ads that are often used by advertisers on Baidu Tuiguang.

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This type of brand ad has a similar look as RAIS (Rich Ads in Search) on Bing. They show in the top position on SERP (search engine results page), including multiple links to the site. Compared to RAIS, Brand Zone owns a bigger space on SERP so that they are more likely to catch peoples eyes and get a higher CTR, a result proven out through testing by our Baidu SEM team. However, Brand Zone runs on a CPT (cost per time) model, which means the ads are purchased on a monthly basis. According to Baidu, the price of the ads depends on the estimated traffic of brand keywords and the industry CPM. Advertisers will have to reach out to Baidu representatives for more specific pricing information, but one thing for sure is that Brand Zone is less affordable for small brands.

Brand Zone ads are shown in different forms, including standard and advanced. For advanced forms, there are seven types available, with some types featuring videos and some only having static images (click here to view all the options on Baidus own site). Overall, Brand Zone presents a brand in a very polished way.

Compared to Brand Zone, this type of brand ads is a better fit for small, regional businesses. Despite a smaller space on SERP, Brand Business Card requires a smaller budget, which is 2,500 RMB for 3 months. There are other limitations, though. Each account can only buy one brand keyword, and the ads are only allowed to reach one region, which in most cases is one province or the capital city of a province.

Similar to Brand Business Card, this type of ad fits small businesses well. These two types have almost the same appearance. The main differences are that, for Brand Starting Line, advertisers have to buy the space on a monthly basis and pay prices calculated by Baidus system (which could mean more expensive). In return, advertisers are allowed buy more than 20 brand keywords and reach up to 5 regions.
If nothing else, the 2016 elections have once again reaffirmed America's solid democratic system. Without any major incidents, tens of millions of Americans went to polling stations across the land, voted for the candidate of their choice, and readied themselves, as always, for the peaceful transfer of power. I believe that even those who were deeply disappointed with the results of the election will sooner than later rise above the fray, put the nation's interests first, and work to build a more wholesome union.

Notwithstanding the post-election trauma that many Americans are experiencing and the time the Trump administration will need to sort out a host of domestic and foreign policy issues, the US faces numerous foreign crises and it does not have the luxury of time to pause in dealing with them. America's leadership role and responsibility remain pivotal to mitigate, if not end, many of these violent conflicts sweeping the Middle East in particular. Although President-elect Trump is inexperienced and lacks the nuanced knowledge of the complex crises America is confronted with, he must now navigate his own way and develop new strategies, particularly in the areas where Obama fell short, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Sunni-Shiite war, and the civil war in Syria.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: There is no doubt that President Obama has made supreme efforts to solve the seven-decades old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However admirable his efforts were, the president and his chief mediator Secretary of State John Kerry failed to take into account the psychological dimension of the conflict, which has been and remains the core impediment to resolving the conflict, especially from religious, historic, and ideological perspectives.

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Throughout the two sets of intensive negotiations in 2009-2010 and 2013-2014, and in spite of the progress made on various conflicting issues such as the Palestinian refugees, the future of Jerusalem, and borders, the failure to mitigate the psychological aspect connected to these issues made it impossible for either side to deliver what they have agreed upon.

At this juncture, the gulf between the two sides has become even deeper and wider, and no amount of mediation, compensation, or coercion can persuade either side to make the significant concessions needed to make peace possible.

The Trump administration must first focus on a process of reconciliation (people-to-people activity) that would mitigate the profound mutual distrust, instill a sense of mutual security, and disabuse the strong constituencies on both sides that they can have it all.

During this process of reconciliation between the two sides, which should last for about two years, the U.S. with the support of the EU (led by France) should promote the Arab Peace Initiative (API) to provide the overall framework for peace based on a two-state solution.

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Although many Israelis celebrated the election of Trump, believing that he would not pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution, the Trump administration will make a mistake of historical proportions if it leaves Israelis and Palestinians to their own devices.

The current relative calm should not be taken for granted as the simmering tension can explode any time if the Palestinians see no prospect of ending the occupation in the foreseeable future.

Only by creating the social, political, and psychological atmosphere conducive to peace, and with the support of the Arab states, the EU, and other major powers, can the negotiations be resumed with a far better prospect of success. If Trump is concerned about Israel's future security and political integrity, he must not hesitate to pressure Israel now to seek a solution and save it from its own destructive path.

The Sunni-Shiite war: ISIS came to being in the wake of the Iraq war, which instigated a renewed violent conflict between the Sunnis and Shiites. Although the eventual defeat of ISIS is inevitable, it will not bring an end to the Sunni-Shiite conflict as long as Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia are fighting for regional hegemony; they will continue to wage a proxy war in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen to secure their goal.

The key to settling this conflict is to revisit the Iraq war and its repercussions on the Sunnis in Iraq. After 81 years of their continuous rule, the Iraqi Sunnis now find themselves at the mercy of the Shiite governing majority, which has systematically discriminated against and marginalized them from the first day the Maliki-led Shiite government came to power.

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The Trump administration must now understand that maintaining the unity of Iraq as a single country is no longer a viable option. Though the Sunni Iraqis loath ISIS, they despise and detest the Shiite government in Bagdad even more. To help bring a swifter end to the civil war in Iraq, the Sunnis need to be granted autonomy along the line of the Iraqi Kurds.

The US must now begin the dialogue between the Sunni and Shiite leadership in Iraq to reach an amicable agreement with which both can live. The three Sunni provinces that include the city of Mosul should constitute the contours of such an entity, but given the lack of natural resources (i.e. oil) in these areas, an equitable distribution of oil revenue should be established between them and the central government.

In the final analysis, only a long period of peaceful coexistence between the two sides will allow them over time to develop a closer, more trusting, and friendlier relationship. This will greatly satisfy the Saudis as the Sunnis will maintain a strong foothold in Iraq while Iran will still be in a position to exert some influence on the Shiite government.

This would also bring an end to the bloodshed between Sunnis and Shiites that will otherwise further escalate in the wake of ISIS' inevitable defeat.

The civil war in Syria: The civil war in Syria will not end unless the US changes its approach to the war by putting both Putin and Assad on notice that the slaughter of Syrian civilians must immediately come to an end.

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The US cannot assert its commanding regional role and at the same time save the Syrian people from near-complete destruction by leading from behind and merely providing military equipment and material to the rebels.

That said, the US must recognize that Russia has been for decades and will remain a permanent fixture in Syria, and Iran will not relinquish its longstanding interest and influence in Damascus as Tehran views Syria as the linchpin to the Shiite-dominated crescent of land between the Mediterranean and the Gulf. However unorthodox this may seem, the US has little choice but to work with these two powers to find a solution.

While recognizing the importance of Russia's role and its willingness to cooperate with Putin to find a permanent solution, the Trump administration must also convey in unequivocal terms to Putin and Assad that they must stop the indiscriminate bombing and killing of tens of thousands of innocent Syrians while erasing one neighborhood after another.

Given Putin's desire to work closely with Trump, he is likely to be more receptive in finding a solution to the conflict. But if he does not, the US must assert itself and be prepared to bomb and destroy all of Assad's air force fields, hangars, and munitions depots.

The cessation of hostilities in Syria will not, in and of itself, bring an end to the civil war, but it remains a prerequisite to open up diplomatic channels in the search for a permanent peaceful solution.

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In any future solution, the US should not object to Assad remaining president throughout an agreed-upon transitional period if his participation keeps intact the bureaucracy, military, and internal security apparatus to prevent a replay of what happened in Iraq following the US invasion.

The US cannot escape its responsibility, and it must now confront head-on the three most urgent and intractable conflicts before they further escalate out of control.

Given that Trump is all about 'America First' - and that America has significant geopolitical interests in the region - it is imperative that a Trump administration addresses these conflicts in a serious and consistent manner. Trump's first test will be his choices of advisors, who can assist him to navigate through the thicket of these conflicts.
A climate denier is going to be President of the United States. And if you were hoping that Trump's strange views on the issue (it's all a Chinese hoax!) were just bluster, think again. He recently appointed well-known climate skeptic Myron Ebell to lead his environmental and EPA transition team. Ebell has said the Paris climate agreement is unconstitutional. So even a moderate approach to energy and climate is not likely.

Millions of us consider climate change a serious threat to the economy, our wellbeing, and our species. But we can get depressed or figure out how to move forward (or, I suppose, do both at the same time).

If we assume that this new government will be hostile to the EPA, the Clean Power Plan, the Paris Accords, renewables, and the clean economy in general, then I see two seemingly contradictory paths forward - we need both:

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1. Make the policies of the federal government as irrelevant as possible.

In practice, this means relying on economics, local action, and the private sector. So three big things:

 Continue driving the cost of clean technology down as fast as possible, making it a financial no-brainer for all buyers (companies, municipalities, utilities, the military, and homeowners). We're well on our way, with solar and wind already more than competitive. Battery storage is getting cheaper, and countless energy efficiency technologies have fantastic paybacks.

 Work at the state and city level to change policy. Companies, NGOs, and activists should push for policies such as: commitments by local governments to purchase clean energy and green products, renewable portfolio standards, and even gas taxes (New Jersey just did it!). A few weeks ago, nine big companies (working with Ceres) with operations in Ohio - including Nestle, Campbell Soup, Owens Corning, Gap, and JLL - lobbied the state to bring back a renewable portfolio standard. More of this, please.

 Lead from the private sector. Dozens of large companies now have commitments to science-based targets and 100% renewable energy. That's all great news, but we need to go even faster. There's much more to say about how to make this happen, but for now, just consider how important all three of these elements are together - the better the economics, the more companies will jump aboard. And the more convinced they are, the more they'll want to push for local laws that promote the clean economy.

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2. Continue to press the federal government to support the clean economy (or at least not dismantle it)

Even as we move to make the federal approach on climate and energy irrelevant, it seems prudent, just in case, to also move the needle at the federal level.

So let's pitch the Trump administration on the fact that sustainability and the clean economy are good for business, the economy, jobs, global competitiveness, health, and much more. But I don't know if he will hear this message from the usual suspects though. So we must utilize business voices to make the case. I'm fleshing out some ideas on this now - more to come in the near future...
The pundits are out in full force trying to understand what went wrong in their predictions for a second Clinton White House. Half a nation is in shock (actually slightly more than half) and the other half is feeling pretty good about showing the elites of this nation what they think about the policies and partisanship that they blame for leaving them behind. One-hundred percent of that nation is unsure about what happens next, and that probably includes Trump and his team.

We can all agree that too many Americans have been struggling to make ends meet and that the disparity between rich and poor has grown to extreme levels. Trump masterfully exploited the pains of large swaths of the population who felt threatened by a new reality and longed for days that have slipped into the past. These people weren't so much for Trump, what they were "for" was anybody offering a change from the parade Washington insiders offered up over this and past election cycles.

In crafted sound bites to appeal to our basest emotions of fear and anger, Trump made promises that will be impossible to keep. Criss-crossing the Rust Belt, he told the unemployed and underemployed that he would bring jobs back to America, that he would make companies return manufacturing to US soil, that he would renegotiate trade deals and that we would see future economic growth of 5-6%.

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There is no return to the past. According to The Economist, the going global hourly rate for factory workers in China is $1.5/hr, or $270/month. These aren't the jobs we want nor can we afford to do them in the context of our cost of living. America cannot be great by sliding backwards, America can only be great by continuing to define the future. The sooner we face that those jobs are gone the sooner we can seriously consider how to lift up all Americans. What we need are skills that are relevant to the next chapter of American greatness.

America doesn't have an unemployment problem, we have a skills problem.

There are 5.6 million open jobs in the economy today. In 40% of those cases, employers cite lack of skills as the primary reason that they cannot fill a position. America doesn't have an unemployment problem, we have a skills problem. And our skills problem is tied to the failings of our education system. We spend too much (collectively and individually), get too little, and fail to prepare our people to bring value to the economy. Education in its many forms helps people understand risk, detect false promises and have empathy for the "other." When someone is educated and can understand risk, they are less likely to take it. What we just witnessed was a lack of understanding of the risks involved with a Trump presidency and with this vote those risks are now very real.

Nothing will change for the positive in the American job landscape on the back of promises made on the campaign trail. In the short term, we may even see our businesses pull back hiring with caution for the uncertainty ahead. But the bigger point is that America needs to stop looking to candidates and their big empty promises to solve their problems. We can sit back as a nation and wait for the old jobs to come back or we can take our lives into our own hands and define our future. Success isn't given, it's earned.

"Jobs and opportunity exist in this great nation but as the economy constantly evolves, so must we."

American Individualism is a force that has driven this country forward. We have freedoms here that are the envy of the world. No one is stopping us from moving to where the jobs are, no one is stopping us from learning skills that are relevant to the economy. Jobs and opportunity exist in this great nation but as the economy constantly evolves, so must we. We each have a responsibility to live up to our highest potential and if we are not willing to put in the effort we must not drag down others trying to fulfill theirs.

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If you want to make America great again, play your part. The jobs exist, they are yours to take, but same as it has always been: you have to do the work to make yourself relevant.

Take responsibility. Get the skills. Get the Job. That's a good place to start.
Image: Russian Iskander missiles on the 9P78-1 Transporter erector launcher at the Victory Day Parade rehearsal in Moscow in 2010. (Author: A. Savin / CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons)

As someone who loves Armenia, my first response to the news that my country had purchased advanced Russian missiles capable of hitting targets hundreds of kilometers from Armenian territory was: "Good -- they will make us safer."

But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether that was true.

The reason is that Iskander 9K720 missiles can carry nuclear as well as conventional warheads, and Armenia has the scientific capability and material to make nukes.

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And some Armenian military and civilian leaders have hinted that the country is actually developing nukes.

I began asking myself whether the advanced Iskanders' presence would not only precipitate a missile race in the region, but also increase the threat of nuclear proliferation.

The first rumors that Armenia had advanced Iskanders came three years ago.

They were unconfirmed until 9K720s rolled past the reviewing stand at a military parade two months ago marking Armenia's 25th anniversary of independence. The event in the capital of Yerevan drew President Serzh Sargsyan and most of the top civilian and military leaders.

The 9K720s that Armenia acquired are capable of landing within seven meters of their target. They also have the capability to evade enemy missile defense systems.

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But the most salient fact is that they have nuclear capability.

If Armenia weren't contemplating developing nukes, then nuclear-capable Iskanders would be a cause for concern in the region, but not consternation.

But Armenian leaders have made a number of comments this year that suggested that nukes might in the cards.

Retired General Arkadiy Ter-Tadevosyan said on March 27 that Armenia was developing a weapon that could unleash great destruction.

On April 16, Acting Defense Minister Norat Ter-Grigoryants, the retired head of Armenia's armed forces, said nuclear weapons could play a role in the country's defense as a deterrent and a means of retaliation.

At one point in a press conference on April 29, former Prime Minister Grant Bagratian said unequivocally that "Armenia has a nuclear weapon." He walked back that assertion later by saying that the country "has the capability of creating a nuclear weapon." The walk-back failed to comfort neighbors in the region and Armenians who worry about nuclear proliferation.

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Armen Rustamyan, head of the Dashnaksutun Party, said on May 10 that there were grounds for Bagratian's initial comment on April 29 that Armenia has nukes. Rustamyan quickly added: "I will not say anything else -- this is a military secret." The Dashnaksutun Party is part of Armenia's ruling coalition, which means that Rustamyan has access to the country's military plans.

All of these comments came within a few weeks of an early-April outbreak in fighting between ethnic Armenians and the Azerbaijan military over control of Nagorno Karabakh.

The conflicting claims to the enclave led to a war between the two sides between 1988 and 1994. It ended with an uneasy truce that held until about five years ago, when a series of flare-ups began.

Some political analysts believe that Armenian leaders' comments about developing nuclear weapons were posturing to prevent a new Nagorno Karabakh war.

But others note that Armenia has both the scientific capability and the material to make nukes.

The country has had a nuclear power plant at Metsamor, 36 kilometers west of Yerevan, for four decades.

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The scientists and engineers running the plant would certainly have the knowledge to make nuclear weapons.

And the plant uses bomb-capable fuel. That's apparent from the arrests of a number of Armenian nationals who have tried to smuggle radioactive material out of the country in the past decade.

The smugglers' aim, according to law enforcement officers in Armenia and neighboring Georgia, where the arrests took place, was to sell the material to terrorists planning to make a dirty bomb.

The fact that Armenia has the brainpower and material to make nukes, and now the Iskander missiles to deliver them, is making its neighbors nervous, I've read.

Ironically, one is Iran, which agreed in a celebrated deal with the West in 2015 to give up any plans it might have had to make nuclear weapons.

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It would be terrible for the region and the world if other countries' fears of a nuclear-armed Armenia prompted them to begin building nukes.

That would mean that the purchase of the Iskanders that were supposed to increase Armenia's security actually did the opposite.
President-elect Donald Trump gives his acceptance speech during his election night rally, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/John Locher)

I opposed Donald Trump's candidacy, and his presidency will not disappoint me. I expect the very worst, and anything more than that will be a pleasant surprise.

However, if you are a Trump supporter, be prepared to be disillusioned. His campaign promises to you will evaporate like a shimmering mirage on the desert horizon.

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There will be no wall, no mass deportations, and no ban on Muslims entering the country. These big three pledges are logistically, economically, and politically dead in the water of that desert illusion.

The US/Mexican border spans nearly 2000 miles. Imagine how high and how deep the wall would have to be to prevent undocumented people from going over or under it. And think of the eminent domain issues and years of litigation associated with acquiring the land and easements from adjacent property owners to get equipment and supplies in for this fool's folly. Mexico need not worry about paying for it. It will never be built.

A deportation force to round up and throw out 11 million undocumented people would be a logistic and economic nightmare; if and when his storm-troopers knock on the doors of these families, they would not go peacefully. They aren't going anywhere.

There will be no ban on Muslims entering this country. One's religion is not stamped on their visas or passports. And the security, economic, political, and constitutional consequences would be insurmountable. It will never happen.

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Those who voted for Trump have bought the Brooklyn Bridge from a hustler. Those who abstained or voted third party had a hand in the sale. I suspect there will be considerable buyers' remorse.

In the meantime, you have entrusted Trump with the nuclear codes, the power to grant full and unconditional pardons, and the right to nominate Supreme Court Justices. How do you think that will work out?

In the immortal words of Edward R. Morrow, "Our history will be what we make it."
Person places their vote in a ballot box at a polling station.

(This column was originally published by Truthdig.com., four days before the election. It is reprinted now as a both a foreshadowing and an epitaph.)

Crafting a compelling and intricate story is a challenge. The key, I learned as author of three popular legal thrillers, is getting the right mix of character development, suspense, atmosphere and, above all, an ending no one can see coming. You need an active--and sometimes jaded--imagination to pull off the trick.

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Still, even in my most febrile writer's dreams, I couldn't have devised a plotline approaching what happened the morning of Oct. 28, when FBI Director James Comey sent a terse, 166-word letter to the chairs of eight congressional committees, disclosing that the bureau had discovered additional emails that required it to take further "appropriate investigative steps" regarding Hillary Clinton's use of a private internet server during her tenure as secretary of state. Only last July, Comey had broken the hearts of Republicans everywhere as he told Congress and the world that the email probe had been completed and Clinton would not be prosecuted.

So forget WikiLeaks, and forget Clinton's speeches to Goldman Sachs and the behind-the-scenes machinations of John Podesta: Comey's letter was the ultimate October surprise, at once breathing new life into the seemingly moribund Trump campaign and triggering shockwaves of anxiety and spasms of political bed-wetting among Democrats.

And then came another, even more improbable twist: The new emails had been found on a laptop computer owned by none other than Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former New York congressman who just happens to be the estranged husband of top Clinton aide and confidante Huma Abedin. The emails had been uncovered during the course of a separate investigation into sexual messages Weiner had dispatched to a 15-year-old North Carolina girl.

If I had pitched a screenplay like that--even to the edgy Cohen brothers--the concept would have been shot down as too implausible and incapable (in the argot of the trade) of generating the required "suspension of disbelief" needed to sustain viewer interest. I can just see the rejection note now, telling me that no one would buy into a culprit named Weiner with a penchant for circulating dick pics online. No one.

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Except this plotline isn't fiction. It's fact, and it has the potential to alter the outcome of the presidential election and, with it, our collective future.

So I, along with sundry other legal and political commentators, have to ask: Why did Comey write his letter, and was his decision to do so a clear break with long-standing FBI and Justice Department policies--and possibly itself a violation of law? Even more fundamentally, I have to ask what the whole stomach-turning tale says about the state of American democracy.

Unfortunately, coming up with answers isn't easy. For starters, only Comey knows the full extent of his motives. In his letter to Congress, the director wrote merely that his Oct. 28 letter was sent to "supplement my previous testimony," given before the House Oversight Committee in July and House Judiciary Committee in September.

In a memo circulated to FBI staff the afternoon of Oct. 28, Comey elaborated:

Of course, we don't ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don't know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don't want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.

Comey is an imposing physical figure. A towering 6 feet 8 inches tall, he has a blunt, no-nonsense speaking style and a stern countenance. He also has a reputation for doing the right thing, no matter the consequences and who gets pissed off.

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Comey was the guy who in 2004, as a deputy attorney general, rushed to the hospital bed of his seriously ill boss, John Ashcroft, and stood up to then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and George W. Bush chief of staff Andrew Card as they attempted to persuade the weakened Ashcroft to certify aspects of the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program that the Justice Department had deemed unconstitutional. If cast in a classic Hollywood movie for the gesture, you'd think of Gary Cooper, standing tall and alone as the quintessential lawman in "High Noon."

But dig a little deeper into his background and a more nuanced and far less flattering picture of Comey emerges as a GOP hitman. Early in his government career, Comey worked as a special counsel for the Senate Whitewater Committee, investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton's involvement in a set of shady Arkansas real-estate investments from the 1970s and '80s. Later, as a federal prosecutor, he supervised a probe of Bill Clinton's 2001 pardon of financier Marc Rich, who had been indicted for tax evasion and illegally trading with Iran and subsequently fled the country.

In addition, Comey's resume includes important and highly lucrative private-sector stints of a decidedly right-wing bent. As MarketWatch columnist Brett Arends catalogued in a November 2nd post, Comey raked in millions a year in salary and stock bonuses as an attorney working on behalf of defense-contractor giant Lockheed Martin, and Bridgewater Associates, known as the country's largest hedge fund. For a time, he held a seat on the board of HSBC, the global investment bank that was hit in March 2013 with a $1.3 billion fine for international money laundering.

Initially appointed to the Justice Department by the Bush-Cheney administration in 2003, Comey was nominated by President Obama in June 2013 to become FBI director. He was confirmed a month later by the Senate on a 93-1 vote, with Rand Paul, R-Ky., the lone dissenter.

Among his public declarations since assuming the top post that September, Comey has claimed that the Black Lives Matter movement and the "Ferguson effect" (referring to the impact of street protests against police shootings and viral videos of police misconduct) are responsible for the recent uptick in violent crime in some cities. His position has drawn sharp criticism from the Obama administration, as well as the broader civil rights community.

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So, was Comey's Oct. 28 letter the result of his pent-up urge to get back finally at the Clintons and the Democratic establishment? The highly respected Guardian columnist Spencer Ackerman asserted in an article published November 2nd that the FBI has become "Trumpland," populated by field agents and other officials rankled over Comey's initial decision not to seek criminal charges against Hillary Clinton.

Those looking for bias in Comey's letter might also point to the bureau's release Tuesday of a 129-page archive from the Marc Rich investigation and pardon. Why make such documents public, Clinton backers have asked, just days before voters head to the polls if not to place a thumb on the electoral scale?

Still, it's not easy to come to any definite conclusions about Comey's intentions. Ever since Attorney General Loretta Lynch's fateful encounter with Bill Clinton at the Phoenix airport in early July, Lynch has encountered demands that she recuse herself from the email controversy. As a result, Comey has been forced to become the public face of justice on the issue and take on the task of announcing the results of the long federal inquiry into the email controversy.

He remains that public face to this day.

To be sure, in revealing that the bureau is once again looking into Hillary Clinton's emails, Comey has violated long-standing Justice Department protocols that instruct federal prosecutors to remain silent about ongoing investigations within 60 days of an election.

But to be fair, Comey has been caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. By announcing that the email hunt is once again on, he has entered the forbidden arena of partisan politics, condemned by Democrats for boosting Donald Trump's fading prospects at the last possible minute. On the other hand, remaining silent until after the election would also have had profound political ramifications, especially if Hillary wins, sparking outrage on the Republican right over yet another Clinton cover-up.

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In the end, the biggest casualty in the entire tangled and interminable scandal may be democracy itself. We've been reduced to a pulp-fiction version of constitutional governance. The head of the nation's preeminent law enforcement agency, his hand forced by an online sex addict named Weiner, may determine the outcome of one of the most consequential presidential elections in our history.

That's something I, for one, never saw coming.
While you may have planned out an agenda for your next team meeting, it's possible that attendees will bring up unexpected items that need to be addressed in addition to what you had prepared. To be sure nothing gets lost in the shuffle, have processes in place to document exactly what was covered, and who will be the designated person to follow up on those items.

A. Add Tasks to a To-Do List

After an important meeting, I create a list of action items and copy them to my computer. For instance, when I have a meeting on the phone, I take notes on post-its or in my notebook. I use these notes to create a list of action items and add it to my Evernote to-do list. In the case of an existing client, I turn the action items into tickets in Jira or Trello. - John Arroyo, Arroyo Labs, Inc.

A. Follow Up Immediately

Whenever I leave any meeting, upon returning to my office I always follow up with a list of key takeaways. This guarantees that I understood the points of the meetings and helps set necessary goals going forward. It also helps to quickly erase any confusion with any members of the meeting or determine if a follow-up call or meeting is necessary. - Nick Francis, The Franchise Group

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A. Reiterate Why Decisions Were Made

We have meetings when there are decisions to be made. All of us are capable of managing our tasks and most of what we do involves us creating our own timelines and to-dos. Our job as a collective is to work towards a shared vision, and part of establishing a shared vision is to reiterate, remind and agree upon why we do what we are doing. Our meeting notes reiterate why we decided to do what we did. - Vivek Narayan, GorMonjee Inc

A. Send an Action Plan



Send a follow-up email with clear and concise action items, deadlines and responsibilities so that everyone stays on the same page, there is no room for confusion and everyone is held accountable. If there are any pending issues or tabled items for future discussion, include those as well for your next meeting. - Angela Delmedico, Elev8 Consulting Group

A. Set Reminders



To make sure productivity doesn't slow after you walk out of the room, do two things after and in between meetings: Quickly send out clear and concise meeting notes, and follow up on the commitments made. - Jessica Baker, Aligned Signs

A. Stay in Touch



Follow up with everyone. Send out an email that briefly outlines what was accomplished and goes over each attendee's tasks. This will ensure everyone remembers what they need to do - and that no one has any excuse for going off-task. - Steven Buchwald, The E2 Visa Lawyer

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A. Review Notes



Documenting notes during the meeting and sending out agreed-upon action items right after the meeting clarifies responsibilities, deadlines and milestones. I've used meeting notes in the past to help confirm any decisions made, confirm action items and responsibility, and clarify any "grey areas" discussed during the meeting to prompt action from stakeholders/staff as needed. - Nadia Hansen, Result Logix
This Veterans Day, as we salute the extraordinary sacrifices and courage of generations of service members, America begins its next chapter in keeping our nation safe and strong. We also must acknowledge and repay, through action, not words, our debt to the men and women who have served.

We want our President and Commander-in-Chief to overhaul the broken veterans' health care system and make certain that our veterans receive timely, high-quality care. We want an end to efforts to privatize the Veterans Health Administration. We want guarantees that service members suffering from military sexual trauma receive disability compensation and treatment, and that their charges are treated seriously. We want our government to support the families of those who defend us.

This work will be bolstered by a new veteran -- Tammy Duckworth of Illinois -- who was elected to the U.S. Senate. Duckworth lost both her legs when her Army Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in Iraq. Her experience, along with colleagues in the House and Senate, will ensure that our veterans receive the full attention of elected officials when it comes to Defense Department budgets or an updated authorization for the use of military force.

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As an Air Force veteran, I'm proud that my union recognizes the sacrifice and contribution of all our veterans. We will continue the fight to ensure that all working people -- and all veterans -- can share in the American Dream.
A supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump yells at the media during a campaign event in Concord, North Carolina, U.S. November 3, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

For the past eight years, America has had an African-American president. Faced with the prospect of a white woman succeeding him, America instead just elected an angry white man as president. Call it the triumph of angry white men everywhere. Millions of Americans are about to find out what it's like to be led by the equivalent of the drunk uncle at the Thanksgiving table who refuses to follow the rules of politeness and political correctness. Was it a backlash against our first black president? Or rampant misogyny towards Hillary Clinton? Or just free-floating rage against a changing culture that is becoming more tolerant and multicultural by the year? It's impossible to accurately say, really. The only thing that can be said for certain is that angry white men are now dominant.

Of course, even saying so is oversimplifying things. There were plenty of angry white women who voted for Trump yesterday, as well. The demographics of the 2016 election will be carefully studied for years to come, as political elites and the media search for the reason why they were all so utterly wrong, before the fact. I certainly include myself in that group, as I in no way saw last night coming ahead of time. I thought Hillary Clinton might have a tougher time than predicted, but would emerge victorious with a few states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania shoring up the numbers she needed to win the Electoral College. Like many others, I believed that right up until state after state began to be called for Trump, beginning with Florida. A "silent majority" actually did exist, and they turned out to the polls in numbers which overwhelmed all of Clinton's careful preparations and all of the pollsters' predictions. It was stunning to see, and it still hasn't really sunk in completely, if truth be known.

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Republicans will now have a free hand to reshape the country to their liking. If Senate Democrats even try to fight hard against this tide, Senate Republicans might just do away with the filibuster altogether so they will have complete control of all branches of government. They will almost certainly do so for Trump's Supreme Court nomination, and they may very well get rid of the legislative filibuster as well. At this point, nothing seems impossible.

Republicans are now in the position of the barking dog which caught the car it was chasing -- and then didn't know what to do with it. They will have no excuse now for why they can't pass the wildest fantasies of their base into law. Obamacare will be repealed, to be replaced with not much of anything. Gigantic tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy will (obviously) pass rather quickly. The safety net may be shredded or privatized. Who knows, maybe they'll even try to make gay marriage illegal once again. Perhaps the minimum wage will be lowered, or even abolished altogether. The entire Republican agenda is now on the table, and it doesn't really look like anything's going to stop them from passing whatever their little hearts desire.

Trump may go along with the Republican agenda, or he may not. It's really tough to even predict. He's been rather malleable on all kinds of policy ideas during the campaign, and gives the impression that he doesn't really care about any particular ideology. So a Republican Congress may be able to talk him into all sorts of things.

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Or maybe not. Trump doesn't really strike me as playing the part of puppet very well, because his ego won't allow him to play second fiddle to anyone. On the issues he does appear to care about, he'll likely refuse to back down. This means that wall will get built, most likely. Millions may get deported as well. Bombs may rain down on ISIS indiscriminately. A trade war with the world may take place, as Trump convinces Congress to slap all sorts of tariffs on foreign goods. Some of what he said on the campaign trail may have been mere bluster, but on the biggest issues he's likely to attempt to follow through. How much of a match his agenda will be with Paul Ryan's agenda remains to be seen.

America under Trump's leadership may soon become a very dark and reactionary place. Will his close advisors be able to rein in Trump's natural vindictiveness? Or will he use the levers of power to get back at his perceived enemies? Nobody knows, at this point.

It'd be comforting to at least hold the belief that this was all some sort of darkness before a new dawn. Will Democrats emerge stronger in the end? Well, they've got a lot of wilderness ahead before that happens, that's the only thing that is sure. Both political parties were ripped apart by the 2016 election, and what gets reconstituted on either side remains to be seen. There are a lot of Bernie Bros saying "I told you so!" this morning, to put this another way. Will the Democrats realize that they've all but forgotten how to make average voters' lives better, and redouble populist efforts to address the concerns of the working class? Or will they attempt to lurch to the center and wind up being Republican-lite? That battle has yet to be fought, and the outcome is far from certain.

I can spin a rosy scenario for the future, but I'm not sure how much I believe it, at this point. California's Proposition 187 is the model for Democrats looking for a silver lining, today. Prop 187 was a virulently anti-immigrant ballot initiative with some of the worst scaremongering on the airwaves behind it. It passed, back in 1994, and the Republican governor who championed it also got re-elected. But Pete Wilson's triumph has turned California solid blue as a direct result. Republicans are now almost irrelevant in the state's politics. The backlash against the ugliness of the Prop 187 campaign convinced a whole lot of Latinos that the Republican Party did not want them at all. They are all now Democrats, and are a big reason why California is so solidly blue.

Will there be a national parallel? People who remember that Prop 187 flipped California to Democratic control for a generation often forget that it passed at the time. We all remember the backlash, but forget that it didn't happen immediately. If President Trump follows through on his promise of mass deportations, Latinos nationwide may start voting Democratic at the same rate as African-Americans. For decades to come. If the Democratic Party manages a comeback in two years (or four, or eight...), this will likely be the driving force behind such a resurgence. Angry white men in California won the battle, but they lost the larger demographic war. If that takes place nationally, the electorate is going to look very different in the next few elections, although not in every state.

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Before that happens, though, we're going to have to get through the angry white men era first. Trump's economic promises to his base will be the hardest for him to keep, though. There simply is no magic wand to wave to bring all those manufacturing jobs back to the Rust Belt and beyond. If Trump slaps tariffs on lots of other countries, it could lead to a major recession -- meaning even more economic devastation for all those Midwestern small towns. Repealing Obamacare is going to mean millions will, once again, have no health insurance at all. That's also going to hit rural America hard. When another round of huge tax breaks for the wealthy fails (once again) to cause all those manufacturing jobs to reappear, Trump's own supporters may get pretty disgruntled with him. The Republican Party will have absolutely no excuse why all those rainbows and ponies they had promised everyone failed to materialize. If they hold total control of the government, it's going to be pretty hard to blame the other party if the economy goes south.

Angry Trump voters are triumphant now. They scored a huge upset victory, and they're all (with good reason) patting themselves on the back right now. But that honeymoon is going to wear off at some point. How long it will take and what will happen next is anyone's guess. Right now, though, the angry white men are going to have their day in the sun, whether the rest of us like it or not.

Chris Weigant blogs at:
To the third-party voters. The write-in voters. The ones who refused to vote as a statement. I ask you, honestly:

WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?

You would think, after 2000, in a race between Gore and Bush, people would have learned. You would think they would remember that that vote for Nader, that protest vote to "screw the system" ended up giving us a President that none of us imagined. That was not as qualified. That did not share our beliefs. And cost us a President that believed in global warming, that believed in social change and equality. And most of you stood there, shocked, and then spent the rest of the Bush presidency railing against him.

Guess what? YOU PUT HIM THERE.

And now, you have given us Donald Trump.

I know, there are a million other things to point at... the DNC not backing Bernie, the emails, Hillary's lack of appeal with voters... but here's the deal. Here's the result of just last night. None of the other crap thrown in. The difference between Clinton and Trump in many states was an incredibly narrow margin.

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In Florida, with it's 29 electoral college votes, the gap between them was 128,863 votes. On Tuesday night, nominee Johnson received 204,854 votes. Jill Stein received 63,664. By Wednesday morning, that has swelled to over 293,000.

In Michigan, a state where Trump held a 15,600 lead over Clinton, Johnson and Stein received 222,400 votes collectively.

In New Hampshire, Trump held the lead with only approximately 140 votes. Third-party candidates in New Hampshire received 35,700.

You're starting to see a pattern, I hope.

Does that mean all those votes would have gone to Clinton? Of course not. But is it possible that those votes could have tipped the election in her favor? Absolutely.

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This was a time to look at what was possible if we lost, and be a grown up. This isn't a college campus in the 1970's. This is a fight for the future of our environment, equality, and freedoms in this country. Does the system need fixing? Of course. At the risk of letting someone like that run the country for the next four years? Vehemently, NO.

I heard over and over from my Democrat, liberal friends, "She's going to win without my vote, so I'm voting my conscience!". Or, "I'm not voting for the lesser of two evils!". I tried to explain, over and over, that this time, you have to. I was a Bernie supporter, too. But I'm also aware of how our political system works, and writing in a third party candidate, or a protest vote, is not going to get that candidate into the White House. Many wanted to reach the 5% mark, so the third party system would be taken seriously. Great, but not now. Not in this election. Why? Because too much was at stake.

And I'm not talking about the fact that he was unqualified and unfit. I'm not talking about his pending lawsuits, or the allegations of sexual assault. I'm not talking about his xenophobic, racist, hate filled speeches, or his late night Twitter rants.

I was talking about the fact that if we lose the White House, the entire government will be run by a Republican majority. The House, the Senate, the White House, the Supreme Court. No Democrats will be able to get anything through, looking at the past eight years of struggle even with a Democratic President. The Democrats won't even be able to filibuster. It will be right-wing policies across the board, with no checks and balances.

And what are the first things they are talking about doing after taking office?

Repealing Obamacare, and abolishing all environmental subsidies. Yes, all of them.

Trump also said he would "cancel" the Paris Global Warming Accord and roll back President Obama's executive actions on climate change.

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What are Trump's views on the environment? As he stated in an interview with Fox News, "We'll be fine with the environment. We can leave a little bit, but you can't destroy business." On his Twitter account, he's said "Frack now and frack fast!" and "Windmills are destroying every country they touch--and the energy is unreliable and terrible."

Now, Trump has chosen Myron Ebell to lead his EPA transition team. Ebell, who is a climate change skeptic. He was featured by Greenpeace in their "Field Guide to Climate Criminals", and was called a "misleader" on global warming by Rolling Stone. Ebell told Vanity Fair in an interview that "There has been a little bit of warming...but it's been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it's caused by human beings or not, it's nothing to worry about."

And at the Department of Energy, Trump has selected Mike McKenna. His lobbying clients include the Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC., Southern Company Services, Dow Chemical Co. and Competitive Powers Ventures Inc. At the head of the Interior's transition is former Bush Interior Solicitor David Bernhardt.

So. You wanted to make a statement? You wanted to protest? You wanted to not bother to vote because everything's rigged anyway?

Great. Now, here's the thing. You know all those posts you make about the environment? You know the times you explain to people the dangers of GMO's? You know the rally where you held up a "I stand with Standing Rock" poster? Well, all of that just got screwed. ALL OF IT.

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Because by not voting, or voting for someone who couldn't win, you basically said, "I don't care who's President". But this time, you should have. This time you should have realized how dangerous not only this man was, but how incredibly dangerous his presidency and his policies would be, particularly in a system where he will rule largely unchecked. The right wing just got their dream scenario, and you just helped it happen.

You think the environment stands a chance for the next four years? You think National parks won't be privatized? You think GMO's will be labeled, let alone stopped? You think alternative fuels will be pursued? You think those Native American tribes, standing in that cold river, getting peppered sprayed in the face, have any branch of government coming to save them now?

No.

Because you just helped elect the most powerful President in the recent history of the United States.

Welcome to the right wing of the United States of America.
I appreciate the anger over this year's presidential election. I'm just as despondent that Trump will be our next president. But to those whose protests blew up my Twitter feed, I have to ask the question: Where were you when the Democrats nominated the wrong candidate this past July? Where were you when the AP called the primary in June before California had even voted? Where were you when your fellow Americans were getting abused and shot to death on Facebook live? Where was your anger when your fellow Americans were getting sprayed with rubber bullets and tear gassed to protect our water?

I am happy that you are taking action in the streets over an issue, but doesn't it seem a little too late? To get the candidate you want elected it takes legwork, educating fellow voters, phone-banking, donations and much, much more. Did you do any of these for Hillary Clinton? I think it's looking pretty obvious that it wasn't enough to simply announce #ImWithHer and mark your ballot on election day.

The race to the presidency started back in 2015, when did you get involved? I'm seeing a lot of self-examination, lots of Democratic voters in shock and saying they didn't do enough to help her win. After all of the polls and warnings, the consistently pathetic turnout at Clinton events, the extremely close primary with Bernie Sanders, the coverage of the Wikileaks revelations, did you really think she would win this thing as a shoe-in? Forget what the mainstream media kept yapping about, it's clear now that there was much collusion and coordination between Clinton's campaign and major news outlets in her favor.

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Let's look at the facts: the American people, as Bernie Sanders once again just reiterated, were more concerned about the issues of wages, jobs, and the economy. This was frankly more important to them than getting the first woman president elected. You may not agree with how many Trump supporters are channeling their anger inappropriately by targeting other races and other cultures, but you cannot deny that their anger and frustration has legitimate causes. It is extremely misguided, yes, but the root causes still need to be addressed.

As many have been pointing out over the past several months and once again this week: the Democratic Party must suffer the blame for their part in the failure to elect a strong challenger to Donald Trump.

And today I am hearing lots of folks talking about remaking the Democratic Party and frankly, I'm not in that camp, unless it includes the ideals of the progressive Green Party platform and the Democratic Socialists of America. Both groups who continue to be the "party of the people".

As it stands right now, the Democratic Party has rubber-stamped neoliberalism, corporate welfare and incremental progress on clean energy and climate justice when bold action is required. They continue to lead us into conflict in the Middle East and turn a blind eye to drone strikes on innocent civilians in foreign countries, a blind eye to police brutality and racial justice, a blind eye to the escalation at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, and a blind eye to standing up against trade deals like the TPP that will continue to gut our economy.

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The Democratic Party showed their cards when they nominated Hillary Clinton: a candidate who did the absolute bare minimum to address the needs of the working class and the hurting country, a candidate so completely entrenched in service to her corporate donors and political insiders that even as the story broke about the misdeeds of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, she invited Wasserman Schultz back into her campaign circle as a slap in the face to the millions of voters who chose Clinton's primary challenger. The arrogance of this action alone should speak volumes about the "hard work" that was done by Clinton to campaign for the vote of the American people.

When Bernie Sanders was talking about the issues that affect the poor, the working class, healthcare, college, climate change, racial and social justice issues, his ideas were marked as "pie in the sky", unrealistic, and a fairytale. Supporters of these issues and of the candidate himself were labeled as ridiculous whiners who did not really understand the way politics works in this country. They were seen as unrealistic and expecting something that would never come to pass.

What of the tens of thousands of voters who showed up to support these same ideas and this platform in consistently red states like Oklahoma, Montana, Wyoming, and other parts of the West? (Not to mention the tens of thousands who showed up at other rallies for Sanders all over the nation.) Any wonder how they voted on election day?

Let's not chalk it up to sexism. Let's not cheapen the reality like this. Yes sexism is real and a major problem in the United States to this day. These voters were not voting for the male challenger simply because they did not want a woman president. Did some voters not trust a female president to do the job? I think so. But can the 13 million votes that Bernie Sanders won in the primary be attributed to sexism? Can the numbers and the data that back up the failing economic prospects of millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump be attributed to sexism? Of course not. If you believe this, well therein lies the fairytale.

So now that you are charged up and ready to fight, now that you've been awakened, stay consistent. Channel your anger, your energy into showing up for the small fights, the boring stuff, learn as much as you can about the political process and who does what and who doesn't do what. Don't listen to the media. Use your own judgment.

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Photo: Media and Game Creator Carolyn Mee at our Development Reality Hack in Canberra, AU on October 6, 2016.

How can immersive storytelling bring pride back to healthy culinary traditions and inspire collective engagement? At LAUNCH Food we are thrilled to request global proposals following our recent Development Reality Hack in Canberra, AU. The Hack created a space to ideate around the capacity of 360 video, virtual reality, augmented reality and gamification to strengthen public health, social impact and awareness building efforts in developing countries.

In collaboration with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's innovationXchange, we are looking to fund up to two prototypes on the following themes:

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Heroes and Legends: to impact health and nutrition outcomes within targeted sites in the Pacific through experiments using emerging communications tools.

Malnutrition as a Global Development Challenge: to impact awareness and understanding of malnutrition as a development problem, particularly acute malnutrition in the Indo-Pacific.

As part of this global call-out, $100,000 to $200,000 AUS is available for selected prototypes submitted by 16 January 2017. Apply here and share your thoughts using #LAUNCHLegends on social media.



Photo: Young women in the remote village of Tiriloca, Timor-Leste follow LAUNCH on Facebook. The matriarch of their village suggests that her community can host Facebook film nights on their smartphones to watch relevant content around healthy eating.

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The New York Review of Books is not known as a venue for the venting of debates on Israel-Palestine, but that is exactly what has happened. Recently, two statements were issued that outline in sharp relief both a dramatic liberal Zionist break with Israel's occupation and the distance they still need to go in order to address the actual roots of the occupation.

First, in the October 13 issue of the NYRB, a group of prominent intellectuals including Todd Gitlin, Peter Beinart, Michael Walzer and more than 70 others issued a statement entitled, "For an Economic Boycott and Political Nonrecognition of the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories."

After first rejecting an academic boycott of Israel, the authors then make a case for a very targeted boycott of Israel:

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We call for a targeted boycott of all goods and services from all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, and any investments that promote the Occupation, until such time as a peace settlement is negotiated between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.

They end by asserting that this is the only way toward a two-state solution:

It is our hope that targeted boycotts and changes in American policy, limited to the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, will encourage all parties to negotiate a two-state solution to this long-standing conflict.

This is indeed a momentous statement, coming as it does from a group that includes individuals who have up until now decried any notion of a boycott of Israel and indeed have been reluctant to voice criticism of it in such strong terms. This statement can and should be taken as an indication of the growing frustration on the part of liberal Zionists with regard to Israeli state policies, which are becoming more and more deeply entrenched in extending and making permanent Israel's illegal Occupation. The statement in effect recognizes that "dialogue" and "open conversation," two things supposedly threatened by boycotting, have proven ineffective in changing an ever-worsening situation.

But this laudable statement has two real problems. First is its goal--the authors continue to believe that anything like a "two-state solution" could even be a possibility, given Netanyahu's clear statement during the Israeli 2014 elections that that was never going to happen under his watch. And Netanyahu may now even be considered a moderate within the government, which is increasingly consolidated in extreme right wing politics. Looking at this situation, even Roger Cohen, who has long been an advocate of a two-state solution, wrote in the New York Times:

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A two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more distant than ever, so unimaginable that it appears little more than an illusion sustained by lazy thinking, interest in the status quo or plain exhaustion...Greater Israel is what Israelis know; the smaller Israel west of the Green Line that emerged from the 1947-49 war of independence is a fading memory. The right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with its contempt for Palestinians and dissenting voices in general, prefers things that way, as the steady expansion of settlements demonstrates.

This in effect calls for opening a broader discussion of possible alternatives to this now moribund idea.

But adherence to a problematic "solution" is not the main flaw in their proposal. The main flaw is that in seeking to isolate the Occupation and name it as the exclusive object of its boycott, the letter misses the structural logic that supports the Occupation--this means that ending the Occupation will not end the violations of Palestinian human rights of which the Occupation is only one manifestation. And this in turn means the Gitlin letter lacks moral constancy--it falls short of addressing the machinery that perpetuates wrongs against the Palestinians.

In a response to this letter, a group including Angela Davis, Richard Falk, Rashid Khalidi, Joan Scott, Roger Waters, and 117 others issued their own statement, "On the Boycott of Israeli Settlements," which points out how the settlements are inseparable from Israel's larger colonial project.

After first acknowledging the move forward by Gitlin et al, the authors of the second statement explain why this is not enough:

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We welcome the statement's shattering of the taboo against boycotting Israeli entities that are complicit in--at least selective--violations of Palestinian human rights. Defying common sense, however, the statement calls for boycotting settlements while letting Israel, the state that has illegally built and maintained those settlements for decades, off the hook.... By omitting Israel's other serious violations of international law, the statement fails the moral consistency test. Aren't Palestinian refugees, the majority of Palestinians, entitled to their UN-stipulated rights? Shouldn't Palestinian citizens of Israel enjoy equal rights by repealing Israel's dozens of laws that racially discriminate against them? Palestinian civil society has called for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all entities, Israeli or international, that are complicit in denying Palestinians everywhere their rights.

The idea of a limited and targeted boycott such as that suggested by Gitlin et al may be attractive to some who wish to distance themselves from the increasingly blatant violations of human rights perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians. But to be morally and ethically consistent, one cannot leave unaddressed all three of the areas in which rights are denied--in Occupied Palestine Territories, in Israel-Palestine itself, and the denial of rights to Palestinians in diaspora. To target only the OPT is to leave intact the machinery that supports the ongoing settler colonial project of the state of Israel.

In seeking to draw a bright line between what it condemns (activities in the Occupied Palestine Territories) and what it leaves free from condemnation (activities within the so-called Green Line), the Gitlin Letter ignores the basic contradictions that reveal the futility of their effort--in actual practice Israel's project has little respect for the boundary upon which the Letter pins its hopes. In fact, Israel is intent precisely on erasing it through its persistent and unrelenting annexation of the OPT by various means, a process confirmed by Israel's maps that fail to display boundaries.

For instance, Israel forbids its banks and companies from separating their business inside Israel from those in the colonies. So would the signers of this letter boycott banks not located in the OPT but helping to finance and enable illegal settlement business, these banks would include Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank? Would they follow the example of the huge Dutch pension fund, PGGM, which decided to exclude these banks because of their involvement in financing Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and to discourage other banks and corporations from settlement-related projects, citing possible international law violations?

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The Letter averts its attention from the obvious, and for them uncomfortable fact--colonization does not start in the colonies--it begins in and is sustained by a colonizer whose interests are manifested in a systemic program that incorporates the colonies through structures and mechanisms that cannot be severed without endangering the heart of the enterprise. Israel is not likely to simply end the Occupation, because in matter of fact it does not see the Occupation as such, but has long claimed the West Bank to be a territory of "disputed sovereignty" and long described by its biblical names of Judea and Samaria.

The weapon the Letter chooses is not aimed at the core--to threaten an economic boycott of the businesses in the OPT has no real meaning--the colonies count for less than 2% of the Israeli economy. There is no hope to put pressure on Israel just by targeting less than 2% of the economy.

Most important--moral consistency demands respecting the UN-stipulated rights of all Palestinians and not simply selecting for action only the rights of those living under Occupation while ignoring the rest who suffer from the same systemic abuse of rights within Israel. Just as there is a continuity between illegality of the Occupation and the illegality of uneven rights for Palestinians in Israel and the denial of the internationally recognized right of return for Palestinians in the diaspora, so too do we need boycott, divestment, and sanctions of the state that is the agent behind these systemic denials of rights.

Boycott is, by definition, not a goal but a nonviolent strategy, or set of strategies, to achieve a goal. The goal of the absolute majority of Palestinian civil society, as expressed in the 2005 BDS Call, is to achieve freedom, justice and equality, as well as to reach a just peace with Israel. Being anchored in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, BDS is an ethically consistent, effective strategy to achieve Palestinian rights while categorically rejecting all forms of racism and discrimination, including anti-Semitism.
Tuesday's election has produced a mixed result. Donald Trump won the voting in enough states to put him over the minimum 270 electoral vote threshold; with Michigan, Arizona, and New Hampshire still undecided, Trump is at 279 to 228 for Clinton. Hillary Clinton appears to have won the popular vote; at this hour she's up about 230,000 votes over Trump.

Clinton has conceded, and the Trump transition is moving ahead.

But the election isn't over, under our Constitution, until the designated electors of the Electoral College meet on December 19 at their state capitals to cast their votes and then, on January 6, Congress meets to affirm that result.

It would be an extraordinary measure for the electoral college to select anyone other than Donald Trump to be our next president.

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This is an extraordinary situation.

As Americans we have the right and indeed the duty to prevent an unfit person from taking the oath of office as our president.



We are not powerless to use our constitutional system to avoid disaster... We have no obligation to sit back and do nothing.



Some have suggested that Clinton forces could recruit some Trump foes among the GOP electors to cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton, joining forces with the electors from states that Clinton won to give her an electoral college majority.

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I think that goes too far. The Trump-Pence GOP ticket won the electoral map vote. The states, as weighted by their electoral votes, have said they want a change in Washington.

Moreover, if the electoral college took this extraordinary step, the Congress, under our laws, could still upset it. The GOP will control both houses of Congress. Which strengthens the case for pressing to replace Trump with a Republican, rather than Clinton.

Clinton electors and Republican electors concerned about Trump's fitness could join and select a different Republican -- perhaps Ohio governor John Kasich, New Mexico governor Susana Martinez, or Speaker of the House Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

I supported Hillary Clinton. The GOP leaders I mentioned would likely advance policy outcomes I would strongly oppose. But I am looking for some solution that would protect our country from an unfit leader.

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Folks, I know this is unlikely to happen. There's a good argument that to avoid chaos, we should generally pick the winner, and move ahead, by the morning after the presidential election. All I am suggesting is that we are not powerless to use our constitutional system to avoid disaster.

Nearly 59 million Americans voted for Donald Trump, and many would be outraged and disappointed if he is not president. But at least at this writing, even more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton. We have no obligation to sit back and do nothing.
President-elect Donald Trump made immigration enforcement and reduced refugee admissions a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. This blog analyzes five of his more controversial positions on these issues, and argues that they should be reconsidered.

In the final presidential debate, Trump claimed that Hillary Clinton "wants to give amnesty, which is a disaster and very unfair to all the people that are waiting on line for many, many years." In fact, Clinton favored comprehensive immigration reform (CIR), "with a pathway to full and equal citizenship." CIR legislative proposals, one of which passed the US Senate in 2013, would reform outdated legal immigration laws, provide for rigorous enforcement of the law, and offer a long and difficult path to permanent legal status for select undocumented immigrants. They cannot fairly be characterized as amnesty programs. Moreover, these bills included provisions to ensure that beneficiaries could not jump ahead of those who had sought status through legal immigration channels.

Immigration status is a fluid condition, with tens of thousands of US residents gaining and losing status each year, as evidenced by the high percentage of new lawful permanent residents (LPRs) in any given year who were once undocumented. An estimated 4.4 million immigrants have been determined to qualify for a family-based visa, but languish in visa backlogs, some for decades. Perhaps another 14 to 15 percent are eligible for an immigration benefit or relief that would put them on a path to LPR status and citizenship, but do not know it or cannot afford the application and legal fees. In short, many undocumented immigrants are on their way to permanent legal status and none of them would benefit from US legal immigration laws at the expense of others.

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Second, Donald Trump has vowed to build "an impenetrable physical wall on the southern border, on day one" and force Mexico to pay it. The United States has already erected 600 miles of walls and fencing along its nearly 2,000 mile land border with Mexico. To secure the rest of this border, it has put in place an elaborate system of ground sensors, drones, radar technologies, video surveillance, and more than 17,000 agents. Former US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff argues that fencing has value in border crossing areas near "vanishing" points (towns or highways), but in other places "makes no sense at all" and "doesn't add any value." Moreover, constructing a 2,000 mile barricade would pose immense engineering and environmental challenges and the result would be far from "impenetrable."

This proposal also assumes an out-of-control US-Mexico border, but the US undocumented population fell steadily between 2008 and 2014, border apprehensions are at one-fourth of their historic highs, and illegal entries have fallen to roughly one-tenth the level of a decade ago. Moreover, a growing percentage of illegal border crossers are fleeing violence in the Northern Triangle states of Central America. Additional fencing does not respond to refugee-producing conditions in these nations and will not prevent their nationals from crossing borders in search of protection. Finally, Mexico has repeatedly affirmed that it will not pay for a wall between nations that are, in fact, allies. Trump's enforcement plans would, however, bring a windfall to defense contractors and for-profit prisons. The stock of the two largest private prison corporations -- the GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation of America --experienced a sharp jump the day after the election.

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Third, President-elect Trump has said that his administration will remove or otherwise force out all 11 million US undocumented immigrants: "We're going to get them [all] out." Rather than upholding the rule of law, the deportation of 11 million persons would require draconian law enforcement tactics. This plan would also be disastrous to the US economy and tear apart millions of US families. One study has estimated that it would also cost anywhere between $400 and $600 billion in enforcement spending over 20 years. Undocumented workers constitute more than 5 percent of the US workforce overall, but this plan would shrink the US labor force even more (by 6.4 percent) and cause the GDP to shrink by $1.6 trillion over 20 years. It would particularly decimate industries like agriculture, construction, leisure and hospitality in which undocumented laborers are heavily concentrated.

The undocumented population includes a high and growing percentage of persons with long tenure and strong family and equitable ties to the United States, including 1.9 million who have lived in the US for 20 years or more, 6.6 million for 10 years or more. There are 3.8 million undocumented immigrants with at least one US citizen or LPR child. If the concern is that employers exploit undocumented immigrants to depress wages and degrade working conditions for all workers, a cleaner solution would be to strengthen and adequately enforce federal labor and workplace protection laws. A path to legal status for undocumented workers would also strengthen their ability to exercise their rights and responsibilities as workers.

Fourth, Trump has vowed to "immediately terminate President Obama's two illegal executive amnesties." The Obama administration created programs to defer the removal and grant temporary employment authorization to two populations of undocumented residents. The first, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), covers persons brought to the United States as children. The second, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), would have applied to persons with a US citizen or LPR child. The legal ground for these programs is the well-established authority of the executive branch to enforce US immigration laws, an authority that is, in fact, central to Trump's immigration plans. The Obama administration pointed out that it lacked the resources to remove all US undocumented immigrants and, thus, would exclude low-priority cases from the immediate threat of removal.

The DAPA program was blocked in court and never implemented. The original DACA program is available to undocumented persons who: arrived in the United States prior to age 16; have graduated from high school, or obtained a general education development (GED) certificate, or were honorably discharged from the US Coast Guard or armed forces; have not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or three or more other misdemeanors; and do not constitute a security or public safety threat. A 2016 analysis by the Center for Migration Studies found that potential DACA and DAPA beneficiaries were "deeply embedded" in US society. Eighty-five percent of the DACA-eligible had lived in the United States for more than 10 years, and 19 percent for more than 20 years, and 89 percent in the labor force were employed. The beneficiaries of the DACA program were brought to the United States by their parents at a young age and did not willfully break the law. They contribute substantially to their country and are Americans in every way except immigration status. The DACA program has allowed approximately 700,000 young immigrants to further their education and professional training, obtain more stable work opportunities, and increase their economic contributions to their families and communities. Why deport young Americans who are already part of the national fabric and who have such potential to serve the United States in the future?

Fifth, Trump's talking points on "defeating ISIS" identify the need to "[e]nsure that our security procedures and refugee policy takes into account the security of the American people." He has opposed the admission of Syrian and other refugees on national security grounds and may significantly reduce the refugee admission ceiling in FY 2017.

The US refugee resettlement program is the most secure of all US admission programs. National security and refugee protection are often seen as at odds, when in fact the two are complementary needs. Refugees contribute immensely to the US economy, military strength, diplomatic standing, and civic values. They serve as a living testimony to the nation's founding ideals. Moreover, refugee protection and security strategies largely align. Conflict prevention, peace-building, reconstruction, reconciliation initiatives, safe return home, humanitarian and development assistance to refugee host communities, and refugee integration advance both refugee protection and national security. Occasionally terrorists pose as refugees, but the clearest connection between terrorism and refugees is that the former creates the latter.

There were more than 65 million forcibly displaced persons in 2015, 21 million of them refugees, numbers which have almost certainly increased in the interim. The United States took a leadership role in responding to the crises in refugee protection after World War II and the Vietnam War. To resolve the current crisis will also require its leadership. However, it does not look as if this will be a priority for the Trump administration. If not, that will surely have negative security implications, as refugees languish indefinitely in camps. Moreover President-elect Trump has vowed that the United States would establish "great relationships" with "all nations." But forsaking the nation's obligation to do its fair share in helping refugees would undermine US standing with other nations.
Portrait of Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Painting by George Healy (1808-1894), 19th century. 0,25 x 0,2 m. Castle Museum, Versailles, France (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

Trump can still be stopped. The Founding Fathers foresaw just this catastrophe, and built a fail-safe into the Constitution. It's called the Electoral College. Alexander Hamilton was explicit: this mechanism was designed to ensure that "the office of president will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications." In short, it was designed to prevent just this situation: the rise of an unqualified demagogue like Donald Trump.

You can make it do what it was meant to do.

The requirement here is modest: a small group of Republican electors must be persuaded to vote their conscience. No question that many of these are appalled at the prospect of a Trump presidency; surely a few are courageous enough to cast a vote for someone else. (Most if not all would vote for another Republican, of course; it doesn't seem likely that many would choose Hillary Clinton.) Depending upon how current recounts turn out, somewhere between a minimum of ten and a maximum of thirty-seven electors would have to defect in order to bring Trump's count down to less than 270.

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If neither party ends up with 270 votes, then the decision passes to the House of Representatives, and a vote in that chamber determines the winner. The House is permitted to choose from among the three candidates who receive the most votes in the Electoral College. Hence, dissenting electors can rest assured that they -- and the voters they represent -- will end up with a Republican president.

"Although 24 states seek to prohibit faithless electors by a variety of methods, including pledges and the threat of fines or criminal action, most constitutional scholars believe that once electors have been chosen, they remain constitutionally free agents, able to vote for any candidate who meets the requirements for President and Vice President."

These so-called "faithless electors" are vanishingly rare, which is as it should be -- this is a unique circumstance, which requires emergency measures. Ignore the epithet: these electors would not be remotely faithless; this act would be faithful to the letter and intent of the Constitution. It would be patriotic.

A crucial fact here is that votes in the Electoral College are cast anonymously. An elector need not reveal that he or she is the one who chose to support another candidate. This shields an individual from retribution.

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Why should Democrats fight for this? Because any conceivable choice on the part of the Electoral College and the House, however extreme, would be preferable to Trump.

This would not be an abuse of the Constitution. Quite the opposite, as I say: it would be the proper use of the Constitution to prevent the abuse of a general election. The Founding Fathers would have approved. More: they would have been distressed to see this not happen, given the circumstances. They chose to found a republic that was not a direct democracy, and this is why: a simple binding majority vote provides no check upon the election of a tyrant. (This election was an exception, ironically: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, and direct democracy would have spared the world the terrifying promise of a Trump presidency.)

If you honor the Founding Fathers -- and the Constitution -- then you will insist upon employing the emergency measures coded into the very definition of the republic.

So, how do you accomplish this? The process is simple: write to electors in states that went red, and beg them to vote their conscience. The complete list of relevant electors can be found here, with contact information: "Flip the 37."

I'm urging everyone to do this: not simply Democrats, but responsible Republicans. Modern history has witnessed few events more admirable than bipartisan efforts to thwart racist demagoguery: most recently in France, when decent people on the left and the right combined -- despite their mutual loathing -- to prevent the election of Marine Le Pen.

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So, embrace decency. It's not just a civic duty; it's a moral duty. It is a categorical imperative.

Once you have written letters, the next step is to agitate loudly for just this solution. The nation must see rallies, marches, blogs and editorials. Let these electors know that you're on their side, that you will support them in what would be unquestionably a courageous act. An act of heroism. Even though votes are cast anonymously, electors will likely be threatened and slandered as a group. But patriots have withstood worse.

Trump supporters will scream; there will likely be violence, and perhaps riots. But these people did not write the Constitution; they do not get to rewrite it; and they are bound by it. It will not be civil war. Genuine Trump supporters are a minority within a minority; they will be opposed by genuine Republicans, as well as Libertarians, Democrats, and Greens. They will lose.
I spent the last few days watching the country react to the presidential vote. I read of a Yale professor who made an exam optional because the professor was "getting many heartfelt notes from students who are in shock over the election returns."

Yesterday students from American University burned a flag as part of their protest. I suppose they really didn't think about the name of their University and the respect it deserves as they began the name-calling and standard protest jargon. What a great way to protest the election of a United States President... burn a flag. That accomplishes a lot for their cause.

Protestors took to the streetsin Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington D.C. and other major cities across the country. I don't even know what that means. What are they protesting? What's the argument? That they didn't get their way? The country voted. So you don't like the results? That's life.

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I read articles from folks fearing for their safety as a result of the election. Really? Do you believe that because the country has new leadership you are now suddenly going to be physically assaulted? We could sure talk about some countries where physical safety is a real issue but let's not pretend that election results bring shadows lurking in the dark ready to pounce on you.

Come on now. We need to toughen up and teach our college students how to make a real difference in this world. Let's grow a spine and move on with life. How will college students function in the world if election results put them in shock? If this is the training students are getting for tuition dollars in colleges across America we are in trouble.

America is supposed to be a leader among nations. Yet here we are protesting, crying, writing letters to our children explaining how this election went wrong, calling each other names, watching news sources write articles about living in Trump's America. We really need to get a grip. America doesn't belong to any President. It doesn't belong to Donald Trump any more than it belonged to Washington, Lincoln or any of our other previous presidents. This is our America and it's time we start acting like it.

At Toccoa Falls College we teach students that life is about developing character. We teach students that sometimes we just don't get our way. We learn to move on to issues where we can make a positive difference in this world.

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The night was shocking and brought more emotion to my skin's surface than my depression and anxiety ever had before. We sat in the car and looked out opposite windows as the cab took us home. I looked south and my fiance Garrett looked north. We were on the Queensborough Bridge headed back into Manhattan after spending six hours at our friend's in Astoria. What started as meeting a pair of friends, turned into six twenty-somethings excited to be cheering on Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Tonight was the night she was to become the first female president of the United States of America, defeating the deceitful Donald.

We began our evening in Queens with Madison and Sophie who had been watching since 4:30PM. The polls were just beginning to seesaw as we sat down at 6PM. One moment, Mrs. Clinton would be ahead in a battleground state, and the next, Mr. Trump would take it over. I'll never forget how much fun it was to watch the votes roll in. 20% of the vote in, 30%, 40%, 65%! We'd screech as more and more votes fled in from the important states. It was exhilarating. The moment we had all been waiting for, the moment when we'd have our first woman president, the all-graceful, capable and exuberant Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton, it was almost here!! All the polls pointed towards this outcome and we were there to celebrate it!

Come 9 or 10 o'clock, Florida votes began to run out and Trump held an eerie lead. There were a measly 8% of Florida votes left to count, but there seemed not to be enough left for Hillary to win with. It was heartwrenching. Our chosen station was CNN and the reporters were frantic to assure us that "It is still possible!" "It's not over yet" "Hillary could still take the lead!" They'd make their predictions and foresee, "Well, if this candidate won this state, and that candidate won that state..." and, "look how many electoral college votes she could have!" It went on and on and on and on and onnnn! It was numbing and sobering and astonishing. Our eager minds grew senseless and our gazes became fixed in silence to the dark crystal ball in front of us.

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I began calling my dad back on Martha's Vineyard every half hour, and with each call, his voice deepened and his tone grew weary. His vision for a safe, sure and supportive country where his two children felt free and able to be themselves and live their lives to the fullest crumbed.

Then Trump took Ohio. Screams, whales and exclamations of terror rang out from the room. The wall-to-wall red carpeting was suddenly a pool of thick blood, it was satan, they were swallowing us whole. Three young women and three young gay men. The outcome seemed grim. A normally rambunctious group became saddened and a mess.

As the clock struck midnight and the race was over in many's eyes, we caught a car home.

Greeted with, "Hi, how are you this evening?"

Garrett mustered up, "Eh, okay."

"Yes." the driver agreed.

Silence.

The drive home was chilling. It was a questioning, a reckoning a daze. My Garrett was in denial. He is always so strong and knowing and able to brush anything off and move forward, but this had shaken him to the core. In complete disbelief, my mind rattled off question after question, "How could this happen?! Who would vote for this man who knows nothing about the job ahead of him? What minority human would ever trust him with their rights? How will this change my life? Will there be a WWIII? Will there be a draft? Will Garrett and I have our right to marry revoked?"

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The Empire State Building was illuminated in red, white and blue as were all the other spires in the city. The skyline was bathed in patriotism, but this year it felt different. The colors didn't mean love or compassion or understanding or liberty or any form of happiness to me. The skyline appeared like a bed of needles bathed in the blood of our future children and grandchildren.

We pulled up to our building, and I had no words. Garrett was out of sorts too. I was beginning to become angry. He was beginning to need me. We were not in any position to help each other in this moment, and as I pulled ahead, through our doors and to the stairs, he yearned for a connection and an answer to all of this. What came out stunned me, "Why are you so upset?!!!!" he exclaimed. I nearly dropped to me knees and wept. I wanted to yell up to the heavens and plea for this all to be a dream! I wanted this all to be a dream.

My adrenaline put my right foot in front of my left, up our three flights of stairs and onto our couch.

"I love you sweetie..." he said from the other room.

"They say I'm not allowed to love you..." I responded.

I was waiting for my eyes to drain like a raging waterfall, but instead, they closed.

I awoke at 9AM. Garrett was nestled tightly beside me. Our unconscious selves held on through the night for dear life.

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I pulled an arm away and grabbed my phone. Trump had 289 electoral votes and Hillary had just over 200. He was the president elect, and there was nothing I could do about it. I watched his victory speech, and it was fake, scripted, emotionless, slimy and scary. He was the president elect that he was supposed to be in that moment, and it was all a facade.

Garrett awoke, had been awake well past me and already knew the news. He had watched Trump's speech live at 3:15AM. Hillary was scheduled to concede at 10:30AM. I set alarms on my phone. I needed to hear from my hero Hillary. I needed to hear her preach.

Hillary has been pushed down all throughout her life, both personally and professionally, but she always gets back up. I have not figured out how exactly to do this yet. I have been down for quite some time now as I try to figure out my career in the big city. I feel rejected or discouraged at every turn. More recently, I haven't even looked for new turns to take! Hillary is someone I look up to, and I know she would've carried our country to a better place. She would've kept what worked and rearranged what didn't. She's smart, and experienced and strong. I trust her and I was and will forever be with her.

As Garrett and I looked into each other's eyes, through to a mirror image of our own wounded souls, I asked, "We'll be okay, right??" My wonderful man assured me, "Yes."

The world might've seemed to be against us in that moment, but we were with each other. We were committed to holding strong. In that moment, this outcome meant more than a disappointment to me and to us. It meant fighting for a right that we care about. Our right to marry has nothing to do with what a conservative STRAIGHT man thinks or has the power to do! With love and appreciation for each other in our hearts, Garrett and I made some of the most beautiful, passionate and connected love we had ever experienced together.

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Garrett left for work around 11:30AM. Hillary still had not come on. By 12 o'clock, she emerged in black and purple. It felt like a funeral. She said everything that she was supposed to say but with conviction and heart. She connected with those of her voters who feel most left behind. I had still not cried from this incredible loss when it came time to listen to her speak. It was time.

Hillary hit me where I wasn't expecting it though. All morning, I was feeling so deeply for her. What a blow. She had been dreaming of this achievement for her entire career and this was her SECOND failed attempt. I kept remarking with disbelief, "Sweetie! This is such a horrible example to young people who have big dreams, who are told to go after what they want and that they'll get it! She's done just that and has been pulled down time and time again. I feel so horribly for her! She must be just so torn apart." I would go on and on. The emotions were heavyset.

Her tone changed from addressing her donors... "And to the young people... In particular... I hope you will hear this..." she paused. I welled. My hands jumped to my face as I began to grasp for air. "I've spent my entire adult life fighting for what I believe in. I've had successes and I've had setbacks. Sometimes many painful ones. Many of you are at the beginning of your professional, public and political careers. You will have successes and setbacks too. This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what's right is worth it." As I sobbed in our apartment alone, I felt hugged by Mrs. Clinton, I felt like she understood exactly where I was and I felt assured that I would indeed rise again.

Thank you Mrs. Clinton for your public service. Thank you for all of your love and dedication and for never giving up. Thank you for inspiring me to live my life to it's fullest. Thank you for giving me the gift of inspiration. Thank you a million more times over from the very deepest, darkest and most secret part of my delicate heart. I know I'm not alone when I say,
My recent columns:

America Now Has (at Least) 9,999 Problems http://billmoyers.com/story/america-now-least-9999-problems/

How Trump's Media Cheerleaders Turned Campaign Coverage Into a Total Disaster https://www.thenation.com/article/how-trumps-media-cheerleaders-turned-campaign-coverage-into-a-total-disaster/

What We Talk About When We Don't Talk About Climate Change https://www.thenation.com/article/what-we-talk-about-when-we-dont-talk-about-climate-change/

Alter-reviews:

1)David Bromberg Live

David Bromberg has a fine new album out, which I believe I recommended in my last "Altercation." Last week (or so) I caught him with his Big Band at the Society For Ethical Culture. I've been seeing David now for 40 years and unlike most of us, he just gets better. He's a great guitarist, a musicologist, a polymathic performer and an incredible ham. And the new album, released 'The Blues, The Whole Blues, And Nothing But The Blues' is a perfect showcase for all these talents. It's filled with songs by deep cuts from Robert Johnson, Bobby Charles, George "Little Hat" Jones, Ray Charles, Sonny Boy Williamson. It's funny too. Thing is, the acoustics at Ethical Culture are better for a lecture on ethical culture, or just about anything else, then they are for a big band. So while it was a warm, intimate evening, and David was happy because his Socialist grandfather used to read poetry there--or so he says--it was not really suited to such a large ensemble.

Larry Campbell and Teresa Willams and their band were the warm up, and they are always good.

2) Elvis Costello & The Imposters Live

Elvis, together with bassist Davey Faragher with original Attractions members, drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve) showed up at the Beacon Theater a few days later for two shows on their "Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers" tour. The idea, said Mr. C, was to frame selections from 1982's "Imperial Bedroom" album with "the songs that led in and out of that velvet-trimmed playhouse." And what does that mean? "In the words of the great Eric Morecambe," he adds, 'I am playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order.'"

Just playing a show is not good enough for Elvis and this case, while the theme was

1982 classic (inculding "Human Hands," "The Loved Ones" and "Town Cryer") it was a 33-song set list that gave us "Alison" and "Everyday I Write the Book" "Watching the Detectives" "Pump It Up" and a wonderful closer of Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" Taling about the election, Elvis the audience in a brief "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It" from "Horsefeathers." The band was hot for sure, and Elvis was in a generous mood, playing guitar at the front of the stage as if he were Stevie Ray Vaughan. But what was most distinctive about the show was the incredible artwork that was displayed for each individual song. I'm pretty sure Elvis said he had done the paintings, though I won't swear to it. All of it was based on the theme of Imperial Bedroom, but nuanced for the individual song, (except for the wonderful noir collage during "Detectives." It was the most visually interesting show I've seen since U2's last tour and, in some ways, more impressive (literally) given the intimacy of the venue. Bravo, Elvis.

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Also: This year's pre-Thanksgiving Hot Tuna show at the Beacon will be on November 19. Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady joined by drummer, Justin Guip have brought all-start bands into town lately and have been mixing up their bluesy stuff with some re-imagined Jefferson Airplane. Jack and Jorma have been playing together for 51 years straight so we have a pretty good idea what to expect. And if it's your thing, they'll deliver it.

4) The Grateful Dead "July 1978, The Complete Recordings" on Rhino is a limited editition 12-cd box set of the band at what I would argue, anyway, was their musical peak with setlists featuring "Playing In The Band," "Sugaree," "Franklin's Tower," "The Other One," and "Candyman," "Eyes Of The World," "Friend Of The Devil," "Wharf Rat," and of course, "Terapin Station." (And don't forget "Werewolves of London," which appears here twice.

It's the first release of the semi-famous "Betty Boards" shows and includes at least three soundboard shows that have never circulated even among the most dedicated Dead/tapeheads. The highlight are the two shows at Red Rocks (7/7/78 and 7/8/78), long-considered classics, backed up by shows at Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, MO (7/1/78), St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, MN (7/3/78), Omaha Civic Auditorium, Omaha, NE (7/5/78). Someon at Amazon did a useful calculation and came up with the following: "Of the 54 unique songs in the collection (not counting "Space" and "Rhythm Devils"), only four titles appear three times (Around And Around, Deal, Estimated Prophet, and Wharf Rat), 30 songs appear twice, and the remaining 20 appear only once each. In a nice touch, there are no duplicates (other than "Space") in the two Red Rocks shows." In addition to al that music, the set features original artwork by the cartoonist Paul Pope, liner notes by Nick Meriwether, who oversees the Dead archives at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as a producer's note from the nearly immortal Dave Lemieux, and are of course, soundboard recordings newly mixed and mastered by Jeffrey Norman

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5) Lou Reed - The RCA & Arista Album Collection on Sony Legacy is a big beautiful box that brings together 16 of Lou's studio and live albums that followed the 1970 (confusing) break-up of the Velvet Underground.

While you might think that Lou's voice did not have much range, his musical direction direction sure did. Like Dylan and Neil Young, Lou followed his muse without concern for commercial prospects. Sometimes it resulted in genius; sometimes in dreck. (And sometimes in comedy as on the two-cd "Lou Reed Live Take No Prisoners, from November 1978," which sounds almost as if Lenny Bruce could have recorded it at the end of his career.

All 17 cds were newly remastered under Reed's supervision, a project that he lived to see completed before he died at 71, in October 2013.

As Hal Willner, Lou's aide-de-camp, producer, and biggest fan writes in the liner notes, "Everyone who was in that room or around Lou during this period witnessed a beautiful thing as he enthusiastically relived that whole period of his work with the joy of rediscovery, excitedly pointing out subtleties in sounds he hadn t heard in years. In retrospect, reminiscing about these sessions done less than four months before he died, the mo, ents seem even more magnified."

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The anthology comes with an 80-page hard-bound book featuring memorabilia from Lou's personal archives, photos and artwork and and five 8"x10" prints with facsimile reproduction of a rare RCA promotional poster. Which of these albums will be your favorite will depend on what period Reed appeals, (in this and only this respect, he is similar to the Dead.) Unlike most Reed afficianados, I'm going with Street Hassle (1978), Growing Up in Public (1980),The Blue Mask (1982), Legendary Hearts (1983) and New Sensations (1984). I'm sure we can all agree that we, though perhaps not Lou, could have lived without Metal Machine Music (1975) which sounds even better/worse than ever than it did on its unlistenable release. Reed's uncomprosing stance toward his life and his music made him a hell of a difficult person to be around--all of this music predates his pussy-cat stage with Laurie Anderson--but it sure gave us some unforgettable music. This box gives it the respect it has always deserved.



6) The Miles Davis Quintet: Freedom Jazz Dance: The Bootleg Series, Vol 5

This 3-disc box set collection represents another excavation into Miles' incredible "second great quintet" that featured Miles (trumpet), Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass) and Tony Williams (drums) working in the studio between 1966 and 1968. It's made up of rehearsals, partial and alternate takes, extensive and fascinating studio conversation, as well as over two hours of previously unreleased studio recordings from original sessions from the recordings of Miles Smiles (1967), Nefertiti (1968) and Water Babies (1976) albums, all of which were produced by Teo Macero (with the exception of "Fall," produced by Howard A. Roberts).

Of course all of it is interesting. The producers assume that you've already got the albums themselves because the box is arranged with take after take, rather than with complete albums and the outtakes coming afterward. As for this late pre-Bitches Brew period, genius is as genius does and here it is, in development and action. It's nicely packaged as all the Legacy Miles bootlegs have been, and pretty well-priced too.
I was going to start my post, "The election of Hillary marks the ascendancy of the Strong Woman."

That was before November 8 around 10:30 P.M.

Trump may have triumphed, but the figure of the Strong Woman with the steely resolve exemplified by Hillary stands un-vanquished. Cause for celebration. As someone who came of age in the 50s, I had few or no models of strong women. The three badass women rebels of my current novel, "Wild Girls" disdain the roles assigned women in the hidebound 50s, yet in fact, most women were helpmates, subservient, dilletantes.

Today, reflecting the new reality, strong, saber-wielding women woman have powered their way into popular culture. "Star Wars" offers the indomitable super-heroines Leia Organa, Padme Amidala, and Hera Syndulla. In "Rogue One" actress Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso embodies the newest female powerhouse.

The strong woman also dominates art and crossover films. In the triptych "Certain Women" by Kelly Reichardt, she's best embodied in the first panel by Laura Dern, a lawyer struggling to hold the course, while she's hassled by a lunatic client in the same moment that her boyfriend dumps her. Somehow Dern nails just the right expression of disbelief at the shit thrown at her and knowledge that she'll power through.

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If you crave a respite from post-election angst, you'd do well to escape into Otto Bell's stunning documentary "The Eagle Huntress," set in the wilds of Mongolia. Aisholpan, a girl of thirteen, aspires to tame a golden eagle, a species which the Kazakh nomads of the region use to hunt, releasing it back to the wild after seven years. Predictably, this occupation is an all-boys club, yet Aisholpan's parents, as enlightened as any couple in Park Slope, encourage her natural ability.

Tapping drone technology, the filmmaker transports you to the pristine expanses of the Altai mountains, where Aisholpan daringly abducts a golden eaglet of her own to raise and tame. She's wondrous to behold, this mighty adolescent in her belted brocade coats and fur trimmed hats with curving flaps (that may start a fashion craze). Her radiant smile, broad, wind-stung cheeks, and brimming confidence make you feel good about humankind, a sentiment in short supply these days.



At the opposite end of the wholesome spectrum is Isabelle Huppert, the original Iron Woman, unflappable even in the direst circumstances. Even after she's brutally raped in her own living room in broad afternoon in Paul Verhoeven's "Elle." At Cannes it became known as "the rape movie." "Sick," I overheard a woman say at the NY Film Fest.

While it's true that Verhoeven ("RoboCop," "Fatal Attraction") is not known for his delicacy, taste is somehow beside the point here. A savory mix of cheesiness, grotesque humor, and, uh, feminist critique, "Elle" entertains as it shocks. You know there's mischief afoot from the get-go, when after the assault, Huppert fails to run screaming to the police. Instead, she matter-of-factly runs a hot bath and gets herself checked out by the medics. The plot is serpentine, with several sleazy sub-stories hatched by Huppert's job as a producer of porny, sci-fi video games, but the through-line is her search for her assailant (complicated by red herrings that don't quite conceal the obvious perp). And then - after a second assault -- her appropriation of the experience as something she may or may not enjoy, and her complicity in re-staging it.

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That a global climate deal was struck in Paris late last year at UNFCCC COP21 was a big surprise to me. The agreement was not as strong as climate advocates would have liked, but any agreement that has essentially all governments agreeing that we should come together to limit climate change to well less than 2 degrees is a big step forward. That over 100 countries ratified the Paris Agreement at record speed, so that it came into effect last week, on November 4, was an even bigger surprise. And yesterday the U.S. elected Mr. Trump to become President in a stunning upset.

So, now the big question here in Marrakech at COP22 is: Can the Paris Agreement be implemented? Can individual governments agree on enough action to live up to their nationally determined commitments? Can all governments together agree on enough collective action to implement the commitment of $100 billion in climate finance per year? And can the positive momentum be sustained with a U.S. President who has stated that climate change is a hoax?

To implement the Paris Agreement, countries must shift their economies towards low-carbon and climate resilient development pathways - what we call "green growth". Supporting governments to do so is the business of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). At COP22 here in Marrakech we are organizing three side-events with our partners to discuss how countries can deliver on their Paris Agreement commitments, and participate in many others.

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A key challenge is, first, to make climate funding available, and second, to develop a strong pipeline of projects to deliver on the climate commitments - what we call "bankable projects". The Paris Agreement clearly outlines that all finance flows - both public and private - must be aligned with a low-carbon and climate-resilient future. At GGGI, we assist our member governments in accessing domestic and international climate finance by building National Financing Vehicles (NFVs) and a pipeline of bankable projects to deliver inclusive, pro-poor green growth, as well as climate action.

GGGI's first side event is aimed at sharing the organization's experience in supporting countries, ranging from Jordan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Mongolia and the Philippines to Vanuatu to develop NFVs - which are in the start-up stages. In order to increase the flow of finance to developing countries, it is critical for institutions to have the ability to manage funds, establish effective governance systems, and develop a pipeline of well-prepared projects. While we begin to see climate finance become available through organizations like the Green Climate Fund, the bottleneck is the limited availability of high-quality, bankable projects that would indeed transform economies to the green growth development path. Overcoming that constraint is the key focus of GGGI's climate finance efforts.

All 190 countries have now set national climate targets as part of the Paris process. Through the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), countries have identified green growth as a major mechanism for delivering on the promises agreed on at last year's Paris climate conference. Their INDCs must now be turned into solid climate investment plans that promote green growth and innovative technologies to advance renewable energy and energy efficiency, and sustainable urban development.

GGGI supports partner governments in mainstreaming green growth and climate change actions into national and sub-national economic development plans and visions. GGGI has partnered for the development of the National Green Growth Plan in the context of, for example, Jordan's Vision 2025, the National Green Growth Plan as part of the UAE Vision 2021, and the Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) for Ethiopia. All will be discussed at GGGI's side event on mainstreaming green growth into national strategies and plans.

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Last, but not least, GGGI is assisting its member governments to bridge the financing gap by designing policies, advising on projects, and strengthening institutions within countries and among countries. We believe that collaborative projects and programs among countries on a regional basis can play an increasingly important role to implement the Paris Agreement. Therefore we are supporting collaborative partnerships among countries to speed up project and program financing and implementation.

GGGI's third side event will examine ways to bridge the financing gap and identify financial solutions for NDCs. Speakers and panelists at this event will discuss actions that need to be taken to close the financing gap between financial institutions and green growth projects in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The event will serve as a platform to share knowledge, strengthen regional partnerships, and enhance the understanding of regional financial solutions for implementing NDCs.

We believe GGGI is well-positioned to support NDC implementation and help governments live up to their Paris Agreement commitments. To implement the Paris Agreement, and help the world limit global warming to less than 2 degrees, will require urgent action by all to transform economies towards a low-carbon, climate resilient development path - towards green growth. To achieve that will require all actors to come together, not least Mr. Trump. For now, I am with Hillary, who said: "we should give President Trump a chance to lead". Successfully implementing the Paris Agreement may well depend on it.
"The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" is part of Handels' Messiah and raises hopes of the resurrection. The text comes from the first letter of St Paul to the Corinthians. This Wednesday, we woke up to a profound nightmare.

The mourning of our hopes for a fairer and better world

Our hopes were dashed, our expectations of a safer and more human world were destroyed by a man who has inspired hatred, racism, revenge, sexism and bullying during one year of an almost unbearable campaign. Stunned, sad but mostly profoundly hurt by this incarnation of the lowest instincts of an American: hurt that he would be elected but also to discover that half the voters were willing to support that man.

We now need to take the time to mourn. All the noise that the media who have made the mere existence of that candidate over the past two days are not helpful. The great explanation of their commentators and intellectuals cannot cover that sad reality: we are entering a phase of regression of America at a time when its leadership was indispensable.

Don't lecture us. We lost an important hope and need time to process an image of our country that we now need to accept and recognize, but more important cope with in our lives.

The man is dangerous: he has no respect for people and institutions

Everybody who ever dealt with Donald trump know how dangerous the man is. He has no business ethic, no teamwork experience and throughout this campaign was only turning to individuals who were in charge of constantly reassuring his ego. He has never worked with peers or superiors, only with slaves and valets. He will expect that his throne will provide this constant reassurance to his narcissism. One third of the white men did hate him.

He is unpredictable and his word is only worth anything for the few minutes or hours that he has pronounced them. To him, a reminder of a commitment will only be an attaint to his freedom. It is unbearable to his ego. Whatever has been said in the last two days, this is a reality we will have to accept. Americans have put at their helm a gravely sick man.

The power that he will have, even curbed by the institutions, is going to be substantial. We should not dream: he will do a lot of damage to his country and the world. At the basis, he does not trust or respect human beings. They are his tools and his objects. That is what the Republican Party became: his puppet.

The woman was neither trustworthy nor authentic

The ambition of Hillary Clinton was not less impressive. She had managed, with the help of Bill Clinton, to kidnap the Democratic Party at her service. Her failure is also a lesson.

She won the popular vote, but according to recent estimates, her lead of woman votes was not superior to Barack Obama's. She built a campaign about her historical breakthrough as America's first woman president, surrounding herself with a court of believers, mostly women. She forgot one basic principle: women know women better than men and cannot be fooled. They immediately smell lack of authenticity. She thought that women would be compelled to vote for another woman: 40% of them voted for Trump, despite rape, groping, disparaging and sexual abuse.

Her campaign started and finished with the same fear: she sent her campaign head to talk. She did not even think she needed to talk to her thousands of militants assembled at the Jarvis Hall in New York to thank them. He was the chief of staff of her husband.

From the beginning she carried the entitlement philosophy of the Clintons. She thought she could be non-transparent at times of social medias, she believed nobody would blame her for her personal server and her connection as Secretary of State with the millions of lobbying fees paid to the Clinton Foundation were a due.

Containing the TRUMPet

We know what to expect and the characters and the plot are right in front of us. We have at the helm of the largest power in the world a narcissistic individual motivated by his own glory.

Will the institutions pay their role? He will corner the Supreme Court. He will have around himself a club of mostly incompetent friends. He expects that the House and the Senate will run for him. The only hope we have is that they will play the role that our founding fathers have designed for them: to be the parliamentarian and judicial counterweight to the executive branch.

It is too early to say whether it will be the case. Here is Handel's heavenly trumpet.
As the Marrakesh Climate Talks begin in earnest this week, local and regional communities are keenly aware of what is at stake after record breaking temperatures this summer. This translates into dangerously hot weather for the region of this year's climate talks. According to Climate Signals on July 21, Mitribah, Kuwait reported a maximum temperature of 54.0C, the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere and the second hottest globally. This was followed on July 22nd, when Basrah, Iraq reached 53.4C.

The journal Science, stated last week that even if warming is constrained to 2C above preindustrial times--which is the central goal of the Paris Agreement--the Mediterranean region would see changes never experienced during recorded history. Morocco could see increased temperatures and drought that would drive the southern deserts further north, displacing forests. Deserts would expand in the Middle East, pushing temperate forests higher into the mountains. Average temperatures in the region have already risen by 1.3C since the late 19th century, well above the world average of 0.85C, according to the study.

This research follows a study earlier this year from NASA that found that the recent drought that began in 1998 in the eastern Mediterranean Levant region, which comprises Cyprus, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey, is likely the worst drought of the past nine centuries.

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Although political progress has been made, with the Paris Agreement being ratified last week, this is not enough. The fossil fuel industry's recklessness continues to push the planet to the brink of catastrophe.

Quite simply time is not on our side. The accumulated impact of decades of carbon dioxide, released from burning of fossil fuels, is rapidly taking its toll on the planet. Temperatures have broken records in 2016 and are shocking scientists who believe that CO2 levels have now permanently passed the threshold of 400 parts per million (PPM), compared to 280 ppm in pre-industrial times, much too high to avoid dangerous impacts.

To try and stem this worrying trend towards accelerated warming is to immediately stop building new fossil fuel projects, and fully invest in 100% renewable energy for all so we can phase out those already in use. Both pre and post- 2020 ambitions must be sharply increased. Investors and governments have a responsibility to both divest from climate destruction and accelerate the just transition to a 100% renewable energy economy.

Fossil fuel subsidies

But how can we have faith in our governments to take this action when they continue to hand nearly hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies to the coal, gas, and oil industries? Ending these subsidies would be a giant step towards solving the climate crisis saving gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, and helping make clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels.

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In June more than 200 civil society organizations called on the G20 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2020. But despite a commitment by G7 nations in May to end government financial support for oil, gas and coal by 2025, the wider G20 group was unable to agree on a deadline.

Subsidies from G20 governments to fossil fuel production alone - excluding subsidies to consumers - averaged $444 billion annually in 2013 and 2014, according to a report by Oil Change International and the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI).



Photos  350Africa.org/Shayne Robinson

Corporate lobby

If the situation with on-going financial subsidies isn't worrying enough, the UN climate talks also allows the fossil fuel industry free reign in its halls. The fossil fuel industry is doing everything it can to protect its profits, including making sure its interests are represented in the policymaking arena.

Last week, a new infographic by Corporate Accountability International revealed the true extent of the fossil fuel industry's access to, and influence over the talks. This is unacceptable. The fossil fuel industry has to be kicked out of the climate talks so world leaders can take action for our future and do justice for the people already feeling its impacts.

The climate movement will also continue to hold the oil, gas and coal industry accountable in groundbreaking legal action. In September 2015, the Philippine Reconstruction Movement and Greenpeace Southeast Asia filed a petition with the Philippines' Commission on Human Rights on behalf of 13 organisations and 20 individuals, requesting that the Commission investigate the role of carbon majors in causing climate change and ocean acidification. The Commission agreed to take up the case and recently served a petition on 46 fossil fuel companies including BP, Exxon, Shell and Peabody.

This is not the only legal case against the dirty energy giants. In the US, state governments are investigating whether fossil fuel companies - including ExxonMobil - may have violated laws pertaining to fraud and deception, by actively undermining the science of climate change, even while they have known about the dangers since as early as 1977.

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One thing is clear, over the next two weeks and beyond, we need to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the harm it continues to cause. Our demand to world leaders meeting in Marrakech is this: stop new fossil fuel projects from being built. Redirect finance for a just transition to 100% renewable energy that can empower people across the globe.



Photo credit: Shadia Fayne Wood
Co-written with Andrew Klumpp.

To grasp what happened this week, turn the clock back forty years. Exactly.

In 1976, evangelical Christians looked for a messiah, and one man fit the bill, down to the initials, J. C. A Sunday school teacher, born-again Christian, and family man with a likable Southern drawl hit the campaign trail for the 1976 presidential election. With endorsements from Pentecostal televangelist Pat Robertson, Civil Rights activist Jesse Jackson, and a welter of other Christian leaders, Jimmy Carter won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976.

Carter's messianic reign was short-lived. He supported the Equal Rights Amendment and waffled on abortion; personally opposed to abortion, he defended nonetheless a woman's right to obtain one.

The real disaster occurred when Carter attempted to fulfill his campaign promise to deal directly with family values. His White House Conference on Families in 1980 was a failure from the get go, when he offended Catholics, in particular, by naming Patsy Fleming, a divorced mother of three, to lead the conference. Even the word, families, troubled many evangelical Christians, who worried that the term families communicated the acceptance of more than the traditional family. Were single-parent and same-sex households included alongside the traditional American family?

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With the full-throated approval of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and other grassroots movements, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan surged to the top of the Republican ticket. With open arms and an explicit family values agenda, Reagan welcomed Christians who felt scorned by Carter and the Democratic Party. The divorced governor of California assured them, "I know that you can't endorse me, but I want you to know that I endorse you and what you are doing." In one fell swoop, evangelical Christians found their new home in the Republican Party.

The 1980 party platforms tell the story. The Republican Platform includes three straightforward statements on the "traditional family" and offers specific strategies for ways to protect the American ideal. The Democratic Platform includes a single ambiguous line: "The Democratic Party supports efforts to make federal programs more sensitive to the needs of the family, in all its diverse forms." Federal programs and diverse forms did not appeal to many evangelical Christians, especially those of the Religious Right.

Reagan won the 1980 election. Carter went home to Georgia.

In the end, however, members of the Religious Right did not win with the election of Reagan.

Women would outnumber men on America's campuses and begin to dominate segments of the work force.

Abortion would remain legal.

Same-sex marriage would become legal.

And Democrats would co-opt family values rhetoric that went straight to the heart of conservative evangelicals. In 2014, president Barack Obama used family values to justify an executive order loosening immigration policies: "America's not a nation that should be tolerating the cruelty of ripping children from their parents' arms. We're a nation that values families, and we should work together to keep them together." The American Family Association decried Obama's appeal to family values on behalf of other nations' children.

Then came election night, 2016, and we wonder how it happened.

How did it happen? This is where historical perspective matters. History should have taught the cultured despisers of the Religious Right that ignorance--ignoring them--should not be an option. Remember that single line in the 1980 Democratic Party Platform: "The Democratic Party supports efforts to make federal programs more sensitive to the needs of the family, in all its diverse forms."

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It didn't work. It wasn't enough.

I do not belong to the Religious Right, but I recognize that for forty years--a generation of biblical proportions--their yearning for an advocate has simmered on the stove of discontent.

Then, in what seems like one fell swoop to those of us with our backs turned, the pot boiled over.

But the pot had simmered for quite some time. Forty years, to be exact.

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Grower Anthony Nguyen sells marijuana at the medical marijuana farmers market at the California Heritage Market in Los Angeles, California July 11, 2014. REUTERS/David McNew/File Photo

This Election Day was a watershed moment for the movement to end marijuana prohibition -- no other reform was approved by so many citizens on so many ballots this year. Legalization initiatives prevailed in four out of five states, and medical marijuana initiatives prevailed in all four states this year.

It's a cognitively dissonant moment for those of us working to end marijuana prohibition and the drug war, as we simultaneously reflect on this wide range of unprecedented victories and face the prospect of the federal government throwing a wrench at them -- all while digesting the revelation of how deeply divided and unstable American society has become.

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President Obama has said that federal prohibition is "not going to be tenable" if California and other states legalize. But the prospect of Donald Trump as our next president is profoundly troubling. While Trump has repeatedly pledged to respect state marijuana laws, his rhetoric on broader criminal justice issues has been largely unfriendly. His vice president and his most likely appointees to senior law enforcement positions, Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, have consistently opposed marijuana law reform.

For what it's worth, support for drug policy reform is rising among Republicans. All four states that approved medical marijuana this year also voted Republican. Medical marijuana amendments routinely passed the Republican-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee over the past three years, while an amendment to end federal marijuana prohibition outright failed by just nine votes last year in the House.

It will take some time for us to see silver linings, but if we are to move forward we will have to find places of common understanding and shared values. We can only hope that the growing bi-partisan and popular national support for ending the drug war and pursuing policies based on health and compassion will have some influence.

The most significant of yesterday's victories was California's Proposition 64, which legalizes the adult use of marijuana in the nation's largest state. It enacts across-the-board retroactive sentencing reform for marijuana offenses, while establishing a comprehensive, strictly-controlled system to tax and regulate businesses to produce and distribute marijuana in a legal market. Experts are calling Prop. 64 the "new gold standard" for marijuana policy because of its cutting edge provisions to undo the most egregious harms of marijuana prohibition on impacted communities of color and the environment as well as its sensible approaches to public health, youth protection, licensing and revenue allocation.

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By shifting away from counterproductive marijuana arrests and focusing instead on public health, states that have legalized marijuana are diminishing many of the worst harms of the war on drugs, while managing to raise substantial new revenues. A recent Drug Policy Alliance report found that Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon have benefited from a dramatic decrease in marijuana arrests and convictions, as well as increased tax revenues, since the adult possession of marijuana became legal. At the same time, these states did not experience increases in youth marijuana use or traffic fatalities.

Tuesday's results also have monumental international ramifications, as momentum grows to end marijuana prohibition in Europe and the Americas. Over the past two years, Jamaica has enacted wide-ranging marijuana decriminalization; Colombia and Puerto Rico issued executive orders legalizing medical marijuana; and medical marijuana initiatives have been debated in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Italy. In 2013, Uruguay became the first country in the world to legalize marijuana on a national level, and Canada's governing Liberal Party has promised to do the same.

Among the highlights of Tuesday's results:

 California voters approved Prop 64, which allows adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana and grow up to six plants at home. The initiative also legalizes the industrial cultivation of hemp. The Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation will be renamed the Bureau of Marijuana Control, and will oversee 19 different licenses for businesses and cultivation. The initiative does not allow large-scale cultivation for the first five years, so small farmers have an advantage. A 15% excise tax on marijuana sales and a cultivation tax will be used to pay for the regulatory structure. Additional revenue will go toward youth substance abuse prevention, medical marijuana research, environmental protection and remediation, and local governments. The initiative also allocates substantial resources toward economic development and job placement for neighborhoods most in need, and creates a system for sentences to be retroactively reduced and past marijuana convictions to be expunged.

The Drug Policy Alliance and its lobbying arm, Drug Policy Action, played a key leadership role in the California campaign -- co-drafting the initiative, coordinating the political mobilization, social media, public relations and more, and raising over $5 million to fund the effort.

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 Massachusetts voters approved Question 4, allowing adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, and grow up to six plants in their home. The initiative establishes a Cannabis Control Commission to oversee the licensing of marijuana retail stores, as well as cultivation, manufacturing, and testing facilities. It enacts a 3.75% excise tax on marijuana sales used to pay for the regulatory structure. Additional revenue will be deposited into Massachusetts' General Fund. While public consumption of marijuana would not be allowed, if a city or town permits it by vote, this law would allow for the consumption of marijuana on the premises where sold or on a limited basis at special events. The new law provides support for communities disproportionately harmed by the drug war, by requiring the new regulating agency to adopt procedures and policies to promote and encourage full participation in the marijuana industry by people from communities that have previously been disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition and enforcement. It also requires the agency to develop policies to positively impact those communities, such as education, job training, and placement programs. The law also states that a prior conviction solely for a marijuana-related offense will not disqualify an individual from being employed in the newly legal marijuana industry or from getting a license to operate a marijuana business, unless the offense involved distribution to a minor.

The Drug Policy Alliance and its lobbying arm, Drug Policy Action, supported this initiative with assistance on the drafting, as well as financial support for the campaign.

 Maine voters approved Question 1, which allows adults 21 and older to possess up to 2  ounces of marijuana, and grow up to six flowering plants and 12 nonflowering plants. The initiative instructs the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry to regulate and control the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of marijuana. It also provides for the licensure of retail social clubs where marijuana may be sold for consumption on the premises to adults 21 and older. The initiative enacts a 10% excise tax on marijuana sales that will be deposited into Maine's General Fund. The Drug Policy Alliance's lobbying arm, Drug Policy Action, supported Maine's initiative with financial support for signature collection.

 Nevada voters approved Question 2, allowing adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, and those who do not live within 25 miles of a retail marijuana store may grow up to six plants in their home. The initiative instructs the Nevada Department of Taxation to oversee the licensing of marijuana retail stores, as well as cultivation, manufacturing, and testing facilities. It also establishes a 15% excise tax on marijuana sales used to fund schools, and the marijuana regulatory structure. The Drug Policy Alliance and its lobbying arm, Drug Policy Action, supported Nevada's initiative with assistance on the drafting, as well as financial support for the campaign.

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 A marijuana legalization initiative in Arizona was narrowly defeated. The Arizona opposition raised $1 million from Discount Tire Company and another $500,000 from a pharmaceutical firm that produces the powerful synthetic opioid, fentanyl. Their strategy by and large depended on deceptive messaging designed to stoke fears of change.

 Florida approved Amendment 2 to legalize medical marijuana with over 70% of the vote. The initiative instructs the Department of Health to register and regulate centers that produce and distribute marijuana for medical purposes, and issue identification cards to patients and caregivers. Individuals with cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS, PTSD, ALS, Crohn's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, or other debilitating medical conditions as determined by a physician will be able to purchase and use medical marijuana. Florida requires 60% of the vote to pass - a similar initiative in 2014 was defeated despite winning 57.6% of the vote. The Drug Policy Alliance and its lobbying arm, Drug Policy Action, supported this initiative with assistance on the drafting, as well as financial support for the campaign.

 Arkansas voters approved the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment, Issue 6, will allow seriously ill patients who have a certification from their doctor to obtain medical marijuana from dispensaries. Patients are prohibited from ever cultivating at home. The program is overseen by a new medical marijuana commission and the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control. Arkansas joins Florida as the first states in the South to approve medical marijuana. DPA's lobbying arm, Drug Policy Action, provided financial support for the campaign.

 North Dakota voters approved Measure 5, which legalizes the medical use of marijuana for conditions such as cancer, AIDS, hepatitis C, ALS, glaucoma, and epilepsy, and other debilitating medical conditions. Patients will be permitted to possess up to 3 ounces of marijuana. The initiative instructs the Department of Health to issue ID-cards for qualified patients and regulate non-profit compassion centers which will serve as dispensaries for patients. Individuals living more than 40 miles from a dispensaries will be permitted to grow up to eight plants in their home. DPA's lobbying arm, Drug Policy Action, provided financial support for the campaign.

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 A Montana medical marijuana measure was approved. In 2004 Montana passed a ballot initiative to allow for the production, possession and use of marijuana by patients with debilitating medical conditions. But the legislature subsequently restricted the medical marijuana law to make it practically unworkable. I-182 would restore Montana's medical marijuana law to ensure that patients have meaningful access to their medicine. DPA's lobbying arm, Drug Policy Action, provided financial support for the campaign.

A nationwide Gallup poll released last month found that a record 60 percent of respondents support legalizing marijuana. In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first two U.S. states - and the first two jurisdictions in the world - to approve ending marijuana prohibition and legally regulating marijuana production, distribution and sales. In the 2014 election, Alaska and Oregon followed suit, while Washington D.C. passed a more limited measure that legalized possession and home cultivation of marijuana (but did not address its taxation and sale due to a federal law passed by Congress in 2014 that bars D.C. from pursuing taxation and regulation).

After yesterday's victories, there are now 28 states with medical marijuana laws, eight of which have also approved legal regulation of marijuana for adults 21 and over.
Share your love or hatred of political journalism by joining a panel of journalists and media observers Tuesday, Nov. 15, for a discussion of media coverage of the election, particularly in Colorado.

The panelists are:

L isa Cutter , former president, Denver Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America

, former president, Denver Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America Hope Elizabeth , Denver University's Roosevelt Institute

, Denver University's Roosevelt Institute John Frank , political reporter, The Denver Post

, political reporter, The Denver Post Greg Moore , former editor, The Denver Post

, former editor, The Denver Post Marshall Zelinger, political reporter, Denver 7

It will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at The Denver Post auditorium, 101 West Colfax Ave., followed by further discussion, light appetizers, and cash bar at the Denver Press Club, 1330 Glenarm Pl.

Paul Teske, Dean, University of Colorado Denver, School of Public Affairs, will make introductory comments.

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Moderators Laura Carno, founder of I Am Created Equal, and yours truly are soliciting questions in advance of the event--and queries from the audience will be encouraged on Tues.

The event is free and open to the public but register via tapthevote2016.eventbrite.com

You can submit questions in advance to Laura Carno (lauracarno at gmail.com) or me (jason at bigmedia.org).
The last eulogy I gave was at my father's funeral. The time has come to give another, this one my last, paying homage to an America I thought I knew but did not.

Those who have lost a loved one know the persistent low-grade nausea that comes with grief. I suffer that today. I feel physically ill. Whether by suggestion or as a consequence of some underlying biology, we all seem to suffer from the same sequence of emotions following trauma: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. We now find ourselves embarked on this emotional journey because Trump's ascension represents to many of us the tragic and sudden death of a country as we understood that country to be. His election is the demise of decency and the rise in its place a political movement that appeals to our worst instincts. We are not that shining city on a hill, nor a beacon of hope for the world's oppressed; we have debased ourselves to the lowest common elements of other nations by electing a self-obsessed man whose pettiness and crass and uncouth embrace of malleable morals and fluid principles reveal our own true national character.

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"Indeed I tremble for my country..."

Thomas Jefferson could easily have written those words today. Our Founding Scribe would recoil in horror with the thought that a man like Trump so lacking in grace could occupy the presidency of the Union he helped create. We have devolved from the extraordinary minds of Madison, Adams, and Franklin to the intellectual corruption of Trump, Giuliani and Christi. One can hardly imagine a greater gap in human potential or a more tragic consequence.

I am disgusted and horrified and dismayed by the image of Trump in the White House.

We can never go back. Even if Trump is a one-term president with little impact on policy, and his extremism eventually tempered by future presidents, we can never erase the indelible stain of nearly 60 million votes for a candidate openly promoting bigotry, racism, misogyny and xenophobia. America has been exposed, the innocent illusion of modernity and progression lost to the mass embrace of humanity's darkest character. That sea of red on election maps now defines the United States, a crimson tide of rising intolerance that many of us thought had been relegated to a time past. We scratched the veneer of civility only to discover a seething cauldron of misplaced anger fueled by demagoguery and stoked by ignorance and fear.

Trump's path to victory started with Sarah Palin, who tapped into the same vein of ignorance and hate that proved so rich for Trump. She was, for the first time in our history, a national candidate thoroughly unqualified for office who was nevertheless taken seriously. Once this filter of any need to be qualified is removed, all barriers fall. Anything goes. Ignorance is celebrated as a virtue, a sign of authenticity. And now we get Trump, a direct descendant from that abomination introduced to us by McCain.

Without being alarmist, we must honestly contemplate the possibility that the events of November 8 could be the beginning of a new rise of fascism. If you believe that outcome to be unlikely, consider that extremists now control the White House, Senate, House of Representatives and Supreme Court. Trump and his supporters will not readily relinquish power. These people have no allegiance to the Constitution, righteously citing amendments when conveniently aligned with a policy objective, but readily dismissing it when founding principles become troublesome. To offer just one recent example Republican senators openly and proudly defy their constitutional duty to consider the President's nominee for the Supreme Court. What is most astonishing about that is that so few find it astonishing. This was never raised as a serious campaign issue by major media, and never offered as a question at any debate. One does not make a huge leap from there in believing those now in power will manipulate the government, without regard to legality, constitutionality, precedent or decency to ensure reelection of their kind and implementation of their agenda. This is the worst type of deja vu: Americans have voted for a corrupt, narcissistic strongman rising to power on a wave of xenophobic hate-mongering. We are Germany in the 1930s, and Fox News is our Goebbels. We are in for a long haul of ugly.

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Wood Spears and Brass Armor

An Inca army of over 100,000 soldiers was defeated by a handful of conquistadors in 1532 when Francisco Pizarro and his men captured Atahualpa, the Inca king, thereby gaining control of the empire. While several important factors led to this lopsided victory, perhaps most important was that native spears could not penetrate Spanish brass armor. The numbers did not matter, only the outcome due to asymmetry in weaponry. So too do we see this asymmetry in the election this year. Weapons of logic, reason and facts were no match for the fortified armor of ignorance, hate and blind faith.

I know that in spite of a loyal following, for which I am eternally grateful, I am a minor player of no consequence in national politics. Understanding this limitation, I have nevertheless penned more than 500 blogs with passionate pleas for policies based on rationalism and truth. These few that were thrown with enough heft to actually reach a target have bounced off my friends on the right with no more consequence than an Inca spear against a brass chess plate of the conquering Spanish. My arsenal has proven impotent against a much more powerful force. The antithesis of everything I fought for over the past 30 years is embodied in what happened in this election. I lost as decisively and completely as the Incas. The defeat is absolute.

All the great generals throughout history share one thing in common regardless of time or place: all knew when a battle was lost, when strategic retreat was necessary, when defeat was inevitable. Wishful thinking and delusional hope never triumph in a field of conflict. During some of the most epic battles of the Civil War, both Grant and Lee proved their genius in retreat, garnering resources to fight another day. Those of us who champion a secular world view based in evidence, facts, and reason must be realistic, like those generals, and recognize the magnitude of our defeat. There is no good news here, no wishful thinking; nothing I can say to make you feel better. We lose in this war between reason and faith because we are restrained by reality where our opponents are not. Those creepy Trump supporters on CNN will feel vindicated in their warped, fact-free world view, confident that their disturbing brand of politics of delusion has triumphed. I surrender. I surrender to the 56 million people who reject all that I say here, and who live in a place very different than the one I want to live in.

The Triumph of Double Standards

What I long suspected proved unequivocally true on November 8: blind faith is fully immune to any external influence. Truth, reason, facts are swatted away with ease. Double standards and hypocrisy, the handmaidens of blind faith, are embraced without hesitation. This has important consequences because there is embedded in this embrace an inherent asymmetry. Rational thought is open to modification when presented with convincing contrary evidence. In stark contrast, faith is unyielding because contrary evidence is discarded as liberal conspiracy, work of Satan, the doings of privileged elite. There can be no contrary evidence when the philosophy is based on the notion:

I believe therefore it is true. I will only consider evidence that supports my belief, further strengthening my faith in that belief. No matter how compelling, I will reject as false anything that conflicts with my belief.

With one side open to change, the other not, movement can only go in one direction, and it is never in the direction of rationalism.

This campaign offers a depressing number of shocking examples of this blind faith immunity. Things like right wing outrage over Michele Obama wearing a sleeveless dress, but no comment on Melania Trump posing nude and starring in pornographic movies. Remember when conservatives could not trust John Kerry's wife Teresa Heinz because she spoke French as a second language? No concern now that Melania is foreign born, nor speaks our native tongue with a thick accent. But three particular cases of hypocrisy stand out as among the most egregious: Benghazi, Hillary's emails and family values. Republicans never made a fuss over the 60 embassy employees killed during the Bush years, but relentlessly pursued one of the biggest witch hunts in our history covering the four that died in Benghazi. Outrage over Hillary's handling of emails fueled right wing hate for years, yet conservatives had no problem with Bush and Cheney deleting 22 million emails held illegally on a private server after getting a subpoena in a congressional investigation into the illegal firing of multiple attorneys general. The emails also covered the critical period of time leading up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. No outrage that Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell also used personal servers for government emails, some of which were classified. Not a peep from the right. The worst of all though is support for Trump from evangelicals who righteously tout their commitment to family values. Their values candidate is a pussy-grabbing, thrice divorced cursing philanderer who has flip-flopped on their core issue of abortion multiple times. The Trump campaign soiled American politics with dozens of deeds any one of which would have doomed any other candidate. Quite literally there is nothing that Trump could do or say that would undermine support from the religious right. Blind faith is immune to all external input, which leads to this extraordinary level of hypocrisy so difficult to wrap one's head around. Double standards become the very foundation of radicalism because facts are cherry-picked to support the faith, leaving for others who did not drink the Kook Aid inconvenient truths dangling in plain sight.

To the small degree that anyone on the right will respond to this, let me anticipate that such responses will in fact reinforce the contention that faith will triumph over reason in an asymmetric war. Opponents will rage at my characterization of Palin, dismiss Cheney's emails as irrelevant, note darkly that Hillary is untrustworthy made true by repetition, defend Trump's behavior has "out of context," bring up false accusations about Benghazi or emails that have already been repudiated. Blind faith, immune to reason and truth, can make any claim and refute any evidence because there is no tether to reality. The inevitable response from the right proves they win because they have the power to invert reality and fantasy with religious zeal and we have no weapons to counter this assault other than our pathetic wooden spears.

Permanent Damage

Some will say in a classic state of grief denial that it matters not who will sit in the Oval Office, that we'll recover in four years and get back on track. No, we won't. With a Supreme Court packed with Trump nominees, we'll overturn or dilute Roe v. Wade and protections for gay marriage, expand Citizens United, crumble the wall separating Church and State, weaken environmental protections, further degrade voting rights protections, and gut Obamacare. We'll see religion seep into education with creationism being given equal weight with evolution alongside prayers in school, and the domination of intolerant Christianity imposed on all others in public venues. Wage gaps will grow, as will the divide between rich and poor. With a denier at the helm, forget any little hope we might have had that the world will address climate change. We will never recover from that lost opportunity to take action and our descendants will forever suffer the consequences. We can anticipate that our enemies will take maximum advantage of having an unstable, inexperienced, and volatile president in charge; it is as if Kim Jong-un is now the leader of the free world. The list of horrors is nearly endless. It matters.

November 8, 2016 will go down as one of the worst days of my life. I feel dirty. I feel sick. I am for the first time embarrassed and ashamed to be American. I love my country, but not unconditionally, and my fellow Americans have proven themselves unworthy with this vote. I regret my impotence. I am sorry I could not do more, even with my expectation that I could do very little. I rue the fact I could only bring crude projectiles to a battle fought in brass. I apologize for not being more effective in advancing arguments that could have prevented the tragedy of Nov 8 to whatever small extent that might have been possible. Even knowing that my role at best would never amount to more than a drop in an ocean, I am so sorry I could do nothing at all to stop this horror show.

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This piece is co-authored by Jens Ole Hansen, Global Market Director, Ramboll Energy



How can you accelerate implementation of the Paris Climate Accord? That is the common theme of the side events at Cop22 Climate Conference in Morocco right now. One relatively simple - and cost-effective - answer is to make the world's energy systems more flexible, reliable and efficient with district energy. Because district energy is an approach that can be employed all over the world - with a global technology customised to local conditions, including coordination and co-creation with all relevant private and public stakeholders.

Let me explain:

In cities, people have the same energy needs at the same time, so it makes sense to look at energy supply on a much larger scale: The density of a city enables thermal energy to be produced and stored centrally and then distributed throughout the city via city energy grids.

In Copenhagen, where Ramboll's head office is located, almost 98% of the heat comes from the district heating grid, where Combined Heat and Power plants use the surplus heat from electricity production as heating for homes and offices - instead of just letting it out in the sea as is the case in many other countries.

The system's main advantage is higher energy efficiency, but added values include cheaper and more reliable energy for the citizens - and a higher probability of meeting climate goals for the decision makers. This is mainly because of the system's high energy source flexibility: The Avedre Plant just outside Copenhagen is being converted from coal to biomass, and a growing percentage of the city's waste is being used for energy production in the district heating system.

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Other clients are discovering the advantages. In London, Ramboll is partner in a pioneering project that will use the waste heat from the London Underground to produce district heating. A report commissioned by the Greater London Authorities has found that enough heat is wasted in London to meet 70% of the city's heating needs.

Capturing this heat and delivering it to the heat network would dramatically improve fuel bills, fuel poverty, fuel security and carbon emissions.

In North America, more and more colleges and cities are looking to convert their old steam water systems, which can be costly to operate and maintain, as well as being a potential safety hazard. The Nordic hot water district energy system is more flexible, has a reduced risk of leakages, a higher degree of efficiency, and better possibilities of integrating renewable energy.

Ramboll is now helping a handful of clients in US and Canada, introducing hot water district energy and we will in a few months open a new office in New England, dedicated to energy services.

Among the new clients are MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and the city of Cambridge, where the task is to conduct a Low Carbon Energy Supply Study for the whole city.

Ramboll is already conducting a renewable energy study for the Ivy League University Dartmouth to help the old New Hampshire institution reach its sustainability goals: The University uses oil today, but after the district energy conversion it will be also be able to use solar, biomass and other renewables, and this part of the green transition means CO2 reductions of up to 80%. By using seasonal thermal storages Dartmouth will utilize the excess energy from the cooling production during summer to displace fossil energy during winter.

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Donald Trump is riding high on a surprise victory over Hillary Clinton, which was overwhelmingly driven by the voters' demand for significant change. Perhaps his most ambitious promise, and one everyone will be watching carefully, is what he will do to dramatically raise economic growth and create new jobs. This is the most important change Trump can make, but it will require pragmatism and bipartisan skill.

Drawing on what he said during the campaign, but reworking it through a pragmatic bipartisan lens, here are the six priorities he can pursue to Trump-start economic growth and create new jobs.

1.Cutting taxes has been one of his top priorities and should remain so. But the tax cuts have to be balanced in a way that provides incentives for capital investment, encourages small business and entrepreneurs, and includes tax reductions for low income individuals.

2. Trade policies, as he has promised, must be changed and made much tougher. He should resist unilateral imposition of tariffs on countries like China, and instead lead with a much tougher enforcement of existing U.S. trade laws. Beyond that, we need a government wide effort to grow our exports and buy American.

3.Trump has spoken of the need for regulatory reform and there is a great opportunity to Trump-start growth in this area. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget requires that federal agencies submit all new rules to strict cost-benefit analysis, but this needs to apply to existing rules and have strong Presidential backing to work. Billions can be saved in this area.

4.Infrastructure investment is badly needed as a central way to encourage higher economic growth. Donald Trump is a builder and is well suited to pushing a bipartisan bill to rebuild America, but it must start with shovel-ready projects to be followed by a phased implementation of nationwide infrastructure program.

5. Productivity improvement is key to raising economic growth and that requires investments in technology and encouraging innovation. Trump's spending priorities should include major investments in government technology, along with tax incentives to encourage small company entrepreneurship.

6.Trump has promised to revive U.S. manufacturing and he could do a lot of that by toughening our trade laws and reducing regulatory burdens. But he should go beyond that by reinforcing Obama's manufacturing hubs around the country that work with the industry to develop innovative new products and technologies. The Trump Administration should embrace that initiative and make it their own.
Mississippi, United States - January 2, 2016: Donald Trump speaking to the crowd at a campaign rally at the Mississippi Coliseum in Biloxi.

My dear daughters:

When you huddled together on the sofa last night shaking with tears, a hole opened up in my heart.

And I sat down and cried right along with you.

Because I had promised you that Hillary would win.

You are the perfect ages to learn about how government works, and so I wanted you to understand the process and get excited about it. I showed you the inspirational videos on Hillary's website, I discussed with you what it meant to devote a whole life to public service, and I played for you Hillary's strongest moments from the debates. I excitedly explained what a "glass ceiling" meant.

I outlined Hillary's resume as a champion for children, for disabled people, for LGBTQ people. I compared "STRONGER TOGETHER" with "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" and explained to you why the first slogan unifies our country while the second slogan dangerously pits us against one another.

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I walked you through the polling websites, I marveled with you at Hillary's incredible odds, and yesterday, I spent much of the afternoon buying party supplies for what I assumed was Hillary's inevitable success.

I never thought that a Trump victory was possible, and so neither did you.

But what is worse, I openly voiced my disgust for Donald Trump in front of you. I felt so certain that our country would reject a candidate whose rhetoric seemed so unapologetically un-American, I quoted for you the horrific things he said about immigrants and Muslims and girls, hoping that this would be a lesson in how NOT to behave, how NOT to think. I wanted Trump to be an example of how NEVER to look at America and its beautiful diversity. How never to think about your own self.

And so when he stunningly won last night, I was without the vocabulary to explain it. And you were without the tools to understand it.

Kids, the lessons you will have to take away from this experience are the same ones that I apparently also needed to learn:

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Take nothing for granted.

Never underestimate the competition.

Always choose the high road.

Don't say things about a person you wouldn't say to their face.

Look for the good in people, even when they make it hard to find.

And remember that no matter what happens, tomorrow is always a new day, with unlimited possibilities.

But this is also true: a Trump presidency does not usurp the values that our family holds dear. We must stay keenly aware of our privilege in this society as white, straight, able-bodied people, and do everything in our power to elevate those who are routinely discriminated against. We must passionately stand up to xenophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, homophobia, and transphobia. We must choose optimism over fear, secure in the knowledge that the arc of history does eventually bend toward justice. Now more than ever before, we must be the change we wish to see in the world.
School classroom with school desks and blackboard in Japanese high school

I am a high school history teacher.

I teach students who come from across the globe. Many have come fleeing their own countries to find hope and safety and freedom in ours. They come from Burma and Brazil, Iraq and El Salvador, Vietnam and Zambia. Over 30 countries in all.

But today - I don't know what to say to them.

What do I say? What can I say?

What do I say to my Muslim students from the Middle East? The young women in my class who wear head scarves and love taking selfies and swapping pop music, the young men who are in Junior ROTC and hope to serve America in the army? How do I convince them that not all of America wants them banished from our shores, that not all Americans think these 13-, 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds are terrorists. They have told me of their fears. I cannot now tell them that their fears are completely without justification.

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What do I say to my students from Latin America? My students who have fled gangs and violence, or who have simply come because they see a chance for education and opportunity in America. How can I convince them that many people in America do not see them as rapists and murderers? How can I quell their fears that our country is about to round them up and throw them across our southern border?

What do I say to my students whose skin is black or brown? Who already know what it is like to be followed in stores and on the streets? Who have already learned that the color of their skin makes them a target? What do I say to them when words like "law and order" feel to them like cocked guns? How do I teach about Jim Crow laws and the Klu Klux Klan as if they were only history? What do I tell them about the Confederate flag that only yesterday I saw proudly displayed on a car in New Hampshire?

What do I say to my LGBTQ students? Or to my students who have relatives who have only recently secured the right to marry those they love and now fear that right will be stripped from them? How to I respond to my students who today ask me in worried whispers: is conversion therapy going to be promulgated by the highest office in the land.

What do I teach them about my own faith, Judaism? Soon we will study World War II, and the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. I cannot say this is all a thing of the distant past when Neo-Nazi groups are speaking out vocally across our nation.

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What do I say to the sixty-plus of my students who, like me, are women? How do I tell them that many in their adopted country condone sexual assault and sexual violence and the denigration of women? Can I tell them that they will truly have the same opportunities as men? That they will be treated equally?

This morning my students - students from across the globe, who were drawn here by hope - were quick to ask me, with voices quiet and fearful: Will we be told to go back to our country? When will we be made to leave? Will all of us have to leave? Their questions cascaded upon one another.

What do I tell them?

I tell them that I will continue to be their champion, their supporter, their mentor, their defender, their teacher.

But I'm not confident that I can protect them.

At our school these students stand each morning to pledge their allegiance to the flag of the United States of America - the country they hope one day to become a citizen of.
On Veterans Day, veterans' accomplishments and challenges are in the spotlight. But those who work with our veterans, day in and day out, know they need much more than a single day of recognition. Our veterans and their families experience a myriad of challenges and opportunities as they transition from military to civilian life. Whether a service member met direct combat or processed re-enlistment packages, he or she can struggle to translate the important skills and training received in the armed services to the civilian employment landscape.

In fact, a 2013 study by Military Benefit Association, in conjunction with MetLife, found 79 percent of veterans who were unemployed and who have recently separated feel it is at least somewhat difficult to translate their military skills into something a civilian hiring manger can understand. This, coupled with the increased rates of mental health issues, substance abuse and homelessness, can make it especially difficult for veterans to secure meaningful employment. Military spouses often face unemployment too. They must put their careers on hold as their loved ones serve our nation. A study conducted by the Institute for Veterans and Military Families found that military spouses have an unemployment rate 3 times the national average. Furthermore, the report states that military spouses, if employed, make 38 percent less than their civilian counterparts.

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One way we can help our veterans and their families is by working together to ensure we meet all of their needs. Goodwill organizations are participating in the Institute for Veterans and Military Families' AmericaServes network. Goodwill organizations are connected electronically to other nonprofit organizations to make sure that veterans and military families have seamless access to the services and resources that they need. The technology used not only serves as a referral system, but it also allows the community to measure its collective impact in the lives of our heroes and their families. Veterans and military families can more easily access the most appropriate services through this network, and it prevents them from falling through the cracks. Last year, in North Carolina, NCServes Metrolina served 1,200 veterans and military family members with the help of the Goodwill organizations in Charlotte and Winston-Salem.

By 2011, the unemployment rate for 9/11-era veterans had soared to 12 percent, with the youngest veterans faring the worst. In August of that year, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden implemented the Joining Forces initiative to connect military personnel, veterans and spouses with the resources they need to find jobs. That same year, Goodwill Industries International launched Goodwill for America's Heroes and Their Families to expand our military-focused services.

In April 2012, Goodwill launched Operation: GoodJobs. Funded by the Walmart Foundation, this initiative equips both veterans and military family members in 12 communities with complete career assessments and individualized development plans that also address a range of basic needs such as nutrition, shelter and child care. One year later, in June 2013, we launched Goodwill for America's Women Veterans with a goal of providing services specifically catering to female veterans.

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Through these targeted initiatives and the efforts of our local organizations, Goodwill has employed 4,783 veterans and their family members; provided services to more than 231,530 veterans and their families; and helped 14,637 veterans and military family members connect with jobs in their communities. Earlier this year, on its fifth anniversary, Joining Forces announced, "More than 1.2 million veterans and military spouses have been hired or trained as a result of ongoing outreach." Perhaps most important, the unemployment rate for veterans is now lower than the national average.

Veterans and their families benefit most when they have access to programs that holistically address all of their needs, from employment and housing to psychological concerns and family issues. Because no one organization can meet all the needs, communities must reduce the chaos that prevents access by working together to coordinate services.

As we mark Veterans Day, please keep in mind that there are tangible things each of us can do to support veterans and their families, not just today but all year long. If you are a business owner or employer, you can make hiring and training veterans and understanding the unique circumstances of military families a priority at your organization. If you are in education, know that children of military families - many of whom will transfer through nine school districts on average - might need an extra hand. If you're in the health care field, be mindful that wounds for soldiers and families may lie deeper than those visible to the eye.


Photo: Pamela Marches

It's fair to say that, for the better part of three decades, NRDC has had a difficult relationship with the Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) of Orange County, the toll road agency that has been trying for years to build a toll road through the California State Park at San Onofre State Beach.

With that long history in mind, it is extraordinary to announce today a landmark agreement between the TCA, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, and a broad coalition of national and local environmental groups, including NRDC. In short, the agreement will protect San Onofre State Beach, the Richard and Donna O'Neill Conservancy and San Mateo Creek while also allowing for exploration of other transportation solutions for South Orange County.

This agreement is a definitive determination that the state park at San Onofre - and its natural, historical and cultural resources - will be permanently preserved.

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This outcome would not have been possible without the leadership of TCA Chief Executive Officer Mike Kraman, who worked quietly but effectively to bring an end to so many years of conflict.

And it would not have been possible without the focused efforts of every member of the Save San Onofre Coalition - organizations and individuals, staff and hundreds of thousands of members - who have joined together for years to defend one of California's greatest and most popular state parks. The long-term collaboration reflected by this coalition has been one of the greatest professional privileges and experiences of my life. NRDC is proud of the work that we have done together.



Photo: Pamela Marches

This agreement brings to an end one of the most hard-fought, long-lasting environmental battles in California history - one that NRDC and every member of the Save San Onofre Coalition have pursued with single-minded purpose on behalf of the people of our region, in defense of California's natural heritage, to protect the indispensable integrity of our world-class state park system.

Years from now, as current and future generations of Californians continue to enjoy Trestles and the entire state park at San Onofre State Beach, we will look back on this agreement as definitive proof that our parklands are no longer expendable:

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Proof that the people, working together, can protect them - even against important competing priorities.

Proof that our transportation and other infrastructure needs can no longer be found in the outdated, unsound proposition that the "path of least resistance" for highways and other infrastructure development runs through our public parks.
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The world was shocked Tuesday night when Donald Trump managed to pull off one of the most stunning upsets in American presidential history, winning the White House with a handy lead in the Electoral College. Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton had been heavily favored, with some media outlets giving her higher than 90% chances of victory.

The Trump victory sent shockwaves through global markets the day after the election, with futures markets hit especially hard. As the financial world begins to make sense of this election and what it means for everybody's future, I decided to speak to those in the real estate crowdfunding market to gauge their reactions and predictions.

Jordan Fishfeld of Chicago-based CFX Markets speculated that from a purely financial markets standpoint, Trump's presidency and the Republican legislature that comes with it could be "...an opportunity for growth in this industry, albeit a costly one. One of Trump's main platforms was that regulation is hurting business...I think we can expect to see a reduction in oversight and regulation, which should benefit the flow of capital to small and medium-sized businesses, which will be tremendously beneficial for crowdfunding."

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Brian Dally, co-founder and CEO of Groundfloor, concurred with the idea of Trump-as-opportunity, but pointed to a different reason.

"This election result appears to be creating volatility in financial markets. Volatility tends to attract more investors into real assets, like real estate." Dally also mentioned bonds, which have surged since the announcement of the results.

Others, like Marty Coyne, CTO of Connected Investors, are even more enthusiastic. "Trump is legendary for his strategies and challenges in attracting capital to his projects. Because of his background I think he will be favorable to anything that would help real estate investors find capital."

Coyne reiterated the idea that Trump and his Republican-led Congress would help the markets by scaling back regulation, specifically quoting Trump's criticisms of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law that was one of the crowning achievements of Barack Obama's first term. He also expressed a sentiment shared by Jordan Uditsky, a real estate attorney with Gould and Ratner, about Trump's plan to rebuild the nation's infrastructure and its positive effect on the real estate industry.

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"Now we have an entrepreneur in the White House, who's going to want to foster other entrepreneurs...with his infrastructure projects, more people are going to be trying to do developments, which means more people trying to raise capital."

Dara Albright, a writer and crowd finance educator, echoed this sentiment, and drew comparisons to the financial ramifications of the UK's Brexit vote, which she argued was, like a Trump presidency, an "opportunity."

"Our markets are so destroyed and broken. They don't work for the small investor, and they don't work for the small business or the entrepreneur," Albright told me, channeling a bit of Trump's fiery populism. "A Trump presidency will help us return to investing into one another, community investing, peer to peer investing, etc. People have had it with the volatility of the markets, they feel like it's a rigged system, and I feel that this is an opportunity for our industry to make a difference."

Not everyone I talked to was optimistic, however. Mark Roderick, a shareholder of Flaster Greenberg PC who runs a website/blog devoted to crowdfunding, was much more reserved in his assessment of any benefits a Trump presidency might bring.

"My overarching concern, having seen the overseas markets and the futures on [election night]...is that the election of Trump and the policies that he and the Republican congress are about to enact are going to lead to a recession," Roderick told me in a dejected tone.

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When I asked if he thought more unstable global markets might lead to more investment in real estate, Roderick answered in the negative. "People are not going to choose real estate. If people are afraid, they're going to put their money into the money markets, which is what they should do."
In one of the most hostile and ugly presidential elections in US history, Donald J. Trump has been elected the 45th President of the United States, shocking both the media and political class. Many voters were shocked too because they were told, frequently, that it was impossible for Trump to win.

How did Trump win? Here are a few major factors:

No One Knows What Goes on Behind Closed Doors

It is quickly being believed by many in the media that distrust of journalists played a factor. It was pretty obvious to most Americans that the media not only expected Clinton to win, but strongly desired that objective. Therefore some are concluding that many who were being polled stated that they supported Clinton (or even Johnson who fared way below what was expected), while intending to vote for Trump all along.

The Media Polled the Wrong People



Libertarian candidate and former governor, Gary Johnson, has been pointing out for quite some time that the media had been polling the wrong people. He argued, in an email to supporters, that approximately "90 percent" of those who would be voting were not being polled. He said that the media was heavily focusing its polling on people who have only voted in recent elections. Meanwhile, obviously there were many people that have never been in an election booth before 2016 that were now participating, he argued. Johnson was right, there were many unaccounted voters in this election, but they turned up for Trump and not the Libertarians or Democrats.

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Political Correctness Backlash



Millions of Americans have grown tired of a political and cultural environment that has become oppressive, in their eyes. They believe that "hate speech" is exactly the type of communication that was supposed to be protected, according to the First Amendment of the Constitution. In fact, it is the only type of speech that requires protection, they argue. If a business does not want to bake a cake for a gay couple, they should have the right to not do that, they believe, even if they will not state that publicly. Many American have felt like children in kindergarten because of a government that puts enormous pressure on them to behave a certain way. Trump is the antithesis of good manners, which is a positive thing to many who feel like they have been oppressed by political correctness.

The Democrats Were Tone Deaf When It Came to New "Trump Democrats"

The number one issue in this election for Republican, Democrats, and Independents, was the economy. In the minds of many, there was only one candidate offering an alternative to what Obama offered the last several years. Many of the people that showed up for Trump were similar to the "Reagan Democrats" of the 1980s. These were people that were long term Democrats, but ultimately put economic opportunity over partisanship. Democrats did not realize the plight of these voters who felt impoverished by years of Obama's policies. In particular, labor unions that have long supported the Democrats have seen both jobs and even the possibility of future employment, evaporate under the Democrats.

In particular, the media and the establishment, seem very shocked by what is happening in Michigan, where Hillary Clinton has had a massive political machine for years. In recent years, Michigan has undergone a major political shift with both Houses of that state's legislature becoming Republican and the governor (also in the GOP) now enjoying a second term. Meanwhile, during Republican rule in Michigan, unemployment has gone down, the economy has grown, the end of closed union shops is believed to be preventing businesses from leaving, and for the first time in years the state is increasing in population each year. The massive exodus of people has ended. Furthermore, these union voters, not only in Michigan but also in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other historically "Blue States," remember that Hillary Clinton's husband, Bill Clinton, brought them the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which they believe ended manufacturing in the United States. Many blue collar workers, including those who are in unions, have long desired vengeance for the Clinton trade policies. Trump's strong protectionism rhetoric was, to many of these voters, the logical way of achieving that objective.

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by Gary Segura and Matt Barreto

In the 36 hours since the results of the presidential election became clear, a number of "analyses" have emerged suggesting that a surprisingly large share of the Latino vote went to Donald Trump, despite his demonization of Latinos, his attacks on Judge Curiel and Alycia Machado, his blanket hostility to immigrants, and more. The basis of these claims are the National Exit Poll, a survey commissioned by a consortium of media outlets who wish to understand the electorate's behavior. The exit poll numbers for Latinos are wildly inconsistent with dozens of pre-election polls demonstrating a larger than 3-1 advantage for Secretary Clinton.

What happened?

The exit poll reports of the Latino vote are profoundly and demonstrably incorrect. The methodology used for this poll systematically misrepresents all voters of color and this can be demonstrated with actual precinct-level results and with their practices in the last decade. We note, at the start, that unlike the Latino Decisions Election Eve Poll, the precise details of this year's exit polls are not available to the public or press, which should at least give you pause when considering their accuracy. Moreover, since many high-profile media outlets actually pay for the poll-- ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC and the Associated Press--reporters and editors are instructed to use that data, not to critique it, and to disregard other data sources.

The Latino Decisions poll of 5,600 extremely high propensity Latino voters in the nights immediately prior to the election reported 79 percent of Latino voters supporting Secretary Clinton, 18 percent supporting Donald Trump, and 3 percent other. We have provided an extensive and detailed description of our methodology online. Our findings demonstrate, among other things, that 55 percent of Latinos see Trump as hostile, compared with just 30 percent viewing the GOP as hostile and only 5 percent thinking that about Democrats, that there was a substantial 12-point shift to the left among Cuban voters in Florida, and that Latinas (86 percent) were more likely to support Secretary Clinton than Latino men (71 percent) who, nevertheless, were strongly Democratic.

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Here are 10 things to consider when evaluating the Exit Poll findings against ours:

1)The exit poll is just that -- one POLL. They are not actual results, there is nothing "official" about them, and are subject to the same evaluations of accuracy as all other polls.

2)The exit poll is not a random sample of all voters. The surveys taken on election day are clustered to a small handful of precincts out of the thousands of possible precincts. Academic papers (here and here) have documented with evidence that this introduces considerable bias in the minority sample. Those surveys are supplemented with pre-election polling, same as us.

3)The exit poll results are indefensible. They suggest Trump received 29 percent of Latino votes. That is at odds with all other high-quality, large sample pre-election polling that a plausible explanation is required. In all quality pre-election polls, Trump's percentage is very close to the one we found in our election eve poll.

19 percent: Univision/Washington Post

17 percent: NBC/Telemundo oversample

14 percent: NALEO/Telemundo Tracking Poll

13 percent: FIU/New Latino Voice

Remember, the Exit Poll is just a survey (and, as we will describe below, one with a lot of problems). You either have to conclude that one problematic poll got it right and all others were wrong, or you have to at least consider whether the methodology used by the outlier -- the Exit Poll -- is deeply flawed.

4)Skeptics might say that all the polls were off this year, but actually, whatever the reason, the national polling miss was only around 1-2 percent compared to what the popular vote margin will eventually be. These Latino numbers are off by 10-15 percent. That requires a plausible explanation, and secret support for a man who described Latinos as rapists and criminals does not pass the sniff test. That's why we see all these speculative stories. We suggest that if the Exit Poll numbers seem inexplicable, maybe they are wrong.

5)Actual results from election day confirm the Latino surge and a shift in the Democratic direction. It's early and lots of results are still being posted, but a careful examination of precincts with lots of Latino voters, drawn from across the country, show an increase in turnout and an increase in Democratic vote share. In none of the actual results data is there anything to suggest Trump out-performing Romney. What is more likely is that the national exit polls interviewed FEW IF ANY Latino voters in areas where many Latinos actually live. For example, in 2014, the Exit Poll didn't interview a single Latino south of San Antonio, despite this being among the most heavily Latino regions of the United States. In a brief post-election summary, we detail extensively these Latino geographies, but here are a few quick examples:



6)The exit poll was never designed to capture sub-populations, like Latinos or African Americans. Instead, it was designed to offer one national estimate, and to help news organizations predict outcomes. Who says so? They do! VERY IMPORTANT: The people behind the exit poll even admitted a few years ago that their minority samples are not expected to be correct! They wrote in a self-critique that "it is not designed to yield very reliable estimates of the characteristics of small, geographically clustered demographic groups. These groups have much large design effects and thus larger sampling errors." Get that? Edison says that their estimates of sub-populations are more error prone. Did you see that on CNN? The letter goes on to say, "If we want to improve the National Exit Poll estimate for Hispanic vote (or Asian vote, Jewish vote or Mormon vote etc.) we would either need to drastically increase the number of precincts in the National Sample or oversample the number of Hispanic precincts." They have done neither. Question: Hey Exit Polls, did you still think you need oversamples and more precincts? Then why are there less?

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7)Exit polls do not select many high-density Latino (or African American) precincts. Despite very high levels of segregation in the US, the exit poll actually has very few precincts with large numbers of minority voters. The reason, of course, is that minority-heavy precincts are not close in outcome, and are less helpful to them in predicting the shifting winds of the electorate. For example, in a recent national exit poll they admitted they had only 11 total precincts with sizable Latino populations. ELEVEN?! In the entire national sample. ELEVEN. In 2014 they admitted they had ZERO precincts selected in the Texas Rio Grande Valley where 25 percent of all Texas Latinos reside. ZERO. Question: Exit Polls, how many high density Latino precincts did you have? And where? Be specific.



8)Exit polls demographics of Latinos do not match reality. They interview very few respondents in Spanish. By very few, we mean almost none. According to Census data, about 30 percent of Latino voters are foreign-born. Most of those voters are more comfortable being interviewed in Spanish. In past cycles, only 6 or 7 percent of exit poll Latino interviews are in Spanish while the population numbers suggest that it should be closer to 30 percent in Spanish. Spanish dominant Latinos are far more heavily democratic. Question: Exit Polls -- what was your Spanish percent? What is the national origin distribution?

9)The exit pollsters' claim to fame was that, because they interview on election day and in person, they are more accurate. Except that now, with the broad proliferation of early and absentee voting, and vote by mail, the exit polls for those voters are run just like all others -- by telephoning respondents. And the in-person advantage on election day presupposes a representative cross-section of precincts. Question: Exit Polls -- how do your results of early/absentee voters compare with the precinct interviews? How did you merge these statewide samples in with your geographically clustered precincts?

10)Because they select precincts without an attempt to represent Latinos and other subgroups accurately, past exit polls demonstrate a substantial skew towards minorities with higher income and education than most of the group population. When compared to the Current Population Survey's November supplements (our country's official estimates of who voted), the Exit Poll has between 11 percent and 12 percent more college graduates and 5 percent more respondents with above-median incomes. That is true this year as well. In the current Exit Poll results, 44 percent of their non-white respondents have college degrees. The actual college graduate percent for all non-whites in the voting electorate is around 30 percet. As for income by race, though this has been reported in all previous years exit polls, we cannot find that breakout on any network presentations of the Exit Pol. Historically, Exit Poll respondents have significantly higher income than the CPS says the population of non-white voters should. At this hour, those numbers are not presented at CNN, Fox, or the New York Times. Perhaps they are not reporting it. Question: Exit Polls -- how come your income and education distributions don't match the census or CPS? Where is income by race?



The Exit Poll's suggest white support for Trump to be essentially identical to that for Romney four years ago, but meaningful shifts toward Trump among African Americans and Latinos. Does that sound like the story of this election?

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Journalists -- and especially cable news anchors and producers -- please remember that the Exit Poll is just a survey, one never designed to represent the Latino (or other minority group) vote. Unlike our work, and the work of countless other survey researchers, Edison is not transparent in its methods. We have, for several cycles, raised serious questions about clustering, socio-economic bias, Spanish language interviews, and precinct selection. Apart from their admission in 2005, they have remained silent and opaque.

But you -- and the country -- deserve answers to how they collected the data, and how reliable it is. Call them and ask. And let us -- all of us -- know what they say.
Why Do We Have the Electoral College

By Leon Friedman

Very little attention is being paid to the fact that Hillary Clinton apparently won the popular vote, even while she lost the electoral vote. The latest figures show Hillary Clinton winning 59,638,751 votes and Donald Trump winning 59,434,798 votes, a difference of 203,953 votes. As we all know if we looked at the ballot, voters do not vote for a candidate running for President. We vote for a group of electors in each state, whose numbers are determined by adding the number of members of the House of Representatives in each state plus the two Senators. So if a candidate wins one state by one vote and another candidate wins another state (with the same number of members of Congress) by a million votes, each candidate gets the same number of electoral votes. Five times in our history, in 1824 (Adams over Jackson), 1876 (Hayes over Tilden), 1888 (Harrison over Cleveland), 2000 (Bush over Gore) and now in 2016, the candidate with the higher popular vote lost the election because of the electoral college.

No other democratic country has a similar system where voters choose some intermediate body whose only function is to choose who should lead the country. Why do we have such a procedure? It goes back to our founders' distrust of democracy. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No 68, explained that the "immediate election [of the President] should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station." We cannot trust the decision to the people themselves. Rather, a "small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations."

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Why not trust the decision to the people themselves, who, after all, elect their governors and members of the House of Representatives and members of the State legislatures? Hamilton raised the danger of what he called "tumult and disorder" If the people voted directly for President, there is the probability that an election will "convulse the community with . . . extraordinary or violent movements." Rather "this detached and divided situation" outlined in the Constitution will be less likely to produce "heats and ferments." It is true that the people may vote directly for a governor. But those elections are suspect. "Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union."

Of course, we do not leave our elections to a "small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass" who "possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations." The electors are simply party hacks who are supposed to automatically vote for the candidate who won the election in the state. (Sometimes they do not do so. One elector in Washington state announced that he would not vote for Hillary Clinton if she won the State, which she did). So if the original reason for the system no longer exists, why have we maintained it?

The reason lies in the evils of our federal system. Under the electoral college structure, smaller states have enormous political leverage. Wyoming has a population of 584,153 and has three electoral votes, which means that each Wyoming elector represents 194,717 voters. California has a population of 38,800,000 and has 55 electoral votes so each elector represents 705,454 voters. So each vote in Wyoming is worth 3.6 times more than each vote in California. Other smaller states such as Rhode Island, Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Idaho also have exalted political power.

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In addition, the so-called swing states get all the attention. Candidates focus on Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia and North Carolina and make many promises to voters in those states which they are obliged to honor when the election is over. Given the importance of Iowa in the nomination process, every candidate makes promises about ethanol subsidies important to the farmers in that State but not to the rest of the population. The other 40 states get little attention or promises. If the election was based only on popular vote, then the candidates would go where the votes are, California, New York, Texas and Illinois and the swing states would have less importance But there are 29 states with less than ten electoral votes whose influence in a presidential election would be greatly diminished. Why would they agree to a Constitutional amendment that would reduce their power in the political system?

So we maintain the electoral college to defend the interests of individual smaller states, even though the original purpose of the system no longer exists. The system can deny victory to a person who wins the popular vote (as it has five times in our history) or at the least it may make any election seem decisive -- a candidate can win by 100 electoral votes even if the popular vote may be less than 1 percent. That way, the population can believe that the candidate was the proper popular choice.

It is true that a popular vote system would require a search for votes in every state if the election is close, as opposed to a search for votes only in specific states where there may be a close contest. But we already search for votes everywhere in a close governor's contest. We should at the least question the basis for a system which was born out of a distrust of democracy and now serves as a rejection of majority rule.

Leon Friedman is a professor of Constitutional Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University
The election of Donald Trump to the highest office in the United States hit a lot of voters hard. During his campaign Trump was disparaging and offensive towards people of color, women, the LGBT community, immigrants, and people with disabilities. He lied with impunity, contradicting himself and his campaign one minute, and then realigning himself the next.

Nobody knew what to expect from him and his fans loved it, they saw him as a renegade, a man who was not hiding behind a political mask. His detractors were confused by it, his audacity and boldness to lie and lie again meant that there was no way to question him. His story and words were fluid, his only campaign platform was to "make America great again," which worked as a blank canvas for his supporters to fill in just what that meant to them.

Trump's win shocked the nation. Or half of it at least.



This shock has prompted a wave of protests across the country. 1,500 students in Berkeley High School walked out of class and jumped onto the #NotMyPresident hashtag on Twitter in protest of the news. This high school protest happened hours after 2,000 people rallied at UCLA vocalizing their displeasure toward the reality of a Trump presidency.

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Washington and Oregan, both blue states, also saw protests break out due to the news. In red state Texas, protests broke out at the University of Texas in Austin. Students took to the streets chanting "immigrants are welcome here".

Students marching back toward #UT chanting "make it loud make it clear, immigrants are welcome here!" #ATX pic.twitter.com/sAEllTwVnR  Anna Herod (@annaleemurphy) November 9, 2016

Donald Trump is President Elect, as chosen by the people, but these protesters show the deep emotion that was linked to this Presidential Election and this may signal a rocky road ahead for the GOP. The race was tight and the country has never been more divided.

All the positive work done regarding attitudes towards race, sex, gender, religion, orientation, and identity are at risk of being overturned but as long as people have their voices nothing will happen silently.
When Bill Viola's mother died it gave him an artistic breakthrough, David Shrigley's parents wondered why people would pay for his art, Jonathan Meese's mother is working for him as his assistant, and Yayoi Kusama escaped her parents to become an artist.

American photographer Leigh Ledare (b. 1976) tells the story of his mother, who was a ballerina with the New York City Ballet but turned to striptease in her early 50s. Ledare uses photography and film to map social relationships and began photographing his mother as a means to "continue the relationship with her in a non-judgmental way where I could try to understand how she was using herself as a sexualised persona".

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Much less controversial but equally moving is American video artist Bill Viola's (b. 1951) memory of his mother on her death bed. Viola witnessed his mother's passing and recounts the moving experience in this video. Clearly touched, he remembers: "It was profoundly beautiful, profoundly sad and mysterious beyond belief."

Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson (b. 1976) was, in his words, raised by militant feminists and pays homage to the feminist legacy in his ongoing work "Me and My Mother." German artist Jonathan Meese (b. 1970) also introduces you to his mom in this video and Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929) explains why she had to escape her family to become an artist. In the end, says British artist David Shrigley (b. 1968), it boils down to one thing: "One always wants one's parents to register one's success."

Watch the whole interview "Yayoi Kusama: Let's Fight Together" here: http://channel.louisiana.dk/video/yayoi-kusama-lets-fight-together

Watch the whole interview "Jonathan Meese & his Mother: Mommy and Me are Animals" here: http://channel.louisiana.dk/video/jonathan-meese-his-mother-mummi-and-me-are-animals

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Watch the whole interview "David Shrigley: Everything that is Bad about Art" here: http://channel.louisiana.dk/video/david-shrigley-everything-bad-about-art

Watch the whole interview "Bill Viola: Cameras are Soul Keepers" here: http://channel.louisiana.dk/video/bill-viola-cameras-are-keepers-souls

Watch the whole interview "Leigh Ledare: Photos of Inappropriate Desires" here: http://channel.louisiana.dk/video/leigh-ledare-photographs-inappropriate...

Watch the whole interview "Ragnar Kjartansson: On 'Me and my Mother' here: http://channel.louisiana.dk/video/ragnar-kjartansson-his-mother-me-and-my-mother
This is a message I sent yesterday to Wesleyan University students.

Early Wednesday morning when it became clear that Donald Trump would become our president-elect, my thoughts shifted back and forth from the good of the country to the good of the University. An international student here, and a friend, texted my wife to ask if the University would be alright. Yes, we will. This election has heightened feelings of alienation and vulnerability. The pain of targeted groups is real, and we must acknowledge it and work to mitigate its effects. But we will be alright because we will continue to strive to build the inclusive community that rejects white supremacy, bigotry and fear; we will be alright because we will express our care for one another in a context of fairness.

It just so happens that in my class on Virtue and Vice this week, we are focusing on how some artists retreated from the public realm after the crushing failures of the revolutions of 1848 in Europe. Around that time, Karl Marx wrote: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves." But many great poets, novelists and painters grew bitterly ironic about making history and the possibilities of progress. Recognizing that there are no guarantees about who was going to end up on the "right side of history," they became cynical about change, detaching themselves from any possibility for a meaningful work in the public sphere.

My friends, we must resist any temptation to abandon the public sphere to those who would return to a past in which people of color, women and queer folk were even more systematically excluded from access to basic rights. As engaged participants in the polity, we have to remain vigilant to protect the people and values we care about. This is not the time to close one's eyes or to stop listening. We need more conversation across political and cultural differences - and we need new modes of engagement. Faculty, staff and students will be thinking hard about this in the coming days and weeks. We must continue to work to defend those who are disenfranchised and oppressed, and to create opportunities for greater numbers of people.

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In the past few months, it seems we've made great leaps in the race to curb global warming. In early October, 191 countries signed the world's first agreement to curb greenhouse gas pollution from aviation. On October 15, nearly 200 nations agreed to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, another greenhouse gas. And on November 4, last year's historic Paris climate agreement will enter into force.

But for every advance we make, new evidence emerges that the world is heating up faster than we could have imagined. Even if the measures pledged in Paris last year are implemented, the world is on track to an average temperature rise of about 3C over the next 50 years.

That's enough to render many of the world's poorest countries uninhabitable - including much of Africa.

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It's clear what countries have to do this week in Morocco at COP22, the latest global climate talks.

They have to turn the Paris pledges into immediate action. They need to revise those pledges upwards, to have a chance of limiting global warming to less than 2C, the Paris goal. And they must focus their action on the world's most vulnerable countries.

When it comes to climate change, many African countries are doubly vulnerable. They are often the first to feel the effects of global warming, despite having contributed little to climate change. And they lack the finance, technology and capacity they need to adapt to those effects. They need more resources, skills, systems and institutions.

With the limited means that it has, Africa has shown that it can be a world leader in renewable energy. The Africa Progress Panel--Chaired by Kofi Annan, of which I am a member, spelled this out clearly in its 2015 report, Power People Planet: Seizing Africa's Energy and Climate Opportunities.

Africa could lead the world in every kind of climate action. But it needs sustained assistance. Developed country governments and international finance institutions have a duty to help Africa.

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Supporting Africa is also a crucial investment in the future of the planet. Africa may have contributed little so far to climate change, but the continent's population is set to carry on rising for many decades, which will mean more greenhouse gas emissions unless Africa gets the help it needs.

We know what we need to do. The Paris Agreement spells it out. We need to cut greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation). We need to cope with the effects of global warming (adaptation). And the countries that are suffering harm from climate change, or "loss and damage", need compensation.

Those are the ingredients. But in Africa the recipe is different from elsewhere in the world. African countries need more support for adaptation than they are getting - and more compensation for "loss and damage".

The Paris Agreement also outlines the kind of support countries need: finance, technology and capacity building. Once again the combination in Africa is different. The need for finance is large and urgent, as is the need for capacity building.

How can countries make sure at COP22 that the world's most vulnerable regions get the assistance they need? It is imperative that every country in the world shows that it complies with the letter and spirit of the Paris Agreement, by acting to keep all of its climate pledges.

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Crucially, universal compliance with the Paris pledges means coming up with the money that is vital to enable every country to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. In Paris, countries agreed to jointly come up with $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020. At COP22, they must finalise the "roadmap" towards raising that sum.

Countries who will receive part of that $100 billion need to know when and how much they will get, so that they can plan their adaptation measures and their transition towards a low-carbon economy. They also need to know how much they will get from two other climate funds, the Adaptation Fund and the Least Developed Country Fund.

At the COP22 meeting, its likely delegates will celebrate the entry into force of the Paris Agreement. And so they should. But the best way they could honour that historic agreement is not just to keep it but to reinforce it. A key aspect of the agreement was its commitment to regularly revising its targets. A mechanism has been put in place to do that -- the Facilitative Dialogue. Countries need to lend it serious support.

If we needed another spur to action at COP22, it arrived in September. The World Meteorological Organization announced that global average CO2 levels had just surpassed 400 parts per million - for the first time in 3 million years.

Three million years ago, when CO2 levels were last as high as they are now, global temperatures were as much as 3C higher than now. Ice sheets were dramatically smaller. Sea levels were up to 3 metres higher.

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That's the scenario we face. We know what we have to do to avoid it and to contribute to keep for our children a world inhabitable.

Michel Camdessus, a former head of the International Monetary Fund, is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), which consists of ten distinguished individuals from the private and public sector who advocate for equitable and sustainable development for Africa.

Kofi Annan, chairs the panel and is closely involved in its day-to-day work. The other panel members are Peter Eigen, Bob Geldof, Graca Machel, Strive Masiyiwa, Linah Mohohlo, Olusegun Obasanjo, Robert Rubin and Tidjane Thiam.
Muslims of Philippines break my heart. They are beautiful, devoted and sincere, but also poor, marginalized and living directly or indirectly under the shadow of war for nearly four hundred years.

Muslim presence in the islands that now constitute the modern Philippines date back to the fourteenth century. But for much of their history, Muslims in Philippines have been fighting against invasions and efforts to reform and govern them by, Chinese, Japanese, the Spanish, the Americans and now the Filipinos.

There are anywhere between 5-10% Muslims in Philippines, a vast majority of them living in the southern Island of Mindanao. The challenge to integrate Muslims within the modern state of Philippines remains one of the main political issues for this rapidly developing and emerging nation of predominantly Catholics.

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The mainstream society is concerned with Muslim rebels, demands for autonomy and even independence, the terrorism committed by some groups and the potential rise of extremism. Until the US tried to subsume the Moro struggle under the umbrella of war on terror, this issue was primarily of autonomy and accommodation. Now it is part of the war on terrorism. For Mindanao Muslims, the issue is about preserving culture and religious heritage and also land rights in the face of Christian migration to their islands that has made them a minority in their own homeland. They also suffer from neglect and bad governance, living in the poorest of neighborhoods and the most underdeveloped of provinces.

I am here in Manila to speak on a Plenary session on Federalism at the annual conference of the Philippines Society of Public Administration. The conference has been hosted by De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, one of Philippines' most dynamic academic institutions with a truly global perspective.

On the sidelines of this conference, I met and interacted with Muslims of Philippines and had some fascinating conversations about Islam and democracy, about nation states, revival and reform of Islamic thought and the state of Muslims as minorities.

My first visit on November 02, 2016, was to the Philippines Center of Islam and Democracy, on the campus of the University of Philippines headed by one of the most prominent and internationally renowned Muslim advocate for democracy and peace, Amina Rasul. I made the case for the compatibility of Islam and democracy and pluralism based on Islamic sources. I also explored the call for "Islamic reform" and its ramifications to Muslims who live as minorities; a reality that I as an American Muslim shared with the academics, community leaders and intellectuals who attended the dialogue.

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From their questions, I realized that the Muslim leaders of Philippines were very concerned by the narrow interpretations of Islam that were being imported from the Middle East and the rising extremism on the fringes of the society. The leaders themselves want to advance an understanding of Islam that would be open to democracy, interfaith tolerance and gender equity. They also were deeply disturbed by the rise of Donald Trump and the attendant Islamophobia in America. They seemed genuinely puzzled and a bit frightened by the prospect of someone like Donald Trump becoming the President of the United States. You can read more about the dialog by clicking this link.

One of the highlights of my trip was the opportunity to meet and have lunch with former Senator Santanina Rasul. Senator Rasul was the first Muslim female Senator of Philippines and is considered as one of the stars on the nation's political firmament. It was a great honor that she came to listen to me and as I met her, she is now 87, I lamented the fact that a few extremists are maligning a community that has given this world such distinguished and path-breaking leaders like her.

On Friday, November 4th, the Filipino Muslims extended me an extraordinary honor. I was invited to give the Friday sermon at the Blue Mosque in Manila. It is one of the grandest mosques in the area with a huge following. I spoke to them about the essence of peace in the Islamic tradition and the importance of education and knowledge accumulation. I invited them to focus on encouraging pursuit of higher education, to build interfaith relations, to focus on development and to inculcate pride in their own culture while adhering to their religion. I reminded them of the responsibilities they have towards the safety and well-being of their community and their neighbors. I had an hour-long question and answer session with some of the congregants and it gave me some insight into their socio-political reality.

Muslims, who live as minorities in democratic societies have their own unique problems. Integration, assimilation and faith preservation is always a concern. The rise of Islamophobia and right wing politics is a growing challenge globally. And in many places, like Kashmir in India, Mindanao in Philippines, for Kurds in Turkey, movements for autonomy and self-determination further complicate citizenship and community development. Muslims in Philippines however do have a national agency, the National commission on Filipino Muslims, to guide and coordinate their efforts to integrate and develop.

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I felt welcome and honored by the Muslims of Philippines. I hope I was able to bring some ideas, insights and inspiration to them.
Governments meet in Marrakech this year for the annual climate negotiations with a spring in their step. Last year's Paris Agreement has come into effect in record time and been reinforced by a domino of measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions from chemicals, aviation and shipping. Yet beneath the smiles, there remains the hard reality that current measures in place are simply inadequate to hold global warming to below 2C and ideally to just 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. According to UN Environment, today's commitments will reduce emissions by no more than a third of the levels required by 2030, risking warming of up to 3.4C.

Finance is a key lever to close this gap - and one of the significant innovations of the Paris Agreement was to introduce a new international objective of 'making financial flows consistent with low-greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.' This means rethinking how the US$300 trillion of assets within the global financial system can now generate value within a limited carbon budget and an increasingly disrupted ecosystem.

At the heart of the challenge is how to mobilise far more, cheaper and better quality finance for climate action, particularly in the developing world. We now know that the transition does not require additional costs compared with the status quo. But it does involve a fundamental two-fold reallocation of finance both from high- to low-carbon assets and from vulnerable to resilient investments. Climate solutions invariably mean replacing the consumption of natural resources with human ingenuity and technology. From a financial perspective, this implies a more capital intensive system, one that is balanced by far lower operating costs, particularly in terms of energy use. This is the reason why the cost of capital is one of the key variables which will determine whether the transition will take place in time.

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Across the world's financial system, positive signs of momentum can be observed. Indeed, actions that were unthinkable a few years ago are now being taken. Industrialised countries have just published a roadmap for mobilising US$100 billion in annual flows to developing countries by 2020 - a pledge that was first made in 2009. Latest estimates suggest that actual flows of climate finance into developing countries have risen from US$52 billion in 2013 to US$62 billion in 2014. The new Green Climate Fund has just taken decisions to commit US$1 billion this year to developing countries.

Over in the investment world, institutions with over US$10 trillion in assets have committed to publish a 'carbon footprint' of their portfolio - and a leading group is going further by taking action to decarbonise their portfolios across US$600 billion of assets. The 'green bond' market is booming, with issuance so far this year of US$65 billion, up from just US$11 billion in 2013. Investors want to buy green assets and countries such as China, India, Morocco and Nigeria see green bonds as offering a new tool to finance their ambitions for sustainable development. And some of the world's leading financial centres such as Hong Kong, London and Paris are now involved in a race to claim their share of the green finance prize.

Key financial actors such as central banks and regulators that were once absent from the scene are also taking action. In September, the People's Bank of China together with six other financial agencies published a 35-point set of guidelines for 'greening the financial system'. The Bank of England has undertaken the first review of the implications of climate change for the financial system - one factor that led to the establishment of a new Task Force under the Financial Stability Board to set out a roadmap for consistent climate disclosure to enable business and investors to make informed decisions. For the first time, G20 finance ministries and central banks have this year recognised the need to 'scale up green finance', identifying a set of steps to mobilise private capital. In all, UN Environment has estimated that the number of policy and regulatory measures to promote more sustainable finance has doubled to over 200 in the past five years.

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This unprecedented momentum, however, is still far from ensuring that the world's financial flows become 'climate consistent'. To take one indicator: only 0.4% of the assets of the world's top 500 asset owners have been identified in low-carbon investments. The reasons for this are not a mystery. Public finance for climate action may be growing, but remains insufficient both in terms of volume and allocation: only a fraction is supporting developing countries to adapt to climate shocks, for example. In the wider financial system, the costs of carbon pollution are still not reflected in market prices - and in many countries, are actually rewarded through the continued use of fossil fuel subsidies. Currently, financial institutions are not rewarded for the climate performance of their decisions. Furthermore, the short-termism of capital markets can mean that the strategic shifts required for the climate transition appear to be always over the horizon.

The theme of the Marrakech conference is to move from the high-level commitments made in Paris to action on the ground. Across the financial system, there is now real appetite to bring together the policy frameworks and market innovation needed to drive this transformation. A key starting point is to ensure that each country's policies for financial sector development are in tune with its climate plans (known in UN language as the 'nationally determined contributions'). For developing countries, greater visibility is then needed on the steps that will be taken to deliver the precious US$100 billion to support these investment plans, particularly to withstand mounting climate shocks. For each segment of the system, the key policy levers that could scale up green finance and avoid stranded assets need to be identified and refreshed, from disclosure standards through stress test requirements to capital weights for banks and insurers. The gulf between 'high finance' and the real world facing small enterprises and households also has to be bridged. Here, fintech innovations such as peer-to-peer finance could help to substantially improve access to capital. Ultimately, a climate finance dashboard will be needed to track the climate performance of the world's capital stocks and flows so that decarbonisation and resilience become the norm. Setting in motion actions such as these would ensure that Marrakech is known for really moving the money.
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New Hampshire's Maggie Hassan was the Democratic party's biggest investment in Congress. It paid off -- she defeated incumbent GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte.

While super PACs and other outside groups went on a jaw-dropping spending spree this year, traditional party organizations played key roles in boosting their candidates, often taking the lead in making independent expenditures in the cycle's barnburner races.

Together, the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee raised a combined $1.7 billion through Oct. 19, the last date covered by Federal Election Commission reports due before the election -- but they went in opposite directions.

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The Democratic party boosted its spending to $922.9 million through mid-October, a $108.6 million increase from its outlays at the same point in 2012. Republican party groups, on the other hand, managed to win the presidency and maintain the majority in the both houses of Congress by investing just $665.7 million this cycle -- a drop of nearly $112 million from their spending through mid-October four years ago.

Each party's spending topped $1 billion by the end of 2012; it's likely the Dems will get there this time around, but the Republicans may well fall short of that level.As party-backed -- but not officially party-affiliated -- super PACs such as Senate Leadership Fund and Senate Majority PAC have become financial powerhouses, traditional party groups have also turned to independent expenditures as their main mechanism for assisting candidates.

During the 2012 election cycle, Democratic party groups gave a total of $1.2 million to 359 House candidates, but halted at a mere $554,370 to 174 candidates this year. Democratic Senate candidates received $702,891 donations from party committees in 2012 but only $603,280 this year. Similarly, Republican party groups had contributed a total of $1.8 million to House and Senate candidates in 2012, but only about $827,000 this year.

Instead, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spent about $136 million together independently of their candidates this election, which tops the $94.2 million and the $113.3 million the party committees had spent by the end of 2014 and 2012 respectively. The National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee made $112.4 million in independent outlays this cycle, continuing the march upward from $105 million in 2014 and $96.7 million in 2012.

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The Democratic party's biggest investment this election cycle, the New Hampshire Senate race where the DSCC spent $12 million, finally paid off after all the votes were counted hours after the polls closed; Democratic challenger Maggie Hassan beat GOP incumbent Kelly Ayotte by only 716 votes. In the Pennsylvania Senate race, Democratic candidate Katie McGinty failed to turn the seat blue, losing to incumbent Republican Pat Toomey even when backed by the party committee with $11.7 million. The Pennsylvania and New Hampshire Senate contests were two of the most expensive congressional races ever, with campaigns and outside groups spending a total of $164 million and $121 million each.

On top of the NRSC's futile $6.8 million effort in the New Hampshire Senate race, it spent $7.5 million trying, unsuccessfully, to snare retiring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Nevada seat . That one went to Democratic candidate Catherine Cortez Masto, who defeated Rep. Joe Heck.

In the lower chamber, the DCCC spent $4.8 million trying to get Steve Santarsiero elected in Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District, but Santarsiero lost. The competition to fill Republican Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick's seat became the third most expensive House race this year, counting both campaign and outside spending.

The race that was the NRCC's biggest target this year didn't work out well, either, as incumbent Crescent Harty failed to secure his Nevada's 4th congressional seat from Democratic challenger Ruben Kihuen despite the party committee's $5.9 million support.

In the presidential race, the independent spending of party groups was almost invisible compared with the role it played in the match between President Barack Obama and his Republican counterpart Mitt Romney four years ago.

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In 2012, Republican party groups led by the Republican National Committee spent nearly $66 million, in both coordinated and independent ads attacking Obama and supporting Romney. By mid-October his year, only about $379,000 had been spent against Clinton and for Trump.
I was about to go to bed early Wednesday morning with Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona still "too close to call." Then, minutes after John Podesta told the thousands of HC supporters at the Javits Center that it wasn't over and they'd reconvene in the morning, Hillary suddenly called Trump to concede.

Having binge-watched the news coverage of this cycle on MSNBC and CNN for the last 15 months and after reading a host of other web news sources this is my analysis of what happened in two words:

LIBERAL ARROGANCE

1) It was the arrogance of Hillary Clinton in setting up the private email server so that she could avoid scrutiny for the way she and Bill used the Clinton Foundation, in the words of Trump, as "their own private hedge fund."

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If you drill down on the reporting on this -- and yes, much of the evidence came from the Russian-hacked Wikileaks emails -- you'll see that, as much as Dems hate to admit it, this was one of the few pronouncements Trump got entirely right.

PAY-TO-PLAY

Whatever good the Foundation may have done worldwide it made the Clintons multi-millionaires and gave new meaning to the age old Washington practice of pay-to-play. Just consider one particularly egregious example:

Between 2009 and 2013 The Clinton Foundation received three contributions totaling $2.35 million from funding sources tied to the chairman of Uranium One, a Canadian mining consortium that was eventually taken over by Rosatom, Russia's atomic energy agency.

As a result, Vladamir Putin effectively got control of one-fifth of all uranium production in the U.S. But because that ore is a strategic asset, for the deal to go through it required the approval of The U.S. State Department, then run by Hillary Clinton. And yes, she failed to disclose the quid-pro-quo despite her agreement with the Obama administration to identify all foundation donors.

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As if that wasn't conflict enough, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for a single speech to a Russian investment bank in Moscow, tied to the Kremlin which was promoting Uranium One's stock at the time. While this charge was first published in "Clinton Cash," a book by Peter Schweitzer, a fellow at the hyper-conservative Hoover Foundation, it was reported seriously by The NYT.

THE WHITE WORKING CLASS

2) More arrogance from Hillary in ignoring the largest single voting block in the U.S.: the white working class. Millions of hard working families who have been decimated by globalization and those trade deals like NAFTA (which Bill signed) and the TPP which HRC did call "the gold standard" before she flip-flopped under pressure following Bernie Sanders' surge.

Post convention she never even visited Wisconsin, treating it as "in the bag," the way she'd counted on her Super Delegates. She was only slightly more present in Michigan -- two of the states that put Donald Trump over the 270 electoral vote threshold.

It has to be noted, however, that for the second time in 16 years a Democratic nominee won the popular vote only to lose in the archaic Electoral College.

3) It was arrogance once more in Mrs. Clinton's under estimation of Sen. Sanders and the populist movement he unleashed for all the best reasons vs. the dark ones exploited by Trump.

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HANDS ON THE SCALE

4) It was her audacity (as we now know from the hacked emails) in using Debbie Wasserman Schultz to manipulate the early primary debate schedule in her favor and use the DNC shameleslly to favor Clinton over Sanders.

5) It was the arrogance of the media (still largely moderate-to-left despite Fox News, Breitbart, Drudge and all the whacko right-wing radio crazies) in missing the story of how those working class whites never recovered from the "Great recession" of 2008.

To be sure that crisis was precipitated by Bush 43's GOP Wall Street self-regulation policies. Further, Obama did his best to rescue the economy; including saving the auto industry which Trump was willing to let die. But for those blue-collar whites, the recovery was too slow or never came at all.

CAVING EARLY ON OBAMACARE

6) It was the President's caving to Tea Party pressure in the set-up of the Affordable Care Act which eliminated "the public option" and that became a poison pill for his historic legislation. As most of the western world has proven, a government guarantee is the only way to make universal health care truly "affordable."

And in the aftermath of last night's loss, we have to ask: who was the short-sighted Obama staffer who helped set the reporting deadline on the progress of "Obamacare" two weeks out from the Presidential Election, when it soon became clear that with craven health insurers dropping out, the deductibles were going through the roof?

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COMEY'S UNPRECEDETED INTERVENTION

7) Then there were the suspicious "optics" of that "chance encounter" between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the tarmac just days before James Comey offered his unprecedented conclusion July 5th that while Hil and her staff were "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information... no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."

The FBI Director followed that with his bombshell October 28th letter to Congress suggesting the email probe had been reopened, but offering zero details while creating a cloud of innuendo over the Democratic candidate particularly following the leaked hint that the probe was tied to Anthony "Carlos Danger" Weiner.

And if that wasn't enough to cause whiplash in Clinton's Brooklyn Headquarters, there was Comey's Sunday-before-the-election announcement that the new mini-probe had found nothing to change his mind.

With an Obama appointee like James Comey who needed Steve Bannon or Karl Rove?

THE MINORITY'S FAIL TO DELIVER

8) I don't know if I'd called it arrogance or indifference, but we need to cite the failure of Black Americans to get out in Obama-level numbers despite the president's urgent pleadings in the last two weeks for them to help save his legacy.

One example came in Motor City: In 2012 Obama beat Romney by more than 381,000 votes in Wayne County, Michigan, the state's largest and most African-American county. But last night Clinton beat Trump in metro Detroit by only 287,000 votes, a 90,000 ballot gap between her county-wide win and Obama's victory there.

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Apparently Trump's "what have you got to lose?" line resonated, because he actually carried 8% of Blacks nationwide compared to Mitt Romney's 6%.

9) Then there were the Latinos who were libeled, theatened and marginzalized by Trump for the last year and three months, only to produce...

THE STUNNER OF THE NIGHT...

Although Hispanics signed up to vote in record numbers this year DONALD TRUMP GOT 29% OF THEM! Moments ago on CNN, Maria Cardona, an Latina pundit, said the number was actually just under 20%, but that's still one in five.

10) As to the pollsters, it's clear that in using their modern cell-phone and social media techniques they failed to connect with the millions of rural white Americans who still have dial-up phones, deer rifles in their pick-up trucks and Toby Keith on their CD players.

Remember the end of "Easy Rider?" In the words of Dennis Hopper as he was shotgunned off his Harley, "We blew it!!!"

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A WARNING SIGN:

Three weeks back in a NYT piece there was a signal that this "silent majority" was ready to come to the voting booths in droves. Reporter Stephen Hiltner took an eight day 3,000 mile drive through the backroads of the U.S. and saw nothing but Trump yard signs. It was anecdotal but telling.

This election was Liberal America's to lose and they lost it. All they can pray for now is that Trump, who has shown himself to be a chameleon, will be the "magnanimous Donald" vs. the "lock her up," special prosecutor, vengeful, vindictive Donald. After all, the Clintons and Trumps were once cooperating celebrities and with Donald his love of the spotlight and his urge to recreate himself in ever more audacious new roles, may just "trump" his dark side.
Every year 650,000 individuals are released from prison and thrust back into the real world after months, years, or even decades away. Coming home and trying to find a sense of independence and normalcy is often the number one goal for a population that has been confined to a place as dehumanizing as prison. However, few can anticipate just how hard reentry can be when you've got a felony conviction branded on your chest, and a feeling that the world wants you to fail.

After years of advocating on behalf of reentering citizens, we're finally seeing a huge wave of support for the "ban the box" movement and fair hiring practices in jobs and education. Fair chance hiring enables those with a conviction to be viewed on a job, apartment, and college application as a person first, rather than the sum of their past mistakes. By waiting until the later stages of the hiring process to ask whether a person has a criminal conviction, an employer sees the promise and positive qualities of a candidate, instead of just the fact the person has a prior offense. This practice makes sense, given the fact that roughly one-third of our population now has a criminal conviction on record.

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Currently, more than 150 jurisdictions in 24 states have passed laws preventing public agencies from asking about criminal history on job applications. Nine states and many other cities have followed suit, extending "ban the box" efforts to encompass private companies as well. The Department of Education even released a "Beyond the Box" initiative encouraging colleges and universities in this country to stop asking potential students about their pasts.

In fact, it was a push from my organization, the Education from the Inside Out Coalition (EIO Coalition) to ban the box in higher education that spurred the DOE to take action. Even the largest public university system in the nation-the State University of New York-vowed to move the box off its initial college applications in September because of the EIO Coalition's organizing and public education efforts.

However, research showing that "ban the box" practices may have a reverse effect on the hiring of minority candidates is threatening to unravel the work that many have done to protect this vulnerable population. The study sent out 15,000 fictitious applications to companies in New Jersey and New York City before and after fair hiring/ban the box initiatives were passed.

The study showed that without being able to ask whether a person has a criminal conviction on an application, employers are instead reverting to horrible stereotypes based on a person's name, and inviting fewer applicants with minority-sounding names to second round interviews since the laws in those states were passed. It was found that ban the box practices did help those with "white-sounding" names, but if the name seemed vaguely black or brown, the applicants were less likely to get a callback.

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There's a lot to unpack in this study, but saying ban the box should be reversed because it is ineffective isn't an accurate or useful conclusion. If anything, this study highlights the outdated mindset some employers unfortunately still have regarding the 77 million people who have been arrested in this country.

What we need isn't to further question laws meant to protect the vulnerable, but to focus on sensitivity and diversity training in the workforce. Effective training should emphasize the implications mass incarceration has on the workforce. Just think: if all arrested Americans made their own country, it would be the 18th largest in the world, larger than both Canada and France. Can you imagine cutting out all of Canada from job, housing, and college applications?
When we look at American history, the great progressive eras follow the darkest, most conservative times. As deeply painful as a Trump presidency will be, if we continue to build the emerging progressive movements of our day, we will accelerate the coming of the next powerful burst of progressive change in our country.

The Dred Scott decision was laid down three years before Lincoln's election. The gilded age of the robber barons created the conditions for the Progressive era of the early 1900s. The Great Depression preceded the New Deal. The multiple progressive advances of the 60s through early 70s came on the heels of McCarthyism.

The ground for every one of these progressive eras was laid by decades of organizing leading to the emergence of movements. From the abolitionists, to the suffragettes, the Populists, the labor movement, the civil rights movement and environmental consciousness, we saw organizing in what seemed fallow ground, followed by vibrant movements and then -- when all seemed lost -- enormous progress towards justice.

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To be sure, the excesses and contradictions of the dominant regime of the time -- whether it be slavery, patriarchy or capitalism -- created the conditions in people's lives for them to demand major change. Today the excesses of capitalism and the continuing forces of racism and patriarch drive our movements: the fight for $15 and a union; Black Lives Matter; climate justice; LGBTQ equality; welcoming immigrants.

What must we do now to assure that Trump and the next four years of Republican control of government becomes the doormat to the next great progressive era? The short answer is to continue to build movement and to connect those movements to resisting Trumpism, championing bold ideas nationally and moving those ideas in states.

As President Trump moves much of the Republican priorities in Congress, there will be too many opportunities to fight back. Different parts of the progressive movement will prioritize different issues, but all must do three things.

One is to aggressively resist the proposals and refuse to engage in discussions of compromise; we need to make the harm they will do to people crystal clear, always asking whether Republicans are on the side of the rich and powerful or working families and the middle class.

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Two, resist through mobilizing large numbers of people, through bringing movement tactics to legislative work. Part of our task is to shape the national narrative, which movements do with bold action. And part of the task is to set up for the 2018 and 2020 elections, to defeat Republicans while emboldening Democrats and promoting champions. While we run national campaigns, intense work needs to be in the districts of Republicans who are vulnerable. In stopping Democrats, particularly in the Senate, who might go along with the Republican agenda.

What that means is rather than just doing conventional tactics -- petitions, in-district meetings, letters to the editor -- we need to organize big marches on offices, hold sit-ins, clog up phone lines, relentlessly bird-dog legislators wherever they go. This is hard work and will be better accomplished if groups coordinate across issues and alliances.

Three, we need to build movements for bold solutions nationally and in the states. We've seen the power of the Fight for $15 to transform the minimum wage movement from incremental to significant. We saw how Bernie's call for big ideas energized people.

Nationally, at the same time we vehemently protest Trump-Republican actions, we should lift big progressive ideas. When they vote to dismantle the ACA, we should both point out the extraordinary harm it will do to millions of Americans and organize instead for Medicare for All. When they vote to give mammoth tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, we should fight for raising taxes on the rich and big corporations. If they vote to build a wall we should demand a quick pathway to citizenship.

We should work with our champions in Congress in to promote a progressive vision and agenda on issues that Trump and the Republicans will ignore: Raise the minimum wage to $15; free public college; public financing of elections; ending mass incarceration.

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While the national battles will advance progressive ideas we should continue to make those ideas into reality in states and cities. It is true that states have historically served as laboratories for many progressive ideas that eventually became national policy. Local campaigns are fertile opportunities for movement building, as people feel it is possible to make change locally and transcend the gridlock and powerful forces in Washington.

Today we see states and cities enacting higher minimum wages and paid family leave. Voters in two Ohio cities approved tax increases for pre-K. Voters in Maryland and California approved county and city laws to set up small donor campaign financing.

State and local elections are the best opportunity to elect new progressive leaders, as we saw this year as more young and diverse champions were voted into office. We need to build partnerships with these newly elected leaders and with other progressives in office, many of whom have felt isolated.

In the aftermath of the election, progressives are trying to understand the implications of Trump's support from white, working class voters for our strategy. A key goal of the work above is to make it clear to many of these people that Trump and the Republicans will deliver for Wall Street, not for them.

We should not kid ourselves that the loss of white status is not also a driving force or that we will be able to overcome racism for many people with an economic appeal. But we do not need all of them -- we need those who can be moved. I have seen in my own life's work how multi-racial organizing on economic issues can build relationships that transcend racial barriers. We should do that throughout our campaign work wherever possible.

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But we should also remember that we saw with Bernie's campaign that a progressive who makes it absolutely clear which side he or she stands on, can attract many more of these voters than we will be able to reach through our organizing.

Over the last two years I have often said to colleagues that the quickest way to a new progressive moment is probably also the most painful, by being forced to fight rightwing control of our government. I would never have wanted that to happen, because the cost to people's lives is too great. But it has.

Clinton's election, her hands tied by a Republican Congress, would have meant more years of gridlock and attempted compromises and rightwing blaming everything on the Democratic president. It would have led to more public confusion and despair.

The door is now wide open to the next progressive era in American history. It's up to us to build the growing movements of our time to march through that door.
I still remember 9/11. I was just 11 years old and woke up to phone calls from extended family living abroad. We were safe in our apartment in suburban Los Angeles and as I sat with my eyes glued to the TV screen, my only thought was who would do such a thing to my beloved country?

The weeks that followed 9/11 were terrifying. My mom had just started wearing the hijab (headscarf) the year prior, and every single day there was news of attacks against Muslims, of police raids on Muslim households, of hostility toward Muslims. I still remember my dad pleading with her to take off the headscarf, but to no avail. I went to school everyday terrified - terrified that my mom would be the victim of someone's bigotry, anger, and ignorance.

That is what it is like being Muslim in America.

Even before 9/11 happened, my parents liked to remind us, often, that we are Arab first, American second. We are Sudanese and Egyptian and we should not forgot our culture, lest we be swept away by the "bad influence" of high school parties, American pop culture, and rap music. My parents were incredibly strict, but it was out of fear: fear that we'd "lose" our culture, but also fear that we'd be punished because of it.

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I was the staunch defender of American culture. It was America that allowed me to become the stubborn and opinionated person I am today (much to my parents' chagrin and pride).

"It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent." -Madeleine Albright

While I never lied about my religion or culture, I grew up keeping it under wraps to the extent that I could. My dad had this pacifist philosophy that we should all keep our head down and move forward and I was on board (albeit, mostly out of fear).

It had been nearly 7 years since 9/11 by the time I entered university. I was no longer scared to tell people I am Muslim. There were those few hate crimes here and there, but anti-Muslim sentiment was over, for the most part. Or so I idealistically thought.

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In 2015, anti-Muslim hate crime increased 78 percent compared to 2014. Seventy-eight percent. Hate crime directed at Arabs jumped by an even higher 219%. Trump officially announced his candidacy in June of 2015, but his anti-Muslim rhetoric started long before that. I can't blame him entirely, though. The media fueled him. The media never stopped calling Muslims terrorists. They did so at every opportunity. The media tells us at that all Muslims are terrorists, all Mexicans are illegal immigrants, and all African Americans are gangsters. And you know what? People believe the media. People living in homogenous cities where they don't interact with Muslims turn to the media for "education." Or perhaps this was simply a case of confirmation bias - the media supporting ideologies people already believed in.

Today, I am 11 years old again, terrified for my mom's safety - and the safety of the entire Muslim-American community.

People like to say we live in a post-racial society. That is the furthest from the truth. Donald Trump, a sexist and racist bigot, was just elected to be the president of the United States. When I look at the exit polls, it wasn't just rural America that he appealed to. He also captured nearly 50% of the White, college-educated vote too. The "silent majority" stayed silent until Election Day, and that is how Donald Trump became president.

I am disappointed in rural America, sure. But this was always Trump's target audience. What scares me the most is knowing that half of the college-educated White population - the ones who aren't likely to be working in dying industries in the rural United States - also voted for him. I can say, with utmost certainty, that several close friends or loved ones voted for him. I don't know who they are, but in my mind, I can no longer continue these friendships.

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This is NOT about politics. It was never about politics. This wasn't about who was going to raise or cut taxes. This wasn't about Obamacare. This wasn't even about abortion or foreign policy. Every single person who voted for Trump supported a platform of anti-immigration, sexism, racism, and hatred. They've just told me that my life and the lives of millions of Americans do not matter. By voting for Trump, they've declared that White Lives Matter. Not Black Lives Matter. Not All Lives Matter. White Lives Matter. Because to vote for someone who has been endorsed by the KKK, someone who has insulted every single ethnic and religious group, someone who has insulted women and veterans - they've showed the world that making America great means cleansing it of nearly half its population.

Today, I do not feel safe or wanted in the country that I've called home for my entire life. My parents, my family and my friends don't feel safe. I'm sure that other minorities, the entire LGBTQ community and a significant amount of women don't feel safe.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Maybe next month. Maybe then we will feel empowered to pick up the pieces and fight the good fight. Not today. Today, I mourn for my country.
Our home is once again just my husband and mine. Family members and out-of-towners who worked tirelessly for Hillary have left. Our Hillary/Kane stickers are on the hall mirror, where they will stay for a very, very long time.

Now that this long nightmare of an election is finally over, I want to tell you something that I did not want to discuss in any way. Yes, I am stunned by an election result I find appalling. But this said, I am not one bit surprised. Trump signs were all over Pennsylvania suburbs and in our rural areas. So were the "leaners." This was for two reasons. Please read on.....

It was clear to me from his earliest days on the campaign trail that Donald Trump touched a nerve, unseen by most pundits and power-brokers. This nerve belonged to a large group of Americans who feel unheard, left behind and isolated in a country they believe that they, their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents built, and that their loved ones had died for in two World Wars, in Korea, in Viet Nam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan.

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These are not the privileged people, the intellectuals and millionaire/ billionaires in Washington, New York and Los Angeles who eat in fancy restaurants, shop in high priced stores, and see theatre critical of our country. They feel lucky to be able to afford McDonalds, and "Saturday Night Live" is not their cup of tea.

This large sector works very hard - yet has less and less financial power. They see their futures as bleak, and fear for the future of their kids, whom they love as dearly and deeply as the far more fortunate love ours. They surely cannot afford to send them to privileged colleges. Many cringe at the musical talent, the dress, and the messages adored by the fortunate. And they see a truth, again and again reiterated by Donald Trump: Washington is broken. Further, they see their truth: They and their loved ones are invisible to the powerful.

I want to share the moment I felt certain we had lost -- and bit my tongue so that the kids in our home, and their parents and friends would not know my thoughts. It was after the enormous rally here in Philly where, with Constitution Hall as backdrop, musical stars once again performed their hearts out for Hillary and great political stars surrounded her. In contrast, Donald Trump stood on the stage, surrounded by his loyalist fans, and told the world that these ardent supporters were different. They were his family.

There is another unsettling reason for our loss, one that played out constantly in conversation and written word: Hillary and Bill are disliked and distrusted by so many. Sadly, the leaks and other horrors during this election process created a perfect storm, which intensified their dislike and yes, their hatred.

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To these folks, the pragmatism that has often guided the Clintons' enormous successes and comebacks brought only contempt. They did not care about all of the good in their public lives and all the opportunities their Foundation brought to the world. They did not care that Hillary is experienced or that she and the press revealed Trump's consistent lies. They did not care about Trump's terrifying comments concerning other Americans. Or about tax returns, demeaning behavior, or example after example of Donald Trump's sexual harassment.

As with Bernie Sanders (who also, to my knowledge, never revealed his tax returns), Trump's candidacy appealed to millions who are untrusting of and furious about the obliviousness of the wealthy and privileged to their downward spiral, as well as the direction of our country - the endless war on terror, our unsafe borders -- and the seeming indifference of every American institution they no longer trust to protect them.

Yes, like Al Gore, Hillary won the majority, but not the election. The Gore defeat in itself should have been a wake-up call to Democrats about the growing red hot rage of those burned out and burned up - those who longed for compassion and opportunity in our enormously fast paced society, but found only isolation.

So now Donald Trump is President-elect of our beloved country, and Republican grass root investment and Trump have given the Republicans the majority in both House and Senate. However, our Constitution guarantees a mature transition, and we must not forget that one of the beauties of our democracy is our system of checks and balances, more important now than ever as we move toward a Trump administration. One of these checks and balances is our blessing of free speech -- now giving President-elect Trump an earful from those of us terrified by his words, plans, and impulsiveness -- and peacefully reminding him of his promise to be the President of us all.

For millions now is a time to "Cry My Beloved Country." But then, to wipe our eyes, see straight, and deal with our reality, as painful as it is. And deal we are, and deal we will.
Grey aliens.

Who speaks for Earth?

If scientists ever succeed in making contact with extraterrestrial beings, who gets to steer the conversation? Indeed, how do we even have a conversation? Despite what Gene Roddenberry told you, any real aliens' command of English will be meager.

A major new sci-fi film, Arrival, deals with these and other frequently ignored matters. Its unconventional style is both understated and cerebral. This is not a shoot-'em-up alien flick; rather, the makers have emphasized empathy and character development, an approach that may disappoint middle school boys, but is refreshing for the rest of us.

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The first thing that becomes obvious once the film gets into its second reel is that it has veered from the usual playbook for cosmic encounters. In nine out of ten films featuring space beings, the aliens - presumably cranky from a peanutless trip of hundreds of trillions of miles - take it out on the locals. A favorite amusement is to level cities and zap the citizenry. The hunt is on, and the peasants are the pheasants. Cue the computer-generated imagery.

That, at least, makes for a straightforward story line, and is an excuse for an alien wilding in which iconic buildings are the first to go.

But the visitors in Arrival aren't interested in giving postcard cities instant urban renewal. They've got some problem in their future that only our descendants can solve. Consequently, they're here to negotiate and play nice.

Unfortunately, there's still that pesky language barrier. A linguist (Amy Adams) and a theoretical physicist (Jeremy Renner) are brought to bear, seeking ways to converse with these squid-like guests.

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There's a faint hint of reality in this, because honest-to-goodness academics have thought about how we might deal with the language problem should our radio telescopes pick up a signal from another world. Some scientists have proposed devising patter based on mathematics. My preference would be to simply compile a picture dictionary. Even a few hundred words might be adequate for simple conversation of the kind found in most dive bars.

In the film, this latter approach is taken and, gratifyingly, works out. The calamari creatures are soon spelling out sentences in their own inefficient writing style while bellowing like a sousaphone quartet. It's better banter than what Chris Columbus was able to manage with the Caribbean natives.

But even aside from the chit-chat, you have to admire the innovative way in which Arrival depicts its aliens. Central Casting's little gray guys, with their glabrous complexions, big eyes, and anthropomorphic build, have been jettisoned in favor of large, shadowy creatures who stay behind glass in their own life-sustaining atmosphere. Indeed, you might suspect that they share some evolutionary heritage with redwood trees, given their preference for a foggy environment.

Whatever they're breathing, it can't be put in tanks, 'cause these aliens never leave their spaceships. That's novel too. Imagine sending humans to the moon, but with instructions to keep the hatch closed and never, ever take a small step for your species. And unlike the interiors of most interstellar rockets, the ones in Arrival are devoid of flashing lights, computer screens, knobs, dials, white plastic, or any other geeky accoutrements. Their vessels are more spartan than Leonidas.

And then there's the aliens' peculiar conception of time that, like their writing style, is somehow circular. I had a vague unease that this probably violates fundamental physics, but at least it's something new in an invasion film.

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One concern: While it's not a certainty that these aliens are sea creatures, that seems a good bet. After all, they have tentacles and a pair of arms that can mess up the furniture by belching gallons of ink. But these guys are big, and I figure that, given their unthreatening behavior, they're vulnerable to ending up as delicacies at Japanese restaurants. Best estimate: at least two thousand sushi rolls per alien.

How refreshing to think that visitors from another world have landed, and the cookbook applies to them.

Aliens have been the go-to bad guys for movies ever since the Soviet Union imploded, at which time humorless villains with Slavic accents were replaced by extraterrestrials marinated in mucus. That was good for Hollywood, as these computer-generated characters didn't argue about residuals. However, like many film fixtures, most aliens have become typecast and are vaguely similar from one film to the next.
New York, NY USA - July 16, 2016: Donald Trump speaks during introduction Governor Mike Pence as running for vice president at Hilton hotel Midtown Manhattan

This article previously appeared in and appears courtesy of She's Fit to Lead. It was written by Randi Salko.

The election is over, and Donald Trump will be our President. For some of us, those are the worst words we ever heard and ones we never expected to. For others, even if this is an outcome we hoped for, this has been a draining election season, leaving many of us with collateral damage in our own lives.

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via bigstockphoto.com

In any case, as many observed late last night, the sun did come up this morning, and now we are all left wondering where we go from here. I believe it is time to move forward. 318 plus million people (the United States population) is a force to be reckoned with. We can make a difference, and we can influence the next four years. Here's how:

1. Cut the hyperbole. Thankfully, our founders were really smart, and they built the foundation for a great nation, with many checks and balances. Also, beyond that, WE are the nation, so the only reason to "fear for the nation" is because you have no faith in yourself. My mother used to say, "What is is," and it's true. Lamenting isn't going to change the outcome or move us forward, so give it a rest.

2. Mend Fences. Whether you buy it or not, if you're like me, and you stayed up all night, you heard Trump say it this morning. "Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division; we have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people." Healing the nation is a pretty tall order, and it's only possible (if at all), if we each take it, one person at a time. I know too many people who aren't talking to family members and/or friends right now. If that's you too, fix it. Remember, you can't control what anyone else does, and you may be rebuffed, but someone has to make the first move. Make it you. This is your best course for getting out of the cycle of negativity.

3. Park your social media game - Along those same lines, the time for waging war on Facebook and other social media is over. Chances are you convinced no one, and if you didn't change their minds before, it isn't happening now either. Back to WE are the nation. Insulting, belittling, bullying and attacking - if that's our ground game, then maybe we do need to fear for the nation. Let's not let that happen. Time to go back to posting photos of your lunch...seriously!

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4. Be gracious. Our advice for social media stands for hand to hand, face to face combat as well. Ask yourself really, what is the point of asking someone, "What kind of a self respecting woman are you to have voted for Trump?" or "Do you understand what it means for women to have this man as president?" You do not have to host a victory party. You do not have to pretend to be happy. However, we do need to get back to respecting one another. Those who do not share your politics are not per se idiots. Assuming they are will stop us dead in our tracks from moving forward in a way that drives positive change.

5. Do Something. One of the best things about this election regardless of the outcome is the way in which it brought women together to advocate for ourselves. Let's not let that change. Whether it's advocating for women in politics, fighting for reproductive rights, raising awareness about sexual assault on campus and striking down rape culture, or fighting for pay parity, find that thing about which you are passionate and get involved. Nothing about this election has stopped you from being a powerful advocate for yourself and all women. The only thing that can stop that is you. Don't let it. Find your on campus club, the organization that speaks to you, or start one. In the words of Hillary Clinton this morning, "Never stop believing that fighting for what's right is worth it." Want some help? She's Fit To Lead is here for you, and happy to get involved.

6. Do More. If we have learned anything, it is that Americans are hungry for change. However, not everyone's definition of change is the same. What is the change you want - as a woman, as a student (remember those loans?), or as someone beginning your career? Once you have found that answer, find a way to use your voice to make it happen. One thing is for sure, the best way to ensure that nothing ever happens is to not even try.



via bigstockphoto.com

Let's be clear. I'm not telling you to be happy (or to be unhappy, if this is indeed your candidate). What I'm saying is there is a way for us all to get to a positive place, if we get engaged and do it together.

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Jennifer Edgin is the Chief Technology Officer of the Intelligence Division at the Headquarters of the Marine Corps. As the Senior Technical Advisor to the Director of Intelligence, she is responsible for building and infusing new technologies within the Marine Corps Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Enterprise (MCISRE). Jennifer is one the "innovation insurgents" inside the Department of Defense driving rapid innovation. Here's her story of the Lean innovation accelerator she's built for the Marines.

If you asked 100 people to describe a United States Marine, they would probably use words such as "Warrior," "Fierce," "Patriot," "Honorable," and "Tough." Marine Corps culture transcends generations and is rooted in the values of courage, honor, and commitment. Marines are known for adapting to change and overcoming obstacles and adversity to meet new mission requirements continuously. Three years ago, Marine Corps Intelligence outlined a mission to harness the disruptions occurring in the new frontier of warfare, the Electronic battlefield. To achieve this mission, we established a framework that leveraged Marine Corps tenacity, agility, and adaptability to create a persistent culture of innovation.

One of our primary goals in establishing this framework was to keep the user front and center, and to quickly deliver solutions to their challenges. To achieve this, we stood up the Marine Corps Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Enterprise (MCISRE) Accelerator. Like a tech startup accelerator, the MCISRE Accelerator assembles a cohort of active duty Marines of all ranks, experiences, and disciplines and pairs them with developers, designers, and mentors through a 12-week "Design--Develop--Deploy" cycle. Marines are taught tools and methodologies from the Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and Service Design practices, which are then used to zero in on a problem; identify the target customer segment; validate the problem and solution by "getting out of the building" and submitting their problem and concept designs to peers for feedback, designing wireframes and prototypes, developing a minimum viable product (MVP); and finally pitch the MVP to the Director of Intelligence (DIRINT) and other leaders and stakeholders for a go/no-go decision for release.

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Over the course of the last year, we have carefully measured and monitored our framework so we could quickly identify what was working, what was not working, and tune accordingly so that the end result created value for both the Marines in the cohort and the larger community of Marine Corps Intelligence. Below are the top 5 factors we found are necessary to successfully innovate.

1. Understand Your Customer and Teach Them to Solve Real Problems

Innovation begins and ends with understanding the customer and the specific problems they are facing. Too often in government, problems are talked about in generalizations, users are not part of the design and development of solutions, and anecdotal information gets passed around without data to validate it until at some point it becomes "truth" and is accepted without verification.

One of the most difficult exercises for our cohorts is distilling "world-hunger"-level challenges into discrete, focused problems we can solve in 12 weeks. We learned that if you cannot define your problem in one sentence that a 7 year-old can understand, you don't understand the problem. If you want to create innovative solutions, you must start by defining real problems. Real problems--when defined properly--have metrics that quantify the scope, magnitude, and impact.

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Before we launched the MCISRE Accelerator, we conducted site visits, and spoke with Marines from around the world to hear from them what wasn't working and what was. After our site visits, we identified common issues across each of the sites, disciplines, and ranks, and launched data surveys to explore and quantify problems. The data showed us how users were currently performing a mission, where deficits existed in enabling technology and processes, and which anecdotal problems were actual problems and which were not. We then compared the results of the surveys with the site survey interviews and prepared a list of the top issues and challenges facing Marine Corps Intelligence. When we launched the MCISRE Accelerator, we used this information to quickly move the focus of the cohort from the world-hunger view to zeroing in one or two key issues that caused major disruptions in their tasking and productivity.

One of the biggest benefits to this process was that it helped shift the focus of the Marines from nebulous systems-centric thinking--"The network architecture sucks"--to identifying specific pain points impeding their productivity on the job. Because the tools and methodologies we use are simple but highly effective for analysis and problem solving, many of our cohort Marines take them back to their units so that they can reframe problems within their communities of practice.

2. Always Be Shipping

If vision without execution is hallucination, frameworks that don't produce tangible products breed insanity. Within the MCISRE we have two frameworks that engage Marines. Our yearly technical design meeting (TDM) brings together Marines to identify and address challenges and issues across the MCISRE. The outputs of the technical design meeting are used as primers for defining the problem themes that each MCISRE Accelerator cohort will work on. The MCISRE Accelerator pairs Marines with developers and designers who work collaboratively both in person and virtually to design, prototype, and then develop and build a minimum viable product (MVP) in 12 weeks. These two frameworks allow us to continuously innovate from within, creating a pipeline of challenges to be solved over the long term and implementing against them iteratively and quickly. This rapid implementation creates real metrics that allow us to create quick, measurable value and kill bad ideas before too much time, money, and human capital has been spent on them. Rapid implementation also allows leadership to make quicker decisions on where, when, and how to apply resources.

3. Always Be Measuring

Big idea fairies live everywhere, sometimes for a very long time. This can be particularly true in the government where the acquisition lifecycle imposes "shipbuilding timelines" on information technology systems. Successful innovation requires one simple act: always be measuring. Using the Lean Startup methodology to build, learn, and measure in a 12-week cycle provides quantifiable data and user feedback that allows us to validate problem/solution fit quickly. By the time our cohort is pitching to the DIRINT and other leaders and stakeholders, the minimum viable product (MVP) has metrics that validate its value to users as well as prevent redundancy, loss of, or misalignment of capability, funding, and other key resources.

4. To think differently...be different

Most meetings within the government involve PowerPoint, a conference table, and a bunch of subject matter experts espousing the relative merits or demerits of a point. These meetings can last hours to weeks, and at the end, there might be nothing tangible to show. When we set out to create this culture of innovation, we knew that to get people to do things differently, we had to get them to think differently.

Our first mission value was to create an experience for our Marines, stakeholders, and mentors that was counter to the typical meetings they were used to and focused on establishing a co-creative environment where everyone's input had value regardless of rank, experience, and skill. Our technical design meetings and Accelerators use little technology; are not set up as lectures; encourage jeans and your favorite T-shirt; and require constant, active participation. When you walk into our rooms, you will see Marines on their feet, Post-It notes and markers in hand, diagramming, sketching, and plotting furiously on white boards, flip charts, and any other available surface. They paper the room with problem statements, lean canvases, journey maps, value proposition canvases, process flows, wireframes, and Pixar-worthy storyboards. By the end of the week, you can walk the walls and see the progression of problem to solution in their words, through their eyes, from their point of view. This process takes Marines outside of the normal rank structure that they are accustomed. It is admittedly uncomfortable for them at first. But within hours of the kickoff, these simple tactics result in ideation, collaboration, and production that is evident to them and fundamentally changes how they approach problem solving and conduct meetings when they return to their units.

5. Do It Again... and Again... and Again

With any new skill, repetition is important. Marines don't learn close order drill with a one-time explanation, they spend countless hours on the drill field until they have mastered it. We apply the same repetition mindset for our innovation methodology because it creates an environment of continuous learning. With every repetition, we learn more about our problems and how we can solve them. We learn which solutions are working and which ones are not. We learn what techniques for engaging Marines are working and which ones are not. We learn how the operating environment is evolving. Continuous learning is the objective of our innovation activities, and it is more powerful than the solution itself. Learning means successes, learning means failures, learning means growth.

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November 10, 2016 marks the 241th anniversary of the formation of the Marine Corps; 241 years of adapting to changes and 241 years of innovation. Innovation does not mean that it has to come from external entities. Sometimes you just need to put Marines in jeans, challenge them to think differently, and give them another opportunity to adapt and overcome.
If you go grocery shopping in the Netherlands, chances are you'll end up at one of two stores: Albert Heijn or Jumbo, which together control more than half the Dutch grocery market. That means they sell billions of dollars of beef, bread, and other products made from the "big four" commodities responsible for most of the world's deforestation: namely palm, soy, cattle, and timber & pulp.

Fortunately, both companies have pledged to source most of those commodities "sustainably", as have hundreds of their peers.

But what do they mean by "sustainably" - and are they keeping their promises?

Those are critical questions, because the corporate sector won accolades in Paris last year for promising to do its part on climate, and corporate follow-through will be critical to ensuring success at this year's talksunderway here in Marrakesh. Indeed, after the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, many are now looking to good actors in the corporate sector for environmental leadership.

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Bionic Planet Podcast

You can follow the climate talks on the Bionic Planet podcast, which is a leading podcast of the Anthropocene, the new epoch defined by man's impact on earth, available on iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, and here:

Tracking Progress

To track corporate follow-through on deforestation pledges, Ecosystem Marketplace publisher Forest Trends launched the Supply Change project, which chronicles the progress that companies report on their pledges to reduce deforestation. In the case of these two retail powerhouses, it shows one company offering detailed progress reports and the other offering none - detailed or otherwise.

It's a contrast that's both dramatically stark and disturbingly typical, says Supply Change Senior Associate Ben McCarthy, who has been tallying the more than 700 pledges his team tracks and finds what he calls the "high-progress/low-disclosure paradox".

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"On the one hand, of the commitments that have progress information publicly available, the average achievement rate is 72%," he says. "Unfortunately, only 48% of the commitments have that kind of disclosure."

Many of the commitments tracked have a target date in the past - namely, 2015 or earlier - but only two-thirds of those have publicly-available progress reports, begging the questions: Do companies only disclose progress when it is good news? How can companies be held accountable for these commitments? And, since the progress information is almost always self-reported, can the numbers be trusted?

These questions are increasingly being asked by people far beyond the environmental community as investors - primarily pension funds - come to recognize the economic implications of climate risk. Indeed, the Group of 20 Industrialized Nations (G20) last year appointed former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to head the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. They published their first report in March and concluded that climate risk-disclosure is foggy and inconsistent across all sectors, creating an economic risk that dwarfs the one that led to the housing crisis.

"Decisions made with better climate-related information can benefit the economy in a number of ways, including by: enabling more consistent and accurate pricing and distribution of risks; aiding more informed investing, lending, and underwriting decisions; decreasing the likelihood of large, unexpected changes in asset values; and increasing boardroom engagement on these important considerations," wrote Bloomberg.

"Transparency on a company's actions is becoming increasingly important, and more investors than ever before are requesting this information through CDP," says Katie McCoy, Head of Forests at CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project).

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A Tale of Two Disclosures

Transparency is a

, and it applies to strategy as well as disclosure. Indeed,

on

Supply Change

list not only progress on pledges, but any documentation related to them - from strategy documents to interim milestones. McCarthy stresses that

Supply Change

tracks individual pledges rather than companies.

"Albert Heijn, for example, is one company but has four pledges, while Jumbo has three pledges," he says. "In total, they represent seven pledges - three of which have progress reported on them."

Unfortunately, Jumbo isn't alone. Of the 703 individual commitments currently tracked by Supply Change, 336 of them - or 52% - have no progress information publicly available.

"That doesn't mean they've achieved no progress," says McCarthy. "It just means they haven't reported any."

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Indeed, the profiles of some commitments, like Danone's commitment on milk, show no progress despite the fact that they have clearly taken action to reduce their impact on forests; but in Danone's case, it's because the company is working directly with hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers to completely restructure its supply chains - an effort that's harder to quantify than is shifting to certified commodities.

"Some companies may want to delay reporting until they have a commitment in place and a strategy to deliver it," says McCoy, who still encourages full disclosure - even if the results are less than stellar.

"It is understandable for companies to be at different stages of the journey," she says. "But disclosure at every stage is important to communicate progress along the way in a transparent and comparable way."
Colombians and Allies From 8 Countries Launch a 1,500 Mile Caravan for Peace

What now? That was the question Colombians and their friends around the world asked after Colombians narrowly voted NO to Peace Accords aimed at ending fifty years of war between the government and FARC rebels.

Few wanted combat to resume, but there was no obvious plan B for peace.

Following the vote, news coverage focused on Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. In spite of the defeat of the peace accords he had tirelessly negotiated, Santos was awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

If you live in the United States, you probably haven't heard much more. Violence didn't break out right away and media attention has quickly faded - disappearing amidst the non-stop coverage of US elections.

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In Colombia, the news thus far is pretty good. For the moment, peace has held its own in the absence of a formal agreement. Most Colombians really want peace and the Caravan for Peace, Life and Justice, which starts this week (just two days after the U.S. election), is just one example of ordinary Colombians stepping up to the unfinished tasks of reconciliation, including steps toward drug policy reform outlined in the peace accords.

According to Former Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission Emilio Alvarez Icaza, who will join the Caravan, "Colombia's efforts to turn away from war and build a lasting peace are a beacon of hope to people throughout the Americas who are struggling with seemingly intractable violence."

Six well-known Colombian human rights and justice organizations have convened this "Caravan for Peace, Life, and Justice". They've invited allies from around Colombia and the region - from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, and Argentina - to join them on a 1,500-mile journey. These allies - civil society leaders, journalists, academics, human rights professionals, youth leaders, and family members of disappeared -will go to some of the places hardest hit by the civil war. All along the route they will meet with Colombians to listen, discuss, march, brainstorm, and envision a future together, free of the violence that has touched virtually everyone in some way.

The leaders from throughout the region will reflect on their own struggles - many of which are exacerbated by the common failed and counter-productive policies of the war on drugs. While Colombia's long, brutal and costly war has its roots in vast income disparity and political exclusion, the war was paid for - both on the paramilitary right, and the guerilla left - largely by massive profits from illegal drug trafficking.

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No peace deal, even if voted in overwhelmingly, can eliminate the profits that motivate the regional drug trade and which, in turn, fuel violence. Breaking that chain will require a dramatic shift in regional drug war priorities; from today's militarized prohibition of all drugs to sensibly nuanced legal regulation based on a public health model that accepts cannabis and focuses resources on helping people with addictions and other problematic drug use.

But change in regional drug policy needs the cooperation of the United States, the same country that invented the drug war back in 1971 and has devoted billions to pursuing it every bloody year since.

In a hopeful development for peace in the Americas, cracks in the drug war facade are, finally appearing everywhere. In the US, voters have taken the lead in initiating drug policy and criminal justice reform at the ballot box. In Colombia, President Santos was a leader in convening last April's meeting of the UN General Assembly on drug policy, the first such global meeting since the 1990s. He has made support for international drug policy reform a priority of Colombian diplomacy. Santos understands that as long as Colombia is entangled in a disastrous regional prohibition strategy, true peace will remain elusive.

That UN General Assembly was the motive of a Caravan earlier this year, which travelled through the northern triangle of Central America - Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, where the drug war has led to the highest homicide rates in the world - deep into Mexico and all the way to New York City. Leaders shared stories of communities and countries devastated by the ever more militarized drug war - and called for an end to the failed policies criminalizing drugs. Many of the leaders and organizations that led that effort will join their Colombian brothers and sisters to launch this next phase of the struggle for peace, life, and justice.

Alvarez Icaza, who has just finished his four-year term with the Inter-American Commission in August, believes that "civil society actions like this Caravan can accelerate dialogue and speed the processes of reconciliation. That can give hope not just to Colombians, but to millions more throughout our region who are looking here for inspiration."

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The Caravan starts in Bogota, passes through Magdalena Medio, Barrancabermeja one of the Colombia's regions hardest hit by violence in recent decades. From there the Caravan travels to meet with organizations in the highly militarized zones of Eastern Antioquia and then on to the city of Medellin to meet with many sectors including municipal officials involved in ongoing community reconciliation work. It will also visit with marginalized communities in Valle de Cauca, and student organizers in the city of Cali. In its final leg, prior to returning for big events in Bogota, the Caravan heads to Northern Cauca to meet with indigenous communities who have a big stake in the success of peace efforts.

We build the common ground needed for peace when we listen to, understand, and help each other", says Alvarez


By Rafael Rivera, Harvard Business School, Class of '17 & Harbus Contributing Writer

Against all odds and expectations, Donald Trump won the presidential election to become the 45th President of the United States. For many, the result was surprising and disappointing. the morning of November 8th , most polling agencies gave Hillary Clinton at least 70% probability of victory. The last polls in Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania suggested that Clinton would win. Here at Harvard Business School, more than 85% of RC students supported the Democrat candidate, while only a 3% supported Trump. The results were shocking.

These elections brought reality in front of us. We believed we were in a country where citizens would not vote for a candidate temperamentally unsound, racially biased, and misogynist. We also believed in the political discourse of mass media that constantly supported Clinton. It turns out that we all were wrong. The "silent majority" of angry, white working class voters was louder this time.

The message of Donald Trump clearly resonated with the white working class. CNN exit polls revealed that the majority of voters wanted change, irrespective of their political preferences. Some reports by the HBS Project on Competitiveness offers data to understand this issue. According to their analyses, the proportion of U.S. population involved in the workforce has declined since 2000, with increasing unemployment rates among sectors with low levels of education. Similarly, real household income of the bottom 50% of the population has been practically stagnant since 1980. In other words, the average white worker in America has a life similar to the one that his father lived. Both can buy a similar set of goods and services, with no significant improvement between generations.

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The other half is different. While the top 10% of the population earned 35% of the income in 1980, now that segment earns 50% of income. Similarly, profits of corporate firms represent 10% of GDP in the country, a share that is twice as big as it was in 1980. As different scholars have shown, while the new era of capitalism and liberal trade created wealth for some segments, inequality is increasing and the benefits have not reached everyone. Donald Trump represented hope for those forgotten groups, supported by his populist messages on immigration, national security, and job creation that went against the establishment.

These elections are definitely a wake-up call for all of us who rejected the idea that America would elect Donald Trump. It is also a wake-up call for citizens of other countries such as the UK, Poland, Philippines, or Colombia, who have had similar "Brexit moments" in the last couple of years.

The fact that we are deeply surprised about the results reveals how disconnected we are from the average citizen. While we have been blessed with an education at Harvard Business School, our situation might also put some distance between us and the vast majority of citizens. As aspiring leaders in business and politics, we cannot ignore the problems of our people. Inequality, stagnant wages, terrorism, and poor welfare are issues faced by developed and developing countries alike. Our education is a great privilege, but also a big responsibility to find real solutions to those problems.

As professor Michael Porter says, competitive businesses not only create wealth but promote welfare to the average worker. It is time to bring the discourse of inclusiveness and competitiveness to our business education. It is time to act before we are forced to listen.

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By Preeya Sud, Harvard Business School, Class of '17 & Harbus Contributing Writer

As the world reels from the shocking result of the US 2016 Presidential Election, HBS students have written to The Harbus with their reflections. The mood on campus this morning is somber and perplexed, no one expected this. Sitting in class on Monday morning only three people raised their hands when asked, by Professor Kevin Sharer, 'who here thinks Trump will win?'. Just last month, a poll across the business school showed that 82% of the student body supported Hillary Clinton. HBS students are known to say (somewhat flippantly) that we live in a bubble. As the anonymous reflections below show, just how much of a bubble we live in seems to finally be sinking in.

The reflections started pouring in on the Election Night around midnight and came in till the following day. The Harbus chose to publish only a fraction of the reactions sent in. All reflections have been posted to The Harbus website.

12.22 AM

This election has demonstrated to me, more than anything else, how out of touch I, my friends, my school, the media, and society at large are with what most Americans really want and are truly concerned about. The public discussion has focused so strongly on character attacks (to be fair, most of them have been quite warranted) at the almost complete expense of the real issues at play that the rhetoric rapidly regressed into "How can you vote for a liar?" with smug responses of "Because I won't vote for an egotistical bigot." Flip the nouns to capture the opposing side. We (and I really mean everyone) have spent months very, very closely examining two trees and ignoring a huge forest. The reality is that America is filled with huge numbers of people who feel poignantly disenfranchised and alienated. They don't like the direction the country is moving in. They may have lost their jobs to globalization. They think that the U.S. caters to international interests instead of standing up for its own. They aren't interested in open immigration. They believe that the threat of terrorism is real and that we must do something about it. And now the silent majority has spoken. It's happened. Rather than lamenting our country, joking about moving to Canada, and attacking the other side, we need to recognize that Trump isn't about to win because of his character. He's about to win because he's made the best appeal to address the worst grievances of the largest constituency of voters. We need to recognize these problems and not dismiss them, as we have during the election cycle. Trump is certainly a new page, probably a new chapter, and maybe even a new book. But one man, flaws and all, does not a nation make. We make it. We did yesterday and we're going to tomorrow. Even if many of us feel we've taken a step backward, we still have the power to make America great.

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12.23 AM

MY recruiting job just became much simpler. Previously I thought I might want to stay in the US for a couple of years before returning to my native Colombia. With Mr. Trump as president I will most definitely return right after my MBA. A sad history in the history of mankind...

12.26 AM

Disappointed but not surprised. We as a liberal coastal intellectual elite consistently underestimate the anger of the average American because by definition we have lost the ability to empathize with them given our "outliers" characteristics. This leads to a misinterpretation of data and a confirmation bias that blinds us to outcomes which we can't necessarily fathom emotionally.

12.27 AM

Trying to wrap my mind around how disconnected I am from the rest of America. I have over 1,000 Facebook friends and did not see a single pro-Trump post today (aside from a handful who emerged after it became clear he was far ahead). How do I make sense of this? What are the implications for my aspirations as a leader? A female leader, no less?

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12.28 AM

Embarrassing. Infuriating. Terrifying. I am trying to be patriotic and accept democracy. I am trying to empathize and understand how a Trump voter could possibly think that he was a better candidate (both morally and tactically) than the most qualified presidential candidate our country has ever seen. I am trying to find a way to fix our broken country that is full of such sad people. But I fear this is impossible to recover from. I fear economic devastation, pervasive hatred, and war. It actually makes me afraid to live here and to be from here.

12.30 AM

Thinking about HBS' mission, we as HBS MBAs have a choice as to where we want to make a difference in the world. Tonight has made me reconsider my commitment to bringing good jobs back to US manufacturing centers. Why would I want to help people that don't recognize the dignity of my friends and loved ones? Shouldn't I try to improve outcomes in places that don't apparently hate what I stand for?

12.30 AM

I feel like the glass ceiling is taller and tougher than I ever imagined, and that makes me feel hopeless.

12.30 AM

While answering prior to the final verdict, I'm honestly heartbroken at the prevalence of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and white supremacy in a country I am a citizen in. What do these results say about our values? This is the first time I am legitimately having difficulty recognizing or identifying with "my country." There is something seriously wrong in this country right now.

12.31 AM

If only Bernie had been the candidate...

12.32 AM

We are a nation that doesn't speak to each other. The fact is there are two completely different societies in America. And I don't know how to fix it.

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12.35 AM

I am stunned by the outcome. I cannot believe that the United States is electing someone who is basically a sex offender to the highest office in our country. In doing so, the majority of voters are endorsing disrespect and violence towards women - and to many other segments of the population, among them Muslims, Latinos, people with serious health issues and disabilities, and more. I am seriously concerned about the impact this election will have on the well-being of many people in our country, and especially those who are already the most marginalized or vulnerable - for instance, through likely rollbacks of the ACA, empowerment of those seeking to buy deadly weapons for personal use, and disinvestment in social welfare as a result of a coming reduction of taxes on those who can afford to pay the most. And I am at a loss to know what to do and how to respond in what feels like a true crisis situation. As a business student, I am in search of words of wisdom on what I can do to help make things better in even a small way at what feels like one of our nation's direst moments in recent history.

12.36 AM

I'm an Asian-American woman, a first-generation immigrant, and a first-time voter, having become a citizen in 2014. During my citizenship ceremony, I felt so proud and excited to become an American. The origin country of every new citizen was announced that day to cheers and celebration. I felt I was entering the embrace of the greatest country in the world - one that honored my heritage and personal identity. Today, that excitement has fallen through a pit in my stomach. To me, Trump's impending victory tells me everything I need to know about how I am seen by half of America. It tells me how little value is placed on me as a person of color, an immigrant, and a woman. I feel put in my place, and my place is not here.

12.51 AM

HBS gave the world Bush. Wharton gave us Trump.

12.51 AM

HBS voted 85-3 or something like that in favour of Hillary. It was socially unacceptable for someone to say they supported Trump. About time for people at HBS to reconnect with common people and step outside the bubble. How do people plan to lead and change the world if they don't even have an iota of sense about what the "other" people are thinking?

12.56 AM

This election has affected me in so many ways: as a woman who has seen a candidate casually brag about sexual assault, as a member of the LGBT community watching a candidate threaten to take away marriage equality and the fundamental rights that accompany it, and as the daughter of a Syrian immigrant watching a candidate describe immigrants as rapists, thugs and terrorists. I am deeply saddened and shocked at how the election results are turning out. This election has made me realize how truly divided our society has become, and how much work we have going forward to repair it. I am afraid for the future of our country, socially and economically. I am afraid that we will lose all of the progress obtained towards key civil rights issues affecting women, LGBT, ethnic minorities and immigrants. Lastly, I fear the impact that this will have across the world in terms of economic impact and global stability. This is not the America that I know and love.

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12.57 AM

I am heartbroken. Today changed the course of our lives, no matter where you come from, what you believe in, who you are... after today, freedom is at risk. Today is not about America, today is about the world, today is about HUMANITY. We underestimate the impact this moment in time will have in our history. I am concerned for my country, I am concerned for my people, I am concerned for your people too. More than ever, it is important to be OPEN, FAIR, WELCOMING, DIVERSE & LOVING. We are all in this together, let's stand strong and prove that we can endure because WE ARE GREAT already. #iamwithher

1.05 AM

So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.



1.16 AM

We've come so far. If this presidential race has taught us nothing else, it has taught us to BE the change you want to see in the world. Don't leave success up to chance. Don't allow fear and anger to freeze your ability to act. Go out and make change happen. If you are upset about the results of the election, don't despair for long. The fight for equality continues. I'll see you out there.



1.59 AM

I'm one of the secret Trump supporters. He's an impossible candidate to be proud of supporting, or to even defend, but I truly believe he is the lesser of two evils and still very much an unknown in terms of how he will lead. My decision ultimately came down to my belief that our nation's system of checks and balances will keep Trump in check, with even his own party guaranteed to challenge him, whereas Hillary will never be held accountable for her actions by any of the institutions that are supposed to do so - the courts, the media, even the FBI. What troubles me deeply is that anyone who saw Clinton's corruption, dishonesty, terrible judgment and history of placing her political interests above all else as being a more certain harm than Trump's bluster and narcissism, has been completely dismissed by so many Americans and international citizens as racist, misogynistic, ignorant bigots. I found this attitude even more severe in our elite academic bubble than in my other networks, which is why I've kept my political thoughts to myself. I hope that we can have more faith in each other, and in the American citizenry - many of whom have not been given the incredible blessings we have - that our decisions were motivated by legitimate reasons and very real concerns. HBS teaches us that we can disagree with someone yet "assume the best" about where they are coming from and seek to better understand their viewpoint, and I hope we all have the courage to do that going forward in order to unite as a country and as a global community.

2.13 AM

First, the American people have spoken and (very likely, at this point) Trump and a Republican congress is what they chose. While I respect everyone's right to express their opinion and sadness on social media, there is a point at which we need to realize this is about our country. Vehemently berating the elected candidate not only demeans over half the population that elected them, but diminishes these voters' voices in the democratic process. From a broader perspective, the election results demonstrate that there is a large voice in the American population that the elite, media, and politicians have failed to identify, understand, or represent. As business leaders we need to be aware of our environments and how they can insulate us to thinking one opinion is shared, when in fact there may be a large majority that is simply quiet and reserved about their personal opinions. The fact that Republicans won each branch of government proves the significant underlying dissatisfaction with the current government. Hopefully the next 4 years bring conversation about what those dissatisfactions are and how they can be addressed.

2.26 AM

It's the inequality, stupid. Positive economic growth caused by globalization, freedom of trade and technology has been highly unequally distributed. As an example, median household income in the US has remained stagnant for the last 30 years while the top 10% of the population has seen an important income growth. The increased population polarization has translated into a frustration from the ones not benefiting from growth, making them open to listen to more radical views. These people are not stupid, they are looking at past political actions and their current reality. The popularity of extreme right parties in France or Germany, the Brexit and now the Trump Presidency are testimonies of how people are willing to trade social rights for the promise of a better well-being. While I personally believe the Trump Presidency will be a backlash in both social and economic issues, this election is a representation that, contrary to what many believe, our system actually works. Democracy is right now channeling a strong frustration that a couple hundred years ago would have been repressed until a war burst. Reversing the increasing inequality trend is not a question about morality or fairness anymore. It's about social stability for our generation and the ones to come. The 2016 electoral events across the West have granted us the luxury of a wake-up call about rampant inequality. Now we have to seriously act on it.

7.58AM

The election has shown that HBS should place much more of a moral obligation on us to think about what is important in the world in our time here. We can't just spend the majority of our valuable time here learning the same financial models as students 10 years ago and 10 years from now. We need to debate the current state of our world, the state of politics, the state of the world economy - if we don't make sure we understand why more than half of the U.S. Population and UK population (in Brexit in June) feel left behind, then who will? Learning tools to proliferate ourselves in high paying jobs has no meaning if we as future leaders don't understand what is truly going on outside our bubble of high performance and a globalised lifestyle.

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9.06 AM

As an international student, I could not vote yesterday and I would not have voted for Trump. However, I believe that there are many reasons that explain his victory. First of all, he is the first relevant figure in the USA who has confronted the "dictatorship of political correctness". Most citizens in this country are judged harshly for expressing their views out loud if these are traditional and are therefore extremely frustrated by this situation. Democrats usually feed this monster by criticizing immediately any sentence that could be misinterpreted to try to assert themselves as the moral references. This leads many Republicans to stop expressing their opinion in polls or social groups (but, of course, they still vote!!) Secondly, Hillary was a horrible candidate. She does not connect with other human beings in an authentic way. She has focused her campaign on her condition as a woman, but that is not a reason to vote for or against anybody! Finally, mass media and other citizens that represent the elites have aligned perfectly with Donald's interests. He claims that the political elites don't want him to win because he will stop favoring them. What did all these elites (including Harvard) do? They tried to destroy him. This unanimous support for Clinton has helped him immensely. HBS endorsements (like polls in which 85% of RCs would vote for Hillary) and decisions such as the Republican club of Harvard not supporting Trump have actually reinforced his message. HBS students: next time, if you want to help a candidate, remember who you are and who you represent. Maybe the candidate does not need your help.

As a brown woman who came to this country five years ago, I never once felt discriminated against and always appreciated how America is so progressive considering gay rights, equality and pro choice! And now I realize this was because I was primarily living in the blue states. Today, I'm appalled to see that the country I've loved actually has a majority that sees me as both brown and a woman. I feel weirdly unaccepted.

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Sitting alone in a busy restaurant the day of the election trying to catch up on some reading, I was distracted by a little boy, maybe 7 years old, two tables over. I waited and waited for a parent to sit down next to him; then, I finally connected the dots. I asked the waitress if that was her son - and, in broken English, she told me it was. Because the schools were closed for use as polling stations, she had no choice but to bring him to work. I told her how I was in awe of his behavior - not babysat by an iPad, but very quietly entertaining himself with a single Transformer. I should have told her how in awe of her I was.

So, I said a quiet prayer that the woman I thought would win that night would make her life better.

Hours later, my 6-year-old was glued to the television as the first results of the election were announced. An enthusiastic supporter of Hillary Clinton in a way only a little girl with a pure heart and a wish for a "lady president" could be, she begged to stay up. I promised her I would wake her when it was time to witness history, and she ran up the stairs and snuggled sweetly in to her soft pink sheets. I planned on waking her and bringing her downstairs when the moment she had been waiting for arrived. It didn't, and I let her sleep. When she awoke in the morning and I told her the news, she ran back to her bed.

So, I laid next to her and said a quiet prayer that the man I didn't think would win would make her life better.

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The next day, as fear and gloating and agony and celebration simultaneously filled my social media feed, I was grateful for something I had already told both of my daughters earlier in the week. As they rehashed the schoolyard chatter regurgitating the political leanings and rhetoric of the respective parents represented on the playground, I made it clear to them that -- no matter who won -- we would wish only for our new president's success.

I hope to eat crow. I want to be wrong. There will be no satisfaction in "I told you so." It's the only way we all will win.
New York, NY USA - July 16, 2016: Donald Trump speaks during introduction Governor Mike Pence as running for vice president at Hilton hotel Midtown Manhattan

The world is hurtling towards the sun, and we're all going to die. That was my first reaction to the news that Donald Trump was elected President. Then I spoke to a college student who was in tears over the results, and the best advice I could give her was to find a cause she believed in that could help bridge the gap between Eastern, Elitist Liberals like us (hey--let's invent the acronym EELs to describe us, pass it on) and the massive numbers of angry white men who just picked themselves a president. Maybe it would be mobilizing millennials to vote, or improving education so people wouldn't go into the polls knowing so darn little about the way the world works--something that would both make a difference and make her feel better.

That's my advice for us as well. I woke up this morning wondering if I'd ever work again as a progressive communicator. I came to DC in the beginning of the Reagan Administration, and there were no shortage of left-wing groups, committees, nonprofits and other rabble-rousers who had some money to spend hiring propagandists like me. But today, I'm not sure that there are as many institutions and organizations with the wherewithal and clout to take on the Trump Administration (woooo--typing those words for the first time sends a shiver down my spine). The digital age has fragmented much of the left into micro-targeted, narrowcasting, follower-gathering individuals, whose idea of collective action is a retweet, not a march on Washington. Wherefore art thou today, Greenpeace? Whither thou goest, Common Cause?

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Donald Trump won because he knew how to talk to voters who turned out to be the majority of the electorate. All the polls and commentary were wrong because they were based on assumptions nurtured in the schools, salons, vacation retreats and websites of us EELs. Someone said on punditTV that the last Democrat who could appeal to both EELs and white working class voters was Bobby Kennedy, and we needed another one of those, please, to start winning elections.

Until we figure out how to grow some new RFKs, or maybe Joe Bidens (Joe, forgive us, we should have asked you first!), perhaps the best we can do as communicators is to communicate our most deeply held values and beliefs, and show how they relate to Trump voters and pointy-headed liberals alike. We need to find language on climate change, money and politics, criminal justice, healthcare--all the bedrock issues of the many Centers, Institutes, Committees and Projects that have employed us over the years--that cross the education, income and geographic divides that just produced a president.

Take another look at the electoral map. It's largely the same one that's reared its divided head for decades. Blue on the coasts, red everywhere else. Is that the country you want to live in? Should we really be building our future on politics that allows a bunch of eastern (and western) elite liberals to dictate to the rest of America how to live?

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No wonder the people in the "flyover states" (shame on us for even thinking that) are angry. No wonder they resent us. No wonder they took their revenge on us when they were finally given the chance. We need to figure out how to talk to them, and even more important, listen to them. Donald Trump isn't going to solve their problems. He's not going to build a wall, bring back coal, revive shuttered factories or stop global trade. He won't even be able to "leave happy holidays at the corner" and get everyone to start saying "Merry Christmas" again.
K-State students get to 'Hang with Tang' on Tuesday

Cat Zone
Orlando To Purchase Pulse Nightclub, Create Memorial

The city of Orlando, Florida has announced plans to purchase the Pulse nightclub to turn the site into a memorial for the victims of the deadly mass shooting that occurred there in June.

_______________________________

The Pulse nightclub, once a popular gathering place for members of Orlando's GLTB community, was the target of a shooting spree that left 49 dead and 53 people injured. The gunman, Omar Mateen, was among the dead, killed by SWAT team members responding to the incident.

Now Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday that the city has reached an agreement with the venue's owners to purchase the property for $2.25 million.

Dyer noted that the property would likely remain as-is for the next 12-18 months as it has become a common gathering place for mourners. Dyer told the Sentinel that the city will coordinate with community members for advice on plans on how to implement the memorial.

via CelebrityAccess

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In 1688, a gathering of shippers and investors at Edward Lloyds coffeehouse in London laid the groundwork for what would become Lloyds of London  the most powerful player in the most powerful insurance market in the world. More than 325 years later, voters in the UK have seemingly threatened that business primacy by voting to exit the European Union.The surprise decision in late June, popularly known as Brexit, raised questions for the global insurance industry and set the stage for some short-term economic strain on businesses in the US. The vote quickly sent shockwaves through global markets as the pound plunged to $1.35, its lowest level since 1985.Yet despite that initial cratering, the stock market has quickly recovered. The S&P 500 hit a new record high in mid-July, and investors are again deploying capital in seemingly risky assets. Whats more, thanks to the fallout from the global financial crisis, the US economy is now better insulated than most for the risk associated with market turmoil.It doesnt have that much impact on us  the investment portfolio has held up very well, says Mark Watson, CEO of Argo Group in San Antonio. For us, its probably going to be business as usual in the short run, and then well figure out if this presents opportunities or not in the long term.That leaves US insurance firms with relatively minor logistical concerns like relocating offices. Enticed by the attractions of the London market and access to Europe, a rising number of companies have opened branches and moved major parts of their operations, even whole headquarters, from the US to the UK. As the UK loses the ability to passport services into Europe, a new base will be vital.Both Aon and AIG have said they will consider establishing an operations center beyond the UK as a result of the vote. In our world, risk is inevitable, and we manage it accordingly, said Aon CEO Greg Case in a statement. But leaving the EU is an unnecessary gamble.Still, the US is not seeing that much impact from Brexit in the mega sense, says David Snyder, vice president of policy development and research for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. Instead, Snyder sees an opportunity for US insurance firms to solve problems caused by Solvency II, an EU regulatory regime that exercises risk-based capital requirements over companies doing business in the EU. Meant to protect insurance buyers, the rules manage capital, governance and reporting for insurers.Yet Solvency II has deemed the US a non-equivalent regulatory environment, closing markets like Germany that have traditionally been open the US. Now that the UK  a prominent player in the drafting process of Solvency II  plans to exit the EU, theres a chance to revisit effective regulatory regimes. Without commenting on whether this may dislodge the UK as the most prominent force in the market, Snyder says it does offer the US an opportunity to show some leadership.Now might be a very good point for major players in the US financial services industry to emphasize that international standards need to be flexible and that there are different, but equally effective, ways to deal with things, he says. This could be a chance to push through an approach of true mutual recognition in place of the controversy created by Solvency II.To accomplish that, regulatory groups like Congress and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners need to be on board. But there are hopeful signs that that is occurring, Snyder says, particularly with the June passage of the Transparent Insurance Standards Act of 2015, reaffirming a national commitment to the state-based regulatory system.Others in the industry are less enthusiastic about this bright side of Brexit. Economist and Insurance Information Institute president Robert Hartwig has said that while there is a window to push through regulatory standards more favorable to the US, its unclear how big that window is.There is some possibility that EU regulations will have less sway in the future, but at the end of the day, the US will adopt the regulatory environment thats best for the US, he says. Whether or not the Brexit vote has a material effect on [Solvency II] is unclear at this point.Other uncertainties relate to how exactly the UK will withdraw from the EU. Though there has been talk of a second vote that may reverse the original decision, Hartwig believes this is unlikely, and the UKs new prime minister, Theresa May, has been adamant that Brexit means Brexit.Under those terms, the UK must renegotiate hundreds of trade agreements and create an arrangement allowing it to remain a base for passporting throughout the EU. May has signaled this may take as long as six years, and until more concrete positions are taken by her government, US insurers are on standby.I think its really unclear how the UK is going to withdraw. Its going to take time, and time is years, not quarters, Watson says. Until someone in government steps us to tell us what this is going to look like, we dont really know.Though there remains much to be seen in the wake of the Brexit vote, there is one company Hartwig believes will remain an institution to be reckoned with.I think Lloyds has positioned themselves so that the market remains the most important in the country and one of the most important in the world, irrespective of the EU vote, he says. Lloyds of London will not become Lloyds of Dublin any time soon.
Insurer is accused of overcharging over two million policyholders
Developer David Carver outlines his plans to the City Council on Wednesday. Holy Family has been closed since 2008. It will be transformed into eight market-rate apartments. PreviousNext

Pittsfield Approves Tax Agreement For Redevelopment of Holy Family Church



David Carver is looking to rehabilitate the former Holy Family Church into 10 market-rate housing units. He hopes to close on the property by the end of the year. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The City Council approved a tax agreement to help the redevelopment of the former Holy Family Church on Seymour Street.

Developer David Carver, owner of Scarafoni Properties and doing this project under WDM Properties, is looking to turn the former church into 10 market-rate housing units.

The City Council approved Wednesday night two pieces to help bring the financing together: a tax increment exemption to ease the tax burden from increasing the assessed value of the building and extending the area eligible for the state Housing Development Incentive Program, which will provide state tax credits for the development.

Carver is looking to invest $1.8 million in the building. But because of the age and type of the structure, the cost is higher than other projects and it is more difficult for financing to be pieced together. Carver says banks set an appraised value of the renovation based on the income to be generated and will loan just 70 to 75 percent of that appraisal.

"The value of these commercial properties are derived by the rental income," he said.

But, the costs to do the renovation exceed that, creating a funding gap. In this case, Carver says there is about a $900,000 difference.

One piece is the state tax credits, which offer some relief on the income tax paid  or can be sold on the open market.

The other piece is the tax agreement with the city, which essentially freezes the tax increases that would come with a higher assessed value after renovation and then eases in those additional fees over the following nine years.

"In reality, it is not a break. You are paying the same level of taxes we are just not nailing them in the next year or two when this investment is made," said Council Vice President John Krol.

The city assesses the property at $334,500 and Carver will continue paying the taxes on that. After the project is completed, the assessed value moves to $700,000 but in the first year, he will only be asked to pay on the $334,500.

"The city still will be generating the same revenue it is now," Carver said. "We are not asking the city to go backwards on that."

In the second year, he'll be asked to pay 10 percent of the increased value on top of the $334,500, in year two, 20 percent of the increase beyond that and so forth until the tax on the full $700,000 is charged.

"It provides local tax exemptions to a developer in order to encourage market-rate housing in the development zone," Director of Community Development Janis Akerstrom said.

Over the next 10 years, Carver is anticipated to pay an estimated $73,864 on the base value  an estimate that would remain with the property whether or not it is redeveloped  and then $27,962 on the tax increase from the improvements. The city in total would be forgiving $42,748, which would be required if the project was developed but there was no agreement.

The council also approved expanding the zone in which developers can use the Housing Development Incentive Program, for which the state will provide tax relief on the income taxes. The two pieces are eyed to be a "small component" of the financing package, which includes Carver's own money, bank loans, and the tax relief. Those combined help make the numbers work in the long-term to save the former church.

"This is a long-term investment for the company. These are very small returns on long-term investments. What the state credits do is raise money to build them," Carver said.

The combination of the two incentives is the exact same package that led to the redevelopment of the Howard Building and the Onota Building by Allegrone. Those projects created new market-rate units on the upper floors and newly renovated commercial space on the lower floors. The Howard's units sold out quickly and more than half of the Onota units were rented, with move in day still a week away.

"Market-rate housing is in high demand in the city," Krol said. "This is a critical area so the more we can create of this, the better."

The church has been empty for some time now. It was first constructed in 1906 as a power house for the Housatonic Railway. That was moved in 1916 and it sat empty for eight years. In 1924, the Polish community in Pittsfield transformed the building into a church.

But, in 2008 it was part of a wave of six churches in Pittsfield closed by the diocese . It has sat vacant since.

"This is a building that may not be usable for other purposes. I think this is an opportunity to take a building that is sitting there vacant and turn it into something productive and provide revenue," Akerstrom said.

Carver hopes to transform the building into having six one-bedroom apartments; one four-bedroom apartment; and one three-bedroom apartment. He said the plans are to keep much of the historical pieces to the building  including keeping the shrine outside.

The project closely mirrors ones he has done with other former churches including creating eight apartments in the former St. Raphael's Church and its rectory in Williamstown. Williamstown helped fund that project through the Community Preservation Act, which the city just adopted on Tuesday.

Carver also renovated the former Notre Dame School on Melville into 11 market-rate housing units. And he renovated the former Holy Family Church in North Adams into four large apartments.

"I think this is a great project. It is in my ward and I think it is great for that section of the ward," Ward 7 Councilor Anthony Simonelli said.

Councilor at Large Peter White said those types of incentives are tools the city has to help encourage investment. He hopes to expand that opportunity to more people and to different areas of the city.

"This is exactly what we need to be attracting to Pittsfield. I hope we can expand this area," White said. "We need to have methods for homeowners to invest."

Carver hopes to start working on the building in December or January and construction is expected to take a year.
Shelves of books from the Clark's special collection dominate the Manton Center's reading room. Clark Art Institute curator Jay Clark talks about the inaugural exhibit of photographs in the Eugene V. Thaw Gallery for Works on Paper. Some of the seating in the Manton Center's new reading room. Part of the renovated library at the Clark Art Institute. The view from the penthouse atop the Manton Center, a nonpublic space that includes the board of directors' meeting room and an outdoor patio. Young visitors to the Clark Art Institute on Thursday enjoy the water feature at the center of the reconfigured campus. PreviousNext

Clark Art Institute to Reopen Manton Center



Clark Director Olivier Meslay admires the view from the soon-to-be-dedicated Francis Oakley Bridge. Behind Meslay, a temporary divider will come down on Saturday, again allowing access between the Clark's 1955 marble building and Manton Center via the bridge.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  Annabelle Selldorf, who will lecture at the Clark Art Institute on Saturday, is an accomplished architect, businesswoman and, perhaps unbeknownst to her, heart surgeon.



"The reopening of the Manton Center is maybe not more important than the opening of the Ando building, but it is as important," Clark Director Olivier Meslay said Thursday during a press preview of the renovated structure.



"The heart of the Clark is here. The blood coursing around the body of the Clark is from here."



The 1970s era Manton Center will open to the public for the first time on Saturday with the lecture by Selldorf, who helmed the renovation, a concert featuring Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and the opening of two galleries: the Manton Gallery for British Art and the Eugene V. Thaw Gallery for Works on Paper.



But public exhibition space is only a small, if important, piece of what the Manton Center is all about.



What makes the Clark's "red" building so important is that it is home not only to much of the museum's full-time staff and curatorial team but also to the Clark/Williams College graduate program in art history, the Clark's Research and Academic Program, the Clark Fellows and the 270,000-volume art research library.



"Many [museum] directors and curators have come from the graduate program," Meslay pointed out. "The library has been, since the inception of the building, an important part of the reputation of the Clark."



While the collection of English landscapes in the Manton gallery is impressive  and dear to Meslay's own academic specialty  and the inaugural works on paper exhibit, "Photography and Discovery" is both visually stunning and accessible to laymen, the Manton is very much an academic building.



Enter the building through the ground-floor door, and you are struck by the grand display of 10,000 volumes from the estate of California artist Allan Sekula.



The shelved books tower over a reading room designed to facilitate informal conversations or quiet contemplation. And the books are not, as one might think, mere props.



"My biggest challenge was what to put on the shelves," library director Susan Roeper said. "We thought at one point they would be decorative. But it didn't feel right to have that kind of material here.



"Very serendipitously, we were contacted by Sally Stein, the wife of Mr. Sekula [1951-2013]. She was looking for a home for Allan's library."



The total bequest numbered 15,000 volumes. Knowing that the shelves in the reading room would not easily be accessible, Roeper culled from the full collection about 5,000 volumes to keep in the Clark's special collections, where they are more readily available to scholars.



"Up here are books on maritime history, philosophy, theory essential to work [Sekula] produced," Roeper said. "It was a very eclectic collection."



So far, she said, the volumes from the collection that have been requested are from the 5,000 works she identified as most pertinent to the kind of research done at the Clark.


Imperial Valley News Center

Vice President and Dr. Biden to Vice President-elect Mike Pence and to Senator Tim Kaine and Anne Holton

Washington, DC - This morning, the Vice President and Dr. Biden called Vice President-elect Mike Pence to congratulate him and Karen Pence. Both the Vice President and Dr. Biden offered to help answer any questions the Pences may have to ensure that the offices of the Vice President are turned over to the Pences as smoothly and as graciously as they were handed over to the Bidens. The Vice President expressed his admiration for the Vice President-elect and Dr. Biden told him that she knows the Pences will love the journey as much as she and the Vice President have.

The Vice President and Dr. Biden invited the Pences to join them for dinner at the Naval Observatory and offered to make the transition into their new home as smooth as possible.

The Vice President and Dr. Biden also called Senator Tim Kaine and Anne Holton. The Bidens offered their congratulations on a hard-fought race. The Vice President expressed his pride for the role Senator Kaine played in the campaign and his belief that Senator Kaine will continue to make a difference in the United States Senate. Dr. Biden and Anne Holton discussed how much they enjoyed working together on this campaign and how they plan on continuing to work together on issues they both care about.
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory on the leading edge of research beneficial to agriculture

Sacramento, California - I was honored to have an opportunity this week to visit the world-class Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and learn about some of the cutting-edge research underway that has value to agriculture.

The Berkeley lab is an example of our lengthy and fruitful partnership with the University of California, which touches on many aspects of agriculture. During our tour we discussed research initiatives on climate change, water efficiency, soil health and urban agriculture. Those are all crucial pieces as we look to position food production to meet the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century.

Secretary Ross wears a headset to view the inside of a grapevine captured by X-Ray.

The science that was demonstrated was genuinely mind-boggling. One of the amazing things I saw was a project called Advanced Light Sources. Its an advanced X-Ray system in high demand for a number of innovative research projects. It has enabled USDA researchers to actually see inside of grapevines, which has great potential for understanding water management and other issue to improve vine health. I got to see it myself and can confirm that its a wondrous innovative achievement.

I continue to be bullish about the future opportunities for California agriculture, even as we work to produce more food using fewer natural resources. The great work done at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and within the entire University of California system will definitely help us meet that challenge.
Passing of Janet Reno

Washington, DC - President Barack Obama: " When Janet Reno arrived in Washington in 1993, the city had never seen anyone like her before  and hasn't since. She rose from a childhood on the edge of the Everglades to become our nation's first female Attorney General, a position she held for longer than anyone in 150 years.

"The daughter of reporters  including a mother who literally wrestled alligators  Janet was tough as nails and never cowered in her fight for what was right. In her 15 years as Miami-Dade's top prosecutor, she helped reform juvenile justice, created Miamis drug court, and made protecting children the center of her work. As Attorney General, she insisted on transparency and accountability. Throughout her tenure, marked by high-profile, complicated cases, Janet was unflappable, never losing her candor, sense of humor, or love of kayaking on the Potomac. Above all, she was committed to the defining mission of the Justice Department  ensuring that all Americans are treated equal under the law.

"Janet Reno was an American original, a public servant whose intellect, integrity, and fierce commitment to justice helped shape our nation's legal landscape. Her legacy lives on in a generation of lawyers she inspired, the ordinary lives she touched, and a nation that is more just. Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to her family and all who loved and admired her."
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Life on Earth has already been fundamentally altered by global warming, affecting the genes of plants and animals and altering every ecosystem on the planet, according to a major review of the scientific literature.

A paper in the leading journal Science warned the changes were so dramatic  and potentially dangerous  that scientists might be forced to intervene in some cases to create human-assisted evolution.

One of the main concerns about climate change is it will seriously damage food production, particularly in places prone to flooding and drought, leading to mass famines and the forced migration of climate refugees.

The researchers found that 82 per cent of the natural ecological processes that support healthy ecosystems on land and sea had been affected in a way that had not been expected for decades.

The average global temperature has risen by one degree Celsius since the 1880s, as humans have pumped greenhouse gases from fossil fuels into the atmosphere.

The researchers said this had already had broad and worrying impacts on natural systems, with accumulating consequences for people.

Minimising the impacts of climate change on core ecological processes must now be a key policy priority for all nations, they wrote in the paper.

It is now up to national governments to make good on the promises they made in Paris [at last year's climate summit] through regular tightening of emission targets, and also to recognise the importance of healthy ecosystems in times of unprecedented change.

Time is running out for a globally synchronised response to climate change that integrates adequate protection of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Many species are shifting towards the poles as the world has warms, while others are seeking higher ground.

Marine species have expanded into areas that were usually too cold at a rate of 72km per decade, while land species have done so at 6km per decade, the paper said.

Animals in decline Show all 8 1 /8 Animals in decline Animals in decline Harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) Where: Orkney Islands. What: Between 2001-2006, numbers in Orkney declined by 40 per cent. Why: epidemics of the phocine distemper virus are thought to have caused major declines, but the killing of seals in the Moray Firth to protect salmon farms may have an impact. Alamy Animals in decline African lion (Panthera leo) Where: Ghana. What: In Ghanas Mole National Park, lion numbers have declined by more than 90 per cent in 40 years. Why: local conflicts are thought to have contributed to the slaughter of lions and are a worrying example of the status of the animal in Western and Central Africa. Animals in decline Leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) Where: Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Costa Rica. What: Numbers are down in both the Atlantic and Pacific. It declined by 95 per cent between 1989-2002 in Costa Rica. Why: mainly due to them being caught as bycatch, but theyve also been affected by local developments. Alamy Animals in decline Wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) Where: South Atlantic. What: A rapid decline. One population, from Bird Island, South Georgia, declined by 50 per cent between 1972-2010, according to the British Antarctic Survey. Why: being caught in various commercial longline fisheries. Alamy Animals in decline Saiga Antelope (Saiga tatarica) Where: Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. What: fall in populations has been dramatic. In the early 1990s numbers were over a million, but are now estimated to be around 50,000. Why: the break up of the former USSR led to uncontrolled hunting. Increased rural poverty means the species is hunted for its meat Animals in decline Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) Where: found worldwide in tropical, subtropical and temperate seas. Why: at risk from overfishing and as a target in recreational fishing. A significant number of swordfish are also caught by illegal driftnet fisheries in the Mediterranean Animals in decline Argali Sheep (Ovis mammon) Where: Central and Southern Asian mountains,usually at 3,000-5,000 metres altitude. Why: domesticated herds of sheep competing for grazing grounds. Over-hunting and poaching. Animals in decline Humphead Wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) Where: the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to South Africa and to the Tuamoto Islands (Polynesia), north to the Ryukyu Islands (south-west Japan), and south to New Caledonia. Why: Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing and trading of the species

Other creatures are changing shape, with many getting smaller as a higher surface-area-to-body-mass ratio makes it easier to stay cool.

For example, six species of woodland salamander in the Appalachian Mountains have undergone an average eight per cent reduction in body size over the past 50 years.

Slightly smaller lizards might not sound like something to overly concern humans, but there is evidence this response is also affecting important sources of food.

Some fish species appear to be shrinking, but attributing this solely to ocean warming is difficult because size-dependent responses can be triggered by commercial fishing as well as long-term climate change, the researchers wrote.

However, long-term trend analyses show convincingly that eight commercial fish species in the North Sea underwent simultaneous reductions in body size over a 40-year period because of ocean warming, resulting in 23 per cent lower yields.

 Climate change: It's "game over" for planet earth

Changes are also taking place on a much bigger scale.

In Alaska, the researchers said wholesale biome shifts had been observed with the tundra  transitioning to boreal conditions.

These are clear signs of large-scale ecosystem change and disruption, in which disequilibrium rapidly pushes the system into a new state, they wrote.

And such ecological regime shifts can have dire results.

For example, some reefs are transitioning from coral- to algal-dominated states as a consequence of mass coral mortality, whereas kelp forests are turning into rocky barrens in temperate seas, the researchers said.

In lakes, climate change has increased the risk of regime shifts from clear-water to turbid states and increased the occurrence of cyanobacteria blooms.

All this turmoil is likely to be too much for some forms of life. For example, some trees do not reproduce fast enough to shift their range uphill to escape the warming climate.

 'Dangerous' climate change could arrive as early as 2050

The researchers suggested humans might have to step in to help nature.

One such strategy is to use assisted gene flow, the managed movement of individuals or gametes between populations to mitigate local maladaptation in the short and long term, the researchers said.

Human-assisted evolution may  be a key strategy in maintaining reef dependent fisheries by accelerating and enhancing the stress tolerance of corals.

The researchers pointed to declines in the yields of significant food crops, such as rich, maize and coffee, in response to the combined effects of rising temperatures and increasing precipitation variability over past decades.

Genetics is being used to counteract decreasing yields in some key crops such as wheat (for which, globally, yields have declined by six per cent since the early 1980s) through crossing domesticated crops with wild relatives to maintain the evolutionary potential of varieties, they wrote.

Yet, some important wild strains are also showing signs of impact from climate change.

Losing genetic resources in nature may undermine future development of novel crop varieties and compromise key strategies that humans use to adapt to climate change.

Farmers in temperate areas are also now using a specially cultivated peach, called UFBest, which requires fewer chilly days than typical varieties after experiencing a fall in fruit quality and yield.

Plagues of insect pests are also a growing problem, particularly in the forests of North America.

Several native insect species from North America, with no prior records of severe infestation, have recently emerged as severe pathogens of forest resources because of changes in population dynamics, the researchers said.

These include the Aspen leaf miner, the leafblotch miner, and the Janets looper, which have decimated millions of hectares of aspen, willows, and spruce-fir forests since the early 1990s.

Known pests such as mountain and southern pine beetles and spruce beetles have recently expanded their distribution and infestation intensity on commercially important pine and spruce trees.

These outbreaks may increase in the future because hundreds of plant pest and pathogen species have shifted their distributions 2 to 3.5km per year pole-ward since the 1960s.

Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

And humans should take note, as mosquitoes that carry diseases like malaria, Zika and dengue are also on the move.

One of the researchers, Professor James Watson, of Queensland University, said: Some people didn't expect this level of change for decades.

The impacts of climate change are being felt everywhere, with no ecosystem on Earth being spared. It is no longer sensible to consider climate change as a concern only for the future.

Emissions targets must be actively achieved and time is running out for a synchronised global response to climate change that safeguards biodiversity and ecosystem services."
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First ladies of the United States have not only had a major influence on the course of the country throughout the years, but have also stood at the forefront of fashion.

46-year-old Slovenian former model Melania Trump has already spent much of the year revealing what the countrys next First Lady might dress like. Like many before her, she has championed the All-American style, most recently taking to the stage wearing a white, slit legged jumpsuit by Ralph Lauren.

As the US prepares to wave goodbye to perhaps the most stylish of leading ladies we are reminded of the indelible mark so many have left on White House fashion. Here, we take a look at how these women embraced the role clothes can play in establishing substance.

Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama at the State of the Union Address wearing Narciso Rodriguez ( (Rex Features)

Not since Jackie Kennedy has the US had such a fashionable leading lady. Michelle Obamas timeless style appealed to all generations while her affinity with high-low fashion choices made her feel just like one of us.

From everyday off-the-rack clothes to custome creations from some seriously heavy hitting designers like Jason Wu and Tom Ford, Michelle had a winning fashion formula. She has taken some risks during her time as First Lady but never lost sight of her polished look, especially that trademark sleeveless fare.

Laura Bush

(Getty Images (Getty Images)

Having admitted that it was hard for her to be in the eye of the fashion critics, Laura Bush was never one to keep up with the trends, instead opting for a style categorised by harmless elegance rather than cutting edge fashion.

She was said to be shocked by the amount of designer clothes she was expected to wear as First Lady and thus, for her first Inaugural Ball wore a dress designed by a local designer from her homestate of Texas. Laura was the ultimate in classic, conservative style albeit with a punch of patriotic pride.

Hillary Clinton

(AFP/Getty Images (AFP/Getty Images)

Hilary has been dressing for the White House for decades now and in the process has seemingly carved herself a distinctive look; one which used to be defined by pastel two pieces and a no-nonsense bob with wispy bangs.

Since then though her style has shifted and been repackaged with the help of Obamas former aide Kristina Schake. Ultimately, her sartorial choices can be summarised in a single word  pantsuits. A look she made her own in bright hues to show who really wore the trousers.

Nancy Reagan

Former movie Star Nancy brought her fierce red carpet style to the White House as she ushered in a new era of Hollywood glamour. She regularly opted for striking Reagan Red and gold lame over stale neutrals to really express her patriotism and even the late, great Oscar de la Renta once said she never made a single faux pas.

Jackie Kennedy

(Getty Images (Getty Images)

It might have been more than 20 years since her passing but Jackie Kennedy is still a fashion role model for women all over the world.

Coming to the White House in 1961, she was one of the first First Ladies to be televised in that role and really took the media into consideration when she dressed.

Best known for her ladylike pillbox hats and skirt suits, she chose pale colours that would look good in black-and-white and wasnt afraid to take risks in preppy cropped pants.

Betty Ford

(Getty Images (Getty Images)

She might not have been particularly trendsetting but Betty certainly had style and a knack for fashion. With her signature 70s-style bob, silk scarves, cat-eye specs and high-neck Chinese-style collars, this First Lady oozed individual style in the best way possible.

Like Hillary, she had a penchant for colour blocking often opting for all-in-one shades of cornflower blue and orange.
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A modelling agency has received more than 40 reports from girls as young as 14 that they have been contacted online by someone claiming to be a scout who is recruiting models.

Using fake Snapchat accounts in Base Models' name, somebody has been messaging UK girls telling them that they could earn anywhere between 500 and 50,000 by working for the company.

The model agency is keen to assert that it does not have a Snapchat account, and does not recruit models on the platofrm.

The company said it had been receiving reports since October about a Snapchat profile asking girls to send indecent images, and that anyone approached online by someone claiming to work for them should contact their office.

An account was removed after the agency complained, but a week later another account appeared and the issue continued.

A 19-year-old student from Manchester, Elle McCandles, was asked to send pictures of herself in her underwear but after feeling that something wasnt right, declined and contacted the agency immediately.

Speaking to the BBC, a mother of a 14-year-old child model from Hunwick, Country Durham, said her daughter had also been targeted in a similar way. They messaged her saying they worked for Base and wanted to hire her as a model, so she sent some headshots.

Despite of telling the so-called scout that she was 14, she was still asked to send lingerie shots so proceeded to tell her mother who contacted Base Models.

Speaking on behalf of the agency, managing director Max Ridd blames the rise of celebrity culture for the fraudulent messages.

Young people have always been seduced by the idea of fame and celebrity - but especially today with the Kardashian fame wave going on, he said.

Modelling is seen as a first step on the fame ladder - and I think that's one reason why we are being targeted.

This isnt the first time the company has come under attack though. Last month, Police in Scotland issued a warning after a girl was asked to expose herself on Skype by someone claiming to work for Base Models.

An NSPCC spokesperson said: Every child has the right to be safe online and reports of children being contacted in this way are troubling.

No legitimate company would ever ask a child to send indecent images of themselves, and anyone who receives such a request should report it immediately.

Children should remember to think twice before sharing pictures of themselves, and if they are ever unsure they can call Childline on 0800 11 11.
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Navinder Singh Sarao, the British day trader accused of contributing to the 2010 Flash Crash, was allowed to return to his parents home near Londons Heathrow Airport after becoming the second person convicted of manipulating commodities markets by placing orders he never intended to fulfill.

Mr Sarao, 37, extradited from the UK two days ago, pleaded guilty to spoofing and wire fraud in a Chicago federal court and agreed to forfeit $12.9 million in ill-earned gains from his trades. He was accused of making $40 million spoofing the Chicago Mercantile Exchanges stock futures market over five years, including on May 6, 2010, when a trading frenzy briefly wiped almost $1 trillion from the value of American equities.

He was accused of making $40 million spoofing the Chicago Mercantile Exchanges stock futures market over five years, including on May 6, 2010, when a trading frenzy briefly wiped almost $1 trillion from the value of American equities.

His case grabbed headlines around the world as people struggled with the idea that a single day trader  often working from his bedroom in the house he shared with his parents  could make so much money and wreak such havoc on markets.

Mr Saraos plea came a year after trader Michael Coscia was convicted of spoofing and commodities fraud by a Chicago jury in the first criminal trial since such activity was made illegal. In the same court, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission reached a settlement in October in its lawsuit accusing Igor Oystacher and his 3Red Trading of spoofing, a form of manipulation that involves moving prices by placing orders without intending to execute them.

Mr Sarao also agreed to pay a penalty of $25.7 million to the CFTC to resolve a 2015 civil lawsuit filed against him by the commission. That settlement, which must be approved by a judge, bans Sarao from trading derivatives.

He faces a prison sentence of as much as 30 years. In reality, that maximum sentence is more an indication of the severity of the alleged crimes than the actual sentence he might receive.

Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit with his ankles chained, Mr Sarao stood in court on Wednesday with his hands behind his back, responding softly yes, your honor when asked whether he understood the terms of his plea agreement and release.

He told US District Judge Virginia Kendall he had a degree in mathematics and computer science. When the judge asked whether he had been treated for a mental illness, his lawyer, Roger Burlingame, said Mr Sarao has severe Aspergers but hasnt been treated for it. While Mr Sarao has very limited functionality and lacks social skills, he has extraordinary abilities, including pattern recognition, Mr Burlingame said.

Judge Kendall approved Mr Saraos release before sentencing under a plea agreement with prosecutors after confirming the process for placing liens on the property of his parents and brother in the UK The judge called Mr Saraos father to make sure he understood that his home was being used to secure the $750,000 bond for release.

Mr Sarao will be under curfew from 11 pm to 4 am and will be barred from travelling outside the UK or drinking excessively. He doesnt take any sort of intoxicant at all, Mr Saraos father said. He doesnt even drink tea or coffee.

The judge set a status conference for 9 February to decide on a sentencing date.

While fighting extradition, Mr Sarao spent four months in prison last year as he tried to secure bail, eventually winning his release in the UK by disclosing he had about 25 million of assets in Switzerland.

Biggest business scandals in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Biggest business scandals in pictures Biggest business scandals in pictures Volkswagen emissions scandal VW admitted to rigging its US emission tests so that diesel-powered cars would looks like they were emitting less nitrous oxide, which can damage the ozone layer and contribute to respiratory diseases. Around 11 million cars worldwide were affected. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Martin Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals Martin Shkreli became known as the most hated man in the world after his drug company, Turing, increased the price of a 62-year-old drug that treated HIV patients by 5,000% to $750 a pill. He was charged with illegally taking stock from Retrophin, a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. Shkreli, who maintains he is innocent, and says there is little evidence of fraud because his investors didn't lose money. Biggest business scandals in pictures Panama Papers: Millions of leaked documents expose how worlds rich and powerful hid money - April 2016 Millions of confidential documents have been leaked from one of the worlds most secretive law firms, exposing how the rich and powerful have hidden their money. Dictators and other heads of state have been accused of laundering money, avoiding sanctions and evading tax, according to the unprecedented cache of papers that show the inner workings of the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which is based in Panama. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Google's tax avoidance Google reached a deal with the HM Revenue and Customs to pay back 130 million in so-called back-taxes that have been due since 2005. George Osborne championed the deal as a major success. But European MEPs have since called for the Chancellor to appear in front of the committee on tax rulings to explain the tax deal. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Rogue trader A French court cut the damages owed by rogue trader Jerome Kerviel from 4.9bn (4.2bn) to just 1m (860,000). The court ruled on that Kerviel was partly responsible for massive losses suffered in 2008 by his former employer Societe Generale through his reckless trades. Kerviel has consistently maintained that bosses at the French bank knew what he was doing all along. AP Biggest business scandals in pictures Barclays CEO under investigation for trying to identify whistleblower - Monday Paril 10 Authorities have launched an investigation into Barclays chief executive officer Jes Staley for trying to identify a whistleblower, the bank said on Monday. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) are both investigating Mr Staley after the bank notified them that Mr Staley had tried to identify the author of two anonymous letters, which were sent to the board and a senior executive in June 2016. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures UK to crack down on bank money laundering after reports of 65bn Russian scam, City minister says - March 2017 The Economic Secretary to the Treasury has vowed that the Government will crack down on money laundering practices, after several of the UK's biggest banks were accused of processing money from a Russian scam, believed to involve up to $80bn (65bn). Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Former HBOS bankers convicted of bribery and fraud over 245m loan scam - February 2017 Two former HBOS bankers were among six people found guilty of bribery and fraud that cost customers and shareholders hundreds of millions of pounds, the BBC reports. Lynden Scourfield, 54, a manager at HBOS, forced struggling clients to use the services of his friends David Mills, 60, and Michael Bancroft, 73. In return, the two businessmen arranged sex parties, cash and lavish gifts. On Monday, the three were convicted at Southwark Crown Court on accounts including bribery, fraud and money laundering. Mark Dobson, another manager at HBOS, Alison Mills, and John Cartwright were also convicted. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Lloyds chief apologises for damage caused by affair allegations - August 2016 Antonio Horta-Osorio, the chief executive of Lloyds Bank, has broken his silence over allegations about his private life admitting he regrets any "damage done to the group's reputation". In a message sent to the bank's 75,000 employees, the banker said that anyone can make mistakes while insisting that staff had to maintain the highest professional standards. 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Mark Johnson, global head of foreign exchange cash trading in London, was reportedly arrested on Tuesday. He will appear before a federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, Bloomberg said. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Former PwC employees found guilty in 'Luxleaks' tax scandal - June 2016 Two ex- PricewaterhouseCoopers staffers were found guilty in Luxembourg of stealing confidential tax files that helped unleash a global scandal over generous fiscal deals for hundreds of international companies. Antoine Deltour and Raphael Halet face suspended sentences of 12 months and 9 months and were ordered to pay fines of 1,500 (1,230) and 1,000 (822) for their role in the so-called LuxLeaks scandal. Despite the minimal sentences, the ruling was described by Deltours lawyer as shocking and a terrible anomaly. The ruling puts on guard future whistle-blowers, Deltour told reporters.The LuxLeaks revelations sped beyond Luxembourg, causing European Union regulators to expand a tax-subsidy probe and propose new laws to fight corporate tax dodging, while EU lawmakers created a special committee to probe fiscal deals across the 28-nation bloc. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Goldman Sachs dealmakers lavished Libyan officials with prostitutes to win contract - June 2016 A former Goldman Sachs dealmaker trying to persuade Gadaffi-era Libya to invest $1 billion with the investment bank procured prostitutes and invited Libyan officials to lavish parties in the hope of winning the business, the High Court heard on Monday June 13.The Libyan Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund is suing Goldman Sachs for inappropriately coercing its naive staff into giving its sovereign wealth fund cash to the bank to invest in products they did not understand. The products were designed to generate big profits for Goldman, the LIA claims.Goldman denies wrongdoing and says the LIA was treated as an arms-length customer Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Former boss of BHS said his life was threatened - June 2016 Darren Topp, the former boss of BHS, has said former owner Dominic Chappell threatened to kill him when he challenged him over a 1.5 million transfer out of the business. MPs on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee asked Mr Topp about a 1.5 million transfer Mr Chappell made from BHS to a company called BHS Sweden. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley admits paying workers below the minimum wage - June 2016 Mike Ashley admitted paying Sports Direct employees below the minimum wage at a hearing in front of MPs. The company founder said that workers were paid less than the statutory minimum because of bottlenecks at security in an admission that could result in sanctions from HMRC. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Mitsubishi admits improper fuel tests - April 2016 Mitsubishi has admitted to using false fuel methods dating back to 1991. The scale of the scandal is only just coming to light after it was revealed in April that data was falsified in the testing of four types of cars, including two Nissan cars. AP Biggest business scandals in pictures Quindell, the scandal-ridden insurance firm Quindell was once a darling of AIM but its share price fell in April 2014 when its accounting practices were attacked in a stinging research note by US short seller Gotham City. In August the group was forced to disclose that the 107 million pre-tax profit it had reported for 2013 was incorrect, and it had in fact suffered a 64million loss. 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US prosecutors said Mr Sarao manipulated one of the most important financial assets in the world  futures on the S&P 500 Index, the benchmark measure for US stock prices.

The case shone a light on spoofing, a form of cheating made illegal through the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The technique is frowned upon because it undermines the validity of price quotes. Spoofing involves placing orders to buy or sell with the intent of moving prices in one direction, then canceling those trades before theyre executed to profit when prices snap back to where they had been.

Mr Saraos lawyers challenged the US case by arguing in October that his actions werent a crime in the UK, and, because he is a British citizen, that any trial should take place in England. The prosecution countered that while Mr Sarao was in the UK, most of the damage was on an American trading platform.

Navinder Sarao abused sophisticated technology to make a quick profit, and jeopardised the integrity of US financial markets, US Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell said in an emailed statement. By flooding the marketplace with bogus orders, his scheme victimised countless individuals.

Bloomberg
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An investigation into whether Brad Pitt was abusive towards his son on a private flight in September has been closed with no finding of wrongdoing by the actor.

A source familiar with the inquiry told The Associated Press the inquiry was closed within the past few days.

Multiples sources have said the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services was looking into allegations Pitt was abusive towards his 15-year-old son on the flight in mid-September.

Pitt's wife, Angelina Jolie Pitt, filed for divorce days after the incident, and her lawyer said it was for the health of the family.

A department spokesman said the agency could not confirm it investigated Pitt.

The actor attended the Los Angeles premiere of the film Allied at the Regency Village Theatre on Wednesday evening.

A representative for Jolie said the actress is relieved the inquiry is over and that the custody arrangements in place will allow the children to heal.

Custody of the actors' six children has been the primary issue in their divorce. Jolie Pitt is seeking sole custody of the children, while Pitt is seeking joint custody.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures Show all 35 1 /35 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures May 2014 Actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt attend the World Premiere of Disney's "Maleficent" at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures November 2015 Actress/director Angelina Jolie Pitt and husband actor Brad Pitt arrive at the AFI FEST 2015 presented by Audi opening night gala premiere of Universal Pictures' "By The Sea" at the Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures June 2014 Angelina Jolie, Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and her partner actor Brad Pitt, look at displayed pictures of victims of violence during the third day of the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London. Pitt added his A-list support to his partner Angelina Jolie's efforts to eradicate rape in war zones when he joined her in a flashbulb-popping appearance at a global conference in London AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures March 2014 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie attend the Oscars held at Hollywood & Highland Cente in Hollywood Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures February 2014 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt attend the EE British Academy Film Awards 2014 at The Royal Opera House in London Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures November 2013 Angelina Jolie, Maddox Jolie-Pitt and actor Brad Pitt arrive at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Governors Awards at The Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures February 2012 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt attend the Cinema for Peace Gala ceremony at the Konzerthaus Am Gendarmenmarkt during day five of the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival Getty Images for Cinema for Peac Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures January 2012 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt arrive on the red carpet for the 69th annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures November 2011 Accompanied by their children, Brad Pitt and Angellina Jolie appear before photographers upon their arrival at Haneda Airport in Tokyo AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures May 2011 Brad Pitt and Angelina Joiie attend the Premiere of DreamWorks Animation's "Kung Fu Panda 2" at Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures May 2011 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt attend "The Tree Of Life" premiere during the 64th Annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures November 2010 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (with camera) on the 'Romeo and Juliette' film set in Budapest, Hungary Rex Features Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures July 2010 Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt arrive at the premiere of Sony Pictures' "Salt" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures December 2009 Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie and their son Maddox arrive at the premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' and Spyglass Entertainment's "Invictus" at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Theater in Beverly Hills Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures May 2009 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie attend the Inglourious Basterds Premiere held at the Palais Des Festivals during the 62nd International Cannes Film Festival Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures January 2009 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie arrive at Narita International Airport with their children (L to R) Maddox, Vivienne, Zahara and Knox in Narita, Chiba, Japan Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures January 2009 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie pose on the red carpet for the German premiere of the film 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' in Berlin AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures December 2008 Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt arrive at the premiere of Paramount's "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" held at Mann's Village Theatre on Decemeber 8, 2008 in Westwood, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures May 2008 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt pose as they arrive to attend the screening of US actor and director Clint Eastwood's film 'The Exchange' at the 61st Cannes International Film Festival AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures May 2008 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt pose as they arrive for the screening of US directors John Stevenson and Mark Osborne's film 'Kung Fu Panda' at the 61st Cannes International Film Festival in Cannes AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures January 2008 Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt attend the cocktail party during the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild awards held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures September 2007 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt attend the The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford premiere on the Day 5 of the 64th Annual Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures May 2007 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie depart the premiere for the film 'Ocean's Thirteen' at the Palais des Festivals during the 60th International Cannes Film Festival Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures May 2007 Angelina Jolie poses as she arrives with actor and producer Brad Pitt at the Festival Palace in Cannes AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures May 2007 Angelina Jolie and her husband Brad Pitt, have a drink in a Prague restaurant "U Sevce Matouse" ("At Matous' Shoemaker") prior to the shooting of Jolie's new film "Wanted". The couple and their children Maddox, Pax Thien, Zahara and Shiloh Nouvel, arrived in Prague aboard a private plane. They are to spend five weeks in Prague AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures January 2007 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie arrive at the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures January 2007 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie arrive at Newmarket Films premiere of "God Grew Tired of Us" at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures December 2006 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt attend the World Premiere of "The Good Shepherd" presented by Universal Pictures at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures November 2006 Brad Pitt and his partner Angelina Jolie ride on a motorcycle on a busy street in downtown Ho Chi Minh city. Jolie and Pitt are expected to adopt a three-year-old Vietnamese AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures November 2006 Angelina Jolie holds daughter Zahara as husband Brad Pitt carries son Maddox during a stroll on the seafront promenade at the historic Gateway of India AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures June 2006 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt give a press conference at a Swakopmund hotel. Hollywood's hottest couple became the proud parents of daughter Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt on 27 May in Namibia AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures January 2006 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt leave Hotel Belvedere in Davos . UN goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie was in Davos for the World Economic Forum AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures January 2006 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt leaving the session opened by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "A new Mindset for the UN" at the the World Economic Forum in Davos AFP/Getty Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures November 2005 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, accompanied by Jolie's children, arrive at Narita Airport in suburban Tokyo) AFP/Getty Images Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship in pictures June 2005 (L-R) Regency Enterprises' David Matalon, actor Brad Pitt, Producer Arnon Milchan, actress Angelina Jolie and News Corp. President/Chief operating officer Peter Chernin arrive at the premiere of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" at the Mann Village Theater in Westwood Getty Images

Pitt has seen his children under terms agreed upon by the former couple. Jolie Pitt's representatives said on Monday that an agreement on custody had been reached, although a final agreement will be part of the couple's divorce judgment when it is entered.

California law favours joint custody, although details about custody arrangements are rarely made public in celebrity divorce cases.

The actors were married for two years and together for 12 years after becoming close while filming 2005's Mr & Mrs Smith.

AP
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Amy Schumer has branded those who voted for Donald Trump weak and misinformed in a scathing tirade, condemning the Republican's supporters for being deceived by his reality TV catchphrases.

To the dismay of his detractors and the jubilation of his supporters, Mr Trump was elected as the 45th president of the United States on Thursday. The billionaire is due to meet with Barack Obama to formally commence the process of presidential transition today.

Schumer, who was a vocal Hillary Clinton supporter, says her heart is in a million pieces in a post directing anger and fury at those who voted for Mr Trump.

The comedian also appeared to backtrack over her previous remarks about leaving the US if Mr Trump was victorious and argued that those who leave America now he has won are as disgusting as those who voted for him.

President Donald Trump life in pictures Show all 16 1 /16 President Donald Trump life in pictures President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump poses in a rocking chair once used by President John F. Kennedy at his New York City residence Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump with his new bride Marla Maples after their wedding at the Plaza hotel in New York Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Celina Midelfart watch the match between Conchita Martinez and Amanda Coetzer during U.S. Open. She was the date whom Donald Trump was with when he met his current wife Melania at a party in 1996 Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas serving as the grand marshal for the Daytona 500, speaks to Donald Trump and Melania Knauss on the starting grid at the Daytona International Speedwa Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump talks with his former wife Ivana Trump during the men's final at the U.S. Open Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and his friend Melania Knauss pose for photographers as they arrive at the New York premiere of Star Wars Episode : 'The Phantom Menace,' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump talks with host Larry King. Trump told King that he was moving toward a possible bid for the United States presidency with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump answers questions as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura looks on in Brooklyn Park. Trump said on Friday he 'very well might' make a run for president under the Reform Party banner but had not made a final decision Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump makes a face at a friend as he sits next to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso before the start of the 2003 Miss Universe pageant in Panama City Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Entrepreneur Donald Trump is greeted by a Marilyn Monroe character look-a-alike, as he arrives at Universal Studios Hollywood to attend the an open casting call for his NBC television network reality series 'The Apprentice.' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Simon Cowell present an Emmy during the 56th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Megan Mullally perform at the 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump, poses with his children, son Donald Trump, Jr., and daughters Tiffany and Ivanka Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump told Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner on Tuesday she would be given a second chance after reported misbehavior Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump holds a replica of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as his wife Melania holds their son Barron in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. property mogul Donald Trump stands next to a bagpiper during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland Reuters

People who voted for him, you are weak. You are not just misinformed, she said in an Instagram post.

You didn't even attempt information. You say lock her up and you know something about the word email but what was in the emails? You have no clue.

Well, I'll tell you if you were able to read this far through the holes in your sheet. They said nothing incriminating. Nothing.

Schumer said she was furious at his victory, saying she not only shed a tear for the smart people who understand what is right but also for those individuals who were duped by shiny hats and reality catch phrases.

Schumer also went back on her former remarks about leaving the US if Mr Trump won and insisted she had been joking. Back in September, Schumer told BBC Newsnight she would move to Spain if he won.

My act will change because I will need to learn to speak Spanish because I will move to Spain or somewhere, she said with a grave look on her face. It's beyond my comprehension if Trump won. It's too crazy.

But Schumer has now reassured followers she will be staying in America and rebuked those who have said they will leave. First of all the interview where I said I would move was in London and was said in jest. Not that anyone needs more than a headline to count something as official news.

Schumer also scolded those who assumed she had been paid to endorse Ms Clinton and insisted no celebrities had been paid to support the Democrat.

The photo attached to Schumers Instagram includes a meme with a fake quote from People magazine in which Mr Trump is quoted as saying If I were to run. Id run as a Republican. Theyre the dumbest group of voters in the country. The false quote was debunked back in July but has continued to be widely shared since he announced his presidential bid in 2015.
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Donald Trump will later this month become the first president-elect in history to appear in court to defend himself against allegations of defrauding his own countrymen.

The 70-year-old Republican is scheduled to appear on November 28 in San Diego to answer allegations from former students of the now-shuttered Trump University. A number of students claim they were mislead into paying up to $35,000 learn worthless real estate investing secrets .

I cannot think of any precedent for someone having to defend themselves like against such allegations, Robert Shapiro, professor of government at Columbia University, told The Independent. If he is found guilty, he could have to pay out a lot of money.

Reuters said that while presidents enjoyed immunity from lawsuits arising from their official duties, the US Supreme Court has said this shield does not extend to acts alleged to have taken place prior to taking office.

The lawsuits stem from people who said they enrolled for courses that did not offer insights into the real estate industry, and that the so-called experts involved in the affair were not selected by Mr Trump.

The New York tycoon has denied the allegations. Because it is a civil suit he is not obliged to appear in court, though he has made clear his intention to do so and gave two depositions in the case while campaigning.

 Donald Trump is 'vile and horrible' says former Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett

Miami trial consultant Sandy Marks told the news agency that Mr Trump may ask the presiding judge, Gonzalo Curiel, to postpone the trial in an effort to settle the case before taking office.

I think the judge would be foolhardy not to give him a short delay, which would give him a chance to resolve the case with all these people and put it behind him, he said.

Mr Trump repeatedly claimed on the campaign trail that he would win the lawsuit, and he accused Mr Curiel of being biased against him because of his campaign promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico. The judge was born in Indiana to Mexican parents.

At one point, Mr Trump told supporters: Hes a Mexican. Were building a wall between here and Mexico.

Claims against Mr Trump over the seminars date back to to 2010, with two class actions filed in federal court in San Diego and another case brought by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on behalf of students who claim they were misled.

Politico said that in addition to several suits over Trump University, Mr Trump has threatened lawsuits against a dozen or more women whove accused him of sexual impropriety and assault. Several of those women have threatened to countersue if he comes after them.

At the same time, there is also a New York state investigation into Mr Trumps charitable foundation and a reported federal investigation into some of his advisers ties to Russia.
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While Donald Trump is an extrovert, Melania Trump is an introvert. While the President-elect is brash and impulsive, the First Lady in waiting is composed and restrained.

The 46-year-old, who is almost a quarter century younger than her other half, is not a self-promoter and keeps her cards close to her chest. Unlike Michelle Obama who is a bonafide social media sensation - with a burgeoning Snapchat account and 7.7 million Instagram followers and counting, the Slovenian former model is a comparative recluse. She has just 409,000 Twitter followers and rarely gives interviews to the press. In turn, the public is left with a highly glamorous, elusive sidekick to make sense of.

However, Ms Trump has had her fair share of headlines and is arguably better known for her controversies than her persona. First, there was the time she was accused of plagiarising Ms Obama after her address at the Republican National Convention. Then there was the nude photo shoot republished on the cover of The New York Post.

The woman behind him

Ms Trump first met Mr Trump at a Fashion Week party at the Kit Kat Klub just off Time Square in September 1998 in the days when she was called Melania Knaus. At the time the billionaire property tycoon was separated from his second wife Marla Maples.

Fast forward a few years and the pair were engaged in 2004 and married in a church ceremony in Florida the following year. They pulled out all the stops, with Ms Trumps opulent wedding dress reported to have cost more than $100,000 (81,000). A tad ironically, Hillary and Bill Clinton were guests at their wedding reception in Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

Shes shown she can be the woman behind me, Mr Trump later boasted to gossip columnist Cindy Adams. Were together five years, and these five years for whatever reasons have been my most successful. I have to imagine she had something to do with that.

The first First Lady to be born in a communist country

Born in Slovenia when it was part of Yugoslavia, Ms Trump will be the first First Lady to be born in a communist nation. She will also be the first First Lady to be born abroad since Louisa Adams who moved into the White House in 1825.

The then-small-town girl began her modelling career when she was just 16 and signed with a modelling agency in Milan at the age of 18. She also graduated from a design high school and attended the University of Ljubljana before relocating to Italy and later Paris for modelling.

Since then she has gone on to appear on the cover of everything from Harper's Bazaar to Vanity Fair, GQ, and more. She now has her own skin care line and jewellery line, which was fleetingly sold from the distinctly unglamorous QVC shopping channel before moving onto high-end stores. She speaks five languages - Slovenian, Serbian, English, German and French.

President Donald Trump life in pictures Show all 16 1 /16 President Donald Trump life in pictures President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump poses in a rocking chair once used by President John F. Kennedy at his New York City residence Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump with his new bride Marla Maples after their wedding at the Plaza hotel in New York Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Celina Midelfart watch the match between Conchita Martinez and Amanda Coetzer during U.S. Open. She was the date whom Donald Trump was with when he met his current wife Melania at a party in 1996 Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas serving as the grand marshal for the Daytona 500, speaks to Donald Trump and Melania Knauss on the starting grid at the Daytona International Speedwa Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump talks with his former wife Ivana Trump during the men's final at the U.S. Open Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and his friend Melania Knauss pose for photographers as they arrive at the New York premiere of Star Wars Episode : 'The Phantom Menace,' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump talks with host Larry King. Trump told King that he was moving toward a possible bid for the United States presidency with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump answers questions as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura looks on in Brooklyn Park. Trump said on Friday he 'very well might' make a run for president under the Reform Party banner but had not made a final decision Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump makes a face at a friend as he sits next to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso before the start of the 2003 Miss Universe pageant in Panama City Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Entrepreneur Donald Trump is greeted by a Marilyn Monroe character look-a-alike, as he arrives at Universal Studios Hollywood to attend the an open casting call for his NBC television network reality series 'The Apprentice.' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Simon Cowell present an Emmy during the 56th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Megan Mullally perform at the 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump, poses with his children, son Donald Trump, Jr., and daughters Tiffany and Ivanka Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump told Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner on Tuesday she would be given a second chance after reported misbehavior Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump holds a replica of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as his wife Melania holds their son Barron in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. property mogul Donald Trump stands next to a bagpiper during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland Reuters

She is insistent she does not want people to feel sorry for her

While it is easy for Ms Trump to disappear into the shadow of her larger-than-life husband, it would foolish to underestimate her: there is an undeniable strength - steeliness even - to Ms Trumps cordially polite exterior. While many fall into the trap of feeling sorry for her, she is insistent she does not want pity or sympathy.

In an extensive interview with CNN about the sexual assault allegations women have launched against her husband, which he has strenuously denied, she said: People talk about me like, Oh, Melania, oh poor Melania. Dont feel sorry for me, dont feel sorry for me. I can handle everything.

Ms Trump condemned her husbands sexually aggressive comments about women after the tapes were leaked. In the unearthed 2005 recording, Mr Trump could be heard boasting about using his fame to grab women by the "p***y". He later issued a 90-second long apology for the remarks.

The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me," she said in a statement. "This does not represent the man that I know. He has the heart and mind of a leader. I hope people will accept his apology, as I have.

She is devoted to Barron Trump

And the reason she has often steered clear of the limelight? It arguably has something to do with Barron Trump. Her and Mr Trumps 10-year-old son - the one who looked like he was about to nod off as his father gave his victory speech.

My husband is travelling all the time. Barron needs somebody as a parent, so I am with him all the time, she told People magazine in September of 2015. She has also cited her 10-year-old son Barron as part of her reasoning for taking up the cause of anti-bullying.

This brings us to Ms Trumps politics - or moreover her lack of politics thus far. While Ms Obama has campaigned for access to education for girls and for veterans and against Mr Trump himself, she has yet to find a campaign of choice. No doubt this is something which will likely change once Ms Trump is in the White House and privy to the same pressures of all First Ladies.

However, one of the few issues she has spoken up about is bullying online - an ironic choice given her hubbys apparent appetite for firing off provocative tweets at ungodly hours.

Our culture has gotten too mean and too rough, especially to children and teenagers, Ms Trump recently said at a campaign rally.
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Donald Trumps election victory may have shocked swathes of America, but his team made sure they were prepared.

Staff charged with ensuring a smooth transition into the White House have spent months carefully compiling a list of people who would form Mr Trumps administration and deliver his controversial vision of America.

Buzzfeed has obtained a list of 41 overwhelmingly white, male and middle-aged people lined up for positions in his cabinet. In a surprise to few, many are pro-life and against same-sex marriage. Some names will already be familiar because of their US election campaigns. Most have made statements likely to raise eyebrows, some more unsettling than others. In its current form, this line-up could produce a Secretary of Education who once claimed the Holocaust could have been prevented if Jewish people living in Germany had been armed and an attorney general who has fought against same-sex marriage, and then asked taxpayers to pick up the near $500,000 cost of her fight in the Supreme Court. Another has suggested forcing health insurance companies to provide birth control to women is an insult to them because it suggests they cant control their libidos". The same candidate also wishes some of Beyonces foreplay dance moves would be left in the bedroom.

 Anti-Donald Trump protests erupt across US as cities declare billionaire 'Not My President'

Mr Trump is expected to announce who made the final cut over the next few weeks. In the meantime, here are some of their quotes. Please note: not all 41 names are listed below.

Attorney General:

Gov. Chris Christie

Chris Christie will perhaps be best remembered for the pleading message he sent with his haunted eyes at the press conference where he was stood behind Mr Trump after dropping out of the race, silently screaming for someone to airlift him out.

Attorney General Pam Bondi

Ms Bondi is Florida's AG who fought to keep a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, lost, and then asked taxpayers to pick up the bill.

In 2014, her office released a statement saying same-sex marriages would impose significant harm on the public.

Sen. Jeff Sessions

On the appointment of a gay Supreme Court Justice: I do not think that a person who acknowledges that they have gay tendencies is disqualified, per se, for the job.

Former Mayor Rudy Guiliani

On terrorism in administrations before President Obama came into office: Under those eight years, before Obama came along, we didnt have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States.

World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Show all 29 1 /29 World reaction to President Trump: In pictures World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty Images World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mosul , Iraq Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures New Delhi, India Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Karachi, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kabul, Afghanistan AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem. Israel Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Moscow, Russia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Seoul, South Korea AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Peshawar, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Hyderabad, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kolkata, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Aleppo, Syria Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem, Israel EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Baghdad, Iraq Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Tokyo, Japan Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico Getty

Secretary of Commerce:

Former Nucor CEO Dan DiMicco

On free trade: We have been involved in a trade war with China for two decades. We have just not shown up to fight.

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee

On insurers providing birth control: If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it. Let's take that discussion all across America.

Mike Huckabee is sticking with his criticism of the Iran nuclear deal, after first making the comment when denouncing President Barack Obama for his role in the agreement reached by the United States and other world powers. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Sen. David Perdue

On Obama: I think we are called to pray. I think were called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and, yes, even for our president. [In] his role as president I think we should pray for Barack Obama, but I think we need to be very specific about how we pray. We should pray like Psalm 109:8 says. It says let his days be few and let another have his office.

Agriculture Secretary:

Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller

On a tweet sent from his account calling Hillary Clinton a c***: I would never talk that way. By the way, those weren't my words. It was a retweet.

Secretary of Education:

Ben Carson

On the Holocaust: I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed. Im telling you, there is a reason these dictatorial people take the guns first.

Ben Carson announces his backing for Donald Trump (EPA)

Secretary of Energy:

Newt Gingrich

On his first wife (according to a former aide): She's not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.

Secretary of Homeland Security:

Sheriff David Clarke

On riots in Milwaukee sparked by the killing of a black man at the hands of police: This black cultural dysfunction should be shunned and condemned by every law abiding person and no less black people.

Secretary of the Interior:

Gov. Jan Brewer

On the Latino community: Nah. They don't get out and vote. They don't vote.

Oklahoma oil and gas mogul Harold Hamm

On fracking: Every time we cant drill a well in America, terrorism is being funded.

Former Gov. Sarah Palin

On Isis: Where theyre fighting each other and yelling 'Allah Akbar' calling Jihad on each others heads for ever and ever. Like Ive said before, let them duke it out and let Allah sort it out.

Sarah Palin speaks during the Freedom Summit, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP)

Secretary of Defence:

Former Gen. Mike Flynn

On Hillary Clinton: This is a person who does not know the difference between a lie and the truth. . . . She is somebody who will leave Americans behind on the battlefield.

Secretary of State:

Lawyer, diplomat and Fox News commentator John Bolton

On Obama: Snark in a President is not an admirable trait.

Treasury Secretary:

Businessman Carl Icahn

On leaving the Trump victory party to buy $1 billion in stocks:

Well, I tried to put a lot more to work, but I couldnt put more than about a billion dollars to work. And then the market got away. But Im still happy about it. Im still real happy about it.

I personally don't believe Donald Trump is bad for the market.
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Robert De Niro was asked to deliver a non-partisan call to vote and instead delivered the most blistering warning against Donald Trump to come from someone outside of the political elite. His message, unequivocal in its criticism of Mr Trump, culminated with De Niro telling the camera: Id like to punch him in the face.

But after the man he dismissed as a punk was elected to the highest seat in political office, an astonishing result that has sparked protests across America, De Niro has clarified that he would no longer like to punch him.

The Raging Bull actor told Jimmy Kimmel that he is not feeling good after the billionaire property tycoon was announced as the 45th President-elect, crushing hopes for the first female president of America.

Mr Trumps comments about women, Muslims, immigrants, refugees and ethnic minorities have made him one of the most controversial candidates to run for the White House to date.

But his new position means De Niro, 73, believes he has to respect him - which means no punching.

I cant do that now, hes the President, said De Niro. And I have to respect that position, although we all know what he We have to see what hes gonna do and how hes really gonna follow through on certain things. As we can see now in a lot of cities, a lot of people are getting very upset and protesting. De Niro declined to say whether Mr Trump would be allowed to eat in one of the restaurants he owns.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

His statement mirrors the uncharacteristically restrained reactions from some of Mr Trump's most staunch critics, demonstrating how revered the person chosen to be President is in America, regardless of who has been elected to the role. Some of his most renowned detractors have softened their stance and instead sent messages of hope that Mr Trump will now set about healing the deep divisions he created during his campaign.

De Niro's to-camera monologue was not included in footage by Anonymous Content, but it was released separately on their website because producers believed it should still be seen.

Anonymous Content told The Independent at the time: When Robert De Niro came in to shoot his video, he wanted to share his thoughts regarding his feelings for Donald Trump. Tom McCarthy, who directed De Niros portion, asked him the same question he asked the other participants: 'What do you care about?' This was his response.
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The year of your birth could determine whether you live or die in a major flu pandemic, such as the 1918 outbreak that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, according to new research.

Virulent new strains of the disease have periodically jumped from animals to humans over the centuries with devastating results, raising concern about new outbreaks in pigs and chickens, for example. The last week has seen reports of bird flu in Germany, Austria, Hungary and several other countries, prompting the authorities to set up 'protection zones' and slaughter infected birds.

But extreme forms of virus gradually evolve to become less deadly because strains that do not kill their host spread more easily. The human flu around today can be a serious disease but it is essentially a relatively mild echo of the past.

Now a new study, published in the journal Science, has found the flu people are first exposed to as a child plays a major role in setting up the human immune system to defend against one of just two main types.

One of the researchers, Professor Michael Worobey, head of Arizona Universitys Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, said: In a way its a good-news, bad-news story.

Its good news in the sense that we can now see the factor that really explains a big part of the story: your first infection sets you up for either success or failure in a huge way, even against novel flu strains.

The bad news is the very same imprinting that provides such great protection may be difficult to alter with vaccines.

A good universal vaccine should provide protection where you lack it most, but the epidemiological data suggest we may be locked into strong protection against just half of the family tree of flu strains.

After the first infection, the immune system makes antibodies designed to target a lollipop-shaped protein that sticks out of the flu virus.

There are 18 different types of lollipop, but the researchers said there were just two main flavours.

In this analogy, let's say you were first exposed to a human orange lollipop flu as a kid, Professor Worobey said.

If later in life you encounter another subtype of flu virus, one from a bird and one that your immune system has never seen before but whose proteins also are of a similar orange flavour, your chances of dying are quite low because of cross-protection.

But, if you were first infected with a virus from the blue lollipop group as kid, that wont protect you against this novel, orange strain.

Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

The orange lollipop group includes the avian H7 and human H3 flu strains. People born after the late 1960s tend to have been exposed to this type and therefore have a degree of protection against it.

People born before the late 1960s were exposed to the blue lollipop group, which includes H1, H2 and H5N1 strains.

Professor Worobey and the other researchers found there was a 75 per cent protection rate against severe disease and 80 per cent protection rate against death among those who had been exposed to the matching flu group as children.

Normally flu is most dangerous among the young, elderly people and those with existing diseases.

But the 1918 outbreak of Spanish flu  so named because reported about the disease in the warring European countries were censored  was more deadly among young adults.

Those young adults were killed by an H1 virus, and from blood analyzed many decades later there is a pretty strong indication that those individuals had been exposed to a mismatched H3 as children and were therefore not protected against H1, Professor Worobey said.

The fact that we are seeing exactly the same pattern with current H5N1 and H7N9 cases suggests that the same fundamental processes may govern both the historic 1918 pandemic and today's contenders for the next big flu pandemic.

The research was published as Germany reported an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N8 bird flu virus in Schleswig-Holstein in the first occurrence of the disease in more than a year, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said.

The virus was found in wild birds, including 58 tufted ducks, a great black-backed gull and a coot.

The same strain has been found in Austria near Lake Constance, which also borders Switzerland and Germany. A protection zone was being set up to keep wild migrating birds from transmitting bird flu to farm poultry.

On Wednesday, the Dutch government said ordered farmers in the Netherlands to keep poultry flocks indoors after wildfowl infected with bird flu were discovered in several European countries.

And Hungary's food safety authority said last week it had found traces of bird flu at a poultry farm in eastern Hungary and would destroy 9,000 turkeys to protect nearby populations.

Reuters contributed to this report
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Racist violence and bullying will rise after Donald Trump's victory, an anti-racism organisation warned after British far-right groups welcomed his ascendancy to the White House.

Britain First, the English Defence League (EDL) and the British National Party (BNP) all backed the election of the controversial tycoon to become president of the United States.

It came as Hope Not Hate warned that far-right groups are becoming bolder and more aggressive as their ideas are adopted into the political mainstream.

In a bitter and divisive campaign, Mr Trump attracted widespread criticism for calling for Muslims to be banned from entering the US, and for planning to build a wall to keep illegal Mexican migrants out.

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best, Mr Trump has said. They're sending people that have lots of problems. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.

On Facebook, the EDL posted a photograph of a man with olive skin and a beard crying, bearing the slogan: Muslims all across America today and congratulating Mr Trump. The EDL added: Now make America great again!! Here's to all you PATRIOTS!!

In another post, a mocked-up photo depicted Mr Trump building a wall.

Also on Facebook, Britain First said of Mr Trump's defeated rival Hillary Clinton: ON YOUR BIKE YOU CORRUPT OLD WITCH, and in another post declared WE ARE ALL DEPLORABLES TODAY!.

It was among many groups quoting French far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, adding the elite world is falling.

In a tweet, the BNP declared that Mr Trump's win means Britain has a friend in the White House.

World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Show all 29 1 /29 World reaction to President Trump: In pictures World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty Images World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mosul , Iraq Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures New Delhi, India Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Karachi, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kabul, Afghanistan AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem. Israel Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Moscow, Russia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Seoul, South Korea AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Peshawar, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Hyderabad, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kolkata, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Aleppo, Syria Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem, Israel EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Baghdad, Iraq Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Tokyo, Japan Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico Getty

Hope Not Hate chief executive Nick Lowles said we are living in deeply worrying times.

In a blog post, he went on: Trump's victory, following so soon after our own Brexit vote which unleashed a wave of racism and intolerance, is encouraging the far-right to be bolder and more aggressive.

We are likely to see a further increase in racist violence and bullying as the haters feel more confident and legitimised.

We are also likely to see growing support for far-right parties across Europe and with forthcoming elections in Austria, France, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands - to list just a few - we could also see far-right parties/politicians increase their representation and even enter government.

More worryingly, has been the adoption of far-right ideas into the political mainstream, so that even if the parties fail to win power their ideas will.

He called on anti-racist campaigners to take action to bring communities together while understanding people's concerns about immigration and multiculturalism.

PA
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Scotlands golden eagle population has swelled, leading experts to say the bird of prey could become as common in some parts of the country as they were in the distant past.

More than 500 pairs of the indigenous raptors were found living in the Scottish Highlands, a new report has revealed.

RSPB Scotland and the Scottish Raptor Study Group, who conducted six months of research into eagle populations in 2015, said they had recorded a 15 per cent rise  from 442 to 508 pairs  since 2003, when the last survey took place.

It is likely the entire UK population of Scotlands national bird now live in that country.

Earlier in 2016, it was reported Englands only resident golden eagle could be dead. Eddy had been living near Haweswater in Cumbria, but he failed to appear last Spring, leading RSPB staff and volunteers in the Lake District to fear the worst.

The results from the fourth national golden eagle survey are significant because the eagle population, having surpassed 500 pairs, now meets the UK government criteria for favourable conservation status, which means the species recovery is considered sustainable.

Andrew Bachell, director of policy and advice at Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) said: Its wonderful to see golden eagles reaching favourable conservation status nationally. These beautiful birds are such an important part of Scotlands nature, a species which people love to see when they visit our wilder landscapes.

The increase in pairs is part of a steady recovery of the eagle population in Scotland, since a dip to low numbers in the mid-19th century. Before this, golden eagles were common across Great Britain, but widespread persecution damaged the population in Scotland and wiped out the birds almost entirely in England and Wales.

Part of the surviving population in Scotland suffered a sharp decline in breeding success in the 1960s, due to organochlorine pesticides used in agriculture, which caused mass infertility and eggshell thinning.

The raptors tend to live in remote areas, but can often be seen performing impressive, undulating flight displays in spring. The northern Highlands and the central spine of Scotland, between the Great Glen and Stirlingshire, saw the greatest increase in eagle numbers between 2003 and 2015, the RSPB reported. Recovery also continues in much of the west Highlands and islands with modest increases noted there. However, the positive progress is not consistent across Scotland.

The number of eagles stagnated in part of the Highlands west of Inverness between 2003 and 2015, following a significant drop between the first survey in 1982 and the second in 1992. The RSPB said in a statement the reasons for the lack of recovery in this area are not clear, but likely involve a number of factors.

A spokesperson said: Previously, grazing pressure by deer reducing habitat quality for eagle prey, persecution, recreation and forestry have all been identified as potential factors affecting eagles in this area. The poor spring and summer weather also had an adverse impact on breeding success, especially in the western parts of Scotland.

Golden eagles also continue to be absent from many parts of the eastern Highlands. Less than one third of the traditional home ranges in this area were occupied by a pair of eagles and no eagles were recorded at all in over 30 per cent of them, despite the fact that these should be very productive landscapes for these birds. Many of the vacant territories in this area are on ground managed intensively for driven grouse shooting and in recent years, four eagles fitted with satellite tags have been found illegally killed in the central and eastern Highlands."

But Duncan Orr-Ewing, head of species and land management at RSPB Scotland, emphasised that the situation had got better. Across many parts of Scotland theres been a very welcome turnaround in how people respect these magnificent birds, he said, part of a more enlightened public attitude towards birds of prey.

He added: Increased monitoring and satellite tagging of eagles, as well as stronger sanctions against wildlife crime may be serving as effective deterrents against illegal activity, therefore helping their population to increase. However, the continued absence of golden eagles in some areas of eastern Scotland remains a real cause for concern and suggests that much more work needs to be done.

British man kept golden eagle in disgusting kitchen Show all 4 1 /4 British man kept golden eagle in disgusting kitchen British man kept golden eagle in disgusting kitchen golden-eagle-kitchen-1.jpg Photos issued by the RSPCA show a rubbish-strewn kitchen in a flat in Pembroke, West Wales, where a golden eagle was being kept. Adam Smith, 43, has been banned for keeping animals for 10 years after pleading guilty to one offence under the Animal Welfare Act PA British man kept golden eagle in disgusting kitchen golden-eagle-kitchen-2.jpg Photos issued by the RSPCA show a rubbish-strewn kitchen in a flat in Pembroke, West Wales, where a golden eagle was being kept. Adam Smith, 43, has been banned for keeping animals for 10 years after pleading guilty to one offence under the Animal Welfare Act PA British man kept golden eagle in disgusting kitchen golden-eagle-kitchen-3.jpg Photos issued by the RSPCA show a rubbish-strewn kitchen in a flat in Pembroke, West Wales, where a golden eagle was being kept. Adam Smith, 43, has been banned for keeping animals for 10 years after pleading guilty to one offence under the Animal Welfare Act PA British man kept golden eagle in disgusting kitchen golden-eagle-kitchen-4.jpg Photos issued by the RSPCA show a rubbish-strewn kitchen in a flat in Pembroke, West Wales, where a golden eagle was being kept. Adam Smith, 43, has been banned for keeping animals for 10 years after pleading guilty to one offence under the Animal Welfare Act PA

The national survey was co-funded by the RSPB and SNH. Fieldwork was carried out by expert licensed volunteers from the Scottish Raptor Study Group and professional surveyors from the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science.

Daniel Hayhow, lead author of the study, said the project was a massive undertaking.

The huge national survey effort required a minimum three visits to over 700 known traditional golden eagle sites, the length and breadth of Scotland, he said, adding that in addition to voluntary work by surveyors at the Scottish Raptor Study Group, the researchers relied on help and support from farmers and landowners who provided invaluable logistical support on the ground.
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Many have pointed out the consecutive series of unexpected events that have dominated this year  and now bookmakers have highlighted just how unpredictable 2016 has been.

Bookies have confirmed that a Donald Trump victory, Britain leaving the EU and Leicester City winning the Premier League were all deemed so unlikely that a 10 bet on all three would together would have returned a massive 30 million.

The odds suggest bookmakers believed there was 0.000033 chance of all three events taking place - a combination that was considered so unimaginable that, it is thought, no one in the UK placed a bet on them all.

Recommended Odds for Donald Trump to become president same as they were for Brexit

Paddy Power was counting its losses today after taking the decision to pay out early to customers who had backed Hillary Clinton. The company is believed to have lost around 800,000 after wrongly calling the election in her favour weeks before polling day.

With 2016 looking set to be the most unpredictable year in living memory, many people will be wondering what else might be worth a punt.

They might be tempted by odds of just 66/1 on Mr Trump's first overseas visit as President being to North Korea, while Slovenia is deemed even more likely at 10/1.

Bookies believe Mr Trump is most likely to head to Russia first  a reasonable assumption given his repeated praise during the campaign of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didnt know the air conditioner didnt work and sweated like dogs, and they didnt know the room was too big because they didnt have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall  and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me and Ill build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY

The Republican winner faces a potentially tricky start to his presidency, with several of the women who claim he sexually assaulted them set to take their cases to court. Bookmakers appear to think they may have some success: the President-elect is 6/4 to appear in court during his presidency and just 10/1 to be successfully impeached.

It comes as Mr Trump begins preparations for taking over the presidency in January. He is scheduled to meet President Obama at the White House today to discuss arrangements for the transition.

The two-month process has been planned since the start of this year and the Obama Administration has expressed its desire to ensure a smooth hand-over of power.
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Chancellor Philip Hammond has indicated Donald Trumps protectionist policies advocated during the presidential campaign could damage economic prosperity.

Speaking ahead of talks with Ma Kai, one of Chinas vice-premiers, in London Mr Hammond said he was convinced that Britain would have a very constructive dialogue with the new American administration.

But Mr Hammond failed to support the President-elects protectionist policies when asked by the BBC about Mr Trumps proposal to apply 45 per cent tariff barriers to Chinese imports. He told the BBC: Britain's always believed that the best way long-term to protect and promote prosperity is free markets and free trade.

"President Trump has just been elected by the American people. He will want to consult with his advisers, talk to officials and I'm sure we will have a very constructive dialogue, as we do with the Chinese, with the new American administration."

He continued: We believe free trade and open markets are good for prosperity, good for the protection of jobs in this economy.

"But we do also recognise the concerns that there are around dumping and unfair practices. It's about getting the right balance in the global trading system, so that we can have the benefits of open markets, while being properly and appropriately protected.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

During Americas bitter and fraught presidential campaign Mr Trump, the billionaire businessman, told the New York Times that he would tax China on products coming into the United States. I would do a tariff, yes  and they do it to us, he said.

Mr Trump added that hes a free trader, but that its got to be reasonably fair.

Mr Hammond, who is hosting the Chinese delegation at London's Lancaster House, added that the mutual benefits between London and Beijing are clear. China is the world's second-largest economy, he added. UK exports to China have grown rapidly and Britain is home to more Chinese investment than any other European country.

The Chinese delegation will be encouraged to invest in projects across Northern England, with 13 potential schemes being showcased by minister. The 5 billion investment portfolio represents a major opportunity to increase business ties with investors in Beijing, Mr Hammond said.
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China has dismissed criticism from President-elect Donald Trump that Beijing is responsible for raping the US with its trade policies, claiming the incendiary rhetoric was to boost his election chances.

The comments from Chinese official came after Chancellor Philip Hammond shared a platform with Ma Kai, one of Chinas vice-premiers and hailed a truly golden era of relations between London and Beijing.

During the presidential campaign Mr Trump, then the Republican nominee accused China of raping the United States with its trade policy and added the country should be held responsible for the greatest theft in the history of the world. In his manifesto material the President-elect said that he would direct his newly appointed Treasury Secretary to label China a currency manipulator.

But on Thursday Shi Yaobin, the vice-minister in Chinas Ministry of Finance, told reporters at Lancaster House via a translator when asked about the comments from Mr Trump: "During the presidential campaign in the United States he has made some rhetoric as the candidate of the Republican party I think he said those words in order to boost his chances of being elected as President and its all for the purpose of the election.

I want to say that the US is the worlds largest economy and China is the second largest economy. There are immense economic strategies and cooperation between the two countries.

Mr Yaobin went on to emphasise the economic cooperation between Washington and Beijing and claimed the situation was a win-win for both parties. I think this fact should be recognised by President-elect and also the peoples of the two countries, he added.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

Earlier in the session  the eighth UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD)  Mr Hammond repeatedly hailed a golden era in UK-Sino relations.

Among the measures announced on Thursday are a move to the next stage of research in plans to link the London and Shanghai stock exchanges. China has also agreed to gradually raise the 50% limit on foreign ownership for securities and mutual fund companies to give British firms greater freedom to operate in China.

Mr Hammond said: "Our strategic collaboration and the announcements I've just described are evidence of the continued strengths of this relationship. This eight Economic and Financial Dialogue sets the foundation for a new chapter in our partnership.

"I look forward to working with vice premier Ma to give effect to our commitments and thus contribute to delivering a golden era in UK-China relations."

President Donald Trump life in pictures Show all 16 1 /16 President Donald Trump life in pictures President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump poses in a rocking chair once used by President John F. Kennedy at his New York City residence Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump with his new bride Marla Maples after their wedding at the Plaza hotel in New York Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Celina Midelfart watch the match between Conchita Martinez and Amanda Coetzer during U.S. Open. She was the date whom Donald Trump was with when he met his current wife Melania at a party in 1996 Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas serving as the grand marshal for the Daytona 500, speaks to Donald Trump and Melania Knauss on the starting grid at the Daytona International Speedwa Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump talks with his former wife Ivana Trump during the men's final at the U.S. Open Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and his friend Melania Knauss pose for photographers as they arrive at the New York premiere of Star Wars Episode : 'The Phantom Menace,' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump talks with host Larry King. Trump told King that he was moving toward a possible bid for the United States presidency with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump answers questions as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura looks on in Brooklyn Park. Trump said on Friday he 'very well might' make a run for president under the Reform Party banner but had not made a final decision Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump makes a face at a friend as he sits next to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso before the start of the 2003 Miss Universe pageant in Panama City Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Entrepreneur Donald Trump is greeted by a Marilyn Monroe character look-a-alike, as he arrives at Universal Studios Hollywood to attend the an open casting call for his NBC television network reality series 'The Apprentice.' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Simon Cowell present an Emmy during the 56th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Megan Mullally perform at the 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump, poses with his children, son Donald Trump, Jr., and daughters Tiffany and Ivanka Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump told Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner on Tuesday she would be given a second chance after reported misbehavior Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump holds a replica of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as his wife Melania holds their son Barron in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. property mogul Donald Trump stands next to a bagpiper during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland Reuters

Chinas vice-premier Mr Kai added: "This year marks the beginning of the golden era of China-UK relations and next year will mark the 45th anniversary of the ambassadorial diplomatic relations between our two countries.

"Our economic cooperation is now standing at a new historical starting point, it is full of opportunities and so much can be done.

"We will continue to use the EFD to continuously deepen our comprehensive cooperation in economy and trade, jointly advance our global comprehensive strategic partnership and bring more and greater benefits to our people."

But Mr Hammond also said that the Chinese dumping of low cost steel on the international market remained a problem. While acknowledging the work China had done to reduce its overall output, the Chancellor also insisted the EU still needed to find a way to protect themselves against market distorting trade patterns.

Steel dumping has been partially blamed for the crisis engulfing Britain's industry and Mr Hammond raised the issue during talks with Chinese vice premier Ma Kai in London.
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Britain should not indulge in an orgy of complaint over Donald Trump's victory but instead engage with the United States president-elect, Iain Duncan Smith has said.

The former Tory leader said the UK is uniquely placed after Brexit to understand the concerns of Mr Trump's anti-establishment supporters on issues like immigration and should seize the opportunity for a tighter special relationship.

He criticised lame duck president Barack Obama, who will hand over power in January, for treating Britain no differently to other European powers and said his exit from office provides new opportunities.

Mr Trump will need allies as he forges a new role for America in the world and Prime Minister Theresa May should take advantage of that, he said.

The Tory MP stressed that one of her priorities should be keeping the US in Nato by persuading other countries in the alliance to contribute more in defence spending.

Writing for ConservativeHome, Mr Duncan Smith said: In the UK, we have a choice. We can, like so many others, indulge ourselves in an orgy of complaint about the result - we have already seen that kind of behaviour over the Brexit result. Or we can choose to engage with the new administration in a positive way.

He went on: I am old enough to recall the way that the special relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War and brought prosperity to countless people around the globe.

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Whilst there are of course great differences between May and Trump personally, the need for a strong America and a strong UK working together is as vital today as it has ever been.

The wind of change is blowing through more than just the USA and the UK. Yet I am certain of this: when our two nations are together the world is a safer place.

PA
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Ed Miliband has attacked Conservatives who have welcomed Donald Trumps victory, branding it a symptom of the sickness in America.

The former Labour leader said it was a delusional fantasy to believe the result was good for Britain  pointing to potential crisis over climate change, Russia and the Middle East.

And he turned on Trump supporters, saying: The idea that we have shared values with a racist, misogynistic self-confessed groper beggars belief.

However, Mr Miliband  like Jeremy Corbyn  accepted that Mr Trump had also tapped into the same anger with a failed economic system that Labour had identified and sought to address.

He warned Labour would continue to fail unless it was able to offer big solutions to the problems people faced, rather than mere incremental change.

Mr Miliband spoke out after some Tory MPs hailed Mr Trumps victory as a boost to their hopes of striking a quick US-UK trade deal when Britain leaves the EU.

Jacob Rees-Mogg went further, describing it as good for the free world, adding: I think we have got so many shared values.

Mr Miliband hit back, saying: I think we should be deeply worried about the implications for many of the things that we care about.

Tackling climate change, he says its invented by the Chinese and its a hoax, dealing with problems in the Middle East, he says hes going to recognise Jerusalem almost immediately [as the capital of Israel] with all kinds of implications that has for the Middle East peace process, his attitude to Russia.

He also poured scorn on the claims of pro-Brexit MPs that the Trump presidency offered the prospect of huge trade advantages to come.

This fantasy about trade. This guy is anti trade - hes an odd combination of protectionism, plus the old trickle-down tax cut formula that has got us into a lot of this mess in the first place, Mr Miliband said.

The former Labour leader argued he offered a good analysis of the failing economic status quo at last years general election, but not the solutions to convince the voters.

Both Brexit and Mr Trumps victory showed the need to develop comprehensive solutions, but not the false solutions offered by Mr Trump.

Mr Miliband said: Our solutions are too incremental and not big enough for the diagnosis of inequality and the problems that we see.

Secondly, being political insiders is a massive problem. Trump was the consumate outsider and I do think in a sense that got him permission to be heard.

And I think we have to think very hard about how we dont defend the existing, broken politics that people perceive - but actually want to change it.

Mr Miliband also pointed to the appeal of patriotism, accusing the President-elect of a xenophobic, anti-immigrant, nasty view of nationhood, but admitting: We dont yet have a convincing one of our own.

Simply defending globalisation, openness on its own, without fairness, has been proved to be deeply insufficient.

Mr Miliband has aligned himself with growing numbers of Labour backbenchers trying to convince Mr Corbyn to accept curbs on immigration.

He said: Having seen the referendum, we have got, if at all possible, to see some change in relation to free movement.
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There are some similarities between the success of Donald Trump in the US presidential election and the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, the shadow foreign secretary has said.

Emily Thornberry, a close ally and constituency neighbour of Mr Coryn, said the Labour leader understood the forces behind the surge in support for the Republican candidate.

I think its right there are hundreds and thousands energised by Jeremy Corbyn being the leader of the Labour party so there are some similarities, she told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

She added: I dont think it would be right to say Jeremy welcomes it but I think he recognises what is happening.

There are too many people, too many regions, who feel that politics at the moment doesnt represent their interests. Hes right to say so. The system has to be shaken up.

The shadow cabinet minister made clear that Mr Corbyn did not think Mr Trumps victory was a good thing.

Mr Corbyn reacted to the US presidential election result by branding the Republican candidates victory an unmistakable rejection of a political establishment and an economic system that simply isnt working for most people.

He however said Mr Trump did not have the correct answer to the problems he had identified.

Jeremy Corbyn has enthusiastic supporters (Rex)

Mr Corbyns comments similar to the analysis proffered by Bernie Sanders, a socialist US senator who competed with Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic partys nominee.

Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics, and the establishment media, Mr Sanders said.

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People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids  all while the very rich become much richer.

Mr Trump won the US presidential election on Wednesday, though he lost the popular vote to his rival Hillary Clinton.

Though Mr Corbyn has an enthusiastic base of commited supporters, he has struggled in national polling, consistently trailing Theresa May conservatives by a significant margin.
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Nigel Farage has branded Barack Obama a loathsome creature and said the election of Donald Trump is a big opportunity for the UK.

The former Ukip leader also joked about Mr Trump groping Theresa May while he tried to schmooze her for trade deals, telling a radio station: He loves our country.

Mr Trump was elected on a hard right political platform, pledging mass deportations of undocumented migrants and saying he would ban Muslims from travelling to the United States.

Mr Obama was criticised by Brexiteers after he intervened in the EU referendum debate, warning that the UK would be back of the queue for any trade deal.

That Obama creature  a loathsome individual who couldnt stand our country. He said hed be at the back of the queue, didnt he? And Americans dont use the word queue, they use the word line. So it was all a Dave and George stitch-up, Mr Farage said in an appearance on TalkRadio.

What was interesting was that Trump said wed be at the front of the queue. Listeners, bear this in mind, however imperfect Donald Trump may be  and he is, his mother was Scottish  hes spent a lot of time in this country, he loves our country, what we stand for, and our culture.

This is a big opportunity for all British business because once weve left that awful EU thing we can do our first trade deal with the United States of America. Isnt that great?

PM Theresa May has been invited to the White House by President-elect Trump (PA)

The Ukip politician suggested he might be a good intermediary between Mr Trump and the British Government.

Im now going to become a diplomat. Come and schmooze Theresa  dont touch her, for goodness sake, he quipped, a reference to Mr Trumps admission that he has used his fame to grope women without repercussion.

The radio programmes presenters laughed heartily at the joke, adding: Only in an affectionate way like Bush did to the Queen.

Mr Farage continued: I could be there as the responsible adult to make sure everything is OK.

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A number of women came forward to accuse Mr Trump of sexually assaulting them after a tape emerged in which he admitted he had used his fame to grab women by their genitalia. Mr Trump has denied the allegations and threatened legal action over them.

He says the tape in which he infamously claimed he liked to grab 'em by the pussy did not reflect his true character or views.

Mr Farage appeared on stage with Mr Trump during his presidential campaign.
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Donald Trump has spoken with nine world leaders but has yet to call Theresa May, throwing her claim of a special relationship into tatters.

Downing Street is scrambling to explain why the President-elect has made time to speak with a string of presidents and prime ministers  but has yet to make contact with Britains.

When she congratulated Mr Trump on his victory, Ms May spoke warmly of the two countries enduring and special relationship based on the values of freedom, democracy and enterprise.

 Theresa May 'looks forward' to working with Donald Trump

But it has now emerged that Mr Trump has - in just 24 hours - spoken with the leaders of Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, Israel, Turkey, India, Japan, Australia and South Korea.

Recommended 5 things May should be worried about once Trump becomes President

He has invited the Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny to the White House for St Patricks Day next year, after a ten-minute conversation.

And, in a 20-minute chat, he arranged to meet Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister next week, before an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

A No.10 spokesman was unable to say whether a phone call is scheduled to enable Ms May to speak with Mr Trump.

Chancellor Philip Hammond this afternoon tried to dismiss the apparent snub, telling journalists that Britain has no "urgent business" to discuss with President Trump.

Meanwhile, the Trump camp has said it has no immediate plans to travel to Britain or Europe ahead of his January inauguration.

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The American and British leaders will meet at the next G7 summit, in May next year, and Ms May hopes to be invited to Washington before then, to discuss a possible post-Brexit trade deal.

On the issue of a telephone call, the No.10 spokesman said: The call will be scheduled for the earliest opportunity.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, tweeted: Trump yet to call May, but has called Egypt Ireland Mexico Israel Turkey India Japan & Australia...almost like we are 'back of the queue'.

Mr Trump  who recently bought a golf course in Ireland reportedly worth 12.4m - quickly found time to speak with Mr Kenny and invite him to America.

The tradition of a get-together with the Taoisigh on St Patricks Day would continue in the spirit of the strong ties between the two countries, Mr Trump said.

Mr Kenny said: I had a very good conversation with the president elect.

He understands Ireland very well, he was complimentary about the decisions made about the economy here. He is looking forward to doing business with Ireland.

Mr Trump also pledged his commitment to defend South Korea, during a phone call with its president Park Geun-hye, a news agency in the country said.

And Turkish President Tayyib Erdogan wasted no time in congratulating the President-elect and discussing the future of his country's relationship with the US, Ankara said.

Malcolm Turnbull, Australias Prime Minister, and Mr Trump spoke for 15 minutes on the telephone, covering trade, regional security and the fight against Islamic State.

A statement from the Egyptian presidency said Abdel Fattah al-Sissi was the first world leader to have a conversation, which focussed on how to foster closer diplomatic ties.

In the hours after the result, Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Francois Hollande offered Mr Trump only cautious support - warning that his win ushered in a 'period of uncertainty.

But Ms May ducked questions about past criticisms of his stance on Muslims, saying: Britain and the United States have an enduring and special relationship based on the values of freedom, democracy and enterprise.

We are, and will remain, strong and close partners on trade, security and defence.
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One senior Labour politician has refused to play the diplomatic game with a powerful attack on Donald Trump as vile and horrible.

Dame Margaret Beckett, a former Foreign Secretary under Tony Blair, said the President-elect won the race to the White House by lying through his teeth.

Im a mixture of horrified and terrified. I suppose the horror is for today and the terror is for tomorrow, she told Sky News.

Recommended 5 things May should be worried about once Trump becomes President

A clearly furious Dame Margaret said there was a need to tell the truth because others  now he had been elected - would start seeing the good in Donald Trump.

Both Theresa May and Boris Johnson simply offered warm congratulations to the winner - despite condemning him less than a year ago when he called for a ban on Muslims.

But Dame Margaret said: This is a vile and horrible man who has fought a vile and horrible campaign.

Im not just talking about the way he treated Hillary Clinton. Look at the way he treated his opponents in the Republican primaries - he insulted them, he sneered at them, he told lies about them, he insulted their families. This is a horrible man.

The veteran MP said there was a chance that Mr Trump would suddenly reveal he was this nice sweet person, adding: Im sure we will all be hearing this in the next few days.

She said: I have a seen a lot of bluster, a lot of bombast, a lot of unpleasantness. He has appealed to the worst in everybodys nature and brought it out and encouraged it

This is a man who, when someone heckled at a rally, called on his supporters to beat him up. He called for Hillary Clinton to have her security guard taken away.

He even insinuated that people who didnt agree with her about gun control should perhaps think about shooting her. What kind of a man is that?

In contrast, after rushing out a congratulatory statement, the Prime Minister sent Mr Trump a personal letter of support to reaffirm the strong ties between Britain and the US.

And Mr Johnson tweeted: Congratulations to Donald Trump and much looking forward to working with his administration on global stability and prosperity.

Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Francois Hollande offered him only heavily qualified support - warning that his win ushered in a 'period of uncertainty.
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Theresa May will today launch a fresh bid to cosy up to China and attract billions of pounds worth of investment into UK infrastructure.

The Prime Minister will also pledge British money for a Chinese-led Asian investment bank that the United States has doggedly opposed.

A Chinese delegation headed by vice premier Ma Kai will arrive in London for talks which Downing Street hopes will reassure the countrys leadership, following a rocky start to relations at the start of Ms Mays tenure at Number 10.

The vice premiere will also have a key meeting with Chancellor Philip Hammond, who will seek to underline that Britain remains "open for business" following the Brexit vote.

In a statement ahead of the talks, Ms May said: "I'm determined that as we leave the European Union, we build a truly global Britain that is open for business.

"As we take the next step in this golden era of relations between the UK and China, I am excited about the opportunities for expanding trade and investment between our two countries."

Mr Hammond also used the phrase "golden era" as he said China and the UK remained natural partners, adding: "The mutual benefits are clear.

"China is the world's second largest economy. UK exports to China have grown rapidly and Britain is home to more Chinese investment than any other European country."

 China launches two astronauts into space

Ministers will showcase 13 large-scale property and development schemes in northern England, each worth more than 100 million, in a bid to attract investors.

The Government will also announce that the Chinese contractor CITIC Construction is to invest 200 million in the first phase of the 1.7 billion London Royal Albert Docks project, headed by the Chinese developer ABP.

The UK will in turn invest up to 40 million in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank based in Beijing, to help developing countries prepare infrastructure programmes.

British support for the bank has irked Washington, which sees it as an attempt by Beijing to challenge the existing international global order based on the World Bank and IMF.

One of Ms Mays first acts on becoming Prime Minister last July was to order a review of the project to build the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant - part-financed by the Chinese.

But having finally given the green light to the plant last September, Downing Street will use the eighth UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue to focus relations on future investment projects.
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A US election night event hosted by Manchester Student Union had to be shut down after violent clashes broke out between Donald Trump supporters and other student groups.

Students from across the city's four universities had gathered in the Manchester University union bar to watch live coverage of the Republican party candidate winning the presidential election overnight.

The union was forced to close before the result was called, however, after physical fights broke out with a number of people reportedly wearing Make American Great Again caps.

Recommended Read more Manchester students prepare to march against harassment

Manchester student newspaper The Mancunion, who were live-tweeting the election, wrote at 6:37am: Fights have broken out in the @ManchesterSU bar meaning they've had to close the event we were covering down there.

They have since reported that the incident occurred between a Trump supporter and group of Clinton supporters, with punches and drinks thrown in the process.

A student was also apparently told that if they shouted "build the wall" one more time, they would be asked to leave the event.

The incident comes amid a series of protests across the US and UK over the new presidential result.

Manchester Student Union said in a statement: At around 06:45 this morning the Union Bar was closed due to an incident.

This is currently under investigation and therefore we will not be saying any more at this present time.
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While the vast majority of world leaders have met Donald Trump's victory with a measured, diplomatic response, Africas first elected female president has refused to mince her words.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the President of Liberia, said she was extremely saddened by Hillary Clintons defeat at the hands of the Republican, and concerned about the prospects of US relations with African countries.

Ms Johnson Sirleaf was elected President as Liberia emerged from a 14-year civil war. She began her second term in 2012, and Ms Clinton attended that inauguration in her then-role as Secretary of State.

We are extremely saddened by this missed opportunity on the part of the people of the United States to join smaller democracies in ending the marginalisation of women, Ms Johnson Sirleaf said in an interview with the BBC on Wednesday.

Liberia has a had close ties with the US throughout its history, as it was founded in the 19th century by freed American slaves.

But Ms Johnson Sirleaf said: We are concerned as to whether President-elect Trump will have an African agenda, will be able to build bridges with Africa. We can only hope that he will do so in due course.

I'm worried about trade deals for Liberia, for Africa. I'm worried about investment and the special programmes that have been put in place by President Obama and by President George Bush before him, and we just don't know what the policy towards Africa will be.

 Donald Trump: Five female leaders the new president will have to work with

Most world leaders have congratulated Mr Trump, some more exuberantly than others.

And they include most of the tiny number of female presidents and prime ministers around the world, who may have been hoping to see a significant addition to their ranks in Tuesdays election.

What have other female world leaders said?

Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg congratulated Donald Trump, saying: "The US is our closest ally. It is decisive that we continue the cooperation.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said simply: The people of the US have made a decision, we will respect their choice."

South Korean President Park Geun-hye had in a 10-minute telephone conversation with Mr Trump in which, according to Korean media, the President-elect promised to maintain American readiness to help guard against any aggression from North Korea.

There were no lines on what Ms Park said to Mr Trump, but Yonhaps report - that he agreed 100 per cent with her hopes the two allies will further bolster their ties - suggests it was convivial.

Angela Merkel issued a carefully-worded statement congratulating Mr Trump on his victory.

A German government spokesman says the pair could meet before the G7 meeting in Italy in May.

But in congratulating him, Ms Merkel nonetheless felt compelled to set out certain conditions for future cooperation.

She said: Germany and America are connected by values of democracy, freedom and respect for the law and the dignity of man, independent of origin, skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views. I offer the next President of the United States close cooperation on the basis of these values.

President Donald Trump life in pictures Show all 16 1 /16 President Donald Trump life in pictures President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump poses in a rocking chair once used by President John F. Kennedy at his New York City residence Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump with his new bride Marla Maples after their wedding at the Plaza hotel in New York Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Celina Midelfart watch the match between Conchita Martinez and Amanda Coetzer during U.S. Open. She was the date whom Donald Trump was with when he met his current wife Melania at a party in 1996 Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas serving as the grand marshal for the Daytona 500, speaks to Donald Trump and Melania Knauss on the starting grid at the Daytona International Speedwa Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump talks with his former wife Ivana Trump during the men's final at the U.S. Open Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and his friend Melania Knauss pose for photographers as they arrive at the New York premiere of Star Wars Episode : 'The Phantom Menace,' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump talks with host Larry King. Trump told King that he was moving toward a possible bid for the United States presidency with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump answers questions as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura looks on in Brooklyn Park. Trump said on Friday he 'very well might' make a run for president under the Reform Party banner but had not made a final decision Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump makes a face at a friend as he sits next to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso before the start of the 2003 Miss Universe pageant in Panama City Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Entrepreneur Donald Trump is greeted by a Marilyn Monroe character look-a-alike, as he arrives at Universal Studios Hollywood to attend the an open casting call for his NBC television network reality series 'The Apprentice.' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Simon Cowell present an Emmy during the 56th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Megan Mullally perform at the 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump, poses with his children, son Donald Trump, Jr., and daughters Tiffany and Ivanka Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump told Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner on Tuesday she would be given a second chance after reported misbehavior Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump holds a replica of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as his wife Melania holds their son Barron in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. property mogul Donald Trump stands next to a bagpiper during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland Reuters

Britains Theresa May congratulated Mr Trump, saying the two countries will remain "strong and close partners on trade, security and defence."

She said Trump had won after "a hard-fought campaign, and stressed the enduring trans-Atlantic "special relationship, based on the values of freedom, democracy and enterprise.

And finally, Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine was able to remain diplomatic despite the very real threat Mr Trump poses to the very existence of her country.

Most of the 1,000 or so Marshall Islands are less than six feet above sea level  and could disappear under rising sea levels unless (possibly even if) global warming can be limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Mr Trump has said he wants to cancel the Paris Agreement designed to do just that.

But Ms Heine is hopeful. She said that she "expects he will realise that climate change is a threat to his people and to whole countries which share seas with the US.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Faith leaders and civil rights activists have warned president-elect Donald Trump that Muslim Americans who live in the US "are not going anywhere".

Ten months after Mr Trump proposed to ban the immigration of all Muslims to the US, Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said at a press conference that Muslims would not move, regardless of who won the election.

"We are not going anywhere and we will not be intimidated or marginalised.

"God willing, the American Muslim community will continue to mobilise to challenge bigotry, to uphold justice and protect freedoms and rights of all Americans," he said.

He was joined by other Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders who asked Mr Trump to ditch his divisive rhetoric and adopt a more positive and inclusive tone to combat the fear currently felt by many women, people of colour and minority groups.

"We will hold the new president to the highest standard in defending the rights of all those residing in our nation as guaranteed by the US constitution," Mr Awad added.

"To those who are fearful, know that America is your home and the home for your children. This is your future. You are not going anywhere, and you have the same rights and responsibilities as all other Americans."

Mr Awad added that young people are "terrified" by Mr Trump's proposals in the US, the only country they have ever known.

 Berkeley High School Walkout in protest against Donald Trumps election

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, director of outreach at the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Virigina, said he hoped Donald Trump would work by the values he held up at his victory speech, such as Mr Trumps call for unity and to stand for the civil liberties of all Americans.

"It is our commitment to reach out and engage in social change that will improve the quality of life in America, not just for historical minorities but also for white and middle class Americans who have gotten behind the tenor of the American political process," he said.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he urged the president-elect to change path on "wrongheaded" and "unconstitutional" proposals such as deporting Muslims, extreme surveillance, punish women for getting abortion and authorising torture like waterboarding.

"If you do not reverse course and instead endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at every step," he wrote.

"Our staff of litigators and activists in every state, thousands of volunteers and millions of card-carrying members and supporters are ready to fight against any encroachment on our cherished freedoms and rights."

As of election morning, the December 2015 statement pleding to completely ban all Muslims from entering the US was taken down from the Trump website. The page now redirects to his fundraising page.
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Parents in southern California have allegedly been using industrial bleach to try and cure their children of autism.

The poisonous treatment, sold under the name MMS, has been promoted and pushed by a church with a branch in Los Angeles, where a group of mothers and fathers have reportedly been duped into regularly dosing their kids with chlorine dioxide.

The potentially lethal mixture is being touted as a cure for cancer, HIV, malaria, and Alzheimers, in addition to austism. Doctors say there is no evidence to support claims the harmful substance has any medical benefits.

The secretive Genesis II Church was founded by Jim Humble, a former scientologist, who has claimed in a video to be a "billion-year-old god from the Andromeda galaxy".

An in-depth investigation by Eyewitness News and ABC News found that followers are recommending and comparing notes on MMS  short for "Miracle Mineral Solution"  in Facebook groups.

The solution includes two chemicals  sodium chlorite and hydrochloric acid  that combine to form bleach. It is usually sold to be taken orally, but parents are also told to use it as an enema.

The organisation, which describes itself as non-religious church of health and healing, claims MMS is no different from giving sacrament in church services. Proponents say it is "so benign you can use it on your skin, hair, ears, eyes, orally, rectally, vaginally, inhaled, etc".

But when mixed with fruit juice, as recommended, the solution acidifes to produce chlorine dioxide  a potentially lethal bleach used for stripping textiles.

The "cure" has already been linked to one death and there are several reported cases of those taking it suffering serious injuries. It was banned in Canada after it caused a life-threatening reaction in an elderly man. The US Food and Drug Administration warns that the product used as directed, produces an industrial bleach that can cause serious harm to health.

ABC News and Eyewitness News said one follower of Mr Humble, Kerri Rivera, a woman living in Mexico with an autistic son, became famous and makes a living from promoting his teachings. In 2013 she published a book called Healing the Symptoms Known as Autism.

In the book, Ms Rivera claimed parasites and other pathogens cause autism. According to Ms Rivera, when the full moon rises every 29 days, parasites wreak havoc inside the guts of children with the condition. Chlorine dioxide can prevent this by killing the parasites.

Autism is curable, Ms Rivera said in a video. I like to convince people they can cure their kids.

She added: I believe the missing piece of the puzzle to autism recovery is chlorine dioxide."

Ms Rivera instructs parents to give their children increasing doses of chlorine dioxide orally and by enema. Sometimes multiple enemas a day.

Dr Paul Wang, a pediatrician and the senior vice president of Autism Speaks, a nationally recognised US advocacy and support group, told ABC News and Eyewitness News parasites do not cause autism.

No, parasites do not cause autism, Dr Wang said, adding: she says that MMS is not a bleach, but it is.

The doctor continued: And frankly, it's a poison. It should not be given to anybody with autism or cancer or diabetes or any other condition that they claim it can treat."

But ABC News and Eyewitness News found despite the warnings, there is a thriving, underground community of parents still using chlorine dioxide to treat their autistic children, clustered in southern California.

A private Facebook group called CD Autism", has more than 7,000 members who share stories, including photos and videos of supposed "post-enema parasites".

I started giving my son daily enemas four weeks ago, one mother from Duarte, California, wrote, ABC and Eyewitness report. Here's a tip: use lots of oil.

Can I try double dosing when he gets hyper? a mother from Cerritos, LA, asked.

For one hour of consultation over Skype, Ms Rivera charges parents about $100.

She has claimed to have seen 234 people "lose their autism diagnosis with the protocol". She has also said there are no side effects to the treatment, which is out of the body "within an hour". Doctors say this is not true; taking chlorine dioxide orally usually causes nausea, diarrhea and vomitting. Followers of the church claim this is part of the "detox" process.

South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology Show all 10 1 /10 South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology cruise_1.jpg Getty Images South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology kelly preston.jpg Getty Images South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology 125695366.jpg Getty Images South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology 3364652.jpg Getty Images South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology 1138185.jpg Getty Images South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology 107955067.jpg Getty Images South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology 51641683.jpg Getty Images South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology 103287404.jpg Getty Images South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology cruiseholmes.jpg Getty Images South Park, silent births and Nicole Kidman: The top 10 stories from the Church of Scientology scientology.jpg Getty Images

Ms Rivera insisted the potion was safe because it is chemically different from bleach, Eyewitness News and ABC News reported. She also claimed it's most effective when doses are timed to cycles of the moon. In November 2015, MMS use was found to have spread to the UK, with the first suspected case of a parent giving their child industrial strength bleach as a cure for autism investigated by Thames Valley police.

Other symptoms of chlorine dioxide poisoning, which doctors say can come from ingesting the substance include, bronchitis, wheezing, fluid in the lungs, headaches, breathing difficulties and a rapid heart rate.
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A British passenger on a P&O Cruises holiday has died and nine others have been injured after a bus crash in Dominica.

The passengers were on a shore excursion on the Caribbean island when their tour bus was involved in a collision at midday on Wednesday.

P&O confirmed that all the injured passengers are British and have been treated at a local hospital. It said the majority have now been discharged.

The bus was carrying 12 people including the P&O passengers. The names of those involved in the incident have not been released and next of kin have been informed.

The cause of the crash remains unknown. The bus was operated by a shore excursion provider, P&O said.

The P&O ship Azura set off from Southampton on 28 October carrying 3,000 passengers.

A bus operated by a shore excursion provider was involved in a collision in Dominica on Wednesday lunchtime, P&O said in a statement said. The bus was carrying 12 passengers, including 10 guests from Azura. The cause of the accident is not yet known. 

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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. 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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. 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The names of the guests involved in the incident have not been released. P&O Cruises representatives are on-site at the hospital to support the injured. Next of kin have been informed. We have activated our Care team to help those affected by the accident.

P&O Cruises Senior Vice President, Paul Ludlow, said: Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone touched by this tragic event. Our employees and crew are working to do everything we can to extend support and assistance to those affected and their loved ones.

The Foreign Office has confirmed the person who died in the crash and those injured were British nationals.

"Our staff are providing support and we will remain in close contact with P&O Cruises and the local authorities," it said.

Police have yet to release a statement about the incident, according to Dominica News Online.
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One of two police officers shot in western Pennsylvania while responding to a domestic incident has died, as authorities search for the suspected attacker.

The Washington County Coroner confirmed that one of the Canonsburg officers had died at a hospital in the city, but did not identify them pending the notification of relatives.

State police Trooper Melinda Bondarenka told reporters the incident began at 3:14am local time on Thursday in Canonsburg, 20 miles southwest of Pittsburgh,

Ms Bondarenka told reporters the officers were "ambushed upon their arrival" and immediately shot when they arrived at the scene, which 11 News reports was on Woodcrest Road.

Further police activity has been reported at West College Street, where a resident said they had heard two gunshots.

The surviving officer has been flown to a hospital in Pittsburgh. His condition remains unknown and his name has not been released.

Police and SWAT teams have been seen near at least two homes in the borough. It is not clear whether the suspect was in either of those homes.

Roads have been closed and residents have been told to stay inside their homes as the search for the suspected attacker continues.

Schools in the area will open two hours later than scheduled and some have been closed due to the heavy police presence.

No details have yet been released about what led to the shootings.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
President Barack Obama shakes hands as he meets with Republican President-elect Donald Trump on transition planning in the Oval Office at the White House on November 10, 2016 in Washington DC. (Jim Watson/Getty)

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Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States in the biggest shock in the country's electoral history. Here's what you need to know:

Please allow a moment for the live blog to load

Donald Trump has been named the shock victor of the US presidential election, pledging to be a "President for all Americans".

In a victory speech in New York on Wednesday, the President-elect vowed to unite the country following a divisive campaign littered with controversies.

Now its time for America to bind the wounds of division I say it is time for us to come together as one united people, he said, as supporters chanted USA! USA! USA!.

Demonstrators marched in cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest against Republican Donald Trump's surprise presidential election win, blasting his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

In New York, thousands filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, Trump's gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted "Not my president."

In Los Angeles, protesters sat on the 110 and 101 highway interchange, blocking traffic on one of the city's main arteries as police in riot gear tried to clear them. Some 13 protesters were arrested, a local CBS affiliate reported.

An earlier rally and march in Los Angeles drew more than 5,000 people, many of them high school and college students, local media reported.

A demonstration of more than 6,000 people blocked traffic in Oakland, California, police said. Protesters threw objects at police in riot gear, burned trash in the middle of an intersection, set off fireworks and smashed store front windows.
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The Israeli company that built the wall around Gaza saw a spike in shares when it became clear Donald Trump would become the next President of the United States  making the possibility of a wall at the Mexico border more tangible.

Magal Security Systems Ltd had already been salivating at the prospect of a Trump win and what that would mean for the barrier-building business. The company experienced gains over the years, as they expanded their work from the Gaza Strip to Egypt, Somalia, and other countries in Africa.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

Mr Trump launched his campaign on the promise of building the wall to keep out undocumented immigrants  whom he called rapists, drug traffickers, and criminals. It remains unclear if Mr Trumps wall would supplement the existing barriers in urban areas along the 1,900 mile border, constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers in the mid-1990s, or simply replace it.

Bloombergs Thomas Penny pointed out that Magal saw an increase of six per cent on Wednesday.

We would join forces with a major US defence company that has experience with such projects worldwide, Magal CEO Saar Koursh told Bloomberg in August. Weve done it in the past and we would definitely want to do it.

The company had previously seen a surge in business with the rise in global anxieties over Isis amid the Syrian refugee crisis.

 USA: Donald Trump will build the BIGGEST anti-Mexico wall... apparently

The border business was down, but then came Isis and the Syrian conflict, he said. The world is changing and borders are coming back big-time.

Another sector apparently benefitting from Mr Trumps election win is the private prison industry. Two companies, Corrections Corp and GEO Group, saw significant gains, recouping losses they suffered after the Department of Justice announced it would discontinue the use of federal private prisons.

It is likely that a President Trump would reverse that decision.

Private prisons would likely be a clear winner under Trump, analysts for Height Securities LLC wrote, as his administration will likely rescind the DOJs contract phase-out and [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] capacity to house detainees will come under stress.
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UPDATE, 10 November, 5.22pm  A Louisana college student admitted she made up reports of being attacked by two men, one she said was wearing a Donald Trump hat.

The Lafayette Police department say they are no longer investigating her claims. The University of Louisiana would not disclose whether they were taking disciplinary action against the student, citing federal law prohibition.

Authorities said the University of Louisiana student reported the alleged robbery Wednesday morning, and claimed one of the apparent attackers wore a white Donald Trump cap, according to The Advertiser.

Her claim drew on fears of anti-Muslim backlash in the wake of Mr Trumps election to the US presidency. His campaign stoked fears of Muslim immigration to the US that appealed to much of his predominantly white, nationalistic supporters. Multiple reports of hate crimes against Muslims, Latinos, black people, and the LGBTQ community have already surfaced.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

The 18-year-old woman  who is of Middle Eastern descent  claimed two men came out of a black sedan as she walked to class in Lafayette, according to a UL spokesperson. When they approached her, she said they hit her with a metal object. She fell and they allegedly stole her wallet and hijab, a traditional head-covering worn by some Muslim women.

The victim describes the suspects as white males, but has not given a definitive clothing description, police said in a statement. There were no witnesses or video surveillance on the scene.

The woman said that the men were saying ugly stuff to her, but did not elaborate further.

Lafayette Police and University of Louisiana police are working together on the investigation.
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Supporters of the far-right English Defence League have clashed with demonstrators gathered outside London's American embassy to protest against Donald Trump following his election as US president.

Cries of "Dump Trump!" erupted from a crowd of around 200, which assembled outside iron gates patrolled by dozens of police.

One of two visible EDL supporters who was wearing a shirt with the message 'White lives matter', told assembled media: "Donald Trump, he is the man, hes telling it how it is. Hes not all about capitalism. Hes not all about stitching up Americans."

Another man at the demonstration ripped a protester's a placard that said: 'No To Racism, No To Trump'.

The EDL supporter added: "We're not racist", to which people responded: "Yeah, yeah".

People in America will tell you black lives matter. Weve got people killing police officers who are affiliated with [the movement] Black Lives Matter."

He continued: "Refugees are not welcome here."

When asked by someone in the crowd to explain, he said: Because they come here, they rape our children.

Protesters then started chanting: Refugees are welcome here.

Organised by Stand Up To Racism, a campaign group that claims Mr Trump had run the most racist election campaign in generations, demonstrators spoke of their sense that intolerance was growing across Europe and in the US.

One protester said: "Donald is the name of a duck in America. He's the only Donald we should know. This Donald is a quack."

The London demonstration follows similar protests across the US and outside the American embassy in Berlin.

London demonstration follows similar protests across the US and outside the American embassy in Berlin (Getty)

One protester, Kate Sumpter, a 29-year-old actor from Seattle, said of the election result: "Nobody saw it coming and we all should have. We know the seedy underbelly of our culture makes this sort of thing possible.

"I have friends who are people of colour and are Muslims. I'm scared for them."

She continued: "My parents are both British: I'm the child of immigrants in America, but because I'm white and I sound American, I don't get treated [badly]. It's such a horrific double standard."

Several signs drew parallels between Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump (Getty)

Silvia Usle, a photographer who was born in Spain and grew up in New York, said the prospect of Mr Trump being president "makes me want to throw-up".

She had fashioned a makeshift sign drawing a parallel between the American President and Adolf Hitler. I'm very scared," she said, "Hitler was elected in a democracy."

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

Another demonstrator, Maya Schkolne, said: "I come from a family of people affected by fascism of Jewish immigrants.

"Seeing someone who represents a similar appeal to masses of people [as the Nazi party] and is able to whip up crowds like that... Dangerous times are ahead."

As the election results were announced on Wednesday, former KKK leader David Duke tweeted: "This is one of the most exciting nights of my life. Make no mistake about it, our people have played a huge role in electing Trump!"
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Donald Trump has spent most of the last decade seeking to undermine the legitimacy of President Barack Obama.

He was the force behind the so-called birther movement in which he tried to claim Mr Obama was born in Kenya, rather than the US, and was therefore not legally permitted to be its President. In turn, Mr Obama said Mr Trump was uniquely unqualified to become commander-in-chief.

So if the first meeting between the two men appeared a little cool when they spoke in the Oval Office on Thursday, it would have been no surprise. And when the Presidents spokesman was asked whether they had discussed the issue of Obamacare - which Mr Trump has vowed to scrap on his first day - it was little surprise that he sought to dodge the question.

US President Barack Obama shakes hands with President-elect Donald Trump at the end of their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC (EPA)

I just had an opportunity to have an excellent and wide-ranging conversation, Mr Obama said at the end of the meeting that lasted around 90 minutes, held without the presence of aides

My number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President-elect is successful.

He said that he was encouraged by Mr Trumps desire to work with his team to ensure a smooth transition. He said it was important for the country to now come together.

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks while meeting with President-elect Donald Trump following a meeting in the Oval Office (Getty)

Mr Trump told reporters: This was a meeting that was supposed to have last for 10 to 15 minutes. A chance to get to know each other, we have never met before. I have great respect. The meeting lasted for an hour-and-a-half.

From my point of view it could have gone on even longer. We discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful, some difficult.

He said he looked forward to working again with Mr Obama, including counsel.

Yet it remains unclear whether they discussed what must be among the many pressing concerns on Mr Trumps mind - namely the future of one of Mr Obama's landmark pieces of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

Mr Obamas spokesman, Josh Earnest, later declined to speculate as to whether the issue had been raised.

 Trump calls President Obama "a very good man" as their first meeting in the Oval Office concludes

I will let the President-elect read his record of the meeting, he said.

Mr Earnest said the meeting had been called to deal with the issue of transition, rather than for the two men to narrow their ideological differences.

When you consider the the political differences between the two men, I think the conversation was excellent, he added.

Mr Trump travelled to Washington from New York for a first meeting with Mr Obama and senior officials to discuss the transition process that needs to be completed by January 20 2017. He also held a meeting with the Republican Party leadership. The relationship between Mr Trump and the party's elite has also been very strained.

This is a tradition for every new leader, and each department of the government has established so-called landing teams. These will work with members of Mr Trumps team, headed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, as they prepare for the New Yorker to take office.

Mr Trump and his transition team are drawing up a shortlist of potential administration officials. Among the names being considered for senior jobs are Mr Christie and Sarah Palin.
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Bernie Sanders is floating the possibility of another presidential bid in 2020. During a phone interview with the Associated Press, Mr Sanders explained that he first wants to help rebuild the Democratic Party from its base following Donald Trumps devastating victory.

"Four years is a long time from now," the 75-year-old Vermont senator said, reminding reporters that hes up for re-election in the Senate come 2018 "We'll take one thing at a time, but I'm not ruling out anything."

Mr Sanders said that the decision of millions of working-class voters to back Mr Trump was simply an embarrassment to his party. He wants to reassure folks that Democrats can take a strong approach against corporate interests.

"It is an embarrassment, I think, to the entire of Democratic Party that millions of white working-class people decided to vote for Mr Trump, he explained, which suggests that the Democratic message of standing up for working people no longer holds much sway among workers in this country.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

He also pledged to support Keith Ellison, a representative of Minnesota, to become the Democratic National Committees next chairman.

"You cannot be a party which on one hand says we're in favor of working people, we're in favor of the needs of young people but we don't quite have the courage to take on Wall Street and the billionaire class, he continued telling the news agency. People do not believe that. You've got to decide which side you're on."

Mr Sanders also said that while hes hopeful, its highly unlikely that hell be working with the Trump administration.

"I hope I'm wrong, but I believe that he is a fraud, he explained, and I think despite all of his rhetoric about being a champion of the working class, it will turn out to be hollow.
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Israelis who support the Jewish presence in the occupied West Bank were buoyed Thursday after a top adviser to Donald Trump told an Israeli radio station that the president-elect does not view settlements as an obstacle to peace.

Speaking to Israels Army Radio, Jason Greenblatt, co-chairman of the Trump campaigns Israel Advisory Committee, said: It is certainly not Mr. Trumps view that settlement activities should be condemned and that it is an obstacle for peace, because it is not an obstacle for peace.

It is widely believed that Greenblatt may be appointed Trumps envoy to the Middle East.

If Trumps position on Israeli settlements holds true, it would mark a sharp departure from the administration of outgoing President Obama. Throughout his nearly eight years in the White House, Obama spoke out strongly against Israeli expansion of Jewish settlements, which sit on land that Palestinians seek as part of a future state.

The consistent message of Obamas administration was that allowing the settlements to grow makes achieving a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians more difficult. Last month, the U.S. State Department condemned Israeli plans to build 300 additional units in the settlements, saying they would further damage the prospects for a two-state solution.

In response to Greenblatts message, Ofer Akunis, a senior Israeli government minister, said he was happy that the onus for achieving peace was no longer on whether Israel did or did not build in the settlements. He urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to start building immediately.

Oded Revivi, chief foreign envoy for the YESHA Council, an organisation representing more than 430,000 Israelis who live in Israeli settlements, also welcomed Greenblatts comments.

Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria are the answer to peace, enabling Israelis and Palestinians to live and work together. We hope to continue building a peaceful future with the blessing of the new Trump administration, said Revivi, who is also the mayor of Efrat, one of the largest Israeli settlements.

Israelis refer to the West Bank by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria.

US Election night in pictures Show all 24 1 /24 US Election night in pictures US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures AFP/Getty Images

David Makovsky, a fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted that for the first time since Netanyahu became prime minister in 2009, he will be dealing with a Republican president. Makovsky predicted that Netanyahu and Trump will enjoy an initial honeymoon period.

But he warned that the relationship could face challenges if the two leaders are confronted with different aims on substantive issues such as Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

At what point does the honeymoon wear off and the Trump that emerges is the Trump dedicated to the art of the deal? he said. At what point does the bonding between these two diverge if he thinks Netanyahu doesnt want to do a deal, or a deal thats not doable?

Makovsky cautioned that the right wing in Netanyahus government may view the Trump position on settlements as an open invitation for settlement expansion, which could provoke a clash if the Trump administration wants to resume the peace process.

Also on Thursday, Israelis discussed the prospect of the Trump administration moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, keeping a promise made by Trump earlier this year. The lack of a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem has been a point of contention between the two allies since Israels founding in 1948. Another of Netanyahus ministers, Tzahi Hanegbi, said he was hopeful that Trump would follow through.

Every time there is a new president, he is told by the State Department: You cant do that. If you do, there will be bloody demonstrations in the Arab world. Americans will be killed all over the Muslim world, Hanegbi told Israel Radio. We are not talking about moving the embassy to East Jerusalem; were talking about West Jerusalem. This is a fundamental issue. The U.S. has never recognised Jerusalem as Israels capital since 1948. This is a scandal with no justification.

Carol Morello in Washington contributed to this report.

The Washington Post
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Donald Trump has arrived in Washington.

The president-elect has flew to the nations capital for a meeting with a man whose integrity and legitimacy he has sought to undermine for the past decade.

Mr Trump travelled to Washington from New York on Thursday for a first meeting with President Barack Obama to discuss the transition process.

This is a tradition for every new leader, and each department of the government has established so-called landing teams. These will work with members of Mr Trumps team, headed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, as they prepare for the New Yorkers to take office on January 20 2017.

But the relationship between Mr Trump and Mr Obama is very strained. The businessman was the force behind the so-called birther movement, and he claimed that Mr Trump was not born in the US and was therefore not legally permitted to be president.

He continued to do so after Mr Obama produced his birth certificate, showing that he was born in Hawaii in 1961. It was only in September that Mr Trump, said: President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

More follows...
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Sarah Palin, governor Chris Christie, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, defeated Republican rival Ben Carson and a slew of private sector executives are among the contenders for top positions in Donald Trumps cabinet.

A list of 41 candidates compiled by the President-elects transition team has been obtained by BuzzFeed News, covering 13 departments that will make up his powerful cabinet.

Ms Palin, the former Alaska governor who unsuccessfully ran as vice-president in 2008, is one of seven possibilities for Secretary of the Interior, including governors Jan Brewer and Mary Fallin, venture capitalist Robert Grady, oil executive Forrest Lucas and entrepreneur Harold Hamm.

 Sarah Palin compares Donald Trump's election run to Brexit

Mr Christie, the New Jersey governor damaged by the Bridgegate scandal, is in contention for the positions of Attorney General and Secretary of Commerce; while Newt Gingrich could be made Secretary of State.

Mr Giuliani is also up for Attorney General while Dr Carson, who bowed out of the Republican nomination race earlier this year, is listed for the education and health briefs.

A hotly tipped option for Secretary of Defence is Mike Flynn, a retired general and former head of the Defence Intelligence Agency, who has been Mr Trumps chief defence policy adviser during the campaign.

The list, which is not final, includes several high-profile figures from the energy and banking industries, following Mr Trumps anti-politician rhetoric during his campaign. Among them are oil, gas and steel executives, a venture capitalist, bankers, investors and financiers from the private sector.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

Several of the candidates were praised by Mr Trump in his victory speech on Wednesday, including possible Attorney General, Defence Secretary, or Office of Management or Budget director Jeff Sessions.

Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman listed as the sole candidate for Chief of Staff, was also named, with Mr Trump calling him a very special person.

We have got tremendously talented people up here, I want to tell you, its been very, very special, said the President-elect.

He was due to meet Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday to start the formal process of transition ahead of his inauguration in January.

The contenders for Mr Trumps cabinet

Attorney General:

Gov Chris Christie

Attorney General Pam Bondi

Sen Jeff Sessions

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani

Mr Trump and New Jersey governor Chris Christie on election night (Reuters)

Secretary of Commerce:

Chris Christie

Former Nucor CEO Dan DiMicco

Businessman Lew Eisenberg

Former gov Mike Huckabee

Sen David Perdue

Former Sen Jim Talent

Mike Huckabee  a possible Commerce Secretary? (Reuters)

Agriculture Secretary:

Gov Sam Brownback

National Council of Farmer Cooperatives CEO Chuck Conner

Gov Dave Heineman

Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller

Former Georgia gov Sonny Perdue

Secretary of Education:

Ben Carson

Hoover Institution fellow William Evers

Ben Carson endorsed Mr Trump at the billionaire's Mars-A-Lago beach club (Getty Images)

Secretary of Energy:

Venture capitalist Robert Grady

Businessman Harold Hamm

Secretary of Health and Human Services:

Former New Jersey state Sen Richard Bagger

Ben Carson

Newt Gingrich

Gov Rick Scott

Donald Trump with Newt Gingrich (Getty)

Secretary of Homeland Security:

Chris Christie

Sheriff David Clarke

Secretary of the Interior:

Gov Jan Brewer

Gov Mary Fallin

Robert Grady

Harold Hamm

Oil executive Forrest Lucas

Rep Cynthia Lummis

Former Gov Sarah Palin

Donald Trump and Sarah Palin at a restaurant in New York in 2011 (Picture: Getty)

Secretary of Defense:

Former Gen Mike Flynn

Stephen Hadley

Rep Duncan Hunter Jr

Jeff Sessions

Former Sen Jim Talent

Secretary of State:

John Bolton

Sen Bob Corker

Newt Gingrich

Treasury Secretary:

Rep Jeb Hensarling

Businessman Carl Icahn

Banker Steven Mnuchin

Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus (Getty)

Chief of Staff:

Reince Priebus

Director of Office of Management and Budget:

Jeff Sessions

Secretary of Labor:

EEOC commissioner Victoria Lipnic

Veterans Affairs:

Rep Jeff Miller

White House Counsel:

Donald McGahn
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The Russian government was in contact with Donald Trumps campaign team ahead of his shock election victory, a senior politician has said.

Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency there were contacts with influential people in the President-elects circle.

I don't say that all of them, but a whole array of them, supported contacts with Russian representatives, he added.

The comments on Thursday came after the first female US Secretary of State has warned Mr Trump not to alienate Europe by allying himself with Vladimir Putin.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin holds a glass during a ceremony of receiving diplomatic credentials from foreign ambassadors at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia (Reuters)

The President-elect has repeatedly praised his Russian counterpart, causing Madeleine Albright, who served as Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, to once call him Mr Putin's "useful idiot.

The main thing is to remember that he is President of the United States and that our interests vis a vis what the Russians are doing are very important, and that our friends and allies in central and eastern Europe have been our friends and allies for a very, very long time, she told Radio 4s Today programme.

Ms Albright warned that some of the statements made in Mr Trumps campaign were dangerous for the US and urged him to heed advice.

It is my hope that when he is given his full intelligence briefings and sits in the Oval Office and listens to people with foreign policy background, then he will understand that statements such as the ones that he made are dangerous for the United States, she added.

The world is not a zero-sum world and we have to, and will need to, cooperate with others.

 Russian parliament bursts into applause upon announcement of US election result

Russian leaders have been celebrating the President-elects shock victory, with Mr Putin sending a telegram carrying his warm congratulations and parliament breaking into spontaneous applause upon hearing the result.

In a brief statement, the Kremlin said Mr Putin expressed his hope to work together for removing Russian-American relations from their crisis state.

The Russian President also said he had confidence in building a constructive dialogue between Moscow and Washington that is based on principles of equality, mutual respect and a real accounting of each other's positions, in the interests of our peoples and the world community.

Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Putin added that he hoped to repair the unfortunate degradation of relations between Russia and the US but that the path ahead would be difficult.

Tensions have been steadily rising over Russias alleged involvement in the Ukraine conflict and the annexation of Crimea, its backing of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war and antagonism towards Nato military assets including an incident where Russian jets buzzed an American navy ship.

Both countries have taken a combative stance, launching a series of high-profile military exercises and implementing sanctions and counter-sanctions.

US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Show all 12 1 /12 US Presidential election: key moments in pictures US Presidential election: key moments in pictures The 2005 Access Hollywood video which showed Mr Trump bragging to Billy Bush Getty US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Hillary Clinton and her health concerns Getty US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Hillary Clinton and her health concerns Getty US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Mr Trump suggests gun-supporters could kill Hillary Clinton to prevent her from picking the supreme court justices Reuters US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Melania Trump plagiarises Michelle Obamas speech Getty US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Mr Trump said that judge Gonzalo Curiel would not be able to rule fairly, as he was of Mexican heritage United States Federal Court/AP US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Donald Trump anxious over securing black vote Reuters US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Hillary Clinton and concerns about securing black vote Getty US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Pope Francis Questions Donald Trump's Christianity Getty US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Donald Trump and his relentless remarks against Mexican people Getty US Presidential election: key moments in pictures Donald Trump and the sexual assault allegations Getty US Presidential election: key moments in pictures FBI director announced that there would be no charges for Hillary Clinton amid email scandal Getty

But Mr Trump did not air concerns over the issues in his campaign, instead taking positions at odd with the Obama administration and repeatedly praising the Russian President, calling him a strong leader and refusing to join US officials in accusing Moscow of leaking hacked Democratic campaign emails to undermine Hillary Clinton.

I think that I'll be able to get along with [Mr Putin], he said in September.

And the flattery has not been one-sided. The Russian President called Mr Trump a bright and talented person in December, a remark the Republican called a great honour.

Mr Putin himself recently dismissed suggestions of Russian interference in the election, asking whether the US was a banana republic, while state media repeated claims that the vote was rigged in Hillary Clintons favour.

But as her loss looked ever more certain on Wednesday, all allegations of fraud were dropped as state television hailed Mr Trumps unexpected triumph.

I want to drive through Moscow with an American flag in the window. Come and join me, Russia Today editor Margarita Simonyan tweeted, with a smile emoji. Today, they earned it.

Ms Clinton had been portrayed as a Russophobe, criminal and liar during her campaign, with articles accusing her of planning a militaristic and aggressive stance towards the country.

As Secretary of State, she was critical of Russia's flawed 2011 parliamentary elections, leading Mr Putin to accuse her of fomenting mass protests against his presidency that ensued.
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Donald Trump has invited Benjamin Netanyahu to meet him in the US at the first opportunity as the President-elect seeks to gather international allies.

The Israeli Prime Minsters office said the pair spoke by telephone after the President-elects shock victory on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Netanyahu congratulated President-elect Trump on his victory and told him that the United States has no better ally than Israel, a spokesperson said.

While Israel calls Jerusalem its capital, few other countries accept that, including the United States (EPA)

The two leaders, who have known each other for many years, had a warm and heartfelt conversation.

President-elect Trump invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to a meeting in the United States at the first opportunity.

Prime Minister Netanyahu told President-elect Trump that both he and his wife Sara are looking forward to meeting him and his wife Melania.

Mr Netanyahu congratulated Mr Trump, calling him a true friend of Israel and saying he looked forward to working together.

The ironclad bond between the United States and Israel is rooted in shared values, buttressed by shared interests and driven by a shared destiny, he added.

I am confident that President-elect Trump and I will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between our two countries and bring it to ever greater heights.

He met both the Republican candidate and Hillary Clinton in September, when Mr Trump said he would recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital, angering Palestinians who also regard the holy city as their own.

Following the election Mr Netanyahu also phoned the former Secretary of State and thanked her for supporting Israel, extending an open invitation to the country.

Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didnt know the air conditioner didnt work and sweated like dogs, and they didnt know the room was too big because they didnt have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall  and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me and Ill build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY

The two countries are strong allies, with the US confirming a $38 billion (30 billion) military aid package earlier this year.

But tensions frequently rose with Barack Obamas administration over Israeli concerns over the Iran deal and the Presidents objections to the continued construction of settlements in the West Bank that are regarded as illegal under international law.

The disputes came amid a continuing wave of violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, seeing around 40 Israelis and foreign nationals killed in Palestinian attacks and more than 230 Palestinians shot dead by security forces over the past year.

Right-wing Israelis and politicians have welcomed Mr Trumps victory, with education minister Naftali Bennett claiming his presidency would be an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state in the centre of the country, which would hurt our security and just cause.

The US has so far joined the vast majority of Western nations including the UK in supporting a two-state solution but Mr Trumps advisor on Israel previously said the candidate was tremendously sceptical of the policy.

A Trump administration will never pressure Israel into a two-state solution or any other solution that is against the wishes of the Israeli people, David Friedman told a Trump rally in Jerusalem in October.

Mr Friedman also told the AFP news agency Mr Trump does not see Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank as illegal, as nearly all the rest of the international community does

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, has congratulated the President-elect and said he hoped peace could be achieved during his term based on the borders of 1967, the year Israel occupied the West Bank.
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Boris Johnson has told Europe to get over the election of Donald Trump.

The Foreign Secretary, who has also said Mr Trump's call for a ban on Muslims entering the US showed his "stupefying ignorance", said it is time to "snap out" of the "doom and gloom" surrounding his election.

Mr Johnson spoke to Vice President-elect Mike Pence and told reporters in Serbia that "people should focus on the opportunities... and not the problems".

"I would respectfully say to my beloved European friends and colleagues that it's time that we snapped out of the general doom and gloom about the result of this election and collective 'whinge-o-rama' that seems to be going on in some places," he said.

Mr Johnson said Thursday in the Serbian capital of Belgrade that "people should focus on the opportunities ... and not the problems."

US Election night in pictures Show all 24 1 /24 US Election night in pictures US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures AFP/Getty Images

Mr Johnson added that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump had a "very, very good conversation" Prime Minister Theresa May earlier in the day.

He says Mr Trump has spoken of a "spectacular relationship" with the U.K. and "wants to sign a free trade deal."

Mr Johnson says Trump's election "is a great opportunity for us in the U.K. to build a better relationship with America that is of fundamental economic importance for us, but also of great importance for the stability and prosperity of the world."

The foreign minister had previously mocked Mr Trump, saying that he avoided parts of New York in case he met him.

He is the latest British politician to launch a charm offensive since Mr Trump's astonishing victory, in stark contrast to previous comments.

Mr Johnson had previously ridiculed the controversial tycoon, saying "the only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump".

Prime Minister Theresa May, who spoke to Mr Trump yesterday, has also had to skirt around her previous description of Mr Trump's Muslim ban idea as "divisive, unhelpful and wrong".

Mrs May has faced criticism from opposition politicians, who are mostly horrified at Mr Trump's election, for not following the lead of Angela Merkel.

The German chancellor pointedly offered to work with the president-elect on the basis of shared values of "democracy, freedom, respect for the law and for the dignity of human beings, independent of origin, skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views".
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The French ambassador to the US tweeted a world is collapsing before our eyes" as the results of the country's presidential election were becoming apparent and Donald Trump's dreams of winning the White House became a reality.

Gerard Araud, an experienced diplomat who is expected to work with the next president, later appeared to delete the tweet.

The election of the property tycoon has sent shock waves through financial markets and sparked protests across the US.

The 63-year-old said in French: After Brexit and this election, everything is now possible. A world is collapsing before our eyes. Dizziness.

His response comes as French President Francois Hollande responded to the election result, saying it heralded an era of "uncertainty".

"I congratulate him as is natural between two democratic heads of state," he told reporters.

"This American election opens a period of uncertainty. This context calls for a united Europe, capable of making itself heard and of promoting policies wherever its interests or values are challenged."

Recommended Liberation has summed up how people feel about Trump winning the US el

Mr Hollande, who has not yet announced whether he will run for a second term in next year's French presidential election, said Paris wanted to immediately commence talks with Trump to clarify his position on key international issues.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault agreed to work with Trump, but said the Republican's election "raised questions".

"Europe cannot blink after Brexit, after the election of Donald Trump with all the questions being raised," he told France 2 Television.

"Europe must stand together more, be more active and go more on the offensive even if it is just to protect itself."

President Donald Trump life in pictures Show all 16 1 /16 President Donald Trump life in pictures President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump poses in a rocking chair once used by President John F. Kennedy at his New York City residence Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump with his new bride Marla Maples after their wedding at the Plaza hotel in New York Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Celina Midelfart watch the match between Conchita Martinez and Amanda Coetzer during U.S. Open. She was the date whom Donald Trump was with when he met his current wife Melania at a party in 1996 Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas serving as the grand marshal for the Daytona 500, speaks to Donald Trump and Melania Knauss on the starting grid at the Daytona International Speedwa Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump talks with his former wife Ivana Trump during the men's final at the U.S. Open Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and his friend Melania Knauss pose for photographers as they arrive at the New York premiere of Star Wars Episode : 'The Phantom Menace,' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump talks with host Larry King. Trump told King that he was moving toward a possible bid for the United States presidency with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump answers questions as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura looks on in Brooklyn Park. Trump said on Friday he 'very well might' make a run for president under the Reform Party banner but had not made a final decision Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump makes a face at a friend as he sits next to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso before the start of the 2003 Miss Universe pageant in Panama City Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Entrepreneur Donald Trump is greeted by a Marilyn Monroe character look-a-alike, as he arrives at Universal Studios Hollywood to attend the an open casting call for his NBC television network reality series 'The Apprentice.' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Simon Cowell present an Emmy during the 56th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Megan Mullally perform at the 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump, poses with his children, son Donald Trump, Jr., and daughters Tiffany and Ivanka Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump told Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner on Tuesday she would be given a second chance after reported misbehavior Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump holds a replica of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as his wife Melania holds their son Barron in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. property mogul Donald Trump stands next to a bagpiper during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland Reuters

Europe's far-right leaders in Europe greeted the election result with delight, with the president of France's Front National, Marine Le Pen, among the first to offer their congratulations.

She tweeted: "Congratulations to the new President of the United States Donald Trump and the American people, free!"

Other European leaders offered more muted congratulations to the Republican following his shock win.
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Protests swept across the US on Wednesday night, as people flooded cities to demonstrate against the election of Donald Trump as President and declared their refusal to accept the result.

A number of arrests were made as police tried to push people back from the entrance to Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York. The billionaires larger-than-life brand became a focus for anger, as people also gathered outside Trump Tower in Chicago, chanting: Not my President.

After a victory speech in which Mr Trump vowed to be a leader for all Americans, the backlash to his election highlighted the raw divisions which flared up during the campaign.

While rural America voted overwhelmingly for Mr Trump, as many as 31 of the countrys largest 35 cities voted Democrat, and many of them saw demonstrations on some level.

Warning - some videos below contain strong language and swearing

In Washington DC, a crowd massed outside a newly opened Trump hotel and others gathered at the White House.

Major protests also took place across the Hillary Clinton-supporting West coast, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, as well as in Philadelphia, Oakland and Portland.

In Seattle, hundreds marched through downtown streets, and panic erupted when a man opened fire on a crowd not far from anti-Trump protests, injuring five people including one critically.

Police said they believed the incident related to a personal argument, however, and was not linked to the protests. The suspect remained at large.

Demonstrators marched through Boston, from Boston Common to the Massachusetts State House, and there were smaller marches in St Paul, Richmond, Kansas City, Omaha and Austin.

But the largest outpouring of anger appeared to be in New York City, where thousands of people walked from Union Square to Trump Tower, before they were forced by police to move on to other Trump properties.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

Causing massive gridlock, they held signs that read "Trump Makes America Hate" and chanted "hey, hey, ho, ho Donald Trump has got to go" and "Impeach Trump".

By Dina Rickman, in New York

Trump Tower sits somewhere between Prada, Armani and Gucci in New Yorks Manhattan. On Wednesday night, the shutters were down on the designer shops and garbage trucks filled with sand, police officers and barricades were out to separate the President-elects New York home and campaign base from the thousands of angry protesters outside.

The crowd was extremely young, extremely diverse and extremely angry  and every one of them promised they werent going anywhere. As chants of Donald Trumps a piece of s***; he is not my president rang out, protesters vowed to be back tomorrow, and the next day and the next day until he gets the f****** message.

New York didnt vote for Mr Trump, and the protesters The Independent spoke to tonight were keen to point out the majority of their country hadnt either. For the first time in 15 years, and in perhaps the most important election for many more years, a Democrat had won the popular vote but lost the all-important electoral college. Laura, an immigrant to the US (3.21 on video below), explained:

Whatever hole of emptiness this election left in me is now filled with anger. I became a citizen last year  this is my first election as a citizen Now we have a legitimate f***face for President and I cant stand it. It pisses me off. Her message to Mr Trump? Just die, I guess.

While any desire for violence was mostly talk, the anger was palpable among the protesters. At the first sign of trouble the crowd burst into chants of peaceful protest. Instead they were worried about possible violence from Trump supporters.

Colin, a 25-year-old New York native and gay man, arrived at the protest dressed as Harry Potter and holding a poster calling on Dumbledores Army to unite against Trump. The crowd loved the costume, chanting use your magic, Dumbledore, but he had a serious message behind the sign. Im a gay man  me and my boyfriend are fearing for our lives, he told The Independent. With this election comes the possible takeaway of all my civil liberties.

Much of the crowd was just as fearful as Colin. As Bianca, the daughter of immigrants explained, My mum grew up in Northern California. She didnt speak English until she was seven. Kids would tie her down, throw rocks at her and tell her to speak English. Im seeing that type of behaviour popping up in articles now I refuse to let another generation of kids go through that bulls***.

'Disgusted at America'

In California, as well as in a handful of other states, students walked out of class to protest. More than 1,000 gathered outside Berkeley High School.

Berenabas Lukas, a 15-year-old student who took part in the protest, told The Independent he felt less safe since Mr Trump had won. I feel very disgusted at America, he said, adding he found it difficult to see that your life isn't valued as an African American teen.

[Having] a president that doesn't support Latinos or African Americans, who is racist, and who is going to run America for four years, maybe eight, is sickening.

Recommended Donald Trump losing popular vote to Hillary Clinton

Anger seems to have been exacerbated by the fact that Hillary Clinton appears to have won the popular vote, by about 200,000 according to the latest 99.1 per cent complete count.

Republicans claimed a mandate for the President-elect, and an emotional Hillary Clinton earlier told crestfallen supporters he deserved a "chance to lead".

President Barack Obama pledged a smooth transition of power, and has invited the man he had declared unfit for the presidency to the White House on Thursday.

"We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country," the President said of Mr Trump, who spent years questioning Mr Obama's birthplace and challenging the legitimacy of his presidency.

Mr Trump was uncharacteristically quiet in the aftermath of his triumph and made no public appearances on Wednesday. He huddled with jubilant advisers at his skyscraper in Manhattan, beginning the daunting task of setting up an administration that will take power in just over two months.

 Hillary Clinton urges supporters to give Donald Trump a chance to lead

He also met Vice President-elect Mike Pence and took calls from supporters, family and friends, according to spokeswoman Hope Hicks.

In Washington, Mr Trump's transition team sprang into action, looking through personnel lists for senior jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. Mr Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for senior jobs, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani for Attorney General or National Security Adviser.

After struggling for months with Mr Trump's takeover of their party, Republican leaders embraced the businessman in victory.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was lukewarm in his support throughout the campaign, praised him for pulling off "the most incredible political feat I have seen in my lifetime". Mr Ryan said: "He just earned a mandate."

Indeed, Mr Trump will take office in January with Congress fully in his party's control, giving him strength to try to pass his agenda and turn the Supreme Court in a conservative direction. Even Republicans were stunned by the scope of their electoral success, including many who had been privately predicting Mr Trump's defeat.

Ms Clinton's emotions were raw as she addressed a crowd of supporters who gathered in a New York ballroom, her eyes wet with tears. She said the crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought".

Still, she was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

Additional reporting by agencies
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The future of the US Supreme Court was set to take centre stage at the first meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Washington on Thursday, in particular whom he might appoint to fill its one vacant seat.

Jubilant in the wake of his victory on Tuesday, Republicans are now counting on Mr Trump to use the power of the presidency to tilt the court back to the ideological right, beginning with nominating a conservative to fill the seat left empty by Antonin Scalia, who died in February.

Recommended Read more Barack Obama speaks out after his Oval Office meeting with Trump

For Democrats, by contrast, the defeat of Hillary Clinton means they have lost what would have been a rare opportunity to forge a liberal-leaning majority on the countrys highest court for the first time since the early 1970s and repel conservative attempts to undermine their progressive priorities, notably on issues like abortion, immigration and minority rights.

The ideological balance in the Supreme Court was one principle issue that drove voters to pick either Mr Trump or Ms Clinton on election day with exit polls indicating that for one in five of them it was in fact their most important consideration.

Obama nominated Judge Garland to fill the vacancy created by the death of Antonin Scalia (EPA)

The surprise win by Mr Trump is now seen as vindicating the risky strategy adopted by Senator McConnell and his Republican colleagues in the US Senate to block President Barack Obamas nominee to fill the ninth seat on the Court, Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC, whose record they considered insufficiently conservative.

Those Democrats who had never imagined that Mr Trump could win had quietly been scoffing that the Republicans had shot themselves in the foot because as president, Ms Clinton was sure to pick someone even more reliably left-leaning than Judge Garland to replace Scalia.

While the tables are now turned, with his first pick Mr Trump will only have the opportunity to return the Court to where it was until the death of Scalia. While the reliably conservative jurist was still alive, the Court was often in a virtual ideological balance with Justice Anthony Kennedy often casting the deciding vote on issues that pitted the right against the left.

Justice Ginsburg is considered likely to leave the court sometime in the next four years (AP)

However, it is what happens to the Court over the longer term that has Democrats wringing their hands. At least three other sitting justices are old enough that even if he only has one term in the White House, Mr Trump is likely to have other opportunities to stock the institution with jurists to his  and, presumably, to conservatives  ideological liking.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 83, Justice Kennedy, 80, and Stephen Breyer, 78, could all conceivably opt to retire in the next four years. If Mr Trump were to be re-elected for a second term, he will have an even greater chance of leaving a mark on the Court that could endure for a generation or longer.

The implications for the future ideological identity of America are profound. There is almost no political battle that does not at some point end up before the Supreme Court. Under President Obama it has been asked to weigh in on everything from the constitutionality of his landmark healthcare reform law to campaign financing, the death penalty, the rights of gay people to marry and even, recently, the rights of transgender people to use the public facilities of their choice.

The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (AP)

The current standards that permit, but also restrict, a womans ability to seek an abortion laid down in the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court ruling are certain to become a particular flashpoint. Mr Trumps ascendancy will embolden a movement that has been growing on the state level over the last several years to overturn the landmark ruling or at least weaken its provisions.

Justice Kennedy again showed his influence on the Court in June when he joined his liberal colleagues in striking down a law passed by the Republican state legislature in Texas that imposed harsh limits on the ability of abortion clinics to operate in the state and threatened effectively to end access to abortions for millions of Texas women, especially minorities.

That suggests that even with a first Trump pick on the Court, however conservative he or she may be, Roe v Wade will be safe for a time. If more Trump nominees find themselves inside the edifice of the Court that could quickly change, however.

Other advances under President Obama that are cherished by the left could be in peril more quickly. His most important attempt to change the immigration debate in the United States  an executive order that was designed to protect about five million undocumented residents from deportation  has already been blocked by the lower courts and a ruling by the Supreme Court overturning it could come swiftly next year if Mr Trump doesnt simply reverse the executive order on his own before that.

Legal experts and historians are quick to point out, however, that presidents who think they have chosen Supreme Court nominees in their ideological images are sometimes disappointed because once in the building there is no guarantee they will vote accordingly. Justice David Souter, nominated by President George H W Bush in 1990 wasted no time in aligning himself with the Courts liberal wing.

As Mr Trump ponders who to pick to replace Scalia, the biggest question for Senate Democrats will be whether to attempt to return the favour paid them by Republicans this year in their successful block of Judge Garland and vow to use the ability they would in theory have to filibuster any confirmation vote. There would be very considerable risks to such a strategy, possibly opening the way to Republicans to change the rules of the chamber to end the filibuster capacity of the minority on all matters for good, sometimes known as the nuclear option.

As to who Mr Trumps first pick might be, we have some clues. Twice in the course of this year, the President-elect offered a list of names of sitting judges in lower courts who appealed to him. Most have a strong record of conservative activism from the bench.

During one of the debates Mr Trump also gave some idea of the kind of person he would be looking for. They'll respect the Second Amendment and what it stands for, what it represents, he offered, adding that he would expect them to be pro-life and pro-gun rights.
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Voting restrictions across the US helped limit turnout, especially in some of the battleground states won by Donald Trump.

Issues including restrictions on voter ID, reducing early voting and shutting down polling stations helped keep many people from voting, according to experts. Those issues appear to have particularly impacted on minority communities and especially in those close states that won the election for Mr Trump.

In some of the states, the margins between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton were simply too great for those restrictions to have been a deciding factor. But in Wisconsin, one poll monitor said the roughly 27,000-vote difference was concerning given the turmoil surrounding the state's voter ID law.

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As many as 300,000 Wisconsin voters did not have the required photo ID. With lower than expected turnout, Trump was the first Republican to win the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Fourteen states had new voting or registration restrictions in place for the 2016 presidential election, raising concerns that minority voters in particular would have a harder time accessing the ballot box.

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Voting experts believe the laws had some effect on turnout this year, but said it would be difficult to measure against other factors  such as a lack of enthusiasm for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton and the decision of many people simply not to vote.

They expressed frustration that some states had made it more difficult for voters to participate, even if there is no evidence the changes influenced the outcome of the presidential election.

There were clearly many people who bore the brunt of new voting restrictions or who were otherwise unable to participate, and that is not acceptable in a democracy, said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's School of Law.

She said a few battleground states won by Trump were among the states that had enacted restrictions in recent years, including Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

In some of the states, the margins between Trump and Clinton were simply too great for voting restrictions to have been a deciding factor. But Weiser said the roughly 27,000-vote difference in Wisconsin was concerning, given the turmoil surrounding the state's voter ID law. With lower than expected turnout, Trump was the first Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1984 to win the state.

It's been estimated that as many as 300,000 Wisconsin voters did not have the required photo ID. Molly McGrath, with the national group VoteRiders, spent Tuesday fielding dozens of calls from voters who had questions about the law.

In one case, she picked up a 99-year-old retired university professor named Fred at his polling place and drove him to a DMV office so he could get his photo ID. He had let his license expire, preferring instead to walk or ride his bike.

 US Election: Thousands protest Trump's victory

How many Freds are there? How many Freds decided not to call? McGrath said. There is 100 percent no doubt in my mind that people fell through the cracks and didn't have their votes counted. And when we see the numbers of how close this election was, we should all be unsettled by that.

With black and Hispanic voters, Trump apparently did as well as Republican Mitt Romney when Romney lost to President Barack Obama in 2012, according to exit polls. Trump appeared to have won more than half of white voters, who made up 70 percent of the electorate.

The 2016 election was the first without a key enforcement provision of the Voting Rights Act that had required some states and counties to receive approval before enacting new election laws. The 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling setting aside that requirement opened the way for voter ID and other measures that reduced early voting, straight-ticket voting and same-day registration. Those actions were taken primarily by Republican lawmakers, who said they were targeting voter fraud.

Even though court decisions have rolled back some of the more far-reaching restrictions, civil rights groups were concerned that confusion over the laws could deter voters.

Sandy Fambrough, a deputy poll judge in Denton County, Texas, said she witnessed violations of court-ordered changes to the state's voter ID law.

Texas was forced to soften its voter ID law after a federal appeals court deemed it discriminatory. Under the original law, it was estimated that some 600,000 eligible voters didn't have an acceptable form of ID.

Who knows how many people didn't vote because they were given the wrong information? Fambrough said.

In North Carolina, voter ID requirements and early voting reductions were struck down after a federal appeals court said they target African Americans with almost surgical precision. Republican officials have said discrimination was not their intent.

After some North Carolina counties reduced hours and polling places during the first week of early voting, one researcher found black turnout was down 13 percent compared with the 2012 election. On Tuesday, Trump won the state by about 178,000 votes over Clinton.

Even if those states didn't have those laws, it's not at all clear that the outcome would have been any different, said Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor at UC Irvine's School of Law.

He said he would not be surprised if more states pass restrictive voting laws in the years to come.

It's not hard to imagine that this will give a green light to engage in ever more restrictive voting laws, he said.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Donald Trump swept through corridors of Congress on Thursday afternoon emerging from meetings with Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and House speaker Paul Ryan saying he had underlined three areas for swift action next year - healthcare, jobs and immigration.

We're going to move very strongly on immigration, President-elect Trump said just two days after his historic win over Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. We will move very strongly on health care. And we're looking at jobs. Big league jobs.

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Earlier, he held 90 minutes of face-to-face talks with President Barack Obama at the White House. It was the first time the two men had met in person and afterwards both struck a positive note with reporters, in a show of civility that contrasted with the often rancourous warfare they had engaged in during the heat of the campaign.

We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds, Mr Obama told the victorious Republican as reporters - and a thick wall of television cameras - looked on.

 President-elect Trump says he looks forward to working with Obama at White House meeting

Melania Trump, the next first lady, accompanied her husband to 1600 Pennsylvania where, behind the scenes, she received a guided tour of its apartments from Michelle Obama, who herself had been a headline campaigner for Ms Clinton in the presidential contest.

Smiles were also on display on Capitol Hill, where Ms Trump was also part of the entourage along with Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who will have his own office in the Senate. Between meetings with Mr Ryan and Mr McConnell, Mr Trump was also escorted outside briefly to glimpse the West steps, which in just over two months will be the scene of his swearing in.

If there is clear jubilation among Republican members of Congress that with the unexpected showing by Mr Trump on Tuesday they now have control of both chambers on Capitol Hill and of the White House, there was also little disguising the dissonances between the programme Mr Trump had campaigned on and their priorities, particularly in the House.

Mr Ryan and he had a particularly fractious relationship during the campaign. After Access Hollywood tapes emerged early in October in which Mr Trump could be heard speaking in highly offensive terms about his sexual advances on women, Mr Ryan declared he would no longer be campaigning for him, a position from which he was later to retreat

For his part, Mr Trump repeatedly rehearsed his view of Mr Ryan as a weak and ineffective leader of the party. This guy lost four years ago in like a landslide, he remarked on one occasion, mocking the decision of the 2012 Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, to pick Mr Ryan as his running mate.

Their policy differences are significant. Mr Ryan has spent most of his career trying to push through legislation to slash what the US spends on social health programmes, known as entitlements, including Medicare and Medicaid. Mr Trump repeatedly vowed to leave funding for those programmes alone. Mr Ryan has been a supporter of comprehensive immigration reform which Mr Trump has also cut against.

Mr Trump has promised to deport millions of undocumented residents in the United States and build a wall on the US-Mexico border. His priority as regards healthcare, if he sticks by his campaign platform, will be to dismember Mr Obamas signature healthcare law, known as Obamacare. While that would receive support from the conservative wing of the party, killing off Obamacare without a developed plan to replace it would carry considerable political risk.

The White House confirmed that at their meeting, Mr Trump and Mr Obama had sought to move beyond the harsh words they had had for each other before Tuesday. The two men did not relitigate their differences in the Oval Office, Josh Earnest, the chief spokesperson, said. We're on to the next phase.

Mr Trumps promise of new jobs is partly predicated on his being able to enact the massive infrastructure-building programme he frequently spoke of when he was a candidate and again in his victory speech in the early hours of Wednesday. However, he will need first to get Congress to authorise the necessary funding that could run into hundreds of billions of dollars.

A similar effort was pushed for over many years by President Obama who always found himself stymied by Republicans on Capitol Hill. It would be an irony if Mr Trump gets them to change their minds and ends up enacting more or less the kind of building project that Mr Obama always had in mind but couldnt get through.
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One of the many expectations overturned by this earthquake of a presidential election was that of a so-called Latino Wave. Hispanics, often described as the sleeping giant of the American electorate, were at last going to turn out in force to defeat the man who called Mexicans rapists and killers, who promised a big, beautiful wall on the southern border and who pledged to deport all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US.

But the Latino wave was not enough to overwhelm Donald Trump, who eked out narrow victories in Hispanic-heavy states such as Florida and Arizona, combined them with surprise wins in the supposed blue states of the industrial Rust Belt, and moved inexorably past the magic 270 electoral votes. According to the rough figures provided by exit polls, Latinos accounted for 11 per cent of the votes cast nationally, up just one per cent from 2012.

Many Latino voters are in non-swing states such as California and New York, and Trump picked up more electoral college votes by mobilising his white voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania than he did by driving Latinos away. Some exit polls suggested he won the support of up to 29 per cent of Hispanic voters  more than Mitt Romney achieved in 2012. But then, those unreliable early surveys also pointed to a win for Clinton.

Polling firm Latino Decisions insists the exit polls are off, and that Trump secured a mere 18 per cent of Latino votes, in line with pre-election polling. And while the Latino proportion of the vote showed only a modest rise, the total number of Latino votes did increase significantly. In Florida, the Tampa Bay Times reported, the number of Hispanic early voters doubled over 2012. But their support for Clinton was outweighed there by Trumps surging white vote.

Further west, Latinos were key to the coalition that kept Colorado and Nevada blue. Reporting last week on the long lines at early voting locations in Las Vegas, Nevadas most respected political commentator Jon Ralston said he believed the Democrats had already built such a big lead that Trump almost certainly lost the state before election day proper.

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Nevada also elected Americas first Latina Senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, who will occupy the seat being vacated by the outgoing Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid. Senator-Elect Cortez Masto absolutely owes her election to Latinos, whose votes were very determinative in Nevada and Colorado, said Latino Decisions co-founder Gary Segura.

The Silver States Latino get-out-the-vote operation was tied to Reids Democratic machine and to the unions that represent hospitality workers on the Las Vegas Strip  including those employed by Trumps own hotel.

At her campaigns high water mark, some wildly optimistic polls put Clinton in play in Texas, which has its own fast-rising Latino population. She closed the gap between Democrats and Republicans there from 16 per cent in 2012 to just 10. That, said Segura, was down to South Texas counties, close to the Mexican border, where Latinos make up as much as 90 per cent of the electorate. Turnout in those counties was up compared to 2012, and so was the Democratic nominees share of the vote.

In Arizona, a state Romney won by more than nine points, Clinton came within five of Trump, thanks to a Latino vote energised by opposition not just to the GOP nominee, but to the states specific anti-immigrant ecosystem. The Latino political awakening in Arizona began in 2010, when the state passed SB1070, one of the strictest immigration laws in the nation, which later had some of its most aggressive measures stripped away by the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who styled himself Americas Toughest Sheriff, conducted immigration crackdowns that a court would later criticise as racial profiling. Last week, Arpaio  an enthusiastic Trump supporter  was charged with contempt for continuing the immigration sweeps after the court ruling. He faces trial in December.

On Tuesday, after 23 years in office, Arpaio finally lost a re-election race, swept away at last by the Latino wave. A lot of immigrant rights and Latino organisations were just sick of being targeted, said Josselyn Berry, Interim Executive Director of the campaign group Progress Now Arizona, which was part of an effort to register some 150,000 new Arizona voters in 2016. Describing Arpaio as a mini-Trump, Berry said: To have Trump and Arpaio on the ticket has been really effective in getting our Latino communities out to vote this year.

 Arizona Latino Jose Barboza talks about registering people to vote

In a statement, Alejandra Gomez, co-director of the Latino campaign group LUCHA, described Arizona as a beacon of light and a fire-line against the hate, bigotry and xenophobia of people like Trump and Arpaio. At the ballot box, she went on, The country took a step back, [but] Arizona takes a step forward."
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The President of the Philippines has said he and Donald Trump are alike as they both love to swear.

Rodrigo Duterte congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory during a visit to Malaysia on Wednesday.

Long live Mr Trump! We both curse at the slightest reason. We are alike, he said.

"We both make curses. Even with trivial matters we curse."

Mr Duterte, who is prone to sudden outbursts and profanities, said he wishes to stop quarrelling with the United States.

He previously told President Barack Obama to go to hell and has repeatedly hit out at Washington in recent months, threatening to cut defence pacts and end military joint drills.

 Rodrigo Duterte says he 'doesn't give a s*** about human rights' as 3,500 killed in war on drugs

The Filipino President has also criticised US officials for expressing concern about his brutal crackdown on illegal drug sellers and users.

But today he said: "I don't want to quarrel anymore, because Trump has won."

Mr Duterte won a May election by a huge margin and is often compared with President-elect Trump, having himself been the alternative candidate from outside of national politics.

He campaigned on a populist, anti-establishment platform and struck a chord among ordinary Filipinos with his promises to fix what he called a broken country.

When elected, he pledged to bring back the death penalty and shoot to kill powers to the Philippines.

One of the biggest surprises of Mr Duterte's presidency so far has been his hostility toward the United States, shown during near-daily eruptions of anger over its concerns about human rights abuses during his deadly war on drugs.

He told Filipinos how angry he had been at Washington, saying it had threatened to cut off aid and had treated the Philippines like a dog tied to a post.

They talk as if we are still the colonies, he said.

The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Show all 9 1 /9 The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On killing drug addicts These sons of whores are destroying our children. I warn you, dont go into that, even if youre a policeman, because I will really kill you. If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Message to China I will go there on my own with a Jet Ski, bringing along with me a [Phillipino] flag and a pole, and once I disembark, I will plant the flag on the runway and tell the Chinese authorities, Kill me  AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Christmas message to law-breakers If you do not want to stop, and just continue committing crimes, then this would be your last Merry Christmas AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On sex life I was separated from my wife. Im not impotent. What am I supposed to do? Let this hang forever? When I take Viagra, it stands up AFP/Getty Images The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On the drugs trade None of my children are into illegal drugs. But my order is, even if it is a member of my family, kill him'" AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Insulting the Pope We were affected by the traffic. It took us five hours. I asked why, they said it was closed. I asked who is coming. They answered, the pope. I wanted to call him: Pope, son of a wh**e, go home. Do not visit us again AFP/Getty Images The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Joke about rape I saw her face and I thought, 'What a pity... they raped her, they all lined up. I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first AFP/Getty The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Insulting Barack Obama "Mr Obama should be respectful and refrain from throwing questions at me about the killings, or son of a bitch, I will swear at you in that forum" REUTERS The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On Abu Sayyaf Islamic militants "If I have to face them, you know I can eat humans. I will really open up your body. Just give me vinegar and salt, and I will eat you. If you annoy me to the fullest... I will eat you alive. Raw" EPA

Last month President-elect Trump told Reuters the Philippines was a very important strategic location and that Mr Duterte's comments about removing foreign troops showed a lack of respect for our country.

Teddy Locsin Jr, Mr Duterte's incoming ambassador to the United Nations, said there were a few parallels between Trump, who stunned the world by defeating rival Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's presidential election, and Mr Duterte.

I remember Trump in the middle of one of his statements, he said 'I will not talk like this after I become president', Mr Locsin said on TV. I remember someone who also said the same thing.

In 2015, Mr Duterte was forced to apologise after he was accused of referring to Pope Francis as a son of a whore when a papal visit to the Philippines caused traffic jams, according to Time magazine.
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Donald Trumps shocking defeat of Hillary Clinton has sparked a massive wave of protests across as many as 25 cities.

His win came much to the dismay of Clinton supporters, who came out in droves to vote for the former Secretary of State. And yet, despite their ability to give the popular vote to Ms Clinton, it was still not enough to earn her the electoral college numbers.

The defeat leaves many supporters grasping at ways they can disrupt the former reality television stars rise to power.

 US Election: Thousands protest Trump's victory

Social media buzzed with the unlikely possibility that members of the electoral college could break their pledge to cast their states vote to the President-elect  known as a faithless elector  and thus turn the presidency over to Ms Clinton.

While an elector has voted against the President-elect, it has never reversed the final outcome of a presidential race.

So, what can people do to best make their voices heard in the wake of the Donald Trumps election?

Protest outside Trump businesses

Donald Trump has not made clear whether or not he will divest himself from his company, Trump Organisation, but there is no law that says he cannot involve himself in it.

His headquarters atop the Midtown Manhattan tower sits in the centre of one of New York Citys posh commercial districts. Hordes of protesters crowding the street could disrupt traffic into the tower that bears his name. Not to mention disturb the neighbours  which include Tiffany & Co, Louis Vuitton, and Burberry  as shoppers flock to the retailers this holiday season.

World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Show all 29 1 /29 World reaction to President Trump: In pictures World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty Images World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mosul , Iraq Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures New Delhi, India Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Karachi, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kabul, Afghanistan AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem. Israel Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Moscow, Russia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Seoul, South Korea AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Peshawar, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Hyderabad, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kolkata, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Aleppo, Syria Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem, Israel EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Baghdad, Iraq Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Tokyo, Japan Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico Getty

Mr Trump holds various properties in a number of US cities, with a handful of buildings throughout New York City, as well as hotels in Chicago and Las Vegas. Similarly, loud protesters congesting the sidewalks outside these buildings could certainly scare off any guests or any business that would hold a lease inside.

Donate to nonprofit organisations

After Mr Trump won the election, the American Civil Liberties Union took a stand against him. Noting his unlawful and unconstitutional policy proposals, they promised to take his administration to court in every state.

Those concerned for the future of the US can donate money to organisations like the ACLU who are prepared to fight for people who face the most impact from Mr Trump should he implement his policies.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

Such organisations include the NAACP, Planned Parenthood, the Southern Poverty Law Centre, Council on American-Islamic Relations, American Friends Service Committee's US-Mexico border programme, and nonprofit journalism organisations like The Centre for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica.

Amplify the allegations and pending lawsuits against the President-elect

Mr Trump will likely testify on his behalf this month in an ongoing federal lawsuit about fraud claims at Trump University  unprecedented for an incoming president. There is very little coverage about this at the moment, given the frenzy that resulted from his unexpected win.

Additionally, more than a dozen women have accused Mr Trump of sexually assault. The claims came about after the early-October release of audio that captured the President-elect bragging about forcibly kissing women and grabbing them by the genitals.

Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Show all 16 1 /16 Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump E Jean Carroll Author Carroll alleges that Trump pinned her against a wall and forced himself upon her in the changing rooms of a Manhattan department store in the mid-90s Getty Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Kristin Anderson Anderson alleges that Mr Trump touched her genitals while at a club in the early 1990s Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Jessica Leeds Leeds told the New York Times that Mr Trump groped her on an airplane in the 1980s BBC Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Natasha Stoynoff Stoynoff alleged that Mr Trump forcefully kissed her before an interview at his Mar-A-Lago estate in 2005 Everipedia Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Karena Virginia Virginia alleges Mr Trump groped her in 1998 outside of the US Open tennis tournament BBC News Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Temple Taggart Taggart claims Mr Trump gave her a kiss without consent during a rehearsal for a 1997 Miss USA pageant Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Summer Zervos The former Apprentice contestant alleged that Mr Trump kissed and groped her at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2007 Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Alva Johnson A former staffer for Trump's campaign, Johnson alleges that Trump forcibly tried to kiss her after a rally in August 2016 MSNBC Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Jennifer Murphy The former Apprentice contestant said Mr Trump "surprise kissed" her - but she said it did not bother her Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Jill Harth The makeup artist accused Mr Trump of "attempted rape" while in his daughter's room in 1997 Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Mindy McGillivray McGillivray alleges Mr Trump groped her at Mar-A-Lago in 2013 AP Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Rachel Crooks Crooks says that kissed her on the cheeks and mouth when she introduced herself to him in 2005 Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Mindy McGillivray McGillivray claims that Trump grabbed her backside at Mar-a-Lago in 2006 CNN Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Cassandra Searles The former Miss Washington alleges that Trump repeatedly grabbed her backside and invited her to his hotel room Getty Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Jessica Drake Drake claims that when she and two other women arrived to Trump's hotel room at his invitation, he arrived at the door in pyjamas and tightly hugged and kissed each of the woman without permission Getty Every woman to make sexual assault claims against Donald Trump Ninni Laaksonen The former Miss Finland claims that Trump squeezed her behind before they appeared together on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2006 EPA

It is important that these stories dont disappear in the clamor.

Continue to share these stories and try to keep more people aware of what the person set to become the countrys leader has been up to all these years.

Civic engagement

Some 46.9 per cent of Americans failed to make it to the polls, according to the United States Election Project. This number made its way through social media after the election, accompanied by shameful chides that more people should have voted.

However, those numbers did not stipulate that many of the people who did not make it to the polls fell victim to the Supreme Courts 2013 decision to gut the Voting Rights act. The decision  which led to laws that allegedly targeted black voters  resulted in 868 fewer polling stations than in 2012.

Most effective change will come from the bottom, at the local level, and up the ladder to state politics. Its a longer road, but voter restriction has been an ongoing problem in state and local governments for decades. Should a more diverse array of people engage in the political process, then perhaps it could lead to more fair voting laws in states like North Carolina and Florida  which were crucial in the election of Mr Trump.

Prepare for 2018

Republicans have control of the House and Senate  which could result in the rejection of many of President Obama's legacy achievements, such as the Affordable Care Act. However, if Democrats get to work on outreach now, they could reclaim the US Congress in two years.
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Protests have erupted in major US cities as demonstrators vent their rage at the election of Donald Trump to the presidency.

From New York to Los Angeles, thousands of people have rallied against the President-elect a day after his win, some many signs declaiming "Not our President" and "Love trumps hate."

A man tries to remove 'Kill Trump' graffiti in Oakland, California (Noah Berger/Reuters) (REUTERS/Noah Berger)

The property tycoon caused great controversy during his campaign, which was strongly characterised by anti-immigrant and sexist language.

While many people protested peacefully, there was disorder in some cities, particularly Oakland, where some police cars were burned and several officers were injured.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

In New York, people gathered outside the Trump Tower and chanted Donald Trumps a piece of s***; he is not my president.

Protesters in Los Angeles played a game of cat and mouse with police, blocking a major downtown highway in a demonstration that continued into the early hours of Thursday, bringing traffic to a standstill.

Protests were also held in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, Las Vegas and other cities.

Protesters in Los Angeles, California (Keith Birmingham/The Pasadena Star-News/SCNG via AP)

Morgan Riemersma chants "not my president" during a protest in opposition of Donald Trump's presidential election victory in Athens, Georgia (John Roark/Athens Banner-Herald via AP)

Protesters in Seattle, Washington (REUTERS/Jason Redmond)

Demonstrators protest on top of a bus outside of the Trump Tower in Chicago, Illinois (John Gress/Getty Images)

A demonstrator holds a sign next to a pinata depicting Donald Trump during a demonstration in San Francisco, California (REUTERS/Stephen Lam)

Many demonstrators vowed that they would continue to protest the election of Mr Trump.

He will take office on 20 January 2017.
Tommy Arthur

As the clock ticked towards 6 p.m. last Thursday, death row inmate Tommy Arthur began to think he wouldn't survive the seventh time Alabama was set to execute him.





"To say the very least I was concerned," Arthur said in an interview Monday with Al.com. "At 5 o'clock I had reconciled that they were going to kill me."





But shortly before 5:30 p.m. Thursday, minutes before reporters were to be loaded onto a van to be taken over to the death chamber at Holman Correctional Facility to witness Arthur's execution, a prison spokesman announced a two-hour delay. The U.S. Supreme Court wanted more time to review Arthur's appeal and the prison commissioner agreed, the spokesman said.





That time passed and by 9:30 p.m. the U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary stay, followed at 10:55 p.m. by a stay until further notice . The execution was off for that day anyway.





"I was so elated that the justices saw fit to put it on hold," Arthur said.





What was the first thing Arthur did when he finally found out that he wouldn't be executed that night?





"I thanked God," Arthur said.





Arthur, 74, said he also thanks his volunteer team of lawyers (the state doesn't pay for death row appeals), particularly Suhana Han who has represented him since 2003. He said they have worked hard and into the nights trying to save him.





For the 7th time in his 33 years on death row he had been in the holding cell next to the death chamber waiting for his execution, Arthur said. He did no eat last Thursday and had refused a final meal.





"I was pumping too much adrenaline. I wasn't hungry," Arthur said.





Arthur was convicted at 3 trials and sentenced to death each time for the 1982 murder-for-hire shooting death of Troy Wicker.





What's next for Arthur?





The U.S. Supreme Court in its order Thursday stated its stay of execution will remain in place pending Arthur's request for the court to review his appeals. If the court refuses to review his appeals, the stay would automatically go away.





If the court does grant a review then the stay would continue until a final decision is made on his case, according to the SCOTUS order.





Conference





On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court stated Arthur's request for a writ of certiorari - or review - would be distributed for the court's conference on Nov. 22.





At that conference the court will decide whether to consider Arthur's appeal of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denial of his challenge to Alabama's lethal injection method of execution. It also will consider whether to review his appeal of the Alabama Supreme Court's denial of his appeal that Alabama's death sentence law is like the one in Florida that SCOTUS struck down in January.





The decision on whether the U.S. Supreme Court will review either of Arthur's appeals, or none at all, will likely be issued the following Monday, Nov. 28.





In order to review a case, at least four justices must agree, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.





If SCOTUS doesn't review





If the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't grant a review on either one then the Alabama Attorney General's Office could go back to the Alabama Supreme Court to get Arthur's 8th execution date set. The Alabama Supreme Court sets an execution date no earlier than 30 days from the date of its order.





But not granting a review doesn't mean the appeal doesn't lack merit, Dunham said. There is also a possibility that another similar appeal, with similar issues, could come along and the court decides to hold Arthur's case pending a decision in the other one.





If SCOTUS does review





But if the U.S. Supreme Court does grant a review of Arthur's appeals, then any execution would likely be stayed off until later next year - or never depending on its decision.





SCOTUS might have time for briefings, arguments, and possibly a decision in the case by the end of its term on June 30, Dunham said. But it's also possible it wouldn't be heard until the following term, which begins Oct. 1, 2017, he said.





The U.S. Supreme Court also could wait until a ninth justice is on board after the death earlier this year of Justice Antonin Scalia, Dunham said.





"Four votes are enough to grant review, but not enough to grant relief," Dunham said. "I think what he (Arthur) needs to hope for is that whoever is on the court at the time thinks his claims are meritorious," and he can get five of an eight or nine-member court to agree, he said.





"It's not necessarily a liberal or conservative issue," Dunham said.





Split?





Based on the SCOTUS order for the stay of execution it isn't entirely clear whether Arthur might have the votes to win an appeal. He did get the needed 5 votes for a stay, but one of those votes was a "courtesy."





Chief Justice John Roberts stated in the order staying Arthur's execution that while he didn't believe that Arthur's appeal "meets our ordinary criteria for a stay. This case does not merit the Court's review: the claims set out in the application are purely fact-specific, dependent on contested interpretations of state law, insulated from our review by alternative holdings below, or some combination of the 3."





"Four Justices have, however, voted to grant a stay. To afford them the opportunity to more fully consider the suitability of this case for review, including these circumstances, I vote to grant the stay as a courtesy," Roberts stated. "Justice Thomas and Justice Alito would deny the application."





Roberts only discusses the leanings of seven of the eight members of the current court. It's unclear which ones he is referring to other than his, Alito and Thomas' votes.





Method of execution





One of the issues Arthur is appealing is Alabama's lethal injection method of execution.





A federal judge tossed out Arthur's lawsuit challenging the state's new lethal injection drug combination as cruel and unusual punishment.





In a 2-1 decision last week a panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court judge and also refused Arthur's request for a stay. In making challenges to a method of execution, inmates must present alternatives they believe would be a more humane way of execution.





11th Circuit Judge Charles Wilson, who was the lone dissenter, said the execution should have been stayed in order for Arthur's appeals on his lethal injection challenge. "Due to the scarcity of and secrecy surrounding lethal injection drugs, it is all but impossible for a prisoner to set forth a viable lethal-injection-based alternative," Wilson wrote in his dissent in Wednesday's opinion. "The Majority's decision therefore checkmates countless Alabama and Florida prisoners, nullifying their constitutional right to a humane execution."





Wilson also stated that the majority in the ruling determined that Arthur's suggestion of a firing squad was not feasible and readily implemented because Alabama law does not authorize the firing squad.





"Arthur should be permitted to amend his complaint to include the firing squad as an execution alternative to Alabama's lethal injection protocol. The firing squad is a potentially viable alternative, and Arthur may be entitled to relief under Baze and Glossip (U.S. Supreme Court ruling) based on that method of execution," Wilson wrote.





Pittman said the Tommy Arthur case prompted him to introduce the bill.





In response to Arthur's stay, state Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, announced on Friday that he was filing a bill that would authorize Alabama to carry out executions by firing squad.





2 other states - Utah and Oklahoma - have the firing squad as a backup to lethal injection.





States, including Alabama, have had to turn to different drug combinations for their lethal injections as pharmaceutical companies have refused to have their drugs used in executions.





Arthur's other appeal to SCOTUS involves his claim challenging Alabama's death penalty sentencing law as being like the one in Florida that SCOTUS struck down in January. Alabama's Attorney General, however, have argued that the state's law has already been declared constitutional by the Alabama Supreme Court this year and SCOTUS in 1994.





But a few justices on the U.S. Supreme Court have noted in opinions that it might be time to take another look at the Alabama law. SCOTUS also sent back 3 Alabama death row inmate cases to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals earlier this year to review in light of its Florida decision.





Stupid/temper/alcohol





Arthur admits he hasn't led the best life and blames stupidity, a bad temper, and alcohol for his troubles. But he says he didn't kill the man whose death landed him on death row.





Arthur admits he killed his sister in law in 1977 and pleaded guilty to it. But he says it was an accident - that he was going to shoot over her head when she stood up.





He also admits he shot a prison guard, escaped, and robbed a bank in Knoxville, Tenn., in 1986 while awaiting his 2nd capital murder trial in the 1982 shooting death of Troy Wicker.





Arthur's daughter also recently told the Times Daily newspaper in Florence that her dad was abusive. "He beat and shot my 1st stepmother. He beat my 2nd stepmother, and shot and killed her sister and almost killed her cousin," Sherrie Arthur Stone told the Times Daily.





Arthur refused to contradict his children on that point. "I love my children ... I do have a bad temper," he said.





But Arthur repeatedly denied having killed Troy Wicker.





"I promise you I did not kill Troy Wicker. And if they kill me it will be outright murder," Arthur told the reporter.





Besides his appeals, Arthur most of all wants a court to look at his claims of innocence.





Arthur and his lawyers have argued that there is no physical evidence - such as fingerprints or DNA - that points to him.





Wicker's wife, after testifying a burglar had raped her and killed her husband at her trial, later testified at one of Arthur's trials that she had paid Arthur $10,000 of insurance money to kill her husband. Wicker was in a romantic relationship with Arthur, who was out on work release from the killing of his sister-in-law when Troy Wicker was killed.





Arthur said he wants a full hearing on his innocence claims, including DNA testing on evidence that hasn't been tested yet. "What are they scared of?" he said.





Prosecutors also have lost evidence, including the rape kit on Judy Wicker, Arthur said.





Dunham wasn't sure if Arthur holds the record for number of executions that have been stayed. But, he said, "it is very unusual to have had that many execution dates that have been halted."

 | 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: al.com, November 9, 2016
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Shares in British arms giant BAE systems have rocketed following Donald Trumps shock victory in the US presidential election.

Analysts speculated investors were betting defence spending would rise internationally when Mr Trump takes office, causing the value of weapons manufacturing to soar.

BAE systems, which earns around 40 per cent of its almost 8 billion revenue in America, saw its stocks rise 7 per cent.

Mr Trump has said he will increase the US Army by 75,000, to 540,000 soldiers, increase the Navy by 42 ships to 350 and bolster the airforce with an additional 1,200 war planes.

The Republicans attacks on Nato and perceived allegiance to Russian President Vladimir Putin are also thought to be behind the spike.

If Europe were no longer able to count on American military support it would have to increase its own spending, analysts speculate.

There also speculation Mr Trump would demand Nato allies meet the two per cent of GDP spending, which only 5 out of 28 countries do currently.

BAE systems is involved in building a vast range of weapons and defence equipment and sells arms to customers in over 100 countries around the world, according to Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).

World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Show all 29 1 /29 World reaction to President Trump: In pictures World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty Images World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mosul , Iraq Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures New Delhi, India Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Karachi, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kabul, Afghanistan AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem. Israel Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Moscow, Russia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Seoul, South Korea AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Peshawar, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Hyderabad, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kolkata, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Aleppo, Syria Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem, Israel EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Baghdad, Iraq Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Tokyo, Japan Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico Getty

War planes made by the British company are currently in use in Saudi Arabia's controversial war in Yemen, where an estimated 10,000 people have been killed.

The Saudi-led coalition has been repeatedly criticised for attacking civilian targets in the war-stricken country, including hospitals, schools, factories and marketplaces.

According to CAAT, there is an overwhelming weight of evidence that Saudi Arabia has breached international humanitarian law in the country, and it was "inevitable" British-made weapons were involved in the breaches.
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Trump Tower sits somewhere between Prada, Armani and Gucci in New York's Manhattan. On Wednesday night, the shutters were down on the designer shops and garbage trucks filled with sand, police officers and barricades were out to separate the president-elect's New York home and campaign base from the thousands of angry protesters outside.

The crowd was extremely young, extremely diverse and extremely angry - and every one of them promised they weren't going anywhere. As chants of "Donald Trump's a piece of s**t; he is not my president" rang out, protesters vowed to be back "tomorrow, and the next day and the next day... until he gets the f**king message".

New York didn't vote for Trump, and the protesters The Independent spoke to tonight were keen to point out the majority of their country hadn't either. For the first time in 15 years, and in perhaps the most important election for many more years, a Democrat had won the popular vote but lost the all-important electoral college.

Laura, an immigrant to the US (3.21 on FB live video), explained: "Whatever hole of emptiness this election left in me is now filled with anger."

"I became a citizen last year. This is my first election as a citizen... Now we have a legitimate f**kface for president and I can't stand it. It pisses me off." Her message to Donald Trump? "Just die, I guess."

While any desire for violence was mostly talk, the anger was palpable among the protesters. At the first sign of trouble the crowd burst into chants of "peaceful protest". Instead they were worried about possible violence from Trump supporters.

Thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators protest outside Trump Tower with a Donald Trump pinata after marching from Union Square in New York City (Tolga Akmen/LNP/REX/Shutterstock)

Colin, a 25-year-old New York native and gay man, arrived at the protest dressed as Harry Potter and holding a poster calling on Dumbledore's Army to unite against Trump. The crowd loved the costume, chanting "use your magic, Dumbledore," but he had a serious message behind the sign. "I'm a gay man - me and my boyfriend are fearing for our lives," he told The Independent. "With this election comes the possible takeaway of all my civil liberties."

Much of the crowd was just as fearful as Colin. As Bianca (7.38), the daughter of immigrants explained, "My mum grew up in Northern California. She didn't speak English until she was seven. Kids would tie her down, throw rocks at her and tell her to speak English. I'm seeing that type of behaviour popping up in articles now... I refuse to let another generation of kids go through that bulls**t.""
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A top Chinese police official has been elected president of Interpol, leading rights advocates to warn about the potential misuse of the organisation to attack Beijing's political opponents.

Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei is the first Chinese citizen to hold the four-year post and will take up the role immediately.

We currently face some of the most serious global public security challenges since World War Two, Mr Meng said in an Interpol statement.

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

Interpol, guided by the best set of principles and mechanisms to date, has made a significant contribution to promoting international police cooperation," he added.

Interpol should continue to adhere to these principles and strategies, while further innovating our work mechanisms, in order to adapt to the changing security situation we see today."

Chinese President Xi Jinping has waged a four-year campaign against corruption, which includes a push to return former officials and other suspects who fled abroad.

China filed a list of 100 of its most-wanted suspects with Interpol in April 2014, about one third of which have since been repatriated.

The country's police and judicial systems have been routinely criticised for abuses, including eliciting confessions under torture and the disappearance and detention without charges of political dissidents and their family members.

Many Western nations have been reluctant to sign extradition treaties with china or return suspects wanted for non-violent crimes.

Given those circumstances, Mr Meng's election is an "alarming prospect", said Maya Wang, Hong Kong-based researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"While we think it's important to fight corruption, the campaign has been politicised and undermines judicial independence," Ms Wang added.

Mr Meng's election "will probably embolden and encourage abuses in the system," she said, citing recent reports of close Chinese ally Russia's use of Interpol to attack President Vladimir Putin's political opponents.

"This is extraordinarily worrying given China's longstanding practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad," Nicholas Bequelin, east Asia director at Amnesty International wrote on Twitter.

The organisation has the power to issue "red notices," the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use today.

While Interpol's charter officially bars it from undertaking "any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character," critics say some governments, primarily Russia and Iran, have abused the system to harass and detain opponents of their regime.

Interpol says it has a special voting process to prevent such abuses.

Along the election of Mr Meng, Interpol also approved a call for the "systematic collection and recording of biometric information as part of terrorist profiles" shared by the organisation.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Banks reopened to long lines and angry customers throughout India on Thursday after the governments surprise move to devalue high-denomination currency in an effort to fight corruption and so-called black money.

On Tuesday the government announced what it called a strike against those who keep unaccounted-for cash in India, where many jobs remain in the informal sector and few pay taxes. The countrys reserve bank temporarily shuttered banks and ATMs and voided its large bank notes, issuing a 2,000-rupee note (about $30) as the largest bill today.

Panicked customers lined up at banks to exchange and deposit old notes  sometimes standing in line for hours. Fistfights broken out at petrol pumps when clerks ran out of change; at toll booths operators simply gave up charging and let cars stream through.

Gold and silver prices soared as investors sought to move their money into tangible assets  partly a response to the currency switch as well as a reaction to global uncertainty following the US presidential election.

Indeed, some of those lined up at banks praised the government's move, exhibiting the same populist, anti-elite fervor that drove voters to Donald Trump and Brexit.

I'm happy about it. The country's rot is at its roots. Now the roots are going to be treated, said Kalindi Jagdish, 63, an interior designer who designs homes for Mumbai's wealthy and is often paid in cash.

India's Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, called for calm at a news conference today, reminding consumers they had until 30 December to change their legitimate bills into new currency. The move brings ethics and transparency and is a decisive move toward a cashless society, he said.

Experts predicted the worst-hit would be wealthy professionals in real estate, doctors and lawyers who are often paid in cash to avoid taxes and stash their money in overseas accounts. Only those with large sums of money will have to face the consequences under existing laws, Mr Jaitley said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long made fighting black money a priority  as the country moves to legitimize its shadow economy, change an age-old culture of corruption and bribes and attract foreign investment. A voluntary disclosure program has netted $19 billion so far, a fraction of estimates of the total, which range from $400bn to over $1 trillion.

Dinesh Rana was driving around Delhi on Thursday with a sack full of his boss's money, depositing 49,000 rupees (about $735) in separate accounts at five different banks. Anything over 50,000 rupees would have garnered official scrutiny.

Rich people are worried, he said. They are trying to get rid of cash or spread it around.

Some economists questioned whether the government's move would be effective in the long run.

Neeraj Hatekar, the director of the economics department at the University of Mumbai, said that the demonetization program will be an effective tool in ridding the system of counterfeit bills - some $20m alone was seized last year in his state, he said.

But it would likely not have much impact on India's black market economy overall  as much illegitimate funds are in real estate or gold.

Will it shut off new black money that's being created? It won't, said Rama Bijapurkar, a market strategist and consumer expert in Mumbai. But as a one-time shut-off it's a masterstroke.

The impact on regular folk was immediate and widespread. Rural villages whose economies are almost entirely cash-based ground to a halt as villagers scrounged for coins to pay for eggs and their daily vegetables.

Wives who secretly squirreled away hundreds in kitchen kitties - away from the control of domineering husbands  suddenly had to admit their secret stash or ponder opening their own bank account. Modi's government has made a major push to provide bank accounts to those who previously did not have them, but still 233 million remain unbanked, Bijapurkar said.

Dashrat Kumar Pal, 40, a steel company clerk and a Delhi resident, said that the lavish wedding party for his niece had been postponed in lieu of a small religious ceremony because the family did not have enough cash to pay the vendors.

The big party we had planned is called off, he said glumly. The cooks, the music band, the florist  all of them want to be paid in cash. Where do we go? What do we do?

He went on, Now we are calling everybody and canceling.

The governments move was a boon to India's growing online payment industry, which has long operated on a cash-on-delivery model designed to address low credit card use.

After the government's announcement, downloads of digital payment apps have soared.

Paytm, an online payment system, saw a 200 per cent increase in application downloads and 1,000 per cent growth in the amount of money flowing to digital wallets since Tuesday evening, according to Madhur Deora, the chief financial officer.

The government's decision will structurally change the digital payment behavior of Indians, said Rajnish Wahi, senior vice president for corporate affairs at Snapdeal, one of the major online retailers.

Suchi Goenka, a restaurateur in Mumbai, said that while she supported the government's plan, it will take time for the country to make the change.

In India we prefer cash, she said. We were brought up that way.

 Washington Post
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Anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders has hailed a Patriotic Spring following Donald Trumps election victory and the vote for Brexit, while calling for a revolution in Europe.

The Dutch Freedom Party leader called the shock result of the US election a historic victory and a revolution.

The people are taking their country back, so will we, he wrote on Twitter, using the hashtag #MakeTheNetherlandsGreatAgain.

In an interview with Russia Today, Mr Wilders claimed Mr Trumps victory would cause a seismic shift in European politics.

 Dutch Right Wing Politician Geert Wilders Rails Against Islam and Endorses Trump

America regained its national sovereignty, its identity  it reclaimed its own democracy, thats why I called it a revolution, he added.

I think that the people of America, as in Europe, feel insulted by all the politicians that ignore the real problems.

We will see also in Europe that things will change, politics will never be the same and what I call the Patriotic Spring will have an enormous incentive.

The lesson for Europeans is look at America. What America can do, we can do as well.

Mr Wilders appeared to be making a reference to the Arab Spring, which saw mass anti-government protests across the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, leading to the removal of several leaders and the Syrian and Libyan civil wars.

The reaction to Mr Trumps unexpected victory has varied wildly among politicians across Europe, with Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel making frosty statements hinting at future disagreements, Theresa May offering her uncritical congratulations and right-wing figures including Marine Le Pen celebrating a victory of the people.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, said the result was a very difficult moment but that the EU would respect Americas decision, despite worrying words on women and minorities during Mr Trumps campaign.

As leader of the Eurosceptic and anti-immigration Party for Freedom, Mr Wilders is known for his campaigning to stop the alleged Islamisation of the Netherlands.

The controversial politician has provoked international condemnation for comparing the Quran to Mein Kampf and campaigning for a nationwide ban, as well as calling for an end to immigration from Muslim-majority countries and the deportation of Muslim criminals.

Mr Wilders was acquitted for inciting hatred against Muslims in 2011 but is now on trial for a second time, over a rally in 2014 when he told supporters he would take care of the number of Moroccans in the Netherlands.

He did not attend a court hearing on 31 October and has claimed the case is a politically motivated travesty.

Meanwhile, his Party for Freedom (PVV) continues to fare well in polls ahead of parliamentary elections in March, sitting in second place behind the Prime Ministers People's Party for Freedom and Democracy.
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The Polish army has announced it will provide free self-defence classes for women in 30 different cities over the coming months.

The free practical sessions, each several hours long, are to be held at military training facilities on seven specific dates between 19 November and 3 June.

Poland's Ministry of National Defence said the classes were for adult women who wanted to learn to protect themselves in various situations that threaten their life or health, especially arising from physical threats against them.

Women would be taught techniques by military instructors including releasing holds and deflecting kicks, it said.

They would also be shown how to defend themselves from attacks involving dangerous tools or with the participation of several attackers.

The Ministry said the project aimed to popularise the women's self defence training program of the combat forces of the Republic of Poland in a civilian environment.

However, some accused the army of running the classes as a publicity stunt.

Army Photographic Competition 2016 Show all 13 1 /13 Army Photographic Competition 2016 Army Photographic Competition 2016 Corporal Sean Neill, from Kilmarnock, kissing his daughter Madison in the streets of Glasgow after the 400 strong Homecoming Parade. The photo, by Mark Owens, has been named Winner of Best Online Image (voted by the public) in the Army Photographic Competition 2016 Mark Owens/Army HQ Scotland/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 This photograph shows Officer Cadets from Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS) on Exercise Dynamic Victory, Grafenwoehr & Hohenfels Training area, Bavaria Bombardier Murray Kerr RA/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Great Men, by Bombardier Murray Kerr RA Bombardier Murray Kerr RA/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 The photograph shows the changing room buzzing 30 minutes before forming up Sergeant Rupert Frere RLC/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Prepping for the Worst, by Cpl Timothy Jones Cpl Timothy Jones/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Y Company, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, conducting jungle warfare training in Brunei, learning to live, survive and fight in the unique training environment Cpl Timothy Jones/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Right Hook, by Bombardier Murray Kerr RA Bdr Murray Kenneth Kerr, Royal Artillery/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Army Photographic Competition 2016 The Climb, by Capt Ben Norfield, RGR Capt Ben Norfield, RGR/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 This photograph shows the TIGERS Freefall Parachute Display Team from the 1st Battalion The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (1 PWRR) send a Birthday message to the Queen from 8,000 feet above Paderborn in Germany Dominic King AMC/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Nightlife in Otterburn, by Cpl Timothy Jones Cpl Timothy Jones/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 The photograph shows Garrison Sergeant Major Andrew Stokes of the Coldstream Guards making inspections of the soldiers drill Sergeant Rupert Frere RLC/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Y Company, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, conducting jungle warfare training in Brunei, learning to live, survive and fight in the unique training environment Cpl Timothy Jones/PA Wire

Polish journalist Marcin Ogdowski said the lessons had a propaganda dimension and self-defence classes should be run by the police instead of the military, reported the BBC.

And former special forces commander Roman Polko told Polish media while the incentive could be a way to encourage new recruits, the knowledge of aikido or jujitsu [...] will not win a war.

He also raised concerns that only undertaking such a short self-defence course could give women a false sense of security with potentially dangerous consequences if they tried to take on an attacker, according to Dziennik Polski.

The classes are open to women over 18 in good physical health, but there is no upper age limit, said Polish Defence minister Antoni Macierewicz.

Poland, which scrapped compulsory military service in 2008, is said to be upping its military capacity amid rising tensions with Russia.

Fears of Russian military aggression has caused thousands of young people to join the country's historic militias known as the Riflemen's Associations, reported CNN.

The Russian exclave Kaliningrad shares a border with Poland and Mr Macierewicz has called the recent movement of Russian warships to the area "an obvious cause for concern".

 Poland blames EU for Brexit

Tensions have been escalating between Nato states and Russia since the latters intervention in Ukraine beginning in February 2014, which was criticised by leaders across the world.

Russia says it believes its borders are under threat as Nato forces draw closer, sparking fears of a potential Cold War-style standoff in the Baltic states as Russia assembles military forces in eastern Europe.
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An explosion has been heard near a government in building in a Kurdish-dominated town in southern Turkey, local media reported.

The Dogan news agency said several ambulances had rushed to the scene but it is currently unknown whether they are any casualties.

The Hurriyet news website said the blast, in the Mardin district of Derik, was caused by a bomb. NTV reported that some people were wounded, with the district governor, Fatih Safiturk slightly hurt.

Turkey's Ihlas news agency said the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were responsible for the blasts as part of a renewed insurgency following the decline in relations with the Turkish government last year.

There has been no immediate confirmation of the cause of the blast.

The PKK have carried multiple terror attacks across Turkey over the past year as the situation has deteriorated in which thousands of militants, security force members and civilians have been killed.

A two-year ceasefire with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government broke down last year and the group has been targeted as part of a wider crackdown on dissent following a failed coup in July.

In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Show all 9 1 /9 In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish tanks driving to the Syrian-Turkish border town of Jarabulus yesterday AFP/Getty In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish-backed gather on the outskirts of Jarabulus, Syria, ahead of an offensive on 24 August 2016 Reuters In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish army tanks make their way towards the Syrian border town of Jarabulus, Syria August 24, 2016 Reuters In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish soldiers return from Syria to Turkey with tanks after a military operation at the Syrian border as part of their offensive against the Islamic State (IS) militant group in Syria, Karkamis district of Gaziantep, Turkey, 25 August 2016 EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish army tanks and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces move toward the Syrian border as pictured from Karkamis, Turkey, AP In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Turkish tanks on their way to the Turkish-Syria border during an operation against Isis on 24 August 2016 EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria Syrian opposition fighters being transported during preparations to enter Jarabulus in Karkamis, Turkey, on 24 August 2016. EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria An air strike hitting Isis-controlled territory near Jarabulus, near the Turkish border, on 24 August 2016. EPA In pictures: Turkey launches operation in Syria A Turkish army tank and an armoured vehicle stationed near the border with Syria. Turkish media reports say Turkish artillery has launched new strikes at Isis targets across the border AP

President Erdogan has said he does not care about being labelled a dictator after his brutal crackdown has seen hundreds arrested and thousands more sacked for alleged links to the Gullenist movement which he blames for the attempted coup.

He accused Europe of "abetting terrorism" by condemning his crackdown on the PKK.

Meanwhile, terror group Isis have stepped up their attacks on the country in retaliation for strikes against their position over the border in Syria.

In June, an Isis attack at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport left 41 dead and a further 230 wounded as three bombers opened fire with AK-47s before detonating suicide vests.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is ready to cooperate with the US President-elect Donald Trump, one of Mr Assads advisers has said.

Speaking to US media group National Public Radio on Thursday  just after Mr Trumps seismic victory in the US general election  Bouthaina Shaaban cautiously suggested the Syrian government would "wait to see what are the policies of the President-elect... particularly towards terrorism," ahead of any collaboration on Syrias almost six-year-long civil war.

I think the American people have sent a great, a very important message to the world, she added.

The US has tacitly supported rebels in the war both logistically and financially. In order to bring peace to the conflict which has killed more than 400,000 people to date, Washington has been committed to the idea that Mr Assad must be removed from power.

Mr Trump has indicated that his foreign policy stance will be less interventionist than his predecessors'. He stated in the second presidential debate that regime change only causes more instability in the Middle East and while Mr Assad is not exactly a welcome partner, shoring up his government is the best way to stem the extremism that has flourished in the chaos of Syrias civil war.

Mr Trump has suggested withdrawing support for the Syrian rebels still fighting in east Aleppo, neighbouring Idlib province and the south of the country, which could prove to finally tilt the war in the Syrian government's favour.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

Mr Trump has also advocated changes to the current US-led coalitions strategy in dealing with Isis. He memorably elaborated on his policy on the campaign trail last year, saying he would bomb the s*** out of them.

Isis is making a tremendous amount of money because they have certain oil camps, certain areas of oil that they took away, he incorrectly claimed.

I would just bomb those suckers. That's right. I'd blow up the pipes... I'd blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left. And you know what, you'll get Exxon to come in there and in two months, you ever see these guys, how good they are, the great oil companies? Theyll rebuild that sucker, brand new - it'll be beautiful."

 Drone footage of Aleppo

The US is currently enmeshed in a complicated alliance in Syria with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who would like to provide rebels  among them al-Qaeda-backed factions  with surface-to-air missiles.

Analysts are worried that such a move could greatly escalate the war, particularly if Russian planes backing Mr Assads air force are targeted.

Mr Trump himself has indicated he would like to repair ties with Russia, a sentiment President Vladimir Putin has welcomed.

Observers who believe that much of Mr Trumps more alarming rhetoric was campaign bluster are waiting to find out whether the President-elect will tone down or amend his policy ideas when he takes office in January.
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A member of the Saudi royal family known as the Arabian Warren Buffet for his business prowess has congratulated Donald Trump on his election to the White House a year after the two clashed bitterly on Twitter.

You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America. Withdraw from the presidential race as you will never win, Mr bin Talal - the 41st richest man in the world - had written on the social media platform in December 2015, after Mr Trump had called for Muslims to be temporarily banned from the US because of the Paris terror attacks.

The next day, Mr Trump retorted: Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy's money. Can't do it when I get elected.

On Wednesday, the day after Mr Trumps seismic victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, the prince evidently decided to bury the hatchet.

President elect @realDonaldTrump whatever the past differences, America has spoken, congratulations & best wishes for your presidency, he tweeted to his 5.4 million followers.

Mr Trumps road to the White House was greatly helped by his ability to harness popular anger against immigrants, and Muslims in particular.

However, his election pledge on a a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States has been removed from the Trump campaign website in the hours since he won the election.

Analysts who believe that much of Mr Trumps more noxious rhetoric was campaign bluster are waiting to find out whether the president-elect will tone down his policy ideas when he takes office in January.
California's death chamber

Voters in California elected to keep the states death penalty, meaning the nations largest death row is here to stay. More than that, though, the state voted to speed up its death penalty.





There were two death penalty propositions on the ballot in the state. One would have repealed the death penalty and replaced it with life without the possibility of parole. That proposal lost by nearly eight points.





This wasnt Californias first attempt at abolishing the death penalty. Just four years ago, voters rejected a repeal by a very narrow margin. This year, the repeal effort lost by a much larger margin.





The United States had roughly 2,900 inmates on death row, and a quarter of them are in California. Although California prosecutors send inmates to death row at a high pace, the state hasnt carried out any executions in a decade.





The state has executed only 13 people since it brought back the death penalty in the 70s.





But California will now attempt to speed that process up. The proposal that passed will reduce the appeals available to death row inmates and will remove some oversight from the process of selecting execution procedures.





The effort to speed up the process ended up winning by less than two percentage points.





Human rights, by their definition, are inalienable and cannot be voted away, Sister Helen Prejean, an advocate against the death penalty, said in a statement. They cannot and should not be subject to the whim of the majority. And so it is perhaps fitting and inevitable that we turn to the courts, in particular the United States Supreme Court, to do the right thing.





Just this past week, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation published a new lethal injection protocol allowing for one of four drugs to be used. Two of the drugs have never before been used in an execution, and one drug has no legal source in the United States. The fourth is increasingly hard for death penalty states to obtain.





Source: Buzzfeed , Chris McDaniel, November 9, 2016. Chris McDaniel is a death penalty reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Challenge already filed to measure that would speed executions

Although California voters soundly rejected abolishing the death penalty and appear to have approved a measure to speed up executions, dont expect anything to change soon  if at all.





Proposition 66, which was ahead Wednesday by a razor-thin margin with dozens of counties still counting ballots, would face major hurdles before it could deliver on its promise of expediting a death penalty appeals process that often drags on for decades. About 750 people are on death row in California, and no one has been executed since 2006.





Among the obstacles: Proponents of Proposition 62, which would have abolished capital punishment in California but was defeated more soundly than a similar measure in 2012, said they plan to file suit over the measure to speed appeals. Even with more votes left to be counted, they conceded at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday that they had lost their effort to defeat Proposition 66. And Orrick, a leading California-based law firm, filed a legal challenge late Wednesday seeking an immediate stay from the California Supreme Court.





Proposition 66 will absolutely end up in protracted and costly litigation, said Ana Zamora, manager of the No on 66 campaign. Its just more empty promises to California voters and victims families.





But Yes on 66 supporters vowed to carry out the measures highly technical provisions, such as putting trial courts in charge of initial petitions challenging death penalty convictions, establishing a time frame for death penalty reviews, and requiring appointed attorneys to accept death penalty appeals.





If it is obstructed, were going to do everything we can to get it implemented, said Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, co-chair of the Yes on 66 campaign.





The measure does not include any funding for the extra attorneys and trial judges that would be required to speed up appeals. Lawmakers would have to allocate more money to already underfunded trial courts.





The state Legislature is dominated by the Democratic Party, which opposed Proposition 66.





The Legislature and the governor should respect the will of the voters, said Schubert, when asked about the funding.





California voters approached the two dueling death penalty initiatives in a different spirit than the other criminal justice measure on the ballot, Proposition 57.





Aimed at reducing prison overcrowding, that measure passed with overwhelming support. Backed by Gov. Jerry Brown, it will expand parole opportunities for certain inmates and require that judges decide whether juveniles should be tried in adult court and sent to prison.





Proposition 57 is the third criminal justice reform approved by Californians since 2012. The other two are Proposition 36, which eased the states tough three-strikes law for repeat offenders, and Proposition 47, which reduced some crimes to misdemeanors, shortening sentences and sending offenders to jail rather than prison.





Were seeing a real split, said Garrick Percival, an associate professor of political science at San Jose State. Californians are saying our prison system is broken and costs too much, but for the worst of the worst, they still advocate the ultimate punishment.





Proposition 66s victory surprised some opponents, partly because polls had shown both death penalty measures trailing.





However, the ACLU, NAACP and other groups have said they are prepared to duke it out in court. Experts said they may be able to challenge the measure on the grounds that conscripting lawyers in death penalty cases and threatening to take their livelihood away (by not appointing them in other matters) if they refuse would be illegal.





Another line of attack could be on the grounds that requiring defendants and their lawyers to challenge their convictions in trial court would require an amendment of the state constitution. To put such an amendment on the ballot, supporters would have had to collect more signatures than they did for Proposition 66.

 | 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



Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

Source: The Mercury News , Tracey Kaplan, November 9, 2016
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It was early on a Sunday morning in September when French police discovered a Peugeot parked near the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris with its hazard lights flashing and its license plates removed. The car carried seven gas cylinders, six of them full, and three cans of diesel. The perpetrators had perhaps intended to blow it up with a lit cigarette and a fuel-soaked blanket, but the vehicle failed to detonate.

Three weeks after that failed plot, police arrested two teenage suspects accused of planning a violent attack in Nice, the details of which havent been made public.

At the center of both plots: women allegedly inspired or directed by Isis. All had been in contact with a prominent French recruiter for Isis, Rachid Kassim, who is believed to be in Syria. Roughly a year after the Isis attacks in Paris that killed 130, France remains in a state of emergency, thanks in part to later assaults inspired by the militant group in Nice and the northern town of Rouen.

A number of people were killed and others injured in a series of gun attacks across Paris, as well as explosions outside the national stadium where France was hosting Germany (Getty)

Now, however, a new threat is emerging: women who want to wage violent jihad just like men. As Isis continues to lose territory in its self-declared caliphate, French security services are anticipating the return of hundreds of foreign fighters. But while authorities have long scrutinized male Isisoperatives, French female jihadis (some of whom have traveled to Iraq and Syria of their own accord) are providing the group with greater, more covert potential for violence  worrying Western security officials, who are already overstretched.

Its not clear to what extent senior Isis leadership is driving this strategy, especially since the group does not recognise women as equal participants in war. While Isis refers to its male jihadi attackers as soldiers or fighters,  so far the group has claimed only one woman as its soldier: Tashfeen Malik, who led an attack in December 2015 in San Bernardino, California; other women who have killed in the groups name are referred to merely as supporters. 

Tashfeen Malik (Getty)

Yet radicalised women in France are increasingly willing to give their lives for the cause, says Matthieu Suc, author of Femmes de Djihadistes  or Wives of Jihadis. In different jihadist records, you can see, you can hear, women  often young  regretting not to be able to commit terrorist attacks,  he says. Theoretically, women want  just like men  to take part in the jihad. Thats the way it goes. Thats the order of things. 

The threat seems to be growing. Already, 24 women and three girls under the age of 18 are in custody in France for alleged extremism offenses, according to the Paris prosecutors office. Some 40 per cent of French recruits who have joined Isis in Syria are female, according to the French Interior Ministry, and French authorities said at least 220 women had made the journey to Iraq and Syria to join Isis as of December 2015.

In early September, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins estimated that as Isis continues to lose territory to Kurdish and Iraqi forces, hundreds of these radicalised women would return to France in the next few months. Officials have said they underestimated the threat of female militants in Europe, particularly since returnees are not necessarily just jihadi brides who stayed at home while their husbands were on the front lines. Instead, they have long been immersed in the internal workings of a deadly extremist group. Malik set the precedent for female Isis attackers in the West when she and her husband shot and killed 14 people in San Bernardino.

Although Isis did not direct the couple, the group inspired them and later praised their actions in its English-language magazine. Now, female Isis attackers are picking up momentum. In September, three women launched an Isis-inspired knife and firebomb attack on a police station in the eastern Kenyan city of Mombasa before police shot them dead and, earlier in October, Moroccan authorities dismantled a suspected Isis cell of 10 women accused of plotting attacks in the North African kingdom. But women have been carrying out attacks long before Isis existed. In the early 2000s, Chechnyas Black Widows  Islamist female suicide bombers  targeted civilians as part of their drive for an independent state.

Sajida Mubarek Atrous al-Rishawi (Getty)

Around the same time, women conducted suicide bombings during the second Palestinian intifada against Israel. In 2005, Sajida al-Rishawi attempted an attack on a wedding in the Jordanian capital of Amman. And more recently, Nigerian militant group Boko Haram  now an Isis affiliate  has directed dozens of women to target mosques, civilian camps and Nigerian authorities in suicide bombings. Earlier incarnations of Isis had also approved of womens roles in attacks if men encountered difficulties, says Cole Bunzel, a PhD candidate at Princeton University.

Iraqi Sajida Mubarek Atrous al-Rishawi wearing an explosives belt while confessing to her failed attempt to blow herself up inside one of the three Amman hotels (Getty)

Isiss former leader Abu Umar al-Baghdadi said in 2007 that women could fight in special circumstances where [the targets] are difficult for men. A year later, the Islamic State in Iraqs minister of war, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, said women could commit suicide attacks in circumstances where men cannot.

Now Europes crackdown on jihadi networks has provided Isis with a similar justification, since intelligence agencies are likely to pay closer attention to male extremists. Women often connect people, passing along key information while remaining undetected, says Nikita Malik, a researcher at the UK-based anti-extremism think tank Quilliam. That makes them crucial players in the formation of militant networks and in the deadly attacks these groups carry out.

One of Frances most influential Isis recruiters has praised female participation in violent, domestic jihad, and is now directing women to carry out attacks. A 29-year-old amateur rapper from Roanne in central France, Kassim communicated with the Notre Dame suspects through the encrypted messaging app Telegram, a source in the Paris prosecutors office tells Newsweek. (A source close to the investigation told Agence-France Presse that Kassim was in contact with the Nice suspects too.)

Kassim has shamed men on Telegram for not taking part in similar assaults. Where are our brothers?  he wrote. You have to understand that if these women went into action, its because so few men are doing anything. Why are you waiting so long to the point the women are overtaking you in terms of honor? 

Even without official endorsement at the highest levels of Isis leadership, European security officials worry this new trend has the potential to spread beyond France. And French security services, which have failed seven times in less than two years, are already dealing with a complex web of threats. If radicalised women are now as dangerous as radicalised men, they may soon succeed where the Notre Dame attackers failed.

 Newsweek
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At least two people have died in a suicide attack on the German consulate in a city in north Afghanistan.

A car packed with explosives was rammed into the high outer wall surrounding the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Authorities were investigating if a second car was involved, said a local Nato spokesperson.

The Taliban called it a revenge attack for US airstrikes in the volatile province of Kunduz earlier this month that left up to 32 civilians dead.

The suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the wall of German consulate in the city, local police chief Sayed Kamal Sadat told AFP.

A huge explosion, followed by sporadic gunfire, reverberated across the usually tranquil city, smashing windows of nearby shops and leaving terrified local residents fleeing for cover.

At least two dead bodies and more than 100 wounded people  including at least 10 children  had so far been brought to two city hospitals, said local doctor Noor Mohammad Fayez.

Some of the wounded are in a critical condition, he added.

Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear Show all 16 1 /16 Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2001 Afghans at the Killi Faizo refugee camp desperately reach for bags of rice being handed out to the thousands who escaped the bombardment in southern Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. (Chaman, Pakistan, December 4, 2001) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2002 Mahbooba stands against a bullet-ridden wall, waiting to be seen at a medical clinic. The seven-year-old girl suffers from leishmaniasis, a parasitical infection. (Kabul, March 1, 2002) All photos Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2003 A mother and her two children look out from their cave dwelling. Many families who, fleeing the Taliban, took refuge inside caves adjacent to Bamiyans destroyed ancient Buddha statues now have nowhere else to live. (Bamiyan, November 19, 2003) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2007 Students recite prayers in a makeshift outdoor classroom in the Wakhan Corridor, a mountainous region in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to China and separates Tajikistan from India and Pakistan. (Northeastern Afghanistan, September 2, 2007) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2007 Bodybuilders in the 55-60 kg category square off during a regional bodybuilding competition. Many Afghan men, like others around the world, feel that a macho image of physical strength is important. (Kabul, August 6, 2007) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2008 A woman in a white burqa enjoys an afternoon with her family feeding the white pigeons at the Blue Mosque. (Mazar-e-Sharif, March 8, 2008) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2009 Addicts inject heroin while trying to keep warm inside the abandoned Russian Cultural Center, which the capital citys addicts use as a common gathering point. Heroin is readily available, costing about one dollar a hit. (Kabul, February 9, 2009) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2009 An elderly man holds his granddaughter in their tent at a refugee camp after they were forced to flee their village, which US and NATO forces had bombed because, they claimed, it was a Taliban hideout. (Surobi, Nangarhar Province, February 7, 2009) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2009 Seven-year-old Attiullah, a patient at Mirwais Hospital, stands alongside an X ray showing the bullet that entered his back, nearly killing him. Attiullah was shot by US forces when he was caught in a crossfire as he was herding sheep. (Kandahar, October 13, 2009). Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2010 US Army Sargeant Jay Kenney (right), with Task Force Destiny, helps wounded Afghan National Army soldiers exit a Blackhawk helicopter after they have been rescued in an air mission. (Kandahar, December 12, 2010) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2010 An Afghan National Army battalion marches back to barracks at the Kabul Military Training Center. (Kabul, October 4, 2010) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2014 Eid Muhammad, seventy, lives in a house with a view overlooking the hills of Kabul. He and millions of other Afghans occupy land and housing without possessing formal deeds to them. (Kabul, November 21, 2014) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2014 Razima holds her two-year-old son, Malik, while waiting for medical attention at the Boost Hospital emergency room. (Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, June 23, 2014) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2014 Young women cheer as they attend a rally for the Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani. (Kabul, April 1, 2014) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2014 Burqa-clad women wait to vote after a polling station runs out of ballots. (Kabul, April 5, 2014) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2015 Relatives, friends, and womens rights activists grieve at the home of Farkhunda Malikzada, who was killed by a mob in the center of Kabul. Farkhunda was violently beaten and set on fire after a local cleric accused her of burning a Quran. (Kabul, March 22, 2015) Paula Bronstein

The Nato spokesperson said the attack resulted in heavy damage to parts of the consulate and troops were now on site securing the building and preparing to evacuate its personnel.

He said it could not be ruled out that additional explosives were in the area.

Helicopters were heard flying over the diplomatic mission early on Friday as ambulances with wailing sirens rushed to the area.

The carnage underscores worsening insecurity in Afghanistan as Taliban insurgents ramp up nationwide attacks despite repeated government attempts to jumpstart stalled peace negotiations.

Recommended Third explosion hits Kabul hours after twin suicide attack by Taliban

German officials in Kabul declined to comment. A diplomatic source in Berlin said Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had convened a crisis meeting at his ministry.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the martyrdom attack on the German consulate had left tens of invaders dead. The insurgents are routinely known to exaggerate battlefield claims.

Mr Mujahid said the assault was in retaliation for American airstrikes in Kunduz.

US forces conceded last week that its air strikes very likely resulted in civilian casualties in Kunduz, pledging a full investigation into the incident.

The strikes killed several children, after a Taliban assault left two American soldiers and three Afghan special forces soldiers dead near Kunduz city, and triggered impassioned protests in the city.

Civilian casualties caused by Nato forces have been one of the most contentious issues in the 15-year campaign against the insurgents, prompting strong public and government criticism.

Additional reporting from agencies
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Rana, a mother of four, lives in Jamarana, a relatively safe suburb of Damascus which does not suffer from heavy rebel shelling.

When we had to flee to this area to find safety, we did not have enough money to rent a better place. We have no money to buy mattresses and blankets, or clothes for the children, Rana told the Red Cross.

Rana had to give up work as a teacher in order to care for her family, but their breezeblock walled, unfinished apartment is not fit for purpose - especially with the onset of winter. Rana has barely enough to get by and she and Hala, Omar, Hib and Afaf are dependent on food aid from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC).

A new initiative from the Red Cross in Norway and Ikea, designed by ad agency POL, is aimed at bringing the realities of the civil war home by creating an exact replica of Ranas accommodation for shoppers to explore for themselves.

The project called '25 metres of Syria' was nestled among the other showrooms at Ikea's flagship store outside Oslo. I t features stories and more information about Ranas family and the war written on Ikeas iconic information tags dotted on objects throughout the tiny 25m installation, as well as calls to action explaining how people can help or donate.

We had been working with the Red Cross for months, so we had a lot of footage from Syria. But no matter how emotional it was, nothing got close to the experience of visiting people in a war zone, Maja Folgero of the campaign said in a statement.

We realised we could give Norwegians that experience at Ikea. At the one place where you think of and plan the future - the apartment served as a physical reminder of how lucky we are, she said.

Rana and her family's home in a suburb of Damascus has been pain-stakingly recreated as a showroom piece at an Ikea in Norway (Olaf A. Saltbones/Red Cross Norge)

The replica of Ranas home was an incredibly successful awareness raising project: the campaigns creators said that 40,000 people visited the store while the installation was up in October, many of them just to see the Syrian home.

The wider fundraising effort raised 19million towards Syrian humanitarian relief, the Red Cross said.

Placing a Syrian home next to all the Scandinavian homes was obviously a brave move from the warehouse, but it made it clearer than any TV commercial how crucial it is to donate and help, Ms Folgero added.
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Irans nuclear deal restricts the amount of certain sensitive materials the country can have at any one time.

But according to a report by the UN atomic watchdog, it has exceeded one of the soft limits agreed with six major world powers.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the country has 130.1 metric tonnes of heavy water, when it should not have more than 130 according to the deal signed in 2015.

This is the second time Iran has surpassed its threshold for heavy water, a material used as a moderator in nuclear reactors.

The deal, made with the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, lifted international sanctions against Iran and is supposed to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

It has been strongly criticised by Donald Trump, who became the US President-elect last night in a shock victory.

Mr Trump has called the agreement, created by President Barack Obama, the worst deal ever negotiated and said he would police that contract so tough [the Iranians] don't have a chance.

 Iranian women continue to defy cycling ban

Iran has said it will transfer five tonnes of heavy water outside the country after IAEA chief Yukiya Amano expressed his concern.

This will happen within days, a senior official in Vienna told Reuters.

The last time Iran overstepped that mark was brief, passing without major criticism from the other countries.

But there are questions about whether the incoming Trump administration will react to such incidents the same way.

A US State Department spokesman, speaking at a regular news briefing in Washington, confirmed Iran's intention to export the excess heavy water.

It's important to note that Iran made no effort to hide this, hide what it was doing from the IAEA, Mark Toner said.

Rather than setting a strict limit on heavy water as it does for enriched uranium, the deal estimates Iran's needs to be 130 tonnes and says any amount beyond the country's needs will be made available for export to the international market.

Iran previously exceeded the heavy water limit in February, with 130.9 tonnes.

Iran's controversial heavy water production facility in Arak, south of the Iranian capital Tehran, seen in a 2004 file photo (Getty Images)

The rest of the IAEA report confirmed that Iran was sticking to its commitments and has not enriched uranium above low purities.

Its uranium stockpile stayed below agreed levels and it has not pursued the construction of its heavy water reactor at Arak, said the watchdog.

After the deal came into force in January, Iran reduced by two-thirds the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges, slashed its uranium stockpile and removed the core of the Arak reactor.

Before January Iran had several tonnes of uranium, in theory enough for several bombs if further processed. Arak could have given Iran weapons-grade plutonium.

New York protests against Iran nuclear deal Show all 10 1 /10 New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York A woman holds a poster as she takes part in a rally on Times Square in New York opposing the nuclear deal with Iran New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York An inflatable mushroom cloud stands among demonstrators during a rally apposing the nuclear deal with Iran New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York Protesters rally against the nuclear deal with Iran in Times Square New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York A member of the Neturei Karta Orthodox Jews sect is escorted away by New York City Police during a rally near Times Square to demand that Congress vote down the proposed US deal with Iran in New York New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York A woman shouts slogans during a rally against the nuclear deal with Iran in Times Square in New York New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York A protestor holds a placard during a demonstration and rally apposing the nuclear deal with Iran in Times Square New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York Some of several thousand protestors crowd into 7th Avenue at 42nd street as they demonstrate during a rally apposing the nuclear deal with Iran New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York A woman holds a placard as she joins several thousand other protestors to demonstrate during a rally apposing the nuclear deal with Iran New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York Protesters rallied against the Iran nuclear deal in New York's Times Square KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images New York protests against Iran nuclear deal New York Protestors shout slogans as they demonstrate during a rally apposing the nuclear deal with Iran

The removed centrifuges remain in storage in Iran and are under IAEA monitoring. The excess uranium was shipped to Russia.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said there was no possibility of its nuclear deal being overturned by President-elect Trump, despite his threat to rip it up.

Iran's understanding in the nuclear deal was that the accord was not concluded with one country or government but was approved by a resolution of the UN Security Council and there is no possibility that it can be changed by a single government, Rouhani told his cabinet, according to state television.
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Iraqi security forces are preparing to advance towards Mosul airport on the city's southern edge to increase pressure on Isis fighters battling troops who breached their eastern defences.

The rapid response forces, part of a coalition seeking to crush the jihadis in the largest city under their control in Iraq or Syria, took the town of Hammam al-Alil, just over 10 miles south of Mosul, on Monday.

Officers say they plan to resume their advance north, up the western bank of the Tigris River towards the city of 1.5 million people who have lived under the ultra-hardline Sunni Islamists for more than two years.

Recommended The Iraqi Christians who are struggling to survive after Isis

More than three weeks after the US-backed campaign to retake Mosul was launched, the city is almost surrounded by the coalition of nearly 100,000 fighters. But troops have entered only a handful of neighbourhoods in the east of the city.

We need to put wider pressure on the enemy in different areas, said Major-General Thamer al-Husseini, commander of the elite police unit which is run by the Shia-controlled Interior Ministry.

He said operations would resume within two days.

Lieutenant-Colonel Dhiya Mizhir said the target was an area overlooking Mosul airport, which has been rendered unusable by Isis to prevent attackers using it as a staging post for their offensive.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

Satellite pictures released by intelligence firm Stratfor also showed Isis had dug deep trenches in the runways and destroyed buildings to ensure clear lines of sight for defenders and to prevent advancing forces from using hangars or other facilities.

Separate forces advancing on the eastern side of the Tigris targeted two villages on Thursday on the edge of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, a military statement said.

Troops from the Ninth Armoured Division took the village of Abbas Rajab, around two miles east of Nimrud, and raised the Iraqi flag.

The Iraqi government says Nimrud was bulldozed last year as part of Isis's campaign to destroy symbols which they consider idolatrous. It would be the first such site to be recaptured from Isis.

Counter-terrorism forces and an armoured division fighting in the east of the city have been battling to hold on to half a dozen districts they surged into a week ago.

They have been hit by waves of attacks by Isis units, including snipers, suicide bombers, assault fighters and mortar teams, who have used a network of tunnels under the city and civilian cover in the narrow streets to wear them down in urban warfare.

 Iraqi forces enter Mosul

Also on Thursday, men dressed as Iraqi federal police forces were accused of killing and torturing civilians by human rights group Amnesty International, in the first such reports of alleged abuse in a US-backed campaign to retake the city.

Amnesty said up to six people were found dead last month in the Shura and Qayyara sub-districts.

Men in federal police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul, said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty's Beirut office.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi denied the Amnesty report, saying local residents, not government forces, had killed Isis members. He also said the rights group was spreading fear among Iraqis with its reports and would bear responsibility for displacement of people who might flee the city as a result.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 37 men suspected of being affiliated with Isis had been detained by Iraqi and Kurdish forces from checkpoints, villages, screening centres and camps for displaced people around Mosul and Hawija, further south.

Relatives said they did not know where most of the men were being held and had not been able to contact any of them while in detention, according to the report.

HRW said such conduct significantly increases the risk of other violations, including torture.

An Interior Ministry spokesman denied there had been any violations and said Iraqi forces respected human rights and international law.

A spokesman for the Kurdish regional government denied the HRW report, saying any delays in informing families were limited due to a shortage of resources. Nobody has been kept in unknown facilities. They are kept in identified facilities, said Dindar Zebari.

Reuters
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A man with a bulletproof BMW reportedly rescued more than 70 people from an Iraqi city after they were pinned down under fire from Isis snipers.

Ako Abdulrahman, a fighter in the Kurdish Peshmerga, bought the armoured vehicle after earlier being attacked by Isis militants.

He paid $10,000 (9,200) for the early 1990s model so that he and his friends could travel around the area in safety, according to CNN.

Mr Abdulrahman, 32, said: "My friends were very happy when I bought the armoured car. We started driving in it to the front line near Kirkuk, not worried about ISIS drive-by shootings or roadside bombs."

The fighter had not realised just how useful his purchase could be until last month, when Isis carried out a series of attacks in the city Kirkuk, killing 64 people.

Many civilians and security workers became trapped in the city after being cut off by jihadi fighters, including snipers firing from rooftops at anyone they saw.

Mr Abdulrahman realised his car could be put to good use and made numerous trips into the city to collect the injured.

He said: "I told myself, this is the right time to help people, this is the right moment to do it. I am a fighter and I have a bulletproof car, shame on me if I can't help."

"I kept telling myself, my people are in danger, they need me, my city is in danger, I have to protect it."

Isis militants sprayed his car with more than 50 bullets but the armoured plating did its job, allowing the fighter to transport more than 70 wounded people to safety. He also managed to collect many of the bodies of people who had already died.

"When I arrived at the scene, I saw many people on the ground, civilians and security forces and no one could dare to come close because of ISIS snipers and random shooting," he said.

"In my car, I carried Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Turkmen and Christians. I felt like I am truly Iraq and this is who everyone should be."

Mr Abdulrahman was personally thanked by Dr Najmaldin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk, for his role in rescuing the injured and was rewarded with 500,000 Iraqi dinars (355) for his bravery.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

He did not realise he had been given the money until he later discovered it in an envelope, and said he was offended by the gesture.

He said: "I was happy with the certificate of appreciation from the governor, but I thought it's insulting to give me money for something every Iraqi should do".

After hearing his story BMW reportedly offered Mr Abdulrahman a brand new car, saying they wanted to display his bullet-ridden vehicle at their German headquarters.

But the fighter instead decided to repair his existing car so he can keep using it to save lives.

Isis has assumed control of swathes of northern Iraq since it was founded in 2014. In recent months, however, the organisation has been forced into retreat by a US-backed coalition of Iraqi forces.

The Iraqi army is currently engaged in a bloody battle with the groups for control of the key city of Mosul, one of the militant organsation's last remaining strongholds.
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The recent referendum in Colombia was expected to end the 60-year conflict between the government and and the leftist guerrilla group, the Marxist Fuerzas Armadas de Colombia (Farc). But as well as surprising the world, the voters shock decision to refuse the deal also highlighted a frequently overlooked issue. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) communities are frequently the losers of peace processes.

Colombias 2016 peace agreement seemed to stretch beyond all others in recognising LGBTQI rights. Colombian activists were signatories to the agreement, and the pact itself encouraged sexual minorities to participate in politics. Yet the referendum on the pact failed. While it failed for a number of reasons, staunch opposition from conservatives to rights seen as sexually liberal figured in the story.

This is no major surprise. Rights for sexual minority groups are among the most divisive political issues confronting many states today. Civil war and peace processes, however, are particularly perilous. The harrowing plight of Syrias gay and lesbian community in Islamic State-controlled areas is well documented.

During the transition from conflict to peace, LGBTQI communities continue to experience harassment and discrimination. Research demonstrates how these citizens are commonly subjected to violence in societies emerging from conflict. From the use of corrective rape against lesbians in post-apartheid South Africa to the targeting of gay and lesbian people in post-agreement Northern Ireland, violence of this kind is pervasive in peace process societies.

Peace processes impact on LGBTQI populations in numerous forms that are rarely acknowledged. A key factor is how contemporary civil war is understood and dealt with by policymakers. Civil war is seen to be the result of intractable conflicts between ethnic, religious or nationalist groups. Peace, according to this logic, entails guaranteeing representation for these groups in political institutions. In Lebanon, for example, a 50/50 Christian/Muslim quota system is applied for parliamentary seats and public jobs. A similar system is mooted for Syria.

These peace pacts are widely criticised for entrenching sectarianism and excluding non-ethnic groups. A growing body of scholars and policymakers note, for example, how peace processes sideline gender equality. As a result, a number of initiatives have been created to promote gender equality after conflict. The UN Security Councils Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security is a landmark proposal, affirming the importance of womens equal participation in the promotion of peace. Some agreements reserve parliamentary seats for women.

LGBT+ rights around the globe Show all 9 1 /9 LGBT+ rights around the globe LGBT+ rights around the globe Russia Russias antipathy towards homosexuality has been well established following the efforts of human rights campaigners. However, while it is legal to be homosexual, LGBT couples are offered no protections from discrimination. They are also actively discriminated against by a 2013 law criminalising LGBT propaganda allowing the arrest of numerous Russian LGBT activists. AFP/Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Brunei Brunei recently introduced a law to make sodomy punishable by stoning to death. It was already illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison AFP/Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Mauritania Men who are found having sex with other men face stoning, while lesbians can be imprisoned, under Sharia law. However, the state has reportedly not executed anyone for this crime since 1987 Alamy LGBT+ rights around the globe Sudan Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal under Sudanese law. Men can be executed on their third offence, women on their fourth Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Saudi Arabia Homosexuality and gender realignment is illegal and punishable by death, imprisonment, whipping and chemical castration Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Yemen The official position within the country is that there are no gays. LGBT inviduals, if discovered by the government, are likely to face intense pressure. Punishments range from flogging to the death penalty Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Nigeria Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal and in some northern states punishable with death by stoning. This is not a policy enacted across the entire country, although there is a prevalent anti-LGBT agenda pushed by the government. In 2007 a Pew survey established that 97% of the population felt that homosexuality should not be accepted. It is punishable by 14 years in prison Reuters LGBT+ rights around the globe Somalia Homosexuality was established as a crime in 1888 and under new Somali Penal Code established in 1973 homosexual sex can be punishable by three years in prison. A person can be put to death for being a homosexual Reuters LGBT+ rights around the globe Iraq Although same-sex relationships have been decriminalised, much of the population still suffer from intense discrimination. Additionally, in some of the country over-run by the extremist organisation Isis, LGBT individuals can face death by stoning Getty

A small number of agreements mention LGBTQI issues. In South Africas transition from apartheid, a prohibition against discrimination based on sexual orientation was written into the equality clause of the constitution. Nepals post-war constitution provides formal legal safeguards and Northern Irelands Good Friday Agreement ensures that public authorities are legally obliged to promote good practice for sexual minority groups and to involve them in consultation processes.

Pride and prejudice

Rare as these limited protections are, they do not always translate into long-term benefits. The Northern Irish peace process is particularly revealing. Since the signing of the 1998 agreement, records show increasing levels of homophobic attacks in the region. In fact, according to some commentators, homophobia has now replaced sectarianism as the major expression of societal hate.

Minority sexual rights are a major line of political division between Irish nationalists and UK unionists. Sinn Fein  the main nationalist party  tabled five motions in support of same sex marriage legislation for the parliament to vote on. On each occasion, the DUP  the main unionist party  used their communal veto to stop it.

LGBTQI rights represent war by other means in the peace process Northern Ireland. They are entangled with the struggle for ethnic rights around which the peace process revolves. Irish nationalist parties support gay and lesbian rights because they see it as compatible with the advancement of the equality agenda for the nationalist community. Unionist parties resist such rights as they view them as a Trojan horse deployed by nationalists to attack unionists. And the LGBTQI community are the main losers.

A fundamental problem of peace processes is that they tend to reward religious and nationalist hardliners. Policymakers identify these strongmen as key players to fashion peace agreements. Such warlords have little reason to advance the interests of sexual minorities. Their only goal is to defend the narrow ethnic interests of their community.

At worst, nationalist and religious parties take an uncompromising position. Homosexuality and lesbianism is framed as sinful or a threat to the purity of the nation symbolically imagined as the heterosexual family.

What can be done? One answer is to include LGBTQI rights in all peace agreements. As seen in the Colombian and Northern Irish examples, this can provide ammunition for those who oppose peace terms. While not a perfect solution, the inclusion of LGBTQI rights within peace agreements is still an important step. Constitutional rights makes states accountable to sexual minorities.

A more comprehensive approach is required to recognise the specific impact of peace processes on LGBTQI communities. Work is needed to provide advice, training and support for the government, judiciary, and security forces to embed rights throughout public institutions. More importantly, we need to consult with and support activists in post-war societies. Rather than mere victims, LGBTQI movements are powerful actors in challenging discrimination and in making the case for rights.

This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com). John Nagle is a lecturer in sociology, at the University of Aberdeen
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Oliver Redican is pretty clear. It was by far the best thing I have ever done in my life, he says of his International Year Abroad, taken while he was an accounting student at Hull University Business School.

Like many universities, Hull gives students like Redican the chance to spend a year overseas at partner institutions in Europe, Asia, North America or Australia, either by adding an extra year to their degrees or through international summer schools. Its an option that more people are choosing, and the effect on their lives can be significant.

For one thing, it can make you more employable, suggests Caroline Michel, international and engagement manager at Hull. Employers recognise the value and challenges of a year away from home, friends and normal support networks, she says. The experience can really make a difference to a students self-confidence and self-awareness too.

There are many professional benefits, as Dr Sonal Minocha, pro vice-chancellor (global engagement) at Bournemouth University (BU), explains. Experiencing another country and culture enriches students learning experience and enhances their employability by providing them with a skillset and perspective that are vital for todays fast-evolving globalised world, she says.

Whats more, the numbers seem to support this. According to one 2014 study by the European Commission, nine in 10 employers are looking for the kind of skills and traits that spending time abroad can help develop.

Bournemouth offers multiple programmes to help students on their way, including Erasmus+ and summer schools in India, China and south east Asia.

Recommended Seven of the best graduate schemes

BU Student Yeyen Sinarta spent part of this summer in China and is positive about the experience, adding: It enabled me to gain some of the skills employers would like to see. International experience, mobility, global awareness and stronger intercultural skills are just a few.

But while some benefits are perhaps obvious  picking up language skills or giving yourself some snazzy interview stories  others might be more subtle. Mia OHara, Go Global team leader at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), recalls the student who found new levels of determination working on a water security project in Swaziland, testing samples by candlelight.

Other benefits include improving non-verbal communication and reading body language, she continues. This is always something that NHS nursing, midwifery and occupational health students who have completed a programme say was a particularly useful skill.

There can also be profound, personal changes, as UWE Bristol student Erikah Reid, who spent a year studying abroad on the Erasmus programme in Leuven, Belgium, discovered. I cannot stress enough how this experience has improved my confidence in myself and my abilities, she says. It was amazing to experience a different culture and city, and meet people from all walks of life.

Like Redican, shes glad she took the plunge. This experience is something I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life, she adds.
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I wasnt sure who was most surprised to see us: the funeral party, the king wearing a red bobble-hat or the herd of hippos. We didnt bump into them all at the same time  that wouldve been really weird  but they each formed a memorable encounter during my week travelling around Guinea-Bissau.

This small, welcoming and, yes, safe patch of West Africa  a former Portuguese colony, and now a land of tribal kingdoms and sacred islands  delivers a daily dose of the unexpected. And not just for those passing through.

Tourists are a novelty in these parts. Almost everywhere I went  every village, market, church and beach  resulted in quizzical glances, curious conversations and high-energy displays of hospitality.

Colourful characters at Carnaval Bissau, held in the capital each year (Michel Craig/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0) (Michel Craig/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0))

West Africa hasnt had the easiest of times. Lacking the big game parks that draw visitors to other African nations, the region has always been a niche holiday destination. The shores and resorts of The Gambia have attracted decent numbers, while others opt to holiday on the waterways of neighbouring Senegal and a few trickle south to Ghana  but thats about it. Even this modest tourism was hit hard with the outbreak of Ebola in 2014, spelling an end to overseas visitors almost overnight.

Despite cases only occurring in a handful of West Africas 16 countries  and not a single one in Guinea-Bissau  the aftermath of the scare was felt far and wide.

There are many misconceptions about this place, my guide, Augusto MTambe, explained. People think its dangerous and full of disease but its not.

To discover the truth and experience a corner of the world slowly remerging from the darkness  though political difficulties remain in a country that has experienced nine coups or attempted coups since 1980  I joined a group of intrepid-minded travellers on a new tour offered by Explore Worldwide. The plan: to travel south from the busy capital, Bissau, for several days sailing around the sacred Bijagos archipelago, a sprinkling of untouched, off-shore islands in the Atlantic  steeped in age-old traditions and home to some very unusual residents.

Before we set sail, however, a long day on bumpy dirt tracks beckoned. The ruler-straight road, lined with giant trees with twisted limbs, shimmered long into the hazy distance. The dusty town of Canchungo was in mourning when we arrived unexpectedly.

We had only intended to make the briefest of pit stops, to buy a bottle of the local tipple cana  a rum-like spirit with sugar cane and cashew nuts  as an offering to the local king we would soon meet. You never go empty handed, advised Augusto. But the need to source gifts was swiftly sidelined as we stumbled upon the most private of gatherings.

The dearly departed had been laid to rest and the sniffling funeral party  many wearing T-shirts featuring the face of the deceased  had congregated in a sandy square just off the main street. Heavy-set women in bright and colourful tribal dresses cried into their hands but the sobbing paused abruptly upon sight of this group of out-of-towners.

Traditional dress and an elaborate rum flask in Guinea-Bissau (Christine Vaufrey/Flickr/CC-BY-ND 2.0)

We stood on the fringes, shifting awkwardly in the dust, but the grieving family did not take umbrage at our presence. Instead they beckoned us to join them. But our intrusion felt inappropriate, so we offered our condolences and gently retreated.

And, so, onwards to the 88 Bijagos islands, a sprinkling of semi-tropical isles encompassing two national parks, a Unesco-listed biosphere reserve and the most important turtle nesting site in all of Africa. But its significance extends beyond the flora and fauna, with remote communities still governed by tribal chiefs.

After cruising through the largest mangrove forest in West Africa, spotting pelicans, storks and river dolphins, we stretched our legs on land at the village of Elia. At the end of a raised embankment made of crushed oyster seashells, which scraped underfoot like shards of shrapnel, was the Royal residence.

You can spot dolphins in the country's rivers (Shutterstock)

Less of a palace and more of a simple mud house, with low ceilings and iron pots placed over a crackling fire, it was home to King Gika Jata. A laconic man with stained teeth and long grey hairs dangling from his chin, he wore frayed shorts and a red bobbly hat in place of a crown. He came to power around 20 years ago.

I cant remember exactly when, he said, his voice as low as a whisper and almost drowned out by the snorting piglets running around on the other side of the wall. We sat on wooden blocks and discussed his life. I never expected to be King, he said. Its a calling. The elders consult a fortune teller and the spirits choose someone with a clean heart.

The next few days passed in a blur of ghost towns and age-old initiation ceremonies, including the menacing Vaca Bruto ritual, in which young men in heavy wooden masks modelled to look like bulls' heads battled each other on all fours.

Bolama  all crumbling colonial mansions and grand houses now strangled by twisting tree trunks  served as the nations capital when the colonising Portuguese relocated it in a bid to escape malaria on the mainland during the mid-19th century. It remained the seat of power until 1941. Today, its a largely forgotten place with a modest population, most of whom seemed to be sitting in the shade in the main square near a statue deposited by Mussolini when an Italian seaplane crashed nearby in 1931.

Rubane Island offers luxury accommodation in a deserted paradise (Ascani Maurice)

One of the archipelagos southernmost islands is uninhabited Poilao, which forms part of the Joao Vieira and Poilao Marine National Park. Deemed a deeply spiritual place, the interior of the island  wild and untamed and a place for male initiations  is strictly off-limits to all but select elders and tribal leaders.

Luckily, though, the miles of sandy shoreline that border it are well used to receiving guests. Most nights between August and February, the beaches play host to green sea turtles who haul themselves across the sand to dig large nests and lay dozens of eggs. Reports suggest there are upwards of 2,500 reproducing females, some travelling from as far as Mauritiana, who come here to give birth on the same beach on which they were born.

We camped near the sand and stayed up into the early hours, until the unmistakable silhouette of a giant turtle emerged from the darkened ocean and sloped across the moonlit shore. We only returned to our sleeping bags after having helped rangers release thousands of newly hatched turtles, scurrying across the beach like marbles fleeing from a jar.

Women working the rice fields (Flickr/CC BY-ND 2.0)

It didnt come as any major shock that most of the accommodation in Guinea-Bissau leaned towards the basic. But our accommodation on the island of Rubane drew gasps. We docked at Ponta Anchaca Ecolodge after a long day at sea (the skipper got lost and without a GPS had to rely on passing fishermen for directions), and immediately settled down for a much-needed G&T at a bar built upon raised stilts by the infinity pool. The tide was out and the amber glow of sunset settled on a nearby row of small wooden fishing boats with patchy paintwork and names like In God We Hope.

Watch sea turtles hatch on uninhabited Poilao island (Getty)

Hidden almost out of sight amid the dense foliage that backed against the long beach was a row of plush seafront lodges. Think thatched roofs, four-posted beds, rainforest showers and lots of African art; levels of luxury Id dared not dream about.

But Guinea-Bissau had one final surprise up its sleeve. The rice farmers of Ilha de Orango are locked in a bitter battle with their fearsome neighbours. They cause a lot of problems, ransacking the fields. People have had to install electric fences, said Augusto as we trekked through neck-high grass and across boggy marshes en route to see the ravenous rice-munching creatures in question: the hungry hippos of Bijagos.

The rice farmers of Ilha de Orango are locked in a battle with local hungry hippos (Explore Worldwide)

We eventually found a herd of the rare saltwater hippos  they inhabit the islands swampy lagoons and are often seen strutting their stuff on the beach  after an hours sweaty hike. We huddled quietly, a little too close to the creatures for comfort, and watched as they wallowed in the mud, all louds grunts and giant yawns. They, too, eyed us with intrigue and suspicion before emerging from the water, prompting us to make a hasty exit. Surprises come in all shapes and sizes in Guinea-Bissau.

Travel essentials

Getting there

Explore Worldwide (01252 883681; explore.co.uk) offers ten days in Guinea Bissau from 2,975 per person. Price includes accommodation, excursions, most meals and flights from Heathrow via Casablanca and Banjul with Royal Air Maroc (020 7307 5800; royalairmaroc.com).

More information

gbissau.org
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US company Hyperloop One has agreed a deal with Dubai to evaluate building a new 500mph train to Abu Dhabi, which would travel 150km in just 12 minutes.

For comparison, Birmingham is around 164km from London. A standard train journey between these two cities takes anywhere between 1 hour 25 minutes and two hours.

The new high-speed transport link between Dubai and Abu Dhabi would cut travel time between the two cities significantly. Dire traffic conditions long suffered by commuters between Dubai and Abu Dhabi typically entails a two-hour car journey.

The California-based firm signed the deal earlier this week with Dubai authorities in suitably flashy style at the top of the city-state's Burj Khalifa  the world's tallest building.

If the plans go ahead, this would be the first train of its kind in the world, using Hyperloop electromagnetic technology that allows pods without wheels to travel at high speed through low-pressure transit tubes. It is similar to Japan's maglev train, but will be able to reach a top speed of 750mph.

France's SNCF has invested in rival company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (Hyperloop Transporation Technologies)

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk originally came up with the concept, while Hyperloop One is one of two companies developing the technology. The other, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, has been working with French railway company SNCF to develop high-speed transport in the country.

A completion date for the project in the UAE is yet to be set. However, if initial evaluations are successful, Hyperloop One's CEO Rob Lloyd has said the project could, from a technological perspective, be ready in around five years.

The ultra-high speed Hyperloop technology was tested in May this year in the desert near Las Vegas.

In addition to the link between the two UAE cities, plans are being discussed for a 50-minute Hyperloop link to be built between Dubai and Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. It currently takes two hours to make the journey by plane.

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The Italian government has been supporting the Egyptian justice system as part of an EU project that risks complicity in abuses such as mass trials and the death penalty.





Italys highest judicial body, the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, is one of four contractors involved in the 10 million EU project in Egypt, named Support to the Modernization of the Administration of Justice.





Human rights organization Reprieve has unearthed documents showing that the project includes training Egyptian judges who oversee death sentences; providing steel bars and a metal cage to a juvenile court, and video technology for interview rooms.





The project, and Italys involvement in it, has caused concern because Egyptian judges have handed down hundreds of death sentences in mass trials in the past three years. The documents seen by Reprieve make no mention of the risk of these abuses.





Reprieve is assisting Ibrahim Halawa, an Irish citizen who was among hundreds of juveniles arrested in Cairo following protests in 2013.





Halawa, from Dublin, is facing a death sentence in a mass trial of 494 people, which is taking place in a courtroom purpose-built to accommodate the large number of defendants.





The court has repeatedly postponed the trial and extended Halawas detention since 2013  most recently, on 2 October 2016. Halawa has reported being regularly tortured in pre-trial detention. The Egyptian government has refused to allow the EU to monitor the trial.





Italys involvement in the project is revealed amid growing concerns over the failure of Egyptian authorities to investigate fully the murder of an Italian student, Giulio Regeni, apparently at the hands of Egypts security forces.





Recent weeks have also seen an adviser to the Regeni family  human rights activist Ahmed Abdallah  undergo a trial in Egypt, apparently in relation to protests.





After Mr Regenis death, Egypts chief prosecutor, Mustafa Suleiman said : We are eager to continue [judicial] cooperation with Italy. He added: Judicial cooperation between Egypt and Italy is positive and Italy is one of the best countries that deals with Egypt when it comes to judicial matters.





Commenting, Harriet McCulloch, deputy director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said:





The Egyptian courts have overseen hundreds of death sentences and scores of mass trials since 2013, and they continue to sanction the extended detention and torture of hundreds of people  including people arrested when they were children, like Ibrahim Halawa. This is part of the same huge wave of abuses that has seen the Sisi government relentlessly target protestors, journalists and people like Giulio Regeni. It is deeply worrying that the Italian government appears to be helping prop up this system. The Italian authorities must explain exactly what their work on this project involves  and what measures they are taking to avoid complicity in terrible abuses.




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The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive. When Donald J Trump first tweeted this claim in November 2012 it could be easily dismissed as a delusional conspiracy theory promoted by an attention seeking reality star.

Policymakers around the world are now coming to terms with the fact that this is a good indication of the mindset of the president-elect of the USA, the country that has throughout history contributed the most to climate change.

Trump has become the loudest tribune of climate denial. "Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax! And again: "Its snowing & freezing in NYC. What the hell ever happened to global warming?

 Anti-Donald Trump protests erupt across US as cities declare billionaire 'Not My President'

Perhaps the delegates currently attending the United Nations FCCC climate talks currently taking place in Marrakech, Morocco, should not place too much weight on what Trump tweets, given his tendency to shoot from the hip.

Yet these are not just flippant 3am spasms. They illustrate perfectly the future presidents disdain for environmental science and aptitude for saying exactly what the poor, disenfranchised victims of rust-belt deindustrialisation need to hear.

Trump outlined his 100 day action plan on climate and energy at the Willison Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota in May this year. He wants to tear up the Paris climate agreement, defund UN climate programmes and, it seems, allow the Keystone XL pipeline to go ahead.

Here is what it comes down to. Wealth versus poverty, was his pitch. He promises to rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions and save the coal industry. He adds: Any regulation that is outdated, unnecessary, bad for workerswill be scrapped.

The speech is a finely tuned dog whistle designed to rally the industrialised working class in the US against the environmental policies pursued by what is now firmly understood to be the out-of-touch, preaching, self-serving liberal elite.

Trumps extraordinary reaction against environmental regulation is instinctive and impulsive: it has the ring of authenticity. But it echoes messages and lines which have been finely tuned and tested by think tanks and PR agencies funded by vested interests in the fossil fuel industry for the last three decades.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

Jim M Inhofe, the Republican US Senator, as far back as 2003 described climate change as the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. He was then and now a member of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

In February 2015, Inhofe brought a snowball on to the Senate floor as proof that climate change was not taking place. Trump simply amplifies the message.

According to the Open Secrets website, Inhofe has been a direct beneficiary of substantial political donations from fossil fuel industries. Oil and gas companies donated $481,450 to his campaign committee during the last five years. The biggest contributors are reported to be , according to the Open Secrets website , Devon Energy, Boeing and Murray Energy.

The climate denying senator has worked hand in hand with neoliberal think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has received millions in financial support from ExxonMobil and the family owners of Koch Industries while perfecting the anti-science talking points.

And now the CEI can carry out Trump's assault on environmental regulation. Myron Ebell has been named by Trump as his choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency. Ebell is the director of the Centre for Energy and Environment at the CEI. The fox has been handed the chicken coup.

Trump, the billionaire heir, claims to represent the interests of the working man. In reality, he is a one-man lobbying machine for the corporate monopolies who own and control the US oil industry.

We have a problem in this post-fact world: the information about the close relationship between the corporations and the politicians does not filter down to, or resonate with, the forgotten workers of the American rust belt.

Those who understand the urgency and the necessity of climate action and environmental regulation need to reconnect with workers. We Need to reassure them that we dont want to take away their jobs. We want to protect their children, their families and their communities.

Brendan Montague is managing director of Spinwatch, which examines corporate lobbying. He will be presenting a talk on oil industry attacks on climate science at the Royal Society on Monday, 14 November.
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It has been a paradox of the US election that Donald Trump, the right-wing populist, was seen as a dove on foreign and defence policy while Hillary Clinton, the liberal sophisticate, was regarded as a hawk.

There has been alarm at Mr Trumps seeming incomprehension about nuclear deterrence and threat to carpet bomb terrorists, but the Republican candidate had also proposed to defuse international tension over Syria and Ukraine by holding talks and pledged that there will not be any more military missions like Iraq and Afghanistan. We are he declared getting out of the business of nation building.

Ms Clinton backed the Iraq invasion and has advocated military action in Syria ranging from arming the rebels against the Assad regime to setting up a no-fly zone. President Barack Obama had dismissed both plans and General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned for us to control all of the air space in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia.

 Putin: Russia ready to restore US relations after Trump win

There was animus of an almost personal nature between Ms Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin. She had described him as a bully out to grab all he can, someone who was a KGB agent. So by definition he doesnt have a soul. The Russian leaders response was I think at a minimum its important for a government leader to have a brain. Ms Clinton wrote a private memo to President Obama towards the end of her time as Secretary of State about Mr Putin urging Dont appear too eager to work together. Dont flatter Putin with high-level attention. Decline his invitation for a presidential summit. President Obama ignored the advice.

But it is not just about Mr Putin. Beijing, despite Mr Trumps threat to impose tariffs on Chinese goods, stressed its wish to work with the new president after the result came through. The Indian premier Narendra Modi was just behind the Russian government in offering his congratulations. We may be seeing the shaping of a new world order where the US no longer revels in its role as the only global superpower.

Governments in Western Europe also sent their good wishes, but the overwhelming feeling among the leadership in the European Union was one of shock at what had unfolded. In Eastern Europe there was also trepidation, the new president had said he accepted the Kremlins annexation of Crimea and had warned that, under him, the US would not necessarily intervene in a conflict between the Baltic states and Russia.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

The Trump presidency may seem like very good news for Brexit Britain. He had, after all, praised the referendum vote to leave the EU. The UK should not now be at the back of the queue for a trade deal with the US as Barack Obama had warned. But in reality, although the new administration may be more sympathetic towards the UKs economic needs, the place in the queue will depend on the pace of Brexit negotiations.

On some areas of geopolitics, the UK will be out of step with the new White House. Prime Minister Theresa May wants to take the lead role in sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, something the Obama administration has encouraged. London was seen as being a staunch voice for the punitive measures when some other European states were wavering. It is highly unlikely that Mr Trump would press for this confrontation with Moscow to be ratcheted up. Similarly, demands by Boris Johnson and some MPs for military action against Syria's Assad regime and Russia over the bombing of Aleppo is hardly going to get a favourable response in Mr Trumps Washington.

Some Israeli leaders welcomed the election result, with Ron Prosor the former Israeli ambassador saying it spelled the end of political correctness on the issue of Palestine. Relations between President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu have been acrimonious, but Mr Trump, while voicing support, has also caused consternation in the Jewish state by saying he would remain neutral in any peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He has, like other Republicans, castigated President Obama for agreeing to the nuclear deal with Iran, but rowed back from saying he would seek to scrap it.

Israel, in any event, has been seeking new alliances. Mr Netanyahu noted this week that his government was further strengthening bilateral relations with Russia and India and economic ties with China.

China has been a particular target for Mr Trump during the election campaign, with him charging that its membership of the World Trade Organisation is the worst jobs theft in history and has demanded that trade agreements are renegotiated. He has threatened retaliation for intellectual copyright theft and to crack down on hacking.

But the Chinese own $1.268 trillion (1.02 trillion) in US Treasury securities and there is a view among the leadership in Beijing that Mr Trump is bluffing over his threat to impose tariffs. His win also effectively kills off Mr Obamas pivot to Asia, which the Chinese saw as an attempt to contain its influence in its near seas. So the official Chinese reaction to the election result has, so far, been relatively emollient.

Mr Trump made no mention of building a wall in his victory speech, but along with illegal immigration, Mexico, too, has been accused of stealing American jobs by the Republican nominee. He has threatened to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement which has been a cornerstone of Mexican economic policy since its inception in 1994. The election result led to the Peso suffering its biggest fall in 22 years and massive stock market turbulence.

So far, the most immediate international effect from the extraordinary triumph of Donald Trump is being felt by one of Americas closest neighbours.
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Predictable claptrap is being uttered about Trump and the Middle East. How can the Muslim world deal with a man who is an Islamophobe? For that is indeed what Trump is. He is a disgrace to his country and to his people  who, heavens above, elected the chap.

But heres a mollifying thought. US prestige in the region has fallen so low, the Arab worlds belief (and quite possibly the Israeli belief) in American power so shattered by Washingtons stupidity and ineptness, that I rather suspect little attention will be paid to Donald Trump.

Im not quite sure when respect for American governance began to collapse. It was certainly at its height when Eisenhower told the British, French and Israelis to get out of the Suez Canal in 1956. Maybe Ronald Reagan mixing up his cue cards and taking his presidency into the early stages of Alzheimers had a larger effect than we thought. I did once meet a Norwegian diplomat who sat down to talk to Reagan about Israel and Palestine and found the old boy quoting from a paper on the US economy. Bill Clintons Middle East peace couldnt have helped.

I guess it was George W Bush, who decided to attack Afghanistan even though no Afghan had ever attacked the United States, and who created a Shia Muslim state in Iraq out of a Sunni Muslim state  much to Saudi Arabias disgust  who did more harm than most US presidents to date. The Saudis (from whom came 15 of the 19 killers involved in 9/11) launched their war on Yemen with scarcely a whiff of concern from Washington.

 'Long live Mr Trump! We are alike,' says President of the Philippines

And Obama seems to have goofed every time in the Middle East. His handshake to Islam in Cairo, his Nobel Prize (for public speaking), his red line in Syria  which disappeared in the sand the moment he was rescued by the Russkis  is best forgotten. Its Vladimir Putins Sukhois and Migs that are setting the pace in the terrible Syrian war. And amid lands where human rights count not a jot for most of the regional dictators, theres been hardly a whimper about the Kremlin. Putin was even taken to the opera in Cairo by Field Marshal President al-Sisi.

And thats the point. Putin talks and acts. Actually, in translation at least, hes not terribly eloquent, more businessman than politician. Trump talks. But can he act? Cast aside the odd relationship which Trump thinks he has with Putin. Its Trump who is going to need a translation of Putins words, not the other way round. In fact, the Arabs and Israelis, I think, will be spending far more time during the Trump presidency listening to Putin. For the fact is that the Americans have proved themselves as unreliable and fickle in the Middle East as Britain was in the 1930s.

Even Americas blitz on Isis didnt really get under way until Putin sent his own fighter-bombers to Syria  at which point, many Arabs were asking why Washington hadnt managed to destroy the cult. Go back to the Arab revolutions  or spring, as the Americans pathetically called it  and you see Obama and his hapless Secretary of State (yes, Hillary) goofing again, failing to realise that this massive public awakening in the Arab world was real and that the dictators were going to go (most of them, at least). In Cairo in 2011, about the only decision taken by Obama was to evacuate US citizens from the Egyptian capital.

Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didnt know the air conditioner didnt work and sweated like dogs, and they didnt know the room was too big because they didnt have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall  and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me and Ill build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY

It is easy to say that the Arabs are appalled that an Islamophobe has won the White House. But did they think Obama or any of his predecessors  Democrat or Republican  had any special concern for Islam? US foreign policy in the Middle East has been a spectacular series of wars and air raids and retreats. Russian policy  in the Yemen war during Nassers age and in Afghanistan  has been destructive enough, but the post-Soviet state seemed to have curled its claws until Putin moved his men into Syria.

No doubt well see Trump turn up in the Middle East before long, to fawn before the Israelis and repeat Americas uncritical support for the Israeli state, and to assure the wealthy Gulf autocrats that their stability is assured. What he says about Syria will, of course, be fascinating, given his views on Putin. But maybe, he will just leave the region to his minions, to secretaries of state and vice-presidents who will have to second guess what the guy really thinks. And that, of course, is where we all stand now. What does Trump think? Or, more to the point, does he think?
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With Donald Trump not due to move into the White House until January, there is plenty of time for speculation about his likely policy priorities. Protesters in cities across the US are already making their critical voices heard and it may be that the early part of the Trump presidency will be focused on domestic matters  not only vague box-office campaign promises such as dismantling Obamacare and building a wall along the Mexican border, but the need to convince those who didnt support his candidacy that he is capable of being their President. That alone is a big ask.

Mr Trumps approach to foreign policy may take even longer to become clear  and may, in fact, itself be affected by the degree to which he is able to overcome dissent at home. The overriding point which Mr Trump must settle is the position of America  and its President  as the leader of the free world. To a greater or lesser extent, that has been the United States accepted role on the global stage since 1941, and it has frequently played the part with gusto. Mr Trump has given the impression that he would rather America was tucked away in the wings, no longer the worlds multi-costumed policeman, peacemaker or charitable fund. A return to 1930s-style isolationism may be difficult in the age of globalisation  but of course it was rage against globalisation and all that comes with it that appears to have motivated so many of Mr Trumps supporters. If one thing is clear from the outcome of this election, it is that the President-elect has a mandate to turn America in on itself.

In terms of trade, this would mean protectionism, closing the economic borders of the US, enforcing tariffs on goods from abroad  Mr Trump appears especially exercised by cheap imports from China. No wonder business leaders around the globe are worried: not only is it far from certain that protectionist policies would benefit the ordinary Americans who believe Mr Trump will bring jobs and prosperity; there may also be significant adverse consequences for economic growth around the world.

Yet it is in the field of international relations that Mr Trumps attitudes will be watched most closely by foreign observers. Of most immediate concern is his outlook vis-a-vis the Middle East, and especially Syria. President Assad has already let it be known that he would be willing to cooperate with Barack Obamas successor: no surprise, given that Mr Trump has previously given indications that he believes forcing regime change causes instability. While he is likely to maintain attacks on Isis, or other terror groups that pose a direct threat to the US, Mr Trump is unlikely to want American forces to stay embroiled in Middle Eastern conflicts for any longer than absolutely necessary.

For British and other allied forces operating in the same arena, this will pose immediate challenges. The truth is that their position is, compared with Americas might, not even second fiddle  they are barely in the same orchestra. If America pulls back from its current commitments in Syria and Iraq, as seems probable, other Western forces will be left badly exposed. The big winner, as has long been predicted, may be Vladimir Putin, for whom Mr Trump has frequently expressed admiration.

Indeed, there are two ways to look at Mr Trumps fascination with Russias leader. The first is to conclude that the Wests cool relationship with Moscow has been characterised by failure and that an alternative approach may be exactly what is needed to break the ice. In this scenario, Mr Trump and Mr Putin somehow  between them  make the world a safer place. It is an optimistic notion.

The alternative conclusion is that an increasingly reclusive America will simply encourage Mr Putin to push ahead with his more expansionist flights of fancy. Victory for Mr Assad in the Syrian civil war would undoubtedly give Russia a toe-hold in the Middle East  however rubble-bound  and improved access to the Mediterranean. Emboldened, Mr Putin might wonder whether Europeans, without American backing, would rush to the aid of Ukraine in the event of a resurgence in hostilities there. And if Mr Trump turns out to be as ambivalent about Nato as some of his remarks on the subject have suggested, nervousness in the Baltic States may rise rapidly. Eight thousand miles to the east, and Japan might wonder whether it can reply on its old ally in the event of increased belligerence from China.

With Mr Trumps election, a great many certainties about the world have been undone at a stroke. Past global interventions by America have not always proved successful, but the countrys withdrawal from world affairs could be utterly disastrous. Mr Trump may build a wall around the US  but even if they have to hold their noses, international allies should do all they can to encourage him not to shut himself inside.
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On the streets of Baghdad, Erbil, and elsewhere, Iraqis across ethnic and sectarian lines watch in excitement as the army and the police, augmented by Shia paramilitaries, the Kurdistan Regions peshmerga, and Sunni tribal fighters fight to retake Mosul, the second largest city, from the Islamic State.

The mood and expectations are high. Many Iraqis anticipate a swift military victory to remove Isis governance from the country. With these military successes, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is rebranding himself as a stronger leader. Contributing to this, he has taken away the narrative of divine victory that Isis successfully used to bolster its movement and to attract followers. Today, the group is on its back foot.

For many of the Isis leadership, military defeat in the short-term is unavoidable. In Iraq, the group has thus far been unwilling to engage in the protracted battles and sieges that weve seen in Syria, such as Kobane. Rather, in most Iraqi battles, Isis has retreated more easily. As such, it is likely that Isis will not put up a fight to the death just yet. This is becoming clear in the groups own discourse, which now claims that defeat in Mosul is merely a test from God, rather than the end of the movement or even the Caliphate.

 The time to reach a settlement in Iraq is now

Instead, the senior leadership will go back underground, in a similar move to its predecessor al-Qaeda in Iraq following the 2008 civil war. The group will bet that the Iraqi political leadership, Shia, Kurd, and Sunni, will once again be unable to reach a political settlement on the future of Mosul or other Sunni Arab areas in the country. Under an assumption that Baghdad will not be able to legitimately represent the Sunnis in Mosul, Isis - in its current form or a future iteration - will re-emerge.

In the meantime, however, the group will stage an insurgency aimed at exacerbating sectarian tension, magnifying the crisis of trust and representation that the Sunni provinces have with the central government in Baghdad, and in general sowing the seeds of its re-emergence. Therefore the side instrumental to Isiss future is its citizens, or supporters and members who have not been part of its leadership structure or participated in its gruesome violence.

At its core, Isis is an Iraqi organization formed following 2003, under various names, in direct reaction to Sunni shock and marginalisation from a Shia-Kurd dominated Baghdad. After expanding to Syria in 2011, the group took on a more global focus. In Iraq, however, its core focus has always stayed the same: a domestic one.

Many of its temporary loyalists are not ideologically-driven foreign fighters, as weve seen with other militant organizations such as al-Qaeda, but rather pragmatic local tribes, leaders and citizens who seek the best possible power-sharing deal for themselves and their communities. The Iraqi governments policies towards them since Prime Minister Nouri al-Malikis second term drove many to take a chance with the Caliphate. They care less about the global brand and Isis-labelled attacks that take place in North Africa, Europe, or elsewhere. To them, support or complacency with Isis in Mosul was a better alternative to Maliki, whose centralization policies created great anxieties among the Sunni street.

However, the Caliphates failures in governance mean that these pragmatic members may now be willing to abandon the project.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

The focus of a long lasting settlement, then, is not on Mosul but on Baghdad. The question is whether the Shia political groups that govern the country can overcome their current differences and take advantage of Iraqis high spirits to agree on a governance package that grants Iraqs Sunnis an alternative to Isis, in greater autonomy and representation. This can serve as the deal to eliminate Isis support and complacency in the country.

If this political settlement is not reached now, it will be much more difficult once the military battle is over and all the sides contest the power vacuum that is likely to emerge in Mosul. A weak Baghdad, unable to come together on this issue, will again squander the imminent military victory  an outcome the Isis leadership is hoping for.
One of Donald Trump's top advisers has warned a "flood of companies" will leave Ireland under the president-elect's planned new tax regime.

Stephen Moore, senior economic advisor to Mr Trump, said the centrepiece plan of the new Washington administration was wooing back multinationals with radical business tax cuts.

"I believe that when we cut these tax rates - we're going to cut our business tax rate from roughly 35% down to roughly 15 to 20% - if you do that you are going to see a flood of companies leaving Ireland and Canada and Germany and France and they are going to come back to the United States," he said.

"It is going to have a very high impact on jobs."

Mr Moore, formerly a chief economist with US conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation, said the effort to entice companies back from low corporate tax-rate countries would be central to boosting the US economy.

This was the "single most important thing for our country right now", he told BBC Radio 4's World At One.

"There is no question about it, and we see day after day in this country that we are losing our businesses and our corporations," he said.

"They are effectively renouncing their US citizenship and they are moving to Canada, to Britain, to Ireland, to China and Mexico.

"That is a significant loss of jobs and we want to have the jobs here in the United States, we don't want to have them go abroad."

The remarks follow a 10-minute telephone conversation on Wednesday night between Mr Trump and Irish premier Enda Kenny, who said the president-elect praised his economic policy.

"I had a very good conversation with the president-elect," said the Taoiseach.

"He understands Ireland very well, he was complimentary about the decisions made about the economy here.

"He is looking forward to doing business with Ireland and I asked him specifically about (St) Patrick's Day, he is looking forward to continuing that tradition over many years."

It is tradition for the Taoiseach to travel to Washington on March 17 to present the US president with a bowl of shamrocks, to symbolise close ties between the countries.

Mr Kenny said Mr Trump has invited him to the White House next year to continue the custom.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Kenny told the Irish parliament that "racist and dangerous" remarks made by Mr Trump during the election campaign were made in the "heat of battle".

In a softening of his outspoken rebuke from May, Mr Kenny said he would be happy to work with Mr Trump.

Weeks after making the comments, when asked if he would put that view to the then presidential hopeful in any future meeting, Mr Kenny added: "Certainly. I'd be very happy to."

But pressed again in the Dail hours after the US election result was announced, Mr Kenny appeared to relax his stance.

"I'd be happy to deal with the president in a very constructive way as he has announced to the world that his administration will work to heal the wounds in America, will work to have the American people unite and form partnerships with like-minded countries for opportunities for everybody," he said.
Further falls in sterling as a result of the Brexit vote could dent economic activity in Ireland, the European Commission has said, as it revised down Irish growth.

In its latest economic update, Brussels said Irish GDP would grow by 4.1pc this year. That's down from 4.9pc in the spring. Growth next year is also expected to be fractionally smaller than previously forecast.

It said risks have heightened considerably since the UK referendum in June.

But the Commission said that stronger-than-expected investment in infrastructure and housing could push up employment and household spending. And it said the potential for firms to shift here as a result of Brexit could boost investment spending further.

"Risks to the outlook relate mostly to uncertainty following the UK 'leave' vote," the Commission's note on Ireland said.

"Further falls to sterling or hits to consumer of business confidence could weigh on economic activity."

The Commission said the economy would grow by 3.6pc next year, down fractionally on its spring forecast. Brussels forecasts 2017 Eurozone growth of 1.5pc and EU growth of 1.6pc.

Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, inset, said European growth will hold up next year against a more "challenging backdrop than in the spring".
More than 130 new office buildings with a combined floor area of over 12m sq ft and with the capacity to accommodate over 100,000 office workers are being planned for Dublin over the next five years, according to a new report by property consultants, Savills Ireland.

While the Savills 'Skyline Survey' acknowledges that not every one of the 136 developments will proceed, it concludes that the delivery of even half of the projects being proposed currently would be sufficient to cope with the potential demand arising from UK companies seeking to relocate their operations to Dublin in the wake of Brexit.

The report, which is due for publication today, notes that 39 new office developments are currently under construction in Dublin, 13 of which have pre-commitment from a tenant to take space. A further 62 developments have received planning approval but are not yet on site, while 35 are in the planning stages.

The majority of these projects (34) are taking place in Dublin's central business district (CBD) of Dublin 1, 2 and 4. Most of this development is accounted for by new builds, with refurbishments and extensions making up over 18pc of the pipeline. The replacement of existing buildings is set to account for an additional 39pc.

Just under 42pc of the space being delivered within the CBD has already been pre-committed to an occupier and Savills say they expect this figure to rise further. One location undergoing concentrated office development at present is Molesworth St in Dublin's historic inner core, where four office developments totalling 253,000 sq ft, are set to transform the streetscape by the time they are complete next year.

Commenting on the dramatic resurgence of office development within Dublin's CBD, Savills director of offices Andrew Cunningham said: "Between 2010 and 2014, office construction in Dublin came to a complete halt for the first time since records began - something that was almost unique to the Dublin market and not experienced in any other western capital city.

"Take-up, however, has been strong, particularly over the past two years and, as a result, the vacancy rate has tightened quickly, causing rents to rise sharply, making office development viable again."

Cunningham said while the current number of office developments looks "quite high", the reality is that the pipeline of supply is being constrained by available equity and debt funding, notwithstanding the ongoing demand/supply imbalance.

"We are observing large-scale postponement of schemes, especially those in need of pre-lets to commence on-site. As a result, there is little chance of us reaching a point of oversupply any time soon," he said.

The Savills 'Skyline Survey' notes that lack of speculative funding is a recurring issue in the market, with the majority of development in the short-term being undertaken by REITs, funds or private equity-backed by pre-funding.

NAMA is also playing a major role at present, providing full funding for 9pc of all schemes and another 5pc via joint ventures.
Blackwater Stud, a residential equestrian farm on 62ac near Enfield in Co Meath sold by private treaty recently for a price believed to be just under 1m. Withdrawn from auction a year ago, the place was bought by an Irishman with business interests in Britain.

The property includes a modern residence, a yard with extensive equestrian facilities, and 62ac of paddocked lands. Located 4km from Enfield off the Longwood road, the holding is set on a lovely site and approached by electric gates and a tarmac driveway.

Built in 2003, the residence is finished to the highest standards. It is laid out over three floors and includes an entrance porch and an entrance hall with an oaken staircase, and a sitting room with marble fireplace and a bay window.

The family room has a sandstone fireplace and French windows leading to a patio area. The kitchen is fully fitted with granite worktops, a Belfast sink and a range stove with a master oven.

There is a guest WC on the ground floor, along with the first en-suite bedroom.

The first floor is home to four spacious bedrooms, all with ensuite facilities, while the attic floor is fitted for storage and a WC.

There are amtico flooring and carpets throughout the house, along with an alarm and featured down-lighting.

Adjacent to the house is a detached garage with rolled doors, while a series of dog kennels are located to the rear.

The yard contains an American barn with 14 stalls, a tack room and office, a covered horse walker, a lunging ring, a lean-to lock up and hay barn. Philip Byrne of selling agents REA Coonans, Maynooth describes the property as very well maintained inside and out.

The land is located between a local road and the Blackwater River, and has plenty frontage on to both. It is laid out in paddocks that are fenced with stud railing.
The Legislature took it away. But on Tuesday, Nebraska voters handed back execution as an option for judges and juries to consider for the most heinous murders.





Even as support for the death penalty among states is said to be waning -- the lowest it has been in decades, according to a Pew Research Center poll -- Nebraska voters said by a convincing margin they want to keep it.





A 100,000-plus vote margin, considered a landslide, reinforces that the vast majority of Nebraskans want the death penalty option, said Nebraskans for the Death Penalty spokesman Chris Peterson.





Bob Evnen, who has worked for the past 17 months on behalf of repealing the law, said he hopes the unicameral Legislature will respect the will of the people and cooperate with the governor to establish a successful, humane method of carrying out the death penalty.





"We also hope that the judiciary will look for ways to end interminable appeals while maintaining the due process rights of defendants," he said. "We know that this can happen, because it happens in other states."





Stephen Griffith, director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said Nebraskans across the political spectrum worked together to call for its end.





"But it's still a broken system," he said. "And we look forward to continuing this conversation with Nebraskans."





Sen. Ernie Chambers, who has worked more than 40 years to eliminate capital punishment, said Monday the circumstances that led him to fight for the repeal of the death penalty had a hiatus with the Legislature's action. With the return of those circumstances, he plans to renew his efforts.





"And I will have a bill to repeal the death penalty ready for introduction in January," he said.





Nebraska's Catholic bishops said they, too, will continue to call for repeal of the death penalty.





The referendum, which gained more than enough signatures in summer 2015 to get the question on the ballot, passed despite being outspent nearly 5-to-1 by the opposition, Peterson said.





The Retain A Just Nebraska campaign spent about $2.2 million compared to about $450,000 by the referendum campaign.





Even with a green light to put the death penalty back into play, opponents believe it will be a long time, if ever, before an execution takes place. 10 men are on death row, most with remaining appeals.





The last time Nebraska executed a man was in 1997. The state has since put its electric chair in storage because its use was found to be unconstitutional by the Nebraska Supreme Court. Lethal injection has become the execution protocol, but has never been used and the state has had trouble getting the necessary drugs.





Lincoln attorney and longtime death penalty opponent Alan Peterson said several legal issues could prevent any potential execution.





For one, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a Florida case the U.S. Constitution requires juries to make those decisions. In Nebraska, judges decide one or more statements of fact in death penalty sentencing.





"These and other issues may take years to resolve, and the lack of acceptable lethal drugs is just one of many additional barriers to Nebraska killing anyone for a long time, if ever," Alan Peterson said.





Officials have said they are working on a new drug protocol that would allow the state to carry out the death penalty, but many opponents say that's unlikely because of the difficulty in getting the drugs.





Gov. Pete Ricketts dug into his own bank account to donate $300,000 to Nebraskans for the Death Penalty. His father, Joe, donated another $100,000.





On Friday, the governor said that over the past several weeks, he has stepped up conversations with Attorney General Doug Peterson and Corrections Director Scott Frakes about a thorough review of the capital punishment protocols used in other states.





"My administration will continue to review potential protocol changes," Ricketts said.

Nebraskans vote overwhelmingly to restore death penalty, nullify historic 2015 vote by state Legislature

Nebraskans wielded their veto power on Tuesday, voting overwhelmingly to restore the death penalty and nullify a historic 2015 vote by state lawmakers to repeal capital punishment.





Rural voters carried the day, voting to "repeal the repeal" by margins as large as 4-to-1 in counties outside Lincoln and Omaha.





Douglas County, seen as a key stronghold of death-penalty opposition, appeared to narrowly support restoring the death penalty, while Lancaster County was the only county in the state to support retaining the death penalty repeal.





Officials with Nebraskans for the Death Penalty said Tuesday's vote affirmed their belief that if voters were given the chance, they would vote to keep the death penalty for the most heinous murders.





"The Legislature made a big mistake on a very important issue," said Bob Evnen of Lincoln, a co-founder of the pro-capital punishment group, which conducted the successful petition drive that placed the death penalty referendum on Tuesday's ballot.





State Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln, a leader with the anti-death penalty group, Retain a Just Nebraska, said he was disappointed with the outcome but not the effort.





"This debate was worth having," Coash said.





Some voters, he said, may have been swayed by recent, high-profile murders, citing the case of Nikko Jenkins, who killed 4 people in Omaha shortly after his release from prison in 2013. A trial this fall in Omaha, which ended with Dr. Anthony Garcia being found guilty of the gruesome slayings of four people connected to Creighton University's pathology department, also was a factor, he said.





"It's really hard to look at those kinds of crimes and not have an emotional response," Coash said.





State Sen. Ernie Chambers, who sponsored the bill to repeal the death penalty, said Tuesday night that the vote demonstrated to him that Nebraska remains a "hidebound and backward state."





"I have been in this activity too long to be surprised by what happened tonight," he said. "It will not dishearten me, it will not deter me."





Chambers said he would be introducing a new bill in January to get rid of the death penalty.





Tuesday's vote marked the 2nd time lawmakers had been rebuffed in an effort to repeal the death penalty. In 1979, then-Gov. Charlie Thone vetoed a repeal bill, and the Legislature lacked the votes to override it.





Nebraska, a conservative, law-and-order state, gained the national spotlight after the Legislature's landmark vote and subsequent narrow override of a veto by Gov. Pete Ricketts.





At the time of the repeal vote, Nebraska stood as the 2st conservative state to do away with capital punishment since North Dakota in 1973. A group of conservative senators, citing the high cost of the death penalty and its rare use, joined with Chambers in voting to repeal the ultimate penalty.





But the victory proved short-lived.





Shortly after the Legislature's vote, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty formed to put the issue before the state's voters.





Using contributions from the governor, his parents and others, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty collected more than 143,000 signatures of voters during the summer of 2015.





Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs and the online brokerage firm TD Ameritrade donated $300,000 of his own money to aid the pro-death penalty group, according to the most recent campaign spending reports. His father, Joe, pitched in $100,000, and his mother, Marlene, donated $25,000.





Those donations were among the $1.3 million spent through early November by Nebraskans for the Death Penalty.





Retain a Just Nebraska also got some high-profile help, collecting $2.7 million through mid-October. Its contributors included Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon, who gave $1,500. One of its major donors was a Massachusetts organization, the Proteus Action League, which gave $650,000 this year and $600,000 last year.





Death penalty opponents also argued capital punishment could possibly take an innocent person's life. They pointed to the case of the Beatrice 6, in which 6 people were wrongly convicted in the 1985 rape and slaying of a Beatrice woman. Several of the 6 said their fear of the death penalty factored into their decision to falsely confess.





A group of retired judges was among those calling for an end to capital punishment, but death penalty supporters countered with their own group of Nebraska sheriffs and prosecutors who said that for the most heinous crimes, death was the most appropriate sentence.





"It's not about vengeance, it's about justice," said Pierce County Sheriff Rick Eberhardt, who collected more than 3,000 signatures to help put the death penalty referendum on the ballot.





On Tuesday night, the sheriff sat quietly in a meeting room at Omaha's Marriott Regency Hotel with 3 members of the family of Evonne Tuttle, who was shot and killed along with 4 others during a botched bank robbery in Norfolk in 2002. The 3 gunmen all are on Nebraska's death row.





It wasn't a celebration, said Eberhardt and the others, but affirmation that the state's residents still support the death penalty.





"It was the right thing to do," said Christine Tuttle, Evonne's 32-year-old daughter, of Tuesday's vote.





"We're going to get justice. It's going to happen," said Evonne's mother, Vivian, of Ewing, Nebraska.





Evnen said he hoped the significant margin in favor of restoring the death penalty would convince state lawmakers that they need to work with Ricketts, instead of against him, to adopt a new death penalty protocol.





Coash, however, said that Tuesday's vote hasn't changed a thing. Nebraska, he said, still lacks the drugs needed to carry out a lethal injection execution.





"It doesn't fix the problems that the Legislature saw," he said.

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Source: Lincoln Journal Star, November 9, 2016Source: Omaha World-Herald, November 9, 2016
A milk lorry driver has been convicted of speeding after he was clocked driving at 151kph, the Sligo Champion reports.

Before the court was Kevin Curran (41) of Hillview Drive, Ballymote, charged with speeding at Ballydrehid, Ballisodare on April 17 this year.

Defence solicitor Mr Gerald McGovren said his client had moved but said the address Garda Peter McDonnell took was the old address on his licence.

He said his client drove a milk lorry and had two children in college and a third in secondary school.

If I get five penalty points I might not get insurance on my licence, Curran told the court.

Judge Kevin Kilraine said there was a song from years ago about Ernie, he drove the fastest milk van in the west.

Mr McGovern appealed to the judge not to convict his client as he had to take out a loan to put his children through college.

Im sorry, I cant, replied Judge Kilraine.

It was 151kph in a 100kph zone, Its bordering on dangerous driving. Thered be a case to answer for careless driving, he told Mr McGovern.

Judge Kilraine convicted and fined Curran 100 and told him he could appeal the decision in the Circuit Court.
Bank of Ireland said it is still winding down its shipping loan business, among a number of banks looking to cut non-core lending and exposure to an industry suffering its worst downturn.

Many European banks are already bogged down by a sluggish economy and face tough capital demands from regulators which are eroding profitability, leaving many looking for ways to shore up their balance sheets.

Parts of the shipping industry are suffering their deepest ever downturn as international trade slows.Around 90pc of world trade is transported by sea.

"As previously stated, Bank of Ireland no longer lends within the shipping finance sector and we have been winding down the portfolio," the bank, Ireland's largest by assets, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Bank of Ireland first flagged efforts to wind down the shipping portfolio in its 2009 annual report. The bank declined to comment on how much progress it had made since then.

"It is still winding down," a spokesman for the bank said.

Finance industry sources say a number of banks looking for an exit from the sector are aiming to speed up efforts and cut losses given potential new regulations which could mean bigger capital requirements.

According to data from industry publication Marine Money and shipping sources, Bank of Ireland's shipping finance portfolio reached close to 1.8bn at its peak before 2009.

The bank declined to comment on the size of the remaining portfolio but finance sources estimate it has less than $500m left in shipping loans. Bank of Ireland led a return to profitability following years of losses after the country's 2008 banking crash.

AIB and Bank of Ireland, were among European banks that fared worst in the last European stress test in July.

Separately, South African bank and asset manager Investec, which is also listed in London, told Reuters it had decided not to take on any new shipping lending after conducting an assessment of the portfolio.

"We are not taking any new loans in shipping at this time," she added, declining to provide details on how big the firm's existing portfolio was but confirming that Investec's head of shipping, Jeremy Dean, had left. (Reuters)
The EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Vera Jourova, is to meet Irish Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon in Dublin today.

Ms Jourova is scheduled to attend a session organised by employers' group Ibec meeting where she will speak with senior tech industry representatives.

Ms Jourova is expected to reiterate the need for robust data protection practices, while also addressing the issue of online hate crime.

Ms Jourova will also speak about the importance of diversity in the digital economy and digital contracts.

During her trip, Ms Jourova will also meet Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald, and European Affairs, Digital Single Market and Data Protection Minister Dara Murphy.

She will attend a round-table meeting with members of the National Women's Council of Ireland, and will discuss consumer issues with representatives from consumer organisations.

Ms Jourova is a Czech native who has served as Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality since 2014.She previously worked as a consultant for a number of countries within the EU. One of her primary aims is to ensure the adoption of EU data protection reform.

The EU's cybersecurity directive came into to force in August of this year and requires member states to be appropriately equipped to deal with cyber threats through the establishment of a national authority to oversee tech security.

Ireland currently houses nine out of the top ten tech firms in the world, and any breaches to their systems would have to be reported to Ms Dixon's office, making the Irish regulator one of the most important watchdogs in the EU.

The Data Protection Commissioner has been awarded 7.5m, an increase of almost 3m on this year's total.

Ms Dixon's probe into Facebook in 2015 resulted in the company allowing users to opt out of certain online advertisements.

Ms Dixon has also probed the legality of so-called "model contract clauses", which are data transfer protocols relied upon by many businesses in their transactions with US firms.

The case is set to be heard in the High Court in February and may well be referred to the European Court of Justice.

Ms Jourova and Ms Dixon will likely take the opportunity to address issues surrounding the case during the visit.
'My dad drilled into me that you had to put people first,' says Sarah Friar in Lisbon. Photo: Adrian Weckler

Sarah Friar may be the most successful Irish tech executive you've never heard of. From Co Tyrone, the 43-year-old scaled some of the biggest, most established blue chip companies before arriving as chief financial officer of Square, the mobile credit card machine company jointly run by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

Compared to her doctor brother, though, she says she'll forever be regarded as the family disappointment.

"At home, everyone knows what he does and they all think he's amazing," she says. "And then there's me. They don't quite know what I do. So yeah, I'm totally the disappointment of the family."

Some disappointment. According to Bloomberg, Friar made over $7m in pay and stock last year. She has also climbed the ranks through firms such as McKinsey and Goldman Sachs before landing as the all-action chief financial officer in one of the world's fastest growing financial tech companies which is set to take $1.7bn in revenue this year from $50bn in customer transactions.

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Last year, Friar led Square to the seemingly impossible: a successful public flotation in what were the most difficult market conditions any tech company has faced in 15 years.

Although not (yet) available in Ireland, Square is best known in the US for its small square gadget box that connects a smartphone to a credit card. It allows small businesses, in particular, to accept credit cards payments from customers without the hassle of more elaborate machinery or messy merchant accounts. It also has a small business loan arm called Square Capital and a food delivery business.

Its most recently published financial results saw it beating market expectations, although it has yet to turn a profit.

Friar started her journey in a border town between Tyrone and Donegal.

"I grew up in a wee village called Sion Mills, right on the Border," she says. "In the 70s and 80s, that was a pretty troubled area."

Friar wanted to go to Oxford but didn't have the money. So she entered a competition to win a scholarship from the accounting firm Arthur Andersen.

She won and went to work with them for a year before studying engineering at Oxford. "Taking a year out was the best thing I could ever have done," she says. "I became a little bit more sophisticated in that year. Because Oxford then was much more public school than grammar or state school."

Oxford, she says, was posh and intimidating. But a combination of good tutors, strong academics and a love of rowing got her through it.

In business later on, being Irish became a big advantage. "It's great," she says. "Firstly, it's just the personality of the Irish. My dad drilled into me that you had to put people first. If you do, everything else will work out. My mum was a district nurse. My dad was the HR manager at the local mill. So people would either come to my house for one of two reasons. They would either be dying of something or they would have a social problem like a drink or a money problem.

"There were always people coming to our house to get helped. Learning the people side of things is an Irish nature type of thing and was really key."

Even in high-octane Silicon Valley culture, she says, this is a critical advantage. "Although cfos are perceived to be less people-oriented and to have a higher IQ than an EQ, I have always thought that if you get your people right everything else just falls into place. That's how you get to retirement because they'll do the job brilliantly for you. So hire well, retain them and have fun."

Today, you'd struggle to catch Friar's Irish accent. She holds her head.

"Unfortunately I've lost a ton of my Irish accent although not on purpose," she says. "It's truly a terrible thing to have done. Because it's a huge positive when you're in business. When people think you're Irish they always want to come talk to you."

Friar's role as a chief financial officer is an unconventional one. With perhaps a nod to her engineering and scientific background, her team includes product builders and engineers that help customer processes.

"We have broader operational control," she says. "It's different from what a normal cfo organisation would be. Beyond accounting, we have a finance strategy team, tax treasury and also risk operations. I have a large team that builds all of our internal products, amazing products and amazing engineers. The only way to scale a company is to keep bringing in amazing people underneath you."

That Square is growing and scaling isn't in question. However, its leadership is considered to be unconventional in that founder Jack Dorsey is also busy trying to sort out things at Twitter.

For those who missed it, Twitter turned to Dorsey last year in a bid to re-energise the social platform against a backdrop of stagnant growth and struggling financial progress. Dorsey didn't want to give Square up, so he's chief executive of both companies, dividing his time between them.

Is this a problem for Friar and the rest of the Square leadership?

"At the end of the day Jack handles it brilliantly. Is it perfect that he's the ceo of two companies? No. And I say that frankly. But he has managed it incredibly well. He's very structured. So we know exactly what's happens. Mornings it's Twitter, afternoons it's Square. Our buildings are right beside each other so we can run between the two."

Friar says that Dorsey's strengths are such that micro-managing isn't a necessity.

"What Jack is really good at is focusing on what he's good at," she says. "He's an amazing recruiter. He has such a great sense for product and design. So he inserts himself heavily into product design and so forth.

"But he also really empowers you to go and do your job. He wasn't a micro-manager before he had two jobs so now he absolutely can't be one because he has to manage his time.

"But I'll tell you, as someone who works for him, that's the best manager you can have. He is someone who lets you go really broad and do all sorts of things. In the course of my job at Square, I've run chunks of the company that a cfo normally has no business running. But I've also gotten to help see products grow like our Square Capital product.

"That's been a big part of why I love the company and why I've been there so long - because Jack empowers me to keep learning new things that maybe someone else might not do if they were micro-managing."

But if Dorsey gets credit for product design and putting together good teams, it is Friar who led the company through the IPO last year. With so many hotly-tipped tech firms staying in well-stocked private funding markets, why did Square press ahead with a flotation?

"For us the reason was credibility and credentialing ourselves," she says. "We are, at heart, a financial institution and it's good to be able to show a lot of transparency on the health of our business. How strong is our balance sheet? How much cash do we have? How is the business growing? Those were good reasons to go public. We felt that last year was the right time to do it."

Nevertheless, last year was particularly lean for tech companies looking to float on public markets. Very few made it.

"I don't know if we could have picked a worse market time," says Friar. "It was a brutal market, but that goes back to the health and strength of the company.

"The fact that we could do it says a lot. Most companies could not have gone public last year.

"But when you decide to go public, you need to be doing it for the right reasons. You can raise a lot of money in the private markets and stay private for longer.

"We didn't need to go public or raise money, but we thought it would be a good thing if we did."

Will we ever see Square in Ireland? And if so, when?

"We absolutely want to be global," says Friar. "When we think of where we want to go next, we look at a country's GDP, the density of its small businesses and how much the country has embraced mobile.

"For Ireland, I would never say never. I clearly have my own vested interest in wanting to see our product used there. However, we still have a lot of bigger economies to go to first.

"As we go we'll get faster as well. So my hope is that we can get better and better at doing international."
A multi-million euro settlement has been made in favour of telecommunications group Imagine in the longest-running dispute before the High Court's commercial division.

Protracted legal proceedings involving Imagine Communications Group and Motorola were struck out by the court yesterday following the resolution of a dispute over the roll-out of the Irish firm's WiMax network.

Motorola was retained by Imagine in 2009 to provide the group with an "end to end" turnkey national access network using WiMax, wireless 4G technology which allows users to access home phone and broadband without having to rely on a fixed line or pay for line rental.

However, the project ran into difficulties and Imagine Communications Group and two sister companies sued Motorola Ltd for 130m in 2010, alleging breach of contract and negligence.

Imagine claimed the network provided by Motorola fell well short of what had been promised.

The group, represented by Eames Solicitors, claimed there had been a series of delays in delivering key elements of the network and critical issues arose affecting the service provided to customers.

Motorola, whose wireless network assets were subsequently purchased by Nokia Siemens, denied the claims and insisted it met its contractual obligations. It was initially represented in the dispute by LK Shields and more recently by A&L Goodbody.

The counsel for Imagine, Maurice Collins SC, told Mr Justice Brian McGovern that the case and two other related sets of proceedings had been resolved.

"The only order the court is required to make is an order striking out the three sets of proceedings," he said.

No further details were given to the court and the terms of the agreement are confidential.

However, the Irish Independent understands a multi-million euro settlement was reached in favour of Imagine.

Although the case was initiated six years ago, it never came to trial after becoming bogged down in a plethora of preliminary applications.

Imagine claimed it was bombarded by procedural motions, while Motorola claimed delays were contributed to by the plaintiffs needing to recast their statement of claim on four occasions.

In addition, the High Court refused Motorola security for costs, a ruling which the company unsuccessfully appealed to the Supreme Court.

The contract at the centre of the dispute was negotiated between March and October 2009. It was projected that 402 sites would be delivered to Imagine, over which the network was to operate.

Some 120 of these were supplied, but Imagine did not order any more after July 2010.

The communications group says it has since gotten over the difficulties and is now using LTE Advanced technology to provide high speed broadband in 40 areas across the country.
Louise Clarke, from Walkinstown in Dublin, at the Tayto pop-up shop in Arnotts department store, as it opens in the run-up to the festive season

How come marketing is not taken more seriously in boardrooms? It's a recurring question posed largely by adlanders but also mooted occasionally by advertisers frustrated at the way marketing isn't ranked highly enough.

Greencore ceo Patrick Coveney has an interesting take on the issue - which coming from someone whose job extends well beyond marketing carries some weight.

Coveney - who was recently hired by Alan Cox as non-executive chairman of Core Media - says the wider business community often equates advertising with scenes from 'Mad Men', prancing around in sharp suits and living glamorous lifestyles.

The reality is another world. But the 'Mad Men' misconceptions can be responsible for how marketing - and advertising in particular - are greatly misunderstood.

The lack of real belief in many boardrooms about the critical role of marketing to drive business growth is puzzling, Coveney insists.

He says it may have been excusable years ago, when measurement techniques were more intuitive and less reliable, but not today.

Since joining Core, the Corkman has been impressed by how marketing and advertising effectiveness can be proven through econometric modelling.

The work is done by a new breed of communicators, data scientists who are a world apart from the caricatures in 'Mad Men'.

A Deloitte study in 2013 found that 1 spent on advertising generates 5.70 for the Irish economy. Ads contribute 5.3bn to GNP, achieved through increased demand, innovation and competition.

A 2012 study by Coveney's alma mater, McKinsey, found advertising fuelled 15pc of GDP growth for G20 economies between 2002 and 2010, while accounting for just 2pc of economic spend. Core's data team found that 1 spent on advertising delivers a gross sales return of 8.26 and a net return on investment of 5.44 for brands.

Such stats speak for themselves but, Coveney adds, it shouldn't be left to cold analytics to justify marketing's worth.

Take Heineken's Orchard Thieves cider, which won the grand prix at the IAPI's Adfx awards. Here's a brand that broke into a market dominated by Bulmers and earned a 11pc share after only 15 months.

Orchard Thieves' research and marketing prompted its Dutch owner to roll it out in the Netherlands and South Africa using Irish-produced campaigns.

So why the dearth of marketers on boards? An article in Forbes brought the issue into focus. In a study of S&P 1,500 US boards, a mere 2.6pc of the 65,000 board members were marketers. In the UK, only 21pc of FTSE 100 ceos had a marketing background last year. Coveney has no reason to believe the situation is any better in Ireland. The US study found that boards with marketers were more successful, delivering a three point increase in shareholder return over a board with no marketers.

The absence of marketers from boards goes a long way to explain why marketing budgets are thought of as an expense rather than an investment. Boards tend to comprise people with financial or engineering backgrounds, who may not be as adept in understanding the cornucopia of consumer issues as an accomplished marketer.

Boards often explain shortcomings by saying that marketing is a tactical rather than a strategic pursuit and has less of a place around the table. Coveney says such an argument is ridiculous. Of course, the challenge cuts both ways - marketers need to 'up their game' and make their input, agenda and style more relevant to boards.

What's needed is to shape senior management teams and corporate boards with complementary skills; to embrace wide-ranging thought and balance creativity, analytics and performance.

Advances in data science will see marketers being able to predict outcomes for brands based on thousands of case histories and endless rows of data. With such a digital set-up, when brand identity is vulnerable and loyalty can't be taken for granted, the value of marketing and its place at the centre of businesses can't be ignored, Coveney claims.

* Change is a constant and brands which aren't set up to adapt will lose. That's the message running through a talk by Behaviour & Attitudes director Neil Douglas at the next Association of Advertisers in Ireland (AAI) Toolkit breakfast. Joining Douglas will be Joe Ballantyne, head of strategic foresight at The Future Company, who will speak on developing a business in a slow growth world. The event is in Core Media's offices at 8.15am on Tuesday, November 22.

* The doors to the Tayto Crispmas Workshop are open in the Arnotts Christmas window on Henry Street and in the department store's festive market on the lower basement. Tayto Crispmas sandwiches, merchandise, a personalised gift service and family passes to Tayto Park will be on offer until early January.

Michael Cullen is editor of Marketing.ie; cullen@marketing.ie
Pimco's letter was read into the public record by committee chairman Sean Fleming TD this morning. Photo: Tom Burke

The US firm that sought to buy the Project Eagle loan portfolio has claimed that Nama has repeatedly mischaracterised how it withdrew from the sale process.

Pimco has sent what one TD described as a "potentially explosive letter to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that contradicts Nama's version of events.

The committee is probing the controversial sale of Nama's Northern Ireland loan book in light of the Comptroller and Auditor General's finding that the agency incurred a probably loss of 190m (223m) in the 2014 deal.

Nama has rejected this finding.

Pimco's letter was read into the public record by committee chairman Sean Fleming TD this morning.

The firm's chief legal officer in Europe, Tom Rice, wrote: Pimco has been disappointed that Pimco's withdrawal from Project Eagle has been repeatedly mischaracterised by Nama.

Pimco's withdrawal came after it asked Nama if it was aware of an alleged 16m sucess fee that was to be split equally paid to the agency's Nama's former adviser Frank Cushnahan and law firms Brown Rudnick and Tughans.

The letter states that Picmo was approached by Brown Rudnick on two occasions seeking a success fee.

Mr Rice states that the first request made in June 2013 was later refused. The letter states that Pimco contacted Nama after a new fee proposal from the law firm in February 2014.

He writes: "At this point, it appeared to Pimco that disclosures still had not been made by the relevant parties to Nama.

"Accordingly, Pimco decided to contact Nama directly and take it upon itself to disclose full details of the success fee arrangements that had been proposed by Brown Rudnick, including the amount and intended recipients.

"In particular, Pimco sought clarification on Nama's awareness of Mr Cushnahan's role in Project Eagle".

Mr Cushnahan has denied any wrong-doing.

Mr Rice's letter details various contacts with Nama including a communication on March 11, 2014 where Nama advised that its board considered the involvement of Mr Cushnahan to be a very serious issue for Nama.

The letter states that Pimco later informed Nama that it did not want to be part of any process where there was any suggestion of impropriety and was willing to withdraw.

Pimco claims that Nama asked if the firm had considered 'other options' such as proceeding without the three parties.

The letter continues On March 12, Pimco advised Nama that it had no option but to withdraw from Project Eagle and it claims: Nama expressed disappointment but accepted the decision.

A different firm subsequently bought the loan portfolio.

The contents of the letter directly contradicts evidence given to the PAC by Nama chairman Frank Daly.

He previously told TDs that Nama was responsible for Pimco leaving once the issue of the fee came to light saying: they withdrew because they knew we would not let them continue.

Fianna Fail TD Marc McSharry this morniing called the Pimco letter potentially explosive while chairman Mr Fleming said the committee will seek a detailed response to the letter from Nama.

A Nama spokesman said:

"Nama has made its position clear to the PAC on the withdrawal of Pimco from the process.

"The NAMA Board was very clear that, if Pimco did not withdraw, then NAMA would exit them.

"Nama rejects any suggestion that it did not set out the circumstances of Pimcos withdrawal accurately."
President Rodrigo Duterte

The House of Representatives sub-committee on judicial reforms on Wednesday tackled the bill on death penalty amid the administration's push to revive capital punishment as a deterrent to crime.





The subcommittee under the House justice committee tackled the seven bills restoring death penalty, including the principal bill filed by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez under House Bill 1, which seeks to repeal the law abolishing death penalty.





Subcommittee chairperson Leyte Rep. Vicente "Ching" Veloso, a former Court of Appeals justice, in an interview said he personally supported the restoration of death penalty as an effective deterrent to crime.





Veloso however denied that Alvarez gave the marching orders for the committee to railroad the bill.





Alvarez earlier vowed that the restoration of death penalty would be approved before the December break.





Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption President Dante Jimenez maintained that previous administrations only failed to ensure that death penalty is a deterrent to crime.





"The argument that it is not a deterrent to crime is misleading. The factor of death penalty is clear in history, even martial years and during Marcos years, and in drug trafficking due to capital punishment, when drug lords are publicly executed, sending a chilling signal to hardened criminals and offenders to keep off from illegal activities," Jimenez said.





But Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who was among the lawmakers who pushed for the abolition of death penalty in 2006, became irked when Jimenez gave an unresponsive answer to a question.





When Lagman asked Jimenez if he knows that death penalty has been in place since the dawn of civilization, Jimenez answered: "I don't know, I was born in 1952."





"I will not further question this witness for that kind of answer," Lagman said.





After being reprimanded by the committee, Jimenez said he was only answering candidly the question of Lagman.





He appealed that the committee understand his position on death penalty, citing the death of his brother by drug syndicates in 1990 supposedly due to mistaken identity.





"If I offended the congressman, I'm sorry, and I hope you will understand my position here," Jimenez said.





The committee called for an adjournment after Lagman gave a silent treatment to Jimenez.





"I only understand the position of resource person if he answers responsively," Lagman said, before the hearing adjourned until next week Tuesday.





It was Speaker Alvarez who first filed the bill seeking to reimpose death penalty after former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo abolished capital punishment in 2006 for its failure to deter crime.





Alvarez filed the bill to reinstate death penalty, pursuant to President Rodrigo Duterte's campaign promise of returning capital punishment against heinous criminals.





Alvarez's bill sought to reimpose death penalty on heinous crimes listed under Republic Act 7659, including murder, plunder, rape, kidnapping and serious illegal detention, sale, use and possession of illegal drugs, carnapping with homicide, among others.





In the bill he co-authored with deputy speaker Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro, Alvarez said there is a need to reimpose death penalty because "the national crime rate has grown to such alarming proportions requiring an all-out offensive against all forms of felonious acts."





"Philippine society is left with no option but to deal with certain grievous offenders in a manner commensurate to the gravity, perversity, atrociousness and repugnance of their crimes," according to the bill.





Duterte had won the elections in a campaign promise to restore death penalty by hanging, even making a snide remark that the convicts' head should be severed from the hanging. Alvarez said Congress would look into the cheapest way for death penalty, either by firing squad, lethal injection, or by hanging.

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Source: Philippine Inquirer, November 9, 2016
Irish startups, high tech firms and life science companies are attracting 19m a week in venture capital funding as investment in the sectors continues to surge.

According to new industry figures, venture capital funding in Ireland in the first nine months of the year rose by three-quarters compared the same period last year, with 734m raised here.

Funding growth appears to be accelerating, with third quarter fundraising (248m) running at over twice the rate of the same period last year (108m).

The figures come from the Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA) Venture Pulse survey published in association with William Fry.

"A particular feature in 2016 has been the strong performance by the life sciences sector which accounts for 54pc of total funds raised, boosted by an 80pc concentration in the third quarter," said Michael Murphy, chairman of the Irish Venture Capital Association.

Early stage companies raised seed capital of 57m, equivalent to 8pc of funds raised for the nine months to the end of September 2016.

This compares to 25.5m (6pc of funds raised) in the same period in 2015, with 17m (5pc of funds raised) in 2014 and 48.5m (21pc of total funds raised) in 2013.

The data covers equity funds raised by Irish SMEs and other SMEs headquartered in Ireland from a wide variety of investors. It is researched through information supplied by members of the IVCA and from published information where IVCA members were not involved.

"The Irish venture capital community continues to be the main source of funding for Irish SMEs both through direct investment and as the local lead investor for international syndicates," said Regina Breheny, director general of the IVCA.

"These syndicates invested 123m in the third quarter, bringing the total for the nine months to 328m.

"This compares to investment by international syndicates of 225m in the same nine month period in 2015."

Ms Breheny added that growth and expansion funding was 94pc of total funds raised in the third quarter and that new seed funds are starting to have an impact.
Mel Gibson and Rosalind Ross arrive at the LA Special Screening of Hacksaw Ridge (AP)

Hollywood star Mel Gibson says giving up alcohol has helped him "refocus" his life.

The Oscar-winning actor-director says he has been sober for 10 years since his controversial anti-Semitic rant following a drink-driving arrest in 2006.

At the Los Angeles premiere of his new film, Hacksaw Ridge, Gibson said: " Sobriety helps you refocus everything. Believe me it doesn't do any good to have a snort."

Gibson, 60, has returned to directing for the first time in a decade with Hacksaw Ridge, which has been widely tipped by critics as a potential Oscar contender.

The movie is based on the true story of Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive America's Medal of Honour after saving the lives of 75 men on a Second World War battlefield without carrying a gun.

Sporting a large grey beard for his upcoming film The Professor And The Madman, Gibson said he was left in tears after reading the Hacksaw Ridge script.

"This is such an inspiring story of a guy who really existed," the Braveheart star said.

"I'm on page 54 reading this script and I'm crying all over the pages.

"This really hit me in the heart and I think this is a story worth telling."

British actor Andrew Garfield, who plays the lead role in Hacksaw Ridge, said he also wept as he read the script.

"I read the script and I cried on page five and cried from then on," he said.

"He was a man who is a true inspiration and a man that has the potential to be a true inspiration to other people all over the world if we get this story out."

Video of the Day

Garfield praised Gibson as "an incredible leader" during filming.

"There's no hierachy on set," the former Spider-Man star said. "He treats everyone as an equal and he is treated as an equal therefore."

Vince Vaughn, who also stars in Hacksaw Ridge, heaped praised on Gibson, saying: "I just think he's a tremendous filmmaker. I loved working with him."

:: Hacksaw Ridge is due out in UK cinemas next year.
A scene from the movie adaptation of 'The Fault in our Stars'

The original ending for The Fault in Our Stars was a lot more different than you would expect - but it's still equally tragic.

Everyone's heart broke at the end of best-selling novel The Fault in Our Stars, when Hazel Lancaster reads her best friend and lover Augustus Water's obituary after he loses his battle to cancer.

However, author John Green had a very different idea in mind for the original ending of the novel.

During an interview on the Nerdist podcast, Green revealed an ending that no one was expecting.

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"In the second draft of The Fault In Our Stars, the novel ends shortly after Van Houten ties one of the characters to railroad tracks as an exploration of the trolley problem, which is a really interesting idea to me in philosophy."

If case you're in need of some background information, Van Houten is the author of Hazel's favourite book, The Imperial Affliction. Augustus uses his dying wish to go to Amsterdam with Hazel to meet Van Houten as he knew how much he and the book meant to Hazel.

The trolley problem is an experiment taught in ethics which asks: What would you do if you saw a runaway train travelling toward five people who are tied to the tracks? Option A is to do nothing and allow all five people to die. Option B is to pull a lever that sends the train on to a different track, which only one person is tied to. In that situation, there's only one death, but you're the killer.

Green said his editor wasn't sold on that ending - and we don't blame her.

"She was like, 'I can't tell if this is a joke,'" he said.

"I was like, 'No, this is a really interesting way into the trolley problem.' And she said, 'I don't think this book is about the trolley problem.'"

Another alternate ending that Green wrote saw Hazel and Van Houten dying in a shoot-out with a drug lord to honor Augustus' life, Green told Cleveland's 19 Action News in 2014.

With these three endings on the table, although heartbreaking, the chosen one doesn't seem so bad now, does it?
Michael Buble's son Noah has "90 percent chance of survival" following liver cancer diagnosis.

According to reports in The Mirror, the three-year-old has a "90 percent chance" of surviving the disease, following a four-month course of treatment.

The musician's sister-in-law, Daniela Lopilato (37), told Argentinian magazine Gente that Noah is already undergoing chemotherapy for the illness as she confirmed the toddler is battling liver cancer.

If God wanted it to be discovered that way, its because he wants to save Noah," Daniela told the magazine.

Can't believe my little man is 3 years old today !! Happy birthday Noah /Spider-Man. Feliz cumpleanos ! Your mommy And I love you so much ! #loveofmylife #proud #papa A photo posted by Michael Buble (@michaelbuble) on Aug 27, 2016 at 6:31am PDT

Cancer is a horrible illness but we have faith in Noah being able to overcome this.

We know he will. The time to start a long and very difficult treatment has come but its got to be done.

"They say that children are often strong enough to withstand chemotherapy... and my nephew is a warrior," she added.

Argentinian magazine Clarin report that the family will seek treatment in St Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis Tennessee, where the 41-year-old star and his wife Luisana Lopilato have a home.

4 feet under ... Sleeping in with the boys !! #home #happy #dad A photo posted by Michael Buble (@michaelbuble) on Mar 18, 2016 at 1:11pm PDT

The couple announced Noah's devastating health battle on Friday and in their statement they explained they were suspending any professional commitments for the near future.

"We are devastated about the recent cancer diagnosis of our oldest son Noah who is currently undergoing treatment in the US," the couple's statement read. "We have always been very vocal about the importance of family and the love we have for our children. Luisana and I have put our careers on hold in order to devote all our time and attention to helping Noah get well."

Michael has pulled out of a planned performance at the BBC Music Awards following his son's cancer diagnosis.

"We send Michael and his family our very best wishes," BBC Music director Bob Shennan says.

A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. Now ,more than ever I have no fu*%ing clue what that means. #home #daddy #mine #mine #mine A photo posted by Michael Buble (@michaelbuble) on Feb 1, 2016 at 2:31pm PST

Video of the Day

In addition to the BBC Music Awards, Buble is set to host the Brit Awards in London on February 22 and the Juno Awards on April 2. As of press time, he is still billed to appear at both.
The host of NBC's Late Night emotionally came to terms with the reality of a Donald Trump presidency on Wednesday night's show.

Seth Myers has been one of Donald Trump's most outspoken critics and on Wednesday night's show he didn't hold back his feelings when it came to Trump's shock victory over Hillary Clinton.

One of the things Ive tried to make clear over [the 18 months Ive been talking about Trump] is how Ive been wrong about him at every turn, Meyers told his audience.

When he first came down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced [he wanted to run], I boldly said on this show it was a stunt, and he would never really run. I then said he would never win the GOP nomination, and I certainly didnt think he would be our next president. But the good news is, based on this pattern of me being wrong on every one of my Donald Trump predictions, hes probably going to be a great f**king president! Lets just hope this trajectory holds.

Myers has also been open in his desire to see a female president in the White House. Despite the results of yesterday's upset victory, Myers remains hopeful that a woman will, one day, take that title as he looked to the future.

I do really feel for the parents who had to explain this to their kids this morningespecially parents with daughters because a lot of them, like me, probably thought Hillary would be our first woman president, Meyers said.

But she wont be. But that does mean -that does mean - that someones daughter is out there right now who will one day have that title... The fact is, we dont know who you are, but I imagine this moment today will be a defining one for you. One that will make you work harder, and strive farther, and whoever you are, I hope I live to see your inauguration.

He then became visibly upset as he realised what the American people had lost out on.

And I hope my Mom does, too, he continued. She was really excited yesterday, and... I was really sad for her.
Credit union services are set to be restored to the North County Dublin towns of Rush and Lusk, after a liquidator was appointed to shut down the lender there.

Rush Credit Union was placed into provisional liquidation last week following an application by the Central Bank.

It had around 11,457 members with savings worth 24m.

The High Court was told prosecutions are likely over suspicions of fraud.

Serious deficiencies were found in relation to a number of matters including control of cash, lending practices, and day-to-day running of the credit union.

And there were even questions around how car draws were conducted. Every member entered into the draws  many of whom did not give permission for this  has had money returned to them after a senior staff member won some of the cars.

Now just a week later members of neighbouring Progressive Credit Union have voted to extend its reach into the towns.

And the rule change has been registered by the Central Bank, officially clearing the way for it to do business in the area.

Manager of Progressive Sean Staunton said his credit union had been inundated with requests for membership from members of Rush Credit Union.

He added that Progressive has expressed an interest in buying the loan of the bust credit union, which was understood to have been valued at 10m during the summer. It also aims to buy one of the two offices of the insolvent lender.

We have expressed an interest in purchasing the Rush building as well, but we must wait until the formal appointment as liquidators on November 21 before any decision is made, he said.

Progressive Credit Union has reported a strong financial performance for 2016 with a surplus for the year of 1.7m and total assets now standing at 142m. It has total reserves of 19.6m - well in excess of the minimum regulatory requirement.

Progressive Credit Union has total membership of 45,416 and is comprised of six north Dublin credit unions.

They include the former Balbriggan, Baldoyle-Portmarnock, Donabate, Glasnevin, Howth-Sutton, Skerries and Swords- Rivervalley Credit Unions.
A Medical Counsel inquiry has heard allegations that a consultant gynaecologist failed to proceed to Caesarean section with adequate expedition.

Dr Salah Aziz Ahmed faces allegations of poor professional performance and professional misconduct relating to the care provided to three mothers who gave birth at Cavan General Hospital.

On the first day of inquiry today details were given of the treatment of one women, aged 37, whose baby died 32 hours after birth. The disciplinary hearing is due to last ten days.

Two of the mother's have have not being named while the third is Deirdre Clarke.

Dr Aziz provided care to the first mother, Patient One, at Cavan General Hospital in November 2012. It is alleged that Dr Aziz engaged in prolonged attempts at a vaginal delivery in inappropriate circumstances, and failed to proceed to a Caesarean section with adequate expedition.

The inquiry heard that the baby of Patient One, referred to as Baby One, was born in very poor condition on the night of 22 November 2012, and passed away on 24 November.

After qualifying as a doctor in 1980 in Egypt, Dr Aziz came to Ireland in 1988 and worked in a number of hospitals. He was accepted as a member of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists in Ireland in 1992.

His legal counsel Eileen Barrington, SC, pointed out to the inquiry that Dr Azizs actions were not causative of the death of Baby One.

Patient One, whose pregnancy was considered high risk due to an increased BMI level, was admitted to Cavan General Hospital on 19 November 2012, 11 days past her due date.

She was given prostaglandin gel to help induce labour, and then later increasing levels of Syntocinon, which is used to strengthen and increase contractions.

Nurse midwife Breege Lavin, who provided care to Patient One throughout her labour and the birth of her baby, told the inquiry she began to provide care for Patient One at 8pm on the evening of 22 November, when her shift began.

Patient One continued to have Syntocinon, which is used to help progress labour by increasing contractions, and began active pushing at 9.30pm.

Ms Lavin said that at 10.25pm, birth was still not imminent, and Patient One was exhausted. Protocol dictates that after an hour of pushing, if nothing is happening, a midwife must obtain input from an obstetrician.

Ms Lavin said she was aware of this, and the fact that the obstetrician working in hospital that night was in theatre conducting a caesarean section.

Ms Lavin rang Dr Aziz at 22.30, as he was the consultant on call, and he arrived at the hospital at 22.45. He examined Patient One, and made a first attempt at an instrumental birth, using a vacuum.

Ms Lavin told the inquiry that there was no discussion of any other type of delivery at this time.

The vacuum extraction was unsuccessful.

Dr Aziz performed an episiotomy and then attempted a forceps delivery, which was also unsuccessful.

Ms Lavin told the inquiry a failed instrumental delivery would be a very rare occurrence.

She said Dr Aziz first enquired at 11.10pm about whether a theatre was available, adding that it would be a very rare occurrence to have two caesarean sections taking place at the same time.

Patient One was prepped for theatre, and Dr Aziz began the surgery at 11.32pm, and Patient One was put under general anaesthetic. The babys head was jammed in his mothers pelvis, and so he was born feet first at 11.40pm.

The baby was in very poor condition, with Apgare scores of 1 (on a scale of ten), at one minute and five minutes after birth. He was resuscitated and ventilated, and later transferred to the Rotunda hospital in Dublin.

Baby One remained in very poor condition and tests showed very little, if any, cerebral activity. He passed away 32 hours after his birth.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

There are new developments on the presidential system and the capital punishment topics after talks between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli.





Upon Bahceli's declaration that the MHP would support a bill reinstating the death penalty, the debate has changed direction. The view on reinstating capital punishment has strengthened.





The death penalty was to be brought for Fethullah Gulen and the putschists, and also for Abdullah Ocalan and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists. The MHP has been precise on Ocalan since the beginning. It is known that Bahceli holds Gulen and Ocalan, the coup attempt and PKK terror on the same level.





However, Bahceli warns and asks the government to consider the international dimension of reinstating the capital punishment.





In the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), there are 2 separate evaluations on capital punishment. The 1st one is that July 15 is a process; both Gulen and Ocalan can face the death penalty within the scope of a continuous crime. The 2nd one is that even if the death penalty is reinstated, it cannot be retroactive.





Serious debates are ongoing. In the cabinet meeting headed by Erdogan, this topic was brought up. The cabinet agrees with Erdogan but there are also different evaluations.





The thought was, "Even if the capital punishment is reinstated, Ocalan and Gulen would not be hanged because the penalty is non-retroactive. We would be reinstating the death penalty but we would not be able to execute. Our image would be smashed. NATO will expel us."





Upon this, the president intervened, "How can they expel us from NATO? There is a death penalty in the U.S." Then, it was stated that in the U.S. legal system, the death penalty has always been maintained whereas in EU law which Turkey is a party to, there is no death penalty.





A decision has not been made yet. However, some of the legal experts in the AK Party argue that this could be applied to Ocalan but not to Gulen. Some others argue the opposite. Those who argue that it can be applied to Gulen believe that the July 15 process is going on without interruption. Those who argue that it can be applied to Ocalan are aware that the death penalty cannot be given to him as his case has been closed. Only if in the PKK's new attacks an order given by Ocalan can be traced, could he be retried.





When Ocalan was sentenced to death, the MHP was the coalition partner. In a 7.5-hour meeting presided by then-Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, Bahceli did not break the coalition, putting the vital interests of the country first. Even though he paid the political price, he acted with common sense.





Some AK Party members have this question in their minds. When the death sentence was given to Ocalan, the MHP was the coalition partner. Why is Bahceli, who did not hang Ocalan then, bringing it up now?





My impression on the death penalty is that they will take it slowly. I had the impression that the death penalty topic might be left to cool.





In the presidential system, on the other hand, Erdogan has not given any perspective. Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim will come together and decide on a calendar. This matter should be clarified this week. Instead of a comprehensive amendment, they are focusing on an arrangement that could be processed "as fast as possible."





For a while, the practices of the government and MHP policies have overlapped. This is so in the fight against the PKK, the arrests of HDP deputies, the appointment of caretakers to HDP municipalities, as well as the "Shield of Euphrates" and Mosul operations. In these issues, Erdogan has taken the lead to an extent that would also meet the expectations of the MHP.





Also, Erdogan and Bahceli regard the situation our country is facing as a "survival of the country" issue.





Certain AK Party members are also questioning that while the presidential system is based on a 2-party system, this would harm the MHP. Why should Bahceli consent to this system?





The question is important, but the process is more important.

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Source: Hurriyet Daily News, Abdulkadir Selvi, November 9, 2016
A RAPE victim is seeking control over a 17,000 court award made to her attacker, the High Court heard.

The woman, who was orally raped as she walked home by Darius Savickis, wants orders freezing a 17,225 award made to him pending her own civil action for damages against him.

The award was made by the Court of Appeal last month to Savickis over an assault on him by a prison officer while he was serving his sentence for the rape in Castlerea Prison.

That court increased an 225 (225) award to him by a jury at the High Court.

Savickis (46), a father of two originally from Lithuania, was serving a six-year sentence at the time after he had pleaded guilty in July 2009 to orally raping the then 23-year-old woman walking home from work in Galway on November 28, 2005.

On Thursday (Nov 10), Mr Justice Paul Gilligan was told by Conor Power SC, for the woman , she has initiated an action against Savickis seeking damages for injuries she suffered in the attack.

She also suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder over what happened to her.

Counsel said Savickis had been released from prison after completing his sentence, but his client and her lawyers did not know where he currently is.

Counsel said his client wanted a freezing order put over the award to Savickis until the her civil action has been determined.

If the High Court was to find in the woman' s favour and award her damages, she feared that the sum awarded to Savickis could be dissipated, counsel said.

Correspondence from lawyers representing Savickis state the action will be opposed on grounds including the claim is statue barred.

Mr Justice Gilligan granted the woman's lawyers permission to serve short notice of the proceedings on Savickis. Permission was granted on an ex parte (one party only represented) basis. The matter comes back next week.

Delivering the three judge appeal court's decision increasing the award to Savickis, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan said some of the Castlerea Prison officers who gave evidence in the jury civil action taken by Darius Savickis had regrettably "told lies".

That court found that some months into his sentence he was involved in an incident in which he refused to go out to the exercise yard because he wasn't wearing a socks or jumper.

He held on to a rail and a prison officer put him in a headlock while four or five other officers moved in and prised him from the railings to totally subdue him.

Mr Justice Hogan said it was clear from the CCTV evidence Mr Savickis did not attempt to strike out at the officers, but did no more than cling to the railing.

It was clear, the judge said, as he was being subdued he was struck some three or four times with punches to the chest by a particular officer.
A nine-year-old schoolboy who claimed a one-kilo dumbbell fell on his head in a Dunnes Stores shop has been awarded 11,595 damages in the Circuit Civil Court.

Barrister Tracy Ennis Faherty told the court that Yug Bhansali was only four years old when the incident happened in January 2011 at Dunnes Stores in Blanchardstown, Dublin.

Ms Ennis Faherty said the vinyl dumbbell, which weighed at least a kilo, had fallen off a shelf in the clothing department in the store.

Yug had immediately felt pain to his head and had been very upset.

Ms Ennis Faherty told Circuit Court President Mr Justice Raymond Groarke that Yug had later needed to attend his GP because after complaining of headaches.

A CT scan had not revealed any trauma to Yug's head.

Through his father - Pallav Bhansali, of Hazelhatch Park, Celbridge, Co Kildare, Yug - sued Dunnes Stores for negligence.

He claimed the store had failed in its duty of reasonable care by allowing the dumbbell, "a dangerous item of weight", to fall on his son's head.

Ms Ennis Faherty said the defendant had made a 11,595 settlement offer, which she recommended to the court. She said that liability would be an issue if the case proceeded to a full hearing.

Judge Groake, approving the offer, said he was satisfied that it was a very good one that he could not refuse.
A young woman has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the deaths of a mother and daughter just before Christmas last year.

Geraldine Clancy (58) and her daughter Louise Ann Clancy (22) from Kilworth, Co Cork, drowned when their car ended up in a dyke following a crash near their home in north Cork.

Student Susan Gleeson (21) of Leitrim, Kilworth, appeared before Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday where she pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the deaths of Geraldine and Louise Ann.

The two women were killed in a two-car collision on the Fermoy to Ballyduff road shortly before 11.30am on December 22, 2015.

The incident happened just a kilometre from the Clancy family farm. It is understood the pair were on their way to go Christmas shopping when the crash happened.

Cork farmer Noel Clancy, who lost his wife and daughter in the tragedy, was one of the first people to arrive at the scene.

Tragically, despite emergency services racing to the scene, both Geraldine and Louise Ann were pronounced dead before they could be taken to hospital.

In court yesterday, defence counsel Jim O'Mahony SC applied for an adjournment of the case, saying he was seeking a report from a psychiatrist.

But Judge Sean O Donnabhain denied his request, saying such a move could delay the case by months.

Mr O'Mahony said Gleeson hoped to have the matter finalised as quickly as possible as "the facts of this case are so sad for everybody involved, the circumstances so unfortunate".

Judge O Donnabhain suggested that Mr O'Mahony obtain a report from a GP in relation to Gleeson.

The case was adjourned for sentencing until November 21.

An inquest into the deaths of the mother and daughter heard that they died from acute cardio respiratory failure due to drowning.

The inquest was also told that the two women drowned after their car ploughed into a flooded ditch following a collision with another vehicle.

Louise Ann, who had autism, had defied her condition to study at University College Cork. She had arrived home only days before the tragedy from her Erasmus Scholarship placement at the University of Sussex in the UK to spend Christmas with her family.

Louise Ann was a prolific writer and published numerous blogs on living and working with autism.
A member of the Civil Defence told a jury how a paramedic partially stripped her and sexually assaulted her in the back of an ambulance three years ago.

At Ennis Circuit Court the woman said she blanked out for a few seconds in the ambulance after the man "tried to choke me. I could feel my trachea closing".

The woman said the paramedic had driven the ambulance to a forested area.

She told the court that after parking up he told her he wanted to try out a manoeuvre on her.

She said: "After a while I gave in because he was the person in charge and he was the one in authority and he told me 'you should do what paramedics tell you'."

The woman said that after blanking out after he choked her, she felt very weak and the man placed her on a trolley in the ambulance.

She said the paramedic "unbuttoned my shirt and moved my bra up off my chest".

The woman told the court that the man started to kiss her and put his tongue in her mouth and that he "was full of rage and anger".

Underwear

She added that he tied her hands across each other and placed them over her head.

She said that after coming around she saw that her clothes had been interfered with and that her trousers and underwear had been pulled down.

The man denies that he sexually assaulted the woman on a date unknown between March 17, 2010 and April 14, 2010 and again on a date unknown between May 1, 2010 and May 31, 2010, both at a named location, and again on February 10, 2013 in an ambulance at a townland in County Clare.

Counsel for the State Philip Rahn BL said the man's actions were a great breach of trust.

The woman said that after a first aid class between March 17 and April 14, 2010, when she was a fifth year secondary school student and aged 17, the man told her that she must undergo a medical check to get into the Civil Defence.

She told the jury that at that time she wanted to be a paramedic.

The woman said he brought her into a disabled toilet and put his hand down her underwear and sexually assaulted her.

She said that the man also squeezed her breasts during the same incident.

Mark Nicholas SC, counsel for the man, said his client denied all allegations. The trial continues today.
There are 96 community and comprehensive schools providing education to approximately 60,000 students. The vast majority of these are dual union schools, with some teachers members of the TUI and others members of the ASTI.

One third of community and comprehensive schools (C&C) remained closed last Monday. These may continue to remain closed because ASTI teachers have been directed not to engage in supervision and substitution (S&S).

The implementation of a contingency plan to facilitate the re-opening of schools has been hindered by two factors. Firstly, principals who are members of the ASTI have been directed not to engage in arrangements to employ external supervisors. Secondly, the timeframe to organise a contingency plan was inadequate. Schools that are in a position to engage with contingency planning cannot put supervisors in place until the recruitment and vetting process is completed.

The Department of Education and Skills states that the problem is that ASTI teachers are refusing to do 33 hours of planning time in the year (called Croke Park hours), while the ASTI claim it is because teachers are not being paid for S&S. The non-payment for S&S is a consequence of teachers being directed not to do the 33 hours, which effectively placed the ASTI out of the Lansdowne Road Agreement. But the industrial actions of ASTI teachers go way beyond withdrawing from S&S and 33 hours planning time.

The ASTI has a directive which prevents teachers implementing in full the new Junior Cycle Framework, another which prevents teachers preparing students for oral examinations in the Junior Certificate, and yet another which prevents teachers voluntarily carrying out extra responsibilities.

The rejection of the Junior Cycle Framework is having very serious repercussions. ASTI teachers have been directed not to attend training for the new courses or engage in classroom-based assessments or administer the new Assessment Task.

There are three scenarios playing out in C&C schools. A number are implementing the new Junior Cycle Framework fully. In others, only a proportion of third year teachers are able to engage in the new assessment process. Consequently, there are students in the same year in the same school being assessed differently. In approximately 50pc of our school teachers are unable to engage with the new assessments at all. Where a student does not complete the assessment task, he/she stands to lose a potential 10pc of his/her overall English mark in the final State examination.

The directive not to cooperate with the preparation/operation of oral examinations at Junior Cycle has caused very high levels of anxiety for students and schools that have had the oral component as an integral part of Junior Cycle for a number of years. Students fear that they are being disadvantaged.

Following ASTI's withdrawal from the Croke Park hours, schools have lost the ability to hold staff meetings, planning meetings and some parent-teacher meetings. The absence of such meetings is having a detrimental effect.

The moratorium on recruitment to posts of responsibility left many schools without personnel to fulfil essential roles. Many non-post holders undertook roles, such as year head and operation of book rental schemes in a voluntary capacity. The ASTI directive instructing withdrawal from voluntary work, previously fulfilled as a post of responsibility, has had a detrimental effect on schools.

While the strike days and the potential impact of the withdrawal of S&S are very much in the public domain at the moment, it is important to realise that schools are facing challenges on many different fronts. There needs to be a resolution of all of these issues to allow schools to return to business.

Eileen Salmon is general secretary of the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools (ACCS)
The CAO 2017 season has opened and, with it, a window to the dreams and desires of about 60,000 sixth year students.

Finding the right course, getting through the Leaving Cert itself, meeting course entry requirements and, then, hoping to be well positioned in the points races, are challenges ahead for all students. Students with a disability have an additional hurdle.

Some big changes this year will ease the path, through both the Leaving Cert and the college application process, for candidates with a specific learning difficulty (SLD) - dyslexia or dyscalculia - or a developmental coordination disorder (DCD) dyspraxia or dysgraphia.

One is the reform to the scheme known as RACE (Reasonable Accommodation at the Certificate Examinations) through which students with a disability can get a support in the State exams to ensure that their condition does not act as a barrier to their demonstrating their academic ability.

As detailed on this page two weeks ago, the RACE reforms focus very much on assisting students with difficulties such as dyslexia, dyspraxia and dysgraphia, which is expected to see about 1,000 more Leaving Cert candidates receiving exam supports every year.

Under a separate initiative, students with these difficulties or disorders, as well as dyscalculia, are set to benefit from changes relating directly to the college entry process, under the scheme known as DARE (Disability Access Route to Education).

DARE is an alternative entry route to college, which allows students with a disability to compete for reserved places that are offered on lower points than the standard CAO cut-off.

This is a recognition that, over the course of schooling, the disability may have been an obstacle to them achieving their potential in the Leaving Cert.

Some 17 higher education colleges participate in DARE, including the seven universities, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT).

Eligibility for DARE does not guarantee entry on lower points but it can act as insurance for students with a disability who, in August, fall short of the standard-off points for a preferred course. They then have the back-up of this more limited competition, with other DARE applicants, for a reserved place. The number of reserved places can vary from college to college and course to course.

Although the changes happening in RACE and DARE are unrelated, both separately, and together, they will improve significantly the landscape for the significant cohort of Leaving Cert students and CAO applicants with conditions such as dyslexia.

There was an initial round of DARE changes last year, including the introduction of a new-style Educational Impact Statement (EIS), allowing a student, and the school, to set out whether a diagnosed condition has had a detrimental effect on their education.

For example, some students with diabetes Type 1 will experience significant educational impact as a result of their condition, but others with the same condition may not experience any educational-related challenges. The new DARE criteria make it easier for students and their parents to know whether they are likely to be eligible based on their disability and the educational impact it has had on them.

Also, for the first time this year, a GP, rather than a consultant, could verify a student's diagnosed condition, such as a mental health issue or a blood disorder. It means that the student does not have to return to the consultant or specialist to get the necessary evidence of disability documentation, which saves a lot of trouble and money.

Those changes are credited with bringing about an average 21pc increase in eligible applications for DARE this year, up from 2,550 in 2015. The effect of the more relaxed rules was particularly marked for students with mental health issues and for students with a significant ongoing illness, such as cystic fibrosis and chronic fatigue.

Kieran Houlihan of the DARE HEAR Shared Services Unit at the Irish Universities Association (IUA) said the increase in eligible DARE applicants this year was a "positive indicator that the changes to the scheme have helped open it up to a new cohort of young people from low income backgrounds who previously were not applying".

HEAR stands for Higher Education Access Route, which supports students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds in accessing higher education. Mr Houlihan said this year marked a special milestone for DARE and HEAR, with 20,000 students having been admitted to higher education under the schemes since 2009.

The roll out of the final set of changes to DARE this year is expected to bring more positive outcomes and benefit the single biggest group of applicants - those with an SLD, such as dyslexia. This group accounted for over 900 eligible applicants in 2016, a number that is now expected to increase very significantly.

The major DARE change for 2017 is the abolition of the requirement for students with an SLD or DCD, to produce an up-to-date professional assessment, such as from an educational psychologist.

While many such students would have had a professional assessment, provided at no cost in their primary school days, up to now, DARE rules required them to produce one that was no more than three-years-old.

Such reports cost about 600-700, which acted as a deterrent to families who could not afford to pay, giving an edge to the better-off. A review showed that 21pc of DARE places in 2014 went to students from 15 fee-paying schools, which represent less than 2pc of all post-primary schools.

Participating colleges now also prioritise applicants who are eligible for both DARE and HEAR, when allocating reduced points places.

The changes to RACE and DARE aim to make life easier for, broadly, the same cohort of students, but there are differences in their purpose - one deals with exam supports and the other college entry - and their eligibility criteria.

So, while a Leaving Cert candidate with, for instance, dyslexia, will find it easer to get an exam support this year, meeting the eligibility for RACE will not necessarily make a student eligible for DARE.

An example of a difference between the eligibility criteria for the two schemes is that DARE will require lower scores on literacy attainment tests conducted in schools than is acceptable for RACE.

'There are so many possibilities in what children can achieve if they keep questioning and learning'

Children are born learners, with a natural curiosity to figure out how the world works. Ahead of Science Week next week, students of all ages are being encouraged to delve into science.

Alexandra Boyd, project manager at UCD Research, says that science is all around us, and children should ask questions and explore their interests both in and outside of the classroom.

"When children are immersed in a subject outside of school a different kind of learning occurs that resonates with them. It could be trying experiments for themselves and discovering something new," she says.

"Even a walk on a beach can be a world of discovery, when the child examines the rocks, sand, shells and maybe questions why there is rubbish coming from the sea and asks about pollution.

"We should never stop asking questions and learning and if we don't know the answer to give the child, there is a golden opportunity to share in the experience of discovering the answer."

Ms Boyd was involved in creating the 'Science Apprentice' book series, published by UCD and supported by Science Foundation Ireland.

Each instalment focuses on a different topic, with the first two concentrating on space and energy and resources, and the remaining three set to cover food and health, computers and data, and a connected future.

As well as complementing the primary school science curriculum, the series features Irish researchers explaining how they developed a passion for science and technology as young children.

"The purpose of the books is to challenge the idea that science is something that other people do in colleges or universities. Through the books we hope that children see that there are so many possibilities in what they can achieve if they keep questioning and learning," she says.

The 'Science Apprentice' books are free to collect with the Irish Independent in Tesco stores every Saturday until November 26
A large number of colleges will hold open days between now and mid-December. Open days are an invaluable opportunity for applicants to get answers to some of their more specific questions and to learn about the culture and atmosphere of a particular institution: applicants can meet students who are already enrolled in the course, as well as lecturers and tutors, and can experience life on campus in a way that goes far beyond the pages of a prospectus.

However, open days are busy events. The size of the campus and the number of people who will be in attendance can be overwhelming. Navigating a large campus and trying to find the correct person to answer your question can also be a challenge, which may result in some students leaving open days knowing little more than they did when they arrived.

Research

Research is a golden rule for completing your CAO form and, equally, applies to attending open days. It may seem obvious, but many students do not do enough research before attending. They may have seen one course in an institution in which they are interested and have only read up on this before deciding to attend. There is nothing wrong with that but, once they have committed to attending, they should make the most of it.

Students should familiarise themselves with a range of courses in that institution (at the very least, carefully reading about the courses within the same department as the course in which they are interested). Next, they should make a list of all the courses in which they are interested, aiming to find as many 'maybe' courses as possible rather than just focusing on their first choice. Students should then jot down a list of questions they would like answered, or things they would like to find out about. This will help them to keep focused and to give purpose to the day.

Plan

It is also important to plan the day, starting with taking a good look at the college's website. They will often have a map of the campus, list of talks, and other events available. It is a good idea to print these and bring them along on the day. Students should take note of the time and locations of the different events they would like to attend, and plan their day accordingly. They should ensure there is ample time to get all tasks done: for example, time to walk across campus from one talk to another, or in case there are long queues to speak to a particular person.

Allocating time for lunch, to soak up the atmosphere and to attend non-academic events is also important. Students may find that two courses in different colleges are very similar and it is the non-academic aspects of the college that ultimately influences their final decision.

Travel

Students should consider taking public transport, especially if this is how they plan to travel to college. Most institutions have very limited parking but knowing how long the journey may take is an important part of the getting to college puzzle. For young people who travel no further than their local school each morning, the distance to some colleges can seem overwhelming. But, students are often surprised that the journey is not onerous, especially if well planned.

There is a worksheet available on Qualifax.ie that can help with preparation for open days.

Pick the right day

Many institutions hold their open day on Fridays and Saturdays. The decision on which day to attend may be dictated by personal circumstances or distance involved. However, when possible, students should avoid missing school to attend.

Aoife Walsh is a guidance counsellor at Malahide Community School, Co Dublin

Important dates

Today

Portfolio information session - NCAD 6pm-9pm Free event which requires registration Everbright.ie

Tomorrow

NUI Galway information session - Old Ground Hotel, Ennis, Co Clare

November 11

Open day (2 days) - Dundalk Institute of Technology

Open day (2 days) - Tallaght Institute of Technology

Open day - Tralee Institute of Technology

November 15

Open Evening - Shannon College of Hotel Management

Open Night Chemistry - University College Dublin

November 16

Careers Fair - Institute of Guidance Counsellors Kerry, Malton Hotel Killarney

Q. How do I begin my CAO application?

A. It is very simple to open your CAO application, and you are not required to enter any course just yet. To begin, you will need to go to the CAO website and have a credit or debit card. If you do not have access to a credit or debit card, you can request a bank giro, which will allow you to pay the registration fee with cash in any bank. Your guidance counsellor can help you with this.
The family of a young woman who went missing 21 years ago want to know where her body is so their "torture" can end.

Kilkenny woman Jo Jo Dollard was only 21 when she disappeared on November 9, 1995 - now she has been missing for 21 years.

The single woman was making her way from Dublin to her home in Callan in the north of the county.

She had missed a bus home but she managed to thumb several lifts before being dropped in the village of Moone in Co Kildare, where she was last seen alive.

She made a call from a phonebox in the village that night, but she never arrived home.

Her sister Kathleen Bergin has campaigned continuously for information on Jo Jo since her disappearance.

Kathleen and her family were driving forces behind Operation Trace, set up by former Garda commissioner Pat Byrne in 1998 to investigate the cases of six young women who disappeared from the Leinster area over a five-year period.

"In the early years we never thought it would go on this long ... It has had a devastating effect on our family. It's torture," she said.

"We try our best to keep this campaign alive. We know in our hearts that someone has information. This just hurts so much and is so difficult that someone knows more than we do.

"It's just to know where she is and that she is not out there all alone. It's time she was brought back to us - her family."
Health Minister Simon Harris and MLA Michelle ONeill launch a new North-South Concerned about Suicide leaflet at a joint ministerial meeting in Armagh yesterday. Photo by Aaron McCracken/Harrisons

The HSE has had to withdraw an internal memo which described patients as "trespassers" and said nurses could use "minimum force" to remove them to free up beds.

The starkly-worded memo referred to legal powers open to staff in relation to patients who are deemed delayed discharges, most of whom are elderly, who longer need hospital care and can leave once supports are arranged.

The controversial memo, described as a briefing note, outlined the legal powers of hospitals to remove these patients who are either unable or unwilling to leave.

It said the right of the patients to be in the hospital was "merely a licence and once that has been abused, the nurse is also legally entitled to remove the person as a trespasser , using minimum force to do so."

A nurse would be entitled to place the patient in a discharge lounge.

The HSE's National Director of Acute Hospitals, Liam Woods, apologised for the memo and ordered that it be rescinded.

A spokesman for the HSE said yesterday that it is "not HSE policy to remove any patient, clinically discharged or otherwise, from a hospital bed.

"The information in the memo referred to reflects the current legal position and was shared by way of information with hospital managers following a request by a third party for clarification on this matter. It has been rescinded."

The HSE has declined to say who wrote the memo.

There were 538 patients, classed as delayed discharges in hospitals across the country yesterday.

Health Minister Simon Harris, who learned of the memo on October 27, said it is "utterly offensive and unacceptable'. He asked for its immediate withdrawal while his officials are "engaging" with the HSE.

Meanwhile, figures obtained by Fianna Fail Dublin West TD Jack Chambers reveal the extent to which under-pressure hospitals have lost nurses in the last decade. The drop has ranged from 1pc to 42.7pc.

It comes as the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) ballots for industrial action on understaffing.

Deputy Chambers warned: "It's very concerning to see so many of our busiest hospitals have lost nurses in recent years despite promises by the Government to deliver a properly functioning healthcare system. It's a further illustration and stark example of the Government's failure to retain and recruit frontline staff.

"Nurses working on the frontline are overstretched and an intensification of recruitment must occur without any delay. Despite all the announcements, the Government has neglected this area," he added.
Ronan Gaynor (4) who suffers from DIPG, a terminal brain tumour. His parents are campaigning for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis.

The father of a terminally ill boy has urged Health Minister Simon Harris to speed up a review of the use of medicinal cannabis.

Ronan Gaynor (4) has a rare type of brain tumour and his father Mark says medicinal cannabis could ease his symptoms and the serious pain he suffers.

He was speaking as Dublin AAA-PBP TD Gino Kenny launched his Bill seeking the regulation of cannabis for medicinal use.

Mr Harris has begun a review of the policy on medicinal cannabis that will be conducted with "best clinical advice and expertise", but it's not due to be completed until early next year.

Ronan has Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) and after a course of radiotherapy has been taking Cannabidiol (CBD) - which can be bought legally in Ireland but is not licensed for prescription.

Mr Gaynor, from Galway, and other parents are campaigning for another element of cannabis, THC, to be legalised as well to help treat their children's conditions.

"We'd hope that the minister would expedite things," Mr Gaynor said. "Ronan needs the THC element of this now."

His call was echoed by Vera Twomey whose daughter Ava Barry (6) suffers from Dravet Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy.

She said that Ava suffered as many as 23 seizures in a 36-hour period before she began treatment with CBD. She had just seven such attacks last month.

Read more: 'My daughter is extremely ill' - Mother's 300km walk to plead for life-saving cannabis oil

Ms Twomey met Mr Harris yesterday and she said he told her that January is the earliest the review of Ireland's policy on medicinal cannabis can be completed. The review is the first of its kind to take place into the complex issue in Ireland and is expected to take 12 weeks.

John O'Meara from Clondalkin raised the case of his granddaughter Erika Cawley (6) who also has Dravet Syndrome and has tried 23 different forms of conventional treatment.
Gathering signatures against Nebraska's death penalty repeal

Voters in California and Nebraska on Tuesday rejected efforts to abolish the death penalty in their states. The two statesone deep red and the other deep bluewere seen as significant bellwethers for longtime opponents of capital punishment who had hoped for a different result.





In California, the ballot proposition to repeal the death penalty fell short with about 46 percent of the vote as of Wednesday morning. At the same time, voters narrowly passed a second proposition to speed up the process of executing death row inmates. In Nebraska, voters overwhelmingly chose to keep the death penalty by a margin of 66 percent to 34 percent





Heading into Tuesday, polls in California showed voters closely divided on the issue; Nebraska's scant polling showed the pro-death penalty side leading. But overall in the country, support for capital punishment and executions have both waned. In September, a Pew poll found support for the death penalty nationwide had fallen below 50 percent for the first time in nearly 50 years. Some states have been unable to carry out executions due to a shortage of the requisite drugs, including Nebraska, which has not executed anyone since 1997. California has not executed anyone since 2006, also out of concern for its drug protocols





The results send a signal that voters in both red and blue America are reluctant to part with the death penalty, even as the number of executions around the country has declined in recent years. In Oklahoma, a state that carried out a notoriously botched and brutal execution nearly two years ago because it used the wrong drug, voters passed a ballot initiative to protect the constitutionality of the death penalty, by a margin of 66 percent to 34 percent





Still, the ballot initiatives in California and Nebraska were a bold effort to push the issue forward, with a deep-blue state questioning the morality of a system that has taken innocent lives and a deep-red state beginning to see the death penalty as a flawed and wasteful government program. "California and Nebraska are such different states that we're seeing the death penalty being fought on multiple fronts," said James Clark, an anti-death penalty advocate at Amnesty International, on the eve of the election. "We're seeing diehard progressives who believe in human rights, who believe this is a violation of human rights, are really on the forefront in states like California. And then also conservatives are on the forefront in both states, saying this is a failed government policy, this is government overreach, it costs so much money."





The conservative argument played a big role in the death penalty debate in Nebraska. The state's conservative legislature voted in 2015, over the governor's veto, to repeal the death penalty. But the issue was forced to a referendum when the governor, Republican Pete Ricketts, spent $300,000 of his own money to try to reinstate it





Opponents of the death penalty in states across the country, both red and blue, were looking to the outcomes on Tuesday to decide whether to try to repeal the death penalty in their own states. Other countries were watching, too. The United States is the only Western democracy with a death penalty; more than half of the world's countries have abolished it, and many more countries have stopped using it. "There's a lot of momentum building around the world to abolish the death penalty, and those countries that continue to use if often point to the United States as the justification for using it," Clark said.





Even with Tuesday's defeats, death penalty opponents still believe the momentum is on their sideif for no other reason than the shortage of execution drugs. Clark said the ballot initiatives were "bold risks that could cause setbacks, but I don't think they will change the overall trend of the death penalty in the United States. I don't think we're in jeopardy of that."





Source: Mother Jones , Pema Levy, November 9, 2016





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Quads Alexander, Ashley, Maxwell and Kayla Downey; triplets Daire, Liam and Aisling Cussen; twins Ashton and Leo Mulcahy; and singleton Maggie Roche at the Limerick Neonatal Unit in University Maternity Hospital, Limerick.

These 10 bundles of joy, who are snoozing snugly, are making history in the neonatal unit of the hospital where they were born.

For the first time ever, University Hospital Limerick welcomed a set of quads, triplets, twins, and a single baby in the space of a few days.

The quads are Alexander, Ashley, Maxwell and Kayla. They are the first-born children of Fenton and her partner Wayne Downey from Caherconlish, Co Limerick. They were delivered in early October and are thriving.

Quads

Also wrapped up in cosy blankets are triplets Daire, Liam and Aisling Cussen, who arrived on October 27 to parents Olive and William. They will shortly return home to Raheen in Limerick.

Twins Ashton and Leo Mulcahy were born on October 13 to mum Lydia O'Doherty and dad Calum Mulcahy from Annacotty.

The singleton in the angelic group is Maggie Roche of Charleville, Cork, who was born to Mairead and Kieran on October 26.

Neonatologist Dr Roy Philip said it is the first time the unit has looked after quads, triplets, twins and singletons at the same time.

"It is a special occasion for all of the team working here and it is a time of great joy for us as well as their parents," he said.
The Giants Grove of redwood trees will be planted in the grounds of Birr Castle

A family looks at the base of a Giant Sequoia tree that lies toppled in the Sequoia National Park in Central California on October 10, 2009. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON

Ireland is getting an incredible new landmark  and you could have your name on it.

Birr Castle have announced ambitious new plans to create the largest forest of giant redwood trees outside of California, and they plan to do it through public participation.

The Giants Grove of redwood trees will be planted in the grounds of Birr Castle - and individuals in Ireland or abroad can buy space in the grove and sponsor it in their name. Birr Castle have also stated that trees can be named for deceased loved ones.

The Earl of Rosse, who lives at Birr Castle, and Crann  Trees for Ireland have teamed up as part of Lord Rosses 80th birthday celebrations to bring the spectacular trees to Ireland.

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Lord Rosse said: These will be the biggest trees in Ireland and the largest collection outside of California, fittingly here in Birr in a place which has the biggest treehouse in Ireland and also had the largest telescope in the world for over 70 years.

By investing in this project with us, the sponsors will have the opportunity to make a personal impact on Irelands environment and world biodiversity conservation.

"Even if your family has long left Ireland, by investing in the Giants Grove you can ensure their family roots remain in Ireland for generations to come.

Sponsorship fees start at 500 and will pay for the planting and maintenance of the trees.

Expand Close A family looks at the base of a Giant Sequoia tree that lies toppled in the Sequoia National Park in Central California on October 10, 2009. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON / Facebook

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Whatsapp A family looks at the base of a Giant Sequoia tree that lies toppled in the Sequoia National Park in Central California on October 10, 2009. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON

Birr Castle says the grove will last for the next 1,000 years.

Clare Clark, project manager for Crann  Trees for Ireland said: Irish people all over the world have roots in Ireland but, due to life choices and circumstance, they cannot or do not live here.

By sponsoring redwoods in Giants Grove, our diaspora and their families in Ireland can plant redwood roots in Birr which will grow, thrive and sustain our environment, and enrich all our lives.

To sponsor a tree, check out the Giants Grove website here.
Major industrial unrest is on the cards in the New Year after SIPTU today announced plans to ballot for strike action.

The country's largest trade union said it will ballot 60,000 public sector workers for potential industrial action unless the Government opens talks in the New Year on a new pay deal.

The union threatened the Government that it has just one week to announce details the talks, which it says must begin no later than February 1.

Speaking at a conference at Liberty Hall, SIPTU President Jack O'Connor said his organisation rejects the assertion that money is not available for further pay restoration in the public sector.

"The fact of the matter is that the Government made choices in the budget. For example, it decided to continue to gift business in the hotel and hospitality sector with special VAT concessions costing more than 600m per annum at the tax-payers expense. They chose to do so despite the fact that the industry has fully recovered," Mr O'Connor said.

In a significant move that will cause deep concern within Government, Mr O'Connor said plans for the talks must be detailed by next Thursday.

And he said the talks themselves should begin no later than February 1.

Moreover, if they do not do so before this day week, our National Executive Council will authorise any negotiating group of members, who are covered by the Lansdowne Road Agreement, and who wish to do so, to commence balloting for industrial action and/or strike action in pursuit of their demands," Mr O'Connor said.

This is not the way we want things to proceed. There is absolutely no doubt that a national agreement is best for all Public Service workers. Everyone has far more leverage in negotiations for an agreement that would cover all of the 300,000 workers involved, than trying to do it one group at a time, in isolation. That is why we strongly believe that the negotiations should be conducted by the Public Services Committee of Congress on which all the unions affected, are represented. It is also actually better for the people of Ireland, who they serve, because of the stability and coherence it provides. "
The Government has announced details of key sites in Dublin, Cork and other urban areas which will deliver 30,000 new homes over the next four years.

A dedicated Housing Delivery Office, based in the Department of Housing, will also be in place to help speed up planning and deliver badly-needed new houses and apartments.

The initiative is part of the Rebuilding Ireland housing plan, which aims to deliver 25,000 new homes every year for the private market, and 47,000 social units.

Speaking this morning, Mr Coveney said the initiatives were part of a drive to increase output. Last year, just under 13,000 new homes were completed, around half the level needed to meet demand.

Today we are setting out how, with housing providers, we intend to kick-start badly needed additional supply, he said.

A key element is the identification of Major Urban Housing Development Sites with the potential to deliver up to 30,000 additional homes, in great locations on existing zoned lands and close to the key areas of demand over the next 3-4 years with even more potential for another 30,000 homes on those lands or a total of 60,000 homes in the long term.

The initiatives being announced today are part of a drive to upscale the pace of delivery in the places that people need homes most.
Ireland must practice what we preach if we want US President Trump to help the 50,000 undocumented Irish migrants in the USA, the Dail has been told.

Labour leader Brendan Howlin said there are up to 26,000 undocumented migrants in Ireland  up to 6,000 of these are children living in the shadows.

Mr Howlin noted the priority given by the Taoiseach to lobbying for the case of Irish immigrants in the USA in his first response to Mr Trumps election on Wednesday.

But he warned that President-elect Trumps policy was diametrically opposed to the Irish Governments aims and he believed immigrants could not get legal status by breaking the US law.

He has promised to deport illegal immigrants in the first 100 days  and the clock is ticking, Mr Howlin said.

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Mr Howlin said the Migrant Council of Ireland had estimated that there are between 20,000 and 26,000 undocumented immigrants in Ireland and between 2,000 and 6,000 of these are children.

Is there not an absolute imperative for us to practice what we preach and address the situation of those within our own State who are undocumented? the Labour leader asked the Dail.

Replying for the Government, Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald, said the Government remains determined to help find a remedy for undocumented Irish immigrants in the US. The Taoiseach had already spoken with President Trump and he was stressing the Irish undocumented peoples plight.

Ms Fitzgerald added that she was working with the Migrant Council of Ireland and hoped people could regularise their position.
Rental prices in Ireland have soared to an all-time high according to a report by property website Daft.ie. The average rent is now 1,077 - an increase of 11.7pc compared to this time last year.

We all know the impact of the housing crisis: renters across the country are paying over the odds for substandard accommodation.

Meanwhile, they are minding every penny and living in fear of the moment that their landlord decides to enforce yet another rent increase.

According to Ronan Lyons, economist and author of the report, inflated rents are having a "disastrous effect on social cohesion". In other words, renters are compromised; financially and geographically; interpersonally and emotionally.

The trickle-down effect of the rental crisis is that people are trapped in living situations that they would prefer to leave behind. During the recession, we heard of the many separated couples who were still living under the same roof in order to meet their mortgage repayments.

This phenomenon hasn't gone away. In fact, it could be argued that it's more prevalent than ever in a rental market that has bypassed the Celtic Tiger peak.

These days, only the well-paid or the imprudent can afford to live alone, hence couples are forced to think of themselves as cohabitants first, romantic partners second.

Take a 36-year-old woman who splits a monthly rent of 1,600 with her long-term partner for a two-bedroom apartment in Dublin. What happens when she starts to have doubts about their relationship? There's the emotional strain of the break-up to contemplate, but there's also the small matter of alternative accommodation to consider.

She can't afford to live alone unless she opts for a 'studio' - a living space where the bed headboard is a cooker and the only decorative piece is a fire blanket (and even then it's out of her budget).

She can't move in with her friends because they've all moved on with their lives. Likewise, she doesn't want to move in with strangers because she thought she left the era of housemates and passive-aggressive Post-it notes behind when she turned 30.

This leaves her with two options: go home to her parents', where she can consider her life a complete failure from the comfort of her teenage bedroom, or stay in a relationship that she no longer finds fulfilling, but which comes with all mod-cons.

While some renters are trapped in moribund relationships, others are jumping head-first into relationships that they'll later regret: Tall, non-smoker, GSOH, able to pay half the rent...

The older you get, the greater a predicament it becomes. I've heard of 'predatory' divorced men in their 50s and 60s seeking out affluent widows in the same age bracket so that they can get out of their bedsits and into the relative luxury of an empty nest.

The rental crisis has put people under insurmountable pressure, but some of us are feeling it more than others.

Pyramid sales

We need to talk about the new Toblerone bar. In case you haven't heard the news, the makers of the duty-free tradition have widened the gaps between the peaks to reduce the weight of the bar and keep the price the same.

The bar, once a row of chunky pyramids, now looks more like a strip of traffic spikes.

Mondelez International, the company that makes Toblerone, denied that the decision had anything to do with Brexit.

We've been here before. Mondelez, which also owns Cadbury, stopped using Dairy Milk chocolate for the shell of the Creme Egg in 2015. They insisted that they tested the new version, made with a standard cocoa mix chocolate, with consumers.

The new Creme Egg didn't pass the taste test when it hit the shelves, however, and the company lost more than 6m in sales after changing the recipe.

Also last year, the company drew the ire of customers when they added sultanas to the Fruit & Nut bar recipe.

There is a belief that brands have to keep evolving in order to stay relevant with consumers, but surely heritage brands and classic recipes are exempt from this rule?

Did a focus group really decide that the Toffee Deluxe should be removed from the Quality Street box? Similarly, did a Burger King think-tank really initiate the changeover to those awful thick-cut fries?

If it's not broken, don't fix it.
Peace talks are underway in the dispute that closed hundreds of second-level schools for three days.

Normal school business resumed yesterday, after both sides accepted an invitation from the Teachers' Conciliation Council, the equivalent of the Workplace Relations Commission for teachers.

The Association of Secondary Teachers' Ireland (ASTI) called off two forms of industrial action to allow for the discussions, which are expected to continue for the rest of this month.

After an initial meeting yesterday, the talks, involving ASTI leaders and senior officials in the Department of Education, resume today.

A withdrawal from supervision and substitution duties by ASTI members was causing mayhem in the education system, and even within the union itself, with some members getting paid while not doing this work while others were off the payroll if their school had been forced to shut.

ASTI leaders sent out signals early this week that they were open to a third-party intervention, which can only happen if industrial action is called off.

There is a lot to settle in the next three weeks. The recent turmoil centred on the refusal of ASTI members to work the so-called 33 Croke Park hours - and their withdrawal from supervision and substitution work in protest at not getting paid for it because they weren't doing the Croke Park hours.

But there are other ASTI directives quietly crippling school life that the Department of Education and school managers want sorted now. Not least is the union's refusal to co-operate with Junior Cycle reform, which has left some exam year students unable to do the new English assessments.
Brendan Keenan: 'Better laws and foreign money needed to overcome worrying homes shortage'

There is a district in Belfast known as the Holy Land. Not because of its religiosity, but because the streets - Jerusalem Street, Damascus Street and so on - are called after places in that region. Once, there were others; Little Crimea, India, and so on. Seemingly, houses were built so quickly for the city's huge expansion in the 19th century that it was too much trouble to think up original names. They eventually gave up altogether, so far as names were concerned. The Shankill area got First Street, Second Street etc, all the way up to Tenth.
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Colette Browne Opinion Every effort must be made to retrieve oral histories of mother and baby home survivors

With three days to go until the Mother and Baby Homes Commission ceases to exist as a legal entity, we are being told that audio recordings of hundreds of witnesses which were deleted may not actually be gone forever. It is another usual twist in a most emotional saga. For decades, survivors of mother and baby homes have been denied a voice and denied autonomy. When they fell pregnant, many through rape and abuse, they were marched to the doors of religious institutions.
Hillary is even ahead in many Red states because Trump is such a bad candidate. Predictions of an electoral landslide are starting to appear. I got to tell you, you tin foil hat wearing fools would be the type of people who, when observing a tsunami heading to shore, would stop to weed your gardens before fleeing to higher ground. BLAH HA HA HA HA HA
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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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Mary Kenny Opinion If men want to yammer on about sport, then let them  it helps them connect emotionally

I was travelling on a train from Dublin to Cork, and near me sat two Dublin men. Throughout the entire journey they managed to keep up a fluent dialogue about English football teams. From Aston Villa to Sheffield Wednesday, from Crystal Palace to Manchester City the conversation flowed eloquently. I was in awe at the minutiae of their knowledge and expertise. And if the topic of their discourse lacked a certain variety, it was nonetheless better than sitting in sullen silence, or glued to their phones.
The signing of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union on October 30 was an historic moment for many reasons. Despite reservations or scepticism expressed by some quarters, CETA is good for Canada, good for Europe and particularly good for Ireland.

We in Europe have a relationship with Canada going back several centuries. Ireland's engagement with Canada traces its origins back to the 17th Century, when fishing vessels, especially from the south-east of Ireland, fished for cod off the Newfoundland coast.

Indeed, Newfoundland is unique in being the only place in the New World with a distinctive name in Irish: Talamh an Eisc, or "the Fishing Ground". During the recent economic crisis, 14,000 Irish citizens moved to Canada each year, to begin new lives, as so many had done before them. Today more than 4,500,000 Canadians claim Irish descent. As with Ireland, Europe's relationship with Canada is based on this kinship.

The formal relationship between the EU and Canada dates back to 1976, the EU's oldest formal relationship with any industrialised country. CETA will reinforce the long standing, strategic EU-Canada relationship which is firmly anchored by our shared history and a deep commitment to common values, especially democracy and the promotion of human rights.

The scale of the EU-Canada relationship is remarkable and has enormous potential to grow and develop in the years ahead: that is the vision which CETA will turn into a reality.

This will bring real economic benefits to both Canadians and Europeans. It is worth outlining in some detail the size of our trade with Canada.

Canada is a G7 economy with a GDP of over 1.3 trillion, with annual trade with Ireland already in excess of 2.75bn. Canada is the EU's 12th most important trading partner, while the EU ranks as Canada's second most important partner, and accounts for almost 10pc of its external trade. In 2015, EU-Canada trade in goods was valued at 63.479bn, representing a 6.9pc increase on 2014. The EU is the second largest foreign investor in Canada, while Canada is the fourth largest foreign investor in the EU. The agreement is good for both two-way trade and investment.

The CETA is a new generation agreement that will remove over 98pc of tariffs between the EU and Canada and will create sizeable new market access opportunities and benefits for Ireland in services and investment. It will save EU exporters around 500m a year. The agreement covers virtually every aspect of economic activity, with protection for labour standards and the environment. The CETA opens up public procurement markets in the Canadian provinces, giving Irish firms increased access to Canadian public sector purchasing. Overall, CETA is expected to increase EU output by about 12bn a year.

As an EU Member State, Ireland also gains unlimited tariff-free access for most of our important food exports. As a major producer of high-quality food, Ireland will benefit from being able to sell more to a high-income market. Irish firms will also benefit from the recognition of product standards and certification. With a long history of cultural, economic and political ties, Ireland's enterprises are particularly well placed to take up opportunities to trade more easily with Canada.

The opportunities presented by the CETA will be especially valuable for small and medium Enterprises, given that trade barriers tend to disproportionately burden smaller firms, which have fewer resources to overcome them than larger firms.

This Agreement has the potential to add over 250m to Ireland's trade with Canada. Given increased air links, a vibrant Irish community, the new EU-Canada trade agreement and the strength of Canadian economy, considerable potential exists for further growing economic links with Ireland. Access to and from Canada has increased significantly over the last few years, with a number of new routes being added. Air Canada Rouge began flights between Dublin and Vancouver in June 2016; the first direct flights between Ireland and Canada's west coast. And 2015 was the most successful year for Canadian tourist traffic to Ireland, with an estimated 190,700 Canadians visiting, an increase of 19.5pc.

This agreement allows the unique EU-Canada relationship to continue to develop and thrive, while bringing real economic benefits to our citizens in an extraordinary array of areas. It is an agreement which further cements the exceptional links between Ireland and Canada. This agreement is good for the EU, good for Canada and, in the context of a post-Brexit environment, good for Ireland.

Charlie Flanagan is the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade
The most bitter thing for Democrats - especially the Clintons - to swallow, apart from the bilious taste of a Donald Trump victory, is that it is still the economy, stupid!

To Mr Trump, securing the 45th presidency of the United States was inevitable. To much of the rest of the world, it was inconceivable. He'd never been in the military, run for office or held any political role. Therefore, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue ought to have been the one address beyond even a real estate billionaire's budget.

But such thinking failed to give due regard to just how sharp, ruthless and street-wise Trump's route to the White House truly was. The bombastic mantras that boomed over the campaign and echoed along the Rust Belt were far more rooted in political reality than those whom dismissed him as a fantasist allowed.

Had the Capitol Hill commentariat looked beyond the super-sized, pumped-up personality, they might have spotted a standing army of disillusioned, fed-up voters who felt written out of the script.

Amid all the contradictions, inconsistencies and distortions, there was nothing complicated about Mr Trump's focus. He identified that many Americans felt like second-class citizens in their own country.

He also locked on to the fact that jobs and a reboot of the economy would win votes. Internationally, America has been punching below its weight and losing jobs to foreign competition. He offered quick-fix, sound-bite solutions which were easily digested. In the days to come, these will be tested severely as lurid campaigning gives way to the much more difficult task of governance.

He somehow fashioned himself into a blue-collar champion. He pitted himself ruthlessly against the ridiculously over-qualified Hillary Clinton. A more savvy and grounded opponent might have punctured his armour.

That he made 470m last year and could boast about not paying taxes should have been all the ammunition Mrs Clinton needed. Yet Mr Trump held on to his credentials as the hero of the underdog. There really ought to have been no contest given Mrs Clinton's political pedigree.

The campaign was a grudge match unlike anything seen in history. Gilt-edged entitlement and insider pedigree went up against outsider radicalism. Grievances were real. The people were clearly sick of putting their faith in what they saw as the jaded and remote elite on the Hill. Obama's vision of hope had faded for too many.

One of the many lessons from this election, and from events in Europe, is that the political head seems to have become detached from the body of a disillusioned and put-upon electorate. Trump's impudent smash-and-grab populism was seductive to swathes. Bawdy, lewd, racist, sexist and just about every other politically incorrect epithet appended to his name made no difference to voters.

Many held their noses in what was seen as an "unpopularity contest". Yet from now on, it has to be all about unity. Divide and conquer must give way to bringing a great country together. Mr Trump assumed a caring bedside manner yesterday. His healing tone, though surprising, was more responsible and appropriate to the office. He reached out to forgotten Americans. To bind the wounds of the nation will not be easy, given that he spent so much energy rubbing salt into them.

He has pledged to create millions of American jobs through repairing the nation's crumbling infrastructure. He has also promised to lower corporation tax to keep US firms at home. All of this plays well to a country that feels it has been getting a raw deal. The sound and the fury is already an echo.

As Lyndon B Johnson put it: "Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose." Against all odds, Mr Trump has won. The man behind 'The Apprentice' has found himself "hired" by the people. The time for bluster is over as the business of government begins.
How could my partner dump me without even giving me a reason?

I'm a bit low right now as my partner of eight months broke up with me with no reason or explanation - he even said he had no answers himself.

It came as a huge shock to me. I've never felt this hurt before as he was the first man I've ever truly loved and felt comfortable with and he said he felt the same about me.

In fact every day he told me he loved and adored me. I had a bad marriage but I have four wonderful kids, now grown up - my youngest is 14.

We already knew each other for a few years but then we fell in love. He said he always fancied me, even wanted to marry me. We spoke of how our wedding would be. He always texted me from work, sending me lovely messages.

He told me he never felt this way when he was married.

He had a relationship a few years before me and said I was the best woman who came into his life. He never had kids.

Out of the blue one day he was very down - he didn't know why. He went home - there were no hugs, kisses or "I love you", and I thought he needed space but I texted him later that night to check on him. He said he wanted to stay away for a bit as he wasn't in a good place. I rang asking why he needed a break from me.

He had no answer, not even face to face. He only said he wasn't feeling the same any more. I'm heartbroken and miss him. This was two weeks ago. My family and his are in shock as they thought we were for life - his sister said she had never seen him so happy.

I'm 53 and he is 60 and so young looking. He is also divorced. How could a person fall out of love so quickly?

Mary replies: I don't think somebody could fall out of love that quickly if circumstances remain the same. So, for instance, if you had a big row and nasty things were said, or if he found out that you have been lying about something major then his feelings might well change.

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But to go from being madly in love with you to not wanting to see you again doesn't make sense.

It is only natural that you come with history given your ages and you have probably shared a lot of this history with each other.

So it is more than likely that you would be aware of anything that was worrying him in relation to his ex wife, or his ex girlfriend.

Other areas of his life such as health - he may have had a bad diagnosis about something - money or news about a family member could be making him anxious.

But once again I don't see why he couldn't have shared this with you.

Did he ever suffer from depression? When people say they are in a bad place it is usually to do with their mental state, and in some people's eyes there seems to be somewhat of a stigma attached to mental illness such as depression.

I realise that you have been in touch with his sister and surely she would know if he had previously battled with depression, but perhaps he didn't tell anybody or it may be the first time he has experienced it.

Another possibility is SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) which is a type of depression that affects people usually in the autumn when there is less light and therefore the level of serotonin which regulates their mood is reduced.

After eight months of a fairly intense relationship, you deserve more than to be cut off without a word.

I think it would be only right if you were to keep the lines of communication open with him.

A letter - not a text - to him explaining your feelings and telling him you are still there and willing to hear from him when he is ready to talk to you may give him the courage to tell you what is really going on.

Some time ago I published a letter from a man who kept ending his relationships because he knew at some point he would have to take his partners home to meet his parents.

He was ashamed of what they would find as his father was an alcoholic and his mother acted very strangely.

Not one of the girls involved with him ever suspected the truth of what was really going on when he ended the relationships.

I use this example to illustrate that sometimes it is what we least expect that is the reason for a loved one's strange behaviour.

I do hope that things get resolved, and at the very least you get some explanation from him as to what caused him to cut himself off from you.

I'm terrified, but I feel I'm too old to come out

Q. I am a 22-year-old man who is unable to come out about my sexuality.

I spent 12 months in a relationship with the most amazing person ever. He got me through an exceptionally difficult part of my life but, because I was never able to come out and he lived in London while I lived in Dublin, I never asked him to commit.

Eventually the inevitable happened and he met somebody else and we agreed to go our separate ways.

It's now been almost four months since we spoke and I miss him every day. We had become best friends as much as everything else.

I'm terrified of this happening to me again but I feel as though I've become too old to come out. On top of this, I know my parents would have an issue with it too.

I'm just looking for your advice.

Mary replies: I have witnessed men taking years to come out - for instance, waiting for their parents to die - and I have always been struck by how sad that was.

A large part of who they were was kept a secret and nobody, particularly not the men themselves, benefited from this.

So at 22 you are certainly not too old to come out and you should look on your email to me as your first step.

My advice is to come out as soon as possible, but choose the people to whom you first come out very carefully.

You feel your parents would have a problem with it, but bear in mind that all parents want above all for their children to be happy.

They may well wish that you were not gay as they can see possible difficulties ahead for you, but surely they will want you to be true to yourself?

As you haven't come out to anybody you have not been able to share your feelings around the break-up of what seems to have been a wonderful relationship.

That must have been very difficult for you, and when you are coming out to your parents, I suggest you speak to them one at a time.

You will be then able to tell them about him and how you have suffered.

This will give them an insight into your world while at the same time allowing them to help you get over your loss.

If for some reason they are unable to accept you as you are, then there are many others who will and will be there to support you.

The Gay Switchboard Helpline is open seven days a week at 01-8721055, and ask@gayswitchboard provides email support.
Protesters in New York march along Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower, to protest against Donald Trump's presidential victory (AP)

People gather outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington awaiting the arrival of President-elect Donald Trump. (AP)

President-elect Donald Trump took a triumphant tour of Washington on Thursday, holding a cordial White House meeting with President Barack Obama, sketching out priorities with Republican congressional leaders and taking in the majestic view from where he will be sworn in to office.

Mr Trump's meeting with Mr Obama spanned 90 minutes, longer than originally scheduled. Mr Obama said he was "encouraged" by Mr Trump's willingness to work with his team during the transition of power, and the Republican called the president a "very good man".

"I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including his counsel," Mr Trump said from the Oval Office. He will begin occupying the office on January 20.

While Mr Trump noted that he and Mr Obama had never met before, their political histories will forever be linked. Mr Trump spent years perpetrating the myth that Mr Obama was born outside the United States. The president campaigned aggressively against Mr Trump during the 2016 campaign, warning that his election would put the republic at risk.

But at least publicly, the two men appeared to put aside their animosity. As the meeting concluded and journalists scrambled out of the Oval Office, Mr Obama smiled at his successor and explained the unfolding scene.

"We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds," Mr Obama said.

From the White House, Mr Trump headed to Capitol Hill for meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the Republican legislative agenda. Mr Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Mr Trump and never campaigned with the nominee.

Emerging from the meetings, Mr Trump sketched out priorities for his presidency.

"We're going to move very strongly on immigration," he said. "We will move very strongly on health care. And we're looking at jobs. Big league jobs."

If Mr Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he will wipe away much of what Mr Obama has done during his eight years in office.

The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under Republican control, has vowed to repeal Mr Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He has also vowed to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

First lady Michelle Obama met privately in the White House residence with Mr Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden was seeing Vice President-elect Mike Pence later on Thursday.

Mr Obama and Mr Trump met alone, with no staff present, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters afterwards.

"The two men did not re-litigate their differences in the Oval Office," Mr Earnest said. "We're on to the next phase."

Mr Trump travelled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Mr Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organisations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Mr Obama and Mr Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Mr Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.

The show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with post-election scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump".

More than 100 protesters held a sit-in outside Trump International Hotel just blocks from the White House. The mostly student protesters held signs saying Love Trumps Hate, a phrase Democrat Hillary Clinton often used during the campaign.

Mr Trump's advisers, many of whom were stunned by his unexpected victory over Mrs Clinton, plunged into the work of setting up a White House and staffing government agencies.

Officials at the Pentagon and State Department said they had not yet been contacted.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the agency stood ready "to work with the incoming team once that team is designated and arrives here. But we don't have any firm word as to when that will be."

Mr Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former house speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Senator Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Mr Trump is entitled to the same daily intelligence briefing as Mr Obama - one that includes information on US covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organise two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Mr Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

AP
Members of the emergency services work next to the tram in Croydon, south London, yesterday after it overturned, killing at least seven and leaving other passengers trapped. Photo: Reuters/Neil Hall.

The 42-year-old driver of a tram which crashed killing seven people in Croydon, south London, has been released on bail, British Transport Police said.

The 42-year-old man, from Beckenham, was bailed until May while the investigation continues, British Transport Police said.

Expand Close Photo issued by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch of the tram which derailed near the Sandilands stop in Croydon / Facebook

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Whatsapp Photo issued by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch of the tram which derailed near the Sandilands stop in Croydon

Scenes on board were described as "total carnage" and "like something out of a film" as the two-carriage tram tipped onto its side next to an underpass near the Sandilands stop in Croydon, south London.

The death toll is currently seven with more than 50 people were injured.
Jeremy Paxman said he is "baffled" by the choice of a group of students to boycott 'University Challenge' after they claimed he made "misogynistic and sexist" comments during a taping of the show.

The University of Reading Students' Union has voted to not take part in the BBC Two quiz show after its previous team members complained about the handling of the alleged comments.

The TV presenter (66) said he thinks the "issue" stems from a conversation during the taping last year when he questioned the Reading team about their mascot, a Jeremy Paxman doll.

"I have racked my brains to discover what on earth the Reading Students' Union is on about," Mr Paxman said.

"I think they're referring to a recording of University Challenge which took place in February 2015, though I am baffled at why it has become an issue a year-and-a-half later.

"There was a technical fault which meant we had to interrupt the recording, leaving all of us sitting at our desks in the studio while the problem was sorted out in the control gallery.

"In the conversation to fill the void - in a brightly lit studio, in front of all eight contestants, a full studio crew and an audience of several hundred spectators - I asked the Reading team about the mascot sitting on their desk.

"One of them said it was a hand-knitted Jeremy Paxman doll. Across the several yards separating the chairman's desk from the teams, I asked the whole team whether they took it to bed with them.

"Though no complaint was made at the time, this, apparently, is what has upset them."

Niall Hamilton, Reading University Students' Union education officer, wrote on his blog: "In the most recent round of Change it! students voted to boycott BBC programme 'University Challenge'. This is due to misogynistic and sexist comments made to previous team members of the University of Reading team by Jeremy Paxman."
Members of the emergency services work next to the tram in Croydon, south London, yesterday after it overturned, killing at least seven and leaving other passengers trapped. Photo: Reuters/Neil Hall.

At least seven people were killed when a tram sped round a sharp bend and derailed during the morning rush-hour in London.

Investigators said the vehicle was travelling at a "significantly higher speed than is permitted", and are probing whether the driver, who has been arrested, may have fallen asleep.

The 42-year-old driver is being held on suspicion of manslaughter and is currently in police custody, British Transport Police said.

Scenes on board were described as "total carnage" and "like something out of a film" as the two-carriage tram tipped onto its side next to an underpass near the Sandilands stop in Croydon, south London.

The death toll was seven last night as more than 50 people were injured.

Dr Phil Moss, the clinical director of the emergency department at St George's Hospital in Tooting, south-east London, said three people were having surgery at the hospital.

Expand Close A Sky News video grab of the scene / Facebook

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He would not give any detail about the ages or injuries of any of the 20 people who were treated at the hospital after the incident.

Speaking yesterday, Dr Moss said: "This was a very serious incident and the injuries sustained were very serious. We know there have been some fatalities at the scene today.

"The patients who have gone to the operating theatre will certainly be kept in overnight if not for several days or even weeks."

Emergency medical teams at the hospital dealt with four "majorly injured" patients and 16 walking wounded, he added.

Dr Moss said: "Three of those patients are now in the operating theatre and one of the patients who was thought to be seriously injured has now fortunately been discharged. The remaining 16 patients are in the process of being discharged.

"We plan for events such as this evening though they are very rare - maybe once in every two years.

"This is clearly a traumatic event. We have psychologists working with us in the emergency department who will speak to patients prior to discharge.

"We also look to patients to follow up with their GPs."

A spokeswoman for London Ambulance Service confirmed that eight people had serious or life-threatening injuries.

Residents in the area described hearing a loud bang and seeing the injured being carried away on stretchers in the wake of the incident, which happened shortly after 6.10am yesterday.

London Fire Brigade sent eight appliances and more than 70 firefighters to the scene in Addiscombe Road to rescue people trapped in the two-carriage tram.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: "We are now in the recovery stage of the operation. I pay tribute to the emergency services, particularly the fire brigade, British Transport Police and London Ambulance Service for their hard work throughout the day."

It is believed to be the first tram crash in Britain involving fatalities on board since 1959, when two women passengers and the driver died after a tram caught fire in Shettleston Road, Glasgow, following a collision with a lorry.

London's only tram network operates in the south of the capital, from Wimbledon to Beckenham Junction, Elmers End and New Addington, via Croydon.

More than 27 million passengers used the service in 2015/16. It uses a combination of on-street and segregated running for the 27km of track.
A list of some of King Trumps SCOTUS picskPresident-elect Donald Trump will likely have a huge role in shaping the composition of the Supreme Court for the next few decades.After Senate Republicans refused to hold a hearing for Merrick Garland  President Obama's choice to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia  Trump will likely have the opportunity to fill at least one seat on the country's highest court.Two liberal justices on the court, 78-year-old Stephen Breyer and 83-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg are also expected to retire soon.Trump has expressed support for highly-conservative justices in the past. He's said he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case giving women the right to abortions, and said that the Court needs to "uphold the Second Amendment."Trump's list of nominees contains some unusual choices, such as Utah Sen. Mike Lee. A spokesman for Lee told Politico that "Sen. Lee already has the job he wants which is why he is campaigning to represent the great people of Utah again this year."For the most part, all of Trump's potential nominees have a history of supporting conservative issues.Here are Donald Trump's potential Supreme Court nominees:1. Keith Blackwell2. Charles Canady3. Steven Colloton4. Allison Eid5. Neil Gorsuch6. Raymond Gruender7. Thomas Hardiman8. Raymond Kethledge9. Joan Larsen10. Mike Lee11. Thomas Lee12. Edward Mansfield13. Federico Moreno14. William Pryor15. Margaret A. Ryan16. Amul Thapar17. Timothy Tymkovich18. David Stras19. Diane Sykes20. Don Willett21. Robert Young
Russian warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea yesterday drove away a Dutch submarine shadowing the squadron, the military said.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said two Russian navy destroyers spotted the Walrus-class submarine while it was 20km away from the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier and its escorting ships.

The destroyers had tracked the submarine for more than an hour, using anti-submarine helicopters, before forcing it to leave the area, Mr Konashenkov said.

He didn't elaborate how the warships prompted the submarine to leave.

The spokesman added that such "clumsy" attempts to manoeuvre close to the Russian squadron could possibly have resulted in an accident.

Mr Konashenkov said the Russian squadron had previously spotted several Nato submarines, including a US Virginia-class nuclear submarine, while en route to eastern Mediterranean waters.

A Nato official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't allowed to discuss the sensitive issue on the record, said the alliance's navies have been monitoring the Russian fleet in recent weeks in a "measured and responsible way, as is customary." He refused to elaborate on how Nato was doing that.

Cruiser

In a tweet, the Dutch Defence Ministry said it does not comment on operations conducted by its submarines.

The Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier is being accompanied by the nuclear-powered Peter the Great missile cruiser and several other ships on a mission to Syria's shores, the Russian navy's largest deployment since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Nato has expressed concern, saying the move by Russian President Vladimir Putin could presage an increase in the number of Russian air raids in Syria, particularly around the besieged city of Aleppo.
Undated handout photo issued by Lincolnshire Police of the murder weapon as a 15-year-old girl has been found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court of murdering Elizabeth Edwards and her 13 year old daughter Katie. Lincolnshire Police/PA Wire

Tributes left outside a house in Spalding, Lincolnshire, where the bodies of 49-year-old Elizabeth Edwards and 13-year-old Katie were found, as a 15-year-old girl has been found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court of murdering Elizabeth and Katie, who were smothered and stabbed through the throat. Chris Radburn/PA Wire

Scene outside a house in Spalding, Lincolnshire, where the bodies of 49-year-old Elizabeth Edwards and 13-year-old Katie were found, as a 15-year-old girl has been found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court of murdering Elizabeth and Katie, who were smothered and stabbed through the throat. Chris Radburn/PA Wire

Liz Edwards (left) and her daughter Katie died in an attack at their home in Spalding

A teenage couple believed to be Britain's youngest double-murderers have been detained for at least 20 years for the brutal "executions" of a mother and her daughter.

The boy and girl - both 14 at the time of the murders - had sex, shared a bath and watched four Twilight vampire films as they "revelled" after the stabbing of dinner lady Elizabeth Edwards, 49, and 13-year-old Katie Edwards.

Both killers stared straight ahead as they were handed life sentences by Mr Justice Haddon-Cave, who said the pair had a "toxic" relationship and acted in a "grotesque" way.

The male defendant, wearing a dark blue jumper and dark trousers, slouched in his seat in the dock as he was sentenced, briefly pursing his lip and glancing towards a security guard as he was sentenced.

Expand Close Undated handout photo issued by Lincolnshire Police of the murder weapon as a 15-year-old girl has been found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court of murdering Elizabeth Edwards and her 13 year old daughter Katie. Lincolnshire Police/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Undated handout photo issued by Lincolnshire Police of the murder weapon as a 15-year-old girl has been found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court of murdering Elizabeth Edwards and her 13 year old daughter Katie. Lincolnshire Police/PA Wire

The court was told the boy, who admitted murder, used a kitchen knife to stab both victims in the neck after attacking them as they slept at their home in Spalding, Lincolnshire, in April.

His girlfriend, who helped to plan the "cold, calculated and callous" killings, denied murder, claiming to be suffering an abnormality of mental function which impaired her ability to form rational judgments, but was found guilty after a five-day trial.

Sentencing the pair, who are both now 15 and cannot be named for legal reasons, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave told Nottingham Crown Court: "This case is, in many respects, without parallel.

"The killings were brutal in the form of executions and both victims, particularly Elizabeth Edwards, must have suffered terribly in the last minutes of their lives.

"You were in it together from the beginning, you conceived of the killings together and planned it together.

"Both of you are perfectly intelligent and knew exactly what you were doing - either of you could have backed out at any time but you were selfishly determined to do it together.

Expand Close Tributes left outside a house in Spalding, Lincolnshire, where the bodies of 49-year-old Elizabeth Edwards and 13-year-old Katie were found, as a 15-year-old girl has been found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court of murdering Elizabeth and Katie, who were smothered and stabbed through the throat. Chris Radburn/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Tributes left outside a house in Spalding, Lincolnshire, where the bodies of 49-year-old Elizabeth Edwards and 13-year-old Katie were found, as a 15-year-old girl has been found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court of murdering Elizabeth and Katie, who were smothered and stabbed through the throat. Chris Radburn/PA Wire

"You then revelled in what you achieved. I see no reason to distinguish between you in any way."

Elizabeth Edwards' partner attending the hearing in a packed courtroom, along with Katie's father.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Ms Edwards' eldest daughter Mary Cottingham, who was not present in court, spoke of her heartbreak.

She said: "I cannot believe what has happened. I have been thrust into the biggest nightmare of my life.

Expand Close Scene outside a house in Spalding, Lincolnshire, where the bodies of 49-year-old Elizabeth Edwards and 13-year-old Katie were found, as a 15-year-old girl has been found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court of murdering Elizabeth and Katie, who were smothered and stabbed through the throat. Chris Radburn/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Scene outside a house in Spalding, Lincolnshire, where the bodies of 49-year-old Elizabeth Edwards and 13-year-old Katie were found, as a 15-year-old girl has been found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court of murdering Elizabeth and Katie, who were smothered and stabbed through the throat. Chris Radburn/PA Wire

"To be told that my mum and sister had died was bad enough but to find they had been the victims of a murder is just unbelievable."

Addressing the couple - who had been likened to Bonnie and Clyde - the judge said: "There was remarkable premeditation and planning - it was, on any view, substantial, meticulous and repeated."

The judge stressed that neither teenager will be freed until they have served their minimum term, when they will be 35, and the Parole Board approves their release.

Offering mitigation before sentencing, defence QC Simon Myerson, representing the boy, said: "The reason these offences were committed was, as far as anyone can ascertain, the two children became trapped in a fantasy of their own devising.

"It's inconceivable that had they been fully mature, had they not been subject of their own personality disorders, that these offences would have been committed by them."

Andrew Stubbs QC, representing the girl, said the couple were in a "toxic relationship" and were "almost playing chicken" as they spurred each other on.

Speaking outside court, Karen Thompson, deputy chief crown prosecutor at CPS East Midlands, said: "This is one of the most distressing and disturbing cases that I have ever encountered."

Detective Chief Inspector Martin Holvey said: "The planning that went into the brutal murders of Elizabeth and Katie as they slept in their beds was cold, ruthless and chilling, as was the lack of remorse shown by the two juveniles afterwards."
Germany's consulate in northern Afghanistan was attacked when a suicide car bomber rammed the compound, a senior police official has said.

The car exploded at the gate of the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif city, destroying the gate and wall at around 11.10pm local time, said Abdul Raziq Qaderi, head of security for Balkh province.

Three police were wounded, he said.

"Police have surrounded the area and our forces are inside the compound," he said.

The Taliban issued a statement saying they had sent suicide attackers to the consulate.

Sher Jan Durrani, spokesman for the police chief of Balkh province, said that a gun battle was going on at the consulate.

Walter Hassmann, the German ambassador to Afghanistan, confirmed the "incident is ongoing" and provided no further details.

Mazar-i-Sharif is the capital of Balkh province and one of the most important cities in the country.

Residents reported hearing a huge explosion near the consulate that shattered windows in buildings nearby.

Germany has 983 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh, as part of Nato's Resolute Support mission.

The Taliban's insurgency has spread from its southern heartland across the country in the past two years.

The Taliban statement from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack was retaliation for recent air strikes in the northern city of Kunduz, capital of the province of the same name.

A US air strike earlier this month killed dozens of people, including women and children, and is under investigation.

AP
US military personnel work out of the Combined Joint Operations Centre in Qayara, south of Mosul (AP)

Iraqi troops have fired at positions held by the Islamic State group in and around the northern city of Mosul, but did not advance as they regroup and clear neighbourhoods once occupied by the jihadis.

In Mosul, where troops have a foothold in a section of territory in the city's east, the special forces control the Zahra neighbourhood, once named after former dictator Saddam Hussein, military officials said.

They have taken at least half of the Aden neighbourhood and clashes are still ongoing there, while the regular army's ninth division is stationed in east Mosul's Intisar neighbourhood. Clashes also continued in the city's southern outskirts.

Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the US-led forces operating the key air campaign against IS, said advancing troops and aircraft have destroyed some 70 tunnels the jihadis had been using to launch surprise attacks from inside densely populated areas.

"They've set up elaborate defences, and we have to assume they'll do anything among the civilian population because they don't care about anyone," he said, noting that air strikes had hit hundreds of IS positions in the three-week old Mosul campaign.

Iraqi troops are converging from several fronts on Mosul, the country's second largest city and the last major IS zone in Iraq. Kurdish peshmerga forces are holding a line outside the city in the north, while Iraqi army and militarised police units approach from the south, and government-sanctioned Shiite militias are guarding the western approaches.

The offensive has slowed in recent days as the special forces, the troops who have advanced the farthest, push into more densely populated areas of the city's east, where they cannot rely as much on air strikes and shelling because of the risk posed to civilians who have been told to stay in their homes.

Over 34,000 people have been displaced in the fighting and are settling in camps and host communities in nearby provinces. Troops are trying to screen the crowds for potential IS fighters attempting to sneak out among the civilians, and some have admitted to meting out what they consider swift justice, by executing them.

On Thursday, Amnesty International issued its latest report on the abuses of security forces, urging the government to investigate and stop cases of arbitrary detention, forced disappearances and ill-treatment of prisoners. The London-based rights organisation said it visited villages near the Shura and Qayara areas outside Mosul, where it says up to six people were "extrajudicially executed" in late October over suspected ties to IS.

"Men in Federal Police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul," said Amnesty's Lynn Maalouf. "In some cases the residents were tortured before they were shot dead execution-style."

The battle front in that area has moved further north towards Mosul. Forces there are at the town of Hamam al-Alil, said Brigadier Firas Bashar, the spokesman for Nineveh operations command.

To the north-east, about 8 miles from the city, peshmerga continued to take territory in the town of Bashiqa, believed to be largely deserted except for dozens of IS fighters. They have had the town surrounded for weeks, and have assaulted it with mortar and artillery fire.

At an area church in territory freshly freed from the militants' grip, priests rang bells for the first time in two years on Wednesday as the peshmerga worked to secure the town.

"We are so happy at the liberation," said the Reverend Elkhoury Alfaran Elkhoury at the Mart Shoomy Church in Bahzani, a village near Bashiqa.

"They want to give a message to the world, and that message is damage, their message is destruction, their message is death," he said, highlighting damage to the church made by the jihadis while they occupied the area.

In New York, the UN said the progress meant that the days were numbered for the self-styled caliphate declared by IS from Mosul in 2014.

"This liberation operation marks the beginning of the end of the so-called 'Daesh caliphate' in Iraq," the UN envoy for the country told the Security Council on Wednesday, using the group's Arabic acronym.

Jan Kubis said that the UN's humanitarian agencies were preparing to shelter even more of the tens of thousands of displaced people as winter approaches. He also warned that reconciliation and restoration of confidence in the government was necessary if the victories against IS are to be lasting.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, bombings killed at least 10 people and wounded 38 others, according to police and medical officials.

The capital has seen near-daily bombings since the Mosul operation began, but no large-scale attacks. IS frequently targets Iraq's security forces and Shiite majority as part of its campaign to destabilise the country.

AP
South Africa's parliament has defeated an opposition motion to remove President Jacob Zuma because of a series of scandals, including possible government corruption linked to the president and his associates.

The motion by South Africa's biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, was rejected by a vote of 214 to 126 after an often raucous debate in which rival MPs heckled and traded insults.

The ruling African National Congress party, which has a majority in the parliament, had said it would not support the opposition motion against Mr Zuma, virtually ensuring its defeat.

While some ANC members have urged Mr Zuma to resign, it was unlikely that ruling party MPs would defy the party leadership to back the opposition move against the president.

"The only time we ever talk about our constitution in this house is when we debate how our president violated it," said Mmusi Maimane, leader of the Democratic Alliance.

Nomvula Mokonyane, the minister of water affairs and sanitation, said the opposition was trying to distract Mr Zuma's government from dealing with poverty and other pressing concerns.

Last week, South Africa's state watchdog agency recommended that a judicial commission investigate the relationship that Mr Zuma and some state officials had with the Guptas, a business family of Indian immigrants accused of meddling in the government for financial benefit. A watchdog agency report found possible ethical violations because the Guptas were allegedly involved in the removal and appointment of Cabinet ministers and directors of state-owned firms.

Mr Zuma said he was not given a chance to provide "meaningful input" in the investigation.

In April, the parliament also rejected a motion to remove Mr Zuma. That vote followed an apology by Mr Zuma after the Constitutional Court ruled that he failed to uphold the constitution in a scandal over millions of dollars in state spending on his private home.

AP
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has revealed he has already raised the issue of immigration with US president-elect Donald Trump.

Mr Kenny spoke with Mr Trump by phone late last night. Asked today about the conversation which took place, Mr Kenny today said a number of issues were raised.

I had a very good conversation with the president elect, he understands Ireland very well. He was complementary of the decisions made about the economy here.

He was looking forward to doing business with Ireland and I asked him specifically about Patricks Day and hes looking forward to continuing that tradition over many years, he said.

And I confirmed to him that we would work very closely with the administration that he appoints in January.

And obviously wed have a lot of discussion about the details that are important for us as pointed out yesterday in my letter to him and to the vice president, the importance of maybe putting immigration back on the administrations budget, Northern Ireland, the peace process and so on.

Mr Trump gave an election pledge to drastically overhaul Americas immigration policy, an issue of serious concern for the undocumented Irish in the US.

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Mr Kenny was speaking ahead of announcing the line-up for Irelands Edge, a conference which explores the intersection of the worlds of science, technology, engineering and mathematics with the world of the arts, at Trinity College Dublin.

A statement from the Taoiseach's office earlier this morning said: "both men committed to working together to the mutual benefit of Ireland and the United States."

It added: "The President Elect confirmed to the Taoiseach that in the spirit of the strong ties between the two countries, the long standing tradition of Taoisigh attending the White House for St. Patrick's Day celebrations would continue and extended an invitation to the Taoiseach in that regard for next year 2017."

The St Patricks Day visit sees the Taoiseach present the President with a bowl of shamrocks in a ceremony that dates back to 1952 when the Irish Ambassador sent a small box of shamrocks to Harry Truman.

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In 2009, Barack Obama became the first President to have the White House fountain turned green for St Patricks Day, in the same way Chicagos river is dyed every year.

The Taoiseach made a swift U-turn on his opinion of the President Elect yesterday, having previously called him dangerous and racist in the Dail.

He yesterday softened his remarks by saying that he believed that the racist and dangerous comments were made in the heat of battle.

"I recall a comment made in the Dail when asked if I would agree that comments made in the heat of battle, in a primary election, by the president-elect, before he was nominated formally as a candidate, were racist and dangerous. And I said 'yes', in respect of those comments, the Taoiseach said.

"I listened very carefully to the president-elect this morning, and the first thing he said was, it was now time to heal wounds, to build partnerships, to work constructively with people of the US and every other country and people who want to work with him.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday stressed the need to have a love-in with Donald Trumps team very quickly.

Protests continue in California, Oregon, New York and several other states following the election of Donald Trump. Hundreds of people took to the streets chanting not my President, causing gridlock in built-up areas.

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Hillary Clinton yesterday urged her supporters to give him a chance to lead, and Barack Obama promised a smooth transition of power. Donald Trump will visit Barack Obama at the White House today.
Donald Trump will meet Barack Obama for talks on the transition of power as an anxious world continues to digest his astonishing victory in the United States presidential election.

There were protests against his election across the US on Wednesday night, with crowds in New York chanting "not my president" outside his Manhattan residence, Trump Tower.

The victor will head to the White House on Thursday as president-elect for talks with Mr Obama, who will hand over power in January.

The controversial tycoon is also expected to have a conversation with Theresa May "at the earliest opportunity" as the world waits on tenterhooks for signs of what a Trump presidency means for global politics.

Downing Street confirmed the Prime Minister is preparing for a phone call with Mr Trump as the "special relationship" between the UK and US begins a new chapter.

Mrs May was at pains not to endorse either Mr Trump or his defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during the bitter campaign, although she has previously described the president-elect's call to ban Muslims from entering the US "divisive, unhelpful and wrong"."

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close A supporter of the far-right English Defence League group is restrained by police after shouting his views, and disrupting an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump winning the American election, outside the U.S. embassy in London, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) People protest on the University of Connecticut campus against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in Storrs, Conn. (AP Photo/Pat Eaton-Robb) Protesters walk in the middle of traffic lanes after Donald Trump's election victory, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016 in downtown, Portland, Ore. Portland police made no arrests during Tuesday night's post-election protest. (Stephanie Yao Long//The Oregonian via AP) Protesters walk in the middle of traffic lanes after Donald Trump's election victory, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016 in downtown, Portland, Ore. Portland police made no arrests during Tuesday night's post-election protest. (Stephanie Yao Long//The Oregonian via AP) Berkeley High School students assemble on the UC Berkeley campus in protest to the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States in Berkeley, California, U.S. November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage TEMPLATE OUT A young man wearing a Berkeley High Class of 2016 shirt wipes away ters during a protest in response to the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States in Berkeley, California, U.S. November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage Berkeley High School students begin to march after assembling in front of Sproul Hall on the UC Berkeley campus in protest to the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States in Berkeley, California, U.S. November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage Alice Bynum (C) stands with other Berkeley High School staff members and holds a sign while attending a protest about the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States in Berkeley, California, U.S. November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage Two young women hold up a sign reading "nasty women unite" in protest to the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States in Berkeley, California, U.S. November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage Placards lay on the floor during an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. Picture rotated 180 degrees. REUTERS/Hannah McKay People hold placards at an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay People hold placards at an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay A supporter of the far-right English Defence League group is restrained by police during a protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay A supporter of the far-right English Defence League group expresses his views to media during a protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay People hold placards at an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay People hold placards at an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay A woman holds a placard at an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay Demonstrators protest against the election of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump in front of the White House in Washington November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque People hold placards at an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay A man holds a placard at an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES A woman holds a placard at an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S. Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay A man holds placards at an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside of the U.S Embassy in London, Britain, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Max Whittaker/File Photo A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif., early Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. President-elect Donald TrumpAos victory set off multiple protests. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group via AP) Police officers walk past an overturned newspaper rack during protests in Oakland, Calif., late Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016. President-elect Donald TrumpAos victory set off multiple protests. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group via AP) Madeline Lopes, left, and Cassidy Irwin, both of Oakland, march with other protesters in downtown Oakland, Calif., early Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. President-elect Donald TrumpAos victory set off multiple protests. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group via AP) An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. President-elect Donald TrumpAos victory set off multiple protests. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group via AP) A trash fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif., late Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016. President-elect Donald TrumpAos victory set off multiple protests. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group via AP) A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Max Whittaker / Facebook

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Whatsapp A supporter of the far-right English Defence League group is restrained by police after shouting his views, and disrupting an anti-racism protest against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump winning the American election, outside the U.S. embassy in London, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Britons will be keen for any indication of what Mr Trump's victory, which sparked horror in some quarters of British politics, means for the future of the transatlantic alliance.

The Republican regularly evoked Britain's shock vote to leave the European Union during his campaign for the presidency, insisting his victory would be like "Brexit plus plus plus".

Although he has run a generally anti-global trade campaign, Mr Trump suggested in May that Britain would be favoured for any future trade deals, saying: "You'd certainly not be back of the queue, that I can tell you."

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Mrs May on Wednesday wrote to Mr Trump to congratulate him on his victory, declaring that the UK and America will remain "strong and close partners on trade, security and defence".

The Republican has already spoken to the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the PM is likely to be near the front of the queue of other world leaders despite a potential realignment of America's global stance.

Many will be waiting to see the direction of Mr Trump's first conversation with Vladimir Putin, who he as repeatedly praised.

The Russian president has already sent Mr Trump a telegram of congratulation and expressed "his hope to work together for removing Russian-American relations from their crisis state".

As part of the transition of power, the White House said classified intelligence materials, including the president's daily brief, are now being made available to Mr Trump, as it was a courtesy extended to Mr Obama and his team by George W Bush.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest has also insisted Mr Obama would be sincere about ensuring a smooth handover when he meets Mr Trump, although he added: "I'm not saying it's going to be an easy meeting."

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Despite calls for unity from Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama, Mr Trump's win sparked protests in several US states.

The former reality TV star's comments about Muslims, his calls to build a wall to keep Mexican migrants out, and secretly taped recordings of him joking about sexual assault are among the controversies that have attracted widespread and deep opposition.

After his win, demonstrators in Oakland, California smashed windows and set bins on fire. In Portland, Oregon, reportedly hundreds of anti-Trump protesters burned American flags and chanted "that's not my president" while blocking traffic and causing rail delays.

Protests were also seen in Pennsylvania, Seattle, Phoenix and elsewhere in California.

After defying almost all pollsters' predictions, Mr Trump attempted reassure his opponents, promising to be a "president for all Americans" in a move that steadied financial markets.

Observers will also be looking for indications about the future in who he appoints to his cabinet and how he fills a vacancy in the Supreme Court.

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich, and New Jersey governor Chris Christie are among those tipped for senior posts.
baloney_detector said:







The following is from the actual report that was referred to in the article: Click to expand...

But the writers of the report released Monday, mandated by state legislation after residents voted to legalize marijuana in 2012, warn that apparent increases in marijuana consumption could be related to a decrease in stigma, which makes people more willing to admit use.

"...it is too early to draw any conclusions about the potential effects of marijuana legalization or commercialization on public safety, public health, or youth outcomes, and this may always be difficult due to the lack of historical data, according to the report, which was prepared by statistical analyst Jack Reed.

Since 2009, only the 21-and-older group studied had a higher [alcohol or drug treatment] admission rate with marijuana listed as an abused drug. The rates decreased for the 17-and-younger and 18-to-20 age groups.

Well, here's from the article ol TN quoted:Could be that. More:Oh, and....
Journalists gather on the driveway in front of the West Wing in anticipation of the arrival of President-Elect Donald Trump at the White House. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

U.S. President Barack Obama (R) meets with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss transition plans in the White House Oval Office in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque - TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama listens to President-elect Donald Trump speak to members of the media during their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump shake hands following their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

US President-elect Donald Trump (C) walks with his wife Melania Trump and Vice President-Elect Pence (2nd L) before a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell(L) R-KY on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / YURI GRIPASYURI GRIPAS/AFP/Getty Images

US President-elect Donald Trump (C) walk with Vice President-elect Pence (L) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell(R) R-KY on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / YURI GRIPASYURI GRIPAS/AFP/Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (2L), walks with President-elect Donald Trump, his wife Melania Trump, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence (L), at the U.S. Capitol for a meeting November 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (2L), walks with President-elect Donald Trump, his wife Melania Trump, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence (L), at the U.S. Capitol for a meeting November 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (L), walks with President-elect Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol for a meeting November 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. Earlier in the day president-elect Trump met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Melania Trump listens to her husband US President-elect Donald Trump speak to the press at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

US President-elect Donald Trump (C) walks with his wife Melania Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / YURI GRIPASYURI GRIPAS/AFP/Getty Images

US President-elect Donald Trump (2nd R) walks with his wife Melania Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence (L) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / YURI GRIPASYURI GRIPAS/AFP/Getty Images

(From L to R) Melania Trump, US President-elect Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Vice President-elect Mike Pence meet at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

US President-elect Donald Trump walks onto a balcony at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

US President-elect Donald Trump (2nd R) walks with his wife Melania Trump, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

US President-elect Donald Trump (C) walks with his wife Melania Trump, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump, his wife Melania Trumpwalk to a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the U.S. Capitol for a meeting November 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence (2nd L) smiles as he and President-elect Trump (2nd R) walk with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (R) to McConnell's office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

U.S. President-elect Trump (2nd R), his wife Melania Trump (R), Vice President-elect Mike Pence (4th R) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (3rd R) walk together to meet in McConnell's office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) (L) shows Melania Trump and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump the Mall from the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Congressional pages react after U.S. President-elect Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) walked past them to meet at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

(L-R) Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) shows Melania Trump and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump the Mall from the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) (L) shows Melania Trump (R) and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (C) the Mall from the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

(L-R) Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) shows Melania Trump, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, and Vice-President Mike Pence the Mall from the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

In Pictures: President-elect Donald Trump and wife Melania are shown around the White House Close

President-elect Donald Trump held a 90-minute meeting on Thursday with U.S. President Barack Obama in the White House to discuss the transition of power after the Republican's stunning election victory.

And the meeting, which lasted longer than expected, was followed up by a grand tour of the Trump family's new home, the White House.

Donald Trump and his wife Melania were shown around the presidential mansion, with vice-president elect Mike Pence in tow.

The couple, who have a 10-year-old son named Barron together, were led to the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill to be shown the views of the Mall in front of them.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump shake hands following their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Reporters stand outside of the Oval office at the White House as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump meets U.S. President Barack Obama at White House in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria / Facebook

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Whatsapp President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump shake hands following their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Although, the pair weren't photographed together, Michelle Obama and incoming first lady Melania Trump were said to have spoken about the challenges of raising children in the White House.

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Mrs Trump's son Barron will become a teenager during President-elect Donald Trump's first term.

Expand Close Congressional pages react after U.S. President-elect Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) walked past them to meet at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst / Facebook

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Whatsapp Congressional pages react after U.S. President-elect Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) walked past them to meet at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that is "a rather unique childhood".

He pointed out that Mrs Obama and President Barack Obama also had the experience of raising children in the White House.

Expand Close U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) (L) shows Melania Trump and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump the Mall from the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts / Facebook

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Whatsapp U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) (L) shows Melania Trump and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump the Mall from the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Mrs Obama and Mrs Trump spoke about the experience of being a good parent under those unique circumstances, Mr Earnest said.

The two women then walked to the Oval Office to visit the president and the president-elect, he said.

Expand Close U.S. President-elect Trump (2nd R), his wife Melania Trump (R), Vice President-elect Mike Pence (4th R) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (3rd R) walk together to meet in McConnell's office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst / Facebook

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Whatsapp U.S. President-elect Trump (2nd R), his wife Melania Trump (R), Vice President-elect Mike Pence (4th R) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (3rd R) walk together to meet in McConnell's office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Sitting next to the Democratic president in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters: "We really discussed a lot of situations, some wonderful, some difficulties." He said Obama explained "some of the great things that have been achieved," but did not elaborate.

Trump, elected on Tuesday to his first public office, said he looked forward to more meetings with Obama.

Expand Close U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence (2nd L) smiles as he and President-elect Trump (2nd R) walk with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (R) to McConnell's office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst / Facebook

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Whatsapp U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence (2nd L) smiles as he and President-elect Trump (2nd R) walk with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (R) to McConnell's office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Obama said he will do everything he can to help the New York businessman succeed when he takes office on Jan. 20 and urged the country to unite to face its challenges.

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"My number-one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful," Obama said at the end of the meeting.

Expand Close President-elect Donald Trump, his wife Melania Trumpwalk to a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the U.S. Capitol for a meeting November 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp President-elect Donald Trump, his wife Melania Trumpwalk to a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the U.S. Capitol for a meeting November 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The White House since said that Obama and Trump did not resolve all their differences at the meeting.

The Trump family includes Donald and his wife Melania and their son, Barron (10). They will be relocating to Capitol Hill from their Fifth Avenue penthouse apartment at Trump Tower in New York.

Expand Close US President-elect Donald Trump (C) walks with his wife Melania Trump, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp US President-elect Donald Trump (C) walks with his wife Melania Trump, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

Donald's sons; Donald Jr and Eric, and his daughters, Ivanka and Tiffany, as well as their respective families, are also expected to spend time at the White House for family gatherings.

Donald Trump Jr (38) has five children with his wife Vanessa, a former model.

Eric Trump (32) married his wife, Lara, a personal trainer, two years ago at Mar-A-Lago, the Trump Palm Beach residence.

Expand Close Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) (L) shows Melania Trump (R) and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (C) the Mall from the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts / Facebook

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Whatsapp Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) (L) shows Melania Trump (R) and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (C) the Mall from the Speaker's Balcony on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

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Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner have already been planning to join in on the White House family days with their own three children. Ivanka converted to Judaism after marrying Kushner, the son of a New York property developer, in 2009.

Meanwhile, Tiffany (22), the daughter of Donald and his second wife, Marla Maples, has a boyfriend who featured during the campaign, Ross Mechanic. Tiffany just graduated from college but is an aspiring model.

Expand Close US President-elect Donald Trump (C) talks to the media with his wife Melania Trump after a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell(R) R-KY on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / YURI GRIPASYURI GRIPAS/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp US President-elect Donald Trump (C) talks to the media with his wife Melania Trump after a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell(R) R-KY on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / YURI GRIPASYURI GRIPAS/AFP/Getty Images

There should be plenty of room to sleep in the 132-room White House, but some have noted that Trump's move to Washington DC could be a downgrade from his already-luxurious lifestyle.

The Independent noted that Trump may have to downgrade to Marine One and Air Force One, leaving his own Boeing jet and helicopters parked up for security reasons.

(Additional reporting: PA and Reuters)
The Government has no contingency plan in place to deal with the shock outcome of the US presidential election that saw Donald Trump sweep to victory.

Senior officials in the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Foreign Affairs last night confirmed there was no Government strategy drafted in anticipation of the US presidential election result.

Mr Trump's election win over Hillary Clinton sent shockwaves across the world and saw share prices and currency values plummet.

There was public outcry throughout the election campaign over his comments on race, women and immigration.

The billionaire businessman's election manifesto pledged to rid America of illegal immigrants - of which there are 50,000 from Ireland - and lure US businesses based abroad for tax reasons back to the country.

However, Government officials yesterday said they were not concerned about Mr Trump's election to the White House and said Ireland would maintain a good relationship with the US.

A senior source in the Department of the Taoiseach said the Government does not prepare for the "democratic outcome elections in other countries".

"We don't see this in the same way as Brexit and we didn't put a contingency plan in place for the UK general election," the source said.

A Department of Foreign Affairs source said the election was not a "black swan event" and insisted there was no contingency plan needed due to the long-standing relationship Ireland has with the US.

Read more: 'The discourse changed overnight - this is a waking nightmare' - An Irishman in the US

In further sign of the lack of preparation, ministers and their advisers got a text message before 8am, which warned them to refrain from public comment on the outcome.

"Advice at this point is to make no public comment in relation to the outcome of the US presidential election. Language will be circulated Asap in the course of the morning," the text message read.

Sources said they believed the Government was "blindsided" by the result, which ministers believed would go in the favour of Mrs Clinton.

Last night, Fine Gael TD John Deasy, who worked with Republican politicians in the US for seven years, warned that Ireland does not have strong relationship in Washington.

"The problem is over the last 20 years we have lost considerable influence on Capitol Hill across the board, but when it comes to the Republican party in particular we have very little sway," Mr Deasy said.

It is understood Government officials will make contact with Mr Trump's advisers in the coming weeks with the aim of building a strong relationship with the President-elect before he officially takes up office.

Sources have also indicated the St Patrick's Day State visit to the White House is not under threat, and will continue while Mr Trump is in office.

Speaking in the Dail during leaders' questions, Taoiseach Enda Kenny defended the fact that he described Mr Trump as "racist and dangerous" during the election campaign.

Mr Kenny said he was referring to comments the businessman made in "the heat of battle in a primary election".

In a hard-hitting statement last night, Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin said a "nightmare" has now become a reality.

"A man who has, at every opportunity, sought to demean and belittle whole swathes of his society has become the leader of the largest free nation in the world. That's a sobering reality," Mr Howlin said.

LISTEN: The Floating Voter Podcast from New York - We're all in the Trump Frat House now
Donald Trump pulled off his shock election victory by reviving support among white working-class voters who had deserted the Republican party for two decades.

The so-called 'Reagan Democrats' returned to the party in numbers not seen since the 1980s, when they helped Ronald Reagan to win election to the Oval Office twice.

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They confounded the polls by turning out across a swathe of swing states and the Midwest to hand a humiliating defeat to Hillary Clinton.

Tens of millions of women and Hispanics - thought to have been alienated by Mr Trump - also backed the Republican.

Mr Trump will today travel to Washington to meet Barack Obama at the White House. He pledged to heal America after a bruising campaign, saying that the "forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer".

He told supporters: "Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division. It is time for us to come together as one united people." Less than a day after leading chants of "lock her up", Mr Trump said Mrs Clinton was owed "a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country".

Expand Close Mr Trump with vice-president-elect Mike Pence. REUTERS/Mike Segar / Facebook

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Mr Trump's election sparked some protests in the US, with thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets of New York last night and other protests taking place in Oakland, Oregon, Seattle, California, and Arizona.

On the day after one of the most dramatic elections in US history:

Mrs Clinton delivered a frank concession speech, holding back tears as she apologised to supporters and admitted that defeat was "disappointing and painful".

Taoiseach Enda Kenny defended describing Mr Trump as "racist and dangerous" during the election campaign, saying he was referring to comments the businessman made in "the heat of battle in a primary election".

British Prime Minister Theresa May said she was looking forward to working with Mr Trump and building on the "enduring and special relationship" between the US and the UK.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congrated Mr Trump and said he wanted to "restore" relations with the US, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered a more lukewarm welcome.

Mr Obama said "we're all on the same team now", adding that the whole nation was "rooting" for Mr Trump.

Mrs Clinton had entered election day with a small but significant lead in the vast majority of opinion polls. Exit polls published after many of the state ballots closed also suggested she was on course for the White House.

But Mr Trump had gathered substantial support from voters who had not been expected to turn out for him in such large numbers. His victory owed much to his appeal among white, working-class voters in key swing states.

Expand Close President-elect Donald Trumps son Barron, wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner standing on stage at the election night rally at the New York Hilton Midtown yesterday. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp President-elect Donald Trumps son Barron, wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner standing on stage at the election night rally at the New York Hilton Midtown yesterday. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

He won the support of 67 per cent of voters without a college degree, a swing of 14 per cent for the Republicans compared with 2012.

Since the 'Reagan Democrats' helped the Republicans to a landslide in the 1980s, the party's presidential candidates have repeatedly tried and failed to win back their support.

"The blue-blooded Bushes did not inspire them, and Mitt Romney left them cold. Trump brought them back," said former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.

His promise to take on the "corrupt" elites proved decisive, along with his pledge to repeal the Obamacare health insurance system amid concerns about spiralling premiums.

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Mr Trump became the first Republican candidate to win the key swing state of Wisconsin since Mr Reagan in 1984. In Pennsylvania and Michigan, he was the first Republican winner since 1988.

Despite a series of scandals during the campaign, including a leaked tape in which he discussed groping women, Mr Trump managed to secure 42 per cent of the female vote compared with Mrs Clinton's 54 per cent, a swing of just one per cent to the Democrat candidate since 2012. Mr Trump won the support of the majority of white women.

He also secured more Latino voters than Mr Romney, the Republican candidate four years ago, despite pledging to build a "great wall" on the Mexican border. Their support was probably decisive in Florida.

The Republicans also retained control of the Senate and Congress, suggesting Mr Trump may find it easier than Mr Obama to pass legislation.

After losing a series of key states, Mrs Clinton eventually conceded defeat during a phone call early yesterday morning. (Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Donald Trump greets the crowd ahead of his acceptance speech at the New York Hilton Midtown. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

America is crippled. It is divided and disrupted. Confused and crushed. But that's nothing new. The once-great United States has apparently been in this paralysis for some time.

Or at least that's how people felt as they cast their ballot.

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The only difference is that they have now decided to drag the rest of the world down with them.

Donald Trump's election message is that the economy is wrecked, poverty is climbing, the healthcare system is a shambles, public schools are failing, immigrants are taking over and corruption is rife in politics.

Anybody who claimed otherwise or tried to use logic and facts were "wrong".

At 4am yesterday in Times Square, white men in their 20s were shouting about how they had reclaimed their constitution.

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Next up, they'd get down to the business of cleaning up Washington.

Some were aggressive towards the media, who now represent the dirty side of freedom.

By the time they woke up from their hangovers yesterday, Vladimir Putin had issued a statement expressing a hope that himself and President-elect Trump can work together and end the "state of crisis" in Russian-American relations.

Chinese state media was reporting that Donald Trump is what happens when you give people the right to vote, in contrast to the stability of their authoritarian rule.

But that doesn't matter - because nothing seems to matter to at least half of all Americans any more.

Infringing on an independent judiciary doesn't matter, neither does creating racial tensions or engaging in old-fashioned misogyny.

Trump has threatened to revive the practice of torture and deport immigrants en masse.

He said he would prosecute and imprison Hillary Clinton despite the FBI's repeated acceptance that she has done nothing illegal.

He previously claimed to have seen a picture Ted Cruz's father having breakfast with Lee Harvey Oswald.

And presumably Mexico's government is today budgeting for the wall.

Much of that may have been election bluster and words. And, of course, words don't matter now either.

Donald Trump has single-handedly bullied his way to 1,600 Pennsylvania Avenue with lies and conjecture - but how he got there is irrelevant too.

In her delayed concession speech, Hillary Clinton said Americans "owe him an open mind and a chance to lead".

Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who struggled to even say Trump's name during the campaign, now believes the billionaire "heard a voice nobody else heard".

Even outgoing President Barack Obama, whose legacy it seems doesn't matter anymore, is now "rooting for his success".

Yesterday, Mr Trump got the most sensitive briefing possible from US intelligence agents who are monitoring the situations in Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Russia.

A man who had to have his Twitter contributions limited is now in charge of the big, red button.

He once said: "I love to have enemies. I fight my enemies. I like beating my enemies to the ground."

That's certainly what he did to Clinton. Her rally in Manhattan on Tuesday night was oversubscribed by thousands.

Millennials, Latinos, Hispanics, whites, blacks, men, women, young and old all found their place in the winding queue that was punctuated with security checks.

A big screen was erected in a parking lot outside the Javits Convention Centre, where a party atmosphere was obvious from early evening.

Mayor of New York Bill de Blasio entertained the audience, telling them they had come to witness history.

And Khizr Khan, the father of a late Muslim American war hero and a central player in the Clinton narrative, said it would be "a night of celebrating the goodness of this country".

But as polling stations closed and the TV networks crunched the numbers, the mood changed. Confidence turned to fear.

Katy Perry arrived onto the stage to plead with the voters in areas where polling was still open to get out and rescue the situation. Her own parents voted for Trump.

A short distance away in the Hilton Midtown, a very different party was developing. Expectation mounted, drinks followed and an audience of mainly white men started to believe that a man described as unfit for office was about to be fast-tracked straight to commander-in-chief.

Clinton was little more than collateral damage. Having long believed that her place was at the podium rather than beside it, her legacy is tarnished, her charity discredited and her speaking circuit work is, for now at least, ruined.

Much has been made of the idea that any other candidate would have beaten the reality TV star - but that is not the case.

Trump was effectively running against Barack Obama as well. Obama said it would be a "personal insult - an insult to my legacy" if the Republican was elected.

This week, a Gallup poll put Obama's approval rating at 56pc. That's ahead of Ronald Regan's standing in 1988 and just behind Bill Clinton's in 2000.

The incumbent is actually more popular now than he was when he was re-elected four years ago. And yet none of that mattered.

She had Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and any amount of celebrity power behind her, but it wasn't enough.

On the bright side, we no longer have to worry about climate change. Global warming is actually a fiction that was "created by and for the Chinese".

Neither should we be concerned about equality for the LGBT community or the political crap about breaking glass ceilings. It's "check-out time" for women at 35 anyway.

Over the past few days in New York, I've heard people compare Trump with Hitler.

His initial speech as President-elect suggests he won't be quite as terrifying as his campaign has suggested.

But more worrying is that I've also heard people say he needs to be more like Hitler when dealing with immigrants.

That's the plight of this nation.

The world has watched in disbelief as Trump rose to the top, creating the 'Divided States of America' in the process.

The system was never rigged, but America was broken. Now it's shattered.
Protesters in New York march along Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower, to protest against Donald Trump's presidential victory (AP)

Donald Trump is yet to speak to Theresa May, despite putting in phone calls to the leaders of nine other countries, including Ireland and Australia.

The news will be a worry for the British Prime Minister, who yesterday offered Donald Trump the hand of friendship despite previously describing him as divisive, unhelpful and wrong.

It emerged the US President-elect has spoken to the leaders of nine other countries - Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, Israel, Turkey, India, Japan, Australia and South Korea within 24 hours of his victory.

Number 10 could not tell reporters when - or if - a phone call was currently scheduled for Mrs May to speak with Mr Trump.

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The news risks being interpreted as a snub for Mrs May. A Number 10 spokesman said he did not know when Mrs May would speak to Mr Trump.

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He said: "The call will be scheduled for the earliest opportunity."

The Prime Minister wrote to the new US President-elect to congratulate him on his shock victory and issued a statement saying that Britain and America are, and will remain, strong and close partners on trade, security and defence.

In December 2015, Mrs May, who as Home Secretary, criticised Mr Trumps call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, describing it as divisive, unhelpful and wrong.

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She also said that Mr Trump does not understand the UK and what happens in the UK.

Sources said Mrs May is looking forward to the next chapter and does not believe her previous comments will affect her relationship with the next US President.

It is also understood that the Prime Minister intends to travel to Washington DC within the next year to visit Mr Trump at the White House.

It emerged on Wednesday that Mr Trump has invited Irish premier Enda Kenny to the White House for St Patrick's Day.=

The pair spoke by telephone for 10 minutes on Wednesday night, an Irish government spokeswoman said.

he Taoiseach congratulated Mr Trump on his electoral success and both men committed to working together to the mutual benefit of Ireland and the United States.

Mr Kennys spokesman said: The president-elect confirmed to the Taoiseach that in the spirit of the strong ties between the two countries, the long-standing tradition of Taoisigh attending the White House for St Patrick's Day celebrations would continue and extended an invitation to the Taoiseach in that regard for next year, 2017.

It is tradition for the Taoiseach to travel to Washington on March 17 to present the US president with a bunch of shamrocks, to symbolise close ties between the countries.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Kenny told the Irish parliament that racist and dangerous remarks made by Mr Trump during the election campaign were made in the heat of battle.

In a softening of his outspoken rebuke from May, Mr Kenny said he would be happy to work with Mr Trump.

Weeks after making the comments, when asked if he would put that view to the then presidential hopeful in any future meeting, Mr Kenny said: Certainly. I'd be very happy to.

He added: I'd be happy to deal with the president in a very constructive way as he has announced to the world that his administration will work to heal the wounds in America, will work to have the American people unite and form partnerships with like-minded countries for opportunities for everybody.

It also emerged that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet with Mr Trump next week.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that their conversation "marks a very good start for building trust". Their talks are being arranged for November 17 in New York.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
If you thought being the most powerful man in the world would shield you from legal battles, you'd be so wrong. While the Right continues to speculate about Hillary's FoundationEmailsBenghazi troubles--her pantsuit to jumpsuit drama, President Trump faces his own legal battles."Even as president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump will not be free from the legal and regulatory issues that have dogged him as a businessman and became sticking points in his contentious 2016 campaign.There's the civil fraud trial involving, which is set to begin at the end of this month. The mogul-turned-politician says his taxes, which he has not released publicly, remain under audit by the IRS. And the attorney general of New York has opened an inquiry intoThe lawsuit involving Trump University, for which Trump is expected to appear in court to answer questions, is one of dozens that he or his associated organizations face."And then there's the pesky little "blind trust" thingy. i.e. Trump's children will take over and let's just call it a "BLIND" trust even though President Don will not be BLINDED by what his children decide to do. He'll be kept in the loop. "I don't see how you have a blind trust when you know what's in the blind trust," said Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor....
A gunman with a history of domestic abuse fatally shot a police officer and wounded a second before he and a woman were found dead following a reported fight at their Pennsylvania apartment, authorities have said.

Scott Bashioum and the other officer were responding separately to an emergency call from neighbours at around 3.15am when they were "ambushed upon their arrival" and immediately shot, state police trooper Melinda Bondarenka said.

The officers had arrived almost simultaneously, though authorities said other details of the initial confrontation were not immediately clear.

Mr Bashioum, 52, a father of four on the force for seven years, died less than an hour later at Canonsburg Hospital, the Washington County coroner said.

The wounded officer, whose name was not released, was in a stable condition after surgery at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, officials said.

The man and woman found in the home were not identified by police, but officials said the man died of a self-inflicted wound. No cause of death was given for his girlfriend.

Lawyer David Wolf identified the dead couple as Michael Cwiklinski, 47, of nearby Houston, Pennsylvania, and his girlfriend, Dalia Sabae.

Mr Wolf said he had known the couple since November 2015, when Cwiklinski was charged with simple assault and harassment for swinging a bag of merchandise and hitting Ms Sabae in the eye.

The case was resolved, with the assault charge being dropped and Cwiklinski pleading guilty to harassment.

He was sentenced to anger management classes and required to have a mental health evaluation, Mr Wolf said.

Neighbours said police were called to the couple's home frequently, and Canonsburg police chief Al Coghill confirmed the gunman was known to authorities, without naming him or providing details.

Ms Sabae obtained a protection-from-abuse order last month, after dropping one she had last year, Mr Wolf said.

"She told me they were having trouble again," said Mr Wolf, who could not represent Ms Sabae because he represented Cwiklinski.

Mr Wolf said he had encouraged Ms Sabae to get another protection order and said Cwiklinski was there when he ran into the couple at the county courthouse.

Cwiklinski and Ms Sabae, an Eqyptian citizen, had met online, the lawyer said.

Authorities said the apartment may have been "booby trapped" but declined to provide details.

The bomb squad from neighbouring Allegheny County was called to safeguard the scene before police entered and found the couple dead, police said.

Mayor David Rhome and Mr Coghill said the shooting was unprecedented for Canonsburg, a borough of about 8,900 residents 20 miles south west of Pittsburgh that is best known as the birthplace of singers Bobby Vinton and Perry Como.

A military memorial outside the borough building, already decorated with flags for Friday's Veterans' Day observance, became a makeshift memorial for Mr Bashioum, with residents dropping off flowers, candles and other mementoes.

AP
Being a veteran means a lot of things. It means service; it means patriotism. It means sacrifice and honor and others above self.

It also means brotherhoodcreating lifelong bonds with combat peers and strangers alike.

"We share something that's pretty deeply rooted, particularly those who have seen combat, and don't let me mislead youI have seen combat," Vietnam veteran and Cabarrus County resident Jim Thompson said. "I've seen more of it than I need. Every time I got shot at it was by an AK-47. But there's something deeply rooted in all of us, and we spread it on ach other. We don't infect the community. And it helps. Besides, I know very few folks out here who have not experienced these things who would understand."

Cabarrus County Veterans Service Office knows not only the need to honor those who put everything on the line for their country but also that veterans need to that bonding time together. So the four-member team puts together several events for those who have served, particularly the Annual Veterans Day Program at the Cabarrus County Boys and Girls Club on Friday, Nov. 11, at 11 a.m.

A Christmas Breakfast in December also gives veterans a chance to come together, as do monthly gatherings at the Mt. Pleasant senior center.

Other more informal events include veterans coffee events at Carm's Cafe in Concord and Richard's Coffee Shop in Mooresville.

Thompson said he has started heading out to Richard's on Thursday mornings.

"That's quite incredible," he said. "We have World War II B-17 pilots up there. That's quite a gathering. We get them from all the Gulf Wars and everything that's going on right now. And we're seeing more females come in with service, and they join right in."

Thompson served four years in the Air Force right out of high school from 1958 to 1962 fixing radios.

"It was there," he said of why he enlisted. "It was where friends were going, and it wasn't a bad thing to do. I met my wife there."

He returned in 1967 to join the Army, where he spent five years flying helicopters as a warrant officer. He did two tours in Vietnam, one for 12 months and another for five.

"I had to pry my way into the Army," he said. "I absolutely pried my way in. I was too old for them to take, but they took me anyway because of my scores and my ambition and probably bothered them to death. To be involved, it just seemed like the right thing to do. And it was."

At 28 years old, though, he seemed a battle-hardened veteran to some of the younger soldiers coming in.

"In my operational unit, I was probably eight or nine years older than the other pilots," Thompson said. "They called me grandpa. I didn't get too involved with combat, just every now and then. Was shot up a few times. People hurt in the helicopter, but not as much as the other guys. Probably why I came back with all my pieces and parts attached and not too messed up in the head."

Then one day while serving his second tour in Vietnam, Thompson got a letter thanking him for his time with the military but with orders to discharge. He flew back to the U.S. through San Francisco's civilian airport, greeted by a handful of protestors dancing and beating on tambourines.

"There's coming back greeting my family again and there's also coming back through the airports," Thompson said. "I was fully uniformed. I had just gotten off of a military flight, and I wasn't ashamed of it. There were probably 15 or 18 of them. Don't tread on me is basically what I said, and they scooted off."

Now, that disdain has turned over to respect for many. Director of Cabarrus Veterans Service Office and Air Force veteran Tim Tereska said his generation of veterans look up to the older guys.

"I can say for the Vietnam veterans and the Korean War veterans and the World War II veterans, I think there is that respect there amongst us for you guys," he said. "Vietnam is tough. That was tough duty back then. Not only did you have to worry about staying alive, but you weren't treated real well when you got back home."

One of the more difficult things for many of his comrades, Thompson said, was a lack of services available to help with the transition to civilian life.

"I can easily remember many years after I got out of the service, nobody wanted to hear it," he said. "The VA wasn't quite that generous at that time in terms of being there. An awful lot of Vietnam vets came home and were absolutely thoroughly lost within themselves, and we didn't catch that very quickly. I assume we had them all over the place. They were out in the woods trying to survive, and we had them homeless. We still have a few homeless. I think politically that didn't look very good."

A plethora of services are now available for veterans, both those just returning from active duty and those who served decades ago. Veterans Affairs, legions and other groups focused on servicemen offer everything from medical treatment to transportation, and the Cabarrus County Veterans Service Office can help locals navigate those resources.

The department processed close to 700 claims last year, bringing almost $5 million to local veterans and their families. And in addition to assistance with health care, education and pensions, staff works diligently to provide opportunities for veterans to relax and have a good time.

"When you're deployed in a combat zone with nobody but them, you may not know somebody real well, but you feel like he's your brother because you're all experiencing the same thing," Tereska said. "It's important to build that relationship because a lot of them don't' have anybody else that can understand what you're talking about. It is truly a brotherhood, veterans talking to each other. It is important, and one of the best ways to do it is to go to places like Richard's and Carm's, VFW, American legion."

The county's events, such as the Veterans Day celebration and Christmas breakfast, also provide a place for veterans to reconnect. Thompson said he goes with a man he flew with back in Vietnam.

"It's amazing," Tereska said. "We have a breakfast here every Christmas, and we get a lot of veterans. I've had more than two or three veterans tell me, 'I haven't seen that guy in 60 years,' or 50 years. They can talk, and it's exactly like they've seen each other every day. So they have re-bonded or reconnected."
One day after Albany voters decided to allow recreational marijuana sales in the city, the Albany City Council found a way to keep arguing about the issue.

The council on Wednesday moved through a clutch of resolutions, voting to pass them with little discussion, but hit a snag when considering an amendment to the city code regarding regulation of legal recreational marijuana. The ordinance in question, which will establish code parameters for pot sales in the city, contains language concerning 300 feet, which is the distance such a store can stand from a residential dwelling or school.

Mayor Sharon Konopa explained that the ordinance was being read to establish the parameters, in order to clarify. But Councilor Ray Kopczynski expressed concerns that the ordinance had been raised in an attempt to further restrict the four Albany medical marijuana dispensaries from being able to add recreational weed to their operations.

"This is just only setting up where that placement would be," said Konopa.

But Kopczynski argued the existing code is "working just fine," and added, "In light of the overwhelming vote for recreational marijuana, we have no good reason to change the existing codes."

City manager Wes Hare allowed that the new ordinances would be more restrictive to dispensaries hoping to add recreational. With that, Kopczynski accused the council of intentionally changing the rules in order to preclude one particular Albany dispensary, Oregon Cannabis Co., at 1977 Santiam Highway S.E., from operating. He said Konopa "said on camera" that her real motivation is to keep the dispensary out of view.

Councilor Rich Kellum replied there was no such intention. He argued that there is a set of rules for medical dispensaries and another for the recreational shops. So if establishments want to switch to recreational, they would have to comply with those rules.

The issue with Oregon Cannabis Co. is that it sits just under 300 feet from an adjacent apartment complex  if the language defines the distance as property line to property line, rather than building to building.

And that is the crux of the debate. Councilor Dick Olsen questioned the logic of defining the distance by property line.

"It should be building to building," he said. "because what if you have a residential building on a large piece of property that is set back from the lot line?"

Olsen also asked why the council seemed to be in a rush to establish a new definition on the distance.

"You're trying to make it the absolute most restrictive you can, and that's legal, but it's not in line with the will of the people," added Kopczynski. "How many times do the voters have to say yes to a measure before you listen to them?"

Kellum answered that the bottom line is: "Don't do it next to kids. You want to be able to do it next to kids, and on that, we will disagree."

Oregon Cannabis Co. owner Michelle Gold sat in the audience, shaking her head during the conversation.

"They hate my location," she said later. "I have no idea why."

Gold, who bought the building from which she operates her business, said it was 319 feet "from anything residential."

"I have a letter from the city that says I'm fine for marijuana," she said.

The council decided to revisit the issue on Nov. 14.
Thala Ajith's yet to be titled 57th film temporarily named as 'AK57' had a lengthy first schedule of shoot Bulgaria and a few other European locations. The second schedule began in the Ramoji Film City of Hyderabad last month and it has been wrapped up recently.

Now we learn from a reliable source that the 'AK57' team including Ajith will be packing bags and leave to Bulgaria on Saturday (November 12) for the third and final schedule of shoot. The source adds that this will be a lengthy schedule that will last for as many as 55 days. Apparently director Siva has planned to wrap up the entire shoot in this schedule and the team will be returning home only only in January 2017.

'AK57' stars Ajirh, Kajal Aggarwal, Akshara Haasan, Thambi Ramaiah, Karunakaran, Appukutty and many others. Anirudh Ravichander is rendering the music score. Vetri is the cinematographer.

The film touted to be a espionage thriller is being produced on a grand scale by the prestigious Sathya Jyothi Films banner.
Indian equity markets see another green ending Markets saw yet another day in green today. Nifty 50 ended, up by 129.9 points. BSE Sensex ended, up by 374.76 points. Top Gainers today were Adani Enterprises, Divis Lab and NTPC. Top Lo... November 01, 2022 | 01-11-2022 4:04 pm

Five Star Business Finance IPO will open on November 9th The IPO of Five Star Business Finance will open for subscription on November 9th. The IPO will close on November 11th. The IPO intends to raise Rs 2751.95 crore through sale of existi... November 01, 2022 | 01-11-2022 3:32 pm

Suzlon Energy board approves allotment of 240 crore partly paid-up equity shares under rights issue Suzlon Energy Limited has informed that the Securities Issue Committee of the Board at its meeting held on October 31, 2022 has approved the allotment of 240,00,00,000 (Two Hundred Forty C... November 01, 2022 | 01-11-2022 3:10 pm

Markets in green; Nifty 50 around 18,100 level; IT stocks outperform Domestic benchmark indices in the fast lane today led by IT and Metal stocks outperforming. Both the Sensex and Nifty benchmarks were marginally higher amid positive cues from Asian market. ... November 01, 2022 | 01-11-2022 2:00 pm

SSWL achieves revenue growth of 11% yoy in October 2022 Steel Strips Wheels Ltd (SSWL) has achieved Net turnover of Rs334.42 crore in October 2022 Vs Rs300.58 crore in October 2021, recording a growth of 11% yoy and achieved Gross t... November 01, 2022 | 01-11-2022 1:07 pm
LEBANON  English playwright William Shakespeare has been dead 400 years, but this week, his words were very much alive at Lebanon High School.

Actors Annie Paul and Domonique Champion, from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, have been sharing their love of the Bard of Avons works with hundreds of language arts and drama students.

Lebanon High was one of six schools in Oregon, Washington, California and Kansas selected to participate in the organization's 45th School Visit Partnership Program. Over three years, students and actors will work together locally and in Ashland. Oregon Shakespeare Festival performers will visit more than 100 schools this fall.

Some 30 language arts students filled the stage of the LHS auditorium Wednesday morning, as Champion and Paul worked their magic  exuding enthusiasm for their craft  and promoting a shared belief that Shakespeare was the writer for the common man.

Paul, who is from Green Bay, Wisconsin, compared Shakespeare to todays Lin-Manuel Miranda, the visionary behind the megahit Broadway musical, Hamilton.

This is really cool, and Im enjoying all of it, said 15-year-old Nichols Fandino, who said he's performed in several plays over the years, including Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream when he was in the fourth grade.

Ive been to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival three times, he said. This is great because we are able to see close up what they are doing there. They are sharing their style with us.

Fellow freshman Chloe Grimes, 14, said she was having a good time because the two actors were making it very interactive. They are very animated, and I enjoy listening to them speak in his words.

LSH language arts instructor Anne Williams said the school is excited to have been chosen for the three-year partnership. She said drama instructor Lindsey Lloyd and Meredith Work were instrumental in applying for the program and obtaining a grant to help fund it. She said school administrators have been extremely supportive of this.

The actors are working with students several hours per day, she said.

According to Williams, actors will visit LSH several times and students will travel to Ashland as well.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival actors work in teams of two from mid-October to mid-December. They work in middle schools and high schools in Oregon, Washington and northern California. They perform portions of two plays and provide numerous workshops at each school. At LHS, the plays are "Julius Caesar" and a "Shakespeare Literature Smack-Down."

Williams said performances were held Monday for the general public to raise funds to help students defray the cost of traveling to Ashland for further workshops.

On Wednesday, the students were trading rapid-fire word challenges, learning about poetic devices including rhythm, prose and iambic pentameter.

From Houston, Texas, Champion said Shakespeare is meant to be studied and learned on your feet, not just read out of a book.

When you read it, you need to get on your feet and have fun with it, he said. Its fun, interactive.

Paul said that students readily grasp Shakespeare, perhaps even more than adults. In turn, she said, the Bard was a trendsetter who took on the mores of his time (1564-1616) and created works for the common people.

I think students grasp the rhythm of Shakespeare, much like hip-hop music, she said. They pick up the rhythm faster. I absolutely love it. These performances make his work accessible.
Mni Wiconi -- Water is Life. Photo by Joe Brusky / Overpass Light Brigade



What the Trump Victory Means for Standing Rock

The Sioux tribe is facing a pro-oil president-elect with personal investments riding on the completion of the Dakota Access pipeline.By Jenni MonetYES! Magazine

Less than 12 hours after Donald Trump walked onto a New York City stage as the newly elected president, the stock price for Energy Transfer Equity shot up 15 percent. Among that companys holdings is Energy Transfer Partners, operator of the controversial Dakota Access pipeline. Protesters near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation continue to fight completion of the $3.8 billion project. But the jump in share price indicates an immediate pro-energy confidence in Trump.

And that confidence is not unfounded.

In Bismarck, North Dakota, Donald Trump gave a speech in May that would help secure his seat as Americas 45th president. The candidate was lagging 30 delegates to become the Republican nominee. His decision to address oil entrepreneurs in North Dakota was political strategy. At a petroleum conference, Trump introduced his energy plan for the first time: more fossil fuels, fewer regulations, and a vow to undo many of President Obamas climate initiatives. Trump would meet the required 1,237-delegate threshold to go on and win the presidency, a startling upset for an outsider who has disrupted the political establishment.

What a Trump victory may spell for the continued battle over the Dakota Access pipelineand for indigenous rights, in generalis alarming.

For starters, President-elect Trump would stand to personally profit from the project. His campaign energy adviser, Harold Hamm, would also see gains. Hamm is the CEO of Continental Resources, which has plans to flow its supply of Bakken fracked crude through the pipeline. With Trumps recent victory, Hamm is also on the short list of becoming U.S. energy secretary.

As Politico reports, Trump is also seriously considering 74-year-old Forrest Lucas, of oil products company Lucas Oil, as a top contender for interior secretary, along with Drill, Baby, Drill Sarah Palin.

This political changeover has come at a critical time in the struggle at Standing Rock.

All sides, for and against the pipeline, have vowed to stand their ground. The battle to stop the project and protect the Missouri River has recently intensified, growing into one of the largest indigenous rights movements in the world.

Last week, construction reached the river. Plans call to bury the pipeline 92 feet below the rivers surface. The Missouri is the Standing Rock Sioux tribes prime water source; 18 million other people depend on it downstream.

On Tuesday, pipeline operators Energy Transfer Partners announced plans to advance its project despite earlier calls from the Obama administration to halt construction. The U.S. government is reassessing permits and has said its looking at possible rerouting; the pipeline route currently would need to traverse easements on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lands.

Dakota Access remains confident that it will receive the easement for these two strips of land adjacent to Lake Oahe in a time frame that will not result in any significant delay in proceeding with drilling activities under Lake Oahe, said Vicki Galando of ETP in a statement.

That the energy company chose Election Day to announce its brazen defiance of federal oversight is worth mentioninga day when the focus of most Americans would not be the pipeline, but on the race for the White House.

Energy Transfer said it is mobilizing horizontal drilling equipment for tunneling under Lake Oahe, a basin on the Missouri River, near where thousands of protesters are camped out to protect the water. Energy Transfer noted plans to start traversing the water within two weeksa signal that the company has no intention to negotiate, slow down, or reroute.

But now that Trump has won the election and has said he would steer energy policy toward more oil production rather than less, plans to ignore the Obama administration and advance the pipeline so swiftly doesnt seem so brazen at after all. Just prescient.

According to his Public Financial Disclosure Report, Trump disclosed between $500,000 and $1 million in investments in ETP. He also disclosed $50,000 to $100,000 in investments in Phillips 66, which would own one-quarter of the Dakota Access pipeline once complete.

Between now and January 20, 2017, when Trump is officially sworn into office, it will be up to the Obama administrationthrough its three agencies, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineersto deny the permits to Energy Transfer and Dakota Access, if the pipeline is to be halted.

In this time of uncertainty, President Obama still has the power to give our children hope, said Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II. In a statement today, the tribal leader described the results of last nights election this way: We as a country have so much work to do.

The question now becomes: What happens after Jan. 20?

Among Trumps campaign promises has been a vow to rescind President Obamas key climate policies, including reviving construction of the disrupted Keystone XL pipeline. That pipeline would bring petroleum from Canadas oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries. Obama eventually stepped in and stopped the Keystone, a move widely celebrated for his commitment in addressing these environmental issues.

But what separates Keystone from Dakota Access are boundaries.

Keystone is an international issue because it crosses into Canada, so the State Department has authority over the proposal, unlike the Dakota Access pipeline.

Dakota Access is entirely domestic, beginning in North Dakota and crossing South Dakota and Iowa until it reaches a plant nearly 1,200 miles away in south central Illinois. The federal government has final oversight because the pipeline crosses interstate waterways, like the Missouri River. But even then, only 3 percent of the Dakota Access pipeline crosses federal lands. It also narrowly avoids falling under tribal jurisdiction by a half-mile.

The one constant factor delaying the pipeline process is the Standing Rock Sioux tribes assertion of its sovereign right to protect the interests of its water.

But under a Trump presidency, even this right could be under attack.

In the final months of his campaign, Native American leaders canceled a planned meeting with Trump after the then-candidate repeatedly referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as Pocahontas, a jab about her contested claims of having Cherokee ancestry.

Trump has a history of insulting Native Americans, including tribal leaders he saw as competition for casino interests on the East Coast. They dont look like Indians to me, Trump once said in a congressional hearing. Meanwhile, in 2000, Trump was fined $500,000 for financing ads that portrayed Apache tribal members as criminals in their quest to open a casino.

This is like Andrew Jacksons victory, quipped Rudy Giuliani, speaking to MSNBCs Chris Matthews. The former New York City mayor was jovially referencing how Trump had appeared to beat the establishment in the way Jackson did in 1827. The people are rising up against a government they find to be dysfunctional, he said.

But the reference to Jackson could not have been more directly aimed at Standing Rockand all of Indian Country. Jacksons presidential legacy was violently forcing Native peoples from their homelands.

Note: This article is published via a Creative Commons license

Join the Conversation
1. Pictures of Kareena Kapoor Khan and Saif Ali Khan's royal photoshoot are winning the internet.

Twitter

Saifeena shot for a Harper's Bazaar photo shoot and the couple looked stunning in each and every frame.

2. Photo of Deepika Padukone sans make-up in a film by award-winning Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi goes viral on the internet.

Twitter

A DNA report quotes the casting director of the film saying, "It is an Indian story and will be shot in Mumbai, Delhi, parts of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and Kashmir. It will take off towards the year-end or early 2017 and is a signature Majidi film with new takes on relationships and emotional quotients."

3. John Abraham made the most legit and valid statement about the risks involved with shooting action scenes in films.

Twitter

Condemning the death of two Kannada stars, he said, I dont think stunts in our films can be taken lightly any longer. Todays audience is educated in world cinema. They know when we are faking a stunt. Body double nahin chalega. Besides, in my case, looking at my size finding a body double would be rather tough. We take risks with our lives. At least grant us the respect we deserve. When we actors injure ourselves, we almost lose our lives for two minutes of thrills, what do we get in return? An anxious producer wanting to know when we can return to shooting?

4. A heartbroken Alia Bhatt looks convincing in the new song from Dear Zindagi.

Red Chillies

The latest song called 'Just Go To Hell Dil' gives us a glimpse of Alia's post-heartbreak phase where she is seen crying, breaking pickle jars in a departmental store and moving to a new city.

5. Arbaaz Khan and Malaika Arora Khan came together to celebrate their son's birthday.

Birthday boy n his peeps  A photo posted by Amrita Arora (@amuaroraofficial) on Nov 9, 2016 at 7:59am PST

Malaika shared images of Arhaan with the message, "My baby boy all grown up. The love of my life. Happy bday". Here are some of the adorable pictures from the occasion.
At least four Linn County election matters remained too close to call on Wednesday  and theyll likely stay that way for weeks  including city council races in Brownsville, Halsey and Scio and a ballot measure that would prohibit certain recreational and medicinal marijuana facilities in Brownsville.

Only a few votes are currently the margin in each of those races, according to Linn County election results released at approximately 1 a.m. on Wednesday.

Until the results read final and official, they could change, said Derrick Sterling, Linn County supervisor of elections. The election will be certified between the 15th and 20th day after the election is completed.

The uncertainty stems from ballots that were challenged due to a lack of signatures and other issues, as well as ballots submitted in other areas of the state.

Registered voters can turn in their ballot to a drop box anywhere in Oregon. Say you have somebody visiting up in Portland, they could drop it off at an official drop box there, Sterling said.

While votes tallied late generally dont make much of a difference in larger cities such as Albany or Lebanon, they are a regular factor for small towns, where a handful of residents can determine a political race.

Brownsvilles marijuana measure, which would effectively ban pot operations in town, was being defeated 436 to 432, according to Linn County elections results released at approximately 1 a.m. on Wednesday.

The Brownsville City Council race, which had seven candidates competing for three positions, also had only a few votes determining the outcome. Doug Block and Carla Gerber were the clear winners.

But Lynda Chambers was in third with 241 votes, Tricia Thompson was fourth with 237 votes and Allen L. Buzzard was fifth with 233 votes. And all three of those candidates could theoretically still obtain enough votes to win the third seat on the council.

The Halsey City Council race featured five candidates vying for three positions. Lee Skinner and Greg Chamberlain seemed to be sure bets for the council, according to unofficial election results. But the contest for the third seat had Rella Johnson with 148 votes and Kenneth Lorensen with 146 votes.

In Scios lone contested race for City Council, Charlotte Thomas was leading Richard Rick Nelson by two votes, 119 to 117.
After the government withdrew higher denomination notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 from circulation, people in Chennai gathered outside the Reserve Bank of India office to get their currency exchanged.

ANI/Twitter

Like those thousands, a man desperate for new notes, carried his friend's daughter's wedding card to a bank, to request the latter to accept his wish of withdrawing Rs. 4000. However, his request was denied by the bank.

Chennai-Man carries the wedding card of his friend's daughter to bank,requests them to grant him over Rs 4000,authorities denied his request pic.twitter.com/8KKZYhL6rB  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

The wedding was scheduled for November 11.
At the ongoing Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change being held in Morocco, India is taking a strong stance for the conservation of the Himalayan range along with the variety of medicinal herbs that grow in its folds.

PP Dhyani, Director of the GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment in Dehradun says, "COP 21 at Paris has been a major success with now 197 member countries implementing its guidelines from Friday. India gave its own input at Paris under clause Intended Nationally Determined Contribution. As I am representing India at COP 22 so I want to fetch global attention to the vulnerability of the young Himalayas for climate change and its related aspects."

"Some 198 mountainous countries have formed World Mountain Forum but issues related to the Himalayas are not getting the prominence they deserved."

AP

At the India Pavilion at the event, the attention was diverted to the 6,000 medicinal plants that grow only in the Himalayas and the need to conserve them. "A research conducted in 18 Indian states, including in the northeast showed that existence of about 350 medicinal plants is threatened and listed red," GS Goraya, a senior scientist from the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) told IANS.

The survival of the local health traditions is part of India's agenda at COP22 as well as part of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) - a plan or layout to mitigate the climate change that every party to the event has to submit to the UNFCCC.

The preservation of plant forms, mainly the medicinal plants, is also a part of the United Nation's effort of 'Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDF+).

AP

Only a handful of efforts are going in towards these conservation efforts in India and officials have suggested that stronger steps be taken to combat invasion and destruction of the "medicinal plant conservation".

Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Anil Madhav Dave inaugurated the India pavilion at the event. A number of sessions, in the form of panel discussions, documentaries and presentations, will be hosted at the India Pavilion between November 8 to November 18.
Karnataka will become the first state in India to come out with a legislation providing protection to those who rush to rescue road accident victims.

BCCL/representational image

A bill to this effect, titled, The Karnataka Good Samaritan and Medical Professional (Protection and Regulation during Emergency Situations) Bill, will be tabled in the coming legislature session. A decision in this regard was taken during the cabinet meeting held on Wednesday.

The move comes two years after the Supreme Court emphasized framing guidelines to protect Good Samaritans or bystanders who immediately reach out to the aid of victims of road accidents. The SC's directive prompted the Union road transport ministry to come out with standard operating procedures pertaining to relief in case of road accidents in January.

"However, Karnataka will be the first state in the country to come out with a legislation that prevents Good Samaritans from getting embroiled in protracted police probes and prosecution processes," said law minister T B Jayachandra.

BCCL/representational image

The state is of the view that a large percentage of road accident victims can be saved with immediate medical care . This can be achieved by motivating people to offer help to accident victims without worrying about any criminal or civil liability.

"There have been several cases where people have been found busy clicking photos or making videos of the victims, instead of saving them by administering first-aid or rushing them to nearby hospitals.

Three months ago, I was travelling on a highway, when I reached an accident spot. A truck, following brake failure, had run over people who were standing at a bus stop nearby. What shocked me was the reaction of the bystanders.

BCCL/representational image

They were dissuading others from reaching out to the victims for fear of getting trapped in legal wrangles. With this legislation, we want to make it clear that those helping accident victims won't be subjected to harassment from police or be forced to attend courts," said Jayachandra.

The minister said that under the proposed legislation, Rs 5 crore has been earmarked for payment towards expenses incurred by Good Samaritans.

Other Decisions

1. To give 40,410 sqft of land, next to Krishna Flour Mills in Bengaluru, to the JD(S) on lease for 33 years with effect from March 3, 2020

2. To have four members in the interview panel of the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC). While two members will be from KPSC, the remaining two will be experts from outside who know Kannada language

3. To open centres for gastroenterology sciences and organ transplantation in Bengaluru

4. Approval to directly purchase 225 hectares, including 177.23 hectares of plantations, near Sakleshpur for Yettinahole project

5. To regulate transfer of forest department officials through counselling
Baba Ramdev has a habit of butting into places that he need not be in and saying things that noone wanted him to say but even then he failed to surprise most of us.

thehindubusinessline.com

But now, we have one instance where he is actually blowing his trumpet, for something cool that has happened in past two days and it's sort of turning into a war at the shores of bhakt-land.

There's no doubt that PM Modi's epic decision to ban Rs 500, 1000 notes in just a matter of 4 hours across our huge country was a move that will surely help India but now Ramdev fans are openly crediting it to the billionaire businessman yogi whose Patanjali brand is already a FMCG major in two years.

Four years back Baba played Nostra-damn-us

During his anti-congress Anti-corruption protest at the Ramlila grounds in 2011, Baba Ramdev had suggested that banning Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes is the quick way in beating black money.

"when 80 crore people in our country get only 20 a day, what is the need for such high denomination notes?" he had asked back then.

Sadly, yes this time it was sad, that his important message was lost in the hoopla that he caused and the highlight of which remains this Barbie-avatar of Baba which gained him a huge following among men who like thick-bearded slim women.

alivenews

Meanwhile, we all know the man who actually got this idea through to PM Modi, that too in a 9-minute long meeting!

But in typical Patanjali-ads fashion, noone cares about real facts while celebrating Baba Ramdev's claims and a result is this:

I thank @narendramodi ji & @arunjaitley ji on behalf lacs of bharat swabhiman karyakartas for delivering on,our movement against black money pic.twitter.com/tUrXKmiaSi  Swami Ramdev (@yogrishiramdev) November 9, 2016

Am a witness to Baba Ramdev's persistent call in Aug 2010, for demonetisation. @yogrishiramdev pic.twitter.com/jJZ8UEhLBd  Kiran Bedi (@thekiranbedi) November 10, 2016

And all this lead to all this:

Only Baba Ramdev has white money out of all others who tried to become rich. Hail #Patanjali. Jai Ho Babaji Ki, Paay Laagu.   Dead Mau5hi (@AdvancedMaushi) November 9, 2016

Media Consulted two times with Baba Ramdev and Never consulted to Ex RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan for his comments on Currency Demolition    500-1000  (@ModiLeDubega) November 9, 2016

Baba Ramdev to launch Patanjali 500 and 1000 ayurvedic notes until RBI releases new 500 and 2000 rupees notes.  LOLendra Singh (@LOLendraSingh) November 8, 2016

When your economic advisors are an old reliance stooge and baba ramdev #DeMonetisation https://t.co/528EsRriPY  Paaritosh  (@paari87) November 10, 2016

Listening to Baba Ramdev for the first time in life... And literally he has correct point of views on #blackmoney things...   Chulbuli  (@_AnAchiever_) November 10, 2016
Intelligence agencies vetted the new denominations of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 notes asserting that its security features will be next to impossible to replicate for Pakistan and organised criminal networks for some time to come.

AFP

A top government official without going into the details said that external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing, Intelligence Bureau and the DRI examined the features on the notes being secretly printed for the past six months. The official refused to reveal the number of security features on the notes but said they were difficult to forge.

The intelligence community had earlier informed the government and RBI that Pakistan had a dedicated mint in Peshawar where only fake Indian currency notes, mostly in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination, were being printed.

Also Read: Here's PM Modi's Speech Explaining Why He Suddenly Scrapped 500 and 1000 Rupee Bills

Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI, which oversees the mint, uses organised networks including those run by its clients like Dawood Ibrahim, LeT, besides international criminal networks to push fake currency into India.

AP

In a report to government and RBI, intelligence agencies had claimed a few years ago that Pakistan machinery had achieved "zero-error counterfeit capability" in printing fake Indian notes.

According to an estimate, Rs 70 crore worth FICN is pushed every year by Pakistan into the Indian economy, which was used as 'terror fund' and to spearhead disturbances.

Also Read: India Just Scrapped 500 And 1000 Buck Notes. They'll Be Illegal From Midnight Today.

MoS for home, Kiren Rijiju, said the government move would lead to closure of fake currency "press" in Pakistan.
The governments sudden demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes resulted in utter chaos at hospitals in Delhi. Patients coming from far flung areas found it difficult to pay the initial hospital bills. Many of them did not have information as they were travelling when the Prime Minister made the announcement in this regard.

AP

People at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) were seen running from pillar to post to buy medicines for their dear ones who are being treated there. Some of them are cancer patients, who need urgent platelet transfusion. Because of coming to Delhi from far off villages of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, they do not have much Rs 100 notes. The medical stores are not accepting Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Also Read: Currency Exchangers Make A Killing, Buying Old 500 Rupee Notes And Paying Only Rs 300 In Return

Even though the government had given them a waiver to continue accepting the bills, private hospitals refused to accept the larger denomination banknotes and turned patients away by claiming that the directions are not for them rather for the government hospitals.

Tarique Anwar

Ghulam Abbas, a resident of Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, was frequently calling his relatives and friends in the capital requesting them to lend him some money in the denomination of Rs 100. His eight-year-old niece is suffering from dengue and is admitted to ICU at Holy Family Hospital in South Delhi.

Also Read: Rahul Gandhi Blasts PM Modi For Banning Currency On Social Media, Accuses Him Of Not Caring

Tarique Anwar

We had 100-rupee notes worth Rs 3,000. Though it fell short by Rs 7,000, the hospital admitted her asking us to arrange the rest sum in valid currency notes. They are asking us to pay the bill through debit/credit cards which we do not have. The admission fee here is Rs 10,000. Now, we need to arrange the rest amount and surplus sum at the earliest which turns out to be a challenge, Abbas told Indiatimes.

Except seeking monetary help from his relatives and friends in the city, he does not have any option because all banks are closed for public transactions till Thursday.

Also Read: Here Is the Man Who Advised PM Modi To Demonetise Rs 500 & 1000 Currency Notes

Praveen Sethi from Lajpat Nagar also seemed helpless in the same hospital. He was unable to admit his daughter - suffering from pain - because he did not have enough Rs100 notes.

Tarique Anwar

From the accountant to the director of the hospital, I urged everyone to accept the sum I was willing to pay in the form of Rs 1000 notes. They agreed to admit her but I need to arrange the amount which has become difficult as all banks and ATMs are closed for two days, he said.

Ehtasham Khan from Patna could not get his 17-year-old son discharged because of not having the bill in the valid denominations.

My son underwent cervical spine surgery here and has been admitted for the last 11 days. He has now recovered and about to be discharged today. But since I am carrying the required amount against cash which has been scrapped, I could not get him discharged. Now, I need to wait for one more day so that ATMs become operational, he added.

Tarique Anwar

From midnight on Tuesday, the larger banknotes ceased to be legal tender for transactions other than exchanging them at banks for smaller notes. Things are expected to get better from Thursday as many banks will be exchanging old currency notes with the new ones.
An Indian fish named Chanakya predicted Trumps win even before the now famous Bulgarian blind mystic predicted Chemical war and trouble for Trump when he steps into the White House.

BCCL

But there are two Hindu (or as US President-elect Trump would say Hindoo) groups that put him in there in the first place.

What makes their hard work even more special is that they did it all even before the Indian 'Hindoos' decided to throw their cash and might behind The Donald. They did it without holding a placard that promised them green cards and they did it without being invited to a victory party in Trump HQs to sip champagne slowly.

But even more importantly, they did it in May before global millennials became sanctimonious about Trump and started pretending the American elections were issues at par with a new iPhone launch.

Meet Delhi-based Hindu Sena that did a hawan to pray for their "Brother- from-an-American-Mother" Trumps victory. The Hindu Sena believes Trump (and not Modi) will be the Savior of the Humanity and protect it from those Islamic Terror and while at it, from Islam as a whole too.

Reuters

"It's a great day which will be written in golden in the history of the United States and India. Today, the humanity has won and Pakistan sympathisers have been defeated. With Mr Trump's victory, there will be peace all across the world," The group's national president Vishnu Gupta told Indiatimes.

But what makes Hindu Sena even more special is that unlike Trumps own rallies in New York they didnt utter any hate remarks against blacks or threaten to grab everyone by their pussies. They were much more earnest about their celebrations. There was a little bit of regulation Muslim hate but whats a good Trump demonstration without it.

Turns out Hindu Sena admires Trump for his compassion, among other things because only a very compassionate man can make fun of disabled athletes.

And god knows Mr Trump has done that with time to spare.

They also believe Mr Trump has hardly said anything thats anti-India or anti-Hindu. Except of course his criminal pronunciation of the word 'Hindooo' and the line of signature steaks he endorses. But hey, what the hell, its not our cow  right?

Reuters

The Hindu Sena is a brave organisation which has organised glorious acts like beating up then AAP member Prashant Bhushan  in his court chambers. They also ransacked Kerala House canteen in Delhi accusing them of serving Beef which later turned out to be Buffalo meat.

They were also single-handedly responsible for the world finding out that Pakistan International Airlines ran and maintained an office in Delhi  when they ransacked it.

Recently, they had also made it to the Daily Show after they held a birthday celebration for Trump and fed cake to his cut-out.

The other brave organisation that stood behind Mr Trump was Hindu Mahasabha. Its national president Chandraprakash Kaushik not only organised hawan in the run up to the elections, he also personally visited Ayodhya to pray for The Trump. And it gets hot during the summers.

They now believe Trump should give up eating beef because it was the power of 'Hindoos' which propelled him to victory over Hillary.

Indiatimes could not independently verify whether Mr Trump would comply to this. They also believe that all of the vices in him (Trump) will now be resolved. It's not clear whether the hawan etc. would be able to get Mr Trump to be less misogynistic, anti-women and xenophobic in the future.

Reuters

The Hindu Mahasabha, meanwhile, has a history of hindu pride. They have also been pushing for a temple of Nathuram Godse and campaigning to have Gandhi bumped off currency notes when they are not busy doing hawan for Mr Trumps victory.

Both these organisations could use some TLC from Mr Trump if he ever decides to visit India to meet Mr Modi, unless he wants to touch nothing that Obama touched.

Dear Mr Trump, if you are reading this  please do send these men a postcard, theyre waiting for an answer on whether you will consider giving up eating beef. Im attaching a picture of their cute faces  if you see their puppy eyes you will never be able to say no.
Some temples kept the faith, while others refused to accept demonetized notes from devotees on Wednesday.

Temples in Vrindavan requested devotees not to put banned notes in donation boxes, while the famous Tirupati temple accepted all notes, set up debit and credit card machines and provided free food to pilgrims stranded without money.

BCCL/representational image

The Shri Krishna Janm Bhumi Trust in Vrindavan is planning to put up banners asking devotees not to make donations in Rs 500 or Rs1,000 notes. "We have ordered banners, which will be put at prominent points, urging devotees not to put banned notes in donation boxes," said Kapil Sharma, the trust's secretary.

thomascook

At the Banke Bihari temple, assistant manager Umesh Saraswat, said they hadn't stopped anyone from putting demonetised notes in the donation boxes, but were not accepting Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for donations in their offices.

Kamta Prasad, who had travelled to Vrindavan from Amroha, said the sudden move had inconvenienced him.

"I don't have notes of smaller denomination. All this tension has spoiled my visit," he said.

At the temple towns of Ti rupati and Tirumala, some pilgrims staged a protest on Wednesday morning, prompting the authorities of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) to accept the old notes for tickets and prasadam. The board set up a number of `point of sale' machines to enable pilgrims to pay through debit or credit cards.

BCCL/representational image

Several devotees were stranded in Tirumala as they had no money to return home, and restaurants and shops refused to accept demonetised notes. TTD prepared extra food and supplied it free to devotees. "We are accepting Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for tickets and prasadam. This will continue till the deadline fixed by the Centre," said TTD chairman Chadalavada Krishnamurthy.
After Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States, American-Muslim women are expressing their fear of wearing the hijab.

AP

Because they belong to a religion that Trump openly said to ban in the US, claiming that American Muslims are the reason behind hate and violence against America.

Reuters

Several women have taken to Twitter to warn other Muslim women to ditch the hijab, or burka or niqab, lest they become the target of hate crime following Trump's win as the President. They even backed their advice with facts, saying that racial crimes increased by 41 percent following Brexit.

Here's what the women had to say.

1. A religious mom cautions her daughter

My mom literally just texted me "don't wear the Hijab please" and she's the most religious person in our family....   (@harryonmen) November 9, 2016

2. While some cite facts and figures

muslim friends plz don't wear hijabs publicly. after brexit hate crime rose 40% in uk, ppl get more bold when they've been shown favored  nathanial clearwater (@stiffening) November 9, 2016

3. Others advise to never step out alone

If you don't feel safe to wear hijab in your area, please reach out to a friend/have a call-buddy/don't walk alone whenever you're out.  Narjis Naqvi (@narjisfn) November 9, 2016

4. Many apologise for the fear in women's hearts

@harryonmen @irishmaniall i dont know you, but my heart goes out to you and your family, we are all here for you. I am truly sorry.  lil (@njhconfused) November 9, 2016

5. Few even urge against violating their right of wearing the hijab

please don't be bystanders to violence toward muslim women that wear hijabs. I know I won't be.  kyra (@kyrageous) November 9, 2016

6. Allah will forgive

I was ok this morning until I saw tweets saying that Allah would forgive Muslim women is they're too scare to wear hijabs & now I'm sobbing  kit cat (@KainesCat) November 9, 2016

7. What's bigger: fear for the country or for one's family?

I am afraid for my country but I recognize my Muslim friends are afraid for their lives and the lives of their children.  (((Wil Gafney))) (@WilGafney) November 9, 2016

8. All these women want is to stay safe
After the results of the American elections, the Apple chief Tim Cook has written to his employees a letter that aims at assuaging their emotions following Donald Trump's historic win to become the 45th President of the United States of America.

Reuters

Cook sent out an all-hands memo to his US Apple employees, asking them to unite and move forward together, irrespective of whose side they chose during the elections.

Addressing the volatile situation, Cook neither takes Trump's name nor does he comment on his claims that in the past, were aimed at making things difficult for Apple.

In his letter, Cook writes,

Team,

Ive heard from many of you today about the presidential election. In a political contest where the candidates were so different and each received a similar number of popular votes, its inevitable that the aftermath leaves many of you with strong feelings.

NBC News

We have a very diverse team of employees, including supporters of each of the candidates. Regardless of which candidate each of us supported as individuals, the only way to move forward is to move forward together. I recall something Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said 50 years ago: If you cant fly, then run. If you cant run, then walk. If you cant walk, then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. This advice is timeless, and a reminder that we only do great work and improve the world by moving forward.

Reuters

While there is discussion today about uncertainties ahead, you can be confident that Apples North Star hasnt changed. Our products connect people everywhere, and they provide the tools for our customers to do great things to improve their lives and the world at large. Our company is open to all, and we celebrate the diversity of our team here in the United States and around the world  regardless of what they look like, where they come from, how they worship or who they love.

Ive always looked at Apple as one big family and I encourage you to reach out to your co-workers if they are feeling anxious.

Lets move forward  together!

Best,

Tim
Michael E. Stencel, adjutant general of the Oregon National Guard, will be the keynote speaker at 8:30 a.m. Friday at the annual Veterans Day Memorial Service at Timber-Linn Memorial Park, 900 Price Road S.E.

General Stencel assumed command of more than 8,100 citizen-soldiers and airmen in September 2015. He succeeded Lt. Gen. Daniel Hokanson, who was promoted to deputy commander of the U.S. Northern Command and vice commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Michael Stencel is a proven and accomplished leader. He will make an excellent adjutant general, and I thank him for his continued contributions to the state and nation, Gov. Kate Brown said at the time of his appointment.

His duties are to direct, manage and supervise the administration, discipline, organization and training of the Oregon National Guard and the Office of Oregon Emergency Management.

He is also the Governors Homeland Security Adviser.

Stencel is a 1983 graduate of the University of Washington, with a bachelors degree in civil engineering. He joined the Oregon Air National Guard in April 1984 and was commissioned through the Air National Guard Academy of Military Science in December 1984.

He has had a long and distinguished military career and has served in Mississippi, Alabama, Washington, Oregon, Ohio, Hawaii and Colorado, and has completed numerous university and military training courses, including earning a bachelors degree in political science from the University of Washington in 1991.

Stencel has also earned numerous awards and decorations, including the Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal with bronze oak leaf cluster, Air Force Achievement and commendation medals, exceptional service medals, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism medals and many more.

He has held the ranks of Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier General and Major General.
Americans want Donald Trump gone. At least the ones who had the good sense to not make him their president.

Reuters

And since Trump's win, Google searches on 'How to impeach a President' surged by almost 5000 percent! People are clearly shocked and upset over Trump's victory and they want to do everything to make sure that he's removed from the revered post of America's president.

Reuters

On Twitter too, impeachment is fast becoming a popular choice.

So how quickly can we impeach Trump? #Elections2016  Stephen Ford (@Lunsfuhd) November 9, 2016

Not sure of the small print, but can you technically impeach a foreign president on @KickStarter?  Andrew Collins (@AndrewCollins) November 9, 2016

can you impeach a president before they even take office??? asking for another country  Grecia Renova (@greciarenova) November 9, 2016

And since they want to back it up with facts, they are doing their research with the help of Google.

Metro UK

Google Trends data also reveals five states desperate to impeach Trump. These include Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado.

Related searches on 'How to become a Canadian citizen' and 'How to move to Canada from US' have also seen an upward rise in the last 12 hours.

Practically, however, impeachment is a political decision and with the Republicans holding both houses of Congress, it looks less likely to happen.
We all have our share of concern, apprehension, and questions about the USs Presidential Elections.

Read: After Trump's Win, Google Searches For 'How To Impeach A President' Skyrocket By 5000 Percent!

When Donald Trump became the 45th President of the USA, the entire world mentally prepared itself for a gigantic transformation. The 70-year-old real estate mogul-turned-politician is now the face of America and no one can change anything about that.

Read: After Trump's Victory, People Are Calling On Michelle Obama To Run For President In 2020

nymag

Minutes after his victory, people crowded the streets, protesting against the selection. Hillary Clinton broke down in tears while giving her speech and many other hapless people took to social media.

On such was American Senator Bernie Sanders, who's taken to Twitter and Facebook in the past.

Those who voted for me will not support Trump who has made bigotry and divisiveness the cornerstone of his campaign. #RNCwithBernie  Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016

Trump: I alone can fix this.

Is this guy running for president or dictator? #RNCwithBernie  Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016

This is how he reacted after the results:

Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids - all while the very rich become much richer. "

To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him.

To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.

Read the full post here

Folks, brace yourselves!
Donald Trump, first of his name, destroyer of politically correct culture, future emperor of the free world, and the coming enemy of Pakistan - is actually from Pakistan.

That is what Pakistani news channel Neo News reported. They added that the Don's real name is actually Dawood Ibrahim Khan.

Trump is a vocal critic of Pakistan and Islam, and has even asked Pakistan to apologise for providing sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden.

When will Pakistan apologize to us for providing safe sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden for 6 years?! Some "ally."  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2012

They might not have realised that this was based on funny social media comments. The channel added that young Dawood was adopted by the Trump family, after being taken to London by a British Indian Army captain. As proof, they used the photo or some random blonde kid - supposedly from Donald Trump's childhood.

The report added that Trump studied at a Waziristan madrasa, and lost his parents in a road accident in 1954
The Trump presidency may be the most divisive time in America's recent history, and his haters are in complete denial.

If this had been Trump supporters, the media would be denouncing them right now as dangerous, democracy-hating bigots. #TrumpProtest pic.twitter.com/7FGQuTc4hQ  Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 10, 2016

Demonstrators marched in cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest against Republican Donald Trump's surprise presidential election win. They were furious about controversial, yet winning campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

New York

Thousands take to U.S. streets to protest Trump victory https://t.co/EJA3dzPNoA pic.twitter.com/pCVjAWzLH0  Reuters Top News (@Reuters) November 10, 2016



thousands of protesters filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, Trump's gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted: "Not my president."

California



A demonstration of about 6,000 people blocked traffic in Oakland, California, police said. Protesters threw objects at police in riot gear, burned trash in the middle of an intersection, set off fireworks and smashed storefront windows.

San Francisco Bay Area

Some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, in a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Silicon Valley

The unexpected victory also got Silicon Valley investors to call for California to secede from the US after Trump win. Soon, 'Calexit', 'Califrexit' and 'Caleavefornia', became the new movement.

Los Angeles

In Los Angeles, protesters sat on the 110 and 101 highway interchange, blocking traffic on one of the city's main arteries as police in riot gear tried to clear them. Some 13 protesters were arrested.

Chicago

"No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!" #Trump protest in Chicago pic.twitter.com/JcG70b0k4t  Joel Meares (@joelmeares) November 10, 2016



In downtown Chicago, an estimated 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA."

Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators' path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there.

My first set of photos from tonight's Anti-Trump Protest in Chicago. Hate will never win. pic.twitter.com/JAJvf0ddwT  Jake (@__27K) November 10, 2016

"I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."

Seattle

Police responded to a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of anti-Trump protests. Police said it was unrelated to the demonstrations. Protesters railed against Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally.

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston and Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday evening, and organisers planned rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland, California. In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said.
Does Tuesday night's election mark the point of no return for legalizing recreational marijuana in the United States?

Surveying results from elections held throughout Oregon and across the county, it looks to us as if that could be the case.

In Linn County, voters in a number of communities (including the county as a whole) chose to reject bans on recreational sales of pot. Those bans previously had been approved by officials in those jurisdictions  but, in Linn County, the bans needed to be affirmed by voters.

We expected city of Albany voters to reject the ban, as they did, because voters there two years ago narrowly were in favor of the statewide initiative to allow recreational pot sales. But we were surprised by the relatively large margin, 59 to 41 percent, by which the ban was rejected in Albany. That's nearly a 10-point shift on the issue in just two years. (We were not surprised when the City Council almost immediately started efforts to potentially tighten the zoning restrictions governing recreational pot shops; at this point, we'd encourage the council to proceed with great care on this.)

We also were surprised that Linn County voters rejected the countywide ban, although the vote was closer there. Bans also appear to have been rejected by voters in Lebanon and Sweet Home, but generally were favored in smaller communities.

The results in Albany and Linn County bucked the state trend a bit: Although two dozen locales around the state rejected the bans, they were affirmed in about three dozen other locations.

Meanwhile, across the nation, voters in California, Massachusetts and Nevada approved recreational sales of marijuana. One implication of these votes: The three states along the West Coast now allow recreational sales, forming a "Pacific Green Wall," so to speak. More than 1 in 5 Americans live in a state where recreational sales either are legal or will be soon. (A measure to legalize recreational sales failed in Arizona, and legalization opponents said that state could offer a template for battles elsewhere.)

Voters in Florida, North Dakota and Arkansas passed medical marijuana measures, pushing the number of states with such laws past two dozen.

It all adds to the momentum across the nation for legalization, and increases pressure on the federal government to relax at least some of its restrictions on marijuana, including its ludicrous listing as a highly addictive drug with no medicinal benefits.

There is a potential trouble spot: The Barack Obama administration has adopted a policy of general noninterference with state marijuana laws, but that, of course, could change under Donald Trump's administration.

It's not clear what Trump thinks about the issue: As The Washington Post reported, he has spoken frequently about the negative effects of legalization but also has said that recreational and medical marijuana should be dealt with at the state level. Our guess now is that the Trump administration will be reluctant to devote much bandwidth to an attempt to roll back what appears to be a rising tide of support for legalization.

One other note is worth making about Tuesday's pot election: Even communities that affirmed the bans enthusiastically endorsed a 3 percent local tax on recreational sales, in the event that at some point, those communities allow the sales. That's crafty thinking: If it's true that legalization finally has reached some kind of critical mass, why leave any possible tax revenue on the table? (mm)
This weeks tenuous compromise for a new board of directors and top leadership the National Bank of Greece (NBG) has apparently not normalized relations between the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF), the primary shareholder of the previously recapitalized credit institution, and the new board.
Security agencies in Kaduna have arrested 22 suspects for allegedly vandalizing and stealing solar street lights installed by the Kaduna State government.

Special Assistant to Kaduna State, Governor, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai on Media and Publicity, Samuel Aruwan, said on Wednesday that 19 of the 22 suspects had already been charged to court.

Aruwan reiterated the state governments commitment to prosecuting anyone found vandalizing or stealing public properties.

He stated that, Security operatives have arrested 22 suspects for vandalizing and stealing of Solar Street Lights. Scrap Iron Scavengers fixed by the State government. Others in the net are buyers of the stolen properties within the metropolis.

After careful combing of the crime scene, Solar Batteries and their covers and one iron saw were recovered inside the Cemetery along Bashama Road, Tudun Wada area of the metropolis.

The operation which lasted for two days raided all Scrap Iron Vendors, Roadside Solar Battery Sellers mentioned in the deal. Items recovered during the raids include Solar Panels, Armored Cables, Vehicle spare parts and Textile materials suspected to have been stolen were recovered from the suspects.

Those arrested are; Nazif Mohammed, Aminu Isa, Yusuf Tukur, Imrana Yusuf, Ibrahim Ahmed, Shamsudeen Jibrin, Sani Idris, Abdullahi Bashir and Ahmed Sani. Others are: Adamu Najib, Annas Mohammed, Abubakar Abba, Abubakar Umar, Suleiman Nasir, Uzaifa Saffiyanu, Abdulrasheed Abdullahi, UsmanAbubaka, Adamu Ahmadu, Abdullahi Musa and Abubakar Kule.

He also revealed that the suspects and the items recovered were handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the State Police Command for further investigation to establish the criminal profiles of the suspects for possiblefor various offences for prosecution.

He also warned vandals to desist from those dangerous acts, as the state government will prosecute anyone found vandalizing or stealing public property.

Source: Dailypost
Just a day after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, thousands of people took to the streets in protest.

Trump achieved notoriety for his divisive comments during his campaign, insisting he would build a wall to keep out Mexicans.

Despite many key figures refusing to back him, Trump won the election comfortably, beating Democratic Party candidate, Hillary Clinton.
Despite her husbands larger-than-life persona, Melania Trump remains a bit of a mystery. She first stepped into the spotlight while making a campaign speech at the Republican National Convention back in July. But Melania and the Trump campaign incurred the wrath of social media after it was revealed that a speechwriter allegedly lifted part of the address from a speech First Lady Michelle Obama gave on behalf of her husband at the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

Since then, Melanias remained largely a silent figure in the campaign. Aside from the speech disaster, here are nine more insights about the future first lady.

1. She Invited Hillary Clinton to Her Wedding

Donald and Melania first met in 1998 and married in 2005. According to the The Hollywood Reporter (and photographic evidence), Bill and Hil were among the guests at their (predictably) over-the-top ceremony.

2. Claims That She Received a College Degree Are in Question

Although her website bio says she graduated with a degree from a university in Slovenia, according to The Huffington Post she actually dropped out after her freshman year. When she was 18, she moved to Milan to pursue her modeling career.

3. Barbara Walters Thinks Shes Smart

After a 2015 look into the private lives of the Trumps for an episode of 20/20, Walters told Robin Roberts on Good Morning America, Because shes so beautiful, we dont expect her to be as smart as she is.

4. Shes a Jewelry Designer

In 2010, the model partnered with QVC to launch her own line of fashion jewelry and watches, which naturally features a replica of her own 15-carat engagement ring. Naturally.

5. She Speaks Five Languages

Yep, according to CBS News, the potential First Lady speaks Slovenian, French, Serbian, German, and English.

6. She Has a Caviar Skin-care Line

Because, duh. Are you really even rich if you dont put caviar on your face? Her website claims its imported from a farm in France.

7. She Would Be the First First Lady to Ever Pose Nude

In 2000, Melania posed nudehandcuffed to a briefcase inside then-boyfriend Donald Trumps private jetin a photo shoot for British GQ. So theres that.

8. She Tells Don What She Thinks

At a recent rally in Arizona, Trump told the crowd that his wife and eldest daughter Ivanka are on him to act presidential, Peoplereported. Melania, who admitted to Today that she wishes Donald would give up tweeting, told CNN in a recent interview: Im my own person, I tell him what I think. Im standing very strong on the ground on my two feet and Im my own person. And I think thats very important in the relationship.

9. Shell Campaign Against Cyberbullying as First Lady

A few weeks before Election Day, Melania announced during a campaign speech in Pennsylvania that her cause as first lady will be fighting against cyberbullying. The announcement was met with criticism on social media (notably, this tweet from Lady Gaga) due to Trumps penchant for starting Twitter wars.

Source: womenshealthmag
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has granted Arik Air Third Country Operator (TCO) authorisation, which allows it to operate to any European country.

The airline made the announcement in a statement by its Communications Manager, Ola Adebanji, which was obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos on Wednesday.

The statement said the TCO authorisation was a requirement for all non-European Union registered commercial operators that fly to EU countries under the Air Operator Certificate (AOC).

It said: An airline is given the authorisation after meeting stringent safety and security standards.

The TCO is obtained from EASA after the agency has scrutinised the airlines manuals and after the airline has scaled its regulations, which may include an interview.

Only very few airlines have the authorisation in Africa and Arik Air is the only airline that has TCO in West Africa.

According to the statement, this enables the airline to operate to any part of Europe, according to the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) the airline has with individual countries.

The statement quoted the Deputy Managing Director of Arik Air, Ado Sanusi, as saying that the airline could fly to all European member states with respect to BASA agreement with each country.

This is a great achievement for Arik Air because it is a confirmation of the airlines high operational standard and safety by such a renowned agency. With the TCO authorisation, Arik can overfly to any EU member state.

Arik is the only airline in West and Central Africa that has the authorisation and it took the airline short time to attain this. I am aware that it took some major airlines a very long time to obtain this authorisation.

Some of them made use of consultant firms to enable them pass the rigid examinations before they were given the authorisation, Mr. Sanusi is quoted as saying.

The statement said the EASA TCO authorisation had further confirmed the high standard of the airlines operations.

Source: NAN
For allegedly stealing N810,000 from her employer, a 33-year-old banker, Ebere Okeke, was on Thursday arraigned before an Ikeja Chief Magistrates Court.

The accused, who resides at A19, Kajola St., Governor Road, Ikotun, a suburb of Lagos, is facing a count charge.

The prosecutor, Sgt. Donjor Perezi, told the court that Okeke committed the offence from August, 2015 to February, 2016, at SMC Co-operative Bank, Ikeja.

The accused works as credit officer and her assignment is to give customers loans and collect them back on weekly basis.

It was during an investigation that the bank got to know that the accused had collected N810,000 back from a customer she gave a loan but did not remit it, he said.

He said that the offence contravenes Section 285 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The Chief Magistrate, Mrs O. A Layinka, granted her N 200,000 bail with two sureties in like sum.

Layinka adjourned the case till Dec. 5 for mention
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist

James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.

Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.

Albert Einstein
Award winning comedian Basketmouth has announced his intentions to contest for the next presidential elections in 2019 following Donald Trumps stunning victory in the US presidential election.

In the aftermath of Trumps shocking victory, Basketmouth announced his candidacy for the Office of the President in the 2019 general elections, adding that consultations are underway over which party he will represent. He also said he will make an announcement at a future date.

He posted on Instagram:

My Esteemed people, in fulfillment of my threat/promise regarding the outcome of the just concluded #uspresidentialelection I am announcing my candidacy for the Office of the President of our dear country in the 2019 general elections. Consultations are ongoing and I will announce at a future date under what party. #MakeNigeriaBRIGHTAgain

The 38-year-old comedian had previously revealed that he would contest for the presidency if then-Republican nominee Trump wins the US election against rival Hillary Clinton.

If Donald Trump wins the US election, Im so running for the presidential election in Nigeria 2019, he tweeted earlier.

If Donald Trump wins the US election, I'm so running for the Presidential election in Nigeria 2019.  Basketmouth (@basket_mouth) November 3, 2016

Basketmouth has long been critical of the Nigerian government, describing its leadership as comprised of corrupt individuals.
At least two monkeys with severed spinal cords have been reported to have regained control of their limbs after a new wireless implant was placed in their brains.

Neuroscientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) developed a technology which allows the sending of signals from the brain to the muscles bypassing the damaged part of the spinal cord.

Reuters quoted Gregoire Courtine, a neuroscientist who led the experiment saying, We developed an implantable, wireless system that operates in real-time and enabled a primate to behave freely, without the constraint of tethered electronics.

Courtine, who treated two monkeys in China, each with one leg paralysed by a partial spinal cord lesion, explained that he and his team got to understand how to extract brain signals that encode flexion and extension movements of the leg with a mathematical algorithm.

They then linked the decoded signals associated with leg movement to particular key points in the lower part of the spine, below the injury. Devices receiving a wireless signal from the brain then generate electrical pulses that activate leg muscles into motion.

With the wireless brain implant in place, both monkeys partially regained the use of their paralysed legs within two weeks of sustaining their injury, without any special training.

They have demonstrated that the animals can regain not only coordinated but also weight-bearing function, which is important for locomotion. This is great work, said another neuroscientist, Gaurav Sharma.

Independent experts not directly involved in the work said it was an important step towards a potential treatment for immobile people.

In principle this is reproducible in human patients, a specialist in restorative neuroscience at Imperial College London, Simone Di Giovanni said, adding that the results his Swiss colleagues achieved are solid, very promising and exciting.

Although applying the brain-spine interface to the treatment of human patients is more complicated because the human brain decoding is much more complex, according to Courtine, the neuroscientist has already started a trial in two people with spinal-cord injury in Switzerland, using a pared-down version of the technology.
A Kwara State High Court in Ilorin, presided over by Justice Sikiru Oyinloye, on Wednesday sentenced a student of a polytechnic in the state, Mr. Fatai Olasile, to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of N50, 000.

Olasile was sentenced for being a member of a secret cult and for involvement in cult-related activities.

He was also sentenced for unlawful possession of a locally-made pistol, punishable under Section 3 (1) of the Robbery and Firearms Act, 2004.

The convict was arraigned on two counts bordering on belonging to cult contrary to Section 2 of Secret Cult and Secret Societies Law of Kwara State.

Another person, Mohammed Kehinde, and two others were arraigned on three counts of criminal conspiracy, initiation of new members to secret cult and membership of the secret cult.

Olasile was convicted after the prosecution team, led by the Kwara State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Kamaldeen Ajibade, called three witnesses and tendered exhibits to prove his case.

Oyinloye subsequently found the first and second accused guilty and sentenced them to 10 years imprisonment each with a fine of N50,000.

The third accused person was, however, discharged and acquitted of the offences.

Source: Punch
A dead man has been voted into office in the USA, reports say.

Gary Erns who died of natural causes in September was elected to office in the coastal San Diego County city of Oceanside, more than a month later.

He was elected to Oceanside City Treasurer by a six percent margin over challenger Nadine Scott, with the election results expected to be certified on December 7th by the city council.

Ernst died September 23 and there wasnt enough time to remove his name from the ballot. He earned a reported 17,659 votes.

City council members can declare the seat vacant since the winner cannot physically take office, according to Oceansides City Attorney John Mullen. This will lead to either an appointment or a special election.

If city leaders choose to appoint someone for two years, the decision must be made within 60 days, Mullen said.
The crisis within the Peoples Democratic Party appears not to be abating as the faction under the leadership of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff has accused the Senator Ahmed Makarfi group of wooing aggrieved stalwarts of the All Progressives Congress to form a new political party.

It said the plan of the Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee was to dump the PDP after ensuring that it had gained sufficient confidence of those who appeared to have lost out in the APC.

A member of the National Working Committee of the party under Sheriff, who spoke on condition of anonymity, wondered why the Makarfi camp would set up what he described as inter-party committee instead of intra-party committee to reposition the former ruling party ahead of 2019.

The source added, They (members of the Makarfi group) have been meeting clandestinely with some disgruntled members of the APC with a view to forming a new party ahead of 2019.

They are also talking with those who have corruption cases against them by either the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, the Police or the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

He said, They are looking for people of questionable character and all those who are not happy with President Muhammadu Buhari in the APC are their target.

How do you set up an inter-party committee when the problem is with us, the PDP alone?

Why would they be scouting for people who have corruption cases against them, and those who are being tried for one criminal case or the other?

For us, we will take the party to the people who own it and we wont allow just one governor to lord it over the people of his state at all times.

It was also learnt that the Sheriff faction had concluded plan to set up a rival committee on how to rejuvenate the troubled party.

Membership of the proposed committee, which will be named before Monday, was debated by the faction at its meeting in Abuja on Wednesday.

The PUNCH gathered that the committee would perform the function as the one set up by the camp of the National Caretaker of the party, led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi in Abuja on Monday.

While Makarfis committee is to interface with some aggrieved members of the party and its former members, who have defected to other political parties, the Sheriff committee, it was gathered, would discuss how to re-position the PDP alone.

Makarfis committee, known as the Strategy Review and Inter-Party Affairs, has more than 115 members.

Among its terms of reference are how to explore strategies to engage all possible allies with a view to building positive relationship in the overall interest and in furtherance of democracy in Nigeria and also consider and recommend strategies to reposition the party.

The committee is also saddled with the responsibility of recommending necessary amendment to the constitution of the party.

Speaking on the proposed committee, the Acting National Publicity Secretary of the Sheriff faction, Mr. Bernard Mikko, said the committee members would be unveiled soon.

He said, Recall that the party was in dire need of reorganisation and rejuvenation due to the blatant impunity that led to our defeat at the 2015 presidential election, and the subsequent leadership crisis that has threatened the unity and cohesion of the party.

Also recall that feuding camps agreed to reconcile, diminish tendencies of impunity and strengthen the party based on the principles of rule of law.

The discussions following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding suffered a setback due to extraneous forces within the Makarfi camp.

However, the NWC, under the leadership of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, is determined to put reconciliation back on track in the face of impending inclination of the Makarfi camp to forming a new political movement or exploring ways of leaving the PDP.

We believe the name is not the problem, but these vested interests that led us to defeat at the last presidential election and bent on perpetuating themselves in public service at all costs.

The PDP, under the leadership of Sheriff, will reposition the party and appeals to all stakeholders not to succumb to the antics of the nomadic forces behind the leadership crisis.

The Makarfi group, however, said the committee was free to discuss with anyone within the PDP and outside the party.

It stated that the committee didnt have the instruction or mandate to discuss the change of name of the PDP for now.

The PDP faction nevertheless added that the report of the committee would be exhaustively discussed at a higher level before a final decision was taken on the matter.

Spokesperson for the party, Mr. Dayo Adeyeye, who spoke with The PUNCH on Wednesday, claimed that more than 75 per cent of APC senators wanted to return to the PDP.

He said, More than three quarter of the senators are already discussing the possibility of being in our party and form an alliance with us.

You know how the APC came into being. We are already discussing with them and individually, the senators and other are already discussing the possibility of forming an alliance with us.

We dont want solo discussion and this is the reason why we have to form a committee to handle such discussions.

Adeyeye, a former Minister of State for Works during the regime of former President Goodluck Jonathan, said the question on the possibility of changing the name of the PDP would be discussed at a higher quarters.

We want to regain power democratically in 2019. We are doing everything possible to get it, he added.

Source: Punch
Nigerian newspaper headlines November 10, 2016.

Vanguard

The federal government has lamented the loss of over $450 million dollars to cyber attacks in 2015 alone, saying drastic measures must be taken to arrest the trend.

Guardian

Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, emeritus chairman of DAAR Communications, Chief Raymond Dokpesi and former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, Hamza Al-Mustapha, have urged unity, equality, equity and justice for the sustainability of the nation.

Premium Times

A civic group has expressed concerns that Nigerians stand to have their right to privacy compromised if a telecommunication bill being pushed in the House of Representatives scales through.

Thisday

The uncertainty surrounding succession to the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) has persisted even as the Presidency said wednesday that an acting CJN would be sworn in today by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Sun

The former Director General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Professor (Mrs) Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, has urged the Federal Government to wind down the operations of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and merge it with the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON). The advice came as former Managing Director of defunct Fortune Bank, Fidelis Tilije accused the corporation of inefficiency.

Punch

Retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme will from early next year enjoy a minimum pension payment irrespective of the balance in their Retirement Savings Accounts.

The Nation

President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday met for the second time within one week with the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. They met first last Friday after the Senate on Tuesday rejected Buharis approval request for $29.9 billion loan.

National Mirror

Lagos State on Tuesday inaugurated another electronic library now at Wahab Folawiyo Government Junior High School, Ikoyi.
Barely a day after the Senate condemned the planned concession of some major rail lines to a US based company, General Electric, (GE) by Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, Nigerian railway workers have supported the move.

The employees of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, NRC, on Wednesday in Lagos endorsed the planned concession of the corporation but called on the Federal Government to pay their entitlements.

The employees, under the aegis of the Nigeria Union of Railway Workers and the Senior Staff Association, Nigeria Railway Branch, said that they were in support of the concession of the NRCs asset, if it would make the sub-sector a true hub of the Nigerian transportation system.

They were, however, opposed to what they termed a wholesale transfer of the workers liabilities to the would-be concessionaire.

The workers insisted on full settlement of all labour issues, including payment of a negotiated severance package by the Federal Government, before concluding the concession process and handing over to the concessionaire.

Esan Segun, Secretary-General, NUR, at a rally, said that 10,000 workers would be affected hence, the concession process should be transparent and due diligence followed.

Let it be made abundantly clear that workers are not and will not be against the concession of the Nigerian Railway asset only if it is done with patriotism and due diligence, to make the rail sub-sector a true hub of the transportation system in Nigeria.

We will also not antagonize the process if the Federal Government engages the workers in a dialogue.

We will demand for a genuine and fair labour disengagement policy that guarantees our rights of fair severance benefits from the Federal Government, and that our demands are heard and fully met before conceding the railways asset to a third party, Mr. Esan said.

He said that the workers would also keep their peace if the Federal Government decides today, among other things, to monetise the staff quarters to the workers, as directed by the monetization policy of 2005.
The Enugu State Police Command on Thursday said it had arrested two suspected fraudsters for faking the Face book account of the State Deputy Governor, Cecilia Ezeilo.

The suspects are: Richard Onyema, 36, and Richard Amadi, 40.

The Spokesperson for the command, Mr Ebere Amaraizu, who briefed newsmen on the arrest said the suspects were arrested on Oct. 2, in Rivers State.

Amaraizu said Onyema was a native of Amokohia while Odinaka Amadi was from Mbaitoli, all in Imo.

He said the suspects specialised in using prominent persons profile to defraud members of the public.

It was gathered that the suspects cloned a face book account of the Enugu State Deputy Governor, Cecilia Ezeilo.

The suspects had used the face book account of the second citizen of Enugu State to dupe the public to the tune of N635, 000, he said.

He said that the suspects were helping the police in their investigation.

Source: Punch
A sales boy, Akeem Tajudeen, has been stabbed to death in Ilaje Otumara, in the Iponri area of Lagos State, by some hoodlums.

PUNCH Metro learnt that 23-year-old Akeem was stabbed on Monday with a knife by one Abeeb, who allegedly claimed that Akeem came to a birthday party on Saturday in the neighbouring Olokodana area, when he was not invited.

Our correspondent gathered that Akeem, who hailed from Ilorin, Kwara State, was killed on Monday around 9pm.

It was gathered that the hoodlums trailed him to his house and punished him for daring to gatecrash our party.

It was learnt that there was tension in the area as the hoodlums also injured two other youths before fleeing the community.

The matter was said to have been reported at the Iponri Police Division.

Our correspondent was told that a manhunt had been launched by the police for runaway Abeeb, whose parents had also fled from their house to evade arrest.

When PUNCH Metro got to the area on Wednesday, a resident, who did not want his name in print, said the deceaseds offence was that he attended a birthday party in a gangsters area.

He said, The party Akeem and his friends went for was on Saturday in Olokodana. At the party, Abeeb, one Austin and other hoodlums challenged them for attending the birthday party, but they settled it and left.

But on Monday, the same Abeeb went to Ilaje Otumara, and started a fight with some boys. Akeem was spotted and Abeeb stabbed him with a knife in the chest, saying he gatecrashed their party on Saturday. The boy slumped and was left in a pool of blood.

We tried to arrest Abeeb, but he stabbed two other youths before he escaped.

When policemen from Iponri came, Abeeb and his gang members had escaped from the scene. His parents have also relocated due to fear of arrest.

Speaking with PUNCH Metro, Akeems father, Tajudeen Owonikoko, an inter-state driver, said he received the sad news on the telephone while at work.

He added that the police should fish out the killer of his son and bring him to justice.

He said, Akeem is my only son. He was not a troublesome boy. I was at work on Monday when they called me that someone had stabbed him to death.

My wife has been hospitalised since that Monday. I want the police to arrest the killer of Akeem. I want him to be brought to justice because he has thrown my family into mourning.

Our correspondent learnt that Akeem had been buried on Tuesday.

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos, had yet to reply to a text message sent to her mobile phone on the incident.

Source: Punch
Thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.

Most of the protests are in New York and Chicago as crowds chanted Not my President, criticizing his campaign rhetoric of hate towards Muslims and minorities.

Other protests were organized in Washington, DC, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Tennessee and other cities.

Donald Trump won the Presidential elections despite polls and the media backing Hillary Clinton to win by a landslide. Some of the demonstrators set tyres on fire on Wednesday
Lean Hogs 79.45 target ONE44 Analytics - Tue Nov 1, 4:51PM CDT By looking at the chart alone you can see how the major Gann squares are where a lot of highs and lows happen. HEZ22 : 85.200s (+0.32%)

Cotton Closes Up the 3 Cent Limit Barchart - Tue Nov 1, 4:47PM CDT Cotton rallied by the 3 cent limits on Tuesday, marking just the 16th green day since August 28th. Dec contracts had dropped a net 42.16 cents since then. The FOMC is in session today and tomorrow, with... CTZ22 : 75.00s (+4.17%) CTH23 : 74.64s (+4.19%) CTK23 : 74.85s (+4.18%)

Cattle Fade on Tuesday Barchart - Tue Nov 1, 4:47PM CDT The live cattle futures market turned red in the back months during the afternoon. At the close the August 23 contract was a nickel in the black to the other contracts 10 to 57 cent losses. Tuesdays... LEZ22 : 151.950s (-0.34%) LEG23 : 155.250s (-0.37%) LEJ23 : 158.875s (-0.13%) GFX22 : 176.925s (-0.39%) GFF23 : 178.200s (-0.70%)

Firm Tuesday in Hog Market Barchart - Tue Nov 1, 4:47PM CDT Lean hogs ended up going nowhere to start the new month of November. Dec 22, May 23, and July 23 ended in the black, but with gains of less than 30 cents. June 23 closed 2 cents in the red,... HEZ22 : 85.200s (+0.32%) HEJ23 : 93.600s (unch) KMZ22 : 95.375s (-0.10%)

Afternoon Rally for Wheat Market Barchart - Tue Nov 1, 4:47PM CDT Wheats started the first trade day of the new month with weakness attempting a turnaround Tuesday. Afternoon strength pushed the board back into the black to extend the gains from Monday. CBT SRW ended... ZWZ22 : 896-0 (-0.72%) ZWH23 : 913-4 (-0.60%) ZWPAES.CM : 8.3311 (+2.22%) KEZ22 : 985-4 (-0.45%) KEPAWS.CM : 9.4786 (+1.17%) MWZ22 : 983-6 (-0.61%)

Dec Corn Held Under $7 Barchart - Tue Nov 1, 4:47PM CDT Corn added another 4 3/4 to 6 1/4 cents to the upside on Tuesday, but December failed to get above the contested $7 round number again. Open interest has been steadily rising in the Dec contract from 1.414m... ZCYAUS-BIW.CM : 177.93 (-0.46%) ZCZ22 : 695-2 (-0.36%) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.9269 (+1.50%) ZCH23 : 700-0 (-0.36%) ZCK23 : 699-0 (-0.39%)

Livestock Report Walsh Trading - Tue Nov 1, 4:20PM CDT Hogs consolidate
In June, J.P. Morgan assembled top officers from over 120 companies at New York Citys Waldorf Astoria Hotel for the firms inaugural Energy Equity Investor Conference. The gathering, which gave investors the chance to hear presentations and attend meetings with executives, was largely a result of feedback from clients, says Daniel Antonelli, J.P. Morgans North America head of institutional equity sales. This is an example of what J.P. Morgan is able to execute with the depth and breadth of our corporate relationships and research talent.

For its efforts, the buy side has voted J.P. Morgan the No. 1 firm for the fifth straight year in Institutional Investors 2016 All-America Corporate Access ranking of sell-side firms that do the best job bringing executives and investors together.

This matchmaking takes place in increasingly inventive ways. For instance, Cowen & Co., which finishes in a three-way tie for No. 9 in buy-side voting on the strength of its health-care franchise, has its own dedicated corporate access group, says research chief Robert Fagin, run by Kelly Weigel, the head of client services. Weigel joined the firm in April 2014 and really masterminded and reimagined the whole philosophy and execution behind corporate access, including having very deep sectorized expertise, says Fagin. We speak to the group multiple times a day. Were extraordinarily coordinated, and thats a huge advantage of being a more nimble firm.

Part of that coordination involves research, sales, and corporate access engaged in, he says, a tremendous amount of work coming up with a list of buy-siders who are going to be engaged in their story, both existing and new holders, and a good combination of buy-side analysts and portfolio managers.

Corporate access has evolved well beyond the traditional meet-the-CEO. Weve seen stronger interest in investor tours, and supply-chain visits beyond the standard corporate management meeting, says Antonelli.

Fagin notes that investors want unique insight. In health care, the buy side wants to dive deeply not just into company strategy but the science and the technology, and thats true across all sectors. They want to get into the nuts and bolts. They want to look at every widget. They want to know what the production lines look like.

Company visits and conferences remain important. Cowen takes clients on bus tours to multiple companies. These meetings are relevant because you get a very good feeling for the culture and the vibe of an organization when you go and visit them on their home turf, Fagin says.

Cowen held its 36th annual Health Care Conference in March, featuring 265 companies, just under 1,900 attendees, and 4,465 one-on-one meetings. The firm also holds more specialized meetings, such as its first-ever FutureHealth conference in June and Octobers MedTools, focused on diagnostics, genetics, and medical devices.

With so many opportunities to meet management, we sense investors are becoming more selective about which events theyll attend, Antonelli says. Fagin concurs: Investors want to know that theyll learn something new, and they want to be able to have a true partnership with their sell-side research-and-sales counterparts, so they can be assured their time wont be wasted. 
This content is from: Portfolio

Dont give up on small funds. Theyve still outperformed in 20 of the last 25 years.
Australias largest listed companies are urged to play their part in building the cyber resilience of Australian businesses.The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) have invited the ASX top 100 to take part in the ASX 100 Cyber Health Check, an industry-led initiative designed to benchmark the levels of cyber security awareness, capability, and preparedness of Australian businesses.Participation to the cyber health survey is non-compulsory, with responses sought from companies by mid-December 2016.Companies will be given a confidential report for assessing their own cyber security practices. The themes emerging from the report is expected to be released to the public in March 2017.The survey was developed by ASX and ASIC in cooperation with representatives from the Department of PM&C, CERT Australia, and audit firms KPMG EY , and PwC . It was based on a similar task implemented in the UK with the FTSE 350.In a statement, ASX said the 100 ASX-listed companies are well positioned to lead national efforts to promote cyber security best practices within Australian businesses. It stressed the importance of protecting information assets for business sustainability and competitiveness. ASX also highlighted cyber security as a strategic risk management issue, relevant not just for IT departments but for boards.Amanda Harkness, ASX group executive, said: The ASX 100 Cyber Health Check has brought together Government, regulators, and industry on an issue of critical importance to Australian business and the millions of investors who hold shares in Australian companies. The sharing of best practice, and increased awareness and engagement by directors of listed companies are important steps in building the cyber resilience of Australian business.
Not many people can trace their beginnings in insurance to a missed opportunity as a travel agent, but the chief executive of one international insurer saw the seeds of his career sprout from the disappointment of missing out on a job.In 1985, Graham Crozier, chief executive of Coface in Australia, tried for a job as a travel agent and since then he hasnt looked back.I dont think I knew what I was getting into, Crozier said of his first role as a trade credit broker in Manchester.My first job, I was just keen to get a job. It keeps me engaged and I like a challenge.After several years working in the insurance industry in London, Crozier crossed paths with an Australian underwriter which saw his career take an international twist.He suggested that Australia was short of good brokers and would I be interested in going to Australia, Crozier explained.A couple of weeks later, when hed gone back to Australia I got a phone call saying there was a job in Melbourne with one of the brokers. I was offered the job, came out with a one way ticket and Ive been here ever since.The international element of the insurance industry has been one of the highlights for Crozier. Having visited Paris, Hong Kong and Bangkok so far this year, as well as stops throughout Australia and New Zealand, it is not the places that most interest Crozier, but the people.It is not necessarily the travel, it is meeting the people and the relationships you build, Crozier said.It has been great to meet new people and understand what the business does globally. The travel is fine but it is really what you get from the travel that is the interest for me.
The leader of Dai-ichi life insurance has called on companies to address conduct issues within the sector, suggesting that industry leaders failure to set the right tone and culture is the cause of a loss of trust.In the light of the life insurance scandal and attempts to rein in excessive insurance commissions, Jim Minto, director at Dai-Ichi Life Asia Pacific, said life insurers who betray trust dont deserve their partnership to be allowed to continue as before, The Australian reported.In an Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) conference on the Gold Coast, the former acting chief executive and chairman of ASFA warned: Absolutely any action or proposal that looks on its face to be unfair will be called out publicly.There is no protection here behind brands and product rules. We have to be open and transparent and fix what is wrong.Our culture needs to see us fix these sorts of issues whenever we identify them, not when someone raises it publicly.Of course we also need to be proactive in putting the right systems, processes, and people in place to identify issues as early as possible.According The Australian, group life policies sold to super funds with multiple members were left out of industry reforms, including a code of conduct developed by the Financial Services Council, even as these bulk policies comprise 70% of claims.ASFA and four other groups have started to come up with a code of conduct for the life industry to address concerns and issues plaguing the practice and design of life insurance, as well as to provide consistency and clarity for members and enhance consumer protections, Minto said.Not only is the industry suffering from conduct issues, its financial performance has also been negatively impacted, reports the publication.Last month, AMP took a $1.3 billion write-down on its life business and reinsurance with Munich Re over half of its claims book; National Australia Bank has sold a majority of its life business to Japans Nippon; and Westpac has reported this week that its profits in its wealth business, which includes life insurance, declined. Westpact said, however, that it had no plans to drop the business unlike other banks.Minto said that following a blowout in claims, premiums and benefits have been adjusted, making it harder to claim.It is, of course, important that we get the balance or affordability versus restrictive terms right - and even more important that we communicate effectively with members so that they understand the necessary trade-off, said Minto.
Class actions may work in favour of insurers, says expert
Geographically it may be close, but the CEO of Lloyds has said that the surprisingly mature Australian market is not positioned as a hub for Asia.Speaking to Insurance Business on a recent trip to the region, Inga Beale , CEO of Lloyds, said that while the Australian insurance market is mature, it is not seen as a regional hub.Australia is a mature insurance market, and some people who are unfamiliar with the Australian insurance market might be surprised with how advanced it is in terms of using technology and data flowing to the carriers and between the brokers, Beale said.However, I am not sure that Australia is seen as a regional hub for writing Asian insurance from.What we are seeing as a trend is that more and more clients are going to want to buy from somebody locally that is why we have seen, from a Lloyds perspective, huge growth in the Singapore platform and huge growth in the China platform.I would say that the Lloyds underwriters that are based in Australia tend to be focused on the Australian insurance market.Globally, Beale stressed that cyber insurance will see growth over the coming years. This week, Lloyds announced that it had been approved to set-up an onshore reinsurance branch in India which is set to be opened in 2017.
Authorities say five boys have been arrested in connection with two fires in Norwich last month.

Police say four 13-year-olds and a 12-year-old face charges that include second-degree arson and first-degree criminal mischief.

Police say the most recent blaze happened at a building on Oct. 24. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries. A fire at a vacant mill building occurred on Oct. 23. No injuries were reported.

Fire officials say both downtown buildings are vacant and had no power. The city fire marshals office determined the blazes were arson.

The youths are scheduled to appear in court next week.

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

Topics Connecticut
The global fight against climate change will suffer a blow from Donald Trumps victory in the U.S. presidential election, threatening the industries working to clean up pollution from fossil fuel.

The next president has questioned the science of climate change, vowed to withdraw from the Paris agreement on global warming and pledged to stimulate production of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. Green campaigners and policymakers, some of whom are gathered this week in Morocco for talks on implementing the Paris deal, sounded the alarm over the upheaval they expect when Trump takes office in January.

The presidency of Donald Trump relegates the West as we knew it to the realm of the past, Reinhard Butikofer and Monica Frassoni, co-chairs of the European Green Party, said in a statement. If Donald Trump pursues the foreign policies that he announced during his campaign, this will severely undermine trans-Atlantic relations, the international rule of law and world peace.

Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. rescued a two-decade-old process the United Nations promoted to rein in pollution damaging the climate, forging the Paris deal last year. Along with China and more than 190 other countries, the accord set out a framework for all nations to cut emissions. Trump has said he will cancel that work.

This is a very bad outcome, Tom Steyer, founder of San Francisco-based advocacy group NextGen Climate Action, said in a phone interview Wednesday. The Paris accord was a historic attempt to move forward as a globe to deal with a global problem, with American leadership. If he follows through on his campaign statements, that would be a devastating mistake.

May Boeve, executive director of the anti-fossil-fuel campaign group 350.org, said in a statement that Trump will try and slam the brakes on climate action. Our work becomes much harder now, but its not impossible, and we refuse to give up.

Envoys drawn from environment and energy ministries gathered on Monday for two weeks of talks on climate organized by the UN, aiming to make progress implementing the Paris deal. They are due to finish their work on Nov. 18 with a set of rules on how Paris will be implemented.

It would be difficult for Trump to pull out of the Paris accord, which is part of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the U.S. ratified under Republican President George H.W. Bush. Trump would have to renounce the 1992 treaty or risk bringing down the entire UN process to scrap Paris. Hed have to give three years of notice to withdraw legally.

If the U.S. pulls out of this process and is seen as going as a rogue nation on climate change, that will have implications for everything else on President Trumps agenda when he wants to deal with foreign leaders, Alden Meyer, who has been following the UN talks for more than two decades, said at the organizations annual gathering in Marrakech on Wednesday. I think he will soon come to understand that.

Doubts about U.S. support for the accord may stall progress in talks in Morocco this week and next, since other nations wouldnt trust that any commitments the U.S. made will stick after Trump takes office. The U.S. is the richest among the top six polluting nations, and its support for the deal is essential to keep China and other developing economies working for cleaner industry.

French Environment Minister Segolene Royal expressed concern about Trumps stance in a posting on Twitter, noting that Obama ratified and committed the U.S. to the Paris agreement and there should be no withdrawal, adding, Lets stay vigilant for climate.

The Paris deal, which saw 197 countries agree last year to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and work toward net zero greenhouse gas emissions, came into force on Nov. 4 after being ratified by almost 100 countries, including the U.S.

While small island states are some of the most vulnerable to climate change, the U.S. is also seeing the impact of extreme weather events. Superstorm Sandy in 2012 caused $67 billion of damage in the nation, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Now the election campaign has passed and the realities of leadership settle in, I expect he will realize that climate change is a threat to his people and to whole countries which share seas with the U.S., including my own, Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands, said by e-mail.

Global markets were thrown into disarray as results from the U.S. poured in. Wind turbine makers led the biggest declines in five months. Vestas Wind Systems A/S dropped 9.7 percent Wednesday after dropping 8.1 percent Tuesday when management announced a bleaker outlook for next year.

A Trump victory could mean the U.S. wont be leading the world the way it led under Obama, Kimiko Hirata, a board member at the Kiko Network, a Kyoto-based environmental group, said by phone.

Added Steyer: Willful unwillingness to face the situation cant lead to a good outcome.

China Watching

Chinas top climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, last week criticized Trumps climate stance, according to Reuters. A joint pact between the worlds two biggest producers of carbon emissions announced a year ago was seen as key to the success of the Paris summit.

The U.S. government has vowed to cut emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent in 2025 from 2005 levels. Achieving that goal is likely to be difficult under a Trump administration as the new president wont need approval from Congress to roll back Obamas Clean Power Plan and other key climate policies, said Meyer, who is director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Yet despite Trumps climate skepticism, a growing number of Republican politicians accept the real threat of climate change and its ability to affect the economy, Meyer said in Marrakech.

The politically savvy politicians understand that they are on the wrong end of history if they continue to preach climate denialism, that younger voters, Hispanics, women and others they need for electoral success will see this as a disqualifying issue if they dont accept the knowledge on climate change, he said.

Renmin Universitys Zheng said hes confident China will continue its efforts to curb greenhouse gases even without U.S. coordination.

The U.S. has joined the Paris agreement and must continue to meet its climate obligations, Kelly Stone, a climate campaigner at ActionAid, said at the UN talks in Marrakech. Leaving this important international agreement will damage our credibility and would be a major setback in the fight against climate change.

With assistance from Chisaki Watanabe and Ewa Krukowska

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics USA Climate Change Pollution China
Officials in Iowas Black Hawk County have agreed to pay $30,000 to a man who scuffled with an off-duty sheriffs deputy after a traffic dispute.

The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports the countys board of supervisors voted unanimously to pay the money and settle a case filed by Edward Felts. He claimed deputy Richard Hoffman hit and kicked him repeatedly during a February 2015 incident.

The encounter happened after the men nearly crashed while driving, prompting Felts to pull in front of Hoffman and stop. Both men got out of their vehicles, and after Felts head-butted Hoffman, the deputy took Felts to the ground.

A jury earlier found Felts guilty of assault.

Officials say the countys insurance company defended the case because Hoffman is a deputy at all times and displayed his badge.

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

Topics Iowa
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has acquired the Regency Group (Regency), a wholesale insurance broker and program administrator located in East Lansing, Michigan.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Established in 1981, Regency provides group and large firm self-insured, workers compensation programs for independent retail insurance broker clients throughout Michigan. The firm offers customized workers compensation programs and services with an emphasis on program design, regulatory approval and compliance, and administration and claims management.

Regency also provides retail specialty programs and products for the landscaping, retail hardware and restaurant industries.

Timothy Hanna and his team will continue to operate from their location in East Lansing under the direction of Joel Cavaness, president of Risk Placement Services Inc. (RPS), a subsidiary of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Source: Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Michigan A.J. Gallagher
The United States Supreme Court has refused to review a Florida case challenging the states entire workers compensation system, which could be seen as the states only reprieve on workers comp this year.

The Courts Oct. 31 decision without comment was in response to the case of Daniel Stahl v. Hialeah Hospital, which made its way through the state courts until April when the Florida Supreme Court ruled it did not have jurisdiction in the case. The petitioners sought U.S. Supreme Court review in August.

The Stahl case questioned whether Floridas workers comp system is an adequate alternative for injured workers since its major overhaul in 2003. More specifically, the case challenged whether the elimination of a type of partial disability benefits by lawmakers is legal.

The case stems from a back injury the petitioner, Stahl, suffered while working as a nurse for Hialeah Hospital in 2003, just a few months after the changes to the workers comp system went into effect. Stahls physician found in October 2005 that he had reached his maximum medical improvement (MMI) and his injury was later classified as career-ending because he could not return to work as a nurse. He was then entitled to impairment income benefits of 12 weeks and compensated $5,472 for his career-ending injury. It was later determined that Stahl did not meet the definition of permanent total disability (PTD) and his claim for PTD benefits was denied.

Stahl claimed that the benefits available since Oct. 1, 2003, when Floridas workers comp reforms went into effect, are inadequate and therefore cannot be the exclusive remedy for on the job injuries, and that the states workers comp law violates the U.S. Constitution.

Florida attorneys who are familiar with the case are not surprised the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

The petition to the U.S. Supreme Court was a long shot at best by the Petitioner seeking to have the U.S. Supreme Court determine a challenge of the constitutionality of the Floridas workers compensation system. The lack of action on the petition means that Mr. Stahls case is essentially over as to challenging the act as a whole, said Allison Hartnett, senior partner for Florida firm Walton Lantaff Schroeder & Carson LLP.

Essentially, Stahl was an indictment of the entire workers compensation law in Florida, and the 1st District Court of Appeal, the Florida Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme court have rejected that indictment, said Justin Parafinczuk of insurance defense firm Koch Parafinczuk & Wolf P.A, in Florida.

Parafinczuk added that the effort to eliminate the entire workers compensation law could have done much more harm to workers than good.

Under the current, workers compensation law, there is no burden on the claimant to prove fault and no allocation of comparative fault-those are both huge advantages for workers. The only proof necessary to have a workers compensation claim is that the accident happened while the claimant was working within the scope of their employment  thats it, he said.

However, other challenges to the states workers comp system were not so easily dismissed. The end of the Stahl challenge comes just a few months after the Florida Supreme Court overturned two other important workers comp cases that have had a dramatic effect on the states workers comp system.

The Florida high court ruled in April in the case of Castellanos v. Next Door Company that the mandatory attorney fee schedule is unconstitutional as a violation of due process under both the Florida and United States Constitutions.

On June 9, the Florida Supreme Court ruled on Westphal v. City of St. Petersburg saying the 104-week statutory limitation on temporary total disability benefits is unconstitutional because it causes a statutory gap in benefits in violation of an injured workers constitutional right of access to courts. The Supreme Court reinstated the 260-week limitation in effect prior to the 1994 law change.

In response, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation approved a 14.5 percent rate increase request to the National Council of Compensation Insurers on behalf of Florida insurers. Insurance experts expect that rate increase is only the tip of the iceberg if Florida doesnt address the issue during its next legislative session.

Topics USA Florida Legislation Workers' Compensation
The city of Greensboro, N.C., will pay $6 million to a man imprisoned for 17 years for a murder he didnt commit.

The News & Record of Greensboro reports the city agreed Oct. 21 to pay the money to 66-year-old LaMonte Armstrong to end the federal civil lawsuit he had filed.

Armstrong was had been convicted in 1995 of the murder of North Carolina A&T State University professor Ernestine Compton in her home in July 1988. He was released from prison in 2012.

Armstrongs lawsuit said police and prosecutors continued with the flawed case against him even after their key witness tried to retract his testimony against Armstrong, saying detectives threatened him if he didnt testify.

Gov. Pat McCrory issued a pardon of innocence in 2013 to Armstrong, who received $750,000.

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

Topics North Carolina
Sagicor Life will implement VUE Softwares distribution compensation platform with self-service portal to deliver real-time policy information to agents and advisors, the company announced today.

The Barbados-based insurer evaluated a number of vendors to manage multiple commission and incentive programs throughout the Caribbean, according to its VP of Technology, Teri Townsend. Sagicor will also adopt VUEs Performance Analytics suite to improve field communications, and [enhance] business intelligence to provide decision support, Townsend adds.

Sagicor Life joins Aviva, SBLI and Association Member Benefits Advisors as VUE Softwares life insurance partners.
In his new position, Morton will provide advice, guidance, and direction to the OTS and its board as a non-executive member. The OTS's former tax director, John Whiting is retiring after holding the position since the OTS was established in 2010.

Morton is retiring from his role at as head of group tax at RELX Group and will leave as soon as a successor is appointed. He will attend the OTS board from January 1 2017.
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On Friday, July 6th, 2018 at exactly 12:01 am, the U.S. fired the first shots in a war. No missiles were used. Nor were drones or U.S. Marines involved. Instead, these shots were billions of dollars worth of tariffs aimed at the Chinese economy. This was a trade war. One that continues and could become the largest in world history.

In this article, we take a look at what trade wars can mean for the disputing countries, businesses, and consumers.

Key Takeaways A trade war happens when countries take protectionist actions against each other as a result of barriers to trade.

Advocates say trade wars protect national interests and provide advantages to domestic businesses.

Critics of trade wars claim that they ultimately hurt local companies, consumers, and the economy.

In response to U.S. tariffs, China imposed its own tariffs on U.S. imports to China of pork, soybeans, and sorghum.

The trade war launched in 2018 between America and China continues even though it's believed that some tariffs imposed on China have damaged U.S. interests.

The Basics of Trade Wars

The term trade war is used to describe an economic conflict where, in response to protectionism, countries impose trade barriers such as tariffs, restrictions, and quotas against each other.

Basically, one country imposes targeted tariffs on anothers economy in order to protect its own economy, or to hurt that of its adversary. The former may believe that the trading practices of the latter are unfair.

Example of a Trade War

Let's say Country A and Country B both manufacture rubber chickens. County B then starts to subsidize its rubber chicken manufacturing. That means that the government of Country B is paying part of the cost of manufacturing, thus reducing the price for consumers.

Now, Country A is upset, because no one is going to buy rubber chickens from it if they're cheaper to buy from Country B. So, Country A has two options. It can negotiate with Country B or impose tariffs on imported rubber chickens. The tariffs would raise the cost of Country B's rubber chickens, punishing Country B.

If Country B wants to continue exporting to Country A, it has to pay a higher tax on its exported rubber chickens. Then Country B would most likely hit back with its own tariffs. This tariff back-and-forth is considered a trade war.

Countries get into conflicts over trade frequently. To sort them out, they can approach the World Trade Organization (WTO) for arbitration and a decision over which is at fault. They can negotiate a deal directly with each other. However, another option that chosen by the Trump administrationis to impose unilateral tariffs on its opponent's goods in the hope that they will buckle.

The U.S. trade war with Japan in the 1980s was meant to correct the trade imbalance involving electronics. President Reagan imposed 100% tariffs on products made by major Japanese manufacturers to punish Japan for breaching its trade agreement.

How Did the Trade War Play Out?

America's Action

On Friday, July 6, 2018, the Trump administration imposed sweeping tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods. The tariffs targeted a wide variety of manufactured tech products, from flat-screen televisions, aircraft parts, and medical devices to nuclear reactor parts and self-propelled machinery.

While it was believed that most Americans would feel no effects of these tariffsparents wouldn't be shopping for aircraft parts the Chinese economy would certainly suffer. The U.S. tariffs specifically targeted high-tech Chinese goods to hurt the Made in China 2025 initiative which sought to transform China into an advanced manufacturing powerhouse.

President Trump pushed further, warning that the U.S. could ultimately target over $500 billion worth of Chinese goods. In 2021, the U.S. imported $506.4 billion worth of goods from China.

China's Response

In response to these new tariffs, China imposed its own. It targeted American agricultural products like pork (which added an estimated $57 billion, directly and indirectly, to the U.S. GDP in 2021), soybeans, and sorghum.

Caught in the crosshairs were American farmers and big industrial-agriculture operations in the Midwest. These are constituencies that largely voted for Donald Trump in 2016. China sought to affect these politically powerful groups of Americans directly and dramatically. As the 2018 midterm elections approached, perhaps they'd pressure President Trump to lower the barriers.

As of Sep. 2, 2022, President Biden has maintained the tariffs with China. The Biden administration stated that it will review the tariffs.

Why China?

Intellectual Property Theft

So, why was China hit with tariffs? The first reason points to growing concerns about Chinese economic espionage. The largest set of tariffs from the Trump administration came out of a federal investigation into Chinese intellectual property misdeeds.

The Trump administration designed the tariffs to punish China for trading access to the Chinese market for foreign tech plans. While those concerns were valid, they existed under President Bush and President Obama. Both presidents refrained from imposing tariffs of the magnitude seen in 2018.

The Trade Deficit

The second reason concerned the U.S. trade deficit with China. According to data released by the Commerce Department, the gap between American goods exported to China and Chinese goods imported to the U.S. rose to $355.3 billion in 2021 from $310.8 billion in 2020.

The Trump administration had been promising to eliminate the trade gap. It blamed the imbalance on the decline of American manufacturing and a reliance on foreign goods. With these newest tariffs in place, the Trump administration hoped to reverse the growth of our trade deficit and punish China for its trading practices.

What's the Impact on American Consumers?

Effect of Tariffs

The effect of tariffs can be felt beyond the borders of the targeted country.

It's important to understand that U.S.-China trade does not take place in a vacuum. Trade is part of a global economy. Different countries can be involved in the making and selling of goods before they reach their final destinations.

When the U.S. put tariffs on China, the worlds largest manufacturing hub, it likely affected other countries, products, and companies that are part of the global supply chain.

In our global, interconnected economy, it is nearly impossible to target one country (or one industry) without affecting others, including allies.

Potential Threat to Consumers

These tariffs had the potential to hurt American companies and consumers even more than the firms in China targeted by the Trump administration. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in 2011 showed that for every dollar spent on an item labeled Made in China, 55 cents went to services produced in the United States. This is yet another example of how raising tariffs and starting trade wars in a global economy might come back to hurt U.S. businesses and consumers.

American consumers may have felt the consequences of Trumps trade war with China. When companies have to make up for higher costs due to new tariffs, they shift that burden onto consumers. It takes time for these higher business costs to filter down to stores. It is likely that some prices have gone up and more will do the same.

What's a Trade War? A trade war is an economic battle that countries wage on one another to address protectionist policies seen as barriers to trade. Trade wars involve imposing various economic restrictions, such as tariffs and embargoes.

What Is a Trade Deficit? A trade deficit is the imbalance between how much a country takes in for its exports and how much it spends on imports. If imports exceed exports, the country has a trade deficit. If exports exceed imports, the country has a trade surplus.

Why Are Tariffs Necessary? There are various viewpoints regarding the need for tariffs. However, when diplomatic efforts related to trade (and other unfortunate behavior such as theft of business secrets or intellectual property) fail to resolve adversarial positions, tariffs and other punitive actions are sometimes the next step.

The Bottom Line

Trade wars are economic battles between countries that seek redress for wrongful economic actions that pose a threat to a country's economic well-being. Tariffs can be part of those battles.

However, in imposing tariffs, governments should bear in mind that more than the target country may suffer. Economies operate on a global scale. Economic policies designed to punish one country can have a trickle-down effect on other nations and their consumers. In fact, the tariffs imposed on China by the U.S. in 2018 are believed to have damaged U.S. businesses and consumers without accomplishing the hoped for goal of reducing the trade deficit.
The biotechnology industry includes companies that develop drugs and diagnostic technologies for the treatment of diseases and medical conditions. These products must go through rigorous, costly, and time-consuming trials before potentially obtaining approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This means that investors may wait for years before knowing whether a drug under development will pay off. The industry includes smaller start-up companies with recent traction as well as large, well-established corporations that aim to develop a range of drugs and technologies. Many biotech companies have shifted their focus entirely or added COVID-19 vaccines and treatments to their product pipeline.

Early-stage biotech companies are prone to wild swings in revenue due to going from nearly no revenue to having a significant revenue stream once a drug is approved or a partnership with another company is reached. That means that growth numbers have to be thought of more as indicative of the company having achieved some sort of breakthrough regarding where they were with research, corporate partnerships, or other events in their corporate lifecycle, rather than how you'd normally think of growth.

During the past year, biotech stocks, as represented by the iShares Biotechnology ETF (IBB), have posted a total return of -21.0%, below the Russell 1000's total return of -14.3%. These market performance figures and all statistics in the tables below are as of June 17, 2022.

Here are the top biotech stocks with the best value, the fastest growth, and the most momentum.

These are the biotech stocks with the lowest 12-month trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. Because profits can be returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks, a low P/E ratio shows that youre paying less for each dollar of profit generated.
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Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said he raised the issue of immigration with US president-elect Donald Trump in his first phone call last night, writes Daniel McConnell, Political editor.

Speaking this morning about the call, Mr Kenny said the two leaders also discussed Northern Ireland during their ten minute call.

Despite his previous attacks on Mr Trump, Mr Kenny said the President Elect told him he is ready to do business with Ireland.

He was looking forward to doing business with Ireland and I asked him specifically about Patricks Day and hes looking forward to continuing that tradition over many years, he said.

And I confirmed to him that we would work very closely with the administration that he appoints in January. And obviously wed have a lot of discussion about the details that are important for us as pointed out yesterday in my letter to him and to the vice president, the importance of maybe putting immigration back on the administrations budget, Northern Ireland, the peace process and so on," Mr Kenny said.

In the Dail, Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald said seeking an amnesty for the undocumented Irish in the US remains an "absolute priority" for the Government.

She said that while any new Administration and Congress will take time to bed in, the Government will continue in its efforts to deliver a result.

She was responded to questions from Labour leader Brendan Howlin who said he and other politicians are already getting calls from concerned people.

Chicago based Senator Billy Lawless has in recent days hit out at the Obama White House for their abject failure to make any progress on the issue over the last eight years.
President-elect Donald Trump has arrived at the White House for his first meeting with President Barack Obama, a symbolic start to the transition of power to the nation's 45th president.

Mr Obama was strongly critical of Mr Trump throughout the campaign, labelling him unfit to serve as a commander in chief.

Mr Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Mr Obama's presidency, falsely suggesting Mr Obama may have been born outside the United States.

If Mr Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he will wipe away much of what Mr Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under Republican control, has vowed to repeal Mr Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

First lady Michelle Obama was meeting privately in the White House residence with Mr Trump's wife, Melania, while vice president Joe Biden prepared to see vice president-elect Mike Pence.

Mr Trump travelled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Mr Trump was strongly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organisations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Also on Mr Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the Republican legislative agenda.

Mr Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was sometimes critical of Mr Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Mr Pence intended to join both meetings.

The anticipated show of civility contrasts with post-election scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president", burning a papier mache head of Mr Trump, beating a pinata with his likeness and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump".

Republicans were emboldened by Mr Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the Republican control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Mr Ryan said.

In Washington, Mr Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, looking through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies.

A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Mr Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts.

According to an organisational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Mr Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Representative Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI.

Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Mr Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee senator Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Mr Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Mr Obama - one that includes information on US covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies.

The White House said it would organise two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Mr Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

If Mr Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. He has pledged to repeal Mr Obama's health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He has vowed to build a wall along the US-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

It is unclear whether Mr Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He will enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Donald Trump on the campaign trail had pledged deep reforms of US company taxes, pledging to cut the 35% headline rate the US levies on corporate taxes to 15%.

He had also promised other far-reaching reforms and may in time offer a temporary tax amnesty to encourage multinationals like the pharmaceutical giants and Apple to bring home the tens of billions of dollars they currently house overseas.

President George W Bush used the lure of an amnesty 12 years ago, but analysts warn that the serious threat to Ireland lies in Mr Trumps surprise capture of the White House and the clear path for deep reforms of the US tax code that it entails.

Despite the controversies surrounding Irish subsidiaries of multinationals and contract manufacturing and their global tax arrangements, the roster of US companies which have invested heavily here is impressive.

Microsoft, Google, Dell and Intel, as well as Oracle and Apple, are among the technology giants that are the largest exporters on the island.

The billions worth of exports of pharmaceutical giants Johnson & Johnson, Actavis and Pfizer are also among the top 10 Irish exporters.

The two most important external economies have dealt us massive shocks this year, said Dermot OLeary, chief economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers.

The Brexit hit is very much a hit to Irish SMEs given the bulk of their exports go to the UK. This latest development has potentially a large impact on investments, he said, adding there is now a question over foreign-direct investment amid his pledge to reduce US corporation tax rates.

Mr OLeary said the difference between the US and Irish corporation rates is an incentive for US firms to favour locating service jobs here, instead of creating jobs in the US.

Philip OSullivan, chief economist at Investec Ireland, said the election was the biggest external shock since Brexit.

This country also acts as a de facto aircraft carrier for many large US multinationals overseas operations. Therefore we are far from disinterested observers where this election is concerned, he said.

John Whelan, a leading consultant on Irish trade, Mr Trump will focus on incentives to lure US companies back home.

It is not good news for anyone on the Irish scene. Probably our best strategy is for [Irish] companies to forge collaborations in the US. If you havent got a collaboration in the US, get one, Mr Whelan urged, saying it was time for Irish exporters to review their international operations.

Any sharp weakening of the dollar if it played out anything like the way that Brexit sunk sterling, would also lead to US firms investing less in Europe and more back home, he warned.

Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Merrion Capital, said the threat has escalated because corporate taxes has provided so much of the unexpected bounty for the Governments finances for almost two years.

If Mr Trump were to cut corporate taxes, it would be serious, Mr McQuaid said.

However, Capital Economics chief US economist Paul Ashworth said that Mr Trumps plans to offer a tax holiday would likely be far down his list of priorities.

Any tax amnesty would lure pharmaceutical firms, in particular, to repatriate monies to the US, Mr Ashworth said.

Even a cut in the 35% corporation tax rate may not be hugely significant because many American corporates back home pay a much lower effective tax rate because of exceptions that they can write off against profits, he added.

In Dublin trading, there was a muted reaction from Irish stocks which generate profits from US operations.

Food companies were marginally down at worst, Kerry fell by less by 1% and Glanbia was unchanged.

However, Greencore shares dropped 3.4% in London.

While it may be business as usual for the food firms, they will have an eye on consumer sentiment trends and currency fluctuations.

Building materials giant CRH, meanwhile, surged over 8% and is seen as being a potential big winner under a Trump administration, given his promise to spend trillions of dollars on infrastructure, including on highways and bridges, and generating 13 million jobs in the process.

CRH is the largest producer of asphalt and the third largest producer of construction aggregates in the US, and accounts for around 60% of its profits.

It may be early days to be weighing the pros and cons for the stock, but CRH seems like an obvious beneficiary, said Robert Gardiner of Davy Stockbrokers.

Pharmaceutical and biotech companies stand to benefit the most under a Trump administration, given a likely hands off approach to the sector versus a Democrat alternative, said David Holohan, chief investment officer at Merrion Stockbrokers.

Certainly, if he was to follow through on plans for his wall between the US and Mexico, it would represent a significant step-up in construction activity levels along Sun Belt states, Mr Holohan said.

Currency trader TransferMate urged Irish firms to act fast and ready themselves for any potential currency volatility.

The Trump win is very likely to lead to an initial fall in the strength of the dollar. Irish businesses that import from the US could benefit from this, but those that export across the Atlantic may take a real financial hit, said company co-founder Barry Dowling.

Irish bank stocks were not hit yesterday.

However, the overall read across is negative in terms of significant negative impact on the Irish macro outlook, negative impact on risk sentiment generally, and likely lower yield environment which is being priced in as a result, said Owen Callan of Investec Ireland.
Guided at 350,000-400,000, its one of the smallest of the several dozen commercial and investment lots expected to gross over 18m by Allsops.

The traditional suburban bar, closed for a number of years and near the FAIs Cork City pitch, as well as Musgrave Park, extends to over 6,000 sq ft and was extensively refurbished over a decade ago.
Trump has argued that international trade deals hurt US workers and the countrys competitiveness, but it is not clear to what extent Mr Trump the president will resemble Mr Trump the campaigner.

If the worlds biggest economy follows a protectionist course, its effects will be felt around the world. We can only hope that his words are not followed by corresponding deeds, said Thilo Brodtmann, head of Germanys VDMA engineering association.
He said, I was contacted by the Iranian ambassador before the summer break who told me that Iran was willing to sign a contract for beef with this country worth 2bn if we were willing to re-establish the embassy in Tehran.

The Iranians even offered a building in Tehran if the Taoiseach did decide to re- establish the embassy, said the Anti-Austerity Alliance People Before Profit TD for Dun Laoghaire.
Both sides have now agreed to simplify certification requirements for Hong Kong imports of meat from the EU.

Instead of insisting that meat must come from animals that were born, raised and slaughtered in the exporting member state, Hong Kong is now prepared to accept that animals may come from any member state that is eligible to export to Hong Kong.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin insisted on fresh emergency steps to tackle the problem after a new property market report found average rents are up at least 12% since last year throughout Dublin and its sprawling commuter belt.

Mr Martin, during Leaders Questions in the Dail, said it was time to resolve the crisis in the rental market as it was leading to a breakdown in social cohesion and exacerbating the homelessness crisis.

He said a recent Daft.ie report found the average monthly rent across Ireland is now 1,077, the highest since the website began recording levels in 2002. With an 11.7% national rise since 2016, the opposition leader said action was needed now.

Criticising failures to tackle the issue to date, Mr Martin warned the impact of this is quite stark and pointed to surging homelessness rates and the fact mortgage repayments now cost less than rent, despite the fact mortgages were unattainable for many families.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny told Mr Martin long-sought rent certainty measures may not be included in an upcoming plan to tackle the issue which is expected to focus on security for landlords and tenants, supply of homes and improving rental property standards.

Mr Kenny said there is no doubt this is a problem and its a serious problem, accepting the huge pressure in the rental market.

However, as Mr Martin attempted to blame the Government, Mr Kenny said the responsibility lay with the legacy of Fianna Fails time in power.

Priory Hall, pyrite, ghost estates, thats why it happened.

We had a tanaiste [during the Fianna Fail era] who stood over here and said there would be no need for more taxes because housing construction was going to drive it, the Taoiseach said.

Meanwhile, Mr Kenny has come under renewed pressure to scrap the Lansdowne Road public pay deal and replace it with a more progressive agreement.

Labour leader Brendan Howlin said the industrial unrest from teachers, gardai and nurses confirmed the current deal was no longer tenable.

However, Mr Kenny said while problems exist in the agreement, it will remain in place, noting ex-public expenditure minister Mr Howlin seems to have reversed engines on this matter.
Significantly, prisoners jailed for robbery, extortion and hijacking offences were statistically most likely to re-offend as were those whose initial offence involved burglary and theft and related offences. Recidivism in all those categories stood at over 60%

The report issued by the Central statistics Office (CSO), based on a 2010 cohort of offenders, showed more than 45% of the 9,339 people monitored had committed further crimes.

Fiona Ni Chinneide, deputy executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, said too many people were sent to prison for minor offences and that, as institutions, jails did not always work in cutting re-offending.

Prison is damaging in itself and thats why it should be limited to the most serious offences, Ms Ni Chinneide said. She argued, in many cases, inmates were released back into a society with few or any of the issues that prompted their initial offending having been addressed.

She also said schemes that work with young offenders should be extended up to the age of 24.

The percentage of re-offending among those aged 25 and under rose to more than 50%. Among those aged 21 to 25, 1,270 people from a total of 2,504 had re-offended within three years. The recidivism rate fell below 30% only in the age group of those aged 51 and above.

Among the total number of offenders whose progress was charted in the study, 46% of men had reoffended within three years, compared with 37.8% of women.

However, the CSO pointed out that the overall recidivism rate for the 2010 cohort was actually down 2.4% from the 2009 figure of 47.5%.

It also said that male reoffending fell from 48.2% to 46.% while the rate for females fell from 41.2% to 37.8%. The rate of reoffending among younger prisoners also fell, from 54.4% in 2009 to 49.8%, down 4.6% among those aged under 21.

However, the reoffending rate among older prisoners increased by 4.6% among those aged 51 and over. The CSO pointed out that recidivism among women aged under 21 fell by nearly 13% while recidivism for those women aged 51 and over rose almost 9%.

As for when the re-offending occurred, the figures showed of the 4,208 individuals who feature in the study, 60.8% offended within six months their official release date and an additional 16.7% within one year. In the under 21 age category, 94.2% had re-offended within one year. Just over 67% of those aged 51 and over reoffended within a year.

Most of those who re-offended were subsequently convicted for offences which fell into a different crime group than their initial imprisonment offence, while one-in-five were convicted for offences of the same crime type.

A separate CSO study based on re-offending behaviour of adult and young offenders who were given Probation Orders and Community Service Orders in 2010, found a similar pattern of recidivism.

The recidivism rate for offenders referred in 2010 was 37.5%, up 0.2% on findings from the previous years cohort. Again, males and young offenders were more likely to be back in trouble with the law within a short time frame, with almost half re-offending within a year.
The 67-year-old, whose farm at Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, Co Louth, straddles the border with Northern Ireland, had pleaded not guilty at the non-jury Special Criminal Court to nine charges of failing to comply with tax laws in the Irish Republic for the years 1996/97 to 2004.

The three-judge Special Criminal Court found Murphy guilty on all counts and he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment on February 26 last.

John Kearney, defending, told the Court of Appeal on Tuesday that his clients brother, Patrick Murphy, was in control of the farm from before 1991 until the present time and that the authorities went after Thomas Murphy for tax his brother Patrick had already paid.

Mr Kearney said that documents on the movement of cattle lead to a position, which could not be disproved, that Patrick Murphy was in charge of all this. He was the man in the fields in ongoing control. All of the documents, all of the cheques turn up in his shed, said Mr Kearney.

In reference to certain transactions, Mr Kearney said a witness gave evidence that Patrick Murphy probably forged or filled in the body of these documents.

Mr Kearney said a reasonable inference could be drawn from the documents that Thomas Murphy had nothing to do with cattle farming and Patrick Murphy used his name.

In relation to the banking evidence, the prosecutions position was follow the money, Mr Kearney said.

Cheques from cattle sales were going into a particular account. However, the evidence demonstrated a real possibility that Patrick Murphy operated the account not Thomas Murphy, Mr Kearney said.

Counsel submitted that in a circumstantial case, the Special Criminal Court was duty bound to put the jigsaw together but the court took seven pieces of the prosecution jigsaw and totally disregarded the alternative.

In 357 pages of written submissions, Murphys lawyers have filed 48 grounds of appeal.

The hearing is expected to conclude today.
The burglar was chased from the scene of his crime by a woman carrying her baby in a sling, despite the fact that he had threatened the householders as he fled.

And yesterday as the burglar was jailed, it emerged that President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina danced to a tune sung and played on guitar by the accused during a visit to the new Cork prison.

Ross OConnor, aged 39, of 24, Mount Eden Road, Gurranabraher, was sentenced to four years with the last year suspended for a crime committed on June 6.

Detective Garda Maurice Hickey testified yesterday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court that the family who lived in the house had gone to the park that bank holiday Monday and returned at 6pm to find the accused coming down the stairs of their house at Hillgrove Lane, off Watercourse Road, Blackpool, Cork.

Det Garda Hickey said the husband tried to stop him on the stairs but OConnor pushed past him. The mans wife then tried to stop him from leaving but he pushed past her also.

As OConnor left the house, he told them that he knew where they lived and called out the number of the house.

The woman ran after him with a baby in a sling with her, Det Garda Hickey said.

She alerted gardai who were on the scene very quickly. They walked around with the woman for a while until OConnor emerged from a lane in the area and the woman screamed that this was the man who had been in her house.

OConnor was arrested. Initially, he denied anything to do with the burglary.

Nothing was taken, but valuables such as a laptop computer had been gathered up inside the house before the culprit fled empty-handed. The accused had 46 previous convictions including 18 counts of burglary and several for robbery.

John Devlin, defending, told Judge Sean O Donnabhain that not only had OConnor played guitar and sung at the new prison for the presidential visit but that Mr Higgins and his wife danced to the song.

Mr Devlin said the accused had been on heroin but detoxed while in prison.

Judge O Donnabhain said the threats to the householders were particularly nasty. Det Garda Hickey said the family were in such fear that they had moved out of the house and gone to live elsewhere.
Housing Minister Simon Coveney said he is reserving the right to make changes to an opposition law seeking to retain Irish Water in public ownership. The Government yesterday decided not to oppose a bill, brought by Independents4Change TD Joan Collins, which is being supported by Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail.

Ms Collins accused the Government of still leaving the option open to future governments to sell off the States water network to a private operator for profit.

However, Mr Coveney said the bill could be deficient in its present state and therefore reserved the right to make changes to it at Committee stage.

Mr Coveney, in his address to the Dail, said not one person on any side of the house had dissented from the view to keep the countrys water system in public ownership. He said the bill has not yet been subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny and said as a result the bill as drafted could have unintended consequences.

It is imperative that the Bill undergo the necessary deliberation and scrutiny at pre-legislative stage to ensure that its intention or wording does not run the risk of unintended consequences, Mr Coveney said.

The Constitution usually does not explicitly recognise the structures of the State that operate below our key institutions. These structures, like the education and health systems, or the energy and road networks, are usually prescribed in legislation, he said.

Seeking to enshrine such property in public ownership through a constitutional referendum inherently risks having unintended consequences that could impinge on individuals constitutional rights to private property.

The minister said that while politicians may disagree over how to fund water services, we share a common view on the State owning this vital public service. He said the last Government legislated twice to reassure people that Irish Water and its infrastructure would not be privatised by a future government.

In her speech, Ms Collins said: Ensuring that it remains in Article 28 gives the people of Ireland a guarantee that the Government will have full responsibility for the public water system of this country. She also reassured all of those with group water schemes that they would not be impacted by the amendment.

Ireland has had a number of nightmares with privatisation  from the selling off of public housing stock to bin services and Telecom Eireann.

It is clear now that the people of this country reject privatisation, which is corrosive to the social fabric and disempowers citizens by taking crucial parts of the economy beyond their control, Ms Collins said.

Fianna Fail TDs Barry Cowen, Marc MacSharry and Thomas Byrne supported the bill.
Susan Gleeson, aged 21, of Kilworth, Co Cork, was arraigned at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on the single charge yesterday.

She pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the death of Cork mother Geraldine Clancy, aged 58, and her daughter, Louise Ann, aged 22, on December 22 last year near Ballyderown on the Fermoy-Kilworth-Ballyduff road.

Imelda Kelly, prosecuting, said sentencing in the case would have to be adjourned as time was needed to get a victim impact statement from the family of the deceased.

James OMahony, defending, said he had already obtained a report from a counsellor but was seeking a report on the defendant from a psychiatrist.

Judge Sean O Donnabhain said he was reluctant to order a psychiatric report unless there was some history of psychiatric difficulties prior to the incident at the centre of the charge as that could delay the case by several months.

Mr OMahony said there was no such prior history of psychiatric difficulties and his client was anxious to have the matter finalised as quickly as possible.

The facts of this case are so sad for everybody involved, the circumstances so unfortunate. It is a tragic case, said Mr OMahony.

Louise, 22, and Geraldine Clancy, 58, who were killed with her daughter in a fatal road traffic accident in Fermoy, Co Cork in 2015. Picture: Provision

Judge O Donnabhain suggested Mr OMahony might consider obtaining a report from a GP, to which he agreed. The case was adjourned to November 21, and Gleeson was remanded on continuing bail to that date.

The judge said if he determined there was a need for a psychiatric report at the sentencing hearing, he would direct one at that stage.

Ms Clancy and her daughter, Louise, who had just returned home for Christmas from the University of Sussex at Falmer near Brighton where she was on an Erasmus exchange programme from UCC, were on their way into Fermoy three days before Christmas when the fatal crash occurred.

An inquest this year heard that Dr Jason Van der Velde pronounced Ms Clancy and her daughter dead at 12.20pm at the scene of the collision at Ballyderown, Kilworth, after their upturned car was removed from the flooded dyke just off the Fermoy-Ballyduff road.

The inquest also heard evidence from Dr Margot Bolster, the assistant state pathologist, that she carried out postmortems on both deceased at Cork University Hospital on December 23; she concluded they both died from acute cardiorespiratory failure due to drowning.
The decision by the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) on Tuesday night to defer two of their industrial actions was widely welcomed by representatives of students, parents, and school boards yesterday.

It followed the acceptance by the Department of Education and the unions 23-member standing committee of an invitation to conciliation talks.

ASTIs 17,500 members have lost pay for two strikes at 500 schools in the past fortnight in pursuit of equal salaries for recently qualified teachers.

Most will also be docked because their schools closed to students on Monday when they refused to do supervision and substitution work. That industrial action relates to a separate row over withheld pay which the Department of Education said was for their refusal to deliver 33 extra hours a year, work the ASTI says teachers are no longer obliged to do.

The unions row over junior cycle reforms has seen members on another industrial action for over two years, in issues which several weeks of talks have also failed to resolve.

Both sides agreed to an invitation from Teachers Conciliation Council (TCC) chairwoman Anna Perry.

But, in its statement on Tuesday night, the Department of Education said the talks would be about matters of mutual concern relating to the ASTIs industrial action that fall within the remit of the TCC, leaving unclear which issues do and do not meet that description.

The TCC is composed of officials from the Departments of Education, and Public Expenditure and Reform, school management bodies, and each of the three main teacher unions. It meets regularly to mediate on matters about teachers pay and conditions.

But it is unclear if teacher salaries, normally a consideration for Government as part of wider public service pay policy, can be dealt with in this forum.

ASTI deputy general secretary Diarmaid de Paor said on Tuesday night, when news of the conciliation talks was just announced, that all the unions issues would be on the table. But the union and the department were tight-lipped last night about which of the matters in dispute were being discussed.

The talks, including the parameters of the talks, are confidential at this time, said an ASTI spokesperson.

The Department of Education told the Irish Examiner that discussions have now begun.

As the proceedings of the TCC are confidential, it would not be appropriate for the department to make any further comment at this time, said a spokesperson.

While Ms Perry is director of conciliation services at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), the Department of Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation  under which the commission operates  said she was not intervening in her WRC capacity.

As long as Ms Perrys work with both sides continues, which the ASTI said could be until late November, the series of one-day strikes and withdrawal of members from supervision and substitution have been suspended.
All four had been resettled in Co Limerick from the city, it was stated at Limerick Circuit Court.

Mr Carroll told Judge James Donohue that the 13-year-old who admitted starting the blaze challenged him the following day and tried to prevent him driving out of his farm yard, and that this made him apprehensive.

The youths had been causing ongoing problems on his property prior to the fire on June 30, 2013.

Hay, a trailer, and the barn were destroyed and the total loss to Mr Carroll came to over 23,000.

Mr Carroll sued Limerick City and County Council for damages under the 1981 Malicious Injuries Act.

Donal ORourke, counsel for Mr Carroll, told Judge James Donohue it was an unusual case as the plaintiff had to prove those who caused the damage were engaged in riotous assembly at the time.

Riotous assembly, he said, was set out in an English case dating back to 1907 which had five strands to the definition. He submitted that the circumstances in which Mr Carrolls barn was burned contained all the criteria of these five strands.

Mr Carroll said his barn was located at Castlefarm, Hospital, Co Limerick, and he had ongoing problems with a number of youths coming and going from the property. The property was rented and along with the tenant, he tried to get these youths to stay out and had put up trespass signs which were torn down.

On the day of the fire, he went to the scene on learning of what had happened.

He saw the youths in a far off field, after they had got over a ditch.

The day after the fire he went to the burned out shed and as he drove out from the yard, the youth aged 13 tried to block his car in a passageway.

Mr Carroll said he was apprehensive and felt the youth was trying to control his (Carrolls) emotions.

In the days leading up to the fire he had been in fear, but at the time of the fire he did not feel afraid as there were firemen present and the youths were down the field hiding.

Garda Donal OSullivan, Bruff, said that after the fire the youths were interviewed and the 13-year-old accepted his part, claiming they were encouraged by others to light the fire.

This youth had been put under a supervision scheme.

Asked by Judge Donohue if the situaiton could have changed into a riot, Garda OSullivan said people were apprehensive.

Derek Sheahan, counsel for Limerick City and County Council, said while he had sympathy for Mr Carroll, it was necessary under the act that to be awarded compensation proof of a riot was necessary. Mr Sheahan characterised what occurred as antisocial behaviour and mischief, not a riot.

Judge Donohue said the youths did not go out to rob orchards.

Finding for Mr Carroll and awarding him damages and costs, totalling 23,506, the judge said Mr Carroll had understated the kind of trauma he was subjected to.

This was borne out by the fact that Mr Carroll had not dealt with the youths himself being a farmer who could handle himself.

I dont think he was able to face up to these individuals. Apprehension had been created for Mr Carroll and in those circumstances, it would be a profound injustice to deprive him of money from the public purse, said Judge Donohue.
It would be an appropriate anthem for Donald Trump and his supporters as he has certainly turned the world of American politics on its head.

But the fallout goes wider than that as the world has suddenly become more volatile, uncertain and anxious.

Like Brexit, the economic repercussions could be enormous. Pointing to the fundamentally fragile state much of the world is still in eight years after the financial crisis, the respected American economist Paul Krugman believes the election of Trump is likely to spark a global recession. Other commentators are less pessimistic but there is little doubt that it could pose enormous challenges not just for the US economy but also for other countries, Ireland included.

Part of Trumps election drive was to halt and, if possible, reverse the growth of foreign manufacturing by US companies, to bring the jobs home, as he put it. If that becomes a reality we could be in trouble, considering the extent to which we rely on foreign direct investment. He has the passion and drive to do it and, with Republican control of both the US Senate and the House of Representatives, the political muscle as well.

Coupled with the fallout from Brexit, Trumps election is a double-whammy for Ireland and will require great skill and commitment by our political leaders and business community to limit the adverse effects arising from both.

There is also the issue of the undocumented Irish in the US to consider. Trump made great play during the election campaign of keeping Mexican economic migrants out of the US. If he puts that into practice it would be almost impossible for him to make an exception of the Irish.

It would be easy for us on this side of the Atlantic to dismiss the election of Trump as having been driven by ignorance and prejudice but the fact is that it was also driven by desperation. Nine million Americans have lost their jobs since Barack Obama assumed the presidency in 2008. During the same period the number of Americans forced to rely on food stamps  part of the countrys crude welfare system  doubled from six million to 12m. It is little wonder that many working-class Americans chose Trump.

His election should also be viewed in the broader context of political disenchantment sweeping across many European states, including the UK and Ireland.

The first reaction by many analysts here to Brexit was that the British were bonkers, but that is too simplistic and ignores the real anger against the EU felt by many ordinary and quite sane UK voters. Just like the Washington elite in the US, many EU institutions and politicians have become detached and disconnected towards the citizens of Europe. Unlike Brussels, Ukip and the leading Leave campaigners listened to voters.

When the financial crisis forced Ireland into a bailout, that humiliation was compounded by the imposition of savage austerity, resulting in real and tangible economic distress for thousands of our citizens. There are also signs across Europe, in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal in the west and south to Slovenia and others in the east of a growing rise of right-wing extremism wrought by poverty and austerity.

If modern history has taught us anything it is that widespread economic deprivation can lead to revolution and even war. Far from condemning Brexit and the election of Trump, the political elite in Brussels must look to their own failings and work to re-engage with ordinary EU citizens.

The result has also called into question the accuracy of election polling. Those responsible clearly got it completely wrong, ignoring the fact that, even moreso than the weather, those who take part in online and smartphone polls are unpredictable.

TV entertainment has been more accurate in predicting the US presidency than political pollsters. In 1969 Dan Rowan of Rowan and Martins Laugh-in US TV weekly comedy show accurately forecast the election of Ronald Reagan as president to the very year. The News of the Future segment on the show also predicted that the Berlin Wall would fall in 1989, which is what exactly what happened. Similarly, in a futuristic episode of the cartoon show The Simpsons aired in 2000, Donald Trump is depicted as US president.

May you live in interesting times is a saying of supposed ancient Chinese origin purporting to be a blessing but which is, in fact, a curse.

It was employed by the late Robert Kennedy in a speech in Cape Town, South Africa, in June 1966.

Kennedy said: There is a Chinese curse which says May he live in interesting times. Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history.

Following the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, the time we live in has just become more interesting than ever  and dangerously so.
Business Burmas Business Community Adopts Wait and See Approach to Trump Presidency

President-elect Donald Trump gestures as Vice President-elect Mike Pence applauds (L) at their election night rally in Manhattan, New York, US. / Mike Segar / Reuters

RANGOON  Members of Burmas business community have been reluctant to speculate about changes to the countrys economic relationship with the US after news broke of Donald Trumps victory in presidential elections this week.

In Burma, mixed opinions and predictions followed Wednesdays electoral results from the US, in which business mogul and Republican candidate Donald Trump claimed victory over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of the Democratic Party.

This election result shows that nationalist influence around the world is getting stronger. However Trump is looking out for [American] national interests, we will have to welcome him, U Thein Tun, chairman of the Tun Foundation Bank, told The Irrawaddy. Yet he added that, it is still too early to comment for the future.

Current US President Barack Obama lifted economic sanctions on Burma in October, and Burmese businessmen on the Specially Designated Nationals list saw their names removed, including U Tay Za, U Khin Shwe, U Htay Myint, U Zaw Zaw and Stephen Law (also known as Tun Myint Naing).

The announcement of the changes was made during State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyis visit to the US in September.

Since then, US business delegations have visited the country to discuss opportunities for future business cooperation. Insiders report that although they had developed a positive relationship with the US under Obama, there are concerns for Trumps upcoming term.

It would have been no problem if Hillary had won because her and Obamas approaches to Myanmar would have been the same. We believe that the US-Myanmar business relationship will have stronger ties, but we dont know what Trumps plans and interests are, U Myat Thin Aung, chairman of Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone, said.

I dont think his interest in Myanmar is strong, but sanctions will not be imposed again here. He is a businessmanhe will support business, he said of Trump, adding, but lets wait and see.

Echoing U Myat Thin Aungs reservations, Dr. Maung Maung Lay, vice president of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) speculated that it would take at least one year to determine Trumps interests and course of action in Asia, and in Burma in particular.

Weve been working well with the US business delegations and policies under Obamas administration and now we need to reconstruct that relationship under Trumps administration, he said.

US business delegations are still scheduled to come to Burma to meet with UMFCCI officials and private sector members before Obama transfers power to Trump in January. Another 15 delegates will meet with UMFCCI officials on Nov. 15 to discuss future cooperation.

The thing is, US investment in Myanmar is not as big as other countries. They are providing moral rather than material support, so lets wait and see, said U Maung Maung Lay.

U Khin Shwe, chairman of the Zaykabar Group of Companies and former Upper House lawmaker, told The Irrawaddy that he welcomed Donald Trumps victory and held the view that Trumps background as a businessman indicated that the United States economic relationship with Burma could grow during his term in office.

He would be decisive with business development if he has a relationship with Myanmar, so more US businessmen will come. I am optimistic about that, he said.
Burma Amid Tensions, Some UWSA Troops Leave Mongla

UWSA soldiers on military parade / Shan Herald Agency for News

More than 100 United Wa State Army (UWSA) troops left posts in the Mongla region of eastern Shan State recently taken from the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), according to local sources.

Amid high tension in the region, many UWSA troops remain after some 1,000 soldiers took key mountains posts from the NDAA on Oct. 8.

The UWSA has defied an order from the Burma Army to withdraw all troops by Oct. 27.

Three tanks, three trucks, two cars, and 150 UWSA troops left Mongla positions on Nov. 8, according to a short post on the Facebook page of the NDAAmore popularly known as the Mongla Group.

The post said that after a meeting between the two brotherhood troops, some members of the UWSA left Mongla.

An unnamed source close to the UWSA confirmed with The Irrawaddy that some troops had left, but not all.

The Burma Army did not withdraw their troops, but some Wa troops have withdrawn, said the source. He added that the UWSA would continue to operate bases in Mongla as they had done since the October operations.

The UWSA and NDAA are longtime alliesboth groups sprang out of units of the Communist Party of Burma when it imploded in 1989but relations have become tense and are being closely monitored since the UWSA took the key army bases.

Occupying members of the UWSA said they would only withdraw troops after receiving orders to do so from senior officers but that they would not fight unless the Burma Army attacked.

A divide between the two groups became visible during the 21st Century Panglong peace conference hosted in Napyidaw in late August and early September this year.

The NDAA engaged positively in the peace process led by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, but the UWSA delegation left the conference early, citing unequal treatment.

Burma Army Sgt Pho Si stationed on the border of Wa territory said some UWSA troops withdrew between Nov. 7-9 and that the military was closely monitoring UWSA movements.

He also said that Chinese authorities visited UWSA-controlled territory on Nov. 3 and that they also met with Mongla leaders.

The Mongla group requested that all UWSA troops withdraw as local residents were living in fear and their livelihoods had been affected.
Burma Italian Tourist Deported for Buddha Tattoo

Italian Mola Giannunzoo Michele has been deported for a Buddha tattoo on his leg. / Michael Riyo / Facebook

RANGOON  An Italian man was deported and barred from re-entering Burma on Tuesday for violating visa regulations due to a tattoo of Buddha on his left leg, according to police.

Mola Giannunzoo Michele, 44, arrived in Burma two days prior and was staying at the A.D.1 Hotel in Mandalays Chanayethazan Township.

A police officer from Mandalays No.6 Police Station U Khin Than said that the man was charged under Burmas Immigration Law for violating visa regulations that state visitors must not break the countrys laws.

Section 295 of Burmas Penal Code states that insulting religion is punishable by a fine or prison sentence.

When applying for a visa, the foreign visitor signed a document to say he will abide by the laws of this country, U Khin Than told The Irrawaddy. His tattoo is a violation of the visa regulations.

Burma is a predominantly Buddhist country and has deported a number of foreigners for tattoos that are deemed insulting to Buddha.

Last year, Philip Blackwood, a New Zealander and bar manager in Burma, posted a graphic of the Buddha wearing DJ headphones on Facebook to promote cheap drinks. He was given a two and a half year prison sentence but released under an amnesty early this year.
Burma Kachin States Hkakabo Razi to be Considered for UNESCO Natural Heritage Status

A couple passes time at a pagoda at the ancient Pyu city of Sri Ksetra, outside of Pyay, Bago Division, in August 2014. The site has been included in the UNESCO world heritage list. / Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

The Burmese government plans to submit an entry for the countrys highest mountain area, northern Kachin States Hkakabo Razi, to be listed as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) natural world heritage site in 2018.

As a result of collaboration since 2013 between UNESCO and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Preservations department of forestry, seven natural forest sanctuaries are being submitted on the tentative list for inclusion as heritage sites, according to ministry spokesperson U Myo Min.

The seven locations include the northern mountain forest complex of Hkakabo Razi, the Hukawng Valley Wildlife Sanctuary and the Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary in Kachin State. In Chin State, the Natma Taung National Park is being submitted, and in Tenasserim Division, the Tenasserim forest corridor, the Irrawaddy River corridor, and the Myeik Achipelago are also up for consideration, U Myo Min told The Irrawaddy via email.

Among these sites, the government set Hkakabo Razi, at 5,881 meters of elevation, as the first priority and in 2015 began carrying out the necessary assessments and field research for the location to be considered for the honor by UNESCO. A team of both international and domestic experts conducted field visits to the areas to see whether it is in accordance with the UN criteria.

Despite the plan to submit seven sites for consideration, the government has not yet been able to conduct field research in all locations simultaneously, according to U Kyaw Zaw, a director within the forestry planning department.

We could not conduct [research] in every area [on the tentative list] but we started off with the Hkakaborazi landscape, U Kyaw Zaw told The Irrawaddy.

To be considered as a natural world heritage site, the respective country has to pledge to protect the natural and cultural legacy of the area in question. The area itself must be determined, standardized and well preserved.

Although Burma has a number of cultural and religious buildings across the country, the ancient Pyu cities of Halin, Beikthano, and Sri Ksetra make up the only current World Heritage sites in the country, designated as such in June 2014. The Pyu are thought to have lived in central Burma from 200 BC until 900 AD.

Seven of Burmas natural parks, including three of those to be considered by UNESCO for their heritage value, have been on the list of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) heritage parks, which aim to collaborate in protecting ecosystems, preserving the regions biodiversity and promoting sustainability.

Burma hosted the fifth ASEAN Heritage Parks Conference in late October of this year.
Burma KNU Postpones Upcoming Congress

The Karen National Union (KNU) chairman Saw Mutu Say Poe (left) and vice-chairperson Naw Zipporah Sein photographed during meeting of ethnic armed organizations at the KNU headquarters in Lay Wah, Pa-an District, Karen State in Jan. 2014. / Saw Yan Naing / The Irrawaddy

The Karen National Union (KNU) decided on Thursday morning to postpone its 16th Congress until around March next year, reliable sources within the organization told The Irrawaddy.

The congresswhich elects new members of the KNUs Central Standing Committeetakes place every four years and was slated to commence on Nov. 21.

Some leaders wanted to postpone [the congress] while others wanted to hold it, said a participant of a Central Standing Committee meeting in KNU headquarters in Hpa-an Districts Lay Wah on Thursday, on the condition of anonymity.

It is no problem. If we postpone, it wont be for longprobably until March next year, he said.

Another KNU source confirmed that the congress will be postponed for between three and six months due to the current political situation.

The sources told The Irrawaddy that those in favor of postponing the congress were worried that electing new leaderswho do not have established relationships with the government and the Burma Armywould disrupt the peace process.

There are also different approaches to the peace process among the KNU leadership. The majority led by KNUs chairman Saw Mutu Say Poe favor a speedy peace process without consolidating the KNUs ceasefire agreements.

Other leadersincluding vice-chairwoman Naw Zipporah Seinhowever, want to first consolidate the ceasefire agreement and then move forward cautiously with the peace process.

Some commentators have suggested that the current leadership wish to cling to power to maintain their approach.

The participant of Thursdays meeting who spoke to The Irrawaddy downplayed this concern and said that there wont be a big change or a total U-turn in the peace process under a new or old KNU leadership.

Karen civil society organizations have voiced concern over any postponement of the congress, saying it is against democratic practices.

The KNU signed a bilateral ceasefire agreement with the previous Burmese government in 2012 and a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in 2015. It participated in the Union Peace Conference, also known as the 21st Century Panglong Conference, in late August this year.

Founded in 1947, the KNU is Burmas oldest ethnic armed organization fighting for autonomy and is one of eight ethnic armed organizations to sign the NCA with the previous government.
News Eleven Media CEO a No-Show for Police Questioning

U Phyo Min Thein shows his watch at a press conference. / J Paing / The Irrawaddy

Eleven Media Group CEO Dr. Than Htut Aung did not appear at a police station for questioning on Thursday afternoon following a police statement that he would be arrested later that evening if he failed to show.

On Wednesday, Rangoon chief minister U Phyo Min Thein filed a complaint with the Tamwe Township police station against Eleven Media Group and its CEO Dr. Than Htut Aung under Article 66(d) of Burmas Telecommunications Law.

I have sued Dr. Than Htut Aung and Eleven Media Group under Article 66(d) for their Facebook post. I am also preparing to take legal proceedings against [them] for their newspaper publication, U Phyo Min Thein said at a press conference, referring to an editorial written by Dr. Than Htut Aung.

The editorial headlined A Year After the Nov. 8 Poll was featured in the Nov. 6 issue of Eleven Medias daily newspaper. It read, Many citizens, whose minimum [daily] wage is US$2.50, are not satisfied with the news that a chief minister whose [monthly] salary is only around US$2,500 wears a Patek Philippe watch worth about $100,000.

The editorial claimed that the watch was presented by a rich man imprisoned under drug charges who had recently been released from prison and subsequently won a construction tender following the governments transfer of power.

No name was mentioned in the article but of the three businessmen who recently won a construction tender for Rangoons new city plan, U Maung Weik is the only one to have been jailed for drug charges.

I have never given a Patek Philippe watch to any chief minister and I am prepared to be questioned in court regarding these charges, said U Maung Weik at a conference at the Novotel Hotel on Wednesday morning.

U Maung Weik went to the Tamwe Township police station at 4 p.m. on Thursday as summoned for police questioning. No further details of that event are available at this time.

At a press conference on Wednesday evening, U Phyo Min Thein showed his watch to reporters, saying he did not have a Patek Philippe watch, and that the watch he wears is a Rolex that was purchased by his wife.

Prior to the editorial, posts had circulated on Facebook alleging that U Phyo Min Thein wore a Patek Philippe watch.

We will proceed according to the law, U Wai Phyo, chief editor of Eleven Media Group, told The Irrawaddy regarding U Phyo Min Theins lawsuit.

U Phyo Min Thein said he sent a letter to the Myanmar Press Council asking it to intervene in line with the law regarding the newspaper editorial and that he would also contact members of the Asia News Network as the translated editorial was published in some international media. On Thursday night, the Myanmar Press Council released a statement that it would not intervene in the case because the chief minister had already filed a lawsuit.

U Win Htein, a central executive committee member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) defended U Phyo Min Thein and said, he does not need to take bribes because his family is rich.

It is groundless and they have no evidence, said U Win Htein, referring to the allegation. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has warned ministers to steer clear of corruption. She said corrupt ministers would be expelled and imprisoned, he told The Irrawaddy.

U Wai Phyo said that he would take legal proceedings against U Win Htein, stating that he said unflattering things that could affect the image of Eleven Media Group in an interview with the BBC.

Eleven Media Group at its press conference on Tuesday said it would fully cooperate in finding the truth on the condition that a commission would be formed to carry out a transparent investigation into the allegations put forth in the editorial.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko
World Trump Presidency to Create High Anxiety Among Asian Allies

Demonstrators hold signs outside Trump Tower during a protest march against President-elect Donald Trump in Manhattan, New York. / Andrew Kelly / New York

TOKYO/SEOUL  Republican Donald Trumps victory in the US presidential election will deepen Asian allies anxiety about Washingtons commitment to post-war security arrangements in the face of a rising China and volatile North Korea, and could bolster calls from conservatives in Tokyo for a more robust defense policy.

Trumps America First rhetoric and calls for allies to pay more of the cost for US troops in the region or face their possible withdrawal have worried officials in some Asian capitals. So has his opposition to a 12-nation pan-Pacific trade pact that was a linchpin of Washingtons pivot to the region.

We should expect dramatic changes in the security environment, said South Koreas ruling Saenuri Party floor leader Chung Jin-suk in parliament on Wednesday.

But he added: In any case, there should not be any wavering in the Korea-US military alliance, which has been the foundation of prosperity of this country.

A Japanese government official, speaking before Trump clinched the election, urged the new president to send a reassuring message.

The new president-elect should as soon as possible issue a statement reassuring the rest of the world that the strong commitment of the United States to its allies  remains strong and reliable, said the official, who declined to be identified.

We are certainly concerned about the comments [Trump] has made to date about the alliance and the US role in the Pacific, particularly Japan, the Japanese official said, although he added Trumps policies might not match his rhetoric.

Trump has made several comments that disturbed Washingtons Asian allies, from insisting they must foot more of the two-way defense bill to suggesting it might be alright for Tokyo and Seoul develop nuclear arms capability.

Footing the Bill

In an article criticizing US President Barack Obamas pivot to Asia as talking loudly but carrying a small stick two Trump advisors said he would beef up the US Navy while asserting it was only fair that Seoul and Tokyo pay more for defense.

There is no question of Trumps commitment to Americas Asian alliances as bedrocks of stability in the region, wrote University of California professor Peter Navarro and Alexander Gray, a former advisor to US politician Randy Forbes, in the article, which appeared in the Nov. 7 edition of Foreign Policy.

The article also criticized the Obama administration for failing to halt Chinas aggressive maritime activities in the East and South China Seas, where Beijing has territorial rows with several countries in the region.

Trump has called for more ships for the US Navy. The mere initiation of the Trump naval program will reassure our allies that the United States remains committed in the long term to its traditional role as guarantor of the liberal order in Asia, the authors said.

Trumps approach to the North Asia security alliances could spark calls in Japan for a more independent security stance, although serious talk of acquiring nuclear weapons is unlikely to emerge in the only nation to suffer atomic bombings.

I think they will have more legitimacy, said a Japanese diplomat, referring to those seeking a more robust security stance. But the Japanese public is reluctant to go in that direction and we dont have the capacity in terms of budget or [military] personnel.

TPP Not Just Trade

Asian allies who joined the 12-nation Tran-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, a linchpin of Obamas Asia pivot, now fear the pact is dead, given Trumps harsh opposition.

That has implications not only for trade, but security, since Washington and Tokyo had seen the TPP as way of creating a new regional rule-based architecture to counter China.

TPP was not just a trade deal, it was the United States and Japan, together  these countries with shared values would create an advanced regional order with not just economic, but diplomatic and security implications, said Toshihiro Nakayama, a professor at Keio University in Tokyo.

It was a symbol of America being committed to the region.

Singapore-based security expert Tim Huxley warned of a period of potentially destabilizing uncertainty ahead as the region waits for clearer strategic signs of precisely what a Trump presidency would mean for Asia.

Unless Trump speaks reassuringly and soothingly about the continued US presence and commitment to the region, I wont be surprised to see long-held doubts awoken in the minds of many Asian leaders about the durability of the traditional US role, he said.

Policy-makers expect it will take considerable time for Trump to work out personnel appointments and get down to policy formation. Divisive US politics could also slow things down. That could mean a worrisome vacuum, but also suggests no quick, dramatic changes are in store.

It will take about half a year for Mr. Trump to firm up his foreign policies. He only has a transition team of about 200 people and his first focus will be domestic policy, said Masashi Adachi, head of the Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic Partys foreign policy panel.

I dont think there will be a big change in his stance toward Japan. He has said the Japan-US alliance is important. What he is talking about is details like increasing what Japan pays for US troops in Japan, Adachi added.
Commentary In EU Meeting, Min Aung Hlaing Defends Armys Political Role

Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing enters Parliament on March 30, 2016. / J Paing / The Irrawaddy

It was his first official visit to EU as he was invited to take part in European Union Military Committee (EUMC) meeting. The EU and the Western world think providing Burmese army leaders with exposure to the West, where they can learn about the role and practices of professional armed forces, can have a positive influence. But either to impress some or to disappoint many, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing sticks to his guns.

In his discussion paper, the commander in chief spoke about the role of the Burmese army in politics. He also spoke about the controversial 2008 Constitution in which the army has a 25 per cent stake in Parliament, but he did not forget to mention the ethnic insurgency and some aspects of Burmas colonial past.

The senior general, who was the first top Burmese military leader to visit the EU in decades, defended the 2008 Constitution, which allows for the participation of defense services in national politics. He praised the Constitution for restricting, in a state of emergency, the military from remaining in power too long, and requiring them to act in accordance with the Presidents approval.

He mentioned the British occupation of the past and Burmas annexation to India under British rule and how migrants, including people from Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), were brought into Burma.

The senior general, who recently ordered troops to quell the militant attacks in restive Arakan State along the Bangladesh border, frankly stated that people from Bengala term also used to described self-identifying Rohingya in the regionwere not included among Burmas ethnic minorities.

Min Aung Hlaing, a Buddhist, also noted in his remarks that 87 per cent of Burmas population are Theravada Buddhists, 6 percent are Christians and 4 percent are Muslimfigures which correspond with the results of the countrys 2014 census. He also said that 85 percent of the population in Burma are ethnic Burmansan inflated number compared to other demographic estimates of 60 to 70 percentany other figure, he added, was due to a misunderstanding that can be traced back to colonial rule. In his official line, he strictly followed his predecessors.

He also touched on the long running ethnic conflict in Burma, which he refrained from calling a civil war. Instead he carefully used terms like armed conflict, saying we were not fighting against ethnic communities, but those who were holding arms.

Even though he mentioned the ethnic insurgency and the once formidable threat of Burmese communists in the past, he did not mention the 1988 nationwide democracy uprising and the role of the army in a violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, which subsequently led Burma to be confronted with US and EU sanctions. What he did say was that due to various circumstances, the once good relations between the EU and Burma went cold.

After the militarys violent crackdown in 1988, it is known that the Burmese armed forces continued to buy weapons from Western nations through the black market, but it was Chinaand Russia, on a moderate levelthat became a main source of arms supplies and hardware support. Subsequently, Burma also turned to some Eastern European countries for weaponry. Since Burmas shift to a quasi-civilian government in 2011, the EU has lifted all sanctions but maintained its arms embargo.

A 2012 report indicated that Burma had used Swedish-made arms, including M-3 Carl Gustav anti-tank weapons, against ethnic Kachin troops in northern Burma. Sweden also imposed an arms embargo on Burma. Soon after the news reached the international media, an investigation was launched in Sweden and weapons used in the attacks on Kachin insurgents were found to be part of a larger shipment of arms sold to the Indian government in 2003.

Min Aung Hlaing did not mention State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in his remarks, but did speak of ex-President Thein Sein, the former general who led the nominally civilian government from 2011 until 2016.

The army chief also praised Burmas armed forces for assisting with and implementing the 2015 election so that it could be considered free and fair, and for helping to create a smooth administrative transition with full cooperation.

One of the senior generals favorite and repeated topics of discussion has long been the building of a Standard Army, for which he has asked for non-lethal assistance from the EU.

The US, after lifting all remaining sanctions in October, is also said to be eager to improve military to military engagement with the Burmese armed forces. It is likely that we will see more exchange in the near future, which will boost the image and legitimacy of the armed forces once considered to be a pariah.

During a recent visit to the UK and US, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi mentioned the role of a professional army being selfless in defending and protecting a countrys citizens. As early as 2013, she also gave her endorsement for Burmese military officers to receive trainings and education in the UK unrelated to battlefield military training. Officers from the British Defense Academy were involved in the training and the courses focused on human rights, humanitarian law and accountability.

After winning Burmas historic election in 2015, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and top party members of the National League for Democracy entered into delicate negotiations with Min Aung Hlaing regarding the transfer of power. Now, there is an elected civilian government in office, though the military remains a powerful force in Burmese politics and national affairs.

Burmas armed forces have a poor record on human rights and credible reports have documented crimes committed by the Tatmadaws troops in ethnic regions and on front lines.

Until recently, the Ministry of Defense controlled Burmas two largest industrial conglomerates: the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. (UMEHL) and the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC). These companies were, until October, under US sanctions and continue to dominate many of the countrys key economic sectors including jade mining, gems, tourism, imports, real estate, exportation of foodstuffs, automobiles, banking, transportation and large-scale construction. Burmas richest tycoons and cronies have strong connections to the generals who are considered to be the wealthiest and richest individuals in Burma. Still, if not directly, the army controls and influences the cronies who continue live in fear of being too close to democratic forces and opposition.

It is also interesting to note that Min Aung Hlaing stuck to the term Standard Army in his speech, as he no doubt knows the meaning of the more commonly used professional army. But his goal is to remain loyal to the 2008 Constitution, which allows the armed forces to play a key role in politics. Moreover, the army will not cease to be a key player in Burmas economic affairs.

But he pledged to protect democracy in his remarks to his European counterparts. He vaguely said that when there is a sound guarantee to the nation and its citizens, the role of the armed forces would be re-evaluated. But what was not said was whether the military, as an institution, would ever withdraw from Burmas political scene.
Thursday, November 10th, 2016 (8:28 am) - Score 2,628

Homes on the Isle of Arran, which is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde (Scotland), look set to become the first in the UK to get a faster broadband connection via White Space technology. This harnesses the gaps in radio spectrum that exist between Digital Terrestrial TV channels (470-790MHz).

At present quite a few homes and businesses on the Isle of Arran still struggle to achieve a broadband download speed of much above 0.5-6Mbps (often less during peak times), although the on-going Digital Scotland roll-out of fibre broadband (FTTC/P) connectivity with Openreach (BT) does look as if it can reach 85-90% of the Isle.

However the FTTC/P roll-out will still leave some big gaps, such as around Sliddery, Kilmory and Corriecravie (this may change with future contracts). But a potential solution has been put forward via the unusual combination of UK Internet domain registrar Nominet and rural broadband advisor firm Broadway Partners. Sony and Microsoft also have some involvement, related to equipment and software.

The fix involves White Space (aka  TV Whitespaces) technology, which after a long period of difficult development was finally opened up by Ofcom for use in 2015. The name refers to the gaps that exist between radio spectrum in the Digital Terrestrial TV bands (470MHz to 790MHz), which are intended to help minimise the risk of interference between channels but can also be harnessed to deliver data.

All of this sounds simple enough, except TV channels and spectrum assignments change all the time, which has made the technology difficult to develop and requires a special online database in order to help keep track of any changes (otherwise white space communication services could end up harming TV reception).

In theory this low frequency spectrum can deliver good coverage over a very wide area, but in practice the performance hasnt always been ideal. An early trial of White Space Broadband technology by BT, which was conducted on the Isle of Bute in 2012, delivered speeds of 14Mbps (TCP) and 23Mbps (UDP) at up to 2km from the base station.

However the trial also found that throughput rates decreased beyond 2km, but are generally still very usable at up to 5km. We recall some reports suggesting that 4Mbps was achieved when 6km away from the transmitter (the mast itself can usually be quite tall, albeit thin). BT ultimately gave up on the technology as a solution for rural broadband delivery.

Naturally that was an early trial and the technology has since improved, although the limited spectrum and complexity of management does impose some restrictions. Cost was initially another issue because there wasnt as much competition or choice of hardware in this fledging field of wireless communication.

Never the less the Isle of Arran should be among the first to see a commercial deployment of White Space Broadband, which promises to deliver speeds of between 25Mbps (2Mbps upload) and 35Mbps (3Mbps upload) to around 5,000 people on the island from 25 to 35 per month respectively (theres no mention of any usage limits). Installation normally costs 200 (one-off), but the Governments rural focused Better Broadband subsidy scheme can make this FREE.

Michael Armitage, Founding Director of Broadway Partners, said: TV white space has proved its mettle, cutting through hard to reach rural forested areas on Arran which, in fixed wireless terms, is pretty much unheard of. This technology will be a powerful tool in the drive to deliver affordable broadband access for all communities throughout Scotland and abroad.

Russell Haworth, CEO of Nominet, said: The Arran rollout shows that TV white space can reach places that other technologies cannot, and paves the way for further deployment of this dynamic spectrum management technology. Its fantastic to see our proven expertise in new technologies like TV white space is now providing the key building block to help remote areas to finally get online.

According to the Connect Arran group, the first installation of the technology on the island by Broadway Partners began in June 2016 and covers the whole of Machrie (this includes the Shiskine valley). So far 25 houses are receiving wireless broadband from the Arran Broadband Company, although future coverage plans remain unclear and likewise theres zero information about its funding / project cost.

No doubt others will be keeping a keen eye on this approach, but without more details about its funding, real-world performance and expected coverage targets then its hard to draw any firm conclusions. Several existing Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) networks already seem able to deliver a similar, albeit less complicated, solution and coverage for a similar sort of price.

UPDATE 11th Nov 2016

We found a related video on the above deployment.
A recently concluded study finds that the use of anesthesia especially for an early childhood surgery poses adverse health effects in the latter part of a child's life. Kids who are exposed to surgical anesthesia before age four tend to have slightly lower school grades at age 16 compared to other kids. However, experts have emphasized that the difference would only be very small and this should not discourage parents from having any kinds of necessary surgeries.

In the online publication of the journal JAMA Pediatrics, a study involving nearly 200,000 Swedish children suggests a marginal association between exposures to anesthesia for surgery before the age of 4 and a slightly lowered level of IQ scores at age 18 as compared with those who'd had no anesthesia during those early years.

CBS News reports that the study did not indicate whether the results of the study are applicable to children with riskier surgeries having the need for the use of anesthesia. Researchers from Sweden's Karolinska Institute along with other doctors elsewhere consider the result of the study as reassuring.

Furthermore, some of the common procedures that the study has considered were hernia, repairs; ear, nose or throat surgeries; and abdominal operations which researchers say have lasted for an hour or less.

On the other hand, as per Daily Mail, study lead author Dr. Pia Glatz from Karolinska Institute has also claimed that other factors such as the mothers' education level were found to create more impact on academics and intelligence measures rather than the use of anesthesia for surgical purposes. One journal editor has also added that the result of the study indirectly means that the early use of anesthesia cannot induce a long term risk.
With the upcoming "Gilmore Girls" revival around two weeks away, the fans just couldn't hold their excitement in as the premiere date gets closer each day. There have been new updates claiming that it's not only Rory who will be going through a crisis when the series returns, but Lorelai as well.

All The Generation Of Gilmore Girls Will Seem To be Going Through A Life Crisis In The Upcoming "Gilmore Girls" Revival

The fans have long been waiting for this moment to come since the series abruptly ending in season seven, which dissatisfied millions of its fans all over the world. Now, "Gilmore Girls" revival airdate is finally getting close after having been talking about this for months. Just recently, the famous Gilmore Girls, portrayed by actresses Lauren Graham (as Lorelai Gilmore) and Alexis Bledel (Rory Gilmore) were interviewed; and they were asked about how their characters are going to be in the upcoming revival, to be entitled "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life."

Lorelai To Be Going Through Mid-Life Crisis; Rory To Be Having A Career-Crisis

Both actresses revealed that their characters in the storyline will both be going through a life crisis. For Rory Gilmore, Bledel revealed that she is going to be a struggling journalist, travelling the world just so she can find her real passion as a career woman but won't turn out to be the way she had hoped it was going to be. Many of the viewers can surely relate to that, especially those audiences in the 25-35 age range who might be going through the same thing. As for Lorelai, Graham said that her character will also be in a mid-life crisis, although didn't explain in detail as to why.

Emily To Deal With The Aftermath Of Richard's Death In The "Gilmore Girls" Revival

Based on the official trailer, it has been revealed that Lorelai is still happily with Luke (Scott Patterson) although the couple might still be having struggles with their relationship. As for the other Gilmore, Lorelai's mother, Emily, she will be dealing with the aftermath of her husband's death and will have to learn to live a life without him. The actor who plays Richard, Edward Herrmann died a couple of years ago thus his character shall be honoured in the upcoming "Gilmore Girls" revival.

"Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life" will premiere in Netflix on November 25, 2016 with all four parts to be released at once.
Ian Somerhalder and wife Nikki Reed have been bombarded with divorce rumors even when they just got married and it hasn't stopped ever since. With fans continually linking the actor to his ex-girlfriend Nina Dobrev, the rumors just won't die down and now, he has denied it already.

Reports Continually Claim That Ian Somerhalder And Nikki Reed Are Getting A Divorce; Former Denies Rumors

There have been reports that actor Ian Somerhalder and his wife Nikki reed are going through a rough patch in their marriage for countless of reasons. For one, the actor's career has reportedly went down the spiral since he has broken up with on-screen partner, Nina Dobrev and married Nikki Reed a couple of years after. His endorsements and projects reportedly died down since his relationship with Dobrev was what made them so appealing to the public. Another alleged reason for the divorce is that the actor already wants to start a family and his wife keeps pushing it back.

Ian's interest in starting a family was reportedly what broke him and Dobrev up, since the latter was still young at that time and would still want to explore more of the world. However, despite reports that the same reason has caused a rift in Ian and Nikki's marriage, it seems to be untrue. The actor recently revealed that his schedule has been so hectic due to his series, "The Vampire Diaries" and does not yet have the time to build a family. With the show already on its last season, he could not wait to finally have that family he has always wanted.

Contrary To Popular Belief, Nina Dobrev Is In Good Terms With The Couple And Even Share The Same Political Views

In other news, despite the reports of a feud between the couple and Dobrev, they all share the same political views when it comes to the US presidential elections. The trio, along with other Hollywood stars, were all supporting Hillary Clinton and with Donald Trump having won the presidency, they are all in dismay. They have all posted their reactions to the results of the election on their respective social media accounts. No matter the issues and rumors being speculated among the three, they all seem to be in good terms with each other.
On Tuesday, the state of Colorado passed aid-in-dying measure that will allow terminally ill patients to take their own lives with physican-prescribed sleeping medication.

Death with dignity, as it is called by proponents, had an overwhelming win with a two-thirds vote. Prop 106, or "End of Life Options", means Colorado is the sixth state, along with Oregon, Washington, California, Montana and Vermont, legalizing aid in dying. Two physicians would need to agree that the patient is mentally competent, meaning Alzheimer's and the like are not included, and the patient should have less than six months to live.

Julie Selsberg who worked on the campaign said, "My dad wanted this option for peace of mind in his dying days and, ultimately, for the opportunity of a gentle passing. Now we know that Coloradans believe that offering the option of medical aid in dying is the kind, compassionate, safe and just thing to do."

Physician-Aided Death For Regaining Dignity And Control?

According to recent studies, majority of terminally-ill patients who choose to end their lives through medication do so not so much for pain but for peace of mind and dignity. "It's almost never about pain," said California physician Lonny Shavelson, who specializes in the care of the terminally ill. "It's about dignity and control."

"No Assisted Suicide Campain" Pushed By Archdiocese Of Denver

But not everyone is happy. Opponents of the measure say that aid in dying is morally incorrect and that doctors can make mistakes at the time of the prognosis. The Archdiocese of Denver donated $1.1 million to the "No Assisted Suicide Campaign," and said "human life is sacred at every stage and should be protected." Jeff Hunt, vice president of public policy for Colorado Christian University said: "We are deeply disappointed and concerned about Colorado legalizing doctor-assisted suicide. The fight is not over."

Colorado voters who responded to Proposition 106 are a broad demographic range. Hispanics and whites and people with and without college degrees said they backed the proposal. Voters aged 18-44 as wells as those 45 and older strongly backed the legislation.
Tesla, the leader in autonomous car manufacturing and production, announced on November 8 that they would be acquiring Grohmann Engineering, also a leader in automotive engineering in based in Germany. Tesla CEO and co-founder Elon Musk announced that Grohmann will become the new Advanced Automation facility in Germany and will be named as the Tesla Advanced Automation Germany.

Grohmann Engineering has been working with different car brands and has also shared their expertise with life-science and semiconductor companies. Although being acquired, the engineering company will not be restricted to working with Tesla and will still continue its current projects even with other car companies.

Aside from the newly acquired engineering company, Tesla is also known for working with other tech companies such as NVidia for its processors, Panasonic for the batteries, Multimatic, and a lot more. Tesla's goal in acquiring Grohmann engineering and partnership with other companies is to improve efficiency in the manufacture of their automobiles.

According to Tesla, they have already increased their vehicle output target from 80,000 in 2016 to 500,000 cars by the end of 2018 and their search for seeking the best engineers to work with them is important. Tesla has already increased their vehicle production rate by up to 400 percent over the past four years.

Grohmann Engineerings founder and CEO, Klaus Grohmann will lead the new subdivision. By joining Tesla, Mr. Grohmann can still lead his world-class team of experts right in their headquarters. Currently, Grohmann Engineering already has 700 employees and this move promises job opportunities for more than a thousand engineers and technicians for the next two years.

Musk said that Tesla will end up becoming a part German company with Germany's unparalleled engineering. The CEO also announced that the company is planning to establish a joint vehicle factory in Europe that will be called "Gigafactory 2" and is hoping that the legal formalities will be finalized by the last quarter of 2017.
The holiday season is fast approaching, and to some tech enthusiasts, it is the most important time of the year. Read more to know about the juicy details about Amazon retailing the Samsung Galaxy S5 for just 269 only.

Now you must be thinking why in the world one would consider buying an old model (unless you are sporting an older model or something similar). According to a written article at Know Your Mobile, Amazon is now retailing the Samsung Galaxy S5 for only 269 compared to its original price: 579. Apparently, it was so welcomed by the consumers that only 10 pieces are left in stock.

Knowing that this is an old phone, the article also states that the Galaxy S5 is still a decent handset if you root it and install it with a customize ROM, thus making the handset perform well compared to its original performance. Plus, you won't have to worry about any heating and exploding features like the Samsung Galaxy S7.

The Pros

About what makes this old phone a decent one to have, it has an excellent screen (5.1 inches, 69.6 percent body ratio), capable camera (16 MP back camera, 2 MP front camera), excellent battery life with Ultra Power Saving Mode, a decent size of storage, and water resistant.

The Cons

Now for the reasons why it makes the Samsung Galaxy S5 undesirable, the reasons are ugly design, mediocre speaker, and poor fingerprint scanner implementation.

Some Specs and features according to GSM Arena:

Network: GSM / HSPA / LTE

Launch: 2014, February

Body: 5.59 x 2.85. 0.32 inches, 145 grams

Display: 16M colors, Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 1080 x 1920 pixels

Platform: Android OS, V4. 4.2, Qualcomm MSM8974AC Snapdragon 801, Quad-core 2.5 GHz Krait 400

Memory: 16/32 GB, 2 GB RAM

Battery: Removable Li-Ion 2800 mAh battery, 390h (standby), 21h (talk time), 67h (music play)

Colors: Charcoal black, copper gold, electric blue, shimmering blue

Features: Fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, gesture, heart rate
In the recently concluded U.S Elections, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte congratulated Donald Trump for winning the Presidential bid and said that he doesn't want to have a fight anymore with the ally country. He also then recalled the leadership of Barrack Obama and began criticizing him.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Ready To Make Peace With United States Right After Donald Trump Won

It was remembered that Philippine President Duterte came in too strong for the past few month regarding his country's relationship with United States. In his recent statements, he told that he will make an end in the military joint drills and cut defense pacts with US.

According to Reuters, Duterte, in his speech, told:

"I would like to congratulate Mr. Donald Trump. Long live,"

"We are both making curses. Even with trivial matters we curse. I was supposed to stop because Trump is there. I don't want to quarrel anymore, because Trump has won."

People See Great Resemblance Between Rodrigo Duterte And Donald Trump

As of the moment, the two were being compared to each other. With their huge number of votes, the two seems greatly alike with each other.

The incoming ambassador to the United Nations of Duterte administration admitted that there was quite a resemblance with how the two perceive some things.

"I remember Trump in the middle of one of his statements; he said 'I will not talk like this after I become president',"

"I remember someone who also said the same thing."

According to Rappler, Duterte's team admitted that they are of great hopes that this remarks would lead to an enhanced ties between Philippines and United States driven by respect and mutual benefit; providing a great commitment into democratic ideals and rule of law.

People are expecting that both leaders would exemplify greatness and excellence when it comes to leading and serving their own respective countries while maintaining collaboration at both ends.
A Zika virus vaccine was injected into 75 healthy adults on Monday at the start of human trials of the vaccine developed by the Army, Defense Department officials. This vaccination happenned in th Walter Army Institute of Reasearch's Clinical Trial Center in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Zika is spread mostly by the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito. These mosquitoes bite during the day and night. According to WHO, people with Zika virus disease can have symptoms including mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headache.

Army-Developed Zika Vaccine Testing

The Phase 1 trial will test the safety and immunogenicity. It is the ability of the Zika purified inactivated virus (ZPIV) vaccine to trigger an immune response in the body.

The Army has moved efficiently from recognizing Zika virus as a threat, producing ZPIV for use in animals and demonstrating its effectiveness in mice and monkeys, producing ZPIV for human testing, and now initiating clinical trials to establish its safety and build the case for subsequent efficacy trials, Army Col. (Dr.) Nelson Michael, director of WRAIRs Military HIV Research Program, or MHRP, and Zika program co-lead, said in a statement. All of this, he added, was done in 10 months.

Officials of WRAIR said that this study is part of the Defense Department response to the ongoing Zika outbreak in North America, South America and Southeast Asia. As of Nov. 2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 149 cases of Zika infection were confirmed in the military health system, including four pregnant service members and one pregnant family member.

"Asymptomatic Zika infections can lead to severe birth defects and neurological complications. A safe and effective Zika vaccine that prevents infection in those at risk is a global public health priority," said Maj. Leyi Lin, principal investigator of the study.

NIH Trial Using ZPIV Vaccine

WRAIR's ZPIV candidate will also be part of the NIH trial that began in August. The study will test ZPIV in a group of people who first receive the DNA vaccine and then are boosted with the ZPIV vaccine. Three additional Phase 1 trials using ZPIV are scheduled to begin this year:

St. Louis University researchers, through the NIAID-funded Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units network, will examine the optimal dose of the vaccine to be used in larger studies.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School researchers will evaluate the safety and immune response from a compressed vaccine schedule.

The clinical research center CAIMED, part of Ponce Health Sciences University in Puerto Rico, will examine the vaccine's safety and immunogenicity in participants who have already been naturally exposed to Zika or dengue viruses

The WRAIR trial that began recently is sponsored by NIAID and funded by the Departments of the Army and Defense.
When the results showed that Donald Trump was the new U.S. president, most of the American people felt shocked because of the fact that this was a scenario that almost no one predicted, considering that the polls positioned Hillary Clinton as the favorite candidate to win the elections.

Since that surprising moment the people, the social media, and the press started to ask themselves how could an outcome of this kind was possible, why Clinton lose the elections, and principally, how the Republican ended up getting elected. Naturally, it has been explained that the reasons could have been Trumps speech, the secret vote that was invisible in the polls and how the Democrats underestimated him.

However, one of the main reasons why the republican won the elections was WikiLeaks decisive role, revealing thousands of times classified email of Hillary Clintons campaign chairman, John Podesta, in which it was showed very delicate information regarding the Democratic nominee and her party, as reported by Bloomberg.

WikiLeaks Represented Trumps Powerful Weapon Against Clintons Image In The Elections

In addition to Trumps accusation, WikiLeaks actions represented not only the confirmation that his messages needed but also a powerful weapon that ended up being extremely damaging to Clintons image, considering that the batches of emails leaked in the social media showed her flaws and contradictions.

When the leaks were already spreading everywhere, the government accused Russia of being the mastermind behind this operations and blamed WikiLeaks for wanting to interfere with the elections. Although Julian Assange claimed that the intention was to reveal the truth, in such a delicate event as this kind, targeting only one candidate automatically create a huge benefit to the other.

WikiLeaks And Putins Intentions

The nature of WikiLeaks actions against Hillary Clinton has been in dispute since that moment, giving the fact that even when it was indirectly allying with Trump, the radical transparency organization was revealing important information that the American voters had the right to know.

However, trying to analyze Assanges real intentions gets everything extremely dark, since here is when the geopolitical issues come into the discussions. Although it could be considered as a conspiracy theory, separate WikiLeaks actions against Clinton from Putins preference of Trump winning the election is an impossible task.

In fact, it is even difficult to separate it from Donald Trump, not only because the Republican has publicly endorsed the Russian leader, but also because the non-profit organization ended up being some kind of Trumps media against Clinton, considering that one of the most particular details of the election was that almost the entire American press wanted the Democrat to be the new president.

Stealing Impact From Trumps Flaws

WikiLeaks revelations about Hillary also helped Trump to minimize the effects of some of his most incredible lies and outrageous statements, which is one of the most important measures than a politician should have when they commit a wrong move: to distract and steal impact with other new. In this case is even better, because instead of being another Trumps news, it was actually information that destroyed Clintons image.

In politics, this comes handier than having a great speech, since discrediting the opponent gives you more chances to win that being a perfect candidate, and this was exactly the service that WikiLeaks gave Trump. That is why its actions were so decisive to define the elections outcome, as reported by The New York Times.

When Trumps triumph in the elections gets analyzed in the future, many will say that the reason was his anger message and how the American people were sick of the establishment, and even when those analysts ended up getting it right, they will be forgetting about how a whistle-blowing organization was so helpful to get him elected.
Lenovo has announced that all of its future mobile devices will use the Moto instead of its own since the company seems to bring together its business with Motorola after acquiring it back in 2014 from Google, although the Chinese giant reported that these efforts didn't meet the expectations.

A New Structure

According to the International Business Times, Lenovo chairman and chief executive officer Yang Yuanqing explained that this change is the focus on strengthening the marketing in the companys native land China, adding that overseas smartphone sales have been way much better than they were in Asias first economy.

Also, it was known that the company wants to change its staffing structure, bringing the former SVP of human resources, Gina Qiao, to rule as SVP of Lenovo Mobile Business Group, which could be done in short term, since Yang has publicly shown his support, explaining that she has "the background and insight to form the ideal skillset to manage the mobile business."

According to Pocket Lint, the combined sales of Moto and Lenovo-branded devices for Q2 2016 were $2 billion, down 12 percent year-on-year. The company shipped 10.9 million smartphones in Q4 2016 and 66.1 million units in the full year. "Our mobile business has good quarter-to-quarter volume growth (20%) and margin improvements," Yang said.

Future Smartphones Might Be Similar To The "M" phone

Although the Motorolas acquisition hasn't been precisely the greatest business in the history, it included not only the brand but also smartphones like the DROID series devices, Moto E, Moto G, Moto X and the future Motorola product roadmap, which could be very significant for Lenovos interest.

However, most of these devices might be replaced by something similar to the recent "M" phone, a decision that comes as a part of the companys staffing structure change. In fact, Lenovo has made some senior hires from major companies as Microsoft and Intel, in order to transition from a hardware company into a "customer-oriented company focusing on devices with artificial intelligence and cloud services".
If you have a teenage child, you must be at war every day. Children, who are between 10 and 13, are most likely have fights with their parents. This is because of their tryst with independence, added with the effort to find their identity in a complex society. Parenting teens is definitely not the easiest job in the world.

While an argument out of the blue may leave you in shock, there are ways to deal with this in a smart manner. There are ways to win an argument with your teenage child. It is important to have an effective argument with a teenager and win so that you can avoid bigger issues in the future.

The good part is that, for a teenager, being argumentative is a healthy sign. It shows they are in the process of learning how to express their opinion about various issues and handle disagreements at the same time. In a society that is growing intolerant to the other perspective, it is important that your child learns to respect disagreements. Being argumentative is also a sign that your child is getting independent and needs less psychological support from you.

According to family psychologist Brad Sachs, if your teenage child does not argue with you, it may be a matter of concern. It is a sign that the child is not working hard enough to establish an independent identity. Here are the tricks to win an argument with a teenager the smart way.

Decide how important the issue is in the long term. Engage in an argument if you think it is going to affect your child's future. If you think it's a temporary thing which tends to pass away with time, avoid arguing about it.

Give options to your child to choose from. It makes them feel that they are in control of their own life. Listen to their perspective and stay away from negative practices like sarcasm and name-calling. But, be strict about disrespectful behavior. Appreciate them when they behave well. Appreciation works better than punishment.

While parenting teens, it is important to remember that children are more likely to revolt if you are too rigid. According to the Huff Post, teens need to feel respected, acknowledged and understood.

"Where parents go wrong is they have the view of the slippery slope. If I give in here, it will all fall apart. The opposite is true," the Wall Street Journal quoted Alan Kazdin, a professor of psychology and child psychiatry at Yale University.
Google Pixel LTE connectivity issues are cropping up in some parts of North and South America. The issue is not widespread yet, but some users are reporting to lose network connectivity while on LTE 4 bands.

The issue is affecting both the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones from Google. Both these devices are very good smartphones with top notch hardware and one of the best smartphone cameras at present. But is Google going to be in trouble because of this issue? Recently, the Google Pixel also faced issues with Bluetooth connectivity.

Google Pixel LTE Problems

Users started reporting the Google Pixel LTE issues as early as Nov. 1 on Google forums. However, Google has not acknowledged the issue yet. Some users are seeing no LTE signal when trying to connect to LTE band 4, while others are facing the same with different LTE bands.

For some users, their carrier only provides an LTE band, so this is a bigger problem for them. Certain users of Bell and Telus networks in Canada also seem to be affected by connectivity drops. Some users are outraged that after paying a fortune, they cannot even get a proper signal on their pricey device.

Will There Be a Fix?

This is most probably a software issue, as not all networks are affected. According to Android Police, one of their readers was told by a Google Support representative that the company was aware of the problem. The representative stated that a software update will be issued to fix the problem.

If it is not a software issue at Google's end, but something to do with the carrier settings, then users may have to contact their carrier directly. Not much is known as of now, but it is said that Google is working on a software update. No official announcement has been made by Google either.

Once again, this is not a widespread issue yet and only a small number of users in North and South America are facing it. Nevertheless, Google should find out what is wrong and release a fix soon.
The upcoming 2017 Honda Pioneer ATV is ready to take Honda and its enthusiasts to unchartered terrains. The Japanese automaker has just released a teaser image, making all impatient fans even more excited about one of Honda's latest and finest creations.

The 2017 Honda Pioneer All-Terrain Vehicle Teaser

Honda has just released an image of the upcoming 2017 Honda Pioneer All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) to tease its fans. Just like in many teaser images, the picture only showed very little about the features of the upcoming 2017 Honda Pioneer ATV. The teaser photo showed the 2017 Honda Pioneer ATV sporting a red hood in a dark background with its headlights on. In addition its grille where the Honda name is embedded was also shown but that was it.

Few Other Details

According to News18, the 2017 Honda Pioneer ATV is equipped with a 700cc engine that comes from a motorbike. This allows for a vehicle that is more practical as compared to a quad bike but also more manageable than an SUV of the traditional model. In addition, the 2017 Honda Pioneer ATV will also have configurations that allow for two-seat and four-seat setup.

What This Upcoming Vehicle Means

This new vehicle means new doors for different possibilities. According to Automotive World, people into business and leisure will be able to benefit from this because it will allow them to go places that are very difficult to reach. New levels of comfort, agility and handling and many more things are also benefits users will be able to get.

Availability Of 2017 Honda Pioneer ATV

The 2017 Honda Pioneer ATV is set be launched in 2017. While reports suggest that it will be released in the U.K, there have not been any indications whether or not it will also come to the U.S market. Consumers will just have to wait and see and explore their options once it's out.
Despite the fact that Paget Brewster replaced Thomas Gibson on "Criminal Minds" season 12, the actors have been signed to work together on a new film. Along with Gibson and Brewster are other co-stars Kirsten Vangsness, Aisha Tyler and Adam Rodriguez. Yet according to reports, Gibson is hesitant to work with the "Criminal Minds" stars.

"Criminal Minds" Season 12 Actors Work Together

In a somewhat strange opportunity, "Criminal Minds" season 12 actors Thomas Gibson and Paget Brewster were signed as voice actors on a new film titled "Axis" and joined by Kirsten Vangness, Aisha Tyler and Adam Rodriguez. The upcoming indie movie is directed by Tyler herself and written by Emitt Hughes.

Gibson Hesitant?

Initial rumors back last September claimed Gibson was hesitant to accept the role of Joseph as the actor might not be ready to work with Brewster. However, Gibson seems glad working with the actress and the rest of his co-stars. Gibson even took to Instagram the day they started working and from the looks of it, he is definitely happy.

Day One! A photo posted by @thomasgibsonofficial on Jul 11, 2016 at 6:31pm PDT





Additionally, similar report stated that the actor is delighted to be given the chance to be appreciated in his craft after what happened on the set of "Criminal Minds." It can be recalled that Gibson was suspended after an alleged squabble with showrunner and writer Virgil Williams.

"Axis" Out In 2017

"Axis" is set to be released in 2017. The main plot of the film centers on an Irish actor and his biggest career break. The official synopsis on IMDB read: "On the morning he is set to star in a career-changing blockbuster film, an Irish actor trying to live down his rocky past confronts a series of devastating events that threaten his sobriety, his loved ones, and ultimately his life." Other stars include "Arrows'" Emily Bett Rickards, "Archer's" Amber Nash and "Entourage's" Jerry Ferrara.

In the meantime, Gibson has been rumored anew to be recast in "Criminal Minds" season 13 as Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner due to popular demand. Some die-hard fans even started on Twitter a campaign with tag #NoHotchNoWatch.
"American Horror Story: Roanoke" is finally coming to its final episode next week. Chapter 10 trailer reveals Lana Winters is back on the finale for an exclusive and shocking interview with Lee Harris. Meanwhile, spoilers reveal that dead actors are coming back.

Lana Winters Is Back

Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) was able to score an exclusive interview with Lee (Adina Porter), the sole survivor who rose to fame. With too little details revealed, the finale is certainly unpredictable proving that a few questions are left unanswered for now. What could Lee be sharing to Lana in her interview?

Hanging Questions

Meanwhile, there are other hanging questions no one can answer as of now. Who could possibly be the person behind the footage discovered? Will Matt Bomer come back? Will Lady Gaga return as Scathach? Will the other dead actors really be returning too as Ryan Murphy teased recently?

Chapter 9 Recap

"American Horror Story: Roanoke" chapter 9 saw the survivors from "Return to Roanoke: Three Days in Hell" Audrey (Sarah Paulson) and Lee (Adina Porter) accompanied by recurring star Dylan (Wes Bentley). Before entering the Big Brother-like reality show, Dylan's late arrival on the show was commissioned to make him the phony Piggy Man. As the three characters set off to Polk family's farm, Audrey succeeded in finding Monet (Angela Bassett) while Lee was missing. However, Dylan did not make it as he was murdered by a Polk member. At the house, Monet played the footage with Lee confessing she killed her husband.

In the meantime, three bloggers from a My Roanoke Nightmare fans site arrived at Roanoke house to document the house mainly for increasing of followers. What they thought was all lies came true after all after Sophie (Taissa Farmiga), Todd (Jacob Artist) and Milo (Bass) saw a ghost. As they came back some time after, they were able to find Lee. However, it was not the Lee that everyone knows as she was already possessed after the Witch of the Woods fed her a boar's heart. Unfortunately, Todd was murdered and Sophie and Milo were able to flee.

"American Horror Story: Roanoke" chapter 10 airs Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 10:00 p.m. ET on FX.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's vision for the country's economy-driving technology industry is largely a blank canvas, and when he's dipped his toe into IT issues, he's made people nervous.

Trump's campaign was dominated by debates over illegal immigration, lost manufacturing jobs, and character issues. Silicon Valley firms largely opposed Trump, and one of his signature issues, rewriting free trade deals between the U.S. and other nations, likely will hurt U.S tech companies' ability to sell products overseas.

Meanwhile, digital rights groups say they expect Trump to call for expanded government surveillance programs to fight terrorism and fewer protections for privacy. And a Trump administration will likely work to gut net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission passed only last year, although repealing the rules won't be easy.

Several tech groups congratulated Trump on his unexpected victory, but others said they're concerned about Trump's lack of a tech agenda and his call for a boycott of Apple when it refused to assist the FBI to break into the iPhone of a criminal suspect.

"I am not thinking of anything to be optimistic about" after Trump's election, said one tech trade group executive on background.

Expect Trump to call for backdoors in encryption, based on his Apple comments, said Chris Calabrese, vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology. And Trump's plan to identify and deport some or all illegal immigrants could lead to invasions of privacy, he said.

Still, some of Trump's more conservative supporters could push for increased privacy protections in their advocacy for the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure, Calabrese noted. Trump's policy on privacy is unclear, and it's not known who his major appointees will be, he said.

"We just recognize that the next four years could be very challenging, and it's up to us to explain to the American people why internet freedom and the things we value are important to them," Calabrese added. "Anything of value has to be fought for sometimes."

Like digital rights groups, the tech industry has a lot of questions about Trump's policies, said James Reid, senior vice president of government affairs at the Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade group representing network equipment manufacturers and suppliers.

Trump released little information about his tech policy agenda during the campaign. He gave one speech about cybersecurity in October, with some of the positions echoing things already being done in government. Trump published a four-point, 179-word plan on cybersecurity at the same time.

Only on Election Day, the Trump team added the word, "telecommunications," to his website's plan for government investments in U.S. infrastructure, according to the TIA. There are no details.

Trump's positions on trade during the campaign worry many tech companies, even though Republicans, who will still control both houses of Congress, have generally supported free trade.

The tech industry also doesn't have a clear understanding about Trump's views on spectrum policy and on intellectual property, Reid said.

The uncertainty over Trump's positions on a range of issues "makes people nervous," Reid said. Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign put out position papers on a number of issues, and "they had people who understood these issues and cared about them."

Trump released a "leaner set of policy papers," Reid added. "For the day after, there are still more question marks than answers. That's probably as disconcerting as any particular policy statement."

Trump voiced strong opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other trade deals, but it's unclear what the alternative is, Reid added. Would he renegotiate the TPP and other trade deals? Would he stop pursuing new trade deals?

Rob Atkinson, founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech-focused think tank, sees a Trump presidency as a "mixed bag" for the tech industry.

While Trump may try to rewrite trade deals, he may also look to enforce trade obligations in deals with countries like China and Mexico, Atkinson said. China and other countries "have put the gun to tech's head" through requirements such as local investments, he noted.

Trump should be "a lot tougher" on trade enforcement than President Barack Obama's administration has, Atkinson predicted.

Otherwise, expect Trump to push for corporate tax reform, with a Republican Congress eager to go along with his plans to cut taxes, Atkinson added. Many tech companies will welcome those changes.

On the negative side for many IT companies, Trump's anti-immigration stance will likely mean the U.S. tech industry won't see an expansion of skilled worker visa programs, as many companies have pushed for, Atkinson added. "You can kiss high-skill immigration [expansion] goodbye for the next four years," he said.

Other tech policy experts were still reeling from Trump's unexpected victory.

"I'd be kidding myself if I thought I knew what to expect," said Matt Wood, policy director of digital rights group Free Press. "About anything."

It's nearly impossible to predict the impact of a Trump presidency on technology policy, he added by email. "Trump's mix of irresponsibly deregulatory policies, coupled with his embrace of utter falsehoods and ignorance about how the internet works, are alarming, to say the least," he said.
Get unlimited access to all content and features at ivpressonline.com with our Full Online Access Subscription. Read our E-Edition, the digital replica of the print newspaper online, access content in exclusive sections including Family, Teen, Business, Databases, Farm and more. This option does not include daily home delivery of the Imperial Valley Press newspaper. For home delivery service, please select Premium or Premium Plus.
CUSTOMERS from a late-night cafe came to the rescue of a group of tenants living above a fish and chip shop which was struck by arsonists.

Three men,Marios Stylianou, Nicos Charalambous and Savvas Artemi, helped alert the seven tenants sleeping above Mr Chippie, Green Lanes, Palmers Green, after a blaze started at the three-storey building at around 3am on Friday.

Mr Stylianou, 44, of Edmonton, was sitting in a nearby cafe at the time and was among the first to rush to the scene.

He said : 'I did not save the fish and chip shop but I did save lives. I'm not really a hero, it's nothing special.'

Mr Stylianou told how he and other customers of the New Salamis cafe dashed into the street to wake the tenants upstairs by throwing coins and stones at the windows while someone called the authorities.

'Someone rushed in and said they saw smoke. We could then hear glass smashing from the heat,' he said.

'We tried to put water over the fire until the fire brigade arrived.

'Everybody inside heard the noise and came down, some still in their pyjamas.'

Fire crews from Southgate, Edmonton and Hornsey took nearly 30 minutes to bring the blaze under control using two hoses.

The inferno caused 15,000 worth of damage to the premises. Police are treating it as arson.

After the flames were quelled police and fire officers found that the rear door of the premises had been forced and a rear window smashed.

Flammable material was discovered in a sink at the rear of the building.

And a resident living in a house backing onto the takeaway said he had smelt petrol and heard a loud bang shortly before the fire started.

Mr Artemi added: 'Some of our boys used our fire extinguisher until the fire brigade arrived.

'The firemen said that if it had been another five minutes the building could have exploded.'

Speculation is mounting that Mr Chippie, owned by Turks, could have been the target for an attack by English football thugs hell bent on revenge over the recent stabbings of two Leeds fans in Istanbul.

However police have denied this link.

Anyone with information about the incident should telephone Edmonton police on 8345 4442.
Town sued over denied water service The town council met in executive session last week to discuss its defense after a lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court by a Jamestown homeowner who was denied permission...

Scout earns Eagle rank with boardwalk work A local Boy Scout is the latest member of Troop 1 Jamestown to lead an environmental project at a wildlife sanctuary in his mission to attain the Eagle rank. Alex...

State: Steer clear while deer breeding As deer begin mating during the rut, public safety officials are urging drivers to be cautious on the roads because herds tend to move around more frequently during this time....
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1 International Journal of New Technology and Research (IJNTR) ISSN: , Volume-2, Issue-7, July 2016 Ps The Influence of Resource Inputs in the Professionalization of Higher Education in the University of Ngaoundere, Adamawa Region Cameroon Asongwe Cyprian Foche, Professor Fonkeng Epah George, Dr Galy Mohamadou Abstract Given the important role higher education plays in the training and equipping of young graduates with professional skills and competences to better adapt to the exigencies of the employment market, this research probes into some of the indicators of professionalizationin the university milieu such as infrastructure, personnel and equipment. It assesses the human and material resources input in the professionalization process in the University of Ngaoundere. The study is a descriptive survey with a sample of three and eight students of the university. An open-ended questionnaire was constructed following the Likert Scale from 1-, of strongly agree (SA), agree (A), not sure (NS), disagree (DS), and strongly disagree (SDA). The data was analyzed with SPSS Pack, using regression analysis model. Findings reveals insufficient infrastructure and equipment, while teaching personnel assessment averly reflects professionalization. Index Terms Equipment, Higher education, Infrastructure, Professionalization, Personnel. I. INTRODUCTION Higher education (HE) plays an important role in the development of most nations. Developing nations have been working to uplift their standards since the last three decades by initiating a series of institutional reforms in Universities. The main driving force for change is increased demand for more professionalization of Higher Education programs to suit the exigencies of the job market, more accountability and responsiveness to the needs and expectations of internal and external stakeholders who affect or are affected by the existence and functioning of universities. In Cameroon, the 1993 University Reforms, the Bologna process 199, the 2001 Orientation Law on Higher Education, the 2007 Bachelor-Masters-Doctorate (BMD) Higher Education reforms and the 2008 New University Governance Program amongst other things have restructured governance and professionalization in the country s Higher Education system.marshall (2011) believed that effective manment at all levels of higher education institutions are integral to institutional quality and enhanced innovation. This is in line Asongwe Cyprian Foche, Post Graduate School of Human and Social Sciences, The University of Maroua, Camroon. Professor Fonkeng Epah George (Ph. D), Deputy Vice Chancellor in Charge of Research, Cooperation and Relations with the Bussiness World, The University of Buea, Cameroun. Dr Galy Mohamadou, Head of the Department of Science of Education, the University of Maroua, Cameroun. with Baldwin (2009) who believed that academics play an important role in the success of universities, but that governance is required for the infrastructure and personnel to realize quality and innovation. According to Teshome Yizengaw, (2008), higher education institutions in Africa have seen little or no infrastructure improvements for the last few decades. Learning infrastructure is widely deficient due to insufficient budget and overdependence on public financing. Infrastructure, such as internet access, library, textbooks, equipment, laboratories and classroom space are critical bottlenecks resulting in deterioration of quality of education and learning. The poor state of facilities also affects the quality of research and its ability to contribute to societal development and progress.africa s higher education institutions face a decline in quality of education, learning and research. Universities operate with overcrowded and deteriorating physical facilities, limited and obsolete library resources, insufficient equipment and instructional materials, outdated curricula,unqualified teaching staff, poorly prepared secondary school students, and an absence of academic rigor and systematic evaluation of performance. II. LITERATURE REVIEW There is increasing research on the professionalization process in Cameroon s higher education in a bid to make training responsive to the needs of the 21st century economy. Studies in Cameroon include: Endeley, M. (2014), investigated the teaching and learning process within the Bachelor-Masters-Ph.D. professionalization reform in the University of Buea. Using a descriptive survey questionnaire sample of forty lecturers, the findings reveal the inadequate human and material resources in enhancing professionalization in the teaching-learning process. Teneng (2016), investigated and analyzed skills oriented higher education and graduate employability in Cameroon, came out with the finding that lack of marketable skills and skills that do not match the demands of the labor market are some of the obstacles of getting employment. According to the ministry of higher education quarterly review, SUP INFOS, (2010c), one of the roles of higher education (HE), is to increase the socio-economic, socio-professional and market friendliness of the curriculum. This role was reconceptualised in their New University Governance Poli (NUGP), with the objective of acquiring: 20

2 The Influence of Resource Inputs in the Professionalization of Higher Education in the University of Ngaoundere, Adamawa Region Cameroon a modern, professionalized higher education which is resolutely open to the rest of the society and meeting the requirements of knowledge production, of knowhow, of the use of knowledge and the production of human capital, quantitatively and qualitatively which is necessary to drive Cameroon to become an emergent nation by 203 (Operational Strategy of the NUGP up to 2010:2). This can only be achieved if our universities can be up to date with the state of the art infrastructure, updated library facilities and the new information and communication technology. The professionalization process of higher education in Cameroon cannot be attained without adequate infrastructural, material, personnel and equipment. According to the Resource theory of pedagogy, (Astin, 1984), Physical facilities like spacious lecture halls, libraries, laboratories, audio-visual aids are believed to enhance students learning. The theory maintains that if adequate resources are brought together in one place, student learning will improve and development will occur. Space plays a vital role in HE. The classroom is being reinvented to support new pedagogies (Ball, 2010). So the use of student centred learning is hall mark of the 2007 BMP reform goal which requires space and necessitates every university library to occupy a central position in its placement and prominence. According to American Economist Robert Barro (2013), heavy public sectorspending on infrastructure is a favorable component to boost economic growth. In the same light, heavy investment in infrastructure, personnel and equipment in higher education will enhance the professionalization process in higher education. Investment in teaching personnel (Human resources) is very important for any effective student centred teaching to take place. Astin (1984) asserts that one resource measure that is particularly popular is the student-faculty ratio. Many administrators believe that the lower the ratio the greater the learning and personal development that will occur. Without sufficient teachers, Graduate Assistants and non-academic staff, it is likely that the class sizes may be large, the teacher overworked and lectures becomes the predominant teaching method. Gibbs (1992) argues that one of the reasons why university lecturers use lecture is because they are overworked. This is confirmed by the findings on teaching methods and activities where teachers say they use lectures most of the time due to time constraints and overcrowded halls. In such an environment, student-centred learning may be compromised, critical thinking and creativity necessary for the workplace may not be achieved and the goal of professionalization may not be attained. III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research Design: This study was a survey and used quantitative analysis. Population Sample: The population consisted of third year undergraduate students and forth year post graduate students of eleven departments of the four faculties of the University of Ngaoundere. They were therefore well suited to evaluate the influence of infrastructure, personnel and equipment onthe professionalization of Higher Education in the University of Ngaoundere. Research Instruments:The questionnaire consisted of 06questions constructed along the pattern of the Likert scale: Strongly agree (SA), Agree (A), Not sure (NS), strongly disagree (SDA), Disagree (DA). IV. PRESENTATION AND ANALYSES OF RESULTS Research Hypothesis Ha:The availability of infrastructure, personnel and equipment determines the level professionalization of higher education. Ho:The availability of infrastructure, personnel and equipment do not determine the level professionalization of higher education. Notions on infrastruct ure, personnel and Equipment Equipping of library with updated books and learning materials Investments in teaching personnel Investments in infrastructur e Availability of auxiliary infrastructur e and equipment Assessment of teaching/lea rning programs Quality of teaching staff Table 1: Descriptive Statistics SA A NS DA SDA Mean Total V. FINDINGS From the means of the above descriptive table, the responses are as follows; equipping of library with updated books and materials 2.44, investment in teaching personnel 2.43, investment in infrastructure 2.17, availability of auxiliary infrastructure and equipment 1.98, students involvement in assessment the teaching/ learning process 2.0, quality of teaching staff All these gives a total global means of Based on these results, one observes that in terms documentation, infrastructure, personnel and equipment, 21

3 International Journal of New Technology and Research (IJNTR) ISSN: , Volume-2, Issue-7, July 2016 Ps improvements need to be done to enhance professionalization in the training programs of the faculties of the university.the use of equipment like the information and communication technology (The Internet) is an important tool in the facilitation of the teaching/learning process of today. The us of internet technologies in teaching has recorded some achievements: There is increased accessibility of reference materials and data of all categories of users, quickness of information retrieval, decrease in the cost of information delivery to users, individualized learning and teaching (UNESCO, 2003). Daniel (1996) asserts that technology equips students with the generic skills for lifelong learning. One of the Bachelor-Masters-Ph.D. (BMP) implementation strategies was the improvement of teaching through the use of appropriate technologies and methods. Even if there were sufficient human resources and knowledge of the appropriate teaching/learning activities, without ICTs and other materials, student centered teaching and assessment cannot attain a certain quality. Current research is given credence when updated materials or books are consulted and exploited. It is therefore important for the university to always update books in the library to enable students have updated materials for their research. The absence of depasrtmental and faculty libraries impede research and expert knowledge in various disciplines. Expert knowledge is an essential ingredient for professionalization. The increasing students population necessitates the construction of larger amphi-theatres and the construction and equipping of scientific laboratories to better equip and prepare science students in their professionalization training.finally, it was also realized that the provision of infrastructure, personnel and equipment play a significant role in the professionalization process of higher education in the university. However, resource inputs on library facilities, infrastructure, personnel and equipment needs much attention for the professionalization process to attain an acceptable standard given that the means of the above indicators stood at 2.37 below the aver mean of 2.. In order to test the hypothesis of this study, we used the multiple regression analysis which is expressed as: Y=0 +1x1+ 2x pxp Where the s are a set of coefficients in the population whose values are to be determined. Table 2: ANOVAb Sum of Squares Df 1 Regression 181, ,3 89 Residual 36, ,20 3 Total 46, Mea n Squar e F Sig. 0,193,000 a A. Predictors: (Constant) The Provision of Infrastructures, Personnel and Equipment, Impact of Teaching/ Learning Programs, Implementation of University Governance Policies B. Dependent Variable: Professionalization of Higher Education Model Table 3: Coefficientsa Unstandardi zed Coefficients B 1 (Constant) 1, 23 Impact of administrative Governance Policies Impact of Pedagogic Governance Infrastructures, Equipment and Personnel governance,24 1,2,11 Std. Error Standard ized Coefficie nts Beta T,186 8,20 9,200,232 1,20 6,137,248 1,86 Sig.,000,029,013,212,107,43,003 This table test the statistical significance of each of the independent variables. It also test whether the unstandardized (or standardized) coefficients are equal to 0 (zero) in the population. If p<.0, one can conclude that the coefficients are statistically significantly different to 0 (zero). The first independent variable - implementation of administrative governance policies - is statistically significant at 0.29, the second - the impact of pedagogic programs - the provision of infrastructures, personnel and equipment - is significant at while the third-is significant at This implies that statistically, the provision of infrastructures, personnel and equipment is the first predictor of professionalization in higher education, seconded by the impact of teaching/learning programs while implementation of governance policies comes third VI. CONCLUSION The primary reason for failure is that people do not develop new plans to replace those plans that did not work. Revamping higher education through the provision of better infrastructure, quality teaching personnel and modern equipment as a whole to respond to the needs of the 21st century knowledge economy and the exigencies of professionalization is the premise for which this work is built. It is believe that the provision of sufficient infrastructure, personnel and equipment will boost the level of professionalization of higher education in the University of 22

4 The Influence of Resource Inputs in the Professionalization of Higher Education in the University of Ngaoundere, Adamawa Region Cameroon Ngaoundere thereby improvinggraduate skills and competences that will make them more responsive to the needs of the national and international job market. The conclusion drawn from this study is that the professionalization process of higher education in Cameroon cannot be attained without adequate infrastructural, material, personnel and equipment. VII. RECOMMENDATIONS One of the several indices for properly evaluating government commitment to educational development in any country is budgetary allocation and disbursement to education. The government of Cameroon should place a high premium on education by meeting up the recommended 26% educational spending prescribed by UNESCO, to help revitalize the higher education system and enhance the professionalization process. Thus for professionalization to effectively take place in our universities government need to step up its financial support to the universities, if not the expected results from the professionalization process will be far from being attained. A focus on resource inputs like infrastructure, equipment and personnel development will bring positive externalities that will boost the professionalization of training programs in the university. Other stake holders such as students and parents need to accept the fact that no meaningful professionalization can take place in the university if we keep on depending only on government funds without thinking of stepping up the stipends students pay as registration fee. REFERENCES [1] Marshall, S. J., Orrell, J., Cameron, A., Bosanquet, A., & Thomas, S. (2011). Leading and managing learning and teaching in higher education. Higher Education Research and Development, 30(2), [2] Baldwin, J. F. (2009). Current challenges in higher education administration and manment. Perspectives: Poli and Practice in Higher Education, 13(4), [3] Teshome, Y. (2008). Challenges of Higher Education in Africa and Lessons of Experience for Africa-U.S Higher Education Collaboration Initiative. Working Paper-1/2008. Washington D.C [4] Endeley, M.N. (2014). Professionalization of Higher Education: Assessing Teaching and learning within the BMP in the University of Buea. African Journal of Education and Technology. ISSN Volume 4, Number 1(2014) [] Teneng, P.P. (2016). Skills Oriented Higher Education and Graduate Employability in Cameroon. International Journal of New Technology and Research. Nextgen Research Publication. ISSN: , Volume-2, Issue-, May 2016, Ps [6] Sup Infos (2010c). Bilingual Quarter Review of the Ministry of Higher Education. No.16, Yaounde, Cameroon. [7] Astin, A.W. (1984). Student involvement: Development theory for Higher Education. LA.: University of California. [8] Ball, D. (2010). Rethinking higher education spaces: 360 Research. Retrieved on 9th April, 2014 from 360.steelcase.com/content/uploads/2011/02/360_issue60.pdf. [9] Barro, R.J. & Lee, J.W. (2013). A New Set of Educational Attainment in the World. Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, Vol. 104 (C) P [10] Gibbs, G. (1992). Improving the quality of students learning. Bristol: Technical and Educational services Ltd. [11] UNESCO/CEPES (2003), Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century: A Vision for the Future, Higher Education in Europe, 28, 1. [12] Daniel, J.S. (1996). Mega universities and knowledge media: Technology strategies for Higher Education. Oxon. Routledge. 23
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1 WEST AFRICAN RESEARCH CENTER Rue E x Leon Gontran Damas, Fann Residence, Dakar - Senegal (en face de l'agence Autonome des Transports Routiers (AATR) et du Centre de Suivi Ecologique (CSE) et a cote de la Direction du DHL. PO Box: 5456 Dakar Fann - Tel: (221) Fax: (221) URL : THE WARC/LOC BIBLIOGRAHY List of books published in 2009 in the Francophone countries of West Africa, available at the Library of Congress CONTENTS : ECONOMICS AND DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND RESEARCH, HISTORY, INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION, LINGUISTICS, LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY, NATURE, ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH, POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, SOCIETY AND CULTURE (Religion, Arts, Sports) ECONOMICS AND DEVELOPMENT Anasse, Ernest Assamoi. - L'assurance maritime et transports dans les pays de la CIMA : Les assurances facultes : aspects juridiques et techniques, Abidjan, Fraternite Matin Editions, 2009, 216 p. Brief summary : This book aims to popularize the practice of cargo insurance and make it accessible to all stakeholders (insurers, lawyers, freight forwarders, surveyors, transporters, students, etc.).it deals with the general regulation of insurance in the CIMA zone, risks of transport, subscription terms, compensation, appeals and insurance operating losses. Gueye, Ndeye Fatou Diop. - Agriculteurs dans les villes ouest-africaines : Enjeux fonciers et acces a l'eau, Dakar, IAGU, 2009, 191 p. Brief summary : The book deals with farmers in west African cities: Land issues and access to water EDUCATION AND RESEARCH Barro, Aboubacar Abdoulaye. - Ecole et Pouvoir au Senegal : La gestion du personnel enseignant dans le primaire, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 242 p. Brief summary : This book focuses on public education policies, in particular on those relating to the generalization of primary education and management of teachers in basic education in Senegal. This research is both original and innovative. Deazon, Andre. - Indicametrie et Education - L'echelle des quinze (15) profils et l'alphabet indicametrique : des outils scientifiques pour une revolution pedagogique : Premier niveau du developpement spiralaire de l'indicametrie, Abidjan, Conseil Mondial de l'indicametrie et du Panafricanisme (COMIPA), 2009, 168 p. Brief summary : This book is dedicated to indicametry, a tool for an educational revolution. Country : Cote d Ivoire Gado, Issaou. - Recherche-action en education : Les competences de base de la recherche-action en education, Porto-Novo, Editions C.N.P.M.S, 2009, 222 p. Brief summary : This textbook explains the concept, the foundations, approaches and strategies for implementing action research in education.

2 Back to Contents HISTORY Djea, Jean-Luc. - Histoire recente de la Cote d'ivoire : Le Sphynx aux portes du Palais, Abidjan, Sesame Editions, 2009, 247 p. Brief summary : An analysis of recent political history of Ivory Coast Tchitchi, Toussaint Yaovi. - Dada Gbe Hen A' Zin, un heros des resistances africaines a la penetration coloniale au 19eme siecle : (Actes du colloque du 13 au 15 decembre 2006, reunis et presentes par Toussaint Yaovi Tchitchi et Bellarmin Coffi Codo), Cotonou, Les Editions Ablode/UAC, 2009, 261 p. Brief summary : Proceedings of the conference held from 13 to 15 December 2006 as part of the celebration of the centenary of the death of King Gbehanzin INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION Abba, Seidik. - La Presse au Niger : Etat des lieux et perspectives, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 146 p. Brief summary : True state of affairs of the press in Niger, this book highlights all the difficulties facing the press in Niger. Codjo, Placide. - Les documents de communication administrative et commerciale : Nouvelle formule, Cotonou, Benin, Imprimerie A-Z, 2009, 355 p. Brief summary : This book, written by a civil administrator from Benin is a true training manual for writing administrative and commercial documents. Country : Cote d Ivoire LINGUISTICS Institut de linguistique appliquee de l'universite d'abidjan-cocody. - Syllabaire Kroumen Plaapo, Abidjan, Edilis, 2009, 162 p. Brief summary : This Kroumen language syllabary is based on the document entitled "orthographe pratique des langues ivoiriennes and published by the Institute of Applied Linguistics, National University of Cote d'ivoire in At the end of the book are appended French translations of stories and pictures of syllables. Les Editions Manding. - J'apprends a parler francais : Le livre de l'eleve Niveau 1 2eme annee, Bamako, Les Editions Manding, 2009, 86 p. Brief summary : Through stories and rhymes, this book helps children to speak French and understand language through images in the form of riddles Tchitchi, Toussaint Yaovi. - Langues et politiques de langues au Benin, Cotonou, Les Editions Ablode/UAC, 2009, 193 p. Brief summary : This book provides an update on the actions and reflections regarding the management of language and the implementation of language policy in Benin. Back to Contents

3 LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY Abdrouhamane, Soli. - Elements pour une veillee : Contes et nouvelles, Niamey, Imprimerie Bon-Beri, 2009, 144 p. Brief summary : Through these short stories the author describes the behaviors that are immoral and that affect the society. He advocates more human values for a better world. Amoussou, Bruno. - L'Afrique est mon combat, Paris, Editions l'archipel, 2009, 207 p. Brief summary : The book deals with the contemporary history of Africa in general and Benin in particular. Amoussou, Constantin. - Hydraulique de mes paupieres : Tessons de paroles nevralgiques, Cotonou, Editions Fous Sans Frontieres, 2009, 93 p. Brief summary : Collection of poems Ansomwin, Ignace Hien. - L'enfer au paradis, Ouagadougou, Editions Le LIS, 2009, 136 p. Brief summary : A novel featuring idle youths lured by the mirage of the city Association des ecrivains du Senegal. - Contre l'oubli et le mepris : Hommage aux tirailleurs, Dakar, Les editions Maguilen, 2009, 98 p. Brief summary : Anthology of poetry dedicated to the "Tirailleurs senegalais" the black soldiers of the French army during the two world wars. Bali, Saley Boube. - Tebonse : Le destin d'un enfant de rue, Niamey, Afrique Lecture, 2009, 88 p. Brief summary : Tebonse is the story of a child born out of wedlock. His painful childhood takes place without any reference because he is left to his own fate. This is for the author to paint the Nigerian society mired in its retrograde views of life. Bemy, Vincent. - Billet de sortie, Abidjan, Cercle Editions, 2009, 233 p. Brief summary : This book is the testimony of two years and seven months in jail by a bus driver for having responsibilities in a serious traffic accident. He compares the prison to hell on earth. Boureima, Moussa. - La legende du Roi Kabrin Kabran, Niamey, Editions Belle Afrique, 2009, 72 p. Brief summary : This book tells the story of a king whose epic is a legend in the oral tradition of the people of Niger. Combary, A. N. William. - A la croisee des chemins, Ouagadougou, Decouvertes du Burkina, 2009, 95 p. Brief summary : Novel addressing the issue of interracial marriage. Dia, Mamadou.- Coup de foudre, Bamako, Jamana, 2009, 75 p. Brief summary : With a poetic style, the author expresses his love, friendship, relationships, fears and hopes for a better Mali.

4 Diallo, Boubacar. - Realites et roman guineen de 1953 a 2003 : 1. Cadre physique et histoire, Paris, L'Harmattan Guinee, 2009, 127 p. Brief summary : This book is a socio-critical thesis on Guinean novelists. It begins by situating the geographical context, then it explores the historical and political. It's a real study of guinean society. The author complements this by exploring the repertoire of themes and styles used by novelists. Diallo, Boubacar. - Realites et roman guineen de 1953 a 2003 : 2. La peinture de l'univers rural, Paris, L'Harmattan Guinee, 2009, 159 p. Brief summary : The rural universe remains a constant in the African fictional creation because of the esthetic of works and their shape. The novel in Guinea has always evoked the realities marking its traditional attachment to this world. This book shows that the novel reveals the behavior of the traditional man. Diallo, Boubacar. - Realites et roman guineen de 1953 a 2003 : 3.La peinture de l'univers urbain, Paris, L'Harmattan Guinee, 2009, 137 p. Brief summary : City life attracts Guinean rural populations but in many cases the city is the place of lost illusions for that people. This desperation has led to violence in the struggle between a despotic power and an opposition frustrated. This volume reveals that Guinean novels use to exorcise this socio-political disaster and chaos. Diallo, Boubacar. - Realites et roman guineen de 1953 a 2003 : 4. L'ideologie des romanciers guineens, Paris, L'Harmattan Guinee, 2009, 88 p. Brief summary : This volume shows the richness of the ideological database of the Guinean novelists. This allows them to better appreciate the socio-political evolution of the country and to study the political role played by the intellectuals in this evolution. The Guinean writer makes himself useful by the society projects emerging from his works and which are likely to rehabilitate the country's history. Diarra, Facoh Donki. - La commune sous les manguiers, Bamako, Sahelienne, 2009, 188 p. Brief summary : This book discusses the decentralization project diverted from its original objectives and produce unexpected results in a town situated not far from Bamako. Diarra, Facoh Donki. - Crime en mode majeur, Bamako, Editions Jamana, 2009, 223 p. Brief summary : This book tells the story of a young man of peasant origin unduly recruited in the national police at the time of the Military Committee of National Liberation. At the time of democracy, it's hard for him to adjust to the new situation in the country. Gazibo, Boureima. - Pour l'honneur et la liberte : Theatre, Montreal, Moniere-Wollank Editeurs, 2009, 49 p. Brief summary : Through this fiction, the author wanted to honor the men who have lived or still living in his home village and other neighboring villages. The play focuses on freedom for each member of the community to provide advice in the conduct of public affairs. Gbedo, Marie-Elise. - Le destin du roseau, Cotonou, Editions Ruisseaux d'afrique, 2009, 459 p. Brief summary : A biography leading to the fate of women in society. Guenou, Julien A. - Le soleil des damnes : L'aube, Les editions Oasis, 2009, 198 p. Brief summary : It's a trilogy in which the author makes us trace the origin of the bucolic and wild Africa. Thus, he revives the great tradition of storytelling in the evening moonlight.

5 Ide, Adamou. - Tous les bleues ne donnent pas le cafard, Ciboure, La Cheminante, 2009, 95 p. Brief summary : The author uses a humorous style to warn about the dangers of passion for power Kam, Heidi Sophie. - Sanglots et symphonies : Poesie, Ouagadougou, CEPRODIF, 2009, 30 p. Brief summary : Collection of poems Kam, Heidi Sophie. - Quetes : Poesie, Ouagadougou, CEPRODIF, 2009, 38 p. Brief summary : Collection of poems Lalinon Gbado, Beatrice. - Le chant du conte, Cotonou, Editions Ruisseaux d'afrique, 2009, 116 p. Brief summary : This book deals with the intrusion of song in the narrative. Maiga, Tahirou. - L'odyssee d'une famille, Bamako, Jamana, 2009, 180 p. Brief summary : This book tells the story of a family united by love through the generations and the natural phenomena such as drought and famine. Meyer, Gerard. - Contes de l'afrique de l'ouest, Paris, Karthala, 2009, 222 p. Brief summary : This collection contains stories from eastern Senegal and north-eastern Guinea. They were recorded on the fly during cultural gatherings between 1980 and N'dah, Francois d'assise. - Le jour ou la vie m'a fait pleurer : Memoires d'une vie d'errance, Abidjan, Ivoir' Livres, 2009, 119 p. Brief summary : In this book the author looks at the thorny issue of the world and our relationship with others. This hybrid work is both a collection of poems and short stories, verse and prose being mixed as the true reflections of a life marked by despair. Niare, Samba. - Tomon : Le village-cimetiere, Bamako, EDIS, 2009, 42 p. Brief summary : Comic book telling the story of Tomon, a lost city. Ouattara, Yvonne. - En souvenir de l'arbre a palabres, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 176 p. Brief summary : Between 1999 and 2003 Emmanuel and Andree exchanged letters between France and Burkina Faso. They want to remember the days when they met at the palaver tree, a place in Paris that allowed Africans to make Europeans discover their way of life and difficulties. Ould Khattat, Mohamed. - Sejour aux USA a l'heure d'obama, Nouakchott, Librairie 15/21, 2009, 53 p. Brief summary : A Mauritanian journalist describes his journey to the United States during the presidential election that will result in the choice of Barack Obama Country : Mauritania Sanoussi, Hadiza. - Et Yallah s'exila, Ouagadougou, Editions Jel, 2009, 161 p. Brief summary : This new depicts the relationship between humans and their creator. Sarr, Pape Ousmane. - Les deboires de Habib Fall suivi de Blessures de mon pays, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 61 p. Brief summary : These are two novels, the first telling the story of a young orphan who wants to build his life despite the questions that torment his mind while the second is a fiction of ethnic war.

6 Sidokpohou, Roger. - Nuit de memoire, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 129 p. Brief summary : Novel based on accounts of the slave trade. Sy, Alpha Amadou. - L'imaginaire Saint-Louisien (domou Ndar) a l'epreuve du temps, Thies, Senegal, Fama Editions, 2009, 92 p. Brief summary : The city of Saint-Louis, Senegal, has managed to build a civilization in terms of aesthetics in the cladding, of culinary talent, of original manners and, above all, of a remarkable sense of hospitality called Teranga that is one of the values by which most Senegalese people identify themselves. Taama, Gerry. - Parcours de combatants, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 245 p. Brief summary : The author tells a long adventure at the end of which love seems to be the only winner; love that makes sad. Tadde, Amadou Siddo. - Lettre a Obama : J'ai lu "L'audace d'esperer", Niamey, Imprimerie Issaberi, 2009, 75 p. Brief summary : This book comes in the form of a letter to President Obama of the United States of America. The author indulges in a comparison of democratic practice between the United States and Niger. Tiendrebeogo, Rigobert. - Les fantasmes de "l'esprit" : Recit initiatique, Ouagadougou, L'Harmattan, 2009, 116 p. Brief summary : The story of a young person exploring his own personality Traore, Djena. Danfing, Bamako, Editions Jamana, 2009, 105 p. Brief summary : This book published posthumously is the story of the events the author witnessed during his teaching career from 1976 to Wilson, Dave. - La veillee, Cotonou, Editions Ruisseaux d'afrique, 2009, 86 p. Brief summary : Collection of entertaining and didactic stories. NATURE, ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH Back to Contents Assogba, Komlan Francoise. - Production durable du piment au Benin, Cotonou, Institut National des Recherches agricoles du Benin, 2009, 48 p. Brief summary : This book helps to raise substantially the level of production of pepper in Benin. De Souza, Simone Guigues. - Flore du Benin : Tome 1 : Catalogue des plantes Biotopes Localites, Cotonou, Imprimerie Tunde, 2009, 424 p. Brief summary : Catalogue taking stock of wild plants and those introduced for food, reforestation and ornamentation. Ndoye, Tidiane. - La societe senegalaise face au paludisme : Politiques, savoirs et acteurs, Dakar, Crepos, 2009, 312 p. Brief summary : Senegalese society facing malaria : policy, knowledge and actors Back to Contents

7 POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Adjanohoun, Marcellin. - L'histoire d'une detention politique au Benin sous la revolution : Motif : la tenebreuse affaire Kovacs, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 163 p. Brief summary : History of the political evolution of the Republic of Benin. Agba, Kondi Charles Madjome. - Ministre avec Eyadema, Lome, Les editions de la Rose bleue, 2009, 428 p. Brief summary : This book is an immediate test of history. Four years after the disappearance of the father of the nation of Togo, the author proposes a comeback over General Eyadema period. Ag Doho, Sidi Alamine. - Touareg : 25 ans d'errance et de dechirement, Bamako, Sahelienne, 2009, 126 p. Brief summary : This is the story of the long march of Tuareg nomads depleted by drought Amouzou, Esse. - Pouvoir et societes : les masses populaires et leurs aspirations politiques pour le developpement en Afrique noire, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 215 p. Brief summary : After having reviewed the past governance systems in black Africa, the author presents the recent case of Togo, where there was a mobilization of the majority of opposition activists around Gilchrist Olympio, leader of the UFC to whom they trusted to create favorable conditions for economic and political changes that can foster them out of the woods. Dabire, Der Laurent. - Emigration internationale des Burkinabe, Ouagadougou, L'Harmattan, 2009, 104 p. Brief summary : This book provides an analytical overview of the characteristics, determinants, impactsand management mechanisms of the international dimension of migration in Burkina Faso since the country's independence. Diallo, Alpha Mamadou. - Les Etats-nations face a l'integration regionale en Afrique de l'ouest, Paris, Karthala, 2009, 176 p. Brief summary : This book is the result of the national seminar on regional integration in West Africa held in Guinea in It includes communications that focused on history and geography of Guinea, the languages and culture as development factors, the contribution of Guinea in the process of liberation and unification of Africa, the monetary integration, the Guinean agricultural policy, the OHADA and the Guinean business environment. Diallo, Papa Ibrahima. - Les Guineens de Dakar : Migration et integration en Afrique de l'ouest, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 185 p. Brief summary : The study of migration of Guineans to Dakar, Senegal, is an example of socio-geographical movements that have taken courses in West Africa since the precolonial period.undoubtedly, Dakar, West African francophone metropolis, provides a forum for a sociological study of the integration of migrants in the Senegalese capital. Esse, Amouzou. - L'Afrique 50 ans apres les independances, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 274 p. Brief summary : In this book, the author was concerned to revive the experiences of the African continent fifty years after independence.

8 Fall, Francois Lonseny. - Mon pari pour la Guinee : Le changement est possible, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 198 p. Brief summary : The author took a look back and forward himself, on his journey and his country. He shows his roots in his native Guinea, recounts his childhood, his youth, his training, the moments that were important in his life and introduces us to the people around him. At the end of December 2008, a new page in the history of Guinea opens and he decides to lay the groundwork for an ambitious rebuilding for a better future of his country. Fassassi, Yacouba. - En route vers le futur du regime, du "changement" au developpement integral du Benin, Cotonou, Star Editions, 2009, 332 p. Brief summary : Here is an essay that takes us into the future after we have plunged in the past. Gomez, Alseny Rene. - La Guinee peut-elle etre changee?, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 203 p. Brief summary : In this book the author presents some ideas to explain the reasons for missed appointments with his country's development 50 years after independence and calls on his countrymen to work for change. Haidara, Chirfi Moulaye. - Tombouctou : une celebre cite du Mali promue parmi les finalistes des Nouvelles Sept Merveilles du Monde, Bamako, At the author, 2009, 250 p. Brief summary : The author is in love with his hometown which he reveals the charms and secrets. A city full of mysteries with beautiful illustrations Kacou, Theodore. - Fraude electorale, Abidjan, 2009, 191 p. Brief summary : In this book the author seeks to identify and expose corrupt practices and fraudulent to influence voters to distort or misrepresent the manifestation of their will. Kiffo, Gemzo. - Demain le Togo : Une nouvelle vision pour l'avenir, Lome, CACIOPEE, 2009, 182 p. Brief summary : This book is a retrospective of the past, a finding of the present and a forecast of the future of Togo. Lewin, Andre. - Ahmed Sekou Toure ( ) President de la Guinee : Tome 6 ( ), Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 308 p. Brief summary : Volume 6 of this biography covers the period from the attempted landing in Conakry, November 22nd, 1970, by Portuguese mercenaries and exiled Guinean opponents to the normalization of diplomatic relations between Conakry, Bonn and Paris, via the intense campaign of arrests, interrogations and executions, the murder of Amilcar Cabral, the arrest and subsequent death in detention of Diallo Telli with the denunciation of the Fulani conspiracy. Sako, Nicodeme. - Comment rendre une nation puissante : Strategies pour le pouvoir des nations, Paris, Books on demand GmbH, 2009, 96 p. Brief summary : The book addresses the question of exercising power in an original way: the author bases his thinking on a new reading and analysis of Bible stories that he derives principles for modern times. The book also examines the elements of nature as models to find the true sources of wisdom and intelligence that surrounds us. Samb, Serigne Saliou. - Papa Samba Mboup Chef de cabinet du President Abdoulaye Wade : Ange ou demon? Confidences, recits et temoignages, Dakar, Les editions Maguilen, 2009, 233 p. Brief summary : Biography of President Abdoulaye Wade s influential chief of staff through secrets, stories and testimonies

9 Souza, Alexandre de. - Togo, la dynastie de la terreur, Nice, Editions Benevent, 2009, 150 p. Brief summary : The author was inspired by real events marked by violence and violations of human rights to condemn poor governance in Togo. Toure, El Hadj Mohamed Lamine. - Memoires d'un compagnon de l'independance guineenne, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 152 p. Brief summary : Through his autobiography, the author of this book tells the story of a generation of black African born in the 1920s, a generation heir to the traditions and cultural, moral and warlike values of the empire of Mali and that of Ouassoulou, a generation deeply aspiring to freedom of choice when decision time had come in the 1950s. Back to Contents SOCIETY AND CULTURE (Religion, Arts, Sports) Amouzou, Esse. - Pauvrete, chomage et emigration des jeunes Africains, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 271 p. Brief summary : In the absence of viable policies of African states in terms of job creation and fighting against poverty, the misery of African youth has reached a dismal from which emigration to Europe and America maintains itself. Bile, Serge. - Et si Dieu n'aimait pas les Noirs? : Enquete sur le racisme aujourd'hui au Vatican, Saint-Malo, France, Pascal Galode Editeurs, 2009, 119 p. Brief summary : This book reveals the contradictions and shadows of the Vatican, an institution that still can not get rid of its own prejudices about black people once likened to the devil Country : Cote d Ivoire Centre Al-Tourath pour la recherche et la publication. - La ville sainte de Touba et sa mosquee : l'histoire et l'evolution, Guede Bousso, Senegal, Le Centre Al-Tourath pour la recherche et la publication, 2009, 276 p. Brief summary : French/Arabic bilingual book on the history and evolution of the holy city of Touba and its mosque. Congregation de l'immaculee Conception. - Le Bon Berger : Mgr. Isidore De Souza, Cotonou, Editions Immaculee Mediatrice, 2009, 548 p. Brief summary : Collection of interviews with Msgr. Isidore de Souza. Diarra, Ismaila. - Declin des traditions de la societe bamanan, Bamako, Imprim Color, 2009, 119 p. Brief summary : This book addresses the decline of the traditions in Bamanan society Durou, Jean-Marc. - Les Touaregs racontes aux enfants, Paris, Editions de La Martiniere, 2009, 77 p. Brief summary : This work is a true story about the Tuareg people, its history, its customs and questions about its future. Fall, Ndeye Anna Gaye. - L'Afrique a Cuba : La regla de osha : Culte ou religion?, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009, 200 p. Brief summary : La regla de Osha in Cuba has often been seen as a set of discontinuous and fragmented elements mixed with Catholicism. This was to deny the identity of the slaves to better justify their enslavement. In this book, the author invites us to reflect without prejudice on the definition of the term religion.

10 Fortaillier, Viviane Froger. - Arts au feminin en Cote d'ivoire, Paris, Le Cherche Midi, 2009 Brief summary : This book is an illustrated and commented album on works of art performed by women in Cote d'ivoire. Gbagbo, Michel. - Reintegration sociale des personnes ayant souffert de maladie mentale a Abidjan : Tome 1 : Considerations theoriques, Abidjan, Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes, 2009, 200 p. Brief summary : This book addresses the question of the social reintegration of persons who suffered from mental illness in Abidjan. Country : Cote d Ivoire Krekre, Firmin. - Lezy : Art martial africain, Abidjan, EDUCI, 2009, 81 p. Brief summary : This work on the Lezy, an African martial art, is the result of twenty years of research. It teaches the techniques and strategies of combat and the training methods that allow access to martial power and social serenity. Monsia, Marc. - De l'origine egyptienne des peuples des quatre orients Aja, Chabe, Ketou et Houn : Langues, Dieux et Coutumes, Cotonou, Les Editions du Flamboyant, 2009, 221 p. Brief summary : The work here shows the existence of relevant linguistic similarities in terms of cosmogony, cosmology and customary between the ancient peoples of Egypt and those of the Gulf of Guinea. Ouedraogo, Jean-Bernard. - Travail et societe au Burkina Faso : Technique, innivation, mobilisation, Ouagadougou, L'Harmattan, 2009, 247 p. Brief summary : Critical survey of labor techniques, innovations and mobilization in Burkina Faso Sall, Pape Amadou. - Etu Maodo : La cour religieuse du Cheikh, Dakar, Jangaal Presse Edition, 2009, 251 p. Brief summary : This book tells the story of Elhadji Malick Sy, one of the greatest guides of the tijania muslim order in Senegal. It also mentions the great "shaykhs" who are watered from the source of his immense Islamic science. Sene, Fama Diagne. - Barca ou Barsakh : Les coulisses de la misere, Dakar, Editions Damelles du Senegal, 2009, 61 p. Brief summary : The book evokes the nagging issue of illegal immigration for Europe of African youth who are willing to risk their lives in makeshift boats Sow, Ibrahima. - Divination Marabout Destin : Aux sources de l'imaginaire, Dakar, IFAN Cheikh Anta Diop, 2009, 564 p. Brief summary : The book is about divination, marabouts and destiny. It intends to go back to the sources of the african imaginary Zeba, Milis I. - Meiway "Une voix d'afrique" : Biographie, Abidjan, Editions Eburnie, 2009, 126 p. Brief summary : Biography of the artist-composer Patrice Desire Ivorian Frederick Ehui better known by the nickname Meiway. This richly illustrated book traces the exciting journey of the artist with a wide opening on his discography and his honors at the end of his two decades of experience. Back to Contents
It's confirmed! The much anticipated "One Punch Man" Season 2 will finally be on air again, the sequel to the phenomenal success of Saitama will possibly be back next year. The Japanese's anime fans are getting ready for a Garou-Saitama head to head battle, the superhuman foe will be his biggest enemy yet. And, rumors of defeat is in the air.

Furthermore, The action-comedy anime will feature new characters and story line, rumors it is that there's another superhuman to come out on the show. "One Punch Man" Season 1 battles were so intense, fans hope for more chair-gripping fights with Saitama's old and new enemy.

"One Punch Man" Season 2 rumored enemy, Garou, is the same as Saitama. They are humans who gained super strength through practice, it is said that they will have equal powers. Definitely, it will be a must to see battle, as Morning Ledger reveals, "Garou is slated to be Saitama's strongest opponent yet". He is Silver Fang's apprentice trained with "Water Stream Rock" martial arts technique.

In addition, Gamen Guide suggested that Saitama will finally face his first defeat as a superhero. The Japanese hero is rumored to get a more lay-back character, this will fuel his other enemies in line to seek after him. He will be facing some other monsters and foes in the sequel.

Of course, this bald-headed hero will not just sit back and relax, according to Ecumenical News Saitama will also be looking deeper through his powers. A self-discovery is also part of this new season of "One Punch Man". He will be searching where his powers truly lie, and ignite it further.

Meanwhile, "One Punch Man" Season 2 is said to premier next year, 2017. No specific date and other confirmation are out yet, but definitely, the production is already on going. For a while, Stay tuned for more bald-headed Saitama news & updates.
Just after his short appearance in "Zoolander 2," Justin Bieber appears to be gearing up to join the cast of "Pitch Perfect 3". Bieber has been discussing with Rebel Wilson(Fat Amy) that he wants to take part in the movie's third installment. Will the Grammy Awardee finally be a Treblemaker?

According to sources, Bieber talked to Wilson at a Jennifer Lopez concert about joining the cast of "Pitch Perfect 3" and it appears that the singing sensation of "Sorry" isn't too late at all. It seems that Fat Amy has had her eyes on Bieber all along, as sources say that Wilson keeps pushing him which made the Canadian star think about playing a role in the movie.

With Hailee Steinfeld starting to take center stage, reports confirmed that she might need inspiration in the movie and that Bieber could be that guy. It is rumored that the two might sing a song together in the upcoming movie. It would definitely be a sight to see for "Pitch Perfect" fans.

The plot of "Pitch Perfect 3" isn't confirmed as of the moment but Wilson expressed when she was at the Ellen DeGeneres show that filming will start this year. Anna Kendrick, who recently took part in a Dreamworks Movie "Trolls", will also come back along with Hailee Steinfeld.

"Pitch Perfect 3" is supposed to be released on Aug. 4, 2017 ,but it seems that the date keeps on pushing back. Other rumors have spread that there might be a feud between Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson which caused a delay for the release. Now, Universal pictures officially announced that the movie will hit the theaters on July 21, 2017.

These rumors would definitely cause a lot of hyper for fans as "Pitch Perfect 3" hits the theaters next year. Justin Bieber would finally make his debut playing a major role in a movie.
The 31-year-old Israeli actress Gal Gadot recently announced she's expecting her second baby with husband Yaron Versano. But another statement shocked her fans when Gadot mentioned she was open to "Wonder Woman," her character's bisexuality and even saw actress Halle Berry as a potential lover.

As reported by Hitfix, this bisexuality topic on Wonder Woman emerged when DC Comics author Greg Rucka said in an interview with Cosmicosity that the heroine was "queer". With this, questions have been asked to Gadot.

Given the chance to have a female lover for her character, who would she choose? None other than fellow heroine who previously played DC Comic's Catwoman and Storm in Marvel's X-Men sequels-Berry.

When asked by some reporters, Gadot explained, "I saw her the other day, Halle Berry. She's so beautiful. She's gorgeous! So yeah, I could do it with her." Though nothing has been confirmed yet, fans are already thrilled by the possible collaboration of these two amazing actresses.

Gadot is also notable for her character Gisele Yashar in "The Fast and the Furious" film series and been involved with DC Comic's list of superheroes since "Batman VS Superman: Dawn of Justice." She's also a model and now, a mother of two.

She's also a Gucci Bamboo perfume endorser, making her the second-highest earning Israeli model next to Bar Refaeli back in 2013.

Meanwhile, actress-producer Berry was also a former model during the onset of her career. In 2002, Berry made history by winning an Academy Award for Best Actress for her character in the romantic-drama 2011 movie "Monster Ball." This made her the sole non-white to win a Best Actress Academy Award and to this date, she still holds that title.

"Wonder Woman" is set to be released on June 2, 2017. To those who would like to find out who's going to be her love interest, better keep track!
Donald Trump is now the president of the United States of America and needless to say, many US citizens and immigrants alike are in an outrage. There are many reasons to fear a Trump presidency in one of the most powerful nations on earth, one of which is what it would mean for the planet.

Donald Trump has not been quiet about his disbelief in one of the earth's biggest united concerns - global warming. It is true that there are many reasons to dislike Trump. He is a homophobe, a sexist, and a racist.

All of which are understandable reasons to dislike the new president, however, all of these are aspects that divide humanity. Everyone on earth has one common problem, Global Warming, and Trump is one of those people who strongly believe that global warming is a myth.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

Donald Trump has used the word "hoax" to describe climate change. Three times in a South Carolina rally back in 2015. Moreover, he has also called climate change "bullshit" and " nonsense" and the last straw was when he told CNN directly "I don't believe in climate change."

America is, in fact, a global leader, and having a man in power who doesn't believe in this planetary concern is frightening. He even pledged to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency. He also promised to cancel the landmark Paris Agreement.

In his mind, Global Warming is a myth, and he plans to focus on new infrastructure for the country. To make this possible, Trump will use the funds he will "save" after canceling "wasteful climate change spending"

I will also cancel all wasteful climate change spending from Obama-Clinton, including all global warming payments to the United Nations. These steps will save $100 billion over 8 years, and this money will be used to help rebuild the vital infrastructure, including water systems, in America's inner cities.

Frightening as it may be, people can only hope that everything Trump has said about his plans regarding climate change would turn out to be all bark no bite.
Following the narrative of "Captain America: Civil War", a new character from the Marvel universe makes his solo film appearance. "Black Panther" returns as the African monarch of the 'vibranium-rich' kingdom of Wakanda.

The latest development of the upcoming film discusses the sheer number of required staff to fill their enormous casting requirement. The movie producer needed men, women, and children of various non-white ethnic groups to account an entire virtual population of Wakandans.

But that is not all! According to the report circulated by Comic Book Movie, the casting director needed Asian stunt actors who have a functional background in handling real weaponry - particularly of Korean and Filipino descent. It is revealed that these key acting staff will play the role of CIA agents hunting the fugitive Prince T'Challa.

For now, two possibilities are being speculated. Either the "Black Panther" will prowl the concrete jungles of America, or the main theater of mass violence is set in his beloved homeland.

Prince T'Challa's involvement in aiding "Captain America and the Winter Soldier" also contributes to the theoretical storyline. In an article published by Movie Web, there is a strong possibility that Wakanda is chosen as the hiding place of the fugitives Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.

It stands to good reason that Chadwick Bosema (Black Panther/Prince T'Challa) and Chris Evans (Captain America) are going to reunite in this film, along with several other famous actors reprising key characters in the Avengers universe.

For once, the patriotic American super soldier would take a back seat and let the African king man the 'action helm' by the time this film is released. Unfortunately, there are no official statements discussing the release date.

The other famous actors slated in this movie are veteran actor Forest Whitaker of "Star Wars: Rogue One" and contemporary star Michael B. Jordan of "Creed." The production of "Black Panther" starts in January 2017.
Yesterday we took our first look at how dismally the DCCC performed . I'm sure Lujan and his revolving door staff of congenital losers will all get some kind of a performance bonus. After all, they netted 6 seats, right? As I mentioned, Tuesday was even worse for the DSCC. Schumer's insistence at picking the party's nominees is the second biggest catastrophe for the Democrats for the cycle. The Democrats held onto their seats in California, Maryland, Colorado and Nevada and picked up Illinois but they should have won Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, New Hampshire (which they may have, by a thread ), Indiana, Iowa, and Arizona.





A Gravis poll last week showed that had Schumer not interfered in Pennsylvania and allowed Sestak to win the primary, Sestak would have out-performed the horribly flawed McGinty. I suspect Grayson would have out-performed Murphy, PG Sittenfeld would have out-performed Strickland, Hogg would have out-performed Judge and maybe even Baron Hill-- the primary winner who Schumer forced it step aside-- would have out-performed Bayh. We'll never know... because Schumer decided to pick his own team of losers. Had he not pre-empted a good primary race by declaring the unelectable Kirkpatrick the nominee, maybe the primary process would have found someone who could beat McCain. That's what the primary process is for, after all.





In Iowa, Judge did 15 points worse against Grassley than Clinton did against Trump. In Ohio, Strickland did 13 points worse. In Arizona, Kirkpatrick did 8 points worse. In Florida, Murphy did 7 points worse. But Feingold and Ross, whom Schumer did not pick, did only two points worse, the same as Duckworth. The only DSCC recruit who exceeded expectations was Kander, who still lost his race by three points, while Missouri torched Clinton.





Given the fact that the Presidential candidate is the same everywhere, but that each Senate candidate can be nominated to conform to favorable local conditions (important local issues, identity politics, etc.), it's appalling that the great majority of the DSCC picks ran far behind Clinton in their own states. But Schumer knows more than anyone about everything so...





The Senate Democrats have to be crazy to give their leadership position to Schumer. And they are. One furious Senate staffer told me early Wednesday morning that "Our candidates ran three points BEHIND Clinton nationwide. Leaving aside the incumbents, whom Schumer couldnt pick, they ran more than SIX POINTS behind Clinton. So Schumer gets to pick absolutely anyone he wants, backed by a quarter of a billion dollars of party money, and he picks such stiffs that they cant even get close to Clinton in their own states. Its utterly disgraceful, and its why we will never take back control of the Senate as long as he is in charge."





People have been asking me how it was possible that Russ Feingold could have lost. The final score was 1,479,262 (50.2%) to 1,380.496 (46.8%). Trump won the state 1,409,282 (47.9%) to 1,381,923 (46.9%). The NRSC and their allies spent almost 13 million dollars against Feingold. The DSCC and it's allies answered with just 4.7 million, far less than the Democrats spent in other states:




Our last post on Tuesday night was about how Latinos tried but couldn't do it on their own. In two little discussed California races Blue America was active in, though, Latinos, helped progressives beat two truly horrible and corrupt conservatives. Nanette Barragan appears to have come from way behind to beat state Senator Isadore Hall for the congressional seat the Democratic Party Establishment tried to give him. And in an Inland Empire assembly district, it was Latino voters who helped Eloise Reyes oust one of the most conservative (and corrupt) Democrats in the state legislature, Cheryl Brown (AKA, Chevron Cheryl).





The race in CA-44 hasn't been officially called yet. With all precincts in, Nanette has 61,828 votes (51.2%) to Hall's 58,983 (48.8%)-- an amazing showing for someone who was given no chance at all. Ambitious career politician, Janice Hahn-- who gave up to seat for a supervisorial seat that she reckons is a better path to statewide office than a congressional seat-- tried engineering an easy path to victory for Hall. And it wasn't just the slimy politicians from Hall's Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- like Gavin Newsom-- who were pushing Hall. It seems like just about every African-American member of Congress (not Barbara Lee, who knew better) was playing identity politics and backed Hall, as did the New Dems (which endorsed him). Virtually the whole state legislature, well aware of how corrupt he is, backed him (along with Gov. Brown, Senator-elect Harris, and even progressives like Betty Yee and John Chiang. Disgracefully, even Supervisor Hilda Solis, who started her career by taking on a corrupt Establishment incumbent, endorsed Hall.As did the California Democratic Party, party chair John Burton, some clowns calling themselves the Progressive Democratic Club, and the bulk of the labor movement (as well as Planned Parenthood, NOW, Equality California, even the Mexican American Bar Association PAC!





Nanette had a much smaller list of backers including Blue America (the first outside group to endorse her), DFA, the Latino Victory Project, the Sierra Club, Climate Hawks Vote, Our Revolution, the California League of Conservation Voters, EMILY's List and all the newspapers in the district, from the L.A. Times and the Daily Breeze to the Compton Herald and the Spanish-language press. The congressional Hispanic Caucus' Poder PAC also backed her, as did Progressive Caucus chair Raul Grijalva.





But, of course, it was the gigantic surge in Latino participation-- registration and voting-- that put Nanette over the top and help slay the whole disgusting establishment attempt to bolster one of its own. In the last week she told me that early voting was through the roof and that Latinos were voting in record numbers. They weren't just voting against Trump; they were voting for Nanette. Meanwhile, Hall is crying racism, even claiming his skin looked too dark in her literature.





Similar story down in the Dem vs Dem race for the San Bernardino Assembly seat occupied by corrupt conservative Cheryl Brown. I call it the Sammy Hagar district -- Fontana, Colton, Rialto, Bloomington, Grand Terrace, Muscovy and a little of San Bernardino. It's not easy ousting an incumbent, but, again, Latino voter participation for Reyes surely helped-- as well as a powerful campaign led by labor and environmentalists sick and tired of Brown's record of voting with the Republicans on union and Big Oil issues. All precincts are in and of the 73,350 votes cast, Eloise won 39,092 (53.3%) to Brown's 34,258 (46.7%). She's also whining her skin looked too dark in the mailers sent out against her. She doesn't want to face the fact that she lost because Eloise ran a strong, issue-oriented grassroots campaign that engaged voters directly with an incredible field operation, while Chevron Cheryl depended on Big Oil and her lobbyist cronies in Sacramento.








After nearly 20 years of proclaiming his innocence, Kalvin Michael Smith walked out of prison late Thursday morning.

About an hour later, he walked into the waiting arms of his father, Gus Dark.

The two men hugged a long time.

My son is home, Dark said. My son is home. Thank you, God.

Smith, 45, was released just after 11:35 a.m. Thursday from the Forsyth Correctional Center, where he had been serving up to 29 years after a Forsyth County jury convicted Smith of assaulting Jill Marker, an assistant manager at the Silk Plant Forest Store on Silas Creek Parkway, on Dec. 9, 1995.

That assault left Marker with severe brain injuries, and she gave birth to a son while in a coma. Marker lives in Ohio under 24-hour care.

James Coleman, one of Smiths longtime attorneys and co-director of Duke Universitys Wrongful Convictions Clinic, was there to greet Smith and take him to his fathers house.

Also there were Cheryl Andrews and Morgan Holt, lawyers with Holton Law Firm. They, along with the firms owner, Walter Holton, a former U.S. Attorney, were instrumental in filing the motion that led to Smiths release.

Judge Todd Burke of Forsyth Superior Court granted that motion after a hearing Wednesday. Holton argued in the motion that Smiths trial attorney, William Speaks, failed to present two mitigating factors that could have led to a shorter prison sentence. Smith was serving two consecutive sentences for assault and armed robbery, and Holton argued if those two mitigating factors had been presented, Smith would have gotten a sentence of about six to nine years for robbery.

That would have meant that Smith was eligible for release from prison on May 22. Burke signed an order Wednesday saying that Smith be released immediately.

But Smiths release didnt happen immediately.

State prison officials still had to verify Smiths paperwork and that took some time.

Andrews said they couldnt reach the right state prison officials in Raleigh to authorize Smiths release on Wednesday before offices closed at 5 p.m. As a result, Smith spent one more night in prison.

On Thursday morning, Holton drove to Raleigh to get everything straightened out, Andrews said. She also credited Benita J. Witherspoon, the superintendent at Forsyth Correctional Center, for her help in working through the paperwork issues.

Andrews said Smith is not on probation but he may be on post-release supervision. But there are no conditions on his release, she said. In the next few days, those details will be worked out, she said.

Their priority, Andrews said, was to get Smith out of prison.

Its an amazing thing to do a good thing, she said.

Next steps

Smith is free but hes also a convicted felon. And more than anything, Smith and his team of lawyers want to change that.

His case is Winston-Salems most prominent allegation of wrongful conviction since the late Darryl Hunt was exonerated in 2004 of the murder of Deborah Sykes, a copy editor at the now-closed afternoon newspaper, The Sentinel.

The Winston-Salem Journal published a series of stories in 2004 raising questions about the police investigation and prosecution. Chris Swecker, former assistant FBI director, and the Silk Plant Forest Citizens Review Committee both reviewed the case and concluded that the police investigation was flawed. His case was recently featured on MTVs documentary series, Unlocking the Truth, and the shows co-host, Ryan Ferguson, who was exonerated of murder after 10 years in prison, came to Wednesdays hearing in Forsyth Superior Court.

The Journals series showed that Winston-Salem police failed to thoroughly investigate Kenneth Lamoureux, a man with a history of violence who was seen at the Silk Plant Forest store the day of Markers assault. Don Williams, the lead detective, dropped him as a suspect when Lamoureux, who died in 2011, moved to Charlotte.

Police also failed to look at other suspects, according to the series. Police never had any physical evidence connecting Smith to the crime scene and relied on witnesses, such as Eugene Littlejohn, to put Smith at the store at the time of the attack. Police and prosecutors failed to corroborate significant information from Smith and other witnesses, the series said.

Marker identified Smith as her attacker, but the series quoted medical experts, including her own doctors, who said Markers brain injuries would have made it unlikely that she would have remembered who attacked her.

Williams told the Journal he did not document certain evidence that he believed might have been favorable to Smith.

Finally home

Smiths most recent appeals focused on a disputed affidavit by Arnita Miles, a former Winston-Salem police officer who was among the first on the scene of Markers assault.

Smiths attorneys had argued that Forsyth County prosecutors used the affidavit, which was never introduced into court proceedings, as a way to undermine Smiths efforts to prove his innocence. Appeals on that basis have, so far, been unsuccessful.

But on Thursday, Smiths most pressing concern was to get to his family. As he walked to Colemans car minutes after he got out of prison, Smith said it hadnt hit him yet that he was free.

Maybe itll hit me when I get home, he said.

And then he thanked God.

To God be the glory, he said as TV cameras surrounded him. If not for God Almighty, I might not have made it.
For years, Gus Dark prayed for the day his son, Kalvin Michael Smith, would be a free man and he could welcome him into his home.

Part of Darks prayer was answered on Wednesday. Judge Todd Burke of Forsyth Superior Court granted a motion and signed an order calling for Smiths release from prison, where he has served nearly 20 years for assaulting Jill Marker, an assistant manager at the former Silk Plant Forest store on Silas Creek Parkway, on Dec. 9, 1995. That assault left Marker with severe injuries. She gave birth to a son while in a coma and lives in Ohio under 24-hour care.

Smith has maintained his innocence.

Walter Holton and Cheryl Andrews, attorneys for Smith, filed a motion last week, arguing that Smith should be immediately released because his trial attorney, William Speaks, failed to submit evidence that could have led to a shorter sentence for Smiths conviction for armed robbery. Smith also was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury.

Smith was convicted and sentenced in 1997 to a total of 29 years in prison for both charges and has served the sentence for the assault conviction. But he still had to serve time for the robbery conviction, which meant he wouldnt be eligible for release until 2020.

Speaks, however, should have presented mitigating factors showing that Smith had a positive employment history and strong family support, Holton argues in the motion.

If those mitigating factors had been considered, Smith might have received a sentence of about six to nine years, making him eligible for release from prison on May 22 of this year, Andrews said in an affidavit.

Burke granted the motion after a hearing that lasted less than an hour in Courtroom 6A. Smiths handcuffs were taken off, but because of paperwork issues, Smith wasnt released from prison Wednesday. He will likely be released today from the Forsyth Correctional Center, where he has been serving his sentence.

Ive waited 20 years to have my son in my house, Dark said after the hearing.

He broke down in tears as he thanked everyone who supported his son and fought for his freedom.

God is good, he said.

Smiths mother, Shelia LeGrande, had a huge grin on her face.

Im so happy, she said.

Markers family had a different reaction, though.

Bud Hoisington of Akron, Ohio, Markers father, disagreed with Burkes decision, saying Smith should serve his entire sentence.

About three weeks ago, Hoisington said, a prosecutor and a Winston-Salem police detective visited the family in Akron and told him Smith would not be released from prison.

Hoisington said his daughter cant talk, is confined to a wheelchair and has a feeding tube.

That guy should never get out prison, he said. He doesnt deserve to get out of prison.

Long road to freedom

Smith, 45, has maintained his innocence for the past 20 years.

He said he was railroaded.

Others have agreed, including the Silk Plant Forest Truth Committee, a group of residents who believe that Smiths conviction should be vacated. In a statement, committee members said they were happy he was released, but they said the fight is not over.

Todays events do not, however, correct the miscarriage of justice he has suffered, the fundamental violation of rights or the nearly twenty years taken from him, the statement said. We will continue to work toward the day that he is fully exonerated as the facts indisputably dictate, his full citizenship is restored and he can put this travesty behind him.

The Winston-Salem Journal published a series of articles in 2004 raising questions about the police investigation and the prosecution of Smith.

Chris Swecker, a former assistant director of the FBI, and the Silk Plant Forest Citizens Review Committee, which was created by Winston-Salem City Council, looked at the police investigation and concluded that it was flawed. Swecker specifically recommended that Smith be granted a new trial. Duke Universitys Wrongful Convictions Clinic has been working on the case since 2003.

All of Smiths appeals in state and federal courts have failed, including most recently at the N.C. Supreme Court.

The N.C. Attorney Generals Office has handled Smiths post-conviction appeals after the Forsyth County District Attorneys Office declared a conflict of interest in 2008.

Students at Winston-Salem State University, Wake Forest University and Salem College and other activists have pressured N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper to help vacate Smiths conviction. Cooper, a Democrat, ran against Republican Pat McCrory for governor and has a narrow lead in a tight race that wont be called until the provisional ballots across the state are counted.

At the center of all the issues with the police investigation of Markers assault is Don Williams, the lead detective in the case.

The Journals series showed that Winston-Salem police failed to thoroughly investigate Kenneth Lamoureux, a man with a history of violence who was seen at the Silk Plant Forest store the day of Markers assault. Williams dropped him as a suspect when Lamoureux, who died in 2011, moved to Charlotte.

Police also failed to look at other suspects, according to the series. Police never had any physical evidence connecting Smith to the crime scene and relied on witnesses, such as Eugene Littlejohn, to put Smith at the store at the time of the attack. Police and prosecutors failed to corroborate significant information from Smith and other witnesses, the series said.

Marker identified Smith as her attacker, but the series quoted medical experts, including her own doctors, who said Markers brain injuries would have made it unlikely that she would have remembered who attacked her.

Williams told the Journal he did not document certain evidence that he believed might have been favorable to Smith.

Affidavit questioned

Smiths most recent appeals focused on a disputed affidavit by Arnita Miles, a former Winston-Salem police officer who was among the first on the scene of Markers assault.

Smiths attorneys had argued that Forsyth County prosecutors used the affidavit, which was never introduced into court proceedings, as a way to undermine Smiths efforts to prove his innocence. Appeals on that basis have, so far, been unsuccessful.

The Rev. William Barber, the president of the North Carolina NAACP, said he had a chance to shake hands with a free man Wednesday. But he said people should continue to fight for Smiths full exoneration.

James Coleman, a co-director of Duke University School of Laws Wrongful Convictions Clinic and one of Smiths attorneys, said he and others intend to do just that. They plan to file another appeal to try to overturn Smiths conviction.

Speaks, Smiths trial attorney, said he was pleased that Smith was ordered released from prison. He declined to comment on his handling of Smiths sentencing.

Anything that got Kalvin out of prison early is a good thing, he said.

Chris Mumma, the executive director of the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence in Durham, said she was thrilled Smith was released from prison.

Its a tragedy that he isnt being released as an innocent man, Mumma said.

Phoebe Zerwick, the former Journal reporter who wrote the 2004 series about Smiths case, attended the hearing Wednesday. She is now the director of journalism at Wake Forest University.

At the Journal, we got the whole story rolling by looking to the case 12 years ago, Zerwick said. After looking into it, it was clear that he was likely wrongly convicted.

Carl Crothers was the executive editor of the Journal in 2004, and helped lead the push to examine the Smith case, as well as the case of Darryl Hunt, who was exonerated in 2004 in the killing of Debra Sykes, a copy editor at The Sentinel, the citys defunct afternoon newspaper.

Crothers is now the owner of Blue Wind Communications of Winston-Salem, a media relations and marketing company.

Although its not an exoneration, at least he is free so that he can continue to work to clear his name, he said. Smiths story represented a more severe case of wrongful conviction than even that of Darryl Hunt. As our series detailed, the incredible mishandling of the case by police is a lesson for us all that the system can fail and fail miserably.

David Clayton, a retired assistant chief of the Winston-Salem Police Department, said in court that what happened Wednesday was the result of people coming together. It wasnt about rehashing the facts of the case but figuring out the right thing to do was, he said.

Good things happen when people who trust each other sit down and have conversations, Clayton said.
Research has shown that civilians and police officers nationwide have an implicit racial bias against black males and view them as hostile and dangerous criminals, a psychologist said Wednesday at a forum about police and community relations.

There is a black crime association that is at the heart of the police/community tension, said Jennifer Eberhardt, a professor of psychology at Stanford University. The image about black males is one of strongest stereotypes in American society. We are exposed to it every day through a variety of channels.

Eberhardt was the guest speaker at the forum, Black and Blue Community Police Town: From Dialogue to Solutions, which was held at the Wake Forest University Pro Humanitate Institute on Reynolda Road. About 100 people, including Winston-Salem police officials, attended the event.

Before Eberhardt spoke, the Rev. Williard Bass, the founder of the Institute for Dismantling Racism and an assistant pastor of Green Street United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem, told the audience that Kalvin Michael Smith was being released from prison today. Thank God for that, Bass said, and the crowd applauded.

Smith has served nearly 20 years in prison on an assault conviction that has drawn wide scrutiny in Winston-Salem and the state. Smith has long maintained his innocence in the assault.

During her speech, Eberhardt presented her research findings that shows that civilians and police officers have a racial bias against black men.

That perception affects the way officers deal with black men, how the public perceives them, and results in the overrepresentation of blacks in the prisons nationwide, Eberhardt said.

Eberhardt said that improved training among police officers on use of force and instructions on how not to act racially bias toward black men can improve police and community relations throughout the country.

Eberhardts presentation about racial bias comes seven weeks after the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old black man killed in Charlotte on Sept. 20.

During the demonstrations following the shooting in Charlotte, protesters demanded that officials release police body camera and dashboard video of the confrontation between Scott and police officers. The demonstrations turned violent on two nights.

During the forum, Winston-Salem Police Chief Barry Rountree said that he saw a news report in the wake of Scotts death that there is a public perception that law enforcement agencies nationwide are hunting and killing black males. Rountree said thats not true about any law enforcement agency, including the Winston-Salem Police Department.

A lot of the people may feel that way, Rountree said of that news report.

He said he hopes that the forum would stimulate conversations among city residents and police officers to dispel that perception.
The smell of smoke from a wildfire in Lake Lure in Rutherford County reached Forsyth and Watauga counties on Wednesday, authorities said.

We noticed the smell when the air was damp this morning, said Tom Whicker, the Forsyth County fire marshal.

Winds dissipated the smell by 9 a.m. Wednesday, he said.

Firefighters battling the wildfire near Lake Lure, which is about 140 miles from Winston-Salem, are facing a new challenge as wind gusts up to 30 mph fan the flames and hinder efforts to attack the blaze from the air.

The Asheville Citizen-Times reported Wednesday that Victoria Tillotson, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Forest Service, said officials were hoping to provide air support to the fire that had spread to 344 acres, but the windy conditions prevented helicopters from getting into the air and dropping water on the blaze.

On the ground, crews were strengthening and maintaining fire containment lines. A main priority was continuing to keep fire lines clear of leaves and other debris to limit the amount of fuel the fire can burn.

Fire crews have worked to protect up to 35 homes that were threatened.

Jeremy Waldrop, a spokesman for the forest service, said residents in Watauga County reported they smelled smoke Wednesday from a fire in the Cherokee National Forest in eastern Tennessee near the North Carolina border.

The forest service has issued a ban on open burning for 25 counties in Western North Carolina, including Watauga. Under the ban, the burning of leaves, branches, and other plant material is prohibited, the forest service said. It is illegal to burn trash, lumber, tires, newspapers, plastics or other non-vegetative materials.

The ban took effect Monday and will be in place until further notice, the forest service said.
WASHINGTON  Donald Trump proclaimed America First on his way to his head-spinning victory in Tuesdays presidential election, and the success of that message will rock many foreign capitals where leaders have feared that Trump would alter the basics of U.S. foreign policy.

Making predictions about Trumps foreign policy is difficult, given his lack of experience. But the most likely bet is that as president he will seek to do what he promised during the campaign in breaking from current U.S. approaches to Russia, the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

Traveling abroad over the past year, I heard concern about Trumps candidacy from senior officials in more than a dozen countries. He was viewed as an inexperienced and unreliable figure who might dismantle traditional U.S. commitments and alliances. Most foreign leaders will be upset that Hillary Clinton, an advocate of traditional U.S. strategy and commitments, lost the race.

A Trump foreign policy, based on his statements, will bring an intense realist focus on U.S. national interests and a rejection of costly U.S. engagements abroad. It will likely bring these changes:

A move to improve relations with a combative, assertive Russia. Trump stressed repeatedly during the campaign, at some political cost, that he would work with President Vladimir Putin. I think Id be able to get along with him, he said in September at a televised forum hosted by NBCs Matt Lauer. If he says great things about me, Im gonna say great things about him. ... I mean, the man has very strong control over a country.

Trump also discounted allegations that Russian hackers had meddled in the presidential election. I doubt it, I doubt it, Trump said when asked in an Oct. 19 debate about a statement by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. accusing Russias senior-most officials of approving hacking of Democratic Party websites. Trumps denial led some Democrats to argue that electing Trump had been Russias real goal.

A joint military effort with Russia and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to defeat the Islamic State. Trump proposed this shared campaign during that same debate. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good, he said. He offered positive comments about Assad, saying, Hes just much tougher and much smarter than her

Clinton 

, adding that if the opposition should win in Syria, you may very well end up with worse than Assad.

Trump also promised repeatedly that he would step up the U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State and replace U.S. generals who were insufficiently combative. But he has been vague about what he plans to do in Iraq and Syria.

A new push for European allies to pay more for their own defense. Its unlikely that Trump will dismantle NATO, as critics charged during the campaign. He said in a debate that Clinton was telling just another lie when she accused him of undermining commitments to defend NATO allies and Asian partners such as Japan and South Korea. But he never retreated from an April 27 speech in which he said the U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves, even if that means letting them acquire nuclear weapons.

In Europe, Trumps victory is likely to reinforce the trend toward politicians expressing similar right-wing, nationalist views. The avatar of this neo-nationalism was the surprise victory of Brexit supporters in Junes referendum in Britain, and there are comparable movements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. President Trump will have to decide whether to embrace such movements, which could destabilize the European Union.

An attempt to alter the terms of trade in Asia by renegotiating trade pacts and forcing China to revalue its currency. Its hard to predict how this combative approach to globalization will play out. Often, Trumps extreme rhetoric and threats against business partners are tactics in what he has famously described as the art of the deal. A China thats already experiencing a bubble economy might well be vulnerable to U.S. economic pressure. But the most likely outcome of Trumps protectionist rhetoric will be a global economic downturn, many analysts have argued.

Trumps campaign was premised on the idea that his approach would make America great again. His presidency will test that proposition. But many analysts argue that by putting Americas interests first so nakedly, he may push many U.S. allies in Europe and Asia to make their own deals with a newly assertive Russia and a rising China.

Undoing globalization isnt possible. But undermining Americas leadership in that system would be all too easy.
President-elect Donald Trump  the words do stick in my throat  looked and sounded in the early hours of Wednesday morning for the first time at least a little presidential. He was gracious to his opponent, saying we owe her a debt of gratitude for her service to the country. Thats a far cry from Lock her up! He properly declared his intention to unify the country and to work on behalf of all Americans.

Interestingly, the two central premises of his campaign  immigration restriction and protectionism  were entirely missing from his remarks. He wants to rebuild infrastructure, grow the economy and create jobs. Somewhere Hillary Clinton is ripping her hair out. But if he drops his agenda and borrows some from hers, the country and he will be better off.

We and millions of Americans are fearful that he quite plainly doesnt know what to do. Hes never held office. He did not take interest in policy. He seems to have only a passing understanding of the countrys democratic institutions. His choice of advisers has ranged from ridiculous to frightful, including many in the thrall of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

We fear he will place incompetent and unsteady men and women in positions of power. We fear he will misuse the instruments of power to enact revenge and further his own economic interests. We are most fearful of the damage he will do to Americas international image, our alliances and our defense of human rights.

We fear that in the future, presidential candidates will reject transparency and refuse to disclose tax returns and other relevant information. We fear he has set new lows for honesty and civility in public life.

The best we can hope for is that, as he said in his acceptance speech, he wins only if he does a good job. Well, an honest man in his position would recognize he is not equipped to develop an agenda; he would take House Speaker Paul Ryans domestic proposals as his own and leave it to the House and Senate leadership to usher them through Congress. A clever president who never held office would make Vice President-elect Mike Pence effectively his chief operating officer, allowing him wide latitude to deal with Congress, select personnel and coordinate policy. Pence is at the very least a known quantity, a former member of the House and a straight shooter.

If we want to look for silver linings for the country and the GOP, there are several that spring to mind.

First, Trump plainly cares very little about social issues and virtually ignored such issues in the campaign. We perhaps can move beyond fights about gay marriage, and hit pause on the culture wars.

Second, if it took Nixon to go to China, perhaps it will take Trump to concede the unworkability of anti-immigrant schemes. Mexicos not going to build the wall, nor will Trump be able to deport millions of people. If the immigrant-haters wont listen to immigration reformers, maybe they will accept more readily his inevitable admission  when the time comes  that these schemes are impossible and unwise.

Third, the host of pretenders, connivers and opportunists who were already positioning themselves to run in 2020 are suddenly out of luck. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) can cancel the trips to Iowa and New Hampshire; theyll be in the Senate or in private life at least until 2024 (unless one decides to primary a sitting president).

Finally, the GOP has no excuses. The party has it all  both houses and the presidency. If Republicans want a better health-care system to replace Obamacare, they should pass it. If they think the military is underfunded, pay for it. If they think Veterans Affairs is a mess, fix it. There is danger in handing over all levers of power to one party, but there is also accountability.

We surely hope Trump proves all his critics wrong, finds quality advisers, avoids xenophobic temptations and adheres to a traditional, bipartisan foreign policy. If not and if he runs amok, Republicans in Congress will need to act on their promises to constrain him. If not, the voters will have the opportunity for more change elections in 2018 and 2020.
The Vietwater and the RE & EE Vietnam 2016 Expo & Forum in Ho Chi Minh City will feature innovations and solutions important in the context of climate change.

Sponsored

The eighth Vietwater and the second RE & EE Vietnam 2016 Expo & Forum officially kicked off on Wednesday at Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center, bringing new technologies in water and energy sectors.

The opening event was attended by Phan Thi My Linh, Vice Minister of Construction, Cao Lai Quang, Chairman of Vietnam Water Supply and Sewerage Association, and M.Gandhi, Managing Director ASEAN Business, UBM Asia.

They were joined by over 400 participating companies from 38 countries and regions, together with thousands of associations, visitors and media representatives.

"Water and energy are two important sectors, having direct effect on the development of the economy and community, social security and environment of the country," Linh said.

"Especially, in the context of climate change and rising sea levels which are causing negative impact to all countries in the world. The issue of water and energy becomes more imperative due to its huge impact on countrys safety and security, she said.

"Hence, the Vietnamese government has put much effort to improve water resources, develop the renewable energy industry as well as increase and attract more investment in these two sectors," Linh said.

The event, which will run through November 11, gathers 13 international pavilions to showcase cutting-edge technologies, innovations and solutions in water supply, sewerage, wastewater treatment, energy efficiency and new and renewable energy sectors.

M.Gandhi from UBM Asia said: The exhibition is 30 percent larger compared to the last edition in 2015. This is clear indication of Vietnams development progress and the confidence shown by international community towards Vietnam.

Representatives at the opening day of the eighth Vietwater and the second RE & EE Vietnam 2016 Expo & Forum in Ho Chi Minh City.

Venue: SECC, 799 Nguyen Van Linh, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City

Time: 9-11 November

Free admission to the exhibition and seminars for all trade visitors. Check the next page for the full schedule.
Capsule reviews of movies in local theaters

The Accountant HH

When an accountant starts trying to correct the books for a client, the Treasury Department begins an investigation and the body count goes way up. Rated R.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, Grand 18

Almost Christmas HH

A family reunites for the first time after their mothers death. Rated PG-13.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, Carmike 10, Grand 18, RED Cinemas, Two Rivers Cinema, Starmount

Aquarius HHH

Clara is the last tenant in an area that a company wants to redevelop and has said only death will get her out. As she conducts her cold war with company officials, she remembers her life in the residence. Not rated.

Showing: Aperture

Arrival HHH

After UFOs land throughout the world, a linguist (Amy Adams) leads a team to communicate with the aliens. Also starring Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker. Rated PG-13.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, Carmike 10, RED Cinemas

Bad Moms HH

Three stressed moms take off for fun and freedom. Rated R.

Showing: Marketplace

Boo! A Madea Halloween HH

On Halloween, Madea is trying to keep an eye on a group of teenagers and has to fend off killers, ghosts and zombies. Rated PG-13.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, Carmike 10, Grand 18, RED Cinemas, Two Rivers Cinema, Starmount

Bridget Joness Baby HH

Bridget is turning 40 and the story continues. Rated R.

Showing: Marketplace

Certain Women HHH

Three women, trying to make a difference, cross paths in a small town in Montana. Rated R.

Showing: Aperture

Doctor Strange HHH

After losing the use of his hand after a traffic accident, Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbach), a former neurosurgeon, looks for hope with a group that is fighting a dark force. Rated PG-13.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, Carmike 10, Grand 18, RED Cinemas, Liberty Theatre, Two Rivers Cinema, Starmount

Finding Dory HHH

Dory is a forgetful fish that is trying to reunite with her family with help from Nemo and Marlin. Rated PG.

Showing: Marketplace

Girl on the Train HH

A divorced woman rides the train by her old house every day on the way to work. She creates a fantasy life for a couple who live near the house. She gets involved when the wife goes missing. Rated R.

Showing: RED Cinemas

Hacksaw Ridge HHH

Desmond Doss was a World War II army medic and took part in the Battle of Okinawa. Doss was a conscientious objector. He refused to kill people or carry a weapon. He was the first C.O. to be awarded the Medal of Honor. Rated R.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, Carmike 10, Grand 18, RED Cinemas, Two Rivers Cinema, Starmount

The Handmaiden HHHH

During the Japanese occupation of Korea in the 1930s, a Korean girl is hired to be a handmaiden to a wealthy Japanese heiress. The girl is part of a plan to rob the heiress. Not rated.

Showing: Aperture, RED Cinemas

Hell or High Water HH

Two brothers resort to desperate means to keep their family farm. Rated R.

Showing: Marketplace

Inferno HH

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) wakes up in an Italian hospital with amnesia. He teams up with a doctor (Felicity Jones) to recover his memory. Directed by Ron Howard. Rated PG-13.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, Carmike 10, Grand 18

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back HH

Reacher is on the run as a fugitive and must look to the past to find the truth about a government conspiracy. Rated PG-13.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, Grand 18, RED Cinemas, Two Rivers Cinema

The Magnificent Seven HH

Seven old gunmen help the residents of a small town against thieves. Remake of the 1960 movie. Rated PG-13.

Showing: RED Cinemas

A Man Called Ove (En Man Som Heter Ove) HH

Ove is the former president of his homeowners association, although he doesnt accept that he is no longer in charge. He still tries to run the community by walking the property and disposing of bicycles parked in the wrong place and chasing stray cats off. A family moves in across from him. After backing into Oves mailbox, a friendship begins to develop. Rated PG-13

Showing: Aperture

Ouija: Origin of Evil HH

A widow and her two daughters are running a seance scam in 1967 Los Angeles. They decide to add to the act and invite an evil spirit. The younger daughter becomes possessed by the spirit. Rated PG-13.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, Carmike 10, RED Cinemas

Petes Dragon HHH

A little boy runs away with his only friend, Elliot the Dragon. Rated PG-13.

Showing: Marketplace

The Secret Life of Pets HHH

Max has the perfect life as an only dog until his owner brings home a mutt named Duke. Max learns that Snowball the bunny is putting together an army of abandoned pets to exact revenge on the owners who left them. Rated PG.

Showing: Marketplace

Shut In HH

A child psychologist living a secluded life sees a young child and has to rescue him before a winter storm hits and he disappears forever. Rated PG-13.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, RED Cinemas

Storks HH

Storks are now delivering packages instead of babies. Junior, the best delivery stork, activates the baby machine by mistake and must find a home for a baby girl before his superiors find out. Rated PG.

Showing: RED Cinemas

Suicide Squad H

Super villains are recruited from prison for secret missions in exchange for clemency. Rated PG-13.

Showing: Marketplace

Tower HHH

An animated documentary about the day a sniper took the elevator to the 27th floor of the tower at the University of Texas and killed 16 people. Not rated.

Showing: Aperture

Trolls HH

Troll Village is invaded. Poppy, the happy troll, and Branch, the grumpy troll, take off to find the other trolls. Rated PG.

Showing: Wynnsong 12, Carmike 10, Grand 18, RED Cinemas, Liberty Theatre, Starmount
Illegal logging may have destroyed their home 66 kilometers away.

Forestry officers have spotted a troupe of more than 70 endangered red-shanked douc langurs in a protective forest in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue over the past days.

Tran Van Loc, director of the management board of the 10,500-hectare Bac Hai Van forest in Phu Loc District, said it is taking measures to protect the primates and conducting survey for long-term conservation.

The red-shanked douc (Pygathrix nemaeus) is sometimes called the costumed ape or the Queen of primates for being one of the most colorful of all primates: maroon-red from its knees to its ankles, white forearms, black hands and feet, a golden face with a white ruff, blue eyelids and a white tail.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the species as endangered and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora prohibits its international trade. Vietnam, which is a CITES signatory, also has laws to protect the primate but they have been difficult to enforce.

Its not clear where the primates came from or if they have any connection to a big group on the Son Tra Peninsula, around 66 kilometers to the southeast in neighboring Da Nang.

Vietnam is home to around 1,000 red-shanked doucs, including 300 in Son Tra.

In March, around 75 red-shanked doucs disappeared from the peninsula after illegal logging destroyed 1,000 square meters of habitat.

City officials only found out after a video was posted on Facebook.

Studies by the GreenViet biodiversity conservation center in Da Nang show that the douc langurs in Son Tra are threatened by poachers, who killed two of them last year, and the construction of roads that separate the primate populations and lead to inbreeding.

When they are forced to travel by land, they can be hit by vehicles and are more likely to be trapped.

Noisy crowds at coffee shops and restaurants on the peninsula also stress the monkeys out and affect their reproduction, it said.

Related news:

> WWF starts petition to end wildlife trade in Vietnam, decries lack of action

> Facebook post helps Vietnamese police track down monkey murderer
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David M. Faris | (Informed Comment) |  

When the people love you, that is the most important thing for me. So spoke General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the onetime savior and now iron-fisted tyrant of the Arab Republic of Egypt, days after he had seized power in a military coup in July 2013. Egypts coup was ostensibly a response to popular frustration with the inept and anti-democratic administration of the Muslim Brotherhoods Mohammad Morsi. But in reality, Sisi never had any intention of returning Egypt to the Egyptians. As in so many places, the Egyptian state is an ATM for its elites, who enrich themselves at the expense of the broader public and do not bother offering an apology.

But the demagogue always rides to power on the wings of resentment and popular frustration. Egyptians long suffering under the inept economic administration of its military, terrified of the looming theocracy represented by Morsi, and drunk on paranoid agitprop about American machinations, poured into the streets by the millions to demand Morsis ouster. Sisi promised national reconciliation. What he delivered instead, of course, was a predictable reshuffling of the hierarchy of authoritarianism  a familiar beast with a new haircut, just two years after the inspirational ouster of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak. To spend time in Egypt is to understand how quickly jubilation can turn to despair. And now it is our turn.

The American people, dispiritingly, delivered our very own Sisi to power on Tuesday night. Donald Trump had no one on his side but his voters  not the Republican intelligentsia, which abhorred him, not the party apparatus, which worked halfheartedly on his behalf, and certainly not the Democratic opposition, which was united in revulsion at the prospect of this man becoming our leader. A friendless, cheerless sociopath, Trump ingeniously exploited the cultural and economic resentment of the Unnecessariat: the mass of downwardly mobile white voters who feel shunned and discarded by their own leaders and who have no place in the global economy and no real help from the state. That Trumps policies will only make their plight worse is beside the point. That they rejected the candidate offering to alleviate their suffering with a more interventionist government is an argument that either did not reach them or was rejected. The more troubling realization is that they allowed themselves to be taken for the ride, and that the Democratic coalition could not be bothered to turn out in large enough numbers to stop the catastrophe, or to craft a winning message that might appeal to the downtrodden. Like Sisi, Trump wants to be loved by the people to whom he has falsely promised deliverance. And make no mistake: his voters love him.

Trump will be the most manifestly unprepared man to ever assume the presidency. Even straight-from-the-military types Eisenhower had been in charge of large, complex organizations and had shown some flair for leadership and ideas. And here is one thing that the Democrats (including this author) need to internalize for the next election: voters truly no longer care (if they ever did) about statesmanship and experience in office in their leaders. From Obama to Trump, what people seem to respond to is a vision rather than a resume. You can lament this all you want, but the American people have delivered a verdict on the kind of leadership they expect, and it is not a former Senator and Secretary of State with a long record of successful public service. It is a man (it is always a man) who makes wild promises that he will rescue them from the struggles of late modernity.

For all of the justified warnings about how Trump might obliterate democratic procedures and norms, it is still not clear exactly how he will govern. This is particularly true because the man is a shapeshifter with no discernible political philosophy beyond rage and fear and resentment. Yet those of us who arrogantly trumpeted our certainty about a Clinton win should now be circumspect in our predictions for his administration. It is possible that his rule will be disastrous within normal parameters  cutting taxes for the wealthy, blindly stumbling into wars, worsening our racial crisis with law-and-order hysteria, tightening immigration policies without actually rounding up and deporting 11 million people. It is within the realm of plausibility that he will pursue policies, like protectionism and massive infrastructure spending, that will fracture his own Congressional coalition, even with substantial Republican majorities in both chambers. He may drastically overstep his authority, or embroil himself in scandals so obvious that even the Republicans may be forced to act. And as his policies will almost certainly be economically and socially catastrophic, the republic may yet survive his four years in office and dutifully turn him out when the scale of the calamity becomes clear even to his supporters. There is a subzero chance that Donald Trump will be a competent leader, and in normal times, that would be enough for him to be defeated.

Yet it is equally plausible that Trump will keep his open promises to burn the Constitution. Together with Republican governors and legislatures, Trump will continue to chip away at things like voting and abortion rights. He will be ruthless in his quest to delegitimize his opposition, and the rumors about appointing full-blown maniacs like Rudy Guliani and Newt Gingrich to his cabinet bodes ill for his administrations impending respect for the rule of law. He will have a compliant legislature that is unlikely to take seriously its oversight functions and almost certainly cannot be trusted to hold Trump accountable for his promises to hound and sue the press and his accusers. His reckless disregard for the Bretton Woods order suggests that he sees only the flaws of globalism and none of its attendant benefits. Terrified allies are likely to seek comfort in new relationships and to pursue destabilizing defense measures to protect themselves against the Russian and Chinese giants that Trump seems to admire. The risk of global war, possibly of the nuclear variety, is seriously heightened. It is not inconceivable that Trump will use the full power of the state, including a vengeful FBI, to destroy the Democrats chances of retaking power in 2020. If so, American democracy will have functionally collapsed, albeit in slow motion.

There are two pieces of solace we might take in this darkest of moments. One is that, unlike Egypt, Trump will surely meet some resistance from the political opposition. The Democrats were bested in this election but they have not disappeared. Egyptians themselves have demonstrated for us that it is possible to use social movements to challenge the power of a much more securitized and entrenched authoritarian government. The Egyptian people, caricatured as complacent and broken, will at some point come together again and demand that the state recognize them. So will we. While the left did not turn out for Clinton in sufficient numbers, the youngest members of our society are energized  crestfallen today but determined to seize back the hopeful future that has been denied them this week. For further solace, you need to look no further than your own social media networks, where devastated Americans are grieving but transmitting a clear message of hope and resilience. They will not have their democracy taken from them without a spirited fight. They will take to the streets. They will overcome the noxious and racist barriers that have been put in front of them by a transparently undemocratic Republican Party that cares for nothing beyond its own aggrandizement.

The university that I am privileged to call my home is peppered with quotes from its namesakes, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Today when I arrived at work to face my downcast students, I saw these words again in a new light. As I wiped away the most bitter tears I have ever cried, before heading to teach, I paused for a moment. Posted in front of the elevator was FDRs famous remark that No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities. It is those rights that Trump and his supporters are most determined to violate. But neither time nor demography is on their side. Someday  maybe not in 2018 and maybe not even in 2020  the American people will come together and demand that those rights be recognized and respected and enshrined in law, in a social democracy that offers hope and support both to the white Americans that delivered the presidency to Trump, and to the beautiful collage of races and ethnicities and genders that is emerging as our societys tumultuous majority.

We are all menaced by a Trump presidency and its promise to shred the social welfare system, repeal Obamacare, obliterate Planned Parenthood and more. These policies will touch everyone and the effects will be painful. But lets not kid ourselves: some of our fellow citizens are more vulnerable than others, most of all the Latino immigrants he threatens to deport, the women whose reproductive freedom and rights he promises to violate, the African Americans whose movement for justice he promises to crush with overwhelming force, and the Muslim-Americans against whom Trump has whipped his followers into a delirious frenzy. Those of us with the privilege and security to fight on must do so. Now is not the time for despair. It is the time to decide which side you are on and to join the struggle. To do otherwiseto give in to the hopelessness of this shocking and horrible momentwould be the most profound and destructive abdication of our obligations to one another as human beings, to the shared project of progress and equality, and to the very idea of a political community.

That struggle begins now. We are unbroken, and we will prevail.

-

Related video added by Juan Cole:

CNN from last month: Egypt president: No doubt Trump would be a strong leader
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BETHLEHEM (Maan)  Israeli and Palestinian authorities reacted on Sunday to the victory of Donald Trump in the American presidential elections, with one Israeli minister expressing his hopes that Trumps nomination would spell the end of efforts to establish a two-state solution.

As of Wednesday evening, Republican candidate Trump won 289 of 538 electoral votes, while his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton cinched 218, in a landslide victory which came as a surprise to many observers.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu congratulated Trump on his win, calling him a true friend of the State of Israel in a statement.

The ironclad bond between the United States and Israel is rooted in shared values, buttressed by shared interests and driven by a shared destiny, Netanyahu added. I am confident that President-elect Trump and I will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between our two countries and bring it to ever greater heights.

Meanwhile, Israeli Minister of Education Naftali Bennett said in a statement that a Trump presidency would mark the end of a push for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Trumps victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state in the center of the country (Israel), which would hurt our security and just cause, Bennett said. This is the position of the President-elect, as written in his platform, and it should be our policy, plain and simple. The era of a Palestinian state is over.

Palestinian officials reacted with less outward enthusiasm.

Ahead of the results, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said that the Palestinian Authority (PA) would deal with any president elected by the American people on the principle of achieving permanent peace in the Middle East based on the two-state solution on the June 4, 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Following the results, Abbas sent Trump a message congratulating him on his victory, and expressed his hopes for just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East and the world during Trumps four-year term, official PA news agency Wafa reported.

In the besieged Gaza Strip, de facto ruling party Hamas called upon Trump to re-evaluate his countrys policy towards Palestinians and to work on treating Palestinians evenhandedly.

The Hamas movement said in a statement that the suffering of the Palestinian people was ongoing due to continuous American policies favoring Israel.

via Maan News Agency
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By Mohammed Nuruzzaman | (Informed Comment) |  

Mr. Donald Trumps electoral victory has created shockwaves worldwide. It was as unexpected as it was unwelcome to many peoples, particularly in the Middle East. Most people in the region appear to be at a loss. Political commentators and pundits are projecting a series of hard foreign policy realignments in global politics under President-elect Donald Trump. The consequences are predicted to be negative, needless to say, primarily for the Middle East region.

At a general level, the big areas of change may include a new chapter in Americas relations with Russia, a traditional foe since the end of the Second World War. The Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first foreign dignitary to congratulate Mr. Donald Trump, with the news that the Russian parliament (Duma) broke into thunderous applause upon news that Hillary Clinton conceded defeat. A new reset the button initiative in MoscowWashington relations, which President Obama tried but did fail to make progress, may initiate a window of change in U.S.Russia bilateral relations, though realities might prove otherwise. Mr. Trumps attack on the NATO members, whom he called free-riders, and his stern warnings to the alliance members to shoulder the financial burden with America may force some fundamental changes in Americas relations with NATO. In case of a Russian attack, he warned the NATO members, they may be on their own to defend themselves.

China, the rising economic giant that surpassed the U.S. economy in terms of purchasing power parity back in 2014, needs to be contained economically by stopping outsourcing jobs, so goes Mr. Trump. Beijings claim of sovereignty over the South China Sea sounds unpalatable and is completely unacceptable. Japan and South Korea may be endorsed as new nuclear proliferators to defend them against North Korea. An uncertain future, so to speak, awaits the U.S. foreign policy under the new 45th president.

The degree of uncertainty is higher and perhaps more alarming for the Middle East region. President Trump rejects almost everything accomplished by his predecessor President Barack Obama. He has railed against the Iran nuclear deal and threatened to revoke it after his successful race to the White House. More negative are his attitudes towards and stand on the PalestineIsrael conflict. Avowedly, he is against a two-state solution, firmly committed to settlement expansion and would never accept a Palestinian state. There may be a U-turn on Syria, which is more likely to come as a byproduct of Mr. Trumps rapprochement with President Putin. What it means is that President Bashar Al-Assad would continue as the Syrian president and Americas support for the so-called moderate rebel groups would end  a political act Washingtons traditional Arab allies in the Persian Gulf would bemoan.

But how feasible are the new presidents predicted new foreign policy pursuits in the Middle East? For one thing to be sure, the Republican presidents are known for their muscular foreign policy approaches. President Ronald Reagan was known for branding the Soviet Union an evil empire. President George W. Bush, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, declared a global war on terror and plunged his own country and the whole world into unforeseen crises, including the 2008 Global Recession. President Obama, a Democrat, tried to unsuccessfully disentangle himself from the muscular tradition by promoting the so-called diplomacy first, war last approach, what the press has labelled the Obama doctrine but war has haunted his administration equally. President-elect Donald Trumps electoral rhetoric has added a new spurt to the age-old Republican style of foreign policy but his approach is fraught with more dangers, and promises the least success.

Take the issue of the Iran  U.S. nuclear deal that enjoys broad support and approval of the international community. Iran and the P5+1 group of states clinched the deal in July 2015 after lengthy and arduous diplomatic negotiations. Duly was it approved by the UN Security Council, the U.S. Senate as well as the Iranian Majles (parliament). In other words, a strong degree of international legitimacy is tied to the deal. President Trump can scrap the deal but he runs the risk of violating international legitimacy of the deal and losing Americas credibility for future international agreements. Zeroing in on international distrust would act as a powerful disincentive for the Trump administration.

It is also questionable whether the new president can intimidate the Iranians to renegotiate the nuclear deal. President Bush threatened Iran with punishments (read military attacks) on different occasions after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 but the Iranians did not bend. Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rather opted for a confrontational approach to the U.S., at a great economic cost though. He pursued the nuclear program by defying the West, continuously enriching uranium and threatening to cross the nuclear threshold. It is hard to believe that a new policy of threats and intimidations would work to force Iran to fall in line now. Iran in 2016 is much stronger than it was in 2003 or 2005; its military might is now directly felt in Iraq and Syria while its ally Hezbollah remains a strong bulwark against Israeli or any other regional powers military prowess in the Levant. Gone are the days of military intimidations against Iran. And there is hardly any guarantee for new economic sanctions against the Iranian people. Americas European partners as well as China and Russia, who stand to reap benefits from post-sanction Iranian economy, would hardly find any reason to revert to yesteryears sanction talks and impositions.

Likewise, President Trumps policy stance on the PalestineIsraeli conflict represents more a rhetorical change than an actual change in substance. Successive U.S. administrations since at least President John F. Kennedy have stood by Israeli policies towards the Palestinians overtly and covertly. No U.S. administration has ever attempted to poke into Israeli eyes with the threats of economic sanctions to force the Israeli leaders to negotiate with the Palestinians in good faith. Of course, there were mediation efforts by the Obama and other administration while Israel continued to build illegal settlements on Palestinian lands, evict Palestinians from their homes or damage the farms of Palestinian farmers. Frustrations with Israeli leaders prompted one U.S. official to call Prime Minister Netanyahu a chicken shit but that did not change his Palestine policy. What other administrations have done indirectly, President Trump is promising to do that

directly, though his stance may change at the end. This is because his un-retouched approach openly compromises American values, holds the potential to lose the support of European allies and make America much uglier to the outside world. Israel, in any case, stands to benefit more from his approach and at the same time it is likely to unleash more violence in the region.

President Trump, according to predictions by some analysts, may try to float a Sunni triangle consisting of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to confront Iran. It smacks off the old Faustian bargain to create a divisive balance of power in the Middle East to the detriment of regional interests. The question is why Ankara, Cairo and Riyadh let them play into the hands of a president who promotes Islamophobia globally, not to speak of the internal differences between Egypt and Turkey following the overthrow of President Mohammad Morsi, between Egypt and Saudi Arabia over the formers vote for a Russian-drafted Security Council resolution on Syria, and between Saudi Arabia and Turkey concerning the dispute over Muslim Brotherhood factor. Turkey is also closely aligned with Iran on the economic terrain (Turkeys large imports of oil and gas from Iran) and is moving closer to Russia after the July 15 coup against President Erdogan. Iran  Russia alliance has solidified on the Syrian issue, on the other hand, albeit their alliance relationship is not immune from tensions. The Russia factor will chiefly weigh in any such new political and military alignments in the Middle East. What sounds more likely is that U.S.Russian cooperation to fight and eliminate the Islamic State may dramatically improve. That may neutralize President Trumps open hostility towards Iran to some extent, as Iran is a recognized part of the military campaign against the ISIS.

President Trumps rhetoric concerning the Middle East should not be thrown into the air either. His Middle East approach, as and when it takes shape, is subject to multiple constraints originating from the post-2003 Middle East. One thing is definitely sure that he would have no free hand to shape developments in the Middle East at will.

Mohammed Nuruzzaman is Associate Professor of International Relations, Gulf University for science and Technology, West Mishref, Kuwait.



Related video added by Juan Cole:

CBSN from last year: Donald Trump, Jeb Bush get heated over Syria, national security
Kha Van Can Street is named after Vietnam's former Minister of Light Industry. His correct name is Kha Vang Can. Photo by VnExpress/H.C.

Otherwise, taxi drivers will have a tough time finding their customers.

Ho Chi Minh City authorities are considering a plan to officially rename about 400 streets that are either wrong or duplicate names.

The plan, developed by the citys Urban Research and Development Center (URDC), is part of a citywide project to rename city streets and public places.

Nguyen Thi Thu, deputy chairwoman of HCMC, said that the project aims to reduce confusion in the city, and is part of a broader plan to establish a clear address system for the southern hub.

According to URDCs research, HCMC currently has 1,774 streets that are referred to by unofficial names, and about 400 that have duplicate or meaningless names.

However, the city is running out of choices for street names, which are usually named after famous Vietnamese historical figures or places.

The research team pointed out the names of 16 famous people have been used for over 50 different streets.

Other cases involve duplicate names and not so appealing names such as Kenh Nuoc Den, which literally means black canal.

The team suggested altering the names of those streets or adding signs to reduce confusion for residents and visitors and, at times, make navigation less troublesome for the city's emergency services.

Deputy chairwoman Thu said that some street names will be altered or extra information will added to signs so that people can recognize them more easily.

Thu has also asked the research agency and other related units to come up with a list of new street names.

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> Ho Chi Minh City's flower street welcomes ads in Year of the Rooster

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by Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Some 2,000 rebel fighters, most of them Muslim fundamentalists, others remnants of the Free Syrian Army, are trying to break the Syrian regimes blockade of East Aleppo. But they may soon face cruise missiles launched at them from Russian submarines in the Mediterranean, along with other air strikes coming off a Russian aircraft carrier battle group that has reached the Syrian port of Tartous.

Aleppo is divided into two cities. The Western neighborhoods may have as many as 600k to 1 million inhabitants. They are better off than those in the east and are under Syrian government control. From all accounts they are able to live relatively normal lives, though under a one-party state at war. East Aleppo was long more slummy than the west, and as a set of districts with a lot of have-nots it is not surprising that it rebelled in 2011 and then became a rebel stronghold.

But that stronghold is now under a pretty effective siege, which the rebels outside the city have been trying to break.

Gazeta.ru, via BBC Monitoring, confirms that:

A Russian Navy carrier group headed by the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky are preparing to conduct a strike in the very near future against insurgents in the province of Aleppo, a source in Russias Ministry of Defence confirmed to Gazeta.ru. An attack using Kalibr cruise missiles and carrier aviation will be conducted on insurgents at the approaches to the city, but not against residential areas, the source affirmed.

The Russians are announcing that they (unlike the regime of Bashar al-Assad) will avoid bombing non-combatants in the midst of the densely packed eastern city.

But Gazeta.ru notes that the Russian surface ships now assembled in the Mediterranean do not have the Kalibr cruse missile in their arsenal. There are reports of 3 Russian, nuclear-powered submarines in the same part of the sea, who do indeed have this capability. Cruise missile strikes is one of the more effective weapons against the militias, according to Russian sources.

Russian fighter jets taking off from the aircraft carrier will soon also hit rebel positions around East Aleppo.

The Obama administration has slammed the Russian air help given to the al-Assad regime and its Shiite militia allies fighting rebeles at East Aleppo. But with Obama a lame duck and Trump a buddy of Putin, Russia and Syria may feel they have a free hand to defeat the rebels complete in east Aleppo.

In one of his campaign debates a year ago, Trump said Aleppo basically has fallen. It wasnt true then, about the east of the city; it might be true soon.



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JURIST Guest Columnist Mohit Gupta, an International Law Masters student at South Asian University discusses an October ICJ ruling against the Marshall Islands concerning Indias failure to meet customary international law concerning halting developments of nuclear weapons  On 5 October, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in favor of India in a case [PDF] brought forward by the Republic of the Marshall Islands concerning its allegation levied that India had not fulfilled its obligations under customary international law, as it had failed in good faith negotiations to cease its efforts in the nuclear arms race or calls to simply disarm. Yet instead, the Marshall Islands stated that India continued to take actions to improve, expand and maintain its nuclear forces.

Strictly speaking, India won this case neither on merit nor on core jurisdictional basis. Rather, it won on the basis that there was no evidence of a legal dispute in the present case. Basically, under Article 38 of the statute of the ICJ, the function of the ICJ is to render decisions in accordance with international law disputes to which complying states submit. Under Article 36, paragraph 2 of the statute, the ICJ has jurisdiction in all legal disputes that may arise between state parties to the statute, as these member states have made a declaration in accordance with the provision.

Whether a dispute exists is a matter of objective determination for the ICJ. This must turn on an objective examination of the facts. For this purpose, the ICJ may take into account any statement-exchange between the parties. Here, the Marshall Islands sought to demonstrate that it had a dispute with India, referencing two Marshall Islands statements made in two different multinational forums to which India also happened to be present. The ICJ held that, given the circumstances and on the basis of those statements whether taken individually or together, it cannot be said that India was aware or could not have been unaware that the Marshall Islands alleged that India had breached its obligations. The nature of the exchange appears to have been, in other words, too remote.

Additionally, the Marshall Islands failed to show any bilateral diplomatic exchanges or official communications between it and India notifying India about breach of its obligations. Thus, in the present case, the ICJ upheld Indias objection regarding absence of legal dispute. It would have cost nothing to the Marshall Islands if it would have informed India about its breach of obligation before bringing this case to the ICJ. Critics will say that the Marshall Islands execution and process here demonstrate a major mistake which will draw shame at the international level.

What if the judgment would have been decided on merit?

Hypothetically here, the alternative ICJ judgment is considered: what if the Marshall Islands had conferred with India before filing the application concerning breach of Indias obligation under customary international law to ensure nuclear disarmament? That scenario would have held that the ICJ would not have denied the jurisdiction, at least not on the basis of absence of legal dispute. The ICJ would have likely proceeded to decide the case on merit, unless some other ground for challenging jurisdiction was sustained. Furthermore, had the judgment been instead decided on merit, a legal question would have arose: whether India could be made bound to ensure nuclear disarmament even if it was not a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) [PDF]. The court would first have considered the nature of customary international law, to which India would be bound if it were a party to the NPT, and second, the ICJ would have considered if India had the obligation to ensure nuclear disarmament and whether it had complied or breached that obligation.

In 1996, the ICJ contributed to the creation of the Nuclear Weapon Advisory opinion (NWA). One of the issues considered in the NWA was whether the obligation to ensure prohibition of the threat or use of nuclear weapons has its genesis in customary international law. The ICJ went on to look for joint requirements of practice, and opinio juris. The ICJ had held that a number of states had adhered to non-use of nuclear weaponry for the majority of the Cold War period and intend to continue in their adherence.

Further, the ICJ dealt with the question whether non-recourse of the use of nuclear weapons in last 50 years constitutes the expression of opinio juris. In order to trace opinio juris the ICJ looked into many General Assembly resolutions on the point. The ICJ found that many of them have been adopted with substantial numbers of negative votes and abstentions.

Thus, the ICJ concluded that although those resolutions are a clear sign of deep concern regarding the problem of nuclear weapons, they still fall short of establishing the existence of an opinio juris on the illegality of the use of such weapons. Moreover, it could also be argued that if nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945, this non-use is not on account of an existing or nascent custom but merely because circumstances that might justify their use have fortunately not arisen.

Thus, an obligation to pursue in good faith may have existed, as well as a responsibility to bring nuclear disarmament negotiations to a close under strict international control on the parties who signed the NPT, and who, by virtue of its provision under Article 6, are bound to it. However, the countries who have not signed this treaty could not be subjected to its principles. In that case, the majority of the ICJ said that there is no customary law obligation prohibiting the threat or use of nuclear weapons, hence it could be concluded that if there is no obligation prohibiting use of nuclear weapons, then there also cannot be an obligation to indulge in nuclear disarmament through negotiation.

Further, even if the Marshall Islands would have been able to show evidence depicting the existence of legal dispute, the ICJ would have assumed jurisdiction on that basis. Consequently, it would have been difficult for the Marshall Islands to win the case against India because India, as a non-signatory to the NPT is not bound to comply with Article 6 of this treaty to engage in nuclear disarmament, and as such this obligation could not be imposed for being part of customary international law. Further, it would have been highly unlikely for the ICJ to have taken such a bold step of ruling in favor of the Marshall Islands, as it is well-known that India would have never complied with any such decision. Arguably from a critical point of view, such a decision would have proved to be yet another instance in which the ICJ made a mockery itself.

Mohit Gupta is an International Law Masters student at the South Asian University.

Suggested citation: Mohit Gupta, Thinking Beyond the ICJs Marshall Islands Judgment, JURIST  Student Commentary, November 10, 2016, http://jurist.org/dateline/2016/11/Mohit-Gupta-Marshal-Islands.php
Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] on Thursday urged [report, PDF] Myanmars Parliament to align its draft prisons law with international human rights laws and standards. The draft prisons law, designed to repeal the 1894 Prisons Act, the 1900 Prisoners Act and the 1920 Identification of Prisoners Act, was introduced in July 2015, but rights activists claim it remains deficient [Irrawaddy op-ed] in many ways. According to AI, the bill lacks specifics on how prisons should be reformed to meet the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. It is reportedly devoid of legal safeguards against torture, ill-treatment, unlawful detention, and forced labour and contains almost no provisions relating to minimum standards of health, food, potable water, accommodation, sanitation, and hygiene. AI stated that it also retains provisions for solitary confinement and other means of restraint as disciplinary measures. If Myanmar is serious about improving prisons conditions and generally preventing torture and other ill-treatment, it needs to cast light into the dark cells where prisoners are kept and enact reforms that are worthy of the ambition, said Rafendi Djamin, AIs Director for South East Asia and the Pacific. AIs recommendations placed particular emphasis on compliance with the Nelson Mandela Rules [text, PDF]. The report offers suggestions for improving staff management, prisoner management and disciplinary measures.

Myanmar has long been critiqued for issues regarding human rights. Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] urged [JURIST report] the Myanmar Parliament in May to reconsider a proposed law that they say has the potential to limit free expression and peaceful assembly. Earlier in the same month Secretary of State John Kerry [official profile] pushed [JURIST report] for the country to reach for more democratic reform and address human rights issues. AI also suggested [JURIST report] in March that Myanmars democratic reform was an opportunity to improve conditions and break away from its previous deeply repressive legal framework that for years has fueled arbitrary arrests and repression. AI called for the immediate release of prisoners of conscience such as journalists, human rights activists, labor rights leaders, land activists and students who have been threatened, harassed and jailed for nothing but peacefully speaking their minds.
[JURIST] Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington all approved minimum wage increase initiatives Tuesday, while South Dakota [Ballotpedia results] rejected a measure to lower the minimum wage. In Arizona, Proposition 206, which proposed raising minimum wage from the current $8.05 to $10 in 2017 and to $12 by 2020, passed with 59.13 percent of the vote. The also initiative created a right to paid sick time off. In Colorado, Amendment 70, which proposed raising minimum wage from the current $8.31 to $9.30 in 2017 and then increasing it by 90 cents each year until reaching $12.00 in 2020, passed with 54.41 percent of the vote. Maines Question 4, which raises minimum wage in the state from $7.50 to $12 by 2020 and will continue to adjust minimum wage based on fluctuations in the consumer price index, also passed with 55.53 percent of the vote. Washingtons Initiative 1433 also passed with 59.54 percent of the vote, thereby increasing minimum wage from $9.47 to $13.50 by 2020. Like Arizona, the Washington initiative will also mandate paid sick time off. South Dakotas Referred Law 20 proposed lowering minimum wage for workers under the age of 18 from $8.50 to $7.50. It failed with 71.14 percent of vote in opposition to the initiative.

Minimum wage continues to be a controversial issue in the US. The US has not seen an increase [Reuters report] in federal minimum wage since 2009. In the absence of a federal increase, many states have responded by raising their own minimum wages. In January 14 states approved [Reuters report] increases in minimum wage from an average of $8.50 an hour to a little over $9. However, some states still, technically, have no minimum wage at all. Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama have no state minimum wage legislation [NCSL fact sheet] beyond the $7.25 per hour mandated by the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 [LOC backgrounder], Congress most recent legislative act on the minimum wage.
[JURIST] Former Chinese Deputy Minister, Zhang Liju, was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison after having been convicted of taking 2.4 million yuan ($354000.58 USD) in bribes. The Beijing Second Intermediate Court [official website, in Mandarin] handed down the sentence [SCMP report] along with a 500,000 yuan (USD $73,750) fine, finding that in exchange for the money, Liju approved projects and plans and assisted people in attaining employment. He was, however, given a lighter sentence as he offered a confession.

The Chinese government has increased the prosecution of domestic corruption increased following the appointment of President Xi Jinping in 2013. Last month Chinese officials announced [JURIST report] that 70-year-old former legislator Bai Enpei was sentenced to death for his part in taking bribes. In July a Chinese military court sentenced [JURIST report] former top General Guo Boxiong to life in prison for taking bribes. In April the Supreme Peoples Court of China clarified [JURIST report] that the maximum penalty for the crime of corruption in the form of embezzlement or accepting bribes amounting to high sums of money will be the death penalty. In February the Hangzhou Christian Council announced [JURIST report] that a prominent Chinese Pastor was under investigation for corruption involving the embezzlement of state funds.
The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) informed [ICC statement] the UN Security Council on Wednesday that the ICC wants to significantly expand investigations in Libya in 2017. The ICC began [ICC materials] work in Libya in 2011 to investigate crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution. According to Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, Libya is being made a priority due to the widespread violence, lawlessness and impunity that currently prevails in many parts of the country; by a desire to provide justice for victims of Rome Statute crimes, and to alleviate the suffering of those civilians who continue to endure the tragic consequences of the conflict in Libya; and finally, by the opportunities for further investigation that the Office has identified. By increasing the priority of Libya, the ICC will be applying for new arrest warrants and executing the new warrants in a timely manner. The ICC acknowledges that by making Libya a priority, it will have to allocate additional resources to Libya. Without receiving additional support from the UN Security Council, these resources will have to be removed from the investigations of other crimes. Therefore, the ICC is also requesting additional support from the Security Council.

Libya has remained politically unstable since the 2011 deposition of Muammar Gaddafi [JURIST backgrounder] and subsequent civil war. In August Libyas government received a vote [JURIST report] of no confidence. In May Bensouda told [JURIST report] the UN Security Council that justice and accountability were crucial aspects of achieving and maintaining peace in the country. Also in May Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported [JURIST report] that Islamic State militants had executed 49 people in the Libyan city of Sirte since seizing control in February 2015. The UN released [JURIST report] a report in February detailing a litany of violations and abuses being committed by both state and non-state actors in the Libyan conflict that could amount to war crimes. In January the internationally-recognized Libyan parliament voted [JURIST report] to reject a proposal by the then-UN-supported unity government to curb the countrys political crisis.
[JURIST] The Irish government announced Tuesday that it would submit its appeal within the week against the European Commissions [official website] demand that Apple pay back-taxes. In a statement on Tuesday, Finance Minister Michael Noonan [official profile] said [Reuters report] that the Irish government fundamentally disagrees with the European Commissions analysis and the decision left no choice but to take an appeal to the European Courts and this will be submitted tomorrow. Ireland and Apple both deny wrongdoing.

In September, Irish lawmakers voted [JURIST report] to appeal the ruling of the European Commission that would entitle the country to almost $15 billion of unpaid taxes from Apple. Noonan said that talks between the Fine Gael party and the Independent Alliance determined that allowing the ruling to stand could hurt Irelands ability to attract foreign investments in the future. Enda Kenny, Prime Minister of the Republic, gave an interview detailing how he is confident that the appeal will succeed because tax issues are a matter for each sovereign to decide, not the European Commission. Apple pays from almost 0-1 percent taxes on its profits in Ireland and the European Commission is claiming that the tech giant illegally funded profits through its Ireland headquarters to avoid higher tax payments.
The constitutional court of Italy overturned [judgment, PDF, in Italian] a mandate that went back to ancient Roman law, when it granted mothers the right to name their children with their own surnames on Tuesday. In its decision, the court declared that the practice of automatically naming a child with the fathers last name was unlawful. The case was referred to Italys highest court after an appellate court in Genoa initially ruled against an Italian-Brazilian couple who wanted to name their son both surnames, a practice that is traditional in South America. A lawyer for the couple argued that not allowing the parents to name their child with both names violated the mothers rights. In 2014 the European Court of Human Rights [official website] admonished Italys law that required a childs surname to be that of the father, declaring [court decision, PDF] that such a practice was based solely on discrimination on the ground of the parents sex, and was incompatible with the principle of non-discrimination.

Womens rights in Europe, and worldwide, have long been an issue. Last March the UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and practice [official website] warned [press release] that the progress made in achieving womens rights remains under continuous threat. They stressed that, no country in the world has achieved full substantive equality of women. The Working Group, composed of five rights experts, expressed concern that women still do not have the rights they deserve in much of the world, indicating that political participation of women remains low, that women still do not receive equal pay rates in much of the world and that women are vastly underrepresented in the leadership of decision-making bodies. That February the UN reported attacks [JURIST report] on young girls for seeking an education in at least 70 countries. Same-sex marriages are also being reformed in Italy. This May the Italian parliament voted [JURIST report] in favor of recognizing same-sex civil unions.
Voters in Washington, DC, on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of DC becoming the fifty-first US state. Advisory Referendum B [text, PDF] asked voters if the DC Council should petition the US Congress to admit the state of New Columbia to the Union. The plan, which will be submitted to Congress, seeks admission to the Union, approval of a Constitution, approval of the boundaries advocated by the DC Statehood Commission [official website] and the guarantee of legislative representation. The referendum reportedly passed with 86 percent of voters [Washington Times report] choosing yes for statehood. The DC Statehood Commission plan would divide the current District of Columbia into the aforementioned New Columbia and a small federal district containing the federal buildings at the center of the city. Further, the plan would give the new state voting representatives in Congress. The current district has only a non-voting member in the House of Representatives.

While DCs referendum will have to await for congressional action, other ballot measures from this years general elections will have more immediate effect. Colorado voters approved a measure [JURIST report] that allows terminally ill adults to self-administer legal drugs. Voters in California, Nevada, and Massachusetts approved recreational marijuana [JURIST report] usage for adults. Mississippi approved a voter ID law [JURIST report], and Colorado rejected a universal healthcare measure [JURIST report].
The new system will help ease overcrowding and reduce pollution at Tan Son Nhat.

Vietnam aviation authorities officially put into operation a new method of navigation designated as SID/STAR RNAV 1 at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday.

This method enables aircraft to fly on any desired flight course within the coverage station-referenced navigation signal, a huge improvement over conventional methods which are dependent on ground navigation.

RNAV 1 requires little radar navigation aid, therefore decreases navigated distance and eases the amount of communication and workload on air traffic controllers and pilots. Air traffic controllers can also maintain a safer and more accurate standard deviation thanks to restriction on one-point air traffic flows.

Compared to conventional methods, RNAV 1 is 10 to 15 percent more efficient, and also reduces fuel consumption and pollution.

The adoption of RNAV 1 comes at a time when Tan Son Nhat Airport is dealing with severe air traffic congestion with a daily average of 600 flight departures and arrivals. Previously, authorities had to restrict the number of flights during peak hours as a temporary solution.

RNAV 1 will be adopted at airports in Hanoi and Da Nang in early and late 2017 respectively, before being implemented across the country by 2020.

Tan Son Nhat is already overburdened by the flights and passengers. It received more than 26.5 million passengers last year, exceeding its capacity of 23 million, and the number is expected to increase to around 31 million this year.

The rapid growth of the local aviation market in recent years has overwhelmed airports in major cities and led to regular flight delays and cancellations.

Figures from the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam showed that more than 20,000 flights, or 15.8 percent, were delayed in the first six months this year. That was up slightly from 15 percent a year ago.

Related news:

> Saigon airport to reduce flights during rush hour

> Saigon airport expands international terminal with a place to snooze
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The environment ministry has set up two stations to monitor wastewater discharged from Formosa Ha Tinh's plant.

The Vietnamese government on Thursday said wastewater from Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, the culprit behind the mass fish kill along Vietnam's central coast last April, now meets environmental standards.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has set up two automatic monitoring stations near the Vietnamese unit of Taiwanese conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group in Ha Tinh Province. Samples taken at each station three times a day indicate that wastewater discharged to the sea from the plant has met government standards since July 27.

Formosa has so far finished building nine separate wastewater treatment systems. They have also run three other stations for treatment of domestic, biochemical and industrial wastewater before releasing it to the sea.

Previously, the Taiwanese company processed wastewater from various sources through a single station before discharging to the sea.

From late September, Formosa has added six indicators to its automatic monitoring system. Data from the system is transferred directly to Ha Tinh Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the General Department of Environment.

The environment ministry said in July it had detected 53 violations in design, construction and operation committed by Formosa. The most serious of them all was the illegal adoption of the coke wet quenching technology, which is cheaper and dirtier than the initially planned coke dry quenching method.

Formosa will start replacing the wet technology with the dry one on March 31 next year. The process is expected to be completed by June 30, 2019. While the installation is under way, the company promises to set up a treatment station to clean coke before processing, the Vietnamese ministry said.

In early April, wastewater from the plant killed tons of fish along some 200 kilometers of Vietnams central coastline.

About 41,000 fishermen and over 176,000 people dependent on the industry in Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien - Hue have been affected by the disaster, the government said in a report in July.

Formosa Ha Tinh Steel made a public apology and fulfilled its compensation commitment after transferring $500 million to the Vietnamese government in August.

Related news:

> Compensation starts to reach fishermen after Formosa's toxic spill

> Formosa's fish kill robs Vietnams tourism of millions of dollars: officials

> Provincial court rejects lawsuits filed against Taiwanese fish killer Formosa
A military aircraft crashed in Phu Yen Province on August 26, killing two. Photo by VnExpress

14 military members and one civilian were killed in four crashes between June and October.

Vietnams defense ministry has punished more than 40 military officers including two high-ranking ones for four deadly military aircraft crashes this year.

Major General Nguyen Minh Hoang, a spokesman of the military, said at a meeting on Wednesday that the four crashes between June and October caused "serious losses" to the Air Force.

According to previous reports, 14 military members and one civilian died in the four incidents.

Details of the punishment and the identities of the officers were not revealed.

Investigation by the Ministry of National Defense found safety problems and that officers have failed to draw lessons despite continuous crashes.

Flight safety checks are still conducted in simple and untimely ways, Hoang said, who also questioned training.

One Vietnam Air Force fighter jet crashed on a training mission off the north-central coast on June 14. One of the two pilots died.

During the search for the jet and its pilots, a Coast Guard airplane crashed in bad weather two days later and all nine crew members on board were dead.

On August 26, an Air Force jet trainer crashed in Phu Yen Province in the south central minutes after take-off after the engine broke down, killing one crew member and a civilian on the ground.

On October 18, a military captain and two sub-lieutenants were killed as a helicopter crashed during a training session in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau.

The latest incident involved a commercial helicopter, and the military is still working with the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam to investigate the cause.

The ministry is going to inspect all aircraft, many of which are old, and review training activities conducted by units under the Air Force.

Hoang said the ministry has plans to send pilots overseas for further training as a part of a modernization plan.

There were also several fatal crashes in 2014 and 2015.

Related news:

> Military aircraft crash kills 1 in central Vietnam: official

> Vietnam Defense Ministry confirms all crew members dead in CASA plane crash

> All 3 bodies found after helicopter crashes in southern Vietnam
Sponsorship advertisements will appear among the flowers for the first time.

A man waters flower decorations on Nguyen Hue's Tet Flower Street in early 2016. Photo by VnExpress/Duy Tran

Ho Chi Minh City will line its pedestrian boulevard with flowers and advertisements in the last week of January.

Municipal workers will begin decking Nguyen Hue with flowers starting at 7 p.m. on January 25. At 10 p.m. on January 31 -- the fourth day of the lunar calendar -- the walkway will be cleared and normal traffic will resume.

The city will close lanes on either side of the pedestrian walkway to vehicle traffic as long as the flowers remain in place.

As in previous year, signboards bearing the names of the events corporate sponsors will hang from street lights and corners. This year, however, advertisements will appear among the flowers.

According to Vietnam's unique zodiac system, 2016 is the Year of the Rooster. For generations, Saigon's families have marked the coming of a new year by donning crisp new clothes and taking photographs standing among downtown displays of bright flowers.

Nguyen Hue has traditionally hosted the displays with the exception of the previous year, when the municipal government spent $19.7 million to converting it to a pedestrian walkway that opened in April 2015.

The popular destination closes to vehicle traffic from 6-11 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.

This year, the municipal government will license a series of food and drink concessions along the walkway.

The much-anticipated displays will take 15 days to set up and an evening to sweep away.

Vietnam has yet to decide how many days it will grant for the Lunar New Year holiday, which is two and a half months away. Vietnam's labor ministry has suggested two options (seven and ten days); the Ministry of Home Affairs has called for the shorter of two options.

Related news:

> Vietnam all set for long holidays in 2017

> Vietnam weighs record-long Lunar New Year break

> Where in Asia people get the longest Lunar New Year break?
Protesters take to US streets over Trump victory

Protesters walk during a protest against Republican president-elect Donald Trump in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. November 9, 2016. Photo by Reuters/Kamil Krzaczynski

'I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country,' said 22-year-old protester Adriana Rizzo.

Thousands of people protested across the United States on Wednesday over Republican Donald Trump's surprise victory in the U.S. presidential election, blasting his campaign rhetoric around immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

On Wednesday evening, thousands of protesters thronged streets in midtown Manhattan while at a park further downtown hundreds who had gathered screamed "Not my president."

In Chicago, roughly 1,000 people attempted to gather outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower downtown while chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA." Chicago police closed roads in the area, blocking the demonstrators' path.

Protesters hold signs during a protest against Republican president-elect Donald Trump outside Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. November 9, 2016. Photo by Reuters/Kamil Krzaczynski

"I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."

Protesters railed against Trump's marquee campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep out undocumented immigrants and other policies perceived as affecting people of color.

"I'm particularly concerned about the rise of white nationalism and this is to show my support against that type of thing," Rizzo said.

Earlier this month, after a Ku Klux Klan newspaper declared its support for Trump, his campaign rejected the support and said that "Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form."A representative of the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the protests. In his victory speech, however, Trump said he would be president for all Americans, saying, "It is time for us to come together as one united people."

Protesters hold signs in opposition to the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. November 9, 2016. Photo by Reuters/Mary Schwalm

Organizers also planned rallies in New York, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia and elsewhere for Wednesday. In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people staged a march through the city's streets, police said.

Earlier in the day, some 1,500 California students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its progressive politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

People try to reach Trump Tower as they protest against Republican president-elect Donald Trump in the neighborhood of Manhattan in New York, U.S., November 9, 2016. Photo by Reuters/Eduardo Munoz

Hundreds of high school and college students walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other cities in the Bay Area, Richmond, El Cerrito and Oakland.

A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday morning in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally.

Chanting in Spanish, "The people united will never be defeated," the group held signs with slogans such as "Not Supporting Racism, Not My President" and "Immigrants Make America Great."

Many of those students were members of the "Dreamers" generation, children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration.

"A child should not live in fear that they will be deported," said Stephanie Hipolito, one of the student organizers of the walkout. She said her parents are U.S. citizens.

Protesters take to US streets over Trump victory A call to end racism outside the White House

There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence.

Wednesday's demonstrations followed a night of protests around the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump's political upset.

Demonstrators smashed storefront windows and set garbage and tires ablaze late Tuesday in downtown Oakland, California. A few miles away, students at the University of California, Berkeley protested on campus.

Related news:

> Donald Trump wins White House in stunning upset

> Trump victory hurts (even in Ho Chi Minh City)

> Trump accused of inappropriate touching by two women - NYT
From time to time, the United States identifies certain individuals and entities as crucial to the operation of terrorist organizations. These include persons who have committed, or are deemed to pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism, persons who have provided support or services to designated terrorists or in support of acts of terrorism, and persons who are owned or controlled by, or act for or on behalf of, designated terrorists.

When such an individual or entity is identified, the U.S. Government places that person's name on the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons, the SDN list. Assets within U.S. reach in which the designated person has an interest are immediately frozen, and the designated person is locked out of the U.S. financial network. U.S.persons are generally prohibited from conducting business with a designated person. In this way, the United States disrupts financial support networks for terrorists and terrorist organizations.

In a push to disrupt the operations, fundraising, and support networks of the terrorist group Hezbollah, on October 20 the U.S. Department of the Treasury, designated Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Kallas, Hasan Jamal-al-Din, Yosef Ayad, and Muhammad Ghaleb Hamdar. Also designated was Global Cleaners S.A.R.L., a business owned and managed by Adham Husayn Tabaja. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also designated Kallas, Jamal-al-Din, and Global Cleaners S.A.R.L. Tabaja and portions of his business network were sanctioned by the Treasury Department last year.

While employed by Al-Inmaa Engineering and Contracting LLC, a Treasury Department-designated company owned by Adham Husayn Tabaja, both Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Kallas and Hasan Jamal-al-Din provided financial services to Hezbollah.

Yosef Ayad is an operative for Hezbollahs External Security Organization, which is responsible for planning, coordinating, and executing Hezbollahs terrorist attacks worldwide.

Muhammad Ghaleb Hamdar is another External Security Organization member who was also designated for acting on behalf of Hezbollah by assisting in the planning of and supporting acts of terrorism. Two years ago, he was arrested in Lima, Peru on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks there.

Todays joint action with Saudi Arabia underscores the strength of U.S. and Saudi cooperation in disrupting Hezbollahs worldwide commercial and financial infrastructure, said Adam Szubin, Treasury Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Hezbollah continues to plan, coordinate and execute terrorist attacks around the world, and Treasury will continue to aggressively target Hezbollah and those supporting its terrorist activities.
Struggling with an Addiction?

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KEARNEY  A Kearney man has been found guilty of threatening a state employee with a knife.

Enrique Arganda, 18, pleaded no contest Thursday in Buffalo County District Court to attempted use of a deadly weapon, a serrated steak knife, to commit a felony and felony terroristic threats.

The conviction comes after Arganda threatened Rick Moses, a caseworker with the state department of Health and Human Services, when Moses tried to take Arganda into custody. Its unknown why Moses wanted to take Arganda into custody.

Judge John Icenogle ordered Arganda to undergo a presentence investigation to be conducted by the state probation department. Those findings will be sent to Icenogle for him to use in determining a sentence.

Sentencing will be in June.

Records report the incident as follows:

At about 2 p.m. Jan. 6, Moses and Jeff Baker, another caseworker, went to Argandas home at L&M Trailer Court at 11th Street and Second Avenue to try to take Arganda into custody.

However, Arganda tried to punch Baker in the face, then grabbed the knife and threatened to cut Moses.

Arganda then ran from the scene but was arrested by Kearney Police Department officers a short time later.

Records say Arganda is a known member of a street gang. In 2009, the Legislature made it possible for judges to sentence offenders to longer prison time if they are gang members.

Arganda is being held at the Buffalo County Detention Center on 10 percent of a $100,000 bond. He faces up to 20 years in prison for the weapon charge and up to five years on the threat charge.

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GRAND ISLAND  Three California women arrested in Hall County for possessing about $39,000 in forged travelers checks have been indicted federally.

Arean Adanandus, 30, of Richmond, Calif.,; Khadija A. Thompson, 30, of Oakland, Calif.; and Lanesha L. Paxton, 19, of Stockton, Calif., have all been charged in U.S. District Court with one count of possession of 342 $100 Visa and American Express travelers checks and six counts of passing forged travelers checks at Kearney businesses.

The trio had each been charged in Hall County Court with felony possession of a forged instrument. Hall County Attorney Mark Young said he planned to dismiss the charges since the women now face felony charges.

They had been scheduled for preliminary hearings in Hall County Court Wednesday.

Nebraska State Patrol Sgt. Jeromy McCoy said the women were arrested on Interstate 80 about three miles west of the Highway 281 exit after local authorities received reports from the Kearney Police Department that counterfeit checks had been passed at Kearney stores in exchange for merchandise.

During the stop, troopers found more then $38,000 in counterfeit travelers checks in the womens minivan. The checks had the same number as the counterfeit checks passed in Kearney, McCoy said.

Adanandus and Paxton have been removed from the federal courts trial docket and are scheduled for plea hearings Feb. 24. Thompsons case was also removed from the trial docket. Her plea hearing had been scheduled for Wednesday, but was continued to March 2.
Once it had convinced the Supreme Court to redefine marriage for the entire nation, you would think the Obama administration would have paused and let the country catch its breath. It didnt.

Instead, it raced to impose radical new gender identity policies on states, employers, hospitals and even our school children  all without a hint of congressional approval.

Late last month, the Supreme Court agreed to take a case that will either roll back this massive government overreach or allow the administration to redefine what it means to be a man and a woman under law.

First, some background. The Obama administration says a persons sex is not something that can be objectively determined by birth. Rather, it is merely a placeholder assigned at birth, much like a Social Security number, only far easier to change.

According to the administration, ones actual sex is discovered later in life, can range from male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female, and doesnt depend on genetics, anatomy, or dressing, acting, or looking a certain way.

While people should be free to believe whatever they want about these new gender identities, they should not be forced upon people who have reasonable scientific, philosophical and religious objections for not going along.

The administration has nevertheless threatened to strip schools of their funding unless teachers and students treat others according to their self-declared gender identities instead of biology.

Hearing this call, a gender-dysphoric teen girl in Virginia sued her school district to get full access to the boys bathrooms. Recognizing the competing interests at issue and trying to be compassionate, the school had already accommodated her by installing single-occupancy unisex facilities, but the student was not satisfied. The Obama administration swiftly weighed in on the case, called Gloucester County School Board v. G.G. Incredibly, it argued that when Congress banned sex discrimination in education in 1972, it really banned gender identity discrimination and that the schools accommodation was not an act of sensitivity, but bigotry.

The Supreme Court has decided to hear the case, and if the rule of law still means anything, the court will take this opportunity to rein in an out-of-control executive branch.

This case will have ramifications far beyond school shower, bathroom and dorm policies. Thats because the Obama administration has unilaterally redefined sex to mean gender identity in a host of federal anti-discrimination laws covering more than education  including housing, health care, employment, lending and federal contracting  even though the American people, through their representatives, have repeatedly rejected such extreme proposals.

The case will also affect the ability of states to protect their citizens privacy and safety interests. Twenty-four states have already sued the administration for illegally dictating their states bathroom and shower policies. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory deserves tremendous credit for leading this effort and for standing against the progressive bullies in the media, big business and the federal government.

Well find out what the Supreme Court thinks about all this soon enough. With any luck, the justices will uphold our laws as written and completely reject the administrations radical social experiments.

Jim DeMint is president of the Heritage Foundation. Roger Severino is director of Heritages DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society.
Barbara Errecart

Lifelong resident Barbara Errecart contributed heavily to Elko as a businesswoman and volunteer. Her public service culminated in holding a seat on the city council for two terms.

Barbara Roylance was born in Utah in 1938 to Lloyd and Eleanor Roylance. Her fathers work as a railroad carpenter brought the family to Elko in 1940.

Barbara graduated Elko High School as a National Mathematics Scholar and attended the Colorado School of Mines to study geology. She was also a pilot and a member of the Civil Air Patrol, becoming the first woman in Nevada to fly a jet.

In 1958, she married Basque immigrant Jack Errecart, who then owned the Silver Dollar Bar. Together they bought the Clifton Bar and Hotel, one of the local Basque hotels, and ran it for more than 35 years. Jack served the customers while Barbara did the bookkeeping for the hotel. They also raised three children: Kimberly, Lindia and Jacques.

Due to her childrens activities, Barbara volunteered in Girl Scouts, 4-H, Little League, and Basque dancing. She was a member of Soroptimist International and helped organize the Downtown Business Association.

In the 1970s, Barbara entered public service as a member of the steering committee for Project Lifesaver and contributed to the South Fork Dam project. She also worked to raise funds and labor for the Greenbelt Park in the downtown corridor. Barbara was on the city planning commission from 1981-1982.

In 1983, Barbara was elected to the city council. She became the first woman elected to the city council and the second woman to serve on the council since Stella Gammick completed her late husband Johnnys term in 1967. She served two terms and completed her second term in 1991.

Barbara continued working at the Clifton and started Errecart Information Services. She was honored with the Nevadas Role Model Award in 1995 and served on the Nevada Rural Housing Authority board.

Over the years, Barbara envisioned a third bridge over the Humboldt River west of Fifth Street. After it was completed, the bridge and the boulevard, where Northern Nevada Regional Hospital is located, were named for her.

Barbara and Jack were married nearly 40 years before his death in 1997. She later met and married Lee Chambers. They moved to Mountain City and traveled around the country taking part in excavation projects in Boston and Santa Cruz, Calif.
A real estate sold sign hangs in front of a west-end Toronto property Friday, Nov. 4, 2016. The number of homes sold throughout the country last month hit a record for October, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Tuesday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the official reopening of the Veterans Affairs office in Sydney, N.S. on Thursday, November 10, 2016. Closed under the Harper government as a cost-saving measure, the Veterans Affairs office will employ 15 people and serve approximately 2200 veterans in the region. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
ELKO  Elko County Commissioners invite the public to join them in honoring the men and women who lay their lives on the line to protect the freedoms and rights of citizens of the United States of America at the 11th annual Elko County Veterans Day Parade.

The parade begins at 11 a.m. Friday downtown. It will be led by distinguished grand marshals and Elko Countys Vietnam War veterans, with a special recognition of those no longer with us.

Honor Guard representatives from the Elko County Sheriffs Office, Elko Police Department and Nevada Highway Patrol will present a flag-folding ceremony, after which Boy Scout Troop 91 will help escort the grand marshals to the war memorial where a special wreath will be placed.

All Elko County veterans, current military personnel and their families are encouraged to participate. Contact the County Managers office to participate on the National Guard or Elko County floats.

Parade entry forms are at www.elkocountynv.net and at the Elko County Managers Office, 540 Court St., Suite 101. For information contact Michele or Shyann at 738-5398.
ELKO  With the passing of the Question 2, Elko is still trying to figure out the impact the law will have for the city and the county.

Question 2 approves recreational marijuana use and allows someone to carry up to an ounce of marijuana on them. The law also allows someone to grow up to six marijuana plants on their property as long as the plants are in a secured area.

Current marijuana laws will be in effect until Jan. 1.

Assembly John Ellison was concerned about the effects Question 2 would have on law enforcement and the crime rate.

Were putting more of a burden on emergency services, he said. Look at the statistics in Colorado.  There was more driving impaired once they legalized and accidents went way up. They also talk about the young people doing more break-ins. Its minor crime but its still a break in to someones property.

Ellison also mentioned that he was particularly concerned about the impact on law enforcement since Question 1 and Question 2 are going into effect at the same time.

Were putting more of a burden on emergency services and theres nothing to pay for them, he said. Thats something that the city is going to have to look at.

Ellison was not the only one who had questions and concerns about the way the law would affect Elko. He said his office was crowded with people who were concerned about the way the drug would be taxed and the zoning laws that would have to be implemented.

Local officials are also trying to figure out what impact the law will have. Elko County Manager Rob Stokes said he is still waiting on directions from the state before any decisions are made regarding zoning laws.

Part of what the state Department of Taxation and the Legislature will be looking at is what authorities still align with local government as far as planning and zoning mechanisms, he said. Internally well be looking at that but were still going to wait for direction from the state.

Stokes, and the rest of the county, is also waiting to find out how the drug will be taxed and what the tax revenue will be put toward.

While Elko tires to plan for the legalization of recreational marijuana research will be done on how similar communities dealt with it.

Assistant Elko City Manager Scott Wilkinson said they will be studying how other areas in Nevada have adjusted their zoning laws when they were addressing the impact of similar laws.

If something new comes down to our planning department they look at communities within our area, within the state, as a starting place because the NRS (Nevada Revised Statutes) is applicable throughout the state, he said. Then we like to do a little research for areas outside of our communities also, but typically within the Western area.

Ellison will continue to do his own research in order to better understand the next steps Elko should take but he is hoping things will be sorted out by January.

It doesnt go into effect until January so weve got time to understand the bills, the laws and what the impact will be, he said.
Frank Stricker, 26 of Magna was stopped for driving too fast on the freeway, said Nevada Trooper Natalie Hernandez.

The vehicle was traveling east around 1:15 a.m. Sunday, she said, when it was pulled over. Upon investigation, the patrol officer discovered marijuana in the vehicle. The trooper also learned that the mans license had expired and he was driving an unregistered vehicle.
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Over the past month, Ive slowly rediscovered my love for writing. Though I have never considered myself a strong writer, I have fond memories of it providing an outlet for my thoughts. The history essays that everyone dreaded writing in high school were some of my favorite assignments. I spent days wording and rewording my sentences while my classmates wrote them quickly the night before they were due. It felt exciting to produce a piece of work that I could read over and over again. Sometimes I wish I could go back to having writing assignments. With the hectic schedule of undergrad and medical school, I have abandoned my creative outlet for many years.

While in Oregon, I had some time for introspection. I realized that I needed an outlet for my energy otherwise I would internalize my emotions as I had been for so long. For me, writing is a way not only to better define my feelings and memories, but to release them into the world. I often feel that writing about the experiences that have held me down help me to feel less burdened by them. It wasnt until a month ago that I realized the therapeutic value of journaling. I journal both the good and the bad  the things that excite me and the things that frustrate me. Putting both down make me feel balanced and allow me to let go of extra energy.

Recently, I have started writing a series of letters. These are letters that I will likely never send to their intended recipients. The most freeing one to write was to my uncle who passed away a few months ago to alcohol-related cirrhosis. I forgave him for his addiction and his actions. I shared with him my fond memories of him treating me to great home-cooked meals whenever I visited him. I wrote it as though he could respond and write back. It helped me say goodbye in my own manner.

Ive written another letter to an attending physician whom I recently trained under. I wrote about how I felt so out of touch with humanity while working with her. I revealed that her many business oriented lectures to me revealed how her concern for money seemed greater than her concern about her patients lives. I told her that I was disappointed in the care she was providing her patients. I admitted to her how much I struggled with my worries that I would end up just like her: overworked and jaded by the medical training process. While that letter may never reach her eyes, writing it helped free me. It freed me of some of the pain that had come along from that experience.

I wrote good things about her to balance things out. I wrote about how I liked that she squeezed her patients hands whenever she was about to give them bad news. I wrote about how she always made sure to show her nurses that they were appreciated. I could tell that she loved to teach me and other medical students but was jaded by her own experiences growing up in a household of physicians and constantly being bombarded with medical facts. I realized then that working with her, though miserable at the time, provided me with a great experience. Rereading it helped me realize that I had the opportunity to learn from her mistakes and ensure that I wouldnt make similar ones.

I dont think writing is necessarily a good release for everyone. Most people I know dont enjoy doing it, and therefore it becomes more of a task than a therapeutic outlet. But in case youre like me  a previous lover of writing  I encourage picking it back up. Whether in medicine or not, we have to find ways to stay sane and enjoy life. Writing has helped me hold onto my humanity and release my frustrations into the world. For many other people, their creative outlet is in music or the arts. I hope that this post inspires you to revisit those outlets and spend time doing the things you once loved or discovering new talents.

Medicine has a universal way of suppressing free time and making it hard to meet your personal goals of staying healthy. As much as we make time for physical activity and eating well, I believe that its just as important to have time to ourselves exploring our hobbies. We have to find ways to maintain our sanities while navigating our professional lives. I hope to continue with writing in attempts to do just that. My call to action to other medical students is that you find something that helps you do the same.

The author is an anonymous medical student who blogs at Naked Medicine.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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I dreaded Mr. Ls office visits. His mouth half vacant of teeth and his clothes reeking of hand-rolled cigarettes, he regularly demanded medicines he didnt need. He was pushy and thankless. I frequently declined his requests. He stuck with me anyway.

Over the years he grew in orneriness. Divorced, childless, and unemployed, he declared one day that he was tired of living. He was reasonably healthy. He disavowed depression. Would I help him die?

Even if aid-in-dying werent illegal in the state where I practice medicine, Mr. Ls request would have been unreasonable. He was just shy of 60 and lacked a life-threatening diagnosis. But he raised for me a critical question that has been absent from the debate surrounding right-to-die legislation. Might doctors be inclined to facilitate the deaths of patients they dont like?

Despite our best efforts, we doctors have always found some patients more frustrating than others. In a 1967 article called The Difficult Patient, the psychiatrist Mounir Ekdawi describes how staff in large English mental hospitals come to view some patients as difficult. This opinion is slowly formed, but, once established and repeatedly expressed in nursing reports and medical records, it rarely alters and may have a powerful influence on the patients career in hospital. Difficult patients are often transferred to lower level hospital wards and lack a consistent clinician to care for them.

Whats more, difficult patients can actually provoke doctors to wish them dead. In a 1978 New England Journal of Medicine article Taking Care of the Hateful Patient, the psychiatrist James Groves divides hateful patients into four types: dependent clingers, entitled demanders, manipulative help-rejecters, and self-destructive deniers. Of these, self-destructive deniers are the most hateful, inciting in the physician, Groves says, the secret wish that the patient will die and get it over with.

Some doctors today deliberately rid their practices of unpleasant patients. The sociologist Sandra Sulzer recently asked mental health clinicians about their experiences caring for patients with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, a condition that affects nearly 6 percent of Americans at some point in their lives. She found that patients labeled difficult are routed out of medical care, directly and indirectly, a process she calls demedicalization. What better way to demedicalize a patient than to facilitate a suicide? And such patients are already prone to suicide: more than 70 percent of people with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder attempt suicide and up to 10 percent are successful.

Many advocates of aid-in-dying legislation emphasize its safety. The bill approved by the New Jersey state assembly two weeks ago, for example, requires that a patient have less than 6 months to live. The patient must be mentally competent and must meet with a doctor twice before receiving the lethal prescription. The idea is that these safeguards will protect vulnerable patients from feeling pressure to end their lives.

But are patients immune to the influence of their doctors? Are their decisions purely autonomous? Of course not. And do physicians attempt to persuade patients to accept their advice? Of course they do. The American Medical Association knows this, which is why its position has been to oppose the legalization of physician-assisted suicide as fundamentally incompatible with the physicians role as healer.

Hippocrates understood this, too. As part of his injunction not to harm patients, he thought doctors should not poison them.Rather, he insisted that physicians should aim to cure when possible and to provide trustworthy counsel always.

As our society pushes to expand the scope of an individuals right to self-determination, requests such as Mr. Ls will undoubtedly become more prevalent. The question that remains unresolved but that demands consideration is whether the physician  as trusted adviser, healer, and comforter  should also be the one to prescribe death.

Lydia S. Dugdale is a primary care physician and editor Dying in the Twenty-First Century.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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A 67-year-old patient, whom Ill call Herb, recently came to see me for a check-up for his diabetes. He has suffered from complications from diabetes in the past, and his most recent numbers  including his A1c  were poor.

I sat down to talk with Herb, but before I could say anything, he got straight to the point. Herb lives on a fixed income. Although he has Medicare coverage, his out-of-pocket cost for insulin is $400 a month. He knew his A1c would not be good.

I cant afford my insulin, he said. I havent had it in six weeks.

And no wonder. Since 2001 the wholesale price of a vial of Lantus has spiraled 513 percent, and the cost of a vial of the short-acting insulin lispro ballooned 585 percent  from $35 to $234. During the same time, the price of a vial of human insulin rose 555 percent, from $20 to $131. Between 1987 and 2014, the wholesale price of a vial of Humulin U500  used by more and more people with diabetes  rose from $170 to $1,200

Herb is not alone in his dilemma. Prices for a host of brand-name and generic prescription drugs have skyrocketed. The widely used antibiotic doxycycline hyclate soared from $20 for 500 capsules in October 2013 to $1,849 in April 2014. The cholesterol medication pravastatin sodium surged from $27 to $196 for a one-year supply.

Like far too many seniors, Herb was faced with a tough decision, and he opted not to adhere to recommended treatment.

Without corrective action, the problem is likely to get worse. Ten years ago, four percent of U.S. workers had high-deductible plans through their employers, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Today, one in four workers have such plans  a troubling trend because we know that patients with high-deductible plans are more likely to delay or skip recommended care.

Family physicians are very concerned about this complex patient care issue. Delegates at the recent American Academy of Family Physicians Congress of Delegates adopted an amended resolution that took aim at the skyrocketing price of EpiPens. They directed the Academy to call on the FDA and Congress to establish mechanisms to prioritize and fast-track competitive drug options for widely used life-saving or life-sustaining drugs that may be subject to monopoly power. They also referred to the Board a resolution advocating for prescription drug cost-saving measures for Medicare.

According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, nearly 90 percent of Americans think drug companies should be more transparent about how they set prices, more than 80 percent think the federal government should be allowed to negotiate with manufacturers for better drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, and nearly 80 percent think prescription drug prices are unreasonable.

The medical community agrees. Working together, organizations representing physicians, hospitals, nurses, patients, insurers and pharmacists are addressing the causes of high drug prices. The medical community is advocating for our patients by calling on Congress and other stakeholders to find a solution that will allow our patients affordable access to the medications they need.

Michael Munger is president-elect American Academy of Family Physicians. This article is adapted from the AAFP Leader Voices Blog.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Congratulations on your victory @realDonaldTrump. As our President, Columba and I will pray for you in the days and months to come.
It has been one year since a Webb County deputy was shot dead inside his home by Laredo police officers.

Police were called to the Shiloh Crossing Apartments in North Laredo, where they received information of a possibly armed man threatening to commit suicide.

Police say this is where they found Webb County Deputy Sheriff Cesar Cuellar, Jr., 25, and the situation turned deadly.

Since then, a grand jury determined the two officers involved in the shooting would not stand trial.

Cuellar had only been with the Sheriff's Department for a few months.
A man arrested and charged with murder earlier this year is back in jail after fleeing from police.

Police received a call on Thursday morning about shots fired at the 1300 block of East Price. Police tried to stop Alexis Guzman and Jorge Benavides, who were in a car witnesses claim was around the area when the shots were fired.

Guzman and Benavides led police on a chase, but were later detained.

Guzman had been arrested and charged with the first murder of the year. He was linked to the murder of 53-year-old Antonio Gonzalez, who was shot dead in his home in the 300 block of South Texas Avenue.

Guzman had been out on bond. However, he is back in the Webb County Jail.
It's been helping to keep local college kids healthy for sometime now.

The Palomino Pantry, now in its third year, offers the low income students of Laredo Community College a bag of nutritious food every month.

The pantry is open to LCC students who meet income eligibility. Each event helps 70 - 80 students.

The pantry is organized by Judge Hector Liendo: "Most of the students aren't working, and they need some food sometimes. So we thought we would fill that need. So we come in once a month, here to LCC Main Campus, and next month to LCC South Campus."

For more information on how to donate for next month's Palomino Pantry, you can call 523-4395.
As part of the nationwide search to find Irelands Best Young Entrepreneur, the Local Enterprise Office launched a campaign in August to find the best young entrepreneurs in County Kilkenny in three distinct categories, with a 50,000 investment fund up for grabs.

Last week, 20 young entrepreneurs, shortlisted from almost 30 applicants, came together for an intensive business boot camp, in association with LEO Carlow.

The boot camp was designed to help participants to develop the skills required to take their entrepreneurial ideas and businesses to the next level. From the concept stage to reality, and building a viable business plan to commercialising their business, the boot camp covered areas including business strategy, financial planning and sources of finance, targets and performance measurement as well as investor proposals.

third year

This is the third year of the competition, which was open to individuals aged 18 to 30, and sees each of the three LEOs having a total fund of 50,000 to invest in the three winning businesses, under the following categories: Best idea (not yet trading)Best start-up, Best established business.

Each of the young entrepreneurs who attended the boot camp will present their business plan and pitch to a judging panel in their region in the coming weeks to vie for a share of the investment fund available from thee LEO.

The county-based stage of the competition will culminate with the naming of the three Best Young Entrepreneurs in Kilkenny which will be held in Council Chamber on 19th December 2016.

Speaking at the boot camp, Fiona Deegan, Head of Enterprise (Acting), Local Enterprise Office Kilkenny said We are delighted with the response we received for the 2016 search for Kilkennys best young entrepreneurs. Now in its second year, the competition has once again unearthed a wealth of young entrepreneurs in the region who we need to nurture and support. The aim of this initiative is to encourage and support a culture of entrep-reneurship among young people in Kilkenny, to promote entrepreneurship as a career choice, and to encourage the establishment and development of new innovative businesses. This is hugely important for job-creation, as two thirds of all new jobs are generated by businesses in the first five years of existence, and therefore more start-ups and a thriving entrepreneurial culture will lead to more jobs being created.

Ms. Deegan continued to say These brave young men and women have decided to take that next step to make their business a success. The business boot camp offers the shortlisted applicants the opportunity to hone in on their business idea, and focus on what is necessary to make them successful.

For further information Visit www.ibye.ie for more information on Irelands Best Young Entrepreneur.
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There were three wonderful nights of drama in Goresbridge over the Bank Holiday weekend in Ionad Dara.

A total of nine visiting theatre groups competed over the three nights in two sections of competition under the watchful eye of Adjudicator Paul Brennan.

This is the seventh One Act Drama Festival to be held in Goresbridge and was hosted by Kilcumney Players under the auspices of the Drama League of Ireland(DLI). Connollys Red Mills were the Main Sponsors of Goresbridge Drama Festival.

The festival was also supported by Goresbridge Credit Union and Donohoes Horse Sales, Goresbridge while the Friends of the Festival Programme was a great success also.

The Moat Theatre from Naas, Co. Kildare won the Open Section with Plaza Suite - A Visitor from Hollywood by Neil Simon.

Moat Club also picked up Best Director Award courtesy of Padraic Doyle; Best Actress for the outstanding Sarah Gallagher and a Stage Design award for Katie O'Connell.

This was was a really strong production with tremendous pace and energy from actors Sarah Gallagher and Conor OConnell.

The excellent play, Subtraction, written by Kevin McFillen, took second place for Lucan Drama.

George Hogan

George Hogan was awarded Best Actor for his role in this production. The other groups in the Open Section were Square One from Bray, An Nuadha from Maynooth and Fr. Matthew Players from New Inn, Co. Tipperary.

The Confined Section had 4 participating groups and was won by Blue Hat Productions from Whitechurch, Cork for their production of Two by Jim Cartwright.

This was a very strong play with Sean Kelliher and Claire Kelliher playing multiple parts to great effect. This again was an extremely good presentation. Second place in the Confined section went to New Ross Drama Workshop with Interior Designs by Jimmy Chinn. Martina Kavanagh received an Adjudicators award for her role as Amy.

Camross Drama Group and Coolgreany Drama Group, both from Co. Wexford, also competed in this section.

There are 24 One Act Festivals around the 32 counties of Ireland in October/November. Groups are allowed to compete in 5 festivals and the 6 top scoring groups in each section will go on to compete in the All Ireland Finals in early December.

The Finals this year will take place in the Mill Theatre, Dundrum, Co. Dublin when Tom Byrne will adjudicate.
Demand-driven production of liquid fuels from regenerative energy sources is a major element of the energy turnaround. Production of synthetic fuels from solar energy and carbon dioxide extracted from air is the objective of the SOLETAIR project started now by INERATEC, a spinoff of KIT, in cooperation with Finnish partners. Together, the partners plan to take into operation the first chemical pilot plant worldwide. It is so compact that it fits into a ship container and produces gasoline, diesel, and kerosene from regenerative hydrogen and carbon dioxide.



The plant consists of three components. The direct air capture unit developed by the Technical Research Center of Finland (VTT) extracts carbon dioxide from air. An electrolysis unit developed by Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) produces the required hydrogen by means of solar power. A microstructured, chemical reactor is the key component of the plant and converts the hydrogen produced from solar power together with carbon dioxide into liquid fuels. This reactor was developed by KIT. The compact plant was developed to maturity and is now being commercialized by INERATEC.



Further informationen in the Press Release 156/2016.





sur, 09.11.2016
A new process chain is to be developed for the synthesis of methanol from renewable resources or by-product streams. (Photo: TVT/TU Kaiserslautern)

To reduce the consumption of fossil materials in the future, renewable resources are planned to supply basic substances for chemical industry. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) now cooperates with research institutions and industry partners to study potential uses of the carbon contained in biomass and of the carbon dioxide arising as a by-product in industrial production. The project is aimed at developing a novel process chain for the synthesis of the basic chemical substance methanol. The OptiMeOH collaboration is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with EUR 1.4 million.

The energy turnaround has already given rise to a number of carbon-free alternatives for the production of power and heat. Chemical industry, however, will continue to depend on carbon for producing its products. As biomass is a sustainable carbon source available all around the globe, it might be used to cover part of the demand of chemical industry. In particular, use of organic residues from industry and municipal waste management services is considered. Researchers of KIT, DVGW (German Technical and Scientific Association for Gas and Water) test laboratory, Stuttgart University, and TU Kaiserslautern, in cooperation with three industry partners, have now launched the project Optimized process chain for resource-efficient methanol synthesis  OptiMeOH. They plan to develop an innovative process chain for the synthesis of methanol either without the use of fossil resources or by reusing carbon dioxide from undesired by-product streams in industry. Carbon utilization and resource efficiency will be improved considerably in this way, Dr.-Ing. Siegfried Bajohr says. He heads the Catalytic Fuel Conversion Unit of the Engler-Bunte Institute of KIT.

Methanol is an important basic material in chemical industry. It consists of one carbon, one oxygen, and four hydrogen atoms and can be used in many ways, e.g. for the production of formic and acetic acid, formaldehyde, as well as of varnishes and paints. In 2015, worldwide consumption of methanol amounted to about 65 million tons.

A bubble column is part of the setup, by means of which carbon dioxide from biomass and exhaust gases of chemical industry is to be utilized as a carbon source. (Photo: KIT)

The OptiMeOH project is scheduled to have a duration until the end of 2019. With its help, methanol of fossil origin is to be replaced partly by renewable methanol. It is funded with about EUR 1.4 million by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the funding initiative CO2Plus  Stoffliche Nutzung von CO2 zur Verbreiterung der Rohstoffbasis (CO2Plus  Utilization of CO2 for Broadening the Raw Material Base). In addition, about 300,000 Euros will be provided by the industry partners, such that the total budget of the research project amounts to about EUR 1.7 million.

Theoretical and experimental studies among others will focus on energy-efficient biogas production by high-pressure fermentation. The biomass is planned to be fermented at pressures of 30 bar and higher. In addition, a novel reactor concept will be developed for methanol synthesis and an innovative process will be designed for processing industry gases by chemical gas scrubbing with ionic fluids.

It is one of our main tasks to study the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that can be achieved by technical improvements, chemical engineer Nike Trudel of KIT says. The new process chain will be compared to established processes and assessed with respect to various economic and ecological factors. A feasibility study will cover use of this technology at two different locations, a big industrial park and a decentralized facility. The process will be analyzed holistically, its efficiency and ecobalance will be compared to those of methanol production processes based on coal, oil or natural gas, Bajohr adds.

The OptiMeOH project group consists of research institutes and industry partners at a 50:50 ratio. The project partners are the KIT with its Engler-Bunte Institute and its DVGW test laboratory, Stuttgart University with its Holistic Balancing Unit of the Department of Building Physics, and TU Kaiserslautern with its Chair of Separation Science and Technology. The industry partners are Ifraserv GmbH & Co., Hochst KG that operates the Industriepark Hochst in Frankfurt/Main, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Europe, Duisburg, which has specialized in plant construction, and keep it green, a planning and project office in Starnberg, which focuses on feeding regenerative gases into the public grid and on new technologies to improve carbon utilization for biomass conversion.

Being The Research University in the Helmholtz Association, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,800 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.
LARAMIE, Wyo.  These are dark days for public lands and environmental conservation, with Donald Trump set to assume the presidency of the United States. President-elect Trump will have the power to assign political appointees to oversee all of the federal agencies who manage western public lands on behalf of all Americans, oversee the recovery of rare and imperiled wildlife and plants, as well as agencies established to prevent pollution and environmental destruction of clean air and clean water. We call upon President-elect Trump to eschew the impulse to appoint anti-environmental politicians or corporate shills to top posts in his administration.

The fact that Mr. Trump has advanced Republican Representative Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) to his short list of candidates for Secretary of Interior indicates a hostile stance toward public lands and responsible land stewardship. Rep. Lummis has been an entrenched opponent of conservation throughout her tenure in the House, even voting against the Wyoming Range Legacy Act, a bill supported by both Republican Senators from Wyoming as the dying wish of Senator Craig Thomas (R-WY). Rep. Lummis anti-environmental voting record has been both consistent and extreme throughout her tenure in the House of Representatives.

Western public lands belong to all Americans, and are treasured for their beauty, wildness, and diversity. We are concerned that assaults against our bedrock environmental safeguards will amplify during the coming four years, and it will be more important than ever to have vigilant environmental watchdogs like Western Watersheds Project, willing to take strong stands against unlawful abuses of our public lands, waters, and wildlife.

Conservation should not be a partisan issue. The cost of reversing progress on curbing carbon emissions and addressing climate change would be catastrophic  in dollars, lives, property, and irreversible ecological damage. All Americans have an ownership stake in our millions of acres of public lands. Private uses of public lands must only occur where they are sustainable, fostering the health of the land and supporting thriving populations of native wildlife, which also belong to the public and are managed in trust for the public good.

Americas legacy and inheritance of public lands, waters, and wildlife must be carefully managed for the long-term health of the land and its wildlife, not sacrificed for the short-term corporate profits of an elite few. The mantle of responsibility for environmental stewardship that now passes to President-elect Trump must not be taken lightly.
HANOI, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official market and indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi at 0103 GMT.

Nov 10 Nov 9 USD/VND mid-point 22,043 22,025

USD/VND interbank 22,320/22,340 22,330/22,340 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.45/37.12 36.30/36.82

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank quotes are indicative bid/ask prices.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co, the gold manufacturer.

Interbank offered rates are indicative, quoted from market sources.

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)
HANOI, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0420 GMT.

Nov 10 Nov 9 USD/VND mid-point 22,043 22,025 USD/VND interbank 22,300/22,365 22,330/22,340 USD/VND unofficial 22,340/22,355 22,340/22,360 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.25/36.62 36.30/36.82

Interbank offered rates Overnight 0.9-1.6 0.7-1.5

1 week 0.9-1.8 0.9-1.6

1 month 1.6-2.2 1.8-2.1

3 months 3.5-4.7 3.6-4.6

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)
(Adds further details on court hearing, background on case)

By Nate Raymond

Nov 9 (Reuters) - A former Rabobank trader from Australia was sentenced on Wednesday to three months in a U.S. prison for conspiring to manipulate Libor, the leading benchmark for pricing financial transactions, to the bank's advantage.

Paul Thompson, the Dutch bank's ex-head of money market and derivatives trading for Northeast Asia, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan after pleading guilty in July to conspiring to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.

While Rakoff agreed with prosecutors that prison time was warranted, he cited several mitigating factors justifying a short term, including health issues suffered by Thompson and some family members.

"I don't think under all of the factual circumstances a long period of incarceration is required," Rakoff said.

In court, Thompson, 50, apologized for his actions.

"I wish I had stood up against this activity and had not participated in it," he said.

Libor, or the London interbank offered rate, underpins trillions of dollars of financial products globally from mortgages to credit cards. The rate is based on what banks say they believe they would pay if they borrowed from other banks.

U.S. and European authorities have spent years probing whether banks tried to manipulate the rate to benefit their own trading positions.

The investigations have led to around $9 billion in regulatory settlements with financial institutions and charges against several individuals.

Those included Thompson and six other former Rabobank traders charged by the U.S. Justice Department after the bank in 2013 reached a $1 billion deal to resolve related U.S. and European probes.

Prosecutors said Thompson participated in a scheme with others to rig the U.S. dollar and yen Libor rates to benefit Rabobank's trading positions, in which traders sought to influence the bank's Libor submissions.

Thompson, a derivatives trader based in Hong Kong and Singapore, waived extradition in July after being arrested in Australia in October 2015 while two ex-Rabobank traders from the United Kingdom, Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti, were undergoing trial in New York.

Both were convicted in November. In March, Allen and Conti were sentenced to two years and one year in prison, respectively. Both are appealing. Three other former Rabobank traders--Paul Robson, Takayuki Yagami, and Lee Stewart--have pleaded guilty and have yet to be sentenced. A seventh, Tetsuya Motomura of Tokyo, is considered a fugitive by the U.S. government.

The case is U.S. v. Thompson, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-cr-272.

(Reporting By Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Tom Brown and Diane Craft)
SANTIAGO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Brazilian central bank chief Ilan Goldfajn said on Thursday that policymakers would act to ease pressure on the local real currency, which tumbled in the wake of the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.

Speaking to reporters at an event in Chile, Goldfajn said the central bank will only resume the reduction of its stock of traditional dollar swaps once market conditions allow it.

The real plummeted 4 percent on Thursday, following other Latin American currencies that fell sharply on worries of a potential trade shock under a Trump government.

(Reporting by Anthony Esposito; Writing by Alonso Soto; Editing by Daniel Flynn)
JAKARTA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Indonesia will seek to "optimise" its domestic sources of economic growth due to the risk of the United States becoming more protectionist under the presidency of Donald Trump, the finance minister said on Thursday.

Trump stunned the world by defeating heavily favoured Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential race on Tuesday. Under Trump, the United States may review its commitment to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries, as well as its trade relations with other countries such as China, Sri Mulyani Indrawati told reporters.

"If the U.S. becomes protectionist, the risk of a global weakening will become more real," the former managing director at the World Bank said, adding that she is also concerned about Trump's views on climate change.

The United States is the biggest market for Indonesia's non-oil and gas products, taking $11.6 billion worth of exports from the Southeast Asian country in the first nine months of this year.

Central bank governor Agus Martowardojo said that if the United States imposes higher tariffs on Chinese imports, that will create a knock-on effect on China's demand for Indonesian products. "There will be global uncertainty."

(Reporting by Hidayat Setiaji; Writing by Eveline Danubrata; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
STOCKHOLM, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Sweden's Debt Office will not be given a bigger mandate to take positions in the crown currency , the government said on Thursday.

"The mandate for positions in the Swedish currency will be unchanged at 7.5 billion crowns ($825.70 million)," the government said in a statement.

In its yearly guidelines, published in late September, the Debt Office called for the limit on taking positions in the crown - cut by the previous government - to be raised again to 20 billion crowns from the current 7.5 billion crowns. The crown is widely seen as undervalued.

($1 = 9.0832 Swedish crowns)

(Reporting by Stockholm Newsroom; Editing by Simon Johnson)
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By Kitsap Sun Staff

The Kitsap Sun received precinct voting data for some of Kitsap's high interest races. Maps show countywide voting trends for the fast-ferry measure, the South Kitsap county commissioner's race, and the presidential election. The maps are based on Tuesday's results from the Kitsap County Auditor's Office.

FAST FERRY PLAN

The greatest support for Kitsap Transit's fast ferry plan intuitively centered around the proposed terminals of Kingston, Bremerton and Southworth and dwindled the farther away from the service people lived. Of 210 total precincts, 100 voted "yes" in ballots counted through Tuesday, combining for a total of 50.8 percent.

Among the most supportive precincts were Bremerton 001 (downtown), home of many developers and businesses who pushed the measure, at 73.9 percent in favor. Bremerton 005 (between Olympic College and Port Washington Narrows) followed at 70.9 percent. They were joined by most of West Bremerton and Manette.

All of northeastern Kitsap was supportive, topped by the S'Klallam 418 precinct at 67.2 percent and Kingston 430 precinct at 65.4. The plan also received backing from Port Orchard all the way out Beach Drive through Manchester to Southworth and beyond.

Besides the terminal areas, Bainbridge continued to support fast ferries as in past attempts. Though the island already enjoys half-hour service to Seattle via the state car ferries, all 22 precincts voted for fast ferries. Overall, they were 65.4 percent in favor. Residents believe fast ferries might remove drivers from congested Highway 305.

Trident 101, with sailors wanting quick access to Seattle, was an island of support in western and southern parts of the county. Transit officials and consultants suggested trimming those outlying precincts from the district to increase the odds of winning without sacrificing much sales tax revenue, but the transit board rejected it.

The worst showing was 31.8 percent in the Bella Vista 413 precinct, between Poulsbo and Hood Canal.

In 2003, only 27 of 184 precincts supported the first fast ferry proposal. That increased to 52 precincts in 2007.

PRESIDENTIAL RACE

Kitsap County was carried by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, with her leading the vote 52.3 percent over Republican president-elect Donald Trump, who earned 38.1 percent of the vote in ballots counted on Election Day by the Kitsap County Elections Division.

Trump's greatest concentration of support in Kitsap County came from voters in the rural south and western precincts. The "reddest" counties in Kitsap showed support for Trump ranging from 54 percent to 66 percent of voters, and those precincts generally lie on the Kitsap-Mason border and in South Kitsap near the Pierce County line. Areas near the Bangor base  Old Frontier, Luoto and Clear Creek, also had support for Trump ranging from 53 to 57 percent of voters in those precincts.

But, Hillary Clinton's support in Kitsap County was much more intense in the precincts carried by her than Trump's support in the precincts he won. Clinton's support in the "bluest" precincts topped 80 percent in some precincts, including many on Bainbridge Island.

COMMISSIONER'S RACE

The precinct map for the Kitsap County Commissioner District 2 race helps explain why Chris Tibbs was leading Charlotte Garrido in the four-way Aug. 2 primary election by 7 percentage points but lost to Garrido in the general election by a similar margin.

Tibbs got a solid majority in most of the rural south and western precincts of the district, which encompasses South Kitsap and parts of Bremerton, including downtown. In the Hunter-Glenwood area, for example, Tibbs prevailed in the general election with precincts tallying 59-65.8 percent support. Garrido won most precincts in city centers, including downtown Port Orchard and Bremerton.

But with all of Kitsap County voting in the general election, Tibbs lost ground in North Kitsap and Bainbridge Island. Bainbridge was solidly pro-Garrido, and the margins by which she won were significant, ranging from just more than 70 percent to a high of 82 percent, the last in Winslow.

Tibbs, a political consultant, argued during the campaign for a change in the process that would eliminate this skewed result, which has historically been the pattern in this race.

Garrido also had hefty support in Poulsbo, Suquamish and Port Gamble, with "yes" votes above 60 percent in many precincts. Exceptions were Hansville, which went to Tibbs, 50.7 percent, and three other precincts in the Lofall area.

The Kitsap County precinct results for the presidential race mostly mirror the commissioners' race, but Tibbs made inroads in precincts to the west of Poulsbo, parts of East Bremerton, and in South Kitsap, precincts in the rural southeast of the county. These included areas close to the Pierce-Kitsap line, including Olalla, where Garrido lives.
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A tourist inside the Mercado Central in Valencia. MONICA TORRES

Many people have been seduced by its beauty, from the novelist Manuel Vicent, who recreated it in Un tranvia a la Malvarrosa (or Tramway to Malvarrosa), to the designer Miuccia Prada, who held a large private party inside with Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.

And even though growing numbers of tourists can be seen within its walls these days, the Valencia Central Market, that gem of Modernist architecture, is celebrating its 100th anniversary without losing the purpose for which it was originally built: selling fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, pickles and other food under a spectacular structure made of wrought iron, ceramic and glass.

The Mercado Central represents one of three pinnacles of Valencias urban architecture

Its a little risky to say so, but I havent seen another one like it, says Carles Dolc, an architect and urban planner. Of course it is one of the best markets in Europe, but also of America. There are bigger ones, like the one in Santiago de Chile, which is enormous. But from an architectural point of view, there is no comparison.

Sprawling over 8,162 square meters  enough space for 959 food stalls  the market was a very costly project at the time. It also seemed to be under some kind of curse. The decision to build it was made in 1881, but another 47 years went by before the opening ceremony in 1928. King Alfonso XIII laid the cornerstone in 1916, which is why the centennial is being observed this year.

The city of Valencia, which was sponsoring the project, called a public competition in 1910. The winners were two Catalan architects, Francisco Guardia Vial and Alejandro Soler y March. They designed the market, but for reasons that are unclear, but which were apparently related to payment, they refused to take charge of the construction phase, a task that fell to the municipal architects Enrique Viedma and Alejandro Romani.

The dome of the Mercado Central is a big attraction. Monica Torres

The building incorporated elements which were a novelty at the time, such as an enormous underground parking space for loading and unloading food crates in a crowded part of town. The irregularly shaped plot that the market sits on was previously occupied by residential buildings and two convents that were torn down to make way for the Mercado Central.

The market came to symbolize the Valencian bourgeoisies desire to modernize the economy.

And the market also symbolized the evolution of craftsmanship, applied to industry and architecture: locksmithing, ceramics, glass, carpentry..., notes art historian Daniel Benito. The market was like a showcase of everything that the city was capable of doing. And it was treated like a cathedral of food. The grandiose nature of the buildings upper portion matches the quality of the produce sold beneath.

Construction work was delayed by an abundance of political and financial crises that rocked City Hall at that period of time.

In the meantime, another Modernist market was built in Valencia within the space of three years, the Colon market, explains Benito. Perhaps it went up so fast because it was located in a wealthy neighborhood. Curiously, its creator was Francisco Mora, whose bid for the Mercado Central a few years earlier had failed.

From an architectural point of view, there is no comparison

Architect Carles Dolc

The building rises over the esplanade left behind by an old branch of the River Turia. This area has been home to local markets for over 1,000 years, beginning with the Muslims who used to set up their food stands near the city wall, says Angel Martinez, who has co-authored a book about the history of the Mercado Central.

The Mercado Central forms part of golden triangle of Valencias urban architecture, together with the Lonja de la Seda and the Church of Sant Joan, says Dolc. The space occupied by the three has been a hub of activity, hosting processions, parties and even executions. The last victim of the Spanish Inquisition, Gaieta Ripoll, was hung inside the market after being accused of heresy.

Clogged by traffic for decades, the market square is being gradually pedestrianized. In the meantime, a new parking space is going up behind the building to facilitate access by car.

Just like a century ago, much of Valencianos lives continues to play out around their central market.

English version by Susana Urra.
From guns stolen in the dead of night, to trucks with guns inside taken in broad daylight. Three men from the ArkLaMiss share their stories as responsible gun owners whose firearms ended up in the hands of criminals.

For hunting or protection, many in the ArkLaMiss exercise their second amendment rights - like Jonathon Kennedy, Regan Cobb, and Michael Correro.

The three men have been handling guns for most of their lives.

"People are opinionated. Some people like weapons and some people don't. And, that's their prerogative. As long as we have that right, I think we should exercise it," says Kennedy.

But these three gun owners have more than just bearing arms in common. All three had firearms stolen from their vehicles.

Kennedy says his small handgun, the one he keeps in his truck for protection, went missing one night while he was bartending in Monroe. He didn't realize it was gone until the next morning.

"I went to unlock my truck and my key fob didn't work. So somebody had tampered with my alarm system. No windows smashed, never knew anyone got in there. And one day, I went to take it out and it wasn't there," Kennedy says.

Kennedy filed a report with the police, and offered them his gun's serial number. He says his gun was found and returned within about six months. But, it came back to Kennedy with a story.

"Apparently, it was a drug deal gone bad," he says. "The guy who had stolen my weapon pulled my gun out, and shot the man in the leg. So, I think they caught him a few blocks from where he was, wrestled him, and traced the serial number. Since I turned it in, he got popped with a felony charge for theft."

Happy to have his gun back, Kennedy still keeps it on him for protection. But others like Regan Cobb and Michael Correro haven't been as lucky. Cobb says his truck has been broken into about a dozen times, with a total of seven guns stolen.

"Out of those times, every time I left a gun in the vehicle, they did steal them," Cobb says.

Of Cobb's seven stolen firearms, only two have been returned. In a case where it wasn't just his guns - but his truck, too - were taken in broad daylight at Cobb's business in Monroe. With the help of local law enforcement, Cobb's two guns, and his truck, managed to be found in less than an hour.

"When we got there, they had already taken the guns out of the vehicle, sold the guns," Cobb says. "The only good thing about it is they did catch the guy that stole them, and they did recover the guns at a different location where he sold them."

In an eerily similar instance, Michael Correro says thieves took off with his truck and guns near Jackson, Mississippi.

"I was transporting a car from Atlanta back to [Monroe]. I pulled over to Walmart to get the straps tight on the car. It was about midnight when it happened. Two guys approached me and wanted to look at the car and take pictures. At that time, another vehicle pulls up on the driver's side of my truck, jumps in the truck, put the truck in gear, and takes everything," Correro says.

Correro was left stranded. Like Cobb, he immediately called police. His truck was found about four hours later, but without his gun.

"About a year and a half later, I get a call from Jackson Police Department. [They] told me what the model of the gun was, serial number of the gun - everything matched," Correro says.

Correro thought he was catching a break. He was thrilled his stolen firearm had been tracked down after all that time.

"After a month, I still hadn't heard from them. I started calling them back, couldn't ever get anybody. Finally, I got somebody on the phone, and then they changed their story to it was a different gun with the same serial number," Correro says.

Now, Correro and Cobb are no longer taking any chances when it comes to the security of their firearms.

"A lot of my guns I have had forever. So they mean a lot to me. They're not something that I want to get stolen. So, I try what I can to not let [theft] happen," Correro says.

Cobb echoes the sentiment.

"It's kind of the gun owner's responsibility to make sure they're put up, [and] make sure they're in the safe. Make sure you get them out of the vehicle. Make sure you don't leave them in the vehicle," Cobb says.

Kennedy says one bad incident will not scare him from something he loves.

"If my vehicle got stolen, I wouldn't not have one again," he says. "It's just part of me. It's part of what I do and who I am. I'm not going to not own something because it's nice, and somebody's scaring me away from enjoying something that I love."

In part two of "Arming the Enemy", local law enforcement and a pawn shop owner share their insight on the growing issue of firearm theft in the ArkLaMiss.
Spanish police arrest a suspected Jihadist in Valencia earlier this year. Jose Jordan

Four Spanish nationals, three men and a woman, have been arrested in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta accused of recruiting and radicalizing minors for the self-styled Islamic state, or ISIS.

Spanish police said the four had set up a stable structure in the city on the North African coast to recruit minors under the direction of Daesh [the Arabic term used by Spanish police], which urgently needs to recruit new volunteers to the terrorist cause.

Spains Interior Ministry said the four had set up a permanent communication channel with ISIS combatants in Syria who showed them how to recruit new volunteers by using themselves as examples of the fight against the infidel.

There are an estimated 130 Spanish nationals fighting for ISIS in Syria

Police said that the four had taken extreme security measures, setting up a small cell to avoid setting off a chain reaction of arrests in the event of one of them being captured.

The investigation that led to the arrest shows that the four were linked to three members of another cell arrested in February and who are currently under arrest.

Figures for May 2016 show there were 129 Spanish nationals in Syria and Iraq fighting for the Islamic State. Another 29 had died and 20 had returned to Spain.

Barcelona stands out among all Spanish cities as a hotbed for radicalization: 28.2% of detainees lived in the Catalan capital or surrounding area.

Meanwhile, the exclave cities of Ceuta and Melilla, located along the northern coast of Africa, remain the main places of origin of Spanish Islamists.

Growing numbers of female Jihadist prisoners are becoming recruiters for the so-called Islamic State, encouraging young women to go to Iraq and Syria to marry fighters there, says Spains prison authority.

English version by Nick Lyne.
Rajoy and his PP will have to build a relationship with the Trump administration from scratch. Tarek (EFE)

After assuming that Hillary Clinton would win the US elections, the Spanish government must now urgently improvise ways to build bridges with an administration led by Donald Trump.

The Foreign Ministry had drawn up two confidential lists with the names of potential key members of the future US government: one listed Clinton aides, the other suggested Trump advisors.

Rajoy may find solace in the fact that most of Europes leaders are in the exact same situation

But there was a huge difference between both: the people on the Clinton list were familiar names to Spanish officials; those on the Trump list were unknown entities.

When George W. Bush cold shouldered Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq, the latter was able to turn for help to then-King Juan Carlos, who had a good working relationship with George Bush Sr.

But Spains Mariano Rajoy cannot count on the royal familys mediation this time around. Juan Carlos son, Felipe VI, is friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton, but not with the billionaire who will be sitting in the Oval Office from January.

It will also be of little help that during Hillary Clintons tenure as secretary of state, she enjoyed a good relationship with the Spanish foreign ministers Miguel Angel Moratinos and Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, or that her running mate in her presidential bid, Tim Kaine, is a fluent Spanish speaker.

Madrid was not expecting Trump to win the US elections, and has no Plan B to fall back on. RHONA WISE (AFP)

In theory, the ideological similarities between the conservative Popular Party (PP) and the Republican Party in the US should help officials from both countries find common ground. But for once, this is not the case.

Spanish PP deputies in the EU parliament did not attend the Cleveland convention that nominated Trump in July, but they did travel to the Philadelphia convention where Clinton was put forward as the Democratic Party candidate.

And PP leaders met with House Speaker Paul Ryan after he distanced himself from Trump following revelations of the latters offensive comments about women in a video.

Rajoy may find solace in the fact that most of Europes leaders are in the exact same situation, with the sole exception of Hungarys Viktor Orban. And Trump has no particular reason to dislike Spain, beyond his general contempt for Europe as a whole.

Rajoy may not count on the royal familys mediation this time around

Yet Spain is in a particularly vulnerable situation because it is one of the countries that stood to benefit the most from the TTIP trade treaty. Trump, a champion of protectionism, may easily slam the door on that project.

And then there is Trumps open hostility towards Mexico, a strategic partner of Spains. The devaluation of the Mexican peso following Trumps victory is already having an impact on Spanish companies with investments in Mexico, government sources have admitted.

And Trumps pledge to review Obamas overtures to Cuba could also harm Spanish companies plans to do business on the island.

If Spanish diplomacy does not get its act together soon, Rajoy will have to wait until the spring to see Trump in person at the summit that NATO has called in Brussels to inaugurate its new headquarters.

English version by Susana Urra.
By Lee Hyo-sik





Jean-Christophe Darbes, chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Korea

Automakers and other exporters here will shift their production to the United States, following Donald Trump's win in the U.S. election, according to the head of the European business community here on Thursday.

Jean-Christophe Darbes, chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Korea (ECCK) said it will become more difficult for Korean companies to ship their products to the world's largest economy as President-elect Trump has vowed to prop up trade barriers against foreign products in a bid to revitalize U.S. manufacturing.

"Korea's exports to the United States will likely decline as Trump, who has vowed to introduce protectionist measures, becomes the 45th U.S. president," Darbes said. "Given that businesses react quickly to changes in the market, more Korean companies will set up plants in the United States to continue to do business there. But the problem is that this will have adverse effects on Korea's efforts to create decent, high-paying jobs at home."

The chairman advised that Asia's fourth-largest economy nurture service industries and find other ways of generating much-needed jobs as automakers and other firms in manufacturing move their production out of the country.












Korea faces pressure to import more, export less



By Lee Hyo-sik



Korea's free trade deal with the United States will be put to the test as President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to scrap or drastically change the pact, analysts said Thursday.



They say Korea will be pressed by Trump, who called the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUSFTA) a "destroyer of U.S. jobs," to import more from and export less to the world's largest economy.



In any shape or form, Asia's fourth-largest economy will have to make concessions to the incoming U.S. administration to keep the KORUS FTA alive.



Analysts say exporters of steel and chemicals among others will face a more unfavorable business environment in the United States, adding that Korea should persuade the Trump government that the free trade pact has been a win-win partnership for both.



"Given what Trump promised to his supporters during the election campaign, it is inevitable that Korea will face greater difficulties in selling its goods in the United States when he enters the White House," said Chang Sang-sik, director of the FTA study department at the Institute for International Trade, affiliated with the Korea International Trade Association.



"I don't think the Trump administration will abolish the trade pact, but instead demand Korea revise it in a way that the U.S. exports more to and imports less from its Asian partner," Chang said.



He expects Trump to more frequently impose anti-dumping duties and take other protectionist steps to curb the influx of steel and other made-in-Korea goods into the country.



"Still, we have some time to prepare for his anti-free trade stance because he will first deal with multilateral pacts, such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)," he said.



In 2015, Korea posted a $33.8 billion trade surplus with the United States. The surplus has been increasing since 2012 when the KORUS FTA went into effect. Trump and his followers have repeatedly been calling the agreement "unfair" for the United States, arguing that it has eliminated millions of American jobs.







Unfavorable environment



Yun Won-sik, executive vice president of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) echoed Chang's views, saying that major Korean exporters will face increasingly unfavorable business conditions in the United States.



"Although it is too early to say what steps the Trump administration will take at the moment, it is certain that Korea will face greater pressure to open its legal and other services industries, and curb its shipments to the United States," Yun said. "It is unlikely that Trump will nullify the KORUS FTA but will instead choose to revise it in favor of U.S. companies. He will certainly raise trade barriers to keep out foreign goods to revitalize America's faltering steel and other traditional manufacturing industries as he promised to marginalized blue-collar workers."



To alleviate the fallout of Trump's protectionist trade policies, the Korean government should mobilize all resources to convince the incoming U.S. administration that the KORUS FTA is beneficial for both sides.



"It is not true that only Korea has benefited from the pact. Both sides have been the beneficiaries. Even the U.S. government report backs this up," he said. "Trade officials here have a lot of work to do."



In June, the International Trade Commission (ITC) of the U.S. Department of Commerce said the KORUS FTA has been good for American interests, saying the agreement is estimated to have improved the bilateral merchandise trade balance by $15.8 billion last year.



This means that although the U.S. saw a $28.3 billion deficit in its trade with Korea last year, if it wasn't for the KORUS FTA, the deficit would have grown to $44.1 billion.




South Korea's finance minister said Thursday the government will move swiftly and firmly to stabilize the local financial market amid rising uncertainties over the new U.S. president-elect's economic policies.

"A change of the U.S. economic policies will intensify uncertainties in the financial market and the real economy, coupled with the future British exit from the European Union and a Chinese slowdown," Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said in a ministerial meeting on pending economic issues in Seoul.

The meeting came a day after he chaired an emergency gathering of government ministers Wednesday due to the unexpected results of the U.S. presidential election.

"If necessary, the authorities will take immediate and resolute market stabilizing measures," said Yoo.

South Korea's financial market tumbled Wednesday on news of Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index shed 45.00 points, or 2.25 percent, to 1,958.38. The index fell to an intraday low of 1.931.07 during the session. The tech-heavy KOSDAQ index fell 3.92 percent to 599.74.

The local currency closed at 1,149.50 won against the U.S. dollar, down 14.50 won from the previous session's close.

Despite the short-term concerns and widened fluctuations in the financial market, the finance minister said Trump's campaign promises like increasing jobs in the manufacturing sector will give new chances to Asia's fourth-largest economy.

"The government will break down the campaign pledges of the new U.S. president-elect and check the impact on our economy, exports and trade," Yoo said. "I will make efforts to keep various channels for Seoul-Washington cooperation in a bid to maintain the mutually beneficial relations." (Yonhap)
Strategy and Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho, right, speaks at an economic ministers' meeting, Thursday. Other participants are Finance Services Commission Chairman Yim Jong-yong, left, and Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol. / Yonhap



By Yoon Ja-young

The government is scrambling to draw up preemptive steps to counter any changes in economic policies in the United States under Donald Trump.

At an economic ministers' meeting, Thursday, Strategy and Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho expected the strengthening of protectionism to increase uncertainties on the global financial market as well as the real economy.

"Risk aversion will increase in the global financial market amid growing uncertainties in emerging markets for the time being," he said.

He expressed concerns that protectionism will likely weigh on the global economy.

The finance minister said the government will take preemptive measures to contain volatility in the financial market through monitoring and stabilization measures.

Kim Hyung-joo, an economist at the LG Economic Research Institute said the financial market will continue fluctuating until it digests uncertainties to some extent.

"If Clinton stood for stability, Trump represents uncertainty in diverse policies. His campaign pledges lack concreteness," Kim said.

The market is unlikely to avoid further fluctuations depending on Trump's remarks on economic policies, he said.

While U.S. monetary policy will not be directly affected by Trump, Kim said anticipated uncertainties in the financial market under his presidency may make it difficult for the Fed to raise its key rate in December.












By Jhoo Dong-chan



President Park Geun-hye's historic state visit to Iran, which Cheong Wa Dae has boasted as a multitrillion-won "economic jackpot," is likely to have ended in vain.



It has been six months since Cheong Wa Dae's big media hype over President Park's "sales diplomacy," saying it hit a total of 52 trillion won ($45 billion) in deals with an Iranian counterpart, but a single deal has yet to be officially concluded so far.



Most agreements during Park's visit were non-binding memoranda of understanding (MOUs), and follow-up negotiations based on these agreements are also in stalemate due to a decade of financial sanctions on the Persian country and consequent difficulties among Iranian firms.



Contrary to Cheong Wa Dae's rosy expectation that the Middle Eastern country could be the El Dorado for Korean export firms, Iranians understand the summit the other way round  "Korea will invest billions of dollars in Iran."



According to the International Contractors Association of Korea, Thursday, Korean companies clinched a total $2.49 billion worth of orders in Iran in 2009, an all-time-high volume in the history of the two's bilateral relations.



However, the volume plunged at $19.3 million in 2013 and $9.69 million in 2014. Korean firms did not win any orders in Iran 2015.



This year, Korean firms have clinched only two orders worth a total of 777 million won ($680,000) in the country, a stark contrast to Cheong Wa Dae's hype over Park's successful' sales diplomacy.



Daelim Industrial has reportedly sealed two provisional contracts worth $6.8 billion to connect the Isfahan-Ahwaz railroad and build a hydroelectric power plant in Bakhtiari while Hyundai Engineering signed a similar deal to build a gas-processing facility in South Pars, but neither has yet to reach an actual deal yet.



In the meantime, Iranians press the Korean government to invest in their country's infrastructure as promised during Park's visit.



According to Tehran Times, President Park promised to "provide a total of $25 billion in finance for infrastructure projects in Iran" in a bid to support relations with the country.



"Iran is the second-largest country in the Middle East with a highly educated population of 81 million. With Korea's technology transfers and investments, the two countries will enjoy a win-win situation in the global market," said Mojtaba Mousavian, director of Iran's Trade Promotion Organization.



"However, Korea should invest and share its technologies with Iran first if it wants to make inroads into the Middle East's second-largest market. We will not roll out the red carpet for Korean firms without any incentives. We have other global partners like China. Investment and technology sharing should come first."




Farmers work in fields in 1979, now bordered by a road. / Courtesy of Pete and Tony DeMarco



Expat photog retraces 37-year-old memories on Jeju Island

By Jon Dunbar

When Pete DeMarco was six years old, his dad moved his whole family to Jeju Island. His father Tony was sent there in 1979 as an exchange teacher for his alma mater Central Connecticut State University. While there, he took tons of photographs on high-quality slide film, hoping to get published in National Geographic.

Decades later, a grown-up Pete, now residing in Korea himself, returned to the island to check in on distant memories from his childhood.





KAL Hotel, once the tallest building on the island, still exists in recognizable form, even if everything around it has changed. / Courtesy of Pete and Tony DeMarco



"I was only six when I lived on Jeju," Pete told The Korea Times. "My memories aren't very strong ones. When I played with the kids at the playground I had no idea what they were saying. I would run upstairs to my dad and repeat the words I heard so he could translate them. In the end, they were almost always bad words. There was another time I burnt my hands playing with fire with the local kids. There was a construction site and we would burn stuff. I made up some crazy story to convince my parents it was an accident. According to them, I said I was throwing hot tar at the other kids."

The family stayed in the Jaewon apartment complex, at the time the island's nicest residence with indoor plumbing. They were the only foreigners staying there. Tony, who'd been stationed in Pyeongtaek in 1972 as an army linguist, was the only one who could communicate with locals.





Tourists take pictures with a camera in 1979 (right) and a smartphone in 2016. / Courtesy of Pete and Tony DeMarco



"The Koreans really loved the camera," recalled Tony. "They looked at me like I was crazy now and then because I was one of the only Westerners around."

Tony's old slides show the immaculate new white buildings standing next to shacks. Others show construction proceeding on newer projects. His pictures don't look too far removed from today: Koreans drinking and having a merry time, classes full of bright-eyed young learners, honeymooning husbands photographing their brides to Jeju's scenic backdrops.

One photograph captures a horse pulling a cart full of charcoal briquettes through town on a major street. Several others show the already aging haenyeo  female divers who provided the backbone for the island's maritime economy.












The Westin Chosun Seoul's seasonal package starts from 240,000 won. / Courtesy of Westin Chosun Seoul



By Kim Se-jeong

In mid-November, it already feels like winter and hotels in Seoul and the metropolitan area are now offering seasonal packages.



The Westin Chosun Seoul

Starting Nov. 18, the Westin Chosun Seoul's seasonal package includes a one-night stay in one of three room types - business deluxe, executive deluxe or a junior suite - access to the fitness club and swimming pool and free Wi-Fi. Breakfast is available at a discounted rate. A 10-percent discount is available for dining in a hotel restaurant and for any purchase. Guests will also receive two tickets to the exhibition "Musee d'Orsay" at Seoul Arts Center and two postcards from the exhibition, as well as a 2017 calendar made by the hotel.

The package begins at 240,000 per night, excluding tax and service charge. For more information and reservations, call (02) 317-0404.



Sheraton Seoul D Cube City Hotel

The Sheraton Seoul D Cube City Hotel's winter package will be available from Dec. 1 through Feb. 28, 2017.

The package includes a one-night stay, breakfast for two at the restaurant Feast, a gift of a Sheraton blanket, two cups of hot chocolate for take-out and access to the fitness center and swimming pool. The hotel is directly connected to Sindorim Subway Station, a shopping mall and a movie theater, making it easy for guests to find things to enjoy. The package costs 220,000 won per night, excluding tax and service charges. The package won't be available between Dec. 23 and 31 due to Christmas and year-end packages. For more information, call (02) 2211-2100.

Conrad Seoul

The Conrad Seoul has three winter packages available from Nov. 18 until the end of the year.

The first includes a one-night stay in a room overlooking the Han River, a set of bath products by the French brand Themae, breakfast for two at the restaurant Zest, and admission for two to a countdown party Dec. 31. The package costs 355,000 won, excluding tax and service charge.

The second includes a room stay, two cups of winter seasonal beverages and cake at Cafe 10G, breakfast for two at Zest, for 340,000 won. Admission for two to the countdown party is available, as well.

The third includes a room stay, admission for two to the countdown party, a room-service breakfast and late check-out at 2 p.m. The package costs 575,000 won.

The countdown party will take place on the 37th floor, accompanied by music, tarot card reading and a laser show.

For more information and reservations, call (02) 6137-7777 or visit www.conradseoul.com.



Grand Hyatt Seoul

The Grand Hyatt Seoul's winter package begins Dec. 1 and runs through February, 2017, and includes a one-night stay in a grand room with a view of Mount Nam, and access to the ice rink, whirlpool and 24-hour gym for two. The package starts at 241,000 won, excluding tax and service charge. For more information and reservations, call (02) 799-8888 or visit http://seoul.grand.hyatt.kr.

Sheraton Grand Incheon Hotel

The Sheraton Grand Incheon Hotel has two winter packages.

The "Story Winter" package includes a night stay in a deluxe city view room, room-service breakfast for two and an original art book by movie director Wes Anderson about his movie "Grand Budapest Hotel," a story of hotel manager Gustav and his lobby boy Jero. The package will be available from Dec. 1 and will cost 163,000 won, excluding tax and service charge.

The "B-flat Bubbly Night" package includes a one night stay and four bottles of craft beer or one bottle of wine at the hotel's bar B-flat. Snacks will accompany the drinks. The package, available from Dec. 1 until Feb. 28, costs 163,000 won, excluding service charge and tax. For more information and reservations, call (031) 835-1000 or visit www.starwoodhotels.com.
Frank Stechow

By Kim Se-jeong

Fraser Place Central Seoul is organizing a number of events in celebration of its 10th anniversary.

The service apartments property sold room amenities and donated the proceeds to help the city's less privileged. The hotel hosted "Charity Coffee Event" in which it gave a cup of coffee to customers who donated more than 100 won. The money raised went to Hyesimwon, a children's facility in central Seoul. The hotel also hosted "Fraser Dream Table," where children were invited to cook pizza with hotel chefs and eat with them.

Sharing is the theme of Fraser Place Central Seoul's 10th anniversary activities. The property said its charitable activities are going great, and its sharing campaign will continue through the end of the year. For more information about the campaign, visit the hotel's Facebook page, www.facebook.com/fraserplacecentralseoul.

The hotel's charitable activities are spearheaded by its new general manager, Frank Stechow.

Stechow started his hotel career as a dishwasher in his home country of Germany. Then he worked mainly in Europe for renowned hotel groups, Kempinski, Carlson and Anantara, but also worked for Hyatt and Intercontinental. Seoul is his first Asian posting. "My goal is to achieve staff loyalty and team work and to give recognition to all our staff, who are driven by motivation in their work objectives and people appreciation," the general manager wrote in a statement.
Gay rights supporters at a recent rally in Monterrey. REUTERS

More information Los diputados fulminan la propuesta de Pena Nieto de avalar el matrimonio igualitario

Politicians in the Mexican Congress have struck down a proposal to legalize same sex marriage.

A constitutional committee of the lower house voted down the initiative put forward by president Enrique Pena Nieto, which would have allowed for same-sex unions for people in all of Mexicos 32 states.

Same-sex marriage is currently permitted in Mexico City and in seven other states.

The latest blow to the embattled president came from within his own party, the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), with 19 deputies voting against the motion, eight voting in favor and one abstaining.

Pena Nieto is facing problems including a peso in free fall and a spiraling drug war

The vote puts an end to a process that has come under increasing pressure from the Catholic Church and conservative elements within society.

How will history remember us? said Daniel Ordonez of the centre-left PRD, reminding his PRI colleagues that they were voting against a motion put forward by their own president, accusing them of using ethical and moral arguments rather than legal questions to oppose the law change.

Cesar Camacho, coordinator of the PRI faction in the Mexican Congress, said in a tweet that there were no taboo subjects in Mexico and that the issue of gay marriage had been discussed responsibly and in great detail.

The news is a further setback for embattled President Pena Nieto who is battling with economic problems including a peso in free fall, a spiraling drug war, corruption scandals in his own party, and the fallout from the unpopular visit to Mexico by the US president-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to build a wall between the two countries. There were even revelations in the summer that he plagiarized his law school dissertation.

The Mexican president had originally announced the gay marriage proposal on Mexicos National Day Against Homophobia, a holiday he created by decree on March 21, 2014.

But the plan has received a hostile reception from many in this deeply religious country, with conservatives demanding that the motion be shelved and that the government also remove all lessons on gender from textbooks used in preschools and primary schools.

How will history remember us now?

PRD politician Daniel Ordonez

The Catholic Church had also campaigned hard against same-sex marriage, prompting the Vatican to step in recently to tell bishops in the country to step away from organizing protests against same-sex marriage.

This call to order was clearly directed at local bishops, headed up by the powerful Cardinal Norberto Rivera, who has embarked on a virulent crusade against the decision by President Enrique Pena Nieto to enshrine same-sex marriage in the Mexican Constitution.

English version by George Mills.
By Jane Han



DALLAS  Americans woke up Wednesday morning to a country where Donald Trump, the billionaire reality show star, has become the president-elect in one of the biggest upsets in U.S. political history.



In disbelief and denial, people fear how their lives may or may not be impacted under a leader who has constantly been labeled a racist and sexist throughout a divisive and ugly campaign.



But for many Korean-Americans, the uncertainty runs even deeper.



''We're talking about a man who has been hating on immigrants, not to mention criticizing South Korea as 'free-riders,''' says Michael Kim, 26, one of many younger generation Korean-Americans who have teamed up to campaign for Trump's defeated Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in California, a liberal stronghold. ''These two factors alone can't be good for all of us Koreans who live in the U.S.''



Korean-American political observers say never in recent history have so many Koreans been unified against one single candidate.



According to a recent poll, 63 percent of eligible Korean-American voters said they would vote for Clinton, while only 10 percent backed Trump.



''The reason is simple,'' says Lisa Kim, 42, a member of the Korean American Coalition in New York, a non-partisan community advocacy organization. ''People are feeling threatened by this new and emerging political force who has awaken a movement of white nationalists.''



Life in America under Trump's leadership, Kim says, is likely to be tougher for Asians and other minorities.



''Racism is one of the biggest concerns we're facing,'' she said, stressing that this election has exposed a surprising depth of underlying racism deeply planted in the American society.



In fact, this is exactly what Korean-American families with children are particularly worried about.



''Even during the campaign process, kids quickly seemed to pick up all that aggressive and angry language used by Trump,'' says Michelle Rhee, 44, a mother to two teenagers in Seattle.



''Children are naive. They think Trump as president means all the Hispanics will immediately get sent back to Mexico. Then they automatically think, 'What about us? We're not white. What's happening to us?''' she said.



Timothy Kim, 43, a Los Angeles-based immigration attorney with two children of his own, shared a similar feeling of anxiety.



''Hard-working older generations have done so much to improve the lives of Koreans here in America,'' he said. ''We can't go backwards now, and that means we cannot lose our grounds especially in the realm of politics.''



Korean-American politicians have made steep progress in recent years.



In Tuesday's state elections alone, nearly 10 Korean-Americans clinched legislative positions, adding to the growing number of second-generation Koreans taking public offices in the U.S.



''The result of this election is still hard to swallow. It is beyond shocking,'' says Park Jin-woong, 38, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Illinois. ''I have yet to see anyone who claimed they voted for Trump, but here he comes out winning so strong.''



Political experts and Trump's campaign itself largely credit ''undercover voters''  many who turned out to be uneducated, working class men  as one of the key factors that unexpectedly carried the real estate mogul to victory.



Even within the Korean community, Trump voters, many of whom are considered conservative Christians, seemed to have kept quiet about their support.



''It's not because I'm ashamed,'' wrote one anonymous user on MissyUSA, the largest Korean-American women's online community in the U.S. ''I just didn't want to get involved in another pointless political debate. I can't change their view and they can't change my view. That's that.''



In line with the general voter sentiment of the American people in this year's election, however, Koreans, too, were largely unhappy with both candidates from both parties.



''America was in a lose-lose scenario with this election,'' said Sam Kwon, 37, a consultant who travels the country on a daily basis, ''but I honestly thought that the people will select the less embarrassing and irresponsible candidate. I was wrong.''




Two firefighters model for the "2017 Firefighters' Calendar," made and distributed by the Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters. The calendar raises money to treat children suffering burns. / Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government



By Lee Jin-a

Twelve firemen have stripped off their uniforms and posed for the "2017 Firefighters' Calendar" to raise money for young burns victims.

The firefighters won the Seoul Metropolitan Government's fifth bodybuilding contest in May.

Money raised will go to parents who are having problems paying for their children's treatment.

Seoul City said the calendars cost 10,000 won ($9) and will be available for two months from Thursday through online shopping mall GS Shop.

The photos also will feature in a special exhibition at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul from Nov. 12 to 18.

The calendar project began in 2014 and raised more than 16 million won that year. In 2015, it raised 95 million won. All proceeds have been used to treat 25 injured children.

"Through your interest and support of our calendars, we could deliver hope to burns victims over the past two years" said Kwon Soon-kyung, fire commissioner at the Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters. "We hope our project can continue to help the children and their families."

Photographer Oh Joong-seok and fashion magazine Elle contributed their talent to make the calendar.
Saenuri Party lawmaker Kim Young-woo, center, head of the National Assembly Defense Committee, discusses security issues with Defense Minister Han Min-koo, right, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Lee Sun-jin at Lee's office in Yongsan, Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap



Park, Trump hold phone conversation

By Kang Seung-woo

The election of Donald Trump as the next Anerican president is expected to hasten the transfer of the U.S. wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean forces to Seoul in an effort to save defense costs, analysts here said Thursday.

Conservative governments of South Korea have repeatedly delayed taking over the OPCON transfer to the mid-2020s, citing growing North Korean nuclear threats and South Korea's "unpreparedness" for a North Korean attack.

However, given the president-elect's negative stance on the U.S. security commitment to the Korean Peninsula on his country's defense budget, he is expected to call for more South Korean burden-sharing, or he may seek to complete the transfer much earlier than planned.

South Korea handed over both wartime and peacetime operational control of its armed forces to the United States in July 1950, a month after North Korea started the Korean War. Seoul regained peacetime operational control in late 1994.

"It is a feasible scenario under the Trump administration due to his unpredictable and variable foreign policy," said Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong Global University.

"Trump may first urge South Korea to pay more for the presence of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), but if it does not turn out as he wishes, he may push to hasten the OPCON transfer as well as reduce the number of American troops stationed here in order to lower costs."

During his election campaign, the billionaire-turned-politician often expressed his opinion that South Korea gives nothing in return for more than 28,000 American soldiers stationed on the peninsula  although Seoul pays about 50 percent of the total cost estimated to be around 2 trillion won under the five-year special measures agreement (SMA). Last year, Seoul paid 932 billion won.

"Based on his words from the campaign, Trump's stance is to ask why the United States is protecting rich South Korea on the U.S. defense budget and he may decide to transfer the OPCON during his term in office," Park said.

Victor Cha, Korea chairman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, echoed Park's view.

"Trump's guiding principle has been to put American interests first. In this regard, it is entirely plausible that a Trump presidency may seek to complete the OPCON transfer and put these responsibilities in the hands of Koreans," he said

Cha, who was former President George W. Bush's top adviser on North Korea, also said that the SMA is the first substantive alliance issue that is likely to come up during the Trump presidency.

"The cost-sharing agreement will require renegotiation in 2017. Trump has said clearly during the campaign that allies need to pay their share. Expect the United States to drive a hard bargain in renegotiations," he said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. President-elect held a phone conversation with President Park Geun-hye, reaffirming Washington's security commitment to the peninsula, Thursday, according to Cheong Wa Dae.

"We are with you all the way and we will not waver," Trump said during the 10-minute talk.

Stressing the ROK-U.S. alliance that has lasted for over 60 years, Park said North Korea's nuclear issue is the greatest threat facing the two nations and called for close cooperation on the issue.

"We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea," Trump said.

Park also hoped that Trump will visit South Korea in the near future, the presidential office said.

In order to effectively handle possible changes in the bilateral ties, the foreign ministry has formed a task force.

On Wednesday night, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se presided over a meeting that discussed the effects the incoming U.S. government will have on South Korea and sought ways to set up communication channels with the Trump camp.

In addition, the ministry is mulling over sending a vice minister-level official to Washington to consult with the Trump side about North Korea issues.

On Thursday, the North Korean regime issued a warning to Trump, reaffirming that it will not give up its nuclear ambitions.

"Washington's hope for North Korea's denuclearization is an outdated illusion," the Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers' Party, said.

The newspaper added that U.S. President Barack Obama's "strategic patience" policy with North Korea has only left bigger burdens for his successor as Pyongyang has become a nuclear state.
Im Su-hwan

This is the fourth in a series of stories about former winners of the Korea Multicultural Youth Awards hosted by The Korea Times.  ED

By Lee Kyung-min

Im Su-hwan, the grand prize winner of the fourth Korea Multicultural Youth Awards last year, said winning the award gave him faith in himself.

The senior at Deogam High School in Gimje, North Jeolla Province, said had it not been for the confidence brought by the award, he couldn't have earned the top score at his school in a midterm exam this semester. He had ranked 77th when he was a first grader.

"After I won the award last December, this year has been my best year, not only academically, but in general," Im said.

"I didn't have enough confidence in myself, with moments of uncertainty, because I felt I was not good enough. But thanks to the award, I started to have faith in myself.

"I tried to remember, always, how grateful and lucky I am to have won the award. That's what kept me trying hard."

Im, born to a Korean father and a Japanese mother, said he and his siblings are still sometimes bullied for having a foreign-born mother, but it has reinforced his passion to become an elementary school teacher to help young children from multicultural backgrounds like him.

"I still believe the role of a teacher is very important, because young children tend to follow what their instructors tell them. I think it is important to learn from an early age that difference does not justify discrimination. That is what I want to teach."

Following his dream, he applied for non-regular admission at four universities of education _ in Chuncheon, Busan, Jinju, and Seoul. Three rejected him, with Seoul National University of Education scheduled to announce its results on Nov. 18, a day after the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) on Nov. 17.

"I am nervous, because I want to get in so much. But as I have a week left, I will study and try my best until the day of the test so that I could say without regret that I really did my best," he added.

The one thing he wishes to do after taking the CSAT is to sleep as long as he wants.

"Not much about my family background has changed, financially speaking. But like I said last year, the love for my mom, who loves me more than anyone in the world, has not and will never change. I still want to give hope and inspiration to people like me, the financially less fortunate but emotionally rich."
By Kim Se-jeong





Like the rest of the world, shock and worry were among the initial reactions Koreans to Donald Trump's surprise victory in the United States presidential election Tuesday.

The shock was felt particularly strongly because many news outlets had been predicting Hillary Clinton's victory for a long time.

Among those shocked at Trump's unexpected victory was Francesco Byun, co-representative of YoungGreens Korea.

"In 2012, I felt Moon Jae-in would become our next president because his victory was predicted all over the internet.

This election, I thought Clinton would become the next U.S. president, because that's what I saw on the internet. This election confirms that it is now the time when people who don't speak openly and publicly have a bigger say," Byun said.

Many voiced concerns about Korea's military ties with the U.S.

"We really are in trouble. Given that Trump will reexamine the military agreement between Korea and the U.S., I worry about national security," said a 63-year-old man, who wished to be anonymous.

President-elect Trump reiterated the U.S.'s strong ties with Korea in a phone conversation with President Park Geun-hye, but that didn't provide much relief.

"I am afraid his impulsive decision-making process will damage Korea-U.S. relations," said Sim Hui-cheon, a Seoul resident.

During the campaign, Trump vowed to push Korea to cover more of the costs needed to keep the U.S. military on the Korean Peninsula.

Jeong Byoung-woo, a Seoul resident, was concerned but stayed optimistic. "I am concerned about the increasing financial burden for Korea but optimistic enough that this won't tear down relations with the U.S. entirely."












By Kim Hyo-jin



President Park Geun-hye is facing growing calls from both opposition and ruling parties to give up efforts to hold onto power.



Opposition parties and political heavyweights renewed their calls, Thursday, for Park to hand over a wide scope of her control over military, diplomatic and domestic affairs to a new prime minister recommended by the National Assembly.



Some ruling party lawmakers joined in bashing Park, saying she should not delay action to normalize state affairs paralyzed by the influence-peddling scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil.



"Park should lay out measures to overcome the leadership vacuum," said Rep. Kim Moo-sung, former leader of the ruling Saenuri Party. "I recommend that she give up power and cooperate in forming a bipartisan Cabinet, listening to the public."



The calls grew in parallel with rising concerns about uncertainty in Korea-U.S. relations following the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump in the U.S. election, Wednesday (KST).



Moon Jae-in, ex-leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and a potential opposition presidential candidate, argued Park should stay away from diplomacy, pointing out that she has lost confidence on the global stage.



"It is high time for South Korea to implement prudent yet active diplomatic and security policies and take the initiative on Korean Peninsula issues," he said in a Facebook post. "With Park's lack of confidence in and out of the country, it's even impossible to engage in close talks with the U.S. She needs to make a decision for the national interest."



Park has remained hesitant to clarify to what extent she will give up authority and guarantee the new prime minister's role.



In a move to address a political deadlock triggered by the corruption scandal involving her confidant, she visited National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun, Tuesday, and proposed that if rival parties pick a new prime minister, she would let him or her take "effective control" of the Cabinet.



On the following day, presidential secretary for public relations Bae Sung-rye explained that the new prime minister will be guaranteed the right to manage the Cabinet and to recommend the appointment and dismissal of Cabinet members.



This, however, brought a backlash from the opposition parties. They claimed that Park failed to give up her power because a prime minister can already wield such authority as stipulated in the Constitution. Refusing Park's offer, the parties vowed to join a civic rally slated for Saturday.



The ruling Saenuri Party leadership struck back, insisting the opposition is virtually calling on Park to step down from her leadership post.



"If the new premier is allowed to govern the administration, I think it'd meet the opposition's demands," the party's floor leader Chung Jin-suk said. "We are worried that the opposition parties just want Park to resign."



Saenuri Party Chairman Lee Jung-hyun, a close confidant of Park's, criticized the growing call that she should also give up command of the military and the right to declare martial law, calling it "unconstitutional."



"If Park does so, it will be against the Constitution," he said during a party meeting. "I wonder if they seek to entirely stop the administration from functioning."



With the political arena embroiled in the controversy over the extent of Park's authority, public sentiment against the incumbent leader is worsening, according to local polls.



In a Realmeter poll conducted Wednesday, 60.4 percent responded that Park should be held accountable either by resignation (18.5 percent) or impeachment (41.9 percent).



Only 18.4 percent of the respondents supported Park's delegation of control of the administration to a new prime minister recommended by the rival parties. The percentage backing resignation or impeachment has steadily risen from 42.3 percent, Oct. 25, to 55.3 percent, Nov. 2.



The organizers estimated 500,000 participants will join the Saturday rally but the police estimate it will be around 170,000. It is expected to be one of the biggest since the demonstrations in 2008 against U.S. beef imports. The biggest number of protesters a day in a series of the 2008 protests was 80,000 according to police estimates.




By Kang Seung-woo

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) warned Thursday it will submit a motion for the dismissal of Defense Minister Han Min-koo unless the ministry stops talks with Japan to sign a military intelligence-sharing deal.

Seoul and Tokyo have rushed to sign the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) since reopening working-level talks Nov. 1. The second round of discussions took place in Seoul, Wednesday, raising speculation the two sides may strike a deal by the end of the month.

The opposition is criticizing the government's GSOMIA talks as an attempt to avert public attention from the influence-peddling scandal involving President Park Geun-hye's longtime confidant Choi Soon-sil.

"Three opposition parties are willing to propose a motion to dismiss the defense minister if the government continues the negotiations, ignoring the protest from the people and the opposition," said Rep. Yun Ho-jung, the DPK chief policymaker, in a party meeting.

"The government is rushing to conclude the deal amid the political turmoil."

The second-largest opposition People's Party, the minor opposition Justice Party and the DPK put forward a resolution Wednesday urging the government to halt the discussions.

In 2012, the two sides were about to sign the GSOMIA under the Lee Myung-bak administration. However, this fell through at the last minute due to fierce public criticism here over the government's alleged clandestine attempts to sign a sensitive agreement with the former colonial ruler.

If signed, the deal would allow Seoul and Tokyo to directly share and exchange intelligence on North Korea's military activities related to its nuclear and missile programs. Currently, the two indirectly exchange such intelligence through the United States under a trilateral sharing pact signed at the end of 2014.


By Park Si-soo, Rachel Lee

President Park Geun-hye is "dead" diplomatically in the fallout from a scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil, foreign and Korean diplomats said.

They said Park would find it difficult to have normal negotiations with foreign counterparts during her remaining time in office because of doubts about her ability to implement decisions agreed to during talks. This has made foreign envoys here reluctant to arrange summits with serious agendas that require a consistent and undisrupted commitment from both sides.

Park has decided to skip this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders Summit, which will be held in Lima, Peru, from Nov. 19 to 20.

A bigger concern lies in a wave of unprecedented diplomatic challenges that will shake South Korea following Donald Trump's inauguration as U.S. President early next year.












Security, diplomacy, N. Korea policy put to test

By Yi Whan-woo

It was a double whammy for South Korea as unpredictable populist Donald Trump's stunning victory in the U.S. election and President Park Geun-hye's slip into a deeper leadership crisis amid the Choi Soon-sil scandal amplify uncertainties on the Korean Peninsula.

With hard-line opposition lawmakers calling for her resignation or impeachment, concerns are growing that political administration may grind to a halt and the country's efforts to build ties with the incoming U.S. government will lose momentum.

The combination of chaotic domestic politics and the Trump factor will provide enormous challenges to the country down the road, analysts say. Trump, who will take office on Jan. 20 as the 45th U.S. president, vowed to upend globalization and other conventional foreign policies embraced by all of his predecessors since World War II.

For Park, instead of resignation or impeachment, some opposition and ruling Saenuri Party lawmakers are offering a more viable choice  empower a prime minister recommended by the National Assembly to run the country while nominally remaining in office until the scheduled end of her presidency.

Such an option, however, still leaves the question of whether Trump, who has displayed a lack of knowledge and courtesy toward other countries, will accept Park or the opposition-chosen prime minister as his real counterpart. Park's term will end in February 2018.

Moreover, the National Assembly has not determined who to recommend as its new prime minister after opposing Park's nomination of Kookmin University Professor Kim Byeong-joon for the post to replace Hwang Kyo-ahn, Nov. 3.

According to some diplomatic sources, a South Korean leader usually holds a summit with the new U.S. president around April or May of the same year the latter enters the White House.

"We should immediately contact relevant officials from the Trump side and begin scheduling face-to-face talks between the two heads of state," a source said. "The thing is, we don't even know whether Park will pull out of state affairs fully or partially."
An officer seizing computer material. EFE

Spanish National Police have arrested 56 people for distributing child pornography online, including images of sexual abuse against very young children.

The operation took place in a raid carried out simultaneously across Spain, with arrests made in 28 provinces. Three more individuals are under investigation but have not been held.

The arrests are the result of a year-and-a-half long investigation, and represent the biggest crackdown on the distribution of child pornography in 2016.

Most of the detainees are 40 to 60 years old, police sources said.

Over 150 officers and 46 courts participated in the coordinated raid

Police officers raided 39 homes and seized computers and over 173 hard drives, as well as 614 CDs and DVDs containing several gigabytes of deeply disturbing photographs and videos, including babies being tortured.

Police also seized two revolvers during the search of one home in Murcia.

Over 150 officers and 46 investigating courts participated in the coordinated raid against pedophilia.

Authorities said that the suspects shared the child pornography through peer-to-peer (P2P) file exchange systems.

In the last year, of 750 suspects arrested for cybercrimes in Spain, 390 were related to the sexual exploitation of minors, said Luis Garcia Pascual, Chief Inspector of the division for the protection of minors of the National Polices Technology Intelligence Unit.

English version by Susana Urra.
Unpredictable president-elect prompts uncertainties



During the campaign season, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump made a series of offensive remarks about South Korea that has cast doubts about the health of the Korea-U.S. alliance in a Trump White House.



Many Koreans are concerned that Trump's stunning win over Hillary Clinton, who was hoping to be the first female U.S. president, will intensify uncertainties on Korea's national security and trade policies. A recent survey said that 67 percent of Koreans are worried about the future of Korea's relations with our decades-long ally after the election of the political novice as the 45th U.S. president. Local analysts have been fretting over the impact of Trump's "America first" policy on bilateral relations.



Koreans have good reason to worry about Korea-U.S. ties in the Trump era. Trump has been critical of Korea paying "peanuts" for the maintenance of U.S. troops here and dismissed the Korea-U.S. FTA as a "job-killing" deal. Adding to this is the domestic situation, which is not at all conducive for the government to brace for the U.S. election aftermath as the President Park Geun-hye administration has virtually stopped functioning due to a scandal that has instigated nationwide calls for her resignation.



Trump will be sworn in on Jan. 20, so this gives the Korean government little time to prepare for changes that are expected under the Trump administration. The first thing that our government needs to do is to communicate readily with Trump's diplomatic team and gain more information about his Korea policies.



The biggest challenge for Korea and the U.S. in the incoming administration will be security issues. Trump's past remarks suggest that he may scale back on U.S. security commitments overseas and possibly withdraw U.S. troops from Korea unless we shoulder more costs to keep the 28,500 troops here. If turned into reality, this will certainly aggravate Korean's concerns over national security amid rising nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.



Cheong Wa Dae said Thursday that President Park called Trump to congratulate him on his win and that the two reiterated the need to strengthen bilateral ties for peace in the Asia Pacific region. Park's leadership has been damaged beyond repair due to her involvement in the so-called "Choi Soon-sil gate" scandal, but she should not be hesitant about her duty as the nation's diplomat-in-chief until the very last day of her term. She should be fully committed to do her utmost to protect our security and trade interests under the Trump administration.



It has been reported that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet with Trump next week. Our diplomatic team should act with similar swiftness on getting the leaders of the two countries more acquainted. In a commentary released after Trump's win, Pyongyang warned Thursday the incoming U.S. administration will face a bigger challenge of dealing with a "nuclear-armed" North Korea. Given the gravity of the North Korean nuclear issue, a meeting between Park and the next U.S. President should be arranged in the near future to reaffirm their commitment to a stronger Korea-U.S. alliance.








U.S. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton will intensify sanctions causing real pain to North Korea as she's determined not to allow Pyongyang to acquire a deliverable nuclear weapons capability, a top foreign policy adviser said.



"She believes that we simply cannot and will not allow North Korea to obtain a deliverable nuclear weapon, which would be a direct threat to the U.S.," said Laura Rosenberger, one of Clinton's closest foreign policy brains, in an interview with the Voice of America.



"She also believes that we need to work with our allies to increase the pressure on North Korea, so that it understands that its only choice is to give up its nuclear program. So far, they have been sanctioned, but not to a degree that has inflicted pain," she said.



Clinton will also work with China to impose significant additional pressure on the North, Rosenberger said.



"That means doing some things that China may not like ? taking a look at our defense posture and making sure we are doing everything we need to do to protect the U.S. and our allies from the threat North Korea poses," Rosenberger said, referring to measures like the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system.



Beijing has strongly protested the planned deployment, seeing the system, especially its powerful "X-band radar" as a threat to its security interests, despite repeated assurances from Washington and Seoul that the system is designed only to cope with North Korean threats.



"It is incumbent on China to make sure that the threat from North Korea is removed, so that China does not face that same kind of pressure from the U.S.," Rosenberger said.



Clinton's policy on the North boils down to imposing stronger sanctions while remaining open to diplomacy.



Former Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, who is considered the No. 1 candidate for defense secretary, also said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency last month that the U.S. should not reopen negotiations with North Korea as long as it shows no interest in denuclearization.



Flournoy also said that additional sanctions are the only way to make the North consider denuclearization.



Calling North Korea China's problem, Republican candidate Donald Trump has urged Beijing to use its influence to rein in the recalcitrant neighbor. Still, he has also expressed his willingness to hold talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.



"Trump is willing to negotiate from a position of strength with China to see if we can come to an agreement. He wants to say it is not in China's interests to have this reckless, rogue nuclear regime on its border, especially when it is showing signs of strain," Alexander Gray, a senior defense adviser to Trump, also told VOA.



"Trump is willing to look at the (U.S.-China) relationship holistically and see if Beijing can play a constructive role with Pyongyang," he was quoted as saying. (Yonhap)




Samsung BioLogics CEO Kim Tae-han, center, poses with banking and finance industry officials, celebrating the firm's listing on the Korea Exchange in Yeouido, southern Seoul, Thursday. The biopharmaceutical firm closed at 144,000 won ($125.4) on the Seoul bourse, up 6.67 percent from the opening price of 135,000 won. / Yonhap



By Yoon Sung-won



Samsung BioLogics shares closed above its initial public offering (IPO) price in its debut on the domestic capital market, Thursday.



Marking an impressive start, the biopharmaceutical affiliate of Samsung Group closed at 144,000 won ($125.4) on the Seoul bourse, up 6.67 percent from the opening price of 135,000 won. This is a 5.9 percent increase from the IPO price of 136,000 won.

Its market capitalization was about 9.53 trillion won.



Right after the market opening, Samsung BioLogics shares slipped as investors went for immediate profit, amid negative expectations following Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election.



But the company pared the losses to make an upturn.



Drawing keen interest from investors, Samsung BioLogics raised up to 2.25 trillion won on its IPO. This was the largest since Samsung Life Insurance raised 4.89 trillion won in 2010.



Established in 2011 under Samsung Group and its heir Lee Jae-yong's drive to boost the bio business as one of its future growth engines, Samsung BioLogics produces biopharmaceuticals on behalf of client pharmaceutical companies.



Samsung Group's de-facto holding company Samsung C&T holds a 52.1 percent share in Samsung BioLogics. Samsung Electronics has 47.8 percent of the biopharmaceutical company.



Samsung BioLogics owns 91.2 percent of its subsidiary Samsung Bioepis, which develops biosimilar products.



The company pledged to become the world's top bio product contract manufacturing organization (CMO) by 2020.



"We will become the world champion in the bio CMO sector by becoming the leader in manufacturing capacity, sales and operating profit by 2020," Samsung BioLogics CEO Kim Tae-han said during the celebration of the company's listing on the Korea Exchange on Yeouido, southern Seoul, Thursday.



With its two plants, Samsung BioLogics is capable of producing 180,000 liters of biopharmaceuticals a year, which is the world's third-highest manufacturing capacity following Switzerland's Lonza with 240,000 liters and Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim with 210,000 liters.



Its third plant, which will have a manufacturing capacity of 180,000 liters, is scheduled to be completed by 2018. In total, the company will have about 360,000 liters of manufacturing capacity, which is the largest in the global CMO industry. Samsung BioLogics is investing $730 million in the third plant.



Kim highlighted the global bio industry's high potential for future growth.



"In the last four decades, the world economy has been led by electronics and IT industries," Kim said. "But in the next three to four decades, it will grow on the backs of healthcare and biotech industries. I believe bio CMO and biosimilars are promising businesses in the long term."



Under the goal of fostering Samsung BioLogics as the most influential enterprise in the biopharmaceutical industry, Kim said he will seek transparent business management, expedite completion of new plants and invest in biosimilar product development.



"Samsung BioLogics will continue to contribute to advancement of Korea's biopharmaceutical industry and elevate the status of Korean enterprises in the global healthcare market," the CEO said.



According to a projection by global market researcher Evaluate Pharma, the global biopharmaceuticals market will reach $278 billion in scale by 2020, continuing to grow by 8.7 percent every year following global population aging and advancement of medical technologies.



Another expectation is that biopharmaceuticals will rapidly replace synthetic drugs in the next 20 years. As of now, seven of the world's 10 best-selling medicines are bio drugs.



As an enterprise in a preparation period for business expansion, Samsung BioLogics posted 91.2 billion won in sales and 203.6 billion won in operating losses last year.



The company expects to record more than 2 trillion won in annual sales and 1 trillion won in operating profit once the third plant starts to operate fully. In a longer-term perspective, it also plans to invest in building the fourth and fifth plants.
A visitor contemplates a front page at the EL PAIS 40th Anniversary Exhibition. ULY MARTIN

From this week onward, the Catalan edition of Elpais.cat will include a selection of news stories in English. The texts will be prepared by journalism students at the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), who will be adapting content from Catalan current affairs every week, adding context and information to these stories so that they can be understood in a global context.

The UPF and EL PAIS will be working together on this obligatory course, during which students will learn to improve their journalistic writing in English. Apart from an average of five adaptations per week, students will also be able to publish feature articles based on their own sources.

The project, which will run until March 2017, is part of the EL PAIS English Edition, which will be in charge of the editing of the students work together with staff from the newsroom in Catalonia. The EL PAIS English Edition began as a print edition in 2001, available as a supplement in what was then the International Herald Tribune, later The Global New York Times. Since 2014, it has been a 100% digital project, reaching hundreds of thousands of readers every month in countries such as Spain, United States, United Kingdom and more. Its content is produced by a team of journalists and translators, who work to create English versions of EL PAIS articles about Spain and Latin America, with added context and explanation for a non-Spanish-speaking reader.
A search party was sent out soon after Diana Quer went missing. OSCAR CORRAL

The investigation into the disappearance of Diana Quer, a teenager from Madrid who went missing in August, has zeroed in on at least one suspect, said the Spanish Civil Guard.

The suspect is the driver of the vehicle that the 18-year-old allegedly got into in the early hours of August 22, never to be seen again.

Some witnesses say they saw two cars at the pier

The young woman had been out partying with friends at the local fiestas in A Pobra do Caraminal, a coastal town in the northwestern region of Galicia where her family has a summer home.

Her cellphone records indicate that she got as far as Taragona, around 20 kilometers away from A Pobra. But the trail ends there. In late October, a fisherman found Quers iPhone 6 in muddy ground near the pier of Neixon, across from Taragona.

The Spanish daily ABC reported that the Civil Guard has identified the man who was driving the vehicle after a witness provided key testimony two weeks ago.

Diana Quer was last seen on August 22nd.

According to this information, there were three men in the car, and the driver has a record for drug trafficking.

The Civil Guard is also following up on testimony from witnesses who say they saw two cars at the pier, and that a young woman got out of one and into the other before disappearing.

A high-profile case

The case received national headlines with much of the attention focused on the young womans family situation.

Soon after the teen went missing, it emerged that a court was taking custody of the younger sister away from the mother. In September, police grilled Quers mother for several hours, asking why she had not told them about her troubled relationship with her two daughters.

In late October, a shellfish harvester found Quers iPhone 6

Local residents of A Pobra, where all three spent their summer holidays, reported hearing a loud family dispute shortly before Diana Quers disappearance.

The teenagers relatives claimed from the beginning that she was being held against her will. Her father told the media that Diana had unsavory friends.

English version by Susana Urra.
Educational exposure of ideas, assumptions or hypotheses, based on proven facts" (which need not be strictly current affairs) Value in judgments are excluded, and the text comes close to an opinion article, without judging or making forecasts , just formulating hypotheses, giving motivated explanations and bringing together a variety of data

Front pages of three UK dailies after Trumps win. Tristan Fewings (Getty Images)

Without meaning to, Barack Obama put his finger on the key to Donald Trumps electoral triumph, identifying along the way why Brexit won in the UK referendum and why the no vote triumphed in the plebiscite on the Colombian peace accord. Politicians of the world, take note.

Speaking in July this year, President Obama accused the now President-Elect Trump of stirring fears that dont have a basis in fact. If Obama thought he was going to persuade Trump to abandon his one and only electoral strategy, he was mistaken. Trump is no sophisticate, but if theres one thing he understands  as do former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, the chief driver of Colombias no to peace, and Nigel Farage, Mr Brexit  it is this: fear is the most primary of the human impulses and the easiest to stir up; spreading fear through lies and then declaring oneself to be the one leader capable of extinguishing that fear, is the winning electoral formula in these times in which we live.

Trump is no sophisticate, but if theres one thing he understands it is this: fear is the most primary of the human impulses and the easiest to stir up

The unspoken premise has inevitably to be a lack of respect for the political intelligence of the audience one aspires to win over. People are easily manipulated. You cry wolf and they start running  straight into the arms of the self-appointed redeemer who sounded the false alarm in the first place.

What matters is to have a finger on the popular pulse; to be able to identify which particular wolf happens at any given time to be perceived as the most fearful threat.

For Trump and Farage, it was immigrants, those who purportedly spread crime, take our jobs, and threaten our way of life. It doesnt matter if the facts show otherwise. Such arguments convince not because of their substance, but because they appeal in a visceral way to peoples hatred or rejection of the other, of the unknown. In this case we are talking fear in its classic, xenophobic, racist or tribal variations.

Colombias former president Uribe turned to another classic: communism. A far more talented populist than either Trump or Farage, Uribe pulled off the feat of convincing a narrow majority of his compatriots that voting for the peace accord would mean handing the country over to the Castro-Chavista guerrillas of the FARC. Despite the fact that the FARC are rejected by 90% of Colombians or more, the plebiscites winning idea was that if they were allowed to participate in national politics, as the accord contemplated, they would win the next elections and communism would rule the land.

Hitler understood all this very well. In his case the enemy were the Jews. In todays Europe many are gaining political support by inciting fear against Muslims. Be warned. This is only the beginning.
Liberias President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says she is disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not win the US elections.

In an interview with the BBC, Africas first democratically elected female president said: We are extremely saddened by this missed opportunity on the part of the people of the United States to join smaller democracies in ending the marginalisation of women.

However, Liberia has a long and historical relationship with the United States and we expect the good relationship to continue.

Though Ms Sirleaf is worried about existing agreements between the US and her country, she

concedes it is too early to say what Mr Trumps presidency will mean for Africa.



Im worried about trade deals for Liberia, for Africa, Im worried about investment and the special programmes that have been put in place by President Obama and by President George Bush before him.

And we just dont know what the new policy towards Africa will be under a Trump administration.

Well have to wait and see. Obviously, we are concerned but we have to just give him the benefit of the doubt.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
(by Federico Pucci). Milan, November 9 - Italian pop stars Mina and Adriano Celentano sing about love, disillusionment and passion in their eagerly awaited joint comeback album 'Le Migliori' ('The Best'). The album will be released Friday, November 11. The two Italian pop music legends have reunited 18 years after their first album together. "Everything began spontaneously, and the desire to have fun can be heard in the album," Producer Claudia Mori said at the record launch Thursday in Milan. Pop music of a somewhat self-referential style is seen throughout, starting from the first single - 'Amami Amami', the end of which recalls 'Storia d'Amore'. "In 'Aqcua e Sale', we quoted 'E Poi', and this time we did something similar," commented producer Massimiliano Pani. Echoes of the famous 1998 hit song are also heard in 'A un Passo da Te', written by Fabio Ilacqua (who also wrote the San Remo hit 'Amen'). 'Mi fai bere' ('you make me drink') becomes 'mi fai bene' ('you do me good') using the same music, while the funkiness of 'Brivido Felino' is also seen in 'Non Mi Ami'. The 11 previously unpublished songs - plus two that have been set aside for the time being but will be published in 2017 - bring together such well-known names as Andrea Mingardi ('E' l'Amore') and Toto Cutugno ('Ti Lascio Amore'), as well as new songwriters that reinterpret the meeting between the two: Mondo Marcio and Pietro Paletti, with a mixture between spaghetti western, reggae and salsa styles. The two solo songs are Mina's jazz single with Danilo Rea entitled 'Quando la Smettero' and Celentano's rock single 'Il Bambino col Fucile'. The final song is a cover of 'Prisencolinensinainciusol'. A desire to joke around with their images transpires even with the cover, designed by Mauro Balletti. Italian State broadcaster RAI will focus on this aspect during an hour-long special on the album that will go on air at 8:30 PM on December 12. 'Le Migliori' will be released in a delux edition with a CD containing 15 conversations "stolen" during meetings with the two musicians in Lugano. The title of the album is from a birthday greeting written to Mina from Celentano on March 25, 2015.
A 24-foot fishing boat with five passengers capsized at WindanSea beach around 6 p.m. Wednesday, November 9 while fishing for lobster. Four occupants wearing life jackets were rescued by lifeguards and a fifth who didnt wear a life jacket (the owner of the boat) is still missing.

Rescue teams searched for the missing person until 8:30 p.m. The Coast Guard continued to look for the fifth passenger throughout the night, and the City rescue teams resumed the search at first light in the morning. At least one helicopter from the Coast Guard is participating in the search.

The four rescued victims and a lifeguard were transported to different hospitals. Two of the victims were taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and released after being treated and the other two were taken to Scripps Mercy Hospital. Citys fire and rescue public information officer Lee Swanson didnt provide details on whether the latter were admitted in the Emergency Room.

Lifeguard John Bahl, who was injured during the rescue, spent the night at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla. He was hit by a wave and swallowed water. He was admitted to the hospital and spent the night there but he was feeling OK this morning and is expected to be released today, Swanson said.

San Diego Police received a call at 6:09 p.m. and resorted to the scene to provide crowd control.

Lifeguard Sergeant Ed Harris explained that the cause of the accident was the predicted high surf that forced the authorities to close the Childrens Pool walk and the Ocean Beach Pier. People should take a look at how high surf is and take into consideration that rescues at night are difficult, he said

Information will be updated as its made available.
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Read more
EU to support science in Armenia (video)

In order to increase the awareness of the European Unions Research and Innovations Horizon-2020 program in Armenia, today a symposium dedicated to the program has been held in Yerevan. The agreement of Armenias associated membership in the program was signed in May, 2016 in Brussels. The agreement will grant an opportunity to our scientific-research institutions, universities, small and medium enterprises and private scientists to fully make use of the programs opportunities under the conditions intended for the EU member states. At the opening ceremony of the symposium Samvel Harutyunyan, Chairman of the State Committee on Science of the RA Ministry of Science and Education, EU Ambassador to Armenia Piotr Switalski and the RA NAS Deputy Chairman Yuri Shukuryan made welcome speeches. The overall budget of Horizon-2020 makes up about EUR 80 billion. Vardan Sahakyan, Head of the Division for Science Policy of the State Committee on Science of the RA Ministry of Science and Education, noted in his speech that the program is also going to finance private scientific projects, The financing of the science is implemented in three main ways- first, base financing, second- targeted and the third- thematic. Only state scientific projects are financed by base financing. The private sector is financed by the targeted and thematic fund. Currently 5 out of 12 financed projects belong to private sector, he noted.
Even now, in this riven country, after this whole entropically hideous year, most Americans still agree on at least one institution. Mercifully, its the one that may just save us: the public library.

Hear me out. In small towns and large, in red states and blue, libraries poll better across the political spectrum than any public trust this side of the fire department. In districts where millage increases dont require a two-thirds vote (and frequently where they do, as in California) modest library bonds usually win.

If, as he claims, our new president really wants to invest in infrastructure, then America will need to build more than just roads and bridges. If Donald Trump is as smart as he insists he is, then he can prove it by strengthening our intellectual infrastructure. That means libraries  and he can start with one audacious symbolic act.

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Ive looked at libraries from at least four sides now, as a full-time book critic, a federal grantmaker (in a red administration!), a nonprofit lending librarian in an immigrant, working-class neighborhood, and on the faculty at UCLA. While midwifing the nonpartisan NEAs one-city-one-book program, The Big Read, I visited more than 100 public libraries in 40-some states, with a fat deck of library cards in my desk now to prove it.

If all these experiences have taught me anything, its that librarians may be the only first responders holding the line between America and a raging national pandemic of absolutism. More desperately than ever, we need our libraries now, and all three of their traditional pillars: 1) education, 2) good reading and 3) the convivial refuge of a place apart. In other words, libraries may be the last coal we have left to blow on.

All the research out there  Census data, NEA reports, the Pew Research Centers work on libraries and reading in low-income neighborhoods  all of it points toward reading enjoyment as the surest predictor of health, wealth and good citizenship. Readers volunteer more, vote more, even exercise more. And a recent Yale study categorically shows what most of us have long suspected: Readers live longer than nonreaders.

Education-wise, perhaps alone among public institutions, libraries can become the kink in the school-to-prison pipeline. Rightly or not, U.S. education is generally thought to be in a bad way and may take at least a generation to fix. Americans worry about it so much that many opt out of public education in favor of private, home-based and other parochial schools. Between the charter movement and the teachers unions, nobodys solving this one anytime soon.

The crisis goes double for higher education. For every distinguished institution of higher learning like mine, theres a lobbyist-fortified diploma mill, only too happy to take the money of vets and the unemployed for little or nothing in return. Where will their tens of thousands of fleeced alumni turn now?

Many of them will turn to public libraries, where they probably shouldve gone in the first place. When schools fall short, libraries may just have it in them to pick up some of the slack. The only question is, will they get the resources they need to do it?

Book-wise, the superfunding of libraries belongs near the top of any governments to-do list because the better our public libraries, the better the poets, editors and novelists well get a generation later.

This may seem a boutique priority, but between the sweaty thumb and forefinger of my right hand I once held the teenage library card of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ever since, Ive believed that the strongest advertisement for libraries would be blowups of the signed elementary-school local library cards of great Americans  yes, stronger even than posters of athletes and actors with paperback copies of The Scarlet Letter held carefully right-side-up. If you want better American literature tomorrow, dont stiff libraries today.

Finally, refuge-wise, libraries are the ultimate third place, the urban sociologist Ray Oldenburgs sanctuaries beyond the realms of home and work. Nowadays, what with bring-your-dog-to-work days and bring-your-work-home jobs, home and work are becoming almost interchangeable. We need a third place more than ever, and libraries  with quiet courtyards and alcoves, or provocative public meetings and programs  increasingly offer that very place.

The resurgent popularity of libraries shouldnt surprise anybody. Americans, as a rule, tend to think were right. We may not have a monopoly on wisdom but, at the very least, were its franchisees. If only members of the other party were wiser, goes the thinking, theyd think, and vote, like we do. Libraries are in the wisdom business, so naturally we favor them  at least for the other guy. They are, or can be, politically bulletproof.

Directly or indirectly, the only arguments against libraries originate with futurists trying to sell us the same wisdom that libraries provide for free. That, or with politicians trying to drain the swamp of government funding. If your reelection depended on voter ignorance, youd want to starve libraries too.

Libraries arent perfect, but theyre evolving. Things always get delicate when they redefine themselves as more than just books because to some of us just books will always sound like just oxygen. But, in addition to their sacred role as an ark for endangered book culture, libraries already offer most of the services that society cant or wont otherwise provide. Theyre career counselors, homeless shelters and Internet cafes, stopgap solutions to way too many of societys problems.

If government doesnt want to confront these ills, we should at least stand ready to help the one institution thats addressing them already  and the new president could demonstrate that willingness by moving his inauguration.

Librarians may be the only first responders holding the line between America and a raging national pandemic of absolutism.

Deciding where to take the oath of office probably seems like, you should pardon the expression, a no-brainer. Havent chief justices have been swearing in presidents-elect on the National Mall since the Capitol was built in the year 1800?

Actually, no. The first president to take the oath on the western front of the Capitol, so help me God, was Ronald Reagan in 1981. So its hardly a law. Barely a tradition. The president-elect could raise his right hand at the new Trump Hotel (downstairs from my old NEA office) if he felt like it. But if our new chief executive really wants to make a trans-partisan break with precedent, then the front door of Congress, perhaps the least respected institution in the country, might not be the best place to start.

Luckily, the absolute best place is right across the street: our great secular national cathedral, the Library of Congress. And Thomas Jeffersons great gift to the country should stand in for every public library in the land  palatial or puny, hewn from marble or shoehorned into a mini-mall, with stone lions out front or mice in the stacks.

Fortuitously, for the first time since its founding in 1806, Congress has just confirmed a public librarian, Carla Hayden of Baltimores Enoch Pratt Free Library, as Librarian of Congress. Somebody whos actually worked a reference desk and staffed a story hour, Hayden can set a new national agenda for libraries and reading in a country that critically needs one.

For now, come inauguration day, she could do a lot worse than to roll out the red carpet and welcome the new president to her front steps. Nothing makes a good impression like inviting the new boss over to your office for a chat.

All this may explain why I believe our next president should deliver the inaugural address from nowhere but the steps of our national library. And then, turning his back on the cameras, the polls, and even the electorate, he should step inside.

Former literature director of the NEA, David Kipen is the founder of the Boyle Heights-based nonprofit lending library Libros Schmibros.

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Shanghai Disneyland has been open less than five months and already is building an expansion based on the popular Toy Story movies.

The nearly 1,000-acre, $5.5-billion Shanghai Disney Resort, which opened in June, hosted a low-key groundbreaking ceremony last week for its new Toy Story Land, attended by Bob Iger, Walt Disney Co. chief executive and chairman; Bob Chapek, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts; and Fan Xinping, chairman of the Shanghai Shendi Group that is partnering with Disney on the resort.



For the record: An earlier version of this story said that Disney operates theme park resorts in France, Japan and Hong Kong, in addition to Orlando, Fla. and Anaheim. The resort in Japan is operated by a Japanese company under a licensing agreement with Disney.

Iger told analysts and investors Thursday that 4 million people visited the park during the first four months in operation.

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Some of you may infer from this early performance that we can achieve 10 million in attendance in the parks first year, a number we would be thrilled with, but were not providing any annual guidance at this point, Iger said during a conference call discussing Disneys $1.77 billion in fourth-quarter profit, which rose 10% from the year-earlier period but fell short of analysts expectations.

Disney officials declined to describe the cost or size of the new Toy Story Land except to say it will include three attractions and will sit in the northwest part of the park, between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. The land will be Shanghai Disneylands seventh themed area and is expected to open in 2018.

We couldnt be more pleased with Shanghai Disneylands first four months of operation and couldnt be more excited about our future in mainland China, Chapek said in a news release announcing the Toy Story Land expansion.

The resort already has a Toy Story hotel, which opened in June.

Disney operates theme park resorts in France and Hong Kong in addition to Orlando, Fla., and Anaheim. A Japanese company operates a Disney park in Tokyo under a licensing agreement with Disney.

Disney Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy said that attendance at the companys U.S. parks fell 10% in the three months ended Oct. 1, in part because the year-earlier period included an additional week. Attendance fell at Disneyland because the 2015 fourth quarter included the parks 60th anniversary celebration, which brought very strong attendance, she said during the conference call.

Internationally, Shanghai Disney Resorts profitable contribution to operating income couldnt completely offset the approximately $100-million decline at Disneyland Paris, which McCarthy attributed to lingering terrorism fears.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.

UPDATES:

3:05 p.m.: This article was updated to include a discussion of Disney theme park attendance in the fourth quarter.

This article was originally published at 11:35 a.m.
A secluded hideaway owned by late fashion designer and marketer Christian Audigier, who helped popularize clothing brands such as Von Dutch and Ed Hardy, has listed for sale in Topanga for $1.995 million.

The bohemian-vibe estate sits behind large wooden gates on more than three acres of lush grounds.

The main house, a 1930s Hacienda, was extensively restored and features a hand-carved fireplace, a family room, a chefs kitchen with large center island, three bedroom and two bathrooms. Contrasting hues, patterns and materials enliven the rustic interiors.

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Three guest houses, a playroom, an outdoor kitchen and a stacked-stone pavilion also lie within the grounds. A row of cabanas surround the swimming pool. Connecting the structures are stone pathways that wind through mature oaks, olive trees and a vineyard.

Including the guest houses, there are seven bedrooms and five bathrooms in more than 2,300 square feet of living space.

A two-car garage sits near the entrance of the property.

Audigier, who owned multiple properties across Los Angeles County, bought the estate eight years ago for $2.075 million, records show.

Rory Posin and Kristian Bonk of Results Real Estate Group, an affiliate of Re/Max Estate Properties, hold the listing.

Audigier, who died last year at 57, used his connections with celebrities to help turn brands such as Ed Hardy and Von Dutch into global powerhouses. In 2011, he sold the Ed Hardy label for $62 million.

neal.leitereg@latimes.com

Twitter: @NJLeitereg

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On television, Kelly Dodd lives it up as a housewife in tony Orange County. But for a major remodel of her four-story contemporary, she was inspired by Miamis South Beach.

Dodd  the latest cast member to join The Real Housewives of Orange County  recently finished overhauling the Corona del Mar home she and husband Michael bought in 2014, taking it down to the studs and starting from scratch.

Although the reality TV star worked with a designer at first, she ultimately decided to go it alone.

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I wasnt afraid, Dodd, 41, said of redoing the beachfront home that features an elevator, shimmering chandeliers and a Swarovski crystal-covered wine opener. My grandmother was very artistic. She loved interior designing, so I think I get my love of design from her.

Away from the unrelenting spotlight of the Bravo shows rants, romances, recaps and reunions, Dodds favorite room is a 1,200-square-foot fourth-floor living space. It features an open plan with kitchen and dining areas, a full bar, a kegerator, a wine refrigerator and a rooftop deck with views of the Pacific.

It feels like old meets new and is very Old Hollywood, she said.

Why so much white?

I was going for the look of the Delano Hotel in Miami. I wanted the blue from the ocean to pop against the white. I have white-on-white with touches of gold everywhere and a lot of brass.

What details generate the most buzz?

People love my white and gold La Cornue French range. They want to know what kind of countertops I have; they are called Super Thassos Glass. And people love my antique mirrors.

Biggest splurge?

The French Oak floors cost $64,000. But the Fleetwood sliding pocket doors that connect the room to the terrace were the biggest expense and cost over $100,000. Theres one off the kitchen and one off the living room.

What makes the room special?

Its a great gathering spot. The room has a natural draw and so much light. We have random drop-ins all the time. We get up there and can relax and watch the sunset with a glass of wine. Its beautiful.

Youre in the process of selling this house. Will you stick with the South Beach motif at the next?

No, my design style is different with each house. I picked the South Beach style because of the ocean. If I was moving into a single-story home, I would probably do a Napa Valley style.

Have you borrowed any home design elements from your Orange County cast?

No, God, no.

There must be one cast member with a design aesthetic you admire?

Meghan King Edmonds. Her style is relaxing and creative. I like her taste. Its a little funky, and shes young, so her design style is fresher than the other ladies.

There are Real Housewives from London to Los Angeles. If you could swap homes with any series cast member for a week, who would it be?

Erika Girardi from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Her home is so over the top.

hotproperty@latimes.com


Just downstream from the spot where the L.A. River takes a hard right near the Los Angeles Zoo is a broad floodplain that was, in the late 1800s, a scene of almost Arcadian beauty. The river, alive with trout and salmon, flowed through rolling green fields and spring-fed marshlands teeming with waterfowl and amphibians.

This pastoral paradise would not last long, sandwiched as it was between the rapidly growing cities of Los Angeles and Glendale. Soon, a trolley trestle was built to ford the tempestuous river (which would sweep more than one bridge aside during one of its raging winter fits), connecting the two cities via the Glendale and Los Angeles Electric Railway. The first subdivisions in what would become Atwater Village began to appear.

As neighborhoods of pleasant, modest homes began to rise on the eastern banks of the river, commercial districts grew along Tropico Boulevard (now Los Feliz Boulevard) and on either side of the trolley tracks running down Glendale Boulevard. Many of the homes were built for the workers who staffed the LADWP substation or toiled in the railroad yards.

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Disney animators regularly drove from Silver Lake across the new Hyperion Bridge to eat at the Tam OShanter, helping to mark Atwater as a destination in its own right, rather than just a place trolleys passed through.

The unruly river was now hemmed in by development and spanned by costly bridges. When the inevitable happened and the river burst its banks in the great 1938 flood, causing over $680 million in damage to homes and infrastructure, the decision was made to channelize the river.

More concrete came with the construction of the 5 freeway, which paved over the valleys springs, and the 2, which cut Atwater off from Frogtown to the south.

Even with all that change, Atwater Village has kept much of its character, which helps explain its popularity today. The tidy little houses that are within walking distance from Los Feliz and Glendale Boulevards are now highly sought after by home buyers looking for an urban lifestyle thats a little more laid-back than Silver Lakes or Echo Parks.

Neighborhood highlights

A river runs through it: The river  once thought of as an eyesore  is now a popular spot for fishing, kayaking and biking, and the sandy-bottom stretch through Atwater, with its trees and wading herons, gives just a hint of the scenic beauty of the old L.A. river. There is talk about letting it revert to a wilderness state in places, meaning the river may once again rule the narrows.

Thriving on the riverside: Atwater has a rich mix of businesses along Glendale Boulevard, with hip new bookstores existing right alongside ancient fixtures like Club Tee Gee.

Bar crawl: For those who enjoy a nightcap (or two), Los Feliz Boulevard offers some of the citys best watering holes. From the Roost on the divey end to the Tam OShanter on the high, Atwater has you covered.

Neighborhood challenge

Stuck in the middle again: Anyone who has sat in rush hour traffic on Los Feliz Boulevard is feeling the lingering effects of removing the Red Car trolleys 50 years ago. Now cut-through traffic has to do just that: cut through.

Expert insight

Atwater Village has seen a significant spike in interest the last few years, said Kurt Wisner, co-owner of Courtney and Kurt Real Estate, which has its offices in the neighborhood.

Its been an interesting transition for Atwater. Before, people would say, Im looking in Los Feliz or Im looking at Silver Lake and I might consider Atwater, he said. Now people are saying, I only want Atwater.

He noted that many homes are modest in size, so interested home buyers may need to prepare themselves for a major remodel.

Watch your fair share of home fix-up shows, because more than likely, the home youre going to get is going to need a little bit of work and possibly an expansion in the future, he said.

Market snapshot

In September, based on 18 sales, the median price for single-family home sales in the 90039 ZIP Code was $822,000, up 5% year over year, according to Corelogic. The median price for condominiums, based on two sales, was $558,000.

Report card

Within the boundaries of Atwater Village are Glenfeliz Boulevard Elementary and Atwater Avenue Elementary, which scored 813 and 781, respectively, out of 1,000 in the 2013 Academic Performance Index.

Nearby schools include Theodore Roosevelt Middle, which scored 820, and Washington Irving Middle, which had a score of 729. John Marshall Senior High scored 757.

hotproperty@latimes.com
When a tech company moved into a house next to her Venice Beach boardwalk sunglasses stand three years ago, Maria Shim had no idea that it would eventually become her competition.

But on Thursday, nearly all the demand for sunglasses on the boardwalk was centered 25 feet away from her table.

Hundreds of people lined up for hours to buy a pair of Snapchat Spectacles  available to the public for the first time and dispensed out of a bright yellow vending machine.

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The quirky debut for the $130 video camera sunglasses drew worldwide attention. Snapchat developer Snap Inc. has amassed 150 million daily users of its image-sharing, chatting and news app. Spectacles are the Venice companys first try at high-tech hardware.

Snap is expected to introduce more devices in the years to come as part of a broad strategy to change how people communicate. If the early vision for Spectacles is eventually realized, it will decrease peoples need to pull out their smartphones.

For now, tapping a button near the left hinge of the Spectacles activates a camera in the corner of the left lens. It takes circular-cropped videos of up to 30 seconds each. The clips can be transferred wirelessly to the Snapchat smartphone app, where they can shared with friends.

The company and analysts describe the coral, teal and black pairs that went on sale Thursday as toys. Head-worn devices, including Google Glass, have had limited consumer appeal, and the initial run of Spectacles may be a gimmick. But sunglasses are an untested format and Snapchats millennial users make a good starting ground, Gartner technology analyst Brian Blau said.

He questioned the sales strategy, though. Pop-up vending machines, each in the same location for only 24 hours in the months to come, are unlikely to attract Snapchats core audience of teenagers and college students.

Few people in line Thursday fit that description. Most were older, coming from the Los Angeles tech scene or media. Others hoped to fetch big profits by reselling the sunglasses for hundreds of dollars on EBay. The youngest said they were in line for their bosses.

Actor-comedian Andy Milonakis, 40, left, and YouTube star Jesse Wellens, 34, try on their Snapchat Spectacles in Venice. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times )

Westside resident Darren Yan, 29, was among the hundreds of people able to purchase two sunglasses before supplies ran out at 2:45 p.m. Yan wanted to see whether he could hack the sunglasses to work with apps beside Snapchat, he said, describing it as research for the music technology company he works at.

His co-worker, Ally Guatno, 27, had a personal reason to buy Spectacles. She has exchanged 20,000 messages on Snapchat, and the sunglasses could produce more captivating videos.

They arrived around 10 a.m. after waking up to all-caps Facebook messages from friends demanding that they go buy a pair.

If youre wearing them youre part of the cool kids club, Guatno said. Youre part of the clique.

Snap employees teased the line sporting their own Spectacles, while others gawked from inside the big blue house where the company first opened up shop in Venice.

Advertising revenue remains Snaps focus, but hardware designed for Snapchat could help maintain interest in the app. The company wants to go public next year at a projected value of upward of $25 billion.

Spectacles, like Snapchat itself, stem from a Stanford University project. Jon Rodriguez developed an early version of the product at the StartX accelerator at Stanford in 2012. Snap purchased his company in 2014.

Tony Lai, a mentor at the program, described Rodriguez as the products creative genius. Rodriguez was dead set on making the glasses aesthetically pleasing, Lai said. The initial models were cast on rudimentary 3-D printers with soldered-on wires still popping out. They were lightweight but a bit unwieldy.

Fast forward, its phenomenal to see the early prototypes turn into a beautiful, beautiful product, Lai said.

Jasmine Seng, a research associate at Euromonitor International who studies the $18-billion global sunglasses market, said the Chinese-made glasses probably are being sold near the production cost. In other words, Snap isnt charging a premium.

The sunglasses arent polarized or waterproof. They can take about 100 videos before needing a recharge in a special carrying case. And they shouldnt be used while driving.

Shim and other nearby Venice shop owners were frustrated by the vending machines presence Thursday. But the machine, which the company calls Snapbot, might not return for a while.

Like video stories on the Snapchat app that can be accessed for only 24 hours, a Spectacles vending machine will disappear from a spot after about a day, the company said.

People will be clued in to new locations through a map on Spectacles.com, geofilter stickers that will appear in the app and balloons on top of the vending machine. The vending machines are the only way to buy Spectacles directly from Snap, though retail sales could follow. A 30-day return policy applies, the company said.

Analysts say Spectacles arent a threat to traditional sunglasses. And that seemed to be proved true on the Venice boardwalk. Even Snap employees passing by with Spectacles still had traditional sunglasses draped on their collars.

paresh.dave@latimes.com / PGP

Twitter: @peard33

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4:20 p.m. This article was updated with additional quotes and details. It was originally published at 9:50 a.m.
In 1967, the same year the Supreme Court case Loving vs. Virginia struck down laws banning miscegenation, Sidney Poitier starred in Guess Whos Coming to Dinner as a black man romantically involved with blond Katherine Houghton.

Yet in both real and reel life, black-white romantic relationships were problematic, fraught with legal and social taboos. In the case of Loving, that meant rural Virginia couple Richard and Mildred Loving, who married in Washington, D.C., in 1958, were arrested in their home state, forced to move away or be jailed, and spent years fighting the racist law that affected them until the Supreme Court unanimously overturned it.

The fact any miscegenation laws even existed, these are vestiges of slavery, says Jeff Nichols, director of Loving, a new film based on the famous case starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga. All of this speaks to the institutionalized racism in the South.

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Guess, which was released six months after the Loving decision, was, in its own way, meant to be a liberal antidote to situations like this. In director Stanley Kramers film, parents and friends of the romantic couple discuss the pros and cons of their romance in a civilized manner until the womans father (played by Spencer Tracy) gives his blessing to the relationship.

But there are no big love scenes in the film, and it shows Hollywoods fear of a black man with a white woman, says Donald Bogle, author of Elizabeth and Michael: The Queen of Hollywood and the King of Pop, as well as several books about African Americans in Hollywood.

Poitiers character in that film is so perfect  hes a doctor -- but the film still questions if hes fit for this white woman, adds Bogle. Its not dealing with the reality an interracial couple might have to face.

This refusal to deal with the reality of interracial love and sex is nothing new; its pretty much how the movies have handled these relationships down through the years. Beginning with D.W. Griffiths 1915 racist depiction The Birth of a Nation, in which, as described by NYU film professor Sam Pollard, the black man was this evil beast defiling white womanhood (in one scene, a white woman commits suicide rather than be violated by a black man), Hollywood has tiptoed around, or outright ignored, realistic depictions of interracial romance.

During the classic Hollywood era, the industry was regulated by the Production Code, and it banned depictions of miscegenation, says Ellen Scott, a UCLA professor and author of Cinema Civil Rights. Hollywood tastemakers of the era, she says, thought these romances were disgusting and might offend audiences.

One way the industry dealt with the issue was in a series of so-called tragic mulatto storylines in films such as Show Boat (1936), Pinky (1949) and Imitation of Life (1959), in which light-skinned blacks  always played by white actresses  cross the color line and pass as white until their true race is discovered and tragedy ensues. The mulatto can pass, and infiltrate into the culture, and prove the lie in white culture because she can pass and be successful, says Bogle. But the mulatto is tormented and is a warning that the races shouldnt mix.

But if the races did mix  as in the 1957 Band of Angels, in which a white slave owner (Clark Gable) puts the moves on a mulatto woman (played, of course, by a white actress, Yvonne De Carlo)  it is almost always white man, black woman. Black man, white woman is the ultimate taboo.

White men who run Hollywood make these films, says Pollard, and these white male, black woman relationships are easier for them to digest.

This goes to gender politics, adds Bogle. The black penis is so threatening, it calls into question white manhood and white power. And the idea that the white woman is on a pedestal and the black man will defile her, this becomes threatening.

So threatening that even in a film like 1957s Island in the Sun, which features several interracial couples, the romance between Harry Belafonte and Joan Fontaine is so chaste, they dont even touch.

So although there is a history of black men sleeping with white women in such blaxploitation films as Superfly, and while Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston made for a very attractive, but unrealistic, couple in The Bodyguard, it was up to Spike Lee and his 1991 film Jungle Fever to really explore the issue of interracial romance in a contemporary setting, with Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra playing star-crossed lovers.

The film is fascinating because I dont think Spike Lee reduces it to just a black man and white woman, says Scott. Part of the film is to suggest that not only is this a contemporary thing, its something that historically has been a factor in American life.

Envelope Screening Series: Loving  On Now Video: 'Loving' full Q&A: Jeff Nichols, Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga On Now Joel Edgerton on why more people aren't aware of the Lovings' story On Now Joel Edgerton on why 'Loving's' Richard and Mildred stayed together On Now 'Loving' director Jeff Nichols shares what attracted him to the civil rights love story On Now Director Jeff Nichols on the 'Loving' cast: 'The first person I cast was Ruth' On Now Ruth Negga feels the energy while filming 'Loving' in places the real events occurred

Which is one reason why Loving works so well. Coming from an area where the races seemed to mix rather easily  Richards father even worked for a black man, and Mildred was part Native American  the film has a real feel for its environment, and takes the Lovings relationship as perfectly normal.

They came from such a unique place, I do believe they were allowed the room to fall in love, says Nichols. And what it says about race is this idea of love transcends racial barriers.

Yet Bogle feels that filmmakers are still trying to come to grips with black-white romance. Societal attitudes and opposition to interracial marriages, thats one thing, he says. But films still dont indicate that in interracial marriages there are cultural bridges people have to cross in order for the relationship to work. Thats something that can be enlightening; what we learn about one another in this kind of relationship.

calendar@latimes.com

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With its focus on mass incarceration and the criminalization of African American men, Ava DuVernays 13th seems tailor-made for the era of Black Lives Matter. But a key part of the movies thesis is that theres never been a moment when its critique of systemic racism wouldnt have been timely: The 13th Amendment may have outlawed slavery, but the loophole allowing those convicted of crimes to be forced into involuntary servitude allowed the system to be rebuilt under another name. Its a film of big, bold ideas, articulated by a slew of subjects including activist Angela Davis and scholar Henry Louis Gates, spanning centuries of American history and cutting through the fog of political rationalizations.

So naturally, with such a weighty film under her belt, DuVernays next step would be to take on another societal ill, right? Well, no. Shes currently in production on Disneys A Wrinkle in Time, a far less politically charged project that has made her the first black woman to direct a movie with a budget of more than $100 million.

DuVernay took a moment away from that production to talk with The Envelope about 13th.

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When you introduced 13th at its world premiere at the New York Film Festival, you said you didnt want to make a movie about black trauma, but about black survival. How did you find that balance?

That was a big challenge for me as a black woman filmmaker, wanting to tell the story of what I knew, what Ive studied, what Ive always been around  and also knowing what black family is and what black humanity is and what black joy is and not wanting to disrespect that either. We need that 100 minutes to take you through the greatest hits of racism, basically, but not leave you there, to be able to say this is important and were not letting you off the hook and we need to all look at it  but also please know that side by side with the struggle has been a survival thats beautiful and should be acknowledged.

Even though theres a lot of talking-head footage, you manage to give the movie a distinctive visual style. Most documentaries dont lay dolly track for an interview.

Its such a pleasure to answer this question. Nobodys asked me about the craft. I used two black cinematographers. Thats rare. One of them is a black woman. Thats even more rare, like a pixie or a unicorn or something. The idea was that all of the backdrops would denote industrial labor, like brick and steel and glass and rock. For Angela Davis, we basically broke into this old abandoned train station in Oakland. I thought that Id get out and do some verite stuff at some point, because I didnt trust that the talking heads alone would be interesting enough, but I just got lucky. These people are incredibly charismatic and theyre super smart. Its like a classroom of very, very wise people around the subject just looking straight in your face and telling you what they know, and for me that was enough.

You also use a lot of archival footage, especially in the sequence that combines the recent viral videos of black men and women who have been killed by the police. Those images are immensely powerful and immensely disturbing, and they need to be handled carefully. How did you approach the process of including them in the film?

You dont need to ask [the victims families] for permission. The person who is taking the video, the eyewitness, its owned by them or the news organization that they sold it to. You dont have to consult the families about the last minute of their loved ones life, the last breath they took. I just thought that that wasnt the right thing. We called and asked for an emotional permission. About seven families said, No one asks us, but if youre asking, no. I completely understand that. The families that did say yes, theyre there to force us to bear witness. We can talk about it. But when you see it, its human beings that care about each other. It affects you in a different way.

You could have just noted that fact in the credits, but instead every video is labeled individually with the persons name and the fact that you obtained permission from their family. Its a reminder that even if viewers might be tempted to rationalize some of those deaths, every one left a devastated family behind.

This is a loss to someone. Thats what that was constructed to do. We needed the families to say yes in order to do it. The humanity is not in the image. You just see the cold-blooded [killings]. By putting those words on, you humanize it. This person had a family. This person had a name.

At the other end of the spectrum are the clips from D.W. Griffiths virulently racist The Birth of a Nation, which has become so toxic that its almost impossible to screen in public. Why did you feel the need to use those?

I want to look at it because it is the foundation of the very medium that I work within. I look at some of those shots and I think, Where was the camera, was it on a cart? How was that shot so smoothly? Really deconstructing the close-up, editorial innovations, innovations with camera. But in order to look at it, I have to look at racism on my screen, and that affects me. I have to look at a characterization of myself that is a complete fabrication and a myth that affected my people. To me that mirrors the story where we talk about media images and how much we over-index images of black criminality. Black people do not commit more crimes than white people. They commit different crimes. The crimes that black people commit, those are the crimes that have the harshest sentences.

In the current election cycle, theres been an alarming resurgence in open white supremacy, not just the dog-whistle racism that can rear its head in American politics. Did speaking to this historical moment affect how you put the film together?

It affected the timing of the film. Definitely around April when it started to solidify who the candidates were going to be, I said, This needs to be out there. More than addressing Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton and especially their candidacy within the film, both of them had engaged in public discourse as public figures around issues of black criminality and non-black fear of blacks as criminals, before either of them were the candidates. They were part of the story outside of this election.

Were still at a place where in some quarters its treated as more offensive to call someone a racist than for that person to be racist. How do we get past that?

Well, you dont get past it. Thats why were stuck. I just think its fascinating that an era of Black Lives Matter is also an era of someone like Trump. Were here and were trying to do something about it through our little corner of it, which is cinema. I feel like artists are stepping up to this moment through what we know how to do, raising our voices. Weve always done this, but right now theres a chorus thats forming, and its beautiful.

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Starting around September, movie theaters undergo an interesting transformation. Early in the year, marquees sparkle with earnest, witty, independent film titles, while the summer reveals a shift to big action blockbusters. But come fall, a whole other kind of movie beast is unleashed: The awards season hopeful.

I would get an Oscar season depression, quips Whit Stillman, whose film Love & Friendship was released in June and was the subject of positive reviews, particularly for star Kate Beckinsale. Im suddenly watching all these films that were depressive. Im a silly person, a comedy guy. So at some point I decided I would only see the films I wanted to see.

Fortunately for movie studios, not all moviegoers think like Stillman, and the end of the year has become known for some serious filmmaking, destined to inspire deep think pieces and (ideally) little engraved statues. But what about the movies like Stillmans that earned critical plaudits but ventured forth before the Kraken was unleashed? Do they stand a chance with awards voters?

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Surprisingly, the answer can be yes: Think of Boyhood (released August 2014); The Grand Budapest Hotel (March 2014); Mad Max: Fury Road (May 2015)  all of which pushed through to the Oscar finish line. But getting a smaller film with fewer expectations and an even smaller marketing budget to the end of that line is a challenge every year and requires a combination of timing, strategy and sheer luck.

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You have to weigh whether a picture can sustain all that competition at the end of the year  or is it better for a picture to open at a time when the competition is not as severe, says Michael Barker, Sony Pictures Classics co-president, noting that SPCs first release, Howards End, opened in February 1992 and won three Oscars a full year later.

Theres a compelling argument for opening in the first eight months of a year and thats: Your film can stand out when theres less competition for the attention of the audience, he adds.

In the case of SPC, hes speaking of the current Julianne Moore/Greta Gerwig/Ethan Hawke-starring Maggies Plan, which was released in April  traditionally a quiet period for theaters  and ran for four months on the big screen in New York City. Having a long run like that is both possible during the early post-Oscars portion of the year  and optimal if a smaller film wants to get noticed.

Similarly, The Lobster, a controversial dark satire starring Colin Farrell, also spent an extended run in theaters of 10 weeks after its limited U.S. release in May.

Its nonsensical that all of these [Oscar hopeful] movies come out in a very short time, says Lobster producer Ed Guiney. Between October and February were spoiled for choice, and other times during the year were scratching our heads to figure out whats going on. As a theater owner [Guiney owns two in Ireland], were starved certain times of the year and inundated at others.

This time of year, a four-month or 10-week run is unheard of; even a good film can be here and gone in moments. But films that come out earlier in the year have another advantage  that by the time awards season swings around, theyre ready for a second wind thanks to DVD and VOD releases and get a fresh chance to remind viewers of both their existence and award-worthiness.

We debated rushing [Eye in the Sky] out for awards season in 2015 and decided to do the right thing for the movie  which was to let the awards season get out of the way, says producer Ged Doherty of his unflinching political film that starred Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman that came out in April. Now people are just discovering it on DVD, and word of mouth is starting up again.

DVD is key for smaller films: Big ones just being released are too concerned with piracy to issue many  if any  screeners, but its cost-effective to send already produced consumer DVDs to academy members and journalists with a film thats completed its theatrical run.

But thats a gamble too: Once DVDs are out, says Barker, attendance at official academy showings of the film can plummet, which means awards voters may not be seeing the film as intended by filmmakers. The effect can be positive or negative depending on how the film plays on the small screen, he says.

Yet overall the feeling remains that if you want serious Oscar attention, releasing in the last third to quarter of the year affords you automatic consideration in the big races  without having to remind anyone that the film exists.

After Telluride and Toronto [fall film festivals], all these Oscar movies come out and compete  and that clearly remains a strategy, says Matt Ross, director of Julys Viggo Mortensen-starring Captain Fantastic. And some films have to fall by the wayside.

A fact that remains true no matter what a films strategy is. After all, there are only so many hours in a day. Theres only time for academy members to see so many films at the end of the year, Barker says with a sigh. You just hope and pray that youll be one of the 10 or 12 they decide are worth seeing.

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Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

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Loving, the story of Richard and Mildred Lovings historic legal fight to have their interracial marriage recognized by the state of Virginia, is a civil rights story that most Americans dont know. Maybe the reason for its relative obscurity comes from the fact that the Lovings defiance wasnt marked by violence, but by the couples deep, abiding love.

The powerful, patient film, written and directed by Jeff Nichols, stands as one of the great movie love stories of recent times. Curiously  and purposely  there arent many mentions of the word love in the film, save for a great line, spoken by Joel Edgerton, who plays Richard, near the end of the movie. Asked if he had a message for the Supreme Court justices hearing the Lovings case, Richard says: Yeah. Tell the judge I love my wife.

 Loving director Jeff Nichols shares how he cast Ruth Negga as Mildred Loving.

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The line is the favorite of actress Ruth Negga, who plays Mildred with a quiet, steely conviction. And its cherished by Nichols wife of eight years, Missy. (I might have to get T-shirts made with that quote, the Arkansas-born director jokes.) Nichols thoughts on his own marriage influenced what he wanted to convey about the Lovings commitment to each other.

Its really about the moments in between the anniversaries and the I-love-yous, he said. Its about how you stay committed through hard times, harrowing times, like for the Lovings, but also mundane times and the daily parts of life. When I look at my own marriage, thats where the love is. Thats where the real work is.

Richard and Mildred Loving married in Washington in 1958. A few weeks after returning home to Virginia, they were arrested for violating the states Racial Integrity Act, which criminalized interracial marriage. The couple pleaded guilty to violating the law, their one-year jail sentence suspended on the condition that they leave Virginia  and their home and families  and not return for 25 years. Eventually, Mildred forced the issue, with the Supreme Court ruling in the Lovings favor in 1967.

 Loving actor Joel Edgerton explains why he believes Richard and Mildreds story is not as widely known as other civil rights stories.

The movie makes good on Nichols promise to represent the Lovings in good times and bad, grounding the film early in the couples playful, devoted relationship. Its all about the deeds  living, laughing, raising children, washing dishes  not declarations. Witnessing their courtship and day-to-day life makes its legally sanctioned disruption all the harder to bear.

To do this, Nichols relied on Edgerton, a 42-year-old Australian with a long resume in movies over the last decade, and Negga, an Ethiopian-Irish actress, best known as the gun-toting Tulip OHare on AMCs Preacher. Nichols, a thoughtful man not given to pat answers, finds it difficult to neatly summarize the chemistry between the two. (He chuckles at his underwhelming description in an earlier quote in which he explained it simply as Joel and Ruth liked each other.)

Nichols said he realized he had something special early on when the two actors shared an intimate scene, intertwined, face-to-face.

 Actor Joel Edgerton talks about how even in the face of adversity, the one thing Richard Loving wasnt willing to do was divorce his wife.

Negga and Edgerton, over the course of a couple of conversations  a lunch during the Toronto International Film Festival and an interview in Los Angeles  explain that they bonded over their mutual love of the real Richard and Mildred and a shared fear, as they prepared to make the film, of not doing right by these ordinary heroes.

My other fear, Edgerton said, was thinking, When are you going to get another opportunity like this? Which going into it, might make it too precious. But I think I already knew Jeff was going to make a great movie and our job was not to [mess] it up. Because an opportunity like this  when is that ever going to happen again?

I was bereft when it ended, bereft, Negga said. Still am a bit.

Neggas Mildred drives the story, a dignified, smart woman  Edgerton calls her a rural princess  who knew there needed to be a societal shift and that she would have to reluctantly lead the way. Richard wanted it all to go away; Mildred wrote Bobby Kennedy, then attorney general, asking for help. (Theres a telling moment in the 2012 HBO documentary about the couple, when Richard asks, Who was that person you wrote to again?)

These convoluted, corrosive laws didnt make sense to her  and they shouldnt have made sense, Negga said. Ruth was a quiet woman, but she wasnt about to be cowed by others reduction of her.

In person, Negga and Edgerton share a rapport anchored in respect and laughter, reminiscent of their real-life counterparts. Once, in the documentary, Richard and Mildred playfully defer to each other when a question is posed. You answer. No, you answer. Talking to the actors is a bit like that, sometimes feeling like eavesdropping on a private conversation shared between two fast friends.

 Actress Ruth Negga talks about the feeling and energy of filming at the real locations where events depicted in the movie took place.

I remember where it started, where I really connected with Ruth, was when we went to the grave site of Richard and Mildred and seeing Ruth standing in the field, having her own response to that, Edgerton said. I was back near the car, and I could see that she was already connected to the story. That day, I realized, OK, were in this together.

They continue to be united, months after the movie finished shooting, participating in festival Q&As and talking to audience members after screenings. You get the feeling that, if they could, theyd stand in the lobby of every theater showing Loving, spreading the word about Richard and Mildred.

Our film does something to people physically and emotionally, Negga said. People who lived that time still cant believe it was only 50 years ago where two people who loved each other couldnt be married. It reminds us to step out of that complacency. That was a moment in time but its not all wrapped up and done. Its continuing. Thats what the film is reminding us of. Its like a siren.

Envelope Screening Series: Loving  On Now Video: 'Loving' full Q&A: Jeff Nichols, Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga On Now Joel Edgerton on why more people aren't aware of the Lovings' story On Now Joel Edgerton on why 'Loving's' Richard and Mildred stayed together On Now 'Loving' director Jeff Nichols shares what attracted him to the civil rights love story On Now Director Jeff Nichols on the 'Loving' cast: 'The first person I cast was Ruth' On Now Ruth Negga feels the energy while filming 'Loving' in places the real events occurred

glenn.whipp@latimes.com

Twitter: @glennwhipp

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You can stop watching the skies.

Theyre here.

Movies that begin with confounding aliens on the loose have been around for awhile (at least since 1951s Man From Planet X and The Day the Earth Stood Still) and they invariably share a family resemblance even if the space visitors themselves never look the same way twice.

Where do these beings come from, baffled scientists and frightened government officials inevitably want to know. Are they friendly or hostile, what do they want from us and what are they doing here in the first place?

One of the most satisfying things about Denis Villeneuves elegant, involving Arrival is that it is simultaneously old and new, revisiting many of these alien-invasion conventions but with unexpected intelligence, visual style and heart.

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Working from a smart and effective script by Eric Heisserer adapted from a cerebral short story by science-fiction luminary Ted Chiang, the French-Canadian director and his team have found ways to make these way-out-of-the-ordinary events seem plausible and convincing.

This cannot have been easy because Chiangs story, though containing a splendid central idea, is a cool, scientific, even philosophical exploration of the nature of language and does completely without many of the plot specifics that make Arrival involving.

 Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker star in Arrival.

Always an effective, if at times coolly manipulative director (Sicario, Prisoners), Villeneuve and his team have embraced the script and even found space for emotion. This is especially true in the films audacious conclusion, a moving, nervy reveal sure to spark lots of after-movie conversation.

In his success Villeneuve is helped considerably by the finely calibrated performance of star Amy Adams. Though the credits list her as one of a group of top actors including Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg, Arrival is really Adams film, a showcase for her ability to quietly and effectively meld intelligence, empathy and reserve.

Before we know anything else about her, we see Adams Louise Banks as a parent, enjoying the happiness and the sadness that can come with raising a child, her daughter Hannah. Chiangs short story is titled Story of Your Life, and Arrival is similarly structured as a kind of message from mother to child.

Almost immediately, however, we cut to the chase. Banks is a professor of linguistics, but when she shows up to teach, her classroom is almost empty. A timely look at the television tells all: an ominous extraterrestrial spacecraft has landed in Montana and the country is freaking out.

Looking like the universes largest skipping stone, or a surfboard big enough to daunt Duke Kahanamoku, that spacecraft is one of 12 that have shown up at apparently random locations around the globe, including Venezuela, Siberia and China.

Banks thinks all this has nothing to do with her, but shes wrong. Because shes an ace linguist who already has security clearance, the Armys all-business Col. Weber (a letter-perfect Whitaker) shows up at her door in need of help figuring out both how the aliens speak and what they are saying.

Whisked off to deepest Montana, Banks is joined by another scientist, top Los Alamos theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Renner), and Agent Halpern (Stuhlbarg), the inevitable watchful guy from the CIA.

Every 18 hours the alien craft opens and Banks and Donnelly and a support crew go in and confront the pair of aliens, who they nickname Abbott and Costello (a big improvement over the short storys Flapper and Raspberry).

Banks mandate is double-edged: to learn as much of these creatures language as she can, while for security reasons, not revealing any more English to them than she needs to.

This process turns out to be a more fraught procedure than the linguist imagines, and not only because in the rest of the world everyone is acting on pure fear alone.

But for Banks, whose sessions with the aliens are punctuated by frequent visions of herself and her daughter, learning that alien tongue, as short-story writer Chiang puts it, changes the way she understands her life.

While Chiangs story provides Arrivals essential core concept, almost everything else is brought to the table by Villeneuve and his accomplished team, led by gifted cinematographer Bradford Young (A Most Violent Year, Pawn Sacrifice, Selma).

Almost taking as a challenge the familiar nature of alien movies, Villeneuve, Young, production designer Patrice Vermette and visual effects supervisor Louis Morin have taken it as a challenge to show us things from unexpected angles, keeping us off balance visually and emotionally in a very accomplished way.

Adams contribution is essential to this plan, especially when you realize that the story is in large part about the nature of language learning and linguistics. Her ability to create empathy and emotional connection, with the audience as well as the aliens, reminds us that the best and most effective science fiction is invariably deeply human at its core.

===

MPAA rating. PG-13 for scenes of science fiction violence and terror and for brief language.

Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes.

In general release.

Critics Choice. Arrival. Amy Adams stars in this elegant, involving science fiction drama that is simultaneously old and new, revisiting many alien invasion conventions but with unexpected intelligence, visual style and heart. - Kenneth Turan

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 
Its called World War II for a reason, but the attention paid to it today often concentrates on the European theater of operations. The documentary Behind Bayonets and Barbed Wire attempts to correct that imbalance, with mixed results.

A Chinese American production co-directed by Richard L. Anderson and Shen Haofang, Behind Bayonets is mostly straightforward and informational, filling us in on the story of American prisoners of war who surrendered after the defense of the Philippines failed in 1942 and ended up spending time in a savage Japanese prison camp in the city of Mukden (todays Shenyang) in Chinese Manchuria.

A small handful of these survivors, all in their 90s, are still alive, and Behind Bayonets interviews them to good effect. Also of interest is the newsreel footage showing battles, prisoners and famous speeches like Gen. Douglas MacArthur promising I shall return after he was evacuated from Manila.

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But after MacArthur left on orders, and Gen. Jonathan Wainwright was left in command, about 88,000 American and Filipino troops surrendered to the Japanese, apparently the largest mass surrender in American military history.

The number was so large that the Japanese were apparently unprepared to handle that many. One solution was to march everyone, even the sick and wounded, 66 miles north to a POW camp in the north of the country called Camp ODonnell.

Because this was a forced march, and because the Japanese attacked and outright killed prisoners almost at random, this event has become known as the Bataan Death March, with estimates of the dead ranging up to 15,000.

Where Behind Bayonets goes astray is in its decision to offer re-creations of the beatings and the killings that took place, with actors reenacting the memories of the interviewed men as well as episodes from books on the march, like Lester Tenneys My Hitch in Hell: The Bataan Death March.

These re-creations, sad to relate, are awkward and amateurish and make the atrocities depicted seem less rather than more real.

Once the prisoners arrived at Mukden, things did not improve. The barracks were infested with rats and lice, some of the men were subjected to biological warfare, and the temperature was so cold burials couldnt take place and bodies by the hundred were stacked in an empty barracks.

Because this film has a Chinese component, time is spent emphasizing Chinas importance to the Allies ultimate victory. Chinese people fought long and hard for eight years, type on screen tells us, adding that Chinese troops were responsible for 70% of Japanese killed, wounded or captured during the war.

Though the films re-creations are not stellar, the stories these men tell are intense. Because, for instance, they had to recite their prisoner numbers in Japanese every day, they all remember those digits to this day, more than half a century after the fact.

It is a chance to see and hear these men, old and infirm though they are, that provides Behind Bayonets with its strongest moments. Clear-eyed and resilient, they are not consumed by anger or bitterness (Ive mellowed just a little bit, one man says with a laugh) and view things with enviable perspective.

I see the good and bad in all of them, another survivor says, and no one in Beyond Bayonets and Barbed Wire argues with that.

===

No MPAA rating.

Running time: 2 hours.

Playing Laemmles Music Hall, Beverly Hills.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 
Anne Frank: Then and Now may be an oddly structured little docudrama but it makes the most of its eerily cogent message: The words of the famed World War II diarist are as timely today as when first penned by the Jewish teenager while she hid from German occupiers.

To that end, father-son filmmakers Jakov and Dominik Sedlar focus on several Palestinian teens auditioning to play Anne Frank in a proposed Arab-language theatrical retelling of the writers thoughts and experiences. (The movie was shot in Gaza, Ramallah and Jaffa in July 2014, around the time of the Israel-Gaza conflict.)

Although this stage production never materialized, it began a vital discussion of the Holocaust among these budding young Arab actresses. The poised and pensive girls seen here alternate between reciting moving passages from Franks diary and commenting on such related topics as love, religion and war from a contemporary Muslim perspective. The uneasy state of Israeli-Palestinian relations, occasionally underscored by pointed local imagery, informs these often heartfelt chats.

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A nominal framing device involving a Kosovo theater director and a reluctant actress at odds over their own potential stage show based on Franks diary adds a bit of concocted, in-the-moment drama.

A stirring visit by film producer Branko Lustig to the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he and Frank were once imprisoned, rounds out this brief but provocative work.

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Anne Frank: Then and Now

In English and Arabic with English subtitles

Not Rated.

Running time: 1 hour, 2 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle Town Center 5, Encino

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 
Like The Big Chill and Peters Friends but without a single character youd want to spend five minutes with, let alone a weekend, The Drama Club makes for a crassly unpleasant ensemble piece.

Reuniting for the first time in 20 years, a group of former high school drama club members, plus their significant others, get together to relive old times, slowly realizing why theyve been in no hurry to catch up in the interim.

Aaron (Dane Bowman) hosts his old pals, now in their late 30s with clear arrested development issues, at the community playhouse he took over from their late theater teacher. What was intended to be a lark quickly collapses into a mess of drug- and alcohol-fueled bad behavior.

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We know from past screen experiences that these weekend-in-the-country pieces usually turn out to be anything but idyllic, but in ensuring theres no shortage of drama, writer-director Joe McClean hasnt created a single relatable character worth our time.

Instead, he serves up one-dimensional archetypes  the ungodly school slut, the virginal good Christian, the smugly racist Republican banker  played by actors who all look and sound like actors.

Occupying time in between their illicit couplings by griping endlessly about social media and millennials while blaming the system for their not having any African Americans in their social circle, they make Adam Sandlers Grown Ups seem downright urbane by comparison.

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The Drama Club

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes

Playing: Arena Cinelounge, Hollywood

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 
The shocking documentary Ivory. A Crime Story doesnt pull any punches when it comes to depicting the lawless hunt for elephant ivory that spans the globe. With graphic images of violence against animals and people, the film, directed by Sergey Yastrzhembskiy, is an investigation into the economic forces that drive the increased appetite for ivory.

Starting in Africa, Ivory. A Crime Story posits that poaching has gone from petty theft to organized international crime ring, a commercial industry that funds political fringe and terrorists group on the continent. But the cost of ivory has gone up, fueled by an insatiable desire for the precious substance, prized in many different countries and religions, from Catholicism to Buddhism. Yastrzhembskiy heavily implicates the increased influence of Chinese industry and tourism in Africa as a factor in the illegal smuggling of ivory.

The story spans international law on ivory trade, religious and cultural traditions, and political motivations. Coupled with the imagery of elephant carcasses and violence committed against poachers and rangers in Africa, the film is not an easy watch. Voice-over provided by Scarface actor Steven Bauer intensifies the viewing experience as well.

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The situation seems dire in many ways, though Yastrzhembskiy offers some hope at the end of the film, along with solutions to controlling demand in the ivory market. Its a powerful call to action and a reminder of the bloody global implications contained in a single trinket.

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Ivory. A Crime Story

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes

Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 
Brazilian writer-director Anna Muylaerts new movie has been given the English language title Dont Call Me Son, but it could easily be called by the English-language title of her last movie, The Second Mother. In both instances, a functioning home is shaken up by a suddenly re-configured sense of what constitutes a parent.

In the previous film, the focus was on a cherished live-in maid, torn between employer loyalty and maternal duty as she reconnects with her progressive-minded daughter. In the thornier scenario of Son, though, the viewpoint is that of a gender-fluid teenager who learns a world-shattering secret about his family.

The blow is surprising enough that if you have an inkling toward checking out a sensitively handled, naturalistically performed domestic drama about adolescent identity, dont read much more of this review. Certainly, from the opening scenes of eyeliner-wearing high-schooler Pierre (Naomi Nero) enjoying the attention of girls and boys at a thumping party  and revealing a flash of lacy thong during a hook-up  youd be forgiven for assuming the blurred sexual lines of todays youth was Muylaerts immediate subject matter.

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Pierre lives in a tiny space with his younger sister (Lais Dias) and single, working class mom Aracy (Dani Nefussi), plays in a band (hes the exquisitely brooding one), and when trying on lipstick and taking selfies of his androgynous look, locks the shared bathroom door. The intrusion that upends Pierres life, though, comes not from within, but from the authorities, who show up one day to arrest his mother for stealing him from the hospital as an infant.

When a DNA test proves it, they subsequently return him to his biological mother and father, whose moneyed, straight-edge life couldnt be more different than his.

Its a bitter irony in Muylaerts scenario  inspired by a real life case in Brazil  that Pierres burgeoning nonconformity as an experimenting teen feeling his oats now has to be set aside to deal with a forced separation from loved ones, and being called Felipe by two overly attentive, well-meaning strangers who live in a gated community that to him feels like a prison.

The irony comes full circle, though, when Pierre realizes that he has a ready-made coping tool: letting them know who he is. His dressing room reveal  during an enforced clothes-shopping excursion for more bourgeois-acceptable clothes  makes for a showdown equally tense and funny.

Dont Call Me Son, although built on conflicts that have fractured many a family, thankfully never veers into melodrama. Muylaert prefers to hew to a handheld aesthetic of small, pressurized moments that play elements against each other, be they about class or identity issues, the generational divide, sexual mores, or the battle between making up for lost time and looking for an escape.

Shes sympathetic to all sides, which is refreshing, and the performances thrive in this tightly knit, detailed universe of confusion. As Pierre, Nero at times moves like hes underwater, and his mouth is as inscrutable as the Mona Lisas, but hes got a gloomy charisma.

It took a while to realize that Muylaert had cast Nefussi as both moms  her early restlessness in only a handful of scenes seems miles from the later role of doting, put-together Gloria, who stares in disbelief at her reclaimed son for uncomfortably long periods. Though Nefussi is great, the stunt doesnt really add anything. And as Pierres new younger brother Joca, a socially awkward pre-teen who finds a kinship with his new housemate, Daniel Botelho is a quietly authentic presence.

It would be a mistake to look at Dont Call Me Son as a manifesto for identity liberation, or a soap opera with a warm and fuzzy resolution. It revs up, makes its spirited mess of issues, maintains its complicated humanity, then ends. That may not make it everybodys cup of tea, but hey, Muylaert seems to be saying, what movie or person is?

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Dont Call Me Son

In Portuguese with English subtitles

Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes

Not rated

Playing: Laemmle Royal, West L.A.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 
To be fair, Trevor Noah had his work cut out for him going into the live election night edition of The Daily Show. Even the far more experienced Stephen Colbert struggled to put on a show in the face of early results no one had predicted, which resulted in a victory for Donald Trump, one of the shows longtime favorite targets.

But where Colbert looked to provide some big-picture comfort, The Daily Show seemed more deeply mired in shell-shocked despair. While a new election-themed subtitle that resembled something yelled before a car hurtles off a cliff  NOOOOOO! was a nice touch, Noah seemed at a loss right from the top. This is it, he said. The end of the presidential race. And it feels like the end of the world. The silver lining grew more elusive from there.

Noahs numb recitation of Trumps so much winning stump speech sound bite fared better as he tried to describe his feelings, but his admission that he was very much afraid offered little comfort, much less comedy.

Correspondent Roy Wood Jr. downed antacid while Noah toyed with a fake newsman hat in a few moments that also failed to land, and interviews with guests Keegan-Michael Key, Ana Marie Cox and presidential historian Douglas Brinkley never transcended the episodes funereal tone.

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Noahs predecessor, Jon Stewart, veered close to despair during his live broadcast of the 2004 election results, but his show remained airtight, mining strong material from TV news network tics and the threat of a long recount. (Although looking at the murderers row of correspondents  Colbert, Samantha Bee and Rob Corddry  in the below clips from that year on Comedy Centrals website, how could it not?)

Noahs secret weapon throughout his rocky tenure at the wheel of The Daily Show has been his perspective as an outsider. Drawing on his experience as a South African  and an immigrant  in the face of such a political shift could have borne far more fruit than the numb shock found in the results.

The pre-taped segments were no better. Though Jordan Klepper offered a wry moment of encouragement to the left while reciting Trump slogans, a later piece examining the divisiveness at rallies for both campaigns only added a sense of disillusionment. Worse still was a piece from Desi Lydic on poll watching that for far too long gave a platform to a white supremacist leader, which is a bit that probably sounded better on paper as the kind of dodged-bullet mockery that could follow a lopsided Clinton win.

Fortunately for The Daily Show, tonight brings another shot at finding its voice in this landscape. Noahs job was never easy as he took over for Jon Stewart. Now, knowing the show and its host peaked as a voice of opposition during the Bush years, the bar he must reach just grew that much higher.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

chris.barton@latimes.com

Follow me over here @chrisbarton.

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Free from the quick turnaround required by the live comedy shows that aired on election night, the late-night hosts regrouped Wednesday to offer their thoughts on Donald Trumps presidential victory.

Seth Meyers, who quickly became one of the best sources for political comedy during the long campaign, came back strong with a thoughtful, emotional tone.

He reflected on embracing his 8-month-old son while putting him to bed Tuesday night and speculated he might wake up to the first female president. Then, after the results came in, Meyers first woke his baby with panicked escape plans but then recalibrated, telling his son that for the first time in history, our president would be a steak salesman.

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Meyers then shared the excitement that someones daughter was out there who would still one day be the first female president. Maybe youre a woman whos currently a senator, maybe youre still in college. Hopefully youre not a toddler, but who knows? he added with a rueful grin.

After further encouraging the future first female president (Wherever you are, go get it), he struck a more conciliatory tone while speaking directly to Trump voters in an effort to empathize with what drove their vote. I sincerely hope that he addresses your concerns, he said. I sincerely hope that if you felt forgotten, he wont forget you now.

Meyers also acknowledged how his disappointment with the election results could only pale in comparison to how LGBTQ, African American and immigrant communities must feel. Hopefully the Trump administration and Trump supporters will be compassionate to them, Meyers said, his voice catching. Because they need your compassion.

His monologue continued its hopeful tack, comparing Trumps embrace of racist rhetoric on the campaign trail as perhaps akin to the out-of-character efforts one makes while in the early stages of dating, like agreeing to go apple picking. Let me make it clear that I am in no way trying to say that racism is as bad as apple picking, Meyers concluded, grinning as the metaphor reached its breaking point.

Finally, Meyers congratulated the president-elect and concluded with a promise that sounded like vigilance. We here at Late Night will be watching you, he said.

With a special Wednesday night episode on TBS, Samantha Bee opened with a hazy dream sequence that featured giddy cameos from CNNs Van Jones as well as her fellow Daily Show alumni Larry Wilmore, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. After the inevitable rude awakening, Bee, in her monologue, quickly refuted an idea that a Trump victory would be good for late-night hosts, that the jokes would basically write themselves. No, no, no, shut up. Jokes dont write themselves, she vigorously argued. Jews write jokes, and theyre scared  .

Bee initially echoed much of the anger and frustration that came from the left Tuesday night, calling the results the democratic equivalent of installing an above-ground pool. (Even if were lucky and it doesnt seep into our foundation, the neighbors will never look at us the same way again.)

But in offering an election post-mortem, Bee focused on voter turnout. (Warning: The above video uses explicit language.)

First she deflected the idea that low black voter turnout was at fault (How many times do we expect black people to build our country for us?), and placed the results squarely at the feet of white men and women. She quickly shut down the idea of any white people distancing themselves from the results, regardless of how they voted. If Muslims have to take responsibility for every member of their community, so do we, she said.

After insisting her audience confront the reality of the circumstances behind the election, Bee also struck a more encouraging note. We still have millions of Nasty Women who arent going away, she said. And as long as women over 25 are still allowed on television, Ill still be here cheering them on.

Lets get off the floor and get busy. Especially you, white women, Bee added. Weve got some karma to work off.

A day removed from what was a relatively bleak election night special, Stephen Colbert was back on firmer ground on a live edition of The Late Show. This is what it feels like when America is made great again, Colbert said, acknowledging a grim mood on the streets of New York. I was hoping it would feel better.

Colbert was the only late-night host to show footage of Wednesday nights election protests. Dont stop speaking up, Colbert encouraged, adding, though, that the lack of acceptance from the other side for eight years of the Obama administration was not a good look.

Like it or not  for the record, not  we have to accept that Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States, Colbert said to a hail of groans. I just want to keep saying it until I can say it without throwing up in my mouth a little bit, he explained.

After comparing his post-election feelings to something akin to a dream state, Colberts monologue showed more teeth than the raw-nerved response on Tuesday night. He looked to Trumps post-victory remarks about Hillary Clinton for advice to parents explaining election results to their kids (Just follow his lead and lie) and drew close to the camera to marvel at Clintons dignified concession speech. How are you already accepting this? he asked incredulously. Did you pay extra for a Fast Pass through the five stages of grief?

Colbert also offered encouragement, and dismissed the idea of finding solace by relocating to Canada  something that apparently was being vigorously explored Tuesday night as the countrys immigration information website crashed. I can understand why Canada looks so attractive. Youve got free healthcare and a prime minister who looks like the prince from Tangled, Colbert said.

You dont get to flee to another country when things get rough here, he said. Being an American citizen is like family: Youre in it whether you like it or not.

On ABC, Jimmy Kimmel may have had the election response that best reflected many peoples feelings. I had the weirdest, weirdest dream last night, he said. Remember that guy who used to host The Apprentice? I dreamed we elected him president.

Later, a visibly despondent Robert De Niro admitted to Kimmel he no longer could carry out his wish to punch then-candidate Donald Trump in the face. I cant do that now. Hes the president. And I have to respect that position, though I, we all know ... anyway, he said, his voice trailing off. I just have to see what hes going to do.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

chris.barton@latimes.com

Follow me over here @chrisbarton.

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Even in as strange and gaudy a cycle as this one, modern political moments tend to announce themselves well in advance. The expected train arrives in the station, the tracks lead to the next scheduled stop.

Tuesday was a different, twistier trip.

Like all election days, it was a long haul on television, starting slow, with cable news on the job long before there was anything to know. Though everyone was careful not to predict a winner, discussions took place against a backdrop of polls that indicated Hillary Clinton would be elected president. The stunning lack of support for Donald Trump by the elders and organs of his own party was duly noted, his surrogates treated with a solicitous sympathy. Dont forget to enjoy the moment, whatever it is, MSNBCs Chuck Todd would say to Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, when it still seemed as likely as not that the moment he referred to would constitute a loss.

Early coverage was filled with pictures of people in line to vote, scattered reports of malfunctioning machines. If you surfed away from the main event, you could see judge Gloria Sturman spar with lawyers for Trump in a Las Vegas courtroom; a Los Angeles City Council meeting that ended with a speech to adjourn in the memory of the late Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and the benediction, Go vote. Be safe. C-SPAN ran Ross Perots cheery, inspirational 1992 concession speech, in which he encouraged his followers to work with the new Clinton administration: As long as were together nationwide  you will be a force for good for our country and our children.

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And for something completely different there was the Weather Channel, located conveniently next to the cable news outlets, which branded itself as the place to Escape the Election. Flute music accompanied pictures of a waterfall, a rainbow, a dandelion shivering in the wind, elk touching noses, a duck on a pond, amber waves of grain, purple mountains: the things that might survive us.

Early exit polls, lacking votes to count, concentrated on general questions about feelings toward the candidates and the issues, while on-screen countdown clocks marked the time until polls closed and reporters could start coloring in their maps. We have some real numbers, MSNBCs Brian Williams cried like a kid on Christmas, adding: They arent predictive and they dont mean anything. On CNN, the easily excited Wolf Blitzer would announce, We have a key race alert! whenever new figures came down the pipeline, or sometimes just to say that a race was too early to call. John King, speed-talking, made early runs on his Magic Board, digging deep into maps of states and counties to pull out a profusion of numbers that swamped any attempt to get hold of them.

In other words, business as usual, more or less.

And then, slowly, the world turned upside down. States expected to turn blue instead turned red. With growing unease and puzzlement, commentators began discussing what theyd gotten wrong. As the evening wore on, the question of whether Trump would concede slowly gave way to questions about when Clinton would.

The mood among the panelists, even on Fox News, turned reflective, somber, confused and oddly congenial, like strangers who found themselves stranded in a lifeboat might behave, before the supplies ran out.

You only have one president at a time, former Barack Obama strategist and CNN commentator David Axelrod said when the result became clear. And you have to try to make it work.

Glenn Beck, the formerly fringe-baiting conservative commentator, told NBCs Lester Holt: If this is what being a conservative or a Republican is, I dont want any part of that The people are entering a time, as weve seen tonight, beyond reason. His new goal, he said was to meet with the people I disagree with the most I just want to listen.

On a live edition of The Daily Show, host Trevor Noah spoke sharply. I dont know if you came to the right place for jokes tonight, he said. I genuinely dont know how America can be this disorganized or this hateful. Stephen Colbert was similarly unguarded and direct on his own election night special on Showtime.

But on news networks, for reasons of delicacy or decorum or perhaps because it no longer seemed to be the point, the racism, sexism and nativism associated with the Trump campaign were generally soft-pedaled. Early on, because attention was focused on the counting, and the likely conclusion; later, perhaps, because the cognitive dissonance was just too deafening.

There were brief skirmishes. On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews got testy with one another over what Matthews characterized as Clintons failure to reach out to the disgruntled masses who only wanted a good job, a secure border and no more war.

What she didnt say was build a wall, Matthews said. I never heard her come out against illegal immigration. Maddow protested that she had a well-developed immigration policy.

Trump took advantage of it, and I dont think it was racism. The way he did it was.

 The way he did it was,  Maddow repeated, in apparent amazement.

It was CNN commentator Van Jones, dispensing with niceties, who finally pointed to the elephant in the room: Its hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us. You tell your kids dont be a bully. You tell your kids dont be a bigot. You tell your kids do your homework and be prepared. Then you have this outcome.

Weve talked about everything about race tonight This was a white-lash against a changing country, it was a white-lash against a black president in part. And Donald Trump has a responsibility tonight, to come out and reassure people that he is going to be the president of all the people who he insulted and offended and brushed aside. (The next morning, in a piece for cnn.com, Jones was cautiously optimistic, noting that Trumps acceptance speech immediately struck an unexpected note of grace and reconciliation.)

The counting went on long into the night. Scenes from the Trump and Clinton gatherings showed the mood lifting in the former hall and flat-lining at the other. (It really is like covering a wake, said a reporter from ABC News 24 covering the Clinton event.) Eventually, the news went out that the Democratic candidate had conceded to the Republican by telephone, and the cameras all settled in among the crowd to await the victor.

After awhile, the next president arrived to address them.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com

Follow Robert Lloyd on Twitter @LATimesTVLloyd
Armenian Assembly congratulates President-Elect Donald J. Trump

WASHINGTON, D.C. - After a long, close, and hard fought presidential race, Republican nominee Donald J. Trump, early Wednesday morning, surpassed the requisite number of Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, reported the Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly). In addition to the White House, Republicans retained their majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate although by smaller margins. 'We congratulate president-elect Trump and his running mate Mike Pence, and we commend American Armenians who participated in the election process throughout the country," stated Assembly Co-Chairs Anthony Barsamian and Van Krikorian. "In his victory speech, president-elect Trump's call for national unity was gracious and is welcome. During the campaign, president-elect Trump recognized Turkey's ties to ISIS, as well as its increasingly authoritarian regime. In addition to Turkey, President Trump will also need to address Azerbaijan's sharp deterioration and its links with ISIS. Both countries pose a threat to stability in the region," Co-Chairs Barsamian and Krikorian added. "In view of the insecurity in the region, it is vitally important that Christians and minority communities at risk be protected and we urge the new Administration and new Congress to take steps to safeguard these vulnerable communities," the Co-Chairs continued. In the House of Representatives, the Members of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian issues had a strong showing with the overwhelming majority of those seeking re-election winning, including Co-Chairs Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Jackie Speier (D-CA), David Valadao (R-CA) and Vice Co-Chairs Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Dave Trott (R-MI). Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Robert Dold (R-IL) facing a re-match with Democrat Brad Schneider did not win, nor did his Senate colleague Mark Kirk (R-IL). Meanwhile, Armenian Caucus Member Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) handily won his election to the United States Senate having defeated Turkish Caucus Congresswoman Donna Edwards in the Maryland primary. In addition, Caucus Member Janice Hahn (D-CA) won her bid for Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. "We congratulate the Members of the Armenian Caucus on their victories. We are proud to have two Members of Armenian descent in the House of Representatives, namely Anna Eshoo and Jackie Speier. Armenian American Danny Tarkanian, however, did not prevail in Nevada," stated Armenian Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny. "We also appreciate the strong support of our friends who will not be returning to Congress and wish them every success." In addition to a strong showing on the House side, pro-Armenia candidates also won in the Senate. Apart from Van Hollen, Armenian Genocide resolution cosponsors Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and long-time supporter of Armenian issues Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were all re-elected. Established in 1972, the Armenian Assembly of America is the largest Washington-based nationwide organization promoting public understanding and awareness of Armenian issues. The Assembly is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt membership organization.
One of the casualties, if thats the word, of Tuesdays big result, is that the third quadrennial South Park day-after-the-election episode  a stunt that has become a tradition  required some last-minute revision. And this is a show that works late to begin with, operating on a six-day production schedule  like Saturday Night Live, essentially  to keep the satire as fresh as possible.

The Comedy Central series two previous election hangover specials, following the first and second Obama wins, had alternate versions ready to go. This year, the result seemed less in doubt, and the episode, originally titled in online program guides as The Very First Gentleman on Wednesday became Oh Jeez.

Things have not worked out the way they were supposed to, says the series impression of Hillary Clinton.

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The themes in the 20th anniversary season, which began in September, have interwoven a number of serial strands, including the election. Former elementary school teacher Mr. Garrison has served as a stand-in for Donald Trump, with the series (typically) unflattering version of Caitlyn Jenner as his running mate; as Garrison described his candidacy in last weeks episode, in a speech meant to bring an end to it: When I started this campaign, I was saying a lot of [crap] because I was angry, and then I turned that anger into pushing buttons by being more and more outrageous. Slowly people started paying attention to me, and I guess it made me feel powerful. Then he asked people to vote for Clinton.

I tried being dirty. I tried being vulgar. Nothing mattered, Garrison said in Wednesdays episode. Now he will be president, maybe. One apparently late line, which escaped bleeping, announced his intentions in the rudest terms.

Other threads and references this year, not unrelated to the political scene and climate, play off Internet trolling and cyberbullying, social media, email dumps, Colin Kaepernicks national anthem protest, the colonization of Mars and, in one great shaggy dog punchline, Rickrolling. A story line in which Butters, who has become the series locus of anger now that Eric Cartman is a love-struck feminist, leads his male classmates in exposing themselves in what plays as a critique of what one might call the white male victimization movement. (Small cartoon children exposing themselves may be less sexual than if it were adults, I guess, but it is still bizarre.)

Even stranger, perhaps, is one involving member berries, a talking fruit with nostalgia-inducing psychotropic effects that is used to explain both a rash of conservative yearnings for a time when there werent so many Mexicans and marriage was just between a man and a woman and also the success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. (Star Wars and its then-new relationship with Disney was the satirical centerpiece of the 2014 post-election special.)

Oh Jeez includes appearances by Bill Clinton, who is opening a South Park Gentlemens Club  to teach boys to be gentlemen  and eventually will sit down with Butters to explain that the female payback is coming and they will need to keep our heads low and act like were changed men. (This seems to be a hangover from the version of the episode in which Clinton won.)

Clinton, meanwhile, portrayed as something like M in a James Bond film, sends Kyles father, Gerald Broflovski, on a secret mission to take down the Danish company Trolltrace. As an act of revenge for Geralds trolling, Trolltrace has created a program to reveal everyones Internet history to the world and it has destroyed Fort Collins, Colo., down the road from South Park.

Series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are equal-opportunity satirists  People on the far left and the far right are the same exact person to us, Parker has said. (The shows nickname for Clinton has been Turd Sandwich.) But they are not scattershot, and their take on the historical moment is pretty clear.

Late in the episode, at the family dinner table, Stans dad, Randy Marsh, under the influence of the member berries, says robotically, Well, I dont know about you guys, but Im sure excited. Americas going to be great again.

This countrys going to suck for four years, says his daughter, Shelly, protesting.

Aw, come on, Shelly, Randy responds. Weve learned that women can be anything, except for president.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com

Follow Robert Lloyd on Twitter @LATimesTVLloyd
Beloved fictional character Leslie Knope has written to America from beyond the grave of television cancellation to counsel the country in wake of Donald Trumps victory.

Knope, as played by Amy Poehler, was an optimistic, go-getter who had big dreams and grand plans for her small Indiana community and the world at large.

The character was a faithful and tireless public servant who had nothing but the highest respect for the women who had come before her in politics, particularly Hillary Clinton.

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Thats why people respect Hillary Clinton so much, Knopes character memorably said in a Season 2 episode. No one takes a punch like her.

Shes the strongest, smartest punching bag in the world.

Female leaders line the office walls of Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times )

Now, after Clintons stunning defeat in the presidential election, Knope wrote an open letter to America on how to move forward if, like her, you are struggling with how to move forward. (And by wrote, we mean one of the Parks and Recreation scribes who penned the letter.)

In it, Knope recalls an experience from her childhood where she was taught a social studies lesson by a teacher who had the classroom vote on two candidates, a flashy jaguar and a bookish tortoise.

I think you know where this is going.

Except you dont, because before we voted, Greg Laresque asked if he could nominate a third candidate, and Mrs. Kolphner said Sure! The essence of democracy is that everyone and Greg cut her off and said, I nominate a T. rex named Dr. Farts who wears sunglasses and plays the saxophone, and his plan is to fart as much as possible and eat all the teachers, and everyone laughed, and before Mrs. Kolphner could blink, Dr. Farts the T. rex had been elected president of Pawnee Elementary School in a 1984 Reagan-esque landslide, with my one vote for Greenie the Tortoise playing the role of Minnesota.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

Knope was understandably heartbroken by the results and sought consolation from her teacher.

Greenie was the better candidate, I said. Greenie should have won.

She nodded.

I suppose that was the point of the lesson, I said.

Oh, no, she said. The point of the lesson is: People are unpredictable, and democracy is insane.

But Knope had a greater point than the erratic and unpredictable nature of democracy, a message of hope for those who feel as though the election has left them in unfamiliar territory.

I acknowledge that Donald Trump is the president. I understand, intellectually, that he won the election. But I do not accept that our country has descended into the hatred-swirled slop pile that he lives in. I reject out of hand the notion that we have thrown up our hands and succumbed to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and crypto-fascism. I do not accept that. I reject that. I fight that. Today, and tomorrow, and every day until the next election, I reject and fight that story.

Even more than that, Knope had a message for young girls disappointed that they did not awake Wednesday morning to the first female president they had hoped for.

Hi, girls. On behalf of the grown-ups of America who care about you and your futures, I am awfully sorry about how miserably we screwed this up. We elected a giant farting T. rex who does not like you, or care about you, or think about you, unless he is scanning your bodies with his creepy T. rex eyes or trying to physically grab you like a toy his daddy got him (or would have, if his daddy had loved him). (Sorry, that was a low blow.) (Actually, not sorry, Im pissed, and Im on a roll, so zip it, superego!)

Our president-elect is everything you should abhor and fear in a male role model. He has spent his life telling you, and girls and women like you, that your lives are valueless except as sexual objects. He has demeaned you, and belittled you, and put you in a little box to be looked at and not heard. It is your job, and the job of girls and women like you, to bust out.

You are going to run this country, and this world, very soon. So you will not listen to this man, or the 75-year-old, doughy-faced, gray-haired nightmare men like him, when they try to tell you where to stand or how to behave or what you can and cannot do with your own bodies, or what you should or should not think with your own minds. You will not be cowed or discouraged by his stream of retrogressive babble. You wont have time to be cowed, because you will be too busy working and learning and communing with other girls and women like you. And when the time comes, you will effortlessly flick away his miserable, petty, misogynistic worldview like a fly on your picnic potato salad.

He is the present, sadly, but he is not the future. You are the future. Your strength is a million times his. Your power is a billion times his. We will acknowledge this result, but we will not accept it. We will overcome it, and we will defeat it.

Now find your team, and get to work.

Also included in Knopes message was a request that, if people have the means, they should make a donation to the ACLU, the International Rescue Committee or a charity of their choice.

The full version of the letter was published at Vox and Yahoo.

libby.hill@latimes.com

Twitter: @midwestspitfire

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Rebecca Taylor started her fashion line two decades ago, cutting and sewing at a kitchen table in Brooklyn that she had built herself.

Since then, the New Zealand-born designer has established free-standing stores in five states (her latest, in Miami, opened just as Hurricane Matthew hit). Her line also sells in retailers such as Bergdorf Goodman, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus and in boutiques worldwide. Taylor is known for an aesthetic that is quietly dressy: Victorian-inspired blouses in silks and georgettes, ethereal dresses in subtle floral prints and neat peplum jackets.

Taylor, based in New York, was in Los Angeles last month to launch her new label, La Vie. The collection is predicated largely on denims  jeans in that of-the-moment high-waisted, ankle-skimming silhouette  ruffle tops, simple plaid dresses and twill jumpsuits.

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The collection, which is priced from $95 for a jersey tee to $395 for a twill coat, is exclusively available at Nordstrom and Rebecca Taylor stores as well as their online sites. There are about 25 styles in the La Vie line, with new pieces added every month.

It wont be all brand new, said Taylor, of the new monthly offerings, shortly before a meet-and-greet with shoppers at Nordstrom at the Grove. You know, the jeans that fit you, and youll want to get them in a new wash or new color.

Taylor also chatted about how fashion has come full cycle and the importance of logging off the laptop, and, at least once in a while, shopping for clothes in a store.

Why the decision to launch La Vie now?

I was interested in evolving the Rebecca Taylor brand to include more casual and everyday pieces  hence, La Vie  life. We were dressing our girl, providing her with her wardrobing needs for work, a baby shower, a wedding. People dress in a much more casual way consistently. We thought it would be nice to dress the other side of this girl  what she wears when dropping the kids at school, en route to yoga, out to dinner with girlfriends. Most people really live in denim, and I wanted to make clothes that arent so silk-based  more cotton, linens, wool blends. The emphasis is on ease and washability. Theyre not precious. You can throw them in the wash, and its not the end of the world.

How has your own aesthetic evolved?

Fashion has come full circle. When my brand first started, I had a lot of touchstones: striped T-shirts and sweaters, cargo pants, Victorian blouses  theres a lot of Victoriana out there in New Zealand. When I started, some of my key things were a snake moto, a little sequinned slip dress, something very feminine but also downtown. Then the pendulum swung to be more austere and androgynous, and that was a tricky time for us. Its swung back the other way. Some of the pieces we had when I started Im now pulling out of the archives room, and they feel good again.

You still have a thriving department store business instead of focusing all your efforts online. How come?

I still believe in brick-and-mortar. Its important to have a venue for people to come together socially. So much of our collection is about a mother and daughter shopping together, buying pieces for a first job interview. Theres very much an emotional component there. We train our salespeople to treat customers like family and to make the experience important. You miss that when you shop on the Internet.

You started in a very grass-roots way. Do you think thats still possible today?

I dont know if its doable on that level now. When I started out there was no Project Runway. I grew up not even knowing what a fashion designer was. Now, there are so many more people in the marketplace, and consumer buying habits change so rapidly. People move on quickly. Were fortunate to have hard-core Rebecca Taylor fans. Its the fit. Its the consistency. They know what they are getting from us.

What are the essential things every woman should have in her wardrobe?

A great pair of jeans  our Beatrice jean spans a lot of ages and uses. Its a play on a classic [Levis] 501, a slight vintage feel. Its not too fashiony but has enough attitude that it feels designed. And I love a great army jacket. A black moto. A striped sweater. And a good red lipstick.

image@latimes.com

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It may be small comfort for Democrats who are devastated that Hillary Clinton lost her bid for the White House, but the former secretary of State managed to do something no Democrat has done since the Great Depression  win Orange County.

Clinton beat Republican Donald Trump by nearly 5 points, or 39,000 votes, in the county that has long served as a national symbol for the GOP, the home to Richard Nixon and the cradle of Ronald Reagans conservatism.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the last Democratic presidential candidate to take Orange County, in his 1936 contest against challenger Alf Landon.

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This time, with 395,801 votes, Clinton took nearly half of the total, while Trump won 356,892 votes, or 45%.

Because of its deep Republican roots, Orange County is the most prominent red county to turn blue. But it was not alone  similar shifts occurred in other large, affluent suburban counties such as those outside Atlanta and Houston.

Although these counties flipping did not affect Trumps path to the White House, they could signal trouble for the GOP. Republicans have long counted on conservative voters in suburbs to offset the huge troves of Democratic votes in the nations cities.

In Orange County, the gap between Republicans and Democrats has been narrowing for years. In the mid-1990s, Republicans outnumbered Democrats 52% to 32%. By 2012, the year Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama in Orange County by seven percentage points, the registered Republicans had fallen to 41%, with 32% Democrats.

Now, of the countys 1.5 million voters, about 38% are Republicans, and 34% are Democrats.

She won Orange County because this county has been urbanizing for the past decade.  Jeff Corless, GOP political strategist

 The shift reflects changing demographics: As with Orange County, many of the nations suburbs have become racially and ethnically diverse.

Despite the greater number of registered Republicans, the county voted blue Tuesday night because it is home to a large concentration of the two demographics that exit polls showed to be most troubling for Trump: Minorities and college-educated white women.

One of those women, Kris Murray, an Anaheim city councilwoman and registered Republican who works for an energy and engineering firm, declined to say whom she voted for  but it wasnt Trump, she said.

I did not support him, and many conservatives I spoke with did not support him, because of the divisive rhetoric, said Murray, 48. Some of the practices that were employed didnt mirror my ethical or moral values.

Some Orange County voters were shocked that the area voted blue.

I had heard people saying they did not want Bill Clinton back in the White House  that they didnt want Hillary in office because of the FBI investigation, said Mary Frances Kirkpatrick, 50, of Laguna Niguel. People whispered that they were going to vote for Trump.

Newport Beach voters on their reluctant Trump support: I plugged my nose and voted for him 

Jeff Corless, a GOP political strategist and ardent Trump supporter, said the GOP needs to learn lessons from Clintons win in the county, where he was born and still lives.

She won Orange County because this county has been urbanizing for the past decade, has become more diverse and the registration gap between Republicans and Democrats has been closing.

Shawn Steel, a Republican National Committeeman and staunch Trump supporter, had a different explanation. He argues that the middle class that would be the GOP base has been driven from the county and the state by burdensome regulations.

Younger folks with families cant buy their parents homes, they dont have middle-class jobs or upper-middle-class jobs, theyre getting the hell out of town. Thats my base, Steel said. Sharp young entrepreneurs cant make it in California because of the stifling economic, anti-business climate.

There was fear that Trumps candidacy would damage Republican officeholders in competitive races in Orange County, but most held their jobs.

I think Orange County is very progressive and we have a lot of young professionals who, like me, choose to look at the issues.  Yvon Nguyen, a Yorba Linda marketing CEO and a registered Democrat

The countys voting pattern hardly surprised Yvon Nguyen, a Yorba Linda marketing CEO and a registered Democrat who says party loyalty does not drive her pick for president.

I think Orange County is very progressive and we have a lot of young professionals who, like me, choose to look at the issues, the person and the qualifications before we vote. It doesnt matter what party were from, said Nguyen, 33.

Lucy Dunn, a registered Republican and Orange County business leader who served in the administration of former Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said she did not vote for either Trump or Clinton, but she was not surprised by Clintons strong showing in Orange County.

Demography is destiny and in Orange County, we are a minority-majority. There is no ethnic group that dominates, she said. Its like living in the most interesting microcosm of the United Nations.

christopher.goffard@latimes.com | @LATchrisgoffard

seema.mehta@latimes.com | @LATSeema

anh.do@latimes.com | @newsterrier

ALSO

National election night returns

Live election updates on Trail Guide

Two Americas: Clinton and Trump supporters seem to live in different countries
Voters appear to have rejected a ballot measure aimed at granting more autonomy to the scandal-plagued Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, one of the nations largest public utilities.

The tally for Measure RRR as of Wednesday afternoon was 52% against and 48% in favor, with 100% of precincts reporting, according to the Los Angeles County registrar-recorders website. An undisclosed number of provisional ballots might still be outstanding making the results semi-official, according to county officials.

The measure would have added people with industry expertise to the DWPs board and given it the ability to sign contracts without the approval of the City Council. It also would have allowed the department to hire employees without going through the citys cumbersome civil service process. That provision was chiefly responsible for more than $1.6 million that poured into the No on RRR campaign from unions representing employees of other city departments and their political allies.

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They claimed divorcing the city utility from the civil service system could result in coveted well-compensated jobs at the city department going to friends and relatives of current DWP employees, not the most qualified candidates. They also worried that employees of other city departments might no longer be able to easily transfer into desirable DWP jobs.

After being approved for the ballot by the City Council, and endorsed by Mayor Eric Garcetti and DWP administrators, there was no organized campaign to pass the measure.

Fred Pickel, the citys ratepayer advocate, who also supported the measure, said backers might have believed a campaign was unnecessary because initial polling showed public support at about 57%. But the polling also showed voters were persuadable, Pickel said.

Pickel, who wrote the citys official argument in favor of the ballot measure, was criticized for failing to mention that approval would have allowed him to be reappointed to a second five-year term in his $276,000-a-year job and raised his minimum office budget by more than $1 million per year.

Those details were also omitted from the one-paragraph summary voters saw next to the spot on the ballot where they checked yes or no. They were mentioned, briefly, in the thick pamphlet voters received by mail.

Opponents, while agreeing the utility needs reform, said that what appeared to be self-dealing and a lack of transparency in the ballot descriptions were emblematic of why voters didnt trust the City Hall-backed measure

DWP cant be reformed from the inside out; it has to happen from the outside in, said Jamie Court, president of the Santa Monica advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which opposed the measure.

jack.dolan@latimes.com

Follow on Twitter at @JackDolanLAT

ALSO

Live U.S. election results

Live election updates on Trail Guide

Voter voices: Americas state of mind on election day
They were, many of them, too young to vote.

But the election of Donald Trump had churned up fears of deportation, of backlash against communities of color, of an administration far different from the one that molded their teenage years.

So on Thursday, thousands of high school students marched out of classrooms, casting ballots by way of protest, flooding streets across Los Angeles County.

Ashly Osorio said she joined to take a stand for her cousins. Her mom. Her aunt. All immigrants from El Salvador for whom she fears the worst under Trumps administration. The student at West Adams Preparatory High School, which announced the walkout over a loudspeaker, said she is also anxious about how shell be treated as a member of the LGBT community.

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Osorio was among the estimated 4,000 students from 16 L.A. Unified high schools who left campus, many of them ending up at the University of Southern California, City Hall and other locations.

1 / 11 Karen Arrida, 17, center, a senior at Santee Educational Complex, along with other high school students protest the election of Donald Trump in a march on the campus of USC and surrounding streets. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 11 High school students from Santee Educational Complex and West Adams High protest the election of Donald Trump during a student walkout through the streets of Los Angles. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 11 A woman gives a thumbs up in support of high school students protesting the election. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 11 High school students from Santee Educational Complex and West Adams High protest the election through the streets of Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 11 High school students from Santee Educational Complex and West Adams High protest the election of Donald Trump at USC. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 11 USC students of Zeta Beta Tau watch high school students from Santee Educational Complex and West Adams High protest the election of Donald Trump. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 11 Students in South Gate protest the election Donald Trump as president in front of City Hall. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 11 Students in South Gate protest the election Donald Trump as president in front of City Hall. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 11 Students in South Gate protest the election of Donald Trump as president in front of City Hall. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 11 Students in South Gate protest the election of Donald Trump as president in front of City Hall. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 11 Students in South Gate protest the election Donald Trump as president in front of City Hall. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Its been a while. I dont remember the last time we had something like this of this magnitude, said Armando Farias, the deputy chief of Los Angeles School Police.

No acts of violence or student arrests were reported.

About 600 students at Hawkins High School in South Los Angeles headed for the doors about 10:15 a.m., said Jazmin Casas, a community representative for the school, which is predominantly black and Latino.

We ended up opening the gate because we couldnt hold them back, Casas said.

Buzz about rallies began Wednesday as students made plans via text messages and social media.

At South Gate High, a school volunteer estimated that about half of its 3,000 students left about noon and headed to City Hall.

In downtown Los Angeles, about 500 students left Santee Education Complex, according to Jose Lara, a dean at the school.

Erasmo Camacho, a 16-year-old Santee junior, said that demonstrating during school hours was the most effective way to mobilize a large number of students, and that all of his classmates were able to support each other in the effort.

He and hundreds of students from other schools made their way to USC and gathered at the Tommy Trojan statue. At one point the crowd joined together, clasping hands to form a human wall.

L.A. Unified Supt. Michelle King said that students have freedom of speech and are allowed to participate in peaceful demonstrations on campus during non-instructional times, within parameters. They are not permitted to leave school, King said in a statement.

Students in South Gate protest the election of Donald Trump as president in front of City Hall. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times )

Los Angeles has seen waves of rallies since Trump declared victory. On Wednesday, the downtown area was a sea of protestors, some burning Trumps head in effigy or spray-painting anti-Trump profanities on buildings.

Initially, authorities hoped to intervene as little as possible, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said. But once crowds moved onto the 101 Freeway, Beck said the agency had to change our posture dramatically due to safety concerns.

Twenty-eight people were ultimately arrested for impeding traffic, police said.

College protestors took a different approach altogether Thursday, choosing to stage demonstrations on campus.

Several hundred Cal State Dominguez Hills students gathered outside the Student Union building in 90-degree heat, toting a multitude of signs: Still we rise, Love not hate, Unafraid, unapologetic, black and brown.

Senior Estephanie Garcia said she joined the protest out of concern that the new administration will be homophobic.

Garcia, who is gay and often has a ribbon with rainbow colors  a popular symbol for LGBT pride  hanging from her pocket, said someone spat on her while she was on her way to vote.

Im worried that Ill be harassed, and people will allow it, said the 21-year-old from Cerritos.

In her hands she held a piece of paper that read, in Spanish: the people United will never be defeated. But, she added, theres only so much that can be done.

sonali_kohli@latimes.com

joy.resmovits@latimes.com

corina.knoll@latimes.com

Twitter: @sonali_kohli @joy_resmovits and @corinaknoll

Times staff writer Kate Mather contributed to this report.

ALSO

Muslim and Latino students in California are targeted following Trumps election

Trump University trial goes on in San Diego despite election result

He is the face of the country but we are the country. Students and teachers react to Trumps win

UPDATES:

6:10 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional comments from students and a school administrator.

3:40 p.m.: This article was updated with additional information from school authorities.

This article was originally published at 2:30 p.m.
Bathed in the glow of election results broadcast on three large screens, a crowd of Orange County Republican voters got to their feet Tuesday night and shrieked.

They pumped their fists; they slapped each others backs; they debated whether Hillary Clinton was sobbing or screaming at her stunning defeat. Lock her up! they chanted as state after state turned red. Turn out the lights! Some called her unprintable names and wished her a lifetime of misfortune, a hope that seemed to be fulfilled in real time.

Yet in Newport Beach, one of the most conservative cities in deep-blue California, many of those same Republicans expressed private reservations, in some cases even dread, about a President Donald Trump.

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I plugged my nose and voted for him, said Brace Lake, 50, a sales manager from Lake Forest, who arrived at the Orange County Republican Partys election night event seeking solidarity and expecting his candidate to lose.

I think he is impulsive; I think he is shallow; I think he is petty, Lake said. But I think Clinton represents some of the darkest forces of our nation.

1 / 6 A kayaker cruises cruises through Newport Harbor on election day in Newport Beach. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 6 Republicans Enrietta Lee, center, prays, as Sarah McDowell, right, celebrates at the OCGOP election party at China Palace in Newport Beach after the election of Donald Trump as president. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 6 Kurt Sanders, who voted for Donald Trump, watches election results at Blackies By The Sea on election night in Newport Beach. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 6 Jaimie Woodworth straightens his Trump banner at his beach-front home in Newport Beach. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 6 Nellie Gillogly, left, of Santa Ana, joins republicans erupting in celebration at the OCGOP election party at China Palace in Newport Beach. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 6 Republicans Sarah McDowell, center, of Westminster, reacts while watching election night results at the OCGOP election party at China Palace in Newport Beach. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

When his children asked him who he was voting for, he told them: You have a choice of either stupid crazy or evil. Im voting for stupid crazy.

Nearby, Leif Settergren, 60, worked the room, exhorting already frenzied Trump supporters to wave their signs and believe in their man. Trump wasnt his first choice  he preferred Trumps early rivals Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina  but he came around to the partys nominee.

He gave me something that I was looking for, said Settergren, a Swedish immigrant who works for General Motors. In Trump, he saw a candidate who could help unskilled workers foundering in a modern economy and fight terrorism abroad with new aggression.

Still, Settergren described himself as more of a social conservative than the candidate, and more hawkish. He found Trumps comments about womens bodies extremely distasteful.

I dont like the way he expresses himself, he said. He needs to become more professional.

At Blackies By the Sea, a bar where surfboards hang from the ceiling and locals reminisce about a simpler time when Budweiser was the only beer on tap, patrons Tuesday night kept their eyes glued to Fox News. They fretted; they said they had never seen an election like this and never wanted to again. They ordered more beer.

They did not want Clinton in the White House, of this they were sure. But what to make of Trump?

Two years ago, I thought he was kind of a buffoon, said Kurt Sanders, 59, a commercial photographer from Costa Mesa. The candidate with the bad hairdo seemed like a joke to Sanders until he became the Republican nominee. Then Sanders became convinced this was the most important election of his life.

He said stuff that politicians dont normally say. He said stuff that guys say in a bar  whatever was on his mind, Sanders said. Once a doubter, he became a fan.

Republicans hesitancy could be seen in returns across Orange County, where for the first time since the Great Depression, a majority of voters abandoned their partys candidate. Clinton won the county of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan by 5 percentage points, or about 39,000 votes.

While the Trump message resonated throughout America, it really didnt resonate here, said Newport Beach City Councilman Keith Curry, a lifelong Republican who penned a column in the Voice of OC last year calling Trump a misogynist, racist, egotistical clown and predicting he would lose.

Oops, Curry said on Wednesday morning. Frustrated with both parties nominees, he said he had decided to vote for a long-shot candidate, himself. As for Trump, he said, I hope he can govern effectively.

Newport Beach is where Republican candidates come to collect checks from wealthy donors. With a median household income of $108,000 and more than twice as many registered Republicans as Democrats, it has been a stronghold of the right for decades.

But Curry said this year the citys contributor class held back.

I kept hearing, Im going to need a story to tell my kids, and I dont want to tell them I supported Donald Trump,  Curry said.

Frank Coffman, 74, who has lived in Newport Beach for nearly two decades, met news of Trumps election with a heavy sigh. For the first time in his life, the dependable Republican had voted for a Democrat for president.

Its ironic. As a one-percenter, I guess its probably better for me that the election went this way, he said. However, I have fundamental problems; I worry about his character.

anna.phillips@latimes.com

Twitter: @annamphillips

To read the article in Spanish, click here

ALSO

Dozens arrested, police cars damaged in second night of anti-Trump protests in California

O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do moves closer to reelection in hotly contested race

Hillary Clinton turned Orange County blue. Minorities and college-educated women helped her.
Alonzo Hernandez is a 17-year-old transgender Latino living in South L.A.

When he realized that Donald Trump would become president on Tuesday night, he said, I didnt want to speak, I didnt want to say anything. But like hundreds of thousands of other students in heavily liberal Los Angeles, he had to go to school and face the facts the next morning.

So did his teachers, who had to figure out how to cope not just with their own feelings but with young people who might feel especially vulnerable.

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I reminded them our country has been through darker times, said Randall Bustamante, a leadership and ethnic studies teacher at Santee Education Complex, where Alonzo is a senior. The school is 92% Latino, and in his first-period ethnic studies class, Bustamante fielded questions including Is he really going to deport everyone?

Bustamante showed the class CNN political commentator Van Jones interview with a family of Trump supporters so they could understand on a more personal level why people had supported the president-elect, and he talked of organized action.

He could have taken the conciliatory road that many Trump opponents were traveling Wednesday morning. But he said he wanted his students to voice their feelings and understand they had a role to play in the nations democracy.

Such messages gave Alonzo some hope. He is organizing a walk-out on Monday to protest Trumps victory.

He is the face of the country, but we are the country, Alonzo said. We are the people.

At Downtown Magnets High School, history teacher Stephanie Jacob said that in 19 years of teaching  including her time in a Virginia military town after 9/11 she has never seen such a big reaction from students.

One student made a comment saying that it was like when Scar was on Pride Rock. They said, We want Mufasa back.  Jonathan Vickburg, a therapist who counsels students in South L.A. schools

My kids are coming to me for hugs and cries and everything else, Jacob said, but she cant know what the future holds. Not being able to answer their questions and give them any comfort or security is really, really hard.

Jacob said she wanted to make sure her classes understood the democratic process. I told them you find your cause and you fight for it.

Across the city at Van Nuys Middle School, 8th-grade history teacher Noemi Morales told her students of her own anxieties when she was their age during the Cold War. Its my job to make sure youre safe, she said. Im on your side. Im your advocate.

Im not really scared of his racism, said one student in Morales class. Were just scared as Latinos that hes going to take people from our families that dont have papers or visas ... that they could take your aunt, your uncle, or your brother.

Jonathan Vickburg, a therapist who counsels students in South L.A. schools through the Cedars-Sinai Psychological Trauma Center, spoke with high school students on Wednesday. They ended up talking about self-care, democracy and The Lion King.

One student made a comment saying that it was like when Scar was on Pride Rock, Vickburg said. They said, We want Mufasa back.

In L.A. Unified, a district where three-fourths of students are Latino but a third of teachers are white, talking frankly to a white teacher or counselor might be hard, Vickburg said.

All I can do is do my best to listen, be there, not get defensive with it, and try to be another person they can have an open conversation [with], Vickburg said.

Teachers should ask students what they need, Vickburg said.

For the youngest students, needs can be hard to gauge.

Marcia Reed, principal at 186th Street Elementary in South L.A., said some of her students came in expressing sadness. In the schools mock election, after all, Hillary Clinton had won easily.

Were going to move forward and remain respectful, Reed said. The message were giving our kids is were grateful that we all had choices.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

You can reach Joy Resmovits on Twitter @Joy_Resmovits and by email at Joy.Resmovits@LATimes.com.
Good morning. It is Thursday, Nov. 10. Just a reminder that The Simpsons totally called the Trump presidency. Heres what else is happening in the Golden State:

TOP STORIES

New taxes

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Los Angeles voters approved four tax measures Tuesday  for new parks, housing the homeless, building out community colleges and expanding the regions public transit infrastructure. Voters saw that we have big, scary problems  and they were more than willing to invest in solving those problems, said L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin. Los Angeles Times

A lone voice

The USC/Los Angeles Times Daybreak tracking poll correctly predicted Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would appeal to conservative whites who sat out the 2012 presidential race. You have to trust the numbers, he said. Dont get distracted by all the things you think about plausibility, said Arie Kapteyn, who designed and ran the poll. Los Angeles Times

How the neighbors voted

Do you live in a blue or red neighborhood? Check out our precinct-level maps for Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Clara and Sacramento counties that break down the Trump/Clinton vote. Los Angeles Times

Dont miss a moment of the Los Angeles Times election coverage. Sign up here for a week of free access.

L.A. AT LARGE

Protests build: More anti-Trump protests spread across the state, including one in downtown L.A. on Wednesday night that drew thousands. Some walked onto the 101 Freeway and shut it down. I expected better of my electorate, Vishal Singh said. I thought this country was different. Los Angeles Times

Victory for women: A woman has yet to crack the highest, hardest glass ceiling, but in another month, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors will reach an important milestone  four of the five supervisors will be women. This is the one little bright shining star in the context of this election cycle where there were so many hopes for women in the political arena, said Rachel Michelin, executive director of California Women Lead. Los Angeles Times

Still counting: How many ballots are left to be counted in Los Angeles County? Shrug. Mail-in ballots will be accepted through Monday. Los Angeles Times

Keep building: Voters in Santa Monica rejected a measure that could have severely restricted development in the beachside community. The anxiety over change is real. But in the end, good sense and good planning prevailed, said City Manager Rick Cole. Curbed LA

RRR-rejected: In Los Angeles, voters rejected a measure that would have given greater autonomy to the Department of Water and Power. Although the proposal was endorsed by Mayor Eric Garcetti, there was no organized campaign in support of Measure RRR. Los Angeles Times

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Blue oasis: Strangers in a foreign land. Thats how Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) felt when they woke up Wednesday. We will not be dragged back into the past, they said in a joint statement. Los Angeles Times

Political opportunity: Now that state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris is on her way to Washington, D.C., the question is who will fill her shoes in Sacramento. Will Gov. Jerry Brown appoint a placeholder who will step aside in 2018 or give a young politician a big, professional boost? Sacramento Bee

Orange is the new blue: Orange County voted for a Democratic presidential nominee for the first time since the Great Depression. Los Angeles Times

Contemplating Calexit? The Yes California Independence Campaign wants the Golden State to secede from the U.S., and its members are hoping Trumps victory will give the cause new momentum. Their goal: a 2018 ballot initiative to force a 2019 special election. Los Angeles Times

Local returns: A soda tax. A ban on tents. Heres how local measures in the Bay Area did. SFist

CRIME AND COURTS

Now this is a story: Jeffrey Toobin has a new book out on the kidnapping and trial of Patty Hearst. If you want to understand the complexity and psychology of one of the greatest criminal stories in American history, read this book. It manages to cover all the bases and does so quite well, writes former prosecutor Laurie Levenson. LA Review of Books

Ivory trade: A renowned pool cue maker was sentenced to two years of probation for unlawfully helping customers export ivory. Illegal trafficking of any part of a protected species creates a demand that can lead to the extinction of these vulnerable populations, said U.S. Atty. Eileen M. Decker. Los Angeles Times

DROUGHT AND CLIMATE

Gone dry: The William Mulholland Memorial Fountain in Los Feliz is showing signs of having gone dry during the drought. Repairs are expected to be completed by next summer. Eastsider LA

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

Tech support: The divide between Silicon Valley and Trump was widely reported during the campaign. The area is now reeling from the news that Trump is president-elect. When it comes to his approach to issues of specific importance to what Trump has called the cyber, observers are reduced to learning what they can from a series of offhand remarks. Bloomberg

Media giant: A look at what Shari Redstone is doing at Viacom. Shes said to have high hopes that newly appointed acting president-CEO Bob Bakish will bring stability and a renewed effort to address structural problems within the company. Variety

Getting away: The mystical power of Californias deserts. LA Weekly

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Sacramento will start the day with fog before temperatures reach a high of 76 degrees. San Francisco will be 72 and sunny. Los Angeles will be 90 and sunny. It will be sunny and 93 in Riverside. San Diego will be 88 and sunny.

AND FINALLY

Todays California Memory comes from Cris B. Liban:

It was 1991  two years after college. I moved to California to start a new job in environmental consulting. As the plane descended into LAX, I asked the person beside me about the peculiar dark thundercloud hovering within a series of high-rises in a small area to the north (downtown L.A.). He said, My friend, those are not clouds. Thats smog. Twenty-five years later, Im still here enjoying the fruits of environmental activism that I have actively engaged in, leading the nation in environmental protection, stewardship and sustainability.

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Alice Walton or Shelby Grad.
Gas prices in Armenia and in other countries (table)

As it is known, the RA Public Services Regulatory Commission plans to make a decision on reducing the price for natural gas. As a result, one cubic meter of natural gas will cost 139 AMD (0.29 USD) for residential customers, and 100 AMD (0.21 USD) for poor (welfare recipient) families. One thousand cubic meters of gas for processing industries and greenhouses will cost the amount in AMD equivalent to 212 USD. In this regard, Union of Informed Citizens NGO has combined and submitted to the publics judgment the comparative table of actual gas prices in 6 post-Soviet republics which are EU Eastern Partnership members. Accordingly, it turns out that people in Armenia pay approximately the same amount for gas as do the people of Ukraine, despite tense Russian-Ukrainian relations and despite the circumstance that in contrast to Armenia, Ukraine does not have an alternative source of gas supply. In Moldova, the price for natural gas is higher than in Armenia, and this is related to the circumstance that the Russian gas has to go quite a long transit way to reach Moldova. But the residents of Belarus, Russias ally, pay 6-7 times less for gas than the Armenians do during the winter months.

Small consumers Large Consumers Gas Imported from Moldova 295$ 307$ Russia Armenia 210$ - 292$ 212$ - 242$ Russia, Iran* Ukraine 270$ 270$ Russia Georgia 206$ 152.2$ Azerbaijan, Russia** Azerbaijan 60$ 47$ Own gas and Russia*** Belarus 41$**** 53$ - 196.7$ Russia

* There is an Armenian-Iranian gas for electricity barter agreement, according to which gas coming from Iran is converted to electricity in Yerevan Thermal Power Station and most of it goes back to Iran. Hence, the Iranian gas does not have any contribution to the pricing of natural gas in Armenia. ** Georgias gas requirements are mainly satisfied by Azerbaijan. But as Georgia is a transit country for gas, it receives 12% of Russian gas supplied to Armenia as payment. *** Azerbaijan is a gas-exporting country, but it has to import Russian gas in order to meet the domestic shortage. It forms 2 billion cubic meters a year. **** The mentioned price for gas in Belarus is valid during the winter months. Besides, there are additional subsidies for specific social groups. Union of Informed Citizens
Even in a state known for its diversity and progressive culture, women remain seriously underrepresented in Californias state and local government.

The 15-member Los Angeles City Council has only one woman on it, and a report released two years ago found that women occupied fewer than 30% of elective city, county and state posts.

But with Tuesdays election, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has become a major exception. Voters elected Janice Hahn and Kathryn Barger to the panel that oversees the nations largest local government agency. They join current supervisors Sheila Kuehl, Hilda Solis and Mark Ridley-Thomas to form a rare major government body in which women make up the large majority.

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Barger, who has worked in L.A. County government for 28 years, said the new composition of the board is remarkable.

When I started, it was five men, she said. Its happened in just such a natural progression. Its changed, but so has the county.

The vote also moves the board further to the left, continuing a shift that began several years ago as longtime supervisors were term-limited out of office. Hahn, a Democratic congresswoman, replaces Republican Don Knabe, while Barger takes the seat held by Michael D. Antonovich. Barger and Antonovich are both Republicans, but she is considered more moderate and was supported by public employee labor unions, which typically support Democrats.

The officially nonpartisan boards leftward shift began in 2014 with the election of Kuehl and Solis, who along with Ridley-Thomas began advocating more liberal causes including boosting the minimum wage and increasing oversight of the Sheriffs Department, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles. The current board has been more fiscally liberal than the previous generation of elected officials, which prided itself on limited spending, he said.

Experts believe this trend will accelerate with the new board. Labor unions have made it clear in recent years they want more influence over the supervisors and have donated generously to try to make it happen. Traditionally, the unions have found a more friendly reception at Los Angeles City Hall than at the county Hall of Administration when the previous boards have clashed over labor contracts.

As supervisors, Hahn and Barger will each represent about 2 million people and have wide-ranging responsibilities, including homelessness, child welfare and management of parks and transportation.

The boards new female majority is both a huge deal for women and a bright spot in an election year that actually resulted in fewer female elected officials in the state Legislature, said Rachel Michelin, executive director of California Women Lead, a nonpartisan association that recruits and trains women to run for public office. Although some races were too close to call, California Women Lead projected that the number of women in the state Legislature fell from 31 to 27, out of 120.

Here we were, poised to possibly elect the first woman president and thinking there were going to be coattails for women, Michelin said. Its interesting to see L.A. kind of buck the trend for women. This is the one little bright shining star in the context of this election cycle where there were so many hopes for women in the political arena.

From the outset, the supervisors races were sure to bring about change. The term limits approved in 2002 limited supervisors to three four-year terms. The boards most conservative members, Knabe and Antonovich, are being forced out of office after having been elected in 1996 and 1980, respectively. Antonovich ran for the state Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Carol Liu (D-La Canada Flintridge), who was termed out. Antonovich lost on Tuesday to former Democratic Assemblyman Anthony Portantino.

Democratic Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Gloria Molina, widely seen as more centrist than their liberal successors, were forced out by term limits in 2014, after having each served two decades in the office.

Hahn, a Democratic congresswoman, received 56% of the vote in the countys 4th District, defeating Steve Napolitano, an aide to Knabe.

Barger, a moderate Republican and the longtime chief of staff for outgoing Antonovich, received 59% of the vote in the 5th District, defeating Darrell Park, a green energy entrepreneur and former White House budget staffer.

In recent years, supervisors have increased the countys minimum wage to $15 an hour, downsized plans for a new mens jail and allocated hundreds of millions of dollars toward affordable housing. Theyve supported a property tax measure to build housing for homeless people, and a parcel tax to improve park space in the county.

The liberal supermajority has also come with warnings from former supervisors. Just before Yaroslavsky and Molina left office, the board increased the number of votes required to approve raises for county employees to four.

You could spend all the money you want to spend, whether you have it or not, with a four-fifths majority, Knabe previously told The Times.

For Hahn, the election marks a milestone in her familys political dynasty. Her brother, James, is a former mayor of L.A. Her father, the late Kenneth Hahn, served four decades as a popular county supervisor who helped arrange the Dodgers move to the city and designed the county flag and seal.

Janice Hahn will serve in the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, named for her father.

Hahn did not return requests for comment.

Her campaign has been dogged by a finding by the county registrar-recorder that she broke campaign finance rules by accepting almost $300,000 more than the limit imposed on contributions from political action committees.

Napolitano, her opponent, filed a lawsuit, and she, in turn, slammed him as a slumlord millionaire trying to silence working people.

Hahns campaign also faced another campaign finance controversy after a Times investigation last month revealed that hundreds of thousands of dollars had been contributed to politicians, including her, by people with ties to a single developer pushing through a controversial apartment complex.

Hahn was the largest beneficiary of the questionable contributions, receiving more than $200,000. She told The Times then that there had been no indications of illegality.

On Tuesday, Napolitano said he was concerned about the possibility of a liberal supermajority where everybody can ignore different needs and different issues out there and take us down a path of deficits and dysfunction.

In the 5th District race, Barger, who has worked for Antonovich for 28 years, was criticized by her opponent as an establishment figure with few new ideas. Park, a Democrat, tried to compare Barger to Donald Trump and often brought up some of the more controversial positions of Bargers conservative boss, Antonovich, who has decried county money spent on illegal aliens and fought to have a Christian cross placed on the county seal.

On Tuesday night, before the results came in, Park told The Times that voters he had met on the campaign trail signified they were tired of the county being much more like a kingdom than a democracy.

Barger, who has been widely praised for her ability to work across party lines, said she couldnt wait to get to work.

I love what I do, she said of her years in county government. This is my passion. Im ready to roll up my sleeves and put into play what Ive promised the voters Im going to do.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Twitter: @haileybranson

adam.elmahrek@latimes.com

Twitter: @adamelmahrek

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UPDATE: A grand jury cited the below analysis by the L.A. Times in a report calling on local law enforcement agencies to revamp how they approach pursuits. A July 11, 2017 Times story details the findings of the grand jury, which said the LAPD and the L.A. County Sheriffs Department should provide officers with recurring training on driving in pursuits and each departments trainers should investigate injuries at pursuit crash scenes. Read our story on the report.

Los Angeles police chases injured more bystanders in 2015 than in any other year in at least a decade, a surge that has renewed calls for the LAPD to reform a pursuit policy considered one of the most permissive in California.

Seventy-eight people were hurt during LAPD chases they had nothing to do with last year, eclipsing the previous highest tally of 61 in 2005, according to a Times review of pursuit data reported to the California Highway Patrol. LAPD chases in 2015 injured bystanders at four times the rate of police pursuits in the rest of the state, according to the data.

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The number of hurt bystanders, which includes pedestrians as well as drivers and passengers in cars that were not involved in the pursuit, was the highest in Los Angeles since at least 2002, the earliest year for which the California Highway Patrol has available pursuit data. During that year, 57 bystanders were injured. The city has recorded an average of 45 injured bystanders annually in LAPD pursuits, according the data.

In most cases, it is the fleeing suspect whose vehicle collides with pedestrians or other motorists, but some policing experts blame the high rate of injuries on the LAPDs pursuit policy.

The department allows officers to give chase for a wide array of crimes, including relatively minor offenses such as car theft, reckless driving or driving while intoxicated. Fleeing motorists who are impaired are more likely to cause a crash while speeding or driving erratically as they try to escape, critics contend.

The tragic outcomes of these chases are well-documented. The injuries to the cops are well-documented, said Eugene ODonnell, a former New York City police officer and prosecutor who now teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Every one of these, youre playing with fire.

Last year, a Los Angeles Times review of pursuit statistics showed LAPD car chases from 2006 through 2014 led to bystander injuries and deaths at a higher rate than pursuits in the rest of the state.

LAPD officials argue it is unfair to compare bystander injuries in L.A. to those in other cities, because Los Angeles sprawling web of freeways and multilane thoroughfares allow fleeing vehicles to travel at greater speeds and make wild turns through traffic, increasing the likelihood someone will be hurt in a chase.

Last years rise in injuries, they said, coincided with an increase in pursuits across the city and state. The LAPD was involved in 527 chases last year, compared with 345 in 2014. Investigators with the LAPD and CHP could not give a specific reason for the increase in pursuits in California.

The instances, the people willing to flee and choosing to flee, is whats on the rise here, said LAPD Lt. David Ferry, who reviews all car chases conducted by LAPD officers.

Most injuries to bystanders, LAPD officials said, were relatively minor. And the first five months of this year saw a 45% decline compared with the same period in 2015, according to the most recent data provided by the LAPD.

Chasing suspects, LAPD officials said, is a necessary tactic to combat crime. Car thefts have been the leading cause of Los Angeles police pursuits for years, records show, and officials say they need to capture car thieves immediately to prevent them from using the vehicles in violent crimes.

When you take a vehicle, a stolen vehicle, sometimes its just for joyriding, but sometimes its to be used in more felonious crimes that are predatory and are a danger to public safety, Ferry said. We have an obligation to protect the public.

Pursuits increased throughout the rest of California last year by 24.4% without a similarly sharp rise in injuries to bystanders. The number of those hurt inched up from 231 in 2014 to 234 last year, according to The Times analysis.

Overall, 188 people  including fleeing drivers, their passengers and chasing officers as well as bystanders  were injured during LAPD pursuits in 2015, also marking the highest total since 2002. The previous highest was 161 in 2004.

Compared with Los Angeles, bystanders were less likely to be injured in pursuits that took place in other dense, urban areas, including Long Beach, San Francisco and Oakland, where police have more restrictive policies on chasing suspects.

 Nick Phoenix speaks about the death of his teenage son, Jack, who was struck and killed by a stolen car that was fleeing the LAPD in 2015. While police contend they werent chasing the car, Phoenix holds the LAPD responsible for his sons death.

The LAPDs pursuit policy has been undergoing revisions since 2015. The revisions are routine and not in response to any criticism, according to Ferry, who said they would be made public once they are sent to the civilian Police Commission for approval.

Geoff Alpert, a professor at the University of South Carolina who authored a report on pursuits for the National Institute of Justice, said officers make dangerous situations worse when they chase reckless or drunk drivers. Chasing an out-of-control driver  as the LAPD allows  will create a larger public safety threat because the already erratic driver will travel at higher speeds and make more reckless decisions in the hopes of evading police, Alpert said.

If its not a violent crime, its not worth raising [the] risk to the public, he said.

One of last years crashes occurred as LAPD officers were chasing a reckless driver through South L.A. The February 2015 pursuit spanned three miles until the fleeing vehicle slammed into two cars that had been waiting at a light at Imperial Highway and Main Street.

In one of the cars was Juana Duran Tirado, her 2-year-old son and her 20-day-old daughter.

Juana Tirado was injured when a reckless driver fleeing LAPD officers ran into her car. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Tirado, 38, said the last thing she remembers from that day was pulling her Ford Explorer forward as the light changed to green. She was briefly knocked unconscious when the fleeing drivers car smashed into hers. She awoke moments later to find police and firefighters trying to free her from her wrecked car. She turned to the backseat to search for her children, but they werent there.

I was really scared, said Tirado, a mother of four who works at a food truck in Echo Park.

Police reassured her that the children were fine and had been taken to a hospital for observation. They were not injured, Tirado said.

But the crash had long-lasting effects on Tirado. She suffered a fractured arm and injuries to her neck and back, as well as cuts across her face when the windshield shattered, she said. She was unable to work for about two months and hasnt been able to afford a new car. Her son, now 3, often freezes when he sees another car accident, she said.

Tirado said she blames both the police and the fleeing suspect for the injuries she suffered, and wondered aloud if the LAPD should be chasing motorists for driving violations.

On the one hand, there are times when it is necessary, because the people theyre chasing are putting others at risk, she said. But on the other hand, when police are chasing them and speeding, theyre putting more people at risk.

One other bystander was injured in the car struck alongside Tirados. The fleeing driver, Roderick Ingram, was also injured, as were two children in his car, including a 1-year-old. Ingram was under the influence of a combination of substances, according to a police report. Court records show Ingram pleaded no contest to two counts of child endangerment and one count of driving under the influence. He was sentenced to seven years in state prison.

In addition to bystanders, seven LAPD officers were injured during pursuits last year, according to the CHP records. Two suspects in a South L.A. shooting also died after their fleeing van slammed into a city fire truck. No city employees were injured in that collision.

Nine bystanders were killed during LAPD pursuits in the last decade. The department reported none last year, but the family of a Venice teenager who was killed in November 2015 by a driver fleeing LAPD officers filed a lawsuit this year blaming police for his death.

Court records show that officers in a marked cruiser tailed a stolen Buick LeSabre for several miles from Mid-City to Palms, including along a stretch of the 10 Freeway.

In court, one of the officers testified that she radioed for a police helicopter and other officers so they could stop the LeSabre as they followed behind. She said she and her partner continued to follow the car at speeds above 60 mph without turning on their lights and sirens. They did not attempt to stop the driver as he sped along Venice Boulevard, she testified.

The stolen car was traveling at 90 mph when it struck 15-year-old Jack Phoenix as he crossed a street in Palms. The teen was decapitated, according to the lawsuit and a police report.

Ferry and an LAPD spokesman said the department does not consider the incident a pursuit because officers did not attempt to stop the vehicle. Ferry and the spokesman declined to comment further, citing the pending litigation.

It is unclear how many bystanders have been killed or injured in similar collisions that the department does not formally consider pursuits. While the LAPD keeps records of all car crashes involving its officers, the department does not specifically track injuries or deaths in car accidents caused by vehicles that LAPD officers were following unless they are considered official pursuits, Ferry said.

The suspected driver, Paul Brumfield, was arrested days later and charged with murder, felony evasion and car theft, court records show. He has pleaded not guilty.

But the victims father, Nick Phoenix, said he blames the LAPD for his sons death. Phoenix called the LAPDs position that officers were not in pursuit of Brumfield a distinction without a difference.

Phoenix said his son was a talented graphic designer and artist who adopted the nickname Sake while he developed drawings and shirt designs that bear a graffiti- and anime-infused style. The family has opened a clothing store on La Brea Avenue with the same name to honor the dead teen, whose designs are plastered across every item in the store.

This probably never would have happened if the police hadnt done what they did, and theyre the ones who are supposed to be responsible, Phoenix said. Theyre the ones who are supposed to be careful, to protect the people.

Los Angeles Times staff writers Brittny Mejia and Ben Poston, and Staff Photographer Gary Coronado, contributed to this report.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.

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The husband of a missing mother who last was seen jogging through a Northern California town has been ruled out as a suspect after he passed a polygraph exam, authorities said.

Keith Papini has been talking with detectives and submitted to a polygraph Monday as the investigation into his wifes disappearance intensified, according to Lt. Anthony Bertain, a spokesman for Shasta County Sheriffs Office. Papini reported his wife, Sherri, missing on Nov. 2 after she failed to return from a jog in the community of Mountain Gate, north of Redding.

The results of the polygraph examination indicate he has no involvement with the disappearance of his wife, Bertain said in a statement. Sheriffs Office detectives have confirmed his whereabouts on the day in question, and there is no physical evidence at this time suggesting he had any involvement.

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The announcement comes after a relative of the couples addressed reports Tuesday that Papini was involved in his wifes disappearance and that she walked out on her family.

Unfortunately, there are random, ignorant people on the internet that are casting aspersions on both Sherri and Keith, Rod Rodriguez III said in a statement on Redding Crime 2.0 on Facebook, a group with thousands of members.

He described the couple as having a loving relationship, adding that Keith Papini hasnt obtained an attorney despite being interrogated by authorities multiple times. He has provided detectives with all of their electronic devices and allowed authorities to search their home and cars without warrants, the relative said.

In regard to the hurtful rumors regarding Keith, everyone that actually knows him knows of his and Sherris wonderful loving relationship and devotion to their family and knows he had nothing to do with Sherris disappearance, Rodriguez said. That is why everyone of them was out searching last weekend, one notable family rented search helicopters and another couple cut their vacation short and flew home across the Atlantic while another flew down from Idaho.

Rodriguez said he went on vacations with the couple and celebrated their wedding anniversary, which was in early October.

We recognize that in 80% of the disappearance cases the spouse is responsible, he said. But conversely, that means in 20% of the cases the spouse is not involved. This case falls into the latter category.

Sherri Papini was a devoted mother of two and had gone trick-or-treating with her family days before her disappearance, Rodriguez said. She had even started planning for Thanksgiving, saying that she would cook sweet potatoes for the children, he said.

As to her devotion to her kids it is the stuff of legend to all that know her, Rodriguez said.

Investigators have received more than 200 tips regarding the search for the 34-year-old mother, sheriffs officials said. Detectives have been reviewing surveillance video and information obtained from the couples cellphones and email accounts.

Detectives are still trying to determine if her disappearance is voluntary or involuntary, Bertain said.

Papini went for a jog and walk alone about 2 p.m. on Sunset Drive in Mountain Gate and had texted her husband that day, authorities said. He returned home from work to find his wife and their children were not inside.

He later discovered his wife hadnt picked up their two children from daycare as she usually did.

Papini then pulled the Find my iPhone mobile app, which led him to Old Oregon Trail and Sunrise Drive. There, he found his wifes cellphone and earbuds with strands of hair attached to them, Sherri Papinis sister, Sheila Koester, said.

Anyone with details about the missing mother is urged to call the sheriffs office at (530) 245-6540 or the Major Crimes Unit (530) 245-6135. Tips also can be submitted at mcu@co.shasta.ca.us.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

For breaking news in California, follow @VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter.

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Ending a long environmental battle, Orange County tollway officials agreed in a legal settlement Thursday to preserve San Onofre State Beach and withdraw their approval of a six-lane highway through the popular park.

The new agreement ends five lawsuits that targeted plans to lengthen the Foothill South toll road 16 miles to Interstate 5 in north San Diego County, using a portion of the state beach, which includes wildlife habitat, campgrounds, Indian sites and heavily used surf breaks, including Trestles.

The settlement also requires the Transportation Corridor Agencies in Irvine to rescind approval of the proposed 5-mile Tesoro Extension, which environmentalists called a possible attempt to resurrect the route through San Onofre.

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This agreement will guarantee that millions of Californians will be able to enjoy this magnificent park, its beaches and natural areas for years to come, said Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the California Parks Foundation and representative for the Save San Onofre Coalition, a group of 12 state and national environmental organizations.

Agency board members voted 10-2 to end the lawsuits brought in 2006 and 2011 by the state of California, the California Parks and Recreation Commission, the Native American Heritage Commission and the Save San Onofre Coalition.

The lawsuits claimed that the environmental impact reports for both projects were inadequate and that the Foothill South extension would damage valuable open space, a local land conservancy and one of the most popular parks in the state.

San Onofre has about 2.4 million visitors a year and provides habitat for 11 endangered and threatened species. The prospect of building a turnpike through the park sparked intense opposition from environmentalists, park users, surfers and several prominent state officials. Public hearings were often raucous and packed with hundreds of opponents and supporters of the project.

In February 2008, the California Coastal Commission rejected the route, a decision that was upheld later that year by the U.S. Department of Commerce. It has been assumed for years, however, that toll road officials could revive the project at some point.

The settlement will allow the corridor agency to consider a variety of transportation options, including a different Foothill South project, while protecting San Onofre, the San Mateo Creek watershed, the Richard and Donna ONeill Conservancy and Indian sites, such as the ancient village of Panhe.

Under the agreement, the agency can assess the environmental impacts of alternate routes for connecting the Foothill tollway to I-5 that avoid San Onofre, valuable open space, wildlife habitat and culturally sensitive areas.

The settlement also calls for the agency to create a $28-million conservation fund that will help preserve the largely intact San Mateo Creek watershed that drains into the ocean at Trestles, one of the states best surfing spots.

TCA and its team of experts have engaged in thoughtful and productive discussions about the future of improving transportation mobility and the importance of protecting environmentally sensitive areas, said Mike Kraman, TCAs chief executive officer. This agreement is a baseline for achieving both of those objectives.

Tollway officials have been reassessing the Tesoro project since April 2014 and reaching out to environmental groups, elected officials and community stakeholders for advice. They said they needed to address environmental concerns and that transportation projects were necessary to relieve increasing congestion on I-5 in south Orange County.

Our coalition has sensed a change in tone and direction at the TCA in the past several years. This fresh look has allowed us to have constructive discussions about the project, said Damon Nagami, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a member of the Save San Onofre Coalition. That has led us to where we are today.

dan.weikel@latimes.com
Donald Trumps election as president has sparked scattered reports of rancor on California campuses and beyond.

A Muslim college student in San Diego was robbed, and Latino high school students in Northern California were given mock deportation letters by a classmate in incidents that authorities believe were tied to the election.

Meanwhile, in the Bay Area, a principal was put on leave after he allegedly made profane anti-Trump comments. The incident occurred at Milpitas High School during a campus walkout, and the principal told the San Jose Mercury News he did nothing wrong.

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In the town of Woodside on the San Francisco Peninsula, a video surfaced showing a student being attacked after voicing support for Trump.

In Burbank, a dispute erupted Thursday about 4 p.m. at a bar where two men argued over the election and immigration policy. One of the men brandished a gun, police said.

Officers responded to Joes Bar on Magnolia Boulevard and later arrested the two men. Martin Pena, 41, was booked on suspicion of brandishing a firearm, while Mark Van Dergeugten, 47, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, according to a Burbank police spokesman.

Two men confronted a female student in a parking lot stairwell at San Diego State on Wednesday, made comments about President-elect Trump and the Muslim community, and then stole her keys and her car, university police said in a statement.

The university president said the woman was wearing a hijab. She was robbed of her purse and backpack, police said.

In Redding, meanwhile, a student at Shasta High School handed out deportation letters to Latino classmates, and a video of the incident was posted on Twitter, said Shasta Union High School District Supt. Jim Cloney, who said he believed the episode was related to Trumps election.

Obviously, he thought he was being funny, Cloney said, adding that the student had not been disciplined, though the school planned to talk to his family. The students have taken the video down, and thats not reflective of [how] we want students to treat each other.

A Muslim student at San Jose State was choked Wednesday when a man approached her from behind in a school parking lot and pulled off her hijab. The colleges Muslim Student Assn. president told the Mercury News that racists and Islamophobes have become emboldened since Trumps election and that she believes the attack was connected to the election result, though the article provided no evidence of a link.

The university said the attack could be a hate crime, but the investigation was continuing.

Theres no way to know if its related to Trumps election, said university spokeswoman Pat Harris.

The incidents came a day after Trumps surprising electoral victory and highlight the divisiveness of the campaign and the result, which has sparked protests nationwide over the last two days.

During the campaign, Trump railed against illegal immigration, describing arriving Mexicans as rapists and criminals and at one point suggesting that a deportation force would corral and deport all immigrants in the country illegally. He also called for a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the country.

In a joint statement Wednesday, the chancellor of the California State University system and the president of the California State Student Assn. reassured students and employees that the college system would continue to support advancing the rights of our students, faculty and staff.

We are unequivocally committed to supporting all members of our community. That is who we are. It is a core strength and part of our DNA, the statement said.

University of California President Janet Napolitano and school chancellors also released a statement following the election saying in part that the systems universities would continue to foster an environment in which all are included.

The University of California will continue to pursue and protect these principles now and in the future, and urges our students, faculty, staff and all others associated with the university to do so as well, the statement said.

In response to the latest incidents and others in preceding weeks, state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris office issued a bulletin Thursday encouraging law enforcement throughout the state to remain vigilant for hate crimes.

We must protect all Californians from acts of hate and bigotry, and when an individual is victimized because of their race, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation, we must act swiftly to ensure justice and accountability, the statement said.

Times staff writer Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.

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UPDATES:

8:20 p.m.: This story was updated with details about an incident in Burbank.

5:50 p.m.: This story was updated with incidents in Milpitas and Woodside.

2:35 p.m.: This article was updated with a statement from the California attorney generals office and details on the Shasta High School incident.

This article was originally published at 12:05 p.m.
In less than three weeks, the class-action lawsuit against Donald Trump and his defunct Trump University is set to go to trial in a downtown San Diego courtroom.

That probably wont change, even with Trumps presidential win on election night, legal experts say. However, it could alter how personally involved Trump will be in the federal trial, in which he must defend accusations he misled and defrauded students who enrolled in his real estate academy.

Attorneys for both sides are scheduled to be in court Thursday afternoon to finalize preparations before jury selection begins on Nov. 28. The election results and their potential effect on the case will probably dominate the courtroom discussion and draw a large media presence.

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Trumps attorneys did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment Wednesday, and lawyers for the former students who filed the case declined to discuss the case.

As unusual as this situation is, the U.S. Supreme Court has set legal precedent when it comes to lawsuits against presidents, and that precedent is likely to dictate how Trumps case proceeds.

In 1994, former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones sued then-President Bill Clinton on accusations that he made sexual advances on her when he was governor.

Clinton fought the sexual harassment lawsuit. The case made it to the Supreme Court, which ruled that sitting presidents can be sued for events that happened before they took office or are unrelated to their presidential duties.

Clinton v. Jones established that a president does not have absolute immunity, attorney Robert S. Bennett, who argued on Clintons behalf to the Supreme Court in 1997, said in an interview Wednesday.

The ruling also said presidents dont have the right to delay such a lawsuit just because they are in the Oval Office.

While the Clinton case only applies to sitting presidents, Bennett doesnt think Trumps status as president-elect will make much of a practical difference in the looming trial, especially given the possibility that the trial will not have concluded by his Jan. 20 inauguration date.

Still, legal experts expect Trumps attorneys to ask for the trial to be delayed until he leaves the White House, citing how busy he will be. But such a request would not be expected to succeed, the experts say.

I think the likelihood of the trial getting delayed is very low. If it is delayed, its delayed for four years presumably, if not longer, said Shaun Martin, a University of San Diego School of Law professor who teaches civil procedure.

If anything is going to happen [with this trial], its going to happen now. The advantage of it happening now is that hes not president yet, Martin said.

That the 6-year-old lawsuit is so close to trial also makes it more likely to proceed as scheduled. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who will be presiding over the trial, has been reluctant to grant any more delays.

Bennett said case management, which was one of the major points made in the Clinton ruling, will be key here.

It will be up to the court to manage the schedule vis-a-vis the new presidents time, Bennett said.

In the lawsuit, filed in 2010, students allege they paid up to $35,000 to attend seminars and learn inside secrets to success in real estate from mentors who were handpicked by Trump. Instead, they claim, the program was nothing more than an infomercial trying to squeeze money out of students, and they did not learn what was promised.

Trump has pointed to a large number of students who gave the program positive reviews and blamed the plaintiffs lack of success on laziness and the downturn in the real estate market.

The trial is set to unfold in two parts. In the liability phase, expected to last four to six weeks, the evidence will mostly revolve around whether Trump University misled students by using the term university and claiming that Trump handpicked the instructors. If he loses, then the damages phase would begin, in which every eligible class member from California, Florida and Texas might have to be considered separately as to how much they were damaged and what they are owed.

Trump has said previously he plans to testify in person, but his new presidential status might change that.

Assuming the trial goes on as scheduled, Trumps attorneys could ask the judge to excuse him from having to testify and instead show jurors video from his previous depositions in the case.

If the plaintiffs argue that they didnt get to ask Trump all their questions, then the judge could allow a final deposition before trial, or ask him written questions which he must answer under oath.

Trump could also testify via live video feed.

One thing is clear: Judge Curiel will have a great deal of discretion on how the case proceeds and unfolds in his courtroom.

During the presidential campaign, Trump complained that Curiel had been unfair in rulings against him in the case, saying the judges Mexican heritage made him biased against Trump, who supports tough immigration policies and the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Curiel was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants.

Judge Curiel really can do whatever he wants, law professor Martin said. This is an issue very much within his discretion, which makes it interesting, given the vitriol directed his way.

On the one hand, he might bend over backward to prove hes being fair and give Trump a break here, or he might not be inclined to give him a break, Martin said.

Attorneys for both sides are also waiting for Curiel to issue rulings on several motions, most of them having to do with what will and will not be permitted as evidence.

One area that Trumps lawyers do not want in front of a jury are any of the comments he made during his campaign, including anything from public speeches, media interviews, debates or his Twitter account.

Before trial begins in this case, prospective members of the jury will have the opportunity to cast their vote for president, Trump attorney Daniel Petrocelli wrote in an Oct. 20 motion. It is in the ballot box where they are free to judge Mr. Trump based on all this and more. But it is in the jury box where they must judge him and this case only on evidence and argument relevant to the issues at hand.

Trump also could decide to settle the lawsuit before the trial. Although the outspoken tycoon might not seem the settling type, he has settled many past lawsuits brought against him in business dealings.

Martin said there are many reasons for both sides to want to accept a compromise instead of risking an unfavorable jury verdict.

If the parties were both rational and intelligent, this case would probably settle, but not every case is resolved rationally. Each side may overvalue its chances of success. Thats generally how things get to trial, he said.

The makeup of San Diegos population will be an important factor when it comes to picking a jury, experts said. Trump received 39% of the vote in San Diego County to Democrat Hillary Clintons 56%.

He may think hes on a winning streak, but hes got to remember that members of the jury are coming from San Diego, and hes not riding a winning streak in respect to them, Martin said. Im sure his lawyers will advise him not to be too cocky about the [election] results, given the demographics of a San Diego jury dont mirror necessarily the electorate across the nation.

This is not the only lawsuit Trump faces as he heads into office. A second class-action suit regarding Trump University has been filed against him in San Diego, and a similar lawsuit is pending in New York.

Dozens of suits related to his other business interests also have been filed. But because he doesnt play a central role in many, the suits will likely be handled by his legal team without involving him too much personally, Martin said.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Davis writes for the San Diego-Union Tribune.

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Eighteen members and associates of a violent street gang with ties to the Mexican Mafia were arrested in Los Angeles Wilmington neighborhood early Wednesday morning, according to police and federal prosecutors.

The arrests were part of a larger investigation dubbed Operation Tidal Wave, which focused on members of the Wilmas Street gang, which has operated near the citys harbor since the 1950s, said Lt. Chris Ramirez, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department.

In all, 29 members and associates have been charged as part of a racketeering indictment that accuses gang members of committing murder, attempted murder, drug trafficking, robbery and witness intimidation stretching back to 2008, according to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorneys Office.

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The devastating impact that this gang has had on the community cannot be overstated, but todays takedown will help to restore order across Wilmington and ensure that those responsible for the violence and other criminal acts will be taken off the streets for years, U.S. Atty. Eileen M. Decker said in a statement.

Ten of those charged in the indictment were already in custody on unrelated matters, Ramirez said, and another remains at large. The investigation began in 2012, and police have seized at least eight pounds of methamphetamine and several firearms in the past few years, according to Ramirez.

The Wilmas Street Gang is known to be loyal to the Mexican Mafia, and has trafficked firearms and attacked rivals at the notorious prison factions behest, federal prosecutors said.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.
U.S. warplanes probably killed 59 civilians and injured five over seven months this year during the daily bombardment of Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, where fighters are often mixed among civilians.

The Pentagons disclosure Wednesday was the largest admission of responsibility for killing civilians since the Obama administration launched its air war against Islamic State in 2014.

The civilian death toll from U.S. airstrikes now stands at 119, according to the Pentagon. Independent monitors say many more have been killed by errant bombs or poor targeting.

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The military issued a two-page release that summarized its findings, not the actual investigations.

Many of the airstrikes, which took place between March 5 and Sept. 10, were blamed on civilians entering the target area after a fighter jet or bomber had released a weapon.

Nearly half those killed were in or around Mosul, the densely populated Iraqi city that is now under siege by Iraqi and Kurdish forces backed by U.S. air power.

We have teams who work full time to prevent unintended civilian casualties, Col. John Thomas, a military spokesman, said in statement. We do not want to add to the tragedy of the situation by inflicting addition suffering.

Syrian opposition activists, human rights groups and humanitarian aid groups insist that the Pentagon has vastly underestimated the number of civilians killed or wounded.

The organizations, which rely on witnesses, estimate that more than 1,000 civilians have been killed or wounded in the 16,000 airstrikes launched by the U.S. and its allies since the air war began in September 2014.

Amnesty International, for example, issued a detailed report last month that found coalition air attacks it had examined had killed about 300 civilians.

Even todays acknowledgment is a case of selective disclosure, with [the Department of Defense] holding back information necessary to assess its conclusion that the strikes were lawful and all necessary precautions were taken, said Naureen Shah, an official at the group.

Shah complained that Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, isnt transparent or proactive in its investigations.

The military command demands photographs and other verifiable evidence for claims to qualify for full investigations, but that sort of proof is often impossible to obtain on the battlefield.

Coalition airstrikes target sites under Islamic State control and are largely inaccessible to outsiders. Residents may risk torture or death by stepping forward to work with foreigners.

The military said it has received 249 allegations of incidents where one or more civilians died in the air war against Islamic State -- 179 of which were deemed not credible.

william.hennigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @wjhenn
An unusual haze, much thicker than traffic smog, hung over Atlanta on Wednesday.

It was smoke, blown in from wildfires in the mountains of northern Georgia, where hundreds of firefighters were battling blazes nourished by a severe drought gripping the nations Southeast.

How bad is the drought? Anything that can set off a spark is a hazard, said Sid King, a meteorologist at the National Weather Services office in Peachtree City, Ga.

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The drought started months ago. With the regions fall dry season now in full gear, theres not likely to be much relief. On Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor will release its next report on the massive drought, which stretches from eastern Texas to the Carolinas.

The Southeastern drought almost challenges the longstanding Western drought, centered in California, as the largest in the nation.

As of late October, drought conditions rated severe or exceptional  the two worst categories  covered 73% of Alabama, 50% of Georgia, 16% of South Carolina and 12% of North Carolina, according to a report by the Southeast Regional Climate Center. Half of the stream gauges in Alabama and Georgia had recorded stream flows that were far below normal.

This drought first developed back in the late spring, early May  and really, though, it really began to intensify during the summer, said Jordan McLeod, a regional climatologist at the center, located in Chapel Hill, N.C.

The strength of the drought is the result of bad luck, if it could be called that. The rains that drenched Louisiana and led to disastrous floods this summer didnt head east, and the tropical storms that flooded parts of the East Coast didnt move west.

Unfortunately those storms did not take a very favorable inland trek that would have brought some much-needed rainfall to interior areas that are under drought, McLeod said of recent tropical storms that formed in the Atlantic Ocean and headed toward the U.S.

In Alabama and Georgia, which sit in the dry gap between the rainstorms, farmers are struggling to feed their cattle.

Ben Haynes, 38, is a fifth-generation farmer in Cullman County, Ala., who grows crops and raises cattle with his brother and his father.

This years corn yields have fallen to a third of what theyve gotten accustomed to, while soybean yields dropped by half. Now, with the green grass drying up, the biggest problem is how to feed their cattle.

Pasture conditions are as bad as weve ever seen, Haynes said. Our hay crop was about half the volume, and quality as well, of normal.

Hay isnt the only problem.

Some ponds created for watering livestock have dried up, forcing farmers to haul in water, said Jeff Helms, a spokesman for the Alabama Farmers Federation.

There are quite a few places in Alabama that have had zero rainfall since August, or maybe a couple months longer, Helms said.

Although the harvest season for spring-seeded crops has ended, he said, laying new seeds now means planting in soil that has little moisture and little promise.

Birmingham, Ala., was on track Wednesday to experience its 52nd consecutive day without any precipitation  which would tie the citys longest streak on records going back to 1895. Theres no rain in the forecast for the near future.

We could see potentially a 60-day streak there, almost two months essentially of no rainfall, but well have to see how that plays out, McLeod said.

Rains on Monday ended similar stretches in Mobile, Ala., which had gone a record 42 days without rain, and Pensacola, Fla., which had gone a record 41 days.

The drought has led to more than 1,000 wildfires across the Southeast since late summer, though those fires are typically smaller than those that churn through the wildlands of the West.

As of Wednesday, officials reported nearly a dozen large fires across Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Looking ahead to winter, climatologists dont offer much hope. They expect the region to enter a weak La Nina phase, in which unusually cool Pacific Ocean waters cause dry conditions in the Southeast.

Its gonna be a long winter, and this is not an isolated deal, Haynes said. It has really expanded in the last two to three weeks, and theres a lot of folks hurting. A lot of folks hurting.

matt.pearce@latimes.com

Twitter: @mattdpearce

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Although he lives in the penthouse high above the crowd, it might be tough for President-elect Donald J. Trump to get some rest when he gets home.

Thousands of protesters chanted New York Hates You and Not My President in front of Trumps flagship New York building, the Trump Tower.

Protesters filled 5th Avenue for five blocks, essentially closing down an iconic, much-visited neighborhood of midtown Manhattan. Those who werent holding signs raised their middle fingers  many of them taking selfies of the gesture  toward the glassy black 58-story tower that had become a symbol of the Trump candidacy.

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The New York protest appeared to be the largest of dozens of anti-Trump demonstrations taking place elsewhere in the country, in Chicago, Boston, Oakland, Portland and other mostly Democratic cities.

The New York crowd was dominated by young people, many of whom had just voted in their first presidential election and were aghast at the results. Tourists in an open-top sightseeing bus that had been surrounded in the clogged street also yelled their opposition to Trump.

I hate everything about Donald Trump, said Jaime Reuter, 19, a student at Pace University in Manhattan. Something has to be done.

Some protesters said they came out spontaneously, hoping to vent their shock and disappointment at Trumps upset victory over Hillary Clinton.

Ive been sad and angry all day, said Claire Mordowanec, 22, of Brooklyn. If I didnt come out how would I explain to my kids one day that I didnt stand up for whats right?

One protester carried a sign that read, White Supremacy. Misogyny is not my America. Another read, No More Small Men with Big Mouths. Other times the crowd broke into chants of Black Lives Matter.

The tower was closed to visitors and the front of the building surrounded with garbage trucks, which had been placed strategically to deter visitors. Otherwise security appeared relatively relaxed, indicating that most likely nobody from the Trump family was at home.

It is an unusual situation to have the president-elect living in the middle of one of the busiest streets of New York, and is creating security headaches, not to speak of terrible traffic jams. The tower has been a magnet for pro- and anti-Trump protesters for months now.

One of the most famous was Lady Gaga, who posed on one of the garbage trucks in the wee hours Wednesday holding a sign that read Love Trumps Hate.

Small protests were happening elsewhere in New York, including a candlelight vigil in Brooklyns Prospect Park. A larger demonstration is planned for Saturday night.

Although Trump is a native New Yorker, he is not popular in his hometown. In New York City, Trump received just 19% of the vote, and much of that was in the mostly suburban borough of Staten Island.
Republicans, who for six years have promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, will finally get their chance to do it. But even with control of the White House and Congress, its unclear whether the GOP can pull it off.

While rolling back Obamacare, as President-elect Donald Trump has promised to do in his first days in office, could be accomplished relatively easily, enacting the complex legislation necessary to replace the law while protecting millions of Americans who depend on it for coverage may prove daunting.

It also would represent an unparalleled effort by a new president to dismantle a major government program and replace it with something new.

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Its a very big challenge, said James C. Capretta, a leading conservative health policy expert and former Bush administration official now at the American Enterprise Institute.

There will be a lot of pressure to do something and to do it relatively quickly  but the big complication with repeal and replace has always been, how do they handle the replace part?

Indeed, congressional Republicans have never advanced replacement bills through an arduous committee process, submitted the legislation to rigorous budgetary analysis or contended with the potential impact on constituents who could see their out-of-pocket medical costs soar.

GOP lawmakers have held more than 50 repeal votes over the past six years. While most of those were symbolic, the next one could strip insurance coverage from more than 20 million Americans, according to independent estimates.

Such a step to roll back government benefits  unprecedented in modern U.S. history  likely would roil state healthcare markets across the country and fuel an enormous political backlash as Trump was settling in for his first term. Many healthcare industry stocks fell dramatically Wednesday amid investor worries about a potential new repeal push.

You cant just pull the plug on 20 million people, warned Gail Wilensky, who headed the Medicare and Medicaid programs under President George H.W. Bush and helped Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) develop a healthcare plan during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Underscoring the challenge, more than 100,000 people signed up for health coverage through the law on Wednesday, the day after Trumps election.

Within hours of Trumps victory, several activist groups already were threatening to mobilize to defend the Obamacare coverage expansion.

We at Families USA are going to be on a total war footing, said Ron Pollack, the groups executive director and a leading consumer advocate. We will fight at the grass-roots level and in the halls of Congress.

And hospital and physician groups, health insurers, consumer advocates and even some conservative business leaders already were urging elected officials to end the protracted political battle over Obamacare and take constructive steps to make the law work better.

Speaking at a recent healthcare forum at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, the chambers senior lobbyist, Bruce Josten, implicitly chastised Republicans who have sought to capitalize on turmoil in some insurance markets this fall.

Its unfortunate that opponents of the ACA seem to be doing victory laps, he said.

During the campaign, Trump provided little detail about how he would go about repealing and replacing the health law, though he said Thursday that healthcare would be a focus of his White House, along with immigration and jobs.

Congressional Republicans, though, have developed what could be a template for repeal.

Using Senate rules that exempt some budget-related legislation from filibuster, the GOP passed a bill last year that eliminated hundreds of billions of dollars provided by the health law to expand Medicaid coverage for very poor Americans and to subsidize health insurance for low- and moderate-income Americans on marketplaces created by the law.

The bill, which also scrapped the unpopular insurance mandate in the law that penalizes Americans who dont have health insurance, envisioned a phase-out of the current law, giving Republicans time to develop an alternative.

President Obama vetoed the bill in January, but GOP leaders promised to revive it.

This summer, House Republicans also released a 37-page healthcare outline, which Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) advertised as a blueprint for potentially replacing the law.

The GOP plan would transform Medicaid, the government health program for the poor, by eliminating federal rules that establish who should be covered, such as poor children and pregnant women, and which benefits should be offered, leaving those decisions to states.

Medicaid and the related Childrens Health Insurance Program provide coverage to more than 70 million Americans.

Americans who dont get coverage through an employer or through Medicare or Medicaid would qualify for a tax subsidy they could use to help offset the cost of a commercial insurance plan, similar to the system set up by the Affordable Care Act.

But Republicans argue these health plans would be more affordable than current plans available through Obamacare marketplaces because they would not be subject to as many federal regulations.

That outline should position Republicans to develop replacement legislation over the next year, said Tevi Troy, a former health official in the George W. Bush administration who now heads the American Health Policy Institute.

Troy said there may not be a single replacement bill, but rather a series of smaller bills over the next two years that address various challenges. We will see alternatives presented and likely passed, Troy predicted.

Whether this slower approach would satisfy the partys base, which has been energized by more than six years of repeal calls, is unclear.

Also uncertain is whether voters would welcome the specifics of the GOP healthcare platform, which likely would mean less generous government assistance for millions of people.

For example, the House GOP plan would not link the tax credit to peoples incomes, as the current law does, potentially leaving lower-income consumers with less help to purchase insurance.

And independent analyses of previous GOP plans have noted that scaling back federal oversight of state Medicaid programs, while giving states more flexibility, could prompt some to roll back their healthcare safety nets.

The missing details of the House Republicans plan make it impossible to gauge how many people could lose or gain health coverage and how much more some Americans might have to pay for coverage.

Trump has generally embraced parts of the House GOP plan, including deregulating health insurance, restructuring Medicaid and changing the way federal government uses tax breaks to help people buy health coverage.

The president-elect has expressed less willingness to make major changes to Medicare, as congressional Republicans want. Ryan has long championed plans to replace the current government-run Medicare benefit with a system of vouchers that seniors could use to offset part of the cost of premiums for private health plans.

Trump has not indicated how much he will defer to Ryan and other congressional Republicans eager to push ahead with healthcare legislation. Trump and Ryan had a testy relationship during the campaign, and at one point, Trump suggested Ryan might not remain as speaker.

Twitter: @noamlevey

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UPDATES:

3 p.m.: This article was updated with comment from Trump.

11:40 a.m.: This article was updated with new Obamacare enrollment figures.

This article was originally published at 11:05 a.m.
When Donald Trump takes the oath of office in January, he appears poised to become the only world leader who questions whether climate change is real.

The Republican president-elect has called climate change a hoax and said he would cancel the United States participation in the historic Paris climate accord to reduce carbon emissions. Among the people he is said to be considering to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, which Trump once proposed gutting, is Myron Ebell, a prominent skeptic of climate science.



For the record: An earlier version of this article described Science Debate as a website that promotes science education for children. Science Debate describes itself as a nonpartisan initiative of American scientists and engineers that promotes political debate on environmental issues, among others.

Trump has also said he would revive the coal industry, expand fossil fuel development, relax restrictions on energy production on public land and do away with the Obama administrations Clean Power Plan, which would reduce emissions from power plants. The Republican-controlled Congress that Trump will be working with shares many of his goals.

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Now, less than a year after the Obama administration built alliances with China, India and other countries to lead the world in approving the Paris accord, Trumps victory has given him the power to do much of what he said he wants to do. That has raised profound questions about domestic and international efforts to fight climate change at a moment when scientists say there is no time for delay.

Millions of Americans voted for a coal-loving climate denier willing to condemn people around the globe to poverty, famine and death from climate change, Benjamin Schreiber, the climate and energy director for Friends of the Earth, said in one of the blizzard of reaction statements distributed by anguished environmental groups. It seems undeniable that the United States will become a rogue state on climate change.

Given Trumps shifting positions on the campaign trail and uncertainty over who might advise him, it is unclear how actively he will follow through on statements he made about energy and environmental policy. But there was widespread concern among activists and experts that he would roll back President Obamas policies, be they programs to reduce methane emissions or raise vehicle mileage standards.

Because they were done with existing authority, not through Congress, its easier for another administration that has another view to roll all those things back and I worry a lot that thats whats about to happen, Jason Bordoff, the director of Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy and a former energy advisor to Obama.

The extraordinary speed at which the Paris accord was enacted into law was driven in part by concerns among world leaders that Trump, if elected, could prevent the U.S. from participating. The U.S. is the worlds second-largest emitter, after China.

On Wednesday, at this years United Nations climate conference, in Marrakech, Morocco, world leaders woke to news of Trumps victory and vowed both to work with the new president and hold his administration accountable.

After congratulating Trump, Salaheddine Mezouar, the president of the conference, said all parties to the agreement have the shared responsibility to continue the great progress achieved to date. Mezouar said that he was convinced that all parties will respect their commitments and stay the course in this collective effort and that his office would work in a spirit of inclusiveness and determination, particularly with the new American administration.

A Trump administration may not be able to formally withdraw from the accord. But because the accord includes no legally binding emissions goals, only the commitment to pursue them and regularly consider strengthening them, Trump could simply choose to ignore it.

California Gov. Jerry Brown insisted Thursday that the state would stay true to its commitments on climate change.

With the deep divisions in our country, it is incumbent on all of us  especially the new leadership in Washington  to take steps that heal those divisions, not deepen them, Brown said in a statement.

Theres not much the international community can do about it other than shame and bad will in global diplomacy, Bordoff said. And Im not sure how much that administration would care about that.

Bordoff noted that Trump is expected to appoint a conservative justice to the Supreme Court, increasing the chances that the court would side against environmental groups and with industry, including on Obamas Clean Power Plan, which is facing legal challenges.

Trump has said he also supports expanding renewable energy. In comments published in September on the website of Science Debate, a nonpartisan science initiative promoting political debate on scientific issues, Trump wrote, There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of climate change.

After mentioning the importance of clean water and fighting disease, without linking those issues directly to climate concerns, he continued, Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels.

Many activists have long argued that government cannot be counted on to lead on climate issues. Some say a blend of global market forces affecting fossil fuels, the declining cost of solar and wind energy, grass-roots activism, legal action in U.S. courts and international pressure could help counter whatever efforts a Trump administration might make to undo existing policies.

This is obviously a setback, in part because we started so damn late and theres already quite a bit of damage, but this transition is underway and its driven by a whole lot of things  human will, local policy, state policy, international policy, technology development, K.C. Golden, the chairman of 350.org, said in an interview.

There will be more of a price to pay and more climate damage will accumulate and be inflicted on people, because well go slower than we would go if we had concerted American leadership. But the lack of American leadership wont stop the transition.

Others, worried about the unknown, called on Obama to take further executive action to protect the environment before leaving office.

The Standing Rock Sioux Indian tribe, which has been leading protests against the controversial Dakota Access pipeline, called again on the president Wednesday to withhold a final permit the pipelines builder needs to complete it. The tribe worries that the pipeline, whose route would travel just north of its reservation, threatens sacred sites and its water supply.

In this time of uncertainty, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II wrote, President Obama still has the power to give our children hope.

william.yardley@latimes.com

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An immigration hard-liner is joining Donald Trumps transition team

One of the architects of several of the nations most controversial immigration laws is set to join President-elect Donald Trumps immigration policy transition team.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Thursday that he planned to help Trump reverse President Obamas immigration policies.

Theres going to be a lot to do there in part because Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama are diametric opposites when it comes to immigration policy, so there will be a lot of changes, Kobach told a Kansas television station.

Noting Trumps central campaign pledge to build a southern border wall and emboldened by Republicans retaining control of Congress, Kobach said, Theres no question the wall is going to get built. The only question is how quickly will it get done and who pays for it.

Trump, who met with Obama at the White House on Thursday, also has vowed to overturn many of the presidents executive actions on immigration, such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that temporarily shields from deportation people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

(David Zabulowski / Associated Press )

In 2010, Kobach helped to craft Arizonas SB-1070, which contained four major elements aimed at reducing the number of immigrants in the state illegally through attrition. It compelled police to ask for papers and allowed officers to make arrests without warrants if they believed the suspect committed an offense that made them eligible for deportation.

Critics assailed SB-1070 as racial profiling, and the Supreme Court struck down much of the law in 2012, although it upheld the part allowing police to check immigration statuses. In September, Arizona ended its practice of requiring police officers to demand the papers of people suspected of being in the country illegally as part of a settlement with immigrant rights groups.

Kobach also has had a hand in other controversial immigration laws. He helped write an Alabama measure in 2011 that mandates that police who suspect someone is in the country illegally can work to determine that persons legal status. Critics have called it tougher than the Arizona law.

Kobach also helped local officials in Hazelton, Pa., draft a 2006 ordinance that banned landlords from renting to people in the country illegally. The ordinance, which never was implemented, faced strong pushback and several legal challenges by the American Civil Liberties Union. Last year, the rural town was ordered to pay nearly $2 million in legal and court fees to the ACLU.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said it was deeply troubling that Kobach was joining Trumps transition team.

His participation is a threat to diverse communities throughout our nation. Kobachs pattern of supporting racist, anti-immigrant policies ... are not only divisive, but have repeatedly been found unconstitutional, he said. Mr. Trumps selection of Kobach is in direct conflict with his stated desire to bring America together.
Even as Hillary Clinton fell short in her quest to become the nations first woman commander in chief, Los Angeles County voters added two more women to the Board of Supervisors, giving a government body labeled in living memory as the five little kings a four-fifths female supermajority.

The election of Kathryn Barger to succeed her current boss, Michael D. Antonovich, and Janice Hahn to follow in the footsteps of her late father, Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, should not be dismissed as a mere consolation prize to those who identify the glaring paucity of women in American politics as shameful. Nor should the continuing service of Supervisors Hilda Solis and Sheila Kuehl. There can be no substitute in substance or symbolism for a female president of the United States, and we will most certainly have one, although not as soon as had so recently seemed likely. If the delay in gender equality in the most powerful job in the land lasts longer than we would like  and indeed the delay is nearly unforgivable  it is in part because of the unconscionable delay in opening the ranks of city, county and state government to women. Kuehl and Solis, and now Barger and Hahn, help fill the void.

The number of people, even in Los Angeles County itself, who are familiar with the members of the Board of Supervisors and their their powers and duties, is probably not high. Local government already is somewhat obscure, and unlike big cities, which have mayors who become a municipalitys face and voice, California counties are governed by five-member committees that tend to make less news than school boards.

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No society that chooses its leaders from among only half its eligible citizens can be said to be truly free, just, fair and inclusive.

But that unwarranted anonymity covers over the fact that counties are the chief entity responsible for basic human services: public health, public safety, jails, parks, hospitals, transportation, sanitation, care for the homeless, the jobless, the abused and neglected, and more. The grand designs of the president and Congress, and of the governor and the Legislature, turn into money and mandates that are spent and carried out in counties by five supervisors elected by voters. Los Angeles is the nations most populous county and its government the most influential in California outside Sacramento.

Women in elective office fall far too short of their numbers in the general population, and let us not pretend that thats not a serious problem or one less important than racial disparity, or one that we will automatically outgrow without effort and political struggle. No society that chooses its leaders from among only half its eligible citizens can be said to be truly free, just, fair and inclusive. No person  woman or man  is adequately served by a government drawn from a narrow segment of society, whether that group be all one race, one social class or one gender.

As a state, California serves its populace with a government more representative than most  but still vastly under-representative, with just a quarter of state lawmakers and a quarter of statewide elected officials. The city of Los Angeles has no women in citywide office and just one among 15 City Council members.

It matters, because elections for state and local office fill the bench: They make up the supply chain for higher office. It is no knock on Hillary Clinton to say that she was not only the first but very likely the last serious presidential contender whose path included being first lady before assuming elected and appointed office.

The bench is filled by thinkers, advocates, academics and others who apply for staff posts and then run for office because they see government as a profession that is not only honorable and consequential but open to advancement. It is filled by people like Barger  and, importantly, by people like Antonovich, who appointed her. It is filled by people like Hahn who refuse to accept that their fathers can be succeeded only by their sons. It is filled by people  and should be filled by more of them  who believe, or perhaps insist, that they live in a nation in which their ability and call to service can take them to the most powerful post on the planet.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
The fear that Los Angeles County voters would revolt over a bloated ballot and too many tax hikes melted away Wednesday morning as the results were tallied. Voters not only approved several significant tax measures to pay for critical investments in transportation, parks and housing, but supported them in overwhelming numbers. The message was clear: Angelenos not only want a long-term vision for a successful and more livable city, but theyre willing to pay to make it a reality.

Take, for example, Measure M, the permanent sales tax increase that would allow the county to greatly expand its public transportation systems. It won almost 70% of the vote  easily achieving the two-thirds majority needed to approve a tax hike. Eight years ago, voters just barely passed Measure R, the 2008 sales tax hike that kick-started the regions transit-building boom. Measure M will transform the regions transportation system by building a dozen new rail lines and maintain the existing lines, as well as fixing freeway bottlenecks, adding bike lanes and filling potholes.

County voters also gave a resounding yes to Measure A, a parcel tax on residential and commercial property to pay for parks, recreation, open space and cultural amenities. That measure passed with 73% support, also well over the two-thirds approval needed and a reversal from two years ago when voters rejected a similar proposal.

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Perhaps most stunning and most welcome, three out of four voters in the city of Los Angeles backed Measure HHH, the citys ambitious plan to borrow $1.2 billion to build 10,000 units of permanent supportive housing and affordable housing for homeless people. The measure received shockingly high support  76%  which is particularly impressive considering that 10 years ago city voters rejected a similar bond measure to fund homeless and low-income housing.

There are a few common threads in the success of these tax measures. They all address the everyday concerns and real-life experiences of Angelenos, who sit in soul-crushing traffic, seek relief from an increasingly crowded city life in public parks and witness the suffering of the homeless on a day-to-day basis. These measures also offered long-term solutions, rather than short-term band aid approaches, developed after working closely with affected communities and seeking consensus. Elected officials, including Mayor Eric Garcetti, members of the the Los Angeles City Council and the county Board of Supervisors, made persuasive cases that they could be trusted to manage the publics money and deliver on the propositions promises.

There is still a lot of work to be done to bring these visions to fruition. But there is also a lesson here. When voters are given well-thought-out and credible opportunities to make a meaningful difference in their communities  such as road and transit improvements, more and better parks, housing for the homeless and mentally ill  they will support higher taxes. That message should be taken to heart in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

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There is a good reason that Donald Trump failed to win the endorsement of a single serious newspaper (the Ku Klux Klan Crusader does not count). It is not because the press is uniformly liberal; there were plenty of traditionally Republican and conservative editorial boards that could not bring themselves to support Trump. It is because people who work on newspapers deal in facts, and the fact is that the president-elect is woefully unprepared for the office he has won.

That is the core reason I have been so critical of Trump and will continue to be.

This is not a knee-jerk aversion to any and all Republicans (I used to be one myself). If George H.W. Bush had beaten Bill Clinton back in 1992, I would not have worried that the country was in dangerous hands. Bush the elder, besides being a complete gentleman, was a seasoned practitioner of statecraft. If Sen. John McCain had won in 2008 or Mitt Romney in 2012, I would have been disappointed, but I would not have thought the election of either man would be perilous for us all (although having Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency would not have been reassuring).

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1 / 51 la-1491523602-y7ephyarj1-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 51 la-1491368625-0bgh58ihw8-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los angeles Times) 6 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 51 Trump inspires millions to take to the streets -- to oppose him. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 51 Cartoon caption contest winner at the DENT conference in Sun Valley, Idaho: Jon Duval, executive director of the Ketchum Community Development Corporation. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 51 Old radicals and big media descend on Selma (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 51 Horsey imagined the creation of the Ann Coulter phenomenon in this cartoon from 2007. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 51 This David Horsey drawing is a reconfiguration of a cartoon he first published in 2006. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 51 Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers, should give Cliven Bundy a call. After Sterling loses his NBA franchise and the deadbeat Nevada rancher loses his cattle, the two old racists will both need a buddy. Maybe they can team up together and open an all-white rodeo. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 51 Besides sending a chill up the spine of the international community, Vladimir Putin has accomplished one other thing by seizing Crimea and threatening the rest of Ukraine: Putin has brought back the bear. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 51 The right-wing insurrection at the Bundy ranch in Bunkerville, Nev., has taken another weird turn with new revelations about the family history of Cliven Bundy. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 51 David Horsey / Los Angeles Times (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 49 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 50 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

It is Trump who is uniquely scary, not because he is a Republican and not because of his personal demerits. The nation can survive a president with a record of using women as sexual toys (Trump will not be the first). The nation can survive a president who is rude and bullying. The nation can even survive a con man. But it will be much harder to steer clear of harm with a president who seems to have no idea how little he really knows about very important things.

For all his experience as a businessman, his ideas about economics are neanderthal. Those who actually understand the intricacies of the global market fear he will provoke a disastrous trade war if he follows through on his threats to tear up trade deals and slap high taxes on imports.

His fantastical promises to bring back jobs in the coal mines and manufacturing plants were further proof of his dim-bulbed grasp of economic realities. Yes, those promises raised hopes and won him votes in the Rust Belt states  and probably won him the election. But he was fooling those voters and probably fooling himself. Global competition is the force that diminished the old industries and no new trade deal will change that reality. Manufacturing may well rebound in this country, but it will be built on robots and automation. The high numbers of jobs that once provided a middle-class lifestyle for men without a college degree will never come back.

In the final days of the campaign, Trump repeatedly mocked U.S. military leaders for announcing in advance their plans to retake regions of Iraq held by Islamic State militants. Whatever happened to the element of surprise? Trump asked repeatedly, as if war were a game of hide-and-seek. Letting Islamic State leaders know the attack was coming gave them a chance to run away, Trump said. Military strategists responded by pointing out that Islamic State commanders on the run actually made much better targets and that was just one of several good reasons to broadcast intentions.

Trump is no military genius, although he has famously claimed to know more than the generals. If he carries that delusion with him into the White House, it could lead to catastrophe. So could his failure to understand the immense value of the NATO alliance. So could his simple-minded admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Low-information voters have given us a low-information president. Trumps lack of sophistication and his apparent disinterest in doing the hard work it takes to understand the complexities of economics, international relations and military strategy is the most alarming aspect of his looming presidency. His character flaws and reactionary tendencies are hardly insignificant, but his willful ignorance of vital knowledge is what may make him the worlds most dangerous man.

David.Horsey@latimes.com

Follow me at @davidhorsey on Twitter.

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As they struggled through the wreckage of one of their worst election nights in memory, Democrats faced a brutal reckoning over how the party, soon to be out of power on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, can regain relevance.

Democrats went into Tuesdays balloting presuming that they would win the presidency for a third time in a row, gain a majority in the U.S. Senate and, if everything went well, cut into Republicans congressional margins, too.

Nothing went well.

Not only did Hillary Clinton suffer defeat at the hands of Donald Trump, but a tide of conservative voters swamped Democrats at other levels.

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Sooner rather than later, given unified Republican control of Washington, the damage will include President Obamas signature achievements, like the healthcare plan Trump and congressional Republicans have vowed to repeal.

Thats got to be a huge wake-up call for the inside-the-Beltway Democratic establishment. They fundamentally failed, said Democratic pollster Ben Tulchin, who worked for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders presidential campaign this year.

Democrats already seemed to be split over how to regroup. Some argued for a more aggressive effort to move the party to the left, hoping to drive up turnout among younger and minority voters. Others stressed a need to reach out to the disaffected working-class white voters who so conspicuously deserted the party this year.

The debate is made even more difficult because, however devastating Tuesdays defeat was, it was also agonizingly close. Clinton won the popular vote  the second time in 16 years that the Democratic candidate had gotten more votes than the Republican, but lost the electoral college. A switch in three states of only about 50,000 votes out of some 120 million cast nationwide would have been enough to give her the victory.

The narrowness of her defeat made keeping to the same path and striking out in a completely different direction both appear equally plausible options.

Live U.S. election results | Live California election results

In the meantime, however, Democrats were left searching for the basics: a message, messengers, and a structure to defend their goals, since the Democratic National Committee was a handmaiden to Clintons defeat.

Essential, all sides say, is a compelling jobs pitch.

Theres no question that Democrats have to figure out an economic message that resonates with working families who are still devastated by the Great Recession, said Yvanna Cancela, political director for Culinary Union Local 226, which represents workers at Las Vegas casinos and hotels.

And I think that message extends beyond the minimum wage and goes deep into income inequality and affordable healthcare, she said. It has to be an economic message that really helps people imagine a better life for them and their families.

Veteran Democratic strategist Mark Mellman, who served as the pollster for John F. Kerrys unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2004, said the party needed as well to find a way to talk with white voters.

We have some people upset with the cultural direction of the country, Mellman said, and to win, Democrats have to find a way to advance principles and causes that we believe in, while not angering those people in quite the same way.

Clinton avoided picking sides in her farewell speech Wednesday, talking not about any specific path, but addressing issues on which Democrats should take a stand.

Lets do all we can to keep advancing the causes and values we all hold dear: making our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top; protecting our country and protecting our planet and breaking down all the barriers that hold any American back from achieving their dreams, she said.

Some argued that, as bad as things were, the long-term prospects for Democrats remained rosy. Clinton suffered from depressed Democratic turnout in some areas. That proved fatal when paired with Trump-heightened Republican turnout in usually Democratic states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Even with what happened Tuesday, one argument went, Democrats remain poised to benefit from the decreasing strength of white voters and the increasing numbers of nonwhites, the young, and women.

The reality is the country is changing demographically and those demographic changes do work in our direction, Mellman said. They dont guarantee anything, obviously, but they do work in that direction.

But if Tuesday offered any lessons, it was that, unless deftly done, trying to appeal to those ascendant voters risks offending the partys thinning ranks of white voters, particularly working-class men.

The upside of Democrats ethnic appeals was demonstrated in Nevada, a rare bright spot for the party. Driven by the political muscle of retiring U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and Culinary, the states most potent labor union, Nevada Democrats favored Clinton, seized a U.S. Senate seat and two congressional seats, and flipped the state Legislature.

Cancela said a Democratic message could be crafted that would unite Latino workers in Las Vegas and factory workers in the industrial Midwest who abandoned the party Tuesday.

I think you can look at history  look at things like the New Deal, specific policy measures that impact workers and their families, she said. I think that connects people across the country.

For more on politics 

 A portion of Hillary Clintons concession speech.

A generation ago, facing a similar impasse after losing 5 of 6 presidential contests, Democrats moved to the center. That benefited Bill Clinton, helping him win the presidency twice. That shift helped form Hillary Clintons political DNA. But now there are fewer voters in the middle as Americans have gravitated to the poles.

That  and the strong primary challenge by Sanders  suggests the party this time will have a strong impulse to hew to the left, though how dramatic a move remains up for debate.

Tulchin argued Tuesday that the Vermont senators template could be used by the party now.

Sanders campaign criticized Clintons alliance with Wall Street and her receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments for speeches to financial firms. The senator made clear that he thought her proposals on the minimum wage, college tuition and healthcare were too incremental.

Theres a clear path forward for us: Weve got to put an end to the corporate, Wall Street end of the party, Tulchin said. Weve got to put it in a trash can, and light a fire, and burn it.

Tulchin said he had not talked with Sanders since the depth of the Democratic losses became evident. But he argued that as the surviving titular figure, Sanders should, if he chooses, be able to reorganize the DNC.

That is a tender subject for Sanders partisans: In hacked emails, party officials were seen as helping Clinton defeat Sanders.

For that matter, Tulchin left open the chance that Sanders might challenge Trump from the Senate and potentially, despite being 75 already, in a future presidential bid.

Bernies economic message resonated with anyone not in the top 1%, Tulchin said, referring to a top target of the senators during his campaign. He does well with middle-class voters as well as working-class. We dont have to reinvent the wheel.

After their sobering defeat in 2012, Republicans wrote a postelection report detailing how to succeed in 2016. Trump ignored it, and won anyway. Now, its the Democrats turn as they seek to figure out what could have kept voters who sided with Obama in 2008 and 2012 from abandoning them this year.

As a party we have a lot of listening to do, said Cancela. And a lot of discussions to have with voters.

cathleen.decker@latimes.com

Twitter: @cathleendecker

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At a posh Miami cafe the day after the election, a man worriedly monitored the stock market. His friend questioned whether the election had been rigged. At a nearby coffee shop, a barista tried to figure out why the data-driven websites she followed could have been so wrong.

Its a safe bet that none of them had ever traveled to Stanley, a North Carolina rail town of 3,600 where construction workers, plumbers and an off-duty sheriffs deputy watched Hillary Clintons concession speech from Petes Grill on Main Street.

I dont know anyone who would vote for Hillary Clinton, said Terry Brown, a 55-year-old plumber.

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She should be locked up, another diner said under his breath.

The fissure revealed in this election was as wide as any in recent history: between those who believe Donald Trump will destroy everything that America stands for and those who are certain it has already been so destroyed that only Trump can fix it.

Explore returns from the 2016 general election 

Maybe I have a skewed vantage point because I live in a city, said Hannah Ratcliff, the 25-year-old barista in Miami, still shaking her head at the thought of voters selecting a man her friends called an idiot to represent America around the world. I just dont think they run into the same sort of experiences. I know a lot of people that immigrated to this country, and theyre just horrified.

Hannah Ratliff, 25, of Miami (Noah Bierman / Los Angeles Times )

The election made clear that, in many cases, Clinton and Trump supporters came from two Americas, with different life experiences and mutual distrust.

Clinton won the popular vote with supporters packed tightly into diverse urban clusters, with heavy immigrant populations, looser religious affiliations and greater educational and economic opportunities.

Trumps electoral path spanned the country, largely bypassing those metropolises as it meandered through religious Southern towns, the vast rural heartland and the old industrial belt in the North that once provided the bedrock of the Democratic labor union coalition.

Trumps supporters said throughout the campaign that they felt ignored by coastal elites whose influence over media, politics and culture seemed overwhelming. Many reveled in Clintons description of them as a basket of deplorables, seeing it as proof that they were looked down upon.

They worried about the encroaching societal changes and their effect on jobs, immigration and security  so worried that they were willing to take what many knew was a risk.

Shawn Lewis, left, and his boss, Tommy Morrison at Petes Grill in Stanley, N.C. (Jenny Jarvie / For The Times )

Were entering the unknown, said Tommy Morrison, 55, the owner of a local drain and grease trap cleaning company in Stanley, who also voted for Trump. The more educated, college-bred, liberal-thinking, progressive individuals see this country going backwards. I see it positively: Were going back to the roots and Christian values we were founded on.

He also offered an olive branch to Clinton, saying he admired her hard work and believed she loves the country even as she was held back by her baggage.

Samantha Miller, a 47-year-old paralegal, stood in the back of a rally in Virginia Beach last month, worried that America had become preoccupied with going to third-world countries to fight wars and aid others and needed to take care of ourself first.

No one is here to help us, she said.

Trump seized on that anxiety with nostalgia for a version of a post-World War II America, when overseas victories and the path to economic security for working-class whites were more clear-cut than they are in a modern world, with messy foreign clashes and fewer paths to economic prosperity for those without a college education.

He said repeatedly that his election represented a last chance to reclaim past greatness, and declared in his acceptance speech: The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

Clintons supporters said they could not quite grasp the fury of Trumps backers, which some blamed on racism or xenophobia. Many said on Wednesday that they continued to underestimate the other sides frustration.

There was just that sense of anger, Richard Bloomingdale, president of the 800,000-member Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, who said he was shocked at the indifference many voters expressed when his members knocked on their doors and made calls for Clinton. They didnt care that [Trump] was a misogynist, or that he insulted disabled people, he said. They just didnt care.

He pointed to the largely white, fading industrial counties around Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, where Clinton fared far worse than President Obama only four years earlier. In Luzerne County, she won nearly 13,000 fewer votes than Obama.

The campaign trail laid bare each sides conviction that the country would not just decline, but fall apart, if the other side won the election. And both sides were confident of victory, a belief reinforced by their social media feeds and the people they saw at the grocery store.

I have a lot of friends on Facebook that are just praying for him, said Bonnie Zink, a retired teacher from Sylva, N.C., who drove an hour from her home near the Smoky Mountains to see Trump at a fairgrounds in western North Carolina last month.

She and her husband, Jim, had tried to attend two previous rallies but could not get in because tickets were so scarce.

Zink was certain the country would collapse if Clinton won, as was Cathy Murph, a 54-year-old prison supervisor, who drove 50 miles to attend the same rally, her fifth of the election season.

Im terrified to even think in that realm, she said. Id probably get sick on your shoes.

Many of Clintons supporters, particularly minorities, say they are the ones who will be left behind in Trumps America.

Ive been trying to process it all morning, said Julius Hayes Jr., a 69-year-old African American Air Force veteran who is retired from a his child protection services job in Philadelphia.

He spent Wednesday exchanging phone calls and Facebook messages with his friends, who were equally stunned.

He said all the things he said, and he was supported by the KKK and the Nazi party, Hayes said. You listen to the pundits, and they say people wanted a change in Washington  OK, but not this kind of change.

In Latino households, Trumps victory touched off tears and hushed conversations. Jose Martinez, 30, came to the U.S. from Puebla, Mexico, a decade ago, and runs a corner grocery in a blue-collar neighborhood in South Philadelphia, where immigrants from Mexico and Cambodia are taking the place of Italians and Jews who settled in earlier eras.

All morning, he said, his customers talked about what Trump would do. Some friends had children who came illegally and won temporary protection from deportation, under an Obama program that Trump has vowed to end. Martinez has two kids who were born in the U.S.

My daughter was crying, said Martinez, who has been staying in the U.S. on a series of temporary visas. She thought we could get in trouble, and he would throw out everybody, and wed have to leave. He told her: Dont worry, well be happy anywhere.

Times staff writer Bierman reported from Miami and Times staff writer Tanfani from Philadelphia. Special correspondent Jarvie reported from from Stanley. Times staff writer Chris Megerian in New York contributed to this report.

noah.bierman@latimes.com

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

@JennyJarvie

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Serzh Sargsyan meets with heads of investment companies of UAE

In the framework of his official visit to the United Arab Emirates, President Serzh Sargsyan met today with the heads of a number of the investment and development companies. The parties noted with satisfaction the existing friendly relations of Armenia with the Arab world and the UAE in particular, spoke about the high level political dialogue which, according to them, unfortunately so far doesnt correspond to the current level of the trade and economic relations. According to the parties, there is great potential for the development of the relations in that area and it is necessary to work persistently on that direction. Visit of the Armenian President to the UAE and fruitful meetings with the highest political leadership of the country, according to the representatives of the Emirates investment and development companies, testify to the mutual will and readiness to invigorate the Armenia-UAE relations also in the area of trade and economy. They assured that were greatly interested in Armenias investment policies and clear-cut programs and were ready to discuss in that context Armenias priorities in different areas, to visit Armenia, to study the conditions firsthand, and to move the negotiations forward. The President tasked the Chief of the Presidential Administration and the Minister of Economic Development and Investments present at the meeting to continue close cooperation with the companies interested in the investment programs and to present to introduce to them the projects which lie within the scope of their business interests. President Sargsyan informed his interlocutors that the Armenian side has prepared investment packages which remain in the focus of his immediate attention. He said that he will welcome and provide all necessary assistance to the investors from Emirates who will be prepared to make investments in different areas of the Armenian economy, while the major investments will receive a preferential treatment.
Donald Trumps presidential victory defied just about everything supposedly smart people knew about politics and winning the White House.

Not that it mattered.



For the record: An earlier version of this article said Donald Trump was the first person to win the presidency without having served in either elected office or the military. He is the first person without government or military experience; Herbert Hoover was elected president after serving as Commerce Secretary, an appointed post.

He prevailed by tapping a force that was far more powerful than the strongest debate performance, the most attention-grabbing TV spot, the savviest turnout operation or the highest-profile surrogates, from the White House down.

He tapped into seething anger and voters ravenous desire for change.

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If people get mad enough, they will storm the polls without prodding  and without, apparently, the need to confide in opinion pollsters, who largely missed the huge outpouring of Americans displaced by decades of economic restructuring and unsettled by the countrys changing complexion and shifting cultural mores.

If people get mad enough, they will look past a candidates overt prejudice, his coarse put-downs of women, his mockery of a disabled journalist, his taunting of a Gold Star family.

Trump won by crashing through Hillary Clintons so-called blue wall, states that Democrats had won in each of the last six presidential campaigns (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, where he was leading with most of the votes counted) and flipping states (Florida, Ohio and Iowa) that President Obama carried twice.

The battering ram was wielded by an army of working-class white voters, who found a kindred sole in the swaggering Manhattan business mogul who had little use for the please and thank-yous of polite political discourse.

In 2012, the starchy Republican Mitt Romney won working-class whites in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by 12 points over Obama. Trump carried them by 30 points over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

When you think of the theme of 2016, it was rebellion, said Don Sipple, a strategist who helped elect Arnold Schwarzenegger governor in Californias 2003 recall election. Underperforming economy, stagnant wages, escalating healthcare costs, ... 70% saying the country was on the wrong track. You had this incendiary combination ready for combustion.

The GOP nominee might have flouted the conventions of presidential politicking. (He is the first person in history elevated to the Oval Office without first having either government experience or serving in the military.)

But for all his public disavowal of pollsters and disdain for expert advice, Trump was hardly flying blind.

Along with significant help from the Republican National Committee, Trump engaged the voter-targeting services of Cambridge Analytica, a firm that has accumulated thousands of data points  Starbucks preferences, vacation history  on every one of about 240 million Americans.

Everything we did from the beginning was data-driven, said Brad Parscale, who oversaw a team that targeted Trump voters in key states with operating-room precision. Unlike the Clinton campaign, which was proud to boast of its technological, vote-gathering prowess, we didnt make a big deal about it, Parscale said.

Kellyanne Conway, Trumps campaign manager, said polling found several states that Obama easily carried twice but where Clinton was stalled below 50%.

We looked at that and thought theres a Hillary Clinton problem there, Conway told reporters in New York early Wednesday, as stragglers leaving Trumps victory party navigated through empty beer bottles and discarded campaign signs. Theres a reluctance among the voters, and even in our darkest days they werent breaking for her.

Using early voting data, absentee balloting and other measurements, the campaign homed in on four states at the end of the campaign, a core four of Florida, Iowa, Ohio and North Carolina, where Clinton was perceived as especially vulnerable. Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, were dispatched for repeat visits.

We could see counties where we had stronger support than Romney did four years ago, Conway said. We said it would come down to a Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Wisconsin combination.

Trump carried the core four states as well as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and potentially Michigan. He trailed slightly in New Hampshire, which on Wednesday remained too close to call.

The flip side to Trumps widely unforeseen success was, of course, Clintons failings, which, inevitably, seem the more glaring in defeat.

She was arguably one of the best-rounded and most experienced candidates ever to seek the White House, having served as first lady, a U.S. senator and secretary of State. For many, however, her decades in public life were one of Clintons strongest demerits, stamping her indelibly as a part of the hated political status quo.

Her lucrative speechifying made her an unlikely tribune for the working class, once the partys core constituency. Her obsession with privacy led to one of the most damaging blots on her image, her use of a private email server as secretary of State, which played to a reputation for corner-cutting and conniving that has plagued the Clintons, husband and wife, since Bill Clinton first sought the White House in 1992.

There were tactical moves that will long be called into question by Democrats aching to understand her loss. She took states like Wisconsin and Michigan for granted, they griped, until too late.

Some factors were simply confounding.

Trump opened his campaign by insulting immigrants from Mexico, targeted a Mexican American judge he said couldnt be fair because of his heritage, and rarely let up in his harsh language aimed south of the border. Still, he won slightly more Latino support than Romney, whose 27% backing was seen as a warning the party had to ease its hard-line immigration stance or pay a price at the polls.

Bidding for election as the nations first female president, and facing a candidate with a history of misogynist statements, Clinton ran much stronger among women than Trump, as Democrats usually do. But she barely did better than Obama managed against Romney.

Less surprising was Clintons fall-off performance among African Americans and millennials, whose interest in voting proved to slacken whenever Obama wasnt on the ballot.

Although Clinton won the popular vote over Trump, it seems likely Clinton will end up winning several million fewer votes than Obama did four years ago  even though he essentially laid his presidency on the line, saying his legacy was on Tuesdays ballot.

It was the sort of all-in, top-to-bottom support Trump never enjoyed from his party.

Many speculated that divisions within the GOP, including the high-profile defection of major party leaders, would prove fatal to Trump, leading rank-and-file voters to follow suit. But their disavowals hardly mattered; indeed, the contempt of party elites may have only served to enhance Trumps image as an outsider and rebel.

He won 90% of the Republican vote. (Clinton won 89% of the Democratic vote, underperforming Obamas 2012 showing by 3 percentage points.)

In the end, for all the ads and analytics, the scandals over emails and tax dodging, the differences over immigration policy and healthcare, Trumps victory can be explained simply.

Voters desperately wanted change in Washington, and Trump, a candidate unlike any ever seen in American history, came to be its galvanizing force.

Barabak reported from Los Angeles and Finnegan from New York.

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Donald Trumps top advisors urged his opponents to grant the president-elect a fresh start on Thursday, as the man who spent 17 months maligning the establishment took his first formal steps in assuming its reins.

Trump and his aides made a ritual journey to the White House to meet with President Obama, a man whose birthplace he questioned until recently, before strolling the august corridors and admiring the views from the Capitol with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the two Republicans whose relationships will prove pivotal to his success.

Normally, such steps are symbolic but rote. For Trump, the significance went much further. Ryan, like many in his partys establishment, was reluctant to embrace Trump, and Trump campaigned on a promise to reverse the achievements of Obama, who explicitly charged that the business mogul was unfit to hold the nations highest elected office.

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Though Trump hunched and twitched his fingers uncomfortably while sitting across from Obama in the Oval Office, the men spoke warmly of each other, giving unspoken assurance that the transition of power would not be impeded by the historically nasty presidential campaign.

Obama called the meeting excellent and renewed his vow to help make Trump successful. Trump only lamented that the meeting did not last longer, saying it had already been stretched beyond the planned 10 or 15 minutes into a full hour and a half because of their easy rapport.

I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel, he said.

Trump also promised to work quickly with Ryan and other congressional Republicans on healthcare  an issue on which they are united in their desire to repeal Obamas signature law  as well as immigration and big-league jobs proposals.

The pledges to cooperate, even if many items on his to-do list remain divisive, were among several signs that Trump wants to put some aspects of the polarizing campaign behind him and show, as he long promised, a more presidential face.

His blunt call to ban all Muslims from entering the country, for example, was temporarily expunged from his campaign website after lingering there since he issued it in December, following the deadly terrorist attack in San Bernardino.

Trumps staff restored it Thursday afternoon. Trump walked away from reporters without answering when asked during his Capitol visit whether he would continue to pursue the policy, which he had seemed to amend over the course of the campaign.

President-elect Trump addresses protests for first time, accuses media of inciting them 

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and close Trump confidant, also suggested Trump may let go of his vow to pursue a prosecution of Hillary Clinton, another campaign rallying cry. On Capitol Hill, Republicans have been mum on whether they would press forward with investigations targeting Clinton.

I dont like to see America become a country where we prosecute people because of politics, Giuliani said on Fox News. Yet he gave Trump room to maneuver, adding that there are deep and disturbing issues there.

The day followed an evening of large protests around the country by opponents who came away from the election angry, declaring that they would not accept Trump as their president.

There will be a fresh start, Michael Cohen, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said on CNN as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is leading Trumps transition to the White House, declared that Trump and the nation had moved beyond the controversy Trump inflamed regarding Obamas birthplace.

It remained unclear whether such moves represent a full or permanent shift in Trumps approach.

As a candidate, Trump frequently rebuffed public suggestions from his own campaign that he would soften some of his stances or pull back from controversial promises. He notably contradicted his running mate, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, at one point saying that Pence did not accurately represent his Syria policy because the two men had not spoken about it. Trump would also follow days of scripted policy speeches with late-night tweets or other public denunciations of his critics that would dilute his efforts to appear above the fray.

Trump will also face immense pressure from the passionate supporters who fueled his election to keep hammering at the establishment.

Yet, as Trump assumes the presidency and begins to grasp the full weight of responsibility, he may be entering a new phase.

His precise policy agenda will take shape over the next several weeks as he selects Cabinet secretaries and other key advisors who will help determine his priorities. On Thursday, one of the nations most prominent immigration hard-liners emerged as a top player in Trumps transition. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped to craft Arizonas 2010 law that let local police crack down on immigrants suspected of entering the country illegally, told a local television station that he would be helping Trumps team on immigration-related issues.

Theres no question the wall is going to get built. The only question is, how quickly will it get done and who pays for it? Kobach told KWCH.

Names from the lobbying world were also emerging in news reports detailing members of the transition team, including people with ties to the energy, banking and tobacco industries.

Trump laid out an extensive list for his first days in office during a speech in Gettysburg, Pa., last month, including steep tax reductions, a border wall with Mexico, a freeze in most federal government hiring and the cancellation of billions of dollars in payments for United Nations climate change programs.

The Ku Klux Klan says it will hold a Trump victory parade in North Carolina 

He also included a dozen issues on a new transition website he unveiled Thursday, including infrastructure spending, trade policy, and the dismantling of the financial rules Obama created with Congress following the 2008 banking industry collapse.

Some of the actions can be taken unilaterally  something McConnell has welcomed. But others will require congressional approval, with politically difficult votes that not all Republicans will want to take.

Giuliani said on CNN that the Trump administration could begin building an immigration wall on the Southwest border under executive authority, rearranging money already approved by Congress for other aspects of immigration enforcement. It is unclear whether Congress will agree with that interpretation.

Times staff writers Christi Parsons, Michael A. Memoli and Lisa Mascaro in Washington, Kurtis Lee in Los Angeles and Chris Megerian in New York contributed to this report.

noah.bierman@latimes.com

Twitter: @noahbierman

Donald Trump pledged to repeal and replace Obamacare. Can he really do it?

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UPDATES:

3:55 p.m.: This story was updated with details on Trumps transition team.

This story was originally published at 1:45 p.m.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday began his 2018 bid for governor after a three-year hiatus from the political limelight, joining a heady field of candidates that is expected to grow larger in the months ahead.

The former mayor, who was raised by a single mother in Boyle Heights, said his campaign will focus on rebuilding the middle class and assisting Californians who have been left behind in the new economy, along with improving public schools and repairing the states deteriorating roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

In announcing, Villaraigosa took a shot at President-elect Donald Trump, whom the former mayor has criticized in the past for anti-immigrant rhetoric.

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Im running because I think the answer to the divisiveness we see in the country right now is unity, and the answer to fear is hope, Villaraigosa said in a telephone interview with The Times.

Im going to reach out to unions, to business, to every interest group in every part of the state. Because my candidacy is about the public interest, he said. Ill call them as I see them. Ill be as fair as the day is long.

The Villaraigosa campaign on Thursday blasted out an email asking for Californians support  and the most generous contribution supporters could afford.

The Democrats decision and new website come after months of relatively quiet, subtle moves to drift back into the consciousness of the California electorate, including an extended listening tour through the drought-ravaged Central Valley, where he worked to familiarize himself with the states water crisis and its impact on Californias billion-dollar agricultural industry and the people whose livelihoods depend on it.

Though Villaraigosa remains a familiar political figure in California, he will face tough competition among fellow Democrats.

Longtime political rival Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor, launched his campaign in February 2015 and has been feverishly raising money ever since. State Treasurer John Chiang of Torrance also has jumped into the race, as has Delaine Eastin, who served eight years as Californias top education official. Former state Controller Steve Westly and billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, a San Francisco hedge-fund billionaire, also are considering gubernatorial bids.

 Former mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa speaks at the Democratic National Convention about immigration. More coverage at latimes.com/trailguide.

I clearly have a lot of ground to make up and Im going to start making it up today. Im the underdog. I think thats pretty clear, Villaraigosa said.

He flirted with a run for governor in 2010, shortly after the beginning of his second term as mayor. But the formidable Jerry Brown appeared to have the Democratic nomination in his grasp early in that race. Villaraigosa ultimately decided he couldnt leave this city in the middle of a crisis as Los Angeles struggled to recover from the economic ravages of the Great Recession. At the time, L.A. was attempting to whittle down a $530-million budget deficit, a 12.5% unemployment rate and a flood of home foreclosures.

However, the allure of the top statewide office never faded. Just days after he left office as mayor, Villaraigosa said he wanted to run for governor. When Sen. Barbara Boxer announced in January 2015 that she would not seek reelection, the former mayor spent weeks considering a possible run for her seat. But, again, the grail of a California governors office once occupied by Earl Warren, Pat Brown and Ronald Reagan beckoned.

For Villaraigosa, whose eight years as L.A. mayor came to a quiet end in 2013, the challenge will be to recapture the political electricity that enveloped him in 2005, when the former Assembly speaker and Los Angeles city councilman made history by becoming L.A.'s first Latino mayor since 1872.

Villaraigosas victory at the time was seen as a harbinger of rising Latino Power, which was the headline on a Newsweek magazine cover adorned with his picture.

He quickly embraced the urban revival underway in downtown and Hollywood, and successfully led the campaign for Measure R, a $35-billion transportation package passed by voters in 2008 that imposed a countywide half-cent sales tax. The measure is credited with reshaping the regions notoriously inefficient transit system. Under his watch, the city also hired hundreds of new police officers and violent crime plummeted.

Election 2016 | California politics news feed | Sign up for the newsletter

But during his tenure, the city also struggled to cope with plummeting revenues amid the nations economic downturn. He wrestled for concessions from public employee unions that were necessary, in part, because of raises he had approved before the recession.

Villaraigosa has said that his biggest failing and disappointment during his time as mayor was personal: the breakup of his marriage, which occurred after he acknowledged having an extramarital affair with a television newscaster. Its unclear if his political image has fully recovered. The same could be said for Newsom, who had a highly publicized affair with his former campaign managers wife while serving as San Francisco mayor.

In August, 63-year-old Villaraigosa remarried, tying the knot with Patricia Govea in a wedding ceremony in Mexico. They now live in a contemporary house in Hollywood Hills, with impressive views of downtown L.A. and the Hollywood sign.

After leaving office, Villaraigosa has worked as an advisor to controversial nutritional products company Herbalife Ltd., which could become a political vulnerability. He also did work for the Banc of California and the global public relations firm Edelman, and has been a part-time professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy.

Over the last six months, Villaraigosa has slowly inserted himself back into the political scene. In June, he formed a political action committee  Building Bridges, Not Walls  to combat anti-immigrant policies trumpeted by Donald Trump, and a month later at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, he ripped Trump for proposing a mass deportation of immigrants in the country illegally.

Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, said Trumps election could become a major asset for Villaraigosa, predicting Latinos and Democrats in California will be highly motivated to go to the polls in 2018.

Running for governor during Donald Trumps midterm election boosts his political stock tremendously, Schnur said. By the time this is all over, Villaraigosa will have put pictures of Donald Trump on his campaign posters.

phil.willon@latimes.com

Twitter: @philwillon

ALSO:

Californias next governor: Whos running, whos on the fence?

Updates on California politics

UPDATES:

3:55 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Schnur.

11:20 a.m.: This article was updated with quotes and details from an interview with Villaraigosa.

This article was originally published at 9:15 a.m.
Passage of marijuana-legalization initiatives in California and other states this week has given momentum to a national movement to decriminalize pot, but that could change with the election of Republican Donald Trump as president, activists said Wednesday as state officials scrambled to make the new rules work.

The cannabis industry also took stock of the massive market California represents, while police agencies, prosecutors, state regulators and tax collectors took steps on the day after the election to accommodate the new law.

Proposition 64, which allows California adults to possess, transport and buy up to an ounce of marijuana, won passage with 56% of the vote.

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Similar ballot measures were also approved Tuesday in Massachusetts and Nevada, and one is ahead in Maine, although that one may face a recount. Arizona was the only state to reject an initiative that would have allowed possession of recreational marijuana. Florida, North Dakota and Arkansas approved medical marijuana initiatives.

It was really a remarkable set of victories last night, said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, in a conference call with reporters. There is a massive sense of momentum in this regard.

Recreational use had been approved in previous years in Alaska, Oregon, Washington and Colorado.

Lynne Lyman, California state director for the group, noted that 40 million people now have access to legal recreational marijuana.

We did something really significant last night in California, she said.

Kevin Sabet, president of the opposition group Smart Approaches to Marijuana Action, said it was no surprise that deep-pocketed pro-marijuana investors prevailed in California.

But he held out hope that the new Trump administration would change federal policies that have encouraged states to adopt legalization laws.

Were really in a whole new unknown world here, Sabet said.

Trump said during the campaign that he would respect states that adopt their own marijuana laws, but some in his inner circle, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have pushed for tough enforcement of drug laws in the past, Nadelmann said. One concern is that Trump might make Giuliani attorney general, which oversees drug enforcement, the activists said.

What gives me real concern is the election of Donald Trump, he added. Donald Trump is totally unpredictable on this issue.

California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom was less concerned.

Updates from Sacramento 

I dont see any issues if the president-elect is consistent with his rhetoric from the campaign trail that established a framework of supporting states rights, Newsom told reporters Wednesday.

One issue supporters think might pressure the federal government to ease restrictions on marijuana is its potential economic value and the taxes it would produce.

A new study released Wednesday found the increase in the countrys marijuana market with California on board is staggering, compared to the next largest market in Washington state.

The smaller state is expected to have total sales of medical and non-medical marijuana of more than $2 billion by 2020, according to a study by New Frontier Data, a data analytics group, in partnership with Arcview Market Research.

In comparison, Californias market is expected to reach $7.6 billion by 2020, according to the study.

The growth of markets in states that previously approved marijuana was strong, said Troy Dayton, chief executive of Arcview Group. Now with these decisive ballot victories for legalization, growth will be off the charts, he said.

Wednesday also saw a flurry of activity by state and local agencies that have to implement aspects of the new Adult Use of Marijuana Act.

The Los Angeles County district attorneys office issued a 14-page memo to its prosecutors outlining the new ways it will handle marijuana cases as well as filings by those who want convictions for marijuana cleared from their records.

The ballot measure means numerous marijuana offenses have been decriminalized or reclassified, according to Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. John K. Spillane.

As a result, pending felony cases where all the charges have been reduced to misdemeanors will be transferred to the appropriate city prosecutors office unless the office regularly handles the misdemeanors for that area, he wrote to his field attorneys.

In addition, the California Highway Patrol has launched expanded training of its field officers on how to identify when a motorist using marijuana is impaired, Assistant Chief Omar Watson said Wednesday.

The main thing we are going to do now that the law has passed is to really look at our training, to make sure our officers can more acutely know what the objective symptoms are when it comes to someone who may be under the influence of marijuana, Watson said.

He also said a public education campaign will be launched against drugged driving.

The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department also plans to educate its deputies about how the new law affects the handling of drug cases, according to Capt. Jeffrey Scroggin.

He noted that the ballot measure immediately legalizes possession of an ounce of marijuana for recreational use, but it cannot legally be sold until the state begins licensing pot shops  and the state has until Jan. 1, 2018, to begin issuing permits.

 Voters on Tuesday approved Proposition 64, which would make California the most populous state in the nation to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

A newly named Bureau of Marijuana Control has already begun developing regulations for deciding how to issue licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries and will expand to include pot shops selling recreational marijuana, according to Lori Ajax, head of the agency.

Although meeting the Jan. 1, 2018, implementation date will be challenging, we have already made great progress with medical cannabis regulations that will help us reach this new goal, Ajax said Wednesday.

State lawmakers said they are already working on the possibility of allowing interim sales licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries until the new state licenses are issued.

The state also needs to find a system for handling the hundreds of millions of dollars generated by the marijuana industry in California given that federally regulated banks will not accept drug proceeds, said Fiona Ma, chairwoman of the state Board of Equalization.

In addition to pot shops having difficulty handling their profits, the state faces a burden accepting up to $1 billion in annual taxes in cash.

We are going to have to figure out the cash issue and how we are going to accept the cash, Ma said.

One idea is to have a tax official stationed at branches of Bank of America, which handles tax proceeds, so the official can accept cash payment of taxes and then deposit the money as state revenue.

The results of a handful of other ballot measures were not called until early Wednesday, when the Associated Press determined voters had approved a $9-billion school construction bond, but rejected three other measures: Proposition 60, which would have required the use of condoms in adult films; Proposition 62, a repeal of the death penalty; and Proposition 61, a prescription drug pricing measure fiercely opposed by the pharmaceutical industry.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Christine Mai-Duc contributed to this report.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Twitter: @mcgreevy99

ALSO:

Before Proposition 64, simple possession of marijuana was already decriminalized

Proposition 64 would legalize recreational use of marijuana though its illegal under federal law. How will that work?

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In the history of awkward encounters, its hard to find one that ranks with what will happen today when President-elect Donald Trump walks into the White House for his first transition meeting with President Obama.

From coast to coast, we will all be wondering: Is this the most unexpected odd couple of all time?

Good morning from the state capital. Im Sacramento Bureau Chief John Myers, and while our civics books teach us about the peaceful transitions of power in the United States, its never quite been put to this test before.

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Trumps arrival in Washington marks the official beginning of a process few there had imagined, Lisa Mascaro and Evan Halper write: What will a Trump administration do? Unlike a change in governing, it comes with a completely different mindset about the nature of government itself.

HOW HE DID IT, HOW WE GOT HERE

The one thing the political class seemed to realize by the time the dust settled from Tuesday night was that the president-elect won by defying every conventional wisdom about campaigns and elections.

And key to it, write Mark Z. Barabak and Michael Finnegan, was harnessing off-the-charts levels of anger.

Meantime, few could dispute the wide gulf Trumps victory laid bare in America. As Noah Bierman, Joseph Tanfani and Jenny Jarvie put it, a gulf between those who believe Donald Trump will destroy everything that America stands for and those who are certain it has already been so destroyed that only Trump can fix it.

DEMOCRAT DOLDRUMS

The official end to the campaign came Wednesday morning with Hillary Clintons concession speech and subsequent remarks by Obama.

But beyond that for Democrats, now what? There are no easy answers, from what happened to how to fix it.

WEDNESDAY REWIND

You can find all of our post-election coverage from Wednesday on our special edition of the Trail Guide news feed.

That includes the olive branch offered by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the end of the last U.S. Senate race in limbo and the GOP incumbents concession and the suggestion by the Senates majority leader that the new president can act unilaterally to undo Obama-era directives.

THE CALIFORNIA REACTION: LAWMAKERS, PROTESTERS STRENGTHEN THEIR RESOLVE

California isnt quite to the new Republican-led government what District 13 was to the Capitol in The Hunger Games, but it will undoubtedly be a place where Democratic leaders see themselves as a counterbalance to the national GOP movement.

On Wednesday, two top legislative Democrats  Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount)  broke their silence with a pretty stark joint statement.

We woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land, they said.

We will lead the resistance to any effort that would shred our social fabric or our Constitution.

Wednesday also saw a series of protests against the election results. Robin Abcarian caught up with students in Berkeley who were speaking out, while others took to the streets across California. And in downtown Los Angeles, thousands poured into the streets; some burned Trumps head in effigy, while others shut down the 101 Freeway.

Meantime, a group trying to get California to secede from the United States said Trumps election victory gives their cause new momentum.

HOW DID YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD VOTE?

Check out our precinct-level maps for Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Clara and Sacramento counties to see how similar  or different  other voters in your neighborhood are. Did your neighbors vote for Trump or Clinton? Legalizing recreational marijuana or not? Well add more counties as we get them.

SKELTON: CALIFORNIAS ELECTORAL EXPERIENCE

In his Thursday column, George Skelton weighs in on the Trump victory and notes that California voters sent some conflicting messages about what they want from government.

Well be tracking what happens next on Trail Guide. Follow @latimespolitics for in-the-moment updates. For coverage of California news, races and propositions, keep an eye on our Essential Politics news feed.

FOLLOWING THE LEGALIZATION OF POT

California voters decision to legalize marijuana, by passing Proposition 64, is making news nationwide. And theres a lot more to ponder now that the votes have been cast.

Patrick McGreevy reports on the scramble now underway by state and local officials to implement the new law. That includes how to handle all those cash transactions.

And activists say the vote in California and other states gives momentum to legalize marijuana elsewhere across the country. But what about Trump?

TODAYS ESSENTIALS

 Will Democrats in the Legislature hit supermajority status with the races still not called for the state Assembly and Senate?

 Yes, it was controversial. Now, the researcher behind the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times presidential tracking poll speaks out.

 Orange County Rep. Loretta Sanchez conceded the U.S. Senate race to Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris  and even hinted at a political return.

 Proposition 51, the $9-billion school bond, won in an Associated Press projection early Wednesday.

 Proposition 58, the expansion of bilingual education, cruised to victory early on election night.

 California voters defeated a repeal of the death penalty, Proposition 62.

 The expensive battle over prescription drug pricing, Proposition 61, ends with the proposal being rejected.

 Rep. Mike Honda (D-San Jose) concedes and his opponent, Ro Khanna declares victory.

 With a couple of high-profile congressional races still too close to call, Sarah Wire examines in detail what the states congressional delegation could look like next year.

LOGISTICS

Miss yesterdays newsletter? Here you go. Did someone forward you this? Sign up here to get Essential Politics in your inbox daily. And keep an eye on our politics page throughout the day for the latest and greatest. And are you following us on Twitter at @latimespolitics and @LATpoliticsCA?

Please send thoughts, concerns and news tips to politics@latimes.com.
Need a good laugh? The feeling is pretty universal, according to researchers who tickled rats for the sake of science.

When the animals received a 10-second tickle from a gloved hand, they responded with a rat version of laughter. The animals seemed to enjoy it  indeed, they ran toward the gloved hand and eagerly chased it around their enclosure. The Berlin-based researchers even witnessed a joyful jumping behavior known as Freudensprunge that has been observed in other mammals.

Tickling, then, induces a primitive form of joy in animals, said neurobiologist Shimpei Ishiyama of Humboldt University. Ishiyama and his postdoctoral adviser, Michael Brecht, reported their experiments in Fridays edition of the journal Science.

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Great thinkers going all the way back to Aristotle in Ancient Greece have contemplated the mysteries of tickling. Ishiyama and Brecht outlined some of their own questions.

Why does tickling induce laughter? they wrote in their study. Why do body parts differ in ticklishness? Why cant we tickle ourselves?

To find out, they tickled young male rats in a systematic way. First, they tickled the animals on the back, then flipped them over and tickled them on the stomach. That was followed by gentle touching on the back, then front. Next, the researchers tickled the rats on their tails. Finally, they played the hand-chasing game. Each part of the routine lasted for about 10 seconds, followed by a 15-second break.

The rats responded with ultrasonic vocalizations in the range of 50 kilohertz, a pitch with a positive emotional valence, according to the study. That frequency is too high for humans to hear, so the researchers transposed the vocalizations to lower frequencies. (Notably, none of the tickles caused rats to make utterances in the 22-kHz range, which are considered alarm calls, according to the study.)

In addition to the vocalizations, the rats also reacted to tickles with spontaneous Freudensprunge jumps. These jumps resemble bunny hops, with the front legs and back legs moving in tandem.

 Scientists say they can tell that rats enjoy tickling because they respond with Freudensprunge, unsolicited jumps of joy. The animals also look for the tickling hand after it disappears.

Using a suite of electrodes, the scientists found that tickling prompted a specific pattern of activity in the somatosensory cortex, the part of the rat brain that processes touch. Remarkably, they wrote, the hand-chasing game activated the same part of the rats brains.

Ishiyama and Brecht wondered whether tickled rats would laugh no matter what, or if they had to be in a receptive state of mind. (No less a scientist than Charles Darwin has proposed that the mind must be in a pleasurable condition for a tickle to work, the pair noted.)

So the researchers made the animals anxious by placing them on an elevated platform and subjecting them to bright light. Under these conditions, the rats vocalizations were significantly suppressed. Brain activity also was suppressed compared with the normal conditions, the researchers found.

Later, the scientists were able to make rats laugh without even touching them. Instead, they stimulated the part of the somatosensory cortex that was most active when the rats were tickled. That did the trick.

This finding prompted researchers to wonder whether the somatosensory cortex helps process emotions in addition to tactile sensations. More work will be needed to answer that question, they wrote.

In the meantime, the results suggest that tickling is more than a quirk of the nervous system. It may even serve a useful social purpose.

Tickling might be a trick of the brain to make animals or humans, respectively, interact and play with each other, Brecht said.

karen.kaplan@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @LATkarenkaplan and like Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

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Services are scheduled for Thursday for Barbara Collins, wife of Fountain Valley Mayor Pro Tem John Collins, following her death Nov. 2 after an eight-year struggle with bladder cancer. She was 71.

A service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at Holy Spirit Catholic Church, 17270 Ward St., Fountain Valley, with a graveside service following at Good Shepherd Cemetery, 8301 Talbert Ave., Huntington Beach.

A reception will be held at the Fellowship Hall at Holy Spirit Catholic Church.

Barbara Collins, a Rhode Island native, met her husband while attending Northeastern University in Boston. She earned a biochemistry degree and later a masters in finance. The two married in Boston in 1968 and soon had their first child, Billy, in Virginia.

Barbara Collins worked as a financial analyst and later for the Orange County Sanitation District.

Fountain Valley residents got to know her at park concerts, mayors balls and other community events.

John Collins said one of his fondest memories is of he and his wife taking trips to Laughlin, Nev., and staying at the Harrahs hotel.

Harrahs has a veranda that overlooked the ... mountains with jagged views, he said. It was a great way to get away from everything.

The couple couldnt visit Laughlin as often as they did before Barbaras diagnosis, but they took their last trip together earlier this year.

Our kids are all grown up, so it was just us, John said. We enjoyed the little things like watching Family Feud and Jeopardy. Wed watch it and try to guess the answers.

Barbara is survived by her husband, their three children, Billy, Bobby and Karen, and five grandchildren.
Tuesdays election could be the last in which Costa Mesa City Council members are elected by citywide vote.

Local voters overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to split the city into six voting districts and have a mayor elected by the public at large. Thus it would expand the number of people on the council to seven from five.

With all precincts reporting Wednesday morning, 64.7% of voters were in favor of the districting plan, according to figures from the Orange County registrar of voters office.

Under the proposal, listed on the ballot as Measure EE, residents in each district would elect one council member from that area to represent them.

Currently, all council members are chosen by voters citywide, and the mayor is selected by a majority vote of the members.

The new system is expected to be in place in time for the next council election in November 2018, when two seats will be up for grabs.

Council members agreed earlier this year to seek voter approval to change the election system. The move was part of a pact made to stave off a threatened lawsuit by activists who alleged the current at-large voting method violates the California Voting Rights Act of 2001 by diluting the ability of local Latino residents to elect their preferred candidates.

In one of the planned voting districts  a jagged piece of territory south of the Fairview Developmental Center  the majority of eligible voters are Latino.

The city also agreed to pay $55,000 to cover legal costs for those who made the claim: Costa Mesa resident Eloisa Rangel and the nonprofit Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.

The attorney for both, Kevin Shenkman of Malibu-based law firm Shenkman & Hughes, said Wednesday that he was a bit surprised Measure EE received as much support as it did.

Based on the makeup of the city demographics-wise [mostly white] and partisan-wise [mostly conservative] and all of that, I didnt expect it to be that big of a margin, Shenkman said. But I think its great that it is.

The districting plan drew criticism from some local residents who said they would prefer a five-district system.

Having a mayor elected by citywide vote, critics added, would give one of the districts two representatives on the council.

Others claimed the mayoral position is intended as a way to get around term limits that restrict council members to two consecutive four-year terms  though they can return in a later year.

Measure EE stipulates that the mayor would be elected for two years and could serve two consecutive terms.

It would not prohibit a termed-out council member from running from mayor, and vice versa.

Councilwoman Sandy Genis, who voted against the districting plan when it went before the council in July, said she wasnt expecting the measure to pass that overwhelmingly.

I do like the idea of districts, but when they threw the directly elected mayor into the mix at the last minute, I didnt really like that, Genis said Wednesday.

With an at-large mayor, it is still potentially subject to challenge under the CVRA, Shenkman said. But I dont want to denigrate 80% of the council being districted when before it was zero. Eighty is a lot better than zero, and were happy with where we are.

Proposed Costa Mesa voting districts

 District 1: Mesa Verde, Upper and Lower Birds, State Streets, Wimbledon Village and the South Coast Collection area. Includes the Fairview Developmental Center.

 District 2: Halecrest, Mesa North, South Coast Metro and the Sobeca District

 District 3: College Park, Mesa del Mar and a small slice of the Eastside just east of the 55 Freeway. Includes Orange Coast College, Vanguard University and the OC Fair & Event Center.

 District 4: Dense Westside pocket south of the Fairview Developmental Center, ranging from Harbor Boulevard west to Monrovia Avenue and south to West 17th Street

 District 5: Wraps around District 4, taking in downtown and about half the Westside. Includes Fairview Park and Talbert Regional Park.

 District 6: Covers virtually all of the Eastside, except the portion in District 3

luke.money@latimes.com

Twitter: @LukeMMoney
Armenia defeated at the ECHR

The European Court of Human Rights today has made another decision against the Republic of Armenia. The Armenian Government must pay 2,400 euros (EUR) (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 500 (costs and expenses) to 45-year-old Davit Avetisyan. The applicant, Davit Avetisyan, is an Armenian national who was born in 1971 and was serving a prison sentence in a penitentiary institution in Yerevan at the time he submitted his application. The case concerned his inability to examine prosecution witnesses during criminal proceedings against him. In April 2009, Mr Avetisyan, his friend and two other persons visited a mutual friend who was in prison in Goris. His friend, D.T., and the others, D.O. and M.S., bought a cake, which was handed to the prison administration to be delivered to their friend. Later inspection revealed that a syringe containing narcotics had been hidden inside the cake. Mr Avetisyan was charged with acquiring and supplying narcotics. During the investigation, M.S., D.T. and D.O. gave evidence against Mr Avetisyan. Mr Avetisyan was able to confront M.S., but not D.T. or D.O. Judge D. of the Regional Court summoned M.S., D.T. and D.O. to appear at the trial, and later compelled M.S. and D.T. to attend. By the time of trial, however, police reported that M.S. had moved to St Petersburg, while D.T.s mother had told the authorities that he was in Yerevan for medical treatment. The Regional Court decided to proceed with the trial in the absence of M.S., D.T. and D.O. It convicted Mr Avetisyan, sentencing him to five and a half years imprisonment. An appeal to the Court of Appeal was rejected, and a further appeal to the Court of Cassation was declared inadmissible on 20 August 2010. Relying on Article 6  1 and 3 (d) (right to a fair trial and right to obtain attendance and examination of witnesses) of the European Convention on Human Rights, Mr Avetisyan complained that his trial had been unfair because his conviction had been based entirely on the evidence of D.T., D.O. and M.S., who he had had no fair opportunity to examine. Violation of Article 6  1 read in conjunction with Article 6  3 (d)  on account of Mr Avetisyans inability to question the witnesses against him Advocate Hayk Alumyan submitted the appeal to the ECHR. Mr Alumyan highlights the decision of the Court. Usually during the preliminary investigation evidence is given against a person, but later those, who gave evidence, dont appear at the trial. Our courts state that they arent able to bring them to the court and their preliminary evidence serves as a basis. I hope that after this decision, our courts will review their decision, advocate Hayk Alumyan told A1+.
Harbor Commissioner Brad Avery, retired educator Jeff Herdman and Finance Committee member Will ONeill claimed seats on the Newport Beach City Council in Tuesdays election.

Local voters picked from among eight candidates for three available spots on the seven-member council.

Complete returns from the Orange County registrar of voters office showed Avery defeating law student Shelley Henderson for the District 2 seat, which represents the Newport Heights and Newport Crest areas. Current District 2 Councilman Tony Petros did not seek reelection after his first term.

Avery, a longtime Newport Beach resident and harbor advocate, garnered 58.4% of the vote.

Henderson, who was absent from most candidate forums and did not actively campaign, claimed 41.6% of the vote.

Im very happy to have the chance to serve on the City Council, Avery said Tuesday night. He could not be reached for further comment Wednesday morning.

In the race for the District 5 seat representing Balboa Island and the Fashion Island area, complete returns showed Herdman winning by a slim margin.

The longtime Balboa Island resident competed against businessman and activist Mike Glenn and businessman Lee Lowrey to replace termed-out Councilman Ed Selich.

Herdman finished with 36.4% of the vote, followed by Lowrey with 33% and Glenn with 30.6%.

Jeff Herdman (Don Leach / Daily Pilot)

Herdman said he and his wife were awake early Wednesday keeping a close eye on the returns, waiting for results from the final precincts to roll in. Polling conducted a few weeks ago indicated Herdman was ahead in the District 5 race, but he said he didnt think victory was guaranteed.

I knew I needed to be out there working hard to win, he said. Ive spent almost every day in the last week walking and knocking and talking to people. Im just so pleased and anxious to get going.

Herdman has been critical of members of the Team Newport council majority elected in 2014  a group he will now have to work alongside. Team Newport consists of Mayor Diane Dixon, Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Muldoon and council members Marshall Duffy Duffield and Scott Peotter.

Herdman has cited differences with them and Avery and ONeill over issues including development (he favors slow growth) and campaign finance reform (which he favors).

Herdman is the only councilman-elect whose campaign was not managed by political consultant Dave Ellis, who also managed the campaigns of the Team Newport slate.

Herdman said he will work to build alliances with current and newly elected council members.

I am optimistic about us being able to work together, he said. Im going to put the effort into it. That call will basically be up to them.

ONeill handily won the race for the District 7 seat, receiving 50.3% of the vote in the field of three. ONeill had a strong start in early returns against attorney Phil Greer and former Planning Commissioner Fred Ameri and cruised to victory.

Greer finished with 26.8% of the vote; Ameri with 23%.

District 7, currently represented by termed-out Councilman Keith Curry, includes Newport Coast and Newport Ridge.

ONeill said Wednesday morning that hes humbled by the outpouring of support from residents.

Phil Greer and Fred Ameri ran strong campaigns, he said. We will continue to strengthen leaders in our community, balance budgets, maintain safe streets, improve infrastructure and turn more attention to our harbor.

Measure MM

Also on Tuesdays ballot in Newport Beach was Measure MM, also known as the Taxpayer Protection Act, which aims to require at least five votes on the City Council to place a council-sponsored general or special tax proposal on the ballot for voter consideration. The measure was approved with 81.2% of the vote.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
A Gulf War veteran who developed an obstacle course for the Newport-Mesa Family YMCA alleges in a lawsuit that the organization failed to pay him for his services and reneged on their partnership.

The lawsuit, filed Oct. 14 in Orange County Superior Court, alleges that the YMCA of Orange County and Ron Erickson, executive director of the organizations Newport-Mesa branch in Newport Beach, pushed Quentin Pullen out of a project he researched and developed to build a military-style obstacle course called The PlayPen.

The course later became a revenue source for the organization, the lawsuit says.

Erickson and the YMCA of Orange County did not respond to requests for comment.

Pullen, a veteran of Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield, pitched a project to the YMCA of Orange County in June 2013 to raise money to develop an unused dirt lot behind the Newport-Mesa location at 2300 University Drive into an outdoor fitness facility. In return, the lawsuit claims, Pullen would be recognized as an owner.

Pullen raised $30,900 and thousands of dollars worth of materials and supplies for the effort, the suit says. He also designed the course, conducted research, consulted with land developers and promoted and marketed The PlayPen, according to the suit.

When the course opened in November 2014, it significantly increased the YMCAs revenue, the lawsuit claims. Users are charged an extra fee for some fitness programs at the course.

According to the lawsuit, Pullen continued developing programs for the course after it opened.

Soon after that, the complaint alleges, the YMCA of Orange County began seizing unilateral control of the business.

According to the lawsuit, the YMCA failed to pay Pullen and refused to agree to recognize [his] ownership in the partnership.

The suit alleges the organization had misrepresented its intentions to Pullen so he would complete the project to the YMCAs benefit.

When Pullen suffered a back injury in March this year, the lawsuit says, the YMCA of Orange County initially approved medical leave for him and later denied it. According to the suit, the organization then took his inability to return to work as a formal resignation.

In April, according to the lawsuit, the YMCA said it had never promised [Pullen] anything in return for the obstacle course and considered it a donation.

benjamin.brazil@latimes.com

Twitter: @benbrazilpilot
Hundreds of UC Irvine students marched through the campus late Tuesday to protest Donald Trumps election as the 45th president of the United States.

The demonstrations were peaceful and no arrests were made, according to UCI spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon.

They were just exercising their right to free speech, Lawhon said.

Protesters passed through various parts of the campus, including pathways through the Mesa Court dormitories and the social sciences buildings.

Crowds also made their way to University Town Center, a commercial center near UCI that houses a movie theater and restaurants, where they chanted Dump Trump.

As the 90-minute march advanced through UCI, similar demonstrations occurred at other UC campuses in Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara.

Some UCI students scheduled an event for Wednesday night at Langson Library in which they planned to bring white shirts for students to write Dump Trump on.
A Costa Mesa man was convicted Wednesday of stealing a gun and shooting and killing his live-in girlfriend, who also was his business partner.

A jury found Thomas Michael Wilhelm, 52, guilty of one count of first-degree murder with a sentencing enhancement for personal discharge of a firearm causing death, according to the Orange County district attorneys office.

Wilhelm faces a maximum sentence of 50 years to life in state prison. His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 3 at Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana.

On July 8, 2012, Wilhelm went to a neighbors home on Redwood Avenue and stole a handgun, according to the district attorneys office.

He returned to his home and shot his girlfriend, Christine Murray, six times.

After running out of ammunition, Wilhelm returned to the neighbors home, stole a shotgun and tried to shoot himself, but the gun fired into the ground, prosecutors said.

According to the district attorneys office, Murray, 45, sent text messages to a friend 11 minutes before she was murdered that said Wilhelm was intoxicated and singing along to the Guns N Roses song Used to Love Her, which features the lyrics I used to love her, but I had to kill her.

When police arrived minutes after the shooting, they found Murray unconscious in the bedroom with several gunshot wounds to her chest.

Murray, the mother of a then-8-year-old son, was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

The defense argued that Wilhelm had mental-health issues and was extremely emotional as the couples personal and business relationship soured.

Authorities said Wilhelm and Murrays three-year relationship had faltered during the two years before her killing after he brought her in as a partner in his business, Wilhelm Sprinkler Co.

According to a transcript of Wilhelms grand-jury indictment, he had a history of drug and alcohol abuse and Murray had begun to question his abilities as a business owner.

benjamin.brazil@latimes.com

Twitter: @benbrazilpilot
Huntington Beachs Oak View neighborhood could receive a slew of new renewable-energy sources to power itself, including solar panels and natural gas, under a program approved by the City Council this week.

On Monday the council voted 5-1, with Councilmen Dave Sullivan dissenting and Billy OConnell recusing himself because he owns property in the area, to accept a $90,000 grant from UC Irvine, whose Advanced Power and Energy Program will study how Oak View could implement and benefit from the technology.

The study ends in March 2018.

Oak View  a predominantly Latino neighborhood generally bounded by Slater and Warner avenues and Beach Boulevard and Nichols Lane  was chosen after UCI partnered with City Hall to identify a disadvantaged area that could benefit from renewable-energy technology, said Jack Brouwer, associate director for the Advanced Power and Energy Program.

Councilwoman Barbara Delgleize, a real estate agent, said the energy-saving technology could help homeowners.

Our industry is on the cutting edge of change, she said, and I think these new technologies can help the homeowners, long term, save money and energy.

Oak View residents expressed concerns Monday about the project.

After the vote, Victor Valladares, co-founder of Oak View Comunidad, an activist group, said residents fear they could be priced out of their homes if renewable technology is installed.

Its good if its just the planning stages, but were always going to have concerns because the city kept on saying they want Huntington Beach to become Silicon Valley, he said. Theyre pricing everybody out over there.

Valladares said Oak Views infrastructure, like its deteriorating buildings, should be addressed first.

Brouwer said gentrification is not the goal, although it could happen.

He said UCI plans to host regular meetings, including ones specifically with Oak View residents, to gather input.

Sullivan said he was not keen on Huntington Beach being the pilot city for the UCI program.

Im not interested in Huntington Beach being the leaders in this area, he said. We can have some other city do it.

brittany.woolsey@latimes.com

Twitter: @BrittanyWoolsey
With an extended moratorium on massage parlors inside city limits set to expire soon, the La Canada Flintridge Planning Commission Tuesday night discussed how to define such services and businesses in the citys zoning code.

In a 4-1 vote, the commission approved sending the staff recommendation to the City Council for adoption. Commissioner Henry Oh was the lone dissenting vote.

Several sections of the citys zoning code are up for a future vote, specifically two ordinances working in tandem that will affect the Downtown Village Specific Plan and the Community Planned Development zone in order to address the growth and associated criminal problems of the industry in other cities, which occurred mostly between 2009 and 2014, according to the staff report. The massage industry in other cities, like nearby Los Angeles, have been associated with prostitution and human trafficking.

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The point of this ordinance is to make sure its a legitimate massage establishment, said Commissioner Rick Gunter.

The jurisdiction of massage-related businesses fell under the purview of local municipalities until 2009, when a state law was passed establishing the California Massage Therapy Council to oversee regulation and licensure.

That bill expired on Jan. 1, while another approved last year by Gov. Jerry Brown, the Massage Therapy Act (AB 1147), put the power of regulation and enforcement back in the hands of city officials. On April 20, 2015, La Canada adopted a 45-day moratorium on issuing any permits on massage businesses. In June of that year, the city extended that moratorium for 22 months and 15 days.

One of the commissions proposed ordinance language would define massage to mean any method of treating the external parts of the body for remedial, health, hygienic or relaxation purpose and to include treatment by means of manual pressure, acupressure, friction, stroking, kneading, rubbing, tapping, pounding, vibrating, with or without the aid of or by means of any mechanical, electronic, or electrical apparatus or appliance, and with or without rubbing alcohol, liniments, aromatics, antiseptics, oils, powders, creams, lotions, ointments or other similar preparations.

For a massage establishment to meet one of the terms for a conditional use permit, the ordinance proposes a distinction between a massage establishment and beauty and nail salons and would exclude businesses where less than 15% of the gross floor area is devoted to massage. One exclusion would apply to licensed barbers, beauticians and manicurists within the scope of the license where exemption applies to scalp, neck, back, forearms, hands, calves, and/or feet. There was also discussion on comparing recreational and therapeutic massages.

We need to study the impacts and the appropriate zones, Oh said.

Regulations for growing marijuana indoors

Also on Tuesday, commissioners approved a zone change regarding the indoor personal cultivation of marijuana. The vote was 4-0-1 in favor, with Commissioner Jeffrey McConnell recusing himself from the meeting on an abundance of caution. Although he did not specify at the time the nature of his concern, in an emailed comment sent Friday night, he stated, My employer has clients that could create a perception of a conflict of interest in this matter. In order to ensure full transparency and eliminate any potential concerns, I recused myself from this decision.

The local proposal commenced on a statewide election in favor of Proposition 64, aimed to legalize personal marijuana use, possession and cultivation, which would preempt local control. During the hours of the Planning Commission meeting as national, state and local results trickled in, the proposition was approved by California voters.

The staff report concluded that unregulated indoor marijuana cultivation may invite additional public health concerns, such as poor irrigation systems and electrical equipment modifications creating increased fire hazards.

The ordinance outlines two steps to get a marijuana cultivation permit, according to the staff report, which include an application submittal by the property owner and an inspection by the Division of Building and Safety and the L.A. County Fire Department.

When the state embarks on a new item that has significantly large impacts in unintended ways, whether a permit or what is the right move, it is useful in our ordinance somewhere to enforce whether something becomes a nuisance, Gunther said. We expect most of this will be just fine, most of it if state law allows it. Somewhere if it has a bad apple, theres some mechanism thats there that explains this is not OK.

Sanderson is a contributor to Times Community News.
When I heard there was an off-the-beaten path winemaking region in northern Baja California that travelers were comparing to early Napa Valley, I was skeptical. But the Valle de Guadalupe, or Guadalupe Valley, about 26 miles northeast of Ensenada, is for real. Better yet, it is easily accessible (about a three-hour drive from Los Angeles if you go inland through Tecate, Mexico), user-friendly, relatively inexpensive and a great weekend getaway.

The tab for two nights in June at Hacienda Guadalupe was about $475, including taxes. Dinner at Laja ran $126.50. And lunch at the Adobe Guadalupe food truck was a little more than $20.

The bed

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Hacienda Guadalupe (Kilometro 81.5, Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Valle de Guadalupe; 011-52-646 155-2859) is the brainchild of Daniel and Gabriela Sanchez. The Sanchez family, originally from Ensenada, Mexico, grew up in Santa Ana. But on their visits to the valley, they realized there were few good accommodations. In 2010 Hacienda Guadalupe was born. Today it has 12 tastefully decorated rooms with four more on the way, an excellent restaurant and a new winery called Melchum, Gabriela Sanchezs maiden name. The hotel is a family enterprise; daughter Paulina, whose English was honed in the O.C., greets guests at the reception desk and sees to their every need.

The meal

For a sophisticated dinner, look no farther than Laja (Kilometro 83, Carretera Tecate-Ensenada,Valle de Guadalupe; 011-52-646-155 2556), which owner-chef Jair Tellez established in 1991. Tellez will wow you with a four- or eight-course meal that includes wine pairings. My wife and I chose four courses, which included a baked beetroot salad, pumpkin ravioli with thyme butter, pan-roasted sea bass with daikon radish puree and burdock root sorbet in a purple radish and fig leaf cold soup  as delicious as it was esoteric.

No visit to the valley would be complete without a stop at the Adobe Guadalupe food truck, permanently parked at the spectacular Adobe Guadalupe Vineyards & Inn (Parcela A-1, Colonia Rusa de Guadalupe, Valle de Guadalupe; 011-52-646-155-2094). Owners Leda Gamboa and Lupita Gomez will help you select a variety of delicious tapas from an extensive menu. Put yourself in their hands; you wont be sorry.

The find

Wines from the Guadalupe Valley are known throughout Mexico but rarely make their way north of the border. Two small wineries worth visiting are Casa de Piedra and Clos de Tres Cantos. Casa de Piedra (Kilometro 93.5, Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, San Antonio de las Minas, Valle de Guadalupe; 011-52-646-156-5267) is the home of Hugo dAcosta, one of Mexicos premier winemakers. His Piedra del Sol Chardonnay is a gem at just more than $18. And at Clos de Tres Cantos (Kilometro 89.5, Carretera Ensenada-Tecate, San Antonio de las Minas, Valle de Guadalupe; 011-52-646-206-1333), its blend of Tempranillo and Petite Sirah called Nada (the label is blank) is a steal at $20.

The lesson learned

Go! The Guadalupe Valley wont be this way forever. The roads are uncrowded (most of them are not paved), the tasting rooms are nearly empty, good wine is plentiful, and the restaurants are not to be believed.

travel@latimes.com
Amid increasing calls for his resignation, South African President Jacob Zuma survived a no-confidence vote in parliament Thursday as his party rallied around him.

Former government ministers, businessmen and activists accuse the president of incompetence and corruption that have wrecked the economy and the government bureaucracy. The last blow against him was a report from an independent watchdog criticizing his links to a powerful business family.

We can choose to sit back while our state is captured by the greedy and the corrupt or we can stand up against state capture, said Mmusi Maimane, the leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, making the case to parliament Thursday to boot Zuma from office with a no-confidence vote. We can choose to elevate one man above the law or we can fight for every person to be equal before the law.

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The debate at times grew raucous as members of Zumas party, the African National Conference, which holds a wide majority in parliament, rushed to his defense.

Nomvula Mokonyane, the minister for water, accused Maimane of working to protect the interests of the white minority and called him a black face.

This motion against President Zuma, in whichever way it may be put, seeks to have us ignore the fact that the majority remains without access to land and remain spectators in an economy largely controlled by minority elite that is opposed to transformation, masquerading and led by a black face, she said.

The motion was easily defeated, 214 to 126. It was the fifth time since 2012 that Zuma has faced a no-confidence vote and the fifth time he survived, with votes always running along party lines.

Gwede Mantashe, the ANC secretary general, said this week that no-confidence motions had become an annual and frivolous ritual, which is fast losing its meaning.

Zuma has been embroiled in controversy since before taking office in 2009. This year has brought new problems.

In March, the nations highest court ruled that he had violated the South African Constitution by failing to repay state money spent on personal upgrades to his home. He has since reimbursed the state.

The watchdog report, released last week by the public protector, who reports to parliament, found that Zuma may have breached government rules on ethics and that a company in which his son held an interest may have committed fraud. It called for a judicial inquiry into whether crimes had occurred.

The report included testimony from current and former government officials that the Guptas, a powerful business family that is close to Zuma, had hired and fired government ministers, offered bribes and unfairly benefited from government contracts.

The ANC, which has won every national election since the countrys first democratic vote in 1994 with more than 60% of the vote, has stood behind Zuma, whose second and final term ends in 2019.

Still, there are voices of dissent. Thabo Mbeki, who was ousted as president by the ANC in 2008, joined the chorus of criticism on Tuesday, saying South Africa was in a state of despair

The hard reality we face today is that our country is trapped in a general and deepening political, economic and social crisis which has, for many, begun to turn what was an age of hope into an age of despair, Mbeki said in a speech to businessmen decrying corruption and abuse of political power.

Mathews Phosa, a former ANC treasurer, told local media Thursday that Zuma had no integrity or shame and should resign because he is the elephant in the South African room.

South Africa has slipped into dire economic straits under Zuma, with stagnant growth, the looming danger that its credit rating could be downgraded to junk status, state enterprises requiring government bailouts, and unemployment at 26.7% and nearly double that among young people.

Protests at universities across the country in recent months have seen facilities burned to the ground and campuses closed.

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

Twitter: @RobynDixon_LAT
The international police organization, Interpol, elected a Chinese security official as its president Thursday, raising concerns among human rights advocates that the appointment could fortify Beijings efforts to hunt down political opponents abroad.

The organizations general assembly elected Meng Hongwei, Chinas vice minister for public security for the past 12 years, to the post effective immediately during a meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

We currently face some of the most serious global public security challenges since World War II, Meng said at the meeting.

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Interpol, an intergovernmental organization that facilitates police cooperation, also appointed a Russian police official, Alexander Prokopchuk, as its vice president for Europe.

Although Interpol does not have the power to dispatch officers to countries to arrest or issue arrest warrants for individuals, it may issue a red notice, alerting governments about wanted people. In 2014, China gave Interpol a list of 100 suspected financial fugitives, a third of whom have since been repatriated. Beijing called the effort Sky Net.

Mengs appointment is extraordinarily worrying given Chinas longstanding practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad, Nicholas Bequelin, regional director for East Asia, Amnesty International, wrote on Twitter.

Interpols constitution prohibits it from taking any action of a political character.

Since 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping has overseen far-reaching crackdowns on perceived threats to the Communist Partys grip on power, including corruption and dissent. More than 1 million officials have been punished, and scores of dissidents, human rights lawyers and journalists have been threatened or detained.

Critics have accused Xi of using his anti-corruption campaign to eliminate or cow political opponents. Most cases unfold in secrecy.

In 2015, Chinas top corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, announced that its Operation Fox Hunt, a broader repatriation effort for Chinese criminal suspects abroad, had netted 738 fugitives.

The watchdog said that 41% of those suspects were persuaded to return, without elaborating.

Although Beijing has said that it strives to obey foreign laws, Chinese security agents have been accused of acting with little regard for international protocol.

In late 2015, Chinese authorities detained five Hong Kong booksellers who specialized in publishing political tomes about top Communist Party leaders. One vanished from his apartment in Thailand and another from Hong Kong. They both later resurfaced on the mainland in police custody, leading human rights groups and Hong Kong politicians to accuse Beijing of conducting extralegal cross-border abductions.

Western countries, dismayed by Beijings record of political persecution and torture, have been reluctant to cooperate with the countrys extradition requests. China does not have extradition treaties with the U.S., Canada or Australia, favored destinations for Chinese corruption suspects who flee abroad.

Meng has shown fierce Communist Party loyalty in past speeches.

Politics first, party first, and ideology first is a fundamental principle for peacekeeping forces, Meng said at a training program for Chinas overseas peacekeeping forces in 2014. We should consistently implement the three first principles in our work  to build a strong team with a solid political stance.

Meng has also sought experience with overseas police. In September, the Communist Party mouthpiece Peoples Daily reported that he attended a European police leaders summit; he met with New York Police Department delegates in March.

The department has great experience in maintaining the social order in big cities, fighting terrorism and violence, tackling emergencies, and hunting fugitives, which is what Chinas big cities police should learn from, he said, according to the Ministry of Public Securitys website.

China will host Interpols next General Assembly in 2017, according to Chinas State Council Information Office.

jonathan.kaiman@latimes.com

For more news from Asia, follow @JRKaiman on Twitter

Nicole Liu and Yingzhi Yang in The Times Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

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Seeing Utahs electoral votes go to the Republican candidate on election day in any other year, Logan Sisam would have gone to bed and felt pretty good about that fact.

Utah knew exactly what it was and he knew what he was: a Republican Mormon living in a conservative state.

Donald Trump upended all of that for him.

The Republican Party is a burning house, Sisam said. When [vice presidential nominee] Mike Pence came and told us to come home, I thought, I cant come home to a house thats on fire.

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So the 37-year-old cast his ballot for Evan McMullin, the Utah native who was supposed to offer Mormons like Sisam a viable alternative to Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Mormons were disillusioned with Trump, Quin Monson, a political scientist at Brigham Young University, said, because he had made derogatory comments toward Muslims, used crude language and was caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women.

But McMullin, the former CIA operative and chief policy director of the House Republican Conference, simply ended up being a protest vote in Utah. Trump held 46.8% of the vote as of Wednesday. McMullin trailed Clinton by more than 7 percentage points with 20.4% of the vote.

I think some McMullin voters who really didnt like Trump ended up going back to him because their distaste for Clinton was so strong, Monson said. And when the race tightened nationally, they decided it was better to vote for Trump and not risk putting Clinton in a position to win.

Trump underperformed too, Monson said: A Republican running in a successful campaign in Utah should be winning with more than 60% of the vote.

In 2012, Mitt Romney won the state with 72%. In 2008, John McCain picked up 62% of the vote. Its remarkable that Trump was below 50%, Monson said.

But its a footnote in history, he added. Trump won the state and McMullin ended up being of no consequence other than exposing a rift among Republicans in the state.

The rift was first exposed when Romney urged voters to ditch Trump. He blasted Trump for his Access Hollywood tapes and avoided Trumps nomination in Cleveland. Monson said Romneys influence in the state contributed to the sub-50% vote total.

Greg Hughes, a Trump supporter and the states speaker of the House, said Romneys stance was tough for him to square with the man he actively backed in 2012.

It made it immediately harder for me, Hughes said. You have to go with your gut and do what you think is right, but Id be lying if I told you it didnt make it harder. Romney is held in such high regard and he showed such vim and vigor going against Trump  much more than he did going against Barack Obama.

But Romney seemed to be open to Trumps presidency Wednesday.

Best wishes for our duly elected president, Romney tweeted. May his victory speech be his guide and preserving the Republic his aim.

Not everyone was ready to get comfortable with Trump.

Karen McCabe, a longtime Republican, stood with her daughter at the McMullin headquarters in Salt Lake City on Tuesday night after Trump had won. She worried about the nominees temperament.

It hasnt quite sunk in that he won, McCabe said. Trump is still scary to me.

She said she hoped McMullin would run for another statewide office or make another presidential bid in 2020.

Sisam, who posed for a selfie with his 10-year-old son in front of the dais where McMullin had addressed the supporters just moments before, said he thought McMullins calling was to start another party.

The Republican Party is Donald Trumps party, not my Republican Party, he said. I believe there is a need to return to our roots as a conservative party and I believe God will have a hand in this.
Galust Sahakyan congratulates young people

Congratulatory Message by RA NA Speaker Galust Sahakyan on World Youth Day Dear young people, I congratulate you on World Youth Day. This year we celebrated 25th Anniversary of Armenias Independence. It is not the brilliant page of our history, but also one of the greatest achievements of nowadays youth, because 25 years ago the very youth was the most active force of the Artsakh movement being the cornerstone of the independence. Today also the youth is at the centre of the political processes and the basis of the civil society with more independent, more reasonable and more initiative work style, and with more fresh breath. And there has been and there is a necessity to refresh breath and refresh ideas in all times and in all countries, where the people not only want to move forward, but they also really walk in that direction. The fact that todays young people orientate better on how to live, how and about what to fulfill dreams, is one of the best achievements of the independence and an inevitable necessity at present. The world has become more practical, free of feelings and even colder, forcing to prevent the way of thinking as much as possible, who should help us with something, who should present us something. Those people succeed, who dont lament and expect compassion, who purposefully advance, who think, and make the thinking an idea, and idea works, for those who successfully can combine the tradition and innovation, who realize that their success is the success of their country and people, their destiny is the destiny of the country. I am sure that you, the youth of Armenia, fully feel the time and the moment, responsibility towards the destiny, and ready to practically take part in building of the future that you dream, and to which your thinking and reflections, your word and work are aimed at, the NA Speakers congratulatory message reads.
Four Afghans were killed and 119 people were injured late Thursday when a suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with explosives into the German Consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, officials said.

A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said all its two dozen German staff members were safe and uninjured after the bombing, adding that Afghan security forces and German special forces had repulsed the heavily armed attackers.

Afghan officials said the suicide bomber had been the only attacker.

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Taliban militants claimed responsibility, saying they had launched an attack on invading infidels in revenge for civilians killed in airstrikes in northern Afghanistan.

More then 30 civilians were killed and 19 injured in a series of airstrikes carried out in the city of Kunduz by U.S. forces supporting Afghan troops in early November.

Munir Farhad, a spokesman for the governor of Balkh province, said Thursdays blast was so powerful that the windows in most buildings in the vicinity had shattered, which caused most of the injuries.

The German Foreign Ministry said the consul building had been considerably damaged.

The trucks explosives had been hidden under a heap of coal, said Sayed Kamal Sadat, the provincial police chief.

Mazar-i-Sharif is the provincial capital and one of the most important cities in the country. Residents reported hearing a huge explosion near the consulate that shattered windows in buildings nearby.

Germany has 983 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh, as part of NATOs Resolute Support mission.

The Talibans insurgency has spread from its southern heartland across the country in the last two years.

The Taliban statement from spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the attack was retaliation for recent airstrikes in Kunduz, capital of the province of the same name.

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Civilian death toll rises in U.S. air war against Islamic State

This boy could be one of the worlds last victims of polio

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UPDATES:

5:15 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details on the number of deaths and injuries.

This article was originally published at 12:55 p.m.
Khaksars family knew something was wrong when his fever didnt break.

The 12-month-old wailed uncontrollably, tears streaming from his big brown eyes. His father visited a doctor in their lush, battle-scarred valley in eastern Afghanistan. But the pills he brought home did nothing.

After a week, the family bundled Khaksar into a taxi and rode for an hour and a half to the small hospital in Asadabad. Tests showed the boy had contracted a disease that is a relic of a past era: polio.

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The narrow Sheltan valley, a haven for the Taliban and other insurgents along the border with Pakistan, is also one of the worlds last redoubts for the crippling childhood disease.

There have been 32 polio cases worldwide this year  four in Nigeria, 16 in Pakistan and 12 in Afghanistan. Of the Afghan cases, four  Khaksar and three others  are from this half-a-square-mile cluster of farming villages, home to about 1,000 people.

From 2012 until this summer, the threat of violence and the anti-Western policies of insurgents prevented health teams from entering the valley to vaccinate children, the only way to stop the virus spread.

The teams are part of a $1-billion-a-year international effort to eradicate a disease that 60 years ago was a worldwide scourge, paralyzing hundreds of thousands of children and confining the sickest to tank-like iron lungs so they could breathe. Since Jonas Salk developed the first safe polio vaccine in the 1950s, mass immunizations gradually wiped out the virus in the industrialized world and, starting in 1988, propelled a global campaign to vaccinate every child.

The campaign is achieving its goal, isolating the virus to ever-smaller zones and driving down the projected number of cases this year to fewer than half of the 74 seen in 2015.

Khaksar could be one of the last polio victims on the planet.

While that is good news for the world, it offers little comfort to his family.

We have no idea what to do about this, said his grandfather, Duran, a tall farmer with a long gray beard and, like many Afghans, one name. Only God knows what will happen to him.

::

Khaksar is watched by his grandfather, Duran, at right, and his mother before an appointment with doctors in Asadabad, Afghanistan. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times )

The polio virus is highly contagious, and passes easily among humans through contaminated water or food. It attacks the spinal cord and can paralyze limbs.

In rural Afghanistan, where men and women support their families almost exclusively through physical labor, a crippling disability is like a life prison sentence.

Soon after falling ill in March, Khaksar began to lose function in his right leg. Doctors in Asadabad fitted him with a clunky metal brace that fastened above the knee and extended down to his toes, and was to be worn whenever he was awake.

He hated it. His grandfather and mother left the brace at home the morning they brought him for a checkup to the hospital in Asadabad, a collection of low, peach-painted buildings surrounding a tree-lined courtyard.

Khaksar was 18 months old, with stringy brown hair and an impish, sidelong gaze. His cries of discomfort were sharp and insistent, and he dragged his leg across the carpeted floor like a stuffed toy.

Inside the one-room physiotherapy ward, where black-and-white brochures of primitive-looking prosthetic devices hung in a display case, therapist Mohammad Nabi gently scolded Duran. The brace would help ensure Khaksars leg muscles did not atrophy, Nabi said.

If he wears it, he might be able to walk one day, he said. Without that, its not going to be possible.

The therapist took Khaksar from his grandfathers arms, lay him on a narrow bed atop sheets stained a pale yellow and lifted and flexed each of his legs. Tears rolled down the boys round cheeks and wet the front of his blue tunic.

Well, Nabi said, its difficult to tell his progress without the brace on. But it looks like it hasnt gotten worse.

Our only hope is that he will be able to walk, Duran said. We expect the mercy of God.

Zainullah, pictured with his uncle Mosanif, is one of four children from Afghanistans remote Sheltan valley to be paralyzed by polio in 2016. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times )

Across the room, another patient squirmed in his uncles arms. Zainullah was about the same age as Khaksar and lived in the same village.

His polio symptoms had shown up a month earlier but were more severe, paralyzing both his legs. Doctors said he would probably never be able to walk on his own.

The therapist grabbed Zainullah under both arms, placed him at the edge of the bed and lifted him upright so his feet dangled above the bedsheet.

Gently, he lowered the boy, watching to see if he could support his weight. But Zainullahs legs flopped onto the sheet each time, buckling like a rag dolls.

::

With Taliban militants battling government forces over more and more of Afghanistans territory  roughly one-third of the country is now either controlled or threatened by the insurgents  polio vaccination teams must constantly negotiate access to conflict-ridden areas.

The Taliban generally do not oppose vaccinations. In most areas, the teams, using local elders as mediators, have been able to persuade insurgents to let them work.

The situation has been more complicated in the Sheltan valley, which lies in Kunar province a few miles from Pakistans lawless tribal belt. While the area officially remains under government control, its wheat farms and sorghum fields have long served as a sanctuary not just for Afghan militants but also for Pakistani armed groups.

Health officials say the Pakistani Taliban  a separate organization that carries out attacks across the border  exercises influence in Sheltan and has portrayed the anti-polio effort to locals as both a front for Western espionage and a secret campaign to sterilize Muslims.

In 2012, tribal elders sent word to health officials in Asadabad, the provincial capital, that anti-polio teams would no longer be allowed. As a result, roughly 500 children under 5 years old  those most vulnerable to infection  were not vaccinated.

Of every 200 or so children infected with the virus, one goes on to develop serious symptoms, usually within weeks.

The four paralysis cases that emerged in the Sheltan valley this spring represented an explosion.

Its a very high number for such a small area, said Maiwand Ahmadzai, director of the Afghan governments emergency polio operations center in Kabul. The virus is resilient in Afghanistan because it is surviving in these small pockets of inaccessibility.

After the outbreak, the World Health Organization and other groups launched emergency immunization campaigns, deploying more teams to vaccinate children traveling in and out of the valley.

The effort seems to have worked, as there havent been any new cases near the valley since May. Afghan officials believe they can stop the spread of the virus altogether by mid-2017.

We set up a firewall, said Hemant Shukla, the WHOs polio team leader in Kabul. If the virus is not allowed to go outside that zone, it will burn itself out.

In August, polio immunizations were allowed to resume in Sheltan, but in a limited way. Residents have asked the teams not to visit their houses or mark vaccination status on their doors as is standard practice elsewhere in the world.

Health officials worry they still wont reach every child.

Meanwhile, violence has continued. The morning Khaksars family visited the hospital in Asadabad, rockets fired by unknown insurgents landed in the district center a few miles from Sheltan. Polio teams in the area suspended their work for the day.

::

Polio cannot be cured; it can only be prevented through vaccination. But Khaksars family has not given up hope.

One day this summer, Duran and the boys father, Wali, brought Khaksar to the busy border town of Jalalabad to see a doctor recommended by a tribal elder back home. The doctor had an office above the citys main drag, a strip of shops selling cheap Chinese goods and dusty, secondhand electronics.

He pulled and prodded at Khaksars limbs and prescribed a few pills.

We saw some good results, Duran said. It seemed like there were signs of movement in the leg.

Back at the hospital in Asadabad, Nabi, the therapist, shook his head.

Seeing such people is not a good idea, he said.

Nearly four decades after the last polio outbreak in the United States, Khaksars struggle against the disease was just beginning.

Read more: How women in Pakistan are trying to defeat polio 

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia

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Kurdish militants attacked a government building in southeast Turkey on Thursday, wounding at least three people including a district governor, officials said.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said the office of the district governor in the town of Derik, near the border with Syria, was attacked with rocket launchers. But a subsequent statement by the regional governors office said an improvised explosive device was used. It didnt elaborate.

The district governor, Fatih Safiturk, was wounded in the attack, officials said. There was no immediate official information on his condition, but Haber Turk television station said he was slightly wounded.

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Anadolu said the attack was carried out by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has waged a three-decade-long insurgency against the Turkish state and is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies. Kurdish militants, however, havent immediately claimed responsibility.

A fragile peace process between the government and the PKK broke down last year, leading to renewed violence in Turkeys mainly-Kurdish southeast region. At least 700 state security personnel and thousands of Kurdish militants have been killed since, according to Anadolu.

The security forces launched an operation to catch the assailants, the agency said, without providing details. Turkey has been rocked by a series of deadly bomb attacks in the past 18 months, carried out by the PKK or Islamic State.

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This boy could be one of the worlds last victims of polio

In Israel, pro-settlement advocates and rivals of two-state solution are emboldened by Trump victory

UPDATES:

3:42 a.m.: This story updates that the attack was with an explosive device, not rocket launchers.

This story was originally posted at 2:20 a.m.
Israelis who support settlement expansion in the West Bank hailed Donald Trumps election victory, calling it a milestone that offers Israels right-wing government a chance to permanently block a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

The victory of Trump is a huge opportunity for Israel to immediately announce that it renounces the idea of establishing Palestine in the heart of the country, said Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the leader of the pro-settler Jewish Home party. The era of the Palestinian state is over.

Over the last eight years, the Obama administration has repeatedly criticized Israeli decisions to build housing in areas claimed by the Palestinians as part of a future state, often in blunt language that has stoked tension between the allies. During his first term, President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even prodded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into agreeing to a 10-month moratorium on settlement construction starts in the West Bank as an gesture to jump-start peace negotiations.

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Right-wing Israeli leaders are encouraged by Trumps pledge to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital by moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv, and by the Republican Party platform, which omits reference to a Palestinian state and rejects the characterization of Israel as an occupying power in the West Bank.

Emboldened by the election results, the Land of Israel caucus in the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, held a meeting Wednesday to celebrate the historic vote. We believe that the policy of freezing and blocking settlement expansion is over, said Yoav Kish, a Likud member of the Knesset. Its time we stop talking about two states and we start talking about building, settlements and sovereignty.

Netanyahu made no mention of the settlements in his congratulatory messages to Trump. The prime ministers office said that the two leaders spoke by phone, and the president-elect invited Netanyahu to a meeting in the U.S.

The international community considers the Israeli towns built in lands captured in the 1967 Arab war as illegal settlements. Both Democratic and Republican administrations in the United States have opposed settlement activity as an obstacle to peace negotiations  and have warned that the steady expansion imperils the viability of a Palestinian state.

Palestinian officials were far less enthusiastic about Trumps election. We will deal with any president elected by the American people on the principle of achieving permanent peace in the Middle East based on the two-state solution, Palestinian Authority presidential spokesman Nabil abu Rudaineh said in a statement.

At a rally in Jerusalem of pro-Trump Americans, a Trump advisor on Israel affairs vowed that the Republican would move the U.S. Embassy over the opposition of U.S. diplomats.

If it did so, the U.S. would totally marginalize itself on U.S.-Palestine, and enrage the Arab and Muslim world, said Daniel Seidemann, a U.S.-Israeli expert on Jerusalem and a peace activist.

Mahmoud Abu Aljaj, 67, a retired schoolteacher in Gaza City, said he was frightened by Trumps anti-Muslim remarks and backing for Israeli claims to Jerusalem.

I am afraid that the Republican president will implement his election promises and expel Muslims from America and support Israel to demolish the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalems Old City.

Jonathan Rynhold, an expert on U.S.-Israel ties at Israels Bar-Ilan University, said even though Trump initially said he would seek to be a neutral mediator between Israelis and Palestinians, his support for isolationism suggests he would pull back from decades of active American mediation in the conflict. Meanwhile, he said, the Republican Party is increasingly opposed to a Palestinian state and reluctant to criticize settlements.

He would say: What do I care about Israel and the Palestinians? Let them deal with it on their own, Rynhold said. The prospects for a two-state solution, which are poor in the immediate term anyway, will just get worse. He cautioned that the lack of progress toward Palestinian statehood could destabilize the already weak Palestinian government in the West Bank, and sow violence.

Though that would disturb Israeli security experts, who see cooperation with Palestinian security forces as a bulwark of stability, Israeli settlers opposed to any peace accords with a Palestinian state would not miss the Palestinian Authority.

Yossi Dagan, the regional council head for Israeli settlements in the northern West Bank, said the atmosphere in the settlements was one of hope after the election. He said that he expects President-elect Trump understands that we are not occupiers.

Most of the biblical places are in Samaria, he continued, using the biblical name for the northern West Bank, and a nation cant be an occupier in its own land.

Mitnick is a special correspondent.

Twitter: @joshmitnick

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Heres how newspapers around the world announced the news of Trumps victory
Diego Prandini is bent over in a small, brightly lit room, watering marijuana plants of all shapes and sizes. He crawls into a corner to reach some smaller specimens, labeled with names like Ushua and RGB1, all of which will be part of the next two-kilogram harvest.

Ive been at this for seven hours today, he says, standing and smiling. So my back is starting to get a little tired.

Until recently, this job would have been illegal, and he might have worked for dangerous narcotraficantes, perhaps in hidden in nearby Paraguay. But Prandini, 37 and sporting a T-shirt and mohawk, tends his plants in a pleasant middle-class neighborhood of Uruguays capital, and as a break, he heads downstairs to enjoy a joint with his co-workers and watch YouTube videos.

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Diego Prandini cares for a batch of young plants at one of Uruguays new cannabis clubs in Montevideo, Uruguay. (Vincent Bevins / For The Times )

The copious smoke they blow out is visible from the street, and next door, their shop sells pipes, marijuana seeds and smoking paraphernalia. Some Brazilian tourists wander in, asking if they can buy some finished marijuana. They cant.

Its not legal to buy weed on the street in Uruguay  yet  but Prandini and his colleagues are taking advantage of Latin Americas first full pot legalization project, which has been carefully and gradually rolled out as Uruguay hopes to serve as a model for its neighbors and minimize unintended consequences of the effort.

The country now has many legal cannabis clubs, which pool resources to grow copious amounts of marijuana and distribute it to registered, paying members  no doctors note required  who can then smoke where they please. Legislation passed in 2013 also allows Uruguayan residents to sign up to grow plants at home for personal use; soon, pharmacies will begin selling small amounts of cannabis to enlisted users across the country.

Some here have criticized the slow, uneven pace of the program, but legislator Sebastian Sabini, one of the main proponents of the law, said that it is far more important to do the program right so that it serves as a model for legalizing other substances and ending the deadly and unproductive war on drugs.

Latin America is one of the regions which has suffered the most from the politics of prohibition, said Sabini, sitting in his congressional office in Montevideo decorated with a Che Guevara poster and a flier he picked up while visiting a marijuana shop in Colorado. We have a low-intensity undeclared war in Mexico, with 25,000 disappeared and 60,000 killed in recent years; we have wide-scale impunity and areas where narco traffickers control daily life. We see drug groups donating to political campaigns, forming alliances with the state and infiltrating our institutions, all of which generates more violence than we already would have as a poor and unequal part of the world.

The Uruguay program comes as states in the U.S. consider legalizing marijuana. On Tuesday, California, Nevada and Massachusetts voted to legalize pot for recreational use and a similar vote in Maine was too close to call.

In contrast with the United States, Uruguay aims to avoid the creation of lucrative marijuana businesses. Profits are tightly controlled, there are no brands and advertising is banned. Its an approach Sabini would like to see extended to other intoxicating substances. He hopes that by proving careful regulation can prevent increased usage, decriminalization can be extended to cocaine. He also would like to ban all advertising on alcohol.

Uruguay, a quiet nation of just 3.5 million residents, is considered one of the most safe and stable countries in Latin America, and its residents enjoy a quality of life often approaching parts of Europe. Its also often led other countries in the region in adopting liberal causes. The country legalized divorce and votes for women early in the 20th century, and more recently, popular former president Jose Pepe Mujica  a former left-wing guerrilla who ruled the country while driving around in an old Volkswagen Bug  oversaw the legalization of abortion and same-sex marriage, as well as the cannabis law.

Neighboring Brazil and Argentina have no plans to legalize marijuana, so Uruguay took steps to avoid becoming a marijuana tourist destination.

The cannabis registration program is only open to Uruguayans and long-term residents, which doesnt stop Brazilians and Argentines from often stumbling into grow shops trying  and failing  to buy a gram of weed. Club members and home growers are technically prohibited from selling their finished product, but authorities admit many probably do so.

Since Uruguay passed its 2013 law, both Colombia and Chile have taken steps to legalize medical marijuana  allowing clubs to grow for personal use  but stopped far short of allowing cultivation and sale for recreational use.

Jorge Suarez, president of Uruguays Pharmacy Assn., stands in front of his Montevideo pharmacy, from which he will soon be selling small amounts of marijuana to registered users. (Vincent Bevins / For The Times )

Jorge Suarez, president of Uruguays Pharmacy Assn., says he sees no problem with eventually selling the product directly to tourists. If Uruguayans can buy a little bit of the drug, why cant they?

Suarez has agreed to sell the drug when it becomes available, but he admits many of his colleagues have balked at being asked to sell a narcotic at low prices and have yet to sign up for the program.

Many simple pharmacies say they dont have much in the terms of security to protect a valuable product like that. But if we are selling it so cheap, and its everywhere, why would people rob us for that? I think theyd be more likely to ask for money or take our hair-care products, like they usually do, he said.

The marijuana supplied to the shops is being mass produced by two companies licensed by the government, and the final launch of the pharmacy program is being held up by a postal service labor dispute.

Even as members of Uruguays smoking clubs say they strongly support the broad spirit of the law, some mumble about its specifics, saying theyre worried the pharmacy weed will be low-quality, or complaining that they should be able to use their growing experience to expand their small businesses and sell.

Laura Blanco, president of Uruguays Cannabis Studies Assn., admits she has her own small quibbles with the law. But she says it would be an error to go the more North American route and treat marijuana just like any other consumer good.

We strongly defend a collective system not motivated by profit. Basically, because we believe that this needed to be separated from the market, says Blanco, surrounded by American books from back to the 60s and 70s on marijuana and other drugs. Its a substance that changes your mind.

Bevins is a special correspondent.

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Mexicos deep pipeline of equity offerings are expected to remain at a standstill after the peso plummeted on news of Donald Trumps US presidential victory
All material is subject to strictly enforced copyright terms & conditions and cannot be repurposed or reproduced.  19882022 Latin American Financial Publications Inc.
Serzh Sargsyan meets with Emir of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

In the framework of his official visit to the United Arab Emirates, President Serzh Sargsyan met with the Vice President of the UAE, Prime Minister, Emir of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. At the beginning of the meeting the President of Armenia expressed thanks to the friendly United Arab Emirates for the warm welcome extended to the RA official delegation and expressed confidence that the visit will provide the opportunity to conduct practical discussions and achieve mutually beneficial agreements which will elevate the Armenian-UAE multifaceted friendly relations to a qualitatively new level and will bring their significant contribution to the future development of the bilateral cooperation. Stressing the importance of historical and cultural legacy of the Armenian-Arab past, a common approach to a number of issues, as well as the presence in the Arab countries of the Armenian communities, Serzh Sargsyan underscored that in Armenias foreign policy the Middle East has always occupied a considerable role and 25 years after the Armenian independence our country has been unfoldin an efficient and multifaceted cooperation with the Arab states. According to the President of Armenia, the relations between Armenia and the UAE with this regard occupy a special place and present an excellent example of cooperation. At the meeting, the parties praised the relations between the two friendly states and peoples and expressed readiness to develop and strengthen them even further. President Sargsyan highlighted the importance of deepening the trade, economic and investment cooperation with the countries of the Persian Gulf. He said that Armenia views the UAE as an important hub for transportation from Armenia to the Gulf region and other countries and back, towards Armenia. He informed Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum that from the viewpoint of developing relations between the two friendly states, he has made an offer to Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan to organize an investment conference in the Emirates dedicated to Armenia. According to the President of Armenia, the experience and good reputation of the successfully organized conferences at the United Arab Emirates will allow the major investment companies from the Emirates and regional countries to turn the conferences into working meetings and create opportunities for the development of investments in Armenia. The parties stressed the importance of establishing the visa-free regime which will greatly also promote tourism. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum noted that starting next year the Emirates intend to make Fly Dubai flights to Yerevan daily. The President of Armenia and Vice President of the UAE, Prime Minister, Emir of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum concurred that there is a great potential for deepening the cooperation between the two countries. At the conclusion of the meeting, there took place the document signing ceremony. Armenia and the UAE signed a number of documents aimed at the deepening and strengthening of the bilateral cooperation in different areas. Signed were the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the Government of the United Arab Emirates on Cooperation in the Area of Security and Fight against Terrorism, as well a Memorandum of Understanding between the RA Ministry of Emergency Situations and the UAE Supreme Council for National Security, National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority on Cooperation in Emergency Situations, Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the Government of the United Arab Emirates on Scientific and Technical Cooperation and Agreement on the Expansion of Investment and Business Opportunities between the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the RA and the UAE Chamber of Commerce. After the document signing ceremony the Vice President of the UAE, Prime Minister, Emir of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum gave official dinner in honor of the President of Armenia who is in the UAE on official visit.
Julie Matte called police. Minutes later, she was found shot to death inside her home.

What she said during that phone call may not be publicly known after Warren County refused a request by lehighvalleylive.com to release the recording of the 911 call.

Edward Aghahowa and Julie Matte (Facebook photo)

Matte, 46, of Cherry Tree Lane in Blairstown Township, died of six gunshot wounds, according to an autopsy report released this week. Her husband, 55-year-old Edward Aghahowa, was found hours later at a campground six miles away -- he had fatally shot himself, authorities said.

The day of the murder-suicide, the Warren County prosecutor said Matte had called 911 and told the operator that Aghahowa was shooting at her.

However, the county, in a letter dated Nov. 3, said that releasing the recordings -- requested through New Jersey's Open Public Records Act -- would violate the privacy of the victim's family and that the government must protect personal information. The response also described the contents of the requested recording as "the victim reporting to the dispatcher that she had been physically assaulted by her husband and that she was being shot at."

"The record at issue is exempt from disclosure as it reflects a deeply personal and private moment for the victim and the victim's family to which they have a compelling interest in maintaining as private," county attorney Joseph J. Bell wrote. "The victim's family has specifically requested that this record remain private and not be disclosed to the public."

Bell also said there is an exception in the law for domestic violence victims.

Lehighvalleylive.com is considering an appeal of the county's decision.

The county has released 911 recordings before: They helped shed light on the decision by Phillipsburg police officers to storm a home in 2014 where they fatally shot a mentally ill man, 36-year-old Thomas Read.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Marseille lose to Tottenham, eliminated from all European competitions

The Premier League side came from behind to defeat Marseille 2-1 to advance to the knockout round of the Champions League, while sending the French side to last place in Group D.
Here is one presidential election you can all cheer about. The term of office for the President of the party is two years, with a limit of two terms, so every four years it coincides with the bigger event across the pond.

Sal Brinton has served her first two years and has been elected unopposed for a second term. She said:

I am honoured to be returned unopposed for my second term as President of the Liberal Democrats. The growth and revitalisation of the party remains my top priority and I will continue to work with members across England, Scotland and Wales. The Liberal Democrats are needed now more than ever. We are the real opposition to this Conservative Brexit Government and are the only party fighting to keep Britain open, tolerant and united. My first and urgent priority is to get Sarah Olney elected in Richmond Park and I am encouraged by the response we are getting from residents to her strong campaign. I will be there again on Sunday and look forward to joining hundreds of Liberal Democrat supporters helping Sarah.

Sal has been an excellent president, travelling energetically all over the country to support local members, and turning up regularly for events and meetings.

* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
For years, it was said that there was a threat to western democracies from far-right parties with extremist or populist opinions. The BNP were, in the 2000s, supposed to be our version of this phenomenon, before they collapsed and  arguably  their vote went elsewhere.

But, still, the possibility of a small extremist nationalist party gaining undue influence was held to be a convincing argument against electoral reform. I think it may now be possible to say with great certainty that this was either a fallacy or a lie.

Why? Because there are two countries where, this year, populist/nationalist agendas have upset the existing political order: Firstly, the USA (in the person of Mr Trump); and secondly, this country (in the shape of Brexit). That is to say, two countries with plurality voting, who have historically rejected voting reform and proportionality as alien to their political culture.

And why might this have come to pass?

Doing it the easy way

Well, I would argue that if an established party with a strong likelihood of being in government is captured by an outsider figure with radical ideas (as the US Republicans have been) or decides to treat with ideas from the radical Right (as is the temptation to our own Conservative Prime Minister), then the radical Right does not need to go to the trouble of winning elections on its own merits, it just needs to co-opt or scare the mainstream Right into following its lead.

And in the US and UK systems, you dont have to go on to win an unsurmountable test in terms of the popular vote once you have a large party playing your tune.

Under 50% of American ballot papers appear to have been cast for Trump, but he won. He is supported by a raft of Republicans in both Houses, who may not share his views but will feel obliged to create a climate in which he can operate  out of sheer tribalism.

Here, the Conservatives have a small majority with just 36% of the vote, and a divided Opposition. Theresa May, with no clear-cut internal opposition so far, has embraced Brexit and moved right, keeping UKIP out but playing their game.

Passing the electoral test

Instead, it is in Europe, where it is harder to gain full control of a nations government without a genuine majority of the popular vote, where any international move to the populist Right will really be tested.

If in 2017, Marine Le Pen occupies the Elysee Palace, if Geert Wilders ousts our fellow Liberal Mark Rutte, if Alternativ Fur Deutchland can unsettle or restrict Angela Merkel  well, then the popular consensus for liberal democracy is besieged across the entire democratic world.

But if those radical parties cannot secure enough votes to form broad-based governments with freedom of action, the world will see that more proportional, consensus-based systems  long advocated by this party  are both the future and the safeguard of democracy.

Where do we go from here?

So we in the Liberal Democrats need to not just defend past liberal and democratic achievements, but also to advocate further ways in which the underlying values behind those achievements can benefit everyone in society (and voting reform is just one aspect of this).

We need to continue offering reform that is workable and long-lasting, and we need to become again a party of ideas that sets the agenda, even when we have only 8 MPs.

And we desperately need to find a way to genuinely reconnect with those who think Trump or Farage  and, yes, Theresa May  can speak for the powerless when it is demonstrable that they do so inconsistently, unreliably or duplicitously.

Its been a long time coming, but we still need change in our political system, and not the sort of change that Trump is selling to his nation.

* Matthew Campbell is a member of Bristol LibDems, lives in South Bristol and works for a local authority in the South West of England. He also posts on this site as Matt (Bristol).
In the wake of the US election, theres been a lot of sneering condemnation of the sneering metropolitan liberal elite including under posts on this very site.

Perhaps just hold the horses on this condemnation for a second, eh?

What is the objective of a candidate in an election?

Go on.

Try it.

Ah yes, you say  to win the most votes.

Well Hillary Clinton won the most votes in the US election: 59.8 million to Trumps 59.6 million.

The constitutional oddity of the electoral college meant that Trump won the votes in the right places to win. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin should have been Clintons but Trump clinched them  in the case of Michigan narrowly.

So, I say this to you commenters who are sneering about the sneering liberal elite:

OK, you can criticise the sneering liberal elite in America for not getting votes in the right places to satisfy the USAs quirky electoral system. But you cant criticise them for not getting enough votes, because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
There are few feelings worse than those that follow losing an election. The crippling sense of disappointment; the frustration of finding out that your vision for the future is not shared by the majority of the electorate. As liberals we have had to become accustomed to this over the past two years, but the Trump victory feels of greater significance to the geopolitical order than anything that has come before it  even Brexit.

It is vital that our anger is channelled into learning from the mistakes that become retrospectively apparent in our defeat. So what can we learn from the US election that can be applied to our campaigns? Here are a few of my initial thoughts:

Movements win elections

The strength of the Clinton campaigns state-by-state ground game was long acknowledged as a major advantage that the Democrats would hold over the Republicans on election day. Whilst Clinton had millions of volunteers, thousands of field offices and huge financial strength, Trumps campaign was an operation regularly accused of amateurishness.

Yet no partys get-out-the-vote strategy can compete with the enthusiasm of a cause. Trumps supporters were inspired by his anti-establishment appeal and promise to Make America Great Again. The Clinton camp, by comparison, struggled to find a consistent message that was memorable and of mass-appeal to the electorate. Instead her stump speeches were filled with technocratic policy ideas and often felt unfocused.

Whereas Trump supporters were motivated to rush to the polls, many traditional Democratic voters did not feel the same. In fact, the post-result analysis shows that the Republicans didnt increase their number of voters when compared with 2011, the Democrats just failed to get as many of their supporters to go to the ballot box.

This highlights the importance of deciding quickly on a simple and memorable campaign message that emotionally resonates with people, then repeating it ad infinitum. No amount of leaflets delivered through letter boxes or knocks on peoples doors can compensate for this.

The demise of the traditional left-right divide

This was extensively commented upon in Britain following the Brexit vote. Yesterdays result only further strengthens the argument that the conventional political divides that have dominated Western democracies for the past 30 years have been substantially weakened. Voters are increasingly defining themselves based on their views on globalisation, immigration and tolerance. This was particularly apparent as the US election results came in. The generally wealthy, internationalist states of New York, Massachusetts and California voted by huge majorities for Clinton, whereas previous Democratic strongholds (such as Michigan) that are made up of primarily white working-class non-college educated voters, fell to Trump.

This change in the political spectrum is both an opportunity and a challenge for liberals. For many years our party has sought to frame itself as one that is in favour of the European Union, trade and immigration. We now find ourselves with a unique opportunity to do this. But we also risk being tainted with suggestions that the Liberal Democrats are part of the establishment and only interested in promoting the values of those who have benefited the most from globalisation. In Britain, it is vital to the future success of liberalism that we find a narrative and policies that appeal beyond the pro-Remain portion of the electorate, otherwise significant electoral gains will be very difficult to achieve.

The declining influence of national governments

Globalisation and technological advancement have had profound effects on the ability of national governments to improve the lives of their citizens. Barack Obama promised change when he was first elected to office eight years ago, yet the incremental changes that he has implemented in government have proved little match for the ability of global corporations and emerging economies to disrupt the status quo in places such as Michigan and offshore jobs.

Trump chose to simplify policy issues that involve great complexity and nuance in order to gain the office of the presidency. Yet he will likely find himself hamstrung by the same realities as those before him. Those manufacturing jobs are never coming back and in four years time he will have to explain to the electorate why his promises of greatness have not cystalised.

* Dan Whitehead is a councillor in the London Borough of Southwark and the Campaigns Lead for the Southwark Local Party.
Months ago I got an email from Our State Magazine asking if I could take writer Leigh Ann Henion around Bryson City. Of course I said yes and as the days led up to Leigh Anns visit I had a running list in my head of things I might take her to see. I had a choice: I could take her to all the main tourist sights or I could take her to my lesser known secret-wonder-places. I decided on the latter and we spent an entire day riding around Bryson City. We followed the river from one end of the town to the other and I showed her the quiet places where I like to go write, the locals I like to visit and of course where the river meets the lake. I took her to see the Hemlock Inn and Darnell Farms. I took her to see old abandoned buildings, silos and barns that I love to marvel at. As we drove past Kituwah, the most sacred ground of the Cherokee, we saw what looked to be tribal elders performing a ceremonysomething Ive never witnessed before. When we drove out to where the river meets the lake we happened upon a few men with an vintage fire truck filling up with water. I introduced Leigh Ann to my chicken flock and gave her a tour of the old depot. We ate a late lunch at Mountain Perks by the real train depot and I showed her the enormous Gingko tree in town. Later that night my friend Ron LaRocque (owner of the Everett Hotel) and I took Leigh Ann up Lakeview Drive to the Road to Nowhere tunnel. We stood on the guard rails of an overlook and watched the sun set. And as we drove home, I had no idea what Leigh Ann would write her article aboutI just knew that I felt like Id shown her the mysterious and wonderful side of Bryson City that not many people stay long enough to see.

The article came out recently in Our States November 2016 issue, the Rivers Collectors Issue. Leigh Ann had also spent time with other business owners in town included my husband Brett and his partner Ben. The first page of the article has a photo of the two of them in front of the hand-painted map mural in their store Bryson City Outdoors:

I was so nervous at first when I opened the magazine, wondering what shape the story would take. I love how it turned out because I feel like this is the first time someone has really understood who I am and why I do the quirky things I do. Leigh Ann was totally on board with any plans I had, even traveling all day in an old Chevy with no air conditioning!

Photographers came in May to take photos. They wanted a photo with me and the chickens. FoShizzle was the only chicken that cooperated. Heres a behind the scenes photo:

And the final photo in the magazine:

Bryson City got a whopping eight pages in Our State this month! There are so many layers to this town Im sure it could have filled an entire magazine but I know there are other wonderful river towns too. In the article it references where I found the beginning of the river too, I wrote about that here.

Id love for you to go and read the article today. You can find the full article here with all its beautiful photos:

Thanks so much Our State for entrusting me to take Leigh Ann around town and for recognizing the beauty of this area.
COUNCILLORS in Limerick this Friday will have to make the hard decisions to find the 9m needed to balance the council budget for 2017.

The 9m arises out of higher payroll and pension costs, higher insurance costs and higher spend on services and must be bridged either through increased income or through reduced expenditure or both.

But all the indications are that the Fine Gael Fianna Fail coalition is on track to agree the budget.

They already have an extra 1.56m to help bridge the gap, thanks to a 10% increase in the Local Property Tax last month.

And, as reported in last weeks Limerick Leader, management is proposing a 5% increase in commercial rates which potentially would raise an extra 2.5m.

However, this increase, the Limerick Leader has now learned, will not apply to the majority of businesses.

A rebate scheme, introduced last year to protect small businesses, is being improved for 2017. This means that up to 90% of businesses, those with rateable evaluations of up to 20,,000, will get a rebate of 9% if they pay in full. A second scheme will also benefit the tourism and hospitality sector and a sliding scale for vacant properties, it is hoped, will act as an incentive.

The council also expects its income from house rentals and planning applications to increase as building activity rises and more local authority houses come into play.

Last year, it took two days of haggling and discussion before councillors agreed a budget, rejecting a 4.5% increase in rates and instead putting in place a 2% rate increase and a rebate scheme for small businesses.

But this years budget is likely to go smoothly as councillors feel they have secured funding for local projects. The 1.56m of extra property tax money is being ring-fenced to be spent locally by councillors and they will also be mollified by a 1.7m increase in spending on local and regional roads and over 1m extra on house maintenance.

But Sinn Fein leader in the council, Cllr Seamus Browne has slammed the increase in commercial rates declaring it is a result of a "sweetheart deal" between the government and large utility companies.

When rates were revalued in 2014, big utility companies ended up paying less rates, he has argued and local authorities around the country were left with budget shortfalls.

In Limerick, this shortfall was 1.7m last year and was only partially made up by central government.

Rates income reached an all-time high in Limerick in 2011 when it yielded a massive 59.26m. But this has been falling since and was exacerbated by the revaluation in 2014. Rates income for 2016 is expected to reach 51.6m but a target of 54m has been set for 2017.

The capital budget of 366m over the next three years will also find favour with councillors, although the projects and funding have yet to be approved.

A massive 171m is to be spent on housing, but the majority of this spend will be in the city. Two schemes earmarked for the county, one in Adare and one in Patrickswell will cost 8.7m over three years.

7m will also be set aside for the new Limerick to Foynes road, 11.5m to distributor roads in Mungret and 2m for a distributor road in Croom. Big projects in the city include 13m for a footbridge.
THE SIXTH Abbot of Glenstal, Fr Brendan Coffey received the abbatial blessing in the abbeys newly renovated church on Saturday.

The Ennis man was elected the new abbot twelve weeks ago but the community waited until after the completion of the current phase of works before celebrating the solemn rite of blessing of an abbot.

It was conferred by Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Dr Kieran OReilly.

The Glenstal community was joined in choir by 25 abbots, abbesses, monks and nuns from Benedictine, Cistercian and Poor Clare monasteries from Ireland and abroad.

Five other bishops concelebrated the Mass with the archbishop and Abbot Brendan.

They included the retired Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Dr Dermot Clifford and the retired Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, who ordained Abbot Brendan a priest in 1995. The Church of Ireland Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe, Dr Kenneth Kearon, was also present in choir.

The rite of blessing took place after the Gospel. Abbot Brendan was escorted to the archbishop by his two immediate predecessors, Frs Christopher Dillon OSB and Mark Patrick Hederman OSB. Prior of the monastery, Fr Senan Furlong OSB, then formally presented the abbot to the archbishop and asked him to confer the blessing.

The moving ceremony included Abbot Brendan being presented with various symbols related to his office.

He first received a copy of the Rule of St Benedict, then a silver ring, to be worn as a sign of fidelity, with the instruction to wear it as the symbol of constancy and maintain this monastic family in the bond of brotherly love.

Finally, Archbishop OReilly presented the abbot with a wooden crozier, a shepherds staff, admonishing him to show loving care for the brothers whom the Lord has entrusted to you; for he will demand an account of your stewardship.

After this Abbot Brendan, who will serve for eight years, took his place beside the archbishop and was greeted with applause.

Abbot Brendan then received the sign of peace from the archbishop and his assistants, before moving into the centre of the choir, to share the same fraternal greeting with all of the monastic men and women present.

Just before the end of Mass, Abbot Brendan turned and addressed the congregation.

Asking for their prayers that he might be a good abbot, he cited St Bernards advice to new abbots  Notice everything. Turn a blind eye to some things. Correct a little. Cherish the brethren.

The liturgy concluded with the chanting of the Churchs great hymn of praise, the Te Deum, while church bells rang out.
A REPORT published on property website Daft.ie this week has shown an increase of 13.2% in rent costs in Limerick in the past year.

The rent costs are substantially higher than their previous peak in 2008 before the recession hit, and this is the largest annual increase since the report began in 2002.

The figures for the city show that the average rent for a one-bed flat is 630, a two-bed is 724, a three-bed is 874, a four-bed is 951 and a five-bed is 1,068.

In the county areas, the average rent for a one-bed flat is 447, a two-bed is 524, a three-bed is 632, a four-bed is 688 and a five-bed is 733.

Responding to the report, Sinn Fein TD Maurice Quinlivan has urged the government to look again at introducing rent certainty to alleviate pressure on struggling households.

The Governments national housing policy is hugely dependent on the private sector providing the bulk of housing to tackle what is a national housing crisis.

The consequences of these continuous rent increases are not trivial and they affect everyone dependent on the private rental sector for accommodation.

Working families are increasing becoming homelessness because they often earn too much to apply for social housing support or too little to either rent privately or buy their own home.

The situation is such that many parents have to decide between paying rent and covering increasing cost of living expenses like back to school costs and rising cost of insurance and other utility bills.

With more people than ever now in emergency accommodation across the state and here in Limerick it is clear that household poverty is increasing. The government must recognise that rent certainty is key to alleviating pressure on these households, explained the Limerick TD.

Labour spokesperson on housing, planning and local government deputy Jan OSullivan has also called for rent certainty.

These latest rental figures make for grim reading. I would ask the Government to bring certainty and comfort to people and families who are continuing to face these rising rents, she said.

For more information, visit https://www.daft.ie/report to see the full report.
FOYNES Port is poised to become a major European link with the US in the wake of Brexit, in a new Government proposal that could create hundreds of local jobs.

Minister for Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, Denis Naughten has suggested the use of US pre-clearance for ships crossing the Atlantic.

The use of such facilities would be similar to the pre-clearance used by air travel passengers to the US, and Minister Naughten has said that the Port of Foynes could significantly benefit from the idea.

Rotterdam is becoming hugely congested as the main port of Europe and there is potential to develop, on the western seaboard, a major port at Foynes that would act as a transit point for freight to and from North America," said Minister Naughten.

Freight would come into Foynes, get scanned there, get certified, and land in New York and would be the same as an internal shipment.

According to the Department, Mr Naughten met with the US Ambassador to Ireland Kevin OMalley and asked him to support the proposal, which would involve US custom official staff being based in Foynes to give full pre-clearance.

"Our second biggest export destination is the USA. From a Brexit point of view this is an opportunity to attract industries from right across Europe that are exporting into the US, said Minister Naughten.

The reality is that post-Brexit exports into the UK are going to be put under pressure, so this is an opportunity to make a new market and make it far more efficient for the export of goods.

A hard Brexit could result in EU borders, which would increase costs for freight companies shipping out of Britain into Europe. This proposal means that Foynes could become a more attractive destination for these companies to ship from.

The development of Foynes as a post-Brexit international shipping hub has been welcomed by Shannon Foynes Port Company chief executive Patrick Keating.

Our estuary waters are unrivalled in a national context and have few rivals anywhere in Europe. This remains one of our long-term goals and securing customs agreements such as US pre-clearance would certainly be a major boost in that regard, he said.

Because of its natural water depths, the Shannon Estuary and Foynes Port are of national strategic interest and present a huge opportunity for a range of inward investments. We look forward to exploring those with Minister Naughten and other public representatives going forward, added Mr Keating.
TWO Limerick businesses have triumphed in the annual Retail Excellence Ireland (REI) awards.

Matthew Stephens Jewellers, based in OConnell Street, was named the jewellery store of the year at the prestigious ceremony.

And Hook and Ladder, an artisan cafe and cookery school, won the title of restaurant/coffee shop of the year.

The two businesses were honoured at the ceremony, which is considered the biggest event in the annual retail calendar.

Some 500 business leaders from across Ireland were present.

Matt Ryan, Matthew Stephens Jewellers, said: This award is for our incredible team. We are so lucky and thankful to have such a fantastic team of amazing individuals, from sales professionals, goldsmiths, diamond specialists, back office and accounts personnel, buyers to part time fashion level staff.

"Without them Matthew Stephens would be nothing like it is today. Together, they have a passion and ambition to be the best and this ethos has been the foundation for Matthew Stephens phenomenal growth and our continued success.

Meanwhile, Sarah Moloney, who runs Hook and Ladder  which also has satellite branches at Castletroy and Corbally  said: It is absolutely fantastic to win this. It is such a prestigious award, and to be able to put our business on the map is great as well. It is wonderful to be at the forefront again this year, and win another award.

Lyn Drumgoole, director of communications at Retail Excellence Ireland said: Limerick has become a real centre for retail and we are delighted to award those who are at the fore of delivering superb service and retailing standards.

"All of the finalists and in particular the winners displayed the highest standard of service, customer engagement, display and levels of investment which made choosing this years winners particularly difficult.

Hosted by Hector O hEochagain, the awards took place at Galway's Radisson Blu Hotel.
A RATHKEALE based company is looking to entice Irish emigrants back to the Mid-West as part of its new recruitment drive.

A year ago, DesignPro, a precision engineering company, announced it would be creating 85 new jobs by 2020. But now, that target has been brought forward and the company hopes to increase its workforce by up to 50 people within the next three months.

The company was set up by mechanical engineer Paul Collins in a spare bedroom in 2004 and was initially based in Newcastle West before moving to the former Andersen plant in Rathkeale last year.

It provides precision automation and machine build services to the medical devices, pharmaceuticals, electronics and automotive market and counts household names such as Oral B, Johnson and Johnson and Boston Scientific among its clients.

The companys workforce almost doubled last year, growing from 19 to 37 which included ten positions supported by the Enterprise Ireland Job Expansion Fund which offers export-orientated SMEs up to 150,000 towards paying the new recruits.

The company is now looking to recruit again and is actively looking to emigrants to return in order to gill the positions.

We are local-focused, and eager to get people back to work in Limerick from abroad.

We have positions here. We are a family-orientated company, we enjoy life, and we work around our peoples lives, Paul Collins said.

A spokesman for the call for the Enterprise Ireland Job Expansion Fund pointed out that the scheme is now open until December 5.

Interested employers should contact their local Enterprise Ireland, he said
A BROTHER of a homeless woman who died tragically earlier this week has been granted compassionate bail ahead of her funeral this Friday.

The body of Louise Bubu Casey (31), who was originally from St Marys Park, was found in the stairwell of a vacant building at Catherine Street shortly before midday on Tuesday.

While an investigation into her death is being carried out for the coroner, gardai do not suspect foul play.

Her funeral Mass will take place at 11 oclock this Friday at St Mary's Church, Athlunkard Street followed by burial at Mount St Oliver Cemetery.

At Limerick Circuit Court this evening, Ms Caseys only brother  Christopher Casey  was granted compassionate bail despite a garda objection.

The 39-year-old, who has an address at Harbour View Terrace is currently on remand awaiting sentence for two separate robbery offences which he pleaded guilty to last week.

Opposing the application, made by Michael Collins BL, Detective Garda Colum OShea said gardai were concerned Mr Casey would engage in criminality if released.

He told the court he has offended while bail in the past but accepted he does not represent a flight risk.

He is not somebody who will disappear off the radar, said Mr Collins.

Judge John Hannan said he had sympathy for Mr Casey adding that he is also required to protect members of the public from crime.

Granting the application, the judge appealed to Mr Casey to prove gardai wrong.

The defendant, who is to be released at 9.30am on Friday, was ordered to return to Limerick Prison by 4pm.

Louise Casey is survived by her mother Esther, son Christopher and her daughter Jadien.
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Two Lincolnshire teenagers who became Britain's youngest double murderers were in a "world of their own deep selfishness", according to a judge who sentenced them to life in prison.

The boy and girl, were just 14 at the time they killed Spalding dinner lady Liz Edwards,49, and her daughter Katie,13.

Both are now 15 and were ordered to be detained with a minimum tariff of 20 years each.

The boy admitted two charges of murder and the girl was found guilty by a jury of the same two charges of murder.

She admitted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility but denied murder.

Mr Justice Haddon-Cave , passing sentence at Nottingham Crown Court described the killings as " brutal executions."

He said: "Had you been adults you may well have been facing the whole of your lives in prison for these terrible murders.

"There was remarkable pre-meditation and planning.

"The killings were brutal in the form of executions and both victims , particularly Elizabeth Edwards, must have suffered terribly in the last minutes of their lives.

"People who know the full facts of this case may struggle to comprehend how you both could commit this terrible and unnatural crime which has devastated families and a community.

"The answer lies perhaps in what the psychiatrist described as your toxic relationship.

"You were in a hermetically sealed world of your own of deep, deep selfishness where only your feelings mattered and nobody else's.

"This was an entirely joint offence.

"You were in it together from the beginning.

"You conceived the killings together, you planned it together, you replanned it together and carried it out together step by step."

A senior police officer who investigated the double murders of a Spalding mum and her daughter hopes the community can finally move forward after two teenagers have been handed life jail terms.

Investigating Officer DCI Martin Holvey said: "This has been a rare and unprecedented case and everybody who has listened to the details as they have emerged throughout the trial will, I am sure, have felt the same sense of shock and disbelief.

"The planning that went into the brutal murders of Elizabeth and Katie as they slept in their beds was cold, ruthless and chilling, as was the lack of remorse shown by the two juveniles afterwards.

"This matter-of-factness is all the more shocking given the fact that they were both only 14 years of age at the time.

"I hope after today's sentence, everyone affected by this terrible crime can begin to rebuild their lives and the community of Spalding can move forward."

The pair, who can not be named for legal reasons, were both sentenced as children.

Karen Thompson, deputy chief crown prosecutor at CPS East Midlands said: "This is one of the most distressing and disturbing cases that I and my team have ever encountered.

"The CPS has from the outset been confident that the appropriate charge for both defendants was one of murder.

"We were not willing to accept any lesser charge based on the defendants' mental health difficulties, so the case was rightly taken to trial.

"The male defendant accepted his guilt on the first day of trial.

The other defendant maintained her not guilty plea but, after the jury heard all the medical evidence presented they concluded that any difficulties that she may have had did not prevent her forming an intent to kill.

"She was therefore convicted of the murder of both victims.

"Our deepest sympathies are now with the extended family and friends of Elizabeth and Katie Edwards as they attempt to come to terms with this horrific crime."
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This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Imagine that you are constantly eating, but slowly starving to death. Hundreds of species of marine mammals, fish, birds, and sea turtles face this risk every day when they mistake plastic debris for food.

Plastic debris can be found in oceans around the world. Scientists have estimated that there are over five trillion pieces of plastic weighing more than a quarter of a million tons floating at sea globally. Most of this plastic debris comes from sources on land and ends up in oceans and bays due largely to poor waste management.

Plastic does not biodegrade, but at sea large pieces of plastic break down into increasingly smaller fragments that are easy for animals to consume. Nothing good comes to animals that mistake plastic for a meal. They may suffer from malnutrition, intestinal blockage, or slow poisoning from chemicals in or attached to the plastic.

Many tube-nosed seabirds, like this Tristrams storm petrel (Oceanodroma tristrami), eat plastic particles at sea because they mistake them for food. (Image credit: Sarah Youngren, Hawaii Pacific University/USFWS, Author provided)

Despite the pervasiveness and severity of this problem, scientists still do not fully understand why so many marine animals make this mistake in the first place. It has been commonly assumed, but rarely tested, that seabirds eat plastic debris because it looks like the birds natural prey. However, in a study that my coauthors and I just published in Science Advances, we propose a new explanation: For many imperiled species, marine plastic debris also produces an odor that the birds associate with food.

A nose for sulfur

Perhaps the most severely impacted animals are tube-nosed seabirds, a group that includes albatrosses, shearwaters and petrels. These birds are pelagic: they often remain at sea for years at a time, searching for food over hundreds or thousands of square kilometers of open ocean, visiting land only to breed and rear their young. Many are also at risk of extinction. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, nearly half of the approximately 120 species of tube-nosed seabirds are either threatened, endangered or critically endangered.

Although there are many fish in the sea, areas that reliably contain food are very patchy. In other words, tube-nosed seabirds are searching for a "needle in a haystack" when they forage. They may be searching for fish, squid, krill (opens in new tab) or other items, and it is possible that plastic debris visually resembles these prey. But we believe that tells only part of a more complex story.

A sooty shearwater (Puffinus griseus) takes off from the oceans surface in Morro Bay, California. (Image credit: Mike Baird/Flickr, CC BY)

Pioneering research by Dr. Thomas Grubb Jr. in the early 1970s showed that tube-nosed seabirds use their powerful sense of smell, or olfaction, to find food effectively, even when heavy fog obscures their vision. Two decades later, Dr. Gabrielle Nevitt and colleagues found that certain species of tube-nosed seabirds are attracted to dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a natural scented sulfur compound. DMS comes from marine algae, which produce a related chemical called DMSP inside their cells. When those cells are damaged  for example, when algae die, or when marine grazers like krill eat it  DMSP breaks down, producing DMS. The smell of DMS alerts seabirds that food is nearby  not the algae, but the krill that are consuming the algae.

Dr. Nevitt and I wondered whether these seabirds were being tricked into consuming marine plastic debris because of the way it smelled. To test this idea, my coauthors and I created a database collecting every study we could find that recorded plastic ingestion by tube-nosed seabirds over the past 50 years. This database contained information from over 20,000 birds of more than 70 species. It showed that species of birds that use DMS as a foraging cue eat plastic nearly six times as frequently as species that are not attracted to the smell of DMS while foraging.

To further test our theory, we needed to analyze how marine plastic debris smells. To do so, I took beads of the three most common types of floating plastic  polypropylene and low- and high-density polyethylene  and sewed them inside custom mesh bags, which we attached to two buoys off of California's central coast. We hypothesized that algae would coat the plastic at sea, a process known as biofouling, and produce DMS.

Author Matthew Savoca deploys experimental plastic debris at a buoy in Monterey Bay, California. (Image credit: Author provided)

After the plastic had been immersed for about a month at sea, I retrieved it and brought it to a lab that is not usually a stop for marine scientists: the Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine Science at UC Davis. There we used a gas chromatograph, specifically built to detect sulfur odors in wine, beer and other food products, to measure the chemical signature of our experimental marine debris. Sulfur compounds have a very distinct odor; to humans they smell like rotten eggs or decaying seaweed on the beach, but to some species of seabirds DMS smells delicious!

Sure enough, every sample of plastic we collected was coated with algae and had substantial amounts of DMS associated with it. We found levels of DMS that were higher than normal background concentrations in the environment, and well above levels that tube-nosed seabirds can detect and use to find food. These results provide the first evidence that, in addition to looking like food, plastic debris may also confuse seabirds that hunt by smell.

When trash becomes bait

Our findings have important implications. First, they suggest that plastic debris may be a more insidious threat to marine life than we previously believed. If plastic looks and smells like food, it is more likely to be mistaken for prey than if it just looks like food.

Second, we found through data analysis that small, secretive burrow-nesting seabirds, such as prions, storm petrels, and shearwaters, are more likely to confuse plastic for food than their more charismatic, surface-nesting relatives such as albatrosses. This difference matters because populations of hard-to-observe burrow-nesting seabirds are more difficult to count than surface-nesting species, so they often are not surveyed as closely. Therefore, we recommend increased monitoring of these less charismatic species that may be at greater risk of plastic ingestion.

Finally, our results provide a deeper understanding for why certain marine organisms are inexorably trapped into mistaking plastic for food. The patterns we found in birds should also be investigated in other groups of species, like fish or sea turtles. Reducing marine plastic pollution is a long-term, large-scale challenge, but figuring out why some species continue to mistake plastic for food is the first step toward finding ways to protect them.

Matthew Savoca, Ph.D. Candidate, University of California, Davis

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates  and become part of the discussion  on Facebook, Twitterand Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.
Donald Trump has said that one of the top priorities for his presidency would be to remove the United States from international agreements to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

In particular, Trump has said he would renege on the historic Paris climate pact. In addition, he has selected Myron Ebell, who is skeptical that human-caused climate change is occurring, to spearhead the transition of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the new administration, as reported by ClimateWire. (The EPA is involved in developing the regulations that would reduce greenhouse gas output.)

But what would this mean for the world's climate?

It turns out that although it's relatively simple to remove the U.S. from its treaty obligations, the impacts of such a move are still not clear, experts say.

"If all the nations of the world fully met their Paris pledges, that would lead to avoided cumulative greenhouse gas emissions of about 100 gigatons of carbon dioxide" by around 2030, said John Sterman, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management and a senior adviser for the nonprofit Climate Interactive. The United States made up 22 gigatons of that total by 2025, so fully renouncing the pact would mean greenhouse gases would be that much higher. And in the worst case, it could lead to the complete unraveling of the deal, Sterman said. [The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted]

"It could be worse, because many nations may decide that if the United States won't live up to its agreement, why should they?" Sterman told Live Science.

However, the agreement was never binding and will not be enforced with penalties, so it was never guaranteed that all signatories would fulfill their commitments anyway, Sterman said. And in the best case, economic drivers or city or state initiatives could lead the U.S. to slash its emissions regardless of a pact, he added. [6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change]

Canceling agreements

Less than a year ago, President Barack Obama signed the historic Paris agreement. The United States, along with 195 other countries, agreed to make the carbon dioxide emissions cuts necessary to prevent more than a 3.6 degree Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) rise in global average temperatures above preindustrial levels.

In speeches all along the campaign trail, Trump has made it a priority to undo Obama's climate work.

The agreement itself allows signatories to remove themselves from the treaty only after four years.

"It's kind of designed for someone like Trump in mind," said Michael Wara, an expert on energy and environmental law at the Stanford Law School in California, referring to a leader who wants to get out of the obligations.

However, there are ways Trump could actually derail the process sooner.

"The Paris agreement has taken effect, but there's still a lot to do to spell out how it's actually going to be implemented," Wara told Live Science.

Right now, world leaders are congregating in Marrakech, Morocco, for the Conference of the Parties 22, to figure out this process.

"If the U.S. doesn't play ball in negotiating the implementation of Paris, that could be as impactful as U.S. withdrawal," Wara said. For instance, if the E.P.A. is run by a climate skeptic, they could simply scrap rules for regulating carbon dioxide, making enforcement of the goals impossible, he said.

Beyond this, the Paris climate agreement is part of a larger treaty, called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was first negotiated in 1992. Trump could potentially remove the United States from the UNFCC within a year with a stroke of a pen. This step would eliminate the requirement that the United States report its emissions levels, Wara said.

Early this year, Obama helped craft an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, a landmark agreement signed by197 countries in 1989 to protect the Earth's ozone layer. The new amendment aims to phase out production of superpotent warming gases called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by providing financial incentives to developing countries to cut these gases, but the Senate has yet to ratify it. So a future President Trump could simply decline to take action. That inaction, in turn, could lead developing countries to question whether to bother limiting their HFC emissions.

"India, in particular, was extremely nervous about signing onto it," Wara said.

Tangential effects

Trump could derail the U.S.' climate goals more strongly through other policies, Wara said.

"A lot of the key pieces of equipment that are going to be deployed in the next four to five years that could have the effect of reducing emissions  batteries, solar panels, wind turbines  have global supply chains," Wara said.

If Trump cancels trade deals and imposes steep tariffs, those products could become more expensive to manufacture, meaning renewable energy would no longer be competitive with other energy sources. For example, plummeting battery costs have made electric cars cost-competitive with conventional vehicles, but that momentum could be derailed by stiff trade penalties, Wara said.

On the other hand, there's a small chance that some of Trump's policies could  albeit indirectly  reduce emissions, Wara said.

For example, Trump has been a huge proponent of oil and natural gas drilling, and if he promotes that agenda as president, "the coal industry is really in big trouble," Wara said. "It's cheaper to generate electricity with gas than coal, and if we keep up, the coal industry is going away, full stop. It's becoming a shriveled hulk of what it once was."

Disastrous consequences

In the worst-case scenario, where the U.S. proceeds with business as usual, by 2100, the climate could warm by about 8.1 degrees F (4.5 degrees C), and the seas could rise by 6.5 feet (2 meters).

"That would lead to a high risk of climate catastrophe," Sterman said.

Such extreme warming could lead to water shortages and drought around the world; more heat waves, which could kill hundreds of thousands of people; mass migrations that would dwarf the refugee crisis of the past few years; and devastation that would make Hurricane Sandy look like a sideshow, Sterman said.

"It's extremely serious," Sterman said.

Original article on Live Science.
This is a mockup of "Fat Man," the atomic bomb that was dropped over Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945.

A man diving off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, may have stumbled upon a nuclear weapon that the United States lost decades ago.

Now, the Royal Canadian Navy is scoping out the strange object to see if it is indeed a Mark IV bomb that was jettisoned by an American pilot in 1950 just before his plane crashed.

The man, Sean Smyrichinsky, was using an underwater scooter to hunt for sea cucumbers near Pitt Island, when he came upon a weird bagel-shaped object. After straying from his boat, he came upon a bizarre object that looked a bit like a half-cut bagel the size of a king-sized bed, he told CBC. [Flying Saucers to Mind Control: 7 Declassified Military & CIA Secrets]

"I came out from the dive and I came up and I started telling my crew, 'My god, I found a UFO. I found the strangest thing I'd ever seen!' Smyrichinsky told CBC. "It resembled, like, a bagel cut in half, and then around the bagel these bowls molded into it."

Long lost nuke

When he came to shore, he started asking around. He soon came upon the strange tale of the Convair 36-B, a bomber that took off from Elison Air Base in Alaska in 1950 and was flying near British Columbia when its engines caught fire. The plane was testing how well it could carry a Mark IV "Fat Man," an 11,000 pound (4,900 kilogram) atomic bomb similar to those dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, according to news.com.au.

The official story was that crew parachuted to safety and the plane itself sank in the Pacific Ocean.

However, a few years later, people stumbled across the plane wreck in the remote B.C. mountains, three hours inland from where it was supposed to have crashed, according to " Lost Nuke: The Last Flight of Bomber 075," by Dirk Septer (Heritage House Publishing 2016).

"After years of silence, the United States finally admitted to losing its very first nuclear bomb; the incident was its first Broken Arrow, the code name for accidents involving nuclear weapons," Septer wrote in "Lost Nuke."

One mystery remained, though: Did the bomb detonate in the ocean or blow up over the mountains?

Not so deadly

After Smyrichinsky heard the story, he Googled the bomb and found an image that looked strikingly like the object he found.

Though finding a nuclear weapon sitting neglected in the ocean is scary, even if the strange object is the actual lost bomb, it likely contains no radioactive material. The original Mark IV bomb was a dummy capsule, Major Steve Neta of the Canadian Armed Forces, told CBC.

Finding a weapon under the waves is surprisingly common. The ocean is littered with nearly 5 million tonnes of chemical weapons lost between 1919 and 1980, according to Hakai Magazine.

Original article on Live Science.
Researchers were intrigued by an increasing number of sores on red squirrels in the United Kingdom and Ireland, so they decided to run tests on the animals to find out what was causing these mysterious marks.

After investigating, they now say they have found the cause: Some squirrels harbor the same bacteria that caused leprosy in humans in medieval Britain. The squirrels had skin lesions along with swelling of their snouts, ears, lips, eyelids and extremities  which are some of the symptoms also seen in people with the disease.

In the study, the researchers conducted genetic screening and blood tests on more than 100 red-squirrel cadavers from England, Ireland and Scotland. These red squirrels, of the species Sciurus vulgaris, arefound throughout Eurasia. [6 Strange Facts About Leprosy]

They found that all 25 red squirrels from England's Brownsea Island were infected with the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, which is the oldest pathogen associated with leprosy and was responsible for outbreaks of the disease in medieval Europe, according to the findings, published today (Nov. 10) in the journal Science. No other squirrels in the study were found to harbor this type of bacteria, although a few tested positive for a related bacterium, Mycobacterium lepromatosis, which can also cause leprosy.

The results were particularly surprising, given that no humans have contracted leprosy in the British Isles for centuries, according to the researchers, led by Charlotte Avanzi, a doctoral assistant in molecular life sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

"The main message of this is that the number of non-human reservoirs of leprosy might be much higher than previously thought," Avanzi told Live Science. "This is of particular interest in countries where leprosy is still endemic in human[s], where maybe a part of the new cases number could be explained by the presence of an animal reservoir." [Story continues below]

This red squirrel has leprosy sores on its ear and muzzle. (Image credit: Catherine Clark)

The findings suggest that "a pathogen can persist in the environment long after its clearance from the human reservoir," the researchers wrote in their study. The bacteria were found in both squirrels that had visible symptoms of leprosy, which can include hair loss and swollen limbs, and those squirrels that had no symptoms.

Today, leprosy is called by its modern name, Hansen's disease, and occurs mainly in developing countries, although there are cases elsewhere. Globally, there are about 220,000 cases yearly, according to the study. In the U.S., between 150 and 200 cases are typically reported each year, according to the National Hansen's Disease Program. A study published in May 2016 found that there were a total of 139 cases of leprosy in England and Wales between 2003 and 2012.

Symptoms include skin lesions and damage to the peripheral nerves, which can lead to a loss of sensation as well as certain visible deformities. [7 Devastating Infectious Diseases]

The bacteria that cause leprosy were once thought to be found only in humans, until researchers discovered in the past decade that nine-banded armadillos could harbor M. leprae. These armadillos are found in North, Central and South America, including parts of the southern U.S.

"The armadillos carry the [bacteria] in huge numbers and have no particular symptoms," said Kenrad Nelson, a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who was not involved with the new study. The armadillos do not get sick, "and there's no evidence it shortens their life," Nelson told Live Science. However, the animals can transmit the disease to people. Cases have been reported in Texas, Louisiana and other states, according to a 2011 study in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers of the new study stressed, however, that the chances of people catching the disease from red squirrels is low.

Nelson said he agrees that the chances are low, primarily because contact between red squirrels and humans in the U.K. is limited. Although armadillos are often kept as pets, or even eaten, squirrels do not come into direct contact with humans as frequently, he noted.

The authors of the new study said they are not certain how the squirrels became infected with the leprosy-causing bacteria. They noted that it's possible that in the past, "humans may have been infected through contact with red squirrels bearing M. leprae, as these animals were prized for their fur and meat in former times." It's also possible that in medieval times, humans may have passed the disease on to squirrels, Nelson added.

Further research is needed into other potential animal carriers of the bacteria, as such animals may thwart efforts to eradicate leprosy in humans and serve as "reservoirs" of the bacteria, the researchers said.

Originally published on Live Science.
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People across Ireland are being encouraged to experience the world a little bit differently this week during a national 'Dine in the Dark' culinary celebration and fundraiser.

In aid of the National Council for the Blind Ireland (NCBI), 200 restaurants across the country will plunge into darkness, forcing approximately 8,000 diners to make use of heightened senses of taste, touch and smell to enjoy their meals.

Longford's Black Olive restaurant, located on Ballymahon Street, is getting involved in this worthwhile initiative, with proprietor Fiona O'Keeffe gearing up for a great night.

She said; it's a unique evening, giving customers an experience of what it's like for blind people to eat and all for a great cause.

The campaign will go towards funding for services to help enhance the lives of those who are living with blindness.

They will be blindfolded, continued Fiona, before explaining how the restaurant will assist diners.

We will have to strategically place everything for people, with the plate laid out as best as possible to separate the food.

The Black Olive will be serving a three course meal at a cost of just 25, 5 of which will go to the NCBI.

Excited about how the night will pan out, Fiona finished; it will be a fun evening and all for a great cause.

Longford Dine in the Dark will take place this Friday, November 11 at 8pm.

To book a place, call The Black Olive on 043 3336248.

If you are unable to attend but wish to contribute, text DARK to 50300 to donate 4 and be in with a chance of winning a wine cellar.
On Sunday 13 November, the Longford and Westmeath Harriers will host their third annual Point to Point race meeting at Corbeagh House, Ballinalee.

This venue is now a well established fixture on the Point to Point calendar and has proved to be an ideal location for the meeting.

We are looking forward to this years event, organiser Linda Gallagher explained. A great days racing is planned.

This exciting day of racing starts at 12:30pm and the venue will be signposted from Longford, Edgeworthstown and Ballinalee.

The feature race is the JC Ferrall Memorial Open Race. This cup was purchased in 1949 by friends of the late Jack Ferrall, a renowned Longford Point to Point rider.Point to Point racing, which is run by The Irish National Hunt Steeplechase Committee, is often described as the lifeblood of the racing industry in Ireland.

Many horses that start their racing life at Point to Points graduate to the highest echelons of National Hunt racing both in Ireland and the UK.

Each race is run over three miles with 15 steeplechase jumps. The track is designed to run right handed, a perfect oval shape. It starts at the top of a gentle hill and heads down towards the back straight which is approximately three furlongs long. The home straight brings the horses up the Corbeagh hill to the finishing line.

The site has a natural viewing area so that spectators are able to see the entire race from practically anywhere on the field. This is an opportunity to get up close to the action and see racing at its very best.

Corbeagh House is a fifteen minute drive from Longford town. Ample parking and catering facilities will be available on the field. Live race commentary and on course bookies will add colour to the day.

The local community are again supporting the event including sponsors from Longford, Ballinalee and Edgeworthstown and the committee would like to acknowledge all the local businesses that are sponsoring races and advertising in the race programme.
Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases

By Don Miller Published: November 10 2016

LI food bank president appointed to state council that focuses on anti-hunger issues and advises the state on policies and programs to improve access to food.

Bethpage, NY - November 9, 2016 - Randi Shubin Dresner, president and CEO, Island Harvest Food Bank was recently appointed to the New York State Council on Hunger and Food Policy (CHFP) by Governor Andrew Cuomo at the recommendation of New York State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan. Governor Cuomo established the CHFP in 2016 to focus on anti-hunger issues in New York and advise the state on policies and programs to improve access to food, including healthy, locally-grown produce. The CHFP brings together experts from across the state representing state and municipal agencies, academia, nonprofits and the agriculture industry.

A resident of East Meadow, NY, Shubin Dresner is a leading advocate for people facing hunger and food insecurity on Long Island and in New York State. She is often called on as an expert source by the media, elected officials, and others on the issue of hunger and food insecurity, and poverty-related issues. Shubin Dresner is a member of the Energeia Partnership (also known as the Academy for Regional Stewardship at Molloy College), the Suffolk County Food Policy Council, and the Long Island Business Food Policy Council. In 2013 Governor Cuomo appointed her to serve on the Farmingdale State College Council. Her work has raised awareness of the insidious, yet often unrecognized problem of chronic hunger on Long Island along with other important societal issues.

I'm honored to be named to the New York State Council on Hunger and Food Policy, and I thank Governor Cuomo and Senator Flanagan for their confidence in me, said Shubin Dresner. I look forward to working with the Council and other organizations in coming up with innovative ways in which to help solve the chronic problem of food insecurity in New York.

Senator Flanagan noted, Having worked closely with Randi, I know how instrumental she has been in helping the lives of countless families. She has been a consistent leader in the fight against hunger and Governor Cuomos appointment will enable her to use her abilities to assist even more of those who are in need. Randis experience and passion will benefit our entire state and I look forward to continuing to work with her to help all New Yorkers.

State Agriculture Commissioner Richard Ball said, Hunger is a devastating and widespread problem across New York State and it is critical that we continue to aggressively address this problem. Through this Council, Governor Cuomo has assembled a dynamic group of people that each provide valuable experience in fighting hunger. I am thrilled to be leading this dedicated team and I look forward to continuing the important work of ensuring all New Yorkers have access to the food they need to lead healthy, full lives.

The CHFP is chartered with reinforcing collaboration between government, nonprofits, and business to address hunger and food insecurity; evaluate the effectiveness of existing policies and programs that expand access to healthy, affordable food, and recommend state action to expand agricultural production and processing and to develop new outlets for local food in underserved communities. The CHFP is further tasked with identifying ways to help farmers donate food to vulnerable New Yorkers; ensure that all schoolchildren have access to free or affordable breakfasts and lunches while making them more healthy and locally-grown, and incorporate nutrition education into school curriculums. The CHFP will recommend actions to improve the availability of an adequate food supply and access to locally-grown, fresh and nutritious food to children via school meal programs, emergency food providers, such as local pantries and food banks.

Island Harvest Food Bank has been leading the state in it farm-to-food bank program, yielding more than 11 million pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables from Long Islands farmers since its inception in 2015. The program is one of the largest farm-to-food-bank programs in New York State.

About Hunger on Long Island

Hunger is a state in which people do not get enough food to provide the nutrients for active and healthy lives. It can result from the recurrent lack of access to food. More than 316,000 Long Islanders face the risk of hunger every day, according to Island Harvest Food Bank and Feeding America, a national hunger-relief organization. Those facing hunger include adults (often working two jobs), seniors and veterans. Unable to make ends meet, they (and their children) are often forced to go without food. Approximately 70,000 individuals seek food assistance in Nassau and Suffolk counties each week through soup kitchens, food pantries and other feeding programs served by Island Harvest Food Bank.

About Island Harvest Food Bank

Island Harvest Food Bank is a leading hunger-relief organization that provides food and other resources to people in need. Always treating those it helps with dignity and respect, its goal is to end hunger and reduce food waste on Long Island through efficient food collection and distribution; enhanced hunger-awareness and nutrition-education programs; job training; and direct services targeted at children, senior citizens, veterans, and others at risk of food insecurity. As a result of Island Harvest Food Banks dynamic business model, more than 94 percent of expended resources go directly to programs and services that support over 316,000 Long Islanders facing hunger. Island Harvest Food Bank is a lead agency in the regions emergency response preparedness for food and product distribution, and is a member of Feeding America, the nations leading domestic hunger-relief organization. Island Harvest is a four-star-rated nonprofit by Charity Navigator, an independent charity watchdog organization. More information can be found at www.islandharvest.org.
Local News, Business & Finance, Community, Charity & Cause, Home & Garden, Press Releases, Seasonal & Current Events

By Long Island News & PR Published: November 09 2016

Nassau residents who are struggling with the prospect of losing their homes in mortgage foreclosure, or still have issues resulting from Superstorm Sandy, are invited to come.

Mineola, NY - November 1, 2016 - Nassau residents who are struggling with the prospect of losing their homes in mortgage foreclosure, or still have issues resulting from Superstorm Sandy, are invited to come for help from volunteer attorneys at the Nassau County Bar Association's Free Mortgage Foreclosure/Sandy Recovery Legal Consultation Clinics. The next two clinics are scheduled for Monday, November 7 and Monday, November 21, both 3 - 6 p.m., at the Nassau County Bar Association, located on 15th Street at the corner of West Street, Mineola, two blocks south of the bus and train stations. Reservations are requested at 516-747-4070.

NCBAs clinics allow homeowners concerned about foreclosure matters or who are already in the foreclosure process involving property in Nassau County, to meet one-on-one with a volunteer attorney for a free consultation. Homeowners then may be directed for additional help with mortgage modifications, loan restructuring, bankruptcy, financial planning assistance, services for lower income households and emotional support. Many of these resources and agencies are available immediately in the same room. Clinic volunteers include dozens of attorneys trained in mortgage foreclosure issues, bankruptcy attorneys, HUD-certified housing counselors from Community Development Corporation of Long Island, Hispanic Brotherhood of Rockville Centre and American Debt Resources.

There are no income restrictions to attend the clinics. Since 2009, NCBA has held more than 140 clinics assisting more than 12,000 Nassau families in distress. Currently, each clinic is held twice a month and averages 50 homeowners, signifying that mortgage fore continues to be prevalent in Nassau.

Volunteer attorneys also answer Sandy victims' questions regarding homeowner, flood, property damage and automobile insurance claims; FEMA, debt deferral, and consumer protection issues.

Bi-lingual attorneys fluent in Spanish are on site, and attorneys bi-lingual in other languages, including Russian, Haitian Creole, Korean, Chinese, Hindi and American Sign Language, may be requested when making reservations.

To make an appointment for the next clinic, call the Bar Association at 516-747-4070. Attendees are asked to bring their mortgage documents or other important papers and correspondence with them.

This program is funded through the NYS Attorney General Homeownership Protection Program (known as HOPP).

About the Nassau County Bar Association

Founded in 1899, the Nassau County Bar Association is the leader in providing legal information and community service on Long Island. NCBA consists of private and public attorneys, judges, legal educators and law students who demonstrate their commitment to the community by offering a variety of services for the public, including lawyer referral services, mortgage foreclosure, Sandy recovery and senior citizen legal clinics; judicial screening and public education programs. The Nassau Academy of Law provides the largest program of continuing education for the legal community. We Care, part of the Nassau Bar Foundation, NCBAs charitable arm, assists children, the elderly and others in need, through countless projects and donations. For more information, call (516) 747-4070 (language translation available), email, or visit nassaubar.org.
Local News, Local Steals & Deals, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases, Seasonal & Current Events

By Long Island News & PR Published: November 10 2016

ShopRite announced it is partnering with Hallmark to pay special tribute to military members  both active and retired  this Veterans Day, Friday, November 11.

Through November 12, ShopRite customers who spend $2.99 on any Hallmark item will receive a free Veterans Day card to send to a special veteran in their life.

Long Island, NY - November 8, 2016 - ShopRite announced it is partnering with Hallmark to pay special tribute to military members  both active and retired  this Veterans Day, Friday, November 11.

Specifically, through November 12, ShopRite customers who spend $2.99 on any Hallmark item will receive a free Veterans Day card to send to a special veteran in their life. Through the initiative, people will have the opportunity to express their gratitude and appreciation to the brave men and women who have served. The ShopRite family will also share personal stories and thank you notes from its associates via its local Facebook pages.

This Veterans Day we have a wonderful way to join with our community to say thanks to the men and women who serve in our armed forces," said Karen Meleta, vice president of Corporate Communications for ShopRite stores. We are proud to partner with Hallmark to honor the heroes in our neighborhoods who have selflessly sacrificed so much to serve our country.

With more than 260 ShopRite supermarkets located throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland, ShopRite serves more than seven million customers each week, and is a long-time supporter of key community efforts.

About ShopRite

ShopRite is the registered trademark of Wakefern Food Corp., a retailer-owned cooperative, based in Keasbey, NJ and the largest supermarket cooperative in the United States. With more than 260 ShopRite supermarkets located throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland, ShopRite serves more than seven million customers each week. A long-time supporter of key community efforts, ShopRite is dedicated to fighting hunger in the communities it serves. Through its ShopRite Partners In Caring program, ShopRite has donated $40 million to 2,000 worthy charities and food banks since the program began in 1999. As a title sponsor of the LPGAs ShopRite Classic, ShopRite has raised more than $28 million for local schools, hospitals and community groups. For more information, please visit www.ShopRite.com.
Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Health & Wellness, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: November 10 2016

A free Overdose Prevention and Naloxone (Narcan) Training Program was recently held at Seaford High School.

Seaford, NY - October 31, 2016 - Senator Michael Venditto (R, C, I-8th Senate District), in

partnership with Legislator Rose Marie Walker, Legislator Steve Rhoads, the Seaford School District and Friends of Wantagh-Seaford, recently held a free Overdose Prevention and Naloxone (Narcan) Training Program at Seaford High School. Participants learned how to recognize the signs and symptoms of an Opioid overdose and administer the lifesaving antidote Naloxone.

Heroin and prescription drug abuse are affecting individuals, families and communities across Long Island and New York State. I continue working together with local elected officials, community representatives and substance abuse agencies to offer residents free programs like Naloxone training and substance abuse awareness in order to help fight this deadly epidemic and save lives. Thank you to everyone who participated in this program and I will keep working hard for the individuals and families affected by drug addiction through legislation so they have the resources to overcome this disease," said Senator Venditto.



We are grateful to Senator Venditto and the representatives from Nassau County who helped us to host a successful opiate awareness and Narcan training on the evening of October 26th in the Seaford School District. The service agencies that participated, the heart wrenching family stories offered by the volunteer presenters, and the informative training contributed to a very successful evening. We pray the information shared will help to save some lives going forward. We look forward to future partnerships with our local officials that can bring important and necessary information to our school district and community, said Superintendent Brian Conboy.
Press Releases

By Legislator Anker's Office Published: November 10 2016

Citizen Preparedness Corps Training program scheduled for Wednesday, November 16th at 6:30pm at the North Shore Public Library.

The Citizen Preparedness Corps Training Program is offered through New York State and is a two hour training session to give residents of all ages the tools and resources to prepare for any type of disaster. Registration is required.

Shoreham, NY - November 10, 2016 - On Wednesday, November 16th at 6:30pm Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker and the Shoreham Civic Organization will host a Citizen Preparedness Corps Training Program. The program is free to all residents and will take place in the activities room of the North Shore Public Library (250 Route 25A, Shoreham).

The Citizen Preparedness Corps Training Program is offered through New York State and is a two hour training session to give residents of all ages the tools and resources to prepare for any type of disaster, respond accordingly, and recover as quickly as possible to pre-disaster conditions. Light refreshment will be served and each family participating in the training will receive a free Citizen Preparedness Corps Response Starter Kit.

As we begin to leave hurricane season and approach the winter months, it is important that all residents are prepared for different types of storms and emergency situations, said Legislator Anker. I encourage residents to participate in the Citizen Preparedness Corps Training Program to learn how to respond accordingly to a multitude of situations.

All residents must register for the training in advance. You can register online by visiting www.prepare.ny.gov and clicking Training Events or you can call Legislator Ankers office at 631-854-1600.
Nassau Cops to Collect Food For Needy Veterans and Their Families on Veterans Day

Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases, Seasonal & Current Events

By Long Island News & PR Published: November 10 2016

''Operation Hope'' will be launched with Island Harvest to provide groceries for those in the armed services that have returned home from war.

There are 3 million veterans nationwide who don't have enough to eat every day.

Massapequa, NY - November 10, 2016 - Nassau Police PBA President James Carver and police officials will be joined by Nassau County Legislator-Chairman of Public Safety, Dennis Dunne, in collecting food for needy veterans and their families, Friday, November 11, 2016 at 11:30 am (Veterans Day), 702 Hicksville Road, Massapequa, NY. They will be launching ''Operation Hope'' with Island Harvest to provide groceries for those in the armed services that have returned home from war. The police will be gathering food from area residents for many local veterans that are going hungry. There are 3 million veterans nationwide who don't have enough to eat every day.

When: Friday, November 11, 2016 at 11:30 am (Veterans Day)

Where: Outside of Stop and Shop at 702 Hicksville Road in Massapequa, NY
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


The Department of Tourism Regional Offices-CAR, Ilocos and Pangasinan, Cagayan Valley Region and Central Luzon along with the Association of Tourism Officers of Central Luzon (ATOCEL) are staging once again a grand North Philippines Expo 2016 on November 11-13, 2016 at SM City Clark Event Center. The Department of Tourism Regional Offices-CAR, Ilocos and Pangasinan, Cagayan Valley Region and Central Luzon along with the Association of Tourism Officers of Central Luzon (ATOCEL) are staging once again a grand exposition in showcasing tourism, travel destinations, native arts and crafts, souvenirs and regional delicacies. Come and visiton November 11-13, 2016 at SM City Clark Event Center.

For inquiries and more info, you may email us at northphilexposecretariat@gmail.com or call them at telephone numbers: (632) 832-93-03 to 05.
Will these connections soon be broken? Image by 3alexd/iStock.

A common theme in 2016: Protectionism is rising, with potentially devastating consequences for the world economy. Some cite rising trade barriers and protectionist measures around the world. Brexit, to others, was a vote against the global economy. Floundering multilateral trade deals, many argue, show the tide has turned against trade between nations. And now, on top of it all, Donald Trump-a candidate who preached ditching the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and renegotiating the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA)-has won the US presidency. Hence, many fear the world's increasingly global supply chain is about to break apart, rocking the world economy and stocks. But before you presume protectionism is destined to rise, let's consider what's talk and what's action; what is known, and what is a mere projection of politicized rhetoric.

It is true enough that protectionist rhetoric is rising lately, and if this became a reality on a large enough scale, it could be quite negative. Globalization[i] isn't a permanent phenomenon that advances interminably, regardless of policymakers' decisions. If it were meaningfully disrupted, supply chains could be impacted, profits could fall, consumer and producer prices could rise and a host of negative factors could come home to roost.[ii] Illustrating how intertwined the global economy is these days, consider Exhibit 1, which is a short list of the top five most American cars on the market by components (i.e., wheels, electronic components and such):

Exhibit 1: The Top Five Cars by Components Made in America

Toyota Camry Honda Accord Toyota Sienna Honda Odyssey Honda Pilot

Source: Cars.com, American-Made Index 2016.

You could say the same of many countries, and it isn't just in the car market. Little is 100% sourced in the nation that stamps "Made in _____" (insert nation of your choosing in the blank) on the final product. Reversing these connections could be problematic; this risk of protectionism is real.

According to the World Trade Organization's (WTO) July report, WTO members have enacted 2,800 trade-restrictive measures since October 2008, and only 25% have been repealed. In the period between mid-October 2015 and mid-May 2016, members enacted 22 restrictions per month. The WTO's measure only dates back to 2008, so it's hard to get a sense of history here, but WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo noted it's the highest rate since 2011. However, he also noted WTO members enacted 19 trade liberalizations per month in that same period. Obviously, this suggests protectionist actions are up and on net exceeding liberalizations, but the huge majority of these (see the WTO's database here) are very narrow in nature. Many target China's steel industry, an issue ongoing for literally years. Many of the rest aren't good, but Chile slapping a tariff on imports of steel nails is pretty unlikely to be crisis-inducing and likely hits Chilean carpenters hardest. You can create your own joke about the hammer hitting the nail, or the carpenter's thumb, here.

While those actions range from modestly annoying to economically inefficient, Canada and the European Union recently inked a sweeping free-trade deal known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). CETA may be the most sweeping, deepest trade deal ever dreamt up. It isn't a done deal yet, as national parliaments must approve it and legal challenges may linger, but should the momentum carry forward, tariffs and trade barriers on 99% of goods and many services are poised to vanish as it is implemented. This easily exceeds NAFTA and the proposed (but unlikely to pass-more on that momentarily) TPP. CETA is a strong rebuke to media theorizing that "globalization is in retreat."

It didn't come easy-such big, multilateral deals rarely do! Talks began on May 6, 2009, concluding over two years ago. EU rules require all 28 governments to approve such treaties, and economic and political interests across the 28 aren't uniform. One such country, a microcosm of the broader bloc, is Belgium. Belgium's national government needs unanimity among the provinces to cast its vote for a deal. Recently, when the French-speaking southern region, Wallonia (the alleged birthplace of french fries-one heck of an export), objected, it threw a monkey wrench into the deal. Many thought CETA dead-a symbol of faltering free trade, not an expansion of it.

Wallonia is a stereotypical place negatively impacted by trade: massive industrial job losses; closed factories and mills; graffiti; low incomes and high unemployment. (It is now how many viewed my hometown, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when I grew up decades ago.) Concerns, including worries over local farmers and businesses, ran deep. If Wallonia stuck to its guns, it could have upended seven years of trade diplomacy. However, the Belgian government offered increased benefits for Walloon farmers and the region flipped, clearing the way for the deal to advance.

That, folks, is action on trade, and it is in the "freer" direction. Most of what you hear is talk. Take Brexit for example. Brexit isn't inherently a vote against globalization at all. Stop. Re-read that sentence. Yes, sure, there may be a group of Brexiteers who are anti-trade. But most Brits seem to want to retain free trade with the EU's single market. Moreover, one pro-Brexit sales pitch was that it would free Britain from the need to get 27 other nations on board with trade deals! Which Prime Minister Theresa May is actively trying to execute on. Perhaps that proves true and perhaps it doesn't, but it is odd to view Brexit as a rejection of world trade. Whatever your view of the vote or justification for it, if talks conclude with British firms maintaining access to the EU's single market, is Brexit a setback for globalization or a nothing? I'd argue the latter, and the fact is both sides have incentives to reach that conclusion, given huge cross-Channel interconnectedness.

Perhaps, as some suggest, CETA is a one-off, and other big deals like TPP and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP, the proposed pact between the US and EU) will fall apart. But I'm not so sure either are such clear evidence of a sea change in global sentiment. We've argued for years on these pages neither is likely to pass anytime soon. Before Donald Trump took the presidency and before Clinton figured out the public didn't think TPP was such a "gold standard" deal. Multi-lateral deals are always difficult to achieve. TPP involves 12 countries, and any negotiation with the EU is inherently multilateral (see CETA). This is the same reason the Doha round of world trade talks took forever and resulted in little; it is why virtually every "big" negotiation ever takes years to execute, if it happens at all. Heck, it took years for the US' bilateral deals with Korea and Colombia to come to fruition, even after talks were done. The kicker, though, is that whatever happens with TPP and TTIP, it doesn't mean globalization is retreating so much as standing still-not advancing isn't synonymous with moving backwards.

Which brings me to President-elect Trump. In this year's presidential race, his rhetoric certainly was anti-trade, arguing for a NAFTA renegotiation and tariffs on China. But, again, rhetoric isn't action! Bill Clinton was lukewarm about NAFTA in 1992's campaign (it was negotiated by his principal competitor, George H.W. Bush), then saw it through Congress the next year. In 2008's presidential primaries, Barack Obama argued NAFTA should be renegotiated because it didn't work for American workers. When questioned, he and his campaign argued there was no way Canada and Mexico would walk away from the bargaining table. That is exactly what Trump said! Eight years later, Obama has done nothing to renegotiate NAFTA[iii], signed the Korea and Colombia deals, cites Trump's rhetoric as irresponsible and backs the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It isn't just him! Democrats and Republicans vying for office frequently argue China manipulates its currency and should be punished with tariffs-it's an election year tradition. Mitt Romney did it in 2012. Obama did that, too, in 2008! But today, Donald Trump's tough talk on China is presumed to be deadly serious. Remember: All talk is cheap, but politicians' campaign trail talk frequently has the same value as Bernie Madoff's returns.

Maybe Donald Trump is more sincere in his anti-trade stance. Trade is an area of American policy that the president has some unilateral control over, so it is worth watching. But at this point, assuming we're going to roll back half a century of global connections between businesses and countries and cause a protectionism-driven recession is premature. It's one reason why we'd suggest fear of Trump may exceed reality post-inauguration-setting up markets for a positive surprise. Watch if you like-I suggest you do!-but let's be clear, speculation today about globalization's collapse is just that. Speculation.
President-elect Trump: The beginning of an Era? Or the End of one?

Everyone was so certain. The pollsters and poll watchers almost uniformly predicted a Trump defeat  among them the celebrated Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight who gave Trump only a thirty-eight percent chance of winning heading into Election Day.

Of the eleven national polls to be released in the final week of the race, only two  a Los Angeles Times/USC survey and one from IBD/TIPP  showed Trump with the lead (TheHill, Nov. 9). These polls proved the most accurate for two consecutive presidential cycles.

Polls missed at the state level and nationally. So did aggregated polls. So did poll-based forecasts. And so did exit polls. It will take a while to figure out exactly why polls missed, wrote Bialik and Enten at FiveThirtyEight.com (Nov. 9).

Maybe it was from polling error? This election miss was an important one because Clinton appeared to lead by a margin small enough that it might just have been polling error, they claimed. That turned out to be mostly true  true enough for her to lose in the Electoral College, and for Democrats to fall far short of taking control of the Senate.

Or maybe sheepish white Trump loyalists didnt honestly admit their preference to pollsters? Or maybe, as pollster John Zogby believes, pollsters weighed their polls too heavily in favor of Democrats  something Trump had alleged.

An outside theory is that third-party candidate Gary Johnson played a decisive role. He scored more than 3.5 percent support in Wisconsin and Michigan, enough to make up the difference between Trump and Clinton. He took 2.5 percent support in Pennsylvania, which was decided by about 1 point.

On the other hand, maybe it was voter suppression that pollsters failed to factor? Voting machine glitches, voter ID games, early polling location closures, lost ballots, purged voter rolls and long lines at the local precinct will be long argued as causes behind a Republican sweep.

A friend of almost forty-five years and retired Chicago media VP was so certain of Mrs. Clinton reaching 360 Electoral votes he penned an essay and submitted it to social media on Election Eve. What we're going to do on Nov. 9th, he predicted, is look back on this debacle and say, He (Trump) never had a realistic chance. And he didn't.

His pre-Election Day prophecy posted on Facebook scored fifty "likes" in about an hour, he boasted. Come November 9th, he didnt write me to explain how he was so wrong.

Is President-elect Donald Trumps victory the beginning of an era, as the Alt-Right claims, or is it the end of one?

Another friend, a busy Arizona writer on monetary matters wrote me, This is a dying gasp of a dying epoch. (The epoch being the last stages of freewheeling neoliberal capitalism.)

This is the most incredible political feat I have seen in my lifetime, Rep. Paul Ryan said on Nov. 9. And now, Donald Trump will lead a unified Republican government. And we will work hand-in-hand on a positive agenda to tackle this countrys big challenges.

Ryan, who once called-off plans to campaign with Trump and cited Trump remarks as the textbook definition of racism, changed his views of the President-elect overnight, as did almost every other Republican Trump critic.

Trump is open for business and job-seekers are tripping over themselves forgetting their candidates penchant for violent outbursts, dictatorial proclivity, mental and emotional instability, anger, rage and revenge.

With GOP controlled executive, legislative and soon-to-be judicial branches, top Republican policy experts now foresee easily enacting sweeping conservative agendas:

repealing ObamaCare; nominating a Scalia-type conservative to the Supreme Court; rolling back dozens of Obama administration regulations and executive actions; gutting EPA; tough immigration laws; regressive tax cuts; appropriating funding for a wall on the border with Mexico; reforming entitlements including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

As the GOP now will escalate its wars against the poor, the elderly, the unemployed, the disenfranchised, the minorities, the immigrants, the environment, civil rights, unions, women, the media - harnessing absolute dominance over a thoroughly divided nation  what will Democrats do?

There is a time and a place in politics for compromise. There is also a time to stand your ground, act and react on principle, shun appeasement and placation.

Who will challenge Mr. Trumps unAmerican campaign promises that violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and 14th Amendments? Challenge his wall? Challenge the forced deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants? Challenge banning the entry of Muslims into this country? Challenge punishing women for accessing abortion? Challenge reauthorizing waterboarding and other forms of torture? Challenge changing libel laws and restricting freedom of expression?

Upon his election, the ACLU sent Mr. Trump this message: We will be eternally vigilant every single day of your presidency.

If Donald Trump implements his proposed policies, they wrote, well see him in court.

 2016 Michael T. Bucci

(Michael T. Bucci is a retired public relations executive who currently resides in New England. He has authored nine books on practical spirituality collectively titled The Cerithous Material.)

Notes:

Jonathan Easley, Pollsters suffer huge embarrassment, The Hill, November 9, 2016.

file:///C:/AppsMBRB/downloads/Pollsters%20suffer%20huge%20embarrassment%20_%20TheHill.htm

Scott Wong, Trump, Ryan signal new chapter in relationship, The Hill, November 9, 2016.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/305345-trump-ryan-signal-new-chapter-in-relationship

Charles D. Ellison, 7 reasons Trump won  and why we're surprised, The Hill, November 9, 2016.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/305300-7-reasons-trump-won-and-were-surprised

Carl Bialik and Harry Enten, The Polls Missed Trump. We Asked Pollsters Why, FiveThirtyEight, November 9, 2016.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-missed-trump-we-asked-pollsters-why/

Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia, With GOP sweep, Trump team eyes more ambitious agenda, Politico, November 9, 2016.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/trump-transition-agenda-team-231155

Anthony D. Romero, If Donald Trump Implements His Proposed Policies, Well See Him in Court, ACLU, November 9, 2016.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/if-donald-trump-implements-his-proposed-policies-well-see-him-court

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




The event will be held by the Embassy of Argentina in Vietnam to help Vietnamese audiences learn more about the unique aspects and rich cultural heritage of South American filmmaking.

The films will be screened at the Cinebox, 212 Ly Chinh Thang street, district 3, with subtitles in English and Vietnamese languages.

(Photo provided by the Organizing Board)

This marks the first time the Embassy of Argentina has organised a film week in HCM City.

Previously, this film week was organised four times in Hanoi. The four films are No kids (2015), My first wedding (2011), Underdogs (2013) and Vinyl Days (2012)./.
As Donald Trumps victory party was filling up with people Tuesday, one Martinsville man stood in the media waiting area along with several hundred others to capture the event.

It was for Ray Reynolds the 45th event he had covered on the campaign trail. Reynolds, who hails as, The Man in Yellow, for all of his yellow camera gear, was ecstatic with the results and only feared of corruption coming from the Clinton campaign.

His first Trump event on Aug. 27, 2015, was in Aiken, South Carolina, for a Trump meet and greet. From there, Reynolds accumulated 28,000 miles travelling to photograph Trump.

The coverage included a few special moments, including being the personal photographer for Trump a few times, Mike Pence in Virginia Beach and the Greensboro Coliseum, and Ivanka Trumps personal photographer in Charlotte.

It did not stop there.

After Gen. Michael Flynn heard of how many events Reynolds had covered while he was speaking on behalf of Trump in Kinston, North Carolina, Flynn requested to have a photograph taken with Reynolds.

There have been countless days with no sleep, said Reynolds in a phone interview Wednesday.

Reynolds said there were some events he would attend that 13,000 would be inside to hear and see Trump, and even more standing on the outside that were not able to get inside.

He even got the chance to meet Trump, saying the president-elect is, a man of his word, honest, and compassionate. Hes very caring and a generous person.

During the hot summer months especially, Trump made sure the media on hand at events got water and stayed cool as they had to wait long hours before doors would open at events and rallies.

What drove Reynolds to support Trump and get so involved was the loss of his mother and sister. His mother died in January 2015 after her medication was no longer covered due to the Affordable Care Act and six months later in July his sister died waiting on a respiratory test to be approved  a process doctors told her that under the new laws would take months.

In New York Tuesday night, Reynolds was invited to join the victory party because the Trump team knew, I wanted to be a part of history and made sure it happened. It was in part a thank you from the Trump Campaign.

While the future is certain for Trump, Reynolds is not yet sure of what he will be doing since the election is over.

For now, he is enjoying this victory and is excited for the future.

Bell reports for the Danville Register & Bee
SANVILLE-Sanville Elementary principal J. Ronnie Mendenhall has stepped down. The Henry County School Board accepted Mendenhalls resignation during their meeting on Thursday.

Departing for personal reasons, the retired educator dedicated 36 years of his life to instruction.

Mendenhall retired in February 2016 from the educational system in Stokes County, North Carolina, before coming out of retirement to serve as Sanvilles principal. In his career, he took on the role of teacher, assistant principal, principal and superintendent.

It is with great sadness that I am leaving Sanville Elementary. This decision comes after a great deal of thought and is one that I did not make lightly, Mendenhall said. I am so grateful to have been able to serve the students, staff and families of Henry County Public Schools and will greatly miss the Sanville school community.

In his time with us, Mr. Mendenhall has worked with the staff at Sanville to implement positive systems of support for increased student growth and success. His dedication to excellence and a student-centered learning experience has moved Sanville Elementary in the right direction. We are saddened to lose Mr. Mendenhall, but respect his desire to be with his family at this time, said Dr. Jared Cotton, division superintendent.

While Mendenhalls resignation will not take effect until December 31, the school board is already taking measures to find a new principal.

The position was posted on the HCPS website following the board meeting today so that the application and interview process can begin and a highly qualified replacement can be prepared to assume the role as principal at Sanville upon Mr. Mendenhalls departure at the end of the semester, Monica Hatchett, director of communications and organizational learning, said.

While it is too early to presume who Sanvilles next principal will be, the school system does not expect the vacancy to persist past Mendenhalls resignation date.

Amie Knowles reports for the Martinsville Bulletin. She can be reached at amie.pickeral@martinsvillebulletin.com
Activities will include a performance of Belgiums legendary producer and DJ: ATTAR, and concerts featuring Belgian pianist and composer Jef Neve.

The week will also be a chance for Vietnamese visitors to discover well-known Belgian products, such as chocolate, beer, waffles and fries.

The event will be held by Belgium Embassy in Vietnam to mark Belgian Kings Day (November 15th) and promote bilateral cooperation.

Various dishes to be introduced during the week

(Photo provided by the Belgium Embassy in Vietnam)

Over the past 43 years, ties between Vietnam and Belgian have been promoted. In December, a commercial delegation from Flanders and Brussels will come Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city to study opportunities for business.

In addition, Belgium Day will be held in Ecopark in the northern province of Hung Yen on November 13th. This will create an opportunity for participants to discover Belgian culture, literature, cinema, education, regions, cities, nature and enterprises, and study cooperation between Vietnam and Belgium./.
Kudos to Ben Williams for his clear article explaining why our transition away from coal and to newer, cleaner, even cheaper, forms of energy is not only unavoidable, its inevitable. Williams could have added that Saudi Arabia has seen the handwriting on the wall for more than a decadethey see that the world is unavoidably transitioning away from oil too. Saudia Arabia has begun planning for a post-coal and post-oil age. In America, some energy and market analysts (see for example Stanfords Tony Seba) envision that by 2030, Detroit will be mass-producing only electric vehicles, and oil will be on its way to obsolescence. Last month, German legislatures voted on a ban, to commence in 2030, on production of new gas or diesel vehicles. But its likely that such a ban is really necessarymarket forces appear to be driving this transition at about that speed.

In a recent column about the coal industry, the author assumes the coal industry is looking to be saved. It isnt. What it is looking for is a level playing field in which it can compete with other sources of energy. He first mentions gas as a driving factor in the challenges faced by coal. According to a study by King University, natural gas accounted for the loss of 20 million tons in coal demand before 2013, compared to the 105 million tons loss resulting from EPA regulations that took hold afterwards. Duke University found low natural gas prices threatened less than 10 percent of the nations coal power plants while EPA regulations threatened the economic viability of 56 percent. The governments Clean Power Plan would double the coal plants closed to reduce global warming by just 0.018 degrees centigrade over the next century. And its Stream Protection Rule (which simply duplicates existing protections) would make one half or more of total U.S. coal reserves off limits to mining. Without those rules coal production would increase and stabilize. The author also mentions wind and solar energy as an increasingly affordable source of energy, ignoring the massive government subsidies sustaining these sources of energy. The coal industry is not looking to be saved, it is looking to compete on a level playing field without a government that is working behind the scenes to remake the energy market without coal.
TODAYS WORD is mouse potato. Example: He was a mouse potato during Election Day, rarely leaving his computer.

WEDNESDAYS WORD was bawbee (baw-bee). It means a coin of low value. Example: A penny would be considered a bawbee, since it isnt worth much.

School Board meets

The Henry County School Board will hold their monthly meeting this morning at 9 a.m., on the first floor of the County Administration Building, 3300 Kings Mountain Road. The meeting will include discussion on Meadow View Elementary, along with an update on the districts budget situation.

Honoring Korean War veterans

Bassett Funeral Service is partnering with the Bassett Historical Center tomorrow, as theyre looking to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War. On Friday, a special ceremony will be held over at Bassett Funeral Service, 3665 Fairystone Park Highway, starting at 2 p.m. The program will help dedicate the bench honoring 125 Henry County soldiers, some who were born here, some who lived here and some who worked here. Anybody is welcome to come.

Veterans Breakfast

Oak Level Ruritan Club, 3551 Oak Level Road, will hold a free breakfast for veterans this Saturday from 7 to 10 a.m. The menu includes creamed beef on toast, scrambled eggs and coffee. Anyone is welcome to come, with a $3 charge for non-veterans.

Victory with Veterans

Gospel Baptist Church, over at 8208 Daniels Creek Road, will have a special Victory with Vets service and meal on Sunday. The service starts at 9:30 a.m., with people invited to bring framed photos of themselves or any veteran in their family. Those photos will be displayed at the service and then returned.

Diwali celebration

On Saturday, Piedmont Arts will celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights in India. Its a holiday that stretches over a five day period in that country, celebrating the victory of good over evil through fireworks and candles being lit on rooftops, windows and other buildings. From 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Piedmont Arts will celebrate the event with India Family Day. Kids can try out free Indian snacks, music and crafts, including a chance to build 3D elephant cutouts, 3D architecture cutouts, and rangoli coloring sheets. Kids also will be able to build a paper diya or oil lamp, as well as take part in a fashion show of traditional Indian clothes at 11:30 a.m.

Caregiver Luncheon

Edwards Adult Day Center will celebrate National Caregivers Appreciation Month with a Caregiver Luncheon Nov. 18. Itll start at noon, with lunch and a program. Dr. Arlene A. Carter-Pounds will be the speaker.

Turkey Day 5K

This years Turkey Day 5K and Family Fun Run will be on Thanksgiving Day at 9 a.m., starting at the Martinsville YMCA. People can register at www.milesinmartinsville.com

TRIVIA QUESTION: Veterans Day used to have a different name. What was it called and why was it changed? The answer will be in tomorrows Stroller.

WEDNESDAYS TRIVIA ANSWER: As we get closer to Veterans Day, lets talk about military honors. What is the highest military decoration given to a member of the armed services of the United States? Why was it created? The highest military decoration given to a member of the armed services is the Medal of Honor. It was created during the Civil War, originally named the Medal of Valor in 1861 and given out to Navy members. An Army version was created the next year, in 1862 and called the Medal of Honor. That became the official title soon after. As Congress made the Medal of Honor a permanent decoration for military personnel in 1863.
VFF President Nguyen Thien Nhan addresses the meeting. (Photo: VNA)

The meeting was held in the framework of the visit to Vietnam by Zhang Dejiang, permanent Politburo member of China and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Chinese National Peoples Congress.

Addressing the meeting, President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) Nguyen Thien Nhan praised VUFO and CPAFFC for organizing the meeting, showing his belief that the meeting would contribute to increasing mutual understanding and trust, further promoting the cooperation relations between the localities of the two countries.

He stressed that Vietnam attached great importance to developing the friendship and cooperative relations with China, considering it a strategic selection and a top priority in the countrys foreign policies. Maintaining stable and healthy development of the Vietnam - China relations, and increasing cooperation between the two Parties, States and peoples, are important factors for peace, stability and the development of each country, of the region and the world.

He noted that localities and people from the two countries play important roles in realizing the common awareness of the high-ranking leaders. During this meeting, the two sides should focus on discussing measures to reinforce the friendly relations and expand cooperation in diverse areas, especially in economics, trade, investment and tourism, he said.

Speaking at the meeting, Zhang Dejiang stressed that the meeting was an important event for exchanging friendship between the two countries, creating a new vitality for Vietnam -China relations, and urging the two sides to promote cooperation in all areas for sustainable development.

There is a strong link between Chinese and Vietnamese economies, he said, adding that China looked towards to increase links in infrastructure and the building of border economic cooperation zones.

He went on to say that the two sides should continue to expand cooperation in economics, trade, investment, agricultural production, transport, culture, healthcare, education, tourism, border joint patrol and the prevention of criminals crossing through borders.

According to Zhang Dejiang, the two countries should increase experience sharing while Ministries, localities and businesses should disseminate experience in economic development, social management and Party building./.
Donald Trump gave an excellent acceptance speech Tuesday night.

I say that sincerely. It sounded presidential.

I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all of Americans, and this is so important to me, he said. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I'm reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.

Thats a wonderful sentiment.

It is also a promise so staggering that it may well be impossible to honor.

Im not telling any tales out of school when I say that this election has torn our country apart. There are people I have known for years that I have no real desire to ever speak to again, and I am certain the feeling is mutual.

Looking at my Facebook feed on Wednesday morning, it didnt look like my friends were weighing in on an election. It looked like they were struggling to cope with a national tragedy.

I have been fortunate to meet people from all walks of life. I have friends of every color and religion, friends who are undocumented immigrants, friends who are gay, friends who are transgender. These are people who have broadened my understanding of society. I cannot always understand the struggles they face, but even if I cannot empathize, I can sympathize.

On Wednesday morning, these friends of mine were terrified. I know second generation undocumented immigrants who are terrified they are going to be deported from the only home they have ever known. I know gay people who are terrified that their marriages are going to be rendered null and void. And I know many people who are simply afraid that they are going to be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs, or their gender, or the color of their skin.

As a journalist, I myself felt a shiver run up my spine earlier this week when a photo made the rounds of a man at a Minnesota Trump rally wearing a T-shirt that said Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required.

The people who are terrified of a Donald Trump presidency are not terrified out of some knee-jerk reaction that came from thin air. They are terrified because of things they have seen and heard Trump and his supporters say at rallies across America. In many cases, they are terrified at the thought he will actually fulfill his campaign promises.

How are they supposed to square those fears with his speech early Wednesday morning, that inspirational call for togetherness and unification?

If youre still reading this far, I want to make something completely clear. I do not want Donald Trump to fail. Im sure there are people out there who did not support Trump and are hoping that he will be an embarrassment, just so they can cluck their tongues and say I told you so.

Im not one of them. I dont believe in cutting off my nose to spite my face.

I want Donald Trump to be a great president. I want Donald Trump to be the greatest president this country has ever known. Four years from now, I want my friends  friends who said that in the early hours of Wednesday morning, they were gripped with fear for their children and troubled by thoughts that they had failed them  I want them to look back and laugh at how misguided their concerns were.

I want that more than anything.

The election is over now, mercifully, and come Jan. 20, Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. He has reached out to the people he insulted and dismissed during his campaign. Thats a good start.

Now the hard work begins. Now he has the unenviable task of continuing to hold out that olive branch and provide reasons why his opposition should take it. Now he must reunite this country, stitch by painful stitch, and prove himself to be the man deserving of the most powerful office in the world.

Frankly, I dont know what the path to healing looks like. But I truly do hope that he finds it.
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Argentinian friends participating in activities promoting Vietnam in Mar del Plate city (Photo: VNA)



A large number of professors, students and friends who, loving Vietnam, had actively participated in Vietnam antiwar movements in 1960s and 1970s, participated in activities held at the Faculty of Humanities of the National University of Mar del Plata and Pedagogical College No. 81 in the city of Miramar.

Speaking at the event, Prof. Ezequiel Ramoneda, Vice President of ICAV of the National University of La Plata, presented the geography and history of Vietnam, and the enduring struggle against foreign invaders of Vietnamese people to protect the country's sovereignty. Mr. Ramoneda also presented the reconstruction process after Vietnams reunification and socio-economic achievements in 30 years of innovation.

For his part, President of ICAV Poldi Sosa emphasized Vietnams historical lessons in the cause of national defence and building the country. She affirmed that Vietnam is "the conscience of the time" and expressed that in those years of hardship under the Argentine military dictatorship in 1960s and 1970s, the image of Vietnam was always a source of encouragement for progressive forces in South American countries in particular and in Latin America in general.

Meanwhile, Prof. Renee Girardi from the University of Buenos Aires talked about the special impressions about the country, people, cultural traditions of Vietnam during her over two-week visit to Vietnam in 2014. Ms. Girardi praised the great merits of President Ho Chi Minh for the cause of national liberation in Vietnam and read several verses in "Prison diary" by Uncle Ho.

On this occasion, short films about the aftermath of the war in Vietnam, especially Agent Orange sprayed by the US army on the territory of Vietnam, still impacting many generations of Vietnamese people as well as having dangerous effects on the environment, as well as images of famous tourist destinations, and socio-economic achievement of the country today were also screened.

Speaking at the event, the Vietnamese Embassy thanked the Argentinian people for their support and help for Vietnam in war as well as in the reconstruction process and building the country today.

On this occasion, representatives of the Vietnamese Embassy also presented books about President Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap, published in Spanish, to the library of the National University of Mar del Plata and Pedagogical College No. 81./.
Turners Falls, a community that last prospered during the early 20th century, is in the midst of a renaissance.

Its Main Street, Avenue A, is seeing new restaurants and shops open; among those is Riff's North, which debuted last January.



An offshoot of a popular Easthampton eatery, Riff's North offers casual dining fare - sandwiches (they're dubbed "Riffwiches"), burgers, hot dogs, and Tex-Mex favorites. The Turners Falls location differs in its style of service; unlike its parent operation, Riff's North provides waitress service.



The restaurant occupies an Avenue A location that had previously housed a high-end Italian eatery, so the space retains some of that operation's characteristics - a handsome bar, a multileveled dining space, and an outdoor dining terrace.



"Fresh ingredients" and "bold flavors" are the credos at Riffs; menu selections, although casual in style, strive to be creative.



Natural casing franks (Riff's calls them "therapy dogs") are offered in forms like the Pigpen Dog (it's topped with pulled pork and coleslaw ---$7), while Riffwich options range from an Avocado BLT ($11.50) to a Riff Reuben ($10.50).



"Mexicali Stuff" is a category populated by the likes of an Avocado Goat Cheese Quesadilla ($11.50) and a Tie Dyed Burrito ($8.50) stuffed with black beans, jasmine rice, and peanut slaw.



Wings are a big part of the bar food agenda, but Riff's North also features nibbles such as Sweet Potato Fries (they're served with curry ketchup -- $7), Pulled Pork Eggrolls ($7), and Thai Lettuce Wraps ($10)



We settled at Riff's late one afternoon with a basket of the restaurant's Parm Garlic Fries ($7). Hand-cut French fries are drizzled with garlic butter and sprinkled with grated parmesan; a robustly flavorful truffled mayonnaise is provided for dipping purposes. The result takes the fried potato experience to new flavor levels.



We're fans of a good hot dog, but would "frankly" never think to dress up dogs the way Riff's does. The Riff Reuben Dog ($7) started with the basics - a top quality frankfurter in a butter-grilled bun - but went on to dress it up as a reuben sandwich - sliced corned beef, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese. A bit too messy to enjoy as a handheld, but we enjoyed every savory forkful.



Our second selection came from the menu's listing of chicken sandwiches, an assortment that ranges from a Rajin' Cajun ($10.50) to a Pesto ($12), the flavor signature of the latter underscored with pesto, goat cheese, and caramelized onion.



Our Southern Fried Chicken Sandwich ($11.50) was an All-American creation - crispy-fried chicken cutlet, bacon, a slather of garlic mayo, sliced tomato, and crisp lettuce. Built on a brioche-influenced roll, the sandwich was certainly enjoyable but didn't have quite the same adventurous character the reuben dog did.



The beverage menu at Riff's North focuses on local craft brews and created-in-house cocktails, like the S'Mores Martini that's served with a graham cracker crumb "rim." A small assortment of mass-market wines is also stocked.



For dessert the restaurant usually has three or four choices available; like the rest of the menu, they tend to have a "what?" factor to them.



A Pumpkin-Sweet Potato Tart ($6) seemed to have promise. An individual-sized freeform affair, it featured a thin layer of pumpkin filling and a topping of crushed walnuts. Enjoyed with an extra-cost ($3) scoop of maple ice cream, it was a likeable enough conclusion.



Much the same was the case with the Salted Caramel Pretzel Brownie ($2.50) we enjoyed. Chocolate and caramel is, after all, a winning combination, and the "crust" of slightly sweetened pretzel crumbs added an interesting contrast of flavor and texture.



Riff's also features grilled pizza. A basic Cheese Pizza ($7) is the perfect size for a shared snack or a solo meal; Riff's offers the option to further customize the pie with various sauces, cheeses, and toppings.



We put together our made-to-order pizza experience by requested chicken, Cheddar, barbecue sauce, red onions, and bacon ($13). A cracker-crisp crust and the right combination of fresh, flavorful ingredients made for a pizza experience we'd eagerly repeat.



Name: Riff's North Restaurant and Bar

Address: 166 Avenue A, Turners Falls

Telephone: (413) 863-3700

Website: riffsnorth.com

Hours: Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Entree prices: $6.25 - $12

Credit cards: MasterCard, Visa

Handicapped access: Accessible with rest rooms equipped for wheelchair use

Reservations: Not normally taken
Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt as Wardaddy in Columbia Pictures' "Fury."

(AP photo | Sony Pictures Entertainment)

An investigation into whether actor Brad Pitt was abusive toward his son on a private flight in September says the case has been closed with no finding of abuse by the actor. according to TMZ and The Hollywood Reporter.

Various news outlets have reported the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services had been looking into allegations Pitt was abusive toward his 15-year-old son on the flight in mid-September. Pitt's wife, actress Angelina Jolie, filed for divorce days after the incident, with her lawyer saying it was "for the health of the family."

Custody of the couple's six children has been the primary issue in their divorce.

Pitt, 52, made his first public appearance on Wednesday night since Jolie filed for divorce while attending a private screening of "Moonlight" in Los Angeles.

"It's really sweet, everyone has been really kind out here," he said, according to E! News. "It's really nice to have all the support."
pfhs

Plans for the Thomas J. Sullivan Memorial Alumni Plaza.

(Pope Francis High School Facebook page)

A Western Massachusetts native killed in an attack on military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee last year was honored this week by his high school.

Pope Francis High School held a ceremony Wednesday to unveil plans for a plaza at the school's Springfield location set to open next year. The plaza, located at the front entrance of the new school, will be named the Thomas J. Sullivan Memorial Alumni Plaza.

Sullivan was killed on July 16, 2015 as he tried to rescue wounded Marines under fire on a naval reserve center. He was one of five service members killed during the attacks.

Joe Sullivan called it a "fitting" tribute to his brother, a man who loved his alma mater.

He is a native of East Forest Park who graduated a member of the Cathedral High School Class of 1994.

Cathedral merged with Holyoke Catholic High School to form Pope Francis. Students currently attend class in the former Holyoke Catholic campus in Chicopee.

The new $50 million facility will be built on Surrey Road in Springfield, the former site of Cathedral High School.
UPDATE, 11:50 p.m.: At approximately 10:30 p.m., environmental police shot the moose with a tranquilizer dart. The animal took several minutes before succumbing to the influence of the drugs. After collapsing, the moose was loaded into a tractor-trailer and mechanically lowered into a flat-bed truck, where it was strapped down and transported away. Police were likely going to find a suitable place to release it.

SPRINGFIELD  An adult male moose made a surprise visit Wednesday night to the backyard of a Brightwood neighborhood home in the North End.

The animal was trapped by fencing surrounding the yard at 68 Lowell St. It was not immediately clear how it ended up in the yard.

The moose was in the back section of the yard eating leaves off of a tree.

A Springfield police officer said environmental authorities have been looking for the animal most of the day after sightings of a moose in Agawam were reported. Authorities believe the moose swam across the Connecticut River into Springfield.

A small crowd gathered outside the residence to watch. Environmental authorities arrived just before 9 p.m. and were expected to tranquilize the moose.

Follow updates on the loose moose via Twitter with The Republican's Lucas Ropek at https://twitter.com/LucasRopek1
CHICOPEE -- A former U.S. Army staff sergeant who walked from Western Massachusetts to Boston says his "feet were sore but his heart was strong" when he arrived on the steps of the Statehouse Nov. 4.

James Chartier embarked upon the 90-mile trek to raise public awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder, homelessness and other problems faced by returning veterans. He left Nov. 2 from the Amvets Post 12 in Chicopee and marched for three days.

"It was an amazing journey," he said.

The Chicopee resident was greeted in Boston by Francisco A. Urena, Gov. Charlie Baker's secretary of veterans' services; Bennett W. Walsh, the new superintendent of the Holyoke Soldiers' Home; and Bridget Peery, an aide to state Rep. Joseph F. Wagner, D-Chicopee. Also present were other veterans, first responders, friends, family and supporters.

On the final leg of Chartier's "90 Mile March," he was escorted by the Patriot Guard Riders, the nonpolitical motorcycle group that honors fallen American heroes.

Chartier said he spoke with state officials and conducted interviews with the media, but that his quest is just beginning. He said veterans are taking their own lives at the rate of 22 per day, and that 55,000 vets are homeless. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals are not properly diagnosing PTSD, he said, and could do a better job connecting traumatized vets with the proper resources.

"I've been invited back to the Statehouse Friday for their annual Veterans Day ceremony," he said. "I have speaking engagements lined up. I plan to do this again next year, and hopefully it will be bigger."

He thanked the One Call Away Foundation, which works to prevent suicide among military veterans. On Facebook, he also thanked his wife, Vivian, who helped plan the mission and offered support along the route.

Chartier did not see combat during his military service in the 1980s, but said he has enormous respect for those who did. "Once a soldier, always a soldier," he said. "No soldier left behind. We're going to keep this issue alive."

During his three-day walk, Chartier wore full military gear, hoisted a backpack, camped out in a tent, and subsisted on military MREs, or meals ready to eat. He carried an American flag, donated by local combat veteran Brian Oxley, and an "Honor and Remember" flag for Gold Star families who lost loved ones in combat. He presented the "Honor and Remember" flag to Urena, a combat veteran himself.

Chartier said that along the way, many were kind to him, offering water, sustenance and conversation. He said people of all races, and from across the political spectrum, wanted to talk.

"This is not about politics," he said. "I think people understand that. We need to take better care of our returning veterans."

Chartier said he was born in Chicopee, grew up in Easthampton, and graduated from Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School in Northampton before deploying to Germany for his first tour of duty.
ENFIELD -- State Rep. David Alexander, who lost his bid for re-election, was arrested at his home early Thursday after he punched his father in the face several times, police said.

Chief Carl Sferrazza told the Hartford Courant that Alexander, 35, of 277 Pearl St., was charged with second-degree breach of peace and assault and battery on an elderly victim.

Police were summoned to the Thompsonville section home for a report of an intoxicated male, Sferrazza said.

The Democrat lost the election for the 58th House District race to Republican town council member Greg Stokes, according to the Courant. Alexander had served the 58th district for two terms.

Alexander was held in lieu of a $2,500 cash bond, and is slated to appear in Superior Court Thursday.
ORANGE -- Joanna Fisher, the woman who was injured during a home invasion that left her 95-year-old husband dead, has died.

Fisher, 77, died at UMass Memorial Medical Center on Thursday morning, according to a death notice from Witty's Funeral Home in Orange, the Telegram & Gazette reports.

Fisher's husband, Thomas Harty, was killed during the home invasion at 581 East River St. on Oct. 5.

Joshua Hart, 23, and Brittany Smith, 27, both of Athol, are accused of breaking into the home and attacking the couple. They pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder and other charges in Orange District Court on Oct 14. They were arrested Oct. 7 after fleeing to Virginia.

Prosecutors said Harty was beaten and stabbed to death, and Joanna Fisher was beaten, nearly suffocated and survived a knife wound to the throat. Fisher remained hospitalized since the incident.

Fisher told investigators that she and her husband were watching television when a pair of suspects invaded their home, launched a savage attack and fled with credit cards, cash and the couple's 2003 Toyota station wagon, according to Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan.
brenna.early.jpg

Holyoke City Clerk Brenna Murphy McGee, right, makes a presentation about early voting for the Nov. 8 presidential election on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2016 to Ward 3 residents including Donna Wodecki and Richard Theroux at TNT Pizza, 548 South St. in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

(MIKE PLAISANCE / THE REPUBLICAN)

HOLYOKE -- City Clerk Brenna Murphy McGee will receive a "Women of Excellence" award from a national association of women legislators at a ceremony in Orlando, Florida.

"While I am extremely honored to have been nominated by my colleagues and ultimately selected to receive this award, I am even more proud to have our office and the city of Holyoke recognized on a national level for the strides we have made and the tremendous work that my team continues to do to help improve our community," Murphy McGee said Wednesday.

The National Foundation for Women Legislators will present the 2016 Elected Women of Excellence Awards at a conference Nov. 16 to 20 at the Loews Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Studios. The group is paying for Murphy McGee's flight and hotel costs, she said.

Todd A. McGee, her husband and the Ward 7 representative on the City Council, is attending and they are paying themselves for his flight and hotel costs, she said.

The Women of Excellence awards were established to identify women who have worked hard and broken down barriers to serve communities, a press release said.

"Part of the spirit of (the foundation) is that we take time to acknowledge the significant accomplishments of the women around us and we are delighted to recognize this year's honorees," foundation chairwoman Helene Keeley said in the press release.

Its website said the nonprofit foundation based in Alexandria, Virginia is the oldest organization for elected women in America. It represents elected women officials at the city, county and state levels. The foundation provides resources for development and encourages the election and appointment of women to offices, the website said.

"Excellence" award winners were nominated by colleagues and constituents in their home states and chosen by a board of foundation members, the press release said.

Murphy McGee, 33, said she didn't know who nominated her.

She is in her first, four-year term as the elected city clerk of Holyoke. Previously she held two, two-year terms as a city councilor at large. She began working for then-state Rep. Michael F. Kane, D-Holyoke, as a legislative aide in 2007 and became staff director in 2011.

She and her husband have two young children, Myles and Maille.




BOSTON -- A crowd protesting the election of Donald Trump "seemed to swell with every step from Beacon Hill to Copley Square" on Wednesday night before setting up shop in Boston Common, reports The Boston Globe.



Walking through downtown, the marchers held aloft signs reading "Love Trumps Hate," "Trump is racism" and "Impeach Trump."



The protesters cursed the billionaire real-estate developer and his running mate, Vice President-elect Mike Pence.



"Donald Trump, go away. Racist, sexist, anti-gay," The Globe reported the crowd as chanting.



Organized by Boston affiliates of Socialist Students, Movement for the 99%, and Socialist Alternative, according to The Globe, the crowd of roughly 4,000 came to rest near the Parkman Bandstand in Boston Common.



Earlier in the day, more than 100 college students repeated similar cries and chants during a protest outside the State House.



The demonstration was just one of dozens of similar events held in cities around the nation, according to the Associated Press.







In call-and-response style, The Globe said, Wednesday night's crowd yelled.





"When black lives are under attack, what do we do?"

"Stand up, fight back!"



"When immigrant lives are under attack, what do we do?"



"Stand up, fight back!"



Boston Police officers kept watch over the demonstrations in numbers.





According to event org., over 6000 people attended a protest against Trump at Boston Common @SinisterSeagull @AmherstWire @umassjournalism pic.twitter.com/WptczeX5GB  Morgan Hughes (@HughesMorgan_) November 10, 2016

The demonstration ended around 9:30 p.m.



Democrat Hillary Clinton won 81.7 percent of the vote in Boston versus Trump's 14.2 percent.





Nearly 5,000 people had signed up to attend the protest -- called the "Boston Against Trump" rally -- on Facebook.

"We need to immediately start fighting against him," the event description read. "We need to build a movement to fight racism, sexism and Islamophobia!"

People among the crowd told The Globe they felt "disgusted" and "terrified" by Trump's victory.
Have a mission beyond money.

By Fernando Rojo C18, Founder of PATOS

Full Story: http://entrepreneurship.wharton.upenn.edu/blog/8-lessons-learned-starting-business-college/

***

The Montana John Ruffatto Business Startup Challenge

Invite to Business Startup Challenge on May 5

The John Ruffatto Business Startup Challenge is a Montana-wide event which encourages innovation and creative thinking. Hosted annually by the University of Montana School of Business Administration since 1989, the Business Startup Challenge is Montanas premiere opportunity for students attending any college or university across Montana to present exciting new businesses and/or social entrepreneurship venture ideas for adjudication.The Business Startup Challenge is run by the Montana Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs (MADE) and the Blackstone LaunchPad at the University of Montana.

To get more information about the competition (eligibilty, submission, etc.), please visit the Blackstone LaunchPads John Ruffatto Business Startup Challenge Website http://www.umt.edu/launchpad/default.php .

http://www.business.umt.edu/orgs/made/startup-challenge/default.php
Sunil Bholah a participe a la ceremonie de remise de certificat le 21 septembre 2021 pour les participants a une formations faite par SME Mauritius et Inbound Tourism Promoters Association.

It is my pleasure to join you at this Certificate Award Ceremony.

I want to first commend the entrepreneurs here today, who have shown great tenacity amidst adversity.

I would also like to acknowledge the important contribution of SME Mauritius in collaboration with the Inbound Tourism Promoters Association for the upskilling of our entrepreneurs to pick up again.

Tourism continues to be one of the sectors hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), tourist arrivals are estimated to have fallen 74% in 2020 compared to 2019. This decrease represents around 1 billion trips.

According to an UNCTAD report published on 30 June this year, international tourism and its closely linked sectors suffered an estimated loss of $2.4 trillion in 2020 due to direct and indirect impacts of a steep drop in international tourist arrivals.

A similar loss may occur this year, the report warns, noting that the tourism sectors recovery will largely depend on the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines globally.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Tourism is one of the main economic pillars of Mauritius, providing livelihoods to some 100,000 workers.

Buzzing airport fully booked hotels, resorts and guesthouses day round activities at attraction parks and sites round-the-clock calls made to travel agents and tour operators proud guided tours of our island shopping spree by foreigners at our local markets and boutiques pleasure crafts happily riding our tourists in our coastal waters

This state of affairs was the lifeblood of all operators and individuals in the sector.

A majority of tourism enterprises are micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSME) of less than 50 employees. According to the International Labour Organization, in the global tourism sector, about 30% of the total workforce, is employed in firms with 29 employees.

Moreover, for every directly created tourism job, nearly one and a half additional jobs are created on an indirect or induced basis.

COVID-19 has affected the whole world at its core, causing the major disruption to the tourism industry.

We feel your pain. We are in it together.

We reckon that the blow is harder to SMEs. The Government has been quick to acknowledge the specific circumstances of SMEs, and has put in place policies to support them. Whether to address liquidity by deferring payments, more financing plans to strengthen SME resilience, measures to avoid the consequences of unorganised lay-offs, and other structural policies. These general SME measures have also been accessible to SMEs in the tourism sector.

Ladies and gentlemen,

After almost two years of struggling, the global roll-out of vaccines has now boosted hopes for recovery even though challenges remain.

International travel will not likely return to pre-COVID levels any time soon. Mauritius has taken a practical and progressive approach towards reopening of its borders.

The health and safety of our travellers remains our top priority.

Compared to where we were a year ago, we now have clearer knowledge of the virus and its transmission mechanism, a wider variety of stronger testing options, and more robust tracing capabilities.

There is greater confidence. There is hope. It is with this spirit that we look forward to the reopening of our borders on the 1st October 2021.

We all agree that being back to business will no longer be the same as it would be before the pandemic.

New normal New world new skills!

Sanitation and social distancing measures will continue to play a role in our lives, as the virus is brought under control.

The trend towards digital and contactless technologies will keep on accelerating.

Businesses that have struggled through the pandemic will be looking for fresh ideas and skills to guide them into recovery, when the economy picks up again.

The tourism sector will always require professionals who excel in skills that form the backbone of the industry such as customer service, culinary, food and beverage or management skills.

As we struggle to revive our tourism industry in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, skills are emerging as the deciding factor for recovery.

The pandemic has accelerated the shift in how people and businesses connect with one another, by pushing the boundaries of remote working, remote learning, and remote experiences.

In a world where visitors are not constrained by physical boundaries, travel is no longer just about meetings or sightseeing but the unique suite of experiences that it offers to visitors, from pre-arrival to post-departure.

The next bound of growth for the tourism sector will come from creating quality end-to-end experiences, to meet the needs and expectations of travellers.

To deliver on these expectations, it is crucial that professionals in the tourism sector be well equipped with the required knowledge and skills.

Hence, I fully welcome the idea of training for the upskilling of our entrepreneurs in the industry.

It is gratifying to note that 75 participants comprising of tour operators, travel agents and taxi drivers, have been part of this training organised by SME Mauritius, in collaboration with the Inbound Tourism Promoters Association.

I am informed that the training was carried out simultaneously in the 3 outstations of SME Mauritius namely at Rose-Belle, Bel-Air and Goodlands from 17th to 20th August 2021.

Hospitality trends; health, hygiene and sanitary protocols, communication and customer care were among the modules proposed for the training.

I think that the training session is proof that when different organizations and entrepreneurs come together for the purpose of rebuilding and consolidating, the resilience of our SMEs can be improved.

I am totally for such partnerships which uplift each other in these testing and tough times.

Looking ahead, the measures put in place today will shape tourism of tomorrow.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In the near-term, there will still be headwinds.

But we remain committed to supporting our tourism sector, to help our businesses and workers build new capabilities, and break new ground.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We know that Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) has always been considered the main pillar in providing the labour market with skilled workers, in different sectors and particularly in the tourism sector.

It must also be acknowledged that TVET and skills development programmes are well-placed to play a major role during and post COVID-19 pandemic.

As you may be aware, since August 2018, the SME Employment Scheme is in place. While the initial objective was the placement of 1000 graduates, SME Mauritius has since inception, placed 1,500 graduates and some 400 Diploma holders in SMEs. A monthly stipend of Rs 14,000 to Graduates and Rs 10,200 to Diploma holders, respectively is paid by SME Mauritius. SMEs can benefit from one graduate and one diploma holder. The SME Employment Scheme has just been extended to June 2022.

Moreover, to bridge the skills gap and further reduce unemployment among Youth, we will also enlist MQA approved holders of TVET Level 3 qualifications in: plumbing, electrical, culinary skills, beauty therapy, hairdressing, automotive mechanics and electronics amongst others to be placed in SMEs.

Just as diploma holders, TVET trainees will be paid a monthly stipend of Rs 10,200.

I would strongly appeal to both SMEs, especially those involved in the tourism sector, and qualified vocational qualification holders to enrol for this program, which is expected to be in place as from 15th October.

Ladies and gentlemen,

As we push forward in 2021, the challenge that lies ahead is not recovery within this year, or even next year, but how Mauritius will prepare for long-term success, and reinvent global travel.

We look forward to working closely with you to not only overcome the current challenges of reopening our borders safely for travellers, but to reimagine and reinvent the tourism industry post-pandemic.

The present era will open up more avenues for sustainability and digital revolution. While there will be challenges, there are also many opportunities that we can seize.

If we come together as a nation, we can achieve anything.

Unity is key if we want to heal faster.

On this note, let me convey my appreciation to all entrepreneurs who believe in our support mechanism and are willing to walk together hand in hand to overcome underlying challenges.

Congratulations to all the participants.

Thank you for your attention!
On Friday, McDowell County will remember and honor those who have sacrificed for our country.

Friday, Nov. 11 is Veterans Day. It started out as Armistice Day, which was the day World War I ended. In 1918, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the long and bloody fighting during what is still called by many the Great War finally came to an end in Europe. On Nov. 11, 1918, the armistice was signed and a ceasefire declared. In the United States, Armistice Day later became known as Veterans Day.

On Friday, people from all over the nation will pause to remember and honor those who wore the uniform of our country, both dead and alive. And here in McDowell County, several special events have been scheduled for Veterans Day.

The first will take place on the 11th hour of the 11th day. A Veterans Day ceremony will start at 11 a.m. on Friday at the McDowell County Senior Center and the county veterans memorial.

American Legion Post 56's Honor Guard will present the flags of the different branches of the military. Maggie Effler will sing the national anthem and the songs during the presentation of the service flags.

Retired Army Major Robert Smith will give a presentation about veterans and Alan Mainer, department vice commander, will speak on behalf of the American Legion and what the Legion does. An American flag folding ceremony will be held followed by Taps and laying of a wreath at the memorial.

The Marion Moose Lodge 1705 will also pay tribute to our veterans.

All McDowell County veterans and a guest are welcome to attend a Veterans Day program presented by the local Moose Lodge.

The program will start at 6 p.m. sharp in the dining area on Friday. A free meal will be provided for each veteran and a guest, according to organizers.

Like the service at the Senior Center, the Moose Lodges program will have a service flag presentation by American Legion Post 56s Honor Guard. There will also be a POW/MIA empty chair ceremony followed by retiring the national flag from the flag pole. Effler will sing the national anthem and the songs that introduce the service flags.

American flags that have been flown overseas in support of our soldiers will be presented to some special veterans, according to the Moose Lodge.

And at the Joseph McDowell Historical Catawba Greenway, a special event will take place for 24 hours during Veterans Day and Saturday.

The event is called 11 on the 11th and it will be held at the greenway. During 11 on the 11th, participants can run, ride a bicycle or use a wheelchair and complete three laps on the greenway. Organizers Frank Dean and Zack Paben said those three laps, which include going up and down Round Hill, are roughly equal to 11 miles.

Dean is president of the McDowell Trails Association and Paben is the chief executive officer of More Heart that Scars.

Founded in the summer of 2012, More Heart Than Scars is a local not-for-profit organization that focuses on the triumph of the human spirit over physical, mental and emotional scars.

Our mission is to give individuals the tools and assistance they need to overcome their personal traumas, challenges, and diseases, so that they may find pleasure and pride in their life pursuits, reads the Website for MHTS. To date, we have assisted dozens of people, including quadriplegics, visually impaired individuals, and those with mental health diagnosis, overcome challenges ranging from hiking the Appalachian Trail to completing grade school to finishing Obstacle Course Races.

Paben and other leaders in the organization work to inspire and encourage people who have a disability or suffered an injury so they can overcome their obstacles and concentrate on what they can accomplish.

Paben is partnering with Dean and the McDowell Trails Association in this effort.

At 5:30 p.m. Friday, the Trails Association will hold a cookout at the greenway. It is free to all veterans and local first responders (firefighters, emergency and rescue personnel and law enforcement).

The 11 on the 11th event will last from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 p.m. Saturday. A tent will be set up in the parking lot of phase one. Dean said the participants could start at either parking lot at the greenway. Registration will take place on the day of the event.

The cost to participate will be $25 for an individual. Teams of two or more will pay a fee of $20 per person. First responders and veterans can pay $15 per person. First responders and veterans who are in a team pay a fee of $10 per person.

In addition to honoring veterans, 11 on the 11th seeks to raise money for local first responders. Seventy percent of the proceeds from the event will go to the More Heart than Scars First Responders Trust, based at Fifth/Third Bank. This money will be used to help first responders in McDowell injured in the line of duty, said Paben.

A special committee will be formed to make sure the money from this ongoing trust is used properly and goes to help those in need.

Ten percent of the money raised will go to McDowell Trails Association while 20 percent will go towards More Heart than Scars.

Other sponsors include the Crooked Door Coffee House, Mr. Bobs Do-Nuts, Warriors at Home and Heritage Print Services. The first responder group that logs the most miles will win a month of special coffee from the Crooked Door.

For more information, visit the Website for More Heart Than Scars: www.moreheartthanscars.org. You can also email Zack Paben: zack@moreheartthanscars.org or call 828-391-0505.
The struggling network that started as a joint venture in 2012 between Fox International Channels and RCN Colombia will soon be off the air for good, according to inside sources.

MundoMax, which was born MundoFox and was rebranded last year when RCN parted ways with Fox and took sole ownership of the network, is negotiating exits with the last remaining affiliates it has in the United States.

In the past few months, several stations have already changed affiliations from MundoMax to independent status as those affiliate contracts expired, including WOCK channel 13 in Chicago, KFWD channel 52 in Dallas, KCNS channel 38 in San Francisco and WTBS channel 26 in the Atlanta area.

The signal is no longer viable and they will no longer broadcast, states an insider. When asked about the possibility of a cable only operation, the source says management is liquidating all assets and is apparently looking to cut its losses by eliminating MundoMax.

MundoMax management has ignored multiple requests for comment since Media Moves first reported the affiliate shutdown in early October.

According to a source, MundoMax will go off the air at Meruelo Media-owned KWHY-22 in Los Angeles at the end of this month. The network may continue to broadcast a little longer at WGEN-TV in Miami if executives cant negotiate a buyout before the affiliate contract expires.

Dismal ratings (often a 0 rating), distribution problems and Colombian programming that never took off with the U.S. Hispanic audience have led to the networks demise.

As MundoMax winds down, Estrella TV has seen an opportunity.

The LBI Media network, which seeks to expand its reach, will take over affiliation from two MundoMax stations  Cocola Broadcasting-owned KGMC channel 43.1 Fresno and Sun Broadcasting-owned WXCW channel 46.2 Ft. Myers-Naples.

LBI will also add Cocola Broadcasting-owned KWSM Santa Barbara as a new Estrella TV affiliate.
by Tobi Elkin , Staff Writer @tobielkin, November 9, 2016

Increasing numbers of people are consuming branded content on their mobile devices, according to new data from Polar. The company, a tech provider for publishers of branded content, found that in the third quarter, click-through rates (CTR) on mobile outperformed desktop by 2x. In addition, mobile achieved a CTR of 0.42% in Q3, which was 113% higher than on desktop and 27% higher than the overall global average.



The data comes from an analysis of branded content that ran through Polars platform. The company found the majority of views to branded content occur on mobile,and that Q3 marked the first time in the last two years that mobile drove more than half of the views to branded content: 51%.

Further, Polar found that desktop views are decreasing quarter-over-quarter. This can be attributed, in part, to the improvement in ad units for branded content and publishers adoption of mobile best practices which is leading to more content views, according to Greg Bella, director of marketing.

Another reason for increasing mobile views is Googles AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages Project) and Facebooks Instant Articles platforms, which are generating more views of branded content.

In a blog post that extrapolates key points in Polars Q3 Benchmarks Report, Bella wrote: For publishers, the key takeaway here is to create content experiences that can be consumed in 2 minutes or less. We now live in a headline-driven world, and this is most true when it comes to content consumption while on-the-move.

Bella emphasized a mobile-first approach to branded content, noting that simply replicating the desktop experience on mobile screens wont cut it. One reason is because a consumers attention span tends to peak at around two minutes on mobile devices.

The data showed that regions outside the U.S. and Canada are catching up in the use of branded content. For example, in Q3 last year, 70% of branded content views were coming from North America, vs. 60% for Q3 of this year. The EMEA and APAC regions are now the fastest growing for branded content views and adoption, according to Mark Cluett, content marketing manager. Tech vendors expansion into these areas is also helping drive growth.

In continental Europe (excluding the U.K.), Polar saw click-through-rates on branded content of 0.55% in Q3thats 66% higher than the global average and 77% higher than the prior quarter. In Q3, the Middle East, Northern Africa (MENA) region saw growth in engagement with branded content; three minutes and 33 seconds was the average time spent (or dwell time) for branded content in the region. Thats 52% higher than the global average, with almost 50% growth from the previous quarter.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, November 9, 2016

MDC Partners has reached an agreement in principle to resolve the ongoing investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission that began more than two years ago. The agreement, reached with the Philadelphia Regional Office of the SEC, is subject to formal SEC approval.

The company noted that terms are not final.

The holding company noted that the SEC will continue its investigation of certain persons who previously served as executive officers of the company. Former CEO Miles Nadal was not specifically cited in that context by the company, however, much of the SEC probe had to do with improper expenses taken (and subsequently returned) by Nadal.

Also, former Chief Accounting Officer Michael Sabatino was relieved of his CAO duties back in April 2015 and departed the firm at around the same time as Nadal, July 2015.

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As part of the agreement, MDC will pay a $1.5 million civil penalty to resolve all potential claims by the SEC against the company relating to these matters. The SEC staff had concluded that MDC unintentionally violated a number of SEC rules, but under the framework of the proposed deal the holding company is not admitting liability.

Contrary to the prediction of at least one short seller earlier this year (Gotham Research), the company said there will be no restatement of any of its previously filed financial statements per the SEC agreement.

The company first announced the SEC investigation on April 27, 2015 (it started the previous October), as well as subsequent actions taken as part of an internal investigation, including the resignation of Nadal. As a result of the SEC probe, Nadal agreed to fully repay the company nearly $11.3 million for improper expenses incurred, and another $10.6 million in unearned cash bonus awards.

Scott L. Kauffman, MDC Chairman and CEO, stated: "We are extremely pleased this matter is on its way toward final resolution for the Company and our stakeholders. We greatly appreciate that the Philadelphia Regional Office of the SEC recognized our high level of cooperation and the extensive internal investigation conducted by the Company's Special Committee and outside counsel, as well as the self-initiated remedial measures implemented in connection with new policies and procedures."

Word of the tentative settlement followed the companys poor Q3 earnings report last week, which sent the companys share price into a tailspin. Today, the stock was up 10%-plus in mid-afternoon trading.

When it disclosed earnings last week, MDC also indicated that it had retained financial advisor LionTree to assist in evaluating its financial and capital structure strategy. Such a move is often considered a sign that a company is preparing itself for sale, although company officials denied that was the case on an earnings call last week. A day after the call, The Wall Street Journal cited unidentified sources as indicating that a sale was one of the options being considered by the company.

The proposed settlement also follows a recent court victory for MDC.

In October a U.S. Federal District Judge in New York tossed a class-action shareholder law suit against MDC Partners that alleged a pattern of fraudulent behavior on the part of the company and certain current and former executives. The suit was filed after the company first disclosed the SEC probe, which resulted in a sharp drop in the price of company shares.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, November 9, 2016

AT&T is asking an appellate court to let stand its previous decision dismissing the Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit over mobile data slowdowns.

"At the end of the day, the FTC cannot dispute that, in the 102-year history of the FTC Act, it has never been permitted to press a case against a common carrier," AT&T says in papers filed Tuesday with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "A decision of this court re-affirming that age-old result is not one of exceptional importance warranting ... review."

The dispute between AT&T and FTC stems from the telecom's prior practice of throttling consumers with "unlimited" data. The FTC alleged in October of 2014 that AT&T duped more than 3.5 million wireless consumers by selling them unlimited data plans, but slowing their broadband connections after they exceeded monthly allotments. (Last year, AT&T revised its practices; the company no longer automatically slows down customers with unlimited data who exceed their caps, but still throttles them when the network is congested.)

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AT&T argued that the case should be thrown out on the grounds that the FTC lacks authority to bring an enforcement action against common carriers. Mobile broadband is now considered a common carrier service, but the FTC's allegations center on events that occurred when mobile broadband was still considered an "information" service.

U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen in the Northern District of California ruled against AT&T, noting that the FTC filed suit before mobile data was reclassified as a common carrier service.

AT&T then appealed to the 9th Circuit, which reversed Chen's decision in August. A three-judge appellate said in a sweeping ruling that the FTC lacks authority to bring enforcement actions against common carriers like AT&T -- even when the enforcement action concerns a non-common carrier service.

Several weeks ago, the FTC sought a new hearing in front of at least 11 of the 9th Circuit's judges. The FTC says the August ruling is so broad that it could leave the agency unable to police threats to consumers posed by a host of companies, including cable carriers and email service providers.

The agency argued that many businesses -- including tech companies like Google -- offer a mix of common carrier services (like Fiber) and non-common carrier services (like its search engine). If the August decision stands, those businesses could all fall outside of the FTC's jurisdiction, the agency says.

A host of policymakers and advocates, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), are backing the FTC's request. Blumenthal argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that the ruling creates "a wide hole in FTC jurisdiction," and could "greatly limit the governments ability to police unfair and deceptive practices in fields that Congress has long considered within the FTCs authority," the lawmaker adds.

AT&T disputes that interpretation of the August decision. "The panel decisions impact on national regulatory jurisdiction is narrow, despite the sky-is-falling rhetoric of the FTC," the telecom argues in its new court papers.

AT&T also argues that the August ruling still allows the FTC to sue a "separate subsidiary" to a common carrier, even if both the subsidiary and common carrier are part of the same corporation.

"The panel did not hold that a separate subsidiary, itself not a common carrier, would be outside the FTCs jurisdiction," AT&T contends. "To the extent a conglomerate, like Google, owns one or more common-carrier subsidiaries, nothing in the panel decision suggests that members of the corporate family other than the common-carrier subsidiaries are exempted from FTC authority."

In addition to the legal battle with the FTC, AT&T also is fighting a proposed $100 million Federal Communications Commission fine. That agency alleged that AT&T violated a 2010 regulation by failing to explain its throttling policies to consumers.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, November 9, 2016

WPP has signed an affiliation agreement with Iranian digital marketing firm Pulse & Pixel Group, which the holding company said operates more than 15 top digital services companies in the country. Terms werent disclosed.

The agreement will give WPP and its clients exclusive access to digital marketing channels in the Iranian market controlled by PPG, which is led by CEO Farbod Sadeghian.

PPG, based in Tehran, employs more than 200 people and comprises several leading Iranian digital businesses, including online ad network Anetwork, RTB exchange platform ADRO, demand-side platform RASANEX, mobile ad network ADAD, and digital media shop DMC, among others.

In the Middle East and Africa, WPP companies generate revenues of over $1 billion and employ around 37,000 people.
by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, November 9, 2016

In a major blow to Airbnb, the online home rental service lost a major battle over a new San Francisco law.

A federal judge has refused to block a measure that makes it a crime for companies like Airbnb to collect booking fees for units that haven't been registered with the city.

Airbnb argued that the ordinance would require the company to police the listings on its site -- a requirement that Airbnb says violates the federal Communications Decency Act. That law, dating to 1996, broadly protects Web platforms from responsibility for users' activity.

U.S. District Court Judge Donato rejected Airbnb's argument. He wrote in an 18-page decision issued Tuesday that the San Francisco law doesn't require Airbnb to turn down ads or otherwise police content created by users. Instead, he ruled, the law only requires Airbnb to turn down booking fees.

"It does not regulate what can or cannot be said or posted in the listings. It creates no obligation on plaintiffs part to monitor, edit, withdraw or block the content supplied by hosts," Donato wrote. "The ordinance holds plaintiffs liable only for their own conduct, namely for providing, and collecting a fee for, booking services in connection with an unregistered unit."

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Donato went on to suggest that Airbnb potentially could comply with the law by changing its business model and charging users for ads, instead of collecting a fee for bookings. (He also indicated that he may still block the law -- at least temporarily -- if he determines that San Francisco doesn't have a "functional verification system." He plans to hold another hearing at a future date to address that narrow issue.)

If Donato's decision on the broader question stands, the ruling could affect a broad swath of Web companies that allow users to post ads. Silicon Valley recognized the implications of the San Francisco law months ago; the trade groups Internet Association -- which counts Amazon, Google and Facebook as members -- and CALinnovates tried to file a friend-of-the-court brief siding with Airbnb. Donato refused to allow the groups to weigh in, stating that their arguments didn't add any "unique" information or perspective.
by Richard Whitman , Columnist, November 9, 2016

OK -- so THAT didn't turn out like, basically, everyone had planned it would. But life goes on and we forge ahead. Helping advertising types do so is Swedish ad agency Round and Round which has launched a job search for American creatives looking to escape America and work abroad.

The agency has launched a new website, The Great Trump Escape which screams, "You're looking for a new country, we are looking for new talent!" Citing a stat that found one in four Americans said they would leave America if Trump won, the agency seeks English-speaking creatives to work on the agency's international clients.

The Web site explains: "As a Stockholm based agency with international clients, we are currently looking for native English speaking creatives. So we thought, 'hey, why not give some of those American advertising people a break?' You are, after all, pretty talented. Theres a lot of great work coming out of America!"

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The website touts Sweden as a great place to live and work and what's awesome about working at Round and Round such as, well, their love for round tables at which "everyone can talk to everyone and each person around the table has the opportunity to be heard."

It has been reported that over 300 people have sent in resumes for gigs with the Swedish agency.

It's apparently not very difficult to move to Sweden, with requirements including spending five years in the country, avoiding crime and finding a job.
by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, November 10, 2016

After waking Wednesday morning I grabbed my Pixel phone, swiped right and after seeing the accompanying screen, yelled, Okay Google, WTF!

Google was calm and collected and offered to search that for you, but I already knew what it meant, so I skipped denial, anger and bargaining and went straight to depression.

I spent most of the next 24 hours dealing with that same stage as many of my closest friends and loved ones. We spent much of the day debating what country theyd most like to expatriate to.

Not that polls matter much anymore, but in case youre interested, New Zealand won, followed closely by Canada.

I told them all that I supported their decision and would definitely visit them, but that I planned to stick around to do whatever I can to make America even greater than its always been.

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The greatest thing, of course, is that we are a democracy built on a foundation of ingeniously crafted checks and balances. But 24 hours later, I cant help wondering if that foundation hasnt become a bit tilted and, well, out of balance.

I can check off so many reasons -- the archaic nature of the Electoral College, chief among them -- but Im going to stay focused on what makes my personal diatribe remotely relevant to the readers of MediaPost: You know, media.

One of the biggest problems we face as a modern society -- and the thing that will determine the future of it -- is, in fact, media. And by media, I dont just mean the news media, or even, by extension, the social media that is increasingly supplanting it as the source that feeds and informs us.

I mean, the very infrastructure of it and how it is restructuring everything about us, especially how we feel, think and behave as people. A few years ago, Brian Monahan -- then at Interpublics Media Lab and now at NewCo -- and I explored this theme in a special issue of MEDIA magazine focusing on how the acceleration of media technology might also be contributing to an acceleration of the evolution of human beings.

Brian coined the concept of homo mediated -- a new species of humanity that was replacing homo sapiens -- by augmenting them with media.

I bought into his thesis, but Ive come to think that there are actually two new orders of human species -- homo mediated and homo mediators. The latter are humans that utilize media to augment the way the homo mediateds among us think, feel and behave. And the more sophisticated and better they get about using media, the more they can augment others.

Obviously, many readers of MediaPost fall into both these camps.

Ours is an industry premised on using media to influence and augment what other people feel, think and do. It has long been criticized for doing that very thing -- from the earliest snake oil roots, to the adoption of social science and subliminal messaging, through the sophisticated use of data and technology.

Yes, we still have some checks and balances -- the FTC, the news media, etc. -- but for the mos t part, some of these advances and progressions are happening faster than most people can evolve to keep up with them.

And that is the main point of this column -- that media, and especially media technology  are evolving faster than people. Thats creating a rift dividing us into two kinds of people: those that know how to use media, and those that are used by it.

Ive always believed the most sophisticated users of media -- the homo mediators among us -- were the ones who used it for political persuasion. It's not just because they have a more sophisticated knowledge of how to use media, but because of the way they use it.

And the fact there often dont seem to be any checks and balances controlling how they do that.

I learned this first from covering political media in my earliest days as an industry reporter -- back in the quaint days of the early 1980s, interviewing the late-great political media strategist Tony Schwartz (who conceived Lyndon Johnsons Daisy spot), Ronald Reagans Tuesday Team (the original make-America-greaters), all the way through Barack Obamas Hope-mongers and through Donald Trumps againers.

Messaging aside, something else has changed, and its the insidious speed and power with which that messaging can be applied when put in the hands of the right mediator.

I dont know what the solution is. I just know we have to start thinking about the role media is playing in accelerating how people feel, think and behave, because it isnt just creating a rift among us. Its creating fundamental dissonance.

While Ive always been fascinated with political media, the first time I started thinking seriously about media dissonance was in the days after 9/11. I was working for Steve Brill at the time. All of us at Brill Media, Inside.com and MediaCentral were blown away, like the rest of us, by the terrorist attacks.

But for me, it was an eye-opener and a mind-expander that there was such a dissonance -- a rift -- between the way we thought and the way fundamental Islamic jihadists thought. I couldnt help thinking that media was part of the problem.

I believe part of the fundamental Islamic jihadist movement is a reaction to the influence Western media has had on their culture, and the fact they had almost no way of defending their culture from it. Ironically, theyve embraced it and utilized the very same media and technology to recruit jihadists and wage war on the perpetrators infiltrating their culture.

I was heartened to learn in a series of presentations at SXSW by the White House that we were fighting back, including both military initiatives, as well as a startup-like incubator operating out of the the basement of the White House called the U.S. Digital Service. Its already done some amazing work, but Im going to guess the next administration will put the kibosh on that, because, well, you know, not-invented-here especially when you consider the USDS was kick-started by a project to reboot the first failed attempt to launch healthcare.gov.

I know Im rambling and covering a lot of ground here, but its because Im trying to compress a lot of complex feelings, thoughts and behaviors into one piece to make one essential point: The role that media increasingly plays in creating dissonance and, even better, the role it can play in bringing us together.

If you ask me, what the real success of the homo mediators on the Trump team was, that they understood how to leverage and inflame the dissonance among an angry, disenfranchised base that feels much like the fundamental Islamic jihadists do. Another culture has usurped theirs. Change the word Western for elites, and youll see what I mean.

Personally, I reject labels like Westerner or elitist, though I would consider myself an intellectual -- overly so, if this column is any indication. But what I really consider myself is a human being who cares about other human beings, even the ones that object to my sense of culture. And as a homo mediator, I consider it my job to try and change their minds about that in the most respectful and compassionate way possible.

Im still struggling with how to do that. I know what the problem is, I just dont know how to fix it. But I do know if we dont fix it, the dissonance will continue  and it will spawn cultural and political unrest like weve never witnessed.

I started this column with four of the five phases. Let me end with acceptance.

I accept that we live in a democracy and that Donald J. Trump was democratically elected president. I accept that there are enough checks and balances in our system to ensure he will govern presidentially. I will give him the benefit of the doubt. I accept that if things dont work out, we will find another way to make America even greater again
More and more elderly adults are prescribed a moderate dose of statins as part of their treatment for cardiovascular disease. However, these drugs have been a subject of controversy, with healthcare professionals avoiding them because of alleged adverse effects. New research, however, suggests a high dose of statins may increase the survival rate of patients with cardiovascular disease. Share on Pinterest High-intensity statins increase survival rates for patients with cardiovascular disease. Statins are a class of drugs commonly prescribed to combat cardiovascular disease (CVD)  the leading cause of disease and mortality in the United States  as they lower the level of cholesterol in the blood. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that during 2003-2012, the percentage of adults over 40 years old using statins to lower their cholesterol has increased from 18 to 26 percent. In 2013, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) jointly recommended high-intensity statins therapy for patients no older than 75 years. However, in 2014, the Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care System recommended only moderate-intensity statins, citing insufficient evidence that high-dose statins might be better. The ACC/AHA recommendation relied on a meta-analysis published in 2010 that showed a 0.8 percent improvement in the survival rate of high-intensity patients. The meta-analysis did not examine patients over 75 years old. But new research supports the ACC/AHA guidelines and confirms that high-intensity statins may increase the survival rate of patients with cardiovascular disease, even in patients older than 75.

High- vs. low-dose statin therapy Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have conducted a large national study comparing a high-intensity dosage of statins with moderate-intensity treatment. The results were published today in the journal JAMA Cardiology. The researchers, led by Dr. Fatima Rodriguez, examined the records of 509,766 patients aged 21-84 with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) who were receiving care from the VA Health Care System. The study looked at comorbidities and cholesterol values and monitored mortality rates for 1 year, between April 1, 2013, and April 1, 2014. Thirty percent of patients received high-intensity statins, in the form of atorvastatin, rosuvastatin, and simvastatin, 46 percent received moderate-intensity therapy, and 6.7 percent received low-intensity statins. The intensity of the doses was prescribed in accordance with the ACC/AHA guidelines and definitions. The guidelines define high-intensity statins as rosuvastatin, 20 or 40 milligrams a day, and atorvastatin, 40 or 80 milligrams a day.

Lowest mortality rates with highest statin doses The study followed-up on the patients for 492 days, during which they noticed an inverse correlation between the intensity of the statins and mortality rates. Patients who received the highest doses of statins had the lowest mortality rates. The 1-year mortality rates were 4 percent for those who received high-intensity statin therapy, 4.8 percent for those receiving moderate-intensity therapy, 5.7 percent for those receiving low-intensity therapy, and 6.6 percent for those receiving no statins at all. The researchers also found that maximum doses of high-intensity statins led to the highest survival rates, compared with sub-maximal doses of the same high-intensity statins. The positive effects of high-intensity statins could be observed across all ages, with results being consistent for younger patients, as well as those over 75. Commenting on the findings, Dr. Rodriguez and team write: We evaluated the real-world practice of statin use by intensity and its association with all-cause mortality in a national sample of patients with ASCVD in the VA health system. We found an inverse graded association between intensity of statin therapy and mortality. These findings suggest there is a substantial opportunity for improvement in the secondary prevention of ASCVD through optimization of intensity of statin therapy.
Research reveals a mechanism that causes wasting in cancer and tests a way to reverse it.

One of the worst cruelties of lethal cancer is the phenomenon called wasting, or in medical terms, cachexia (pronounced ka-CHEX-ia), in which a patient seems literally to diminish in bodily terms as the cancer ravages one or more internal organs.

Today, a team at Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, led by Professor Douglas Fearon, M.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and a Distinguished Scholar of the Lustgarten Foundation, publishes in Cell Metabolism results of experiments showing that tumors interfere with the patient's ability to cope with wasting and may even impair their ability to respond to immunotherapy.

In mouse models of human pancreatic and colon cancer, the team traces cachexia to a molecular reprogramming of the liver induced by the tumor, the effect of which is to alter the liver's normal response to caloric deficiency. As the caloric deficiency worsens and weight continues to decline, the body responds by releasing stress hormones. The team found that these hormones, in turn, prevent the immune system from responding to the tumor.

Thus the new research helps explain two ways in which pancreatic and colon tumors have long vexed doctors attempting to treat them: these tumors themselves set in motion the process that results in wasting; and wasting, in turn, accounts for why immune therapy for such cancers has typically failed. Providing massive caloric supplementation - what doctors call hyperalimentation - does not vanquish wasting; and immune therapy does not impair the tumor's ability to thrive.

The researchers in Cambridge, led by M.D.-Ph.D. student Thomas R. Flint and oncologist Tobias Janowitz, M.D., Ph.D., performed experiments demonstrating that in mouse models of pancreas and colon cancer, liver reprogramming begins during pre-cachexia, when wasting has just begun but is not yet manifest. Signals broadcast by tumor cells induce the release of interleukin 6 (IL-6), a molecular beacon of the immune system called a cytokine, that normally helps induce an immune response. IL-6, in turn, impairs the capacity of the liver to respond to caloric deprivation, which is already under way in pre-cachectic mice.

The team proposes this liver reprogramming is the result of IL-6 suppressing a gene-regulating protein, or transcription factor, called PPAR-alpha, which in turn suppresses a vital process in the liver called ketogenesis. "Translated into human terms, this means that when a cancer patient loses his or her appetite and decides not to eat, the liver is not going to generate sufficient energy to compensate for the caloric loss," explains Dr. Fearon.

Often, cancer patients don't eat, Dr. Fearon clarifies, not because they are nauseous due to chemotherapy; rather, they feel full and simply lose their appetite. Importantly, he adds, his team's discovery that the tumor is programming the liver not to make calories, which are essential for continued brain function, assures two things. One is that wasting will continue; the other is that the body, massively releasing glucocorticoids, or stress hormones, will thereby short-circuit the immune system's ability to respond to the tumor. It's a vicious circle that sadly ends in death.

The team's discovery not only sheds light on why conventional caloric supplementation fails to curtail cachexia in cancer patients. It also helps to account for the failure of T-cell checkpoint targeted immunotherapies in pancreatic and colon cancers. The tumor, in effect, is

fooling the immune system into thinking the tumor is not a threat but rather just normal regenerating tissue. The team tested several ways of addressing liver reprogramming in pre-cachectic mice. Using a mouse model that recapitulates human pancreatic cancer, they administered an antibody that targets and inactivates IL-6; the same mice received massive caloric supplements via infusion. According to Dr. Flint, "Our data suggest that successful reversal of cachexia in people may well depend on co-administration of anti-IL-6 with nutritional support."

The team also noted that their findings may have relevance in a wide range of IL-6-associated illnesses in which weight loss in observed. These include sepsis, HIV, tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiac failure and rheumatoid arthritis.

The research described here was supported by: The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research; Cancer Research UK; The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and the Cambridge ECMC.
A new study challenges the tenet of herpes viruses being strictly host-specific. Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Germany have discovered that gammaherpesviruses switch their hosts more frequently than previously thought. In fact, bats and primates appear to be responsible for the transfer of these viruses to other mammals in many cases. The findings were published in the scientific journal mBio.

For herpes, it has generally been thought that every animal has its own specific viruses and that virus and host species have co-evolved. Now, an international team of scientists led by the Leibniz-IZW discovered that herpesviruses may not conform to this commonly held view. Surprisingly, while studying a group of herpesviruses called gammaherpesviruses, the researchers demonstrated that the herpes viruses found in common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) and hairy-legged vampire bats (Diphylla ecaudata) were similar to those previously found in cattle. While it is known that vampire bats exclusively feed on animal blood, preferring domestic swine and cattle, since they represent an easily accessible food source, the result was somewhat unusual. Were bats being infected by viruses from their food source?

To answer this question, researchers from the Leibniz-IZW worked together with the Centro Nacional de Investigacion Disciplinaria en Microbiologia Animal - INIFAP; the Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia of the Universidad Veracruzana; the Instituto de Biotecnologia of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in the USA, and the Freie Universitat Berlin in Germany. Following up on the results from vampire bats, the researchers compiled the largest dataset of gammaherpesvirus sequences to date from their own sequencing data and publicly available data, including viruses from many bat species, and performed extensive analyses to determine the relationships of the viruses to one another and to their hosts. This shows that herpesviruses have frequently switched between species in the past, rather than being host specific. Most switches derived from bats, with primates being the second most common source of switches.

"We speculate that bat-specific traits such as their ability to fly and a wide geographical range might have been important in promoting a virus spillover from bats to other animal groups," says Dr Marina Escalera-Zamudio, scientist at the Leibniz-IZW. After switching, herpesviruses may have adapted to their new hosts, creating the impression of host specificity. So the vampire bats were not likely infected by their food but more likely infected by other mammals in the past. Also surprisingly, vampire bats were not more prone among bats to transfer viruses, as many viruses from non-blood feeding bats also appear to have jumped.

Since many viruses that cause disease in humans belong to the herpes virus family, it is important to understand their evolutionary development. "Herpes viruses establish latent life-long infections. Although they generally cause disease only in immunosuppressed individuals, they can survive largely below the radar even after infection," Escalera-Zamudio adds. Therefore, there may be even more species switches to uncover. However, only further sampling across a larger diversity of hosts will help determine the full scale of such switches. Future efforts should concentrate on clarifying the role of bats and primates for spreading these viruses.

Article: Bats, Primates, and the Evolutionary Origins and Diversification of Mammalian Gammaherpesviruses, Escalera-Zamudio M, Rojas-Anaya E, Kolokotronis SO, Taboada B, Mendez-Ojeda ML, Loza-Rubio E, Arias CF, Osterrieder N, Greenwood AD, mBio, doi: 10.1128/mBio.01425-16, published 8 November 2016.
A team of Norwegian, French and Australian researchers is the first in the world to succeed in quantifying the effects of radiation on individual cancer cells. This means that radiation therapies can now be tailored to individual tumours and thus be more effective.

The recently developed sensor is the first of its kind and can measure radiation doses at the level of the individual cell in mixed radiation fields (e.g. measuring all type of radiation at the same time). It enables doctors to obtain a complete picture of how much damage each cell has incurred following treatment.

"This technology means that doctors can monitor and control radiation doses to make sure that only cancer cells are destroyed, with only minimal damage to surrounding healthy tissue", explains physicist and SINTEF researcher Angela Kok. Kok has been leading the work to develop the sensor as part of her day-to-day research looking into microsystems and nanotechnology.

A million cells on a pin head

Until now, quantification of the radiation dose absorbed by an individual cancer cell has been regarded as a very difficult task. Firstly, each cell is very small, and there may be as many as about a million cells in a single cubic millimetre of tissue. For this reason, and to ensure that the resulting data are correct, a sensor designed to measure radiation has to be as small as the cell itself. In other words, there has to be space for a million sensors in a single cubic millimetre of cancer tissue.

The second problem is that the cells themselves "perceive" the radiation dose in an entirely different way to the sensors. This is why, until now, no sensor has been able to quantify the actual degree of damage caused to cells by a radiation dose.

Mimicking human tissue

But the international research team has now succeeded in solving both of these problems.

The sensor size issue has been addressed simply by developing a sensor that is as small as a cancer cell. This has been achieved using a technology called semiconductor processing.

The second problem, addressing the different ways in which cells and sensors perceive radiation doses, represented a major challenge. But researchers solved this problem by encapsulating the sensors in a plastic material that mimics human tissue. In this way, the radiation dose measured by the sensors is almost identical to that absorbed by real cancer cells.

The measuring instrument contains microsensors placed alongside each other in a way that creates a "sheet" of sensors mounted on the silicon base. Dispersal across a given area enables the sensors to provide an image of the location within the cell that absorbs the highest levels of radiation.

"In simple terms, we can say that the sensors are used to map variations in radiation intensity absorbed across the exposed cell", explains Kok.

A result of basic research

The most important component of the new sensor is the element silicon, which is a semiconductor with radiation detection properties.

"When radiation counteracts with silicon the energy is converted into a measurable electrical signal", explains Kok. "The magnitude of the signal indicates the intensity of the radiation", she says.

The very first sensor prototype saw the light of day at SINTEF's microsystems and nanotechnology lab following a major multinational project involving researchers in the field of medical radiation physics. It was tested recently at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF*) in Grenoble with outstanding results. It has also been tested by Australian researchers at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.

"This project is a little unusual because our research has resulted in new and fundamental knowledge about what happens in a volume of silicon that has the same dimensions as a typical cell", says Senior Research Scientist Kari Schjlberg-Henriksen, who has been working with quality assurance on this project. "We've taken this knowledge further and have seen it applied in practice after only four years", she says.

Advancing proton therapy

Research scientist Marco Povoli has been working on this project both as a SINTEF employee and as part of his post-doctoral studies at the University of Oslo. He believes that this innovation may be good news for the future development of cancer treatments using proton therapy.

"It appears that proton therapy produces better outcomes for some types of cancer than traditional radiotherapies", he says. "This is why the University of Wollongong, with which we collaborate, has been working for some time to develop sensors designed for use in proton therapy.

There currently exist no sensors (microdosimetry tools, Ed. note) capable of measuring radiation of this kind, but we realised that our technology could be adapted to develop sensors with the right specifications", says Povoli.

The team based their work on a technology originally applied to develop sensors for tracking nuclear particles as part of experiments using the particle accelerator at CERN. The technology was used to make the silicon structures that now mimic the effects of radiation on human tissue.

"The fabrication process required more development to optimise the reliability of the results, but we overcame this challenge within a few months", says Povoli.

The sensor has now been tested with excellent results. According to the research team, it is capable of measuring the true values of radiation doses absorbed by tissue, and with a better spatial resolution than existing equipment. The team is now hoping to be able to contribute towards the future development of radiation therapies for cancer. This can be achieved by providing a more precise quantification of the radiation doses absorbed by cancer tissue, while at the same time reducing the damage incurred by healthy tissue.

The work has been carried out in collaboration with what Povoli describes as world-leading centres in the field of medical radiation physics, including the CMRP (Centre for Medical Radiation Physics) at the University of Wollongong in Australia, the University of Manchester in England, and the ESRF laboratory in Grenoble in France. The ESRF centre specialises in radiation physics.

The project is called "Si-3DMiMic" and is funded by the Research Council of Norway as part of its NANO2021 programme.

The sensor that has formed the starting point for the project has been patented by the CMRP under U.S. Patent No. 8421022 B2.
A new study suggests probable scientific misconduct in at least some of 33 bone health trials published in various medical journals. The study used statistical methods to detect scientific misconduct or research fraud and calls into question the validity of a body of research work led mainly by one researcher in Japan. The study is published online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

"Our use of statistical methods to examine the integrity of the data in 33 randomized controlled trials raises serious concerns about the reported results in those trials," said study author Mark J. Bolland, MBChB, PhD, of the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

Bolland and his team analyzed the 33 studies, three of which were published in Neurology and retracted this summer after the author, Yoshihiro Sato, MD, of Mitate Hospital in Tagawa, Japan, admitted to scientific misconduct. Sato accepted full responsibility, admitting fabrication of the fraudulent Neurology papers, which reported on the effects of therapies to reduce hip fractures both after stroke and in Parkinson's disease patients. Sato stated that none of the coauthors participated in any misconduct and were named as authors on an honorary basis only. Sato requested retraction of the three studies.

For the analysis of the 33 trials, 26 of which Sato was lead author, Bolland's team conducted a rigorous review and found reported results that differed markedly from what could be expected statistically; further, the results were remarkably positive.

The characteristics of the groups of people chosen to participate in the trials were much more similar than would have happened by chance. The trials reported large reductions in hip fractures, no matter what treatment was used, that were much greater than those reported in similar trials from other research groups. Overall in the 33 trials, the people receiving the therapy were 78 percent less likely to break a hip than the control group, while several meta-analyses of other trials found either no benefit of the treatments or a benefit of less than 40 percent.

Bolland's team also found multiple examples of inconsistencies between and within trials, errors in reported data, misleading text, duplicated data and text as well as uncertainties about ethical oversight.

"The researchers were remarkably productive, conducting 33 randomized controlled trials within 15 years, the outcomes of each being remarkably positive," said Bolland. "Our analysis suggests that the results of at least some of these trials are not reliable. In addition, results from these trials were not consistent with results found in similar studies by other researchers."

"This statistical analysis demonstrates probable scientific misconduct on a large scale," said Robert A. Gross, MD, PhD, of Rochester, N.Y., Editor-in-Chief of Neurology and Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, who wrote a corresponding editorial. "Fraud in an individual paper may be difficult to detect. One cannot conclude that any one study in the analysis is, or is not, fraudulent. As part of our due process, we have notified other editors of journals that published papers by Sato and colleagues, communicated with Sato's institution, and published retractions of the three papers and a letter published in Neurology."

The analysis was supported by the Health Research Council of New Zealand and the Health and Social Care Directorate of the Scottish Government.

Article: Systematic review and statistical analysis of the integrity of 33 randomized controlled trials, Mark J. Bolland, MBChB, PhD, Alison Avenell, MBBS, MD, Greg D. Gamble, MSc and Andrew Grey, MD, Neurology, doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000003387, published online 9 November 2016.

Editorial: Statistics and the detection of scientific misconduct, Robert A. Gross, MD, PhD, Neurology, doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000003390, published online 9 November 2016.
Dr. McCance is one of a select group of spinal surgeons in New York who has been certified in the practice of robotic-assisted spinal surgery and one of a few board-certified orthopedic spine surgeons to be fully certified in ExcelsiusGPS ...
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Around 2-5 % of the school going children are affected with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in United States and Western Europe.Effects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome may result in a series of physical changes like small head, subtle differences, changes in the facial characteristics, difficulties in learning and remembering things.Inspite of the preventive guidelines, women still consume alcohol during pregnancy and do not realise the harmful effects on the baby.Rajesh Miranda, PhD, professor in the Texas A&M College of Medicine said,"It's a huge problem, but we might not realize the full scope because infants born with normal-looking physical features may be missed, making many cases difficult to diagnose early."The research study was conducted on 68 pregnant women at two perinatal care clinics in Western Ukraine. Health and alcohol consumption data of the pregnant women were collected and the blood samples during second and third trimester was taken from each women for investigation.The study findings found that moderate to high levels of alcohol exposure during pregnancy was found to cause some notable differences in the circulating RNA molecules called mRNA in the mother's blood.These differences were significantly seen in mothers whose infants have shown some physical or behavioral changes due to alcohol in the first year of life.Miranda said, "Collectively, our data indicate that maternal plasma miRNAs may help predict infant outcomes and may be useful to classify difficult-to-diagnose FASD subpopulations."The reason behind the difficulty in diagnosing fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is because infants with equal amounts of prenatal exposure have vastly different outcomes.Christina Chambers, PhD, professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine, said, "Although it is generally true that binge-drinking during pregnancy presents the greatest risk, not all women who consume substantial amounts of alcohol in pregnancy will have a child who is clearly affected.""That's why we examined specific biomarkers in the mother's blood in the second and third trimester of her pregnancy to determine if they are useful in identifying children who could benefit from early interventions."Even though fetal alcohol syndrome cannot be cured, it is necessary that it is diagnosed early.Wladimir Wertelecki, MD, leader of the research team said, "Early diagnosis is important because it permits early intervention to minimize the harm due to prenatal alcohol exposure.""Good nutrition, better perinatal health care, lowering stress levels and infant care interventions can all improve the outcome of alcohol-affected pregnancies." he added.Scientists conclude that further study using more number of mother and infants would help to investigate if the blood test biomarker could help in predicting long term development outcomes for children who are exposed to alcohol.Source: Medindia
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"If you're in the military and you seek substance abuse treatment, your commanding officer is notified and it goes on your medical record and your military record. That's a huge barrier," said Denise Walker, director of the Innovative Programs Research Group at the University of Washington School of Social Work.Not surprisingly, there is little research on what type of treatment is most effective for active-duty military members. To shed new insight on that question and remove obstacles to seeking treatment, Walker and a team of researchers tested a telephone-based intervention geared specifically to military members struggling with alcohol abuse  with promising results.The study, published online in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, found that participants in the telephone intervention significantly reduced their drinking over time, had lower rates of alcohol dependence and were more likely to seek treatment.The trial involved 242 military members at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in western Washington, who were recruited through advertisements and informational booths at military events. All met the criteria for alcohol use disorder, though none were enrolled in substance abuse treatment programs.Participants had an initial interview by phone to assess their daily and monthly alcohol consumption. They were also asked a series of questions about the consequences of their drinking  for example, whether it had impacted their physical training or interfered with their ability to fulfill their duties.Then participants were randomized to a treatment or control group. The control group received educational information about alcohol and other drug use, while the treatment group got a one-hour personalized intervention session over the phone that used "motivational interviewing," a goal-oriented approach intended to help people make positive behavioral changes."The intervention really connects their behavior with their values and goals and wants for themselves," Walker said. "It's a safe place to talk confidentially and freely with someone on the other end who is compassionate and non-judgmental."The counselors also asked participants about their alcohol consumption versus that of their peers, to gauge whether excessive drinking was in part spurred by normative perceptions about alcohol use in the military."The army has a culture of drinking, so there's a heightened sense among soldiers that their peers are drinking more than they actually are," said Thomas Walton, project director for the study and a UW doctoral student in social work."When those perceptions are corrected, it can have a strong effect, as heavy-drinking soldiers often reduce their intake to more typical levels."Follow-up interviews were conducted three and six months after the sessions and showed significant decreases in both drinking rates and alcohol dependence. Intervention group participants went from drinking 32 drinks weekly on average to 14 drinks weekly after six months, and their rates of alcohol dependence dropped from 83 to 22%. Alcohol dependence also decreased in the control group, from 83 to 35%."Those are pretty dramatic reductions in drinking, particularly for one session with a counselor," Walker said. "That was really encouraging."Participants increasingly sought treatment over time; by the six-month follow-up, nearly one-third of soldiers in both groups had made some move toward seeking treatment, such as discussing substance abuse concerns with an army chaplain or making an appointment for treatment intake.While the intervention led to more dramatic decreases in drinking, providing educational information may be enough to prompt some to take a first step toward making a change, the researchers said. Walker and Walton attribute the intervention's success to its convenience and confidentiality.Participants could enroll without fear of their superiors finding out  recruitment materials made it clear that military command was not involved  and could schedule the phone calls at their convenience. "Some did the session on their lunch breaks or in the garage while their family was in the house," Walker said. "They didn't have to walk into a building that says 'army substance abuse program.' It was private and a low-burden intervention."And though the military offers substance abuse programs, Walker said, many soldiers avoid seeking help and are not referred to treatment until their problems reach a crisis point. "People who get into army substance abuse programs are often mandated to go or have gotten into trouble," she said. "That leaves out a huge proportion of the population who are struggling and not doing well."That reality and the protracted conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Walker said, have intensified the need for additional options to help soldiers grappling with substance abuse and other problems. Telephone-based counseling, she said, is a cost-effective way to encourage military members to seek help confidentially, without the barriers of more traditional approaches."This intervention has the potential to be used for soldiers and military personnel worldwide. It would really help fill the gap in service provision that is currently available to soldiers."Source: Eurekalert
The following is an overview of Russia's official reactions to Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. Presidential election. The overall tone of the comments displayed optimism and hope for a genuine reset of U.S.-Russia relations under a Trump presidency:

Cartoon Commentary On The U.S. Elections



Ria.ru, November 9, 2016.

Trump is the new U.S. President.

Vitaly Podvitsky, Ria.ru, November 9, 2016

Russia is ready to reset U.S.-Russia relations.

The cartoon refers to an embarrassing incident. On March 6, 2009, in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a red button (see below) with the English word "RESET" and the Roman alphabet's transliteration of the Russian Cyrillic word "PEREGRUZKA". The only problem was that "Peregruzka" means "overload", while reset should have been "Perezagruzka". The cartoonis Podvitsky, corrects Clinton's button, by adding in Cyrillic "3A (i.e. za)", transforming it into the correct word "Perezagruzka." He sought to convey that Russia is ready to work with Trump in resetting relations rather than overloading them.

Putin Congratulates Trump: Moscow And Washington Can Establish A Constructive Dialogue Based On The Principles Of Equality

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated president elect Donald Trump on his victory. The Kremlin reported that, in his message, Putin said that he hopes to work together with Trump to extricate Russian-U.S. relations from their current crisis, resolve issues on the international agenda, and seek effective responses to global security challenges. Putin was also confident that Moscow and Washington can establish a constructive dialogue based on the principles of equality and mutual respect.

(Kremlin.ru, November 9)

Talking to journalists, Putin commented: "We heard Trump's statements regarding reestablishing the U.S.-Russia relations. We realize this won't be an easy path forward taking into the consideration the degradation in our relations, which we deeply regret. As I've said many times before - that's not our fault". Putin added that Moscow wants to restore the full scale of good relations with Washington.

(Ria.ru, November 9)

Presidential Spokesperson Peskov: Dialogue Rather Than Confrontation With The U.S.

Presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists that Trump's victory does not mean that all the contentious moments in the bilateral relations will immediately disappear: "It's stupid to think that way. The main thing is to have the political will and desire to settle those contentious moments though dialogue rather than through confrontation or absurd intimidations"

(Ria.ru, November 9)



Twitter.com/Sandy_mustache, November 9, 2016.

The Russian opposition Twitter account @Sandy_mustache portrays Peskov combed a la Trump.

Putin's Adviser, Glazyev: 'Clinton Was A Symbol Of A World War, Trump May Alter The Situation'

Putin's adviser, Sergey Glazyev, said:" The reset in Russian-American relations is inevitable. Americans have two choices: either a world war or an agreement on a multi-polar world. Clinton was a symbol of a world war, Trump may alter the situation."

(Lenta.ru, November 9)

Pushkov Tweet Storm: 'Trump Is Mainly An Unknown. But He Represents A Chance For The U.S. And The World'

Senator and former chair of the International Affairs Committee of the State Duma, Aleksey Pushkov, (@Alexey_Pushkov) wrote in his twitter account on November 8: "The U.S. ruling elites and the mass media were trying to scare everyone with Trump. But many fear Clinton and are convinced: Hillary means war. Boomerang effect."



(Twitter.com/Alexey_Pushkov, November 8, 2016)

Pushkov also posted: "Many in the U.S. wanted to put an end to status quo embodied by Clinton. Trump is largely an unknown. But he represents a chance for the US and the world. "



(Twitter.com/Alexey_Pushkov, November 9, 2016)

Pushkov then tweeted: "The old Republican guard has lost - all those "always in the past" Romneys and McCains, who were in bed with Clinton and tried to poison Trump."

(Twitter.com/Alexey_Pushkov, November 9, 2016)

Pushkov commented: "The ruling U.S. elites will try to tamper Trump 's attempts to recover relations with Putin. All those European and NATO leaders, who [feel] animosity towards Russia. The battle is not finished yet".

(Twitter.com/Alexey_Pushkov, November 9, 2016)

He also wrote: "The battle is not finished yet: the U.S. ruling elites will try to turn Trump into Clinton's political clone. They won't succeed: [Trump and Hillary] have too different haircut [styles]."

(Twitter.com/Alexey_Pushkov, November 9, 2016)

Russian Duma Speaker Volodin: 'The Winner Is A Candidate Who Favored Dialogue With Russia'

Commenting on Trump's victory, Russian Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said: "The winner is a candidate who favored dialogue with Russia and resolving issues which have accumulated between our countries. For that reason we hope he will fulfill his promises and intentions. Let's wait and see whether the problems, created by the outgoing [Obama] administration, will disappear when this administration and those politicians go... This makes us hope that our relations will be of different character. They will be more respectful, more constructive- first and foremost on the US' part, since Russia has always demonstrated its desire to build constructive relations based on respect for American interests."

(Ria.ru, November 9)

Federation Council Speaker Matviyenko: 'Americans... Have Not Been Affected By Clinton's... Anti-Russian Rhetoric'

Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, said: "In spite of administrative resources, in spite of Obama's support for Clinton, Trump won. This means that Americans are disenchanted with Obama's foreign policy. Americans, who made their decision, did not respond to Clinton's highly visible anti-Russian rhetoric, and pinned their hopes for change on Trump".

The Speaker also said: "Judging by Mr. Trump's election campaign rhetoric, one may express the hope, a cautious hope so far, that the U.S. foreign policy will change and that the person who is not burdened with the previous administration's decisions will be a realist, a pragmatist. There is a hope that constructive cooperation between Russia and the US will be built... There is a hope that it will be possible to steer relations out of the crisis... American people and the people of Russia are interested in the mutually beneficial Russian-U.S. relations... We are certainly interested in turning this page in tense relations between our two countries... There is hope, and we will make every effort to transition to this style of relations with the U.S."

(Ria.ru, November 9; Tass.com, November 9)

Head Of Federation Council Committee For International Affairs Kosachev: 'The Chances Of Renewal In All Areas, Including Russia, Are Obvious'

Head of Russia's Federation Council Committee for International Affairs Konstantin Kosachev commented: "There is some hope for Russian-U.S. relations, though Trump may be stalled by the conservatives in Congress...In any case, this is better than the hopelessness of a Clinton America."

Kosachev also stated: "The chances of renewal in all areas, including Russia, are obvious. I believe that Russia should send the appropriate signals to make sure that the new U.S. leader realizes that we are fully committed to the dialogue, and, most importantly, we want to be heeded." He then stressed that Moscow does not have any "desire to revive the Cold War or some kind of empire seeking to challenge the U.S." However, Kosachev fears that Trump may have problems in choosing the policy towards Russia. "The pressure on the new U.S. president may be exerted by U.S. allies from the outside, above all, in Europe where the sentiment is somewhere between panic and disappointment," Kosachev said.

(Tass.com, November 9)

Head of the Federation Council Rules Committee Tyulpanov: '[Americans] Have Grown Tired Of The Excessive Aggression By The White House'

The chairman of the Federation Council's Rules Committee, Vadim Tyulpanov, said: "[Americans] have grown tired of the excessive aggression by the White House... The public can see that the current policy of U.S. authorities is based on lies and a distortion of facts... Donald Trump's success means that U.S. citizens want their country's authorities to adopt a different domestic and foreign policy."

(Tass.com, November 9)

Member Of The Duma's International Committee, Vitaly Milonov: 'Hillary [Clinton] Is Not That Young And She Was A Political Nominee Of The Failure Obama'

Member of the State Duma's International Committee, Vitaly Milonov, said: "Hillary is not that young and she was the political replacement for the failure Obama, who did not justify the expectations. Now she'd better devote time to her family. She's got an old husband, large property. She should leave the experts' domain."

(Lenta.ru, November 9)

The Celebratory Photo



Vedomosti.ru, November 9, 2016.

Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and his fellow party members toast Trump's victory.
The whole world is talking about Donald Trumps victory, oh wait, he is President Trump now, and how his tenure could bring drastic changes in global relations, especially immigration services. Well, it seems the change has already started! An eight-year-old Indian child actor was reportedly denied a US visa to attend his films premiere in New York, owing to immigration concerns. His name is Sunny Pawar and he stars in the Australian movie Lion which also features Nicole Kidman and Dev Patel.

 The Weinstein Company

Lion is based on the true story of Saroo Brierley, an Indian-born Australian man who sets out to find his birth family, whom he got separated from as a kid, before ending up in an orphanage and later being adopted by an Australian couple. He used Google Earth to trace back his family in India.

The distributor of this movie, The Weinstein Company, stated that Sunny who plays young Saroo was expected to fly with his father to Los Angeles and New York for the films screening, but was denied a visa, hinting that it can be an effect of immigration paranoia.

 The Weinstein Company

The companys President David Glasser said, We believe it must be the effect of immigration paranoia. He, of course, poses absolutely no threat to anyone and we want him to be a part of the celebration of this film and his performance. We fully intend to go through the proper resources and appeal with the state department for assistance, he further added, stating that they are doing everything they can to fight this. However, we dont know when they applied for Sunnys visa. The movie Lion is scheduled to be released on November 25, 2016.

We are not trying to randomly connect dots here, but is it really a coincidence that all this happens right after Trump becomes the 45th President of The United States of America? Are there more surprises coming our way?

Source: The Guardian
As 500 and 1000 rupees notes are demonetized now, thousands and thousands of people must be having sleepless nights. Some are thinking about getting their notes changed at the earliest while some are counting their unaccounted money. All those people who are freaking out over their now-good-for-nothing notes are coming up with weird ideas to get rid of them. Dont believe us? Check these out.

In Uttar Pradeshs Bareilly, sacks full of 500 and 1000 rupees notes were found burnt. Reportedly, those notes were brought in sacks and dumped by workers of a company on Parsa Kheda road at CB Ganj. In fact, according to the police officials, the notes were found cut, damaged and were then burnt. Post this incident, the police has taken hold of the remains and informed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials as well. Joginder Singh, Senior Superintendent of Bareilly said, We are examining the burnt notes to check for their authenticity.

 BCCL

Similarly, a sack full of notes was dumped near a dustbin in the Titwala region of Maharashtra near DNS bank. Forget humans, for once even the dustbin wouldnt have felt scared of getting robbed by anyone.

Breaking news: A bag full of 500 & 1000 #currency notes was found dumped in a dustbin near DNS Bank, Titwala! pic.twitter.com/lBXJ9qwpiV  Priyanka RP (@ThePriR) November 9, 2016

If the discovery of sacks werent enough, check out this video posted yesterday by a Facebook page GURNAM where a cop is found taking out tons of cash from an abandoned car. Oh god, what a life! We have so much cash in front of our eyes yet theres no point chasing it. This situation reminds us of the proverb, Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

Meanwhile, our PM Modi might be reading this and thinking, Woah, now thats what I call a MAJOR BURN.
While the entire world is sinking in the latest presidential win of Donald Trump let's not forget his better half, Melania Trump who has also been getting a ton of attention owing to her sense of style. Donald has always been with fashionable women, even in the past. From Ivana Trump to his second wife, the American television personality, Maria Maples and now Melania, all these women have been on point in regards to fashion.

Melania, who is now the first lady of the USA, has been at the forefront of the glam world. Shes rubbed shoulders with A-list celebs from the Golden Globes to The Academy Awards and one look at her campaign images and you will know what we are talking about.

From her glossy magazines shoots to her adorning the poshest luxury labels here are some of the hottest moments of Melania Trump.

1. Red is always a good idea

2. That fitted number in white cements the fact that her fashion choices are always right.

 Twitter

3. That Red Gucci bib shirt was a great choice.

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4. When nothing works, black and white does, and the First Lady agrees

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5. Off-shoulder like that never fails

 Pintrest

6. Her hair game on point

 Pintrest
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) on November 4 included Asvio Bank (Chernihiv), owner and CEO of GML International investment company (London) Stefan Pinter, in the list of pre-qualified individuals eligible to participate in withdrawing insolvent banks from the market, reads a report on the NBU's website.

According to the report, Pinter (a citizen of the UK and Northern Ireland) can participate in the removal of insolvent banks from the market through the sale of such banks to investors, while Asvio Bank through liquidation of banks with the alienation of all or part of its assets and liabilities in favor of the receiving bank, in particular with revoking the license and subsequent liquidation.

According to NBU, the list of pre-qualified individuals who have the right to participate in the removal of insolvent banks from the market, in addition to the above-mentioned persons, includes Ukrsotsbank, TAScombank, FUIB, Alfa-Bank, Bank Credit Dnepr, and BTA Bank.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) could provide a $15 million loan to Agrofusion, the largest Ukrainian vertically integrated industrial tomato paste producer created by former co-founder of Sandora juice producers businessman Serhiy Sypko.

According to a posting on the EBRD's website, the long-term loan would help the company to partially finance construction and purchase of equipment for the third tomato paste plant in Ukraine and promotion of tomato paste sales on foreign markets.

The EBRD Board is to discuss the provision of funds on December 14.

Total cost of the project is $50 million.

Governor of Kherson region Andriy Hordeyev said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine that Agrofusion is looking for a land parcel to build the new plant.

"We are working on the loan of Agrofusion that would expand the tomato processing capacity in Hola Prystan to 300,000 tonnes a year. We are looking for one more land parcel to spend UAH 3 billion of investment from them in construction of the tomato paste plant," he said.

As reported, in May 2016 the International Finance Corporation (IFC) from the World Bank Group said it would provide $10 million to Agrofusion Group to boost its working capital.

Agrofusion Group was founded by Sypko in 2007. Agrofusion Group in 2014 reached its maximum production of 52,778 tonnes of tomato paste, in 2015 it expanded its capabilities through investment, reaching a figure of 61,500 tonnes.

The companys operational assets include two tomato paste plants with total processing capacity of approximately 480,000 tonnes of tomatoes per season; two seedling green-houses; and 20,500 hectares of irrigated leased land in Mykolaiv and Kherson regions as well as modern farming equipment.
Ukraine by the end of 2016 would extract 50 million cubic meters of gas more than in 2015 and next year  500 million cubic meters more, and by 2020 the country would become energy independent, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has said.

"In six months we extract plus 50 million [cubic meters of gas]. Next year we will extract at least 500 million cubic meters of own gas more. In five years by 2020 we could boost it to 7 billion cubic meters of gas. This means that actually we will live consuming our own gas," he said at Kherson State Maritime Academy on Thursday.

The prime minister said that boosting of Ukrainian gas production is recorded after a period of permanent decline. He said that Ukraine is to produce own gas and the country should invest in it. Public joint-stock company Ukrgazvydobuvannia is working on this.

Groysman said that development of gas production in Ukraine absolutely meets the government's top priority to achieve the country's energy independence.

"Ukraine must become energy independent state. Gas production is one of the top priorities. We can boost gas production in three or five years and reduce gas consumption. This would help us to be fully independent from imported gas," the prime minister said.
MHP agroholding, the largest poultry producer in Ukraine, seeks to more actively work with local communities and public leaders to the change the parasitical and paternalistic mood in the country and create better prospects for development and the company, MHP Board Chairman Yuriy Kosiuk has said.

"Successful people inside the company are social outcasts, an object of derision and envy. We have decided that we will work with communities to change attitudes toward successful people and those who want to do something," he said at the third Orchestrators of Change Directors forum.

The businessman said that it is a surprise for him after the Maidan how strong parasitical mood in society is. Without changing it, attempts to improve the work of the authorities and their institutions for example, the Verkhovna Rada and the Antimonopoly Committee, will be in vain, he said.

He said that the company should set a good example to businesses and leaders in each settlement and community where the company works.

Kosiuk said that this could take five years, but it would be hard to change parasitical and paternalistic mood in society without it. He said that these are good deeds such as beautiful grass plots, paving slabs, painting of road border stones and intolerance to scoundrels.

The businessman said that as part of the new approach to the implementation of social projects the company would actively involve the public.

"We will finance 70% and you  30% with money, participation and work," he said.
Alternate Foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos is travelling to London today for meetings with the UK Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Mr. Green, the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Sir Duncan, and the Minister of State for Exiting the European Union, Mr. Jones, as well as with the Labour Party shadow ministers for finance, Mr. McDonnell, and foreign policy (Minister of State), Mr. Mahmood. The talks will focus on issues of European and bilateral interest, particularly in light of the referendum on the United Kingdoms exiting the EU.

During his stay in London, Mr. Katrougalos is also scheduled to meet with the Minister of State for International Trade, Lord Price, and shadow minister for business, Mr. Esterson.

Also during his visit, Mr. Katrougalos will address an event for investors being organized by the British Hellenic Chamber of Commerce and deliver two lectures on Greece's progress, at the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford.
Deputy Foreign Minister Ioannis Amanatidis met today at the Foreign Ministry with the Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Alexey Volkov. The meeting took place in a friendly atmosphere and confirmed the excellent climate prevailing in the relations between the two countries.



During the meeting, Mr. Volkov stressed that bilateral relations can be developed even further, with particular emphasis on culture, as well as on economic exchanges  sectors in which there is a positive outlook.



The Deputy Minister was briefed on the handling of religious and minority affairs by the authorities of Kazakhstan, and he expressed his conviction that the bilateral educational and cultural relations between the two countries can be strengthened to a very significant degree, to the benefit of the two peoples.
Deputy Foreign Minister Terence Quick is carrying out his first visit to Istanbul in his new capacity. He was received in Istanbul by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and met with members of the Greek community.



With His All Holiness, the Deputy Minister discussed issues concerning the competencies he has taken on regarding Greeks abroad. Mr. Quick also attended the celebratory evening mass held at the Holy Church of Saint Menas, in Samatya, at which the Ecumenical Patriarch officiated.



In the same framework, the Deputy Minister visited the schools of the Greek community and in particular the Zappeion and Zografeion schools and the Great School of the Nation. He will complete his visit with a meeting with the Board of the Association for the Support of Greek Community Foundations (SYRKI).



The Deputy Minister will be returning to Athens this evening.
Within the framework of his visit to Poland (8-10 November), the Alternate Minister for European Affairs and International Economic Relations, Giorgos Katrougalos, signed a Protocol on Greek-Polish economic Cooperation with the Polish Undersecretary of State for Economic Diplomacy, Robert Gray. The Protocol in question creates a framework for closer cooperation between the two countries Ministries in the field of economic diplomacy.



Mr. Katrougalos also met with the Polish Secretary of State for European, Legal and Treaty Affairs, Konrad Szymanski, with whom he had a constructive discussion on the future of Europe, the refugee issue and the European budget.
Ukraine is mulling refining of crude oil at an oil refinery in Belarus on a tolling basis, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Hennadiy Zubko has said.

According to a posting on the government's website, after the 24th meeting of the intergovernmental commission for trade and economic cooperation co-chaired by Zubko and Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko, Belneftekhim Concern and public joint-stock company Ukrtransnafta are instructed to work on all economic aspects of crude oil supplies and refining by the end of 2016.

First Deputy Director General of Ukrtransnafta Andriy Pasishnyk told reporters that the refining of Azeri oil or Iranian oil as part of the launch of the Odesa-Brody pipeline is being discussed.

He said that the company receives many proposals from traders who are ready to ship oil to Mozyr for refining.

"These proposals coincided with the reduction of crude oil supplies to Belarus from Russia and the capacity of refineries become unloaded," he said.

Pasishnyk said that it is unviable for Belarus to buy Caspian crude oil compared to Russian oil shipments with benefits. They can permit refining on a tolling basis and earn something.
Detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) on November 8 sent the indictment against first deputy board chairman of Naftogaz Ukrainy Serhiy Pereloma and first deputy board chairman of Odesa Port-Side Plant Mykola Schurikov, the NABU press service has reported.

Pereloma and Schurikov are accused of committing a crime under Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (misappropriation, embezzlement or conversion of property by abuse of official post committed in respect of an especially gross amount).

"The suspects studied the materials of the investigation that have been sent to court jointly with the indictment," the press service said.

Pereloma and Schurikov could be imprisoned for the period from seven to 12 years along with seizure of property. Restrictions on employment and engaging in certain activities could also be imposed for a period lasting up to three years.

KYIV. Nov 10 (Interfax-Ukraine)  Detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) on November 8 sent the indictment against first deputy board chairman of Naftogaz Ukrainy Serhiy Pereloma and first deputy board chairman of Odesa Port-Side Plant Mykola Schurikov, the NABU press service has reported.

Pereloma and Schurikov are accused of committing a crime under Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (misappropriation, embezzlement or conversion of property by abuse of official post committed in respect of an especially gross amount).

"The suspects studied the materials of the investigation that have been sent to court jointly with the indictment," the press service said.

Pereloma and Schurikov could be imprisoned for the period from seven to 12 years along with seizure of property. Restrictions on employment and engaging in certain activities could also be imposed for a period lasting up to three years.
Ukraine has held the World Trade Organization (WTO) consultations with Russia on restrictions of transit movement from Ukraine to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan across Russia, the press service of Ukraine's Economic Development and Trade Ministry has reported.

"On November 10, 2016 in Geneva WTO consultations were held in the case Ukraine finally called on Russia to remove restrictive measures towards transit movement at the first phase of dispute discussion," the ministry said.

A delegation headed by Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade  Ukraine's Trade Representative Natalia Mykolska presented Ukraine's rights and interests.

The consultations are confidential not to restrict rights of any WTO member country to voluntarily lift the restrictive measures at the stage of dispute settling.

Today, Ukraine has sent a requirement to create a group of experts in the case "Russia  measures affecting the importation of railway equipment and parts thereof (WT/DS499) that Ukraine initiated in November 2015: the requirement was sent as Russia has not removed the restrictions imposed on the Ukrainian goods.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and European Commissioner on European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Johannes Hahn during a telephone conversation have discussed strengthening the energy security in Europe.

"The head of state stressed that the European Commission's decision to expand Gazprom's access to the OPAL gas pipeline goes against to the spirit of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU and the Energy Community Treaty," reads a statement posted on the website of the Ukrainian president on Thursday evening.

The European Commission on October 28 allowed Russian gas giant Gazprom to increase its quota in the throughput capacity of the strategic Opal gas pipeline in Germany. The European Commission agreed to exempt OPAL from the third energy package until 2033, a source said. "This gives Gazprom an additional 40% out of OPAL's capacity of 25.6 billion cubic meters," the source said.

This expands Gazprom's access to 90% from 50%. The European Commission will reserve 10% of capacity, which may be increased to 20% given demand from third parties. The European Commission also retains the right to revise the arrangement if demand on the part of third parties increases.

Opal is an extension of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on the territory of the European Union. Supplies from Russia are transmitted along it from the bed of the Baltic Sea through Germany to the Czech border.

Since Gazprom is a co-owner of the Opal pipeline, it falls within the scope of the Third Energy Package, which the EC adopted in 2009 and does not allow gas suppliers to occupy a dominant position on the market.

Earlier, Gazprom was permitted to use only half of the pipeline's capacity. The European Commission at the end of October ruled to increase Gazprom quota of using OPAL to 90%.
Ukrainian army positions in Donbas came under 44 militant attacks in the past 24 hours, the army operation press center said on Facebook on Thursday.

According to the press center, 25 shelling incidents were observed in the Mariupol sector. The militants fired small arms, grenade launchers, weapons of infantry combat vehicles and 82mm and 120mm mortars on the vicinities of Pavlopil, Novotroyitske, Shyrokyne, Vodiane, Krasnohorivka, Bohdanivka, Hnutove and Maryinka.

Fourteen attacks on Ukrainian army positions by use of various types of armaments, including mortars, were observed in the Luhansk sector, it said.

The ceasefire was breached five times in the Donetsk sector, where Avdiyivka and Luhanske were shelled, the press center said.
Deutsche Telekom AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated telecommunication services. The company operates through five segments: Germany, United States, Europe, Systems Solutions, and Group Development. It offers fixed-network services, including voice and data communication services based on fixed-network and broadband technology; and sells terminal equipment and other hardware products, as well as services to resellers. The company also provides mobile voice and data services to consumers and business customers; sells mobile devices and other hardware products; and sells mobile services to resellers and to companies that purchases and markets network services to third parties, such as mobile virtual network operators. In addition, it offers internet services; internet-based TV products and services; and information and communication technology systems for multinational corporations and public sector institutions with an infrastructure of data centers and networks under the T-Systems brand, as well as call center services. The company has 242 million mobile customers and 22 million broadband customers, as well as 27 million fixed-network lines. Deutsche Telekom AG has a collaboration with VMware, Inc. on cloud-based open and intelligent virtual RAN platform to bring agility to radio access networks for existing LTE and future 5G networks; and partnership with Microsoft to deliver high-performance cloud computing experiences. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Bonn, Germany.
Ukrainian parliament deputy Nadia Savchenko has written an open letter to U.S. President Elect Donald Trump urging him to step up anti-Russian sanctions rather than lift them.

Savchenko posted her letter on Facebook.

"I appeal to you with the kindly request to maintain and even to strengthen sanctions for Russian Federation because this country understands only force and resolve that you really have personally and your country has as a World Leader," she said.

"I also ask for international diplomatic, technical, military support of Ukraine. I also ask for the most drastic actions of U.S. politics, your future President Administration for making free Ukrainian hostages from Russian prisons," Savchenko said.

"I'd be very thankful for your possible future answer where you may explain to Ukrainians and to all World Nations the main points of your future President Administration steps on these questions," she said.
Mao Zedong was born on 26 December 1893 into relative prosperity in a village in Hunan province. His father, a poor peasant and former soldier, had risen to the level of grain merchant and owned two and a half acres of land.

The young Mao disliked his bullying father, later remarking that acting meekly did little to ameliorate his fathers anger, and thus he was encouraged towards rebellion early on. A similar dislike of his teacher instilled a lifelong disregard for intellectuals, whom he would later consign to the ninth stinking category of counter-revolutionary.

Maos father arranged his marriage to a local girl, but Mao ignored her. He had to quit elementary school, but spent time in a higher primary and middle school.

His first political act came in 1911, as the Manchu Dynasty crumbled and rebellion broke out in Changsha town. Mao enlisted in Dr Sun Yat-sens army, but spent just six months as an orderly. He would later claim to have spent six months in the Changsha library, absorbing Chinese translations of Western classics.

In 1913, Mao entered a teacher training college in Changsha, where he established several student organisations. Over the next couple of years, touring Hunan province on foot, he became highly critical of Chinas past governance: the way forward, he believed, would involve amalgamating aspects of Western and Chinese thought.

By September 1918, he had qualified as a teacher, but instead of remaining in Changsha, he went to Beijing, where he became an assistant in the university library.

News of the Bolsheviks overthrowing the Russian Tsar had filtered east, and Mao came under the influence of Dr Li Dazhao and the universitys dean of literature Chen Duxiu, both Marxists and founder members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The Paris Peace Conference also influenced Mao. After 4 May 1919, Chinese students took to the streets, protesting terms that gave German concessions to the Japanese. Caught up in student activism, he gravitated even more towards Marxism.

In 1920, Mao returned to Changsha and became principal of a primary school. He also helped set up the Changsha branch of the newly formed CCP. The following year, he became General Secretary for Hunan and was one of 12 delegates to the First Party Congress. At the time, the national membership was less than 60 people; 28 years later, organised and indoctrinated by Mao, the Chinese Communist Party would conquer the largest nation on earth.

This is an extract from Tom Farrells two-part article titled Maos Red Army, featured in issue 75 of Military History Monthly.
The surprise felt by many Americans the day after the presidential election was noticeable at the Pentagon, where U.S. service members said they never expected Donald Trump would become their new commander-in-chief.

"I stayed up until about 1:30 in the morning, and I couldn't believe it," said Air Force Maj. Todd Watson, a 42-year-old programs manager at the Defense Department.

He said he voted for Trump, despite the candidate's "rough-around-the-edges" image.

"A lot of times what he said concerned me, and I thought he would have had a better time if he would have used a different tact," Watson said. "I was bothered by a lot of the same stuff most folks were put off by, but at the end of the day, I don't know if the lesser of two evils was the right terminology ... but it was a vote against Hillary Clinton."

With Clinton, "there was a trust thing," Watson said, who described Trump as "an outsider who will try to inject something different into the system."

He added, "There may be some pain with that, but I think it will be a positive thing in many ways too."

About a dozen service members said they didn't feel comfortable talking to a reporter about the election. Half of those were female service members.

A U.S. Navy officer, who asked not to be identified, said he was very surprised by the election's outcome.

"It was kind of shocking. It just seemed like by all the polls that were coming out; everybody seemed to be saying Clinton was a shoo-in," he said, adding, "I didn't vote for either one of them."

The personnel policy specialist with 19 years of service said he voted instead for Gary Johnson, the libertarian candidate.

"I wasn't impressed with some of the things I was hearing about Hillary Clinton," he said, referring to the FBI investigation into her emails as secretary of state.

As for Trump, "some of his personal actions were very concerning," such as the negative comments he made about women.

"A lot of it just didn't seem very presidential," he said.

He said he hasn't been this surprised by a national event since the O.J. Simpson murder trial verdict.

"Everybody just assumed he was guilty and the verdict came back as not guilty, and everybody was just flabbergasted," he said. "I kind of get the feeling that a lot of people had the same reaction this morning."

The naval officer admitted that he was concerned that "the whole election process was a foregone conclusion," since the "powers that be," the news media and social media, all seemed to be pushing Clinton forward to victory.

"The whole thing just seemed like it was a set-up," he said.

When Trump won, he said he said it was very "refreshing to see Americans make a decision like that."

"Maybe all this was just conspiracy thoughts on my own part."

Army Master Sgt. Pernell Sato said he also didn't think Trump would win.

The 52-year-old paralegal on Active Guard Reserve status said he did not vote this time.

"I couldn't decide," Sato said. "I just didn't want to do it just for the sake of doing it. I wasn't really against or for either of them."

Sato said he was curious as to how much of a difference "an outsider can make. Maybe that's what the country wanted."

"If it shakes up things a little, it could be possibly good or it could be a disaster," he said. "We have survived disasters."

In September, Trump proposed an almost Reaganesque plan to boost the size of the military.

He called for increasing the size of the Army to about 540,000 active-duty soldiers, the Marine Corps to 36 battalions, the Navy to 350 surface ships and submarines, and the Air Force to at least 1,200 fighter aircraft.

By comparison, the Pentagon's $583 billion budget proposal for fiscal 2017, which began Oct. 1, requests funding for 460,000 active soldiers, 24 Marine infantry battalions, 287 naval ships and roughly 1,170 fighter aircraft (excluding A-10 ground attack aircraft) -- all for the active component. The figures don't take into account additional troops and equipment for the Guard and Reserve.

Trump didn't specify how he would work with Congress to fund such a plan, which would cost, at minimum, tens of billions of dollars.

Watson said he has "mixed emotions about whether I think somebody can achieve all of that."

"I think a person like an elected official comes in with all these grand notions about what they are going to get done, and I think they have to temper it once they are in there because they have the realization that it is going to be a much larger challenge that they anticipated," Watson said.

"I guess my take on a lot of this is: I don't know how any one entity, Republican or Democrat, can move the ball forward, but I do feel like there is a hope of perhaps doing some of those things under a presidency with him at the helm.

"I think a guy like Trump is going to work hard and get darn close ... My hope is he can do a lot of what he says he is going to do," he said.

One Army officer, who also asked not to be identified in this story, said he thinks any president could make such changes to the military "if they had the support of the people and the Congress."

"I have been a proud member of the Army for 23 years, an organization that has been around for 241 years," he said. "Regardless if we get bigger, smaller, whatever the future may hold for us, we are still going to be here for the American people."

While he wouldn't say who he voted for, the Army officer said "there is nothing but opportunities ahead of us right now."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.
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.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has refuted the Russian Federal Security Service's (FSB) report that members of a sabotage and terrorist group from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Chief Directorate of Intelligence were detained in Sevastopol.

"In reality, the FSB did not detain any saboteurs because they are not present in Crimea and Sevastopol. Russian special services are trying to show their efficiency in such a way, once again misleading the supreme Russian leadership, the people and the international community," Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Andriy Lysenko told Interfax on Thursday.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Chief Directorate of Intelligence later refuted information about the presence of saboteurs in Crimea.

"The Chief Directorate of Intelligence of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine has refuted the claims of the FSB of the Russian Federation that officers of the Chief Directorate of Intelligence were allegedly detained in Sevastopol. It is another fake report by Russian special services aimed at covering up the repressive actions against residents of the peninsula, as well as aimed at discrediting Ukraine in the eyes of the international community," the directorate said in a statement published on the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's website.

It became known earlier that Russian FSB officers had detained members of a sabotage and terrorist group from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Chief Directorate of Intelligence.
Former Royals closer and current free agent Greg Holland held a showcase for interested teams that was attended by roughly 18 clubs on Monday. Since that time, hes been an oft-discussed name and has been connected to numerous clubs around the league. Theres yet to be an indication as to when or where the two-time All-Star will sign, but heres the latest on his market
Agent Scott Boras wouldnt comment definitively on whether Jeremy Hellickson plans to accept or reject the Phillies $17.2MM qualifying offer on Wednesday, writes CSNPhilly.coms Jim Salisbury, but Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets that Hellickson has been advised to do so. Additionally, FanRags Jon Heyman reports that Hellickson is leaning toward declining the offer.

Itd come as a shock if Hellickson were to accept the QO, as hes one of only a select few starters that can reasonably expect to command a strong multi-year deal this winter. Hellickson joins lefty Rich Hill and fellow righty Ivan Nova atop a historically thin market for starting pitching. On the heels of a 3.71 ERA with 7.3 K/9, 2.1 BB/9 and a 40.7 percent ground-ball rate in 189 innings of work, Hellickson has a strong enough case that we pegged him seventh among free agents this winter and projected a four-year, $60MM contract for the former AL Rookie of the Year. And, as Heyman points out, Hellicksons quality work dates back to the second half of the 2015 campaign with the D-backs. While that year was a disappointment overall, Hellickson did indeed have a nice run to close out the year, logging a 3.86 ERA with 7.2 K/9, 2.8 BB/9 and a 42.8 percent grounder rate following the All-Star Game  numbers that look quite similar to his 2016 output.

As Salisbury writes, Boras said theres already been considerable interest in Hellickson, which is to be expected given the dearth of options in free agency. In this market, hes probably the foremost young, under-30 pitcher, said Boras. You know, he had a 3.71 ERA in Philadelphia, which is an offensive ballpark.  Hes a guy thats got the highest spin rate on a breaking ball. He has a lot of components that tell you why hes successful  his command, changeup, breaking ball  and thats creating a lot of interest for a lot of teams. And in a free-agent marketplace short on starting pitching  its very advantageous for him.

If Hellickson does hit the open market  which seems exceptionally likely  its difficult to envision him re-signing with the Phillies. General manager Matt Klentak spoke to MLB Networks Jon Morosi about Hellickson today at the GM Meetings (video link), telling him: The fully honest answer is Im happy and content either way. If we get Jeremy Hellickson back on a one-year deal, thats great. Hes really good, and having a starting pitcher on a short-term deal is something that Ill take every time. Conversely, if he ends up testing free agency, Ill be rooting for him. I hope he gets every penny hes worth, but well be happy to take the draft pick.

Hellickson and the other nine players that received qualifying offers from their respective teams have until Monday to determine whether theyll accept or reject the offer, although any of those free agents can technically sign a deal before that deadline (which would be considered the equivalent of rejecting the QO). Thats a rare outcome, of course, though Michael Cuddyer signed a two-year deal with the Mets two years ago in the week between receiving a QO from the Rockies and the deadline to accept or decline. However, theres been no indication that any of the free agents to receive a QO are anywhere near a decision.
Police Gen. 3rd Rank Dmytro Holovin has been appointed head of the Ukrainian National Police department in the Odesa region, the National Police press service has said.

"Dmytro Holovin is an experienced specialist having a solid record of operational work in different regions of the country," Deputy Interior Minister Serhiy Yarovy said while introducing Holovin to the chiefs of structural and territorial divisions of the regional police department.

Before this appointment, Holovin headed the National Police's criminal investigations department.

Holovin has served in the Ukrainian police since 1996. He earlier headed the Kyiv regional criminal investigations department, temporarily performed the duties of Kyiv regional police chief and also served in different positions in the Odesa regional law enforcement bodies.

It was reported on November 7 that head of the Ukrainian National Police department in the Odesa region Georgi Lortkipanidze had resigned.

Lortkipanidze explained his decision, among other things, by a shortage of qualified personnel in the department. He said the regional police department's personnel had been cut by 40% in the course of an optimization campaign.

It was reported earlier that Interior Minister Arsen Avakov had introduced Lortkipanidze, a former Georgian deputy interior minister, to the personnel of the-then Ukrainian Interior Ministry's department in the Odesa region as its chief in June 2016.

Shortly before the appointment, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko granted Ukrainian citizenship to Lortkipanidze.

It was reported on Thursday morning that Poroshenko had signed a decree on relieving Mikheil Saakashvili of his duties as head of the Odesa regional administration.

Saakashvili announced on November 7 that he was stepping down as Odesa regional administration head. In explaining his decision, Saakashvili said he was tired of systematic deceit and corruption, including among the top-ranking officials in Kyiv. The Ukrainian Cabinet of ministers endorsed Saakashvili's resignation on November 9.
The Reds look to be in for a relatively quiet offseason, writes C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer, though GM Dick Williams did acknowledge that hell remain open to trade scenarios involving Zack Cozart at this weeks GM Meetings. He can be a part of grooming players and he can be a part of a winning clubhouse, said Williams of his veteran shortstop. But if theres something that really puts the franchise in a better position for 18 and 19 that works, its something wed have to consider. Weve shown the willingness to trade guys who have been with us if it helps us get better. Williams also said that both Jose Peraza and Dilson Herrera will get opportunities next year, though the timing of those opportunities is tied to what the Reds accomplish this offseason. Rosecrans adds that solidifying the bench with a right-handed-hitting outfielder and adding to the teams bullpen are on the to-do list this winter.

A few more notes on the Reds
TRAVERSE CITY, MI -- It's no longer one of Michigan's best kept secrets -- the Traverse City area is home to 19 craft breweries and brewpubs, which is impressive when you consider it only has 15,000 residents.

Want to learn more about the TC beer scene?

Traverse City Beer Week, which this year takes place Nov. 11-17, 2016, offers a long list of tastings, dinners, games, workshops, lectures and more!

The local microbreweries, brewpubs and craft beer taprooms have combined efforts to offer about 50-plus events.

"We've got a lot of talented brewers in town; a lot of great creativity and agriculture, and we're excited to celebrate our 4th annual Traverse City Beer Week," said Trevor Tkach of the the Traverse City Tourism Bureau, which sponsors the event.

"It's a unique experience here. You have a chance to come in and immerse yourself in the creativity that's brought forth by our brewers, but you also see beers from across the state."

Recognition for the local scene is growing.

CNN Money called Traverse City one of "America's Best Beer Towns."

And Thrillist called the area one of the "Best American Vacations for Beer Lovers."

As for the events, one of the biggest is the annual Great Beerd Run on Nov. 12 at Grand Traverse Resort & Spa.

You can join MLive's Amy Sherman on the 5K fun run that features Short's Brewery in Bellaire, Beards Brewing Company in Petoskey and Right Brain Brewing in Traverse City. Each brewery will have a sampling on the race course.

Get signed up at thegreatbeerdrun.com.



Here is a look at last year's race:

I hope to attend a few other events, including the North vs. South event on Nov. 17 at GT Resort where Short's Brewing will battle Atwater Brewing in Detroit with a food-beer tasting.

Learn more about TC Beer Week at traversecity.com.
ALLEGAN, MI - The longest-tenured and most Allegan-connected member of Perrigo Co.'s board of directors is resigning.

Michael J. Jandernoa, who has been a member of the store-brand pharmaceutical maker's board since January of 1981, will not stand for re-election in 2017.

Jandernoa, 65, was chief executive officer of Perrigo from 1988 to 2000, and was chairman of the company from 1991 to 2003. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he joined the company in 1979 as chief financial officer after working as a certified public accountant for BDO Seidman.

He is now a general partner of 42 North Partners, an equity firm focused on investments, entrepreneurship and community, and is first vice chair of Business Leaders of Michigan Inc. He serves on the boards of several private companies and non-profits in Grand Rapids as well as Kalamazoo-based economic development organization Southwest Michigan First.

Perrigo Co. PLC, which was founded in Allegan but now has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, announced Thursday the appointment of new independent directors to fill seats on the 10-member board that are being vacated by Jandernoa and Gary K. Kunkle Jr.

From 2004 until his retirement in 2006, Kunkle was chairman and CEO of professional dental products company Dentsply International Inc. Kunkle, 68, has been a director of Perrigo since October of 2002 and served as its lead independent director from August 2007 to August 2008 and since August 2009.

"On behalf of the company and the entire Perrigo board, I want to thank Mike and Gary for their dedication and service to Perrigo and its shareholders, and contributions to the long-term success of the company," Laurie Brlas, chairman of the Perrigo board, said in a press release.

The new independent directors are Geoffrey M. Parker and Theodore R. Samuels.

Parker was chief financial officer of Anacor Pharmaceuticals from September 2010 to May 2015 and is currently a member of the board of directors of Genomic Health, Sunesis Pharmaceuticals and ChemoCentryx. From 1997 to 2009, he led the West Coast Healthcare Investment Banking practice at Goldman Sachs. He has a bachelor's degree in economics and engineering science from Dartmouth College and a master's degree in business administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Samuels has been president of Capital Guardian Trust Co., a Capital Group company, since 2010 and an equity portfolio manager and investment analyst at prominent investing company Capital Group since 1981. According to information provided by Perrigo, Samuels has a bachelor's degree from Harvard College and a master's degree in business administration from Harvard Business School.

The appointment of Parker was effective Monday, Nov. 7. Samuels is set to join the board on Jan. 4, after his retirement from Capital Group.

"When I became chairman of Perrigo's board of directors in April, (company CEO) John Hendrickson and I were adamant that we continue to bring fresh perspectives to all aspects of the company," Brlas said. "Our board certainly supports this approach through the appointment of Geoff and Ted, as they are highly qualified and experienced professionals. We look forward to benefiting from their relevant expertise and counsel as we continue to execute against our business objectives and take thoughtful and decisive action to create value for our shareholders."

There was no further word on Jandernoa decision to leave the board.

Brlas, 57, has been a director of Perrigo since August of 2003. Before being named chairman in April, she was executive vice president and chief financial officer of Newmont Mining Corp. from September 2013 until October 2016.

Jandernoa is a founder and board member of venture capital group Grand Angels and a past member of the Young Presidents' Organization. He also serves on the boards or is chairman of numerous religious and community organizations.

Perrigo is a worldwide producer of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and consumer goods sold under the labels of major retailers such as Walgreen, Walmart, Kroger and Osco. It is also a leading worldwide distributor of generic prescription products company.

Although the company re-domiciled its headquarters to Dublin in 2013, it maintains its operational center in Allegan County and continues to be the county's largest employer. The company has about 4,000 Michigan employees, most in Allegan County.
ANN ARBOR, MI - The election of Republican Donald Trump as president of the United States is getting mixed reactions across the nation.

Here in Ann Arbor, where 83 percent of voters supported Democrat Hillary Clinton, the outcome of the election is devastating for many, and local elected officials are among those taking to social media to express how they feel.

Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor.

"Like many of you, last night's election has shaken my confidence in our national character, shaken my confidence in my own ability to understand the world in which we live," Mayor Christopher Taylor wrote in a Facebook post.

"Those thoughts will take some time to digest, but I'd like now to write about what in my view remains true," the mayor continued. "It remains true that Ann Arbor has been, and will be, a place that looks forward, a place that rejects division. This is the unshakable character of our community.

"In Ann Arbor, we fully and enthusiastically welcome and embrace people of all kinds, no matter race, ethnicity, nation of origin, faith, no faith, sexual orientation, gender identity, or ability. We value common decency. We treat each other with respect and courtesy. These are the principles upon which Ann Arbor rests. These are the principles with which we will continue to work to make our home a better place, together, in this uncertain time. We have no choice; it is who we are."

Washtenaw County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi, who was elected to represent Ann Arbor in the state House on Tuesday, also shared his thoughts on Facebook.

"Today we mourn. Tomorrow we organize," he wrote. "For now, let the sadness sink in. Let the fear and anger process. Tomorrow we will wake up feeling energized again. Ready to fight. I feel the passion in my heart already growing as I head up to Lansing for my first day of orientation."

State Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, summed up his views on the 2016 election in a succinct tweet:

Washtenaw came out strong for Democrats and I feel fortunate to live in a community that builds bridges, not walls. The work continues.  Jeff Irwin (@JeffMIrwin) November 9, 2016

Ann Arbor City Council Member Chuck Warpehoski, D-5th Ward, wrote a blog post saying he's upset about the national election results.

"As a father, I worry about the country my daughter is growing up in when a man who brags about groping women can be elected president," he wrote.

"I worry about friends who are Muslim, Latinx, transgender, and others and what this election will mean for them."

Sharing his thoughts about where to go from here, Warpehoski said some communities are especially vulnerable, including women, people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ and low-income people.

"We need to stand together and defend the rights and safety of these vulnerable communities," he wrote.

"We need to reach out of our comfort zones," he added. "Look at the maps. If we stay in our blue-district enclaves, we won't win. Much of the outreach I have been involved in targets people who are already predisposed to agree. We need to go beyond that group and reach fence-sitters who are not there yet."

Of course, not everyone considers Trump's win bad news. Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel released a statement on Wednesday saying Michiganders sent a clear message that they want change.

"Donald Trump has presented a common-sense plan to keep jobs in Michigan and keep our country safe," she said.

Gov. Rick Snyder, who lives in Ann Arbor, was congratulatory on Twitter, saying he looks forward to working with Trump to move America forward.

Congratulations to President-Elect Trump and VP-Elect Pence for earning such strong support in Michigan and across the nation.  Rick Snyder (@onetoughnerd) November 9, 2016

I look forward to working with @realDonaldTrump and @GovPenceIN to move America forward. MI's comeback story is a model for real change.  Rick Snyder (@onetoughnerd) November 9, 2016

County Clerk Larry Kestenbaum, a Democrat, noted less than 27 percent of voters across the county voted for Trump. He said that's the lowest percentage for a Republican presidential nominee in at least a century and probably ever.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat whose district includes Ann Arbor, had this to say about Trump becoming president:
ANN ARBOR, MI - The U.S. 23 corridor in Washtenaw County has been a problem area to motorists for years, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation.

Traffic is backed up during rush hour as some 60,000 vehicles travel daily between the M-14 interchange north of Ann Arbor up to Silver Lake Road in Livingston County's Green Oak Township. If there's a crash on the two-lane highway, narrow shoulders contribute to further backups.

In response, MDOT announced in October an ambitious plan create a new traffic lane using existing inside shoulders for use during during peak traffic hours. The rush-hour lane will run eight miles from M-14 in Ann Arbor to M-36 in Green Oak Township.

Preliminary construction started Monday, Nov. 7.

The plan

The $92 million project is the first of its kind in Michigan.

During morning rush hour, the southbound shoulder will open to traffic for about three hours, and the northbound shoulder will open in the afternoon for about three hours, said Mark Sweeney, MDOT Brighton Transportation Service Center manager.

Electronic signs above U.S. 23 will tell drivers when the extra lane is open and when it's closed. Police will enforce the closure, said Jim Daavettlia, construction engineer at MDOT's Brighton Transportation Service Center.

MDOT also is adding five crash-investigation sites along U.S. 23 to reduce traffic interruptions after crashes on the expressway.

The work includes replacing overpasses at Six Mile, Eight Mile and North Territorial Road and the Great Lakes Central Rail Road bridge. Crews will widen the Barker Road bridge to accommodate the widened shoulder and repair the Joy and Warren road bridges.

MDOT will lengthen the U.S. 23 entrance ramps at Six Mile Road, Eight Mile Road and M-36 and lengthen all ramps at North Territorial Road. Crews also will install roundabouts at North Territorial Road and Eight Mile Road ramp terminals.

Crews will construct a 2,000-foot sound wall on the east side of northbound U.S. 23 along Whitmore Lake.

Dan's Excavating of Shelby Township won the project bid. Daavettlia said the company has a lot of resources and equipment for the project.

Why the Flex Route

Sweeney has been studying the route for years; the planning included a two-year environmental study. While widening each side of the expressway to three lanes was one potential option, MDOT doesn't have the money for it, he said.

Widening the road would cost $250 to $350 million, more than two or three times the cost of the Flex Route plan.

"By widening roadway, it's a 24-hour solution to three-hour problem," Sweeney said.

MDOT's options included doing nothing until it could reconstruct the expressway or try to do something with the resources the department has, which is the option MDOT officials chose.

The Flex Route also allows MDOT to open a lane during crashes to keep traffic moving, or have a lane open for emergency vehicles to get to incidents, Daavettlia said.

"In the end, it's going to be a good deal," he said.

While it's the first active traffic management system in the state, there are similar systems in Illinois, Washington and West Virginia, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration.

The reason the project runs from Ann Arbor to M-36 is because the eight-mile stretch is a significant but manageable stretch, Daavettlia said.

MDOT officials hope to later continue the Flex Route from M-36 to the U.S. 23 and I-96 interchange in Brighton Township, he said.

The timeline

Construction started this week, and should take about a year, according to MDOT officials.

Daavettlia said work crews started milling and filling in rumble strips Tuesday and Wednesday nights in preparation for future lane shifts.

Drivers will see work start sooner than later, he said, and it'll ramp up in early 2017. By the spring, crews will have heavy construction under way.

MDOT has a website with up-to-date information for drivers and residents, that'll include construction updates, lane closures, photos and videos, said spokeswoman Kari Arend.

MDOT hopes to have the project done in November 2017. The Flex Route should open in December or January after testing, Sweeney said.

"There will be inconveniences. I hope the public will work with us," he said.

Public input

At a public meeting Wednesday at Whitmore Lake High School, area residents came to speak with MDOT officials and engineers about the project.

Laura Preston of Webster Township said she wondered why MDOT wasn't installing three permanent lanes, but now understands the cost.

"It makes sense, and we don't always need it," she said. Preston drives U.S. 23 daily to go to her job in Wayne.

Jennifer Ellison said she's excited about the Flex Route, but also concerned traffic will bottleneck near Brighton. The Northfield Township resident takes back roads to her Ann Arbor job, but attended the meeting to see how the project would affect her.

She passes U.S. 23 and sees traffic at a dead stop every night, she said.

"Hopefully, this will help a lot," she added.

Joel Davila of Northfield Township believes the Flex Route is a good return on taxpayer money. Davila drives on U.S. 23 almost daily either toward Brighton or Ann Arbor for volunteer work, and has noticed the corridor become much busier in the past decade.

He acknowledged some drivers might find the Flex Route difficult at first, but believes people will adjust.

"It's just like roundabouts. We got used to them; now it's everyday life," he said.
BAY CITY, MI -- Two weeks before his trial was to begin, a 25-year-old Bay City man accused of going on a heroin-fueled crime spree has pleaded guilty to three charges.

Zachary L. Rodriguez on Thursday, Nov. 3, appeared in Bay County Circuit Court and pleaded guilty to single counts of first-degree home invasion, unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle and domestic violence. The first charge is the most-serious, being a 20-year felony.

In exchange, prosecutors agreed to dismiss single counts of unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle, assaulting, resisting, or obstructing police, second-degree home invasion, possession of less than 25 grams of a narcotic or cocaine and larceny between $200 and $1,000, as well as two counts each of domestic violence and third-degree home invasion.

Rodriguez's trial was to begin Wednesday, Nov. 16.

The earliest in Rodriguez's litany of charges dates to July 13 when police responded to a domestic violence complaint at a home in the 700 block of Michigan Avenue. A 36-year-old woman told officers Rodriguez, the father of their 1-month-old baby, had slapped her when she refused to drive him to Saginaw to buy heroin, court records show. He then took the car keys of her 84-year-old grandfather, who lives in a separate unit at the building, and drove off in his 2003 Buick LeSabre, court records show.

In the wee hours of July 30, police again responded to the address on a complaint that Rodriguez allegedly broke into the home and started rummaging for cash. The woman's grandfather gave Rodriguez $20 to leave, court records show.

About 12:30 p.m. that day, the woman went to a cousin's house to tend to her dog when Rodriguez approached her, beat her, took her cellphone, car keys and $200 in cash, the woman told police

Several hours later, police located Rodriguez driving the LeSabre and initiated a traffic stop. Rodriguez took off running on foot and managed to get away, though the car was retrieved, court records show.

On two occasions separated by several hours on Thursday, Aug. 11, police responded to the woman's home for reports of Rodriguez again breaking into it. In the later incident, which occurred about 2:15 p.m., Rodrigurez allegedly kicked in the house door and stole $700 from the woman's grandfather and about $60 from her, court records show.

A Michigan State Police Fugitive Team arrested Rodriguez Friday, Aug. 12. Rodriguez had a morphine pill in his possession at the time, court records show.

Rodriguez was free on bond when the incidents occurred. In April, he pleaded guilty to two counts of domestic violence, second offense. District Judge Mark E. Janer in September ordered Rodriguez to pay $77 as a result.

Circuit Judge Harry P. Gill is to sentence Rodriguez at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 12.
Jason T. Teddy

BAY CITY, MI -- A Michigan State Police lieutenant accused of causing a drunken driving crash that injured a female motorcyclist more than a year ago has to wait until 2017 for his trial.

The trial of Jason T. Teddy, 46, is scheduled to begin with jury selection the morning of Thursday, Jan. 26, before Bay County Circuit Judge Harry P. Gill. The previous trial date of Wednesday, Nov. 16, was adjourned due to a key prosecution witness being unavailable.

There is a chance that date could be adjourned as well, as Gill has other cases scheduled to go before a jury that week.

Teddy, a detective first lieutenant with the state police, is charged with single counts of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing serious injury, operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, and moving violation causing serious body impairment. The first charge is a five-year felony, while the latter two are 93-day misdemeanors.

Teddy in January pleaded no contest to the felony charge, with the agreement that if he stayed out of trouble until his Aug. 16 sentencing, he'd be allowed to withdraw his plea and plead to the two misdemeanors. Now-retired Chief Circuit Judge Kenneth W. Schmidt accepted the plea, writing in "NO CONVICTION IS TO ENTER IN THIS CASE AT THIS TIME!!" in Teddy's court file.

When Teddy appeared before Gill for sentencing on Aug. 16, the judge rejected the deal.

"I do not find the agreement to be in the best interest of justice," Gill said at the time. "Therefore, I will not approve the plea agreement."

By the time Teddy faces a jury, nearly two years will have passed since his case's origin.

Police say he was involved in a traffic crash at 11:42 p.m. on May 2, 2015, in Bangor Township. According to police reports contained in court records, Teddy was driving a 1999 Lexus on State Park Drive near Pembroke Road when he allegedly struck a 2007 Honda motorcycle from behind. Hilary A. Briggs, 29 at the time, was thrown from her bike and landed in the road, according to police reports.

An ambulance transported Briggs to Bangor Fire Station 7. From there, a helicopter airlifted her to St. Mary's of Michigan Medical Center in Saginaw, according to police reports.

Teddy told responding Bay County Sheriff's deputies he and a friend were talking in the Lexus when the motorcycle suddenly appeared before them. Teddy went on to tell deputies he had two to three tall beers earlier in the night and didn't feel intoxicated, police reports state.

Teddy submitted to a Breathalyzer test, which indicated his blood alcohol level was at 0.153 percent, court records show. In Michigan, a person is legally intoxicated when their blood alcohol level is at 0.08.

Deputies arrested Teddy at the scene and transported him to the Bay County Jail.

Deputies later interviewed Briggs in the hospital. She said she also had consumed a few drinks earlier in the night and was heading to a house on Pembroke when the crash occurred, according to court records.

Briggs' blood alcohol level as of 2:50 a.m. was 0.047 percent, court records show

In the crash's wake, Bay County prosecutors issued criminal charges against Teddy. Bay County Prosecutor Kurt C. Asbury then filed a motion with the Michigan Attorney General's Office, asking that his office be disqualified from the case and that a special prosecutor be appointed. State Attorney General Bill Schuette on May 12, 2015, granted Asbury's request and appointed Isabella County Prosecutor Risa Hunt-Scully to the case.

Hunt-Scully is married to Michigan State Police Trooper Douglas Hunt.

A few weeks after her appointment, Hunt-Scully sought to disqualify her office from the case. Schuette granted her request and appointed Gratiot County Prosecutor Keith Kushion to handle the matter.

Teddy was placed on unpaid suspension immediately after his superiors learned of the crash, according to Special 1st Lt. David Kaiser. Defense attorney Mark S. Mackley has said Teddy won't be able to return to work until the case is resolved.
President-elect Donald Trump's promises to renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and implement a 35-percent import tax have Detroit and the world watching.

Both Drew Dilkens, Windsor Mayor, and Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario, are hoping that Trump's anti-trade talk was just that.

Dilkens told the Windsor Star that he believes Trump's anti-trade rhetoric was nothing more than "political puffery" on the campaign trail.

"Eh, they chose their leader," he told the newspaper. "Thirty-five states have Canada for their Number One customer for the goods produced in those states.

"It would have a huge ramification, a huge impact on those 35 states. And I think it would be very difficult for them to just walk away from NAFTA."

When Trump visited Detroit on Halloween, he said he blames the foreign investment into NAFTA for the city's suffering. The then-Republican Presidential candidate said the auto industry is "being sucked into Mexico" and that he wants to renegotiate NAFTA and bring manufacturing jobs back to Michigan.

"Now, nearly half of Detroit residents do not work. It has the second highest violent crime rate in the United States," Trump said while speaking at Macomb Community College a week before the election. "Yet, as the people of Detroit suffer, Hillary wants to spend billions of dollars on government benefits for illegal immigrants and refugees pouring into our country.

"We are going to rebuild Detroit and we are going to rebuild Michigan."

While Wynne, the first woman to be Ontario's premier, told the Toronto Star that her biggest fear with a Trump presidency is the trade relationship between the U.S. and Canada.

"The degree that this undermines a North American strategy, I think we have to worry about that," she said while noting that the U.S. accounts for more than 80 percent on exporting in Ontario.
The European Commission has violated the provisions of the association agreement with Ukraine when making decision on the OPAL pipeline, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine has stated.

"The approval of such decisions without prior consultations with Ukraine is the breach of Article 274 of the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU, which provides for mutual consideration by the parties of the capacity of energy infrastructure of both sides, as well as holding consultations and coordination of actions in the field of security of energy resources supply," the ministry's press service said, with reference to Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine for European Integration Olena Zerkal.

According to the press service, Zerkal voiced the appropriate position to Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Hugues Mingarelli at a meeting on November 9.

In addition, she said the European Commission, when preparing decisions on OPAL, had to adhere to the commitments undertaken within the Energy Community. In particular, the matter concerns the obligation to adhere to the principle of solidarity in relations with other members of the community (including Ukraine) and avoid making decisions contrary to EU competition law.
Head of the Permanent Delegation of the Verkhovna Rada in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Iryna Friz at a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel has provided her a new video presentation of the Russian regular troops in Donbas.

"A meeting with the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Angela Merkel came to an end which was held in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the working group of German minorities (AGDM) in the Federal Union of European Nationalities. I have handed over a new video presentation on the participation of Russian regular troops in Donbas with identification of units, which was specially prepared by international volunteer intelligence community InformNapalm," Friz said on her Facebook page on Wednesday.

According to her, Angela Merkel assured that she understands the drama of the situation in eastern Ukraine, and expressed readiness to further support the Ukrainian state, although "it is rather difficult to do."

Friz also published a photo of her meeting with the German Chancellor.
The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine reports an increase in the number of attacks in Donbas by more than a third and militants use banned artillery and mortars, spokesperson for Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group, second president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, Darka Olifer said referring to Chief Monitor of the OSCE SMM Ertugrul Apakan.

"Chief Monitor of the OSCE SMM Ertugrul Apakan has delivered a report on the results of the security subgroup's work. The OSCE SMM has recorded a sharp increase in the number of attacks in Donbas by more than a third," Olifer said on Facebook on Wednesday.

According to her, Shyrokyne, Pavlopil, Avdiyivka and Svitlodarsk come under fire. "[Illegal armed units of] the ORDLO (occupied areas in Donetsk and Luhansk regions) violate the ceasefire, using, among other things, artillery systems and mortars that are banned by the Minsk agreements," Olifer said.
Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine for European Integration Olena Zerkal and head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Hugues Mingarelli at a meeting on Wednesday discussed the prospect of a speedy introduction of a visa-free regime for Ukrainians, as well as cooperation in the energy sector.

"It was emphasized that Ukraine has fulfilled all the criteria of the Action Plan on the EUs liberalization of the visa regime for Ukraine, which is confirmed by the report of the European Commission dated December 18 2015. (...) In this context Ukraine expects that the institutions and EU member states will make additional efforts to adopt legislative proposals on granting the right to short-term visa-free travel for the Ukrainians to the EU countries in the near future, regardless of the process of harmonization within the EU mechanism for the temporary suspension of the visa free regime," the Foreign Ministry's press service said.

During the discussion of energy cooperation, Zerkal raised the issue of the recent decision of the European Commission, which was a consequence of the introduction of additional exemptions with respect to third party access to the OPAL pipeline capacity. According to her, the adoption of such decisions without prior consultation with the Ukrainian side violates the Article 274 of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, providing for mutual consideration of the parties the capacity and energy infrastructure opportunities to each other, as well as consultations and coordination of their actions in the field of security of energy resources supply.

In addition, the deputy head of the Foreign Ministry said the European Commission in the preparation process of such solutions must comply with the commitments made by the EU in the framework of its participation in the Treaty establishing the Energy Community, in particular, to respect in relations with Ukraine and other partner countries the principle of solidarity and to avoid making decisions that would be contrary to the EU competition law.

"During the discussion of the completion of ratification procedure of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and EU in view of the results of April referendum in the Netherlands, it was agreed to continue active cooperation with the Dutch side, including in the trilateral format "EU Council-Netherlands-Ukraine" with a view to finding a mutually acceptable solution which would complete the process of ratification of the Association Agreement before the European Council meeting on December 15-16, 2016," the message says.
One Ukrainian serviceman was killed in the anti terrorist operation zone (ATO) in Donbas in the past 24 hours, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzianyk said.

"One Ukrainian serviceman was killed, four were wounded, and another two suffered injuries while accomplishing their missions in the ATO zone over the past day," Motuzianyk said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.
[November 10, 2016] Majority of Digital Users in U.S. and China Regularly Shop and Purchase via E-Commerce

IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and IAB China today released the results of "Understanding Digital Commerce in the U.S. and China," a study which shows that digital commerce is strong in the world's two largest economies. In addition, Chinese digital users engage in more shopping behaviors on smartphones and tablets than those in the United States. According to the research conducted by consulting firm Hypothesis Group, both the U.S. and China have achieved near-full adoption of digital commerce, with 89 percent of Chinese digital users ages 18+ and 84 percent of U.S. digital users ages 18+ saying they had bought a product or service digitally over the previous 12 months. When it comes to mobile commerce, China is leading the way in several areas: 67% of Chinese digital users have made a mobile purchase over the previous 12 months vs. 34% of U.S. digital users

24% of Chinese mobile shoppers purchase via mobile every day vs. 15% of U.S. mobile shoppers

89% of Chinese mobile shoppers are interested in making a mobile purchase over the next month vs. 78% of U.S. mobile shoppers Digital purchases now account for more than half (59%) of all monthly purchases in China and 42 percent of those in the U.S. Of those purchases, 48 percent are made via mobile in China, while mobile commerce accounts for 26 percent in the U.S. The report also shows that cross-channel opportunities are plentiful in both markets, with a similar percentage of Chinese and U.S. digital shoppers utilizing both digital and offline channels when deciding on a purchase (31% China vs. 29% U.S.). Chinese shoppers are more likely to research and compare prices digitally while within a physical store, with 38 percent saying they do so all the time or most of the time, while 23 percent of U.S. shoppers do the same. They are also more likely to use more than one digital device over the course of the purchase process (67%China vs. 43% U.S.).



Americans tend to favor multi-product retailers when buying digitally, with 72 percent of U.S. digital shoppers making a purchase from one of these outlets compared to 61 percent of Chinese shoppers. Meanwhile, Chinese digital shoppers are more likely to buy from sites or apps that highlight discounts (63% China vs. 37% U.S.) or that allow them to compare prices from different sites or apps (51% China vs. 29% U.S.). Chinese shoppers are also more likely to make a purchase via a messaging app (29% China vs. 16% U.S.), while U.S. shoppers are more likely to buy via auction sites (33% U.S. vs. 25% China). When it comes to making a purchase, American shoppers are much more likely to use a credit or debit card (63% U.S. vs. 34% China on computer; 37% U.S. vs. 6% China on mobile). In China, payment is much more likely to take place via a digital payment service like PayPal or WePay (47% China vs. 15% U.S. on computer; 36% China vs. 17% U.S. on mobile) or a mobile wallet service like Apple (News - Alert) Pay (21% China vs. 2% U.S.).

While these numbers indicate strong adoption of digital shopping, obstacles still remain. Chief among these is security, with only 13 percent of Chinese digital shoppers and 30 percent of U.S. digital shoppers feeling completely safe shopping digitally. These feelings manifest in different ways depending on the country, with Americans shoppers concerned about information safety and privacy and Chinese shoppers fearing digital fraud and scams. Top benefits of digital shopping include convenience, ease of use, price, and selection. "This study confirms that mobile is a crucial and growing part of the e-commerce experience," said Anna Bager, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mobile and Video, IAB. "While China has always been a mobile-first culture, as their initial adoption of the internet was driven by mobile devices, we are now seeing tremendous year-over-year upticks in terms of mobile growth in the U.S. We expect to see that trend extend to U.S. mobile commerce going forward." "With Singles' Day, one of the largest digital shopping days in the world, coming up tomorrow, it's vital to note how much commerce happens on small screens," said Chen Yong, Secretary General, Interactive Internet Advertising Committee of China (IIACC) and head of IAB China. "Marketers who want to reach Chinese shoppers need to follow their lead by investing in mobile advertising, so they can bring their messages to the right people at the right time and right location." To view the full results of the "Understanding Digital Commerce in the U.S. and China" study, visit iab.com/uschinacommerce. Methodology

This study is based on a 20-minute digital survey designed and conducted by Hypothesis Group with a nationally representative sample of 1,000 online adults ages 18+ in the U.S. and China. Among these adults, digital shoppers were the particular focus. These respondents were asked about their shopping behaviors and attitudes on computers and/or mobile devices. Fieldwork was conducted between September 19 and October 12, 2016. About IAB

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy. It is comprised of more than 650 leading media and technology companies that are responsible for selling, delivering, and optimizing digital advertising or marketing campaigns. Together, they account for 86 percent of online advertising in the United States. Working with its member companies, the IAB develops technical standards and best practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising, while also educating brands, agencies, and the wider business community on the importance of digital marketing. The organization is committed to professional development and elevating the knowledge, skills, expertise, and diversity of the workforce across the industry. Through the work of its public policy office in Washington, D.C., the IAB advocates for its members and promotes the value of the interactive advertising industry to legislators and policymakers. There are 42 IABs licensed to operate in nations around the world and one regional IAB, in Europe. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City and has a West Coast office in San Francisco. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161110005888/en/

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IMF ready to help NACP with checks of property of e-declarants abroad

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is ready to help the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) to check property of Ukrainian declarants located abroad, NACP Head Natalia Korchak has said.

"The IMF believes that the main focus of NACP during checks of declarations should be on high-ranking officials, fish rots from its head. The IMF promised comprehensive assistance in checking property and financial assets of Ukrainian declarants outside Ukraine," she said on Facebook.

Korchak said that Financial Sector Expert at the IMF Emmanuel Mathias said at a meeting in NACP that the fund is thoroughly monitoring the situation in Ukraine.

"They saw some inconsistency in declarations of some Ukrainian top officials: the welfare mentioned by international media is not included in the electronic register," she said.

Mathias said that the e-declaration system is Ukraine's significant accomplishment and there were few who believed that this is possible.

Korchak said that taking into account the absence of interest of some Ukrainian officials in the full-featured operation of the national agency, cooperation with international anti-corruption organizations would perhaps become the main tool in revealing dishonest Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has presented an initiative to regulate the operation of lotteries and gambling on the market to return the shadow money flow to the state supervision.

" [There are] scratchcard lotteries, gambling machines disguised as Internet clubs and simply without any masks Not to mention backstreet casinos. We regularly reveal them  two or three a month, sometimes with policemen patronizing them, sometimes with officials," he said on Facebook on Thursday.

He said that bills setting restrictions, licensing and procedures are circulating in the rooms of the Finance Ministry and Verkhovna Rada.

"I appeal to the Verkhovna Rada to urgently discuss the bills and pass any bills giving rights and restrictions on the market and returning this shadow money flow to control of the state! We need these taxes! I assess the unpaid taxes to the budget from the gambling sector at near $300 million," he said.

The minister also announced the new inspection of this segment.
business Half of US stunned, other half exhilarated with Trump win: Shaw In an interview with CNCB-TV18, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD of Biocon said that people worldwide are losing confidence in entrenched political systems and many feel marginalized and neglected from the economic developments that happen.
business Tata Chemicals may ask Cyrus Mistry to stay as chairman: Sources Sources said that Tata Chemicals may ask Mistry to stay as Chairman. A detailed report of the minutes of the board meeting is expected to be filed with the exchanges soon.
you are here:
business UCO Bank's provisions will come down in 3rd quarter: Chief In conversation with CNBC-TV18, Ravi Krishan Takkar, MD & CEO of the bank, said net non-performing assets (NPA) have come down from 10.04 percent as on June to 8.83 percent. This is due to good recovery and the bank was able to upgrade few account during this quarter.
Kyiv has done its part, now EU should fulfill its commitments on visa-free regime with Ukraine

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and EU Commissioner on European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Johannes Hahn during a telephone conversation discussed a number of topical issues on the EU-Ukraine agenda, in particular the introduction of a visa-free regime for Ukrainian citizens.

"The EU Commissioner has once again stressed Ukraine has complied with all the criteria and now it is time for the European Union to meet its commitments in the coming weeks," reads a statement posted on the Ukrainian president's the website on Thursday evening.
Donald Trump's victory of the U.S. presidential election may result in a meltdown in relations between Washington and Moscow, but not in strategic matters, which include the conflict in Donbas, Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe Dmytro Kuleba has said.

"To make a tragedy out of Donald Trump's victory is to be short-sighted and to discount the strength of the American system of checks and balances... A certain tactical meltdown between the U.S. and Russia is possible, but the core strategic differences between them will remain fundamental. The differences concerning Russia's aggression against Ukraine are strategic," he said in a comment to Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.

Ukrainian diplomat said the choice of the American people should be respected, and irrespective of it, reforms should continue in Ukraine, so that the state should become stronger and less dependent on foreign support.

"The experience of elections in other countries in recent years has to teach us that it is necessary to make a distinction between the politicians' stand during election or before the appointment and after the victory or appointment to a position of responsibility," Kuleba said.
Ukrainian MP Nadia Savchenko has testified at a sitting of Podilsky District Court in Kyiv on case against a leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, Igor Plotnitsky, who is charged with terrorism and kidnapping and trafficking people across the border.

At a meeting on Thursday, she recounted the circumstances of her abduction in Luhansk region in 2014 and her transfer to Russia.

After the meeting, Savchenko told journalists she believes Plotnitsky is behind her abduction. "And this is not allowed even in wartime according to the Geneva conventions. I can understand captivity, can understand holding me on the Ukrainian territory, but my abduction and smuggling me to Russia and handing me over to the enemy. Surely, Plotnitsky is to blame for this," she stressed.

The next meeting of the court is scheduled for November 16.

As reported, Plotnitsky is charged under Article 146 Part 3 (unlawful imprisonment or kidnapping), Article 258 Part 2 (terrorism), Article 332 Part 3 (illegal trafficking of persons across the border) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, including of kidnapping Nadia Savchenko, a senior Lieutenant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The collegium of Kyiv's Podilsky District Court on August 31 approved a PGO request to review the criminal case against Plotnitsky by trial in absentia.
Maintaining independence and editorial freedom is essential to our mission of empowering investor success. We provide a platform for our authors to report on investments fairly, accurately, and from the investors point of view. We also respect individual opinionsthey represent the unvarnished thinking of our people and exacting analysis of our research processes. Our authors can publish views that we may or may not agree with, but they show their work, distinguish facts from opinions, and make sure their analysis is clear and in no way misleading or deceptive.

To further protect the integrity of our editorial content, we keep a strict separation between our sales teams and authors to remove any pressure or influence on our analyses and research.

Read our editorial policy to learn more about our process.
Windsor immigration lawyer Eddie Kadri said his smartphone started buzzing with immigration enquiries at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday night, just as the votes rolling Trump's way began to steamroll. "I started taking text messages and emails when it looked like Donald Trump was well on his way to a victory, with people telling me, 'okay, what do I need to do?'" he said.

"People were just in shock. I literally got messages from prominent American businessmen and women that said 'I'm sick to my stomach. I didn't think this would happen,'" Kadri added. But becoming a permanent resident in Canada, absent a firm job offer or a sought-after skill or profession, is an uphill battle, lawyers caution.

"A lot of people can use the NAFTA agreement, ironically, to invest and buy a business in Canada and use that as a way to come," Stojicevic said, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement that anti-free trader Trump repeatedly called a "disaster" during his presidential run and said he wanted to renegotiate.

It also helps if you have a connection to Canada, typically family, like Canadians who have chose to live in Los Angeles with their American spouses and U.S.-born children, and now want to bring their entire family back to Canada.

"They're debating whether they want to stay in San Francisco and Denver or move to Vancouver and Toronto. That's been happening quite a bit," Stojicevic explained. Hollywood directors, actors and screenwriters married to Canadians essentially have a far easier and less time-consuming path to permanent Canadian residency.
Militants have shelled Ukrainian army positions along the contact line in Donbas throughout the day, the press center of the Ukrainian special operation headquarters said on Facebook.

"From midnight until 6 p.m. on November 10, the adversary's fire is not abating along the whole dividing line. The Russian forces are using mostly the weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements. Overall, the adversary has shelled our positions 20 times," the report said.

According to the Ukrainian military, the adversary has fired mortars of various calibers on positions in the area of Maryinka, Krasnohorivka, Hnutove and Shyrokyne on the Mariupol direction.

"The adversary used self-propelled artillery in the area of Vodiane, weapons of an armored personnel carrier, infantry fighting vehicles and grenade launchers - on Maryinka. The adversary's sniper has been repeatedly shooting there. The adversary fired grenade launchers and small arms on Pavlopil," the press center said.

Luhanske came under mortar fire, grenade launchers were fired at Novozvanivka and on the Donetsk direction - Zaitseve, the Ukrainian headquarters said.
Artemis Center, a domestic violence resource agency serving the Miami Valley since 1985, has announced the selection of Jane Keiffer, MSW, LISW-S as its new Executive Director. Jane will fill the vacancy created by Judy Strnads departure in July. The decision was made after an internal selection process, during which Jane served as Interim Executive Director for the organization.

We are very pleased to announce this appointment, reported Joanie Haverstick, MPA, and Artemis Center Board Chair. Jane has served the agency for more than 20 years, and will bring leadership and an extensive knowledge of domestic violence to Artemis Centers programs along with a deep sense of commitment to our mission. She has served Artemis at program and leadership levels, and has a breadth of perspective and experience.

An experienced Social Worker, Jane has a Master of Social Work (MSW) degree from the University of Kentucky and is a Licensed Independent Social Worker with Supervision Designation (LISW-S) in the state of Ohio, with her Undergraduate Degree in Psychology from the University of Toledo. Her experience includes working as the Clinical Director with Artemis Center for the past 9 years, serving as a domestic violence expert witness, and participating on several committees in the community, advancing best practices for working with victims of domestic violence. Jane has also provided numerous trainings which include police officers, prosecutors, victim advocates, and many other professionals on intimate partner violence.

I look forward to continuing this journey to help domestic violence survivors and their children find safety and working with community partners in this new capacity, remarks Keiffer. I am dedicated to Artemis Center because I see the important work our passionate and dedicated staff provide to survivors in our community and I believe we are an important resource not only to survivors but to our community as a whole.

Artemis Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has been providing vital supportive services to victims of domestic violence and their children for over 30 years, serving more than 95,000 victims/survivors in Montgomery and surrounding Counties.

Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women  more than auto accidents, rape, and muggings combined. National studies found about one in four women will be a victim of domestic violence. Without Artemis Center services individuals in the community will not have access to advocate support to create personalized safety plans, navigate the court system, referrals to community services, and individual and peer support. Artemis specializes in providing services beyond the traditional housing and safety offered by domestic violence shelters. It was the experience of Artemis founders that victims fleeing domestic violence, in addition to needing a safe place, also need help understanding their rights, guidance through the often confusing and sometimes intimidating legal system.
On Thursday, November 10, at 12.00, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference "Price and Quality of Petroleum Products. Expectations vs. Reality." The participants will include Vice President for Commerce of PJSC Galnaftogaz Concern, Director General of WOG network Serhiy Koretsky, co-owner of KLO network Viacheslav Steshenko, a representative of top management of the AMIC Ukraine network, and a representative of SOCAR network (8/5a Reitarska Street). Admission requires press accreditation.
Donald Trumps victory in Tuesdays election came as a shock to nearly all observers  and sent a shockwave through the financial industry as Dow futures tumbled. But after the initial worry, many in the industry are seeing an upside to Trumps presidency.



So what does a Trump presidency mean for the housing and mortgage industries? While Trump hasnt gone into much detail on his plans for those specific industries, one thing is fairly clear  hell probably want to ease regulatory burdens.



While a candidate, Trump promised to roll back the Dodd-Frank Act, according to the Boston Globe. The legislation and the agency created under its authority, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, have been sources of constant worry for many in the mortgage industry as regulatory burdens have increased.



The prospect of lighter regulation is giving some in the financial industry reason to hope Trumps presidency will boost the economy rather than drag it down. Bruce Van Saun of Citizens Financial Group told the Globe he was cautiously optimistic about Trumps effect on the economy.



Still, Van Saun stopped short of expecting Dodd-Frank and the CFPB would just magically disappear under a Trump administration.



A lot of this is directionally good, but theres still some uncertainty about how it will play out, he told the Globe. Im not sure youll get a Dodd-Frank repeal or elimination of CFPB, but youll see a pushback.



Still, Trumps victory seems to be bolstering confidence at large financial institutions. Wednesday morning saw Bank of America stock spike 5%, while JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo were all up more than 3%, according to a Wall Street Journal report.


OPEC was already struggling to finalize a deal on production cuts this month. And then Donald Trump was elected U.S. president.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries faces increasing urgency to take measures that will support oil prices as Trumps surprise victory threatens to deepen a market sell-off, said UBS Group AG. Yet the uncertainty arising from the President-Elects policies -- from climate change to the U.S. shale industry and sanctions on Iran -- will make resolving differences between producers even harder.

The pressure on OPEC to come up with a deal only increases in the wake of Trumps victory, said Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS in Zurich. Even though the oil market is rebalancing, the political uncertainty in the short term leaves oil prices vulnerable to downside, that makes it more urgent for OPEC to act.

Oil prices had already retreated about 15 percent since October on growing doubts that OPEC could finalize the Algiers accord at its Nov. 30 meeting amid a refusal to cut output from almost a third of its members. U.S. crude initially slumped to near $43 a barrel in New York on Wednesday after Trump, a real-estate mogul and reality-television star, was elected, but later erased losses as a global selloff of risky assets abated.

Trumps various policy positions could either support or weaken oil prices, making it more complicated for OPEC to conclude a deal, said David Hufton, chief executive officer of brokers PVM Group Ltd. in London.

Theres a bit of fog coming down -- it just adds a bit more uncertainty, for OPEC and everybody else, Hufton said.

The result could be bearish for the emerging markets, which drive oil-demand growth because Trump has vowed to scrap international trade agreements in Latin America and Asia, according to consultant FGE.

His surprise win could also weaken prices by aiding a revival in U.S. shale oil production. Harold Hamm, the chief executive officer of Continental Resources Inc. who has advised Trump on energy policy, is solidly pro-domestic oil and gas development, FGE said.

Trump means more U.S. domestic energy production, said Adam Ritchie, founder of consultant AR Oil Consulting. Plus a more inward-looking and protectionist U.S. is bad for economic growth globally, so less oil demand.

On the other hand, the next U.S. president is likely to treat climate change agreements skeptically and moves towards limiting carbon dioxide output are likely to slow or reverse, potentially boosting demand for fossil fuels, according to FGE.

Global climate treaties are clearly at risk, said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB AB bank in Oslo. Removing restrictions on emissions actually means removing restrictions on the consumption of fossil fuels. This means more gas guzzling cars and more oil demand.

Trump has also said he would undo last years nuclear accord with Iran, potentially reversing increases in the Islamic Republics oil exports, said RBC Capital Markets.

Equally, Trumps election may have little impact on either the market or OPECs negotiations, said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas SA in London. The new president wont take office until January, and any new policies will first need to be approved by Congress, he said.

The pressure to reach a deal was there ahead of the U.S. presidential election, Tchilinguirian said. The outcome of the race doesnt change that.

OPEC aims to finalize how much each member should reduce output after agreeing in principle to a joint cut to between 32.5 million and 33 million barrels a day in September. The accord already faced a number of hurdles, with key producers including Iran and Iraq arguing they should be exempt because of their production losses in recent years from war and sanctions. Both have disputed the output estimates OPEC intends to use as the basis for any accord.

Given all the ways a Trump administration could complicate OPECs policy, the organization needs to act decisively and urgently, said Dewardic McNeal, managing director at consultant Longview Global LLC in Washington.

The Trump Administration is a huge black box for many analysts on every subject area, said McNeal. One would suggest that OPEC not delay tough decisions for some future date.
Capital is pouring into the Permian Basin as private equity companies seek entry into the Midland and Delaware basins.

Smaller companies, though, are finding it difficult to join the party. Representatives of several small independents addressed the issue Tuesday at Hart Energys Executive Oil Conference. They described their thoughts and talked about how theyre making their way around the roadblocks.

Tom Meneley, chairman and chief executive officer, Plantation Petroleum Co.

Houston-based Plantation Petroleum is turning to the Horizontal San Andres in Yoakum, Gaines and Hockley counties.

Since weve not been as successful in acquiring Delaware Basin acreage  we had some big opportunities that didnt work out, Meneley said.

The company has about 10,000 acres and is aggressively pursuing additional acreage in Yoakum County, according to Meneley, who said Plantation began with 5,000 acres about a year ago.

We got interested in the San Andres when it first started showing signs of horizontal drilling working, he said. The company has also seen other operators in the area have very successful wells close to Plantations leases.

There are a lot of challenges, like infrastructure, that well be facing. But its an exciting opportunity for us, he said.

What is helpful, he said, is that a lot of operators are willing to share information.

Danny Campbell, president, Henry Resources

Henrys main focus is in the Midland Basin, continuing to drill the Wolfberry play it helped start. Henry has also been active in the Central Basin Platform, drilling some Devonion wells in Crane County and its first horizontal San Andres well in northern Yoakum County, where Henry has 15,000 acres.

The San Andres still has a lot of oil in place in the Central Basin Platform. If we can find a place in that transition where its saturated above the residual oil zones, there are opportunities to drain that oil. The San Andres has a lot of hydrocarbons if we can figure out how to get it out, Campbell said.

The company is also testing the Wolfcamp and what Campbell called the Devonian Transition in the Sheffield Channel, which is challenging. We found hydrocarbons, but not enough.

Finding acreage is very competitive, he said. As we get back to the heart of the Midland Basin, were picking up smaller blocks (that larger companies may not be able to develop economically). We can do 80 acres or we can do 1,000 acres and do them well, Campbell said. We dont have to be a leader in those plays.

He added, You have to be creative as an independent playing this game. We dont know what we dont know: Completions, laterals, sand, fluids  everything is falling into place. Its a learning curve. Its technology and fine-tuning that.

In terms of commodity prices, Campbell said, Were not looking for $80 oil soon; were looking at the $40s and $50s.

Steve Pruett, president and CEO, Elevation Resources

Were focusing our energy on the Central Basin Platform and conventional resources with horizontal drilling. The Central Basin Platform is not particularly active right now, Pruett said.

He added that, Drilling and completion technology and persistence has made our acreage economic at $30 oil.

Like the others, Pruett said competing with large public companies is very difficult. We're targeting areas that arent as popular; we see that as an opportunity to focus our efforts. Theres no way a company our size can compete with public companies. Ours is not cheap capital. The difference between Tier 1 and Tier II or Tier 100 acreage is very sharp. You have to have scale, you have to have staying power with a good balance sheet, you have to have a technical team and persistence. You have to be tenacious and persevere.

You have to have people who are creative and the equity backing that will let you take some risks. Unless youre able to get blocks of acreage, you can't leverage efficiencies or infrastructure.

In order to provide the pressure pumping services needed to keep this machine going, Pruett said those providers will have to have rates rise 20 to 30 percent to allow companies to refurbish and replace equipment.
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Red was the color of the day Wednesday as Midland County Republican Women members celebrated the victory of president-elect Donald Trump during the groups monthly meeting at Midland Country Club.

The excitement was lively but civil despite many in the room admitting to being worn out from the previous nights election, which lasted into the wee hours of the morning.

For MCRW stalwart Juandelle Lacy Roberts, the tension Tuesday came to a head late in the evening. At a certain point, I just put it in Gods hands, she told the Reporter-Telegram.

Guest speaker U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway told the crowd that Republicans capturing both branches of the Legislature and the White House was the result of years of hard work and hours of prayers. God gave this republic one more lease on life, he said.

Conaway, who handily won his seventh term as District 11 representative, said he foresees really good things ahead, particularly through the reset of executive branch agencies with leadership more in tune with whats needed in this country, citing specifically a hope for a more agreeable Environmental Protection Agency chief.

Despite having Republican majorities in the House and Senate, Conaway warned: Now comes the harder part: Delivering on all the promises in your heart. He stressed that everything Republicans want wont be guaranteed because the GOP lacks an outright majority in the Senate. Sixty votes is control of the Senate; management is 51. Well have 51.

Conaway said he sees the passage of center-right solutions to bigger ticket items, which often were thwarted in the past by the Obama administration. Theres a long list of executive orders that Trump will unwind, he said.

When asked by an audience member whose daughter is struggling with a dramatically increased health insurance bill about solutions, Conaway assured that Affordable Care Act, known commonly as Obamacare, would be addressed no sooner than the end of January, when Trump transitions into power. However, the congressman said that a full elimination or replacement of the Affordable Care Act wouldnt happen but that Republicans have several plans to adjust the law in order to mitigate high insurance rates.

Conaway said he was confident Trump would choose a suitable Supreme Court justice to replace the recently deceased Antonin Scalia, an influential conservative.

He also favored preserving the Electoral College system over a popular vote for choosing a president because its the best way to ensure states with small population still have a significant say. Otherwise, power would shift almost entirely to large population centers. Theres something about crowded people in the big cities that changes them into Democrats, he said.

When asked about the reversal of same-sex marriage laws, Conaway said same-sex marriage is one of those things God cant bless and was unsure what would happen.

MEETING HIGHLIGHTS

 TOUCHING MOMENT: Rep. Conaway was introduced by his wife, Suzanne Conaway. In talking about the sacrifices his wife has made since 2005, when he was first installed as District 11s representative, Conaway had difficulty speaking about his love and appreciation because he was nearly overcome by emotion.

 UPBEAT: Suzanne Conaway started her introduction on a high note: Hey, hey, hey, do you know what today is? Its Trump day! When addressing the tumultuous presidential election campaign and the bevy questionable comments Trump had made along the way, Conaway said that, in the end, Donald Trump, with all of his flaws, I believe he has been touched by God.

 NEW LEADERSHIP: Wednesdays meeting marked Charlene Romero McBrides last as MCRW president. The gavel passed to Carla Smith as the next president. Other new leaders sworn in Wednesday were Sherri Merket, secretary; Kathy Young, treasurer; Karie Polk, vice president of membership; and Grace Jones, vice president of programs.

 ENROLLMENT: MCRW had 428 members total in 2016. By type, there were 242 regular members, 47 supporting members, 34 patrons and five dual members.

Like Trevor on Facebook and follow him on Twitter at @HowdyHawes.
MDC Partners Tables SEC Settlement

Marcoms holding company MDC Partners has reached an agreement 'in principle' to pay the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) $1.5m, to settle an investigation into expenses claimed by former Chairman and CEO Miles Nadal.



New York and Toronto-based MDC, which was founded by Nadal, operates a Consumer Insights Group offering data and analytics capabilities to other group companies, and has invested in a number of MR and analytics firms. These include language and communications research specialist Luntz Global, data analytics business kenna, and qualitative research firm and focus group facility Ecker & Associates.



Last year, Nadal left the company after being forced to repay nearly $12.5m, following the SEC investigation. The Commission had requested information about these payments between 2009 and 2015 - including medical expenses, travel and commuting costs, and Nadal's charitable expenses. According to the company's 2015 proxy statement, Nadal received $926k in company-paid expenses last year. Of that, $500k was for unspecified perks, and $91k was for his personal use of aircraft - including for travel between his homes in the Bahamas and West Palm Beach, Florida and the company's head office in New York. In 2014, the company also paid nearly $72k for Nadal's personal use of an MDC-owned apartment, when he was in New York; and $263k for legal fees incurred as part of his sale of 3.5 million MDC shares.



Announcing the agreement yesterday, the company confirmed that SEC commissioners must still approve the proposed framework agreement (under which, the company is not admitting liability), and therefore the terms are not final. Scott Kauffman, the company's Chairman and CEO, commented: 'We greatly appreciate that the Philadelphia Regional Office of the SEC recognized our high level of cooperation and the extensive internal investigation conducted by the company's Special Committee and outside counsel, as well as the self-initiated remedial measures implemented in connection with new policies and procedures'.



Web site: www.mdc-partners.com .





All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.
After serving her country half way around the world, a Calumet native and Michigan Tech ROTC alumna has returned home to serve in another capacity.

In July, Michelle Kovachich began her duties as a readjustment counselor with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Her new job brought the Calumet native, a Michigan Tech alumna and US Army veteran, home after more than a decade that took her from Alaska to the Middle East and back again.

Kovachich says she loves to travel and when she graduated from high school she entertained opportunities to pursue her education far away from home. She chose Michigan Tech not necessarily because it was close to home, but because it had exactly what she wanted: a military education.

I wanted a school with a strong ROTC program and a good relationship with the military. Thats exactly what Tech had and why I chose to go there.

Her choice turned out to be a good one. Following graduation in 2005 with a degree in social sciences and completion of the ROTC program, Kovachich was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army.

She credits Techs ROTC program for preparing her for life in the service. It wasnt a surprise, she says of her transition from college student in Houghton to the 4th Brigade, 25th Infantry Division of the 725th Support Battalion at Fort Richardson, Alaska, near Anchorage.

Techs ROTC program provided the best training and structure. When I went into the military I had an idea of what to expect because of Techs ROTC. It wasnt a surprise because they fed you the information you needed.

During her five-year service, she experienced the Artic cold of Alaska and war in the Middle East. In 2006 she was deployed to Iraq for 15 months as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In 2009 she served 13 months as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

In Iraq, Kovachich served as a maintenance control officer. She worked in supervision over maintenance of equipment. In Afghanistan she served as a deputy support operations officer. We worked at getting supplies, such as food and water, to about 5,500 personnel, she says.

Following her five years of military service, Kovachich found her combination of military leadershipshe left the Army as a captainand Michigan Tech education was a good fit in the working world. She was contacted by a firm recruiting junior officers.

After working for private companies in Alaska and Minnesota, she returned to school, earning a masters in social work from Boise State, which led her to her current position, counseling veterans and their families in the western U.P.

Kovachich says as a combat vet herself, she has a bond with many of her clients.

I think rapport is gained quicker. They find it cool to talk to someone who has been there. Of course often their stories bring me back to what Ive experienced, she explains.

Many of those experiences were heartbreaking, perhaps none more than the loss of Michigan Tech classmate Ben Hall. A paratrooper and army ranger, Hall was deployed to Afghanistan with 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. He was killed in action on July 31, 2007.

I keep his picture on my desk, Kovachich says of her fallen comrade, classmate and friend.

Most combat vets have similar experiences and the readjustment counselors look to reach out and heal.

What I hear is veterans are just trying to find someone to understand what theyve been through, Kovachich says. Whether its men in their 70s who served in Vietnam or those recently returned from combat.

"We are free today because of those who fight and have fought. Many survived, but still struggle ." Michelle Kovachich



While she does see those suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, she finds many recent vets are seeking counseling as a preventative measure.

Im seeing vets and their families who want to get a handle on things so they dont experience problems.

In addition to individual and family counseling, Kovachich offers group therapy.

Kovachich says Michigan Tech has been very supportive of the Vet Center and the work they do for local veterans. She calls Veterans Day a reminder that as most of us go about our daily lives, there are soldiers putting their lives on the line.

We are free today because of those who fight and have fought. Many survived but still struggle. Its important that we are aware that there are those who are still fighting, she says. Their wounds may not be visible, but theyre there.

For more information on eligibility and services, contact the Vet Center at 906-233-0244.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigans flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.
This post was written by Wes Walls and originally appeared on the Bandzoogle Blog.

If SEO is important to you as a musician, then having a website for your band is arguably the most important factor. But just having one isnt quite enough. You need to optimize it for search engines.

Before you read this though, head over to Chapter 1 of this multi-post SEO guide for musicians to get familiar with your SEO strategy, the Fan Journey, and everything else weve covered up to this point.

Before you start optimizing your website you should have a pretty good sense of what you want to accomplish with your SEO, and at least a rough strategy about how to do it.

If youre ready, and you know what needs to be done. Lets do it.

Key Factors for Band Website SEO

The topic of optimizing a website for SEO is just way too big to cover in this blog post. So before we get into details, well start by offering a broad overview and linking out to good resources for general SEO advice where you can do more research.

After this section, the rest of the post will focus on issues that are more specific to band websites.

So the generic overview Broadly speaking, the general key factors for optimizing your band website for SEO can be broken down into the following four main groups:

Content Delivery

Optimizing your content delivery is about making sure your website is fast, secure, and user-friendly on all devices. That means having (among other things) fast hosting, a CDN, caching, an SSL certificate, responsive HTML and CSS, and a whole bunch of other technical stuff that only a web developer understands.

If you use Bandzoogle, we take care of these things for you. We constantly optimize the speed of Bandzoogle websites, and all of our themes are responsive.

Website Structure

Optimizing your website structure is about organizing and structuring your website so that search engines can easily crawl through it, access all of your content, and understand what its seeing. That means having a clear page hierarchy, linking your pages togetherproperly, having a good HTML and XML sitemap, and so on. It also means cleaning up the very common and usually-misunderstood issue of duplicate content.

Its mostly up to you to structure your website content for SEO, but if you use Bandzoogle we take care of some of these things for you.

On-Page Content

Optimizing your on-page content is about making sure the content on each page on your website is organized and descriptive. This means having clean code and plenty of well-made content, using keywords appropriately, making sure all of the content is readable by search engines, and addressing a really specific topic on each page.

You can learn more about on-page SEO here. Using Bandzoogle helps you with some of this, but its up to you to put great content on your pages.

Popularity and Links

Optimizing your popularity and links is about other people around the internet talking about you, mentioning your name or music, and linking to you. Its also about you making sure that all of your different profiles around the web link to each other. You can get the general idea here, but well talk about this more next.

Your Band Website as Your Hub

A lot of bands dont have their own website.

Some would say that just using Bandcamp and Bandsintown is good enough. That might work for some, but if you care about your bands SEO, it is simply not good enough. Youreat a disadvantage if you dont have your own website with its own domain name.

And no, pointing your domain to your Bandcamp profile is not the same thing.

Youre at a disadvantage with SEO if you dont have your own band website.

We looked at many examples while preparing this blog post, and the bands that didnt have their own well-optimized website - even established bands - had major issues with their SERPs.

[Music SEO: Know Your SERPs]

For example, at the time of our research, Craig Finn (of The Hold Steady) was on a solo tour, and he didnt have his own website for his solo project. When you searched craig finn tour dates you found very little information aside from Songkick and Bandsintown pages. There was no Event Carousel, and no Knowledge Panel.

He has since launched his own website but even now, at time of writing, you still dont find a Knowledge Panel for that search term.

Craig Finn doesnt have good SEO because he didnt have a band website until recently.

Theres no Event Carousel here because he doesnt currently have any upcoming tour dates. But even when he was on tour, there was no Carousel.

Which means his SEO was far from ideal during his tour.

We can assume his SEO isnt important to him - his usual band, The Hold Steady, does have a strong online presence. But we assume you do care about your SEO, and that means you need your own website.

A major reason that your band website matters for SEO is that Google sees your band as a unique entity, which we touched on in previous posts in this series. Google even knows how popular/famous your band is compared to other bands and entities on the web.

Every piece of information thats publicly available about you on the internet is part of your entity. That information can be far-flung and disconnected, but Google is great at connecting the dots - especially if you help Google out by doing good SEO.

Your band entity encompasses every piece of information available about you around the web.

When properly optimized, Google will recognize all of your profile pages and social accounts as being a part of your entity, and your website as being the hub of it all. That helps Google understand what your entity is, and show the right content to people when they search for you.

Google knows how popular your band is compared to other bands.

Google as a rule should give priority to your website over every other website in all cases, when it comes to ranking for your band keywords, so long as your website has all of the information it needs.

Thats the key thing. Using your band website, you can control your fan experience. Your website aggregates of all of your bands content around the web. Thats what Google likes to see.

So if you dont have a website for your band yet stop reading right now, go make one, and then come back to continue reading.

Link Up the Hub

Even though Google is great at connecting the dots, it still needs help. Thats a big part of what SEO is.

Linking your properties together helps Google understand all of your content on the web as being part of your entity. Your website is the hub of your entity, so you need to link it up to help Google connect the dots.

Link to your website from all of your band profiles and any other content that you control anywhere on the web. Never use a URL shortener - always just the plain URL of your website.

Just like what BOYCUT did on their Facebook page here.

Easy.

Link to your band website from everywhere you possibly can.

You can easily add links to your site from places like your:

Facebook page

Twitter page

Instagram page

YouTube channel About page

YouTube video descriptions

SoundCloud profile

SoundCloud track descriptions

Wikipedia entry

Bandcamp page

Bandsintown page

These are just the common ones, but you get the picture.

So what you can do now is take an inventory of all of your bands social profiles and other pages around the internet, and link to your band website from all of them.

You can also do the reverse. Add links from your website to your various profiles around the web.

Optimize Navigation & Indexation

Most band websites are small and dont have many pages (compared to, say, Amazon.com). So Google shouldnt have too much trouble accessing all of your pages. This is especially true if you use a platform like Bandzoogle, because a lot of this is already taken care of for you.

If you use another CMS like Wordpress, youll have to be careful because you need to know how to do a lot of things yourself.

If you want to make sure your website is well-optimized, read up on regular ol onsite SEO. You can learn from generic advice that applies to any kind of website.

Here are a few basics though, to ensure that Google can easily crawl through your band website and read all of your content.

Google Search Console

The Google Search Console can be very useful. If you want to nerd out on search data, youll like this especially.

Create a Google Search Console account for your website. Youll need to follow some steps to verify your website and activate your account. Bandzoogle has a tool to help make this a little easier for you.

The Google Search Console can give you insights for optimizing your website.

We wont get into details about this tool, but there is a whole bunch of information in there that Google provides about your website in the search engines. So poke around and see whats there.

Clean URL Structure

Make sure your website page URLs are simple, clean, organized, descriptive.

Heres a made-up example of what the URLs on a band website might look like, in an ideal scenario:

http://hiatuskaiyote.com/ http://hiatuskaiyote.com/press http://hiatuskaiyote.com/news http://hiatuskaiyote.com/news/create-your-own-video http://hiatuskaiyote.com/news/win-a-signed-vinyl http://hiatuskaiyote.com/shows http://hiatuskaiyote.com/shows/live-at-abia http://hiatuskaiyote.com/shows/live-in-japan http://hiatuskaiyote.com/shows/house-concert http://hiatuskaiyote.com/listen http://hiatuskaiyote.com/buy-music http://hiatuskaiyote.com/buy-music/choose-your-weapon http://hiatuskaiyote.com/buy-music/choose-your-weapon/choose-your-weapon http://hiatuskaiyote.com/buy-music/choose-your-weapon/shaolin-monk-motherfunk http://hiatuskaiyote.com/buy-music/tawk-tomahawk http://hiatuskaiyote.com/buy-music/tawk-tomahawk/mobius-streak http://hiatuskaiyote.com/buy-music/tawk-tomahawk/the-world-it-softly-lulls http://hiatuskaiyote.com/images http://hiatuskaiyote.com/videos http://hiatuskaiyote.com/contact



Notice how all of the URLs are clean? There are no weird symbols, like hashtags or exclamation marks.

Sometimes complex URLs are fine - and necessary - especially for large dynamic websites. But in your case, with a small, simple website, the probably arent necessary. So generally your URLs should be clean and simple.

In the example above the URLs are clearly named so that you can understand at a glance what the content of the site would be. Everything is neatly organized in a folder structure. Thats the ideal scenario.

Make sure your website page URLs are simple, clean, organized, descriptive.

Its not hard to do, but its often overlooked and is important for a couple of reasons:

It helps Google understand what the page is and where it fits on your website. The URL appears in the SERPs. If its ugly, fans are less likely to click on it. A descriptive URL helps fans understand what theyre clicking on and navigating to.

Heres a basic example of good clean, descriptive URLs used by a Bandzoogle member.

Give your band website a clean, descriptive URL structure.

What you can do now is to check all of the URLs of your band website. If there are any that need to be improved, edit them (but be sure to use 301 redirects when you do, or ensure your CMS does it for you automatically).

Theres a really good chance that youre not aware of all of the page URLs your website has. There are probably more than you realize. To find and check all of your page URLs, you can look at your sitemap (if your CMS generates one). Otherwise you can use a free crawling tool like this one.

Check Your Site Index

Another way to explore under the hood of your website structure is to take a look at what Google has in its index for your website. This can be a pretty informative way to get a sense for how Google sees your site.

Enter site:[yoursite.com] in to Google. Like this.

A simple trick to see what Google sees on your website.

When you use this site command search operator, Google shows you the URLs it has found for a website and added to its index. You also get to see how Google displays your website pages in SERPs (generally).

A typical band website should be fairly simple. You shouldnt have hundreds of strange-looking URLs indexed, and they should match the URL structure you made (as in the previous example).

If you have hundreds of URLs, or a lot of URLs that point to the same page, or a lot of ugly looking URLs showing up, you might have a problem. This can happen if you have a poorly configured Wordpress site, for example.

If thats the case for you, you should clean up your website structure and fix any duplicate content issues.

Title Tags & Meta Descriptions

Optimizing your title tag is standard SEO advice, because its easy, simple and important.

Your title tag and meta description dont appear on your website, but Google uses them in its SERPs. If you make them look nice and descriptive, yours fans can more easily understand what theyre seeing, and will be more likely to click to your website instead of others.

Lets take a look at a (bad) example:

What a not-so-good title tag and meta description look like in the SERPs.

The title tag in this example could be more descriptive than simply Conor Oberst | Shows.

Conor Oberst (s website person) didnt actually add a meta description to that page either, so Google is just pulling whatever text it wants from the page to populate the description in SERPs.

(Also, you might have noticed that even the URL is not very good.)

Thats not ideal for fans, because frankly its kind of ugly.

Conor Oberst would be better off with a title tag and description that looks more like this:

This is closer to what you want your SERP result to look like.

Looks nicer, doesnt it?

The clean, descriptive text helps Google understand the page better. Its also more likely to get clicked by fans when theyre searching, which is important to you. You can preview how yours might look in the SERPs with a tool like this one.

A page with a nice title tag and meta description is more likely to get clicked on by fans.

Here are some basic ground rules for optimizing these:

You may have heard advice that keywords are really important to have in title tags. This is true. But we suggest you simply focus on making them descriptive and complete so that they really describe the content of the page. Be straightforward and to-the-point.

to have in title tags. This is true. But we suggest you simply focus on making them so that they really describe the content of the page. Be straightforward and to-the-point. Make sure your band name is included at least once in every single title tag and meta description, on every page. Make them look nice and consistent across pages. A good lead to follow is the title tag in the example above, where the band name is added to the end and separated by a pipe | symbol.

at least once in every single title tag and meta description, on every page. Make them look nice and consistent across pages. A good lead to follow is the title tag in the example above, where the and separated by a pipe | symbol. Never use the same title tag or meta description twice. Each one should be unique for each page.

What you can do now is review the title tags and meta descriptions for all pages of your band website. Write or rewrite them as needed, to include your band name and a good descriptive reflection of the content of the page.

Here are some good instructions on how to do it properly for your website:

https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag

https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description

If youre using Bandzoogle, you can easily edit title tags and meta descriptions on your site in the SEO options for each page.

Content Pages for Keywords

Sometimes, for some keywords, you might not particularly want your website to rank #1 in search results results.

That might sound counterintuitive, because SEO doesnt usually work that way. But remember, were optimizing the fan experience here, were not necessarily trying to get your website to outrank your other profiles.

A good example is when fans search for individual track names. You might actually prefer fans to find your song on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes, because for some that might be a better place to explore and buy your music.

For a fan, your band website might not actually offer the best experience.

SEO for musicians is about optimizing the fan experience.

But for other keywords, it might be preferable for fans to find your website.

Its up to you to decide what the ideal fan experience is for different searches, and whats best for your band too.

Here are some some examples where your website might offer the best experience - were going to pick on Kamasi Washington now:

kamasi washington bio (fans want to learn about who you are, and your website is ideal for that)

kamasi washington tour (you might want to sell them concert tickets directly from your website)

kamasi washington merch (if you sell your merch from your site commission-free)

kamasi washington buy album (if you sell your music from your site commission-free)

Lets check out a specific example of that.

Kamasi doesnt have a merch page on his website. Thats a problem.

There are several problems here that might not be obvious at first glance:

Kamasi Washingtons website is ranked 1st but he doesnt have a merch page. So fans land on the homepage, where theyre then forced to keep poking around to find what theyre looking for. Kamasis real official merch store is on the Benchmark Merchandising website, which isnt even ranked in the Top 5 for the search term. Plus, its not clear from the SERP that its even his official store - frankly it doesnt look particularly trustworthy. His Bandcamp merch page is ranked 2nd, but it currently doesnt sell any merch - only physical music formats. There are actually 3rd party sellers in the SERPs just below the Kamasis official store, who might just steal away business from the artist himself. That seller is even paying for ads in the right column of the SERP, as you can see. Thats actual lost revenue for the artist, and a missed opportunity to connect with the fan.

So, Kamasi Washingtons SEO for his merch-related keywords is basically a mess. Sure, a dedicated fan will most likely find the merch store, but only after poking around a bit. SEO for musicians is about optimizing the fan experience - making it easier for the fans to find what they want more quickly. Especially when merch revenue is at stake!

There is a simple solution to his problem, which is to create a dedicated merch page on his website where he displays, and ideally sells, his merch. This page would probably rank #1 for merch-related keywords, and he would be able to control the fan experience on his own site. Personally, as a fan who wants to buy merch from the artist, Id prefer to buy directly off his website.

The lesson for you here is to make sure that you understand and have a plan for what your ideal fan experience is, for your different band keywords.

If you prefer that fans land on your website instead of external profile pages for a certain keyword/topic, then make dedicated page on your website for it. Fill the page with great content, including text (no fluff), and optimize the page (title tags and meta descriptions, etc).

Remember, Google will give your band website preference over other websites for the rankings of any keywords related to your band. All you have to do is have the content on your website.

Be Wise About Widgets

Its very common for bands to use widgets on their band websites, and thats ok. There are plenty of good reasons to use widgets.

But, there is also a very good reason to use them wisely. Its common to see a page on a band website that has only a widget on it and nothing else.

Like Hiatus Kaiyote does on their website with a Spotify widget.

Hiatus Kaiyote embedded a Spotify widget on their website to offer music previews.

There are a few reasons that this could a problem for your band website.

The first problem is that you dont know whether or not Google can see the content in the widget. Just because you can see it doesnt mean Google can. Many widgets are ok but some are not SEO friendly - its out of your control.

And if Google cant see the content in the widget, then as far as its concerned there is no content there. Which means, as far as Google is concerned, you basically have an empty page. Not good for SEO.

The second problem is that the content in a widget is duplicated from somewhere else. Google doesnt like duplicate content and may, effectively, ignore it.

The third problem is that, if you care about your schema markup - and you should - some widgets may not offer that markup where you need it.

There are some simple solutions to these problems. To prevent duplicate content or empty pages, you can simply make sure to always have other text content on a page, along with the widget. It should be unique content that only exists on that page and nowhere else.

You can also check pages where you rely on widgets to display music or events to make sure the correct schema is there, using Googles Structured Data Testing Tool. Well get into more detail on schema for musicians in later posts.

So what you can do now is to check all pages of your website where you use widgets. Make sure there is other content on the page other than whats being displayed from the widget, and make sure theres schema where there should be.

If there isnt any content, think about what kind of text content you can add to your page (even if its just a little bit), and add it. If there isnt any schema where you need it to be, consider using a different widget.

PR, Not Backlinks

If youve read other SEO advice, no doubt youve heard about the importance of backlinks. A lot of SEO advice about backlinks is misleading.

Backlinks are extremely important for SEO, and the more links you have pointing to your website from authoritative external pages the better. But as an artist you dont need spend a lot of time worrying about that, and you certainly dont need to pay someone to get you backlinks. Stay away from Fiverr.

Instead, worry about getting genuine press coverage. Backlinks will come naturally when blogs and magazines are talking about you, and Google will notice the buzz.

Backlinks will come naturally when blogs are talking about you.

With that being said, while youre doing PR or social media, get natural backlinks where you can. Make sure the press knows about your band website, so that when they do link to you, they link to your actual band website and not to one of your other profile pages.

You can get an idea of whos linking to your website in your Google Search Console, which gives you a sampling of your backlinks.

Use your Google Webmaster Tools Search Console to see whos linking to your website.

You can also check Open Site Explorer, a free tool that gives you some data on your websites backlinks.

The Takeaway: Optimize Your Band Website

This was a whirlwind tour of band website SEO optimization. Theres a lot to know, but you can focus on a few key things:

Build a slick, fast, mobile-optimized website for your band

Interlink your website with all of your other profiles around the web

Make sure your website has a clean, organized structure

Make sure each page on your website is SEO-friendly and optimized

Build pages on your website to target keywords that you want to rank for

Take a careful look at any widgets you use on your website to create content

Do as much online PR and buzz-building as you can, and get natural backlinks where possible

Your website isnt the only thing that matters for your band SEO, but its one of the most important. So its worth taking the time to make the right optimizations in the right places.

Wes Walls is the Head of Growth Marketing at musician website & marketing platform Bandzoogle

Read other articles in this series:

Optimizing Your Band Website For SEO
Alden Meyer (C), director of strategy and policy from Union of Concerned Scientists, answers questions from media during a press conference in Marrakech, Morocco, on Nov. 9, 2016. Donald Trump's win of the U.S. presidential election on Wednesday has triggered concerns by experts attending the climate change conference here over the U.S. possible pull-out from the Paris Agreement, with others still expecting the president-to-be would be more measured and responsible on the issue. (Xinhua/Meng Tao)

MARRAKECH, Morocco, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Donald Trump's win of the U.S. presidential election on Wednesday has triggered concerns by experts attending the climate change conference here over the U.S. possible pull-out from the Paris Agreement, with others still expecting the president-to-be would be more measured and responsible on the issue.

Salaheddine Mezouar, president of the 22nd Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22), congratulated Donald Trump on his election, saying that the ongoing conference will continue to discuss and mobilize, in order to "pursue progress already made with all parties, particularly with the new American administration."

He highlighted that climate change issue transcends politics and concerns the "preservation of our livelihood, dignity and the only planet on which we all live," saying that all parties will respect their commitments and stay the course in this collective effort.

Trump has vowed in his presidential campaign to "cancel" the Paris Agreement once elected, calling global warming a "hoax," and to stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to UN global warming programs, which worried many after the agreement's entry into force on Nov. 4.

"Human-caused climate change is not a belief, a hoax, or a conspiracy. It is a physical reality," said an open letter released in September, signed by 375 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, including 30 Nobel laureates and renowned scientists such as Stephen Hawking.

"Election results will impact tone of negotiations, but the task ahead remains the same. We need long-term vision, regardless of the U.S. elections," said Mariana Panuncio-Feldman, senior director of international climate cooperation of World Wildlife Fund.

Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy from Union of Concerned Scientists, said that it remains to be seen whether Trump would be the same "as we saw in the campaign, or a more measured and responsible Trump we saw in his acceptance speech this morning," adding that courage and expectation are needed to view him as a responsible president.

He said that Trump was "very conciliatory" in his acceptance speech on Wednesday, voicing hope to work with the United States as partners rather than adversaries.

According to Li Shuo, Greenpeace's senior climate policy adviser, the U.S. economy is "decarbonizing," and developing renewable energy resources is the general direction of U.S. action dealing with climate changes.

Segolene Royal, president of COP21, called it means of campaign that Trump advocated to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which is not worth concerning about, while Brazilian Minister of Environment Jose Sarney Filho said that dropping out the combat against climate change is unthinkable for any society in the face of the threatening issue.

The Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 during COP21. Its 180 signatories committed themselves to maintaining global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.

The United States remains outside a previous major climate agreement, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, since George W. Bush withdrew from the treaty in 2001, arguing that it might cripple the U.S. economy.
(Xinhua) 11:27, November 10, 2016

WELLINGTON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand exporters were bracing themselves Thursday for challenging times under U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, as Prime Minister John Key conceded the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal was dead "in the short term."

Trump has pledged to scrap some multinational trade deals, and branded the 12-nation TPP, which was signed in New Zealand this year, as a "rape" to the United States.

Key told Radio New Zealand Thursday that the deal was "definitely not going anywhere in a hurry" and discussions would probably be put on hold.

"It would have been nice to have, but we're not going to have it in the short term," said Key.

"But does that mean there will never be an attempt to re-negotiate it? No, because President Trump will get the same advice from the State Department, from the Pentagon, from the Treasury that President Obama got, which is that you need to have influence and you need to have presence in Asia and to do that free trade locking you in there is the way to do it."

The Business New Zealand lobby group said international trade could be a source of tension with Trump as U.S. President.

New Zealand's prosperity relied on open and free trading of its export products, and if the U.S. took a more closed approach to trade in future, New Zealand export returns could be affected, chief executive Kirk Hope said in a statement.

"The U.S. is New Zealand's third largest export market. Trade with the U.S. earns New Zealand over 5 billion NZ dollars (3.65 billion U.S. dollars) a year in products including meat, dairy and wine, and over 2 billion NZ dollars (1.46 billion U.S. dollars) a year in services. A reduction in this level of trade would make a difference to New Zealand's growth prospects," said Hope.

The Export New Zealand lobby group said Trump's election signalled "a bumpy ride" for currency markets and a lost opportunity to reduce trade barriers for New Zealand products if the TPP was knocked back.

"Trump's anti-trade position and general protectionist stance is concerning. If his intentions to stop U.S. companies from outsourcing overseas and tariff walls eventuate then New Zealand will lose from this," executive director Catherine Beard said.

"We hope that in reality, common sense prevails and there will be a return to a more orthodox position on international affairs."

University of Auckland law Professor Jane Kelsey, who had helped lead opposition to the TPP internationally, said the vote for Trump was a backlash against such trade deals from ordinary people who felt alienated and disempowered.

President Barack Obama's administration had been ready to put the implementing legislation for the TPP to a vote during the lame duck period of Congress, Kelsey said in a statement.

"It is still possible they would try. But to do so in the face of the landslide vote for Trump, and for enough Republicans to endorse the legislation, would be hugely provocative when the talk is of healing and unity," she said.
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[File photo]

Chinese authorities have issued an emergent notice about tackling the illegal trade and hunting of migratory birds, sending a strong signal of the countrys determination to strike a blow against illegal poaching.

The notice, jointly released in November by seven government sectors including the Ministry of Public Security and State Administration for Industry and Commerce, stipulates that illegal bird trading and hunting be more severely punished by the government.

This notice came on the heels of several recent cases of bird poaching across the nation. In October, 259 swans and mallards were poisoned in Inner Mongolia, while in Tangshan, at least 5,000 birds were strangled by trammel nets. The rampant killing of migratory birds has worried the public as well as many animal welfare organizations, who demanded that the government tackle the problem.

The strong market demand for birds has led to an uptick in poaching. Most poached birds, such as swans and mallards, are cooked and served in restaurants, while birds of prey may be made into specimens for profit, said Tian Zhiwei, a Tangshan-based bird protection volunteer, in an interview with Beijing News. Tian added that an illegal and large-profit chain is behind the industry.

According to the Beijing News report, a poached bird can be sold for about 100 RMB in most restaurants, while the price for pet birds and specimens can be much higher. The great profit has lured many criminals to poach birds despite the risks. Meanwhile, Chinas current animal protection law is not strong enough to punish poachers, as poaching only constitutes a crime when over 20 wild birds are illegally killed or traded.

The government should increase criminal penalties applied to poachers, while the implementation of the animal protection law should be conducted jointly by several government sectors. For instance, the transportation department should strengthen supervision of suspicious vehicles, while the commerce department should clamp down on illegal trading in markets and restaurants, said Zhou Haixiang, director of Shenyang Ligong Universitys Ecology and Environmental Research Office.
Dr. Elham M.A. Ibrahim, Commissioner of Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commissiongives keynote speech at a high-level seminar on Global Energy Interconnection at the UN Headquarters in New York in October, 2016.

As one of the most resourceful region on the globe in energy resources, its energy access is still scarce. Dr. Elham M.A. Ibrahim, Commissioner of Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commission, highlights Chinas presence in the continents energy sector and calls on multinational energy corporates to invest in Africa.

As one of the most resourceful region on the globe in energy resources, technical potential of solar resource in Africa takes up 40% of the globe, wind resource 30% and hydro resource 12%. Yet its energy access is still scarce, with up to 55% of the continent population, which is around 600 million people, have no access to modern energy service. Theres huge potential in the continents energy development. And the concept of Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) occurs just in time.

Global energy interconnection refers to the development of a globally interconnected, ubiquitous robust smart grid, supported by backbone ultra-high voltage (UHV) grids, and dedicated primarily to the transmission of clean energy. The globally interconnected energy network is connected to large energy bases in the Arctic and equatorial regions, as well as different continents and countries. Generally speaking, a global energy interconnection will form a green, low-carbon platform for global allocation of energy with extensive coverage, strong allocation capability, and a high level of security and reliability.

In late October, a high-level seminar was co-organized by the United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization (GEIDCO) at the UN Headquarters in New York. GEIDCO was initiated by Chinas largest state-owned energy corporate State Grid to promote the sustainable development of energy worldwide. UN ambassadors from 45 countries, international organizations, research institutions, multinational companies were presented. Dr. Ibrahim was invited to deliver the keynote speech.

In an interview with Peoples Daily Online, Dr. Ibrahim agrees that GEI would bring great benefit to African countries. She says that energy interconnection means sustainability, security, efficiency and affordability in energy supply. Energy projects create jobs, satisfy economic and social demands, therefore promote world peace and sustainable development.

Currently, power interconnection has being built between African countries like Egypt and Ethiopia. There is a lot going on, but it needs to be pushed and coordinated.Dr.Ibrahim says, AUs role is to keep all of these projects going at the same time, to solve some bottlenecks and connect regions together when its time.

AU plays a role in moving forward energy projects on the continent especially on regulatory issues. Dr.Ibrahim says that AU is not imposing anything but has mechanism to bring ministers from different countries together. They decide, the summit approves and then implement.She says.

According to Dr.Ibrahim, AU just finalizes the regulatory framework for the energy sector in Africa, and is going to present it to the ministers of energy this month.

However, political issues amongst energy development are underlined. Dr.Ibrahim says it should not be used to control political situation or political opinions. Its important to keep it outside of political issues, to make it a purely economic and technical issue. she says, We should set the rules and regulations that maintain the network is used in a fair way.

She also brings up major challenges like investment environment, political and policies stability and project transparency. But there are incentives and regulations that reform the process in some African countries as well.

Africa set a target to provide power access to all people by the year of 2030. African Development Bank announced A New Deal on Energy for Africa that targets to have universal access by 2025. United Nations sustainable development agenda looks for universal access by 2030. And when AU plans for infrastructure development in Africa, it sets a goal to bring energy access to additional 800 million people by 2040.

AU sets the Agenda 2063 in 2013 when it marks its 50 years anniversary of establishment. With the first 50 years struggling for independence, the next 50 years was said to be focus on development and integration.

Dr.Ibrahim calls upon corporates to invest in Africas energy sector and call it a win-win situation. Rather than build it in somewhere else, make it in Africa.she says. She encourages companies to work together to build up the industry, to build transmission lines and power stations, to create jobs and electrify villages and remote areas.

She also mentions the presence of China: Chinese companies are doing a lot. About 30% of all projects in Africa are done by Chinese companies.

Energy interconnection by State Grid has been demonstrated in China, and projects are under construction in Brazil and India. The worlds largest power utility is planning to tackle the energy crisis of Africa by building backbone grids and connecting the continent with Europe and Asia.

Last December, State Grid signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation with South African electricity parastatal Eskom at a ceremony attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping and SA President Jacob Zuma. The two energy companies are highly complementary with huge potential for collaboration in the international business, technical, managerial and financial fields. And the memorandum provides a platform to leverage their expertise and co-operation in the development of business projects, technology sharing and knowledge creation opportunities.

State Grid is running the highest voltage level AC/DC hybrid power grid in China and it is unique in the world, having had no major blackout in the past 30 years.

State Grid gives prominence to the fields of overseas investment, engineering, procurement and construction project contracting, equipment export,international participation and global standard establishment.Its overseas assets are worth more than $42bn, listed on the second place on The Fortune 2016 Global 500.

On the Africa continent, its Ethiopia GDHA transmission project for Renaissance Dam with an investment of $1.46bn is currently operational. It is also a key player in the MphandaNkuwa hydropower project in Mozambique and Inga 3 project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The two projects are going to specifically benefit SA with safe, clean and reliable power supply.
New members inducted into Institute of ...
At the invitation of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Chinese President Xi Jinping will kick off a week-long Latin America trip starting from Nov. 17, during which Xi will attend the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, Peru. The visit will be the last overseas trip of the year for Chinese leaders.

Ecuador enjoys a traditional friendship with China featuring mutual trust and complementary advantages. During a state visit made by Correa to China in January 2015, Chinese and Ecuadoran leaders decided to upgrade bilateral ties to a strategic partnership. As the first ever trip to Ecuador by a Chinese head of state, Xis visit will raise bilateral ties to a new high.

China and Peru are also good friends with mutual trust and common development. Peru is the only Latin American country that has both established a comprehensive strategic partnership and signed bilateral free trade agreements with China. China has become Perus biggest trade partner, export destination and source of imports. Xis state visit to Peru, coming on the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the countries, will elevate their bilateral relationship.

China and Chile are close partners as well. Chile was the first Latin American country to establish a diplomatic relationship with the Peoples Republic of China, and also the first in Latin America to sign a free trade agreement with China. As close strategic partners, China and Chile are now witnessing enhanced political trust, deepened pragmatic cooperation and expanded cultural exchange. Xis visit, coming when bilateral ties are at an all-time high, will propel the countries strategic partnership to even greater heights.

As important partners to China in Latin America, Ecuador, Peru and Chile are on the forefront of Latin American cooperation with China. During Xis visit to Latin America in July 2014, he proposed raising the China-Latin America trade volume to $500 billion within a decade, and increasing FDI stock in Latin America to $250 billion. He also proposed establishing the "1+3+6" China-Latin America cooperation framework.

The first China-CELAC Forum meeting held in Beijing in January 2015 marked a new status for the relationship between China and Latin America  a status wherein integral and bilateral cooperation develop together and reinforce one another. Now, Xis Latin America tour is expected to consolidate this cooperation and advance China-Latin America ties still further.

At present, given the sustained yet slow and imbalanced global economic recovery, the economy in the Asia-Pacific region has slowed a little. Nevertheless, it is still a region with great vitality and potential. Faced with various new challenges, APEC needs to develop by following the current trends and adopting an innovative mindset to forge ahead.

China is not only a participant, promoter and guide for Asia-Pacific cooperation, it is also a constructor of and contributor to APEC. China offered a roadmap for building an Asia-Pacific community of common destiny at the 2013 APEC meeting in Bali, by calling on countries in the Asia-Pacific to seek common, open, innovative and interactive development.

At the 2014 APEC meeting in Beijing, China was the first to propose the Asia-Pacific dream of common development, prosperity and advancement. It also initiated the building of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific. During the 2015 APEC meeting in Manila, China urged for the formulation of mid- and long-term strategic frameworks for Asia-Pacific cooperation.

China has always upheld the idea that reform and innovation should be carried out together in order to develop the Asia-Pacific region and economy. The APEC trade ministers' meeting, held in May, implemented the agreed-upon terms from the 2014 APEC meeting in Beijing, which indicates that collective strategic research on the Asia-Pacific free trade zone has entered its final stage.

During this years APEC meeting, attendees will focus on Asia-Pacific economic integration, and will together reinforce the important role of the Asia-Pacific region in global economic growth.

Xis third Latin America trip and fourth attendance of an APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting will bring China more friends, cement its status in the world and provide more public goods for global governance and world development. With domestic development in China, countries have a chance to learn from each other and seek mutually beneficial cooperation. China will contribute wisdom and strength to peaceful development, and the world will get to witness these admirable efforts.
Friends of Nature, an environmental protection non-governmental organization in Beijing, is suing the Jilin branch of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for air pollution. The NGO will receive a public trial on Nov. 18 in Jilin province.

The Jilin branch of CNPC continuously discharges pollutants into the air, including sulfur dioxide and nitric oxide, violating the environmental protection law that is currently in place, claimed the NGO. Therefore, it sued the company for declining to eliminate that pollution, tasking the branch with accepting the cost of recovery.

The company has been on the receiving end of several administrative punishments in the last year. Jilins environmental protection bureau disciplined the company 10 times, assigning fines totaling 6,510,000 RMB. Additionally, the company was included on a list of 39 companies suspected of discharging excessive emissions in northeastern China, released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection on Nov. 5.

Ge Feng, the legal adviser of the NGO, explained that they have prosecuted six cases related to air pollution, focusing on industrial and vehicle exhaust emissions. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Jilin branch of CNPC claimed that they will offer a response after verifying the incident.
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Sonora, CA  Despite local leaders and other opponents fearing of a crime hike, Proposition 57 related to early prison release was approved by voter.

With its passing, at least 30,000 of Californias 130,000 state inmates could soon be considered for early release. Governor Jerry Brown backed the measure, arguing it would encourage more rehabilitation and continue a five-year effort to reduce Californias prison population.

As reported here in October, Tuolumne Countys District Attorney Laura Krieg presented her misgivings regarding Prop 57 to the Board of Supervisors. A major concern she cited was that the term non-violent crimes included offenses like rape by intoxication, rape of an unconscious person, human trafficking involving a sex act with minors, drive by shootings, assault with a deadly weapon, arson causing great bodily injury, lewd acts upon a child and false imprisonment of an elder. Krieg called out the proponents for what she believed amounted to lying to the public. Backing Kriegs arguments the board voted 5-0 to send a letter to the organization unanimously opposing it.
Sonora, CA  Congressman Tom McClintock, who will return to Washington, DC, and challenger Dr. Bob Derlet, have both released detailed statements about Tuesdays election.

McClintock received 62% of the vote and Derlet 37%. With the election of President-elect Donald Trump, McClintock says lawmakers were given a clear directive to make America great again.

McClintock adds, That work is now upon us, and will require the faithful fulfillment of the promises made to the American people to restore our Constitution, secure our borders, uphold the rule of law and revive our economy. And it will require the continuing involvement of a campaign that became a movement that became a presidency. If we rededicate ourselves to the task ahead, this generation will have saved and preserved what Lincoln called, The last best hope of mankind on this earth.

To the people of the Fourth Congressional District  THANK YOU. There is no greater honor an American can have than to be entrusted with working and speaking and voting on behalf of a constituency in the halls of Congress. Five times now the people of this district have done me that honor, and I cannot begin to put into words how highly I value that trust and how seriously I recognize that responsibility.

Individual liberty. Constitutionally limited government. Personal responsibility. These are the principles that make America exceptional. They embody the core philosophy of our party and of our country. I will do everything I can to restore them as the foundation of our public policy as long as the good people of the fourth district allow me to do so.

Democratic challenger Derlet, a Tuolumne County resident, has released a concession statement.

Dr. Derlet says, Together, we have built a campaign for Congress for which we can feel great pride. Sure, I had hoped that I would be giving a victory speech rather than conceding defeat. But I am grateful, fulfilled, thankful, and inspired.

I appreciate having had the opportunity given to me by the primary voters who chose to make me the standard-bearer of the Democratic Party in this important, noble effort to change the composition of Congress, at least in Californias fourth district.

I am fulfilled by the experiences I have had traveled up and down this immense, scenic, resource-rich district300 miles long, from Lake Tahoe to south of Yosemite into Fresno County; a district populated by neighborly, decent, caring and hard-working people.

I am thankful to so many people for their support, their advice, their contributions, their energy, their commitment. At the top of that list is my lovely, brilliant, determined and dear wife, Mikla. And I thank my daughters and my grandchildren for their love and support, and for being a constant reminder of why our mission to make ours a better country and a more livable world is so important. I am also thankful to the many, many people who have worked tirelessly and brilliantly to make this campaign possible, and that starts with my campaign manager, Kate Scott.

I am inspired by what I have learned over the past year or more, the determination of so many citizens to make our area, our state, and our country as good as they possibly can be. I am inspired by the patriotism of our people, their commitment to one another, and their belief that we should not, indeed, we cannot give up on the values and the mission of this campaign. The work doesnt end tonight, or next year or the year after that. It continues and I plan to keep at it, regardless of tonights results.

I congratulate Congressman McClintock on his win tonight, and I invite him to work with those of us who didnt vote for him, to do together all we can to improve the lives of everyone in the 4th Congressional District.

The District Four Congressional race stretches across the Sierra Nevada and includes the Mother Lode region.
On Nov. 7, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Organization signed a supply agreement for the design of a steam-condensing tank with China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN). The agreement marks Chinas first successful bid for an ITER project.

China joined the bidding in May, and eventually won the bid in September. CGN will take charge of the project. Previously, Chinese companies only joined ITER projects via subcontract bidding.

At the end of the ITER negotiations, the parties reached an agreement on cost estimates and the scale of assessments for the various stages of the ITER program. In the construction phase, China takes over 9 percent of the ITER manufacturing procurement package; currently, China takes 12 packages.

As one of the worlds largest scientific cooperation programs, 35 countries and organizations participate in ITER, including China, the E.U., India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. Aimed at examining the feasibility of nuclear fusion to solve the problem of sustainable energy, ITER is working toward an artificial sun.

Energy obtained through controlled nuclear fusion is similar to that of the sun releasing heat, Peoples Daily Online reported earlier in November.
New Smyrna Beach Police said a man has been charged with lewd acts on a child.

Officers were dispatched just after 7:40 p.m. Wednesday to Florida Memorial Hospital. The dispatcher advised that a child had reportedly been sexually abused.



John Young was charged with lewd, lascivious acts on a child



The alleged victim was a 5-year-old boy

Police say Young, 59, was a family friend

When police arrived at the hospital, they say a witness told them that a 5-year-old boy was allegedly victim to lewd acts by John Young, a family friend.

The boy was lured with food out of sight of his guardian, according to investigators.

He was out of sight for only a few moments when the act allegedly occurred, according to a police news release. When the boys guardian went to check on him, she observed Young, 59, performing 'a lewd act' on the boy.

She immediately grabbed the boy, fleeing the residence before driving to the hospital.

A short time later, Young was located at his home and was placed under arrest for lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 12.

He was transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail with no bond.
Florida Republicans kept their big majorities in the Florida House and Senate in Tuesday's Election. Democrats did make a few gains though.

FL Senate: 10 new Democrats, 9 new Republicans

FL House: 24 new Republicans, 22 new Democrats

Republicans continue strong grip and ability to push conservative measures

Democrats had hoped court-ordered redistricting in the Florida Senate, plus a Hillary Clinton win would lead to an swelling of paltry numbers in the Florida House and Senate. That did not materialize.



FL House of Representatives

Republicans maintain a 79-41 advantage over Democrats in the Florida House, just short of a super-majority. However, Democrats will remain mostly powerless to push through major legislative measures.

Democrats gained two seats in open contests, but lost one seat in Pasco County, FL Rep. Amanda Murphy's. Amber Mariano, daughter of Pasco County Commissioner Jack Mariano, is the youngest Florida Representative at age 21.

In Orange County, FL Rep. Rene Plasencia left House District 49 and moved into District 50, which he won. Democrat Carlos Guillermo Smith won House District 49.

In Miami-Dade County, Democrats picked up District 114 with a win by Daisy Baez. Another race, House District 118, appears to be headed for a recount. As of right now, Democrat Robert Asencio appears to be winning.

In the chart below you can find the new makeup of the Florida House. Red boxes indicated new-elected Republicans. Blue boxes are newly-elected Democrats. Hover over the boxes to see the new lawmakers and what districts they represent. The rest of the lawmakers were either re-elected or were not up for re-election this year. You can get a closer look at them by going to a larger view of this seating chart, and the Florida House of Representatives member list.



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Florida Senate

Democrats made only one gain in the Florida Senate. Former State Rep. Linda Stewart of Orlando won an open seat vacated by outgoing Senate President Andy Gardiner. The district had been reconfigured.

In fact, all 40 Florida Senate seats were up for re-election this year because of court-ordered redistricting.

Former Democratic Sen. and gubernatorial candidate Rod Smith lost an open seat in the Gainesville area, District 8. Another open seat was won by Republican FL Rep. Dana Young.

Nineteen Florida Senate incumbents were re-elected Tuesday night. Eleven were re-elected without opposition.

Roll over the numbers in the map below to find out who won seats on Tuesday.
Photo taken on Nov. 9 in Lhasa, Tibet. The Potala Palace was painted to celebrate the day on which Sakyamuni returns to the human world. That day is Nov. 21, or Sept. 22 on the Tibetan calendar. Buddhists also donated milk and brown sugar as the painting occurred. (Photo: Li Lin/China News Services)
BEIJING, Nov. 10 -- Bilateral ties between China and Ecuador will be strengthened by Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit next week, Jose Maria Borja, the Ecuadorian Ambassador to China, said in an interview with Xinhua.

Xi will be the first Chinese President to visit Ecuador since diplomatic relations were established in 1980.

"It's a historic visit, which will further cement bilateral ties," Borja said.

Cooperation on technology, investment and infrastructure construction has grown rapidly in recent years. China's non-financial investment in Ecuador reached 6 billion U.S. dollars at the end of March. Ecuador invested in 42 projects in China, with combined investment of 8.63 million dollars.

Borja spoke highly of China's contribution to Ecuador's development. Like many Latin American nations, Ecuador used to be faced with power shortages. Nine hydropower stations have been built or are under construction since President Rafael Correa took office in 2007. Of them, eight were built by Chinese companies. Ecuador now not only meets its domestic electricity demand, but has surplus power to export.

Borja said China's Belt and Road Initiative will bring great opportunities for Latin American nations to build trade and economic ties with Central Asia.

China's presence in Ecuador is palpable and useful, Borja said, speaking of China's humanitarian aid to the country in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated towns along the northern coast in April, leaving over 600 people dead and nearly 30,000 homeless.

Personal exchanges between China and Ecuador go back a long way, he said. In the 19th century, Chinese laborers went to Latin America for work. Currently, around 70,000 ethnic Chinese live in Ecuador, while 500 Ecuadorian students study in China.

Borja also hoped more Chinese would visit his home country to experience its variety of climates, biodiversity and breathtaking landscape.

He expects the number of Chinese tourists to exceed 18,000 this year, up from 16,000 in 2015.
BEIJING, Nov. 10 -- The EU's proposed anti-dumping regulations do not conform to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, according to a Ministry of Commerce official.

China appreciated the European Commission's proposal to abolish its "non-market economy" list but was disappointed it had introduced a "market distortions" clause, which is another way to extend current "analogue country" methodology, Ministry of Commerce spokesman Shen Danyang said at a press conference Thursday.

Shen's comments came after the European Commission proposed new methodology to determine whether manufacturers from countries including China, are dumping products.

The move comes one month before the expiration of some provisions under Article 15 of the Protocol on China's accession to the WTO, due on December 11.

The expiration would require WTO members to end the so-called "analogue country" methodology under which price data in a third country is used to calculate the value of products from a non-market economy country.

Shen urged the EU to completely end the "analogue country" methodology and ensure that its new standards are "fair, reasonable and transparent."

Related:

WTO upholds China's principal claims against U.S. anti-dumping rules

World Trade Organization dispute panel on Wednesday ruled against several anti-dumping measures taken by the United States as violation of WTO rules.

In a report circulated on Wednesday, the panel upheld China's principal claims concerning the unlawfulness of targeted dumping and separate rate applied in certain anti-dumping proceedings by the United States and found the 13 anti-dumping measures taken by U.S. Department of Commerce in violation of WTO rules. Full story
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A demonstration in Oakland against President-elect Donald Trump got unruly late Wednesday as protesters lit fires in the streets and smashed windows in buildings, including City Hall, in defiance of police orders to leave.

Hundreds marched through the citys downtown, following a peaceful rally at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza to object to Trumps election victory, as teams of police in riot gear moved in to disperse the crowds. Several demonstrators reported being sprayed with tear gas.

Many in the march scuffled with police. One tossed a flare at a line of officers. One officer was injured, though police did not specify the details of the injury.

Several demonstrators were arrested or cited for suspected crimes including assaulting an officer, vandalism and failure to disperse, according to police.

Firefighters were on the scene at several locations around Broadway and Telegraph Avenue, extinguishing burning trash cans, suitcases, cardboard boxes and other debris. At least one police vehicle was burned.

More for you Thousands of Americans turn out to protest president-elect Donald Trump

Windows were shattered at many businesses, and storefronts were tagged with graffiti, much of it demeaning Trump.

The Oakland Police Department said in a statement that officers moved in on the demonstration after splinter groups from the initial protest began hurling rocks, bottles, fireworks, M-80s and Molotov cocktails shortly after 8 p.m.

Police estimated that as many as 7,000 people turned out for the protest, though the criminal behavior was confined to a much smaller number.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf had issued a statement earlier in the day calling on residents to channel their frustrations into volunteer work for the community.

The best way to protest this election is to show that Oakland comes together and does not fall apart, she said. Show that diverse, progressive cities like ours work and remain committed to social justice.

Oakland has been a hub of political protest in recent years, with multiple demonstrations  often turning violent  for Black Lives Matter issues and the Occupy movement.

Wednesdays events came alongside a number of rallies nationwide, including in San Francisco, to protest Trumps victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton. The billionaire Republican and developer ran a divisive campaign that often offended minorities and women.

Kimberly Veklerov, Michael Bodley, Jenna Lyons and Kurtis Alexander are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com, mbodley@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchronicle.com, kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KVeklerov, @michael_bodley @JennaJourno @kurtisalexander
In politics, wearing white is usually more than just the color.

It's a fashion statement that often comes with a message of purity, trust and hope.
EASTON  Four people were taken to Albany Medical Center after a three-vehicle crash Wednesday on Route 29, the Washington County Sheriff's Office said.

The accident happened at 5:06 p.m. near Route 113.

A 2001 Volvo driven by Jason E. Geraghty, 37 , of North Road in Greenwich, was eastbound from Schuylerville on Route 29 and struck head-on a westbound 2007 Chevrolet pickup truck driven by Austin M. Brown, 25, of John Street in Greenwich.

A third westbound vehicle, a 2005 Dodge pickup driven by Justin T. Marcellus, 26, of Spier Falls Road in Greenfield Center, also was involved.

Geraghty was taken to the hospital with leg and shoulder injuries.

Brown was taken to Albany Med with serious leg injuries. Two of his passengers, Desiree Williams, 24, of John Street in Greenwich and a 2-year-old child, were taken to the hospital for evaluation.

EMS evaluated Marcellus at the scene.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, the sheriff's office said. An accident reconstruction team from the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office assisted.

The Schuylerville and Middle Falls fire departments and Easton-Greenwich, Schuylerville, Cambridge and Malta-Stillwater EMS also assisted at the scene.
(File photo)

BEIJING, Nov. 10 -- President Xi Jinping has called for strong and modern logistic forces in the army to boost army.

Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks at a CMC meeting on logistics held from Wednesday to Thursday.

Related:

Chinese army vows efforts on strict Party governance

Chinese military forces have pledged to closely unite around the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, and vowed steadfast efforts on strict governance of the Party.

The Central Military Commission (CMC) has issued a circular urging the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the armed police force to study and implement the spirit of the sixth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee. Full story
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GREENWICH  Alumni of the Sacred Heart Greenwich returned to the school Thursday to speak about their TV news careers and the schools broadcast journalism program with current students.

To see that these girls who are in the broadcast program now are able to create these films, these stories and documentaries and put these together in high school and have this opportunity to get such a head start, its really incredible, said Kate Rayner, an NBC Connecticut Anchor who graduated from Sacred Heart in 2005. This is the same level of professionalism and quality that we see now working in news in a daily basis.

Seven-time Emmy-award-winning NBC Investigative Producer Erica Jorgensen, class of 2004, said the broadcast program and the student Emmy that she won at 17 as a result propelled her journalism career.

That gave me the skill set that really set me apart, she said. The girls here are really at such an advantage.

The mornings keynote speaker was Melanie Bloom, the widow of NBC News Correspondent David J. Bloom, the namesake of the schools David J. Bloom Broadcast Journalism Program and father of three Sacred Heart Greenwich students.

After her husband died in 2003 covering the war in Iraq, Melanie Bloom has been working as the National Spokesperson for the Coalition to Prevent DVT, the type of deep vein blood clot that killed her husband.

In 2006, Davids colleagues at NBC donated cameras and editing boards to the program, plus the entire Today Show set, to the school in his honor.

David loved this school. He knew the importance of the media and the increasingly important role it would play in our childrens lives, she said. David would be thrilled with the outstanding nature and quality of the work produced in the broadcast studio in his name.

Sacred Heart Greenwichs broadcast journalism program was started in 2001. Last year, more than 680 students from the Lower, Middle and Upper schools participated in broadcast journalism at Sacred Heart.

The Upper School elective, which produces the news show Today from the Heart, has grown from seven students at its origin 15 years ago to 73.

Sacred Heart filmmaking students have won more than 276 awards from local, national and international competitions. At least 32 alumnae work in TV News, communications, filmmaking or social media.

This broadcast journalism program is so invaluable, said Jackie Batrus, a senior at Boston College and a Fox News intern, class of 2013. It gave me a phenomenal foundation for my major... This program gave me the confidence to apply to internships that I really wouldnt have applied to had I not had the skills from this program.

A panel of current Sacred Heart students also weighed in on the program.

It was cool because you can make movies, said fourth grader Kathleen Denvir. I really love claymation and stopmotion now. I make them at home almost every day.

It really builds community and awareness for all the things Sacred Heart students do, said senior Juliette Guice, Sacred Heart film festival co-chair.

emunson@hearstmediact.com; @emiliemunson
BRENHAM  Though cattle prices have come down from historic highs, there are still ways for beef cattle producers to capture more dollars for their calves by adding value at the ranch, according to experts at the 45th South Central Texas Cow-Calf Clinic in Brenham.

Several hundred beef producers from Washington, Brazos, Austin, Burleson, Fayette, Harris, Lee and Waller counties took part in the day-long program hosted by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and surrounding beef and forage county committees.

Dr. Dan Hale, AgriLife Extension meat specialist, discussed carcass value and what cattle order buyers are looking for. He said there could be as many as nine order buyers at an auction ring looking to fill specific orders.

What are those buyers looking at inside the auction ring? Hale said. They are looking at how fast those calves are going to gain once they leave the livestock market auction.

He said its important to get as many buyers in attendance to bid on your cattle to fill their orders.

You do that by making sure your calves you are marketing fit their orders, he said.

Hale said the buyers are given orders every week before they go to the auction and may have as many as 20 orders to fill.

If your calves fit at least one or two orders on each of the bidders present need to fill, then your cattle will potentially receive higher prices and maybe the top price of the day, he said. They are looking at frame size, the size of the animal and how large they are going to get before they start to get fat.

Hale said the longer you can feed those animals before they start getting into the rapid fattening phase of their life, and the more muscular they are, the faster they grow.

The order buyer is looking at seeing how long they will they grow in the feedyard or on grass before they start getting really fat, he said. This is also why lighter-weight calves often bring higher prices per hundredweight, as lighter cattle will be able to spend more time as a stocker calf and as a feeder calf before they become finished in the feedyard.

They also look at genetic makeup of the animal, and estimate the final USDA quality grade  USDA prime, choice or select  once the calf has gone through the feedyard and is a finished market animal.

Hale said order buyers are also looking at gender. He said heifers start the fattening phase of their lives much sooner than steers and that is the reason prices paid for them are often less than comparable steers.

Hale said producers should consider adding value to their calves. This can be achieved by implementing programs such as the VAC 45 program, also known as the Value Added Calf program, where calves are weaned 45 days before they are sold. They also receive two sets of booster vaccines to enhance their immunity to disease and sickness.

The buyers of VAC 45 calves find them to more easily attain their genetic potential, have an enhanced immune system, are more predictable in their feedyard performance, and reduce the use of antibiotics.

Castrating bull calves also adds value, said Dr. Joe Paschal, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service livestock specialist, Corpus Christi. Paschal and Dr. Helen Philips of Philips Veterinary Hospital in Brenham provided a live chute-side demonstration.

Talk to your veterinarian and develop what is referred to as a vet-client relationship, Phillips told attendees. Dont wait until your calves are too sick to call a veterinarian.

Phillips urged producers to develop a herd health plan with their veterinarian, and both she and Paschal discussed proper vaccinations to prevent diseases such as blackleg and redwater from causing death to valuable calves. They also discussed practices such as ear notching to help ranchers identify the pasture in which calves have received a round of vaccinations.

There are practices that can add value to your calves, whether its sticking an ear tag in their ear, putting a notch in the ear, blackleg vaccination or castrating bull calves at a young age. All of this adds value to those calves and you will be compensated when you market those calves, Paschal said.
Some experts predict that ecommerce will surpass $2 trillion in sales in the next few years - its the fastest growing and one of the most valuable industries.

When you can shop online, seamlessly checkout, and then conveniently have your favorite pair of jeans, a nice new watch, or even a customized computer shipped directly to your doorstep, you might think the process isnt that complicated.

As a digital marketer, I have helped a lot of brands grow sales through e-commerce. This got me wanting to start my own e-commerce site, so I could truly understand the process and what it takes to launch an online store from scratch.

Below are tips and tricks that I learned during the one year it took my sister and I to launch DermWarehouse, an e-commerce website selling skincare and beauty products. The steps outlined below will not only ensure you take the quickest and most professional route to get your site up and running, it will also set your marketing and SEO up for future success, which will increase your bottom line.

One Year SEO Strategy.

If youve never started an e-commerce store from scratch, its impossible to understand how time consuming and detailed the process is. When looking at any ecommerce site, you never think about the fact that someone had to craft content and individually load each and every product. Not only that, you also have to negotiate with each manufacturer to be able to list their products online, before the actual listing process even begins.

Aside from all the work it takes to actually build the site, from my marketing agency experience, I understood how frustrating it could be to have this functioning site and business model that youve worked so hard on, but not generate organic traffic. So, we kicked off our SEO strategy early, a year prior to site launch, while simultaneously building our website. We needed this time anyway for development, so why not make the most of it and kill two birds with one stone.

Below is a list of all the steps we took to get started and successfully build our e-commerce site:

1. Purchase a domain name.

This is pretty straightforward. You need a domain name that will perfectly identify your brand. Dont overthink the process. Using a site like GoDaddy, you can purchase a domain name for under $10.00.

Related: How to Choose and Purchase a Domain Name

2. Find a web developer.

This is a crucial component in launching your ecommerce site. If you want to launch your site in a relatively short time span and in a professional manner, make sure to do your vetting when it comes to hiring a developer. Get references from other ecommerce websites the developer has built. Get a timeline for how long they anticipate it will take to launch the site. Make sure they have a graphic design background so they can crop images that will align with your site. Be sure to ask if the developer has experience building sites on the ecommerce platform you choose (see step 4).

Too often, entrepreneurs move forward with a developer without doing their due diligence in terms of research. Don't let this happen to you, as it can put a halt to your website before you really even get started. If you want to learn more about how long your e-commerce site should take to launch, feel free to contact a web design specialist.

Related: 5 Tips for Hiring a Great Web Developer

3. Get all the paperwork you need for a legitimate business.

Register your business, get a vendor's License and start looking into legal business issues. You should contact a local attorney to assist in the creation of your business. While it is an upfront cost, it likely will save you significant headache and expense in the future.

According to Alyson Letsky, an attorney at Eastman & Smith Ltd. in Columbus, Ohio, you will first need to strategize and determine the state in which you wish to be domiciled, then check the required filings with that states Secretary of State and department of taxation or revenue.

You will need to register the appropriate articles of incorporation or organization with your states Secretary of State if you are starting a corporation, nonprofit, limited liability company or professional organization. Additionally, if you will be making taxable sales, you will need to obtain a Sellers Permit or Vendors License with the appropriate state agency. Many vendors will require that you have this as well before they agree to work with you.

If you are starting a nonprofit, check with the state Attorney Generals office to learn what charitable licenses and filings are required. Lastly, you will need the appropriate organizational documents. Contact your attorney for more information, but this is not a step to be skipped or overlooked.

Related: 4 Legal Documents You Need to Review Before 2017

4. Select ecommerce and website hosting platform.

To save time and money, select a popular ecommerce platform. I recommend Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce. Most developers are familiar with these, making it easy to integrate plugins, payment processing, etc.

For our skincare ecommerce site, we decided to use WooCommerce because of the its WordPress capabilities. We chose WP Engine for the hosting, which costs $29.99 per month and provides a fast and secure hosting solution.

Related: Overwhelmed by the eCommerce Solutions Available? Here Are the Top 4.

5. Find a theme that matches your ecommerce vision.

To save even more time, you can purchase a theme from ThemeForest to find a layout that resembles the look and feel you desire from an ecommerce perspective. ThemeForest has over 28,000 website templates and themes from $2. They are the #1 marketplace for website templates.

Don't reinvent the wheel. Rather than building your site from scratch, download a template from ThemeForest or a similar site. We learned from experience that the customization process can be a very timely and frustrating one. So, if you can find a theme you like, youll likely save yourself quite a headache.

Related: 5 Ways Store Colors Can Influence Shoppers

6. Take your website live.

As soon as you commit to starting your business, take your site live, even before listing any of your products. Have your developer created a homepage, an About Us page and a contact page. It doesnt have to be beautiful but having a functioning site will be helpful for numerous reasons:

First, it will allow you to establish legitimacy when negotiating deals with vendors. Youll have more than just an idea. Second, when reaching out to reporters and bloggers, they can see that you have a website and are credible. Third, it will give you a place for all of these sources to link back to your site, which is, of course, key for building SEO.

Related: Five Things To Check Before Your New Website Goes Live

7. Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is one of the greatest tools for PR and SEO any business owner or digital marketer can make use of. Its free, it generates amazing exposure (if executed properly) and it can really be a game changer (again, if executed properly).

HARO provides journalists with a robust database of sources for upcoming stories and daily opportunities for sources to secure valuable media coverage. Sign up and use this resource as much as you can to build credibility and establish media relationships for your site.

When it comes to HARO, there are several key components to executing. The first is timeliness. When a reporter submits a query, they can receive hundreds of pitches in response. Each query has a deadline as well, so making sure you respond immediately, in the morning, afternoon and evening is critical for both reasons.

The second key element is finding a true industry expert with ease of access. Fortunately, we had a dermatologist at our disposal at all times for DermWarehouse. This provided us with an advantage over the thousands of pitches that deal with entrepreneurship (which we still responded to also, but had a lower conversion rate).

If you spend the time and send back two pitches per day for a one-year timespan, you will get tremendous exposure on some of the most popular sites on the web. This will not only help increase your brand exposure, it will greatly help your SEO as well.

Related: 5 Tips for Getting Media to 'Swipe Right' on Your Press Release

8. PitchBox.

Developing relationships with media contacts is a very important. This is where Pitchbox comes in. Pitchbox automates the outreach grunt work so you can focus on what you do best -- creating real, person-to-person connections with the people you want to reach. Pitchbox helps scale your outreach efforts. It handles all aspects from the prospecting to the emailing to the tracking and managing the workflow.

After PitchBox sends an initial pitch, if someone doesnt respond, their SaaS software will send a follow-up email based on a timed schedule. You can craft your own emails (both initial and follow-up) so that the message still sounds personal.

Pitchbox starts at $95 for startups and is a great resource to generate high quality relationships. We used this service for vendor outreach and also for media outreach. It saved us an enormous amount of time. If youre also a Moz user, you can integrate Moz within Pitchbox, allowing you to filter your search results based on domain authority.

Related: 7 Tips for Mastering the Fine Art of Following Up

9. Personalized outreach.

Personalized relationships are very important, both for vendors and for the media. If you have successfully implemented an SEO strategy, you definitely understand the value of personalized relationships.

Make sure to pitch the website something of value. It is important to do research on reporters and editors so when you pitch them a story idea the email doesnt get buried in their inbox or deleted unread.

Let's say your ecommerce store sells "Petes Pasta Sauce." Share your expertise through articles teaching readers and cooking aficionados about your most delicious recipes. Send an editor a sample of your pasta sauce to help explain to them why your pesto stands out among the competition.

If youre only selling your own homemade pasta sauce, you wont be dealing with vendor relationships but if youre selling different brands and products you will be working closely with these vendors. Or at least you should be!

Pick up the phone or meet your rep for coffee. The vendors are the people who dictate sales and promotions. They can keep you up to date on the latest trends for their brand to help bolster your sales. They are the people who know the most about the products youre selling, so its very important to establish relationships with them. Let them know that youre a team and you want to work with them to garner success for both of you. They will appreciate it and think of you anytime they have a special deal or promotion, or even a great marketing idea. If youve built a relationship with them, yours is the website that theyll want to share these ideas and offers with.

Related: Why a Phone Call Is Better Than an Email (Usually)

10. Get a payment gateway.

Did you ever wonder how credit card payments were accepted on ecommerce websites? Its through a payment gateway and also a credit card processor. You are likely most familiar with PayPal or Stripe. But if you want to accept credit cards, recurring billing and mobile payment, a gateway like authorize.net or 2Checkout.com provide great options. WooRockets.com provides a great list of the 5 best payment gateways for e-commerce websites.

Getting approved for a payment gateway and credit card processor is not an easy process, so do your research and make sure youre prepared. Before you can apply, youll need to set up a secure checkout process on your website, create a Privacy Policy and Return Policy, figure out your shipping and delivery methods, plus have a working customer service phone number and email address.

All of this information will need to be visible on your website. Make sure to also have a clean credit history, a U.S. drivers license or state ID, a U.S. bank account for the business where funds will be deposited, and a federal tax ID. Youll need a voided check (or a bank letter with your account information) and its also a good idea to include a cover letter with your application explaining your business and why youll be successful.

Setting up your payment gateway and credit card processing can take a while. These processors dont want to take a big risk on a business without experience or that is unlikely to be successful, so you must prove to them that this is not the case with your business. Dont wait until the last minute to start this process.

Related: 5 Features To Look For While Selecting The Right E-payment Model

11. Google Shopping + Facebook Product Catalog.

Weve talked a lot about building your SEO presence during the development process so that, rather than waiting for the website development to be completed and starting your SEO from scratch, you can start to bolster your SEO while your developer is plugging away at your site.

There are some things, however, that you cannot complete until the site is ready to launch and the products are all uploaded. When you are in the final stages of development, make sure to get your Google Shopping Campaign set-up to ensure your product images populate when users search for relevant keywords. If you are unfamiliar with Google Shopping, I give step-by-step instructions on 4 easy steps to set-up a Google Shopping Campaign through Merchant Center.

You can use this same data feed from the merchant center and upload it to Facebooks product catalog.

Related: All-Knowing Google to Roll Out Geographically-Triggered Shopping Alerts

12. Order packaging and figure out shipping/storage options.

Before you can launch your website, youll need to figure out how to store and ship your inventory. You will have to determine storage to make arrangements for with your vendors. Some questions you will need to answer are as follows:

Will you be utilizing drop shipping or will you store all of your inventory in a warehouse? Will you use USPS, UPS, FedE, or some combination of the three to ship and track packages? What will you ship your package in? What size packaging do you need? Are you going to include any promotional materials in your packages? Are there shipping restrictions on any of the products youre offering (e.g, there are some beauty products can only be shipped via ground)?

You need answers to all of these questions before youre ready to ship out any merchandise. As you can see, starting an ecommerce website is quite an involved and detailed process. Following this checklist will ensure you take the proper steps to get your website launched in a timely manner while being proactive with your SEO and marketing.

Related:



Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Small-business owners face seemingly endless responsibilities. That makes it even more important to prioritize. Research from the National Federation of Independent Business strongly suggests that finding affordable health insurance for your employees should be near the top of your list.

Youd be right to expect full transparency from your health insurance broker when discussing all the possible options and prices. But how can you be assured your broker is showing you the whole picture?

Here are three things your broker might not be telling you:

1. 'You have more options than Im showing you.'

Small-group health plans, the individual marketplace and the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) exchange combine to give companies more choices than some brokers present. This might be because some brokers may not have access to all carriers in their market or operate in a single market (group or individual). And it's realistic to assume some agents simply have a personal preference for certain plans over others.

Related: 3 Things to Know About Buying Insurance

Many brokers focus solely on traditional group plans. They may be unable to offer SHOP exchange plans including subsidies or individual-market solutions, which offer even greater subsidies through the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Also, brokers may be limited to selling plans from only a few insurance companies, possibly leaving out dozens of plan choices for you to consider.

Its important to keep yourself educated about healthcare choices, even if you have a broker or agent. You need to be aware of the respective benefits of both group insurance and enrolling your employees in individual plans. Push your broker to show you all of the options -- or find an agent who will.

2. 'My services may be limited.'

When was the last time you heard from your broker? That long? Practitioners of the write and run approach -- selling the business but not providing the appropriate follow-up and support -- exist in nearly every industry. Health insurance is no different. Judge your broker the same way you would any other service provider.

Your broker should be a strategic partner who helps you determine the intersection of health benefits, talent acquisition and retention, cost and coverage. Find a broker who focuses on smaller businesses, understands your needs for continued service and is willing to invest in assisting your employees, too. You and your employees deserve open, candid communication. You also should be able to count on your agent for support in understanding whats available and how to make the best decisions.

Related: Should You Tell Customers You're Raising Prices to Cover Health Insurance?

3. 'You could be at risk for large fines.'

Make a wrong move, and you could be exposed to fines of $100 per employee per day. Seriously. If you dont offer a group policy but instead provide some funding to help employees pay for individual health insurance, you might be in trouble due to a recent IRS ruling.

Moreover, if you exceed 50 full-time equivalents (FTEs), be careful. You could be exposed to penalties under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) if you dont provide qualifying group coverage. The ACA employer mandate requires applicable large employers -- small-business owners with 50 or more FTE employees -- to offer health insurance to at least 95 percent of FTEs and their dependents.

There are a few other requirements, too. Coverage must be affordable, which means a plan cannot exceed 9.5 percent of the employees income. It also must meet a key minimum value: equivalent to the minimum essential-coverage and cost-sharing amount for a bronze plan (60 percent). Theres a lot to keep track of, so make sure your broker educates you on all the pitfalls and steers you clear of penalties.

Related: This Insurance Strategy Could Save You Thousands

What should you do now?

Small-business owners deserve a knowledgeable, communicative broker. Remember, your broker works for you and should provide you with the level of guidance needed for your business. If you're experiencing something less, dont hesitate to shop for a new broker.

Ask a few key questions to help you evaluate potential agents and determine if they're a good fit for you and your company.

How long have you been selling health insurance?

What locations and marketplaces do you specialize in?

What carriers do you have access to?

How frequently do you communicate with your customers?

What kind of support will I have when it comes to compliance paperwork to steer clear of penalties?

Are there plans available to me beyond what you're presenting?

Ask your broker about his or her experience and level of knowledge in the various marketplaces. You might be surprised by what you're missing or what your current broker isnt telling you. Employers -- and employees -- deserve better.

Related:

3 Things Your Health-Insurance Broker Might Not Tell You About Open Enrollment

3 Things to Know About Buying Health Insurance

Should You Tell Customers You're Raising Prices to Pay for Health Insurance?



Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
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Amongst all the election uproar, many people are so upset by the outcome that theyre wondering if they should flee the country. Case in point: Canadas website crashed after Donald Trump was declared the winner of Tuesday's election.

Travel companies were quick to pounce on the trend, offering some awesome deals that both Trump and Hillary supporters alike will love.
Perhaps the best way to describe 9 Horses is by the tag line used during the Emerging Artists Competition at the 21CM Conference at DePauw University in September, at which the three-piece ensemble played.

The event showcased groups who were re-imagining the future of art music. And 9 Horses took first prize. The string trio combines contemporary classical and jazz, Americana, folk, and even indie rock into its highly original genre-hopping mix, and at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13, it makes its Wilton debut performing in the Wilton Librarys Hot & Cool: Jazz at the Brubeck Room series. A donation of $10 per person is suggested. Advance registration recommended. Wilton Library is located at 137 Old Ridgefield Road in Wilton. Call 203-762-3950, or visit www.wiltonlibrary.org.

Consisting of Joe Brent on acoustic and electric mandolin, Sara Caswell on violin and hardanger fiddle, and Andrew Ryan on bass, the group takes its name from 9 Horses, a poem by the American poet Billy Collins, which is about a 9-panel series of photographs of horses he received as a gift.

Small things which carry great significance is a recurring theme in a lot of Billy Collins' work, explained Brent, who composes the ensembles music, and in ours as well.

9 Horses began as duo in 2012, with Brent and Caswell, and expanded to a trio the following year. In 2015, it released its critically acclaimed debut album Perfectest Herald on Sunnyside Records, all the music of which is composed by Brent, including a four-movement suite.

This ensemble and this music really represents the accomplishment of my musical goals, said Brent, who graduated from the Berklee College of Music with a focus on contemporary music. For me, performing is most exciting when I have musicians of this caliber to bounce ideas off of in real time; similarly, composing has always been a lot easier for me if, instead of writing for 'String Quartet' or some similar ensemble, I could write for 'Sara' or 'Andrew', whose voices I know so well and which inspire and are such a part of my own.

Brent has performed with many well-known chamber ensembles and is thoroughly versed in the traditional orchestral repertoire, having played with The Boston Symphony, The Chicago Symphony, and The San Francisco Symphony. He made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in 2001 and has lectured on contemporary music at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He was a featured performer and clinician at the Classical Mandolin Society of Americas annual convention, recorded the complete mandolin works of David Loeb, and published two books of mandolin pedagogy.

I started on violin and play guitar as well, he said, but mandolin feels much more like my voice. It combines the melodic properties of the violin and accompanimental abilities of the guitar into one instrument.

He is a believer in musical styles having no barriers. Bluegrass and jazz musicians should have a home at Carnegie Hall, and classical music should be welcome in clubs, he said. I'm drawn to music and musicians who treat all of the music they've experienced on equal footing, and make a lot of different musical styles a part of their voice. I'd like to think that two people could listen to me or to 9 Horses and hear two completely different sets of influences, and both be completely correct.

Brent is committed to working on his original compositions daily. Creativity is a fickle, churning cauldron which lurks beneath a membrane which divides your conscious and unconscious self, he said. You can't turn inspiration on like a switch. If you leave it alone too long it ossifies. You have to continually feed it and keep that pot boiling if you ever expect something to gurgle up to the surface and break through that membrane. I probably throw out 90% of what I write. I do a lot of distance running, which is a great way to focus my mind, and I get a lot of work done that way.

And he has nothing but praise for his fellow 9 Horses band members. We're based in New York, and all three of us have a similar polyglot-style voice, where we all have classical training, but are equally fluent in jazz, Americana, and music from around the world, and treat all of it with equal seriousness. Caswell teaches at Berklee and Manhattan School of Music, and plays with Esperanza Spalding and a lot of other great jazz artists. Andrew studied at Ithaca and plays with folk-bluegrass artists Jaime Stone and The Freewheel Trio. They're both such extraordinary musicians. Note to composers: surround yourself with really great musicians and you'll sound like you know what you're doing. For information, visit: www.josephbrent.com.

In other concert news, Voices Cafe has Rob Carlson & Benefit Street with special guest Beth Bradley at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 12. Tickets are $25 at the door. Voices Cafe is located at The Unitarian Church in Westport, 10 Lyons Plains Road, in Westport. Visit www.voicescafe.org, or call 203-227-7205, ext. 14. And, following her performances at the big Northeast Regional Folk Alliance conference at the Crown Plaza Stamford this weekend (visit: www.nerfa.net), Southports Kristen Graves joins Peter Yarrow and Frank Waln in the benefit concert for Simply Smiles called There is an AlterNative at 4 p.m. on Sunday, November 13, at the Quick Center for the Arts, Fairfield University, 200 Barlow Road, in Fairfield. Tickets: $65 and $45. Visit: www.simplysmiles. org.

Mike Horyczuns Sound Surfing column appears every Saturday in The Hour. Mike can be reached at: news2mh@gmail.com.
Except for some long lines that developed late in the day as time to vote drew short, Election Day in Hale County on Nov. 8 went relatively smoothly.

We really didnt have any major problems, reports Elections Coordinator Richard Castillo. We had a really good turnout, with 9,029 voters out of a total registration of 19,302. Thats about a 47 percent turnout, which was much better than four years ago.

The long lines of people waiting to vote began developing at various polling locations shortly before polls closed at 7 p.m., Castillo said. But as long as they got there by 7 p.m., they were allowed to go ahead and vote. Even at that, the last person was able to vote by something like 7:05 p.m. It moved a lot faster than sometimes in the past. He had no reports of problems related to the countys voting machines.

Although polls officially closed at 7 p.m., the Hale County Clerks Office didnt get through tabulating results until 9:02 p.m., two hours after the polls closed. It took us a while to get everything counted once we received all the voting machines, Castillo admitted.

The county had 15 polling locations Tuesday. Nine were in Plainview with the others located in Hale Center, Petersburg, Abernathy Cotton Center, Edmonson and Halfway. Those had to be brought in by election judges after the polls closed for tabulation at the courthouse.

We had a good turnout during early voting, which obviously helped on Election Day, Castillo pointed out. The response was particularly strong the first week of early voting when we were averaging probably 500 voters a day. It slowed down during the second week of early voting.

On Friday, the clerks office reported that 6,242 Hale County residents voted early in this years General Election. Thats up sharply from 5,325 early voters in 2012 during the last presidential election, but down slightly from 6,387 early voters in 2008.

This year we seemed to have a large number of people wanting to vote who were not registered, or at least not showing on our list of registered voters, Castillo said. On Wednesday morning, Castillo was reviewing the 151 provisional ballots cast during the election to determine their validity.

One locally contested race in Floyd County was decided Tuesday for County Commissioner Precinct 1, with write-in candidate Tanner Smith receiving 292 votes (42.1%) to defeat the Republican nominee, Mike Anderson, who received 219 votes (31.6%). Two other write-in candidates received votes, Timmy Lyles with 147 (21.2%) and Harvey Garza, 35 votes (5.1%).

Across the state, according to The Texas Tribune, in excess of 800,000 more Texans cast ballots in this years general election compared to 2008 or 2012.

Thats a big change from the presidential primary when Texas ranked 42nd in the nation for voter turnout. But while the number of Texans voting in the general election grew this year, it wasnt enough to keep up with the states booming population. This years turnout rate dropped from 46.1% in 2008 to 42.6% in 2016.

Of all Texas counties with populations over 10,000, Polk County in east Texas saw the highest rate of voter turnout at 87.4% of its voting age population casting ballots. In contrast, Terry County saw the lowest voter turnout at only 18.3% of its voting age population.

According to those state figures, Hale County has 26,787 voting age adults with 8,826 votes cast for a 2016 turnout of 32.95%, down from 33.81% in 2012 and 40.13% in 2008. (According to Tuesdays night election tabulation from the County Clerks Office, the total number of voters was 9,029 of 19,302 registered for a turnout of 46.78%).

The Texas Tribune shows Briscoe County had 736 votes cast from a total voting age population of 1,313. The 2016 turnout was 56.05% compared to 53.96% in 2012 and 75.18% in 2008.

Castro County is showing 1,996 voters this year with a total adult population of 6,109. Turnout for 2016 was 32.67%, down from 36.85% in 2012 and 46.32% in 2008.

Floyd County had 1,958 voters from a total adult population of 4,854, according to The Texas Tribune. Its 2016 turnout was 40.34%, down from 44.31% in 2012 and 54.95% in 2008.

No figures were available from the news service for Lamb and Swisher counties.
The Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co. merger talk is back on the table.

The European Commission said on Wednesday it received missing information it had requested as antitrust regulators review the $130 billion deal.

The new deadline for the Commission to take a decision is Feb. 28, 2017, a Commission spokesman told Reuters by email.

It was the second time the EU had halted its review to request missing data from both companies. A similar pause took place in September.

Dow and DuPont are two of the nations six biggest farm chemical and seed companies. The EU, along with other U.S. agencies reviewing the merger, has cited a concern about the lack of competition that could result, notably in the agriculture industry. Multiple news reports indicate U.S. state attorneys general in seven states, including California, have joined the probe. The reports cite unnamed sources.

Company officials had hoped to see the deal closed by the end of this year.

Dow Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris said in late October that discussions are going a little longer than we had hoped, but that 10 jurisdictions had approved the merger and Dow is confident a deal will be reached by the first quarter of 2017.

A few months shouldnt impact the value creation of a $130 billion deal, Liveris said during a conference call reporting Dows third quarter earnings on Oct. 27. (Read the Daily News coverage at http://bit.ly/2edBWbp).

Dow and DuPont have always expected a thorough review, a Dow Chemical spokesperson previously said in a statement to the Daily News. Dow and DuPont remain focused on closing the transaction and continue to work constructively with the European Commission and regulatory agencies in all relevant jurisdictions to secure the necessary approvals.

The merger would result in a combined company known as DowDuPont, which would then spin off into three separate, independent businesses within 18 to 24 months: Material Sciences, to stay headquartered in Midland, and Agriculture and Specialty Products, to be based in Wilmington, Delaware, where DuPont is currently headquartered.

The companies say the merger will reduce their annual spending by $3 billion, the Associated Press reported last week.
A launching ceremony of the center is held in London on Wednesday. [Photo: sasac.gov.cn]

A nuclear research center, led by both China and UK, was launched in London on Wednesday with a total investment of 50 million pounds (62 million U.S. dollars).

The UK National Nuclear Laboratory and the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation jointly funded the center for a period of five years.

"It is the first nuclear energy research platform supported by a Western government that is willing to cooperate with us. We will cooperate in advanced fuels and manufacturing, reactor decommissioning, radioactive waste treatment and nuclear regulations," said Xie Jiajie, vice president of China National Nuclear Power.

The UK-China Nuclear Joint Research and Innovation Center started in 2015 and is based in Manchester.

The cooperation is another important step marking China-UK cooperation in the nuclear power industry, after the Hinckley C nuclear power project signed in September.

Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister Theresa May has welcomed more Chinese investments to the country during a meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai in London on Wednesday.

Both the Prime Minister and Ma agreed that China-UK ties are now in a "Golden Era."

Ma Kai traveled to UK to co-chair the eighth China-Britain Economic and Financial Dialogue with British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond.

Read more:

China eyes new British nuclear power plant approval in five years after Hinkley

The Chinese company which takes one third of stakes in the French-led Hinkley Point C project in Britain expects a new China-led nuclear power plant to get approval from the British government in five years.

In an interview with Xinhua on Wednesday, board chairman of China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) He Yu said that with Thursday's signing of the final agreement of Hinkley Point C project, his company will start preparation for the nuclear power plant at Bradwell in Essex, where the China-developed third-generation HPR1000 nuclear reactor is expected to be installed. Full story
Erin Kirkland | Midland Daily News

The Veterans of Foreign Wars Chemical City Post #3651 in Midland is inviting Midland County residents to participate in a Veterans Day ceremony at the Midland County Courthouse on Friday, Nov. 11.

This event will recognize all veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces who have served the country with dignity and honor. The Veterans Day date is of significance as it symbolizes the World War I Armistice. The Armistice was called the end of the war to end all wars and the cessation was at the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. As a result, Veterans Day is recognized on Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. each year.
1 Syria air strike: Syrian activists say an air strike by the U.S.-led coalition has killed at least 20 civilians in a part of Syria held by the Islamic State. Britaina Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 20 were killed and around 30 wounded in the strike on the village of Heisha Wednesday. The village is north of the extremist groups de facto capital, Raqqa. The international force is flying dozens of sorties in the region in support of a U.S.-backed push by Syrian Kurdish forces on Raqqa.

2 Cuba army drills: The Cuban government announced the launch of five days of nationwide military exercises to prepare troops to confront what it called a range of actions by the enemy, using terminology that almost always refers to the United States. The government did not link the exercises to Donald Trumps U.S. presidential victory, but the announcement of maneuvers and tactical exercises across the country came nearly simultaneously with Trumps surprise win.
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Graffiti-lined streets. Shattered windows. Boarded-up storefronts. Destruction had returned to Oakland.

When the sun came up over the East Bay on Thursday, the sweeping damage from the previous nights anti-Donald Trump protests became evident as residents, business owners and city officials set about cleaning up the staggering mess.

This is irritating, Steve Suzio said as he swept up glass from his shattered windows and door at Oakland Coin and Jewelry Exchange along Broadway. I understand people are upset, but why take it out on local businesses?

For many like Suzio here in the citys small but vibrant downtown, this kind of vandalism is nothing new.

Oakland traditionally has been ground zero for Bay Area civil unrest - like the Black Lives Matter and Occupy movements - and factions of demonstrators invariably turn their frustrations toward businesses in the community.

Spray-painted graffiti spelling out F Trump was scrawled in multicolored swaths covering the walls along downtown city streets. Windows were punched out or shattered into spider-web patterns at banks, cell phone stores, fast-food joints, and empty retail spaces.

Two city workers argued Thursday morning about whether a red spatter on the side of a Chase Bank on 14th Street and Broadway was paint or blood. After a few minutes of discussion, they agreed it was blood.

Police arrested 30 people during the unruly demonstration. Several thousand people had gathered peacefully at Frank Ogawa Plaza before night fell and things got ugly.

The masses in Oakland were among scores of protests around the country following Trumps election as president of the United States.

From the onset of his candidacy, Trump proved to be a divisive candidate whose bombastic language targeted Mexicans, Muslims and women. But his message of disrupting the status quo helped many frustrated Americans look past his indiscretions and propelled him to the presidency.

Many on Wednesday, though, were not satisfied with how democracy played out. Some in the mob set about lighting fires, spray-painting everything in sight and shattering windows with crowbars as others launched bottles and rocks at officers. Police deployed tear gas and three officers were injured in the melee, officials said.

I guess I underestimated how many rabble-rousers would come to town for the party, Suzio said. The problem is the people who cause problems blend in with everyone else.

Suzio said his shop was wrecked back in 2009 during the protests following the killing of Oscar Grant by a BART cop on New Years Day. He estimates Wednesdays damage will cost about $5,000 but he wasnt ready to start fixing the windows. Another protest was scheduled in Oakland on Thursday evening.

Were going to have to decide whether to board everything up, he said. Well get through. The best you can do is the best you can do.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf reached out to the businesses during a news conference Thursday morning, explaining that the city was making an effort to curb the perpetual destruction.

This is the very difficult set of circumstances we are dealing with, she said. We are deeply sorry that your businesses continue to be targets, but we want you to know we are working hard to employ tactics that will prevent this from happening in the future.

Down the street from Suzios shop on Broadway, 24-year-old Brandon Durant was trying to make sense of why the front glass door was shattered when he got to work.

Hes an intern coordinator at SPUR, an urban planning nonprofit that works with cities to make sure theres affordable housing and that growth does not displace people.

I understand the frustration, but I think people need to relax and think about what to do next, he said. Destroying things, that doesnt make sense to me.

Durant looked out across the street at Oaklands Cathedral Building built in 1913 at the confluence of Telegraph Avenue and Broadway. The walls were covered in spray paint. The ground-floor windows shattered.

That building is iconic - its crazy, Durant said.

Not everything was laid to waste, though. Pauline Baldado owns Cafe Gabriela on Broadway with her sister. Their business has always been spared from the vandalism during Oakland protests.

We are blessed, she said, unable to explain why her coffee shop is spared. We want to rebuild Oakland not destroy it. Were a small business and we do our part  so knock on wood.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan and its Ziibiwing Cultural Society (Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways), in cooperation with five other Authorized Transfer Recipient Tribes, will lead an effort for the disposition of the physical human remains of 98 Native American individuals from Harvard Universitys Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, Mass.

The other tribes involved include the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians  Gun Lake Tribe, Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, and Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

The Native American ancestral remains originate from the Michigan counties of Alpena, Berrien, Kent, Newaygo, Saint Clair, Washtenaw and Wayne, as well as one unknown site. Some of the ancestors have been at Harvard University since as early as 1869. The eight Notices of Inventory Completion for the 98 ancestors posted to the Federal Register on Oct. 3.

The Ziibiwing Cultural Society has been working on behalf of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan, and in cooperation with the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation & Repatriation Alliance, to bring home ancestors and their associated funerary objects from the numerous museums, universities and institutions across the country since the passage of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

NAGPRA requires museums and federal agencies to inventory and identify Native American human remains and cultural items in their collections and to consult with federally-recognized Indian tribes, and native Hawaiian organizations, regarding the return of these objects to descendants or tribes and organizations.

As a result of NAGPRA, more than 10,000 Native American human remains, one million funerary objects, and thousands of sacred objects have been united with tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations, said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis.

A delegation from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan was expected to drive to Harvard University on Tuesday, and the other Michigan Tribal representatives planned to fly to Boston on Wednesday. The planned repatriation and reburials will be executed in collaboration with Harvard Universitys Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation & Repatriation Alliance.

The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan invites the interested public to attend the Recommitment to the Earth Ceremony for 51 ancestors (originating from Alpena and Saint Clair Counties) to be held at noon Saturday in the Tribes Nibokaan Ancestral Cemetery. The cemetery was established in 1995 for the explicit purpose of reburying repatriated Native American ancestral human remains and associated funerary objects. The Nibokaan Cemetery is located on the Saginaw Chippewas Isabella Indian Reservation, behind the Tribal Campground located at 7525 East Tomah Road, Mount Pleasant. A Journey Feast to conclude the ancestral ceremonies and protocols will take place at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways, 6650 E. Broadway, Mount Pleasant.

The reburials for the remaining 47 ancestors will be undertaken by the other five Authorized Transfer Recipient Tribes and will be within their respective tribal territories. All repatriation activities are being supported by a grant from the Department of Interior, National Park Service, National NAGPRA Program.
Opponents of a newly passed initiative aimed at speeding up executions have asked the state Supreme Court to block it from taking effect.

Proposition 66, approved by voters Tuesday, will cause confusion and upheaval in the courts, interfere with their authority, and force both courts and lawyers into hurried and less-reliable decisions in capital cases, said the suit filed Wednesday by former state Attorney General John Van de Kamp and Ron Briggs, a former El Dorado County supervisor. Briggs father, state Sen. John Briggs, sponsored the states current death penalty law as a 1978 ballot measure.

With all precincts reporting but some late ballots yet to be counted, Prop. 66 had a 50.9 percent majority. Voters meanwhile rejected Prop. 62, which would have repealed the death penalty and made life in prison without parole the mandatory sentence for capital murder.

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Prop. 66, sponsored by prosecutors, requires the state Supreme Court to rule on death penalty appeals within five years of sentencing, more than twice as fast as its current pace. It sets the same five-year deadline for the second-stage appeals known as habeas corpus and requires defense lawyers to file those appeals with the trial judge within a year, compared with the previous three-year deadline.

Another provision seeks to expand the pool of defense lawyers by requiring attorneys to take capital cases if they accept court appoints to represent criminal defendants in other cases. Prop. 66 also eliminates administrative review of the states newly adopted rules for executions by a single drug, replacing the previous three-drug procedure.

The lawsuit said the measures timetables and other restrictions would impair the courts exercise of discretion, as well as the courts ability to act in fairness to the litigants before them.

Under the new one-year filing deadline, the suit said, lawyers who file habeas corpus appeals will be forced to cut corners in their investigation and representation. Prop. 66 would also redirect death penalty appeals to lawyers who do not currently meet the qualification standards, lawyers for Van de Kamp and Briggs argued.

Proposition 66 was passed by the voters because they are sick of lawyers who oppose the death penalty constantly undermining the system with lawsuit after lawsuit, said McGregor Scott, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California and co-chair of the Yes on 66 campaign. It is not at all ironic, and is in fact a slap in the face to the voters, that their response to the passage of Proposition 66 was to file another lawsuit trying to thwart the will of the voters.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
Im a science geek. I like to know why a particular approach to life or technique for success works. Otherwise, I tend to glaze over when faced with another X Ways to Achieve Y Results article. In the absence of research or evidence, Im less likely to pay attention and less motivated to make a change in my life.

Maybe thats just me. But Ill assume youre also a but how do we know that really matters? person and lay it out for you -- on the subject of sleep.

Sleep is free, available to all, beyond good for us and largely ignored as the foundation of physical health and mental energy. Its the first thing that gets cut when life is busy and the last thing we add back in when a chunk of time comes our way. But if we were smart, it would be our main priority, and the rest of our lives would be built around it.

Why does sleep matter?

Sleep has a powerful effect on both mental and physical performance. This is true for exercise, sports, playing music, academics, business and most other pursuits. Knowing what happens when we sleep is the first step to understanding why it builds mental and physical health.

Related: How CEOs Optimize Their Sleep Schedule

The two main stages of sleep -- NREM (non-rapid eye movement) and REM (rapid eye movement) -- each have different effects on our ability to learn and create.

Professor Vincent Walsh from the University College of London has described the deep, slow wave sleep (NREM) that happens earlier in the night as being crucial for encoding information and facts that we encountered during the day. For example, a student practicing math questions during the day is really learning it while asleep. The brain does all kinds of sorting, organizing and storing while we sleep. And it takes time. If we cut back on our sleep, we learn a lot less.

The second half of the night (REM sleep) is when we encode procedural memories like how to perform a new physical skill or mental process. It is also when we do subconscious creative problem solving. Again, if we skimp on sleep time, we awaken with poor procedural memory and will likely have to repeat some steps again the next day. And that pressing problem we pondered before bed remains unresolved in the morning.

Simply, the first half of sleep is for mental recovery and learning, and the second half is for physical recovery and creativity.

Sleep soundly to learn better.

A school principal I know told me recently that many students show up to school with an array of energy drinks after pulling an all-nighter before an exam. Not only have they not used sleep to encode and solidify their learning, they start the day on sugar and caffeine. Adults do this too, of course. Skipping sleep to prepare for a case, presentation, meeting or interview means arriving with a poor memory of the crucial information you stayed up to memorize.

Related: Sleep: Why Successful Entrepreneurs Snooze More and Work Less

Heres whats going on when you sleep soundly:

Our brains are made up of approximately 100 billion neurons. When we sleep, we create new connections -- called synapses -- between those neurons. Neurons are building blocks, but the synapses are where the action is. They form the basis for our thoughts, memories, problem solving, decision-making, physical movement and other important aspects of what makes us human.

Scientists in China and the U.S. have recently used a microscope to witness new synapses being formed in the brain during deep and sustained sleep. In short, they watched the brain building memories. Weve known for a while that good quality sleep is necessary to remember what we have experienced during the day, but not why. This study made visible the brains work of replaying the days activity like a movie and building new connections between neurons.

Sleep soundly to be more creative.

During sleep, our brains also grow new neurons -- which, as you know, start making thousands of connections to other neurons. In addition to encoding learning and building memory, the neurons and synapses also get busy solving difficult problems and coming up with new ways of performing a task.

Related: Why Entrepreneurs Should Never Feel Guilty for Sleeping (Infographic)

In a study at the University of California-San Diego, researchers found that REM sleep directly enhances creative processing more than any other sleep or wake state. Yes, you heard that right -- even more than any wake state. One of the studys leaders explains: We found that, for creative problems that youve already been working on, the passage of time is enough to find solutions. However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity. In REM sleep, the brain makes new and useful associations between unrelated ideas to creatively tackle problems that have just dropped in your lap.

Power up: Make sleep a priority.

We live in this crazy world where its almost a badge of honor to get by on less sleep. People brag about it. To my mind, thats clear evidence of sleep deprivation. Anyone who tells you how great they perform on very little sleep is lacking the mental capacity to correctly assess their own learning and creativity -- because theyre exhausted.

Dont let that be you. Hold the science in mind as you climb into bed for a sound sleep. And wake up the next day smarter and with some of your pressing problems resolved overnight.

Related:

Didn't Sleep Much Last Night? 10 Ways to Function Today.

The Science Behind How Sleep Makes You Smarter

Does Your Kid Have Trouble Sleeping? Confiscate That Phone.



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We call it a Westport phenomenon. Of course, its probably universal: The tendency  no matter how old you are, or when you moved in  to paint the place you grew up in with layers of nostalgia, and think that all the changes since have stripped the life out of your hometown.

For years, Westporters have lamented the loss of downtown. Whether you arrived a decade ago, or you were born a century ago here, you know in your gut and heart that Main Street is not what it used to be. I hold my downtown dear in my memory, but Im sure anyone who was here already when my parents came in the 1950s lamented the losses wrought by the postwar generation.

Yet its one thing to rely on anecdotes. Its another to actually see those feelings and emotions in print.

The other day, Jerri Graham posted a Facebook link to a 1998 New York Times story. Nearly 20 years ago writer Leslie Chess Feller asked, Is Heart and Soul Gone From Main Street?

Little shops, once the backbone of Main Street in Westport, have almost disappeared, she began. The hook for her story was the impending end of Kleins.

It was hardly a little shop  in fact, Kleins called itself a department store selling cameras, office supplies, books and more  but it certainly was a family-owned business. It lasted for nearly a decade after the death of Henry Klein  a man who took pride in greeting every customer by name  in 1990, age 90.

Soon however, Feller reported, Kleins would sublet its ground-floor retail space to Banana Republic. The chain was one of many that have displaced family-owned Mom-and-Pop stores  willing to pay higher rents.

Banana Republic is still there. For nearly two decades, its attracted shoppers who do not want to fight the crowds at another Banana Republic in an indoor mall. Though the manager at Westports Banana Republic  whoever he or she happens to be this month  does not greet every customer by name, the company has been a decent local citizen. When workers discovered a long-lost mural behind the planned checkout counter, executives made the decision to clean it, then hang it back up. It may be the least Banana Republic-y decoration of any store anywhere, and it offers a nod to our arts heritage  even if you can find identical merchandise at any similar store anywhere else in the land. Years from now, current Westporters may remember that funky mural with fondness.

Feller noted another Mom-and-Pop that still hung on: Swezeys Jewelry Store, which dated back to 1956. David Swezey  the original owners son  said, Business is good, but sometimes I feel like a loner. He spoke looking out his shops window at Williams-Sonoma, Brooks Brothers and Crabtree & Evelyn across the street.

Swezeys is now gone. We no longer have a hometown Main Street jeweler (or the spectacular model train setup that decorated the stores window every December). But those three Brooks Corner stores remain. Folks may one day lovingly recall the holiday bustle at Williams-Sonoma, or the first suit they ever bought at Brooks Brothers. You never know.

Feller said that in the last three decades  meaning since the 1960s  Main Street morphed into a sort of Rodeo Drive East. The chain stores and boutiques were staffed by people who commute from other towns. As they talk on cell phones, the drivers of S.U.Vs, BMWs, Jeeps and Jaguars fight for parking spaces.

I had forgotten that cell phones were ubiquitous before the turn of the millennium. I did not realize that Westports most popular cars today have not changed in 20 years. Perhaps Main Street has not really morphed much since Feller wrote her piece.

But in 1998, Main Street still clung to a shred of hometown-ness. Westport Pizzeria was the same as when it opened in 1968  though a rent hike in the upcoming year of 2001 could force the popular restaurant to close. (It finally moved around the Post Road corner in 2014.) And Oscars Delicatessen  where Westport residents often meet to watch the passing parade  was a downtown fixture until this past summer, when owner Lee Papageorge died.

So does all this mean that  finally  Main Street has lost its last real, true hometown institutions?

Perhaps. But what it also may mean is that no matter when we came to Westport, Main Street holds a special memory. In 2046, a family that moved in yesterday might very well sit in Bedford Square, and call Banana Republic, Williams-Sonoma and Brooks Brothers the good old days.

Dan Woog is a Westport writer, and his Woog's World appears each Friday. He can be reached at dwoog@optonline.net. His personal blog is www.danwoog06880.com
PHNOM PENH, Nov. 10 -- Eleven tourists from China's Taiwan region got injured with four in serious condition in a road accident in central Cambodia's Kampong Thom province at noon on Thursday, local police chief said.

The bus carrying the tourists skidded and overturned after it attempted to avoid a motorcyclist crossing the road, said Nhem Chhunly, police chief of Stung Sen town where the accident took place.

He said that the bus was traveling from northwestern Siem Reap province to Phnom Penh City when the accident occurred.

"All 11 tourists from China's Taiwan region were wounded, including four in serious condition in the accident," he told Xinhua, adding that eight of the victims were women.

Chhunly said that the seriously-injured tourists had been sent to a hospital in Phnom Penh for treatment.

He said the Cambodian bus driver had escaped the scene soon after the crash.
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Sitting on Interstate 10, the main traffic artery between San Antonio and Houston, lies a county of less than 30,000 where a drug-busting K-9 and his partner are catching traffickers before they reach either of the two major metros and recognition while they're at it.

Randy Thumann and his 8-year old K-9 partner, a Belgium Malinois named Lobos, have been working as the Fayette County Sheriff's Office's narcotics unit for 6 years, Lt. David Beyer told mySA.com.

RELATED: 450 pounds of marijuana found behind trap door in Texas teen's fuel tank on I-10

Within those years Beyer said the duo has become a "great team" and "success" in the county.

The two conducted so many busts in the area, which encompasses La Grange and Schulenburg, "it's hard to pick out one," he said.

"This year alone, there has been quite a few," Beyer said, adding that Thumann and Lobos had a large money seizure of about $100,000 last month.

The busts, which seem to happen on a weekly basis, have made the interdiction team a local celebrity. They travel to schools and events in their off time.

RELATED: Fayette County narcotics unit seize $1.3 million worth of meth hidden in fire extinguisher decoys

"He's definitely treated like a local celebrity," Beyer said. "He was parade marshal at the Fayette County Fair, they love the dog."

The lieutenant attributes the success to Thumann, who has been training with Lobos on a daily basis since he left a South Virginia kennel where he was housed after coming to the states from Czechoslovakia and before relocating to the county. In addition, Thumann keeps up-to-date with trafficking trends, Beyer said.

"Randy definitely has no tolerance for any kind of narcotic, he has made the program what it is," Beyer said. "He's the best teacher in the world, look what he's done: the dog came to Randy with basic knowledge and he has molded Lobos and trained him to make him the kind of dog that he is."

RELATED: Photos: Texas family keeps world's largest rodent as indoor pet

The success of the Thumann has prompted the county to open a second narcotics officer position starting next year, Beyer said.

"We want people to know what we're doing here," he added. "Fayette County people love it, they see we're trying to make an impact."

Click through the gallery above to see some of Lobos' most impressive busts and his time with Thumann.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
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SAN ANTONIO - One person is dead after several vehicles rear-ended one another Wednesday evening on a Northwest Side highway.

San Antonio Police Department Sgt. Fidel Acosta said seven vehicles were involved in the accident, which occurred at about 6:30 p.m. in the 8900 block of Interstate 10 southbound.

"A lot of people don't know what happened, they just got hit at the last second," Acosta said.

RELATED: 8-year-old among four killed in fiery crash

Three trucks, three sedans and an 18-wheeler could be seen with severe damage.

One of the sedans was crushed from behind by a pickup truck.

The driver died after being trapped inside and the vehicle burst into flames, Acosta said.

"This is one of the biggest (accidents) I've seen," Acosta said, noting that accidents occur there often because of the build up of traffic.

EMS transported two other people complaining of minor injuries to a nearby hospital.

Investigators believe the slick roads may have contributed to the accident.

Traffic investigation detectives are examining the scene.

The southbound highway was shut down to one lane of traffic from Callaghan Road to below the Medical overpass.

Acosta said the lanes could be shut down through 11 p.m. as detectives comb the scene.

jbeltran@express-news.net

Twitter: @JBfromSA
SAN ANTONIO  A man in his 30s was found dead at a residence Thursday by his estranged common-law wife on the East Side, according to police.

Investigators responded at about 8:40 a.m. Thursday in a home in the 2200 block of East Houston Street, where a woman went to check on the victim and found his body inside, an assistant police chief said at the scene.
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Around San Antonio, 20 bars, stores and other establishments are on the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commissions latest list of credit law delinquents.

If the establishment failed to pay liquor distributors or wholesalers, it ended up on the list, which is published twice a month.

RELATED: TABC: 28 Bexar County establishments caught selling alcohol to minors this summer

Delinquent establishments cannot buy or accept deliveries from alcohol distributors on or after Nov. 1, when the list went into effect, according to the TABC. The list was last updated Tuesday morning.

Click through the slideshow above to see the San Antonio bars and stores that can't buy any more alcohol until they pay up.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
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Plastered on bathroom mirrors throughout Texas State University Wednesday were fliers calling for the arrest and torture of deviant university leaders spouting off all this diversity garbage.

The fliers, which lauded the election of Donald Trump calling him our man, seem to have been put up by a group called Texas State Vigilantes, according to the handouts.

Now that our man Trump is elected and Republicans own both the Senate and the House  time to organize tar and feather vigilante squads and go arrest and torture those deviant university leaders spouting off all this diversity garbage, the flier reads.

RELATED: Texas State student accused in fatal San Marcos crash indicted on 3 charges

University spokesman Matt Flores said the fliers, which are being investigated as potential criminal activity, were hung up in "several" campus facilities, and have since been removed. The University Police Department is looking into who posted the fliers and why, Flores said. At this time, the case remains under investigation, and officials are unsure of any suspects.

President Denise Trauth responded to the pro-Trump fliers in an email to students, faculty and staff Thursday.

"I am aware of reports of action and expression that have occurred on campus following the recent elections in our country," Trauth said in the email obtained by mySA.com. "While we encourage individuals in our university community to openly express their thoughts, we expect them to do so with civility and in a collegial manner that reflects Texas State's core values."

She urged students to report criminal activity to campus police.

"Obviously that is criminal behavior that is being investigated by the University Police Department," Flores said.

He said the university does not condone the fliers, saying there was no place for it in any of society.

RELATED: What Trump plans to accomplish in his first 100 days in office

Since Tuesday night, college campuses across the country have erupted in protest of the election of Donald Trump. In Austin, University of Texas students marched to the state's capital in protest Wednesday.

At Texas State, Flores said some students have been protesting Trump's election in the free speech zone in a central location of the university. On social media, students posted images of a silent protest, where many sat with duct tape over their mouths, holding rainbow flags, and signs that said "Black lives matter" and "Love is louder."

In another post, a man carrying a "build the wall" sign on campus is seen.

RELATED: Texas State fraternity suspends operations in wake of death of 20-year-old student

Students took to social media, posting images of the flier and a second handout which said: "Why not just sentence all illegal messicans found inside the U.S.A. to live in tent camps on the border doing hard labor building the wall?"

A third flier said "'multiculturalism' and 'diversity' are code-words for white genocide."

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
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As Donald Trump met with President Barack Obama Thursday morning to discuss a peaceful transition of power, students at Texas State University flooded the center of campus to protest the election that put the reality star in the White House.

Initially, about two dozen students holding signs and rainbow flags, some with duct tape covering their mouths, sat silently in the universitys free speech area in the quad in protest of Trumps election to president.

RELATED: Texas State probes pro-Trump fliers calling for 'torture' of school leaders over 'diversity garbage'

By mid-afternoon, the protest was overflowing into each corner of the quad, according to social media posts from the event. Anti-Trump protesters were joined by his supporters, according to students and posts on social media.

Demonstrators took to the quad the day after fliers calling for the arrest and torture of some university leaders were found pasted on restroom mirrors in several campus facilities by a group called Texas State Vigilantes.

RELATED: Hundreds of Trump protesters block traffic in Austin

President Denise Trauth responded to pro-Trump fliers inciting violence against university leaders in an email to students, faculty and staff Thursday. The University Police Department is investigating who posted the handouts and why, Flores said.

I am aware of reports of action and expression that have occurred on campus following the recent elections in our country, Trauth said in the email obtained by mySA.com. While we encourage individuals in our university community to openly express their thoughts, we expect them to do so with civility and in a collegial manner that reflects Texas States core values.

She urged students to report criminal activity to campus police.

RELATED: Thousands of Americans turn out to protest president-elect Donald Trump

When Donald Trump was elected president Tuesday night, protests broke out across the county on college campuses. In Austin Wednesday, University of Texas students marched to the states capitol in protest.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
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Hundreds of volunteers donned yellow safety vests and work gloves, rolled up their sleeves and jumped head-long into the second annual Bexar County Spirit of Renewal community cleanup project.

The cleanup took place Nov. 5 in the Glen area of Bexar County. Last year, the Camelot II area of northeast Bexar County received the push to deal with an ever-present and recurring trash problem in the area.

Bexar County Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert was on hand to see the work crews set off into the neighborhoods, where they were hauling away all the junk they could find. More than 100 students from Northeast Lakeview College brought back old doors, discarded carpeting, broken trampolines, torn-up furniture, doorless refrigerators, pieces of walls and cabinets, all of which was loaded into large trash containers and hauled away.

This is one of those areas that has been very problematic for trash, Calvert said. This is. in some regards. a failure of state leadership. We had State Rep. (Ruth) McClendon pass through the Texas House a bill just for Bexar County that had mandatory trash collection. Then they got it passed through the Senate, but it was not signed by the governor.

I hopewhoever wins for state rep can shepherd this with the state senator and get this finally done, Calvert said.

Sabrina Hammel, a Northeast Lakeview faculty member, played a major role in organizing Northeast Lakeview students to help with the cleanup.

I am a firm believer on getting students out of the classroom, for active learning purposes, Hammel said. This not only provides that avenue of learning, but it also feeds into the mission of the college: community engagement, promoting civic engagement  social responsibility and civic responsibility, too.

Hammel said some of the students are in her classes at Northeast Lakeview and will receive community service credit for helping out.

While work crews were rounding up hundreds of pounds of trash, hundreds of Glen neighborhood residents received new mattresses.

The San Antonio Police Officers Association provided more than 100 mattress and box spring sets for Glen-area residents. One crew delivered the new sets and another followed behind to pick up old mattresses or whatever served in the home as a bed.

The SAPOA worked with Montgomery Elementary School administrators to find the families with the most need for mattresses.

If theyre not sleeping at home, when they come to school, I imagine its difficult for them to stay awake and actually try to learn, said Michael Halle, SAPOA president. At least now, they can wake up on the right side of the bed, literally.

More than 100 homes were identified, and some received as many as four new mattresses supplied by Miracle Mattress.

These are the types of things and efforts our organization likes to jump in on, and participate in, to show that the police department is part of the community, and that we want to do our part to help out, Halle said.

jflinn@express-news.net
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On the occasion of his third birthday, Vincent James DAngelos father took him to town, where one of the first Armistice Day parades was held in celebration of the peace agreement signing one year earlier that ended World War I.

They told him that since it was his birthday, they were throwing a parade for him, said Cibolo resident Danie Colera, DAngelos niece.

Fast forward 96 years, and DAngelo will be the toast of a family-and-friends gathering on Nov. 11, when the World War II, Korean War and Vietnam veteran celebrates his 100th birthday on Veterans Day.

A life as rich and colorful as any flag, DAngelo remembers seeing Charles Lindbergh land his plane in Pittston, Pennsylvania, where he lived. The people flocked to see him. Seeing a plane of any kind then was a big deal, said DAngelos daughter, Catherine Carignan, of Boerne.

DAngelo entered World War II in 1943 and became a dental tech in the U.S. Army. His overseas fighting took him to The Battle of the Bulge, where he became the sole survivor of his MASH unit. The family recalls how he briefly left the unit to retrieve a company truck when a German bomber took out the entire MASH unit hospital.

Referred to as Uncle Jim by those around him, DAngelo is a resident at The Forum at Lincoln Heights in San Antonio. Until two years ago, he was living on his acreage in Comfort as independent then as he was when he struck out on his own as a 14-year-old in the early 1930s.

One of 10 brothers and sisters, DAngelo was born Nov. 11, 1916, in Pittston. David Colera, an Austin resident whose father, Mike, is DAngelos nephew, said DAngelos father was a miner in Sicily, where he mined salt before coming to the United States. Uncle Jim was the first of the DAngelo family to be born in the United States.

His father came to the U.S. and worked in coal mines in Pennsylvania to bring his family over. Thats what you did then, made enough money to bring your family back with you, David Colera said.

The large family relocated to Jamestown, New York. When he was 14, DAngelo ran away from home and ended up in New Mexico.

He left home when he was 14 with just $2, taken from his brother, Catherine said. He just did things that you and I, today, just could not comprehend.

During a recent family gathering, Uncle Jim recalled the experience: It was February 1931, on George Washingtons birthday. I waited until there was a school holiday, so I wouldnt look suspicious leaving home. All the kids were out of school that day, so that made it easier for me.

David Colera said his great uncle had a stark reality of life as a youngster, and it had a profound effect on him.

There were a lot of mouths to feed, 10 that made it to adulthood, David Colera said. Without a job and unable to carry his own weight, as they say, he felt it would be best if he left.

Uncle Jim rode the rail. He jumped a train that took him on a cross-country course. While in Socorro, New Mexico, he was severely injured, nearly losing his foot, in an accident he wont say much about to this day.

He asked for a job or some food from a resident, who turned him away. The woman saw his injury as he left and directed him to the church. Thats where he ran across a priest who took him in and became a driving force in his life.

Father (Peter) Peltzer completely changed his life. He got him cleaned up, got him back in school for his ninth grade year, and the diocese paid to send him to a seminary in the San Francisco area, Colera said.

Peltzer completely changed his life. He showed him his inherent worth, instead of just working to eat and live.

DAngelo started working for the railroads after high school graduation, and then World War II began.

DAngelo attempted to join the Navy but he was denied because he was colorblind. He eventually enlisted in the Army, which made him a dental X-ray technician. His particular MASH unit was deployed to the Battle of the Bulge. He ended up dealing with a lot of horrific things there, Colera recalled. He said sometimes he would come in and the bodies were stacked like cordwood. It was very troubling to him.

After the war, DAngelo met his wife, Irma, who lived in California before the war broke. They were married in Los Angeles, where he bought his first house. He became involved in real estate, and amassed his money through the years.

His rough start in life, it gave him a great sense of caring for people who were poor, Catherine said, because he lived it. Hes always just wanted to just people.

DAngelo moved to the San Antonio area in the early 1960s and got involved in the real estate business.

David Colera said Uncle Jim has lived his life under the credo, First you, then me.

Its a sign of his humbleness. He just wants family around, hes just such a humble person, he said. When Hurricane Rita came throughhe was working for Habitat for Humanity. In his 90s. This is just the kind of thing hes done for people throughout his life.

On Nov. 11, as America honors its war veterans, family members will toast Vincent Uncle Jim DAngelo on his 100th birthday, and maybe theyll take in a Veterans Day parade as well.

jflinn@expreess-news.net
Campus principals, teachers and staff will conduct block walks during November and December to speak with parents and community members regarding the accomplishments of their neighborhood schools and South San Antonio ISD.

Our goal is for every student to be college and career ready, and this starts when students enter our elementary schools. The curriculum and instructional strategies are focused to develop creative thinkers who are prepared for the challenges of the 21st century. The elementary schools in South San Antonio ISD are dedicated to instill a love of learning with one of the primary goals being every child reading at grade level. Our four middle schools address the needs of diverse learners and offer challenging courses designed to peak students interest in various subjects, ranging from math to fine arts. South San High School, which houses our Early College Academy, offers a multitude of classes for students to create learning experiences that will shape their future. South San Antonio ISD is committed to providing the best education and school experiences for every student in our district.
SAN ANTONIO  A man is recovering at an area hospital Thursday morning after being shot in the face by someone in a vehicle on the Northeast Side, according to police.

A man and woman were walking back to their apartment at about 3 a.m. Thursday in the 8200 block of Perrin Beitel Road when a champagne-colored vehicle with paper plates carrying five people pulled up to them, an officer said at the scene.
CHONGQING, Nov. 10 -- Following is the full text of the keynote speech by Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao at the opening ceremony of the 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference on Thursday.

Work Together to Build the Bridge of Friendship and Mutually Beneficial Cooperation

Keynote Speech by H.E. Li Yuanchao

Vice President of the People's Republic of China

At the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference

10 November 2016, Chongqing

The 2016 China International Friendship Cities Conference is now open in the mountainous city of Chongqing. On behalf of the Chinese government, let me extend my warm congratulations on the opening of the conference and sincere welcome to all the distinguished guests and friends!

We are living in a fast-changing era and a colorful world. In this global village, countries need greater exchanges and understanding and cities should have more bridges of communication and friendship.

President Xi Jinping pointed out that we need to enhance friendship between Chinese and foreign cities through more exchanges between local governments, so that they can share resources, complement each other with their respective strengths and achieve win-win cooperation. In that connection and under the theme of this conference "Innovation for Development and Cooperation for Sharing", I wish to make the following suggestions:

First, increase exchanges among friendship cities and deepen people's friendship. Amity between the people is the cornerstone of friendship among countries and world peace, and exchange among friendship cities is an important channel for amity between the people. Over the past 40 years of international friendship cities activities, China has established 2,340 pairs of friendship city relations with more than 130 countries. Changsha city of Hunan province and the city of Entebbe in Uganda have had vibrant education and culture exchanges, and built together the "Entebbe-Changsha Demonstration Primary School". Nanjing city of Jiangsu province and Aichi prefecture of Japan have deepened their friendship through youth and art troupe exchanges. Ruili city in Yunnan province and City of Muse of Myanmar organize the "China-Myanmar Pauk-Phaw Carnival" during China's National Day holiday week each year, which is quite popular among the local communities. The development of state to state relations is rooted in the people and invigorated by exchanges. I hope that international friendship cities can expand the fields of exchanges, engage in more forms of interactions so as to deepen mutual understanding and friendship between the people.

Second, share experience in urban planning and promote innovative development of cities. Urbanization is an important part of modernization. Cities have become the center of our political, economic, cultural and social activities. Now 54% of the world's population lives in cities. There are 28 mega-cities with a population of over 10 million, and six of them are in China, including Chongqing. Since the start of reform and opening up, China has experienced the largest and fastest urbanization in world history. Now 750 million Chinese people live in cities. Cities have improved the quality of life, but they are also increasingly troubled by such "urban diseases" as backward infrastructure, traffic congestion, environmental pollution. In recent years, China has pursued the new vision of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development. We have put people first in our development and worked hard to build harmonious, livable and dynamic modern cities with unique characteristics, contributing China's wisdom to urbanization in the world. Activities of international friendship cities are aimed at transforming development model of cities and better governance of cities. Guangzhou, Auckland of New Zealand and Los Angeles of the United States have founded the "Tripartite Economic Alliance"; Fujian province and Liege of Belgium have jointly developed the smart urban management system of "integrating water, electricity and gas services with one card"; Zhenjiang city of Jiangsu province and the city of Mannheim of Germany have carried out exchanges and cooperation on low-carbon commute and building eco cities. I hope that international friendship cities can learn from each other, work together to make urban planning more rational and forward-looking, make cities more livable and sustainable, modernize and refine urban management so that people will live a more comfortable and convenient life in cities.

Third, expand win-win cooperation and share fruits of urban civilization. Cities, with the highest concentration of resources, are the locomotive of development. International friendship city activities serve as important platforms for Chinese and foreign cities to have equal-footed and mutually beneficial cooperation. Deepened cooperation between Chongqing city and Dusseldorf of Germany have contributed to the opening of the Chongqing -Xinjiang-Europe International Railway, which has become a golden pathway on "the Belt and Road". The ancient European business camel team would need a year or two to reach China, but now the train ride takes only 13 days. Xi'an city and Groningen of the Netherlands strengthened their cooperation through friendship city relations. A "Groningen Day" event was included in the East-West Cooperation and Investment Trade Fair& The Silk Road International Exhibition in Xi'an. Xi'an municipal government has organized several trips by businessmen to business promotion events in Groningen in norther Netherlands. Cities are important carriers of modern civilization and urban civilization should be shared by all peoples. I hope that international friendship cities will promote practical cooperation in various fields and produce more win-win outcomes.

China's economy is growing rapidly and steadily. In 2015, China's GDP grew by 6.9%, contributing over 25% to world economic growth. In the first three quarters of this year, China's economy grew by 6.7%, one of the highest among major economies in the world. We are confident that China's economy will maintain a sound momentum in the long run with better quality and efficiency and innovative development, and bring more opportunities to the world.

The Chinese people are now working hard to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all aspects and realizing the Chinese dream of the great national renewal. The Chinese dream is interconnected with the beautiful dream of a happy life of all peoples. Holding high the banner of peace, development and win-win cooperation, China is pursuing friendly exchanges with other countries. Through international friendship cities exchanges , we hope to build together with other countries a bridge of friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation and the community of shared future for mankind, and contribute to world peace and development.
SAN ANTONIO  Voters in outlying areas of Bexar County turned out in strong numbers and overwhelmingly supported Republican presidential winner Donald Trump, especially on the far, suburban North Side.

But Democrat Hillary Clinton, who lost the national election and Texas, still won the popular vote locally and seized more than twice as many voting precincts as Trump in other parts of Bexar County, according to an analysis of election data by the San Antonio Express-News.
Two days after conceding to Donald Trump in the race for president, Hillary Clinton went for a hike with her dogs.

Margot Gerster, a woman in New York, posted a photo with the Secretary of State to Facebook Thursday afternoon, an image that has since been shared hundreds of times. Gerster wrote that she was feeling "heartbroken" after Tuesday night's outcome and headed to one of her "favorite places" to hike in Chappaqua, where Clinton and former President Bill Clinton happen to live.
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriffs Office and the Midland Police Department.

Monday, Nov. 7

4:35 a.m.  A deputy was sent to U.S. 10 in Lincoln Township for a report of an injured deer in the roadway. The deer was not hurt and moved out of the road when the deputy was on the scene, the media log entry states.

8:26 a.m.  A Coleman business was broken into. The suspect gained access by breaking a window and climbing inside. Once inside, about $500 was stolen.

2:50 p.m.  A motorist was ticketed for driving without insurance after a crash at Blairmont and Lawndale drives.

8:16 p.m.  A deputy and police officer assisted the Gladwin County Sheriffs Office with a search and rescue call in the 4000 block of North Hockaday Road. The search was for a 2-year-old child who had walked away from home. The child was found about 9 p.m.

9:17 p.m.  A deputy spoke with a Bay County resident about a possible crime that occurred in the 1950s.

9:19 p.m.  A deputy assisted a 24-year-old Lee Township woman who was confused about her driving restrictions after receiving paperwork from the Secretary of States Office.

10:04 p.m.  Deputies were sent to Greendale Township for a report of a disorderly person.
A charge of methamphetamine possession filed against a Midland man this spring has been dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

Roger Alan Balowaara, 30, was charged with second-offense possession of meth, as well as a misdemeanor count of driving on a suspended license, as a result of an April 27 traffic stop.

Recently, he entered a guilty plea to driving while license suspended and an added charge of third-offense drunken driving. The methamphetamine possession charge and an habitual third offender status were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

Balowaara was arrested after Midland Police were called to Buffalo Wild Wings at 11:12 p.m. on April 27 for a report of an employee who had been fired earlier in the day who was passed out in a car, an affidavit states. On the way to the restaurant, an officer spotted a car matching the description given, heading south of Jefferson Avenue and conducted a traffic stop.

The officer noticed the suspect was having a hard time standing; had red, bloodshot and glassy eyes; and his speech was slurred. The suspect denied drinking any alcohol. The vehicle the suspect drove was believed to have been involved in a hit and run crash at Eastman Avenue and West Wackerly Street around 5 p.m. that day as well.

A second officer searched the car and found a bag between the passenger seat and the center console. The contents of the bag tested positive for meth, according to the affidavit.

Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 1 before Midland County Circuit Court Judge Stephen P. Carras. Balowaara is being represented by attorney Lee Burton of Midland, who was appointed to the case.

Balowaara was sentenced in the district court on May 5 for failing to stop at the scene of a property damage accident in connection with the April 27 crash. A $100 fine and open restitution were levied.

Balowaara previously has been convicted of second-degree home invasion and drug possession, as well as drunken driving on March 2, 2004, and April 24, 2013.
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CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Throngs of demonstrators held marches across the United States on Wednesday to protest Republican Donald Trump's surprise victory in the U.S. presidential election, blasting his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

In New York, thousands of protesters filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, while hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted: "Not my president."

In downtown Chicago, thousands more gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower while chanting phrases like "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA." Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators' path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence.

"I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."

Protesters railed against Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep out undocumented immigrants, and other policies they deemed racist.

"I'm particularly concerned about the rise of white nationalism and this is to show my support against that type of thing," Rizzo said.

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia and Boston on Wednesday evening, and organizers planned rallies in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland, California. In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said.

A representative of the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the protests. In his victory speech, Trump said he would be president for all Americans, saying: "It is time for us to come together as one united people."

Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that "Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form."

'DREAMERS'

Some 1,500 California students and teachers rallied earlier on Wednesday in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito, California.

A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday morning in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally.

Chanting in Spanish: "The people united will never be defeated," the group held signs with slogans such as "Not Supporting Racism, Not My President" and "Immigrants Make America Great."

Many of those students were members of the "Dreamers" generation, children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration.

"A child should not live in fear that they will be deported," said Stephanie Hipolito, one of the student organizers of the walkout. She said her parents were U.S. citizens.

There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence.

Wednesday's demonstrations followed a night of protests in the San Francisco area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump's victory against heavily favored Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Demonstrators smashed storefront windows and set garbage and tires ablaze late on Tuesday in downtown Oakland. A few miles away, students at the University of California, Berkeley protested on campus.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago and Alexander Besant in New York City; Additional reporting and writing by Curtis Skinner in Berkeley, Calif.; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)
BEIJING, Nov. 10 -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to three Latin American countries will boost the comprehensive partnership of cooperation between China and Latin America, senior officials said Thursday.

Xi will pay a week-long state visit to Ecuador, Peru and Chile from Nov.17 to 23 and attend the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting from Nov. 19 to 20 in Lima, capital city of Peru.

This is Xi's third visit to Latin America since he took office in 2013, said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Chao at a press conference held Thursday morning, hailing the flourishing momentum of the development of China-Latin America ties in past years.

Wang said the visit will further consolidate the traditional friendship between China and the three countries and lift mutual trust and substantial cooperation.

It will also help push forward development of the China-Latin America all-round partnership of cooperation and contribute to addressing the challenges facing developing countries, including China and Latin American countries, and to promoting common development and building a community of shared destiny, he said.

According to Wang, during his stay in Ecuador, Xi is expected to exchange views with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on bilateral ties. The two presidents will also witness the signing of a series of deals, meet with the press and attend a launch ceremony of an assistance program together.

Xi will meet with Ecuadorian President of the National Assembly Gabriela Rivadeneira. The two countries are slated to issue a joint statement, said Wang.

During his stay in Peru, Xi is expected to hold talks with his Peruvian counterpart, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, meet with Peruvian President of Congress Luz Salgado and deliver a speech at the congress, Wang said.

The two presidents will also attend the closing ceremony of the 2016 China-Latin America Cultural Exchange Year, he said.

During his stay in Chile, Xi is scheduled to hold talks with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, attend a signing ceremony for agreements and meet with the press, Wang said, adding that a joint statement will be issued.

All three countries have distinct features in the region and share traditional friendship with China, the vice foreign minister said.

According to Zhang Xiangchen, deputy China international trade representative, the three countries are China's major economic and trade partners in Latin America.

During Xi's visit, China will focus on discussing optimizing bilateral free trade arrangements and conducting cooperation in areas of e-commerce, production capacity, industrial parks and infrastructure construction under the principles of mutual trust, mutual benefit and mutual learning, said Zhang at the press conference.

A series of cooperative agreements are expected to be signed, and fruitful results will be achieved, Zhang said.

Official statistics show that the trade volume between China and Latin America rose more than twentyfold during the past decade to reach 236.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.

Currently, China is the second largest trade partner and third largest investment source country of Latin-America, while Latin America is China's seventh largest trade partner.

"China looks forward to deepening cooperation with Latin America so as to promote the economic recovery and prosperity of the world," Zhang added.
As you read these words, election day is over and you raced out and voted. You voted to safeguard what still remains in this ever-changing and what has become a somewhat frightening world. You voted whether either candidate does or does not meet your criteria for the presidency. You voted because unfortunately you are keenly aware that your choice was the lesser of two evils. You voted because (you may not want to admit it) you know that neither one was best suited for the job  but then you search for an alternative and there was none!

As I approach my 92nd birthday, I marvel at the drastic, unbelievable, unimaginable changes which I have experienced in my lifetime. I have seen poverty, lived poverty, overcame poverty and traveled over the rainbow and never ever anticipated what is happening today.

It is amazing how a people with such courage as displayed by my grandparents who came from Russia and from Estonia left their homes in search for a better life did so. Stop! Think about it! They were driven, driven by hope! And now, what is so drastically sad, no tragic, my friends are that we who have profited from their bravery, from their determination, from their courage are confronted with the greatest challenge in our lives, one that demands saving and restoring our democratic way of life.

This week, people were making choices, decisions motivated by fear . Our Achilles heels are exposed. Our fears are being aroused. Hatred is being planted and nourished. People are being fed false, unrealistic, empty promises. Yes, our lives may have been altered but like our grandparents and great grandparents we can, we will, restore the democracy we cherish.

By the time you read this, the election will be over and whomever our new leader is, we know that we have a mammoth job ahead. We, the people, must now take on the leadership role of our country. We must monitor closely what is transpiring. We must be alert and safeguard our freedoms. We must not be driven by fear. We must not be divided by differences.

We must be active participants in our government ensuring that no political party will ever have the power to do what we have been forced to contend with, such as candidates who were not suitable to take on the leadership of maintaining a peaceful world and where compromise is acceptable and honored. In the future, we will insist on solid qualifications, solid goals and solid plans of action.

Many, so many, have been driven by fear. Tomorrow, we must and should be driven by hope. Hope is America! Hope is you! Hope is me! Hope is us! Together! Together!

Let us start tomorrow with a promise that we will never have to confront a situation such as this again. With hope, we will succeed, and assist God, in blessing America. This election should serve as our awakening. Let us put the rubbish in the garbage pail and recycle our hope, our dedication, our energy for the renewal of our democratic world.

America is returning and will be hopeful once more! God bless America!

Muriel Gerhard is a resident of Norwalk.
NEW DELHI  Throughout his campaign, Asian nations were a regular target of President-elect Donald Trumps speeches: China is a trade manipulator; Japan and Korea dont contribute enough for U.S. forces; the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal forged with 11 Pacific Rim nations, in part to isolate China, should never be ratified.

His anger could be palpable.

We cant continue to allow China to rape our country, Trump said in a campaign rally, talking about Washingtons trade deficit with Beijing.

But he could also shift quickly, noting: Im not angry with China ... Chinas great!

So across Asia, politicians and analysts are wondering what role the Trump White House will play across the continent. Hard-line trade negotiator? Counter-balance to Beijing? Leader? Isolationist?

Few agree on the answers.

The central question is: Will the U.S. continue to lead, and what will be the quality of leadership at this critical juncture of geopolitical and political economic upheaval? said Eugene Tan at Singapore Management University. There will certainly be concern whether the U.S. will pivot away from Asia. Based on his campaign rhetoric and promises, he is off to a bad start in terms of engendering trust and confidence of U.S. allies and partners in the region.

Consider the following:

North Korea, which raced ahead with its nuclear and long-range missile development during the Obama administration, will almost certainly be one of the most challenging security issues the Trump White House faces in Asia.

In South Korea, many worry a Trump presidency will bring a major shift in economic and diplomatic ties with Washington. Trump has questioned the value of the U.S.-South Korea security alliance, and hinted that he might be willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The U.S. keeps more than 28,000 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea.

Trump blasted China repeatedly during his campaign, but Beijing sees him as vastly preferable to Hillary Clinton, whom China mistrusts over her guiding of Americas diplomatic and military pivot to Asia and her willingness to confront authoritarian regimes. Many analysts said Trumps isolationist foreign policy will give China more maneuvering room to pursue its territorial claims in the East and South China seas.

Trumps election raised deep concerns in Japan over Tokyos relationship with Washington, its top ally, given his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and his demands that Japan pay more for American troops or risk having them withdrawn.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces have 18 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, said Azerbaijans Defense Ministry Nov. 10.

The Azerbaijani army positions located on nameless heights of Azerbaijans Gazakh district underwent fire from the Armenian army positions located on nameless heights of Armenias Ijevan district.

Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani army positions located in the Aghbulag village of Azerbaijans Tovuz district were shelled from the Armenian army positions located in the Chinari village of Armenias Berd district.

Moreover, the Azerbaijani army positions also underwent fire from the Armenian positions located in the Armenian-occupied Goyarkh, Chilaburt villages of the Tartar district, Shikhlar, Yusifjanli villages of the Aghdam district, Horadiz village of the Fuzuli district, as well as on nameless heights of the Tartar and Fuzuli 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.
Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington approved ballot initiatives to increase their state minimum wage rate.

WASHINGTON  On Election Day, Arizona, Colorado and Maine voters approved measures that will phase in a $12 minimum wage rate by 2020, reports The Washington Post; and in Washington state, where the current minimum wage is $9.47 an hour, voters approved increasing the hourly rate to $13.50 by 2020.

In addition to a higher minimum wage rate, the measures in Arizona and Colorado will require employers to provide employees with paid sick days.

Prior to Tuesday, each of the four states already had a minimum wage rate above the federal $7.25 per hour, which hasnt changed since 2009.

The Wall Street Journal reports that voter support for higher minimum wage rates in the four states reflect the influence of labor unions and out-of-state supporters, according to Michael Saltsman, research director at the Employment Policies Institute.

Big-labor interests continue to sacrifice local entry-level labor markets to advance their activist agenda, Saltsman told the WSJ. On the bright side, it appears that principled opposition to wage hikes was not the political burden that proponents had hoped it would be.
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

TPP/TTIP/TISA/NAFTA

[Trump] has many tools to reverse the post World War II consensus on liberalizing U.S. trade without needing congressional approval. For instance, he can withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, as he has threatened to do, by simply notifying the U.S. Nafta partners, Mexico and Canada, and waiting six months. Withdrawing from the World Trade Organization, which sets rules for global trading and enforces tariffs, has a similar provision [Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump Will Need to Leverage Size, Power of U.S. Economy to Remake Global Trading System]. Our major trading partners are far more likely to cooperate with an America resolute about balancing its trade than they are likely to provoke a trade war, wrote Trump economic advisers Peter Navarro [here] of the University of California-Irvine and investor Wilbur Ross in September. This is true for one very simple reason: Americas major trading partners are far more dependent on American markets than America is on their markets.'

TPP: To take effect, TPP must be ratified by February 2018 by at least six countries that account for 85 percent of the 12 members aggregate economic output. This effectively means that the U.S. and Japan, the worlds third-largest economy and the second-largest that is a signatory nation, must both be on board [DC Velocity].

TPP: Mr. Trumps win also seals the fate of President Barack Obamas 12-nation trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. The president-elect blamed the TPP on special interests who want to rape the country [Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump Win to Upend Trade Policy]. Mr. Obama had hoped to work with Republican lawmakers to pass the TPP during the lame duck session of Congress after the election, where they faced an uphill battle even if Tuesdays vote had favored Hillary Clinton, who previously backed the TPP negotiations. Now Republicans have little incentive to bring the TPP to a vote, since Mr. Trump could easily threaten to unravel the deal when he takes office and block its implementation, as well as punish lawmakers who vote for it.

TPP: Donald Trumps historic victory Tuesday has killed any chance of Congress voting on President Barack Obamas signature Asia-Pacific trade agreement while raising the odds of a damaging trade confrontation with China  just two ways a Trump presidency could upend the global trading system and usher in a new era of U.S. protectionism, analysts say [Politico]. This is the end of globalization is we knew it  because what the U.S. is going to do is certainly going to impact other countries and their decisions on negotiations, Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told Politico. TPP is now in the history dustbin for sure, Hufbauer said.

TPP: House GOP election outcomes will be key as House Speaker Paul Ryan decides whether to bring the TPP to a vote in the lame-duck session with GOP voters strongly against and the GOP s high-donor base demanding action. With an eye to conservative GOP threats to withhold support for his speakership and a possible 2020 presidential run, Ryans decision is complicated. Whether the TPP will get a lame-duck vote is his call. Beyond whether he can muster the votes of representatives who weathered the wrath of trade voters in this cycle and worry about the 2018 primaries lies the longer-term implications of his even trying to do so with the GOP voter base so intensely against the pact [Lori Wallach, Eyes on Trade].

2016

The Rending of Garments and Gnashing of Teeth

Peoples net worth has been crippled, if you were directly, in a 401K, through a mutual fund, or through a pension, invested in capital markets [TeacherKen, Daily Kos]. Bathos.

Money

Allies on the ground complained for weeks that they werent getting the resources they needed [The Hill]. The big question is How much money did you spend? And whats left in the bank? said one Clinton surrogate. Because there were states like Michigan that kept sounding the alarm and no one was taking it seriously until the very end. They never really got everything they wanted.  Russ Feingold sent a flare up and said I need help, [Democratic strategist Jim Manley] said, but it went largely ignored. Huh? Clinton spent the month of August fundraising. The Clinton Victory Fund scam turned the state parties into a money laundries for cash passed through to the Clinton campaign. Clinton raised $154 million in September for her campaign and the party. And people getting the resources they needed? Seems odd.

Policy

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled the Senate would move swiftly to repeal Obamacare now that the GOP Congress will have a Republican president next year [Politico].

Polling Debacle

While the [Trump] campaign had expressed confidence in public, their own data showed only a narrow path to the 270 electorates needed to win the White House [NBC]. And: RNC staffers thought Trump would win 240 Electoral College votes, 30 short of the 270 needed to win. They cautioned reporters that these numbers could change. And it was noteworthy that their projections were more optimistic than much of the public polling. But Trump was down 2 points in Florida, down 2 points in Iowa, down 2 points in New Hampshire and down 3 points in Wisconsin. Trump won Florida, won Iowa, won Wisconsin, and as of the publishing of this story was in a tight race for New Hampshire [Yahoo News]. Which, interestingly, is what I kept saying. When I cut through the triumphalism and looked at the polling, and threw those numbers against the paths to victory, it was always (except for one week) a horse race. So I seem to have channeled the Trump teams thinking on the data. Its been an interesting year, and Ill critique my approach tomorrow. An interesting data point: The best data inside the Trump campaign was just as pessimistic. Even the most optimistic models run by Cambridge Analytica for Trump showed him losing. But as Cambridges Matt Oczkowski tweeted late Tuesday, Trumps support and turnout among rural voters was 10 percentage points higher than they had expected . Ten points is rather a lot. Donald Trumps win was predicted by Allan Lichtman  the US election expert who has called every result since 1984 [Independent]. [The 13 keys method] is a historically based prediction system. I derived the system by looking at every American presidential election from 1860 to 1980, Professor Lichtman has said. And: Lichtman believes election analysts err by studying campaign as a series of battlefields  northern versus southern Florida, western versus eastern Pennsylvania, and so on. He prefers likening it to dominoes, toppling one way or the other. He says U.S. campaigns are contests of momentum. In the early 1980s, he and a colleague examined election results dating back to the Civil War and found a pattern. They drew up 13 true-false statements, and if the answer to six or more was False, the incumbent party always lost the White House [HuffPo]. And: LICHTMAN: I dont call [the 13 keys] data-driven. I have no problem with data. My prediction system is based on a huge amount of data, you know. But I do object to poll-and-pundit-driven analysis, which is not meaningful because its not based on any kind of systematic assessment of how elections work [NPR]. I Answer Your Questions About Predicting President Trump [Scott Adams Blog]. Clintons team of cognitive scientists and professional persuaders did a terrific job of framing Trump as scary. The illusion will wear off  albeit slowly  as you observe Trump going about the job of President and taking it seriously. You can expect him to adjust his tone and language going forward. You can expect foreign leaders to say they can work with him. You can expect him to focus on unifying an exhausted and nervous country. And you can expect him to succeed in doing so. (Hes persuasive.) Watch as Trump turns to healing. Youre going to be surprised how well he does it. But give it time. Scott Adams is looking pretty good right now. But is he only as good as his last trade? Silver is just guessing. And, in the run-up to this election, he made so many guesses that at least one of them has to be correct [WaPo].

Downballot

The 2018 election cycle has started and Republicans find themselves in an interesting place. On the one hand, the tables are turned as they will get to play offense. There are 33 races in 2018 and Democrats will defend 25 of those seats while Republicans will defend just eight of them [Cook Political Report].

The Voters

Anecdotes but well-chosen: It was never enough to say that the Trump phenomenon rested only on whites without a college degree. They were part of Trumps surprise, but not all of it. The real shocks were the fence-sitters, the late-breakers, the Bush-family types, and the suburban women. They would, we were so often told, recoil from Trump. Outside the Silverbrook Elementary School, a polling station in the affluent community of Fairfax Station, I encountered Jaclyn Miller, a genial tax accountant in her mid-thirties. I asked how she voted. She winced and laughed. I voted for Trump, begrudgingly, she said [The New Yorker]. It was the lesser of two evils, in my mind. Im definitely a fiscal conservative, and the corruption and everything from Hillary, just, I couldnt do it, she said. Shes not trustworthy. The Access Hollywood tape did not matter much to her. After all, she said, Bill Clinton was with an intern in the Oval Office.; Of Trump, she added, Im sure theres things that Ive said that I would never want public. Miller went on, A couple weeks ago, I had decided, at that moment, that I was going third party. And I really wish that there was a valid third-party option. I think a lot of Americans dont fall into one category.' Amen to that last comment. The Democratic Party Deserved To Die [Krystal Ball, HuffPo]. Well, those jobs are actually gone for good, we knowingly told them. And we offered a fantastical non-solution. We will retrain you for good jobs! Never mind that these good jobs didnt exist in East Kentucky or Cleveland. And as a final insult, we lectured a struggling people watching their kids die of drug overdoses about their white privilege. Can you blame them for calling bullshit?  The Deplorables Got the Last Laugh [David Dayen, The New Republic]. [T]he lesson for Democrats is ultimately clear enough: You cannot write off half the country, much less spend an election cycle deriding it, and expect success. Despite the unexpected triumph of Donald Trump, Democratic state legislative candidates held their own Tuesday in their efforts to close the gap on Republicans in the nations statehouses [RealClearPolitics]. But: Overall, after netting more than 800 state legislative seats during the Obama years, Republicans are hugely dominant in the nations statehouses, controlling 66 of the nations 98 partisan legislative chambers. Democrats control 30. There are two ties, pending the outcome in the New York Senate. (Nebraska has a nominally non-partisan unicameral legislature.) 

Our Famously Free Press

But Ive come to think that the rise of fake news  and of the cheap-to-run, ideologically driven aggregator sites that are only a few steps up from fake  has weaponized those filter bubbles. There were just too many people voting in this election because they were infuriated by made-up things they read online [Nieman Labs]. Dunno about that (see below). But this rings true: One thread running through the countless profiles of Trump voters this cycle was the loss of community institutions. The factories shut down; the church pews were emptier than they used to be; the braided fabric of their towns had unraveled. Dont forget that, particularly in smaller communities, the local newspaper was one of those key institutions  the daily or weekly package of stories that connected you to your neighbors. Facebooks algorithm and whatever echo chamber or filter bubble or whatever it may have created did not lead to this result. This was the result of a very large group of people who are quite clearly  and reasonably  pissed off at the status quo. This was a throw the bums out vote, and many of the bums deserved to be thrown out [Tech Dirt]. But thats not Facebooks fault. And the idea that a better or different algorithm on Facebook would have made the results any different is just as ridiculous as the idea that newspaper endorsements or fact checking mattered one bit. People are angry because the system has failed them in many, many ways, and its not because theyre idiots who believed all the fake news Facebook pushed on them (even if some of them did believe it). Many people dont think Trump will be any good, but they voted for him anyway, because the status quo is broken.

Legitimacy

Trump meets with Obama: We discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel, Trump said. Mr. President, it was a great honor meeting with you. And I look forward to meeting with you many, many more times in the future' [Olivier Knox, Yahoo News]. Sanders: To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic, and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him [Variety]. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared to be wearing her infamous dissent jabot on the bench Wednesday morning. The move is being widely interpreted as a repudiation of Donald Trumps victory in the presidential election a night earlier [The Hill]. Ginsburg typically wears the collar when issuing dissenting opinions in the court, as she explained to Yahoo News in 2014. But no opinions were read Wednesday. This isnt like Kremlinology. It is Kremlinology. The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited. This was particularly true when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the millions to deliver not only a rebuke to the political system but also the people who cover it. Trump knew what he was doing when he invited his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, and have for some time [CBS]. Whats worse, we dont make much of an effort to really understand, and with too few exceptions, treat the economic grievances of Middle America like theyre some sort of punchline. Sometimes quite literally so, such as when reporters tweet out a photo of racist-looking Trump supporters and jokingly suggest that they must be upset about free trade or low wages. Yglesias being a prime offender. My mom-in-law was watching CBS all night, so thats what we watched. All the pundits/anchors spoke in the hushed tones of a funeral. For two hours, the only images of campaign workers shown were the sad faces of Clinton supporters; not one image of jubilant Trump supporters was broadcast until Trump gave his acceptance speech [Of Two Minds]. When one of the talking heads noted that Hillary never generated the enthusiasm of the Sanders or Trump campaigns, his comment was followed by a stony silence. That he had given voice to a self-evident truth was not welcome. The White House on Wednesday refused to rule out the possibility that Obama would pardon Clinton to prevent Trump from prosecuting her when he takes office [The Hill]. And: There are deep and disturbing issues there, [Rudy] Giuliani, a top Donald Trump adviser and former federal prosecutor, said Thursday on Fox Newss Fox & Friends, citing the Clinton Foundation. Thats why I dont think President Obama should pardon her, Giuliani added. I think President Obama should leave it to the system that we all believe in to determine is she innocent or is she guilty?' Within a few weeks of winning the White House, President-elect Donald Trump could face another group of U.S. citizens, a federal jury in California, courtesy of a lawsuit by former students of his now-defunct Trump University who claim they were defrauded by a series of real-estate seminars [Reuters].

Stats Watch

Jobless Claims, week of November 5, 2016: Employers are holding tightly onto their employees as jobless claims remain steady at or near record lows [Econoday]. And: lower than the consensus forecast [Calculated Risk]. But: The trend of the 4 week moving average is continuing to marginally worsened  and catch up to the rolling averages of a year ago  and this trend historically indicates a weakening GDP [Econintersect].

Employment Situation: Despite largescale hiring announcements from numerous major retailers, the number of October employment gains in the sector declined 21 percent from a year ago to 154,600. That was the fewest job gains to kick off the holiday hiring season since 2012 [Econintersect].

Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, week of November 6, 2016: The consumer comfort index, at 45.1 in the November 6 week, is accelerating [Econoday]. Strength in consumer confidence is tied closely to strength in the labor market. 

Shipping: [Smart containers] can be tracked, managed and monitored remotely using special hardware such as relay antennas which allows the lines to collect, store and analyse data even while the ship is in high seas.. Based on this data, lines can take relevant remedial action where required, especially with regards to reefer cargo [Shipping & Freight Resource]. In a lot of the cases digital technology has become a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and shipping lines while competing on price have also started competing on ease of UX (User Experience) and through this have managed to transfer a lot of the work from their desks to the customers desks. Of course there are humans involved in these processes in the background, but the fact remains that in a lot of the cases you dont have any visible human interaction as the system takes care of everything.

Shipping: Cargo transportation by sea in 2015 saw its slowest rate of growth since 2009 amid the prolonged slowdown in global trade.Figures from the UN Conference on Trade and Development indicated that seaborne shipping had risen 2.1% year on year to exceed 10bn tons [Lloyds List].

The Bezzle:  Yahoo describes massive data breach, doesnt explain two-year disclosure gap [FCPA Blog]. Yahoo said in a securities filing Wednesday that employees knew in late 2014 a state-sponsored hacker entered its network and stole names, birth dates, and encrypted passwords for more than 500 million accounts Wednesdays disclosure didnt say which employees knew about the attack or who they informed. Yahoo first disclosed the 2014 data breach in September this year. The board is now investigating the attack with the help of forensic experts, Yahoo said Wednesday. The company didnt say when the board first learned about the attack or which executives, if any, knew about the attack when it happened. Yahoo disclosed the attack in September, two months after entering into an agreement to sell itself to Verizon for $4.8 billion.

The Bezzle: Republican Donald Trumps victory in the U.S. presidential race puts a new rule on retirement advice in limbo, even after Wall Streets biggest wealth management firms have spent millions preparing for it, lawyers and analysts said this week. The U.S. Department of Labor fiduciary rule, which is set to start taking effect in April, is meant to promote the best interests of retirement savers by eliminating conflicts of interest for brokers [Reuters]. On the campaign trail, Trump has said that 70 percent of regulations can go, and an adviser, Anthony Scaramucci [here], told Reuters the fiduciary rule would likely be stopped.'

The Bezzle: We decided to examine the descriptions of [thousands of companies that received venture capital investment since 2010] to get a better look into the ever-changing startup landscape. We used natural language processing to identify trends by looking at which words are more or less common today than at the beginning of the decade [Priceonomics]. We found that social media, mobile apps, and email startups are on their way out, while messaging, healthcare, tools, and artificial intelligence are gaining momentum. By and large, startup descriptions are tech-heavy, featuring words like app, cloud, and network. Our data also shows that no word has seen a bigger jump in usage than virtual reality and no word a bigger decline than electronics.'

Political Risk: The rapid rise of political and social populism and accelerating global migration are causes of concern, [AG CEO Joe] Kaeser said. [Wall Street Journal, Siemens Warns of Populist Threat to Business as Profit Jumps].

Political Risk: The global shipping industry is bracing for a Donald Trump presidency, fearing the antitrade rhetoric in the campaign could turn into international showdowns that cripple the flow of goods [Wall Street Journal]. The betting in Mr. Trumps camp is that trading partners will believe that access to the U.S. market is too precious to give up without negotiating new deals. Until that happens, however, ocean carriers will have to watch the political winds.

Todays Fear & Greed Index: 40 Fear (previous close: 30, Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 18 (Extreme Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 9 at 11:38am. Life goes on.

Gaia

Sex is far from a perfect way to reproduce. It imposes a huge cost on a species, and that cost is called males. If roughly 50 percent of a species is made up of males who are incapable of producing babies, it is at a serious reproductive disadvantage relative to another species made up mostly of females capable of reproducing on their own [Nautilus]. Despite its drawbacks, sex does seem to offer a species an incontrovertible advantage. It recombines individuals genes so that the species as a whole can maintain the diversity of traits it needs to survive whatever challengesfaster predators, changing climate, giant comet impactsthe future may throw at it. By this logic, parthenogenesis is an evolutionary cul-de-sac. But: Earlier this year, a team from the American Museum of Natural History compared easily measurable traits such as scales along the belly, or pores on the right leg, from seven generations of one line of parthenogenic whiptails with a sexually reproducing species. The parthenogens showed just as much physical variability as sexually reproducing whiptails, even though the parthenogens all had identical DNA. Hoo boy.

News of the Wired

A life in ruins [New Criterion]. On the architectural vision of John Soane. Random quote: Around 1850, Baudelaire was the first to use modernite in the sense of a unique aesthetic sensibility.

How Japan Prepares Its Children for Independence [Savvy Tokyo]. By five and six, Japanese children often take public transit or walk to school without their parents.

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And heres todays plant (ChiGal):

ChiGal writes: [A] hornbeam tree, never seen in the Chi but all over Carrboro, the Paris of the South. If croissants were biscuits

Readers, Water Cooler is a standalone entity, not supported by the very successful Naked Capitalism fundraiser just past. Now, I understand you may feel tapped out, but when and if you are able, please use the dropdown to choose your contribution, and then click the hat! Your tip will be welcome today, and indeed any day. Water Cooler will not exist without your continued help.
By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She now spends most of her time in India and other parts of Asia researching a book about textile artisans. She also writes regularly about legal, political economy, and regulatory topics for various consulting clients and publications, as well as writes occasional travel pieces for The National.

The biggest story on Indian television yesterday wasnt the election of Donald Trump. For on Tuesday night (IST), Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a surprise speech declared that currency notes of rupees (Rs) 500 and Rs 1000  the highest two denominations in circulation would be invalid as of midnight that same night. The withdrawn notes could no longer be used for transacting business or as a store of value for future usage (with some limited exceptions, but even these were only allowed for a short transition period).

From Modis speech:

There is a need for a decisive war against the menace of corruption, black money and terrorism Corruption, black money and terrorism are festering wounds which make the country hollow from within, he said, adding such activities hold back the nations progress. Describing illegal financial activities as the biggest blot, Modi said that despite several steps taken by his government over the last two-and-a-half years, Indias global ranking on corruption had moved only to 76th position from 100th earlier. This shows the extent of the web of corruption in the country. The disease of corruption is the domain of some veted people who are flourishing. Some people have misused their positions and benefitted. On the other hand, honest people are suffering, he said.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) the Indian central bank as reported by The Times of India, elaborated:

The incidence of fake Indian currency notes in higher denomination has increased. For ordinary persons, the fake notes look similar to genuine notes, even though no security feature has been copied. The fake notes are used for antinational and illegal activities. High denomination notes have been misused by terrorists and for hoarding black money. India remains a cash based economy hence the circulation of Fake Indian Currency Notes continues to be a menace. In order to contain the rising incidence of fake notes and black money, the scheme to withdraw has been introduced.

Chaos Ensues

India remains a cash-based economy, especially for low-value transactions, and the move has caused widespread chaos, as I write this from Kolkata where I am currently visiting. The move was accompanied by a temporary shut down of all banks and ATMs, with banks reopening earlier today and ATMs due to reopen tomorrow.

Initially, after the announcement, the highest denomination legal tender note in circulation was the Rs 100 note. New legally tender Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes have been made available today, according to Tushar Roy, chief manager of a nationalized bank, Central Bank of India. Not all banks have yet received the new notes, but Roy says that this problem is expected to be resolved soon. The government also expects to re-introduce Rs 1000 notes soon, to include advanced security features. When ATMs open tomorrow, withdrawals will be limited to a maximum of Rs 2000 per transaction, as compared to the Rs 10,000 and in some cases, Rs 15,000 limits, that previously applied.

Starting today, after producing appropriate identification, people are allowed to exchange old notes for new at any of the 19 RBI offices, any bank branch, or at any head post office or sub-post office. They will have until December 30 to complete their transactions.

Individuals receive full value for the entire volume of bank notes tendered at any of these venues, but heres the kicker: At the moment, each person is limited to receiving only Rs 4000 per person in cash irrespective of the size of tender. Anything over and above that amount can only be credited to a bank account. This allows the government to track whether the sums tendered have been legitimately acquired. Withdrawals from bank accounts will be limited to Rs 10,000 a day and Rs 20,000 a week. The government has announced this part of the policy may be relaxed in future, says Roy, in order for employers, for example, to meet payrolls currently made in cash. (Ultimately the government wants more transactions to be paid via bank accounts, so that they can be tracked and taxed appropriately).

Does The Policy Make Sense?

Its beyond the scope of this post to speculate on the impact the new policy will have on individuals of various occupations and with myriad reasons for transacting in large amounts of cash. For more on this point, interested readers might wish to look at this article in The Wire.

Some have criticized the policy for focusing on currency alone, and have noted that black money is typically not held by Indians in stacks of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, but in one of two alternative ways.

The very rich store black assets in offshore accounts (as detailed in, among other sources, the Panama Papers).

But tax evasion and corruption is not limited to the very richest alone. In India, many doctors and other professionals, members of the business community, and small traders also underreport their taxable income. They tend to hold their black assets on-shore, within India, in the form of real estate, art work, gold bullion, jewellery, or securities.

Unlike other current policy areas border incursions into Pakistan, for example the political opposition has has not contested the objective of the Modi move. There is virtually unanimous concurrence at least publicly on cracking down on black money. Yet as The Hindu reported, former Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has criticized the Modi governments method for achieving its objective:

We support the objective of the government to stamp out black money. But the method they have adopted raises questions The move has come as a bolt from the blue for the common man. The real test for the government would begin [Thursday], Mr Chidambaram said. How efficiently and how quickly the money is exchanged. If there is harassment or inconvenience and all kinds of questions are asked, then I think that will be completely counterproductive. A similar move had been contemplated by the previous Congress-led UPA government, he recalled. But the idea was dropped as the economic gains were not too great. Mr. Chidambaram said the introduction of the new series of notes was estimated to cost Rs. 15,000 crores to Rs 20,000 crores [Jerri-Lynn here: a crore is 10,000,000 in the Indian numbering system]. The economic gains of demonetisation should be at least equal to that amount.

If the additional tax revenue pulled in by the Modi move is less than that amount, the new policy will actually have ended up costing the government money rather than increasing government revenues.

As Chidambaram summarized (again from The Hindu article quoted above):

The economic wisdom of the governments decision, Mr Chidambaram said, would be tested on three parameters: a) the present cash to GDP ratio is 12 per cent. Will it come down to the world average of about 4 per cent? b) The value of the high denomination notes currently in circulation is about 15 lakh crore rupees [Jerri-Lynn here: a lakh is 100,000, a crore, 10,000,000, so a lakh crore is 1,000,000,000,000.] Will that value come down significantly? c) Will gold imports surge, indicating that unaccounted income/ wealth is seeking refuge in bullion and gold jewellery?

Various economists have also presented other criticisms of the governments move, as reported by The Wire. Requiring a switch to new bank notes means Indians must take time to switch their existing Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes into the new bank notes. If new notes are not freely and widely available, this will freeze trade and the normal functioning of an exchange economy. Further, many Indians receive salaries in cash and do not have bank accounts at present, so requiring transactions to pass through the banking system will cause them considerable immediate inconvenience.

Impact on Economic Activity

But there is a wider reason for critiquing the policy. Black money and not paying taxes: These are bad things in a society, says Suvojit Bagchi, Kolkata bureau chief for The Hindu. Not surprisingly, everyone including the opposition agrees on the objective of cracking down on black money. Increasing the tax base- is the prime objective here. But will the demonetization policy produce substantial tax revenue? Bagchi noted that Chidambaram questioned whether taxes raised would be sufficient to recoup the cost of printing new bank notes.

Another objective, Bagchi added, is to move India away from its reliance on cash, toward a more American or European plastic system, where its easier to track and tax money.

And finally, at least half of Indian economic activity occurs in the informal sector, which is not tightly controlled. Bagchi gave the example of a building promoter, whose building activity produces both black and white revenues. Indeed, perhaps 40% of the promoters overall activity, he estimated, might be black activity. But that black activity also generates employment, as well as other knock on effects. While the government hopes that its policy will increase the tax base, its also possible that demonetization might instead lead to the shut down of at least some black activity. So, the governments latest move may actually slow economic activity considerably, Bagchi says, But for how long, and to what extent, no one knows.

He further added, At the moment, the Indian economy is somewhat insulated from the world economy, in part due to its reliance on cash and the existence of considerable black activity. Once India moves to a plastic system, and cuts back on that black activity, it will lose some of this insulation.

As reported in The Wire, Abhijit Sen, former member of the Planning Commission, is also concerned about contraction in the informal sector:
Yves here. This is a very important video from the Real News Network, and I wish there were a transcript, so do take the trouble to listen to it.

One of the reasons for the ferocity of the howling from the Democratic Party hackocracy in the wake of the unexpected Trump victory is that they are effectively cornered animals. As political scientist Tom Ferguson explains, the Democrats cant get the number of voters they need with their traditional coalition of Big Finance money plus identity politics without delivering tangible benefits to workers, which they have abjectly failed to do. But the power of money in the Democratic party makes it well nigh impossible for them to devise the sort of populist policies that would appeal to voters that Trump has successfully peeled off.

Ferguson also has some important exit poll and early, granular data that debunks some cherished Democratic party myths. For instance, playing the gender card wasnt as successful as the media would lead you to believe.

Ferguson, who has been a consistent critic of the Democrats from the left, does not rule out the idea that Trump could deliver on policies that would make him popular, most important, ones that would create more jobs and improve wages. One expert close to the Sanders camp came to the same view separately months ago. So while Trump may be stymied, or may never have been sincere about his battle call to downtrodden workers, its a mistake to rule out the possibility that he will continue to succeed despite the odds and his glaring character defects.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Seba Aghayeva  Trend:

Bulgarian citizen Valentin Dreharski, an employee of Besttechnia TM-Rodimo PAD and a traveler, has been removed from the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys list of undesirable people who illegally visited the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told Trend November 10.

The Bulgarian traveler sent a letter to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, in which he expressed respect for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and inviolability of internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan.

Dreharski added that he was unaware of the illegality of the trip to the occupied territories.

In his letter, the Bulgarian traveler apologized to the Azerbaijani people and added that his visit wasnt aimed at promoting the illegal regime in Azerbaijans occupied territories.

Dreharskis letter was thoroughly considered and a decision was made to remove his name from the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys list of undesirable people.

Visiting Nagorno-Karabakh and other Azerbaijani districts occupied by Armenia, without Azerbaijan's consent, are considered illegal and the names of the individuals who make these visits are included to the "black list" of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 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.
President elect Trump has been such a shape-shifter over the course of his campaign that what he really stands for, if anything other than his oversized ego, will be revealed over the coming months. Yet as much as it seems quixotic to believe than such a rank novice to politics could walk into the biggest job in the world and do anything other than make an utter hash of it, Trump has managed to beat astonishing odds thus far. And perhaps as interesting, some savvy contacts have suggested, analogous to Trumps narrow electoral college path to victory, there are similarly routes available to Trump by which he could implement the programs that appear to be core to his campaign, and would result in him holding on to his base and even extending his appeal.

In an important video we posted today, political scientist Tom Ferguson underscored a fact that the mainstream media would very much like the public to forget in its continuing demonization of Trump: both parties abandoned their bases. Trump found power in the street by appealing directly to a large swathe of those abandoned voters. If he is to make use of that power, he must control enough of the apparatus of government to implement policies that deliver tangible benefits to them.

Trump has zigged and zagged. Recall he sounded almost leftist when demolishing his primary opponents, and then moved to the right in order to get a minimal level of cooperation from the party and look more like a traditional Republican. Well see in due course what version of Trump is the one that the voters got. Antifa summarized Trumps victory speech, which is the best approximation of what he deems his priorities to be now, and pointed out why he will have an uphill battle:

In Trumps acceptance speech he said four encouraging things: * America wants to live in peace with all other nations  no more wars, no more invasions. * He mentioned that he has over 200 retired generals and admirals consulting with him, which raises the possibility that this was just maybe a Pentagon-led insurrection against Hillarys plans for WWIII. The Pentagon has never won an honest war game against Iran, and most admirals admit that our sixteen aircraft carriers are just fat, slow targets for swarms of supersonic Russian and Chinese and Iranian missiles. The Pentagon doesnt want a real war; they just want more money for new toys. * He said we are going to rebuild our infrastructure here at home. * He said we will create millions of jobs here rebuilding our infrastructure. None of that is edible to a neoliberal.

Trump appears to be at a serious disadvantage by virtue of not having control of his party and lacking a deep bench of experts that he can turn to, much the less put into key positions. Thus based on a superficial analysis, it would seem easy for the Republican hackocracy to thwart Trump. He has literally thousands of positions in the executive branch to fill. It is Republican old hands, and not he, that has a rolodex of suitable players to fill those slots. But those candidates would be loyal to their long-standing corporate allies, not Trump.

However, in reality, what Trump needs to have is the loyalty of a surprisingly small number of key positions, such as economic policy makers (such as the Secretary of the Treasury, the members of the Council of Economic Advisers) and key players in the military-surveillance state. Contrary to my expectations, John Helmer, who saw first hand how the Democratic party rolled Jimmy Carter, another outsider who wound up being largely stymied when he came to Washington by not getting effective control of the bureaucracy, thinks Trump can roust the neocons, which is critical to one of his popular promises: winding down our wasteful conflicts. Via e-mail:

If Trump has the conviction and stamina, he can eliminate neocons from State and Pentagon, and purge CIA ops. The advisors available, already declared on his side (excepting Negroponte), know how to do this. I remember the Carter Transition well  and my dismay grew as no matter what we recommended as staff, Carter kept making appointments that were certain to hamstring his policy choices  Brzezinski was the first and most damaging. I did better at restricting all appointees with Harvard backgrounds (excepting myself), but Carter, despite his capacity to cogitate, study, his gubernatorial experience, and the qualities of his wife Rosalynn, he suffered from an inferiority complex and the need to please. I blamed the ghost of Rickover at the time. Trump doesnt have nerve endings in that part of his body.

However, Trump also has some advantages. By virtue of having run such a lean and unconventional campaign, and by relying heavily on small dollar donations, Trump has to give far fewer patronage positions away to major donors than his predecessors. Helmer independently made the same point: Who are the top-5 people he thinks he owes for his election?

Im not sure I have a good list, and readers who have been watching the Trump show more closely are very much encouraged to correct and improve it. These are the names that I am most certain belong in the top 5:

Chris Christie Newt Gingrich Rudy Giuliani Steve Mnuchin Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner

Ivanka is the only good name on this list.

Trump has other long-standing business allies, such Carl Ichan, who he has named as his pick for Secretary of the Treasury (and before you reel, as I did when I first heard his name, he is in favor of both major infrastructure spending and running deficits. If he were to turn out to be a Republican that didnt foist the usual horror of public-private partnerships on us, that would compensate for a lot of other warts). Wilbur Ross is also close to Trump and not as terrible as one might think (he bought distressed mortgages and doing deep principal mods, a successful model with the Obama Administration chose to ignore). But he also has some more horrorshows, like Steve Feinberg of Cerberus (but his razing of industrial America may force Trump to keep him at arms length).

Moreover, as the Associated Press points out, Trumps transition team has a solid representation of Republican insiders, including Mike Pence, who Trump as repeatedly slapped in public for crossing him:

Trumps senior team huddled privately to begin a more focused period of transition planning. The group included the transition chairman, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and daughter Ivanka Trumps husband, Jared Kushner, among others.

Of all the names involved with Trump, the one who is the most troubling is Giuliani, who is slotted to be Trumps attorney general. If it were not for 9/11 rescuing his reputation, Giuliani would have gone down as a not-well-regarded New York mayor. He took credit for bringing down crime in the city, when crime rates fell in big cities all over the US in the same time frame. The big culprit instead appears to be the delayed impact of getting lead out of gasoline. In his second term, Giuliani put most of his energy into pointless fights, like his war on ferrets, his nixing every petition to demonstrate in front of City Hall (which judges always overruled), and threatening to defund the Brooklyn Museum of Art unless it cancelled an art show that included a feces-coated rendering of the Virgin Mary.

Giuliani is a worrisome choice not only for his disregard for civil liberties and his pettiness, but also his affinity for unqualified and crooked toadies. Giuliani canned his first police chief, William Bratton, because he was upstaging the mayor as a crime buster, and replaced him with the notably underqualified Bernard Kerik, whose main reason for elevation appeared to be that he had been part of Giulianis protective detail. To keep a long story short, Kerik joined Guilaini at his investigation and security firm, Giuliani partners, and later sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud and making false statements to the White House during a background check. It has to be noted that Giuliani Partners has had some very unsavory clients, such as (per Wikipedia):

Hank Asher, an admitted drug smuggler and millionaire founder of companies that perform electronic information gathering (datamining) on individuals Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, in a case against the Drug Enforcement Administration, Giuliani Partners negotiated a $2 million fine and no further penalty for what the DEA called lax security at plants that produced the drug, which the DEA said was being used as a recreational drug. The lead DEA investigator later said that Purdue Pharma escaped harsher penalties in the case because of Giulianis connections to government officials.[4] Giuliani later represented Purdue Pharma in a recently settled case in which the DEA accused the company of marketing OxyContin by playing down its level of addictive properties. Giuliani met with government lawyers six times to help negotiate a settlement in the case.

Purdue Pharma is the company arguably most responsible for savaging the communities that turned to Trump as rescuer. As Anne Case and Angus Deaton pointed out in a seminal study, the lifespans of less educated whites aged 45 to 54 had actually fallen in a heretofore unrecognized AIDS-level health crisis. The biggest cause of the increase in deaths was addiction to opiates and alcohol. But will anyone in the right wing press point out that their supposed law and order hero has gotten huge amounts of blood money from their neighbors and possibly even family members?

So while there is some reason to think that Trump might remarkably be able to deliver on his plan to rein in the war mongerers, the odds for the rest of his populist promises dont look so hot based on his list of advisors. Stay tuned.
Researchers discover new method to dissipate heat in electronic devices (Nanowerk News) Controlling the flow of heat through semiconductor materials is an important challenge in developing smaller and faster computer chips, high-performance solar panels, and better lasers and biomedical devices.

For the first time, an international team of scientists led by a researcher at the University of California, Riverside has modified the energy spectrum of acoustic phonons-- elemental excitations, also referred to as quasi-particles, that spread heat through crystalline materials like a wave--by confining them to nanometer-scale semiconductor structures. The results have important implications in the thermal management of electronic devices.

Led by Alexander Balandin, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computing Engineering and UC Presidential Chair Professor in UCR's Bourns College of Engineering, the research is described in a paper published Thursday, Nov. 10, in the journal Nature Communications ("Direct observation of confined acoustic phonon polarization branches in free-standing nanowires").

Fariborz Kargar, a graduate student researcher, is measuring the acoustic phonon dispersion in the semiconductor nanowires in UCRs Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials (POEM) Center, directed by Alexander Balandin.

The team used semiconductor nanowires from Gallium Arsenide (GaAs), synthesized by researchers in Finland, and an imaging technique called Brillouin-Mandelstam light scattering spectroscopy (BMS) to study the movement of phonons through the crystalline nanostructures. By changing the size and the shape of the GaAs nanostructures, the researchers were able to alter the energy spectrum, or dispersion, of acoustic phonons. The BMS instrument used for this study was built at UCR's Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials (POEM) Center, which is directed by Balandin.

Controlling phonon dispersion is crucial for improving heat removal from nanoscale electronic devices, which has become the major roadblock in allowing engineers to continue to reduce their size. It can also be used to improve the efficiency of thermoelectric energy generation, Balandin said. In that case, decreasing thermal conductivity by phonons is beneficial for thermoelectric devices that generate energy by applying a temperature gradient to semiconductors.
Power-to-Liquid: Pilot operation of first compact plant

(Nanowerk News) Demand-driven production of liquid fuels from regenerative energy sources is a major element of the energy turnaround. Production of synthetic fuels from solar energy and carbon dioxide extracted from air is the objective of the SOLETAIR project started now by INERATEC, a spinoff of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), in cooperation with Finnish partners. Together, the partners plan to take into operation the first chemical pilot plant worldwide. It is so compact that it fits into a ship container and produces gasoline, diesel, and kerosene from regenerative hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

The founders of INERATEC, a spinoff of KIT, develop compact, microstructured chemical reactors for conversion of gases into high-quality liquid fuels.

The plant consists of three components. The direct air capture unit developed by the Technical Research Center of Finland (VTT) extracts carbon dioxide from air. An electrolysis unit developed by Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) produces the required hydrogen by means of solar power. A microstructured, chemical reactor is the key component of the plant and converts the hydrogen produced from solar power together with carbon dioxide into liquid fuels. This reactor was developed by KIT. The compact plant was developed to maturity and is now being commercialized by INERATEC.

Projects, such as SOLETAIR, are essential for the success of the energy turnaround, Professor Thomas Hirth, Vice President for Innovation and International Affairs of KIT, says. Commissioning of this pilot plant is an example of successful transfer of KITs research innovations to industry. INERATEC GmbH is a spinoff of KIT and develops, constructs, and sells compact chemical plants for various gas-to-liquid and power-to-liquid applications. The spinoff is supported under the EXIST research transfer program of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

We are proud of our participation in this promising international project, INERATEC founder Dr. Tim Boltken emphasizes. In the future, KIT, INERATEC, and VTT plan to extend their cooperation. Under the national research alliances of Energy Lab 2.0 and Neo-Carbon Energy, work will focus on the investigation and development of innovative energy systems based on renewable energy sources, novel storage technologies, and the conversion of renewable energies into chemical energy carriers. In addition, KIT and INERATEC contribute their expertise to the Power-to-X Kopernikus project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Find the newest releases to watch from National Geographic on Disney+, including favourite documentary series and films Free Solo, The Rescue, Shark Beach with Chris Hemsworth and The World According to Jeff Goldblum.
IT WAS NOT the best of times in Ireland. Indeed, many people who lived through it, would say it was the worst of times. It was the 1940s. World War II had just ended. The economy and industry, already severely depressed, was struggling to recover. Unemployment was widespread. Emigration escalated. Poverty and poor housing prevailed. Enough said...

Yet, into this gloom, came a small group of talented people in Clonmel. They had a vision. All were artists, members of the Tipperary Fine Arts Society, which had been founded about 1941. By 1946, they had conceived the idea of establishing a Municipal Art Gallery in the town.

The group collected works of art, the work of very reputable contemporary Irish artists of the time, to which they added some of the very best work of local artists. These became the nucleus of a collection, which even today is remarkable in the context of the cultural history of Irish provincial towns.

Many of the local artists had already produced work which, according to Peter Jordan (Tipperary Historical Journal 2006), expressed the unspoken need to demonstrate that Clonmel artists can compete on the same terms as their more famous Dublin counterparts.

Indeed, many people who now treasure works by R.J. (Dickie) Long, (father of the late Brendan Long, former editor of this newspaper), Edward OConnor, Molly Bracken, Lilla Perry, Margaret Condon, Mary Morris, would enthusiastically agree.

The group identified and availed of some capital available at the time, through the Haverty Trust and the Friends of Irish Art and they bought a number of works by celebrated Irish artists: Jack B. Yeats, Kate Dobbin, Letitia Hamilton, William J. Leach, Nathaniel Hone, Bea Orpen.

The vision became a reality in 1948, when the Gallery was opened in the premises vacated by the former Munster and Leinster Bank in Parnell Street, and which had been acquired by the Local Authority. This building also accommodated the library and the very early museum. (The establishment of a museum had long been campaigned for by the Clonmel Historical and Archaeological Society, some members of which contributed some of the original artefacts, which they had collected over the years). The actual ownership of the art collection was ultimately transferred to Clonmel Corporation.

Subsequently, the original collection was added-to by a number of bequests, the most notable of which came from Clonmel man, William English. This brought relatively modern artists (working in the late decades of the 20th century) into the gallery: Robert Ballagh, Patrick Pye, Leo Hogan, Julieta Guipeal, and the Clonmel-born artist, Martin Quigley.

There have also been some interesting bequests to the collection of portraits: There are two portraits of John OLeary, one by an unknown artist and donated by Dan Breen, and the second by John B. Yeats (the father of the poet William Butler Yeats and the artist Jack B. Yeats) which came via the Friends of the National Collection.

Amongst the other interesting portraits, there is one of Fr. Sheehy and another entitled Miss Brunicardi (in a nurses uniform). Citizens interested in the history of Clonmel local government will recognise this Italian-sounding name, since a member of the family was Borough Surveyor/Engineer during the last decades of the 19th century, a time of much development in street building and widening and the provision of piped water supplies to the town.

COLLECTION NOW NUMBERS OVER 80 WORKS

The collection now numbers over 80 works, including many valuable pictures. It is part of Clonmels wealth - its capital - its hidden treasure. Yet, the vision of those artists of the 1940s did not intend it to be hidden. Their objective was the enhancement of the town and of its citizens; the improvement of the quality of the lives of ordinary people via the establishment of a gallery where works of art could be permanently displayed.

But the collection has remained virtually hidden for a number of decades. Following the closure of the premises in Parnell Street, it was moved to the newly-built museum. There, it has been stored safely and conserved but, with the exception of a very occasional exhibition of some of the pictures, it has remained out of sight of ordinary people. (In the memory of this columnist, the last exhibition took place in 2005).

This exclusion did not form any part of the vision of those inspired Clonmel artists in those dark days of the 1940s. They envisioned a public Municipal Gallery.

It is, therefore, good to hear that in the proposed reorganisation of the County Museum that some space is now being reserved for the display, at any one time, of part of the collection. But, while this is welcome, it seems to this columnist that the space is necessarily limited; that it is just an adjunct to the display of museum artefacts. It is no substitute for a proper space, a special room, a gallery.

In the many properties now available to the local authority in Clonmel is there any such a room? In the upper story of the Museum itself? In the now largely empty Town Hall? In the Main Guard? This art collection is a treasure of the sort that few Irish towns possess. It should not be locked away, safe, unseen, forgotten.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

The OSCE monitoring held on the line of contact between the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops passed without incidents, Azerbaijans Defense Ministry said November 10.

The monitoring was held November 10 under the mandate of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative in the direction of Azerbaijans Tartar town.

On the Azerbaijani side, the monitoring was held by field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative Gennady Petrica and Simon Tiller.

On the Azerbaijani territories occupied and controlled by Armenian armed forces, the monitoring was carried out by field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative Hristo Hristov and Jiri Aberle.

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.
WASHINGTON  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau faces an uncertain and precarious future under President-elect Donald Trump, who some say might seek to oust Director Richard Cordray and boost legislation to significantly weaken the agency.

During the campaign, Trump did not specifically endorse any plan to alter the CFPB, though he repeatedly sparred with its founder, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

While Republican lawmakers are likely to focus on efforts to replace the agency's single director with a bipartisan five-member commission, as well as subject it to the Congressional appropriations process, Trump may seek to take more immediate action once he takes office in January. Some said he could either pressure Cordray to leave or seek to do so directly given a recent appeals court ruling that allows a president to remove a CFPB director without cause.

"Even if the CFPB does appeal, Trump could remove [CFPB Director] Cordray and appoint a new director who would drop the appeal," said Justin Schardin, director of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Whether Trump could succeed is unclear, and is likely to turn on whether the CFPB can convince a higher court to delay a decision in the case of PHH Corp v. CFPB.

"As long as the PHH decision is stayed pending further appeals, the director can only be removed for 'inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,'" said Benjamin K. Olson, a partner at BuckleySandler and a former CFPB deputy assistant director for the Office of Regulations. "That is a high standard."

At issue is an October ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that said the agency's single director structure is unconstitutional and the CFPB's director serves at the pleasure of the president. The agency has until Nov. 25 to appeal that decision, either to the entire D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court. It is widely expected to do so.

To be sure, Cordray might also offer to leave of his own accord. That kind of move is relatively common at the start of a new administration, even for independent agencies. For example, it was widely reported in 2009 that then Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Sheila Bair offered to step aside if President Obama wished to put his own person in the job, but he opted to keep her in the post.

But most observers said Cordray, whose term runs through July 2018, is unlikely to voluntarily leave.

"Rich Cordray has shown himself to be a dedicated and zealous CFPB director, and I would not expect him to give up that position lightly," said Olson.

Others argued that Trump could begin preparing a dossier on reasons why Cordray should be removed "for cause." That would allow him to act regardless of the outcome of the court case.

Still, Trump is unlikely to seek a complete elimination of the CFPB, observers said.

"Anybody who says the CFPB will be abolished is overstating the case," said one lawyer, who spoke anonymously because he has cases pending before the agency.

What's more likely is that Trump will add momentum to legislative efforts to rein the CFPB. The banking industry has been pushing a bill that would create a five-person board for the agency and subject it to Congressional appropriations.

With Republicans controlling the House, Senate and White House, the chances for a bill are higher, though by no means certain given Democrats close edge in the Senate.

"There is a great opportunity for the Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee to join forces with the moderate Democrats on the committee, and vice versa, to craft bipartisan commonsensical solutions," said Richard Hunt, the chairman of the Consumer Bankers Association.

Hunt called a bipartisan commission structure for the CFPB "a no brainer," and chided Democrats for not earlier agreeing to create a commission structure, which would have ensured "the CFPB would be in existence for as far as the eye can see."

"Now [the CFPB] is in jeopardy," Hunt said. "It is ironic that here we are at the [Consumer Bankers Association] as defenders of the CFPB because the last thing we want is a whipsaw effect every two years."

In addition to restructuring its funding and leadership, many in the industry would like to see the agency's arbitration plan scrapped and an expansion of the examination threshold to $50 billion of assets from $10 billion.

"The scope of the CFPB's regulatory authority could be scaled back," said Tim Jenkins, a partner at the law firm Nossaman.
David "Dave" Stevens, president and chief executive officer of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), listens during an interview in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been pushing for changes at the FHA since a November actuarial report said its reserve fund for bad loans may require a taxpayer subsidy of as much as $16.3 billion in fiscal-year 2013, the first time in its 79-year history that it wouldn't be self-supporting. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg *** Local Caption *** Dave Stevens Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Mortgage lobbyists are eager to seize on Republican victories in the House, Senate and White House races, hoping to advance the industry's aims in the next Congress.

President-elect Donald Trump's victory poses many questions for the entire financial services industry, but some argue his stance on one major issue facing mortgage finance  regulation  has been abundantly clear.

"He's been very specific," said Rob Zimmer, a principal at Washington, D.C.-based public affairs firm TVDC and former lobbyist for Freddie Mac and Community Mortgage Lenders of America. "He believes that there's too much regulation...and this contributed to anemic job growth."

"For lobbying, if you represent small lenders, small business, even midsize banks, you have the wind at your backs now, not at your face," Zimmer added.

The National Association of Home Builders, which offered its first-ever congressional endorsements this year, is expecting "rapid movement on housing finance and GSE reform" with the next Congress and a Trump administration, said CEO Jerry Howard.

The Mortgage Bankers Association is focused on identifying and reaching out to the "key people who are going to be advising the president," said the David Stevens, the group's president and CEO.

Stevens suggested these would include potential appointees for Cabinet positions such as the attorney general and secretaries of the Treasury and Housing and Urban Development, as well as lower-level positions, such as the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance.

The NAHB also plans to make suggestions of names for these roles to the Trump administration, said Howard. For instance, former Rep. Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., would be "a perfectly qualified and excellent choice" for HUD secretary, said Howard.

The next step in the MBA's post-election strategy will be to identify what the incoming Trump administration's legislative priorities will be, and where housing fits in the mix.

"Come the midterms, you often see change," Stevens said. "Right now he's got a majority, he's got the trifecta. He's got a limited time with this structure to get as much done as possible, and he has to decide what those priorities are going to be."

While Republicans retained control of both houses of Congress, in the Senate their majority is "razor thin," said Stevens. And that thin margin will impact how legislation will be passed in that chamber.

"There's likely going to have to be more work done with the Democratic minority with the Senate if you want to get progress made in key areas of housing," Stevens said.

For the Senate to invoke cloture, making a vote filibuster-proof, there must be a 60 vote majority. Without that many votes, certain key issues for the mortgage industry are unlikely to get passed.

"Most Senate floor activity will not move forward unless you get cloture," Zimmer said. "If you want to vaporize Dodd-Frank, you need 60 votes. If you want to reorder the secondary market, you need 60 votes."

Along those lines, a big question left unanswered during this election cycle concerns Trump's relationship with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is expected to succeed Reid as Senate minority leader.

"The president and the Senate minority leader are both from New York City," Zimmer said. "If they ever have a meeting, everyone's going to want to know what they want to talk about. If they come to an agreement, it'll probably get done."

Republican's big night Tuesday could also have some near-term policy implications. For instance, Democrats led by Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., could be motivated to push for structural changes to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during the lame duck session while President Obama remains in office.

"Democrats will embrace a commission structure as fast as they can with the CFPB," Zimmer predicted.

Similarly, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., may push harder to see his regulatory relief bill, which includes changes to the CFPB, passed during the lame duck session before he vacates his seat as chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Stevens said.
Candidates supported by the mortgage industry by and large performed well on Election Day, with the notable exception of Hillary Clinton, leaving the door open for meaningful housing finance reform.

"Frankly, the outcome of the election, surprising as it is, tees off an exciting time where we think we can get a lot of stuff done for the housing sector," said Jerry Howard, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders.

The NAHB endorsed a slate of congressional candidates for the first time in its nearly 75-year history, a reflection of the housing industry's frustration with the lack of movement on real estate finance reform during the Obama administration. Of the nearly 140 candidates the trade organization endorsed, only seven have lost their races as of Wednesday morning, with votes still being counted in another six races.

"We're thrilled with the results of the candidates we endorsed, and we'll definitely be doing it again in two years," Howard said, adding the organization plans to stick to just congressional endorsements for the time being.

Of the 10 Senate candidates who received the most campaign support from mortgage industry employees and affiliated political action committees, all but two won. All of the top 10 House of Representatives candidates with the most mortgage industry backing won their respective races.

Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., who was running for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., lost to his Democratic challenger, former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. Meanwhile, Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla., lost to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.  both of whom were among the mortgage industry's most-backed candidates.

Of course, Hillary Clinton, who received the largest amount of mortgage industry contributions, lost in the presidential race. As of Oct. 28, Clinton amassed nearly $360,000 in industry contributions during the 2016 election cycle, compared to nearly $62,000 raised by President-elect Donald Trump, according to a National Mortgage News analysis of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks political donations on its website, OpenSecrets.org.

Among mortgage industry donors, Clinton outraised Trump nearly six-to-one, compared to the two-to-one advantage she held among all donors. Clinton's loss  and Trump's victory  marks the second consecutive election where the candidate who received the most mortgage industry support did not win the presidency. The mortgage industry had backed the winning candidate in each of the five previous presidential campaigns, dating back to 1992.
It will be at least two years before banks are required to upgrade their consumer websites to make them accessible to consumers with visual and hearing disabilities, but many are being advised to take action now or risk being sued.

The Justice Department in 2010 announced plans to develop formal guidelines for how all companies, not just banks, must make websites accessible to the disabled. The guidelines will include steps such as adding audio for blind consumers and text alternatives for deaf consumers. The DOJ is expected to issue the guidelines in 2018.

But the issue has taken on added urgency of late as some banks have faced legal challenges from plaintiffs' lawyers who claim their websites do not comply with the existing Americans with Disabilities Act.

Bank of America, for example, reached an agreement in May with an attorney representing a blind consumer to make online mortgage documents accessible. The bank had previously offered to help disabled consumers by sending an employee to the consumer's house to read documents aloud.

Technically, company websites are required to be compliant with the 26-year-old ADA now, but the guidelines are so murky many firms have opted to wait until the DOJ rules come out to make any meaningful changes.

Many banks are stuck in a gray area, as they're waiting on DOJ's guidelines but don't want to be seen as running afoul of the law, said Hugh Wellons, an attorney with Spilman Thomas & Battle in Roanoke, Va.

"The problem is that even though there are not regulations yet, that doesn't mean you don't have to comply," said Wellons, who advises community banks on corporate and regulatory issues. "The banks' problem is they aren't certain what 'compliance' is."

Banks don't want to spend money now redesigning their websites based on unofficial guidelines, only to learn later that the Justice Department wanted something else fixed, added Jenifer Waller, a senior vice president with the Colorado Bankers Association.

"You could in theory make yourself compliant with [one thing] and then have to become compliant all over again if the DOJ's rules are different," she said.

Still, there could be a cost to waiting.

And at least one bank, Wells Fargo, has already been slapped with a penalty for website noncompliance. Wells reached a $17 million settlement with the Justice Department in May 2011, requiring the bank to remove physical barriers inside its retail branches and mortgage offices, and to make its websites accessible to consumers with visual and hearing disabilities.

The new potential for a battle with trial lawyers has forced some banks to move website ADA compliance ahead of other projects. At least seven Colorado banks have received threatening letters from plaintiff's lawyers. Officials with the Arkansas Bankers Association and the South Carolina Bankers Association have also warned their members about the matter.

Banks aren't alone in having a target on their backs. Plaintiffs' firms have sued companies in the retailing and restaurant industry for website noncompliance. The number of these lawsuits is expected to grow, with banks likely to be a primary target, according to the ADA Title III blog published by the law firm Seyfarth Shaw.

Wellons said a bank that receives the letter should not ignore it.

"The first thing they should do is contact their lawyer and then they need to let their [technology person] know about it," said Wellons.

Fred Green, chief executive of the South Carolina Bankers Association, said he has advised his members to contact his group and their legal counsel. In the meantime, the SCBA is developing follow-up advice on what banks should do.

The Arkansas Bankers Association has warned its members about the issue and is working to form alliances with other industry sectors that have been targeted, according to the group's website. The Colorado Bankers Association has planned a seminar for Dec. 13 to educate members ADA compliance.

In the meantime, if a bank hasn't been aware of the need to have an ADA-compliant website, they do now and they're figuring out what to do, said Virginia O'Neill, senior counsel at the American Bankers Association.

"Our banks understand that being compliant with the ADA makes good business sense and it's the law," she said.

The Justice Department's guidelines may be based on a set of rules promoted by the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative, according to the American Bankers Association. Those rules, called Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, include features such as providing text alternatives for non-text content, offering audio descriptions of site features, allowing text to be resized to a larger font and including captions with online videos.

The Justice Department did not return calls seeking comment.

The cost to make a website compliant with these types of requirements will vary based on the size of the bank and the features offered on its site, said Kathy Wahlbin, chief executive of Interactive Accessibility in Sudbury, Mass. Costs for an initial audit range between $2,500 and $4,500, with follow-up auditing ranging between $15,000 and $30,000. The process of actual website remediation would add to banks' tabs.

Making a website's content accessible to disabled users can be a challenge, said Kirk Reese, the chief technology officer at Docutech.

"It's not a simple task to make website and document content presentable in a manner that a visually impaired person can understand," Reese said.

Online material can't be understood "if the site's not accessible with assistive technology to do screen reading," added Jack McElaney, vice president of sales at Microassist in Austin, Texas, which provides accessibility remediation and training. "It's next-to-impossible or completely impossible to be able to do those types of transactions."
The law allows for a water withdrawal loophole

'How much is too much?'

(NaturalNews) Those angry about the government and federal agency corruption that led to the Flint, Mich., water crisis are only going to grow angrier after learning that the state has reportedly issued a preliminary approval for a bottled water giant to nearly triple the amount of groundwater it pumps.As reported by, the additional water pumped by Nestle would be bottled and sold at its Ice Mountain plant, which is situated about 120 miles northwest of Flint.There, residents continue to deal with fallout from a cost-cutting decision by city managers to switch water sources to the Flint River, resulting in toxic amounts of lead being pumped into drinking water supplies."Nestle Waters North America is asking the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for permission to increase allowed pumping from 150 to 400 gallons-per-minute at one of its production wells north of Evart,"The site further noted that the DEQ Water Resources Division has already conducted a site review and has given preliminary approval for the pumping increase from January. However, the state's Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance is actually the approving authority for the permit.The approval agency accepted public comments on the proposal until Nov. 3.notes that though Nestle and other bottled water companies have angered a number of communities for privatizing their water supplies, the news was particularly disturbing to many people in Michigan. Communities including Flint have faced years-long issues with lead contamination in their drinking water.In fact, Flint residents are still being forced to rely on bottled water for their consumption, cleaning, cooking and bathing needs, while government delays continue to hamper efforts to replace the lead-leaching and corroded pipes in and around Flint Meanwhile,noted that officials with the bottled water giant defended the company's need to bolster its water expansion, because the "U.S. market for bottled water in general is driving the bid for more Michigan groundwater."Nestle, the world's biggest food company, will get to pump the additional water at no cost.noted that under Michigan law, any private property owner can withdraw from the aquifer under their property for nothing  with the exception of a nominal $200 annual paperwork fee. The interstate Great Lakes compact does prohibit water diversions outside the Great Lakes basin, however, a bottling exemption within the law permits water to be collected and sold outside the region if it is shipped in containers below 5.7 gallons.The DEQ and Nestle have said that an environmental review indicates that the aquifer can handle the additional draw and will not hurt the flow, levels, or temperature of nearby waters. However, a citizens group that has battled Nestle in the past over groundwater is demanding more scrutiny of the plan."It needs to be studied by all the best environmentalists, hydrologists and people acquainted with the science of where this water is actually coming from," said Jeff Ostahowski, VP of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation,reported. He added that there were several different hydrologists who would look at the same data and reach different conclusions.The citizen group battled Nestle for years in the courts to restrict and reduce the company's permitted withdrawal. The legal tussle resulted in a 2009 settlement that reduced Nestle's Stanwood wells to an average of 218 gallons per minute, or some 313,000 gallons daily. Further restrictions were placed on the company during spring and summer withdrawals."The issue is the privatization of a critical resource," said Ostahowski, who is against water being diverted from watersheds that feed into the Great Lakes. "How much is too much?"
Clintons weren't being paid millions for their dynamic personalities

Tracking the decline of Democrats

Is the demise of the Clintons coinciding with the demise of their party?

(NaturalNews) After three decades of controversy and scandal, will Tuesday's presidential election loss for Hillary Clinton finally close the book on one of the great American political crime families, as well as the party to which they belong?She doesn't think so and neither do Democratic Party bosses. Already they are plotting and scheming for the next election cycle, of that you can be certain. But it may not make much difference. That's because for all of the pre-Nov. 8 obituaries written about the GOP by the Democrats and their sycophantic allies, the Republican Party is alive and well and stronger than ever.In fact, interestingly enough, prior to the election, the establishment media was predicting that, with the ascension of Donald J. Trump to the top of the ticket, the Republican Party was on its last breath and would fully and completely self-destruct after the billionaire real estate mogul was soundly thrashed. But instead of that, Trump not only won the contest, House Speaker Paul Ryan credited him with a series of GOP victories that helped the party gain in state contests and hold onto tightly contested majorities in both the House and the Senate."We won more seats that anyone expected and much of that is thanks to Donald Trump," Ryan said. "Donald Trump heard a voice out in this country that no one else heard."So, that is the current state of the GOP. What about the Democrats? What about the Clintons?If you follow social media and you have a somewhat darker sense of humor, you might have seen memes and other posts pointing out that it's probable a lot of the big money donors  including who donated to the Clinton's "charity," the Clinton Foundation , and were expecting several pay-for-play favors in return for their largess are now extremely unhappy they won't be seeing a return on their 'investment.' That means very likely that such donations will now dry up, given that Bill Clinton as an ex-president doesn't have anything substantial to offer, and Hillary Clinton is no longer secretary of state and did not win the presidency, rendering her politically useless.That leaves Chelsea Clinton, their daughter, who could at some point resurrect the Clinton "brand" if she were to enter politics. But considering she and Trump's daughter Ivanka are close friends , it's not likely she will make such a move anytime soon. And honestly, after seeing her parents embroiled in scandal after scandal (of their own making) for three decades, it could just be that theChelsea Clinton wants is a career in politics.As reported by, Hillary's concessions speech to Trump not only marked the end of her campaign(s) for president  having lost twice now  but very likely the end of her political career. It was especially painful, given that her campaign had a better "ground" game, more money, sounder organization and more endorsements, as well as a party unified behind her. But after serving as first lady, then a U.S. senator and finally secretary of state, there does not appear to be, at age 69, any future path for her in public life.There is always the charity, of course, but now  without anything of value to offer since the Clinton Foundation was always more of a political operation than a charity  it's not a certainty that the foundation will survive.Let's face it: Bill and Hillary Clinton didn't get paid kings' ransoms because they are such dynamic, powerful and insightful speakers. They were being bought and paid for by parties who were interested in thethe two of them could provide. It made no sense for her, as a presidential candidate, to claim she was a 'champion of gays and women,' for instance, while accepting tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments that purposefully target and persecute gays and women.When Clinton was on Obama's Cabinet, for example, more than $165 billion in arms deals were made to Clinton Foundation donors. As reported byWhen these issues were raised during the campaign, the Democratic Party and its propaganda wing  the establishment media  lectured anyone making the case this represented classic "pay-for-play" that no, those donations were not tied to those arms deals and anyone making the accusation was unfairly piling on Clinton because she was a woman or some such nonsense.Turns out, more Americans believed those who were shining a light on these dirty deeds than the Democratic spin machine.Now, what is the future looking like for the Democratic Party? Based on recent history, it isn't good.Consider that beginning in 1994  two years into Bill Clinton's presidency  the Democratic Party lost control of the House, for the first time in four decades. Since then there has only been a four-year period  2006-2010  where the party has recaptured Congress; it held the Senate majority until 2014. Each time the party held the presidency, and that president surged to the far political left (with Clinton it was gun control, higher taxes and his wife's attempt to pass Obamacare-style health reform legislation; with Obama it's been Obamacare, unlimited immigration and a liberal social agenda), the Democratic Party has lost control of Congress, either partially or completely.And now, with the election of Trump, the country has once again repudiated the leftist-socialism of the Democratic Party. But instead of "learning a lesson," the party's elders will continue to double down on a political domestic agenda that shuns traditional American values, our constitutional order, separation of powers and the uniquely American culture, in favor of political correct policies that are really little more than soft tyranny.The Democratic Party has become one giant hypocrisy. It claims to be inclusive, but it divides the American people by gender, race and sexual preference. It claims to be tolerant, but is impatient and hostile to anyone who has an opposing point of view. Rather than encourage dialogue to settle differences, Democrats shout down, humiliate and belittle political opponents. Instead of being champions of the Middle Class, they pursue and implement big government policies that hurt and destroy the Middle Class. And instead of embracing all of the Constitution, Democrats adhere to, or ignore, our founding document based on their own political objectives at the time.There's no question that the political 'dynasty' of Bill and Hillary Clinton is over following her defeat. The fact is, it's very possible, too, that she and Obama have taken their party down with her.
Stock prices plunge

Americans are fed up with Obamacare and high drug prices

(NaturalNews) Finally, the Obama Justice Department is getting something right.As reported by, stocks for generic drug makers began to collapse in recent days, after news broke that the Justice Department's investigation into collusion and dramatic price increases will result in the first charges being brought by the end of this year.Other news reports noted that prosecutors have begun to close in on generic Big Pharma companies, following a sweeping criminal investigation into what is believed to be massive drug price collusion. It's the latest assault against an industry that has been hard hit in recent years, after public outrage over the dramatic price increases of some medications, including a few that have been on the market for decades.As further noted by, the antitrust investigation began about two years ago, and has grown to involve more than a dozen companies and two dozen different drugs, according to people who are familiar with the investigation.A grand jury is determining whether some Big Pharma executives may have agreed with each other to simultaneously raise drug prices.Although some of the companies have made various disclosures related to the probe, they have only acknowledged a few drugs that are under scrutiny, including an antibiotic and a heart treatment.lists some of the companies under investigation:"Mylan NV and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Other companies include Actavis, which Teva bought from Allergan Plc in August, Lannett Co., Impax Laboratories Inc., Covis Pharma Holdings Sarl, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Mayne Pharma Group Ltd., Endo International Plc's subsidiary Par Pharmaceutical Holdings and Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd."Every company involved in the probe is cooperating with Justice Department prosecutors except for Covis, whose officials said last year they were not able to assess the outcome of the investigation. Other companies, including Teva, have denied they are involved in any scheme to fix drug prices.Upon hearing the news, shares of all the companies that have been named in the investigation fell.Lannett dropped 27 percent to close at $17.25 in New York trading. Impax fell 20 percent to $16.50. Endo fell by 19 percent to $14.63, while Teva slid 9.5 percent to $39.20, Allergan declined by 4.6 percent to $188.82, and Mylan dropped 6.9 percent to $34.14. Shares of Concordia International Corp., whichreports have bought most of Covis's assets, declined 5.6 percent to 4.37 Canadian dollars. Taro shares fell 7.3 percent to $93.68.Americans, by and large, are not fans of Obamacare and are tired of seeing their premiums and out-of-pocket expenses like deductibles continue to rise. And they are extremely fed up with Big Pharma continually raising prices for common drugs that have long been generic.For instance, the country was shocked when former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli touched off a firestorm of protest when he acquired an old anti-parasitic drug and then raised its price from $13.50 per tablet to an eye-popping $750 each.Also, Pharmaceuticals International Inc. was heavily criticized by Congress after jacking up prices of many older drugs. And in September, House members grilled Mylan Chief Executive Officer Heather Bresch over her company'ssince 2007 to $600 for a pair of EpiPen allergy shots.Though up to now attention has largely been focused on brand-name drugs, which are traditionally more pricey, the Justice Department investigation is now targeting generic medications as well It's not illegal for drug companies to raise prices at the same time. However, it is unlawful for competitors to get together and agree to set prices on discounts, fees or production quotas that have an effect on prices.Sources toldthat criminal charges could be leveled at some high-level executives.
(NaturalNews) As the evidence supporting marijuana's healing properties continues to grow, the number of businesses getting involved with the commercialization of the plant also continues to expand. And despite the DEA's refusal to reschedule cannabis and relax federal laws surrounding marijuana, states continue to vote on and enforce their own laws surrounding the cannabis plant  particularly to acknowledge its medicinal properties.So far, a number of states have legalized marijuana for medical use, and some have even legalized recreational use.The expansion of marijuana's legality will undoubtedly create large opportunities for the industry. It has been suggested that the actions of these states will lead to the creation of a very viable market for marijuana across North America.That's why it's not really that surprising that in 2015 rumors about Monsanto's desire to get involved with the cannabis industry began to circulate. Alternative news outlets were the first to report on it, and marijuana advocates were quick to criticize Monsanto's plans for creating a monopoly on the plant.Just a few months ago, in April, a Monsanto spokesperson insisted that the company had no plans to get involved with the cannabis industry. In an interview, the company's spokeswoman, Charla Lord, told the, "Monsanto has not, is not and has no plans for working on cultivating cannabis."Of course, many people continued to keep an eye on the company's activity. Some even believed that the company had already begun to dive into the marijuana industry, and were simply keeping it a secret.While some may have dismissed such suspicions as "conspiracy theories," they were theories that were proven true; it has been revealed that Monsanto has already created the first GMO strain of cannabis. And, they want to patent it.Fortunately, there are those who see fit to stand in the way of Monsanto's big plans. A start-up called Phylos Bioscience has launched an interactive guide that maps the genetic evolution of the marijuana plant. Asreports, "This mapping allows for specific strains of marijuana  that are already in the public domain  a form of protection from large biotech patenting, such as Monsanto."For the last two years, Phylos Bioscience has been dedicated to collecting samples of different strains of cannabis. In doing so, they have been able to sequence the plant's DNA, and to develop software to present a 3-D visual simulation of their data.The company has launched this interactive guide, which is called Galaxy, allowing users to travel through a 3-D model of the genetic information that's been drawn from sequencing samples of the plant. Galaxy gives users the ability to see the hereditary sequence of each plant, by following lines that connect strains to their genetic parent or offspring. Plants that are similar are located close to each other, while colors are used to group the plants into "tribes" based on their regions, reportsThe map also allows users to view the relationship between different strains. According to Phylos Bioscience, their plant DNA sequencing will help bring order to the marijuana industry. The company states that they have sequenced DNA from over a thousand different plants and compared them."We mapped those relationships into three dimensions using Principal Components Analysis, a well-established technique in the field of population genetics. We combined this approach with other statistical genetics methods that generate 'heredity lines' connecting closely related samples; and then we made it interactive. These techniques have never been combined into a single visualization before, for any species."The company says that their project was developed to create more understanding of the cannabis plant's history and evolution, as well as its future. Their documentation may even help with creating more accurate products. "We want to know where they came from, why they're so different, and what makes each one unique. And we want consumers and patients to finally know what they're getting and be able to get it again."And, of course, protecting one of nature's most valuable plants from corruption and greed doesn't hurt. The hemp industry is also beginning to boom  but not all hemp extracts are created equal. That's why Mike Adams has joined up with Native Hemp Solutions to create a hemp extract with CBD content that's lab-validated. The Ranger's own CWC Labs tests these extracts to ensure 100 percent authenticity.
Violent leftists call for mass murder, executions and beatings of Trump supporters

PREDICTION: Trump supporters will start shooting back in self-defense any day now

(NaturalNews) Now that the voters have wholly rejected the retarded, delusional leftist vision for America -- which we might as well just call "liberal suicide" -- the real character of the left is on full display. Today, angry liberals are turning to, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, the assassination of Trump and the bloody beatings of all whites.Yes, the racism, violence, bigotry and HATE of the left has finally come out of the closet.I saw this coming, of course, long ago. If you're a regular Natural News reader, you may recall my August 30th article entitled Chaos will erupt across America in less than 100 days... no matter who wins the election . Now, like clockwork, it's all coming trueIn a section of that article entitled "If Trump wins, the left goes full terror," I wrote:That article, of course, was widely mocked by the incompetent, idiotic media (and brain damaged leftists in general), yetas we all can now see. (Once again, Natural News was right and the entire establishment was incredibly wrong... are you surprised?)Now, the left is going "full terror" and calling for mass killings of Trump supporters and white people in general. Yep,From Mediaite , we learn that a Los Angeles Latina woman is calling for mass deaths to defeat Trump. "People have to die to make a change in this world," she says, meaning of course thatfor her own race to conquer California and take over America.But this call for genocidal mass murder is just the beginning of how leftists really feel, now that they've lost the White House, the Senate, the House and the US Supreme Court. They just can't wait to murder as many white people as possible. To them, this is called "tolerance" and "inclusiveness" because they are all, of course.As this Infowars article shows a Chicago mob of Clinton supporters beating a Trump voter to a bloody pulp, all while screaming, "You voted Trump? You gonna pay for that sh#t!"Via Infowars:In other words, thehas begun, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood leftist bigots.Not to be outdone by the violent racist bigots in Chicago, the triggered snowflakes in Oakland have decided to start setting fires to their own communities while screaming "F##k Donald Trump!" The idiocy of this tactic is, of course, a perfect representation of the extreme hatred, destruction and racism of the political left.Anti-American leftists in Portland, Oregon, another bastion of communists and leftist dipsh#ts, decided towhile chanting racist, bigoted memes against Trump and his supporters:Meanwhile, Twitter exploded with a barrage of explicit death threats against Donald Trump from enraged, bigoted, murderous Clinton supporters.Christine W. Chandler tweeted, "Someone, anyone, PLEASE take a sniper rifle and kill Trump; shoot him in the head..."Christine Chandler is a leftist moron, of course, who doesn't even know how sniper rifles work. She also has no clue that if things move toward civil war in America, SHE is more likely to be taken out by a sniper rifle than Donald Trump!Another African-American woman tweets, "i have never in my life wished death on anyone, but dear god, i am begging you, please kill trump"Another twitter user blares, "DEATH TO TRUMP AND ALL HIS SUPPORTERS"Meanwhile, as The Daily Caller reports, "Twitter is exploding with people calling for president-elect Donald Trump to be assassinated."One Twitter user name "molly" explains why the murder must include more than just Trump: "if trump gets assassinated then y'all are gonna have michael pence and he is possibly even worse. so u need to assassinate both of them"Another African-American user named "greg" explains why "niggas" better not miss: "I just pray that the first nigga who tries to assassinate Donald Trump don't miss"Yet another violence-promoting leftist moron adds to the calls for murder with this precious tweet: "Trump ain't president 'til inauguration day lmao you guys still have time to assassinate BOTH Trump and Pence."As Breitbart.com is reporting , the genius leftists in California who have already destroyed their own economy are nowto further disrupt their own state:I predict that armed Trump supporters -- law-abiding citizens who legally carry concealed, loaded weapons like I do -- will start shooting back in self-defense.For months, I have urged Natural News readers to. I've urged you toand get safety training with your handgun so that you can operate it in a safe and consistent manner (yes, shooting violent attackers is a form of "safety"). Now, that moment has arrived.Today, I call on all Trump supporters to do three very important things:#1) DEFEND your lives just as you have defended your nation in this election.#2) FOLLOW THE LAW and do not instigate violence.#3) CARRY RESPONSIBLY and only use firearms as a last ditch, necessary defense to halt violence and save lives (including your own).We the People must now stand in unity against leftist violence, terrorism and murder. We must defend our lives, our families and our communities against the violent, extremist left. Where justified, we must deploy our Second Amendment rights in the legal self-defense of our lives and property. This is how we make American SAFE again and send an important message to the violent, hate-filled, racist left:
NASA's tiny "black magic" box will measure rain and snowfall on the Earth from space.

Previous satellites that used to guide communications over the air had the parabolic dish. These satellites were the ones that cast the "black magic" and the bigger the antenna, the better it is at catching or transmitting signals from far away.

But CubeSats are now changing the conventional design of the spacecraft. They are light, cheap and tiny - most are just about the size of a cereal box. And antenna designers have packed their "black magic" into a device without a dish.

"It's like pulling a rabbit out of a hat," Nacer Chahat, a specialist in antenna design at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. "Shrinking the size of the radar is a challenge for NASA. As space engineers, we usually have lots of volume, so building antennas packed into a small volume isn't something we're trained to do."

Using this new antenna design, Chahat and his team worked with a CubeSat team for the antenna of the new Radar in a CubeSat (RainCube), a technology demonstration that will use radar to measure rain and snowfall. RainCube, which is scheduled to launch in 2018, has a distinctive antenna that resembles an umbrella stuffed into a jack-in-a-box. When open, the ribs extend out of a canister and spread out a golden mesh.

CubeSats are measured in increments of 1U (CubeSat unit), where 1U is roughly equivalent to a 4-inch cubic box or 10x10x10 cubic centimeters. The RainCube antenna has to be small enough to be crammed into a 1.5 U container.

"Large, deployable antennas that can be stowed in a small volume are a key technology for radar missions," Eva Peral, principal investigator for RainCube at JPL, said in the same statement. "They open a new realm of possibilities for science advancement and unique applications."

To maintain its size, the RainCube antenna relies on high-frequency Ka-band wavelength, which also helps increase data transfer over long distances.

According to NASA, the development of RainCube's antenna can test the use of CubeSats more generally. With the right technology, the CubeSats could be used as far away as Mars or beyond, which could open them up to a whole range of future missions.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Samir Ali  Trend:

Azerbaijan respects the choice of the American people and hopes for cooperation with Donald Trump, said Ali Hasanov, Azerbaijani presidents aide for public and political affairs.

The American people made its choice yesterday. They chose Donald Trump as their 45th president, Hasanov told reporters in Baku Nov. 10 as he was commenting on the results of the US presidential election.

He reminded that Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev sent a congratulatory letter to Trump.

Hasanov also said there are effective cooperation ties between the US and Azerbaijan.

International cooperation in the energy sphere, the cooperation in regional and international transportation and communications are among them, he noted, adding that security is also one of the successful cooperation areas.

We are participating in peacemaking processes in the world for many years, added Hasanov. Azerbaijani servicemen took part in the peacemaking process shoulder to shoulder with the US servicemen in Europe and other hot points of the world.

We think the cooperation in these spheres will continue, he said.

However, Hasanov added, Azerbaijans biggest expectation  as it was indicated by President Ilham Aliyev in his congratulatory letter  is to see the US work more actively and dynamically within the OSCE Minsk Group.

We believe the US, under the leadership of Donald Trump, will more actively work within the OSCE Minsk Group, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which hasnt been solved for many years, will be resolved, the status quo in this process will be eliminated and the process will gain dynamism, he said.

The presidential aide also noted that the US-Azerbaijan relations will continue and develop further.
The ambitious Juno mission sent to space to investigate and observe the harsh environment of Jupiter has been facing not only engine trouble but also a series of other glitches that had already caused major delays in the mission. But how is Juno today?

The last few months have been challenging for NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter. Juno already missed a supposed Jupiter flyby and had entered safe mode last October. And until today, it looks like Juno is not yet catching up with the initial plan.

Last month, an engine burn was supposed to be conducted to place Juno in the low-altitude orbit around Jupiter called the science orbit. That wasn't executed due to a failure in the spacecraft's helium valve. So technically, Juno is currently in the wrong orbit around Jupiter.

Scientists are working hard to put Juno in the 'science orbit' but reports say that NASA already confirmed that another delay is inevitable and that the entry to the correct orbit may not happen sooner.

The orbit insertion was supposed to happen last Oct. 19th. This would have set Juno in a 14-day science orbit from its current 53.5-day elliptical orbit. But it wasn't performed as planned. The next opportunity also known as perijove, Juno's close approach to the gas planet, is set to occur on Dec. 11 and it will be the best time to attempt an orbit change to the science orbit, according to Gizmodo.

However, it is not clear whether an engine burn will be performed this December. What is clear is that Juno will perform a Jupiter flyby where instruments will be facing the gas planet in order to gather data.

"Juno exited safe mode as expected, is healthy and is responding to all our commands," Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California said in a press release. "We anticipate we will be turning on the instruments in early November to get ready for our December flyby," Nybakken added.

So far, there is not report as to when NASA plans to perform the engine burn to put Juno in the 14-day science orbit. The next close approach will happen on Feb. 22nd next year and another opportunity on March 27.
Space fans are well aware that there are plans for NASA to build a fully electromagnetic drive, much to the skepticism of critics. However, a leaked paper suggests they actually did it -- and it works.

A leaked, unpublished paper from NASA engineers have revealed what appears to be a fully functional EM Drive. This is a form of space drive that can produce thrust through electricity alone, which totally violates newton's Third Law of Physics.

The EM Drive is an invention of British Roger Shawyer and was controversial due to its nature. Recent "tests" have shown that the thrust these drives produce is small or even nonexistent. However, this leaked paper from NASA's Johnson Space Center appears to have made a functioning EM Drive. They even concluded it's viable for space propulsion.

According to the Register, while NASA did build a functioning EM Drive, it is in fact extremely slow. The EM Drive that was "tested" only produced 1.2 millinewtons of thrust per kilowatt. This is significantly low compared with the 60 millinewtons per kilowatt produced by the best ion drives.

While this seems tiny -- and it is -- it appears to be twice as powerful as the thrust from solar sails. An ion drive alone requires power supply and fuel (usually xenon gas). However, an EM Drive can simply run using solar power.

The EM Drive works in a frictionless vacuum where tiny amounts of thrust add up very quickly. Given that it only needs electricity, the drive could keep satellites floating almost indefinitely and journey to other planets, provided they are together.

The tests in the paper were done in a vacuum so air current didn't influence the readings. They were also conducted in a chamber that is shielded from magnetic and RF interference. If the readings are to be believed, then it's so far, so good. A theory is that protons fired around the nozzle may be providing the thrust, but this has to be proven with more tests.

Given that the paper is still unpublished, this means the paper is not yet peer reviewed. This means it may even have errors that have not been spotted by the common reader.
They are big, they are bulky, and they usually emit a dark cloud of smoke all throughout their journey. This is how we see trucks. But now, an innovative design is trying to change the way we look at trucks by making them lighter, more compact, elegant, and with less emissions.

Through the designs presented by a specialty company "Change," a new breed of electric trucks were showcased during the recently conducted London Technology Conference. The company has been developing their new truck design ready for release in the markets by 2017.

According to Change, the new truck design will promote less emissions from fossil fuel since electricity is the primary source of its power for the first 160 kilometers. But to augment for the long range travels, the truck is also equipped with a top-up energy source aside from the battery which can provide energy for an additional 800 kilometers. Change's electric trucks are also built with ultra lightweight composite materials, which cut down the total vehicle weight compared with the usual truck weight. It also has an auto-update online mechanism that works like smartphone applications. It is also specially built to accommodate future "driverless" modes where a designated button is already incorporated.

Denis Sverdlov, CEO of Change, is very positive about the production of this soon-to-be top-of-the-line vehicle. We find trucks today totally unacceptable. At Charge we are making trucks the way they should be  affordable, elegant, quiet, clean and safe. We are removing all the barriers to entry for electric vehicles by pricing them in line with conventional trucks, giving every fleet manager, tradesman or company, no matter how big or small, the opportunity to change the way they transport goods and make our towns and cities better places to live in, he said.

Through this technology on truck design, Change is looking forward to a more affordable set of trucks for different stakeholders in the future. With their high-end materials and innovative ideas, as well as lower production costs for each unit and the fact that they are now creating designs that are pleasing to the eyes, they can soon provide better options for their logistics clients.
A former Ministry of Defense (MoD) just revealed alien files containing what might have been evidence of UK's own "Area 51."

Area 51, is a United States Air Force facility located about 90 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada that is allegedly a "secret" military base. Some reports claim that Area 51 is a hotspot of alien activities. TIME notes that conspiracy theorists think that remains of crashed UFO spacecrafts are stored at the secretive area, including the infamous alien spacecraft that crashed in Roswell, N.M.

Aside from the US, UFO sightings are also common across continents. Scotland's UK has been known as a UFO hotspot. Malcolm Robinson, the founder of Strange Phenomena Investigations which carries out UFO & Paranormal research has recently revealed that a former MoD has exposed cold case police files from Bonnybridge, Scotland which revealed at least 300 sightings.

READ: UFO X-Files Revealed: MoD Source Admits Government Is Hiding Half of the Truth About Aliens

The files reveal that UK possibly houses a top secret facility similar to Area 51 and could explain why there are many UFO sightings on the area over the decades.

According to The Daily Star, Malcolm has submitted the case files to the former British Prime Minister David Cameron and has requested the government to launch a formal inquiry on the matter, focusing on the extraterrestrial sightings. However, the request was ignored.

CNN reported that in 2013, the Central Intelligence Agency finally admitted that the Area 51 in Nevada existed, but they did not admit to accusations that they are storing debris of extraterrestrial aircrafts on the base.

In 2014, Boyd Bushman, a former Area 51 scientist exposed evidence on aliens and UFOs before his last breath, Tech Times reported.

Speaking with Mark Q. Patterson, an aerospace engineer , Bushman revealed what he did at the Area 51, reverse-engineering alien UFO technology for the military. He said government is actually working with some extraterrestrial race from planet Quintumnia, located 45 years away from Earth. Some of these aliens had even died on the secret base, he said. Bushman showed photos of the aliens to prove his claim.
There is no denying the urgency of addressing the problem of global warming. The effects of this worldwide problem has long been felt; however, it is increasing in intensity and breadth over the last few years. According to studies, over one million species of animals have faced extinction as a direct result of global warming. Moreover, it is posited that 150,000 people would succumbed to the effects of the temperature rising across the globe.

Nevertheless, the statistics only keeps getting bleaker. Last November 8, 2016, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization or WMO published a report showcasing how the planet's global warming situation has only gotten worse in the last few years.

According to the study, the global average temperature between 2011 to 2015 is the hottest five-year period in recorded history while 2015 holds the title for the warmest year.

"This report confirms that the average temperature in 2015 had already reached the 1 degree-Celsius mark. We just had the hottest five-year period on record, with 2015 claiming the title of hottest individual year" explained WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas.

The rising temperatures have given way to the increase in sea levels and the upwards trend of high-impact climate occurrences.

Between 2010 and 2015, catastrophic events have been attributed to climate change across the globe. From 2010 to 2012, 258,000 people from East Africa succumbed to the famine that resulted from a two year drought. In 2011, heat waves in India and Pakistan reached insurmountable extreme causing the deaths of over 4,000 citizens. More recently in 2013, 7,800 Filipinos were killed in the onslaught of Typhoon Haiyan.

Taalas warns that if measures from the Paris agreement are not taken to action, the problem of climate change and global warming can only worsen. "Even that record is likely to be beaten in 2016" explained Taalas.
Donald Trump's victory came as a shock for most Americans across the globe. Since he announced his candidacy in June of 2015, majority of the nation's citizens considered his campaign as nothing more than a publicity stunt. However, despite losing the popular votes, Donald Trump delivered his winning speech mere hours ago as he garnered the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.

Republicans are still in the midst of celebrating the party's return to the White House. On the other hand, environmentalists from all over the world have already voiced out their concern over the appointment of the new president of the free world.

Last year, the United States, together with two hundred other countries, signed the world's first global climate pact - the Paris Agreement. During his campaign, Trump asserted that this deal would be renegotiated once he is elected president. Now that he has the position, scientists and experts attending the recent Marrakech Climate Change Conference, express their worry over the election results.

Sierra Club's executive director, Michael Brune, explains that the worry stems from the fact that Trump is the only head of state that believes climate change is not a pressing issue that needs to be addressed.

"Donald Trump has the unflattering distinction of being the only head of state in the entire world to reject the scientific consensus that humans are driving climate change" quipped Brune as reported by USA today.

In the same conference, Mariana Panuncio-Feldman, senior director of the World Wildlife Fund, recognizes the role of the Obama administration in the Paris agreement. She remains hopeful that the new president would be able to carry out the same legacy:

"Our new president needs to carry that legacy forward and make good on the promise to make America into the world's clean-energy superpower."
Seeing through opaque solids may be possible now. By sending light even through an opaque substance numerous times, you can certainly find a path through which a major portion of the light can pass through the material.

Researchers at the University of Twente and Debye Institute of Nanomaterials Science have now been successful in transmitting light of various wavelengths through an opaque object by shining it along certain paths. This could now help us in understanding on how light passes through human skin.

Light diffusion takes place when light waves come in touch with an inhomogeneous-structured object or an odd surface, which is why it's impossible to see through clouds, paper, or skin. Only a tiny percentage of light can pass through them.

However, these materials have special paths or open channels through which light can flow irrespective of its thickness, explained Jeroen Bosch,a Ph.D student at Utrecht. He said that the team sent light through the material in a random manner and used the information on the scattering of light before sending it along the same path in a different way. By doing so, researchers found that more light passed through the same material. This way they could identify the shape of the light wave that made its way easily through the material.

The level to which the light can actually penetrate through the object is mainly dependent on the shape of the wave front. And this shape varies based on the color of light. Bosch explained that this principle is applicable for all wavelengths; however, each wavelength has its own shaped wave front. On changing the wavelength and fixing the wave front, the amount of light that passes through the material is greatly reduced. The dependency of wavelengths on open channels helps researchers to measure the length of the path of the channels.
As a known denier of man-made climate change, it is not surprising that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump wants NASA to lessen their research on Earth and climate science, making the agency focus more on deep-space exploration.

According to a recent op-ed in Space News, NASA has been reduced to "a logistics agency concentrating on space station resupply and politically correct environmental monitoring" in the past few years. Under Trump's administration, NASA's core mission will be exploration, science and inspirational.

"The science that is being doing is essentially Earth-based science," said Robert S. Walker, former chairman of the House Science Committee and a likely member of Trump's NASA transition team, in a report from The Verge. It relates to weather; it relates to Earth-based needs. And so NOAA is probably a more appropriate place for that to be done."

Walker noted that should set its sight on deep space activities rather than Earth-centric work. By transferring the Earth and climate science researcher to other agencies, such as NOAA, more funds are expected to be freed to support human exploration mission of NASA into deep space.

NASA's Earth Science Division has been receiving increasing funds in the past years. For 2016, the division received $1.921 billion, up from $1.5 billion in 2009. If the division is to completely scrape out or transferred to NOAA, the allotment of funds would be focused in the deep space programs of NASA.

Within the past years, NASA have launched series of key-observing satellites to gather valuable data about the overall health of the planet, which include the Earth's climate, space weather, sea level changes, and more.

Under Trump's proposed space policy, public-private partnerships are considered to the foundation of the administration's space efforts. Government partnerships to private companies could help reduced the costs of space programs. Furthermore, private companies, such as SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Boeing/ULA are capable of thinking outside of bureaucratic structures and regulations.


Now that Trump is already in his place, elected as the new president of the United States, animal welfare activists and similar groups might be on the quandary of losing their own fight. Trump's threats posed to the animals of America, including the pets of over 80 million Americans, could possibly be in peril.

Before elections, several efforts in swinging the votes away from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump were made by a number of concerned groups alarmed with the animal welfare issues. With the protests from different groups, it was very much emphasized that Trump and his family's actions toward animals are quite harmful enough and more so if he's already the president. This pertains to the trophy hunting done by Trump's children as well as similar activities done by his colleagues shown on photos being advertised by the animal welfare groups.

In Virginia, the group Humane Society Legislative Fund has been airing advertisements together with the stunning pictures of Trump's family on animal hunting. They were positive that Virginia, as a good battleground, can help in disseminating the information faster to animal lovers, and further help in sending the message to other voters that they should rethink before casting their choices in the election.

"Trump represents the greatest threat ever to federal policy-making and implementation of animal protection laws, and we are taking the unusual step of wading actively into a presidential campaign," said Michael Markarian, chief operating officer of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.

Aside from the continuous advertisements, anti-Trump groups have also mentioned about the newly elected president's minimal affiliation to animal welfare, even during his speeches. They have emphasized that Trump did not even release any policy position that can help in animal welfare campaigns. Interestingly, they claim that Trump has accepted $5,000 of contribution just this month from a political committee which was sponsored by Safari Club International. The club is known as a group that supports and encourages big game hunting.
In case of an emergency, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) used to take refuge inside a Russian Soyuz space capsule docked at the orbiting lab. The vehicle had served as the crew's space taxi, their only means of getting to and from the ISS, since the Space Shuttle fleet was discontinued years ago.

While these vehicles, which launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, have proven to be a reliable transportation system for astronauts, they are not the ideal type that could transport sick or injured crewmembers back to Earth. According to former astronaut Stephen Robinson, who flew on four shuttle missions and currently serves as chairperson at the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at the University of California, Davis, there could be one particular space vehicle perfect for the job: the U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane.

"If somebody needs to come home soon from space, coming back on the Soyuz is going to be a pretty challenging ride - at least 4.5 Gs, fairly violent landing, and then you might not be very close to the medical care you need out in Kazakhstan," Robinson said during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group, as reported by Space.com.

According to Etan Halberg, a graduate student at UC-Davis who also talked during the presentation, one study indicated that "hard landings" of the Soyuz spacecraft could injure astronauts about 40 percent of the time.

Even vehicles developed by SpaceX and Boeing, which use similar capsule designs with parachute landings, could not be used as a space ambulance, ExtremeTech reports.

Halberg said that an astronaut ambulance should be able to stay at the ISS for two years or more at a stretch, could get crew back to Earth quickly (in a span of three hours), impose minimal G-loads on occupants, could land close to a hospital, and allow the injured or sick to lie in a supine position.

These requirements could be met by a space plane, Halberg said, and a good fit would be the X-37B space plane. The semi-secret space plane, which is in the middle of its fourth mission, would have a different ambulance version. Robinson is currently suggesting that the Air Force could repurpose the X-37B's design as an orbital rescue spacecraft, where it will feature a pilot (as a backup for the autonomous system) and enough room for two passengers (one patient and one medical officer).

Robinson and Halberg are also considering Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser space plane as another option. Dream Chaser, which looks like a smaller version of NASA's Space Shuttle, is set to fly in the United Nations' first-ever space mission in 2021.
Details added (first version posted on 13:15)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Samir Ali  Trend:

Azerbaijan respects the choice of the American people and hopes for cooperation with Donald Trump, said Ali Hasanov, Azerbaijani presidents aide for public and political affairs.

The American people made its choice yesterday. They chose Donald Trump as their 45th president, Hasanov told reporters in Baku Nov. 10 as he was commenting on the results of the US presidential election.

He reminded that Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev sent a congratulatory letter to Trump.

Hasanov also said there are effective cooperation ties between the US and Azerbaijan.

International cooperation in the energy sphere, the cooperation in regional and international transportation and communications are among them, he noted, adding that security is also one of the successful cooperation areas.

We are participating in peacemaking processes in the world for many years, added Hasanov. Azerbaijani servicemen took part in the peacemaking process shoulder to shoulder with the US servicemen in Europe and other hot points of the world.

We think the cooperation in these spheres will continue, he said.

However, Hasanov added, Azerbaijans biggest expectation  as it was indicated by President Ilham Aliyev in his congratulatory letter  is to see the US work more actively and dynamically within the OSCE Minsk Group.

We believe the US, under the leadership of Donald Trump, will more actively work within the OSCE Minsk Group, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which hasnt been solved for many years, will be resolved, the status quo in this process will be eliminated and the process will gain dynamism, he said.

The presidential aide also noted that the US-Azerbaijan relations will continue and develop further.
As Donald Trump takes over the White House, significant changes could be made in the country's clean energy movement and the fight against climate change.

During the Obama administration, the United States made substantial moves to reduce carbon emissions through the Clean Power Plan (CPP), a program by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) obliging utilities in states to cut carbon emissions. The country's participation in the Paris Climate Agreement, which entered into force this month, is also essential in keeping the pact strong.

But Trump's victory will reshape the U.S. policy on energy and environment.

Clean Energy No More?

During his campaign, Trump openly denied climate change and called it a "Chinese hoax," while threatening to "cancel" the landmark Paris climate accord. He plans to open up federal lands to oil and gas drilling, even increase production of one of the most harmful fossil fuels in the world: coal. He plans to eliminate "unnecessary" regulations in the energy industry, mostly rules that protect streams from coal mining and waterways and wetlands.

EcoWatch reported that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be dismantled, and the new cabinet will likely be stacked with pro-business and pro-fossil fuel appointees. Moreover, Trump and the Republican government could preemptively end the 30 percent Investment Tax Credit for solar energy, which had been recently extended to 2020.

The Trump administration could also "cancel all wasteful climate change spending," saying that about $100 billion will be saved, Bloomberg BNA reports.

According to a recent study from energy analytics firm Lux Research, a Trump presidency could mean 3.4 billion tons more U.S. carbon emissions than a Clinton presidency.

The Surge of Coal

Glencore Plc., the world's top coal trader, rose over 7 percent on Wednesday, while Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world's biggest wind-turbine maker, fell by 13 percent, Bloomberg reports. Solar companies First Solar, SunPower and SolarCity were also down by 6 percent, 17 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

"The result is undoubtedly a blow for the renewable energy industry," Matt Loffman, an analyst at energy consultant Douglas-Westwood in Houston, told Bloomberg.

"The oil and gas industry is a clear winner with the new president," Alexandre Andlauer, head of oil at research firm AlphaValue in Paris, said in the same statement.

Clean Energy Revolution Could Still Go On

According to a report by Bloomberg, Trump may not be able to stop the clean energy revolution that easily. Even without the Clean Power Plan, renewable energy capacity is still expected to grow more than 4 percent a year until 2040, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. About 60 gigawatts of coal-fired generating capacity will retreat by 2030, the report said.

Moreover, the absence of tax incentives may not trample renewables completely. Renewable energy could win on cost grounds, with equipment costs falling and, once installed, renewables producers will not need to pay to harness wind or solar power, Bloomberg reports. Likewise, onshore wind in the U.S. is already cost-competitive with natural gas and solar costs are decreasing.
After president-elect Donald Trump won the elections by a tight margin, scientists fear for the future of NASA and its space exploration programs. Trump was once quoted saying that money spent on space programs can still be used for projects on Earth.

The current NASA chief, Charles Bolden, had worked with President Barack Obama and other commercial space flight agencies such as SpaceX and Boeing. Today, Bolden faced the truth about the change in administration in an internal memo as Inverse reported.

There were reports that say the future Trump administration won't support NASA science as much as Obama did. This put NASA officials, scientists and employees in an uncertain condition. Bolden wants to address that.

"I think we can all be confident that the new Trump Administration and future administrations after that will continue the visionary course on which President Barack Obama has set us, a course that all of you have made possible," NASA administrator Charles Bolden, said in the memo published by SpaceRef.

This expresses the NASA chief's confidence that Trump will still back up NASA's billion dollar space explorations, most importantly the Journey to Mars. NASA has shown strength in lobbying for funding for its space explorations programs especially now that the agency is moving deeper into the Solar System.

President Obama and the White House science center expressed their support to NASA recently. "We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America's story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remains there for an extended time," President Barack Obama said in an essay published by CNN.

No one knows for sure if the Trump administration will extend the same sentiment and support towards NASA's space program but despite that, the NASA chief remains confident that the government and the new administration will back up their projects now more than ever.

With the inauguration of the James Webb Telescope, some say it will aid the search for life. Who knows astronomers may be able to find signs of life in the near future. NASA is also moving towards enhancements of asteroid prediction and is on its way to retrieve samples from an actual space rock. Clearly, this is not the time to stop the support NASA is getting from the government. And as unpredictable as he is, Bolden and the agency can only hope that the president-elect will respond positively to NASA's scientific explorations.
SpaceX faced its most difficult "anomaly" yet when a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on Cape Canaveral Air Force Base launch pad last Sept. 1. After almost two months of rigorous investigation, billionaire and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is confident that his spaceflight company may soon resume Falcon 9 launch in December.

Musk was quoted saying that he aims for a December launch during a recent TV interview. The businessman also revealed that they have discovered the cause of the explosion. The liquid oxygen used as a propellant is likely the cause of the explosion. The rocket was being fueled when the blast occurred. The liquid oxygen was extra cool and had entered the rocket in a solid state causing the explosion, Musk said.

"It basically involves liquid helium, advanced carbon fiber composites, and solid oxygen," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in an interview. "Oxygen so cold that it actually enters solid phase," Musk added.

For Musk, this finding is a bit surprising because this incident hadn't been encountered before. Given SpaceX and its unique way of fueling rockets, it is likely a new problem to investigate. Even NASA expressed its concern over SpaceX and its odd way of fueling rockets that has to be performed minutes before the launch.

"It's never happened before in history. So that's why it took us awhile to sort it out," SpaceX CEO said in an interview.

But it looks like Musk need to study this new fueling system as the investigation also found out that the interaction between the supercool liquid oxygen and the helium bottles carbon composite might have contributed to the explosion.

The incident also wrecked Facebook's Internet Satellite. But despite the unfortunate event, SpaceX is hopeful that the Falcon 9 rocket launch may resume in mid-December. The explosion requires some safety precautions and close cooperation with various agencies such as the US Air Force and the Dederal Aviation Administration before SpaceX can proceed with its scheduled launches.

SpaceX clients on the other hand, are confident that the company will be able to deliver its obligations and will resume launches in the soonest time possible.
Sisters Beth Casey and Christine Banducci dont remember the sound of their fathers voice. They only know his face from pictures, and his words from the letters he mailed home from Vietnam in 1967.

Not long after the letters arrived, military personnel showed up to tell the siblings' mother that her husband, Denis OConnor, was gone. He had been killed in an ambush, they said.

Beth noticed that mom was crying and had a lot of questions, Banducci said, relating a story her mother Patty Ekenberg had told her. Why did the men come to the door and make mom cry?

This Veterans Day in San Francisco, the American Legion will rededicate a newly-cast plaque honoring the 168 city residents who died in the Vietnam War. OConnor, who was born in San Francisco, is among the names engraved on the memorial.

Just seeing it engraved just really makes it so real, Casey said.

AP

The sisters, along with their mother and other family members, plan to attend the 4 p.m. ceremony at the War Memorial Building, where the plaque is being relocated after 15 years on the Embarcadero. Paul Cox, who chairs the American Legion War Memorial Commission, said the Embarcadero site wasnt fitting for the poignant memorial.

It had been tagged, it hadnt been maintained, Cox said, his voice echoing through the cavernous lobby of the War Memorial Building. It was a good thing to move it here because this is where that memory needs to be held.

Cox said the newly re-cast plaque also gave organizers the opportunity to add the names of five previously-unknown casualties  whose names were identified on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.

These were real individuals  they had families they had parents, siblings, girlfriends, wives, children, Cox said. That loss is very real and is still felt by those families.

Casey was 2 years old and her sister was a year younger when OConnor was killed at the age of 27. They came to know their dad through the letters written by his fellow servicemen, attesting to his bravery and sense of humor.

Their grandfather from Ireland sent the women a 54-page handwritten letter on the familys history, and his recollection of OConnor as a boy.

In those years growing up, it didnt come up that much, Casey said. We just knew our dad died in Vietnam.

Their mother married a man who then adopted the two girls. But tragedy visited the family again when he died of a heart-attack at the age of 51. After that, their mother began to reveal more details of their dad  his dedication to God, country and family.

Through my mom we just started to learn about the person that he was, Casey said.

The women recently sat at a round dining table in Orinda covered with letters, news clippings, pictures and a family album. A newspaper article about OConnors death was accompanied by a picture of the young sisters and their mother.

Banducci related that earlier in the day, she drove past the hillside crosses in Lafayette that are dedicated to service members killed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. She likened the crosses to the raised brass letters of her fathers name on the Vietnam Memorial.

I think it really is important to have something visual, to have names, Banducci said, to realize that those were families that suffered a great loss.
Donald Trump's divisive presidential victory has triggered panic among undocumented immigrants in the Bay Area.

Mayor Ed Lee on Thursday reaffirmed San Francisco's status as a sanctuary city, with the hope of calming fears of an immigration crackdown.

Being a sanctuary city is in our DNA, he posted on Twitter around 11 a.m. San Francisco will never be anything other than a sanctuary city.

An hour later, Lee added: "San Francisco will continue to be a beacon of light, a city dedicated to progress."

Lee also hosted a news conference to the same effect. He said that he hopes Trump will realize that cutting federal funding for sanctuary cities could also hurt people who the President-elect promised to help.

"I think we have about a half-billion dollars in direct funding  probably more when we look at how we disperse state funding," Lee said. "I hope politics does not get in the way of public service."

Lee said that if Trump signals an intent to take on cities like San Francisco, leaders have to be ready. So he is meeting with various department heads to make sure the city keeps its values intact.

In a statement issued Wednesday after Trumps stunning win, Lee attempted to assuage brewing unrest amid San Franciscans.

He addressed the feelings of anxiety and fear that were prompted by a polarizing election, but said that San Francisco will remain San Francisco and offer inclusiveness, tolerance and compassion.

Lee continued: Let us come together to show the nation and the world what we have always known, anything is possible when we are united for the common good.

San Francisco will continue to be a beacon of light, a city dedicated to progress.

San Francisco will remain #SanFrancisco  Mayor Ed Lee (@mayoredlee) November 10, 2016

The citys residents appear to have come together after Hillary Clinton conceded to Trump. Only, they are united in their anger and heartbreak, which has triggered protests, walk-outs, and sit-ins.

There is growing resolve among immigrants' rights activists to resist Trump.

"Undocumented and unafraid," protesters chanted at a rally outside San Francisco's Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

However, immigration attorney Luis Angel Reyes Savalza said, "There is fear, tremendous fear in the community."

Savalza is also an undocumented immigrant. He is currently protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which was signed by President Barack Obama in 2012.

Since Wednesday, his phone has been ringing non-stop, Savalza said.

"Even clients who already have status and shouldnt be at risk of anything called me and said, 'Whats going to happen? Am I going to get deported. My kid doesnt want to go to school,'" he said.

Valeria Suarez is a student at the University of Berkeley, and her mother lives in Peru.

"I woke up to calls from her and to messages saying, 'What are we going to do? How am i going to keep you safe?'" Suarez said.

Her fellow Cal student Juan Prieto expressed fear that federal policies could soon threaten immigrants.

"Sanctuary cities would lose their federal funding," he said. "That might encourage cities to remove sanctuary city policies."

San Francisco's sanctuary city policy was criticized after Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old Pleasanton resident, was shot dead in July 2015 while strolling along the Embarcadero with her father. The suspect, Francisco Sanchez, was in jail less than four months before the fatal shooting and should have been turned over to federal immigration officials upon his release. Instead, he was set free because the city and county of San Francisco are sanctuaries for immigrants, and they do not turn over undocumented people  if they don't have active warrants out for them.
Some California voters are so disgusted with the presidential election outcome, they want the state to leave the union.

The post-election outrage from some has sparked an online movement to secede from the United States, in effect making California it's own nation in what some are dubbing a Cal-exit.

"I would sign my name on it, definitely," Berkeley resident Joy Hwang said. "I was just telling my friend I hope and pray it comes true."

One group called Yes California is planning the Cal-exit by trying to qualify an intiative for the 2018 ballot.

"That's crazy; that's just beyond imaginable," Matt Bufka, of Daly City, said.

Law professors said the vote wouldn't work because a secession requires a constitutional amendment from Congress, with two-thirds support.

"So it's not California at all that makes the decision; it's really the entire United States," legal expert Margaret Russell said. "And I just can't imagine any reason why the rest of the United States would be interested in that."

So while it's not likely, it is possible, and that keeps some hopes alive.

"A poll can one day turn into a movement," Hwang said. "So I think it's the start of something big."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

The Ambassador of Romania to Azerbaijan Dan Iancu visited Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) and met with BHOS Rector Elmar Gasimov.

Welcoming the guest, Elmar Gasimov informed him about establishment of the Higher school, its activities and achievements attained within a short period of time. He also told the Romanian Ambassador about academic activities and programs at BHOS, conditions created for students, widening international relations of the school and BHOS cooperation with leading universities and companies operating in the oil and gas industry around the world. Elmar Gasimov invited Dan Iancu to deliver a speech for BHOS students.

The Ambassador of Romania to Azerbaijan Dan Iancu accepted the invitation with gratitude. He emphasized that a special attention shall be paid to development of business relations between BHOS and similar universities in Romania and shared his vision about prospects of their cooperation. Activities to be carried out within such cooperation including student exchange programs and other issues of mutual interest were also discussed at the meeting.
Los Angeles supervisors are urging "Star Wars" creator George Lucas to bring his planned Museum of Narrative Art to LA, not San Francisco.

Lucas has proposed two possible sites for the institution: LA's Exposition Park, across from the Natural History Museum, and Treasure Island in San Francisco. Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said Wednesday that the museum would bring 1,500 construction jobs and another 350 permanent jobs to the city.

Los Angeles supporters point out that Lucas attended film school at University of Southern California and founded Industrial Light and Magic in Van Nuys before moving it north.

The nonprofit museum -- which will focus on movies, art and storytelling -- is expected be fully funded by the Lucas family.

Lucas earlier this year abandoned plans to build the museum in Chicago.
More than a thousand students took to the streets of San Francisco Thursday to take part in a citywide student walkout to protest President-elect Donald Trump, marking a second day of anti-Trump protests in the Bay Area, joining thousands across the nation expressing their disappointment and anger at the election results.

Students from at least 10 San Francisco Unified School District schools started their march in front of the city's iconic City Hall building and made their way on Market Street, ending on the Embarcadero, near Fisherman's Wharf, chanting, "Move Trump, get out the way," and "Not my future, not my president," a call that has taken over the country.

Emily Montiel, a junior at Galileo High School, said she was happy to take action, using social media to call on her friends to join together in protest.

"I'm hoping he sees this protest," she said. "I don't think hell be like, 'I'm sorry,' but he will probably put it into consideration and change some things."

Balboa High senior Emma Sanford was already thinking impeachment.

"I know it's a very different process and has to do with the Senate, so I'm just hoping something will happen, I'm not sure what," she said. "Were very unhappy, and we want to express that."

San Francisco police said the most challenging part for them was keeping the students safe, as it appeared the marches initially had no clear direction.

"We just had to take our vans and move our people on foot, follow wherever they went," Lt. Jason Sawyer said. "They're expressing their frustrations, but overall they've been easy to work with, not mad at us. It's been OK."

Similar protests were held by school students in Oakland, San Jose, Concord, Napa and other cities across the Bay Area.

Thursdays protest came after two different #NotMyPresident marches took place in San Francisco Wednesday, both peaceful, and the second one involving women, LGBTQ and immigrant groups who marched from the Civic Center to the Castro and held a candlelight vigil, before ending in the Mission District.

Bay Area Students Walk Out of Classes to Protest Donald Trump

One woman at the vigil, who wanted to stay anonymous said, "I'm devastated by the election results and felt like I had to do something." Her friend added, "This is not the America that I want; it's very disappointing that this is happening."

But Uber driver Kevin, who got stuck in the middle of the protest, said that even though he wasn't happy with the Election Night results, he was upset with the protests that took place in Oakland and Berkeley, where people were damaging property.

"I don't want no part of that because I know what that's going to lead to, bashing up other people's businesses," he said. "I don't mind peaceful protests, but that kind of protest, no way: freeways getting blocked, cops getting assaulted, innocent people getting pepper-sprayed. I'd rather drive Uber and make a buck."

The protests in San Francisco have so far remained peaceful compared to those in neighboring Oakland and Berkeley, where students, including those from UC Berkeley, have set trash and tires on fire to voice their displeasure. On Wednesday night, a protest in downtown Oakland turned violent when protesters resorted to rocks, bottles, fireworks and Molotov cocktails and even vandalized mom-and-pop businesses, smashing their windows and trashing their walls. Police arrested 30 people and cited 11 during the Oakland protest.

On Tuesday, students from a number of San Francisco schools came together, many carrying signs similar to those in earlier protests: "Not My President," "Black Lives Matter." "Make America Love Again," and P--- Grabs Back."

School district officials said Thursday's walkouts were not authorized, and families would be notified about unexcused absences.
Millenials. College students. High school students.

And on Thursday, about 300 middle school students in Oakland, who organized their act of civil disobedience on Instagram, walked out of class to make their voices heard in a Donald Trump presidential era.

Teacher Lacy Lefkowitz said about 300 6th, 7th and 8th graders at Claremont Middle School walked out of second period to march around the Rockridge neighborhood. They did not break windows or wreak havoc, as has occurred in other #NotMyPresident protests around the country, including large rallies in San Francisco and Oakland.

Instead, they walked around the block, alongside some teachers as a symbolic gesture to show that their voices can be heard. One girl carried a sign that read, "We have the right to protest."

Theyre concerned about racism, the wall Trump wants to build and immigration, Lefkowitz said. Its not OK to loot and set fires. But I think this is a great thing for them to do.

Many children in blue states have expressed concerns with Trump as president, worrying that their families might be ripped apart if his call to send immigrants back to Mexico and his hope to ban Muslims from entering the country will become a reality.

Principal Jonathan Mayer sanctioned the small protest, as long at the students were back in class by third period. He also sent a robo-call to parents about the student-led walkout at 9:30 a.m. saying that at all times we had teachers and adult supervisors and no one went into street. A handful of students didnt immediately return to class, he said, and their parents were called. Parents did not know about the walkout beforehand, and NBC Bay Area did not show their faces or interview them without permission.

We support students rights to express themselves, Mayer said in the call. We encourage them to take their political activism to act with friends and make a difference.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Lisa Fernandez's son attends Claremont Middle School.
A foot massage is usually relaxing experience.

But this small indulgence for the toes has triggered a large headache for several San Francisco residents.

Joshua Zerkel says he spent $168 about a year ago prepaying for massages at Relax Feet on Valencia Street. Paying up front made sense because he got a discount.

It was a pretty good deal, he said. I thought, Ill use this.

But back in April, Joshua discovered that the stack of gift cards hed bought were suddenly worthless.

When I called them up to use them, they told me that they were no longer valid, he explained. They had changed ownership, and they would no longer honor these.

Relax Feet had become 620 Massage, and Joshua was told it was under new management.

Its essentially the same story, said Greg Myers.

Myers and his wife, Lonnie Lebin, also bought prepaid massages from Relax Feet on Noriega Street. That location became Sweet & Smile Massage, which also refused to honor prepaid purchases.

Were out $140, Lebin said.

MULTIPLE COMPLAINTS

NBC Bay Area Responds logged five complaints about former Relax Feet locations. Many other complaints are posted on various social media forums.

Relax Feet had several locations in San Francisco. All recently closed or changed names, leaving customers like Zerkel, Myers and Lebin in a lurch.

So, we began asking questions.

Santa Clara University law professor Anna Han told us businesses are supposed to take into account liabilities like prepaid purchases when companies change hands. Someones on the hook, either the new management or the old, she said.

We called, wrote and even visited the massage parlors in person to ask for an explanation. But we never received a response.

MURKY PAPER TRAIL

Next, we requested state records.

The Articles of Organization  basically a businesss birth certificate  told us that the location Loni and Greg used has new management.

But, the shop Zerkel used, now called 620 Massage, was registered by the same "manager" who filed paperwork for the old business, Relax Feet, eight years ago.

Even that doesnt tell us the whole story.

Although state records show when ownership changes occur, the actual names of business owners arent required in public records.

You cant really get to the true owners, Han said.

LEGAL OPTIONS

Han says getting to those who are financially responsible will probably require a lawsuit.

Consumers can try to get a court to look through the sale, she said. To look past the technical transaction and hold the previous owners liable.

Coincidentally, Han says she recently faced a similar situation with a different company.

I purchased a package myself in an Oakland massage place, she said. Particularly, having sort of experienced this myself, I would say dont buy any long term packages. Dont spend a lot of money on packages.

After Zerkel called NBC Bay Area Responds and we began asking questions, 620 Massage updated its website with an announcement.

It read, A prepaid package holder will be able use it at 620 Massage locations. Even though we are not related to Relax Feet, we also consider you as our important customer.

Im really surprised, Zerkel said. Ive called numerous times  as have other people  and there was no recourse for us.

The announcement that 620 Massage will honor Relax Feet gift cards is good news for Zerkel. But not Greg and Lonnie.

'JUST HONOR IT'

Their former Relax Feet location isnt budging. Han says Greg and his wife will probably have to sue.

Lonnie, a retired schoolteacher, offers the owner an easier solution: Just honor it, she said. This is San Francisco, we honor things here.
Esra Nur Altun, a 19-year-old psychology student at San Jose State University, was walking to her car on Wednesday, the morning after Donald Trump was elected president, when she said an unknown attacker came up to her and tried to yank off her hijab.

He caused me to choke, and my back arched, the Uzbekistan-born student told NBC Bay Area on Thursday morning. I tried to pull away from him. I fell on my knees. He didnt say anything. He ran away as I hit the floor.

Altun said she was walking with friends  who all look out for each other when they go to the parking garage  up to the third floor of the West Garage at Fourth and San Salvador streets on Wednesday about 1:15 p.m. when the man tried to pull off her head scarf. She said she only saw the back of him, and not his face, but it looked like he was wearing a dark-colored hoodie, khaki pants and black Vans.

She said the campus alert had the wrong date of the attack, which the university first reported as Tuesday, before all the ballots had been counted.

I dont know why he did it, she said. But it is a weird coincidence that it happened after Donald Trump was elected."

Trump has been a fan favorite of many in the alt right movement, and his calls to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and his desire to ban Muslims from entering the country have ignited a fresh hope among neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, which endorsed his rise to presidency. The Southern Poverty Law Center this week said there has been a "rash of hate crimes" extraordinary around the country.

Trump has not openly courted white supremacists to support him, but he has also been quiet in telling them to stop.

As a result, Nazi-era symbols and calls for a white America have cropped up this election season, and now, with Trump's elected rise to power. For example, a wall at Canisius College near Buffalo was vandalized this week with the words Make America White Again, along with swastikas. A San Francisco man flew a swastika flag from his home on Wednesday afternoon for a short time, not because he supports the Nazis, but because he was trying to forewarn the country what might happen under a Trump administration.

Despite what happened, Altun said that she does not believe San Jose State is a haven for bigotry. That's despite the fact that the campus became a national focal point of hate in 2013, when three white students were convicted of misdemeanor battery charges after they tormented an African-American freshman by putting a bike lock around his neck and called him a slave.

This is not a racist place,  she said. Look at all the support Ive been getting. Word is traveling and people are offering to walk me to my car. I just never thought something like this would happen in campus. I wish the attacker knew what Islam was, what it really means.

So Altun and her friends are trying to explain their religion to anyone who is confused or doesnt understand. They are speaking up.

"Come at us," Muslim Student Association president Doaa Abdelrahman said rhetorically to Trump and other bigots at a rally Wednesday afternoon on campus. "Whether you're black, Muslim, an immigrant, disabled, be proud of who you are. You have nothing to be ashamed of. No matter what, Islam is a beautiful, peaceful religion and I will always be proud to be a Muslim."

Altun and Abdelrahaman said they are setting up meetings with Kathleen Wong (Lau), the schools chief diversity officer, as well as the Council on American Islamic Relations in Santa Clara, to see how to move forward.

I want to know how were going to be protected, Abdelrahaman said. I want to make sure this doesnt happen to any other minority.

For the university's part, an email was sent out after the attack saying that officials are "closely monitoring the situation" because "no one should experience this kind of behavior at San Jose State."

Altuns parents, Mahmut and Saule Altun, who are Kurdish and Russian, also plan to write Congress to say that intolerance against minorities must not be tolerated. CAIR spokeswoman Zahra Billoo praised Abdelrahman and others speaking up for being so bold and said she'd help the students work with the university to protect them in the "aftermath of the election."

Racism existed before Trump, Abdelrahaman said. But he is behind this gas of fire where he keeps adding fuel to it.
The mayor of Oakland called protesters to end the mayhem after three Oakland police officers were injured, three Pleasanton patrol cars were damaged and 30 people were arrested late Wednesday when an anti-Donald Trump rally turned violent with rocks, bottles, fireworks, M-80s and Molotov cocktails.

Oakland police said the arrests and 11 other citations ranged from assault, vandalism, unlawful assembly, failure to disperse and possession of a firearm. No individual names or cities of residence were immediately disclosed. A total of 40 fires were set and at least 16 shops vandalized, police said.

At a news conference on Thursday, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf implored Trump protesters not to resort to violence. She said while there are many reasons to be angry, the violence only hurts the community.

Added council president Lynette Gibson McElhaney: "We are a sanctuary city," and as "hurt as we are...we don't break windows, we gonna lift our voices."

She reminded the public that the destruction ends up hurting small business owners, many of whom can't even afford insurance against vandalism.

"It's been heartbreaking in the wake of that national disappointment to have our local small businesses suffer," McElhaney said. "These aren't the people who have inflicted pain."

To that, business owner Nenna Jenner said, "We can't afford these fixes!"

Property owner Tyler Graffingna spent Thursday cleaning after protesters left windows shattered and buildings marred with graffiti.

"I don't see what ... destruction of people's property has to do with freedom of speech," he said.

At a news conference on Thursday, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf implored Trump protesters not to resort to violence. She said while there are many reasons to be angry, the violence only hurts the community. Pete Suratos reports.

The #NotOurPresident rally, for the second consecutive night since Trump was declared president in this liberal bastion along the West Coast, started off peacefully, police said, on Wednesday at 4:40 p.m. at Frank Ogawa Plaza.

But the group of a "couple hundred" people soon swelled into a mass of 7,000 police said. The group marched and chanted, "Not our president" while others carried signs saying, "Donald Trump is a rapist" and "Secede #CalExit." Some protesters carried American flags and waved them beating drums. Some threw on Donald Trump masks, others covered their faces in hankerchiefs.

The protest mirrors others around the country, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago to New York.

NBC Bay Area/Telemundo

"I am queer, I am Mexican," one woman said in Spanish, explaining why she was out, fearful of what Trump's immigration policies would do to her and her loved ones.

Anti-Trump Protesters Hit the Streets in the Bay Area

But at some point, police said, the large group splintered off into smaller factions, and some of those people began trashing businesses. Oakland is often Ground Zero for protests. Over the last year or so, Black Lives Matter protests have turned rowdy as people called for justice after African-American men have died across the United States at the hands of police. The Occupy movement is also very strong in this city of 400,000. Those protests have also damaged small businesses.

An Oakland police officer watches over an anti-Trump rally in Oakland. Three officers were injured when the protest turned violent. Nov. 9, 2016

But violence is not what Trump's main rival called for. In an early concession speech on Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton asked the nation to heal keep an open mind in giving Trump a chance to lead.

Despite the calls for peace, the protest in Oakland on Wednesday late at night got ugly. A window of the Agave Uptown restaurant, located at 2135 Franklin St., was vandalized by a man with spray paint as members of the crowd urged the him to stop. Other windows were smashed and spray-painted near Webster and 17th streets.

Just after 8 p.m., some in the crowd began assaulting police. Fireworks, M-80s and Molotov cocktails were thrown, police said, which is when they declared the event an "unlawful assembly." Oakland fire crews put out more than three dozen fires, mostly set in trash cans, police said. They called for mutual aid. A dozen other agencies from San Leandro to Solano County to the California Highway Patrol came to help.

Kevin Carrington runs an orthodontist practice in the Cathedral building that was damaged. Early Thursday, he told NBC Bay Area that he wished protesters wouldn't ruin things, especially when they are protesting what he called just causes.

"Wow, another cause that is getting tainted, poisoned by the message being expressed," he said. "Property damage is targeting the wrong people.
At least five people were arrested during demonstrations Wednesday night in downtown Chicago following Donald Trump's victory during the presidential election.

Nearly 2,000 protesters marched in downtown streets, shutting down Lake Shore Drive and chanting angry slogans about the president elect outside Trump Tower, according to a Chicago Police Department estimate.

Demonstrators carried signs and shouted "Donald Trump has got to go," and "We reject the president elect," after a crowd of a few dozen grew into multiple groups totalling at about 1,800, sparking a huge police presence downtown as the evening wore on.

Despite the traffic disruptions and protesters at times climbing onto vehicles, police said "there were no major incidents." According to authorities, two men were arrested for obstruction of traffic in a roadway, two others were arrested for reckless conduct and criminal trespass to land and a juvenile was arrested for criminal trespass to land and resisting arrest.

"We will be ensuring adequate police coverage so that participants have an opportunity to safely assemble and demonstrate, but the department will be intolerant to any criminal or destructive activity," Chicago Police said in a statement.

A massive amount of people showed up to do just that.

"We don't stand for sexism, we don't stand for racism, homophobia--this is not my president" protester Reily O'Neil said.

The crowd also drew some Trump supporters who hoisted signs and argued with his detractors.

"I expect the Republicans to rally around [Trump] and the things they can agree on get done," Don Peterson, who drove in from Yorkville, said.

About 8 p.m. one of the large groups spilled onto Lake Shore Drive, halting traffic from Fullerton Avenue to Roosevelt Road. A swarm of protesters at one point climbed atop a stopped CTA bus. Multiple bus routes were impacted by the protesters, the transit agency tweeted Wednesday night.

Demonstrators protesting the president elect, Donald Trump, Wednesday night climbed atop a halted CTA bus after shutting down Lake Shore Drive.

The emergency protest was scheduled following Donald Trumps shocking victory over Hillary Clinton.

The event, which involved groups including Answer Chicago, Freedom First International and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, originally planned to gather from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., according to organizers. But by 10:30 p.m., groups of protesters had fragmented into smaller packs roving downtown's streets.

We must resist this outcome, organizers wrote in a Facebook page for the protest. In fact, we cannot be idle. We must get into the streets immediately. We must unite and stand with immigrants, Muslims, women, LGBTQ people, poor and working people and Black Lives Matter. Only the people can defeat racism, bigotry and hate.

Chicago police had been stationed outside the hotel Wednesday morning prior to the protest for extra security purposes, authorities said.

Other similar demonstrations took place in various cities throughout the United States Wednesday, with high school and college students from coast to coast staging walkouts.

Trump, who entered politics after a career in real estate and reality TV, defied pollsters and pundits Tuesday to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton for the presidency.

"Now its time for America to bind the wounds of division," Trump told a crowd of joyous supporters early Wednesday morning. "... We're going to dream of things for our country and beautiful things and successful things once again."

Clinton called Trump to concede after Trump had taken several battleground states, including Florida and Ohio.
It's news the parents of twin boys once conjoined at the head have been waiting for for a long time -- they could soon leave the hospital with their twin boys at their sides.

The McDonalds' 13-month-old sons, Jadon and Anias, were separated following 16 hours of surgery at New York's Montefiore Medical Center last month. While there were a number of concerns before and after the surgery, it appears the boys are progressing "right on target, if not ahead of schedule," Dr. James Goodich told CNN. He added that he hopes to have the babies "out of here, off to rehab," in the coming weeks.

On Tuesday, the Illinois twins' mother, Nicole McDonald, wrote they were headed for what would hopefully be "the last time the boys will undergo surgery for a very long time." The will were receiving skin grafts, she said.

"Both boys seemed pretty happy yesterday, which has been a battle to achieve with all the infections," she wrote. "I hated that this had to happen today after they both seemed comfortable yesterday for the first time in a while. BUT it must be done. I suppose our time for painless, sickless days will come soon enough. Meanwhile we are totally loving this whole holding thing."

Holding the boys after their separation was something the parents had been waiting for a long time to do.

McDonald has reluctantly documented her family's experience as her sons faced their most difficult surgery yet. But if supporters of her family read anything she hopes, it's her message to them and the doctors who saved her children.

In a lengthy and emotional Facebook update shortly after the surgery, the mother shared that as she and her husband "emerged from the depths of the hospital" last week, they were forced to face the fact that their family's private battle has quickly become a national story.

"For those of you who don't know us, it might be interesting to note that we do not have TV or Internet access at home," she wrote. "We don't get to watch the news on a regular basis and we have literally spent the last 36 hours at the boys' bedside or waiting for updates from the doctors in the Caregiver Support Center at Montefiore."

McDonald noted that at first, she didn't want to take her family's unique situation public, but agreed because they wanted to help show the medical miracle that would soon separate her sons.

"Our biggest desire was to show how brilliant the team at Montefiore has been and to give the hospital the credit it deserves," she wrote. "The real heroes of this story are the people who have put countless hours, days and months into the success of today."

McDonald and her husband first found out they were having twins during a routine ultrasound when she was 17 weeks pregnant. But hours after learning the big news, the couple was called back for a repeat ultrasound, a call she said is "every pregnant mother's nightmare."

"It was on that day, in that dark room, that our whole life changed," McDonald wrote in a GoFundMe page for the family. "I was informed that I was pregnant with craniopagus twins, which in normal language means twins who are joined at the head. I was given the option on many occasions to abort my precious babies. I kindly declined. I had heard their heart beats...they spent their life listening to mine. It was my job as their mother to give them life and I decided that I would give everything up, if need be, to do so. Miracles happen...and there is one (really, two :)) unfolding before our very eyes."

McDonald went into labor on Sept. 9, 2015 and an emergency c-section was performed at Rush University Medical Center.

While the babies started having some health problems shortly after birth, things quickly "went downhill" for the McDonald family.

"Anias started having trouble breathing," McDonald wrote. "Because of the way he was positioned in my belly, his chin was against his chest and his jaw couldn't grow. His airway was also constricted. As he required more oxygen for day to day life, his breathing got worse and worse, until eventually he was back on oxygen."

Months later, the couple met with a specialist in hopes of successfully separating the twins. Fast forward to October, the babies have undergone their final surgery, but their most difficult.

The family's GoFundMe page had raised $161,161 as of Friday, exceeding their goal of $100,000 to aid with the babies' medical care.

McDonald thanked those who helped her family during the trying time, saying "each and every one of you is a hero in your own way."
With the election over, Illinois' top elected leaders may sit down with Gov. Bruce Rauner before the veto session begins.

Rauner has asked for a Monday sit down meeting with House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, Senate President John Cullerton, Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno and House Speaker Michael Madigan.

A meeting of the minds with the four legislative leaders and the Governor is the prime opportunity to jumpstart our collaborative process," Radogno said on a conference call Thursday with the five. "The time is now to come together to address the serious issues facing Illinois with comprehensive solutions. I look forward to joining the Governor and my colleagues on Monday.

The veto session begins Tuesday.

The General Assembly only approved a stop gap budget and hope to pass a more complete financial package.

With the election over, Illinois' top elected leaders may sit down with Gov. Bruce Rauner next week before the veto session begins.



Rauner has asked for a Monday sit down meeting with House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, Senate President John Cullerton, Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno and House Speaker Michael Madigan.



A meeting of the minds with the four legislative leaders and the Governor is the prime opportunity to jumpstart our collaborative process," Radogno said on a conference call Thursday with the five. "The time is now to come together to address the serious issues facing Illinois with comprehensive solutions. I look forward to joining the Governor and my colleagues on Monday.



The veto session begins Tuesday.



The General Assembly only approved a stop gap budget and hope to pass a more complete financial package.



Rauner has not been seen publically since the election. When asked about his whereabouts on Election Day his aides would not say where the governor was.
What to Know A Dayville man is accused of carjacking a vehicle in Putnam, crashing it in Thompson, then carjacking a Nissan Rogue and stabbing 2 people.

One of the stabbing victims one has serious injuries.

Christopher Harding then led police on a chase into Massachusetts and was taken into custody in Worcester, Massachusetts, police said.

Two people involved in stabbings and two carjackings that led police on a chase from Connecticut to Massachusetts have been arrested, police said.

Police identified the suspect as 21-year-old Christopher Harding, and his female passenger, Celina R. Cousineau, 21, both of Dayville.

Harding was arrested and charged by Massachusetts State Police, while Connecticut State Police said they are applying for arrest warrants for both suspects.

The investigation started with a carjacking in Putnam that at the Cumberland Farms on School Street.

Connecticut State Police said a man with red hair wearing yellow pajama bottoms walked up to the car and displayed a large knife ordering the driver to get out of the car.

The driver jumped out of the car and Harding left the scene traveling north on Route 171, before crashing the stolen car on Church Street and West Thompson Road around 10:06 a.m.

NBCConnecticut.com

Harding and a woman, presumably Cousineau, were seen walking on West Thompson Road, where they flagged down two women driving by. Harding demanded that the driver get out of the Nissan Rogue and when she refused, he stabbed her forearm. When the passenger tried to help the driver, Harding cut her, Connecticut State Police said.

The suspects then drove off in the car and fled into Massachusetts, leading police on a chase along Route 395 to Route 20 in Auburn, police said.

As a Massachusetts state trooper pulled up to the vehicle, Harding tried to ram one cruiser with the Rogue, then went into a parking lot and tried to ram another cruiser before getting back on Route 20 toward Worcester, police said.

The chase ended on Papagin Terrace in Worcester, a cul de sac, when Harding tried to turn around in a driveway and get away and hit a cruiser and a parked car, police said.

Police then took Harding and his passenger into custody.

Connecticut State Police said West Thompson Road is closed due to the ongoing investigation and state police detectives from Eastern District Major Crime responded to the scene.

Worcester Police are also assisting in the investigation.
Details added (first version posted at 12:06)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Azad Hasanli - Trend:

Iran intends to build a hospital in Azerbaijan, Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh told reporters in Baku Nov. 10.

He said that the hospital will be built on the initiative of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Iran, as well as governor of Tabriz city.

At the same time, the ambassador noted that the groundbreaking ceremony of the joint Azerbaijani-Iranian pharmaceutical plant will be held in two weeks.

Azerbaijan and Iran have no problems in economic or political spheres, the ambassador said. This is also confirmed by the mutual visits of the heads of the two states: Iranian and Azerbaijani presidents have held seven meetings in three years, which is unique for the Caspian region.

Both countries plan to implement a number of projects, but this requires time, he noted. We hope that joint projects will contribute to the further development of relations between our countries.

Jahangirzadeh also recalled that Urmia province governor is expected to visit Azerbaijan in the next month, and the countrys Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev will visit Iran before late 2016.

Baku is hosting the Investment opportunities of Azerbaijan and Iran conference. Over a hundred businessmen from the both sides operating in spheres of transport, energy, industry, health care, finance, ICT and tourism are taking part in the event.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Iran amounted to $137.65 million in January-September 2016, more than $102 million of which fell on the import of Iranian goods, according to the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan.
Residents of the Thames River Apartments will soon have to find a new place to live.

The New London Housing Authority Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 Tuesday to pass a resolution to file an application for disposition and disposal of the Crystal Avenue high-rises, according to Board Chairwoman Betsy Gibson.

That means tenants will eventually receive HUD vouchers to relocate to wherever they want to live, and eventually the apartment complex will be demolished, Gibson said.

The families will be first on the list when new housing is built, she added.

The 124-unit complex has been plagued by mice, rodents, crumbling walls and unsanitary living conditions.

Gibson said she plans to set up a meeting next week with the residents and city to talk about plans and answer questions about how the board plans to move forward.

The New London Housing Authority will have to incur the relocation costs of tenants, Gibson said.

The process could take six months to a year.
This election could have a major impact on businesses in Connecticut.

Some owners are optimistic while others have concerns following republican wins statewide and nationally.

At Northeast Express Transportation in Windsor Locks, owner Kevin Maloney oversees a staff of 80 handling delivery and distribution.

He says recently its been tough for this longtime family-run company.

The business community, in particular the small business community, has suffered under the Obama administration, Maloney, said.

Maloney and others have high hopes that a Donald Trump presidency would spur job growth.

That includes through the president-elects promises to repeal Obamacare, cut regulations, and lower taxes on corporations.

The National Federation of Independent Business said healthcare costs are a burden.

For more business owners here in Connecticut its been a very negative effect. Premiums have gone up, deductibles have gone up, Andy Markowski, NFIBs state director, said.

At the Connecticut Business & Industry Association in Hartford, leaders are cautious after Trumps surprising win.

One of the things Donald Trump talks a lot about is get our economy booming again. Theres things he can do but hes not very specific on how thats going to happen, Joe Brennan, CBIAs president & CEO, said.

Brennan says businesses in his group believe making the country more competitive is a good thing.

But some companies have concerns especially when it comes to changes to immigration and trade deals which have benefited Connecticut.

Were one of the leading states when it comes to international trade. A big part of our economy is companies that sell their products and services overseas, Brennan, said.

The CBIA also believes people in the state sent a message in state races that they are concerned about economy.

The organization thinks voters picked winners, not solely based on political party, but also who would be best for growth and job creation.
A Colchester dad gave his sons the best early Veterans Day surprise on Thursday morning when he showed up at Colchester Elementary School after being away for almost a year.

Mikey Viggiani said he thought he was going to get books when he instead walked into a full auditorium for the annual Veterans Day ceremony and into the arms of his dad, Senior Chief Petty Officer Leonard Viggiani, who just returned from and eight-month U.S. Navy deployment in Africa.

I think its very exciting. They said we were going to get books for Mrs. Lang. No, we werent, Mikey Viggiani said. I was psyched. I was really excited to see him.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Viggiani wasnt expecting the huge welcome when he arrived at school to see his sons, Mikey and Miles, and his wife, Karen.

I just wanted to surprise them. I didnt know it was going to be anything this grand, Leonard Viggiani said.

Karen Viggiani was thrilled that they were able to surprise the boys.

I just cant believe we pulled it off. We werent sure it was going to happen. With the military, you never know if youll be able to make it home in time or not. Trying to keep this town a secret is really hard. But Im so thrilled we were able to do it. Its been really hard for the family, she said.

For the last couple of Veterans Day celebrations, Leonard Viggiani sent in photos and mementoes from deployments.

This time, being gone for a year, I wanted to do something a little better so I sent them a video and just wanted to surprise them by coming home, he said.

Several veterans were also at the ceremony and the students sang songs.

Didnt know it was going to be this crazy, but Im glad we were able to do something special for them, Senior Chief Petty Officer Viggiani said.

Viggiani, who has been in the Navy for 19 years, said he had butterflies and will be home for the weekend before going back to Norfolk, Virginia. Then, he will be home for a few years.

Absolutely insane. Huge butterflies. I havent seen these guys in about eight months. So its been a long time, way too long, he said. Very happy to be home and back with my family.

Viggiani said Colchester always puts on an amazing Veterans Day celebration.

We love our veterans here. They honor every single one of us, every single one is very special and they make sure we know that, he said.
State Rep. David Alexander was arrested in Enfield early this morning after police said he was drunk and punched his father in the face.

Police responded to Alexanders Pearl Street home in Thompsonville at 1:10 a.m. Thursday after receiving report of an intoxicated male acting violently and were told that the state representative had been drinking heavily, became violent and punched his father in the left side of his face several times.

Alexanders father had red marks and an ice pack on his face when officers arrived and David Alexander claimed his father punched him, but police said that was unfounded.

The victim declined medical treatment and David Alexander told officers to just charge me with battery, police said.

Alexander, who serves Enfield, lost a re-election bid on Tuesday. He issued an apology in 2015 after he was charged with operating under the influence in Windsor Locks. After the Windsor Locks charges, he was removed from his leadership roles in the General Assembly.

He was charged Thursday morning with assault on an elderly person and breach of peace and held on a $2,500 bond, but posted bond and is due in court this afternoon.

Speaker of the House Brendan Sharkey released a statement after Alexander's arrest.

I am very concerned that David gets the help he needs before another tragedy occurs. I have reached out to express my concern and to offer my help in whatever way that I can, and I wish the best possible outcome for him and his family, Sharkey said.

NBC Connecticut reached out to Alexander's media representative, but did not immediately hear back.
Vandals have struck over and over again at Center Street Cemetery in Wallingford, a more than 300-year-old burial ground that includes remains of many people prominent in Connecticut history, including Lyman Hall, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Now police are investigating and town officials are considering actions to prevent further damage to the land that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

It's actually one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in town. Tom Laffin, vice chairman of the Wallingford Town Council, said. It's frustrating because it is part of Wallingford's heart.

The caretaker of the cemetery found around $1,000 worth of damage on Sunday, when a headstone was knocked over, two Grand Army Of The Republic markers were broken and four others were knocked down.

It seems like every several months or so it happens. The police last year increased their patrols. They actually go through the cemetery, Laffin said.

The caretaker is grateful for everything Wallingford police are doing and said they told him they have a suspect, but he just wants the vandalism to stop.

The councilman said they hope to install cameras to prevent vandalism in the future.
Hate crimes and other racially tinged incidents, ranging from vandalism to threats to beatings, are being reported across the country in the aftermath of the presidential election.

Some of the incidents were reported by police, though many more appeared on social media as anecdotes and not all have been verified.

Most of the recent cases appear to involve graffiti or violence directed at racial or ethnic minorities and in some reports the perpetrators indicated support for Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, detectives in Chicago are investigating one video that appears to show a man being beaten for voting for Trump.

Trump's candidacy was marked in part by promises to deport undocumented immigrants and monitor and ban Muslims, and one of Hillary Clinton's arguments for voting against Trump was to denounce race-baiting rhetoric by voting for tolerance. Trump pledged in his acceptance speech early Wednesday "to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans." And President Barack Obama, with whom Trump met Thursday, said he was "heartened" by Trump's speech.

Still, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes, is "seeing a rash of hate crimes, of hate rhetoric, racist graffiti in campuses around the country," said Mark Potok, an SPLC senior fellow, who called the uptick extraordinary.

"We have seen [Ku Klux] Klan literature drops, we have seen that suicide hotlines are ringing off the hook, and we are hearing of very extensive bullying in and around schools," he added.

Trump has not commented on the hate crime incidents and his presidential transition team has not responded to NBC's requests for comment on Thursday and Friday. In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," Trump said he did not hear about the violence and harassment in his name or directed at his supporters, other than "one or two instances."

He also said "I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, Stop it. If it-- if it helps. I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: Stop it," Trump said.

Among the reports of events occurring in the aftermath of the election:

A San Diego State University student walking to her vehicle had her purse, backpack and car keys taken by two men making comments about the president-elect and the Muslim community, university police said. She walked away to report the incident, and then returned to discover her vehicle was missing. Police are investigating the attack as a hate crime.

A short video posted Wednesday and viewed at least 250,000 times on Facebook showed students at a school carrying a Trump sign while someone can be heard saying "white power." Two students at York County School of Technology in Pennsylvania walked with a sign into the lobby and chanted "white power" twice before the director "squelched it," said communication outreach coordinator Renie Mezzanotte, who added that "the administration has been absorbed by" the incident for two days, the outcry has become disruptive to instruction, and that instruction and student and staff safety are always the school's priorities. An officer at the York Area Regional Police Department confirmed that they investigated the incident.

Police were investigating the appearance of a swastika, the word "Trump" with a swastika replacing the T and the words "Seig Heil 2016," on a store front in South Philadelphia hours after the election was called. The Anti-Defamation League said it was disgusted to learn of the graffiti.

A representative of NYU's Tandon School of Engineering confirmed that someone had wrote the word "Trump!" in graffiti on a door at the school's Muslim prayer room. It has since been removed and Dean K. R. Sreenivasan said in an email to students that any violation of civility and mutual respect in the community "is an offense against us all."

In Chicago, video posted to Twitter and shared thousands of times appears to show a man being beaten by a group of people who say he voted for Trump. The victim appears to be white, the assailants black. The attack happened just before 1 p.m. Wednesday on Chicago's West Side, police said. Chicago detectives have the video but a representative did not elaborate about political affiliations of those involved.

And the Times-Dispatch of Richmond, Virginia, reported that the words, "Your vote was a hate crime" were spray-painted on several monuments to figures from the U.S. Confederacy.

Black students at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia recieved racist texts Friday from an account on an app called GroupMe."The account contains violent, racist and thoroughly repugnant images and messages," university spokesman Ron Ozio said in an email.

An 18-year-old woman of Middle Eastern descent in Louisiana said she made up a story that she was beaten by two white men who were yelling racial obscenities, according to the Acadania Advocate. She had told city police, according to a statement, that she was repeatedly struck in the back near the University of Louisiana Lafayette by the males, who she said also took her hijab and wallet and fled. Lafayette police confirmed the woman retracted her story to NBC.

There were 5,479 hate crime incidents reported in 2014, according to that year's FBI hate crime statistics report, the most recent one available. The 2015 report is due out Monday.

The Southern Poverty Law Center's president released a statement Wednesday saying the group has begun holding Trump to his promise to serve as president for all Americans.

"Today, we're facing a new reality  a president-elect who has denigrated people because of their race, their religion, their ethnicity, their gender, and more," SPLC President Richard Cohen wrote.

Potok, the SPLC senior fellow, said the last time he saw such a similar rash of attacks was after Obama was elected, but "they tended to be more hidden."

"This time around we are seeing people more emboldened," he said.

Potok said that there hasn't been an uptick on black-on-white crime.

The attacks on minorities are drawing comparisons, including from Potok, to the days after Brexit, when Britain voted to leave the European Union. Those attacks died down in a few weeks, Potok said.

But he added that American white nationalist groups are declaring victory online after Trump's election.

"One would hope that well-meaning citizens would stand up and defend their fellow Americans against this kind of hatred, and I think that's starting to happen, especially in schools," he said.

The SPLC has created an online forum where people can report hate incidents: splcenter.org/reporthate.
After a meeting with the top Republicans on Capitol Hill Thursday to discuss the agenda ahead, President-elect Donald Trump laid out his top three priorities: immigration, health care and jobs.

"We're gonna look very strongly at immigration; we're gonna look at the border. We're gonna look very strongly at health care, and we're looking at jobs  big league jobs," Trump told a throng of reporters after a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, NBC News reported.

While Trump mentioned the border being a top priority within the realm of immigration, he did not specifically mention the construction of a physical wall, something that he campaigned heavily on. Such a wall, however, is estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars.

Trump was asked if he would ask Congress to ban Muslims from entering the country, a proposal Trump floated on the campaign trail. But Trump ignored the question, said "thank you, everybody" and walked away.
The day after Donald Trump's victory, the head of the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization asked the president-elect to respect the rights of all Americans.

At the same time, the Council on American-Islamic Relations will work with Trump and his administration as a way to strengthen the nation, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad pledged in a statement.

And Awad tried to calm those who may be concerned about the future for Muslims in America. At one point, Trump campaigned on a promise to ban Muslims who don't live in the U.S. from entering as a way to keep out terrorists, and in November 2015, Trump proposed Muslims be required to register in a national database.

"To those in the American Muslim community who are fearful of the future, know that America is your home and you have the same rights and responsibilities as all other Americans, Awad said.

Last fall, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in San Diego to condemn discrimination against refugees and Islamophobic attitudes.

Trump has said he would suspend arrivals from Syria, portraying them as a potential security threat. Of the approximately 12,000 Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. in 2016, the vast majority identify as Muslims.

San Diego, the nation's eighth-largest city, has received 626 Syrian refugees since Oct. 1, more than any other in the United States.

On Wednesday, CAIR called on people of all faith, racial and political backgrounds to commit to working with each other.

"Regardless of who won or lost yesterday's election, American Muslims are here to stay. We are not going anywhere, and will not be intimidated or marginalized, Awad said in the written statement.
Demonstrations erupted in U.S. cities Wednesday and early Thursday morning in protest of Donald Trump's presidential victory, with high school and college students from coast to coast staging walkouts.

Thousands of protesters marched in the streets of New York City chanting, "Not my president," and "hey, hey, ho, ho Donald Trump has got to go," as they weaved through traffic toward the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. According to police, around 60 people were arrested by the end of the night.

Some of the protesters cursed out key battleground states that Trump had won to secure victory. Outside Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan police installed barricades to keep the demonstrators at bay. And at least 30 people were arrested at the two Columbus Circle and Trump Tower demonstrations, according to police.

Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago also saw thousands of anti-Trump activists gathered outside the building. Authorities say police have been stationed outside the hotel and condominium tower since it was apparent the Republican had defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Protesters also took to the streets of Boston, chanting "Trump's a racist" and carrying signs that said, "Impeach Trump" and "Abolish Electoral College." Thousands gathered on Boston Common before marching toward the Massachusetts Statehouse, with beefed up security, including extra police officers.

Hundreds of protesters gathered near Philadelphia's City Hall despite chilly, wet weather. Participants  who included supporters of Clinton and her Democratic primary challenger Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders  expressed anger at both Republicans and Democrats over the election's outcome.

Marchers protesting Trump's election as president chanted and carried signs in front of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Local media outlets broadcast video Wednesday night showing a peaceful crowd in front of the new downtown hotel. Many chanted, "No racist USA, no trump, no KKK."

Another group stood outside the White House. They held candles, listened to speeches and sang songs.

Earlier Wednesday, protesters at American University burned U.S. flags on campus.

Protests also were reported at a number of universities in California and Connecticut, while several hundred people marched in San Francisco and others gathered outside City Hall in Los Angeles.

Earlier in the day, hundreds of students from three Phoenix high schools walked out of class and marched to the Arizona Capitol building expressing anger and dismay at the election results.

A spontaneous gathering at the University of Texas campus sparked a walkout as hundreds of students left their classrooms to join demonstrators in a march through downtown Austin. Chanting, "out of your houses and into the streets," protesters waved hand-scrawled signs proclaiming Trump racist and anti-gay as they walked near the Texas Capitol  their number growing as they went.

In the northeast, more than 500 people, mostly students, faculty and staff, marched across the University of Connecticut carrying signs that read, "Make America Love Again," and "Immigrants are People Too."

Many expressed anger and disappointment, and said they plan to fight Trump's agenda, including his proposal to build a wall at the Mexican border and not letting Muslims into the country.

"Last night people across this country said I don't belong here, even though I was born and raised here," said Eeman Abbasi, a junior from Orange, Connecticut who is Muslim.

Protesters chanting, "we will not be silenced" and carrying signs that read, "He Will Never Be My President," gathered on the steps of the Massachusetts Statehouse.

The demonstrators, most hailing from Boston-area colleges, said they were shocked and disillusioned by Clinton's loss.

Meaghan Schaefer, a 19-year-old political communication student at Emerson College, said she was angry that the country was so close to seeing its first woman become president and that she lost to a man with no political experience.

The only major violence was reported in Oakland, California, during a protest that began shortly before midnight and lasted into early Wednesday morning.

Some demonstrators set garbage bins on fire, broke windows and sprayed graffiti at five businesses in the downtown area, police said. No arrests were made.

Thousands of demonstrators returned to Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza Wednesday evening. But the event was soon declared an unlawful by police after bottles, rocks and firecrackers were thrown at officers. Police used tear gas and flash-bang grenades to disperse a crowd that had swelled to over 6,000 people. At one point, protesters also set off fireworks in response to police attempts to move in.

In Oregon, dozens of people blocked traffic in downtown Portland and forced a delay for trains on two light-rail lines. Media reports said the crowd grew to about 300 people, including some who sat in the middle of a road. The crowd of anti-Trump protesters burned American flags and chanted, "That's not my president."

In Seattle, about 100 protesters gathered in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, blocked roads and set a trash bin on fire.

In Pennsylvania, hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students marched through the streets, with some in the crowd calling for unity. Campus protests also erupted at the University of Texas, the University of Connecticut, the University of California, Berkeley and other University of California campuses.

On Twitter, the hashtag "NotMyPresident" had been used nearly half a million times.

The Oakland protest grew to about 250 people by late Tuesday. Police Officer Marco Marquez said protesters damaged five businesses, breaking windows and spraying graffiti. No arrests were made.

A woman was struck by a car and severely injured when protesters got onto a highway, the California Highway Patrol said. Demonstrators vandalized the driver's SUV before officers intervened. The highway was closed for about 20 minutes.

Oakland is a hotbed of violent protest in the San Francisco Bay Area. Two years ago, demonstrators briefly shut down two freeways, vandalized police cars and looted businesses when a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer in the fatal shooting of a black teenager in Ferguson.

Nearly 80 people were arrested after a night in 2010 that saw rioters use metal bats to break store windows, set fires and loot after a white transit police officer was acquitted of murder and convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the slaying of an unarmed black man.

Elsewhere in California, more than 1,000 students at Berkeley High School staged a walk-out and marched to the campus of the University of California.
Deputy Fire Chief Tameji Berry of the Dallas Fire Department had a dream to help young girls in the community learn what it means to be a firefighter.

She wanted to give them insight into the male-dominated profession to help their career aspirations.

They say, 'Youre a girl. We didnt know a lady or a girl could be a chief in the fire department,' she said.

Berry's dream eventually became Camp LADDER.

LADDER stands for Ladies Achieving Dreams With Dedication Enthusiasm and Respect, she explained.

Beyond the burning buildings, the girls learn life lessons and how to be effective leaders. They learn the importance to teamwork and having a plan.

Last night, we had a campfire and everyone went around talking about their fears and loves and what makes them who they are, 14-year-old Alicia Williams said.

The camp is made possible through a partnership with Dallas Independent School District and the Dallas Fire Department.

The core of the program is to teach leadership skills and self-confidence, Berry said.

Through a series of real-life firefighting exercises, the girls learn to reach for their dreams and push past their limits.

I know it may be hard. They may not be used to this. Just trust me and keep moving forward, Williams said. "Its a success at the end.

Organizers are hopeful the girls will choose a life in firefighting, but simply want them to dream big.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Azad Hasanli - Trend:

Azerbaijan plans to organize an export mission to Egypt in 2016, Rufat Mammadov, head of Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO), told reporters Nov. 10 in Baku.

Mammadov recalled that currently, the export mission of Azerbaijani entrepreneurs is in China, and the mission to Dubai, the UAE, will be organized until the end of 2016.

Entrepreneurs, who will visit Egypt and Dubai, will present spheres of agriculture, processing, food industry, including the production of soft drinks, he noted.

Mammadov noted that during the visit, the entrepreneurs will hold negotiations with local companies to expand their export opportunities, as well as one of the companies plans to sign a contract on results of the visit.

Meanwhile, AZPROMO head didnt specify the name of that company.

Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Egypt amounted to about $4.5 million in January-September 2016, $4.2 million of which accounted for import of Egyptian products, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee.

Meanwhile, the first export mission of 12 Azerbaijani entrepreneurs is in China (Hong Kong and Guangzhou), where they will take part in two exhibitions of wine and alcoholic producers until Nov. 13.
Many companies like Uber and MasterCard have begun using selfies as a means of protecting consumer identities.

Uber now requires its drivers to take a selfie picture as a means of authentication when they sign on to drive.

Jabulani Nube has been a part-time Uber driver in Fort Worth for about a year. He said he was all for the added layer of security when it was rolled out in September. The technology came about in the wake of reports from across the country of people posing as Uber drivers to commit crimes.

Its a great feature, Nube said. It shows exactly who you are and that helps give the sense of security to the riders that the person who is picking them up is the person that they say is coming to pick them up.

Recently, MasterCard launched a pilot program to help shoppers improve the security of their transactions by taking photos of themselves, according to a company statement.

We want to identify people for who they are, not what they remember, MasterCard President of Enterprise Safety and Security Ajay Bhalla said, referring to the possibility someone might forget a PIN.

Dallas-based AT&T has not ventured into selfies as a means of authentication, but telecommunications giant has developed a new authentication system, called the AT&T Halo platform, that moves away from passwords, PINs and user names, according to a statement.

Our security experts have developed a new mobile-centric identity and access management strategy to provide a simple and seamless authentication experience that is better at detecting possible threats, preventing identity theft and reducing security threats, the statement noted.

The Halo platform would allow AT&T customers to act as a master key to gain access to both digital content and a physical building, the company noted.

Calvin Carter, Founder and CEO of Bottle Rocket, a Dallas-area web developer responsible for mobile apps for familiar brands like Chick-Fil-A, Coca-Cola and Lego, told NBC DFW authentication technology is more than just a trend.

Privacy and security must be balanced with convenience. Biometric authentication is a huge leap forward as it leverages truly unique ways of confirming you are who you say you are, without the inconvenient and traditional means of authentication, Carter noted. Clients care about security, but they dont want to create barriers for their customers.

In addition to the business applications of something like a selfie being used as more than a profile picture, Carter emphasized that he and his staff are excited to be on the forefront of technology.

We love making sci-fi become real. At Bottle Rocket, we help people pour customized drinks with their phone on the Coke Freestyle machine, open their hotel room door with their watch at Starwood properties and pay for their lunch with their thumbprint, Carter said. We have to live in the future to help our clients determine fad from trend to propel forward. Yes, it can sometimes be terrifying but always insanely exciting.
Police asked for the public's help finding a 42-year-old woman who was last seen in Dallas more than a year ago.

Dallas police said Mercy Johnson Covington was last seen in the 1600 block of Fuller Drive at about 9 p.m. Nov. 9, 2015.

Covington was described as 5 feet 4 inches tall and 120 pounds with brown hair and hazel eyes.

Anyone with information about Covington's disappearance was asked to call Dallas police at 911 or 214-671-4268.
Protesters marched for a second straight night Thursday in downtown Dallas to voice their opposition to President-elect Donald Trump.

More than 200 people gathered at Dealey Plaza, where they held signs and yelled as commuters passed by in their cars, some honking as they drove.

About an hour later the crowd began marching through downtown, passing through the West End, Uptown, Klyde Warren Park and returning to Dealey Plaza by about 10 p.m.

"I believe that Donald Trump is unfit for the presidency. I'm very concerned for the direction of our country," said protester Damaris Combs.

Many in the group echoed his feelings.

"I hope that he doesn't make good on half of the things that he says he's going to do. But if he does, we've got to have a coalition of every minority group and everyone who's just a decent human being standing together to say, 'No,'" said protester Daniel Cates.

Dallas police lined the streets, directing traffic around the marchers.

Without a permit, they mostly stayed on the sidewalks, as instructed by police. At least three people were arrested when they marched in the street.

Similar events took place across the U.S., including New York City and Chicago, where thousands of anti-Trump activists gathered outside the Trump International Hotel & Tower.

Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2016

Trump responded with a tweet Thursday evening, writing:

"Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!"

Thursday's activity follows a demonstration and march through downtown Dallas Wednesday, one day after Trump's presidential victory.

Further protests were planned for Thursday in Dallas following Donald Trumps election to president.

Organizers were quick to call the Dallas demonstration a rally rather than a protest. Still, about 200 people gathered to voice their concerns about Trump.

Their chants echoed through the city streets, including concerns about everything from the economy, to immigration and diversity.

It was organized by the Next Generation Action Network and several other local representatives that have been outspoken about equal rights.

Many held signs expressing their feeling about the outcome of the election. Some read "Love Trumps Hate" and "Spirit Unbreakable."

Demonstrators marched through the streets of downtown Dallas Wednesday, one day after Donald Trumps presidential victory.

"A lot of communities are in despair  Muslim, immigrant, LGBT. We're gathering here to just, we can't be afraid. We have to continue to organize, continue to push," said David Villalobos, with the Next Generation Action Network.

Organizers promise the rallies won't end here. They encouraged everyone that has a concern to speak up.

Earlier Wednesday, hundreds of students at the University of Texas-Austin spilled out of classrooms to march through downtown Austin in protest of Trump's victory, chanting "out of your houses and into the streets."

They subsequently marched along streets near the Texas Capitol, then briefly blocked a crowded traffic bridge. Similar demonstrations were held on other college campuses.
There is mixed reaction in the growing Muslim community across North Texas a day after Donald Trump was elected president.

For Surriya U-Kui, a Muslim-American who immigrated to North Texas from Pakistan nearly 30 years ago, there is worry  and there is hope.

"Whatever is done is done, so we have to hope for the best," she said. "All the minorities, all the world is looking toward Donald Trump, so hopefully he will have a better plan and he will unite the whole nation again."

For her eldest daughter, Aisha, an attorney, there is also some fear.

"I've seen so much bigotry, so much blatant racism on social media, in public. It's just terrifying," Aisha U-Kui said. "This says a lot about where we are as a nation and I hope it's only going to get better from here."

Mirza Baig, a Frisco businessman, worked for President George W. Bush years ago in Washington, D.C. He also worked on the Muslims for Hillary campaign in North Texas.

He said he was disappointed in the results, but knows there is more than one person running the country.

"Generally speaking, in order to get things done you have to work with people, and I think that's what we have to do," Baig said.

The Islamic Center of Frisco, like many mosques in the area, is a non-profit.

They do not endorse candidates, they simply accept the results.

Imam Zafar Anjum said he hopes President-elect Trump will unite the country moving forward.

"We have a Constitution in this country, and he will go with the Constitution. That's what we are hoping," Anjum said.

Azhar Azeez, of Plano, is president of the Islamic Society of North America.

"Those people that believe in ideals of the nation, they have nothing to worry about because no one candidate  no one party  can change the destiny of the entire nation," Azeez said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations released a statement, reading in part, "As citizens of this great nation, we accept the result of the democratic process that has bound us together as one nation. Regardless of who won or lost yesterdays election, American Muslims are here to stay. We are not going anywhere, and will not be intimidated or marginalized. God willing, the American Muslim community will continue to mobilize to challenge bigotry, to uphold justice and to protect the freedoms and rights of all Americans."
Disappointment was deep Wednesday in Democratic stronghold Dallas after Tuesday's presidential election selected Republican Donald Trump for president.

Democrat Hillary Clinton carried 61 percent of the Dallas County vote, while Trump received 34.9 percent.

Overall in Texas, Trump received 53 percent of the vote to Clinton's 43 percent.

Some Clinton voters at a North Dallas grocery store Wednesday tried to return to normal life with emotion of the election still fresh.

"I'm a little disappointed in the women not voting for Hillary," said voter Mary Hunnicutt. "We do some things much differently than men, and without so much testosterone."

Voter Chris Washington said he was disappointed that he could not tell his young daughter that America will have a woman president.

"I really, really believe that he is the worst candidate we could have chosen and I just think this is horrible," said Washington.

Overhearing Washington in the parking lot, Trump supporter Greg Gaylor confronted the Clinton voter.

"I think what Trump tapped into was the frustration of a lot of people, and I think that they're tried of the corruption in government," Gaylor said.

Trump supporter Essie Rosembooem said she was happy to have voted for the winner.

"He's a businessman, involved in lots of big enterprises and I thought he would be good for the country," she said.

Trump supporter Ann Cary said she went to the grocery store to get away from the politics on TV.

"It was very divisive, and I have friends that I don't talk about politics with at all because it's upsetting to people," Cary said. "I'm probably happier than if I'd voted for Hillary right now, but I'm not thrilled. We'll see what happens."

Shopper Brittanie Brough said she did not vote in the presidential election out of disapproval for both candidates.

"I hope that this is something we can not be so divided about, try to come together," she said.
In the largest Texas border city of El Paso, many people are reacting with fear and anger to the election of Donald Trump as president.

"It was a shocker," said Xavier Celestine, who served in the U.S. military and has lived in El Paso most of his life. "I think it's going to be hard for the Mexican people here. He wants to build that wall."

Trump made building a massive wall between the two countries a centerpiece of his campaign. He has vowed to make Mexico pay for it.

El Paso, which is a Democratic stronghold, voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton.

In a largely Hispanic city where many lives are intertwined with its larger Mexican neighbor, Juarez, people fear what Trump's administration will bring.

"Oh no, we don't trust that guy," said Lupe Paz.

Paz was born in Juarez but moved to El Paso when she was 3 years old, the same age her granddaughter is now.

Now a U.S. citizen, Paz doesn't like what she hears Trump say about building a wall between the two countries and doesn't think it will ever really happen.

"Hopefully not," she said.

Ivan Luna worked for eight years as a waiter in Dallas and in Irving. Now, he lives in Juarez and said he is disappointed the election of Trump.

"He's a very bad person for me and for almost every Latino living here in this country," Luna said.

Already, the economic effects are being felt in border cities like El Paso

The Mexican peso plummeted following Trump's election, meaning it's harder for Mexicans to afford to shop in the United States.

But others are taking advantage of the peso's drop, buying pesos with dollars and getting more bang for their buck by shopping in Mexico.
A day after the election, some North Texas moms are hopeful President-elect Donald Trump will unify the country.

At Eagle Gun Range in Lewisville, there was a feeling of celebration Wednesday.

"I'm dumbfounded, but happy. We're going to be able to get this country going in the right direction again and get rid of the corruption going on," said Trump supporter Adrianne Nesteriak. "I'm glad to keep my Second Amendment rights."

Nesteriak and her friend, Candace Story, said a day at the shooting range would be the perfect way to unwind after the election.

"We came to the range. What better way to be an American, right?" said Nesteriak.

Story said she woke up Wednesday morning and was relieved to hear the result of the election.

"Trump's victory means we keep the values our country was founded on," said Story. "Our family fought for this country. There's a reason we're supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are not great right now. We have to take care of ourselves."

Ashley Manley, a Plano resident, also voted for Trump. Manley is the wife of a disabled Army veteran who was deployed three times. She's also the daughter of a retired Dallas police officer.

"I have three small children. My husband has been to war three times. With the threats we have facing our nation, security is a big deal. Securing our borders and getting the military back up to the standard that it needs to protect our country is important," said Manley.

Manley believes Trump can unify the country.

"I hope we can break the divide in our nation. I hope we can just unite everyone," said Manley. "We need to stop being so divided and just come together to make America great again."

Despite Trump's comments about women, Manley said she could not see past Hillary Clinton's record.

"I couldn't see past Benghazi and a lot of the other issues with Hillary Clinton. Lives were lost on Hillary Clinton's watch," said Manley. "Mean words don't add up to the horrific actions and things Hillary Clinton is responsible for."

Nesteriak agreed.

"My vote was against Hillary. I can't say I love Trump, but she was not going to be an option for me," said Nesteriak. "We can get rid of the corruption. We can start fresh. He's not a politician."
Former President George W. Bush congratulated Donald Trump on winning the race for the White House.

Bush said in a statement that he called Trump Wednesday and that he and his wife Laura wished the president elect and his family "our very best as they take on an awesome responsibility."

Bush adds: "We pray for the success of our country and the success of our new president."

Bush and his wife didn't vote for Trump when casting early ballots for Tuesday's election. Spokesman Freddy Ford says that, instead, the couple chose "none of the above" while still supporting Republican candidates in down-ballot races.

Bush's father, 92-year-old former President George H.W. Bush, also called and congratulated Trump on Wednesday.

Former Gov. Rick Perry also joined a number of top Texas Republicans in cheering Donald Trump's once seemingly unthinkable presidential election win.

Perry tweeted Wednesday: "The people have spoken! Congratulations @realDonaldTrump, Mr. President elect. #Election2016 #MAGA." That last part, of course, stands for "Make American great again."

Perry was one of a crowded field that lost to Trump in the Republican presidential primary. He was then among Trump's harshest critics, even once calling the billionaire businessman a cancer on conservatism.

But Perry eventually endorsed and vocally campaigned for Trump. He has also said he'd be open to serving in a Trump administration.

Perry left office last year. His successor, Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and other top Texas conservatives are all hailing Trump's victory.

Here's my statement on Trump's election as our new President. pic.twitter.com/s12LUMxPwZ  Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) November 9, 2016

Patrick Statement on Trump Victory. Read here: https://t.co/AcjWRxtsEV  Dan Patrick (@DanPatrick) November 9, 2016
Shots were reported to have been fired on the campus of Los Angeles Valley College sending people running and students to remain on lockdown Wednesday evening.

LAVC is currently on lockdown due to an unspecified threat. If on campus, lock doors and shelter in place until further notice.  LA Valley College (@LAValleyCollege) November 10, 2016

The school, near the intersection of Burbank Boulevard and Fulton Avenue in Valley Glen, was being investigated by officers despite finding no evidence of a shooting or victims, said Officer Tony Im of the Los Angeles Police Department.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMnX

The college was placed on lockdown and people on the campus were told to lock doors and shelter in place while police investigated.

Student shared photos of them sheltering in place.

One student described the panic as another came running down the hallway saying there was an active shooter on campus.

The student described everyone running, screaming and crying as they evacuated.

Police were still investigating the reports.
A law clerk who faces charges of impersonating a judge has been elected as a judge in the Chicago area even though she's been barred from taking the office.

Rhonda Crawford had been expected to win Tuesday's election over a write-in opponent, as she was the only name listed on the ballot for a Cook County judicial subcircuit. The 45-year-old can't be sworn in to the $180,000-a-year job unless she's cleared of wrongdoing.

The former nurse was fired from her courthouse job and criminally charged for donning a black robe and presiding over traffic cases that should've been heard by a real judge. The Illinois Supreme Court temporarily suspended her law license.

Crawford has said she'd been shadowing judges, observing how they work, when Judge Valarie Turner "encouraged" her to put on the robe and preside.

"I did not pronounce any judgments. ... I did not tell anyone that I was the judge," she said at her lawyer's office on Sept. 22. "I want to emphasize that the judge was always standing over me. She never left the bench."

She added at the time that she had "allowed my respect for the judge and my enthusiasm to learn the procedures of being a judge to become a distraction to others and to my own life-long ambition of being on the bench. It is a lesson I will never forget."

Crawford pleaded not guilty to both charges she faces, the Chicago Tribune reported, and the Supreme Court could appoint someone to fill the vacancy until the next election if she is declared permanently ineligible to serve.
Details added (first version posted at 11:50)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Iranian investments in Azerbaijan's economy amounted to almost $1.2 billion, $145 million of which were invested in the countrys non-oil sector, Head of Azerbaijan Export and Investments Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) Rufat Mammadov said.

He made the remarks Nov. 10 at the Investment opportunities of Azerbaijan and Iran conference in Baku.

He said that 450 companies with Iranian capital currently operate in Azerbaijan.

We believe that we can increase the volume of mutual investments, Mammadov said. We have all the opportunities for that. In recent years, Azerbaijan has done significant work to improve the investment climate in the country, and nowadays we have concrete proposals for the Iranian investors. It is not just about investments for large companies but also for the small ones.

The head of AZPROMO said that the relations between Azerbaijan and Iran are very sincere, and this opens up new opportunities for the development of trade and other ties.

Iran and Azerbaijan are creating joint plants for production of cars and pharmaceuticals, Mammadov said. This in turn is an indicator of high confidence of Iranian investors in Azerbaijan. The countrys businessmen also actively operate in Iran and on the whole are very interested in this market.

Baku is hosting the Investment opportunities of Azerbaijan and Iran conference. Over a hundred businessmen from the both sides operating in spheres of transport, energy, industry, health care, finance, ICT and tourism are taking part in the event.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Iran amounted to $137.65 million in January-September 2016, more than $102 million of which fell on the import of Iranian goods, according to the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan.
A gunman with a history of domestic abuse fatally shot a police officer and wounded another on Thursday before he and a woman were found dead following a fight at their apartment, authorities said.



Officer Scott Bashioum and the other officer were responding separately to an emergency call from neighbors at around 3:15 a.m. when they were "ambushed upon their arrival" and immediately shot, state police Trooper Melinda Bondarenka said. The officers had arrived almost simultaneously, though authorities said other details of the initial confrontation were unclear.



Bashioum, a father of four, died less than an hour later at a hospital, a coroner said. The 52-year-old had been on the police force for seven years.



The wounded officer, whose name was not released, was hospitalized in Pittsburgh in stable condition after surgery.



The man found in the home, 47-year-old Michael Cwiklinski, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Washington County Coroner Timothy Warco ruled. The woman in the home, 28-year-old Dalia Elhefny Sabae, died from a gunshot wound inflicted by Cwiklinski, Warco said. [[400776251, C]]



Defense attorney David Wolf identified Sabae as Cwiklinski's girlfriend, though some investigators and the coroner have been describing her as Cwiklinski's wife and she listed herself as "married" on her Facebook page.



Wolf said he had known the couple since November 2015, when Cwiklinski was charged with simple assault and harassment for swinging a bag of merchandise and hitting Sabae in the eye. The case was resolved with the assault charge being dropped and Cwiklinski pleading guilty to harassment. He was sentenced to anger management classes and required to have a mental health evaluation, Wolf said.



Neighbors said police were called to the couple's duplex frequently, and Canonsburg police Chief Al Coghill confirmed the gunman was known to authorities, without providing details.



Sabae obtained a protection-from-abuse order last month, after dropping one she had last year, Wolf said.



"She told me they were having trouble again," said Wolf, who couldn't represent Sabae because he represented Cwiklinski.



Wolf said he had encouraged Sabae to get another protection order and said Cwiklinski was there when he ran into the couple at the county courthouse.



Cwiklinski and Sabae, an Egyptian citizen, had met online, the attorney said.



Authorities said the duplex may have been "booby-trapped" but declined to provide details. The bomb squad from neighboring Allegheny County was called to safeguard the scene before police entered and found the couple dead, police said. [[400703711, C]]



Mayor David Rhome and Coghill said the shooting was unprecedented for Canonsburg, a borough of about 8,900 residents just southwest of Pittsburgh that is best known as the birthplace of crooners Bobby Vinton and Perry Como.



A military memorial outside the borough building, already decorated with flags for Friday's Veterans' Day observance, became a makeshift memorial for Bashioum, with residents dropping off flowers, candles and other mementos.



The Canon-McMillan School District canceled classes Thursday because of the heavy police presence.

SUICIDE PREVENTION HELP: The National Suicide Prevention Hotline (1-800-273-8255) is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. [[238427591, C]]


A three-year-old girl was rushed to the hospital after she fell from the fourth-story of an apartment building in Miami-Dade Thursday, officials said.

The incident happened at the building at 9501 Fontainebleau Boulevard. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said the girl hit a grassy area with some bushes and was moving when rescue crews arrived.

"I don't know if it was from the patio or the window but she did fall from the fourth floor," Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Lt. Felipe Lay said.

Officials said the girl was rushed to Nicklaus Hospital where her exact condition was unknown. The girl suffered injuries to her face, officials said.

No other information was immediately known.

Check back with NBC 6 for updates.
Miami Police are investigating an overnight shooting in Allapattah that left one woman dead.

Officers found the body of a black female behind a gas station off NW 36th Street and 10th Avenue around 2:30 a.m. Thursday.

Police say they are looking for a black man, who was seen wearing khaki pants and gray shirt.

No other information has been released. Anyone who has any information is asked to call Miami-Dade CrimeStoppers.

Stay tuned to NBC 6 on air and online for any new information.
Miami Police are investigating to see if there are more victims in the case of a 16-year old teen who has been arrested twice for allegedly forcing children as young as three years old to perform sexual acts on him at a Little Haiti preschool.

Police arrested the teen in August of 2014 after a 5-year old girl said he forced her to perform oral sex on him inside a bathroom at the Bola Learning Center, located on Northeast 80th Terrace.

In July of 2016, a second victim came forward and said he also forced her to perform the same act on her two years before, when she was three. The suspect was again arrested. In both cases, he was charged with sexual battery on a minor by a minor.

It was a bombshell of bad news for parents picking up their kids at the center Thursday.

"I have a 2-year-old who used to come here, so that's shocking. Wow," parent Martha Lubin said.

The most recent inspection report by the Florida Department of Children and Families shows the Bola Learning Center in good standing.

But parents who have brought their children there for years are upset that they were unaware of the allegations.

"Now yeah, cause my daughter is 5. I'm worried and they never told me anything about that," parent Lucna Fortune said.

A person who answered the door at the center Thursday said they had no comment.

Detectives believe that there may be more victims and are asking anyone with information to come forward.

"We don't want to create panic but we are wanting to advise parents that if you believe that your child may have fallen prey to him we're asking you to come forward and the time is now," Miami Police spokeswoman Kenia Fallat said.

Anyone with information can either call the Miami Police Department or call Miami-Dade CrimeStoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
Every day, police officers make decisions that could change their lives of others forever.

The use of force has become a polarizing issue across the country.

Shoot or don't shoot?

Thomas Salerno is one of the veteran training officers at the Miami-Dade Police Department.

He took me through several officer training scenarios where I had to decide whether to use my gun.

All began the same, with me facing the wall.

Men were coming at me with knives and other weapons as fellow officers yelled out for help.

It was a blur.

And, it was up to me to decide how to handle what was thrown at me.

I did my best to de-escalate these situations.

I never fired my weapon, even when a gunman came to murder me.

"We don't teach anybody to die here," said Salerno.

I quickly learned the answer to whether to shoot or not is far more complicated than one may think.

And, there's plenty of room for human error which could be deadly.

I also went through traffic stop training.

Still a little on edge from the previous exercise, I felt much more aware of the weapon on my hip.

When the guy got out of the truck and started shooting at me, this time, I fired back.

Very few people outside of law enforcement themselves have a true understanding of what it's like to make those decisions," explained Solerno.

Every year, officers go through this training and receive evaluations.

This is a profession where very often you will be called upon to make split second decisions."

Miami-Dade police say the training changes and evolves with the times and are often spurred by real-life cases.

Salerno said the training must be based on the totality of circumstances."

North Miami Police came under fire in July when one of their officers shot an unarmed caretaker of an autistic man.

As a result of recent events and our concern for that, our officers are aware of the distinctions, between mentally ill people, their limitations, the special treatment they may require than the average person on the street, we've introduced that into our training recently," said Salerno.

Miami-Dade Police say sometimes the answer of whether to shoot or not can fall in a gray area.

Thats why training never stops.

Salerno reminds officers that they own every bullet.

"Your name is on it, your reputation. You're responsible for it professionally, ethically, morally, civically, financially possibly nationally, maybe even criminally."
As protests continue across the country following the election of Donald Trump, students at one Miami-Dade high school staged their own protest Thursday  and it had some parents upset.

Around 25 students at Palmetto Senior High School walked out of class at 12 p.m. for a protest outside that lasted about 15 minutes. Some carried signs while others shouted slogans throughout the event.

Parents were sent an email from the schools assistant principal, Dr. Bridgette Tate-Wyche, informing them of the protest. The email said, in part, that "We promote the core values of citizenship, kindness, fairness and respect."

Some parents, however, are upset that the protest was allowed to take place at a high school. Mercy Mesa, who has two kids at Palmetto High, told NBC 6 she was upset to hear that the protest was approved by the school.

"Whats not okay is getting a call of a 'peaceful demonstration' that was anything but, Mesa said. "We got an email at 11:59 a.m. and the protest took place one minute later."

Mesa said she viewed parts of the protests on social media, claiming students were using derogatory terms to describe the President-elect.

"Our country is so divided, what we need to do now is unite and not cause anxiety to children who cant vote," Mesa said.

Other parents said they weren't upset and were happy their kids were allowed to voice their opinions.

"My son voted for the first time and he lost. His candidate was defeated by a person he considers a vile person. He's angry like most of us," parent Natasha Budhu-Mignott said. "His father and I are thankful the school respected these young adults' voices and allowed them a way to peacefully express their disappointment because we are too very disappointment and I don't even know how to consoles ourselves, much less our son. Besides, protesting is our constitutional right as it is theirs as well. So those angry parents are obviously Trump supporters who are happy and are celebrating whereas the rest us are in deep agony over the outcome."

Several school officials were outside with the students during the protest. Miami-Dade County Public Schools policy does allow for peaceful and safe protests on school property.
There was a rousing cheer in Little Havana on Election Night as Donald Trump stumped Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House.

Many Cuban-Americans believe a Trump presidency means a return to a hardline policy against Cuba.

During a recent visit to Miami, Trump criticized President Obama's outreach to the Castro government.

Trump called the White Houses effort a one-sided deal which benefits only the Castro regime."

However, a few months before, Trump said he was in favor of normalizing relations with Cuba.

Trump has taken contradictory positions on several issues during the campaign.

On the day after election night, students at Florida International University packed a classroom for a panel discussion on the election's impacts.

President Obama's executive orders on re-establishing diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba were a topic of discussion.

Professor Dario Moreno is an expert on the politics of the exile community.

"Those orders are very easy to reverse, and so with a stroke of a pen, Donald Trump can reverse everything that Obama has done with improving relations with Cuba," explained Moreno.

The FIU professor says while easing travel restrictions to Cuba has been popular in the Cuban-American community, Trump promised hard-liners he'd roll back Obama's initiative.

Since Trump won about 53% of the Cuban vote in Florida, he may feel compelled to act. And, not just about Cuba.

But, I think we're in for a very interesting ride in foreign policy, not just with Cuba and Venezuela, but also Mexico and Canada, about our trade policies," said Moreno.
A Donald Trump presidency will soon be reality for America. Supporters have hailed it as the chance for much needed government reform, and protesters in cities across the U.S. have already taken to the streets about their worries and fears.

What was once a joke response among some Hillary Clinton supporters to a disappointing election, moving to Canada or somewhere else, is being taken more seriously. The election results have sparked a debate among liberals on whether to leave the country or remain and fight for progressive causes.

In the early hours of Wednesday, searches for "move to Canada" peaked, relative to the last seven days, according to Google Trends. "Easiest countries to immigrate to" was a related search.

As the election returns were being counted, 200,000 people visited Canada's immigration website, with half being from U.S. IP addresses, a representative for the Canadian department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship told NBC in an email. And those figures don't account for users trying to access the site after it crashed.

"The volume for this time period is significantly higher than the same time the previous week, when the website saw just over 17,000 users," the representative said.

Protests were held in Oakland, California and Portland, Oregon after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States early Wednesday. (Nov. 9)

Searching for immigration information doesn't take very long, but actually moving to Canada would take a lot longer. The wait time to achieve permanent residency in the country could be months or years, according to immigration attorney David Clarke. He said Trump may not even be president by the time current U.S. citizens finally become Canadian citizens.

Celebrities took to Twitter on election night to sound off on the idea of an exodus.

Looking for a great realtor in Canada.  Josh Gad (@joshgad) November 9, 2016

In other related news: Flights to Canada are really cheap  Brittany Snow (@Brittanysnow) November 9, 2016

Currently considering moving back to Australia... well.. that or relocating to Canada. #ElectionNight  Sharna Burgess (@SharnaBurgess) November 9, 2016

"Breaking Bad" star Bryan Cranston spoke on the topic in an October episode of "The Bestseller Experiment" podcast. "Absolutely, I would definitely move," he said.

However, others are arguing against fleeing, saying it is not what will keep America together.

"The social solution is to stay and put up a fight," wrote the writer and activist Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a non-profit organization that helps spread "progressive perspectives" on social issues.

Solomon added that America needs a "united front ... to understand clearly and organize effectively against the Trump regime. Failure to put up a fight should be unthinkable."

Michael Krikorian, the author of the novel Southside, wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times titled "Dont move to Canada. Stay and fight."

Italian model shares with the "Felices los 4" singer

Filmmaker Michael Moore also urged people to stay and face the election results. In a Facebook post Wednesday that has since been shared more than 180,000 times, the prominent liberal wrote a "Morning After To-Do List" for the American people. First on the list: "Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people."

"Any Democratic member of Congress who didn't wake up this morning ready to fight, resist and obstruct," Moore added, "must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that's about to begin."

On Thursday, Moore posted a second to-do list, since shared more than 20,000 times. It included forming an opposition movement, as well as impeaching Trump. Moore and other protesters on the left are calling for action that is difficult and time-consuming, but it's clear that they are not backing down. The list concluded, "More to-do tomorrow."

Trump has pledged to serve as president for all Americans in a speech that President Barack Obama said left him feeling "heartened."

President Barack Obama welcomed President-elect Donald Trump to the White House Thursday for a private meeting in the Oval Office. After spending roughly 90 minutes together the pair made a brief statement to reporters. Obama said he was encouraged by the wide-ranging conversation the pair had, adding that its important we call come together to face the challenges America faces....
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Seba Aghayeva  Trend:

Three large Hungarian travel companies intend to enter Azerbaijani market, Ambassador of Hungary to Azerbaijan Imre Laszloczki said in an interview with Trend Nov. 3.

Hungarys leading travel companies "1000 ut", "Robinson Tours", "Vedi Tour" consider mutual revival of tourist relations between the two countries and studying of Azerbaijani market, the ambassador said.

In November 2014, an agreement on cooperation was signed between Hungarys National Economy Ministry and Azerbaijans Culture and Tourism Ministry.

Currently, Moscow branch of Hungarian Tourism Agency is responsible for tourism development with Azerbaijan, Laszloczki noted.

But considering the fact that Hungarian company Wizz Air has been implementing Baku-Budapest direct flights since March 2016, Hungarian travel companies started to show interest for Azerbaijani market, the diplomat said.

He added that large-scale joint touristic presentation of the Visegrad Group countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) held in April in Baku, which kindled interest of Azerbaijani travel companies, contributed to Hungarian travel companies interest for Azerbaijani market as well.

Until recently, Azerbaijani travel companies were associating Hungary with Budapest and Lake Balaton, but currently, the interest for combined tours (for example, Budapest-Vienna), as well as for health and spa tours to Hungary has also arisen, the diplomat added.

It is encouraging that Hungarian tourists interest for Azerbaijan increased as well, he noted.

In January 2016, BLS International LLC opened a visa center of Hungary in Baku at the initiative of Hungarys Embassy in Azerbaijan.

The decision to open the center was made by Hungary in order to strengthen relations between the two countries, establish direct relations between the citizens of Azerbaijan and Hungary, as well as develop tourist relations and meet the needs of the increased tourist and businessmen flow thanks to the direct flights of Wizz Air company.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Asebaa
Kayne to the rescue?

Unsatisfied with the results of Tuesdays presidential election, Kanye West fans are hoping the rapper makes good on his claim that hell run for the presidency in 2020.

Laugh if you will. But could you have predicted us here today?

West gave a speech at the VMAs in 2015, where he declared he would make declare a run for the White House.

"It's about ideas bro, new ideas. People with ideas, people who believe in truth," he said. "And yes, as you could have guessed by this moment, I have decided, in 2020, to run for president."

Following Tuesdays results, several fans voiced their support for West on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/rafsimonsavedme/status/796389121820397568

Some believe Trumps stunning upset victory with no prior political experience actually makes Wests bid for the White House more credible.

[[ 400568601, C]]

While West has yet to issue any type of reaction to the presidential race, his mother-in-law, Kris Jenner, expressed hope on Twitter.

Know your values, keep your head high, stand strong... we're in this together.   Kris Jenner (@KrisJenner) November 9, 2016

His sister-in-law, Khloe Kardashian, voiced support for Clinton on Twitter Tuesday night, while Kendall Jenner retweeted a quote from Clintons concession speech.
What to Know Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino and Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir Grewal both recused themselves in the investigation

The governor is on record repeatedly denying he was told about the closures the week of the shutdown

A former Christie aide and a Port Authority appointee were convicted of conspiracy and fraud in connection with the lane closures

New Jersey's attorney general and Bergen County's top prosecutor have both recused themselves from a case investigating a civilian complaint of official misconduct against Gov. Chris Christie related to the George Washington Bridge lane closures.

Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino and Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir Grewal, both appointees of Christie, said they would not be able to investigate the complaint allowed by Judge Roy McGeady last month.

The complainant, activist Bill Brennan, has asked the court that all county prosecutors be disqualified from investigating the case and a special prosecutor to be assigned. Brennan has alleged that Christie knew about the lane closures the day they happened and didn't require his subordinates to reopen the roadway.

Christie has maintained that he didn't know about the lane closures, even as testimony in a criminal trial for one of his former top aides and a former appointee at the Port Authority implied that he and others on his staff knew about the lane realignments.

In a filing on Friday, John L Higgins III, Bergen County's acting first assistant prosecutor, asked that Brennan's motion and that he could investigate the case impartially. Higgins was not appointed to his post by Christie, but was hired to the prosecutor's office as a regular employee.

A hearing on Brennan's motion seeking a special prosecutor is set for Nov. 30.

Christie has maintained that he didn't know about the lane closures, even as testimony in a criminal trial for one of his former top aides and a former appointee at the Port Authority implied that he and others on his staff knew about the lane realignments.

The aide, Bridget Kelly, and appointee, Bill Baroni, were both found guilty of fraud and conspiracy in the case earlier this month. Christie has never been charged in the case.
Its about to become a lot harder to get around on the east side of midtown Manhattan.

Thats because the NYPD and Secret Service are placing extra security measures around Trump Tower, the East 56th Street skyscraper where President-elect Donald Trump lives. The tower will also likely become the Republicans base of operations as he prepares to transition to the White House on Jan. 20.

An NYPD representative told NBC News that the department is assisting the Secret Service with security measures for the President-elect. Trumps personal security will be handled by the Secret Service, which has provided him and several members of his family with security details for several months.

The NYPD is likely to use its manpower to help with crowd control at the skyscraper as supporters, protesters and media gather outside the building in the coming months.

As of Wednesday, foot traffic by the building was being regulated by NYPD officers posted at Fifth Avenue and East 56th Street. Protesters, supporters and members of the media have been corralled into pens around the building, and security screens have been set up at the side entrances of the building to obscure the identities of people entering and leaving the office building.

The Federal Aviation Administration has also released temporary flight restrictions over midtown Manhattan along with parts of western Queens and Brooklyn until Jan. 21, the day after Trumps inauguration. Helicopters and planes cannot enter the restricted area unless they are arriving at or departing from heliports in Manhattan or are law enforcement or emergency aircraft.

It wont be the first time that the NYPD and Secret Service have worked together, either. The two agencies coordinated security for Pope Francis 2015 visit, election night parties for Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and the yearly United Nations General Assembly.
What to Know Dozens of people were arrested in New York City as they protested President-elect Donald Trump

Protests were held across the country, including in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Trump is expected to meet with President Barack Obama in Thursday as well, beginning the transition of power from the 44th to 45th president

Get the top headlines of the day in your morning briefing from NBC 4 New York, Monday through Friday. Sign up for our newsletter here.



*This daily briefing will be off Friday, returning Monday, Nov. 14.

Trump Protests Across U.S.

Demonstrations took place in U.S. cities Wednesday and early Thursday morning in protest of President-elect Donald Trump's presidential victory, with high school and college students from coast to coast staging walkouts. In addition to demonstrations in New York City, similar anti-Trump protests were being held in other American cities Wednesday, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston.

Trump Protests in NYC

At least 65 people were arrested as thousands of protesters marched in Manhattan and converged outside Trump Tower and Trump International Hotel to denounce the election of Donald Trump as president. One group began at Union Square Wednesday night, while another started at Columbus Circle. Splinter groups of protesters then streamed into the streets causing massive gridlock as police mobilized to contain them under a light rain.

NYPD Sergeant's Funeral

Hundreds of uniformed colleagues, relatives and friends gathered Wednesday to pay tribute to the 41-year-old NYPD sergeant and father of two shot in the head while confronting a home invasion suspect in the Bronx last week. Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo, a 19-year NYPD veteran, died Friday after he was shot by a man who held his family hostage in the Bronx. Tuozzolo's funeral was scheduled for Thursday.

Obama, Trump to Meet

Security was tight in midtown Manhattan on Thursday morning as Donald Trump prepared to head to Washington, D.C. to meet with President Obama at the White House. The Oval Office meeting scheduled Thursday symbolically begins the transition of power from Obama, a Democrat who ushered in a sweeping health care law and brokered a landmark nuclear accord with Iran, and Trump, a Republican who has vowed to wipe those measures away. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Trump Plays Catch-up

The Republican president-elect paid little attention to transition planning leading up to his stunning victory. With 72 days before he takes control of the executive branch, Donald Trump and his senior team on Wednesday immediately began the herculean task of picking a Cabinet and tapping hundreds of appointees to senior roles in key departments  State, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Treasury among them  many requiring multiple security reviews or Senate confirmation.

Nation of California?

Donald Trump's presidential election stirred anti-union sentiments in the Golden State. YesCalifornia, which is pushing for California to secede and become a separate country, staged a daylong "informational session" Wednesday outside the State Capitol in Sacramento.

Tree Heads to NYC

This year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is beginning its journey from upstate New York to Manhattan. It was scheduled to be cut down in Oneonta, New York, on Thursday and to arrive in midtown early Saturday.

Meyers on Trump

Seth Meyers teared up while talking about his hope for a future female president. He said he hopes that his mother, who was excited by Hillary Clinton's presidential run, will live to see a woman in the Oval Office.
Details added (first version posted on 11:50)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Two Azerbaijani-Iranian business forums will be held in December in Iran, said Vugar Zeynalov, vice-president of Azerbaijan Entrepreneurs Confederation.

Zeynalov made the remarks Nov. 10 addressing the conference titled Investment opportunities of Azerbaijan and Iran in Baku.

He noted that the first business forum will be held on Dec. 18 in Ardabil, the second  on Dec. 19 in Tabriz.

Baku hosts the Investment opportunities of Azerbaijan and Iran conference Nov. 10. The event is to be attended by more than hundred entrepreneurs from both sides operating in the spheres of transportation, energy, industry, healthcare, finance, IT and tourism.

Trade turnover between Iran and Azerbaijan amounted to $137.65 million in January-September 2016, more than $102 million of which accounted for import of Iranian products, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee.
A McDonald's employee was attacked by two women inside a midtown bathroom, allegedly for not cleaning it up quickly enough, police said.

The 65-year-old employee was cleaning the restroom inside a Times Square McDonald's when two women walking in around 7 p.m. on Oct. 29, authorities said.

The suspects intended to use the restroom and saw the victim cleaning, but felt that she wasn't cleaning fast enough, which triggered the attack, police said. The victim was not seriously injured and refused medical attention at the scene.

Anyone with information in regards to the incident is asked to call NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.
Brooklyn mother Somia Elrowmein spent Wednesday morning wiping away the tears of her daughter after telling her that Donald Trump would be the 45th president of the United States.

I told her, and she started crying and she said I am not going to be comfortable to tell all my friends at school that I am Muslim, she said.

The Bay Ridge mothers experience wasnt unique in the households of minority groups across America. The previously implausible scenario of a President-elect Donald Trump had come to pass.

After a race that shattered norms of civility and restraint, Trump's ascendancy to the White House on the power of overwhelming white support left some with the sinking feeling that they now live in a country where they simply don't matter. Some said they even worry that they are potentially in danger because of the color of their skin, the God they worship or the language they speak.

Elrowmein, an Arabic translator, said that many in Bay Ridge -- one of the citys strongest Muslim enclaves -- many are wondering whether Trump will make good on promise to ban Muslim immigration and begin mass deportations of immigrants who are in the country without legal authorization.

Some people in bay ridge have families like husband and wife in their country, they are very worried, how are they gonna bring them here?" she said.

The sentiment was the same in other Muslim communities across the country. Just hours after Trump' election, the head of Alabama's largest Islamic congregation said he awakened to messages from female Muslims worried about whether it was safe to wear their religious coverings in public.

"People on social media and otherwise are very concerned about all the talk about banning Muslims and having Muslims to register, so there is a lot of concern," said Ashfaq Taufique, president of the Birmingham Islamic Society.

Trump received minority votes in his stunning win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, and he made conciliatory comments about unity in his victory speech. But some minority citizens who didn't support the Republican nominee said they fear what the next four years might bring.

"It looks like we are going back to the back of the bus," said NAACP member George Rudolph, 65, a black Vietnam veteran whose wife Sarah was seriously injured in the Ku Klux Klan church bombing that killed four black girls in Birmingham in 1963.

Rudolph said Trump's election evokes a time decades ago when segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace stoked crowds with similar rhetoric.

In Los Angeles, just hours after Trump was projected as the next president, Martha Arevalo of the Central American Resource Center said her office already was fielding calls from immigrants who fear they will be targeted for deportation under a Trump presidency.

"This is very, very scary for our families, and they are afraid," said Arevalo, the center's executive director. "What we are telling them is we will continue to fight and we will continue to try to protect them as much as possible."

The nature of the divided vote is behind some of the concern. After promising to "make America great again"  which some heard as a call to return the nation to a time when white men ran almost everything  Trump won the presidency with staggering support from white men. Exit polls and unofficial returns reflected that his backers were older, more male and overwhelmingly white compared to Clinton supporters.

Clinton drew support from a diverse coalition resembling the one that twice elected Barack Obama as president. She carried women, young voters and nonwhites with margins that could leave her actually winning the national popular vote while losing the electoral tally.

At North Carolina Central University in Durham, sophomore Jamon Carlton said he still hadn't figured out how Trump had won in a country that seemed to embrace hope and the inclusion of everyone eight years ago. He worried Trump's victory might embolden closet bigots and lead to more dangerous displays of anger.

"It could become confrontational. Man, I hope it doesn't come to that," said Carlton, who voted for Clinton.

Bennett McAuley and Derrick Swick, a gay-transgender couple in Durham, said they feel especially vulnerable just weeks away from a Trump presidency. "Hell, I'm a white man and this is a really uncomfortable morning," Swick said.

Trump has tried to walk back some of his harshest campaign comments, such as calling Mexican immigrants "rapists;" proposing a ban on Muslims entering the United States, and advocating mass deportations. His victory speech struck a gentler tone that some found encouraging, and Clinton noted that Trump had won the right to govern.

"We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead," she said in her concession speech.

Imelda Salazar, an immigrant rights organizer in Chicago, isn't there yet. She broke down into tears while discussing Trump's win.

"I haven't slept. I'm sad. I'm angry and all that," she said. "But one thing that stands out the most is I'm not alone."

Javier Benavidez, executive director of the Southwest Organizing Project in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said activists there likely would hold peaceful demonstrations each time Trump visits the state as president. For now, they plan a Native American healing ceremony in reaction to his election.

"Confronting this new terrain is frightening," Benavidez said.
Two buildings at one Hudson Valley community college were evacuated on Thursday after officials received a bomb threat, according to a school alert.

Orange County Community College said in the alert that Harriman Hall and the Bio-Tech Building, both on the campus' Middletown campus, were cleared out due to the threat.

It's not clear how long the buildings will remain closed, but the alert is asking students, faculty and staff to stay at least 500 feet from both buildings.

The 2-year institution is part of the State University of New York system.
A New Jersey Transit bus was involved in six-car accident in Passaic County Thursday morning, Little Falls Police Department officials said.

Officers were dispatched to an accident involving an NJ Transit commuter bus and six cars near Route 46 East and Clove Road in Little Falls at 7:17 a.m., police said. The bus was traveling along the 193 route to Port Authority Bus Terminal from the Willow Brook Mall park and ride, according to NJ Transit officials.

Of the 46 passengers on board, three sustained minor injuries and were taken to local hospitals for treatment, police said. A driver of another vehicle was also injured and transported to a local hospital.

Two lanes of Route 46 were closed for about 35 minutes, but traffic has been restored to normal.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.
What to Know NYPD Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo, 41, was shot and killed while responding to a home invasion in the Bronx Nov. 4, officials say

Another sergeant, Emmanuel Kwo, 30, was also shot; he has since been released from the hospital

The suspect, 35-year-old Manuel Rosales, was killed in the shootout with police; he has 17 prior arrests in Suffolk, police say

Thousands of NYPD officers stood shoulder-to-shoulder for nearly a mile to pay their respects to Sergeant Paul Tuozzolo, who died last week after he was shot while trying to apprehend a 35-year-old man who held his family hostage in the Bronx.

Helicopters circled the area overhead as local officials, family and residents packed the streets outside St. Rose of Lima church in Massapequa. A sea of navy blue uniforms was visible for blocks as a seemingly endless motorcade of at least 50 NYPD motorcycles cruised through Merrick Road.

Today we stood side by side, brothers and sisters in blue, to honor & remember #Hero #NYPD Sgt Paul Tuozzolo. EOW 11/4/16 #RIP #NeverForget pic.twitter.com/3PJvzwdCqi  NYPD Special Ops (@NYPDSpecialops) November 10, 2016

Police Officers from near and far are arriving to honor Sgt. Tuozzolo. #NeverForget pic.twitter.com/ga1xdEU82e  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) November 10, 2016

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Mayor de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill were among the thousands who gathered Thursday morning for the funeral of the 41-year-old father of two.

.@CardinalDolan greets mourners at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, site of funeral mass for NYPD Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo pic.twitter.com/SzPxBFss0O  Nicole Fuller (@nicolefuller) November 10, 2016

NYC Mayor @BilldeBlasio & NYPD James Commisioner greet family of Sgt. Tuozzolo. pic.twitter.com/ZVbSmOH5ej  Nicole Fuller (@nicolefuller) November 10, 2016

Another NYPD officer was grazed in the leg in Friday's shootout; he has since been released from the hospital. The suspect, Manuel Rosales, was killed.

The NYPD's Pipes and Drums of the Emerald Society marched in their traditional emerald green attire playing bagpipes, followed by a black hearse. Six officers hoisted Tuozzolo's casket, draped in a green-and-white-striped NYPD flag, onto their shoulders and carried him into the church.

SBA President Ed Mullins pledged the NYPD's loyalty to Lisa Tuozzolo and her two sons, Austin and Joseph, and described her husband's actions as nothing less than heroic in a heartfelt eulogy.

"These three little words, duty, honor, and country, are words that were woven into the fiber of Sergeant Paul Tuozzolo's being," he said. "It's how he was raised. It's what he believed."

O'Neill told mourners that Tuozzolo was "everything we could wish for in a police officer." During the eulogy, with his voice cracking, O'Neill posthumously promoted Tuozzolo to sergeant-special assignment.

Condolences rolled out from across the country for the 19-year NYPD veteran, who would have been eligible to retire next year.

https://twitter.com/ashlee_tisi/status/796754065686429696

Thoughts and prayers to the family, friends, and fellow officers of NYPD Sgt Paul Tuozzolo #NeverForget #NYPD #Hero  FBI New York (@NewYorkFBI) November 10, 2016

Take a moment today to pray for family of Sergeant Paul Tuozzolo who was killed while protecting our city. He leaves behind wife and 2 kids.  David G. Greenfield (@NYCGreenfield) November 10, 2016

At a wake Wednesday, former partner Yalcin Kiyar, who worked the late shift with Tuozzolo at NYPD's 43rd Precinct, called him a "great cop" and a "wonderful father."

"My wife was heartbroken, I was heartbroken," Kiyar recalled of getting the news of Tuozzolo's death. "I remember when Paul was dating his wife. We had met them at a restaurant. It's just heartbreaking."

The family of Wenjian Liu -- the NYPD officer who was killed alongside his partner Rafael Ramos as they sat in their squad car two years ago -- was also at the wake, hugging officers outside.

Tuozzolo is the fifth NYPD officer to be shot to death in the line of duty in the last two years.
What to Know At least 60 people were arrested when thousands marched in the streets of New York City to protest President-elect Donald Trump

They gathered in front of Trump Tower and Trump International Hotel to voice their anger and fear over a Trump presidency

The protests halted traffic and pedestrians but were peaceful

At least 65 people were arrested as thousands of protesters marched in Manhattan and converged outside Trump Tower and Trump International Hotel to denounce the election of Donald Trump as president.

The river of anti-Trump sentiment washed over midtown a day after the Republican's stunning victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton -- a win that sparked demonstrations across the U.S. Protesters shut down Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower, where the president-elect works and lives, to send a message that they don't support him or his policies.

America is not voting for Donald Trumps policies, which dont exist, one man said. They voted for sexism, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism.

The protesters chanted Not my president and "hey, hey, ho, ho Donald Trump has got to go. They held signs that read Trump Makes America Hate" and Impeach Trump. A few climbed vehicles and light poles.

There was anger and fear among many. Some said they worried about what the new president's policies could mean for them.

I was afraid this morning. Im still afraid today, you know. As a black woman, Im afraid. But Im not going to let my fear hold me back, a woman said.

One group began at Union Square Wednesday night, while another started at Columbus Circle. Splinter groups of protesters then streamed into the streets causing massive gridlock as police mobilized to contain them under a light rain.

Police installed barricades outside Trump Tower to keep the demonstrators at bay as they burned American flags and effigies of Trump. Officers made dozens of arrests, mostly for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Some of the protesters cursed out key battleground states that Trump had won to secure victory. Others vowed that their fight had only just begun.

The impact of the protests was felt by traffic and witnessed by pedestrians. Buses were jammed in the middle of intersections and trucks were stuck as police tried to help them maneuver around demonstrators.

Steve Dumerve said the protests kept him and a friend from Trump International Hotel.

Evidently the anti-Trump protest here in NYC is 20 blocks long. pic.twitter.com/FM4TD3Outc  Jim Caruso (@JimCaruso1) November 10, 2016

Our original intention was to be at the Trump Hotel. But thats not going to happen apparently. We have reservations. Its not happening tonight, Dumerve said.

Some residents of midtown said that the spectacle and resulting slowdown was worth it for freedom of speech.

Were a free nation, Margarita Krip said. These people are not happy so they have to express their unhappiness.

The Facebook events for demonstrations in Union Square and Columbus Circle were created on Wednesday morning, with more than 10,000 Facebook users responding that they would be present at the protests.

Similar anti-Trump protests were being held in other American cities Wednesday, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston.

There was also at least one instance of election-related vandalism in the city on Wednesday. Someone appeared to have written the words "I will kill you Trump" on a subway train window, though it's not clear when the vandal wrote the message.

The NYPD said officers responded to the location, but the vandalism had been removed by the time they arrived on scene.

Despite spending his entire life in New York City, Trump was not a popular choice in the Big Apple on Election Day. He was beaten by Clinton in every borough except Staten Island. He also lost the popular vote statewide by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.
What to Know The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was cut down Thursday

The massive Norway spruce will be driven to Manhattan

It will be lit during a live broadcast on Nov. 30

This year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree has started its journey from upstate New York to Manhattan.

The 94-foot Norway spruce, owned by Angie and Graig Eichler, was cut down Thursday morning in Oneonta. Two massive cranes moved the tree, the second largest to ever grace Rockefeller Center, onto a flatbed truck. It will be driven 140 miles to Manhattan, where it's due to arrive on Saturday.

Mammoth 2016 Rockefeller Center Tree Readies for Spotlight

Eichler said Thursday his family was excited to donate the tree, adding it was a big deal for the Oneonta community. About 100 people turned out to watch the spectacle.



"We'll miss the shade but for the most part we're happy to gain the space back because it did monopolize the entire yard," Eichler said.

@robynmalocsay2

@robynmalocsay2

@robynmalocsay2

@robynmalocsay2

The tree's 50,000 lights will be switched on during a live television broadcast on Nov. 30. The spruce will stay on display until Jan. 7. Rockefeller Center's trees are usually milled into lumber for Habitat for Humanity after they're taken down.

Workers hoist cranes as they prepare to cut down the mammoth Rockefeller Center tree ahead of its journey to Manhattan.

The first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was put up in 1931 by workers building the complex during the Great Depression. The first official tree lighting there was in 1933.

Video from NBC 4 New York of the Rockefeller Center Tree lighting Wednesday.
An Oceanside man who died of natural causes in September was elected to office in the coastal San Diego County city more than a month later, officials confirmed Wednesday.

Gary Ernst was elected to Oceanside City Treasurer by a six percent margin over challenger Nadine Scott. The election results are expected to be certified on December 7th by the city council.

Ernst died Sept. 23 which did not allow enough time to remove his name from the ballot.

With all precincts reporting, Ernst earned 17,659 votes.

City councilmembers can declare the seat vacant since the winner cannot physically take office, according to Oceansides City Attorney John Mullen. That will lead to either an appointment or a special election.

If city leaders choose to appoint someone for two years, the decision must be made within 60 days, Mullen said.

Scott told NBC 7 that she would like to be appointed to honor the 15,500 voters who cast their ballot for her.

She said she believes voters were not informed that Ernst was deceased prior to the election because some city leaders wanted to appoint another candidate after the election.
President-elect Donald Trump controls more than 500 companies across many industries and will face many issues that will affect his private interests when conducting economic business in the Oval Office, NBC News reported.

"The sheer scale and private nature of his business suggest it would be an unprecedented and potentially thorny situation for a president," said Ari Melber, MSNBC's chief legal correspondent.

Trump has said that he will hand his brand over to his children while he runs the country. Hes also promised to follow sanctions imposed on private businesses by the government.

Click through for analysis on how President Trump will handle his massive holdings.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he has not talked with President-elect Donald Trump about a role in the Trump administration.

"The president-elect was absolutely adamant about not discussing the transition before he was elected," said Christie, who is Trump's transition chairman.

Trump's senior team huddled privately to focus on a period of transition planning. In addition to Christie, the group included Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, daughter Ivanka Trump's husband Jared Kushner, and others.

Speaking on NBC's "Today" show Thursday, Christie said he does not believe the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal will cloud his future.

Donald Trump, speaking from New York City, addressed his supporters after he was elected president of the United States. Its been what they call a historic event, Trump said. But to be really historic we have to do a great job and I promise you that I will not let you down.

The Republican said he's not committed to doing anything in a new administration. He says his job is to get Trump through the transition and he'll talk with the president-elect if there's any job that Trump wants him to do.

Christie refused to say if he was interested in a specific job with the new administration.

I have a job to do to help get the administration ready. If theres some role for me that I want to do, and that the president-elect wants me to do  weve known each other for 14 years  well talk about," he said.

"Maybe its host of the 'Today' show, Matt. Who knows," Christie told host Matt Lauer.

Sources told NBC News a number of Trump's most loyal supporters were being considered for positions in his presidential cabinet, among them former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Giuliani is being looked at for attorney general, the sources said. Giuliani told CNN Thursday: "I certainly have the energy, and there's probably nobody who knows the Justice Department better than me."

However, that's a change of tune from Wednesday when Giuliani told The New York Times, "I'm not interested in returning to government.

Gingrich, an author of the Contract with America in the mid-1990s while in the Congress representing Georgia, could be a candidate for secretary of state.

NEWARK, NJ  NOVEMBER 5: U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) speaks at a campaign rally in support of U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) November 5, 2006 in Newark, New Jersey. Incumbent Menendez is facing Republican Senate candidate Tom Kean Jr. in Tuesdays election. (Photo by Jeff Fusco/Getty Images)

Other possible names that have been put forward: retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for defense secretary or national security adviser; Steve Mnuchin, Trump's finance chairman, for treasury secretary, and Lew Eisenberg, the Republican National Committee finance chairman, for commerce secretary, three campaign advisers told NBC News. Flynn would need a waiver from Congress because he has not been retired from the military for seven years as would be required.

Priebus, who was a staunch Trump defender, could be the chief of staff, according to NBC News.

Helping to vet the names are the conservative Heritage Foundation and Trump's running mate Pence.

The White House said Trump's team will start working directly with federal agencies this week on the transition.

President Barack Obama addressed the nation on Nov. 9, after congratulating president-election Donald Trump in the early morning hours for his win. Watch his full remarks here.

Trump's team will start getting briefings related to the Defense Department, State Department, Treasury Department and other agencies. The briefings will include budget details, flow charts for staff and other information.

Officials at those agencies will start speaking regularly to Trump team members to facilitate the handover of power in January. And Trump's team will start creating policy teams that will work out of government-provided offices near the White House.

The White House also said the Obama administration will host two "exercises" involving multiple agencies to help familiarize Trump's team with government practices and systems for responding to domestic emergencies.

The White House said Trump's team will start working directly with federal agencies this week on the transition.

Trump's team will start getting briefings related to the Defense Department, State Department, Treasury Department and other agencies. The briefings will include budget details, flow charts for staff and other information. Officials at those agencies will start speaking regularly to Trump team members to facilitate the handover of power in January. And Trump's team will start creating policy teams that will work out of government-provided offices near the White House.

The White House also said the Obama administration will host two "exercises" involving multiple agencies to help familiarize Trump's team with government practices and systems for responding to domestic emergencies.

Christie was asked on "Today" whether Trump would apologize for his repeated comments casting doubts on whether President Obama was born in the United States. Obama was born in Hawaii.

Christie said "I think that's all past us." He noted that Obama has made barbed remarks about Trump. He said: "That's politics though."

Asked if Trump's birther comments were "just politics," Christie said "everything is in the context of politics"  though that doesn't mean Trump didn't believe what he was saying.

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Meanwhile, Giuliani dismissed post-election protesters as "a bunch of crybabies."

There have been protests in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and elsewhere. Some demonstrators carried placards declaring "Not My President."

[NATL]Anti-Trump Protesters Gather in US Cities

Giuliani said on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" that most of the protesters are college-age students and seem to be "1 percent of 1 percent of 1 percent."

Giuliani said he would advise the president-elect to tell them to calm down and after a year, "you'll be living in a better country. If not, go cry then."
Details added (first version posted on 12:38)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Azad Hasanli - Trend:

Azerbaijan plans to organize an export mission to Egypt in 2016, Rufat Mammadov, head of Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO), told reporters Nov. 10 in Baku.

Mammadov recalled that currently, the export mission of Azerbaijani entrepreneurs is in China, and the mission to Dubai, the UAE, will be organized until the end of 2016.

Entrepreneurs, who will visit Egypt and Dubai, will present spheres of agriculture, processing, food industry, including the production of soft drinks, he noted.

Mammadov noted that during the visit, the entrepreneurs will hold negotiations with local companies to expand their export opportunities, as well as one of the companies plans to sign a contract on results of the visit.

Meanwhile, AZPROMO head didnt specify the name of that company.

Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Egypt amounted to about $4.5 million in January-September 2016, $4.2 million of which accounted for import of Egyptian products, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee.

Meanwhile, the first export mission of 12 Azerbaijani entrepreneurs is in China (Hong Kong and Guangzhou), where they will take part in two exhibitions of wine and alcoholic producers until Nov. 13.
A lot of things have changed since James Otis took an ax and sledgehammer to Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in an overnight act of vandalism and protest.

The heir to the Otis Elevator Company fortune, dressed as a construction worker in a hard-hat and high-visibility vest, smashed the star to pieces in the wee hours of Oct. 28. Otis' protest of the then-candidate for president was caught on camera, representing just another passion-filled chapter in a bizarre election saga.

Nearly two weeks later, voters have cast their ballots, Trump is the president-elect and repairs, which began just a few hours after Otis chipped the star into fragments and removed its bronze TV emblem, are almost complete. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce said the star has been mostly repaired but still needs to dry and be polished.

Officials said they're hoping to unveil the star as soon as possible.

The star remained blocked off and covered in plywood Wednesday, hours after the former reality show star and New York billionaire defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the race for president.

About two dozen Trump supporters reveled at the site after the election, snapping photos until police asked them to move on. Trump's star was dedicated in January 2007 for his work as a producer on televised beauty pageants and his work on NBC's "The Apprentice."

Walk of Fame star recipients are selected by a committee that considers hundreds of applications each year. The stars are sponsored for a fee of $30,000, if the person is selected.

The star was repeatedly targeted during the presidential campaign. It was defaced with spray paint and surrounded by a miniature wall in protest of Trump's plan to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

As for Otis, he took full responsibility and was arrested on suspicion of vandalism. His plan was to remove the star, then use it to raise money for the women who accused Trump of sexually assaulting them, Otis said

"He fancies himself a civil activist," said his attorney, Mieke ter Poorten. "Someone who fights for the right of the under-represented.

"It didn't work out quite the way he wanted it to. What he was trying to do was that when you have a bad act, you accept responsbility for your bad act. And, you accept the responsiblity for your bad act."

Trump has denied the sexual assault accusations.

Editor's note: This article was updated to clarify the Walk of Fame sponsorship process.
What to Know Ahmad Khan Rahimi is accused of planting bombs in New York and New Jersey that wounded 31 people in September

The 28-year-old Afghan native was captured after a shootout with police in New Jersey two days after the bombings

He has been recovering from multiple gunshot wounds he sustained in the shootout with cops

A man charged with setting off bombs in New Jersey and New York shuffled slowly into a Manhattan courtroom Thursday to face federal terrorism charges as his lawyer expressed worries that a federal lockup could not adequately care for injuries stemming from his shootout with police.

Ahmed Khan Rahimi, 28, listened as U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn read him his rights and the charges against him during a brief morning appearance after he was transferred into federal custody at 5 a.m. No plea was required because he has yet to be indicted.

The Afghanistan-born U.S. citizen was hospitalized for weeks for treatment of multiple bullet wounds after a police shootout during his Sept. 19 capture outside a bar in Linden, New Jersey.

Rahimi is charged with detonating a pipe bomb along a Marine Corps charity race in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and planting two pressure cooker bombs in Chelsea.

One of those devices detonated, injuring 31 people and shattering windows more than 100 yards away. All of the victims survived.

Netburn formally notified him that he faced four federal charges: the use of weapons of mass destruction, the bombing of a public place, the destruction of property through fire or explosion and the use of a destructive device during a crime of violence.

Rahimi, speaking softly, acknowledged that he understood the charges while his attorney, David Patton, waived a public reading of them.

Patton told the judge he was worried that Rahimi cannot be adequately treated for his wounds at the Manhattan Correctional Center, a federal lockup next to federal courthouses in lower Manhattan.

He said Rahimi has already undergone eight to 10 surgeries, many for infections resulting from his bullet wounds. Rahimi also has serious liver damage, injuries to his left hand that prevent him from closing it, an open wound on his right leg and serious back and shoulder injuries, he added.

"We have some real concerns about Mr. Rahimi's medical condition," Patton said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew DeFillippis said federal authorities took his injuries into consideration when they decided he was well enough to be transferred to the Manhattan facility.

Outside court, Patton said Rahimi "certainly plans to enter a plea of not guilty at his arraignment," but he declined to discuss anything further about the case or his client's mental condition.

In addition to the federal charges, Rahimi faces five counts of attempted murder of a police officers and weapons offenses in New Jersey. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
A Philadelphia Police officer is recovering after he shot a dog that attacked him in Southwest Philadelphia late Wednesday afternoon.

Officials say the officer was on the 7000 block of Saybrook Avenue for a narcotics investigation when he was attacked by a dog. The officer opened fire, shooting the dog at least once.

The officer suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to the hospital. Officials have not yet revealed the dogs condition.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.
Police said a man was assaulted after voting in Wilmington on Election Day.

City police spokeswoman Sgt. Andrea Janvier said that 65-year-old Jeff Brown had cast his ballot to vote at P.S. duPont Middle School and was walking away from the area when the incident occurred.

Brown said he felt targeted by an unknown man after he was told that he would not be allowed to vote.

After voting, Brown said he encountered the suspect twice more and a physical altercation took place.

Brown sustained minor cuts and scratches to his elbow and knees.

Police describe the suspect as a black male, 20-30 years of age, 180-190 pounds, standing between 5-foot, 9-inches to 5-foot, 10-inches tall who was driving a silver colored vehicle that left before officers arrived.
Democrat Josh Gottheimer has defeated seven-term Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett in New Jersey's closest-watched race.

The former Microsoft executive and Bill Clinton speechwriter toppled Garrett in the perennially Republican 5th District in northern New Jersey.

The campaign became bitter, with Gottheimer calling Garrett a bigot and Garrett calling Gottheimer a liar.

Gottheimer had broad support from Democratic officials, including U.S. Sen. Cory Booker. His supporters had hoped to capitalize on reports that Garrett would not contribute to the House Republican campaign arm because it backed gay candidates. Garrett rejected the claims and denied being anti-gay.

Gottheimer had a fundraising edge with $2.6 million to Garrett's $2.1 million.

The district includes parts of Bergen, Passaic, Sussex and Warren counties.
A central Pennsylvania technical expert used spyware and the county's Wi-Fi network to spy on his estranged wife, according to the attorney general.

Thirty-six-year-old David Maurer, of Susquehanna Township, doesn't have an attorney listed in court papers nor a listed telephone.

He's charged with three counts of violating the state's wiretap act and other crimes for allegedly secretly installing the spyware on his wife's computer so he could spy on her chats, emails and web browsing.

Investigators also determined he used Dauphin County's wireless network to do that. The county district attorney referred the case to the attorney general.

Maurer allegedly sent computer screen shots from his wife's computer to a child-custody evaluator assigned by the court.

Maurer faces a preliminary hearing Dec. 15. The county didn't immediately comment on his employment status.
Demonstrators angry over Donald J. Trump's election as president marched in downtown Los Angeles early Thursday and shut down portions of the 101 Freeway.

Twenty-nine people were arrested after they entered the freeway with hundreds of other protesters at Alvarado Street around 10:20 p.m., according to Los Angeles Police Department. Police were anticipating more arrests as a group of protesters remained in the southbound 101 lanes near Alvarado Street, according to Los Angeles Police Department Public Information Director Josh Rubenstein. Other protesters were moving through the streets, headed toward Los Angeles City Hall.

Shortly before that, protesters shut down both sides of the 110 Freeway in the downtown area at 3rd Street after walking on lanes through traffic. They had scattered shortly after 10 p.m., but police officers were still directing traffic in lanes.

Officers were in full tactical gear as they walked protesters off the freeway in what has otherwise been a peaceful demonstration, Rubenstein said. By 1:30 a.m., the freeway was clear of demonstrators but lanes remained closed for cleanup.

With the exception of some protesters throwing rocks at officers and vandalizing portions of the freeway, Rubenstein said the protest had been non-violent, including the officers' response.

Social media posts showed a bus, the Los Angeles Times building and a news live truck spray painted with anti-Trump graffiti reading F--- Trump.

The rally and march began about 7 p.m. outside Los Angeles City Hall, drawing an ethnically diverse crowd of more than 5,000, many of whom who appeared to be high school and college age.

More than 300 youthful-looking demonstrators earlier rallied outside City Hall before marching to LAPD headquarters and then on toward Staples Center.

Some protesters chanted "Not my president," and at least one had a sign that stated: "Trump Equals Death." Other signs read "Epic Fail," "Rapist President" and "Artists Against Trump."

While some of the signs and chants contained expletives, the protests were noisy but initially peaceful, and appeared to be growing as the day wore on.

Some motorists honked their horns when they saw the crowds. Helicopters hovered overhead as law enforcement officers controlled traffic and watched for signs of trouble.

In Orange County, police broke up a demonstration that included hurling objects at officers.

Around 350 people rallied in Santa Ana on Wednesday night. One person was arrested, and a demonstrator threw an object, either a rock or a bottle, at an officer. More people were gathered in front of Mater Dei High School early Thursday morning.

One rally started about 11 a.m. Wednesday as a walkout at several Los Angeles Unified School District campuses, according to 16-year-old Gerson Macias, a student at Ramon Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts.

Macias said he joined the protest after seeing other students march past their school because Trump's policies could affect him as a Hispanic and gay person.

"I believe this man cannot split families apart anymore, and cannot take away our rights as LGBT people, because we have been fighting for this for years, and this man cannot come in and just take that all away,'' he said.

Alexa Orozco, 16, said she feels personally affected by this election because she has friends and family who are "not born here."

Because she was too young to vote, the rally was her way of expressing her opinion on Trump, she said.

"I feel like a lot of our generation, we feel strong about certain things and I feel like that it's devastating to not be able to do something like vote," Orozco said.

"But we're not going to let that stop us from trying to do something, and that's why we're here today."

Seeing Trump win in other states, such as Florida, was a "wake-up call to me, realizing that I haven't been anywhere else besides California," Orozco said.

Since the results were settled, she says she has been obsessed with looking at what demographic groups voted for which candidate.

"It's sad to see that sexism, racism, it's all over the place," Orozco said. "Maybe we don't see a lot of it here."

Some of the protesters said they learned about the rally on Instagram, via hashtags such as "notmypresident."

Other protests of students and young people were held Wednesday across the Southland, including on the campuses of UCLA, Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine.

At Cal State Long Beach, hundreds of students took part in a march across campus, with some carrying signs and many loudly chanting, "Not my president.'' The CSULB student government set up a "safe space" on campus designed to give students a place to express their feelings about the election.

Similar spaces were set up at UCLA, and an open-discussion event was scheduled to take place from 6 to 9 p.m. at DeNeve Auditorium.

University officials said the Young Progressives Demanding Action at UCLA plans to hold a rally at 11 a.m. Thursday in Meyerhoff Park.

Substantial anti-Trump protests also took place Wednesday in New York, Chicago, Washington and other cities.
An active duty U.S. Marine, last seen in San Diego's Gaslamp District, was reported missing after he failed to report for duty, the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) said.

Jonathan Felts, 22, stationed at MCAS Miramar, was last seen on Nov. 7 at approximately 2 a.m. in San Diego's Gaslamp District, in Downtown San Diego.

Felts was off-duty when he called his friends on a cell phone, letting them know he would be traveling back to base. Police say Felts does not drive and often uses a cab as transport.

Since that call, police say Felts has not contacted family, friends or his employer.

He was due back on base the same evening and failed to report in, police say.

Marine Corp staff and family members are concerned, police say.

Felts is described as a 22-year-old, 200-pound man approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall with blonde hair and green eyes. He was last seen wearing a black and grey t-shirt with white writing on the front and black shoes. Police do not know what pants he was wearing.

Any information related to the whereabouts of Felts should be forwarded to San Diego Police Department at 619-531-2000 or Detective Shelly Luna from the Missing Persons Unit at 619-531-2277

No other information was immediately available.
A Chula Vista woman was able to change her flight last minute so she could be by her dying mothers side but getting the airline to refund her for the difference in price proved to be harder to land.

Mary Anne Gallant enjoys looking at family photos of her mother and big family from New York.

This was taken at Sleepy Hollow Country Club on Thanksgiving, Mary Anne said.

Mary Anne knew her mothers health was failing when she bought an airline ticket to the east coast to visit her. A few weeks before her scheduled trip, she received an urgent call.

I got a phone call from my sister Kathy and she basically told me I better get out there sooner, Mary Anne said.

Their 93-year-old mother was gravely ill. Mary Anne canceled her American Airlines ticket and bought a new ticket departing the next day.

I figured Ill get there first and then afterwards Ill worry about trying to work something out with the airline for a refund, Mary Anne said.

The family gathered and Mary Anne knew she made the right decision about leaving early.

They told us wed have about 24 or 48 hours and she died that night, Mary Anne said.

After the passing of her mother, Mary Anne turned her attention to her airline ticket. She felt because of the circumstances of her mothers death, that the airline should refund the difference and change fees between her original $500 ticket and her last minute $1,100 fare.

An employee for American Airlines communicated with Mary Anne through email and agreed to a partial refund as long as she provided the necessary documentation proving her mothers death.

My brother sent me a copy of the death certificate, the obituary and I sent all of that to American Airlines, Mary Anne said.

Months later the money never arrived. So, Mary Anne turned to NBC 7 Responds.

NBC 7 Responds found bereavement airfare discounts are becoming a thing of the past for most major airlines. American Airlines stopped their bereavement airfare discounts all together in 2014.

But since American Airlines had already agreed to a partial refund for Mary Anne, we reached out to American Airlines and within a few days, Mary Anne received some good news.

He told me in about a week to 10 days, Ill see the refund in my account, Mary Anne said.

A representative from American Airlines told NBC 7 Responds the reason for stopping bereavement airfare discounts came down to the likelihood of finding an affordable, last minute ticket to a destination. Because of that, Airlines recommend contacting their customer relations department first before making any flight changes.

NBC 7 Responds was told customer relations departments can often remove change fees or find something in your range if you contact them before cancelling pre-existing flights.
Hundreds of people gathered in Downtown San Diego Wednesday night, protesting the election of Donald Trump as the next president.

An event posted on Facebook called for people to gather at the Horton Plaza on Broadway for a peaceful rally. The group called it "Love Trumps Hate" solidarity rally.

Demonstrators gathered at Horton Plaza and then took to the streets, heading down 5th Avenue and Market Street and later blocking the road.

The following video contains graphic language.

Law enforcement officers lined the road at 11th Avenue and C Street in riot gear, attempting to get the protesters to disperse.

At one point, protesters gathered at the downtown jail where some of them got into physical confrontations with officers. Protesters began wrestling with officers on bicycles, pushing one officer down.

The officer was not hurt.

But while some expressed their anger, others thanked officers for their service.

NBC 7 spoke with some of the protesters who said they were appalled at the result of Tuesday's election and were there to voice their concerns.

I know what it means to be on both sides, on the safe side and on the very unsecure side," said Caludia Asmussen, who told NBC 7 that she was half Mexican and half German.

I just came here because I just wanted to be in a liberal state, but Im not sure about this at this moment. But for sure, Im not gonna run. Im going to stay here and keep on fighting," she added.

Patrick Kelly, another protester described the moment he woke up as "terrifying."

We watched a year of entirely the wrong person be allowed to ramble on T.V., based off of our legislative body and its unfortunate to watch it get to this point," Kelly said.

He said that they will continue to spread the message they stand for.

A man and a woman were arrested, while protesters chanted "let them go," according to an NBC 7 reporter on the scene.

Another protest is scheduled at 1 p.m. on Saturday in Balboa Park in San Diego.

Meanwhile, the Trump's victory also sparked protests in several U.S. cities on Wednesday, including Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.10



By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:



The election of Donald Trump handicaps the OPEC deal, according to the analysts of the Energy Security Analysis (ESAI), US-based global energy consulting company.



The election of Donald Trump has made US shale more resilient. Meanwhile, the OPEC production negotiations remain difficult. Connecting these two dots suggests this may not be the right time for a deal, said the analysis obtained by Trend.



There are few details regarding a likely Trump energy strategy, but clearly, he will be pro-business and thus pro-fossil fuels, according to ESAI.



Furthermore, we expect an approach that tends towards energy autarky. That is, policies or non-policies that encourage the development of domestic energy sources with an objective of greater self-sufficiency and less reliance on foreign sources, said the analysis.



It is ESAI Energys view that the election of Trump subtly shifts the balance of power in the oil market.



Trump presidency that is pro-business will encourage oil development, permit pipelines, reduce corporate profit taxes and generally make US oil more competitive, said ESAI.



Raising oil prices will only strengthen the US oil sector, intensifying competition with an industry that now has the full backing of the president and a Republican Congress, according to the analysts.



This means if a good OPEC deal is unreachable, the Saudis are more likely to walk away under the pretense of taking a wait and see attitude regarding the new president, while continuing to keep the pressure on US shale, said ESAI.



So, now may not be the time for an OPEC deal. If indeed an OPEC deal falls off the table or is agreed in word but not deed, the recovery in crude prices will be delayed and constrained in 2017, said the analysts.



In September, OPEC producers agreed during the informal meeting in Algiers to cut down the oil output to 32.5 million barrels per day (bpd) from current production of 33.24 million bpd.



How much each country will produce is to be decided at the next formal meeting of OPEC in November.
Authorities have made an arrest in the homicide of a 92-year-old woman found dead inside her apartment.

A family member found Maria Rivera, 92, dead on October 22 in an apartment complex on D Street.

When officers began investigating, they determined the apartment had been burglarized prior to Rivera's death.

Officials launched a homicide investigation and worked to identify and locate the man responsible for killing her.

Peter Thao, 26, has been arrested in connection with the homicide, National City Police (NCPD) said Thursday.

Police arrested the San Diego resident without incident outside of his home on Aries Road. He will be booked into County Jail on related murder charges.

Neighbors who lived near Rivera told NBC 7, they were relieved Thao had been arrested.

"Those times I went to work and back, I really felt uncomfortable leaving the house with them inside," neighbor Ricardo Martinez said, speaking of his family. "There is nobody inside and I didn't have any kind of guard dog or anything like that to help them out. So it's been a stressful 19 days. Yeah, really stressful."

Police declined to comment on what evidence linked Thao to the crime but said they found the evidence inside his home. They also confiscated his car.

Authorities do not believe there are any outstanding suspects, but the investigation is ongoing.

The homicide is believed to be random.

"That is the big mystery, on that there is no connection to this area, no connection to this victim that we know of," said NCPD Lt. Robert Rounds. "And that is what is kinda scary too. That is why it was even more important we have been working this case tirelessly since it happened. Our detectives have been working non-stop on it."

Thao is expected to appear in court on Tuesday.
Authorities in Mexico are searching for a Chula Vista mother accused of kidnapping her 2-month-old son from a recovery center and fleeing with the infant across the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Baja California agency, Procuraduria General de Justicia del Estado, issued an Amber Alert for the infant, Maximus Garcia, and his mother, Erika Ramos Saucedo, 36. Saucedo does not have legal custody of her son.

The National City Police Department (NCPD) said the case is being investigated as a parental abduction. Maximus was dropped off by Child Protective Services (CPS) at the South Bay Womens Recovery Center located at 2414 Hoover Ave. in National City Tuesday for a supervised visit with Saucedo.

Police said the boy was left alone with the mother, unsupervised. Saucedo then took her son and fled in her car.

NBC 7 spoke with Jose Garcia, the father of the baby, who said that the CPS staffer had been distracted with other children in a car so Maximus was left unattended with Saucedo.

"It's not just my son, there are other kids in danger if there is another mother who is really unstable like my ex-girlfriend," Garcia said.

By 9:42 a.m., Saucedo and the baby boy were seen leaving the U.S. and entering Mexico via the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the NCPD confirmed.

Child Protective Services reported the abduction to the NCPD at 11:53 a.m. Tuesday, more than two hours after Maximus was taken.

"I guess one of the workers who transported my son called for authorization from another CPS working instead of calling 911," Garcia said.

Several agencies are involved in the case involving the baby and Saucedo, including Mexican authorities, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the San Diego County District Attorneys Missing and Abducted Children Unit.

The NCPD said the California Highway Patrol was contacted to issue an Amber Alert in San Diego County. However, since the mother and baby crossed into Mexico, the Amber Alert was not granted locally.

The agent had also called a supervisor prior to calling 911, giving time for his ex-girlfriend to take the baby across the border, he added.

"If they did a 911 call, they wouldve had highway patrol blockade the entrance to Mexico and we couldve saved my son from being kidnapped," Garcia said.

The investigation now primarily continues in Mexico.

On Thursday, the Procuraduria General de Justicia del Estado posted a notice on its Facebook page saying officials are still searching for Saucedo and Maximus. The agency said Saucedos car is a white Suzuki with the California license plate 7PPW607.

Procuraduria General de Justicia del Estado said Saucedo had called Maximus father, allegedly threatening to kill herself because she doesnt have any money. The agency said the Alerta Amber was issued in Mexico for fear of Saucedo harming herself and the child. Garcia told the agency Saucedo allegedly uses drugs, which is part of the reason she does not have custody of their son.

Garcia told NBC 7 that he's reached out to CPS in San Diego several times but can never get through.

"No, there's no urgency. I dont see no urgency on my son's matter even though [Saucedo] commented she's going to hurt herself and hurt my son," he said.

"Every second counts," Garcia added. "And to them, they get to go home at 5 and I continue on the streets of Tijuana looking for my son. I dont know where my sons at, so its hard."

He added that CPS staffers need better training so that other kids aren't put in harm's way, like his son.

Saucedo and Maximus are believed to be in Tijuana.

The Mexican agency's alert described Maximus as having short, brown hair and dark-colored eyes. The infant weighs about 17 pounds and is approximately 19.5 inches tall. Anyone with information can contact Mexican authorities.

NBC 7 reached out to San Diego CPS for further information on this case, including why the infant was left unsupervised.

Michael Workman, of the San Diego County Communications Office, released this statement:

"We dont have details at this time. We can confirm the baby was taken by his mother. Local law enforcement says they fled to Mexico. The main priority at this time is to get the child back safely. The County will investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident."
California voters may have approved the use of recreational marijuana but residents cannot walk into a dispensary to purchase it or consume marijuana on the street.

Voters approved Proposition 64, with 56 percent of the vote during Tuesday's election.

In addition to legalizing the use of pot and allowing anyone over the age of 21 to grow up to six plants at home, Prop 64 is expected to generate revenue for California with new taxes on its cultivation and sales. It also reduces many of the criminal penalties for pot-related crimes.

But just because its now legal to use, that doesnt mean it will be easy to get, according to cannabis corporate attorney, Kimberly Simms.

Youre not going to be able to walk into a medical dispensary today, or tomorrow, or the next day and be able to purchase marijuana in the adult-use capacity. You still have to be a patient, Simms said.

In 2018, California will be able to license on-site consumption facilities, Simms added.

Then each city and county will have to figure out how to regulate it from the land use and zoning perspective, she said.

Adults with medical marijuana cards can share pot with other adults in the privacy of their home. They can also share plants with adults who do not have a card, so they can cultivate marijuana too.

You cant just walk down the street with your joint, Simms said.

Linc Fish, CEO of Outco Labs, a company that manages a medicinal marijuana dispensary in East County, said this is an exciting time for the industry.

Its possible that a lot of the medicinal stores will eventually be licensed to carry recreational-use marijuana, Fish said.

As far as actually recreational for our customers, its going to be awhile before that kicks in because each city and county has to either pass something or we have to wait for the state licenses in 2018, said Fish.

Right now, several cities in San Diego have banned the commercial sale and outdoor cultivation of marijuana. Those cities include Poway, Santee, San Marcos, Lemon Grove and National City.

San Diego County officials have also decided not to allow recreational use of marijuana.

Part of the tax structure under Prop 64 allocates the funds to go toward police and fire departments as well as public health issues.

Should a city or county choose to ban commercial activity then they will not be able to partake in that additional revenue, Simms said.

She believes cities should enact regulations so they can use the funds to develop a process for recreational marijuana use within their city limits.
A former San Diego school administrator convicted of having sex with a student was sentenced to nearly a decade behind bars Thursday.

Kettrell Berry, ex-assistant principal at the San Diego Center for Children in Kearny Mesa, was convicted in July on 11 counts of molestation and sex crimes involving a 15-year-old victim.

Berry was fired from the school for troubled teens in April 2012 after accusations surfaced about an inappropriate relationship, and an investigation led to his arrest that May.

The victim in the case testified that some of the sexual encounters took place on school property.

On Thursday, Berry was sentenced to nine years, eight months in prison.
After an extensive, 204-square-mile search Thursday, officials said they found the body of a San Diego fisherman missing at sea after his boat capsized.

On Wednesday evening, Tony Nguyen, 42, and four friends were lobster fishing aboard Nguyens 25-foot boat when a large wave capsized the vessel. Multiple agencies were called to the beach to launch a difficult rescue of the five men.

San Diego Lifeguards swam into the water and pulled two of the passengers safely to shore. Two others were rescued by lifeguards by boat, Lee Swanson of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) confirmed. Surfers and Good Samaritans also reportedly helped.

The missing fisherman was with four others when their boat capsized in high surf off the coast of La Jolla. NBC 7s Elena Gomez updates the search efforts.

The fifth man  Nguyen  was not immediately located. An overnight search for Nguyen ensued with little luck. The search pressed on Thursday, but Nguyen remained missing.

As of 5:24 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard said its crews had suspended their search, as there was "no sign of the missing man."

On Friday at 11:45 a.m., San Diego Fire-Rescue officials said a body had been recovered near Palomar Avenue, near Windansea Beach.

NBC 7

Officials said Nguyen was not wearing a life jacket at the time of the boating incident. His family said he does not know how to swim. Nguyens sister-in-law told NBC 7 Nguyen is an avid fisherman who goes out on his boat three to four times a week.

La Jolla resident Barbara Gray said the surf was strong at Windansea Beach when Nguyens boat capsized.

They [the waves] were huge, really coming in quickly, Gray described. Im sure it was a tough rescue.

The U.S. Coast Guard aided in the rescue of the fishermen Wednesday night, launching a helicopter crew and two boat crews: the San Diego Sector MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and the Coast Guard Cutter Sea Otter and Station San Diego Response vessel.

Coast Guard crews continued to search for Nguyen all day Thursday, along with crews from various other agencies including the SDFD, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, San Diego Mission Bay Lifeguards and the San Diego County Sheriffs Department.

High surf conditions persisted, however, making it tough for lifeguards to conduct dive operations in the water. Instead, Coast Guard crews tackled the search by air, from Crystal Pier to La Jolla Cove. Other teams were scouring the water by boat. Some lifeguards walked onto access points and cliffs to see if they could see anything from those spots.

Eventually, Nguyens boat was found lodged in a cliff off Winamar and Camino de la Costa. Still, there was no trace of the missing man.

NBC 7s Dave Summers was there after first responders pulled two men after their boat capsized.

Officials said the four other men who survived the rescue were wearing life jackets. They were all taken to local hospitals and released.
Businesses across the nation are ready to show their appreciation for former and current members of the military. This Friday on Veterans Day, vets and service members can score deals and freebies on all sorts of goodies. See lots of them below, and find even more here.

Applebee's

Veterans and active-duty military members can each get a free meal from a limited menu on Veterans Day, plus a $5 coupon that can be redeemed Nov. 12-27. Proof of military service is required.

BLT Steak

Parties of one or two can get 50 percent off their checks; groups of three or more get 25 percent off. Available at several BLT Steak locations across the country. Military ID is required.

Bob Evans

Veterans and active-duty military members can enjoy a free breakfast all day long at Bob Evans. Proof of military service is required.

Bruegger's Bagels

Bring your military ID to Bruegger's Bagels for a free small drip coffee.

Buffalo Wild Wings

Vets and military members can each get a free small order of traditional or boneless wings and a side of fries. Proof of military service is required. Proof includes permanent or temporary U.S. military ID cards, a DD 214, veteran's card or a photo of yourself in uniform, or if you're dining in uniform. This offer is available at participating locations only, so call your local spot in advance to check.

California Pizza Kitchen

Vets and military members can choose from a free pizza, full-size salad or pasta from a CPK's Veterans Day menu. You must show your military ID or other proof of service. Offer valid at participating locations, not including restaurants at airports, stadiums or universities.

Chili's Free Meal

Vets and military members can get a free meal from a special Veterans Day menu. Proof of military service required.

Chipotle

Veterans, service members and military spouses can buy one small burrito, bowl, salad or order of tacos and get a second one free. The offer is available on Veterans Day from 3 p.m. to closing. Proof of service is required.

Denny's

Vets and military members can get a free Build Your Own Grand Slam from 5 a.m. to noon. Valid military ID is required.

Famous Dave's

Vets and military members can get a free two-meat combo, which includes a choice of one side and a cornbread muffin. Photo ID and proof of service required; can be U.S. Uniformed Services ID card, form DD-214 or current leave and earnings statement with photo ID.

Fogo De Chao

Veterans and active-duty personnel get 50 percent off; up to three of their guests will get 10 percent off.

Friendly's

Veterans and active members of the military can get a free breakfast, lunch or dinner on Veterans Day. Must show valid military ID or honorable discharge card.

Gordon Biersch

Active and retired military personnel can enjoy a free craft beer at participating locations. Locations prohibited from providing a free craft beer will offer a free appetizer instead.

The Green Turtle

Veterans and active-duty military members can enjoy a free meal at all locations except BWI Airport.

IHOP

Vets and active-duty military personnel can get a red, white and blue breakfast (buttermilk pancakes with glazed strawberries, blueberry compote and whipped topping). The free offer is available at participating locations between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Some locations will also offer a combo of two eggs, hashbrowns and two bacon strips or pork sausage links. Proof of military service required; can be U.S. Uniformed Services ID Card, U.S. Uniformed Services Retired ID Card, a current Leave and Earnings Statement (LES), veterans organization card (such as American Legion, VFW, etc.), a photo of yourself in U.S. military uniform, a DD214, military dogtags, citation or commendation, or show up in uniform.

Krispy Kreme

Vets and active-duty military personnel can get a free doughnut and small coffee at Krispy Kreme. No ID is required.

On The Border Free Entree

Vets and military members can receive a free Lunch Combo meal of their choice all day on Veterans Day. Military ID or proof of service required.

Olive Garden

Olive Garden restaurants will offer a free entree from a special menu to active-duty military and military veterans. The special menu features six of Olive Garden's most popular items, it comes with unlimited soup and salad as well as breadsticks.

Red Lobster

Veterans, active-duty military members and reservists can enjoy a free appetizer or dessert from Red Lobster's Veterans Day menu on Nov. 10 and 11. Valid military ID required.

World of Beer

Veterans and current service members can get a free select draught beer (where legal) or $5 off their checks.

Zoes Kitchen

Anyone who served in the armed forces can enjoy a free entree at Zoes Kitchen. Valid military ID required.
Four men, two women and a 17-year-old boy have been charged in the shooting death of a 22-year-old man in Manassas, Virginia, last month.

Edwin Ivan Chicas died after he was shot multiple times the night of Oct. 29 on the 7500 block of Quail Run Lane.

On Wednesday, Prince William County police searched five homes in Manassas and Manassas Park and arrested seven people ranging in age from 18 to 29 who they say participated in a gang murder.

Police are still searching for two men: Kevin Vigil Cruz, 22, of Manassas Park, and Carlos Antoni Cisneros-Espinal, 21, of Manassas. Police did not have a photo of Cruz. Police believe both men were accessories to the murder.

Prince William County Police Department

The fact that they are associates of MS-13, a gang, a very violent criminal gang, makes us want to get them into custody even more," police spokesman Sgt. Jonathan Perok said.

These seven suspects were arrested:

Marlon Edenilson Argueta Flores, 23, of Manassas, was charged with murder and use of a firearm in commission of a felony.

Gerson Aldair Sorto Ramirez, 18, of Manassas, was charged with murder.

Omar Javier Villegas-Ayala, 19, of Manassas Park, was charged with conspiracy to commit a felony.

Kevin Portillo Quintanilla, 19, of Manassas, was charged with conspiracy to commit a felony.

Ana Luisa Hernandez-Ramirez, 29, of Manassas Park, was charged with accessory after the fact.

Tania Manilo Henriquez-Carronza, 24, of Manassas Park, was charged with accessory after the fact.

A 17-year-old boy from Manassas, who police did not name, was charged with conspiracy to commit a felony.

Courtesy of family

After Chicas was killed, one of his sisters wept as she spoke about what he was like.

"He was a very good brother, and he was a very good uncle, and he was a very loving person and he didn't deserve this at all," she said.

Chicas's mother previously said she feared for her son because he spent time with gang members.

Northern Virginia bureau chief Julie Carey reports on the murder of a 22-year-old Manassas man. A neighbor described hearing the shots and running to help.

Chicas's death is the third gang-related murder in Prince William County this year, police said.

A detective on the police department's gang unit, who asked that his identity be concealed, warned that gang recruitment is beginning with young children. He said he has seen an upswing in gang activity in the past two years.

Carlos Castro, the owner of Todos Super Market, said he wants police to reach out to children as young as middle school-age to deter their involvement with gangs.

"I'm hoping our authorities do whatever it takes to eradicate any flare of that kind of violence in our communities," he said.

Police said they are investing resources in their gang unit and narcotics unit.

The county has a record-high number of homicides, with 20 people killed this year. Five of the 20 cases were drug-related, police said. No arrests have been made in three of the 20 cases. Only one of the killings was characterized as random.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call police at 1-866-411-TIPS, send a text message that includes PWC to 274637 or submit a tip online by visiting the Crime Solvers Facebook page. A reward of as much as $1,000 is offered.
Hillary Clinton won the support of an overwhelming majority of D.C. and Maryland voters and won by less than 5 percent in the battleground state of Virginia.

Here's how the votes broke down in our area:

DC

More than 90 percent of D.C. voters picked Clinton. A little more than 4 percent picked President-elect Donald Trump, and less than 2 percent picked Gary Johnson or Jill Stein.

Turnout in D.C. was about the same for this election as it was in 2012. Just over 60 percent of registered voters cast a ballot for this election, compared with nearly 61 percent in 2012, Board of Elections data shows.

Maryland

Nearly 60 percent of Maryland voters picked Clinton. Nearly 35 percent picked Trump. Johnson got nearly 3 percent of the vote, and Stein got a little more than 1 percent.

Maryland elections administrator Linda Lamone called overall voter turnout in the state "extraordinary." She projected on Tuesday that turnout would be 80 percent or higher.

A majority of voters in Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Charles, Howard and Prince George's counties, plus the city of Baltimore, backed Clinton.

Clinton won in Anne Arundel County by less than 2,000 votes. Trump won in Kent County by less than 500 votes, and in Frederick County by less than 4,600 votes.

Virginia

Clinton won 49.47 percent of the vote in Virginia, compared to Trump's 44.7 percent.

Counties and cities in Northern Virginia, near Richmond, in the southeast corner of the state and a few other scattered locations had a majority of voters pick Clinton.

A majority of voters in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties, plus the City of Alexandria, backed Clinton.

A majority of Fauquier County residents picked Trump, with 59 percent for Trump and 34 percent for Clinton.

According to NBC News exit poll data, Trump won the majority of Virginia voters who were white, male, 45 or older and had no college degree.

Clinton won the majority of black and Hispanic voters, while Trump won the majority of white voters. Eighty-eight percent of blacks and 64 percent of Hispanics and Latinos picked Clinton. Fifty-nine percent of whites picked Trump.

The alleged shoplifter pulled out a weapon after he was stopped by the off-duty officer, who was working as security at the store.

The majority of men picked Trump, at 52 percent, while the majority of women picked Clinton, at 55 percent, the exit poll data says.

The majority of voters age 18 to 44 picked Clinton, while the majority of people age 45 and older picked Trump, the exit poll data says. Fifty percent of voters age 45 to 64 picked Trump, and 52 percent of people age 65 and older picked him.

The majority of college graduates picked Clinton, at 54 percent, the exit poll data says, while 51 percent of voters without college degrees picked Trump.

Stay with News4 for more details on this developing story.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.10



By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:



Oil demand growth is forecast to ease to 1.2 million barrels per day in 2016 and a similar expansion is foreseen in 2017, according to the Oil Market Report of the International Energy Agency (IEA).



IEA explains this with sharp slowdowns in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) Americas and China.



IEA analysts believe that 2017 could be another year of relentless global supply growth similar to that seen in 2016.



Russia will see its output increase by 230,000 barrels per day in 2016, and sustained production at current record levels would result in growth of nearly 200,000 barrels per day next year, said the report. With production also expected to grow in Brazil, Canada and Kazakhstan, total non-OPEC output will rise by 0.5 mb/d next year, compared to a fall of 0.9 mb/d in 2016. This means that 2017 could be another year of relentless global supply growth similar to that seen in 2016.



According to IEA estimations, OPEC members pumped 33.8 million barrels per day in October, well in excess of the high end of the proposed output range.



This means that OPEC must agree to significant cuts in Vienna to turn its Algiers commitment into reality, said the report.



IEA analysts believe that if the OPEC countries do implement their Algiers resolution the resultant production cut will see the market move from surplus to deficit very quickly in 2017.



If no agreement is reached and some individual members continue to expand their production then the market will remain in surplus throughout the year, with little prospect of oil prices rising significantly higher, said the report.



In September, OPEC producers agreed during the informal meeting in Algiers to cut down the oil output to 32.5 million barrels per day (bpd) from current production of 33.24 million bpd.



How much each country will produce is to be decided at the next formal meeting of OPEC in November.
A counselor for a private after-school program in Montgomery County has been charged for inappropriately touching a 5-year-old girl, police say.

Raul Alejandro Ramos, 21, of Silver Spring, Maryland, has been arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a minor and three counts of third-degree sexual offense, police said.

Ramos worked for the "Kids After Hours" program at Flower Valley Elementary School on Sunflower Drive in Rockville.

Police said between Aug. 29 and Oct. 31, Ramos inappropriately touched the young girl more than once while playing tag. The incidents happened on the playground and inside the school, police said.

It is not known at this time if Ramos has been fired from his job as a counselor.

Police are asking anyone who has concerns about other children enrolled in the Kids After Hours program to call police at (240) 773-5400.

The after-school program is not run by Montgomery County Public Schools.
Dozens of people protested Donald Trump's presidential victory in the District Wednesday night.

Protesters gathered outside the White House before marching to the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

There, they set an American flag on fire, chanted "No racist USA! No Trump! No KKK!" and held signs that read "Stand with immigrant workers!"

"As a native Washingtonian, I hate to have this to happen in my town," said Rebecca Lindrew, who held a sign that read "Love Trumps Hate."

"We're trying to do whatever it takes to sort of unite people and to get them together and to unite against racism and bigotry and misogyny," Lindrew said.

Police said blue paint was thrown at a hotel window during the protests.

Another group of protesters marched in the area of 14th Street NW. D.C. police officers were at both protests.

Earlier Wednesday, a group of people protested and burned an American flag on American University's campus.

An anti-Trump vigil was held outside the White House shortly before the protests in front of Trump's hotel.
Thousands of free drug deactivation kits are being distributed in Virginia to help fight the state's heroin and opioid crisis.

Attorney General Mark Herring says the kits are available to any resident who needs to get rid of excess or unused prescription opioids and other drugs.

"These kits are going to make it easy for Virginians to safely and quickly dispose of excess prescriptions before they can be abused, misused, or accidentally ingested," Herring said.

In Virginia, heroin overdose deaths have risen more than 600 percent between 2010 and 2015, according to a press release from Herring's office. Prescription opioid overdose deaths have risen 44 percent between 2007 and 2015.

The kits will be distributed through local hospitals, law enforcement agencies, pharmacies and nonprofits.
A group of young people burned an American flag on American University's campus in northwest D.C. in an apparent protest over Donald Trump's victory.

Dozens of students stood outside Wednesday afternoon chanting, "Hey hey! Ho ho! White supremacy's got to go!"

In one video, a man in the group of demonstrators can be seen setting a small American flag on fire. Some people watching the flag burning clap and scream with approval.

Stay with News4 and NBCWashington.com as we continue to update this developing story.
Police have arrested and charged two men with second-degree murder after a Maryland man was beaten to death outside a nightclub in Toronto last weekend.

Toronto police Inspector Det. Sgt. Gary Giroux said Kenneth Omorogbe, 25, and Kamari Folkes, 24, kicked and stomped Julian Jones while he was on the ground.

Jones, a 26-year-old college student from Baltimore, was at a bar to celebrate a friend's upcoming wedding. He died en route to a hospital.

According to investigators, Jones did nothing to provoke the attack.

Omorogbe and Folkes are due to make a brief court appearance on Thursday.

Police are also looking for a third suspect. They say they have video evidence and are asking that more witnesses come forward.
Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump's stunning victory in the United States presidential election, transition offices for the President-elect have opened blocks away from the White House.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the General Services Administration issued the formal ruling that Donald Trump is the "likely winner," allowing the presidential transition to begin and Trump's team to move into an office space at the GSA building.

Trump's transition team will hold meetings with federal agencies and pick prospective cabinet members at the office on F Street NW.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy think-tank, is helping with the transition.

"The new team needs to be able to walk in the door and be ready to go in case there's a 9/11 on January 21st," said Jim Carafano, vice president for the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation.

Inauguration planning is also in full speed.

The inaugural platform at the U.S. Capitol Building is already taking shape and a committee is sending invites to prospective performers.

Missouri State University's choir is one group that has been chosen to perform.

The 58th Presidential Inauguration will be similar to the inaugurations of past presidents, aside from some festivities that will be custom-tailored for Trump.

"We will work directly with the Presidential Inauguration Committee, which will be set up by President-elect Trump. Those are his direct representatives. They'll define for us their requirements for balls, galas and for ceremonies, other than the actual swearing in that will happen on the 20th of January," said Lt. Col. Jeff Davis, with the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region.

While D.C. overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton, Mayor Muriel Bowser said the District will put out the welcome mat for Trump's inauguration.

"We have been through this many times -- our home, of course, every four years. Our Homeland Security division with the Metropolitan Police Department will work with our federal partners in preparation for the inauguration," Bowser said.
Donald Trump's surprise victory has upended Virginia politics, dimming the star power of the state's top Democrats and disrupting the already-in-progress 2017 gubernatorial race, which is likely to be one of the nation's most closely watched elections next year.

A Hillary Clinton victory would have given a giant boost to top Democrats in Virginia. Running mate Tim Kaine was set to be the next vice president, longtime Clinton friend Gov. Terry McAuliffe was going to be the best-connected governor in the country, and many expected Rep. Bobby Scott to be Virginia's first black senator as Kaine's senate replacement.

Clinton's victory in Virginia, the only one in a southern state, may bode well for future Democratic candidates, but for now it's largely a hollow win. Kaine and Scott will remain part of the minority in their respective chambers, and McAuliffe will spend his last year in office without a direct line to the White House.

But the biggest turmoil from a Trump win may be within the state GOP, where gubernatorial candidates were already battling to claim Trump's supporters.

Virginia's gubernatorial race, with a general election in November 2017, will test the power of Trump's popularity during the first months of his presidency. Next year's only other significant contests are races for New Jersey governor and New York City mayor.

Trump supporter Flux Neo, an attorney in Virginia's deeply red southwest corner, said just how "Trumpy" Republicans were before Tuesday will be a key litmus test for future GOP contenders.

"If you were anti-Trump, you're functionally dead to us as a candidate," said Neo. Even lukewarm support of Trump will be problematic, he added.

Corey Stewart, one of Trump's earliest and most brash supporters in Virginia, said Tuesday's results have propelled him to the front of the GOP field for governor. He called it a high-risk, high-reward bet that is now paying off.

"It was a Hail Mary pass. If this guy wins, I'm going to win. If he goes down in flames -- and there were several times when I thought that might happen -- I was going to go down in flames," said Stewart.

Stewart, who is chairman of the Board of Supervisors in Prince William County, said he will campaign on a promise of implementing Trump's policies in the state. He said that includes aggressive measures to deport undocumented immigrants.

Complicating matters for Stewart is the fact that he was fired as chairman of the Trump campaign in Virginia during the final weeks of the election, after he organized an unauthorized pro-Trump protest outside the Republican National Committee's headquarters. But Stewart said he remains close to the Trump family, and his firing by political operatives will not diminish his support from the Trump faithful.

Competing against Stewart for the GOP nomination is former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie, a polished political insider who endorsed Trump, but with muted enthusiasm.

Gillespie has broad support from the party's establishment, but his style and background may make it difficult for him to connect with many of Trump's voters. For instance, Gillespie has been an outspoken advocate of expanding the GOP base to include more minorities, while Trump's hardline stance on immigration alienated many minority groups with his harsh rhetoric.

On Wednesday, Gillespie's aides tried to play up his support for Trump's candidacy -- noting that Gillespie attended rallies with Trump running mate Mike Pence -- while attacking Stewart as an opportunistic "career politician.''

Conservative radio host John Fredericks, who succeeded Stewart as Trump's campaign chairman in Virginia, said both men will have to win over skeptical Trump supporters. He said Stewart tried to use his platform on the Trump campaign for self-promotion, and Gillespie made a "calculated political decision" to support Trump at arm's length.

"It backfired on him,'' Fredericks said.

Republicans Rep. Rob Wittman and state Sen. Frank Wagner also are running. Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam is the only Democratic candidate. Virginia governors are barred from serving consecutive terms.

In the end, Northam may be best positioned to benefit from Trump's victory, as the Old Dominion's electorate typically votes against the president's party. Whether that history helps Northam now depends on the one of the most unpredictable political figures in modern history.

"Historically, the people who lose the presidential election end up being the most motivated to win in Virginia a year later,'' said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.

"Everything will depend on how Trump does in his first year."
The Bush family is Republican royalty in Texas for many, so it was a big deal when both former presidents Bush refused to endorse Donald Trump.

George W. Bush even left the president spot blank on his ballot, according to his spokesman.

The only member of the Bush family to campaign for the president-elect is George P. Bush, son of Jeb Bush, one of Trump's primary opponents. He said he is his own man and, when it comes to the GOP, he's a team player.

George P. Bush  the commissioner of the General Land Office of Texas  said he's happy that Texas stayed red in the election and is pleased with the results.

"It was a big night," he said. "All of our statewide elected officials won with over 10 percent of the vote. Donald Trump won, of course. We won a majority of the competitive House races that we were seeking to protect."



Many negative things were said about Bush's father and mother during a very heated campaign with Donald Trump, yet Bush said it wasn't hard to endorse Trump.

"Politics is a tough business," he said. "The commitment I made to not only the Republican Party here, but to my own supporters that wanted me to support Donald Trump, the candidate, was that the alternative was far worse."

A spokesman said former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush said they didn't vote for Trump or Hillary Clinton. George P. Bush said his decision to vote Trump was his own.

"I'm a man in my own right, but it was a tough decision. Not one to be taken lightly by any means," he said.

Bush, who is part Hispanic, also addressed the concerns some in the Hispanic community may have about a Trump presidency.

"I say, 'Tranquilo.' It's going to be OK," he said. "I think Donald Trump's vision will incorporate all America. He has reached out in a unifying tone as of last night and he's going to take advantage of that and reach across party aisles, reach across to all communities to make sure we are taking on our biggest issues."

Bush said his father and grandfather, George H.W. Bush, reached out to Trump Wednesday to congratulate him.
Maryland transportation leaders are considering tolls to help with traffic in D.C.s suburbs.

The idea of more toll facilities likely will be mentioned at meetings in Montgomery and Prince Georges counties Thursday.

Montgomery County Council member Roger Berliner has a message for Gov. Larry Hogan.

"I don't understand in particular this governors opposition to toll roads, which is what is happening in Virginia, and 270 could be a perfect candidate for that."

State transportation leaders are looking at solutions and have a draft of a proposal to widen the Beltway and possibly add toll lanes from the Legion Bridge to the Wilson Bridge.

Nikita Green who lives at National Harbor, said she needs more transit.

"At this point I Uber into D.C. or I have to drive into D.C. in order to catch a Metro," she said.

Prince Georges County Council Chairman Derrick Leon Davis said with the growth his county is seeing, roads and transit have to keep up.

"The mistakes of the past are when you build and you don't improve your infrastructure, or when you ignore your infrastructure," he said.

Maryland leaders say they want to invest about $14.5 billion in transportation work over the next six years.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.10



By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:



A modern technology called horizontal directional drilling (HDD) has been used for ensuring the crossing of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) through Albanias Seman river, which is another first for the country, said the message on TAPs website.



In November 2016, TAP began complex work for crossing an approximately 1.1 km stretch in the Albanian region of Fier, which hosts the Seman river, a railway as well as a road, said the message.



Using a modern technology called horizontal directional drilling (HDD), the team avoided trenching, reduced excavation works to a minimum and limited impact on ecosystems. All in all, another first for Albania, said TAP.



Commenting on the issue, TAP project manager for Albania Karl Roberts said that the pipeline crosses 555 roads, 514 rivers and one railway in Albania alone and special engineering attention is paid to each crossing.



TAP will continue to apply the highest industry standards and best practice, working safely and with care for the environment, cultural heritage and the communities along the pipeline route, he added.



Earlier, for the first time in Albania, TAP refurbished an access bridge using a structural strengthening method that allowed to maintain road traffic open.



TAP project envisages transportation of gas from the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to the EU countries.



The 870-kilometer pipeline will be connected to the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's south.



TAPs route through Albania will be approximately 215 km onshore and 37 km offshore in the Albanian section of the Adriatic Sea. It starts at Bilisht Qender in the Korca region at the Albanian border with Greece, and arrives at the Adriatic coast 17 km north-west of Fier, 400 meters inland from the shoreline.
A patient is suspected of suffering from a rare flesh-eating virus in Maine, hospital officials said Wednesday.

The Maine Medical Center in Portland announced that the patient may have a "pathogen-based condition known as prion disease."

No diagnosis has been confirmed.

The hospital says it is following and exceeding protocol after consulting with the Centers for Disease Control. Elective surgeries at the Bramhall campus scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday are being postponed.

The Maine Department of Health issued a statement reassuring residents that the hospital is taking every precaution.

Stay with necn as this story develops.
Police say three people were injured and a woman is under arrest after an early morning accident involving four vehicles in Cranston, Rhode Island.

Rhode Island State Police say a woman struck a disabled vehicle which caused two other cars to crash just before 2 a.m. Thursday on Route 10.

Authorities say the woman left the scene on foot but was captured a short time later.

She is scheduled to be arraigned on several charges late Thursday including leaving the scene of an accident and driving under the influence.

Her name was not immediately made public.

Three people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
Boston Public Schools Superintendent Tommy Chang sent a letter to families on Wednesday to explain resources available to students after a long, contentious presidential election.

Chang said in the letter to parents that the coming days will be challenging for many, and celebratory for others as the country prepares for a Donald Trump presidency. He said that this is a teachable moment that should focus on conversations and conflict resolution.

Boston Public Schools Behavioral Health Department is offering support to students who may have a difficult time with fears or concerns about the election. The same type of service is also being offered to employees.

Post-Election Letter from Superintendent Tommy Chang

Dear Boston Public Schools Family,

Our country is experiencing historic change today. There will be much conversation around the results of yesterdays presidential election. Many of our students and fellow educators are still processing the outcome. It is important today to be strong for our students and each other. We honor our democratic values and traditions and we will carry on with our mission to educate, support and prepare our students for success.

The coming days and weeks may be challenging for many, and celebratory for others. As educators, we should use this opportunity as a teachable moment to have conversations with our students about the democratic process, how we can resolve differences and conflicts, and how we can address diverse and sometimes conflicting ideology. We need to remember our Culture of We as we continue our vital work. We must ensure that our students feel safe by providing safe and respectful learning communities.

We are fortunate to live in a democracy where we can hold these conversations even if we disagree with the outcome. We as adults need to monitor our behaviors; we want to demonstrate compassion, empathy, and support for students and colleagues.

Resources from Teaching Tolerance, a project by the Southern Poverty Law Center, about handling the day after the 2016 election are available here. Additional resources will be posted to the BPS homepage and Social Emotional Learning and Wellness website.

As we engage in discourse, it is essential to emphasize the social emotional learning hallmarks:

1. Self-awareness: How am I personally feeling?

2. Social-awareness: How are others feeling?

3. Self-management: How will I behave now that I know how I am feeling, and how others might be feeling?

4. Relationship-building: How will I interact with others based upon what I know about their feelings?

5. Responsible decision-making: What actions will I take to appropriately express my feelings in a way that is also respectful of how others might be feeling?

The Boston Public Schools Behavioral Health Department is available to support students who may be having a difficult time processing any fears or concerns they may have. Additionally, the Employee Assistance Program is available to support City of Boston employees well-being.

Thank you to everyone for being your best self today. Your leadership will help our students feel safe, welcomed, and respected.

Sincerely,

Superintendent Tommy Chang
Another day in the 60s for Greater Boston. Cooler air hustled in up north however, as temperatures failed to hit 50 in many spots.

We'll smear that cold all across New England tonight as temperatures fall back to the 20s and 30s. Tomorrow, despite several sunny breaks, highs will only make it close to normal on the heels of a steady northwest wind.

Like the title of the blog suggests, there is no reason to believe this cold air will be sticking around either. As early as tomorrow afternoon, the turning of the wind will signal that it's time to bring back the mild air.

Enough of that warmth will linger into Veterans Day to boost us into the upper 50s ahead of a final cold assault on Friday night. That should leave us way down on Saturday as highs struggle to make it back to 50 on a gusty, dry northwest wind.

But here too the cold will relent in time for a marked warmup on Sunday. This particular pattern is a familiar one: warming upper atmosphere, full sunshine, and a steady southwest wind. Wait, that sounds like Tuesday's setup. In fact, it is. And like Tuesday, we should get deep into the 60s. It doesn't stop there, however, as Monday basks in that same mild air. It's then that we may see it spike to 70 in some spots!

Where's the real cold? In Siberia, folks. Without a snowpack in Central Canada, no arctic air is in route to the Lower 48 anytime soon.
Now that Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States, some Massachusetts politicians are now forced to find common ground with him.

Governor Charlie Baker has criticized Trump in the past and Trump himself insulted Boston Mayor Marty Walsh within the last year. It leaves one to wonder what Bostons relationship with Trump will be like when he takes over as president.

Although Walsh said he voted for Hillary Clinton, he said he has to respect the results of the election's outcome.

"Let's give him a chance to see what happens here," Walsh said.

The two verbally attacked each other during the campaign season and now will be forced to work together.

"If they reach out to us and want to work with us, I think Boston is in a position that any president would want to work with Boston because of the fact of what type of city we are," Walsh said.

Over the summer, Walsh said Trump would have to apologize before he would be allowed to build in Boston after Trump's immigration comments.

Trump then attacked Walsh on the failed Boston Olympic bid calling Mayor Walsh a "clown." He also said Boston should get a new mayor.

"I went back with him on some stuff that was in the heat of the election. You know whatever. I don't take it personal," Walsh said. "I think elections are elections and the next day people seem to push that to the side."

The day after the election, though, Walsh says some city residents have contacted him, concerned about benefits they currently receive from the government. He say he will continue to fight for those residents.

"People that were immigrants being worried about being immigrants, people worried about the benefits coming into out city housing money, different types of money," he said.

Walsh says he's not worried about how Trump's presidency will affect himself politically, only that he's concerned about the city of Boston.
Maine voters approved of a new ranked system of voting that supporters say will help third party candidates get elected.

Ranked choice voting for state legislators and members of Congress was narrowly approved by 52 percent of voters on Tuesday. This makes Maine the first state in the country to add ranking to the ballet.

Voters can pick their first choice for a candidate, but also rank the other candidates in order of preference.

If a candidate does not reach a majority, there will be an instant runoff election with the top two candidates.

Supporters say that the new system will help Maine voters avoid choosing the lesser of two evils and give third party candidates a fighting chance.

Governor Paul LePage has been a vocal opponent against the measure, calling it a way for election losers to have a second chance.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker was an adamant critic of President-elect Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and publicly admitted to not voting for either candidate. A day after the election, he's weighing in on America's choice.

Just a few months ago, Baker was emphatic, saying he wasnt going to support Trump for president. But after last nights win, it appears the governor is doing a 180.

I look forward to working with him and his administration on a lot of the stuff we share a common interest in, Baker said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Baker said he is unclear what direction the Trump administration will take. The president-elect has in the past said that when it comes to people who dont support him, he will seek revenge. However, during Trumps acceptance speech last night, he backed down on that. How bakers lack of support will impact the state remains unclear.

Well know a lot more about the general direction of that administration as they start making announcements about people for key roles, Baker said.

The governor has assured his supporters that even though Trump wants to repeal Obamacare, it will have minimal impact here.

"Well do what we need to do to be a national leader on this irrespective of what happens," Baker said.

The governor says he has not talked yet with Trump. He did however leave a message for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who is expected to have a role in the Trump administration.
The election has led to calls for the nation to come together, but many say that may not be easy after a bitter and often divisive campaign.

New Hampshire proved to be a battleground not only in the U.S. Senate race, but also in the presidential election.

A political signs were taken down in Nashua, Trump and Clinton supporters alike told necn Wednesday they were surprised with the results.

"Personally, I'm thrilled, sorry to say, I know a lot of people don't agree with that but I think we really needed change, big time change, and it's going hopefully in the right direction, Maureen Arinello of Nashua said.

Political analyst Scott Spradling said even though pollsters pegged New Hampshire as a blue state, the voters didn't follow those predictions, instead splitting the state so evenly it wasn't decided more than 20 hours after the polls closed.

"What you did not see is that undercurrent of Trump supporters, the lunch pail, hardworking republicans who weren't answering polls, who weren't answering doors, who were planning to get out and vote but werent on the radar," Spradling said.

According to Spradling, Clinton did everything that helped Obama win the state in 2012, including a strong grassroots get out the vote effort, but it wasnt enough.

"What she was up against was something structural that was an anti-Hillary Clinton vote, which you can't change," said Spradling.

In Massachusetts, meanwhile, voters spent the day after looking for ways to recover. Results aside, both sides said the next step is healing.

Calls about how to cope were flooding the Boston University Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. Psychologists say the key is finding the right way to cope.

"That may mean taking a break from the news and putting away Facebook," Dr. David Langer said. "For some people, it's seeking support and talking about it. For others, it may mean taking action and using this as a rallying cry."

Dr. Langer said the shock of the results and the fact that few predicted the outcome could make the results tougher to accept.

"People weren't really thinking about what reality would be if she didn't win," Dr. Langer said.

Parishioners and voters were beginning to accept the reality inside the doors of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Brookline, which opened early Wednesday morning knowing the community may need a place to heal.

"Right now it's how do we live in this moment and understand that we don't fully understand what just happened and we don't know what's going to happen, but we have to have hope," Rev. Jeff Mello said.

St. Paul's is one of several faith communities in Massachusetts hosting prayer services in wake of the election.
Vermont's newly-elected Republican governor, Phil Scott, said he will be able to put aside past criticism of President-elect Donald Trump and strive toward unity following a divisive period in national politics.

On the campaign trail, Governor-elect Scott had called out Trump, describing some of the presidential candidate's messages as incendiary or rude. Scott supported Ohio Gov. John Kasich for president.

After the central Vermont businessman and stock car racer managed to speed past Democrat Sue Minter on Election Day, Scott promised he will work toward unifying people as a governor during Trump's presidency.

"I can work with anybody. We'll be OK," Scott told reporters. "I'm going to respect the office and we'll continue to work for whatever benefit we can for Vermont. There's a tremendous amount of dysfunction on the federal level, as we know. All's I can say is we will do our very best to act appropriately here. I'll treat people with respect, I'll treat them the way I want to be treated and I'm sure we'll find common ground."

Minter praised Scott's positive vision and leadership style in her concession speech Tuesday night.

"We can still disagree without being disagreeable," Minter said in her speech at the Vermont Democratic Party headquarters on election night.

As for whether Vermont would legalize recreational marijuana now that the neighboring state of Massachusetts is going that way, Governor-elect Scott said he would "never say never."

First, however, Scott said he would have to be assured that edible forms of the drug, safety measures, and the tax structures of retail operations could be appropriately handled. Scott said he thinks it would be best to potentially follow other states' leads on the matter, and learn from their mistakes.
Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump has vowed to defund Planned Parenthood and overturn Roe v. Wade.

Now that a Trump presidency is a reality, Planned Parenthood supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire are speaking out.

Victoria Bonney watched Tuesday night as the nation elected Donald Trump as the next president.

Bonney is an advocate for Planned Parenthood, a health center that offers women access to abortions and also affordable health care.

She said, For thousands of people to have care put at risk for reckless political agenda it would be unfair.

Reckless is the word Bonney and other supporters use to describe some of Trumps comments during his campaign.

President-Elect Trump has promised to take away abortion rights by nominating Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade.

Bonney said the attacks on Planned Parenthood started with Trumps Vice President Mike Pence, who shut down a dozen health centers as governor of Indiana.

But many people who voted for Trump say his stance on abortion was a high priority issue.

Diane Roblee and students from a local catholic school often protest outside the Manchester Planned Parenthood.

She said, We just want to try to offer women alternatives.

As for Planned Parenthood  Bonney says despite threats from the president-elect, the organization is making a promise to patients.

She said, Our doors will stay open  weve been around for 100 years were never backing down.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

New deputy director general on business support at Turkish petrochemical complex Petkim has been appointed, according to a message posted on the website of the Public Disclosure Platform (Kamuoyunu Aydnlatma Platformu  KAP) Nov. 10.

Under the decision of the Board of Directors, Khalig Mustafayev has become the new deputy director general on business support.

It is the new position in Petkims structure, according to the message.

Petkim produces plastic packages, fabrics, detergents, and is the sole Turkish manufacturer of such products, a quarter of which is exported.

Petkim shareholders are: SOCAR Turkey Petrokimya A.S.  51 percent, SOCAR Turkey Energy  1.32 percent and 47.68 percent  in free float.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
Police in Vermont are investigating a case of animal cruelty after a pet cat was recently found hanging from a tree in Burlington.

Authorities said the cat, which belonged to a loving family and was named Tiki, was found Nov. 1 near the dog park off of Starr Farm Road.

A cash reward up to $500 is being offered for any information that leads to the arrest of the person(s) responsible for the incident.

Anyone with information is asked to call Burlington Police 802-658-2700.

Tiki's family said the 8-year-old cat was affectionate, playful and loved being outside.

"He'd walk up to anybody, totally trusting and loving, and just let you do pretty much whatever you wanted to him. Pick him up and hold him, you could," Tiki's owner Frank Rosamilia said. "There's not a kid in our neighborhood woh hasn't stopped by, looking for him."
Police investigating reports of motor vehicle safety inspection violations stumbled upon a methamphetamine lab at a New Hampshire auto dealership on Wednesday.

New Hampshire State Police went to Auto Alley in Derry around 10 a.m. Wednesday to execute a search warrant at the dealership and inspection station after learning that Auto Alley had been improperly transferring state inspection stickers among vehicles they owned or had sold.

A search of the property revealed that a number of vehicles offered for sale had fraudulently issued inspection stickers affixed to their windshields.

In addition, while searching the business, state troopers discovered ingredients used to cook methamphetamine. A second warrant was obtained and evidence of drug manufacturing was seized.

The Drug Enforcement Agency's Clandestine Laboratory team responded to secure the hazardous materials found at the scene.
Massachusetts residents voted Tuesday to legalized recreational marijuana. With that, come a number of regulations including where marijuana shops can be built and how police will monitor the use of the drug.

On Dec. 15, the recreational use and possession of marijuana in a private place, for anyone 21 and older will officially be legal.

Buying and selling marijuana legally will take some time.

"Theres a 15 member advisory council thats appointed by the governor, said Will Luzier, the campaign manager for "Yes on 4." "Thats supposed to be appointed by February 1st of 2017."

The advisory council will be created to help guide the Cannabis Control Commission.

"The cannabis control commission would be appointed on March 1st. They will begin regulations which should start September 15th of 2017," said Luzier.

The Treasurer of Massachusetts, Deborah Goldberg, will be in charge of appointing three people to the commission. Theyll be in charge of enforcing regulations.

"One of the requirements is that someone has experience on issues around marijuana," said Goldberg. "We also recognize that you need a skill set that understands how to operate across the executive offices."

During an address Wednesday afternoon at the state house Goldberg said she takes issue with how the question addresses state revenue.

"We have no anticipated revenues to support this effort just for the commission, then all these executives offices Ive mentioned and public safety and zoning will all have additional costs," said Goldberg.

As for the way the question is laid out now the next important date is Oct. 1, 2017. Thats when license applications will be accepted.

Supporters note, that for the first year of the program only medical marijuana dispensaries can apply.

"Sales through dispensaries wont be available until about January 2018," said Matthew Allen, the field director for the ACLU of Massachusetts.

Thats a deadline Goldberg isnt sold on.

"The timeline is critical," said Goldberg. "Were going to get this right."

Goldberg said its possible to make changes to the question but lawmakers may not visit that idea until the spring.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders opposes most of Donald Trump's views, but is prepared to work with him on "policies that improve the lives of working families" in order to move the country forward.

The former candidate for president, who lost to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, said in a statement on Trump's election released Wednesday that, "Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media."

He added, "People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids - all while the very rich become much richer."

While Sanders said progressives will work together with Trump to help struggling Americans, he warned that they will not tolerate bigotry.

"To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him."

Sanders also tweeted Thursday morning, saying, "If Donald Trump takes people's anger and turns it against Muslims, Hispanics, African Americans and women, we will be his worst nightmare."

Sanders said he will support Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He also not ruling out the possibility of a 2020 run, but said "four years is a long time from now."
The Donald Trump presidency is still sinking in for many Muslims in Massachusetts, one of the groups he offended the most on the campaign trail.

For some, the Muslim ban and registry he talked about are hard to forget.

Aside from fears and concerns, many Muslims are wondering if Trump will actually follow through on what he said in the past.

After Election Day Asima Silva says life as a Muslim-American got even more complicated.

She says its hard to forget what President-Elect Ttrump said on the campaign trail.

Silva said, Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, until our countries representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

Silva, her husband, and five children live in Holden and have no idea if Trump will actually follow through on that anti-Muslim rhetoric which included talk about a possible registry. But there is still genuine concern.

John Robbins with the Council on American Islamic relations says Muslims can no longer go at it alone in America and says theres a sense of urgency to partner with others to create a united front.

Robbins said, Youre going to see a lot more interfaith events. Youre going to see a lot more meetings between the Muslim, community, the Hispanic community, the LGBT community.

Theyre communities President-Elect Trump offended on his way to the white house.

Nadeem Mazen is the first Muslim-American in the Cambridge City Counsel and says after this election, he's hopeful many more Muslims will be civically engaged.

Silva is also the first Muslim-American on the Wachusett School Committee, and says shes used to bridge building, and despite everything hes said wants to give Trump a chance.

She said, He said he wanted to represent all people, and if thats the case I do want to work with him.

Any mention of Muslims is now off Trumps campaign website. No one from his camp returned our requests for an explanation.
HENDERSON, Nev. - The City of Henderson, Nevada held its annual Veterans Day ceremony at the amphitheater adjacent to the Veterans Memorial Wall at City Hall on Nov. 5, 2016.

During the ceremony, Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen and members from the City Council, along with keynote speaker Col. Paul J. Murray, 99th Air Base Wing commander, Nellis Air Force Base, paid tribute to all armed forces members present and past who served for the United States.

The Basic High School Marine Corps Junior ROTC cadets opened the ceremony by presenting the colors.

Hafen expressed gratitude to all who have served, local veterans groups, family members and community elected representatives who were in attendance.

We are very proud to honor the brave men and women currently serving in the armed forces, said Hafen. Honoring our veterans is very important to the city, as most of you know Nevada is battle born. Henderson is battle born as well, it was founded in support of a massive U.S. War Department project during World War II (as the main supplier of magnesium) and ever since all veterans have had a special place in our hearts.

President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed an Armistice Day celebration on Nov. 11, 1919 to commemorate the end of World War I. The date became a national holiday in 1938.

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day, in order for Americans to pay homage to the veterans of all foreign wars who have contributed and sacrificed to the preservation of the nation.

Veterans Day recognizes all Airmen, Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Coast Guardsmen who served selflessly for the foundation of the U.S. with honor for purpose of the common good.

Let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly on the seas, in the air and on foreign shores, said Col. Murray quoting President Eisenhowers Veterans Day Proclamation. So their efforts shall not be in vain he charged us all to re-consecrate ourselves to the task of promoting and enduring peace to preserve our heritage of freedom.

As we honor all veterans here today, service members are keeping peace in Korea, theyre fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and theyre fighting against ISIS in Operation Inherent Resolve. Right now American service men and women are preserving our heritage and freedom. As President Eisenhower stated And the saber continues to rattle, concluded Murray.

The Henderson Symphony Orchestra played service songs representing all of the branches of the military for a crowd of more than 600 people in attendance, as veterans of each branch assumed the position of attention and sang as their respective military song was played.

Members of the Basic High School Marine Corps Junior ROTC rang a bell and read the names of deceased Henderson veterans to be added to the Veterans Memorial Wall.

A red, white and blue carnation wreath was placed in front of a Veterans Deceased Panel with the names inscribed of all deceased service members that resided in Henderson.

At the end of the ceremony, all attendees walked to the Veterans Memorial Wall to join in the celebration by paying respect to the new names inscribed on the panel and reminisce of their loved ones.
Hat trick for Norwich church website in national awards



For the third year running St Thomas Church in Norwich has won a national award for its website at the Premier Digital Awards on November 12.


Databases. Alongside networking, they're arguably one of the less exciting areas of the technology world.

But no matter how boring they are, databases are, of course, a critical part of delivering technology. And we live in a changing time for the humble database, with new models challenging incumbent approached. A case in point is graph databases.

For a quick primer, per Wikipedia, a graph database is a database that uses graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges and properties to represent and store data. A key concept of the system is the graph (or edge or relationship), which directly relates data items in the store. The relationships allow data in the store to be linked together directly and, in most cases, retrieved with a single operation.

+ Also on Network World: Neo Technology execs: How Neo4j beat Oracle Database +

This contrasts with conventional relational databases, where links between data are stored in the data itself. And queries search for this data within the store and use the JOIN concept to collect the related data. Graph databases, by design, allow simple and rapid retrieval of complex hierarchical structures that are difficult to model in relational systems.

One company hoping to build momentum for itself through graph databases is Neo Technology. The company is the creator of Neo4J, a highly scalable native graph database that is used by such varied organizations as Walmart, UBS, Cisco, HP, Adidas Group and Lufthansa.

The company today announced a $36 million Series D investment round led by by Greenbridge Investment Partners with participation from existing investors, including Sunstone, Creandum and Eight Roads Ventures.

Not one to mince words, Greenbridge is a new investor that thinks Neo is the next Oracle. That is, of course, hyperbole but informs as to just how excited investors are in these new approaches.

Neo4J's role in the Panama Papers

Part of the attention that Neo4J has received came about when it played a key role in unraveling the Panama Papersthe largest data leak in recorded historyallowing journalists across the globe to decipher the web of interconnected datasets detailing wide-scale international tax evasion. The graph database approach was a key tool that allowed quick and clear identification of the complex relationships between the various parties involved in the papers.

While the Panama Papers was a good headline use case for Neo, there is some real traction going on outside of that. The company claims over 2.5 million downloads of its product, thousands of production deployments and a thriving community of developers worldwide.

Beyond the Oracle-buster hyperbole, Greenbridge leaders provide some color about the company's investment decision.

Managing partner Emanuel Lang explained the firms decision to invest in Neo Technology:

Globally, were generating more data than ever before through more users, devices and digital processesso much so that a companys ability to use this data will determine its competitive position in the future. We believe graph databases provide the best technology approach to store, correlate and deliver value from data relationships in real time. "Neo4j is the undisputed leader in that fieldwith the largest community and customer base, the best technology and a leadership team that has demonstrated the ability to innovate and execute. When we look at the market forces, combined with Neo Technologys vision and execution, we believe we are investing in a technology as important as the relational revolution led by Oracle.

Of course, there is a slight cloud hanging over this news because of a pending action against Greenbridge's founding investor, Ola Rollen, relating to an unrelated investment. Here's hoping that doesn't have a negative impact on Neo and the quality of its product and it can rise above any bad press.

My POV

I can take or leave the bluster around Oracle, but having spent time trawling the Panama Papers document dump, I have seen firsthand how easy Neo4J makes it to digest complex, interrelated data. Thats a valuable offering, and Neoand the company behind the technologylooks to have a good opportunity.
Cloud repositories are actively supplying malware, according to computer experts. And problematically, its insidious and hard to find.

Hundreds of buckets have been undermined, says Xiaojing Liao, a graduate student at Georgia Tech whos the lead author on a study thats looking into the problem. Buckets are chunks of storage used in cloud operations.

Its challenging to find, Georgia Tech writes in an article on its website. The problem being that the resulting malware is quick to assemble from stored components that individually may not appear to be malicious.

Amazon Web Services and Google affected

The recent study of cloud hosting services has found that as many as 10 percent of the repositories hosted by them have been compromised, the article continues. The bad repositories, called Bars, were found on leading cloud platforms like Amazon and Google the paper says (PDF).

Those major cloud services are often thought of as being highly secure because of their use of encryption and large numbers of staff dedicated to security.

You dont need to worry about security anymore, Gartner research director Steve Riley is indeed quoted as saying of the top-tier providers, which include Amazon and Google, in a Wall Street Journal blog post last month.

His advice is directed at CIOs who may be concerned about loss of data. However, what Liao and her fellow researchers from Indiana University Bloomington and the University of California Santa Barbara are pointing out is that among all that squeaky clean cloud is lurking malware and other unwholesome stuff.

The problem is that the malware components arent identifiable through traditional scanning simply because they arent assembled as malware until the moment of attack.

The bad guys are using the cloud to deliver malware and other nefarious things while remaining undetected, says Raheem Beyah, also of Georgia Tech.

Traditional exploits, to simply taking advantage of poor configurations, are used. The problem is that the malware components arent identifiable through traditional scanning simply because they arent assembled as malware until the moment of attack.

Some exploits appear to be benign until then, says Beyah.

The bad guys are getting away with it probably because of the sheer amount of data held in the cloud. Its too much to scan deeply. Plus, looking for Bars in customer repositories, by cloud suppliers, could be restricted by service agreements, the researchers say.

Special scanning tool finds the invaders

A special scanning tool designed to look for the invaders was developed by the researchers. Using it, the group was able to penetrate many of the redirects and gatekeeper tricks. Those ploys include the fact that the gangsters keep their plagued elements spread out among multiple buckets.

Amusingly, the team was able to find the malware pieces primarily because of the trickery employed by the scammers.

Many of the bad actors had redundant repositories connected by specific kinds of redirection schemes, the Georgia article explains. That allowed attacks to continue if one bucket were lost. The bad buckets also usually had gatekeepers designed to keep scanners out of the repositories.

Evil web pages had simple give-away formations that were easy to propagate.

In other words, the structure gave the game away.

The researchers say they scanned 140,000 sites with their special scanner and found 700 active Bars.

Its pervasive in the cloud, says Beyah of malware. We found problems in every last one of the hosting services we studied.
A pulse is missing. Is it the patient? Or is the pulse monitor not functioning?

Life-and-death IoT systems literally have no margin for error.

How are readings from health sensors merged and analyzed immediately?

How can single point of failures be eliminated?

An IoT backbone to connect sensors, apps and analytics into a responsive system is needed. It has to be secure, flexible and scalable.

The challenge of combining data from multiple sources



Medical errors are the third leading cause of death.

Most medical devices operate independently. Its hard to combine information from multiple devices to understand a patients condition. Devices suffer many false alarms. Fatigued healthcare staff members silence the alarms, misconfigurations go unnoticed, dangerous conditions go unaddressedand people die.

Consider a patient undergoing treatment. Pulse oximeters track blood oxygen saturation and set off an alarm when its low. This reading is more likely to be a concern when the patients breathing rate is also low. Readings from both devices should be considered before generating an alarm. Medical staff can then focus on patients who most need their care, rather than chasing false alarms.

But medical devices and sensors generate data in different formats and at different rates. How can these diverse data streams be merged and analyzed quickly? Cloud-based analysis of sensor data introduces latency that hampers timely decision making. A different approach is needed.

A growing need for real-time integration of sensor data

Many industries need real-time integration of sensor data, including naval systems, avionics, power, medical devices, consumer electronics and industrial control. Three examples include:

Automotive: Sensors in a car detect an approaching vehicle. What corrective action should be taken? Manufacturing: Sensors on the production line indicate a slowdown. A motor is overheating. Loud sounds are detected. What should be done? Transport: Mechanical and electrical system sensors on a ship indicate a problem. Should the power be turned off?

The data integration challenge

Merging real-time data streams from two sensors to determine a patients condition is hard. Its even harder when inputs from other devices are included.

Of course, the problem isnt new. Enterprise applications are integrated with enterprise service buses (ESBs). ESBs translate application-written information into a common format that can be shared with other applications. Applications read/write information into a common format that can be shared with other applications. This avoids having to write customized interfaces between all of the possible combinations of applications in an enterprise that need to exchange information.

ESBs or distributed databus?

ESBs arent viable for most industrial IoT (IIoT) applications. ESBs connect large-grained enterprise systems that execute a few transactions per second. An ESB also represents a single point of failure. IIoT systems need faster, smaller-grained and more reliable services.

Tech from different providers must work well together

IIoT solutions require that technologies from different providers work well together. The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) was founded in 2014 by AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM and Intel. It is a nonprofit group that promotes collaboration through open interoperability standards.

Industrial systems need to identify, describe, find and communicate a lot of data with demands unseen in other contexts. Many applications need delivery in microseconds or the ability to scale to thousands or even millions of data values and nodes, explains Stan Schneider, CEO of RTI and member of the IIC steering committee. The IIC targets technology to enable new mission-critical IIoT applications.

The IIC's Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA) has a connectivity framework that connects parts intelligently so the system can perform, scale, evolve and function optimally. The framework provides for data discovery, exchange patterns and quality of service (QoS). Heres how it applies in our patient care example:

Delivery (Reliability and re-delivery): How can a patients pulse rate be delivered dependably for analysis ? Timeliness (Prioritize and inform when information is late): How can we guarantee that information from healthcare sensors arrives in time to make a decision? Ordering (Delivery in the order produced and received): How do applications know which event happened and in which order? How can we understand the distributed sequence of events? Durability (Support later joiners, survive failures): What happens when we add or restart new algorithms? How do they get updates from all of the sensors attached to the patient? Lifespan (Expire stale information): How do applications know the data theyre using is fresh? How can we keep older sensor readings that arent relevant from impacting the care being delivered? Fault tolerance (Redundancy and failover): How can we ensure that communication or subsystem failures dont disrupt care? Secure (Ensure confidentiality, integrity, authenticity and nonrepudiation): How can we make sure a patients healthcare information is kept confidential and secure? How can we protect the system from hacks?

Data distribution service (DDS)



The Object Management Group (OMG) and DDS standard is a connectivity framework that addresses the needs of many industries:

Power systems (huge hydropower dams, wind farms, microgrids)

Medicine (imaging, patient monitoring, emergency medical systems)

Transportation (air traffic control, vehicle control, automotive testing)

Industrial control (SCADA, mining systems, PLC communications)

Defense (ships, avionics, autonomous vehicles)

DDS provides automated discovery of new IoT devices connected to the system and their QoS settings.

Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA)



The IIRA defines an architecture for IIoT systems. It specifies a core connectivity standard that implements reliable, high-speed, secure transport and QoS described above. Some endpoints connect to the core standard directly, while others connect through gateways. This allows sensors to work on different protocols and need only one bridge to connect to the core. This eliminates the complexity of creating bridges between all possible pairs of endpoints.

Real-Time Innovations (RTI)

RTI's Connext DDS connectivity databus provides low-latency, real-time QoS and high availability.

"GE Healthcare is connecting medical devices, cloud-based analytics, and mobile and wearable instruments. The future communication fabric of its monitoring technology is based on RTI's data-centric Connext DDS platform, says Matt Grubis, chief engineer of GE Healthcare's Life Care Solutions.

Acute care innovation

The Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital is a safety net hospital and the only Level I Trauma Center for 1.5 million San Francisco residents. Dr. Christopher R. Peabody, MD, MPH is a practicing emergency physician and directs the UCSF Acute Care Innovation Center.

Alarm fatigue is a huge issue in patient safety. Our new Innovation Center promotes collaboration between technology and healthcare providers to resolve it, he says. IoT done right, can dramatically improve acute care delivery!

IoT has changed healthcare. Maximizing its impact requires that sensors, analytics and apps are tightly integrated. RTIs Connext is the DDS integration platform of choice for IIoT systems.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.10



By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:



The ability of Donald Trump as the US president to influence the oil market will not be concentrated in the US but in three other places - Libya, Venezuela and Russia, Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), a Washington based think tank focused on energy security, and a senior adviser to the United States Energy Security Council, told Trend Nov.10.



Trump will re-engage with Libya and bring about to its reconstruction. This will mean, among other things, restoring Libyan production which alone could easily bring one million barrels a day to the market, he said.



The expert pointed out that Trump administration will work to expedite the fall of the Venezuelan government and this will trigger turmoil in the short run, but a rebound of the country some years later.



Regarding the US-Russia relations, Luft said that the improvement in the relations with Russia will result in lifting of the sanctions and reopening of the Russian oil sector.



Further, he noted that on the demand side, Trump administration will emphasize greater utilization of natural gas and its products as automotive fuel which will lead to greater diversification of the fuel supply and reduction in domestic demand for gasoline and diesel.



The US held presidential election November 8. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump won the election.



Given Trumps pledge to open all federal land and waters for fossil fuel exploration, there are prospects of increased US oil output.



Trumps energy policy includes the following goals: declare the countrys energy dominance a strategic economic and foreign policy goal; become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy; encourage the use of natural gas and other US energy resources that will both reduce emissions and the price of energy and increase its economic output.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump shocked pollsters and political pundits across the country after winning the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Despite an incredibly close race, Trump managed to win the election after over-performing in a number of key battleground states, such as Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania. Consequently, Trump received more than the needed 270 electoral votes even though Hillary Clinton received more votes in the popular vote.

Taking a step back, it would be a gross understatement to call this year's election divisive. Trump is nothing if not controversial, and his recent victory has generated a tremendous amount of backlash and fear on the left and an equal amount of applause on the right.

In light of that, Apple CEO Tim Cook, in an effort to ensure that the Apple machine keeps running smoothly, penned a letter to Apple employees calling for unity and respect. The letter was originally obtained by Buzzfeed and reads as follows:
A lighthouse keeper and his wife have to face the moral dilemma of their actions in The Light Between Oceans

The Light Between Oceans

The Light Between Oceans (12a)

Running time 2hr 13min

Rating **

THE Light Between Oceans is the latest example of a big screen adaptation of a bestselling novel. Michael Fassbender stars; an actor on hiatus from thwarting Professor X and company in Marvels X-Men origins franchise and other action-heavy fare  including upcoming video game spin-off Assassins Creed and the second Alien prequel.

A First World War-era melodrama, The Light Between Oceans is clearly something of a departure from the type of stuff the Irish-German actor has been used to of late.Thats not to say the character of Tom Sherbourne is any less demanding. Indeed, the subject matter is harrowing, and while Fassbender may not have employed the physicality hes applied to the likes of Magneto, Aguilar and android David, hes more than matched it here with emotion. At a recent London press junket promoting the film, Fassbender told us that, as a man whod just emerged the other side of the First World War, Toms experience needed to be written on his face and his soul because hes carrying this shadow of death and the horrors of World War I with him.

Reeling from survivors guilt, Tom looks forward to taking on a role as lighthouse keeper on a remote Australian island, to heal in isolation. However, he doesnt bank on meeting Isabel (real-life significant other Alicia Vikander). The two instantly connect and, soon enough, she joins him on the island and marries him. The couple experience two devastating

miscarriages. As Isabel despairs, hope arrives in the form of a rowing boat carrying a baby cradled in its dead fathers arms. Isabel and Tom decide to keep the child and raise it as their own. Years later, while visiting the mainland, they encounter the childs real mother  and Toms conscience cant handle the discovery, presenting him with a heartbreaking dilemma.

This period tearjerker borrows from 1950s melodramas, unapologetically depicting a humourless domestic story of love, loss and bad decisions. It asks moral questions and threatens to end tragically, using nature in the film as a signifier of metaphorical storms ahead.

Like The Girl on the Train before it  another recent release that grew out of a novel  it falls down because of its dependence on stereotypes. Isabel has parallels with Emily Blunts titular character, Rachel, and, though almost a century divides them, both women are driven to the brink by an inability to conceive. Both also take leave of their senses to do things they wouldnt ordinarily dream of doing. Its difficult to see what Tom  a stoic, contemplative, strong and moral man  sees in this naive, single-minded girl, who seems more driven by her desire to procreate than any love she may feel for her husband. Nevertheless, he loves her apparently unconditionally and will do anything to make her happy. It seems odd that he remains relatively unaffected by the loss of two children, and you wonder whether war has made him numb or whether the film is reinforcing stereotypes  that the man is affected less by such a loss. Given Isabels response, you conclude the latter. Ultimately, his decision to keep the baby to placate his wife catches up with him and he finds he cant live with himself. However, hes still prepared to do all he can to protect her  even keep his silence and face the death penalty.

Rachel Weisz as the childs real mother is wasted  while Fassbender and Vikander do at least get to flex their acting muscles, Weisz languishes in the inconvenient grieving widow role. Holes in the plot compound our lack of empathy for Isabel, and her selfish actions make her impossible to like, forgive or identify with  which makes what happens to Tom, and Fassbender as it happens, all the more tragic.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

There will be no major change in political relations between the US and the Central Asia in connection with election of Donald Trump as the US president, but expansion of economic cooperation is possible, Andrey Chebotarev, director of the Kazakhstan-based research center Alternative, told Trend by telephone Nov. 10.

Trump, as an entrepreneur, will possibly pay more attention to the economic issues and promote the US economic interests, in Kazakhstan as well, where the US corporations Chevron, ExxonMobil operate, Chebotarev said.

The US, both under the Republicans and the Democrats, has certain interest in Central Asia, but expansion of the US presence in the region is not expected, according to him.

The US under the Democrats - Barack Obama - started withdrawing from Afghanistan and reducing their presence in the region as a whole. I think this policy will be continued," Chebotarev said.

In the political sphere, the bilateral relations format between the US and each of the Central Asian countries, as well as the 5+1 format (the five Central Asian countries and the US) are already developed, and they are not likely to undergo any changes, the expert believes.

He said the leadership is being changed not only in the US but also in Uzbekistan.

A snap presidential election will be held in Uzbekistan in early December in connection with the death of first Uzbek President Islam Karimov, he said. This can somehow affect the relations between the US and Uzbekistan.

The expert said the US-Kazakhstan relations will be affected by the Washington-Moscow relations.

Trump seems to treat Russia with more restraint, he added. The sanctions [on Russia] are unlikely to change or toughen.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
By ANI

NEW DELHI: The government has warned that the cash deposits above Rs. 2.5 lakh threshold under the 50-day window could attract tax plus a 200 percent penalty if the cash deposited in bank accounts doesn't match with income declared.

We would be getting reports of all cash deposited during November 10th to December 30th, 2016, above a threshold of Rs. 2.5 lakhs in every account. The Department would do matching of this with income returns filled by depositors and suitable action may follow, Revenue secretary Hashmukh Adhia said.

Penalty of 200 percent of the tax payable would be levied if the cash deposited in bank accounts doesn't match with income declared, he added.

Any mismatch with income declared by the account holder will be treated as a case of tax evasion.

The Revenue secretary further stated that small businessmen, workers need not worry about small amount of deposits up to Rs.1.5 or two lakh since it would be below taxable income.

He also said that persons buying jewellery have to provide the PAN number.

To buy jewellery one has to give his PAN number; instructions have been issued to check with all jewellers to ensure that this isn't compromised. Action will be taken against those jewellers who fail to take PAN numbers from such buyers, Adhia said.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley earlier in the day had said that deposits of the now defunct Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes in bank accounts will not enjoy immunity from tax.

After the government's decision of withdrawing Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 banknotes to curb black money, corruption and counterfeit currency, Jaitley said that higher-denomination currency notes have to be deposited in bank accounts to get newer or smaller denomination currencies.

"Depositing the old currency notes in the banks will not provide any relief from taxation," said Jaitley.

"If the money is legitimate which had been previously withdrawn from bank or earned legally and saved and had been disclosed, there is nothing to worry about," he told DD.

The Finance Minister further said that housewives and farmers with genuine savings need not worry about depositing cash in their bank accounts.

"The small amounts that people will deposit like Rs 25,000, 30,000 or 50,000 lying in house for expenses, or whatever money could be there for meeting normal expenses should not worry," he said.

"They can go to banks," he added.

The Minister further said the government's move will promote more and more digital transactions.

"Obviously there is some inconvenience for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, but that cannot be an alibi that India continues to live (with black money and parallel economy)," Jaitley said.

"The decision would bring more transactions under tax net and both direct and indirect taxes would move up. Reduction in parallel economy would increase the size of formal economy," he added.

NEW DELHI: The government has warned that the cash deposits above Rs. 2.5 lakh threshold under the 50-day window could attract tax plus a 200 percent penalty if the cash deposited in bank accounts doesn't match with income declared. We would be getting reports of all cash deposited during November 10th to December 30th, 2016, above a threshold of Rs. 2.5 lakhs in every account. The Department would do matching of this with income returns filled by depositors and suitable action may follow, Revenue secretary Hashmukh Adhia said. Penalty of 200 percent of the tax payable would be levied if the cash deposited in bank accounts doesn't match with income declared, he added. Any mismatch with income declared by the account holder will be treated as a case of tax evasion. The Revenue secretary further stated that small businessmen, workers need not worry about small amount of deposits up to Rs.1.5 or two lakh since it would be below taxable income. He also said that persons buying jewellery have to provide the PAN number. To buy jewellery one has to give his PAN number; instructions have been issued to check with all jewellers to ensure that this isn't compromised. Action will be taken against those jewellers who fail to take PAN numbers from such buyers, Adhia said. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley earlier in the day had said that deposits of the now defunct Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes in bank accounts will not enjoy immunity from tax. After the government's decision of withdrawing Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 banknotes to curb black money, corruption and counterfeit currency, Jaitley said that higher-denomination currency notes have to be deposited in bank accounts to get newer or smaller denomination currencies. "Depositing the old currency notes in the banks will not provide any relief from taxation," said Jaitley. "If the money is legitimate which had been previously withdrawn from bank or earned legally and saved and had been disclosed, there is nothing to worry about," he told DD. The Finance Minister further said that housewives and farmers with genuine savings need not worry about depositing cash in their bank accounts. "The small amounts that people will deposit like Rs 25,000, 30,000 or 50,000 lying in house for expenses, or whatever money could be there for meeting normal expenses should not worry," he said. "They can go to banks," he added. The Minister further said the government's move will promote more and more digital transactions. "Obviously there is some inconvenience for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, but that cannot be an alibi that India continues to live (with black money and parallel economy)," Jaitley said. "The decision would bring more transactions under tax net and both direct and indirect taxes would move up. Reduction in parallel economy would increase the size of formal economy," he added.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The country witnessed a spree in gold buying, with unorganised market in the yellow metal making a killing, with inflated cost. The governments decision to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1000, people realised will have bearing on the current wedding season spending, mainly gold buying. People were willing to pay extra cash to buy gold, as they found it safe bet to hold on to unaccounted cash, said a jeweller in South Delhi.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai Jewellers Association Vice-President Kumar Jain said the prices are soaring in the domestic market and due to demand-supply gap gold is being sold at a higher premium.

There were reports of shops being open till mid-night till currencies were accepted. Customers buying increased and people did good business.

Gold price is ruling at Rs 31,900 level per 10 gm, however, in the market gold is sold at a premium of Rs 10,000 per 10 gm taking the total price to over Rs 40,000 per 10 gm, said All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation Director Ashok Minawala. According to reports from across the country, the business were substantially high, went up around 200% last night.

On an average day, the industry does a business of around two tonne, said Minawala.

Since a huge amount of transactions in gold remain unreported, it helps in investment and consumption of black money.

Meanwhile, it was a dry day for jewellers on Wednesday due to the demonetisation of high value notes. Many shops across South India have pulled down shutters and the sales was down by 60 per cent.

Many of our shops in Kerala and Tamil Nadu remained closed on Wednesday. The sales were down. Considering the prevailing price of the yellow metal it is impossible to buy gold without Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes. Most of the people were not willing to purchase through online channels, said B Girirajan, managing partner, Bhima Group.

There were reports that there has been a surge in the prices of gold in the black market.

NEW DELHI: The country witnessed a spree in gold buying, with unorganised market in the yellow metal making a killing, with inflated cost. The governments decision to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1000, people realised will have bearing on the current wedding season spending, mainly gold buying. People were willing to pay extra cash to buy gold, as they found it safe bet to hold on to unaccounted cash, said a jeweller in South Delhi. Meanwhile, the Mumbai Jewellers Association Vice-President Kumar Jain said the prices are soaring in the domestic market and due to demand-supply gap gold is being sold at a higher premium. There were reports of shops being open till mid-night till currencies were accepted. Customers buying increased and people did good business. Gold price is ruling at Rs 31,900 level per 10 gm, however, in the market gold is sold at a premium of Rs 10,000 per 10 gm taking the total price to over Rs 40,000 per 10 gm, said All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation Director Ashok Minawala. According to reports from across the country, the business were substantially high, went up around 200% last night. On an average day, the industry does a business of around two tonne, said Minawala. Since a huge amount of transactions in gold remain unreported, it helps in investment and consumption of black money. Meanwhile, it was a dry day for jewellers on Wednesday due to the demonetisation of high value notes. Many shops across South India have pulled down shutters and the sales was down by 60 per cent. Many of our shops in Kerala and Tamil Nadu remained closed on Wednesday. The sales were down. Considering the prevailing price of the yellow metal it is impossible to buy gold without Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes. Most of the people were not willing to purchase through online channels, said B Girirajan, managing partner, Bhima Group. There were reports that there has been a surge in the prices of gold in the black market.
By ANI

Long queues were seen at bank branches across Hyderabad. People started arriving even before the banks opened.



Though it was announced that the banks will open at 8 a.m., the transactions started only at 9 a.m. While some banks like ICICI opened the doors for public at 9 a.m., many public sector banks had not opened even at 10 a.m.

NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched new Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 currency notes from today. People have been queuing outside banks since morning to get their hands on the new currency denominations.



The decision to cancel the legal tender scatters of 500 and 1000 rupees note is a very bold, powerful and decisive step to fight the menace of black money and the use of fake Indian currency notes. Counter fate fake Indian currency notes for financing terrorism. RBI will release new currency notes with new features, designs and dimensions from 10 November onwards, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said while unveiling the new notes on Monday.

Private banks opened its exchange counter in vpm @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/YBB8IfZOlk  Karal Marx (@karal_TNIE) November 10, 2016

The RBI yesterday stated that the banks will remain open for public even on the weekend i.e. November 12 and 13 to deal with rush of people wanting to deposit the defunct currency bills.



Banks and ATMs were shut yesterday to remove old Rs. 500/1000 notes and stock them with lower denomination and new hard-to- fake Rs. 500 and Rs 2,000 currency notes.

The new notes come loaded with enhanced security features, besides having peculiar colour, theme and size which differentiate the new bills from the earlier series.



Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the government's decision will move the country towards a cashless economy.



Reassuring the people that those having lawful money would have nothing to fear, Jaitley said this is a major setback to the parallel black money economy because a lot of currency operating outside the system will now have to be brought into the banking system.



The government believes that this decision has been welcomed everywhere. This major step with help India's credibility," he added.



The Finance Minister further said this decision will change the way people spend and keep their money.



It will take India towards a cashless economy, it doesn't merely push the country in that direction, but significantly pushes it, he added.



He also said the decision is of significant advantage to the economy, adding both the Centre and states will benefit from with more revenue accruing in the economic system.

The customers received the new note with curiosity but the problems remained in the market with severe shortage of change since Wednesday.



Though there was no limit on deposit, for big amounts the banks were insisting on PAN number. Those drawing Rs 10,000 from their bank accounts were also asked to produce their identity proof.



Long queues were also seen at the Reserve Bank of India's regional office at Saifabad. Some people including contractors were carrying more than Rs 4,000 and were requesting the officials for exchange so that they can make the payments for labourers. However, the officials expressed their inability to give exchange for more than the prescribed limit.

(with inputs from IANS)

Long queues were seen at bank branches across Hyderabad. People started arriving even before the banks opened. Though it was announced that the banks will open at 8 a.m., the transactions started only at 9 a.m. While some banks like ICICI opened the doors for public at 9 a.m., many public sector banks had not opened even at 10 a.m. NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched new Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 currency notes from today. People have been queuing outside banks since morning to get their hands on the new currency denominations. The decision to cancel the legal tender scatters of 500 and 1000 rupees note is a very bold, powerful and decisive step to fight the menace of black money and the use of fake Indian currency notes. Counter fate fake Indian currency notes for financing terrorism. RBI will release new currency notes with new features, designs and dimensions from 10 November onwards, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said while unveiling the new notes on Monday. Private banks opened its exchange counter in vpm @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/YBB8IfZOlk  Karal Marx (@karal_TNIE) November 10, 2016 The RBI yesterday stated that the banks will remain open for public even on the weekend i.e. November 12 and 13 to deal with rush of people wanting to deposit the defunct currency bills. Banks and ATMs were shut yesterday to remove old Rs. 500/1000 notes and stock them with lower denomination and new hard-to- fake Rs. 500 and Rs 2,000 currency notes. The new notes come loaded with enhanced security features, besides having peculiar colour, theme and size which differentiate the new bills from the earlier series. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the government's decision will move the country towards a cashless economy. Reassuring the people that those having lawful money would have nothing to fear, Jaitley said this is a major setback to the parallel black money economy because a lot of currency operating outside the system will now have to be brought into the banking system. The government believes that this decision has been welcomed everywhere. This major step with help India's credibility," he added. The Finance Minister further said this decision will change the way people spend and keep their money. It will take India towards a cashless economy, it doesn't merely push the country in that direction, but significantly pushes it, he added. He also said the decision is of significant advantage to the economy, adding both the Centre and states will benefit from with more revenue accruing in the economic system. The customers received the new note with curiosity but the problems remained in the market with severe shortage of change since Wednesday. Though there was no limit on deposit, for big amounts the banks were insisting on PAN number. Those drawing Rs 10,000 from their bank accounts were also asked to produce their identity proof. Long queues were also seen at the Reserve Bank of India's regional office at Saifabad. Some people including contractors were carrying more than Rs 4,000 and were requesting the officials for exchange so that they can make the payments for labourers. However, the officials expressed their inability to give exchange for more than the prescribed limit. (with inputs from IANS)
By Online Desk

Politicians and those with hangers-on always find a way around the law, as reports suggest. In one instance, a politician in Karnataka despatched his cronies with Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh in cash of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations to get them exchanged and thus laundered clean white. These were the kind of people former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan was referring to when he said demonetisation had been considered in the past but not thought to be effective.

My sense is the clever find ways around it. They find ways to divide up their hoard into many smaller pieces, he had said at an interaction after delivering the Lalit Doshi Memorial lecture in August 2014. An audience member had asked a question about RBIs proposal to phase out old notes that do not have the year printed on them, and Rajan had said that demonetisation had been considered as an option to get rid of black money but he didnt think it would work.

He reasoned that the need of the hour was to focus the incentives that generate and retain black money. Adding that most of the black money might be stocked in the form of gold, which would make it harder for the administration to track or catch.

Stressing on the need to implement a better tax system, Rajan said Indias taxes were among the lowest and therefore there was no reason why people should not pay their dues. In such a situation, better data tracking mechanism and tax administration will go a long way in keeping track of where money is not being declared, he said. I think it is very hard in this modern economy to hide your money that easily, he added.

Here is the extract of Rajans interaction where he spoke about demonetization.

Question: RBIs proposal to phase out old notes which do not have the year printed. Suggestion  a: Replacing old currency notes under a new series. b: Also consider adding new series of Notes with Rabindranath Tagore, Homi Bhabha, et al.

Response: I am not quite sure if what you meant is demonetise the old notes and introduce new notes instead. In the past demonetisation has been thought off as a way of getting black money out of circulation. Because people then have to come and say how do I have this ten crores in cash sitting in my safe and they have to explain where they got the money from. It is often cited as a solution.

Unfortunately, my sense is the clever find ways around it. They find ways to divide up their hoard in to many smaller pieces. You do find that people who havent thought of a way to convert black to white, throw it into the Hundi in some temples. I think there are ways around demonetization. It is not that easy to flush out the black money. Of course, a fair amount may be in the form of gold, therefore even harder to catch.

I would focus more on the incentives to generate and retain black money. A lot of the incentives are on taxes. My sense is the current tax rate in this country is for the most part reasonable. We have a reasonable tax regime, for example, the maximum tax rate on high-incomes is 33%, in the US it is already 39% plus State taxes, etc., it takes it to near 50. We are actually lower than many industrial countries.

Given that, there is no reason why everybody who should pay taxes is not paying taxes. I would focus more on tracking data and better tax administration to get at where money is not being declared. I think it is very hard in this modern economy to hide your money that easily.

Interactive Session with Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India

Politicians and those with hangers-on always find a way around the law, as reports suggest. In one instance, a politician in Karnataka despatched his cronies with Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh in cash of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations to get them exchanged and thus laundered clean white. These were the kind of people former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan was referring to when he said demonetisation had been considered in the past but not thought to be effective. My sense is the clever find ways around it. They find ways to divide up their hoard into many smaller pieces, he had said at an interaction after delivering the Lalit Doshi Memorial lecture in August 2014. An audience member had asked a question about RBIs proposal to phase out old notes that do not have the year printed on them, and Rajan had said that demonetisation had been considered as an option to get rid of black money but he didnt think it would work. He reasoned that the need of the hour was to focus the incentives that generate and retain black money. Adding that most of the black money might be stocked in the form of gold, which would make it harder for the administration to track or catch. Stressing on the need to implement a better tax system, Rajan said Indias taxes were among the lowest and therefore there was no reason why people should not pay their dues. In such a situation, better data tracking mechanism and tax administration will go a long way in keeping track of where money is not being declared, he said. I think it is very hard in this modern economy to hide your money that easily, he added. Here is the extract of Rajans interaction where he spoke about demonetization. Question: RBIs proposal to phase out old notes which do not have the year printed. Suggestion  a: Replacing old currency notes under a new series. b: Also consider adding new series of Notes with Rabindranath Tagore, Homi Bhabha, et al. Response: I am not quite sure if what you meant is demonetise the old notes and introduce new notes instead. In the past demonetisation has been thought off as a way of getting black money out of circulation. Because people then have to come and say how do I have this ten crores in cash sitting in my safe and they have to explain where they got the money from. It is often cited as a solution. Unfortunately, my sense is the clever find ways around it. They find ways to divide up their hoard in to many smaller pieces. You do find that people who havent thought of a way to convert black to white, throw it into the Hundi in some temples. I think there are ways around demonetization. It is not that easy to flush out the black money. Of course, a fair amount may be in the form of gold, therefore even harder to catch. I would focus more on the incentives to generate and retain black money. A lot of the incentives are on taxes. My sense is the current tax rate in this country is for the most part reasonable. We have a reasonable tax regime, for example, the maximum tax rate on high-incomes is 33%, in the US it is already 39% plus State taxes, etc., it takes it to near 50. We are actually lower than many industrial countries. Given that, there is no reason why everybody who should pay taxes is not paying taxes. I would focus more on tracking data and better tax administration to get at where money is not being declared. I think it is very hard in this modern economy to hide your money that easily. Interactive Session with Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: In a shocking incident, a 38-year-old transgender allegedly set herself ablaze in front of a police station in Chennai this early morning after police seized her scooter, succumbed to burn injuries st Kilpauk Medical College Hospital.

Taara, who is a resident of Choolaimedu, had poured petrol on herself around 5 am and immolated herself in front of the Pondy Bazaar police station, which is located in the heart of T Nagar, the city's shopping hub. An activist, who heard it from Taara's friends, said Taara was found covered with mud on the ground by the time they managed to reach the police station.

She was then taken to hospital and is said to have suffered 90 percent burn injuries. Police officers in the Pondy Bazaar police station acknowledged that they had seized a scooter in the early morning hours and Taara approached the station asking for the scooter claiming it to be hers.

"The scooter was seized when we went rounds in Thirumalai Pillai Road where we heard a few transgenders involved in flesh trade were trying to woo the customers. But they fled from the spot on seeing us. But one of them left behind a scooter and hence we seized it," said a police officer.

Police said they refused to hand over the scooter to Taara because she was drunk when she came to the police station. After an argument with the police, she went out and suddenly set herself on fire.

However, friends of the deceased expressed apprehensions over the credibility of the account provided by police. They expressed doubts whether the police had verbally abused Taara when she tried to retrieve the vehicle."She was riding the scooter in the early morning hours and its not clear why the police seized the vehicle," said Sreejith Ramakrishna, an activist.

Her friends and members of transgender community are staging protests seeking action against the police.

CHENNAI: In a shocking incident, a 38-year-old transgender allegedly set herself ablaze in front of a police station in Chennai this early morning after police seized her scooter, succumbed to burn injuries st Kilpauk Medical College Hospital. Taara, who is a resident of Choolaimedu, had poured petrol on herself around 5 am and immolated herself in front of the Pondy Bazaar police station, which is located in the heart of T Nagar, the city's shopping hub. An activist, who heard it from Taara's friends, said Taara was found covered with mud on the ground by the time they managed to reach the police station. She was then taken to hospital and is said to have suffered 90 percent burn injuries. Police officers in the Pondy Bazaar police station acknowledged that they had seized a scooter in the early morning hours and Taara approached the station asking for the scooter claiming it to be hers. "The scooter was seized when we went rounds in Thirumalai Pillai Road where we heard a few transgenders involved in flesh trade were trying to woo the customers. But they fled from the spot on seeing us. But one of them left behind a scooter and hence we seized it," said a police officer. Police said they refused to hand over the scooter to Taara because she was drunk when she came to the police station. After an argument with the police, she went out and suddenly set herself on fire. However, friends of the deceased expressed apprehensions over the credibility of the account provided by police. They expressed doubts whether the police had verbally abused Taara when she tried to retrieve the vehicle."She was riding the scooter in the early morning hours and its not clear why the police seized the vehicle," said Sreejith Ramakrishna, an activist. Her friends and members of transgender community are staging protests seeking action against the police.
Sujatha Narayanan By

Express News Service

As always he is a picture of calm despite the talk on whether his film will release on November 11. The days and nights are a haze for Gautham Vasudev Menon whose film Achcham Yenbathu Madamaiyada (AYM) with Simbu also sees its Telugu version (Sahasam Swasaga Sagipo with Naga Chaitanya) release this Friday. Tamil censor just got done on Monday and its been crazy gearing up for release! Though he had just a few days for promotions and publicity, hes courteous enough to chat with our columnist. Excerpts follow...

Arent you missing the publicity-window for AYM as the time between announcement and release is so short?

I dont think so... Our film has garnered enough expectation with AR Rahmans songs which you will love even more when you watch them. Ive made a simple film where Ive tried something mass and commercial probably for the first time in these

15 years.

But your films are mass! They have leading heroes and heroines, action, romance, songs, sentiment...

(Laughs) By mass, I mean that moment when the hero kicks around a few goons and they fly out in all directions in high-speed. I have indulged a bit in AYMs climax. Usually distributors ask me Sir indha scene-kku B and C-la sirippaangala? With AYM, Ive crossed maybe the first two lines of the commercial rulebook but the film is set in my kind

of reality.

Your kind of reality also means certain patterns/motifs get repeated  like a character, the way they dress or behave  the bikes, guitar etc... Is that on purpose?

Of course! My reality is to show good-looking people who are well-spoken, respectable but who also know to have a lot of fun. Even my titles convey a concept... Trishas and Jyothikas roles from Yennai Arindhaal (2015) and Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (2006) maybe similar but Ajith and I wanted them that way. Within that framework of a divorced woman with a child, we gave a new dimension to Trishas character. I dont mean to sound pompous but I want you to know youre in a Gautham Menon world even if you come in post-interval. The motifs are there for that purpose... there is no dearth of ideas! If I dont come up with a scene I dont hesitate to call other directors or writers and work on a script. I take the risk of presenting my pattern to the audience. Im okay if a few people dont take kindly to it  the feedback from 90% is encouraging enough.

Jyotika in Vettaiyaadu

Vilaiyaadu

Most of your technical team are people who have worked with you from 2002... Doesnt it get monotonous?

No! Its like mothers food (laughs) how can it ever get boring? Just like I try and deliver an edge to my work, I hope Rajeevan (art), Antony (editing) and my associates come up with something fresh for each film. We were all new when we got together and made Khakka Khakka (2003)  Nalini Sriram did my costumes then, and Uthara handles it now. The script is given ahead and I wait for options and my team always come up with classy stuff.

A director mostly decides between options  so where does your sense of style and standards come from?

From my mother and father I guess! I come from a moderate household but I believe that your education must show in your demeanour and actions. I try to portray that through my characters. Simbu in both VTV and AYM is an urban, classy guy but he will connect even to the fan in Theni or Thoothukudi.

On that note, do you look forward to working with any actor again...?

Undoubtedly, Kamal Haasan! Vettaiyaadu... is a milestone in my career and if I may humbly add, it is so in his list of blockbusters too! If he agrees to work with me again, I will tell him, Just sit back and enjoy the ride Sir, we will make a rocking film!

(The writer is a columnist with The New Indian Express)

As always he is a picture of calm despite the talk on whether his film will release on November 11. The days and nights are a haze for Gautham Vasudev Menon whose film Achcham Yenbathu Madamaiyada (AYM) with Simbu also sees its Telugu version (Sahasam Swasaga Sagipo with Naga Chaitanya) release this Friday. Tamil censor just got done on Monday and its been crazy gearing up for release! Though he had just a few days for promotions and publicity, hes courteous enough to chat with our columnist. Excerpts follow... Arent you missing the publicity-window for AYM as the time between announcement and release is so short? I dont think so... Our film has garnered enough expectation with AR Rahmans songs which you will love even more when you watch them. Ive made a simple film where Ive tried something mass and commercial probably for the first time in these 15 years. But your films are mass! They have leading heroes and heroines, action, romance, songs, sentiment... (Laughs) By mass, I mean that moment when the hero kicks around a few goons and they fly out in all directions in high-speed. I have indulged a bit in AYMs climax. Usually distributors ask me Sir indha scene-kku B and C-la sirippaangala? With AYM, Ive crossed maybe the first two lines of the commercial rulebook but the film is set in my kind of reality. Your kind of reality also means certain patterns/motifs get repeated  like a character, the way they dress or behave  the bikes, guitar etc... Is that on purpose? Of course! My reality is to show good-looking people who are well-spoken, respectable but who also know to have a lot of fun. Even my titles convey a concept... Trishas and Jyothikas roles from Yennai Arindhaal (2015) and Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (2006) maybe similar but Ajith and I wanted them that way. Within that framework of a divorced woman with a child, we gave a new dimension to Trishas character. I dont mean to sound pompous but I want you to know youre in a Gautham Menon world even if you come in post-interval. The motifs are there for that purpose... there is no dearth of ideas! If I dont come up with a scene I dont hesitate to call other directors or writers and work on a script. I take the risk of presenting my pattern to the audience. Im okay if a few people dont take kindly to it  the feedback from 90% is encouraging enough. Jyotika in Vettaiyaadu VilaiyaaduMost of your technical team are people who have worked with you from 2002... Doesnt it get monotonous? No! Its like mothers food (laughs) how can it ever get boring? Just like I try and deliver an edge to my work, I hope Rajeevan (art), Antony (editing) and my associates come up with something fresh for each film. We were all new when we got together and made Khakka Khakka (2003)  Nalini Sriram did my costumes then, and Uthara handles it now. The script is given ahead and I wait for options and my team always come up with classy stuff. A director mostly decides between options  so where does your sense of style and standards come from? From my mother and father I guess! I come from a moderate household but I believe that your education must show in your demeanour and actions. I try to portray that through my characters. Simbu in both VTV and AYM is an urban, classy guy but he will connect even to the fan in Theni or Thoothukudi. On that note, do you look forward to working with any actor again...? Undoubtedly, Kamal Haasan! Vettaiyaadu... is a milestone in my career and if I may humbly add, it is so in his list of blockbusters too! If he agrees to work with me again, I will tell him, Just sit back and enjoy the ride Sir, we will make a rocking film! (The writer is a columnist with The New Indian Express)
By PTI

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court today gave its nod for the release of Tamil movie "Kadavul Irukan Kumaru" as it vacated the stay granted against its release with a condition to deposit Rs 35 lakh in the court within four weeks.

The court had yesterday granted interim stay for the release of the film for two weeks, when film distributor R Singavadivelan filed a suit for recovery of Rs 82.38 lakh from producer Senthilkumar of G&7G Films.

Singaravadivelan had submitted that he had entered into a contract with producers of Tamil film "Lingaa", starring Rajinikanth, for exhibition and distribution rights in Trichy-Thanjavur area. He was authorised to deal with theatre collections.

However, Senthilkumar did not pay Rs 61.25 lakh in December 2014. The petitioner paid the money to the producer after Senthilkumar assured that the amount would be paid as soon as possible. The suit was filed after he heard that Senthilkumar was about to release "Kadavul Irukkan Kumaru"

featuring G V Prakash and directed by M Rajesh on November 10.

Referring to Senthilkumar's letter dated June 18 giving an undertaking that he will not release the film without clearing dues of Singaravadivelan, the latter said, "Contrary to the promise, Senthilkumar abruptly, with a view to defraud the petitioner, has fixed the date of release of the film as November 10."

Vacating the stay today, the court said, "While permitting the movie to be released by way of an interim order the G&7G Films is directed to deposit Rs 35 lakh in the court within four weeks from the date of receipt of the copy of this order without prejudice to the contention of the parties which

should be taken note of while disposing of the application."

The G&7G Films is granted further four weeks of time to file counter affidavit and posted he mater for further hearing after six weeks, it said.

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court today gave its nod for the release of Tamil movie "Kadavul Irukan Kumaru" as it vacated the stay granted against its release with a condition to deposit Rs 35 lakh in the court within four weeks. The court had yesterday granted interim stay for the release of the film for two weeks, when film distributor R Singavadivelan filed a suit for recovery of Rs 82.38 lakh from producer Senthilkumar of G&7G Films. Singaravadivelan had submitted that he had entered into a contract with producers of Tamil film "Lingaa", starring Rajinikanth, for exhibition and distribution rights in Trichy-Thanjavur area. He was authorised to deal with theatre collections. However, Senthilkumar did not pay Rs 61.25 lakh in December 2014. The petitioner paid the money to the producer after Senthilkumar assured that the amount would be paid as soon as possible. The suit was filed after he heard that Senthilkumar was about to release "Kadavul Irukkan Kumaru" featuring G V Prakash and directed by M Rajesh on November 10. Referring to Senthilkumar's letter dated June 18 giving an undertaking that he will not release the film without clearing dues of Singaravadivelan, the latter said, "Contrary to the promise, Senthilkumar abruptly, with a view to defraud the petitioner, has fixed the date of release of the film as November 10." Vacating the stay today, the court said, "While permitting the movie to be released by way of an interim order the G&7G Films is directed to deposit Rs 35 lakh in the court within four weeks from the date of receipt of the copy of this order without prejudice to the contention of the parties which should be taken note of while disposing of the application." The G&7G Films is granted further four weeks of time to file counter affidavit and posted he mater for further hearing after six weeks, it said.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 10

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

The Malaysian government will study the possibility of its companies participation in the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak said, the Oil and Gas Complex of Turkmenistan said in a message.

Razak made the remarks speaking to the press, following the negotiations with President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who recently went to Kuala Lumpur on an official visit, according to the message.

Razak also stated about the readiness of Malaysian companies to participate in a number of projects for the construction of production facilities, development of the petrochemical industry and manufacturing of finished products in Turkmenistan.

The Oil and Gas Complex of Turkmenistan reported that Ashgabat is ready to provide certain volumes of gas in the TAPI pipeline on the swap scheme to foreign companies that produce gas on the Turkmen shelf after they enter the TAPI Pipeline Company Limited consortium.

Turkmenistans Turkmengas State Concern was appointed the leader of the consortium in August of 2015.

Earlier, President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov offered the business circles of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Germany and other countries to take part in the implementation of the TAPI project.

Turkmengas and Turkmenneftegazstroy state concerns have been constructing the Turkmen section of the TAPI since December 2015.

The capacity of the TAPI pipeline will be 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year, and its total length will amount to 1,814 kilometers. It is planned to commission the pipeline in December 2019.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The BJP on Wednesday accused the Congress of spreading misinformation about the governments decision to denotify Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, claiming the party had ruled the country on the might of black money and institutionalising the spread of unaccounted cash.

The Congress claims that people in rural areas and farmers in particular will face inconvenience are completely unfounded. Agricultural income is income tax-free and farmers can go to any bank branch in their area to exchange their old notes. The Prime Minister has already clarified that honest people will not face any kind of inconvenience and robust arrangements have been put in place, said BJP leader Gopal Krishna Agarwal.

NEW DELHI: The BJP on Wednesday accused the Congress of spreading misinformation about the governments decision to denotify Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, claiming the party had ruled the country on the might of black money and institutionalising the spread of unaccounted cash. The Congress claims that people in rural areas and farmers in particular will face inconvenience are completely unfounded. Agricultural income is income tax-free and farmers can go to any bank branch in their area to exchange their old notes. The Prime Minister has already clarified that honest people will not face any kind of inconvenience and robust arrangements have been put in place, said BJP leader Gopal Krishna Agarwal.
By IANS

DHARAMSALA: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has congratulated America's President-elect Donald Trump, saying the world places great hope in the democratic vision and leadership of the US.



In a congratulatory letter sent to Trump on Wednesday, he said the Tibetan people and himself were honoured with the support received by respective US Presidents and fellow Americans in the Tibetan people's endeavour to protect and preserve ancient Buddhist culture.



He wished him prayers and good wishes for every success in the many challenges that lay ahead.



In a separate message, Tibetan Prime Minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay also congratulated Trump on his election victory.



"I am grateful for the people and government of the US for hosting the Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama, at the White House on many occasions," he said.



Sangay added that the Tibetan people are immensely grateful to the US for applauding and supporting amiddle-way' approach and encouraging dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Chinese authorities to lower tensions and resolve our differences.



The Dalai Lama has lived in India since fleeing his homeland in 1959. The Tibetan exile administration is based here.

DHARAMSALA: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has congratulated America's President-elect Donald Trump, saying the world places great hope in the democratic vision and leadership of the US. In a congratulatory letter sent to Trump on Wednesday, he said the Tibetan people and himself were honoured with the support received by respective US Presidents and fellow Americans in the Tibetan people's endeavour to protect and preserve ancient Buddhist culture. He wished him prayers and good wishes for every success in the many challenges that lay ahead. In a separate message, Tibetan Prime Minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay also congratulated Trump on his election victory. "I am grateful for the people and government of the US for hosting the Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama, at the White House on many occasions," he said. Sangay added that the Tibetan people are immensely grateful to the US for applauding and supporting amiddle-way' approach and encouraging dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Chinese authorities to lower tensions and resolve our differences. The Dalai Lama has lived in India since fleeing his homeland in 1959. The Tibetan exile administration is based here.
By ANI

BALLIA: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has described the bold step of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demonetise Rs. 500 and 1000 currency notes as surgical strike on corruption and a move to stop fake currency being printed in Pakistan to promote terrorism in India.

Addressing a Parivartan Rally in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, Singh said, Yesterday was a historic day in the history of India. Our Prime Minister openly announced that they are doing surgical strike on corruption so that nobody dares to do corruption. I can understand that the people must be facing problems. But I would assure you that it will be beneficial.

I know about the countrys economy. Some people might face some problem. But it will be only for few days. I can assure you that in coming time India would be economic superpower, he added.

Rajnath further said that fake currency was being printed in Pakistan and was then sent to India to destroy its economy.

Such was Pakistans attempts...In India, fake currency was helping terrorists to grow. It further gives strength to terrorists and Pakistan. By scrapping Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, Narendra Modi ji has taken away that strength, Singh said.

Singh also spoke about the U.S. presidential results, linking president-elect Donald Trump to Prime Minister Modi.

How did Trump fight his election? Trump said that if he becomes the president of the U.S., he would follow and work according to Narendra Modis policies. That Trump has won in America, Singh said, adding that after the Modi Government came to power at the Centre, India had increased its global standing and has become the fastest growing economy in the world.

BALLIA: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has described the bold step of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demonetise Rs. 500 and 1000 currency notes as surgical strike on corruption and a move to stop fake currency being printed in Pakistan to promote terrorism in India. Addressing a Parivartan Rally in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, Singh said, Yesterday was a historic day in the history of India. Our Prime Minister openly announced that they are doing surgical strike on corruption so that nobody dares to do corruption. I can understand that the people must be facing problems. But I would assure you that it will be beneficial. I know about the countrys economy. Some people might face some problem. But it will be only for few days. I can assure you that in coming time India would be economic superpower, he added. Rajnath further said that fake currency was being printed in Pakistan and was then sent to India to destroy its economy. Such was Pakistans attempts...In India, fake currency was helping terrorists to grow. It further gives strength to terrorists and Pakistan. By scrapping Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, Narendra Modi ji has taken away that strength, Singh said. Singh also spoke about the U.S. presidential results, linking president-elect Donald Trump to Prime Minister Modi. How did Trump fight his election? Trump said that if he becomes the president of the U.S., he would follow and work according to Narendra Modis policies. That Trump has won in America, Singh said, adding that after the Modi Government came to power at the Centre, India had increased its global standing and has become the fastest growing economy in the world.
Harpreet Bajwa By

Express News Service

CHANDIGARH: The Satluj Yamuna Link [SYL] canal is a major factor in the political economy of Punjab and has the reputation of stoking terrorism in the state back in the 1980s. In the more gruesome episodes in that grim chapter, militants gunned down the then Shiromani Akali Dal [SAD] president Sant Harchand Singh Longowal in 1985 and killed two engineers and 32 labourers working on the project in 1990.



The then prime minister Indira Gandhi had laid the foundation stone for the canal on April 8, 1982 at Kapoori near Patiala, an act that provoked the Akali Dal, then in the opposition, to launch an agitation against the Centre which later moved to Amritsar and took the form of the Dharamyudh Morcha.



On July 24, 1985 Rajiv Gandhi signed the Punjab Accord with Sant Longowal, one point of which was that a tribunal would be set up to verify the claims of both Punjab and Haryana to river waters. On August 20, 1985, Longowal was killed by militants. Five years later, SYL chief engineer M L Sikri and the then superintending

engineer A S Aulakh were gunned down by Babbar Khalsa International [BKI] militants and 32 labourers working on the

project were slain.



The Supreme Court ruling on Thursday, striking down a Punjab law that rescinded the states commitment to the SYL agreements, raises the spectre of unrest again. The Congress, now in the opposition, is already up in arms, and the radical Sikh organization Dal Khalsa has vowed not to allow the construction of SYL at any cost.

The partys senior leaders H S Dhami and Kanwar Pal Singh blamed the executive and the judiciary for muddling the Punjab river waters issue. They were categorical that Punjab owns the waters of the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas and no legislation or court could deprive the state of its right of ownership.

Our brethren have laid down their lives and suffered imprisonment for years for the waters. We we won't let their sacrifices go in vain, they said.

In 2004, the Punjab Assembly enacted the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act which annulled all previous inter-state agreements signed by the state relating to the sharing of the Ravi and Beas waters. At that time, Capt Amarinder Singh was the Congress chief minister of the state. In 2002 and then in 2004, the Supreme Court had ordered the Union government to complete the SYL canal.

The same year, the Union government sent a presidential reference to the Supreme Court seeking its opinion on the river water issue. The reference was heard by the apex court without any result until 2009. In 2011 Haryana Assembly passed a resolution requesting the Union government to pursue the matter in the apex court for an early decision. Last year, Haryana filed a suit in the apex court to get the act declared illegal. Punjab also filed a suit in the court seeking a new tribunal to be set up to settle the issue.

Amidst all this litigation, the canal stands incomplete. It starts from the tail end of the Anandpur hydel canal near Nangal in Punjab and goes up to the Western Yamuna Canal from where it collects the waters of the Ravi and Beas. The construction of canal started in both Haryana and Punjab in 1981 but it stopped in Punjab in 1990 in the face of those terror killings.

CHANDIGARH: The Satluj Yamuna Link [SYL] canal is a major factor in the political economy of Punjab and has the reputation of stoking terrorism in the state back in the 1980s. In the more gruesome episodes in that grim chapter, militants gunned down the then Shiromani Akali Dal [SAD] president Sant Harchand Singh Longowal in 1985 and killed two engineers and 32 labourers working on the project in 1990. The then prime minister Indira Gandhi had laid the foundation stone for the canal on April 8, 1982 at Kapoori near Patiala, an act that provoked the Akali Dal, then in the opposition, to launch an agitation against the Centre which later moved to Amritsar and took the form of the Dharamyudh Morcha. On July 24, 1985 Rajiv Gandhi signed the Punjab Accord with Sant Longowal, one point of which was that a tribunal would be set up to verify the claims of both Punjab and Haryana to river waters. On August 20, 1985, Longowal was killed by militants. Five years later, SYL chief engineer M L Sikri and the then superintending engineer A S Aulakh were gunned down by Babbar Khalsa International [BKI] militants and 32 labourers working on the project were slain. The Supreme Court ruling on Thursday, striking down a Punjab law that rescinded the states commitment to the SYL agreements, raises the spectre of unrest again. The Congress, now in the opposition, is already up in arms, and the radical Sikh organization Dal Khalsa has vowed not to allow the construction of SYL at any cost. The partys senior leaders H S Dhami and Kanwar Pal Singh blamed the executive and the judiciary for muddling the Punjab river waters issue. They were categorical that Punjab owns the waters of the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas and no legislation or court could deprive the state of its right of ownership. Our brethren have laid down their lives and suffered imprisonment for years for the waters. We we won't let their sacrifices go in vain, they said. In 2004, the Punjab Assembly enacted the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act which annulled all previous inter-state agreements signed by the state relating to the sharing of the Ravi and Beas waters. At that time, Capt Amarinder Singh was the Congress chief minister of the state. In 2002 and then in 2004, the Supreme Court had ordered the Union government to complete the SYL canal. The same year, the Union government sent a presidential reference to the Supreme Court seeking its opinion on the river water issue. The reference was heard by the apex court without any result until 2009. In 2011 Haryana Assembly passed a resolution requesting the Union government to pursue the matter in the apex court for an early decision. Last year, Haryana filed a suit in the apex court to get the act declared illegal. Punjab also filed a suit in the court seeking a new tribunal to be set up to settle the issue. Amidst all this litigation, the canal stands incomplete. It starts from the tail end of the Anandpur hydel canal near Nangal in Punjab and goes up to the Western Yamuna Canal from where it collects the waters of the Ravi and Beas. The construction of canal started in both Haryana and Punjab in 1981 but it stopped in Punjab in 1990 in the face of those terror killings.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today embarked on a three-day visit to Japan during which the two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in areas like trade, investment and security.

In his second visit to Japan as Prime Minister, Modi will be holding the annual Summit meeting with his counterpart Shinzo Abe and have an audience with the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo. "An eastward sojourn begins, this time for the Annual Summit with Japan. PM departs for Tokyo," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said on twitter this morning. From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway.

He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed railway is manufactured. "I will have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties," Modi said in a statement yesterday. The PM said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo tomorrow.

"Our partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order," he added. During the visit, the two countries are expected to sign civil nuclear cooperation agreement. The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abe's visit here last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.

Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week. Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two countries have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today embarked on a three-day visit to Japan during which the two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in areas like trade, investment and security. In his second visit to Japan as Prime Minister, Modi will be holding the annual Summit meeting with his counterpart Shinzo Abe and have an audience with the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo. "An eastward sojourn begins, this time for the Annual Summit with Japan. PM departs for Tokyo," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said on twitter this morning. From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway. He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed railway is manufactured. "I will have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties," Modi said in a statement yesterday. The PM said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo tomorrow. "Our partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order," he added. During the visit, the two countries are expected to sign civil nuclear cooperation agreement. The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abe's visit here last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out. Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week. Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two countries have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
By ANI

KATHMANDU: Former Indian Army soldiers residing in Nepal have praised President Pranab Mukherjee for describing them as the foundational pillars of the time tested friendship that exists between Nepal and India, and for his promise to deliver to them the benefits of one rank, one pension (OROP) at the earliest, besides other welfare measures.



These ex-servicemen, most of them Gurkhas, who have been serving in the Indian armed forces for more than 200 years, said they were extremely proud, happy and satisfied about the Indian president taking time out of his recent hectic two-day state visit to Nepal, to spend some moments with them in Pokhara and recall their enormous and well documented contribution in safeguarding Indias borders from external aggressors in the years gone by.



They said it was a particularly proud moment for them when President Mukherjee described them as the pride of the Indian Army and as people who had earned a name for themselves on battlefields and in other military-related operations.



They said they were also grateful to the Indian President for highlighting the fact that as on date, 32,000 Indian Army soldiers guarding the nation are of Gurkha origin, and that the Indian government is committed to never stepping back in its efforts to ensure the welfare of all of its ex-servicemen, including the Gurkhas of Nepal.



They said that this gesture would not only benefit them, but also go a long way in giving a much needed boost to Nepals economy.



During his interaction, President Mukherjee said it was a matter of pride for India that around 126,000 ex-servicemen and their dependents are drawing pension from the Indian Army in Nepal.



He said relations between India and Nepal are based on multi-faceted social and cultural contacts, and reminded that both nations shared an open border and a friendship treaty that has elevated bilateral relations to a higher level.



This relationship, he said has also strengthened the friendship between the armies of both countries, and the ex-servicemen have made important contributions to the security and development of both our countries.



He said India is running many welfare schemes for the prosperity and well-being of ex-servicemen based in Nepal and informed that annually nearly 3100 crore Nepali rupees is distributed as pension in Nepal.



The objective in 2016-17 is to distribute around 4000 crore Nepali rupees under One Rank One Pension and the 7th Central Pay Commission, he said.



He said that the Indian Army has an ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme in Nepal to take care of their health in old age, and added that approximately one crore Nepali Rupees has been distributed as medical assistance.



President Mukherjee told the ex-servicemen in Pokhara that ten medical teams from the Indian Army visit Nepal every year and that till now, 64 ambulances have been gifted to various ex-servicemen institutions in the Himalayan state.



The gathering of 150,000 ex-servicemen was informed that the Indian Army is providing scholarships to their dependent children; drinking water projects in 1049 villages and electricity through solar electrification projects in 17 remote areas.



The President said it is a matter of satisfaction and pride that a decision has been taken to increase the original pension drawn on December 31, 2015 by 2.57 times and that the 7th Pay Commission had recommended a payment of 2.57 times of the pension drawn on January 1, 2006.



The ex-servicemen said they were happy to hear about Indias commitment to rehabilitation efforts pertaining to the devastating earthquakes that struck Nepal last year.



The Government of India has provided 32,000 Nepali Rupees per pensioner in addition to other aid to 6832 earthquake affected ex-servicemen.

KATHMANDU: Former Indian Army soldiers residing in Nepal have praised President Pranab Mukherjee for describing them as the foundational pillars of the time tested friendship that exists between Nepal and India, and for his promise to deliver to them the benefits of one rank, one pension (OROP) at the earliest, besides other welfare measures. These ex-servicemen, most of them Gurkhas, who have been serving in the Indian armed forces for more than 200 years, said they were extremely proud, happy and satisfied about the Indian president taking time out of his recent hectic two-day state visit to Nepal, to spend some moments with them in Pokhara and recall their enormous and well documented contribution in safeguarding Indias borders from external aggressors in the years gone by. They said it was a particularly proud moment for them when President Mukherjee described them as the pride of the Indian Army and as people who had earned a name for themselves on battlefields and in other military-related operations. They said they were also grateful to the Indian President for highlighting the fact that as on date, 32,000 Indian Army soldiers guarding the nation are of Gurkha origin, and that the Indian government is committed to never stepping back in its efforts to ensure the welfare of all of its ex-servicemen, including the Gurkhas of Nepal. They said that this gesture would not only benefit them, but also go a long way in giving a much needed boost to Nepals economy. During his interaction, President Mukherjee said it was a matter of pride for India that around 126,000 ex-servicemen and their dependents are drawing pension from the Indian Army in Nepal. He said relations between India and Nepal are based on multi-faceted social and cultural contacts, and reminded that both nations shared an open border and a friendship treaty that has elevated bilateral relations to a higher level. This relationship, he said has also strengthened the friendship between the armies of both countries, and the ex-servicemen have made important contributions to the security and development of both our countries. He said India is running many welfare schemes for the prosperity and well-being of ex-servicemen based in Nepal and informed that annually nearly 3100 crore Nepali rupees is distributed as pension in Nepal. The objective in 2016-17 is to distribute around 4000 crore Nepali rupees under One Rank One Pension and the 7th Central Pay Commission, he said. He said that the Indian Army has an ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme in Nepal to take care of their health in old age, and added that approximately one crore Nepali Rupees has been distributed as medical assistance. President Mukherjee told the ex-servicemen in Pokhara that ten medical teams from the Indian Army visit Nepal every year and that till now, 64 ambulances have been gifted to various ex-servicemen institutions in the Himalayan state. The gathering of 150,000 ex-servicemen was informed that the Indian Army is providing scholarships to their dependent children; drinking water projects in 1049 villages and electricity through solar electrification projects in 17 remote areas. The President said it is a matter of satisfaction and pride that a decision has been taken to increase the original pension drawn on December 31, 2015 by 2.57 times and that the 7th Pay Commission had recommended a payment of 2.57 times of the pension drawn on January 1, 2006. The ex-servicemen said they were happy to hear about Indias commitment to rehabilitation efforts pertaining to the devastating earthquakes that struck Nepal last year. The Government of India has provided 32,000 Nepali Rupees per pensioner in addition to other aid to 6832 earthquake affected ex-servicemen.
Express News Service

CHANDIGARH: Punjab was thrown into turmoil on Thursday with the Supreme Court striking down a 2004 law passed by the then state government terminating the Sutlej-Yamuna Link [SYL] canal water sharing agreement with neighbouring states.

Both the Congress and the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal reacted strontly against the verdict, and vowed not to release a single drop of water to Haryana. Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh resigned his Lok Sabha seat [Amritsar], and the partys MLAs also put in their papers.

Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal [SAD] called an emergency meeting of his cabinet, which passed a resolution against any sharing of water. A special session of the state Assembly has been called on November 16.

The law held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court was passed by the Punjab government, then headed by Capt. Amarinder Singh, in 2004. Called the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, it sought to nullify a Supreme Court ruling and proceeded to stop construction of the remaining part of the SYL canal, which would affect Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.

However, a five-judge Constitutional bench of the apex court ruled that Punjab cannot take any such "unilateral" decision.

The verdict was a response to a presidential reference from the Centre containing five queries. The bench, which included justices A R Dave, P C Ghose, Shiva Kirti Singh, A K Goel and Amitava Roy, unanimously held that its answer to all five questions was negative.

"All the questions have been answered in the negative," a five-judge bench headed by Justice A R Dave said, pronouncing the courts decision on a presidential reference.

Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal made it clear that the state government is set on another collision course with the apex court. In a nutshell, all I can say is Punjab ka paani nahin jaayega, nahin jaayega, nahin jaayega . Punjab does not have a single drop of water to spare, he said after the emergency cabinet meeting.

He said the Cabinet would call on the President and request him not to accept the advice of the Supreme Court. Deputy chief minister and SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal said, ``The SYL canal will not be built at any cost. Not a single brick will be laid.

Capt. Amarinder Singh described the Supreme Court judgment as a major blow to the people of Punjab, and blamed the Akali Dal for failing to present Punjabs stance in court. Claiming that his government of 2004 tried to protect Punjabs interests by enacting the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, Amarinder said the Akalis failed to defend the law in the court. On the contrary, a preposterous idea was floated by chief minister Badal to seek royalty from the other states that use the Sutlej water. This was aimed at helping out Haryana, he said. After helping out Haryana, it seems Badal is now trying to help Himachal Pradesh too, by suggesting that it should demand royalty from Punjab, said Amarinder.

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar hailed the Supreme Court verdict and said the Supreme Court has given its decision on a vital issue after 12 years and brought smiles to the faces of every Haryanvi because the state would now get its legitimate share of the surplus Ravi-Beas waters, some 3.5 million acre feet (MAF).

CHANDIGARH: Punjab was thrown into turmoil on Thursday with the Supreme Court striking down a 2004 law passed by the then state government terminating the Sutlej-Yamuna Link [SYL] canal water sharing agreement with neighbouring states. Both the Congress and the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal reacted strontly against the verdict, and vowed not to release a single drop of water to Haryana. Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh resigned his Lok Sabha seat [Amritsar], and the partys MLAs also put in their papers. Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal [SAD] called an emergency meeting of his cabinet, which passed a resolution against any sharing of water. A special session of the state Assembly has been called on November 16. The law held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court was passed by the Punjab government, then headed by Capt. Amarinder Singh, in 2004. Called the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, it sought to nullify a Supreme Court ruling and proceeded to stop construction of the remaining part of the SYL canal, which would affect Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh. However, a five-judge Constitutional bench of the apex court ruled that Punjab cannot take any such "unilateral" decision. The verdict was a response to a presidential reference from the Centre containing five queries. The bench, which included justices A R Dave, P C Ghose, Shiva Kirti Singh, A K Goel and Amitava Roy, unanimously held that its answer to all five questions was negative. "All the questions have been answered in the negative," a five-judge bench headed by Justice A R Dave said, pronouncing the courts decision on a presidential reference. Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal made it clear that the state government is set on another collision course with the apex court. In a nutshell, all I can say is Punjab ka paani nahin jaayega, nahin jaayega, nahin jaayega . Punjab does not have a single drop of water to spare, he said after the emergency cabinet meeting. He said the Cabinet would call on the President and request him not to accept the advice of the Supreme Court. Deputy chief minister and SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal said, ``The SYL canal will not be built at any cost. Not a single brick will be laid. Capt. Amarinder Singh described the Supreme Court judgment as a major blow to the people of Punjab, and blamed the Akali Dal for failing to present Punjabs stance in court. Claiming that his government of 2004 tried to protect Punjabs interests by enacting the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, Amarinder said the Akalis failed to defend the law in the court. On the contrary, a preposterous idea was floated by chief minister Badal to seek royalty from the other states that use the Sutlej water. This was aimed at helping out Haryana, he said. After helping out Haryana, it seems Badal is now trying to help Himachal Pradesh too, by suggesting that it should demand royalty from Punjab, said Amarinder. Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar hailed the Supreme Court verdict and said the Supreme Court has given its decision on a vital issue after 12 years and brought smiles to the faces of every Haryanvi because the state would now get its legitimate share of the surplus Ravi-Beas waters, some 3.5 million acre feet (MAF).
Anand Das By

Express News Service

PATNA: The prevailing public anxiety in Bihar following the ban on currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations caused critical delay in taking a three-year-old rape victim to a referral hospital as the ambulance driver refused to accept the banned notes from the girls family.

After the three-year-old girl was found raped and badly injured in Phulwaria in Begusarai district, local police promptly arrested the accused and took the girl to the Sadar Hospital nearby. Doctors there administered first aid to the girl and referred her to Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) in Patna. But getting the ambulance to take the girl there proved hard for her family.

The driver of the government-run 1099 ambulance allegedly refused to accept currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 from the victims family, thus leading to a three-hour delay in her reaching PMCH. The driver wanted the cash for diesel in the ambulance and his wage. He agreed to take the girl to PMCH when some people gave him currency notes of Rs 100 denomination, but it was three hours after he was approached, said a source. Although the ambulance is run by the government, drivers are privately employed, he added.

The minor rape victims condition is stated to be stable at PMCH. Police sources said she was raped by a man in his late 20s living in her neighbourhood.

Despite assurances by the Centre and efforts by banks to exchange the banned currency notes with new ones, there was massive anxiety across Bihar. Queues as long as five km were seen outside many bank branches. Most post offices in Bihar and Jharkhand, where large crowds had gathered since 10 AM to get their currency notes exchanged, had not received the new currency notes as late as 3 PM.

A clash between the staff of a fuel station and buyers took place in Ara in Bihar when the staff refused to accept the banned notes. Most shops in rural areas in Bihar and Jharkhand remained shut on Wednesday. In the towns, business remained thin at major shopping complexes.



PATNA: The prevailing public anxiety in Bihar following the ban on currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations caused critical delay in taking a three-year-old rape victim to a referral hospital as the ambulance driver refused to accept the banned notes from the girls family. After the three-year-old girl was found raped and badly injured in Phulwaria in Begusarai district, local police promptly arrested the accused and took the girl to the Sadar Hospital nearby. Doctors there administered first aid to the girl and referred her to Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) in Patna. But getting the ambulance to take the girl there proved hard for her family. The driver of the government-run 1099 ambulance allegedly refused to accept currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 from the victims family, thus leading to a three-hour delay in her reaching PMCH. The driver wanted the cash for diesel in the ambulance and his wage. He agreed to take the girl to PMCH when some people gave him currency notes of Rs 100 denomination, but it was three hours after he was approached, said a source. Although the ambulance is run by the government, drivers are privately employed, he added. The minor rape victims condition is stated to be stable at PMCH. Police sources said she was raped by a man in his late 20s living in her neighbourhood. Despite assurances by the Centre and efforts by banks to exchange the banned currency notes with new ones, there was massive anxiety across Bihar. Queues as long as five km were seen outside many bank branches. Most post offices in Bihar and Jharkhand, where large crowds had gathered since 10 AM to get their currency notes exchanged, had not received the new currency notes as late as 3 PM. A clash between the staff of a fuel station and buyers took place in Ara in Bihar when the staff refused to accept the banned notes. Most shops in rural areas in Bihar and Jharkhand remained shut on Wednesday. In the towns, business remained thin at major shopping complexes.
By Express News Service

ANANTAPUR: At long last, Telugu film star and on-off politician Pawan Kalyan has announced that he will contest in the 2019 general election in Andhra Pradesh. He didn't say whether it would be for an MLA or an MP seat.

The actor, who heads an NGO-like party called Jana Sena, blurted out that commitment in a public meeting, the third in his latest flurry, to drum up the demand for special category status for Andhra Pradesh. The meeting at the Government Junior College in

Anantapur, saw a huge gathering, mainly of film fans.

Given to some memorable turns of phrase, the mercurial actor likened the special financial package pledged to AP by the Centre to a paper plane that won't fly. Two months ago, he had called the same package "two rotten laddus'.

He showered derision on some politicians allowing themselves to be felicitated for securing that rotten special package. "Some leaders have declared that special status is a closed chapter. If that's the case, you have cheated the people of Andhra Pradesh. We will not forget this injustice. Instead, we will start a revolution," the actor, who is said to be a fan of Che Guevara.

Though Andhra Pradesh has only been given what is due to it, these leaders made it appear that largesse was being showered upon the state, he said.

Being a perennially drought-hit district, there was a nod to Anantapur as well. The actor promised to work in collaboration with scientists and agriculture experts to bring prosperity to the district. "As a sign of my commitment, I will start my first Jana Sena district office in Anantapur shortly," he declared.

ANANTAPUR: At long last, Telugu film star and on-off politician Pawan Kalyan has announced that he will contest in the 2019 general election in Andhra Pradesh. He didn't say whether it would be for an MLA or an MP seat. The actor, who heads an NGO-like party called Jana Sena, blurted out that commitment in a public meeting, the third in his latest flurry, to drum up the demand for special category status for Andhra Pradesh. The meeting at the Government Junior College in Anantapur, saw a huge gathering, mainly of film fans. Given to some memorable turns of phrase, the mercurial actor likened the special financial package pledged to AP by the Centre to a paper plane that won't fly. Two months ago, he had called the same package "two rotten laddus'. He showered derision on some politicians allowing themselves to be felicitated for securing that rotten special package. "Some leaders have declared that special status is a closed chapter. If that's the case, you have cheated the people of Andhra Pradesh. We will not forget this injustice. Instead, we will start a revolution," the actor, who is said to be a fan of Che Guevara. Though Andhra Pradesh has only been given what is due to it, these leaders made it appear that largesse was being showered upon the state, he said. Being a perennially drought-hit district, there was a nod to Anantapur as well. The actor promised to work in collaboration with scientists and agriculture experts to bring prosperity to the district. "As a sign of my commitment, I will start my first Jana Sena district office in Anantapur shortly," he declared.
By Express News Service

MADIKERI/BENGALURU: More than 100 BJP workers, including three legislators, were detained by the Karnataka police for trying to disrupt the Tipu Jayanthi celebrations on Thursday. Extensive security arrangements have been put in place in Kodagu district as the Tipu Jayanthi celebrations had turned communal in the district last year.

The three legislators detained are Virajpet MLA K G Bopaiah, Madikeri MLA Appachu Ranjan and MLC Sunil Subramani.

In other parts of the state, BJP staged protests against Tipu Jayanti by the state government. Despite fears of communal strife, no such incidents have been reported.

Kodagu bandh

The Kodagu bandh called by Anti Tipu Jayanti Committee, BJP, Sangh Parivar, all the Kodava samajas and few Gowda samajas in the district was peaceful. Until noon, private buses, auto-rickshaws and taxis remained off the road. However, a few KSRTC buses were seen plying in the early hours of the day.

In Kadagadalu, miscreants cut a huge tree to disrupt traffic. In Virajpet, Somwarpet and other parts of the district, poojas were organised in temples for VHP leader Kuttappa who died during the Tipu Jayanti celebrations last year.

Prohibitory orders are in place in the district from November 7 to 11.

Detained

Police detained more than 60 BJP workers when they demonstrated against Tipu Jayanti at the Kushalnagar bus stand on Thursday. The superintendent of police of Kodagu Rajendra Prasad told reporters that Tipu Jayanti celebrations were being held without any trouble. He said that Bopaiah, Appachu Ranjan and Subramani, who were chief guests at the official function organised by the administration attempted to disrupt the celebrations and tried to take out a procession. "Police detained all of them as prohibitory orders are in force," he added.

In Mysuru, a bike rally was taken out from Mandi Mohalla to Kalamandir, where the official celebrations were held in the presence of hundreds of people.

Close to hundred demonstrators, including BJP MP Pratap Simha, former MLCs Madhusudan and C H Vijayshankar were arrested for trying to disrupt the celebrations.

MADIKERI/BENGALURU: More than 100 BJP workers, including three legislators, were detained by the Karnataka police for trying to disrupt the Tipu Jayanthi celebrations on Thursday. Extensive security arrangements have been put in place in Kodagu district as the Tipu Jayanthi celebrations had turned communal in the district last year. The three legislators detained are Virajpet MLA K G Bopaiah, Madikeri MLA Appachu Ranjan and MLC Sunil Subramani. In other parts of the state, BJP staged protests against Tipu Jayanti by the state government. Despite fears of communal strife, no such incidents have been reported. Kodagu bandh The Kodagu bandh called by Anti Tipu Jayanti Committee, BJP, Sangh Parivar, all the Kodava samajas and few Gowda samajas in the district was peaceful. Until noon, private buses, auto-rickshaws and taxis remained off the road. However, a few KSRTC buses were seen plying in the early hours of the day. In Kadagadalu, miscreants cut a huge tree to disrupt traffic. In Virajpet, Somwarpet and other parts of the district, poojas were organised in temples for VHP leader Kuttappa who died during the Tipu Jayanti celebrations last year. Prohibitory orders are in place in the district from November 7 to 11. Detained Police detained more than 60 BJP workers when they demonstrated against Tipu Jayanti at the Kushalnagar bus stand on Thursday. The superintendent of police of Kodagu Rajendra Prasad told reporters that Tipu Jayanti celebrations were being held without any trouble. He said that Bopaiah, Appachu Ranjan and Subramani, who were chief guests at the official function organised by the administration attempted to disrupt the celebrations and tried to take out a procession. "Police detained all of them as prohibitory orders are in force," he added. In Mysuru, a bike rally was taken out from Mandi Mohalla to Kalamandir, where the official celebrations were held in the presence of hundreds of people. Close to hundred demonstrators, including BJP MP Pratap Simha, former MLCs Madhusudan and C H Vijayshankar were arrested for trying to disrupt the celebrations.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 10

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

The Russian company Gazprom and Turkmenistans Turkmengas State Concern have suspended arbitration dispute over gas supply due to the progress in peaceful settlement of the issue, Turkmenistans Oil and Gas Complex said citing a memorandum on the release of Gazprom Eurobonds.

Gazprom has been since 2008 trying to have the procurement price of the Turkmen gas revised. It bought 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Turkmenistan according to the agreement signed in 2010.

Gazprom filed a suit against Turkmengas in the Stockholm arbitration court in 2015 demanding retroactive payments worth $5 billion for the Turkmen gas supply in 2010-2015.

In 2015, the Russian company decided to reduce the volume of purchases to 4 billion cubic meters.

In the spring of 2015, Turkmenistans Ministry of Oil and Gas said that Gazprom does not fully pay for the supplies starting from early 2015 and called the Russian company "an insolvent partner."

Gazprom halted procurement of the Turkmen gas in January 2016.

Turkmenistans President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and the Russian President Vladimir Putin had a meeting last week.

Despite the difficulties in the economic sphere, our turnover is growing in the ruble equivalent," Putin said in the beginning of the meeting.

But there was no report about the solution of the gas dispute then.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Advocate General Madhusudan R Naik on Wednesday told the High Court that Tipu Jayanti will be celebrated with minimum expenses. This submission was made before the division bench headed by Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee during the hearing of a petition.



The counsel for K P Manjunath, who filed PIL challenging Tipu Jayanti celebrations, appealed to the court to take up a fresh petition claiming that the chief secretary had not taken any decision despite the court having issued directions to submit representation to him on the issue by November 8. But, the Chief Justice declined to entertain the petition.



Order passed

Principal Secretary, Kannada and Culture Department, S R Umashankar, passed an order on Tuesday that the state will celebrate Tipu Jayanti as scheduled.



This was in response to the representations submitted against the celebrations. One Manjunath submitted a memorandum against celebrations, whereas one Balakrishnan favoured it. After hearing both the parties, Umashankar passed an order wherein it was explained about several precautionary measures taken by district administrations, especially by the Kodagu Deputy Commissioner, in view of the riots during last celebrations held in 2015. The order reveals that measures have been taken to avoid entry of outsiders to Kodagu by fixing CCTV cameras at checkposts.

BENGALURU: Advocate General Madhusudan R Naik on Wednesday told the High Court that Tipu Jayanti will be celebrated with minimum expenses. This submission was made before the division bench headed by Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee during the hearing of a petition. The counsel for K P Manjunath, who filed PIL challenging Tipu Jayanti celebrations, appealed to the court to take up a fresh petition claiming that the chief secretary had not taken any decision despite the court having issued directions to submit representation to him on the issue by November 8. But, the Chief Justice declined to entertain the petition. Order passed Principal Secretary, Kannada and Culture Department, S R Umashankar, passed an order on Tuesday that the state will celebrate Tipu Jayanti as scheduled. This was in response to the representations submitted against the celebrations. One Manjunath submitted a memorandum against celebrations, whereas one Balakrishnan favoured it. After hearing both the parties, Umashankar passed an order wherein it was explained about several precautionary measures taken by district administrations, especially by the Kodagu Deputy Commissioner, in view of the riots during last celebrations held in 2015. The order reveals that measures have been taken to avoid entry of outsiders to Kodagu by fixing CCTV cameras at checkposts.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday partially upheld the constitutional validity of the states transportation rules for cab aggregators and struck down certain conditions imposed on aggregators and cab owners.

Declaring the Karnataka On-Demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016 as constitutionally valid, the court said the state is competent to frame the rules under the Motor Vehicles Act.

Justice Raghvendra S Chauhan, who pronounced the judgment running up to 260 pages, said that the panic button rule was valid.

The judge had personally operated the panic button as part of judicial proceedings, during the hearing of petitions challenging the rules by cab aggregators Uber and others.

On surge pricing, the judge said that Uber has conceded that the state has the power to prescribe the limits of the fares to be charged by the permit holder. Since it has given an undertaking before this court that it will not charge more fare from the passenger than the maximum fare laid down by the state, the court hopes Uber will abide by its undertaking, the judge said.

He made it clear that the All India Tourist Vehicles can carry only tourists and cannot ply commuters and ruled that a provision which requires that an aggregator should have a fleet of minimum of hundred taxis is valid.

While upholding conditions like drivers being knowledgeable in Kannada and verifying the antecedents of drivers, it did not approve the cancellation of aggregators licence because drivers were booked with criminal cases.

The judge said that since the rules cannot be implemented immediately as some conditions have been struck down, the state should to not take any coercive steps against the petitioner-company and the other aggregators. It directed the authorities to give them a reasonable time of one month to comply with the requirements of the Rules.

The judge said that since the petitioner-company has applied for licence under the Aggregator Rules, authorities are directed to issue the licence within a month from the date the requirements are fulfilled.

BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday partially upheld the constitutional validity of the states transportation rules for cab aggregators and struck down certain conditions imposed on aggregators and cab owners. Declaring the Karnataka On-Demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016 as constitutionally valid, the court said the state is competent to frame the rules under the Motor Vehicles Act. Justice Raghvendra S Chauhan, who pronounced the judgment running up to 260 pages, said that the panic button rule was valid. The judge had personally operated the panic button as part of judicial proceedings, during the hearing of petitions challenging the rules by cab aggregators Uber and others. On surge pricing, the judge said that Uber has conceded that the state has the power to prescribe the limits of the fares to be charged by the permit holder. Since it has given an undertaking before this court that it will not charge more fare from the passenger than the maximum fare laid down by the state, the court hopes Uber will abide by its undertaking, the judge said. He made it clear that the All India Tourist Vehicles can carry only tourists and cannot ply commuters and ruled that a provision which requires that an aggregator should have a fleet of minimum of hundred taxis is valid. While upholding conditions like drivers being knowledgeable in Kannada and verifying the antecedents of drivers, it did not approve the cancellation of aggregators licence because drivers were booked with criminal cases. The judge said that since the rules cannot be implemented immediately as some conditions have been struck down, the state should to not take any coercive steps against the petitioner-company and the other aggregators. It directed the authorities to give them a reasonable time of one month to comply with the requirements of the Rules. The judge said that since the petitioner-company has applied for licence under the Aggregator Rules, authorities are directed to issue the licence within a month from the date the requirements are fulfilled.
George Poikayil By

Express News Service

KASARGOD: Billed as a haven for unaccounted money, Kerala's service cooperative banks [SCBs] are unfazed by the mammoth task of converting their bundles of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes into fresh legal tender.

Officials said when the SCBs approach the district cooperative banks to exchange their high-denomination notes, they will not have to answer any questions about the source of the money.

"We have already deposited Monday's closing balance with the district cooperative bank to get lower denomination notes," said the manager of an SCB in Manjeshwaram.

A top official of Kerala's Cooperation Department said as per RBI guidelines, cooperative banks need not ask for the source of the money while taking deposits.

But then, the state government issued an order in 2013 asking SCBs to strictly comply with the RBI's Know Your Client [KYC] norms, as per which banks ought to record the client's ID card, PAN card and a duly filled form, which enquires about the source of income.

Also, if the interest payout is more than Rs 10,000, SCBs are required to deduct 10 per cent as tax deducted at source [TDS]. If the customer does not want to be taxed, he or she would have to give a declaration on Form 15 G that says: "I have never come under the purview of the Income Tax Act or my annual income does not come under the purview of the Income Tax Act, 1961."

These declarations are sent to the Income Tax Department, which will verify the claims. Apart from that, SCBs and district cooperative banks have to submit all the details of customers who deposit more than Rs 10 lakh to the IT Department.

But in reality SCBs flout KYC norms, and do not accept Form 15 G. Nor do they send details of the customers who deposit more than Rs 10 lakh, officials said.

"We are classified as a primary agricultural credit society and deposits up to Rs 25 lakh are exempt from tax," said the manager of an SCBs.

When asked about KYC, they admitted that norms were not being followed because SCBs operate in remote areas, and most of their depositors are small-time traders and real estate players. "We have personal relations them. Sometimes, when they sell land, they put the money in our bank. A portion of the money is untaxed. We know that," he said, and added that the business is important to the banks.

Cooperation Department officials admit that SCBs do not stick to KYC norms. "I am not countering the IT department's estimate of Rs 30,000 crore of unaccounted money lying in the cooperative sector," a top official said, but added: "But according to the Department of Cooperation, there is no illegal money in the sector."

He said banks are not able to insist on KYC because of social and political pressure. He said during auditing, he once found Rs 14 crore in one bank account in Kasargod. "I spotted it because the interest outgo was Rs 52 lakh," he said. The account holder was a resident of Mahe and ran an automobile business in Dubai.

But with the new initiatives being taken up by the government, the cooperative sector is likely to clean up its act. "Now all fixed deposit withdrawals are routed through the customer's bank account. That will bring the money into the tax net," he said.

KASARGOD: Billed as a haven for unaccounted money, Kerala's service cooperative banks [SCBs] are unfazed by the mammoth task of converting their bundles of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes into fresh legal tender. Officials said when the SCBs approach the district cooperative banks to exchange their high-denomination notes, they will not have to answer any questions about the source of the money. "We have already deposited Monday's closing balance with the district cooperative bank to get lower denomination notes," said the manager of an SCB in Manjeshwaram. A top official of Kerala's Cooperation Department said as per RBI guidelines, cooperative banks need not ask for the source of the money while taking deposits. But then, the state government issued an order in 2013 asking SCBs to strictly comply with the RBI's Know Your Client [KYC] norms, as per which banks ought to record the client's ID card, PAN card and a duly filled form, which enquires about the source of income. Also, if the interest payout is more than Rs 10,000, SCBs are required to deduct 10 per cent as tax deducted at source [TDS]. If the customer does not want to be taxed, he or she would have to give a declaration on Form 15 G that says: "I have never come under the purview of the Income Tax Act or my annual income does not come under the purview of the Income Tax Act, 1961." These declarations are sent to the Income Tax Department, which will verify the claims. Apart from that, SCBs and district cooperative banks have to submit all the details of customers who deposit more than Rs 10 lakh to the IT Department. But in reality SCBs flout KYC norms, and do not accept Form 15 G. Nor do they send details of the customers who deposit more than Rs 10 lakh, officials said. "We are classified as a primary agricultural credit society and deposits up to Rs 25 lakh are exempt from tax," said the manager of an SCBs. When asked about KYC, they admitted that norms were not being followed because SCBs operate in remote areas, and most of their depositors are small-time traders and real estate players. "We have personal relations them. Sometimes, when they sell land, they put the money in our bank. A portion of the money is untaxed. We know that," he said, and added that the business is important to the banks. Cooperation Department officials admit that SCBs do not stick to KYC norms. "I am not countering the IT department's estimate of Rs 30,000 crore of unaccounted money lying in the cooperative sector," a top official said, but added: "But according to the Department of Cooperation, there is no illegal money in the sector." He said banks are not able to insist on KYC because of social and political pressure. He said during auditing, he once found Rs 14 crore in one bank account in Kasargod. "I spotted it because the interest outgo was Rs 52 lakh," he said. The account holder was a resident of Mahe and ran an automobile business in Dubai. But with the new initiatives being taken up by the government, the cooperative sector is likely to clean up its act. "Now all fixed deposit withdrawals are routed through the customer's bank account. That will bring the money into the tax net," he said.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The last day of the second session of the 14th Assembly was marked by a war of attrition between the ruling and Opposition front members on Wednesday on the issue of alleged failure in the delivery of ration essentials through the public distribution system (PDS), especially in the four northernmost districts of the state for the past two months.

Blame game and provocations marred the proceedings, while the notice given by V T Balram (Congress) for an adjournment motion to discuss the issue hovered over the detected anomalies in the new ration cards and the implementation of National Food Security Act (NFSA) in the state.

The main charge of the Opposition against the Left Government was that the minister concerned never cared to prevail upon the Centre and convince the uniqueness and eligibility of the state for higher ad hoc allocations of rice and kerosene, as in the past. Balram criticised the Minister for harping on NFSA whenever the shortcomings in the PDS were pointed out. Ration shops are lying closed in the districts of Kasargod, Kannur, Wayanad and Kozhikode, and in the rest of the districts, the quantum of rice distributed under various schemes has been slashed, he alleged.

Ministers defence

Food and Civil Supplies Minister P Thilothaman maintained that distribution of rice through the PDS is not disrupted anywhere in the state as is being made out by the Opposition. He also said that the charge was intended to hide the shame of being unable to implement the NFSA in the state though the UDF was in power for three years after the Act was passed. The former government and the then Food and Civil Supplies minister Anoop Jacob were only keen to urge the Centre for an extension of time for NFSA implementation. Even a final undertaking given to make it effective in the state from April 1 last was not met. To the contrary, the LDF Government had sought only six months. The scheme will be implemented from November 14, he said.

Antony criticised

Thilothamans remarks blaming A K Antony for destroying the statutory ration system in the state by opting for targeted distribution system in 1996 when he was Union Food Minister infuriated the Opposition ranks. His criticism that K V Thomas also took the same steps, resulting in slashing the quota of rice for the state from an eligible 16.01 lakh MT to 14.25 lakh MT made matters worse. Opposition members were on their feet questioning the Minister, only to be countered by ruling front members. When Thilothaman was in no mood to stop blaming the former UDF Government, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala said that the former was only making political speeches without getting into the core of the issue - non-distribution and anomalies in cards - concerning thousands of people. A walkout by the UDF members followed, to the accompaniment of slogan shouting.

UDF Govt to blame

The Civil Supplies minister continued his speech, asserting that strong pressure will be mounted on the Centre to make judicious allocations of rice and kerosene for 2.76 lakh card holders. He placed the entire blame on the former UDF Government for all the issues prevailing in the PDS and anomalies in new ration cards. The UDF Government has to take the blame for the states priority list shrinking to 46 per cent of card holders, when all other states have 67 per cent. Ad hoc allocation from the Centre will become a thing of the past once NFSA is implemented, he said. Kerosene quota was cut and the prices were jacked up, but the UDF failed to persuade the Centre to restore it. He also said that the state needs special consideration as there is a big strain on the PDS through the presence of around 40 lakh migrant labourers in the state. The Onam-Bakrid season was devoid of any price rise of essential commodities mainly due to the effective market intervention of the LDF Government by sanctioning Rs 150 crore, he said. After the walkout, Chennithala said the minister was running away from addressing issues. Without doing anything to ensure more allocation of rice for the state, he is blaming NFSA for it, he said.

Antony criticised

Thilothamans remarks blaming A K Antony for destroying the statutory ration system in the state by opting for targeted distribution system in 1996 when he was Union Food Minister infuriated the Opposition ranks. His criticism that K V Thomas also took the same steps, resulting in slashing the quota of rice for the state from an eligible 16.01 lakh MT to 14.25 lakh MT made matters worse. Opposition members were on their feet questioning the Minister, only to be countered by ruling front members. When Thilothaman was in no mood to stop blaming the former UDF Government, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala said that the former was only making political speeches without getting into the core of the issue - non-distribution and anomalies in cards - concerning thousands of people. A walkout by the UDF members followed, to the accompaniment of slogan shouting.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The last day of the second session of the 14th Assembly was marked by a war of attrition between the ruling and Opposition front members on Wednesday on the issue of alleged failure in the delivery of ration essentials through the public distribution system (PDS), especially in the four northernmost districts of the state for the past two months. Blame game and provocations marred the proceedings, while the notice given by V T Balram (Congress) for an adjournment motion to discuss the issue hovered over the detected anomalies in the new ration cards and the implementation of National Food Security Act (NFSA) in the state. The main charge of the Opposition against the Left Government was that the minister concerned never cared to prevail upon the Centre and convince the uniqueness and eligibility of the state for higher ad hoc allocations of rice and kerosene, as in the past. Balram criticised the Minister for harping on NFSA whenever the shortcomings in the PDS were pointed out. Ration shops are lying closed in the districts of Kasargod, Kannur, Wayanad and Kozhikode, and in the rest of the districts, the quantum of rice distributed under various schemes has been slashed, he alleged. Ministers defence Food and Civil Supplies Minister P Thilothaman maintained that distribution of rice through the PDS is not disrupted anywhere in the state as is being made out by the Opposition. He also said that the charge was intended to hide the shame of being unable to implement the NFSA in the state though the UDF was in power for three years after the Act was passed. The former government and the then Food and Civil Supplies minister Anoop Jacob were only keen to urge the Centre for an extension of time for NFSA implementation. Even a final undertaking given to make it effective in the state from April 1 last was not met. To the contrary, the LDF Government had sought only six months. The scheme will be implemented from November 14, he said. Antony criticisedThilothamans remarks blaming A K Antony for destroying the statutory ration system in the state by opting for targeted distribution system in 1996 when he was Union Food Minister infuriated the Opposition ranks. His criticism that K V Thomas also took the same steps, resulting in slashing the quota of rice for the state from an eligible 16.01 lakh MT to 14.25 lakh MT made matters worse. Opposition members were on their feet questioning the Minister, only to be countered by ruling front members. When Thilothaman was in no mood to stop blaming the former UDF Government, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala said that the former was only making political speeches without getting into the core of the issue - non-distribution and anomalies in cards - concerning thousands of people. A walkout by the UDF members followed, to the accompaniment of slogan shouting. UDF Govt to blame The Civil Supplies minister continued his speech, asserting that strong pressure will be mounted on the Centre to make judicious allocations of rice and kerosene for 2.76 lakh card holders. He placed the entire blame on the former UDF Government for all the issues prevailing in the PDS and anomalies in new ration cards. The UDF Government has to take the blame for the states priority list shrinking to 46 per cent of card holders, when all other states have 67 per cent. Ad hoc allocation from the Centre will become a thing of the past once NFSA is implemented, he said. Kerosene quota was cut and the prices were jacked up, but the UDF failed to persuade the Centre to restore it. He also said that the state needs special consideration as there is a big strain on the PDS through the presence of around 40 lakh migrant labourers in the state. The Onam-Bakrid season was devoid of any price rise of essential commodities mainly due to the effective market intervention of the LDF Government by sanctioning Rs 150 crore, he said. After the walkout, Chennithala said the minister was running away from addressing issues. Without doing anything to ensure more allocation of rice for the state, he is blaming NFSA for it, he said. Antony criticised Thilothamans remarks blaming A K Antony for destroying the statutory ration system in the state by opting for targeted distribution system in 1996 when he was Union Food Minister infuriated the Opposition ranks. His criticism that K V Thomas also took the same steps, resulting in slashing the quota of rice for the state from an eligible 16.01 lakh MT to 14.25 lakh MT made matters worse. Opposition members were on their feet questioning the Minister, only to be countered by ruling front members. When Thilothaman was in no mood to stop blaming the former UDF Government, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala said that the former was only making political speeches without getting into the core of the issue - non-distribution and anomalies in cards - concerning thousands of people. A walkout by the UDF members followed, to the accompaniment of slogan shouting.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: The disciplinary committee of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) on Thursday issued show cause notice to a party secretary and several leaders of the State unit of National Students' Union of India (NSUI) for barging into a hotel room on Wednesday where senior leaders including Odisha in-charge BK Hariprasad were busy in a discussion.

Secretary of OPCC Biswajit Das and some NSUI leaders had shouted slogans against Hariprasad after barging into the hotel room for showing disrespect to Lalatendu Bidyadhar (Lulu) Mohapatra by not attending his funeral.

Hariprasad was having a meeting with OPCC president Prasad Harichandan and Leader of Opposition Narasingh Mishra in which deputy in-charge of Odisha Subhonkar Sarkar was also present.

Das has been asked to explain his conduct within three days.

Meanwhile, Congress chief whip in the Assembly Taraprasad Bahinipati created a flutter by blaming Hariprasad for the lack of coordination between the organisational and legislative wings of the party.

''Had Hariprasad wanted, then there would have been no differences between MLAs and district presidents, and the Leader of Opposition and OPCC president," he said.

Another Congress MLA Jogesh Singh also criticised the party leadership for not giving due respect to the departed leader Lulu Mohapatra.

BHUBANESWAR: The disciplinary committee of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) on Thursday issued show cause notice to a party secretary and several leaders of the State unit of National Students' Union of India (NSUI) for barging into a hotel room on Wednesday where senior leaders including Odisha in-charge BK Hariprasad were busy in a discussion. Secretary of OPCC Biswajit Das and some NSUI leaders had shouted slogans against Hariprasad after barging into the hotel room for showing disrespect to Lalatendu Bidyadhar (Lulu) Mohapatra by not attending his funeral. Hariprasad was having a meeting with OPCC president Prasad Harichandan and Leader of Opposition Narasingh Mishra in which deputy in-charge of Odisha Subhonkar Sarkar was also present. Das has been asked to explain his conduct within three days. Meanwhile, Congress chief whip in the Assembly Taraprasad Bahinipati created a flutter by blaming Hariprasad for the lack of coordination between the organisational and legislative wings of the party. ''Had Hariprasad wanted, then there would have been no differences between MLAs and district presidents, and the Leader of Opposition and OPCC president," he said. Another Congress MLA Jogesh Singh also criticised the party leadership for not giving due respect to the departed leader Lulu Mohapatra.
Prabhakar T By

Express News Service

COIMBATORE:Just two weeks after a five-day-old baby boy was abducted from Salem Government Hospital, a baby girl was stolen from the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) 48 hours after her birth on Thursday.

The victim Jothi after her baby was kidnapped; police with the retrieved baby; and the mother breaks down in relief after reuniting with her child | Express

But the baby lifters could not sustain the drama for long as they were arrested within six hours of the reporting of crime. With the help of a CCTV footage, the police managed to nab the driver of an omni van that the gang used to flee.

Police said R Jothi (23) from Singanallur got admitted in the CMCH last week and delivered a girl child on Tuesday. Later, she was shifted to the general ward.

The woman occupying the next bed introduced herself as Archana from Erode. She said she had also delivered a girl baby the same day and that the child was in the ICU, said a worriedJothi, after the incident.

To make the people believe this story, Archanas mother, her sisters and two men also visited the hospital regularly. But when the doctors came for their regular rounds, the woman will not be in the ward, she added.

Around 1 pm on Wednesday, Jothi woke up from sleep to find the baby missing. Following this, CMCH Residential Medical Officer R Soundaravel filed a complaint with the Race Course Police. Police collected the CCTV footage and learnt about the five-member gang, including three women. Through the CCTV grab, police found that around 1 pm, Archana along with her mother took the baby out in an omni van.When police grilled him, he told the police that the family was dropped at a house in Vellakinaru in the outskirts of the city.

Based on his information, police reached the spot and rescued the baby girl in six hours after she was being kidnapped. They also secured the five member gang, who are identified as N Archana(24), her husband B Naresh(27),his mother B Gomathi, his father-in-law N Ramalingam, RamalingamAs wife Baby. Police have registered a case and are probing into the matter.

The woman who allegedly stole a newborn baby from the CMCH, N Archana (24), had been playing high drama for about 10 months with her family members, claiming to be pregnant. Even in the maternity ward they had believed that Archana had delivered the baby that was in fact stolen.

Archana had conceived a year ago, but due to health reasons, the foetus got aborted. But as her family members kept asking about her pregnancy, in January, she lied to them that she had conceived, police sources said.

She also managed to maintain appearances by covering her stomach with clothes. When people asked her about it, she said she was too shy to stand in front of the people. Meanwhile, she also visited the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) along with her husband for check-up, but always asked her husband to stand outside the ward, said an officer investigating the case. On Thursday, Archana had stolen Jothis baby and showed it to her family members, claiming it to be hers. As she said the child had been discharged from the ICU, the family members took the mother and baby to their house. The whole incident came to light only by Thursday night.

COIMBATORE:Just two weeks after a five-day-old baby boy was abducted from Salem Government Hospital, a baby girl was stolen from the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) 48 hours after her birth on Thursday. The victim Jothi after her baby was kidnapped; police with the retrieved baby; and the mother breaks down in relief after reuniting with her child | ExpressBut the baby lifters could not sustain the drama for long as they were arrested within six hours of the reporting of crime. With the help of a CCTV footage, the police managed to nab the driver of an omni van that the gang used to flee. Police said R Jothi (23) from Singanallur got admitted in the CMCH last week and delivered a girl child on Tuesday. Later, she was shifted to the general ward. The woman occupying the next bed introduced herself as Archana from Erode. She said she had also delivered a girl baby the same day and that the child was in the ICU, said a worriedJothi, after the incident. To make the people believe this story, Archanas mother, her sisters and two men also visited the hospital regularly. But when the doctors came for their regular rounds, the woman will not be in the ward, she added. Around 1 pm on Wednesday, Jothi woke up from sleep to find the baby missing. Following this, CMCH Residential Medical Officer R Soundaravel filed a complaint with the Race Course Police. Police collected the CCTV footage and learnt about the five-member gang, including three women. Through the CCTV grab, police found that around 1 pm, Archana along with her mother took the baby out in an omni van.When police grilled him, he told the police that the family was dropped at a house in Vellakinaru in the outskirts of the city. Based on his information, police reached the spot and rescued the baby girl in six hours after she was being kidnapped. They also secured the five member gang, who are identified as N Archana(24), her husband B Naresh(27),his mother B Gomathi, his father-in-law N Ramalingam, RamalingamAs wife Baby. Police have registered a case and are probing into the matter. The woman who allegedly stole a newborn baby from the CMCH, N Archana (24), had been playing high drama for about 10 months with her family members, claiming to be pregnant. Even in the maternity ward they had believed that Archana had delivered the baby that was in fact stolen. Archana had conceived a year ago, but due to health reasons, the foetus got aborted. But as her family members kept asking about her pregnancy, in January, she lied to them that she had conceived, police sources said. She also managed to maintain appearances by covering her stomach with clothes. When people asked her about it, she said she was too shy to stand in front of the people. Meanwhile, she also visited the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) along with her husband for check-up, but always asked her husband to stand outside the ward, said an officer investigating the case. On Thursday, Archana had stolen Jothis baby and showed it to her family members, claiming it to be hers. As she said the child had been discharged from the ICU, the family members took the mother and baby to their house. The whole incident came to light only by Thursday night.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: A day after TRS MP Balka Sumans called him Telangana Drohi, TJAC chairman Prof M Kodandaram on Wednesday came down heavily on the ruling party, asking it to mend its ways. Making it clear that he will not be browbeaten by such intimidating acts, Kodandaram advised the ruling party to address the issues raised by opposition parties and the TJAC, instead of launching a counter attack against those, who pick holes in the government policies. Ridiculing Sumans allegation that he had met AICC supremo Sonia Gandhi in July secretly, the TJAC chairman said, The allegation itself shows how effectively the states intelligence wing is functioning.

Is the states intelligence wing so ineffective? I was staging a protest demonstration on peoples issue on those dates which were specified by the TRS in support of their claim that I had met the Congress supremo. Why should I meet Sonia Gandhi secretly? What is the benefit I get from such secret meetings? he questioned. Stating that it is not proper for the government to launch a counter attack against those who pick holes in its polices, the TJAC chief said the government is adopting wrong ways to silence the activists, who are speaking on behalf of the poor and the common people. While asking the government to address issues raised by the TJAC, he announced a series of programmes to further up the ante. Meanwhile health minister K Laxma Reddy too hurled fireworks at Kodandaram.

HYDERABAD: A day after TRS MP Balka Sumans called him Telangana Drohi, TJAC chairman Prof M Kodandaram on Wednesday came down heavily on the ruling party, asking it to mend its ways. Making it clear that he will not be browbeaten by such intimidating acts, Kodandaram advised the ruling party to address the issues raised by opposition parties and the TJAC, instead of launching a counter attack against those, who pick holes in the government policies. Ridiculing Sumans allegation that he had met AICC supremo Sonia Gandhi in July secretly, the TJAC chairman said, The allegation itself shows how effectively the states intelligence wing is functioning. Is the states intelligence wing so ineffective? I was staging a protest demonstration on peoples issue on those dates which were specified by the TRS in support of their claim that I had met the Congress supremo. Why should I meet Sonia Gandhi secretly? What is the benefit I get from such secret meetings? he questioned. Stating that it is not proper for the government to launch a counter attack against those who pick holes in its polices, the TJAC chief said the government is adopting wrong ways to silence the activists, who are speaking on behalf of the poor and the common people. While asking the government to address issues raised by the TJAC, he announced a series of programmes to further up the ante. Meanwhile health minister K Laxma Reddy too hurled fireworks at Kodandaram.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: Sixty-four civilians were killed and eight were injured in 24 US-led coalition airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria over the past year, the US military has said, based on newly completed investigations.

The latest totals bring the number of civilians killed in airstrikes in the fight against the Islamic State group to 119, with another 37 injured, according to US Central Command.

Colonel John Thomas, Central Command spokesman, said the investigations concluded that the proper military process was followed in each incident and precautions are always taken to try to avoid any civilian deaths.

Independent monitoring groups and activists, however, have repeatedly said that coalition and other airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians.

The cases announced yesterday include strikes from last November through September. And they range from one or two civilians killed to a March strike near Mosul, Iraq, that killed 10 civilians.

The latest report, however, doesn't include two air attacks in Syria in recent months that may have each killed dozens. According to residents and international aid groups, an airstrike in July near Manbij, Syria, may have killed at least 56 civilians and wounded many more.

And a US brigadier general has been appointed to lead an investigation in a September airstrike near Deir el-Zour, Syria, that may have unintentionally killed dozens of Syrian government forces. The US has said that it monitored the target for two days and deemed it valid before launching the strike. But it was halted when Russian officials called the coalition to say the attack was hitting personnel and vehicles that were part of the Syrian military.

There have been lingering questions about reports that the troops or people on the ground were not wearing uniforms and that they were armed, leading to confusion about who they might be. Other theories suggest they may have been conscripted troops or prisoners of some sort, but there have been no solid findings yet on those reports.

As of yesterday, US Central Command has received 257 allegations of airstrikes causing possible civilian casualties, and has concluded that 76 of the reports were valid and required further investigation. Of those 76, four were duplicates.

To date, 65 of the investigations have been completed, and about half of them have been publicly disclosed. Seven allegations remain open.

WASHINGTON: Sixty-four civilians were killed and eight were injured in 24 US-led coalition airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria over the past year, the US military has said, based on newly completed investigations. The latest totals bring the number of civilians killed in airstrikes in the fight against the Islamic State group to 119, with another 37 injured, according to US Central Command. Colonel John Thomas, Central Command spokesman, said the investigations concluded that the proper military process was followed in each incident and precautions are always taken to try to avoid any civilian deaths. Independent monitoring groups and activists, however, have repeatedly said that coalition and other airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians. The cases announced yesterday include strikes from last November through September. And they range from one or two civilians killed to a March strike near Mosul, Iraq, that killed 10 civilians. The latest report, however, doesn't include two air attacks in Syria in recent months that may have each killed dozens. According to residents and international aid groups, an airstrike in July near Manbij, Syria, may have killed at least 56 civilians and wounded many more. And a US brigadier general has been appointed to lead an investigation in a September airstrike near Deir el-Zour, Syria, that may have unintentionally killed dozens of Syrian government forces. The US has said that it monitored the target for two days and deemed it valid before launching the strike. But it was halted when Russian officials called the coalition to say the attack was hitting personnel and vehicles that were part of the Syrian military. There have been lingering questions about reports that the troops or people on the ground were not wearing uniforms and that they were armed, leading to confusion about who they might be. Other theories suggest they may have been conscripted troops or prisoners of some sort, but there have been no solid findings yet on those reports. As of yesterday, US Central Command has received 257 allegations of airstrikes causing possible civilian casualties, and has concluded that 76 of the reports were valid and required further investigation. Of those 76, four were duplicates. To date, 65 of the investigations have been completed, and about half of them have been publicly disclosed. Seven allegations remain open.
By Express News Service

Shocking the world and upsetting all predictions, the business tycoon claimed the White House riding on a wave of working-class white voters; while analysts suggest a rise in global conservatism, India-US ties could also improve significantly

Beating all odds, scandals and polls, Donald Trump claimed victory on Wednesday to become the 45th President of the United States. The historic and unexpected victory of the outlier has been termed as a stunning repudiation of the Washington political establishment. The billionaire businessman managed to sweep most of the swing states including, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida.

Apart from the White House victory, the Republicans also managed to retain their control over the Senate and House of Representatives. The institutional girdlock, that heavily slowed the decision making capacity of the government, has been effectively broken. This means that Donald Trump will now be able to pass legislations much more effectively than his predecessor. Trumps victory, however, sparked massive protests across Democratic strongholds like California under the tag Not my President.

Donald Trumps victory came as a shocker for not just the US, but the entire world. The New York Times had, in fact, predicted an 84 per cent chance of victory for Hillary Clinton on the eve of the elections. However, later, it became clear that there was an enormous wave of support for Trump from the average white working-class voter. Most pundits did not see this coming. The bastions of industrial-era Democratic strength among white working-class voters fell to Mr. Trump. So did many of the areas where Mr. Obama fared best in 2008 and 2012, reported The New York Times. It was evident that Trumps victory sent chills down the spines of world leaders who reacted with caution. World leaders like Frances Francois Hollande and Germanys Angela Merkel, already reeling under the Brexit fallout, expressed concern that this might lead to a further rise in hyper-nationalism across the world.

Analysts also pointed to a rise in cultural conservatism across the globe -- from India to Britain to the US. Evidently, far-right and rightwing nationalists were the first to cheer his victory. From Frances Marine Le Pen to Hungarys Viktor Orban, UKs Nigel Farage to the Hindu Sena in India celebrated the outcome. Global markets saw an instant meltdown, and regained its composure after his acceptance speech. We owe Clinton a very major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. It is time for us to come together. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all Americans, he said with a level of decorum never seen during his campaign days.

Meanwhile, an unprecedented desi wave hit the US as four persons of Indian origin were elected to the US Congress. Kamala Harris, a two-term attorney-general, Pramila Jayapal, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Ro Khanna were elected. Overall, Trumps victory could do more good to India than harm, claim experts. Trump is in a solid position to make relations with India more warmer. The attitude in India is mixed with some fretting over his stance on immigration and others celebrating his stance on terrorism, said the India Center at the University of Central Florida. Analysts also predict that Trump could be tough on terrorist havens in Pakistan, exactly the kind of support the Indian government is scouting for.

6 reasons why the scales tilted

Down the HILL-ary

FBI row: Before FBI director James Comey reignited the email scam, Hillary Clinton enjoyed a 12% lead over Trump. Comey reopening the probe brought her lead down to two points in the last two crucial days before elections

Basket of deplorables: Clinton should have known better than call Trump supporters bigoted basket of deplorables. Perhaps she didnt realise she was addressing almost half of US

Hunger for change: Failure to promise any significant change to the existing Obama policies let her down big time. Right from Obamacare to policies on defeating ISIS, Clinton never strayed much away from Obamas ground rules  a path to definite stalemate and saturation

Trump card

Immigration: As dangerous as it sounds Trumps stand on immigrants and problems they bring resonated with the majority. Clintons open-arm policy weighed in favour of Trump

Anti-globalisation: A guarantee to revive the economy and bring back jobs worked more than anything else. Restricting globalisation, a radical proposal, was welcomed by those starving for change

ISIS sentiment: One of Trumps success mantras was to question Clintons action against terrorism during her tenure as Secy of State. His argument that her bad judgement led to the birth of ISIS was well received However for some reason, Hillarys role in assassinating Osama bin Laden did not impress voters

Text: Gayathri Gopakumar

Shocking the world and upsetting all predictions, the business tycoon claimed the White House riding on a wave of working-class white voters; while analysts suggest a rise in global conservatism, India-US ties could also improve significantly Beating all odds, scandals and polls, Donald Trump claimed victory on Wednesday to become the 45th President of the United States. The historic and unexpected victory of the outlier has been termed as a stunning repudiation of the Washington political establishment. The billionaire businessman managed to sweep most of the swing states including, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida. Apart from the White House victory, the Republicans also managed to retain their control over the Senate and House of Representatives. The institutional girdlock, that heavily slowed the decision making capacity of the government, has been effectively broken. This means that Donald Trump will now be able to pass legislations much more effectively than his predecessor. Trumps victory, however, sparked massive protests across Democratic strongholds like California under the tag Not my President. Donald Trumps victory came as a shocker for not just the US, but the entire world. The New York Times had, in fact, predicted an 84 per cent chance of victory for Hillary Clinton on the eve of the elections. However, later, it became clear that there was an enormous wave of support for Trump from the average white working-class voter. Most pundits did not see this coming. The bastions of industrial-era Democratic strength among white working-class voters fell to Mr. Trump. So did many of the areas where Mr. Obama fared best in 2008 and 2012, reported The New York Times. It was evident that Trumps victory sent chills down the spines of world leaders who reacted with caution. World leaders like Frances Francois Hollande and Germanys Angela Merkel, already reeling under the Brexit fallout, expressed concern that this might lead to a further rise in hyper-nationalism across the world. Analysts also pointed to a rise in cultural conservatism across the globe -- from India to Britain to the US. Evidently, far-right and rightwing nationalists were the first to cheer his victory. From Frances Marine Le Pen to Hungarys Viktor Orban, UKs Nigel Farage to the Hindu Sena in India celebrated the outcome. Global markets saw an instant meltdown, and regained its composure after his acceptance speech. We owe Clinton a very major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. It is time for us to come together. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all Americans, he said with a level of decorum never seen during his campaign days. Meanwhile, an unprecedented desi wave hit the US as four persons of Indian origin were elected to the US Congress. Kamala Harris, a two-term attorney-general, Pramila Jayapal, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Ro Khanna were elected. Overall, Trumps victory could do more good to India than harm, claim experts. Trump is in a solid position to make relations with India more warmer. The attitude in India is mixed with some fretting over his stance on immigration and others celebrating his stance on terrorism, said the India Center at the University of Central Florida. Analysts also predict that Trump could be tough on terrorist havens in Pakistan, exactly the kind of support the Indian government is scouting for. 6 reasons why the scales tilted Down the HILL-ary FBI row: Before FBI director James Comey reignited the email scam, Hillary Clinton enjoyed a 12% lead over Trump. Comey reopening the probe brought her lead down to two points in the last two crucial days before elections Basket of deplorables: Clinton should have known better than call Trump supporters bigoted basket of deplorables. Perhaps she didnt realise she was addressing almost half of US Hunger for change: Failure to promise any significant change to the existing Obama policies let her down big time. Right from Obamacare to policies on defeating ISIS, Clinton never strayed much away from Obamas ground rules  a path to definite stalemate and saturation Trump card Immigration: As dangerous as it sounds Trumps stand on immigrants and problems they bring resonated with the majority. Clintons open-arm policy weighed in favour of Trump Anti-globalisation: A guarantee to revive the economy and bring back jobs worked more than anything else. Restricting globalisation, a radical proposal, was welcomed by those starving for change ISIS sentiment: One of Trumps success mantras was to question Clintons action against terrorism during her tenure as Secy of State. His argument that her bad judgement led to the birth of ISIS was well received However for some reason, Hillarys role in assassinating Osama bin Laden did not impress voters Text: Gayathri Gopakumar
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 10

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

The eighth International Investment Forum is underway in the congress center of the Avaza national tourist zone in Turkmenistan, the Turkmen government said in a message November 10.

According to the message, the event, which brought together delegates from 20 countries, will focus on the cooperation in transport and communication sector, logistics, banking, financial services, insurance.

Among the participants are Engin Goksu, head of EBRD office in Turkmenistan, Halil Avci, chairman of the Turkish-Turkmen Business Council, Nikolai Stratiev, executive director of the Bulgarian-Turkmen Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the message said.

According to the message, the agenda includes the prospects for cooperation on the basis of key sectors of the national economy, the growing potential of which is based on an increase in export competitiveness, modernization of enterprises and the establishment of modern facilities.

The opportunities of increasing investment attractiveness of the Turkmen economy, in particular, the building complex, chemical industry, agriculture, health care are being discussed at the forum, the message said.
By PTI

BRUSSELS: The EU's top leaders today invited US President-elect Donald Trump to a summit as soon as possible as they warned of uncertainty in relations and a need to respect democratic values.

"I do not believe that any country today can be great in isolation," European Council chief Donald Tusk told reporters in Brussels, referring to Trump's campaign slogan of "Make America Great Again".

"Europe and the United States simply have no option but to cooperate as closely as possible."

Tusk and European Commission boss Jean-Claude Juncker said in a letter that they wanted to discuss "unprecedented challenges" including the Islamic State jihadist group, the conflict in Ukraine, and a troubled EU-US trade deal under negotiation.

"We would take this opportunity to invite you to visit Europe for an EU-US summit at your earliest convenience. This conversation would allow for us to chart the course of our relations for the next four years," they said in a letter of congratulations to Trump.

But former Polish prime minister Tusk struck a more sober tone in a statement to journalists at the 28-nation European Union's headquarters as he recalled that "Italians, Irish, Poles, Germans, Spanish" had helped build America.

"While respecting the democratic choice of the American people, we are at the same time aware of the new challenges that these results bring. One of them is this moment of uncertainty over the future of our transatlantic relations," he said.

With the EU still reeling from the shock of Britain's recent vote to leave, Tusk added: "The events of the last months and days should be treated as a warning sign for all who believe in liberal democracy."

Following Trump's victory, EU foreign ministers will hold a special meeting in Brussels on Sunday at the invitation of the bloc's foreign policy supremo Federica Mogherini.

They will have an "informal dinner to exchange views on the way forward in EU-US relations following the US elections," a spokeswoman for Mogherini said.

Separately Martin Schulz, the head of the European Parliament, urged Trump to show "responsibility" after a divisive campaign, adding that he had "managed to become the standard-bearer of the angst and fears of millions of Americans."

BRUSSELS: The EU's top leaders today invited US President-elect Donald Trump to a summit as soon as possible as they warned of uncertainty in relations and a need to respect democratic values. "I do not believe that any country today can be great in isolation," European Council chief Donald Tusk told reporters in Brussels, referring to Trump's campaign slogan of "Make America Great Again". "Europe and the United States simply have no option but to cooperate as closely as possible." Tusk and European Commission boss Jean-Claude Juncker said in a letter that they wanted to discuss "unprecedented challenges" including the Islamic State jihadist group, the conflict in Ukraine, and a troubled EU-US trade deal under negotiation. "We would take this opportunity to invite you to visit Europe for an EU-US summit at your earliest convenience. This conversation would allow for us to chart the course of our relations for the next four years," they said in a letter of congratulations to Trump. But former Polish prime minister Tusk struck a more sober tone in a statement to journalists at the 28-nation European Union's headquarters as he recalled that "Italians, Irish, Poles, Germans, Spanish" had helped build America. "While respecting the democratic choice of the American people, we are at the same time aware of the new challenges that these results bring. One of them is this moment of uncertainty over the future of our transatlantic relations," he said. With the EU still reeling from the shock of Britain's recent vote to leave, Tusk added: "The events of the last months and days should be treated as a warning sign for all who believe in liberal democracy." Following Trump's victory, EU foreign ministers will hold a special meeting in Brussels on Sunday at the invitation of the bloc's foreign policy supremo Federica Mogherini. They will have an "informal dinner to exchange views on the way forward in EU-US relations following the US elections," a spokeswoman for Mogherini said. Separately Martin Schulz, the head of the European Parliament, urged Trump to show "responsibility" after a divisive campaign, adding that he had "managed to become the standard-bearer of the angst and fears of millions of Americans."
By AFP

US Internet giant Google on Thursday rejected EU allegations that it abused the market dominance of its hugely succesful Android mobile phone operating system.

The rapsheet targets one of Google's most sensitive businesses, as smartphones become by far the dominant player over PCs and laptops.

"Android hasn't hurt competition, it's expanded it," said Kent Walker, senior vice president and general counsel of Google, in a blog.

Google was responding to a long list of charges involving Android that Margrethe Vestager, the EU's outspoken competition commissioner, filed in April.

They include the claim that the firm used practices such as making manufacturers pre-install its market-leading search engine as well as its Chrome browser as the default in their phones.

"The response we filed today shows how the Android ecosytem carefully balances the interests of users, developers, hardware makers and mobile operators," Walker said.

Google's response comes a week after the company rejected separate EU charges over online shopping and its advertising services in a series of rulings against US companies that has raised hackles across the Atlantic.

The Android charges are seen as especially sensitive for one of Google's most strategic businesses that could alter a global smartphone sector which has taken over traditional PC's as the biggest segment in the world of computing.

The case only pertains to Android-run phones, with the European Commission not considering Apple's iPhone as a factor in the case.

- 'Into compliance' -

The EU in its charge sheet accused Google of obstructing innovation by giving unfair prominence to its own apps, especially its search engine, in deals with giant mobile manufacturers such as South Korea's Samsung or China's Huawei.

"No manufacturer is obliged to preload any Google apps on an Android phone," Google insisted.

Google is also accused of restricting manufacturers from installing rival versions or modifications of Android, an open source software operating system, on their phones.

The commission, through a spokesman, confirmed the receipt of Google's official response.

"As is standard practice, we will carefully consider Google's response before taking any decision on how to proceed and cannot at this stage prejudge the final outcome of the investigation," it said.

Google critics rejected the company's arguments.

"Google imposes severe sanctions on those who defy its insistence on conformity," said Thomas Vinje, legal counsel to FairSearch, a group that represents many of the complainants in the case.

"This is a problem that law enforcement can solve, by acting to bring Google into compliance with competition law," he added.

Complainants who brought the case to the EU include Yandez, a Russia-based search engine that says Google is stopping it from expanding beyond Russia.

They also include telecom companies that are looking to have better control of the Android software they provide on their smartphones.

But Google, which originally created Android, says limiting changes by companies to the system helps software developers so they do not have to make many versions of their apps to run on different versions of Android.

Developers of apps such as Spotify or WhatsApp, "depend on a stable and consistent framework to do their work," Google said.

US Internet giant Google on Thursday rejected EU allegations that it abused the market dominance of its hugely succesful Android mobile phone operating system. The rapsheet targets one of Google's most sensitive businesses, as smartphones become by far the dominant player over PCs and laptops. "Android hasn't hurt competition, it's expanded it," said Kent Walker, senior vice president and general counsel of Google, in a blog. Google was responding to a long list of charges involving Android that Margrethe Vestager, the EU's outspoken competition commissioner, filed in April. They include the claim that the firm used practices such as making manufacturers pre-install its market-leading search engine as well as its Chrome browser as the default in their phones. "The response we filed today shows how the Android ecosytem carefully balances the interests of users, developers, hardware makers and mobile operators," Walker said. Google's response comes a week after the company rejected separate EU charges over online shopping and its advertising services in a series of rulings against US companies that has raised hackles across the Atlantic. The Android charges are seen as especially sensitive for one of Google's most strategic businesses that could alter a global smartphone sector which has taken over traditional PC's as the biggest segment in the world of computing. The case only pertains to Android-run phones, with the European Commission not considering Apple's iPhone as a factor in the case. - 'Into compliance' - The EU in its charge sheet accused Google of obstructing innovation by giving unfair prominence to its own apps, especially its search engine, in deals with giant mobile manufacturers such as South Korea's Samsung or China's Huawei. "No manufacturer is obliged to preload any Google apps on an Android phone," Google insisted. Google is also accused of restricting manufacturers from installing rival versions or modifications of Android, an open source software operating system, on their phones. The commission, through a spokesman, confirmed the receipt of Google's official response. "As is standard practice, we will carefully consider Google's response before taking any decision on how to proceed and cannot at this stage prejudge the final outcome of the investigation," it said. Google critics rejected the company's arguments. "Google imposes severe sanctions on those who defy its insistence on conformity," said Thomas Vinje, legal counsel to FairSearch, a group that represents many of the complainants in the case. "This is a problem that law enforcement can solve, by acting to bring Google into compliance with competition law," he added. Complainants who brought the case to the EU include Yandez, a Russia-based search engine that says Google is stopping it from expanding beyond Russia. They also include telecom companies that are looking to have better control of the Android software they provide on their smartphones. But Google, which originally created Android, says limiting changes by companies to the system helps software developers so they do not have to make many versions of their apps to run on different versions of Android. Developers of apps such as Spotify or WhatsApp, "depend on a stable and consistent framework to do their work," Google said.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: Several Indian-Americans, who had campaigned intensively and raised millions of dollars for Hillary Clinton, are disappointed at the "shock defeat" of the Democratic candidate who was highly popular among the community members.



"This is a stunning result. We never expected this. I thought we would hold Pennsylvania and North Carolina," Shekar Narasimhan, one of the major fundraisers for the Clinton Campaign who had campaigned intensively in various Swing States in addition to his home state Virginia, said yesterday.



A few days before the general election, he and his team of volunteers were doing door-to-door campaigning in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.



"Let us pray that (US President-elect) Donald Trump has the wisdom to lead. We are not going anywhere and will continue to organise and fight for our rights and for the under-privileged," Narasimhan said.



"Like millions of Americans, I am disappointed at the results," said Ajay Jain Bhutoria, a major fund raiser for the Clinton Campaign.



Based in Silicon Vally, he had flown to New York this week in anticipation of victory of his presidential candidate.



"As a strong Clinton supporter, this is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, and I am at shock we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country," said Bhutoria.



"The election results are unbelievable and unsettling for many," said Rajwant Singh, who had been campaigning in Pennsylvania and other battleground States for the election.



"There is a great deal of concern among minorities and especially among people of colour. Trump's rhetoric throughout the campaign has made many racial and religious minorities very nervous and this election outcome has shocked them further," said Singh, adding that the Clinton campaign certainly missed measuring the success of Trump among the rural White folks and in the 'Rust Belt' states.



There are people who are frustrated with the slow recovery of the economy after the meltdown in 2007, he said.



"The Clinton campaign failed to assuage their feelings of insecurity but overall, the Clinton campaign had an inclusive agenda which was supported by communities from every corner of the country," Singh said.



Before the elections, polls had predicted that more than 70 per cent of the Indian-Americans preferred Clinton over Trump. But on the polling day, sentiments prevailing on the ground even in string Democratic strongholds like Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey indicated that the Trump Campaign had managed to make a dent into their Indian-American vote bank.



"People have spoken. We have been hearing and feeling them. What a victory!!," Dr Pawan Rattan from Florida, a lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump, said.



WASHINGTON: Several Indian-Americans, who had campaigned intensively and raised millions of dollars for Hillary Clinton, are disappointed at the "shock defeat" of the Democratic candidate who was highly popular among the community members. "This is a stunning result. We never expected this. I thought we would hold Pennsylvania and North Carolina," Shekar Narasimhan, one of the major fundraisers for the Clinton Campaign who had campaigned intensively in various Swing States in addition to his home state Virginia, said yesterday. A few days before the general election, he and his team of volunteers were doing door-to-door campaigning in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. "Let us pray that (US President-elect) Donald Trump has the wisdom to lead. We are not going anywhere and will continue to organise and fight for our rights and for the under-privileged," Narasimhan said. "Like millions of Americans, I am disappointed at the results," said Ajay Jain Bhutoria, a major fund raiser for the Clinton Campaign. Based in Silicon Vally, he had flown to New York this week in anticipation of victory of his presidential candidate. "As a strong Clinton supporter, this is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, and I am at shock we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country," said Bhutoria. "The election results are unbelievable and unsettling for many," said Rajwant Singh, who had been campaigning in Pennsylvania and other battleground States for the election. "There is a great deal of concern among minorities and especially among people of colour. Trump's rhetoric throughout the campaign has made many racial and religious minorities very nervous and this election outcome has shocked them further," said Singh, adding that the Clinton campaign certainly missed measuring the success of Trump among the rural White folks and in the 'Rust Belt' states. There are people who are frustrated with the slow recovery of the economy after the meltdown in 2007, he said. "The Clinton campaign failed to assuage their feelings of insecurity but overall, the Clinton campaign had an inclusive agenda which was supported by communities from every corner of the country," Singh said. Before the elections, polls had predicted that more than 70 per cent of the Indian-Americans preferred Clinton over Trump. But on the polling day, sentiments prevailing on the ground even in string Democratic strongholds like Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey indicated that the Trump Campaign had managed to make a dent into their Indian-American vote bank. "People have spoken. We have been hearing and feeling them. What a victory!!," Dr Pawan Rattan from Florida, a lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump, said.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Amidst strained relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, Pakistan High Commission has issued visas to as many as 3,316 Sikh pilgrims to attend birthday celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev from 12-21 November there.

In a statement issued by the Pakistan High Commission in National Capital, Manzoor Ali Memon Counsellor (Press) said this was done in line with Pakistan's efforts to encourage people to people contacts and promote religious tourism. The High Commission has issued visas to pilgrims more than the numbers prescribed under the 1974 bilateral protocol, he added.

Guru Nanak Dev was born on 15 April 1469 at 'Rai Bhoi Ki Talva', present day Nankana Sahib, near Lahore in Pakistan's Punjab province.

Every year a large number of Sikh pilgrims travel to Pakistan to visit different Sikh shrines.

Security forces of two nations are at their highest level of alertness at border with Pakistan army regularly violating ceasefire agreement. Pakistan army has been continuously targeting Indian civilian populations. However, Indian army has also caused massive damage to Pakistans posts.



NEW DELHI: Amidst strained relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, Pakistan High Commission has issued visas to as many as 3,316 Sikh pilgrims to attend birthday celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev from 12-21 November there. In a statement issued by the Pakistan High Commission in National Capital, Manzoor Ali Memon Counsellor (Press) said this was done in line with Pakistan's efforts to encourage people to people contacts and promote religious tourism. The High Commission has issued visas to pilgrims more than the numbers prescribed under the 1974 bilateral protocol, he added. Guru Nanak Dev was born on 15 April 1469 at 'Rai Bhoi Ki Talva', present day Nankana Sahib, near Lahore in Pakistan's Punjab province. Every year a large number of Sikh pilgrims travel to Pakistan to visit different Sikh shrines. Security forces of two nations are at their highest level of alertness at border with Pakistan army regularly violating ceasefire agreement. Pakistan army has been continuously targeting Indian civilian populations. However, Indian army has also caused massive damage to Pakistans posts.
By IANS

MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to stop picking a fight with the United States, saying Donald Trump has been elected as president.



In a speech before the Filipino community in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Duterte said, "I said I don't want to pick fight because Trump is there", Xinhua news agency reported.



"I would like to congratulate President Trump. Long live! We have something in common. We are alike because we both curse easily," Duterte added.



Duterte is in Kuala Lumpur for an overnight official visit.



During the campaign early 2016, Duterte has been likened to Trump and even earned the nickname "Trump of the East" for his style that many say is similar to Trump.



Both managed to win the votes of millions even if they did not have occupied national positions.



Duterte, 71, was a former mayor of a southern Philippine city of Davao while Trump, 70, is a billionaire, real estate developer-turned reality television star with no government experience.



Duterte has hurled expletive-laced remarks against Obama and the US for criticising his campaign against drug users and pushers, which has reportedly left 4,000 suspects dead.

MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to stop picking a fight with the United States, saying Donald Trump has been elected as president. In a speech before the Filipino community in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Duterte said, "I said I don't want to pick fight because Trump is there", Xinhua news agency reported. "I would like to congratulate President Trump. Long live! We have something in common. We are alike because we both curse easily," Duterte added. Duterte is in Kuala Lumpur for an overnight official visit. During the campaign early 2016, Duterte has been likened to Trump and even earned the nickname "Trump of the East" for his style that many say is similar to Trump. Both managed to win the votes of millions even if they did not have occupied national positions. Duterte, 71, was a former mayor of a southern Philippine city of Davao while Trump, 70, is a billionaire, real estate developer-turned reality television star with no government experience. Duterte has hurled expletive-laced remarks against Obama and the US for criticising his campaign against drug users and pushers, which has reportedly left 4,000 suspects dead.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump joined President Barack Obama for their first meeting at the White House Thursday, a symbolic start to the transition of power to the nation's 45th president.

Obama was harshly critical of Trump throughout the campaign, blasting him as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, falsely suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he'll wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

First lady Michelle Obama was meeting privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Also on Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.

As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Obama and Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.

The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought."

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama  one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. He's pledged to repeal Obama's health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He's vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

It's unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He'll enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump joined President Barack Obama for their first meeting at the White House Thursday, a symbolic start to the transition of power to the nation's 45th president. Obama was harshly critical of Trump throughout the campaign, blasting him as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, falsely suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States. If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he'll wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. First lady Michelle Obama was meeting privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday. Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events. Also on Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings. As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Obama and Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them. The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump." Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. "He just earned a mandate," Ryan said. In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought." Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead." In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state. Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts. As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama  one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents. If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. He's pledged to repeal Obama's health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He's vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties. It's unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He'll enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.
By Associated Press

SEOUL: South Korean media said that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to maintain a strong U.S. military readiness to help guard against any aggression from North Korea.

Yonhap news agency cites unidentified diplomatic officials in reporting discussions Trump had in a 10-minute telephone conversation with South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Yonhap says Trump told her that he agrees "100 percent" in hoping the two allies will further bolster their ties.

Park's office confirms Park and Trump talked by phone but hasn't provided specifics on their conversation.

There have been worries in South Korea that a Trump presidency could bring a major shift in U.S. economic and diplomatic ties with Seoul. Trump has questioned the value of the U.S.-South Korea security alliance.

SEOUL: South Korean media said that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to maintain a strong U.S. military readiness to help guard against any aggression from North Korea. Yonhap news agency cites unidentified diplomatic officials in reporting discussions Trump had in a 10-minute telephone conversation with South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Yonhap says Trump told her that he agrees "100 percent" in hoping the two allies will further bolster their ties. Park's office confirms Park and Trump talked by phone but hasn't provided specifics on their conversation. There have been worries in South Korea that a Trump presidency could bring a major shift in U.S. economic and diplomatic ties with Seoul. Trump has questioned the value of the U.S.-South Korea security alliance.
By AFP

WASHINGTON: Protesters rallied across the United States on Wednesday to express shock over Donald Trump's election victory, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency.

In Washington, several hundred protesters gathered in front of the White House for a candlelight vigil on a damp, chilly evening, criticizing what they called Trump's racism, sexism and xenophobia, and carrying signs reading "We have a voice!" and "Education for all!"

One of the organizers, Ben Wikler -- Washington director of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org -- told the crowd that others were coming together in hundreds of communities around the country.

"People are justly frightened," he said.

"We are here because in these darkest moments we are not alone," he added before leading chants of "We are not alone!"

Ethan Miller of the workers' rights group Jobs with Justice said organizers held the vigil to show that civil society was resilient.

"It's a hard time for a lot of Americans," he told AFP. "We saw a campaign that was filled with racism and misogyny and a whole host of other terrible tactics that ultimately were successful for winning the electoral college."

"But we're not going to let a Donald Trump presidency stop the progress in this country," he added.

"We're going to continue to organize and fight for the rights of all people and to protect the safety of our brothers and sisters."

Supporters attending the rally appeared less optimistic.

Joanne Paradis, 31, who was born in Mexico and works in international communications for a non-profit group in Washington, said she attended the rally to "share some solidarity."

"I feel pretty down," she said. Asked if the country could weather a Trump presidency, she said, "I don't know."

"But we have to acknowledge what happened to deal with it, to face it and talk about it and be honest about it."

"I just came here to mourn," said Chris Hassan, 28, who works for a civil society group.

Protests also were held in other cities across the country, gathering thousands of people in Chicago, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, Seattle and other cities.

In New York City, protesters gathered in Union Square holding signs saying "Love Trumps Hate" and before marching uptown in the thousands to chant in front to Trump Tower.

"The electoral college is broken," protester Nicholas Forker said of the US indirect voting system. "I think it definitely needs to be reformed. I think it's ridiculous."

Some of the protests started out with hundreds of demonstrators but soon swelled to thousands.

In California, high school and college students staged campus demonstrations and walkouts from classes.

In Los Angeles, hundreds of teens and young adults rallied outside City Hall chanting, "Not my president!"

In Oregon, demonstrators blocked traffic in downtown Portland, forcing a delay on two light-rail lines.

The crowd there grew to about 300 people, local reports said, including some who sat in the middle of a road to block traffic. Others burned American flags.

In Pennsylvania, hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students marched through the streets, with some in the crowd calling for unity.

The rallies followed protests overnight on Tuesday as voting results were being tallied, when at least one person was seriously injured in Oakland, California, where demonstrators broke store windows and set garbage alight.

WASHINGTON: Protesters rallied across the United States on Wednesday to express shock over Donald Trump's election victory, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency. In Washington, several hundred protesters gathered in front of the White House for a candlelight vigil on a damp, chilly evening, criticizing what they called Trump's racism, sexism and xenophobia, and carrying signs reading "We have a voice!" and "Education for all!" One of the organizers, Ben Wikler -- Washington director of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org -- told the crowd that others were coming together in hundreds of communities around the country. "People are justly frightened," he said. "We are here because in these darkest moments we are not alone," he added before leading chants of "We are not alone!" Ethan Miller of the workers' rights group Jobs with Justice said organizers held the vigil to show that civil society was resilient. "It's a hard time for a lot of Americans," he told AFP. "We saw a campaign that was filled with racism and misogyny and a whole host of other terrible tactics that ultimately were successful for winning the electoral college." "But we're not going to let a Donald Trump presidency stop the progress in this country," he added. "We're going to continue to organize and fight for the rights of all people and to protect the safety of our brothers and sisters." Supporters attending the rally appeared less optimistic. Joanne Paradis, 31, who was born in Mexico and works in international communications for a non-profit group in Washington, said she attended the rally to "share some solidarity." "I feel pretty down," she said. Asked if the country could weather a Trump presidency, she said, "I don't know." "But we have to acknowledge what happened to deal with it, to face it and talk about it and be honest about it." "I just came here to mourn," said Chris Hassan, 28, who works for a civil society group. Protests also were held in other cities across the country, gathering thousands of people in Chicago, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, Seattle and other cities. In New York City, protesters gathered in Union Square holding signs saying "Love Trumps Hate" and before marching uptown in the thousands to chant in front to Trump Tower. "The electoral college is broken," protester Nicholas Forker said of the US indirect voting system. "I think it definitely needs to be reformed. I think it's ridiculous." Some of the protests started out with hundreds of demonstrators but soon swelled to thousands. In California, high school and college students staged campus demonstrations and walkouts from classes. In Los Angeles, hundreds of teens and young adults rallied outside City Hall chanting, "Not my president!" In Oregon, demonstrators blocked traffic in downtown Portland, forcing a delay on two light-rail lines. The crowd there grew to about 300 people, local reports said, including some who sat in the middle of a road to block traffic. Others burned American flags. In Pennsylvania, hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students marched through the streets, with some in the crowd calling for unity. The rallies followed protests overnight on Tuesday as voting results were being tallied, when at least one person was seriously injured in Oakland, California, where demonstrators broke store windows and set garbage alight.
By Associated Press

LAFAYETTE:A Louisiana college student told police she was assaulted and robbed of her wallet and hijab by two men, one of whom was wearing a white "Trump" hat.

The 18-year-old woman told investigators she was walking near the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's campus Wednesday morning  hours after Donald Trump's presidential victory  when she was accosted by two white men who drove up in a gray sedan, police said.

The student said the men struck her with a metal object, knocking her down, and stole her wallet and hijab, a headscarf worn by Muslim women. She also said the men shouted racial obscenities as they struck her several times in the back, Lafayette police said in a statement Thursday.

Police haven't identified any suspects. The student declined medical treatment.

Lafayette Police Department spokesman Cpl. Karl Ratcliff said investigators haven't found witnesses or surveillance video to assist them.

"Basically, all we have is her statement," Ratcliff said. "At this point, there's not really much else we can do with it."

The university's police department issued a statement notifying staff and students about the student's reported attack.

LAFAYETTE:A Louisiana college student told police she was assaulted and robbed of her wallet and hijab by two men, one of whom was wearing a white "Trump" hat. The 18-year-old woman told investigators she was walking near the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's campus Wednesday morning  hours after Donald Trump's presidential victory  when she was accosted by two white men who drove up in a gray sedan, police said. The student said the men struck her with a metal object, knocking her down, and stole her wallet and hijab, a headscarf worn by Muslim women. She also said the men shouted racial obscenities as they struck her several times in the back, Lafayette police said in a statement Thursday. Police haven't identified any suspects. The student declined medical treatment. Lafayette Police Department spokesman Cpl. Karl Ratcliff said investigators haven't found witnesses or surveillance video to assist them. "Basically, all we have is her statement," Ratcliff said. "At this point, there's not really much else we can do with it." The university's police department issued a statement notifying staff and students about the student's reported attack.
Moscow and Tehran are in talks over a potential exclusive presentation of Irans oil and gas contracts to Russian companies, Russias Deputy Energy Minister Kirill Molodtsov said, TASS reported.

Molodtsov added that the sides have reached this agreement and currently the place and date are being discussed.

We expect the agreements reached by heads of two ministries  of energy [of the Russian Federation] and Irans Petroleum Ministry  about a potential exclusive presentation of the current conditions and contracts, under which the Islamic Republic of Iran is planning to attract foreign companies and foreign investments in the projects on its soil, to be presented to Russian companies, he said.

Respective notes and respective documents have been sent and we are expecting a response from the Iranian side about the date and location, Molodtsov added.

Amir Hossein Zamaninia, Iranian deputy oil minister, has, in turn, said that Lukoil, Gazprom, Rosneft, Gazprom Neft, Zarubezhneft and Tatneft have made preliminary agreements with Iranian companies.

Iran intends to sign first contracts with Russian oil producers by the end of 2016, Zamaninia said earlier.
The U.S. State Department said that Iran is taking steps to ship out heavy water produced in excess of a soft limit set under its nuclear deal with major powers, as reported by the U.N. atomic watchdog on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

"It's important to note that Iran made no effort to hide this," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a regular press briefing when asked about the report.

It is the second time Tehran has surpassed the 130 metric tonne threshold for heavy water, a material used as a moderator in reactors like Iran's unfinished one at Arak, since the deal was put in place in January. It had 130.1 tonnes of the material on Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a confidential report seen by Reuters.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:

Responding to US president-elect Donald Trumps negative remarks about Irans nuclear deal, Federica Mogherini, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said the US cant cancel the deal, aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The Iranian nuclear agreement is not a mutual deal between Iran and US, but a multilateral agreement, which I am still responsible as the chairman of joint commission to supervise the full implementation of nuclear agreement by all sides, Mogherini said during an interview with CNN.

Iran and P5+1 Group, including the US, the UK, France, Russia, China and Germany, reached a comprehensive nuclear deal, which was implemented in January 2016.

During his presidential campaigns, Trump said JCPOA was a terrible and disastrous deal.

We give them $150 billion [Irans assets blocked abroad], we get nothing, he said.

Under the JCPOA, Iran accessed its assets blocked abroad.

The nuclear deal is [done] in the framework of the UN Security Council, [it is] not a bilateral or national issue, Mogherini said.

After Trumps winning the elections, Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Iran expects the new US Administration respect the nuclear deal.

Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Monday that the future US president must remain committed to the JCPOA.
Tehran, Iran, November 9

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Newly elected US President Donald Trump is unlikely to be able to carry out what he has said to his fans regarding Iran, Mehdi Motaharnia, futurist and political science professor at Tehran Islamic Azad University, told Trend November 9.

"With regard to Iran, Trump has talked of hard power and put on agenda the confrontation with Iran. He has pledged to Americans that if US warships are threatened by Iranian fast boats, he will order attack on them. He has also said he will tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This resembles campaign talk rather than policy that Trump would be able to carry out," Motaharnia said.

"The victory of Trump today creates some populism is America, populism that Iran tacitly took as deconstruction in the US, Iranian leaders having endorsed his statements. But it was not kept out of mind that what happens in the US is a democratic system which even provides its deconstructers with the chance to become president," Dr. Motaharnia said.

However, he said that regarding Trumps pledged foreign policy, the new US president will be able to develop grounds for convergence with Moscow and work toward closer positions on global conflicts.

Russia is Irans ally in such regional conflicts as Syrias, which has turned into a hot issue of debate between Iran and the US.

Russia also backed Iran during its long talks with the world powers to reach a nuclear deal.
Details added (first version posted at 14:05)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

An explosion occurred in the city of Derik in Turkeys southeastern province of Mardin, the Turkish Haber 7 newspaper reported November 10.

Muhammet Fatih Safiturk, head of the citys executive power, and some other people were injured in the explosion, the newspaper reported.

According to the newspaper, the explosion occurred near the building of the executive power of the city.

After the incident, a skirmish occurred between security forces and members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist organization near the explosion area, the newspaper reported.

Ambulances were sent to the explosion site.
Istanbul, Turkey, Nov. 10

By Timucin Mercanoglu, Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

A new page will open in relations between Ankara and Washington after Donald Trump has been elected the new US president, Ramazan Akkir, an international relations expert, told Trend Nov. 10.

Akkir said the relations between Turkey and the US, which were damaged in the last period of Barack Obamas presidency, can be repaired after Trump comes to power.

Relations between Turkey and the US have recently worsened because of Washington's policy, in particular the support for the militants of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria as well as delay in the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, who was accused of involvement in a military coup attempt in Turkey, the expert said.

Relations between Ankara and Washington will improve under the presidency of Trump and Turkey may again become a major partner of the US in the Middle East, he noted.

Akkir went on to add that the Turkish people are very concerned about the Islamophobic statements made by Trump during his election campaign, but at the same time one mustnt forget that such populist rhetoric is largely oriented to the domestic audience and is associated with the pre-election policy.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade
Hillary Clinton walked onto the ballroom stage Wednesday morning to do what many had considered unthinkable: thank her campaign staff after failing in her bid to become the first woman elected U.S. president, instead of the anticipated victory speech under a symbolic glass ceiling, Reuters reported.

Hundreds of staffers and supporters gathered at the New Yorker Hotel in midtown Manhattan to hear Clinton speak publicly for the first time after her bruising loss to New York real estate magnate Donald Trump in the early hours of the morning.

Many wore the same clothes as the night before, having stayed up all night after leaving the glass-ceilinged Jacob J. Javits Convention Center, where Clinton's final rally never materialized.

Campaign Chairman John Podesta told the distraught crowd just after 2 a.m. to go home and expect to ultimately "bring this home." Shortly after, news broke that Clinton had telephoned Trump to concede.

As staffers and supporters filed into the ballroom, there were tears, hugs, and disbelief that Clinton, a former secretary of state, U.S senator and first lady, had again failed to shatter what she called the highest and hardest glass ceiling after her first attempt at the presidency in 2008, when she lost in her bid for the Democratic nomination.

This time, Clinton won the Democratic primary race, becoming the first women to secure a major party's nomination in her race against U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. But in the final contest for the White House, she lost to Trump, the unorthodox Republican nominee.

We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought, but I still believe in America and I always will, and if you do then we must accept this result and then look to the future, Clinton said, with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, daughter Chelsea Clinton and Chelseas husband, Marc Mezvinsky, at her side.

Also on the stage were Clinton's vice presidential pick, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, and his wife, Anne Holton.

Clinton wore a black suit with purple lapels - the color created by combining blue and red, the colors that symbolize the two major U.S. political parties - and not the suffragette white that many expected Tuesday night. Bill Clinton wore a matching tie.

Clinton urged her backers to seek unity in the wake of defeat.

Donald Trump is going to be our president, we owe him an open mind and the chance to lead, she said.

Likely facing her last opportunity for a presidential run, Clinton, 69, acknowledged the bitter sting of an election defeat in which initial results show she won the popular vote but came up short in the Electoral College vote that ultimately decides the race.

Clinton had been leading Trump in public opinion polls for months, and in the final week of her campaign, her staff celebrated a drawn-out campaign marked with vitriol at star-studded rallies with performers such as Jon Bon Jovi, Jay Z and Beyonce.

But as election returns came in, Trump pulled off major upsets in key states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida that Clinton's campaign expected to win. Aides appeared visibly shaken as Tuesday night turned into Wednesday morning.

"Hate trumps love, I guess," a supporter in the ballroom on Wednesday said, flipping the phrase Clinton had used to close her rallies.

Clinton thanked her supporters - women and young people in particular - and urged them to never give up.

Ive had successes, and Ive had setbacks, sometimes really painful ones. Many of you are at the beginning of your professional, public, political careers. You will have successes and setbacks too. This setback hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what is right is worth it, she said.
President Barack Obama will try to convince President-elect Donald Trump about his key policies, the White House said Wednesday, Anadolu reported.

Following the stuffing defeat of former Secretary Hillary Clinton by Trump, the hot topic in Washington is now the fate of Obamas legacy. Trump has vowed to undo many of the achievements of the Obama administration.

There is a tradition, particularly with regard to executive agreements of successive presidents preserving some element of continuity. I don't know whether or not that will apply in this case, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

President Obama will have an opportunity to talk to President-elect Trump about some of these policies about some of the benefits of these policies, he added.

He said the Obama administration will live up to its commitments under foreign deals up until Jan. 20 when Trump takes office.

Trump has said he would renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal a as well as the free trade Trans-pacific Trade Partnership, or TPP, which was inked with 12 Pacific rim countries, because he believes they were badly negotiated.

Earnest tried to defend Obamas criticism of Trump when he referred to him as being unfit for president and even a threat to countrys national security.

The president had used forceful language in helping people understand exactly why he was so passionate in his support for Secretary Clinton, Earnest said. Now the responsibility that President Obama has is to turn his attention to prioritizing a smooth transition with his successor and ensuring a peaceful transition of power.

Earnest said it was too early to discern exactly what message the voters were trying to send last night but he acknowledged he does not have an explanation for why a lot of people who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 voted for Trump on Tuesday.

Trump won the key swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan that voted for Obama in both elections.

Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and members of the transition team will get presidential briefs from the White House until the new president takes office, according to Earnest.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday he had told State Department officials to fully cooperate with President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration, Reuters reported.

After Trump's stunning upset of the heavily favored Hillary Clinton, Democratic President Barack Obama and leading figures in the Republican Party who had struggled to make peace with Trump all vowed to move past the ugliness of an angry campaign to seek common ground.

Kerry said State Department staff must not lose sight of the important issues facing the United States.

"One of the beautiful things of democracy - and we particularly pride ourselves in the United States - is that we have this amazing peaceful transfer of power," Kerry told reporters in Christchurch, New Zealand.

"And we will do everything in our power, as I have instructed our team, to work with the incoming administration as fully and openly as possible, to be as helpful as possible, so that the transfer of power will be as smooth as it possibly can without missing a beat on the important issues before us."

Kerry is in New Zealand en route to Antarctica. Last month 24 countries, which included the United States, and the European Union agreed to create the world's largest marine park in the Antarctic Ocean.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

Anti-terror officers are investigating a suspected grenade attack on a security post outside the French embassy in central Athens, Euronews reported Nov. 10.

Police say an object was thrown by one of two people on a passing motor bike. It then exploded injuring the officer who was on duty at the time.

He was taken to hospital suffering from blast wounds to the feet. Hes not said to be in a serious condition.

Police immediately sealed off the area in front of the embassy which lies close to parliament buildings.
Portsmouth boy bullied for long hair has plan to donate it

It makes me feel so proud of him, his generous spirit. He cares about others more than he cares about himself sometimes."
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the US embassy in London to protest against Donald Trump following his US election win, hours after the results were announced, The Independent reported.

Cries of "Dump Trump!" erupted from a crowd of around 200, which assembled outside the iron gates patrolled by dozens of police.

Organized by Stand Up To Racism, a campaign group that claims Mr Trump had run the most racist election campaign in generations, demonstrators spoke of their unease at a perceived sense of intolerance growing in the UK and US.

Anti-racism protesters clashed briefly with members of the far-right English Defence League (EDL) who disrupted the demonstration. The London demonstration follows similar protests across the US and outside the American embassy in Berlin.
Thousands of people marched in the streets of New York City Nov. 9 night to protest President-elect Donald Trump, weaving through traffic in midtown to get to Trump Tower, where police braced for the crowds, NBC 4 New York reported.

As they weaved through the streets of midtown to get to Trump Tower at 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, protesters faced threats of arrest from NYPD for blocking vehicular traffic.

At least 30 people were arrested at the two Columbus Circle and Trump Tower demonstrations, according to police. The majority of arrests appeared to be for disorderly conduct.

Similar anti-Trump protests were being held in other US cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston.
NOTICE: This Consumer Medicine Information (CMI) is intended for persons living in Australia.

Once Daily Gel Active ingredients: clindamycin 1% w/w (as phosphate) and benzoyl peroxide 5% w/w CONSUMER MEDICINE INFORMATION

What is in this leaflet? This leaflet answers some common questions about Duac Once Daily Gel. It does not contain all the available information. It does not take the place of talking to your doctor or pharmacist. All medicines have benefits and risks. Your doctor has weighed the benefits of you using Duac Once Daily Gel against the risks he expects it may have for you. If you have any concerns about this medicine, ask your doctor or pharmacist. Keep this leaflet with your medicine. You may need to read it again.

What is Duac Once Daily Gel and what is it used for? Duac Once Daily Gel contains clindamycin and benzoyl peroxide. Clindamycin is an antibiotic, which prevents the growth of bacteria which are involved in acne. Benzoyl peroxide acts to reduce comedones (blackheads and whiteheads). It is also effective at killing the bacteria, which are involved in acne, and makes the skin less oily. Duac Once Daily Gel is used on the skin to treat acne. It helps to: reduce the bacteria or germs, which are implicated in acne; reduce the number of acne spots; reduce the likelihood of new blackheads and whiteheads from forming; and make your skin less oily. Your doctor may have prescribed Duac Once Daily Gel for another purpose. Ask your doctor if you have any questions about why Duac Once Daily Gel has been prescribed for you. Duac Once Daily Gel is for use by adults and adolescents (aged 12 and above) with acne. Duac Once Daily Gel is not addictive. Duac Once Daily Gel is only available with a doctor's prescription.

Before you use Duac Once Daily Gel

When you must not use it Do not use Duac Once Daily Gel: if you have an allergy to Duac Once Daily Gel or any of the ingredients in Duac Once Daily Gel listed at the end of this leaflet. if you have a known sensitivity to benzoyl peroxide, clindamycin or lincomycin. you have or have ever had: regional enteritis (inflammation of the small intestine) colitis (inflammation of the large intestine) ulcerative colitis (inflammation which may be due to the presence of ulcers) antibiotic associated colitis (inflammation which may be associated with the past use of antibiotics)if the packaging is torn or shows signs of tampering. for more than 2 months (kept in the refrigerator at 2C to 8C) after the date the pharmacist has dispensed it to you. If you use this medicine for more than 2 months after the date the pharmacist has dispensed it to you, it may not work as well. if the expiry date (EXP) printed on the pack has passed. If you use this medicine after the expiry date has passed, it may not work as well. If you are not sure whether you should start taking Duac Once Daily Gel, contact your doctor.

Before you start to use it Tell your doctor if: you are pregnant or intend to become pregnant. Your doctor will discuss the risks and benefits of using Duac Once Daily Gel when pregnant. you are breast-feeding or intend to breast-feed. Your doctor will discuss the risks and benefits of using Duac Once Daily Gel when breast-feeding. Do not apply Duac Once Daily Gel to the breasts before breast-feeding. Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you have used or taken any other clindamycin or erythromycin containing medicines recently. If you have not told your doctor about any of the above, tell him before you use Duac Once Daily Gel.

Using other medicines Tell your doctor if you are using other creams, ointments or lotions or taking any other medicine. This includes any that you buy without a prescription from a pharmacy, supermarket or health food shop. These include: medicated or abrasive soaps and cleansers; chemical peels; and cosmetic products that have a strong drying effect. These also include products containing: erythromycin; clindamycin; lincomycin; benzoyl peroxide; tretinoin, isotretinoin or tazarotene; salicylic acid; and alcohol. These medicines may have a cumulative irritant effect or affect how well Duac Once Daily Gel works. You may need to use different amounts of your medicine or you may need to use different medicines. Your doctor will advise you. Your doctor and pharmacist may have more information on medicines to be careful with, or avoid while using Duac Once Daily Gel.

How to use Duac Once Daily Gel It is important to use Duac Once Daily Gel exactly as your doctor has told you. Directions given to you by your doctor may differ from the information contained in this leaflet. If you do not understand the instructions on the box, tube or this leaflet, ask your doctor or pharmacist for help. Wash the affected area thoroughly and rinse with warm water. Lightly pat dry the skin. Remove make-up thoroughly before applying the gel. After it has dried, you can use a non-greasy make-up.

How to apply Duac Once Daily Gel Duac Once Daily Gel is for application to the skin only. A thin film of gel should be applied to all of the area of the skin which has acne, not just the individual spots. As a guide, one fingertip (the amount of gel squeezed from the tube which reaches from the tip of your finger to the first joint) is enough to cover the face, two and one-half fingertips of gel will cover your face and back. If the gel does not rub into your skin easily, you are using too much. Wash your hands after applying the gel. The usual dose for Duac Once Daily Gel is apply once daily in the evening.

How long should you use it for It may take 4-6 weeks before you see the full effects of Duac Once Daily Gel on your acne. Use Duac Once Daily Gel for as long as your doctor tells you to. Do not use Duac Once Daily Gel for more than 11 weeks unless your doctor tells you to. If you use Duac Once Daily Gel less often than you should, it may not work as well and your skin problem may not improve. Using it more often than you should may not improve your skin problem any faster and may cause or increase side effects. If you are not sure of how long you need to use Duac Once Daily Gel, talk to your doctor.

If you forget to use it If it is almost time for your next application of Duac Once Daily Gel, skip the application you missed and apply the gel when you are next meant to. Otherwise, use it as soon as you remember, and then go back to using your gel as you would normally. Do not apply a double dose to make up for the dose that you missed. If you have trouble remembering to use your medicine, ask your pharmacist for some hints.

If you swallow it Immediately telephone your doctor or Poisons Information Centre (In Australia 13 11 26; In New Zealand 0800 POISON or 0800 764 766), or go to casualty at your nearest hospital if you think that you or anyone else may have swallowed Duac Once Daily Gel. Do this even if there are no signs of discomfort or poisoning. You may need urgent medical attention. Keep this telephone number handy.

While you are using Duac Once Daily Gel

Things you must do Tell your doctor(s) who is treating you that you are using Duac Once Daily Gel. If you feel that Duac Once Daily Gel is not helping your condition, tell your doctor. Tell your doctor if for any reason, you have not used Duac Once Daily Gel exactly as prescribed. Otherwise, your doctor may think that it was not effective and change your treatment unnecessarily. If you become pregnant while using Duac Once Daily Gel, tell your doctor. If you are breastfeeding while using Duac Once Daily Gel, tell your doctor.

Things you must not do Do not give Duac Once Daily Gel to anyone else, even if they have the same symptoms as yours.

Things to be careful of Keep Duac Once Daily Gel away from your lips, eyes, mouth and other mucous membranes. Do not apply to any irritated areas of your skin; for example if you have cuts, grazes, sunburn or eczema. Be careful not to use too much on your neck or other sensitive areas of the skin. Avoid excessive exposure to sunlight. Sunlamps should not be used. Avoid using at high altitudes or where the ground is snow-covered. When exposure to sunlight cannot be avoided, use a sunscreen product and wear protective clothing. Duac Once Daily Gel may bleach hair and coloured fabrics, such as clothing, towels and bed linen. Be careful to avoid contact of Duac Once Daily Gel with hair and coloured fabrics. Do not use occlusive (air or water tight) dressings on areas treated with Duac Once Daily Gel unless necessary. Using occlusive dressing may increase irritation. Antibiotics may cause a condition that results in severe diarrhoea and stomach cramps. Although this is unlikely to happen with antibiotics applied to the skin, if you develop stomach cramps or diarrhoea that does not improve or is severe, stop using Duac Once Daily Gel and contact your doctor immediately.

Side effects Tell your doctor if you do not feel well while you are using Duac Once Daily Gel. Duac Once Daily Gel helps most people with acne but it may have unwanted side effects in a few people. All medicines can have side effects. Sometimes they are serious, most of the time they are not. You may need medical treatment if you get some of these side effects. Very common side effects: At site of application: Dry skin Skin peeling Redness of your skin, especially during the first few weeks of use These side effects are generally mild. Common side effects: Headache At the site of application: Skin burning sensation Itching Skin pain Sensitivity to sunlight Uncommon side effects: At the site of application: Tingling (paraesthesia) Red, itchy skin, rash (dermatitis, erythematous rash) Worsening of acne Rare side effects: Allergic reactions nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, including bloody diarrhoea, stomach pain At the site of application: Skin reactions, discoloration of the skin Raised itchy rash (hives) If you suffer severe burning, peeling or itching, or other effects not mentioned in this leaflet, you should stop using Duac Once Daily Gel and go back to your doctor for advice.

After using Duac Once Daily Gel

Storage Duac Once Daily Gel should be stored in the refrigerator at 2C to 8C for up to 2 months. Do not freeze. Do not leave it in the car, especially the glovebox, or on windowsills. Do not store Duac Once Daily Gel or any other medicine in the bathroom or near a sink. Heat and dampness can destroy some medicines. Keep Duac Once Daily Gel where young children cannot reach it. A locked cupboard at least one and a half metres above the ground is a good place to store medicines.

Disposal If your doctor tells you to stop using Duac Once Daily Gel or it has passed its expiry date, ask your pharmacist what to do with any that is left over.

Product Description

What it looks like Duac Once Daily Gel is a white to slightly yellow gel that is available in a 25 gram or 30 gram tube. A 5 gram sample tube is also available from your physician only. Not all pack sizes may be available.

Ingredients The active ingredients in Duac Once Daily Gel are clindamycin 1% w/w (as phosphate) and benzoyl peroxide 5% w/w. Duac Once Daily Gel also contains the following inactive ingredients: carbomer 980 dimeticone 100 disodium lauryl sulfosuccinate disodium edetate glycerol silicon dioxide poloxamer purified water sodium hydroxide
Moscow hopes that its relations with Washington will be mended and will become normal after the US presidential election, TASS quoted Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying.

We respect the American peoples choice, as it would be the case irrespective of the results of the election, the minister said. We hope that relations between Russia and the US, which are currently not at their best, will be mended and become normal, which meets the interests of our peoples and the entire international community.
Study led by the Cancer Prevention Institute of California finds women obese over a prolonged period are at greatest risk

While it is well established that obesity is closely linked to endometrial cancer risk, most past findings have only looked at risk in relation to one measure of body size at a time. In this study led by the Cancer Prevention Institute of California, e-published on November 3, 2016 in the journal Cancer Causes and Control, researchers evaluated changes in obesity, beginning at adolescence, to identify lifetime risk factors that may lead to endometrial cancer.

Researchers found that adolescent obesity contributed to endometrial cancer risk, even among women who were at a normal weight as adults. However, women who were obese over a prolonged period were at greatest risk. Further, the taller the woman, the greater the risk associated with prolonged obesity. These associations are limited to women who have not used any form of hormone therapy. Among women using hormone therapy, only greater height was associated with risk.

According to Pamela Horn-Ross, the lead researcher of this study and consulting epidemiologist with the Cancer Prevention Institute of California:

The results of this study have important implications for the future risk of endometrial cancer among girls given the widespread epidemic of obesity in our society. It will also help researchers understand discrepancies between previous studies and aid in developing targeted inventions for the prevention of endometrial cancer.

To conduct this study, researchers evaluated 88,142 female participants in the California Teachers Study (CTS) followed for more than 15 years. Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire addressing health and medical history, including hormone therapy and body size, at the time they began participation in the study group and repeated three more surveys through 2006. Only women who had not had an endometrial cancer prior to joining the study were included in this analysis. Of the study participants, 887 were diagnosed with invasive type I endometrial cancer between 1997 and 2012.

The CTS is a statewide health study of over 133,000 female current and former school teachers and school administrators that started in 1995. Along with the Cancer Prevention Institute of California, other participating research institutions are the City of Hope National Medical Center, the University of Southern California, and the University of California, Irvine.
A healthcare support worker, who supports cancer patients throughout their chemotherapy journeys, has spoken out about the benefits of scalp cooling and what it means to the people who use it.

For the past 13 years, Pam Fitzpatrick has worked at the chemotherapy day area at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. Her role involves explaining what scalp cooling is (a process that helps people retain their hair during chemotherapy) how it works and managing patients who are using the cool cap throughout their treatment.

Before embarking on a nursing career, Pam used to be a hairdresser, which has given her an insight into why people find chemotherapy induced hair loss so traumatic.

Pam said:

Hairdressing has given me that foundation to understand the importance of hair and body image to people, especially when they are undergoing chemotherapy. It has also given me an acute awareness of the fear and distress that the thought of hair loss can cause at what is already a very difficult time in their lives.

Pam explains that although scalp cooling is readily available across the UK, there is an inconsistency in peoples awareness and understanding of it. She hopes by sharing her experience in the run up to UKONS (The UK Oncology Nurses Society - Annual Conference, which focuses on 'the changing face of cancer care'), more people will become aware of what scalp cooling treatment is.

Myself and my colleagues all feel it is extremely important that patients are provided with scalp cooling information and are able to make an informed choice as to whether they want to use it or not. Over the years, there have been great improvements in the technology of the machines and more research, which has led to an improved patient experience and an increase in its use.

Scalp cooling provides the only real alternative to chemotherapy induced hair loss, resulting in a high level of retention or even complete hair preservation, thus improving patients self-confidence and creating positive attitudes towards treatment.

The cooling cap works by lowering scalp temperature before, during and after the administration of chemotherapy. Liquid coolant passes through the cap extracting heat from the patient's scalp, ensuring the scalp remains at an even, constant temperature to minimise hair loss.

Pam explains that most people tolerate the cold cap reasonably well and the results are mostly very successful. She explains that some patients will experience hair thinning whilst using the cold cap, however it means they can still present themselves as visually normal in their everyday lives.

She added:

People tell me that they want to keep their hair for their children and it helps them get through the cancer journey. I think most importantly though, keeping their hair means they dont have to tell everyone they have cancer and are undergoing chemotherapy. Being able to retain their hair means their body image is preserved and they can retain some sense of normality. Essentially, it goes a long way in helping them cope with their treatment.

The Paxman Scalp Cooling System is the world-leading hair loss prevention system for chemotherapy patients. It has been used by over 100,000 patients in 32 countries and is responsible for helping patients to keep their hair and retain a feeling of normality during chemotherapy.

The cap is made from lightweight, silicone tubing, which feels soft and flexible, moulding to the patients head to provide a snug, yet comfortable fit during treatment.

The UKONS Annual Conference 2016 takes place on Friday 11 to Saturday 12 November 2016 at the Brighton Centre - http://www.ukons.org/conference
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, along with seven other major institutions, have found that even mild postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs) are significantly associated with increased death within the first week after surgery.

The study, which appeared online today in the journal JAMA Surgery, examined 1,202 patients who underwent abdominal, orthopedic, neurological and other procedures under general anesthesia for at least two hours.

"We found that patients with one or more PPCs, even mild, had significantly increased intensive care unit admission, ICU/hospital length of stay and early postoperative mortality," said Ana Fernandez-Bustamante, MD, PhD, associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She and Marcos Francisco Vidal Melo, MD, PhD, associate professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University, are the lead authors of the article.

Current estimates suggest that there are over a million PPCs each year in the U.S. resulting in 46,200 deaths and 4.8 million hospitalizations days. Most of these PPCs are considered mild (i.e. needing prolonged supplemental oxygen), difficult to measure and often ignored in clinical studies.

Fernandez-Bustamante and her colleagues, including Karsten Bartels, MD, assistant professor of anesthesiology at CU Anschutz, set out to understand these PPCs better and how to address them.

They studied patients classified as "physical status 3" by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, meaning they suffered severe systemic disease. The patients underwent prolonged, non-cardiac or thoracic surgery with general anesthesia and mechanical ventilation.

A third of them developed one or more PPCs after surgery. These patients were often older with hypertension, cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Severe complications were rare. The most common complication was simply requiring oxygen for longer than 24 hours after the operation. That was followed by atelectasis (or portions of the lungs being partially collapsed).

But even these relatively mild complications were associated with significantly increased hospital stay, admission to the ICU or mortality within the first week after surgery.

And this was observed at seven large American academic hospitals.

"This tells us that care could be improved," Fernandez-Bustamante said. "If we could understand better and prevent mild PPCs we could improve the recovery of thousands of patients."

Doctors know that giving patients too many fluids or too big breaths during anesthesia can cause pulmonary problems afterwards.

Fernandez-Bustamante said that paying more attention to preventing atelectasis, for example, before, during and after surgery, could reduce some of them, improve oxygenation and prevent the need of oxygen therapy and hospital stay.

She noted that physicians must also optimize fluids and pain control, and minimize blood loss during operations to prevent PPCs. Doing all of this, she said, could improve patient outcomes and result in shorter hospital stays.

"Surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, respiratory therapists, and others, must collaborate better to make this successful. And of course patients need to know they play a critical role in their own recovery. We must work with them closely before, during and after surgery," Fernandez-Bustamante said. "If we want patients to have less pulmonary complications, we need a truly comprehensive approach to this problem."
Libraries are uniquely positioned to address public health needs in underserved populations, according to findings from a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Free Library of Philadelphia in this month's issue of Health Affairs. The research team then took these findings a step further, developing a pilot program to train library staff into "community health specialists."

After completing a needs assessment including interviews with 77 Philadelphia residents and 18 library staff, along with an analysis of ten of The Free Library of Philadelphia's largest programs, the researchers report that the library routinely helps patrons secure basic human needs that are fundamental to health, such as housing, food, employment, and health care. The findings highlight that libraries are changing with the times and are highly responsive to consumers' needs -- well beyond books.

In a city like Philadelphia, there is substantial opportunity for libraries to address population health issues. Philadelphia is the poorest of the Nation's ten largest cities, with nearly a third of residents living below the federal poverty level. Thirty-eight percent of low-income Philadelphians lack a high school diploma, setting them up for lifelong struggles that undermine health. The city's rates of hypertension (38.2 percent), obesity (33.3 percent), and diabetes (15.4 percent) are among the highest in large United States cities. "Public libraries are a critically needed and trusted lifeline for many vulnerable citizens," said Carolyn Cannuscio, ScD, director of research at the Center for Public Health Initiatives and an assistant professor in Family Medicine and Community Health at the Perelman School of Medicine. "Our analysis found that library staff already serve as catalysts in addressing the needs of many immigrants, people experiencing mental illness or homelessness, and others seeking assistance. And they have the capacity to do even more."

Of the Free Library's 5.8 million in-person visits in 2015, 500,000 included participation in specialized programs that addressed multiple health determinants, such as job skills and literacy. The study's data are unique to Philadelphia, but the authors suggest that similar programs could have a major public health impact if implemented in the nation's 9,000 public library systems that host 1.5 billion visits annually.

The needs assessment found that library staff reported feeling under-prepared and stressed by the profound health and social needs of many library patrons. This led to "The Healthy Library Initiative" partnership between Penn and Philadelphia's public library system, in which Penn advisors collaborated with librarians to integrate evidence-based public health programming in a library setting. The community health specialist pilot training addresses issues faced by children and families experiencing trauma, mental health and substance abuse, the health and social needs of immigrants, and homelessness. The training encourages library staff to recognize vulnerable patrons, communicate productively with them, and guide these patrons to appropriate community-based services.

Starting with library staff in the Community Health and Literacy Center that opened earlier this year, the team plans to further evaluate and expand the program in the Free Library of Philadelphia system and beyond, aided by funding from the National Library of Medicine.
In a global market worth almost 200 billion (around 173 billion) a year, the medical devices and in vitro diagnostics sector is particularly innovative in France. Across the Channel, the sector is comprised of over a thousand companies, employing almost 65,000 people with expertise encompassing medicine, mechanics, material physics and digital technologies. The French market is estimated to be worth 15 billion (around 13 billion) with around 700 new patent applications filed every year, considerably boosting the sectors value. Despite being largely made up of SMEs along with some microbusinesses and a few large groups, almost 74% of these organisations have R&D and/or production departments.

The healthcare industry is navigating profound changes and, in response, is using innovation as a growth driver. R&D generates brand new solutions that deliver performance and security for both patients and doctors alike. Medical robotics is making technical medical interventions easier. French companies are at the leading edge of all of these technologies, helping to achieve what was previously believed to be impossible.

Six French companies, particularly at the cutting edge of medical technology, will be in the spotlight in the Innovation zone at Medica 2016 in Hall 17 (17A40A 0 17A40E and 17C24F):

AXILUM ROBOTICS will be presenting the worlds first and only robot designed for transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Its non-invasive neurostimulation technique offers therapeutic applications for psychiatric and neurological conditions, severe depression, chronic neuropathic pain and post-stroke conditions which are resistant to drug therapies. TMS could change the lives of millions of people living with chronic pain. It can considerably lessen drug-resistant symptoms by acting on affected parts of the brain. These robotic solutions, marketed since 2014, are sold or leased with maintenance contracts.

MDOLORIS MEDICAL SYSTEM (17C24F) is the first global player able to provide hospital practitioners with non-invasive systems to continuously monitor pain. Of the three components of anaesthesia, analgesia is the only one not to have previously been measured objectively. For the very first time, this monitoring solution allows clinicians to objectively measure the pain felt by patients, enabling them to administer personalised quantities of painkiller to both conscious and unconscious patients.

MIRAVAS is exhibiting VBOX, the first medical device to treat varicose veins with water vapour, for use in the operating room. Similar to other endothermic techniques (lasers, radiofrequencies, water vapour), its mechanism of action, that is emission of heat into the vein, causes collagen fibres in the vein wall that are obstructing the vein to retract. VBOX delivers its steam treatment by sufficiently heating the body of sterile water contained in its handpiece so that it turns into steam. This heating process also raises the pressure in the handpiece up to saturation vapour pressure, allowing water vapour to be injected into the vein through a catheter or needle.

Venous diseases affect millions of people, half of whom report having varicose veins. In terms of public health, the human and economic stakes are therefore considerable. Various European health insurance systems encourage the adoption of new minimally invasive techniques and the development of outpatient surgery to maximise patient comfort while staying on top of healthcare expenditure. VBOX is a competitively priced and medically congruent device that makes it possible to treat the full spectrum of venous diseases in the doctors office. Its CE certification ensures it is available to angiologists and vascular surgeons in Europe.

PHYSIO-ASSIST specialises in medical devices aimed at patients with obstructive respiratory illnesses. Its Simeox range offers healthcare professionals access to breakthrough technology in bronchial decongestion and meets the primary needs of patients with cystic fibrosis or chronic bronchitis. Its thixotropic properties thin mucus and create turbulence by stimulating the tracheo-bronchial air at a distinctive frequency, resulting in bronchial drainage. Its performance, which has been proven in a clinical tolerance trial, improves the medical service delivered. It enables patients to carry out effective bronchial clearance independently and less painfully whilst also considerably reducing treatment costs. The Simeox medical device and its consumables are now CE-labelled so that they can be marketed to physiotherapists via distributors for European markets, as well as countries with EEA trading agreements in place. It comes with a connected touchscreen interface and a travel pouch with space for storing medical consumables and the remote control.

ROBOSOFT SERVICES ROBOTS will be presenting Kompai, the connected assistant for caregivers that helps frail people live independently at home or in institutions. This robot improves peoples physical independence, helps them feel safe, especially in the event of a fall, monitors health to improve prevention, provides cognitive stimulus and facilitates day-to-day life by supporting social contact, allowing users to send emails by voice command. It also offers data processing capabilities.

THERAPIXEL is revolutionising surgery through touchless visual recognition with Fluid, a medical image navigation system designed for the operating room. Operated entirely by gesture-based commands, it offers efficient access to patients radiological files in sterile conditions. No need to touch anything! The operating room diary is used to preload examinations in advance. Patient information is loaded by selection from the daily operating list. Fluid is compatible with all PACS on the market and gives access to all patient images, both pre and intraoperative, regardless of how they were generated.

Along with these 6 innovators, a total of 218 French companies will be exhibiting at the group pavilion run by Business France  the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy  at Medica, the global healthcare exhibition, on 14th-17th November 2016 in Dusseldorf.

Hall 3 : diagnostic and laboratory Equipment



: diagnostic and laboratory Equipment Halls 4 and 5 : physiotherapy and orthopedics



: physiotherapy and orthopedics Hall 7a : consumer goods and textiles



: consumer goods and textiles Hall 15: new information and communications technologies



new information and communications technologies Halls 16 and 17: electro-medicine and operating room equipment



electro-medicine and operating room equipment Hall 8b (Compamed): subcontracting for medical manufacturing (micro-technology, plastics technology, etc.)

With eight partners on-site at the France Pavilion  ALSACE BIOVALLEY - BCI - LILLE EURASANTE  CCI FRANCHE COMTE  CCI LIMOGES - MADEELI  I-CARE  MEDICEN - TECHNOPOLE TBS  SYNERGIA (Caen La Mer) and SUD DE FRANCE, come and meet the French exhibitors representing this growing industry.

Source: http://www.youbuyfrance.com/uk/
When female employees of a mystery shopping firm called posing as 17-year-olds interested in tanning, 81 percent of indoor tanning facilities complied with the Texas ban on indoor tanning for those under the age of 18 in a study conducted by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Upon discovering the caller's age, employees at those facilities told the caller she could not use indoor tanning, even with the permission of her parents.

"This level of compliance with the under-18 ban enacted by the Texas Legislature in 2013 underscores the importance of this approach as a strategy for skin cancer prevention," said Mary Tripp, Ph.D., instructor in Behavioral Science and lead author of the study, published as a letter to JAMA Dermatology.

Research shows that indoor tanning before the age of 18 increases a person's risk of developing melanoma - the most lethal form of skin cancer - by 85 percent. In 2013, 1.6 million youths under the age of 18 reported indoor tanning, including 20 percent of female high school students.

The incidence of melanoma has been rising in the United States for 30 years, while the frequency of most other solid tumors declined. From 1975 to 2012, cases of melanoma grew by about 3 percent per year. In 2016, an estimated 76,380 people will receive a diagnosis of invasive melanoma and 10,130 will die of the disease.

Researchers identified 829 tanning facilities in Texas to contact in July and August of 2015. Of these, 635 could be reached by the mystery shopping firm callers; 445 were free-standing indoor tanning establishments, 133 were beauty salons or spas and 57 were other retail businesses that housed a tanning device.

Free-standing centers have best compliance

Of the 635 surveyed, 512 provided responses that complied with the ban and 120 did not, with the most common non-compliant responses indicating the shoppers could tan with a note from their parents or accompanied by a parent. Free-standing centers (86 percent) were most likely to comply, with beauty salons/spas (68 percent) least likely.

Tripp noted an alarming proportion of facilities, 83 percent, told callers their clients could tan daily, in contrast to a schedule of three or fewer sessions during the first week recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The vast majority of facilities responded directly (68 percent) or indirectly (25 percent) that a burn is possible with indoor tanning.

Given that 15 states have enacted similar prohibitions and the FDA has proposed limiting indoor tanning to those age 18 and older, evaluating and improving compliance with under-18 bans will be critical to reducing the incidence of skin cancer, Tripp said.

Moon Shots Program prevention efforts

Providing educational information in support of indoor tanning bans for minors has been a central part of prevention efforts under MD Anderson's Cancer Moon Shots Program, launched in 2012 to accelerate the pace of converting scientific discoveries into prevention, detection and treatment advances that significantly reduce cancer deaths.

Faculty and governmental relations leaders in the Melanoma Moon Shot and the Cancer Prevention and Control Platform provided educational information about indoor tanning and cancer risk to Texas legislators and served as the primary clinical and research resources on the Texas prohibition law, which took effect in September 2013. Texas was the fourth state to enact a ban, and since then moon shots educational efforts have shifted to other states.
A U.S. regulator found software in some Audi vehicles that lowered their carbon dioxide emissions if it detected they were being used under test conditions, Bild am Sonntag reported.



The California Air Resources Board (CARB) discovered the software in an automatic transmission Audi last summer, the German weekly newspaper said, without citing any sources.



CARB and Audi declined to comment on Bild am Sonntag report.



The paper said the device, which was not the same as the one which triggered last year's diesel emissions scandal at Audi parent Volkswagen, was also used in diesel and gasoline-powered cars in Europe.



VW's admission that it had installed software that deactivated pollution controls on more than 11 million diesel vehicles sold worldwide, triggered the deepest business crisis in the German carmaker's history.



Audi, the main contributor to VW group profit, has also admitted its 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine was fitted with emissions-control software.



Bild am Sonntag said the software discovered by CARB, which was installed in vehicles with certain automatic transmissions, detected whether a car's steering wheel was turned.



If it was not, indicating laboratory testing conditions, the software turned on a gear-shifting programme which produced less carbon dioxide than in normal road driving. If the wheel was turned in any direction by more than 15 degrees, the programme was switched off, the paper said.



Audi stopped using the software in May 2016, just before CARB discovered the manipulation in an older model, the paper said, adding that the carmaker had suspended several engineers in connection with the matter.



Bild am Sonntag said a spokesman for Audi had declined to comment, citing ongoing talks with U.S. and California regulators on a proposed fix for cars with 3.0-litre engines.
Seventy years after the original scooter mobilised Italy in style, the iconic Vespa is getting ready to move with the times.



Set to be unveiled in concept form at the EICMA motorcycle show in Milan on Thursday, the Vespa Elettrica will retain the existing bike's lines, proportions and, crucially, its ease of use.



However, according to the Piaggio Group (custodians of the Vespa brand), it will also boast the latest in connectivity and other two-wheel high-tech innovations. What exactly these innovations will be are yet to be finalised. Likewise, the company has given no indication of the bike's battery size, potential range or other performance data.



But seeing as this is merely a concept and that the production version of the Vespa won't be ready to meet its environmentally-minded public until the second half of 2017, all of these features are clearly still in flux.
Japanese car and bike maker Honda is getting ready to launch its first "side-by-side" utility vehicle for those whose jobs or interests take them to extreme locations. Set to be officially unveiled in 2017, the Honda Pioneer will offer four-wheel drive and will come in two-seat and four-seat configurations.



A motorbike-derived 700cc engine will call the shots and Honda promises that the vehicle will be more practical than a quad bike yet much easier to manage and navigate than a traditional SUV.



"Our engineers and designers have developed it from the wheels up with the same attention to detail they would any Honda vehicle," said Steve Morris, Head of Honda (UK). "[It] sets a new benchmark for a side by side ATV."
02:19(GMT+4) The German consulate in Afghanistans third-largest city has been attacked, leading to the death of at least two and injuring dozens of others, a police spokesman said, Sputnik International reported.

The suicide car bomb attack took place on Thursday and was followed by a separate explosion inside the Mazar Hotel in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif that has been used as a consulate, regional police spokesman Sayid Sarwar Hussaini said as cited by The New York Times.

The two blasts killed at least two people and injured at least 84, Afghan officials said as cited by the newspaper.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack.

01:25(GMT+4) A suicide bomber has rammed a vehicle into the German consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif, killing at least one man, Sputnik International reported.

Reports described a huge blast at the diplomatic mission, followed by gunfire. The German ambassador said the incident was "ongoing".

At least 29 people were hurt in the attack, which happened around 2300 local time (1830GMT).

The Taliban says it carried out the attack.
Tata Sons on Thursday appointed Ishaat Hussain as Chairman of Board Of Directors after Cyrus Mistry was ousted as the holding company's Chairman.



Here are the 10 facts about Ishaat Hussain



* Born on September 2, 1947, Ishaat Hussain completed his schooling from The Doon School in 1963 and joined St. Stephens College Delhi to pursue graduation in Economics.



* Hussain, a chartered accountant from England and Wales, also attended the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School.



* He is associated with the Tata Group since 1983 after Indian Tube was merged with Tata Steel.



* In November 2006, Hussain was appointed a Public Interest Director of Bombay Stock Exchange Limited.



* In January 2008, he was appointed a Trustee on the board of India Foundation for the Arts (IFA).



* Hussain joined the Board of Tata Sons as an Executive Director on July 1, 1999.



* He took over as Finance Director of Tata Sons Ltd. in 2000



* Prior to joining Tata Sons, Hussain has worked as the senior vice-president and executive director  finance in Tata Steel for almost 10 years.



* Besides being on the board of Tata Sons Limited, Hussain is Chairman of Voltas Limited and Tata Sky Limited.



* He is also on the boards of several Tata Companies such as Tata Steel, Tata Industries, Tata Teleservices, Titan Industries Limited.








Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das on Thursday allayed fears regarding demonetisation and said that the government has taken a bold decision in an effort to clean up the black money market.

In an exclusive interview to News18, Jaitley said the RBIs original suggestion was to bring currency notes of Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 denomination and that politicians opposing the move were only exposing themselves.

He also asked the public not to beware of social media rumours and said the printing of new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes began months ago.

Earlier in the day, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said Rs 1,000 currency notes will be re-introduced in a few months with enhanced security features and in a different colour.

Huge crowds were witnessed outside banks on Thursday with people queuing in to deposit their old notes.

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here.
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday clarified that depositors of small amounts of cash  housewives, workers, artisans  will not be harassed by income tax officials.



There is an Indian tradition to keep cash at home for contingencies and small deposits under the tax exempt limit can be made in banks, Jaitley said in a press conference. Large depositors will have to face accountability under existing tax laws, he added.



The Finance Minister said that no new laws for penalising large depositors are being contemplated.



Finance Ministry officials including the Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das and the Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian held a press conference in New Delhi to field questions about the demonetization, in which the government withdrew legal tender status to bank notes of denomination 500 and 1,000 rupees. They are being replaced with new bank notes of 500 and 2,000 rupee value. The step is to smoke out black money and counterfeit currency, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on November 8.



Finance Minister Jaitley said that the Reserve Bank of India has taken steps to ensure that banks are able to deal with the rush of people depositing the worthless currency notes, including branches staying open on weekends. He added that the bank network in the country is adequate to handle the demonetization aftermath and if need be additional measures may be considered for rural areas, where the density of bank branches is low.



Jaitley also said that there would be some impact on consumption in the short run, but the move would be positive for the Indian economy in the medium to long term and consumption will be back to normal levels.



On a question on gold purchases, the FM said that people trying to get rid of black money by purchasing the yellow metal will face scrutiny because they will have to provide their PAN number. Even jewellery sellers will have to provide an account of such transactions.
New Delhi: The architect of Aadhar, Nandan Nilekani, has welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modis demonetization scheme and said it will help bring more and more people into the banking system.



It will give a big push to farmers, unorganised sectors and others. It can make them part of the banking system by promoting financial inclusion, said the Infosys co-founder and the man who set up the Unique Identification Authority of India or (UIDAI) that had launched the biometric-based Aadhar cards under the previous UPA prime minister Manmohan Singh.



The optimism for greater financial inclusion is based on statistics: 100 crore Aadhar cards and 24 crore Jan Dhan bank accounts launched by the Modi government in one of the biggest pushes to open a bank account for every Indian citizen.



We already have National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI) to which I am also an advisor, this move will definitely help, Nilekani said.



He also argued that Aadhar can be used to detect and weed out black money from the economy because the UID was already part of Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT), which helps the government to credit subsidies directly into the account of beneficiaries, thus bypassing middlemen.



Aadhar is already linked to DBT. Overall demonetization is good move and it will give a big push, Nilekani said.



Nilekani joined N R Narayanamurthy to found Indias iconic IT major Infosys in 1981. He quit as Infosys chairman to head UIDAI or Aadhar in 2009.




Demonstrators marched in cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest against Republican Donald Trump's surprise presidential election win, blasting his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups. The raw divisions exposed by the presidential race were on full display across America, as protesters flooded city streets to condemn Donald Trump's election in demonstrations that police said were mostly peaceful.



From New England to heartland cities like Kansas City and along the West Coast, many thousands of demonstrators carried flags and anti-Trump signs, disrupting traffic and declaring that they refused to accept Trump's triumph.



Among the many who took to the streets was American documentary filmmaker and author Michael Moore.



Apart from taking to the streets in protest, the filmmaker, who released his Trumpland documentary last month, wrote a post on Facebook, providing a step-wise guide as to what should the Americans do next.



He mentioned in his 'morning after to-do-list' that people should take over the Democratic party, fire TV pundits and must reiterate that Clinton won the popular vote.



He wrote :



Morning After To-Do List:



- Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people. They have failed us miserably.



- Fire all pundits, predictors, pollsters and anyone else in the media who had a narrative they wouldn't let go of and refused to listen to or acknowledge what was really going on. Those same bloviators will now tell us we must "heal the divide" and "come together." They will pull more hooey like that out of their ass in the days to come. Turn them off.



- Any Democratic member of Congress who didn't wake up this morning ready to fight, resist and obstruct in the way Republicans did against President Obama every day for eight full years must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that's about to begin (sic).



In his Facebook post, Moore asked Americans to stop saying they are shocked and stunned and reiterated that he had warned people not to take Trump lightly.



He wrote, "Everyone must stop saying they are "stunned" and "shocked". What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren't paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all "You're fired!" Trump's victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that (sic)."



His final point gave people some hope and encouraged them to work towards a better tomorrow. The final words of his post were, "You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: "Hillary Clinton won the popular vote!" The majority of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don't. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he's president is because of an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we'll continue to have presidents we didn't elect and didn't want. You live in a country where a majority of its citizens have said they believe there's climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, they don't want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed. We live in a country where the majority agree with the "liberal" position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen (see: #1 above) (sic)."




Am congratulating myselffor predicting a Trump victorymore than 4 months ago..I am throwing a Trumping party tonite  Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 9, 2016

All those people who thought Trump was nonsensical are now proved to be nonsensical Ha ha   Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 9, 2016

For some reason I like the present First Lady much more than the previous..can anyone tell me why? pic.twitter.com/itxmlyryO5  Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 9, 2016

Obama's and Michelle Obama's faces must have turned blacker than this with today's trumping result  pic.twitter.com/VMta5QvkZM  Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 9, 2016

I predicted Trump's win and now my prediction is he will be greatest president ever .Lincoln,Roosevelt,Kennedy etc will be forgotten  Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 9, 2016

Advancement in human thinking is to elect a man who in his 60's can talk about grabbing a woman's Pussy..Honesty wins..Unka America Mahaan  Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 9, 2016

Yes I am black but I luv whites ..All blacks luv whites more,but since I am not egotistic like most of them I accept the truth  https://t.co/vrX3FRt69r  Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 9, 2016

I know many blacks who desperately wanted to become white including Michael Jackson but don't know of any whites who want to become blacks  Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 9, 2016

@RGVzoomin ur common sense tells u to like ppl based on height and skin. No wonder u make shit movies. U barely have a working mind.  Sports Unfiltered (@truthbetold1111) November 9, 2016

@RGVzoomin and you are calling yourself sensist now... while your words say the opposite...  Saravanan (@sbrusterio) November 10, 2016

@RGVzoomin your ability to be both sexist and racist in one statement is incredible. You are part of the problem with the world today. Shame  Arunima Kapoor Duque (@Arunimadk) November 9, 2016

. @RGVzoomin Mmhm. You're racist and you treat women as objects of desire.  dhara (@Winkerbell_) November 9, 2016

@RGVzoomin stop objectifying women you racist asshat.  neha (@peaceforcas) November 9, 2016

. @RGVzoomin Its pretty simple really. You're a racist and extremely sexist.  Ayesha Sood (@ayeshasood) November 9, 2016

Because Mrs Obama has more class in the little toe of her left foot than you will ever have!!!! https://t.co/wTDWMb5VW6  Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) November 9, 2016

While thousands took to the streets in cities across the US on Wednesday night in a bid to protest against Republican Donald Trump's victory in the Presidential Election and American Muslims expressed fear and shock over Trump's win, there was one man in India - Ram Gopal Varma - whose tweets seemed to be gaining a lot of attention. But for all the wrong reasons.Like thousands of others around the world, Varma took to microblogging site Twitter to express his views on Trump's win. But the language that he used and the comparisons that he made, made him appear both sexist and racist.Not only did the filmmaker boast about rightly predicting Trump's victory in the elections, he also mocked all those who thought that businessmen were 'nonsensical'.In his consequent posts, he attacked the soon-to-retire First Lady Michelle Obama and compared her to soon-to-be First Lady Melania Trump. And for the record, his tweet was sexist! He posted two pictures and asked people if they could tell why did he like the lady on the left more than Michelle Obama.He also tweeted about how Obamas' would be deeply disturbed with the outcome of the elections and his tweet was by far the most rascist one you must have ever read.And then he went on to predict that the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F Kennedy would be forgotten.His tweets reflected his mentality when he wrote that it is an 'advancement in human thinking' when a 'man who in his 60's can talk about grabbing a woman's p***y'.When one user tried to confront Varma, he defended himself by writing this:What followed was an outrage on Twitter. Varma was slammed right, left and centre for his sexiest, racist remarks.Social media users even lambasted him for objectifying women.Among the people who spoke against Varma was ex-Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who gave him a fitting response.This isn't the first time Varma has been in a Twitter controversy. He has been involved in several Twitter spats and is known for posting tweets in the language that not many approve of.
Shillong: Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju on Thursday said the government has directed banks to expand their facilities in the remote areas to ensure that people have easy access to the financial system in the wake of demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.



"We (government) have already asked all the bank branches to ensure that they should go further deep in terms of reaching out to the people in the remote areas of the country," Rijiju told journalists here in Meghalaya.



However, he said the Reserve Bank of India has already made certain decisions to ensure that bank branches are open in various administrative centres or locations in the remote areas of the country.



"In the same manner in the northeast, we need to expand the reach of the banks so that people are linked with the financial system easily," the minister added.



Reacting to Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma's attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'surgical strike' on black money by way of demonetisation as an "insensitive move", Rijiju said: "It is an initial inconvenience but you have to accept this therapy and you need this strong therapy to deal with the menace of black money, corruption and terror funding."



"Good citizens are bearing with us and it is only some of the people because of whom the black money have been generated in this country and the corruption promoted. Only that person and group of people are having problem," the union minister stated.



Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi for demonetising Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination notes, Rijiju said: "This particular decision and announcement of Prime Minister has given deadly powerful blow to those people supplying the fake Indian currency notes as well as those involved in terror funding."



"It is a historical step and it will break the bones of the terrorist organisations and the people who are funding behind the cartel."



Rijiju added, "India has been facing grave challenges of corruption and black money which is circulating heavily in India illegally. With this decision, it not only will check corruption and black money but it will also stop terror funding and circulation of fake currency notes because the home ministry has been facing this problem, for long time."



To a query, Rijiju said that there are still certain elements in Bangladesh who are involved in anti-India activities but the Sheikh Hasina regime is doing everything at its command to stop that.



"There are elements in various countries, but Bangladesh regime is very favourable to India, and the present regime is doing everything possible to ensure that no anti-India activity is taking place in Bangladesh," he said.



"We are very grateful to the present leadership of the government of Bangladesh for all the cooperation so we don't have much problem there but there are certain elements in Bangladesh who are involved in anti-India activities but the present regime is doing everything at its command to stop that," he said.


New Delhi: Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Punjab's law scrapping water-sharing agreements with Haryana and other neighbouring states is unconstitutional, adding that the Sutlej Yamuna Canal or SYL canal, which is at the centre of a row between Punjab and Haryana, has to be completed.



The court also said Punjab cannot unilaterally move out of an agreement involving other states.



After the recent sparring between southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over Cauvery waters, the Sutlej Yamuna link dispute now takes the centrestage with political temperatures soaring in the poll-bound Punjab after Supreme Court's decision of stricking down state's unilateral abrogation of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) water-sharing agreement with Haryana and other neighbouring states.



Here are the major ongoing inter-state river-sharing disputes:



Krishna



States: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh



Progress of the tribunal: Set up in 2004, the second Krishna tribunal gave its verdict in 2013, which was challenged by Uniter Andhra Pradesh. After that, in June 2014, Telangana was carved out of Andhra and demanded fresh allocation of waters to the four states. The tribunal is yet to issue its final order.



Cauvery



States: Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry



Progress of the tribunal: Set up in 1990, the tribunal gave its verdict in 2007, which has been challenged by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The matter is in Supreme Court.



Ravi and Beas



States: Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan



Progress of the tribunal: The tribunal was established in 1986 and gave its report the following year but Punjab in 2004 passed an Act terminating all water-sharing agreements with its neighbours, which the President referred to the Supreme Court, where the state is now fighting. Haryana, Punjab has asked for a new tribunal.



Vansadhara



States: Odisha, Andhra Pradesh



Progress of the tribunal: The tribunal was constituted in 2010 and has not reached the verdict.



Mahadayi/Mandovi



States: Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka



Progress of the tribunal: The tribunal was set up in 2010 and has not delivered its verdict. The tribunal's rejection of a plea by Karnataka to divert water from the river in July led to the violence.



Mahanadi



States: Chhattisgarh, Odisha



Progress of the tribunal: The Opposition in Odisha is demanding that a tribunal be set to address the state's concerns over Chhattisgarh's building of barrage on the river, which will reduce the river flow in Odisha.



TRIBUNALS IN THE PAST



Krishna



States: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh



Constitution and award of tribunal: Set up in 1969, the first tribunal gave its award in 1976



Narmada



States: Rajasthan, MP, Gujarat, Maharashtra



Constitution and award of tribunal: The tribunal gave its verdict in 1979, a decade after it was established.



Godavari



State: Maharashta, AP, Karnataka, MP, Odisha



Constitution and award of tribunal: Formed in 1969, the tribunal gave its award in 1980.
New Delhi: The courts came down heavily on the Centre, the Delhi government and those of the neighbouring states yet again on Thursday, on the severe levels of air pollution in the national capital.



The Delhi High Court stepped into the fray chastising the Delhi government for failing to check the situation.



Mincing no words, the court said the Delhi governments lack of action was genocide as 10,500 of Delhis people die of chronic respiratory related diseases every year.



It also, like the NGT, turned the heat on neighbouring states, especially Punjab.



Saying the state was in a denial mode, the high court pulled up Punjab for not curbing crop burning, one of the major contributors to Delhis winter smog.



Punjab has been seen as a tricky issue by environmentalists, as due to the coming elections no authority wants to penalise farmers. The court said that governments seemed concerned with vote banks and not human lives.



On the other hand, Haryana introduced fines and made crop burning a prosecutable offence. The High Court took note of that, saying there no was no significant contribution to pollution from Haryana and Rajasthan.



A bench of the National Green Tribunal, headed by its chairperson Swatanter Kumar directed that monitoring committees be set up at the central and the state levels, and that Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan should consider banning 10-year-old diesel vehicles from the roads. The bench again brought up the use of helicopters, telling states to use them to sprinkle water when the PM2.5 and PM10 levels hit the severe category.



On November 8, the NGT had questioned the Delhi government why it was using cranes to sprinkle water instead of helicopters.



Environmentalists, though, have expressed reservation on such a measure, as helicopters themselves produce a great deal of dust.



Air pollution was up for hearing in the Supreme Court too, as the apex court had asked the Centre to submit a comprehensive emergency plan for air pollution by Thursday.



However, it seemed, it could repeat its directions to the centre, once again telling it to meet all stakeholders to create such a plan.
May I appeal to all political parties in the Opposition to work together boldly against the anti-poor govt at the Centre 1/2  Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) November 10, 2016

Let us fight this political & financial anarchy together. We will be with you all 2/2  Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) November 10, 2016

Mamata Banerjee has appealed to all political parties to work together to fight what she called political and financial anarchy, upping the ante on her opposition to the new demonetization drive announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.May I appeal to all political parties in the Opposition to work together boldly against the anti-poor government at the Centre. Let us fight this political & financial anarchy together. We will be with you all, the West Bengal chief minister said in a late evening tweet.Earlier, Mamatas Trinamool Congress gave a notice in the Rajya Sabha to discuss the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes on November 16 and said it would bring an adjournment motion on the subject in the Lok Sabha on the same day."Today we gave a notice in the Rajya Sabha to discuss the issue suspending business to discuss the issue suspending business under Rule 267 on November 16," TMC leader in the Upper House Derek O'Brien said.TMC leader in the Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay said the party would bring an adjournment motion on the issue when the House meets on November 16.Derek, also the chief national spokesperson of TMC, said it was vital the black money hoarders and the corrupt were punished, but it must not be done by inconveniencing the common people and the people and the poor.He said there must be a proper action plan for the implementation of such an extensive move, which directly affects millions, especially the middle class and the poor.After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise announcement on Tuesday evening, state Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had slammed the Centre for the move and said it had resulted in a "complete disaster and chaos".
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan congratulated over the phone Donald Trump for his victory in the U.S. presidential election, Anadolu reported.

According to a Turkish presidential source, Erdogan said he believed bilateral ties would strengthen further in the coming days.

The Turkish president said Turkey and the U.S. were allies that had "mutual respect, mutual profits and shared values," the source said.

Trump and Erdogan also emphasized their determination to cooperate over regional and international issues, particularly counter-terrorism, the source added.

Erdogan later also tweeted: "I congratulate @realDonaldTrump on being elected as the 45th President of the US and look forward to further strengthening our relations."

Trump is expected to take oath of office on Jan. 20 as the 45th president of the United States.
'Wedding is a pure institution, why taint it with #BlackMoney, if you have to give Rs 1100 as shagun give it by cheque' @arunjaitley. pic.twitter.com/BnqS6KaQud  News18 (@CNNnews18) November 10, 2016

Politicians complaining about the demonetisation of the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes are exposing themselves, Union Finance Minister told News18 in an exclusive interview on Thursday.The public was happy with the governments move which will help crack down on black money used for terrorism and bribery, Jaitley said.People are willing to suffer a little inconvenience for a better future. Politicians complaining are exposing themselves, he said.Asking people not to panic, Jaitley said the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 currency notes have been in print for months. ATMs will start functioning from Thursday midnight, he said.Jaitley said the RBI's original suggestion was to bring in currency notes for Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000.The Union minister commended the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to tackle the black money menace, but said he was disappointed by the reaction of the Congress and Left parties.
Hurried donations made to nearly 100 temples and trusts and sudden spurt in cash reserves in nearly 1,000 cooperative banks and credit societies in Maharashtra after Centre's decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes have come under government's scanner, a senior state minister said on Thursday."The suspicious part of the whole rush for temple donations and opening six deposit accounts is that they were triggered immediately after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement of demonetising currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination," the minister said.The minister, who did not wish to be named, said officials have apprised the state government that there has been a surge in donations to temples immediately after the announcement."Some people have tried to secure their unaccounted cash by donating it to temples by taking its management into confidence and making receipt of such donations as anonymous donors," he said.Also Read: Indian Currency: How to Exchange Your Money A similar pattern was applied in some cooperative banks that are associated or directly controlled by politicians, he said."Some people having unaccounted cash in lakhs of rupees have managed to secure receipts of opening of fixed deposit account. It was possible because these (cooperative) banks operate locally with handful of branches and cater to local banking needs," the minister said.Also Read: Demonetisation: Centre Files Caveat, SC May Hear Plea on November 15 "In such cases, the unaccounted cash will turn into white money, if people manage to produce all valid documents.We have asked officials from departments concerned to keep a tab on any suspicious transaction, donations or deals," he said."In most of these banks, works, including issuing receipts, is done manually. As a result, some people managed to get the date of opening of the FD account, as prior to the PM's announcement. To counter such frauds, government will check the unnatural rise in the cash reserves in these banks.Also Read: C ash Clean Up: RBI Says Paucity of New Currency Notes Only Temporary They will be under scanner," the minister added.Such fraudulent transactions have taken place in over 100 temples and trusts in the state, he said, adding, action will be initiated against those guilty of colluding with the fraudsters.The government will also monitor the sudden spurt in cash reserves in the nearly 1,000 cooperative banks and credit societies in Maharashtra.Some temple managements are "close to political parties, making such transactions possible," he alleged.Also Read: Long Queues at Banks to Exchange Old Notes
Islamabad: Five Indian diplomats, who were declared persona non grata by Pakistan, left the country on Thursday, the country's top security officials and media said.



In a tit-for-tat measure, Pakistan expelled the diplomats on alleged espionage charges.



The move comes after India asked two top intelligence officials working at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi to return to their country on November 2, 2016, after an ISI officer caught by Delhi Police blew the cover off an elaborate spy ring operating out of the mission.



Speaking on conditions of anonymity, the security officials said that Pakistan on Wednesday publicised the names of the five diplomats.



A diplomatic row between Pakistan and India has erupted since October 27 after the two neighbours expelled each other's embassy staffers on charges of running spy networks.



The situation worsened when Pakistan withdrew six of its diplomats after their names were released to Indian media amid tensions over Kashmir.



Islamabad reciprocated by publishing the names of the eight diplomats. India protested the move, and what it called "factually incorrect allegations."




As Supreme Court on Thursday held as unconstitutional the 2004 law passed by the state to terminate the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal water sharing agreement with Haryana and other neighbouring states, here is a look at the controversial history over the agreement.# The Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal water sharing agreement is among Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir.# The history of this dispute dates back to Partition. After the formation of India and Pakistan, both the countries signed the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960 hence, settling for the unrestricted use of three rivers Beas, Ravi and Sutlej.# After the creation of Haryana from the old (undivided) Punjab in 1966, problems began to soar up as Punjab opposed to sharing the waters of the Ravi and Beas with Haryana, citing riparian principles, and arguing that it had no water to spare.ALSO READ: Punjab Suffers SC Setback, Congress Lawmakers Quit # The creation of Haryana from the old (undivided) Punjab in 1966 threw up the problem of giving Haryana its share of river waters.# Punjab was opposed to sharing waters of the Ravi and Beas with Haryana, citing riparian principles, and arguing that it had no water to spare.# At an inter-state meeting convened by the central government in 1955, the total calculated flow (read water) of the Ravi and Beas  15.85 million acre feet (MAF)  had been divided among Rajasthan (8 MAF), undivided Punjab (7.20 MAF) and Jammu and Kashmir (0.65 MAF)# In March 1976, a decade after the Punjab Reorganisation Act was implemented, and even as Punjab continued to protest, the Centre issued a notification allocating to Haryana 3.5 MAF out of undivided Punjabs 7.2 MAF.# On December 31, 1981, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan entered into an agreement to share between them the waters of the Ravi, the Beas and the Satluj.# The agreement also said the waters would be shared wit Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. It was agreed that Punjab would construct the Satluj-Yamuna Link canal in its state within two years.# On April 6, 1982, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had made the first dig of SYL canal at Kapori village. Major portions of the SYL canal were even completed in the 1990s at a cost of over Rs 750 crore. However, the project never got completed.# With the rise of terrorism in Punjab, the SYL canal became a sensitive issue and politicians started squabbling about water-sharing .# However, the Supreme Court, in January 2002, directed Punjab to continue digging for the SYL canal and ordered it to make the canal functional within a year. Punjab sought a review of this order. The SC dismissed the review in March 2002.
New Delhi: The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court has dismissed a petition filed against the government move to scrap old notes of the denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 and observed that demonetisation was good for the country.



Meanwhile, Supreme Court will hear another petition in this regard on November 15. The PIL has been filed by a lawyer from Uttar Pradesh who termed the government move arbitrary and a huge inconvenience to the public.



The petition filed at the Madras High Court had sought a stay on the dramatic decision announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday night that the government was scrapping with immediate effect the existing currency denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 to combat black money, corruption and terror-financing.



The petition filed by the political party Indian National League had argued that the move affects basic needs of people. It also asked for more cash counters in public places.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to the Foreign Office to protest over alleged ceasefire violations and use of artillery by the Indian forces, saying that such weaponry had been used after 13 years.



Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry summoned Bambawale and condemned the "unprovoked ceasefire violations on the LOC and the Working Boundary," said a statement issued by the Foreign Office this evening.



"He deplored the use of artillery by the Indian Forces in Shahkot and Jura sectors on the LoC on November 9, 2016 and highlighted that such weaponry had been used after 13 years, reflecting Indias intention to further escalate tensions and undermine regional peace and security," the statement said.



The Foreign Secretary observed that the "indiscriminate firing and shelling from the Indian side deliberately targeting villages and civilian populated areas" has resulted in the death of 26 civilians in the last two months, it said.



It said 107 people were also injured.



The statement said the UN Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has the UN mandated responsibility for maintaining peace and tranquility at the LoC and the Working Boundary.



"While Pakistan is fully cooperating and providing full access to UNMOGIP, we urge India to permit the UNMOGIP to visit and observe the LoC and the Working Boundary," it said.



The Foreign Secretary urged India to investigate the continued incidents of "unprovoked ceasefire violations" on the LoC and the Working Boundary and ensure respect for the 2003 Ceasefire Understanding, in letter and spirit, it added.



Foreign Office had summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh yesterday for the sixth time in over two weeks for alleged ceasefire violations.



On October 27, the Foreign Secretary had summoned Bambawale to foreign ministry and conveyed the decision of the Government of Pakistan to declare an Indian High Commission official as "persona non-grata".
Bangkok: En route to Japan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday made a surprise stopover in the Thai capital to pay his respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illness.



Prime Minister Modi will lay a wreath and pay final respects to the late King Bhumibol, whose body is lying in state at the Grand Palace complex.



Modi was received at the airport by Thai Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith. Bhumibol, the world's longest ruling monarch, died aged 88 on October 13. He was adored by many of his subjects and seen as an anchor of stability in a kingdom rocked by turbulent politics.



A one-year mourning period had been announced in Thailand following the monarch's death.



Thousands of Thais are still streaming into the gates of Bangkok's Grand Palace to pay their respects to the late King. After laying the wreath, Modi will head to Japan for a three-day visit during which the two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in areas like trade, investment and security.
New Delhi: Asha Bamba, 69, is a cancer patient and needs spinal surgery. She travelled with daughter Poonam all the way from Karnal in Haryana to Noida's Fortis Hospital for the surgery. But despite reaching the hospital at 10 am, Asha's surgery did not begin even at 3:30 pm. The reason? All the cash they had was of the wrong kind.



"We had Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with us. The hospital refused to take them. They made it clear  they needed the money first and then only would they perform the surgery. It took us and our relatives back home in Karnal hours to arrange for an online transaction of more than Rs 1 lakh to the hospital. My mother is still awaiting surgery. The government should have made it compulsory for private hospitals to accept the scrapped notes," says Poonam.



Poonam and Asha are not the only ones stranded with a medical emergency without means to pay for treatment. The government has made it compulsory for state-run hospitals to accept existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Private hospitals are not bound by the order, causing significant hardship to patients and their relatives.



Just outside Fortis, more than half a dozen people shared similar stories.



DC Garg is one of them. "My brother suffered a heart attack and had to be rushed to hospital. The hospital has refused to take cash from us. Further treatment too has been stopped since we are not able to get the entire amount in cash. You tell me, how on earth will we withdraw all that money in the new currency? And from where? The banks too are giving such a limited amount."



Another patient's family member says, "We have been running from pillar to post, trying to put together the amount required to be paid to the hospital. But with the long queues outside banks and the withdrawal limits in place as well, there is hardly any option for us."



Many dont even have debit or credit cards.



Ali, a Kashmiri patient who has come for treatment here, says, "I don't have a debit card so I cannot pay them through that either. Please tell me what I should do."



Fortis on its part has issued a statement saying it has requested the government to allow them to accept old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. It also said it will not turn back any patient.



Regardless of the government's intent behind the move, those in medical emergencies have unwittingly become collateral victims of the war on black money.
The Supreme Court has struck down Punjabs unilateral abrogation of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) water-sharing agreement with Haryana and other neighbouring states, sending political temperatures soaring in the poll-bound state.

Immediately after the verdict, Congress lawmakers quit the Assembly while Congress leader Amarinder Singh resigned from the Lok Sabha and blamed Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for the mess. Hitting back, Badal termed Singhs resignation a drama. He was scheduled to chair a Cabinet meeting over the verdict at 6pm.

The state goes to the polls next year where the ruling BJP-Akali Dal combine is trying to thwart tough competition from a resurgent Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party.

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New Delhi: Demanding a NIA probe into the killing of 17 of its party workers and several activists of different Hindu organisations in Karnataka, the state unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday threatened to stage a massive protest against government apathy to nab the culprits and celebration of Tipu Sultan Jayanti in the state.



BJP urged the state government to keep a tab on the activities of jihadi elements during celebration of Tipu Sultan Jayanti scheduled on Thursday as it believes some of anti-nationals allegedly killed its party workers.



On the other hand, the state government deployed heavy police force to avoid any untoward incident. Meanwhile, leaves of all Karnataka State Reserve Police personnel have been cancelled for the week and the government has decided to deploy seven companies of central forces in sensitive areas across the state.



Accusing the Congress-led Karnataka government of playing 'vote bank' politics, the party said its workers will stage a protest wearing black band at the event.



This was conveyed to Home Minister Rajnath Singh by a delegation of Karnataka BJP leaders led by State President B S Yeddurappa and Union Minister Ananth Kumar.



"Over 17 party workers and activists from various Hindu organisations have been killed in the last one year. Some were killed during the Tipu Sultan Jayanti held at Madikeri last year. It is repeating this year as well. We have requested the Home Minister to initiate NIA probe into the killings," Yeddurappa told reporters after the meeting.



BJP worker Sunil Dongre from Bidar district is the 17th and latest murderous attack been perpetrated by jihadi forces in Karnataka. Besides, there have been six attempts to murder BJP and RSS activists, he said.



The party is the of firm view that all these murders were perpetrated by workers belonging to Popular Front of India (PFI), Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD) and Socialist Democratic Party of India (SDPI), he alleged.



In a representation made to the Home Minister, Yeddurappa claimed that the state government's move to organise Tipu Sultan Jayanti is "beginning of communalisation" in the state.



Stating that violence had erupted during the same event held at Madikeri last year, he said: "But a year elapsed, no probe has come out with the truth, either about the presence of large number of Muslim at Madikeri having come from Kerala or about the motive behind all 17 murders and six attempts to murder."



Seeking the central government's help to check activities of jihadi forces this time at the event, Yeddurappa said, "I have learnt from reliable sources that a very large number of Muslim youths in their mid-20s have entered Karnataka a few days back from Kerala and are stationed in different parts of the state ... Their conduct and behavior evokes suspicion."



"These dubious elements need to be apprehended immediately before they carry out their sinister design and nefarious activities on November 10," he said.



He also alleged that the Congress government has made all preparations to "engineer riots" during Tipu Jayanti and blame BJP and Sangh Pariwar.


Ankara, Turkey, Nov. 10

By Ahmet Ismukhan  Trend:

Five members of the Islamic State (aka IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh) terrorist group have been detained during a special operation in Turkeys Izmir province, said a message from the provinces police department Nov. 10.

The detainees were members of illegal armed groups in Iraq and Syria. The police department said in a message that operations on detaining IS members in Izmir province will continue.
New Delhi: Performers like Lucky Ali and Amit Trivedi will take to the stage at Rider's Music Festival 2016.



Scheduled to be held on December 3 and 4 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here, the festival will enthral audiences with artistes such as Abish Mathew, Kanan Gill, Hari & Sukhmani, Kutle Khan, Voctronica and Local Train.



Besides appealing to the biking community with a bike showcase, installations, wash, workshops, customisation and competition for the bikers, there will be speaker sessions from veterans like CS Santosh, Arun Thareja, Sunny (founder Xbhp) and Gaurav Gill. The festival has also been packed in with numerous attractions to entertain many from the non-biking community.



Riders Music Festival will also have grub stations and bars, karaoke along with other leisure activities including tattoo shops, graffiti, arm wrestling, paintball, gaming zone and more.


Mumbai: Actress Vidya Balan, who is busy promoting her film Kahaani 2 said the films story will connect with the masses and explained how she gets into the skin of a character in a film.



"The film has a universal story. Honestly, when I am doing something I completely enter into it and I don't think how the film will turn out," the National Award winning actress said.



Vidya, who went to radio stations on a promotion spree on Wednesday, spoke about her enjoyable experience there.



"I love radio trails a lot because RJs are very energetic and every station has something interesting happening. You don't get bored," she said.



The film Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh has been promoted in a different manner with wanted posters of the actress, who is playing the character 'Durga Rani Singh', posted in public.



Asked if she is nervous about the film she said, "I am not nervous. I have done whatever I wanted to do. Now all we can do is give our best in promotions. We are promoting the film in a different manner, which keeps my interest and energy level going."



The Hamari Adhuri Kahani actress also gave her opinion on the recent US Presidential elections.



"I supported Hillary Clinton because if a woman can become the President of America then it would be great. She is an exemplary woman and I admire her," Vidya said.



Vidya also highly supported government's decision to ban 500 and 1000 rupees notes.



"It is a very good step which will keep a check on black money. Some people will face issues but I am sure the government has some plans for them too," she said.



"Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh" is an Indian suspense-thriller film directed by Sujoy Ghosh and produced by Ghosh and Jayantilal Gada.



Featuring Vidya Balan and Arjun Rampal in lead roles, the film is a sequel to the 2012 film "Kahaani".


New Delhi: An all-party meeting will be held here on November 15 to deliberate on the agenda for the winter session of Parliament starting a day after, informed sources said here on Thursday.



The winter session -- starting on November 16 -- is expected to be stormy in view of the opposition concerns over a range of issues including sudden demonetisation of currency and alleged politicisation of the Army's surgical strikes across the Line of Control in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.



The sources said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar has convened the meeting.



During the session, the opposition is likely to target the government over the 'One Rank One Pension' issue, remarks by BJP leaders on surgical strikes and problems faced by the people in view of the government's November 8 decision to demonetise high denomination currency notes.



Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said he hoped the session will be fruitful.

"

"We are prepared to discuss various issues raised by the Opposition. We will seek to push the bills on government agenda, including those related to the Goods and Services Tax," Naqvi said.



The winter session is slated to conclude on December 16.
Lucknow: They are two big names in Indian politics and two bitter rivals. But the Modi governments decision to scrap old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes has forced Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati to join cause.



Both leaders, who would face off in a few months when Uttar Pradesh holds assembly elections, which are seen as a semifinals for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, are speaking in almost one voice to denounce the Centres demonetisation move. Both say the decision is nothing less than an undeclared emergency.



As people queued up outside banks and post offices to exchange old currency notes on Thursday, BSP chief Mayawati, followed a little later by Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, hit out at the BJP-led Centre for cancelling the legal tender of the high denomination currency notes.



Mayawati said the Prime Minister is probably trying to derive sadistic pleasure by overlooking the interests of Dalits, farmers and poor people by declaring the economic emergency. Mulayam echoed her sentiments, saying, During emergency, leaders and people were sent to jail This time around, its an undeclared emergency, in which, instead of sending people to jail, they have been virtually kept under house arrest.



While Mulayam demanded a time-bound rollback of the decision, Mayawati was more scathing in her criticism, accusing the BJP of having funded its coffers for the next 100 years before deciding to declare a ban on existing high currency notes.



Sources say electioneering of the two major political players in Uttar Pradesh will be undoubtedly hit hard by the move.



A senior BSP leader says demonetisation will a major flashpoint in the upcoming winter session of Parliament. Only time will tell if SP and BSP join forces on the floor of the House.
The Reserve Bank of India has already dismissed as  figments of imagination  rumours that a new series of Rs 2,000 will come with a GPS-chip that will help government track illegal money transactions.The Rs 2000 bill might not be the most high-tech currency note in the world, but it certainly has an image of the most, high tech thing India's ever made - Mangalyaan Why was this image chosen?Well to put it simply ISRO's contribution in exploring space and improving lives with the help of science had contributed a lot to the world in the past couple of years. Mangalyaan, was India's ambitious project to reach to the Red Planet.Now that Rs 2000 note shall find a place in your wallet soon enough, time to know ten most interesting things about India's first mission to planet Mars - Mangalyaan.Mangalyaan - Indias First ever mission to Mars is the cheapest Mars mission, ever. Costing just Rs 450 crore it was even cheaper than the cost of making the Hollywood blockbuster - Gravity. If the Indian government had to pay for it now it would require them 22,50,000 units of Rs 2,000 currency bills.The mission was also iconic because the PSLV rocket carrying Mangalyaan was developed and deployed in just 15 months.On Nov 5, 2013 India's Mangalyaan began its 300-day journey and it owes a lot to the success of the Chandrayaan-I mission that became the blueprint for this mission.This is also a symbol of modern India that's technologically advanced. Space programmes around the world including Japan and China attempted to reach to the Red planet several times but failed.Mangalyaan was the only Mars Mission that was successful in its maiden attempt. Now let's hope that the new Rs 2,000 currency bill is also successful to eradicate corruption from India in its first go.
London: Amnesty International on Wednesday urged US president-elect Donald Trump to commit to upholding human rights, criticising his "poisonous rhetoric" following the Republican candidate's election victory.



Trump has "raised serious concerns about the strength of commitment we can expect to see from the United States towards human rights in the future," said Salil Shetty, secretary general of the London-based group.



"He must now put this behind him and both reaffirm and abide by the United States' obligations on human rights, at home and abroad," Shetty said.



Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA, criticised "disturbing and, at times, poisonous rhetoric" from Trump in the campaign.



"This rhetoric cannot and must not become government policy. The xenophobic, sexist and other hateful remarks made by Trump have no place in government.



"From internment camps to the use of torture, we have seen disastrous results when those we elect to represent us flout the United States' obligations to uphold human rights," she said.



Trump "must publicly commit to upholding the human rights of all without discrimination".



During a bitter two-year campaign that tugged at America's democratic fabric, the 70-year-old tycoon pledged to deport illegal immigrants and ban Muslims from entering the United States.
New York: A day after Donald Trump stunned America and the world by winning the presidential elections, thousands of protesters took to the streets against the Republican, yelling not my president, not today.

The chant resonated from Boston to Los Angeles, including Democratic bases of Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, CNN reported.

Many were upset that Trump upstaged Democratic rival Hillary Clinton despite garnering fewer votes than the former secretary of state.

Both Hillary and incumbent Barack Obama said they will support and work with the new president.

(With agency inputs)

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Melbourne: Australia on Thursday ratified the Paris Agreement and the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, affirming its "strong commitment" towards climate change.



The Paris and Doha Amendment, which together formalise Australia's 2030 and 2020 emission reduction targets, were tabled in the first sitting week of the new Parliament.



"The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties considered National Interest Analyses (NIA), four public hearings and almost 50 submissions before recommending that Australia ratify both treaties," Foreign Minister Julie bishop said in an official statement.



The negotiation of the Paris Agreement was a turning point in the global transition to a lower emission future and Australia was one of more than 170 countries to sign the Agreement at the United Nations in New York in April 2016.



Australia now joins 100 other countries in ratifying the Paris Agreement, which entered into force on 4 November 2016.



"Australia has a strong track record on international emissions reduction targets. We beat our first Kyoto target by 128 million tonnes and are on track to meet and beat our second Kyoto 2020 target by 78 million tonnes," she said.



Ratification of the Agreement confirms Australia's ambitious and responsible target to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, the minister said.



This target is comparable with other advanced economies and will halve our per capita emissions making it one of the highest targets in the G20 on that basis, she said.



The Australian Government is working to further reduce emissions, the statement said adding 'The Emissions Reduction Fund' has contracted 143 million tonnes of emissions reduction and by 2020 nearly a quarter of our electricity will be from renewables.



Already 15 per cent of our households use solar energy, the highest proportion in the world, she said.



"Australia's policy is to meet our international commitments on emission reduction while at the same time maintaining energy security and affordability," the minister said.


Tehran: Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said his country expects respect from the US president-elect Donald Trump for the international deal which put an end to the nuclear disputes of the Islamic republic.



"The nuclear agreement between Iran and the world powers, including the outgoing US administration, is a reflection in a UN Security Council Resolution," Rouhani was quoted as saying on Wednesday by Xinhua news agency.



The accord cannot be dismissed by one government's decision, Rouhani said referring to Trump's disapproving comments of Iran's nuclear deal during his presidential campaign.



Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is the nuclear agreement sealed between Iran and the major world powers including China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States and Germany in July 2015 and was implemented on January 16, 2016.



Rouhani stressed that the result of the US presidential election will have no impact on the Islamic republic's policies.



"Iran's policy of constructive interaction with the world and breaking up nuclear sanctions has placed Iran's economic ties with all countries on an improving and irreversible course," he said.



Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also said that the upcoming US administration should observe the country's commitments pertaining to the nuclear deal.



"Iran and the US have no political relations, but the US must carry out what it has undertaken as an international multilateral commitment in the JCPOA," said Zarif.
Tokyo: India and Japan will ink about 12 pacts and possibly sign a crucial civil nuclear deal on Friday after wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Shinzo Abe aimed at giving a fillip to the bilateral strategic relations.



"Looking forward to fruitful deliberations that will boost economic and cultural ties between India and Japan," tweeted Modi, who arrived here after a brief stopover in Thai capital Bangkok to pay respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illnes.



He also tweeted in Japanese along with his arrival picture.



At their annual Summit, Modi and Abe will discuss ways to enhance ties in a broad range of areas, including security, trade and investment, skill development and infrastructure development.



He will address Japanese business leaders during his two days of official programme here and in Kobe.



Ahead of his visit, Modi said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo on November 11.



"I will have detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties," he said.



After the Summit talks, about 12 pacts will be signed by the two sides, sources said, adding these would cover areas like skill development, cultural exchanges and infrastructure.



Amid high expectations about the civil nuclear deal being signed tomorrow, the two sides were in the process of concluding the negotiations, sources said here today.



The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abe's visit to India last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.



Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week. When specifically asked whether the pact will be signed during Modi's visit, he only said, "I cannot pre-judge outcome of the talks."



Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two sides have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.



In Tokyo, Modi will also have an audience with Japanese Emperor Akihito. He will also meet some opposition and other political leaders.



From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway.

He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed trains are manufactured.



"Our partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order," Modi had said in his pre-departure statement.
Ankara, Turkey, Nov. 10

By Ahmet Ismukhan  Trend:

Turkey should be a top priority in US foreign policy, a top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday in an article that slammed Barack Obama for failing to understand Ankara's geopolitical position, the Daily Sabah newspaper reported Nov. 10.

We must begin with understanding that Turkey is vital to US interests, retired Gen. Michael Flynn wrote for the Hill newspaper. He also called Turkey a source of stability in the region.

Flynn was a key national security adviser to Trump during his presidential campaign and is expected by many to be appointed to a Cabinet position, possibly as defense secretary.

The veteran general wrote that it was an unwise policy for the Obama administration to keep Ankara at arms length.

We need to adjust our foreign policy to recognize Turkey as a priority. We need to see the world from Turkey's perspective, he wrote.

Noting the extradition request by Turkey of Gulenist Terror Group (FETO) leader, Fetullah Gulen, as one of the key points of contention between Washington and Ankara, Flynn suggested the US handover Gulen.

Earlier, Turkeys Prime Minister Binali Yildirim congratulated the newly elected US president Donald Trump and called on him to facilitate the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, who is accused of involvement in the July 15 military coup attempt in Turkey.

Gulen and his movement have a negative impact on the relations between Ankara and Washington, he noted.

I am confident that if the US extradites Gulen in the shortest possible period, a new page will be opened in our relations, added Yildirim.

Earlier, the Turkish Ministry of Justice officially requested the US to arrest Fethullah Gulen. In addition, the Turkish authorities sent two requests to the US for Gulens extradition. Prior to that, the Istanbul Court released an order to arrest Gulen.

On July 15 evening, Turkish authorities said a military coup attempt took place in the country. Meanwhile, a group of servicemen announced about transition of power to them. However, the rebelling servicemen started to surrender July 16 and Turkish authorities said the coup attempt failed.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said the death toll as a result of the military coup attempt stood at 246 people, excluding the coup plotters, and over 2,000 people were wounded.

He also declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20. The state of emergency was prolonged for 90 more days on Oct. 3.
New York: Some of the most controversial proposals Donald Trump made while running for US president were gone from his campaign website by Thursday, including his call to ban Muslims from entering the country and his promise to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement.



The link to his December 7 proposal titled: "Donald J. Trump statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration," in which he called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" vanished, along with his list of his potential Supreme Court justice picks as president and certain details of his economic, defense and regulatory reform plans.



The Trump campaign did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment on the website changes.



The links, which now redirect readers to a campaign fundraising page, appear to have been removed around Election Day on Tuesday, when Trump won a historic upset against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, according to a website that records historic snapshots of web pages.



MUSLIMS



In an appearance on CNBC on Thursday, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal praised Trump for removing the Muslim ban proposal from his website and also said Trump had deleted statements offensive to Muslims from his Twitter account.



Several tweets attacking Muslims that Trump sent while campaigning for president remained in his feed on Thursday, however, including a March 22 tweet in which Trump wrote:



"Incompetent Hillary, despite the horrible attack in Brussels today, wants borders to be weak and open-and let the Muslims flow in. No way!"



A November 30, 2015 tweet from a supporter which Trump quoted in a tweet of his own repeated the claim that Muslims celebrated the attacks of September 11, 2001, and suggested Trump include footage of the celebrations in his political ads.



At a news conference with other civil rights leaders on Thursday, Samer Khalaf, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the group was still worried about Trump's policies' effects on Muslims.



"We thank him for removing those words," Khalaf said, referring to the Muslim ban proposal, "but you know what, words are one thing, actions are something totally different."



DELETIONS



Most of Trump's core policy positions remained on his website, including his central immigration promise to build an "impenetrable physical wall" on the border with Mexico and make Mexico pay for its construction.



It was not the first time the Trump campaign has made unexplained changes to its site. The campaign this year also replaced the part of the site describing Trump's healthcare policy with a different version. When contacted about it by Reuters in September, the campaign put the original page back up.




Paris: French President Francois Hollande congratulated Donald Trump on his victory in the US presidential election, but warned that the American vote would open a period of uncertainty.



"I congratulate him as is natural between two democratic heads of state," Xinhua news agency quoted Hollande as saying on Wednesday.



"This American election opens a period of uncertainty, that showed the necessity of a strong France, and a united Europe, capable of making itself heard wherever its interests are challenged," he added.



In a televised address, the French president said France would be frank and vigilant in talks with the new American administration as "what is at stake is peace".



As French presidential election is approaching in a context of growing public disappointment, Hollande said US mirrored "concerns that are provoked by the world's disorders."
Istanbul: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has telephoned Donald Trump to congratulate the triumphant US president-elect, as Ankara expressed hope for a new start in relations that were strained considerably under the presidency of Barack Obama.



The warm reception from Ankara for Trump's stunning win came as the two key NATO allies seek to overcome disputes ranging from Syria to the extradition of the alleged mastermind of the July 15 failed Turkish coup.



Erdogan swiftly telephoned Trump to pass on his congratulations and wish him success, the Turkish presidency said in a statement yesterday.



The pair expressed their commitment to strengthening bilateral relations and continue cooperation on regional and international issues, including the "fight against terrorism", the statement added.



Erdogan has in the past lambasted the Islamophobia that Trump's critics have accused the tycoon of espousing.



Trump caused consternation in December 2015 by mooting a ban on all Muslims travelling to the United States.



But Erdogan had said in a speech in Ankara earlier that "a new era is beginning" in the United States with Trump's victory after two terms of Democrat-held presidency.



He expressed hope the election of Trump "will help the taking of good steps regarding rights and freedoms in the world and also developments in the region."



Prime Minister Binali Yildirim earlier also congratulated Trump but also urged the president-elect to as soon as possible extradite the US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara accuses of masterminding the coup bid. Gulen denies the charges.



"If you extradite in a short time the head of a terror organisation who has damaged our historic friendship, I am sure that you can give Turkish-US relations a new start and open a new page," Yildirim said.



American authorities are studying the evidence against Gulen provided by Turkey before deciding on extradition. The slowness of the process has caused frustration in Ankara.



US-Turkish relations have worsened since the July 15 coup, which some ruling party figures even suggested Washington had a hand in instigating. (AFP)
White evangelicals voted in high numbers for Donald Trump, 81 percent to 16 percent, according to exit poll results. Thats the most they have voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004, when they overwhelmingly chose President George W. Bush by a margin of 78 percent to 21 percent.

Their support for Trump likely will be seen as part of the reason the GOP candidate performed unexpectedly well in Tuesdays election, according to the polling aggregation website Five Thirty Eight.

White evangelicals long have had an alliance with the Republican Party, cemented after Jerry Falwell Sr.s Moral Majority allied with Ronald Reagan prior to his election as president. His son and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. followed in his footsteps in supporting Trump early.

My dad led the way to say hey, were not electing a Sunday school teacher. Were electing a president, and what matters is his positions on the issues, Falwell told The News & Advance Wednesday. I felt like I was saying a lot of the same things this time.

Falwell, who was present at the New York Hilton Midtown Manhattan Hotel when Trump gave his victory speech early Wednesday, was a member of Trumps Evangelical Executive Advisory Board and has talked about being in touch with Trump throughout the campaign. He was an early endorser and consistent defender. Just days before Election Day Falwell recorded a radio ad to be played on Christian radio stations in battleground states, including Virginia.

When asked about his role, Falwell said many people in the ballroom Wednesday told him his endorsement validated Trump as a legitimate candidate that evangelicals and conservatives could support. He said later he didnt think his contribution was as significant as others were saying.

Evangelical support for Trump, a thrice-married, casino-building businessman, was puzzling to some. For instance, leaders like Focus on the Family founder James Dobson who has long opposed gambling, ended up supporting him once he became the GOP Party nominee. Clinton is a churchgoing United Methodist who taught Sunday school and, as a senator, attended weekly prayer breakfasts.

The national media misunderstood not only Trump supporters but evangelicals in particular, Falwell said.

I think the Christians I know are not moralistic. Theyre the most forgiving people in the world. They understand that all of us are sinners. Thats one of the big points that the press missed, Falwell said. ... I understand how evangelicals think. Its just part of our theology that were supposed to forgive.

Trumps support from evangelicals could be explained at least in part by their deep dislike for Clinton. According to a Post-ABC poll in October, 70 percent of white evangelicals held an unfavorable view of Clinton, compared with 55 percent of the public overall who say the same thing.

Clinton has symbolized much of what evangelicals have tended to oppose, including abortion rights advocacy and feminism. As first lady, she is tied to conservative Christian loss of culture war battles during Bill Clintons presidency.

Evangelicals also play prominently in swing states like Florida, where they are anticipated to make up 20 percent of the states votes. There they polled 85-13 percent.

Trumps candidacy has caused a huge divide among evangelical leaders, but evangelical voters coalesced around him as a presidential candidate, many citing his promise to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Ahead of Tuesdays election, evangelicals warred among themselves over whether Trump would be a good president. The debate became especially fierce after a video of Trumps crude comments toward women was published, and evangelical women began to speak out.

Trumps candidacy led to divisions within different evangelical camps. Falwell Jr.s endorsement of Trump caused some division on his own campus. Prominent evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem endorsed Trump, pulled back his endorsement after the video tapes came out, then re-endorsed him.

Trumps support from Grudem and Eric Metaxas, an author of a popular biography and radio host, gave conservative evangelicals language to support the GOP candidate. And evangelical leaders from whats considered the Religious Right also continued to back him, including Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins and Ralph Reed, among others.
NEW YORK  Over the span of just a few hours late Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning, Tim Kaine went from the odds-on favorite to be the next vice president of the United States back to his day job.

Once again, he is one of Virginias U.S. senators  and the guy responsible for dry cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping and taking out the trash at his home on Confederate Avenue in Richmond.

Hours before the black SUV of Secret Service agents pulled into the driveway of his home on Richmonds North Side to drop him off  and leave his side  for the first time in 106 days, Kaine rose the day after Election Day in his Manhattan hotel suite knowing hed have to do something hed never done before in 22 years in elected politics: deliver a concession speech.

Technically, that speech was Hillary Clintons to give, following the Democratic presidential nominees shocking and historic loss to Republican Donald Trump.

It fell to Kaine, who had never lost an election in eight previous tries, to introduce the former secretary of state at a late-morning appearance before supporters. A day earlier, both candidates had hoped to deliver a message on how they would govern the nation over the next four years.

Kaine, with wife, Anne Holton, by his side on stage in the ballroom of the New Yorker hotel in Midtown, first thanked Clinton for inviting him on this wild ride.

The Virginia senator, operating on just a few hours of sleep, had a rasp in his voice, worn down from 105 days of campaigning.

Kaine noted that in July, about a week before Clinton asked him to join the Democratic ticket, he and Holton joined Clinton, her husband and family in Westchester, N.Y., for a three-hour conversation about whether he would be a good fit for the Democratic ticket.

When they got in the car that day to head back to the airport, Kaine recalled, he told his wife: Honey, I dont know whether were going to be on this ticket or not, but I do know this: Were going to remember that three hours for the rest of our life.

Kaine hailed Clintons amazing accomplishment of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major American political party and said he is proud of Hillary because she loves this country.

He delivered his remarks in a subdued tone, but was far from submissive in defeat.

Nobody had to wonder about Hillary Clinton  whether she would accept an outcome of an election in our beautiful democracy, he said in a veiled shot at Trump, who had raised the possibility that he would not accept the results of the election if he had lost.

Kaine said he and Clinton know well the wisdom and the words of William Faulkner  he said, They killed us, but they aint whupped us yet. 

In Virginia, at least, Kaine and fellow Democrats demonstrated resiliency. By a margin of roughly 5 percentage points, the commonwealth went blue for the third presidential election in a row. Clinton won 78 percent of the vote in Kaines adopted hometown of Richmond.

Kaine returns to the Senate arguably a more powerful and nationally known political figure ahead of his re-election campaign in 2018.

Kaine has never lost an election, and technically he didnt lose this one  Hillary Clinton did, said Larry Sabato, head of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Turnout will be lower in 2018, which can be good for the GOP, but by 2018, the Trump administration will have accumulated some controversies, and the out-of-power party usually does well, he continued.

If Kaine wins re-election in 2018, Sabato said, he might consider his own presidential bid in 2020.

Or he could go back to Plan A: build up expertise and fellowship in the Senate, much as John Warner did for decades, Sabato noted, referring to the Republican who represented Virginia in the U.S. Senate for 30 years.

Kaine is expected to take a few days off to spend quietly with his family before returning to Washington next week when Congress is back in session.

Senator Kaine looks forward to getting back to work for Virginians in the Senate on the issues hes been fighting for since he took office nearly four years ago, said Kaine spokeswoman Amy Dudley.

In her remarks, Clinton thanked Kaine and told supporters that it gave her hope to know Kaine will be on the front lines to defend their shared priorities during the next administration.

Friends, acquaintances, and current and former staff members said that Kaine, while keenly competitive and disappointed with the loss, will appreciate returning to a private and public life that is less managed and dictated by campaign headquarters, and will no longer feature restaurant sweeps by the Secret Service and motorcades to the dry cleaner.

Hikes, breakfast with friends, camping trips and a trip to the local craft brewery in Richmond will get easier for a guy who has always been known as Tim to his neighbors  more Citizen, than Senator, Kaine.

That doesnt mean there wasnt plenty of heartache for Clinton and Kaine supporters late Tuesday and into Wednesday.

Neither Kaine nor Clinton ever made it to the Jacob J. Javits Center on Tuesday, site of the planned Democratic victory party. It was to be held on a blue carpeted stage shaped like the country. The stage was positioned under what was literally a glass ceiling covering the large open convention space.

As the night wore on, the crowd, which numbered in the thousands, grew quiet and transfixed as the big screen behind the stage broadcast what Clinton supporters considered grim news. By the time the race was called after 2 a.m., workers had already packed up the confetti cannons that were to have blasted pastel plastic strips into the air, signaling victory.

Reporters caught up with Cher, one of a handful of celebrity attendees, as she left the center. I feel like there has been a death in my family, she said.

Meanwhile, at the InterContinental Hotel where Kaine stayed, a planned victory party in the Gotham Room for family, friends and campaign workers, complete with large photo displays of Kaine over the past 100 days on the trail, turned into a political wake.

It subsided around 3 a.m. before a handful of attendees ambled down the street to a bar. There, they joined scores of soon-to-be unemployed Clinton campaign workers, who commiserated over drinks, while boxes of just-opened Hillary for America T-shirts and jackets sat ignored in the corner.

The morning brought more mourning and tears from supporters gathered in the New Yorker ballroom as a steady drizzle rained down on the city from gray skies.

A couple of hours later, Kaine was on his way to the airport, having performed his last official duty as Clintons vice presidential nominee, and headed back home to Richmond, where he has plenty to do.
The Dalai Lama is a highly regarded spiritual leader in Mongolia, a predominantly Buddhist nation. (Photo : Getty Images)

A bilateral meeting between Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was cancelled on Sunday in what has been interpreted as China's protest to President Andrej Kiska's lunch with the Dalai Lama in October earlier this year.



Premier Li was among 16 delegates from Eastern and Central Europe in the Latvian capital of Riga for the 16+1 summit, but his entourage abruptly called off the meeting with Fico scheduled before the event, according to the South China Morning Post.



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In response, the prime minister said that China-Slovakia relations between Slovakia and China had been "damaged" and must be repaired before any future products between the two countries could be pursued.



The move is seen as a deliberate snub by Beijing towards the Slovak government after it welcomed the Dalai Lama during his European tour last month.



The exiled Tibetan leader's visit included a talk with members of the Tibetan community in Europe, a popular public lecture on "Secular Ethics," and a meal with the Slovak president where the two reportedly discussed topics ranging from "promoting greater understanding of other's differences to religious intersectionality," the Shanghaiist said in a report.



China was quick to express its disapproval of the meeting, accusing Kiska of undermining the relations between the two countries by supporting the 14th Dalai's separatist agenda. The Chinese government also warned that it would "react accordingly" in response to the Slovakian government's actions.



Numerous celebrities and world leaders have gone afoul with China for interaction with the Tibetan spiritual leader. A 2014 meeting between the Dalai Lama and U.S. President Barack Obama provoked outrage from Beijing, saying that Washington was "interfering with China's internal affairs."



Over the past several years, musicians including Selena Gomez, Bon Jovi, and Maroon 5 have had their concerts and tour dates in mainland China scrapped over pictures and social media posts linking them to the Dalai Lama.



More recently, Lady Gaga drew condemnation from the Chinese government after appearing in a Facebook video together with the 14th Dalai to discuss the concept of kindness.



Since being exiled from Tibet following a failed uprising in 1959, the Dalai Lama has been a cultural and religious icon whom China has accused of being a "wolf in monk's clothing."



According to Beijing, the Dalai Lama's continued advocacy for more Tibetan autonomy is a direct political threat to the Communist Party's control over the region.


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American Airlines is the third American carrier to be granted direct China flights by the U.S. government. (Photo : Getty Images)

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has awarded American Airlines on Monday a new flight between Los Angeles and the Chinese capital of Beijing.



The decision was made between the American Airlines and Delta Airlines, with the latter also in the bidding for the daily round-trip nonstop route between the two cities, the DOT said in a press release.



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The DOT said there were not enough frequencies available to satisfy the demand of both American and Delta so only one application was approved.



The new flight is included to the two existing flights between the U.S. west coast and Beijing, which are the Seattle flight by Delta Airlines and United Airline's San Francisco flight.



The decision caps an intense scramble between American and Delta for an additional flight between Los Angeles and Beijing in a bid to strengthen their operations in the American west coast.



Delta said in a DOT filing that it has a 9 percent share of the seats to Beijing--including codeshare flights--compared to just 15 percent for American and 75 percent for United.



American Airlines argued in its filing that Delta already retains a significant advantage over in U.S.-Chinese flight competition, as Delta and its Chinese partners, China Eastern and China Southern, handle nearly twice as much traffic between the U.S. and China as it and the American Airlines China partner, Hainan Airlines, combined.



According to the DOT, allowing a third U.S. airliner would foster competition into the lucrative market bolstered by the large Chinese population residing in the western coastal states of California and Washington.



The U.S.-China market remains tightly regulated, with more airliners seeking to fly to China's major cities that both governments will allow. Currently, the U.S. only allows 154 flights to Beijing and Shanghai.



Those who are opposed to awarding American the flight have until Nov. 22 to file their respective comments before the DOT before it hands down its final decision, according to Reuters.


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(Newser)  Mexico's leaders say they're willing to work with Donald Trumpbut they're still not paying for his border wall. Paying for a wall is "out of our vision," and "the vision that we have is a vision of integration, of how Mexico and the United States working together are more competitive," Mexican Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu said early Wednesday, per the New York Times. President Enrique Pena Nietowho claimed to have told Trump he wouldn't pay for the wall when the Republican visited Mexico in Augustsaid he had called Trump to congratulate him and he welcomed the president-elect's promise to find "common ground" with other countries.

But whether common ground can be found or not, analysts predict that hard times lie ahead for Mexico after Trump's win, Reuters reports. The peso plunged after the election result amid fears that Trump's plan to renegotiate or dump NAFTA would wreck the country's economy. Ironically, a worsening economy in Mexico could drive many people north of the border after years in which more Mexicans have returned to their homeland than have crossed the border illegally to work. "You generate an economic crisis in Mexico, and all of those gains we have seen in terms of zero migration go down the tubes," former Mexican lawmaker Agustin Barrios Gomez tells the Times. (Read more Donald Trump stories.)
Filipino fishermen may look forward to brighter days as improvement in PH-China relations eases tension at the disputed shoal. (Photo : Getty Images)

Two ships of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), BRP Tubbataha and MCS 3010, are now patrolling the Scarborough Shoal. And, China, who has exercised control over this disputed shoal since 2012, does not seem to mind now.



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The ships arrived at Scarborough, which is Huangyan to the Chinese and Panatag Shoal to the Philippines, on November 5 after an instruction from the country's Department of Transportation (DOT).



According to PCG commandant Rear Admiral William Melad, DOT Secretary Arthur Tugade ordered the PCG to patrol the area. Melad confirmed on Monday that the ships have started patrolling on Saturday and that more vessels will be deployed in the future.



When asked whether there were Chinese coast guard vessels within the area and if there had been any interaction, he did not give any more details, saying that he has no clearance to disclose such information and has yet to make an official report.



But Melad related that the PCG has seen on Saturday a Filipino fishing boat.



Local news in the Philippines reported that the fishermen who had gone to the shoal returned with a very good catch.



Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte seemed to have kept his word when he said after his state visit in China that the Filipino fishermen can already venture again in the shoal.



With the Philippine Coast Guard's resumed patrol and the fishermen's return in the disputed South China Sea and without any harassment from the Chinese, PH-China relations may be easing up.



Even if there is still no agreement between the two countries, Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay of the Philippines said that he hopes these improvements were influenced by a silent diplomacy that strengthens trust and confidence between his country and China.


(Newser)  This is a good time to be in the wall-building business: Shares in Israeli firm Magal Security System, which helped build the wall around Gaza and many other barriers around the world, jumped around 6% Wednesday in the wake of Donald Trump's surprise election victory, the Independent reports. Trump has promised to build a wall along the border with Mexico and make Mexico pay for it, though Mexico says the latter part of that promise isn't going to happen.

In August, Magal chief Saar Koursh made it clear he was hoping to get the Trump contract. "The border business was down, but then came ISIS and the Syrian conflict," he told Bloomberg. "The world is changing and borders are coming back big-time." MarketWatch reports that prison stocks were another big winner Wednesday, with Corrections Corp. of America up 43%, possibly because investors believe Trump will scrap Obama's plan to phase out private federal prisons. Gun shares, however, were down, which analysts say was because Trump isn't expected to tighten gun control laws, meaning nobody is in a big hurry to stock up on firearms. (Read more Donald Trump stories.)
(Newser)  US Central Command says airstrikes in Iraq and Syria have killed at least 64 civilians during the past year, more than doubling the number of civilian deaths since renewed operations began in 2014, reports the Washington Post. On Wednesday, the Department of Defense released an official statement describing the review process and providing a list of deadly airstrikes. The figure of 64 is in addition to the government's previous estimate of 55, bringing the official number of civilians killed since 2014 to 119. Human rights groups say the actual figure is higher.

"Sometimes civilians bear the brunt of military action, said CentCom spokesman Col. John J. Thomas. "But we do all we can to minimize those occurrences, even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time." The military undertook its review of the air campaign after rights groups accused the US of a low count over the summer. As pressure built, CentCom re-examined 257 airstrikes and determined that at least 31 resulted in accidental collateral damage, reports the New York Times. (Read more civilian casualties stories.)
(Newser)  Despite recent gains for the LGBT community in the US and Europe, same-sex marriage remains banned throughout Asia. But that could soon change. Three bills in the works in Taiwan under the leadership of its first female head of state, who expressed support for same-sex marriage just last monthwould make Taiwan the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage if passed, reports AP. One of the bills is listed for parliamentary review and could become law within months. "It's a big step forward for the history of human rights," says a ruling Democratic Progressive Party MP, who's sponsoring the bill up for review. "If Taiwan can get this passed  it will give other Asian countries a model."

Same-sex marriage appears less controversial in Taiwan as in some countries in the region partly because Buddhist teachings and traditional Chinese religions dont take a strong stance on the issue, explains AP. A 2012 survey found 55% of Taiwanese supported same-sex marriage, with 37% opposed. The approval rate spikes to 80% among those 20 to 29, says an LGBT advocacy group. The push for laws in Taiwan gained momentum this year after the death of a professor, reports the Telegraph. He is believed to have killed himself upon the death of his gay partner because he was denied legal claim to their property. Gay couples raising kids without an official union feel a similar stress. "Now, if something happens to the child, the other partner is nothing but a stranger," says one mother of 5-month-old twins. (Read more Taiwan stories.)
(Newser)  Apparently when Amy Schumer saying she's going to leave the country if Donald Trump is elected president was a joke, but other people saying the same thing is a serious matter. The comedian went on a rant against such people Wednesday on Instagram, first clarifying that she said she might move "in jest" before moving on to say that "anyone saying pack your bags is just as disgusting as anyone who voted for this racist homophobic openly disrespectful woman abuser." The rant, which went on to decry those who voted for Trump as "weak," was posted next to a popular Trump meme in which Trump supposedly called Republicans "the dumbest group of voters in the country." Trump actually never said those words, a fact Schumer acknowledged to conclude her rant: "Yes this quote is fake but it doesn't matter."

As Us Weekly reports, Schumer said in an interview with the BBC in September that she was considering moving to Spain should Trump win, and that "my act will change because Ill need to learn to speak Spanish." Click for nine more celebrities who made similar vows. (Read more Amy Schumer stories.)
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

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Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low near 0F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..

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Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low near 0F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
Alibaba's Singles' Day is the biggest online shopping event of the year. (Photo : Getty Images)

China's business watchdog has warned the country's top e-commerce sites against employing dubious selling tactics as the biggest one-day shopping festival inches closer, Reuters wrote.



The State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) reportedly met with leading Chinese e-commerce firms, including Alibaba, Baidu, JD.com and Tencent Holdings, to warn them "against selling fakes, falsifying sales figures and engaging in other fraudulent practices."



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Dubbed as the "Singles' Day" festival, the annual event promises hefty discounts for buyers and is expected to pull in billions of dollars in sales, making it "a barometer for the e-commerce industry and consumer economy in China."



"The SAIC will strengthen market supervision ... monitor and manage online marketplaces according to law, and together with the majority of industry players jointly create an online market environment of fair competition and an environment for online consumption that is safe and secure," the agency said in a statement gathered by Reuters.



In response to the media, a spokesman at JD.com said, "Our commitment to quality products and service has always been a key differentiator for us in this market and we employ additional resources for major sales to keep that promise even during the busiest periods."



Meanwhile, Alibaba also guaranteed consumers that it does not tolerate malpractices by its suppliers.



"Infringing merchants are subject to a range of penalties including the permanent closure of their storefront," the Jack Ma-owned company said.



The Singles' Day festival is one of the world's biggest e-shopping events, even outstripping the combined sales of Cyber Monday and Black Friday in the U.S.



Alibaba's Singles' Day numbers crossed the $14 billion mark in 2015 and are seen to balloon this year.



The festival, however, has been mired in controversies involving fraudulent advertisements and shady statistics. SAIC's warning also comes amid issues questioning Alibaba's accounting practices, with some groups doubting whether the numbers released by the e-commerce giant were accurate.



As of last year, online deals only accounted for 10 percent of China's overall retail sales. But government officials remained optimistic as they see this segment "growing very fast," said HSBC economist Xiaoping Ma via The New York Times.



"That will have significant future implications," Xiaoping added.


Executive producers Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen attend the Premiere of Netflix's 'Stranger Things' at Mack Sennett Studios on July 11, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Alberto E. Rodriguez)

Production is underway for Netflix's "Stranger Things" Season 2. Recently, director Shawn Levy offered some new details for the upcoming season.



In a Q&A with Collider, Levy confirmed that the production for "Stranger Things" Season 2 has already started in Atlanta. He added that the next season will consist of nine episodes instead of the eight episodes in Season 1.



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Levy told the publication that "Stranger Things" Season 2 has no final release date yet and stressed that viewers should not expect an early release. He stated that there is no way the second season will hit the airwaves in July 2017.



Nonetheless, Levy teased the thematic storyline of "Stranger Things" Season 2. It is said that the next season will be set in 1984, nearly a year after the shocking events of the first season.



"Stranger Things" Season 2 is expected to explore the bigger mythology of Will Byers' (Noah Schnapp) sudden disappearance. Avid viewers may recall Will vanished mysteriously after he encountered the Monster in the first season.



"Will Byers was in that Upside Down for a while," said Levy. "So Season 2 is about this determined desire to return to normalcy in Hawkins, in the Byers family, in that group of friends, and it's the struggle to reclaim normalcy and maybe the impossibility of it."



The Netflix series is also adding big names such as Paul Reiser, Sean Astin, and Linnea Berthelsen in "Stranger Things" Season 2, Variety reported. Reiser will play a Department of Energy executive, Dr. Owens, who is entrusted with containing the tragic events of the first season.



Astin will play the former schoolmate of Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), Bob Newby, who now runs the Hawkins' Radio Shack. Lastly, Berthelsen will portray a damaged woman, Roman, who have connections to Hawkins and the research lab that started all the strange events.



Premiered on July 15, "Stranger Things" Season 1 averaged around 14.07 million adults from ages 18 to 49. It received highly positive reviews from critics because of its unique storyline and homages to 1980s genre films.



Watch Netflix's "Stranger Things" Season 1 here:






Islamabad:

Pakistani security officials say five more Indian diplomats have returned to their country amid deepening diplomatic row.

The two officials said on Wednesday that these five Indian diplomats were among eight diplomats, whose names were publicized by Pakistan, which said they were spies.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. A diplomatic row between Pakistan and India has deepened since October 27, when they each expelled an embassy staffer over espionage charge.

The situation worsened when Pakistan withdrew six of its diplomats after their names were released to Indian media amid tensions over Kashmir. Islamabad reciprocated by publishing the names of theeight diplomats. India protested the move, and what it called "factually incorrect allegations."

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

PM Narendra Modi on Thursday landed in Bangkok to pay homage to late Thai King Bhumibol, will leave for Japan later today. The two countries are expected to sign a civil nuclear deal besides discussing ways to step up cooperation in areas like trade, investment and security.

In his second visit to Japan as Prime Minister, Modi will be holding the annual Summit meeting with his counterpart Shinzo Abe and have an audience with the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo.

An eastward sojourn begins, this time for the Annual Summit with Japan. PM departs for Tokyo, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said on twitter this morning.

From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway.

He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed railway is manufactured.

I will have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties, Modi said in a statement yesterday.

The PM said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo tomorrow.

Our partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order, he added.

During the visit, the two countries are expected to sign civil nuclear cooperation agreement. The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abes visit here last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.

Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week.

Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two countries have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Tata sons has appointed Ishaat Hussain as the interim chairman of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

Hussain has replaced Cyrus Mistry who was sacked by the company management last month.

Hussain has been serving as the finance director of the company since July 2000. Earlier, he joined the board of Tata Sons as executive director in July 1999.

ALSO READ: (Cyrus Mistry plans to continue as chairman of Tata group companies, will head IHCL meet on today)

He is also a director of several Tata companies, including Tata Industries, Tata Steel and Voltas. Besides, he is the chairman of Voltas and Tata Sky.

Hussain also holds membership of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) committees on insider trading and primary capital markets. He is also a member of the Confederation of Indian Industries finance committee.

ALSO READ: (After Mistry exit, Tata now works put a new team in place)

Prior to joining Tata Sons, Hussain served as senior vice-president and executive director of finance at Tata Steel for almost 10 years. Hussain joined the board of the Indian Tube Company (a Tata Steel associate company) in 1981 and moved to Tata Steel in 1983, after Indian Tube was merged with Tata Steel.

Hussain graduated in economics from St Stephens College, New Delhi. He is a chartered accountant of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (FCA).

ALSO READ: (Cyrus Mistry's removal was 'necessary' for future success: Ratan Tata)
New York:

After the victory of Donald Trump, an advocacy organisation for "Hindu-Americans" has said it hopes that the newly elected president should focus on the issues such as Kashmir, terror fomented by radical Islam and America's ties with "nations that sponsor terrorism".

The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) congratulated the 70-year-old Republican on being elected the 45th President of the United States and said it looks forward to working with his administration to address "issues that are of deep concern to many in the Hindu-American community".

"In carrying out our nation's foreign policy, of utmost concern to HAF continues to be: gross human rights violations borne by Hindus and other religious minorities around the world, especially in countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, where radical Islam is fomenting terror and violence, Pakistan's proxy war in Kashmir and violence against Hindu minorities in Kashmir, as well as bilateral ties of the United States with nations that sponsor terrorism," the group said in a statement issued here today.

The group said it looks forward to engaging the incoming Trump-Pence administration on various economic and security issues "to ensure a safe and prosperous future for all Americans".

Encouraged by Trump's call to "bind the wounds of division", HAF expressed hope this commitment would extend to issues like monitoring and combating hate crimes, comprehensive immigration reform with specific attention to religious worker visas, equitable H-1B policy, and accommodation for Hindu refugees fleeing persecution.

The group also lauded the success of "Hindu-American" lawmakers in the 2016 elections. Joining Democrat Tulsi Gabbard in the House of Representatives are first time winners Pramila Jayapal from Washington State, Ro Khanna from California and Raja Krishnamoorthi from Illinois.

Other Indian-Americans also made significant strides in state-level races, including Niraj Antani, a Republican from Ohio and Prasad Srinivasan from Connecticut along with Jay Chaudhuri of North Carolina and Ash Kalra of California, who were elected as first time winners in their respective state legislatures.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Washington:

Scientists have discovered a huge magmatic lake, 15 kilometres below a dormant volcano in South America, a finding that could unlock why and how volcanoes erupt.

The body of water - which is dissolved into partially molten rock at a temperature of almost 1,000 degrees Celsius -is the equivalent to what is found in some of the world's giant freshwater lakes, such as Lake Superior.

The finding by researchers from University of Bristol in the UK and colleagues has led scientists to consider ifsimilar bodies of water may be 'hiding' under other volcanoes and could help explain why and how volcanoes erupt.

"The Bolivian Altiplano has been the site of extensive volcanism over past 10 million years, although there are nocurrently active volcanoes there," said Professor Jon Blundy, who was part of the project at Cerro Uturuncu volcano in the Bolivian Altiplano.

"The Altiplano is underlain by a large geophysical anomaly at depths of 15 km below the surface of Earth."This anomaly has a volume of one-and-a-half million cubic kilometres or more and is characterised by reduced seismic wave speeds and increased electrical conductivity.

This indicates the presence of molten rock," said Blundy."The rock is not fully molten, but partially molten. Onlyabout 10 to 20 per cent of the rock is actually liquid; the rest is solid. The rock at these depths is at a temperature ofabout 970 degrees Celsius," he said.

In order to characterise the partially molten region the team performed high temperature and pressure experiments atthe University of Orleans in France.This measured the electrical conductivity of the molten rock in the 'anomalous' region and concluded that there mustbe about eight to ten per cent of water dissolved in the silicate melt.

"This is a large value. It agrees with estimates made for the volcanic rocks of Uturuncu using high temperature andpressure experiments to match the chemical composition of crystals," said Blundy.

"Silicate melt can only dissolve water at high pressure; at lower pressure this water comes out of the solution andforms bubbles. Crucially - these bubbles can drive volcanic eruptions.

"The eight to ten per cent of water dissolved in the massive anomaly region amounts to a total mass of waterequivalent to what is found in some of the giant freshwater lakes of North America," Blundy said.

"Ten per cent by weight of dissolved water means that there is one molecule of water for every three molecules ofsilicate," said Professor Fabrice Gaillard at University of Orleans in the US.

"This is an extraordinarily large fraction of water, helping to explain why these silicate liquids are so electrically conductive," said Gaillard.

The researchers hope that better understanding of how water can trigger volcanic eruptions can improve predictions of when it is going to erupt.

For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New York:

With her husband Donald Trump triumphing in the US presidential polls, Melania Trump was set to become the first foreign-born First Lady of the US in almost two centuries.

46-year-old Melania will be the first foreign-born First Lady since Louisa Adams -- the wife of John Quincy Adams, the sixth US president (1825-29).



Louisa was born in London to an English mother and an American father who served as US consul, according to the White House. Till date, she was the only First Lady to be born outside the United States.

Melania, a Slovenian former model, was born in 1970 incommunist Yugoslavia. She is the daughter of Viktor Knavs, a car and motorcycle dealer and a member of the Slovenian Communist Party, and Amalija Knvas, according to media reports.

Melania began her modeling career when she was 16, and atthe age of 18 signed with a modeling agency in Milan, Italy. Melania has her own jewellery and skin care line and speaks five languages-- Slovenian, Serbian, English, Frenchand German.

She met Trump at a Fashion Week party in New York inSeptember 1998, when he was separated from his second wife Marla Marples. They were engaged in 2004, and were married in a church ceremony in Florida the following year. In March 2006, she gave birth to their son Barron.

Melania got her Green Card in 2001 after moving to the USfive years earlier and became a US citizen in 2006, a yearafter her marriage. She has insisted that she is not shy about giving her husband political advice, despite avoiding the limelight formuch of the presidential campaign. In an interview with CNN, she said, "I give him myopinions, many, many times."

"I don't agree with everything he says, but, you know,that is normal. I'm my own person, I tell him what I think.And I think that's very important in a relationship," she said. Melania had made headlines in July after she was accused of plagiarising parts of a speech made by Michelle Obama in 2008.

She had stood by Trump after video footage emerged of hisboasting about groping women. Melania is also stepmother to Donald Jr, 38, Ivanka, 34,Eric, 32, from Trump's first marriage to Ivana, and Tiffany,22, from his marriage to Marla Maples. It was a heart-break for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who was hoping to become the first woman president ofthe US, as the 70-year-old business tycoon edged past her in a see-saw battle.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

An infiltration bid was foiled by Army in north Kashmir's Baramula district on Thursday.

According to police official, One infiltrator has been killed,. The Preliminary reports suggest that the Army spotted a group of infiltrators in Uri Sector , about 100 km north of Srinagar.

Due to winter and snow fall covers in the mountain passes, security agencies are on alert as they fear more infiltration bid. Also the rising cease- fire violations by Pakistan has increased the worry of security agencies.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an announcement on Tuesday night that Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes will be discontinued. However, in his televised address to the nation, Modi assured the common people that their money remains safe. Just as the banks started rolling out new high-denomination currency notes on Thursday, people in Delhi proudly posed for photos with their prized possession.

1.Banks roll out new series of high-denomination currency notes

Just as the banks started rolling out new high-denomination currency notes on Thursday, people in Delhi proudly posed for photos with their prized possession. Two Delhi residents Rajnish and Ahmad told India News that they feel relieved to get the new currency from their bank.

2.Ishaat Hussain replaces Cyrus Mistry as interim chairman of TCS

Tata sons has appointed Ishaat Hussain as the interim chairman of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Hussain has replaced Cyrus Mistry who was sacked by the company management last month. Hussain has been serving as the finance director of the company since July 2000. Earlier, he joined the board of Tata Sons as executive director in July 1999.

3.US: Many injured in shooting during anti-Trump rally in Seattle

At least four-five people are reportedly injured in a shooting incident at an anti-Trump rally in Seattle, Washington, police said on Wednesday. Seattle Police Department said its officers are investigating the incident.

4.Army foils infiltration bid, kills one terrorist in Rampur sector of J-K

An infiltration bid was foiled by Army in north Kashmir's Baramula district on Thursday. According to police official, One infiltrator has been killed,. The Preliminary reports suggest that the Army spotted a group of infiltrators in Uri Sector , about 100 km north of Srinagar.

5.PM Modi makes a surprise stopover in Thailand to pay respects to late King Bhumibol

En route to Japan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday made a surprise stopover in the Thai capital to pay his respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illness.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Hong Jong-Hyun admits he's still in contact with After School's Nana; reveals secret behind EXO's Baekhyun popularity

South Korean actor Hong Jong-Hyun plays 3rd Prince Wang Yo in SBS's "Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo." (Photo : YouTube/DramaFever)

Hong Jong-Hyun, who portrayed 3rd Prince Wang Yo in SBS' "Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo," revealed he is still in contact with After School's Nana. The two Hallyu stars have constantly been plagued with numerous dating rumors.



The 26-year-old actor candidly talked about the rumors swirling around during a sit-down interview with local reporters on Nov. 8, Tuesday. There, he dismissed the dating rumors about him and the After School member, stating that they were just good friends.



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"I contact her every once in a while and when I do, she seems to be doing fine.," Soompi quoted Hong as saying before a predominantly Korean crowd. He added that "dating" is not in his vocabulary yet, believing love comes when you least expect it.



Besides that, the "Dating Agency: Cyrano" actor also talked about his working experience with the "Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo's" cast and staff members. He revealed that they had an extremely comfortable atmosphere on-set because of the relatively close age of all the cast.



"Since there wasn't a big age gap, it felt like we were all meeting as a group of friends," Hong stressed. "Unless we were filming intense scenes, there was always a friendly atmosphere during filming."



Hong also revealed the secret behind EXO's Baekhyun immense popularity. In the SBS historical drama, the latter portrayed the cheerful and bumbling 10th prince, Wang Eun, who has no interest in studying or politics, Drama Fever has learned.



"In Baekhyun's case, I was completely surprised," he said. "It was the first time I looked at a guy and thought he was cute. I finally understood why he was so popular."



Though the EXO member was splendid and playful on set, Hong stressed Baekhyun also has an aspect of perfectionism. He added, "[Baekhyun] He practices a lot."



Check out Hong as 3rd Prince Wang Yo in SBS's "Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo" below:






New Delhi:

The All Punjab Congress MLAs have decided to resign in a group to protest against the Satluj Yamuna Link canal row. Captain Amarinder Singh also resined from Lok Sabha. Satluj Yamuna Link canal row has been among one of the most prominent issues of the state.

Satluj Yamuna Link Canal (SARYU) is a proposed 214-kilometer long canal connecting Sutlej and Yamuna rivers. The proposal to connect both rivers became controversial and it was referred to the Supreme Court of India. The canal defined river water sharing between Punjab and Haryana.

Satluj Yamuna Link Canal controversy began way back when Punjab was reorganised in 1966. The state of Haryana was formed then. The decision on sharing of resources between the state was also taken but decision on river water sharing was left for a decision later.

Also read: Live Satluj Yamuna Link canal row verdict: Punjab Congress MLAs resign en masse; Amarinder Singh quits Lok Sabha

In 1976 the Centre issued a notification mentioning that both the states will receive 3.5 million acre feet of water each. In 1978 SAD (Shiromani Akali Dal) govt. passed this bill under notification (as per the tribune )by deal of 3 crores Owing to Punjab's inaction in 1979 Haryana approached the Supreme Court to implement this allocation.

The construction of Satluj Yamuna Link Canal was suspended in 1990s on account of spreading militancy in the area. In January 2002 the Supreme Court directed the Punjab Government to continue digging the project. Punjab sought to be discharged from this obligation in 2003.

In 2004 the Punjab State Legislature passed the "Punjab Termination of Agreement Act 2004", to denotify the land. A Presidential Reference to the Supreme Court with regard to the same was made in 2004 and in 2016 March the Supreme Court has taken up the same for hearing.

In 2016, Punjab assembly has also sought to pass a Bill to effect restoration of land acquired for the canal link to the farmers free of cost. Supreme court has ordered to pass the Bill.

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Mumbai:

Shiv Sena on Thursday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, saying ever since the surgical strikes, ceasefire violations are on and time will tell whether the second one now on black money will be successful.

The BJP ally in the state government said one will have to adopt a wait and watch approach to see how far does Modi's "second strike" against black money goes to curb illicit trade of funds.

It said corruption is a mindset and until that changes, the disease of black money cannot be checked completely.

"Modi had last month conducted a sudden surgical strike against Pakistani terror launch pads and now this strike against black money. The second strike has caused chaos among the masses as this strike too was sudden," Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

It said that attempts to stop illicit trade flow have been made in the past as well, but what was derived from it was a question that remained answered in the past and there are no answers today as well.

Sena said questions are being raised about Modi's poll promise of bringing back black money stashed abroad and depositing Rs 15 lakh in bank accounts of Indians.

"How far has the government been successful in bringing back black money from abroad is what people are asking," it said.

"Modi answered the question in his style by demonetizing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Only time will tell if the government is able to achieve its objectives by doing so. The truth is that this decision will have far-reaching effects on the Indian economy," it added.

"It was being said that the surgical strike against Pakistan was meant to tighten our grip over the neighbouring nation. But, firing, ceasefire violations are on at the borders ever since the strike. Demonetising currency was the second strike but if it actually pays dividends, only time will tell," the editorial said.

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Chandigarh:

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar welcomed Supreme Courts decision on Thursday to hold as unconstitutional the 2004 law passed by Punjab to terminate the SYL canal water sharing agreement with neighbouring states.

I welcome the Supreme Court verdict. It is natural justice, he told reporters here.

In its judgement the apex court made it clear that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, was unconstitutional and Punjab could not have taken an unilateral decision to terminate the water sharing agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.

The Supreme Court has given its decision on this vital issue after 12 years and it is a result of the persistent efforts made by the present state government, he claimed.

This judgement has brought smile on the face of every Haryanvi because the state would get its legitimate share of surplus water of 3.5 million acre feet (MAF) from the Ravi-Beas River, he said.

People have been eagerly waiting for this decision since long but it was kept lingering because of laxity by previous governments, the Chief Minister alleged, adding it was gift to the people on Haryanas golden jubilee year.

The Supreme Court judgement was in favour of Haryana on four points for which Presidential Reference was sought.

Elaborating, Khattar said, These points included whether the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 and its provision were in accordance with the Constitution of India. If the Act and its provisions were in accordance with Section 14 of Inter-State Water Disputes Act 1956, Section 78 of the Punjab Re-organization Act 1966 and a notification issued in 1976 there under.

Besides, if Punjab has validly terminated the agreement dated December 31, 1981 and all agreements related to the Ravi-Beas waters and has discharged from its obligation under the said agreements, he said.

The points also included whether in view of the Act, Punjab is discharged from its obligations flowing from the judgement and decree dated January 1, 2002 and judgement and order dated June 4, 2004 of the Supreme Court, he added.

The Haryana Assembly had recently unanimously passed a resolution condemning Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badals statement that Punjab and its residents will not accept any verdict against the states interest on river waters.

On November 1, in his Punjabi Suba address, Badal had said the state was ever ready to make any sacrifice to safeguard its legitimate share of river waters.

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New Delhi:

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday alleged that the BJP was informed about the government's decision to demonetise the high value currency 'a week before' the move came into effect. He alleged that this was done keeping in mind the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections.

The AAP chief also questioned the logic behind the introduction of Rs 2000 notes. He said this decision will fan corruption and the black money economy instead of containing. The Delhi CM said that the demonetisation of currency has hit the common men hard.

Interestingly, Kejriwals Cabinet colleague Satyendar Jain supported the historic move to introduce Rs 2000 currency notes saying it will remove corruption and black money. To remove corruption & Black money, decision to introduce Rs 2000 notes historic, Jain tweeted.

To remove corruption & Black money Rs2000 aa aaaY aaa aa aaaaaaaa aaaaa.  Satyendar Jain (@SatyendarJain) November 10, 2016

The AAP chief said a racket of commissions was thriving across the country. The fault lies in their (governments) intentions, Kejriwal said.

ALSO READ | AAP calls demonetisation a 'Tughlaqi Farmaan', says it will cause inconvenience to aam aadmi



In a series of tweets, Kejriwal also took pot shots at an advertisement of Mobile payments firm Paytm that featured Prime Minister Narendra Modis image, saying the company was the biggest beneficiary of the move.

Utterly shameful. Do people want their PM to model for pvt cos? Tomo, if these cos do wrongdoings, who will act against them? https://t.co/hAxg4H4MuL  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) November 10, 2016

Paytm biggest beneficiary of PM's announcement. Next day PM appears in its ads. Whats the deal, Mr PM? https://t.co/lfP0PrQICQ  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) November 10, 2016

Kejriwal said he was finding it difficult to understand as to why Rs 2000 notes have been introduced, which he said will only make hoarding of black money easier.



Utterly shameful. Do people want their PM to model for pvt cos? Tomo, if these cos do wrongdoings, who will act against them? Paytm biggest beneficiary of PMs announcement. Next day PM appears in its ads. Whats the deal, Mr PM?



Kejriwal said in a series of tweets.

(With PTI inputs)

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Tokyo:

India and Japan will ink about 12 pacts and possibly sign a crucial civil nuclear deal on Friday after wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Shinzo Abe aimed at giving a fillip to the bilateral strategic relations.



aLooking forward to fruitful deliberations that will boost economic and cultural ties between India and Japan,a tweeted Modi, who arrived here after a brief stopover in Thai capital Bangkok to pay respects to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last month after a protracted illnes.



He also tweeted in Japanese along with his arrival picture. At their annual Summit, Modi and Abe will discuss ways to enhance ties in a broad range of areas, including security, trade and investment, skill development and infrastructure development.



He will address Japanese business leaders during his two days of official programme here and in Kobe.



Ahead of his visit, Modi said he looks forward to reviewing the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation when he meets Abe in Tokyo on November 11.

#WATCH: Indian community extends a warm welcome to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his arrival in Tokyo (Japan). pic.twitter.com/yFuGbRazxH a ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

aI will have detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan, to look for ways to further strengthen our trade and investment ties,a he said.



After the Summit talks, about 12 pacts will be signed by the two sides, sources said, adding these would cover areas like skill development, cultural exchanges and infrastructure.



Amid high expectations about the civil nuclear deal being signed tomorrow, the two sides were in the process of concluding the negotiations, sources said here today.



The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Abeas visit to India last December but the final deal was yet to be signed as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.



Both the countries have completed the internal procedures including legal and technical aspects of the text of the pact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said last week. When specifically asked whether the pact will be signed during Modias visit, he only said, aI cannot pre-judge outcome of the talks.a



Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two sides have been going on for a number of years but the progress on these was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.



In Tokyo, Modi will also have an audience with Japanese Emperor Akihito. He will also meet some opposition and other political leaders.



From Tokyo, Modi, accompanied by Abe, will travel to Kobe by the famed Shinkansen bullet train, the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Railway. He will visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where high speed trains are manufactured.



aOur partnership with Japan is characterized as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership. India and Japan see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order,a Modi had said in his pre-departure statement.

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Kathmandu:

Nepals central bank has once again banned the utilisation of Indian currency pertaining to denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 after allowing them for the past one year.

The decision comes a day after India demonetised the high-value notes.

Nepal's central bank has issued a directive to the Nepali banking and financial institutions as well as "currency exchange centres" to stop transacting the two currency notes.

The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) issued a directive in this regard on Wednesday. It also decided to write to the Reserve Bank of India for the management of the higher-denomination notes in Nepal, according to officials.

Limited use of Indian currency notes of Rs 500 was allowed in Nepal in 2015 with restrictions after they had been restricted for 13 years since 2002.

India's ban on the currency notes on Tuesday is likely to trouble traders in border areas, who rely heavily on Indian currency because of their businesses and imports from India through the "open borders".

Indian currency is widely used in Nepal for day-to-day transactions, especially in the border areas.

Also, a large number of Nepalese citizens working in India send remittances to their family in Nepal in higher denomination notes.

Nepal, a landlocked country, depends on India for trade and supplies.

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New Delhi:

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday said demonetisation of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes will ensure the upcoming elections to some state assemblies are more free and fair, besides neutralising terror funding.

"A lot of politicians are already worrying," Parrikar said, apparently referring to opposition's criticism of the government's action.

He also said he came to know about the move to do away with the higher denomination notes only at the Cabinet meeting when the Prime Minister's speech was aired.

Parrikar said the next morning he realised he was the richest in the defence ministry as he had Rs 220 (in smaller change) in his pocket. The Rs 7,000 he also had did not matter then.

"This is an excellent step by the Prime Minister. Black money was used in elections. That black money has become null and void. So obviously, it will ensure more free and fair election," he said speaking at the launch of the book "The New Arthashastra - A Security Strategy of India," edited by Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd).

He said there are "substantial counterfeit notes" which India's enemies are using for terror funding.

"As a Defence Minister I am very happy. In one strike it has all vanished," he said.

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Mumbai:

Underworld don Dawood Ibrahims top aide, who was convicted for killing Bollywood music baron Gulshan Kumar in 1997, was on Thursday brought to India and was handed over to the Mumbai crime branch. Bangladesh had on November 7 freed Abdul Rauf alias Daud Merchant on the expiry of his jail term for cross-border intrusion.

Known to be close to Mumbai mafia don Dawood Ibrahim, Merchant was jailed by a Bangladeshi court for five years which expired in December 2014.

He was briefly released, but was immediately rearrested and prison official said he was detained under a law meant for people accused of suspicious movement for the past three years.



Allegedly a contract killer, he was sentenced to life term in India in 2002 for killing Kumar who headed the music company T-Series in 1997. Kumar was shot while he was coming out of a temple on August 12, 1997. Merchant, however, filed an appeal against his conviction.



He absconded after being released on parole in April, 2009 to visit his family in Mumbai. The same year, detectives arrested him from Brahmanbarhias Mourail, with two associates, while he was hiding in the residence of one Kamal Mian.



He was then sentenced to five years in prison for intruding and illegally staying in Bangladesh.



Merchants release came 11 months after Bangladesh authorities said that they decided to extradite Merchant.



In January, the home minister had said that Dhaka was working to extradite him.



(With inputs from PTI)

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Bengaluru:

Tipu Jayanti was celebrated in a low key manner by Karnataka government on Thursday amidst state wide protests by BJP.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah stated that the rival party opposed the event for political gains and narrow considerations while terming them as "religious fanatic".

The main event was held at Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat. The BJP observed the day as a "black day" and staged protests across the state with its leaders, including B S Yeddyurappa, courting arrests.

Protests were held by the party in Mangaluru, Mysuru, Kodagu and other districts, against holding celebrations for the 18th century ruler of erstwhile Mysore kingdom who, it said, was a "religious bigot" who "converted people to Islam and massacred many".

Security was beefed up across Karnataka with prohibitory orders in sensitive Mangaluru, Chitradurga, Shivamogga and Kodagu districts and central forces, including Rapid Action Force, and City Armed Reserve personnel being deployed in Bengaluru and elsewhere.

Hitting out at BJP leaders for branding a national icon as a religious fanatic, Siddaramaiah said, "We are celebrating Tipu jayanti for the second time. Our government did not decide to celebrate Tipu Jayanti for the sake of gaining votes, nor for appeasing Muslim community."

Speaking at Tipu Jayanti celebrations organised by the Department of Kannada and Culture, he said, BJP, "because of its narrow mind, is trying to project Tipu as anti-Hindu, anti-Kannada and as religious fanatic".

"You are doing this for politics, for your selfish gains," he added. Accusing BJP, RSS and Bajrang Dal of trying to twist history, he said, "They are trying to do it for the sake of (next Assembly) elections. We will not fear it and disrespect public sentiment. We will celebrate Tipu jayanti every year, next year we will celebrate with more fanfare."

"It is not Tipu who is a religious fanatic, it is these people (BJP) who are religious fanatics," he added.

Congress government's decision to observe Tipu Jayanti since 2015 has stirred a major row, with opinion sharply divided among intellectuals, academia and various communities and organisations, which have differing views on his reign.

Celebrations in 2015 had led to violence in Madikeri and parts of coastal districts, resulting in two deaths.

Addressing a protest, Yeddyurappa said BJP was not "anti-Muslim" but against celebrating Tipu Sultan against whom there was resentment among different sections of society across the state.

BJP leaders, including former Deputy Chief Minister R Ashok, who addressed the protest, said Tipu Sultan was "anti-Kannada" and a "religious fanatic" and the Congress government was trying to polarise people.

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Brad Pitt attends a LA Fan event for the Paramount Pictures title 'Allied' at Regency Village Theatre on November 9, 2016 in Westwood, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Jonathan Leibson)

The confusion over Hollywood's former power couple Brangelina child custody clash seems to be getting more bizarre. Contrary to the claims of the 'Maleficent' actress' rep that the couple had reached a settlement over the vexed issue, people in the know of things said otherwise.



"We can confirm that child care professionals have encouraged a legal agreement accepted and signed by both sides over a week ago," Page Six quoted a statement issued by Jolie's rep on Nov. 7, Monday. The statement added that the estranged couple's six children would be staying in Jolie's custody, Pitt will have the rights to visit them.



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While the statement claimed that child care professionals have decided on this in the best interest of the children, he refused to discuss the issue in details. The rep's statement went on to say that everyone concerned is steadfast on healing the family and requested others to consider the family's problems in their difficult time.



However, if sources are to be believed, neither Jolie nor Pitt has signed any new agreement and the issue is unlikely to be resolved soon. The present agreement is just an extension of the already existing, entirely voluntary and provisional understanding between the two parties; the website quoted an anonymous source as saying.



The source further told the publication that the statement issued by Jolie rep does not make any sense since Pitt has already filed for joint custody on Nov. 4, Friday, in LA Superior Court, days after the purported 'new' agreement. In fact, no child-care adviser of any kind was involved with this decision in any way, the source added.



Pitt would continue to his legal battle gaining the joint legal and physical custody of the children, Us Weekly quoted sources close to Pitt as saying. That Pitt has filed a suit for the joint custody of the children itself suggests that he would not give up his fight, the sources added.



Both Jolie and Pitt are saying the same things, but in different ways, Christopher Melcher, a family lawyer based in California, told the publication. According to him, Jolie rep's statement that the couple reached a legally binding agreement, and Pitt's statement that it was a temporary one are both "consistent concepts," lawyer said adding one can make a binding agreement, but it is temporary and easy to change.



Such agreements are usually made in the early stage of a dispute to allow them time to allow things to settle down and see how things work, However, such agreements can be changed any time by either party, Melcher added.



Watch what led to Brangelina split:






Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the American Airlines Center on September 14, 2015 in Dallas, Texas. More than 20,000 tickets have been distributed for the event. (Photo : Getty Images/Tom Pennington)

While President Barak Obama and Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton have conceded their defeat at the United States' presidential elections on Nov. 9, Tuesday, their backers are still reluctant to accept Republican Donald Trump as their next president. This was manifested when thousands of protestors took to the streets across the country to vent their anger and despair over the election results.



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Irate mobs blocked highways, set fire to the American flag, burned Trump's effigy and threatened widespread backlash, bringing to fore the difficult times Trump will be facing in uniting a divided nation, the Washington Post reported. Outside Trump's headquarters and penthouse apartment in Midtown, the demonstrators climbed light poles and burned flags.



Demonstrations were staged everywhere from metropolitan centers to smaller cities, forcing the authorities to arrest dozens to bring the situation under control. The protests sparked off in Union Square, where a large crowd assembled to express their fury over the election results.



Simultaneously, thousands of protestors moved from the Sixth Avenue towards Fifth Avenue and assembled before Trump Tower, shouting "Trump is Hitler!" Some demonstrators were seen venting their ire and chanting slogans like "Donald Trump, go away! Sexist, racist, anti-gay!"



While angry mobs started protests and vigils from coast to coast, it is believed that the president-elect shut himself in an office inside the building, bringing together the team that will assist him in the transition of power and run the government from Jan. 20.



Soon, the protests spread to cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Richmond and Portland, Ore. Demonstrations were also staged in states like Atlanta, Dallas and Kansas City, Mo., which were won by the Republicans. However, the major demonstrations were staged in urban centers of blue states won by Clinton on Tuesday, underscoring the demographic split that influenced the election results.



Two police officers sustained injuries in Oakland, Calif., while the demonstrators burned two patrol cars. Some protestors even hurled objects at the police, smashed windows and set off small fires in the business district. Some protestors even set fire to an American flag in Los Angeles. "That man who is not our president, we are going to make him hear us," New York Post quoted Shanon Malone, a 34-year-old demonstrator, as saying.



Hundreds of protestors, by and large young people, assembled outside the White House in Washington for a candlelight vigil. Later, they headed to the newly opened Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. As protestors gathered at Michigan Avenue, they waved signs with messages like "Time to revolt."



Watch anti-Trump protests in New York City on Nov. 9, Wednesday.






Paul Wesley, Nina Dubrev and Ian Somerhalder pose for a picture at 'The Vampire Diaries' Hot Topic tour at the Westfield Topanga Mall on February 13, 2010 in Canoga Park, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Toby Canham)

"The Vampire Diaries" Season 8 star Paul Wesley recently hinted on the possibility of both Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Stefan (Wesley) dying in the finale.



In an interview with E! News, both Somerhalder and Wesley agreed that "The Vampire Diaries" Season 8 shouldn't end on a positive note. After all, nothing good happens in Mystic Falls. When asked if they think Nina Dobrev will return, Somerhalder said that he's not sure. By the looks of it, if Elena Gilbert (Dobrev) will return, it won't be to reunite with Damon, but to get rid of him and his younger brother.



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"Honestly, I don't know that. It's Mystic Falls. There are no happy endings. I don't start that way and I don't know if it's going to end that way. I know that's a very much anticipated storyline but I honestly just don't know," he said.



Meanwhile, Somerhalder is 50/50 with regards to giving Damon and Elena a happy ending that their fans think they both deserve. He is also doubtful that Stefan should be happy in the finale. "These two guys came into this town, they wreaked havoc. This poor, 18 year old girl - talk about robbing the cradle. I'm like 65! These two guys came into her life, and they destroyed it! Everything she's ever known is gone. Almost everyone she's ever known is dead. She burned her house down. She's now in a box," he said.



In the end, Somerhalder and Wesley both believe that it is important for Mystic Falls to go back to what it once was before they came along. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that Damon and Stefan can still benefit from this. "Let Mystic Falls go back to being a place where humans thrive. I want the humans to win because humans need to win. We need hope for humanity right now," he said.



In other news, executive producer Julie Plec previously told TV Line that she's confident Dobrev will sign on to reprise her role in the finale. If she decides to be part of Season 8 earlier, Plec will also take her in in a snap of a finger.



"The Vampire Diaries" Season 8 airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.


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Disclaimer

Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes.
DANBURY  Warm People, a new group formed to collect clothing for the homeless, will hold its first clothing drive from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at New Hope Baptist Church.

The group is looking for coats, hats, gloves, sweaters, shirts, scarfs, socks, boots, blankets, earmuffs and mittens  anything that will keep someone warm.

Ive been wanting to do this for the last two years, said the groups founder, Nando Wallz, 30, who is a private nurse aide. He moved to Danbury about seven years ago from Miami, Florida.

Ive noticed in Danbury there are so many homeless people on the streets, he said. I want to give back to the community and raise awareness that this is happening in our town.

Each year, volunteers help the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness count the number of homeless in several towns and cities. Last January, 125 were counted in greater Danbury  a drop from previous years, when 176 were counted in 2015 and 181 in 2014.

Wallz said the clothing will be donated first to the Dorothy Day Hospitality House and then to other Danbury shelters, if enough is collected. He said he also plans to distribute clothing directly on the streets to those in need.

Warm People is a small group that includes Wallzs fiance, Jessica LaRock, and two of his clients, Sean Elgart, 31, and Luke Howlett, 26, who live in Somers, New York.

New Hope Baptist Churchs address is 10 Dr. Aaron B. Samuels Blvd in Danbury.

For more information on the group, visit www.warmpeople.org.
/ H. John Voorhees III

SHERMAN - First Selectman Clay Cope thanked supporters and the 129,000 people who voted for him Tuesday in a losing effort to U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty for the Fifth Congressional District.

It was an incredible honor for me to carry our Republican banner in this election! Cope wrote in an email Thursday to supporters. And I thank everyone involved for their very generous support and encouragement of my campaign.
Leaders do not have to be mean to be effective. Authoritarians tend to think that by being soft they will reduce their staffs respect and motivation. Steve Jobs, for example, was famous for being mean, critical and tyrannical to his employees.

But successful leaders are rarely like Steve Jobs. Hes the exception that proves the rule. Studies show that overly rough bosses spawn motivational problems with their staff. The stress of working under a mean boss can negatively affect employee health.

A study at the University of London discovered a significant link between cardiovascular disease and management-induced stress. Researchers at the University of Concordia, found that when employees think of themselves as highly stressed, their health insurance costs skyrocket by nearly 50 percent. The Institute of Naval Medicine found that a hardcore management style drives away the best talent, leaving behind only those who perform at a lower level. And conclusively, Esprit de Corps ran a poll that indicated most employees would rather have a nicer boss that receive a substantial pay raise.

The bottom line: people leave bad bosses, not bad jobs.

Related: 7 Ways to Manage Your Most Motivated and Talented Employees

A considerate boss boosts cohesiveness and productivity and leaders perceived as compassionate motivate their subordinates to be more helpful to colleagues and more committed to their teams.

Here are 10 ways the boss making nice pays off:

1. Let them know where you stand.

Mastering the art of kindness takes commitment and determination. But its worth it. Real kindness is shown in straightforward and direct interaction with employees, so they know where they stand and why. You dont have to pull your punches to be kind. When someone knows youre genuinely concerned about them, they are willing to listen to your input -- both positive and negative.

Outplacement data compiled by Mullin International over the last three years shows 60 percent of departing employees will remain in their former companys eco-system as buyers, suppliers, influencers or competitors. Treating your employees well pays off in multiple ways even if they arent with you anymore.

2. Strong doesn't have to be harsh.

Leadership means strength, but not harshness. A soft answer turns away wrath, and keeps employees better balanced. When your staff sees that you can maintain poise and self-control even under the most difficult and demanding situations, they are more willing to follow your lead and make their own sacrifices for the good of the team or department or company.

A smart boss does not jump in to take control at the first sign of trouble. He or she guides workers to work out their challenges in a way that is not confrontational.

3. Confidence is not arrogance.

Confidence, like measles, is contagious. Employees want to be around a confident boss -- but shun the company of a know-it-all. The best way to show confidence is to show competence, that you really know what youre talking about. And then, if you really dont know something -- confess it and find the employee/team member who does know about it and learn from him or her.

Great leaders are humble. They dont put up artificial barriers between themselves and their employees. Their door is always open, and they dont require others to do things they cant or wont do themselves.

4. Be positive, not delusional.

To remain positive yet keep your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds is a remarkable skill that not every manager or supervisor can master.

Related: 5 Strategies for Managing Unmanageable Employees

It takes some trust in others to follow through and enough confidence in your own abilities to remain unperturbed when the you-know-what hits the fan. And it will. It always does. So dont just say the glass is half full; instead, get your employees to see that the glass needs a lot more that only they can provide.

5. Teach, don't preach.

The corporate world is full of people who believe they should do unto others before others do it unto them. A great boss is one that makes the time to instruct employees in their duties and responsibilities, and is not stingy with praise. Chewing out an employee for anything, whether its a bad habit or careless work, leaves a bad taste in everybodys mouth.

6. Grin and bear it.

Your team will back you up just as far as they feel that you will back them up. So go for broke. Show them that youll take a bullet for them. Its not an easy thing to do, but if youre prepared to do it when the occasion arises, you can be sure they will have your back from then on -- and thats a wonderful feeling for any boss to have.

7. Balance.

Employment isnt a birthday party, where everybody gets cake and ice cream and plays games all day. But neither should it be slavery in a salt mine, with the whip always cracking. Theres a balance, a delicate one, that bosses have to maintain between a fun work environment and a productive work environment. Sometimes it has to be fine-tuned down to each individual. But your people should always be aware that youre striving to make things pleasant for them, while still expecting them to meet their goals.

8. Personal, not intimate.

Find out about your staffs family and hobbies and ambitions outside the office. Remember birthdays and anniversaries. Show concern when theres a health crisis with an employee or someone close to them. Let them talk about their pets. But, when the talk turns to romance or finance, thats when the wise and kind boss quickly finds somewhere else to be. Quickly. Show you care, but stay out of the drama.

Related: What You Can Learn From Hollywood on Hiring and Managing Employees

9. Fearless feedback.

Feedback can be either positive or negative. Find opportunities to discover your workers doing something right, and praise them for it. When you have to deliver negative feedback, always end the conversation by sincerely asking What can I do to help? A boss is not doing an employee any favors by procrastinating negative feedback. Get it over with, and ask the golden question. The solution can start that much sooner.

10. Sharing is caring.

A great boss will share credit. Ladle out sincere praise like gravy. Sincerely enjoy the success of his or her subordinates. Kindness is never about you -- its always about the other person. Live for others and your own life, at work and at home, will prosper.

Related:

10 Ways Bosses Who Make Nice Bring Out the Best in Their Employees

4 Ways Effective Leaders Deal With Incompetent People

Why Employee Engagement Programs Backfire and What You Can Do About It



Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Sri Lanka, Bangladesh to sign free trade accord next year

Sri Lanka,Indo-Pak/Pakistan,Diplomacy,Business/Economy, Thu, 10 Nov 2016 IANS

Colombo, Nov 10 (IANS) Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are likely to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) in March 2017, which will boost trade and pave way for a huge cross-border cargo trans-shipment via the Port of Colombo, officials said on Thursday.

Bangladesh's Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, who is in Sri Lanka on an official visit, said that the FTA can become a reality when Sri Lanka's high-level leaders visit Dhaka in March, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Today (Thursday) both sides completed trade discussions successfully," the Bangladesh minister said.

"The Shipping Ministry of Bangladesh is also cooperating in this. We decided to use Colombo port in our future trans-shipments as we feel other regional ports to be expensive," he added.

Through its feeder vessels, Bangladesh has already trans-shipped to the US and Europe via Port Kelang, Singapore and Colombo.

Trans-shipments to Europe, the Middle East and the US via the Colombo Port are considered to bring in great savings for Bangladeshi exporters, saving as many as four shipping days to America alone, the minister said.

Sri Lanka's Minister of Commerce Rishard Bathiudeen, during discussions, invited Bangladeshi companies to invest in state pioneered projects in Sri Lanka, as well as in the country's apparel industry.

Total bilateral trade between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which stood at $48 million in 2010, has grown to $131 million by 2015.

Sri Lanka's exports to Bangladesh have seen a steady increase in the past five years. In 2013, it recorded the highest increase of 45 per cent.

--IANS

ksk/vt
Almost all of Egypt's political parties and movements, except pro-Muslim Brotherthood groups, have announced that they are not participating in the anonymous calls

As Egypt moves forward on the path to securing a $12 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country has found itself facing mysterious calls on social media for protests on Friday against economic conditions."

The calls grabbed active social media users attention, but almost all of Egypt's political parties and activist movements, except pro-Muslim Brotherthood groups, have announced that they are not participating in the anonymous calls.

The online interaction with the pages posed a lingering question that rapidly spread through Egyptian street: Who was behind the calls to protest and what were the demands?

On Wednesday, however, the page calling for protests announced it was shutting down activities on Facebook, citing "security persecution" against the administrator of the page. The page called on people to "like" a page calling for protests on 8 December to demand the return of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The future of Friday 11 November's protests remains unclear.

Timing

The Revolution of the Poor has become shorthand for a number of mysterious calls to protest, which preceded Egypts announcement of an EGP flotation and the rise in subsidised fuel prices over the weekend.



The calls made their debut on social media in early September; amid a price spike in food commodities and scarcity of some essential foodstuff.

In early September dozens of parents gathered in Cairo to protest the lack of subsidised baby formula, as well as increased prices.

Shortly thereafter, the army announced that it would intervene to solve the baby formula crisissaying it would provide the formula at a lower-than-market price.

In a speech later that month, Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said the army provides food essentials to counter price hikes for low income citizens. The president explained that the action was a choice made by the army to help the country in its hour of need.

El-Sisi also said at the time that Egypt's armed forces could be deployed in six hours to protect the country," a statement interpreted by some as a warning of possible confrontation on 11/11, or in the event of any threat to the security and stability of the country.

In weeks following, Egypt has suffered a shortage in some food supplies, including sugar and rice, amid a foreign currency crisis.

Some shortages continue at the time of writing. The government announced however that reserves of essential supplies are now sufficient for six months, or even a year and a half.

The "Revolution of the Poor page, which has attracted around 80,000 likes over the past weeks, is supervised by a spokesperson who goes by Yasser El-Omda. He identifies himself as the revolutions poet has released a couple of videos calling people to protest on 11 November against the governments ongoing economic austerity policies.

Other anonymous pages followed, leaving people confused over who the original backers of the potential 11/11 demonstrations might be.

This is not the first time that the current government has faced protest calls.

Members of the Islamist National Alliance to Support Legitimacy (NASL) have been leading the protest scene against Egypt's current and interim governments since the July 2013 ousting of ex-president Morsi and the dispersal of the Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins in August that year.

The NASL announced in September its intention to participate in any 11/11 protests, calling on all Egyptians to participate on this day as preparation for Januarys big event."

Since its announcement, the NASL has been calling for additional protests prior to 11 November. They never materlised.

The Muslim Brotherhoods English speaking portal, IkhwanWeb, has consistently published statements by the alliance, but it is unclear whether the group as a whole supports the 11/11 calls to protest.

Since 2014, the Muslim Brotherhood has witnessed divisions within its once organized framework, which it has not publicly discussed.

Egypt's political parties have announced that they are not participating in the anonymous calls.

Khaled Dawoud, the spokesperson for Egypts Democratic Alliance Current (DAC), told Ahram Online that the party has no relationship with the calls and does not know the people behind them."

The DAC includes several parties: the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, the Constitution Party and others.

Dawoud said that the government shouldnt exaggerate the seriousness of the calls and what they might mean for Friday. History doesnt repeat itself. You cant set a specific date for revolting, Dawoud said.

He added that he doesnt expect the calls to for protest to achieve demands on social justice, democracy, and the release of detainees."

Sherif El-Rouby, the 6 April Youth Movement spokesperson, has also denied any involvement in the 11/11 calls. 6 April, now banned in Egypt, has long been considered by government supporters as a movement allied with the Brotherhood.

Some experts believe that the 11/11 calls should not be underestimated.

Timothy Kaldas, a non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) told Ahram Online that the state was pretty nervous about the possibility of something happening."

There are reasons why someone would protest right now; however, it's hard to know how many people will turn out in the end, Kaldas told Ahram Online.

There are two things happening in terms of the economic pressure people are under: the value of purchased goods is being restricted, their money is worth less, and [they're feeling the] humiliation of not being able to supply essential goods to their families,  Kaldas said, adding that this would fuel frustration.

The current government has taken similar calls to protest seriously in the past. In November 2014, the ultraconservative group Salafist Front called for an uprising of the Muslim youth and a day of Islamic Identity, in which the group's supporters were encouraged to raise the Quran in demonstrations against the government.

The group's demands included the imposition of Sharia law.

Security forces were swiftly deployed to protect vital facilities, raising high alert. However, the protests never materialised.

11/11 in the media

Ahmed Moussa, one of the prominent media anchors known for his affirmative pro-government stances, warned viewers in an episode on 7 September of the Poor Movement," which he said was led by the Brotherhood domestically and internationally in an attempt to exploit the price spikes situation.

Moussa showed screenshots from several websites he said were affiliated with the Brotherhood, including the El-Mesryoon portal and that of the Freedom and Justice Party, and quoted the alleged leader of the movement, El-Omda.

Dont let anyone use you and your agony like they used you in the January 25 days: the Brotherhood, the fifth column, El-Baradei, Revolutionary Socialists and others, Moussa said.

Moussa added that not a single noble, patriotic citizen is involved in this," referring to the protests as part of a conspiracy to topple the state."

MP Mostafa Bakry, has begun sharing news about the Brotherhoods intentions to spread chaos." He has shared documents of assassination lists before 11/11, including 25 figures public figures, from media personnelincluding Bakry himselfto military officers, police officers, and judges.

Ibrahim Eissa, a prominent journalist, writer, and night show host, told audiences on Monday that it was in the best interest of some security institutions that people become afraid of 11/11. It is also in the interest of terrorist groups that [Egyptians] become nervous about the calls."

Eissa is known for being highly critical of the government, but said repeatedly that he believes "nothing will happen on 11/11."

Taking no chances

Police said on Thursday it had uncovered a stash of weapons that supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood were plotting to use ahead of planned protests against deteriorating economic conditions.

Having won little support from activist groups, it was unclear if protests would go ahead on Friday. But authorities are taking no chances. Dozens of people were detained in recent weeks for allegedly inciting unrest.

The Interior Ministry confiscated on Thursday a cache of arms and ammunition hidden in a graveyard and house in Fayoum province, southwest of Cairo.

It also said it raided five bomb factories around the country on Wednesday, accusing a militant group of coordinating with the Brotherhood to attack police checkpoints on the eve of the protests.

"The armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood intended to use the weapons in terrorist attacks as they take advantage of economic conditions to incite protests," it said in a statement.

In recent weeks, several people have been arrested on suspicion of inciting protests on 11 November and/or joining a terrorist group that aims to obstruct state institutions.

The suspects face charges of inciting violence to topple the regime, attempting to change the country's constitution and its republican system, incitement to attack police stations and joining the banned Muslim Brotherhood group.

Late Monday, Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi held a meeting with leaders of the countrys security institutions, including Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar, defense minister Sedki Sobhi, and intelligence and military intelligence chiefs.

According to statements from the Presidents office, El-Sisi ordered continued maximum vigilance and combat readiness to ensure the countrys security and the citizens safety.

Interior ministry spokesperson Tarek Attia said in press statements on Tuesday that the ministry has a security plan in place to combat any riots in 11/11, in coordination with the armed forces.

Attia added that Egypts security is a red line," and that the ministry would not allow anyone to violate the law.



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56 arrested in Spanish operation against child pornography

Spain,Crime/Disaster/Accident, Thu, 10 Nov 2016 IANS

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Madrid, Nov 10 (IANS) The Spanish Interior Ministry on Thursday said 56 men, the majority of them between 40 and 60 years of age, have been detained during a massive nationwide operation against child pornography, media reported.

The operation saw the police raid 39 homes across Spain, confiscating 173 hard drives as well as 614 compact discs and DVDs filled with pornographic images of young boys and girls, Xinhua news agency reported.

Meanwhile, one search in Spain's Murcia city also led to the recovery of two revolvers.

Over 150 police officers took part in the operation, which was organised among 33 territorial units and different departments of the Spanish National Police, including the Child Protection Unit and the Unit for Technological Investigation. The operation was supervised by 46 different regional courts.

Those arrested are facing charges of the production of child pornography, although the police are also investigating to see if they can press charges of sexual abuse in some cases, while also trying to determine the connections between those arrested and other pedophiles, who have so far escaped detection.

The National Police said the detainees shared their files through Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks and that the operation had been in development since early 2015 when the police began searching a P2P network to identify users who were using the network to distribute child pornography.

This search identified 73 users, some of whom had been arrested prior to Thursday's operation.

--IANS

sm/dg

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SUDBURY, ON, Nov. 9, 2016 /CNW/ - Project Honour and Preserve, a national initiative founded by a Greater Sudbury, Ontario man, is set to expand internationally to include the United States and much of the United Kingdom.

In November 2011, Dr. Kevin McCormick, President and Vice-Chancellor of Huntington University was named by the Minister of National Defence as the Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of the Irish Regiment of Canada. In that role, HLCol McCormick initiated and personally funded Project Honour and Preserve to raise awareness of the sacrifices and contributions made by Canadian Veterans while bringing public attention to important dates in Canadian Military history.

Through Project Honour and Preserve, HLCol McCormick has personally purchased hundreds of historic artifacts which he has donated to groups such as museums, affiliated military units, Veterans' associations, schools and veterans' families. Captured in these collections is the distinguished military service of Canadian Veterans spanning both World Wars, all conflicts and peacekeeping missions, in addition to those awarded by foreign governments for contributions to freedom and humanity. Other items donated include letters, journals, personal items and trench art belonging to Canadian Veterans who served during many of our Nation's most iconic battles such as Dieppe, Vimy, Somme, Normandy and Passchendaele.

In 2013, in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of WW1, HLCol McCormick embarked on an 18-month journey, at his own expense, to make presentations across Canada to museums and Veterans' associations. Privately and confidentially, HLCol McCormick also repatriated countless items belonging to Veterans and their respective families. Behind the scenes he has located families and ensured, at no cost to them, that their family member's medals are returned and professionally preserved for future generations to honour. Since that time, HLCol McCormick has expanded his dedicated efforts, to include repatriating objects that originate from the United States and United Kingdom.

HLCol McCormick was recently named a recipient of the 2016 Minister of Veterans Affairs Commendation, in recognition of his ongoing support of the Canadian Military including his committment to Project Honour and Preserve.

"HLCol Kevin McCormick is an outstanding Canadian who dedicates an impressive amount of his own personal time and resources in an effort to recognize the achievements and sacrifices of Canadian Veterans, and reunite medals and other personal effects to families," said LCol John M. Valtonen, Deputy Commander of 33 Canadian Brigade Group. "As we mark Remembrance Day I am pleased to learn that this project will not only continue, but also grow in scope, and honour the military sacrifice of our Allies around the world."

"It is critical that we both honour and preserve the sacrifices and selfless service made by the men and women of the Canadian armed Forces who through their dedication ensure the safety, security and freedoms of all Canadians" said HLCol McCormick. "I call on each Canadian to find their own unique way to honour and preserve the sacrifices made by members of the military, Veterans and their families. Whether it be through activities such as volunteering at a Veterans' centre, supporting military families, visiting a local military museum or creating a local community event, find your own personal way to support military members, by thanking them for all they continue to do!"

In addition to his ongoing efforts with Project Honour and Preserve, HLCol McCormick also has a rich history of supporting the Canadian Forces members, Veterans and their families through innovative programs and partnerships. Working voluntarily and independently, HLCol McCormick established the Canadian Homeless Veterans' Network, an initiative that supports Veterans through personal donations to shelters and service agencies. He has also used his own funds to create various bursaries and scholarships for members of the Canadian military and their families, while also working with the Canadian Armed Forces in the creation of educational programs that empower both serving members and those who have retired and are transitioning into new careers.

SOURCE Huntington University

Image with caption: "HLCol Kevin McCormick, who is also the President & Vice-Chancellor of Huntington University in Greater Sudbury, initiated and personally funded Project Honour and Preserve . (CNW Group/Huntington University)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161109_C6585_PHOTO_EN_813956.jpg

Image with caption: "Huntington University (CNW Group/Huntington University)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161109_C6585_PHOTO_EN_814021.jpg

For further information: Media Contact: Christine Catt, Director, University Advancement, Huntington University, 705-673-4126 ext. 211, [email protected], Huntingtonu.ca
TORONTO, Nov. 10, 2016 /CNW/ - The Law Society of Upper Canada expresses grave concerns over arrest of lawyer Jamshed Yorov in Tajikistan.

Jamshed Yorov is known for representing Mahmadalli Hait, the deputy chairman of the banned opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan. On June 2, 2016, Mr. Hait was sentenced to life imprisonment after a closed-door ruling by Tajikistan's Supreme Court.

It has come to our attention that Jamshed Yorov was arrested and detained on August 22, 2016, and charged with "disclosure of State secrets" under part 1 of article 311 of the Criminal Code of Tajikistan. Jamshed Yorov informed his family that he was being questioned in connection with the alleged leaked publication of the text of a classified court judgment, concerning the case of Mr. Hait, on the internet.

The Law Society is deeply concerned about these reports. It is our understanding that Jamshed Yorov's arrest may be as a result of the exercise of his legitimate duties in defending Mahmadalli Hait. We believe strongly that lawyers should be able to exercise their legitimate duties without fear for their lives, for their liberty and for their security.

The Law Society of Upper Canada urges the government of Tajikistan to comply with Tajikistan's obligations under international human rights laws, including the United Nations' Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers.

Article 16 of the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers states:

Governments shall ensure that lawyers (a) are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference; (b) are able to travel and to consult with their clients freely both within their own country and abroad; and (c) shall not suffer, or be threatened with, prosecution or administrative, economics or other sanctions for any action taken in accordance with recognized professional duties, standards and ethics.

Article 17 states:

Where the security of lawyers is threatened as a result of discharging their functions, they shall be adequately safeguarded by the authorities.

Article 18 states:

Lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients' causes as a result of discharging their functions.

The Law Society urges the government of Tajikistan to:

release Jamshed Yorov immediately; guarantee all the procedural rights that should be accorded to Jamshed Yorov and other human rights lawyers and defenders in Tajikistan ; put an end to all acts of harassment against Jamshed Yorov as well as other human rights lawyers and defenders in Tajikistan ; guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Jamshed Yorov; ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with international human rights standards and international instruments.

*The Law Society of Upper Canada is the governing body for more than 50,000 lawyers and more than 7,800 paralegals in the province of Ontario, Canada. The Treasurer is the head of the Law Society. The mandate of the Law Society is to govern the legal profession in the public interest by upholding the independence, integrity and honour of the legal profession for the purpose of advancing the cause of justice and the rule of law.

The Law Society of Upper Canada

Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West

Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2N6

www.lsuc.on.ca

Follow us on Twitter @LawsocietyLSUC

SOURCE The Law Society of Upper Canada

For further information: Susan Tonkin, Communications Advisor - Media Relations, at 416-947-7605 or [email protected]
The Egyptian president is the first world leader to speak with the new US president election on the phone.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi invited on Wednesday US President-elect Donald Trump to visit Cairo, in a telephone call in which El-Sisi congratulated Trump personally on his triumph in the US presidential elections, the Egyptian Presidency announced.

In a statement issued on Wednesday by the Egyptian presidency, El-Sisi expressed his hope for more cooperation between Egypt and the United States in all fields.

On his part, the newly-elected 45th president of the United States thanked El-Sisi, saying he appreciated the call and hinting that it was the first telephone call he had received from a world leader.

Trump also expressed his wish to meet with the Egyptian president soon.

"Egypt is looking forward to seeing a new spirit brought to the presidential term of President Trump in terms of Egyptian-American relations, including more cooperation and coordination for the mutual benefit of the American and Egyptian people," the Egyptian presidency's statement read.

The Egyptian Presidency added that Egypt is looking forward to the enforcement of peace and development in the Middle East and hopes for continued stability and prosperity for the American people.

El-Sisi met Trump in September during the UN General Assembly. He was the first Arab president to meet the Republican nominee.

Republican Donald Trump won the Presidential election in the United States defeating Democratic Hillary Clinton early Wednesday.



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The Marine Corps is investigating after an F-35B Joint Strike Fighter based out of Beaufort, South Carolina, recently caught fire in mid-air, Military.com has learned.

The incident happened Oct. 27 at Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501, a fleet replacement squadron for the Marine Corps consisting of 20 F-35B aircraft. One of the aircraft experienced a fire in the weapons bay while conducting a training mission over Beaufort, 1st Lt. John Roberts, a spokesman for 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, told Military.com.

The aircraft landed safely and there were no injuries sustained, he said. An investigation is ongoing and we will provide updates as they are available.

No estimate of damage caused by the fire was available. The incident was listed by the Naval Safety Center as a Class A mishap, meaning damage totalled $2 million or more on the $100 million aircraft.

SOURCE- Military.com
By GMM 10 November 2016 - 11:41





Bernie Ecclestone insists he has no fear for his personal security ahead of this weekends Brazilian grand prix.

Earlier this year, the mother of the F1 supremos Brazilian wife was kidnapped and threatened with beheading by a group linked with a helicopter pilot who formerly worked with Ecclestone.

So when asked if he is worried as he returns to Sao Paulo for the grand prix, the 86-year-old insisted: "Im not afraid. Why should I be?

"In the last eight years, this was one of the biggest abductions," Ecclestone told the German newspaper Bild. "Brazil is not as dangerous as many people think."

In fact, the Briton revealed he is not planning to implement any extra security measures for his travels in the sprawling metropolis this week.

"No," said Ecclestone. "Theres no need to be frightened or worried."

Bild also asked Ecclestone about reports some drivers are calling for the return of gravel traps in F1, to stop cars from cutting corners.

"We walked away from gravel because then you have trucks and cranes on the track removing cars that are stuck," he said.

And he also played down claims that Sebastian Vettel can be a Michael Schumacher-like figure for Ferrari, amid the Italian teams current crisis.

"No," said Bernie. "He does not have the charisma and power that Michael did. Vettel is not Michael. He was special."

Finally, Ecclestone eased the fears of German F1 fans who worry that F1s new owner Liberty might take the sport off free-to-air television.

"No," he said. "RTL will get formula one again for the next three years."

But he warned that the future of the uncertain German grand prix is another matter entirely.

"The organiser, whether its Hockenheim or the Nurburgring, cant even pay a strongly reduced fee," said Ecclestone.

"Its not fair on the other organisers in Europe if we make an exception for them. Maybe its the Germans who do not like formula one," he added.
Egypt's armed forces and police force raided 11 major "armed terrorist hotspots" in North Sinai governorate killing six militants, the army spokesperson announced in an official statement on Thursday.

The spokesperson stated that security forces managed to destroy 40 explosive devices that were being prepared to be used to target the forces during operations in the raid that covered the areas of Al-Arish, Sheikh Zowaid and Rafah.

Also, four motorcycles were destroyed that had been used to monitor and attack security forces.

Weapons and ammunitions as well as wireless communication devices were found in the militants' hotspots during the raid.

The Egyptian army and police have been battling an entrenched Islamist insurgency for several years in North Sinai.

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Preventing Falls and Maintaining Function as We Age

Each year, one out of three adults aged 65 and over falls. A third of those falls result in moderate-to-severe injuries that can lead to further declines in health and loss of independence. The good news is that many falls can be prevented.

This issue, featuring information to prevent falls and fall-related injuries, is brought to you by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIA was established to improve the health and well-being of older people through research..

Featured Health Information

The NIA's falls and fractures webpage offers suggestions for lifestyle changeslike increasing physical activity and improving balancethat can help older adults avoid falls and fall-related injuries. It also offers practical tips and simple changes to make every room in the home safer.

The NIA's exercise and physical activity campaign, Go4Life, has information to help older adults maintain their independence. It offers adults and health care professionals simple and safe exercise ideas for strength, balance and flexibility. Balance exercises have been shown to prevent falls and the disabilities that may result from falling.

NIHSeniorHealth is a website designed with older adults in mind. It offers information about falls, including causes and risk factors, devices to help prevent falls and how to maintain bone health. The website is easy to use and navigate, and it offers interactive features such as quizzes and videos to engage visitors.

The Surgeon General's Report on Bone Health and Osteoporosis: What It Means to You is a free brochure from the NIH Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases ~ National Resource Center. Broken bones are painful at any age, but can be deadly for older people with weak bones. This visually appealing publication provides information about who is at risk for osteoporosis, how to protect bones at any age and what to discuss with a health care provider.

Vision and Aging: See Well for a Lifetime is an online toolkit developed by the National Eye Institute (NEI) to help health care and community professionals educate older adults about keeping their eyes healthy as they agean important factor in maintaining independence, quality of life, the ability to perform activities of daily living and reduce the risk of falls. The toolkit contains everything needed to conduct educational sessions on common vision changes associated with aging, the most prevalent eye diseases and conditions in seniors, how to protect their sight and how vision rehabilitation can help them learn to live well despite vision loss.

The Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths & Injuries (STEADI) older adult falls prevention campaign offers tools and educational resources to help health care providers reduce falls among their patients. Developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the STEADI program provides online fact sheets, videos, case studies and continuing education.

The Administration for Community Livings Administration on Aging Falls Prevention Initiative addresses the growing epidemic of fall-related injuries among older adults. Falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries for adults aged 65 years and older. This webpage features profiles of grant awardees, including tribal organizations, and offers links to other helpful resources.

News & Events

The NIA continues to sponsor research to prevent falls in older people, with a particular focus on how prevention practices can be more effectively adopted. The NIA-funded STRIDE clinical trial evaluates evidence-based, individually tailored interventions to prevent fall-related injuries.

To find out more about studies on falls, visit https://clinicaltrials.gov/.

The Gerontological Society of America Annual Scientific Meeting will be held November 1620, 2016, in New Orleans, Louisiana. The theme is "New Lens on Aging: Changing Attitudes, Expanding Possibilities."

The IAGG World Congress on Gerontology and Geriatrics and Geriatrics will be held in San Francisco July 2327, 2017. Sessions on falls prevention are planned.
Charles Oputa, popularly known as Charly Boy, on Thursday, urged that corruption should be made a treasonable offence for it to be adequ...

Charles Oputa, popularly known as Charly Boy, on Thursday, urged that corruption should be made a treasonable offence for it to be adequately tackled.He made the call during a news conference put together by the Occupy Unlimited group, a civil society group that advocates good governance and corruption-free society.Charly Boy, who is the National Coordinator of the group, said corrupt leadership has been killing ordinary Nigerians slowly and steadily over the years.It is time to properly define it as murder in disguise, and treat as treasonable offence against our dear country.Over 180 million people are surviving at the mercy of few politicians who have mastered the art of creating division among her own people through religion, ethnicity, corruption, and frivolous issues.According to the social activist, death penalty should be introduced for all politically-corrupt persons in Nigeria if the nation really wants to be lifted out of economic hardship.He noted that countries such as China and Pakistan were striving better because they decided to make corruption a crime that deserved capital punishment.He advised that the immunity clause in the Nigerian constitution be reviewed, adding that corruption is hiding under the immunity clause to loot and plunder.
Two prosecution witnesses in a case of murder against a female lawyer, Yewande Oyediran, have demanded N500,000 as transport costs to atte...

Two prosecution witnesses in a case of murder against a female lawyer, Yewande Oyediran, have demanded N500,000 as transport costs to attend court sessions.Oyediran, an employee of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions in Oyo State of Ministry of Justice, had allegedly murdered her husband, Lowo, by stabbing him with a knife on February 2, 2016, in the Akobo area of Ibadan.A private prosecutor, Mr. Sanya Akinyele, informed an Oyo State High Court in Ibadan at Wednesdays hearing that the case could not proceed because of the demand made by the witnesses.Akinyele said that the two witnesses vowed not to testify until the money was paid.The prosecutor said, The persons  the landlord of the deceased, Mr. John Akinpelu, and his wife, Esther  are the vital witnesses in the case.He urged the court to summon the witnesses, saying they ought to testify before the other witnesses in the case.Akinyele also urged the court to direct the Chief Registrar to pay N5,000 to each of the witnesses to cover their transport expenses.Justice Munta Abimbola said it was disheartening for a witness to demand money in a case of such nature.Abimbola ordered a witness summons to be issued on the duo, saying failure by them to comply would attract sanctions.The judge also ordered the Chief Registrar to pay N5,000 to the two witnesses to cover their transport expenses.The money, he said, was to be drawn from the internally generated revenue of the Oyo State High Court.He adjourned the case till December 5, 2016, for continuation of hearing, as well as the consideration of the bail application filed by the defendants counsel, Mr. Abioye Ashanike.The News Agency of Nigeria reports that three witnesses were earlier called on Tuesday in the matter.
The Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, on Wednesday called for severe punishment for money laun...

The Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, on Wednesday called for severe punishment for money launderers and other financial crime offenders toMagu made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of a seminar organised by the Faculty of Management Science, Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, in Lagos.The seminar is entitled: Money Laundering and its Impact on the Nigerian Economy: The Way Forward.He said that though the enforcement and compliance of the current money laundering Act in Nigeria was one of the best in Africa, the punishment needed to be reviewed.The current Nigeria Money Laundering Act is good, but the aspect of punishment needs to be reviewed to be more severe.The punishment prescribes about seven years imprisonment, he said.The anti-graft chief said that the menace had eaten deep into all institutions in the country.He said that 60 percent of corruption cases in the country border on money laundering.Magu urged various institutions in the country to partner with the anti-graft agency in its fight against corruption, describing it as a crime against humanity.The chairman said that the Change Mantra of the present administration could only be achieved through the cooperation of all institutions and individuals in the system.If the state governors can utilise 50 percent of their allocation properly, there will be tremendous change and transformation in the Nigeria economy, he said.Magu, however, used the occasion to highlight the achievements of the commission in the last 12 months he assumed headship of the agency.He said: There is more commitment from officials of the commission because of the current political will that gives them the freedom to perform their duty unrestricted.In his remarks, Prof. Olanrewaju Fagbohun, the Vice-Chancellor of LASU, lauded EFCC for its good work and the successes so far recorded in spite of the obstacles hindering its efforts.Fagbohun said that corruption should be addressed in every institution, adding, the world is looking for governance that can add value in the true sense.He urged Nigerians and established institutions to start doing things rightly if they truly desire change.Fagbohun said that the judiciary should be responsive to correcting errors in the society.Regrettably, where the court and the legislature fail in their duty, the media is the only arm helping the masses, he said.Fagbohun advised the media to fill the gap, where the legal and political constitutionalism had failed.
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency is reporting that the armed forces chief of staff has criticized Donald Trump for his past harsh words about confronting Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf.

The Thursday report quotes Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri as saying, "The person who has recently achieved power, has talked off the top of his head! Threatening Iran in the Persian Gulf is just a joke."

He said American presidential candidates during their campaigns "eat too much sugar," a reference to a Farsi proverb about those who talk nonsense.

In September, Trump said Iranian ships trying to provoke the U.S. "will be shot out of the water."

In January, Iran took 10 American sailors prisoner ship veered off course into Iranian waters; they were released a day later.

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Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday invited Russian farmers to get involved in agricultural cultivation in Nigeria.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday invited Russian farmers to get involved in agricultural cultivation in Nigeria.He gave the invitation while receiving a Russian delegation led by the Russian Minister of Agriculture who is also the Co-Chair of the Nigeria-Russia Joint Commission, Mr. Alexander Tkachev at the State House, Abuja.He urged Russian farmers to invest in Nigeria, produce and export from here.According to a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, Osinbajo said: We are just 6 hours away from Europe by air. Vegetables, flour can be exported to Europe from here, even our local market here is a lot.He said that one of the reasons for cutting down on food importation into the country was its significant pressure on dwindling Nigerias foreign earnings.The oil prices have gone down tremendously and yet large amount of foreign exchange is used to purchase food abroad and we have large arable land for agriculture. It wont make sense, if you dont use the land, he said.The Vice President and the delegation that included the Russian Ambassador in Nigeria, Ambassador Nikolay Udovichenko, Russian Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Evgeny Gromyko and officials of Russians firm- United Company (Rusal) agreed that Nigeria and Russia should deepen the existing diplomatic relationship, especially economically.Osinbajo said: There is a lot of money to be made if Russian technology in agriculture is deployed locally,He also noted that there are better opportunities for economic cooperation between both countries.Speaking earlier, the Russian Agriculture Minister expressed his countrys willingness to enhance the existing trade relations with Nigeria.He said that the Nigeria-Russia trade volume as at the end of 2015 exceeded $300 million, but added that there are potentials for improvement in the years ahead.
Former Chief Security Officer, CSO, to late military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha (retd) yesterday said he...

Former Chief Security Officer, CSO, to late military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha (retd) yesterday said he was not the killer of late Kudirat Abiola.He made the denial at the sixth edition of Dr. Fredrick Fasehun annual public lecture in Akure. The lecture had the theme: The Nigerian quest for social justice and credible leadership: the travail of a nation on trial. Al-Mustapha declared that the insinuation that he killed Kudirat was a ploy by some people in government to soil his image in other to cover up for their atrocities after Abacha died. He pointedly denied that he assassinated the wife of the 1993 Presidential election winner, Chief MKO Abiola.According to him: I am often misrepresented, I discharge my duties as required which was to protect the Head of State, protect the government and the people of the country. Anything aside that would have made me a traitor and I was never a traitor, I am not a traitor and will never be a traitor. Al-Mustapha however called on all citizens of the country to come together as one regardless of their creed or political differences for a better Nigeria.Asked to access the nations democracy in an interview with newsmen after the lecture , the former CSO said; There is so much turbulence, greed and selfishness. We take two steps forward, four steps backward. My concern is patriotism and true love for the country our desire is to invest and allow our institutions to stay rather than forcing them into decay. That is what we should be cautious about. Those in leadership and those being led particularly those who have attained statesmanship position should understand there is heavier responsibility on their shoulder and they should realize that this country is too important to be allowed to fail.We must support all those in power. Also speaking on the present administration fight against corruption he said that; Anti corruption war is not easy as it is being said, we saw it in the past administrations. But before you start the anti corruption war itself, there are measures to take.One is to heal the wounds; two, corruption has eaten deep so it is going to be a combination of many things, moral law, science and force.The law should be seen to be enforced, ensuring the right of man and those who are enforcing it should also realize that the right of man must be respected. And those who are stealing should realize law is hot water, if you dare put your hand in hot water, you will get burnt and when it is burnt you have no one to blame. This is where we are and this must be done .Earlier, Fasehun had exonerated the former CSO and recounted his experience with him during the Oputa panel. Fasehun said Al-Mustapha was convicted with unreliable evidences by the Oputa Panel The guest lecturer Dare Babarinsa had earlier said that the former CSO imprisoned the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Falae and Fasehun in the same prison during the military juntas rule. Babarinsa said: Nigeria has really changed and this has also culminated into the CSO sitting together with Fasehun and Falae whom the former allegedly victimized during the military era.He however lamented that the leaders, who enjoyed the dividends of democracy in their days, have failed to provide same to the succeeding generations.
Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen is the new chief justice of Nigeria, following the retirement of Justice Mahmud Mohammed who clocked 70 on Th...

Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen is the new chief justice of Nigeria, following the retirement of Justice Mahmud Mohammed who clocked 70 on Thursday, November 10.Onnoghen is remarkably the first southerner to be CJN since 1987 when Ayo Irikefe retired.Beyond the regional fact, however, TheCable presents interesting highlights of his career: ranging from his pronouncements on culture and tradition to politics.Born on December 22, 1950 in Biase, Cross Rivers state, Onnoghen will be in office till December 2020, barring any circumstances beyond his control.He attended the Presbyterian Primary School, Okurike, Biase, from 1959 to 1965 and proceeded to Ghana for his secondary education from 1967 to 1972. He did his ALevel at the Accra Academy in 1972 and studied law at the University of Ghana, Legon, from 1974 to 1977.He returned to Lagos to attend the Nigerian Law School between 1977 and 1978, thereafter working as pupil state counsel, ministry of justice, in Ikeja, Lagos and Ogun states between 1978 and 1979.Between 1979 and 1988, he was a partner in the law firm of Effiom Ekong and Company, in Calabar, after which he became principal partner and head of chamber of Walter Onneghen and Associates, Calabar.In 1989, he crossed from the bar to the bench as he was appointed a high court judge by the Cross Rivers state judiciary. He moved on in 1990 to become the chairman, Cross Rivers State Armed Robbery and Fire Arms Tribunal. He was there for three years.Onnoghen was appointed chairman of the Failed Bank Tribunal, Ibadan zone, in 1998, from where he moved on to become a justice of the court of appeal. In 2005, he was elevated to the supreme court.For gender rights activists, April 11, 2014 was not just another day in the history of Nigeria. That day the supreme court made a landmark pronouncement in the case of two Igbo women, Gladys Ada Ukeje and Maria Nweke, who argued that they should have equal access as men to the inheritance of their parents.In Igbo culture, women had been disinherited for ages as a result of tradition.The two women sued the men in their families  and finally got justice as the case moved from the lower to the highest courts in the land.Delivering the unanimous judgment on behalf of Justices Onnoghen, Clara Bata Ogunbiyi, Kumai Bayang Akaahs and John Inyang Okoro, Bode Rhodes-Vivour declared: No matter the circumstances of the birth of a female child, such a child is entitled to an inheritance from her fathers estate. Consequently, the Igbo customary law, which disentitles a female child from partaking in sharing of the deceased fathers estate, is in breach of section 42(1) and (2) of the constitution, a fundamental rights provision guaranteed to every Nigerian.Feminists and gender rights activists celebrated the historic moment. Now that they have a friendly judge as CJN, should they expect more justice for Nigerian women?Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, also known as Rev. King, the general overseer of Christian Praying Assembly, was accused of murdering a member of his church in 2006.The Lagos state government prosecuted King and he was convicted to die by hanging.King appealed his death sentence by the high court which was affirmed by the court of appeal.At the supreme court, the panel of justices led by Onnoghen upheld the decision of the Lagos division of the court of appeal, which had affirmed the conviction and the sentence.The facts of the case could have been lifted from [the] horror film, the panel led by Onnoghen held.This appeal has no merit. The judgement of the court of appeal is hereby affirmed. The prison sentence that was earlier handed to the appellant is no longer relevant in view of the death sentence passed on him.When Muhammadu Buhari, a retired major-general, lost to Umaru Musa YarAdua, governor of his home state, Katsina, in the 2007 presidential election, he headed for the tribunal.Buhari argued, among other things, that the election was rigged and that it should be cancelled and a fresh election conducted.Never in the history of Nigeria had a presidential election been cancelled, perhaps because of the complications of not having a substantive president holding fort during a rerun.Some of these political considerations are believed to have discouraged the judiciary from ruling decisively on presidential election petitions. In the end, all who went to the tribunal did so more for the record than to get justice.However, Onnoghen was not moved by such sentiments. Along with George Oguntade and Aloma Muktah (who later became CJN), Onnoghen annulled YarAduas election in December 2008 and called for a fresh one.However, they were outnumbered by the other justices who agreed that even though the election was flawed, the irregularities were not substantial enough to lead to a nullification.These were Justices Idris Kutigi (then CJN), Iyorgyer Katsina-Alu, Niki Tobi (late) and Dahiru Musdapher.I had already held that the burden of proving non-compliance and the substantiality of the non-compliance on the result of the election lie on the petitioner/appellant. Has he discharged that onus? I hold the view that he has. There are non-compliances that go straight to the fundamentals of an election thereby affecting condition precedents for the holding of an election while others may just affect the result of the election where one had been validly held. In other words, some non-compliance may render an election void in which case there is no result of the election to be substantial affected by the non-compliance while others may substantially affect the result of an election validly conducted.For instance, if the non-compliance with the provisions of the electoral act complained of have to do with the validity of the voters register used at an election which non-compliance is found proved, will that alone not be enough, to invalidate the election without the requirement of the further prove of how the non-compliance affected substantially the result of the election when in law there could not have been an election in the first place as no election can take place without a valid voters register.In my view two things are crucial and fundamental to the holding of an election. These are voters register and ballot papers. It is common knowledge that he two are the targets of the election rigger, if not properly handled. Section 10 and 11 of the Electoral Act deal with National Register of Voters and Voters Registration while section 45 and 67 dead with the format of ballot papers.It is failure to comply with subsection 2 of section 45 that the lower court found to constitute substantial non-compliance with the provisions of Electoral Act. There is no cross appeal on that crucial finding/holding. That being the case, the respondents are deemed to have accepted the said finding as valid and proper and it is settled law that under the circumstance the parties and this court are bound by the said finding and as such this court is without vires or jurisdiction to reverse or disagree with same not being a busy body.I therefore agree with the lower court that the non-compliance with the provisions of section 45 (2) of the Electoral Act, 2006 constitute substantial non-compliance but i do not agree that the substantial non-compliance so found is not enough to affect the result of the election because in the first place, you cannot conduct an election properly so called without valid ballot papers. By holding that there was substantial non-compliance with section 45 (2) supra it tantamount to holding that the election that was conducted on the 21st day of April, 2007 was done without valid ballot papers which to me, with the greatest respect, amounts to a nullity.The situation being as found by the lower court it follows that there was no election known to law the result of which could have been substantially affected by the non-compliance as the non-compliance in this case is of the nature that invalidated the election. To hold otherwise amounts to giving licence to those who conduct our elections to continue to do whatever they like including creating loopholes for the rigging of our elections thereby continuing to deny our electoral process the credibility it deserves in the comity of democratic nations. How is one to know which ballot papers were sent to Sokoto, Kastina, Ebonyi etc when the ballot papers were not in booklet form and numbered serially?Even the within the particular state where the ballot papers are sent for election how do we know if ballot papers meant for one Local Government Area or ward are not diverted and used in another or even not used at all but stuffed into the ballot boxes and counted as votes. How can we determine a genuine ballot paper from a fake one when we agree that any paper can pass for a ballot paper and be used in an election and assumed that such an act of non-compliance does not affect the result of the election?
The Peoples Democratic Party has said Nigerians are suffering under the President Muhammadu Buhari-led led Federal Government.

The Peoples Democratic Party has said Nigerians are suffering under the President Muhammadu Buhari-led led Federal Government.The Vice-Chairman of the party in the North-East, Emmanuel Njiwah, stated this in Yola, on Wednesday, stressing that Nigeria had become a nation of sorrow under the All Progressives Congress.Njiwah belongs to the Senator Modu Sheriff faction of the party, which is locked in a bitter leadership struggle with the Senator Ahmed Makarfi faction.Njiwah said it was shocking that Buhari could lead Nigeria into a recession within one year of coming into power.The factional vice-chairman, who spoke while inaugurating the Adamawa State executive committee of the PDP led by Abdulrahman Bobboi, said the APC had devastated the economy.He said, Anybody with a plan for Nigeria cannot come into power and within the spate of a year, plunge the largest economy on the continent into recession.They have actually devastated the economy of Nigeria but they kept blaming the PDP. But the fact remains that as of May 29, 2015, Nigeria was the largest economy in Africa and as of May 2016, we have become a nation of sorrow.While presenting the 28-member Adamawa State chapter of the party with their certificates of return, Njiwah reiterated the determination of the PDP to reclaim power in 2019.He assured that the leadership crisis rocking the national body of the party would soon be resolved, saying that was vital if the party would reclaim power at the federal level.He said, The PDP needs to come back. Is there anybody who is not suffering here? Those who voted them in and even we that didnt vote them are suffering too. Our markets are not different. Our filling stations are not different. We are buying from the same markets.We want to buy a bag of rice for N7,000. We want to buy fuel at N87 per litre.A former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Ali Gulak, who was chairman on the occasion, deplored the poor state of the economy under the APC-led Federal Government.Gulak said Nigerians were worse off now than they were when the PDP was in power.
Edo State has asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to return N500million and property seized from convicted former ...

Edo State has asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to return N500million and property seized from convicted former Governor Lucky Igbinedion to it.This request is contained in a November 7 letter to the EFCC through the state governments lawyer Mr Femi Falana (SAN).Igbinedion was arraigned in 2008 along with his company Kiva Corporation Limited on sundry allegations of defrauding the state government.The charges were subsequently amended pursuant to a plea bargain agreement. They pleaded guilty.The convicts were ordered to forfeit N500million to the Federal Government as well as three properties.They included a landed property measuring 4,823.02 square meters in Asokoro, Abuja, a detached two plots of land comprising four bedrooms and boys quarters at 57 Ihama Road in Benin City and a storey building and a bungalow at 24, Izekor Street, off Chris Mary Street, also in Benin City.While thanking the EFCC for the successful prosecution of the defendants, it will be accepted if the said sum of N500million and the three properties which have been recovered on the orders of the Federal High Court are transferred to the Edo State Government forthwith, Falana wrote.
The world was left in deep shock yesterday after the unexpected election of Republican Donald Trump as United States 45th President. ...

Bolaji Akinyemi, a professor of political science, described Mr. Trumps victory as a worrisome development and a victory of the ugly side of the U.S.Prof. Akinyemi, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, said global predictions of the Democratic candidate, Hilary Clintons victory was cut short by Trumps win.It brings uncertainty into international politics because the world now has to deal with a man who is inexperienced, does not understand the complexities of international politics and has no respect for anyone who is not white or American; I think that is dangerous.There has always been an ugly side to the U.S. just as there is with every country in the world but the good side in the U.S. has always prevailed so that in tackling American problems, the interests of the U.S. are not defined in antagonism to the interest of the whole world.He added that that it would be difficult to predict Mr. Trumps policies toward Nigerians or Africans in the Diaspora and the continent itselfA former Nigerian ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Ambassador Dapo Fafowora said Trumps victory was a lesson to Nigerians and Africans to remain in and contribute to the development of their countries.There is nothing in his background to suggest he has any durable interest in Africa.I think it is a lesson for Nigerians; people should stay here and make contributions in developing our country.When people go abroad, they contribute to these foreign countries; one must agree that conditions are difficult but if Nigerians abroad work half as hard as they do abroad in Nigeria, we will be a better country.I think it is a good development for Africa that we should look inwards and try to develop ourselves without relying on any major economic power.Nigerias former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, advised the leadership of Nigeria and Africa to promote policies in the interest of the citizens.He said such interests would encourage development and reduce the flow of African citizens to western countries.as Africans, we have survived slavery, colonialism, apartheid; I think the strength of the African people will enable us to survive any negative consequences arising from this results.The important thing is for the leadership of our continent to put the people ahead of anything else and if the link between the people and the leadership is strong, then we will survive the decision by the Americans to elect Donald.The don expressed optimism that U.S. laws and institutions would protect Nigerians and Africans in the U.S., stressing, however, that clearly, we should be prepared.The Africans in the Diaspora are the sixth region in Africa as being decided by the African Union so we have to be supportive and look out for them.According to a survey of people across the world by the NBC, the Trump Presidency is evoking fear.From Rome, Italy on hearing that Trump had won, Alessio Renda, a 25-year-old music student, was incredulous. Seriously? Its impossible. Oh my god. Its really strange, thats my first reaction.Anna Maria Fagetin, a 35-year-old lawyer, reflected on Trumps pledge to bring his business acumen to the White House  and drew parallels with Italian tycoon and ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.Berlusconi said the same thing when he ran in Italy  that he would run Italy like he would run his companies, she said. The companies were successful, but Italy was not. So, what advice can I give to the Americans? Good luck.Michele Angelini, a 24-year-old student in Rome, said that the first thing that came to his mind when he learned the news was that he would have to create a nuclear shelter in the basement.His second thought was: Well, now [Americans] have Berlusconi, too.From Tehran, Iran, a 27-year-old civil engineer, who did not give his full names said: Im happy Trump got elected because I think he is going to pull America down and weaken the country.I think the election of Trump means the weakening of America and it will be good for Iran.Suleiman Mordai Rad, a 58-year-old cab driver, said: We are revolutionaries whether its Trump or Clinton, it makes no difference. As the supreme leader said, we will deliver a massive punch to Americas mouth. They have to respect us, thats it. But they are not going to because they take their instructions from Israel.Trump will have a negative effect on the Middle-East if he cant control himself, said Hesam Modir, a 60-year-old mechanical engineer. He seems to favour conflict. But today, after the nuclear deal, I dont think America will have any effect on Iran, good or bad.From Tokyo, Japan, Yoshihiro Iseki, a 78-year-old retiree said: I think the result will bring huge damage to the Japanese economy, said. Mr. Trump has said Japan should defend itself on its own, if thats the case its going to be a huge problem.Kumiko Kurosawa, a 47-year-old who runs her own business in the music industry, said: Im afraid Japan will now appear weak to China and North Korea because Mr. Trump doesnt appreciate the strong U.S. and Japan security alliance. I think Japan should shoulder its fair share of responsibilities in terms of security, but not having a strong U.S.-Japan cooperation is a problem.Trump seems to poke at the weakness of others, said Yasushi Tetsuka, a 49 -year-old male white-collar worker. I think having him as president will be a disadvantage to us. I am deeply worried about the future of our economy.From Beijing, China, Feina Zhen, a 27-year-old from Shenzhen who lived in the U.S. for six years and works at an investment firm in Beijing, said:Were seeing a disaster coming, from my perspective, because I think hes crazy, said Ironically sporting a blue Make China Great Again, Feina expressed concern about her Chinese friends in the U.S. because of Trumps stance on immigration. If I had the right to vote, Im definitely not voting for him, she said.Mico Ma, a 41-year-old business consultant from Jiangsu Province living in Beijing, said: Im very surprised you American people vote for a person like that as a leader, as a state leader. I dont think hes  a cautious person in terms of speeches and behaviour and presenting his political viewpoints  not only to the American people, but also to the world.I think Trump being president will bring a very positive influence to China-U.S. relations, said Gao Yan, a 42-year-old professional investor in Beijing who hails from Henan Province. Unlike Hillarys e-mail controversy; he will discuss a few things with Chinese government in a transparent way. Trump is a blunt man. So, he wont hide what he does.From Tel Aviv, Israel, Michael Eladi, said:Trump is a one-of-a-kind-guy and America is ready for him because he steps out of the border, he says what he thinks and people like that. Eladi, a 26-year-old media director added: He is going to do something new. Im actually happy. Trump might be a little childish, but he is not a liar. He is the lesser evil.Omri Shuva, a 30-year-old computer scientist, said: Im not sure Trump is capable to this job and I hope he will surprise us all. I think that for us its bad that Trump won. If he weakens the U.S. worldwide, then its bad for Israel.Im surprised, Im shocked. But to tell you the truth, I was very happy because he ran alone and Clinton had the support of President Obama, said Shoshana Klien, a 65-year-old who works in a bank and lives in Jerusalem. Concerning Israel, I dont see any difference between the Democrats and Republicans. And I hope Trump learns about foreign relations. He has a lot to learn and he will be a good president. Yes Im happy, very happy.From Paris, France, Jean Pierre B, a 65-year-old retiree, said: My reaction is probably the same you will hear many times in France because people dont like him at all. They are afraid of what that guy has said all the time and for us hes really the picture of the redneck American.Well, the reaction is really shock, said Genevieve Derouvre, a 60-year-old guide book writer. Im really shocked and deeply sad for the country. For all that has been done before by Obama, all the projects that Hillary Clinton had, all that I hope will not collapse. But it will be in danger.Kabul, AfghanistanPeople often associate Mr. Trump with what he had said during election campaign. For example his comments about Muslims were not only deeply offensive here, but it also alienated lot of people, said Bilal Sarwary, a 34-year-old journalist in Kabul. But more importantly, this is a country (that) heavily relies on the U.S.A. Almost $3.5 billion and even more is paid every year by the U.S.A. to pay the salaries of Afghan security forces to run the countrys military forces. So, if I were President Ashraf Ghani  I would be worried about first guaranteeing the money keeps on coming.American elections results took me, like many others, by surprise. I am concerned about the future of human rights in America as well as U.S. foreign policy, said Shaharzad Akbar, a 29-year-old political activist. The president-elects campaign rhetoric, and his lack of political and military experience, are both causes for concern. The world will be watching the U.S. with anxiety and concern in the months and years to come.Ramallah, West BankNaser Abdel Hade, a 53-year-old restaurant owner in Ramallah, said Trumps victory was an international political earthquake.I think America got what it deserves, I think it shows the true picture of America, its racist, he said. I think its a wake-up call to the people of America to become more compassionate, to become fairer towards itself and the world. So, I think we will wait four more years to see the repercussions of what happened this morning.In my opinion, all of them are liars. No one will improve the Palestinian issue, said Doha Sheikh, a 21- year-old student in Ramallah. No one cares about Palestinians issues, but about themselves.I think it will be four miserable years for the U.S. for normal citizens and also for Arabs, said Omar Ziadi, a 29-year-old writer.Peshawar, PakistanI personally thought a woman should win the election as it would have changed U.S. history  We have seen their male presidents always fighting wars, said Shehzada Khan, a 60-year-old farmer in northwest Pakistan.Mohammad Jan, a 24-year-old who sells fruits and vegetables in Peshawar, said he was also a supporter of Clinton because he believed she might be able to control terrorism in Pakistan. I was hurt when I learned that my favorite candidate has lost, he said.Now, when Donald Trump has become the new U.S. president  you can convey to him our appeal to work for peace.
Mansur Dan-Ali, minister of defence, has pleaded with Nigerians to give the military more time to finish off Boko Haram, saying insurgency...

Mansur Dan-Ali, minister of defence, has pleaded with Nigerians to give the military more time to finish off Boko Haram, saying insurgency cannot be eliminated in one day.Speaking with state house correspondents after the federal executive council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday, Dan-Ali said 95 percent success had been achieved in the fight against insurgency.Give us additional time, recall that recently we lost one of our officers and soldiers, he said.Insurgency is something that you cannot eradicate within a day. Remember Tamil Tigers, remember Kashmir and other places of the world where insurgency is ongoing.However, within the last one year I can assure you that almost 95 percent of the security challenges of this nation have been eradicated.If you can remember before the coming of this administration we had a lot of security challenges. I am not saying that it has been eradicated within one year, but I am telling you as I am talking to you today I am proud to mention that things that were happening in the past in the north-east and other regions of this country have tremendously gone down.Dan-Alis statement is coming a few days after Muhammad Abu Ali, Nigerias war hero and some of his men were killed by the insurgents at Mallam Fatori, Borno state.Follow us on twitter @thecableng
The battle for Iraq's second city Mosul neared the remains of ancient Nimrud on Thursday, the military said, raising fears for the famed heritage site already ravaged by militants bombs and sledgehammers.

Troops and allied militia were advancing on two villages held by the Islamic State group near the ancient site some 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Mosul, the Joint Operations Command said.

"Units of the 9th Armoured Division and the Hashed al-Ashaeri (tribal militia) are beginning to advance to liberate the villages of Abbas Rajab and Al-Nomaniyah, toward Nimrud," it said.

Nimrud was the one of the great centres of the ancient Middle East. Founded in the 13th Century BC, it became the capital of the Assyrian empire, whose rulers built vast palaces and monuments that have drawn archaeologists from around the world for more than 150 years.

Many of its monumental stone sculptures and reliefs were taken way for display in museums around the world but some of the more massive structures remained in place when the jihadists swept through in mid-2014.

In April last year, IS group posted video on the internet of its fighters sledgehammering monuments before planting explosives around the site and blowing it up.

It was part of a campaign of destruction by the jihadists against heritage sites under their control that also took in ancient Nineveh on the outskirts of Mosul, Hatra in the desert to the south and Palmyra in neighbouring Syria,

IS group says the ancient monuments are idols that violate the teachings of its extreme form of Sunni Islam.

But that has not stopped the group from trafficking artefacts it purports to revile on the black market to fund its operations.

It is unclear what still remains of Nimrud's ancient ruins as Iraqi forces move closer.

But it is just one of a number of treasured heritage sites that are threatened with further damage by the offensive that the government launched on October 17 to retake Mosul, the militants' last major stronghold in Iraq.

The area where ancient Hatra is located may see fighting between IS militants and pro-government militias who aim to retake the town of Tal Afar, which commands Mosul's western approaches.

Ancient Nineveh is also in the path of advancing troops.

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Allies of Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, the dominant figure in the divided country's east, have welcomed Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. election, betting on more support for their anti-Islamist stance.

The result could boost pro-Haftar factions with strong ties to Egypt and increasingly to Russia, while diluting Western support for a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli that Haftar and his allies have opposed, analysts say.

Libya splintered into rival political and armed groupings after the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and remains deeply divided between factions based in the east and west that backed rival governments and parliaments.

The leaders of a U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) arrived in Tripoli in March. But they have failed to fully displace the previous administration in Tripoli or win endorsement from power-brokers in the east, who accuse the GNA of being beholden to Islamist-leaning militias.

Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) have been fighting a two-year military campaign against Islamists and other opponents in Benghazi and elsewhere in the east. Many suspect he seeks national power.

Haftar is aligned with the eastern parliament and government, both of which were quick to congratulate Trump on his win.

"I strongly support Trump because of his and the Republicans' resolute and decisive attitudes," said Tarek al-Jaroushi, a member of the parliament whose father commands Haftar's air force. "The Republican Party, which understands the truth about Daesh (Islamic State group) and the positions and the victories of the Libyan army, will support us."

A statement from the parliament to Trump said: "We hope for your support  and we call for the lifting of the arms embargo on the Libyan army which is waging a war against terrorism."

Trump's win is likely to result in a retreat of U.S. support for the struggling GNA's leadership, or Presidential Council, said Claudia Gazzini, a Libya analyst at International Crisis Group.

"Up until now it's the U.S. Democratic administration that has been the major cheerleader of the Presidential Council, and the U.S. position on

Libya has really dictated the international alignments, at least among Western countries," she said.

That could benefit Haftar, who in September seized control of key oil terminals from a rival faction aligned with the GNA.

Regional powers

Change is unlikely in U.S. counter-terrorism policy in Libya, which has included air strikes against Islamic State in its former stronghold of Sirte, said Frederic Wehry of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but shuttle diplomacy and "the follow-on task of rebuilding Libya's government and especially security" could be reduced.

Any lessening of U.S. involvement in Libya could leave regional powers freer to act. In recent years western factions including Islamists have been close to Qatr and Turkey, whilst their eastern rivals have relied on support from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Haftar's allies have also cultivated ties with Russia, which printed banknotes for an eastern breakaway branch of Libya's central bank.

Trends in eastern Libya of "disengagement from party politics, a tightening of control over civil society, over mosques, over journalism" are a reflection of what is happening in Egypt, and close relations between Trump and Sisi could "strongly affect Libya", said Wehry.

Egypt said its President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was the first international leader to congratulate Trump by telephone. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is ready to repair ties with the U.S. under Trump.

On Facebook, some Libyan supporters of Haftar expressed hope that a Trump victory would lead to a crackdown on Islamists in the region.

Opponents said they would fight to defend the 2011 revolution regardless. In one widely shared post a woman from the western city of Misrata wrote: "They (the LNA) may be supported by Trump, Russia, Sisi, and Haftar, but we still have God with us."

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At least 11 people including four children were killed Thursday in air strikes on rebel-held areas near the Syrian capital, a monitor said.

One strike on the besieged town of Douma killed eight people including three children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A separate strike on nearby Sabqa killed two women and a young girl, it said.

The raids are part of a six-month offensive by government forces that has chipped away at rebel-held villages and farmland across Eastern Ghouta, according to the Observatory.

Douma, the largest town in the Eastern Ghouta area with more than 100,000 residents, is surrounded and regularly shelled by regime forces.

Syria's five-year conflict has left more than 300,000 people dead.

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Related China moves to bar Hong Kong activists as fears grow over intervention

Global police cooperation agency Interpol elected a senior Chinese public security official as president, Chinese state media said on Thursday, in what could be a boost to Beijing's domestic anti-graft crackdown.

The move hands China another leading spot on an international agency and will likely help facilitate its high-profile efforts to track down Chinese fugitive officials who have fled the country.

Vice Public Security Minister Meng Hongwei was chosen for a four-year term at the agency's 85th members' meeting in Indonesia, the official Xinhua news agency said.

"He is the first Chinese official to take the post," Xinhua said. His predecessor was Mireille Ballestrazzi from France.

China has worked bilaterally with countries around the world, and through the France-based organisation, to chase down Chinese suspects as part of President Xi Jinping's sweeping campaign against corruption.

In 2014, China issued an Interpol "red notice", the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant, for its 100 most-wanted corruption suspects who have fled overseas. It has said it has brought back at least one-third of them so far.

China has been seeking more international cooperation to hunt down suspected fugitives since Xi began the drive against deeply rooted graft about four years ago.

Western countries, however, have been reluctant to help, or to sign extradition treaties, not wanting to send people back to a country where rights groups say mistreatment of criminal suspects remains a problem.

They also complain China is unwilling to provide proof of their crimes.

Critics have also said Xi's graft crackdown is as much about taking action against his political enemies as it is about going after corruption, accusations the government strongly denies.

Duan Daqi, a Chinese national, is currently an Interpol vice president whose term ends in 2018.

Other Chinese nationals have previously served in senior positions in world organisations, including Zhu Min, who was deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund from 2011 to 2016.

Justin Lin, also known as Lin Yifu, served as chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank from 2008 to 2012, and Margaret Chan, a resident of Hong Kong which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, is director-general of the World Health Organisation.

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North Korea on Thursday warned the incoming Donald Trump administration will have to acknowledge it as a nuclear state, as the South said the maverick billionaire had pledged to protect it.

The United States maintains it cannot accept North Korea as a nuclear power, despite it conducting five nuclear tests -- including two in 2016 -- and has pushed harsh international sanctions against the Pyongyang regime.

"If there is anything the Obama administration has done... it has put the security of the US mainland in the greatest danger," said an editorial carried by North Korea's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

"It has burdened the new administration with the difficulty of facing the Juche nuclear state," it said, referring to the North Korean ideology usually translated as "self-reliance".

The editorial, which did not mention Trump by name, follows growing calls for the United States to change tack on North Korea, with US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper last month labelling attempts to denuclearise the North a lost cause.

President Barack Obama has made talks with the North conditional on Pyongyang first making some tangible commitment towards denuclearisation, but Thursday's editorial called the goal an "outdated illusion".

Although Trump has not laid out a clear direction for his policy on North Korea, he has indicated that he would be open to negotiations with its leader Kim Jong-Un in the US to talk him out of his nuclear ambitions.

Trump caused consternation during his campaign when he threatened to withdraw the troops unless Seoul paid more for their upkeep, and suggested South Korea and Japan develop their own nuclear weapons to counter threats from Pyongyang.

But in a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Thursday, Trump vowed that US commitment on protecting its ally against the North "will not waver".

"We are going to be with you 100 percent," Trump said, according to a statement from South Korea's Blue House.

"We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea," Seoul quoted him as saying.

North Korea has been hit by five sets of UN sanctions since it first tested a nuclear device in 2006.

After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, the Security Council adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date, targeting North Korea's trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.

Council members are currently debating a fresh resolution after the North's fifth nuclear test in September.

According to Security Council diplomats, the negotiations are focused on closing loopholes and zeroing in on North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile technology industry.

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'He said he was going to kill her:' Threat from triple murder suspect to ex-girlfriend
The United States embassy in Tajikistan said on Thursday it had received information about possible attacks on large public gatherings in the Central Asian nation and its border crossings with Afghanistan.

The embassy said in a statement that "terrorist groups" may carry out such attacks, but did not name them.

It urged U.S. citizens to avoid large crowds and public transportation.

Tajikistan often reports clashes with Afghan drug smugglers along the border.

The former Soviet republic is also planning a series of events in parks and other public places to mark a new holiday, President's Day, on Nov. 16.

President Imomali Rakhmon, in power since 1992, faced a coup attempt by a senior defence official in September 2015.

His government has since banned an Islamist party, once the country's main opposition.

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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.
Related European stocks drop at open on Trump win

European equities advanced for a fourth straight session to a two-week high on Thursday, pulled upwards by banks and miners, with encouraging results from companies such as Vivendi also supporting the broader market.

The pan-European STOXX 600 was last up 1.1 percent after earlier setting its highest level in more than two weeks. The index closed 1.5 percent higher in the previous session after slumping 2.4 percent earlier that day after the shock victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election.

Analysts said that investors were focusing on Trump's key policy priorities including generous tax cuts and higher infrastructure and defence spending, along with deregulation for the banking sector.

The European banking sector rose 3.4 percent, the top sector gainer, helped by gains of over 6 percent for Credit Suisse, UBS and Banco Popolare.

"The financial sector expects that under Trump's tenure, there will be less regulations. A rising rate environment is also good for their profits. I think the Fed could raise rates by 25 basis points in December and then probably two times next year," said Christian Stocker, strategist at UniCredit.

Shares in Aegon NV surged 13 percent, the top gainer in the STOXX 600 index, after the Dutch insurer reported better-than-expected earnings. It helped the European insurance index to increase more than 3 percent.

Among other sector movers, European mining index advanced 3.2 percent after copper prices jumped 4 percent to their highest level in nearly 16 months on expectations that policies under Trump could spur infrastructure spending. Prices of other industrial metals were also higher.

The European construction and materials index climbed to its highest level since late 2007 and was last up 2.4 percent. Shares in CRH rose 6.1 percent, while ACS was up 4.2 percent.

Shares in miners Antofagasta, Glencore, Anglo American and Rio Tinto advanced between 3.2 percent and 9.7 percent.

Some individual companies reacted strongly after their updates. French media giant Vivendi rose 8.8 percent after reporting a third-quarter core operating profit above forecasts following a strong performance of its music unit.

Dutch fertiliser and chemicals company OCI spiked 9.6 percent after EFG-Hermes lifted its rating on the stock to "buy", saying that a steep share price pullback was unjustified and it believed that the stock offered a solid long-term growth opportunity.

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The $2 billion loan comes a day before the IMF is due to meet to decide on a $12 billion loan package for Egypt

The Central Bank of Egypt has reached a deal to secure $2 billion in financing from global banks, the bank said in a statement Thursday.

The central bank "initiated a repurchase transaction with a consortium of international banks for a total amount of funding of $2 billion with a maturity of one-year," the statement said.

The funds were provided by the banks against "the entire amount of newly issued Egyptian dollar-denominated sovereign bonds with maturities of Dec 2017, Nov 2024, and Nov 2028, held by the CBE, which are listed on the Irish Stock Exchange."

The financing bolsters the liquidity and size of the international reserves of the CBE" and reflects international banks' confidence in Egypt's economic reform program, the central bank said.

The terms were reached a day before the International Monetary Funds board meets to decide on a $12 billion loan package Egypt received initial approval of.

Officials say the new IMF loan will help regain investor confidence in Egypt's economy, battered by years of political turmoil since the 2011 uprising drove away foreign investors and tourism, two key sources of foreign currency.

Egypts reserves fell by over $550 million from September to reach $19 billion at the end of October, far below a record $36 shortly before the revolution.

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Community

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Singaporean Ambassador to Egypt Premjith Sadasivan believes Egypt is ripe with developmental potential, saying Singapore is ready to be a partner at all levels

President of Singapore Tony Tan's recent state visit to Egypt commemorated 50 years of ties between the two countries. While the media covered the visit extensively and focused on its political and economic aspects, in separate interview Ambassador Premjith Sadasivan highlighted deeper cultural and social bonds between Egypt and Singapore. For Egypt, Singapore's iconic renaissance is an inspiration as it embarks on the path of building a new Egypt.

Enhancing the Singapore-Egypt partnership

Mr Sadasivan is the first ambassador of Singapore to oversee two historic presidential visits between Egypt and Singapore.

Appointed as Singapores ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt as well as to the State of Libya in 2013, he witnessed many major events affecting the region firsthand. In interview, it is clear he has a genuine passion for Egypt. Despite his low key appearance, Sadasivan works non-stop to build close social and cultural bonds between Egypt and Singapore.

Although the state visit was uppermost on Mr Sadasivan's mind at the start of the interview, he quickly looked to the big picture. "Looking into Singapore-Egypt relations one can only describe it as a complementary partnership. Both are crucial maritime nodes in the world. Once the Suez Canal area develops into an integrated logistics hub, our two countries' connectivity will improve vastly. Singapore is ready to partner Egypt in this endeavour."

Having followed the developments of the Suez Canal area closely, he said: "We believe President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is committed to the vision of the Suez Canal economic zone, which when realised will transform Egypt's economy. It has the potential to be a turning point for Egypt's development. The project is executed with excellence, which will send a clear message to the world that Egypt is going forward."

Sadasivan added that, "Widening the canal in a very short timeframe was a miracle indeed." He also pointed out that Egypt has managed to solve its energy shortages. Through these two examples, Sadasivan said, "Egypt has shown what it is capable of."

Strengthening bilateral economic cooperation between Egypt and Singapore was one of the announced goals of the presidential visit. When asked about the level of commitment shown by the Singapore business community to working with Egypt, Mr Sadasivan replied: "I accompanied President El-Sisi during his visit to Singapore, and I think he left a great impression on Singapore's business community by his honesty. Everyone appreciated the fact that he was clear; he didnt try to make the situation sound better than what it is on the ground. Immediately after the visit, members of Singapore business community were interested to explore investment options in Egypt."

When asked to provide a timeframe, Sadasivan explained that, "Singapore's government always keeps what we call an arm's length approach, meaning that the government keeps a distance from all businesses and projects. It does not make decisions for them. The companies have to evaluate the projects on a commercial basis. Our role as government is to open doors and lay the ground for stronger economic relations with Egypt."

Referring to solutions to Egypt's current economic challenges, Mr Sadasivan did not mince his words. "Foreign direct investments and exports are two key solutions. Tourism will bounce back gradually, but it will take some time." Asked what qualities are required for Egypt to succeed, he said: "Passion and excellence. Egyptians have lots of passion and when this is combined with excellence, the country will take off and witness new horizons."

Egypt in the middle ground

Egypt has been regarded as promoting moderate Islam against radical streams. Mr Sadasivan stated that "Egypt's gift to Asia is moderate Islam. It is important to know that the largest Muslim country in the world is located in Southeast Asia, where Al-Azhar is widely respected, representing Shafi'i and Hanafi Madhabs, which are embraced by Asians. This always explains the direct connection between Asia and Egypt."

On a question of religious harmony, Sadasivan disclosed that, "When President El-Sisi visited Singapore, he chose the Religious Harmony Centre as his first stop where he was received by 10 religious leaders. And during the recent visit of our president, he was keen to take a tour of Al-Azhar. This mutual interest indicates a deep understanding and great respect for religious diversity."

Sadasivan noted that, "Practicing religion in Egypt is up to the individual, which explains why Egyptians avoid extremes. This is the same type tolerance that we see much of Asia. If Egypt remains in the middle ground in the practice of religion, then Asian countries with Muslim communities would benefit."

Asked whether Singapore is involved in fighting extremists, he replied in the affirmative but pointed out that Egypt's role is more important.

"We believe Egypt, through Al-Azhar, is uniquely placed to keep the world away from extremism and extremist ideology. This is going to be a long journey; it will not be accomplished in one or two years, and Singapore is committed to support it."

Singapore's miraculous renaissance

An important aspect in the Singaporeane experience is the multi-cultured nature of its people.

According to Mr Sadasivan, "Singapore is a nation of immigrants coming from different backgrounds. We have no choice but to take the middle ground, to join all of our diverse roots, cultures and religions together. And that was our major challenge and now we have created a common identity as Singaporeans. And we agreed that in order to stay united, race and religion should not be used to define ourselves."

He added: "The focus was our commonalities. This began by Singaporeans going to the same schools, so by the time we reach 18 years old, the community is already blended. We learnt an important lesson from the histories of other countries. One lesson was if you belong to a majority ethnic or religious group, then you should be far more generous to the minority. This was the recipe for peace, stability and harmony. Everyone in the country, regardless of race or religion, should be treated fairly and equally."

The issue of fighting corruption and nepotism was raised. Mr Sadasivan said that in Singapore this fight started with the civil service. "Civil servants are recruited on merit. It is very rare to find members of the same family working at the same ministry, so getting a government job doesn't depend on your family connections or status  only your own skills matters. I am the only civil servant in my family; my other siblings work in the private sector."

"In Singapore, civil servants are not allowed to take on a second job. They are well-paid and are expected to perform their roles," he added.

When highlighted that Singapore has invested huge sums in arts and culture, Ambassador Sadasivan answered, "The aim is to make Singapore into an arts and culture hub for the region and the world. The vision goes beyond the economic benefits."

With cities like Milan, Paris, New York and Hong Kong already regular destinations as established cultural hubs, what does Singapore offer? Ambassador Sadasivan explained: "We have set our eyes on becoming a culture hub of Asia. Today millions of tourists visit Singapore because of its cultural menu. Tourists can choose from a wide menu, be it arts, culture or lifestyle. It is because of the variety and quality that people keep coming back to Singapore. They know they are guaranteed to have a unique enjoyable experience."

Asked about how Singapore sticks to long-term planning, Mr Sadasivan said: "We believe it is not enough to set policies and expect people to just support it. For the government, success means executing projects. Policy and implementation are both sides of the same coin. This is the mind-set that enabled us to achieve rapid economic development in a considerably short time."

Asked about the next big project for Singapore, the ambassador said: "We are turning Singapore from a smart city into a smart nation, which means using fiber optics technology to connect information and big data throughout all sectors in the country. The data will be analyzed and customised to each individual to make life easier  literally information on your finger tips. We started the smart nation project four years ago and hopefully it will be completed in eight years' time, making Singapore the first smart nation that is fully-wired up in the world."

Hailing longstanding ties

Asked how he would describe ties between Egypt and Singaporr, Mr Sadasivan replied: "What keeps Egypt and Singapore close always is the fact that both are cultural melting pots."

Mr Sadasivan's interest in culture and the arts is evident. He stated: "Egypt is an arts and cultural hub for the region. Though this has been a very busy posting for me, I have found time to visit local galleries, and I did collect some artworks by Sobhi Gergis and Farid Fadel. But I would like to devote more time to the vibrant art scene. I enjoyed the recent Cairo jazz festival, and I am frequent visitor at the Cairo Jazz Club. I love listening to Um Koulthom  She remains a magical sensation in the Arab world."

Asked if he visited sites outside of Cairo, Mr Sadasivan answered: "I have been to almost everywhere in Egypt, including Luxor, Aswan, Hurghada, El-Gouna, Sinai, Fayoum, Alexandria. I visited so many places, but my favorite place is Siwa, especially the Adrere Amellal Desert Ecolodge. This magical place is owned and managed by Dr Mounir Neamatalla who I believe is Egypt's finest cultural entrepreneur. I visited Siwa in October 2014 and went there again last month. I can't wait to go back!"

Egypt has an eclectic soul, I cannot quite describe it in words, and after being here for more than 3 years, I think one of the precious assets that Egypt possess is its civilisation and identity. Even overseas Egyptians who have been away for 40 years still come back to Egypt and call it their home. If there is one thing that I would like to take back to Singapore from Egypt is the passion and rootedness of Egyptians. You can feel this everywhere you go in Egypt." ,

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For reasons unknown, Arab official and media circles virtually ignored an important US-Israeli deal that will guarantee Israeli military supremacy until 2028

A key memorandum of understanding was signed at the State Department in Washington between Israel and the US last month on the future of US military aid to Israel.

The deal was mostly ignored by Arab official and media circles, without any expressions of concern or condemnation or even commitments that the MoU will be studied or its future impact on the power balance in the region explored. Except for a thorough study by one Arab research centre, the Arabs chose to ignore the new US-Israel military agreement for unknown reasons.

The deal covers the years 2019-2028 and is an extension of the agreement regulating military aid signed in 2007 until 2018. This long-term agreement is of great advantage, allowing the Israeli army to plan and coordinate its military purchasing and manufacturing plans well ahead of time and without disrupting any cooperation programmes with Washington. The deal also guarantees Israels qualitative edge in armament over all Arab countries combined.

National Security Advisor Susan Rice said during the signing ceremony that the MoU is not only beneficial for Israel but also the US: When partners and allies such as Israel are more safe, then the US is more safe.

No country other than Israel receives this form of military aid, and unlike what most people in Egypt believe, the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel sponsored by the US does not oblige Washington to provide military aid to the two sides.

Some in Cairo believe Washington is obligated to provide military aid to both countries. The truth is, aid to Egypt is neither in the agreement or its appendices. In fact, after the 30 June 2013 events, Washington suspended aid and later restored it under new conditions and important changes that angered  and continue to anger  Egypt.

The new deal worth $38 billion over 10 years, or $3.8 billion annually, is a huge sum considering Israels military budget is $15.5 billion annually, and it contains many technical details. Most importantly, it allocates $3.3 billion for new military purchases and $500 million for missile defence systems. This is very important because it guarantees funding for Israels anti-missile programmes until 2028.

The deal includes many details about new purchases spent in Israel and the US, developing Israeli weapons, contracts with third parties or subcontracting. Although military aide already increases the current $3.1 billion to $3.8 billion in the future, Tel Aviv was seeking $4-5 billion annually to reflect a drop in purchasing power and the rise in the price of weapons.

The agreement also requires Israel not to seek any more aid from Congress in the coming decade unless a military conflict erupts in the Middle East and Israel participates in it.

The US-Israel deal is not linked to Washingtons deal with Iran in the summer of 2015 and the US administration wanted to finalise the agreement before the US elections to credit the Democratic administration and boost the candidacy of Hillary Clinton in the presidential race.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham criticised the deal and said Israel would have made a better deal with a future Republican administration. Graham also criticised that it restricts Congress on increasing Israeli assistance.

Some experts believe President Obama rushed the deal four months before leaving the White House to give himself leverage to pressure Israel to move on the peace process, which remains stagnant on the bilateral track and in the UN.

Others believe the Israeli government is uncomfortable with a win for Republican candidate Donald Trump in the presidential race, since he does not believe in foreign aid without a clear quid pro quo, which Israel does not provide.

Some thought that Washingtons signing of a nuclear deal with Tehran  which was publicly opposed in Israel and caused Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to visit Washington and address Congress to warn against the deal  indicates a serious fracture between the US and Israel.

Some also assumed that the lack of chemistry between Obama and Netanyahu would negatively impact bilateral relations between the two countries, but the bond between the US and Israel is unaffected.

A quick look at Washingtons voting record at the UN General Assembly or Security Council reveals a reality that Arabs ignore voluntarily or involuntarily. Israel used its anger over the Iran deal to procure a better deal with more assistance than in the past.

When Gulf states were angered by the Iran deal, Washington quickly appeased them by signing arms deals worth $100 billion, which filled the pockets of US arms manufacturers.

Meanwhile, Egypt hasn't restored its previous military relations with Washington and lost the advantage of cash flow financing. Deals will be made year-by-year and purchased weapons will be used in four operations: securing borders, securing the seas, combatting illegal migration, and combatting terrorism. None of these are a threat to Israel, and in fact some of them aid Israeli security considerations.

The writer is a political commentator.

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Ute Stalford of Norman, Oklahoma, will be the featured speaker at both the Christian Womens Clubs. Stalford will be speaking about Walking in the Freedom of Forgiveness.

For all of us, freedom is one of our most guarded and precious possessions. Stalfords passion is to see people come to Jesus Christ and find their identity in Christ. It is a privilege to guide them toward living in Gods truth and getting anchored in his love and then, empowered by his Spirit, find emotional freedom and restoration in their relationships. Stalford has ministered nationwide to women for over 35 years, teaching, speaking at special events, mentoring and on church staff.

Stalford is a former linguist and teacher. She grew up in war-torn Germany. Ute is delightful, accomplished and a very effective speaker. The world, even the Christian community, is full of hurting people and broken relationships. Only to the degree that we personally know, receive and own the many facets of Gods love for us are we able to love others with the same life-transforming love. Stalford welcomes the opportunity to share what God has taught her on her journey of faith, bringing biblical truth to life with personal illustrations and stories of lives and relationships dramatically changed.

Special feature for both meetings is Jen Ramaekers Find Your Old Self  Minus the Big Hair. She is a pharmacist from Grand Island and specializes in womens health.

After 5 Connection

The After 5 Group will meet at 7 p.m. on Monday at the Parkview Community Church, 1802 N. Jeffers. Cost is $7, which includes a full meal.

Reservations are required by Friday by calling Kathy Gove at 308-530-4655 or emailing her at govegang25@gmail.com, or calling Donna Beardsley at 308-532-5252. Cancellations are essential and should be phoned to Kathy by 10 a.m. on Monday.

Tuesday Morning Brunch

The Tuesday Brunch Group will meet at 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday at the First Christian Church, 220 N. Vine St. Use the back door. Cost is $5, which includes brunch.

Reservations are required no later than Sunday by calling Konnie Wemple at 308-532-4268 or Darlene Small at 308-532-2971. Cancellations are needed by 9 a.m. on Monday to either Darlene or Konnie.
Clinton asks her supporters to give him chance to lead

WASHINGTON (AP)  Emboldened Republicans claimed a mandate Wednesday for President-elect Donald Trump after his astonishing election triumph, and an emotional Hillary Clinton told crestfallen supporters the GOP victor deserved a chance to lead. President Barack Obama pledged a smooth transition of power.

We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country, the president said of the president-elect, the man who spent years questioning Obamas birthplace and challenging the legitimacy of his presidency. Obama, who had declared Trump unfit for the presidency, invited him to the White House Thursday.

Trump was uncharacteristically quiet in the aftermath of his triumph and made no public appearances Wednesday. He huddled with jubilant, sleep-deprived advisers at his eponymous skyscraper in Manhattan, beginning the daunting task of setting up an administration that will take power in just over two months. He also met with Vice President-elect Mike Pence and took calls from supporters, family and friends, according to spokeswoman Hope Hicks.

In Washington, Trumps scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trumps team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

After struggling for months with Trumps takeover of their party, Republican leaders embraced the businessman in victory. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was lukewarm in his support throughout the campaign, praised him for pulling off the most incredible political feat I have seen in my lifetime.

He just earned a mandate, Ryan declared.

Indeed, Trump will take office in January with Congress fully in his partys control, giving him strength to try to pass his agenda and turn the Supreme Court in a conservative direction. Even Republicans were stunned by the scope of their electoral success, including many who had been privately predicting Trumps defeat.

Clintons emotions were raw as she addressed a crowd of supporters, eyes wet with tears, who gathered in a New York ballroom. She said the crushing loss was painful and it will be for a long time and acknowledged that the nation was more divided than we thought.

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring that Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.

Trumps sweep of the battleground states that decided the election was commanding. He carried Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, three of the elections biggest prizes, and snatched reliably Democratic Pennsylvania and Wisconsin away from Clinton.

Trumps support skewed older, male and overwhelmingly white. His supporters said they were deeply dissatisfied with the federal government and eager for change, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. Hes pledged to repeal Obamas signature health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. Hes vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

World leaders congratulated Trump on his victory. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had a contentious relationship with Obama, called the Republican a true friend of Israel. British Prime Minister Theresa May said the U.S. and United Kingdom would remain strong and close partners on trade, security and defense.
Joyce Russell Porter County Reporter Joyce has been a reporter for nearly 40 years, including 23 years with The Times. She's a native of Merrillville, but has lived in Portage for 39 years. She covers municipal and school government in Porter County. Follow Joyce Russell Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

With Veterans Day tomorrow, I first would like to salute all those who have served and tell you how grateful I am to have men and women in this country who are willing to give of their lives and sometimes their life to maintain our freedoms.

When the day rolls around, I also often think of the veterans in my family tree. I've had family members serve in about every war and conflict since the American Revolution.

But, how do you find out if your ancestor served? Sometimes it may be obvious, we hear stories, maybe even from them.

Sometimes maybe not so. I've learned, many time, vets don't like to talk about it, or sometimes the vet may be so far up our family tree, we just simply don't know.

The first tip I use is the ancestor's age. Was he (most likely a he) of what would be considered military age during a time of war or conflict? We have to expand our idea of military age, as I've found ancestors younger than 18 and older than 40 who have served.

Some U.S. federal censuses ask for veterans status.

The 1910 census has a column asking if the person was a survivor of the Union or Confederate Army or Navy.

By looking at the ages of my ancestors, I can determine who might have been the right age to fight in the Civil War, then if they lived to 1910 (which was only 45 years after the end of the war) to see if they fought.

I checked on my 2nd great grandfather John Calvin Sharp. He was born in 1839, which would have made him 22 when the war broke out in 1861. He lived to be 88, dying in 1928. I found him in the 1910 census and sure enough under the column was a "UA." I'm assuming that meant Union Army. I was proud he fought and proud, since he lived in Tennessee, fought on the right side.

The 1930 census also asks if the person was a veteran and of what conflict.

Another way to determine if your kin was in the military service is a death certificate. Often, but not always, a death certificate will ask if the person were a veteran.

Closely related are obituaries and Find-A-Grave memorials. Many times a person's service to their country will be listed in an obituary or a memorial. If not list, sometimes there is a photo of a headstone with the memorial that can give the researcher a clue.

Another way I've discovered is by looking at draft cards. You would imagine if someone had a draft card, they served. That's not the case. For both WWI and WWII all eligible men had to register for the draft. I found both my grandfathers' cards, but neither served in the military.

I did find, as I was researching my daughter-in-law's family a notation on her great grandfather Rudolph Nehring's WWI draft card that he served with the engineering corps in the Philippines for three years beginning in 1911. I also found a passenger list for a troop transport that had Nehring arriving in San Francisco in March 1914 fro the Philippines.

With a little more research, I learned that in 1911 the U.S. military was involved in the Moro Rebellion in the Philippines.

You can also do research on the National Archives site, in particular it access to archival data base at aad.archive. gov which provides information primarily on WWII, Korea and Vietnam. I have used it several times, finding information on a couple of my uncles.

Drop me a line about the veterans in your family tree and how you found them at joyce.russell@nwi.com
NEW YORK  The election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president has small business advocates expecting policy changes on issues like health care and the environment. But theyre concerned about gridlock persisting even with a Republican president and Congress.

Advocacy groups expect Trump to start working toward at least modifying President Barack Obamas health care overhaul, and undoing environmental regulations. Theyre generally upbeat that bipartisan support for small business issues like access to federal contracts will continue. But some question how campaign rhetoric will translate into concrete steps.

What we dont know is whether or not there is a sincere interest in supporting small and medium-size enterprises in this country  rebuilding Main Street, rebuilding manufacturing, says David Levine, CEO of the American Sustainable Business Council.

Theyre also wondering whether Senate Democrats will try to slow the GOP agenda.

Since you need 60 votes to do anything of any consequence there, its hard to see how it will happen, says Todd McCracken, CEO of the National Small Business Association, referring to how it takes that many votes to end Senate debate on legislation.

Heres what some groups expect on major topics:

Health care

Trump has vowed to repeal the health care overhaul, something Republicans in Congress have failed to do so far. Whether Democrats in the Senate could block a repeal is unclear, as is what would replace it.

We dont think (a repeal) would be realistic. Many small businesses have gotten coverage they wouldnt have gotten otherwise, says John Arensmeyer, CEO of Small Business Majority, which has supported the law.

McCracken believes changes to the health care law could be stymied if theyre opposed by the health insurance industry, which has a powerful lobbying presence.

Regulations

Trump has said hell reverse some of Obamas executive orders, including one that eased deportation policies against minors who are in the U.S. illegally. Hes also said hed eliminate a rule that allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate bodies of water on private lands. And he has vowed to withdraw the United States from an international agreement on climate change.

Many small business groups have voiced concern about the effect that federal, state and local requirements have on their companies and profits.

Taxes Trump has advocated lowering the income tax on all companies to 15 percent. Business groups want to see benefits as well for sole proprietors, partners and corporate shareholders whose business income is reported on their personal returns. They can be taxed at rates up to nearly 40 percent under current law. Corporate tax rates range from 15 percent to 35 percent.

The National Federation of Independent Business believes that a Republican president and Congress will lower taxes for small companies.

I am now feeling like a comprehensive tax reform is alive and well again, CEO Juanita Duggan says.

Trade

Trump campaigned on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, which governs trade among the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and wants other trade deals modified. He also wants the U.S. to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is awaiting approval from Congress. But he may face opposition from small business groups.

NAFTA has been a plus for small business trade. Free trade accords reduce expenses and expand opportunities for small businesses, says Raymond Keating, chief economist with the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.

Federal contracts

Legislation making it easier for small businesses to win federal contracts has won bipartisan support in Congress in recent years even as political infighting stalled other bills. Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, hopes Democrats and Republicans on small business committees in both houses will keep working together.

Minimum wage

The approval of minimum wage increases in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and the state of Washington will likely add momentum to campaigns in other parts of the country, says Holly Sklar, director of the advocacy group Business For a Fair Minimum Wage.

We expect to see more states through legislation and ballot campaigns to be moving forward in 2017, Sklar says.

Some small business groups say a higher minimum wage hurts small companies; others say it helps them compete and gives consumers more money to spend at small businesses.
Guy, along with guitarist Jonny Lang, will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville. Guy, a Louisiana native, who lives in the Chicago area, released his autobiography "When I Left Home: My Story" in 2012. The legendary blues man regularly performs at his Legends night club in Chicago and has often entertained at Star Plaza Theatre and other area venues.
MICHIGAN CITY  Kalvon Hawkins grief played out in real time on Facebook as the 42-year-old father stood outside the Michigan City Police Department this week, pleading for detectives to bring charges against those responsible for the 2011 shooting death of his 17-year-old daughter.

Im going to stand out here every single day. I dont care. Somebody is going to help me  This is crazy, and Im going to keep my camera rolling, Hawkins told his social media followers Tuesday during a Facebook Live video, breaking into tears on the sidewalk and displaying to oncoming traffic a poster that read Justice for NeKeisha.

His daughter, NeKeisha Hodges-Hawkins, was fatally shot just before 11 p.m. on July 24, 2011, at Krueger Memorial Park in Michigan City. Hawkins said he buried her days later on what would have been her 18th birthday.

In a phone interview Wednesday night, Hawkins confirmed the authenticity of Facebook videos on his profile.

Michigan City police announced Tuesday in a news release that they received new information in Hawkins' daughter's case, prompting them to look more closely into the still-unsolved shooting death. In the release, police asked witnesses to come forward.

Citing the ongoing investigation, Michigan City Police Sgt. Chris Yagelski wouldnt offer details as to what new information they received. But Hawkins said Wednesday he presented the department this week with what he believes to be new evidence  online screenshots of conversations discussing his daughters murder and subsequent cover-up.

People captured (the conversation) and sent it to me, so I gave it to the police station. It opened the wounds, and it was like salt was pouring in," he said. "Im going to make (the police) work. Im not going to stop until my daughter's murder is solved."

More than 100 people attended a private family gathering at Memorial Park the night Hodges-Hawkins was murdered, police said. Shots rang out in the parking lot as those in attendance left the property due to a separate altercation that had broken out in the park hall, according to police.

Sgt. Yagelski said police have had few leads arise since the case was first opened. Now, police are appealing to witnesses to speak up.

Given the large amount of people present at this homicide, we know there are witnesses to this murder and again we are asking those who saw the crime to come forward and assist the police in this investigation, Yagelski said in a news release this week.

He said many of those who witnessed the shooting were juveniles then and parents would not allow them to make statements.

Now that they are adults we urge any one of these witnesses to come forward and help assist in this ongoing investigation. Without the help of those that were present at the time of her death, this case cannot be solved and closure not given to the family, Yagelski said in the release.

Police scoured the area that night and recovered a gun and bullet casings. In October 2011, police arrested and charged an 18-year-old in her shooting death, but later dropped the charges.

Hawkins on Wednesday said the outpouring of love and support from family, friends and strangers has been overwhelming. He said he stopped at an OfficeMax store this week and asked employees to print as many copies of the police departments news release as he could afford.

I had $40 and they matched me, Hawkins said.

I started out at McDonald's on Michigan Boulevard. I had over 2,000 flyers and I walked and I put them in every single door on the whole east side  On Thursday, Im doing the west side. Then the south side. Im going to flood this whole city.

Hawkins stood alone outside the station when he first went live on his Facebook timeline at 8:21 a.m. Tuesday morning. By 11:30 a.m., about 30 others had joined him in protest.

I just want justice, man, Hawkins said, speaking in one of several videos that now appear on his Facebook profile. Thats the only thing I want.

Anyone who observed what occurred that night is encouraged to contact Detective Jillian Ashley of the Michigan City Police Department at (219) 874-3221, ext. 1082. If you know of someone who has direct knowledge of this incident, call the Crime Tip Hotline (219) 873-1488.
CROWN POINT  The FBI and Indiana State Police raided the Lake County Sheriffs Department and were parked outside the sheriffs home early Thursday.

A number of FBI agents and state police investigators entered the offices of Lake County Sheriff John Buncich about 9:30 a.m. at the Lake County Government Center, 2293 N. Main St.

They left early Thursday afternoon with several boxes of documents they loaded into an FBI panel truck.

State police and federal investigators cars, both marked and unmarked, were parked late Thursday morning outside Buncichs Crown Point home. FBI Special Agent Bob Ramsey, who appeared outside the sheriffs home, declined to comment further.

Ramsey and Ryan Holmes, a spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office, said federal authorities were serving search warrants on the county sheriff. Holmes declined to comment on what documents are being sought or who is being targeted.

Sources within county government said investigators were looking into rumors of bribery involving towing vendors and police, and were looking for towing contracts and campaign finance reports.

Simultaneous raid

At the same time that federal agents were raiding the Lake County sheriffs office, several members of the Indiana State Police and the U.S. Department of Treasury shut down Kustom Auto Body, 5409 U.S. 6, Portage, in an apparent raid Thursday morning.

John Cortina, owner of Kustom Auto Body, said his business was not the target of Thursday mornings raid.

Cortina said the agents were seeking information on Sampson Towing, a Merrillville-based business that leases storage space in his back lot.

Police vehicles blocked the entrance to the business. Police could be seen going in and out of the building. The treasury agent referred all questions to a department spokesperson, who did not return calls.

FBI order all to leave building

In Lake County, Dean Delisle told The Times he was in the Sheriffs Bureau of Identification, where police records are held, to obtain a copy of an accident report when agents and state police walked into that office and ordered everybody, including the sheriffs employees, to leave.

They were taking pictures of everything, Delisle said. He said sheriffs employees appeared upset as they were preparing to leave.

A source within county government said 38 federal and state agents were inside the Lake County Sheriffs Department. Another source said all employees in the sheriffs office building were ordered to leave.

Federal agents then fanned out to the Lake County Voter Registration and Election offices, where campaign finance records are kept, and the Lake County E-911 offices, which keeps records of police radio communications, to serve subpoenas for documents.

Buncichs campaign finance reports indicate he received more than $9,000 in contributions in 2014 and 2015 from several towing and auto firms in Crown Point, Gary, Highland, Hobart, Merrillville, St. John and Whiting.

The elections board office and E-911 offices were allowed to remain open and continue operating.

Mark Back, a spokesman for the sheriff issued a statement 2:43 p.m. Thursday, which said: The Lake County Sheriffs Department is cooperating with our federal law enforcement partners and fully assisting the FBI with their inquiry. Regular Sheriffs Department operations are continuing. We assure the citizens of Lake County that their safety remains our top priority. There was no interruption of police duties.

Back said the sheriffs department continued to function through the day. Employees were asked to at least step away from their desks while the FBI were completing their inquiry and look for whatever they were looking for, Back said.

As to what the FBI was looking for or removed from the sheriffs department, You would have to ask the FBI, Back said. He said Buncich was continuing to perform his duties as sheriff.

Buncich could not be reached for comment and was not seen Thursday outside his home.

The county sheriffs department has had agreements with as many as eight towing firms who police use to remove abandoned cars from accident and arrest scenes.

Times staff writer Joyce Russell contributed to this report.
GARY  Police have secured charges against two people accused of armed robbery Monday night at a Family Dollar store in the city's Glen Park section.

Omarr R. Williams, 38, and Derek R. Fields, 17, both of Gary, were taken into custody shortly after the robbery at Family Dollar, 61 E. Ridge Road, Gary police Lt. Dawn Westerfield said Wednesday.

Williams and Fields face charges of armed robbery, robbery resulting in bodily injury, and four counts of kidnapping.

Store employees told police two men in ski masks entered the store about 9 p.m. Monday. One of the men ordered a cashier to lie on the floor and struck her in the back of the head with a handgun.

The men took cash from a register and cigarettes and fled out the back door, police said.

The two men are charged with kidnapping because they allegedly forcibly moved employees around the business without consent, Westerfield said in an email.

Anyone with further information is asked to call Sgt. Gregory Wolf at (219) 881-1210.

In a separate case, a man robbed a 68-year-old Gary man of his wallet and money Tuesday in the 4100 block of Massachusetts Street, police said.

The man told police he was in a backyard when another man approached him, ordered him to the ground and took the items from his pockets. The man fled north through an alley toward 41st Avenue, police said.

The suspect was described as black, in his 30s and about 5-foot-7 with a thin build. He was wearing jeans, a jacket and green skull cap.

Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Sgt. William Fazekas at (219) 881-1210. To remain anonymous, call (866) CRIME-GP.
INDIANAPOLIS  Gov.-elect Eric Holcomb believes Hoosiers voting Tuesday for Republican President-elect Donald Trump largely fueled the GOP sweep of statewide offices.

"He deserves a lot of credit," Holcomb said. "He drew people out to vote who I believe never had before and folks who maybe voted for the team that wore the other jersey."

Holcomb said he talked with Trump on Election Night when Gov. Mike Pence, the vice president-elect, called Holcomb to congratulate him on his victory over Democrat John Gregg.

The governor-to-be said Pence likewise deserves accolades for the electoral wins by keeping Indiana on the right course during his term in office and showing Trump and the nation that Indiana is a model to be followed.

"He had his finger on the pulse from the outset that there was a statement a coming, and it arrived (Tuesday) night all across the nation," Holcomb said of Pence.

Unofficial results show Trump received 1,555,020 votes from Hoosiers, good for a 57.2 percent share of the state's presidential tally.

It was the most votes any presidential candidate ever has received in Indiana  though not the largest margin of victory.

Trump outpolled Republican U.S. Sen.-elect Todd Young who got 1,421,687 votes (52.2 percent) and Holcomb's 1,395,186 votes (51.4 percent).

But the biggest GOP vote-getter was Attorney General-elect Curtis Hill in a down ballot race that got little attention amid the higher profile contests for president, U.S. Senate and governor.

Without a third-party candidate siphoning some of his total, Hill garnered 1,642,608 votes (62.3 percent) in his victory over former Lake Circuit Judge Lorenzo Arredondo.

Jennifer McCormick, the new state superintendent of public instruction, racked up 1,422,146 votes (53.4 percent) in her head-to-head matchup with Democrat Glenda Ritz.
INDIANAPOLIS  Several hundred well-wishers and a high school band greeted Republican Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Thursday night when he triumphantly returned to Indiana for the first time since Tuesday's election.

Fire trucks sprayed streams of water in the air over Pence's plane before it came to a rest as the marching band played "My Indiana Home."

"I have been blessed so many ways," the Indiana governor and former U.S. congressman said after descending to the tarmac. "But I am deeply humbled ... to take that lifetime of experience and serve as the vice president of the United States of America."

He later added: "I'm just here to say thanks and give lots of hugs."

The event comes two days after Donald Trump's presidential victory and on the same day that Trump met President Barack Obama at the White House.

Pence's election as the next vice president is a remarkable turn of fate. Just months ago he faced a sagging job approval rating and a difficult re-election as governor against the same Democrat he narrowly beat in 2012. His embrace of conservative social issues during his tenure proved to be divisive even in a state that has voted reliably Republican for more than a decade.

Pence spent part of Thursday in Washington, D.C., where he met with Vice President Joe Biden and congressional leaders.

But once he arrived home, he choked up, telling his supporters that no matter where his new duties take him, his heart will always remain in Indiana.

He also asked the well-wishers to support Trump and to pray that the deeply divided country can be reunited.

"I would ask each one of you to pray for us. Pray for us that we might serve with integrity," Pence said. "I also ask you to pray for our country, to pray that we may find our way forward, that we may renew the American dream and that we might create new opportunities to improve the lives of the people of this nation and to heal the divisions."

Pence has only held a handful of Indiana events since he was picked as Trump's running mate in July and started making dozens of campaign stops for Trump across the country.

While much of his time in the coming weeks will be devoted to the transition of power in Washington, Pence's gubernatorial spokeswoman Kara Brooks said Thursday that he will finish the remainder of this term, which ends Jan 9. That is 11 days before he and Trump begin their new jobs.
INDIANAPOLIS  State Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes, was elected caucus chairwoman Thursday by the Indiana Senate Democrats.

The three-term senator will preside at daily meetings of her Democratic colleagues as they plot strategy during the four-month legislative session that begins in January.

I am ready to get to work and help create better opportunities for Hoosiers across the state, Tallian said.

She replaces the former caucus chairman, state Sen. Jim Arnold, D-LaPorte, who chose not to run for re-election to the Senate this year.

State Sen. Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, is remaining leader of the nine Democrats now serving in the 50-member Senate.
HAMMOND  The Purdue University Northwest College of Business hosted an alumni reception and recognized five alumni for their outstanding professional accomplishments while raising more than $20,000 for student scholarships.

The awards and honorees are as follows:

Outstanding Alumni Award, presented to a graduate who has achieved significant, sustained career success for more than 10 years.

Recipient  Jeff Strack, Chicago, president and CEO of Strack & Van Til

Outstanding Alumni Award in Hospitality & Tourism Management, presented to a Hospitality & Tourism Management Program graduate who has achieved significant, sustained HTM career success for more than 10 years.

Recipient -- Jokima Hiller, Brookline, Missouri, instructor at Missouri State University

Entrepreneurial Success Award, presented to an individual who has achieved success in an entrepreneurial venture.

Recipient -- Dimitri Kourkouvis, Glenview Illinois, co-founder and president, Athens Construction Co.

Young Alumni Award, presented to an individual who graduated within the past five years and has been notably successful in his/her career over a short period of time.

Recipient  Benjamin Oprinovich, Chesterton, IS security lead analyst, Stryker

Community Involvement Award, presented to an individual involved in activities that have significantly and positively impacted Northwest Indiana communities.

Recipient -- Katie Eaton, LaPorte, economic development manager at the Economic Development Corp., Michigan City. Eaton also serves as president of the Purdue Northwest Alumni Organization.

Anthony R. Gonzalez Scholarship Fund

A new scholarship has been established in honor of Anthony R. Gonzalez, who died shortly after receiving his degree from the executive MBA program in 2012. He earned his undergraduate degree in history from the PNW Hammond campus in 2009.

Gonzalezs classmates established the scholarship to recognize his dedication to education and to honor his belief that completing his MBA was a singular opportunity to optimize his chances for success in business.

Donations to the scholarship fund can be made by contacting the PNW Office of Advancement Operations at (219) 989-2323 or by visiting the PNW online giving page at http://www.pnw.edu/giving/.
WASHINGTON  President-elect Donald Trump took a triumphant tour of the nations capital Thursday, holding a cordial White House meeting with President Barack Obama, sketching out priorities with Republican congressional leaders and taking in the majestic view from where hell be sworn in to office.

Trumps meeting with Obama spanned 90 minutes, longer than originally scheduled. Obama said he was encouraged by Trumps willingness to work with his team during the transition of power, and the Republican called the president a very good man.

I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including his counsel, Trump said from the Oval Office. Hell begin occupying the office on Jan. 20.

While Trump noted that he and Obama had never met before, their political histories will forever be linked. Trump spent years perpetrating the lie that Obama was born outside the United States. The president campaigned aggressively against Trump during the 2016 campaign, warning that his election would put the republic at risk.

But at least publicly, the two men appeared to put aside their animosity. As the meeting concluded and journalists scrambled out of the Oval Office, Obama smiled at his successor and explained the unfolding scene.

We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds, Obama said.

From the White House, Trump headed to Capitol Hill for meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump and never campaigned with the nominee.

Emerging from the meetings, Trump sketched out priorities for his presidency.

Were going to move very strongly on immigration, he said. We will move very strongly on health care. And were looking at jobs. Big league jobs.

Ryan took Trump on a tour of the Speakers Balcony overlooking the National Mall, the scene of Trumps upcoming inauguration. The view, Trump said, was really, really beautiful.

Trump was also beginning the process of putting together his White House team. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who worked his way into Trumps inner circle during the election, and top campaign official Kellyanne Conway were emerging as possible picks for White House chief of staff, according to two people familiar with the transition planning.

A third person said conservative media executive Steve Bannon was also in the mix, though others insisted Bannon would not have a White House role. Those involved in the process insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the planning publicly. A decision on chief of staff is expected in the coming days.

First lady Michelle Obama met privately in the White House residence with Trumps wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden saw Vice President-elect Mike Pence late Thursday. Trumps team was said to be sketching a robust role for Pence, an experienced Washington hand, that would include both domestic and foreign policy responsibilities.

Obama and Trump met alone, with no staff present, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters following the discussion.

The two men did not relitigate their differences in the Oval Office, Earnest said. Were on to the next phase.

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

At the White House, Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough was seen walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.

The show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting Not my president, burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said Impeach Trump.

More than 100 protesters held a sit-in outside Trump International Hotel just blocks from the White House. The mostly student protesters held signs saying Love Trumps Hate, a phrase Democrat Hillary Clinton often used during the campaign.

Trumps advisers, many of whom were stunned by his unexpected victory, plunged into the huge task of staffing government agencies. A transition website, GreatAgain.gov, referenced 4,000 political appointee openings.

Officials at the Pentagon and State Department said they had not yet been contacted.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the agency stood ready to work with the incoming team once that team is designated and arrives here. But we dont have any firm word as to when that will be.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama  including information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by Americas 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trumps team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.
NEW YORK - The man accused of setting off bombs in Chelsea and New Jersey made an appearance in a Manhattan courtroom Thursday.

At the procedural hearing in Lower Manhattan, Ahmad Khan Rahimi, 28, was appointed a new attorney and advised of his rights.

He is facing federal terror charges from the U.S. Attorney's office.

Rahimi was not officially arraigned and is expected to plead not guilty later this month.

Investigators believe Rahimi planted a pressure cooker bomb in a construction dumpster on 23rd Street back on September 17 and detonated it, wounding more than 30 people.



They believe he also set off a bomb near a 5k race in New Jersey earlier in the day.

No one was hurt in that blast.

Rahimi was injured days later in a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey.



Last month, he pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of attempted murder of a police officer.

Rahimi is currently being held at a correctional center in Lower Manhattan.
A fallen NYPD sergeant was remembered at his funeral as a hero nearly a week after he was shot dead by a suspect in the Bronx. NY1's Dean Meminger filed the following report.

NYPD officers carried the casket of their brother in blue, Sergeant Paul Tuozzolo as his devastated wife Lisa looked on.

Thousands of officers lined the streets around St. Rose of Lima Church in Massapequa to salute him.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuozzolo made the ultimate sacrifice.

"He could've sent his fellow officers forward, but he took the lead. That is the measure of a man. And he gave his life, protecting his fellow officers, protecting all of us," the mayor said. "He laid down his life in the perfect spirit of the scripture. He laid down his life for his friends."

Tuozzolo died Friday responding to an emergency call in the Bronx about Manuel Rosales threatening his estranged wife with a gun.

When officers approached Rosales' car, police say he shot sergeant Tuozzolo. Another officer then shot and killed Rosales.

Sergeant Emanuel Kwo was shot as well. Kwo, spoke through his union president at the funeral Kwo said he would be dead too if it wasn't for his fellow sergeant.

"I was approaching that car, too, and I didn't see what Paul saw. I would've continued to approach that car just as Paul did, but Paul's final words were a warning to me and my partner. He yelled to us, 'Gun, gun, gun,'" Mullins said on behalf of Kwo.

And with that, Kwo hugged Tuozzolo's wife.

Officers from around the country came to give the sergeant's family and the NYPD support.

Next year would have marked 20 years on the job for Tuozzolo. That's when officers can retire with a full pension. He could have taken a job inside the last few months, but Police Commissioner James O'Neill says the veteran officer decided against that.

"Something away from the streets of the southeast Bronx," O'Neill said. "'Nope,' was Paul's quick answer. 'I'll take day-tour patrol. Im good with that.' Paul was always 'good.' He wanted to end his career the way he started it, working the radio and keeping the public safe."

The police commissioner posthumously promoted Touzzolo to Sergeant Special-Assignment, the highest rank for a sergeant. Ten helicopters flew above his casket as a part of the funeral.

Tuozzolo not only leaves his parents and wife behind, his two small boys are now left without their father.
NEW YORK -- A day after Donald Trump's surprising win in the race for the White House, advocacy groups come together in the city to rally against the new president-elect.

Hundreds gathered at Columbus Circle earlier tonight to denounce Trump.

They say his plans to deport immigrants and ban Muslims from entering the country can't move forward.

Another protest also took place in Midtown where demonstrators expressed their concerns over a Trump presidency.

A smaller group voiced their concerns at a separate rally in Union Square.

Those we spoke with say they don't trust Trump to lead the country.

"The only thing he's good at is making people hate, which does not qualify him to be president of this country," said one.

"This is not someone that I want to represent me and he's not my president," said another.

"This is a wakeup call for our country and people understand that we have to organize like we never organized before and that there are people are lives who depend on this including undocumented people, including Mexicans and Muslims," said another.

"He's just a horrible person," said another.

Similar protests were held in other states, including California, Illinois, Oregon and Texas.
While many parts of the country celebrate Donald Trump's election, that is not the case in many communities across the city that feel threatened by Tuesday's results. Ruschell Boone has that story.

In Hispanic and Muslim communities across the city, there is anxiety and even fear following the election of Donald Trump.

His comments during the campaign about banning the immigration of Muslims has many in the Islamic-American community on edge.

"Thankfully over the course of the campaign he did walk back that policy proposal but if he plans to put forward anything of that nature we and other civil liberty groups will be fighting that in court," said Albert Cahn Director of Strategic Litigation of CAIR New York.

Calling any religion-based ban on immigration unconstitutional, officials at the Council on American Islamic Relations are trying to calm fears in the community.

So are Hispanic leaders and immigration advocates who are also gearing up for a legal and legislative battle against the deportation of people who are undocumented.

They fear Trump will end the Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals program, which allows certain undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children to receive renewable work permits and exemption from deportation.

"Were going to fight to make sure that president-elect trump and his administration really understands the opportunity that we have with DACA, the opportunity in this phenomenal group of DACA recipients of which there are really 800,000 across the United States," said Elizabeth Plum, director of special projects New York Immigration Coalition.

Some are also trying to reassure many immigrants and calm their fears.

"Theres a system of checks and balances in the United States and were going to use that system to prevent some anti-immigrant measures that he might push," Javier Valdes, Co-Executive Director at Make the Road New York.

But on the street, that is little comfort for many who say concerns over deportation are growing.

"They are very concerned," one said. "They are afraid. They are very afraid. He has mentioned that he's going to do a very big deportation. "

"I fear that my loved ones will be mistreated as a result of a Trump presidency," said another.
Arnold Mesches, a socially conscious painter whose political activities were recorded by the F.B.I. for more than 25 years in a thick dossier that he later used for his series The F.B.I. Files, died on Nov. 5 at his home in Gainesville, Fla. He was 93.

His death was confirmed by his wife, the novelist Jill Ciment.

Mr. Mesches (pronounced MESH-ees) was a scenic artist in Hollywood when his work for the Communist Party came to the attention of the F.B.I. in 1945. A file the bureau started began filling up quickly the next year, when he dropped his work as a storyboard artist on a Tarzan film and took part in a strike against the studios.

Over the years, agents and informers kept track of Mr. Meschess day-to-day activities, reporting to headquarters on matters large and small. If he signed a petition, it went into his file. When he turned in an illustration for Mad magazine, the fact was duly noted. One informant, noting his paint-spattered pants, wrote that Mr. Mesches dressed like a Communist.

In 1956 most of his artwork was stolen from his studio, including dozens of paintings and drawings inspired by the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. He strongly suspected that the F.B.I. was behind the break-in.
Bob Cranshaw, a versatile bassist heard in Broadway pit bands, on television and on thousands of jazz recordings  but probably best known as a longtime anchor in bands led by the eminent saxophonist Sonny Rollins  died on Nov. 2 at his home in Manhattan. He was 83.

The cause was cancer, said Karyn Scott-Harden, his stepdaughter.

Mr. Cranshaw, who had a bedrock authority with rhythm and a keen ear for harmony, appears on more than a few jazz albums regarded as classics, including the trumpeter Lee Morgans The Sidewinder and the saxophonist Joe Hendersons Inner Urge. His first with Mr. Rollins, in 1962, was The Bridge, another classic; his last was Holding the Stage: Road Shows, Vol. 4, a compilation released this year.

He was impeccable, Mr. Rollins said in a recent interview. And he had a steady gig with me, but Bob also played with probably every musician in New York. I mean, that might be a slight exaggeration. But it attests to his versatility, and to the fact that he was a great bass player.

Mr. Cranshaw worked closely for decades with Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which elected him to its executive board in 2012. He had experience with the life of a session musician, contributing to countless jingles and film scores and to albums by pop artists like Paul Simon.
He was also known for the volume and intensity of his playing. The applause was loud, Mr. Holland wrote, but hardly competitive with the decibel levels emanating from the stage.

Mr. Kocsis began conducting regularly in his 30s, and in 1983 he founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra with Ivan Fischer. Mr. Kocsis was the orchestras piano soloist and co-artistic musical director for the next decade.

He conducted and played ambitious, varied programs, but told The Independent of London that he worried that musical quality often suffered from pressure to perform and record new material before musicians had mastered it.

People today havent enough time to play instruments themselves, he said in 1995. Theyve become indiscriminate consumers  its rather like being unable to tell the difference between Coca-Cola and a good Bordeaux.

He became the Hungarian National Philharmonics music director in 1997.

This was considered to be a second-rate orchestra and probably was, if we are talking about quality, until I made radical changes, Mr. Kocsis told The Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Massachusetts in 2003.
The first summer season of the fabled Salzburg Festival under the artistic direction of Markus Hinterhauser will offer the concerts and opulently cast operas it is known for  including Anna Netrebko singing the title role in Verdis Aida with Riccardo Muti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic  but also a rethinking of its purpose.

What does a festival have to tell in our time? Mr. Hinterhauser asked in a telephone interview. Is a festival a summary of beautiful opera productions, or concerts, or theater productions  in our case, in Salzburg  or could it be something more?

He said that his inaugural season, which will run from July 21 through Aug. 30 in Salzburg, Austria, will be a reflection about strategies of power.

The festival will offer a raft of new opera productions, beginning with Mozarts La Clemenza di Tito directed by Peter Sellars and conducted by Teodor Currentzis. Shostakovichs Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, starring Nina Stemme, will be directed by Andreas Kriegenburg and conducted by Mariss Jansons. William Kentridges staging of Bergs Wozzeck, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski and with Matthias Goerne in the title role, will appear in a future season at the Metropolitan Opera. And Aribert Reimanns Lear, from the late 1970s, will be conducted by Franz Welser-Most, in a production by Simon Stone that will star Gerald Finley as King Lear.
Showing a photograph of a stunned Mr. Trump and his family watching the election results on Tuesday night, Mr. Noah said, Look at his face. Look at that man. That is the face of a man whose bluff has been called, and hes only holding a two. And now that face will be the face that represents America to the world. That is the face that will address the nation after a tragedy. That is the face that will command the most powerful military in the world. Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, Obama. And now, Trump. One of these things is not like the other. And if youre thinking its Obama because hes black, you probably voted for Trump.

After playing a portion of Mr. Trumps victory speech, Mr. Noah observed: Trump was gracious. He was humble. He was compassionate. Ill tell you now, if that guy ran for president, he also would have lost to Donald Trump.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (CBS)

Mr. Colbert, who had an uneasy time on Tuesday night trying to satirize the election as it unfolded, returned on Wednesday with another live broadcast. In a cold open, he met on the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater with the astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was looking through a telescope and urged Mr. Colbert to take a more cosmic perspective on recent events.

When you do that, Mr. Tyson said, all Earths problems dissolve away, into the infinitude of the space-time continuum. He asked: Does that make you feel any better?

No, Mr. Colbert said.

So they threw the telescope off the roof and let it smash on the street below. In a lengthy opening monologue, Mr. Colbert uneasily confessed, Im not sure what to believe about anything anymore. Noting the air of defeat that he sensed all around him in New York, Mr. Colbert said, This is what it feels like when America is made great again. I was really hoping it would feel better, because this suuuuuuuucks.

He showed footage of anti-Trump marches that had passed by the Ed Sullivan Theater and carried on a soul-searching conversation with a cartoon representation of God, who has just found out that Mr. Trump won the presidency. (Oh, I guess I shouldnt be surprised white men came out on top again, considering how everyone assumes I look, God said.) Looking skyward, Mr. Colbert said, At this point, we just have to accept that you chose Donald Trump to be our president. To which God responded, Hey, dont pin this on me  my wife will kill me.
1. The White House transition to a Trump administration opened with an extraordinarily cordial meeting between President Obama and President-elect Donald J. Trump, once bitter political opponents and stylistic opposites.

We discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties, Mr. Trump said. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel.
Water also leads us to the source of springs name. In this case, it was a verb before it was a noun. In the Middle Ages, sprinc was German for leap, and it came to mean source of water.

Eventually springing time replaced the Old English lent, which had signified the entire spring season, not just the period from Ash Wednesday to Easter. It shrank to springtime, then to spring.

And while autumn now has two names, summer may originally have had none at all. Thousands of years ago, early Indo-European cultures are thought to have divided the year into just three seasons.

At some point, the Sanskrit sama, or season, appears to have traveled north from the Indian subcontinent  a place that knows a thing or two about sweltering months  and became summer.

Giovanni Russonello contributed reporting.

_____

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Pharmaceuticals

Shares of drug makers rallied on Wednesday on apparent relief that Hillary Clinton, who had vowed to enact a series of drug-pricing controls, had lost the election. But several in the industry said that the broader debate over high drug prices would probably continue and that it was unclear what positions Mr. Trump might take.

The truth is, who knows? said Ron Cohen, chief executive of Acorda Therapeutics and the chairman of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, an industry trade group. We still have to deal with the basic issues that are confronting us as an industry, and those have not changed just because of an election.

Outrage over the rising cost of prescription drugs has spiked in recent years as Americans struggle to pay for their medicines. Egregious examples of price increases, like those on Mylans EpiPen and older drugs sold by Valeant Pharmaceuticals, prompted congressional hearings and investigations.

At the same time, the drug industry has gone to war with insurers and employers who pay for their workers health coverage. Those dynamics, several people said, have not changed, and outrage over high drug prices is seen as a bipartisan issue.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump placed less emphasis on the issue than Mrs. Clinton did during the campaign.

He has said he would be in favor of allowing the federal government to negotiate for the price of prescription drugs in Medicares Part D program and to allow for the importation of drugs from countries like Canada, both positions that are opposed by the industry and have historically been associated with Democrats.

KATIE THOMAS
Mr. Trumps election and Brexit together underscore a central facet of these times. The old ideological divisions of left and right have effectively been eclipsed by a new economic taxonomy  those who have benefited from globalization and those who have not.

In Britain, affluent communities of professionals who hire Romanians to clean their homes and who enjoy getaways to Spain overwhelmingly voted to stay in the European Union. Industrial communities that have lost jobs as manufacturing has shifted east  to Eastern Europe, Turkey and Asia  generally voted to leave.

In the United States, college-educated urbanites making a comfortable living in the quintessential trades of globalization  finance, technology and media  disdained Mr. Trump. People in the center of the country who lack degrees and have seen jobs transferred to China and Mexico played a leading role in delivering the White House to Mr. Trump.

In northeastern England (something like the Rust Belt of Britain) people who voted to leave Europe speak openly about doing so to punish those who beseeched them to vote to stay  people like the exceedingly unpopular former prime minister David Cameron. The situation is so depressed, it cannot get worse, the logic runs. Any economic pain will fall on wealthy Londoners, people say.

But that is almost certainly nonsense. A rupture of trade with Europe is likely to hit these industrial communities hardest. And if that happens, the people living there will be angrier than ever.

Mr. Trump drew support from factory town laborers who have traditionally voted for Democrats but did not trust Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Many recall how her husband forged the North American Free Trade Agreement, which helped cause a shift of American manufacturing to Mexico. If Mr. Trump does not find a way to satisfy their high expectations, these people are likely to feel deceived.
Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. In this podcast, Andrew Rosenthal, a Times Op-Ed columnist, talks about the news  the good, the bad and that which makes him mad.

It is not hard to guess what Mr. Rosenthal is mad about this week. President-elect Donald Trump. Who ever thought wed be saying those words?

The bad news, says Mr. Rosenthal, is that the hard right wing of the Republican party  this is the intolerant, xenophobic, jingoistic wing  is now in charge.

The Supreme Court is lost for two generations, probably. Women and minorities should brace themselves for the possibility that they will lose many of their hard-won rights. Planned Parenthood will probably be defunded. The right will work to eliminate abortion rights ...

Thats the beginning

Dont give up, says Mr. Rosenthal. There is good news: Ballot measures legalizing marijuana for recreational and medical use did very well, including in North Dakota. Whats that about? Who knows? Its a crazy year. But its good news.
Imagine a world where driverless vehicles  cars, buses and trains  zip passengers around from place to place. Sound far-fetched? Copenhagen already has a driverless light metro; Pittsburgh has a fleet of self-driving cars. And now Helsinki, Finland, is experimenting with self-driving buses on short routes.

Do you think self-driving vehicles are the wave of the future? Will they someday be everywhere?

In A Slow Ride Toward the Future of Public Transportation, Henry Fountain writes:

Driverless buses like this one are being used in private, controlled settings, for example to shuttle students around a campus or employees on the grounds of an industrial plant. Helsinki is one of the first cities to run so-called autonomous buses on public roads in traffic; another project, in Sion, Switzerland, has been operating for several months, although the service was suspended in September for two weeks after a minor accident. The Helsinki bus is a project of several universities with cooperation and money from government agencies and the European Union. The two-year, $1.2 million project, called Sohjoa, is just one manifestation of a movement to reduce the use of cars, and the traffic jams and greenhouse gases that come with them. A good possible outcome is that less and less people will own personal vehicles in the cities because they really dont need them anymore, said Harri Santamala, who coordinates the project and directs a smart mobility program at Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. In September, a Sohjoa bus, which can accommodate up to 12 passengers sitting and standing, made its debut on a straight, quarter-mile route in the citys Hernesaari district, turning 180 degrees at both ends. The trip connected a popular sauna and restaurant at one end with several restaurants at the other, and attracted a small stream of curious riders.

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us:

 Do you think self-driving vehicles are the wave of the future? How long do you think it will take before driverless vehicles become commonplace?

 Can you envision a world with only driverless vehicles?

 Would you be nervous about riding in a driverless car, train or bus?

 Do you think self-driving buses and taxis may someday make it unnecessary for many families who live in cities to own a car? Why?
When millions of women cast their votes for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, they may have been thinking about male power as much as female equality  about the sleazebags who never heard no, or the male bosses who lowballed them in salary negotiations, or those men in positions of authority who patronized them or ignored them altogether. There was a sense of collective curiosity and anticipation: Would having a woman serve in the most powerful role in the country make any of those scenarios less likely for women going forward?

That question may be answered one day, but not with Hillary Clinton. Already the consensus about why she lost seems to have moved away from gender and toward her, personally: She was the wrong candidate from the start, she never adequately addressed issues of her integrity, she represented a party too closely aligned with elites, in ways the mainstream media vastly underappreciated. But we will also never know how much of her candidacy was derailed by the fact of her being female  not just the way she was victimized, but the way she suffered, even, for other womens victimization.

And by that, I mean, that her campaign was derailed over and over again by a phenomenon perhaps best characterized as the penis ex machina  the unpredictable and unlikely plot twist provided by men accused of sexual assault or harassment. No fewer than five of these men played crucial roles in handicapping Clintons campaign. The most determinative, in the end, was probably Anthony Weiner: Because he allegedly sexted with a 15-year-old girl, the F.B.I. stumbled on a trove of emails they felt compelled to investigate, resulting in headlines, critical lost support (according to her campaign) and ultimately no charges. That Weiners sexual exploits most likely cost Clinton precious votes is the bitter coda to a campaign that has been strangely  and somehow appropriately  dominated by men accused of assaulting or harassing women, from Roger Ailes, whose running of Fox News was bent on crushing Clinton, while he was allegedly crushing the women in his employ, to Trump himself.

The campaign also faced unprecedented, unforeseeable challenges from the likes of Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for more than four years to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning on rape allegations. And then there is the original penis ex machina, the one that has defined her marriage and, to some degree, her public profile: that of her husband, whose sexual conduct was such that Hillary Clinton could be confronted, at the third debate, with the presence of three of his accusers. For all her discipline and that of her campaign, she could not head off the unruly and unexpected repercussions of the men in or close to her life.
Raoul Coutard, whose innovative camera work for Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut made him the leading cinematographer of the French New Wave, died on Tuesday in Labenne, near Bayonne, France. He was 92.

His death was reported by Agence France-Presse.

Mr. Coutard, a former photojournalist in French Indochina, had never operated a movie camera when he was asked to do some photos for The Devils Pass, an adventure film being made in Afghanistan in 1958.

I agreed, but if I had known that the job was actually director of photography and that the film was to be in Cinemascope, I would never have said yes, he told The Guardian in 2001.

After the film was nominated for the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, its producer, Georges de Beauregard, hired Mr. Coutard as a cinematographer for his next project, Breathless, Mr. Godards directorial debut. It proved to be a turning point in French cinema.
Updated, 10:51 a.m.

Good morning on this sunnier (for some) Thursday.

One of the countrys most patriotic days coincides this year with what feels, to many New Yorkers, like a disappointing moment in our history.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, a holiday honoring the patriotism of those, past and present, who served our country.

Yes, the pomp and circumstance of an Americas Parade  expected to draw 500,000 spectators along Fifth Avenue on Friday morning  might feel out of place in a city where many residents are trying to comprehend how the now president-elect, Donald J. Trump, emerged victorious after a brutal campaign. (Hillary Clinton won nearly 60 percent of the popular vote in New York State and nearly 79 percent in the city).

But perhaps we can use this commemorative day as a moment to step back and recognize our collective strength, and to honor those among us who gave their lives in fighting for our basic American rights, like voting.
I dont think any New Yorkers slept, said Maye Leon, 39, a hair stylist in East Harlem.

The feeling of loss was magnified by the shock of it, not just for New Yorkers but for all those who voted for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, and believed her victory was a sure bet, even as the sun set and polls closed on Tuesday. That her victory proved to be an illusion, so much smoke, left many  mainly in New York, along the East Coast and on the West Coast  wondering how they could have gotten it so wrong. Were they that locked in an echo chamber of the like-minded?

I never even considered the possibility that Hillary would lose, said Shirley Wu, 26, a student at New York University. Because I didnt know a single person voting against her.

As a construction worker, Eve Galarza, 39, put it: They elected him. It says a whole lot about America. As if that were some strange land.

Michael Moran, 65, an artist who used to live near the former home of Mr. Trumps family in Jamaica Estates, Queens, said the surprise of the result depressed him. I feel funny about the country, he said. I feel out of touch.
As election returns poured in and panic became palpable for Democrats in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio held fast. Hillary Clinton would be president, they told increasingly uneasy crowds on Tuesday night at what would have been her victory party in Midtown Manhattan.

But by Wednesday morning, Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio, both Democrats, were coming to grips with their new reality: Donald J. Trump, the Queens-born Republican nominee soundly rejected by New York City voters, had been elected president, and his triumph would likely have profound effects on their administrations.

For Mr. de Blasio, the election was a stunning repudiation of his most cherished notions about a national shift to left-leaning policies. For Mr. Cuomo, the failure of Democrats to win even a slim majority in the New York State Senate  as Republicans outside the city rode Mr. Trumps coattails to victory  portended years of difficulty in Albany.

In separate comments on Wednesday, they each stressed the common ground they could find with Mr. Trump as New Yorkers.
The divide between the criminal justice system and much of the public has become an urgent topic of conversation in recent years, with voices rising from all sides.

Now, those voices include one of the most powerful judges in the Eastern United States.

Robert A. Katzmann, chief judge of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, has begun a wide-ranging program that casts the entire circuit in an unusual role, not as an adjudicator set apart but as an engaged and approachable teacher.

The vitality of our governmental institutions, of our courts, depends upon understanding by the public and support from the public; thats critical to what we do, Judge Katzmann said.

But something like 70 percent of Americans cant identify the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, he said. Ten percent of college graduates think that Judge Judy is a Supreme Court justice. That gives you a sense of the context.
Yaffa Eliach, who as a 4-year-old survived the Nazi massacres of Jews in her Lithuanian town, and went on to document their daily life in a kaleidoscopic book and a haunting, three-story canyon of photographs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, died on Tuesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 79.

Her death, after a long illness, was confirmed by Thea Wieseltier, a family friend.

After a childhood that might have throttled a person of lesser spine, Professor Eliach (pronounced EL-ee-akh) dedicated herself to the study and memorialization of the Holocaust and its victims.

Starting in 1969, she did so as a professor of history and literature in the department of Judaic studies at Brooklyn College, and by founding the pioneering Center for Holocaust Studies at the Yeshivah of Flatbush in Brooklyn. Though modest in scale, its collection of taped interviews, diaries, letters, photographs and artifacts became a model for dozens of such centers.

Her mission, she said many times, was to document the victims lives, not just their deaths, to give them back their grace and humanity. She determined to do so as a member of President Jimmy Carters Commission on the Holocaust during a visit to the death camps, where she realized that the victims were portrayed only as bulging-eyed skeletons in ragged striped uniforms, not as the vital people they once were.
Donald J. Trump is president-elect of the United States. Now theres a sentence I never thought Id write.

Against all odds and against all forms of the establishment, he prevailed. He won, legitimately, including in many states that were thought to be safely blue. The pundits and the polls were wrong. There was more pent-up hunger for change  and also racial, ethnic and economic angst  than many models considered.

Mr. Trump will become this countrys 45th president. For me, it is a truly shocking fact, a bitter pill to swallow. I remain convinced that this is one of the worst possible people who could be elected president. I remain convinced that Trump has a fundamentally flawed character and is literally dangerous for world stability and injurious to Americas standing in that world.

There is so much that I cant fully comprehend.

It is hard to know specifically how to position yourself in a country that can elect a man with such staggering ineptitude and open animus. It makes you doubt whatever faith you had in the country itself.
Pakistan is turning them back. Thousands who spent their life savings on a bid to resettle in Europe are being told its time to head home. Inside Afghanistan, tens of thousands have become internally displaced in recent months as fighting between the Taliban and government security forces rages in several provinces. The refugee crisis could reach unprecedented numbers, with as many as 1.5 million returning home, many involuntarily, by the end of the year, according to humanitarian organizations.

Yet, there is no plan to adequately address this humanitarian emergency. Its scale and the international communitys dismissive attitude toward the plight of vulnerable Afghans is shameful. Pakistan, home to 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees and some 700,000 undocumented Afghans, has begun to crack down on those refugees living in the country without permission. By the end of this year, as many as 360,000 could be forced to return to Afghanistan, if current rates hold, according to the United Nations refugee agency. This years number of returnees is about four times higher than last years.

Among those caught in Pakistans toughening stance is Sharbat Gula, the subject of a famous photo that was published on a cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985. That photo was taken at a refugee camp in Pakistan when she was about 12. Ms. Gula, now in her 40s, was recently arrested and deported back to Afghanistan because she had been living in Pakistan without legitimate papers.
A memo from Doug Band, a longtime Clinton fund-raiser and aide, demonstrated the messy relationship between the foundation and the Clintons personal wealth, which ate away at the loyalty of at least some voters. The headline on the Oct. 27 NBC story succinctly described the political liability of the foundation: Hacked Memo Reinforces Worst Perception of the Clintons. These revelations chipped away further at any Democratic advantage because they tapped into what James Sidanius, a Harvard sociologist, calls white resentment of the liberal establishment.

Many structural factors eroded Democratic margins and contributed to their Electoral College defeat, including the emergence of deepening schisms in the electorate. One of the most striking elements of the campaign is how alienated the Clinton and Trump electorates are from each other.

Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford, used Crowdpac to pose questions to voters that allowed him to explore this gulf in a study of the views of the supporters of all the candidates.

Bonica said in an email that many of the responses suggested that Trump loyalists could be described as authoritarian/nationalists. Nearly nine out of ten Trump supporters agreed that people living in the U.S. should follow American customs and learn English, the single strongest predictor of Trump support. One out of four Clinton supporters shared this view.

An even larger 97 percent of Trump voters agreed that patriotism and protecting our national identity is important, compared with 55 percent of Clinton backers. 15 percent of Trump voters said the country should offer a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants, compared with 81 percent of Clinton supporters.

Joel Kotkin, a fellow at Chapman University, described internal shifts in the Democratic Party that contributed to the erosion of Midwestern support for Clinton. In City Journal on Wednesday, Kotkin wrote:

She had it all  the pliant media, the tech oligarchs, Wall Street, the property moguls, the academics, and the all-around smart people. What Hillary Clinton didnt have was flyover country, the economic leftovers, the small towns, the unhipstered suburbs, and other unfashionable places. As Thomas Frank has noted, Democrats have gone from being the party of Decatur to the party of Marthas Vineyard. No surprise, then, that working- and middle-class voters went for Donald Trump and helped him breakthrough in states  Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa  that have usually gone blue in recent presidential elections.

According to Mason Williams, a history professor at Albright College, the failure of Democratic leaders to address the erosion of local institutions in the wake of capital mobility, disinvestment and austerity resulted in the partys setbacks in the Midwest. In that region, Williams wrote:

Trump exploited the moral and psychic anxieties stemming from very real working-class precarity by mobilizing a white-nationalist identity politics. The political agency of the white working class was not channeled into a project of moderate national reform, even to the degree it had been during the Obama years. Instead, it issued forth as a primal scream of despair and rage that will reverberate around the world and down through history.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Senator Sanders issued a statement that followed up on this theme:

Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids  all while the very rich become much richer.

Along similar lines, William Greider wrote The Plain People Spoke on November 8 in The Nation:

Tuesdays ballot-box rebellion was a profound act of small-d democracy. I know that will offend many who are genuinely fearful of the violent talk and bigoted slurs that Trump has employed and encouraged. But so far, the Trump campaign has operated within the nonviolent democratic tradition.

Greider catches some of the crusading tenor of the Trump campaign, but does not take into account the fact that Clinton won the popular vote.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. got lucky on Tuesday.

Maybe.

Donald J. Trumps victory saved the chief justice from irrelevance. A President Hillary Clinton nomination would have filled the current Supreme Court vacancy, whether with the incredibly patient and qualified Merrick Garland, chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, or someone else. And this would have nailed in a five-justice progressive majority and left Chief Justice Roberts where no chief justice has been in modern memory: in a minority on his own court.

So that scenario has evaporated. Thats Tuesdays good news for the chief justice. A Trump nominee will now take the place of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, leaving Chief Justice Roberts more or less in charge of the Roberts court. (I say more or less because several of the courts most important recent decisions found him in dissent, including last years same sex- marriage ruling and the decisions in June that overturned a restrictive Texas abortion law and upheld affirmative action in admissions to that states flagship university.)

The lists of 21 potential Supreme Court nominees that the Trump campaign put out include established and well-respected stars in the conservative judicial firmament, men and women who would have made any Republican presidents shortlist. The chief justice will have a reliable ally, one likely in fact to be more reliable than Justice Scalia, whose my-way-or-the-highway approach and sharp tongue deprived him of the influence he might otherwise have enjoyed during his nearly 30-year tenure.

The bad news is that the election places the Supreme Court in a position of institutional peril. With the Republicans insistence on keeping the seat vacant after Justice Scalias death in February, the court became a major campaign issue. This was highly unusual; for years, activists on both sides have bemoaned the absence of attention to the Supreme Court in presidential campaigns. (Its hard to believe that in 2012, the presidential debates included not a single Supreme Court question.)
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Donald Trumps victory is a political shock like no other that most Americans have experienced.

The causes of the shock  that is, why the polls were wrong  wont be clear until analysts have been able to sort through the returns. There are a few likely suspects: Trump supporters who didnt admit it to pollsters; a late break of undecided voters moving his way; lower-than-expected turnout among Democrats, both white and non-white; and higher turnout among conservative working-class whites.

In a strange way, the immediate future is clearer than the immediate past: All signs point to a radical shift in federal policy.

Republicans now control the presidency, the Senate, the House and will likely soon control the Supreme Court. Even more important, a radicalized version of Republicanism will likely dominate those institutions.
The attenuation of Clintons strength in the upper Midwest was so dramatic and evident immediately, because those rural counties come in first in many instances, and they complete first, which for our model is the most important thing, he says. When a county is 10 percent in, you cant put too much stock in what it says at that point. But a rural county can complete fast, and you dont need many of them to figure out whats going on.

We talk about signs of a decline in black turnout this election compared with 2012. I suppose that its possible, when all the votes are in and counted and we get the data back that we need to make this assessment, that we could conclude that Clinton could have narrowly won  barely, and I really mean barely, like, recounts  Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania if black turnout had been at 2012 levels, Mr. Cohn says. But over all, its not evident to me that the Democrats should blame their loss on that decline in black turnout.

So what did President Obama have beside a surging black and Hispanic vote that Mrs. Clinton did not?

Donald Trump won a large number, a very large number, of white, working-class voters who supported the president twice, Mr. Cohn reminds us. I think thats something that a lot of people, particularly if youre an ideologically committed person who has strong, consistent views on the issues, you cant fathom that. But if you think about it from the perspective of lower-information voters who are in the white working class, that they actually had very similar messages, Obama and Trump.
The origin stories for the designs of Herve Van der Straeten can be found in the stacks of notebooks on the shelves of his Paris office in the Marais. This is where he records his inspirations and sketches his ideas. He pulls one out to show me the first page, which has scores of simple pencil drawings of Moorish doors, all seen on recent trips to Tangier and Seville. As he flips forward, the shapes evolve into something that resembles a lamp, with brush strokes of gold paint. For me, sketching is not work, he says. If I can spend two hours drawing, thats happiness.

The 51-year-old got his start creating jewelry in 1985, and his architectural approach to earrings and bracelets was a preview of what has become his focus today: furniture, lighting and mirrors of deconstructed geometry, all of them made with rigorous precision by artisans  teams of woodworkers and metalsmiths  at his workshop in the suburb of Bagnolet. Van der Straeten traces the genesis of his aesthetic to a trip to Japan when he was in his early 20s. He had gone to exhibit his jewelry at a Mikimoto store, and ended up touring the country for a month. What the designer saw there  the simple ideas of how beauty resounds, the obsession with quality and craftsmanship, the use of materials in a discerning way, he says  shaped everything he has designed since.
SAN FRANCISCO  Yahoo employees knew in 2014 that a hacker backed by a foreign government had broken into its network, the company said in a securities filing on Wednesday.

But Yahoo did not say whether the attack that year  which led to the theft of data like names, birth dates and encrypted passwords for more than 500 million accounts  was disclosed to senior management at the time.

The timeline of who knew what about the attack and when has become central to the companys plan to sell its internet operations to Verizon Communications for $4.8 billion.

Yahoo first publicly disclosed the security breach on Sept. 22 this year, about two months after it struck the deal with Verizon. The company said it discovered the hacking, the largest known data breach affecting a private company, while investigating a hackers claim in July to have obtained certain Yahoo user data.
Throughout the long and contentious presidential campaign, they saw themselves on the front lines of the countrys power struggle  insulted and antagonized by Donald J. Trump and courted in near-desperation by Hillary Clinton.

Now that Mr. Trump has emerged victorious, Latino, black and Muslim voters, each with their own issues and agendas, are bracing for a long four years. Some Latinos already felt threatened on Wednesday and feared that Mr. Trump would pursue his mass deportation pledge, tearing apart their families and communities. Black voters anticipated an era under Mr. Trump in which intolerance would become acceptable. And Muslims worried that they would be branded as terrorists because of their beliefs.

I dont fear Trump as much as I fear the monster hes awakened, said Aysha Choudhary, a Muslim American who works with the aid group Doctors Without Borders in New York City. It feels like hes normalized discrimination, and Im afraid its open season.

On the morning after the vote, many said they felt more vulnerable, just because of what they looked like or what they wore. And none felt particularly reassured by Mr. Trumps vow in his victory speech on Wednesday to bind the wounds of division and come together as one united people.
But Mr. Trump also won over millions of voters who had once flocked to President Obamas promise of hope and change, and who on Tuesday saw in Mr. Trump their best chance to dampen the most painful blows of globalization and trade, to fight special interests, and to be heard and protected. Twelve percent of Mr. Trumps supporters approved of Mr. Obama, according to the exit polls.

Mrs. Clinton won by a greater margin than Mr. Obama among affluent whites, particularly those living in the Democratic Partys prosperous coastal strongholds: Washington and Boston, Seattle and New York. In Manhattan, where Mr. Trump lives and works  and where his fellow citizens mocked and jeered him as he voted on Tuesday  Mrs. Clinton won by a record margin, amassing 87 percent of the vote to Mr. Trumps 10 percent. Around the country, she won a majority of voters over all, harvesting the countrys growing and densely packed big cities and a plurality of the suburbs.

But Mr. Trump won low-income white voters to the Republican ticket, reversing a partisan divide along class lines that is as old as the Democratic and Republican Parties  a replay of the Brexit vote in June, when the old bastions of Englands Labor-left voted decisively to leave the European Union. His breakthrough among white working-class voters in the North not only erased the Democratic advantage but reversed it, giving him a victory in the Electoral College while he lost the national popular vote.

Most strikingly, Mr. Trump won his biggest margins among middle-income white voters, according to exit polls, a revolt not only of the white working class but of the countrys vast white middle class. He did better than past Republicans in the sprawling suburbs along Floridas central coasts, overwhelming Mrs. Clintons gains among Hispanic voters. He held down Mrs. Clintons margins in the Philadelphia suburbs, defying expectations that Mrs. Clinton would outperform Mr. Obama by a wide margin.

Magnified by the constitutional design of the Electoral College, and aided by Republican-led efforts to dampen black and Latino voting in states like North Carolina, Mr. Trumps America proved the larger on Election Day. It smashed through the Democrats supposed electoral blue wall  the 18 states carried by Democrats in every election since 1992, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, plus the diverse and well-educated parts of the country that Mr. Obama attracted in his two races, like New Mexico, Nevada, Virginia and Colorado.

Starting Wednesday, you could walk from the Vermont border through Appalachian coal country to the outskirts of St. Louis without crossing a county Mr. Trump did not win decisively. You could head south through rural and suburban Georgia all the way to South Florida, or northwest through the Upper Midwest, or make a beeline for the West Coast, skirting only the rising Democratic communities of Colorado and the booming multicultural sprawl of Las Vegas before finally reaching Mrs. Clintons part of the country.

Its not that he was the most polished of politicians, said Justin Channell, 36, of Brewer, Me., who works at a health insurance company. I liked the message of the anti-establishment, that corruption in D.C. is so prevalent.
WASHINGTON  Congressional Republicans, stunned by their own good, if complicated, fortune, said on Wednesday that they would move quickly next year on an agenda that merges with President-elect Donald J. Trumps, repealing the Affordable Care Act, cutting taxes, confirming conservative judges, shrinking government programs and rolling back regulations.

Like much of the nation, groggy Republicans were still trying to process results that were the opposite of what most had anticipated. Many Republicans in the House and Senate largely avoided Mr. Trump during his campaign, while a handful outright denounced him, largely to their peril. In the Senate, two incumbents and one Republican challenger who rejected Mr. Trump lost. Republicans appeared likely to secure a 52-to-48 majority in the Senate.

Mr. Trumps victory provides what Republicans have been seeking for a decade: unified control of the government and a chance to pursue a conservative agenda, transforming them from the party of no into a party that can enact significant legislation.

And on Wednesday, congressional leaders said major parts of their agenda could get to the new presidents desk quickly.
A Spartanburg, S.C., couple who were reported missing last year have been identified as the people whose bodies were found on the property of a South Carolina man linked to seven murders, officials said on Wednesday. It appears that both people had been shot to death, officials said.

The victims were Meagan Leigh McCraw Coxie, 25, who had been shot in the head, and her husband, Johnny Joe Coxie, 29, who had multiple gunshots to the torso, said Rusty Clevenger, the Spartanburg County coroner. Their bodies were found buried on a wooded, 95-acre property in Woodruff, S.C., south of Spartanburg, belonging to Todd C. Kohlhepp, who sold real estate.

Ms. Coxies mother had reported the couple as missing persons to us back in December, after being unable to contact her daughter for several days, said Lt. Kevin Bobo of the county sheriffs office. The couple had a baby, who officials said was safe.

Image Meagan Leigh McCraw Coxie, 25. Credit... Spartanburg County Coroner's Office

Mr. Clevenger said that he had dental records for only one of the victims, and that the bodies were identified primarily through extensive tattoos, which matched photographs taken when they were alive.
They chanted Not our president and New York hates Trump and carried signs that said, among other things, Dump Trump. Restaurant workers in their uniforms briefly left their posts to cheer on the demonstrators.

The demonstrations forced streets to be closed, snarled traffic and drew a large police presence. They started in separate waves from Union Square and Columbus Circle and snaked their way through Midtown.

Loaded dump trucks lined Fifth Avenue for two blocks outside Trump Tower as a form of protection.

Emanuel Perez, 25, of the Bronx, who works at a restaurant in Manhattan and grew up in Guerrero, Mexico, was among the many Latinos in the crowd.

I came here because people came out to protest the racism that hes promoting, he said in Spanish, referring to Mr. Trump. Im not scared for myself personally. What Im worried about is how many children are going to be separated from their families. It will not be just one. It will be thousands of families.

Protesters with umbrellas beat a pinata of Mr. Trump, which quickly lost a leg, outside the building.

The Police Department said on Wednesday night that 15 protesters had been arrested.

Bianca Rivera, 25, of East Harlem, described Mr. Trumps election as something that was not supposed to happen.

Were living in a country thats supposed to be united, a melting pot, she said. Its exposing all these underground racists and sexists.
Ive gotten rather good lately at restricting how many painkiller prescriptions I give out in the emergency room where I work. New York State now requires that all prescriptions be filled electronically with a monitoring program targeting narcotics. Over the last several months Ive been keeping track of exactly how many opioids I prescribe.

My log made me realize that Ive been quite judicious with the drugs, especially for patients with ongoing, chronic pain. Studies have shown that opioids are not very effective in controlling pain thats not acute, like persistent low back pain. In fact, they may cause changes in the body that make the discomfort even more pronounced and harder to treat.

Its too early to know for sure, but I have a hunch that other physicians are changing their prescribing patterns too. When I explain to patients that Im sending them home without a script for a fistful of oxycodone pills because of statewide initiatives limiting these prescriptions, they seem to understand, which makes me think other doctors are telling them the same. In the past, they would challenge my judgment or accuse me of practicing differently from my colleagues.

The emergency room may be the first  or last  resort for these patients. Were always open, and people looking for narcotic painkillers know they can come in any time without scheduling an appointment or taking a day off work. Some have exhausted all the usual options, and have been cut off by their doctors who know their behavior well.
WASHINGTON  The United States has killed 119 civilians in Iraq and Syria since it began military operations against the Islamic State there in 2014, military officials said Wednesday.

In each case, the American military followed the proper procedures and it did not violate laws of armed conflict, officials said.

Significant precautions were taken, despite the unfortunate outcome, said Col. John J. Thomas, a spokesman for United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

In most every case, when we determined there may have been civilian casualties from one of our airstrikes, we are choosing to list the largest number of possible civilian casualties, he said. In cases where we just dont have the investigative resources or evidence to determine precisely how many people may have died, we went with the worst-case number to ensure a full accounting.
RAMALLAH, West Bank  Much about Yasir Arafat remains an enigma, in death as in life.

The man who came to embody the Palestinian national cause was variously born in Jerusalem, or Gaza, or Cairo. It was never entirely clear what led to his death in a French military hospital in November 2004.

The Yasir Arafat Museum will proffer answers to these questions when it opens to the public here on Thursday, the eve of the 12th anniversary of his death at 75.

But like most things relating to Mr. Arafat and his ambiguous legacy, the museums contents are unlikely to put to rest the enduring arguments about his quest for Palestinian liberation, which combined peacemaking with armed struggle. A revolutionary hero to admirers, he was viewed by his many detractors as an archterrorist until the end.

The museums narrative begins at the dawn of the 20th century and traces the rise of Palestinian nationalism, its struggles with Zionism and Israel, and Mr. Arafats role at critical points. The story ends abruptly with his demise, without any conclusion, reflecting his ultimate failure in achieving his goal of Palestinian independence, whether through diplomacy or the gun.
KOTOR, Montenegro  Just over an hour after Donald J. Trump secured his stunning triumph, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia congratulated the victor and looked forward to constructive dialogue. Chinas president, Xi Jinping, waited a little longer, sending Mr. Trump a similarly measured message of hope and appealing for cooperation for mutual gain.

But perhaps even more revealing was Momcilo Krivokapic, a bearded Orthodox priest who was ecstatic over the upset result.

Seated in the dark at Saint Nikola Church because of a power failure, the 71-year-old priest gloated at the defeat of satanic forces in the West bent on strengthening NATO, expanding gay rights and championing Western notions of tolerance.

God has reached out his hand and touched the United States to help us all, said Father Krivokapic, a bitter foe of the American-led military alliance and of the values that American power has brought to the far corners of the world, even to Kotor, an ancient fortified town on the Adriatic coast of Montenegro.
A selected guide to stand-up, improv and comedy shows in New York City.

For news about comedy, including critical commentary: nytimes.com/arts. A searchable guide to these and other shows is at nytimes.com/events.

CARL BARRON: DRINKING WITH A FORK (Tuesday and Wednesday) One of Australias most popular comedians, Mr. Barron has an endearing brand of observational humor that has garnered international attention. On this global tour, he reflects on everyday life. (Also Nov. 18-20.) At 8 p.m., SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street, South Village, 212-691-1555, sohoplayhouse.com. (Elise Czajkowski)

KYLE KINANE (through Sunday) His gruff energy and laid-back demeanor mask Mr. Kinanes skills as a storyteller and joke writer, one who is at his finest when dissecting the worst experiences of his own life. At 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 7:30 and 10 p.m., Carolines, 1626 Broadway, at 49th Street, Manhattan, 212-757-4100, carolines.com. (Czajkowski)

 NIGHT TRAIN (Monday) Wyatt Cenacs excellent weekly stand-up show celebrates its fourth anniversary with a blowout show; the lineup includes Sasheer Zamata, Michelle Wolf, Janelle James, Dan Soder and Dave Ross. At 8 p.m., Littlefield, 622 Degraw Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues, Gowanus, Brooklyn, littlefieldnyc.com. (Czajkowski)
After a presidential campaign that underscored various womens rights issues, what better art exhibition to review than one devoted to provocative images of female independence at its most intimate, centering explicitly on the body.

Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty is part of A Year of Yes, a series of exhibitions on trailblazing female artists at the Brooklyn Museum. Ms. Minter, 68, has been exhibiting in New York since the early 1980s, and is increasingly admired by younger generations for her fearless renderings of both the mechanisms of beauty and its dark underbelly.

Over the last three decades, Ms. Minter has operated in the gap defined by feminism, painting and popular culture, carving out a place as one of contemporary arts bad girls. There arent many, and she is one of the few who are primarily painters. Along with Joan Semmel and Betty Tompkins, she appropriated for painting the provocative use of the female body that is usually limited to performance artists, including Carolee Schneemann and Valie Export in the late 1960s, and Vanessa Beecroft in more recent times.
Diana Widmaier-Picasso is used to hearing that she physically resembles her grandmother Marie-Therese Walter, Picassos muse and mistress.

This family connection has helped inform the scholarship that Ms. Widmaier-Picasso brings as an art historian to exhibitions like Picassos Picassos, a selection of works from the collection of her mother, Maya Widmaier-Picasso, which opened on Thursday at Gagosian on Madison Avenue.

Its an occasion to engage in a dialogue with my mother, Ms. Widmaier-Picasso said in an interview at Gagosian, where she was laying out the show.

This year, Maya Widmaier-Picasso (who uses her maiden name Maya Ruiz-Picasso) was at the center of a legal fight over a Picasso bust of Marie-Therese Walter that was in a recent Picasso sculpture show at the Museum of Modern Art.










Black Pulp!

International Print Center New York

508 West 26th Street, Chelsea

Through Dec. 3

Corrosive racial stereotypes have always been rife in American culture, but a counterculture of corrective images has existed too. Thats the subject of this rich historical show of work in various print media. The curators, William Villalongo and Mark Thomas Gibson, both artists, take the story back to the early 20th century with two book jacket designs by Aaron Douglas. One is an abstract, upsurging, rocket-like pattern for Alain LeRoy Lockes The New Negro (1925); the other, a sinuous Deco-Nubian tableau for Fire!! A Quarterly Devoted to Younger Negro Artists (1926). Both in content and design, they sum up the shows view of the black experience as uncategorizably diverse.

The historical images that follow support this take. They include an effervescent 1930s Esquire spread by E. Simms Campbell illustrating African-American dance styles; Black Panther Party broadsides from the late 1960s; 1990s comic books featuring the black superhero Static. This material, much of it on loan from the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University, is supplemented by LP album covers (Sun Ra, Kurtis Blow) and Chester Himes paperbacks, along with work by some two dozen contemporary artists working within, or with reference to, a pop-culture groove. Kerry James Marshall is here in his formally brilliant Rythm Mastr cartoon series, as are several younger artists  Firelei Baez, William Downs, Lucia Hierro, Kenny Rivero, Alexandria Smith  now coming into their own.

The show, which originated at the Yale School of Art, has a keeper of a free gallery guide, and a catalog with solid essays by the curators as well as by Tomashi Jackson, an artist with a solo at Tilton Gallery on the Upper East Side through Dec. 23, and Robert Storr. Their words are an integral part of a superlative visual package.
The reporters who covered the civil-rights struggle in America in the 1950s and 60s were said to be working the race beat. A new generation of reporters has risen to cover a grim and new-seeming iteration of that beat: police shootings of unarmed black men.

In his new book, They Cant Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in Americas Racial Justice Movement, the Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery describes traveling from shooting to shooting during 2014 and 2015. Hed see the same reporters in each city, and about this cohort he says: Wed become a morbid fraternal order.

Mr. Lowery is young (he was born in 1990) and talented (he was a member of the team awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for his newspapers coverage of police shootings) and black. His book is electric, because it is so well reported, so plainly told and so evidently the work of a man who has not grown a callus on his heart.

He had a moment of unwanted fame in August 2014 when he was in Ferguson, Mo., to cover the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by a white policeman named Darren Wilson. He was eating and doing work in a McDonalds  a journalists go-to spot because of the free wifi, electrical outlets and bathrooms  when police ordered the restaurant cleared out.
Deal makers took notice last month when Donald J. Trump declared that he would seek to block AT&Ts $85.4 billion bid for Time Warner on the grounds that it would radically concentrate power in too few companies.

But after an initial period of turmoil, deal advisers say that it is unclear whether a Trump administration  led by an avowedly pro-business real estate mogul  would really make life difficult for mega-mergers.

At the moment, AT&Ts planned takeover of Time Warner, the biggest merger of the year and one that is poised to reshape the world of media and telecommunications, appears to be the most likely candidate for hazing. The president-elect was among the first politicians to criticize the deal, vowing to block it if he became president.

Mr. Trump said it was an example of the power structure Im fighting. He also opposed a similar union between Comcast and NBCUniversal in 2013, which he called poison.
SHANGHAI  As a candidate, Donald J. Trump aimed some of his most blistering words at China, declaring that we already have a trade war and suggesting ominously that we have the power over China, economic power.

As president of the United States, Mr. Trump can use trade  a cornerstone of his populist rise  as a weapon, with the potential to drastically reshape the worlds two largest economies, as well as the companies, industries and workers who depend on their hundreds of billions of dollars in closely linked goods. But neither side may win.

Cutting off trade will not bring back the bulk of American manufacturing jobs lost to China in previous decades as it became the worlds factory floor. Already, some industries that left the United States years ago, such as garment making and some light manufacturing, are now leaving China for even cheaper places. An aggressive stance with China also risks antagonizing an authoritarian government with its own brand of economic nationalism.

Yet the unsettling reality for Beijing is that Mr. Trump has a variety of ways to get back at China for trade practices that he, his supporters or people in the affected industries view as unfair. China sells a large array of goods to the United States that he can aim at for higher tariffs.
The idea builds on a trend that is helping women obtain birth control more easily. A growing number of smartphone apps and websites now make it possible to get prescription contraceptives without visiting a doctors office first. The pills Marie and the other women received through the study are not allowed for sale in pharmacies and are usually available only at hospitals and abortion clinics.

Australia and the Canadian province of British Columbia allow women to get abortion pills by mail after consulting with a physician or other health care provider via phone or the internet. Several international organizations offer mail service in countries where abortion is otherwise unavailable or severely restricted. The oldest group, Women on Web, based in the Netherlands, has provided abortion medications to about 50,000 women in 130 countries since 2006. The service is not available in the United States, and the Food and Drug Administration warns against buying the drugs over the internet.

Having the pills delivered to her home in Hawaii meant that Marie could avoid the cost and time of traveling by plane to the nearest abortion clinic, over 100 miles away in Honolulu or Maui. Once she received them, she set the package aside for a week in her bedroom, waiting until she could schedule time off from her job at McDonalds.

The first pill, as expected, had little effect. The next morning, with her mother at her home to watch her toddler, she took the second. Almost immediately, the bleeding and cramping began. Within three hours, her eight-week pregnancy was over. She described the pain as a five on a 10-point scale. That night she cooked dinner for her family, and the next day she went back to work.

The study Marie participated in is being conducted in four states  Hawaii, New York, Oregon and Washington. It is being funded and organized by Gynuity Health Projects, a nonprofit research group focused on reproductive health services that seeks to improve womens access to medical abortions. The F.D.A. has allowed the experiment. Women learn about it when contacting the abortion clinics in the study and other health providers who are aware of the trial.
Mr. Villeneuve likes big stories with big stakes, and hes very skilled at working your nerves. In some of his movies, he punctures the stories with bluntly violent shocks  a stunned survivor seated before a burning truck in Incendies, corpses sealed inside a drug-house wall in Sicario  that distill terror into a grabber moment. These visuals can be real showstoppers (the narratives briefly shift into idle); theyre at once off-putting and unsettlingly seductive, and even if you want to look away, it can be hard to. Some of his limitations as a filmmaker are best expressed in the perfect crackling of those flames and the pictorial balance of that shot of walled-up torture victims.

Arrival doesnt need self-regarding jolts. Its based on Ted Chiangs Story of Your Life, one of those unassumingly smart science-fiction puzzles that blend absorbing storytelling with meditations on the universe, being, time and space. Part of what makes it so enjoyable is that Mr. Chiang not only raises questions about the nature of reality and what it is to be human, but he also embeds them in his writing through different verb tenses and times. In one section, he rummages around in the past; in another, he jumps onto a separate timeline. The movie  the script is by Eric Heisserer  does something similar with cutaways to Louises life, shardlike glimpses that help fill in the whole.
How much bloodshed can a divided populace stand? In Stephen Apkon and Andrew Youngs documentary, Disturbing the Peace, we meet Combatants for Peace, an advocacy-activist group comprising Israelis and Palestinians who have reached their limit and renounced violence. Most are former military or paramilitary personnel seeking a two-state solution to Israels agonized convulsions. Their stories are compelling  and persuasive.

The movie doesnt examine in detail Hamass attacks on Israel or the construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, or even outline recent political developments. Rather, it briefly offers wrenching images (a bombing in Tel Aviv; razed Palestinian homes) before delving into the personal histories of members of Combatants for Peace. The transformations they describe are less like lightning bolts and more like dawning epiphanies.

One member, Chen Alon, an Israeli Army veteran, denied clearance at a checkpoint to a Palestinian father desperate to deliver his sick children to a hospital. Mr. Alon, a father himself, realized Palestinians can be loving parents as well.

Shifa al-Qudsi, a Palestinian, who lost teenage cousins and a sister-in-law in the conflict, planned to blow up a supermarket. Apprehended beforehand, she was imprisoned for six years. There she met a guard who lost a brother in a suicide attack, and Ms. al-Qudsi, too, recognized her adversarys humanity.
The Qin Xiaoyu and Wu Feiyue documentary Iron Moon has a slowly mounting, but lingering, impact. The film concerns poets in Southern China who, while enduring arduous, sometimes hazardous conditions in working-class occupations, preserve their spirits with verse. Its inspiration is Xu Lizhi, the 24-year-old poet and laborer at a Foxconn electronics factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, who leapt to his death in 2014. Mr. Xu was one of the countless workers from the countryside who travel to Chinas growing cities seeking employment, only to be eaten alive by the tedious, pitiless demands of industry.

Iron Moon (the title comes from Mr. Xus I Swallowed an Iron Moon) examines four living poets, some writing pseudonymously. The young Blackbird (whose real name is Wu Niaoniao) attends a job fair and performs at a reading with other worker-poets. Lucky Chen (Chen Nianxi), a demolitions expert, risks his life daily underground while tending a paralyzed father and aging mother living in rural squalor. Old Coalmine (Lao Jing), a coal miner for 25 years, writes of ghosts between coal seams and rock crevices. In her poem Sundress, Dawn (Wu Xia), 33, a seamstress since she was 14, considers the affluent woman who will enjoy the fruits of her labor amid wealth Ms. Wu will never know.

With arresting images, Iron Moon powerfully addresses Chinas moral crisis in the wake of economic prosperity. Today, if you dont have money or power, its really hard, says Xu Lizhis father. Especially if youre working the line.
The title of Lazy Eye is the common name for amblyopia, an ocular problem afflicting Dean (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe), a successful Los Angeles graphic designer with a second home in the Mojave Desert. As a child, he recalls, his condition was diagnosed, but he never bothered doing the recommended eye exercises to correct it.

Deans amblyopia is a metaphor for something or other, I suppose, but what that might be is anybodys guess in this dull two-character talkfest that fancies itself a gay variation on a chapter of Richard Linklaters Before trilogy. Oh, if only.

The yakking begins after Dean is contacted by Alex (Aaron Costa Ganis), a boyfriend from 15 years ago, and Dean invites him to his desert retreat near Joshua Tree, in California. At the time of their fling, both men lived in New York and met in an East Village bar the night Alex graduated from business school. After their summer romance, Dean never heard from Alex again and embarked on a futile effort to find him. At the time, Dean fancied himself a serious artist and embraced Marxist politics. The one thing that hasnt changed in 15 years is their mutual lust. Within minutes of Alexs arrival, the two have hopped into bed.

Written and directed by Tim Kirkman (Dear Jesse, Loggerheads), Lazy Eye has realistic dialogue and believable performances by its stars. But unless you consider subjects like saltwater swimming pools and the movie Harold and Maude fascinating topics, Lazy Eye has little to say. On a more personal level, the conversation touches on issues like monogamy and raising children, but what is said is merely superficial; yada, yada, yada.
If we can eliminate enemy threats without placing boots on a battlefield, then why not do so? Thats one of the unspoken questions raised, and largely unanswered, by National Bird, Sonia Kennebecks elegantly unsettling documentary about the United States reliance on aerial combat drones.

The weapons themselves, though, demand less of her attention than their psychological impact on three former operators and current whistle-blowers. Identified only by first names (though one full name is visible in a shot of a 2013 expose in The Guardian), all three were involved in some form of top-secret data analysis and the tracking of targets. Justifiably nervous, they wear haunted, closed expressions as they relate stories of guilt, PTSD and persecution.

Its like borders dont matter anymore, says Lisa, who eases her regrets by doing humanitarian work in Afghanistan. Shes talking about national perimeters, but the film cares more about the dehumanizing expanse between the drone operator and an often indistinct target. This is smartly illuminated by a re-enactment of an attack from an actual transcript, the video game similarities chillingly underscored by the callous conversation inside the virtual cockpit.

Equally effective is a moving sequence shot in Kabul, Afghanistan, among the survivors of a 2010 drone attack that killed 23 civilians. But if National Bird wants to persuade us that the emotional and collateral damage of this technology is greater than that caused by conventional weapons, it needs to widen its lens. Interviews with military specialists able to elucidate the complex calculus of risk and reward would have been invaluable in balancing the narrative and perhaps clarifying the ethical fuzziness.
At this point no documentarian can possibly have a fresh take on climate change, right? Wrong. The Anthropologist, a stealthily insightful film by Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller and Jeremy Newberger, improbably mixes that topic with a mother-daughter story to produce a distinctive study of change and human adaptability.

The film follows Susan Crate, an anthropologist at George Mason University, and her daughter, Katie Yegorov-Crate, as they globe-hop to places where climate change is having a dramatic effect. In Siberia, they see hayfields that are underwater because of the thawing of the permafrost layer. In Kiribati in the South Pacific, they talk to residents grappling with the possibility that their islands will disappear into the sea. (Right here was the most-populated village on the island, a man tells Ms. Crate as they stand in water up to the breastbone.)

But this patient film, by the same directors behind a well-regarded 2008 documentary called The Linguists, isnt interested in merely checking in on environments under duress. It was shot over a period of years  Katie, 14 when we first meet her, is entering college by the films end  and captures the subtle evolution in the relationship between mother and daughter. The filmmakers enhance the portrait with comments from the cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, daughter of Margaret Mead; Meads pioneering anthropological work is seen in archival vignettes.

You may spend much of The Anthropologist wondering what exactly the filmmakers are getting at, but by the end you realize they have teased out the idea that a defining human attribute is our ability to adjust to change, whether rising seawater or simply the growing up of our own children. Its an expertly rendered juxtaposition, all the more effective for being unstated.
The lack of subtlety in its title tells you what you need to know about U.S.S. Indianapolis: Men of Courage, a dramatization of an almost unbelievable World War II catastrophe. The film, directed by Mario Van Peebles, brays the story in broad strokes and cliches as if the horror of it didnt speak for itself, which it most certainly does.

The Indianapolis was the cruiser that in 1945 carried parts of the atomic bomb that was to be dropped on Hiroshima to Tinian Island in the Pacific, where the weapon was to be assembled. The mission was secret, so the ship traveled without escort. It successfully delivered its cargo, but on its way to its next assignment, the Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine, leaving about 880 surviving crewmen in the water. Rescue didnt come for four days, by which time hundreds had died, some from shark attacks.

The films leaden treatment of this incredible story somehow sucks all the drama out of it. Nicolas Cage plays the ships captain, Charles McVay, but the script by Cam Cannon and Richard Rionda Del Castro never offers him a chance to do much more than stare ahead earnestly and bark orders. An assortment of secondary characters are given story lines too flimsy to register, and the special effects are equally rickety. The most interesting part of the film is its treatment of Capt. McVays subsequent court-martial (he was exonerated decades later), but this stretch, too, feels like a missed opportunity.

U.S.S. Indianapolis: Men of Courage is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for gory shark attacks.
MASSAPEQUA, N.Y.  On a street lined with split-level homes, small storefronts and trees in fall colors, thousands of New York City police officers stretched out for blocks, standing in formation as they waited in the morning chill for the hearse carrying their fallen colleague to arrive.

Last week, the colleague, Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo, responded to a call about a domestic dispute in the Bronx, where a man held his estranged wife, their child and another woman at gunpoint. Soon, the authorities said, Sergeant Tuozzolo found himself confronting the man, who opened fire, striking him and another sergeant. Sergeant Tuozzolo, 41, became the first member of the Police Department to be killed in the line of duty in just over a year.

On Thursday, thousands of mourners gathered under the vaulted wood ceiling of St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church here on Long Island, where they mourned the sergeant, described as a family man dedicated to his wife and two young sons. He was also recalled as a 19-year veteran of the police force who sought to stay on the streets as he climbed ranks, even if it meant facing danger.

Paul did not hesitate, James P. ONeill, the police commissioner, said in his eulogy, his voice freighted with emotion. For the sake of his family in blue and for the sake of strangers, Paul kept moving toward the danger, moving toward the unknown, because thats what we do.
Between Barack Obamas 2008 election and 2016, America has transformed from being a majority white Christian nation (54 percent) to a minority white Christian nation (43 percent).

But on Election Day, paradoxically, this anxious minority swarmed to the polls to elect as president the candidate who promised to make America great again and warned that he was its last chance to turn back the tide of cultural and economic change.

One clue to the power of this racial and religious identity can be seen in the striking similarity of a map of white Christian population density by state to the red and blue election night map. While the similarity of those maps in Kentucky and West Virginia might not be a surprise, the same similarity in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania goes a long way to explaining why Hillary Clintons Midwestern firewall did not hold on election night.

The choice before the country was starkly clear. Donald J. Trumps Republican Party looked back wistfully to a monochromatic vision of 1950s America, while the major party fronting the first female presidential candidate celebrated the pluralistic future of 2050, when the Census Bureau first projected the United States would become a majority nonwhite nation.
MICHAEL GOODMAN

Brooklyn

The writer is a health care journalist.

To the Editor:

Aaron E. Carroll goes partway to explain the poor performance of the American health care system in providing access to care. He correctly points out that as more people are insured, the demand for health care outstrips the supply.

However, for many specialties, like mental health, the supply of doctors who accept the patients insurance can be low. In research that I performed in New Jersey, I discovered that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield Managed Care had very low participation from psychologists and psychiatrists in practice (23 percent of psychologists and 22 percent of psychiatrists in individual and group practices). Many other plans were even worse.

This artificially creates a doctor shortage, despite laws designed to prevent this lack of access. In many specialties, it gets even worse because of insurers lack of concern for network adequacy.

RUSSELL M. HOLSTEIN

Long Branch, N.J.

The writer is a clinical psychologist.

To the Editor:

I object to Aaron E. Carrolls treatment of Canadas national health care system as compared with Americas. Im sure the statistics he cites are accurate, but the picture they paint is not. Obviously there are some weaknesses and areas that need improving here in Canada. But there is no one I know in this country, liberal or conservative, rich or poor, who would choose the private system of the United States.

Earlier today I showed up at my family doctors office and made a flu shot appointment for the day after tomorrow. Ive seen my doctor maybe 20 times in the last year, for various reasons. If I really need to see him pronto, well, I can. And, oh, theres no charge.

Meanwhile, in the States, despite the big improvement with Obamacare, you even have to pay almost $700 a year not to be insured. What is up with that? Of course, its your country, your decision. The point is, theres a real cost to making choices based on slogans and ideology.

TOM KARSAY

Toronto

To the Editor:

Aaron E. Carroll highlights important issues surrounding barriers to accessing health care in the United States. While I agree with him that real solutions to improve access to health care must be discussed, the real conversation we need to have as a nation is how to improve access to health care in its entirety for all of our population.
To the Editor:

I have four things to say to Donald Trump.

One, congratulations. You deserve it.

Two, while the shocking election outcome may be the biggest boost to your ego yet, let it go. Over half of the voters did not vote for you, and you cannot fire them.

Three, citizens like me, who are swallowing their pride today, are also hoping for you to succeed. Not a scrap of experience from the corporate world has prepared you for this. The fact that citizens who so fiercely opposed you are now patriotically hoping for your successful stewardship is in complete dissonance with the campaign you ran. May you reap a pound of humility from this lesson.

Four, you can demonstrate right now that you intend to be a president for all the people and lead a process of national reconciliation by supporting the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. It would signal a political cunning that may impress even your harshest critics on the left.

This moment on the world stage has created a unique opportunity for a great presidency. Will you seize it or squander it for petty personal gain, as many expect you to do?
Online shopping gets all the attention these days. But sometimes, theres still no beating a physical store.

The British designer Lee Broom came to that realization last May after opening a monthlong pop-up shop in Manhattans SoHo filled with his furniture and light fixtures, including lamps made from hollowed-out marble tubes and cut crystal bulbs recalling cocktail glasses.

He had already been selling his products through his online store and about 180 retailers worldwide, including major online players like Lumens. But his temporary store in New York helped his sales in the United States jump by about 50 percent over the 12 months through early October.

It went incredibly well, and massively exceeded our expectations, Mr. Broom said. People want to see the pieces in person, get the scale, look at the materials and touch them.
A few doors down is Parlor Coffee (11 Vanderbilt Avenue), a roastery that supplies beans to restaurants like Semilla and El Rey. On Sundays, it is open for shopping and tasting, with the aroma of beans spinning in a vintage Probat UG 22 roaster frequently drifting through the brick-walled space. Connoisseur-caliber accessories are for sale (Japanese glass Kalita brewers, Bonavita kettles, Aeropress coffee makers) as are, of course, the brands beans. Along with choices such as Kenya Miiri, which is slightly sweet and not especially strong, there are seasonal offerings, including a limited-edition blend from the Gesha area of Ethiopia available starting Nov. 28.

A few blocks away, Myrtle Avenue  nicknamed Murder Avenue in prior times  includes a few noteworthy boutiques. Green in Bklyn (432 Myrtle Avenue), for example, focuses on eco-friendly items, including Klean Kanteen reusable water bottles; its also a reliable spot for gifts. Many are stylish souvenirs of the borough, such as the illustrator Claudia Pearsons dish towels adorned with brownstones, and some are simply appealing, including chunky bars of soap from Marseille and colorfully printed childrens backpacks.
You may not have heard of Claudia Gold, but maybe you know her by her other name, Claw Money. Her graffiti is stamped all over downtown. Her store, Claw & Co. ( 101 Delancey Street), which opened in 2015, mixes fashion and graffiti, much as the Lower East Side mixes the old New York with the new. The hip-hop inspired shop carries her line, Claw & Co., which includes not only apparel like crewnecks, T-shirts and caps but also racks of rare vintage finds like military and denim-patch jackets and lots of fun accessories. Youll also find collaborations, such as Claw x Fila and Shut x Claw. These are pieces that you wont find anywhere else. You can also pick up a Claw Money work of art (starting at $500). In keeping with the small-business vibe of many Lower East Side stores, some days you may even see Ms. Gold herself. Receipts for purchases are handwritten, which adds an old-school charm.

Affordable and art are two words that arent usually linked. At Objectify 139 (139 Essex Street), the two concepts fuse seamlessly. The store has modestly priced prints, books and art objects. The stock rotates often, and while you wont find Warhols, Basquiats or Avedons here, you will find an impressive array of work from up-and-coming artists and Instagram favorites like Eric T. White, David Brandon Geeting, Rachel Levit Ruiz and Chad Moore. The candles by Maria Candanoza come in shapes like the Statue of Liberty and kissing girls ($15 and up).

When the chill starts to settle in, theres nowhere else Id rather be than in front of a fireplace. Hotel bars are often disrespected, but the one at The Ludlow (180 Ludlow Street) should not be. With its oversize couches in front of a fireplace, the Lobby Lounge is where Ill end up on any trip to the Lower East Side once the weather gets cold, and so should you. Cocktails are about $18; theres never any pressure from the staff to hurry up and leave.
Google disputed on Thursday claims made by Europes antitrust officials that it had used Android, the companys dominant mobile operating system, to unfairly promote its own services like online search and its smartphone application store over those of rivals.

The Silicon Valley company said that customers and cellphone makers could easily switch to competitors services and use rival smartphone applications, though rivals have balked at such suggestions.

The Android ecosystem carefully balances the interests of users, developers, hardware makers and mobile network operators, Kent Walker, Googles general counsel, said in a blog post on Thursday. Android hasnt hurt competition, its expanded it.

If the charges (and denials) sound familiar, its because they are.

For years, the European authorities investigated Microsoft over whether the company had abused its dominance to promote its own services. Microsoft eventually  some say reluctantly  agreed to give rivals greater access.
LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals that will soon be bought by Microsoft, is to be blocked in Russia after a local court ruled on Thursday that it had breached the countrys data protection rules, a sign of growing tensions for American tech companies operating in the country.

The case in the Moscow city courts arose at a time of debate in Washington over how the United States might retaliate for what American security officials said was the Russian governments hacking of emails from the Democratic National Committee and other digital interference in the presidential election.

Russia has a history of increasing regulatory pressure on businesses in political disputes. The case began in August, before Donald J. Trumps victory in Tuesdays presidential election, and there is currently no connection between the LinkedIn case and the hacking scandal.

The countrys push to gain greater control over its internet users is one of a number of attempts by governments worldwide to dictate how people use digital services.
Popular music is rife with one-album wonders and oddball trajectories, but Elizabeth Eaton Converse, known as Connie, is a textbook cult artist. When her lone record, How Sad, How Lovely, came out in 2009, she had been gone for 35 years. One day in 1974, she got into her VW Beetle and left her Ann Arbor, Mich., home. She had recently turned 50, and was never heard from again.

Now Converses story and heartbreakingly fragile songs  eccentric mixtures of traditional folk ballads and Joni Mitchells most esoteric meanderings  form the backbone of Howard Fishmans quietly charming play with music, A Star Has Burnt My Eye.

Even at the peak of her musical activity, living in New York in the 1950s, Converse only performed for friends and family. The music on How Sad, How Lovely was pulled from demos she had recorded with the amateur engineer Gene Deitch. Hearing the likes of I Have Considered the Lilies now is like stepping into a haunted dreamland.

Mr. Fishman, a regular on the modern coffeehouse circuit, frames his tribute with a conceited concept: He plays a doppelganger of himself, Henry, leading three bandmates through a rehearsal of Converse songs before a gig.
One police officer was killed and another was wounded when they were ambushed while responding to a domestic dispute in western Pennsylvania, the authorities said on Thursday. Hours later, a man and a woman were found dead inside a home nearby.

A Pennsylvania state trooper, Melinda Bondarenka, told reporters that the officers from the Canonsburg police department had been responding to a domestic dispute around 3 a.m. on Thursday when they were ambushed upon their arrival, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Little information was given as to the nature of the dispute, and the man and the woman found dead in the home were not identified.

The officer who was killed, Scott Leslie Bashioum, 52, was killed by a gun shot wound, according to the coroners report. He was pronounced dead shortly after 4 a.m. at Canonsburg Hospital.

Dan Laurent, a spokesman for the Allegheny Health Network, said that the other officer who was shot was flown to Allegheny General Hospital, a nearby trauma center. There was no further word on his condition on Thursday.
The fliers depicting men in camouflage, wielding guns and an American flag, appeared in mens restrooms throughout Texas State University: Now that our man Trump is elected, they said. Time to organize tar and feather vigilante squads and go arrest and torture those deviant university leaders spouting off that diversity garbage.

A year after students at campuses nationwide pushed for greater sensitivity toward cultural differences, the distribution of the Texas State fliers was just one of several episodes this week suggesting that the surprise election of Donald J. Trump is provoking a round of backlash on campuses.

At the same time, universities are trying to address more generalized fears about the countrys future, organizing campus meetings and counseling sessions and sending messages to students urging calm.

A lot of Muslim students are scared, said Abdalla Husain, 21, a linguistics major at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who is of Palestinian ancestry. He said some Muslim students on campus were afraid to go outside. Theyre scared that Trump has empowered people who have hate and would be hostile to them.
Aaron Schock, the former Republican representative from Illinois whose taste for first-class travel and a Downton Abbey-themed office design led to questions about his judgment and adherence to spending rules, was indicted on Thursday by a federal grand jury on 24 counts, including wire fraud and theft of government funds.

The indictment came after his lawyer, George J. Terwilliger III, said in a statement that the charges were expected and described them as a misuse of prosecutorial power by the Justice Department.
At the same time, Mr. Schumer may find himself with more in common with his fellow New Yorker in the White House than most expect. Both men have long talked about major spending on infrastructure, and both believe that American companies that move jobs overseas should face punishment.

But dealing with Republicans is only part of Mr. Schumers challenge. Senate Democrats will be largely cleaved into those facing re-election in two years  many from red states like Indiana, North Dakota and Montana  and a liberal flank empowered by the popularity of Ms. Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

The complexities of his new role, one in which listening is required as much as talking and self-interest has to give way to consensus, would have once seemed ill suited to Mr. Schumer.

Most people dont evolve, said Howard Wolfson, the New York political operative who worked on Mr. Schumers first race for the Senate, in 1998. He is someone who has, in ways that enable him to be more successful than he would have been. If you think about him circa 1998, he was very focused on press, somewhat parochial in his view of the world and very partisan. He has evolved into someone who is very focused on results rather than flash, and very much able and interested in working with the other party to get things done.

Mr. Schumer has also ceded the spotlight, on the Sunday shows and even on major legislation, to colleagues with more pressing political needs. He has even learned to work with Republicans, hammering out deals while riding a stationary bike in the Senate gym.
Im absolutely going to Marrakesh, perhaps even more important, he said. And I look forward to being there very, very much.

Pessimism appears to be warranted. Mr. Oppenheimer and other climate policy experts said all major emitters needed to take action in the near term to stave off the 3.6-degree increase.

Scientific reports released over the last two years have concluded that the measurable warming of the planet because of human activities has already begun. This year is on track to be the hottest on record, blasting past the previous records set in 2015 and 2014.

An analysis by Climate Interactive, a scientific think tank that provides data used by many governments, concluded that the policies by the United States would account for about 20 percent of the expected greenhouse gas reductions under the Paris plan from 2016 to 2030. But absent the expected policy actions in the United States under the Trump administration, scientists at Climate Interactive said, the math of emissions reductions will be much more difficult to maintain.

Pessimists will find abundant support for despair this morning, John Sterman, a professor of system dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in a Climate Interactive analysis on Wednesday morning.

With Mr. Trump in the Oval Office and Republican majorities in both houses, Mr. Sterman wrote, there is little hope that the Clean Power Plan will survive in the Supreme Court or for federal action to meet the U.S. commitment under the Paris accord. Worse, other key emitter nations  especially India  now have little reason to follow through on their Paris pledges: If the U.S. wont, why should developing nations cut their emissions?

The Clean Power Plan is the ambitious centerpiece of Mr. Obamas climate change legacy and the key to his commitment under the Paris accord. At its heart is a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations intended to curb planet-warming pollution from coal-fired power plants. If enacted, the rules could transform the American electricity sector, close hundreds of coal-fired plants and usher in the construction of vast new wind and solar farms. The plan is projected to cut United States power plant emissions 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
In November 2000, as the Florida recount gripped the nation, a newly elected Democratic senator from New York took a break from an upstate victory tour to address the possibility that Al Gore could wind up winning the popular vote but losing the presidential election.

She was unequivocal. I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people, Hillary Clinton said, and to me that means its time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.

Sixteen years later, the Electoral College is still standing, and Mrs. Clinton has followed Mr. Gore as the second Democratic presidential candidate in modern history to be defeated by a Republican who earned fewer votes, in his case George W. Bush.

In her concession speech on Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton did not mention the popular vote, an omission that seemed to signal her desire to encourage a smooth and civil transition of power after a divisive election. But her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, highlighted her higher vote total than Donald J. Trumps in introducing her.
The variations in their oath mean one thing, that they did not sincerely take the oath, Mr. Cheng said in the interview. If they did not sincerely swear allegiance to the country and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, how are they qualified to become Hong Kongs legislators?

Applying for judicial review in Hong Kong is a two-step process. The court first has to give the applicant permission to go ahead with the case. Judges will determine whether the person asking for the review has sufficient interest in the matter.

It is unclear what interest Mr. Cheng has in the case, although the taxi drivers association is a corporate member of Hong Kongs transport functional constituency, a system in which trade groups are given seats on the Legislative Council.

Among the eight lawmakers named in the suit are Lau Siu-lai, who read her oath slowly over more than 10 minutes, pausing after each word; Nathan Law, who gave a preamble saying he couldnt be loyal to a government that murders its own people; and Leung Kwok-hung, also known as Long Hair, who unfurled a yellow umbrella, a symbol of the 2014 protests, when he gave his oath.

Hong Kongs judicial system, inherited from the British, is known for its independence. Judges must decide how to interpret the ruling from Beijing in each of the eight cases and determine whether the ruling, which came after the oaths had already been accepted, can be applied retroactively. Ms. Yau and Mr. Leung had their oaths rejected, and have not been given the opportunity to retake them.

I dont think I have broken any law, Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, one of the legislators, told reporters on Thursday. I dont think, even after the interpretation, the law of the court of Hong Kong will do such a ridiculous decision as to disqualify me and my fellow colleagues in the chamber.
BEIJING  The filmmaker Evans Chan was delighted when an educational center in Hong Kong agreed to screen his new documentary about the Umbrella Movement, the pro-democracy demonstrations that convulsed the city in 2014.

But then, two weeks before the event, scheduled for Tuesday, the Hong Kong Center of the Asia Society canceled the screening of the film, Raise the Umbrellas, citing political concerns. Mr. Chan, who is from Hong Kong, said he was disappointed but not entirely surprised.

Where Hong Kong is concerned, I feel that it is actually becoming more like Tibet, but without Tibets political or cultural sexiness for the international community, Mr. Chan, 54, said in one of several interviews by email and telephone from New York, where he lives. That being said, Ill try my best to be Hong Kongs chronicler.

Tibet is officially designated as an autonomous region within China. But while Hong Kong, a former British colony, was guaranteed a high degree of autonomy and civil liberties when it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, Tibet faces the same strict limits on political expression as the rest of mainland China.
NEW DELHI  Thousands of security forces were deployed on Thursday to keep the peace at Indias banks, where crowds of people had formed jittery, snaking lines in the early morning, desperate to exchange now-useless currency notes.

In a surprise move on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi withdrew 500- and 1,000-rupee bills from circulation, aiming to shrink the countrys vast, informal black economy. The cash market, which by some estimates amounts to 30 percent of the gross domestic product, is used by many Indians to avoid paying taxes and to pay bribes.

For the next two weeks, citizens will be able to exchange 4,000 rupees a day, or about $60. But they will have difficulty converting large cash holdings because they will have to declare them to the tax authorities. Money that cannot be exchanged will be, as officials put it, extinguished.

The plan, top secret until Mr. Modis announcement, was hailed by financial analysts as bold and potentially transformational for India. It is also a high-stakes experiment: Though other Indian leaders have withdrawn currency notes, none have reduced the countrys supply of cash so drastically or so abruptly. The two bills being withdrawn make up 80 percent of the cash in circulation.
HONG KONG  Interpol has chosen a top Chinese security official as its new president, raising alarms from human rights groups concerned that the appointment will lead to abuse of the global police organizations powers to issue international arrest warrants.

The official, Meng Hongwei, a vice minister of public security, was elected president by the groups general assembly, Interpol announced on Thursday. His appointment is effective immediately as he replaces Mireille Ballestrazzi of France, the organization said in a statement.

While the job of Interpols president is limited in scope, the announcement was met with disdain by human rights groups. Authoritarian governments like Russia and China have been known to abuse Interpols red notices, tantamount to international arrest warrants, to hunt down political enemies. Chinas law enforcement agencies have shown little regard for international borders in recent years, spiriting away political opponents from places like Thailand and Myanmar.

The appointment of Meng Hongwei is alarming given Chinas longstanding practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad, Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia director at Amnesty International, said in a statement. It seems at odds with Interpols mandate to work in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
TOKYO  Japans prime minister, Shinzo Abe, did not take long to recover from the shock of Donald J. Trumps victory. By Thursday morning  Wednesday night in the United States  Mr. Abe had called the president-elect and arranged to meet him in New York next week.

In hustling to be one of the first world leaders to meet with Mr. Trump since the election, Mr. Abe is seeking to gauge the sincerity of Mr. Trumps campaign rhetoric on Japan. As a candidate, he repeatedly excoriated the country, along with other American allies, for not paying what he called its fair share to support American military bases, and he suggested he might withdraw troops unless Japan agreed to pay more.

Mr. Abe will also probably want to discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal between the United States and several Asian countries, including Japan, that Mr. Trump has said he would consign to the dustbin. The Abe administration considers the pact, which moved closer to ratification on Thursday with approval in Japans lower house of Parliament, an important plank in his economic policy.
LONDON  One of two men who escaped from a London prison in an audacious breakout has been captured and arrested after three days on the run, the police said on Thursday.

Scotland Yard said that Matthew Baker, 28, who had been awaiting sentencing after being convicted of attempted murder in the stabbing of a man in East London, was arrested on Wednesday in Ilford, also in the east of the city. The authorities said that Mr. Baker had been held in a police station overnight.

In a statement announcing Mr. Bakers capture, Scotland Yard said that a 21-year-old woman and a 33-year-old man, neither of whom was identified, had also been arrested, but the police did not elaborate on their roles.

Image Matthew Baker was arrested on Wednesday. Credit... Metropolitan Police

Mr. Baker and the other inmate who escaped, James Anthony Whitlock, 31, broke out on Sunday after apparently using diamond-tipped cutting equipment to sever the bars of their fifth-floor cells at Pentonville prison.
MOSCOW  The Russian government maintained contacts with members of Donald J. Trumps immediate entourage during the American presidential campaign, one of Russias top diplomats said Thursday.

There were contacts, Sergei A. Ryabkov, the deputy foreign minister, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. We continue to do this and have been doing this work during the election campaign, he said.

Mr. Ryabkov said officials in the Russian Foreign Ministry were familiar with many of the people he described as Mr. Trumps entourage. I cannot say that all, but a number of them maintained contacts with Russian representatives, Mr. Ryabkov said.

Later, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said Mr. Ryabkov had been referring to American politicians and supporters of Mr. Trump, not members of his campaign staff. The contacts were carried out through the Russian ambassador in Washington, who reached out to the senators and other political allies to get a better sense of Mr. Trumps positions on various issues involving Russia.
LONDON  Hillary Clinton got closer than any American woman to the nations top job, but her loss this week has thrown a spotlight back on the question: Why has the United States lagged behind so many countries around the world in choosing a female leader?

Tiny Sri Lanka became the first to shatter the political gender barrier more than a half-century ago, when that island nation was known as Ceylon. Its giant neighbor, India, followed a few years later. Since then women have attained top leadership posts  president, prime minister or its equivalent  in more than 70 countries in Europe, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific. Today, women run two of Europes most powerful nations, Angela Merkel in Germany and Theresa May in Britain. So why not the United States?

Historians have offered a range of reasons. Many of the earlier womens pathways were eased because their husbands or fathers were autocratic or charismatic leaders first. Some were chosen via parliamentary deal-making, not direct elections. Others were tapped as temporary leaders. Some scholars say that European democracies may view women as more suited to high political office because their governments are known for generous social-welfare programs, something that seems maternal. In contrast, the president of the United States is primarily seen as commander in chief, which is a frame more difficult for women to fit into.

America is still seen as the policeman of the world, the guardian of the world and we still have a very gendered version of what leadership means, said Laura A. Liswood, secretary general of the United Nations Foundations Council of Women World Leaders, a network of current and former female prime ministers and presidents. Not only do we have to be liked, we also have to be tough.
ERBIL, Iraq  More than two years ago, a Christian farmer in his 70s named Mosa Zachariah fled his village near Mosul with, as he put it, only the pants he was wearing. He left behind his house, tons of wheat and a BMW.

But now that his town, an early target of the Iraqi security forces as they advance on Mosul itself, has been cleared of the Islamic State forces, it is not jubilation he feels, but fear of what awaits him if he tries to return. He wistfully talked about his citys diversity as something completely unattainable now. In that time, the Muslims and Christians were like brothers, he said.

Musab Juma, a Shiite who used to live in the Mosul area, said he would not be going back, either. He relocated to Najaf, in southern Iraq, where he has a food stall and has decorated his home with old photos and antiques from his hometown. Yazidis and Kurds and Shabaks, other minorities that were once vital pieces of Mosuls human tapestry, have moved on, too. And many Sunni Arabs, who make up most of Mosuls population, say they will never go home again, even if that is where their parents and grandparents are buried.

Before the Islamic States occupation began more than two years ago, Mosul was Iraqs most diverse city. Its rich culture, stretching back to the ancient Assyrians, and reputation for tolerance made it a vital symbol of an Iraq that could at least aspire to being a unified and whole nation.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  Crossing from Syria into Lebanon on Tuesday night proved to be a parable for the diametrically opposed ways the world sees the election of Donald J. Trump.

At the passport counter, a Syrian officers face lit up when he saw an American traveler.

Congratulations on your new president! he exclaimed, giving an energetic thumbs up. Mr. Trump, he said, would be good for Syria.

He echoed many supporters of Syrias president, Bashar al-Assad, who pronounced themselves delighted with the president-elect, believing he would change course, abandon support for Mr. Assads opponents in the Syrian civil war and embrace Damascus and its ally, Moscow.

In the Middle East, as elsewhere around the world, Mr. Trumps surprise victory shocked many people. But a new occupant of the Oval Office could lead to a significant reordering of American engagement in a complex region. Saudi Arabia, for example, hopes Mr. Trump will take a hard line on Iran. Egypt sees a man it can do business with who will not quibble about human rights.
Editorial writers and opinion columnists around the world have reacted to Donald J. Trumps election as the 45th president of the United States. Below is a sampling of their views.

Disgust Has Become the Principal Engine

Editorial in the Reforma newspaper, Mexico

The victory of Donald Trump confirms some lessons that everybody already knew  but which nobody wanted to understand. The first is that disgust has become the principal engine of elections. Forget policy proposals: People are voting for personalities, not for candidates; for likability, not ideology; to reject someone, not out of conviction. The second was seen in Brexit and in the no to the Colombia peace plan.  Voters do not feel represented by their government, nor by the parties. ... The third and perhaps most serious is that this disgust is easily exploitable through populism: telling people what they want to hear; polarizing the world into good guys and bad guys; making campaigns into reality shows; and pushing with such insistence the button of false patriotism.

Demagogic Degeneracy

Editorial in the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo

If the United States were a banana republic, the outcome of this election would be damaging only for its unfortunate inhabitants. But this nation provides international security and global economic stability. One false step by the government of the United States could drag the rest of the world into turmoil that only benefits those who are careless or enemies of Western values. These are not signs of optimism. Since brazen lying was Trumps main electoral weapon, its hard to know if hes being honest when he promises to govern for all Americans. What is clear is that he didnt present any credentials for occupying the worlds most important political position, aside from his distinguished handling of demagogic degeneracy. God save America!

A Moment of Great Peril

Editorial in The Financial Times of Britain

The world waits nervously to see if Mr. Trumps policies are as incendiary as his words. The shift to a more positive tone since the election result is a first step. But this remains a moment of great peril. Mr. Trumps victory, coming after the Brexit referendum vote in Britain, looks like another grievous blow to the liberal international order. Mr. Trump must decide, by his actions and words, whether he intends to contribute to the great unraveling, at incalculable cost to the West.

Europe Is Not Protected

Editorial in the French newspaper Le Monde

Donald Trumps election is an earthquake, a game changer for Western democracy. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11, this event marks the beginning of a new world where only one thing is certain: in this new place, everything that was once thought impossible, or unrealistic, is now conceivable. Each country is different, but the anger common in every one is rooted in a broad fear of globalization that focuses on two themes: immigration control and income inequality. The British cast their Brexit votes with those in mind. Trump predicted his victory would be a Brexit times 10. He was right. And this is also a way of saying that Europe is not protected from the seismic shift that has just shaken Washington to the core.  Unfortunately for her, Hillary Clinton embodied perfectly the quintessence of the American political elite. Rightly or wrongly, her image reflected the status quo  despite her having the most solid and achievable program. There are many lessons to be learned from this election. Traditional political parties must take heed. So must the media and the pollsters, who for the most part, did not predict this outcome and no longer know how to gauge public opinion. These lessons are all the more vital because those who represent the voices of protest anger, whether it be Trump or his European clones, have no idea how to solve these complex problems. They sell illusions, and Trump is the master illusionist. They live off simplistic arguments which threaten our democracies. From Paris, Trumps victory coming after Brexit is another prescient warning. In this new postelection world, everything is possible. The prospect that we in France are still unable to look at in the eye looms: the rise to power of the far right.

A Revolutionary Nation

Maurizio Molinari, editor in chief of the Italian daily La Stampa, in a front-page editorial
A little-known fact about The New York Times Magazine is that it is printed on the weekend before the one on which it is distributed. This means that the contents of this weeks issue were finalized several days before Election Day. You will find no direct reflections on the results of the voting in these articles. And yet, the uncertainty of the outcome at the time we published them suits the theme of this special issue: our current mania with redesigning, tweaking, optimizing, improving, refreshing and updating everything. In the age of branding, the quadrennial choosing of an American president has come to feel like an exercise in product relaunch, and both candidates  Hillary Clinton and the eventual victor, Donald Trump  each represented a new and unprecedented proposal for the face we would show the world.

The conviction that things can be eternally improved is fundamental to American democracy. In every election, at every level of government, candidates criticize the incumbent, rail against the status quo and promise that they can do better. A similar zeal has always been a feature of our consumer culture, and in recent years technological advances have only intensified our belief that all things can and should be regularly revolutionized. The spread of Silicon Valleys ethos of disruption has emboldened (some might say to a lamentable degree) creative types in all sectors to blow up all the standard operating procedures. In the world of product design, the ease with which any electronic gadget can be turned into a node in a network of information, conspiring to make life easier at every juncture, has led us to imagine a whole new dimension to our most quotidian objects. Why sell a mere refrigerator when you can sell a smart refrigerator that adds a line to your grocery list when the milk runs out?

In this issue we examine the pros and cons of this redesign mania, charting its path from corporate logos to home furnishings to public spaces to social services and more. We even caught the fever ourselves: Working with Paola Antonelli, the senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, we commissioned six designers around the world to reimagine objects that we felt could be improved, from the baggage-claim carousel to the hospital gown to the toilet.

No design is ever permanent but merely a way station between what a thing used to be and what it might yet become  a source of consolation, perhaps, if your wished-for presidential redesign did not prevail in this past weeks contest.
I have a hunch that most folks are skipping the article in their excitement to post either their love or hatred for this woman. I dont know anything about her.

I recommend, however, that folks actually read this very well-written piece of journalism. I found myself sucked in by its themes: an accusation of sexual assault in which we will ultimately never know what happened in that room, a descent into self-abuse in which artistic expression was used as a rope back out, how a person becomes a celebrity by becoming a mask of self-parody, what its like to continue pursuing your art in vastly diminished and humbling circumstances. Also, Ill admit, the intrigue of a body of work that only a few can peek inside and see.

I dont know why I clicked on this; Ive never thought about her before. But thats what a great profile can do. It takes someone you thought you had no interest in and compels you to hear her story to the end. Very well written. TlalocBrooklyn, on nytimes.com

Im facing the return of Saturn myself, so my heart goes out to Kesha on that front. With that said, I have some friction with Taffys article: I live in a society that either sides with the victims or defends the abuser. Its one or the other. Nobody ever says, Im reserving judgment.
Arrival, the new aliens-have-landed film with Amy Adams (which opensFriday), is the first science-fiction picture directed by Denis Villeneuve, and, despite its ominous overtones and the heartbreak at its core, it also counts among Mr. Villeneuves lighter fare.

Mr. Villeneuve, who is French Canadian, is widely known for tense cinematic brooders like Prisoners and Enemy, which both starred Jake Gyllenhaal, and for being hired to direct the forthcoming, doubtlessly moody Blade Runner sequel, due next year and starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. Set against Mr. Villeneuves body of work, though, these three films are anomalies, for the simple fact that their protagonists are men.

Mr. Villeneuve has built and grown his career making films that are about, and led by, women. Arrival is his sixth feature to focus on a female character.

Part of this is happenstance, part of it by design, and part of it is ingrained in Mr. Villeneuves DNA. Writing his first feature in the late 90s, Mr. Villeneuve said, he consciously chose a female protagonist because he felt it would bring him the necessary distance from his subject. But then his second feature centered on a woman, and then his third, and his fourth, around which time Mr. Villeneuve realized a definite pattern was afoot.
Whether they are functioning towers casting a beam over the sea or simply historic landmarks, lighthouses are full of intrigue. Their isolated locations, vantage points over cliffs and open water or associations with tales of storms and shipwrecks  whatever the reason, they capture the imagination. Here are seven examples outside Ireland that might inspire a trip.

1. South Stack Lighthouse, Anglesey, Wales. On a small island reached by footbridge off the northwest coast of Anglesey in Wales, this lighthouse requires descending over 400 stone steps down a cliff for a visit. Tours (5.80 pounds, about $7.25) include the interior of the lighthouse and climbing spiral steps to the top of its tower. trinityhouse.co.uk/lighthouse-visitor-centres/south-stack-lighthouse-visitor-centre

2. Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai, Hawaii. Perched above the Pacific on the northern coast of Kauai, the Kilauea Lighthouse was restored in time for its centennial celebration in 2013. Visits ($5) include the tower and explorations of the surrounding wildlife refuge. kilaueapoint.org
Head south: past the gas station, the chicken shop and the bodybuilder gym, through a thicket of enormous public housing estates, constructed in varying shades of beige and beiger and brown. Its quiet on this stretch of Vallance Road in Londons East End, a concrete artery connecting disparate neighborhoods. A short walk northwest brings you to Bethnal Green Academy, from which three British schoolgirls fled to Syria to join the Islamic State last year. An equal distance southwest lands you at Fournier Street: home to a different kind of enfant terrible  the British artist Tracey Emin, whose most famous work, My Bed (1999), featured Ms. Emins own authentically unmade bed, strewn with cigarettes and used condoms.

And yet heres your destination: an unremarkable brown brick building, affixed with a circular, cobalt blue plaque: Mary Hughes, 1860-1941 / Friend of All in Need / lived and worked here 1926-1941. Was there ever such a lovely descriptor? Mary Hughes was once a stalwart champion of East Londons poor. She bought the Vallance Road building in 1926, and quickly converted it into a center for education, Christian Socialism and trade unionism. There, she passed many productive years. But her final days were spent as an invalid, after she was injured by a tram while marching on behalf of the unemployed.
Some British red squirrels  cute and pointy-eared, like Beatrix Potters Squirrel Nutkin  carry a medieval form of human leprosy, scientists have learned.

Red squirrels are disappearing from the British Isles, and researchers performed DNA tests on more than 100 animals as part of study to try to find out why. All 25 roadkill specimens collected on Brownsea Island, off Englands south coast, were infected with Mycobacterium leprae.

Leprosy has not been found in humans in Britain since the 1500s. But the M. leprae strain carried by the squirrels is a close genetic relative to one found in a skeleton buried in nearby Winchester 730 years ago, said the researchers, whose work appeared Wednesday in the journal Science.

Because red squirrels are shy and rarely let people touch them, the transmission risk is low, said Stewart T. Cole, the director of the Global Health Institute at the Federal Polytechnical School of Lausanne, Switzerland, and an author of the study.
More than half of the white women who voted in the presidential election cast their ballot for Donald J. Trump, according to exit poll data collected by The New York Times.

The data indicate how deeply divided Americans are by race and gender: 94 percent of black women who voted and 68 percent of Hispanic or Latino female voters chose Hillary Clinton, but 53 percent of all white female voters picked Mr. Trump.

The data can be broken down further: 51 percent of white women with college degrees voted for Mrs. Clinton, while 62 percent of women without one voted for Mr. Trump, a reflection of his success with working-class whites.

On Wednesday, women of all races were grappling with the findings.

Fellow white women, Im done with you, Sarah Ruiz-Grossman wrote in The Huffington Post.
Feature

In a studio apartment in downtown Philadelphia, off Rittenhouse Square, I stood awaiting a product demonstration. Stephen Kuhl, a founder of the start-up Burrow, apologized that he had only a beta version to show me  the actual production model would feature some minor aesthetic tweaks. The other founder, Kabeer Chopra, motioned for me to give it a try. I sat down. It was definitely a couch.

Burrow is on an enviable trajectory right now. The company is a graduate of the prestigious Bay Area tech accelerator Y Combinator; it also has a healthy list of pre-orders for its products planned debut in January. But given that pedigree, the product is an unusual one: couches. Not cloud-connected couches or remote-controlled couches  just couches. Technically, the company makes a couch, singular, available in a few different colors and configurations. The one I was sitting on belonged to Jess Goodman, a friend of the founders and an early supporter. Its design was midcentury modern unexceptional, and it was perfectly nice. But the couch is not Burrows main attraction. Burrow is selling a couch experience.

When customers order a Burrow couch online, the standard model will ship to their apartments in three or four boxes. A human of average size should be able to take those boxes up the stairs (if they have stairs) and build the couch alone, without tools and within minutes.

Chopra and Kuhl tell me that for urban professionals between 25 and 35, the physical process of buying a sofa and moving it into an apartment is a series of pain points. Some of these points are literally painful, like carrying a large sofa up a flight of stairs. But the term is business speak for any kind of friction, however abstract, between a customer and a new couch. Burrow doesnt claim to have improved upon the couch itself: Its a pain-management company.

The company is also a response to a major shift in the American furniture market. According to the trade publication Furniture Today, from 2012 to 2014 Americans over 70 stopped buying furniture almost altogether, their total expenditures in the category dropping to $3 billion from $17.7 billion. But millennials more than made up the slack, with their outlay jumping 142 percent  to $27 billion from $11.1 billion. A new generation is starting to furnish homes, and Burrow thinks that demographic is there for the taking.

It helps that furniture sales in the United States are unusually fragmented. Its a $100 billion annual market, but giants like Ashley HomeStore and Ikea take less than 5 percent each, while regional chains like Rooms to Go and Havertys still account for significant sales. Unlike with, say, office supplies, the industry hasnt become concentrated in a few huge companies  the field remains competitive.

Burrows pitch is still a tricky one; as recently as 2014, nearly half of Americans surveyed said they wouldnt even consider buying a sofa online. Getting young buyers to pull the trigger on a sofa is tough to begin with, in part because they have a hard time staying put  a Rent.com survey of 1,000 adults under 34 found that 44 percent planned to move in the next year. Buying heavy furniture is easy to put off if the first thing you think about is moving it in and out of apartments three times over the next 12 months.

All of which is to say millennial entrepreneurs could pick a worse thing to sell than a deconstructable couch. As they disrupt our living rooms, these businessmen move us one step closer to a different world. But are we sure we want to live there?

Neither Chopra nor Kuhl has a background in furniture design or manufacturing: Chopra did retail analytics for Michael Kors, and Kuhl worked in finance. But they think of this deficit as an advantage. Theres a lot of room in the market, Chopra says. I went to West Elm, and they told me it would take 12 weeks to get a couch. Twelve weeks! We  he and his online-shopping cohort  are used to a different consumer experience. The companies that Chopra and Kuhl want to emulate started as direct-to-consumer web vendors  companies like Warby Parker (glasses) and Casper (mattresses), whose supply chains can get products to your door in mere days. By putting off brick-and-mortar showrooms and cutting out distributor middlemen, they can pass on savings and keep their profit margins  as long as they can persuade customers to buy things sight unseen and figure out a way to ship them free.

As they say, however, nothing in this life is free  certainly not shipping couches. Burrow manufactures its boxed-up sofas-to-be in Mexico City, then freight-forwards them to warehouses in Cincinnati and New York. Because theyre boxes, rather than constructed furniture, they can stack all the way to the ceiling. The boxes are FedEx and UPS compliant, and they ship from the warehouses like normal packages. The process is advertised as free, but the founders estimate that it will cost them $75 per sofa, or about 10 percent of the $745 purchase price for the two-seat base model. Chopra and Kuhl also figure that if they can ease all the pain around obtaining and installing a couch, customers will be happy enough with what they get to refrain from sending it back, which Burrow says it will allow them to do for 100 days. It occurs to me that the kind of person who would order a couch online to reduce logistical hassles is also the kind of person least likely to then pack up that couch and send it back. When I ask the founders about this, they offer angelic smiles. We think our model works for almost everyone, Kuhl says, but there are some people who like Ikea.

Ikea hardly dominates the market from a numbers perspective, but its been a cultural phenomenon for as long as Burrows target demographic has been alive, to the point that its essentially a default furniture-acquisition source. In a case study well known to those with M.B.A.s, Youngme Moon of Harvard Business School described how the company made a home in America. From the 1985 opening of its first American store, Ikea emphasized everything except the attribute that had been the industrys sole sales strategy until that point: durability. At Ikeas prices, furniture didnt need to be seen as a future heirloom; young adults could furnish their homes with new objects, rather than trawling through thrift stores or taking hand-me-downs from upgrading relatives. Attractive Swedish particle board gave Americans an excuse to jettison their parents commitment to lifelong furniture and go shopping more often.

Ikea is an amazing company, says Maxwell Ryan, the chief executive and co-founder of the influential interior-design site Apartment Therapy. They have great designers, infrastructure, product variety. Theyre very hard to compete with. Ikea furniture also packs into boxes  the industry term is K.D., or knock down  but its based on a very different value proposition from Burrows. By turning its stores into theme parks and fitting the warehouse right inside, Ikea bet that it could get customers to tote purchases all the way home by themselves. The pain points of couch shopping are still there, but so are the pleasures of dining out and free child care. Burrows experience, on the other hand, is online and low-friction.

Burrow isnt the only company that sees an opening here. Twenty-four-to-33-year-old career-driven, upwardly mobile people is how John Humphrey  a founder and chief executive of the furniture company Greycork  describes his customers. They tend to be in the tech and design fields. With a Greycork living-room set, you can take a space from zero to furnished in five to 10 days, with free shipping. If a consumers main complaint with Ikea furniture is the Allen wrenches, the trip to the store or just the fact that its identifiably Ikea, Greycork could be a good alternative.

The way Ikea is based around the shipping container, were based around FedEx, says Brad Sewell, the founder of the furniture maker Campaign. The ex-Apple engineers company sells a chair, a love seat and a sofa  all the same design in varying widths. Based on the online view, they are not especially distinguishable from the Ikea Norsborg line and are a couple of hundred dollars more expensive. This next generation of couches uses web copy thats heavy in compound adjectives (laser-cut, powder-coated steel frames) to project a premium feel onto goods that most buyers cant touch for themselves. The fact that the furniture folds is more than a logistical accommodation; its a key feature.

Kyle Hoff is a founder of Floyd, a furniture start-up that ships metal legs  they adjust to turn any flat surface into a desk or a table  alongside adjustable shelf brackets and frameworks for platform beds. The initial concept was just add boards; Floyd products bind them into functional furniture. I wanted to make furniture for people like me, Hoff says. I was in my early 20s, moving from city to city, and I needed things that could move with me. Though Floyd is based in Detroit, Hoff says most of his customers are young professionals in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. And maybe in is the wrong way to think of it; Floyd customers exist between these (and a few other) metropolitan areas. All the furniture is designed to move as part of a roving lifestyle.

If a company can get to market first and establish itself as the singular way to buy a particular necessity online, it can clean up  even if its appealing to a relatively small millennial luxury market. Most of the founders I spoke with mentioned Casper as an inspiration, and its easy to see why. The venture-funded company was an overnight success in 2014 selling foam mattresses online and delivering them compressed into manageable boxes. Last year the company was valued at over half a billion dollars. It stands out even among Silicon Valley fairy tales, which makes Casper for couches a self-explanatory business pitch.

The best thing about this whole product category is that it might represent a step away from Ikeas disposability without going all the way back to Grandmas antique sofa. If consumers are already thinking about moving, portability is at least as big an obstacle to maintaining furniture as mediocre craftsmanship and cheap materials. These companies want to make a couch that will last for 10 or 20 years, even if the buyers have no idea where theyll be or what theyll be doing that far down the line. Buying a piece of furniture that you will realistically hold onto longer is a kind of forward-thinking thrift.



1 Floyd Floyd's bed framework is a sleeping platform in a box. Heavy-duty metal clips hold wood panels off the floor, while tension belts squeeze everything in place. You can order the kit with or without the panels; an instructional video on the Floyd website explains how to procure boards from your local hardware store.

2 Campaign Campaign's shippable sofa comes in five colors in and ine-, two- and three-seat models. (It has never been so clear that a chair is just a single-seat couch.

3 Greycork Greycork's Felix sofa is a big, gray foam pad that sits atop a dowel-and-plywood frame. Remove the back pillows, and the sofa turns into a guest bed.

4 Article Article's Conan dining table seats eight. The site offers flat-rate shipping in the U.S., so no matter how much you put in your basket, it's only $49 to deliver it all.

5 Opendesk Opendesk's goods aren't even built by a manufacturer  designs like this studio desk can be built at independent workshops near customers.

But this new approach also hints at something more sinister, more bad-future. Different furniture suggests different ways of being in the world: A heavy table says one thing, and a mattress on the floor beside a folding chair says another. Campaign takes its name from the furnishings that British colonial functionaries would take on assignments, ready to pack up if recalled by the Crown. Its an apt fit with one version of upwardly mobile millennial living, which involves reducing all personal needs to an efficient minimum. Its a style beloved by Silicon Valley  which finances accessories like the liquid food replacement Soylent  and exemplified by the Google engineer who blogged about the time he spent living in a small truck near the office.

This Silicon Valley lifestyle and the Silicon Valley business model are caught in a chicken-and-egg dialectic. Each holds that whatever work can be automated, eliminated or subcontracted to others should be, thus leaving all our valuable code ninjas and management rock stars free to do more work, pursue expensive enriching experiences and watch Netflix. This is the luxury that some of the valleys most successful products are offering; there are now niche online services for doing your laundry, chopping your food, driving you around and delivering your toilet paper. The entire app-services economy can serve as a dispersed and techno-mystified mother, a caretaker who dotes on the implied bachelor user.

The various furniture founders  Burrows, Greycorks, Campaigns, Floyds  experienced the same series of pain points when it came to couch ownership. All are city-dwelling men with at least some postgraduate education; four of them are 29, the fifth is 28. Its not surprising that they should encounter similar hassles or, because most attended business school, think of comparable entrepreneurial solutions. But given that investors and customers have encouraged them, its worth asking exactly what kind of pain they plan to remove from our world.

We want our customers to spend their time on things that are meaningful to them, Brad Sewell, of Campaign, tells me, not sweating a couch up flights of stairs. But his companys target market actually pays for experiences like Tough Mudder, an extreme obstacle course where participants shell out over $100 to race miles through the mud, scale walls slicked with grease and be otherwise abused with their friends. Its most likely not physical hurt thats the problem with real-world couch-buying: Its the forced interaction with others, the loss of control. The most appealing part of buying furniture online is that it saves customers from a series of questions to which there are no answers in advance: What if theres nothing that looks right? What if you cant get a cab or cant find one with a trunk big enough for your purchase? What if you get it home and cant lift it up the stairs or fit it through the doorway? Unlike many issues in our lives, these things cant really be looked up ahead of time. There are risks you cant plan your way out of, and the process is virtually impossible for one person to manage without help, whether paid or cajoled.

Maxwell Ryan, of Apartment Therapy, is not optimistic about the prospects of companies like Burrow. Theres this Silicon Valley mind-set where they solve a problem and so they think theyre going to make a million dollars, he says. But just because its a problem for them doesnt mean its a problem for everyone. I havent seen that kind of thinking translate over well to the design space. Nor is he particularly impressed with the plain, one-size-fits-all style they tend to adopt (its ugly). Ryan says customers want a good narrative to go with their furniture, like Crate and Barrels origin story of a young couples return from their honeymoon abroad with boxes of cheap imported fineries.

But not everyone cares that much about expressing individual style, and Ryan could be underestimating how popular it is these days to stay inside and not talk to anyone. In our emerging economic order, the exertion of emotional energy is a kind of pain  a red entry in the accounting book of our lives  and there are new services every day to help us avoid it. Soon it will be possible to build and maintain a complete household full of goods without having to look anyone else in the eye.

When my roommate and I moved to Philadelphia this year, we left our giant vintage couch in our fourth-floor Brooklyn walk-up. It was a nice piece of furniture  solid and soft, in light green floral  and we were sad to lose it. After we moved into our new place, my brother, who lives nearby, showed us to a neighborhood secondhand store called Jinxed. Inside we found a couch that looked shockingly like our old one. A little smaller, in better condition and orange instead of green, but remarkably similar. Its not what I would have picked online, but the coincidence was too striking to ignore.

Jinxed doesnt deliver. Its policy, as listed on its website, is: Remember to bring a friend or two if you are picking up a large item. Sure we can lend a hand, but ... THANKS! The store lent us a small dolly, and my roommate and I balanced the couch precariously as we wheeled it down the sidewalk the mile to our apartment, where we navigated it up a flight of stairs. Then we walked the dolly back to the store.

From a certain perspective, this was all suffering, insofar as it would have been easier not to do it. Im not unsympathetic; Im in the target demographic for a product like Burrow. I am a person who has bought flour on Amazon. But risk and hassle and pain are big parts of interacting with other people on terms that arent yours alone. Theres value in having to sustain a mind-set that accounts for other humans and their interests and needs, a value to always remembering that there are people between the apps and our fulfilled desires. If there exists a market incentive to smooth every friction a young businessman can think of  even something as mundane, low-tech and intrinsically social as a couch  we risk a very slippery world. 

Malcolm Harris is a freelance writer in Philadelphia.
Endpaper

Replacing a symbol meant to stand for an entire nation-state might seem to be a solemn undertaking. So it was noteworthy when, last year, New Zealand decided to democratize the task: Instead of commissioning an esteemed designer, the government issued an open call for ideas and announced that the winner would be chosen by a popular vote.

In doing so, the Kiwis were joining what has become a quiet redesign trend. Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox web browser, is expanding its open-source principles to its branding, completely redesigning its logo through a multipart process guided by public input. Similarly, after the original logo for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo was withdrawn following claims of design plagiarism, organizers turned to the crowd, selecting the replacement from more than 15,000 entries in an open-call contest. On a more workaday scale, CrowdSpring and similar sites offer anyone a platform to post a design project and a price, and choose from ideas submitted by designers around the world, from hobbyists to moonlighting pros. A few years ago, the Madison Childrens Museum offered $1,000 for a new logo and picked a winner from about 750 choices.

Like members of other skilled occupations, many designers have viewed the incursion of the masses on their turf with understandable wariness. AIGA, a graphic-artist association, published an open letter, Against Crowdsourcing Logo Design, in response to the Tokyo Olympics scheme, complaining of its disrespect for the trade. And during the flag bake-off, one of New Zealands most prominent designers declared himself outraged by the lack of professional design input.

There is a footnote to that experiment that might ease such tensions. The prevailing submission (top row, center) faced one final opponent in a referendum earlier this year: New Zealands existing flag (top row, left). And by a vote of roughly 56 percent to 43 percent, the crowd ended the experiment by choosing no redesign at all. 
Alabama students who attend two-year colleges to eventually transfer to a four-year school will now be able to reverse transfer their four-year college credits toward an associates degree from the two year school.

Every public university and Huntington College signed an agreement with the Alabama Community College System on Wednesday setting up a state-wide reverse transfer system.

Southern Union Community College has already set up similar agreements with Auburn University and others universities that see a high rate of transfer from the community college, according to Southern Union Interim President Glenda Colagross.

"Now this puts a state-wide emphasis on it, so we'll be able to do it with any college," Colagross said.

The Alabama Community College System also signed an agreement with the National Student Clearinghouse so transfer credits can be verified automatically, and two-year schools can notify students that they are eligible to receive an associates degree.

"A lot of our students that come to us and they're in the transfer program," Colagross said. "They come to us with one goal in mind, and that's to transfer."

Students will often transfer to a four-year school before earning all the credits required for an associates degree  which lowers graduation rates for the community college, Colagross said.

"This will be a way to quickly identify them electronically and award those degrees," Colagross said.

Jimmy Baker, acting chancellor of the Alabama Community College System, praised the leadership of all of the universities involved in the agreement.

"In the state of Alabama, we desperately, desperately need strong leadership," Baker said during the announcement of the agreement. "This is a room full of people that is providing that kind of leadership in this state in the activity of providing education. Education in most any form is going to be a plus."

Colagross said research shows when transfer students who receive an associates degree through a reverse transfer are 10 percent more likely to complete their bachelors degree.

"(The students) know that the schools care about them," Colagross said.

Students wanting to use a reverse transfer to obtain an associates degree must have earned at least 25 percent of the credits they need for a degree from a community college and have earned at least three semester hours from a four-year school that goes toward the associates degree they are seeking.

This agreement exemplifies the way that Alabamas education institutions can work together for the greater good, Sen. Gerald Dial said in a press release about the agreement.
Beulah High School students as well as veterans and members of the community came together Wednesday for a ceremony to honor the men and women who served in the military.

American armed forces have always been prepared to defend our freedom, said Dr. Cincrystal Poythress, principal at Beulah High School. "We honor them all.

Army Command Sgt. Maj. (Ret.) Bennie Adkins, an Opelika resident and Medal of Honor recipient, was the keynote speaker at the event.

Adkins recounted his experiences during his multiple tours of duty during the Vietnam War in late 1963, 1965-66, and 1971.

A Waurika, Oklahoma native, Adkins was drafted into the Army at the age of 22. He started out as a clerk typist in Germany and then went on to volunteer for the Special Forces.

I didnt really know what I was getting into, Adkins said. I had too much pride to quit.

Adkins served three tours in Vietnam. His first started in February 1963.

He distinguished himself during a 38-hour stretch of combat that took place in his second tour of duty in Vietnam. March 9-12 of 1966, Adkins led troops as they fought off North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces at Camp A Shau while rescuing fellow soldiers.

After the battle, Adkins and his fellow soldiers evaded the enemy for another 48 hours until they were evacuated via helicopter. According to Army records, Adkins is estimated to have killed between 135 and 175 enemy soldiers and was wounded 18 times during the incident.

Adkins offered some advice to the younger generations.

Do what you like to do, Adkins said. Be the best that you can be at whatever you want to do.

The event had the presentation of colors and music from the schools band.

Some local veterans expressed their gratitude to the school for putting on the event.

I think it was very nice, said Valley Resident Gary Johnson. This is very much appreciated.

It was wonderful, Jill Baggett said. I enjoyed the speaker.
The Auburn-Opelika Elks Lodge donated money to a local food agency on Wednesday and plans to distribute more money to another organization to ensure Lee County families have full bellies and a happy holiday season.

The organization granted the Community Market $500.

That money is going to help us buy food for Thanksgiving, said Community Market coordinator Elsie Lott. It will feed a lot of families this holiday. Were grateful.

Lott said the organization has received monetary donations in the past, and every bit counts.

Carolyn Coburn of the Auburn-Opelika Elks Lodge said the organization received the funds through a grant from the Elks National Foundation. With the grant, the Community Market wont be the only group receiving a $500 donation.

We felt the Food Bank of East Alabama will need funds, so people can have food for Thanksgiving and Christmas to make their celebrations great, Coburn said.

The Community Market is a part of the Food Bank of East Alabama. The food bank serves seven counties in East Central Alabama.

The elks lodge will present a $500 check to the food bank Thursday at 9 a.m.

Martha Henk, executive director of the Food Bank of East Alabama, said she is delighted the elks lodge wants to help better the community through the donations. She said the Auburn-Opelika Elks Lodge has always supported the organization.

The food bank is distributing almost 400,000 pounds of food a month, she said. Its through the help of groups like the Elk Lodge that make it possible for us to feed people. That donation has a huge impact. For every $1 we receive in funding, the bank can distribute seven meals.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.  As General Manager Billy Eppler left the GM meetings on Thursday, passing the first major milepost of the offseason, he still had a few items left on his to-do list.

I think we walked out of here with a stronger club, Eppler said. Im pleased with the progress but there is definitely more work to do.

The Angels are still likely to acquire a second baseman and some more pitching, starting more likely than relief, although either is possible.

Eppler said the Angels have also reached out to some catchers in an effort to add some depth to the combo of Jett Bandy and Carlos Perez. Although Bandy and Perez have looked to be everyday catchers at times, both have also slumped enough to leave doubt.

With their needs in mind, heres a list of nine players who could be on their radar.

Neil Walker, 2B, free agent: Walker is the most high-profile player who fits the Angels needs. A 31-year-old switch hitter, Walker is coming off a season in which he hit 23 homers with an .823 OPS. Defense isnt his strong suit, but he makes up for it by being far and away the best offensive second baseman on the free agent market. He received a qualifying offer, so hed cost the Angels their second-round pick if they signed him.

Cesar Hernandez, 2B, Philadelphia Phillies: Hernandez, 26, might be the best possible fit for the Angels to plug their hole at second. Hes outstanding on defense, gets on base and is a switch-hitter. Hes also cheap, just going into his first year of arbitration-eligiblity. The Phillies are open to moving just about anyone, and they have infield depth on the way behind him. However, they wont give him away, and the Angels wouldnt be able to pry him away without giving up one of their best prospects.

Sean Rodriguez, 2B, free agent: Originally drafted by the Angels, Rodriguez enjoyed a career season in 2016, hitting 18 homers with an .859 OPS. Although the offense could be a fluke, hes solid defensively. He does hit right-handed though, and the Angels would prefer a lefty or a switch hitter.

Zack Cozart, SS, Cincinnati Reds: The Angels could get Cozart and move him to second. The Reds are looking to move Cozart. He has one year left before free agency, so it probably wouldnt cost the Angels much in terms of talent. Cozart, 31, hit 16 homers with a .732 OPS last season. Although hes been a good defensive shortstop, the Angels would be taking a risk that hed be able to make the transition. Hes also a right-handed hitter.

Doug Fister, RHP, free agent: The 32-year-old Fister has been on the decline, but hes still a durable starter who also some experience pitching out of the bullpen. He had a 2.41 ERA as recently as 2014, but he posted a combined 4.48 mark the last two years in Houston.

Jon Niese, RHP, free agent: Another innings-eater with bullpen experience, Niese had a 5.50 ERA in 2016, so the Angels could get him on a relatively cheap one-year deal. Hes got a career 4.07 ERA, and he just turned 30.

Ivan Nova, RHP, free agent: If the Angels decide to go for a multiyear deal with a starter, it would likely be someone like Nova. Eppler has experience with Nova from their days with the New York Yankees. Nova flourished once out of Yankee Stadium, posting a 3.06 ERA in 11 starts with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Angel Stadium could be an even better fit for the 29-year-old. Because hes one of the best in a very thin pitching market, he wont come cheap, though.

Alex Avila, C, free agent: Because both Bandy and Perez hit right-handed, Avila could provide some support from the other side of the plate. Avila, 30, has not hit much, but hes thought to be good with pitchers, the kind of catcher that Mike Scioscia might want to have as a veteran presence.

Nick Hundley, C, free agent: The 33-year-old hit 20 homers with a .785 OPS the last two years, although in Colorado. Its unlikely hed repeat that with the Angels. He had a .685 OPS in his seven years with the Padres.

Contact the writer: jlfletcher@scng.com
Sleeping on a battleship wasnt on my bucketlist, but Im always interested in a new experience.

Recently the opportunity arose and I couldnt pass it up. My sons Boy Scout troop had an overnight campout on the legendary battleship Iowa, called Camp Battleship.

It turned out to be more like Night at the Museum, because of the ships rich history fighting Americas battles.

We arrived in San Pedro in the late afternoon and boarded the Iowa about 4. We loaded our bedding and other things into the enlisted crew quarters and claimed a locker and a sleeping berth known as a coffin bunk. The aptly named bunks were stacked three high.

On the stern of the upper deck, the boys participated in the lowering of the flag ceremony. We then went below deck and lined up in the mess haul to be served a barbecue dinner that had been brought in by a local restaurant  the ships kitchen is no longer operational.

After, we were given a guided tour of the ship. The boys loved the tour, which seemed like more of an obstacle course for them. We spent two hours climbing up and down ladders and steep steps from deck to deck, stepping through open hatch doors, ducking the overhead pipes and squeezing through cramped quarters.

They were having so much fun, they didnt even realize they were learning American history along the way.

The Iowa, known as The Battleship of Presidents, has hosted three presidents: FDR, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush; and an Iowa class battleship has participated in every U.S. conflict from World War II through the first Gulf War in 1991.

Everyone was eager to learn about the ships 16-inch, 50-caliber guns that shoot 2,000 pound projectiles. Our guide said, thats like shooting a Volkswagen 20 miles away with deadly accuracy.

We got to walk through the captains quarters where, during World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stayed while he crossed the Atlantic to attend an Allied conference in Tehran with Churchill and Stalin. The Iowa is the only battleship with a bathtub  an amenity installed for Roosevelt.

Our tour guide told us the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II would have most likely taken place aboard the Iowa if FDR had survived. Because Harry Truman was the president at the end of the war, the surrender was signed on the USS Missouri, the namesake of his home state.

In 1989, while the USS Iowa was conducting a firing exercise, an explosion in the Turret 2 Gun Room killed 47 sailors. This tragedy remains the largest post-World War II peacetime loss of life in U.S. Navy history. There is a memorial on the side of the ship with the names of all the sailors who lost their lives in that accident.

The pet-loving scouts liked learning about the first commanding officers dog Vicky (short for Victory). He was the most traveled dog in the U.S. Navy during WWII, and the first American canine in occupied Japan after WWII ended.

Our last stop was at the empty storage container where the highly advanced tomahawk missile systems had been stored. With these, our guide said, they could hit a target 1,500 miles away with pinpoint accuracy. They could put one of these missiles into any window in St. Louis from here.

Our two-hour ship tour came to an end and we were given about 20 minutes to get ready for bed before the lights went out precisely at 10. If you werent in your bunk, you were finding your bunk in the dark.

I heeded their warning and was already in my bottom bunk at lights out with my nose nearly touching the bottom of the middle bunk above me.

I thought, this might be a long night, but I actually slept pretty well, all things considered.

The lights in the bunk room came on at 6 am. It was kind of a bittersweet feeling, as we had to get up and get moving, but at least wed made it through the night.

The highlight of Camp Battleship for me came after breakfast and the morning flag raising ceremony. We all gathered under the 16-inch guns toward the bow of the ship and waited for two old salty dogs to speak to our group.

Chief Jerry Johnson, who served in the Navy for parts of four decades (late 50s through early 80s) told us the ship runs on coffee. Although in his late 70s now, he was lively, engaging and eager to tell us the stories from his years at sea.

Battleship Larry Geyer told us about being aboard the Iowa in the 1980s for a 10-month tour. Hearing that, after sleeping one night in a coffin bunk, gave me a much greater respect for long-tour sailors. I couldnt imagine being confined on the ship for that long. We had only been aboard for 17 hours, and I was ready to touch land again!

Battleship Larry and Chief Johnson tried to keep their stories on the straight-and-narrow because they were speaking to a group of Boy Scouts, but occasionally some colorful words would sneak out. I could tell they were holding back the good stuff! It left me wanting to buy them a beer and hear their real, unfiltered sea stories.

Spending the night on the USS Iowa wasnt a Love Boat-style experience for sure, though I have slept in worse conditions. Our group learned a lot about the historic battleship, its world tours and many battles in the defense of liberty. I think that we all left with a greater appreciation for our sailors, and our own beds!

Happy Veterans Day to all who served!
In a few days, Im going to taste a $285 bottle of wine.

Yes, I know. There are starving children all over the world. In many countries, $285 is a monthly income. Fill in your own sentence full of outrage here.

All those responses naturally leaped into my mind as I considered whether to accept a sample from Ovid Napa Valley. The winery occupies a prized spot on Pritchard Hill near St. Helena, which some wine critics call a de facto appellation. Its home to some of the most revered names in Napa: Chappellet, Colgin, Bryant. I visited Ovid a couple of years ago, and its one of the most beautiful and ingeniously designed wineries Ive ever seen.

Heres the curious thing. Its not unheard of for a serious wine geek to pay several hundred smackers for a Grand Cru Bordeaux or a cultish Napa label. Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Screaming Eagle  the list is small and exclusive, and the wines are often Bordeaux blends: mainly cabernet sauvignon, combined with larger portions of merlot and cabernet franc and smaller portions of malbec and petit verdot.

But Ovids 2013 Hexameter is predominantly cabernet franc (65 percent), with a smaller amount of cabernet sauvignon and dash of merlot. A note from the winery said its cabernet franc is employed in this way only when the vines and stars align.

Cabernet franc is considerably lighter than cabernet sauvignon. It adds softness and often a slightly peppery quality to Bordeaux blends. Depending on the growing region and style of wine, it can also bring hints of tobacco, raspberry, bell pepper, cassis and violets.

Jancis Robinson, one of the worlds preeminent wine writers, is a big fan of cab franc:

Im not a huge enthusiast of the sexual stereotyping of wines but even I can see that cabernet franc might be described as the feminine side of cabernet sauvignon. It is subtly fragrant and gently flirtatious rather than massively muscular and tough in youth. Because cabernet sauvignon has so much more of everything  body, tannin, alcohol, color  it is often supposed to be necessarily superior, but I have a very soft spot indeed for its more charming and more aromatic relative.

Records of cabernet franc in Bordeaux go back to the end of the 18th century, although it was planted in the Loire Valley long before that time. DNA analysis indicates that cabernet franc is one of two parents of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and carmenere.

(How did the winery come up with the name? Hexameter is the meter that the Roman poet Ovid used in his greatest narrative poem, Metamorphoses. This form of verse is uniquely suited to telling long and complicated tales.)

Winemaker Austin Peterson says the 2103 Hexameter has notes of vibrant pomegranate, forest floor and blackberries with touches of violet, sage and mocha.

OK, but will I see God? Will I achieve enlightenment? Will I finally be able to understand my 401(k)?

Ill let you know. Im gathering a team of somms and mixologists much more wine-savvy than me to taste and offer their opinions.

Curious now, arent you? ovidvineyards.com (A caveat: You cant buy it from the winery even if you have the money, since Ovids wine is sold exclusively to club members.)

BEST GARAGE WINE YOUVE TASTED

The Garagiste Wine Festival returns to its birthplace, Paso Robles, Friday through Sunday. Its the sixth annual staging of the increasingly popular event, and this year looks promising: more than 60 micro-production winemakers will pour more than 200 wines. Pace yourself!

Launched in 2011, the Garagiste Festival helped define and celebrate the garagiste concept, which was born in Bordeaux in the 1990s when a group of renegade artisanal winemakers broke some of the rules of that conservative region. All the wineries pouring in Paso this weekend produce less than 1,500 cases a year. Some have been working with the same vineyards for decades.

The festival takes place at the Paso Robles Fairgrounds and other Paso area locations, including Lefondusac in Pasos funky little winery district Tin City, and the historic Carlton Hotel in downtown Atascadero.

Tickets are on sale at californiagaragistes.com

WINE PICKS: LETS GET SERIOUS

Want a seriously adult Napa cab for the Thanksgiving table? Consider these:

Cliff Lede 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap ($78): From one of the best AVAs in California, this is a crowd-pleaser that I suspect will be even more enjoyable four or five years from now. 2013 is shaping up to be a superior vintage for Napa, and it shows here: forest floor, earthiness and floral notes contribute to a balanced complexity thats equal parts force and finesse. 93 points, Wine Advocate.

Gamble 2013 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($50): Not a monster, at least for a Napa cabernet, with tamped-down tannins; cedar, fig, nutmeg, ripe cherry. Its a relative bargain considering its provenance, even though its not an estate wine. Its barely even a blend at 95 percent cab, 5 percent merlot.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7979 or phodgins@scng.com
COTO DE CAZA The demolition of a popular barn at the Coto Equestrian Center that started Wednesday has angered residents and prompted a threat by county officials to reject the luxury housing development proposed at the site.

Demolition of the lower barn  one of the last remaining pole-barn structures in California  had been put on hold as developer Oak Grove LLC and Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartletts office negotiated the terms of a development agreement for 13 homes on 2.2 acres that included the barn site.

But after a meeting on Wednesday, county officials said Oak Grove President Robert O Hill had renegged on some of the ground rules he and his partners had agreed to at an Oct. 31 meeting. For one, the demolition had begun that morning.

He continued his threat of demolishing the barn unless a project is approved by December, Victor Cao, Bartletts senior policy adviser, said in an email. In response, I advised him that breach of the ground rules is an act of bad faith.

Bartletts position was that because of the premature demolition of the barn, she would vote for denial of the residential project, Cao said in an email Thursday night. But the project could still be approved by a majority vote of the Board of Supervisors, he said.

O Hill said he disagreed with the request by Bartletts office to stall demolition until supervisors review the housing project next year. Oak Grove wants to rezone part of the equestrian center and the adjacent Merryhill School site to allow for development of the 13 homes, ranging in size from 4,500 to 5,000 square feet.

A delay of months in removal of the partially removed lower barn was a non-starter for the Silver Bronze Corp. board and the tenant at Coto Equestrian Center, he said in an email.

Demolition of the barn was expected to be complete Tuesday, O Hill said.

Residents and trainers arriving at the Coto Equestrian Center Wednesday morning were shocked to see No Trespassing signs and caution tape and workers tearing the roof off the barn.

Its like getting kicked in the gut, or having your heart ripped out, said Denise Trizinsky, a recreational riding trainer at the center since 1994.

On Friday, O Hill said the plan for the $1.6 million in improvements to the remaining area of the equestrian center, including a new 34-stall plaza barn, is still contingent on the sale of 2.2 acres from Silver Bronze Corp., formed as a nonprofit made up of shareholders of the equestrian center, to Oak Grove if the county approves its rezoming from community center commercial to low-density residential.

Cao said, Oct. 25, that Bartlett would entrust the visioning process to local Coto de Caza residents in a newly-formed Coto de Caza Planning Advisory Committee.

Formation of that committee will take place at a scheduled meeting at 6:30 p.m., Dec. 7, at the Bell Tower Regional Community Center in Rancho Santa Margarita. The first action of the newly-formed committee will be to hold a public hearing that will include a presentation of the project and a plan to rezone the five-acre site  which includes the Merryhill School site  to low-density residential.

Contact the writer: npercy@scng.com
KOTOR, Montenegro  Just over an hour after Donald Trump secured his stunning triumph, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia congratulated the victor and looked forward to constructive dialogue. Chinas president, Xi Jinping, waited a little longer, sending Trump a similarly measured message of hope and appealing for cooperation for mutual gain.

But perhaps even more revealing was Momcilo Krivokapic, a bearded Orthodox priest who was ecstatic over the upset result.

Seated in the dark at Saint Nikola Church because of a power failure, the 71-year-old priest gloated at the defeat of satanic forces in the West bent on strengthening NATO, expanding gay rights and championing Western notions of tolerance.

God has reached out his hand and touched the United States to help us all, said Krivokapic, a bitter foe of the U.S.-led military alliance and of the values that American power has brought to the far corners of the world, even to Kotor, an ancient fortified town on the Adriatic coast of Montenegro.

The election of Trump on Tuesday has presented an unexpected gift to leaders  political, spiritual and ideological  who resent the encroachment of the West and now rejoice at a result that in their eyes shows how liberal democracy produces nothing but an angry populace and wild unpredictability.

Trump has openly questioned some of the basic tenets of Americas role in the world. Now his election has stirred confidence in Americas biggest rivals, Russia and China, that they will have more room to assert their own strategic interests, whether in Ukraine, the Baltics or the South China Sea.

A weakened and disorganized West like this will surely bring many more additional strategic opportunities for China, said Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University. Xi, who has been the strongest foreign policy president for China, will be further emboldened, Shi said, and will be even less prudent in his foreign policy.

But beyond that, the election is being viewed as a comeuppance for a country that lectures others about the superiority of American values. While Putin and his Kremlin aides were restrained in their initial public response to the result, undoubtedly, they are drinking Champagne, said Gleb O. Pavlovsky, a political consultant who once worked for the Kremlin.

This, Pavlovsky said, is for two reasons: one political, the other psychological.

For Russia, the triumph of Trump, just five months after Britains shock vote to leave the European Union, accelerates an unraveling of the Western order, a trend that the Kremlin has worked tirelessly to promote through disinformation and the funding of anti-establishment parties like the National Front in France.

China, far more dependent on economic ties to the West than Russia is, has avoided trying to stoke turbulent populist sentiments in Western countries but, with a shared hostility toward liberal democracy, has moved increasingly close to Russia to form a united authoritarian front.

Russian politicians and analysts cheered Trumps victory as an opportunity for Russia to extend its global influence and, possibly, shed economic sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe over Crimea and Ukraine.

Putin, speaking to ambassadors presenting their credentials in the Kremlin, sought to play down any expectations in Russia of a sudden warming of now ice-cold relations with Washington. We understand and are aware that it will be a difficult path, in view of the degradation that U.S.-Russian relations have unfortunately suffered, Putin said.

But more important for Russia than any quick gains was a feeling that after years of enduring criticism from Washington over its steady retreat from Western-style democracy, Russia can now point a finger at the United States.

Even before Election Day, Russian state-owned news media hammered the same simple message, said Maria Lipman, editor of Counterpoint, a journal published by the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, George Washington University: Our democracy might not be perfect, but look at theirs. It stinks.

The result  the victory of a businessman who delighted in shredding the conventions of political decorum and of a U.S.-led Western order in place since the end of World War II, has proved Russia right, Lipman added, and shown that the United States is no shining city on a hill.

Russia, meanwhile, has been busy building its own alternative city, a beacon for all those who long for a more secure, illiberal world rooted in faith and traditional values. At the center of this effort has been Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a close ally of Putin.

On Wednesday, the patriarch said he was praying for divine assistance for Trump, adding, Theres now hope for good changes both domestically and internationally.

Like Russia, China has long bridled at American complaints about its illiberal ways, rejecting the idea that human rights and free speech are universal values and insisting that China has found its own political model rooted in uniquely Chinese values that put stability above all else.

In the days before the election, the Chinese government, eager to point out to its citizens the advantages of one-party rule by the Communist Party, used the nastiness of the Trump vs. Clinton contest to warn about the evils of American democracy.

America is terribly ill, wrote Yuan Peng, the vice president of a state-run research center, the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. His article in The Peoples Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party, said the election would be remembered as a page of dirty, chaotic and poor performance.

Xi, the head of the Communist Party, avoided mockery in his congratulatory message to Trump and emphasized that I place great importance on the China-U.S. relationship, while quietly advising him in coded language to stay out of Chinas way. Xi, Chinese state television reported, said he had told the president-elect that he hoped to strive with you to uphold the principles of not engaging in conflict or confrontation, and of cooperation for mutual gain.

Although Trumps intentions remained unclear, the very uncertainties of his victory have given the Chinese leader an opportunity to pursue a number of strategic advantages across Asia, analysts said.

The general line from China will be: The United States is unreliable. You have to accommodate us, said Peter Jennings, the director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra.

If Trump delivers on his promise to downgrade traditional U.S. alliances in Asia, China will almost certainly capitalize on an American retreat by trying to push the United States aside in a region Beijing considers its natural sphere of influence. At the same time, China is hoping that he reneges on his pledges to take on China over trade and slap hefty tariffs on its exports to the United States.

With his growing navy, Xi may now feel emboldened to pursue more control of the South China Sea, the major waterway that carries trillions of dollars of the worlds trade, and that he insists belongs to China. He will almost certainly use increasingly big financial inducements to pick off smaller countries like the Philippines and Malaysia that were already moving closer to Beijing, and midsize U.S. allies like Australia that are moving closer to Chinas economic order.

The outcome of the U.S. election, however, may not be all positive for China. Feeling abandoned by the United States, and vulnerable to an emboldened and increasingly assertive China, Japan and South Korea could both decide to develop their own nuclear arsenals.

In South Korea, where there is a powerful lobby for the country to become a nuclear power, there is about a 50 percent chance of going nuclear, said Andray Abrahamian, associate research director of Choson Exchange.

The Japanese government called an emergency meeting Wednesday night to consider its options. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe faced questions about the future shape of the military alliance, but also recognized that the Obama administrations trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, was dead. Abe had taken big political risks at home to win concessions for the trade deal, which Trump has vilified.

The Trump triumph could also hold peril for Russia, where state media has for weeks presented the billionaire as a much-needed break from the supposedly Russophobic attitudes of President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In a Facebook post, Andrey Loshak, a Russian journalist, predicted that Trumps entry to the White House would deprive the Kremlin of what has become one of its most potent political tools: blaming the Obama administration for all of Russias troubles.

The worldview planted into Russians minds that America is to blame for all and every ill, including urine-stained porches and alcoholic neighbors, crumbles. Who is to be hated now? Loshak wrote. You cant do without a specter of a good, high-quality enemy these days.
Last year, a prominent group of supporters asked Hillary Clinton to address a prestigious St. Patricks Day gathering at the University of Notre Dame, an invitation that previous presidential candidates had jumped on.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden each had addressed the group, and former President Bill Clinton was eager for his wife to attend. But Hillary Clintons campaign refused, explaining to the organizers that white Catholics were not the audience she needed to spend time reaching out to.

As it became clear on Tuesday night that Hillary Clinton would lose to Donald Trump, supporters cast blame ranging from the news media to the FBI directors dogged pursuit of Hillary Clinton over her personal emails to a deep discomfort with electing a woman as president.

But as the dust settled, Democrats recognized two central problems of Hillary lintons flawed candidacy: Her decades in Washington and the paid speeches she delivered to financial institutions left her unable to tap into the anti-establishment and anti-Wall Street rage.

And she ceded the white working-class voters who backed Bill Clinton in 1992. Though she would never have won this demographic, her husband insisted that her campaign aides do more to try to cut into Trumps support with these voters. They declined, reasoning that she was better off targeting college-educated suburban voters by hitting Trump on his temperament.

Instead, they targeted the emerging electorate of young, Latino and African-American voters who catapulted Obama to victory twice, expecting, mistakenly, that this coalition would support her in nearly the same numbers. They did not.

In the end, Trumps simple promise to Make America Great Again, a catchphrase Hillary Clinton dismissed as a vow to return to a racist past already long disappeared, would draw enough white Americans to the polls to make up for his low minority support.

The emerging demographic majority isnt quite there yet, said Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist and former White House communications director. The idea you can get to a presidential campaign and just press a button and theyll vote, its not there yet.

Clinton had planned to conclude her 19-month campaign with an elaborate victory celebration on Tuesday night, complete with confetti shaped like glass shards that would fall from the glass ceiling of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Midtown Manhattan  an extravagant production to mark the history of the evening.

Instead, in a hastily scheduled speech in a dreary hotel ballroom on Wednesday, Clinton gave her concession speech, declaring the country more deeply divided than we thought.

This loss hurts, she said. But please never stop believing that fighting for whats right is worth it.

The weaknesses in her candidacy, Dunn and other Democratic leaders said on Wednesday, were more than demographic.

Though she and outside groups raised half a billion dollars to take on Trump with the most sophisticated ground game modern politics had seen, spanning the barrios of Orlando, Fla., black churches of North Carolina and the casinos of Nevada, the rationale for her run seemed more of a repudiation of Trump than Clintons own positive vision for the country.

Even Clintons closing chant in the final days of her campaign  Love trumps hate!  sounded like a play on her opponents name rather than her own inspiring vision.

Her campaign had built-in contradictions and challenges. She wanted to make history as the first female president, but she did not want to play it up so much so that she would turn off men. She vowed to help the little guy, but she accepted millions of dollars for speeches to Wall Street. She wanted to bring the country together, but she suffered from a stubbornly high number of voters who did not trust or like her.

Clinton had defeated Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the primary race by rallying older African-American voters and Democratic women, but she seemed disconnected from the white working class that delivered Sanders victories in Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump won Wisconsin on Tuesday and appeared to have narrowly won Michigan, as well.

He won 67 percent of the vote among non-college-educated whites, compared with 28 percent for Clinton, according to exit polls.

Early on, Bill Clinton had pleaded with Robby Mook, Hillary Clintons campaign manager, to do more outreach with working-class white and rural voters. But his advice fell on deaf ears.

The sophisticated data modeling Mook relied on showed that young, Latino and black voters would turn out as they had hoped. But while they favored Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly, she could not run up the score with them like Obama had in 2012.

With voters 29 and younger, for example, Clinton won by 18 points, down from Obamas 22 points in 2012, and 29 points in 2008, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research.

The Clinton campaign was also betting on college-educated suburban voters who ended up drifting away from Clinton in the final days, which the campaign attributes to the FBIs renewed focus on her emails as early voting began.

A spokesman for Clinton, Brian Fallon, said the campaign did not cede white working-class voters to Trump, pointing to a bus tour Bill and Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, went on in rural pockets of Ohio and Pennsylvania after the Democratic National Convention in July. He added that shaving into Trumps lead among these voters would not have given Clinton a path to victory.

The campaign also appeared to overestimate how offended Trumps female supporters would be by an Access Hollywood recording in which Trump is heard bragging about grabbing women by the genitals.

Trump lost among women by 12 percentage points, exit polls showed, about the same deficit Mitt Romney had in 2012.

The situation was made worse in September, when Clinton described half of Trump supporters as a basket of deplorables. Afterward, she told one adviser that she knew she had just stepped in it.

And in the end, Trumps Twitter feed proved more powerful than any of Clintons poll-tested slogans, said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic political consultant.

Class anger won, he said.
LOS ANGELES  Four years after Californians defeated an effort to repeal the death penalty, voters rejected a do-over and were favoring a counter measure that would speed up appeals so condemned murders are actually executed.

With more than 8 million votes counted Wednesday, 54 percent of voters rejected Proposition 62 that would have replaced the death penalty with life in prison without the chance of parole. The dueling reform measure had a narrow lead of about 51 percent.

California voters have spoken loud and clear that they want to keep the death penalty intact, said Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, who championed the reform measure. This is the ninth time California voters have voted in favor of keeping the death penalty for the most heinous killers.

Supporters for both ballot initiatives agreed the current system is broken. More than 900 convicted killers have been sent to death row since 1978, but only 13 have been executed in the state. The last execution by lethal injection was more than a decade ago.

The repeal camp conceded defeat Wednesday morning, but remained steadfast in their belief that capital punishment would eventually be killed.

The outcome of the election does not change the fact that Californias death penalty is broken beyond repair and remains a sentence in name only, said Matt Cherry, campaign manager for Prop. 62. The high costs will continue to add up, the backlog of cases will continue to mount and the stories of injustice will continue to be heard. We are confident Californias failed death penalty will one day come to an end, either from voters or through the courts.

The measures come at a turning point for executions nationally. Capital punishment has been either legislatively or judicially repealed in eight states since 2000 and has mostly been in a steady decline since.

Voters in one of those states, Nebraska, reinstated the death penalty Tuesday  a year after lawmakers repealed it.

California prosecutors and police launched the reform effort after voters defeated the 2012 repeal attempt 52 percent to 48 percent. Proposition 66 was aimed at speeding up tedious appeals that can take more than 25 years.

Supporters urged voters to mend dont end capital punishment so the most evil killers get the punishment determined by jurors and approved by a judge. They said executions would deliver justice to family members of their victims.

Law enforcement groups supported the pro-death penalty side, along with kin of victims. Family and friends of Laci Peterson, who was eight months pregnant when she disappeared from her Modesto home on Christmas Eve 2002, recently held a news conference to support the measure and oppose the repeal attempt. Her husband, Scott Peterson, has been on death row for 11 years.

Opponents of the death penalty pressed a multi-pronged campaign. They argued that the death penalty is expensive because of the lengthy repeals and eliminating it would save $150 million a year. They also held news conferences with former death row convicts who had their convictions overturned to emphasize the risk of executing an innocent person.

Capital punishment opponents include legal, civil liberties and religious groups along with former President Jimmy Carter and big money donors such as Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer and Stanford computer sciences professor Nicholas McKeown.

Each measure needed a majority of votes to pass. If Prop. 66 does not hang on to its narrow lead, the current system remains in place.
Tom and Elizabeth Tierneys charitable contributions to Orange County are deep, diverse and date back decades.

The Coto de Caza couple are supporters of the arts, education and medicine.

They have been dedicated to bettering the lives of abused and neglected children at Orangewood Childrens Home, furthering the cause of peace, and providing services to military veterans.

Small wonder that theyre being honored with the 2016 Legacy Award for National Philanthropy Day, celebrated annually in Orange County in November.

Tom, 77, and Elizabeth, 73, have given smartly of their time and money since their lives became entwined 38 years ago.

The union between the military veteran and the former anti-war protester became the foundation of a commitment to the larger community.

Tom, a native of Detroit, had been a major in the U.S. Air Force, volunteering to serve in Vietnam. His assignment: overseeing maintenance, loading and target application of nuclear weapons. He was deputy chief of logistics plans during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

He went into private business here after leaving the military in 1971. Tom bought a vitamin and nutritional supplement manufacturing company, Vitatech Nutritional Sciences. He ran the multimillion-dollar business for 44 years, selling it last year.

Elizabeth, born in Los Angeles and raised in Bakersfield, had been a teacher and a social worker. The losses of a friend and a former student in Vietnam turned her into an anti-war protester. She had been living in Idaho but returned to California to settle in Orange County in the 1970s after a divorce.

The Tierneys courtship began and took off like a rocket when Tom enrolled in a class with Lifespring, a program in the vanguard of the human potential movement. Elizabeth was his instructor. Eight months later, they wed, a second marriage for both.

It was quick. It was fast. she says. It knocked us both over.

What they gifted to each other when they wed in 1978 had the potential to knock Orange County over: $5,000 squirreled away in an escrow account to donate to a planned performing arts center.

If the arts center fell through, the Tierneys figured theyd get their money back  with interest.

Everyone knows how that turned out. These days its called Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Tom and Elizabeth ended up serving as docents during construction.

We ran around with our little hard hats, Tom remembers. We could tell you about every wire and every beam.

They still can. And more.

The then-Orange County Performing Arts Center opened in 1986, an accomplishment Elizabeth deems pivotal in the couples philanthropic growth.

Thats when Tom and I first really became interested in building our community, she says. We had nothing like that in Orange County. We had to go to Los Angeles, which we rarely did.

Elizabeth is the longest-serving board member with the support group Angels of the Arts  more than 20 years altogether in various stints. Tom is not far behind, having served some 18 years on the board of the performing arts center.

Their love of the arts goes beyond performance. Tom is an avid art collector, and in the late 1980s served as president of Laguna Art Museum. That world was new to Elizabeth.

It was a lot of fun, a lot of community involvement, she says. I learned a lot from Tom.

They learn from each other. Tom doesnt hesitate to point out that Elizabeth is the expert when it comes to social issues: Elizabeth undersings her song.

Elizabeth has a natural feel and an educated discernment for the worthiness of social service programs.

Theres not a lot that gets by me when I see a social service program, she says. From my own experience, I have a lot of questions. I pretty much vet it and make sure this is where we want to give our support.

Many programs fall by the wayside. They are well-intended, but not well-run.

She was the catalyst behind their peace projects, persuading the proud warrior in Tom to attend a meeting of the organization Beyond War in the 1980s to promote world peace.

That led to one of their larger financial commitments about a decade after their foray into the arts scene. The Tierneys gave $350,000 in 1987 to establish the Thomas T. and Elizabeth C. Tierney Chair in Global Peace and Conflict Studies at UC Irvine.

It is the first such peace studies academic chair in the UC system. The Tierneys have continued with financial contributions to the endowment over the years, and both also have served as UCI trustees.

UCI benefited in a big way again when the Tierneys co-chaired the $50 million capital campaign to build the UC Irvine Douglas Hospital, a teaching facility that opened in 2009. In addition to their fundraising efforts, the Tierneys gave $1 million of their own money.

Fast forward to 2015: The couple awarded another $1 million gift, this time to boost the veterans service center developed by Goodwill of Orange County. Theirs was the largest single donation to a specific program in Goodwills 90-year history.

Goodwill honored the couple by naming the facility in Tustin the Thomas T. & Elizabeth C. Tierney Center for Veteran Services. The Tierneys were front and center for the January ribbon-cutting at the gleaming, glass-fronted building, which also houses a massive processing center for Goodwill donations.

Goodwills president and chief executive, Frank Talarico Jr., nominated the Tierneys for the National Philanthropy Day Legacy Award.

The center offers veterans an all-in-one starting point to access services that include employment and education counseling, housing assistance, legal help, financial guidance and assistance applying for health care benefits.

Most important, the outreach is based on a peer navigation model  veterans assisting veterans.

Orange County is home to more than 130,000 veterans, a number that is expected to grow over the next few years. Those men and women who served their country, like him, are especially dear to Tom Tierneys heart.

Toms office in Vietnam sat across from the makeshift morgue at the main airport in Saigon, where the remains of U.S. troops were processed. Hell never forget the sight of those body bags, nor the way Vietnam War veterans were shunned back home.

The Tierneys, who also fund a scholarship for veterans attending UCI, dont want to see former service members go unappreciated today.

Theyre the silent warriors that have given so much, Tom says. We are striving so hard to serve these people.

One of them is Roberta Mojarro. She spent four years on active duty in the Army, then five years in the National Guard. She returned to Southern California in October 2015, after teaching English in China for more than a decade.

Shes a divorced mom with a young daughter and no other family members. Mojarro, 43, has spent a year looking for steady work. She had only recently found a place to live in Whittier with a veterans housing voucher when a friend saw an ad on a bus about the Tierney Center for Veteran Services.

Mojarro connected with Roger Martinez, a Navy veteran who works as an outreach specialist at the center.

Hes really been there for me. He really cares, Mojarro says of Martinez, whose help has included bringing her some furniture. Its more like the way it was in the Army, where somebody had your back.

Even if shes never met the Tierneys, they also have Mojarros back.

Says Tom: We want to be a catalyst.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7793 or twalker@ocregister.com or on Twitter @TellTheresa
SANTA ANA  Nine people were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of weapons and drug offenses following a multi-agency crackdown on the Lopers street gang, police said.

The suspects, all documented gang members, include eight adults and a juvenile, Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.

The names of those arrested were not immediately released. They were booked into the Santa Ana City Jail. Police recovered a small amount of cocaine, methamphetamine and a rifle in the operation.

Starting around 6 a.m.. officers with the Santa Ana Police Department, Tustin Police Department Gang Unit, the Orange County Probation Department and Orange County District Attorneys Office began serving search and arrest warrants at three residences, one apartment complex and other locations in the vicinity of the 1000 block of South Standard Avenue.

The Lopers gang has been responsible for a recent increase in criminal activity, Bertagna said.

We are addressing and increase in gang violence in neighborhood, he added, describing the purpose of the operation

Santa Ana Police Chief Carlos Rojas met Wednesday night with several residents of the neighborhood to inform them about the results of the operation.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7767 sschwebke@scng.com Twitter: @thechalkoutline
COLUMBUS, Ohio  Heritage College, a for-profit school with 10 vocational campuses across eight states  including one in Lake Forest  has closed abruptly, citing financial problems and decreased demand for its services.

Heritage Colleges website said its campuses were permanently closed as of Nov. 1.

The business was established in 1986 and advertised training for careers in medical, dental and veterinary assistance; massage therapy; fitness training; and aesthetics. The colleges Orange County website says the Lake Forest campus focused exclusively on veterinary programs.

Other campuses were in suburban Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Denver; Fort Myers and Jacksonville, Fla.; Little Rock, Ark.; Kansas City, Mo.; Oklahoma City; and Wichita, Kan., according to the website.

It wasnt immediately clear how many students were enrolled at Heritage when it closed. Employees who answered the phone at the Lake Forest campus declined to answer questions and referred calls to the headquarters at Weston Educational Inc. in Denver, where calls were answered by a voicemail system.

A Facebook page, Heritage College Closing Help & Information, was created Nov. 1 and students from across the country are sharing information, venting their frustration and discussing their options via social media. Many expressed concerns about outstanding student loans.

The closure comes as some of the largest for-profit colleges have faced steep enrollment declines, growing competition, new regulation and government pressure, prompting some to also close. ITT Technical Institute, shut down its 130 U.S. campuses including one in Orange, saying it couldnt survive recent federal sanctions.

Heritage College attributed its closure to a lack of cash and said the decision wasnt forced by regulators or any wrongdoing. Two former employees have alleged Heritage altered attendance and grade records to maximize its funding, and a recent federal appeals court ruling allowed their case to proceed.

Staff writer Roxana Kopetman contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7829 or rkopetman@scng.com
Amid the intense media coverage of the election, important civil rights cases that were argued in the Supreme Court on Nov. 8 have been largely overlooked. The issue in Bank of American v. City of Miami and Wells Fargo v. City of Miami is whether cities can sue banks to challenge their discriminatory, predatory lending practices. I am co-counsel for the city of Miami and have been since the beginning of the litigation. Allowing cities to sue to enforce the Fair Housing Act is crucial to ending race discrimination in housing.

Racial discrimination by banks in issuing mortgages is not new. For example, lending institutions long engaged in redlining, the practice of literally drawing red lines on maps to identify predominately minority communities and not giving mortgages in those areas. The city of Miami sued Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank for their version of this practice: directing highly undesirable mortgage loans especially to African American and Latino borrowers and refusing to refinance them on terms that were available particularly to white borrowers. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in concluding that the city of Miami could sue under the Fair Housing Act, explained: [T]he bank[s] targeted black and Latino customers in Miami for predatory loans that carried more risk, steeper fees, and higher costs than those offered to identically situated white customers, and created internal incentive structures that encouraged employees to provide these types of loans.

A regression analysis of available data in Miami reported by the bank demonstrated that African American borrowers were 4.321 times more likely to receive a discriminatory loan than a white borrower with similar underwriting and borrower characteristics. Latino borrowers were 1.576 times more likely to receive such loans. Statements from bank employees confirmed that the practice was to direct undesirable loans especially to minority borrowers.

The predictable happened and foreclosures occurred, especially when the banks refused to offer refinancing on terms available for white borrowers. A discriminatory loan to an African American borrower in Miami was 13.324 times more likely to result in foreclosure than a non-discriminatory loan to a white borrower with similar risk characteristics, and a discriminatory loan to a Latino borrower was 17.341 times more likely to result in foreclosure than a loan in a predominantly non-discriminatory loan to a white borrower with similar risk characteristics. Moreover, the complaint alleged that a loan made to a borrower residing in a predominantly minority neighborhood in Miami was 5.857 times more likely to result in foreclosure than a loan in a non-minority neighborhood.

Miami sued the banks for violating the Fair Housing Act, a federal law that was adopted in 1968. The law broadly prohibits race discrimination in housing. The Act declares the policy of the United States to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States. Among other things, the Act forbids discrimination by any person or other entity whose business includes engaging in residential real estate-related transactions. The law allows any aggrieved person  anyone injured by the discrimination  to sue.

The city of Miami sued the banks claiming that it was aggrieved by the banks discriminatory lending practices. It suffered loss of tax revenue, costs attendant to the often abandoned houses, and a frustration of its goal of ending racial segregation in housing. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that these injuries were sufficient for the suit to go forward.

But the banks argue to the Supreme Court that the city cannot sue because it did not itself suffer discrimination. This is far too restrictive a view of who can sue under the Fair Housing Act. Congress clearly meant to broadly allow standing to sue to enforce the Act and the complaint alleges many ways in which the city is itself injured by the banks discriminatory lending practices. Moreover, the Supreme Court is not writing on a blank slate. In prior cases, the court explicitly held that cities are aggrieved within the meaning of the Fair Housing Act and may sue to enforce its prohibition of discrimination.

Allowing cities to sue to enforce the Fair Housing Act is essential. Individual borrowers rarely will be able to bring challenges. They do not know the pattern of discrimination or have the means for expensive litigation. The courts have made class action suits, especially in this area, extremely difficult. It is essential that cities be able to sue to challenge predatory lending by banks.

Racial discrimination in housing remains a significant problem throughout the United States. Banks have historically contributed to this problem in their discriminatory lending practices. The Supreme Court should follow its precedents and allow cities to sue to halt and remedy this racial discrimination.

Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the UC Irvine School of Law.
TRUMP COUNTRY

President-elect Donald Trump won key states in the Midwest to earn enough electoral votes to become the 45th president.

View full page here

WHERE CHANGE WAS WANTED

The majority of U.S. counties voted for Donald Trump, and key rural voters came out to vote more for Trump than they did for Mitt Romney in 2012. Clinton narrowly won the popular vote with support in dense urban areas.

Black lined areas show states that flipped from Democratic in 2012 to Republican in 2016.

GAINS FROM 2012 Red arrows show how much Donald Trump in 2016 surpassed Mitt Romney in 2012 in counties across the United States. The blue arrows show how much Clinton in 2016 surpassed Barack Obama in 2012.

Trumps most significant support came from counties in the industrial Midwest where whites without a college education account for the majority of the voting population.

Trump ultimately surpassed 270 electoral votes by flipping several states that Obama won in 2008 and 2012, including Iowa, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trumps momentum in the northern counties was just enough for him to counter the punch Clinton threw in the southern counties that gave Obama a victory in 2012. Map from The New York Times

VOTER PROFILE

This election is the fifth where the president-elect did not win the popular vote. Clintons victory in the heavily populated states of New York and California gave her more votes, but not enough states overall to win.

Popular vote

Clinton won the popular vote with 59.68 million votes to Trumps 59.48 votes. (As of Nov. 9)

In 2000, about 101 million voters turned out and Al Gore won the popular vote by nearly 500,000. In 2016, 120 million people voted and Clinton won the popular vote by less than 250,000 votes.

EXIT POLLS

Voting for Trump

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE DECIDING STATES

IN A WORD

President Obamas 2008 campaign boiled down his slogan into one word: hope. Has any other campaign had a one-word slogan?

Sources: The Associated Press, The New York Times, Register research
Californias 103-year-old prohibition on recreational marijuana is officially at an end, with final results showing Proposition 64 passed with 56 percent of the vote.

This is, I think, the beginning of the end of the war on marijuana in the United States, not just here in California, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who backed the measure, said on a teleconference call with reporters Wednesday.

If so, the end of hostilities figures to be confusing.

Pot opponents are gearing up to fight back, the industry is divided and everybody is wondering how the Trump Administration will treat cannabis.

In other words, says attorney Aaron Herzberg, who heads up the Costa Mesa firm CalCann Holdings, the real work is just beginning.

Now that Proposition 64 has passed, he said, we have a long road ahead of us to ensure this is not simply a pyrrhic victory.

INDUSTRY STILL TORN

Business owners in Californias entrenched medical marijuana industry were split over whether to support Prop. 64, with mixed reactions to news of its passing.

Were very excited that patients and cannabis consumers will be able to safely access cannabis through professional dispensaries, said Darice Smolenski, CEO and owner of The Reserve dispensary in Santa Ana.

Smolenski believes the measure will bring much-needed regulation to the larger industry.

Those regulations will be rolled out over the coming year. While personal rights to possess and grow marijuana took effect immediately, businesses will not be able to open up until at least January 2018.

Since Prop. 64 gives local governments full authority to regulate which businesses open in their borders, Keith McCarty, CEO and founder of San Francisco-based Eaze marijuana delivery service, said ventures that succeed will be the ones that work closely with city officials to ensure safe and professional access.

Up in Californias cannabis heartland, True Humboldt operations manager Chrystal Ortiz said the nearly 180 growers represented under their brand are divided on legalization. But speaking as a second generation cannabis farmer, she feels grateful.

Its something Ive been taught my whole life, that the plant is sacred and that it was supposed to be free, that humans were supposed to experience this plant, Ortiz said.

Other small farmers like Redcrest-area cultivator Sunshine Johnston are confident that Humboldt Countys world-renowned name and stories will keep the local industry afloat.

One thing I do know is they will be smoking my herb, she said.

OPPONENTS MAKE PLANS

A coalition of law enforcement and anti-legalization groups that fought to defeat Prop. 64 expressed disappointment over the new law. They also started discussing plans to influence how the initiative will play out, since both local governments and the state Legislature will play significant roles going forward.

Legislators can amend the measure by a simple majority vote as long as the intent of the law is kept intact. So Ken Corney, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, said his organization is doubling down on efforts to refine Prop. 64  particularly when it comes to restrictions on advertising and clear standards for driving under the influence.

The association is also encouraging police chiefs around the state  who face a dramatic, overnight shift in how they will enforce marijuana laws  to take an active role in deciding how the measure will affect their communities.

Cities throughout the state have already started approving moratoriums and bans on businesses.

The organization Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana wants more of the same, according to founder Carla Lowe, with a new website in the works to share stories of people negatively affected by legalization.

FEDERAL UNCERTAINTY

Though four states had already legalized recreational marijuana and three more joined California in doing so Tuesday night, cannabis remains illegal at the federal level. But under President Barack Obama, the federal government has largely been letting states carry out their legalization schemes so long as they have policies in place to discourage crimes like money laundering.

While Trumps surprise victory Tuesday night has caused ripples of uncertainty, both Newsom and Herzberg said they expect our new president will continue the status quo when it comes to cannabis.

Trump has suggested that he would respect the rights of states to regulate their own marijuana industry, but he hasnt suggested that the federal government would move toward any recreational legalization efforts, Herzberg said.

Industry folks are more worried about Trump appointing someone like Chris Christie or Rudy Giuliani  both of whom have spoken against legalization of medical and recreational marijuana  as attorney general, according to Herzberg.

Still, he said he isnt too concerned about a major shift in policy at the federal level.

The size of the burgeoning legal marijuana industry in the many states that have now legalized it for recreational and medical purposes is already so big, Herzberg said, that its impossible for the federal government to roll back their policy of allowing states to adopt their own policy in this area.
LONDON  At least seven people were killed and dozens more were injured when a tram derailed near London on Wednesday, the British police and emergency services said, and the driver of the tram has been arrested.

The police were called to the scene in Croydon, south of the British capital, shortly after 6 a.m. London time, and officers, firefighters and paramedics worked through the morning to free people who were trapped inside the tram, the British Transport Police said in a statement.

At least seven people are now confirmed as having died as a result of the incident, the transport police said in a statement.

The cause of the accident was unclear, the police said, and an investigation was opened.

Several of the injured were treated at the scene and 51 were taken to the hospital, Peter McKenna, the deputy director of operations for the London Ambulance Service, said in a statement.

McKenna said that the services hazardous area response team had been sent to the site of the accident.
ORANGE  Oskar Schindler didnt make the list; that part of the movie wasnt true.

But he was a deserving hero who risked his own life to save more than 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust.

Thursday, 22 boxes of Schindlers papers  the largest collection of Schindler documents in the world  were unveiled at Chapman Universitys Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education, donated by Schindler biographer David M. Crowe. It was a celebration timed to fall on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night the Nazis broke the windows of Jewish shops in German cities.

Schindler, the German businessman who lied to and paid off Nazis to save the lives of his Jewish employees during World War II, was in jail for bribery while his colleagues were making two lists, Crowe said. One list included the names of 700 men, and another list had 300 women. Then, 98 additional names were added to those lists, raising the total to 1,098.

The lists saved lives  labeling those Jews as valuable workers in a Nazi ammunition plant and preventing them from being shipped off to gas chambers.

Steven Spielbergs 1993 movie Schindlers List took some liberties. Crowes book Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story Behind the List set the record straight.

(Schindler) sacrificed everything for his Jews, said Crowe. He could have packed up and left. He went far beyond what any normal person would do.

Crowe started his research in 1996 and accumulated letters, photographs, police records, architectural drawings and other material over the past 20 years. He did a lot of his research in the Czech Republic, where Schindler was born, and in Poland, where Schindler owned factories. He had visited Chapman twice over the years and was impressed with the way Holocaust Education Director Marilyn Harran runs the program.

Marilyn will do with this collection what needs to be done, Crowe said. It will be easily accessible to everybody. I knew Chapmans commitment to students and education.

When Crowe saw the film Schindlers List, he had never heard of Oskar Schlindler. So he read the 1982 book by Thomas Keneally on which the film is based. The book did not, for Crowe, answer enough questions about Schindlers background.

He deserved a really good, detailed biography, Crowe said.

As he researched his book, people who had been close to Schindler, who died in 1974, let Crowe copy their material.

Schindler evolved from using Jews as slave laborers to protecting Jews and moving them to his hometown in the Czech Republic, Crowe said.

After the people on the list were liberated, Schindler fell on hard times.

The people he protected became his protectors, Crowe said.

Crowes collection includes 395 files and 19,530 pages of documents with original photos of Schindlers arrest  he was convicted in the Czech Republic for being a German spy  before the war.

Harran called Crowes collection a significant contribution.

We are building a tremendous resource here, Harran said. I never dreamed we would be able to take this kind of step.

The Samueli Holocaust Library is being remodeled to accommodate the new collection. The humidity will be higher and the temperature lower in the building to help preserve all those papers.

We are not going to forget, Harran said. We are going to keep our commitment. Its about our humanity.
(Beijing)  Some local governments have recently set up their own platforms for trading bills of exchange, a move that is considered in sharp contrast to the central bank's intention of unifying the market through the launch of a national trading center.

By the end of October, Beijing, Wuhan and Shenzhen had announced the launch of local trading centers for bills of exchange, and about eight others will open soon in other cities, including Qingdao, Guiyang, Chongqing and Hangzhou. These regional trading centers are all backed by state-owned assets, approved by local governments, and under the supervision of local financial regulatory offices.

Earlier this month, the People's Bank of China issued a document saying that a trial run of a national trading platform for bills of exchange will start on Dec. 8. The move is a bid to integrate the market and curb fraud and risks created by fake documents, multiple sales of single bills, and opaque trading information.

The regional trading centers in Beijing, Wuhan and Shenzhen did not get approval from any of the financial regulatory bodies under the State Council, China's cabinet, sources familiar with the matter told Caixin. The central bank has already expressed disapproval of Wuhan's setting up its own exchange center.

In 2012, the State Council laid out guidelines with respect to cleaning up various exchanges, which explicitly stipulate that exchanges for financial products such as insurance, credit and gold should not be established without approval from regulatory departments under the State Council.

A statement on the website of the Wuhan trading center said the local platform will focus on the transfer of bills among enterprises, as well as trading of bills between companies and banks.

It also says that it "has assumed its fundamental position as a pretrial while following the general plan and supervision set out by the central bank for the national bills of exchange market, and it advocates the principle to offer practical experience and technical support for the bills of exchange pushed forward by the central bank."

However, a source in charge of risk control for a commercial lender questioned the legality of the move.

"Bills of exchange are financial products, and local governments are in no position to grant approval for trading centers of such products," the source said. "Besides that, you can imagine how fierce the competition will be when there are so many regional trading centers, so the possibility of extending their businesses, or even of them ending up as places for illegal fund-raising, can hardly be ruled out if they want to survive."

A source close to the central bank said the regional exchanges are counterproductive.

"The key part is that these regional exchange centers will result in a divisive market, which is in opposition to the central bank's goal to integrate the market and adopt unified regulation," the source said.

Contact reporter Dong Tongjian (tongjiandong@caixin.com); editor Kerry Nelson (kerry@caixin.com)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.  Across America, many members of minority groups awoke Wednesday to something that had seemed an implausible nightmare just a day earlier: President-elect Donald Trump.

After a race that shattered norms of civility and restraint, Trumps ascendency to the White House on the power of overwhelming white support left some with the sinking feeling that they now live in a country where they simply dont matter. Some said they even worry that they are potentially in danger because of the color of their skin, the God they worship or the language they speak.

Im like literally an enemy of the state now, said Black Lives Matter activist Mercutio Southall, 32, who was roughed up by Trump supporters a year ago after disrupting one of the candidates rallies in Birmingham.

Trump received minority votes in his stunning win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, and he made conciliatory comments about unity in his victory speech. But some minority citizens who didnt support the Republican nominee said they fear what the next four years might bring.

It looks like we are going back to the back of the bus, said NAACP member George Rudolph, 65, a black Vietnam veteran whose wife, Sarah, was seriously injured in the Ku Klux Klan church bombing that killed four black girls in Birmingham in 1963.

Rudolph said Trumps election evokes a time decades ago when segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace stoked crowds with similar rhetoric.

In Los Angeles, just hours after Trump was projected as the next president, Martha Arevalo of the Central American Resource Center said her office already was fielding calls from immigrants who fear they will be targeted for deportation under a Trump presidency.

This is very, very scary for our families, and they are afraid, said Arevalo, the centers executive director. What we are telling them is we will continue to fight and we will continue to try to protect them as much as possible.

The nature of the divided vote is behind some of the concern. After promising to make America great again  which some heard as a call to return the nation to a time when white men ran almost everything  Trump won the presidency with staggering support from white men. Exit polls and unofficial returns reflected that his backers were older, more male and overwhelmingly white compared to Clinton supporters.

Clinton drew support from a diverse coalition resembling the one that twice elected Barack Obama as president. She carried women, young voters and nonwhites with margins that could leave her actually winning the national popular vote while losing the electoral tally.

At North Carolina Central University in Durham, sophomore Jamon Carlton said he still hadnt figured out how Trump had won in a country that seemed to embrace hope and the inclusion of everyone eight years ago. He worried Trumps victory might embolden closet bigots and lead to more dangerous displays of anger.

It could become confrontational. Man, I hope it doesnt come to that, said Carlton, who voted for Clinton.

Bennett McAuley and Derrick Swick, a gay-transgender couple in Durham, said they feel especially vulnerable just weeks away from a Trump presidency. Im a white man and this is a really uncomfortable morning, Swick said.

Just hours after Trumps election, the head of Alabamas largest Islamic congregation said he awakened to messages from female Muslims worried about whether it was safe to wear their religious coverings in public.

People on social media and otherwise are very concerned about all the talk about banning Muslims and having Muslims to register, so there is a lot of concern, said Ashfaq Taufique, president of the Birmingham Islamic Society.

Trump has tried to walk back some of his harshest campaign comments, such as calling Mexican immigrants rapists; proposing a ban on Muslims entering the United States, and advocating mass deportations. His victory speech struck a gentler tone that some found encouraging, and Clinton noted that Trump had won the right to govern.

We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead, she said in her concession speech.

Imelda Salazar, an immigrant rights organizer in Chicago, isnt there yet. She broke down into tears while discussing Trumps win.

I havent slept. Im sad. Im angry and all that, she said. But one thing that stands out the most is Im not alone.

Javier Benavidez, executive director of the Southwest Organizing Project in Albuquerque, N.M., said activists there likely would hold peaceful demonstrations each time Trump visits the state as president. For now, they plan a Native American healing ceremony in reaction to his election.

Confronting this new terrain is frightening, Benavidez said.
The atmosphere at Access California Services the morning after Donald Trumps victory was one of desperation.

Nahla Kayali, director of the Anaheim nonprofit that provides resettlement services for immigrants and refugees, many of whom come from war-stricken countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, said she had to console refugees who were concerned mostly about family members left behind.

They already worry about being able to bring loved ones to the U.S. during a Trump presidency, she said.

It was disappointing, Kayali said. But in the end, we need to respect our president, move forward and work together. We came to this land because we love freedom and democracy.

During his campaign, Trump called for banning the entry of all Muslims to the country and said refugees who seek asylum in the U.S. must be subjected to extreme vetting.

Now that Trump has won, there is an urgent need to address the campaign rhetoric, which has divided the nation, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations Los Angeles chapter.

The American Muslim community did feel unfairly targeted by (Trumps) campaign rhetoric, he said. We hope (Trump) starts a process of healing and correcting some of the damage caused to our countrys unity and harmony.

The Trump campaign has unleashed a lot of racism and bigotry in the country, Ayloush said.

I hope now that the election is behind us, Trump will focus on what America really needs, a leader who will bring the nation together and celebrate our diversity as Americans.

Trumps election raises a number of questions for American Muslims as well as undocumented families and refugees who are already living in fear, said Rida Hamida, an Arab American community organizer in Orange County.

My heart bleeds for the most vulnerable communities that are struggling with questions like, Am I going to be discriminated against now more than ever for being unapologetically Muslim? she said.

But this is not the time for Muslims to seclude themselves or to avoid being active in their communities, Hamida said.

We need to organize, know our rights and empower ourselves, she said. With pain comes growth and I know our community is feeling pain weve never felt before. Were going to keep our elected officials accountable. Were going to speak louder and advocate and were not going to be silenced by the majority.

Muslim adults also are struggling to assure their children that their future is not in jeopardy, said Ahsan Khan, president of the local Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, who oversees mosques in Orange County and Chino.

I explained to my son and daughter that even though Trump has said things that were hurtful to Muslims, we should pray for him, that he corrects those misstatements, Khan said. As our president, he has the ability to bridge gaps between religions and cultures.

Many Muslims fear that Trumps campaign rhetoric could become his policies, he said. But we respect our democratic process, Khan said. So we give our allegiance to this country and our leaders.

Contact the writer: 714796-7909 or dbharath@ocregister.com
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Manhattan on Wednesday night and converged on Trump Tower in Midtown to protest the election of Donald Trump as president.

Similar protests happened in several cities across the country, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Chicago, Seattle and Washington, and at college campuses in California, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

In New York, the protests started in separate waves from Union Square and Columbus Circle and snaked their way through Midtown.

The protesters chanted Youre not our president and New York hates Trump and carried signs that said, among other things, Dump Trump. Restaurant workers in their uniforms briefly left their posts to cheer on the demonstrators.

The demonstrations, which appeared to be largely peaceful, forced streets to be closed, snarled traffic and drew a large police presence.

Protesters gathered outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue near 56th Street. Loaded dump trucks lined Fifth Avenue for two blocks outside the tower as a form of protection.

Emanuel Perez, 25, of the Bronx, who works at a restaurant in Manhattan and grew up in Guerrero, Mexico, was among the many Latinos in the crowd.

I came here because people came out to protest the racism that hes promoting, he said in Spanish, referring to Trump. Im not scared for myself personally. What Im worried about is how many children are going to separated from their families. It will not be just one. It will be thousands of families.

Protesters with umbrellas beat a one-legged pinata of Trump outside the building.

The Police Department said Wednesday night that it did not immediately have word of arrests or estimates of the number of protesters.

Bianca Rivera, 25, of East Harlem, described Trumps election as something that was not supposed to happen.

Were living in a country thats supposed to be united, a melting pot, she said. Its exposing all these underground racists and sexists.

Elsewhere in the country, college students gathered in spontaneous marches and asked university leaders to schedule meetings to reflect on the results.

Soon after Trumps victory speech on Tuesday night, more than 2,000 students at the University of California, Los Angeles, marched through the streets of the campus Westwood neighborhood.

Similar protests also happened at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, at University of California campuses in Irvine, Berkeley, San Diego and Santa Barbara, and at Temple University in Philadelphia and the University of Massachusetts.

High school students also walked out of classes in protest in several cities.

As UCLA students made their way to classes Wednesday, they talked about how to make sense of an outcome that had seemed impossible a day earlier.

Im more than a little nervous about the future, said Blanca Torres, a sophomore anthropology major. We all want to have conversations with each other, to figure out how to move forward. Theres a whole new reality out there for us now.

Chuy Fernandez, a fifth-year economics student, said he was eager to air his unease with his peers.

Im feeling sad with this huge sense of uncertainty, Fernandez said. The son of a Mexican immigrant, he said it was difficult not to take the outcome personally.

Were all just kind of waiting for a ticking time bomb, like looking around and thinking who will be deported, he said. Thats the exact opposite of what most of us thought would happen.
For the first time, Californians who vape will be subject to tobacco taxes, with the passage of Prop. 56.

While the tax on traditional cigarettes will go from 87 cents per pack to $2.87 starting April 1, the e-cigarette tax will be a flat rate of 27.3 percent of the wholesale price for all vape products.

Public health advocates cheered the passage as a way to reduce tobacco usage, while the vaping industry said the tax could deter smokers from using e-cigs as a tool to quit. The vote came five months after California raised the smoking and vaping age from 18 to 21.

California is making massive strides just in a few months, said Ravi Choudhuri, advocacy manager for the American Lung Associations Orange County division. We were always known as the forefront of anti-tobacco states, and now were back on that track.

For every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes, smoking goes down 4 percent, according to a 2014 report on smoking by the U.S. surgeon general. State Board of Equalization spokesman Jonathan Mendick said Wednesday that the board will inform the public of how the tax will apply to e-cigarettes on its website in the coming months.

Alea Jasso, co-owner of South County Vapors in Tustin, said vaping liquids, or e-juice, come in bottles ranging from 15 ml to 200 ml, with a typical 30 to 60 ml bottle costing $18 to $30.

The $2 a pack increase on traditional cigarettes could also prompt current smokers to switch to vaping, provided the tax isnt too high, she said.

If they look to vaping as their source to try to quit, we hope its affordable enough for them to be able to do that, she said.

This month, the journal Health & Place published research showing that Orange County middle school students whose schools were within a quarter-mile of a vaping shop were about twice as likely to use e-cigarettes than those whose schools were not close by.

The visibility of the stores and the novelty may be more attractive to younger students who are still in that developmental stage where theyre more likely to experiment with substances, said lead researcher Georgiana Bostean, who teaches sociology and environmental science at Chapman University. The fact that there are more vape stores might make them think vaping is more socially acceptable than smoking. It might increase actual access because theyre in walking distance of the school.

Bostean said she expects the higher price of e-cigarettes to drive down usage, which has been increasing among teens.

Theres a huge bulk of evidence on tobacco taxes that shows taxation is one of the most effective ways to reduce smoking across the board, and also in adolescents, she said. Theres no reason to believe that would be different for e-cigarettes.

Contact the writer: cperkes@scng.com 714-796-3686
SANTA ANA  A Costa Mesa man was convicted of first-degree murder on Wednesday for killing his live-in girlfriend after their business partnership soured.

An Orange County Superior Court jury deliberate for about two days before handing down the verdict for Thomas Michael Wilhelm, 52.

Prosecutors said Wilhelm was drunk and listening to a Gun N Roses song with the lyrics I used to love her, but I had to kill her right before he shot Christine Marie Murray, 45, multiple times in their Costa Mesa home on July 8, 2012.

Wilhelm had owned Wilhelm Sprinkler Co. for more than 20 years. When his business faltered, he asked Murray, his then-girlfriend, to step in and take part-ownership.

The couple began arguing intensely and eventually split, but Murray refused to give up her ownership in the sprinkler business. Prosecutors said he became distraught at the thought of losing the business and plotted to kill Murray.

He faces 50 years to life in prison when he returns to court for sentencing on Feb. 3.

The defense had argued that Wilhelm lost control and acted impulsively because he was drunk and emotionally devastated over the businesss situation.

Contact the writer: kpuente@ocregister.com
Big-wave surfing has been a boys club, at least when it comes to contests that showcase a surfers skills on a world stage.

Until now.

For the first time, two big-wave contests this season will test female surfers abilities in bombing, building-size waves. Its a step for inclusion of women in a big-wave circuit that has exclusively allowed only men.

The first of these contests could take place Friday, at the world-famous Jaws surf break on Mauis north coast at the Peahi Challenge. The other will be held in Northern California, when conditions permit, at the Titans of Mavericks contest. The Mavericks announcement came last week, after the California Coastal Commission granted a one-year permit to event organizers, with the condition the 17-year-old contest include women for the first time.

It also was announced this week that for the first time females will vie for a World Tour Big Wave title as the Peahi Challenge gets underway. Its unclear whether other stops on the big-wave tour will also include women.

Were incredibly proud to be introducing a womens event this season, said Peter Mel, WSL Big Wave Tour Commissioner, in a statement. These ladies are some of the most dedicated, passionate and talented big-wave surfers on the planet. It will be phenomenal to witness them tackle Peahi.

In Northern California, women have been pushing for inclusion at Mavericks for years. But it was only after the Coastal Commission refused to grant a permit unless the plans included women that organizers added females to the list of competitors. Women will compete in a single, hour-long heat; men will compete in multiple heats.

It was enough, for this year, to get a permit, but commissioners want women to get more for women before theyll agree to a multi-year agreement.

We have reached a historic milestone in that a womans heat is being added at the Titans of Mavericks, said Commissioner Mark Vargas in a report. While its great that we have a heat, thats not a plan.

The event in Half Moon Bay happens at the infamous Mavericks, a massive, treacherous break where several surfers have died. For the event, surfers get a 48-hour notice when conditions are right during a window that runs from Nov. 1 to March 31. Since the Mavericks contest started in 1999, no woman has ever competed.

The commission asked organizers to include women under a mandate to maximize public access under the Coastal Act. The event closes the beach and offshore surf area to the public for the duration of the contest. Commissioners argued that not allowing womens inclusion would deny equal access to public areas for a significant segment of the population.

Commissioner Martha McClure found it disheartening in the soul of my being that organizers seemed to add a womens heat only when it appeared they may not get their permit, according to the report.

There was a time climbing up Mount Everest was listed as only a mans sport because women were not capable, women were not strong enough, women were not smart enough, McClure said.

Big-wave surfer Keala Kennelly  an invitee to both big-wave events  is no stranger to breaking barriers for women in the world of big-wave surfing.

This year, the Hawaiian surfer won the Barrel of the Year Award at the XXL Big Wave Awards at the Grove in Anaheim for a massive tube ride at Teahupoo, Tahiti. It was the first time a female won in the male-dominated category.

It was the same wave where years earlier she smashed her face onto the sharp reef during a bombing session, a scar she still carries.

When I was a little girl, I kept getting told I could not do things because I was a girl, Kennelly said during the awards. I was told that women cant surf. And I was told this about getting barreled, surfing big waves  the list goes on.

So, who I really really want to thank is everyone who told me You cant do that because youre a woman.

Mavericks representatives said they support including more women in their contest, but they remain concerned about pushing the limits of safety, saying these waves were bigger, colder and deadlier than other surfing locations, according to the report. They estimated that fewer than 10 professional women surfers are currently able to compete at the level Mavericks requires.

Twelve woman are on the invite list for the contest at Jaws.

Women arent the only ones susceptible to the dangers of big waves.

San Clemente surfer Greg Long  who is also on the list of competitors to surf the Peahi Challenge if conditions allow this week  nearly lost his life in 2013 after a three-wave hold down at Cortes Bank. And others, like big-wave chargers Mark Foo and Sion Milosky, died after challenging Mavericks.

Supporters of the womens big-wave movement include filmmaker and Huntington Beach surfer Devyn Bisson. She was captivated  yet disheartened  by a magazine article with the headline: Boys Club. It documented some of the challenges faced by big wave surfer Paige Alms, from Hawaii.

The article prompted Bisson to produce a film called The Wave I Ride, documenting Alms struggles as she worked three jobs to support her surfing career. The film showed Alms competing at the first big wave contest that included women, in Oregon. That contest offered no prize money for competitors.

The documentary, released in April, showcases how hard breaking barriers can be for female surfers in the big-wave world. But Bisson found out those barriers arent just for the surfers; she had to overcome hurdles just to tell the story of women surfing in the big-wave arena. Sponsors and funding, she said, were very hard to find.

But when Bisson saw how the film was received, with more than 50 showings in places as diverse as London and Bali, the 24-year-old knew she struck a chord.

When I tell a story, I really believe that Im telling something that was already true in form. Im just shining a light on it, she said. I really had a strong intuition that its already right there on the cusp and its about to actualize.

Now, Red Bull has agreed to help distribute the film and it will be available soon on iTunes.

Whenever theres a shift, its not one thing, no one person can claim it. Every hand works to push that ball over the hill. Im so glad we were one of those hands, she said. Theres still a long way to go, but its just one step of the whole movement.

Contact the writer: lconnelly@scng.com
Tobin Trevarthen

To say that telling a unique, impactful story in todays information glut is difficult would be a gross understatement. Journalists are struggling to swim through never-ending waves of pitches. Faced with information overload, readers dont know whether to sift through the stories presented to them or ignore them entirely.This is bad news for brands, especially startups looking to break out in a crowded tech space and eventually exit, as this over-load results in low coverage results from industry reporters and low visibility to potential customers. So, how do smart brands break free of the information glut?

Enter narrative, the methodology that propels winning companies to rise above their competition and become category leaders. When a brand shifts its focus from story to narrative, from a lens of me to a lens of we, it creates space for a movement to begin. Narrative differs from story, which emphasizes the history, values or features behind a specific product or brand. Narrative has a broader resonance that invites customers, investors, and competitors to participate in the conversation.



A strong narrative has helped many brands build equity and attract a lot of attention around exits. In 2013, Snapchat, once a small startup but now very well-known company found in headlines often, refused acquisitions by both Google and Facebook. In 2016, Twitter stirred a worldwide conversation with acquisition interest from Sales-force, Google, and Disney.



Successful companies create new narratives to set themselves apart and establish themselves as thought leaders in a newly defined space. We like to say, You solved a problem. Let us solve your narrative.



If youre looking to join the ranks of those successful brands, follow these steps:



Uncover the existing conversation



Every industry and brand is part of a pre-existing conversation created by competitors, customers, investors and the me-dia. If a company wants to change that conversation, it has to identify whats al-ready being said. In-depth owned and paid media research uncovers what brands are saying about themselves and the issues that matter in the industry. Earned media re-search fleshes out the picture by providing third-party perspective.



While conducting research, think: what are companies talking too much about (chances are, its themselves)? What arent companies saying? Where is there an opportunity to change the conversation or intro-duce a new theme?



Define the new conversation



Once you know the existing industry conversation, you can decide whether to respond to it or to initiate a new one. For ex-ample, a company in an industry with strong narrative threads (i.e. drones and privacy) may only need to provide fresh insights. In other industries where the conversation is crowded or uninteresting, you may need to create a new narrative or  as startups often do  define a new category altogether.



If defining a new category is your goal, think outside the box. At Spark, we use de-sign thinking to coax our clients out of their established thought processes and into the minds of customers, investors, influencers and the media. This exercise is especially effective when we bring employees from different disciplines together, as their combined perspectives help define the resistance or friction that an industry faces and find the resolution that could lead to a new movement.



Establish yourself through content



In order for your new narrative spark to become a flame, you must fan it with quality content. Prepare to make a significant investment in content creation and distribution, lest the narrative spark, sputter and burn out. Think of this investment as a way to create velocity for your brand.



The most successful content is clear, engaging, and consistent. Experiment with different media types and embrace the outlets that feel the most authentic. For some, thats thoughtful blog posts written by company executives. For others, its videos, podcasts, e-books or social media posts. We recommend some combination of all of them to get the most value from your efforts.



Remember: quality trumps quantity. Were living in a content bubble where lightweight, subpar content is so prevalent that many potential customers ignore it outright. Make your content count.



Push that content out everywhere



Great content isnt great if nobody sees it. Once you have your content, make sure its everywhere. Use it as an opportunity to pitch to media. Distribute it on your owned channels and drive the reach of that content via paid channels. Native programmatic advertising is an effective tool for generating leads, in some cases creating a 500 percent increase in web traffic. Youll also see a jump in how long readers spend looking at your channels  more exposure combined with better content creates stronger results.



Ensure that the company has high-level spokespeople who will speak to the narrative youve created both internally and externally. If the CEO isnt talking about your narrative, it wont feel authentic. Presentations, blog posts, bylines and interviews are excellent outlets for your executives to champion the new narrative.



Measure  and reap  your results



Measurement and testing is critical throughout the narrative process. Companies with strong narratives constantly test, measure, and refine so they can quickly adjust to real-time feedback and seize op-portunities to comment on current events or industry news. By measuring how your category or content is faring in the media, youll have the knowledge you need to optimize your narrative push.



Repeat as necessary



Narrative is a long term investment in your success. This is not a three-month push; if you want to own a conversation, you have to keep talking. If a narrative stops resonating, create another one. If a content piece or channel stops generating traffic, pursue another avenue.



While brand stories play an important role in the success of a company, narrative speaks to a higher order. That order will ultimately increase engagement, align your brand ethos with the belief systems of your customers, and establish you as the undisputed leader of your category.



***



Tobin Trevarthen is Chief Narrative Officer at Spark in San Francisco.
Jobseekers in Offaly can now connect directly with employers that have jobs on offer thanks to a new app, HiUp, which was launched last week.

In addition to connecting jobseekers with employers directly, the HiUp app also allows them to identify any skills gaps they have and connect with training providers, either by taking training directly within the app or booking classroom-based training via the app.

According to HiUp, there are currently: 1,385 jobs available in catering and hospitality, 773 jobs available in property and construction and 433 jobs available in retail.

HiUp is the brainchild of serial internet entrepreneur, Brendan Kavanagh, who has founded several businesses over the course of his career and now employs 360 staff across nine offices in Ireland, the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Australia and the USA.

At the launch of HiUp last week, Kavanagh said: Thousands of vacancies exist in Ireland across construction, manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare, retail, customer service and supply chain management.

At the same time, unemployment rates in some areas and for some sections of the population remain high. In Offaly alone, over 6,000 people are unemployed.

Available vacancies in Offaly - and throughout the country - are not being filled because the workforce cant find them. Recruitment agencies often sit in the middle in this situation, and dont help employers or jobseekers match with the opportunities. By using HiUp, jobseekers in Offaly can take back control of their careers.

Kavanagh said his aim with HiUp is to kill off recruitment agencies.

The recruitment sector is worth 1.73 billion a year in Ireland. According to Kavanagh, that money should be invested in training and qualifications for employees and jobseekers, rather than going to global recruitment giants.

I am calling on employers to stop wasting money on recruitment agencies and online job platforms; the technology they use is redundant, he said. Recruitment is expensive. Agencies take money from employers and sometimes from candidates too. Our technology cuts out the middleman and enables employers to match with a skilled, ready-to-go workforce.

With HiUp, if a candidate doesnt have the exact skills or qualifications for the jobs on offer, we tell them what training they need. We empower people to get a job today and skill up for tomorrow. Goodbye job hunting, hello job matching, all in an app where you can learn more to earn more.

In addition to jobseekers, Offaly training-providers and education institutions are being encouraged to download HiUp: providers can host their online and offline courses through the app, free of charge.

HiUp is available to download for free from the Apple and Google Play Stores or by visiting www.hiupapp.com.
QUESTION: I live in Offaly but have just found work in Co Fermanagh. What do I do about making an income tax return and will I be liable for PRSI?

QUESTION: I live in Offaly but have just found work in Co Fermanagh. What do I do about making an income tax return and will I be liable for PRSI?

ANSWER: YOU must pay income tax in the country where you earn your income but your ultimate tax responsibility is with the country where you live. This means that you must submit an annual self-assessment in your country of residence each year.

As a Republic of Ireland resident working in the North, you will: (i) Pay tax directly to HM Revenue and Customs, (ii) Be required to submit an annual Self-Assessment return to the Irish Revenue Commissioners, (iii) Be eligible for Trans-border Workers Relief.

Trans-border Workers Relief can be claimed by someone who is resident in the Republic of Ireland, commutes daily/weekly to his/her place of work in the other jurisdiction and who pays tax in Northern Ireland (NI) on the income from that employment. In effect this gives a frontier worker a credit or relief in respect for the income tax that is paid in the country of employment. This means that the Revenue Commissioners take into account the tax you have paid in Northern Ireland.

You must apply for a National Insurance number before starting work in Northern Ireland, otherwise your tax and National Insurance contributions will not be recorded. National Insurance Numbers are issued by the Social Security Agency. You can apply for a National Insurance Number at any local Jobs and Benefits Office.

If you are employed in Northern Ireland, you do not have to pay PRSI. You make National Insurance contributions to the UK authorities. If you wish to claim social welfare benefits now or in the future, the authorities will take into consideration all social insurance contributions you have paid. That means National Insurance contributions paid in Northern Ireland will be considered alongside any PRSI contributions paid in the South.

Know Your Rights has been compiled by Co Offaly Citizens Information Service which provides a free and confidential service to the public at the Bridge Centre, Tullamore. Tel: 057 93 52204.

Information is also available online at citizensinformation.ie and from the Citizens Information Phone Service, Lo-call 1890 777 121 or (021) 4521600.
An award-winning European programme for Irish national schools, which is now in its sixth year, is urgently seeking schools from all over Offaly in the next ten days to sign up to earn a Blue Star.

The Blue Star programme aims to foster better understanding and knowledge of the European Union among Irish primary school pupils through classroom projects and activities. Teams of pupils of all ages, from primary schools all over Ireland, are challenged to get creative and think about Europe, by carrying out projects in relation to four key elements: history; geography; culture and creativity; and the Institutions of the EU.

European Movement Ireland, which co-ordinates the Blue Star programme, is keen to get lots of schools signed up in the next 10 days, ahead of the national later this month by Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD, when project work in schools will begin in earnest.

During the past five years, we have had schools from all 26 counties take part, but with almost 120 schools registered so far for the 2016/17 school year, we have just two from Offaly so we are now determined to find more national schools from the county by the 18 November deadline, said Noelle O Connell, Executive Director of European Movement Ireland.

All primary schools are eligible to participate and we provide lots of free material, advice and a curriculum guide, added Ms O Connell. Were here to help and have supported hundreds of schools to date. Interested teachers should contact us on (01) 662 5815 or by e-mail on bluestar@europeanmovement.ie, by Friday week, she concluded.
China suffered the world's second-largest monetary loss from natural disasters during the period 1996 to 2015, according to the recently released Global Climate Risk Index (GCRI) 2017 report.

The index reported that China lost an average of $32.8 billion per year to extreme weather events. The United States came in number one, losing $39.1 billion annually.

Published by Berlin-based non-governmental organization Germanwatch, the GCRI is designed to highlight the human and economic cost of climate change. The index measures how exposed and vulnerable a country is to natural disasters.

Extreme weather events are predicted to become more frequent as global temperatures rise.

Although China lost the second-largest sum in absolute terms, Germanwatch researchers say that this is due to the large size of the country's economy, rather than the severity of the natural disasters it faced.

The index also takes into account China's average annual gross domestic product, total population size and total death toll from natural disasters.

China's overall GCRI rank, based on 1996-2015 data, is 34, which puts it in the same climate risk band as the United States (28), Australia (also 34) and Russia (31).

Countries with rankings between 1 and 10 were the most vulnerable to extreme weather events. The worst affected, from 1996-2015, include Myanmar, Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Philippines.

On average, one out of every million people died of extreme weather-related causes in China each year. In Honduras, the country judged "most affected" in the world, more than 40 out of every million inhabitants were killed by natural disasters annually between 1996 and 2015.

Germanwatch said that the GCRI results show that "poorer developing countries are hit much harder" by climate change, and that disasters related to heavy rainfall, including landslides and floods, accounted for most of the damage last year.

Contact editor Ken Howe (kennethhowe@caixin.com)
Children and students across Offaly are being asked to bring their imaginations to life, grab their pens, crayons and paintbrushes and get doodling as the deadline approaches for this years Doodle for Google competition.

With entries closing on Saturday, November 26, Offaly students have only a short time remaining to enter their doodles for this years If I could create anything it would be theme. Twenty-two students from Offaly made the regional finals in previous years, with two winning their group categories. It is hoped more will make the regional final this year.

The prizes for this years doodles include a 5,000 scholarship towards the students third-level education, with their winning doodle also appearing on the Google.ie homepage for 24 hours. In addition, the overall winner and their teacher will receive a Chromebook laptop each, with their school also receiving a 10,000 technology grant. Five other category winners and their teachers will also receive Chromebooks.

Fionnuala Meehan, VP and Site Lead of Google Ireland said, Doodles are meant to surprise and delight people when they visit the Google homepage and past doodles have celebrated some of the most brilliant, talented, and passionate people throughout history. Creativity and technology go hand in hand and I'm constantly amazed at the talent and imagination of students in Ireland.

She added, The amount of entries we have received so far is in the hundreds which will make the decision tough for our judges. We want to encourage as many children across the country to enter, and for those that have yet to do so, there is still plenty of time.

The 75 finalists will have their doodles displayed on the Doodle 4 Google website and the general public will be able to vote for their favourite doodle. The winners of each category will go attend the grand finale event in the Google headquarters in Dublin where they overall winner will be chosen.

The class groups include:

 Class Group 1  Junior Infants, Senior Infants

 Class Group 2 - 1st Class, 2nd Class, 3rd Class,

 Class Group 3  4th Class, 5th Class, 6th Class

 Class Group 4  1st Year, 2nd Year, 3rd Year

 Class Group 5  Transition Year, 5th Year, 6th Year, Youthreach

Schools can enter the competition by logging onto the competition website by clicking here
Airbnb, the world's leading community driven hospitality company, has today launched a report highlighting the positive social and economic impact of the Airbnb community on regional and rural Ireland.

The report, entitled Home-Sharing: Empowering Regional & Rural Ireland, was launched by Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Heather Humphreys TD, at an Airbnb listing in her own constituency of County Monaghan.

It shows that the Airbnb community contributed an estimated 2 Million to the Midlands Region, which includes Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath, in the last year. The report is an analysis of all travel to, and within, regional and rural Ireland outside of Dublin, from September 2015 through to August 2016.

Global Head of Customer Experience at Airbnb, Aisling Hassell said, More and more people across Ireland have joined the growing home sharing movement and are recognising the great value in sharing a spare room, or home when you're away. They are of all ages and from all walks of life. This report shows the positive impact this new form of tourism is having on more remote parts of the country that havent traditionally benefited from tourism, enabling guests to experience some of the most beautiful parts of The Emerald Isle, away from the typical holiday destinations.

Communities are seeing benefits from Airbnb, particularly in the regions and rural Ireland, through tourism and economic development in places where alternative accommodation is not available. Equally by hosting on Airbnb, individual households are able to generate a little extra income to help make ends meet.

Commenting on the report launch Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Heather Humphreys TD said, I want to congratulate Airbnb on the publication of this report, which clearly illustrates the positive impact the sharing economy is having on rural Ireland. As part of my work to rejuvenate rural Ireland, I want to help create sustainable communities which focus on promoting their individual strengths. The benefit of the Airbnb model is that it can bring new visitors to remote locations, providing a new potential source of revenue for communities. By providing alternative accommodation options in rural villages and towns, we can help to grow tourism and have a positive knock-on impact on other businesses in rural Ireland.

With hosts sharing their homes in villages all over Ireland, Airbnb guests can travel more widely than those who chose to stay in hotels. Outside of Dublin, many rural communities shrink outside of traditional holiday periods, as holiday homes are closed for the winter. This latent asset and potential is being harnessed to continue to use those properties for short-term Airbnb holiday rentals, helping keep those communities vibrant. This is supporting a longer tourist season and delivering positive economic impact by supporting existing businesses and the development of new, micro-businesses in food, craft, hospitality and culture.

Some highlights of the report include:

 In the past year alone, 11,000 unique hosts welcomed over 650,000 guests to their homes across Ireland (including Dublin).

 There were 5,500 inbound guests to the Midland region in the past year staying an average of 2.3 nights each visiting for holiday and leisure.

 In the last year, 180 hosts in the Midland Region have earned an average additional income of 1,000 per household.

 44 percent of hosts in the regional and rural report said that they are using the income to make ends meet.

 It is worth noting that in Dublin, 88 percent of hosts share their primary residence. Outside of Dublin this figure is 64 percent and includes many traditional holiday destinations, indicating the number of people who share their second, or holiday home, when not using it for family or when otherwise would be empty.

 82 percent of guests said that Airbnb accommodation would make them more likely to return and 85 percent of guests chose Airbnb accommodation because they wanted to live like a local

Last year Airbnb, published a nationwide report entitled The Impacts of Home Sharing in Ireland: October 2014 and September 2015 but this is the first time an analysis has been done on the impact of the community in regional and rural Ireland.
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(Beijing)  Twenty-two employees of Ezubo, a shuttered peer-to-peer lending platform, have been indicted in connection with an illegal international-border crossing from Yunnan province into Myanmar.

According to a statement Thursday by prosecutors in Puer, a city in Yunnan, 16 suspects were indicted on suspicion of illegally crossing a border, five for making arrangements for the others to stow away, and another for secretly conveying people outside the country.

Prosecutors were unavailable for comment, and it was unclear how the accused employees attempted to cross the border or whether they were in custody.

The statement does not say what positions the suspects held at Ezubo or when their trial will take place at the local municipal intermediate court.

Ezubo was a leading P2P service until it was shut down by police in multiple Chinese jurisdictions in December. An investigation found that from its launch in July 2014 until the end of 2015, Ezubao had swindled about 900,000 investors across the country out of more than 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) through a Ponzi scheme that promised high yields on their investments.

The latest result of the probe reveals that Ezubo also has operations in Myanmar.

In August, 11 suspects, including Ding Ning, chairman of Yucheng International Holdings Group Ltd., Ezubo's parent company, and Zhang Min, Ezubo's president, were accused of financial fraud, while 15 others were accused of illegally raising public funds.

A statement released at that time by the Supreme People's Court said that Ding was suspected of possessing guns and attempting to arrange for others to flee to Myanmar from Yunnan.

According to Wangdaizhijia, a research firm that tracks the online-lending industry, nearly 1,000 P2P platforms have been closed so far this year after failing to repay investors. In some cases, runaway managers absconded with the funds.

Contact reporter Dong Tongjian (tongjiandong@caixin.com); editor Ken Howe (kennethhowe@caixin.com)
(Beijing)  Two top Chinese power generators signed major supply contracts with two of the country's largest coal producers this week in a bid to counter recent price spikes that threaten to derail Beijing's drive to slim down the mining sector.

The state-owned producers, Shenhua Group Corp. and China National Coal Group Corp., signed the one-year deal for thermal coal, used to generate power, with two state-owned power generators in Beijing.

The deal, which takes effect Dec. 1, will involve the sale of thermal coal from the two miners to China Huadian Corp. and State Power Investment Corp. for 535 yuan ($79) per ton, said Xu Kunlin, vice secretary general of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), at a briefing on Wednesday.

Coal prices have soared in recent weeks amid Beijing's ongoing drive to reduce overcapacity by shutting down older and smaller mining companies. The result has been a coal shortage heading into the cold winter months when demand typically spikes.

Government efforts since September to boost coal supply and pressure mining companies to lower prices have had little effect. The Bohai-Rim Steam-Coal Price Index, which measures domestic thermal-coal prices in the country, has risen 64% from the beginning of the year to 607 yuan per ton last week.

"So far, this contract is only for one year, but in the future we'll encourage more companies to sign five-year and 10-year contracts," Xu said.

Such longer-term supply deals are common when markets become volatile, helping commodity buyers to control costs when prices are rising rapidly. But those contracts can also become a burden if prices begin to fall, forcing buyers to purchase goods at rates above market levels.

China rapidly built up sectors like coal and steel to feed its economy during more than two decades of rapid growth. But as the economy stalls and the global economy remains tepid, the country is now faced with overcapacity of such commodities.

The State Council has vowed to cut crude steel capacity by between 100 million and 150 million tons over the next five years, and not approve any new coal mines before 2019.

The recent price spikes mean the reform is not working exactly as planned, Xu said. "But our resolution to cut overcapacity in the coal sector is unwavering," he added.

Commodity exchange regulators are also cracking down on speculation from short-term investors seeking to capitalize on spiking prices. Thermal and coking coal futures have hit their highest levels since 2013, prompting the country's two exchange operators to raise transactions fees.

While the shortage of coal could eventually ease with government intervention, there is no sign that prices will drop by the end of this year, said Deng Shun, a commodity analyst at Success Futures.

Contact reporter Chen Na (nachen@caixin.com); editor Doug Young (dougyoung@caixin.com)
LINCOLN  When Nebraskas middle blockers have found themselves one on one against a defender of late, it seems more and more like it means good things for the Huskers.

So it was no surprise that NUs scheme Wednesday night against Iowa involved a heavy dose of Briana Holman and Amber Rolfzen, who obliged with 21 combined kills in the Huskers 25-14, 25-18, 26-24 win.

No. 1 Nebraska (23-1, 14-1) got its 11th straight victory in front of 8,262 at the Devaney Center by taking advantage of Holman and Rolfzens play above the net. Both players got plenty of chances at swings running behind setter Kelly Hunter to receive a type of set NU refers to as a dog that usually leaves them isolated against a single defender.

Even if you watch it against us, its kind of hard to stop dogs, said Rolfzen, who had nine kills on 14 error-free swings. Any set behind for a middle is hard to stop. You need a good connection with your setter, and that just keeps improving and improving.

Holman, who led the Huskers with 12 kills and hit .409, put away several of her chances behind Hunter, but also did much of her damage finishing off free balls and overdigs in a match between two teams that scrapped to keep the ball off the floor.

I feel like thats what the Big Ten is all about, Holman said. Every night you have to come out and compete.

The win was Nebraskas 14th straight sweep of Iowa (18-9, 8-7), but the Hawkeyes showed in Game 3 they wouldnt go quietly in a match that would have produced a resume boost for their NCAA tournament hopes.

The Hawkeyes jumped to an 11-7 lead in the third set and rallied to tie it at 22-22 after Nebraska had gone in front with a 5-0 run.

Iowa competed really hard tonight, Nebraska coach John Cook said. Theyre a good team. Thats why theyre in the middle of the pack of the Big Ten right now. Were going to have our hands full next week when we go there.

After Holman scored in transition to put NU up 23-22, Reghan Coyle, a Council Bluffs Lewis Central graduate, answered with a kill to tie it 23-23, and the Hawkeyes fought off NUs first match point two rallies later with the final kill of the night from freshman Meghan Buzzerio, who led Iowa with 10 kills.

But Buzzerio served into the net to put the Huskers up 25-24, and on the next rally NUs Andie Malloy found the floor with a kill to the deep corner.

I felt like we did enough to get it done tonight, Cook said, but we didnt play great volleyball.

Added Rolfzen: Everything was pretty well. It wasnt great the entire time, but everything we did was pretty well.

What the Huskers did do well was mostly stifle a Hawkeye team that entered the match ranking in the top 20 nationally in hitting percentage. Nebraska out-blocked Iowa 10-5 and held the Hawkeyes to .108 attacking, the eighth straight match NU has held its opponent to .179 or lower.

Kadie Rolfzen led the Huskers with 14 digs and tied her sister for a team high with five blocks.

Nebraska hit .284, mostly buoyed by its middles, who combined to hit .500. That lifted up some lukewarm numbers for outside hitters Malloy, Kadie Rolfzen and Mikaela Foecke, who were the victims of Iowas stingy floor defense led by libero Annika Olsens match-high 19 digs.

It left Cook with a checklist of areas in which hed like to see the Huskers improve during a Nov. 19 rematch in Iowa City and Saturdays match at Indiana, another NCAA tournament hopeful that would likely seal a bid with a win over the nations top-ranked team.

Theyre in NCAA mode right now, Cook said. Theyre in elimination games for them. But hopefully our team is on a mission to win the Big Ten, so there should be good battles. Were going to have to learn how to bring it every night.

Iowa (18-9, 8-7)......................14 18 24

At Nebraska (23-1, 14-1).........25 25 26

UI (Kills-Aces-Blocks): Buzzerio 10-0-2, Brobst 8-0-1, Coyle 5-0-1, Janota 4-0-3, Mariani 3-0-2, Keala 2-1-1

NU: Holman 12-0-4, A. Rolfzen 9-0-5, Foecke 8-0-2, K. Rolfzen 8-0-5, Hunter 6-0-2, Malloy 6-0-1, Wong-Orantes 0-2-0
Midlands agricultural leaders are optimistic that a Trump administration will boost their industries by backing off on environmental regulations they say stifle business.

But despite widespread support for Trump across the Farm Belt, agribusiness owners arent certain how his pledge to build a wall will affect the flow of immigrant labor essential to meatpacking and some farm operations.

And its just as uncertain how his plans to renegotiate trade agreements will affect exports of food and commodities like pork, beef, corn and soybeans.

Nebraskans said theyll work with  and hope to influence  Trump on the next farm bill, EPA initiatives, trade and more.

Donald Trump is our president and we need to make those relationships with him and with his staff, said Larry Mussack, a Decatur farmer who leads the Nebraska Corn Growers Association board. I havent found a blue or a red cornstalk out here yet.

Trump didnt speak frequently about ag issues, but at an event in Iowa in August he called family farms the backbone of the country. He pledged to end EPA intrusion, protect the renewable fuel standard that bolsters the ethanol industry, eliminate some water-use rules and lower taxes on family farms.

Mark Hesser, the president of ag lender Pinnacle Bancorp is optimistic for agricultures near future under a Trump presidency, based on the limited statements the president-elect made about ag on the campaign trail and on his stable of ag advisers. Pinnacle Bancorp is the parent organization of Lincoln-based Pinnacle Bank, the eighth-largest farm bank in the country with $1.6 billion of farm loans as of mid-2016.

At the top of those steering Trumps vision for U.S. agriculture is Falls City cattle feeder and agribusiness owner Charles Herbster. Former Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman also served on the incoming Republican presidents agricultural advisory committee, along with Nebraska Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson.

Hesser sees benefit for farmers in Trumps support for the ethanol-friendly Renewable Fuel Standard. Thats the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys mandate that requires a certain portion of renewable fuel to be blended into petroleum-based transportation fuel.

That could have some immediate impact on corn prices, Hesser said.

Trumps campaign promises to repeal regulations like the Waters of the United States rule would definitely be positive for farmers and ranchers in Nebraska and elsewhere, Hesser said. Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson has fought the regulations, saying they unconstitutionally extend federal authority into areas that have traditionally been the states responsibility.

The rules aim to protect streams and wetlands. Opponents say theyre federal overreach that would require permits for everyday farming activities. They have continued to fight the rules despite revisions that federal officials say would exempt agriculture.

The Waters of the United States rule is the one thing that probably gets our members most upset and worried, said Jessie Herrmann, director of legal and regulatory affairs for the Nebraska Cattlemen.

Herrmann said the states ranchers and cattle feeders want to see someone with an ag background at the EPA.

I dont want to say they dont respect ag, but they dont understand how we do business and how their regulations can hurt us, she said.

Its less clear how Trumps plans for trade would affect farmers and ranchers. Trump has pledged to upend trade deals and impose tariffs. Nebraska has an 18.2 percent share of total U.S. beef exports and half of the beef exports to Europe.

International trade is key to beef, Herrmann said. He said he hoped Nebraskans would be at the table when a Trump administration negotiates trade deals.

Gov. Pete Ricketts and other Nebraska ag leaders have pushed passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump and opponent Hillary Clinton both opposed.

As of last night, there is no longer any realistic chance that the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement will be ratified in the lame-duck session of Congress, said Dan Ikenson, a trade policy expert at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, which has supported the agreement.

That means it could become much more difficult for U.S. farmers to export into certain markets, he said: There is much greater scope for trade frictions, especially with China, to erupt into deleterious rounds of tit-for-tat protectionism.

The Nebraska Farm Bureau has been a strident supporter of the trade deal, and despite Trumps promise to withdraw from it, Nelson is also optimistic about the prospects for the incoming administration. At the same time, he and other TPP advocates realize that other participants will move forward with the trade pact with or without the U.S.

The part we know for sure is every day that goes by, we are losing market share to other countries, Nelson said.

A lack of a deal isnt good for the soybean industry, said Bill Shipley, a southwest Iowa farmer and president-elect of the Iowa Soybean Association.

We cant help but try to be very, very optimistic about the people hes surrounded himself with that are very knowledgeable about all aspects of agriculture, he said.

There is a potential light at the end of the trade tunnel, however.

The worldviews of presidents tend to be more outward, engaging and accommodating than the worldviews of presidential candidates, Ikenson said.

Speaking Wednesday from China, where he is on a trade mission with Nebraska ag manufacturers, Ricketts said he was encouraged to see Trump taking notes during a visit to Nebraska and hopes Nebraskans could hold sway in his administration.

He downplayed Trumps rhetoric on trade.

What he wants, though, is better trade deals, so for example, we can get the tariffs down even lower than they are today, which of course would benefit us, the governor said.

Thousands of Nebraska jobs depend on trade  100 of them at Deshler irrigation systems manufacturer Reinke Manufacturing, said company President Chris Roth, along with Ricketts on the trip.

Roth didnt comment on the election outcome but said, We firmly believe that exports are the future for our company.

Other Nebraska businesses export finished food products.

We support trade with our North American neighbors and hope that future administrations promote an atmosphere where we can share our great American products with consumers around the globe, said Shawn Bushouse, chief financial officer at J. Skinner Baking, an Omaha pastry maker with 650 employees that sells its products in Canada.

The incoming administration can greatly impact this landscape through the regulatory environment, economic policy and foreign policy approaches.

Trump has spoken even more vehemently on immigration, which is the biggest business issue for Columbus farm Daniels Produce.

Daniels relies on legal foreign workers to pick vegetables, manager Kelly Jackson said. Shes frustrated by lack of an immigration overhaul and said its not fair that her farm has to pay guest workers $13.80 an hour, while facing competition from cheap imports of Mexican produce like bell peppers.

Were just hopeful that with a new president there will be some sort of changes, because the last eight years have not gone in our favor.

She said she is worried about Trumps lack of experience and his ability to maintain a good relationship with other countries.

But overall, Im so excited about there being a change, she said. He surprised everybody last night, and I hope he surprises everybody in a positive way in the next four years.

It may seem counterintuitive that in Farm Country  often viewed as family-oriented, religious and socially conservative  that a candidate with Trumps personal history would find overwhelming support, said John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union.

But farmers are frustrated with what they see as dysfunction in Congress and lawmakers inability to tackle problems.

Trump did the best job of putting his finger on those sore spots, even though the solutions were less than clear, Hansen said. Now, he said, Were going to find out the particulars of what Trump is actually going to do.
Patricia Urbanovsky, the owner of Creative Creations, an Omaha event-planning company, could enter a plea related to state felony theft charges early next year.

On Wednesday, Douglas County Court Judge Leigh Ann Retelsdorf set a hearing for a plea for Jan. 3.

Douglas County prosecutors charged Urbanovsky with three felony theft charges in June 2015.

Authorities allege that she bilked three employees out of $141,000 in a scheme involving the sale of worthless travel vouchers, according to charging papers.

She faces up to 20 years in prison for each count if she is convicted. She has been out on bail on those charges since July 2015.

Urbanovsky had her employees use their personal credit cards in some cases to book travel for Creative Creations customers, according to charging documents.

The theft charges are separate from 16 federal counts of wire fraud to which Urbanovsky pleaded guilty in September as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

She changed her plea to guilty after having pleaded not guilty to nine counts of money laundering and 16 counts of wire fraud earlier in the year.

As part of the deal, federal prosecutors dropped the nine federal counts of money laundering.

U.S. Judge Joseph Bataillon accepted her guilty plea at the September hearing and scheduled a sentencing and restitution hearing for Dec. 19 and 20. The hearing is expected to take up to two days because of the large number of people and institutions that say they lost money.

The judge is expected to review the plea agreement before deciding whether to accept it, Jan Sharp, the chief criminal prosecutor of the U.S. Attorneys Office in Nebraska, has said.
LINCOLN  State officials have reached agreement with the largest state employees union to give midyear raises to some front-line prison workers.

Gov. Pete Ricketts administration proposed the raises at the end of August in a bid to reduce worker turnover within the embattled Department of Correctional Services.

A modified proposal has now been accepted by the Nebraska Association of Public Employees, which represents most of the agencys employees.

Attracting and retaining talented officers has been identified as a key priority, and this agreement will allow us to address those challenges head on immediately rather than waiting until the spring, the governor said.

The raises are slated to take effect Nov. 28. They range from 6 percent for corrections sergeants to 2.4 percent for a mental health practitioner 1. Corrections officers would get 4.5 percent raises.

Ryan McKay, the NAPE board chairman, said the agreement also calls for the creation of labor-management committees to address two employee concerns.

One will look at shift lengths for workers at the Tecumseh State Prison. The other will look at ways to retain female corrections workers at the womens prison in York.

Were willing to work with the state to try to fix it and make it better, McKay said.

The pay raises apply to starting wages for the workers affected. The governors proposal did not include any provision to reward workers for longevity.

Taylor Gage, the governors spokesman, has said that issue is being addressed as part of negotiations for the broader state employees contract.

The cost of the corrections increases for the seven months remaining in the state budget period will be $1,860,428, including benefits. The agency will manage the cost within its current budget.

In August, State Corrections Director Scott Frakes told a special legislative committee that turnover among staff who directly supervise inmates stood at 31 percent last year.

He pointed to pay issues as major factors in the turnover.

State corrections workers start at lower salaries than some county corrections officers. The state workers also get no salary increases for staying on the job, meaning that experienced workers get paid the same as newly hired ones.

As a stopgap measure, the department provided one-time $500 bonuses to employees who were in high-turnover positions and were hired before Jan. 1.

State employees generally got 2.4 percent pay increases in July, except for some small groups that got larger raises to make their pay competitive. Employees got 2.25 percent pay raises in each of the previous three years.

Along with corrections officers and sergeants, the agreement would boost pay for corrections unit caseworkers (5 percent), corrections corporals (5.4 percent), mental health practitioner IIs (4 percent), registered nurses (3.7 percent) and food service specialists (4.2 percent).
DES MOINES (AP)  Iowa Republicans have achieved their longtime goal of taking control of both the state House and Senate.

The GOP flipped several Senate seats Tuesday to erase a slim Democratic majority in the chamber that previously made Iowa one of a handful of states with a split-party legislature. Republicans maintained their House majority.

Its the first time in roughly 20 years that the GOP has control of both chambers and the Governors Office, a development thats expected to alter legislative priorities when state lawmakers return to the Capitol in January.

Gov. Terry Branstad said Wednesday hes already met with Republican leadership. He declined to reveal specifics on what he might prioritize, though he expressed general interest in tax reform. Heres a look at what could be ahead:

WATER QUALITY

Water quality funding gained serious attention last legislative session amid a lawsuit by Des Moines Water Works that blamed upstream counties for polluted drinking water. Branstad proposed to address the issue through use of an existing education fund, but that idea wasnt supported by House Republicans. GOP leaders ultimately pitched a plan that would find other existing state dollars.

Senate Democrats challenged both proposals, arguing one pitted K-12 education spending against water quality and the other did not provide long-term sustainable funding.

Branstad began floating around a revised proposal this summer. When asked in August if he had consulted Democratic leaders, he pointed out the possible November outcome.

ABORTION

House Republicans have repeatedly passed legislation in recent years that would restrict abortion in Iowa and cut its state funding. Democrats in the Senate blocked those efforts each time.

Republican Rep. Walt Rogers of Cedar Falls has sponsored legislation in the past that would ban abortion in Iowa after 20 weeks. He said another attempt at passing similar legislation is likely. He also predicted another go at removing state dollars that go toward Planned Parenthood. None of the Medicaid funding given to the Iowa affiliate of Planned Parenthood goes toward abortions.

Rogers said he expects party leaders to meet soon to discuss policy issues.

I think all those things that weve passed out of the House and have died in the Senate will be things that we want to talk about and potential legislation that we would want to push through, he said.

GUN LEGISLATION

Gun legislation received a spotlight during the 2015 legislative session after House Republicans voted in support of a measure that would expand gun access for a range of individuals, including minors who used handguns under the direct supervision of parents. The comprehensive bill failed to gain traction in the Senate that year, but the split Legislature ultimately passed components of the bill last legislative session by legalizing gun suppressors and allowing a person to carry a loaded firearm while operating or riding a snowmobile or all-terrain vehicle.

The Iowa Firearms Coalition helped push some of those successes in 2016, and they have more priorities. Coalition President Barry Snell said the group wants to ensure Second Amendment rights are spelled out in the Iowa Constitution. They also want to pass the measure regarding minors.

Snell said hes already engaged in early conversations with Republican lawmakers since Tuesday night. He said the calls he made were mostly congratulatory, but the conversation eventually turned to legislation.

EDUCATION FUNDING

K-12 education funding has caused friction between Democrats and Republicans in the chambers for years, even holding up adjournment in the past. Democrats have argued that Republicans have not provided enough funding for Iowa schools, while GOP leaders have said that more conservative spending on education is sufficient and ensures other growing needs in the state budget  like higher education  can be addressed.

Without hurdles in the Senate, Republican leaders could quickly approve funding this year. Branstad didnt reference education funding to reporters Wednesday, but he pointed out that state budget experts recently lowered Iowas revenue projections for the current fiscal year. He also noted lower commodity prices for farmers. He predicted a tight budgeting year that will include difficult decisions.

Im very hopeful because weve been frugal and careful that were going to able to get through this, he said.

MINIMUM WAGE

Its unclear what GOP majorities would mean for efforts to increase Iowas current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Branstad called for a single wage in October, after several counties increased the minimum hourly pay. He declined at the time to provide a specific proposal, and the Iowa Democratic Party questioned the governors sincerity.

Republican lawmakers have resisted a statewide wage increase in the past amid arguments over its effect on small businesses, but its possible that could change following Branstads comments. Its unclear if any proposal would match or go beyond $8.75, which Senate Democrats tried to pass in 2015. Some outside groups have lobbied for $15 an hour, but Branstad has questioned whether thats realistic.

Copyright 2016 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Two balky vote-counting machines and a heavy voter turnout slowed down Election Day vote counting in Douglas County, the countys election commissioner said.

Brian Kruse said the problems with the machines didnt affect the accuracy of his offices tally. But they did delay the counting and thus the reporting of numbers to the public through Tuesday night and into the wee hours of Wednesday.

The results of the vast majority of races were determined by midnight, but some werent known until after the Douglas County count was completed at 5:15 a.m. That was about two hours beyond when Kruse said he and Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale expected the county to complete counting votes.

I feel like we counted as efficiently as we could, and we went as fast as we could for accuracy, Kruse said. We did not want to compromise accuracy.

Two of the countys nine Election Systems & Software vote-counting machines with optical scanners werent operating at peak efficiency, Kruse said.

Sometimes the ballots were going through slower, but then sometimes the ballots would jam, Kruse said. So then, wed have to take the ballot out, you know theres functions on the machine, to clear that, and to make sure that the ballot gets counted properly. That takes time.

Its like trying to make copies on a copier that keeps jamming, said Valerie Stoj, public relations coordinator for the Election Commissioners Office.

It should take a few seconds but instead it takes 10 minutes, and youre ready to chew your fingernails off, she said.

The ballots werent damaged. They dont wind through rollers like paper in a copier does. Instead they slide across a flat surface, Kruse said. They just stopped partway through, and a worker had to lift the lid on the machine and get it going again.

The two machines problems actually surfaced Monday as workers were counting early ballots, Kruse said. State law allows election commissioners offices to count early ballots the day before the election, but they cant tabulate or report them until Tuesday night.

We had ES&S here Monday as well and they tweaked them, they worked on them, and (the machines) worked pretty darn efficiently on Monday, Kruse said. They thought they had the issue fixed.

But his office started counting Election Day ballots at 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, and the two machines were just not running up to par.

He said that first batch of ballots  those that voters cast between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. Tuesday  was also larger than expected. Kruse had hoped to have all the midday ballots counted by his first release of results, when the polls closed at 8 p.m.

With the two machines not running up to par, and the heavy midday delivery, we were not able to report all of those at 8 oclock, he said.

The office was still counting the midday ballots beyond its 8:45 p.m. release of the early voting numbers.

ES&S called in an additional tech support worker, Kruse said. They tried to tweak the machines to keep them going but had to shut them down to work on them. It took about an hour to make each machine work right. So one was down for an hour, and the other for two hours.

Kruse started taking longer between releases of ongoing vote tallies. Thats because they have to stop counting to release partial results, slowing the process further, he said.

We have to stop all the machines, Kruse said. Then we take them to another office because those machines are not connected to the Internet, and we have to load the information out to another computer, and then we push them out (to the public). Every time we stop, that takes time. So we decided to go every hour and a half.

At 3:15 a.m., Kruse said he figured only candidates and journalists were still awake and waiting for results.

Were just going to push through until we get done, he decided.

They finished at 5:15. and released the totals by 5:30, he said.

Kruse, who was appointed election commissioner in December, said he had not asked the Douglas County Board for more, or newer, vote-counting equipment this year. But he may in the future.

Thats one of the things that well be evaluating, Kruse said. The machines we have are about 10 years old. Think about a 10-year-old computer. ... They do a fine job, they use these machines all over the country; its just 10-year-old technology.

The good news, Kruse said, is that there wont be another presidential election for four years.

Weve got essentially three years, a couple budget cycles, to talk to (County Board members), to do some internal studies and look at options of what we want to do, he said.

Kruse said he plans to look at vote-counting times and equipment in jurisdictions of similar size to Douglas County. He noted that the Nebraska Legislature is studying the future of elections in the state. That might change what the county does, Kruse said.

Douglas County Board member Mike Boyle, a former election commissioner himself, said that what happened with the system Tuesday showed it works.

If the whole system goes down, we still have the paper ballots, Boyle said.

He said the board is pretty stingy with money, but would listen to a reasonable request from Kruse.

Of all the election commissioners Ive known, and that includes me, he is the best, Boyle said.

The Sarpy County Election Commissioners Office completed its count by about 11:30 p.m.

Asked why Sarpy could get done by then and Douglas couldnt, Kruse said it was a matter of volume. Douglas County voters cast almost 227,000 ballots. Just over 80,000 people voted in Sarpy County.

Sarpy Election Commissioner Wayne Bena said his office has three vote-counting machines  two it uses, and one backup. They worked fine Tuesday, he said.

In Douglas County, Kruse said hell look at getting the votes counted faster, although hes primarily interested in getting the count right.

We do like to report the results in a timely manner to the citizens, the voters of Douglas County, Kruse said. But our No. 1 priority is always, always accuracy. We never compromise accuracy for time. Never, never, never.
(Beijing)  Leading Chinese chip maker SMIC said Thursday that a recent purchase of more than 5% of its shares by Tsinghua Unigroup is a pure financial investment, following a string of failed or sputtering attempts at major acquisitions by Unigroup over the last two years.

Based in the prestigious Tsinghua University, China's leading sciences institution, Unigroup and several sister companies have embarked on a global buying spree over the last two years in a bid to build a homegrown giant making high-tech chips that power everything from cellphones to smart appliances.

But many of their largest attempts at overseas buying have collapsed or are sputtering due to opposition by local governments, which suspect the company is closely tied to Beijing and are reluctant to yield their own high-tech giants to Chinese control.

Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) said it recently learned that Unigroup had built up a stake in the company by purchasing shares on the open market. A separate stock exchange filing showed that Unigroup held 5.25% of SMIC's shares as of Nov. 1.

SMIC said its managers met with Tsinghua executives in Shanghai and, following those discussions, it understands that Unigroup "intends to hold the company's shares as a financial investor and does not intend to nominate any board member of the company."

"Tsinghua Unigroup's cumulative shareholding in the company will not change (SMIC's) corporate nature or its independent and international mode of operation," SMIC said, adding that the wording of its brief statement had been confirmed by Unigroup.

China is the world's largest consumer of semiconductor chips that form the brains of the many electronic gadgets and other devices manufactured in the country. But the big majority of those chips are imported, a situation that Beijing wants to change in a bid to move up the value chain to develop businesses with higher profit margins.

Unigroup has been one of the most aggressive to answer Beijing's chip call, saying last year that it had a war chest of 300 billion yuan ($44.26 billion) to spend on acquisitions. The company already has partnerships with leading U.S. chipmaker Intel and networking equipment maker HP Inc., though neither involves any equity ownership of the partner company.

Last year Unigroup entered discussions to buy leading U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc. for $23 billion, but the talks reportedly collapsed over Micron's concerns the deal would get vetoed by Washington. A separate deal that would have seen U.S. disk drive maker Western Digital Corp. sell 15% of itself to Unigroup sister company Unisplendour for $3.8 billion also collapsed earlier this year for similar reasons.

Unigroup has several pending major chip investments in Taiwan that are also hitting resistance due to opposition from the island's government.

Contact reporter Doug Young (dougyoung@caixin.com); editor Ken Howe (kennethhowe@caixin.com)
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a cordial beginning to the transfer of power, President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump met at the White House on Thursday.

Obama called the 90-minute meeting "excellent," and his successor said he looked forward to receiving the outgoing president's "counsel."

Afterward, Obama said to Trump, "We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds."

The two men, who have been harshly critical of each other for years, were meeting for the first time, Trump said. The Republican said he looked forward "to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel."

Obama blasted Trump throughout the campaign as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, falsely suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States.

But at least publicly, the two men appeared to put aside their animosity. As the meeting concluded and journalists scrambled out of the Oval Office, Obama smiled at his successor and explained the unfolding scene.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he'll wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

First lady Michelle Obama also meet privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Also on Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.

As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Obama and Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.

The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought."

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. He's pledged to repeal Obama's health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He's vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

It's unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He'll enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.
LINCOLN  Three opponents of the Dakota Access pipeline will plead not guilty to trespassing charges today, arguing that a climate emergency justified their actions.

Heather Pearson of Logan, Iowa; Emma Stewart of Rockwell City, Iowa; and Mahmud Fitil of Omaha were among eight protesters arrested Oct. 29 during a nonviolent protest near Rockwell City over the oil pipeline, which crosses Iowa.

The initial appearance of those arrested is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. today in Calhoun County, Iowa, Magistrate Court. One of the five others has already pleaded guilty. The remaining four will enter pleas at the hearing.

Ed Fallon, director of Bold Iowa, said in a press release that the trio are prepared to bring expert witnesses on climate change to justify their actions to halt the $3.8 billion pipeline, which would carry oil from North Dakota to a refinery in Illinois.

Fallon said the three will also argue that they had written permission from the landowner to protest on the property.
Two people were arrested and pepper balls were used to disperse remnants of an anti-Trump rally Wednesday night in the Old Market.

The rally had started about 6:15 p.m. in the Gene Leahy Mall across from the downtown library, but shifted to the heart of the Old Market. As the evening progressed, protesters blocked the intersection at 11th and Howard Streets, and that is when police shot pepper balls at their feet, striking some. The balls dispense a stinging gas. The two arrests were on suspicion of obstructing and unlawful assembly, said Officer Phil Anson, a police spokesman.

Police considered the downtown demonstration lawful, but when, about 10 p.m., people sat and lay in the street, "that's when it became a problem," Anson said.

Brett Masterson said he thinks the police use of pepper balls went too far.

"It was a peaceful protest, all we were armed with were signs," the 29-year-old Omahan said.

After the crowd moved out of the intersection, about 40 people remained in downtown, walking and chanting late into the night.

Early in the evening, the main part of the rally drew about 250, mostly young people, many women and a smattering of children.

Chants by the crowd included "Not my president," "Dump Trump," and "Hey hey, ho ho. Donald Trump has got to go."

Supportive drivers honked to the cheers of the crowd.

Among those at the rally was Sara Zaleski, who said Wednesday felt like a day of mourning.

About 18 hours after Donald Trump won the presidency, she was sitting on steps in the Leahy Mall, finishing a handmade sign that she would hold in the demonstration. She said she was girding for the years ahead, what the 18-year-old Omaha woman considers the worst-case scenario.

"This hurts like hell," she said.

Abigail Dawdy was drawn to the rally after feeling frightened and at a loss.

The 27-year-old Omahan fears the country will slip into fascism if Trump follows through on his campaign promises to restrict a free press, prevent Muslims from entering the U.S. and otherwise reduce human rights. That he has named a leading climate change skeptic, Myron Ebell, to handle the environmental policies transition feeds her worst fears, she said.

"This was what I needed, the energy was good," said Dawdy, who left the rally early in the evening with two friends.

In west Omaha, at 144th and Harrison Streets, about a dozen young people gathered and held up signs heralding love as an antidote to the anxiety some people feel following the election.

Eighteen-year-old Logan Miller of Omaha organized the love rally. Miller said Trumps victory has been upsetting. He said he took comfort Wednesday from an online video urging people not to be afraid.

"A lot of people are scared," Miller said. "We did this to help people feel not so scared."

Miller found himself frightened. It didnt seem that the new executives followers liked people like him: African American and gay.

"I was handling it in a bad way," he said. "I was cutting off all Trump supporters" in his life.

But then he decided he would do something positive with his fear. Telling strangers he loved them would be more constructive than wallowing at home. And the response was mostly positive. Passers-by offered water and granola bars, he said, and honked.

"Spreading love was what I felt, optimally, to be most effective today," he said.

World-Herald staff writer Nancy Gaarder contributed to this report.

* * * * *

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Abigail Dawdy's last name.
Its a strange election year when a Republican in Omaha worries aloud that Donald Trump might start a trade war, while a Democrat expresses admiration for the GOP president-elects political acumen.

Trumps electoral sweep produced a range of emotions and commentary Wednesday in Nebraska, with several Republicans saying that they hope Trump surrounds himself with good people and that he assumes a more presidential demeanor and temperament.

Several also said they had high hopes that the New York real estate developer will be able to create jobs and fire up the nations economy.

I do think there are promises that Donald Trump made that are not realistic to fill ... but Im hopeful hes going to turn our economy around, create jobs and repeal and/or reform Obamacare, said Aimee Melton, a Republican who is an Omaha City Council member.

Democrat Paul Landow of Omaha praised Trump for having his finger on the pulse of working-class Americans, saying he tapped into resentment that both parties had ignored.

I think Trump proved to be basically an unstoppable juggernaut. These elections are always candidate-driven, and Trump turned out to be a great candidate, said Landow, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton for the presidency Tuesday, winning majority support from voters in Iowa and Nebraska, including the Omaha-based 2nd District. His win was formally announced in the wee hours of Wednesday, after many people had gone to bed.

When they awoke, Trumps victory moved to the forefront of conversation, including discussion about what can be expected from a Trump administration. Will he fulfill his promise to build a wall on the Mexican border and force the Mexicans to pay? And will he attempt to round up every illegal immigrant and deport them to their native countries?

Omaha lawyer David Kramer, a Republican, said that he expects Trump to begin the process of building a wall but that it wont happen immediately.

Kramer also said he hopes Trump will focus during his early days in office on repealing President Barack Obamas controversial health care law and nominating a conservative judge to the Supreme Court.

I think Republicans are going to find out that governing is much more difficult than campaigning. There will be a significant amount of pressure on us as a party ... to deliver on the promises made, said Kramer, the former chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party.

Landow said he doesnt believe Trump can build a wall or deport every illegal immigrant.

One Republican, former State Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh of Omaha, admitted to being a little surprised by Trumps victory. He said he voted for Trump, but said the combative GOP candidate was not his first, second or third choice.

Lautenbaugh said he hopes Trump sticks with a more presidential demeanor and that he takes guidance from vice president-elect Mike Pence on such things as trade deals.

Lautenbaugh said he is worried Trump could start a trade war.

Hes probably going to have to do something on trade, said Lautenbaugh, but if they throw up tariffs, we throw up tariffs, all of a sudden our farmers are hurting.

Ernie Goss, an economics professor at Creighton University, said he expected Trump to fulfill his promise to reduce corporate taxes. But he is also worried about the threats that Trump has made on the campaign trail about trade tariffs.

Nebraska and this part of the country, including Iowa, depends heavily on trade. I hope when he was saying things about trade and tariffs, he was just winking, Goss said.
WASHINGTON (AP)  In a cordial beginning the transfer of power, President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump met at the White House Thursday. Obama called the 90-minute meeting "excellent," and his successor said he looked forward to receiving the outgoing president's "counsel."

Afterward, Obama said to Trump, "We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds."

The two men, who have been harshly critical of each other for years, were meeting for the first time, Trump said. The Republican said he looked forward "to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel."

Obama blasted Trump throughout the campaign as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, falsely suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States.

But at least publicly, the two men appeared to put aside their animosity. As the meeting concluded and journalists scrambled out of the Oval Office, Obama smiled at his successor and explained the unfolding scene.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he'll wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

First lady Michelle Obama also meet privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Also on Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.

As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Obama and Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.

The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought."

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama  one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. He's pledged to repeal Obama's health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He's vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

It's unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He'll enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.
(Tianjin)  The head of a Chinese logistic company received a suspended death sentence on Wednesday for his involvement in a massive explosion at a chemical warehouse in Tianjin last year, which left 165 people dead and eight missing.

Yu Xuewei, chairman of Tianjin Dongjiang Port Rui Hai International Logistics Co., Ltd, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for his role in the accident.

He was found guilty of bribing government officials, obtaining certificates by illegal methods to store hazardous chemicals at Tianjin port, and providing fake environmental assessment papers, said the Tianjin High Court. This sentence is generally commuted to life imprisonment according to Chinese law.

Yu had been the deputy manager of the Tianjin branch of China's state-run Sinochem Group, according to an earlier Xinhua report.

The Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People's Court and other local courts handed 49 suspects prison terms ranging from one year to life depending on their role in the accident. Yu's deputy and senior managers received prison sentences from 15 years to life.

The high court said officials at Tianjin's transport, port, customs, workplace safety supervision and maritime departments showed serious dereliction of duty in their jobs, with some taking bribes and issuing unlawful permits, which led to the disaster on August 12, 2015.

A total of 25 local government officials, including the head of Tianjin Municipal Transportation Commission Wu Dai, received three to seven years in prison for dereliction of duty, taking bribes and abuse of power.

It is rare for directors of government agencies to receive such severe sentences over industrial accidents, a renowned law expert Zhao Bingzhi told the official Xinhua News Agency. "This should sound a warning to other directors," he added.

In addition, 11 employees of a company that faked the assessment papers Rui Hai needed to maintain its certificates, were sentenced to up to four years in prison.

The devastating accident occurred on August 12, 2015, when two huge blasts erupted from a shipment of explosives in the Tianjin port hub. It destroyed 304 buildings, 12,428 cars and 7,533 containers, incurring economic losses of nearly 7 billion yuan ($1 billion), and also contaminated air, water and soil in the surrounding areas.

Contact reporter Song Shiqing (shiqingsong@caixin.com); editor Kerry Nelson (kerry@caixin.com)
The record number of Nebraskans who cast ballots in Tuesdays election will likely land somewhere near the voter turnout percentages seen in the previous two presidential elections.

More than two-thirds  68.6 percent, or more than 831,000  of registered voters cast ballots, according to unofficial results. Statewide turnout for the Barack Obama-John McCain election was a record 70 percent in 2008. It was 69 percent for the Obama-Mitt Romney race four years later.

Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale said he was hopeful that the counting of thousands of provisional and early-voting ballots in county courthouses across the state in coming days would push the turnout percentage ahead of the 2012 total.

We added 75,000 voters to the rolls in the last year and a half (and now) its tough to move the turnout percentage very high, he said.

A record 1,210,000 people are registered to vote in Nebraska.

Gale said strong early-voting trends and the high number of registered voters created optimism in his office at one time that 850,000 to 860,000 Nebraskans would vote in this weeks election. That would have represented roughly a 72 percent turnout.

Were always hopeful, Gale said. We try to be the cheerleaders for democracy.

In the Omaha-dominated 2nd Congressional District, the unofficial total number of votes cast in the presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump topped 269,000. That compares with more than 277,800 in 2008 and nearly 267,000.

Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse said he expects to add about 10,000 more votes to this years total after provisional and mail ballots that arrived Tuesday are counted. There are an estimated 11,000 to 12,000 such ballots to count, he said.

There are a record 349,816 registered voters in Douglas County.

Katie Weitz, coordinator of Warren Buffetts Drive 2 Vote campaign, said organizers were working to determine how many voters were taken to the polls.

Weitz said she was thrilled with the volunteer turnout and touched that Metro Area Transit offered free bus service on Election Day. Organizers heard from many people who rode the bus, she said.

Buffett, who rode Ollie the Trolley, took 13 voters to the polls, she said.

Gale said his office doesnt keep records on turnout by demographic groups but that 89 of the states 93 counties topped 60 percent voter participation.

That crosses all demographics: age, gender, occupation, rural, urban, he said. Thats a very encouraging sign. Thats really good news.

Kruse had predicted a 70 percent voter turnout in Douglas County. Before provisional ballots are added, nearly 227,000 voters cast ballots in the county, or about 64.8 percent of those registered.

That was about 20,000 more county voters than in 2008, but because of the increase in registered voters over the past eight years, the share of voters who participated did not match the 72.6 percent level of eight years ago.

Sarpy County Election Commissioner Wayne Bena predicted a 73 percent turnout. Vote totals released Wednesday show 73.4 percent of the countys registered voters, or more than 80,000 people, cast ballots.

Lancaster County recorded nearly 71.5 percent turnout.

Five lightly populated rural counties  Arthur, Blaine, Grant, Keya Paha and Logan  each topped 80 percent turnout. Thurston County recorded the lowest turnout among the 93 counties at 41.3 percent. Other counties with lower-than-average turnout included Dakota at 57.8 percent, Kimball at 55.9 percent and Scotts Bluff at 58.9 percent.

World-Herald staff writers Dan Golden and Jeffrey Robb contributed to this report.

* * * * *
LINCOLN  The governor hopes to resuscitate Nebraskas moribund death penalty now that 60 percent of voters have said they want state-sanctioned executions to resume.

Gov. Pete Ricketts said Wednesday that he plans to work with Attorney General Doug Peterson to identify a path to execute the 10 men on Nebraskas death row. Prison officials lack two of three required lethal injection drugs, but Ricketts halted pursuit of the drugs about a year ago pending the results of Tuesdays referendum vote.

Now that we have the will of the people on this subject, I will be working with the attorney general to get the substances to carry out the sentences, Ricketts said during a press call from China, where he is on an agriculture-related trade mission.

Given the difficulty in obtaining one of the drugs, officials may have to change the lethal injection protocol to use a different execution drug or combination of drugs. Such a protocol change would require public hearings but could be accomplished over the course of several months without approval by lawmakers.

But that doesnt mean a Nebraska inmate will be put to death anytime soon.

The sponsor of the Nebraska Legislatures 2015 repeal of capital punishment sounded undefeated Wednesday as he promised to introduce a new measure abolishing the death penalty in January. State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha also said hes contemplating a legal challenge of Tuesdays outcome, although he declined to offer details.

This governor will be out of office before they come close to being able to carry out an execution, Chambers predicted. Ricketts is nearing the end of his second year as the states top executive.

The Legislature repealed the death penalty last year over the governors veto. Death penalty supporters quickly rallied around a petition drive to put the repeal up for a public vote on Tuesday, when 61 percent of 792,000 voters chose to reinstate capital punishment.

Ricketts spent $300,000 of his personal money on the pro-death penalty campaign. Based on his discussions with voters across Nebraska, Ricketts said he was not surprised by Tuesdays margin of victory.

Now the Ricketts administration will try to do what has never been done before in Nebraska: execute a condemned killer via lethal injection.

The method was adopted in 2009, a year after the Nebraska Supreme Court struck down the electric chair as cruel and unusual punishment. The state last executed a death row inmate in 1997.

The major roadblock to lethal injection in Nebraska has been obtaining the three drugs called for in the protocol: sodium thiopental, which puts the inmate to sleep; pancuronium bromide, which stops breathing; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

Last year, the administration paid for fresh supplies of the first two drugs from a broker in India, but the drugs have not been received. Thats due largely to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banning importation of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic no longer licensed for use in the United States.

The broker has since refused the states request for a refund of the $54,400 paid for the drugs. State Auditor Charlie Janssen is investigating the failed purchase at Chambers request.

The attorney general said Wednesday that his office will advise the governor and the Department of Correctional Services on how to proceed with executions in a constitutional manner. Peterson added that changing the protocol would probably be the best way forward.

Several states, including Oklahoma, have three-drug lethal injection protocols using different drugs that have passed the scrutiny of the courts, Peterson said. In past statements, the governor has mentioned Missouri, which executes death row inmates with a single drug called pentobarbital, the same substance used to euthanize animals.

But major pharmaceutical companies, including the one that makes pentobarbital, dont want their drugs used in executions. So Missouri obtains its drug from an independent compounding pharmacy and it has a law that shields the identity of the pharmacy.

Peterson said Wednesday that its too early to say whether Nebraska should pass such a secrecy law, which suppliers say they need to avoid harassment by death penalty foes. He also declined to estimate how soon the states death penalty could return to viability.

Of the 10 men on death row at the Tecumseh State Prison, two have pretty much exhausted their appeals.

J. Kirk Brown, a former attorney general who routinely argued death penalty cases for the state, said he thinks a change in protocol makes the most sense. And he personally would favor a law blocking the identity of drug suppliers.

Its far from an insurmountable undertaking, Brown said.

But death penalty opponents say no matter what protocol the state adopts, it will be just a matter of time before new roadblocks appear. Eric Berger, a University of Nebraska law professor, also said using a compounding pharmacy would almost certainly trigger legal challenges by inmates concerned about the purity and effectiveness of custom-made drugs.

I still think the state is likely to run into obstacles that, at the very least, could delay execution, he said. Or at the most, make it impossible to carry out a death sentence in the future.
Currency exchange- Post offices struggle to cope up

Bengaluru

oi-Anusha

Citizens made a beeline outside banks and post offices on Thursday as currency exchange began. While many post offices started cash transactions including exchange of new notes with old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, many post offices weren't ready for the exchange.

[Also Read: Currency ban: Over 3,400 paramilitary, police personnel for bank security ]

"We are yet to get stocks for exchange from the treasury. We probably will start exchange of notes only from tomorrow. For now we are accepting cash deposits by customers who hold accounts with us", said a staff from a South Bengaluru post office.

Customers waiting in long lines had to return empty handed as post offices refused to exchange notes citing lack of stocks. "I was hoping to exchange Rs 500 notes with the new notes but I was asked to come back either tomorrow or in the post-lunch session. There is confusion and the common man is bearing the brunt. One can only hope that ATMs will be of some respite", said Anand, a customer who had to return empty-handed from a post office. In many other places, people thronged post offices more than banks since the cap at post offices were pegged at Rs 4000/person as against at banks with Rs 2000/person.

In Mysuru, tourists including foreigners waited in line at post offices to exchange currency notes. Sudden move by the government towards demonetizing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes had caused massive inconvenience to people in tourist spots. Police were deployed outside post offices to bring the crowds under control and ensure smooth transactions.

OneIndia News
Kodagu shuts down over Tipu Jayanthi, protests across State

Bengaluru

oi-Anusha

Protests were witnessed in Mysuru, Bengaluru, Hubli and Kodagu over Tipu Jayanthi celebrations by the Congress Government. Right wing organisations had given a call for Kodagu Bandh on Thursday which has been complete.

[Also Read: Tipu Jayanthi: BJP to observe Nov 10 as black day]

BJP's State President B S Yeddyurappa led the protests in Bengaluru as hundreds of BJP, RSS and Sangh parivar workers gathered at Town Hall sloganeering against Tipu Sultan and condemning the government for celebrating him. Protestors sported black bands as mark of opposition.

Mysuru-Kodagu MP and BJP leader Pratap Simha led the protests in Mysuru with a sit-in protest outside the DC's office. The protesters were soon detained by the police citing preventive measures.

Shops and establishments downed shutters today while bus services to Virajpet of Kodagu was stopped. Protesters chopped down trees overnight blocking roads in various localities of Kodagu. BJP leaders were detained by Kodagu police as preventive measure. "We have taken MLAs Appachu Ranjan and K G Bopaiah and MLC Subramani into preventive custody. Action being taken under rule 71 Karnataka Police Act", said P Rajendraprasad, SP, Kodagu.

Protests were also held in Hubli, Kolar and other districts. The BJP had declared to observe Tipu Jayanthi as Black Day and had called for all district units to protest with black flags.

The government, however, went ahead with Tipu Jayanthi celebrations with the Chief Minister presiding over an event celebrating Tipu in Vidhana Soudha. Some Congress leaders addressing the media help up pictures of B S Yeddyurappa being falicitated at a Tipu Jayanthi festival previously.

[Also Read: Tipu Jayanthi- Karnataka asks for additional central forces]

The government had taken eleborate security measures anticipating chaos over Tipu Jayanthi celebrations. Apart from State police force, 7 companies of RAF has been deployed. 1 unit of Kerala police has been deployed in Dakshin Kannada after last year's incidents of violence. CCTV cameras have been installed at sensitive locations and additional check posts have been set up as part of security enhancement measures.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 12:26 [IST]
Decoding the uncanny similarities in the Modi-Trump victories

Feature

oi-Oneindia

By Smita Mishra

Unlike many others, I didn't need any effort to 'digest' the newsbreak that Donald J Trump had been elected to the most powerful office in the world. I had a feeling few weeks ago that Americans had made up their mind but were not quite saying it for reasons best known to them. The biggest give-away was news reports saying there was a one percent gap with Hillary Clinton almost immediately following reports that the gap was nearly 99 percent. No country's voters can swing like that, whatever the electoral college or the system of voting may be.

Drawing parallels:

So while I did not feel any surprise at the results, I did get a very strong sense of deja vu when I saw the reactions in the US channels and news websites. The crestfallen faces and the dismissive analyses reminded me of the commentaries I had heard on May 16, 2014 on more than one channel. In fact, a fellow panelist on a channel I participated that day had gone to the extent of declaring that 'Modi had rigged the elections' through his PR machinery.

It is difficult not to draw parallels between the election campaigns and subsequent victory of the two leaders even if the Indian and American political scenarios are literally poles apart. Let me begin at the beginning.

When back channels were on in the BJP leadership to declare Narendra Modi as the leader and the prime ministerial candidate of the party for 2014, there were dozens of stories and articles on how the other BJP leaders would never accept Modi. The American media was equally sure that Trump would never win the candidature for president as the Republicans would not accept him as their own. Well he did win even though a large section of Republicans dissociated.

A look at the campaigns of the two leaders also throws up uncanny similarities vis-a-vis the media. Most editorials and commentaries in the US media declared Trump as the 'agent of hate.' This 'agent of hate' now stands elected with 58 percent votes of Americans. They declared, even before the voting, how Americans could never elect such a character even though they were cheering his dramatic campaign. Much like the Indian commentators who kept repeating ad nauseum that 'India is not Gujarat' and 'Delhi is Delhi'. No wonder then that Modi made his 'outsider' status a badge of honour when he stormed Delhi from Gandhinagar. And no small co-incidence that the US too elected a rank outsider in Trump. Except that unlike Modi Trump was an outsider even to the world of politics. Another clear difference is while only two out of the top hundred dailies in the US backed Trump, Indian electronic channels and many papers had started acknowledging the fact that Modi was ahead of his rivals during the campaign. Some of course stuck to the 'India cannot accept Modi' line till the end. Their refusal to give credit where it was due continued even post-elections.

Many similarities in the campaigns:

The similarities are many. But it is much more relevant to understand why some of the most experienced, seasoned and sharp journalists failed to gauge the public mood and how. It applies to both our Indian and American friends. One thing is now abundantly clear that if these journalists, media personnel, editors and commentators (with decades of experience) went horribly wrong it was because they were perhaps foisting their 'wishful thinking' rather than dispassionately reading the public mood. Be it India's General Election 2014 or US Presidential Election 2016, the political ideas, likes and (in this case) dislike found greater reflection in writings and commentaries rather than the people's sentiment. In India's case, the editors and chiefs of news teams often forced their spot reporters to change or tweak their stories to suit their viewpoint. The editors who were groomed in a certain political environment and culture are nothing but 'status quoists' who would wish to carry on the old, cosy set-up even as the world is changing into a different place which they either fail to see or refuse to accept or both.

However, the story doesn't end here. Just as a section of Indian media refuses to acknowledge the good work and initiatives of Narendra Modi even today Trump may have to face the antagonism of a hostile media for a long time to come. Like Modi he could also surge ahead despite all of it. Who knows??

(Smita Mishra, is an advisor at Prasar Bharati)
Digital Rupee in India: What is blockchain technology and how does it work?

Currency ban - SC refuses early hearing

India

oi-Vicky

The Supreme Court will will hear a plea challenging the ban on Rs 500 and 1,000 notes on November 15. The petitioner's request for an early hearing on the matter was turned down by the Supreme Court.

[Also Read: Currency exchange - Confusion hits both customers and bank staff]

The Bench headed by Justice Anil Dave instructed the petitioner to get the petition numbered by the administration of the Supreme Court. Further the Bench directed that the matter be listed for November 15.

Meanwhile the centre filed a caveat seeking to be heard in the matter. A caveat is filed in a case so that an interim order is not passed without hearing the other party.

On Wednesday an advocate moved the court challenging the ban on Rs 500 and 1,000 notes. The PIL, filed by Sangam Lal Pandey termed the government's action as arbitrary.

[Also Read: Rs 500, 2,000 - All you need to know about the new high security note]

The petitioner also said that this decision has caused huge inconvenience to the public. The petitioner will mention the matter for urgent listing on Thursday. A similar petition has been filed in the Bombay High court as well.

On Tuesday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the government is scrapping with immediate effect the existing currency denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 to combat black money, corruption and terror-financing.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 12:47 [IST]
Currency ban: This man convinced the PM in flat 9 minutes

India

oi-Vicky

Demonitising the Rs 500 and 1,000 notes was not an easy decision at all. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement on Tuesday in his address to the nation and this took everyone by surprise. Although it has caused a great deal of invconvinience to the people, in the long run this move is expected to clean the country of black money and fake currency.

[Also Read: India gears up for exchange of currency notes]

Who advised the PM and the Finance Minister to take such a decision. Anil Bokil, a Pune based think-tank made this suggestion. He suggested several measures and steps that could be taken to rid the nation of the menace that is black money and fake currency.

The PM, FM, RBI governor and financial advisor had decided six months back that serious measures should be taken in this regard. Two months back the decision was made. Prior to that Bokil had met with the Prime Minister and given 9 minutes to make his case. In the nine minute presentation, here is what he said:

Ban notes of Rs 500, 1,000 and even 100

All transactions must take place through banks with the help of cheques, demand draft and online

Single baking system for revenue collection

Except import duty, stop collection of money under 56 different taxes

He justified his suggestions by saying that the country's 78 per cent population spends only Rs 20 a day. Hence they do not require big currency notes. He also said that in India an average transaction of Rs 2.7 lakh crore is seen daily which accounts a to Rs 800 lakh crore per year. However only 20 per cent transactions out of this takes place through banks. The rest all takes place through cash which cannot be traced.

The PM was impressed and the ban was set in motion.

OneIndia News
(Beijing)  Rural migrant parents who have left their children behind for extended periods could face criminal charges over their failure to provide adequate care, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Wednesday.

The ministry announced a joint clampdown  along with police, judicial departments and the Ministry of Education  that targets rural parents who have virtually abandoned their children after leaving to find work in urban areas.

Parents who fail to provide their children with proper parental care for periods of six months and longer could lose their custodial rights at the request of their relatives, village officials or civil-affairs authorities overseeing child welfare.

Statistics from the ministry show that more than 9 million "left-behind" children either have both parents absent or one parent who was not capable of taking care of them.

About 670,000 of these children have been left to care for themselves although the majority of them are only 6 to 13 years old, the ministry said.

City-bound rural workers are often forced to leave their children behind as migrant families face barriers in accessing public services such as schools in the cities they reside and work in. Some low-paid workers in cities who are estranged from their spouses have provided little in the way of care and have not seen their children for years.

The plight of left-behind children was underscored by a tragic incident in Bijie in the southwestern province of Guizhou, where four siblings  one boy and three girls aged 5 to 13  who had been left behind by their father and his estranged wife committed suicide on June 9, 2015.

Authorities later removed two township officials and disciplined several others for their negligence in connection with the children's suicides.

The Civil Affairs Ministry said that local authorities overseeing child welfare are required to come up with an action plan for child protection by the end of the year. Over the first nine months of next year, they must develop their own mechanism that enables care workers to spot vulnerable children in rural areas and migrant parents who have failed to support their children.

Before the end of 2017, regional authorities must put in place the necessary funding and human resources to develop a long-term child protection system.

Over 8.3 million rural children left behind by their parents are cared for by their grandparents or other close relatives, and 320,000 of them have not received adequate care and have dropped out of school, the ministry said.

Care workers with more resources can certainly provide better care of the left-behind children, said Du Shuang, the head of Growing Home, a Beijing-based non-governmental organization that advocates for the rights of left-behind children.

Children are better off when their parents bring them along when they come to work in urban areas, as they can receive better support and easier access to schools, Du said during a previous interview with Caixin.

Contact reporter Li Rongde (rongdeli@caixin.com); editor Calum Gordon (calum@caixin.com)
President Donald Trump: Dalai Lama congratulates US President-elect

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Dharamsala, Nov 10: Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama has congratulated America's President-elect Donald Trump, saying the world places great hope in the democratic vision and leadership of the US.

In a congratulatory letter sent to Trump on Wednesday, he said the Tibetan people and himself were honoured with the support received by respective US Presidents and fellow Americans in the Tibetan people's endeavour to protect and preserve ancient Buddhist culture.

He wished him prayers and good wishes for every success in the many challenges that lay ahead.

In a separate message, Tibetan Prime Minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay also congratulated Trump on his election victory.

"I am grateful for the people and government of the US for hosting the Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama, at the White House on many occasions," he said.

Sangay added that the Tibetan people are immensely grateful to the US for applauding and supporting amiddle-way' approach and encouraging dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Chinese authorities to lower tensions and resolve our differences.

The Dalai Lama has lived in India since fleeing his homeland in 1959. The Tibetan exile administration is based here.

IANS


Dawood gang speaks of faking the Rs 100 note now

India

oi-Vicky

Is the Dawood Ibrahim syndicate now looking to fake the Rs 100 note? With the ban being announced on the Rs 500 and 1,000 note, his industry has taken a major hit and Intelligence Bureau officials estimate the loss at Rs 5,000 crore.

[Also Read: Currency exchange - Confusion hits both customers and bank staff]

Latest on the chatter picked up by the Intelligence Bureau is members of the D gang discussing the ban and also on how to get their business running. The men were heard even discussing ways to go about faking the Rs 100 note which is still in circulation.

Intelligence Bureau officials say that there is every possibility of fake Rs 100 notes coming into the market. However the business is not likely to flourish for long as the margins will be extremely low. Earlier the margins were higher. Moreover the cost of producing a Rs 500, Rs 1,000 or 100 note is the same. Hence it may not be a flourishing business and over a period of time, the gang is likely to drop the idea, the officer also notes.

[Also Read: Rs 500, 2,000 - All you need to know about the new high security note]

For four fake currency notes, the gang would get one original one. The business would work on a 4:1 ratio. When the Rs 1,000 note was faked by the D Gang, their business began to thrive. Moreover they had replicated it to perfection and it had become hard to tell the real from the fake.

OneIndia News
How the taxman is watching as you deposit cash in banks today

India

oi-Vicky

New Delhi, Nov 10: As banks start accepting huge wads of cash, there is the tax man watching all deposits. Those deposited above Rs 10 lakh in cash will be under scrutiny as always. However the monitoring of any deposit above Rs 2.5 lakh is particularly high today.

Today scores of people made a dash to the banks to exchange their old Rs 500 and 1,000 notes which were declared illegal tender on Tuesday.

Bank officials say that they would monitor closely all deposits above Rs 2.5 lakh. However if there is a mismatch in the declared income and the deposit, then 90 per cent of the money will go to the taxman as penalty.

Is Modi's next surgical strike on bank lockers?

If the taxman has a question then those who have a valid explaination about the money will not have to worry. Only those who are depositing huge amounts of cash which are not in sync with previous deposits have everything to worry about.

The banks would share all data of deposits with the taxmen. This would help the government detect irregular banking operations. It may be recalled that the government has repeatedly told banks and the IT department to keep a close tab on all deposits of Rs 2 lakh cash and above.

OneIndia news

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Story first published: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 16:21 [IST]
Who is Yasin Malik? The Kashmiri separatist sentenced to life in terror funding case

Should Kashmir be given to Pakistan: Row erupts after this question appears in MP civil service exam

From hijab to Kashmir, Zawahiri was Al-Qaeda's voice for everything anti-India

It is Jammu vs Kashmir: Yashwant Sinha report to PM

News

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

New Delhi, Nov 10 Former Union Minister, Yashwant Sinha in his report has said that Kashmiris feel that they are not heard.

Their issue is being seen as Hindu vs Muslim says the 6 page report submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister, Rajnath Singh.

Sinha led a delegation to Jammu and Kashmir between October 25 and 27. During the visit, Sinha and his team met with locals, stake holders among others to discuss the problems faced by them.

Kashmir has been on the boil since July 9, a day after Burhan Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen commander was killed in an encounter.

Sinha states in his report that the people are distressed by use of excessive force. They pointed out that the use of pellet guns has particularly hurt them. They further point out that such force has not been used anywhere else in the country.

Further the people have pointed out that the Kashmir issue being seen as Hindu vs Muslim. They also said that the administration appears to be divided between Jammu vs Kashmir.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 8:45 [IST]
UK PM Liz Truss resigns after 45 days in office, successor to be elected next week

Iraq gets a new government after a year of deadlock

Narendra Modi leaves for Japan

News

oi-Lisa

By Lisa

New Delhi, Nov 10 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday left for Japan to participate in the annual bilateral summit in Tokyo.

An eastward sojourn begins, this time for the Annual Summit with Japan. PM @narendramodi departs for Tokyo pic.twitter.com/qSIAmpRAMV  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) November 10, 2016

"The high-speed railway cooperation between India and Japan is a shining example of the strength of our cooperation," he said.

"It will not only boost our trade and investment ties, but will also create skilled jobs in India, improve our infrastructure and give a boost to our 'Make in India' mission."

During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India last year, the east Asian economic superpower committed itself to a high-speed railway line between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

"On November 12, Prime Minister Abe and I will travel to Kobe on the famed Shinkansen - the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed railway.

"Both of us will also visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where the high speed railway is manufactured," Modi said.

Stating that the India-Japan partnership was characterised as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership, Modi said that the two countries "see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order".

"Today, Japan is one of the top investors in India. But many Japanese companies, which are household names in India, have been committed to the potential of Indian economy for several decades," he said.

The Prime Minuster said that in Tokyo he would have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan to look for ways to further strengthen trade and investment ties.

Modi will call on Japanese Emperor Akihito and review the entire spectrum of the bilateral cooperation with Prime Minister Abe in Tokyo on November 11.

This will be Modi's second visit to Japan as Prime Minister.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 9:57 [IST]
Africa hit worst by extreme weather in 2015

International

oi-PTI

Marrakesh, Nov 8 Four of the 10 countries hammered hardest in 2015 by climate-boosted extreme weather are in Africa, according to a report released today at UN climate talks in Marrakesh.

"Africa is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change," said Sonke Kreft, lead author of the Global Climate Risk Index 2017 report, issued annually by risk analysts Germanwatch.

Poor countries in general are more exposed to the ravages of superstorms, drought, heatwaves and flooding, all of which have become more intense and frequent due to human-induced global warming.

"The distribution of climatic events is not fair," Kreft said, noting that the world's least developed countries have emitted only a small fraction of the greenhouse gases heating up the planet.

Mozambique tops the list of nations most affected on the 2015 climate risk index, followed by Dominica, Malawi and India. Myanmar, Ghana and Madagascar are also among the top 10.

The index measures level of exposure and vulnerability to extreme events. Climate models predicting that global warming enhances both the intensity and frequence of such events have been borne out by a crescendo of deadly weather, especially over the last decade.

More than half-a-million people worldwide died as a direct result of almost 11,000 extreme weather events from 1996 to 2015, according to the report, which has been tracking risk, country-by-country, for more than a decade. Storms, heatwaves, floods and other climate-related natural disasters caused upwards of three trillion dollars (2.7 trillion euros) damage over the same period.

During those two decades, the countries worst hit were Honduras, Myanmar and Haiti. The Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand were also among the worst affected, taking into account both lives lost and the cost of damage.

The report does not factor out what percentage of the damage done can be attributed directly to global warming. The UN talks, tasked with implementing the landmark Paris Agreement inked last December, run through November 18.

AFP
Barack Obama hosts Donald Trump at White House

International

oi-PTI

Washington, Nov 10: President Barack Obama on Thursday hosted his successor Donald Trump at the White House to discuss smooth transition of power.

Trump,70, flew from New York on his private jet and landed at Reagan National Airport, just outside the nation's capital. He broke from protocol and barred journalists from travelling with him to cover his first meeting with Obama.

The president-elect was accompanied by his wife, Melania, who will have a meeting with First Lady Michelle Obama. Vice President-elect Mike Pence also accompanied them.

Washington DC: US President Barack Obama meets President Elect Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/KymDHZAHQg  ANI (@ANI_news) November 10, 2016

The Republican president-elect has questioned Obama's US citizenship and vowed to dismantle his legacy. During the election campaign Obama called Trump "uniquely unqualified".

Also read: We are all rooting for Trump's success: Barack Obama

On Wednesday, Obama had urged all Americans to accept the result of the presidential election. "We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country," he said.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest has insisted that Obama is sincere about ensuring a smooth handover although he added: "I'm not saying it's going to be an easy meeting."

PTI
British Muslims fear backlash after Donald Trump's win

International

oi-PTI

London, Nov 10: British Muslims on Thursday expressed fears that Donald Trump's election as the next US President would lead to backlash against Muslims around the world.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said Trump must ensure his win does not pave the way for bigotry. "The people of the United States have clearly spoken and I congratulate Mr Trump. There is however, a justifiable concern about his election," said MCB secretary-general Harun Khan.

He added: "It is hugely worrying that a man who has openly called for discrimination against Muslims and other minorities has become the leader of a superpower nation.

"We hope the bombast and rhetoric we have seen from Mr Trump in the last few months gives way to a more reconciliatory approach."

"The President-elect must demonstrate that his election is not a green light for bigotry for the rest of the world."

On the campaign trail, Trump had made the call for a "total and complete shutdown" of America's borders to Muslims in December last year in the wake of the San Bernardino terror attack.

Meanwhile, it emerged that Trump's team has removed the statement on his website to ban all Muslims from the US.

PTI
Donald Trump's election boosts Kremlin hopes for better relations

International

oi-PTI

Moscow, Nov 10: In careful phrasing befitting the spy he once was, Vladimir Putin has made it clear he expects a great deal from President-elect Donald Trump. And, the billionaire businessman may expect a transactional relationship with Putin.

Although the Kremlin clearly detested Hillary Clinton, Putin's public statements on Trump's victory steered clear of gloating. Other Russians were less fastidious, suggesting that Putin in private could be delighted and perhaps harbouring unreasonable expectations.

Trump's rise to the White House puts two men into seats of global power who are paradoxically both remarkably similar and wildly different.

Trump's praise of the Russian president as a strong leader, his suggestion that the US could abandon its NATO commitments and his vehement complaints about allegedly biased news media all appear to parallel Putin's view of the world.

A top Russian diplomat says Moscow had contacts with Trump's campaign ahead of his election as president. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency today that "there were contacts" with influential people in Trump's circle.

"I don't say that all of them, but a whole array of them supported contacts with Russian representatives."

The report did not give further details. Trump has repeatedly called for better relations with Russia, frequently musing about a rosy world in which Russia and the US get along.

Putin on Wednesday did the same, hoping that the "degraded" relations between the two powers would improve once Trump takes over. Putin noted, however, that the tension "is not our fault."

The US government believes Putin might have interfered in the election that resulted in Trump's victory.

The intelligence community has concluded that Russia was responsible for hacking into the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and gave them to WikiLeaks, which released them.

Some embarrassed and damaged the Clinton campaign. Russia, it appears, wants Trump to play the overture, and only then decide whether to applaud.

Trump made no specific mention of Russia in his first post-election comments but made clear that he wants good relations with all nations. "We will get along with all other nations willing to get along with us," Trump said.

"I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America's interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone a all people and all other nations. We will seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict."

Putin would be most pleased if the US dropped the sanctions imposed for Russia's annexation of Crimea and its involvement in the continuing war in eastern Ukraine. That could appeal to Trump's sense that he is the master of the deal.

PTI
Trump promises Hindu holocaust memorial in Washington DC if he wins

Ab Ki Baar, Trump Sarkar: How Indian Americans in Donald Trumps camp pulled off a major coup

International

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Washington, Nov 10: Remember the viral video where Donald Trump was seen mouthing Ab Ki Baar, Trump Sarkar--several days before the US went to polls.

The line was clearly borrowed (and little tweaked) from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popular slogan from 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign-Ab Ki Baar, Modi Sarkar.

Modi's slogan definitely has some "magical" power, as Trump to the utter surprise of everyone emphatically defeated his arch rival Hillary Clinton in a closely contested election.

On Wednesday, Trump was elected as the 45th President of the US.

During the election campaign, we saw how several Indian Americans strongly rallied behind Trump.

Even when many did not believe the business tycoon could one day become the head of the most powerful nation in the world, the Indian Americans in Trump's camp constantly campaigned for him.

Organisations like Republican Hindu Coalition (RHC), consisting of people from Indian descent in America, played a positive role in Trump's win.

The website of the RHC reads, "We shall provide a single unified platform to build a strong, effective and respected Hindu American voice in Washington and across the country."

Shalabh Kumar, the founder of the RHC, told Breitbart News that his organisation swung 25,000 votes for Trump in Florida, Ohio, and other swing states.

"The Republican Hindu Coalition was given charge of delivering the maximum number of votes in Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio ... Out of the three, Florida had the maximum number of votes."

Earlier, members of the RHC raised a whopping $1.5 million towards Trump's campaign.

Kumar, a Chicago-based businessman, himself donated $898,800 for Trump's campaign.

"In the last couple of months, the RHC organised over 50 meetings in a big way on the battleground states of Florida, North Carolina and Ohio," Kumar told The Economic Times.

According to figures, there are around four million Indian Americans.

Most of the Indian-American community - nearly 65% - supports the Democratic Party, while 18% favour Republicans, according to a 2014 Pew survey.

However, the election result says a different story. It looks like many Indian Americans voted for Trump.

AD Amar, president of Indian-Americans for Trump, the election proved that the Republican candidate was "a superman" who "single-handedly" fought against opposition from Democrats and Republicans.

"Trump knew what was wrong with America and had the right vision to fix it," Amar said.

In fact before the elections, the RHC accused Clinton of Pakistan bias.

The organisation also ran an advertisement campaign against the US Democratic Presidential candidate.

According to the members of RHC, Clinton provided billions in military aid to Pakistan to be used against India.

They also accused Clinton of being instrumental in blocking the US visa of Modi, when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

Many Indian Americans say the RHC is a racist and a divisive group. Kumar denies all the charges.

Before the elections, in October, the RHC hosted a Bollywood-themed charity concert for Trump.

"The Hindu community has made fantastic contributions to world civilisation and to American culture and we look forward to celebrating our shared values of free enterprise, hard work, family values, and a strong American foreign policy," Trump said.

"We love the Hindus and we love India," he added.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 8:03 [IST]
Chinese economists have long struggled with the ideological gap that separates free-market advocates and supporters of government controls on market forces.

That struggle was evident Wednesday during a debate between two prominent Peking University economists firmly entrenched on opposite sides of the debate.

Professor Justin Yifu Lin, a Chinese government adviser and former chief economist at the World Bank, supports the industrial policies common in China  including subsidies, tax breaks and financial incentives  aimed at supporting specific industries considered crucial for the nation's economic growth.

"I haven't seen a country that's achieved economic growth without an industrial policy," Lin said during the debate, sponsored by the university's National School of Development.

His opponent, professor Zhang Weiying, a free-market advocate, begged to differ. "Industrial policy is just a planned economy in disguise," he said. "In the end, both will fail for the same reasons."

The Chinese government's top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, backs Lin's stance. Commission spokesman Zhao Chenxin said in September that industrial policy plays an essential role in China's development, but that policies should be updated to fit modern market trends.

While admitting some governments have applied industrial policies in controversial ways, Lin called government controls "rational" and the basis for economic success in many countries, including Japan and South Korea.

Zhang, however, credited the free market  not politically motivated government subsidies  with game-changing innovations that benefit society. He cited as examples James Watt and the steam engine, George Stephenson's intercity railway, and Jack Ma's innovative online marketplaces under Alibaba.

China's ongoing transition to a market-based economy  including its overtaking Japan to become the world's second-largest economy  has relied on labor-, capital- and resource-intensive industries. But the transition's negative side effects have included structural imbalances and excess capacity in certain sectors. Moreover, some state-owned enterprises such as telecoms have been challenged by disruptive innovators, such as social networks.

Zhang said industrial policy can foster greed. For example, companies may collude with government officials to win special favors. And policymakers can make mistakes, given that even the most well-informed intellectual cannot always predict market trends.

In any country, Zhang said, "a free market and entrepreneurs can make the best of comparative advantages."

Lin, however, believes a combination of market forces and active government involvement is needed to foster industrial progress. Japan's steel, oil and auto industries contributed to double-digit growth in the gross domestic product in the 1960s thanks to government policies, he said.

But Zhang said Japan's auto industry would never have taken off if not for the fact that Honda Motor Co. Ltd. founder Soichiro Honda opposed a 1961 industrial policy barring his company, which then made motorcycles, from building cars. And industrial policies have done nothing to help Japan's 20 most successful industries, said Zhang, citing a study by Harvard University professor Michael Porter.

Lin admitted some industrial policies have triggered economist objections because they were improperly applied. "Some nations support an industry that has already lost its edge only because it stabilizes the labor market," Lin said, referring to the European Union's dairy-sector subsidies.

Wednesday's debate marked the latest phase in an ongoing discussion between Lin and Zhang who, despite their opposing views, are colleagues and friends.

The two clashed last summer when Lin, in a speech, argued in favor of industrial policy. Zhang took the opposite position at a forum a few days later. They've also exchanged views in publications over the years.

The latest event was their first face-to-face clash in public on industrial policy.

The academic community has been closely following the Lin-Zhang debate. And some economists have taken sides.

Zhuo Yongliang, a guest researcher at the China Society of Economic Reform, disagrees with Lin. He said market forces and government controls, which Lin thinks should work together, cannot get along.

Wu Jinglian, a government adviser, thinks the days of industrial policy have passed. Wu favors boosting economic growth through a "policy of competition" that encourages fair play and blocks monopolies.

Contact reporter Coco Feng (renkefeng@caixin.com); editor Eric Johnson (ericjohnson@caixin.com)
How the flame of Azadi was kept ablaze by the tribal community: PM Modi explains

Narendra Modi meets Indian community members in Japan

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Tokyo, Nov 10: Soon after his arrival here on Thursday for the annual India-Japan bilateral summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with members of the Indian community in Japan.

"The Indian community extends a very warm welcome to the Prime Minister on his arrival in Tokyo," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

According to the External Affairs Ministry, in recent years, there has been a change in the composition of the Indian community in Japan with the arrival of a large number of professionals.

The Indian community extends a very warm welcome to the Prime Minister on his arrival in Tokyo. pic.twitter.com/Mvz97J84mv  PMO India (@PMOIndia) November 10, 2016

"These include IT professionals and engineers working for Indian and Japanese firms as well as professionals in management, finance, education, and S&T (science and technology) research who are engaged with multinational as well as Indian and Japanese organisations," a ministry brief on Japan states.

On Friday, Modi will call on Emperor Akihito and attend the bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

On Saturday, the Prime Minister will travel by the Shinkansen high-speed rail to Kobe.

Japan has committed to build a high-speed rail system between Ahmedabad and Mumbai. This is Modi's second visit to Japan in two years.

IANS
How the flame of Azadi was kept ablaze by the tribal community: PM Modi explains

Narendra Modi reaches Japan for annual bilateral summit

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Tokyo, Nov 10: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday reached Tokyo to attend the annual India-Japan bilateral summit to be held on Friday.

"Konbanwa Tokyo! PM @narendramodi arrives in Japan for the Annual Summit, his second visit in two years," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.

In a pre-departure statement here on Wednesday, Modi said the high-speed railway cooperation between the two countries would boost bilateral trade and investment.

Konbanwa Tokyo! PM @narendramodi arrives in Japan for the Annual Summit, his second visit in two years. pic.twitter.com/n5YKDdIOic  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) November 10, 2016

"The high-speed railway cooperation between India and Japan is a shining example of the strength of our cooperation," he said.

"It will not only boost our trade and investment ties, but will also create skilled jobs in India, improve our infrastructure and give a boost to our 'Make in India' mission."

During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India last year, the east Asian economic superpower committed itself to a high-speed railway line between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

"On November 12, Prime Minister Abe and I will travel to Kobe on the famed Shinkansen -- the technology that will be deployed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed railway.

"Both of us will also visit the Kawasaki Heavy Industries facility in Kobe, where the high speed railway is manufactured," Modi said.

Also read: High-speed rail to boost India-Japan trade ties: Narendra Modi

Stating that the India-Japan partnership was characterised as a Special Strategic and Global Partnership, Modi said the two countries "see each other through a prism of shared Buddhist heritage, democratic values, and commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based global order".

"Today, Japan is one of the top investors in India. But many Japanese companies, which are household names in India, have been committed to the potential of Indian economy for several decades," he said.

The Prime Minuster said that in Tokyo he would have a detailed interaction with top business leaders from India and Japan to look for ways to further strengthen trade and investment ties.

He will call on Japanese Emperor Akihito and review the entire spectrum of the bilateral cooperation with Prime Minister Abe in Tokyo on November 11.

Modi, who left New Delhi early on Thursday morning, made a brief stopover in Bangkok to pay homage to the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-ruling monarch, who died last month.

IANS
'New UK visa rules will prevent brain drain from India'

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Nov 10 As India voiced its concern over new visa rules with visiting British Prime Minister Theresa May, noted Indian origin solicitor in the UK Sarosh Zaiwalla feels the new British immigration rules will ensure that fine Indian brains, after qualifying in UK universities, will return to India to contribute to make India great.

Zaiwalla, who is Founder and Senior Partner of Zaiwalla & Co., told IANS in an email: "On any platform of bilateral dialogue with the UK, India has always raised its concerns with the immigration norms." The issue, he said, was of utmost importance to India and the country has been repeatedly citing the near 50 per cent drop in UK university admissions in its arguments.

"However, it would be in India's best interest to avoid further brain drain of young intelligent minds out of India. In fact the new British immigration rules will ensure that fine Indian brains, after qualifying in British universities will return to India to contribute to make India great."

Speaking about a possible trade pact between India and the UK, Zaiwalla said: "Britain's keen interest in India is expected to bear fruit -- Mahatma Gandhi when asked by the British Viceroy "Mr Gandhi what do you want?" Gandhiji replied "I want British to leave India as rulers and return as partners".

He said a trade pact between Britain and India would mark a new chapter in relations between the two nations which would be in keeping with the Gandhian vision. Even though Britain's shaky economic and political landscape has prepared the nation to seek opportunities universally, the positioning of India as the initial choice does not come as a surprise, he added.

The world's fastest growing economy witnessed a decline in direct trade with the UK in the last four quarters but experts points out that this number is set to double within the next four years -- with the trade pact agreed upon during the bilateral trip.

"Key interest areas of Indian exports such as IT, software and healthcare are likely to witness a boost, while Britain will possibly seek concessions in export of financial services for which India is quite likely to endow preferential deals," he said.

IANS
North Korea asks US to recognize it as n-state

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Seoul, Nov 10 North Korea on Thursday re-asserted its demand that the US should recognise it as a nuclear state.

In a statement that made no mention of the Republican candidate Donald Trump's electoral victory, the Kim Jong-un regime urged the US to abandon the "failed" policies of President Barack Obama.

"The US should officially recognize North Korea as a de facto nuclear weapons state and follow the same policy towards it as those pursued with other nuclear weapons states," Pyongyang said in an editorial published by the state-run agency KCNA.

It added it had demonstrated the "sanctions slapped by the Obama administration against North Korea proved unworkable and it is impossible to force it to dismantle its nukes," Efe news reported.

However, neither the editorial nor other articles in North Korea's state-run media made any mention of US President-elect Donald Trump, who is expected to modify US policy towards North Korea.

During his campaign, Trump said he would be willing to invite Kim Jong-un to the White House, in contrast to the tough stance adopted by the Obama administration that demands North Korea take a firm step towards denuclearisation before initiating talks.

Trump also said China must resolve the North Korean nuclear problem, suggested the possibility of reducing US military influence in the region, and said South Korea and Japan should develop their own nuclear weapons to counter the threat from Pyongyang.

Until now, the US has adopted a policy of tough economic and trade sanctions against North Korea to choke its economy and force it to abandon its nuclear programme.

However, despite the sanctions, North Korea has continued developing its nuclear program and conducted its fifth nuclear test in September.

--IANS

ksk/vm
Pak off the FATF grey list doesn't mean it's not under scrutiny anymore: MEA secretary

Imran Khan again targets Pakistan's establishment on Day 2 of protest march; govt rules out talks over snap polls

Amid turmoil at home, Pakistan PM Sharif to visit China to felicitate Xi for his record win

Shehbaz Sharif arrives in China on maiden visit to felicitate President Xi Jinping on his record win

Pakistan wants to work on counter-terrorism with Donald Trump

International

oi-PTI

Islamabad, Nov 10: Pakistani foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz says his country would like to work with US President-elect Donald Trump on the common interest of combatting terrorism.

In an interview with Pakistan's Geo News channel on Thursday, he says that helping negotiate a political settlement in Afghanistan is another area where the two countries could work together.

The US president-elect has publicly criticised Pakistan in the past for battling some Islamic militant groups while tolerating others. Aziz acknowledged that perception, but said such policies were "in the past."

Also read: Nawaz Sharif congratulates Trump on being elected as US President

Local and al-Qaida linked Islamic militants who have had long used Pakistan's lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border as safe havens.

The Afghan government frequently accuses Islamabad of sheltering the senior leadership of the Taliban.

PTI
Pak off the FATF grey list doesn't mean it's not under scrutiny anymore: MEA secretary

Pakistan welcomes Trump's offer of mediation on Kashmir

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Islamabad, Nov 10: Pakistan on Thursday said it "welcomed" the US President-elect Donald Trump's offer to mediate between Pakistan and India on the Kashmir dispute.

During a weekly press briefing in Islamabad, while responding to queries about the victory of Republican Donald Trump in the US presidential election, Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said the President-elect had earlier offered mediation between Pakistan and India on Kashmir dispute and "we had welcomed that offer".

Zakaria said Pakistan desires a close relationship with the US, and wishes to further strengthen it.

The US President-elect last month said that if elected, he would be willing to play a mediatory role in addressing the "very, very hot tinderbox" of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

"If it was necessary, I would do that. If we could get India and Pakistan getting along, I would be honoured to do that. That would be a tremendous achievement... I think if they wanted me to, I would love to be the mediator or arbitrator," Trump said in the interview.

IANS


Trump's triumph: Contradictions bundled in irony

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New York, Nov 10: Donald Trumps triumph is a bundle of contradictions wrapped in irony that has turned many popular beliefs on their head.

For one, Trump repeatedly claimed the elections were rigged, yet he won.

Hillary Clinton has received 218,134 more votes than Trump, but he is the winner because he has won 279 electoral college seats to Clinton's 228. This is because US presidential elections are not direct elections, but the choosing of electors from each state.

He's a multi-billionaire, yet he has emerged as the voice of the working class and the working poor.

Only 38 percent of voters surveyed had a favorable opinion of Trump and 51 percent said only Hillary Clinton had the qualities of leadership and personality needed to become President. But they elected Trump.

Progressives have railed against the money power they say the Republicans have deployed to control the political process. In reality, the Democrats outspent the Republicans in this election. According to the Washington Post, Hillary Clinton raised $1.3 billion against Trump's $795 million as of mid-October.

The irony is that financial advantage didn't help her.

During the primaries, Jeb Bush reportedly raised $162 million and lost to Trump's measly $67 million.

The Democratic Party has always claimed to be the party of the people, the poor ranged against the rich. But it was backed by titans of business and technology and likes of super-rich George Soros.

People like Sheldon Adelson, who promised $100 million didn't come through with it and dropped just $10 million in Trump's coffers. In fact, even Trump didn't put up the $100 million of his own money that he said he would and settled for $66 million.

Democrat Clinton had a cosy relationship with Wall Street, for example collecting $1.8 million for speeches she gave at Goldman Sachs, according to CNN. Trump disdains Wall Street -- and the feeling is mutual.

Christian fundamentalists have backed Trump, whose personal life is littered with marital transgressions and sexual sins unlike Clinton's.

Trump has sought out Hindus and his son Eric and daughter-in-law Lara have visited Hindu temples, which is anathema to the Christian fundamentalists.

Trump's statements about deporting illegal immigrants and on immigrant crime have been turned by the media into xenophobia and blanket anti-immigrant sentiments. He is married to an immigrant and employs several immigrants at his facilities.

Trump has emerged as the symbol of change and a new direction for the nation. But he is 70 years old and was elected President.

Democrats have the reputation for being doves and Republicans for hawks. But in this election, Clinton was hawk and has left a trail of advocating aggressive foreign interventions in Iraq, Libya, Syria and the Ukraine. Trump is advocating a pullback and staying off foreign entanglements.

In the attitude to Russia and Iran, there is, however, a reversal. Clinton was raring for a confrontation with Russia while supporting the Obama administration's deals with Iran. Trump is conciliatory towards Russia, but wants to scrap the agreement with Iran.



IANS


Trump win: What is in store for other countries including India

Feature

oi-Oneindia

By Vappala Balachandran

Even the Trump camp was surprised at the tsunami of his win. "Washington Post" ran a news, early during the counting, "The Trump campaign is really lowering expectations right now". It said that his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway was seen beginning "the process of offering excuses for his likely loss - pointing, as expected, to the lack of unity and support from the GOP establishment". So how did it happen?

Reasons for Democratic Party's defeat:

There are many reasons for the unexpected defeat of Hillary Clinton. Certain influential Conservative circles in America had been feeling that they had become a "Declining power" under 8 years of Democratic rule. They felt that US was not able to assume leadership in any part of the world to be the final arbiter of local disputes. The constant theme of Trump was to repair a" Broken America" since the leadership was only "apologizing" to other nations.

[Also Read: Trump's triumph: Contradictions bundled in irony]

The "Gun Boat" diplomacy followers supported Israel's misinterpretation of President Obama's Iran policy on nuclear issue as capitulation. They felt that his efforts to normalize relations with Cuba after long years of hostility since 1961 were in breach of the traditional American domination of its neighbourhood. They felt that USA and NATO could not prevent Russian incursions into Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014. The rise of China and the inability of US to enforce its writ on the South China Seas was yet another reason.

While this impression was gaining among intellectual circles, the effect of globalization was felt both by the Blue Collar and White Collar workers who were steadily losing jobs. A survey by "US News" in December 2014 said that America lost 3.2 million jobs between 2001 and 2014 to China. Simultaneously there were complaints about China's currency manipulation which had increased US trade deficit. Another report on March 13, 2016 by "Global Research" quoted a University of California study saying that 14 million White Collar jobs were threatened by outsourcing. These were "not only call-center operators, customer service and back-office jobs, but also information technology, accounting, architecture, advanced engineering design, news reporting, stock analysis, and medical and legal services".

[Also Read: American Muslims express shock, fear over Trump's victory]

"New York Times"( November 9) confirmed this since the White and Blue collar workers, the power base of Democratic Party from the time of F.D.Roosevelt, deserted the party "when these voters were offered a Republican who ran as an unapologetic populist, railing against foreign trade deals and illegal immigration".

The other major reason was the inability of Hillary Clinton to put forward any new ideas of "Change" than what was done by Obama for 8 years. They felt that she was "More of the same" as the last 8 years. Anti-incumbency feelings among the voters were strong and Clinton campaign did not fathom what was brewing in their minds. The last reason was the traditional American White Male prejudice against women aspiring to become senior politicians. The popular "Public Broadcasting Service" (PBS) had run a series on this in 2016.

Trump's Campaign:

As against this, Trump strode into the campaign with raw energy and chose to be an unorthodox campaigner. To quote "New York Times" again: "His rallies - furious, entertaining, heavy on name-calling and nationalist overtones - became the nexus of a political movement.......He seemed to embody the success and grandeur that so many of his followers felt was missing from their own lives - and from the country itself. And he scoffed at the poll-driven word-parsing ways of modern politics, calling them a waste of time and money. Instead, he relied on his gut".

[Also Read: Iran: Expect Trump to respect nuclear deal]

He hurled unorthodox challenges, incited fears and prescribed unusual remedies. He frightened an average American on terrorism from Islamic organizations, blamed all Muslims for that and said that he would not allow them into America. He scared workers about job losses due to immigration and promised to erect a wall between America and Mexico. He said he would take action against China and India who were snatching away American jobs. He rattled NATO partners by praising President Vladimir Putin and said that America should recognize Russian claims on Crimea. He annoyed Japan by suggesting that Tokyo should pay for the American troops stationed there and advising that they should develop nuclear arms to protect themselves. He trashed the "Climate Change" theories and said that he might revoke the successful "Paris Accord".

Trump knew fully well that he would not be able to translate all these into national policies even as President. Over the years the US President has become almost a prisoner of those very institutions like National Security Council (NSC) and Inter-Agency Committees for adjudicating policies. Then there is Congressional oversight to check President's impulsive ideas. Decisions are recorded and available for scrutiny. The helplessness of even a formidable President like Eisenhower can be gauged by what he wrote on an NSC meeting paper on Jan.3, 1957 on the questionable decision to give arms aid to Pakistan: "This was the worst kind of a plan and decision we could have made. It was a terrible error, but now we seem hopelessly involved in it". (Quoted by Dennis Kux in "United States & Pakistan-1947-2000-Disenchanted Allies") Effectively Trump would be told by his bureaucracy what all campaign promises could be implemented and what he cannot.

Trump's policies towards India, China & Pakistan:

Some print and visual media correspondents have reported on November 9 that Trump is very grateful to the Indian American Community for their voting. They based this impression by getting some odd sound bytes from Trump's relatives. Today morning dailies have even said that he followed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election strategy. Similarly the "Trump Republican Hindu Coalition" has also claimed credit for his victory and said that he would be "tough" with Pakistan. Some others are claiming that he would be extra tough on China.

[Also Read: We are all rooting for Trump's success: Barack Obama]

All these are far fetched. Presidents usually find that they cannot implement even 10% of their campaign promises within 4 years. They are far too occupied with international events. Trump did not have a single Indian in his campaign team to advise him, notwithstanding the claim of "Trump Republican Hindu Coalition". Usually it is the campaign team that shapes the positioning of officials in the White House for making policies. As against this, Hillary had some key Indian Americans in her campaign team who could have influenced some decisions.

Trump dislikes media. However media can shame and oust an unconventional president as they did to Nixon. During campaigning Trump parried all uncomfortable questions on his business empire. But an elected President cannot dodge media queries on his personal or financial details. Nor can he run a nation like how he ran his business empire. There are far too many demons lurking in his past life. A "News Week" investigation on October 3, 2016 had alleged that he had opted to purchase his steel and aluminum from Chinese manufacturers in at least two of his last three construction projects instead of US corporations based in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. When asked about it he said that they were commercial decisions that were good for business. An earlier investigation by Bloomberg on March 7, 2016 had said that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had raised some issues at the practice of issuing visas to wealthy Chinese on priority to help "finance a huge Trump branded tower in New Jersey".

These allegations about the clash of commercial interests with those of the state are likely to come up in days to come. Meanwhile we should wait and watch to see what type of team Trump would be assembling in his cabinet before forecasting any spectacular upswing in the Indo-US diplomacy vis-a vis US-China-Pakistan relations.

[The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat & author of "National Security & Intelligence Management-a new Paradigm"]
12-year-old Indian in Guinness World Record for identifying most aeroplane tails in UAE

Watch: Four Indian women racially abused in Texas in most horrific manner

Two more Indian mission staffers leave Pakistan

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Islamabad, Nov 10 Two more staffers of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad on Thursday left Pakistan after being declared "persona non grata" for alleged spying, diplomatic sources told Geo News.

The two staffers turned out to be officials of India's Intelligence Bureau (IB), diplomatic sources said. They included First Secretary Press Balbir Singh and Jiabalan Sainthal.

Singh was reportedly the IB station chief while Sainthal too was a member of the agency in the guise of a staff officer.

The two officials left for India in wee hours of Thursday from Islamabad airport through on a foreign airline.

Earlier on November 8, three out of seven Indian High Commission officials, declared persona non grata by Pakistan, had left for home. They included First Secretary Commercial Anurag Singh, Vijay Kumar Varma and Mandhawan Nanda Kumar.

Pakistan had ordered expulsion of the eight Indian High Commission officials from Pakistan on charges of spying.

The remaining three officials of the Indian High Commission are also expected to leave Pakistan on Thursday morning through the Wagah border crossing.

On November 2, Pakistani authorities had claimed to have uncovered a spy network of Indian diplomats who were said to be involved in activities to destabilise Pakistan by facilitating and funding terrorism.

IANS
Even if not contesting 2020 polls, Hillary Clinton will not be entirely out of scene

Hillary Clinton says Julian Assange must 'answer for what he has done'

Why Hillary Clinton lost despite winning more popular votes?

International

oi-Lisa

By Lisa

Before Hillary Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in yesterday's election it has only happened in the history of US four times that a candidate won popular votes but still lost the election.

The reason for Hillary Clinton's loss lies in the method that is followed by the US to elect its President. The election for the President of the US takes place every four years. The election is held on the first Tuesday in the month of November.

On the Election Day the Americans cast their votes for President. However, the total of the votes cast which is the popular vote does not determine the winner.

The US follows the Electoral College system to elect the President, that means the candidate must receive majority of electoral votes and not popular votes to win the election.

What is the Electoral College?

The President and Vice President in the US are not elected directly by the people but they are elected by the "electors" through the process called the Electoral College.

That the President and Vice President will be chosen by the electors is part of US Constitution. The idea was to find a compromise between electing the President by a popular vote among citizens and electing the President in Congress.

The electors

Each state gets electors depending on how many members of Congress (House and Senate) the state has. When three electors of Washington DC are added total number of electors comes to 538.

Each state's political parties choose their own list of potential electors and the votes cast by these electors are taken into consideration while electing the President.

As per the constitution the electors need not vote according to the popular vote of the people they represent. However, rarely electors do not follow the people's or party's choice.

Uncommon to win popular vote but lose the election:

Such a situation arises when a candidate can win a combination of states and reach the mark of 270 electors vote without winning the majority of votes across the US.

Electoral votes are awarded on the basis of the popular vote in each state. It has to be noted here that of all the 50 states 48 states award Electoral votes on a winner-takes-all basis (as does the District of Columbia).

Which means that all Electoral votes of a particular state will go to the winner of the state election, even if the margin of victory is only 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent.

It has been observed that in a multi-candidate race where candidates have strong regional appeal, it is possible that a candidate who collects the most votes on a nation-wide basis will not win the electoral vote.

In a two-candidate race, like it was yesterday between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump it is less likely to occur. However, in 1876, 1888 and in the year 2000 presidential election it had happened that popular vote winner could not win the electoral votes and was not elected as the President.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 16:14 [IST]
Accused in Bajrang Dal worker murder case killed in Mysuru jail

Mysore

oi-Anusha

Mustafa, an undertrial lodged in Mysuru prison succumbed to injuries he suffered when clashes broke out between inmates in the Mysuru Central Jail on Thursday. Mustafa was lodged in prison since 6 months after he was arrested in connection with the murder of Bajrang Dal worker Prashanth Poojari.

Clashes broke out inside the prison during lunch at around 1 PM when a war of words turned violent between Mustafa and another inmate Kiran Shetty. Both men hail from Mangaluru. Kiran Shetty was a friend of Prashanth Poojari who was murdered near Mangaluru in 2015. Kiran Shetty reportedly stabbed Mustafa injuring him severely.

Mustafa was rushed to Mysuru's K R Hospital by jail authorities but he succumbed to injuries later during the day. Commissioner of Police Mysuru Subramanyeshwar Rao and DCP H T Shekhar visited K R Hospital.

OneIndia News
The Tamil Nadu Election Commissions flying squad and local police detained a truck carrying Rs 7.65 crore-worth of money in the form of Rs 2,000 denomination notes. Upon further investigation, officials realised that the truck was actually carrying money to Bank of Barodas branches, to be issued to people from Thursday when the new currency notes are expected to be released.
Lady Gaga protested outside the Trump Towers in New York city after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to become Americas 45th president. The diehard Hillary Clinton supporter, who had campaigned alongside the Democratic candidate just hours before the polls opened Tuesday night, shared a photo of herself holding up a Love Trumps Hate sign while standing on a sanitation truck outside of Trump Tower in New York City.
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by  Graham Pierrepoint



Unless youve been avoiding all forms of news media during the past few days, its highly likely youre already aware that Donald Trump, on behalf of the Republican Party, has been voted in as President-Elect of the US. He will succeed Barack Obama in 2017 and, as the Republican Party now have majority representation in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, it will mean a wildly different government to the one that US citizens have bared witness to over the past eight years. Certainly, as Trump is a remarkably different statesman to any Commander in Chief there has been before him, it will likely also be a very different government that Republicans have come to expect from their own stock, too. The uncertainty in the air at the moment is widespread  and many are taking to the internet to address the change in US government in their own unique ways.

Michael Moore, the broadcaster and commentator who recently released Michael Moore in Trumpland, a film comprising of scenes from his live show addressing voters in Wilmington, Ohio, has compiled a short but punchy list of ways in which Democrat voters can cope with the revelation of the new President. Moore himself largely endorsed Hillary Clinton in his Trumpland movie, and while he stated he had not voted for Clinton since her endorsement of the Iraq war, he advised his crowd that a vote for Clinton in 2016s most recent election was ultimately more logical than a vote for Trump. Moores list of tips has been shared thousands of times, meaning that it is clearly empowering many who feel uneasy during this time.

Moores points establish that it is important that the Democratic Party needs to be returned to the people in light of their recent failure at the national polls, and that TV pundits pushing narratives that ignored the bigger picture should be removed from their posts. He also asserts that its important to remember that Clinton in fact won the popular vote  and that the majority of US citizens therefore feel the same way about the results revealed on Tuesday November 8th. He states that it is the ingrained electoral system that is ultimately to blame for Trumps ascension to power, and that politicians within the Democratic Party should be prepared to fight or step out of the way.

Moore once more advises people that they shouldnt feel stunned or shocked  as Trumps election was not a surprise should the signs have been spotted earlier. He spoke in his Trumpland movie about the rise of a protest vote, and that this is all the more reason as to why a Trump victory could be on the cards  Moore did indeed predict that Trump would win, and he is now aiming to inspire anyone losing faith in their countrys politics. Certainly, his five-point list appears to be catching on with online readers, and it will be interesting to see how the Democrats and their supporters will react to Trumps presidency in the long term.
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ViGE 2017 Puts Austria in iGamings Global Spotlight for the First Time

Published November 10, 2016 by Lee R

An enhanced exposition experience for all is the key priority for ViGE 2017 organisers.

Austria has a regulation model too, and they are excitedly preparing to show it to the world in 2017.

Kicking Off

From March 20-22 at Austria Center Vienna (Bruno-Kreisky-Platz 1, 1220 Wien, Austria), the inaugural Vienna International Gaming Expo (ViGE) will offer 3 days of gaming exhibition and conference in the heart of Europe.

ViGEs Best Foot

As a self-styled event of innovation in form and content, ViGE is bringing together online and land-based gaming industries from all over the world to reach out to the increasingly diverse international set of players that iGaming is attracting.

A New Hub

ViGE represents a new and vital Central European hub for the iGaming industry, and the organizers couldnt be more excited to unveil their lush new meeting ground ripe for networking and deal-making among gaming leaders and new entrants, as well as regulators, third parties, and media.

Ensuring Attendee Quality

ViGE has set high standards for its invitees, as it looks to open new industry sectors for networking and business development opportunities in Austria and its intriguing surrounding regions. For this reason, ViGEs delegate status is available for those who want to attend seminars above and beyond the complementary exhibit floor visiting pass.

Information Coming Out

With more information yet to be unveiled, the ViGE organizers did divulge that the event will launch with a seminar format on Day 1 (March 20) entitled Gaming in Central Europe: Guidance and Initiation, with other tidbits and more information available as released to be found at the site

Exhibition Floor Benefits

ViGE 2017 promises a wealth of turnkey solutions from its exhibitor list of the best online and land based gaming providers from across the world. With ViGEs stated commitment to designing networking spaces and exhibition booths to enhance the experience for all attendees, all who book a stand will have access to any number of substantive performance and earning enhancements.

Outlook

As a new conference, this is a good opportunity to be among the first exposed to any and all unique innovation of ViGEs organizers, who will be particularly eager to meet any individual and expressed needs of attendees in this first go-round.
From Jonathan Cook Blog



Trumpenstein monster

(Image by abananapeeled.com) Details DMCA



The earth has been shifting under our feet for a while, but all liberals want to do is desperately cling to the status quo like a life-raft. Middle-class Britons are still hyperventilating about Brexit, and now middle-class America is trembling at the prospect of Donald Trump in the White House.

And, of course, middle-class Americans are blaming everyone but themselves. Typifying this blinkered self-righteousness was a column yesterday, written before news of Trump's success, from Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland, Britain's unofficial stenographer to power and Washington fanboy. He blamed everyone but Hillary Clinton for her difficult path to what he then assumed was the White House.

Well, here is some news for Freedland and American liberals. The reason Trump is heading to the Oval Office is because the Democratic party rigged the primaries to ensure that a candidate who could have beaten Trump, Bernie Sanders, did not get on the ticket. You want to blame someone, blame Clinton and the rotten-to-the-core Democratic party leadership.

But no, liberals won't be listening because they are too busy blaming Julian Assange and Wikileaks for exposing the truth about the Democratic leadership set out in the Clinton campaign emails -- and Russia for supposedly stealing them.

Blame lies squarely too with Barack Obama, the great black hope who spent eight years proving how wedded he was to neoliberal orthodoxy at home and a neoconservative agenda abroad.

While liberals praised him to the heavens, he poured the last US treasure into propping up a failed banking system, bankrupting the country to fill the pockets of a tiny, already fabulously wealthy elite. The plutocrats then recycled vast sums to lobbyists and representatives in Congress to buy control there and make sure the voice of ordinary Americans counted for even less than it did before.

Obama also continued the futile "war on terror," turning the world into one giant battlefield that made every day a payday for the arms industry. The US has been dropping bombs on jihadists and civilians alike, while supplying the very same jihadists with arms to kill yet more civilians.

And all the while, have liberals been campaigning against the military-industrial complex that stole their political system? No, of course not. They have been worrying about the mass migrations of refugees -- those fleeing the very resource wars their leaders stoked.

Then there is the liberal media that served as a loyal chorus to Clinton, trying to persuade us that she would make a model president, and to ignore what was in plain sight: that Clinton is even more in the pocket of the bankers and arms dealers than Obama (if that were possible) and would wage more, not less war.

Do I sound a little like Trump as I rant against liberals? Yes, I do. And while you are busy dismissing me as a closet Trump supporter, you can continue your furious refusal to examine the reasons why a truly progressive position appears so similar to a far-right one like Trump's.

Because real progressives are as frustrated and angry about the status quo as are the poor, vulnerable and disillusioned who turned to Trump. And they had no choice but to vote for Trump because there was no one aside from him in the presidential race articulating anything that approximated the truth.

Sanders was ousted by Clinton and her corrupt coterie. Jill Stein of the Greens was made invisible by a corrupt electoral system. It was either vote for Clinton and the putrid status quo, or vote for Trump and a possibility for change.

Yes, Trump is very bad. He is as much a product of the plutocracy that is now America as Clinton. He, like Clinton, will do nothing to fix the most important issue facing humankind: runaway climate change. He is a climate denier, she is a climate evader.

But unlike Clinton, Trump understood the rising popular anger at the "system," and he was articulate enough to express it -- all it took was a howl of pain.

Next Page 1 | 2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
Republicans have created a monster and on November 8th he was unleashed on the entire nation. What are progressives going to do about this?

Take to the barricades: We should resolve to fight the expected onslaught on democracy in whatever way we can. Better to fight fascism inch-by-inch, day-by-day than let it slowly devour our democracy. Remember, Clinton won the popular vote: 59,794,935 to 59,588,437.

Figure out what went wrong: Before we get back in the ring, Progressives have to understand what unleashed Trumpenstein. Trump won because there were a bunch of angry white men who voted for him to shake up Washington. Clinton was seen as more-of-the-same. (Before the election we expected Clinton to win because the pollsters didn't accurately gauge the power of the white anger.)

This truly was a "change" election. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had warned us that a great many Americans see the system as "rigged." Trump picked up this message.

Exit polls will show that this election was primarily about economics although sexism and racism played a part. Trump convinced more working Americans that he was fighting for them. He had a compelling message, "Make America Great Again."

Trump voters gave him their votes even though they didn't like him, because they wanted to shake up Washington. (They didn't like Clinton either but given the choice between two unpopular candidates, many voters -- particularly men -- chose the male candidate).

Hillary was seen as an insider; Trump was seen as an outsider: Democratic pollster Pat Caddell noted that in his survey of likely voters (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/11/07/patrick-caddell-real-election-surprise-uprising-american-people.html# ) two-thirds of respondents agreed, "The real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans but between mainstream American and the ruling political elites." 81 percent of respondents said, "The U.S. has a two-track economy where most Americans struggle every day, where good jobs are hard to find, where huge corporations get all the rewards. We need fundamental changes to fix the inequity in our economic system." And 87 percent agreed, "The country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits, lobbyists and other powerful money interests for their own gain at the expense of the American people."

Trump painted Hillary as a member of the ruler power elite; someone who is a career politician and, therefore, not able to fix the "two-track economy."

When Barack Obama first ran for President -- relatively new to Washington -- he was seen as an outsider. For those of us on the left, Trump was seen as a loose cannon but for millions of voters he was seen as an outsider -- someone not part of the ruling political elite.

Trump built a coalition of populists, racists, and "Supreme Court" voters: Pat Caddell observed, "The American people believe that the country is not only on the wrong track but almost 70 percent say that America is in actual decline." Populists want to break up the" two-track economy where most Americans struggle every day, where good jobs are hard to find, where huge corporations get all the rewards."

Progressives need to take back the populist mantle from Trumpenstein -- which shouldn't be difficult once Trump arrives in Washington.

Trump also appealed to the "alt-right" a loose coalition of racists, sexists, homophobes and xenophobes. In Washington, he'll be encumbered by these connections.

Finally, there was a segment of Trump's vote who were anti-abortion voters, "hold your nose and vote for Donald in order to save the Supreme Court." One of the continuing challenges for progressives is to move these one-issue voters.

There is no time for fear; this is the time to fight: When we were in Nevada getting out the vote for Democrats, we had dinner with fellow activists who asked, "Where are all the others who are worried sick about the election?' Each of us knew Democrats who had the wherewithal to go to Nevada or other swing states but because they were immobilized by fear, remained California.

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By Dave Lindorff



Assange in his Ecuador Embassy asylum and the man his Wikileaks helped elect

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Donald Trump's victory in the presidential race is probably bad news for Edward Snowden if he was hoping for a chance to leave Russia for a warmer climate or a more open political environment. Trump, in his typically over-the-top blustery manner has more than once called the man who exposed the NSA's massive program for monitoring the electronic communications of Americans and even of the leaders of our purported foreign allies, a "spy" who should be "executed."

But his election should be good news for Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. It was the Wikileaks disclosure of hacked copies of Hilllary Clinton's secret speeches to the country's big banks, and of the emails to and from Clinton campaign chair John Pedestal, describing among other things her campaign's, and the Democratic National Committee's sabotage of Bernie Sanders' insurgent primary campaign, which almost certainly handed the presidency to Trump.

Snowden is fine and safe living in asylum in Russia, but Assange has for four years been trapped in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, which is really just a large apartment in a ritzy section of the city. There London Metropolitan Police stand guard round the clock ready to grab him if he tries to leave...

For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the uncompromised, collectively run, five-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative news site, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/3359
John Feffer argued on Wednesday that Demagogue Donald, whose very existence will lead me to pretend I'm not from the U.S. the next time I'm in Europe, is part of a wider trend that's already hit Europe hard:

"The ugliness has been percolating in Europe for some time now. It wasn't just Brexit, Britain's unexpected rejection of the European Union. It was the election of militant populists throughout Eastern Europe -- Viktor Orban in Hungary, Robert Fico in Slovakia, the party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Poland. It was the electoral surge of the National Front in France and the Alternative fur Deutschland in Germany. It was the backlash against immigrants, social welfare programs, and 'lazy Mediterraneans' -- but also against bankers and Brussels bureaucrats."

I think the trend is even wider and deeper if the trend we're talking about is that of making everything worse, of increasing inequality, of increasing militarism, of destroying the environment, of pushing profit over people. If that's the trend, the bankers are its vanguard, not its victims, and it has saturated the international establishment almost as thoroughly as it has the rightwing sectarians.

But the trend Feffer seems to have in mind is one of nationalism or ethnic identity or racism in opposition to global humanitarianism. Feffer's new dystopian novel, Splinterlands, tells a future of shattered nations and international institutions, replaced with ever smaller and more disastrous warring city states. It's a vision that should disturb us deeply, a vision of what this world could actually become if it gains nothing in wisdom, miraculously survives its nuclear weapons, and plows right ahead into climate chaos and total capitalist consumption.

Feffer's utopia seems to be a globe unified in peace. But his dystopia is not unlike that of an author like Ian Morris whose utopia is a globe unified by imperial war. The great threat on the horizon for both is balkanization or splintering. Feffer sees this brought on by bigotry, militarism, and environmental destruction. Morris sees the threat as, basically, un-Americanism. But where does barbaric tribalism stop and the promotion of more direct local democracy begin? Is bigger always better and smaller always worse?

Feffer may not think so, because, in fact, a small utopia hidden in one corner of a sinking Titanic of an earth shows up in Splinterlands -- something of a Luddite communal organic farm of a sort that essentially exists right now, a creation that cannot save us all or even itself unless expanded to a radically larger scale or duplicated innumerable times. The trick, then, may be to duplicate sustainable and just local living within a global system of nonviolent dispute resolution, cooperation, and fairness.

Feffer says he thought a Trump figure wouldn't arrive for four more years -- though it's interesting that a big role in his fictionalized future dismantling of the world is played by a hurricane named Donald. My question is whether Trump's disastrous arrival might not in some ways be put to good use toward human survival. I'm thinking of a particular good use to which Hillary Clinton's disastrous arrival would not have leant itself. That is to say, can we not now appeal to other nations to recognize that the presence of U.S. military troops on their soil represents their subservience to the odious Donald Trump, a figure hardly to be imagined as the mythical Barack Obama, man of peace?

Can we encourage nonviolent resistance to U.S. militarism without encouraging a dive into a dystopian Splinterlands? Can the world refuse to participate in U.S. wars and U.S. weapons dealing while increasing its participation in cooperative non-military endeavors with the United States and the globe? Can U.S.-led war making, and the war making of other nations, come to be understood as the enemy of good globalism, not as the embodiment of UN humanitarian intervention in the affairs of those deemed less developed?

The alternative to the world figuring out how to resist U.S. wars would seem to be the people of the United States shutting down its war machine from within, without the assistance of the other 96%. But how does that seem to be working out?
Some grassroots notes on Election Day events (Nov. 8, 2016) taken at the ELECTION PROTECTION COMMAND CENTER, a DC-based arm of the National Election Defense Coalition and the newly formed, also DC-based Transformative Justice Coalition [1]

Dixville Notch, NH, is the first precinct in the country to report election results nationwide, beginning its vote count at midnight. With a total of 6 voters, Hillary won handily with 4 votes. Further results in rural NH, gave Trump the lead at 32-2. As a result of the above, the Trump side of things declared victory prematurely, with some supporters sending out notices of a Trump victory. We feared this would discourage people from coming out to vote at all.

An overarching problem yesterday, experienced throughout the country, was the very issue targeted by President Obama in two major speeches: his acceptance speech in 2013 and the SOTU that followed. That was/is LONG LINES, which apart from inconveniencing large numbers of voters, prevents many from voting altogether because of other obligations like work or childcare of both.

Barbara Arnwine, head of the Transformative Justice Coalition as well as its founder (and also founder of ELECTION PROTECTION in 2000 as well as former head of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law ), summed up the principal problems as the long lines and broken optical scanners all over the country--in one place one spoiled ballot caused a scanner to malfunction and stop working. The scanner froze.

Other nationwide problems included flawed registration processes (see below),

Misuse of provisional ballots as official ballots,

Electronic poll books malfunctioned

and, of course, more, as detailed throughout.

Re the long lines, a study commissioned by the President; the resulting report, published a year later in January 2014, may be viewed here, https://www.supportthevoter.gov/files/2014/01/Amer-Voting-Exper-final-draft-01-09-14-508.pdf , offered many practical solutions to the problem but ignored the underlying motivation--discrimination. "Not enough," said the experts. "Not enough." But, along with a report by the Brennan Center published a year later, "America's Voting Machines at Risk," https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Americas_Voting_Machines_At_Risk.pdf , the warning had gone out that our electronic machinery was just too old to be reliable and the frequent breakdowns were no surprise. The problem was that states could not come up with the money to modernize their systems. Spare parts were ordered in some places, where attainable, to "scotch tape" some problems.

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Reprinted from www.alternet.org

There have always been two narratives about this election. One predicted what actually happened in the end, while the other missed the boat completely.

Narrative 1. Bernie Sanders represents the unachievable in American politics. Hillary Clinton is the candidate of experience and realism. Donald Trump is a temporary phenomenon, feeding on passions and resentments, not meant to last the duration. Trump's supporters are more economically privileged than Clinton and Sanders voters, and are motivated by pure racism and misogyny. The election is about the cultural values of tolerance, openness and identity, therefore we must support Hillary. Anyone who doesn't support Hillary must be suspected of harboring racist and misogynist feelings themselves.

Narrative 2. Bernie Sanders is offering necessary correctives, at the most minimal level, to the excesses of the neoliberal economy of the past 40 years. Hillary Clinton represents the essence of said neoliberalism, embodying its worst practices, from trade to immigration. Donald Trump has tapped into real economic anxiety among those--half of the country at least--who have lost under neoliberal globalization. This election is about returning equal economic rights to all citizens. Only Bernie Sanders has the winning message for this explosive situation.

Everyone who propagated Narrative 1--which is nearly 100 percent of the liberal media, the intellectual community as a whole and elite professionals--got it wrong every step of the way. The utter failure of predictive power means that the model was flawed.



Hillary with Goldman Sachs CEO Blankfein

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Those who believed in Narrative 2--which included a vanishingly small proportion of intellectuals--got it right at every turn. Trump won, Hillary lost, and we are in for a very bad time, just as our model predicted. Zizek had it right, Michael Moore had it right, and I had been saying all along that this outcome was inevitable. I wrote back in May that Trump would win by pinning neoliberal failures squarely on Hillary's shoulders.

Essentially, those who chose Hillary over Bernie during the primaries, when we had a clear choice, voted for Trump, since Bernie was always the stronger candidate against Trump or any Republican general election candidate. The polls consistently proved it.

The liberal elite, all during this campaign, showed its intolerant colors, mocking anyone who raised questions about Hillary's background and competence as inherently misogynist, sidelining questions of political economy in favor of preferred identity politics tropes, banning dissenters and skeptics of Narrative 1 from their websites and forums, questioning their very humanity. Even now--in the wake of the Trump win--they are refusing to accept their culpability in making the wrong choice by throwing up their hands and exclaiming: "I can't understand how this could have happened!"

On a Pacifica radio show on October 27, where I discussed the reasons why Trumpism had come into being and why I expected it to last well beyond the election regardless of the outcome, half the callers repeated the neoliberal Narrative 1, saying in essence that Trump supporters were facing undesirable economic fates because of their own lack of responsibility toward their personal lives. Why don't they get educated, why don't they get jobs, why don't they move to where the jobs are? And why wasn't I talking about the Access Hollywood tape--apparently the paramount issue in this campaign? Why didn't I talk about Trump's misogyny, which was instantly disqualifying and branded his supporters too as falling in the same vein? This was from Pacifica listeners, presumably the most liberal audience in America!

But there was also the other half, believers of Narrative 2, who thought that the Democratic Party had been suicidal by not choosing Bernie, and who understood the economic grievances of the "leftovers" who supported Trump on the Republican side and Bernie on the Democratic side. They were not falling for the moral righteousness of the liberal media.

What can we say now about the fate of the entities involved in this crash of an election, when the contradictions have so manifestly come to the fore?

1. Is neoliberalism dead? Hardly. This is the ideology that survived 9/11, the presidency of George Bush Jr. and the Great Recession, with barely a scratch. But it has received its most serious blow yet (the first, less severe one, was Brexit), as its entire range of practices, from neoliberal trade benefiting large corporations to a kind of exploitative identity politics that favors internalization of neoliberal psychology, has come under attack from Trumpism. We shall see how neoliberalism responds and regroups, how it works through the Democratic Party to find a different channel of expression than the Clintonian one.

2. Is the Democratic Party dead? Given a clear progressive choice in the primaries, the Democratic Party establishment went for the failed neoliberal candidate of war, inequality and injustice. At the moment, the entire party stands discredited. It is not easy to write off a behemoth as powerful as this, but it is more vulnerable than it has been since the 1960s. The philosophy of catering to upwardly mobile professionals, exploiting immigrants in the neoliberal setup while simultaneously expounding their virtues, and constructing a facade of moral righteousness while ignoring the existence of poor people of any color, stands discredited. After their catastrophic loss in 2008, the Republicans went through one more cycle of doubling down, with Mitt Romney in 2012, before a populist revolution swept the establishment away. How long will it take the Democratic Party as we knew it to end?

3. Is the Republican Party dead? Clearly, it is not what it was before Trumpism, it is no longer the party of Reagan and other supply-siders. On paper at least, Trumpism is virulently opposed to the principles of neoliberalism, around which Republicans, with minor differences on taxation and welfare and other policies, cohere with Democrats as a governing philosophy. To what extent will Trump put his anti-trade, anti-immigration and anti-interventionist policies into practice? Even if he draws back on his stated goals, the genie is out of the bottle. The Republican Party, exploiting cultural fears (exactly as the Democrats have done on the other side) while executing economic policies that benefit the rich, can no longer exist in its old form.

4. Is the liberal media dead? One of the positives of this campaign is that despite relentless 24/7 propaganda about Trump, exaggerating his personal foibles while painting anyone not supportive of Hillary as a closet misogynist, racist or even sexual predator, the message failed to get through. In the end, no one paid any attention. Those inside the elite bubble were persuaded that they were headed for victory, hearing nothing contrary in their own ecosphere, when they were in fact doomed. The people have shown that they can tune out this noise. The media has fragmented so much that only those who are already persuaded come within the ambit of any new message, so in essence they have pounded their way into their own irrelevance.

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pardon pen

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The U.S. has just seen a surprise presidential election victory by a candidate who banked his campaign on vilifying Muslims and undocumented immigrants and on promising to maintain the devalued legal status of Black lives. Now that Democratic Party and media figures have been quick to make cynical speeches about uniting the country and moving on, the nation's progressive movements should be ever more compelled not to lose sight of the Constitutional power that is still afforded to President Obama, the same man returned to office by progressive votes four years ago.

I'm talking about the power of the pardon, the final executive branch check on the legislative and judicial branches, which over the years have passed laws and interpreted them through a white-supremacist, capital-supremacist lens. According to Article 2 Section 2, it is constitutionally possible for Obama to issue "reprieves and pardons" to all people, whether in jail or not, facing charges or not, who up to this point in time may have committed a federal offense.

At the very least, Obama owes his electorate an immediate blanket pardon to all people accused or convicted of nonviolent federal drug offenses, and--- to borrow an idea of Peter L. Markowitz published in the New York Times last July--- to all people who entered the United States other than through an official port of entry. Over the next two months or so of his term, he ought to be spending the greater chunk of every remaining day of his term on the task of reexamining the cases of all still remaining federal prisoners, probationers, and parolees who might have had trials tainted by racial, religious, or other bias. (And let's not forget those already released from federal supervision only to face challenges getting jobs, housing, voting access.)

The President may need to appoint a commission to sift through more than a quarter of a million cases, but the final decision on any pardon has to come from Obama himself. Upon examination of each case he should decide whether to issue a pardon in the interest of true justice. Many would argue that these would be very subjective judgment calls; nevertheless, they are calls he was democratically elected to exercise.

Despite eight or more years of trying to figure out what Obama's personal opinions really are, we still don't know for sure that his heart is in such an undertaking. The same man who for good reason is nicknamed the "Deporter-in-Chief" has also used executive power to shield immigrants, albeit only narrow categories of immigrants and only temporarily. It will take a national movement of pressure to bear upon Obama; either to give him the courage to act, or to politically force these steps on a legacy standpoint.

He will have no more excuses for not acting. With his time on the clock running out, Congress can hardly punish him with impeachment at this point. Likewise, there will be no incoming Democratic President or house of Congress to receive political fallout from conservatives. There is no Supreme Court review. There is no Constitutional power for President Trump to annul a former president's pardons. He and the dual Republican Congress cannot pass a "Bill of Attainder" to re-arrest or arrest for the first time any of the people protected under pardon, and Trump and his supporters will only be able to legally exact their vengeance on people who allegedly breach a federal law after the date of the pardon.

Can Obama and the Democratic Party get away with maintaining the status quo when they literally have this particular power in their hands and absolutely nothing to lose? Unfortunately the answer is yes--- but only if progressives remain silent, say "well, we had a good run," and do nothing to advocate this possible course of action that would improve, even save, the lives of millions.

Anyone infuriated that a candidate who panders a fascistic worldview was elected president should be pushing for an executive action which vigorously repudiates the xenophobic philosophy that narrowly swept him in. Each person reading and agreeing with this idea should do their best to spread it far and wide, via the media and sustained public actions. All politicians concerned about reelection or legacy must follow the will of the most organized and loudest constituency on which they are or were dependent. Demand that Obama begin issuing these pardons now.
The emerging consensus of commentators is that Trump won because of populist disgust with politics as usual, because of hatred of Hillary, and because of economic hardship that Trump was able to blame on immigrants, trade deals, regulations, and corrupt elites. Trump pledged to "drain the swamp" in Washington, D.C., and people thought Hillary was part of the swamp.

As Thomas Frank says in Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and liberals put him there,

The woman we were constantly assured was the best-qualified candidate of all time has lost to the least qualified candidate of all time. Everyone who was anyone rallied around her, and it didn't make any difference. The man too incompetent to insult is now going to sit in the Oval Office, whence he will hand down his beauty-contest verdicts on the grandees and sages of the old order.

The Democrats chose a flawed candidate, with high negatives. Granted, much of the hatred of Hillary is based on myths and exaggerations manufactured by conservative media. But enough of the hatred was justified -- by her close ties to Wall Street, by her past votes for the Iraq War, by her hawkishness during the Obama administration, by her past support for the TPP, by the questionable practices of the Clinton Foundation, and by her carelessness with the private email servers -- that Republicans could rightfully say that she was corrupt. Granted, Trump and the Republicans are far worse!!!! But that made no difference because Fox News and the rest of right wing media have entrapped tens of millions of Americans in an alternate reality in which climate change is unreal and deregulation and tax cuts for rich people will help the middle class.

Few people on the right loved Trump. They were aware of his flaws. But they hated Hillary even more than Trump.

Much of the Democratic base hated Hillary too. Some of my progressive friends refused to vote for Hillary, knowing well that Trump is probably worse, because they didn't want to reward her and the DNC for its mistreatment of Bernie Sanders. One friend at work was a Bernie supporter who knew all about how terrible Trump would be. Still, he wouldn't vote for Hillary. He refused to vote for the lesser of two evils. He said he felt no sympathy for the Democrats, who courted disaster by their hubris. (Disclosure: I reluctantly voted for Hillary, as the lesser-of-two-evils.)

There's lots of blame to go around for this debacle. Ignoring both the obvious culprits on the right and the desperate, stupid gullibility of millions of Americans, who should we blame? In no particular order,

Hillary & Bill Clinton, for hubris, short-sightedness, and corruption; The DNC, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz, for cheating Bernie Sanders and for serving the corporate elite; Barack Obama, for serving Wall Street, for compromising early and often, for burdening us with a flawed health care plan designed by conservatives to enrich the insurance companies, for pushing for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and, mostly, for refusing to prosecute Bush administration criminality, while eagerly going after whistle blowers who exposed government corruption, thereby hiding from the American people the extent of GOP corruption; Elizabeth Warren, for refusing to back Bernie Sanders and for refusing to run (she'll be 71 in 2020, possibly too old to run); Bernie Sanders, for calling himself a socialist when, in reality, he's a social democrat; Liberals, for their elitism and their insensitivity to religious and cultural minorities (Thomas Frank elaborates on that elitism here); FBI Director James Comey, for announcing to Congress 10 days before the election that he's investigating more emails; Our antiquated and reactionary electoral system, which delivered the presidency to a candidate who lost the popular vote, and which gives greater political power to small, agricultural states; The greed and elitism of high tech plutocrats such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and the titans of Apple and Google, who profited immensely from government-funded research and from government services and protections, but then promoted anti-tax and anti-government policies that gutted education, journalism, the middle class, and the Rust Belt; The media, for giving Trump free air time, and for failing to refute right wing media's assault on truth. If you listen to right wing media, you'd think that Obama and Hillary are raving socialists and that climate change is a myth. Half the country lives in an alternate reality.

Notice that I don't list Berniecrats in that list. In 2000, many Democrats blamed Ralph Nader and his supporters for the election of George W. Bush; indeed, had all Nader voters voted for Gore, Bush would have lost. I am unaware of any concerted effort to blame Sanders and his supporters for Hillary's defeat. But there are indications that low turnout, especially among blacks, contributed to Hillary's loss. From what I have read, too few Sanders voters voted for Jill Stein or Trump to make a difference in the swing states that went for Trump. Sanders strongly endorsed Hillary, and most Berniecrats apparently voted for her. As Michael Moore says in his prescient article 5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win,

Stop fretting about Bernie's supporters not voting for Clinton -- we're voting for Clinton! The polls already show that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary this year than the number of Hillary primary voters in '08 who then voted for Obama. This is not the problem. The fire alarm that should be going off is that while the average Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to somewhat reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be what's called a "depressed vote" -- meaning the voter doesn't bring five people to vote with her. He doesn't volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never talks in an excited voice when asked why she's voting for Hillary. A depressed voter.

Besides, even if Berniecrats did abandon Hillary, can you blame them, given how badly the DNC treated Sanders?

By the way, in that article Moore correctly predicted that Trump would win in the Midwest, where disgust with NAFTA and TPP would turn blue collar voters towards Trump, who campaigned there against unfair trade deals and corporate outsourcing.

Elaborating on #1 and #2, and again quoting Frank,

Democratic leaders made Hillary their candidate even though they knew about her closeness to the banks, her fondness for war, and her unique vulnerability on the trade issue -- each of which Trump exploited to the fullest. They chose Hillary even though they knew about her private email server. They chose her even though some of those who studied the Clinton Foundation suspected it was a sketchy proposition.

As David Talbot said, "This catastrophe is primarily the fault of the elites who took over the Democratic Party and turned it into a bastion of corporate globalism and permanent war, at the expense of the working people who were once its base. The Clintons -- with their self-serving Davos internationalism and Wall Street pandering -- were the ultimate symbol of this Democratic Party sellout."

Though I risk criticism from friends and allies on the left, I want to elaborate on #6.

I support gay rights and think that gays should have the right to get married. But I suspect it was a huge tactical error for Democrats to push this issue. Gay marriage enrages and disgusts tens of millions of Americans, guaranteeing that they will vote for Republicans. Far better if the Democrats had spent their political capital on other issues such as (1) cleaning up corruption in D.C., (2) exposing and prosecuting Bush administration criminality, (3) reining in Wall Street, (4) exposing and fixing our unfair tax system that gaping loopholes that favor the rich, (5) ending bad trade deals, and (6) ending our imperialistic foreign policy.

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Shatila Palestinian Camp, Beirut

The past few years have witnessed an alarming increase in drug distribution in several of Lebanon's 12 Palestinian camps, as dealers reportedly target children and teenagers, becoming increasingly brazen in pushing their narcotics.

This conclusion is based on research and surveys by camp officials, residents and activists, as well as in-depth interviews with mothers of targeted Palestinian children between the ages of 11-15 by this observer and discussions with other Palestinian community caregivers.

Candy is reportedly being increasingly used to create child addicts who are then recruited into gangs of thieves and/or to work as drug deliverers. One 11-year old boy makes drug deliveries around Shatila camp's narrow fetid allies on his bicycle or sometimes on a small motor scooter according to a mother who lives next to his family.

Mothers in Lebanon's camps claim that dealers are selling drug-injected candy and chewing gum outside of primary, middle and secondary schools as well as inside schools such as ''Ramallah''. The example of drug-laced candy shown below was given to this observer by two mothers who watch dealers from their third floor balconies. Another mother who lives across the alley from a claimed drug shop and next door to two dealers, one on either side of her building, confirmed these reports. These mothers and other camp residents identified the chewing gum shown below, as being sold cheap with injected/rubbed-in narcotics, in some camp shops.



Shatila camp, Beirut 10/24/2016, narcotic-laced chewing gum costs camp kids 250 LL or approximately 25 American cents. Sometimes it is offered to children free to get them addicted according to camp residents

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One eleven-year old boy "Maher", a student at UNWRA's ''Ramallah'' school recited last week to his mother, his aunt and this observer the well-known case of 12-year old M. J. A reputedly sweet and pretty child, M.J. is reportedly a drug addict whose handlers supply her daily with personal drugs, as well as an additional supply (as shown below) to sell to other children even inside ''Ramallah'' school. M.J. has been caught selling drugs by school staff more than once, suspended for two weeks more than once, and has since transferred to the larger UNWRA ''Haifa'' preparatory school on the southern edge of Shatila camp, according to her neighbor.

UNWRA and school staffs are acutely aware of the problem of drugs in the camps, as are the camps' Political and Social Committees, camp Clerics, NGOs, Lebanese government Ministries and UN agencies etc. But to date all have been impotent to effectively challenge it. Last month one drug dealer whom this observer interviewed, had the audacity to address a public meeting following a march in Shatila by angry residents over the brazen drug selling which targets camp kids. He told the angry gathering:

"Yes, I am a drug dealer. I admit it and camp leaders can condemn me. But, excuse me please, what have they ever done for our camp and our families? Our water is salty, we have little electricity two children were electrocuted last month from bad wiring, our air is polluted , no regular garbage collection, sewage running down the streets, no playgrounds for kids, no right for their parents to even work! In Lebanon there are basically only two jobs open to young Palestinian men like me. We can accept a gun and join one of the militias run by politicians or we can sell drugs, also supplied by some politicians who in cooperation with some Lebanese police who provide people who do the job I do with political cover!"



10/12/2016 .Drugs commonly sold in Palestinian camps in Lebanon

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One example of what the young man was talking about occurred in Shatila camp last month, two days before an angry camp march largely ignored by the local media erupted with intense anger. It involved the arrest of 3 camp drug dealers who were being held by the camp's "security committee'" pending transfer the next morning to the Lebanese police authorities outside the camp. During the night, as the prisoners awaited transfer, a bribe of $ 2,000 was offered to the "camp policeman" assigned to guard them overnight. The guard, well-known in the camp, is a member of Fatah Intifada and like other camp police earned $ 200 per month. (The camps Political and Social Committees as well as camp "police forces" typically include the main 13 Palestinian factions two or more members from Fatah , the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine(DFLP) the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- General Command (PFLP-GC), Fatah Intifada, As-Sa'iqa, & Hamas among others).

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Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob Kall demonstrates how the Bottom-Up revolution has ushered in a business, political and social upheaval the likes of which we've never seen. Bottom-Up: Tapping the Power of the Connection Revolution is a must read book that you need, to understand how this revolution affects every area of your life and the opportunities it is creating."



Jim Donovan, author, happy@work - 60 Simple Ways to Stay Engaged and Be Successful
Unfortunately Pakistan, whose creation was presupposed to be a testimonial for the Islamic fundamental principles, lags behind in the subject of social-justice implementation. Herein, the affluent families wielded a predominant control over Pakistan's decisionmaking. This proved as a menace, which badly derailed the system from the exact path that was accountable for undertaking the right decision for a balanced society. There are three testaments through which the condition of social justice in Pakistan can be assessed.

Social Stratification

The sad factor of a society is to suffer social stratification. In fact, it depicts a society as a venue where the differences among the different segments are haplessly observed. In Pakistan, unfortunately, a class division, urban-rural stratification is evident where the elite class is addicted to show their supremacy by dint of immense riches through a variety of tactics. The elite class (exploitative segment) includes landlords, industrialists, military generals, civil bureaucrats and business tycoons.

They manage to stand as distinguished in the society. For the purpose, they utilize certain tactics. (a) They try to be immune from all kinds of moral, ethics and lawful norms. (b) They influence the local, district and divisional executive administration on account of the usage of immense of wealth flow. (c) This class manages to undergo personal links and approaches for setting up business in the coveted zones, discarding the merit.

(d) These big guns avail the services of riches in order to escape from being persecuted in the wake of committing a murder. (e) They mobilize the administration for the sake of being elected as the member of provincial and national assemblies, paving the way for social inequity and injustice. (f) They opt for disturbing the rule of merit, credibility, ability and quality by making the kith and kin inducted in the high posts. (g) These elements wield special control over the rates of commodities, hence making enormous profits though illegal. Under such circumstances, the social stratification is torment for the social justice.

Economic Equilibrium

It is also a criterion to estimate whether a society is entertained with the social justice. In the contemporary circumstances, Pakistani society gives a picture of an economically unbalanced community. The difference between the rich and poor was eminent since the sub-continent was portioned in 1947. More sad-fully, this class difference used to worsen with the passage of time.

Contemporarily, the current crises have added fuel to fire to the area disturbed a balance. The Pakistani populace is divided between rural and urban areas. In rural areas, the huge chunk of the population is directly associated with agriculture, which plays a pivotal role in the financial sector of the country. Nonetheless, this sector in Pakistan suffers bi-fold problems.

First, the farmers do not possess their owned lands where they can do sufficiently the agriculture jobs. Thus, they keep on falling the prey to the landlords' an exploitative mindset. This does not allow the community to contribute productively to the financial sector. Second, the current decline in the security and economic stability has deteriorated the agricultural outcomes the farmers expect in the return of hard work and invested capitals. The corps produced after investing costly fertilizers and soared prices of diesel are unlikely to get the due market rates.

This moribund situation has a negative impact on the rural economy, which discourages the farmers and averts the attention towards opting alternative earning sources. Accordingly, the financial difference among the different classes, contrary to the social justice, is deepening day by day. The urban areas are also not immune to the deterioration in economic equilibrium.

In fact, the business tycoons in the urban and metropolitan hubs avoid from paying taxes and even bills for electricity usage. Thus, the burden of taxation, the common person has to bear, which is baleful for his bargaining capability. Consequently, the rich get richer and the poor become poorer, which widens the class gap.


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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) November 10, 2016: Even though I voted for President Barack Obama's re-election in 2012, I actually expected that former Governor Mitt Romney, a Mormon, to win in 2012. After all, the economy was not working in Obama's favor. However, white Protestants did not turn out as strongly as expected for Romney. As a result, Obama won decisively.

Evidently, white Protestants in rural areas (i.e., not urban and not suburban) turned out more strongly than expected in 2016. As a result, Donald J. Trump, the 2016 Republican Party's presidential candidate, won a decisive victory in terms of the all-important electoral-college vote. Yes, to use one of Trump's favorite expressions, our Electoral-College voting system is "rigged" to favor the winning voting outcomes in each state versus the overall popular vote outcome in the country as a whole. But in saying this, I am not arguing that we should abolish the Electoral College. (As I write, Hillary has a small lead over Trump in the popular vote.)

Yes, blue-collar white and working class voters helped Trump turn certain blue swing states red. In those swing states rural voters gave Trump his margin of victory.

But in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Democratic Party blue-collar white and working-class voters (the little guys) not only in urban areas but also in rural areas were a big part of his winning coalition.

Evidently, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential candidate did not appeal to many blue-collar white and working-class voters in rural areas as much as Trump did. She is not a charismatic speaker, as are former President Bill Clinton, President Obama, and First Lady Michelle Obama. Oddly enough, Hillary herself may recognize that she is not a charismatic speaker. So if she does not have charisma as a speaker to win the hearts and minds of prospective voters, what is she going to offer them to win their minds and hearts? In the end, the voter turnout for her in 2016 in the battleground blue states that Trump turned red was not as strong as it was for Obama in 2008 and 2012.

Incidentally, had Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a fiery speaker like the ancient Hebrew prophet Amos, somehow emerged as the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential candidate, he would not have done as well as Hillary did, compared to the voter turnout for Obama in 2008 and 2012. After all, Senator Sanders himself decided not to even compete against Hillary in certain early primaries in the South, because he knew that he could not compete effectively against her to win the hearts and minds of black voters in the South.

Now, certain white Protestants have long been upset with some Supreme Court decisions, including Roe v. Wade in 1973. Anti-abortion Protestants have formed an alliance with anti-abortion Catholic zealots. Their combined anti-abortion zealotry has prompted many in the Democratic Party, including Hillary Clinton, to strongly affirm their support of legalized abortion publicly.

No doubt anti-abortion zealots have been suckers for Republican presidential candidates who have made big-sounding statements against legalized abortion, as Trump did. But the American Catholic bishops and priests have encouraged anti-abortion zealotry, as have certain Protestant ministers.

From the standpoint of college-educated people who support legalized abortion, it is tempting to criticize the anti-abortion zealots for not voting for their own economic interests by supporting the Democratic Party's presidential candidates, as Thomas Frank criticizes them in his patronizing book What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2004). Such a patronizing critique of rural whites is not likely to win the hearts of rural whites, but it might entertain like-minded college-educated supporters of legalized abortion.

But anti-abortion white Protestants tend also to be upset with a good number of other Supreme Court decisions as well. As a result, the prospect of having a Republican president nominate new Supreme Court justices was extremely important to them. Make no mistake about it, Trump's election as president is enormously important for future Supreme Court appointments.

No doubt few people would characterize Trump as a charismatic speaker. So if he is not a charismatic speaker, what did he do to win the hearts and minds of his supporters? His major strategy to win the hearts and minds of prospective supporters was to deliberately and repeatedly succinctly assault the standards of so-called "political correctness" that prevails in the media and elsewhere in American culture today, thanks to the systematic assault of the "second wave" feminist movement that emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s. But we should examine carefully why his brash strategy worked as effectively as it did to turn out certain whites to vote for him.

Because of the strong support President-elect Trump received from certain white voters, some commentators have describe their support for him as involving white identity politics.

Of course so-called identity politics has long been associated with so-called political correctness. In Trump's presidential campaign, he skillfully made one comment after another deliberately designed to be offensive to the spirit of political correctness. By doing this repeatedly, he gained all kinds of free media attention, because journalists felt obliged to report each deliberately offensive comment he made, thereby giving him free publicity.

So it is a bit ironic, to say the least, to see the white voters who voted for Trump in this election as motivated by white identity politics. Nevertheless, we should acknowledge and recognize that the identity politics often associated with the spirit of politics correctness was selectively anti-white -- and typically anti-white-men, but not necessarily anti-white women. However, among Trump's white voters, it appears that the supposed "sisterhood of women" did not stop certain white women from voting for him.

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Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob Kall is tapping in, exploring, assessing, and clarifying this important new way of thinking that has been influenced by the civil rights movement; women's movement; and new, more effective ways of doing business. This will be an important book that can make changes in our world."



Dr. Linda Seger, author of twelve books, including the best-selling Making a Good Script Great, Spiritual Steps on the Road to Success and The Better Way to Win.
From Our Future

It seems that lots of media/political/business people "on the coasts" don't get how big a deal trade played in Tuesday's election.

Sold On Free Trade

In the late 70s the country was told that "protectionism" is bad for the economy and was sold "free trade" as a way to bring prosperity and jobs. "Trade" in this usage meant one and only thing: close a factory here and lay off the workers. Open a factory "there" to make the same goods, bring those goods back here to sell in the same stores to the same customers. It's called "trade" because now those goods cross a border. The "sell" was that all those laid-off workers would be "freed up" to get better jobs.

Well, they never got better jobs -- those were also outsourced or privatized or relabeled as low-wage "contractors" with no protections or benefits. So instead they had their homes foreclosed, their local stores forced out of business and their downtowns boarded up. Local and state tax bases dwindled so schools became terrible, infrastructure crumbled, public services cut and cut and cut. Meanwhile the investor class that pushed this and executive class that managed it pocket the wages these regions used to generate for themselves. (They also got huge tax cuts.)

Entire Regions Bled Dry

In the decades since entire regions have been bled dry of ways to make a living, their cities and towns and downtowns left behind to crumble, their aging former factory workers scrambling for Walmart jobs and turning to opiates for relief.

Take a few days and drive around the regions once known for manufacturing or steel production. See what this kind of "free trade" has done to them,

"As you drive from town to town in Michigan and Ohio you see one after another a ring of the 'big box' stores and national chain stores around each city. You also see the 'brownfields' of rusted-out, closed factories, empty, falling-down buildings. Then you go to the downtown and you see boarded-up houses, empty storefronts, deteriorating and deteriorated communities, idle people standing on corners. As you drive into these towns you can just see what is happening in a nutshell."

Bled dry. First by "trade," then by Wall Street-owned chains and banks then by the Wall Street collapse that sucked away the remaining assets. And then Wall Street got bailed out by their taxes but they didn't. These regions never got any help from the government, even as they watched the Wall Street types and executives and coastal elites living it up -- on their money.

Wall Street was bailed out. But for decades this country allowed entire regions and populations to deteriorate and die, and inequality to soar, and didn't do a thing about it. No one fixed it.

"I Alone Can Fix It"

Tuesday a lot of righteously angry people with nowhere else to turn got fed up, took things into their own hands and voted for the lying, insulting, women-groping demagogue who promised that he and he alone can fix it. "I am your voice ... I alone can fix it."

Pick a former manufacturing area, and look at how that area voted in Tuesday's election. Key "swing" states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin were hit hard by deindustrialization and little to nothing was done to help the people there. And they voted for Donald Trump because he promised to "fix" it.

Trade Mattered Where The Votes Mattered Most

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From Reader Supported News

The numbers of activists protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota continue to swell. The mainstream media continue to ignore it. National politicians continue to pretend that nothing is happening. And the local police continue to douse protesters in pepper spray, beat them, arrest them, and charge them with felonies for exercising their Constitutional right to freedom of speech.

The Standing Rock protests ought to be big news. We haven't seen protests of this scale and intensity in the United States in years. And the issue is a compelling one: The Dakota Access Pipeline directly threatens the only water supply for the entire Standing Rock Reservation, an area of more than 3,500 square miles that is home to nearly 10,000 members of the Sioux Nation straddling North and South Dakota. It is designed to carry highly combustible oil from the Bakken field to refineries south. The pipeline also crosses sacred Sioux ground.

Last spring, a tribal elder and her grandchildren established a camp on their private land to protest the pipeline. At first, several hundred Native protesters showed up. The number quickly swelled to what are now several thousand, with as many as five or six thousand on weekends.

The protests were peaceful until September, when the company building the pipeline hired a private security firm because a spokesman said protests "have not been peaceful." In conjunction with the local police, the rent-a-cops began harassing and even brutalizing protesters, hitting them with batons and spraying them with pepper spray. At least six protesters were treated for serious dog bites after being set upon by police dogs. It was the police and their partners in the district and state's attorneys offices who upped the ante. And therein lies the Constitutional issue hanging over this protest.

Disrespecting the first amendment to the Constitution is one thing. Charging peaceful protesters with serious crimes for exercising their right to free speech is another. These aren't misdemeanor counts of trespassing or disorderly conduct that we're talking about. These are felony counts of resisting arrest and conspiracy.

And in the case of Democracy Now journalist and multiple-Emmy Award winner Amy Goodman, it's a felony charge of "riot." The riot charge came after Goodman initially had been charged with "criminal trespassing," despite the fact that she is a working journalist covering a legitimate news story. Indeed, prosecutors even had the gall to say that Goodman was not entitled to any protections as a journalist because "Everything she reported on was from the position of justifying the protest actions." After prosecutors admitted that there were "legal issues with proving the notice of trespassing requirements in the statute," meaning that they couldn't prove their case, they dropped the criminal trespassing charge and filed a riot charge. Meanwhile, dozens of other felony cases against peaceful protesters continue.

This is the trend. Prosecutors at every level of government are increasingly engaging in something called charge stacking, and we're seeing its use very clearly at Standing Rock. Let's say, as an example, that a protester is actually guilty of misdemeanor trespassing. Rather than charging that protester with a single misdemeanor charge, prosecutors will charge him with multiple charges, including felonies. The protester is forced to defend himself, to hire an attorney at enormous expense, and to prepare for trial. But once the protester has run up thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, the prosecutors will come back and offer to drop all the charges but one, a felony, in exchange for a guilty plea.

So does the protester risk significant prison time and go to trial? After all, most juries would convict a baloney sandwich. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, "Well, the cops wouldn't have arrested them if they weren't guilty." Usually, a person wouldn't take a risk. The protester takes a plea to a felony, may or may not see a little jail time, pays a fine, and goes home.

But that felony record will last a lifetime. The protester has just lost the right to vote. He will probably be on probation for at least a year. He's lost the right to own a firearm for life. And in some cases, a felony conviction includes the loss of a federal or state pension. It also makes it far more difficult to get a job. It's life-altering.

And it's all for exercising our Constitutional rights.

The protests at Standing Rock are not going to end anytime soon. Indeed, we should all be there. The protests are not just about water, the environment, or Native rights. The protests are also about all of us and about government overreach. They're about the Constitution. We have to keep up the fight.

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.
Exclusive to OpEd News: OpEdNews Op Eds 11/10/2016 at 9:51 AM EST H2'ed 11/10/16

_____

OccupyTLV, November 09 -- Tax Authority whistle-blower Rafi Rotem's Tel-Aviv court farce is nearing its end. Earlier this week "Sentencing Arguments" were heard, after Rotem had been convicted on some dozen counts of "Insulting Public Service Employees" - mostly calling them "corrupt". He may face long term imprisonment.

On the other hand, the corruption which he exposed, among the worst in Israeli history, has never been investigated, since it leads directly to "high places" - e.g. Netanyahu. [1-5]

So, I thought I would sit down and write piece to sum up the last 4 years of this sordid affair.

To catch up, I googled my name and "Rotem".

Woops! Up comes Wikileaks' Podesta Archive with, "ISRAEL - the courts continue abusing whistle-blower Rafi Rotem" bi-lingual -- English-Hebrew".

I was stunned.

Searching a bit more, I found in Wikileaks' Podesta Archive some 20 short reports by me:

... and the original request. Joseph Zernik, PhD Human Rights Alert ... financial crisis, by Joseph Zernikhttp://www.opednews.com/ ... Rights-Alert-Alejan-by-Joseph--Chemerinsky_Fraud_FraudZernik

The Podesta Emails





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Created 2015-07-12; Released 2016-10-26

... Abe Benjamin, Sylvie Rafael ____ Joseph Zernik, PhD OccupyTLV Human Rights Alert ... ISRAEL-Attorneys-from-a-n-by-JZernik-Israel_Judicial-CZernik-Israel_Judicial-C

The Podesta Emails



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I must admit it. I'm surprised--even shocked.

I knew people liked him but I had no clue it was on this sort of level.

Maybe it was reluctance. Maybe it was party loyalty. Perhaps it's celebrity worship. Or maybe they just simply like him. No matter, because this election of 2016 was a revealing one.

Almost every election I remember, there was never a landslide victory. Most of the nation is divided right down the middle, with no more than a 6 to 9 percent spread, if even that high.

It's not unlike the Super Bowl: statistics are against your favorite pick in the primaries actually getting to the finals, so you settle on the candidate you least hate. If may not be the case with you, but it was with many.

Personally, I feel that this election brought a lot of things to light.

We are still sexist.

No matter how many years Hillary Rodham (Clinton) spent in politics and fighting for human rights, many men just simply would not vote for her. Some even said horrible things about her--things one can only say condescendingly to a woman. Somehow, in the modern age, people elected a man that was at the center of many sexual and criminal scandals--including child rape accusations--but were concerned more with emails about snacks and three dead soldiers that usually can't be named.



The Purgatorial Ladder, or Ladder of Souls, with the Seven Deadly Sins

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We are still racist.

No matter how you justify it, our new President is against most people that are not like him. He dislikes all Muslims, even though almost all them are not extremists. Some forget that many Muslims are not from the Middle East, but are also African and Asian. White extremists that support Donald Trump said that they would wage a war against blacks if Mrs. Clinton won. Additionally (but not finally), he wants to send the millions of non-criminal, family-orientated Mexicans in our country to Mexico.

We are still homophobic.

Gays, queers and trans people still somehow are in the forefront of people's minds when they think about sexuality. Bathrooms are suddenly an issue, as if these mostly kind, gentle people started using the restroom this year. Personally, I'm very confused why the right wing is so concerned about who's having sex with whom behind closed doors. Are they feeling left out?

We are still fearful.

Americans are notorious for living in fear. Sometimes, rightfully so. We fear ourselves and each other. Most of us like to group together with people who look like us--which most species do--and when someone different than ourselves, we feel threatened. This kind of ties in with the racist thing. Irony is, most racists don't feel they are racist. When someone enters our property or insults a loved one, the first thought most right-wingers have is to kill the person. Does trespass or disrespect warrant a death sentence? Does anything really warrant an execution? To these guys, it does, and they can't see what might be wrong with that.

We are still inadequate.

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Global Food Emulsifiers Market 2016 Corbion, Beldem S.A. and Kerry Group Plc

Food Emulsifiers

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Global Food Emulsifiers Market 2016 Industry Size Share Growth Forecast Research and DevelopmentThe Global Food Emulsifiers Industry report gives a comprehensive account of the Global Food Emulsifiers market. Details such as the size, key players, segmentation, SWOT analysis, most influential trends, and business environment of the market are mentioned in this report. Furthermore, this report features tables and figures that render a clear perspective of the Food Emulsifiers market. The report features an up-to-date data on key companies product details, revenue figures, and sales. Furthermore, the details also gives the Global Food Emulsifiers market revenue and its forecasts. The business model strategies of the key firms in the Food Emulsifiers market are also included. Key strengths, weaknesses, and threats shaping the leading players in the market have also been included in this research report.The report gives a detailed overview of the key segments in the market. The fastest and slowest growing market segments are covered in this report. The key emerging opportunities of the fastest growing Global Food Emulsifiers market segments are also covered in this report. Each segments and sub-segments market size, share, and forecast are available in this report. Additionally, the region-wise segmentation and the trends driving the leading geographical region and the emerging region has been presented in this report.Get Sample Copy of Report @The study on the Global Food Emulsifiers market also features a history of the tactical mergers, acquisitions, collaborations, and partnerships activity in the market. Valuable recommendations by senior analysts about investing strategically in research and development can help new entrants or established players penetrate the emerging sectors in the Food Emulsifiers market. Investors will gain a clear insight on the dominant players in this industry and their future forecasts. Furthermore, readers will get a clear perspective on the high demand and the unmet needs of consumers that will enhance the growth of this market.Table of ContentChapter One Food Emulsifiers Industry Overview1.1 Food Emulsifiers Definition1.1.1 Food Emulsifiers Definition1.1.2 Product Specifications1.2 Food Emulsifiers Classification1.3 Food Emulsifiers Application Field1.4 Food Emulsifiers Industry Chain Structure1.5 Food Emulsifiers Industry Regional Overview1.6 Food Emulsifiers Industry Policy Analysis1.7 Food Emulsifiers Industry Related Companies Contact InformationInquiry For Buying @MarketResearchStore.com is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics released by reputed private publishers and public organizations.Contact US:Joel JohnSuite #8138, 3422 SW 15 Street,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803
North America Accounts for the Largest 3D Bioprinting Market Due to Technological Advancements and Innovations

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The global 3D bioprinting market was valued at $98.6 million in 2015, and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 35.9% during 2016 - 2022. The growth of the global market is largely driven by increasing large demand of tissues and organs for transplantation and the innovations and advancements in technology for 3D bioprinting. A large number of people across the globe are waiting for organ or tissue transplant, due to the huge gap in demand for organs transplant and donors. This has created huge traction in the 3D printing industry for developing live tissues and organs. Different companies along with academic institutes and laboratories are investing huge capital for 3D bioprinting research and development. Some of the other factors driving the growth of the global market include increasing research and development activities and increasing compliance for 3D bioprinting in drug discovery processes. Growing stem cell research and increasing adoption of 3D bioprinting in cosmetic industry are expected to create ample growth opportunities for the global market. However, the high cost of 3D bioprinting, lack of skilled professionals and stringent regulatory processes are the key barriers for the growth of the global market.Explore Report with Detailed TOC at:Among the 3D bioprinting technologies, the pneumatic extrusion based 3D bioprinting would witness the fastest growth during the forecast period. Increasing adoption of pneumatic extrusion based 3D bioprinting in the industry and its high resolution are the major factors driving the growth of the pneumatic extrusion based 3D bioprinting market. Syringe based 3D bioprinting contributed the largest revenue in the global market in 2015. The technology along with pneumatic extrusion based technology accounted for over 60% share in the global market in 2015.North America accounted for the largest share in the global market in 2015, owing to the technological advancements and innovations, and increasing research and development activities. The U.S. contributed largest revenue to the North American as well as global 3D bioprinting market. The country is expected to remain the largest market for 3D bioprinting globally during the forecast period. The huge capital investments along with the significant development in 3D bioprinting are the key driving factors of the U.S. 3D bioprinting market.Among the different applications, the largest revenue was generated from the sales of 3D bioprinting products and services for tissue and organ regeneration in 2015. The increasing demand for tissue regeneration in cosmetic industry and large number of development in 3D bioprinting for tissue and organ regeneration are the key driving factors for the application segment.Browse Other Related Report at:Some of the players operating in the global market include Organovo Holdings, Inc., CELLINK, EnvisionTEC, BioBots, Cyfuse Biomedical K.K., Aspect Biosystems Ltd., 3D Bioprinting Solutions, Ourobotics, Advanced Solutions, Inc., GeSiM, Bio3D Technologies, 3Dynamic Systems Ltd., Nano3D Biosciences, Inc., Poietis, regenHU Ltd., and Aerotech Inc.About P&S Market ResearchP&S Market Research is a market research company, which offers market research and consulting services for various geographies around the globe. We provide market research reports, industry forecasting reports, business intelligence, and research based consulting services across different industry/business verticals.As one of the top growing market research agency, were keen upon providing market landscape and accurate forecasting. Our analysts and consultants are proficient with business intelligence and market analysis, through their interaction with leading companies of the concerned domain. We help our clients with B2B market research and assist them in identifying various windows of opportunity, and framing informed and customized business expansion strategies in different regions.Contact:AbhishekExecutive  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-Free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-Free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)
US Capital Advises on $10.6 Million Real Estate Term Loan for Paul Ryan Associates, Inc

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USCapital Partners Inc. provides financial advisory services to support the continued expansion of a leading residential and commercial real estate construction firm.San Francisco, CA, USA, November 10, 2016 -- US Capital Partners Inc. has advised on a custom-structured real estate term loan of up to $10.6 million for Paul Ryan Associates, Inc., a leading general contractor in the United States with licensed operations across multiple States from New York City to Hawaii.Headquartered in San Francisco, US Capital Partners is a private investment bank that makes direct debt investments, participates in debt facilities, and has wide distribution for debt and equity private placements for small and medium-sized businesses. The firm has a history of successful closings in the commercial and residential real estate sectors.We are extremely pleased to have advised on the refinancing of this nationwide general contractor, said Jeffrey Sweeney, Chairman and CEO at US Capital Partners. Paul Ryan Associates approached US Capital Partners for assistance in refinancing its bank debt and securing additional working capital to support its current and future needs. In this case, US Capital Partners successfully advised on a $10.6 million real estate term loan for Paul Ryan Associates, carefully customized to meet the companys unique needs.About Paul Ryan Associates, Inc:Established almost 50 years ago, Paul Ryan Associates is an employee-owned construction firm that builds high-end, custom residential and commercial real estate and tenant improvement projects. The company operates as a general contractor in multiple States across the United States. With a passion for constructing custom homes, Paul Ryan Associates has built a reputation on the quality of its workmanship.About US Capital Partners Inc:Since 1998, US Capital Partners () has been providing well-structured, custom finance solutions to private and public companies with up to $250 million in top-line sales revenue or project size. Headquartered in San Francisco, US Capital Partners is a private investment bank that makes direct debt and equity investments between $500,000 and $100 million, participates in debt facilities, and has very wide distribution for debt and equity private placements. The firm also offers financial advisory services for buy-side and sell-side engagements and for capital formation, including early-stage financings requiring equity or debt.To learn more about this recent engagement or about how a business can secure the investment banking services it needs, email Jeffrey Sweeney, Chairman and CEO, at jsweeney@uscapitalpartners.net or call +1 (415) 889-1010.Since 1998, US Capital Partners () has been providing well-structured, custom finance solutions to private and public companies with up to $250 million in top-line sales revenue or project size.Contact:Alex ShihUS Capital Partners Inc555 Montgomery Street, Suite 1501San Francisco, CA 94111415-889-1010media@uscapitalpartners.net
Soybean Derivatives Market, size, share, 2015  2020 detailed in new research report

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Soybean derivatives have numerous applications such as food, feed and automotive among others. Residual fibers remained after extraction of soybeans oil from soybean is used as feedstock for animals. Soybean derivatives in the food industry are excised especially in snacks, breads, baked products, salad dressings, mayonnaise, potato chips and sauces. The market size and forecasts in terms of revenue (USD million) for the period 2015 to 2020, considering 2014 as the base year, have been provided for this segment of the report. The report also provides the compounded annual growth rate (% CAGR) for the forecast period 2015 to 2020.Request Sample Report at:Soybean derivatives market is primarily driven by intense demand from food and beverage industry on account of growing protein consumption. Another major driving factor is high penetration from animal feed industry owing to rising meat production and increasing demand for animal protein products. Industries like paints, coatings, bio-plastics and bio-diesels are also augmenting applications that expected to have strong growth over the forecast period. However, substitute from wood pulp and bagasse is a major restraint of global soybean derivatives market.In order to give the users of this report a comprehensive view on the soybean derivatives market, we have included a detailed value chain analysis. To understand the competitive landscape in the market, an analysis of Porters Five Forces model for the soybean derivatives market has also been included. The study encompasses a market attractiveness analysis, wherein product segments and application segments are benchmarked based on their market size, growth rate and general attractiveness.Get in-depth TOC (Table of Contents) with Tables and Figures @The soybean derivatives market is segmented on the basis of its applications into feed, food, and others (biodiesel, soy-based wood adhesives, soy ink, soy crayons, soy-based lubricants). Based on type, the soybean derivatives market is segmented into soybean, soy meal, and soy oil. Soy meal is further segmented into soy milk and soy protein concentrate. Similarly, soy oil is also further segmented into soy lecithin. Based on lecithin processing market is also segmented as water, acid, and enzyme. The soy meal was dominating segment, and is also anticipated to grow at significant share owing to increasing demand from the food industries.The report forecasts value of the global soybean derivatives market and its various applications with respect to main regions namely, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa with its further bifurcation into major countries including U.S., Germany, France, UK, China, Japan, India, and Brazil. This segmentation includes demand for soybean derivatives market based on individual application and types in all the regions and countries.Browse the full report at:Some of the key players operating in the global soybean derivatives market are Bunge Limited, Archer Daniels Midland Company, Wilmar International Company, Louis Dreyfus Commodities, Cargill Inc and Noble Group Ltd among others.This report segments the global soybean derivatives market as follows:Global Soybean Derivatives Market: Type of Soybean Segment AnalysisSoybeanSoy meal (soy milk and soy protein concentrate)Soy oil (soy lecithin)Global Soybean Derivatives Market: Application Segment AnalysisFeedFoodOthers (biodiesel, soy-based wood adhesives, soy ink, soy crayons, soy-based lubricants and etc)Global Soybean Derivatives Market: Lecithin Processing Segment AnalysisWaterAcidEnzymeGlobal Soybean Derivatives Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeUKFranceGermanyAsia-PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East & AfricaDo Inquiry before buying at:About US:Syndicate Market Research provides a range of marketing and business research solutions designed for our clients specific needs based on our expert resources. The business scopes of Syndicate Market Research cover more than 30 industries includsing energy, new materials, transportation, daily consumer goods, chemicals, etc. We provide our clients with one-stop solution for all the research requirements.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@SyndicateMarketResearch.comWebsite:
Global Feminine Hygiene Market is Expected to Expand at CAGR of 7.2% over the Forecast Period (2016-2024) According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research (PMR) titled Global Feminine Hygiene Product Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016-2024, the global feminine hygiene market is expected to expand at CAGR of 7.2% over the forecast period (2016-2024) in terms of value.



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The report has categorically been divided into three sections namely by product type, distribution channel, and region. On the basis of product type, the global feminine hygiene market has been segmented into sanitary napkins/pads, tampons, panty liners, menstrual cup, and feminine hygiene wash. On the basis of a distribution channel, the global feminine hygiene market has been segmented into a supermarket, convenience stores, department stores, retail pharmacies, and online purchase. By product type, sanitary napkin/pad segment is expected to expand at highest CAGR of 8.4% over the forecast period, in terms of value, attributed to increasing awareness about the benefits of sanitary napkins/pads. This segment is expected to be valued at US$ 16,896.8 Mn by 2024 end.



By product type, tampons segment is expected to be the second most dominant segment during the forecast period.



By distribution channel, supermarket segment is expected to dominate the global feminine hygiene market over the forecast period, followed by department stores distribution channel segment.



Increasing awareness and high adoption of feminine hygiene products in developing countries are expected to drive demand for feminine hygiene products during the forecast period. Factors such as easy availability and affordable prices of such products are expected to drive revenue growth of the global feminine hygiene market during the forecast period.



The global feminine hygiene market is fragmented in nature, with a prevalence of oligopolistic competition among renowned brands. Established players are focused on manufacturing innovative feminine hygiene products in developed and developing countries to increase revenue generation.



The report offers analysis and insights into each segment of feminine hygiene market in specific regions. On the basis of region, the global feminine hygiene market is segmented into five key regions namely North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). In 2015, Asia Pacific dominated the global feminine hygiene market in terms of revenue and is expected to register a CAGR of 5.4% over the forecast period.



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Market participants covered in the report include Kimberley  Clark Corporation, Procter & Gamble, Unicharm Corporation, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget SCA, Johnson & Johnson, Lil-lets UK Limited, Sanofi, Ontex, and Egdewell Personal Care. These companies are primarily focused on enhancing their product portfolio through research and development and introducing new cost-effective products, in order to strengthen its position in the global market.



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Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.



To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.



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Global Diabetic Gastroparesis Treatment Market is Projected to Register a CAGR of 4.1% During the Forecast Period (20162024)

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According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research titled Diabetic Gastroparesis Treatment Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016  2024, revenue from the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market is projected to register a CAGR of 4.1% during the forecast period (20162024). Diabetic gastroparesis is the symptom of delayed gastric emptying affecting patients suffering from Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes. The disease primarily has no cure but its symptoms are treatable via various types of drugs and devices. The global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market was valued at US$ 2,650 Mn in 2015, which is expected to increase to US$ 3,769.3 Mn by 2024. The report analyzes the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market in terms of market value on the basis of product type, disease indication, and distribution channel; and provides information regarding regional market dynamics, regulations, current trends, market estimations, and forecast.Request to view Sample Report @Rising prevalence of Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes with high unmet medical needs, growing demand for minimally invasive treatment for refractory gastroparesis, and availability of reimbursement for in-patient hospital stays are driving growth of the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market. Increasing use of diabetic gastroparesis drugs to control symptoms such as nausea and vomiting is anticipated to fuel growth of the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market over the forecast period. However, usage of non-prescription drugs to control the symptoms restricts diagnosis of stage 1 and stage 2 gastroparesis. Lack of clinical evidence on improvement offered by prescription drugs and termination of clinical trials are factors expected to hamper growth of the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market over the forecast period.The global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market has been segmented on the basis of product type into drugs and surgical treatment products; on the basis of disease indication into compensated gastroparesis and gastric failure; and on the basis of distribution channel into hospital pharmacies, private clinics, drug stores, retail pharmacies, and e-commerce. Among product types, the drugs segment dominated the market with maximum revenue share of 66% in 2015 followed by the surgical treatment product segment with 34% share. Enhanced development of novel products such as the domperidone drug for the treatment of gastric motility disorder are expected to fuel the growth of the drugs segment over the forecast period. The hospital pharmacies segment is estimated to account for the highest market revenue share of 48.0% in the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market by the end of 2016.The report covers the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market across five key regions namely North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), and Middle East & Africa (MEA). North America is expected to remain the dominant market throughout the forecast period, driven by rise in healthcare expenditure, increasing demand for metoclopramide agents in the management of diabetic gastroparesis disease, increasing research on antibodies and other innovative prokinetics drug delivery formats, and technological advancements. Revenue from the diabetic gastroparesis treatment market in North America is expected to register a CAGR of 4.4% over the forecast period. Asia Pacific is expected to remain the second-most lucrative market for diabetic gastroparesis treatment, with an estimated CAGR of 4.5% over the forecast period.Request to view Table of content @Some of the top companies profiled in the report are Janssen Global Services, LLC, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Abbott Laboratories, Medtronic, C. R. Bard, Inc., Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Boston Scientific Corporation, Cardinal Health, Inc., Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Evoke Pharma, and Alfa Wassermann SPA. Leading market players are continuously introducing novel products to enhance their product portfolio, increase market share, and expand customer base.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesTel: +1 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWebsite:media@persistencemarketresearch.com
Netkiller promotes G Suite upgrade with 6 Months Free Extension Offer

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Netkiller Inc, based in San Jose, California an authorized G Suite reseller has introduced an extended contract offer with Google for companies upgrading from G Suite Basic to G Suite Business.San Jose, CA, November 10, 2016 - Netkiller Inc, based in San Jose, California an authorized G Suite reseller has introduced an extended contract offer with Google for companies upgrading from G Suite Basic to G Suite Business. The limited-time promotion offers an extended term of 18 months for the price of 12 months, and includes unlimited storage for all users that are upgraded to G Suite Business. The extended 6 months are discounted on a monthly basis. After 18 months, users have the choice to return to G Suite Basic or continue with G Suite Business.Formerly known as Google Apps for Work, G Suite has received a new name and new features implementing increased security and greater storage space. G Suite includes a set of intelligent apps such as Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Calendar to keep companies organized and connected anywhere around the world. Google announced that on top of the tools offered before, they have added their most advanced security features including email retention, enhanced admin controls, and account-wide search capabilities for G Suite. It has 30GB of storage in Google Drive with email, online messaging, and real-time collaboration tools for Google Docs.The promotion offer is offered for accounts currently on G Suite Basic (formerly known as Google Apps for Work) with 10-99 seats looking to upgrade to G Suite Business (formerly known as Google Apps for Work Unlimited). The regular price for G Suite Business is $120 per user, per year. With this offer, upgraders receive a $60 discount for each user that is upgraded and unlimited storage for accounts that are upgraded, receiving G Suite Business for the full term of 18 months an extended 6 month contract priced at $120 per user. The promotion is valid until December 15, 2016.Contact:Harry JungNetkiller Inc.4320 Stevens Creek Blvd., Ste 211San Jose, CA 95129, USA(408) 641-0114info@netkiller.com
Oleyl Alcohol Market: In-Depth Market Research Report 2015 to 2021

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Oleyl alcohol is a fatty alcohol which is usually found in fish oil and beef fat. It is unsaturated and non-ionic in nature which shares a wide scope in various application as well as end-user industries. Oleyl alcohol is used in an extensive range of applications such as lotions, thickener in skin creams, emulsifiers, surfactants, hair coatings, hair conditioners, and plasticizers for softening fabrics. The global market for oleyl alcohol has been witnessing significant growth on account of increasing demand from its application industries such as personal care. It is used in a variety of applications such as surfactants, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. One of the major opportunities for the surfactant industry is bio-based surfactants where rising awareness among consumers towards eco-friendly products has noticeably contributed towards the growing demand for oleyl alcohol in surfactants. Surfactants also share a broad application scope as foaming agents, emulsifiers, detergents, and wetting agents. Conditioning and detergency are some of the vital properties of surfactants due to which they share a wide application scope. Major applications of oleyl alcohol-based surfactants include personal care, textile, pharmaceutical, soap and detergent among others. Key manufacturers have entered into several collaborations and agreements with other companies for the marketing of new products as well as garnering a larger share in the market.Request for Sample Report:Other applications of oleyl alcohol include plasticizer for use in fabrics. The market for oleyl alcohol in plasticizers has been witnessing noticeable growth due to changing lifestyles and emerging global economies in Asia Pacific and Latin America. Additionally, growing environmental awareness and rising legal provisions have been serving as a catalyst for the plasticizers market with developments in various emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, China and India. Matured regions such as Europe and North America accounted for the highest demand for oleyl alcohol due to the presence of vast hair care and skin care industries in these regions resulting in significant demand for the chemical. Moreover, emerging economies in Asia Pacific such as Japan, China and India are anticipated to witness the fastest growth rate over the forecast period on account of growing hair care, skin care and pharmaceutical industries in the region. Various factors such as rising awareness regarding healthy hair and skin among consumers as well as changing lifestyles is expected to boost the demand for personal care products which in turn is anticipated to contribute towards the demand for oleyl alcohol.Increasing demand for personal care products such as hair care and skin care on account of rising awareness for hair and skin is expected to be another major factor driving the demand for oleyl alcohol. Moreover, growing demand for pharmaceuticals is also expected to contribute towards the growing demand for oleyl alcohol in the production of various drugs and ointments within the forecast period. In addition, increasing consumption of oleyl alcohol in surfactants due to their low cost and ease of availability has also contributed significantly towards the growth of the market. However, fluctuating prices of key feedstock materials has been major concern for the manufacturers and is expected to limit the growth of the market. Focus on commercializing and developing cost-effective bio-based surfactants using oleyl alcohol is anticipated to provide new opportunities for the growth of the market.Request for Table of content:AkzoNobel N.V., P&G Chemicals, Sigma Aldrich Corporation, Stepan Company, and The Lubrizol Corporation are some of the key manufacturers of oleyl alcohol present in the market.About Us:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact Us:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane Market: Potential and Niche Segments, Geographical regions and Trends by 2015 to 2021

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Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) which acts as a building block for nanocomposites owing to their nano size, high symmetry, and three dimensional figure. POSS, unlike other nanoparticles are easily dispersed in a wide range of polymer matrices which can be done by modifying chemical structure of POSS molecule for their compatibility with the specific polymer resin. POSS compounds give better mechanical stability, electrical and optical properties with an organic matrix. They are widely used in the production of electronic products, LEDs and antimicrobial coatings.Request for Sample Report:The market for POSS is experiencing noticeable growth as transparent, conductive engineering thermoplastic nanocomposites are finding immediate applications in a wide range of high-tech products. These applications include antistatic and shielding plastics for displays, computers, electronic packaging, business equipment products, and aircraft canopies.Growth of the electronic industry has been one of the major factors driving POSS market, with their increasing use as organic light emitting diodes (OLED). In addition, growing consumption of coatings has also contributed to the demand of POSS as antimicrobial coating. Moreover, growing demand for nanocomposites as filler nano materials in films and coatings is expected to fuel the demand for POSS over the next few years. Increasing application scope of POSS in building & construction has also been one of the major factors contributing to growth of the market. However, growing concerns over several health hazards associated with the production of POSS is expected to hinder the market growth. Increasing use of POSS as silica coatings for application in environmental protection, and for application as an interlayer dielectric for integrated circuits is expected to open new avenues for the growth of the market. North America was the largest consumer for POSS majorly due to the presence of the telecommunication, computer and electronic industry.Request for Table of content:Hybrid Plastics Inc., Reade Advanced Materials, SimagChem Corp, Sigma-Aldrch Corporation, Wuhan Vanz Pharm Inc. are some of the manufacturers of POSS present in the industry.About Us:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact Us:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Nuclear Response Robot Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Growth, Trends, Forecast Upto 2024

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Nuclear Response Robot Market: OverviewThough robots have been developed since many decades, they are still not able to reasonably supplement humans in several tasks, such as assisting them in nuclear plants. This is no longer the case now, because now robots have been developed which have sufficient mobility, sensors, size and tooling to be effective in emergency situations. People in nuclear industry have now started to recognize the benefits of automated technologies and have started investing in such technologies.Browse The Market Research Report of Nuclear Response Robot Market :Nuclear response robots are specially designed automated machines which are programmed to assist humans in safe functioning of nuclear power plants. Nuclear plants have several hazardous operations such as handling of radioactive material, disposing the used material and leakage detection in emergency situations. The robots are specifically designed to assist workers in such situations. Thus to manage radioactive materials, nuclear responsive robots are now being adopted in few countries. Nuclear response robot market is anticipated to grow at a steady pace by 2020.The post Fukushima nuclear power plant incident in Japan has raised concerns about the safety of plants in cases of such disasters. Thus for safe handling of nuclear plants, technological development will consistently be an important issue. Nuclear response robot technology will be driven by the fact that, more nuclear plants are to be deployed in future and safety would be the prime priority in such installations. Recently Chiba Future Robotics developed a robot, which can roll on dangerous radioactively contaminated grounds where firemen cannot easily enter.Nuclear Response Robot Market: Drivers and RestraintsResearch and Development in the field of nuclear response robots is likely to increase owing to specific requirements of nuclear plants in coming future. There are some issues that need to be resolved for wide adoption of technology. Primarily the material availability may act as a restraint for technological development. The material must be of high quality that does not alter with the reach of gamma rays in order to bear the radiation exposure. Another major issue for the nuclear response robots market is the unreliable wireless communication in case of emergency situations.Nuclear Response Robot Market: SegmentationThe nuclear response robots can be segmented based on their applications. These robots are equipped with different sensors and come in different sizes based on their application. A majority of these robots are tele-operated. These robots can assist humans in, operation & maintenance of industrial nuclear facilities and maintenance in nuclear reactors. They are of special use in areas where safety concerns related to humans are high, such as decommissioning & dismantling nuclear facilities and emergency intervention situations.Get Sample Report Copy :The global demand for nuclear response robots was very low until the recent accident in Fukushima power plant took place. At present no nuclear plant is in as insecure a state as Fukushima, but adoption of robots in nuclear plants around the world would reduce risks for plant workers. Now many nations which are investing in nuclear power plants have also started to invest in this technology. Especially countries like China, Japan, France and Russia are potential markets for nuclear response robots. The regional segmentation will be done as North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and Rest of the world (Row).Nuclear Response Robot Market: Companies Mentioned in the ReportThere are many major technological innovators investing in nuclear response robots. Key companies in this industry are Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Romotec, General Dynamics, iRobot, Thales Group, Boston Dynamics, ECA Robotics and Elbid Systems.About Us :Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us :-Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Key Management Service Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Growth, Trends, Forecast 2024

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Key management refers to management of cryptographic keys in a cryptosystem, which includes key generation, key exchange, storage and replacement of keys. A cryptosystem consists of three algorithms which are key generation, encryption and decryption. Key generation refers to process of generating keys through various algorithms such as symmetric key generation algorithms (data encryption standard (DES) and advanced encryption standard (AES)) and asymmetric key generation algorithms (RSA algorithm). The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has defined a key management system security policy which establishes and specifies rules used to protect keys and metadata supported by key management system. The policy helps in protecting the confidentiality, integrity, availability and source authenticity, thus covering the complete key life cycle from its inception to its elimination.Browse The Market Research Report of Key Management Service Market :The compliances such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), SarbanesOxley (SOX) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) have created challenges for the organizations that use encryption for protecting the information. Due to wide adoption of data encryption by the organizations, the number of keys are increasing exponentially. This has led to rise in demand of key management services which enhances security of the encrypted information and also increases availability of the encryption keys for the organization. The key management service provider offers a centralized key management and certificate management, which has further supported the growth of key management service market. According to Cost of Data Breach Study 2015 by Ponemon Institute, the average cost for a data breach is US$ 3.5 Mn per incident. The security breach incidents result in loss of customer trust and revenue, thus lead to rise in demand of keys required for encryption. This supports the growth of key management service market. Growth in cybercrimes and rise in number of cashless transactions is likely to create immense opportunities for key management service market. Limited availability of keys and scalability issues pertaining to multiple databases, standards and applications is expected to create challenges in the growth of the key management service market.Key management service market is segmented on the basis of key type, sector and geography. On the basis of key type, key management service market is segmented into symmetric key and asymmetric key. Symmetric key refers to identical keys which are used for both encryption and decryption whereas asymmetric key refers to two mathematically related different keys for encryption and decryption. On the basis of sector, the key management service market is segmented into BFSI, retail, IT & telecommunication and others. Moreover, on the basis of geographies, the global key management service market is segmented into Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa and South America. North America has the highest adoption of the key management service due to presence of highly digitalized banking sector in the region. Asia Pacific region is expected to have a high demand for key management service attributed to rapid growth of cashless payment system in the region.Get Sample Report Copy :Leading service providers in the global key management service market includes International Business Machine (IBM) Corporation, Amazon Web Services, Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP, FORNETIX, Oracle Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Thales Group, Vormetric, Inc., RSA Security LLC., Cryptomathic A/S and SSH Communications Security, Inc.About Us :Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us :-Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Remote Patient Monitoring Device Market to Register a CAGR of 6.6% Between 2016 and 2024

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According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research titled Remote Patient Monitoring Device Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024, the global remote patient monitoring device market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.7% and is estimated to reach US$ 1,502.9 Mn by 2024, creating incremental opportunity of US$ 657.1 Mn between 2016 and 2024. Persistence Market Research analyzes the overall performance of the global remote patient monitoring device market and provides key insights on the factors and trends likely to influence the market during this eight-year period.Request to view Sample Report @Rising prevalence of cardio vascular diseases, respiratory disorders, and diabetes in the general population are major factors driving the growth of the global remote patient monitoring device market. Increasing healthcare expenditure and increasing availability of effective treatment solutions for chronic diseases is also projected to boost revenue growth of the global remote patient monitoring device market. Other factors boosting market growth include an increasing awareness among people to self-monitor before disease advancement and government reimbursement issued on homecare settings facilities.Lack of trained professionals to help with remote patient monitoring devices is expected to hinder market growth of the global remote patient monitoring device market. Insufficiency in maintaining the privacy and security of the stored data, lack of uniformity in device functionality, and lack of general awareness on patient monitoring devices are the key restraints challenging the market.The global remote patient monitoring device market is segmented on the basis of Product Type (Cardiac Monitors, Respiratory Monitors, Hematological Monitors), Application (Cardiac Arrhythmia, Diabetes, Ischemic diseases, Hypertension, Sleep apnea, Chronic respiratory diseases, Hyperlipidemia), End User (Hospitals, Homecare Settings, Long-term Care Centers, Others), and Region (North America, Latin America, Europe, APEJ, and MEA).By product type, the cardiac monitors segment is expected to remain the largest segment and is anticipated to reach US$ 765.4 Mn by the end of 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.9% over the forecast period. By the end of 2024, the respiratory monitors segment is projected to reach US$ 435.0 Mn, expanding at a CAGR of 6.5% over the forecast period. By application, the cardiac arrhythmia segment is estimated to reach US$ 307.7 Mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.8% over the forecast period. The diabetes segment is projected to reach US$ 196.8 Mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 5.6% over the forecast period. By end user, the hospitals segment is anticipated to reach US$ 690.1 Mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.6% over the forecast period. The homecare settings segment is anticipated to reach US$ 347.3 Mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.2% over the forecast period.Among regions, North America is estimated to dominate the global remote patient monitoring device market with 31.4% revenue share of the overall market by the end of 2016. The Europe remote patient monitoring device market is anticipated to reach US$ 341.1 Mn by 2024. By 2024, North America and Europe markets are expected to account for over four-fifth share of the global remote patient monitoring device market revenue.Request to view Table of content @Some key companies covered in the report include Boston Scientific Corporation, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Abbott Laboratories, Nihon Kohden Corporation, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., LifeWatch AG, Medtronic, and St. Jude Medical. These companies are primarily focused on enhancing their product portfolio through research and development initiatives and through the introduction of innovative technologies in order to gain higher market share and to strengthen their respective positions in the global market.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesTel: +1 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWebsite:media@persistencemarketresearch.com
Purified Terephthalic Acid Market Expecting Worldwide Growth by 2020

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Purified terephthalic acid (PTA) is a chemical which is synthesized from crude oil. It is majorly used to manufacture polyester fiber. Its end-user industries include textile and home furnishing where PTA is required to manufacture garments such as bed sheets, curtains and clothes.Request to view Sample Report @The market for purified terephthalic is expected to witness noticeable expansion in the coming years with the growing demand for polyester, specifically in China. Furthermore, the country is emerging as a global textile manufacturing hub with low-cost labor further driving the growth of the purified terephthalic acid market. Polyethylene terephthalate which acts as a successor to PTA is also expected to make an impact on the PTA market in accordance to its end-user industries.Several growth factors such as growing per capita consumption in emerging regions such as China and significant growth of the textile industry is expected to boost the demand for the PTA market. However, fluctuating prices in energy sources such as crude oil required to produce PTA is expected to affect profitability of PTA manufacturers thereby impacting the growth of the market. Beer and other alcoholic beverage industries as well as household product containers are still dominated by the glass industry, which could be an unexplored market for PTA consumption thereby, providing new opportunities for the growth of the market.Asia Pacific was the largest consumer for purified terephthalic acid, followed by North America and Europe. Future market growth is expected to be from Asia Pacific as well owing to the improving living standards as well as cross-country usage of PTA products.Request to view Table of content @Alfa, S.A.B. de C.V., CPC Corporation, Far Eastern Group, Honam Petrochemical Corporation, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Co. Inc., Reliance Industries Ltd., Samyang Chemical Co., Ltd. and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation are some of major producers of purified terephthalic acid dominating the market.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Current and Projected Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices Market size in terms of volume and value 2015-2025

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Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery is performed to treat disease occurring in various parts of brain, spinal cord or skull base through a small opening. Diseased area may require repair, removal and in the worst cases replacement which is being done through neurosurgery. Neurosurgical device used for the visualization purpose inside the human brain or spinal cord is known as Endoscope which is kind of a small microscope inserted through minimal invasion. Endoscope helps in magnifying critical anatomical structure and assist the surgeon in the treatment. Endoscopic neurosurgery requires minimal incision thus it is also known as Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery. Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery avoids complication post-surgery, leads to faster recovery, minimal scarring/pain and high accuracy. Recent advancement in endoscope design produced endoscopes that are compact, more efficient with improved resolution and better illumination than the earlier devices.Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices Market: Drivers & RestraintsMinimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices market is probably the last speciality to move to minimally invasive because of the complexity involved in the surgery however due to continuous advancement in medical technology for the treatment of neurological disorders have raised the demand of Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices. Rise in the ageing population leading to increase in the incidence of neurological disorders are some major factors driving the growth of Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices market. More awareness amongst the surgeons is helping the market to dwell in developed countries however the market of developed countries are more or less saturated and have a limited growth opportunity as compared to developing countries especially Asia Pacific countries where due to large population the market growth can be significant in the upcoming years. Lack of skilled professionals in the developing countries and poor or unstable reimbursement regulations are hampering the growth of Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices in developing countries.Request for sample report:Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices Market: SegmentationMinimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices market is classified on the basis of product type, surgery type and geography.Based on product type, the global Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices market is segmented into the following:Fiber optic cablesMiniature video cameras (Endoscopes)Special surgical instrumentsExternal video monitorsBased on surgery type, the global Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices market is segmented into the following:Intracranial SurgeryEndonasal NeurosurgerySpinal SurgeryMinimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices Market: OverviewMinimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices is a growing market due to various benefits offered like less recovery time, shortened hospital stay, greater accuracy, less pain and muscle sparring which is making minimally invasive neurosurgery a preferred option for the medical practitioners and surgeons. Proliferation of joint ventures and cross utilization of technology in minimally invasive surgical devices market is a plus for different market players as they dont have to invest much on the research and development of different types of products. Introduction of robotic devices to perform the surgery is an alternative for better outcomes and increased accuracy.Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices Market: Region-wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, global Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America is the leading region in Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices market due to the high volumes of surgical procedures being performed. Also, the availability of established healthcare infrastructure, high contribution of healthcare to economy, patient compliance are the reasons for the high demand in North America. Europe has the second largest Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices market due to vast technological advancement in terms of healthcare sector. Asia Pacific market is expected to grow at a good rate as compared to NA and Europe as there is ample market opportunity in countries like India and China.Request for TOC:Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in global Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery Devices market are Karl Storz GmbH & Co. KG, Olympus Corporation, Conmed Corporation, Richard Wolf GmbH, Boston Scientific Inc., Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corporation, Aesculap Division, Smith & Nephew Plc, Medtronic and NICO Corp. to name a few.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types, technology and applications.About us:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.Contact us:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705T (UK): + 44 (0) 20 7692 8790Email:sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Mobile Phone Global Market Outlook 2016 - 2021

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The Global Mobile Phone Market Research Report is an extensive study of the current market trends and growth prospects of the industry. The report offers comprehensive analysis for the historic period, 20112016 and the forecast period, 20162021. Industry overview is provided in terms of definition, specifications, and industry chain structure of Mobile Phone Market. Manufacturing processes and cost structures are discussed along with raw material and equipment suppliers. Regional analysis for the Mobile Phone Market is offered based on market size, sales, sale price, and growth rate. In addition, import, export, supply, and consumption analysis are included for each region.Read Full Report with TOC @Major manufacturers are analyzed in the report based on company profile, specifications, types, and contact information. Furthermore, comprehensive analysis of capacity, production, cost, price, and revenue of each manufacturer is covered.Global market size in terms of volume & value, growth rate, sales, and sale price are analyzed for the historic period. Moreover, an extensive analysis of market size of types, applications, and regions is offered for the forecast period. The feasibility and SWOT analysis for new project investment is explored along with marketing distributor analysis. Data & statistics are provided with the help of figures and tables to help market players, investors, and stakeholders gain thorough understanding. Research conclusions are presented at the end of the report.Get Sample Copy @Following manufacturers are analyzed:SamsungLGAppleLenovoTCLNokiaHuaweiZTEGoogleBlackberryHTCSonyXiaomiMotorolaOPPOVivoCoolpadCherry MobileBLUAllviewINTEXDoogeeAsk for Discount @Following regions are analyzed:North AmericaChinaEuropeJapanIndiaSoutheast AsiaWith the arsenal of different search reports, Research Beam helps you here to look and buy research reports that will be helpful to you and your organization. Our research reports have the capability and authenticity to support your organization for growth and consistency. With the window of opportunity getting open and shut at a speed of light, it has become very important to survive in the market and only the fittest and competent enough can do so. So, we try and provide with latest changes in the market that can suit your needs and help you take decision accordingly.5933 NE Win Sivers Drive, #205, Portland, OR 97220U.S. & Canada Toll Free: + 1-800-910-6452UK: + 44-845-528-1300, India: +91 20 66346070Fax: +1 (855) 550-5975Email: help@researchbeam.com
Agricultural Equipment Market Explores New Growth Opportunities By 2020

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Agriculture equipment is any type of machinery that is used on farm for farming purpose. Agriculture equipment market is increasing with the introduction of novel technology in the field of agriculture. It helps in making harvest season simpler and more profitable. Increasing global population boost the demand of food grain and rising per capita calorie intake increasing pressure on agriculture sector to become more productive and highly efficient. This leads to drive the demand for agricultural equipment market all across the globe.Request to view Sample Report @Agricultural equipment contains wide range of machinery and tools, which help in various farming processes in order to improve the output and to enhance the overall quality of crops. Various agricultural equipments include seed driller, transplanters, threshers, sprayer, tillers, balers, rotavators and reaper. Agriculture equipment industry is not only growing at a swift pace, but it also plays an important role in growth of global economy. Increasing sophisticated technology in agriculture equipment leads to reduce the overall cost farming. Growth of such technology and investment on research and development in agriculture equipment plays a key role in the growth of global agriculture equipment market.Asia Pacific region accounted the largest agricultural equipment market around the world. China and India are the two largest growing markets. Growing large population in these two countries increased the overall demand of food. China alone holds one-third market of global agriculture equipment. To get significant gains in terms of efficiency and larger production of food the demand of harvesting machinery is growing in India. Farm tractors are largest product segment in agricultural equipment market. Developing nations across the world get substantial funds and assistance for the betterment of their agricultural productivity through farming process automation. This helps in rise if global agriculture equipment market.Request to view Table of content @Major companies operating in global agricultural equipment market are John Deere, AGCO Corporation, CNH Global NV, CLAAS KGAA MBH, GROUPE EXEL INDUSTRIES SA, MTD PRODUCTS AG., Alamo Group, Bucher Industries, Caterpillar Incorporated, Daedong Industrial Company, Escorts Limited, Fiat SpA, Iseki & Company, Kubota Corporation, Kverneland ASA, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, YTO Group, Tractors and Farm Equipment and Same Deutz-Fahr.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Greek Yogurt Market Revenue, Opportunity, Forecast and Value Chain 2016-2026

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Currently, greek yogurt is one of the most popular dairy products across the globe. Since greek yogurt is prepared through the straining process in order to separate the yogurt from the excess watery whey, it is also known as strained yogurt. The straining process makes the yogurt much thicker and creamier as compared to the regular or traditional yogurt. Greek yogurt contributes significantly to the growth of the global yogurt market. This is mainly attributed to its benefits such as higher protein and lower carbohydrates value as compare to traditional yogurt. Presently, greek yogurt is the highest growing product category among others including regular yogurt and yogurt drinks and second holds largest market share in terms of revenue, after traditional yogurt in the overall yogurt market. Demand for greek yogurt market is expected to increase in the next five to six forecast years owing to increasing lunch of new product with variety of flavours such as blueberry, vanilla, honey, chocolate and others.Global Greek Yogurt Market Segmentation:On the basis of product type, the global greek yogurt market is segmented into regular greek yogurt and non-fat greek yogurt, which is made from skim milk. Owing to increase the consumption of fat free and healthy products, non-fat greek yogurt products are gaining increasing popularity among the consumers.Request for sample report:On the basis of distribution channel, the global greek yogurt market is segmented into supermarket/ hypermarket, grocery stores, convenience stores, and online retailing. In terms of revenue contribution, supermarket / hypermarket is expected to hold the highest share among all the other segments. However, online retail for global greek yogurt market witnesses steady growth in the forecasted years. This is attributed to increasing visibility of greek yogurt especially through online retailing.Geographically, global greek yogurt market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, and Middle East and Africa (MEA). North America and Western Europe are the two most lucrative market for greek yogurt in the world. In North America around half of the yogurt sold is greek yogurt.Global Greek Yogurt Market Dynamics:Increase in health consciousness among consumer has led to shift in eating preference towards healthy and nutrition food products. Availability of high nutritional value, which includes high protein, probiotics, vitamin such as vitamin D, B12, minerals such as potassium, iodine and calcium in greek yogurt is key factor that has led to increased adoption of greek yogurt among consumers and thus, fuelling the global greek yogurt market growth.Increasing application of greek yogurt is another growth driver for greek yogurt market since it is used for various medium in different countries. For instance, in Mediterranean region greek yogurt is mainly used as savoury but in the US, Mexico and Canada it is used as sweet snack with added fruits and flavours. Greek yogurt is also used in making many sauces for instance beef and lamb sauces. Greek yogurt is also used as a substitute products, for instance it is used as a substitute product for sour cream, cream cheese and butter. Thus, increasing its application among food products.Request for TOC:Among dairy products, greek yogurt is a good option for the consumers who have slight lactose intolerance, since in the production process much of the lactose is removed from the greek yogurt. This leads to drive the scope of greek yogurt among such consumers globally. However, high lactose intolerance is restrain for adoption of greek yogurt, thus restricting the market growth. There is a high opportunity to expand and increase the revenue for greek yogurt in the Asia Pacific excluding japan and Middle East countries.Global Greek Yogurt Market Key Players:Some of the key players operating in the global greek yogurt market are Chobani LLC, Stonyfield Farm, Inc, FAGE International S.A., GROUPE DANONE, and General Mills, Inc. Owing to have strong distribution and marketing strategies companies are able to meet the increasing demand for global greek yogurt.About us:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.Contact us:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705T (UK): + 44 (0) 20 7692 8790Email:sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Single-Use Bioprocess System Market: Global industry analysis and forecast 2016 - 2026

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Single-use bioprocess system is a device used in biopharmaceutical development and production procedures. These procedures have made production effective. These devices are used in various techniques such as mixing, filtration, biopharmaceuticals purification, upstream expression, storage and separation of products. The technology focus on development of manufacturing of biotechnology and biopharmaceutical product. Rising adoption of Single-use bioprocess systems in commercial product manufacturing is expected to increase the growth of market. The advantages associated with the device includes reusable device, low operational cost and minimal or no risk of cross contamination. Single-use bioprocess system provides various economic advantages over fixed stainless-steel system. Flexibility of Single-use bioprocess system allows companies to assemble and store devices as per the need. This technology is used throughout the process of biopharmaceuticals production, starting from buffer or media preparation to culturing of vaccines in bioreactor to storage and shipping of biologics.View Sample Report @Rising demand for disposables in biopharmaceuticals procedures, rising prevalence of disease requiring for developed drugs for their management and treatment and improved research infrastructure of life science is expected to grow the market. Single-use bioprocess system includes various products. Some of major products related to these are manifold assemblies, single-use bioreactors, containers and bags, support containers and mixers. These product reduce the cost related to cleaning and sterilization. Increasing stringent regulations on usage of plastic based disposables is expected to be one of the common restrains for this market. Lack of awareness towards innovative products of bioprocess is also expected to hinder the growth of Single-use bioprocess system market.Global market for Single-use bioprocess system is expected to grow at healthy growth rates owing to growing incidence of various chronic disorders such as neurological and cardiovascular disorders. Other prominent factors fueling the increasing penetration of Single-use bioprocess system includes ease of implants with enhanced clinical performance, strong reimbursements, greater patient awareness and referrals and improved technology enabling market leadership. The technology proves to be cost effective when compared to alternative therapies with minimal complications. Additionally, reduced medication dosage with minimal side effects Dyskinesia, improved motor symptoms for comparatively longer period of time are some of the other factors that have largely contributed towards higher market growth of Single-use bioprocess system over the forecasted period.Based on Product type, the global Single-use bioprocess system market is segmented into the following:Product TypeResearch and Development (R&D) systemsGMP/ Commercial production systemsResearch and development systems segment includes sampling system, containers, tubing, connectors, disposable bioreactors, mixers, sensors, probes, purification devices and others. GMP/commercial production systems includes storage containers, disposables, Manifolds and others used in stainless steel bioreactors.Based on application type, the global Single-use bioprocess system market is segmented into the following:Application TypeFiltrationsMixingPurificationUpstream ExpressionStorageOthersIn terms of geography North America accounts for the largest market share in global Single-use bioprocess system market followed by Europe. Favorable policies and sophisticated healthcare infrastructure with increasing FDA approvals is expected to drive the growing need of Single-use bioprocess system in the near future. Asia Pacific represents the fastest growth market for Single-use bioprocess system owing to growing number of manufacturers.Request TOC (desk of content material), Figures and Tables of the report:Some of the key players in global Single-use bioprocess system market includes Thermo Fisher Scientific, GE Healthcare, Pall Corporation, Sartorius Stedim Biotech S.A., Merck KGaA, Broadley-James Ltd., Eppendorf AG, Parker Hannifin Corporation, Saint-Gobain Corporation, Tarpon Biosystems Inc., STI Components Inc., Cellexus Ltd., and others. These players are entering into strategic collaborations, mergers & acquisitions, and product portfolio expansions, which are their key sustainability strategies to maintain their profit margins in the long run. Also many startup companies have entered in this lucrative market space to capitalize over the opportunities present in Single-use bioprocess system market.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market in-telligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexi-ble without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market 2016-2021 Trends and Forecasts!

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Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market report focuses on the major drivers and restraints for the key players. It also provides granular analysis of the market share, segmentation, revenue forecasts and geographic regions of the market.Browse more detail information about Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market at:The report elaborates the Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market overview. Various definitions and classification of the industry, applications of the industry and chain structure are given. Present day status of the Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market in key regions is stated and industry policies and news are analysed.Next part of the Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market Industry analysis report speaks about the manufacturing process. The process is analysed thoroughly with respect three points, viz. raw material and equipment suppliers, various manufacturing associated costs (material cost, labour cost, etc.) and the actual process.Get a PDF Sample of Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market Research Report at:To provide information on competitive landscape, this report includes detailed profiles of Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market key players. For each player, product details, capacity, price, cost, gross and revenue numbers are given. Their contact information is provided for better understanding.Following are the key players covered in this Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market research report:1. Ethicon Endo-Surgery2. Olympus3. Medtronic (Covidien)4. Stryker5. Smith & Nephew6. Richard Wolf7. Karl Storz8. Boston Scientific9. Aesculap (B. Braun)10. Intuitive SurgicalNo. of Report Pages: 110Price of Report (Single User Licence): $4000Purchase the Report Now @After the basic information, the Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market report sheds light on the production. Production plants, their capacities, global production and revenue are studied. Also, the Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market growth in various regions and R&D status are also covered.Further in the Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market Industry Analysis report, the Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market is examined for price, cost and gross. These three points are analysed for types, companies and regions. In continuation with this data sale price is for various types, applications and region is also included. The Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market for major regions is given.Additionally, type wise and application wise consumption figures are also given.Scope of the Laparoscopic Devices Sales Industry on the basis of region: North America China Europe Japan India Southeast AsiaWith the help of supply and consumption data, gap between these two is also explained.In this Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market report analysis, traders and distributors analysis is given along with contact details. For material and equipment suppliers also, contact details are given. New investment feasibility analysis and Laparoscopic Devices Sales Market Industry growth is included in the report.Absolute Reports is an upscale platform to help key personnel in the business world in strategizing and taking visionary decisions based on facts and figures derived from in depth market research. We are one of the top report resellers in the market, dedicated towards bringing an ingenious concoction of data parameters.Mr. Ameya PingaleyAbsolute ReportsSilver Springs, Baner, Pune - 411045+1-408 520 9750Email  sales@absolutereports.com
Global Combination Antibody Therapy Market Grows Owning To Innovations In Technology 2016  2022

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Combination antibody therapy has gained significant recognition in past two decades. It is now a preferred drug treatment for cancers such as lymphomas and solid tumors. Antibodies for modulating immune system has also achieved a significant success clinically. Combination antibody therapy are crucial strategies for treating patients suffering from hematological malignancies and solid tumors. This therapy for tumors is based on the fundamentals of cancer cells antigen expression. Combination antibody therapy can function through mediating changes in antigen or receptor functions or modulating the immune system or administering a drug that becomes temporarily united with the antibody, for targeting a specific antigen. According to the journal of oncology (JCO) it has been concluded that a combination of epratuzumab with rituximab was tolerable and had substantial effect in Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL). Nonetheless, auto immune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis can be treated by combination of alpha monoclonal antibody with low dose weekly of methotrexate. Additive effect of Rituxan anti-CD20 chimeric antibody with low dose chemotherapy can be effective in B-Cell Lymphoma.The particular nature of the combination antibody therapy has led to more targeted and specific treatment of the cancer and tumor. Hence, become an attractive treatment in recent years due to its non-chemotherapy nature, which in turn gives a safe and secure process of killing the cancer and tumor cells. Growth for combination antibody treatment market is anticipated to gain traction in near future due to the above mentioned factors. Owing to the ability of combination antibodies to specifically target tumor cells and cancer cells has been crucial for the advancement of monoclonal antibodies combination therapy so far due to that it is expected that the CAGR for combination antibody therapy market is tend to expand in near future. Combination antibody therapy market is anticipated to grow on the backdrop of increased effort for developing dual targeting of tumor antigens such as bi-specific ADCs and novel strategies such as masked antibodies.View Sample Report @Requirement of safe and chemotherapy-free cancer treatments have led towards rise in demand for combination antibody therapy. Major part of the demand is expected to be under chronic lymphocytic leukemia. However, over the year significant number of antibodies and immune system modulators have been introduced in various other cancer treatments, which has shown positive effects of disease disposal. The more convenient way for drug administration has empowered the growth of these type of cancer treatments, which further offers more patient compliance. Furthermore, the rise in prevalence of cancer around the globe has been a positive sign for combination antibody therapy market that in turn is expected to underpin the growth in use of combination therapy.Global market for Combination antibody therapy is segmented on the basis of disease, basis of drugs, route of administration and end user:Segmentation by DiseaseCancerTumorAuto-immune disorderSegmentation by DrugsNivolumab and IpilimumabTrastuzumab and PertuzumabRituximab and ApolizumabOfatumumab, and ObinutuzumabIpilimumab and BevacizumabOthersSegmentation by Route of administrationOralParenteralSegmentation by End UserHospitalsAmbulatory Surgical CentersCancer institutionsClinical research institutesPrimary revenue drivers for combination antibody therapy are an increase in number of patients seeking safe and chemotherapy free treatment. High rate of cancer in human population globally, is estimated to affect significantly in combination antibody therapy market worldwide. Other revenue drivers include life style changes and rise in adulterated food consumption by individuals. Furthermore, the combination antibody therapy market is expected to grow on the backdrop of rise in cases of skin tumors, which includes basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas and make up 12% of all skin tumors.Request TOC (desk of content material), Figures and Tables of the report:On the basis of region presence, Combination antibody therapy market is segmented into five key regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. Currently, North America dominates the global market for Combination antibody therapy due to high adoption and diagnosis rate, followed by Europe. Rising number of cancer patients is expected to fuel the Combination antibody therapy market. Combination antibody therapy market in Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa is expected to register high growth due to developing healthcare infrastructure and high prevalence of tumor and cancer.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market in-telligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexi-ble without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Hydro-processing Catalysts Market Analysis, Trends, Forecast, 2014-2020

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In last two decades, the business of refining catalyst has grown from regional to global level. Refinery product values are dependent on process catalysts of refined products, petrochemical products and chemicals alongwith other refinery operations. One of the major concerns in the refinery is to reduce the sulphur content to the required limit. Hydro-processing catalysts (HPC) are primarily consumed in the hydro-processing operation of crude oil fractions. Such crude oil fractions include kerosene, naphtha and diesel. As a common practice, hydro-processing of crude oil fractionsis carried out at an elevated temperature and pressure.Hydro-processing is required to remove pollutants such as sulphur, heavy metals and nitrogen from fuel oils. These catalysts also help in the catalytic hydrocracking process to crack larger hydrocarbon molecules into smaller sizes,to be used as fuel oils. Thus, hydro-processing catalysts enable conversion of heavy feedstock into lighter products for efficient processing. Hydro-processing catalysts market is the fastest growing refinery catalysts market segment in the world. In addition, hydro-processing catalysts supplement the process control and operational efficiency improvement activities. Therefore, it is expected that the hydro-processing catalyst market will dominate the global refinery catalyst market by 2020.The global hydro-processing catalysts market can be categorized on the basis of its product type as molybdenum oxides, cobalt oxides, nickel oxidesand tungsten oxides. These metal oxides are carried on a carrier or matrix of silica, alumina and silica/alumina. Further, global hydro-processing catalysts market can also be categorized on the basis of their applications such as creating cleaner fuels, ultra-low sulphur levels in diesel fuels (ULSD) and others. On the basis of technology, global hydro-processing catalysts market can be segmented as hydro-treating catalysts, hydrogenation catalysts, hydrocracking catalysts, isomerisation catalyst and reforming catalyst. Among these, hydro-treating catalysts are dominant segment at present,accounting for more than half of the global hydro-processing catalysts market.Request Free Report Sample@Refiners are more focusing to maximize residue feedstock yield through hydro-processing catalysts as petroleum product prices are rising globally. This is one of the key supply side drivers of the global hydro-processing catalysts market. Moreover, stringent environmental regulations and legislations are expanding, which, in turn, affects the heaviercrude processing and sulphur elimination process market.Enhanced refinery capacities coupled with the rising oil production are driving the growth of global hydro-processing catalysts market.Environmental fuel specifications regulations introduced by Europe, the U.S.and few Asia Pacific countries have been driving the global hydro-processing catalysts market.Further, developed countries have mandate to reduce sulphur content whereassulphur restrictions are implemented in the developing countries such as India, China and Mexico. As hydro-processing catalysts are advantageous to reduce sulphur content, these countries are likely to open up opportunities for hydro-processing catalysts market.Due to presence of giant oil and gas chemical manufacturers in the refinery catalyst market; the market competition is quite high. Expansion of production facilities in oil producing fields along with the strategic alliances are few of the major market strategies in the global hydro-processing catalysts market.Request For TOC@Some of the major market participants of global hydro-processing catalysts market include HaldorTopse, W. R. Grace and Company, Albemarle Corporation, Axens, UOP- Honeywell International Inc., Chevron Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell plc, BASF SE, Criterion Catalysts & Technologies, Criterion catalysts & Technologies and others. Among these, BASF has increased its R&D efforts since it acquired Engelhard. Further, BASF SE has come up with new developments in the processing of residue to increase the quality of yield.W.R. Grace and Companyhas introduced new products inthe hydro-processing catalysts market in the past five years. Thus, it is clear that global hydro-processing catalysts market participants are focused to expand their business through innovative product launches with specific market application. These innovative products include catalyst to eliminate sulphur content upto mandate limits. The worldwide hydro-processing catalysts market stands ready to meet the challenges, where energy costs significantlyfluctuate. However,fluctuating raw material prices, price spike, price collapse along with the governments enact legislation for certain related products or technologies, the demand of hydro-processing catalyst market are expected to undergo fluctuation.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Chromatography Instrumentation Market Growth, Trends and Value Chain 2015-2025 by FMI

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Chromatography is the most essential and well known separation technique which is extensively used across various industries. Chromatography is referred to as a technique that is used for the purification of biomolecules in which the components that are to be separated are distributed between two phases. Among these two phases, one is stationary phase and other is a mobile phase. All types of chromatography systems work on the same principle i.e., separation of sample mixture into stationary phase (solid or liquid supported on solid) and mobile phase (liquid or gas). Over the years chromatography technique and its instrument are being used in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies for the development of pure drug molecule. The instruments that are utilized in the chromatography have benefitted the researches due to their ability to separate, analyze and purify a molecule in an efficient and effective manner. These chromatography instrumentation techniques are used in various application areas such as pharmaceutical, biotechnology, food production, diagnostics, genetic engineering, drug discovery and water analysis.Request Free Report Sample@The global market for chromatography instrumentation can be segmented as follows:By systemGas chromatography systemLiquid chromatography systemHigh pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC)Ultra high pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC)Low pressure liquid chromatography (LPLC)OthersIon-exchange chromatographyAffinity chromatographySuper critical fluid chromatographyColumn chromatographyThin layer chromatographyBy consumables and instrumentsColumnsSyringe filtersVialsTubingsDetectorsAutosamplersPumpsFraction collectorsOthersBy end usersBiotechnology and pharmaceuticals industriesHospitals and research laboratoriesAgriculture and food industriesOthers (cosmetic industries, environmental agencies and nutraceutical companies)The market for chromatography instrumentation holds an immense potential due to increasing number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Rising government investments for research purpose, expansion of chromatography companies in the Asian region and increasing collaborations among the existing players in the market are some of the other propelling factors for this market. The chromatography instrumentation market is also witnessing huge advancements in the design of column which is consequently raising the demand for development of better analytical resins and reagents. Additionally, emergence of green chromatography, usage of nanomaterial in chromatography and increasing usage of chromatography instrument for monoclonal antibody purification are some of the other opportunities that are fuelling the growth of this market. However, high cost of the chromatography systems and economic slowdown across the globe has resulted in decreased sales of chromatography systems. In addition need of skilled personnel for operates chromatography instrument is a factor which might restrict its demand in the global chromatography instrumentation market.Request For TOC@Geographically, North America accounts for the largest share of the chromatography instrumentation market followed by the European region. The dominance of these regions in this market is seen due to growing government investments and funding for research. Further, augmented research and development activities of drugs and biologics and increasing number of conferences on chromatography are some of the key drivers of this industry. However, in the near future the U.S market is expected to decline its market share owing to the market maturity. Asia-Pacific region is expected to show healthy growth in the near future due to expansion of chromatography companies in the regions of India, China, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam. Additionally, several major pharmaceutical companies are also increasingly outsourcing their drug and development services especially in the Asian region which is indentified as another major driver that is augmenting the demand of chromatography reagents in this region.Major players operating in this market includes Agilent Technologies, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Bio-Rad Laboratories, GE Healthcare, Life Technologies Corporation, Pall Corporation, Regis Technologies, Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, Waters Corporation, Helena Laboratories, Phenomenex, Inc. WWR International, Tosoh Corporation and others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Cling Film Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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Cling films are the plastic coatings found in the food packaging. Cling films has globally transformed the packaging in food and beverages market, owing to the increasing need for innovative packaging solutions in the food & beverage industry. Cling films are the soft plastic wraps of polyvinylidene chloride (PVC). Cling film coating is preferred as it majorly contributes to the health and hygiene of the food article, also preventing it from contaminants and preserving it. Furthermore, the cling films are considered as a cost effective way for food presentation. The global cling films market is expected to register a healthy growth rate during the forecast period.Interpret a Competitive outlook Analysis Report with PDF Brochure:The global cling films market is primarily driven by the eminent properties of cling films, which in turn is augmenting the demand for cling films in food and beverage industries. Cling films are permeable to water vapor and oxygen, which in turn extends the shelf life of the product or increases the peak freshness of the wrapped food articles. Cling films are now an indispensable non-food item for the food and beverages industry. Cling film being smooth surfaced will cling on to some of those surfaces which are smooth and thus can remain tightly fixed over the opening of the container without any use of adhesives. On the plus side, the cling films can keep the food articles moist in the fridge without any flavor and odor loss. Cling films can be ideally used to wrap sandwiches, leftover food, cover plated meals or fruits in a basket while travelling and to preserve food on a general note. The above mentioned factors are anticipated to drive the demand for global cling films market.The cling films are available in 8 micron, 9 micron and 10 micron thickness. The cling films application is based on thickness of the film. Also, it is available in 60,70,80,90,100,115 and 150 Gauge. They are used based on the strength and capacity of the film to carry the product. Cling films are segmented into two forms namely Cast cling film and Blown cling film. The cast cling film is made from a continuous melting procedure of a thermoplastic and extracted from a flat die on a chill roll. This has a good clarity and a good tear resistance. It is comparatively less expensive. The blown cling film is manufactured using blow extrusion process. It is tougher and more resilient than cast cling film. It can take higher loads as compared to cast cling film. But blown cling film has poor clarity and is more expensive than cast cling film.However, there are some disadvantages of cling films that can hamper the product wrapped which includes, low resistance of cling films to extreme weather, rough transport, and extreme temperature. The above mentioned factors might hamper the growth of global cling films marketThe major end users of global cling films market are food and beverages, chemical, animal feeds and pharmaceutical companies. Cling films market is prominent in North America followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. The cling films market is slowly gaining phase in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America markets and is expected to account significant shares in the global cling films market over the forecast period. Some of the key players identified in the global cling films market includes Graco Adhesives, Anchor Packaging, Berry Plastics, AEP Industries Inc., Bemis Company Inc., Dow Chemical Company, FUJI Seal International Inc, Intertape Polymer Group Inc. and E I du Pont de Nemours and Co.About TMRTMR is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Water Market to be Shaped by Opportunities in Developing Economies

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The global water market deals with the extraction and distribution of one of the most important commodities for mankind. The water market has risen in importance in the last few decades as urbanization has picked up speed in emerging regions and industrial infrastructure has also spread across the world. The increasing global population has also played an important role in the rise and rise of the water market in recent years.The global water market consists of services to distribute water for residential, industrial, and commercial use, treat the water according to its end use, and treat the wastewater obtained as a byproduct. The latter has become increasingly important in the last few years due to the rising global scarcity of water, which has led to wastewater reuse becoming a need in many parts of the world.Interpret a Competitive outlook Analysis Report with PDF Brochure :What is the primary driver for the global water market?The primary driver for the global water market is the increase observed in the demand for water all across the world. The rapid development of emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and South Africa has led to a steady increase in the demand for water in commercial, residential, as well as industrial applications. The increasing urban infrastructure in these countries has led to a high demand for potable water, while the dynamic industrial sectors of these countries have been a major consumer of industrial-grade water.In developed economies, maintenance of the existing water infrastructure and wastewater treatment are the two major segments of the water market. Desalination is also becoming increasingly popular in many countries, as the freshwater reservoirs on earth have started to dry up. Smart water supply is the next step for the water market in developed economies, in order to ensure minimization of wastage and to develop a smart system to fulfill as much of the total need as possible for as long as possible.Which regional water market holds the dominant position in the global scenario?The global water market is led by Asia Pacific due to the rampant construction and manufacturing industries in the region. Both of these industries require massive amounts of water constantly, ensuring steady demand for the same. India, Japan, and China are among the leaders in the APAC water market, thanks to India and China being among the most populous countries in the world and Japan being a major industrial giant.Browse Report with Full TOC at :The India water market is expected to take on greater significance in the coming years, with the growing population of the country making it essential to provide clean water to the population. To this end, Japanese environmental services company, Hiyoshi, recently announced plans to develop a wastewater treatment business in India. Hiyoshi has been actively participating in knowledge sharing with multiple agencies in developing economies, but this is the first step  of surely many to follow  in foreign water companies trying to establish a foothold in the promising business environment of India.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207
Fruit Water Market - Healthy and Tasty : Industry Analysis, Forecast 2016-2024

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Overview:Fruit water refers to the water having a combination of fruits, vegetables, and herbs immersed in it. It has a fruit flavor with no calories, thus consumed to gain better health. Fruit water has emerged as a healthy and tasty way to keep the body hydrated. Not just hydrated, fruit water also enhances the flavor without adding any chemical or excess sugar. Fruit water is a rich source of anti-oxidants and vitamins that are released through various fruits and vegetables infused in it. Some of the health benefits of fruit water includes high content of vitamins and minerals which keeps body hydrated, remove toxins from the body, good for digestive system, support immune system, reduce muscle fatigue, and release fat cells for water weight loss. Fruit water has become a new and rising trend among the health drinks.Get More Information :Global Fruit Water Market: Market SegmentationThe global fruit water market is segmented on the basis of product category, form, flavors, packaging and region. Based on product category, fruit water is segmented into sweetened water and unsweetened water. On the basis of form, fruit water market is segmented into natural and organic form. On the basis of flavors, fruit water market is segmented into white grape, mango, aloe vera, pineapple, coconut, and others. On the basis of packaging, global fruit water market is segmented into plastic bottles, cans, tetra packs, and pouches. Fruit water market is further segmented on the basis of distribution channel into hypermarket/supermarket, convenience store, specialty stores, online stores and others such as vending machines, cash and carry retailers etc.Global Fruit Water Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global fruit water market is segmented into major regions including North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Globally, among all regions, North America is expected to be the largest market for fruit water. Rising health consciousness and increasing demand of natural fruit flavors that enhance the taste and are free of artificial ingredients, preservatives and high sugar, is one of the factor contributing significantly to the high market share of fruit water in North America. Asia Pacific region is projected to be the fastest growing market during the reviewed period.Global Fruit Water Market: Growth DriversFruit water market is expected to witness modest growth during the next couple of years. It is expected to be driven by its health benefits, antioxidants properties, nutritional value, and better taste. The trend of clean label and natural flavors in the food & beverages has provided a significant boost to the growth of fruit water market. The rapid growth is further supported by various macro-economic factors such as population growth, recovered GDP, and increased disposable income that elevated the demand of fruit water. Rapid urbanization coupled with the changing life-style, change in taste and preferences, change in eating habits, along with the growing awareness level regarding health benefits of fruit water is fueling the growth of global fruit water market. However, rising cost of raw materials and the issues pertaining to the stability and sustainability of natural flavors over synthetic flavors are some of the factors challenging the growth of fruit water market. Food technologist and companies in this market are continuously involved in research & development activities to innovate and introduce new variants of fruit water that can enhance the taste and nutritional value attached to it.Browse Full Report With ToC:Global Fruit Water Market: PlayersSome of the global key players in the fruit water market includes The Coca-Cola Company, Zpirit Foods Inc., National Beverage Corp., Clearly Food & Beverage Company, Ltd, Hint Inc., Adirondack beverages, Inc., Prystine Food & Beverages Pvt. Ltd., Fresh Fruit Ingredients Inc., among others. Companies in the global fruit water market are focusing upon expanding their product portfolio through new product launches.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Wood Cedar Shim Market Trends and Competitive Landscape Outlook 2016-2022

Wood Cedar Shim

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MRS Research Group addsGlobal Wood Cedar Shim Market 2016 Share,Size,Trends and Forecast to 2022 Market Research Reportreports to its database.This report provides a strategic analysis of the Wood Cedar Shim market and the growth estimates for the forecasted period.The market research analyst projects the global Wood Cedar Shim market to grow at a considerable CAGR, in terms of revenue,over the forecast period.The report will provide the client with market insights and in-depth analysis of multiple market segments on the basis of applications, end-users,and geographical cross-sectional study across the globe.This report also provides market sizing and forecasts for the Wood Cedar Shim market.In addition, it provides a copious view on the market dynamics such as market drivers,market restraints, and opportunities for each of the micro markets.Get Free Sample Research Report @The report provides detailed information with respect to competitive landscape along with the top competitors in the Wood Cedar Shim market.Furthermore, to help the clients make strategic decision,the report highlights a comprehensive profiling of leading players,their detailed analysis, their key developments along with the market positioning.The report also foregrounds current and future market trends in order to justify the forthcoming attractive markets within the Wood Cedar Shim market.Moreover, clients are also provided with segment-wise, region-wise, and country-wise analysis of the Wood Cedar Shim market.To convey a proper analysis of all the data, the report comprises a number of figures,graphs,tables,and diagrams,which will help the clients get a crystal clear idea of the current trends in the market.Additionally,the report also strategically analyzes the Wood Cedar Shim market with regards to individual growth trends, future prospects, and contribution of each segment to the market.Various competitive developments such as contracts and agreements,new product developments, expansions,and mergers & acquisitions in the Wood Cedar Shim market are also included in the report.Access Full Research Report @This research study incorporated the use of extensive secondary sources, directories, and databases in order to identify and gather information useful for the technical, market-oriented,and commercial study of the market.This report is an effort to identify driving factors for the Wood Cedar Shim market and sub-markets in the near future.The research report also presents an exhaustive evaluation of the market and comprises contemplative insights,historical data,facts,and statistically supported market data that is industry-validated.It comprises estimations using an appropriate set of assumptions and necessary methodologies.The research report provides analysis,statistics,particulars,and information with respect to the market segments such as geographies,applications,and others.Table of Content (Index) :1 Industry Overview1.1 Definition and Specifications1.1.1 Definition1.1.2 Specifications1.2 Classification1.3 Applications1.3.1 Heating1.3.2 Air conditioning1.3.3 Refrigeration1.3.4 Industrial applications1.4 Industry Chain Structure1.5 Industry Overview and Major Regions Status1.5.1 Industry Overview1.5.2 Global Major Regions Status1.6 Industry Policy Analysis1.7 Industry News Analysis2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.1 Raw Material Suppliers and Price Analysis2.2 Equipment Suppliers and Price Analysis2.3 Labor Cost Analysis2.4 Other Costs Analysis2.5 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.6 Manufacturing Process Analysis3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Major Manufacturers in 20153.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Major Manufacturers in 20153.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Major Manufacturers in 20153.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Major Manufacturers in 2015.......MRS Research Group is the worlds giant collection of the Market research Reports. Where we specialized in global publisher, tailor made reports and specialists consulting. Global Publisher provides in-depth analysis of global and Chinese market. Tailor-made reports represent methodologies deliverable to proper insight of the client. While, expertise research specialist helps to provide strategic solution in specialists consulting. It consists of head such as, latest report, category, niche market and news. Reports published on the million of category like chemical, machinery and equipment, consumer goods, manufacturing and construction etc. Latest national, international, business News published under news portal.Joel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442United StatesToll Free : +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@mrsresearchgroup.com
Smart Motor : Global Market Snapshot by 2022

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Smart motor is a highly programmable digital motor which can be programmed and work accordingly as per requirement of application. It can easily store the information related to its speed and can change it immediately with the single pressing of a button or after a particular given time. These smart motor is integrated with an encoder, an amplifier, motor driver, communication buses, dual port Ethernet port, and USB interface for programming, remote terminal unit (RTU), half duplex communication port and IOs. The microcontroller integrated with smart motor detects the presence of load on the shaft and correspondingly adjust the power extraction to the load. The main specialty of the smart motor is its ability to produce highest torque at lowest speed. The technological advancement and innovation brings the smart motor to completely new stage, now smart motors can support industrial Ethernet protocol including Ether CAT and PROFINET. The main applications of this smart motor is in industrial automation and robotics applications, which are undoubtedly the emerging sectors across the globe and hence the demand of smart motor is also rising up in global market.Request for Sample Copy@The key trend of global smart motor market is the tremendous increment in the demand of smart motor for the application in the industrial automation.There are various factors driving the growth of global smart motor market such as the advantages provided by smart motors over the traditional AC motors as it requires less wiring and onsite space, cost reduction, increased effectiveness of equipment, less power consumption are some of the global smart motor market drivers driving this market. On the other side there are some factors which are responsible to hinder the growth of global smart motor market, which are; lower rate of implementation and additional consideration for variable frequency drive are some of restraints of smart motor market.Among all the regions North America is the highest contributor in term of revenue in global smart motor market followed by Asia Pacific & it is expected that in near future Asia Pacific is going to lead this market.Request for Table of Content@The key players of global smart motor market are Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) Ltd., Rockwell Automation, Inc., Moog Animatics, General Electric Co. Ltd., FUJI Electric Co. Ltd., Siemens AG, Technosoft S.A., Schneider Electric SE, Robotshop, Inc., Roboteq, Inc. and others.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.ContactPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Global Sleeve Label Market Trends, Revenue And Value Chain 2016 to 2022

Sleeve Label

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SummaryThe Global Sleeve Label Consumption 2016 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Sleeve Label market.First, the report provides a basic overview of the Sleeve Label industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. And development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures.Secondly, the report states the global Sleeve Label market size (volume and value), and the segment markets by regions, types, applications and companies are also discussed.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Third, the Sleeve Label market analysis is provided for major regions including USA, Europe, China and Japan, and other regions can be added. For each region, market size and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information. Whats more, the Sleeve Label industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @8 Major Manufacturers Analysis of Sleeve Label:8.1 Avery Dennison8.1.1 Company Profile8.1.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.1.2.1 Type I8.1.2.2 Type II8.1.2.3 Type III8.1.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.1.4 Contact Information8.2 Bemis8.2.1 Company Profile8.2.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.2.2.1 Type I8.2.2.2 Type II8.2.2.3 Type III8.2.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.2.4 Contact Information8.3 The DOW Chemical8.3.1 Company Profile8.3.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.3.2.1 Type I8.3.2.2 Type II8.3.2.3 Type III8.3.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.3.4 Contact Information8.4 Holostik8.4.1 Company Profile8.4.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.4.2.1 Type I8.4.2.2 Type II8.4.2.3 Type III8.4.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.4.4 Contact Information8.5 Karville8.5.1 Company Profile8.5.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.5.2.1 Type I8.5.2.2 Type II8.5.2.3 Type III8.5.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.5.4 Contact InformationQYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651Email: sales (@) qyresearchgroup (dot) com
Global Men's Underwear Market : Europe & North America Demanding Region

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The men's underwear market is projected to account for US$ 8,420.8 Mn by the end of 2015 at a CAGR of 5.8% from 2015 to 2020, to reach US$ 11 Bn by 2020.Request Report Sample @There are generally two types of men's undergarments; one type covers the torso and the other covers the waist and legs. For undershirt, we include vest, sleeved vest and muscle vest. For briefs, we include regular briefs, trunk and boxer shorts. Long underwear is preferred to offer extra warmth to wearers during winters.Growing disposable income, preference for branded underwear that offer better fit and comfort are major factors fuelling demand for premium underwear, thereby driving the growth of the men's underwear market. However, a high degree of competition and unorganised market in developing countries are major factors hampering the growth of the overall men's underwear market. The men's underwear market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 5.8 % from 2015 to 2020, to reach US$ 11,167.6 Mn by 2020.For More Information Request TOC (desk of content material), Figures and Tables of the report @By region, BRIC dominated the market with over 35% market share and is expected to remain dominant throughout the forecast period. Europe was the second dominant region with 17.4% share in 2014. The men's underwear market in Europe and North America is expected to expand at CAGRs of 5.1% and 3.9% respectively during the forecast period. On the basis of age group, the market has been segmented into 1525, 2635, 3645, 4655 and 56 and above. The 3645 segment accounted for 24.2% share of the global men's underwear market in 2014 and is expected to register a CAGR of 5.8% over the forecast period. On the basis of distribution channel, the market has been segmented into online sales and offline sales, where offline sales are further sub-segmented into the mass merchant, speciality store, mono-brand store and others. The online sales segment accounted for 7.7% share of the global men's underwear market in 2014 and is expected to register the fastest CAGR of 12.8% over the forecast period. Mass merchant sub-segment accounted for a dominant market share of around 58.5% in 2014.Browse the full Men's Underwear Market: BRIC to Witness Highest Growth by 2020 report @Key market players covered in this report are Hanesbrands Inc., Philips-Van Heusen Corporation, Ralph Lauren Corporation, Jockey International Inc., American Eagle Outfitter Inc., Iconix Brand Group Inc., J.C. Penny Corporation, Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Major players in men's underwear market focus on enhancing their global and regional presence through acquisitions and mergers and operational expansion.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Candy Market 2016 DeMets Candy, Ferrara Candy, Mars and Nestle SA

Candy Market

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Global Candy Market 2016 Industry Size Share Growth Forecast Research and DevelopmentThe Global Candy Industry report gives a comprehensive account of the Global Candy market. Details such as the size, key players, segmentation, SWOT analysis, most influential trends, and business environment of the market are mentioned in this report. Furthermore, this report features tables and figures that render a clear perspective of the Candy market. The report features an up-to-date data on key companies product details, revenue figures, and sales. Furthermore, the details also gives the Global Candy market revenue and its forecasts. The business model strategies of the key firms in the Candy market are also included. Key strengths, weaknesses, and threats shaping the leading players in the market have also been included in this research report.The report gives a detailed overview of the key segments in the market. The fastest and slowest growing market segments are covered in this report. The key emerging opportunities of the fastest growing Global Candy market segments are also covered in this report. Each segments and sub-segments market size, share, and forecast are available in this report. Additionally, the region-wise segmentation and the trends driving the leading geographical region and the emerging region has been presented in this report.Get Sample Copy of Report @The study on the Global Candy market also features a history of the tactical mergers, acquisitions, collaborations, and partnerships activity in the market. Valuable recommendations by senior analysts about investing strategically in research and development can help new entrants or established players penetrate the emerging sectors in the Candy market. Investors will gain a clear insight on the dominant players in this industry and their future forecasts. Furthermore, readers will get a clear perspective on the high demand and the unmet needs of consumers that will enhance the growth of this market.Table of ContentChapter One Candy Industry Overview1.1 Candy Definition1.1.1 Candy Definition1.1.2 Product Specifications1.2 Candy Classification1.3 Candy Application Field1.4 Candy Industry Chain Structure1.5 Candy Industry Regional Overview1.6 Candy Industry Policy Analysis1.7 Candy Industry Related Companies Contact InformationInquiry For Buying @MarketResearchStore.com is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics released by reputed private publishers and public organizations.Contact US:Joel JohnSuite #8138, 3422 SW 15 Street,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803
Global Behenyl Alcohol Market : Asia-Pacific Demanding Region

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The global behenyl alcohol market to expand at a CAGR of 4.5% during the forecast period, 2015 - 2021.Behenyl alcohol (CAS: 661-19-8), often referred to as docosanol, is a saturated fatty alcohol used to thicken and stabilise formulations. It is categorised on the basis of purity level. Behenyl alcohol with the purity level of 70% is most commonly used. However, behenyl alcohol with purity over 80% is very rarely used. Behenyl alcohol accounted for a mere 1.4% share of the overall fatty alcohols market, and for 14% share of the overall C16+ fatty alcohols market in 2014.Request Report Sample @Global behenyl alcohol market is projected to account for 54,200.9 metric tons by the end of 2021. In terms of value, the global behenyl alcohol market accounted for US$ 119.4 Mn in 2014. It is projected to witness the increase in volume due to rising demand from end-use segments.The report analyses the global behenyl alcohol market in terms of market value (US$ Mn) and market volume (metric tons), by end-use segment, region and application; and provides information regarding market dynamics, value chain, competitive landscape, current trends, market estimations and forecast.Globally, Asia-Pacific is expected to dominate the market throughout the forecast period and is projected to witness a 1.4X increase in its volume production by the end of 2021. While Japan and India are two major exporters of behenyl alcohol chemicals globally, South Korea is one of the key importers of behenyl alcohol in Asia Pacific. In Asia Pacific, India is the largest producer of rapeseed and behenyl alcohol. A large number of companies based in the country export rapeseed to North America, Europe and other parts of Asia. Sun care products are widely used in Asia Pacific. It accounted for nearly US$ 2.2 Bn in 2014. The increase in demand for sun care products, in turn, is expected to boost overall demand for behenyl alcohol globally. Though the market is gaining traction in Asia-Pacific, low presence of Chinese players in the behenyl alcohol market has significantly reduced price competitiveness among the companies based in Japan, India and Europe. As a result, manufacturers are expected to generate high-profit margins in the Asia Pacific region. Europe is the next lucrative destination for behenyl alcohol manufacturers.Among the end-use segments, behenyl alcohol finds the largest application in the cosmetics industry, followed by pharmaceuticals and others. The pharmaceuticals end-use segment is expected to gain traction in the near future due to increasing demand for behenyl alcohol in ointments. Increasing demand for high-quality cosmetic products is influencing manufacturers to opt for high-quality ingredients such as behenyl alcohol, which has a relatively non-sticky property as compared to other ingredients.Globally, per capita consumption of cosmetics is increasing at a rate of 3.4% per year. Per capita consumption of cosmetics is expected to grow exponentially in the near future due to a significant rise in geriatric population, especially in Japan and China.Browse Full Global Behenyl Alcohol Market Research Report With Complete TOC @By application type, the behenyl alcohol market is segmented into emollients, emulsifiers, thickeners and others. The emollients segment is expected to dominate the overall behenyl alcohol market by the end of the forecast period, i.e. by 2021. The segment is projected to register an above average growth rate over the forecast period. Global consumption of emollients stood at 130,000 metric tons in 2014. Consumption of behenyl alcohol as an ingredient in emollients accounted for a significant proportion of the total emollients consumed globally.Key market participants covered in the report include BASF SE, Kao Corporation, VVF Chemicals Limited, Godrej Industries Ltd., Sasol Ltd. and Nikko Chemicals Co., Ltd.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Specialty Food Ingredients Market: Nutraceuticals has the largest market share and is expected to dominate the global market by 2020 - PMR Report

Specialty Food Ingredients Market, Specialty Food Ingredients

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Food ingredients are added to enhance taste and flavor to the processed food items. Specialty food ingredients are used by food and beverage industry to enhance taste and flavor to the processed food. Specialty food ingredients are able to meet customers demands owing to their unique features including processing aids, coloring, preservation, emulsification and nutritional enhancement. Also, help in enhancing shelf-life, stability and texture of the food products. Specialty food ingredients are majorly sold to food processing industry including large food manufacturing companies as well as medium-sized companies. Food ingredients provide unique color, textures, nutrients, functionalities and flavors to the cooked or processed food products.Request for TOC @On the bases of function of different food ingredients global specialty food ingredients market can be bifurcated into color, acidulants, food enzymes, flavor, food preservatives, food emulsifiers, starches and nutraceuticals. Nutraceuticals has the largest market share for specialty food ingredients, and is expected to dominate the global market in forecasted period. Specialty food ingredients are majorly used by food processing industry. Other major application of specialty food ingredients includes bakery and confectionery, diary, convenience food, meat and seafood products and functional food items.North America has the largest market share for specialty food ingredients, followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. North America is expected to dominate the global market in forecasted period owing to increasing consumption of processed food in the U.S. and Canada. Healthy eating habit is expected to boost the European specialty food ingredients market. However, Asia Pacific region is expected to witness highest growth in the coming future. Emerging markets of China, India and Brazil is further expected to boost the global specialty food ingredients market.Increasing urban population coupled with rising disposable income level is increasing the penetration for packaged and convenience food items, in turn increasing the demand for specialty food ingredients. Additionally, rising rate of diabetes and obesity in both developed and developing countries, prompts the consumer to focus more on healthier lifestyles, in turn demand for health and wellness food ingredients from food and beverage manufacturing companies. This is also driving the global specialty food ingredients market to some extent.Request for Sample Report @Changing consumer consumption trends towards health and wellness food products shows increased purchasing power of individual; this is providing ample growth opportunity for the food manufacturing companies to expand their market in healthy food products. Some of the major companies operating in the sodium reduction ingredients market are Cargill Inc., Kerry Group Plc., Cambrian Solutions Inc., Advanced Food Systems Inc., E. I. Dupont De Nemours and Company, Specialty Commodities, Sensient Technologies Corporation, Koninklijke DSM N.V., Ingredion Incorporated and Tate & Lyle.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Cable Modem Subscribers : Global Market Snapshot by 2024 A cable modem is a type of modem and network bridge providing two-way communication via radio channels on a Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG) and Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial (HFC) infrastructure. It enables integration of a local cable TV line with the computer and continuously receives data at about 1.4 Mbps. Cable modem subscribers use the bandwidth of cable modems for implementing the internet services at the desired locations. They use coaxial cables that are used by cable TV for the service as it offers high-speed access to the World Wide Web.



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The cable modem subscribers market is segmented on the basis of end-use applications into enterprise applications and residential applications. On the basis of types, the cable modem subscribers market is segmented into internal cable modem subscribers, external cable modem subscribers, and interactive set-top box cable modem subscribers among others. On the basis of region, the cable modem subscribers market is segmented into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and Rest of the World (RoW). The North America region majorly contributes to the growth of cable modem subscribers market on account of high penetration of the Internet in the region.



The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) is the major factor fuelling the growth of cable modem subscribers market. Customers are increasing their preference for using internet to carry out various financial transactions such as accessing latest e-bills via e-mails, carrying out payments using debit and credit cards, and online bank transfers among others. Business organizations are also promoting the use of internet on mobile devices by allowing employees to carry out their work at convenient locations using smart phones and tablets. This helps them in increasing their revenue by boosting employee productivity. The growing trend of BYOD (Bring Your Own Devices), strong penetration of notebooks and laptops, growth of mobile internet networks and increase in internet enabled smart phones is further contributing to the growth of IoT. Moreover, the rising standard of living is driving the IoT market as people are looking for saving time on various daily tasks such as shopping and various bill payments. These factors that contribute to the growth of IoT initiate the increase in the subscription of effective and high speed cable modems to increase the speed of internet connections for performing various tasks. Thus the proliferation of IoT is fuelling the growth of cable modem subscribers market.



However, high installation cost is one of the major factors limiting the growth of the cable modem subscribers market. Moreover, due to uncertain returns, service providers across the globe have been reluctant in investing in cable modems. This has adversely affected the growth of cable modem subscribers market.



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Some of the major players in this market are Videotron GP (Canada), Time Warner Cable Inc. (U.S.), Telstra Corporation Limited (Australia), StarHub Ltd (Singapore), Shaw Communications Inc. (Canada), Rogers Communications Inc. (Canada), Liberty Global Inc. (U.S.), Kabel Deutschland (Germany), Insight Communications Company, Inc. (U.S.), COX Enterprises (U.S.), Com Hem AB (Sweden), Comcast Corporation (U.S.), Cogeco Cable Inc. (Canada), Charter Communications Inc.(U.S.), and CablevisionSystems Corporation (U.S.).



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Cellular Imaging Market: Asia is expected to experience high growth rate in next few years (2014 - 2020) - PMR Report

Cellular Imaging Market, Cellular Imaging, microscopy market, microscopy, Imaging computer programming

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Cellular imaging helps in knowing biomolecules nature. Confocal laser scanning microscopy, fluroscence resonance energy transfer and multiphoton are some of the advanced cellular imaging techniques which helps in understanding molecular and functional systems in the cell. Hospitals, academic institutions, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology companies uses cellular imaging systems as an important tool for drug discovery, research and diagnosis. Cellular imaging also helps in generating high throughput mode to discover the biomarkers and drug target candidates. Microscopic and macroscopic techniques are two types of intravital cellular imaging technologies.Request for TOC @Cellular imaging is a technology used to detect and analyze organelles and macromolecules with the help of microscopy and computer programming. It also helps in measuring properties of cells including shape, size and protein presence.North America is the largest market for cellular imaging followed by Europe due to increasing incidence of cancer and rising number of R&D activities. Asia is expected to experience high growth rate in next few years due to rising government investments for cell based research activities. In addition, growing demand for outsourcing of drug discovery services is also fuelling the growth of cellular imaging market in Asia.In recent times there is increased use of cellular imaging due to increasing cancer treatment and diagnostics. Improved accuracy of cellular analysis, cellular imaging and rise in government funding for cell based research activities are some of the key factors driving the growth of global cellular imaging market. In addition, growing healthcare and medical spending is also fuelling the growth of cellular imaging market. However, huge capital requirements and lack of skilled personnel for carrying out the high content screening process are some of the major factors restraining the growth of global cellular imaging market.Request for Sample Report @Availability of less number of skilled and knowledgeable professionals poses major challenge for the global cellular imaging market. Adoption of cell analysis for cell identification and cell signaling pathways and rising number of contract research organization are some of the key opportunities for the global cellular imaging market. Some of the major companies operating in global cellular imaging market are Agilent Technologies, Inc., Beckton, Dickinson and Company, Danaher Corporation, Olympus Corporation, GE Healthcare, Promega Corporation and Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Handheld Two-Way Radios Market Analysis By Manufacturers 2016 to 2022

Handheld Two-Way Radios

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SummaryThe Global Handheld Two-Way Radios Industry 2016 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Handheld Two-Way Radios industry.Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Handheld Two-Way Radios market analysis is provided for the international market including development history, competitive landscape analysis, and major regions development status.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Secondly, development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. This report also states import/export, supply and consumption figures as well as cost, price, revenue and gross margin by regions (United States, EU, China and Japan), and other regions can be added.Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials, equipment and downstream consumers analysis is also carried out. Whats more, the Handheld Two-Way Radios industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.Browse Complete Report with TOC @In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.8 Major Manufacturers Analysis of Handheld Two-Way Radios8.1 AGPtek8.1.1 Company Profile8.1.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.1.2.1 Type I8.1.2.2 Type II8.1.2.3 Type III8.1.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.1.4 Contact Information8.2 Baofeng8.2.1 Company Profile8.2.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.2.2.1 Type I8.2.2.2 Type II8.2.2.3 Type III8.2.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.2.4 Contact Information8.3 Cobra8.3.1 Company Profile8.3.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.3.2.1 Type I8.3.2.2 Type II8.3.2.3 Type III8.3.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.3.4 Contact Information8.4 Eartec8.4.1 Company Profile8.4.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.4.2.1 Type I8.4.2.2 Type II8.4.2.3 Type III8.4.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.4.4 Contact Information8.5 Garmin8.5.1 Company Profile8.5.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.5.2.1 Type I8.5.2.2 Type II8.5.2.3 Type III8.5.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.5.4 Contact Information8.6 Icom8.6.1 Company Profile8.6.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.6.2.1 Type I8.6.2.2 Type II8.6.2.3 Type III8.6.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.6.4 Contact Information8.7 Kenwood8.7.1 Company Profile8.7.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.7.2.1 Type I8.7.2.2 Type II8.7.2.3 Type III8.7.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.7.4 Contact Information8.8 Midland8.8.1 Company Profile8.8.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.8.2.1 Type I8.8.2.2 Type II8.8.2.3 Type III8.8.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.8.4 Contact Information8.9 Motorola8.9.1 Company Profile8.9.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.9.2.1 Type I8.9.2.2 Type II8.9.2.3 Type III8.9.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.9.4 Contact Information8.10 Uniden8.10.1 Company Profile8.10.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.10.2.1 Type I8.10.2.2 Type II8.10.2.3 Type III8.10.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue8.10.4 Contact InformationQYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651Email: sales (@) qyresearchgroup (dot) com
Global Natural Food Colors Market Size, Shares, Demands, Survey and Forecast 2015-2019

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Albany, NY, Nov 10: Natural food colors are additives that are used to enhance the appearance of food and beverages. They are also used for various other purposes such as masking the variation in the actual color of the food and beverage products, owing to changes that may have occurred during storing or processing. Such natural colors are obtained from a variety of natural sources.The global natural food color market to grow at a CAGR of 6.22% by revenue over the period 2014-2019. Technavios report, Global Natural Food Color Market 2015-2019, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from various industry experts. The report includes a comprehensive discussion on the market, an extensive coverage on various types of production techniques, applications, and demand-supply dynamics in various geographies. The report provides comments on both the existing market landscape and its growth prospects over the forecast period. The report further includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Get a Sample Research PDF with TOC:The report provides data on the following segments of the market:- Type (caramel, carotenoids, antyocyanins, and others)- Application (food and beverage)- Geography (APAC, Europe, North America, and ROW)Key vendors- Chr. Hansen- DDW- GNT International- Kalsec- Naturex- RAHO- Sensient Flavors- WildOther prominent vendors- AAFUD Group (Zhuhai)- Aarkay Food Products- Allied Biotech- Archer Daniels Midland- Cargill- David Michael- Diana Naturals- Dohler Group- Fiorio Colori- Flavorchem- FMC- GNT Group- ITC Colors- Kalsec- Kancor Ingredients..........Enquiry at:Key questions answered in this report- What will the market size be in 2019 and what will the growth rate be?- What are the key market trends?- What is driving this market?- What are the challenges to market growth?- Who are the key vendors in this market space?- What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?ResearchMoz is the worlds fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMozs service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:
Coconut Sugar Market- Immediately Prior to Sugar Alternative

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Coconut sugar refers to the sugar produced from the nectar of flower buds of the coconut palm. It is traditionally used as a low-carb sugar substitute that is more nutritional in comparison to the typical granulated sugar. Coconut sugar contains potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper, vitamin C, phosphorus, calcium, and iron. It also contains small amounts of phytonutrients, such as antioxidants, flavonoids, and polyphenols, flavonoids. Coconut sugar is widely used as a sugar substitute that controls blood sugar level and calories. Coconut sugar is rich in inulin that act as a prebiotic, hence helps in maintaining blood sugar balance, gut health, prevents colon cancer, lipid (fat) metabolism, bone mineralization, fatty liver disease, obesity, and enhances immunity. Coconut sugar is gaining high demand in the market owing to its high nutritional value and health benefits. Also, the lower environmental impact of coconut sugar has contributed significantly in increasing its demand in the near future.Know More about Coconut sugar Market Report At:Market Dynamics of Coconut Sugar:Coconut sugar market is expected to grow at a rapid pace in the next couple of years. The high growth of coconut sugar market is propelled by various macro-economic factors such as rising population, improved economy, increased disposable income, and increasing per capita health expenditure. Rapid urbanization coupled with the changing life-style and eating habits, and growing prevalence of ailments & diseases such as diabetes and obesity supports the growth of global coconut sugar market. Due to low glycemic index (GI) of coconut sugar, it is viewed as a natural and healthier substitute for table sugar. Factors such as rise in the health consciousness among consumers, shift from the artificial sweeteners to natural sweeteners, new product developments, and the improved supply chain to ensure the product availability also fuel the growth of coconut sugar market. Companies in the coconut sugar market are continuously involved in research and development activities to bring advances in their product portfolio of natural sweeteners.Market Segmentation of Coconut SugarCoconut sugar market is segmented on the basis of application, distribution channel, and geography. Based upon application, coconut sugar market is segmented into bakery & confectionery, beverages, convenience foods, dairy & frozen desserts, and others. Over the next few years, beverage segment is anticipated to witness highest market attractiveness in the global coconut sugar market during the forecast period. Based upon distribution channel, coconut sugar market is segmented into convenience stores, supermarket/hyper market, drug stores, and others such as direct selling, mass merchandisers etc.Regional Outlook of Coconut Sugar:Based on geography, coconut sugar market is segmented into five different regions namely Asia-Pacific, North America, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, Europe. North America is expected to lead the regional market for coconut sugar during the reviewed market. The high market share can be attributed to the strong demand from U.S. Europe is expected to hold second largest market share in global coconut sugar market over the forecast period while Asia Pacific is projected to be the fastest growing region in the global coconut sugar market owing to the increased demand from China and India. Leading manufacturers in the coconut sugar market focus to leverage opportunities posed by emerging economies like India and China to expand their revenue base.Browse Full Report With ToC:Key Market Players in Coconut Sugar:Some of the key players in the coconut sugar market include Nutiva, Inc., Coco Sugar Indonesia, Big Tree Farms, The Coconut Company Ltd, Benevelle Corporation, and Treelife Coco Sugar among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Aseptic Packaging Market Anticipated to Cross USD 67.47 Billion By 2021

Aseptic Packaging Market

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Zion Research has published a new report titled Aseptic Packaging (Bags & Pouches, Cartons, Vials & Ampoules, Pre-filled Syringes and Bottles & Cans) Market by Materials Used (Glass, Plastic, Paperboard and Metal) for Pharmaceutical, Food, Medical Applications, Beverages and other applications: Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2015  2021. According to the report, global demand for aseptic packaging market was valued at over USD 38.25 billion in 2015, is expected to reach above USD 67.47 Billion in 2021 and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of above 10.1% between 2016 and 2021.Request Sample Report atAseptic packaging market can be defined as the packing the products into the sterile packs under the aseptic conditions and instantly sealing the products to prevent contamination. The product can be either sterilized or pre sterile. Aseptic packaging is mainly used for juices, dessert, drugs, puddings, dairy products, chemicals etc. The air present inside the packs are removed completely using vacuum machines as air can cause oxidation reactions which can lead to the spoilage of food.Aseptic packaging market is driven by expanding dairy industry in the Asia Pacific and Brazil. As dairy products are prone to spoilage, and posses low shelf life, highly aseptic environment is required to maintain. Growing demand from the pharmaceutical sector stimulates the growth of aseptic packaging market. Surging beverage industry in the developing countries results in increase demand for aseptic packaging triggers the demand for the market. However, high initial cost with low packaging equipments may impede the penetration of aseptic packaging market. Nonetheless, ongoing research for technological advancement and rising demand from the emerging economies is likely to open new avenue for the aseptic packaging market in the near future.Do Inquiry Before buying report atBased on type the aseptic packaging market can be segmented as bags & pouches, cartons, vials & ampoules, pre-filled syringes and bottles & cans. Bottle, cans, bags and pouches are the leading type segment due to easy handling, and availability with consumer preference towards cans and pouches. For the packaging, various materials are utilized some of those are glass, plastic, paperboard and metal. Mainly plastic and paperboard are used for packing of food and beverages. Increasing environmental concern the use of plastics and paper are restricted in some regions. Growing use of aseptic packaging in various end user industries is due to its numerous applications such as pharmaceutical, food, medical applications, beverages and other applications. Pharmaceutical is the dominating application segment owing to high aseptic conditions required for packaging of drugs and chemicals. Food and beverage emerged as the potential segment due to high demand for safe and healthy processed and packed food.Request a Quote atAsia Pacific is considered to be the most prominent market for aseptic packaging owing to rising consumer preference for processed food. Factors such as growing beverage and dairy industry across India and China and increased spending capacity over fast and junk food contributes to the high growth of market. Escalating pharmaceutical sector in U.S. is expected to show sharp rise in aseptic packaging in North America. Europe is likely to witness faster growth in the estimated period due to stern rules led by European government over the packaging and high demand for packed food. Latin America is anticipated to show sustainable growth owing to expanding dairy industry in Brazil. Middle East and Africa is projected to experience decent growth over the period due to change in lifestyle and increasing demand for processed and packed food.Dickinson & Company, Robert Bosch GmBH, Ecolean Packaging, Schott AG, Parish Manufacturing, Greatview Aseptic Packaging Co Ltd., Becton, Printpack, Tetra Laval, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Scholle Packaging, Amcor Limited and Reynolds Group Holdings among others are some of the key players in the aseptic packaging market.Browse The Full Report atThis report segments the aseptic packaging market as follows:Aseptic Packaging Market: Type Segment AnalysisBags & pouchesCartonsVials & ampoulesPre-filled syringesBottles & cansAseptic Packaging Market: Material used Segment AnalysisGlassPlasticPaperboardMetalAseptic Packaging Market: Application Segment AnalysisPharmaceuticalFoodMedical applicationsBeveragesOtherAseptic Packaging Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaUSEuropeGermanyFranceUKAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East and AfricaAbout UsZion Research is a market intelligence company providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. Zion Research experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants uses proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact USJoel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442 United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@marketresearchstore.comWebsite:
Personal Protective Equipment Market Size Exceed to USD 56.05 Billion by 2021

Personal Protective Equipment Market

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Zion Research has published a new report titled Personal Protective Equipment (Hand Protection, Fall Protection, Protective Clothing, Professional Footwear, Head Protection, Respiratory Protection, and Others) Market for Construction & Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Health Care, Petrochemicals, Food Industry, and Other Applications: Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2015  2021.  According to the report, global demand for personal protective equipment market was valued at USD 37.35 billion in 2015, and is expected to generate revenue of USD 56.05 billion by end of 2021, growing at a CAGR of slightly above 7.0% between 2016 and 2021.Request Sample Report atPersonal protective equipment (PPE) refers to wearable equipment that protects the wearer's body from injuries, illness, and a variety of heat-borne, fire-borne, electrical, physical, chemical-borne, and airborne particulate matter. Some of the products are commonly used in personal protective equipment include protective clothing, goggles, industrial footwear, boots, face masks, hard hats, ear plugs, respirators, gloves, safety harnesses, and helmets. Personal protective equipment also finds application across various industries including construction & manufacturing, oil and gas, chemicals, healthcare, food industry, pharmaceuticals, transportation and others.The personal protective equipment market is mainly driven by advancement in technology and rising awareness about workplace safety. Rising foreign investments, rapid industrialization, and government regulations is expected to fuel the personal protective equipment market in the near future. However, high raw material costs and inexpensive products may pose challenge to the market growth in the next few years. Moreover, rising demand from Asia-Pacific region is projected to open new growth opportunities for personal protective equipment in the years to come.Do Inquiry Before buying report atThe personal protective equipment market is segmented on the basis of different products including hand protection, fall protection, protective clothing, professional footwear, head protection, respiratory protection, and others (hearing protection, eye & face protection, etc). In 2015, hand protection is one of the leading segments for personal protective equipment by type. A protective clothing product was another key outlet for personal protective equipment market. Professional footwear is also largest segment in this market. In addition, fall protection is expected to fastest growing segment due to growing construction industry.Various application segments of personal protective equipment market include construction & manufacturing, oil & gas, healthcare, petrochemicals, food industry, and others (firefighting, power & energy, etc). In terms of revenue, construction & manufacturing was leading segment in personal protective equipment market. The construction segment is expected to grow at a fastest rate due to enormous growth in emerging economies such as India, China, and Brazil.Request a Quote atGeographically, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa. North America acquired the majority of share personal protective equipment market in 2015 followed by Europe. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region in the next few years due to growing demand in construction & manufacturing industries mostly in emerging economies.Some of the key players in personal protective equipment market include Honeywell International Inc, Alpha Pro Tech Ltd.,Du Pont, 3M Company, Ansell, Adians, Delta Plus, Rock Fall Limited, Uvex Safety Group.Browse The Full Report atThis report segments the global personal protective equipment market as follows:Global Personal Protective Equipment Market: Product Segment AnalysisHand ProtectionFall ProtectionProtective ClothingEye & Face ProtectionHead ProtectionRespiratory ProtectionOthers (hearing protection, professional footwear, etc)Global Personal Protective Equipment Market: Application Segment AnalysisConstruction & ManufacturingOil & GasHealth CarePetrochemicalsFood IndustryOthers (firefighting, Power & energy, etc)Global Personal Protective Equipment Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeUKFranceGermanyAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East and AfricaAbout UsZion Research is a market intelligence company providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. Zion Research experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants uses proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact USJoel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442 United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@marketresearchstore.comWebsite:
Europe Conveyor System Market Worth Expected to Cross USD 12 Billion in 2020

Conveyor Systems Market in Europe

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Zion Research has published a new report titled Conveyor Systems Market in Europe (Conveyor Components, Bulk Handling Systems, And Unit Handling Systems) for Automotive, Food & Beverages, Aviation, and Retail : Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2014  2020. According to the report, Europe demand for conveyor systems market was valued at around USD 10 billion in 2014 and is expected to reach around USD 12 billion in 2020, growing at a CAGR of 2.8% between 2015 and 2020.Request Sample Report atConveyor system is highly advanced mechanical material handling equipment. Mainly, it facilitates the materials handling, storage, and distribution of raw materials, loose components, and semi-assemblies between a manufacturing capacitys workstations. Conveyor systems are available in different types such as hydraulic, mechanical, and fully automated system within the market. Conveyor System helps for fast and efficient transportation for bulky materials. Conveyor systems are growing in popularity among end users owing to benefits associated with its use in the material handling and packing industries.The conveyor system helps to lower down the number of labors and reduce the cost of productivity is a one of the significant factors that is expected to drive the conveyor system market in Europe. Thus, the conveyor system is the fastest and safe mode of transportation of bulky materials within a premise. At present, the industrial segment requires the automation to increase the productivity within less time that invokes the need of conveyor system on large scale.Do Inquiry Before buying report atRoller, belt, overhead, pallet, and others are the types of the conveyor system. Belt conveyor is a largest product segment that is in demand in Europe for conveyor system market. The industry that is using the conveyor system has to understand to fit individual needs. Thus, the system is convenient for the fastest and requires less labour, the only need is to maintain the conveyor system properly for best performance.Key end-user segments served by the conveyor systems include retail, food & beverage, aviation, and others (automotive and airport baggage-handling). The automotive industry was the leading industry for the conveyor system market in 2014. Assembly line, paint shop, and body shop are key application segments of conveyor systems in the automotive industry. The retail sector is growing segments due to its help to reduce the manual handling of distribution and warehousing, sorting, cross-docking, and distribution and is expected to increase for the forecast period in the market.Request a Quote atGrowth of automotive, food and beverages, retail and aviation industry in the region is expected to trigger the further growth of the conveyor systems industry. The Key Players in Europe conveyor system market which are more promising industry which use to give the strategic activities includes Dematic Group, Siemens, SSI Schaefer, and Swisslog Holding. Other key industry participants in the conveyor system market in Europe includes Caterpillar, Daifuku, Dorner Conveyors, Eisenmann, Emerson Electric, Fives Group, Flexlink, Interroll, Mahindra Conveyor Systems, Murata Machinery, Redler, RUD, Shuttleworth, Taikisha, and Vanderlande.Browse The Full Report atAbout UsZion Research is a market intelligence company providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. Zion Research experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants uses proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact USJoel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442 United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@marketresearchstore.comWebsite:
North America Forging Market Size Expand to USD 15.41 Billion in 2020

Forging Market in North America

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Zion Research has published a new report titled Forging Market in North America(Rolled Rings, Open Die and Impression Die) Industry for Automotive, Aerospace, Oil and Gas, and Other Applications: Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast 2014  2020. According to the report, North Americas demand for forging industry was valued at USD 11.75 Billion in 2014 is expected to reach USD 15.41 Billion in 2020, growing at a CAGR of 4.76% between 2015 and 2020. In terms of volume, the North America forging market stood at 23.30 million tons in 2014.Request Sample Report atForging is a manufacturing process of shaping metals using compressive forces. Cold forging and warm (or hot) forging are two major forging processes. Forging is a robust technique as compared to other metal shaping techniques, as it owes to the powerful metal component. The forging mechanism can be exercised as ferrous (aluminum and titanium) forging and non-ferrous forging. Metal forging is done through either impression die, open die, or rolled rings. Forged metal components are widely used in the automotive, aerospace, construction, oil and gas, agriculture, shipbuilding, steel, bearing, and power industries.The forging market is segmented on the basis of different types of forging mechanism such as ferrous metal forging, and non-ferrous metal forging. Forging market can also be segmented as rolled rings, open die and impression die on the basis of product segment. Impression die dominated the North America forging market with over 60% share in total market in 2014. However, rolled ring die segment is expected to witness fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Rolled rings forging market is growing as demand for rolled ring forging equipments demand for automotive, aviation and oil & gas industry is growing. Aerospace industry dominated the demand for rolled rings forging equipments market in North America.Do Inquiry Before buying report atThe forging market in North America is segmented on the basis of application segmentation includes the automotive industry, aerospace industry, oil and gas industry, and other applications. The automotive industry is one of the largest industries contributing to the growth of the forging market through the high consumption of forging equipment. Impression dies are mainly used for making several metal components. Strong demand for impression die forging equipments from automotive industry is expected to boost the demand for forging market in the years to come. Aerospace is another important end market for forging industry.Request a Quote atThe key players for forging market in North America include Alcoa, American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings, and Precision Castparts. The others prominent players for the forging market in North America include Ellwood Group, ATI Ladish Forging, FRISA, General Dynamics Ordnance & Tactical Systems, HHI Forging, Patriot Forge, Scot Forge, Sumitomo, Sypris Solutions, ThyssenKrupp.North America Market: Type Segment AnalysisFerrous Metal ForgingNon-ferrous Metal ForgingBrowse The Full Report atNorth America Market: Product Segment AnalysisRolled RingsOpen DieImpression DieNorth America Market: Application Segment AnalysisAutomotive IndustryAerospace IndustryOil and Gas IndustryOthersAbout UsZion Research is a market intelligence company providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. Zion Research experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants uses proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact USJoel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442 United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@marketresearchstore.comWebsite:
SPOOKY, SCARY SPOOKY, SCARY  Neighborhoods in Orchard Park are more than ready for Halloween. In the top photo, at a house at the corner of Orchard Hill Drive and Briar Hill...

Bremer finds seven residential lots storing items on town property Thanks to a new property-line shot by the Engineering Department, Building Inspector Steve Bremer was able to identify seven residential lots near Highmark Stadium that were placing all sorts of...

Highway Department receiving number of calls on dying ash trees Highway Superintendent Andrew Slotman warned in the spring that the ash tree population in Orchard Park would soon dwindle to zero due to the presence of the emerald ash borer....
auto mechanic

David Puki inspects a tire at South Seattle Community College in Seattle, Wednesday, April 14, 2004.

(AP Photo/Ralph Radford/2004)

Q. A Portland driver was arrested after police say he knew his car had bald tires before a recent crash that killed a bicyclist. That begs a key question: When can a driver be held criminally or civilly liable for the condition of their car?

A. There are certain pieces of safety equipment -- such as lights and brakes -- which are explicitly required to be kept in good working order under Oregon's motor vehicle code. Other parts, like tires, aren't addressed, but drivers can still be held responsible for letting their cars fall into disrepair in ways that might hurt someone.

Driving a car "in such unsafe condition as to endanger any person" is a Class B traffic violation, as is owning such a car and knowingly allowing it to be used on public roads. That can come with a presumptive $260 fine.

If the unsafe vehicle is responsible for a crash that injures or kills someone, there can be additional charges -- particularly if the driver is aware of its condition problem and continues to drive anyway.

Police reports indicate that Joel Schrantz lost control of his SUV on the St. Johns Bridge and fatally struck cyclist Mitchell T. York on Oct. 29. He told officers that the SUV was prone to skidding in rainy conditions due to its bald tires. He also had a suspended license, for which he told police he'd been ticketed dozens of times.

Schrantz was accused of criminally negligent homicide. Despite the name, the charge requires prosecutors to show that a driver was not just negligent, but reckless, said Portland traffic attorney Ray Thomas.

That's likely why authorities noted in the charging documents that Schrantz was aware of the bald tires and had skidded in the SUV earlier in the day but continued to drive.

"In order for it to be a crime, a person must be engaging in a level of conduct that is a gross deviation form reasonable conduct," Thomas said. "Just making a serious, awful mistake is not enough."

Even if criminal charges aren't brought, drivers can be held civilly liable for driving with faulty equipment, said Thomas, who usually represents plaintiffs in such cases.

"If it could be shown you had bald tires and drove nevertheless when it's foreseeable that you'd have less traction, that in and of itself would be enough to show negligence," he said.

***

Have a commuting question? Contact Elliot Njus at enjus@oregonian.com or on Twitter @enjus
The gang's all here.

The Veritable Quandary's former chef and general manager are putting the finishing touches on Q Restaurant, a new space with a classic design four blocks north of the soon-to-be-demolished VQ.

The new restaurant, which opens Nov. 21, has hired nearly 60 former VQ employees between the kitchen, dining room and bar, including longtime chef Annie Cuggino, manager Erin Hokland and sous chefs Natalie Gullish, who spent time at Chez Panisse, and Victor Martinez, who started as a VQ dishwasher 18 years ago and will run the new restaurant's brunch.

Denny King, who opened the VQ in 1971, sold the restaurant's cramped, century-old building in January to Multnomah County, which plans to demolish the structure and build a new courthouse. The new restaurant is backed by a pair of King's old regulars, Mazen and Katherine Hariri, who had their first date at the restaurant 20 years ago.

The new space, designed by Andee Hess of Osmose Design (Ava Gene's), is both a reflection of, and a reaction to, the old. As they did at the VQ, customers will enter the restaurant through the bar, but instead of a crowded host stand near the back, Q Restaurant has a spacious waiting area. The bar has a classic look, with a rosewood-paneled ceiling, small booths and stained glass sconces, while the dining room has a few modern touches, including an open kitchen. The restaurant and bar have a combined 96 seats, including a seven-seat chef's counter.

Before taking over the VQ's kitchen 22 years ago, Cuggino built up an impressive resume, with time spent at the Union Square Cafe in New York and Emeril's in New Orleans. Q Restaurant's menu (below) will feature a few of the her most popular VQ dishes, including the signature osso bucco.

Q Menu

To Begin...

Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Date, chevre, black pepper, marcona almond, marsala

Warm Pearl Bakery Pugliese Bread, sweet butter or extra virgin olive oil, maldon sea salt

House Made Rabbit Pate, prune jam, two mustards, house pickles, toasted brioche

Seared Alaskan Sea Scallop, celeriac cream, Asian pear, crispy shiitake, miso

House Smoked Duck Breast, dried cherry mostarda, whipped ricotta, grilled baguette

Burrata and Roasted Pumpkin, high desert honey, aged balsamic, spiced pepitas, crispy zoe's coppa

Artisan Cheese Plate, seasonal fruits and accompaniments, nuts, bruschetta



Veggies, Sides & Smaller Plates

Roasted Roots, peppered chevre, smoked pecans, balsamic honey vinaigrette

Sweet Potatoes, fresh apple, finger lime, creme fraiche, red chile

Cider Braised Collards, house bacon, crunchy cornbread

Roasted Romesco, pistachio pesto, lemon, pecorino

Crispy Stuffed Prairie Creek Potato, taleggio, garlic butter, truffle salt

Grilled Oyster Mushrooms, miso, toasted sesame seeds, scallions



Soups and Salads

Victor's Green Chile Soup, pork, cilantro, toasted pepitas

Seafood Stew, mussels, clams, calamari, prawns, fish

Little Gem Greens, sherry vinaigrette, fresh pomegranate

Rain Shadow Farm Poached Egg & House Bacon, butter lettuce, cornbread, pickled onions, buttermilk white cheddar dressing, fresh chive

Fresh Apple & Pear, Roasted Hazelnuts, warm buche du lucay crostini, little gem greens, honey pepper vinaigrette

Roasted Wild Mushrooms & Baby Spinach, buttermilk blue cheese, pancetta vinaigrette

Caesar Salad, ciabatta croutons, lemon, pecorino



Tonight's Entrees

Blackened Hawaiian Opah, roasted sweet potatoes, apple, finger lime, creme fraiche, mint, red chile

Grilled Hanger Steak, red wine, garlic & herb marinade, creamy smoked parsnip puree, oyster mushrooms, Stacy's baby mustard greens

Pan Fried Rain Shadow Farm Buttermilk Chicken, cider braised collards, house bacon, maple glazed pumpkin

Roasted Roots, Crispy Brussels and Kasha, peppered chevre, smoked pecans, crispy sage, balsamic honey vinaigrette

Cattail Creek Rack of Lamb Chops, roasted butternut squash, crispy kale, fresh pomegranate, pistachios, feta, sumac, tahini

Lobster, Wild Prawn & Scallop filled Ravioli, crushed pink peppercorns, fresh herbs, lemon, butter, Stacey's artic pea tips

Osso Bucco, wine braised veal shank, garlic, rosemary, basil, parmigiano risotto, gremolata

Q Restaurant will open at 828 S.W. Second Ave. on Nov. 21. For more information, visit q-portland.com.

-- Michael Russell
UO law school

A University of Oregon professor is being investigated for wearing blackface to a Halloween party. (Beth Nakamura)

(The Oregonian)

The University of Oregon's decision to place a law professor on administrative leave for wearing blackface to a Halloween party at her own home was "unwise" and "appalling," according to professors group.

UO law professor Nancy Shurtz apologized for her costume, which she said was intended to spark a "thoughtful conversation" on racism.

But the Oregon Association of Scholars said while Shurtz's "choice of protest tactics may have been unwise," the university's response was "even more unwise."

Shurtz is owed an apology by UO administrators for being bullied and attacked by President Michael Schill and others in Eugene, the group said.

"This attack on Dr. Shurtz's academic freedom is a direct consequence of the environment of politically correct partisanship and the ideological narrowing of higher education in the state that needs to be changed," said Bruce Gilley, the president of the Oregon chapter of the National Association of Scholars.

Gilley said Shurtz should be immediately reinstated by the university. School of Law Dean Michael Moffitt said Nov. 4 Shurtz would be on administrative leave pending an investigation by the school's Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity.

Gilley is a political science professor at Portland State University. The Oregon group counts 16 professors as members. The national association has 2,300 members on college campuses, according to Gilley.

The association is described on its website as a nonprofit that "upholds the standards of a liberal arts education that fosters intellectual freedom, searches for the truth, and promotes virtuous citizenship."

In its statement issued Tuesday, Gilley's chapter said it "hopes that Professor Shurtz will vigorously defend her legal rights in the case. "OAS reminds university officials that they undermine the purpose of higher education when they cower before ideological enforcers on campus and bully university members into conforming with their demands."



-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen
University of Oregon campus

A University of Oregon student encountered multiple individuals wearing blackface in front of the Lillis Business Complex on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016.

(Andrew Theen/The Oregonian)

Update: This story was updated with a reaction from UO's administration

A University of Oregon sophomore said she emerged from a heated and productive Black Student Union meeting Wednesday night to see three people wearing blackface on campus.

Related: See video at bottom -- Warning, contains graphic language

Zoie Gilpin had been walking home when she stopped to grab her headphones out of her backpack. That's when she saw them.

"I just froze," the Southern California native said later in an interview. "I didn't believe it."

Gilpin said she ran into the three "kids" in front of the Lillis Business Complex on the Eugene campus. Though she had no way to confirm it, Gilpin estimated the individuals appeared to be no older than 16. "They could've been college students, but I'm almost 99 percent positive that they weren't," she said.

The incident came a little more than a week after a School of Law professor's blackface Halloween costume made national headlines, sparking condemnation from President Michael Schill and other campus leaders. The professor, Nancy Shurtz, was placed on paid administrative leave and subsequently apologized.

"It hurts the worst that it seems that it's becoming a normal thing," said Gilpin, who is biracial and witnessed the incident along with a friend who also attended the black students' meeting. "Blackface isn't something that you should see, or experience...people mocking you, no matter what race you are."

The 20-year-old said she was dumbfounded for at least a minute, and didn't know what to say. Eventually, she and her friend started talking to the three individuals.

A fourth person who wasn't wearing blackface did most of the talking for the group. "He said, 'Haha, sorry my friends are racists,'" Gilpin said.

The UO students engaged the group and asked them if they thought they were being funny.

They told the group it wasn't funny.

"Blackface is a racist thing," Gilpin said, "It's a mockery of African Americans."

The discussion went nowhere. At that point, she took out her cellphone and started video recording, Gilpin said.

She posted the video on Twitter , then boarded the bus home. Gilpin said she "didn't think to call the police right away," but eventually did after discussing the situation with friends.

She eventually spoke with campus police as well as another university official.

Danny Hembree, communications officer with the UO police department, confirmed the school dispatched officers to the business school to look for the individuals after receiving a call around 8 p.m.

"They were unable to locate them," Hembree said. "We haven't received any calls aside from that one."

Hembree said officers also are aware of an unrelated and peaceful demonstration involving 100 to 150 students just up the street at the Erb Memorial Union. "It's really offensive to all of the students," he said.

Just after 11 p.m., Interim Vice President for Student Life Kevin Marbury sent a message to the entire campus condeming the incident. Marbury, whom Gilpin spoke with earlier Wednesday, said while there's no evidence the individuals in blackface were students, "it has no place in our society or at the UO."

"We commend the members of the UO community who have expressed themselves through a series of peaceful demonstrations today that were respectful of other members of our community," Marbury wrote. "In addition, the students who witnessed this incident, showed great maturity and judgment in their reaction to it."

The campus police were increasing patrols Wednesday in response to the situation.


Does taxing absentee landlords motivate them to rent out their unoccupied homes? Canada will find out starting Jan. 1, when owners of empty luxury pads will have to pay $10,000 (US $7,450) annually in extra taxes.

If they don't self-declare and pay the empty-home tax, they will be slapped with a daily fine of $10,000, reports Bloomberg news.

Like Portland, Vancouver, B.C. needs more accessible and affordable housing. A near-zero supply of rental homes is causing bidding wars. Some blame foreign investors who buy and hold properties that are left unoccupied.

Recently, the government imposed a 15 percent tax on foreign buyers and tightened mortgage insurance eligibility requirements.

The empty-home tax will be based at 1 percent of the property's assessed value.

"Vancouver is in a rental-housing crisis," Vancouver, B.C. Mayor Gregor Robertson told Bloomberg. "The city won't sit on the sidelines while over 20,000 empty and under-occupied properties hold back homes from renters."

- Janet Eastman



jeastman@oregonian.com

503-799-8739

@janeteastman




Marijuana votes in Oregon offered some surprises, including an embrace of recreational marijuana sales in some conservative enclaves - but the biggest trend by far was for communities to cash in on the lucrative cop.

Places like Albany, Oregon City, Manzanita and Scappoose were among the cities voting against bans on recreational or medical pot, opening the doors to the state's legal marijuana industry in their hometowns.

East of the Cascades, where dozens of communities already have imposed bans, voters in Gilliam County, Madras and North Powder rejected similar efforts. Jefferson County voters said yes to bans on recreational marijuana production, processing, wholesalers and sales, but voted to allow medical marijuana processing and dispensaries.

Meanwhile, the marijuana legalization movement made major gains Tuesday with voters approving recreational cannabis in Massachusetts, California and Nevada. Legalization in Maine had a narrow lead in incomplete returns Wednesday. Arizona voters, however, rejected legalization.

Leland Berger, a Portland lawyer who represents marijuana businesses, called the victories a "bitter win." He said the election of Donald Trump as president raises questions about the future of recreational marijuana.

"There is a concern about what's going to happen," he said.

During a 2015 campaign stop in Nevada, Trump called marijuana "a state issue."

Marijuana policy reform advocates point out that names circulated for top law enforcement posts include opponents of legalization, such as Chris Christie and Rudy Guiliani.

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national marijuana policy reform group, said he's apprehensive about the implications of a Trump presidency on marijuana policy.

"The reason I am so concerned is because of the people around him," he said.

In Oregon, most of the 60 communities that considered marijuana bans approved them -- results that underscore the deep resistance legal marijuana continues to face in parts of the state. Marion County, for instance, voted to keep out the industry, dealing a blow to Golden Leaf Holdings, a company that produces, processes and sells marijuana.

The company already spent more than $3 million on property for a production and processing operation. Beau Whitney, an executive with the Golden Leaf, said the company is disappointed with the results and researching its options.

He said communities that reject the marijuana industry are turning away potential tax revenue and jobs.

They've had time to see that the legal industry hasn't led to a crime wave or other dire predictions, he said.

"They have seen that there is very, very little, if any, impact to communities," he said.

Berger said he was disappointed more voters didn't push back on bans. He was especially upset about the results in Douglas County, a prime growing region, which rejected legal cannabis.

"It's just foolish and bigoted," he said. John Sajo, a longtime marijuana activist in Oregon, has lived in Douglas County for nearly 30 years and hoped to open a licensed marijuana business there but is now searching for another location.

A "vigorous campaign" in the county to defeat the ban didn't do much to sway opposition, he said.

"It seems like people haven't really changed their minds at all since the vote two years ago," he said. Meanwhile, recreational marijuana is about to get a bit more expensive in stores licensed by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.

Local sales taxes on cannabis passed in more than 100 communities, including Portland, where officials conservatively estimated it will generate $3 million to $5 million a year. Local governments can add a sales tax of up to 3 percent on recreational sales. That's on top of the 17 percent state tax.

"It's clear from the results that Oregon doesn't like sales taxes unless it's on marijuana," said Sajo.

-- Noelle Crombie

503-276-7184; @noellecrombie
Oregon is poised to become the first in a group of key battleground marijuana states to exit a nationwide program designed to discover and destroy black-market pot plantations.

The move follows Oregon's first year of recreational marijuana sales and a thriving industry with legal marijuana farms stretching from the coast to the Idaho border.

Money for the eradication effort in Oregon has dropped by nearly three-quarters in the last year to $200,000, by far the largest percentage cut in the country, financial data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration shows.

That's on top of steady cuts over the past three fiscal years that add up to an overall 80 percent decline.

To the north, another well-established hot spot for illegal pot grows is taking a different approach. Washington has generally kept its Drug Enforcement Administration money intact since legalizing recreational marijuana. It's dropped only about 30 percent over three years, down to $760,000 this year.

But with no one strongly advocating for it, the program in Oregon appears headed for the chopping block.

"If you look at a graph and see how steeply the budget trends down, I'd imagine it's very possible we won't get funding for this next year," said State Police Capt. Bill Fugate, whose agency has been one of the program's main financial beneficiaries.

Police and sheriff's offices typically use the money on equipment, training and helicopters based on allocations largely established through state requests.

The Oregon Department of Justice passed oversight of the program - making the funding requests and doling out money to local agencies - to the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association this year.

That association sees it as an unwanted burden.

"They must've caught me at a weak moment when they asked us to take it over," said retired Curry County Sheriff John Bishop, executive director of the nonprofit group that provides administrative help to sheriffs. "We're not even going to run it next year. ... I don't know who will yet. No one's figured that out."

Discussions begin in January over who will take it on, he said. He wouldn't speculate on who's in the mix.

It's possible the state could step in with money, but there's no question that the focus has shifted.

"The problem is the way the program utilizes funds from DEA, it doesn't have a good match with our regulatory scheme," said Jeffrey Rhoades, senior adviser on marijuana policy to Gov. Kate Brown and a longtime prosecutor.

"That's not to say we've beaten the black market," Rhoades said. "The main point is, in this new legal market, we need to adjust our thinking in how we conduct these kind of operations."

***

Oregon entered an exclusive club a decade ago: part of the Drug Enforcement Administration's "M7" - seven states identified as primary marijuana cultivators. The others were California, Washington, Hawaii, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. The federal government has spent roughly $18 million annually - mostly in the M7 states -- to focus on eradication.

And it appeared to return dividends - Oregon authorities pulled up or burned an average of 100,000 plants a year when the money started coming in.

But in 2012, discoveries plummeted to 33,000 plants a year, and that level has held steady since then. Washington experienced a similar nose-dive.

Neither state remains in the M7.

The Northwest states are now closer to Colorado, where major marijuana grows historically haven't been as common and which stopped receiving federal marijuana eradication funds in 2015.

Using state money, Colorado found about 27,000 plants last year, not far from its annual average over the past five years.

Fugate imagines this will play out in Oregon as well.

"Let's say DEA money goes away completely," he said. "We're not going to get out of the business. There are four stages to this game: detection, investigation, eradication, and apprehension (of growers). Funding cuts will mostly take away the detection aspect. And we will be spending more state money than we have in the past."

The Governor's Office agrees the program will continue, federal money or not.

Rhoades said Mexican drug cartels are still a concern and search-and-destroy operations are important for fostering a "good business climate" for marijuana shops in Oregon, mainly by suppressing the black market.

"But that's only one tool in the tool belt," he said. "We're going to start being smarter about this."

***

The Drug Enforcement Administration program itself has come under fire from national marijuana reform advocates.

U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., recently led a push in the House to drastically reduce the program's budget. While it didn't make it into the final budget, he said success is inevitable, given the shifting national sentiment. As California and other states legalize recreational marijuana use this year, "they should follow Oregon's example," Lieu said.

"This is one of the stupidest programs we have in the federal government," he said. "In a world of limited resources, funds would be far better spent fighting drugs like opioids. I understand why law enforcement would want a continued stream of funding from the DEA, but we can also get law enforcement to accept that funding to go somewhere else."

But the budget cuts in Oregon aren't entirely by choice. While the state requested much less this year than previous years under the program, Bishop noted that it received still less than that -- $200,000 in response to a $400,000 request.

"A lot of us speculate that we're being punished, but we don't know," Bishop said. "It's total speculation. We're not hearing anything from the feds."

A spokesman with the Drug Enforcement Administration said the agency declined comment.

***

The dwindling money in Oregon worries Washington State Patrol Lt. Chris Sweet, who oversees the marijuana eradication program there. Oregon authorities often partner with his agency on marijuana operations.

Mexican drug cartels, Sweet said, could see Oregon's lack of Drug Enforcement Administration money as a business opportunity. He cited a spike in armed guards at grow operations as evidence Mexican gangs are reasserting themselves in the region.

"These international cartels are watching public opinion, watching for which states won't have the resources to fight them," he said.

Bishop, the Oregon sheriffs' group leader, agreed that police are seeing "way more" armed guards at grow operations recently. What's more, a crop of over 6,500 plants connected to Mexican cartels was discovered 35 miles south of Portland in June, near the Willamette River, the Yamhill County Sheriff's Office reported.

But Bishop doesn't subscribe to the theory that Mexican gangs may decide to grow more pot in the state.

"If you have a lawn and it's a beautiful lawn and moss keeps creeping into it, it'll continue to grow," he said. "But why wouldn't they just go indoors and do it legally? It's really easy now. That makes more sense."

Portland-based attorney Bear Wilner-Nugent, who focuses on marijuana law, called Sweet's concerns unfounded.

"Say what you will about the moral standing of Mexican drug cartels, but they're every bit as likely to be thoughtful and intelligent as other businesspeople," he said. "They're going to slice the pie more thinly, and focus on where they don't have competition with hundreds of legal businesses. Obviously that's meth, heroin, and cocaine in Oregon."

-- Drew Atkins

Special to The Oregonian/OregonLive

***

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified the agency that oversaw the eradication program in Oregon.
A Milwaukie man was sentenced Wednesday to 45 years in prison for

for about 10 years while they were children.

Nick Allen Barger, 47, was convicted in Clackamas County Circuit Court of first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy and first-degree unlawful sexual penetration. Both of the relatives are now adults and one is raising a child fathered by Barger, said Clackamas County Deputy District Attorney Russell Amos.

The relatives were abused between the ages of about 6 and 16, Amos said. The abuse ended in 2013. One of the girls confided in another relative, who then notified police. Barger was arrested in June.

Under Oregon law, Barger faced a minimum of 25 years in prison. According to court documents, the prosecution requested a sentence of 50 years.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
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Trump supporters on Election Night in New York

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

On the final afternoon of a bitter, disheartening presidential campaign, I thought I found reprieve in the pages of "The Making of a Liberal Icon," Larry Tye's biography of Bobby Kennedy.

Tye was revisiting the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which he calls "the most nerve-shattering two weeks in human history."

The Soviet Union had planted ballistic missiles 90 miles off Key West. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev squared off in harrowing negotiations and gamesmanship that Bobby Kennedy, the U.S. attorney general, would describe in his posthumous memoir, "Thirteen Days."

"While the Cuban missile crisis wasn't Bobby's shining moment," Tye writes, "it did transform him. He hadn't shed his cold-warrior instincts, but spending thirteen days on the brink of extinction sobered him forever."

The brink of extinction. The phrase caught my eye because, like so many Oregonians, I spent this presidential campaign at the edge of the abyss.

The abyss of Donald Trump's disabling narcissism. The black hole of all he doesn't know about climate change, health care, foreign policy, Syrian refugees, Vladimir Putin, and patriotic sacrifice.

I was never under the illusion Trump would surrender the stage at campaign's end. Because several people I love preferred this train wreck to his opponent, I never discounted that he'd struck a nerve.

But just when 538's Nate Silver had me convinced we would dodge this brush with electoral disaster, voters delivered a far more sobering conclusion:

You can lie reflexively. You can belittle and abuse women. You can mock people with disabilities. You can wink at white supremacists. You can foment the birther movement. You can toy with the deportation of 11 million Hispanics.

When asked questions that require complex sentences, you can sound, as Thomas Friedman of The New York Times said, like "a fifth-grader who gives a book report but hasn't read the book."

And an Electoral College majority of the Americans who fight their way to the ballot box will still conclude there is something worse than all that:

Four more years with Hillary Clinton and her husband in the White House.

A majority of Americans -- most of them white, nostalgic and disenfranchised -- will cast their lot for transformative change.

Not in Republican control of the U.S. Senate, mind you. Not in the GOP leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Those "political elites" will abide. A woman in the White House won't.

Especially the woman who became "filthy rich," as the Trump campaign ads put it, by delivering $225,000 speeches to Goldman Sachs, rather than stiffing subcontractors and gaming the tax code.

Trump gave voice to those who can't square Clinton's endless opportunism with their lack of opportunity.

But he also emboldens the isolationists, the climate-change deniers, the xenophobes, and the junior-high bullies who delight in his nastiness.

Where does his triumph leave us? That will take time to play out, but let me return to Tye's Kennedy biography.

In the aftermath of the missile crisis, Bobby Kennedy never mentions a key element in its resolution, the secret agreement to dismantle the U.S.-built Jupiter missiles deployed in Turkey.

As a result, Tye argues, "We drew the wrong lessons from this first-ever nuclear showdown. ... Bobby's telling of the wider story would become the accepted one -- that we had stared down the enemy -- when what really saved the day was that both sides blinked."

"You'd have thought that war was inevitable," Krushchev would later write. "But both sides showed that if the desire to avoid war is strong enough, even the most pressing dispute can be solved by compromise."

That resolve pulled us back from the brink in 1962. As the 45th president of the United States considers the cutthroat instincts and stare-downs that have brought him this far, I can only wonder what, if anything, will inspire him to similar reconciliation and reflection.

-- Steve Duin

stephen.b.duin@gmail.com
1trump.JPG

People hold placards as they take part in an anti-racism protest against President-elect Donald Trump winning the American election, outside the U.S. embassy in London, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016.

(AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

By Ramesh Ponnuru

So this is what it feels like to live through a political earthquake. Donald Trump's victory is a bigger upset than Harry Truman's 1948 defeat of Thomas Dewey. Truman was after all the sitting president. Many people found the prospect of President Trump unimaginable: I did, in the weeks after his campaign began (and as late as early evening on Election Day I still thought he was likely to lose).

Given how surprising the results were, we should wait before making confident judgments about what it all means. But we should look very skeptically at one of the explanations that I'm seeing a lot from the liberals I follow on social media: The country voted for Trump because of white racism.

Against that theory, I'd note, first, that Trump won several states that voted twice for our first black president. The early exit polls suggest Trump won a tenth of voters who approved of President Barack Obama's job performance. If that's close to true, it means he wouldn't have won without those voters.

And as I've noted in this space before, claims that bigotry are a major motivation for Trump voters have a thin evidentiary basis: They classify conservative views that aren't necessarily rooted in racial hostility as "racial resentment," they ignore the decline in bigotry over time, and they overgeneralize about a very large and in some ways diverse group of people.

There are serious reasons for concern about Trump's coming presidency, and his handling of racial controversies is among them. But during the general election, his numbers declined when he engaged in his worst and most publicized behavior, such as the feud with the parents of a Muslim soldier killed in Iraq. Voters seem to have backed him despite such episodes, rather than because of them.

Hillary Clinton was wrong, as well as self-destructive, in consigning half of Trump's voters to a "basket of deplorables." However upset liberals are about the election results, they should avoid repeating her mistake.

Ponnuru is a Bloomberg View columnist. For more columns from Bloomberg View, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/view.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin, foreground, arrives to take part in a ceremony of receiving diplomatic credentials from foreign ambassadors in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. Putin says that Moscow is ready to try to restore good relations with the United States in the wake of the election of Donald Trump. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is at the background.

(Sergei Karpukhin/Pool photo via AP)

By David Ignatius

WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump proclaimed "America First" on his way to his head-spinning victory in Tuesday's presidential election, and the success of that message will rock many foreign capitals where leaders have feared that Trump would alter the basics of U.S. foreign policy.

Making predictions about Trump's foreign policy is difficult, given his lack of experience. But the most likely bet is that as president he will seek to do what he promised during the campaign in breaking from current U.S. approaches to Russia, the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

Traveling abroad over the past year, I heard concern about Trump's candidacy from senior officials in more than a dozen countries. He was viewed as an inexperienced and unreliable figure who might dismantle traditional U.S. commitments and alliances. Most foreign leaders will be upset that Hillary Clinton, an advocate of traditional U.S. strategy and commitments, lost the race.

A Trump foreign policy, based on his statements, will bring an intense "realist" focus on U.S. national interests and a rejection of costly U.S. engagements abroad. It will likely bring these changes:

-- A move to improve relations with a combative, assertive Russia. Trump stressed repeatedly during the campaign, at some political cost, that he would work with President Vladimir Putin. "I think I'd be able to get along with him," he said in September at a televised forum hosted by NBC's Matt Lauer. "If he says great things about me, I'm gonna say great things about him. ... I mean, the man has very strong control over a country."

Trump also discounted allegations that Russian hackers had meddled in the presidential election. "I doubt it, I doubt it," Trump said when asked in an Oct. 19 debate about a statement by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. accusing "Russia's senior-most officials" of approving hacking of Democratic Party websites. Trump's denial led some Democrats to argue that electing Trump had been Russia's real goal.

-- A joint military effort with Russia and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to defeat the Islamic State. Trump proposed this shared campaign during that same debate. "If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good," he said. He offered positive comments about Assad, saying, "He's just much tougher and much smarter than her [Clinton]," adding that if the opposition should win in Syria, "you may very well end up with worse than Assad."

Trump also promised repeatedly that he would step up the U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State and replace U.S. generals who were insufficiently combative. But he has been vague about what he plans to do in Iraq and Syria.

-- A new push for European allies to pay more for their own defense. It's unlikely that Trump will dismantle NATO, as critics charged during the campaign. He said in a debate that Clinton was telling "just another lie" when she accused him of undermining commitments to defend NATO allies and Asian partners such as Japan and South Korea. But he never retreated from an April 27 speech in which he said "the U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves," even if that means letting them acquire nuclear weapons.

In Europe, Trump's victory is likely to reinforce the trend toward politicians expressing similar right-wing, nationalist views. The avatar of this neo-nationalism was the surprise victory of Brexit supporters in June's referendum in Britain, and there are comparable movements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. President Trump will have to decide whether to embrace such movements, which could destabilize the European Union.

-- An attempt to alter the terms of trade in Asia by renegotiating trade pacts and forcing China to revalue its currency. It's hard to predict how this combative approach to globalization will play out. Often, Trump's extreme rhetoric and threats against business partners are tactics in what he has famously described as "the art of the deal." A China that's already experiencing a bubble economy might well be vulnerable to U.S. economic pressure. But the most likely outcome of Trump's protectionist rhetoric will be a global economic downturn, many analysts have argued.

Trump's campaign was premised on the idea that his approach would "make America great again." His presidency will test that proposition. But many analysts argue that by putting America's interests first so nakedly, he may push many U.S. allies in Europe and Asia to make their own deals with a newly assertive Russia and a rising China.

Undoing globalization isn't possible. But undermining America's leadership in that system would be all too easy.

David Ignatius' email address is davidignatius@washpost.com.

(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group
A transcript gives a blow-by-blow account of the wild end to the Oregon refuge takeover trial when occupation leader Ammon Bundy's lawyer tried to gain his client's immediate release after a surprising acquittal for all seven defendants.

Federal marshals ended up tackling attorney Marcus Mumford and stunning him with a Taser.

U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown had just told defendant David Fry that she would issue an immediate order for his release and then asked if there was anything else she needed to address.

That's when Mumford spoke up.

Here's what happened next after the verdicts were announced late on the afternoon of Oct. 27, according to the court transcript.

The account includes context added by reporter Maxine Bernstein, who witnessed the scuffle:

"Well, Your Honor, you're not keeping Mr. Ammon Bundy in custody, though, right?'' Mumford asked.

"I said he is released,'' the judge began.

"Okay, thank you,'' Mumford interjected.

"On this charge,'' the judge continued. "But he still is subject to hold by the District of Nevada, so I imagine the District - there is a hold from the District of Nevada.'' (Ammon Bundy and his brother Ryan Bundy are facing a separate federal prosecution in Nevada in the 2014 standoff with federal agents over cattle grazing rights involving their father Cliven Bundy's ranch near Bunkerville.)

"If they want to come,'' Mumford responded, "they know where to find him, I would say --''

Brown cut him off: "Or the government will ask for his transport. But right now he's released on this charge only. He's not leaving the jail, however, because of the hold.''

Mumford: "No, he's leaving the jail. I don't see any paper that would.''

Brown: "You can take that up with the United States Marshal and not with me. There is a hold in place, sir, and I'm --''

Mumford quickly cut in: "No, your Honor. He is, he is acquitted.''

Brown: "On this charge, yes.''

Mumford (shouting): "Nevada doesn't have jurisdiction. I tried -- Your Honor will recall I tried to get --''

Brown interjected: "Mr. Mumford, you really need to not yell at me now or ever again. Now please...all the authority I have is to release him on this case and I will do that.''

The judge told Mumford that he'd need to take up any concerns he had about the Nevada hold with Nevada and the marshals and "not with me.''

Mumford: "And what I'm saying is if they have papers, an arrest warrant for Mr. -- Mr. Bundy, to transport him, then I'm happy to see that; but until I do, my instruction to him is he is free to leave.''

Brown: "Well, he can do what he wishes, but he's in the marshals' custody right now, and he needs to go back with them right now to the jail because of the hold.''

Mumford (voiced raised and standing beside his defense table): "No he does not. He is free.''

The judge told him he could take the matter to a higher court.

Mumford: "He's free, Your Honor.'' (Ammon Bundy remained seated at his defense table.)

Mumford: "He has beaten these -- ''

About eight deputy U.S. marshals slowly moved toward Mumford from the courtroom's perimeter.

One marshal told Mumford: "Stand down.''

Defense lawyer Per C. Olson asked: "What are you doing?''

A deputy marshal said: "He's got a hold in Nevada.''

Mumford: "No, no, no. We have litigated this issue. They do not have jurisdiction here, Your Honor. This is the point. This is the point.''

The judge told the marshals to step back: "Gentlemen, will you all just back up for a minute.''

The judge told Mumford again that she's made a ruling that Nevada has a hold on Bundy and Mumford could litigate the matter separately.

Mumford continued to argue, saying he tried to get "this court to exercise jurisdiction and -and over -- regarding the Nevada hold, and it was declined...So now to say that this court still has jurisdiction --"

The judge said she wouldn't debate that matter further, and the marshals will enforce any detainer from Nevada.

A deputy marshal told Mumford to come to the agency's fourth-floor office in the courthouse to see the Nevada court order to hold Bundy: "We'll show it to you.''

Mumford: "No. No. He is free right here and right now.''

The judge interjected: "Mr. Mumford, step back.''

With that, six or seven deputy marshals grabbed Mumford and tackled him to the courtroom floor beside his defense table.

Mumford: "No. I--I-- whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait. What are you guys doing? What are you guys doing? What are you doing?

Brown: "Everybody sit down.''

Mumford: "What are you doing to me?

A marshal ordered: "You, stay. Stay.''

"I'm not doing anything to you guys,'' Mumford said, followed by someone else's indiscernible remarks. "I'm not doing anything to you guys. I'm not doing anything to you guys.''

Brown: "Everybody out of the courtroom now. Out. Everybody out!''

"Turn over now. Turn over,'' a deputy U.S. marshal demanded.

The judge turned to the court reporter and had her leave as well. "Out,'' she directed.

Mumford was cited for failure to comply with a federal lawful order and disturbance and released with a Jan. 6 date to return to federal court, said Eric Wahlstrom, supervising deputy of the U.S. Marshals Service in Portland.

Mumford was shocked with a stun gun in what's called a dry-stun mode, meaning no probes were fired into his body but a Taser was placed up against his body, Wahlstrom said.

Deputy marshals acted because Mumford was preventing marshals from taking Ammon Bundy out of the courtroom and back into custody, he said. They used a stun gun because they "attempted to handcuff him and he continued to resist,'' he said. Wahlstrom wasn't in the courtroom himself.

Observers who were close to the arrest decried the use of force against a lawyer in court and said Mumford posed no physical threat or harm.

The Bundy brothers have been transferred from the downtown Portland jail to a federal detention center in Seattle, but are expected to be moved to Nevada soon. Their five co-defendants - also acquitted on a federal conspiracy charge in the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon - are all free.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian
Campaign 2016 Trump

People choose signs to hold as they arrive for a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016, in Selma, N.C.

(The Associated Press)

Two students were suspended at Silverton High School after displaying intimidating behavior at a Tuesday pro-Donald Trump rally, the Statesman Journal reported.

A group of 30 to 40 students gathered in the parking lot with Trump signs and American flags, the newspaper reported. "Pack your bags, you're leaving tomorrow" and "Tell your family good-bye" were shouted at Hispanic students, according to witnesses.

A Confederate flag was on display until the school's principal, Justin Lieuallen, requested its removal.

Lieuallen told the Statesman-Journal that the school will be educating students about the difference between free speech and intimidation and threats. No details were available about the specific words or actions that resulted in suspensions for the two students, but Lieuallen told the newspaper there were no physical altercations.

A Facebook post about the rally has been shared more than 240 times.
Update: Nov. 11, 3:13 p.m. The petition for this ballot measure has been withdrawn after overwhelming positive and negative responses.

Two days after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, two Portlanders have submitted a petition for a 2018 ballot initiative to have Oregon secede from the United States.

On Thursday morning, Jennifer Rollins, a lawyer, and Christian Trejbal, a writer, filed the Oregon Secession Act.

"Oregonian values are no longer the values held by the rest of the United States," Trejbal said over the phone Thursday.

Those values? "Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness," Trejbal said, "plus equality."

"Obviously," he said, the ballot proposal "came about partially in response to the election results on Tuesday."

"But," he added, "it's been developing over time."

Trejbal said that he and Rollins are hoping to start a serious conversation in Oregon about what it would mean to peacefully leave the United States. They opted for 2018 to give Oregonians some time to really think about what seceding from the union would mean.

Some Californians have already expressed interest in seceding and the language of the Oregon proposal includes the option to bring other states into a "Constitutional Convention."

Trejbal said that joining forces with other states like Washington, California and Nevada is "a viable way to go forward."

These states, he said, "could all get together and form a nation that uphold the values that we share."

To start the ballot title drafting process, the Oregon Secession Act must receive 1,000 signatures. Trejbal said he and Rollins would be at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland on Thursday night to begin the process of getting those signatures.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker
By the time national news outlets reported Donald Trump's presidential victory, University of Oregon junior Vickie Gimm had saddled up to the communal piano in the student union Tuesday to play her sadness away.

Gimm played "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," the solemn dirge from the musical Les Miserables, to a small crowd inside the Erb Memorial Union.

"The West Coast is such a bubble of liberalism," Gimm, 20, said. "We did not think this was going to be a close election."

As the nation grapples with the fallout from a polarizing 2016 campaign and an outcome that caught millions of Americans off guard, Gimm and thousands of other left-leaning young Oregonians are coping with a sudden flood of emotions.

Uncertainty. Sadness. Fear. Regret. Rage.

Gimm played other sad songs and hung out in the Multicultural Student Center, anxiously checking her phone alongside a small group of students similarly locked into their devices. Later, they joined an impromptu throng of protesters marching from campus to downtown Eugene and back, voicing their displeasure over Trump's victory.

"A lot of people right now are also grieving," said Gimm, an Asian-American who said she's most worried for friends who are undocumented or from other marginalized communities. "Today we grieve, but tomorrow we fight."

More Americans cast votes for Clinton, but the New York developer and reality television star bested the requisite 270 Electoral College votes needed to take the White House.

For Democrats, if there's a silver lining, support from voters 18 to 24 years old shows a broad base of appeal for issues affecting women, LGBTQ people, immigrants and refugees.

President Barack Obama and Clinton both gave pep talks to young voters in national addresses Wednesday morning. Obama told young voters not to get cynical. "That's the way politics works sometimes," he said. "We try really hard to persuade people that we're right and then people vote.

"And then if we lose, we learn from our mistakes, we do some reflection, we lick our wounds, we brush ourselves off, we get back in the arena, we go at it. We try even harder the next time."

Election analysts cited lower than expected turnout as a key factor in Clinton's defeat, and that trend carried over to younger voters, who otherwise overwhelmingly backed Clinton.

The reasons for depressed turnout are many. She emerged from a bitter primary campaign with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as a still polarizing figure even to many within her own party.

Gimm said she voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein because of her "progressive values."

"I voted Stein because I knew Oregon was inevitably going to be a blue state, so I felt safe for that regard," she said.

But in battleground states, other young people may not have made the same decision, or turned out at all.

To some, the party didn't do enough to unite under one banner after the primary battle.

Madison Moskowitz, the president of UO's College Democrats, watched the results roll in from the Lane County election party at a Eugene pizza parlor.

A long-time Clinton supporter, Moskowitz felt optimistic despite the relentless negativity surrounding the two candidates.

Eventually that optimism turned into a "terrifying" Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, Moskowitz said the cynicism surrounding the candidates led to many young voters opting out. "Many said, 'Screw this. I'm not going to vote.'"

Even though Sanders eventually endorsed and campaigned for Clinton, Moskowitz said it came too late, allowing the anti-establishment sentiment to thrive.

"There's a unilateral failure on the left to coalesce around saving the progressive movement," she said.

"Now we're in this reactive place where we're all looking at each other and saying, "What do we do?'"

Moskowitz said students continued to protest Trump on Wednesday, with some holding signs in the center of campus and some offering hugs to passersby.

In Corvallis, students also protested Trump and expressed solidarity with students of color, Muslims, transgender students and other minority groups.

Isamar Chavez, 21, another first-time voter and an Oregon State University senior, said she voted for Clinton even though she supported Sanders in the primary.

She understands voter apathy. Young people saw two candidates who didn't represent them, she said.

Chavez, the daughter of Mexican immigrants who aren't eligible to vote, said she cried on the phone Tuesday discussing the results with her parents.

That sadness soon turned to rejuvenation when her father, who works in construction, said he'd "pick up his hammer" and go to work the next day.

Chavez said she's now motivated to get more involved in politics. "Human beings are naturally resilient, and I'm still going to study. I'm still going to pick up my books. I'm not going to be silent. We're going to be heard," she said. "It's just a matter of time."



-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen
The results of Tuesday's election left one member of Oregon's congressional delegation elated, and the other six in various states of dejection.

The future looks brightest to Greg Walden, the lone Republican among Oregon's representatives and head campaigner for the U.S. House Republicans.

"We kicked their tails last night," he said at a Wednesday news conference in Washington, D.C., the Associated Press reported.

Walden joined House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin in celebrating the new era of unified Republican control. Donald Trump will take over as president along with Republican majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, didn't dwell on Hillary Clinton's defeat in the statement he issued Wednesday. He was seized on issues where he might be able to work with the president-elect - specifically, on trade policy and investment in infrastructure. Trump's views on both are unorthodox for a Republican.

DeFazio has been a member of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee since he first entered Congress in 1987.

Oregon's two Democratic senators emphasized the importance of diversity and inclusion in their public statements Wednesday.

Sen. Jeff Merkley said he was "profoundly disappointed" that Trump was elected president, but that he understood the vote as "a revolt against an economy and a political system that have left too many people feeling left out and worried for the future."

"To all who woke up today anxious about their place in America: I stand with you," Merkley said. "Today it is more important than ever to stand for equality, justice and inclusion."

Sen. Ron Wyden said on Twitter that he spoke to students at Parkrose High School on Wednesday about the importance of the Oregon way.

"The Oregon way," he tweeted, "is standing with people of color, of all identities, of all faiths and fighting for equal opportunity and a better future."

Democratic Rep. Suzanne Bonamici said in a statement that she was "deeply disappointed" that Trump would be the next president.

"This election has exposed just how deeply divided our country is today," she said. "All of us, but especially those of us in elected office, have a lot of work to do to build bridges and promote understanding so we can begin to heal and move forward together."

None of the seven members of Oregon's congressional delegation granted an interview request.

-- Carli Brosseau

cbrosseau@oregonian.com

503-294-5121; @carlibrosseau
WASHINGTON -- President-elect Donald Trump joined President Barack Obama for their first meeting at the White House Thursday, a symbolic start to the transition of power to the nation's 45th president.

Obama was harshly critical of Trump throughout the campaign, blasting him as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, falsely suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he'll wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

First lady Michelle Obama was meeting privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trumpwas harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Also on Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.

As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Obama and Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.

The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.

In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama -- one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. He's pledged to repeal Obama's health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He's vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

It's unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He'll enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.

-- The Associated Press
For many minorities in the Pacific Northwest, Tuesday's election of Donald Trump felt like more than a presidential loss. Muslim and Latino residents say they fear their families will be torn apart. Transgender people worry the president-elect will pass laws allowing jobs and businesses to discriminate against them. A mother whose black son was killed in August said she's scared Trump's comments about minorities will lead to violence. And yet each also saw an opportunity. Each pledged to fight for increased rights for marginalized groups.



On Wednesday, they shared their fears and hopes with The Oregonian/OregonLive. These are condensed versions of those conversations.

Just before dawn, Natasha Bruce prepares to leave for the first of two jobs she will work that day -- as a clerk in a neighborhood convenience store in Vancouver. BETH NAKAMURA/The Oregonian



Natasha Bruce

38, Vancouver, Wash.

Mother whose son Larnell Bruce was killed, reportedly by a white supremacist



"The law that Trump wants to pass where they can just frisk you on sight, it's got people in an uproar. I heard of seven people today going out to get their gun permits. People are ready to retaliate. They are no longer fearing the government. I'm extremely scared there is going to be another civil war. And it's going to be a race war.



"I plan to have a voice in all of this. I woke up this morning, and I told my husband, 'I have to have a voice now.' What our country has done is come out of the closet and say it is OK to be racist. It is OK to look at that person by the way he dresses, the music he listens to, and assume he is a bad person and attack him. That is not the kind of person I would ever want to be my leader.



"In places like Texas, they fly their flags high. They carry their guns on their hips. In Oregon, I've always known there was racism out there, but I never could see it. They lived their lives and kept it to themselves. Once Trump is president, those people who were dormant are going to come out because they have ground to stand on.



"I'd rather pay more taxes than vote for a racist. I'm a low-level worker, and I can't even afford the taxes I do have, but I'm willing to give more to not have a racist.



"We're going to talk about racism and white supremacy. It's bigger than just my son. There are a lot of people who are going to have to worry about their kids now. I just hope this doesn't involve a lot of hate crimes and police brutality on Mexican and African American men. I hope it doesn't cause a war where people are so hateful that we can't live in this community together.



"I just hope people can learn to love each other, no matter their race, gender or sexual preference. I recently started going to church, and I just don't want to live my life full of hate. I hope we can learn to love each other and not follow Trump's hate."





***





Saba Saleem

25, Portland

Pakistani immigrant





"As soon as the poll numbers started coming in, I started having a panic attack. He was in the lead from the start. And he kept the lead.



"My family and I were watching the results, just like everyone else. It was so hard to sit there and watch and not be infuriated and heartbroken and shocked. My hands were shaking. My heart was beating so fast. As soon as Wisconsin announced he had taken the state, I told my brothers, I don't think you guys should go to school tomorrow.



"After a night of zero sleep, I told my dad he is not allowed to leave the house today. He is older. His health has taken a toll, and he has gone back to his traditional roots. He is the kind of man who thinks it's OK to express your opinion, OK to go outside wearing his traditional Pakistani clothes. I was yelling at him, 'Trump won. We can't go outside looking like the stereotypes that he tells us that we are.' Before, we were walking targets. Now, anyone can openly do anything to us, and the president wants them to.



"I'm going to do what I've always done, try to get my logical head on. I'm going to try to take action. There is a reason we are called the greatest country in the world. Part of that is arrogance, but we have achieved great things. I want this country to live up to its name. My parents did not immigrate to this country when I was 8 to be deported. Our family is here. We grew up here. This is our home. We're not going to be kicked out. America is the one place we can all be accepted and loved and be who we are. And no one can tell us otherwise.



"We will demand our rights, our female rights, our immigrant rights. As a U.S. citizen, I am going to exercise my rights. I am not going to live in fear."





***







Alejandra Soriano

22, Gresham

Latina, daughter of undocumented parents

"I tried to go to work today. I was too anxious. I am the daughter of two undocumented people. I have a sister with Down syndrome.



"Even though I am born here, and I don't have to fear myself being deported, some of those fears I had as a child, feeling like my parents would be taken away from me, with his candidacy, those feelings are so much realer. I'm regressing to feeling like at any moment, immigration could come take my parents away. Will I have to take care of my two sisters?



"We can't uproot everything and just move back to Mexico. That is what he is threatening, to deport all undocumented people and build a wall. We've tried to start the process, but when we speak to someone, they say you have to leave the country first and ask forgiveness.



"My parents came here 23 years ago. They wouldn't even know how to assimilate back to living in Mexico. My sister has health issues. We wouldn't even know how to get her care. What are her benefits going to be like? Is she going to have any help? The way things are in Mexico, people with disabilities and down syndrome, they are ostracized or kept hidden. That isn't a place where my sister could grow up and become a productive member of society.



"He doesn't seem to be concerned about people with disabilities. He has no place for them in his great America. He mocks them. How is this OK? How did he win? It really lets you know where we stand as a country. He spoke to people's fears.



"Last night, we let my little sister watch part of the election. They were doing call-ins, where people explained why they voted. A woman referred to undocumented workers as illegal aliens. My little sister asked me, 'What is an illegal alien?' How do I explain her mother, her father, her uncle, her cousin are illegal aliens. I had to explain to her what the proper terms are. I had to tell a child, 'No, they are not going to come here tomorrow and take mom and dad.'



"My mom turned to me and asked, 'Can they really do that?' I told her, 'Technically no.'



"But he won, and it puts me in this position. I don't know how to explain this to you. And I feel bad because I was wrong."





***







Bethany Grace Howe

48, Eugene

Ph.D student in mass media studies at the University of Oregon

Transgender woman





"Living here in the Emerald Tower of Eugene, it's easy to process it. It is, in some ways, so remote. But I'm also mindful that today I'm in an airport heading to Indiana for a conference. You wonder about everyone you look at. Being transgender has already m ade me a little hypersensitive, but this is different. You look, and you know that half the people you're looking at cast a vote that dehumanizes you. It's an awful thing to look at half the people you encounter and wonder. That's not a way I've ever chosen to live.



"What the Supreme Court has already passed, I don't think they will undo. But I feel like the Department of Justice has had my back and my kids' backs. We had a bully pulpit with the attorney general, and now she is going to be gone.



"I suppose I'm trying to be rational or optimistic. [Supreme Court Justice Antonin] Scalia will be replaced by another arch conservative but in that way it will be what it has been in the last few years. But what if [Justice Ruth Bader] Ginsburg retires? What if someone dies, and the court really does tip?"

***

Manuel Torres

Manuel Torres

33, Portland



"I am a Mexican immigrant. I'm gay, and Gary and I have been married for a little more than two years. I am currently on my path of acquiring U.S. residency.



"I've never really paid much attention to any elections since I can't vote. This year, however, there was no escaping from it. For me, there are a lot of things in this election the affected me very negatively. As a gay man, as an immigrant and as a Mexican, it was scary then and now. I am terrified for my future.



"Tuesday night was very hard for Gary and me. I honestly couldn't watch much of it. I kept trying to distract myself and tried to stay hopeful for Hillary and for us.



"And then, just like that, our worst nightmare had become a hard reality. I didn't know how to react to such disaster. I looked at the anxious faces of my friends, at Gary's, and all I could see was terror in their eyes. I went to bed with a hole in my soul. I left for work in the morning, and Gary and I didn't have time to talk about our worries and fears. I just told him I love you and kissed him goodbye. But I knew he was hurting and thinking how this outcome will affect us if my process doesn't go through before Donald Trump takes office.



"Even if I get my residency before, we are worried about racism and homophobia. People who have so much hatred toward us have been validated by the very president elected.



"The pain in my lover's eyes breaks me. His home country failed him as a citizen. And now here we stand in limbo. But I know I need to be strong. I know that no matter what happens, we will always be together. I love him, and all I can do is be his rock like in any other hardship that we as a married couple might experience. And I know he'll do the same for me. We are so lucky and grateful to have such a strong community of friends and family."

***

Elliot Yoder, a 15-year-old sophomore at Dallas High School, said he has known since he was young that he is "something other than female."

Elliot Yoder

15, Dallas

Transgender student who fought to use boys locker room





"The protections that Trump promises to roll back, that's a big thing for trans people, especially in schools. I'm very worried he's going to make it legal for companies to discriminate against people who are LGBTQ on the basis of religion. That's bad not only for school. That means I can get turned down for a job. I can get turned down for healthcare. I wouldn't be able to get the medical services I need -- not only to transition -- I have an autoimmune disease. I couldn't have therapy anymore. I need that. I don't want to be on the streets. I need the health care I'm receiving to live. If I could get in legal trouble just for using male facilities, that's a really big problem. I'd like to get involved. I'm already worried about my safety, but I have other trans friends in the city and the state, and I don't want to see these things happen to them or to me. I'm willing to stand up if there is a way for me too.



"I'm definitely worried, but what's a guy like me to do? All I know is this election has made it a lot more unsafe for me to exist in this country. I'm not doing anything to hurt anyone. I'm just existing.



"Sometimes things have to get worse to get better. I'm hoping that is the case here. I'm just waiting on the good times."

***

Nitin Rai

51, Hillsboro

Immigrant from India, founder of Elevate Capital





"It's like a nightmare. But as an immigrant, I see this as the land of opportunity. America is already great. I'm a living example of that. I came to this country with nothing but $100 and made it. It's worse in other countries, so we need to look at everything with a positive lens.



"Doing what I'm doing as an investor, being in this country as an immigrant for 30 years, I've seen the ebbs and flows of the economics of the country. And when the economy goes down, there's an opportunity. My eye is now on where are the opportunities as an investor.



"I want to invest in minorities who are going to help push the economy forward. I'm not just targeting the underrepresented. I'm targeting the underserved. One thing that came out of this election is that people who voted for Mr. Trump were primarily people who have been displaced, whose jobs have gone elsewhere. I see that as an opportunity.



"He hit a nerve with a certain segment of the country that has been ignored and not listened to. We need to pay attention to that and use that as an opportunity and not feel disheartened. Inclusion is all inclusive. I want to make sure that demographic is not left behind. If you look at the election maps, much of Oregon is all red. We have to be truly inclusive to keep this country great.



"I told my 16-year-old this morning, who said, 'Maybe I shouldn't even go to school,' the hope is in four years there will be a new generation of young people who are the future of this country who are going to look very different than what people are today. It's what we call the browning of America. We are a nation of immigrants, and that will never change."





-- Casey Parks

503-221-8271

cparks@oregonian.com; @caseyparks

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Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in downtown Portland and marched onto interstates 5 and 84 on Wednesday as they protested Donald Trump's election.

After roaming on both sides of the Willamette River during rush hour, at times chanting "Not my president," they entered I-5 near the Moda Center and closed it down. Authorities blocked off northbound and southbound lanes on a stretch from the Fremont Bridge to the Marquam Bridge in one of multiple freeway closures during the protest.

Dozens of protesters carried signs, some reading: "Don't Make Excuses for Racists," "Back Off My Uterus, Pence" and "Black Lives Matter." Police tweeted that about 2,000 protesters took part in the demonstration, which came on the heels of a march that blocked traffic on I-5 in Portland early Wednesday.

Before the crowd headed onto I-5, it stopped outside the arena, home of the Portland Trail Blazers, as some people shouted: "Love trumps hate." Protesters later marched on I-84 and eventually returned to I-5.

Earlier, protesters marched against traffic and prompted TriMet to shut down MAX platforms around Pioneer Courthouse Square. They gathered outside City Hall and crossed from downtown over the Morrison Bridge to the east side, bypassing an exit where they could have accessed I-5.

As the protest began, buses and multiple trains were at a standstill on Sixth Avenue during the evening commute. Throughout the night, many motorists who had to stop to make way for the crowd encouraged the protesters, honking horns and giving them high-fives.

Genevieve Gahagan, 22, of Beaverton, said she was protesting against the Electoral College and to show that Trump doesn't reflect her values and the values of a lot of other people.

She had the choice between mourning and demonstrating and she chose action, she said. She self-identifies as a queer woman and said she believes Trump poses a threat to her rights.

Marcher K.C. Jones, an 18-year-old Beaverton artist, said he feels betrayed by the election outcome. He's fearful for the next four years -- especially as a man of color.

Sage Dupre, a 17-year-old Portland Community College student, said she was heartbroken that the country elected someone who doesn't believe in equality.

The demonstration appeared mostly peaceful. Police, however, tweeted that they received a report of someone among the protesters breaking a window, that several people looted a gas station and that there was a report of small fires near protesters in the Pioneer Courthouse Square area.

Some protesters dragged newsstands and other objects into the street and others picked them back up. A protester sprayed an anarchy symbol on a downtown storefront window. Someone tagged an overpass. Media reports show additional vandalism.

People launched fireworks or other projectiles into the sky on at least two occasions.

A police spokesman said around 9 p.m. that he wasn't aware of any arrests.

At least 200 protesters gathered for the earlier demonstration, which started soon after Hillary Clinton conceded and Trump addressed the nation.

The election has prompted protests across the country, including in Eugene.

Portland protesters promised to hit the streets again Thursday.

-- Eder Campuzano of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- Jim Ryan

jryan@oregonian.com

503-221-8005; @Jimryan015
The documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, like millions of American voters, was revved up on Wednesday morning. He viewed the election result as a call for change -- in his case, a call for structural change to the way we elect the president.

"You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: 'HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!'" he wrote on Facebook. "The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don't. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he's president is because of an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we'll continue to have presidents we didn't elect and didn't want."

He might be right. Before 2000, the U.S. had gone 112 years without electing a presidential candidate who had failed to win the popular vote. But thanks to the dwindling number of "swing states" over the past few decades, it's now happened twice in five elections.

The country's 538 Electoral College electors, chosen from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, actually choose the president, not the millions of Americans who go to the polls and cast ballots. This deliberate quirk in the system, which elevates the influence of more rural states with smaller populations, was the Founding Fathers' check on the mindless passions of the majority. Here's how The New York Times puts it: "[I]n an era that predated mass media and even political parties, they were concerned that average Americans would lack enough information about the candidates to make intelligent choices. So informed 'electors' would stand in for them."

The original intention, however, didn't last long. Tradition has ended up dictating that electors vote however their state's people voted. When one doesn't do so -- and that's incredibly rare and typically results in a fine -- he or she is called a "faithless elector."

Some desperate Democrats are now calling for a wave of faithless electors, insisting the 538 Chosen Ones must save the country from a President Trump. A citizens' petition on the White House website declares it is "incumbent on the present electors to remedy this existential imperilment to the Republic, moreover the planet, by choosing to elect Hillary R. Clinton to the Office of the President of the United States or any other such qualified candidate for that Office."

It's not going to happen. As of Thursday morning, the petition has barely more than 9,000 signatures. No electors from Republican states have declared they won't vote for Trump. (Before the election, a couple of Washington state electors said they might refuse to vote for Clinton if she won the state, which she did. "No, no, no on Hillary. Absolutely not. No way," said one of then, Robert Satiacum, a Bernie Sanders supporter.)

Still, many prominent politicians believe it's time to do away with the Electoral College. Said former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat and a Clinton supporter:

"If we really subscribe to the notion that 'majority rules,' then why do we deny the majority their chosen candidate?"

-- Douglas Perry
aloha legion.png

Aloha Post 104 Post Commander Erik Sandeen, left, and past commanders at a new memorial in Willamette National Cemetery. Submitted photo

Members of the Aloha Post 104 Legion Family, along with friends and invited guests, met last month at Willamette National Cemetery in southeast Portland to partake in a special dedication ceremony.

It was a beautiful autumn day to unveil a monument commemorating the Post's 40th anniversary of its charter.

Aloha Post 104 was chartered on September 18, 1975.

Located near the rostrum within the cemetery, the monument was unveiled by long-time Post 104 members Royal Raymond, past Post commander, and Betty Long, past Auxiliary president.

The ceremonial event included the posting and retiring of the Colors by the Aloha Post 104 color guard; the National Anthem and "God Bless America," performed by Cheyenne Engstrom, sophomore at Hillsboro High School; and, acknowledgement of past commanders and presidents of Aloha Post 104.

A moment of silence was also conducted to honor all deceased members, as well as to give remembrance of all service members who made the ultimate sacrifice in serving our country. The dedication address was given by Erik Sandeen, post commander, and a special U.S. flag presentation was made by past commander and color guard member Bill Shields.

The anniversary and dedication event concluded later that evening with members and guests enjoying dinner and dancing with live music back at the Post.



-- Information submitted by Cory Brockmann
Thursday 10 November 2016 3:35pm



Professor Blair Blakie

Ground-breaking theoretical work by University of Otago physics researchers showing that under certain conditions gases can form into stable droplets  as liquids do  has now been confirmed experimentally by scientists in Germany.

The latter researchers have just published their findings in the prestigious journal Nature.

Otago Department of Physics researcher Professor Blair Blakie, who led the team developing the theory, says the new ability to produce gas droplets is exciting as it opens the door to a range of potential applications.

These droplets could, for example, form pristine nano-laboratories for performing chemistry reactions or making highly precise measurements of magnetic fields, Professor Blakie says.

It has been a longstanding question as to whether it is possible to make a gas self-bind in the same way that water molecules coalesce into stable droplets, he says.

In work appearing earlier this year in the journal Physical Review A, Professor Blakies team determined that an extremely cold gas of highly magnetic atoms will self-bind into gas droplets that stabilise themselves, even in vacuum.

Their predictions were made using quantum calculations on high performance computing facilities provided through the National e-Science Infrastructure (NeSI).

The gas needs to be prepared under very specific conditions to observe the formation of droplets, he says.

We worked out that it had to be at a temperature of a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, a density more than a billion times lower than liquid water (about 100,000 times lower than air), and in a suitably adjusted magnetic field.

Under these conditions the gas will spontaneously develop into filament-shaped droplets of micrometer dimensions which persist as stable packages even after the gas is released from its container, he says.

Professor Blakie is a member of the Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, a national Centre of Research Excellence involving five universities, hosted by the University of Otago.

This work was supported by a grant to Professor Blakie from the Marsden Fund of New Zealand, which supports the lead author Danny Baillie (a research fellow at Otago). The two other co-authors on the paper are Otago PhD graduate Dr Russell Bisset, who is now a postdoctoral researcher in Italy, and Professor Ryan Wilson, a collaborator at the US Naval Academy.

For more information, contact:

Professor Blair Blakie

Department of Physics

University of Otago

Tel 64 3 479 4114

Email blair.blakie@otago.ac.nz
In 1942 Robert Baldwin, like most of us, had never heard of the Mariana Islands, Saipan, Guam nor Iwo Jima; The Pacific Ocean is a world away from the small town of Midland, Michigan.

That changed dramatically when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. In short order islands in the Pacific Ocean became of vital importance. One of the young men from Midland to fight on Saipan, Guam and Iwo Jima was Robert Baldwin.

Now 91, Bob is modest about his role in the fighting. He remembered being soaking wet out in the mud and sleeping in pup tents. Digging foxholes for protection. K-rations. Eating meals out of helmets. Wounded, he could have received a Purple Heart but refused it because he didnt want his mother to know that he had been wounded. He said, I was part of an outfit and I went wherever they went. Saipan saw the heaviest fighting of the war. Lots of men lost their lives on both sides. Then his outfit went to Guam and after that Iwo Jima.

Bob said, I was afraid just like everybody else fighting the Japanese, then I got over it.

Robert Baldwin was born in 1925 to Clarence and Ruby Baldwin in Midland at his grandparents home on West Ellsworth, Bertha (Schaefer) and Edward Baldwin. He grew up in the Fourth Ward across the river on Madison Street. He had two brothers, Dick and Ron, and four sisters, Shirley (Linde), Pat (Campbell), Mary Lee (Mott) and Carol (Fockler).

He attended junior high and Midland Senior High working part-time for Wayne McCandless selling papers. McCandless was on the draft board and when the draft came, he said to Bob, Youre 18 and youre going.

Bob was dating a young woman named Dorothy Willsie and she wanted to get married before he left for the service. Bob said, I figured Id get killed and I wanted my parents to get my life insurance. Frank and Nellie Clark who lived on the same street as Dorothy, gave Bob a going away party when he left for the service.

He went to Detroit for his physical and then to Fort Custer for training. He got a seven day furlough after boot camp and his parents picked him up in Lansing. Willsie was with them to welcome him home. When he returned from his seven-day furlough, he was sent to California for training in the Anti Aircraft Gun Battalion using 90 mm guns.

He said, They needed more men and I got in an outfit with some older guys and they were the nicest men I ever met. They had been in the service quite awhile and when we got in tight spots they watched out for me. I was just 19.

He downplayed his Army service saying, We did the mopping up. The reality of what he went through was much different as he served in the Pacific Theater of Operations.

Beginning the offensive in the Pacific, Saipan was the first battle in the Marianas with the Marines, the Navy and the Army combining forces to fight the Imperial Japanese Army. Saipan, with a large Japanese population, had been chosen because the United States needed an airfield for the new B-29 bombers. The men who planned the attack on Saipan thought three days would see the island in American hands. In reality the battle on Saipan began on June 15, 1944 and it took until July 9 until the Japanese surrendered.

The battle was brutal with the Americans giving names to some of the areas like Death Valley and Purple Heart Ridge. After days of fighting the Japanese led the largest Banzai attack of the entire war against the Marine and Army forces on July 6 but it failed. The U.S. counted 3,000 deaths and 13,000 wounded. The Japanese lost an estimated 27,000 men.

With the surrender of Saipan, the American forces went after Guam, which lasted from July 21, 1944 to Aug. 10, 1944. By now the Japanese were running out of food and ammunition. Japanese soldiers were ordered to hold out in the jungles as long as possible. But American forces overcame the Japanese forces and on Aug. 10, Guam was in the hands of the Americans. A total of five large airfields were built on Guam by the Navy Seabees for the B-29 bombers.

In February of 1945 the Battle of Iwo Jima took place with 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops fighting from caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. The battle lasted for a month ending with the world famous photo of the American flag being raised on Mount Suribachi. Only 1,083 Japanese survived out of 23,000 while the Americans saw 5,900 deaths and 17,400 wounded.

Robert Baldwin was operating the switchboard on Guam when the war ended and he remembered running outside shouting, The war is over!

He could have come home sooner than he did but he had surgery on Guam and went by ship back to Saipan to recuperate. He had to sleep on the deck and the salt spray washing over the sides of the ship burned his face. He said, When that salt water got in your eyes, it was terrible.

He was discharged from Saipan, traveling to California on his way home by ship. In California, the soldiers were treated to a huge meal as a homecoming welcome. Then they took the train to Salt Lake City where it had just snowed so the young men got off the train and had a snowball fight.

When the train pulled into Chicago, Bob said, I got off and got a haircut and a facial to get some of the jungle grime off. I was just a young kid. I thought I was going to get lost. He didnt get lost and ended up in Bay City where his mom and dad and Dorothy were waiting. His dog, Bud, jumped up and licked his face when he got home.

Willsie and Baldwin were married in 1946 and had four children, Donald, Rick, Larry and Marion. Like many wartime marriages, it didnt last and in 1971 he married Neoma Lutzke. He retired from The Dow Chemical Co. in 1982. He said, The next day we left for the East Coast to see as many battlefields as we could. Baldwin is a Civil War enthusiast and the first battlefield they visited was Gettysburg. A man was walking along the road and they stopped to say hello and he said for $10 he would give them a tour of the battlefield. Bob said, He drove our car and spent two hours with us. We saw things we never would have seen if he hadnt shown them to us.

For his service in World War II, Baldwin received a Good Conduct Medal, a Victory Medal, and the Asiatic Pacific with one bronze battle star and four overseas service bars.

World War II ended 71 years ago and thousands of young men returned home to take up their lives again. Thousands did not. The miracle of war is that many young men return home and Bob Baldwin knows that he was one of the lucky ones.
CSAF Visits Tokyo on Tour of the Pacific

U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein speaks with Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, at the Prime Ministers Official Residence in Tokyo, Japan, Nov. 7, 2016. As part of his first visit to the region as Air Force chief of staff, Goldfein expressed his gratitude for the warm welcome and spoke about the importance of the strong U.S., Japan alliance. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Michael Smith/Released)
Keen Sword 17

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Timothy Manzer and Staff Sgt. Korey King, 17th Special Operations Squadron loadmasters, look out over the ocean after refueling HH-60 Pave Hawks assigned to the 33rd Rescue Squadron and Japan Air Self-Defense Force during exercise Keen Sword 17, Nov. 7, 2016, near Okinawa, Japan. For more than 50 years, the U.S.-Japan alliance has been the foundation of peace and security in Northeast Asia and the cornerstone of U.S. engagement in the region. The alliance plays an indispensable role in ensuring the security and prosperity of the United States and Japan, as well as regional peace and security. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Stephen G. Eigel/Released)
MUSIC

Symposium guest

BLOOMINGTON  Award-winning composer and vocalist Eve Beglarian will be the featured guest Thursday at Illinois Wesleyan University's Symposium of Contemporary Music.

Beglarian will participate in a panel discussion, The Arts Outside of the Boxes, at 4 p.m. in Presser Hall 258, and guest at a concert of her music, including live electronics and video, at 8 p.m. in Westbrook Auditorium.

Both events are free. Beglarian is the winner of the 2015 Robert Rauschenberg Prize from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

ART

Gallery event

BLOOMINGTON  Torri Thompson, an assemblage artist, will discuss popular Mexican culture from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Main Gallery 404, 404 N. Main St., Bloomington.

The free talk, open to all, is part of the gallery's monthly Ladies Get Together series.

Torri's discussion will focus on Day of the Dead and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Her artwork involves found objects, wood, glass and metal. For more details, call 314-603-1349.
NEW OPENINGS

Almost Christmas

112 min.; PG-13 (suggestive material, drug content, language)

A dysfunctional family gathers for their first Thanksgiving since mother died.

Arrival

116 min.; PG-13 (brief strong language)

A linguist is recruited by the military to assist in translating alien communications.

Shut In

91 min.; PG-13 (terror, violence, bloody images, nudity, thematic elements, strong language)

A widowed child psychologist must find a way to rescue a young boy before he disappears forever.

ONGOING

The Accountant

128 min.; R (strong language/violence throughout)

An accountant with a shady past takes on a legitimate client as The Treasury Department closes in.

Boo! A Madea Halloween

103 min.; PG-13 (drug use/references, suggestive content, language, horror images, thematic material)

Madea spends Halloween keeping a watchful eye on a group of misbehaving teens.

Doctor Strange

115 min.; 2-D/3-D; PG-13 (sci-fi action-violence throughout, intense crash sequence)

A former neurosurgeon embarks on a journey of healing only to be drawn into the world of the mystic arts.

Hacksaw Ridge

131 min.; R (intense prolonged realistically graphic sequences of war violence including grisly bloody images)

The story of the first conscientious objector in American history to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Inferno

121 min.; 2-D/3-D; PG-13 (action-violence, disturbing images, language, thematic elements, sensuality)

Robert Langdon races across Europe against the clock to foil a deadly global plot.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

118 min.; PG-13 (violence/action, bloody images, language, thematic elements)

Jack must uncover the truth behind a government conspiracy to clear his name.

Trolls

92 min.; 2-D/3-D; PG (mild rude humor)

A troll princess and her companion, the one unhappy troll, try to rescue her friends from being eaten by their nemeses.

AT THE NORMAL

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week  The Touring Years

129 min.; unrated

Ron Howard's documentary look at the first four years (1962-66) of the Fab Four's career. (Nov. 10, 11, 13)

Say Anything

100 min.; PG-13 (language, mature themes)

An underachiever and a valedictorian fall in love the summer before she goes off to college. (Nov. 11)

Hurricane Bianca

84 min.; unrated

A teacher fired for being gay in a small Texas town returns disguised as a mean lady out for revenge. (Nov. 12)

Top Hat

101 min.; unrated

An American dancer in London falls for a model whom he initially annoyed in this classic Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers teaming. (Nov. 15).

Chinatown

130 min.; R (violence, nudity, language, sexual situations)

A private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds himself caught up in a web of corruption. (Nov. 16)
NORMAL  Social media contributed to the divisiveness of this year's presidential campaign, according to an Illinois State University expert who monitors trends on social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.

The problem is they're extremely divisive and I don't have a solution for this, said Nathan Carpenter, assistant director of convergent media in ISU's School of Communication. It's been an extremely contentious election cycle and social media fostered the worst of it.

That worst included fake news, the rise of so-called Twitter Bots that sent countless automated messages and even shattered friendships, Carpenter told a gathering of about 115 people Wednesday at the Bone Student Center.

His talk was the next to last in a series of programs with the theme, The U.S. Presidential Election: Global Implications and Comparative Perspectives. The talks are sponsored by the Office of International Studies and Programs and the Department of Politics and Government.

Carpenter said social media shape what we see and know and also reinforce what we already know through our social network.

About 62 percent of people surveyed by the Pew Research Center this summer said they get news on social media, he said.

Facebook has proved to be an important source of news for people, but sometimes the trending news stories are fake, partisan stories planted on Facebook.

An example was a fake story from the Denver Guardian that started circulating on Facebook a few days before the election, that said, FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apparent murder-suicide. The problem, as reported in the real newspaper, the Denver Post, is there is no such thing as 'The Denver Guardian' and the news story it reported never happened.

The fact that we have to think about this (fake news) to that degree is unnerving, said Carpenter.

Even more terrifying, he said, are Twitter Bots  automated Twitter accounts programmed to tweet in response to certain variables and keywords while appearing to be real people. These can skew what topics are getting attention and trending, Carpenter explained.

Most of the places where the bots are created tend to be in eastern Europe, creating global implications, he said.

He described this manipulation of news as a new version of cyber war and something we need to be extremely aware of.

Moving from the global view to the individual, personal view, Carpenter said, I'm sure all of you blocked friends (on Facebook) during this election cycle.

Although Carpenter said such blocking  or even unfriending  is understandable in such a contentious campaign, by using such filters we really miss out on information that could challenge our views.
BLOOMINGTON  A 24-year-old Burbank man was killed in a two-vehicle crash Wednesday afternoon on Interstate 55 north of Normal, the McLean County coroner said Thursday.

James B. Kwak died of blunt force chest trauma due to the crash that happened about 2:45 p.m. near the Veterans Parkway exit, Kathy Davis said in a news release.

The driver of semitrailer truck that collided with Kwak's semitrailer truck was taken to a local hospital for treatment, but his name and condition have not been released.

This accident remains under investigation by the coroners office and state police.
BLOOMINGTON  A debate over funding for a new program for probationers was resolved Wednesday with acceptance by the McLean County Board of Health of a County Board plan to pay for the services.

The $68,000 needed for the Risk Needs Responsivity Program was put together last week by shifting savings from the county's anticipated insurance costs and lowering a portion of the health department levy while using a portion of health department reserves.

The goal of the program is to determine what services are needed to help some adults and juvenile probationers succeed.

A panel that advises the health board on mental health issues reviewed proposals from local providers for about $1.5 million in behavioral health programs but did not recommend funding the court services program from the mental health tax levy.

Health department Administrator Walt Howe complained that the county's funding mechanism is problematic. With the property tax rate cut "we'll be starting 2 percent in the hole" next year, said Howe.

Health board President Judy Buchanan suggested a financial summit be arranged between the health agency, County Board and court services to discuss priorities and timing for funding under the mental health tax levy.

A special meeting is also planned to talk about the agency's estimated $2 million in reserves. Buchanan noted that ongoing questions exist about the size and purpose of those reserves.

"We're going to have to come to grips with a better understanding of the fund balance," said Buchanan.

Board member Cory Tello received support for her idea that could extend mental health contracts to two years rather than the current single-year term. The extensive review of data related to the multiple proposals takes several months, said Tello.

A breakdown of the funding proposals approved for 2017 indicates 30 percent for crisis services; 28 percent to children's services; 23 percent for treatment and 19 percent to the criminal justice system for services.
BLOOMINGTON  Jan Lancaster had to switch to watching a movie because she found news media broadcasts of the presidential election returns Tuesday night too difficult to watch.

Then I went back and turned it on and it didn't look good, said Lancaster, a self-described advocate of equality.

She was still in disbelief Wednesday morning that Donald Trump had been elected president over Hillary Clinton.

At this point I am still in shock, she said. I still can't believe it. I just kept thinking she was going to pull through. I kept thinking, How in the world could anyone just excuse all of his comments? But people just kind of sloughed off his racist comments or his comments against women and just said, 'OK, we just want change.'

Lancaster owns the downtown Bloomington eatery, The Bistro, a gathering place for the local LGBT community, which she said is troubled by Trump's election.

Through social media today, many of us are expressing a feeling of loss and not knowing exactly what our next step is going to be, said Lancaster. We are obviously devastated by the outcome of the election. For me, I feel like we're moving backwards. But I know for sure we will continue to come together and move forward to fight for equality for all people.

Lancaster said she hopes Trump, as president, will choose his leaders and advisers carefully.

I just hope that he does reach out to each of the (social) communities and tries to repair some of the damage that he has done during the election process, said Lancaster.

Jenny Whitwood, an Illinois State University junior from Chicago, majoring in education, said she is also hoping for success for Trump.

Maybe someone with new ideas who isnt connected to that political world as much, can come in and bring some new ideas and new ways of doing things, she said. People have lots of reasons to hate him, but he may not turn out to be all that bad.

Brooke Mueller, an ISU sophomore from Kankakee majoring in chemistry, said she was entertained watching the election and, on Wednesday, the aftermath.

People on the streets or in classes, didnt talk much about it, she said. But Facebook was like a war zone. People were fighting with each over about stuff that none of us can control. At first, it was funny, but people were calling each other names and threatening to move to Canada. Thats bogus.

Brad McCann, an ISU senior from Pekin, majoring in marketing, said he voted for Clinton, but wasnt heartbroken over her not winning.

Its politics and there are enough checks and balances in place that I dont think he can run this country into the ground, he said. He will say some stupid stuff and probably make some mistakes. But every president does that.

Deann Jacob of LeRoy ticked off all the reasons for why she voted for Trump and is elated about him being elected president.

He is going to seal up the borders, which I am OK with, she said. I think when people come here to become United States citizens, there is a proper way to do it. He is hopefully going to bring businesses back to America. He's going to pick conservative Supreme Court members. He is pro-life. He's going to do something about Obamacare, because health care insurance is too expensive.

Lisa Doerr of Peoria also was happy with the election results.

He's different, she said. He represented a change, and as far as I know he's not as crooked as Hillary.

Bret Mathiesen and Shane Wells are homeless and each said they see Tuesday's election as having no impact on changing their lives for the better.

I am completely amazed and shocked. I don't understand the public's thinking, said Wells. We put a really rich guy into office, and truly one who only understands greed. How is that going to help us? I promise you, it will not.

Politicians are the reason why we're here. They don't really want to see us, said Mathiesen, adding he has been homeless off and on for most of his life. They say that every vote counts, but (Trump's election) is really not going to affect me. This is just going to make it rougher on us to help ourselves.
BLOOMINGTON  Veterans Day will be commemorated in the Twin Cities with ceremonies Friday in Bloomington and at Illinois State University.

All McLean County veterans are invited to the traditional ceremony that begins at 11 minutes before 11 a.m. on the east side of the McLean County Museum of History. One round of blank ammunition will be fired each minute until 11 a.m.

Staff Sgt. Kyle Combs, a member of the Illinois Army National Guard who has been deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan, will be the keynote speaker. He is currently assigned to the Normal Readiness Center as the training non-commissioned officer for headquarters and headquarters company, 404th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade.

ISU's ceremony will begin at noon Friday in the Bone Student Center's Prairie Room North. Retired Army Ranger John Collett will be the keynote speaker. ISU Army ROTC cadets also will participate.

Collett received a Bronze Start for valor and heroism for his actions in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993, on a mission that inspired the movie "Blackhawk Down." He is president of the Three Rangers Foundation that is dedicated to empowering veterans to achieve lifetime success.

After the ceremony in the Prairie Room, flowers will be placed by the flagpole on the quad and Taps will be played.

There also will be a ceremony at 12:30 p.m. Friday at East Lawn Funeral Home, 1102 Airport Road, Bloomington.

Chief Warrant Officer Herb Stevens of the Illinois National Guard will be the speaker. Fourth graders from Pepper Ridge Elementary School will participate in the program that will include a flag presentation.

The combined color guard for the downtown Bloomington ceremony will include members of American Legion Post 56 of Bloomington, American Legion Post 635 of Normal, Central Illinois Leathernecks, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 454, AmVets Post 270 and Chapter 60 of the Disabled American Veterans.

Poppies will be available before the ceremony, with proceeds from donations going toward helping veterans in Veterans Administration hospitals and child welfare programs in the Bloomington-Normal community.

Jerry Vogler, director of the McLean County Veterans Assistance Commission, will serve as master of ceremonies.

Also on Veterans Day, all current military personnel and veterans will receive free admission at Miller Park Zoo. Starting Saturday, military personnel will get a discounted admission of $5.95. Regular adult admission is $6.95.
When Kirn Kim was 16, he was part of a group of four teens who killed an honors student who attended their high school in Fullerton, Calif. Kim had been along for a ride with a pal who was known for his big talk and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years-to-life in prison for having been a lookout in the murder.

Today, 23 years later, Kim is one of an emerging class of individuals  the formerly incarcerated  who are struggling to make a life for themselves after they've paid their debt to society.

"What happened was a tragedy," Kim told me. "But I was determined to make the best of a bad situation and be that one exception, if I ever managed to get out of prison."

To that end, Kim used his time behind bars to earn a bachelor's degree in business and became active in rehabilitative programs where he could counsel and help struggling inmates. After 20 years and two tries, Kim was finally granted parole.

He moved back home with his parents and, taking back up with a childhood love of computers, delved into coding and computer programming courses at a local college.

But he hit a brick wall when it was time to find work.

One of Kim's professors, who had been impressed with his work ethic and high grades, put him in touch with a STEM industry recruiter who told him to just forget it.

"He said 'I'm sorry, but, look  the big companies aren't going to hire you. With your record, your best bet is going to a startup,'" Kim recounted.

So he did. Kim found a job with a video game startup. It came to an abrupt end, however, when the company made a move to get licensing for a game they had been developing and were told that if they had someone like Kim on staff, there would be no deal.

From there Kim tried for temp work but no one would even interview him. "I signed up at temp agencies but obviously because of the box to check, I couldn't get anywhere," said Kim, referring to the question on most hiring applications that asks if applicants have a criminal record. Checking these boxes almost always leads to an ex-offender's employment application being tossed away.

"At one temp agency, the interviewer refused to talk to me so I came back the next day and I just sat there for eight hours waiting, hoping he would give me an interview," said Kim. "But my case was pretty high profile and, being back home, some people actually remembered my case and flat-out told me 'I will not hire you.'"

Frustrated, but undeterred, Kim started volunteering at organizations seeking to serve others facing the same challenges and found that he was a powerful role model for both those still incarcerated and those who were back on the outside and looking for ways to not get themselves back in jail.

Luckily for Kim, the Ban the Box campaign, which started in 2004 and has since persuaded government agencies in more than 45 cities and counties to remove the question regarding conviction history from employment applications, is making gains.

A year ago, the California Endowment, a private foundation focused on health, hired Kim as a communications coordinator. The "Ban the Box Philanthropy Challenge" is now an official campaign sponsored by the Executives' Alliance for Boys and Men of Color and calls on nonprofits to implement hiring policies that don't automatically disqualify applicants because of a conviction or arrest.

So far, 47 foundations including the Ford Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and others have joined corporations like Starbucks, Facebook and Target in giving ex-cons a better chance at making something of their lives after prison.

"I'm really appreciative about the fact that the endowment and other organizations are recognizing we do have a place in their organizations and have value to contribute," Kim said about his happy ending. "This movement has opened people's eyes to workers who want to give you their blood and sweat to prove they want something better in life."

Ban the Box estimates that one out of four adults in the U.S. has a conviction history. Here's hoping the new Philanthropy Challenge can enable happy endings for them, too.
High court judge has ruled that it was wrong for the Ofsted inspectors to penalise an Islamic faith school for the "erroneous" view of separating boys and girls that has led to unlawful discrimination. The Judge, however, allowed Ofsted to publish the rest of its inspection report.

MR Judge Jay allowed Ofsted to complete the report that includes placing the school into special measures, especially after inspectors found books in the school library that stands for the approval to domestic violence. Ofsted is the body that regulates schools in England.

The original inspection report was withheld after a school, that cannot be named, won an injunction in dispute that publishing it would lead to irrevocable damage and extensive negative popularity, as reported by Daily Mail. Judge Jay criticized Ofsted's claims towards the segregation by sex in faith schools.

"Given that both girls and boys are denied the same opportunity of interaction with the opposite sex, it would be artificial to hold that each group has been discriminated against, in the sense of receiving treatment less favourable than the other. There is no evidence in this case that segregation particularly disadvantages women," Judge Jay said, as quoted by The Guardian.

Prior to the hearing, there were three other previous Ofsted inspections of the school that failed to find fault over the segregation policy. Ofsted argued in the recent hearing that separation by sex would "reinforce notions of inferiority within the female gender", which Judge Jay did not find a really strong position.

The Court says that placing the school in special measures was justified since books in the school library containing views that are inimical to fundamental British values were allowed to enter. The said books are said to have contents that approve husbands to beat his wife and the wife is not allowed to refuse sex.

Judge Jay told reporters that it is obvious that leaders at the school did not succeed at allowing these books to enter or re-enter the library. He also added that the report's assessment to that effect cannot be impugned.
Diane Ravitch, a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, tells what she would do if she'll be appointed as the next U.S. secretary of education. Among Ravitch's platforms is the promise to improve and make education more accessible in the United States.

Author and 2011 Upton Sinclair awardee, C.M. Rubin interviewed Diane Ravitch and asked her what she would do if given the position of U.S. secretary of education. In her Washington Post interview, Ravitch suggested numerous decent things.

When asked about the role of education in solving income inequality problems, Ravitch suggested that the best way to solve it would be for the government to provide children's grants so that no kid grows up in abject poverty. She added that another solution is to invest in the rebuilding of the infrastructure in case there are jobs for those who are willing and able to work.

The interviewer also asked Ravitch for any critical steps that must be taken to produce a brand new education framework for America. According to Ravitch, America needed a new vision of education, one that lessens testing and utilizes tests only for the purpose of diagnostic.

Ravitch was also asked how she can start reducing the effect of poverty on students. As for her, the finest way to lessen the effects is to lessen poverty itself by ensuring that each child has an equal chance to grow up healthy.

Meanwhile, Ravitch wrote in her blog that if she will be the next U.S. Secretary of Education, she would focus on allotting federal funding on greater resources for the poorest students. She also promised several things like equality and guaranteed equity of education opportunity.

Charters supervised and created by school districts to meet essentials needs will also be funded. Ravitch would also make a fund in order to promote increased desegregation and would strongly campaign for wraparound services and community schools.
A 12-year-old boy from Tasmania in Australia and a 7-year-old girl from Ohio in the U.S. are shining examples of how kindness can still rule the world. By their own initiative, they are doing great things for other children in hospitals. Their gesture should serve as an inspiration for the rest of the world.

Campbell Remess has been sewing teddy bears for the last three years. He started learning to work the sewing machine after telling his parents he wanted to give toys to sick kids in hospitals for Christmas.

"When told it would be too expensive, he decided he would make them," Campbell Remess' parents said, according to MDaily Mirror. His passion project eventually grew and even gave rise to a Facebook page that takes on requests for teddy bears. To date, he has already sewn and given away 800 teddy bears for children at hospitals.

Since starting this project, Campbell Remess have received money donations from other kind patrons, which he uses to buy materials. He has also been tapped by organizations that help fund cancer research. Learn more about Campbell Remess' project in the video at the end of this article.

Over in Ohio, 7-year-old Ella Tryon has been sending boxes of crayons and coloring materials for children in hospitals. She came up with the idea after being sick in July for severe allergy.

Resting at her hospital bed, Ella Tryon wanted to color but found out that there aren't any crayons at the hospital. "I told her the next time we had to come to the hospital, we would bring a few boxes with us to donate them," Ella Tryon's mom said, according to KSL.

So, the young girl has been gathering boxes of crayons since then. She plans on donating these at the Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland for Christmas.

Ella Tyron also set up a Facebook campaign enjoining others to donate crayons. To date, her donation drive has already received 13,000 boxes when her original goal was only 1,000 boxes. "Ella's selfless act is an example to all of us about how unconditional giving can create such a great impact," the president of the hospital said.
Many parents have expressed their fear of getting left behind or ignored once Donald Trump sits in the position. Some Los Angeles students also fired up into protest when Trump won.

Trump's victory in the presidential election was ridiculed across California on Wednesday. Students at several Bay Area high schools walked out from their classrooms at lunch time and took steps of Los Angeles' City Hall.

About 1,500 students walked out at Berkeley High School. Such is half the entire student body stepping out after the first period began at 8 a.m., as reported by LA Times.

Shoutouts resonated from the halls saying "#NotMyPresident" and these students pledged to unify. Some reiterated "Si, Se Puede," Spanish for "Yes, we can," while waving Mexican flags.

It can be recalled how Donald Trump mocked a disabled reporter as reported in NBC News three months ago. An autistic boy cried when he saw Trump making such an offensive gesture. A teenager on the other hand also felt losing security for himself and the whole LGBT community. Muslim students are also on the brink of being depressed because of too much worry towards their safety.

Demetrio Gonzalez, president of United Teachers of Richmond CTA/NEA, spoke about the reality they have seen among are students and kids. They saw hurting young people, according to Gonzales, and their eyes are not shut for them.

Many kids in his district, he said, will go to school scared, thinking that it might be their last day in this country. Some fear that their parents will be sent back to their countries of origin.

The election has given most of them a traumatic experience. The best thing to manage the fear that these kids are feeling is to talk to them and be able to provide proper counsel, as per Gonzalez on helping the children.
The most beautiful day of the year is happening in the next few months. The Miss Universe 2016 is happening on Jan. 2017 in Manila, Philippines. The upcoming Miss Universe may see Round Two battle for the Philippines and Colombia.

Philippines and Colombia are power-houses in terms of Miss Universe because of its consistent placements in the competition. Colombia also has two Miss Universe winners, with Paulina Vega being the most recent winning the crown in 2014.

The Philippines have three with Pia Wurtzbach, the reigning Miss Universe winner as the third. Colombia wants to get the crown which they thought is theirs, while Philippines is eyeing for a back to back title.

According to Missossology, Maxine Medina, the Philippine representative to Miss Universe 2016 on Jan. 2017 in Manila is training doubly hard to win the crown- AGAIN. Maxine is an elegant beauty as she exudes an aura of elegance.

She is also known to have the charisma to light up a room. Her looks are also perfect for Miss Universe, it being edgy and commercial at the same time. However, Maxine has to train extremely hard on her question and answer skills as it one of the most important requirements of a Miss Universe winner.

Colombia's Andrea Tovar is not taking the challenge lightly. According to Pageant News, has been consistently showing up as a favorite bet to win the Miss Universe 2016 crown from international pageant fans. Andrea Tovar has big shoes to fill as Ariadna Gutierrez did a good job making her Miss Universe 2015 for four minutes before Steve Harvey announced she was the first runner-up.

More than anything else, the Miss Universe 2016 in Manila is not solely about the most beautiful and most intelligent women of the world. It is also about business and TV ratings as the Miss Universe 2016 will be shown during prime-time in the US.

Analyzing Miss Universe 2016, it is highly likely that Philippines may have a back-to-back title. The home court advantage is in their favor. It may also bring good ratings for the Miss Universe franchise as Filipinos are crazy for Miss Universe so viewership is extremely high.

Filipinos are all over the world so everyone is expected to watch the show. The Filipino fans would love to see their representative compete to the very end.

Colombians are also crazy for Miss Universe, all South American countries in fact. But the Colombians are eager to get the crown back to their country as it was theirs for barely four minutes last year. Colombians are sure to watch the competition and having their representative to the very end will not make them tune out.

The Colombian representative has also been crowned a year ago so she had a lot of time to train and prepare for the Miss Universe 2016. Her dusky and exotic features are considered alluring making her a favorite since Jan. of this year.

What do you think? Will a Round Two for Colombia and the Philippines happen this upcoming Miss Universe 2016?
A Georgia mother was arrested and charged after she let her son walk outside of his school naked as a form of punishment. The mother was charged with child cruelty.

People reported that the woman was identified as Joyce Sweetheart Cole. She was detained on Nov. 1 but was released on the same day after posting a $5,000 bail. The 32-year-old mother made her 11-year-old son, whose name is withheld, walk outside his elementary school with no clothes at all.

Sgt. Dana Pierce of the Cobb County Police Department said in a statement that the mother was called in the elementary school where he was attending. Cole was called at the school over a month ago due to a bullying incident that involved her son and a female student.

Cole allegedly threatened her son and promised that she would embarrass him if he ever started any kind of trouble in school again. Eur Web reported that the child did not listen to his mother and committed another trouble.

During the morning of Halloween last month, Cole's son allegedly got into another dispute with the same girl he had trouble with during the first incident. Pierce noted that the girl alleged Cole's son of kicking her. Cole was then called into a meeting regarding the disciplinary actions to be made over her son. After the second time that her son caused trouble, Cole decided to let him walk outside of his school naked.

Accordingly, just after the meeting over the disciplinary actions to be imposed, Cole carried out the punishment. He made him remove all of his clothing and let him go outside to her car, which was parked in the parking lot. Pierce added, "The school's staff, including several teachers, went to the 11-year-old's aid, trying to clothe and cover him so he could avoid being embarrassed."

After asking her son to walk outside the school naked, Cole asked him to get inside the car and they drove off. Allegedly, before they got to their apartment complex, Cole again told her son to get out of the car and walk home naked.

Cole also reportedly struck her son in the head with an open hand while they were walking towards the car in the parking lot. The three children of Cole are being held in state custody due to the alleged incident.
Donald Trump's victory was unprecedented after he won a number of the crucial states in the United States resulting in many voters expressing their disappointment over social media. However, even those who have not yet voted felt disappointed with the results as many students in California held protests and walked out of their classes after Donald Trump was announced as the 45th president of the United States.

Los Angeles Times reported that a number of protests took place all over California on Wednesdays. Students from Bay Area high schools walked out during their classes and young demonstrators took the steps of Los Angeles' City Hall.

At Berkley High School, around 1,500 students, which is half of the number of enrolled students, walked out of their classes after the first period began. Students took to social media to make the hashtag #NotMyPresident trend. Some school and district administrators, as well as faculty members, accompanied the students as they marched from their school to the UC Berkeley campus. There are no proposed disciplinary actions on the students who walked out of their cases.

Students from Contra Costa County also took the streets. The police force urged drivers to use caution if they chance on the group of students who have walked out of their classes. In Westwood Village, a Donald Trump pinata was set on fire in a trash can. There were no arrests made.

In downtown Los Angeles, a crowd gathered at the steps of the City Hall. Some vandalisms were made during the protest.

One of the fences had graffiti on it that insulted president-elect Donald Trump. Despite the protests all over California, a group of around 30 Donald Trump supporters gathered at the president-elect's star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood.

Other protests were held in Oakland and Chicago. Reuters reported that other protests are planned to take place in New York, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia and many more states. In Oakland, demonstrators smashed windows and ignited trash containers.

In Chicago, around 1,000 people attempted to gather at the Trump International Hotel and Tower. They chanted phrases such as "No Trump! No KKK! No USA!"

It is believed that Donald Trump won because of his proposals that were aggressive and many believed that it would work out in the long run. One of the proposals was to bring back jobs and to remove illegal immigrants from the United States.
Seat belts and booster seats keep children safe in cars in the event that an accident or a vehicle crash happens. This is why it's shocking when a study found that motorists in the United States have a dwindling interest when it comes to using child restraints in cars.

According to a biennial study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, appropriate child restraint use in cars plummeted in several categories from 2013 to 2015, USA Today reported. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement that the declining number of child restraint use "is not acceptable" because it risks the "safety of future generations."

Foxx said that seat belts and car seats help save lives and are necessities that people should use "on every trip." In 2000, there was a 25 percent decrease in the number of injuries and deaths among children aged four to seven in cars, thanks to proper child restraint use.

NHTSA's study found that in 2015, only 44.5 percent of children aged four to seven were properly belted in booster seats. That number was 46.3 percent in 2013.

In the U.S., 37.4 percent of children aged four to seven were improperly restrained in a forward-facing car seat or a booster seat. The choice between these restraints depends on a child's height and weight.

Out of those children not restrained properly, 28.5 percent were only belted in their seats and 11.6 percent were not restrained at all. Almost 14 percent of children aged one to three were prematurely put in booster seats in 2015 when only 9.3 percent of kids in the same age range were in the same position in 2013.

The U.S. made a notable progress in 2000 regarding injuries and deaths of children in cars. It was in that year when that a 25 percent reduction due to proper child restraint use was seen in injuries and deaths among kids aged four to seven.

Lack or improper child restraints can cause children to be flung through the car's windscreen in the event of an accident. This was the case of a four-year-old boy, who was in an accident in Durban, Africa this month.

The child was in his mother's arms when the accident happened and the sudden impact propelled the boy through the car's windscreen, Times LIVE reported. He was airlifted to a hospital and is currently in critical condition. This proves that no matter how tight a parent's hold on a child on his/her lap is, the force of a vehicle impact can put a kid's life in danger.
Just like many celebrities "The Vampire Diaries" star, Ian Somerhalder, is not a big fan of Donald Trump. He was very outspoken about his disapproval of Trump and stated that he might move out of the United States if he wins the elections.

The actor believes that the November 8 election is the most significant one of all time, according to Variety. After learning of Trump's view regarding climate change, Ian Somerhalder disapproved of the Republican candidate and supported Hillary Clinton.

VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!!

;) VOTING for a candidate that believes climate change is a hoax is the MOST dangerous person to national security. pic.twitter.com/vUDdywNl10  Ian Somerhalder (@iansomerhalder) November 8, 2016

Trump's view on climate change is very different from "The Vampire Diaries" actor. The Republican candidate stated that climate change is nothing but a hoax. This statement disturbed Ian Somerhalder who happens to be a committed environmental advocate.

Given Trump's statement about climate change, Ian Somerhalder stated that he might leave the United States if the Republican candidate wins. This is because he does not want to raise his children in a country ruled by a President who views climate change in such manner.

Ian Somerhalder believes that the environment should not be endangered for the sake of improving the economy. He adds that humans will not survive without nature. The "Vampire Diaries" actor is deeply worried over the unusual changes that he has observed about the climate.

Now that the election is over and the result shows that Trump won, people are wondering whether the "The Vampire Diaries" actor, Ian Somerhalder, would live up to his words. Whether the actor likes it or not, Trump is officially the 45th President of the United States.

People are also wondering if Season 8 of the TV series "The Vampire Diaries" would be cancelled, reported TGD. Ian Somerhalder, who plays as Damon Salvatore, is one of the main characters of "Vampire Diaries" so it's not a surprise for people to wonder whether the series will continue or not.

For now there is no news of Ian Somerhalder leaving the US. There is also no announcement that season 8 of "The Vampire Diaries" is cancelled.
The United States has set up a panel at the World Trade Organization to settle a dispute with China over Chinese tariffs on exports of 11 key raw materials. They include copper, graphite, lead and tin.

Washington says Chinese duties and quotas on such U.S. exports are unfair and discriminatory and make American products appear too expensive on the world market.

"We will aggressively pursue this challenge on behalf of U.S. steelworkers, auto workers, aerospace workers, and the many Americans whose businesses, jobs, and livelihoods depend on the strength of these and other industries," U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said Tuesday.


The aftermath of the U.S. election brought out protesters in several U.S. cities last night. Many appeared to be of Mexican descent though it was a mixed crowd to be sure. Hillary Clinton's negative and exaggerated rhetoric throughout her presidential campaign about Trump supporters being deplorables, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and KKK members resonated with those who fear a protected border, the end of sanctuary cities and deportation of illegals for which there are millions in the U.S. The Mexican youth caused riots this year at Trump rallies in California, New Mexico and stopped his rally in Chicago, sucker punched trump supporters, threw eggs, smashed cars and more. Citizens who want a strong border and their officials to act on standing U.S. laws to deport illegal immigrants are not racists. But if you happen to a part of that particular minority that will be effected by a Trump presidency, then of course fear and anger is bound to spill over as it did last night. Yesterday morning we were inundated by tech sector fear spilling over into many reports that displayed anger and ridiculous rhetoric that I covered in a report titled "Silicon Valley's Mental Breakdown over President-Elect Trump is Seriously Warped." That angst from the tech community over the election result effected some employees at Apple as well to the point that CEO Tim Cook felt the need to address it in a memo to staff as fully noted below.

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.
Perhaps one of the most contentious issues within the Pagan community is that of animal sacrifice and it is rife with misconceptions and bad ideas.

I came across a post by the Rational Heathen over on Huginns Heathen Hof called Blood Sacrifices and Other Moronic Things, a fun title that one  it is basically saying that anyone who participates in ritual sacrifice is a moron. Thats nice. But what was written in the post just reminded me of what so many Pagans and similar seem to think about animal sacrifice, its almost always the same objections, over and over. And much of the time, the objections are based on assumptions and those assumptions are often wrong.

I cant speak of Heathenry at all, but what Heathens write is also read by Pagans of all traditions and taken on board and then applied to all Pagan traditions. So, I feel the need to speak about animal sacrifice and address some of the numerous misconceptions and objections that people raise. Ill be mostly coming from a Hellenic perspective, as usual.

The Gods Dont Want Your Sacrifice

The idea here is that the Gods dont need or want our sacrifices, because They dont need or want our food. After all, They are the Gods, why would They need our petty human foods? I do agree that They have no need of our food, but want is a different matter. The idea is based on the assumption that the Gods want the food part of the food, rather than something else entirely.

What the Gods really seem to want though is not the sustenance nor even the taste of our food, but the willingness of us to give and to make sacrifices for Them. For the most part this a matter of Kharis  reciprocity, give and take. We want something from Them, then we have to be willing to give to Them. It is a matter of building the relationship. Its also a matter of proving our devotion.

There is another side to it though, its not all nice and its not all about being friends. Sometimes the Gods just want what we have because They dont want us to have it. Zeus is the example here, He demands we give the best portion of our foods, our sacrifices and Prometheus asks Him to decide what the best portion is. Zeus knows that Prometheus is up to some kind of trickery, thats what Prometheus does. But Zeus thinks the trick will be on us, on humans. He wants us to get the short end of the stick. So, sometimes, our offerings and sacrifices are simply for Their pleasure.

In the end it doesnt even matter why, it simply matters that They have asked and demanded sacrifices be made. If They didnt want animal sacrifice, why did They ask for it? Maybe its best to not speak for the Gods when They have already spoken for Themselves.

Its Inhumane

This is probably the biggest concern when it comes to animal sacrifice, that it is somehow inhumane and a horrible, terrifying, torturous experience for the animal. I have to ask though, compared to what? Compared to the slaughter houses and factory farms we rely on for our usual animal products?

In ancient Hellenism, the act of animal sacrifice was very specific. The animal must be unblemished, not mistreated at all, not scared. It is enticed to the altar with food so it actually goes there on its own. It is treated gently. If it bucks away, if it fights, if it runs, if it shows any signs of unwillingness  it is not sacrificed because it is the wrong animal! If it shows no unwillingness, then we must assume the animal is not scared in any way  if it were, it would show it and it would not be sacrificed.

The animal is killed quickly, a swift slice to the throat, it bleeds out. Surely, the death is not entirely painless, it is not fun for the animal. No one would say that. But its also nothing compared to what is done to our food stock. This is true for a lot of religions that practice animal sacrifice  it is, usually, done in a way that is more humane than what is done to our food.

And the animals that should be used, should be raised for the purpose or at least raised in a way that is deemed fit by the religion. In Hellenism, ideally, we should either raise the animals ourselves or know how the animals are raised. If they are treated badly in their life, they arent actually fit for ritual purposes. This is why many of us suggest not using bought, pre-cut meat in ritual offerings  because like as not, the animal that provided that meat was not in any way suitable for sacrifice and so is not suitable for offerings.

Its a Waste

This one drives a few of us insane, the idea that what we offer  in animal sacrifice and in non-animal offerings  is a waste of food! And, of course, a waste of money and effort and time and. Whatever.

Well, if you think its a waste to give to your Gods, then I have to wonder why youre part of whatever religion you are part of. What exactly do you do for your religion? Just, believe in things and take no action? If so, fine, keep it up. And if you dont believe in or worship the Gods, thats fine too. But dont presume to have a say in how the rest of us do things.

For those of us who make food offerings, whether animal or not, it isnt a waste. Even if the food is burnt to ashes or buried in the ground, it is not a waste from our perspective, because giving to the Gods is not waste  its worthwhile. If its worthwhile, its not a waste.

Furthermore, for the Ouranic deities, we are supposed to eat the majority of what we sacrifice anyway. When an animal sacrifice is made, we offer a portion to the Gods  that portion Prometheus tricked Zeus into agreeing to  and we humans eat the rest or use the rest as we deem fit. Its kind of like having dinner with the Gods. While we cannot partake of the portion we actually give to Them, we are not usually just killing an animal and burning it to nothingness. We are, usually, getting something from it as well.

Chthonic sacrifices are different, we dont eat from those at all. And so I too can see the hesitance here, both financially and on the part of the animal. I can understand why people feel like killing an animal and doing nothing of a physical nature to use that animal, other than burning or burying it, does seem like a waste on the surface. But, this is religion, the surface isnt all there is. Financially, if you can afford it, then it shouldnt matter  if you cant afford it, you arent expected to do it anyway!

Its Not Really a Sacrifice

Its a bit funny, on the one hand people say its a waste of money to buy or raise an animal just to slaughter it for food and offerings. But on the other hand, they say that the sacrifice of an animal isnt really a sacrifice because we havent really invested anything into it except money. Uh, pick just one maybe.

If you raise the animal yourself, you will have invested money, time, energy and perhaps even some of your sanity (stress is hard) into raising the animal. If you have bought the animal, you will be investing money into it  and for most of us, we arent rich, at all! Really, sometimes, buying an extra clove of garlic specifically for rituals is kind of costly for some of us and a hard choice to make. Because, maybe I could be buying an apple for the kids instead. And to get money, most people have to work, hard, to earn that money. So there is again time, energy and more invested into that animal.

It should also be pointed out, that if you arent a heartless monster or a psycho who enjoys killing animals then the very act of the sacrifice itself is going to be a sacrifice for you too. Taking a life isnt easy, emotionally and mentally speaking. Its hard, even when its for food and survival  it is still hard. You dont really want to do the killing. Forcing yourself to do it is a sacrifice you are making. It might be a sacrifice of your morals, your emotional health, your mental health  even if all only temporarily. And its something you probably wont ever forget.

People might like to talk about how the small mental and emotional sacrifice you make as the human is hardly comparable to the animal sacrificing its life  and that is true. But thats not the point here, because it isnt about comparison, who has it harder, its just about what is.

Its 2016!

This response to a plethora of things is getting a bit old. The year we live in has little to do with anything. Yes, we have advanced in some areas compared to the various societies thousands of years ago  science and medicine for the most part, also in certain moralistic issues and human rights issues. But were not that bloody special either.

Its 2016 and the way we raise and slaughter animals for food would have the ancient peoples thinking we are the worst creatures to exist. Ever. We are the bad guys in this, we have devolved, we are deplorable, we are the barbarians. Dont go thinking otherwise, we have no moral high ground here.

The way the ancient peoples (always depending on where you are looking) treated animals compared to how we treat them, if I were an animal and had a choice  I would choose ancient ritual sacrifice instead of modern enlightened factory farming. Thank you very much.

Its 2016. How nice for us. Im sure the animal kingdom is grateful for the year we are in.

Its Just Wrong!

If you eat meat, you really cant say this. Because all youre really saying is, I am a hypocrite. Its like those people who get so outraged that some countries eat dogs. Uh, how is that so different to that beef steak on your plate? Just because its an animal that you and your society generally associates with love and play, as a pet, that doesnt mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Cows are sacred in some places, were pretty outrageous ourselves for eating them, arent we?

Of course if you are a vegetarian or Vegan for moral reasons then this is quite a different story. You will be against the practice of killing animals for any reasons, so of course sacrifice is also wrong in your eyes. Im not writing this post for you though.

To Be a True Polytheist, You Must Sacrifice

This point is a turnabout from the others, in that it is in defence of not doing sacrifice at all. Some of those who are advocates of, or supporters of animal sacrifice for religion, are also of the opinion that in order for our religions to be true and real, we must practice animal sacrifice. But thats not really true is it?

I wont go too deep into this, but suffice to say, some of the ancient writers we use to source our reconstruction or revival of Hellenism were in point of fact rabidly anti-sacrifice. The Hellenic tradition of Orphism is an anti-sacrifice tradition  because Orpheus and his disciples were anti-sacrifice. They instead use tokens, fake animals, to sacrifice.

The Gods may ask us to sacrifice animals to Them, but They also do not ask it of everyone. Not only is it not required in certain traditions, but the ancient Hellenes would have someone who knew how to sacrifice an animal actually perform the sacrifice, it shouldnt be done by any random person. If you dont know how to do it, if you are incapable of doing it  physically, financially or otherwise  then you are not expected to do it.

The Gods ask for our best, but They dont ask for what we dont have. And if They do, there isnt much we can do about it anyway. Only the Gods can say what They want from you, as an individual and as a member of a specific religion or tradition. Its not up to me what you must do, it is not up to any other Pagan, Polytheist, Heathen or whatever. It is up to the Gods and you, and that is all.

And that goes both ways. I cant tell you what to do in your religion. But you cant tell me what to do in mine either.
My daughter watched videos about womens suffrage on repeat the week leading up to the election. Shes only in second grade, but shes been fascinated by womens suffrage for several years now. When she was only five years old she sat down and watched an hour-long documentary about it, by herself. On Tuesday night, when she began to cry as I put her to bed, I told her about the brave female Senators and Congresswomen who will fight for her and for her friends. Hillary Clinton may have lost her bid to be the first female president of the United States, yes, but we have some absolutely amazing up-and-coming female politicians following in her footsteps.

Tammy Duckworth

Tammy Duckworth is a veteran who lost both of her legs in the Gulf War. Shes also the newest Senator from Illinois. Duckworth is the daughter of a U.S. marine; her mother is an immigrant from Thailand.

Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris was elected to U.S. Senate from California. Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, is the second black female U.S. Senator and the first Indian U.S. Senator.

Catherine Cortez Masto

Catherine Cortez Masto, elected to U.S. Senate from Nevada, is the first Latina senator in history. The granddaughter of a Mexican immigrant, she is passionate about immigration reform, among other things.

Pramila Jayapal

Pramila Jayapal was elected to the U.S. House from Washington State. Born in India, Jayapal is the countrys first Indian American Congresswoman. She is the former director of a pro-immigration advocacy group.

Val Demings

Val Demings grew up attending segregated schools. She was the first in her family to attend college, and was the first female chief of the Orlando Police Department. She is now the eighth African American Florida has sent to the U.S. House.

Lisa Blunt Rochester

Lisa Blunt Rochester was Delawares first African American Secretary of Labor. Running on a progressive platform, she is the first woman Delaware has sent to the U.S. House.

Stephanie Murphy

Stephanie Murphy was elected to the U.S. House from Florida. Murphys family fled her native Vietnam when she was only one. She is the first Vietnamese-American woman elected to Congress.

We may not have a woman president this time around, but we do have inspiring new female lawmakers, many of them immigrants or the children of immigrants. These women will be in Congress when Trump sets about building his wall, among other things, and while they may not be able to stop him (that remains to be seen), they will certainly put up a fight. We couldnt ask for better role models for our daughters.
Patna: The fallout from the banning of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 denomination notes by the Central government in an attempt to flush out black money from circulation to the tune of billions of rupees continued to take place on Wednesday as thousands of train passengers buying train tickets using Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes were faced with frustration when the railway clerks refused to give them change money on account of shortage of low denomination notes.

{gallery}newsimages2016/nov/110916{/gallery}Throughout the day, flustered travelers were seen arguing with the railway clerks who were refusing to return change money to the customers saying they were simply out of small bills.

"We are doing our best to keep the cash registers full to avoid arguments with angry travelers but we can only do so much. A lot of time we just don't have small denomination notes to return change to the ticket purchaser and this is creating some problem," Danapur Railway Manager R. K. Jha said.

He also told the reporters that the Railways would continue to accept Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 bills as specified by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the announcement by the Center, people holding Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes will be able to deposit their cash in their banks or post offices starting November 10. This will, however, come to an end on December 30th after which the process to deposit these notes would entail more paper work and strict government scrutiny.
Bettiah: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar kicked off his 'Nishchay Yatra' from West Champaran on Wednesday to feel the nerve of the people on prohibition and to propagate his 'Seven Resolves' that includes providing running water and indoor toilets to each household.

Starting the first leg of his 'yatra' from Narkatiaganj, Kumar first visited the public complaint center. From there using his chartered helicopter, the Chief Minister arrived at Muratia village in Pakaria Panchayat where he visited several homes who are the recent beneficiaries of the running water and indoor toilets.

Around 2:30 pm, the CM, who was accompanied by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav, Revenue Minister Madan Mohan Jha, Sugarcane Minister Khurshid Alam, Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, and Director General of Police (DGP) P. K. Thakur, addressed a gathering at the Maharaja Stadium where, in an oblique reference to Mahatma Gandhi, he expressed his love for Champaran saying he always preferred to begin a new social program from here.

Like in his all other public speeches, Kumar patted his own back for implementing prohibition in Bihar saying the idea had become so popular that even leaders in Gujarat were begging their Chief Minister to modify existing prohibition laws on the pattern of Bihar prohibition laws.

"With prohibition in place in Bihar, people are drinking milk and eating sweets more than ever before not to mention the state has saved nearly Rs. 10,000 crore that it would have spend on battling alcoholism. This should be implemented in all other states of India if it has to succeed," he said.

Taking shots at his detractors, the Chief Minister said that many in Bihar were not able to digest the glorious success of the current government.

"Some people are suffering from mental sickness who cannot see Bihar succeeding and marching forward on the path of development. They are constantly criticizing but that's okay with me. All good works are initially criticized and lampooned. Then they are opposed and finally everyone accepts them," he said.

Kumar also hailed Prime Minister Nitish Kumar's decision to ban circulation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 bills saying it was a good decision to curb corruption in the society.

"People may not like it in the beginning but they would eventually get used to it. The effect of the ban, however, will have positive impact on the society," he said.
Judiciary Chief Accuses Rouhani of Hypocrisy Amid Battle Over Freedom of Expression in Iran

11/10/16

Source: International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

Shortly after criticizing attacks on freedom of expression in Iran, President Hassan Rouhani was accused of hypocrisy by Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani, who claimed he had been asked by Rouhani to shut down a newspaper.



President Hassan Rouhani (R) with Sadegh Larijani





Speaking at the opening session of the Tehran Press Exhibition on November 5, 2016, Rouhanisaid news media can't serve the public interest if reporters do not feel safe while doing their jobs: "Broken pens and gagged mouths cannot do anything. We must boldly defend responsible freedoms in society. Security is most important for us, but we can't achieve and preserve it with guns alone."

Two days later, Larijani chided the president: "My dear brother! You have often asked me in writing and in person, with and without intermediaries, why I haven't taken action against a certain newspaper. Yet when you talk around reporters you raise your voice in defense of freedom and declare than 'pens should not broken and mouths should not be gagged.' Of course, we won't listen to any of this talk and we will continue on the path of the law," he said on November 7.

Hours later, Hamid Aboutalebi, one of the president's top political advisers, fired back on Twitter (which is banned in Iran): "Freedom of expression is different from lies and slander. You cannot claim to be supporting freedom of expression by spreading lies and accusations. The former should be uplifted and the latter should be suppressed."

Aboutalebi appeared to be referring to the Judiciary's tolerant attitude towards hardline newspapers that have attacked Rouhani's policies.

War of Words

Rouhani has criticized the Judiciary's restrictive stance on freedom of expression on a number of occasions. On April 29, 2014 he said: "All people and groups have the right to criticize, regardless of whether they represent the minority or the majority. What we don't approve of is when someone takes money from the national treasury and starts a newspaper and then instead of [constructive] criticism proceeds to launch destructive attacks on a government elected by the majority of the people."

"We want all [members of the press] to clearly identity themselves and their political affiliation," he added. "They should represent their own faction instead of claiming to speak for the Iranian nation."

In his sharp rebuke against the president, Larijani did not specify which newspaper Rouhani had allegedly asked him to shut down. However, in 2016 the Judiciary and the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (the ministers of which are appointed by Rouhani) were publicly at odds over the continued publication of the radical weekly, Ya Lesarat, the official publication of the ultraconservative vigilante group, Ansar-e Hezbollah.

On July 28, 2016 Ya Lesarat published a feature attacking some Iranian actors, alleging that they had "no honor" for allowing their wives to appear in public with allegedly improper hijabs. The piece was titled, Dayyous Keest?" (Who's a Cuckold?); the Persian word "dayyous" refers to husbands who allow their wives to have intercourse with other men.

In December 2015, Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Shahindokht Mowlaverdi threatened to sue the weekly, which is fiercely loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, for describing her as "worse than the most famous prostitute in the world." Shortly afterwards the weekly's permit was revoked by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance's Press Monitoring Board on January 4, 2016, but it resumed publication two days later because the Judiciary refused to shut it down.

The Judiciary's leniency towards Ya Lesarat contrasts sharply with the harsh prison sentences it has issued against its critics and independent journalists. The Judiciary's intolerant stance towards freedom of expression was most recently highlighted by its detention of Yashar Soltani, who has been imprisoned since September 17, 2016 and was charged with "spreading lies" and "gathering classified information with the intent to harm national security" after his news site published anunclassified official document exposing widespread corruption in the Tehran Municipality.



Iran's Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri later verified the information Soltani had made public by saying in an interview with Iranian state television that the municipality had sold properties "with special discounts above the legal limit" and that some had been allocated to officials located outside the municipality. Montazeri added that the Judiciary had accordingly invalidated the deeds of 36 of the real estate locations in question and the Tehran Municipality had been ordered to cancel excessive discounts.

Defenders of Freedom of Expression

Soltani has received widespread support from the public, including from more than 700 of his colleagues in the media who signed a petition calling for his release. Even outspoken conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Ahmad Tavakkoli criticized the Judiciary's decision to charge Soltani. "If I were you," he said on November 7, "I would first look into this list of misappropriated properties before summoning the reporter."

Parvaneh Salahshouri, the reformist MP from Tehran and leader of the Women's Faction in Parliament, has also voiced support for Soltani. "Unfortunately, instead of combating the sources of corruption, reporters like Yashar Soltani are being dragged to court for exposing organized corruption in the municipality," she said in Parliament during an open-session speech on October 25.

Meanwhile the Judiciary has come under unprecedented pressure to review the 16-year prison sentence issued against prominent human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, who will become eligible for release after serving 10 years. On October 16, 2016, 15 MPs sent a letter to Larijani urging the Judiciary to show "Islamic mercy" towards Mohammadi and review her harsh prison sentence.

On November 6 Montazeri was presented with another letter signed by 17 MPs asking him to explain the reasoning behind Mohammadi's harsh sentence. "We are again seeking a review of Mohammadi's case," said the letter. "We do not believe her actions were all correct, but we do know that these kinds of actions by individuals cannot bring any harm upon the Islamic Republic."

"Sometimes criticism can be viewed as 'propaganda against the state,' or a reformist undertaking by a group can be interpreted as an 'act against national security' and those involved are sentenced to years in prison without taking into account the impact of the actions by the accused and the punishment against them... consequently, these heavy handed verdicts against social and political activists usually have the reverse effect," said the letter.

The MPs who signed the letter were: Alireza Rahimi, Vali Dadashi, Mohammad Javad Fathi, Ghasem Mirzaie, Amir Khojasteh, Fatemeh Zolghadr, Ali Motahhari, Mahmoud Sadeghi, Gholamreza Heydari, Tayebeh Siavoshi, Farideh Oladghobad, Ardeshir Nourian, Abdolkarim Hosseinzadeh, Fatemeh Saeedi, Bahram Parsaie, Mohammad Reza Tabesh, and Gholamreza Tajgardoun.

In response, Montazeri dismissed the first request from the MPs and accused Mohammadi of being part of a foreign plot designed to undermine the Islamic Republic.

"Today the enemy is seeking to weaken the identity and besmear the Islamic state, and the supreme leader of the revolution has warned all people and officials not to be deceived by the enemy," he said at an event honoring the "3,000 martyrs in North Khorasan Province" who died in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). "The JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, 2015) is one side of the triangle. Another side consists of so-called defenders of human rights based abroad who direct their trained agents inside the country. And the third side of the triangle is made up of officials who unknowingly do things based on ignorance."
After Trump Victory, Fears Grow Of Iran Nuclear Deal Unraveling

11/10/16

Source: RFE/RL

WASHINGTON -- Addressing an influential pro-Israel lobbying group in March, Donald Trump said that the landmark nuclear deal signed with Iran was a disaster and that dismantling it would be his "No. 1 priority."







Now, a day after Trump pulled off a stunning victory to capture the U.S. presidency, observers are watching closely for signs that his administration could indeed follow through on this threat when he takes office in January.



That possibility, and the concerns it has triggered, was quickly underscored in Tehran just hours after Trump's victory was announced early on November 9, with Iranian leaders calling on the U.S. president-elect to ensure that the deal, known as the JCPOA, was not undone.



"Iran's understanding in the nuclear deal was that the accord was not concluded with one country or government but was approved by a resolution of the UN Security Council," Iranian President Hassan Rohani said on state television. "There is no possibility that it can be changed by a single government."



The deal, signed in July 2015 and brokered by Washington, Moscow, and several Western states, curtailed Iran's growing nuclear ambitions in exchange for lifting sanctions that had crippled Iran's economy.



President Barack Obama's administration, which engaged in years of back-channel diplomacy to bring the deal to fruition, hailed it an unqualified success and a high point of his foreign-policy agenda.



Many Republicans had grave doubts, saying the deal only delayed Iran's ability to enrich enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon. Those doubts were amplified by the strident rhetoric of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who argued before Congress that the deal "would all but guarantee Iran gets nuclear weapons."



One suggestion that Netanyahu's policies toward Iran might get a warmer reception in a Trump administration was the Israeli leader's announcement on November 9 that he had spoken to Trump by telephone, and that Trump had invited him to visit Washington "at the first opportunity."



United Nations inspectors said in May that Iran was keeping its stocks of uranium and heavy water within the deal's limits, something they reaffirmed on November 9 in their latest quarterly reports.



Still, those assurances did little to allay the agreement's critics, and it became an issue on the campaign trail for Trump and other Republican candidates.



Trump later said he would have negotiated a better deal, with more restrictions, but he also suggested that it would be hard to completely rip up the agreement, which was backed by a UN resolution.



Tom Collina, policy director at the Ploughshares Fund, a Washington research organization that has backed the agreement, says that could signal that despite Trump's campaign rhetoric, it seems unlikely he will jettison the deal.



"It really does seem like it's this deal or nothing, and I'll reemphasize: This deal is working. Facts are the facts, which is that the deal has capped and reversed and scaled back Iran's nuclear program in a very important way," Collina tells RFE/RL.



"What would he replace it with it and how it would benefit U.S. security? It's not at all clear to me," he adds.

Agreeing With Khamenei?

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was Tehran's lead negotiator for the JCPOA, echoed Rohani's statement that Trump must remain committed to the deal.



"Every U.S. president has to understand the realities of today's world," Zarif was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.



"The most important thing is that the future U.S. president stick to agreements, to engagements undertaken," he said.



In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on November 9 that the outgoing administration remained committed to the nuclear deal.



"This administration will be committed to implementing those policies through January 20, and we will live up to the commitments that we have made in each of those areas as we do so," he told reporters.



Susan Maloney, a foreign-policy scholar at the Washington-based Brooking Institution, argued that Trump's victory was a benefit to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been publicly critical of the deal.



"He will have the most cartoonish American enemy, he will exult in the...crash of the American economy, and he will be able to walk away from Iran's obligations under the JCPOA while pinning the responsibility on Washington," she told Reuters.

With reporting by Reuters

Copyright (c) 2016 RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org
The Iran Deal Is in Critical Danger

11/10/16

By Derek Davison (source: LobeLog)



"Victory of Wealth and Populism over Experience and Wisdom"

(source: front page of Iranian daily Setare Sobh)





There will be plenty of time to dissect Donald Trump's surprising victory over Hillary Clinton in last night's presidential election, and what a President Trump will mean for American foreign policy generally. But one thing is clear: the nuclear deal negotiated between the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China) and Iran may very well be among the first casualties of the incoming Trump administration.

Trump has been critical of the deal throughout the presidential campaign. However, as with nearly every other issue, his comments about the deal and what he might do with it in office were often unclear:

A businessman-turned-politician who has never held public office, Trump called the nuclear pact a "disaster" and "the worst deal ever negotiated" during his campaign and said it could lead to a "nuclear holocaust."



In a speech to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC in March, Trump declared that his "Number-One priority" would be to "dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran."



He said he would have negotiated a better deal, with longer restrictions, but somewhat paradoxically, he criticized remaining U.S. sanctions that prevent American companies from dealing with Iran.



By contrast, he has conceded it would be hard to destroy a deal enshrined in a United Nations resolution. In August 2015, he said he would not "rip up" the nuclear deal, but that he would "police that contract so tough they don't have a chance."

Walid Phares, one of Trump's top foreign policy advisers and a long-time advocate of regime change in Iran, said in July that Trump will "look back at [the nuclear deal] in the institutional way. So he is not going to implement it as is, he is going to revise it after negotiating one on one with Iran or with a series of allies." This notably puts Trump slightly outside the consensus of the Republican Party, which seems bent on simply destroying the deal. But that also means that any anti-Iran steps the Trump administration chooses to take will get virtually no pushback of any significance from a Congress in which both houses still belong to the Republicans.

Trump's election also presumably gives his biggest financial booster, Sheldon Adelson, a direct line to the Oval Office. Adelson is not only opposed to the nuclear deal, he has actually advocated launching a nuclear strike on Iran as a negotiating tactic. His financial support has already caused Trump to rethink parts of his Middle East strategy (such as it is). Adelson's influence over President Trump bodes poorly for the future of U.S.-Iran relations, to say the least. So, too, does the influence of Mike Flynn, Trump's military advisor who has been nothing but hostile toward the nuclear agreement.

But whether President Trump outright tears up the deal or simply orders his administration to take punitive actions against Iran, which could well cause Tehran to tear it up, the end result may be the same: goodbye to the nuclear deal. Trump's insistence that he can "negotiate a better deal" notwithstanding, the probable result would be an Iran with no more restraints on its nuclear program and a United States with little international capital to spend on trying to rebuild the sanctions regime that led to the negotiations. In a broader sense, for the U.S. to take steps to scuttle the deal now may also tarnish America's reputation as a reliable partner in international negotiations.

There is, for starters, no evidence that any of the parties to the deal, which took nearly two years to negotiate, are interested in revisiting its terms. Iranian officials are already insisting that the U.S. must abide by its "commitments" under the terms of the deal or else be held "liable" for the deal's collapse. And Europe has been spending the past few months building up its relationship with Iran to the point where it has taken preliminary steps toward the opening of an EU office in Tehran. Indeed, it's the international inertia that's built up around the deal over the past year that may be the deal's best hope for survival. Trump has talked about his desire to improve U.S. relations with Russia, and Russia was part of the P5+1. It is conceivable, though this may be grasping at straws, that Moscow could use some of whatever leverage it has with Trump to persuade him not to take harsh measures that would probably wreck the deal.

To be clear, the Iran deal is working. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that Tehran has complied with all its obligations to date, and the consensus of the arms control community is that the deal effectively blocks Iran's path toward nuclear weapons-assuming Iran ever decides to develop them, something it has long said it would not do. Taking provocative steps that risk collapsing the deal risks abandoning the deal's restriction on Iran's nuclear program with no way to rebuild them or to reestablish sanctions. Although opponents of the nuclear deal would like to pretend that this isn't so, such steps would very likely set the U.S. and Iran on a path toward war.

About the Author: Derek Davison is a Washington-based researcher and writer on international affairs and American politics. He has Master's degrees in Middle East Studies from the University of Chicago, where he specialized in Iranian history and policy, and in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied American foreign policy and Russian/Cold War history. He previously worked in the Persian Gulf for The RAND Corporation.




Cuba on Wednesday announced the launch of five days of nationwide military exercises to prepare troops to confront what the government calls "a range of enemy actions."

The government did not link the exercises to Donald Trump's U.S. presidential victory but the announcement of maneuvers and tactical exercises across the country came nearly simultaneously with Trump's surprise win.

It is the seventh time Cuba has held what it calls the Bastion Strategic Exercise, often in response to points of high tension with the United States.

The first exercise was launched in 1980 after the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president, according to an official history.

Trump has promised to reverse President Barack Obama's reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and the ongoing normalization of the relationship between the two countries.

An announcement by Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces in red ink across the top of the front page of the country's main newspaper said the army, Interior Ministry and other forces would be conducting maneuvers and different types of tactical exercises from the 16th to the 20th of November.

It warned citizens that the exercises would include "movements of troops and war materiel, overflights and explosions in the cases where they're required."


IAEA: Iran Again Exceeds Limits on Heavy Water

11/10/16

Source: VOA

The United Nations atomic watchdog says Iran for a second time this year has exceeded a so-called "soft limit" on sensitive material that was agreed upon under its 2015 nuclear agreement with six world powers.





International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)





In a report released Wednesday, a day after Republican candidate Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Tehran had again surpassed the 130-metric-ton threshold for heavy water since the deal was put in place in January.



Heavy water is used to cool reactors, which can produce substantial amounts of plutonium, an element that is used in producing the fissile core of nuclear warheads.



The watchdog said Tehran had stockpiled 130.1 tons of the material, which is used at reactors such as ones at Iran's unfinished facility at Arak.



FILE - The nuclear power plant outside Bushehr, Iran





U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said during a regular news briefing Wednesday that Iran was taking steps to export the excess heavy water.



"It's important to note that Iran made no effort to hide this, hide what it was doing from the IAEA," Toner said.



Wednesday's report said the agency verified the overage on Tuesday, nearly a week after IAEA chief Yukiya Amano "expressed concerns" to top Iranian officials.



When Iran exceeded the mark in February, with 130.9 metric tons of heavy water, there was no major criticism from the world powers - the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany - that signed the nuclear deal with Tehran. The pact required Iran to curtail its nuclear program for relief from international sanctions.



But there are questions about whether there would be the same reaction from the incoming administration of Trump, who has called the accord a "bad deal" and vowed to renegotiate it.



The IAEA said Iran told the agency it is preparing to transfer five tons of heavy water out of the country in the coming days as provided for in the nuclear agreement.



Wednesday's report did not note to which country or countries the excess heavy water would be sent. In February, some of the excess heavy water was sent to the United States.
Iran's Chabahar hosts first sea travelers

11/10/16

Source: Press TV

Iran says it has launched the first passenger terminal at its only oceanic port thus making it possible to directly host visitors from Pakistan, India, Oman and beyond. The terminal at Chabahar Port which has a total capacity of 400 passengers per day was inaugurated on Wednesday when a ship arrived from Oman's Muscat carrying over two dozen people.



(Photo by IRIB News)



Mohammad Saeidnejad, the managing director of Iran's Ports and Maritime Organization, told IRNA that a passenger vessel will make trips once every week between Iran and Oman until Chabahar passenger terminal is fully operational.



Saeidnejad added that Iran will also soon establish separate routes to other ports of the region including those belonging to Pakistan.



Chabahar is located in the Gulf of Oman on the border with Pakistan. It is the closest and best access point of Iran to the Indian Ocean.



It currently has a capacity of above 2.5 million tons a year which is expected to increase to as high as 6 million tons a year once developed.



India is presently developing the port under a tripartite deal signed with Iran and Afghanistan. The country has committed $500 million to the project, including for construction of two terminals and cargo berths.



The Chabahar Port will allow Indian goods to reach Afghanistan via the Iranian port without crossing Pakistan's territory.



Japan and China have also voiced interest in participating in the development of the strategic port.



Iran's primary southern port is currently Bandar Abbas which is a multipurpose facility built to receive both cargo as well as passenger vessels.
Kofax Power PDF review TechRadar Pro

Kofax has a handful of multi-platform apps to help you alter and annotate PDFs. Standard is likely the one best suited for most needs, and is the software well be exploring in this review.
When President-elect Donald Trump officially takes office, hell inherit a powerful U.S. surveillance apparatus, including the National Security Agency, thats already been accused of trampling over privacy rights.

This has some legal experts worried, but like almost every other aspect of a Trump presidency, there are more questions than clarity over what exactly he plans to do.

Over the course of his presidential campaign, Trump has only offered snapshots on his views about various U.S. privacy matters, but they suggest a pro-government surveillance stance.

For instance, Trump showed support for the NSAs bulk telephone data collection, which ended last year. I err on the side of security, he said at the time. And on Apples refusal to provide the FBI access to an iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter: the public should boycott the company until it complies, he said.

This doesnt bode well for privacy advocates looking for government reform on surveillance. Republicans typically show little sympathy on the matter, said Timothy Edgar, a director of law at Brown University who previously served in the Obama administration.

I would say pretty much any attempts to reform will come to a screeching halt, and maybe it will go backwards, he said.

Abuse of surveillance programs also worry some, who think a crafty White House legal team can find ways to bend the checks and balances already in place.

To think that we have made the NSA Trump-proof or tyrant-proof, we are deluding ourselves, said Edgar. Some people have argued that we need to have stronger controls over the NSA because you are never going to be sure who is going to be elected.

And privacy fears also stem from controversial stances he took during his campaign, such as speaking favorably on profiling Muslims and advocating for a change to libel laws so he can sue news organizations.

Susan Freiwald, a law professor at the University of San Francisco, said it wouldnt be far-fetched to imagine a Trump presidency using the FBI to collect information on opponents. Shes particularly worried about the private communications of both media critics and political figures.

While the rules of law should not permit that, it is not clear that oversight mechanisms will be sufficient to stop it, she said in an email.

But how much those comments will translate into actual policy is unclear.

Nobody knows what hell do, said Jay Edelson, an attorney and CEO of law firm Edelson PC. I dont know if his past statements should be taken as gospel or if its more about emotions.

When it comes to privacy, President Obamas administration hardly has stellar record, having come under criticism for the NSAs mass surveillance activities that were disclosed by Edward Snowden.

The Democratic administration has been pretty bad. So has the previous Republican administration, Edelson said. I dont think it will be any worse under a Trump administration.

However, Edelson is concerned that Trumps pro-business stances will strip away cybersecurity and data privacy regulations meant to protect consumers. Nobody in my industry views Trump as pro-regulator. We think he has more of a pro-business agenda, he said.

Its also possible that political issues involving privacy and cybersecurity will take a backseat during a Trump presidency. His campaign never made those matters a priority, said John Dickson, a principal at security provider Denim Group and a former U.S. Air Force officer.

I think hell have a real learning curve, Dickson said, adding that Trump may also have to repair relationships in the U.S. intelligence community. During his campaign, he questioned whether Russia was truly behind several high-profile hacks on Democratic targets, which U.S. intelligence agencies had publicly blamed on the Kremlin.

Hes not the biggest expert in this policy area, Dickson said. However, once Trump begins appointing members of his cabinet, the public will gain a better idea of the incoming presidents approach, he said.
Microsofts latest Windows Insider build 14965 is showing a virtual touchpad feature that could replace the mouseor in any case, make life easier for Windows tablet users. It puts a touchpad on your tablet screen, so you can use that instead of a mouse whenever you connect your device to a larger display.

Features that pop up in builds dont always make it to final versions, of course, but this feature is intriguing. From the sounds of it, first-time setup is fairly easy. When a tablet, such as the Surface Pro 4, is connected to an external display, open the Action Center and tap on the Project Quick Action tile. This will extend the Windows desktop to the external display. Next, long-press the taskbar on your tablet. When it appears select Show touchpad button.

Now the touchpad icon will show up in the notification area on the far right of the taskbar. This is the same area were the Action Center icon is, as well as the Pen Workspace icon. Now all you do is tap the virtual touchpad icon and it appears on your tablet screen, ready to go.

Microsoft also lets you adjust the sensitivity of the virtual touchpad, just as you would with a real one. When the touchpad is open, go to Start > Settings > Devices > Touchpad to make adjustments.

The touchpad was the big change for this build, but youll also see a few other, minor improvements. The Sticky Notes Windows Store app has some new features for international users that U.S. users already have. However, Microsoft did say its improved text input for keyboard users.

Windows 10s upcomign registry editor address bar.

Microsoft delighted power users when it added an address bar to the registry editor with Insider Preview build 14942 in early October. Now Microsoft is building on that addition by adding the CTRL + L keyboard shortcut to highlight the editors address bar. You could already do this by using the shortcut Alt + D, but CTRL + L is just as (if not more) popular among users.

The impact on you at home: Itll be a while yet until we see any of these features in the mainstream build of Windows 10, as the Creators Update isnt due out until early next year. For those jumping into preview builds to get all the great new features now, build 14965 has an annoying little bug that shows just how problematic these preview versions of Windows can be. If you double-click on an Excel file in File Explorer in build 14965, it fails to open. The workaround is to open files from within Microsoft Excel.
In a victory for progressives, Eloise Reyes unseated fellow Democrat and Inland Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown on Tuesday, Nov. 8, in a big-money contest that reflected a larger fight between liberal and moderate interests in Sacramento.

Reyes, an attorney from Grand Terrace, had 53 percent of the vote to Browns 47 percent, according to unofficial results. Brown and Reyes competed in the 47th Assembly District, which includes part of the city of San Bernardino, along with Colton, Grand Terrace, Fontana and Rialto.

RELATED: Here are Southern California, Inland area election results

The result was celebrated by labor unions and environmental groups, who fought to oust Brown over her opposition to certain gun control bills and a provision in a climate-change bill that would have cut petroleum use by motor vehicles in California.

We look forward to working with Eloise Reyes to strengthen opportunities for working families and confront the corporate interests that have been undermining workers rights, and polluting our air and our politics, James Araby, executive director of the UFCW Western States Council, a food and commercial workers union, said in a news release.

In an emailed statement, Brown said: I am proud of all the accomplishments we made during these past four years. This was a hard fought campaign, and although victory was not in reach, our accomplishments make us all winners today.

Browns foes formed an independent expenditure committee to back Reyes, who ran for Congress in 2014. They also launched a Chevron Cheryl media blitz to portray Brown as beholden to the oil and gas industry.

Brown insisted she was standing up for her blue-collar constituents against an environmental agenda that would have raised gas prices and cost jobs. She enjoyed the support of the California Democratic Party and state Democratic leaders as well as business groups who frequently clash with liberals over environmental rules and other matters.

Independent committees funded by out-of-district donors spent more than $6.1 million in the 47th District.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9547 or jhorseman@scng.com
In many ways, California is the antithesis of Donald Trumps America.

While Trump rode a wave of anti-establishment, working-class white votes to the White House, Californias relatively diverse electorate, with well-established elites in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, roundly rejected him while passing liberal-favored ballot measures, including legalized recreational marijuana and a ban on plastic bags.

The presidency, House of Representatives and U.S. Senate are under Republican control. But in California, Democrats hold all statewide offices and majorities in the states congressional delegation and the state Legislature.

Trump takes a hard line on immigration, vowed to repeal Obamacare and has dismissed climate change as a hoax. Here, Democratic lawmakers approved drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants and made climate change a top priority, while Covered California is hailed as an example of the Affordable Care Acts success.

In the wake of Trumps stunning upset, California must find its place in his upcoming presidency and gird for what could be a series of clashes with Washington akin to GOP red state battles with Democratic President Barack Obama.

From now on, opposition to Trump will be front and center of California Democratic strategy and tactics, said Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College.

Trumps win rattled Californias Democratic leaders. Today, we woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land, began a joint statement from Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, and state Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles.

They added: We are not going to allow one election to reverse generations of progress at the height of our historic diversity, scientific advancement, economic output, and sense of global responsibility.

However, California may not be as much of an outlier as it thinks. It was one of 10 states with 55 percent or more of its vote going to Clinton, said Renee Van Vechten, a political science professor at the University of Redlands.

News of Trumps win led to protests on college campuses statewide. Police said at least 500 people swarmed on streets in and around UCLA, some shouting anti-Trump expletives and others chanting Not my president!

Smaller demonstrators were held at University of California campuses and neighborhoods in Berkeley, Irvine and Davis and at San Jose State.

In Oakland, more than 100 protesters took to downtown streets. KNTV-TV reported that protesters burned Trump in effigy, smashed windows of the Oakland Tribune newsroom and set tires and trash on fire.

Last month, Trumps star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was destroyed. And raucous protests greeted Trump during his California visits earlier this year.

Some in the bluest state on Hillary Clintons map took to social media to call for secession. The hashtags #Calexit and #Caleavefornia trended on Twitter, recalling Great Britains Brexit from the European Union.

If Trump wins, venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar wrote, I am announcing and funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation.

FIGHT BREWING

California is more ethnically diverse than the rest of the nation. In 2014, about 38 percent of Californians were Latino compared to 17 percent of U.S. residents, according to census figures.

Its also more Democratic. Forty-five percent of the states voters are registered Democrats, while 32 percent of those surveyed in a nationwide September Gallup poll said they were Democrats.

Loren Collingwood, an assistant political science professor at UC Riverside, noted that while pro-Trump pockets exist in Inland areas, the Central Valley and counties near Nevada, Orange County, long a bastion of conservative politics, went for Clinton on Tuesday.

In many ways, California has fought these national battles based anti-immigrant antipathy and racial group threat, and has moved on, Collingwood said. America as a whole will engage this in a long protracted battle for at least the next 20 years.

Jennifer Walsh, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Azusa Pacific University, said Trump did well in areas that suffered economic decline caused by declining manufacturing sectors and a reconfiguration of the economy that prefers a college-educated workforce. These factors are not significant in Californias economy.

Collingwood predicted that California will fight the GOP-controlled federal government like red states fought Obama on border security and Obamacare. Republicans will definitely go after health care (and) as a result many people will lose health care, but prices might also drop for others, he said.

Instead of fighting climate change, if anything the next administration will liberalize  fossil fuel industries as it tries to grow the economy in many of the regions that backed (Trump)  regions with extraction-based economies (unlike California), Collingwood said.

Walsh said that if Trump follows through on his promise to build a wall on the Mexican border and deport undocumented immigrants en masse, I would expect California officials to engage in political and legal efforts to thwart those efforts.

Mark Peterson, a professor at UCLAs Luskin School of Public Affairs, expects the Trump administration to challenge sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants. And my guess is that such places in California will push back, with potential consequences for federal funding, he said.

Marcia Godwin, an associate professor of public administration at the University of La Verne, thinks incentives to deal with climate change and funding for environmental initiatives such as the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument are on the chopping block in the Trump White House.

Godwin said there could be less out-and-out defiance (of Trump) in favor of efforts to establish California as an alternative model for health services, education, services for immigrants, and a technology-based economy.

One irony is that a Trump administration is likely to support more state-level autonomy, Godwin said. There will be less federal funds but more latitude for Californias political leaders to innovate.

CHANCE TO SHINE?

While California will have little influence over national policy, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (of Bakersfield) has been an influential part of the House Republican leadership, Godwin said.

California will have real leverage through its two senators (both Democrats) since the Republicans will not have a filibuster-proof majority. (Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.) may be able to get some manufacturing incentives, for example, steered to California along with other states.

The elections results may give more of a platform to Kamala Harris, Californias new U.S. senator, Godwin said. If she becomes an active voice in opposing Trumps policies, she will gain a national audience and add to her reputation as a rising star.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, an early Trump supporter who represents most of Temecula, might rise to a more prominent House leadership role, Walsh said.

The Associated Press and Staff Writer Gregory J. Wilcox contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9547 or jhorseman@scng.com
Three day care employees were arrested Tuesday, Nov. 8, after a monthlong investigation into a toddlers death at a Fontana child care facility.

Police said the women failed to immediately seek emergency care when they found 18-month-old Deacon Ryan Morin of Fontana not breathing while taking a nap, and that the facility had more than four times as many children present that day as it was licensed to care for.

Sagan Marriott, 27, Rebecca Ann Lutz, 29, and Deborah Marie Jimenez, 52, were booked into jail Tuesday on suspicion of child cruelty possibly causing injury or death, records show. Online court records did not show that they had been charged as of Wednesday afternoon.

Jail records show Jimenez was released Wednesday on bail, while Lutz remained in jail with bail set at $100,000. Marriott was not listed in online jail records.

On Oct. 5, police responded to the Marriott Family Child Care center in the 6800 block of Royal Crest Place after receiving reports of a toddler not breathing, according to authorities.

Deacon was taken to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center and placed on life support. He died five days later. His official cause of death has not been determined, police said.

Tuesdays police news release said he had been put down for a nap while wearing an amber beaded necklace; police didnt explain the necklaces significance.

When Deacon was found not breathing and unresponsive, police said, Marriott and Lutz called Jimenez and waited for her to arrive before calling 911.

Marriott and Lutz worked for Jimenez, who police said owns Little Impressions Child Care, also known as Jimenez Family Child Care. Police didnt provide an address, citing an ongoing investigation.

Jimenez regularly and knowingly sent children to the Marriott facility, exceeding their maximum limits, the release said.

Marriott Family Child Care was licensed to care for up to four infants at a time, police said. But on Oct. 5, it had six infants and at least 12 other children present.

The staff grossly exceeded the licensing regulations  endangering the lives and safety of the children under their care, police said.
Democrat Hillary Clinton conceded the U.S. presidential election Wednesday to Republican Donald Trump, saying she hopes he "will be a successful president for all Americans." But Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state who was looking to become the country's first female president, acknowledged the depth of her disappointment in losing. She told cheering supporters in New York, "This is painful and it will be for a long time." She said the country was "more deeply divided than we thought," but she said the losing Democrats "owe him an open mind and a chance to lead." Clinton urged her supporters to "please never stop believing that fighting for what's right is worth it."

Hillary Clinton addresses her staff and supporters about the results of the U.S. election at a hotel in the Manhattan borough of New York on Nov. 9, 2016. /Reuters

U.S. President Barack Obama campaigned hard for Clinton's election, but at the White House he said of Trump, "We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country." Obama said that despite the rancor of the long campaign and deep political divide in the U.S., "We are all Americans first." He invited Trump to the White House on Thursday to discuss his transition to power on Jan. 20. Obama congratulated Trump over the phone early Wednesday. Hours after his election triumph, Trump vowed to never forget the working class Americans who launched him to the biggest upset win in American political history. "The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again," the Republican Trump said on his Twitter account hours after winning the presidency over Clinton. "We will all come together as never before."

President-elect Donald Trump pumps his fist after giving his acceptance speech as his wife Melania Trump (right) and their son Barron Trump follow him during his election night rally in New York on Nov. 9, 2016. /AP

When he takes office on Jan. 20, Trump, a blunt-spoken billionaire real estate mogul, will become the first U.S. commander-in-chief who has never before been elected to public office, served in the military or in a high-level government position. At 70, he also will be the oldest U.S. president as he takes over the White House for a four-year term. He was widely underestimated and even mocked by the political and media class throughout his campaign, but he pulled off a stunning and decisive win over Clinton, who was looking to become the country's first female president. She called Trump to congratulate him in the early hours of Wednesday after the outcome became apparent and planned to talk about it later. "I pledge to every citizen of our land to be a president for all Americans," said an exuberant Trump, surrounded by his family and top aides at a victory party in New York.
CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story did not fully describe Riverside officials plans to borrow against new sales tax dollars. They have no immediate plans to borrow against sales tax revenue from Measure Z for new projects, but intend to do so in coming years.

With four Riverside County cities expecting new tax dollars next year, city leaders will be discussing where the money is needed most.

Sales tax increases in Hemet, Menifee and Riverside and a hotel tax increase in Moreno Valley appeared to have passed, in some cases by a comfortable margin, unofficial results of the Tuesday, Nov. 8 election show.

Officials in two other cities may still be biting their nails. San Jacinto voters apparently decided not to raise hotel taxes and Temecula voters said no to a higher sales tax, in both cases appearing to narrowly reject the measures.

RELATED: Here are Southern California, Inland area election results

On Wednesday, Nov. 9, more than 261,500 ballots remained uncounted countywide, the Riverside County Registrar of Voters reported. An update is due Friday.

San Jacintos Measure BB was trailing by 219 votes and Temeculas Measure S was behind by 170 votes.

CITY PRIORITIES

In cities whose residents approved tax increases, officials say one of the biggest needs is public safety, though some also cited services such as road repair and parks maintenance and the need to build savings and pay down debt.

I feel like its a good day in Menifee, City Councilwoman Lesa Sobek said of Measure DDs apparent passage.

The 1 percentage point, or one cent, sales tax boost would go into effect April 1 and bring in about $7 million annually. Menifees sales tax would then be 8.75 percent, because a quarter-cent add-on that California voters approved in 2012 expires at the end of 2016.

We will be able to hire very needed police officers and public safety (personnel) and start taking care of our road infrastructure, which is needed, Sobek said. My first priority is to hire as many police officers as we can.

With a little more than 57 percent in favor, Riverside voters support of Measure Z wasnt quite as high as Menifees 67-plus percent approval, but Riverside City Manager John Russo called the apparent victory a pretty resounding mandate.

The council will discuss how to allocate the estimated $48 million a year in new sales taxes that should arrive in July. Russo will suggest the city prepare to recruit police, with hopes of adding 60 officers in coming years, he said.

Hell also urge the council to put some of the money toward reducing city debt and beefing up reserves. Officials have no immediate plans to borrow against the sales tax revenue to pay for new projects such as a police headquarters or main library, as some critics have suggested, Russo said.

Hemet officials were happy with the outcome of Measure U, a 10-year, one-cent sales tax increase. On Wednesday, it was leading, with more than 59 percent support.

Its a great day for a lot of reasons, Hemet Police Chief Dave Brown said.

Its a mandate to get the work done that needs to be done to restore the community to the people, Brown said.

The City Council will decide whether to immediately borrow against budget reserves, or wait for new sales tax money next summer, Brown said..

With the future no longer uncertain, Brown said hes confident the city can rebuild the police department with experienced officers who want to work in Hemet.

Moreno Valley officials on Tuesday said they hope to hire three or four police officers with the estimated $650,000 from Measure L. The measure, which increases hotel taxes from 8 percent to 13 percent, appears to have passed with more than 71 percent support.

NEXT STEPS

In San Jacinto, Mayor Andrew Kotyuk said Wednesday hes baffled as to why a hotel tax did not pass, since the money wouldnt have come from residents.

I think a lot of the people just did not understand what it was, he said.

Measure BB would have raised the tax guests pay on hotel rooms  known as transient occupancy tax  from 8 percent to 12 percent, bringing in an estimated $20,000 annually for city services.

Kotyuk said voters may have dismissed the measure because it wouldnt bring in much money initially. Though the city has two motels now, more are expected, especially when the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians opens a planned casino hotel, he said.

Kotyuk also said the city could have been more aggressive in promoting the measure. He expects this may not be the last time the issue goes before voters.

In Temecula, Measure S appeared to be failing Wednesday, but officials there havent given up hope. City Manager Aaron Adams said thousands of city ballots havent been counted.

The measure would raise sales taxes by one percentage point, or one additional cent per dollar on taxable items. It was projected to generate about $23 million in revenue annually.

Asked if officials have talked about floating a new sales tax measure in the future if S loses, Adams said it would be premature to discuss it before Tuesdays election results are known.

On Tuesday night, Mayor Mike Naggar said the city would face difficult budget choices in the near future if S fails and that could result in cuts to amenities such as the annual winter ice rink the city helps fund.

Temecula now employs 100 sworn officers who are contracted from the Riverside County Sheriffs Department, which works out to a ratio of 0.92 per 1,000 residents, according to the city.

With costs for police and fire service costs outpacing revenue increases, city officials have said it will be difficult to continue maintaining that ratio or increasing it to 1 per 1,000, which has long been the citys target.

Staff writers Aaron Claverie, Imran Ghori, Michael J. Williams and Craig Shultz contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9461 orarobinson@scng.comTwitter: @arobinson_pe
Clarence Romero, a Vietnam veteran and former Green Beret who was the featured speaker at a Moreno Valley College veterans breakfast, admits returning to civilian life wasnt easy.

I dont deserve this honor, he told the 200-plus crowd.

The second event, which benefits the colleges veteran scholarship fund, honors members of the U.S. Armed Forces and recognizes (Moreno Valley Colleges) commitment to being responsive to the educational needs of the region, said Lizette Tenorio, veterans services specialist.

Romero, an associate psychology professor at Riverside City College, detailed his lifes journey, from being a garbage man to fighting for his life in Vietnam.

RELATED Inland events thank military on Veterans Day

Upon returning from the war, he fought an internal struggle, readjusting to society.

He wore his uniform during his presentation, during which he told the crowd stories that ranged from going to a segregated school to his fathers service in World War II to his decision to return to school in order to become a professor.

Like Romero  who in 2001 was selected as the U.S. Professor of the Year  many of the veteran students within the Riverside Community College District are taking advantage of the opportunities offered through the GI Bill.

Moreno Valley College Interim President Irving Hendrick said that even though the GI Bill provides veterans with the opportunity to start new careers, the college experience can be very different from the military.

College can be overwhelming for veteran students, he said. Therefore, it is up to the college to provide veteran students with the services they need in order to return to normalcy and progress to a four-year university and eventually degree completion.

Each of the colleges in the district offers veterans educational services, as well as a dedicated space to meet and discuss the obstacles they face in their educational journey.

We want our veteran students to know they are not alone, Hendrick said.

Veterans who received scholarships were:

 Daniel Conley and Alexander Vanny received the Moreno Valley Collegee Veterans Scholarship; and

 Alejandro Lopez received the Glenn Steinback Memorial Scholarship for Veterans.

Contact the writer: community@pressenterprise.com

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Updates with statement from family

A body found Tuesday in Menifee has been confirmed to be Paul Christian Snyder, a 46-year-old Menifee man who had been missing for almost two weeks.

Snyders cause of death has not been determined, but the case is not being investigated as a homicide, Riverside County Sheriffs Department spokesman Deputy Michael Vasquez said.

Snyder was found dead about 7:15 a.m. Tuesday behind some bushes along La Piedra Road west of Cleary Street, according to a coroners news release issued very late Wednesday. Investigators have not determined how long he had been dead before he was found.

Paul was an amazing husband, father and friend to all who knew him, Snyders relatives said in a written statement Thursday. Our hearts are devastated that hes no longer with us.

Snyder was reported missing Oct. 29, two days after his family last saw him. Family friend Angela Bailey said Snyder did not come home that day as expected. On Nov. 3, the Sheriffs Department issued a missing-person alert, and said Snyder was considered at-risk because he had congestive heart failure, anxiety and manic depression and did not have his medication.

Last weekend, Bailey helped organize a volunteer search effort; more than 200 people joined the Sheriffs Department in scouring the area.

We want to thank the Menifee and surrounding communities who all came together and offered their support, prayers and efforts as we searched to bring Paul home, Snyders relatives said.

A citizen who was not part of the search effort found the body, Vasquez said.

A funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at Calvary Murrieta, 24225 Monroe Ave.

We encourage all to join us as we celebrate the beautiful life of this beautiful man, Snyders relatives said.
Ballots cast by voters in outlying San Bernardino County communities made it to the Registrars Office not long after the polls closed Tuesday.

Thats due to volunteers with the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Aviation Division, who spent Tuesday night, Nov. 8, flying to pick them up.

The idea is we get the ballots from the desert cities back to the Registrars Office so they can count them, Dave Guthmiller, commander of the aero squadron, said Tuesday. When the sun comes up tomorrow, they already know who won.

Three planes flew out from the new Emergency Operations Divisions facility at San Bernardino International Airport on Tuesday evening to pick up ballots in Trona, Needles and Parker, Ariz., to help speed up the vote count at the Registrars Office.

Guthmiller joined volunteer pilot David Rastavan in his Cessna 414 in the ballot run to Needles.

Once there, they waited for the polls to close at 8 p.m.

Less than an hour later, the ballots arrived at the San Bernardino airport ready for pick up by registrars officials.

Rastavan, a business owner, joined the departments aero squadron about 11 years ago.

Originally from Iran, Rastavan said working with the aero squadron is his way of giving back to this country and community.

When I came here, I was 22, Rastavan said. Not speaking the language, not knowing anyone, but this land gives so much.

The squadron was formed in 1951, before the department had an aviation division, which was formed in the 1970s.

There are about 41 volunteers in the squadron, including pilots and observers.

We are always looking for volunteers, said Guthmiller, who has been a reserve deputy with the department for the past 34 years and has served as commander of the aero squadron since 2005.

Its just really rewarding, Guthmiller said. Ive been doing it my entire life, since I was 21. Im 55 now. I cant imagine myself not doing this.

Guthmiller has been flying since the 1980s.

Theres just something about flying, Guthmiller said. When I go flying, even just out boring holes in the sky. Thats like my great escape.
A convicted felon who gunned down a San Jacinto man in an ambush-style attack stemming from bad blood between the men was sentenced today to life in prison without parole.

A jury convicted Juan Javier Mejia last month of first-degree murder with a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait for the June 2013 shooting death of 23-year-old Ivan Ibarra Carrillo.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Dennis McConaghy imposed the sentence required by law.

Mejia, 43, a former resident of Hemet, was apprehended near Mexico City on Feb. 20, 2015, after more than 18 months on the run. His co-defendant and half-brother, 26-year-old Abram Daniel Palacios, is still at large and facing the same charges.

According to court papers, Palacios allegedly wanted revenge against Carrillo because he believed Carrillo had orchestrated a home-invasion robbery at his girlfriends house in October 2012.

The prosecution contended that Palacios had been looking for Carrillo for weeks. Mejia apparently volunteered to act as the hit man, later telling sheriffs investigators that he had control of both handguns used to carry out the killing, according to a trial brief filed by the District Attorneys Office.

When Palacios got word that Carrillo was in his neighborhood, only a block away, late on the afternoon of June 6, 2013, he picked up Mejia in his girlfriends Honda Accord, and the pair set off to find the victims Ford Excursion, court papers state.

Within minutes, they encountered the Excursion heading north on Las Rosas Drive, where the defendants allegedly pulled directly into the larger vehicles path at the intersection of Las Rosas and Osprey Street, forcing Carrillo to stop, according to prosecutors.

Witnesses alleged that Mejia jumped out of the Honda and immediately opened fire with a .40-caliber pistol, expending 14 rounds, several of which struck the victim in the upper body.

Mejia told detectives that when he ran out of bullets, he returned to the car and retrieved a 9mm handgun, then walked to the drivers side window of the Excursion and fired two shots at point-blank range, striking Carrillo in the face and head. Prosecutors said that the victim was holding up his hands in an attempt to shield himself from the bullets.

The defendants sped away, and Carrillo died at the scene.

Authorities said Palacios admitted to his girlfriend that evening that he and Mejia had gunned down Carrillo, and that the two men were planning to flee south of the border.

Less than two weeks later, sheriffs detectives located Mejias ex-wife and four children, residing in an apartment in Palm Springs. The woman revealed that the defendants had appeared at her residence on the night of June 18 and left three hours later.

An investigator said when he called Mejias mobile phone, the defendant stated he was already in Mexico, according to court documents.

Mejia has prior convictions for rape, assault with intent to commit rape and burglary. Palacios has prior misdemeanor convictions for illegal possession of a controlled substance, making criminal threats and domestic abuse, according to court documents.
Movie awards season is upon us.

And one of the most acclaimed actors in the business is getting one of the first honors. The Palm Springs International Film Festival will present Tom Hanks with its Icon Award at the annual Awards Gala Monday, Jan. 2.

Tom Hanks delivers yet another career-defining performance bringing to life the heroism of airline pilot Captain Chesley Sully Sullenberger, said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. This is sure to be remembered in his long list of iconic character roles, including those in Forrest Gump, Captain Phillips, Castaway, Philadelphia, Saving Private Ryan, the Toy Story films and so many others. The Palm Springs International Film Festival is honored to present this years Icon Award to Tom Hanks.

Other actors who have been honored with the award in previous years include Meryl Streep, Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall.

Hanks is no stranger to the event, the festival honored him in 2014 with the Chairmans Award for his work in the films Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks.

For more information on the festival, Awards Gala and tickets, head over to the website.

Want more Palm Springs International Film Festival news? Head over to our festival page for all the scoop of last years Awards Gala and honors.
Ontario police have arrested the man they believegroped two young girls at an Ontario mall, officials announced Thursday.

Carlos Castillo, 37, of Yucaipa was allegedly captured on surveillance video touching young girls inside a Burlington Coat Factory at the Ontario Mills Mall, 1 Mills Circle, on Oct. 9, and again on Oct. 29, police said.

During those attacks, police say Castillo lured two girls, ages 5 and 10, away from their parents and then sexually assaulted them.

After spotting Castillos vehicle Wednesday night in a parking lot in the 1300 block of North Mountain Avenue, police arrested the Yucaipa man on suspicion of lewd acts with a child under 14.

He was booked into West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga in lieu of $250,000 bail.

Authorities are searching for other victims and ask anyone who may have been assaulted by Castillo to call Detective Scott Anderson at 909-395-2857 or 909-986-6711. Information can also be reported anonymously by calling WE-TIP at 800-78-CRIME or online at www.wetip.com.
In a cordial beginning to their transfer of power, President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump met at the White House Thursday. Obama called the 90-minute meeting excellent, and his successor said he looked forward to receiving the outgoing presidents counsel.

Afterward, Obama said to Trump, We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds.

The two men, who have been harshly critical of each other for years, were meeting for the first time, Trump said. The Republican said he looked forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel.

PHOTOS: Obama, Trump meet in White House

Obama blasted Trump throughout the campaign as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obamas presidency, falsely suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States.

But at least publicly, the two men appeared to put aside their animosity. As the meeting concluded and journalists scrambled out of the Oval Office, Obama smiled at his successor and explained the unfolding scene.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, hell wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obamas signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

First lady Michelle Obama also meet privately in the White House residence with Trumps wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Also on Trumps schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.

As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Obama and Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.

The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting Not my president, burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said Impeach Trump.

Republicans were emboldened by Trumps stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

He just earned a mandate, Ryan said.

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was painful and it will be for a long time and acknowledged that the nation was more divided than we thought.

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.

In Washington, Trumps scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trumps team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama  one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by Americas 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trumps team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. Hes pledged to repeal Obamas health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. Hes vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

Its unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. Hell enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.

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Teenage protesters in the Los Angeles area voiced their opinion against president-elect Donald Trump Thursday morning by walking out of school and into the streets.

Franklin High School in Highland Park had a walk out at around 10:20 a.m.

Even Eagle Rock High School started to form a walkout at around 11 a.m.

Protests spilled out into the streets, including Figueroa.

A walkout at Manual Arts in South Los Angeles started at around 11 a.m.

RELATED Anti-Trump protests spread to Riverside, across U.S.

San Gabriel High School also protested. Students there said they were protesting on behalf of undocumented students.

About 150 Montclair High School students walked out of class at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday in protest of Donald Trumps victory in the presidential election.

Students traveled east from Montclair High to Chaffey High. They tried to enter Chaffey but were locked out.

While most students are protesting civilly, I have been informed that one student threw an orange at a Montclair police unit and some students have jumped onto the rear of an Ontario police truck, Montclair police Chief Robert Avels said in an email.

 Video: Montclair High School students chant dump Trump and not my president

The protest is one of many in Southern California Thursday morning and across the nation, protesting Trumps election. Social media feeds use the hashtag #NotMyPresident and students are yelling the same, as well as Dump Trump!

Chaffey Joint Union High School Superintendent Mat Holton is walking alongside the protestors and monitoring the situation.

He estimated the groups size at 75.

We have staff out here and police are out here, said Holton who was on site with the students. Everything has been calm so far.

Students were given a chance to express themselves at Montclair High School and most returned to their classes, but some decided to walk out of school, he said.

If you know of any other high school protests, let us know by emailing social@scng.com

If youre reading this on a mobile device, use this link for the full story.
UPDATE (Thursday, Nov. 10): UC Riverside students to amass, discuss anti-Trump rally

Demonstrators angry about the election of Donald Trump smashed windows and set garbage bins on fire early Wednesday in downtown Oakland, joining protesters elsewhere in the country who swarmed streets in response to the election.

Other protests were generally peaceful.

In downtown Riverside, several dozen protesters marched near the Mission Inn on Wednesday night, carrying signs and shouting anti-Trump slogans.

In Oregon, dozens of people blocked traffic in downtown Portland and forced a delay for trains on two light-rail lines.

Media reports said the crowd grew to about 300 people, including some who sat in the middle of a road.

The crowd of anti-Trump protesters burned American flags and chanted, Thats not my president.

In Seattle, about 100 protesters gathered in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, blocked roads and set a trash bin on fire.

In Pennsylvania, hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students marched through the streets, with some in the crowd calling for unity.

Protests also erupted at the University of Texas, the University of Connecticut, UC Berkeley and other UC campuses.

On Twitter, the hashtag NotMyPresident had been used nearly half a million times.

The Oakland protest grew to about 250 people by late Tuesday.

Police Officer Marco Marquez said protesters damaged five businesses, breaking windows and spraying graffiti. No arrests were made.

A woman was struck by a car and severely injured when protesters got onto a highway, the California Highway Patrol said.

Demonstrators vandalized the drivers SUV before officers intervened. The highway was closed for about 20 minutes.

Oakland is a hotbed of violent protest in the Bay Area.

Two years ago, demonstrators briefly shut down two freeways, vandalized police cars and looted businesses when a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer in the fatal shooting of a black teenager in Ferguson, Mo.

Nearly 80 people were arrested after a night in 2010 that saw rioters use metal bats to break store windows, set fires and loot after a white transit police officer was acquitted of murder and convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the slaying of an unarmed black man.

Elsewhere in California, more than 1,000 students at Berkeley High School staged a walk-out and marched to the UC campus.
She returned to Korea from Germany late last month and has been questioned since.

Choi, a longtime friend of President Park Geun-hye's without any official post or clearance, is at the center of an influence peddling scandal that is threatening to bring down the president.

Prosecutors will put Choi Soon-sil on trial in mid-November on charges of extorting W77.4 billion for her dubious Mir and K-Sports foundations, they said Wednesday (US$1=W1,150).

Choi was usually questioned from 10 a.m. till midnight, but on Tuesday she did not turn up until 2 p.m. citing sickness. She was spotted entering the prosecutor's office in a wheelchair.

Choi continues to deny all charges despite a growing mountain of evidence. Even though Park and her former secretary Jeong Ho-seong have admitted handing over classified documents to her, Choi is insisting she has no knowledge of receiving them, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors intend to indict Choi first and focus on charges of corruption and influence peddling.

They are weighing the option of summoning her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra, who is in Germany.

Choi separately prevailed on Samsung to pay her 2.8 million euros for a horse and equestrian facilities for her daughter and leaned on the prestigious Ewha Woman's University to change admission criteria for her.

"Chung Yoo-ra is said to have personally visited the university with her mother to meet with a professor there," a prosecutor said.

Another prosecution official said, "We have to investigate the president, so we can't let anyone off. Chung is directly involved in the scandal so we need to question her."

Speaking through her lawyer earlier, Choi pleaded with the public to leave her daughter out of the scandal.
From their hilltop home in Jurupa Valley, Wirt Shellman and wife Virginia enjoy spectacular views of the valley and the mountains, and the sound of the wind whistling through pine trees.

After Wirt Shellman grew up in a Riverside neighborhood so cramped that he could hear his neighbors phone ring, the home on almost an acre in the Rubidoux neighborhood has been paradise for 33 years.

But no more.

The former Riverside County Sheriffs Department training facility next door has been occupied about the past five years, Shellman said, by the sheriffs Special Investigations Bureau, which sets off explosions as part of its hush-hush probes. The breaking point for the Shellmans came Monday, when they said they heard nine detonations. Shellman said the explosions are increasing in frequency and intensity, and he has a cracked ceiling  his fourth  to show for it.

Riverside County is 7,300 square miles, Shellman, 60, said Wednesday, Nov. 9. Why do they have to put it in a residential neighborhood?

Virginia Shellman, 58, says she has heart problems that are so severe she doesnt watch scary television shows. So even though the Sheriffs Department usually calls to let the Shellmans know explosions will take place during a five-hour window, the lack of a specific time is troubling to her. She is at least able to sedate their dog when they know the blasts are coming.

It would be like somebody came up behind you and yelled boo all day long, she said.

Inside the Special Investigations Bureau, Lt. Paul Bennett declined Wednesday to discuss the issues brought up by the Shellmans. He said the bureau conducts high-end investigations that he would not describe. The sheriffs website says the bureau is responsible for enforcing local, state and federal narcotic violations in Riverside County. Its work includes investigating drug traffickers, disposing of illegal drug labs, dealing with pharmaceutical fraud and eradicating illegal marijuana, the site says.

The bureau is at the end of Castellano Road behind a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. There are no signs on the building announcing it as a sheriffs facility.

Wirt Shellman said he has discussed his concerns with Lt. Dean Agnoletto and added that Agnoletto agreed to examine the problem. Agnoletto could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Shellman spoke at the Riverside County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday and went away dissatisfied after supervisors told him that they approve funding for the Sheriffs Department but do not get involved in such matters.

Shellman has other complaints about the facility, as well. He said the bureaus property line extends beyond the chain-link fence, almost to his fence. Between the fences, tall pines, bent from years of resisting wind, lean toward his home. Dead branches that Shellman calls a fire hazard are piled up, and he wants the county to remove them. And, he said, the bureaus jail-like fence hurts property values.

Shellman said the bureau does important work, but in a moment of frustration, he said he would barricade the entrance to the bureau if the sheriff doesnt relocate its detonations.

Bombing in a residential neighborhood needs to stop, he said.

Contact the writer: brokos@scng.com or 951-368-9569
Officials of the Economic Office and the Commercial Service of the United States Embassy in Ghana have paid a familiarization visit to West Africas only solar manufacturing plant, owned by Strategic Power Solutions (SPS). The visit among other things was to familiarize themselves with the operations of the manufacturing plant and to discuss areas of collaboration between the Economic Office and the Management of SPS.



The delegation from the Economic Office comprised Mr. Jimmy Mauldin, Chief Economic Officer and Mr. Benjamin Burnes, Economic Officer and Mr. Frank Ansong, Senior Commercial Specialist from the Commercial Service.



The Chief Executive Officer, of Strategic Security Systems International Limited (3SiL, parent company of SPS Nana Oheneba Ofori Boateng who took the officials round explained that through SPS, the company had contributed immensely to improving the lives of rural dwellers especially in cocoa and sheanut producing areas. Mr. Boateng added that SPS rural electrification project has provided about 1.2 million solar torch lights to farmers across cocoa, sheanut and coffee growing areas in Ghana. In addition to this, SPS has installed approximately 29,000 solar street light units so far across all cocoa and sheanut growing districts in the catchment areas of Northern Ghana.



Nana Oheneba Ofori Boateng informed the delegation about SPS plans to improve national electricity supply by partnering with the Bui Power Authority to build a 50MW hybrid plant. The delegation was further informed that since the Bui Dam was a peaking plant, it was necessary to have a hybrid system consisting of solar and hydro to enable solar power generation during the day and hydro power generation at night. The company also used the opportunity to announce an upcoming 50,000 solar street light initiative in Sierra Leone.



The Chief Operating Officer of 3SiL, Mr. Joseph Otoo explained the various components of the solar panel manufacturing process and indicated that all solar panels are produced in strict accordance with certified international standards. The visit by the delegation follows the launch and gradual implementation of a Power Africa Initiative and the passing of the Electrifying Africa Act by the United States Congress.



With Ghanas national access to electricity currently estimated at 80%, the United States Embassy lists the power and electrical supply sector as a viable sector for investment by US companies. It is believed that the visit would pave the way for capacity building, investment opportunities, provision of technical and other opportunities for SPS and its activities.













Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Ivory Coast's government has banned the production, importation and sale of alcohol in sachets on health grounds.



The small plastic bags, containing rum, vodka or other spirits, are popular with those on a budget - costing between $0.35 (0.28) and $1.65.



The ban was aimed at minimising the impact of alcohol on young people, especially students, government spokesman Bruno Kone said.



A ban on the sale of water in plastic bags led to protests two years ago.



They were banned by the Ivorian authorities in a bid to reduce pollution.



The decision to ban the sachets of alcohol was taken after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday and had been proposed by the ministry of commerce, Mr Kone said.



"These products are mostly smuggled into the country," the APA news agency quotes him as saying.



"They do not meet our standards and therefore constitute a real threat to the health of consumers - and a threat to the country's economy."



Cameroon, Malawi and Senegal have also banned the sale and production of alcohol in sachets in recent years.

Source: BBC









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Political parties contesting this years Presidential elections have picked positions on the ballot papers.



At a balloting session at the Electoral Commission (EC) headquarters in Accra on Wednesday evening, moments after announcing which presidential candidates have qualified to be on the ballot paper, the Convention People's Party chose the first position followed by the National Democratic Party (NDP) at second and the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) at third position.



The Progressive People's Party (PPP) and the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) picked fourth (4th) and fifth (5) spot respectively for the upcoming polls.



People's National Convention (PNC) will be sixth on the ballot paper and the independent candidate Jacob Osei Yeboah (JOY) in seventh position.









Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Political parties contesting this years Presidential elections on Wednesday, picked positions on the ballot papers.



This occurred at the Electoral Commission (EC) headquarters in Accra, moments after the commission announced which presidential candidates had qualified to be on the ballot paper.



The Convention People's Party (CPP) chose the first position followed by the National Democratic Party (NDP) at second and the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) at third position.



The Progressive People's Party (PPP) and the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) picked fourth (4th) and fifth (5), People's National Convention (PNC) took the sixth position and the independent candidate Jacob Osei Yeboah (JOY) took the seventh position.



Already most of the political parties have given their own interpretations to their positions on the ballot paper to aid in their campaigning.



John 3:16 is for the ruling NDC and high five is for the NPP.



Speaking to the host of Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo', Kwami Sefa Kayi in an interview on Thursday, Ivor Greenstreet, flagbearer of the CPP said theirs is esroho (top or first).



According to him, they taking the first position on the ballot paper is a sign from the Almighty.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Running Mate to Nana Akufo-Addo, has debunked the claim made by Vice-President Amissah-Arthur that restoring the Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances will collapse the economy and explained that what is destroying the Ghanaian economy is the Incompetence, Mismanagement and Corruption of the NDC government.



Dr. Bawumia also noted the clear confusion between President Mahama and his Vice-President and the several inconsistencies in the governments stance over the Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances.



Speaking at the Nalerigu Nurses Training College, Dr. Bawumia expressed shock at the constant contradictions of government officials on the allowances, saying in government, we will expose the incompetence of this NDC administration.



There is nowhere where they have demonstrated as much incompetence as in the area of the Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances. They have demonstrated monumental incompetence.



Today, you do not really know what the policy of the NDC is as far as the issue of Training Allowances is concerned.



First, they said they have cancelled the allowances, and as the election was getting close, they said they are going to restore the allowances. And there is now a clear conflict between the President and Vice-President over their policy on Nursing Training Allowances, he pointed out.



Responding to the claim made by the Vice-President on the same campus barely a week ago, Dr. Bawumia noted that the comment by the current Head of the Economic Management Team suggests that handlers of the economy still do not understand how this economy works and how to handle it.



So when the Vice-President came here and said that the allowances will destroy this economy, it simply means they do not understand the economy. What is destroying the economy is mismanagement, incompetence and corruption; that is what is destroying this economy, he said.



Free Lesson to Amissah-Arthur and Government



Providing what he termed as a free lesson for the handlers of the economy, Dr. Bawumia explained that Ghanas current economic challenges, which had led to the cuts in among others the allowances, were down to the mismanagement and unbridled borrowing which had seen a skyrocketing of Ghanas interest payments.



Let me give the NDC and the Vice-President a free lesson in economic management. The interest payments under the NPP before we left office was less than 700million Ghana cedis, under the NDC, in just 8 years, it has jumped to 10.5 billion Ghana cedis.









If you look at the Teacher and Nursing Trainee Allowances as a percentage of Ghanas total income, the Training Allowances are 0.1% of our total income. If you look at our Interest Payments, it is 6.5% of GDP; that means that Interest Payments every year is 65 times the Training Allowances, he stated.



Amidst cheers of we need change, we need change by the hundreds of trainee nurses gathered, Dr. Bawumia explained that the numbers indicate that thanks to the NDCs incompetence and mismanagement of the Ghanaian economy, a years interest payments can pay 65 years of Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances at the current levels.



So one years interest payments under the NDC can pay Training Allowances for 65 years. Therefore, when they come and say that Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances will destroy the economy, it means they dont understand the economy, he reiterated.



Dr. Bawumia is on the 2nd leg of his tour of the Northern Region. He has so far on this tour visited the Yunyoo, Bunkpurugu, Nalerigu-Gambaga and Yagaba-Kubore constituencies.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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For weeks media reported on the connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. Using Wikileaks as a conduit to funnel hacked emails into the U.S. election, Russia sought not only to disrupt the American electoral process but to install Donald Trump as president. Now  on top of the digital fingerprints found throughout the Wikileaks email dumps tying Russian hackers to Wikileaks  we have confirmation from Russia that they worked to help elect Trump.

The Guardian reported today:

Russian president Vladimir Putin called for a new era of fully fledged relations between his country and the US yesterday after a surprise victory which was applauded in the Russian parliament and prompted speculation that US-imposed sanctions could be lifted. After an election campaign in which Russia was openly accused of interfering in favour of Donald Trump, Putin congratulated the president-elect on his victory and said Russia was ready to work for better ties.

They added:

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, was jubilant at the result and said a Trump presidency would make it more likely the US would agree with Russia on Syria, where the two powers back different sides and Moscow has intervened decisively on behalf of the president, Bashar al-Assad. Markov also said it would mean less American backing for the terroristic junta in Ukraine. He denied allegations of Russian interference in the election, but said maybe we helped a bit with WikiLeaks.

A bit may serve as the understatement of the election.

Markov is Deputy Chairman of the Russian Public Forum on International Affairs and serves as co-Chairman of the National Strategic Council of Russia. He served as a member of the Public Chamber of Russia from 2006 to 2008.

Paired with James Comeys reckless decision to send the now-infamous letter to Congress ten days before the election (which, as it turns out, appears to be one cog in a much larger FBI effort to ensure Clinton wouldnt be elected), the Russian effort to attack Clinton directly using Wikileaks as a weapon appears to have been a successful strategy the American public didnt mind since the leaks were laundered through what was previously a non-partisan global transparency organization.

Celebrating Trumps victory, Russian lawmakers released multiple statements last night.

Today I want to ride around Moscow with an American flag in the window, if I can find a flag, said RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan on Twitter. (RT is Russias Kremlin-owned media outlet.)

Tonight is a night of Trump for all Americans and the world, said Boris Chernyshev. Chernyshev is a member of the ultranationalist faction in Duma  a Russian state entirely aligned with Putins vision of Russia. He added, Tonight we can use the slogan with Mr. Trump; Yes We Did.

His we admission aligns with Markovs statement about Russias use of Wikileaks to influence the election.

Elsewhere in the Omsk region, governor Viktor Nazarov celebrated Trumps victory saying, It turns out that the United Russia has won the elections in the United States!

Despite celebrations and admissions of collusion among Russias elite, Vladimir Putin remained adamant he and Russian intelligence had no role in manipulating the election despite the findings of two major U.S. intelligence agencies.

For the moment its unknown what this will mean for Trump, for the U.S., the nations European allies, and particularly for members of NATO that have been placed at risk by Trumps attacks on the strategic defense organization.

UPDATE [November 10, 2016 @ 12:15pm ET]

New developments have come about over the last 24 hours adding to this story. Russia appears to have been in direct contact with the Trump campaign throughout the election according to high ranking Russian officials. Add to that news is breaking that the FBI obtained a FISA warrant over Trumps directly-connected server with a Russian bank. Read more about it all here.

Previously:

Related:

Peacock Panache readers:

Tim Peacock is the Managing Editor and founder of Peacock Panache and has worked as a civil rights advocate for over twenty years. During that time hes worn several hats including leading on campus LGBTQ advocacy in the University of Missouri campus system, interning with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, and volunteering at advocacy organizations. You can learn more about him at his personal website.

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In times of great uncertainty  and friends, we are in one of those times rn  youd think we could look to our leaders, past and present, for some kind of unified direction.

Youd think.

After an event as improbable as Donald Trumps ascendancy to the office of President of the United States of America, Australias current and former Prime Ministers have come out with a kaleidoscope of different takes.

Tonight on ABCs 7.30, Paul Keating reckoned Australia is simply in better shape than we give ourselves credit for, and that we shouldnt be reeling too hard cause were a better society anyway.

On the same program, John Howard insisted that Trump the president will be a little less radical and a little less scary than Trump the candidate. While Keating thought we should move to focus our alliances on the Asia Pacific region, Howard said well still be BFFs with our Seppo brethren, even if Trump is in charge.

John Howard says there will not be a radical recasting of Australias relationship with the US. #auspol #abc730 https://t.co/t5PdNWGLqd  abc730 (@abc730) November 10, 2016

Kevin Rudds take has been a little more Well, he hasnt exactly trotted out the less scary line. In a series of incredulous tweets, Rudd essentially echoed the sentiments of broad swathes of the populace: that this shit is kinda unprecedented, and that the American people will need some fortitude to see out the next four years.

The biggest revolution in US politics since the war. A total repudiation of the current political and economic model by an angry people.  Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) November 9, 2016

Also potentially the biggest redirection in US foreign and security policy since the end of the Cold War.  Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) November 9, 2016

A good, conciliatory speech from https://t.co/bEI5R7aetP policy challenges massive.Practical challenge now to work with his administration  Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) November 9, 2016

And all people of good will wish the America people well in the difficult political and policy paths that lie ahead.  Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) November 9, 2016

The woman who followed Rudd issued an entirely different viewpoint  rather, she didnt offer one on Trump at all. Instead, Julia Gillard praised the hard work and tenacity of Hillary Clinton. Its a statement that demonstrates her admiration for the Democratic candidate, while speaking volumes about her regard for Trump.

Lest we forget her take on misogynist politicians, and the fact Donald Trump openly boasted about sexually assaulting women.

Thanks @HillaryClinton for your courage.Im still with her and her vision of inspiring girls by shattering that high, hard glass ceiling-JG  Julia Gillard (@JuliaGillard) November 9, 2016

Tony Abbott, who has characterised many of Trumps policies as, yknow, quite reasonable, continued in that vein with his short messages on the topic. Like Howard, hes been keen to re-affirm the bond between our nations, while also cheerin the fact the US has elected someone who rails against Abbotts vision of the modern left.

Congrats to the new president who appreciates that middle America is sick of being taken for granted.  Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) November 9, 2016

US should continue to have no better friend than Australia.  Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) November 9, 2016

The current top bloke responded in typical Malcolm Turnbull style. By virtue of our time differences, he offered his congratulations to Trump shortly after his win, and put in a good word for our island home in regards to regional security.



We discussed the vital importance of the United States continued strong presence in our region, Turnbull said, noting that as both being businessmen who found our way into politics, somewhat later in life, we come to the problems of our own nations and indeed world problems with a pragmatic approach.

Heres how Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull reacted to Donald Trumps victory: https://t.co/HySkpqSDiF pic.twitter.com/L7TLKZIgUe  Financial Times (@FT) November 9, 2016

No word from Bob Hawke. Probably still too busy necking froths to have a say on this one.

Source: 7.30 / ABC.

Photo: Spencer Platt / Getty.
As is customary when a new President is elected, there must be the first meeting between the current officeholder and the new contender. It has always been the case. But the one between Barack Obama and president-elect Donald Trump was always going to be extremely awkward.

Remember that Donald Trump spent an unholy amount of energy trying to get Obama to turn over his birth certificate to prove that he wasnt born in Kenya. Hed also repeatedly called Obama the worst president in the history of the United States, which means hed worse than Warren G. Harding, who was pretty bad.

But look, they had to put aside their differences and have their meeting, and they did it. Based on the photos and what little video could be captured, it was an intensely awkward experience.

Just in: President-elect Donald Trump and President Obama speak after meeting in the Oval Office. pic.twitter.com/ETnxCqbupT  FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) November 10, 2016

Look at this. Look at this man:

My dude Obama looks like he just got told that he just missed Maccas breakfast.

But look, now that Trumps within reach of power, he can be much kinder to Obama. He said he would very much look forward to dealing with Obama in future. He also called him a very good man, which a different tack to when he suggested Obama founded ISIS. But you know.

I have great respect, the meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half, and it couldve, as far as Im concerned, it couldve gone on for a lot longer, the president-elect said.

In the grand scheme of awkward meetings, this has gotta be up there.

Source: Mashable.

Photo: Getty Images / Win McNamee.
The disappearance of Cronulla man Matthew Leveson is a story thats devastated Australians for the past nine years, but theres been a major update since the recent inquest.

Reports are surfacing that Michael Atkins, Levesons partner and the previous and only suspect, told police last night where Levesons body is buried.

#BREAKING Michael Atkins has given police the location of his boyfriend Matthew Levesons body @7NewsSydney  Leonie Ryan (@LeonieFRyan) November 10, 2016

Theres also reports coming in that a search is already underway for Levesons remains. Police are initiating the search in the Royal National Park as we speak, and Atkins is assisting them:

The ABC has confirmed a search is underway in the Royal National Park for Matthew Levesons body. The 20yo disappeared in 2007.  Lucy Carter (@lucethoughts) November 10, 2016

Matthew Leveson: Police are searching bushland in the Royal National Park. https://t.co/6rm43QpgOj #MatthewLeveson https://t.co/wBxyewL2cb  7 News Sydney (@7NewsSydney) November 10, 2016

Leveson went missing in 2007, last seen coming out of ARQ Nightclub in Darlinghurst with Atkins. An hour later, Atkins returns to the club by himself.

The next day, Leveson was reported missing.

Atkins was acquitted of his partners murder in 2009, despite a CCTV camera showing him purchasing a mattock and gaffer tape at the exact time that he told police he was asleep.

It was also said that Atkins sent messages to Levesons phone after his disappearance, asking where he was. But in court, it was alleged that Atkins had had the phone the whole time; police found it in his car after a search of his home.

Matthews parents Mark and Faye Leveson have fought for justice for their son for eight years, and have been through not only the worst thing any parent can feel  the loss of a child  but theyve also went through horrifying experiences such as looking for their sons body in the Royal National Park themselves, or wearing a wire and speaking calmly and naturally to Atkins, who they 100% believed had murdered their son.

During a recent inquest in Levesons disappearance, his father Mark said,

I dont need to know who, I know that already. We want to know how he was murdered, why he was murdered, when? We need answers.

The parents had placed a $100,000 reward for information that would help them lay their son to rest.

The full statement from NSW Police is below:

Well update this story with more information as it arises.

Source: Twitter / ABC.